Racism and Misogyny Exist

Two months...This has been the longest break I've taken on this site in six years...

During that time, I've been extremely busy and have rough-drafted another novel, and edited Finer Spirits, my romantic thriller about to come out in a few weeks. It's in the final stages of cover design and so on.

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Anyway, I was disturbed at the reaction to Oprah by a store-owner in Switzerland when the media owner gave an example of racism. Isn't it odd how people explain away a racist incident, as if it either didn't happen or is the victim's fault?

The owner of the shop actually turned around and blamed Oprah, who simply asked twice to examine a handbag in a shop and was refused the right.

The owner of the shop forgot that the "customer is always right" and covered up for the mistake and said,

"I believe she [the saleswoman] rather said something like `we have some less expensive' – `we also have some less expensive bags' and not `it's too expensive for you.' "

I know the handbag business is odd at the high end after reading a book about the business called "Bringing Home the Birkin" if it's true, and how the manufacturers hold back bags in the factory to add to the allure and exclusivity of the purchase (it's not simply managerial incompetence).

Trouble is, Oprah's situation illustrates precisely an enduring and defining example of racism in the context of the everyday fleeting contact. It's not an abstract issue that can be rephrased and explained away. The harm's been done, and this is honestly how racism plays out in real life.

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As a Canadian living in America, I've sadly had to experience more than my fair share of prejudice, and it happens one to one (mostly subtly, along the lines of "When are you going to move back to Canada?" as if they're hoping I'll leave after 35 years! And I'm expected to thank them for asking!). And I've recently become conscious of being the brunt of misogynistic phrases from men...along the lines of not "worrying my pretty little head" ...I do worry, though, believe me, because I have my own brain and want improvements made wherever...

Recently, I made a comment in our local Patch, and was called "ignorant" three times, "whining", a "sorry ass" and "Go hawk your blog somewhere else." And oh here's a good one: "Gun Prohibitionist" because I'd prefer Americans dispose of guns. So be it. It's true.

Here's another example: the "traditional" cat-calling in public areas that men assume women want. (They don't...I don't know of a single woman who wants it. Period. Silence is superior.) 

Please remember how useful it is to be good to others. Comment online as you would if you were speaking to someone, liked them, and cared about their reaction. 

Reading comments like these are hurtful to soft people (and I'm one). I just know, however, that their unkindness and inaccuracy isn't true, and really shows up them in a horrid display of their comparatively weak and undeveloped command of the language.

Their horribly unfair comments are hugely revealing to me because if they can accuse me anonymously in comments and get away with it -- and I haven't the foggiest idea who these usernames are in real life -- then imagine how they mess around emotionally with the women in their real lives around them. If they can abuse me and get away with it, then they certainly, without any doubt, abuse the women who actually have to put up with them: their mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, cousins, and so on. I feel sorry for these women, and worry about how they maintain their emotional strength. 

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UPDATE: the local Patch moderator deleted the inflammatory comments above to my great relief. On this same topic, Danielle Steel has recently blogged, see "Are You Still a Brain Surgeon?" and Huffington Post published an incredibly detailed article on this topic and about trolls by Jade Walker, a must see.

If Someone Says Rape Happened Then It Probably Did

An interesting story on NPR about rape in the military is opening old raw wounds for me. The women interviewed claimed they were raped when they served in the military. The interview details, for example, how women in the military often kept quiet about it, and exactly why they did so, which was to remain in the military.

The interview also opened a firestorm of comments on the NPR website where there are usually very few, so it's obviously hit a raw spot in the popular imagination.

One troll in particular, Brim Stone, keeps commenting, saying he's been a victim of rape, but doesn't go into details or offer proof, and yet he insists the NPR story lacks proof, and doesn't believe the interviews. Does his skepticism matter? Probably not, but it's typical, and that sort of disbelief is exactly at the heart of extremely typical reactions to rape.

I know firsthand that even family will side with the rapist and deny it ever happened, ignore it, and shove it under the rug. So it doesn't surprise me when men insist that women fabricate rapes, cry rape all the time, or that they easily lie about it.

Whoever claims women lie about rape is deeply unethical in character. Unjust is another adjective I would use, just to be polite.

It's not at all impolite of a woman to say the truth about an event that actually happened, especially one like rape that's so private, intrusive and potentially embarrassing. Being raped doesn't make a woman more attractive to the opposite sex, after all. A women has zero, even negative, incentive to talk about it and go public.

And by the way, shame on the police for not immediately processing rape kits that they do have. It took guts for each and every woman who used one. There isn't any excuse for that on this planet.

Even if a victim doesn't report a rape and the rapist isn't punished, it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Like the article says, men should learn that it's wrong, wrong, wrong to ever rape. Because girls know in their hearts that men who rape are truly ugly trash.

In my case, during my first two months at university in Canada, I lived with my brother and his wife in another city from my parents. My brother and his wife had just bought a house, had jobs they wanted to keep to pay for the new house, and so I had to keep my kidnap incident quiet (though it was not a rape). (My brother's wife who worked with the kidnapper asked him to drive me home because she couldn't~and this kidnapping coworker forty years older than me drove me around for three long hours with a gun threatening to murder me and then dropped me at their house. And she and my brother did zero. In fact she called me "a slut," and I've never forgiven her. Previously, the same month just a week before the kidnapping, which happened when I was seventeen during my first month at university, I was date-raped by a couple of university students and unconscious for twenty hours, and may have been why she called me a slut before I could say what happened). And after that I moved on campus for the year and then moved away, changed universities and countries.

You don't have to believe I was kidnapped if you don't want to.

More than thirty years have passed, and I don't have any proof, and I don't really care if my readers don't believe me, or blame it on me. I was only seventeen, and I know I did nothing wrong.

But not having proof after all these years doesn't mean rape didn't happen, and I didn't forget it.

