Missouri Representative Paul Wieland made news this week by suing the federal government. Wieland’s state health insurance includes the option for birth control. Previously, he would have been able to opt out of having this option. In statements to the press, Wieland conflates birth control with abortion: “I see abortion-inducing drugs as intrinsically evil . . .” While his family could simply not ask for birth control, Wieland argues that it’s against his faith to even have the option in his insurance plan. His attorney says that the precedent Wieland is trying to set “will be of great value to other families.”

Indeed, other families are already lining up to file lawsuits arguing that having access to products or services that go against their religion is offensive. Many diners have noted that, while they are never forced to order food they aren’t allowed to eat, it’s wrong to have the option to do so in the first place.

A few conservative Jews are banding together to have “Red Lobster” banned from their neighborhoods, as Leviticus clearly states, “Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.” “Red Lobster could still serve fish,” one customer argued. “But since I can’t eat lobster or shrimp, it shouldn’t be on the menu of options.”

Wieland, whose picture ironically deters birth-control necessitating activities.

Restaurants, bars, cafes, and grocery stores near heavy populations of Mormons are bracing for demands that alcohol and caffeinated drinks be pulled from stock since having these items for sale may offend Mormon customers, who aren’t allowed to partake.

Pork products will likely come under fire, as both Jews and Muslims are forbidden from eating them. One young man at a pizzeria said he was unlikely to sue, since lawyers “cost a lot,” but noted that it would be easier (“I mean, less offensive”) to resist the temptation of pepperoni (“which I’ve heard is the bomb!”) if it weren’t offered to him in the first place.

The servers unions in some states have already been dealing with similar issues for months, following health care providers, such as nurses and pharmacists, who want to be able to opt of out dispensing medications or giving prescribed care to their patients that they “don’t believe in.”

“Why should I be required to bring you pulled pork sliders,” asked one Hooters waitress in Houston, “when the Bible, like, forbids it and stuff. It’s not my job to bring you sinful meat, not when I don’t believe in eating it.”

Naturally, some of these cases might be dismissed since restaurant workers could opt out of working or since customers could opt out of eating out or grocery shopping. Rep. Wieland, after all, simply wants his health insurance coverage to refuse to cover a required, basic medication that 99% of American Catholics admit using due to his Catholic faith. He argues, cogently, that it’s better to not be covered at all or to not have this option for the women in his family rather than to simply not use the product, which would demonstrate his faith in a private way (as the Bible recommends) through personal prayer and private choices.

Equally problematic in terms of health insurance mandates, however, is the coverage of emergency blood transfusions. Jehovah’s Witnesses, following Wieland’s stance, want personal exemptions from such coverage in their insurance programs because of a line in the Bible that forbids ingesting blood. However, they’d like to do Wieland one better, demanding that hospitals they may be taken to in an emergency do not have supplies for such a procedure, as that would still give them the choice to have one.

Rep. Wieland’s lawsuit has prompted other families to consider a suit he will surely support. Some atheists families have noted, with evident distress, that American religious freedom guarantees that there are many churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, and other religious centers in every town in the U.S.

“You see,” one concerned mother from Nebraska explained, “the only tenant of our belief system is that we don’t believe in God and thus that we would never go to church. It’s offensive to have the choice to do so–guaranteed by the federal government. It violates everything my family does–and doesn’t–believe in. What if my children one day wander in to the Lutheran church down the street, just because they can? My aunt already has to attend her AA meetings at the Baptist church–why should she be confronted with the choice to accept the higher power who’s supposed to change the things that she can’t? The government can’t mandate that she have options that she doesn’t believe in.”

If the class-action suit filed by the Nebraska families succeeds, Rep. Wieland will surely be relieved. His religious choices will then be moot, as they will no longer be protected by the government, as the right to insurer-provided birth control is.

[Warning: Spoilers follow. If you’ve not seen the August 2013 episodes of True Blood, you don’t want to read this.]

I’m grateful The Daily Show for its coverage of and attention to the ridiculous treatment of our returning veterans as they attempt to apply for benefits. When we think of these benefits, we usually think about medical coverage for physical injuries from combat. We think less about mental injuries from combat.

