Virginia Fell

I have great news to share: the Senate has passed the Matthew Shepard Act!

The bill will soon be on its way to President Obama's desk, where he'll get a chance to make good on his promise to sign it.

This vote came on the heels of tremendous pressure from radical right-wing groups that used every trick in the book.

They called the bill the "Pedophile Protection Act" among other outrageous lies. They dismissed the barbaric hate crime that took Matthew Shepard's life as a "hoax." They flooded the Senate with hundreds of thousands of letters and calls.

But your calls, emails, and financial support for our work helped make sure the truth prevailed in the end. Without you, this victory for equal rights would not have been possible.

Will you do one last important thing? Click here to find out how your Senators voted then CALL them to tell them what you think about their vote!

Whether your Senator voted "Yes" or "No," they need to hear from you. Post-vote feedback puts lawmakers on notice that their constituents are engaged, and makes them more likely to pay attention when we need their help again.

This hate crimes legislation is a tremendous step forward for full equality for LGBT Americans, but we most certainly will need their help again.

Please take a minute from your busy day to make these two quick calls.

Thank you for all your help!

Yay! Both of Indiana's Senators were on board, which makes me feel a little better about my state. How did yours do? Let them know!

So in all states, you can choose to get a license plate whose fees support the fight against breast cancer, environmental causes, a college or university, whatever. In Florida, there's a license plate for people who want to take a stand against this newfangled notion that the government doesn't control a woman's body, and the money goes toward so-called "Crisis Pregnancy Centers" (you know, those places where they tell you that you'll never be able to have a baby after an abortion, your abortion will give you breast cancer, you'll hate yourself for the rest of your life, and lie to you about the biological capability of an embryo to feel pain).

These people are responding by attempting to pull together support for a pro-choice license plate.

Here is where you can donate to help them along, if you have a couple of bucks. Florida needs it. Lest you think this cannot be done, Montana did it.

(2:08:29 AM) Magpie: I am too much vodka to post right now.
(2:08:39 AM) griff: You are?
(2:08:42 AM) Magpie: But tomorrow I will less vodka, and more drugs. But posting is fine.
(2:08:46 AM) Magpie: 'kaaaaaaaaay?
(2:08:46 AM) griff: You are too much vodka?
(2:08:48 AM) griff: XD
(2:09:04 AM) griff: Woooow. Go sleep it off cobalt XD
(2:09:08 AM) griff: You sound kinda wasted
(2:09:14 AM) Magpie: This may or may not be the case.
(2:09:21 AM) Magpie: I cannot speak truly to you from my heart.
(2:09:24 AM) Magpie: Only from my vodka.
(2:09:35 AM) griff: LOL
(2:09:37 AM) griff: Sleeeeep!
(2:09:56 AM) Magpie: I feel like this should be posted somewhere so I can laugh at it come sobertime day.
(2:10:04 AM) griff: XDDDD
(2:10:13 AM) griff: You are fuuuuunny when wasted XD
(2:10:20 AM) griff: I am much amused
(2:10:20 AM) Magpie: HAHAHA
(2:12:11 AM) Magpie: I will livejournaling. Yes.
(2:12:18 AM) griff: XDDDD Doooo eeet

It has occurred to me that lots of my acquaintances make friends like buying a hamster. It's cute now, but when it dies in two years they're COMPLETELY FUCKING SHOCKED.

Well, guess what? When you move away from people, they stop caring about you. I'm not shocked. I've owned this hamster before.

After taking away religion, gender, race, family roles, career, and job titles, how would you define yourself?


A voice. I'm my own voice, and sometimes not much else. There often isn't much energy left after I've spoken everything that needs to be. I'm sometimes someone else's voice, if they're tired of fighting or unable to or whatever. Just a voice. I try to say true things that will matter to someone, that will make a difference and make something (anything) better. I can't guarantee that, just that I'll keep on speaking and hoping for the best. It's in my nature; it's what I am. I'm a voice.

