Monthly Archives: November 2009

Stunning. Go see it now.

Earlier in the month the folks at Cirque Du Soliel gave my family passes to see their newest show Kooza. As the Sunday evening rolled around my husband and son were too tired from baseball and soccer to attend. My son is eight years old, I think on a good day Kooza would be a little much for an eight year old boy with shpilkes.

Since I had two extra seats I was a little surprised when our neighbor’s nine year old daughter asked if she could join us. She had seen the show just a week before and enjoyed it. I thought she was nuts, but we took her along with.

Kooza is startling in it’s beauty. If you’ve ever been to a Cirque show you know that they are dramatic storytellers. Kooza speaks to it’s audience in a way that I’ve never before seen. There’s a tale of being an outcast, moments of inclusion, humor, beauty for it’s own sake and the embrace of something a little gritty, and outside your comfort zone.

The costumes are spectacular. The colors are swirls of heaven that reach from the tips of the performer’s hair to the soles of their shoes, and at times it’s difficult to discern the difference between makeup, costume and fantasy.

Kooza was a treat that delighted my eyes and lifted my spirits. If you attend at the Santa Monica location leave plenty of time for parking, as the lots will fill early. Also Moms, if you bring your children make sure they are ready. We sat next to a little one who not only couldn’t sit still but he had light up shoes. Since I know a lot of parents read me, I’ll ask you now to ditch the light up shoes for Kooza, for movie theaters and any other setting where you might disturb someone else in the dark.

I’m going to recommend Kooza for everyone 10 and up and matinees for everyone 5 and up. It’s expensive, and it’s worth every penny.

Earlier this week the house passed a healthcare reform bill. It is a 2,000 plus page document and I remain unsure that our representatives have actually read all of it. I have not read the bill in it’s entirety (good thing I’m not your representative), but I have been alerted to a huge change that voters everywhere must be aware of and take action on.

Now.

With the new heathcare plan, vision and dental plans for children would be separate than that of adults. Let me explain to you why this should have you on the phone, emailing or snail mailing your local congressperson.

Insurance companies take large groups of people and split the risk between them. If you work for a multinational corporation then your “group” is likely to be tens of thousands of people. The insurance companies use actuary tables to find the average cost per person, then they add a little so that their shareholders are paid back on their investments. The nations largest vision and dental providers are not for profit, and I’m not convinced that this should change. Currently my family enjoys vision and dental care. With the new plan, my children would be moved to their own vision and dental plans and 26,000 small businesses would be negatively impacted as well.

The new healthcare plan would create separate pools for children’s vision and dental insurance. I’m unclear what benefits would be offered to the kids with the new plan, but right now when you visit the dentist in addition to monitoring the health of your teeth and gums your dentist is the first person would would detect cancers in the mouth, lips or throat.

When my kids go to the pediatrician for their annual exam they read from an eye chart. They cover one eye and that’s pretty much the extent of it. If eye exams are rolled into medical I worry that kids will lose the proper eye exam they need each year.

Because my son was diagnosed with strabismus and ambloypia while still an infant, he has had an exorbitant number of eye exams. In addition to reading from a chart (don’t get me started on the early years…. they were tough) the eyes are dilated. With a dilated pupil and a skilled optometrist the eye provides physicians with an opportunity to see bloodflow and assess vascular health without being invasive.

One of the side effects of the obesity epidemic is a dramatic rise in type two diabetes. A thorough eye exam can give as much as a seven year advance warning to the onset of type two diabetes. With an advance warning people can change their food and exercise habits, and increase both their lifespan and their quality of life.

After my miserable day spent trying to get my son the H1N1 Vaccine in a county clinic setting, I saw the need for reform firsthand. To say that the level of care was substandard is a gross understatement.

I don’t have a solution. I wish I did, but I’m a Mom and a Housewife, not a lawmaker, not a healthcare worker nor a student of public health.

I can tell you this. Taking children and separating their dental and vision care from the parents (and this is mandatory folks!) is not an acceptable piece of this legislation.