In conclusion, rape happens.  The man who kidnapped me is unknown to me, and unpunished to this day to my knowledge. I fled the car he said was bombed and didn't find out his name after he released me. And as for the date-rape, I didn't even call it that for years because the term hadn't been invented for the drugging of drinks, and I underwent therapy with a wonderful Australian psychiatrist to forget it (which was essential as I became depressed and suicidal, and it worked well). That date-rapist is now a father and a successful lawyer in Toronto, Canada, with a second house in the Muskokas, according to Google, and I doubt his wife and family knows what he did, and I don't know what ever happened to his accomplice. Is it just all water under the bridge? I don't think so. Did any of those men, and they were all men, suffer from what they covered up? I don't know but I hope so.

And for those of you who think my story is unusual, or that I did anything wrong, please read this.

Saudis Are Misguidedly Planning "Cities for Women"

Saudis are taking sex segregation to the extreme. For the supposedly virtuous goal of "educating" women, Saudis have submitted plans to build the first "city for women" with several more planned. And men will not be welcome.

Yet women like to live with men, and men like to live with women. To forcibly separate the sexes is unnatural. Is it bound to fail in the long run or will it help Saudi Arabia be a stronger country?

The problem in Saudi Arabia has arisen that educated Saudi women are leading the country. The powers that be want to keep the women within the country, so are constructing a place for them to live.

Is this really the way to go about it? Of course, westerners don't think so...

While women in the Western World have argued for equality for generations--with mixed success--they have continued to live with men. They need men.

I suppose the idea is that the country as a whole will be stronger if these educated women are kept within the country by choice. Men will only be visitors.

Just saying, I think the idea is unnatural and short sighted. I hope this experiment fails, for I personally wouldn't want it to spread.

Victims Deserve More Attention Than The Guilty

A seventeen-year-old American girl has tweeted the name of two teenage boys she is accusing of rape. The boys posted photos of the crime on the internet.

The girl and her parents were enraged about the crime and the fact the boys got a very lenient plea deal, and zero genuine follow through punishment.

The girl had the right of all citizens to supposed free speech in America to tell her girlfriends and the general public because these boys were their friends, too.

Yet she might be punished. Why?

This young lady was, by law, supposed to keep quiet in perpetuity, not tell anyone about the crime publicly to protect the reputation of the boys, and by violating a court order of silence risks spending one-hundred-eighty (180) days in jail.

The case is to be decided still, but more than 112,000 people (including me) have signed a website in an online protest at Change.org.

Some laws on the books are bad laws. They just are. They're not just and fair. The reason? Often, some bad ones have been pushed by elected officials to advance business interests (i.e. make more money). It used to be that victims of crimes like this had an added burden; they had to file civil lawsuits to get information out into the public, but social media has turned that on its head and for that I'm grateful.

*Good*  :-)

This law punishing whistle-blowers is a bad law. It should be changed. 

Often those murdered are the only ones who know who murdered them. To be sure, sometimes people are murdered by strangers. Sometimes they're raped by strangers, too, but often women know the identity of their rapists. There is no mystery.

Certainly, the guilty have the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. But in this case, there was no doubt about the identities of the guilty. None. The boys were known to the victim.

 This young woman had independent knowledge of the crime. She wanted to alert her girlfriends to the act, and let them know immediately for their own protection. She was doing an act of kindness to her girlfriends by telling them to avoid these boys, who were out and about on the streets, on the internet or on their telephones. 

Yet this young lady by law in a juvenile court might still be the one to have to pay for blowing the whistle to her friends by going to jail in cases such as this. She believed the boys' punishment was too lenient since it was a plea deal and wanted to take revenge in her own hands.

I want to know how punishing the victim more than the criminal makes any legal sense in America today to anyone except the accused boys and their families? Why care about them? The boys did something wrong, hypothetically and probably really did, unless she was lying, a highly unlikely outside possibility.

If the boys assumed they wouldn't be caught and punished, this woman is proving them wrong through her use of social media. I support her, unless she's lying. But I doubt she is, as a young woman has her reputation to lose and nothing to gain by doing this except a good feeling of revenge. The court was remiss in providing true and appropriate justice in a measured, thoughtful, adult manner.

The boys should have been punished in a way that suits the victim and the crime. This girl will always remember and have to live with what they did to her. All the future girlfriends of these boys, and their peers, should be aware of what the boys did and read of the illegal acts they committed. The facts should be available on every internet dating site.

 So why the heck wasn't the court system backing the victim over the accused? It seems the victim often has to pay more expenses than the accused in America, and this decision by the judge was all wrong. To prosecute a victim reporting a crime sends the message that it's wrong to talk about crime in general. The juvenile court judges it's unethical for a victim to talk about a crime that's happened...forever. Isn't that a violation of free speech?

In the same vein, I liked to hear Anderson Cooper bravely asserting on CNN last night that he wouldn't repeat the name of the Colorado movie theater killer, because he said we all know it, and we do. He brought stories of the victims to light to keep the story going, and for that I'm grateful.

America needs to support victims of crimes, too, and not assume support has been given. Otherwise, horrible stories will get supplanted by another fresh news-story-of-the-day, and there will not be sufficient follow-up to help victims, or punish juveniles who believe they will get away with murder and rape. Justice has to be shown to be done, as I've said before.

UPDATE:

Huffington Post reported:

"David Marburger, an Ohio media law specialist, said Dietrich should have tried to get the courts to vacate the gag order rather than simply violate it.

But Gregg Leslie, interim executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said Dietrich should "not be legally barred from talking about what happened to her. That's a wide-ranging restraint on speech." "

As for the "media law specialist" perhaps someone else can use the information in the future. I hope so, but
1) it's too late in this case
2) why wasn't she advised of this possibility already?
3) how much would it have cost to get such specialized advice? No one is born knowing this!

I think that in the past, this sort of case was not reported, swept under a rug, and that social media is changing the course of justice for the better. Most rape victims prefer to retain their privacy, and this one individual is being extremely brave to publicize the issue. Let's applaud her for that.

