Dear Crisis Intervention of Houston (Carbon Copy to the White House)

Source: JEZEBEL

Crisis Intervention of Houston is proud to be part of a new effort to help save lives through a partnership with the National Suicide Prevention Line Network (NSPL) and the White House.

In January 2009, the Obama Administration initiated a process for the public to voice concerns directly to the White House via email. This resulted in an outpouring of emails from thousands of individuals whose concerns ranged from financial and food assistance, to medical insurance. Some of the individuals who contacted the White House expressed thoughts or threats of suicide. 

In response to the influx of calls, the White House asked NSPL to provide follow-up calls to individuals identified as potentially suicidal. As the Region 6 Center for the National Suicide Prevention Line, Crisis Intervention of Houston is providing follow- up telephone calls, emails or mail to potentially suicidal individuals identified to be living in Houston or the surrounding area. 

Crisis Intervention of Houston is assisting in this effort by contacting these individuals and conducting a suicide risk assessment which requires some detective work and lots of patience. CIH's work is part of a progress report made by NSPL to the White House every week. 

We are proud to partner with NSPL and the White House as we continue to reach out to people in crisis and provide the kind of support that saves lives.

This may be the most humiliating post I've ever had to write.  But I do have to write it.  It is one of those truth-telling days.  The sun is out.  I conquered my phone phobia and called my Mom.  (Yes, I know, it is more of a Mom-Calling Phobia than an actual fear of the technology.)

I do need to say, in defense of any jerkiness in writing, or thought, that my left leg, hip, and lower back, are all conniving against the composition of this post.  There is screaming -- rhythmic, short bursts, nothing arduously continual -- involved, as the Spaz Attacks laugh in the face of 40 mg of Baclofen, 8 mg of Tizanidine, and a Kroger Diet Ginger Ale.

I am a true fan of President Obama, and of many of his policies.  We could do a rundown, but if you're a Dear and Dedicated Reader of this obscure and odd blog, that would be the height of boredom.

Yes, I am trying to avoid what needs saying.

I write the President, and with excessive frequency.  Possibly with excessive openness, perhaps with insufficient deference.  Weirdo that I am, I consider him a friend, especially in the middle of the night when the pain is winning and all of Marlinspike Hall snores in blissful slumber, from the few country mice in our myriad cellars and crags whistling midst dreams of artisinal cheddar wheels, to the Holy Abbot Truffatore, hiding from the heavy duties of his office at the Cistercian monastery, our closest neighbor, snoring with blessed abandon.  If I listen hard enough, sometimes even the muffled snuffling of the Crack Whore napping alongside the whispering waters of the moat reach my hyper-vigilant ears.

What better time to write the President of the United States?

Maybe it was the letter where I chastised the university system that studiously underemploys its many "adjunct," "visiting," and "assistant/associate" professors, denying them not just the oft-discussed tenure but the rarely referred to basic benefits of employment -- a living wage, access to health care, that kind of piddly stuff.

Yes, I bet it was THAT letter that did it, that put me on The List.  I probably said something like: I have deferred my plans for suicide because my brother Lumpy, the Professor, was diagnosed with an evil cancer, already metastasized, the bastard, dastardly enemy!  He had not had enough funds to purchase insurance prior to President Obama and Friends' pushing through the Affordable Care Act and setting up the MarketPlace.  So, by the time he had affordable health care... no thanks to the university for whom he'd labored like a slave for over 25 years... his first doctor's visit came with the ominous pronouncements of "tumors, masses, MRIs, referrals to oncologists." Just months before, he'd made his first ever visit to an ER, only to be treated as a drug-seeker, and told he probably had a rotator cuff injury.  Right.  Make that Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma.

So, it was probably that letter that set off the "suicide" risk alarm button in the White House Reading Room, where every letter to the President is closely perused.

Though it might have been any of the letters that tried to explain the frustrations of a "rare" or "orphaned" disease like CRPS, and the idiocy those of us with it are forced to confront in an often futile effort to get help.  I might have used the old chesnut of CRPS being known as "The Suicide Disease."

In any event, the dread telephone rang this morning, after the second night of Screaming Ninnies and ineffective 100 mcg Fentanyl patches, Percocets, Baclofen, and ibuprofen.  The ultimate proof of failure, and pain's triumph?  It bust down the gates of music -- It ran through Ben Harper, The Decembrists, Bonnie Raitt, Eric Clapton, The Band, Townes Van Zandt, Frank Sinatra, various timeless chorales, even knocking Nina Simone off her intimate stage.  Even the spunky Brett Dennen had his red locks blowing in the wake of the pain's wind. Damien Rice was left standing, but barely -- more of a stagger than a stalwart stance.

So I answered a call from a caller I did not recognize.

It was the Crisis Intervention Of Houston (Inc.) calling "on behalf of the White House."

No coffee in my system, but three cats attached to head, right hip, and square upon my chest, I thought, "Well, of course.  Who else would be calling this fine Sunday morning but some suicide prevention hotline on behalf of my friends in the Barack Obama Administration?"

The very nice person on the other end of the connection wanted to make sure I "had access to all the resources" I need.  Beyond a loaded gun, I assured her resources were to be had aplenty here in Tête de Hergé.

No, I managed to set aside morbid humor and reality just long enough to be completely mortified that my finely tuned letters to the President had set in motion, not the rectification of health care and employment injustices impacting human life, itself, but, rather, a concern that I really meant to perform DIY amputations after consuming scads of methadone washed down with the best of a single malt scotch.

So, a sincere statement of thanks to that wonderful woman who made that cold call, and appreciation to the Obama Letter Reader who put me on the Suicide Watch List.

Suicide is part of the daily routine when you live with this much unrelieved pain and disability for this long, and the only assurance doctors can supply is that the future will be the same, or worse. When you don't sleep nearly enough, especially in consecutive minutes.  When "hope" is a construct, and you spend way too much time comforting those you'd hoped might comfort you.  When your financial resources are destroyed, and your career made a laughing stock of a memory.  When you cannot even hold someone else's hand because it feels like an attack with Sand Paper Set Ablaze.  When you cannot talk about any of these things due to the fatigue of those few still around, trying to help.

And when the person upon whom you have dumped the most, with whom you have shared every detail of the journey turns out to be so damned ill, and so ill-treated?  To someone as weak as I am, lacking the stern moral fiber of my ancestors, suicide seems quite the viable option, and so is considered, daily.

But thank you, Crisis Intervention of Houston, and White House staffers, for caring enough to put me on The List.

