Thus Spake Zuska

Easy-Peasy Reproduction of Gender & Race Norms!

(by Zuska) Sep 23 2012

Somewhere in the Twitterz a link popped up to this slideshow presentation:

Academia to Entrepreneur: How and Why to Leave Academia

It's a decent enough slide presentation and you'll learn a little about Mendeley along the way. Near the end there's a slide titled "Engineers" with 9 pictures variously titled "What my friends think I do", "What my parents think I do" etc. You are supposed to enjoy the hilariosity of each group's total misconception of who engineers are and what they really do.

Let's ask who the "I" of the photo captions is. Is this slide addressed to you at all? Depends upon who you are. If you are a white male, the answer is yes! In the first photo, we see that what your friends think you are doing is sitting around on a couch gaming - you, a white male, and all your white male buddies. In the "What my parents think I do" photo at least there is one female, with three male figures, all white, looking at construction plans.

The fourth photo is of a young, slightly overweight white boy wearing glasses, non-fashionable clothing, and sitting in front of a computer. The caption reads "What girls think I do." Engineers are boys, and they're white boys, too. There is no corresponding picture for "What boys think I do". There is, however, one for "What kids think I do." So you can be a kid wondering what the grown-up (white male) engineer does, or you can be a girl wondering what the (white) boy does, but you can't be a boy wondering what the girl (of any color) does because that would be...

Well that would just upset our gender norms. And consequently wouldn't seem funny to most of us. The "what girls think I do" is funny only if you accept the premise that the speaker is, indeed must be, a white male who can't get a girlfriend. The girls he cannot attract would, of course not be engineers.

In the last photo we see "What I really do": a grown up white man, sitting in front of a computer. This is so non-inclusive, and so non-representative of the multitude of things engineers do, that it makes me want to cry. This one slide, with very few words but very strong images, hammers home the tired old gender and race stereotype of the engineer as a lonely white male in front of a computer. It's not funny, it's sad and wrong. No one should ever use this visual again, except as an illustration of how easy-peasy it is to do gender and race norming without even trying. I'm fairly certain that wasn't the intent of the person who put this slideshow together, but it is indeed the unfortunate outcome.

The only non-white person that appears in this slideshow is a floating head shot of Aretha Franklin in a slide making a point about respect. She is used more or less as an icon or signifier of the word respect, and has no relation to what engineers or scientists do. This use, combined with the total exclusion of people of color from the imagery of who engineers are, makes me unhappy.

It takes an effort to be inclusive, but it is an effort every speaker should make. If you aren't sure that your speech or presentation is free of unintentional bias, ask someone you trust to review it for you to be sure - especially when illustrations or pictures are included, but for language too. Or I may have to come puke on your shoes. I can understand that people may not see the bias themselves, but by now we all should be aware that it could be there. We all have a responsibility to try, to educate ourselves so we become more aware, and to ask for help before we send our words and chosen images out into the world. Don't be part of the (lazy-ass) easy-peasy bias reproduction machine!

5 responses so far

The (Semi)Willing Suspension of Disbelief: Revolution

(by Zuska) Sep 21 2012

As it turns out, an attractive young woman can still hope to find a well-fit pair of low rise jeans in post-apocalyptic America. Charlie's parents must have thoughtfully looted all styles and sizes while fleeing after the electricity went off, so that when grown up, she'd be well-dressed to take on the walk through the woods to Chicago.

That was one of my first impressions of Revolution, a new NBC show. Everyone had relatively nice, well-fitting clothes, even after 15 years of no new manufacture, no washers and dryers, and no hot showers for the sweaty bodies laboring in those clothes. My mind wandered back to Lost, and how the characters got sweaty, grimy, soaked in rainstorms and so forth, until Ben Linus gave Kate that nice new dress. Charlie's mother is Juliet Burke - possibly this is where she landed after the Incident, and not in the future fighting space aliens on behalf of humanity and a sulky teenage boy. Or perhaps they are all alternate timelines. Anyway, she dies offscreen in the first 10 minutes or so. She's slated for 6 episodes so we'll probably see more of her in...flashbacks!

