Abortion: The Non-Debate

In the immortal words of some pathetic character in a Muriel Spark novel, 'It is with great trepidation that I take up my pen,' to make a few observations on the unending, unresolvable question of you-know-what. Ordinarily I don't get involved. My private opinion on abortion is that it sucks, and that banning it is not the way to end it. Your mileage may vary; I certainly will not try to alter anyone else's opinion.

No, I merely have a couple of observations, speaking as a woman who has now traversed two pregnancies. The second resulted in the most objectively wonderful baby ever conceived in all of time :-). The first miscarried.

The first time I was pregnant, I felt like a glass bubble full of magic. I tiptoed around in a state of exaltation. I made sententious speeches to long-suffering friends, about how my attitude toward abortion, gender, politics and life in general was transformed; how I could never, ever conceive of having one, even though I had been pro-choice for twenty years previously.

Then I came down with a raging fever and strep infection. I was terrified, particularly as a dear friend had recently lost a pregnancy under similar circumstances; I hastened to a doctor, got a blood test and some antibiotics, and miscarried eighteen hours later. The doctor later informed me that my hormone levels indicated that the pregnancy had probably terminated before I'd come down with the strep.

Whatever. I didn't want to talk about it, mainly because if I didn't talk about it, I was okay. It was only when someone said something like "I'm so sorry" that I had an emotional breakdown. It is worth mentioning, however, that exactly one regular reader of right-wing extremist web fodder bothered to say, "I'm so sorry." The rest either ignored the issue entirely or said actively cruel things.

But whenever I did tell people, I discovered that first trimester miscarriages are incredibly common. At least sixty percent of the women I confided in replied with, "Yes, I had one too." It almost came to seem that a miscarriage was a prerequisite for a healthy pregnancy. People just don't talk about it.

So when anti-abortion activists count every first trimester abortion as 'one murdered baby,' this is, on the most fundamental level, not true. A pregnancy in the first trimester is a potential baby, whether abortion is legal or not. Nature is not moral; it is profligate, extravagant and wasteful. It flings the seeds of life around with wild abandon, letting them blossom or rot where they fall, without a focused plan. Human intention is not the master of all.

When I got pregnant again, I didn't tell anyone for quite awhile. My attitude was, "okay, we'll see." When I had my first ultrasound and they said, "There's your baby," I said, "Really? Are you sure? Is it alive?" I got attached gradually, fearful of another betrayal.

But this one was, of course, wildly successful. Which brings me to my second observation; that bringing a baby to term is, in the most literal sense, labor. It is really really hard. I didn't expect to get so stupid; I lost nearly all creativity, mental acuity and physical power while I was pregnant. I didn't make art, I scarcely wrote, I got breathless going upstairs. By my eighth month I was unable to give a massage without almost passing out. Pregnancy was comparable to building a house with my bare hands, in terms of the drain on my mental and physical resources.

It would behoove anti-abortion activists, then, to recognize this fact if they are truly interested in ending abortion for good and all and forever. Expecting a woman to undertake this task without physical, financial or emotional support for the duration is absurd. Too many (mostly male) persons seem to believe that babies are things which just happen if you don't interfere. The reality is a bit more complicated than that.

Birth Story (repost)

'Behind every baby is an unbelievable story.' This post will be featured in Baby Week, a Discovery Health series, to air Sunday-Friday, June 14-19 at 8P e/p on Discovery Health. Episode premieres are:

Twins By Surprise Sunday, Sunday, June 14, 8P e/p
Little Parents, Big Pregnancy Monday, June 15, 8P e/p
Births Beyond Belief Tuesday, June 16, 8P e/p
Obese & Pregnant Wednesday, June 17, 8P e/p

***
As I write this, my beautiful daughter Olivia Grace is snuggled against my chest, sound asleep in her baby sling; hopefully she will remain that way long enough for me to finish this post. She was born on March 14, 2009, at 3:58 PM, weighing in at nearly 10 pounds. We are both as healthy and happy as we can be.

Warning: pregnant women and squeamish persons, this is all you need to know. Please stop reading now.

Before Olivia was born, I did everything in my power to prepare for a healthy, natural childbirth. I chose Clementine Midwifery as my care provider, did regular prenatal yoga at Park Slope Yoga Center, hired my wonderful yoga teacher Sasha as my doula, and attended childbirth classes with Jada Shapiro at Birth Day Presence. I cannot recommend all of these people highly enough. I got every bit of care and medical attention that I required, plus an enormous amount of practical information and emotional support. I am forever grateful that I ditched the insurance plan that placed me with a male OB/GYN from the Ukraine who was only in the office once a week, and who made me wait in the waiting room for two hours to tell me I was fine.

The pregnancy went mostly very well. As a bodyworker, I see a lot of pregnant women, and I know just how uncomfortable pregnancy can get; I was grateful not to have agonizing lower back pains, excessive nausea, insomnia, gestational diabetes, or hideous acne. I gained the minimum healthy amount of weight, got breathless going upstairs, and took a lot of naps. Childbirth classes were fun, and although I didn't write off the possibility of getting an epidural, I was game to try it without the drugs.

The only thing I wasn't prepared for was not to go into labor at all.

A week past my due date, I started trying folk remedies to bring it on. I got an acupuncture treatment from Laura at Providence Day Spa. I went for walks, and bounced interminably on my yoga ball. I ate spicy food and got a pedicure. Joe and I tried those other things that are supposed to induce labor, wink wink. The baby didn't budge.

The problem was that she was turned around--'occipital posterior presentation'--and wasn't dropping down. As time went by, she got bigger and bigger, to the point where she wasn't able to drop. My body being wise, it simply refused to push a rock against a hard place, and waited for someone to come and do something about it.

Two weeks past my due date, I was induced. I labored for 9 hours without drugs, then broke down and asked for the epidural. Pain is one thing; unending pain without purpose is quite another, and at that point I could sense that the contractions weren't accomplishing anything.

It took 45 minutes to install the epidural catheter, which wasn't fun. They kept stabbing me in the spine, asking "do you feel that?", taking it out and trying again. The last time they hit a nerve which led down my right leg, which was REALLY interesting, but after some twiddling it worked well enough. I was able to get the first sleep I'd had in more than 24 hours.

