Nature Blog
Come on over to my Nature/green blog. I write about my day to day life with nature.
Gerardine Baugh
Identity Thief
I am not unsympathetic to, Mariana de la Torre’s plight, But, this article had me very angry, starting with this part;
“she said, you’ll do anything to stop it—including taking someone else’s identity to get $530,000 in medical care.”
“Chicago Tribune”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-medical-id-theftmar15,0,2523958.story
My mother –in –law died of cancer leaving my father-in-law with bills. He has to work to pay them off, and he’s in his seventies!
I was hurt at work in 2004; I am out of work, fired because of my work injury. I was without insurance. When I was given Medicaid I found I couldn’t find a primary care doctor in my area with an open slot to fit another Medicaid patient.
My husband was in a car accident in 2004, he has daily seizures. Because his secondary insurance is Medicaid, he is turned away.
When I didn’t have insurance I had to pay for my doctors bills in cash. I would never have thought to steal some one else’s identity to help myself.
I have meet dozens of people, disabled, fighting to get medical care. Sorry, let me clarify that: “dozens of legal Americans.”
I don’t care what the, www.healthcarebluebook.com , sites for fair medical pricing. Everyone who pays for insurance understands that discrepancy, and has run up against it! They still had to pay the extra out of pocket. The reporter made it sound like it was the hospitals fault. I can argue just about this point! But it doesn’t have anything to do with this woman stealing.
The main point of this article, even though the writer tried to make it into a love story. Then placed the blame on everyone else, is this woman stole more than money.
She took a slot in the non-profit hospital, that someone else, someone legal. Could have had that care, and maybe, just maybe, survived.
What the hell! This is a woman who, stole, and lied -to help herself.
What kind of legacy is that to leave her children?
What is the Mexican government doing to help its people? What are the Mexican people doing to help themselves?
I think they are too busy dealing with drugs and gangs to worry about their sick and poor. Just point them over the border to the US. We can turn anything into a love story. A nicely, written sympathetic piece to justify why someone steals.
Here are some links. If you like, read up on problems in Mexico and the ones, smuggled into the United States.
“Drug cartels’ new weaponry means war” Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-arms-race15-2009mar15,0,229992.story
“Your American History Reference Guide! – Illegal drugs trade”
http://www.historymania.com/american_history/Drug_smuggling#External_links
http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~skenney/courses/3290/3290class25.pdf
Poetry “My Original Face”
My Original Face
By
Gerardine Baugh
Carbon smudges, dancing across an uneven cave wall
Callused fingers, pressing blood into symbols
Movement within the pictures
Send me spiraling
Never stopping my need
To create
My original face is the one you see on paper
Or, smeared across a silicon link
I am nothing without my imagination
I press against the empty wall
With a need to be heard
Second Chapter …problems
I ran in to a wall writing my second chapter. I have the idea in my head, I know where I want it to go, and I just hit a wall with typing it out.
I have a second novel, sitting on the side. Just to take my mind off that impervious, blank, white screen staring out at me.
I couldn’t believe it! That novels’ brick wall reared up in front of me.
I decided to just start typing. I wrote something totally different. Okay! That can’t be bad…Hmm!
I printed out my notes…then sat and stared at them.
This feels like a bad relationship. One where the same hurdles come up and I can’t climb them, so I walk around or leave them; never facing the underlining issues.
Fear? Of what, being left by my novel once it’s written…
Scared! Could that be it, I’m afraid of criticism? Nope! Sorry internal psyche, I may not love to be picked apart. But, I have to admit, the help of a second, third, or forth eye does have its merit.
Pacing, muttering to myself never helps. How can it? I am asking for help from the person who is causing the blockage.
Should I give up?
Nah!
I think my problem all stems from my glasses. I need a new prescription; the foggy letters are bothering me.
I will start that second chapter again.
It was a dark and stormy night….heavy sigh!
My husbands Valentine
Michael's valentine
She follows your every move
With eyes of gold, flecks of green
Squinting loving messages
Curled up next to you
While you sleep and read
She cheers you on, as you play Xbox
Excited, she enters the game with you
Sitting in her own chair, or across your lap
Watching each movement, ready for adventure
As long as you’re together
If you should leave the room
Soft paws follow, a tiny squeak escapes
A gentle cry, calling for you… Please Wait
She jumps in your lap, pushes her soft face against yours
Love and cherished, adoration shines through her movements
From her eyes, to her rough tongue, and gentle nips
She is captivated by your movements, your hair, and your voice
You feed her water from your hands
Patiently waiting until she has finished
She is your wooer, mistress… cat sweetheart…
Your kitty valentine
She is your…Tomoe
Hello! Meet Muffitt, My Mailbox
- Hello! Meet Muffitt, My Mailbox
“Out of all the bad, I am still here. I can get angry again. Anger is my life jacket. It helps me move out of the house, even if it is just to walk to the mailbox.. Oops forgot. Our mailbox was hit by a car last Wednesday. Gotta laugh, hysterically, insanely, still, I gotta laugh. ”
I wrote the above paragraph to a friend. Then I copied it out and pasted it here.
Why? I asked myself that question. Why is it when I’m at my lowest, the ceiling falls in my coffee? Or in the middle of a shower, right when I’m full of soap; the water stops.
Why do all the bills come in the day I don’t have a penny in my checking account?
Or, the cat upchucks in my shoes? Why does the cable go out at the end of a three hour movie; those last important five minutes?
Silly, simply, stupid things that happen, that pile up, one upon the other until I just have to scream, “No more! Stop running over my mailbox!”