Always the same answer. Gomez and Morticia. Loving and supportive of their kids, each with their own pastimes and hobbies and passions but still wildly in love with one another and evidently quite creative in their choice of marital recreation. Good for them!

They're the best.

Personal Space: Are We Too Touchy?

It's not easy being a private person in a hugger's world. Wall Street Journal writer Elizabeth Bernstein is, apparently, a "touch-ee": quite against her will, she's constantly being hugged, nudged, patted, high-fived and stroked by her coworkers.

"You're so friendly," said one. "You're always stressed," said another. "You're self-deprecating, and I want to give you a boost," said a third. "You're short," a close friend said.

Although the touching is platonic, it makes Bernstein uncomfortable, and she asks, why is this okay?
It's a weird irony that, even as sexual harassment policies have gotten stricter and more ubiquitous, the rules of personal space have become more lax. Whereas a generation ago no one would have gone beyond a businesslike handshake (unless, I guess, they were having a pre-sexual harassment policy affair), nowadays hugging, sympathetic pats and slaps on the back are commonplace. And it's tricky because, where some people are vigilant about personal space, others see touching as a natural way to express warmth and sympathy. And rejecting a friendly touch is rude.

Yes! For the love of dammit, I hate this!

I hate people thinking that just because they see, they can touch. I hate people thinking that me having boundaries is something I need to "get over." Newsflash, people. The fact that you want to grab me and I don't like it is not something that I need to get over. Get the hell over yourself and your perceived entitlement to engulfing me in your giant midwestern breasts.

Monday I start my training for Ye Olde New Jobbe.

The hours are great for me personally, and I won't actually miss my favorite time of day (evening) by being stuck inside the whole time. However, the hours are going to mean serious changes in routine during the week for archmage_brian and me. He works at eight in the morning, which means that except for the time when we're in the car after he picks me up... we won't see each other during the week.

I'm going to miss cooking. We've made pho, and various kinds of seafood pasta, a couple kinds of lasagna, hot and sour soup, pork tenderloin with parmesan polenta, and just tonight we had breaded perch (with panko crumbs because they're what we had). Cooking together is important, and we've got a lot of new recipes we're enjoying (not to mention the prospect of leftovers to enjoy as well, which is a damn good way to stay fed through a couple workdays a week). We'll even have to shop less efficiently to account for the fact that we need to buy more ready-meals and fewer meal components.

If you know archmage_brian and me, you know we're pretty much velcro-couple all the time (which I'm still proud of considering we'll hit five years in September). I'm such a sissy about not seeing him for a day or two, but I know that being completely destitute is also something of a strain on us. If we can handle that, I'm hoping we can handle a different strain that nonetheless brings a measure of security.

It's a year at most, until he's done with rotations. Until then, I need to take care of us and make damned sure if I can that there's an "us" to come back to when I'm done.

I'm sure I shouldn't worry so much. But it's hard to keep myself from doing so. Like I said... I'm a sissy about these things.

I wonder what it would be like to be some kind of religious leader, like a clergyman or priestess, and "lose one's faith." I mean, it's one thing for me to say, "I'm part of this religion even if I don't believe in its deities any more than a Jewish person needs to be a Young Earth Creationist."

It's quite another for a religious leader who has staked their career on a spiritual calling, their lifestyle and their very livelihood, on a strong commitment to nurturing and furthering the religious group of their choice. I imagine there are priests who stop believing in the literal truth of God who stick around for the community-building and counseling aspects of the job, but how many more stay because they have no choice?

At that rate, I'm surprised that any clergy are willing to entertain even for a moment the possibility that they might be serving something/someOne that isn't there. The consequences for them of changing their mind are much heavier for the rest of us who may make some lifestyle changes but don't really lose anything.

