February 7, 2008

The Tower of Conceptual Babel

Back in 1993, I was finishing up my bachelor's degree in English in a state school. Not the fancy-pants University of Texas at Austin - known as UT. But the school we perceived of as the poor cousin, University of Texas at Arlington - known as UTA. It wasn't that the school wasn't as good, but we simply didn't get the press that UT did. We didn't have a football team. We were a commuter school. We weren't in a cool town like Austin, but out in the 'burbs between Dallas and Fort Worth. Our concept of ourselves was based on what others thought of UT ... we were obviously a poor outlying satellite.

Despite our concept of ourselves, we had some cool stuff going for us. One of the other tutors at our writing center told me about this nifty thing she'd discovered. It was called a MUDdog ... you got on one of the dumb terminals over in the computer science lab, logged in, entered a few commands and you were suddenly immersed in this text world. I was unimpressed. I had Zork on the Commodore-64 at home, thank you very much.

This was different, she insisted. Through the campus connection, this text world was populated with real people from around the globe. You could talk with them and interact with them in real time!

I tried it for a lark one Saturday when I didn't have anything else planned. Walked up to campus ... logged in ... and eight hours later I finally looked at my watch.

I've been hooked on various types of online communities ever since.

As someone who is always fascinated by human interactions, as someone who can't help but be an observer as well as a participator ... as a writer ... I am utterly enthralled by the microcosms of society that we set up online.

MUDS, chatrooms, IRC channels, "Web 2.0 sites," blogs, shoutboxes, forums (technically that's fora, but I try to go with the flow).

General public, special interests, moms, dads, writers, non-writers, artists, dog-lovers, cat-lovers, extroverts, introverts, introverts who become extroverts online.

Invariably it happens.

Invariably someone trots out their fervent belief in X. And X might be a product, a method of doing something, a religion, a favourite actor or politician or writer ... or whatever.

And just as invariably, someone else takes a polar opposite view.

Now, things can go a couple of ways at this point. It might be we have a nice, logical, rational discussion about the pros and cons of X. Of course, this is the least likely scenario, but it does happen.

Another option: things get heated. X is vilified. X is extolled. Vilified. Extolled. On and on and on. Neither side listens to the other and you literally get an extremist jihad, crusade, holy war of whatever flavour you wish to call it. Sides are drawn up. The inevitable rhetoric gets trotted out: "you're either for us or against us" ... "there is no middle ground" ... "well you know what I mean."

The option that goes one step beyond that is this: X is vilified and so is "that damn dipshit who said X was good." "You're delusional and anyone who thinks like you is delusional."

It seems that even when we speak the same language, we still live in a tower of babel. We still struggle to make our words understood ... to feel that we are being respected and heard and believed. And often, despite what we are sure is plain language and crystalline logic ... other people fail to get our point ... fail to agree. And obviously, the failure is almost inevitably theirs, as we have been perfectly clear and rational.

Over the last two weeks I have watched as two of the three online communities I participate in had serious melt-downs. Honestly, it's nothing I haven't seen before. Ideas being denigrated, people being denigrated, people feeling sure they were denigrated when they were not ... all because emotions were running high.

Often, it's like watching a bunch of junior high age kids (13-15 or so). Kids that age are still learning the finer social mores and how to converse without pissing people off. They speak plainly and say exactly what they mean ... but often their vocabulary does not include any grey area at all. The idea that words have connotations generally escapes them. The concept that words, despite our best efforts to deny this, words do hurt us. Or at least they frustrate us. (And please note that there are plenty of teens who do get this concept ... and there are plenty who don't learn this concept ever. This is merely a developmental stage and a generalization.)

Online, we add to this type of social group the fact that there is no good way to discern body language and vocal tone ... and often we misinterpret words that were not meant in the ways we see on the screen. And, sometimes, no matter how hard we try to craft those words to elicit in every person who reads them exactly and precisely what we mean ... all that work is simply lost in the babel of pixels and previous experience and the mind of the individual reader.

