Lately I’ve been trying to avoid traveling by air even when, strictly speaking, it makes more sense. When we went to Detroit a couple weeks ago, we drove (11+ hours, not counting stoppage to feed/change baby, eat, eliminate waste of all kinds, whether empty bags of chips or human waste). But I typically find getting through airport security so traumatic that I prefer to just not even try, whenever I have a choice. And drive instead.
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Posted 17 November 2008
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travel
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Paul Krugman’s right: one of the most important areas of legislation, if not THE most important area of legislation that the next administration should enact is universal healthcare.
Here’s what’s wrong with not having any kind of universal healthcare: it places people’s bodily integrity completely within the for-profit realm. Whether or not people are able to live without pain, in health, not developing chronic illness, managing chronic illness with ease or suffering greatly from it, being able to fix the effects of injuries or cancer: all become a question of whether or not they are able to pay for it. If you’re well off then you live without pain, in health, not developing chronic illnesses at all or able to manage them with ease, and being rehabilitated from the effects of injuries or cancer. If you’re not well off, you can’t pay for these things and all too often have to live with chronic pain, disability, chronic illness badly managed that medical science has long been able to fix. It makes of people’s bodily integrity a class issue: if you’re well off you can maintain your bodily integrity, if you’re not so well off - you can’t. Because treating your ills won’t generate profit.
There are unbelievable amounts of tschotschkes around our house that A and I have been collecting since our respective childhoods. Or as they’re known in the Hungarian language: dust-collection devices. I’ve been schlepping mine with me from continent to continent and country to country and plan to do so wherever life throws me. They are generally admired: what’s not to like about a group of tiny animals of any material you can think of next to a stash of matchboxes from any restaurant I’ve been in that let me take home a matchbox? Next to a skunk skin? We are, obviously, unable to throw anything away.
A mom-friend was visiting with her baby for the first time today, and she spent some time looking over our collection of random small items. And noted that she’s the opposite of us: she is unable to keep from throwing things away. And then we got to talking about moving many times, and I advanced the theory that people deal with it in one of two ways: they either become pack rats and comfort themselves by hanging on to any and all objects they pick up along the way. Or they become purgers and comfort themselves by streamlining their lives so that it is very easy and painless to move. Me, I fall into the first caregory: I’m an unrepentant, goofy pack rat.
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The current arrangement between A and I is that he works and I take care of the baby. Very traditional, I know: but I cannot bring myself to even just contemplate the idea of daycare for my baby before she’s at least a year old. And since A makes far more money keeping on doing what he does than I could make at the moment, he works and I man the ship. Or I woman the house. Or rule the roost. Something to that effect.
I firmly believe in my sense of authority despite a lagging dedication to being the overachieving housewife (well - perhaps that was something I never REALLY ran the risk of being). Lately if I can keep baby warm and chubby and smiley and also manage to procure food and clothing and soap and shampoo for the rest of us, I put my feet up with a deep sense of satisfaction and call it a day. Except that I’m also the one to push for better gadgets like iPhones, claiming that really, they’re just more efficient and save loads of time.
So the other night we got to talking and realized that, really, our arrangement looks more like this: A figures out how to make money and I figure out how to spend it.
I want to record how I feel this morning, after the election. But everything I can think of writing is a bit inadequate.
Nevertheless.
It is one of those rare occasions when what should have happened did: Barack Hussein Obama is our new President-Elect. It is one of those rare occasions when what should matter does: he is an exceedingly intelligent, thoughtful, talented and inspiring man. And it is one of those exceedingly rare occasions when what should not have mattered did not: a strange name, not-at-all mainstream family background, skin color.
This age of cynicism we’ve been living might finally be over, and I alternate between joy over this and worry about what still has to happen to undo some of the damage done to the world in the past 8 years.
Mostly, I’m just happy. It’s a happiness that is thoughtful, more than anything. Because I can’t stop thinking of how we have to find new things to hope for, new ways to think, and make even huger leaps of faith than yesterday’s if we are to move forward for real. But at least we now have a president-elect who just might inspire us to do so.
We voted. In the little elementary school’s gym near our house, one of our neighbors was the poll worker, and my name was, unsurprisingly, hard to find on the list because: foreign and kind of hard to spell, and difficult to recognize in signature form.
We came back from Detroit last night, Faustina lasted through the trip really, really well aside from the last forty minutes at which point she decided she CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE. She did the not taking it anymore with all caps, really loud and shrill. In Detroit I saw a beautiful city destroyed by the inability (refusal?) of those in power to look and plan ahead and not just use up everything in the interest of immediate financial gain. I mean, of course, the auto industry. It’s more complicated than just that, obviously, because there’s tax cuts for the wrong things, there’s the financial crisis that began so long ago but came to a head this fall, there’s racism, and so many other things that have to change after today.
The man who cut my hair in downtown Detroit wore a large Obama button above his heart and told me, he watched the me generation grow up and now, now finally it’s time to say ‘we’ again.
We took Faustina with us to vote because we want to be able to say to her: you were there that day.