Then there's the question of people who enter into a position of religious leadership without a belief in the literal truth of their religion's narratives. I mean, if people can make it through seminary school without a belief in six-day creationism, can they make it through without a belief in the God that did it? Provided they could, is there a reason to?

Questions I'm mulling over as I consider the implications of whatever degree of religious leadership comes my way now and again. I can do what priests do, but I wouldn't be what they are. This isn't a problem for me, but would my presence be a problem for them?

I don't think that my mere presence would cause anybody I "served" with to automatically and magically become non-theist practitioners of the same religion. But if it did, I worry that they would be unable to strike the same balance that I do between continued practice and discontinued faith. At that rate... I would hardly have done them a favor.

Perhaps it's better, then, that religious leaders try their damndest not to listen to me. It's all well and good for me to think about these things in the way that I have and come to the conclusion that I did. But my path would wreck what they've built. Even if I think that what I believe is better grounded in practical reality... I feel a need to acknowledge that sometimes people have built so much on something that even accidentally knocking them away from it would do them more harm than good.

I don't know. I'm just thinking about it. I know clergy who are comfortable talking to me or atheists of various stripes, and they're "secure in their faith," which may imply they're not really giving a fair hearing to the atheist or it may imply that they've already explored that path and decided it's not what their life needs.

It's just hard for me to escape the idea that clergy of any tradition have made a commitment that gives them a serious disincentive to changing their minds. I don't exactly run around trying to change their minds, but I wonder if this means I ought to be more careful not to cause such a change, lest I cause far more damage to them than the paradigm shift caused me.

I don't know how I feel about this yet. It's just something that was on my mind today.

Dear internet:

If I thought that all theists were credulous fools who should have their beliefs battered out of them for their own good and the good of mankind, I wouldn't be meeting up with them once a month or more to practice their religion with them.

Just saying.

Now that I have made that little disclaimer, everybody shut the fuck up and go yell at atheists who actually assume you're a moron. Because--newsflash--I don't like being treated like I must automatically be an anti-religion asshole just because of my position on this any more than you like being treated like a brainwashed nitwit because of yours.

Seriously. You people give me a fucking migraine sometimes.

Thanks a ton,

me.

If I have to hear one more time about how "atheism" is a religion, I'm going to start throwing tires at people's faces.

Seriously. Atheism is simply the absence of theism. An atheist is someone who is stating that theism is not part of their worldview. People who claim that atheism is some kind of coherent doctrine piss me off, because if pressed they can never seem to actually name what that doctrine is. At least, not consistently.

Of all the dumb goddamned things. I have a religion, you stupid motherfuckers. And it isn't atheism. I'm religiously Neo-Pagan, and my practice is non-theist. So the fuck what. Just because you can't imagine having opinions without them being fed to you through a dogma G-tube doesn't mean that other people can't have worldviews arrived at through different means.

I don't care how many times people use this example, because clearly some folk need to hear it one more time. If atheism is a religion, then "not collecting stamps" is a hobby.

Wow.

I don't know why that's so surprising. I guess I just figured that there was always more craziness to come and I guess... there isn't.

People who believe that their God will cause horrible suffering to anybody who doesn't worship Him properly really are under a moral obligation to save as many people as they can from Him.

I don't have to like it, I can point out that there is no respectful evangelism because there is no evangelism that does not seek to wipe out diversity and every other tradition that is not itself, but the fact is that from within... if you (and I'm using the collective you here) honestly believed that your deity was so ruthless and merciless that he would obliterate people for no other reason than that they're different? You do have a moral obligation to save them from the implications of that difference, to try to avert the brutality of your own deity.

So really. Stop yelling at people for evangelizing. If you shared their assumptions (that there was a vicious and petty magic man in the sky who would throw your soul in a lake of fire if you dared to be different), let's hope you'd also have the decency to aggressively assimilate as many people as possible to save them from your God.

Iran's clerics consider removing Supreme leader and President Ahmadinejad.