Imagine the impact if you bypassed those such as me and called some of the suicidal veterans returned from multiple deployments?  Last I checked, 22 veterans a day kill themselves.  They don't endlessly whine, they don't "blog" it, but maybe they write their Commander-in-Chief now and then.

Like I said, this is the most humiliating post ever, and yet, in the intent of all parties is a desire to "do good," and to stop, or slow, the bad.

Dear President Obama...

© 2015 L. Ryan

"No parsnips whatsoever": now with an encouraging update!

Yes, it IS a repost, originally published on 10/2/2013.  It was a time of governmental crisis, if that helps you thumb through your mental calendar.  I drag this post's silliness back into the light due to the reconvening of Congress tomorrow, and the feeling that reunion has provoked in the pit of my stomach since, roughly, November of 2008.

This time around, though, I'm borrowing the strategy of Organizing for [cough::cough] ACTION and promoting this pertinent, uplifting, and helpful video:


We now return you to the original post of 10/2/2013...

**************************************************************************

I feel, and I feel strongly, that when faced with such crises as a government shutdown and the likelihood of the US of America defaulting on its debts by not raising, pro forma, the debt ceiling, that stories about cats, food, and the state of the weather are what is called for.

Not that I couldn't join the thousands, millions, more likely, of bloggers who are writing of hostage-taking, perverse manipulation, and the apparent ignorance of the basic process of how laws are passed and changed in this purportedly representative government model.

I am reminded of the stupidity that this country's freedom fighters, back in the eighteenth century, noted on the part of their enemy, the British Redcoats.

First, they wore bright red.
Second, they stood in straight lines, in the open, as it was felt a good British Redcoat should.

And that was how our ragged, dirty troops slipped behind trees and into ditches and picked the suckers off, one by one.

I was sort of hoping that the Democrats and the many, many reasonable Republicans would remember that former stupidity, that adherence to what did not make sense and that led to many young, innocent Brits dying in a ridiculous manner... and that they'd start fighting smart, in a way that might actually preserve lives, that might allow for the passage of a Clean Resolution, with no George III-type addenda, and then move on to raise the debt ceiling because, everyone knows, the debt ceiling must be raised.

This blog either turns now to cats, recipes, health updates (You should see my right leg!  It's a HOOT!) or you and I can weep together over the likelihood of my investments (READ: all I have in the world) circling the drain and being sucked into the vortex of idiocy that defines, at this point, everyone in government from the President (still one of my heroes) to Harry Reid to John "Cry Me A River" Boehner to my congressmen and senators.

We will begin with cats.

Marlinspike Hall cats are, by virtue of living in Marlinspike Hall, spoiled rotten.  They receive attention equal to that offered Queen Elizabeth's weirdo Welsh corgis.  I'm sorry, but those strange little dogs belong on poofy pillows and shouldn't be passed off as "herding dogs." What do they herd, stunted rats?  My very rapid perusal of expert opinions on these bizarro-looking canines explain that their miniature legs serve to allow them to "nip" at the heels of livestock.  Okay.  I was expecting something about digging tunnels and "nipping" at the hind legs of the aforementioned rats.  Or mouses.  Meeces.  Mice.

Um, cats.  Right.  I was distracted by the leader of the Republican Party, Rancid Prepubescence, announcing that the RNC was going to pay to keep the WWII memorial open since President Obama shut down the country.  I don't believe that Fred would slip me LSD in my Diet Ginger Ale but these days, whom can one really trust?




You have got to be freaking kidding me?  Bachmann rejoices that the country has been shut down -- literally says that this is what she wanted to happen -- but then arranges herself as a rescuing first responder for a group of elderly veterans who were about to suffer the indignity of her own actions?  I think there is some mental disorder, a personality disorder, that covers this kind of behavior but the label escapes me.  And I've too many labels already handy for Michele Bachmann.  Her label directory is full and the DSM-IV points her to falling under the aegis of BOTH Cluster A and Cluster B in the Axis II Personality Disorder section.  I ain't qualified.

But you know what is coming on the telly?  The 1967 version of Doctor Dolittle, with Rex Harrison! Perfect timing, for you may have noticed I'm having trouble sticking with my resolution to ignore the nutcakes, the wigged-out -- our leaders.  Give me a good honest Pushmi-pullyu any day.

Interesting that Doctor Dolittle came out the same year as The Graduate, In Cold Blood, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night.  Hey, all I said was "interesting." No other commentary.

I actually have never seen the whole movie -- I tried because I was an enormous fan of Hugh Lofting's books.  My thanks, once again, to my stepmom for her guidance toward childhood classics that I surely would never have read without her placing them neatly in my lazy ambulating way.  She did the same with Jane Eyre, Harriet the Spy, Little Women, Little Men, and all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books.  And The Little Prince.  Of course, she also cut pages out of a book I wanted, fearing for my young innocence.  The dangerous book?  The Making of a Surgeon! How do you thank someone for such gifts?

Speaking of Mother-Units, the biological Mom is hopefully having a turn of luck, thanks, as is usually the case, to a group of good people.  Enough said, except... again, how do you thank someone for such gifts?

Okay, cats.  Ahem.

1.  Buddy the Outrageously Large Maine Coon:  forever a kitten.  We continue with the Wire Wars.  After nearly destroying our Xfinity connectivity with his love for a good wire chew, I wrapped the area he was accessing with bubble wrap, studded with little pieces of gauze drenched in Witch Hazel, for which he has great antipathy.  To avoid spending more money on earbuds chewed into little pieces, I took the last pair and encased it in electrical tape -- not thinking, of course, of what a strange impression this would make should I want to listen to music in a public place.  Well, this has worked well for the last three weeks.  Last night, I was tuckered out, set my mp3 player to its usual 90-minute sleep mode, and floated away to my darling Nina Simone.  Somehow, someway, I slept a good, long time, but in the process removed the earbuds and tossed them aside among piles of pillows and bits of quilt (Dobby eats textiles, and has chewed my quilts with great joy... and I often get to extract quilt stitching from deep within his bubbly belly).  Upon waking, of course, Buddy had chewed through the small area that was not wrapped against his sharp teeth.  I fussed and yelled at him, and he looked at me, pleased, clearly hearing "Congratulations, Buddy, Good Boy!" instead of "%(&$##))*&@!"  And then he demanded breakfast.