Charlie is also a sulky teenager, of the female variety, who wants to go exploring, even though Dad says she'll get raped. The world is dangerous for women! There's nothing out there that's worth seeing! He wants to Taliban her up in the compound and keep her safe. Joke's on him: he gets shot to death in the compound and she leaves to roam the wider world in search of his brother. It's okay, because he asked her nicely to do it.

The brother, in deep cover, is a cakewalk to find. Charlie, along with her father's sexy doctor lover and the requisite shaggy-haired glasses-wearing science geek set out together as the unlikely band. Along the way they pick up a hawt archery dude. They fight off two rapists with some poisoned alcohol (did you see that, Deborah Blum?) and a well-placed arrow and boom! they're in Chicago.

Lady walks into a bar, sez "Do you know where my Uncle Miles is?" Bartender says, "No kid, I'm just trying to keep a low profile here." Lady pouts, bartender melts and next thing you know they're in the back room together. Not doing that. Just talking. Then Mr. Z and I got too sleepy to watch the rest of what we'd tivo'd. I think we were pretty far into the episode. I'm guessing Miles agrees to help her search for her kidnapped brother even though he says he's just bait, and they set out on another leg of the quest next week.

Hilariosity in this episode, there was much. How could anyone stand to be in that bar after 15 years of no air conditioning or plumbing? Seriously, find some ethnic Germans and go to their biergarten. You know they will be brewing up Heifeweisse according to Reinheitsgebot. Charlie does a dramatic voice-over: "If you were in the cities, you died. If you got out, you survived." I'm pretty certain that most city dwellers (I include myself tho I'm in the burbs) would drop like flies without electricity of any source or kind. How would you find food for yourself? Do you know how to produce your own food? How long would it take you to learn? Could you learn fast enough so that you wouldn't starve to death? How are you going to learn if Google has already scanned all the books and they've been sent to the shredder? If you do make it out to the countryside, do you think Sharon Astyk is going to let every last blessed New Yorker trample her farm and eat everything in her larder? You'll look like a plague of locusts descending. The farm folk will as soon shoot you as help you. Okay, I don't think Sharon will shoot you but you never know.

So it takes a major suspension of disbelief to imagine our coddled city dwellers make it to the counstryside, learn how to farm and raise sheep (Sharon would say goats are a better choice), and manage to grab and defend some choice land, all while looting the aforementioned selection of jeans for their children's future needs. The land looks like it's next door to the former planned community of Sylvania Acres (or equivalent). Maybe the houses were built in the fields so they were good to go. In Terra Nova they solved the pioneer problem by saying moar teknology! and dinosaurs! eating people! which was awesome, but the acting was so awful all you could do was cheer for the dinosaurs to eat moar people.

Charlie's younger brother has asthma, which makes it officially the favorite chronic disease of the post-apocalypse among show writers (Shannon had it in Lost) because a kindly knowledgeable doctor who just happened to survive along with you knows how to make natural remedies! Congestive heart failure, muscular dystrophy, chronic migraines, high blood pressure - none of it shows as well on tv as an asthma attack where a doctor can swoop in and RESCUE! And those asthma attacks are amazingly easy to relieve - just a pinch or two of this or that herb and voila! you wonder why anyone today is using inhalers.

The best part of all is that the laws of physics have completely changed! Not gravity, of course, or any of the physics having to do with the structure and use of items of steel and iron but just, you know, the electrical laws!

I won't mention the 15 year old postcard inside the RV that, exposed to the elements, is nonetheless in almost pristine shape; or the relatively high quality of the RV interior itself for that matter. We can allow that for dramatic license. In fact, I'll allow the whole crazy bit of it, because this is a goddam prime time one hour scripted drama with actual actors, not another America Can Haz Moar Singing With The Celebrity Apprentices! I want to cheer on their brave efforts, and hope it survives and is good, and networks don't quit doing this sort of thing. Maybe they're in purgatory...that would explain how they all suddenly know how to farm and raise animals...and the nice clean clothing...hmmm...

I'll watch the second episode for sure, and see where this goes.

UPDATE: Finally watched the last 15-20 minutes. Crikey! Awesome sword play, and an ending as fun as finding the hatch! Let's not quibble over the laws of physics, shall we?