Eight hours later, after the maximum dose of pitocin had failed to bring the baby any closer to emerging, I agreed to a c-section. They shipped me to the OR, strapped me into the Jesus Christ position and extracted my baby. As soon as we were introduced she recognized my voice and Joe's voice; her eyes moved toward us and she stopped crying. I asked her if the name 'Olivia Grace' was okay with her, and she consented.

Then the epidural catheter fell out.

I know the catheter fell out because when the anaesthesiologist came in two days later to remove it, it wasn't in. I know that it fell out then because I started feeling the c-section in ways they hadn't warned me about. "Ow," I said, politely. "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. That's very violent."

They whisked Olivia away and started feeding me drugs, seemingly at random. "Is this better?" they asked.

"Well, maybe a little. Ow." They kept apologizing for putting little pinpricks in my shoulder, which I found ironic and amusing. The anaesthesiologist said, "we usually don't use this one, because it causes hallucinations, but it works as a last resort. Here come the sixties!"

Then the world exploded.

As those who are close to me know, it is my belief that the physical world is an illusion, a projection of the mind, and that reality is complete spiritual unity. This ceased to be a theoretical proposition and became my direct experience. "I am foam," I declared.

I expanded in all directions, becoming one with the Universal Mind, at the same time as a small part of me recalled that there were these things that thought of themselves as people, who were born and got old and got married and died, and wasn't that ridiculous. They sent each other silly coded messages on something called "the Internet" when they could communicate totally and directly at any moment. This might have been a fun game, except that along the way, a lot of suffering happens.

Suffering was a particularly pertinent issue to me, because they started stuffing my uterus back into my abdominal cavity, which was startlingly painful, given that it was only going back where it belonged. "Burrrrrrrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnn," I remarked. "Flame. I am flame. Burrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnn. Why did we invent consciousness? This is a STUPID experiment. We need to stop it RIGHT NOW."

The OB/GYN who performed the surgery told me later, "You were one of the colorful ones." I moved on to shouting Course in Miracles lessons at the top of my voice, and told Joe (who was, of course, part of my own mind, as was the midwife, the anaesthesiologist, and the rest of humanity) "You are the ONLY person I would do this for. Fuck those Christians." The six parts of my mind which were in the operating room at the time all chuckled.

All in all, if every woman who gave birth or had a c-section went through this, there would soon be no more people.

After an indeterminate period of time, my individual identity began to reconstitute itself, in a dim ugly room. One part of me coalesced into a midwife, another into my mom. The midwife appeared to understand when I confided that I loved her, that we were one, but my mom persisted in using this silly 'telephone' thing to 'call other people.' She also kept asking me if I wanted her to leave, and informing me that I'd forget she'd been there, which was just dumb, and I told her so.

Really I was quite disturbed, given that in the act of bringing a child into 'the world,' I had simultaneously gained proof that both 'the world' and 'children' didn't actually exist. Although I was unhappy that Olivia had been spirited away into the NICU because her glucose was crashing, I recognized that it was probably a good thing for me to get used to being me again before taking responsibility for her.

At 9 PM they finally got me installed in a postpartum room and brought her to me for a few minutes. They wouldn't let me keep her; they said it was 'a privilege' that I got to see her at all, which was a little rich. I put up a fight but was overpowered, and they took her away again. I was attached by an IV to a box which beeped all night, keeping me awake, and caused my feet to swell up to the size of small watermelons.

Later, of course, everything was fine. Intense, agonizing pain aside, the week of Olivia's birth was one of the happiest of my life. Midwives and doula seemed to expect me to be sad that 'things hadn't gone as planned,' but as far as I am concerned, things are ducky. If this were 1850, I'd be dead, instead of having a gorgeous, healthy 10 lb. baby and a small surgical scar; why, then, would I waste a second on natural childbirth regrets, let alone sue the hospital for gross negligence in the matter of the catheter?

Unless, of course, they decide to get ugly about the bill.

Health Care, Revisited, Ad Infinitum

Pretty Lady cannot allow dear jSin to continue moping, all the way down at the bottom of that last thread, so she will take advantage of his tantrum to stir up the issue once again:

PL here indicates that she has insurance but might drop it because of the amount it costs. While I obviously cannot speak for the entirety of her finances, she seems to speak of a reasonably active social life. If health insurance is such a priority, where is it prioritized in the budget? If it is not more important than eating out and socializing to her, why should her having it be important to me?

Before Pretty Lady takes serious umbrage at the vast set of assumptions contained in this inflammatory passage, she must hasten to reassure herself that this is merely a Rhetorical Device on jSin's, part, not an actual indictment of her habits. Because jSin is pointing out the very real danger that a society which prioritizes taking care of its own, can very easily morph into one which controls its own.

However, the mere juxtaposition of these two notions may serve to indicate, to every reasonably discriminating mind, that they are not synonymous. Not by a long shot. So simmer down.

First, then, Pretty Lady must deal with the rhetorical smears on her character by stating the following:

1) Her health insurance payment is $300 a month, which is higher by a factor of six than her monthly socializing budget. Pretty Lady was not kidding when she said she was thrifty. Health insurance companies as a whole do not run on the same principles of economy with which she runs her own life, and this is one of the reasons she views the industry with grave circumspection.

2) Before she had health insurance, she invested a substantial portion of her income in yoga class cards, bicycles, bicycle helmets, bicycle repairs, excellent footgear for all types of terrain, arch supports, and the very occasional massage. Additionally, she works a monthly shift at the co-operative grocery store, which insures that she can afford to buy and consume organic produce daily, without bankrupting herself. These investments rendered her, usually, healthy as a French draft horse.

3) Socializing, in New York City, is not merely a frivolous endeavor, but is in fact vital to one's economic viability. Thus, Pretty Lady's stingy socializing budget is not necessarily a long-term savings; she would perhaps be served better in the long run if she partied more than she does now. Because people, by and large, prefer to do business with people they know, particularly if that business is of a highly esoteric variety.

4) Furthermore, socializing has been proven to be vital to one's health, as well. So attempting to separate out the two budgets is a nonsensical exercise, right at the start.