It is critically important that you call or write your congressperson immediately and ask them why children would have separate policies. Ask your congressperson what vision care will remain. Ask them what dental care will remain in place? Tell your congressperson that our children deserve the diagnostics of a comprehensive annual vision exam, a complete exam performed by a physician that we choose. Tell your congressperson that our children deserve full dental examinations in dentist’s offices, and that this is about more than cavities and reading glasses.

Please contact your congressperson and explain to them that making an insurance group comprised solely of children is a terrible plan and that healthcare isn’t just about responding to illness. It should be about health.

If you don’t care about kids (I know I didn’t care that much before I had them) you should care because your wallet tells you to. An unhealthy nation is a poor one.

Click here to look up your local congressperson.

I ran across this video today and it has me frothing at the mouth.

Here is the Board of Directors:

Diana Hull has created a video too. I really don’t know how to describe her without saying terrible things. Since I’ve been on the receiving end of people saying they detest me, I’m going to choose my words carefully.

I have nothing to say. Diana Hull is the angriest, most hateful PhD I’ve seen in a very long time.

This is hard to watch, but I’d like you to watch and listen intently.

If CAPS endorses a candidate, bill or measure, I would urge you, my readers to mobilize against it. I’m not going to do a political dance here, but I know who my readers are. My readers are kind and my readers are humanitarians. If immigration creates such a financial burden then let’s look at our finances. No one “owns” California. This notion that Diana Hull and her cronies have some sort of ownership of this great state is absolutely revolting.

Also on the board are:

Ben Zuckerman, Ph.D.
Randy A. Alcorn
Stuart H. Hurlbert, Ph.D.
Phoebe Cowles
Marilyn Brant Chandler DeYoung
Otis L. Graham, Jr., Ph.D.
Dick Schneider
Eddie Tabash, J.D.

My greatest hope is that as you see these people in their personal and professional lives, you hold them accountable. You to explain to these environmentalists, lawyers and historians that they are spreading messages of hate.

My hope is that they will one day be ashamed of their fear mongering and isolationism. My hope is that at least one of them come forward hat in hand and says, “I’m sorrry, that was offensive and it is junk science.”

Until then, understand that though these are educated people they are lacking in both wisdom and compassion. I’ll be watching them, and working hard to shine a light on the subtext of their message. Their very white message.

I have a stunning new computer that is fast, quiet and hard working. The only thing my computer needs is an operating system.

Oh, and some software.

You see, every time I copy and paste into Microsoft Word (my OS is Vista) it crashes and gives me a DEP message. DEP is Data Execution Protection, execution is right, it kills my work.

I follow the advice (given by Microsoft while using their operating system and their software) and manually whitelist Word so DEP won’t make it crash.

It crashes.

I cry.

I call HP, it’s got to be a computer problem. HP checks the Microsoft fourms, it is a known problem with no workaround.

In order to use Word, I must first copy onto notepad?

Here’s the link to Open Office. It’s free, and it hasn’t crashed yet.

In the interim a typewriter would be handier than a computer loaded up with Microsoft.

It’s my mom’s birthday this week, so yall can send her a little love and support. Right?

Every day my mom takes a picture with her iPhone and posts it to her site. It’s never edited, and reduced by a mere 30%. It think it’s fun to watch my Mom each day.

Naturally on My Mom’s birthday I’m thinking about my relationship with her, our relationship with her, as a family. Then I realize that I’ve lived out of her house longer than in it. When I draw on my memories of me and my mom they’re from my adulthood, and not as much from my childhood. The adulthood is crisper and clearer.

I’m someone’s adult child. That is strange.

Happy Birthday Mom, what a wonderful Mother, Mother in Law and Granny you are.

This morning there is a hostage situation in Jefferson City, Missouri.

Peter Kinder is the Lt. Governor. He is usingTwitter to alert his constituents to the situation:

And then more information as he had it

and then an authoritative blessing for his constituents

This is the real time value of twitter. It’s essentially acted as a reverse 911 phone system for the good people of Missouri.

Follow Peter Kinder on twitter for more updates.

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Update: I’ve made a list of people who are on site at the shooting. Click here to follow the twitter list, it does not include any media outlets, just firsthand accounts of the unfolding hostage situation in Missouri.