Politics

Chris Needham needs a pair.

/ wvfurandroot / 18 Comments

Buzzardbilly (my separated-at-birth-and several-years-younger twin whom I’ve never met) has been blogging here, here and here about Chris Needham’s bashing of West Virginia and NBC’s publishing of said article.

The story broke about a week before Christmas, but I’ve been lost in my own little world and didn’t hear tell of any of it until just a couple of days ago. The governor is furious and lots of people, rightly, are asking for a retraction, an apology, and a follow-up news story.

Upon hearing the news, I was disgusted and my ire rose, but not enough to drag me into the fray. I was just too tired. (And I call myself an Appalachian Activist. Shame on me.) Well, after a few days of round-the-clock sleep, I’m about as mad as a body can get. My panties are twisted and knotted big time.

What an ass! (I’m referring to Chris and not that part of my body where the twisted panties are.)

Now Buzzardbilly has a way with words and, really, she’s the best person to read to fully understand why the original news article was so offensive as well as why Needham’s and NBC’s response to the criticism was so woefully inadequate. NBC pulled the article from its website and the people of West Virginia (and only the people of West Virginia) got a sorry if you were offended type of statement issued only to a West Virginia news outlet.

Now, personally, I’ve never thought an apology you had to ask for was worth a shit in an outhouse, but if you do ask for one and you get a “Gee willikers, I’m sorry you were offended,” well that’s just an additional insult. Neither Needham nor NBC is owning the problem, much less making restitution.

No worries - the misspelling of Nebraska was corrected before mailing.

As much as it bothers me, I’m a Drama Queen. As such, I can’t bear the thought of being just another irate email, just another West Virginia blogger shooting volleys of words, or, worse, just another Appalachian sitting around saying, “Well, what can you do? People have been saying this stuff for years.” It is not because I don’t think the written word is powerful, but because chiming in at this late date means there’s nothing I can say that hasn’t been said. (Drama Queens just hate that.) Our point has been made (and re-made) and I’m pretty sure Chris and NBC stopped reading a couple hundred emails ago.

Now don’t misconstrue that last paragraph. I think it’s vitally important to send email and letters. Vital. Important. They may not read them, but they’ll note they’re coming in. It is also important to blog about it and talk about it. Inundating both Needham and NBC with our complaints will have an effect even if they don’t read our words.

But. I’m a Drama Queen in Good Standing. I have to work to retain my tiara. (It’s not all rhinestones, sequins and boas.)

So. I put my tiara on and sat to thinking. I came up with what I think is a pretty good idea, but I needed NBC Washington’s mailing address. Shouldn’t have been that hard to come up with, but it was. I don’t think NBC really wants snail mail, because the address is nowhere on their website. I was all over the web before I could find anything at all. I called 202-885-4200 and verified the *mailing* address. So, unless that woman lied, I mailed two bouncy balls to this address:

Chris Needham
NBC Washington
4001 Nebraska Ave NW
Washington, DC 20016

 

Bouncy balls? Yes, bouncy balls – ones the size of volleyballs. Pink ones, as a matter of fact. Two of them. And if it is true that NBC doesn’t want snail mail, I figure two, bright pink, bouncy balls will get their attention.

I know for a fact that if you take two bouncy balls down to the post office with the address written on the balls with a Sharpie and hand them to the clerk, the clerk will slap postage on those suckers and mail them off. No packaging (talk about environmentally friendly!) – nothing but bouncy balls in the mail sack to get dumped on some poor person in the mail room. (Take a moment to savor that image.)

On the side of the ball opposite the address, I wrote:

Dear Chris and NBC-Washington,

Since y’all don’t have the balls to issue a proper apology to the people of West Virginia or a proper retraction to your readership, I thought I’d help you out. Sincerely, Connie

And the second reads:

Dear Chris and NBC-Washington,

Here’s the second ball. I wanted to make sure you had a pair. Sincerely, Connie

I have hopes of provoking a smile on the face of that mailroom person. With any luck, said person will not like Chris Needham or be from West Virginia, or both. Now if it was me in that mailroom and a postal person handed me two bouncy balls, I’d be flying down the hallways to hand deliver those suckers. But it could be that’s just me.

Now I get the giggles thinking about what might happen if a few people sent Chris bouncy balls. Or more than a few. In that part of my imagination where grandiose dreams live, I think about hundreds of bouncy balls landing in the offices of NBC Washington. (Now savor that image.)

There are two reasons I like this idea: 1) it’s visual, spatial, colorful, and, well, bouncy (kinesthetic, if you will); and 2) it is permeated with a sense of humor. These reasons sum up West Virginia rather nicely, I think. Besides it’s just the kind of a thing a Hillbilly Diva Drama Queen with twisted panties would do. It’s not like I had a choice.

So, if you’re of a mind to, feel free to send a bouncy ball or two to Chris Needham.

