That Ain't Right

While enjoying brunch with my wife and some good friends at one of this town's great landmarks today, I saw three little black birds land on a nearby table. As the birds searched for leftover food to quickly scarf down before being shooed away, I saw one of the birds load up and hastily swallow a beak full of scrambled eggs.

My friends, that is simply not right.

A bird. Eating eggs.

It just ain't right.

A Call From the Wild

This is some depressing shit. There is no humor in me today. Those images in the news have shaken me.

That said, I'm feeling the need to connect with my Hombres, and I realize I haven't given the Teo update in many months. Have I? I don't think I have. I think I've promised the updates and not come through. So....here are some quick facts:

- Teo will be leaving Metropolis (both figuratively and literally) for Champaign-Urbana. Great Plains, here I come. One year of an internship and then this whole thing is done. I'm looking forward to it. I will live in a Greg Brady attic apartment, complete with beads in the closet doorway and a bathtub under an eved ceiling that disallows a standing shower. None of this am I making up. I am looking forward to it, and despite some surely cold mornings sitting in the tub while I hose myself off, it should be a fun year.

- Speaking of the whole thing being done, I take my final exam for my final class tomorrow afternoon. After 4 1/2 years of classwork, I'll be free an clear as long as I answer 27 out of 45 questions correctly. That is the number to reach 80 (after consideration of my midterm and other stuff), which is the passing mark. Since the subject is neuropsychology, I'm predicting not much higher than 27....maybe in the 33 range or so. Which would give me a solid B, and anyone who has ever taken a last class will understand that you can't care less about the grade as long as it counts.

- I'm still reading Nietschze, and I really don't understand much of it, except that it is either more difficult or less difficult this week due to the news. I can't tell if it's easier or harder, but it is more relevant, and way more of a mindfuck, and damn if he hasn't made me think about a whole bunch of existentialist shit.

- Despite or because of everything that is happening in my life and the world, much of which is good and much of which is not, I would really like to move to a mountain top in Alaska and play sudoku for a few decades.

Very strange post. The humor function on my computer is broken. As is the cohesiveness button.

Hombres!

Talk About a Flake

The media din on Imus is unbearable, but I've been watching this very closely because I think it matters very, very much. I have a few million thoughts on the situation, which I'll refrain from cataloguing here...but I will offer a few things that I feel pretty strongly about.

My disclaimer: I watched the show everyday and have listened for the better part of 15 years. I know the show.

First, context matters. It does not excuse. I've watched incredibly closely, and no excuse was given. Only repeated, genuine apologies, along with a clearly stated plan to address the situation and engage in meaningful dialogue.

I think the presence or lack of malice counts. This is not the same as saying what happened didn't matter even if there was no malice.

The networks are shameful. They are acting high and mighty, and, well, bullshit. 8 days counts, too, and the firings happening on the day when the advertisers bailed is not a coincidence.

Same for the spineless advertisers.

Why are they spineless? Why is it bullshit?

Because the "dialogue" that everyone now wants to have is by and large discontinued. What would have been more helpful...having the perpetrator of the harm be held to account for his actions while he actively seeks atonement for his hideous indiscretion? Or, is it better to ban the guy to Arizona, never to be heard from again, thereby locking the indescretion in place and perpetrating yet another deadlock on the racist language that was used?

I would have prefered the former. We have achieved the latter. I don't think anyone had conducted themselves with any type of maturity or nuance.

It's all about blame, power, and money. What it isn't is about having a constructive dialogue, which is what everyone says they want. But they did everything they could do to clamp down on anything worthwhile. And I'm usually not quite that cynical.

I take it back. There is one entity who have conducted themselves remarkably well. The team of fabulous young women who are filled with grace and dignity.

And I'll also put a vote in for Imus as doing the right thing in his effort to ammend his fabulously stupid remark.

I really think we just lost an important opportunity that was thisclose to being very constructive.

I have other thoughts on this as well, but, you know, enough.

=================

Actually, the questions I'll pose:
- When do we accept apologies?
- How do we understand what the greater good is?
- How do we understand what the greater harm is?
- Why did Imus employ employees who are so clearly racist (remember, I've watched and listened for a long time), and since he's the one who employed them, then what the hell do we do about the questions above?
- Why can't more people understand that we all carry ugly thoughts with us, and our ugly thoughts come through in ugly ways sometimes...but since we all have them, why can't we understand that and try to improve ourselves rather than deny our own shit and project it onto everyone else?

Never mind.

HMO.