6 responses so far

Telling the story of Woman, over and over

(by Zuska) Sep 18 2012

8 responses so far

Yogurt: It's a Woman Thing

(by Zuska) Sep 09 2012

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Dear United States District Court...

(by Zuska) Sep 07 2012

...I appreciate the honor of being selected for jury duty, and certainly would like to send back my reply within 5 days of receipt of your missive. Perhaps you were not aware that the envelope you have so kindly provided me is 9 inches long by 4 inches wide, whilst the form you would like returned within it is 8.5 inches long by 4.5 inches wide?

You have, of course, conveniently provided the simple and elegant solution of replying via the internet. Alas:

Please note that requests for postponements or excusals will not be accepted by email. All such requests must be made in writing, signed by the prospective juror and mailed to the U. S. Courthouse in the enclosed business reply envelope.

Mayhap, the mismatched form and envelope, required for excusals, as opposed to the easy-peasy internet, only for accepting one's patriotic duty, are a subtle form of discouraging those who would shirk their duty? Very clever!

Yrs truly,

Dutiful Citizen

4 responses so far

Washington Trades and Labor Building

(by Zuska) Aug 22 2012

A few weeks ago I was in Washington, Pa - or what everyone in southwestern Pa refers to as "Little Washington". I've been there on numerous occasions but this was the first time I'd seen this building.

Washington Trades and Labor Building, Washington, PA

This is a closer view of the entrance.

Washington Trades and Labor Building entrance

The building now houses the Newman Center for Washington & Jefferson College on its second floor.

What had originally caught my eye, and led me to want to investigate more closely, was the stone slab on the lower left of the building front.

Inscribed stone slab on the front of Washington Trades and Labor Building

The inscription reads:

This granite is dedicated in memory of our brothers and sisters of Washington and Greene Counties who paid the ultimate price for employment many of which due solely to corporate greed and employer indifference to safety.

"Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living" Mary Harris 'Mother' Jones

"The present age handed over the workers, each alone and defenseless, to the unbridled greed of competitors...so that a very few and exceedingly rich men had laid a yoke of almost slavery on the unnumbered masses of non-owning workers." Pope Leo XIII

It's difficult to describe how I felt when I read that. It was breathtaking to see such strong words chiseled in granite right there out in the open for everyone to see - right here in the age of Scott Walker and Mitt Romney. It's not some very old monument either - it was dedicated in 2001. I haven't been able to find any information about the building or the granite marker. If anyone knows anything about either, I'd appreciate it if you'd leave a comment.

If the Republicans have their way, we'll be right back in the world these quotes describe - indeed we're heading there. It is so discouraging to a child of a UMWA man, to see how beaten down unions are in the U.S. today.

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Pinkification: Robbing Girls of Self Worth

(by Zuska) Aug 09 2012

Sharon Astyk at Casaubon's Book has a post that is both a review of Peggy Orenstein's Cinderella Ate My Daughter and an insightful analysis of pinkification's effect on young girls, especially girls in the foster care system. You MUST read it. Here's an excerpt:

I have a theory about the pinkization myself. Femininity used to be commodified by giving children the cultural markers of feminine WORK – little girls got toy kitchens, baby dolls, toy brooms, toy houses. Domestic labor was what marked out womanhood. This definitely sucked in some ways, if instead of the erector set you got a toy wash basin, and you really wanted the erector set, but the cool thing about it was that you told little girls that in some measure they were being defined by their competence. Yes, it was a limited sphere. No, the “you can’t have an erector set because you are a girl” is wrong. But in trying to end the “the only work you can do is girl work” we replaced it with “girls don’t do anything different, so you have to define yourself in other measures – by how you look and what color you wear.”

Whoa. I think she's on to something there. Remember that god-awful girls-n-pink-n-dazzle!-n-science video disaster? The ladies in the video weren't doing any science. But they were lookin' mighty good.

Read the post, the whole post, it is full of awesome.

4 responses so far

When They Read The News, What Are They Telling Us?

