Echoes in a Hollow Space

Random quote of the day:

“Sunday: A day given over by Americans to wishing that they themselves were dead and in Heaven, and that their neighbors were dead and in Hell.”

—H. L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Laurel and Hardy, Ariana Grande, or the Salvation Army Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Bureaucracy, n., A system set up to help large institutions waste the time, resources, and lifespans of individuals.

—PJ’s Devilish Dictionary

One gets the impression sometimes that large medical institutions would be happier if we would all just die and stop bothering them. Certainly, their bureaucracies have little regard for our individual stories and needs. Some of these institutions train their employees well, to be completely professional in their ineptitude. Others can’t be arsed, but it all works out the same.

Or maybe that’s just an American thing.

And let me just state for the record: I know I am lucky to have medical and drug coverage at all, given that I am an American and our pay-for-play medical system is an abomination.

As of November 1, I transitioned all my medical coverage from two systems to two others, medical and drug (actually, three others but I won’t get into the horrorshow of that). It took hours on the phone, but mostly it seemed to go smoothly. Most of my prescriptions from my primary care physician got through to the new drug pushers and I received a new supply in a timely manner. Unfortunately, the most vital medication I take, the artificial thyroid hormone that keeps me alive, did not. My thyroid was removed some years back because I had cancer, so I literally cannot live without the synthetic hormone. I have been on the phone with UCLA countless times since November 1 trying to explain to them that the old prescription service they’ve been blithely sending my prescription to is no longer my service. I even explained this to my doctor on my last office visit on October 29 when he electronically sent the prescription off to my old service while I was in the office with him.

“I’m sorry, doctor, that won’t work. They’re no longer my provider.”
“Oh? Well, call into the office with the new information and we’ll send it again. Next!”

I’ve called several times in the last month, explained the situation patiently, been reassured that the next time the doctor is in the office, they will send the prescription off to the service. Fortunately, I had plenty of pills when this started. I’m now down to about a two-week supply and once the Rx is sent, it will take about a week for them to send me new pills. So, I called yesterday yet again and this time I seemed to have gotten someone who not only sounded professional but acted it. She told me that their records said the Rx had already been put in (but I’d just talked to my Rx provider and it had not). I explained yet again that it had been sent to my old Rx provider. She took extensive notes (like the others before her) and sent it on to the doctor’s assistant, putting an expedite on it because I was getting so short on meds. She said someone would call me back by 11 a.m. today to let me know how it was resolved.

I guess I don’t need to tell you that 11:30 rolled around and still no call. I called once more. This time I got another professional-sounding person who finally admitted that the doctor’s assistant had changed the information in the computer only yesterday. But now the doctor won’t be in until Thursday, so that’s the soonest this can be resolved.

I lost my shit. I usually don’t go that route because it’s counterproductive and because I really don’t like being that person. I try to remain reasonable even in the presence of dumberheads and I try not to swear and do other things that turn people hostile. But this is my life and they are being careless with it. I may have said something along the lines of, “This is what you’ve said every time I’ve called and nothing gets done. I’m tired of you all and if I get sick because of this I’m suing the shit out of UCLA.” (I probably won’t and they know it.)

It did not make me feel better. In fact, it just made me feel more impotent because, essentially, we both knew I was impotent in this situation (the other reason I don’t like to go there). The professional-sounding person on the other end of the line listened and said very professionally, “I’m sorry I can’t do anything more at this time. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Is there anything else I can help you with? is one of the more infuriating sentences in the world when you’ve been bashing your head against an intransigent wall. It is the last refuge of incompetent systems because they know there’s no reasonable reply to it except no. It is the professional equivalent of “Get off my phone and go fuck yourself.”

I have to say that there is some fine medicine being done at UCLA, and they have trained their personnel to meticulously professional phone manners instead of the old “Yeah, whatever” you used to get at UCLA. It doesn’t mean that they’re doing the job any better, but hey, they sound good. And UCLA would rather sound good than be good, if you know what I mean (and if you understand ancient SNL references).

I like my doctor there quite well. We’ve been together years and he’s a pioneer in the field and he’s done quite well for me generally. But this was not his finest hour, and the bureaucracy at UCLA is getting worse, not better. I may have to find a new endrocrinologist. Who is not associated with UCLA.

I’m not such a believer in prophecy. I give credence to premonitions because I’ve had experience with them, but grand prophecies always seem a stretch to me. Still, sometimes you can read the currents running through a society; sometimes the zeitgeist speaks clearly.

