Tag Government

Do as you say

Michael 4 Comments

Today we celebrate Juneteenth in America, federal holiday celebrated to commemorate the ending of slavery in the United States. You would correct in thinking that would be a significant milestone to be commemorated throughout our existence, the country being established on the principal that “all men are created equal.”

That’s how this week’s Uplift started. It seems right and wrong all at the same time. Right because even though it came 90 years after those words were written but Jefferson and friends, the US government finally applied them to all people. Wrong because it took another 156 years before the government recognized the application of “all men” to all. Even worse is now, another 4 years down the road and the government is retreated on those words. Now that the people seem to have accepted all people as worthy of the equality afforded to “all men” (well, most of the people seem to have accepted it), the bigot-in-chief and his henchmen people are doing all they can to claw back those words and reapply them only to those pledging fealty.

its not a very happy thought so let me hold on to that and allow you to remember the celebration today truly is. Never again should we allow any people, individually or collectively, to be held subservient to others. We don’t have to like everyone we run across over the course of a lifetime. But we should love them. Love the, as we love ourselves.

You can make a difference. Remember, you don’t have to be perfect. You just have to care.

Only in America

Michael 3 Comments
This has been the week for Only in America. It’s funny. When I was growing up bright eyed during the days of The Donna Reed Show and Leave It to Beaver, Only in America meant the good things the country provided its citizens. Today, Only in America reflects the bizarre that no other country would expose to its citizens. 
 
The most watched show in the last week might have been the impeachment proceedings. And make no mistake, it was a show. Only in America is news an entertainment venture complete with spiffy graphics and market tested titles. At some news outlets this weekend’s lead graphic proclaimed “Senate Votes to Acquit 57-43.” Actually not true and misleading. Truer were the ones “Senate Acquits Trump 57-43” but still misleading. Truer and not misleading were those who published simply “Senate Acquits” or the least misleading, “Senate Fails to Convict.” Let me explain.
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20210215_124457

Senate TV via AP

 
The headlines touting acquittal by a vote of 57-43 imply more Senators voted to acquit that convict and that more of them felt the charges were unsubstantiated.  In fact there was no vote to acquit. The vote was not taken to determine innocence but to establish guilt so the vote was to convict. Fifty-three Senators voted to convict, 43 senators to acquit and even though more of those Senators voted to convict the former President, it was not enough.  Only in America can less people vote for something and win.
 
This can explain the whole Trumpian movement. In 2016, Trump garnered fewer votes in the Presidential election yet was declared a winner. That may have led to the expectation that whatever is his desire is the reality, regardless of the actual reality. Thus America entered the Alternate Facts Era. Only in America can the be multiple facts for a given piece of reality. And it started when it didn’t rain on the 2016 inauguration – even if all those photos and videos show watery precipitation falling from the sky. Let’s review.
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After the Trump inauguration the White House press secretary declared the “largest crowd to ever witness an inauguration  – period” saw the new President sworn in. He even stated the Washington DC area mass transit system carried over 420,000 people that day as part of his proof that the inauguration was the biggest of its kind. When reporters questioned actual crowd size from aerial photos and established that the transit system had in fact carried only 197,000 riders, another top White House figure explained this difference by stating, “Our press secretary gave alternate facts to that [crowd size]” and so now whatever was wished to have happened will have happened and be proven if not with facts then with Alternate Facts. 
 
Although this concept of not telling the complete truth (which many rational people call lying) is not a new idea, for four years Alternate Facts ruled and millions of people chose the alternate version to the factual version. Everything was unfair game: medical pronouncements from windmills causing cancer to the use of mask and social distancing don’t do much to prevent the spread of air borne viruses; environmental related charges from California wildfires spread because the state diverts water from rivers to the Pacific Ocean to it takes 10 to 15 flushes to adequately clear a low-flow toilet; political charges from “Article II [of the Constitution] allows me to do whatever I want” to the election was rigged.
 
Alternate Facts are embraced by so many because they are easier to understand than real facts. Real facts often require a knowledge of a particular subject or at least a requirement read a full news article or opinion piece, anything beyond a retweeted Twitter post on a topic. Alternate facts, because they have no basis in actual fact require no research because there is nothing to research. Yes Only in America have so many received degrees in medicine law, political science, engineering, or economics from Google University.
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Alternate Facts often can boiled down to a simple slogan or phrase, something easy to remember. Again, not a new idea. Marketers have used the sloganeering since marketing began. For example, you may not know anything about American sports but you probably recognize the sobriquet Hammering Hank and know Hank Aaron hit a lot of home runs, or that the Steel Curtain had something to do with football defense. They are a playful nicknames that glean from the truth. Likewise advertisers have made household names out of obscure brands. “When you’re number two you have to try harder” was coined when Avis was actually a distant #3 in car rentals but by the time they were coerced into changing their slogan to a simpler “We Try Harder” they were closing in in the number one spot. Unfortunately some quick to remember tags are far from truthful like sticking the word “herbal” as part of the trademarked name of a skin product or vitamin when in fact there is no herbal ingredient. Or Stop the Steal when there was nothing stolen. Nicknames not at all playful, Crooked Hillary, Cryin’ Chuck, or Mike Pounce for example, to people other than to the bullyesque may live longer than Aaron’s hold on the home run record. Only in America.
 