(by Zuska) Aug 07 2012

I'm feeling my Olympic groove this evening, when here comes a commercial break blurb for the local newscast. They're promising me all sorts of wonderfully lurid stuff if I tune in later. Here's one exciting pitch:

This man's wife and baby were held up at gun point!...Details later...

There is a very, very quick shot of a man, and then we see the woman with her baby telling us "He had a gun and he told me 'don't make me do this, you have a baby with you'."

Here's my question: Why "this man's wife and baby" and not "this woman and her baby"? In reporting crime against women, must we do it so as to make clear who owns them, in favor of that the crime was against them? When we say "this man's wife and baby were held up at gunpoint" we are implying that the crime, although committed on the woman and baby, was against the man.

There's no excuse for locution like this. News writers/readers, women are their own agents. You don't need to identify their closest male in order to report news on them.

6 responses so far

Olympical Ponderings

(by Zuska) Aug 06 2012

Who hasn't been watching a lot of Olympics lately?!?! It's time-delayed and spoiled, even by the announcers on the time-delayed broadcast (damn you!) when you've managed to keep away from twitter, radio, papers, etc. But still, you can't look away. Well, you can, when you are shown inane announcers nattering on rather than the sports you want to watch. Between that and the commercials and the highlights of decades-old Olympics, now and again you do get to see something recent and athletic. And that's what you live for!

Swimming: I love it, and I wanted to watch a lot of it. What I did not want: a bunch of manufactured crap rivalries that may or may not have existed between Lochte and Phelps, or that other guy who says Phelps doesn't train, or this or that or something else. Now they hate each other! Now they are great teammates for the relay! We at NBC totally love Phelps, except that the poking of athletes must begin now that he failed to medal in the 400 IM. "Tell us Michael, how totally awful does it feel to have FAILED to medal? Are you totally completely CRUSHED? Will you ever be able to recover and swim again? Please, give us all the details of your agony! America wants to know" This American did not. You could read all you needed to on his face. The rest was invasive and ultimately uninformative. What America REALLY wanted to know was this: Just how effing tight are those swim caps? Tight enough to give you a migraine? Are there any migraineurs among Olympic swimmers? Because I would totally be out there going for the gold, if it wasn't for those swim caps. That, and the fact that I can't swim and I'm old and fat.
Gymnastics and gender: I REALLY love me some gymnastics. The men's exhibition of strength, agility, and control is always astonishing to me. This year for some reason I focused on a move on the floor exercise, where they'd bend over, put their hands out on the floor, and then just slowly lift their legs up and bring them together - and then just stay there for awhile. So awesome. Women's gymnastics, of course, is all about pixies, ponytails, and diva behavior. Tears! Little darlings who are just going to crack under pressure and have to be kissed and hugged by their coaches to survive! Ethereal beings who fly in the air! You get my picture. I want to hear more about strength, agility, and control, and less about tears, diva bla bla, (Eager commentator: "Tell me, has there been any diva behavior yet?")and ANYTHING about Gabby's hair. (That last one is mostly a race issue, but I can't imagine a black male gymnast getting lambasted for not having done the right thing with his hair. It's a gender issue too.) I want to see male gymnasts loosen up on the floor-x and do more tumbly-jumpy-dancey stuff like the women do; I want to see women build in some of those strength elements men display in the floor-x that are so breathtaking. Why do they always have to be flying? Why can't they stop a minute and show their awesome strength, too? My really serious complaints are these, however: why the hell are the men dressed in footie pajamas that they can accidentally grab hold of while they are on the pommel, thus causing them to mess up? Can't they get some nice shorties more akin to what the women get to sashay around in? And why those poor pixie gymnasts gotta perform gender soooo hard while they're out there working and sweating? Ban the makeup! Or else make the men wear it too. Thus speaks Zuska.
I get all my mother's mail, including the Senior Times of Southwestern PA. The last issue had a story about the local Senior Olympics. It was so cool. There was a ninety-something dude who's won a gold medal in some racing event in every year they've had it. That's kind of vague. With a fey Lehrian stroke, I confidently declare he was 91, the sport was a 100 m dash, and the Senior Olympics have been held for six years now. You're never going to know the difference because how are you going to get hold of a copy of the Southwestern PA Senior Times? (90 years old, 1 mile walk, 16 years - Mr. James "Jiggs" Grubbs, July 2012 issue) What gets me is I am pretty sure that this nonagenarian could beat me in the Senior Olympics in a head-to-head match. Mr. Grubbs reports that he was not very active until he was in his seventies, so there may still be some hope for me. I have commenced a 30-min per day walking program (interrupted by days when I walk up with migraine and then it's too hot in the afternoon) and am eating healthy food and smaller portions. Look out Michael Phelps! As soon as I get that swimming cap technology worked out, I'm coming for you!