2.  Dobby, the used-to-be Runt, the Forever Number Two:  Let me clear up a concern I may have caused. I keep the quilts trimmed of loose threads, but he's a devil with those tiny claws.  Dobby is watching Doctor Dolittle intently, at the moment.  Or maybe he is fascinated with Polynesia, the parrot.  No, he's enthralled with the horses and cows, too.  Dobby remains the Peacekeeper of the Manor.  Today, he broke up a near fight between Marmy Fluffy Butt, his mother, and the aforementioned Buddy.  Buddy is huge, tough, and pretty darned strong and quick.  Marmy is tiny, tough, and quicker.  Her strength lies in her perfect technique, not in musculature.  Anyway, back to Dobby.  He also was shut up in the closet again today, a frequent happening.  He doesn't cry, or scratch, or do anything to let you know he's been trapped.  He just curls up and naps, secure in the knowledge that we're not so dumb that we won't figure it out at some point. He clearly has no clue as to how many closets there are in Marlinspike Hall.  Luckily, we know which ones attract him to begin with.  Any closet with fine, museum-quality linens.  Any closet with delicate knits that attract cat hair like nobody's business.  But mostly, Dobby chooses closets that contain my freshly laundered clothing.  Nothing expensive in there, nothing in the least historically significant.  However, they make the perfect spot for shedding, and if one has been ill-behaved in some way, for hiding.  Unfortunately, in Dobby, stress of any sort causes him to denude his small body of all hair... so when I put on clean clothes, I have to put the lint roller to immediate use.  Bless his little bones, Dobby keeps me sane.  He demands what he wants when he wants it, will put up a determined little fight for it, but if he cannot have it just then, will love you anyway.  His clue that it is time to be groomed (his obsession) is my morning keg of coffee.  My notion of what to do, after the careful brewing of my keg of coffee, is to drink it, at leisure, while perusing the latest news about... well, let's not get trapped into talking of the news again!  But to Dobby, it signals the true beginning of the day, and that means the taking care of him.  He has his own (cheap, purple, and plastic) comb and brush set and proceeds to remind me of its existence by knocking them to the floor.  Then he apologizes.  And gets his brushing (the comb is but a pawn in his game), including a finalizing, invigorating belly rub.  Everyone should have a Dobby.  On his inner right thigh, in the tiniest of Cyrillic print, almost invisible, really:  "Dobby: 90% angel, 10% house elf."

3. Marmy Fluffy Butt.  Also known as "my girl." I've told her story many times, but once more won't hurt anyone.  She and her brother, who we also took in but who had suffered so much, he did not make it, were feral street cats.  Somewhere in their short pasts, for they were only 8 months, according to the vet's estimate, they had been indoor pets but were abandoned.  She was, as the Bible might say, sorely pregnant. As tiny then as she remains now, her belly barely cleared the ground.  And she trusted no one.  She fought for every scrap of food, long after the need for fighting was gone.  She tolerated us, and when her "time" to be delivered arrived, she seemed glad enough to have us around.  Fred, especially.  Fred is a wonder with children and with animals.  None of that silly adult pushing, that obnoxious adult knowing-better-than-anyone-else nonsense.  He greets child and animal and then follows suit.  If ignored, he good-naturedly pulls away.  If tolerated, he'll sit nearby with a good book.  If encouraged, he'll offer some sort of smile and a treat.  I kind of push things a bit, not understanding why my love and best intentions don't make child or animal my best friend on an immediate basis.  Go figure.  Anyway, Marmy was not the most maternal of mothers.  "Resentful" might be an appropriate adjective.  Plus, she decided she was done with this "giving birth" nonsense after she had produced four beautiful kittens.  Unfortunately, there was one more -- Dobby
-- waiting in the... wings.  So Fred stepped in and delivered him, deftly, beautifully.  It was touch and go, and then we were in fear that Dobby was a bit touched in the head from lack of oxygen, for he did things like climb to Marmy's head instead of seeking out her life-giving milk.  In fact, all the creature seemed to do for weeks was climb.  Very happy to be at the highest available peak, he didn't seem to notice hunger or thirst, warmth or cold.  Well, obviously, he survived.  Marmy remained feral for almost two more years, terrorized and terrorizing.  Then, for no reason we've ever discovered, she decided we were fine, and became a love bunny.  She's flipped back and forth several times, again, for reasons we cannot divine.  Except for one instance -- after a vet visit that resulted in a tooth-pulling and an overnight stay.  She gave us the silent treatment for a good three months after that.  When she does choose to show affection, she's unbeatable. She nuggles close, she butts her head against a spare hand, and she tells you of her woes in her best "*ack*-*ack*" tones, and bewitches you with her beautiful eyes.  It is best not to be offended when, for no discernible reason, she huffs and puffs and swirls her tremendously fluffy tail end in your face, and stalks off.
Today, I was blessed with having Marmy show up "*ack*-*ack*"ing for a good brushing.  She must have heard about the goings on in Washington.

Oh, no!  They are throwing Dr. Dolittle into an asylum.  You know who needs to be in an asylum, don't you? Those animals in D.C.!

I tried.  I would keep trying, and regale you with stories of the dinner I concocted tonight, except that I didn't concoct a darned thing.  Two Nathan's hot dogs on whole wheat bread, with yellow mustard.  My legs are hurting, my shoulders blah blah blah blah blah.  And blah!

Hooray... the monkey stole the keys to the carriage, the horses took off without the guards and drivers, and the bloodhounds refused to hunt, the Doctor is saved!  And now everyone has set sail to the North Pole... which Dr. Dolittle carefully points out "has not been discovered yet," so they're keeping that bit of knowledge to themselves.  Actually, they're looking for the giant pink Sea Snail but don't know where it is.

This is altogether too realistic for my taste, suddenly.

Have a good night, everyone.  And thank you, Hugh Lofton!

"Then Jip went up to the front of the ship and smelt the wind; and he

started muttering to himself,

'Tar; Spanish onions; kerosene oil; wet raincoats; crushed

laurel-leaves; rubber burning; lace-curtains being washed--No, my

mistake, lace-curtains hanging out to dry; and foxes--hundreds of

'em--cubs; and--'

'Can you really smell all those different things in this one wind?'

asked the Doctor.

'Why, of course!' said Jip. 'And those are only a few of the easy

smells--the strong ones. Any mongrel could smell those with a cold in

the head. Wait now, and I'll tell you some of the harder scents that

are coming on this wind--a few of the dainty ones.'

Then the dog shut his eyes tight, poked his nose straight up in the air

and sniffed hard with his mouth half-open.

