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| I just got this email from Progress Ohio.
I'm going, pending my
own death. Anyone who wants to join me, please let me know. I have
dollar store candles we can use and we can make wax catchers from index
cards fairly easily. The following is the email I received:
We
can't afford to wait. As the Senate debates their version of health
care reform, we need to ramp up public pressure on our senators to pass
real reform before the end of the year. So, on December 8th, our
friends at MoveOn.org are organizing a nationwide day of "Cost of
Delay" vigils.
These vigils will shine a spotlight on the number
of Americans in our communities who can't afford to pay the costs of
their medical bills and are being forced into bankruptcy. And we'll
show the Senate that we can't afford to wait to pass health care reform
with a national public option this year.
Right now, there are 251 gatherings planned - including one in Grandview:
WHAT: Cost of Delay Health Care Vigil
WHEN: Tuesday, December 8, 2009, at 5:45 PM
WHERE: First Avenue and Grandview Avenue, Columbus, OH 43212
RSVP: Click here to let us know you're coming!
Bundle
up, bring your own candles. Parking is available on some side streets,
and in the parking lot behind Stauf's, Spagio, etc. on Grandview Ave.
To your health,
Brian Rothenberg
Executive Director
ProgressOhio.org | | |
| http://www2.aspca.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=65204.0
A call to action to ban the puppy mill dog auctions. Finally, there is reasonable legislation against animal cruelty here in Ohio.
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| People crave crisis and fear.
We are all aware that the American
media panders to fear; scaring people equals ratings which equals
advertising dollars. Nobody likes the fluffy stories about little old
ladies and their cars they've owned for fifty years.
We, as Americans, like to panic.
Unfortunately,
in my opinion, we are panicking over the wrong things entirely. We're
so freaked out about the world ending in 2012 that we're ignoring the
greater issues, that are all right here at home. I'm focusing on the
2012 things because let's face it, you can't turn on the History
Channel without seeing something about it anymore. There's a movie out
starring John Cusack that is all about the crisis, too. It's ridiculous.
So,
in our focus on the end of the world in true apocalyptic fashion, we
are forgetting that we have several crises here at home that we need to
acknowledge and work towards repairing.
Americans at large are
still convinced that we are the greatest country in the world. In my
research, the only place I've found we're even close to ranking in
anything is according to the World Economic Forum,
the US is #2 for competitive economy. Funny thing, until this year, we
were the top country for competitiveness. Thanks to our tanking
national economy and people being afraid to invest in anything or
actually *do* anything, we've lost our top spot.
Health Care
Reform needs to happen. I don't know anyone who genuinely disagrees
with that argument. Sure, we all disagree on how it should be done, but
for the most part, Americans agree that it should happen.
At least, that's what I thought. I found someone who thinks our system is just fine the way it is.
Funny. According to the World Health Organization's 2000 healthcare rankings, the US is #37 in the world. 37. Wanna know who is ahead of us?
1 France
2 Italy
3 San Marino
4 Andorra
5 Malta
6 Singapore
7 Spain
8 Oman
9 Austria
10 Japan
11 Norway
12 Portugal
13 Monaco
14 Greece
15 Iceland
16 Luxembourg
17 Netherlands
18 United Kingdom
19 Ireland
20 Switzerland
21 Belgium
22 Colombia
23 Sweden
24 Cyprus
25 Germany
26 Saudi Arabia
27 United Arab Emirates
28 Israel
29 Morocco
30 Canada
31 Finland
32 Australia
33 Chile
34 Denmark
35 Dominica
36 Costa Rica
37 United States of America
Since 2000, the World Health organization has stopped making a ranking system due to the complexity of the task,
but can we honestly tell ourselves that this isn't a problem?
Alright, you don't believe me on this one? Here's another for you, that is a little more recent.
Global education rankings. I'm not talking post-secondary, here.
15 year old students among the 30 countries that participate in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
These nations are our peers, not everyone. Broken down by subject...
...Guess where we are?
Math: 25 out of 30. The average score across the OECD is 500. The US average is 483.
Reading: 16 out of 30. OECD Average: 494. US Average: 495.
Science: 20 out of 30. OECD Average: 500. US Average: 491.
Problem Solving: 25 out of 30. OECD Average: 500. US Average: 477.
Am I the only one appalled by how pathetic we are compared to our peers?
No wonder we are the laughingstock of the Western world.
Seriously, we're so busy concerned about what is going on everywhere else that we are ignoring our problems at home.
How can we possibly presume to tell everyone else how to be when we can't even keep ourselves under control.
Why, then, are we focused on things such as 2012?
I'm sorry, I'm more concerned that if my husband's appendix ruptures, we'll be screwed because we can't afford
health insurance. I don't care if the Mayans thought the world would end in 2012.
Oh, and by the way, they didn't think the world would end. They thought that the current historic era would end and we would
transition into a new age. Kinda like the Millennium fears, isn't it?