American Foes of Healthcare Reform Exaggerate Costs, Should Apply Perspective

Certain Republican pundits are currently discussing religion and politics in America without admitting they are pushing political agendas and want certain people elected as ulterior motives. I see that they are mixing politics and religion, saying the two have always historically been held closely together, in America.

According to them, hospitals should instill practical religious principles when caring for patients. These self-professed experts want "religious" hospitals to follow their religious faith as they see it, rather than "politics" of the day, if they see a conflict. Then they conflate politics, religion, and science and the result sounds hilariously crazy.

Yet any biblical expert with opposing points of view could find phrases in the Bible to overturn the ideas of these ridiculous, self-styled "experts"...

They perceive science is anti-religious and unhelpful without respect for non-partisan medical principles and practices. They insist on imposing (dumping) their half-baked ideas on others, calling their partisan views "religious" and prefer that medical care be withheld by guilting others, and then twisting them into a paternalistic Republican agenda point.

If a doctor doesn't think a woman should use birth control for religious reasons, for example, according to these politicos, the doctor should tell her to find another doctor and another hospital and persuade her not to use birth control - without offering her a safe and certain alternative when one already exists for her use in just such a situation.

What would happen if hospitals decided not to treat those of different colors and religious faiths? Where would these very same pundits get their medical treatments?

Let's hope they don't lead hospitals into believing their ridiculously anti-scientific attitudes.

Toothless Tigers: Abortion and Homosexuality

The noisy foes of homosexuality and abortion baffle me. I live here in the northeast corner of the United States. We all constantly make choices about healthcare, vacations, home lifestyle, transportation, friendships, careers, and so on, as we go about our daily lives.

Why is there so much public hysteria about these essentially private issues?

Why do foes of those who are in favor of such issues believe they will ultimately somehow, some way, sometime pay the price for someone else's decision in favor of abortion or homosexuality?

Let's take these issues apart...I hope they decompose into smithereens on the scrap heap of triviality.

First of all, I don't want to imply these issues aren't important to individuals, perhaps of life-and-death importance. These are central issues to people deciding whether they need to have a third marriage to the same person, or whether or not to have an abortion.

My point is that those people should be able to choose and decide for themselves, just as people with money should be able to choose how to spend it (let's hope for good reasons), or any of the multitude of other lifestyle choices people make.

One theory I've heard is that the foes of abortion and homosexuality are running scared. Now, of what could they be frightened?

1. Perhaps they do not appreciate how new methods can solve old dilemmas. Homosexuality and safe, hospital abortions available for all, are age-old exceptions to the mainstream that have not been accepted by law until recently.

2. On homosexuality: perhaps people who are against homosexuality are frightened to accept them socially, even one at a time. Perhaps they have an us-them mindset, as if they were from a democratic society, and the others were Communists, so they call them different, worse, perverts, as if they were social predators. Perhaps they're worried it might spread, and society would fall apart if everyone did it, and there wouldn't be any babies. If so, they need to make themselves less frightened somehow, maybe read up on it and meet homosexuals.

3.On abortion: perhaps people are against abortion if they worry there won't be enough children like they used to be, as good as they used to be, whatever that implies, to replace themselves, spread their seed, their race, ahead of them into the future. Perhaps they are worried the cost will come out of their pockets.

Perhaps the extremists whipping up mass hysteria should confront the central question of their own immortality and sexuality. We are all humans, and we all have finite lives. Accepting the choices of others would go a long way to promoting peace if these toothless tyrants promoting mass activism would only care to listen.

Does Driving Encourage Premarital Sex?

In countries where women have been driving for generations, the answer is negative. We wonder where the science could be behind that idea? We in the western world believe just as premarital sex encourages more premarital sex, driving encourages more driving....They are two different activities.

Does the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sincerely want more drivers? Perhaps that is the real issue in such countries that do not encourage women to drive.  Everyone has to be persuaded with good reasons, which I give below because I believe Saudi Arabia should encourage women to drive.

Driving is a good skill to learn and can make girls safer if they have the option of not entering a car with drivers they do not feel comfortable with, and so they will not be kidnapped. 

Driving for women is an important human right and a good idea, and of course, they need to have the option of driving lessons.

If women drive, they can, among other activities:

1) help drive their families for food shopping

2) drive sick and old women who feel safer with a young girl

3) drive cars to schools

4) take pets to veterinarians and drive horse vans

5) go shopping for food and clothing by themselves

6) girls can safely go to movies with their girlfriends

7) some women prefer to drive enormous trucks and help the economy

They might be safer at night in their own car than in a bus, walking, or driving in someone else's car. They can use their own car if the other driver is not a safe driver or does not wish to drive, or they do not wish to enter a certain car. Of course, they have to learn how to drive, follow the legal rules of the road, and practice safe, defensive driving.

As a mother of two girls in New Jersey, both of mine have learned to drive, and have their own cars. They learned to drive first in classroom lessons, and then instructor-led outings in a car with dual brakes. Rules of the road here are so strict that girls and boys cannot drive until they are seventeen, and only fully when they are eighteen. Many teenagers delay driving a little longer...Students growing up in New York City itself often do not learn how to drive at all.

We want what we want, and life doesn't always give us what we want even if we deserve it.

Shame On Republican Disablers of Female Power

Shame on those ugly elitist tramps swinging through Washington, and calling themselves politicians.

Women are going to die on floors of botched abortions because of their mistakes, according to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Another law in this over-litigated society called the "United States" of America is going to hurt women.

This has been a hard week for women internationally, however the news is sliced, diced, or spread...Beautiful Mme.Tymoshenko of Ukraine, with her adorable blond braid, sentenced to jail for seven years, despite achieving a pact to provide heating in freezing winter months for her people. What's up with that aberration of justice?

And that actress in Iran who was sentenced to death...for ACTING?

We hear about those Ugandan child murders on the rise...