I've had my health insurance provided via HMO before, and - unlike many other people I've talked to - I've generally had good experiences in the past. Rather than dealing with a byzantine set of hassles and irritations that seem designed to thwart, rather than encourage, health care services and products being provided to the subscriber, I've typically found that things were actually pretty smooth and easy.

Sadly, I've encountered increasing hassles lately with my HMO: cancelled appointments because authorizations weren't provided in time, obviously unneccesary appointments required only because Dr. X had to sign off on what Dr. Z had recommended, etc. Mostly minor stuff, but definitely irritating.

Today, I dealt with another irritation that, though minor, bothers me to no end. Rather than explain it, I'll just reconstruct the conversation between myself and the customer care specialist I called at my HMO. Her replies are in italics:

(Assume 5 minutes of frustrating phone tree prompts and automated responses that precede this.)

"Thank you for calling (name of company), my name is (whatever), how can I help you."

"Hi, my name is Kevlar Pinata (not my real name, by the way), and I have a question about my prescription coverage."

"Okay Mr. Pinata, can you give me your membership number?"

"Uh, sure, but I just gave that to your automated system five minutes ago. That information doesn't appear on your screen?"

"No sir."

"Oh, okay. Here it is. (I give my number.)"

"Can I have your date of birth?"

"Yeah, but I did already give this to your system."

"Yes sir, I understand. But I don't have it."

"Okay. (I give my date of birth.)"

"Zip code and daytime phone number?"

I sigh and then I give it.

"Okay, how can I help you?"

"I have a prescription that used to have a thirty-five dollar copay, and I went to pick it up and they told me my copy was fifty dollars. Can you shed some light on that for me?"

"Certainly. Give me a moment."

Pause.

"Okay, I see here that your prescription has been changed from being a brand name medication to a specialty medication and the copay increases from $35 to $50 in that case."

"But my prescription didn't change. I'm taking the same medication - it was just a refill."

"Yes, I see that. However, the drug changed from brand name to specialty."

"No, the drug didn't change. Your classification of the drug changed."

"Well, what happens is that a drug is either generic, brand name, or specialty, and they each have a different copay. Your drug was brand name but now is specialty. So obviously, it changed."

"No, it didn't. Pharmaceutical companies spend millions of dollars developing drugs and it takes years to get FDA approval. They don't just change the formulation of what chemicals are in a drug on a whim. The drug is the same today as it was yesterday and the same as it was last year. The drug has not changed."

"Yes sir, that's probably true. But it's a specialty drug now."

"So what you're saying is that your classificaiton of the drug changed. The drug didn't change - it's just that some person or some committee in your company decided to reclassify it as 'specialty' instead of 'brand name'. Did anyone think to contact me about this?"

"Well sir, I'm sure that we would have sent a letter."

"It's certainly possible that I received the letter and misplaced it, but I don't remember getting a letter."

"I'm sure we sent a letter.

"Okay, well, I understand that this isn't your fault, but please understand that my employer and I don't pay you any less for health care coverage than we used to. And understand that my prescription hasn't changed - either with regard to the medicine that is prescribed or the amount I take. And in spite of all of that, I now need to pay more for the exact same drug that I've been taking all along. Does that seem reasonable to you?"

"Sir, I can give you a list of alternate drugs you can suggest to your physician that would be less expensive with regard to your copay."

"Fine. Can you give me that list?"

And then I get a list of drugs (at least one of which is over the counter and therefore will not require my HMO to pay anything) that I have to call my doctor with to see if any of them will work. To a degree, I like to have input and choice with healthcare, but I guess I have an old-fashioned notion that the doctor ought to know what the best drug is, and that I shouldn't have to call his office and say "well, how about something different?" He is, after all, the doctor.

So, I have to comparison shop my medications now. Which is okay, I guess. I just don't like the rules of the game changing on me.

Discovery

While on the phone at work this morning, I was rubbing my forehead in the casual, non-chalant way one does during the first human contact of the day.

I have eyebrow dandruff.

I'm a very clean person. Well maintained. And, apparently, flakey in the eyebrows.

(Good thing I'm bumping the post about my still-growing onion down the page with this doosey, don't you think?)

The Truth as I See It

The healthiest plant in my house is an onion that has been on my counter in the sun for about a month. It has a nice green sprout growing straight up towards the sky. It's the truth. I can see it. It's right there on the counter.

Hangman Words

Next time any of you are stuck in an airport on a Sunday night during a 4-hour flight delay, try this:

H-U-R-C-K-L-E
M-E-R-M-U-R-C-K-L-E

I'm telling you, it's a winning hangman phrase. LB didn't stand a chance. I won that round!