Poly ticks= Many blood suckers

In November 2008 and the months beforehand, the words "hope" and "change" were swirling around like blue butterflies. Obama offered something that the other candidates did not: a promise that things would be different. I voted for him on that premise.

But seriously, how do you really know who you're voting for? Political consultants are paid millions of dollars to make candidates look good. News is slanted this way or that. They pay speechwriters to tell them what to say. People with lots of money rub elbows with those who make big decisions. How do you know the truth? How do you know what that candidate is really thinking, or whose interests they're concerned about?

I just watched a Bill Moyers documentary about single payer healthcare. He reviewed a speech by Jimmy Carter in the 1970s, in which Carter says about healthcare:

We've built a haphazard, unsound, undirected, inefficient non-system, which has left us unhealthy and unwealthy at the same time. So we must plan, and decisively phase in, simultaneous reform of services and refinancing of cost.

So what happened? According to Moyers, the government backed down after the health insurance companies promised to voluntarily cut costs . . . and then costs soared. Thirty years later, we still have a "haphazard, unsound, undirected, inefficient non-system," and it's leaving the common person unhealthy and unwealthy while inflating the bank accounts of insurance company CEOs.

Fast forward to the Clinton era. "Universal coverage has to be the bottom line and do not let anybody tell you any differently," said Hillary Clinton. But do we have health coverage that makes sense now? Uhhh, no. In fact, a mere 1 in 14 people are satisfied with the way healthcare is run now. Is that representing the voice and desires of the people?

I'm not saying that Obama's doing a poor job. All I'm saying is that "change" seems so . . . idealistic sometimes. Is it really going to happen? Sometimes I think not. Obama still receives money from the insurance companies, and Democratic Senator Max Baucus (who is hosting a roundtable "discussion" on healthcare reform, attended by those more or less in favor of keeping things the way they are) is the third highest recipient of money from the insurance industry. Single payer advocates were not given a seat at the table. So where's the hope in that?

It's not just the healthcare industry. Our government is closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, but is planning on instituting a system of "prolonged detention," in which terrorism suspects are held in the United States without trial for an indefinite period of time. According to the article, "the concept of preventive detention is at the very boundary of American law, and legal experts say any new plan for the imprisonment of terrorism suspects without trial would seem inevitably bound for the Supreme Court." Maybe I missed something, but isn't this still keeping people locked up without a fair trial?

Again, it's not just the president I'm discouraged by. It's the entire system. Let's face it: one man can only do so much. I just wish that when politicians promised to advocate for common person, they would mean it. I make 8 bucks an hour working part time at a nursing home, and there have been times this past year when it feels like I'm just barely hanging on. I'm not a billionaire or a lobbyist. Who's out there fighting for me, and those like me?

I was just reading an article in the NY Times about death in birth in Tanzania. There are a lot of factors that contribute to the health of the mother and infant, such as the mother's state, her distance from the clinic, previous c-sections, etc. Plus, at the clinics, there is a shortage of trained healthcare workers. Even more, the reporter witnessed them washing and reusing bloody gauze.

I remember there was a lot of hullaballoo this past January about NBC refusing to air a Super Bowl anti-abortion ad put out by an organization called Fidelis. I tried to find the price tag of such an ad, and according to this site, it would have cost 1.5-1.8 million.

Consider this: In Tanzania, A normal birth at the hospital costs about $6, an emergency Caesarean $15. An excerpt from the NY Times article:

Only 20 percent of women in the area give birth at the hospital, and many do so only when they need Caesareans. Many women say they simply cannot afford the hospital. More than 50 percent stay home togive birth, and the rest go to local clinics that cannot handle emergencies or perform Caesareans. “We lost four or five babies this week,” the Rev. Isaac Y. Mgego, an Anglican priest and the hospital’s director, said in an interview in January. “Our doctors have to play with two bad things, to save the mother or save the child.”

Later on, Mr. Mgego says it costs about $200,000 a year to run Berega Hospital in Tanzania.

Imagine what 1.5 million American dollars could do for these women. It could build more clinics, train more health workers, pay for more prenatal care, treat malaria, repair fistulas, run Berege Hospital for 7 years . . . it could save lives.

I understand that some people place a lot of significance in making a point, such as with a Super Bowl ad or otherwise. But if I had 1.5 million dollars at my disposal, I don't think that's what I'd spend it on.