For a long time he said nothing. He kept as still as a stone. He

hardly seemed to be breathing at all. When at last he began to speak,

it sounded almost as though he were singing, sadly, in a dream.

'Bricks,' he whispered, very low--'old yellow bricks, crumbling with

age in a garden-wall; the sweet breath of young cows standing in a

mountain-stream; the lead roof of a dove-cote--or perhaps a

granary--with the mid-day sun on it; black kid gloves lying in a

bureau-drawer of walnut-wood; a dusty road with a horses'

drinking-trough beneath the sycamores; little mushrooms bursting

through the rotting leaves; and--and--and--'

'Any parsnips?' asked Gub-Gub.

'No," said Jip. "You always think of things to eat. No parsnips

whatever.'

[illustration and quote from lofting brazenly stolen from the blog Basic North]






© 2013 L. Ryan

REPOST: The Convention Made Me Do It

photo courtesy of Business Insider

Apparently, just about two years ago today, I published this post as my "end of hiatus" triumphant return to blogging.  Well, "yay" for that.  
But what's disturbing is that, looking about at the discussions going on today, the "dialogue" on race hasn't progressed.  As in: at all.
Yet we continue to feign surprise and haven't let up the speed in which we produce these precious, precious "teachable moments."

photo: Christian Science Monitor

***********************************************

The hiatus is officially ended.

The spell, somehow, broke around 10 pm last evening, during a ventriloquist failure at the Republican Convention, as a broken and weird-haired Clint Eastwood opened network coverage of the circus, basically introducing former Governor Mitt Romney with a routine that I'd bet a bazillion dollars wasn't... vetted.

So much of our troubles are due to this vetting obsession, so much of the loss of our fun.  What should have been the guiding light of my life is this seussian bit of wisdom:  “If you never did you should. These things are fun and fun is good.”

And then there is the iconic Seuss, meant for my gravestone:  “Being crazy isn't enough.” 

Back to vetting, the idea that we can know it all by what all we can dig up in the peaty dirt, the dirt old enough to get peaty rich, that old, old dirt.  Like an imaginary President Obama perched on what looked to me to be an insultingly uncomfortable folding chair, mouthing off at Clint with a big old "Go fuck yourself." 

Presumably, Obama was pretty lit, having had to be forcibly removed from Boehner's bar.

Yes, I suspected that the Republican Convention would end my blogging hiatus.

The balance, the scale, isn't just the symbol of justice, blind.  Balance and scale are needed to make it safely head-to-pillow each and every day -- provided head-to-pillow denotes, for you, day's end.  What people consistently fail to point out is the grin on Lady Justice's pocked and bruised face.  And she's not *blind*, people, she's blind-folded.  Big difference.  I think she peeks.  And I think she joneses for Seuss as much as I do.

She-Hulk #1

“I know, up on top you are seeing great sights, but down here at the bottom we, too, should have rights.” 
― Dr. Seuss, Yertle the Turtle and Gertrude McFuzz

“The words in this book are all phooey. When you say them, your lips will make slips and back flips and your tongue may end up in Saint Looey!” 

― Dr. Seuss

In addition to vetting, I propose ciphering, or coded words, as enemies to my political fun, at least. I would like "Chicago" to reference a city in Illinois and not become the millionth Other Word to mean "a gathering of people of color," "black," or "African American."  What was so wrong with "urban"?

The day has come, O Jehovah, in which I quote with approbation the inimitable Michelle Malkin, from her half-assed researched and cent pour cent aware articlette, entitled "The Condensed Liberal Handbook Of Racial Code Words."  Oh, and it was published in the... Patriot Post.  Quick!  If you are a J. K. Rowling fan, eat chocolate!  If not, if you're the lazy sort:  "You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes." 

As Malkin slipslides her way down, she writes this graffito in the slime accumulated on her ill-kept rodent burrow, and it *is* a good one:

--Kitchen cabinet. Radio talk-show host Mark Thompson jumped on Romney for using this phrase -- coined to describe Andrew Jackson's administration in the 1800s -- at the NAACP convention in July. Romney was referring to a close member of his staff during his tenure as Massachusetts governor. 

"To talk about being in the kitchen and not talk about an African-American actually being in your cabinet is really not a good metaphor to use with African-Americans," Thompson blasted. Is it racist to ask: Huh?

I'm so fully aware of racist speech and racist code words in political speech, in particular, that I've developed linguistic bulimia, polysemic purging.  As Lee Atwater, Malkin's godfather put it:

You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968, you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."[9][10]

You all know that I am an expert in everything, being something of a specialist in 16th century French Literature, although, through circumstances completely out of my control, I ended up writing a thesis concentrated on the eighteenth -- which explains my real and actual fascination with the relationship between word and image, the whole ut pictura poesis thang.  If you're with me, then you'll understand that simply seeing a fleeting image of Jan Brewer is cathartic for someone with my predilections.  She simply makes me spew -- and go into a five-minute routine of poking people with a witchy index finger.

Thank goodness there are not too many occasions for using that old chestnut of a phrase, "blah people." 

from Crooks and Liars

"We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers." asserted Neil Newhouse.

Now, there you go!  It's not exactly MY take on the Good Seussian Life, but I can stomach such an open-armed hug to fun... I mean, it's not quite ipecac, and that's progress.  So thank you, Neil Newhouse!  I'm laughing and so far, lunch is staying down.

The lower you go, reading-wise, down, down, where the hard work, the hard digging is done, the more ano-friendly the texts.  There are no codes in use.  The First Lady is called a "fat black cow."  This same author pondered summore and came up with:  "id like to take obamas big fat black lips and make them kiss his own buttox." 

One of my favorite writers on the interwebs is a frequent tweeter of Our President and his First Family, excitedly anticipating their love of a spicy African soup, and frequently deciding that Michelle Obama must be pregnant.  She's a fan of those who are fans of her, and so I pray and frequently beg my friend, The President, to send her a letter full of praise of some of her original ideas -- you know, how sex is solely intended for those intending procreation, and acknowledging the incredible guilt of newborns, in general, and in specifics -- from unemployment to shady welfare suck-ups.

I HAD to come out of sabbatical.  The world was going to Hell and being led there by people blaming climate change on Hell itself.

Captain Haddock may, however, need to extend my FMLA job-protected and unpaid loafing, that invitation to sloth so obligingly enacted by that impeached bum Bill Clinton, who stole it from the blessed founding father of the free lands west of the Lone Alp, now known as the Tête de Hergé.

40 Miles West Of Baghdad

The best lack all conviction, while the worst  

Are full of passionate intensity.   

