Evidence of Sound Judgment

The Field can now confirm, based on multiple sources, something that both campaigns publicly deny: that Senator Clinton has directly told Senator Obama that she wants to be his vice presidential nominee, and that Senator Obama politely but straightforwardly and irrevocably said “no.” Obama is going to pick his own running mate based on his own criteria and vetting process.

Whew.

Breaking News: The Epiphylum is Going to Bloom!!!

Indeed. Oh, frabjous day.

As Pretty Lady's intimates are well aware, her epiphylum has long been a source of both joy and consternation in her personal life. At various times it has come to a pitched battle of wills between the two of them. In recent months, Pretty Lady has taken a very hard line with this overweening plant; she has rigorously withheld fertilizer, watered infrequently, and viciously pruned its tentacular invasions, which threatened to penetrate the attic.

One notes that the infelicitous architecture of a Brooklyn kitchen window has produced an asymmetrical slump, despite seasonal rotations; some of the rear leaves have become wizened and despondent.

But all of this abuse has evidently borne fruit, or at least flower buds. Upon examining a leaf this morning, Pretty Lady noticed a tiny but unmistakeable lump, which bears no resemblance at all to just-another-damn-leaf-bud. Further perusal of the situation revealed that practically the whole sunny-side cascade was silly with miniature floral extrusions. They are currently so small as to resist photographic depiction, but Pretty Lady will keep you all posted regarding their progress.

On the Subject of Health Care

It is believed that 2 million women are living with fistula in the world today. Sarah Omega Kidangasi was one of them. She was a 19-year-old Kenyan schoolgirl when she became pregnant as the result of rape. Like many fistula victims, she lived in a small village, far away from a hospital with the equipment and personnel to deal with a complicated pregnancy. "Due to the distance, I was late to reaching the health facility," said Sarah, now 31. "I'd been laboring for 18 hours. It was unfortunate, in that village, they were lacking some of the equipment. I was transferred to another facility, a mission hospital, and I gave birth to a stillborn baby boy who weighed 4.8 kilograms [10.6 pounds]. Three days later, I was leaking urine, and I realized that I had developed fistula. I stayed in the hospital for two months, and I was discharged in the same condition."

Sarah's ordeal began in earnest when she returned to her village, where the leaking made her an outcast. This triple punishment of losing a child, living with a hole between her vagina and bladder and being isolated from her community is common, according to Kate Ramsey, global coordinator of the U.N.'s campaign to end fistula, which is now active in 45 countries. "In some countries, there's a misperception that women did something wrong, that she was adulterous," said Ramsey.

Pretty Lady brings this up, not merely to encourage a bit of consciousness and fund-raising on the part of her friends, but to illustrate a general point, which she has been noticing in recent Healthcare Discussions. To wit: that it is a general human tendency to blame others for their problems--nominally in order to disclaim responsibility for helping them, but subconsciously to avoid facing the fear that one day, It Could Be Them.

Now, when we look at a barbaric society in a far-away place, and note honored traditions such as raping young village girls, butchering them in substandard medical facilities, and ostracizing them for the results, we may clearly and comfortably declare, 'The horror!'

But she is here to tell you that we do this in our OWN society. In our OWN culture, we turn away from the ill, the disabled, the odiferous and the unfortunate, and look for reasons to blame them for their conditions. We cannot look suffering in the face, accept it, and accept the sufferer, even though this acceptance is far less difficult and painful than enduring the suffering itself.

We do this because most of us fail to understand one salient point: We don't have to fix it. Accepting the humanity and essential blamelessness of a suffering person does not entail anything other than that. It does not mean we must swoop in, pay their medical bills, build them a house, and wait on them hand and foot; it does not mean that if they continue to suffer, we have failed.

It may be that if we get into the habit of this acceptance, we may see more clearly how certain pervasive systems contribute to the problem, and how, with diligence, clarity and efficiency, they can be made to serve a better purpose. But this comes after the fact. First, we must bear witness.

Pretty Lady Wants to be a Supreme Court Justice

Hey, she'd be better than Hillary.

Why 'Health Insurance' is a Terrible Idea

It's just like a credit card. It Lures You In and Sucks You Down.

With the individual market for health care, the libertarian argument fails on its own terms: Sick people can't get coverage they can afford. It's as though the rafts are reserved for people who already have life preservers. Americans with pre-existing conditions—cancer, asthma, diabetes, and the like—would need to pay even more than they do today. Through no fault of their own, more of them would end up without insurance. Meanwhile, insurers would improve their own profits by offering targeted policies to people with the fewest health expenses. As with the history of credit cards, it's Robin Hood in reverse. Apart from the obvious injustice, this approach could add to spiraling health costs. The sickest 10 percent of Americans are already responsible for 70 percent of the nation's health expenses. When more such Americans go uninsured, skip checkups, and land in the emergency room, they end up costing taxpayers more.

Ask, and ye shall receive.

Here. Here they are. Gasp, choke, sob.

PRINTS. Your choice of paper, mat, frame, all duly overpriced. You COULD have an Original, THE original, yes, but here--HERE--are Prints. For what they are worth.



The horror.

(Greeting cards, too.)

UPDATE: Due to Private Feedback, prices have been adjusted. Desert Cat, you are a very lucky Early Adopter.

Pretty Lady's Extremism Poll

Darlings, Pretty Lady has a favor to ask. Would you kindly take her poll? Never fear, you are entirely anonymous; your answers may well assist Pretty Lady with future grant and book proposals, as well as satisfying her curiosity about all those lurkers out there.

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Inflation

Pretty Lady has just made the perplexing discovery that her photo is now worth L75,607 on Facebook. As long as strangers are flinging virtual money around, why not put some of it in her tip jar?

How to Avoid Being Prosecuted

Pretty Lady simply loathes arguments about Legal Precedents, and Infringement of Liberties, and the Coming Totalitarian World. Portentious columns like this one really get her dander up:

Drew's actions have been called "cyberbullying," "cyberbaiting," and other such techno-neologisms, an indication of their awful novelty. Prosecutors in her state have tried and failed to find any laws that she may have violated, another sign that we're wandering, here, into an unchartered social realm.

If Drew really did what officials say she did, it seems obvious she should be punished for it, somehow. (Drew has repeatedly denied that she created the account, but has acknowledged having access to it.)

It's this impulse that federal prosecutors in Southern California were acting upon when they charged Drew this week with various computer security crimes. The prosecutors are on the side of right -- unfortunately, in their zeal to punish Drew, they've stretched the law too far, and in the process, they've endangered us all.

These people all have hold of the wrong end of the stick. This is not about New Crimes, or New Punishments, or Civil Liberties. This is, very simply, about either having the decency to own up to one's actions, or not.

Because Pretty Lady is quite, quite sure that if this alleged cyberbully had gone to the parents of this unfortunate child and apologized, she would not be in court today.

An apology is not tantamount to a confession of murder. It is merely a recognition of common humanity; that we all make mistakes, we all give in to destructive impulses, and we all undergo tragic losses. If this lady's next-door neighbor's daughter had died in an automobile accident, surely she would have offered her condolences; why then did she withhold them in this case?

Statistics more than suggest that medical doctors who are sued for malpractice are not necessarily the incompetent ones; they are the cold, arrogant ones who will never admit to making a mistake. We do not leverage the power of the court system in order to redress honest errors; we do so because we feel that our basic humanity has been mowed down by an indifferent force.

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.