The AP is reporting that Birth Control may be covered as part of the "preventative care" provision of the Health Care Reform Law. This means that the Pill, among other things, would be convered under health insurance plans without deductibles, co-pays or co-insurance. "May be" because even at a billion pages, the thing is still up for interpretation. But check this out:
"There is clear and incontrovertible evidence that family planning saves lives and improves health," said obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. David Grimes, an international family planning expert who teaches medicine at the University of North Carolina. "Contraception rivals immunization in dollars saved for every dollar invested. Spacing out children allows for optimal pregnancies and optimal child rearing. Contraception is a prototype of preventive medicine."
The underlined was my emphasis. Dollars saved for dollars invested may be the best way to sell this provision. Let's do some math:
The Pill costs me something like $30 a month, before BCBS adjusts the claim. (I am pretty sure that is what it cost 15 years ago, too.) $30 times 12 months in a year is $360. Let's say I am on that Pill for 25 years. $360 times 25 = $9,000 over my lifetime. You know what is more expensive that $9,000? An unplanned pregnancy.
I have been on the Pill since college and seem to remember that it wasn't covered under my insurance plan when I first started working. The way I remember it, only after the mass marketing of Viagra (which was covered under every plan) was the chorus of "What the Hell?!" finally answered. And the answer was, "Viagra is a drug that treats a disorder. The Pill is merely preventative." And then the fight got really ugly. It is covered as a regular prescription drug now, at least in the state of Illinois.
I understand that covering the Pill at 100% is a trade off. It adds to the cost of coverage. I will continue to use the Pill whether or not it is covered or at what level it is covered. This issue is not about my needs as a patient. It is about a whole lot of other women that do not currently have the option of a safe, consistent form of birth control that they can control. As in not have to rely on a man to wear it, or provide it. Or have to choose between buying the Pill and buying groceries.
The article goes on to address the concerns of the Catholic bishops. Did you know there was a National Catholic Bioethics Center? Neither did I.
I realize this is a major matter of public policy and much more complicated than my few paragraphs of opinion. But I hope those crazy liberals win this one.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Only the Candy Remains
Weekend Assignment # 341: How Do You Do Halloween?
Each year at this time, we are told that Halloween is second only to Christmas in its commercial impact. Once an amalgam of religious holidays, it has grown over the years, at least in the U.S., and it's not just for children as it may have been half a century ago. What, if anything, do you personally do to celebrate Halloween? Have you ever participated in an alternative or related holiday, such as the Dias de Los Muertos, Samhain, a church Harvest Festival, etc.?
Extra Credit: What was the last Halloween costume you wore, and when?
I don’t actually have Halloween traditions anymore. Other than buying the candy, I mean.
Today, I went to the used book sale at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library. I managed to control myself and only purchased three books. None of which I remotely need. Then I had lunch and came home.
I spent the afternoon on the couch, flipping between football, The Rocky Horror Picture Show
marathon and the marathon of something called The Most Terrifying Places in America, on the Travel Channel. Apparently, a devil baby once lived in Jane Addams’ Hull House. Here is what Ms. Addams had to say about that. And I handed out candy to the few trick-or-treaters that bother to come all the way down my street.
The last time I wore a costume was to a Halloween party held by my friends Bill and Liza just before they were married. I believe Liza just said that was eight years ago. I went as a medieval ghost with the dress and the makeup of death. I remember my friend Andrew did the makeup, which was cool because I would have done the softer pale-haunted look, and he went for the starker-scary look.
Eight years, though. That rather suggests that I am over Halloween. How sad.
Each year at this time, we are told that Halloween is second only to Christmas in its commercial impact. Once an amalgam of religious holidays, it has grown over the years, at least in the U.S., and it's not just for children as it may have been half a century ago. What, if anything, do you personally do to celebrate Halloween? Have you ever participated in an alternative or related holiday, such as the Dias de Los Muertos, Samhain, a church Harvest Festival, etc.?
