Teeth

Some of you may have seen this already, but for those of you who haven't, the story. Rachel Nabors is a comic book artist, living paycheck to paycheck like most young (and many not-so-young) people in US society today. She has a severe cross-bite that is causing the bone of her jaw to thin. This needs to be treated in the near future, or the damage will become too severe to fix, and she risks losing her teeth. The procedure costs $25,000. Rachel doesn't have insurance, so at the encouragement of her friends, she's asking for donations.

Now, let me toss in a little from my own experience. I'm currently wearing braces. Before they first went on, I had to have four permanent teeth removed in addition to the four wisdom teeth that shouldn't have been left there as long as they were. So, from my own experience:

Insurance wouldn't help. Not enough. It might cover the surgical portion of it, IF it's considered a medical procedure instead of a dental one. (Goofiest thing. On me, the anesthesia was covered by medical, but the extraction was dental.) If it's dental... No, not gonna help much. 8 extractions put me WELL over my yearly dental coverage limit. I ended up paying several hundred dollars out of pocket. Even if she had really good dental insurance, that would maybe knock off $2K from the $25K if the surgery was considered dental.

The orthodontia, nothing covers. No insurance if you're over 23, no federal benefits, nothing. Both insurance companies and the federal government say that orthodontia is always cosmetic for adults.
Bull shit.
I would not be having this done for cosmetic reasons. Because of my age, I've developed one exposed root and two or three partially exposed roots as a complication from the procedure (which may or may not heal after the braces are off), it's excruciatingly painful some days, and it is really helluva expensive! And, I will probably be wearing a retainer every night for the rest of my life. No, the reason I'm having it done is because my choices were have my teeth straightened and keep them for the rest of my life, or come in for more fillings every few years until they finally had to be pulled and replaced with dentures. As an added benefit, I no longer have a tooth literally cutting into my tongue, which is nice.
Furthermore, if it's cosmetic for adults, it's cosmetic for children. That's a bullshit excuse to cut off all adults from help.

This is not something Rachel "got herself into". This would not be addressed if she were somehow "more responsible" or "got a real job with insurance". She's a victim of a shitty system, and there's lots of people out there. So:
1) she could use some help. It is a serious problem, not just a cosmetic issue. Please donate if you can. (Just click on the banner, and it'll take you to a page with the full story and a donate button.)
2) it's time Americans started holding our politicians feet to the fire and demanding that this country act like it has citizens instead of walking resources fit for exploitation.

The Clueless Rich

I rarely go onto "banter" or "OT" sections of forums, because the assholes feel even more free to be there than on-topic locations. But I foolishly clicked such a thread, and saw someone insist this regarding estate taxes (which do kick in or are proposed to kick in, I'm not sure which, at $2 million):

"In saying that $2 million in wealth doesn't make you wealthy, I was thinking of a retired person with a good home and a nest egg that they lived off of, since that is usually who is passing on an estate. If $500,000 is the home value, then $1.5 million is used to generate your income for retirement, the person could probably get about 10% per year to live off of which would be $150,000."

1) Half a million dollar home? In some American markets that's downright ostentatious, in others it would be reasonable for a family home, but in all cases I know of, that would be an overly large house for a retired couple.
2) $150,000/year nicely qualifies someone as the top-most 10% of the economy, maybe the top 5% (top 2% starts at $200K) -- in other words, RICH. Even more so with an elderly person, as the rest of us are expected to cut our spending in half once we leave the work force. (At least according to the few remaining pension plans out there.)
3) That's $150,000/year without touching the principle! Most responsible retirement planning for people who aren't rich involves carefully managing depletion of principle, so that a person does not end up broke and perhaps leaves behind a moderate inheritance, but enjoys most of the spoils of what they earned in their youth. The only people who can bring in $150K a year without touching principle are, again, RICH.
4) This is all beside the point anyway, because the estate tax is charged on the heirs, not the cute old grandparently couple the speaker is trying (and failing) to make us sympathize with.

Yes, $2 million in wealth DOES make you wealthy, ya selfish dumbass.

Duelling Billboards!

