I've remarked a couple of times (or maybe two hundred times) that the help provided to the elderly in the USA is woefully inadequate.
Here's a story about a country where that's not true---the Netherlands. What's wrong with the USA? Why can't the USA manage to take care of its elderly?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle
Growing old is difficult. However, it is possible for a country/society to help. Where you live makes a .....and the universal problem can be ameliorated. The difference between what my parents face and what is described in the linked article is simply enormous!
Friday, August 31, 2012
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Offensive to religion?
Revised and corrected Thursday 30 August 2012.
I'm halfway through reading an article in Slovak about "Pussy-Riot"....
I'm halfway through reading an article in Slovak about "Pussy-Riot"....
I am by no means perfectly competent as a reader of Slovak, however, my impression is that the author is mainly complaining that PR is vulgar.
Hmmmm.
What is vulgarity? How about remote-controlled air gunships controlled by Obama--gunships which murder innocent people?
Anyway, that's not my main point just now.
Religion?
So, it seems this big (showy, maybe vulgar?) cathedral in which PR recently put on a sort of show was dedicated to the defeat of Napoleon......
Well, that's what I want---just for a moment----to think about. and I want to say that this showy cathedral is an insult to religion. No, I'm not religious---I am an atheist---- but if you think religion shouldn't be a mere commercial transaction.....bartering....then you might wonder whether that cathedral represents the best of religion.
Let's back up. People in Russia fought, and died, and suffered in order to keep out a foreign invasion.
The French were successfully driven out.---And, a cathedral was built to thank a non-existent being.--But, put the non-existence of god to one side: How about the soldiers? Did they get pensions or medical care? What thanks did they get? And, I hasten to add, non-soldiers must have suffered too.
The French were successfully driven out.---And, a cathedral was built to thank a non-existent being.--But, put the non-existence of god to one side: How about the soldiers? Did they get pensions or medical care? What thanks did they get? And, I hasten to add, non-soldiers must have suffered too.
But, consider this: Plato's "Euthyphro"............Socrates has a conversation with an expert in religion.
Socrates seems to think that offering sacrifices is not the essence of piety......In other words, religion is not about bartering with the gods, not a commercial relationship. ( --And, if not that, what might it be?)
So, I guess that the creators of the great flashy cathedral in Russia either never read Plato's "Euthyphro", or they disagreed with it.......
Socrates was, as you know, regarded as offensive in his day.....in fact, offensive to religion.
Incidentally, there's some evidence that Socrates himself thought that you cannot be pious without being just........And, I doubt whether building a showy cathedral has much to do with justice.......But justice would mean, let's say, providing adequate pensions, medical care....and not just for retired soldiers.......Justice would not mean a system in which some people lived with comforts and privileges unknown to the majority. Justice would mean no separate ruling class......
(And, you may ask: If I'm relying upon Platonic texts, how can I say that? In brief, the superiority of the ruling class in Plato's "Republic" depended upon two claims which I reject: first, that there is an irrational part of the soul, and secondly that only a small group of people could understand how things really work. My view at present is that the notion of an irrational source of motivation won't do the work Plato wants it to do and that no one understands how things really work. No one is qualified to be a "philosopher-king".) As for the so-called "unity of virtue" (justice=piety=courage=temperance), I think it's pretty plausible. (Have I given you an argument? No! But I'm impressed by work in the psychology of emotion which sees a tough interconnection between various emotions. And how can emotions fit with so-called "Socratic intellectualism"? Actually, I'm thinking about that and have no definite views of yet.)
Incidentally, there's some evidence that Socrates himself thought that you cannot be pious without being just........And, I doubt whether building a showy cathedral has much to do with justice.......But justice would mean, let's say, providing adequate pensions, medical care....and not just for retired soldiers.......Justice would not mean a system in which some people lived with comforts and privileges unknown to the majority. Justice would mean no separate ruling class......
(And, you may ask: If I'm relying upon Platonic texts, how can I say that? In brief, the superiority of the ruling class in Plato's "Republic" depended upon two claims which I reject: first, that there is an irrational part of the soul, and secondly that only a small group of people could understand how things really work. My view at present is that the notion of an irrational source of motivation won't do the work Plato wants it to do and that no one understands how things really work. No one is qualified to be a "philosopher-king".) As for the so-called "unity of virtue" (justice=piety=courage=temperance), I think it's pretty plausible. (Have I given you an argument? No! But I'm impressed by work in the psychology of emotion which sees a tough interconnection between various emotions. And how can emotions fit with so-called "Socratic intellectualism"? Actually, I'm thinking about that and have no definite views of yet.)
Sunday, August 26, 2012
bad,naive linguistics
I would like to know how much of the actual speech of citizens of the USA is derived from advertising, marketing, and all that bullshit.
Among the members of my family, there seems to be a stubborn adherence to marketing categories.
A certain food is "artisanal" ( )-: ) because that's what it says on the package. A car is "medium sized" (even if a monstrosity_)because that's what the manufacturer says.
The principle applies in the political realm as well.......
Among the members of my family, there seems to be a stubborn adherence to marketing categories.
A certain food is "artisanal" ( )-: ) because that's what it says on the package. A car is "medium sized" (even if a monstrosity_)because that's what the manufacturer says.
The principle applies in the political realm as well.......
Hell Now Comes in Many Colors,
and the Marketing Mercenaries of Capitalism Want You to Know It!
The project of taking my mother and father to visit a doctor is unpleasant.
Both mother and father need walkers. A walker does not go easily into my parents’ car. It must be first dis-assembled---which is itself a slightly awkward task. The buttons on either side of the walker’s small grab bar do not move smoothly, and one has got to simultaneously depress both. Then, once I have placed one walker with its two removable parts in the trunk, I have to squeeze the other into the back seat of my parents/ car. The car is parked within a structure which my parents refer to as their “car port”. (Not a garage, but still a help in protecting the car from local weather.) ((Note about local weather. The brutality of the local weather is easily proved. The sun and wind are not friendly. A sign I placed outside the fence to guide the mail carriers to the mail box (not visible from the street) quickly became battered and torn from wind and sun. The stiff blue index card no longer had its stiffness undamaged and its color had faded to a much less lively shade. So, too, after three years the stiff plastic sign warning away solicitors now appears to have been chewed by a predator.))
At any rate, I must maneuver between the car and the protective fence in an area of perhaps one and a half feet in width, while holding the collapsed walker. The wires for the brakes can now get trapped on anything that protrudes, necessitating further maneuvers upwards. On a bad day, I drop the damn thing and bad words issue from my mouth.
Once fitted inside the car, the walker must again be persuaded to fit neatly, or if not neatly, so as to allow me to close the door.
Once we arrive at the parking lot for the “medical building”, there may or may not be parking in the handicapped region. The building may or may not have a door friendly to handicapped. Curiously, I seem to remember that in Slovakia, handicapped doors were common. That might have been a flawed memory. I didn’t travel the land with two aged relatives. However, handicapped doors in that country featured a very large button, which, if pressed, opened the door. I have seen only one similarly friendly button in El Paso, Texas----and between the two of them my parents visit eight or nine doctors on a regular basis.
Inside the buildings, the elevators pose a special danger. The doors are operated by a powerful mechanism and the threat of being trapped between them is a real enough danger for the frail elderly. Having summoned an elevator, I’ve got to rush inside and find the “doors open” button, depress it, and encourage my parents to enter the elevator.
The entire process is complicated by a bizarre hurriedness that seems to infect my father’s brain. I’ve got to coach him, and persuade him not to race against my mother. It is as if having a walker were a sort of license to ignore the rules of the road and to depress the accelerator.
Once inside the doctors’ office, further pleasures await us.
Of course, once we arrive at the doctor’s office, there is the obligatory obnoxious television. CNN and Fox News are bad enough, but I am horrified to notice that channels purporting to provide history or science information are cluttered with garbage. I pray that I should never again read or meet or hear one of those science populizers whose every other word is “fascinating”, “surprising”, or any other of that dozen words which tell us that the speaker deserves our attention, even when the subject matter is not really explained or illustrated, but only trumpeted.
It is not unusual to wait for two hours. It can happen that we wait longer. It can also happen that our wait is brief, but that is relatively uncommon. Doctors don’t apologize for making us wait; that is, of course, one sign of the entrenched nature of hierarchy and submission in this land of the unfree.
As it happens, last Friday the doctor was relatively pleasant and cheerful----very different from another man recently described. Yet, the framing of our brief meeting with him was a variety of unpleasant incidents.
Worst of all, once we arrived home, we were met by a Nurse requiring a signature. Negotiations followed. The company which is paid by Medicare to supply help for my father is greedy. Of course, the nurse blames Medicare. Sorry, I don't believe her. I know all about these companies. I experienced their ruthless mercenary nature when I was a language teacher. Those who do the actual work get a small share of the plunder. That's the way it is with Language Schools (or, as they say in Austria, "Institutes"....(sorry while I turn aside to barf....)). Those who do the actual work get a pittance.
What's that I hear? You say it's the same with the CEO of any company in the English-speaking world? Let's not get in to that now. Let's just say that the devil never sleeps.
Friday, August 24, 2012
A very unpleasant day
(Typos due to late night use of IPad have now been corrected.)
Infelicities or awkwardness of layout due to the primitive nature of IPads have not been corrected. Nor have I yet gained such enlightenment as to guarantee that I 've made no mistakes---substantial or incidental....
////////////
After waiting for nearly two hours, we were shown in to the doctor's office. The man is peculiarly arrogant in a sort of show- off way. He doen't mind telling you how great he is. But, as I think of it, one characteristic of good explainers is that they can operate on several levels at once. Knowing the technical details, they are able to move out of technical vocabulary and work with images or analogies----at the same time they recognize the extent to which their images or anologies are not wholly accurate. ( I complained recently on this blog about a nurse who had a bad anaology to explain memory phenomenon without seeming to realize the weaknesses of her image.)
