You have been warned

I’ve been in one of those states where pretty much everything gets up my nose. It may have something to do with this dag-blamed cast on my wrist, and having been unable to write since the Ides of April.

At any rate, as we say on Twitter…

Mood:

Metro section

Here's one of the downsides of public transportation: the passengers who don’t understand the concept of shared space and who, for whatever reason, take up more than their allotted share.

It could be teenagers who sprawl across two seats, or someone who plops his/her shopping on the seat next to them instead of putting it on a lap. Very often it’s a male manspreading his legs at 45-degree angles to ward off someone sitting down next to him.

But here’s one who—in terms of pure effrontery—truly takes the biscuit:

He’s taking up his space in the middle of two seats.

Grrr.

Fashion sense

Here’s another thing that crossed my Twitter feed, striking my fancy:

It reminds me of the kinds of things I used to get from my grandmother at Christmas, so I relate.

A lot of my friends are handy with knitting needles (and crochet hooks), so I’m hoping they’ll appreciate this, too.

Outback antics

This came across my Twitter feed the other day, and while I appreciate it in principle—who wouldn’t admire a pig that can drink 18 beers without apparently puking into someone’s baseball cap?—I believe I’d want to know who won the porcine-bovine fight before adopting it as my spirit animal.

Still—well played, pig. Well played.

Gratitude Monday: the cost of care

The Explanation of Benefits (EOB) form for my hand surgery arrived a few days ago from my utterly craptastic insurance company, CareFirst. It consisted of 16 lines all identically labeled “hospital services”, with dollar amounts ranging from $2.00 to $9,993.50 (two of those) in the Amount Charged column. The Amount Allowed column was zeroed out on all but three of the lines ($2,946.00 for one of the $9,993.50 charges; $1,067.00 for the other one; $407.00 for one that had been billed at $2,070.00)

CareFirst paid $4.170.00, and I had a $250.00 co-pay.

Let me give you some context: I arrived at the surgical facility around 0900 to be prepped for a 90-minute procedure beginning at 1100. I walked out with my friends around 1330.

Readers—this is what is wrong with healthcare in this country: not only the retail charge of $30K for less than five hours of activity, but that CareFirst “allows” 15% of that figure. If $30K is an accurate representation of the value of those medical services, how does CareFirst get off with paying pennies on the dollar? And if CareFirst’s pennies are accurate, what the hell’s up with that $30K?

I have no bitch at all at the quality of care I received. My surgeon is terrific, and—except for one break in communication, which one of the nurses got on top of before I had to show up—everyone seemed competent. They and the GWU facility deserve appropriate compensation for the top-notch services they render.

I do have a major bitch with CareFirst and all its predatory ilk inserting themselves to dictate what is and is not proper medical care, as well as having the unmitigated temerity to declare what’s a proper fee to charge while at the same time ratcheting up the premiums they charge higher and higher and reporting ever-more obscene profits (with concomitant increases to executive pay and bonuses).

But I’m grateful for that excellent care I’ve received, for having medical coverage of any kind (even from the utterly craptastic CareFirst) and for having the $250 needed for my co-pay. There have been times in my life when none of these things were true.

Recruiters 40

I’ve documented the kind of idiocy one experiences in pretty much every interaction with every recruiter ever. (You can search on recruiters in the box to the right of this post and scroll through years of the stuff.) Honestly—there may be decent members of the profession, but I’ve not encountered them more than once or twice in the past 20 years.

Recently I’ve somehow got onto email lists from a couple of outfits that send me “great opportunities”; I wrote about one of them last year. There’s another one that emails me daily; lately that’s been creeping up to twice a day. Like Dave, the Kimble Group clearly scrapes job postings that may hold one or two keywords from a profile you’ve posted somewhere (possibly LinkedIn) from a plethora of job boards, slaps them into an email and bungs it out.

And—as with Dave—I sometimes wonder what the hell Kimble are thinking in their scraping algorithm. Viz:

Although, I concede there are a few crossover elements between product management and pest control, but nowhere in any of my online profiles do I mention mass murder.