--Yeats, The Second Coming

Any excuse for Yeats. But let's move on.

How often do we get to label Joe Biden as "prescient"?  Doesn't the partitioning of Iraq now seem downright wise (though a tad tainted with imperialist hubris)?  Would that ANY of this mess depended on USAmerican actions or ideas!

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki grand design to eliminate Iraqi Sunnis from any role in government, a fallow field for ancient seeds that was largely fueled by the disbanding of Sadam Hussein's military (a very sarcastic tip of the hat to L. Paul Bremer), and the astounding arrogance and ignorance of the Bush administration.

Long schooled in the long view, Arab Shiites, Arab Sunnis, and the northern Kurds (to mix sects and ethnicities) in the region must have snickered into their famous head gear, beards, and shiny western suits as they saw the foundation laid for the perfect storm that now threatens, in the form of a revolutionized Al-Qaeda "offshoot" ISIS (DAESH in Arabic), first the "stability" and lives of Iraqi citizens, and second, the "stability" of the entire region.

Some Chicken Littles have the sky continuing to lower over the First World, as well, with frequent references to oil prices.

President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry, and those responsible leaders in Congress are facing the impossible issue of what-to-do-now in the sucking vacuum of an illegal war marked by the profound loss of USAmerican treasure, and the current President's political premises and promises regarding the Iraq war. You remember, the one that didn't have any Al-Qaeda element, much less WMDs, in evidence.

We left with Bush' slogan ringing in our ears -- which always reduces to that tired "give a man a fish, feed him for a day;  Pretend to train his army, and run, run, run away."  Which always has a syncopated background track cover of those grabby, raspy McCain lyrics:  "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb... Iran."

Now that the well-trained Iraqi troops have stripped off their uniforms, literally, and fled before what appeared to be, in Mosul, a smaller and weaker force, knowing that those 1,000 or so ISIS troops their 10,000+ well-equipped, crack-trained fighting force faced were but the tip of a desert iceberg.

Mosul, Tikrit, Fallujah...

"Now."
This is "now."

Remember way back when?  Remember how police and army recruitment centers were prime targets for bombs, bombers, shoot- 'em-ups?  In our short view, a desperate ploy to derail the democratization of a country long split at least three ways -- three ways too complicated for USAmerican country builders to fathom.  In the regional long view, a snickering foreshadowing of an interminable drama.

The Obama administration cannot indulge in laying blame at the feet of Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle and their traitorous deceptions, cannot curl up in a mass fetal position at the thought of hoping Syria's Bashar al-Assad remains in despotic power, and imagining Iran's smirk rising above the horizon's mess like a festive Cheshire Cat.  I hear whispers about Jordan, and shouts from the ISIS leadership that "slaughtering" Abdullah II is on the To-Do List.

But I, who am nobody, can indulge.

From one of Daily Kos' cobbled posts (that I've now lost) --

 Former Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith is claiming President George W. Bush was unaware that there were two major sects of Islam just two months before the President ordered troops to invade Iraq, RAW STORY has learned. In his new book, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created A War Without End, Galbraith, the son of the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith, claims that American leadership knew very little about the nature of Iraqi society and the problems it would face after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

A year after his “Axis of Evil” speech before the U.S. Congress, President Bush met with three Iraqi Americans, one of whom became postwar Iraq’s first representative to the United States. The three described what they thought would be the political situation after the fall of Saddam Hussein. During their conversation with the President, Galbraith claims, it became apparent to them that Bush was unfamiliar with the distinction between Sunnis and Shiites. Galbraith reports that the three of them spent some time explaining to Bush that there are two different sects in Islam–to which the President allegedly responded, “I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!”

From a cache of  The Heretik now defunct blog archive for August 2006, the chilling --

From the Known Unknowns Department: “While I don’t doubt the central thesis that Bush is not particularly intellectually curious, it’s almost inconceivable that anyone—let alone a man whose father was CIA Director, Vice President, and President—would not at least be aware of something so basic.” So we are left now in the conundrum. Bush did not know and can plead a certain ignorance which is no defense for what now goes on in Iraq. Or he did know and went ahead anyway with no clue of the consequences. The idiot of the past meets the fool of the future. So we slouch toward Baghdad.

Cheney was rife with casting USAmerican troops as long-awaited, oh-so-welcome liberators, and glossed religious and ethnic sectarianism as the tried-and-true propaganda of good versus evil.  Delving further into that heart thief's verbiage might engender a myocardial infarction of mine own. Let's just keep it simple:

My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. . . . I think it will go relatively quickly, . . . [in] weeks rather than months. – Cheney, Meet the Press, September 14, 2003

Wolfowitz.  I hate nausea and vomiting more than the prospect of squeezing chest pains often described as what one might experience should an elephant kneel upon one's rib cage.  Wolfowitz brings up PTSD images of Pepto-Bismol pink pachyderms upchucking via every unduly hairy orifice onto my pristine self.  I'll pass.

Instead, gird your gastrointestinal tract for Peter Oborne's five-part documentary from 2006, one of the best I've seen.  It bears a new hearing, a new look, given that ISIS (or ISIF?) is, at last report, about 40 miles west of Baghdad, whose most western enclave is friendly to them, being largely the home of Sunni Iraqis. Baghdad residents of sufficient wealth wasted no time in becoming, not a merrily mixed city of diverse hatchet-buriers, but savvy wall-builders.  The Shia majority population is arming, looking to show the beleaguered retreating state army how "it" is done.  The Kurds, looking down from the north, must feel like bat-wielding sugar junkies in a plain of unattended piñatas. Sure, the gas masks detract from that frivolous depiction, but can you blame them?

Peter Oborne, political editor of the Spectator, reports on the West's exit strategy for Iraq. He believes the invasion of Iraq is proving to be the greatest foreign policy failure since Munich. Oborne argues that the plan to transform Iraq into a unified liberal democracy, a beacon of hope in the Middle East, is pure fantasy. Reporting on location with US troops in Sadr City, and through interviews with leading figures in Britain and the US, Oborne argues that the coalition and its forces on the ground are increasingly irrelevant in determining the future of Iraq - a future that's unlikely to be either unified, liberal or democratic.

We, of course, are saddened indeed by the events in Indochina. But these events, tragic as they are, portend neither the end of the world nor of America's leadership in the world.
Let me put it this way, if I might. Some tend to feel that if we do not succeed in everything everywhere, then we have succeeded in nothing anywhere. I reject categorically such polarized thinking. We can and we should help others to help themselves. But the fate of responsible men and women everywhere, in the final decision, rests in their own hands, not in ours. 