It is in watching these explosions happen online, where you can see each piece of the misunderstanding beginning to unfold and then to blossom and the fruit to explode, spreading its pollen of dissent over the entire participatory community ... it is watching this microcosm mushroom online that we truly see the babel of concept and idea which in the so-called "real world" leads to fighting and war. It's an amazing and, when put in this light, terrifying event to watch.

It starts so very simply.

And it is played out over and over and over again. As soon as one segment of a community finally "gets" how these things get started ... when a few people suddenly realize that they ways in which they phrase things matter AND that they become more capable of trying to take the other side's ideas as something to respect despite disagreeing (and perhaps disagreeing vehemently) ... as soon as this happens, another group comes along who has not yet learned these concepts ... and the battles begin anew.

It is the curse of our relatively short life spans and our frequent procreation and our different rates of learning and comprehending - as a race we seem compelled to play this scenario out over and over and over again.

Whether it's the mud-slinging of an American presidential "season" ... whether it's "your tree's leaves are falling in MY yard" ... or "your people are creating problems" ... or "your actions are eroding the atmosphere" ... "we don't want your sort here" ... "you don't believe as we do."

We bag and tag and categorize each other out of existence so that we don't have to listen to the conceptual babel and weigh all sides.

And even when we have learned the lessons and we try to stay calm and rational ... there is always human frailty, exhaustion ... and a point when someone else's rhetoric finally crosses a line beyond which we feel a moral imperative to call them on it because to not call them on that particular phrasing or concept is to allow an intolerable situation to thrive.

It doesn't ever end. And it feels like "we" never learn.

But whether the babel is language based or conceptually based, it is a constant of human existence. We are locked into our own skulls with wiring and operating systems only somewhat compatible with the others around us.

Our lives are never-ending attempts to connect and to forever try to understand and be understood in the face of failures and partial compatibilities.

Our strength lies in our stubborn certainty that we can finally find the right cord for connection and the right version of the operating system to achieve a true and deep melding.

I'm reminded of a book I never really liked, but I adored one single line. (Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero)

"People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles." Though that sentence shouldn't bother me, it stays in my mind for an uncomfortably long time. Nothing else seems to matter.

We are individuals afraid to merge ... and yet seeking to be understood so fully that we do merge ... which frightens us more and makes the need to be understood more fervent and powerful.

People are afraid to merge. To lose some aspect of their true selves? Fear that to understand all is to dislike? To find out some idea we might have about that person is false?

People are afraid to merge so we build these towers and walls to protect our thoughts and minds and feelings ... our individuality.

And then we wonder why others do not see things our way, not realizing that the bricks and stones and concrete of our towers and bunkers are simply not transparent. They don't just protect us and shield us, but they blind us to where others are.

Even our most fervently held beliefs are simply stones in the wall, often preventing us from understanding someone else. And when someone doesn't understand us when we think they should ... so often we begin casting our stones at them, trying to bury them in our beliefs - sometimes without even realizing we're doing it. Of course, this only makes us build our own walls thicker and higher ...

... and people are afraid to merge.

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:51 AM | Comments (12) | Blog | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Struggles | Stumble

January 7, 2008

Tagged!

Gotta love the "low risk" tagging in San Francisco. Bored in class? Draw a tag on a sticker and then label your way to tagging fame out on the street!

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:26 AM | Comments (3) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Vacations and Photos | Stumble

December 29, 2007

Hardest Thing I've Ever Not Done

I don't know what day it is anymore. Yes, the calendar tells me that it is currently 7:18 a.m. on a Saturday. But I don't know if this is still today or if it's yesterday.

You see, my partner has to be at work by 5 a.m. Needs to be up by 3:45 a.m. to make it to work on time. Neither of us are morning people. At. All. So you can probably extrapolate that needing to go to bed by 8 p.m. in order to get close to 8 hours of sleep a night is not a particularly easy task.