This guy has no such ability to explain, nor I think does any doctor I have ever met.
(But,it's also true that I've not had excessive commerce with these businessmen in the health business.....((Apology to my Slovak GP; I don't recall that he was so bad as most of what I've seen here.....)////////////
But what I want to write about is the subtle way in which this arrogant fellow manages to disrespect his patients, at the same time promoting an image/ persona of the knowing professional.
////////////////////////
Now I do credit the fellow with, on some level, good intentions, and I am sure that between he and me there is a tremendous cultural gulf. I believe that the pragmatic conventions of his native Spanish must be very different from those of my East- coast accented English. I know no other way to explain how it is that on occasions when I have tried to communicate clearly, his response was silence or the equivalent of a trolley missing a turn. He must maintain a certain superiority which seems to rule out too careful explanation or re- examination of anything he has said. He is rather like a machine which can express some general principles--- good ones, too---- but if you try to understand how a particular judgment was reached, then you get only silence and a blank stare./////////////////////////
Which is all bizarre because the lavish expenditure of time on individual patients is not having the desired effect--- it is not clarifying, but only obfuscating and tiring. ///////////////////
But the man had a rather disturbing conversation with my mother about Vitamin C. His language was subtley condescending, or even disrespectful, and my attempt to help my mother out met with silence--- as if I had not spoken at all. ///////////////
What I did not say, but evidently would have liked to: "Well look, you asshole, if you are giving us extra time to speak, it is only good manners to repond to what we are saying,,,,,"]///////////////////////////
My cynical side says the guy wants to allow patients generous time so as to say something Herr Doktor deems stupid....and that will give him the satisfaction of knowing his patients are idiots.....to be continued.....///////////////////
Why, he asked my mother, have you refused to follow my recommendation that you
take so much Vitamin C? My mother explained that when she drinks water before bedtime---which she would have to do if she were to take the recommended dosage---she wakes up wet....////////////////////////
to which his response was to assert, blandly, that Vitamin C is not a diuretic.//////
Well, my friend, no one ever said it was! But,note well, as he said that fact, he managed to convey the suggestion that my mother was uninformed, confused....//////
thus do the arrogant insult us without using "bad" or taboo words.......
///////Post-script: Friday we visited a rather more cheerful, less overbearing doctor. However, he also kept us waiting two hours before we could see him. It seems to be the local version of a tax.......((Dare I say it? I am going to: When I lived in Slovakia----not the richest country in the EU-----I never had to wait two hours to see a doctor........)
----Well, no, maybe once I did wait--- but I did not have a definite appointment....so, still unlike the USA.......
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Hard work?
Any man who tells me, "I 've worked hard in my life...there were ten and twelve hour days....times when I worked weekends..,,". does not impress or convince me. Nor does he gain my sympathy or respect until I get an answer to a further question, " And did you buy the groceries, do the cooking and washing up? And, when you were working so 'hard' did you do your own laundry? And did you ever care for children or aged relatives while you were working so 'hard'?
And, if the answer is: "I did none of those things.", then I say to this "hard- working" man that he has never worked hard, and doesn't know what hard work is until he works long hours and does his own shopping, and cooking, etc.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
a fallacy of misplaced trust in what one remembers
"Oh, I don't need to read about events during those days. I lived them..."
You did? ---Or is most of what you remember what you saw on TV or read in newspapers?
And if you live in the USA, in all probability your TV and newspapers were full of propaganda...
Recommended Reading:
Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman; After the Cataclysm; Postwar Indochina and The Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology, South End Press: Boston, 1979
You did? ---Or is most of what you remember what you saw on TV or read in newspapers?
And if you live in the USA, in all probability your TV and newspapers were full of propaganda...
Recommended Reading:
Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman; After the Cataclysm; Postwar Indochina and The Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology, South End Press: Boston, 1979
a strange incident at the swimming hole
Sign One: The pool will be closing on Tuesday, X September.
Sign Two: Reconstruction will begin on Wednesday, X+1 September....
Question: When does the pool close on Tuesday?
Suggestion: The intended thought behind Sign One was: The pool will be closed on Tuesday, X September.
I submit that Sign One, as written, is compatible with the following interpretation: The pool will be open normal hours, but once it closes, it won't open until...
Put it differently: the pool will be closing today at 8pm-, and it will be closing again tomorrow at 8pm, but it re-opens tomorrow at 8am.
Anyway, I found Sign One and Two together to be confusing: Why would they tell us that reconstruction starts on Wednesday (not Tuesday) unless that means the pool is open, at least some hours, on Tuesday?
Well, once I asked, I was told: On Tuesday they need to empty the pool.
That's logical enough, but How was I to know without asking?
My questions were answered by two women, jointly, one standing and one sitting. The younger woman sat with her elbows resting on the counter, chewing gum. That body language suggests a very relaxed atmosphere. Fine, but is it really a hardship to answer my questions?
Overall, I would say the message that was communicated to me was: "What!? Are you an idiot? Don't you know how to read? We've got sounds all over the place..."
In other words, my questions were tolerated. I got the feeling that (they thought) I was being a nuisance...
Yeah, but your signs are not so clear...and, anyway, what was it you were doing when I interrupted you? Chewing gum, resting your head on the counter, and staring into space, or watching "reality TV"?
taka drzost!
I am starting to think: ordinary citizens of the USA are so frustrated and powerless that they need to take it out on a person asking an innocent question?
I've experienced such rudeness before. UK citizens seem to think that it is commonplace in what they call "Eastern Europe." Yes, I've met rude, aggressive ladies working in grocery stores, or official offices---people with an amazingly developed skill of regarding you as if you were an insect that needed to be squashed rather than a human being on the same level as them...........But I don't expect that in the USA, especially not at the local swimming hole. Call me naive.
(I don't think things are as bad in Central Europe as Brit's make out; but, then again, I'm not from the UK, and they may have special conventions....)
Sign Two: Reconstruction will begin on Wednesday, X+1 September....
Question: When does the pool close on Tuesday?
Suggestion: The intended thought behind Sign One was: The pool will be closed on Tuesday, X September.
I submit that Sign One, as written, is compatible with the following interpretation: The pool will be open normal hours, but once it closes, it won't open until...
Put it differently: the pool will be closing today at 8pm-, and it will be closing again tomorrow at 8pm, but it re-opens tomorrow at 8am.
Anyway, I found Sign One and Two together to be confusing: Why would they tell us that reconstruction starts on Wednesday (not Tuesday) unless that means the pool is open, at least some hours, on Tuesday?
Well, once I asked, I was told: On Tuesday they need to empty the pool.
That's logical enough, but How was I to know without asking?
My questions were answered by two women, jointly, one standing and one sitting. The younger woman sat with her elbows resting on the counter, chewing gum. That body language suggests a very relaxed atmosphere. Fine, but is it really a hardship to answer my questions?
Overall, I would say the message that was communicated to me was: "What!? Are you an idiot? Don't you know how to read? We've got sounds all over the place..."
In other words, my questions were tolerated. I got the feeling that (they thought) I was being a nuisance...
Yeah, but your signs are not so clear...and, anyway, what was it you were doing when I interrupted you? Chewing gum, resting your head on the counter, and staring into space, or watching "reality TV"?
taka drzost!
I am starting to think: ordinary citizens of the USA are so frustrated and powerless that they need to take it out on a person asking an innocent question?
I've experienced such rudeness before. UK citizens seem to think that it is commonplace in what they call "Eastern Europe." Yes, I've met rude, aggressive ladies working in grocery stores, or official offices---people with an amazingly developed skill of regarding you as if you were an insect that needed to be squashed rather than a human being on the same level as them...........But I don't expect that in the USA, especially not at the local swimming hole. Call me naive.
(I don't think things are as bad in Central Europe as Brit's make out; but, then again, I'm not from the UK, and they may have special conventions....)
too important to miss
too important to miss,
too important not to link to:
How unequal is too unequal?
How unequal is the USA really?
http://leiterreports.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c2e6353ef017c316453d6970b-pi
(Thanks to B. Leiter)
PS
Question for Americans: And, why, really, should twenty percent of the
population control 30 per cent of the wealth? Don't you know they don't get
it all by their individual effort? They do not get what they have because they make a positive contribution. There is generally an inverse relationship between actual contribution and actual wealth. Or, at any rate, the more wealth, the less actual production of anything positive. (Computers are neither positive nor negative; but in the current set-up, they
are mostly negative. Ditto for any bit of so-called progress.)
too important not to link to:
How unequal is too unequal?
How unequal is the USA really?
http://leiterreports.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c2e6353ef017c316453d6970b-pi
(Thanks to B. Leiter)
PS
Question for Americans: And, why, really, should twenty percent of the
population control 30 per cent of the wealth? Don't you know they don't get
it all by their individual effort? They do not get what they have because they make a positive contribution. There is generally an inverse relationship between actual contribution and actual wealth. Or, at any rate, the more wealth, the less actual production of anything positive. (Computers are neither positive nor negative; but in the current set-up, they
are mostly negative. Ditto for any bit of so-called progress.)
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Sisyphus Anyone?
Sisyphus Anyone?
Or,
The Misery of Life in El Paso, Texas. U.S.A.
I just spent an hour pulling weeds in my father's rock garden.
He doesn't like it when I call it a "rock garden". He prefers to speak of "desert landscaping."
Whatever you call it, I think it's bullshit.
What's the point? You live in a desert. So, you want to have green grass like in Scotland?
Or, some fool comes---someone who knows nothing about biology or ecology---and he dumps
a bunch of rocks---of uniform size and color, arranged in pleasing patterns---on top of what? A plastic sheet? Or does he poison the area first?