It makes me wonder how on earth American Republican men (and they are primarily men) expect women to put up with their gross misjudgments. Of course, Republican men passed a law against women. They shouldn't have had any say in abortions in the first place.

SHAME, SHAME, SHAME ON THEM FOR hating WOMEN THAT WAY!

Let's hope the British government does the right thing and allows women to succeed the British throne. As if Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth weren't the United Kingdom's longest running monarchs, if memory serves.

On Kirtan Chanting

Those of us privileged to attend a yoga/writer's retreat  in Vermont recently as I did also learned Indian chanting  during our evenings, and benefited from sing-alongs led by a lovely, talented singer usually known simply as Yvette, or sometimes Yvette Om.

Yvette

I have been learning her chants by heart, aided by her CD "Into the Arms of Love" which I highly recommend. It is available at her website to order online, and makes the perfect gift for any yoga enthusiast, or buy it as background music, for meditation...She sings haunting Kirtan lyrics with the aid of her harmonium, other singers, and other musical instruments, such as the violin and sitar. 

Yvette

Please take a moment to buy it. You will soon find yourself adding quick chants throughout your busy days, and probably long, slow, chanting meditations,  as well.... Songs with titles like Sri Ganesha, Om Gam Ganapataye Namaha, Hey Ma Durga, Om Narayana, Om Namah Shivaya..Yvette's lovely lyrics will relax you when you allow her music to move you...

Book Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Written by the immensely talented  and gorgeous Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks traces the history of the biotech and gene therapy industries in America and makes it exciting.

Hela cells were used in research studies at Johns Hopkins University, and named after  a so-called donor, Henrietta Lacks, a 31-year-old mother in Maryland. Her cells evidently expanded and divided at an unprecedented speed. They were reproduced  and sent around the world for use in medical experiments. Her cells were used as building blocks  that created new products and ultimately led to the the expansion of the multi-billion-dollar  international pharmaceutical industry.  At the same time, Henrietta's family, after her death, did not make a penny and are currently deeply in debt.

The well-written, entertaining story is about so much more than one family, and yet learning about the Lacks family grounds the book in reality and gives the story urgency. We see how real people's lives were impacted by permissions they did, or did not give, for their tissues to be used in scientific experiments. We learn about how people have given up ownership of  the raw materials, their cells, blood, and body parts, whether voluntarily or not, in  medical procedures around the world.  Read this book to learn useful knowledge about the industry and about the world of medicine.

Listen to Rebecca Skloot describe her book, and be sure to buy it. I stayed up late reading  it, and was sorry when it ended. Don't worry, you will be in good hands when you read her book. She would make a very desirable friend...

Rebecca Skloot

Is Mormonism a Cult?

Today, I am missing Sunday services at Washington National Cathedral. I like to listen to them for the quality of the service, the sermon, and the music. I will miss Cathedral Dean Lloyd's leadership.

Please give generously to Washington National Cathedral as they make repairs following the earthquake and subsequent hurricane.

Is Mormonism a cult?

Cult: a system of religious beliefs and rituals regarded as unorthodox.

The latest assertions of a Republican saying that Mormonism is a cult has me thinking. Even though I am not a Republican, and it matters not who said made this accusation, I am a Christian.

I also believe church and state are separate entities and should remain such. Wars have been fought over that division. At the same time, this is my platform to discuss my views on Mormonism, and you are most welcome to visit.

Mormonism has certain givens up front, aspects many mainstream Christians, including me, find very disturbing:

1. It's not inclusive and diverse...as this picture illustrates:

Mormon Tablernacle Choir and Orchestra

Even if a few diverse groups have joined recently, I remain skeptical. Assertions to that effect wouldn't cut it with me.

2. Why is it not ever going to be truly diverse?

Mormonism is elitist at heart and in principle, and only allows certain people to join because of their genetics and family history. It does not allow those who simply want to join if they change their beliefs. Newcomers would not be accepted into the inner sanctums with their children. 

3. Mormonism believes in Prophets alive until recently. That doesn't happen in Christian denominations. All our prophets died thousands of years ago...

4. Some of the initiation rites, the marriage bed pictured in online photos, if true, and marriage practices of taking multiple wives, if true, are still  rumored to be going on.  These practices are illegal, and can be unconstitutional and hurtful to under-age or female participants.

5. Certainly, Mormons might consider themselves different children of God by choice and aspiration, but how free are they in the eyes of the world if they aren't allowed in principle to do normal American activities inside America? What's so wrong with drinking coffee or tea from Starbucks,  for example, or drinking a bit of wine?

6. No other church gets involved in uniforms and undergarments for general participants. To me, that makes it suspect and leaves it outside the Christian umbrella. God is supposed to love us at all times.

6. Mormons look at The Book of Mormon as their primary authority. Christian churches, in stark contrast, use the Holy Bible as their primary authority.

I am not going to delve any more deeply into the religion and invite quibbles. Any one of the above reasons would be sufficiently major to make most individuals around the world eschew it and take it out of consideration if they wanted to make a change.

Ultimately, I do not think Mormons are free enough to be happy and flexible,  either, even if they are children of God (as we all are), because freedom to change and join religions is an important and useful value.

To conclude, even if the religion works for some, and Mormons feel cozy in their beliefs, nevertheless, in my final analysis, yes, ultimately Mormonism is a cult as well as a religion. What it is not is mainstream Christianity, and most American Christians I have spoken to believe it is not Christian. What do you believe...Is Mormonism a cult?

Again, please give generously to Washington National Cathedral.

American Healthcare Systems Needs Overhaul To Focus on Fair Access and Healthy Futures

The world will read this blog post, and probably correctly call their own health care system superior to the American model, despite any improvements that may have already been enacted here.

Doctors in America work in a system in which they routinely and unwisely lose interest in their patients and get away with it. Medical doctors in America refer their patients around other doctor's offices without caring about outcomes just because they don't have to, and get paid for it.