After seeing a neurologist for migraines a few weeks ago, the doctor re-iterated that getting regular sleep and enough of it, was vital to helping stop the migraine cycle. He said that if we were having a constant struggle to be able to go to bed at that hideously early answer, to NOT go to bed then. Instead, he said that we should stay up later and later and later each night over a vacation. Stay up later every evening. He said it would reset the internal clock better than trying to force ourselves to go to bed at 8 p.m. every night.

So, we stayed up to 2 a.m. ... and then we made a jump to 6 a.m. ... we were going to shoot for 10 a.m. the next day ... but then we realized we had hair appointments and would not get 8 hours if we stayed up until 10. So, we went to bed at 6 a.m. again.

Tonight we are trying to hold out until 10 or 11 a.m. before we go to sleep for the "night."

Not going to sleep at this point, is the hardest thing I've ever done. Which makes it the hardest thing I've ever not done.

I think.

My brain is fogged, my eyesight is blurred and I'm starting to shake. But if we can get our internal clocks to reset, it'll be worth it. I think.

But I dunno, because I can hardly think at the moment.

All I can think right now is that the neurologist said "If you have to take a nap, it can't be any longer than 20 minutes. You'll wake up refreshed after 20 minutes."

I'm thinking this dude never tried this technique himself and tried to take a 20 minute nap. Cuz I just took a 20 ... and I'm telling ya, I don't hardly know what I'm doing anymore.

Am I sleep-blogging?f

The question is beyond me at the moment.

But if you don't hear much from me ... or see too much activity ... then you know I'm prolly off hoarding another 20 minute nap.

Posted by Red Monkey at 7:16 AM | Comments (12) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Stumble

December 24, 2007

Cannon Fodder

Their commercial states: Know what I love about WalMart ... they really know how to help me drop the hint.

Know what I hate about WalMart ... they really know how to hit below the belt.

So, this woman works full-time for WalMart. She buys into the health insurance plan offered by the company. There's a clause there, that's in most health insurance contracts currently ... and really, what choice do you have? Do without health insurance ... attempt to get individual insurance ... or simply accept the crazy clauses added by the company you work for. Not a lot of choice when you're working for the types of wages available to most retail workers.

At any rate, she's out and about one day and the unthinkable happens. She's hit by a semi-truck. Hospitalized ... eventually the dust settles ... she's a paraplegic and brain damaged. Will need a respirator to continue breathing. Special wheelchair. Probably at least some hospice care when she returns home. Definitely the house will need to be remodeled to accommodate her new condition.

The family sues the trucking company and wins enough to pay for the home renovations. Pay the hospital bills.

And then WalMart's health insurance carrier exercised the clause which allows them to sue the Shank family to recover the $470,000 dollars it paid out for her care following the accident. Now, the victim of this accident owes WalMart's health insurance carrier another $10000 ... after they've already given them all the rest of the money from the settlement.

Quoted from:
The Shanks and WalMart

Few such cases have attracted as much attention in legal circles as the Shanks'. Mrs. Shank took a job in 1999 stocking shelves at a Wal-Mart store in Cape Girardieu, Mo. She jumped at the shift from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. so that she could spend days at home with her three sons, Mr. Shank says. After a probation period, she qualified for benefits under the Wal-Mart health plan in February 2000.

One day about three months later, as she and a girlfriend were touring local yard sales, a semi-trailer truck plowed into the driver's side of her minivan. Her friend's injuries were minor, but Mrs. Shank suffered major brain trauma and spent the next several weeks in intensive care. She drifted in and out of a coma, and the hospital, for months.

"One doctor didn't give her any chance," says Mr. Shank, a maintenance worker at Southeast Missouri State University. Her medical bills climbed past $460,000. The health plan paid them promptly. "They were terrific in that respect," he says.

It also sent Mr. Shank several notices that he was to inform Wal-Mart's health plan before he settled any suit. In 2002, the Shanks did sue and won a settlement from G.E.M. Transportation Inc., owner of the truck. The firm had only $1 million in liability coverage, though. For his own losses, Mr. Shank received $200,000, of which $119,000 remained after legal expenses. He says he spent most of it toward a one-story house fitted with ramps and wider doors, which is more accessible than the family's previous three-level home.