When I think of Mr. Grubbs, active into his nineties though he didn't really start till his seventies, and Z-mom, who nearly died but is now walking again and recovering nicely, I think there is no excuse for me not to get my foot out the door on the days I feel well. There is no excuse for me not to eat well and not pig out. There is no excuse for me not to take care of my body just because my body has not been very good to me with all these migraines. There is more excuse to do so because of the migraines. The care I give it will be given back to me. It's not that I can control my migraines by exercising, or that if I just find "my food triggers" my migraines will go away. Migraine disease is neurological and the cause is not well understood. But exercising and eating well gives my body the best fighting chance. So I have to say no to the depression and discouragement, not eat to comfort myself, and work at getting out there to exercise. Getting out of the house and moving, seeing something different, is rejuvenating. Walking outdoors is more so than a half hour on a treadmill in a gym, but in a pinch, that's better than nothing. I hate it when people tell me that I "should" be doing x or y, as if it is all my fault I am having migraines just because I am not doing x or y. But I am going to be better to myself, and give myself a better chance. I want to win the 1 mile walk in the Senior Games when I am 90.

5 responses so far

A Week Went By And Now It's July...er...August

(by Zuska) Aug 05 2012

Ain't this boogie a mess!

It sure has been, for two months. I had that triumphant return to the blog at the end of May - had finally broken that evil six month headache, was feeling great, life was good! About a week later things came crashing down around me. I don't feel like I can go into a lot of details right now, but there was a death in my family, Z-mom went into the hospital right after the funeral, and a member of Mr. Z's family went into the hospital on the same day. Mr. Z's family member is doing well now. Z-mom has had a horrible medical odyssey, from hospital to a rehab place that, in my opinion, almost killed her through a combination of neglect, misunderstanding, and direct incompetence. Thus back to the hospital to be saved, then to a second rehab place where she did not thrive through a combination of grief and not liking the facility. We finally moved her to a third facility where she is much happier, the quality of care is extremely high, and the results in just one week are amazing. We are daring to be hopeful and happy now.

It was fortunate for me that I had just come off the week of hospitalization for migraine, and thus was as well positioned as I could hope to be to go through these last two months of intense emotional and physical stress. So yay for that. But the entire experience with Z-mom has only more strongly reinforced some things I already knew.

When an elderly person is in the hospital, you cannot just assume that they are being taken care of and all their needs are being met. The nursing staff is often excellent and gives excellent care; they see more than the doctors and can tell you a lot about how your family member is doing - how they fared during the night, if there's been a change in some functioning. But you still need to be there a lot to see what is going on - how well they are able to feed themselves, how well they are able to work with PT and what the key issues are, just in general what their mood is like, what needs they have that you could meet. Most importantly, you need to be there early in the morning when the doctors are doing rounds, so you can speak with the doctor yourself, even if it is just for a few minutes. This is when you can ask questions and get information about what therapies are being prescribed, or should be prescribed. You can ask, why is my family member doing x or y, looking like this or that, acting this way? If you aren't satisfied with the answer, push for more. Ask them to slow down so you can write things down, and to explain words or concepts you don't understand. If your loved one is about to be transferred to another facility, you will usually have some interaction with a social worker. They are good sources of information and are there to help you so don't feel bad about asking questions.