Faustina’s had a few more firsts:
- As of this Thursday, she can turn over, from tummy to back (which she tries to do frequently then squawks in dismay to have someone turn her back over onto her tummy so that she can flip onto her back again. And so on.);
- Week before this one she figured out how to hold stuff. She’s really good at grabbing things then hitting herself in the head with them. Hand control also means she’s able to play by herself now. BEST THING EVER for her mom… I’m crocheting a hat for her with all the (hands-)free time I suddenly have.
And then, of course, there’s my pet election topic: healthcare reform. I finally get it: people don’t understand the difference between universal healthcare and single-payer healthcare. Like McCain appears completely oblivious to the difference. Or even the commenters for this excellent nerdy list of of things we need from the next government. See, single-payer healthcare is when there’s one government-run fully tax-funded healthcare administration agency and every citizen is covered by its services for free (Britain), or for a nominal fee (Hungary). Universal healthcare is when there are private insurers but the market is regulated in such a way that no one can be refused health insurance and if you can’t afford it (you’re a student, a working single parent, or otherwise poor) your premium is subsidized by the government (Switzerland).
Insuring the poor along with the rich, and thereby giving them easy access to things like doctor’s visits when they’re just a little bit sick (and don’t yet need ER care) is also a public health issue.
Think about it: TB is on the rise and largely because so many have NO WAY of going to the doctor when they first feel it a little bit. When the infection is much more easily cured and they’ve infected far fewer other people. And TB doesn’t distinguish between poor and rich people, the rich just get better treatment for it. But it costs a lot of money to cure, and unnecessarily so because - see above: if you treat it early the sick person infects fewer others, lowering overall treatment costs. And: people with less-than-perfect immune systems, and babies and the elderly succomb to TB infections far more rapidly, and a lot of those infections could be avoided too. Just by giving poor people easy access to doctor’s visits when they are only a tiny bit sick and their TB infection hasn’t had time to get a foothold and spread itself around.
Faustina laughed out loud for the first time today. I was giving her a bath tonight, trying to imitate what her father does (he’s away on business for a few days - so I’ve taken over bath duty), squirting water on her belly with the crocodile bath toy. And she laughed. And laughed again. It was the sweetest sound.
Not least because I’d been having a bad day, and a bad week too, freaking out about the state of the world and how everything seems to be falling apart. Incidentally I’m somewhat personally affected in that I have yet to figure out how I will have health insurance as of January 1st, 2009. It’s not impossible but I suspect it will be significantly more expensive than what I have now and we are worried that money will get scarce.
For years I’ve believed the U.S. was on the wrong course economically. No: the whole world. I hate, hate, hate the fact that I’ve been proved right. It is so much better to be in the position of the groundlessly-negative-naysayer than to watch what is happening and know that you’ve been right all along. I can’t help being really selfish about this and feel sorry for myself and be utterly depressed.
But then, she laughed tonight. I squeezed her and kissed her and got myself completely wet in the process and I thought, I am so grateful to you for this, today of all days.
Judith Warner says about Palin (among other thoughtful things):
Just look at how quickly the reaction to Palin devolved into what The Times this week called the “Mommy Wars: Special Campaign Edition.” Much of the talk about Palin (like the emoting about Hillary Clinton before her) ultimately came down to this: is she like me or not like me? If she’s not like me, can I like her? And what kind of child care does she have?
My own question would rather be: what does she have to say about GETTING adequate maternity leave and childcare for all women who need it because they want to have children AND continue their careers? (See, that’s my sore point - I quit mine and will have to start another.) By which I mean, does she make it clear that society ought to realize it’s our shared social responsibility to raise children and support mothers giving birth and caring for babies, just as it is our shared social responsibility to provide schools in which children learn how to be productive citizens. Right now, legislation protecting working mothers and their jobs doesn’t make it possible to stay home for the duration of time that, for example, it’s strongly recommended my all medical professionals both in the U.S. and internationally that they breastfeed exclusively. According to my (admittedly non-representative but also not negligeable) sample, going back to work when your baby’s 3 months old and trying to pump enough milk to sustain said baby’s life is pretty much impossible. All my acquaintances who tried wound up weaning and switching to formula.
So… the laws of this land don’t even support the medically indicated time mothers should spend exclusively with their babies.
That’s the real problem, and not whether someone as rich as Palin can hire nannies to schlepp her baby with her to speaking engagements.
These people terrify me (link found at dooce, who says pretty close to what I think of it all). About Palin: so many have said what the problem with her is better than me. I just keep thinking that her choice as running mate has frighteningly little to do with reality, she might as well be a sitcom mom of the Reba variety. Funny to watch on tv but one sure doesn’t want her anywhere near a government office.
And I can’t stop thinking that I shouldn’t have to feel so lucky that I can give my child citizenship in another country where she can have access to universal healthcare. Not the country we live in or want to live in. And I want her and us and all the rest of the people who live in the U.S. to have that same kind of universal healthcare available to us right here at home.
Vote Obama ‘08
Because in Internet-time this is really old news - but I’m on vacation - but mostly: Biden? Really? This, once again, makes me ponder that she might have been the better candidate.
tumbling around