Mrs. Shank's own settlement was $700,000. After legal expenses and attorney fees, the remaining $417,477 was placed in a court-created special trust designed specifically for Mrs. Shank's future care. The Shanks' lawyer, Maurice Graham, wrote the Wal-Mart health plan informing them. Mrs. Shank had received no funds directly, he said, and therefore had nothing to pay Wal-Mart back.

Nearly three years went by, Mr. Shank says, before they heard again from Wal-Mart. Mrs. Shank struggled a year rotating in and out of the hospital and rehabilitation programs. She could no longer use her right arm or three fingers on her left hand because of neurological damage. She couldn't feed or dress herself and conversations with her family were limited to all but simple questions. Eventually, her husband moved her to a nursing home for around-the-clock care. Medicare and Medicaid pay for the nursing home. Mr. Shank used some of the trust's proceeds to continue paying a private aide to care for her there.

"We wanted her to have a decent quality of life, and we still had the money," he says. He hoped he could also use it to pay the roughly $130,000 in bills for Mrs. Shank's rehabilitation and a return hospital visit after her coverage expired.

But in August 2005, Wal-Mart re-emerged with a lawsuit against the Shanks demanding repayment for $469,216 in medical costs out of their settlement. It charged that the Shanks had violated the terms of the health plan by not reimbursing it. The company also demanded payment of legal fees and interest for the cost of suing the Shanks for the money.

Mr. Graham, the Shanks' attorney, says he approached Wal-Mart's attorneys about negotiating a compromise, but was told the health plan wanted to proceed with the lawsuit. "We're not contending that Wal-Mart isn't entitled to a payment. We're saying they're entitled to one based on equity," he says. Since Mrs. Shank wasn't fully compensated for her damages in the first place, he argues, Wal-Mart should also expect only partial reimbursement.

Administrators of employer-financed health plans "have an obligation to participants to be impartial," the Wal-Mart spokeswoman says. "Virtually all health plans include subrogation provisions as a way to control health plan costs."

In August last year, U.S. district judge Lewis Blanton sided with Wal-Mart, ruling that when Mrs. Shank signed on to Wal-Mart's health plan she was obligated to abide by its terms.

The ruling came six days before the Shanks' 18-year-old son, Jeremy, was killed in September last year in Iraq shortly after he arrived in the U.S. Army's 25th Infantry Division.

"I wanted to give up at that point, tell Wal-Mart they won," Mr. Shank says, but his lawyer, Mr. Graham, said he'd continue with appeals.

Mrs. Shank went to Jeremy's funeral. But because of memory problems due to her injuries, she gets confused about what happened. On a recent morning, she cried several times and asked what had happened to her middle son. Mr. Shank says that he obtained a divorce from Mrs. Shank this year, partly because of advice from a health-care administrator that she might be more eligible for public aid as a single woman. Mrs. Shank, who has been declared incompetent by a court, hasn't been informed of the divorce by her family.

What kills me is that WalMart insurance carrier let three years go past before deciding to pursue "their" money. Three years in which the family attempted to put their lives back together. To make sure that Mrs. Shank would have a good quality of what remained of her life.

Now, the family is in pieces. Changed beyond the telling of it.

They thought they were lucky to get a settlement out of the trucking company. And, they were to a certain extent. But since that point, their luck turned back to the same luck that led to Mrs. Shank being in the wrong place at the wrong time when the semi came plowing into her mini-van.

The luck of so many Americans who are forced to live on small income and seen as simply "cannon fodder" in the war of the corporations to gain gold and power.

That sentence is not meant to be as over-dramatic as it may sound. Instead, it is meant to reference early times. When the powerful simply didn't think the underclasses mattered. That they were simple cannon fodder, meant to be sacrificed so that the powerful might live well and heartily.