They do not automatically, and only rarely, request a follow up return visit. They just seek payment for referrals of patients to other doctors and forget who matters. I have had doctors at all levels do that, and it makes me angry at their irresponsibility. They don't get paid for caring. They get paid more for other so-called services, like ripping people apart in surgeries, whether or not they have had their medical education in the United States.

They are in it for the money, and they are not supposed to be and should care more for their patients. They do not know if patients have followed up on their ailments and they don't care if  patients don't follow the recommendations -- sometimes because patients can't afford to. If patients don't get treatment, doctors wouldn't know or care. I know because I have been treated that way, too, and I supposedly have good insurance that covers catastrophic incidents.

American medicine is a joke for most Americans, even me, a vacuous hollow of the good health care system the country could have if it ever got its act together. It is an extremely poor, inefficient system, as it has been for at least thirty years since I have lived, fortunately healthily, for the last thirty years in this country.

Here's a good example of a gross inefficiency of the medical system overall...Someone who has insurance in one state has to pay the bills for health services rendered in another state.

That's exactly what happened to a good, old friend of mine, my former cleaning lady, who lives in Florida and pays health insurance there. When she visited her daughter on holiday, she had emergency gall-bladder surgery in New Jersey. A couple of months later, she has been billed for more money than she makes in a year in Florida.

A little background: she was visiting her daughters in New Jersey  when she was admitted. They looked after her when she was discharged from the hospital. She lives alone in Florida, so it was actually better for her to have the operation in New Jersey and stay afterward with her daughter's family. She also knew and trusted some of the doctors who performed the operation because she used to work cleaning the hospital for thirty years and felt familiar with it. Another of her daughters works at the hospital...

Which brings us back to the paperwork and the expenses  she submitted from  her New Jersey hospital that are now being rejected by her Florida insurer. Does this make sense to charge her to pay more for a required procedure than she can  make in one year? In her sixties, she labors in a job requiring a lot of physical effort. She might have spent a few more expensive days in the hospital in Florida had she done the procedure in that state. She would certainly had a lot more personal trouble since she hadn't anyone to help her post-discharge. She is understandably disputing her bills.

In an even more extreme case, an article called "Stuck in Bed for 19 Months, at Hospital's Expense" in the New York Times today tracks a case in an extravagantly inefficient American health care system that lacks accountability for long-term patients without insurance. The profiled patient had previously made $400 in cash each week, and been abandoned by his wife and children who could not afford his care, although he ultimately returned home.

"For the $1.4 million in services that [the hospital] had provided, total reimbursement to the hospital from Medicaid was $114,000...

If he had been insured or immediately eligible for Medicaid or Medicare, he might have gone to a nursing home after a week or two, where the average daily cost in New York is about $350 — and where he might have had steady companionship. Or he might have received a home health aide in his apartment, which could have cost even less, depending on the required hours. 

For hospitals---that treat many illegal immigrants, the health care plan enacted last year does nothing to solve this liability...During debates about reform, lawmakers insisted that the plan’s benefits not extend to the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants...Nor is this likely to change."

Hospitals keep patients and can't efficiently care for them; they don't automatically transfer them to less expensive  locations. This inefficiency is another example that hospitals fail to address. Even if hospitals say they don't have the money, by not improving this practice they have, in fact, consciously condoned it. They  actually allow patients  like him to stay at a place that normally charged over USD$2,000 a day instead of  forcing them to transfer to another  less-expensive alternative at $350 a day.  Why are the 'powers that be' not ashamed of this administrative malpractice. Why are they not held accountable for their inefficiency?

Either expense will appear nonsensical and outrageous to my international audience.  Yet, America lacks the business and political will to improve health care. Meetings between hospital, long-term care facilities, and the government should have taken place to care for this patient instead of making me, a taxpayer, help pay for his excessive bill and their mistakes. Let's face it, many mistakes have been made that have not been corrected yet. There should be financial incentives to reward results in the best interests of the long-term health and longevity of the patient. Successful diagnoses  obviously need to be followed through with intelligent treatments. Treatments and results matter to patients. America has a system where doctors are better rewarded for referrals and invasive surgery than long-term results, and have the wherewithal to sway politicians with graft.

If you are an international visitor, or on business, in the United States, and happen to land in the hospital, these extremely high bills will have to be paid.

What about patients who are airlifted to safety only to have to pay more than they can afford? They have no choice but to pay, unless covered by the appropriate insurance.

Instead of being an intelligent, broadly inclusive health care system, the bureaucratic rules are unintelligible at times, disconnected, and open to inconsistency and misinterpretation on an individual level. 

It should have made taxpayers in America revolt by now. Oddly, that has not happened. Businesses could not change the health care system; the inefficient American health care system has led giant car companies to bankruptcy.

Sensible rules to reward follow ups and make records of results need to be formed by the government,  as the British and Canadian governments did after the Second World War, or else all that is left is inefficiency and chaos. The rich might or might not pay for high end treatments, but every taxpayer loses overall in the American health care system. And that's not being caring, charitable, or compassionate to patients. For this reason, the American government must rule where businesses do not for the greater good of all patients. I just hope I don't get sick; the risks of getting sick are too horrific and expensive for me to imagine.

All Hotels Should Sign EPCAT

EPCAT: End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking in Children for Sexual Purposes

EPCAT Agreement: I would urge all hotels to sign and be on the lookout for sex trafficking of any ages. Hilton and Wyndham hotels have signed it, and I would encourage all other hotels to agree. EPCAT is important public relations to help lift the "code of conduct" in hotels, and more substantially, as the written code hotel employees can refer to if necessary. In fact, they should be rewarded if they help. We want and need those who have been kidnapped to get out of it and live better lives.

While it isn't very surprising to hear that hotels should be involved, it only occurred to me  recently when I saw a man of sixty with a young Asian girl of ten in a hotel pool where I stayed overnight. I didn't stop and investigate. Ever since, I have felt guilty for not having taken an interest in her. I will always wonder if there is something I could have done, because I don't know if that child was being kidnapped. I certainly hope not, I simply don't know. 