-- President Gerald Ford, Tulane Graduation Address, April 23, 1975

 Special police will be required to undergo training on human rights and the meaning of the rule of law, Bush said. All nine Iraqi police academies, he said, will place added emphasis on personal and professional ethics. And U.S. battalions will partner with Iraqi special police units to provide mentoring, Bush said, as part of a program similar to one that succeeded with the Iraqi army.
"These U.S. forces will work with and train their Iraqi counterparts, helping them become more capable and professional, so they can serve and protect all the Iraqis without discrimination," Bush said.
Numbers of Iraqi border police, now at about 18,000, will be bolstered, Bush said, with the goal of having 28,000 border police trained and equipped by the end of the year. The border police will benefit from a new customs academy in Basra, Bush said, and will work with U.S. and coalition personnel, including experts from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The president said efforts also will focus on increasing the numbers of trained local Iraqi police, now at about 80,000 officers. The goal, he said, is 135,000 trained and equipped local police. Local police will be teamed with experienced U.S. and international police officers, Bush said, focusing on nine key cities that have seen intense fighting with terrorists.
"And by strengthening the local Iraqi police in these cities, we'll help them earn the confidence of the local population," Bush said, "which will make it easier for local leaders and residents to accelerate reconstruction and rebuild their lives."
Bush acknowledged that training the Iraqi police hasn't always gone without a hitch. "Yet, we're making progress," he said.
"As we bring more Iraqi police and soldiers online in the months ahead," Bush said, "we will increasingly shift our focus from generating new Iraqi forces to preparing Iraqis to take primary responsibility for the security of their own country."
More than 35 Iraqi army battalions have assumed control of territory, the president said, including almost half of Baghdad province.
"And in the year ahead we will continue handing more territory to Iraqi forces, with the goal of having the Iraqis in control of more territory than the coalition by the end of 2006," Bush said. 

-- DOD News Article, January 10, 2006

We're leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq with a representative government that was elected by its people. We're building a new partnership between our nations and we are ending a war not with a final battle but with a final march toward home. This is an extraordinary achievement... " 

– President Barack Obama, Fort Bragg, December 14, 2011

 So any action that we make take to provide assistance to Iraqi security forces has to be joined by a serious and sincere effort by Iraq's leaders to set aside sectarian differences, to promote stability and account for the legitimate interests of all of Iraq's communities, and to continue to build the capacity of an effective security force. We can't do it for them. And in the absence of this type of political effort, short-term military action -- including any assistance we might provide -- won't succeed.

So this should be a wake-up call. Iraq's leaders have to demonstrate a willingness to make hard decisions and compromises on behalf of the Iraqi people in order to bring the country together. In that effort, they will have the support of the United States and our friends and our allies.

Now, Iraq's neighbors also have some responsibilities to support this process. Nobody has an interest in seeing terrorists gain a foothold inside of Iraq. And nobody is going to benefit from seeing Iraq descend into chaos. So the United States will do our part, but understand that ultimately it's up to the Iraqis, as a sovereign nation, to solve their problems.   

-- President Barack Obama, WP transcript of oral remarks, 13 June 2014

 © 2013 L. Ryan

A Letter From My Buddy Barack Obama

I love it, more Secret Service Envy headed my way!  Having been the only instructor at Major Gothic Wonder Land University to hold a required class on the day Ronald Reagan came to jabber at the undergraduates, and wave at the picketing grad students, I am a favorite of the Secret Service.  What they can't figure out is the "no-make ups allowed" major exam question that equally (always *equally*) excited my students -- made up of 14 upperclass undergrads and 1 relieved Divinity School doctoral student:

Explain, dissect, conjugate, and defend the following assertion:Michael Reagan, son of United States of America President Ronald Reagan will one day serve on the board of The John Douglas French Alzheimer's Foundation.

Of course, this pretty standard "no-make ups allowed" major exam question was in French, as this was a course designed to dunk -- by which I mean, of course, immerse students into French Lit.  As you can tell from the question, we had just finished reading Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot.

Oops.  Train of thought problems, yet again.  I was telling you about the letter I just personally retrieved from my private email account -- known only to my best of best Facebook Friends. [Loud guffaw! I have a fake Facebook account and about, oh, two Friends, all the rest being right-wing relatives.  My two Friends are right-wingers, as well, but tolerant.   Very tolerant.]

So, yeah, it was from Barack.  My buddy Barack.

[Look, let me settle this, as I just was barraged, nay, blitzkrieged by two Super Secret Facebook Friends who are actual full-blood relatives and consider themselves, and I quote:  "progressive as hell, girl!" Fine, let them assert their leftist tendencies.  Yes, their leftist tendencies surpass even my own, to the extent that I doubt either of them have ever voted in their entire political adult lives.  Not even for McGovern.  Okay... I'm telling lies now.  Let's just say that they may temper their support for President Obama due to expectations of a shift to the left by a rather large amount.  Not this profderien, no ma'am! I adore, respect, love, admire, and imitate this intelligent sign of life -- and his awesome family -- every chance I get.  Well, okay, so there are a few things, policy-wise, that could use a slight Marxist tweak, but, most days, I'm fine with that.]

That's right. The President, himself, writing to The Moi, care of, admittedly, the Haddock Corporation (now completely divested from Halliburton *).

 * Can you freaking believe that "Halliburton" pops up as a correction in SPELL CHECK?! How screwed up is that?  I mean does "amnety internatenal" show up in spell check? No, it does not, thankyouverymuch!  Jesus.

Cough.  Yes, my friend Barack wrote to thank me -- just me -- for my round-the-clock, high tech multi-year campaign on behalf of the watered-down Affordable Care Act.  I keep referring him to my other dearest pal, Bernie Sanders, but haven't heard yet how that's going (so much to talk about!).

In the past, as many a Beloved Reader of this blog recalls, I have shared a few of my personally keyboarded letters to our President -- never violating protocol, naturally, but always seeking advice from the now deceased Tante Louise on how best to post presidential correspondence. 
Well, okay.  Tante Louise and I may have flubbed a few posts in which my buddy Barack figured, but we toed the, er, red line in the, er, sand when it came to my personal, and by personal I mean one-on-one, tête-à-tête sorts of intimate, soul searching, letters.  The whole Flaubert and Bob Herbert catastrophe.  The admittedly odd basketball post.