Yep, Only in America can the majority vote for something and lose, can hard news be reduced to sound bites, and can political opponents, regardless of party be reduced to nasty nicknames, and can facts be substituted at will, yet some people see nothing wrong with that picture.  
 
And people say Leave It to Beaver was an unrealistic presentation of life. 
 
Beaver Comic 2
 

Those Who Should Know Better

Michael 14 Comments

Ok, you’re going to need a little background for this. At times I’ve written about having kidney disease and going through dialysis. You might recall other times I’ve mentioned some unspecified rare disease. And then once or twice I talked about cancer. So if you sometimes get confused I can understand that. Some of my best friends get confused regarding what’s going on with me. Apparently so are some “experts.”

For the record, it all started about 15 years ago when I was diagnosed with Wegener’s Granulomatosis. Wegener’s is an autoimmune vasculitis that affects the smallest of blood vessels and the organs they occupy – most notably the kidneys, lungs, liver, and sinuses, in my case the kidneys. There is no cure but it can sometimes be controlled with combinations of chemotherapy, immunosuppressant, and steroid medications.

After 10 years of treatment with methotrexate and prednisone, the working parts of my body decided they wanted some attention and got together to vote on who would revolt. My bladder either won or lost depending on your point of view and grew cancer.  One year and four operations later I was pronounced cancer, and bladder, free and the proud owner of rebuilt body parts fashioned from other body parts that to this point had done not much more than the jobs they were originally intended.

In the process of trying to create a recoverable environment for my post-operatively rebuilt body I had to replace the drug therapy that was so far managing to keep the ravages of the Wegener’s at bay but now not such a good choice in a body now equally desperate to keep other cancers at the same bay. While that search was underway the dastardly disease took advantage of the temporary unprotected kidneys and put them into a (hopefully but who are we kidding) temporary shut down and put me in a chair at the local dialysis clinic.

And that’s how I came to be an unplanned early retiree with a handicap placard hanging from my rear view mirror. But “who are those who should know better?” you asked. Good question.  Why, the health care “experts” of course. I’m allowed to speak of them with disdain because I was a health care expert for close to 40 years before my unplanned early retirement. And those years included years when experts in health care were the ones educated in and actually providing health care.

Recently I had to complete some paperwork for the government’s end stage kidney disease program including what led me to be on dialysis. As in the past I check “other” after not finding in among the pages of pre-selected options and entered Wegener’s. It was rejected because there is no such condition in their database of diseases. Since I have it know for sure there is but I also know for sure it’s also known by another name, Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis, I questioned the explanation. Even if you’re being paid by the letter you have to agree that Wegener’s is an easier fit for a government form. And that’s why I had always fit it. So I called the help number for some help and asked what I had done wrong. I was told we’re not allowed to call it Wegener’s anymore because that doctor who discovered it “was a Nazi you know.” So all traces of his name have been removed and it is disallowed from official use. I wouldn’t have minded if at least they would have matched the funds it took to rename everything for “official use” with perhaps some official research.

But those are government people who are used to doing stupid things. Or things stupidly. But…there actually are others who should know even better even. Those are ones who bring me my tri-weekly adventures in artificial kidney function replacement. Or dialysis if you prefer,although personally I don’t prefer dialysis.

At the corner kidney clinic they posted a new “let’s raise everyone’s spirit” poster. On it is a classic pie chart with the legend, “ONLY 7%!” It goes on to explain that “You spend only 7% of your week in dialysis. The other 148 hours are yours to do the things you like!” Really. That sounds like something that someone who doesn’t know what dialysis does to a body wrote. Not a national organization responsible for 290,000 dialysis patients. (Source: that company’s website). That 7 percent might account for the time that you are actually having your blood circulate through the machine taking up the 10 square feet next to your chair. Not the time it takes for a nurse to do a pre-dialysis assessment and then physically connect you to the machine by way of two needles about the size and diameter of a Bic pen stuck into your arm. Not the time for a nurse to physically remove you from the machine by withdrawing the Bic pen like needles from your arm, for the bleeding one would expect for two holes the size of Bic pens in your arm to stop bleeding, and then to go through a post-dialysis assessment (all about another hour). Not the time it takes to get to and from the dialysis clinic (roughly another hour for me). Not the time it takes to physically recover from the actual process (in my case 10 to 12 hours).

So if we consider the time to get on dialysis, get off dialysis, go to dialysis, and recover from dialysis I actually have 10 hours a week to do what I like. I like to sleep about 8 hours a night and I like to eat at least 2 meals a day so I’m down to around 33 hours a week I can call my own. Almost a whole day and a half! I wonder if they would notice if I would “edit” their poster at the clinic.