When I think about it, I suppose sex kidnappings do use hotels, as expensive as they may be. I had always assumed evil kidnappers moved in vans directly into the houses of those involved in organizing it. Maybe it's not only done that way, as I have read. 

Next time, I would do something. I would ask that man what on earth he was doing with that young kid swimming in the pool. I am not saying he kidnapped her. I just wonder if he did. If so, I don't have the vocabulary to chastise him.

"The Help": Educational and Interesting

Recently, I read The Help by Kathryn Stockett reluctantly, worried it might not be sympathetic to African Americans. Turns out, I could not have been more mistaken. I enjoyed the book immensely, for its entertainment and pedagogical value. It's an important book and should have been easily published.

I have to say, the book made me feel and think about southern civil rights in ways that were new. The author's goal was to entertain, not to create any perception of a well-rounded agenda of further action that needs to be delivered to ignorant masses of white Americans. The author's audience is much larger, and more elusive, and points politely at  important issues, at least those of the time.

The author's major contribution is to voice the sentiments of  southerners in a way that is entertaining enough to be digested by mass populations not knowledgeable on the subject. I believe another book of the same caliber of entertainment on the subject has not been written since the original story of Gone with the Wind first published in 1936. It was an immense epic that idolized the old south and rich white people, and starred African-Americans only in secondary roles, with the exception of Scarlett O'Hara's Overseer.

The author claims much of it is fiction, despite the fact that a maid of the author's brother is suing her for using her in a story, which is rather a remarkable outcome, I would guess. Even if part of it is fiction, she must have gotten the material from somewhere, although I am not saying for a second the author lifted material from an actual person. I wouldn't know that. Maybe that's the trouble, I am confused about what's fact in the book, and what's fiction.

While I can in no way portray myself as an expert on the civil rights or factual content in The Help, anyone I have talked to about the book has taken away different historical references to chew on.

In an entertaining memoir I have just read, The Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson, references to a few injustices in the deep south were explained in a matter-of-fact way, and broadened my understanding of social injustices - one of my favorite topics on this blog, by the way. When I was about thirteen, I read Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind" as I drove with my parents to a wedding on a three-day trip through northern Ontario, and the heat of that book warmed me for weeks, if not months.

I can't resist my opportunity to be supportive of an author against the unkind, hate-filled words of an opposing organization. I read a review of "The Help by Rebecca Wanzo in the Huffington Post which mentioned an organization with which I am unfamiliar, the Association of Black Historians. This Association has written an angry notice on its website directed to fans of The Help and in doing so, is amplifying racial overtones. Here are my reactions to their accusations, although I am only one person, and they are an entire organization.

The website notice by the Association is guilty of slews of oxymorons combining contradictory terms. It surprises me they should backlash against someone who has portrayed an era with sympathy for the workers, as Gone with the Wind did not, at least not as much. I just can't understand the unkindness of all those group members. Kathryn Stockett has depicted inequalities in ways they have not, at least as an organization, and it comes off as a rant of jealousy, bitterness, and is inaccurate, at best. It is a fiendishly topic to make interesting, isn't it?

Any foreigner in search of reliable information about the deep south wants to find it doled out in a palatable, entertaining way. I think the writers of that vituperative manifesto on the website have made several errors, which are rather obvious.

The stereotypical aspects of the novel elude me because I do not know any persons like the characters in the book. They may provide stereotypes to persons familiar with the content. I am just saying these roles are an introduction of fictional characters in a novel, no more, and no less. Certainly, they are not stereotypes to me.

The website, to make its point, states that The Help has sold "over three million copies, and heavy promotion of the movie will ensure its success at the box office." Numerous  books and movies have been flops despite huge budgets on top of "heavy promotion" so that's a clear oxymoron.

To say Kathryn Stockett's portrayal of representatives of "90 percent of working black women in the south" in the 1960s (a shockingly high number to me), is just a "disappointing resurrection of Mammy" is another oxymoron. I have not ever read such a well-rounded, sympathetically detailed description of the everyday life of  1960s African-American female (90% of them, after all, which is a point the author is making, too) in Mississippi. Not ever. That's a large number of the population with which many of us in the world, and even within the United States, are unfamiliar. 

I don't believe there is a lot of nostalgia for the 1960s in Mississippi in the book. Certainly, the book highlights the wrongs with that way of life, surely, when "a black woman could only hope to clean the White House rather than reside in it." Excuse me, but weren't female bathrooms installed for Senators only recently? We're all in this together, we women. The Vatican in Rome, Italy, had the longest line to women's (not to the men's) bathrooms I have ever seen in all my days!

The note says the black maids in the book are portrayed as "asexual" (without giving examples, but I do not agree).  Aren't  most maids in the novel married? Also, "loyal"? I think Minny was one of the most independent and disloyal of all maids I have ever read about..

Also, the letter of the historians misspells "smart" to "smat" and complains about spelling "Lord" -- "Law" although the entire linguistic attention showed a reader the dialect of southern speech in highlights as other classic southern stories have, so that the sounds of the voices could not be ignored.

The letter also complains about the sexual harassment and abuse of all kinds in the homes of white employers. Considering I thought that had gone out of style with the Civil War, the sheer volume of abuse detailed in the book was news to me. I think the author did an excellent job, even if the detailed abuses were not as deep as these Black Historians would have liked. This is a fictional novel; it is not the work of a historian. The author can say what she likes. After all, isn't she taking the blame by being sued, and for bearing the generational brunt of black female historians like these women?