Note: I had to do a fair amount of talking at the post office to convince the clerk that yes, indeedy, I could send bouncy balls sans box through the mail. She finally agreed.  They cost me $1.73 apiece in postage. If you do decide to send Chris a pair and your postal person balks, you might mention this company.  All told, I’ve got less than$8 invested.

Broccoli and the Importance of Staying in School

/ wvfurandroot / 5 Comments
What are the odds of finding a photo of broccoli WITH cherries? http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcoveringa/3091439509/sizes/l/

What are the odds of finding a photo of broccoli WITH cherries? http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcoveringa

Back in 1990, my son’s teacher sent him home with a yellow ribbon pinned to his shirt – presumably my 5-year-old son was doing so to proclaim his support of the troops in the Gulf War. Never mind that when I asked him about the ribbon his explanation centered on the fact that the teacher gave it to him and all the kids were wearing them.

I had a melt down.

Now there ain’t nobody on this planet that is more supportive of troops than I am. I believe in a strong military. I just wish we’d quit putting them in situations that endanger them for stupid reasons – morally bankrupt reasons.

So. Small child. Yellow ribbon. School.

I sent him back to school the next day with his ribbon. The ribbon was attached to his shirt with a button emblazoned with “What if Kuwait’s No. 1 Export Was Broccoli?”

The older ones among us will remember George Senior’s statement that he didn’t like broccoli.

That pretty much put an end to my son and the yellow ribbon. [If I’d been a really manipulative parent, I’d have told Chef Boy ‘R Mine that the president didn’t like broccoli. Child of Mine loved “little trees.”]

It goes without saying that I had a rocky relationship with the Cabell County public school system.

Like I said, I support the troops. I do not support the use of small children to make political statements. I don’t like it when protesters, liberal or conservative, drape their kids in witty signs and parade them about the village green. First of all, it’s another case of treating children like property. Instead of putting a bumper sticker on our car, we put them on our kids.

[I maintain that the average school child does not have enough of a knowledge base to understand what the sign on their stroller, backpack, or t-shirt means beyond a superficial level. Therefore, in such situations, we are merely using them as a photo op – cuteness exploited to attract attention. Or, in other words, it’s my kid – I can do what I want. Property.]

Second of all, if I’m not going to slap a slogan on my kid, it’s a given that I’m not going to let some teacher do it.

Yes, indeedy, Cabell County Board of Education and I got off to a rocky start. A teacher once told me that children’s official school files were sometimes labeled with a PP. This code stood for Problem Parent and served to alert teachers that the parent they were about to call might provoke a need for an aspirin, a martini, or early retirement paperwork. I’m pretty sure Chef Boy ‘R Mine’s file had a red PP outlined in glitter. In letters about 6” high.

Some day I’ll tell the story about how a principal with a fraternity paddle was the proverbial straw and how the child of atheist/agnostic/pagan parents ended up Catholic school.

By now, you know where this is going.

Obama is addressing school children with a speech to encourage them to stay in school and study hard. Who could object to that?

As we all know now, plenty of people.

Here’s what I know. If either George had wanted to use school time to talk to my kid, I would have screamed blue bloody murder, slapped a trendy sign on my kid and marched up and down Rt. 60 in protest. At the very least, I would have kept him home. It wouldn’t have mattered if the purpose of said talk was to encourage him to eat cruciferous vegetables or study algebra.

I support the wingnuts’ right to get their panties in a tangle. To do otherwise would be hypocritical. I thought George I and George II were so dangerous and so devious that I wouldn’t put it past them to slip some sort of nonsense into the talk – nonsense that young children do not have the wisdom to identify or parse.

A big bunch of folks feel the same way about Obama. I think my reasons for suspecting the Georges are much more logical and well thought out than the He’s-a-Muslim-Hellbent-On-Killing-Grandma crowd, but that’s neither here nor there.

To do other than support their right to object would make me a hypocrite. I’ve got enough hypocrisy and contradiction in my life as it is. Hopefully, they’ll at least use the opportunity to keep their kids at home and discuss the importance of staying in school. Maybe if they look that contradiction in the eye, they might learn how to spot contradictory statements.

That’s probably hoping for too much.

I leave you with my favorite quote of the week. It comes from Tom Robbins’ masterpiece, Skinny Legs and All, and seems pretty profound at this stage of my life.

Contradiction may be an unavoidable trait in a many-faceted sensibility in an expanding universe, but bitterness is reductive in the most trivializing way, and Ellen Cherry was aware that it was her fate to have to struggle against it. Over and over, she reminded herself how fortunate she was to have landed her life in a situation where strange things could happen to it.