Anyone know anything else? This was just posted; saw it on Twitter almost immediately. Confirmation?

A lot of GMs say they "don't like to push their players." They don't like to guide or railroad or otherwise drag the players and their characters from one plot hook to another. Instead, they say they're running a "character-centric" game.

In my experience here is what they're really trying to say. "I have a plot in mind, but I don't know too much about pacing, so I figure I'll let you guys ramble about and do whatever. If you do something interesting enough to warrant a reaction or some gamemastering, I suppose I'll get involved. I'm not sure what I'll do if none of you have a plot in mind and a way to make it happen. Probably be upset with you."

This is why, while character development is really important to me to be able to have fun RPing, I don't like "character-centric" RPs. In my experience that's not what it means. It means that the GM wants more than a table of pro-active RPers. They want a table of people who'll take over plot and pacing, an interesting choice considering that the GM is usually the only one who really knows the plot.

Now why in the world would you put the responsibility for pacing on people who don't know what's going on? It's a recipe for people to stand around talking in-character, killing time and hoping that the GM will notice them waiting.

Players throwing a creative wrench into the plot by acting in-character and doing unexpected things are gems, and they help create much richer plots than the GM could create by him or herself. But a GM has to have a backup plan, a plot in mind and something interesting to offer in case they have to be the engine of plot and pacing. Because guess what? That's part of your job, gamemasters and storytellers. The buck stops at you.

Poll #1418718 Ladies, tell me.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

I'm sick and tired of this uterus business. I'm not even using it for anything except THIS and THIS sucks. Don't make me explain it, you know what I mean. So. Ladies, tell me. If you could use that space for something else, what would you put in there?

And a question for Brian or whoever else ends up looking this up. What the hell are YOU using that space for? Far as I know you don't have any extra internal organs, so I wanna know what that fist-sized space in your abdomen is being used for, and I want to know if it's better than any of the above options. Should I do that instead?

These protests are big. Bigger than some people want to admit.

I don’t think any regime has put down a mass nonviolent revolt of this size, not in recent history anyway. It seems hard to imagine the regime using the kind of force it would take to get hundreds of thousands of people off the streets of several major Iranian cities. That’s not to say it’s not possible. Or perhaps the regime can wait out the protests until the crowd sizes shrink, and then targeted violence may work. But I have a hunch that’s not what’s going to happen. It hasn’t worked that way anywhere in the world in the past 23 years, since the People Power revolution in the Philippines. Instead, what has happened is that once huge masses of the populace lose the fear that has kept them atomized and prevented them from engaging in politics, that fear is gone for good, and the security forces ultimately wilt.

Maybe I’m wrong, and certainly the ideology of theocratic Islam could provide the kind of motivation one would need to discipline security forces into killing large numbers of their own countrymen. But if I had to bet, right now, I’d bet Ahmadinejad is going to be forced to resign.

Ayatollah Khamenei's threat.

Mike Pence (sadly, from my state) is a complete fool, and is going about this the wrong way. Somehow he has missed the fact that associating the American government with this in a formal way is going to hurt this movement because the last thing the Ayatollah needs is more fuel from us to say that this is about America and not the Iranian people. Sadly, despite the short-sightedness and transparency of this as an effort to use this revolution to build political credit for legislators... everybody knows they can't be seen voting against it. Some shit just shouldn't be allowed to the floor.

If there's something that you want to do to enable Iranian people in their revolution, all they need are the means to speak for themselves. This isn't our fight, this isn't our government and neither will whatever government comes out of this. This belongs to Iranians. If you want to help, open things up for their voices.

Information on how to set up BADLY NEEDED proxies for Iranians trying to get around the bans. Windows. Mac.