Sadly, this seems the one lesson in history that we are condemned to repeat in some kind of Sisyphean cycle of hell.

Posted by Red Monkey at 1:08 AM | Comments (4) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Stumble

December 14, 2007

Edicts

My mom went to Catholic school. I think this is where she picked up her intense love-affair with edicts - rules which were written in stone and were absolutely iron-clad. And they worked for her throughout much of her life ... when I was first diagnosed with asthma and allergies at age 3, her love-affair with organization and rules (commonly known as OCD today) rose to the challenge. Monday and Friday were vacuuming days. The ENTIRE house was vacuumed those days. Since one of my allergies was dust, the doctor told Mom that the house had to be very clean - I had a box springs covered in plastic. Actually, I probably should have been in a bubble.

Anyhow, Mom had her set days to vacuum, to wash clothes, to wash the sheets. In time, it went from a routine to a full blown obsession, as did most of Mom's edicts.

Many of her edicts didn't make sense, however. Not long after we'd moved away from my beloved Austin, my new school had "Hat Day." I was in third grade now and after so many peer group moves in short succession, (kindergarten and first grade in one school, second grade in another, a new peer group when I went back to my old school for third grade ... and then moving to Arlington after just the first six weeks of third grade), I was struggling to make friends. I was eager to participate in Hat Day. This just seemed perfect for my Donald Duck baseball cap. It was a nice red ballcap with a circle appliqué of Donald's head. Not too kiddie, but cartoons are a great way to start conversations when you're eight.

Mom's edict: no Donald Duck hat for school that day. I was too old for such things and I would be teased.

I was in shock. I argued. I presented cogent arguments. When I realized that logic would not budge her, I whined, wailed and threw everything short of a full-blown fit.

And then I got stubborn. I shoved the cap down the back of my pants. (I had no homework and so I never had a bag to take stuff home ... and if I'd had one, she would have checked that.)

I went to school and my hat was a huge hit, just as I'd known it would be.

All hell broke loose as I attempted to smuggle the hat back into the house. She'd gone looking for it whilst I was at school. I denied, quite plausibly. She couldn't see where I'd hidden it. She screamed. She hollered. She told me she'd invaded my inner sanctum and conducted a thorough search. She KNEW I had worn it to school explicitly against her wishes, and by gum, I was to cough up that damn cap NOW!

I fished it out (and wasn't she just HORRIFIED to discover it was keeping my li'l ass warm when it wasn't on my head) and I handed it over.

It went into the kitchen trash.

I fished it right out.

YOU ARE NOT WEARING THAT AFTER WHERE IT'S BEEN!

She yanked it out of my hands and threw it in the trash again. This time I did throw a complete and total fit. I had disobeyed and been caught and I fully expected punishment. But this? This didn't seem like a punishment to fit the crime to my about-to-turn-nine-years-old mind. Grounding, no TV, no hats for a month. But throwing away my favourite Disney World souvenir because I wore the cap to school on Hat Day????

(And no, I'm still not over that hat. I see a red ball cap like that to this day and whine about my Donald Duck cap.)

There were other edicts passed down through the years. A favourite one is that you have to make a recipe EXACTLY like the recipe card or book says. If an ingredient says "(optional)" next to it, that comment you ignore. Everything on that card goes into that recipe, darnit! It got to the point where I hated it when my mom made "Grandma's Chocolate Cake" ... because she always put nuts in the frosting. I like nuts, but not in that frosting. And they made the roof of my mouth itch, which didn't make for a pleasant birthday cake, really.

Once, after a hard day at high school, I decided I wanted some chips and dip. We didn't have any dip. So I thought for a moment. Most dips were either cheese based or sour cream based. I got out the sour cream, dumped some in a bowl and headed to the spice rack. I don't recall now everything I dumped in there ... it was more of an open the jar, sniff and dump kind of thing. Hey, that smells good, put some of that in there.

I sat down to enjoy my snack and my little sister waltzes in. I share, not super willingly as I really hadn't made enough for two people, but I do let her have some. We're chowing down happily.