If your loved one is transferred to a rehab hospital, again you can't afford to take your eye off things. You can't, of course, be there every minute they are doing therapy, nor should you, but you can sit in on some therapy sessions and interact with them and the therapist to aid in the therapy and learn what you might need to do with your loved one after the time at rehab is over. You can get a sense of how your loved one is being treated. After therapy is over you can see how gently (or not) staff help your loved one with activities of daily living, and how quick they are to respond to calls for assistance. You may or may not be required to do laundry for your loved one, if the facility does not provide that service. Sometimes this is better if you do it yourself, because things are less likely to get lost that way. Your being there can help with your loved one's mood. But most importantly, you can be there to monitor and catch errors or neglect.

In Z-mom's case, she had been progressing quite well and then suddenly started to decline, day by day. No one could give me an explanation as to why. They wrote it off to her grieving and being "too weak for the level of rehab here - she can't recover and keep up for the next day." I would point out that she had been doing quite well and then started to decline and they would shrug their shoulders and go back to the grief excuse and say she wasn't trying. But she was, she was trying as hard as she could. In the end it turned out that she had a UTI and was severely dehydrated (which didn't happen overnight), to the point where she nearly died. Neither rehab staff, nurses, nor the doctor monitoring her case noticed any of this. I am not sure why. And I wish I had pushed harder on all of them in the last week she was there. A friend of ours who worked in hospice came to see mom and in fifteen minutes diagnosed what was wrong. She helped us get her moved back to the hospital, and saved her life. Moral of the story: pay attention, keep pushing, and call on every resource you know to help you figure out what is going on. Many people who are good at what they do are not so good at understanding how even slight imbalances can have tremendous effects on the elderly. I did not know, but do now, that many times the only way that UTIs are diagnosed in the elderly is by display of confusion and a delirium-like state.

What this country's health care system needs (among a kazillion other things) is a good many more doctors and nurses trained in gerontology (especially to help with the death panels, amirite?). I can't say all the things I've been watching and learning as I go along with Z-mom makes me feel good about my own approaching old age. And don't even get me started on the insurance paperwork fallout from all of this. I just wanna go hide.

But Z-mom, and Mr. Z, and me, and the rest of our families have made it through this far. We are hoping for a less turbulent August and as things cool into fall, a chance to reflect, recover, and hold on dearly to those we love.

6 responses so far

Personal Care Robots Are The Last Thing We Need

(by Zuska) Jun 18 2012

I just heard a story on NPR's All Things Considered that made me want to rip my hair out. Personal robots! You know you want one! You don't need one, but that doesn't matter. They will be made, you will learn to want them, and you'll be getting them and upgrading them just like your smart phone or iPad. (Side note: If anyone can explain to me why the new robot thingies always have to be called "Rosie" I will be grateful. Don't blame it on the Jetsons. Where did the Jetsons come up with Rosie? Is it all just to mock the real Rosies, the riveters of WWII?)

We don't need robots to walk our dogs or wash our windows. We don't need them to "fold towels, help elderly and disabled people with home care, and even fetch a beer". For one thing, there's plenty enough beer-fetching going on in America's households as it is. For another, if you can't be bothered to walk you own dog, or pay another human to do it for you when you are too busy, you shouldn't have a dog. Robot dog walkers just take away one more job from young people.

But what REALLY hacks me off is the idea of robots designed to help the elderly and disabled with home care. What the elderly and disabled need is more contact with other human beings, not less. They don't need to be even more isolated in their homes than they already are. They need people they can talk to and interact with and tell their stories to. We need to pay decent living wages for this kind of care, to value it for the real importance it actually has, not sluff it off on the fantasy product of robotics researchers.

In any case, that bla bla about robots helping the elderly and disabled is just robotics engineers blowing smoke up your ass to keep their projects running. Do you think something that currently costs $400,000 to build is being designed to help one of the most despised and neglected segments of our population? Where else is money and effort on this scale being poured into improving the lives of the elderly and the disabled?

Robots are going to be a hip thing for the youth culture, just like smart phones and iPads. Things you could live without but are so cool to have, things that are always being upgraded. Things that are costly. The elderly and disabled, by and large, don't have extra cash to lay out on costly toys. They aren't going to buy dog-walking, beer-fetching robots.

Redesigning existing home stock to be universally accessible, or making sure your local government buildings and restaurants really are accessible as they claim to be, or lobbying for better care for returning disabled veterans - none of this sounds as sexy as beer-toting personal robots, I am sure. But all of it would be a a helluva lot more useful than one more fancy toy for your neighbor to envy.