And then the wind blows seeds. And, increasingly, it rains, and the rain collects in odd places---between the cracks in the cement, or in the corners of the defensive fortification you've placed around your patch of rocks, and in a dozen other places. And all of those places are, from the point of view of evolution, wisely chosen to allow life to continue. ---Life which is at odds with the artificial pattern of your rock garden.
And wherever there is green, there are roots,--- and where are roots, there is water, and so bugs! Hoo-Raaaah! Life in all of its variety!
but, no! That is not appropriate or suitable to our way of living. No. It would ruin the beauty of the landscaping.
And, so you arm yourself with noxious chemicals, and you wage chemical warfare against the life-forms who have existed longer than you have....????
Best of all, as you drive by in your car, you can admire the work, "Oh, they take care of their yard."
Really, is that the point? I don't get it.
Or, after hours of back-breaking work, you take a shower, sit on your porch, drink a beer (which you will promptly throw on the sidewalk or on the neighbor's lawn once you've finished it---hopefully it's glass and will break---that is added pleasure)....and you gaze with pleasure on a job well done.
Hello. Are you kidding me? You call this living? Please, excuse me. This is not for me. Goodbye, I must be leaving.....
Or,
The Misery of Life in El Paso, Texas. U.S.A.
I just spent an hour pulling weeds in my father's rock garden.
He doesn't like it when I call it a "rock garden". He prefers to speak of "desert landscaping."
Whatever you call it, I think it's bullshit.
What's the point? You live in a desert. So, you want to have green grass like in Scotland?
Or, some fool comes---someone who knows nothing about biology or ecology---and he dumps
a bunch of rocks---of uniform size and color, arranged in pleasing patterns---on top of what? A plastic sheet? Or does he poison the area first?
And then the wind blows seeds. And, increasingly, it rains, and the rain collects in odd places---between the cracks in the cement, or in the corners of the defensive fortification you've placed around your patch of rocks, and in a dozen other places. And all of those places are, from the point of view of evolution, wisely chosen to allow life to continue. ---Life which is at odds with the artificial pattern of your rock garden.
And wherever there is green, there are roots,--- and where are roots, there is water, and so bugs! Hoo-Raaaah! Life in all of its variety!
but, no! That is not appropriate or suitable to our way of living. No. It would ruin the beauty of the landscaping.
And, so you arm yourself with noxious chemicals, and you wage chemical warfare against the life-forms who have existed longer than you have....????
Best of all, as you drive by in your car, you can admire the work, "Oh, they take care of their yard."
Really, is that the point? I don't get it.
Or, after hours of back-breaking work, you take a shower, sit on your porch, drink a beer (which you will promptly throw on the sidewalk or on the neighbor's lawn once you've finished it---hopefully it's glass and will break---that is added pleasure)....and you gaze with pleasure on a job well done.
Hello. Are you kidding me? You call this living? Please, excuse me. This is not for me. Goodbye, I must be leaving.....
class warfare and the unpreparedness of USA culture
It is interesting that the checker at the supermarket remarked that "We are modern.."
Thereby implying that what could happen in the Third World could not (would not) happen here.
What was happening in the Third World a couple of years ago was/were food riots---caused by increased food prices, caused by (among other things) financial speculation, the capitalist's desire to increase his capital, no matter who suffers.
I remarked that a small bag of rice I had just purchased now costs $1.20. A couple of years ago
that bag was round $1.00, and the newest increase was large. (I would need to check receipts to be sure of the details, but I'm sure there's been a grotesque increase.)
I remarked that whether this is the "Third World" or not doesn't matter. When food prices can increase so much so quickly, I personally am frightened.
And his response: "I am going to stock up on firearms."
Well, if he does, it won't solve the problem. As Richard D. Wolff, the economist, is fond of pointing out, you cannot solve a social problem by individual action.
But, the irony is this: what that guy called the "modernity" of the USA is in fact part of the problem.
People in the USA have been trained up by a culture of individual effort, which has not yet reached all parts of the world. (Thankfully!) So, the very thing that makes the USA "modern" and unlike the Third World makes the guy less likely to reach for a real solution, more likely to rely on individual actions----and insane ones at that. Does he really imagine he'll be robbing grocery stores?
Link to Richard D. Wolff's website:
http://rdwolff.com/
Thereby implying that what could happen in the Third World could not (would not) happen here.
What was happening in the Third World a couple of years ago was/were food riots---caused by increased food prices, caused by (among other things) financial speculation, the capitalist's desire to increase his capital, no matter who suffers.
I remarked that a small bag of rice I had just purchased now costs $1.20. A couple of years ago
that bag was round $1.00, and the newest increase was large. (I would need to check receipts to be sure of the details, but I'm sure there's been a grotesque increase.)
I remarked that whether this is the "Third World" or not doesn't matter. When food prices can increase so much so quickly, I personally am frightened.
And his response: "I am going to stock up on firearms."
Well, if he does, it won't solve the problem. As Richard D. Wolff, the economist, is fond of pointing out, you cannot solve a social problem by individual action.
But, the irony is this: what that guy called the "modernity" of the USA is in fact part of the problem.
People in the USA have been trained up by a culture of individual effort, which has not yet reached all parts of the world. (Thankfully!) So, the very thing that makes the USA "modern" and unlike the Third World makes the guy less likely to reach for a real solution, more likely to rely on individual actions----and insane ones at that. Does he really imagine he'll be robbing grocery stores?
Link to Richard D. Wolff's website:
http://rdwolff.com/
Thursday, August 16, 2012
scripted conversation
This is partially a follow-up to yesterday's remarks.
In a word, the problem with the US Postal Service is that whenever I go to one of their
branches, I have a wretched, unnatural scripted conversation!
IT is as if the words that come out of the mouth of the worker had been written in advance
by someone else.
So, talking to flesh-and-blood people becomes more and more like talking to a computer program.
It is disgusting.
Moreover, it is an indication of the way the USPostal Service is run: top-down, and undemocratic.
Nor is Albertson's any different: There are always two annoying features of the conversation:
the prod to purchase more and the ridiculous claim that I saved X dollars! (A clear absurdity
when prices continue to go up, while income does not.....) In other words, the conversation is
actually insulting.
What a great country!
In a word, the problem with the US Postal Service is that whenever I go to one of their
branches, I have a wretched, unnatural scripted conversation!
IT is as if the words that come out of the mouth of the worker had been written in advance
by someone else.
So, talking to flesh-and-blood people becomes more and more like talking to a computer program.
It is disgusting.
Moreover, it is an indication of the way the USPostal Service is run: top-down, and undemocratic.
Nor is Albertson's any different: There are always two annoying features of the conversation:
the prod to purchase more and the ridiculous claim that I saved X dollars! (A clear absurdity
when prices continue to go up, while income does not.....) In other words, the conversation is
actually insulting.
What a great country!
USPS and El Paso assholes
Assholes Part One
Whoever runs the USPS is clueless.
It is disgusting how they imitate UPS.
Moreover, the phony friendliness and the loathsome questions designed to increase spending make me want to throw up?
Really, it is idiotic.
Two days ago they tried to deliver a package when we were asleep. They left behind a slip,
and there is a web-based service to schedule re-delivery.
But guess what? The asshole who left the paper could not be bothered to write LEGIBLY.
I cannot tell what the hell the number is that identifies the "article". I can't tell whether it's letters or numbers. Is that a "C" or a "6"? ora a "G"? or an "E"??
So, I cannot schedule re-delivery online....
Asshole!
The Postal Service should be nationalized. It should NOT be run as a "for profit" business.
It should be a public service----either free or very cheap..... And the employees should stop
trying to engage in this bizarre sort of pseudo-friendliness that seems to be the most popular
civic disease in the USA....
Assholes, Part Two
But El Paso is full of assholes, like the jerks who left two beer bottles on the sidewalk in front
of my parents' house. Today the bottles are broken.
assholes!
I like beer myself, but I do not understand the peculiar fascination among El Pasoans for
leaving beer bottles in someone else's yard. Neither do I understand the obsession with breaking
beer bottles.
What part of one's brain is removed when you live in this city?
(The USA is simply not a nice place to live.....and El Paso is one of the worst places in this bad country....)
Whoever runs the USPS is clueless.
It is disgusting how they imitate UPS.
Moreover, the phony friendliness and the loathsome questions designed to increase spending make me want to throw up?
Really, it is idiotic.
Two days ago they tried to deliver a package when we were asleep. They left behind a slip,
and there is a web-based service to schedule re-delivery.
But guess what? The asshole who left the paper could not be bothered to write LEGIBLY.
I cannot tell what the hell the number is that identifies the "article". I can't tell whether it's letters or numbers. Is that a "C" or a "6"? ora a "G"? or an "E"??
So, I cannot schedule re-delivery online....
Asshole!
The Postal Service should be nationalized. It should NOT be run as a "for profit" business.
It should be a public service----either free or very cheap..... And the employees should stop
trying to engage in this bizarre sort of pseudo-friendliness that seems to be the most popular
civic disease in the USA....
Assholes, Part Two
But El Paso is full of assholes, like the jerks who left two beer bottles on the sidewalk in front
of my parents' house. Today the bottles are broken.
assholes!
I like beer myself, but I do not understand the peculiar fascination among El Pasoans for
leaving beer bottles in someone else's yard. Neither do I understand the obsession with breaking
beer bottles.
What part of one's brain is removed when you live in this city?
(The USA is simply not a nice place to live.....and El Paso is one of the worst places in this bad country....)
Saturday, August 11, 2012
mundane austerity
My mother would like to have a functioning watch--for obvious reasons.
She owns two watches. One has a broken band. The other needs a new battery.
On the borders of this page you can see pictures of what used to be the nearest shopping center. When i was a mere boy, it was relatively busy, and my mother would shop there regularly. Then the stores all moved away. Today the nearest grocery store is nearly two miles away. It would probably not be healthy to walk there when the sun was shining.
The buildings in the pictures have now been demolished---to make way for what? Not progress, I am sure....