The term PTSD (or, as it will be called here, in honor of George Carlin, “shell shock”) has moved into our vernacular, and some tv shows featuring characters in the military (or other dangerous services) do address it. SVU had an episode recently called “PTSD”; characters on BSG, M.A.S.H., Breaking Bad, Downton Abbey, etc. have exhibited symptoms of the disorder.

There are some films (fiction and documentary) that address the issue as well.

However, most depictions of shell shock in the media do not address a common outcome–suicide.

2012 was a record year for military suicides. We lost more soldiers to PTSD than to combat. In fact, we’re losing them at a rate of one about every 18 hours.

The fact that we’re not talking about this made this week’s True Blood, featuring the funeral of one of the most beloved characters–and some of the revelations of his shell shock leading up to it–stand out.

I watch True Blood with a group of friends. We eat, drink, and laugh. In fact, we’ve started taking a drink each time a character says something that could only be said on this show (like “Who the fuck is Mary Poppins, and can I please kill her?”). It’s our Vampire Porn Soap Opera.

But this last episode, “Life Matters,” lingered on Terry’s life and his death in a poignant way. Characters die on this show all the time. So many, however, that we rarely get to morn them. And we haven’t had a beloved character die in a while. This mourning, though, wasn’t just because we’ll miss Terry. It was because we needed to grapple with what killed him.

It wasn’t a serial killer. It wasn’t a supernatural force–a were-whatever or a vampire or a vampire virus.

Terry chose to die. And he chose to do so because he couldn’t live with what the war had done to him and with the things he’d done.

And we’ll miss him.

When True Blood came out (and before that, when the book series came out, which I’ve read (and reviewed here), it was interesting because of its vampire characters’ analogy to the gay rights movement. It hasn’t really done anything moving or intriguing in a while.

Until now.

P.S. The book series recently came to its conclusion.

Here’s an update to my earlier post. One anonymous commentator on my post mentioned that she agreed with some of what I said. The books that have come out since my post have not repeated the problems I listed. Coincidence? Or did I unintentionally manage to give Harris some writing feedback? (I mean, I don’t get anonymous commentators. You all know me, which is why you read this. Unless you’re searching for reviews of your own work, which a few people who don’t know me have done on this site.)

Sookie makes her peace with her vampire lovers and ends up with the man she should have ended up with the whole time. Loose ends are wrapped up. The danger seems to have passed. A good end to a good series.

First, I’m going to admit that I don’t know much about Texas. I’ve only been in airports and airport hotels there. My step-father cheated on my mom with a hairdresser from there. I love The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. I’ve heard children pledge allegiance to the nation’s flag and the Texas flag in the mornings. I’ve heard you aren’t supposed to mess with them and that things are bigger there.

I used to watch Dallas when I was a kid.

But I also know Texas Governor Rick Perry would like California businesses to move to his state. He has a series of ads across many states (see Lewis Black’s story about it here: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-july-17-2013/back-in-black—new-york-versus-texas), all of which imply that his state is the best for business because of their lack of regulations.

There should be an asterisk. If your business is providing safe, legal abortions, then Texas is going to regulate the hell out of you. Due to new regulations signed just a couple of days ago, almost all of these businesses will have to close.

If you’re a woman who believes her body’s reproductive system is her business, you also want to stay out of Texas. The new bill restricts them after 20 weeks (if you can find a place to do them). The new push is to ban them after six weeks.

Most women aren’t even aware they’re pregnant by then.

Rick Perry hates regulation and loves freedom.

Apparently, everything is bigger in Texas, even hypocrisy.

My job during my frequent trips to London is to try to explain Americans and American policy to our former cousins.

When I was first there in 2006, I had to explain how it was that W had gotten a second term.

Now they want to know about healthcare. About how people can believe that it’s okay to let your fellow citizens die for lack of it. About how we would resist a single payer system when it would cost less and deliver more. About why we think everyone having health insurance (the way all car owners have car insurance) would somehow make us all commies.

I can’t always give answers. I don’t know why members of my own family believe that if you don’t have insurance, due to its expense or due to pre-existing conditions, you should just be allowed to die. But they do. One told me that it was a shame, but it wasn’t his responsibility to keep anyone else alive–staying alive is a personal responsibility, you see.