14 responses so far

It's Alive! It's Alive!!!!!

(by Zuska) May 24 2012

The brain! My brain! It's alive! It still works!

Well, apparently there's nothing that a six-month migraine can do to you that a one week hospitalization in a dedicated migraine care unit can't mostly fix. They take no responsibility for my ordinary Zuskatiness, but the headache, she is GONE! Here's how it works.

22 responses so far

Are You A Mentor? Or A Dementor?

(by Zuska) May 07 2012

Contrary to popular belief, dementors are not just imaginary creatures who live in J. K. Rowling’s imagination and the Harry Potterverse. Anyone can be a dementor, at any time, to anyone. Most of us, given the choice, would likely rather be a mentor than a dementor, I think. But can you recognize the signs – in yourself, or in another? Herein I offer a wee guide.

12 responses so far

Where's Zuska?

(by Zuska) Apr 09 2012

Perhaps my three remaining readers have been wondering just that.

(BTW, thanks Cara, for yelling at the spambots for me in my absence. I cleared out a bunch of spam and then moved your comments since the spam was no longer there for you to be yelling at. If you want me to put them back I will, just leave a comment here.)

The short sad story is that since the end of January, I've been beset with migraines on a daily basis. I think I've had maybe a week's worth of days scattered here and there when I didn't have headache for at least some portion of the day. Sometimes when Mr. Z asks me if my head is hurting I have to think about it for a minute because I can hardly remember what it feels like for it not to hurt.

Today I was good until about fifteen minutes ago, and now the headache is starting. Yesterday I was sick all day and missed Easter with Mr. Z's parents.

Anyhoo, I tell you this not to garner murmurs of sympathy, but to let you know why this blog has been so silent. I just have not had the energy or enough time without headache to put together a blog post (or even clear out spam). Expect posting to be highly erratic, if at all, in the near future.

I am hopeful, though, that I may soon get the migraines under some control again. This all started with a strained rotator cuff. The docs figured the chronic migraines + poor posture + sleeping on left side added up to strain on the left rotator cuff. I began physical therapy for it, and suddenly the migraines worsened despite a fresh botox treatment. So then the docs figured that the work on the muscles, which was good for the rotator cuff, was affecting nerves in some feedback loop and causing migraines. Get it? Migraines lead to strained rotator cuff, and fixing strained rotator cuff leads to migraines! Yippee! Another factor was the absolutely bizarre winter we had, unnaturally warm and very changeable from day to day. Rapid weather changes almost never play nice with the head. It was all a big mess. By now, though, I've mostly got the rotator cuff under control and am getting PT for the migraines - who knew there was such a thing? But it does seem to be helping - sometimes a day and a half or even two days relief after a session. And coming up soon, my next botox treatment. Maybe by the beginning of May I'll be back to my old regular migraine schedule and can pick up blogging again! Keep your fingers crossed!

Even though the PT is working, and even though my insurance says I get to have 60 PT visits in a calendar year, it turns out that after you go 25 times they put you under "review". This means they stop paying for your PT while they think about whether or not you really deserve to have health care. One to three months later, when they finally decide whether or not you are worthy, the decision comes forth: either they pay for the PT you've been getting, or you are stuck with the bill. Of course, you can wait three months for them to decide, but if you can go three months without PT, did you really need it in the first place? This is known as "having generous PT coverage" in your health insurance and one should be grateful for it. Pray to be fixed by visit 60, and not to have anything else go wrong the rest of the year. Also pray that the insurance gods consider your rotator cuff and migraine issues separate enough that they will allow PT for the migraine even if the rotator cuff seems to be mostly (though not completely) cleared up. While you are doing all this, brace yourself for the next round of begging said insurance company to cover your botox treatments, because Treatment No. 4 of the alloted four treatments is this month, and you have to convince them again that nothing else works and you really do need botox and you weren't magically cured in the past year. Good luck! And try not to be terrified when you see an ad from your insurance provider promising to help companies "manage" the "5% of your employees responsible for 20% of your healthcare costs".