(As an aside, it is a tragic commentary on the state of our society when it is assumed that a person who maintains a healthy social life is assumed to be spending a great deal of money. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned conversation, plus a walk in the park? Round it off with a good cup of coffee or a beer at a dive bar, and life holds few greater pleasures.)

So. Since jSin is relatively new to Pretty Lady's circle, he may not be aware that Pretty Lady has already proposed a Universal Healthcare Plan, which addresses both the economic and social concerns he raises in his comments:

Yes, she proposes that the government freely give its low-income citizens money, to spend upon their own health. Rather like EBT vouchers.

This, of course, violates all established precendents of Condescension, Patronization, and Punitive Reinforcement. It presupposes a dangerous Lack of Control, and irresponsibly opens up the system for instances of Flagrant Abuse by the least deserving among us. It amounts to a Robin Hood philosophy of robbing the rich to reward the poor.

Or does it?

The key of Pretty Lady's plan is that this subsidization will not be unlimited. Persons shopping for health care will be presented with the challenge of frugality; they will be forced to make their own decisions. They will try things and see if they work; if they don't work, and are expensive, they will try something else. Meanwhile, healthcare practitioners who charge exorbitant rates for nothing at all will be forced into another line of work.

Note, furthermore, that the government is not running this system. Note that Pretty Lady has said nothing at all about Medicaid, Medicare, or prescription-drug plans. The only 'insurance' plan which makes sense to her, as she has said in the past, is a universal catastrophic-coverage plan, payments to be subsidized below a certain income level.

The universality of this plan, moreover, is key; this obviates any need for layers and layers of bureaucracy, put into place for the sole purpose of denying coverage to people in need. Once denial is no longer an option, the wit and wisdom of plan-managers will have nowhere to go but toward the efficient managing of resources for absolutely everybody.

As a healer herself, Pretty Lady has long noted that healing is best facilitated by the person in need of it. It cannot be imposed, it may only be accepted. Furthermore, people in general are not particularly motivated by fear of gruesome and painful demise; the Denial aspect of the human mentality kicks in, and the more you show them pictures of diseased lungs, the more they reach for a cigarette to calm themselves down.

Thus, attempting to control people's self-destructive habits is a non-starter; encouraging themselves to take good care of themselves by subsidizing massage therapy, yoga, organic produce and regular checkups might be infinitely more effective.

(Don't worry, Pretty Lady is not so delusional as to actually think that centuries of ingrained Puritanism will be overcome in her lifetime. She can only dream.)

In conclusion, let Pretty Lady remind the hard-core Libertarian contingent of her readership that human beings, as a group, are intimately and integrally connected. This is a fundamental and inescapable truth. One cannot propose a template for Human Liberty while simultaneously disclaiming any interest in the health and well-being of others; this is akin to attempting to launch a foot-powered airplane. Freedom for the individual depends upon consideration of the whole. And as Pretty Lady has demonstrated above, it is eminently possible to consider those less fortunate than oneself, without controlling them.

This Just In--Shopping is a DRUG!!!

Darlings, guess what? Pretty Lady has Arrived! A major retail marketing campaign is now bribing her! With a $25 gift card, an hors d'oeuvre reception and a big block of chocolate shaped like a First Aid kit!

Pretty Lady has never made a secret of being cheap.

However, having sold her journalistic integrity for chocolate and a bargain-basement shopping spree, she must deliver the goods. Within the bag containing her bribe, there was also, most unsubtly, a Press Packet, which she will now proceed to quote.

May 15, 2008--A new study reveals that shopping and discovering an unbelievable fashion find produces a euphoric experience greater than sky diving, kissing or eating chocolate--increasing heart rates to 192 beats per minute, more than triple the normal resting heart rate of 60. While it has long been known that many women enjoy shopping--it is something they do willingly and often--now there is evidence that shopping does actually bring physical happiness.

To hammer home the point, a couple of British Scientists at the reception wired up a number of lady volunteers with brain-electrode caps (they looked like flight helmets covered with blue and green Life Savers) and sent them Shopping for Bargains. Pretty Lady, mindful of her dignity, did not volunteer. She does have some limits.

But there you have it; shopping may be added to the list of potentially addictive activities, designed to anaesthetize our brains from addressing the grim reality of Modern Life. Pretty Lady always suspected it was so.

Happily, she may report that the managers at TJ Maxx are on top of the problem, and have counteracted the potentially dangerous effects of too much shopping by providing a distinctly depressive dressing-room experience. Nothing curbs the euphoria of finding a fetching designer dress, marked down 60%, like having to stand in line for 10 minutes at the door to the fitting room, only to discover upon finally being admitted that fully one-third of the miniscule, fluorescent cubicles within are unoccupied.

(This is why Pretty Lady far prefers, when in need of a fix, to shop in high-end stores that have spacious dressing rooms, with armchairs and cozy halogen lighting. She can try on fabulous costumes for hours, and emerge Calm and Refreshed, without spending a penny! Much more economical.)

Pretty Lady later suggested to one of the charming TJ Maxx PR department girls that the dressing room was shamefully understaffed. She remarked, 'Yes, it's our busiest time of day,' and helped herself to another chocolate.

Pretty Lady now sees clearly; her choice of careers was woefully unwise. If she had gone into PR, she, too, could travel coast to coast, dressed to the nines, hosting glamorous parties and reciting inane copy to everyone she meets. And her salary for doing so would be considerably higher than a $25 gift certificate every year or so.

But since she is who she is, she will grudgingly admit that the likes of TJ Maxx is where she does her practical shopping. She armors her hypersensitive psyche with a Teflon force field, seeks out the natural fiber fabrics in a sea of polyester, and practices Zen meditation while standing in line after loud, tedious, proletarian line. And she manages to dress fairly well.

The Definition of Socialism

so·cial·ism
–noun
1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2. procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3. (in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.

Pretty Lady posts this definition, merely to remind her readers that there are precious few countries on the face of the earth where the government owns the means of production, and the majority of the citizens are still living relatively comfortable lives. The last time she checked, corporations which produce things are still, in fact, corporations, with CEOs and everything. Many of them may be hand-in-glove with certain government officials, but at the very least, a pretence of separation between state and industry is being maintained.