So, my dears, let's calm ourselves down for one damn minute.
Since we love crisis so much, let's get angry and work towards fixing the crises we have going on within our own borders.
Let's educate our damn kids, be parents, and stop being afraid that we aren't going to be "cool".
Let's tell our government what we want. What we need. We need a better health care system.
It is their job to listen to us, all we have to do is speak up and hold them accountable.
Here's a big one.
Let's take responsibility for ourselves. Stop playing the victim.
What we've done, we've done to ourselves. Let's stop bitching and start fixing. | | |
| One week from today, Mentally Incontinent
comes out in bookstores. People who know me (and have seen the infamous
tattoo) are probably thinking "wait a minute, Mentally Incontinent came
out years ago. WTF?" Well, due to Joe's success as a self-published
author/writer type person, he got a book deal with Penguin Books. Yup.
So, they're releasing the next book, but not calling it a sequel as
part of a very logical marketing scheme.
Anywho, the book comes out Tuesday November 3, 2009. In case you haven't figured it out, the links are to the Amazon.com presale page. I preordered mine forever ago.
The preparations aren't just for the book, however. The following weekend, there is a big book release party happening in Atlanta.
I'm going. Yes, I am driving 9 hours to go hang out with Joe and others
and to celebrate yet more weird stories from one of the coolest guys
around.
So what have I been doing to prepare for my big road
trip? Very little until now. I had Googled directions from my house to
the hotel I'm probably staying at and from there to the venue for the
party. That was about it, actually. Fortunately, the Fates intervened
in my procrastination.
We decided to go see a movie on Sunday
night. The app on my phone said 8:45, in reality it was a 10pm showing.
Solution? Buy our tickets, and walk down the strip mall to the Barnes
and Noble.
I bought a Streets of Greater Atlanta map, and the Rand McNally 2010 Road Atlas of North America.
I'm already a pretty big nerd when it comes to maps and whatnot, and
I'm just having ENTIRELY TOO MUCH FUN with my new atlas. Not only have
I marked out the route suggested by Google, but I've found a detour I'm
going to take on my way back to Columbus to indulge my Civil War
geekiness. I found 3 fun things a lot closer to my fastest route than
shooting across and through Nashville, which was my original plan.
Now
I'm sticking to my Knoxville route for the most part, but I'm going to
experience Jelico mountain and hopefully Gatlinburg. *happy dance*
By
the time I'm done with this, I'm going to have at least four routes
with various fun things to do along the way. Part of me feels bad for
anyone who ends up riding with me on this one.
I've also gotten
Blogger set up for mobile blogging (so people reading this on Xanga
will have to switch over to timeracer.blogspot.com). I'm going to post
cell photos and whatnot from the road. If I can figure out how to send
video, too, then perhaps you'll get to enjoy a video of me harassing
rest stop patrons. Hard to say, really.
But yeah..that's really all I have. I'm insanely excited about this road trip/book release/seeing people.
Oh,
and did I mention that the preliminary forecast for Atlanta the weekend
I'm down there is a good 15 degrees warmer than the forecast for
Columbus that weekend? I might actually get to shed my hoodies for a
couple of days.
The biggest downside to this trip so far is that CakeWrecks will be in Atlanta...the day after I leave. Grrrr.
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| Nate is obsessed with the crashing housing market right now. It truly is a buyer's market, and he keeps looking at houses that are going for *CHEAP*.
Usually, they're OK houses in OK neighborhoods, so it's just like "eh, whatever" for me. Today, he found one. The one. In Gahanna instead of Pickerington, but still, the house. Perfect sized lot, the big house we'd love to have. For cheap. Insanely cheap. Like, if he had a job so we could qualify for the loan we'd buy it today cheap.
But alas, my income alone isn't enough to qualify us for *any* loan. He has to have a job as well, even for such a small loan as we would need for that house.
It broke my heart just a little bit. I know it's silly and that we should really sit tight where we are so I can finish paying off the student loans (hey, I have them under five grand from the over 15K I started with!) and so I can finish paying off the credit card...but still, my heart broke a little bit seeing that gorgeous house within our budget and knowing we couldn't get the loan yet. If he had a job, yes, we could get the loan rightnow.
It's a blessing in disguise. That's what I'm telling myself, anyway. It's an opportunity for me to finish paying off my debts to get my credit from being "meh, okay." to being at a point where we can get the very nice interest rates on a mortgage.
It's ridiculous that I'm writing about this, but it's what is on my mind. I have no real complaints in my life at the moment (for which I am very grateful!) so you get to read about my sadness that we can't buy a house right now.
So. Other than that, my life is pretty much at the same place it has been. I'm in school, I'm married to my best friend, and...my dog and cat are constant little bundles of cuteness.
Nothing more to say, sorry.
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