Extra Credit: What was the last Halloween costume you wore, and when?
I don’t actually have Halloween traditions anymore. Other than buying the candy, I mean.
Today, I went to the used book sale at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library. I managed to control myself and only purchased three books. None of which I remotely need. Then I had lunch and came home.
I spent the afternoon on the couch, flipping between football, The Rocky Horror Picture Show
marathon and the marathon of something called The Most Terrifying Places in America, on the Travel Channel. Apparently, a devil baby once lived in Jane Addams’ Hull House. Here is what Ms. Addams had to say about that. And I handed out candy to the few trick-or-treaters that bother to come all the way down my street.The last time I wore a costume was to a Halloween party held by my friends Bill and Liza just before they were married. I believe Liza just said that was eight years ago. I went as a medieval ghost with the dress and the makeup of death. I remember my friend Andrew did the makeup, which was cool because I would have done the softer pale-haunted look, and he went for the starker-scary look.
Eight years, though. That rather suggests that I am over Halloween. How sad.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Pre Literacy Skillzzz
This summer, at the book sale formerly known as Brandeis, I picked up a box set of Junie B. Jones 
books for my nephew, Alex. He is five years old, so they are a couple of years ahead of him, but Ramona the Pest proved that he can sit still and listen to chapter books.
Today, when they all came over for lunch, not-quite-two-year-old Ainslie was holding one of those books. She had it open, pointed to things on the pages, turned them and jabbered away. Oftentimes, mentioning the name of my dog.
Looking at her, I remembered something a schoolteacher friend told me about young children. The establishment of something called pre-literacy skills. Things like:
She is going to be a reader!
books for my nephew, Alex. He is five years old, so they are a couple of years ahead of him, but Ramona the Pest proved that he can sit still and listen to chapter books.Today, when they all came over for lunch, not-quite-two-year-old Ainslie was holding one of those books. She had it open, pointed to things on the pages, turned them and jabbered away. Oftentimes, mentioning the name of my dog.
Looking at her, I remembered something a schoolteacher friend told me about young children. The establishment of something called pre-literacy skills. Things like:
- Holding the book the correct way
- Turning the pages correctly
- Knowing the words go from left to right and top to bottom
She is going to be a reader!
Friday, October 29, 2010
BTT - Skeletons
In honor of Halloween this weekend:
What reading skeletons do you have in your closet? Books you’d be ashamed to let people know you love? Addiction to the worst kind of (fill in cheesy genre here)? Your old collection of Bobbsey Twin Mysteries lovingly stored behind your “grown-up” books? You get the picture … come on, confess!
Oh, hell.
Flowers in the Attic. The whole series. All of my friends read it in junior high and the horrible Kristy Swanson movie came out around that time. Twenty-some years later, with an overflowing library and I cannot trash those four so-worn-out-they’re-taped-together paperback novels. I should really get it in hardcover. Wait. No.
Interestingly enough, I was reading one discussion board or another where someone asked if our mothers knew we read those books. Because they are, you know, trashy. And sort of unfit for children.
My mother knew I read them. She bought them for me. So I went and asked her if she knew what they were about. No. So I told her. “What?! No! I just knew they were in the Horror section! Next to the Stephen King! You had already read all the Stephen King!”
So true.
What reading skeletons do you have in your closet? Books you’d be ashamed to let people know you love? Addiction to the worst kind of (fill in cheesy genre here)? Your old collection of Bobbsey Twin Mysteries lovingly stored behind your “grown-up” books? You get the picture … come on, confess!
Oh, hell.
Flowers in the Attic. The whole series. All of my friends read it in junior high and the horrible Kristy Swanson movie came out around that time. Twenty-some years later, with an overflowing library and I cannot trash those four so-worn-out-they’re-taped-together paperback novels. I should really get it in hardcover. Wait. No.