In fact, as her Gentleman Friend pointed out just yesterday evening, the debate between Pure Socialism and Pure Capitalism no longer exists, in a practical sense. He quoted some theorist or other (Pretty Lady is so bad with names) who stated that 'two seemingly opposing ideas will battle it out for awhile, then they will integrate and move on to the next level.'

Indeed, as dear P.J. O'Rourke discusses in his classic 'Eat the Rich,' Pure Capitalist Freedom is doomed to a collapse into unchecked pyramid schemes and chronic civilian gun battles, without the balancing Rule Of Law. Good government, in other words, tempers the natural human instinct to lie to one's neighbors, steal their savings, and shoot them when you're done.

For the way Pretty Lady sees it, the way the Founding Fathers saw it, and the way more and more countries are seeing it, is that any human system which attempts to adhere to rigid dogma is bound to collapse under a Fatal Flaw. It is not within the capacity of the human consciousness to devise a perfect system, whether this be Capitalist, Communist, Socialist, Libertarian, or Anarchic. To maintain balance, systems must be continuously self-adjusting. They may adopt new elements, under exigency of circumstance, and discard those which no longer serve a purpose.

Additionally, the balance of a system is best served when every individual element of this system is able to provide feedback. It is to the system's advantage to have efficient and sensitive feedback-delivery systems, for when feedback from a particular element is ignored, that feedback becomes ever more dire. In extreme situations, this leads to Violent Revolution.

This is why, contrary to the Dire Prognostications of various of her readers, Pretty Lady remains doggedly optimistic about the future, not only of her beloved America, but of the planet in general. For in case you had not noticed, we are communicating upon the most egalitarian and sensitive feedback-delivery system in human history; the Internet.

As recently as five years ago, Pretty Lady had precious little recourse when brutalized by a Big System, such as an exploitive degree program, a job from hell, or a lousy healthcare system. These days, she simply writes up her case, and it is heard by the Entire World, or at least those with the wherewithal to type their concern into Google.

Big Systems, particularly the exploitive ones, are not particularly thrilled by this fact, as is shown by various attempts by government and industry at Internet regulation, control and censorship. Singularly, however, these attempts have met with limited and temporary success. The network of connectivity, and the commitment of its individual elements to maintaining those connections, is now larger and more extensive than any lumbering, monolithic, dogmatic system can control.

Balance, then, is on its way to becoming ever more precise, rapid, and fine-tuned in its adjustments. If transparency is not official, it is achieved on an ad-hoc basis by courageous individuals.

That is why, when she is the recipient of hyperbolic warnings regarding the Evil Dangers of Socialism, her response is along the lines of, 'Oh, phoo.' Pure Socialism is so nineteen-fifty-five.

The Healthy Home

Hello darlings! Pretty Lady apologizes for being ever so political, these last few weeks. She doesn't know what has become of her. She suspects that she is a victim of seduction; she just discovered that Barack Obama has the same personality type as her Gentleman Friend--ENFP! No wonder she has such a crush on him! The age of the NF is upon us, after literally millennia of domination by STs! Perhaps, one day, it will be safe for INFJs to enter regularly into society without risking nervous breakdowns.

However, before that happens, we sensitive, introverted, intuitive types will still be spending a lot of time at home. And Pretty Lady has discovered, quite by accident, that she is a better housekeeper than she had previously thought.

For let it be known that Pretty Lady has very little in common with the garden-variety German housewife. One may eat off her kitchen floor, only if one is strengthening one's immune system for an extended tour of Cambodia. The corners of her bathroom tend to putty up. The inside of the microwave, the back of the stove, and the areas under the kitchen table and fridge get a rigorous scrubbing, nearly every year. She does a lot of Artful Draping and Stashing of unattractive clutter, when people come over.

Furthermore, this being a New York apartment, space is naturally at a premium. Therefore every square inch of her home is Densely Packed and Efficiently Used. Pretty Lady's 750 square foot one-bedroom is full-time residence to one lady, one gentleman, and one short-haired feline; it contains one painting studio, one bodywork office, one eat-in kitchen, and one video-editing station. It also contains a second office under the loft, an extensive art collection, four floor-to-ceiling double-stacked bookshelves, a media center, and a great deal of second-hand furniture.

And when a Sensitive Person enters Pretty Lady's home, they generally are not subject to a full-on allergy attack. So she must be doing something right. Here is what she does.

Filters:

One large HEPA filter runs in the bedroom/office/studio, 24/7/365.

Air filter over heating/air conditioning intake, changed regularly.

Water filter on drinking tap, changed regularly.

HEPA filter in vacuum cleaner.

Humidifer in bedroom/office/studio during winter; it makes things feel warmer, and reduces scratchy skin from dehydration.

Plants: as many as possible, in front of every window.

Garbage:

Small garbage bags and waste baskets are used, so as to be emptied once a day, tied up and carried downstairs whenever anybody is going out anyway. Cat box is stationed in bathroom, next to toilet, with broom and other cleaning accoutrements right by, thus providing a Strong Hint to anyone who happens to be using bathroom regularly.

Cleaning products:

All non-toxic. Castile bathroom cleaner, Seventh Generation dishwashing detergent, all-natural shampoos, toothpastes and hand soaps.

Vacuuming:

Before every single client arrives. Specialty nozzles are used on furniture and in corners. Bathroom given a wipe-down at the same time.

Dishes:

Rinsed and put into dishwasher as soon as they no longer contain food. Dishwasher set to run at night, and emptied first thing in the morning. Counters and stove-top wiped down whenever empty, which is usually.

Ventilation:

Windows opened every day the weather permits.

Laundry:

Same-day drop-off wash and fold is $.50/lb on the corner, and worth its weight in gold.

Sweeping re-organization and straightening of scattered objects:

Whenever Pretty Lady gets stressed and cannot think properly, which happens with reliable frequency. This is how Virgos manage. It is not a bad thing.


Pretty Lady, let it be known, is Not Your Mother. Nevertheless she earnestly recommends that people with allergies, chronic health problems, mental health issues and/or pets give her methods some consideration. These simple habits are not excessively time-consuming or excessively onerous; in fact, after a bit of set-up, they are less stressful and intrusive of creative hours than the constant tripping, sneezing, and working around great piles of chaos that inevitably happen otherwise.

(Also, as a last resort: Flylady.net. A Word to the Wise.)