It was Christmas, and we were told to stop arguing, so I didn’t say that other people’s tax dollars pay for his children’s school, blah, blah, blah.

I can’t explain these positions because I can’t even begin to follow the logic. My mother is furious right now because her sister is ill. Due to pre-existing conditions, my aunt has not had health insurance in decades. No primary care physician in their area will take her. No specialist will see her. Rather than looking forward to January, when the pre-existing condition problem won’t be a problem, or when Florida finally allows its healthcare program for the poor to be expanded, my mother’s response to this situation is to say:

“This is how it’s going to be for everyone when Obamacare kicks in.”

When asked to explain, she says she doesn’t “believe” that my aunt would be able to get health insurance under the new regulations. Instead, she believes that the new rules will mean that because my aunt doesn’t have insurance, the IRS will take away her house.

No, I can’t explain that to people, who, even though they don’t live here, understand Obamacare better than that.

(By the way, I’m not entirely happy with Obamacare. I would rather have a single-payer option. But I think the changes under Obamacare are better than what my family’s political party wanted to do–to blame my aunt and people like her for not having insurance and to watch while she suffers.)

What I can do is explain that many Americans have myths about the British healthcare system. That people believe Brits have to wait forever for care, that they can’t choose their doctors, that the quality of their care is low, that the government makes their health care decisions, and that they don’t like their own system.

These myths surprise my British friends.

The other thing I can do is challenge the myths they have about our system. Most of these myths are about what life is like for those of us with insurance.

Surely, they think, if my company and I are going to pay WAY more for my healthcare than it costs in tax dollars in the British system, I must have it good.

Then I explain some things:

1. My insurance company makes a lot of my health care decisions. These decision come in the form of them telling me that I’m not allowed to have something the doctor wants me to have. Yes, while the other side is terrified of the government deciding which asthma medicine I can be on, they are fine with a company making that choice–a company who bases that choice on their own profit.

2. I have to wait for care. Every time I need to see a specialist, it takes months. Once, when my son really needed to see an ENT doctor, my GP had to mark “urgent” on the referral to guarantee that he would be seen within two months. Insurance doesn’t guarantee prompt care.

3. Although I have insurance, I could still easily go broke due to medical costs. In 2001, I had insurance. I also had a significant health issue that ended in surgery (although the surgery didn’t completely resolve the issue). I spent over 1/3 of my gross income that year on healthcare. As I was a single mother making less than 20,000, it should come as no surprise that I am still dealing with medical debt from way back then.

In May, I was in an emergency room. A doctor came in and said I needed surgery and that he was going to call an ambulance to transfer me to a hospital that could do it. I am now supposed to pay over $800 for an ambulance that a doctor called for me.

This blows my mind. It blows the minds of the Brits.

After I explain how our system works, our cousins don’t envy us. And they don’t just feel sorry for Americans without insurance. They feel sorry for Americans with it too.

In January, I heard a story about Florida Governor Rick Scott’s efforts to oppose the expansion of Medicaid in his state: http://m.npr.org/news/U.S./169060335.

The story was frustrating for several reasons. I have many relatives in Florida without health insurance. They don’t have very much money and thus would likely be eligible to benefit from this expansion. When I lived in Florida as an adult, I was also unable to get health insurance, as I was turned down due to pre-existing conditions. I worked full time for years without coverage. I got two undergraduate degrees and a masters without insurance. I worked for Florida State University both full-time before grad school and as a graduate student, with no health insurance.

It sucked. The inability to have a regular doctor guaranteed trips to the emergency room, the inability to effectively manage my conditions (including my asthma, which left me vulnerable and close to death quite a few times), and a reliance on samples of medication given to me by sympathetic poor-people-clinic doctors who applied the free drugs like bandaids to a gunshot wound.