White supremacist organizations like the White Citizens Council, I had never heard of in my life.  Perhaps the author wrote what she knew about, firsthand, which wasn't the Ku Klux Klan. (These are groups that believe they are "protecting" those of European origin and are anti-immigration). That is the right of the fiction novelist....One of her themes had to do with the unsaid rules of society. Far from "stripping" black women's lives of historical accuracy "for the sake of entertainment" I think the novel reveals valuable new ways of looking at old problems. It shines a new light on the topic of deep south society in the early '60s, the mistakes and the changes that needed to happen to correct them, rather than stripping it of importance. I don't know of anyone who thinks those days were better than  today. One of the goals of the novel, I think, is to highlight the racism of genteel white society in the bad old days of the early 1960s.

If the movie makes light of real fears and turns them into moments of comic relief, then that is truly a travesty, I agree. If so, I sympathize. I am surprised about the choice of actresses in the movie. I would have cast roles differently after reading the book, specifically Hilly.

I would have preferred to see certain disturbing scenes of the book  edited out -  specifically, about the intruder (which was edited out of the movie), and even the cake, the point of which, as "insurance" Hilly would not go after the maids is questionable to me - and I think it would have made as strong an impact. As well as being entertaining, this novel and movie, triumph because of the importance of the topic.

 The Help doesn't promise anywhere within the text to be a well-rounded historically accurate depiction of the sociological implications of the 1960s in Mississippi. The amazing contribution is that it's better entertainment than many alternatives out there, in a socially sensitive area where few others have succeeded, and been as educational. The Association has suggested further books to read on it's website. I hope they are interesting, and I will write reviews if they are.

A Few Random Questions

Here are some ordinary, every day questions on varied topics....

• Why don't people generally say they are sorry if they've made a mistake? Are they busy and forgot, or are they afraid it is a sign of weakness?
  

• When people have good cell phone reception, how much better are their relationships than if they have poor reception, especially if they are not conscious of the importance of the quality of the phone lines?  

• Why are Afghans angry if their teenagers want to play together?

• Why does American society, as a whole, play dead to bigger crimes and make innocents pay the costs of justice - which may or may not happen?

• Why is the head of the Tea Party holding up the two sides of the debt debate from making a settlement if, as she said on CNN, she is neither Republican nor Democrat, or even elected? 

•  Why did Michele Bachmann say she will try to impeach the President when any agreement on the debt debate is a joint decision made by many people from both parties?

 

• Why can the 'buying pool' of my 'house for sale' in America only afford to rent not buy, time after time???

I don't think they have short answers.

Juries Should Use Common Sense

When a news story is interesting and over-reported, such as the recent Casey Anthony child murder trial, I tend to hold my comments.  That case has taken ages to play out, and the weight given to ego and trivia made it extremely painful to follow. I can feel sympathy for the jury.

Now the trial is over, and Marcia Clark, the chief prosecutor in the OJ Simpson case, has written an extremely persuasive article in The Daily Beast/Newsweek, illuminating how the jury went wrong with its final decision. She explains how a mother who "probably" killed her baby and didn't report it for a month is getting away with it.

The reason seems to be a failure of a jury to think for themselves or to feel for the baby.

Sometimes, "Group Think" as she calls it, works well - to fix cars, computers, machines and complicated problems. The reason: when one person doesn't "get it" or can't fix it, another person might...Everyone brings different strengths to a challenge.

In the case of the prolonged, sequestered jury trial of Casey Anthony, the jurors got too cozy with one another, and with the defendant. They agreed together and thought they didn't NEED to connect the dots. They couldn't convict Casey or so "they thought" and they didn't. An emotional decision, it's sad that rationality and independent thinking hadn't prevailed and weighed the preponderance of evidence.

The facts didn't successfully force common sense on the jurors since they were too close for too long, according to this article.

The court of public opinion sees the failure of the justice system in this case, and when the general public sees something wrong, they're usually right. That little group of jurors failed to do justice. They didn't do their job of connecting "the dots" as they should have, according to Marcia Clark...It looks like someone has got away with murder.

Read my post about the visit to the South Pole by the first successful American explorer in nearly one hundred years to see how sometimes one person, against all odds, can succeed where many groups before him have failed. It's an inspirational story of a real leader.

This Crime Often Goes Unpunished

This isn't about me. My experiences don't matter and I'm not going to discuss them.

When I hear about a high official getting away with rape, it makes me angry. When I hear that the victim's own mother asked her to keep quiet about it, I can't stay quiet. If we women won't talk about this problem as if it is a big problem no one will believe us. It is a problem, a huge problem and it's happening quietly, unreported all over the world every day.

Why am I talking about it?

It's a human rights issue for all women. If men don't believe it is happening because they don't hear about it, then that is an excuse or a philosophical outlook. They may not hear a tree fall because they aren't there, but it does happen...flying squirrels fly, too, whether anyone believes me. I've seen them...

And rape happens whether or not it gets discussed, talked about, punished, reported on, and so on. It happens. 

I have not ever heard of a woman (with the exception of the one-in-twenty-million oddball  at Duke University) who would say they have been physically invaded unless they actually have been. Why?

Maybe people cannot understand rape if they have not experienced anything like it. Mainly that's because rape is an embarrassing experience. It's shameful, dirty, and humiliating. Victims loathed the experience by definition, and want to put it into the past and move on to a better future.

Men get raped, too, and I'm not trying to minimize that, either. Perhaps more should be made of that, and then it will help women get relief, too. 

People who have been raped need to be believed, and that is the number one reason they do not discuss it. Better to keep it quiet and forget about it  (like a bad dream) than tell someone one who refuses to believe it ever happened, and doesn't care, either.  It happens even by the powerful and the mighty, and that's how a crime goes unpunished. Enough said, for now.

UPDATE: Hilary Clinton is truly a saint for flying the Libyan law student who agitated about her mistreatment. Anyone who doesn't believe her wouldn't believe his own sister if it happened to her.  I also believe it would be the lowest of the low not to believe her story.
 6.5.11

UPDATE: On the DSK case, I think the police did the right thing. Unfortunately, the maid has hurt others in her position (if she was not raped and has indeed fabricated the story). Now lawyers will automatically seek injunctions if any wealthy person is accused of rape, according to Alan Dershowitz, and that hurts all women. Ouch. 7.4.11

Look Around And Dig Deep

“The idea that Scandinavian crime writers have something in common is a myth." 