My mother suggested that I might be able to replace the battery at the nearby X-Mart (what is the generic name for these stores? In Central Europe, it was UK-originated "Tesco".....).......I actually recall that not so many years ago, she had been able to go there to have some kind of service done on her wrist-watch.
When I entered the store, I ignored the officially-FRIENDLY-greeter----a man who had disturbed me two years ago when I attempted to enter with a bag on my back------and proceeded to the jewelry counter. There a woman seemed to be engaged in friendly informal social chatter with two acquaintances who were visiting her there.
I asked the woman for help.
She was kind enough, friendly enough to suggest that I could find batteries "over there", and she
gestured.
I more or less repeated my mother's suggestion----that they would be able to help me, etc.
Ahh, but they no longer do that. She explained that she did not even have the tools needed to open
the back of the watch....And when I looked "over there", there were no watch batteries. At any rate, I didn't see them, and without opening the watch, I certainly could not be sure of the right size.
X-Mart is only five minutes by car from my parents' house. The alternative suggestion was to drive fifteen or twenty minutes to a very congested part of El Paso where a well-known jeweler (in business for many years) had his business. Alas, after investigation on the Internet, I learned that he had died two years ago, and, it would seem that his business ceased with his death.
What then? My mother would like to have a functioning watch. It seems that I must drive approximately 15 miles to the other side of town.....
Well, that's annoying. It's also crazy given the fact of climate change.
There are many lessons to draw from this little story. First, the facts about capitalism: a store can make more money selling watches than selling watch batteries. And, after all, the capitalist wants----above all----to increase his capital, and only secondarily to provide what people need.
But, this example is typical of the degeneration and destruction wrought in ordinary lives by the economic system. My parents had an easier time of it when they were younger----not merely because they were younger, but because their neighborhood is increasingly bereft of necessary services.
After all, if you simply want to buy a battery for your watch, you are not asking for a luxury item!
What of the broken watch band? Here, too, we see what it means to live in a capitalist society. There is a store where my mother has twice purchased watch bands. But each time the band has quickly broken. So, once again, to get something better, I must travel by car-----wearing out the car, destroying my nerves, wasting my time, and contributing to climate change.
I often recall the clear intention of the "communists" who used to run Bratislava. There was at least some idea that each neighborhood should be, more-or-less, self-sufficient, with pharmacies, grocery stores, and a cultural center. Why not have nurses resident in your neighborhood, instead of torturing them with hours spent driving from one side of the town to the other? Why not have a convenient local grocery store?----within walkable distance? Why not have nurses make regular visits to the homes of the elderly----say every two or three hours? (As is the case in the Netherlands.....) And imagine if that visiting nurse actually lived in your neighborhood......As opposed to the current situation: A nurse must drive her car and visit X patients as if she were working in a factory........(And she will inevitably be risking her life on the so-called "freeway"......)
But all that is too much to ask of the world's greatest purveyor of destruction and cultural immiseration! (Do I exaggerate? Is there really no alternative? There are differences in other countries. The USA way of thinking and living is really not yet universal.)
She owns two watches. One has a broken band. The other needs a new battery.
On the borders of this page you can see pictures of what used to be the nearest shopping center. When i was a mere boy, it was relatively busy, and my mother would shop there regularly. Then the stores all moved away. Today the nearest grocery store is nearly two miles away. It would probably not be healthy to walk there when the sun was shining.
The buildings in the pictures have now been demolished---to make way for what? Not progress, I am sure....
My mother suggested that I might be able to replace the battery at the nearby X-Mart (what is the generic name for these stores? In Central Europe, it was UK-originated "Tesco".....).......I actually recall that not so many years ago, she had been able to go there to have some kind of service done on her wrist-watch.
When I entered the store, I ignored the officially-FRIENDLY-greeter----a man who had disturbed me two years ago when I attempted to enter with a bag on my back------and proceeded to the jewelry counter. There a woman seemed to be engaged in friendly informal social chatter with two acquaintances who were visiting her there.
I asked the woman for help.
She was kind enough, friendly enough to suggest that I could find batteries "over there", and she
gestured.
I more or less repeated my mother's suggestion----that they would be able to help me, etc.
Ahh, but they no longer do that. She explained that she did not even have the tools needed to open
the back of the watch....And when I looked "over there", there were no watch batteries. At any rate, I didn't see them, and without opening the watch, I certainly could not be sure of the right size.
X-Mart is only five minutes by car from my parents' house. The alternative suggestion was to drive fifteen or twenty minutes to a very congested part of El Paso where a well-known jeweler (in business for many years) had his business. Alas, after investigation on the Internet, I learned that he had died two years ago, and, it would seem that his business ceased with his death.
What then? My mother would like to have a functioning watch. It seems that I must drive approximately 15 miles to the other side of town.....
Well, that's annoying. It's also crazy given the fact of climate change.
There are many lessons to draw from this little story. First, the facts about capitalism: a store can make more money selling watches than selling watch batteries. And, after all, the capitalist wants----above all----to increase his capital, and only secondarily to provide what people need.
But, this example is typical of the degeneration and destruction wrought in ordinary lives by the economic system. My parents had an easier time of it when they were younger----not merely because they were younger, but because their neighborhood is increasingly bereft of necessary services.
After all, if you simply want to buy a battery for your watch, you are not asking for a luxury item!
What of the broken watch band? Here, too, we see what it means to live in a capitalist society. There is a store where my mother has twice purchased watch bands. But each time the band has quickly broken. So, once again, to get something better, I must travel by car-----wearing out the car, destroying my nerves, wasting my time, and contributing to climate change.
I often recall the clear intention of the "communists" who used to run Bratislava. There was at least some idea that each neighborhood should be, more-or-less, self-sufficient, with pharmacies, grocery stores, and a cultural center. Why not have nurses resident in your neighborhood, instead of torturing them with hours spent driving from one side of the town to the other? Why not have a convenient local grocery store?----within walkable distance? Why not have nurses make regular visits to the homes of the elderly----say every two or three hours? (As is the case in the Netherlands.....) And imagine if that visiting nurse actually lived in your neighborhood......As opposed to the current situation: A nurse must drive her car and visit X patients as if she were working in a factory........(And she will inevitably be risking her life on the so-called "freeway"......)
But all that is too much to ask of the world's greatest purveyor of destruction and cultural immiseration! (Do I exaggerate? Is there really no alternative? There are differences in other countries. The USA way of thinking and living is really not yet universal.)
Friday, August 10, 2012
in progress; to be revised
The Grouch Reads....badly....
Ostensibly, as an undergraduate during the time of so-called "Communism", I studied Czech. However, resources were not so ample as they are today....
So, today when I pick up a book treating Czech authors (ranging from classics such as Erben and Nemcova to more contemporary authors and films) from the viewpoint of gender studies, then there's much for me to learn just from a historical perspective...... and I have learned from the book in question.
Nonetheless, I confess I'm not wholly taken by the method of "gender studies". On the one hand, it's very valuable and insightful to think about Bozena Nemcova as a sort of "feminist", as someone who knew an unhappy marriage, and struggled to support a family with her writing. And, it's important to learn that she was not well-received on account of her failure to conform.
On the other, there tends to be a lack of serious theory, and much obtrusive use of unexplained quasi-technical terms. (Examples to appear in the next draft.)
However, I can't excuse the sloppiness when it comes to talk about Plato and what is
"Platonic".
Details to follow, but for now I will just say: What's called "Platonic" in the book is not what Plato believed. Alternatively, Plato himself was not "Platonic" ---as the term is used by the author.
The most egregious error, philosophically speaking, is to suggest that Plato might have believed that individuals (like you, me, or Socrates) have "essences"----whether they be "socially constructed" or independent of society/biological, doesn't matter....
Plato's thought was that individuals in space-time have borrowed identity, owing to their relationship to unchanging abstract objects..... the so-called "Forms".
One need not worry to much about what a Form is to say that, in any case, individuals like that beautiful boy/girl do not have stable identities. This is very clear in, e.g., the "Symposium"; but there are also relevant thoughts in the "Republic" and "Timaeus".....
I was wondering whether the author had ever bothered to read Plato's "Symposium"......
Of course, Plato was (in some sense) gay or a "homosexual". However, there needs to be a principle of putting his texts first if we are to be fair to him.
There are exegetical issues here, but I'll hazard a brief remark. The book I was reading refers in passing to Platonic love of a young boy. But, whether or not Plato was attracted to young men, what he actually says, the argument he gives, is that if one admires beautiful bodies, then any beautiful body is equally worthy of love, and he suggests that "the beautiful itself' doesn't change in the way that a particular person does. Now, it is a vexed question what exactly this "beautiful itself" comes to, but
it is very clearly not a specific flesh-and-blood human being.
Again, there are questions raised by saying that. Does Plato mean we should love an abstract object? I don't see why it should. There's a metaphysical point, made by Terry Penner in his writings, that Plato is rejecting nominalism. And, there's the further point that the nature of love can't be understood unless one brings reference to the "beautiful itself" into one's account. Many questions should be occurring to any alert reader, and I'm not going to try to deal with them. However, I am presupposing that there is a notion of "ontological commitment", and that metaphysical questions are legitimate. I should give further argument, and perhaps if I return to this entry (as promised) I will find more to say. But, for now, I must stop with an apology, and the admission that I realize more should be said.
Reading last night, I got the idea that this very basic principle of historical scholarship had been violated.
(Why do I say "in some sense"? Well, I think these things are more complicated than the usual language allows. I have in mind the complexities introduced by , e.g., Lisa M. Diamond in her "What Does Sexual Orientation Orient?" (link below)
http://www.psych.utah.edu/people/people/diamond/Publications/What%20does%20Sexual%20Orientation%20Orient.pdf
A Gripe:
The dogma (not explained or defended in this book) is that sexual orientation/identity is socially constructed. I am unhappy with the lack of explanation of the term "construction" or "socially constructed". Their meaning is not obvious.