In fact, one of the reasons I moved to California was because my university offered me healthcare, and I needed it. I couldn’t breathe, due to allergies and severe asthma. I missed too much work when my lungs closed. I had migraines. I was also starting to have trouble walking and immense back pain–at age 24. It was only when I was in California that I was able to be put on medications that control my asthma–I haven’t had to sleep with my rescue inhaler in my hand like I used to in The Sunshine State. It was only when I came here that I was able to get the tests to show that I had a severely herniated disc and that I needed surgery immediately. Obviously, finding out I needed surgery would have been pointless in Florida–I wouldn’t have been able to afford it (not that it was completely affordable here–I spent 1/3rd of my gross income that year on medical expenses and am still paying down debt from back then). My back pain would have increased–I would have likely ended up on disability, after going bankrupt trying to figure out what was wrong first.

Governor Scott was arguing that even though the federal government covers 100% of the costs of the Medicaid expansion for the first three years and 90% after that, that it was too expensive for Florida to help the poorest Floridians in this way. Independent agencies argued with his numbers, noting that he was ignoring important factors, like how expensive it is for taxpayers when people like me end up in the ER. His Congress told him his numbers were wrong.

After fighting and fighting and fighting, he revised his numbers to about 10th his original net cost estimate.

Yesterday, he did a full reversal and has committed to allowing the federal government help those in need in his state for at least three years: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/02/20/172523730/in-reversal-florida-gov-rick-scott-agrees-to-medicaid-expansion :

“‘Quality health care services must be accessible and affordable for all — not just those in certain ZIP codes or tax brackets,’ he said at the briefing. ‘No mother, or father, should despair over whether or not they can afford — or access — the health care their child needs. While the federal government is committed to paying 100 percent of the cost of new people in Medicaid, I cannot, in good conscience, deny the uninsured access to care.'”

He also said that the death of his mother helped put things into perspective.

Governor Scott was not governor when I was in Florida. I’m glad he’s been able to use tragedy positively–to allow himself to gain empathy and clarity.

I just wish politicians like Scott were touched by the rest of us, instead of just by what seems to affect their own families.

When I was struggling in Florida, I was someone’s mother. Although it may have given my son a lesson in basic universal rights and strengthened his ability to empathize, it would have been terrible for him to lose me to a preventable asthma attack or the pneumonia that almost took me away from him. He already had to deal with a mommy who said, “I’m sorry; I can’t pick you up, baby.” You see, even though he was still light as a young elementary student, there was no way the mystery pain in my back would allow me to play with him with the way I wanted to.

Governor Scott, the citizens this Medicaid program will help are my mother, my aunts and uncles, my cousins. They were always special to me. I was always special to them. We have always deserved to have access to the healthcare that could keep us alive, working, and supporting each other.

I’m glad you might finally see that.

After going so long without a post, I probably shouldn’t start the new year with political analysis, but that’s what’s on my mind this morning.*

All week long, I’ve been hearing conservatives complain that Obama’s inaugural speech didn’t reach out to them.

Three points about that.

1. I didn’t see W’s second speech (I was in a quivering ball or something that day), but I would never had expected him to reach out to me. I did hear him say that the second election gave him political capital and that he was going to spend it. I had heard, for several years, that since I didn’t like W, I was anti-American, that I was pro-terrorist, etc. This is besides me being a pro-killing babies, pro-giving your tax dollars to welfare queens, pro-killing old people by giving them healthcare, etc. Can anyone cite a moment when the leaders reached out to me in W’s years?

2. Obama had been reaching out to you guys the whole first term. And you called him a liar while he was on the House floor. And you put your finger in his face. And you said, publicly, that you would block every single thing he wanted to do. And you blocked almost every single thing he wanted to do. And he paid for it–some of us lost faith in him because he wasn’t telling you to go fuck yourselves, which is what we wanted him to do. Yes, when you refused to ever be civil or adult, we wanted him to treat you in kind, because we can be childish too, and we didn’t believe that you would ever, ever, ever work with him, even if he reached out to you and gave you 90% of what you wanted. But then we elected him again–after we told him to stop coddling you and get shit done.

3. I’m not quite sure what about the speech should have been altered for you. To protect your bigotry, should he have pretended that gay citizens don’t deserve equal rights? To protect your scientific ignorance, should he have pretended that there isn’t consensus on climate change and refused to acknowledge that protecting this country and your children means doing something about it? To protect your sense of how this country works, should he have pretended that not every entitlement (social security, medicaid, unemployment benefits, etc) goes to a lazy person?