Interestingly enough, I was reading one discussion board or another where someone asked if our mothers knew we read those books. Because they are, you know, trashy. And sort of unfit for children.
My mother knew I read them. She bought them for me. So I went and asked her if she knew what they were about. No. So I told her. “What?! No! I just knew they were in the Horror section! Next to the Stephen King! You had already read all the Stephen King!”
So true.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
The Privilege of Books
Once upon a time, I was at a conference attending a session on managing diversity. The hour began with a talk about privilege. The speaker asked us a bunch of questions that proved what a bunch of lily-white-collared folks we all were. A few of those questions were about books:
In your childhood home, were there more than 10 books?
More than 20?
Did your neighborhood have a library?
Did your school?
The questions blew me away. I never thought of books as a privilege.
I have a friend that grew up in a small rural town. She says that her family never had much money, but that books were in the “Need” budget, as opposed to the “Want”. She wondered, in all seriousness, if her mother had to choose between books and groceries…
That friend now teaches Literature to middle schoolers and has personally funded a classroom library for her students. So when I saw this article in the Trib, about Chicago Public Schools and their utter lack of libraries and librarians, I wondered how many other teachers are spending their own money trying to get things for kids to read.
Check this out:
At Durkin Park Elementary School on the Southwest Side, half of a dank and windowless supply room doubles as a library. Only a few children can squeeze into the 12-foot-by-15-foot space, with barely any room to sit down to browse through a book.
"Yeah, I'm frustrated," says Durkin Park Principal Dan Redmond. "I know we're better off than most schools, but when I go to other schools (with better libraries) and I see what they have, it breaks my heart. It doesn't seem fair."
There was another big story in Chicago recently about a group of parents squatting in a fieldhouse that had actually been condemned, because they wanted to use it as a library for their kids. One of those parents was quoted:
Araceli Gonzalez, who helped organize the sit-in, said she began fighting for a library because her 10-year-old daughter is a voracious reader.
Halfway through last year, the girl had already exhausted the offerings of her small classroom library.
"Their reading grades are low," she said of the school, which has not met reading standards set by the federal No Child Left Behind Act since 2008. "What does that tell you? They need books."
The good news is that with this story, the parents received bunches of donated books. Which is good because with state funding gone to hell, CPS isn’t likely to get them from Illinois any time soon.
In your childhood home, were there more than 10 books?
More than 20?
Did your neighborhood have a library?
Did your school?
The questions blew me away. I never thought of books as a privilege.
I have a friend that grew up in a small rural town. She says that her family never had much money, but that books were in the “Need” budget, as opposed to the “Want”. She wondered, in all seriousness, if her mother had to choose between books and groceries…
That friend now teaches Literature to middle schoolers and has personally funded a classroom library for her students. So when I saw this article in the Trib, about Chicago Public Schools and their utter lack of libraries and librarians, I wondered how many other teachers are spending their own money trying to get things for kids to read.
Check this out:
At Durkin Park Elementary School on the Southwest Side, half of a dank and windowless supply room doubles as a library. Only a few children can squeeze into the 12-foot-by-15-foot space, with barely any room to sit down to browse through a book.
"Yeah, I'm frustrated," says Durkin Park Principal Dan Redmond. "I know we're better off than most schools, but when I go to other schools (with better libraries) and I see what they have, it breaks my heart. It doesn't seem fair."
There was another big story in Chicago recently about a group of parents squatting in a fieldhouse that had actually been condemned, because they wanted to use it as a library for their kids. One of those parents was quoted:
Araceli Gonzalez, who helped organize the sit-in, said she began fighting for a library because her 10-year-old daughter is a voracious reader.
Halfway through last year, the girl had already exhausted the offerings of her small classroom library.
"Their reading grades are low," she said of the school, which has not met reading standards set by the federal No Child Left Behind Act since 2008. "What does that tell you? They need books."