The psychologist Paul Bloom once gave a nice example to show that socially constituted does not mean flexible. (And biological does not mean fixed.) I've only been able to recall half of his example, but it will do for our purposes. One's attitude toward obesity and how one connects it to beauty is a matter of one's upbringing and society. We know this because different societies have different ideas. But it is hard to change. So, socially constructed does not mean changeable.
I assume here that half the interest in saying gender is constructed by society is because proponents of the view are interested in change.
There is, however, another possibility. Maybe there are real differences that we don't understand which might help us decide what jobs people can happily and effectively do, but we just don't know enough to specify them. Nothing here is constructed or conventional, but everything we do is done with very partial knowledge and very great ignorance.
Ostensibly, as an undergraduate during the time of so-called "Communism", I studied Czech. However, resources were not so ample as they are today....
So, today when I pick up a book treating Czech authors (ranging from classics such as Erben and Nemcova to more contemporary authors and films) from the viewpoint of gender studies, then there's much for me to learn just from a historical perspective...... and I have learned from the book in question.
Nonetheless, I confess I'm not wholly taken by the method of "gender studies". On the one hand, it's very valuable and insightful to think about Bozena Nemcova as a sort of "feminist", as someone who knew an unhappy marriage, and struggled to support a family with her writing. And, it's important to learn that she was not well-received on account of her failure to conform.
On the other, there tends to be a lack of serious theory, and much obtrusive use of unexplained quasi-technical terms. (Examples to appear in the next draft.)
However, I can't excuse the sloppiness when it comes to talk about Plato and what is
"Platonic".
Details to follow, but for now I will just say: What's called "Platonic" in the book is not what Plato believed. Alternatively, Plato himself was not "Platonic" ---as the term is used by the author.
The most egregious error, philosophically speaking, is to suggest that Plato might have believed that individuals (like you, me, or Socrates) have "essences"----whether they be "socially constructed" or independent of society/biological, doesn't matter....
Plato's thought was that individuals in space-time have borrowed identity, owing to their relationship to unchanging abstract objects..... the so-called "Forms".
One need not worry to much about what a Form is to say that, in any case, individuals like that beautiful boy/girl do not have stable identities. This is very clear in, e.g., the "Symposium"; but there are also relevant thoughts in the "Republic" and "Timaeus".....
I was wondering whether the author had ever bothered to read Plato's "Symposium"......
Of course, Plato was (in some sense) gay or a "homosexual". However, there needs to be a principle of putting his texts first if we are to be fair to him.
There are exegetical issues here, but I'll hazard a brief remark. The book I was reading refers in passing to Platonic love of a young boy. But, whether or not Plato was attracted to young men, what he actually says, the argument he gives, is that if one admires beautiful bodies, then any beautiful body is equally worthy of love, and he suggests that "the beautiful itself' doesn't change in the way that a particular person does. Now, it is a vexed question what exactly this "beautiful itself" comes to, but
it is very clearly not a specific flesh-and-blood human being.
Again, there are questions raised by saying that. Does Plato mean we should love an abstract object? I don't see why it should. There's a metaphysical point, made by Terry Penner in his writings, that Plato is rejecting nominalism. And, there's the further point that the nature of love can't be understood unless one brings reference to the "beautiful itself" into one's account. Many questions should be occurring to any alert reader, and I'm not going to try to deal with them. However, I am presupposing that there is a notion of "ontological commitment", and that metaphysical questions are legitimate. I should give further argument, and perhaps if I return to this entry (as promised) I will find more to say. But, for now, I must stop with an apology, and the admission that I realize more should be said.
Reading last night, I got the idea that this very basic principle of historical scholarship had been violated.
(Why do I say "in some sense"? Well, I think these things are more complicated than the usual language allows. I have in mind the complexities introduced by , e.g., Lisa M. Diamond in her "What Does Sexual Orientation Orient?" (link below)
http://www.psych.utah.edu/people/people/diamond/Publications/What%20does%20Sexual%20Orientation%20Orient.pdf
A Gripe:
The dogma (not explained or defended in this book) is that sexual orientation/identity is socially constructed. I am unhappy with the lack of explanation of the term "construction" or "socially constructed". Their meaning is not obvious.
The psychologist Paul Bloom once gave a nice example to show that socially constituted does not mean flexible. (And biological does not mean fixed.) I've only been able to recall half of his example, but it will do for our purposes. One's attitude toward obesity and how one connects it to beauty is a matter of one's upbringing and society. We know this because different societies have different ideas. But it is hard to change. So, socially constructed does not mean changeable.
I assume here that half the interest in saying gender is constructed by society is because proponents of the view are interested in change.
There is, however, another possibility. Maybe there are real differences that we don't understand which might help us decide what jobs people can happily and effectively do, but we just don't know enough to specify them. Nothing here is constructed or conventional, but everything we do is done with very partial knowledge and very great ignorance.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
violence in the USA
intelligent commentary from Harriet Fraad and Richard D. Wolff:
http://rdwolff.com/content/colorado-killings-psychology-and-economics-podcast
http://rdwolff.com/content/colorado-killings-psychology-and-economics-podcast
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
misery in the USA....
Now, at the end of her life, my mother is faced with doubts and insecurities which are new.
That, in itself, is grounds to indict the USA for cruelty and lack of basic humanity.
Old age, in and of itself, is cruel and crushing. To be faced simultaneously with fear, and
the threat that no one will help is unforgivable, uncivilized.
What Medicare provides is inadequate, and it is delivered in an insulting manner.
My mother is supposed to be getting help with the medicines she manages ---between eight and ten for herself, and a similar number for my father. Yet, she remarks, every time a nurse has come to
help, the result has been that she (the nurse) has created a mess---disorder in my mother's system---and my mother has had extra work....
She didn't want to complain, and she wasn't angry, but she did say the nurses screwed it up every time.
Not to mention the insulting, bossy manner of the nurse "supervisors". Not to mention that strong perfume is not pleasant to breathe in. And, I'd even say that it's distracting when a bossy nurse is chewing gum on top of all that.... A stranger comes into your house, behaves in a demanding manner, but chews gum? Sorry, isn't chewing gum causal? Isn't it something people do to relax, when they are not working? To come into a home---a stranger's home----to meet people you've never met before, and boss them around, and all the while you are chewing gum? (I am going to boss you around, and make idiotic suggestions, ask ridiculous questions, all the while with an air of superiority-----and at the same time I'm going to chew gum???!!! Jezis Maria! That's behavior worthy of the secret police in communism......)
The behavior I've just described manifests zero self-awareness, zero consideration for the people you are supposedly helping...
So, the help provided by Medicare is total crap----with the exception that one very decent man gives my father a shower. And that man is paid considerably less than the bossy nurses.
So, there's not much to be happy about in this miserable country----a country capable of racist killing at home and imperial wars abroad, but a country which shits on its elderly......
I keep remembering something the economist John Quiggin said recently at the blog, "Crooked Timber":
Speaking from Australian experience (both personal acquaintance, and the disappearance of aged poverty as a political issue) , it’s possible to live in reasonable comfort on the Age Pension (28 per cent of Average Male Weekly Earnings), given decent health care, rental assistance for non-homeowners and some ancillary benefits. Most of the old people I know are reasonably happy campers, at least as far as income is concerned, and many have little or nothing beyond the pension.
comment 31 ; 08.06.2012
commenting on: Guaranteed minimum income: how much would it cost? (updated)
by JOHN QUIGGIN on AUGUST 5, 2012
http://crookedtimber.org/2012/08/05/universal-basic-income-how-much-would-it-cost/#more-25394
Australia must be a very diffent place than the USA!
That, in itself, is grounds to indict the USA for cruelty and lack of basic humanity.
Old age, in and of itself, is cruel and crushing. To be faced simultaneously with fear, and
the threat that no one will help is unforgivable, uncivilized.
What Medicare provides is inadequate, and it is delivered in an insulting manner.
My mother is supposed to be getting help with the medicines she manages ---between eight and ten for herself, and a similar number for my father. Yet, she remarks, every time a nurse has come to
help, the result has been that she (the nurse) has created a mess---disorder in my mother's system---and my mother has had extra work....
She didn't want to complain, and she wasn't angry, but she did say the nurses screwed it up every time.
Not to mention the insulting, bossy manner of the nurse "supervisors". Not to mention that strong perfume is not pleasant to breathe in. And, I'd even say that it's distracting when a bossy nurse is chewing gum on top of all that.... A stranger comes into your house, behaves in a demanding manner, but chews gum? Sorry, isn't chewing gum causal? Isn't it something people do to relax, when they are not working? To come into a home---a stranger's home----to meet people you've never met before, and boss them around, and all the while you are chewing gum? (I am going to boss you around, and make idiotic suggestions, ask ridiculous questions, all the while with an air of superiority-----and at the same time I'm going to chew gum???!!! Jezis Maria! That's behavior worthy of the secret police in communism......)
The behavior I've just described manifests zero self-awareness, zero consideration for the people you are supposedly helping...
So, the help provided by Medicare is total crap----with the exception that one very decent man gives my father a shower. And that man is paid considerably less than the bossy nurses.
So, there's not much to be happy about in this miserable country----a country capable of racist killing at home and imperial wars abroad, but a country which shits on its elderly......
I keep remembering something the economist John Quiggin said recently at the blog, "Crooked Timber":
Speaking from Australian experience (both personal acquaintance, and the disappearance of aged poverty as a political issue) , it’s possible to live in reasonable comfort on the Age Pension (28 per cent of Average Male Weekly Earnings), given decent health care, rental assistance for non-homeowners and some ancillary benefits. Most of the old people I know are reasonably happy campers, at least as far as income is concerned, and many have little or nothing beyond the pension.
comment 31 ; 08.06.2012
commenting on: Guaranteed minimum income: how much would it cost? (updated)
by JOHN QUIGGIN on AUGUST 5, 2012
http://crookedtimber.org/2012/08/05/universal-basic-income-how-much-would-it-cost/#more-25394
Australia must be a very diffent place than the USA!