PieChartHD

My revised pie chart

Well now you know who those are who should know better. A government who is more concerned with what to call diseases than what to do with the people who actually have the disease and the people who are supposed to be minimizing the effect of a disease on the body but are clueless about how to minimize the effect of the disease on the person.

Boy I feel bad for the poor soul who I might run in to today and says “Hey, how ya doing?” I might actually tell him.

 

Potpourri du Jour

Michael 1 Comment

I had a heck of a time figuring out what to write for today’s post. Not because the possibilities were endless, let me tell you. In truth, they were somewhat limited but terribly diverse.

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day, or as some people prefer, St. Valentine’s Day. One would think referring to the Saint (or Saints if you wish since there were actually three of them) gives the holiday more credence. This is both true and misleading. The Roman Catholic Church removed St. Valentine Day from its calendar in 1969. They are still Saints, just not with a specific feast day. Thus yesterday officially was Valentine’s Day.

The fact that those guys were real people who were canonized has made Valentine’s Day a holiday non-grata in some parts of the world whatever you want to call it. There are places where Christian traditions are seen as contrary to other religions and religious traditions.  You’d also think that the church and state separatist nuts in the U.S. would also prefer plain Valentine’s Day to St. Valentine’s Day and perhaps they do because you never hear anything about the ACLU suing anybody over giving away cards and chocolate without a Saint being involved. Then again they seem to get just as drunk as every else on St. Patrick’s Day so who knows what they think.

Another one of potential topics for today is the abrupt end of commercialism of holidays including Valentine’s Day. We might have a 10 or 12 week marketing run-up to the holiday but once it gets here, it’s done for. Just a day before television, radio, print, and electronic ads touted candies, flowers, fruit, jewelry, even pizza for the one you love. Today those same ad spots were pushing life insurance, disposable diapers, tires, and toilet cleaners.  After noon you couldn’t even find a decent rom-com without downloading it from a ppv service. Where did the love go?

Another possible topic for today’s post is another American holiday that isn’t – Presidents’ Day. Officially today is Washington’s Birthday. Even though was have a firm date for George’s birth, February 22, we don’t celebrate it then because the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968 pushed four federal holidays (Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Columbus Day, and Veterans’ Day) from their fixed day designations to specific Mondays thus ensuring at least 4 three day weekends for federal workers. (Which calls to mind, how many people work for the federal government? About half of them. Ha, ha, ha! Geez, I crack myself up!)

Anyway, when that happened although nobody of any importance, certainly nobody in Congress, changed anything else about Washington’s Birthday. Still, all of a sudden it became Presidents’ Day. Some people claimed it was the perfect time to recognize the contributions of all of the U. S. Presidents and their accomplishments. If you ask me, I think the only President we ever had who was really cognizant of his responsibility to the country and its citizens was George Washington. Everyone who came after has been less respectful than the one before until we have now reached the pinnacle of disrespect by being given the choice between one to the current crop of Democrat idiots versus one of the current crop of Republican idiots. And they expect us to make that choice without throwing up all over the ballot.

Now that I’ve given this all some thought I don’t think any of these are worth the effort. Good thing today’s culture makes disdain so effortless.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

None of the Above. Really.

Michael Leave a comment

Last week I had the opportunity to do something I hadn’t done in years – and years and years and years. I filled out a job application.  I’ve been quite out of sorts lately and I figured out that I was missing some structure. So either I had to start taking retirement more seriously and do some determined vacationing, hobbying, recreationing, and/or memoir writing, or I need to find a part time job and get back into the swing of things. There was a part-time faculty appointment and my alma mater that I was absolutely the best qualified for (just in case someone from the selection committee is reading this), so I said to myself, “Self, give a whirl.” And whirled I did.

I hate to admit it but the last time I seriously needed to fill out a job application it was still on paper. Actually I don’t think I actually filled out an application for the last job I had until after I had the job. That’s a post for a different time. And boy was that a different time. But I digress.

There was a time a while ago when I thought about a career move and quickly gave up on that idea when I saw that the on-line application process was, for me, a multi-day affair. I figured by now that even HR had to have caught up with technology. And they had. Applying was a simple process. Upload a resume, upload a cover letter, upload a reference list, and that was it. Done. All that remained was the EEOC survey. The what?

If an employer agrees to accept federal money for any reason – payment for services, research, tuition reimbursement, anything – the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission wants to make certain that the employer is providing equal opportunities to all applicants. Thus, all those questions that one is not allowed to ask in an interview are required answers on the survey.  They are, sex, race, disability, and veteran status. So far no questions about religion or pet preference.

Now, this post is not a commentary on the survey itself. The survey answers are kept separate from an applicant’s application and are used just for tracking purposes. As a former hiring manager I can tell you that is the case. I never knew how anybody who applied for my department answered any of those questions. When I saw them last week it was the first time I was seeing them. And one really caught my eye.

As I said, these are to determine that people are getting opportunities to apply for any jobs they are qualified for. No prejudging. Everyone gets a fair shake. So I was surprised when I saw the first question and its answer choices:

Sex:
[] Male
[] Female
[] Other
[] Prefer not to answer

Really?

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?