But when I was cleaning out some old files this morning, I came across this old post, “The Beauty of Moonlight,” written not long after George W. Bush launched his war against Saddam Hussein. I was not a supporter of this war. I thought it built on very shaky ground, and that it was mostly launched for two reasons: 1) because Bush wanted revenge against Saddam Hussein trying to kill his father, and 2) because the Bush Administration wanted to seem to be doing something in response to 9/11. I think the attack against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan was a direct response to that attack, but Bin Laden eluded capture and the dogs of war were baying for more and more visible and easy to hit targets. And so we launched an illicit war.

Make no mistake about it: Saddam Hussein was an evil mofo. But there are many such evil rulers across the globe which many U.S. administrations have turned a blind eye to. The attack against Iraq wasn’t about that at all, and I believe the U.S. sold a piece of its soul when we launched it. I will forever honor the men and women who fought in that war, but their honorable service was done at the behest of deceivers.

But prophecy…The first part of the post referenced above is about 9/11, the second half about the karmic debt we might have to pay as a nation for our actions in Iraq. I won’t restate it here because if you’re interested you can read that post.

The purpose of this post is to say that . . . we may currently be paying that debt. Our democracy, our “sacred” institutions are under attack in a way they have never been before. We’ve elected a Fascist and the Republican party is goose-stepping along in sync with his attack on the rule of law; hate groups are rising at an alarming rate. The good news is that we have good children who seem willing to take up the activism necessary to fight this evil, but we still have a long way to go before we can clean this mess up. And let’s be real–things will never be the same again. Once those dogs of hatred are loosed in any society they only want more chaos. It will be a long, hard fight to defeat them.

If we can.

I believe in our children. I still believe in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the American rule of law that once before brought down a crooked president. I was never more proud of this country than I was in the aftermath of Watergate because it proved that no American was above the law, even a president.

But I have no prophecy or premonitions to offer here. I only have hope that it’s still true.

When I’m on vacation I find myself watching things I wouldn’t normally. Like Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah on El Rey Network. (If you like martial arts, Lucha Libre, and monster movies, ERN is the network for you.) Often I have them on in the background while I do other things, like trying to clean out the crapton of possessions from this house (my mom the hoarder meets her daughter the hoarder—but that’s another post).

Today when I was semi-watching GMAKG I noticed a theme.  Reporters trying to get a scoop, scrambling to be the first to get the monsters on screen and have the biggest, most spectacular footage. Pretty much the 24-hour news cycle run amok. There was the selfish, big network reporter, determined to beat out the competition no matter who got hurt. While hovering in a helicopter over the Mothra Mom and Godzilla fight, even when his cameraman and pilot told him it was too dangerous, it was entirely predictable that he and his crew would be killed in a big hurry. Then there was the plucky girl reporter from the “Bargain Basement station of the airwaves” (their description) who wanted the scoop just as bad, but grew in the process of pursuing the story. She learned that keeping people informed and helping save lives was more important, and that she had a job to do and a responsibility to uphold.

Frankly, that latter was a more nuanced view of journalism then I anticipated from a monster movie. I suppose it helped that her father was the brave naval commander who decided he had to sacrifice himself for the good of his country and humanity in general. A good example for his daughter. But the thing is, as goofy and paint-by-the-numbers as this movie was, it did portray some important things about journalism.

The 24-hour news cycle is a monster that isn’t good for the people consuming it, and it isn’t good for journalism. It cheapens the stories being told, sensationalizes even the most heart-wrenching tragedies, gives demagogues a huge platform, and, in special cases, normalizes authoritarian bullying. It also makes for specialty news platforms that pander to one political wing or another, further widening the gulf which splinters this country. Instead of pulling together as Americans have historically, we are pulling away and pulling against each other. Traditionally, we have agreed to disagree, but when we needed to get things done, we set aside our differences to get the job done. Now we seem only to want to dance on each other’s corpses. Broadcast journalism in general is not doing its job, not CNN, not Fox News, not MSNBC, not local and network news. They pander, sensationalize, and normalize.