So I started my first graduate level class on Monday: Intro to Graduate Research. At first I wasn't too enthused about it, but I'm liking reading the education journal articles. To have research backing up different methods of teaching or running a classroom is valuable. It's an online class, the first I've ever taken, and so far so good.

My job at the preschool ended today, as it's summer break. I'm still working at the long term care place. I've made a few mistakes in the last few days, and whenever I make mistakes I have a hard time letting them go. I just hate messing up, but I guess it's going to happen . . .

We have a little dirt patch in our backyard, and today I planted a tomato plant and some spinach. Hopefully the spinach comes up and the tomato survives. I also got some Coneflower/ Echinacea seeds for Teacher Appreciation Week, and I planted those in a pot on our front "porch." I'm finding I like working in our yard, even if it is small.

Moby has the all-clear to go on walks. We ordered him a thing called a Springer that we can use to take him on bike rides. We have to wait until he's 10 months old to use it, as his growth plates are still developing. At least now we can take him walking and he won't be so hard to live with.

I just heard about this website that tells you about the products/ brands/ companies being marketed to us. For example, I use Suave Sleek Shampoo, and it got a rating of 7 out of 10 (based on how the company treats its workers and the environment and the ingredients of the product, to name a few of the considerations).

Check it out if you get a chance.

Discouragement

If this article is correct, 15 people speaking out for single payer healthcare were arrested at a Senate round table discussion on the topic. An excerpt:

The protestors were stoic and respectful but direct. One by one they stood. One by one they asked why single payer reform was not “at the table” of 15 witnesses Senator Max Baucus and his finance Committee gathered to map out what sort of coverage Americans might expect in the Senate reform bill now being crafted. Sen. Baucus eventually spoke and indicated that he was respectful of those who believe in single payer – as he acknowledged many of his constituents in Montana do – but he made no attempt to explain why no single payer voice has been included in any Senate discussion to date. He urged any others in the audience who might have any designs on speaking up like the protestors did to not do so, and then he moved on to his round table discussion.

Karen Ignagni, head of the group American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), got a seat at the table. But why didn't these 15 people, and why were they arrested?

It's things like this that make me sick. If you can explain why these people were taken out, then please do, because I'm puzzled.

About a year ago I read The Essential 55, by Ron Clark. He is a teacher who has been decorated with various awards, and has taught elementary students in the South and in New York. They even made a movie about him with Matthew Perry. Anyway, the reason I'm bringing him up is that his 55 rules have begun to make a lot of sense to me. I've been working in a preschool now for about two months, and the skills Clark teaches are good for any student to know. Take a look at them if you get a chance.

Moby's been back from the hospital, and he has to stay on cage rest for about another 4 weeks. We have him tied up in the house so he can't run around, but he doesn't seem to know he's injured or had surgery. He barks and jumps around, tries to catch the cats, and has lately been more destructive than usual. We give him attention in the house, but it's not the same as a long walk or run. I'll be glad when he's "normal" again . . . it's hard to keep him tied up.

So we are going to be in Greeley for the next two years, until spring 2011, when I will be done at UNC. But what then? We've thought about moving to Denver, Springs, Fort Collins. But one thing that I can't stop thinking about is moving to New Zealand.

In my field (or what will be my field) of Early Childhood Education, there are opportunities for teachers. This is from TeachNZ:

Early childhood teachers (ECE) - new professional registration requirements for early childhood teachers in New Zealand, and the high participation rate in early childhood education are placing pressure on ECE teacher numbers. At this point there are no UK ECE qualifications that are equivalent to 3 -year NZ ECE diploma or degree.

I would have to provide originals of my Master's Degree and transcripts to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, then register with the New Zealand Teacher's Council. Then I'd have to get a work permit. The TeachNZ site says that for early childhood teachers, I only have to produce evidence of registration and a letter of a job offer in order to get a work visa. The visa would allow me to enter New Zealand where I would get a work permit.

In Auckland, the university is doing research that Dre is highly interested in, and we would be able to bring the cats and Moby with us. There are a lot of ECE jobs posted in the NZ Education Gazette. So what's holding us back? Leaving family behind, primarily. I would come back if my parents needed help, but I worry that I would feel huge guilt if they didn't get to see us and their grandkids a lot. That's really the main thing that I would need to resolve in my mind before we would go.