Even when you limit a search of this blog to "Obama, ACA," there are just a half-dozen or so weird ones...  I mean, omit blog war waged on Walmart, and the regrettable incident in which I claimed not to be able to support "Obamacare" until Socialism was in place.  I was on drugs.  You can tell, I bet.  I mean, look -- clearly, I say often enough that Obamacare -- the ACA, the PCIP, whatever you like to call it -- saved my life.

Probably, that's all my vast reading public needs to know:  President Barack Obama saved my life.
And then pulls off this comedic email in which he pretends I had something to do with this brave legislative and moral effort [ ::waving:: at teddy!].

That is a true friend, indeed.

Oh hell, there is a man in a terribly plain blue suit that has been tailored, clearly, to hold a spare machine gun and drone in the small of his large back... peeking in the badly leaded hand-poured window panes that stud the upper chamber of the Computer Turret.  I have repeatedly and repeatedly asked Barack, even "cc"-ing Michelle, to have the damned Secret Service "STAND DOWN," already!

Jesus.

Lincoln's Presidential Seal

[Hi there, prof-de-rien!  How're they hanging?]

I had to take a moment to say thank you.

Lisa, you made history.

A long line of organizers fought for nearly 100 years to make health care reform a reality, and now we're seeing the results. Millions of Americans have health insurance today, thanks to reform -- some for the first time in their lives.

The work you did is how real, lasting change gets made, and I hope it will be remembered for years to come.

I'm so happy your name will be there, alongside mine, as part of OFA's permanent record of the people who made health care reform happen.

If you know anyone else who deserves to be recognized, tell them to add their name here:

http://my.barackobama.com/You-Made-History

Anyone who was part of this decades-long fight will tell you it was never easy, but it was always the right thing to do. Teddy Roosevelt knew it. Harry Truman knew it. Teddy Kennedy sure knew it.

No matter how hard it got, the results we're seeing today make it all worthwhile. Millions of Americans now have coverage, and even more have better health care, thanks to the work you did.

Take a moment to let that sink in.

It's proof that when people come together and fight for what they believe in, real, lasting change is possible.

I can't thank you enough,

Barack Obama





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My First Use of Obamacare: Two Thumbs Up

Dear President Obama:

I thought you might like to know how my first use of "Obamacare" coverage, obtained through HealthCare.gov, went, and whether it was, in general, a thumbs up or down situation.

Two thumbs way up, sir!

I saw one of my new doctors on Tuesday. Due to electronic transmission of records, my daunting list of 20 medications preceded my arrival, so figuring out which ones required immediate renewal was easy.  I needed x-rays of my decrepit bones and got them, immediately - while  my prescriptions were filled.

I mentioned to the doctor that my former internist wanted me to have a hospital bed, with a trapeze (I've always wanted to be one of the "flying Wallendas"!).  I try to follow the Rule of Threes when I see a doctor and only mention 3 concerns or needs.  More than that can be overwhelming.  So, though I mentioned the bed and trapeze, I was not sure he even heard me.

Guess what is arriving at my home this afternoon? That's right!  A hospital bed with trapeze. Two days after mentioning the need in passing, almost under my breath, and voilà.

While writing this letter to you, I got a phone call, scheduling my first appointment with a pain management doctor in March.

I was treated courteously and professionally at every turn.  There were no flashing lights over my head announcing "Obamacare recipient, receiving tax credit assistance with her premium, despite enough medical problems to bankrupt the entire nation." None of that!

I filled 5 prescriptions for $75. I paid a $30 co-pay to see the doctor.  There will be a rental fee for the bed/trapeze, but it goes toward my reasonable deductible.

It almost feels like America again.  I don't feel like a "taker," or someone having great fun with "entitlements." I am paying my fair share, and struggle to live within my means.  I am a "permanently and totally disabled" French prof, who gladly would give up hospital bed and wheelchair to stand in a classroom again, sharing, helping, guiding, working.

This was certainly not how I envisioned things turning out.

It's my birthday tomorrow and this is my first "thank you" note: for the gift of "Obamacare" and the ACA, for the gift of people who listen and hear, for the many people who make a tough life tolerable.

Anyway, that's how my first use of my new coverage worked out.

Excellent work, Mr. President, and thank you.

© 2013 L. Ryan

A Poem for a New Year, Again. Once More. Encore Une Fois.

a Praise Song for the Day Courtesy of the Academy for American Poets
A Poem for Barack Obama's [first] Presidential Inauguration by Elizabeth Alexander Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each other's eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair. Someone is trying to make music somewhere, with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum, with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice. A woman and her son wait for the bus. A farmer considers the changing sky. A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin. We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed, words to consider, reconsider. We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of some one and then others, who said I need to see what's on the other side. I know there's something better down the road. We need to find a place where we are safe. We walk into that which we cannot yet see. Say it plain: that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of. Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign, the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables. Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself, others by first do no harm or take no more than you need. What if the mightiest word is love? Love beyond marital, filial, national, love that casts a widening pool of light, love with no need to pre-empt grievance. In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, any thing can be made, any sentence begun. On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp, praise song for walking forward in that light. 2014 was interesting, and we are grateful for having laughed and cried, screamed and muttered our way through it. You know how much I love my two brothers, TW and Grader "The Lumpy" Boob? Both imminently, eminently brilliant (and shiny, too, almost prismatic!), they both snicker and snort at pretty much the same things, in pretty much the same snick-and-snort style. Grader "The Lumpy" Boob, however, in a fit that combined what sounded like a combination of a cough, a hearty spit, a collegiate snick, and a lifelong snuffled snort January 20, 2009. President Obama's First Inauguration. For information on Elizabeth Alexander, click HERE.

President Obama, I Love You! A Big Wave to Teddy in the Sky!

We can do better, go farther, make sure everyone is covered, do it right.

Until then, please allow me to grin like the idjit that I am, for my "official" insurance coverage papers arrived in the mail today.  I will have no gap in coverage, I will pay over $100 less per month and half the deductible I pay now.  A weight is lifted from my heart.

Also, my experimental use of Namenda for treatment of the burning-type pain of CRPS has been approved for another year.

Another year.
Another year.
Another year.

I had planned not to bother with another year, at the beginning of this one.  I am still pondering the issue. Should there be another year, I am definitely one of the "lucky" ones.  My misery will not quite bankrupt me; Fred can continue to sneak pastrami to Buddy the Maine Coon; Bianca Castafiore can buy her heart's worth of caviar;  We will be able to fight the next algae bloom in the moat.