The good news is that with this story, the parents received bunches of donated books. Which is good because with state funding gone to hell, CPS isn’t likely to get them from Illinois any time soon.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Halloween Candy is Serious Business
MSN ran an article on the Best and Worst Halloween candy. The short version is that it all has gobs of sugar, so we should avoid anything that has fat. Which means chocolate and peanuts.
Screw that.
And this was even funnier:
“When giving out treats to kids, it's better to stick to healthier items like sugar-free gum, popcorn, pretzel packs and raisin boxes, Mangieri said. For example, a 1-ounce (28-gram) serving of pretzels has 110 calories, one gram of fat and less than one gram of sugar. And a quarter of a cup of raisins has 130 calories, no fat and 29 grams of sugar, in addition to fiber, protein, potassium, iron and calcium.”
That is called the recipe for getting your house TP’d. (Although, assuming there is enough chocolate in your bag already, the pretzels might be o.k).
I haven’t even picked up my Halloween candy yet. But I can assure you, it will not involve raisins.
Screw that.
And this was even funnier:
“When giving out treats to kids, it's better to stick to healthier items like sugar-free gum, popcorn, pretzel packs and raisin boxes, Mangieri said. For example, a 1-ounce (28-gram) serving of pretzels has 110 calories, one gram of fat and less than one gram of sugar. And a quarter of a cup of raisins has 130 calories, no fat and 29 grams of sugar, in addition to fiber, protein, potassium, iron and calcium.”
That is called the recipe for getting your house TP’d. (Although, assuming there is enough chocolate in your bag already, the pretzels might be o.k).
I haven’t even picked up my Halloween candy yet. But I can assure you, it will not involve raisins.
Monday, October 25, 2010
The War, by Ken Burns
While I have something of a WWII theme going on this year, I can honestly say that I would watch just about anything that Ken Burns decides to produce.
Because the subject matter is so broad, Burns used an interesting storytelling device: he picked four U.S. towns, one in each part of the country, and wrote about the War from their points of view. There was plenty of video footage, and lots of photographs, as well as voice-overs of correspondence and articles - very similar to his documentary on The Civil War. The difference was that instead of interviewing historians, Burns recorded interviews with survivors - soldiers and their families.
My favorite story was one that I hadn't heard a thing about before. A young girl had been living with her family in the Philippines when the War broke out and they were sent to an internment camp. Sascha kept a diary, of which exerpts were read, and she was interviewed in the present day (2006?).
I was also drawn in by the interviews with Senator Inouye of Hawaii. Because he was the son of Japanese immigrants, Inouye was banned from enlisting until ..1943? He was a platoon leader in Italy.
Things I learned:
- 240 days straight is about the maximum that any human being can be in combat without going insane.
- We lost an awful lot of planes crash landing onto air craft carriers.
- We bombed the hell out of Tokyo before dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
- (This was more an "I'd forgotten"). Stalin didn't declare war on Japan until after we had dropped The Bomb on Hiroshima.
- Army medics were paid less than the average soldier - $10 a month.
Last Christmas, I gifted my grandfather with Burns' documentary on the National Parks
. Is it too soon to ask if I can borrow it?
Overexposed
Weekend Assignment # 341: Overexposed
Some things (or people) explode into the culture, are really big for a while and then overstay their welcome. Who or what are you really tired of seeing, hearing or reading about these days?
Extra Credit: What discarded bit of pop culture do you remember fondly?
Anyone who was ever made “famous” by a reality TV show.
I am pointing in particular to The Hills and the Housewives shows. I have not watched any of them, but I have seen enough commercials. I will also throw in Paris Hilton, Omarosa, and whatever show “The Situation” is on.
I’ve said before: my feeling is these shows generally reward bad behavior and I refuse to participate by watching. And it seems that I am missing lots of pop culture references these days, which makes me even more resentful.
They make me feel old.