Friday, August 3, 2012
An Ancient Slander
It is, of course an ancient slander----as old, at least, as Thales---to say that philosophers are impractical. In my sister's case, she would like to use this slander to censor me.
However, her attempt at slander is unsurprising and unoriginal. (Moreover, given the ancient history of this canard, it would come easy to any Greek; so it's hardly clever.)
The truth, however, is more complicated.
Some philosophers (Philosophy Ph.D.s, Philosophy Professors) are practical; some are not. Some enjoy fixing things. Some have studied physics and engineering. Others are more oriented toward the arts.
I am unaware of any evidence that Philosophy Professors or Philosophy Ph.D.s are, on average, less able to cope with the practicalities of daily living than any other profession.
Nonetheless, I freely confess that I wish to have no part of the stereotypical middle class USA suburban lifestyle. I object to it on cultural, aesthetic, and environmental grounds. Cars involve a multitude of evils---most prominently they contribute to global warming. Less prominently, they contribute to a particularly noxious form of individualism, and they operate as a sort of tax on the middle class and poor. (As I have written before, I regard driving as unpaid work. How clever of employers to shift the cost of the daily commute onto workers!)
Indeed, never having lived in a place where air conditioning was standard, the thing is largely a mystery to me. But, I am capable of learning something new.
At any rate, to the extent it is true to say (true but not very accurate or precise) that I am impractical
because I haven't lived a certain life-style---viz., the lifestyle of a citizen of the USA with excessive reliance on technology, and a kind of mindless fascination and dedication to the newest or latest whatever-----I am not especially skilled in negotiating in that social space.
The funny thing is that my unfamiliarity with the USA-style technology-infested style of living should, in fact, count against my candidacy as the sole care-giver for my parents.
Otherwise put, my sisters erred when they decided (without consulting me) to appoint me the care-giver for my elderly parents.
And, so, now, when I hear the complaint that I am not "practical", there is great irony in that. Once again, it is another route to the conclusion that their decision about my life was
a bad one. The complaint actually is a sort of confession of error----or, would be if the complainer were a bit more honest.
Of course, I don't think I am impractical. I can perfectly well deal with the practicalities of life in Europe. And, I would prefer to deal with those practicalities than the impositions of the USA-lifestyle. But my sisters certainly don't want to hear me say that, and probably wouldn't understand it in any case. (As limited as my conversations with them have been, I have learned that they find it difficult to imagine that any way of life other than their own is legitimate. They are quick to make a sort of tacit inference: different, ergo inferior.) The notion that I dare to choose a life different from their own (not to mention my negative evaluation of the USA) is repugnant to them.
After-Thoughts/Note (corrected 8 August 2012)
Where did I get the idea that people from the USA have a peculiar and dysfunctional attitude toward technology? I think I first noticed this when working in a USA-based International School in Bratislava. I was very surprised by the opinions of the teachers from the USA. They were strongly of the opinion that it was necessary to have the very latest technology. They never quite explained to me the basis of their opinion. But, my experience as a teacher has led me to think that learning to read and write and think has very little to do with technology. It certainly does not require the latest technology. And, I've seen no evidence that schools with better (or newer) technology have, on account of it, more literate or thoughtful students.
More recently, I have heard similar sentiments expressed in the contexts of discussions about the local schools. I haven't heard it said very often that when Company X gives a school "free" computers, Company X is thereby only looking out for its own interests.
It is also worth pointing out that on account of the existing wealth inequality and the fact of its increasing, people (especially in the USA) are more-and-more status conscious. Parents concerned about the well-being of their children can naturally worry about whether a school has the "latest".
If so, they are misguided insofar as the don't ask about more basic educational issues.
I want to add that the sociologist Michael Dawson has remarked at his blog ("The Consumer Trap") that people in the USA are especially sensitive to status and attempt to achieve some kind of satisfaction through the display of status-markers. As I recall, he seemed to think that this is due to the loneliness of USA society, the prominence of social isolation. (Contrast the inevitable mixing of people in public transport, where (as Sartre once said) we can think of ourselves as "we", traveling together with a common goal.) The claim that people in the USA are socially isolated is, of course, controversial, but sociologists have been making it since the time when I was an undergraduate. And I am certainly convinced of its truth. (Incidentally, if Dawson's view sounds interesting, don't rely on my summary, check out his blog: http://www.consumertrap.com/
Of course, this subject could get complicated. However, I believe that I've managed to give the reader some indication of the source of my views and my evidence.
Three Years in Hell
I hate the discrete, isolable quality of the noises in this house:
Coffee poured into a cup,
a cough,
a door opening.
Each noise is a sharp, piercing blow, a knife-slash.
My mind is torn to shreds,
suffocated.
My powers of concentration are sapped by the noises,
exhausted by them.
They kill me.
They are the opposite of white noise.
and I am trapped in this house......
Every word I speak drowns me,
as surely as if you stood on my head,
while I sunk beneath the waves.
Every word I hear destroys me,
until there is no me left.
Words rip apart my flesh,
tear apart my brain,
like hungry dogs.
And the pseudo-scientist therapist who knows nothing of cures,
arrogantly warns that talk of suicide is a thing to be treated,
supposing that is that I've got the funds or the insurance,
supposing that is in that arrogant way of the sophist,
supposing that is in that dogmatic and cunning way of a servant of the king.
You idiot pretender!
I cannot kill my self when my self has already been ripped to pieces by vicious hounds!
And friends who know nothing of the demands of writing advise:
"Write! Write!"
While the knife-words drip with the blood of what used to be my thoughts,
and my self.
One sentence never formed whole before the slashing starts.
Coffee poured into a cup,
a cough,
a door opening.
Each noise is a sharp, piercing blow, a knife-slash.
My mind is torn to shreds,
suffocated.
My powers of concentration are sapped by the noises,
exhausted by them.
They kill me.
They are the opposite of white noise.
and I am trapped in this house......
Every word I speak drowns me,
as surely as if you stood on my head,
while I sunk beneath the waves.
Every word I hear destroys me,
until there is no me left.
Words rip apart my flesh,
tear apart my brain,
like hungry dogs.
And the pseudo-scientist therapist who knows nothing of cures,
arrogantly warns that talk of suicide is a thing to be treated,
supposing that is that I've got the funds or the insurance,
supposing that is in that arrogant way of the sophist,
supposing that is in that dogmatic and cunning way of a servant of the king.
You idiot pretender!
I cannot kill my self when my self has already been ripped to pieces by vicious hounds!
And friends who know nothing of the demands of writing advise:
"Write! Write!"
While the knife-words drip with the blood of what used to be my thoughts,
and my self.
One sentence never formed whole before the slashing starts.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Meaning Unfolds
One of the saddest things I've ever heard was something my father said. His words linger and resonate with shades of meaning, implications.
Their content is overwhelming. I find it hard to get my mind around the meaning. It is bigger than me. Yet, it is powerful, strong, demands that I hear it and somehow respect it.
His words?
"Bananas....I can't eat bananas any more...."
He was not exactly sad, but he was not enthusiastic as he said this. He accepted it. Perhaps that's it: he was resigned.
And I felt sad.
A botched "routine" operation had resulted in damage to my father's kidneys. When? Five or six or more years ago......Human error with a human cost.
Those words were sad as well because they stand part-for-whole representing the story of aging, decline, the gradual acceptance of death itself.
Their content is overwhelming. I find it hard to get my mind around the meaning. It is bigger than me. Yet, it is powerful, strong, demands that I hear it and somehow respect it.
His words?
"Bananas....I can't eat bananas any more...."
He was not exactly sad, but he was not enthusiastic as he said this. He accepted it. Perhaps that's it: he was resigned.
And I felt sad.
A botched "routine" operation had resulted in damage to my father's kidneys. When? Five or six or more years ago......Human error with a human cost.
Those words were sad as well because they stand part-for-whole representing the story of aging, decline, the gradual acceptance of death itself.
The Cruel Authoritarian Nature of Visiting Nurses and Medicare
I am sure that if I had three months of free time, plus access to a research library, I could write a short, but detailed, essay on the ways in which my interchange yesterday with a visiting nurse was unnatural and undemocratic. I am sure that it must have been a perverse conversational exchange in at least a dozen ways.
In effect, the authoritarian, hierarchical nature of the workplace was imported into my home. (Essentially, this is my parent's home; but I live here too, and I am their son, so it is my home too.)
The nurse complained at one point that I had "invaded"her personal space because I attempted to speed up a conversation by taking her (work-supplied I assume) cell phone into my hand.
That remark was disturbing because I had no evil intent. My action was mis-represented by her as something it was not.
(And this was much akin to her tendency to complain about me to her Supervisor because I had dared to complain that her visit---and other visits like hers---- was /were interfering with my life. In other words, I was being censored. She was trying to shut me up.)
Visiting Supervisory Nurses Appear to be Machines, Drones, lacking Reason and Emotion
But even as merely a human being (and not a "nurse") she could spare me a few minutes of her time to hear me out. That is all it would have taken. And, indeed, a nurse in the true sense should be capable of such minimal human compassion and sympathy. This point illustrates perfectly how so-called nurses mostly exhibit the qualities of machines, drones, lacking in intelligence and emotion.
I am well aware of the pseudo-objective, pretend-clinical nature of the language she used. However, I would remind the reader that Paul Ekman (in his dialogues with the Dali Lama) once commented that his anger at injustice was often confused with a desire to be violent. They are distinct things. And, so too, in my own case, a desire to speed up the conversation was not an attempt to cause injury.