Well, thanks for listening to the whining. I hope to see you back here soon, with more cheerful sorts of rants and commentary.

13 responses so far

The More Things Change...

(by Zuska) Mar 12 2012

Got my Jan-Feb 2012 issue of the UMWA Journal recently and read this on page 2:

UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL

The time has come when all members of the working class must sink their petty differences and personal political opinions, and take a united and definite position. The great danger is… the capitalist class will, by means of their entrenched power in government, judiciary, the public press and financial organizations…obtain such a hold upon society that the work of redemption will be frustrated for generations to come. While the working class divide their energies and divide political parties…the capitalist class will move solidly along [its] well-defined purpose.

That's pretty much what I've been thinking lately. I think that's at least part of what the "We are the 99%" protests have been trying to convey.

Depressingly enough, it appeared in the UMW Journal 100 years ago, on January 18, 1912. I think of all that my grandfathers struggled and fought for, and how much of it has been taken away from us. Even the eight-hour day, which organized labor won as a right through years of difficult, dangerous, and deadly strikes and protests, is all but gone.

Let's say you work at a university or a company. You have your "hourly wage" employees and your "salaried" employees. Everybody knows it's much better to be a salaried employee, right? More money, better career track, better benefits (well...as long as you can hang on to them), and the cachet of being salaried. No wage slave are you! No mucking about with unions for your highly educated and trained self! Unions are for the lower class of employees, the lesser skilled, the less important, the interchangeable parts. You are a unique individual and you don't need a union to represent you! You represent yourself! You are your own brand! Just look at your web page! People follow you on Twitter! [Follow me @TSZuska ! For realz!] You aren't one of those nine-to-fivers who work just to live, you live for your work. Every now and then you'll agree that a St. K3rn takes it a bit too far, but really, you've got to put in the long hours to get results and you need to show you are dedicated researcher/company person. You're online, tuned in, available 24/7; work comes home with you, and you live with your work. In 1848 French workers won a 12-hour workday. There are PIs today who would question those French workers' dedication. Only 12 hours? "Science doesn't stop at 5 on Fridays," as my master's thesis advisor said.

But what good would a union do? Science/industry/God demands the sacrifice of your time and no progress can be made without it. However will the coal mines operate if we don't have the tiny hands of children to pick the slate out of the coal at the breakers? The main point is that you are an individual and you are going to make it to the top. Remember, we don't talk about haves and have-nots in this country. We speak of haves, and soon-to-haves.

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Fifty years ago, Rep. Elmer Holland (D.-PA) was quoted in the pages of the February 1, 1962 UMW Journal as follows:

It’s all too easy to dream up reasons why the labor movement should be shackled even more. And if the labor movement is not alert that is precisely what will happen.

If you don't believe Elmer Holland, you just go ask Scott Walker and the Koch brothers!

Twenty-five years ago, UMWA members were being urged to buy American-made goods, even if they cost more, and to complain to stores if they could not find what they wanted made in America. But WalMart is so cheap! And now that our unions have been crushed, our wages curtailed, our benefits taken away, and job security just some vague dream we once heard about, who can afford to "buy American"? If, indeed, there's anything left made in America after the orgy of right-sizing and down-sizing and out-sourcing moved most of our manufacturing base elsewhere.

The Philadelphia Inquirer business section yesterday explained how Dansko would love to move all its manufacturing back into the U.S. The main reason it can't is not wages.

Even if the company were to offer U.S. workers wages similar to what it pays in Italy - $18 to $20 an hour - its founders say there would remain the fundamental issue of where to find people with the expertise, or the desire, to take those jobs, given how shoemaking as an industry has been decimated.

"It's really about there's no knowledge - no knowledge, no support structure," Kjellerup said. "Because if you had that, I think America could be competitive in manufacturing."

And so we have the conundrum of a company that would like to pay good wages to make its product in America, but can't, thanks to decades of outsourcing.

3 responses so far

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Zuska is the kick-ass alter-ego of Suzanne E Franks. When not dispensing Zuska's wisdom, Suzanne can often be found gardening, reading, or having one of her thrice-weekly migraines.

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