Please take a moment to sign Sen. Bernie Sanders' petition for single-payer health care:

Whereas:

• 46 million Americans are currently without health insurance;
• 60 million Americans, both insured and uninsured, have inadequate access to primary care due to a shortage of physicians and other health service providers in their community;
• 100 million Americans have no insurance to cover dental needs;
• 116 million adults, nearly two-thirds of all non-seniors, struggled to pay medical bills, went without needed care because of cost, were uninsured for a time, or were underinsured in the last year;
• The United States spends $2.3 trillion each year on health care, 16 percent of its Gross Domestic Product;
• Americans spend $7,129 per person on health care, 50 percent more than other industrialized countries, including those with universal care;
• The U.S. does not get what it pays for. We rank among the lowest in the health outcome rankings of developed countries, and on several major indices rank below some third-world nations;
• The number of health insurance industry bureaucrats has grown at 25 times the growth of physicians in the past 30 years;
• In 2006, the six largest insurance companies made $11 billion in profits even after paying for direct health care costs, administrative costs and marketing costs.

And, whereas:

• Medicare has administrative costs far lower than any private health insurance plan;
• The potential savings on health insurance paperwork, more than $350 billion per year, is enough to provide comprehensive coverage to every uninsured American;
• Only a single-payer Medicare-for-all plan can realize these enormous savings and provide comprehensive and affordable health care to every citizen.

Now, therefore:

• We, the undersigned, urge the United States Congress to pass a single-payer Medicare-for-all program which will provide quality, comprehensive health care for all Americans.

Sign, and if you would re-post in your own journal, that would be super.

(via matrexius  and </a></b></a>jblaque and </a></b></a>ms_daisy_cutter)

Found myself a mood theme by dana_cz. Having some trouble getting Photobucket to take all the images, but I'll figure it out.

Edit: Okay, there. It kept crapping out and I'm not sure why. Telling me, "The action that you were trying to perform has failed." Was very annoying.

But I gave it some time just in case it's inclined to panic when someone attempts to upload a whole shit-ton of very tiny files. I dunno.

Anyway, I got it! I didn't think I could have these custom mood icon sets without a paid account, but I suppose I just hadn't found decent directions. Very exciting!

People are asking me why I haven't put something up about Iran yet. I've been concentrating on Twitter (check the #IranElection tag) and Facebook, but I need to get LJ, too.

Dowlat-eh Koodeta, Estefa, Estefa!

Sad to say, I found out about this when it tricked through to my LJ friends page and on the news (which I can now watch on TV). This means I was days behind, because all the news was on Twitter. The Iranian election results--a wide margin of victory for the incumbent, with every geographic region voting in the identical proportions--are shady as fuck.

Iranians are not. Fucking. Happy.

There is a really excellent account over here, for those of you who haven't heard this from the news or Neil Gaiman's Twitter page.

In short: Once people started getting upset, the Iranian government began shutting down communication infrastructure. They blocked cell phone service, they blocked major websites, removed protest videos from Youtube, and lauched DDoS attacks on protesting websites to shut them up. The Iranians are getting around it, and doing their best to make themselves heard.

Yesterday there were proxies being circulated to help Iranians get around government bans, and hackers were launching DDoS attacks of their own on pro-Ahmadinejad sites so that the protesters could control the flow of information. They seem to have done a decent job of keeping Ahmadinejad's propaganda to the outside at a minimum, and Obama has made a statement that while the USA respects Iranian sovereignty and their right to choose their own leaders, he is disturbed by the violence he's seen and supports the right of the Iranian people to have their voices heard.

This is being called a revolution, and it isn't ours; it isn't even about us. Making it about us is the worst thing we can possibly do. The best thing we can do is make it clear that these people are heard, that efforts at silencing them are not going to work. It's far too late.

It's a little thing to do, and I don't know if it helps. But it makes me feel good, so I'll be doing it. People are wearing green as a show of solidarity with the revolutionaries, as a simple acknowledgment that we heard them and we know they're there. I don't get out much, so I don't think anyone will even see me. But someone might see you.

And in case there was any confusion, How to Tell Who the Good Guys Are.