In alternative language, I am protesting that the Visting Nurse mis-read my face and my body language. There has been in the scholarly literature (above all Ekman and his followers) an excessive tendency to suppose that facial expression are univocal. Corrections to this can be found, e.g., in the work of Aneta Pavlenko, or James Russell.
(Russell makes a point connected to mine above (parallel to Ekman's point) in his "Emotions are not Modules", page 59 where he puts the point pithily by saying one can have "anger without fight".)
https://www2.bc.edu/james-russell/
Entering my home, this woman wanted certain unspoken and unwritten rules to be followed. This became clear as the visit continued. My job was to be passive, to shut up and let her decide how the conversation would proceed. And, of course, the high point of the conversation (or the low point) was when she became bossy, issuing orders, and suggesting how I might engage in minor carpentry to improve my parents' home.......(Clearly, the fact that the "successful" (from the Supervisory Nurses's point of view) conversation led to her dominance was already in the cards from the moment she entered the door. I have seen it before---Every god damn time a so-called Nurse performing supervisory functions enters our home! And yes I am angry because it is insulting.--EVERY TIME!
In colloquial English that presumption is called "fascism". A more elegant or neutral expression might be "top down determination of conversational content".
No deviations from the Medicare-decided questions was allowed. (But where and when am I allowed to complain about the idiocy of those questions? OR: The intrusive manner in which they are introduced at too-frequent intervals into the peace and harmony of my home????)
And I do protest and object to the abandonment of democracy and free speech which occurs every time a visiting nurse pleads: I don't make up the questions. , OR: I am just following orders., OR: it is what the "government" wants.....All said with the resignation one might have previously heard behind the words, "The KING wants it..."
Moral of the story: To accept help from Medicare means becoming a slave to such idiotic and intrusive interrogation at regular intervals. To accept help from Medicare means you become a slave to drudges and invisible bureaucrats who claim to know better than you do what is good for you.
It is insulting and authoritarian----fascist in a colloquial sense.
Oh, how I rue the day that I first met one of these visiting phantoms in human form.....
And by the way, what was at stake in this disruptive visit----apart from its disruptive effects?
Actually, we had plans for my mother to get a new pair of glasses. And her friend who works at the store won't be available tomorrow. So, the cost of the visit is my mother's comfort, as well as my own. You see, the visit was preceded by a phone call thirty minutes in advance.........I might have insisted they postpone the visit, but,in fact, Medicare demands these visits, and they take priority......
How can I explain that six or twelve things need doing in this house every day---things with no predictable order, occurring at no predictable-in-advance time, and when these assertive Nurse-drones insert themselves into that chaos they do not help us one tiny iota?
I am well aware of the pseudo-objective, pretend-clinical nature of the language she used. However, I would remind the reader that Paul Ekman (in his dialogues with the Dali Lama) once commented that his anger at injustice was often confused with a desire to be violent. They are distinct things. And, so too, in my own case, a desire to speed up the conversation was not an attempt to cause injury.
In alternative language, I am protesting that the Visting Nurse mis-read my face and my body language. There has been in the scholarly literature (above all Ekman and his followers) an excessive tendency to suppose that facial expression are univocal. Corrections to this can be found, e.g., in the work of Aneta Pavlenko, or James Russell.
(Russell makes a point connected to mine above (parallel to Ekman's point) in his "Emotions are not Modules", page 59 where he puts the point pithily by saying one can have "anger without fight".)
https://www2.bc.edu/james-russell/
Entering my home, this woman wanted certain unspoken and unwritten rules to be followed. This became clear as the visit continued. My job was to be passive, to shut up and let her decide how the conversation would proceed. And, of course, the high point of the conversation (or the low point) was when she became bossy, issuing orders, and suggesting how I might engage in minor carpentry to improve my parents' home.......(Clearly, the fact that the "successful" (from the Supervisory Nurses's point of view) conversation led to her dominance was already in the cards from the moment she entered the door. I have seen it before---Every god damn time a so-called Nurse performing supervisory functions enters our home! And yes I am angry because it is insulting.--EVERY TIME!
In colloquial English that presumption is called "fascism". A more elegant or neutral expression might be "top down determination of conversational content".
No deviations from the Medicare-decided questions was allowed. (But where and when am I allowed to complain about the idiocy of those questions? OR: The intrusive manner in which they are introduced at too-frequent intervals into the peace and harmony of my home????)
And I do protest and object to the abandonment of democracy and free speech which occurs every time a visiting nurse pleads: I don't make up the questions. , OR: I am just following orders., OR: it is what the "government" wants.....All said with the resignation one might have previously heard behind the words, "The KING wants it..."
Moral of the story: To accept help from Medicare means becoming a slave to such idiotic and intrusive interrogation at regular intervals. To accept help from Medicare means you become a slave to drudges and invisible bureaucrats who claim to know better than you do what is good for you.
It is insulting and authoritarian----fascist in a colloquial sense.
Oh, how I rue the day that I first met one of these visiting phantoms in human form.....
And by the way, what was at stake in this disruptive visit----apart from its disruptive effects?
Actually, we had plans for my mother to get a new pair of glasses. And her friend who works at the store won't be available tomorrow. So, the cost of the visit is my mother's comfort, as well as my own. You see, the visit was preceded by a phone call thirty minutes in advance.........I might have insisted they postpone the visit, but,in fact, Medicare demands these visits, and they take priority......
How can I explain that six or twelve things need doing in this house every day---things with no predictable order, occurring at no predictable-in-advance time, and when these assertive Nurse-drones insert themselves into that chaos they do not help us one tiny iota?
Idiotic Stereotyping by Annoying Visiting "Nurses' and others...
I put "nurse" in quotes because I think most nurses do not actually engage in that sort of care-giving.
Rather, most perform various sorts of busy work and paper work.
That is the beauty of the medical system in the USA. Medicare may be, as experts seem to say, less bureaucratic than commercial systems---but, for all that, it too is burdened with idiotic paperwork and self-spinning circles of bureaucratic madness.
Undoubtedly, the nurses who visit my parents home stereotype me, and that in a variety of ways.
I do not enjoy having such false and erroneous (presumptive) judgments made about me.
I am not, for example, Mr. Fix-It. I do not endorse the so-called American values of home ownership.
I do not now, nor have I ever desired to own a home.
I do not like hammering or sawing or using power tools. If fact, I don't do it. I don't want to do it, and I can't see anything good about doing it.
The idea that a person should work forty or fifty or more hours, and then come home to do carpentry or lawn work strikes me as the most pure insanity, a form of hell.
Ergo, when nurses blythely suggest that I engage in modifications to my parents' home, I stare at them in amazement.
It's called jumping to conclusions, or being ignorant----not knowing (not bothering to know) who you are talking too.
And, that, in fact raises another problem with In-Home care as provided by Medicare. The goal of all nurse-visitors seems to enforce a certain uniformity or consistency that is suitable to them. How suitable to them? Who is "them"? The bureaucrats at Medicare. Because, unless and until someone persuades me otherwise, I see the ugly hand of cost-counting and cost-cutting petty minds
who have no notion of the Hippocratic Oath anything else civilized, humane or decent.
We are tortured with idiotic questions on a regular basis. They tell us to prepare for a disaster. And then yesterday, condescendingly, the visiting nurse shared her own personal story about how she buys bottled water.
What a touching personal recollection! No! What an annoying piece of condescension!
What about the fact that the USA is not prepared to face the consequences of global warming?
What about the fact that in this country today there exists an insane policy: every one for him- or herself!
What about the implied claim that you will not get help when you need it!!!????
We cannot say such things in public. The Medicare system does not allow these points to be made.
But, note well: Medicare has my parents' money. It's not a question of getting something for nothing.
Let me return, however, to my point about standardization.
The picture I am now getting of these mindless goons who call themselves nurses is that they follow
orders very well, and they love to be bossy. They are frustrated because they live within the confined space of a system where no one is allowed to ask questions and no real discussion occurs.
(I have had some experience of that system when working with USA-based employers......)
So, when these frustrated creatures have a chance to be assertive, Watch Out! They are going to COMMAND you-----and that not in dulcet tones......
But why does there need to be standardization? For the same reason that USA "educational" (so-called) institutions abroad like to have master Syllabi to decide what's to be taught when. It makes it easy to replace a person.
Thus the system is designed to be impersonal!
Put it differently. When a job is bad, people don't want to stay in it. So, if a different nurse comes every couple of months to torture us with Medicare's idiotic questions and give us stupid, condescending advice (uttered in the strict Imperative Mode as if we were children) then I draw the conclusion that even the torturers don't enjoy what they are doing.
Oh, dear, oh dear! Where is Michael Albert when you need him? Let's talk about "balanced job complexes"---And let's get rid of Nurse Supervisors and CEO's......Let's have real democracy in the workplace!!! NOW
Link below to Albert's chapter on Balanced Job Compexes from his book "Parecon"
http://books.zcommunications.org/books/pareconv/Chapter6.htm#_VPID_45
Footnote:
There is a lady who comes every Friday, and she's very sweet. But, you know, my mother has a system for dealing with her own medicines---and my father's medicines----a system which has evolved over about forty years......and that nice lady (and every other nurse who is not so nice) messes up the system and creates extra work for my mother. Hmmmm. What do you call that?
Rather, most perform various sorts of busy work and paper work.
That is the beauty of the medical system in the USA. Medicare may be, as experts seem to say, less bureaucratic than commercial systems---but, for all that, it too is burdened with idiotic paperwork and self-spinning circles of bureaucratic madness.
Undoubtedly, the nurses who visit my parents home stereotype me, and that in a variety of ways.
I do not enjoy having such false and erroneous (presumptive) judgments made about me.
I am not, for example, Mr. Fix-It. I do not endorse the so-called American values of home ownership.
I do not now, nor have I ever desired to own a home.
I do not like hammering or sawing or using power tools. If fact, I don't do it. I don't want to do it, and I can't see anything good about doing it.