Pretty Lady for President--NOT

Pretty Lady is quaking in her boots:

I don't think Obama is particularly economicly sound. Although certainly Clinton and McCain are not, either. I do think he's more honest than they are, but I'm afraid that's not necessarily saying a whole lot.

What I haven't heard any is of the three say: Guess what, like all Americans, the Federal Government not only has to spend no more than it takes in, it also has to pay off its debts. I've heard lots of talk about spending more on the military, on the poor, on health care, etc, but nothing about the debt. A little here and there about a 'balanced budget' but nothing about debt repayment.
I don't support any of those three. I'll have to see who the third parties put up before I make a choice.
Perhaps I should write in 'Pretty Lady'. (Okay, actually, Pretty Lady's author, since I've very carefully made sure I've got her name right, just in case someone asks about the t-shirt, you understand.)

Well, all that can be said about Pretty Lady and economics is that she believes in providing actual value for every dollar she earns, as she sternly told those people who tried to sell her some parasitic viral-marketing scheme last week. This has not made her wealthy, but at least she sleeps soundly at night.

But she is sorry to say that she is not running for President, and would turn down the position if it were offered. So you and David will just have to write in Ron Paul instead. The poor fellow needs the moral support.

Your economic concerns, Boysmom, are indeed valid. Pretty Lady rather suspects that a great many American citizens are going to have to adjust to some radical changes in standards of living, sometime within the next ten or twenty years, due to the subprime mortgage crisis, the effects of globalization, and this situation of the dollar vis a vis China, which is giving Pretty Lady nightmares. And it may be far, far too late for any action by the U.S. government to do anything about it.

However, the pointing out of a few facts is in order:

1) The Clinton Administration left office with a rather large budget surplus. This, as far as Pretty Lady understands it, was brought about by the technology-driven economic boom in the late 90's, which was spurred by individual creativity and entrepreneurship, bolstered by an existing infrastructure of communications and universities, which were at least partly government-subsidized.

2) The Bush administration tax cuts for the very wealthy have not produced anything like this sort of boom.

3) We are hemorrhaging money in Iraq.

4) Citizens who are assured of decent health care, education, food and shelter are better fitted for taking on entrepreneurial challenges than those who are clinging desperately to three minimum-wage jobs for fear of starving.

5) NAFTA didn't do American industrial workers any favors, and Mr. Obama knows it.


Pretty Lady could go on and on, about the connections between Islamic terrorism and poverty, the happiness quotient of the Danish people, and the pitfalls of unrestricted free-market capitalism. But suffice it to say that she'd rather have a government which admits it doesn't know everything, rather than one which thinks it knows all.

Healthcare: Force vs. Encouragement

As you darlings all know, the issue of Health Care is quite an important one to Pretty Lady. In fact, she has sent her personal proposal, that for government-subsidized health savings accounts, in to dear Mr. Obama; he hasn't gotten back to her yet, but she understands that the gentleman has more pressing issues on his mind at present.

However, she would like to point out once again that a seemingly subtle, semantic difference between the attitudes of the two leading Democratic Presidential contenders on this issue is, nevertheless, starkly significant. Mrs. Clinton wishes to legislate that all American citizens be forced to purchase a Health Insurance Plan, whether they feel that they personally need it or not. Mr. Obama feels that American citizens can be trusted to make such vital economic decisions on their own; he merely wishes to assist the poorest of us with our payments.

Pretty Lady can attest, from personal experience, that being legally required to spend 10% of her nonexistent income on a health insurance plan, during certain long periods of her youth, when she was so bursting with health and animal optimism as to be a stranger to even the hint of a doctor's office, would have been literally crippling. It would have been barefaced totalitarian robbery. Pretty Lady believes, furthermore, that the two halves of Freedom are: Freedom to manage one's own resources, and Freedom to screw up.

Freedom to watch one's child die in an overcrowded county emergency room, of a treatable illness, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, not so much.

Fie on 'Health Insurance'! Fie!

As if this were a surprise:

Have health insurers been systematically cheating patients and doctors of fair reimbursement for medical services? That is the disturbing possibility raised by an investigation of the industry’s arcane procedures for calculating “reasonable and customary” rates.
...
This system is an invitation for abuse. UnitedHealth owns the company whose database will affect its costs and profitability, so both have a strong financial interest in keeping reimbursement rates low. Even Ingenix seems unwilling to stand behind its numbers. In licensing its database to insurers, it stresses that the data is “for informational purposes only” and does not imply anything about “reasonable and customary” charges. Yet that is precisely what the health insurers use the data for, as Ingenix knows, according to investigators.

Since we are paying for the vast majority of our medical care out-of-pocket, anyway, as this article attests, WHY IN THE WORLD are we, the American consumer, continuing to support this corrupt and parasitic system? Pretty Lady calls for Revolution! Medical savings accounts for all!

How to Choose a Healer

Mitzibel has chimed on in with a request of her own:

Here’s the thing. This past weekend I costumed a play that I got roped into acting in, as well. Basically, in the course of two days I spent about 20 hours strapped too tightly into an ill-designed “costume” corset (I mean like, “goth girl playing dressup” costume, not “I worked two weeks from a pattern from 1834 to make this right” costume) and in ballet slippers on a concrete floor. When I woke up on Sunday I could hardly move; turns out I screwed up the little vertebrae that connects your spine and your pelvis, the iliac-something.

So the doctor that I went to gave me good drugs, but also scheduled me for therapy—massage, deep heat, sonogram---and when I showed up, they gave me to the office chiropractor.

Now, I’m not a big fan of alternative medicine—the last chiropractor I went to had one arm and offered me a discount on hot oil full body massage lessons if I brought in one of my “co-ed pals” to practice my lessons on. This topic was brought up while I was lying topless on his table while he massaged me with Icy-Hot. Yeah. These days I stick to “legitimate” doctors.

But this one . . . well, he was awfully convincing. If the X-rays of my spine put up next to X-rays of normal people didn’t convince me, the difference in my range of mobility before and after he cracked my spine and neck certainly did.

But I’m still wary of quack-itude, especially since he’s prescribed a weeks-long regime of adjustments and massage.

So I think it would be spiffy if you could post a guide to choosing a good body-worker. I’ve had massage therapy in the past, and most of it was BS. I’ve also had quite a few friends who’ve been trained as massage therapists who left me feeling worse after their work than I did before.