Jo Nesbo, writer

That idea is clearly true in many professions besides writing. Anyone can write. Not every writer can write well.

Mathematicians, too, I would say, have nothing in common except their knowledge and interest in mathematics, at least until they discover their similarities.

Members of the same family can grow up and be very different. As we mature, we gradually express uniquely individual strengths. It has ever been thus.

As we celebrate our diversity today on Mother's Day, we need to embrace the idea we are more alike than we are different.

It's good and useful that we enjoy our various specialities, however narrow. By pursuing a variety of several strong interests, we can diversify our inner capabilities and strengths.  Only by trying new skills can we achieve our potential as human beings. Keep busy doing anything, almost, and you will find it can provide the motivation to keep living.

click to enlarge

Spring Scene in Lawrence Township, New Jersey

Look around and dig deep. Here in my home state of New Jersey, this month is a heavy month for gardeners, and all around the northeastern part of the United States for that matter.  Vines, weeds, and perennials thrive in abundance. Bushes, trees and grass are greening up, and the sun is shining warmly and telling us to venture outside. 

Life is precious. As you go out and enjoy yourself, remember you have been loved.  Incredible attention has been invested in each and every one of you beginning at your birth and earliest days! Isn't that amazingly miraculous? 

Time to Question the Risks of Sports

A recent University of North Carolina study painted a grim picture of head trauma and its long-term affects.

“Repeatedly concussed National Football League players,” said the UNC report, “had five times the rate of mild cognitive impairment (pre-Alzheimer’s) than the average population,” while “retired NFL players suffer from Alzheimer’s disease at a 37-per-cent higher rate than average.” Then came the kicker. Two doctors determined “that the average life expectancy for all profootball players, including all positions and backgrounds, is 55. Several insurance carriers say it is 51 years.”

Toronto's Globe and Mail,  Tues April 5, 2011
 

DATA360

The average American male's life-span, in contrast, has risen from 65 in 1950 to almost 80 in 2011 [table above].  Yet hockey and football players clearly have potential sports-related injuries. These injuries may haunt them for years. None of us would consciously want to play hard only to pay for years with chronic pain.

The trouble is, these sports, at least the way they are now played, are relatively new when looked at from the perspective of time. We don't know the long-term consequences. Certainly the single-minded pursuit of sports excellence is now unmatched by anything in the past. It is motivated by money, and fed by supposedly demanding masses. It's true, we seldom think about  the negative repercussions of sports as a daily reality if we don't live with it.

 Sports rise and wane in popularity. It is time to revisit the injuries suffered by players. Remember the gladiators of Rome and how popular they were? Bull-fighting and dueling were far more popular in the past than they are now, due to the possibility of severe injury leading to death. Even boxing in America used to be more popular than it is now. Fatal danger is a common thread in sports that disappear over time.

Future ball players will have these statistics to ponder, and it is my hope they will pursue less dangerous pursuits in the future, in careers where risks are less costly. After all, exercise in moderation is excellent.

Pro athletes are overpaid  because their working life is short and for that reason, they enjoy compensation with astronomical salaries, support staffs, news coverage...I have long  marveled at how on earth sports salaries ever got so crazily high.

A Crime Women Usually Cover Up

Following a woman's arrest after she broke news of her rape to foreign journalists in Libya, I feel moved to comment. To naysayers, I seriously doubt she is making this up. I believe her  story, and any story of rape automatically, and here's why....

Imagine for one moment if your loved one - your wife, your mother, or your sister - went through the same unspeakable atrocities this woman claimed to have suffered. Would they lie about it? Of course, not. Why would they? There is no gain in admitting to rape, and so much more to covering it up.

This Libyan woman is probably no different. She went to the foreign press since they  have acted more responsibly than the Libyan police. She had nothing more to lose. Even the social humiliation of talking about rape did not stop her.

False accusation of rape is inconceivable to me. Victims often will not talk about rape out of fear. In some societies, rape has bad consequences for the  unfortunate, innocent victim, as has happened here. Anyone who thinks a woman talks about rape without cause, unnecessarily, seriously mistakes the gravity of the crime and its consequences.

No one claims rape, in my limited experience, without having been a victim. It is an unspeakably uncivilized crime that cuts to the core of human life. The traumatic event is personally embarrassing and humiliating. It is impossible for me, and likely all women, to imagine gaining any political, social or material advantage in some warped scenario in Libya or anywhere, really, by claiming rape (and more abuse) as this lady has. One can only imagine the punishment her assertion has caused her to endure since rape is, by definition, an unwanted physical intrusion.

I always automatically believe a woman has been raped if she says so with no exceptions. Rape is a crime,  after all, of power over the powerless. I feel so sorry she is back now in harm's way. The people who took her away, whatever their motives, are not behaving as rational, civilized human beings. The tragedy is human; her rape was not. It was unnecessary and tragic, and my heart goes out to her.

UPDATE 1: An article quotes a top Libyan official who insulted her and diminished her worth as a human being amid reports she has now been freed. A woman's social status has nothing to do with her allegations of brutality as claimed, and is a classic example of "blaming the victim." Whatever her profession or wealth, I continue to truly believe whatever she said, not  some  "official" with many reasons to cover up the crime and deny the truth.

UPDATE 2: More coverage in the media makes this story continue to be hot, and yet it seems to me that some say I am wrong, that women do accuse men of rape when it is not true, for many reasons. Unfortunately, I can't agree, and do not waiver...I think it probably never happens without justification of some sort. Usually, the accusation fades away. It's can't be denied that the number of unsolved rape cases remains astronomically high in America, according to endthebacklog.org. It's just that I think accusations tend to be justified.