Journalism is both a noble and ignoble profession. People have complained about it for centuries. Some of that is because of guttersnipe reporters who want the scoop no matter who it hurts, but another part of it is because good reporters often tell people the stories they don’t want to hear. Some people want to hear “truthiness” rather than hard to listen to facts. They want to be told it’s okay to hold onto their prejudices; it’s okay to keep living a lifestyle that harms the environment; it’s okay to see how many toys they can possess, even though it may not be good for society as a whole or their own family health and that when they die, nobody wins.

Some people react to these unpleasant messages by wanting to kill the messenger. Sometimes literally. Journalists die for their stories all over the world in strongman and strife-torn societies: in Russia, in Afghanistan, in Mexico, in Somalia, in Turkey, in Myanmar. The list is long, as attested by the Committee to Protect Journalists. The list even includes the USA. So far, the confirmed motives of journalist killings in the U.S. have not been for criticizing the government. I hope that doesn’t change. But it could.

The thing is, the First Amendment and the protection of journalists telling difficult stories is one of the cornerstones of American freedom, the so-called “American exceptionalism.” That includes the irritating sensationalist press as well as “real reporters.” You can’t curtail one without curtailing the other; you can’t keep America safe from demagogues by gagging people who say the things you don’t want to hear. I’m not talking about fake news. We have to remain vigilant about filtering that kind of propaganda and allowing libel laws to works (if you can track down the source of the fake news).

You can’t cherry pick the Constitution. If there is anything like American-generated holy writ it is the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. I remember a time when people took this at face value, when it was an essential part of the American soul. The 24-hour news cycle and the merchants of partisanship have helped erode this. We must protect the First Amendment, we must ferret out and expose fake news for what it is, and we must allow journalists to do their very necessary and sometimes uncomfortable job of protecting us from miscreants and demagogues.

You know, the real scary monsters.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

I’ll be taking part in the annual American Turkey Bacchanal (otherwise known as Thanksgiving) and won’t be posting a folklore blog this week. But…

Here’s a very interesting website with lots of Native American Turkey mythology.

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it!

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

While recently reading American Folklore by Richard M. Dorson, I came upon a passage relating the curious testimony of John Josselyn from 1638. He’d taken ship to New England and upon arriving in Massachusetts Bay, was catching up on news from those he met on shore, including prodigious tales of earthquakes, mermen, monster births. He went on to say:

Mr. Foxwell came forth and related how he had passed a night at sea in a small shallop, hugging the shore but afraid to land; suddenly at midnight a loud voice called him, “Foxwell, Foxwell, come ashore,” and upon the beach he beheld a great fire ringed by dancing men and women. After an hour they vanished, and next morning Foxwell put ashore and found their footprints and brands’ ends on the sand. But no living Englishman or Indian could he find on shore or in the woods.

The passage is odd in itself, to be sure, and although logical reasons might be found to explain it, they are no fun at all. I reject them soundly. I love the fairy-like creepiness of it, and think it’s a good thing Mr. Foxwell was too timid to put ashore. The story really sets my imagination to quivering.

But the passage has extra resonance, extra quiveration, because it reminds me of a more famous passage, this one from Plutarch, On the Failure of Oracles, 17-1:

The father of Aemilianus the orator, to whom some of you have listened, was Epitherses, who lived in our town and was my teacher in grammar. He said that once upon a time in making a voyage to Italy he embarked on a ship carrying freight and many passengers. It was already evening when, near the Echinades Islands, the wind dropped, and the ship drifted near Paxi. Almost everybody was awake, and a good many had not finished their after-dinner wine. Suddenly from the island of Paxi was heard the voice of someone loudly calling Thamus, so that all were amazed. Thamus was an Egyptian pilot, not known by name even to many on board. Twice he was called and made no reply, but the third time he answered; and the caller, raising his voice, said, ‘When you come opposite to Palodes, announce that Great Pan is dead.’ On hearing this, all, said Epitherses, were astounded and reasoned among themselves whether it were better to carry out the order or to refuse to meddle and let the matter go. Under the circumstances Thamus made up his mind that if there should be a breeze, he would sail past and keep quiet, but with no wind and a smooth sea about the place he would announce what he had heard. So, when he came opposite Palodes, and there was neither wind nor wave, Thamus from the stern, looking toward the land, said the words as he had heard them: ‘Great Pan is dead.’ Even before he had finished there was a great cry of lamentation, not of one person, but of many, mingled with exclamations of amazement.

The sea holds many mysteries and dangers, but let’s not forget that strange shores do as well.

You can find the rest of this Loeb Classics Library translation of Plutarch here.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.