It is my opinion that Reality TV peaked when Puck was kicked out of the San Francisco house. And it jumped the shark with the “Rats and Snakes” (which I did watch).
I miss the old scripted soap operas: Dallas and Dynasty. Knots Landing and Falcon Crest. They were over-the-top dramatic, they had people to root for and those that you loved to hate. And they were not (even remotely or through skillful editing) real.
Some things (or people) explode into the culture, are really big for a while and then overstay their welcome. Who or what are you really tired of seeing, hearing or reading about these days?
Extra Credit: What discarded bit of pop culture do you remember fondly?
Anyone who was ever made “famous” by a reality TV show.
I am pointing in particular to The Hills and the Housewives shows. I have not watched any of them, but I have seen enough commercials. I will also throw in Paris Hilton, Omarosa, and whatever show “The Situation” is on.
I’ve said before: my feeling is these shows generally reward bad behavior and I refuse to participate by watching. And it seems that I am missing lots of pop culture references these days, which makes me even more resentful.
They make me feel old.
It is my opinion that Reality TV peaked when Puck was kicked out of the San Francisco house. And it jumped the shark with the “Rats and Snakes” (which I did watch).
I miss the old scripted soap operas: Dallas and Dynasty. Knots Landing and Falcon Crest. They were over-the-top dramatic, they had people to root for and those that you loved to hate. And they were not (even remotely or through skillful editing) real.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Plug from the Trib
My grandfather called to point me to this article about Glenview's Library in the Chicago Tribune. Most of it, I had heard before. But not this:
"Demand for library services at this suburban locale is continually increasing with new card registrations up 56 percent in 2009."
Function of the economy, or anticipation of the new building?
"Demand for library services at this suburban locale is continually increasing with new card registrations up 56 percent in 2009."
Function of the economy, or anticipation of the new building?
BTT - Foreign
Name a book (or books) from a country other than your own that you love. Or aren’t there any?
There are a thousand. But off the top of my head:
My favorite book from another country is A Christmas Carol
. Followed by...a lot of other Dickens and Jane Austen. But I am going to pretend for a minute that the question refers to a book translated from a foreign language.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch , by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, was a "One Book, One Chicago" pick and can be blamed for my gravitating back to the Russian writers. It is a short novel of one man's day in the gulag and it does a lot with the themes of survival and integrity.
The Three Musketeers
, by Alexandre Dumas
most certainly rocks, which reminds me that The Club Dumas, by Arturo Perez-Reverte, was pretty awesome, too.
I have a couple more of his books waiting in line for me right now.
But if I may make a plug for my old professor, Arnost Lustig, his Lovely Green Eyes
is a new favorite. That may be cheating, because I am pretty sure he was still in the States at the time it was published, but it was originally written in his native Czech. Lustig has written several novels of the Holocaust, and this was a post-war story of a young survivor. Which reminds me that I have a couple of other novels about Prague hanging around that I should really get to, already.
There are a thousand. But off the top of my head:
My favorite book from another country is A Christmas Carol
. Followed by...a lot of other Dickens and Jane Austen. But I am going to pretend for a minute that the question refers to a book translated from a foreign language.One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch , by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, was a "One Book, One Chicago" pick and can be blamed for my gravitating back to the Russian writers. It is a short novel of one man's day in the gulag and it does a lot with the themes of survival and integrity.
The Three Musketeers
, by Alexandre Dumas most certainly rocks, which reminds me that The Club Dumas, by Arturo Perez-Reverte, was pretty awesome, too. I have a couple more of his books waiting in line for me right now.But if I may make a plug for my old professor, Arnost Lustig, his Lovely Green Eyes
is a new favorite. That may be cheating, because I am pretty sure he was still in the States at the time it was published, but it was originally written in his native Czech. Lustig has written several novels of the Holocaust, and this was a post-war story of a young survivor. Which reminds me that I have a couple of other novels about Prague hanging around that I should really get to, already.