Pretty Lady's recommendation is very simple: Ask. Your. Friends. Not the lousy bodyworkers; the ones who may have received good bodywork. She guarantees they're out there.

Also, put a query on local Internet message boards and forums; people who have had an excellent experience with a bodyworker are frequently eager to talk about it.

This is the short answer. Now Pretty Lady will elaborate.

You see, alternative healthcare practitioners fall into three rough categories; the Quacks, the Functional, and the Gifted. Functionals, with sufficient study and practice, can occasionally rise to almost-Gifted efficacy; and of course there are many, many people out there who are Gifted at Quackery. This is why it is paramount to rely on testimonials from persons whose character is known to you, plus a heavy dose of Gut Feeling.

Above all, you must listen to your own body, both when assessing the results of a session, and when choosing a course of treatment in the first place. Do not take your chiropractor's word for it that you need to come in three times a week for the indefinite future or risk permanent disability; Pretty Lady used to work for a chiropractor like that. His professional advice had a great deal more to do with the fact that he was scrambling to pay the rent on his Wall Street digs every month than with actual concern for his heavily-insured clients. Pretty Lady was doing all the work, anyway. Shortly thereafter she went into business for herself.

What Pretty Lady tells her clients is that they are the experts, both upon their own health and their own finances. She has no real objection to the self-indulgent person who wants three massages a week, except that it's boring to work on them, but it isn't usually necessary except when a person is recovering from a toxic infection so massive that it precludes doing yoga, and when this client is a purist who refuses to take painkillers.

Pretty Lady herself sees no reason at all to choose between 'alternative' methods of therapy and 'traditional' ones; these modalities, in her view, can and should be used in a complementary manner. One does not see a shaman for a broken leg, any more than one goes to a brain surgeon for depression. One simply proceeds in a scientific manner; try something, and assess the results. Repeat until dead or better.

When choosing a practitioner, one should additionally be skeptical of extraordinary claims. Chiropractors who assert the ability to Cure All Ills, including asthma and cancer, are delusional. For that matter, so are the M.D.s who talk like this. However, Pretty Lady's very own Mommy recently informed her that after two visits to her friend's chiropractor in Denton, the hip and back pain that has plagued her since the birth of her third child has abated to the extent that she is giving up painkillers. This, after twenty-five years of scoffing, "Chiropractic. Piffle." The yoga classes three times a week have helped a lot, too.

It is perfectly possible for one form of therapy to be of monumental assistance at a crucial moment, and later, not so much. In the course of healing her own chronic malleolar tendinitis, Pretty Lady visited an acupuncturist three times. The first time was useless, but since it was a free swap, she returned. The second time, the acupuncturist stuck a needle in her right wrist, and her left ankle felt better. This event triggered a cascade of psycho-emotional insight, which put a whole new complexion on the deeper significance of dragging one's left malleolar tendon upstairs; the third time was fine. After that, it was back to yoga class. Needles aren't much fun.

Really, just about any experience one has when visiting a healer, however out there, can be put to good use, provided one has the proper perspective. Pretty Lady has received invaluable insight regarding the mind-body connection, the nature of personal responsibility, and the nuances of codependency, by the simple expedient of visiting as many gypsy psychics, neurotic homeopaths, masochistic shamans and student massage therapists as she could find, even if this insight was merely 'never, never, never DO that again.' We attract the lessons we need until we've learned them. Life is marvelously efficient, that way.

The Virtues of Socialism

Aha! you say. Pretty Lady is coming out of the closet; she is a Vile Socialist! She is Irrational and Totalitarian! Stone her!

Ha! says Pretty Lady. Hold your stones! She has Scientific Evidence on her side.

...if you mine all the databases of universities and research centers, you'll find that the happiest place on earth is ? Denmark. Cold, dreary, unspectacular Denmark.

...Danes do have one potential complaint: high taxes. The happiest people in the world pay some of the highest taxes in the world -- between 50 percent and 70 percent of their incomes. In exchange, the government covers all health care and education, and spends more on children and the elderly than any country in the world per capita. With just 5.5 million people, the system is efficient, and people feel "tryghed" -- the Danish word for "tucked in" -- like a snug child.

Those high taxes have another effect. Since a banker can end up taking home as much money as an artist, people don't chose careers based on income or status. "They have this thing called 'Jante-lov,' which essentially says, 'You're no better then anybody else,'" said Buettner. "A garbage man can live in a middle-class neighborhood and hold his head high."

Now, Pretty Lady realizes that it fills her red-blooded American friends with deep horror, this notion of living next door to garbage men, and treating them as equals. Even more does it cross the grain of all that is decent, to think that this garbage man has healthcare just as good as anyone else's.

But consider; Danish people are not happy because of their jobs; they are not happy because of their health insurance; they are simply happy because they spend a great deal of time with their friends and families--nattering, concocting splendid meals, and not worrying overmuch about either status or survival.

Meanwhile the freedom-loving U.S. of A has the worst ranking on preventable deaths in the developed world, which can be directly traced to 47 million uninsured individuals, Pretty Lady among them. She has been researching health plans today, in fact, and is in a bit of a testy mood therefrom. 'Bankruptcy without accountability' appears to be the principle upon which these plans are structured.

As a dear friend of Pretty Lady's puts it:

It's true that people can become fabulously wealthy and influential in the U.S. in a way that they can't in Denmark, but the thing is, fabulous wealth and influence doesn't make a person happy or good. In the U.S., many of our smartest people with the most to offer become miserable stockbrokers and suicidal lawyers, because that's what our culture tells us is the highest calling. When maybe those people would be excellent teachers, or artists, journalists. But most people don't go into teaching, or art, or journalism, unless they're absolutely driven to do it, because to do so is to sacrifice so much financial security and social status compared to working at a high-paying prestige job. And then, unsuitable people wind up in those jobs rather than, say, going into law because they love working with law, or stockbroking, or whatever.

And lest you say that Pretty Lady's friend is a deluded Pollyanna sort, let it be known that this friend has actually lived in Denmark for an extended period of time, and is still very fond of it.

Pretty Lady's Universal Healthcare Plan

Someone has nominated Pretty Lady for President! Thank you, David and Franklin!