The other incredible thing this week was reported on Colbert: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/423113/january-22-2013/obama-s-inauguration—class-warfare. Some people out there think that our affection for Downton is indicative of our great love for rich people (not our desire to be them, but our appreciation of them.) This clip shows Stuart Varney arguing that Lord Grantham is the savior of the whole town–cause he’s rich–and we love him for it. Colbert points out one problem with this–the town’s dependence on Grantham means they all almost go down when he does.

The fact that most of us don’t care for Grantham, that we’re watching more for the love stories and the lives of the servants, that Grantham starts to pull a Schwarzenegger, that we’ve just discovered that he’s mismanaging the estate and won’t even discuss the problems is obviously beside the point. Now when I watch, and Grantham or his mother say something classist, instead of enjoying it as bit of satire of the attitudes of the wealthy at the time, I become sad–because now I realize that the rich people of today don’t see it as a satire–they’re smiling and nodding and thinking, “and this is why you love us–for the classism!”

*For those who want to know what’s gone on since the last post:

–It has been proven that despite all my requirements, it’s possible to meet me online and get me out on dates.

–Some horrible creature bit my face in the night, and the bite got infected, and now I still have a “beauty mark” high on my cheek.

–Got something on my toes fixed–this also led to an infection and lots of limping. Not happy with the foot doc.

–Had a good Christmas week with my Davis/Sacramento family. Made an awesome lamb dinner and had people over for Doctor Who on Christmas night.

–I finished up my six classes from Fall, planned and began my five for Winter.

–Saw a couple of plays, a little bit of stand-up (John Oliver and Dylan Moran), and a couple of movies.

–Left the tree up. If I don’t find a few free hours to take it down soon, it’s going to be a v-day bush. It’s not dropping many needles, though.

–Had a lot of great seafood at Blackbird in Sac. (Don’t drink the punch there, especially after you’ve had tequila.)

Today, I had a driveway moments–a driveway moment is when you’re listening to NPR and you end up hanging out in the driveway because you can’t get out of the car until the current story’s over.

I was listening to this: http://www.npr.org/2012/05/17/152922457/an-afghan-shoots-a-marine-dies-mistrust-grows

It’s about the number of our service-people who have been murdered by our Afghan friends–their Afghan police and military forces–this year.

Part of the reason I was struck is because it occurred to me that we just don’t know how to do this yet.

I mean, we’ve been at war for millions of years. Millions of years.

Yet we do not know how to cope with or conduct war. We do not know how to re-integrate our soldiers into society successfully. We do not know how to stem the tide of spousal abuse and suicide that follows their returns home. We do not know how to tell them to violate one of the commandments in one situation, but to follow the others at seemingly arbitrary times. We are only starting to understand what even happens with head injuries, even though we’ve been hitting each other over the head for millions of years.

We said for years that women couldn’t be in combat because our male soldiers would find it too difficult to not do everything–including jeopardizing missions–to protect them. But the reality is that our women find the most danger from their comrades–they are raped at an amazing rate, by the very men whom we think will sacrifice to protect them from the enemy.

Many years ago, I wrote a poem from Lady Macbeth’s point of view. I was interested in why we blame for her Macbeth’s actions, when he contemplates murder before he ever writes to her about the prophecy. Undergraduates around the world write about how Lady Macbeth pushes him to commit horrible crimes–crimes against his king, his kin, his guest.

I have never seen an essay arguing that perhaps war — perhaps his joy in ripping men from nave to neck — had anything to do with the psychopath he becomes.

The only half-way comforting thought in my ruminations today (half-way because it’s not actually a cheering thought) was that there are several things we don’t know how to do yet.

We don’t know how to love, successfully, do we? How to love without jealousy. How to trust. How to practice monogamy when we’re not built for it.

We’ve had even more practice with love than with war, and yet we fail. A lot.

Other things we don’t know–how to parent, how to educate, how to balance religion with not being a bigot . . .

Lady Macbeth:  Where is She Now?

I’m always met with questions.
Did I really fall?
What was in that letter?
Aside from being none of your business,
It doesn’t really matter.
I’m always already judged—
“She wears the pants in that family.”
Well, it would have been more comfortable,
But around here it’s more accurate to note
Who was wearing the skirts.
It is Scotland, after all.