The price of the morning paper

You may not be aware of this, but today is World Press Freedom Day, a UN declaration meant to drive awareness of the contributions made to civilization by members of the Fourth Estate around the world. Sadly, in 2018, the environment in which journalists work is increasingly hostile, encouraged by dictators and democratically-elected dictator wannabes on all continents.

Thomas Jefferson once said of democracy, “Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe.” Well, times have certainly changed, eh?

Reporters without Borders puts the United States at 45^th out of its annual listing of 180 nations WRT freedom of the press. That means we’re behind all Nordics (who pretty much have a lock on the top slots), Burkina Faso, Namibia, Estonia, Samoa, Surinam, and all Western European nations except for Italy.

Woo-hoo—we haven’t killed any journalists this year. So far. But the Kleptocrat and his fellow info-phobes are pushing for ever tighter restrictions on press freedom, and the threat is very real. He’s declared journalists “enemies of the American people” (a phrase borrowed from Joseph Stalin, although I’m betting that he has no sense of historical irony, since he has no sense of history); they’re subject to arrest while covering events; they’ve been physically assaulted, as well as being doxed and receiving death threats. Increasingly US reporters’ electronic devices are subject to search at US borders, and foreign ones are denied entry.

You’ll no doubt recall his campaign rallies that featured reporters penned in while his cultists threatened them, with his gleeful egging them on.

Meanwhile, one of Li’l Donnie Two-Scoops’ besties and role models, Rodrigo Duterte (The Philippines, number 133), famously announced, “Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you’re a son of a bitch.” The definition of “son of a bitch” amounts to, “if you print things I don’t like,” which of course is echoed in the White House today. Unaccountably, Duterte hasn’t executed any reporters this year, either, although one was murdered a couple of days ago by person or persons unknown.

Vladimir Putin (Russia, number 148) also hasn’t officially killed any journalists this year, but many have been murdered in crimes that go unpunished, and he’s got a lot of reporters and bloggers in jail.

In general, bringing news to your doorstep, your TV or your device is a dangerous business. Last week alone, nine journalists were killed in Kabul in a bombing attack that appeared to target them; another was shot shortly thereafter. Last month three reporters and their driver were kidnapped and murdered in Ecuador. Another three have been killed in India since the beginning of the year. The global toll last year was 82 murdered; so far this year 32 gave been killed, and we’re not even halfway through the twelvemonth.

Here’s a graphic from Reporters Without Borders:

Most of these journalists aren’t even officially war correspondents; it’s just that—these days—the line between combat and non-combat zones has blurred, literally and figuratively. It’s an appalling thought that we here in the land of the First Amendment are sinking into shithole status, thanks to the ministrations of the GOPigs, but here we are.

Yes, I know that there's plenty wrong with the basket of odds and sods that constitutes "the media" these days. And there are plenty of propagandists passing themselves off as journalists. Moreover, the whole business model of delivering news and commentary has suffered multiple body blows during the Internet Age, and it's often hard to tell news from entertainment. (And don't even get me started on that bastard known as "infotainment". Nonetheless, Mr. Jefferson was right.)

Something I recall from my days working on a daily paper is that journalists outdrink just about any class of professionals (including the three branches of the military I’ve been associated with)—with the possible exception of cops. I don’t know about you, but this evening I believe I’ll lift a glass to those stalwarts who risk their safety and their lives to keep me informed. God love ya, all of ya.

Career path

For those who recall Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, I’ve got this photo of a modern-day chimney sweep concern in England.

You’ll want to enlarge and read the copy under the Citroen logo in the lower right area. We can expect to find similar over here in Red states.

Surgical strike

When I had my hand operated on two weeks ago, my expectation of being able to go to work the next day turned out to be a complete pipe dream. First off, there was the soft cast that was the size of a tree stump. That effectively made it impossible for me to wear clothes that would be work-suitable, but it also rendered me incapable of using a mouse with my right hand.

Since I’m currently building out the financial models of a business plan in spreadsheets, that kind of put a crimp in things. I did go back to work last Monday, but I had to use my left hand for mousework, which is to say: I spent a crapload of time not getting much done.