Unfortunately, Pretty Lady has more sense than that. Presidential politics are terrible for one's complexion, as Hillary Clinton may attest. Pretty Lady prefers the Private Life, making draconian pronouncements from the sidelines. However, since her friends have expressed an interest, she will so far unbend as to elaborate upon her plan for Universal Healthcare, Unsocialized.

Part 1: Health. Care.

...Pretty Lady suspects that one very large reason that the "Healthcare System" is so stingy on Prevention is that it is so heavily interested in selling cures. That, and in covering its own butt; there is a reason that doctors these days compulsively order masses of expensive and, in most cases, useless diagnostic tests. They are not nearly so concerned about your financial well-being as their own, and medical malpractice lawsuits cost them money.

Part 2: Health Care, Part the Second

1) It is in the best interests of Society At Large to have healthy citizens, and as few destitute diseased persons dying in the streets as possible, spreading germs and and despair far and wide.

2) It is in the best interests of Individual Health and Economic Well-Being to seek out the best care at the lowest prices, and laugh in the faces of incompetent dentists who present them with deadpan $13,000 estimates.

So then, what is wrong with individually managed medical savings accounts, coupled with catastrophic coverage in a pool?

Part 3: Pretty Lady Gets Everyone's Knickers In A Twist.

Because what Pretty Lady proposes is, simply, universal government-subsidized health savings accounts.

Yes, she proposes that the government freely give its low-income citizens money, to spend upon their own health. Rather like EBT vouchers.

This, of course, violates all established precendents of Condescension, Patronization, and Punitive Reinforcement. It presupposes a dangerous Lack of Control, and irresponsibly opens up the system for instances of Flagrant Abuse by the least deserving among us. It amounts to a Robin Hood philosophy of robbing the rich to reward the poor.

Or does it?

The key of Pretty Lady's plan is that this subsidization will not be unlimited. Persons shopping for health care will be presented with the challenge of frugality; they will be forced to make their own decisions. They will try things and see if they work; if they don't work, and are expensive, they will try something else. Meanwhile, healthcare practitioners who charge exorbitant rates for nothing at all will be forced into another line of work.

Note, furthermore, that the government is not running this system. Note that Pretty Lady has said nothing at all about Medicaid, Medicare, or prescription-drug plans. The only 'insurance' plan which makes sense to her, as she has said in the past, is a universal catastrophic-coverage plan, payments to be subsidized below a certain income level.

The universality of this plan, moreover, is key; this obviates any need for layers and layers of bureaucracy, put into place for the sole purpose of denying coverage to people in need. Once denial is no longer an option, the wit and wisdom of plan-managers will have nowhere to go but toward the efficient managing of resources for absolutely everybody.

Pretty Lady blushes to admit that she likes her plan even better than the plans of her two favorite Presidential candidates. It seems to her that it takes into account both the free-market libertarianism of Mr. Paul's philosophy, and the universal compassion and social responsibility espoused by Mr. Obama.

The only questions which remains, of course, is: how do we pay for this?

Well, Pretty Lady has heard a rumour that the U.S. of A military budget is a teensy bit overinflated; it strikes her, frankly, as overkill. Were the country at large to heed the admonitions of both Mr. Obama and Mr. Paul, and refrain from intervening militarily in areas where we do not belong, it could conceivably free up a lot of resources, which could then be used for healing, rather than attacking.

On Behalf of the Alpha Cat

Pretty Lady would like to solicit the advice of his fans.

The Alpha Cat, as many of you know, is well advanced into his nineteenth year with Pretty Lady. He is, as you may expect, undiminished in character, dignity and personal charisma. His kindness, intelligence and stoicism have not wavered, even during bouts with kidney stones, dredlock removal and visits from the formerly-feral young cat downstairs.

However, in recent months, the Alpha Cat has begun noticeably Drooping. He has become finicky to excess, with the result that his frame is unwontedly bony; one must stroke him on the top of the head, chin, sides and stomach exclusively, since his hips and spine have become distressingly protuberant. He manifests the occasional involuntary nervous tremor. The only nourishment he will deign to consume is the occasional bite of Pet Guard Chicken and Wheat Germ (no other flavor will do), spiked with some prescription vitamins and digestive enzymes, plus a chunk of Pretty Lady's cranberry nut bread. (This latter was effected, much to Pretty Lady's surprise, only a few minutes ago; she had no idea the Alpha Cat liked cranberries. Full of surprises, he is yet.)

Moreover, he appears to be drinking to excess, and then only fresh-flowing water, with the result that the toilet seat is usually damp, and stray water glasses have to be watched. His grooming habits have declined, ergo the dreds; and in recent days his signature contented rumble is signally absent. Last night and this morning, he regurgitated a bit of spit and phlegm, innocent of hairball or half-digested nourishment. Most distressing of all, the Gentleman Friend reports that the Alpha has ceased biting him on the nose.

Pretty Lady's quandary is thus: She knows the Alpha Cat's days are numbered. She wishes to insure that these remaining days pass in peace, dignity and relative comfort; she wishes to obtain expert opinion on these matters.

However, she has just hung up on two separate veterinarian's offices, because due to a long history with these alleged medicos, she is Deeply Distrustful of their practices. Vets, in Pretty Lady's experience, have developed a strong tendency to insist on a pricey office visit, grab one's beloved companion, stick him full of needles and probes, send off for expensive tests without asking permission, recommend surgeries, hospitalizations, radiation and treatment with expensive and bad-tasting drugs, run up Pretty Lady's credit card bill into the stratosphere, and totally fail to assist her cat in any way.

Pretty Lady is well aware that the Alpha Cat could very well be manifesting symptoms of renal failure, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, thyroid trouble, digestive problems, arthritis, sinus trouble, and cataracts. If diagnosis and treatment of these conditions involves 1) torturing the Alpha Cat and 2) spending large sums of money which she does not have, she would rather not.

She would, however, like to perform any simple commonsense activity which the Alpha Cat, if he could make his preference known, would approve, aside from singing his favorite song and scratching his chin.

Are there any cat psychics in the audience?