The idea that a person should work forty or fifty or more hours, and then come home to do carpentry or lawn work strikes me as the most pure insanity, a form of hell.
Ergo, when nurses blythely suggest that I engage in modifications to my parents' home, I stare at them in amazement.
It's called jumping to conclusions, or being ignorant----not knowing (not bothering to know) who you are talking too.
And, that, in fact raises another problem with In-Home care as provided by Medicare. The goal of all nurse-visitors seems to enforce a certain uniformity or consistency that is suitable to them. How suitable to them? Who is "them"? The bureaucrats at Medicare. Because, unless and until someone persuades me otherwise, I see the ugly hand of cost-counting and cost-cutting petty minds
who have no notion of the Hippocratic Oath anything else civilized, humane or decent.
We are tortured with idiotic questions on a regular basis. They tell us to prepare for a disaster. And then yesterday, condescendingly, the visiting nurse shared her own personal story about how she buys bottled water.
What a touching personal recollection! No! What an annoying piece of condescension!
What about the fact that the USA is not prepared to face the consequences of global warming?
What about the fact that in this country today there exists an insane policy: every one for him- or herself!
What about the implied claim that you will not get help when you need it!!!????
We cannot say such things in public. The Medicare system does not allow these points to be made.
But, note well: Medicare has my parents' money. It's not a question of getting something for nothing.
Let me return, however, to my point about standardization.
The picture I am now getting of these mindless goons who call themselves nurses is that they follow
orders very well, and they love to be bossy. They are frustrated because they live within the confined space of a system where no one is allowed to ask questions and no real discussion occurs.
(I have had some experience of that system when working with USA-based employers......)
So, when these frustrated creatures have a chance to be assertive, Watch Out! They are going to COMMAND you-----and that not in dulcet tones......
But why does there need to be standardization? For the same reason that USA "educational" (so-called) institutions abroad like to have master Syllabi to decide what's to be taught when. It makes it easy to replace a person.
Thus the system is designed to be impersonal!
Put it differently. When a job is bad, people don't want to stay in it. So, if a different nurse comes every couple of months to torture us with Medicare's idiotic questions and give us stupid, condescending advice (uttered in the strict Imperative Mode as if we were children) then I draw the conclusion that even the torturers don't enjoy what they are doing.
Oh, dear, oh dear! Where is Michael Albert when you need him? Let's talk about "balanced job complexes"---And let's get rid of Nurse Supervisors and CEO's......Let's have real democracy in the workplace!!! NOW
Link below to Albert's chapter on Balanced Job Compexes from his book "Parecon"
http://books.zcommunications.org/books/pareconv/Chapter6.htm#_VPID_45
Footnote:
There is a lady who comes every Friday, and she's very sweet. But, you know, my mother has a system for dealing with her own medicines---and my father's medicines----a system which has evolved over about forty years......and that nice lady (and every other nurse who is not so nice) messes up the system and creates extra work for my mother. Hmmmm. What do you call that?
Visiting Nurses are Bossy and Irritating,and Medicare is inadequate and insulting
Thoughts after a visit by a nurse (nurse supervisor?)....two hours wasted...
And it occurs to me that;
In EPTX, every day is unpleasant in every possible way.....
Three years of my life wasted----with only the most stingy assistance in caring for my elderly parents....
What I have learned today is: Criticism not allowed----If you try to complain, the nurse calls her supervisor to complain about you.....In this country, fear of free speech and democracy exists at the most fundamental level.
"I am only doing my job".-----in the USA, this is the most popular excuse to avoid thinking or hearing what another person is saying.
I understand that people genuinely fear losing their jobs. However, whenever someone says that, they stop listening. And, to that extent, become less free, and less human.....
But that is what I have learned to expect in this country.
(Contrariwise: How would I deal with complaints from a student when I am the teacher?-----towards putting the shoe on the other foot....---I would try to answer, to explain why I was doing whatever I was doing (insofar as I was able)--- not by calling a supervisor......
But, then again, when I was a teacher I had more autonomy than do employees within the Medicare system. Medicare has its own rules which dictate and require certain idiotic behavior----e.g., the idiotic anti-social advice that YOU should be ready for a disaster.....
The whole business of so-called "Re-Certification" is an irritating and insulting bureaucratic insult.
(and the nurses say: don't blame us! Medicare makes us do it.----And I say, I do blame you when you refuse to even listen or understand what I am saying.....That is to disrespect me!)
The whole business of so-called "Re-Certification" is an irritating and insulting bureaucratic insult.
(and the nurses say: don't blame us! Medicare makes us do it.----And I say, I do blame you when you refuse to even listen or understand what I am saying.....That is to disrespect me!)
They give us so-called practical advice....
As if we were not adults or as if we were idiots.....
(Re-certification is INSULTING! And if Medicare requires it, then Medicare is INSULTING!)
(Can someone tell my why it is even necessary? ----And necessary exactly so often? Have I even been given a chance to ask??????)
(Re-certification is INSULTING! And if Medicare requires it, then Medicare is INSULTING!)
(Can someone tell my why it is even necessary? ----And necessary exactly so often? Have I even been given a chance to ask??????)
As if the implication is that WE are not going to help you, so don't expect US to help....
And various other idiotic questions which allows a person afraid of losing their job earlier
to be self-assertive and bossy now with superfluous and condescending advice.......
(And every nurse is full of superfluous and condescending advice----sometimes, even advice
based upon ignorance not knowledge----as in you can find out on TV....i.e., you can find out
by using one of the worst possible sources of information....)
I can end this post in no better way than paraphrasing my mother: Every nurse wants to be bossy. (And I add: to justify her existence......) ((And, so far, it has always been "her"....))))
file this under: The inadequacy of care for the elderly in the USA....
Footnote:
It is frequently said that Medicare has less bureaucracy than private medical insurance. In that case, private medical insurance is very very inefficient.
However, Medicare itself has too much bureaucracy and STUPIDITY built into the system.....
as in constantly checking up and repeating the same stupid things! It is INSULTING.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
The Stupidity of Visiting Nurses and the Stupidity of Medicare for the Elderly
Thoughts after a visit by a nurse (nurse supervisor?)....two hours wasted...
And it occurs to me that;
In EPTX, every day is unpleasant in every possible way.....
Three years of my life wasted----with only the most stingy assistance in caring for my elderly parents....
What I have learned today is: Criticism not allowed----If you try to complain, the nurse calls her supervisor to complain about you.....In this country, fear of free speech and democracy exists at the most fundamental level.
"I am only doing my job".-----in the USA, this is the most popular excuse to avoid thinking or hearing what another person is saying.
I understand that people genuinely fear losing their jobs. However, whenever someone says that, they stop listening. And, to that extent, become less free, and less human.....
But that is what I have learned to expect in this country.
(Contrariwise: How would I deal with complaints from a student when I am the teacher?-----towards putting the shoe on the other foot....---Answer, not by calling a supervisor......
But, then again, when I was a teacher I had more autonomy than do employees within the Medicare system. Medicare has its own rules which dictate and require certain idiotic behavior----e.g., the idiotic anti-social advice that YOU should be ready for a disaster.....
As if we were not adults or were idiots.....
As if the implication is that WE are not going to help you, so don't expect US to help....
And various other idiotic questions which allows a person afraid of losing their job earlier
to be self-assertive and bossy now with superfluous and condescending advice.......
(And every nurse is full of superfluous and condescending advice----sometimes, even advice
based upon ignorance not knowledge----as in you can find out on TV....i.e., you can find out
by using one of the worst possible sources of information....)
I can end this post in no better way than paraphrasing my mother: Every nurse wants to be bossy. (And I add: to justify her existence......) ((And, so far, it has always been "her"....))))
file this under: The inadequacy of care for the elderly in the USA....
Footnote:
It is frequently said that Medicare has less bureaucracy than private medical insurance. In that case, private medical insurance is very very inefficient.
However, Medicare itself has too much bureaucracy and STUPIDITY built into the system.....
as in constantly checking up and repeating the same stupid things! It is INSULTING.
And it occurs to me that;
In EPTX, every day is unpleasant in every possible way.....
Three years of my life wasted----with only the most stingy assistance in caring for my elderly parents....
What I have learned today is: Criticism not allowed----If you try to complain, the nurse calls her supervisor to complain about you.....In this country, fear of free speech and democracy exists at the most fundamental level.
"I am only doing my job".-----in the USA, this is the most popular excuse to avoid thinking or hearing what another person is saying.
I understand that people genuinely fear losing their jobs. However, whenever someone says that, they stop listening. And, to that extent, become less free, and less human.....
But that is what I have learned to expect in this country.
(Contrariwise: How would I deal with complaints from a student when I am the teacher?-----towards putting the shoe on the other foot....---Answer, not by calling a supervisor......
But, then again, when I was a teacher I had more autonomy than do employees within the Medicare system. Medicare has its own rules which dictate and require certain idiotic behavior----e.g., the idiotic anti-social advice that YOU should be ready for a disaster.....
As if we were not adults or were idiots.....
As if the implication is that WE are not going to help you, so don't expect US to help....
And various other idiotic questions which allows a person afraid of losing their job earlier
to be self-assertive and bossy now with superfluous and condescending advice.......
(And every nurse is full of superfluous and condescending advice----sometimes, even advice
based upon ignorance not knowledge----as in you can find out on TV....i.e., you can find out
by using one of the worst possible sources of information....)
I can end this post in no better way than paraphrasing my mother: Every nurse wants to be bossy. (And I add: to justify her existence......) ((And, so far, it has always been "her"....))))
file this under: The inadequacy of care for the elderly in the USA....
Footnote:
It is frequently said that Medicare has less bureaucracy than private medical insurance. In that case, private medical insurance is very very inefficient.
However, Medicare itself has too much bureaucracy and STUPIDITY built into the system.....
as in constantly checking up and repeating the same stupid things! It is INSULTING.
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