Favorite Quotes No. 1

/ wvfurandroot / 3 Comments

During periods of so-called economic depression, societies suffer for want of all manner of essential goods, yet investigation almost invariably discloses that there are plenty of goods available. Plenty of coal in the ground, corn in the fields, wool on the sheep. What is missing is not materials but an abstract unit of measurement called ‘money.’ It is akin to a starving woman with a sweet tooth lamenting that she can’t bake a cake because she doesn’t have any ounces. She has butter, flour, eggs, milk, and sugar, she just doesn’t have any ounces, any pinches, any pints. — Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs and All

Skinny Legs and All is, to my mind, a must read.  It’s a polemic disguised as a hysterically funny novel populated with a bizarre cast of characters not the least of which are a can of beans, a purple sock, and a vibrator.

This quote has been running around my head recently as I try to make sense of the various health reform debates. 

A friend of mine introduced me to this novel and I was amazed at her copy.  Nearly every sentence was highlighted, underlined and/or annotated.  The book is one quotable quote after another and tackles such things as Middle East peace, male/female relationships and whether or not inanimate objects are really inanimate.  It boasts a plot that is impossible to summarize in less than 500 words.

For years I kept the book by my beside and dipped into each morning using it as a source of daily affirmations – an idea stolen from another friend. 

It’s been years since I’ve read the novel from page one all the way through.  I finally finished the novel of Chinese erotica and was trying to select a new book to read when I ran across Skinny Legs and All.  I got side tracked from the new novel pursuit when I elected to look up the above quote.  In looking for it, I ran across some real gems and chuckled again.  I’ve read this novel all the way through at least 20 times (and I almost never re-read anything) and it never fails to provoke out and out guffaws. 

I’ve decided to re-read it beginning at page 1.  Lord knows, I need a good laugh as well as some big ideas to meditate on.

Godwin’s Law

/ wvfurandroot / 4 Comments

All this Hitler/Nazi stuff about Obama and his attempts to reform our healthcare system is hereby declared null and void.

As many others have pointed out, the oppositions’ statements are often false and so ratcheted up with hyperbole that rational debate is proving impossible.

Moreover, according to Internet protocol based on Godwin’s Law, the mere mention of Hitler and Nazis does two things:

1. The person who drags Hitler and Nazis into the debate has automatically lost the debate.

2. With the debate lost, the conversation must immediately cease.

Since a lot of the healthcare debate is occurring online, I submit that Godwin’s Law is in effect.

However, the debate must continue because:

1. I haven’t had the stomach to wade through the guns/Hitler signs/death panels/socialism lies to fully understand any of the plans under consideration.

2. I am convinced by the fact that my employer pays an amount equivalent to 30% of my salary to provide me with a “good” healthcare plan (high deductible and significant out-of-pocket expenses) is proof that the system is corrupt.

3. I’m waiting for someone, other than me, to shout The Emperor Has No Clothes with respect to the “group rate” nonsense.

As for No. 3, I’m either missing something key or the rest of the country is. Here’s what I think: if I still worked at the university, the premium for my healthcare would be significantly less. Same body, same mind, same prescriptions, same doctors, and same insurance company and yet the small nonprofit I work for is charged far more because we’re a small group. Huh what?

A co-worker, who is following the debate closely and committed to the idea of reform, tried to explain this the other day. I was feeling uncharacteristically polite and didn’t tell him that he’d clearly drunk the Kool-Aid.

His explanation centered on the idea that because Marshall has a far larger number of people, the risk taken by Mountain State Blue Cross Blue Shield is smaller. When I spluttered and said “But, but. . .” he then used the car insurance industry as an analogy as if those crooks were paragons of virtue and right-thinking.

And furthermore, sitting on my kitchen table is a bill from my doctor. The charge was $295. The insurance company said, “Oh no you don’t” and decreed that the charge should only be $65. With the deductible and out-of-pocket provisions of my policy, I am responsible for that $65. If I had no insurance at all, I would have to pay the $295. I have no right to say, “Oh no you don’t.” Okay. I might have the right, but it’s not going to get me anywhere. If I was still working at the university (who would be paying far lower premiums for my healthcare), I would have long ago met my deductible and my share of the $55 would have been less than a third.  (If I were disabled or elderly, Medicare/Medicaid costs would be less yet.  And, yes, I’ve heard the argument that those two programs pay less than the actual cost of treatment, but I’m not drinking that Kool-Aid either.)

Same body, same mind, same doctor, same illness and same insurance company. 

What part of this makes sense to you?

Ignoring the nonsense of state lines having something to do with all this, why isn’t West Virginia as a whole one large group? If that were the case, theoretically, we’d all have far lower premiums because the group is larger. Right? RIGHT?

Same insurance company, same bodies, same doctors, same illnesses, same drugs . . .

Completely whacked, I tell you. (And I haven’t even got into the balderdash about hospitals losing money over the uninsured and underinsured. Anybody besides me noticed the endless construction going on at St. Mary’s and Cabell-Huntington?  Nor have I gotten into Big Pharma and the rate of new drugtores being built.)