I am likened to those hags.
I change in your titles
From a dearest partner
To instrument of darkness.
You’re always painting me
Black or white.
And here I am—red all over.

I get in trouble for my images,
Because I say milk and gall and dash.
It’s beside the point,
But you try having your nipples
Cracked and chapped
By some colicky brat
And you try not to think of it.
In any case, I didn’t do it.
I merely said, hypothetically,
That I would.

Is that really worse than what he did?
Unseaming people from navel to chops.
Please—war is no excuse
When all the world is war.
Don’t be so naïve.
Is it because I’m a woman
That you’re offended?
Well, there’s an implicit war there, too.
And don’t think my body
Hasn’t played the battlefield.

I didn’t always talk this way.
But the hero
Kept coming home
And wanting to retell his exploits
To relive his victories
In our sacred marital bed.
It got so he couldn’t get excited
Any other way.
And so I steeled myself for him
Trained myself to taunt

     To take it

     To cry out

     As he cut me

     “Deeper!”

Why do you think
I’m so unphased by

      Blood

     Knives

     Poison

     Horsemeat?

So when I asked those that
Tend on mortal thoughts
To tend on mine
It was no big deal.
I’ve been plundered before.

Hereafter, when you ponder me
Remember
Hell is murky
And so is vision
With or without that candle.

This morning, I heard it again–the new talking point about mandating birth control coverage. A caller to NPR said that mandating birth control coverage for religious institutions that take federal funds was akin to forcing a kosher deli to sell pork.

In logic, that’s what we call a faulty analogy.

There’s no perfect analogy for this situation that I could think of. However, a less imperfect one would go like this:
I work at a kosher deli, but am not kosher. My boss has to give me a break because of the hours I put in. My kosher boss knows that I will totally chow down on some ham. My chowing down on ham won’t de-kosher his business, but he doesn’t like it, so he decides that I don’t get my break. Or maybe he decides that I don’t get my paycheck–he doesn’t want any of his money going toward eating that unclean animal.

He doesn’t get to do that, right?

Especially if he took federal money.

My birth control is covered through work. I work for UC Davis, meaning I work for the State of California, which means that there are some people in this state who are funding my birth control right now. They don’t get to not pay taxes because they don’t think I should have access. Students don’t get to not pay tuition because they object to my birth control. Even if the student is a Christian Scientist and believes that all medication is forbidden, I still get to have my asthma meds and the student and the state still help me to pay for it. Why? Because religious freedom doesn’t just mean you get to worship in your own way; it means you can’t foist your religion on me. This isn’t a theocracy.

And I don’t buy for a second that my pay (in either money or insurance form) violates your worship. Pray for me; pray against me; whatever. But unless I’m forcing you to take birth control against your will, I’m not making you do anything against your conscience by my working a job and getting the benefits I’m entitled to by law.

To think through the fallacy, we need only think about really allowing people’s religious beliefs to dictate how they treat their employees.

Believe, as the Bible says, that women should be segregated at their time of the month? Does that mean that allowing me to come to work and paying me for that work at my time violates you?

Believe that women must be fully covered? Does that mean UCD has to change my dress code for you if you’re a member of my state and thus contribute to my salary?

This all reminds me of all those movements some years ago when pharmacists refused to fill prescriptions for medications if they objected on moral grounds. Many states said that was fine. No matter what insurance a woman had, no matter what medical needs, no matter what was legal, no matter what a doctor was recommending.

Let’s go back to the restaurant analogy, because it does work here. Say I don’t eat pork, but I work at a restaurant that serves it. If you order pork, either I bring it to you or I get fired, don’t I? I don’t get to call you names or explain that my religion prevents me from doing my job.

The Bible doesn’t say that I shalt not bring others pork, only that I shouldn’t eat it. But what it says isn’t even germane to the argument, because this isn’t a theocracy.

Even though I think people who want it to be shouldn’t breed, I don’t get to force my beliefs on you–you can keep having babies. Don’t try to force your stuff on me–allow me not to if that’s my choice. (Besides, if you really disagree with what I’m saying, you don’t want me raising a whole mess of kids, do you?)