![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Random update and noodling
Aug. 11th, 2009 06:30 amIt's not that there's been nothing interesting to blog about, it's that there has been no time to blog about the many interesting things going on. I went to my representative's regular "Coffee with Cleaver" on Saturday, and as advertised, the anti-healthcare crowd had overwhelmed the usual 20-50 people wanting to meet 1-1 with their representative and were waving a bunch of signs, several of them implicitly racist and/or offensive (the Obama as Joker signs, among others).
Representative Cleaver wisely decided to stick with his regular monthly format, meeting a few people 1-1, while the rest of the people milled around in small packs. This, notably, did not turn into a mob, though the local news tried to say ppl were "disgruntled" that Representative Cleaver didn't change up for them. He had held a telephone townhall meeting two nights earlier that had already addressed the many real questions people had, and didn't think serving as a target for numbskulls was the right way to go.
For the most part, the gathering was peaceful. I stood with a couple of surgical nurses who held up pro-reform signs, and we debated our side, more or less amicably, with people around us. The most comical moment of the morning was when a woman said (in response to my explanation of why government should spend its way out of a recession) she "didn't believe" in Keynesian economics, and I asked her if she knew what Keynesian economics was, and she huffed loudly and said I had offended her, and stomped off. Since approximately 75% of the US population doesn't have the slightest idea of what Keynesian economic policies are, and most of the rest don't have a clear understanding of them, I really was just trying to clarify her understanding. But I still laughed, because I think I caught her out in some bullshit.
Interestingly, the more facts that the nurses and I put into the debate, the more likely our opponents were to walk away, or to try to intimidate us with body language (many of the antis were large white men in their thirties and forties) or to try to shout us down. Facts were almost never countered with facts, and when people were pressed on their anecdotes, it was always "friend of a friend" stories, with regard to Canadian or British health care atrocities, not friends. (Thanks, Simon, for being a good example, btw).
I left when I started getting sunburned because it was an early morning event and I'd forgotten to put my sunscreen on.
Yesterday I got separators on my teeth in preparation for braces tomorrow. They feel funny, but not painful, more as if there's something stuck between my teeth that I can't get out (which is exactly what they are). My insurance really is among the best in the US, because my employer will cover any procedures I can get at any affiliated hospital 100%, above and beyond what the insurance pays, but the significant piece, in the case of finally being able to get braces, is that I now make enough money to put money in a Flexible Spending Account to cover stuff that isn't covered (like $3000 of these braces, and my "out of network" therapist).
BTW, the therapy is beginning to run its course. I will probably stop going sometime in September, because I have finally gotten most of the poison out, and I'm sleeping at night and don't have nearly the trauma thoughts that I used to have.
Representative Cleaver wisely decided to stick with his regular monthly format, meeting a few people 1-1, while the rest of the people milled around in small packs. This, notably, did not turn into a mob, though the local news tried to say ppl were "disgruntled" that Representative Cleaver didn't change up for them. He had held a telephone townhall meeting two nights earlier that had already addressed the many real questions people had, and didn't think serving as a target for numbskulls was the right way to go.
For the most part, the gathering was peaceful. I stood with a couple of surgical nurses who held up pro-reform signs, and we debated our side, more or less amicably, with people around us. The most comical moment of the morning was when a woman said (in response to my explanation of why government should spend its way out of a recession) she "didn't believe" in Keynesian economics, and I asked her if she knew what Keynesian economics was, and she huffed loudly and said I had offended her, and stomped off. Since approximately 75% of the US population doesn't have the slightest idea of what Keynesian economic policies are, and most of the rest don't have a clear understanding of them, I really was just trying to clarify her understanding. But I still laughed, because I think I caught her out in some bullshit.
Interestingly, the more facts that the nurses and I put into the debate, the more likely our opponents were to walk away, or to try to intimidate us with body language (many of the antis were large white men in their thirties and forties) or to try to shout us down. Facts were almost never countered with facts, and when people were pressed on their anecdotes, it was always "friend of a friend" stories, with regard to Canadian or British health care atrocities, not friends. (Thanks, Simon, for being a good example, btw).
I left when I started getting sunburned because it was an early morning event and I'd forgotten to put my sunscreen on.
Yesterday I got separators on my teeth in preparation for braces tomorrow. They feel funny, but not painful, more as if there's something stuck between my teeth that I can't get out (which is exactly what they are). My insurance really is among the best in the US, because my employer will cover any procedures I can get at any affiliated hospital 100%, above and beyond what the insurance pays, but the significant piece, in the case of finally being able to get braces, is that I now make enough money to put money in a Flexible Spending Account to cover stuff that isn't covered (like $3000 of these braces, and my "out of network" therapist).
BTW, the therapy is beginning to run its course. I will probably stop going sometime in September, because I have finally gotten most of the poison out, and I'm sleeping at night and don't have nearly the trauma thoughts that I used to have.