I kept finding things that require opposable thumbs and/or flexible wrists. Like turning the key in my car’s ignition, releasing the brake and shifting the manual transmission.

Last Tuesday I saw my orthopedic surgeon for the post-op follow-up, and swapped out the soft cast for the hard one. It was an interesting process:

First of all, the orthopod removed the cast and had me wash my hands. I took the opportunity to get a couple of kludgy left-handed shots of the wounds. This one is the incision where he enucleated the bone and shoved the bunched-up tendon into the resulting cavity. (Everything's still swollen in these shots. I still have to remember to elevate my hand to reduce the swelling. I look like Stonewall Jackson.)

This one shows the main incision, as well as the smaller one halfway up the arm, where he snipped the tendon that got pulled up into the base of my wrist

Cool, huh?

Then the assistant came in and wrapped the hard cast. He asked me what color I’d like; I said, “Give me something that won’t show dirt.” So this is my wrist now:

It’s considerably smaller than the first one. Although I still can’t grip anything between thumb and fingers, I do have greater freedom of movement. I can comb my hair, and brush my teeth, and changing sheets is almost okay. And I can kind of kludge the mouse. So, yay!

But I still can’t get it wet, so I have to wash dishes one-handed, and stick my arm in a plastic bag in the shower. And I’ve been banned from heavy lifting and gardening, which latter is a real pisser. This is about the only time between winter and mosquito season where you can get out and dig in the dirt.

But—worst for me—I still cannot hold a pen or pencil in my hand. I’m a writer; I’ve not gone one single day without putting instrument to paper since I was six years old. Until now. Therapy for me is uncapping an Italian fountain pen and feeling my thoughts flow across the pages of my journal. That’s off the table for another two weeks at least. This is a hard one. (Hoping the IRS can make out the writing on the check I sent them.)

Still—I’m looking forward to being on the other side of this, to being able to use my hand, with opposable thumb and without pain.

Paschal moon: a brief, dreamy kind delight

Final day of National Poetry Month, so we’ll go out with another heavy hitter.

Like Dorothy Parker, William Butler Yeats loved not wisely, but too well. The main passion of his life was Maud Gonne. He once stated that her (first) rejection of his marriage proposal (in 1891, two years after they met) marked the point at which “the troubling of my life began”. He proposed three more times over the next ten years, and was turned down every time. The man she did choose, John MacBride, was an appalling, abusive human being, but he shared her deep, radicalIrish nationalism, which Yeats did not. After her unsuccessful attempt to divorce MacBride, Yeats—who had supported her in the effort—finally physically consummated the relationship, but even that was…unsatisfying, and their friendship faded after the single sexual encounter.

Even so, when John MacBride was executed following the Easter Rebellion of 1916, Yeats proposed one final time to Gonne. And one final time she said no. Frankly, the proposal was kind of by rote, and he was somewhat relieved by her response. Then, the 56-year-old poet started going middle-age crazy. He developed a fixation on…Iseult Gonne, Maud’s 21-year-old daughter by her pre-MacBride lover Lucien Millevoie. Iseult followed in her mother’s footsteps by rejecting Yeats’s 1917 proposal.

By now he was feeling a desperate urge to produce an heir, so within a few months of being shown the romantic door by Iseult, he proposed to 25-year-old Georgie Hyde-Lees. That relationship was a success, and produced two children, though he took lovers throughout his life.

Well, anyway, the Yeats-Gonne relationship really scarred the poet deeply, as witnessed by today’s entry.

“Never Give All the Heart”

Never give all the heart, for love

Will hardly seem worth thinking of

To passionate women if it seem

Certain, and they never dream

That it fades out from kiss to kiss;

For everything that’s lovely is

But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.

O never give the heart outright,

For they, for all smooth lips can say,

Have given their hearts up to the play.

And who could play it well enough

If deaf and dumb and blind with love?

He that made this knows all the cost,

For he gave all his heart and lost.

This is the sort of thing you expect from poets—that thrill-of-victory-agony-of-defeat in love, so it seems appropriate that it should close us out for this year.