OK, this is just fun: Duelling with the "God Speaks" billboards.

Now, I will admit that I had a "That 'love that neighbor' thing? I mean that." T-shirt, and loved it. Was very sad when the cotton wore out, and I'd happily get another. (Was even sadder when my "Love 'em all, let God sort 'em out" shirt wore out, because they're not made any more. :( ) I like the shot at the way the more important tenants of Christianity have been ignored in favor of trivial, superceded, and hate-mongering ones.
And I find a lot of the Godspeaks stuff fairly innocuous.
But then they ran out of good ones, and started getting annoying and insulting. Like, say, the "Big Bang theory? You've gotta be kiddin' me" one. Good way to take already non-Universal statements, narrow the fuck out of them, and make them insulting to those outside the circle. Do you really think that's going to encourage people to join your side?

Anyway, enjoy the hypocrisy smack-down. I did. :)

The person Kati would like to slap today.

Dr. Nicholas Christakis, for his conclusions that obesity is contagious. He analyzed data from a study from one town (Framingham, Massachusetts), and found a correlation of friends becoming obese with other friends. "It did not even matter if the friend was hundreds of miles away - the influence remained." Conclusion: having fat friends makes you fat.

*smoldering rage*

*Slap!* *Slap!*

Hello! OBVIOUS cause-effect fallacy here. What makes people friends? Similar interests and attitudes. Similarities are further enhanced by growing up in the same town. The obesity correlation is FAR more likely to be caused by shared factors than by interpersonal influence. For hypothetical example: Joe didn't become fat because Bob did; Bob and Joe both became fat because they share a love of drawn butter and a hatred of jogging. The fact that physical separation does not affect the correlation supports my hypothesis FAR more than it supports Dr. Christakis's, and in fact should have eliminated (or at least greatly reduced attention to) the possibility of direct interpersonal influence. If your friend is hundreds of miles away, and your friendship is either not being maintained, or maintained by telephone, e-mail, and letters, you very well may not know that your friend has gained weight. If you don't, there's no way your friend's weight can affect you. But, the shared influences will remain.

I question Dr. Christakis' ability as a researcher that he did not consider (or dismissed) the more obvious and likely conclusion here in favor of the more discriminatory and fear-mongering one.

An Economic Thought

And perhaps one that shows my ignorance on just what Ben Bernanke is thinking at any given time, but let me throw it out there nonetheless. And, BTW, forgive that this entry is very Ameri-centric.

Interest rates have been kept low for ages to "encourage economic growth." But, on the level of private citizens, the economy has been in the crapper for years, and now the word 'recession' is being bandied about.

Now, theoretically, high interest rates encourage saving, and low interest rates encourage borrowing and spending.

But, a private individual can only borrow so much before they've reached the point where they can't pay it back. Have we reached the point where we as a citizenry are tapped out, and lower interest rates are hurting the situation by giving us no way to build real assets?

Worse, have we reached a point where corporate and individual good are diametrically opposed. It is often to a corporation's benefit to borrow money, use it for development, and pay it back later rather than spend there own. This is especially true since bankruptcy laws are SO much more lenient for corporations than individuals. (Individuals can declare bankruptcy only once in a lifetime. Corporations can declare multiple times, with less obligation attached.)

But, individuals are rarely in a position where it's beneficial to borrow, spend, and pay back later.

Now, add on that many corporations are doing most of their investing overseas. In other words, the money they borrow here is not being spent here, and so is not enriching out economy as a whole. In that case, are lower interest rates actually hurting us by funneling resources out of our country faster?

After all, the last several years have proven that "business" can be doing well, while the population as a whole, the people, are doing very poorly.

In Honor of Women's History Month

Here's a picture from the women's suffrage movement (with a little commentary):




You know, it kind of reminds me of this post about the confusion of sexual desire and sexual agency, and especially Nenena's remark on how every blog she's seen defending the Playboy Wonder Woman cover as "empowering" has been a man's, and Lost_angelwings' agreeing snark "Women have no idea what empowers us and what we want. If we want empowerment we need guys to give it to us, that's true female empowerment!"