In Praise of Common Sense

Heaven forfend that anybody should accuse Pretty Lady of being neurotic, controlling, hypersensitive, or a hypochondriac. But gracious. She could have told you this:

Children shouldn't use cellphones. No one should drink diet sodas sweetened with aspartame. And think twice before getting X-rayed with a CAT scan except in a bona fide life-threatening emergency.

In addition, most commercial cleaning products are enormously and unnecessarily toxic; Pretty Lady could have told you that, from the age of six, when she used to get a dizzy, nauseated, sick headache, sore lungs, and inflamed nasal passages every time she cleaned the bathroom. One may get one's bathroom perfectly clean with castile soap, baking soda and lavender oil, and it smells infinitely better than Comet.

Pretty Lady does not, truly, understand why or how modern humans have become so divorced from their basic, animal common sense. Surely that creepy, numbing, plasticky flavor in a diet soda would Tip One Off that aspartame is Not Fit for Human Consumption; it is like drinking liquified nerve gas. Why is it that we sit around, in the manner of domesticated cattle, guzzling this swill until a government employee tells us, thirty or forty years after the first anorectic teenager dies horribly of aspartame poisoning, 'Oh, BTW, that stuff's toxic.'

And why, when we are so all-fired worried about cancer, do we endure the chronic signals of our animal intuition as regards smaller discomforts, such as headaches, backaches, stomachaches, bloating, sniffling, sneezing, intestinal complications, accelerated heartbeat, insomnia and shortness of breath? Friends, these symptoms mean something. They are one's body sending the signal, "That's Bad Stuff out there. We are eating and drinking and breathing Bad Stuff. I've Got It Covered, for now, but couldja ease up for a bit? This ain't easy."

The Definition of Community

Pretty Lady had no idea things had gotten so bad. Well, that is disingenuous. She knew things were bad; what she did not know is that they were so bad, people are unaware of just how bad they are.

Pretty Lady is aware that she is not making any sense.

It seems, dear friends, that the social isolation among Americans is now so severe, that ordinary Americans are no longer able to comprehend the term 'social isolation.' Pretty Lady has often noticed the tendency of the mind to enter a self-protective state of Denial under conditions of severe stress; it is though mental parameters are automatically re-arbitrated to accommodate scarcity. Certainly when she addressed the matter, tangentially, in discussion, it seemed to her as though the waves of unwarranted, ignorant abuse which spewed forth in her direction contained more than a note of irrational hysteria.

Now, darlings. Calm down. Do not concern yourselves; Pretty Lady has plenty of friends. Having friends is not what she is talking about, when she uses the term 'community.' Any person who equates 'community' with 'friendship' has obviously never lived in one. Because the definition of 'community,' in realistic terms, is 'living in circumstances where one is physically unable to avoid persons that one absolutely cannot stand.'

It is Small Wonder, then, that hedonistic American society should have evolved in such a manner as to geographically minimize encounters with objects of personal loathing. In the words of one of Pretty Lady's Californian ex-friends, 'we just don't need that.' If someone offends us with their looks, attitude, personality, religion, odor, sense of humor, personal style, social class, or choice of romantic partners, we simply drop the acquaintance. And this is facilitated by an architectural structure which ensures that we need never come face to face with an unapproved specimen of humanity in the entire course of our existence.

Not so, when a person lives in a town which was constructed before the invention of the automobile. Such places dispense with such luxuries as garages, lawns, detached dwellings of all kinds, cubicles, and air-conditioning. They are big on Narrow Alleyways, Communal Plazas, and Rampant Gossip. A person should not attempt to live in such a place unless he or she is prepared to have the most intimate details of his or her private life Bandied About; not only this, but one must be prepared to confront the purveyors of Slanderous Lies about oneself, face to face, when one least expects it.

Oh, the stories Pretty Lady could tell.

One thing she notices, regarding the tragic dearth of true community in the U.S. of A., it that it enables us to remain, mentally and emotionally, in the third grade for the majority of our adult lives. Thus, when such a stunted American is transplanted to an expatriate colony, this person is highly likely to embarrass herself.

Okay, Pretty Lady will tell you a story.

Once upon a time, she was meeting Sophia for lunch. They met in Café Dada, of course. When Pretty Lady arrived, Sophia remarked, "Katia is joining us."

Pretty Lady said, "Hi, Katia!"

Katia said, "I hate you, Pretty Lady."

"Does this mean we're not going to have lunch?" responded Pretty Lady.

"Oh yes," said Katia. "We live in the same town."

(Of course, there was a Backstory to this encounter. There always is. Suffice it to say that when the gentleman with the curly hair and the tuxedo invited Pretty Lady to go biking after the symphony, she had no idea that Katia even knew him, much less that she was nursing an obsessive and unrequited passion for him. And Katia didn't let on either, until, all of a sudden, she snapped.)

And this fracas was the result. "I do not wish to have lunch with someone who hates me," Pretty Lady declared. "That is my boundary."

Katia unleashed a stream of rather horrible invective, which distorted her features alarmingly; Pretty Lady grabbed a quiescent Sophia by the hand and fled. Katia pursued them through several alleyways, like a rabid lapdog, until they finally shook her.

The word on the street was that Pretty Lady must be a lesbian; she was holding hands with Sophia all over town. Also that later that day, Katia accosted the curly-haired gentleman in front of the Teatro Principal and accused him of raping her, two years earlier, more or less.

Such fun!

The moral of this story is this: if we are not confronted with our Nemeses on a daily basis, we do not develop the strength of mind and character to deal with them. We fail to understand exactly how crazy these people are; we continue to attribute a modicum of controlled rationality to their actions, instead of viewing them in all their lunatic glory, year after year.

When a person lives thus cheek-by-jowl with village idiots, however, she learns, gradually, a certain compassion for the Human Condition. She learns that Gretchen will undoubtedly tell the entire town that she is a filthy pig with a kleptomania problem, but that this is okay because the entire town knows that Gretchen is a mendacious, amnesiac narcissist. She learns not to take it personally when Larry yells at her, because everybody knows that Larry has Anger Issues, exacerbated by a glandular disorder. She learns that Joel is an alcoholic, Anna is a misanthrope and that the gentleman with the curly hair is a compulsive womanizer.

And she learns that this is all okay; that people do not have to be Perfect to be integral members of Society. In fact, that there is no such thing as Perfect. And what a relief that is.