What can I say? rake_blackguard is right.

When this happened, I actually ended up in a conversation with my mother about it. My mother is one of those people who's had so many bad marriages that she doesn't think marriage is important. It didn't mean anything but more mess in her relationship, so not only are gay people wrong for fighting for full contractual rights... they should be.... protected from their own desire for equality? Or something?

I can't help but think that if I'd been in a relationship with a woman for nearly five years she would agree with me. Note that I am careful not to say "she would understand." My mother isn't big on understanding things. She hates and mistrusts anyone who uses bigger words than she does, assuming that because they could talk circles around her that they are and that therefore anybody with an IQ over 85 is not to be trusted (because apparently it's far easier to exercise restraint and responsibly use a firearm than one's own intellect).

She still wouldn't get it. But she's one of those monstrous people who is quite comfortable declaring as irrelevant anything that does not impact them in some obvious and immediate way. "If it doesn't affect me, I don't worry about it." I'm sure she loved that logic from other people when her husband was beating the shit out of her.

But she lacks the self-awareness and critical thinking ability to even check for hypocrisy like that. It doesn't occur to her. She believes whatever her husband and his Fox-News-inundated military buddies say she should, and has told me explicitly that she always votes but hates thinking about politics. That's right. My mother is one of those people who thinks it's important to vote, but not to think before doing so.

If I were with a woman and I explained all of the things that were important to me that'd be denied me, she'd begin to care because it would affect her. No, not because it would affect me. That only matters incidentally. It would impact her vision of herself as a woman who protects her kids. In order to protect that flattering view of herself, she'd believe whatever she thought she should. It just goes to show that it's possible to change people's unfounded and unexamined opinions without actually changing the terrible and stupid means by which they are arrived at.

I'm still considering telling her I'm bi. It's as true as it is not (though since I prefer men, I still consider my sexual preference to be hetersexual), and maybe then she'd understand what I mean when I say that I'm not marrying a man in a state where I couldn't marry a woman. She'll understand that I mean, "I'm not signing a contract in a state where my right to do so is contingent on the genital arrangement of the other signatory to the thing."

She actually said to me, "Well, you have to respect the people who hold something as very important, and don't want something they think is wrong held up as an equal to what they believe is right."

"...Actually, I don't have to respect anybody who thinks their rights lose meaning if other people have them, too. I don't need to respect that at all."

She and my stepfather are the kinds of people who have "lots of gay friends." I was actually under some pressure growing up to be with women, hilariously enough. She seemed certain I was moving that direction and she wanted me to know that it was not only okay but that she'd understand. She's also a huge proponent of gay adoption, because "a loving home is a loving home."

So she clearly doesn't mind the idea that gay people are people like everyone else. And she has "lots of gay friends." Thing is... if it hurts me to hear her talk this way, I can only imagine how they feel. No wonder all her friendships halt at the most superficial possible level. Any deeper than that and she starts telling people they're subhuman because she doesn't care enough to think of a way not to.

This memo from the DoJ? This is a case of them not caring enough to think about how badly it damages American citizens to compare those who are fighting for equal contractual rights to child rapists. I mean, it doesn't really take a lot of thought. But they didn't do it.

What are some of the objections being handed around to a public insurance option?

"The president feels that having a 'public option' side by side -- same playing field, same rules -- will give Americans choice and will help lower costs for everybody. And that's a good thing," Sebelius told CNN.

"The president does not want to dismantle privately owned plans. He doesn't want the 180 million people who have employer coverage to lose that coverage. He wants to strengthen the marketplace," Sebelius added.

Healthcare costs undermine the competitiveness of U.S. companies, drive many families into bankruptcy and eat up a growing portion of state and federal spending.

Versions of healthcare legislation unveiled by senior Democrats in the House and Senate include a new government insurance program. But Republicans are adamantly opposed to the idea, saying it could harm private insurers, and some of Obama's fellow Democrats are against it, too.

Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said there is not enough support in Congress for the "public option" even though proponents offer "very good arguments" for it.

"You've got to attract some Republicans as well as holding virtually all of the Democrats together. And that, I don't believe, is possible with the pure 'public option.' I don't think the votes are there," Conrad said on CNN.

You heard it here. You won't get Republican votes if you're putting their constituents ahead of the interests of private insurance companies. Who is voting for these people again?

Okay, one. Our wall is full of BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES. Solitary wasps, my ass. Probably a whole brood of them hatching in there, and only just coming out now. Well guess what, kids! Mom's not here to protect you. The two I shoo'd out the door like a nice human may be the only ones to get out alive, unless there's an opening to the outdoors that they can use to FLEE THE GENOCIDE.

Two. Epic is occurring. If I adore you, you know who you are.

Three. GAY PRIDE PARADE TOMORROW YAY. I hope I can get down there. I've missed it every year and want to go support The Homosexual Agenda (TM). Man, out all day. Jeez. *whips out the SPF 50*

Four. BEEEEEEES.

Link is here, but you know what they say. People who aren't basing their decisions on facts can't be dissuaded with facts.

However, I still thought this was a good article. This is the trope I always hear from people who care less about numbers and facts than they do about adhering with all proper fanaticism to their superstitious devotion to the unregulated market.

Myth: Canada's government decides who gets health care and when they get it.

While HMOs and other private medical insurers in the U.S. do indeed make such decisions, the only people in Canada to do so are physicians. In Canada, the government has absolutely no say in who gets care or how they get it. Medical decisions are left entirely up to doctors, as they should be.

There are no requirements for pre-authorization whatsoever. If your family doctor says you need an MRI, you get one. In the U.S., if an insurance administrator says you are not getting an MRI, you don't get one no matter what your doctor thinks - unless, of course, you have the money to cover the cost.

 

And you know what? Here's why private health insurance companies are scared of what it will mean to be competing with a government health care plan (because you can bet they're not opposing it for your benefit):

Myth: Canada's health care system is a cumbersome bureaucracy.

The U.S. has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world. More than 31 percent of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc. The provincial single-payer system in Canada operates with just a 1 percent overhead. Think about it. It is not necessary to spend a huge amount of money to decide who gets care and who doesn't when everybody is covered.

The last thing private insurance companies want is for our health care system to look like Canada's. And do you know why? Because it'll put them out of business. Because they don't love "free market" competition as much as they persuade their prostrate worshipers to love it.

But that seems to be how it goes. That's where blind faith in the "invisible hand" of the "free market" gets you. It gets you working your ass off to help people screw you over, all the while congratulating them on managing to be so much more worthy of your money (or your rights, in many cases) than you are.

"I would rather be a coward than brave because people hurt you when you are brave." -Edward Morgan Forster

In my family it's a commonly-accepted truth that if you let one whacko in the door, you take them all in. If you start talking to one person, everybody associated with them sees you as their new territory. And if you draw a boundary on what is and isn't their business, they spaz.

You see, other people enforcing boundaries on those in my family is received like a plain ordinary attempt to tell them what to do. And if they dunwanna, well! You're the one who's being childish. Obviously.

A member of my extended family that I haven't really been talking to because I didn't want her family drama to become my family drama... well, she took the reins. Kicked some people to the curb who had it long coming. And as far as I'm concerned... she's proven she's worth a dozen of them. She's lining herself up for a lot of pain by daring to tell her relatives what they can and cannot do to her life. But it'll be worth it, because the return is freedom.

We haven't spoken since we were children, and I claim absolutely no part in her success. But I'm damned proud of her anyway. I so seldom hear good news about my extended family, or anyone in it. This was a shocker.

In my family it's easier to be a coward, but she chose to be brave.

Good for you, girl. You're twice the woman your mother is, or her mother. Good for you.