INT. HOUSE - KITCHEN - AFTERNOON

ENTER Mom

MOM: Where did you get that?
LI'L RED MONKEY: From the fridge.
MOM (horrified): That wasn't in there this morning. Where did you get it?
LI'L RED MONKEY: I made it.
MOM (panicked now): Where's the recipe? (looks around frantically)
LI'L RED MONKEY: There's not one, I just added stuff to it until I liked it.
MOM: You can't DO that!
LI'L RED MONKEY: Why?
MOM: You have to have a recipe! You'll get food poisoning and die!

I think I was about 15. You can imagine the snotty teenaged reactions after that. Unfortunately, my sister did get a stomach upset after eating it, which just further codified Mom's belief that You Must Always Have a Recipe Created By a Licensed Chef.

Never mind that my sister was lactose intolerant and just ate a bunch of sour cream ....

Don't confuse Mom with facts. It's not nice.

The interesting thing to me, though, is how all of Mom's edicts were supposedly designed to keep us as collectible children in mint condition ....

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:15 PM | Comments (4) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble

December 10, 2007

WTF is WRONG with People?

So here's the deal:

I'm pissed off. Like seriously pissed off.

I have a friend who has not had the world's easiest life. Dealt a crap hand in terms of parents. Neighbors who knew and did nothing. Left home before finishing high school ... and yet still finished high school. Had to work to support herself. Did so. Did good, valuable and helpful work ... but day care teachers don't make a whole lot. If I'm remembering correctly, she was working two jobs when we met. A nursery school during the day and a drop-in day care in the evenings.

This is someone I admire a hell of a lot. She kept trying to pull ahead to do everything she needed to do to take care of herself and be independent. Took classes at the junior college as she could afford it.

But when I say dealt a crap hand in terms of parents ... I kind of understated that. A LOT. Which created some issues. Which to be perfectly honest, she tried her best to deal with. And she was doing the work that needed to be done. But, as they say, shit happens. Better described, various health problems happened.

And, despite there being real health issues, the doctors apparently decided she was just another hysterical female. The blew off things that they should have pursued. Hospital stays finally cost her her jobs. And the shit continued to happen. And she continued fighting and trying to do everything possible to stay independent and together.

Finally, she was getting dizzy and falling. Back issues. The docs kept putting things off. She wasn't a priority. She could wait.

She tripped in her living room and fell. Not down a flight of stairs or anything. Just fell.

Blew out three vertebrae. Paralyzed. Stuck in a nursing home.

Now to be perfectly honest, I'm pissed off enough about all of that. I wanna holler that little kid plea, "It's not fair!" And it's not fair, but it's life. That's the way this shit goes, I guess.

But what has me really hot now is that she's dependent on the nursing home. Despite all these years of trying to make sure she stayed independent. And they are NOT taking care of her; they're making it as difficult as possible for her to do much of anything.

And the last straw for me is this:
She was using a transfer board to get from her bed to her wheelchair. Fell. Broke her tibia.

I found out last night that the doctors didn't even bother to set the leg. It's still swollen. She may be in a wheelchair, but she's paralyzed - and still has feeling in her legs - and the leg still freaking hurts. They put a short boot on her and called it done. Last night a nurse told her the only way to set the leg was through surgery ... and with a pulmonary embolism, dead spots on the lungs ... surgery is not really an option.

But I just can't believe that this is the best care. I just can't believe that just putting a short boot on someone and calling it good enough is standard care in this situation.

I'm tired of people treating people like crap. Why can't they just do their damn jobs? If you're in a profession to HELP people, then freaking HELP THEM. What the hell is with this ignoring them or thinking that crappy care is "good enough" for those people? I mean really. Why do people have to be like that? It's not that hard to do what's right, especially when it's your job. Why do so many people have to take this "easy" out of just being lazy?

WTF is wrong with people anyway?

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:58 PM | Comments (6) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Struggles | Stumble