HealthCare.gov does work;  It will work;  If the website does not help you, there is now a paper option.

I do hope this country, having set down the right road, will walk the walk and one day move to a single-payer system.  Call it "socialism," go ahead. You could also call it the right thing to do, and over the years, as the kinks are worked out, the redundancies and graft diminished, and human greed reined in?  It will be not just a life saver, but a money saver, too.

Another year?



© 2013 L. Ryan

Dear President Obama: My Experience at the HealthCare.gov Marketplace

Hail to the Chief we have chosen for the nation, 

Hail to the Chief! We salute him, one and all. 

Hail to the Chief, as we pledge cooperation 

In proud fulfillment of a great, noble call. 

Yours is the aim to make this grand country grander, 

This you will do, that's our strong, firm belief. 

Hail to the one we selected as commander, 

Hail to the President! Hail to the Chief! 

Dear President Obama:

Every nerve ending in mine body is frayed, frazzled.

I began the search for coverage via the HealthCare.gov website promptly on September 13.  I know, it didn't go into effect until October 1, 2013, but I was anxious.  At that time, there was but a single insurance company in the bustling marketplace and since easily distraught, I became distraught.  Which led me into the arms of a very nice, calm, optimistic "navigator" -- our helpmates through this process -- Bill Rencher of Georgia Watch.

[Four Ruffles and Fluorishes for him, too!]

Since 1 October, I've been pestering the website dozens of times a day and receiving nothing but the the most polite error messages ever seen in cyberdom.  Repulsed, refused, unrecognized, I had about given up hope, despite the reassurances that the bugs in the system were slowly but surely being smushed into little bug pieces.  A carapace here, long sticky legs there, bulbous eyes strewn about.  Exoskeletons piling up, and with the government shut down, no one to sweep up the entomological detritus.  I say send 'em all to "Cry Me A River" Boehner.

Usually, Mr. President, I give no hints as to my political persuasions.  Yes, I used the plural, for like Whitman I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.  Ahem.

This morning, at 5 am, revolted by the idea of getting up to do something profitable for the domestic brood around me, I grabbed the computer and hit HealthCare.gov with something like a vengeance, but definitely with weepy eyes and no coffee.

After diddling around a bit, I created a new profile, ditched the old one, and kaboom, shazaam, wowza -- I was in!  Then I screwed up and had to call one of those blessèd telephone helpers, who was also confounded but wished me well.  I think, Mr. President, that she ended up helping out somehow, for a mere half-hour later, the glitch slid into the background of things.  It didn't disappear, but I was able to navigate from screen to screen and ignore the hell out of it.

Navigator Rencher, who helped calm the waters in September, had made several predictions about what my best options might turn out to be, coming from the Affordable Care Act's PCIP program, which ends precisely on 31 December.

He was right on all counts.  If I take up gambling, I'm bringing him with me to the racetrack.

If I could sneak past the First Lady and give you a prim kiss on the forehead, I'd do it in a heartbeat.  But what with all the shooting going on up there, they'd drop me with a head shot, for sure. (Gun control, anyone?  No destruction of the Second Amendment, just no guns for crazy people, registration and permits for all, no assault weaponry or accompanying ordinance, and equal restraint from law enforcement, including the Secret Service and Capitol Cops)

Since I doubt you'd break out into any Al Green on my account, I'll just say this here, in the safe haven of a nondescript blog:  God bless you, and thank you, President Obama.  I am a person with loads of physical woes that are constantly ganging up on my meager finances and limited sanity -- I worry, you see.  I don't want to be a victim, or whine about entitlement.  I don't want to bankrupt this good country.  But damn it, I need help.  My entire work life was dedicated to turning out well-educated citizens, both at university and at the proverbial "urban" high school level. I put my life at risk substitute teaching for the little ones, too, those cagey rug rats!  And I worked in Middle Schools where my status as a rube spread like wildfire, and the tweens often had me cornered between desk and blackboard, forcing me to throw chalk and lob erasers as a distraction.

In all seriousness, I had my life threatened and a student broke my hip in an attempt to escape capture by the kind and courteous police-people chasing him.  When I came back to work, one of my homeroom seniors stole my walker. To this day, I am convinced he was simply finding a novel way to encourage my physical therapy progress...

I was a GREAT teacher, Mr. President.  I loved my subject, I instilled a love for it in whomever the registrars put before me, and my students reveled in the concept of critical thinking and superb writing.  I'm just sayin'.  But these days, living on 60% of my year 2000 salary, no adjustment for the crazed costs of living, I need a little help.

Ted Kennedy would be bear-hugging you about now.

That website is going to drive many a USAmerican bonkers.  People unfamiliar with the terminology and the mathematics of health insurance are going to be breaking the backs of the Emergency Departments around the country as their heads begin to explode. I hope that was worked into the cost analyses.  But, like me, they will figure it out.  They will work with the outstanding navigators in their area, the phone wizards with infinite patience, and the online tech folk who speak plainly and make real suggestions -- even if those suggestions are initially aggravating.

I am now insured -- including a separate basic dental policy -- for less than what ACA's PCIP (a wondrous creation, that!) was charging. There's a whopper of a deductible awaiting me, and some nasty negotiations over medication formularies, and a doctor to switch out (but I've been secretly wanting to lose his Hoity-Toity-ness for some time, anyway).

And then there's the fear that this is all a dream.  That I filled something out wrong.

If I could throw chalk at a few Republicans for you -- I'd be up there in a minute.  But again, Mr. President, I don't want my pedagogical corrective measures to be misconstrued as some sort of attack, thereby ending my entretien with the GOP by a bullet square between my eyes.

Anyway, thanks.

You've done a great thing.

Sincerely,
Me and all the Gang at Marlinspike Hall
Tête de Hergé
(West of the Lone Alp)

P.S.  Should you and your family ever need access to an unmappable, unflappable resort that is impervious to GPS systems, Captain Haddock has ordered us to keep one of our finest wings ready.  He has even offered to ferry you here past the sharp eyes of your protective service, courtesy of an inexplicable undersea network of blackholed miniature submarine passages, all of which end nicely in our moat.

P.S.S. I decided to repost, just under this new letter to you, an older one, so as to aggrandize the scope of my experiences with obtaining heatlh insurance under your administration.  Let's call them bookends.  There are other mentions of you throughout this blog, as you've probably surmised.  My apologies for some of them.  There is even a shot of you in a video made at one of my lowest moments, but even that connection made for a "sí, se puede" rallying cry.

© 2013 L. Ryan