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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