You may be reading this thinking, what is she complaining about, worse has happened to me, to my neighbors, to the world.
I can’t argue with that. –Well, I could, but, I won’t.-
Most people, me included tend to down play problems. Like. “Just a cold,” means, “pneumonia.” “Just a scratch,” means, “watch out that arms about to fall off!”
We down play our health so we don’t show weakness. We hide our problems, then wonder why we have ulcers.
Laughter helps alleviate some of that stress. Real, gut laughing is the best. You known the laughter that hurts your sides and you nearly pee your pants. It’s hard to get into that place as an adult. Right? Maybe.
I remember watching an old movie, where a man was pretending to be insane. He explained that no one bothers an insane person. There are afraid, if they kill an insane person, the evil spirits will take up residence in them.
Hmmm.
There is a little known fact if you walk through a crowed grocery store, talking to your self, and your groceries. People will get out of your way.
“Hello, little bag of chips do you know which way the egg man has gone. We need to find him, he has good omelets.”
I have to admit, I did this. And, yes, the seas parted and I got through a crowed grocery store on a Saturday afternoon in thirty minutes.
If standing by my mailbox, using it as a ventriloquists dummy, could stop people from running into it; I would paint a face on my mailbox, and call it Muffitt.
1978 battlestar galactica reference…
Nomination for Seat in the United States Senate
Nominations for, President Elect Obama’s, Seat in the United States Senate- all this sounds like a new game show.
Who is the highest bidder?
Who can walk on water without getting wet?
Watch as they compete; who can keep straight faced while answering media questions.
The news is filled with tongue clicking, “how dare he” sounds from the media, and President Elect Obama.
All are very concerned with how Governor Blagojevich, whose phone was tapped. Now I have to stop here, I was under the impression he knew this was going on, right!
So -they say-while using his own phone he tried to sell President Elect Obama’s Senate seat. Okay! I have my eyes crossed and I am waiting for the punch line…
Sorry, guys, I have lived in Illinois, specifically Chicago, for most of my life and I have seen, heard and laughed at politics in Chicago, for years.
It is interesting, when the finger pointing starts, the rest of the hen house gathers off to the side clucking their outrage.
How can anyone, in any political capability, not know when one of their own has traveled out of bounds?
There are a few truths in the courts that Governor Blagojevich may be finding out, the biggest and most important:
“You are guilty until proven innocent.”
So, impeaching Governor Blagojevich, before he has his day in court, has me wondering what is being swept under the rug? And so fast?
I digress; I want to talk about the empty, Seat in the United States Senate.
I have the perfect person for the job; my husband!
Yes! You heard me right, my husband. I even sent President Elect Obama an email asking how to apply for that position.
He hasn’t answered me yet.
Hey! I do realize that Elizabeth on the View will get her invitation to the White house before anyone responds to me. (If you didn’t see the View this morning she was complaining she didn’t get an invitation this year.)
I decided to post that letter simple as it may be- here. Forward it if you like to President Elect Obama, your Congress person, Governor Blagojevich or even Elizabeth on the View.
Or, just cross your eyes and call me a “wack job”
President Elect Barack Obama;
This was taken from one of your web sites:
Second, end discrimination and promote equal opportunity.
Third, increase the employment rate of workers with disabilities.
And fourth, support independent, community-based living for Americans with disabilities”
The point of this email, with all the brouhaha going on about your Seat in the United States Senate, my husband and I were talking. That seat needs to be filled by someone that has ‘no ties’ to anyone asking for favors.
My husband is disabled; he has daily seizures brought on by a car accident he did not cause.
His constitutional right, “for the pursuit of happiness” brings me back to this email.
How can he, my husband apply for that position. His disability has knocked him out of the running for any position. Giving a person a job, despite his disability, standing next to a disabled person allowing them the pursuit of happiness, even when they are different, is there a place in this government for a person with such a disability?
My husband would need a driver to take him to work and back.
My husband has problems walking and sitting.
He would need time to go over things, just as anyone else would.
My husband has a great memory; it is a little foggy now.
My husband is very intelligent.
My husband has a way with words.
My husband is brutally honest.
My husband needs to find his happiness.
Again, I ask, how does he, my husband, Michael Baugh, apply for your, “Seat in the United States Senate?”
This isn’t a joke!
Mrs. Gerardine Baugh
NaNoWriMo Finish line crossed:-)
Can you hear the cheers:-)
http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/soundfx/applause_sounds/crowdapplause1wav.html
Hey, Sarah Palin, are you going to help ratify the Constitution for women’s rights??
,Gerardine Baugh ©Women’s Rights and the Great “Stay at Home Debates”…
I was reading a Blog where the, “stay at home mom” guilt debate was still alive. Not only alive. But generating the same guilt it had, when women were trying to “find their place” at home and at work in the sixties and seventies.
That phrase, “find their place” gave me pause, maybe that wasn’t quite what I meant.
I had to think about it for a few minutes, then I realized, it fits the “debate” to a tee.
After all these years, and I’m not just counting back from the sixties, with Gloria Steinmen . I am going back to the beginning of women’s rights, 1848.
As of this year, 2008, we still ‘only’ have the right to vote- ironed out.
Women are out in the streets, marching for the rights of illegal aliens. When, in reality, the United States government’s reality, we (women) don’t have any other rights, than the right to vote.
Please prove to me I’m wrong!
Check out what is still being said.
http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/status.htm (6)
‘National Women’s Hall of Fame’ (1)
“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men and women are created equal………” “With these words a dream was given life in historic Seneca Falls, New York, the Birthplace of Women’s Rights. Here, in 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton (a Seneca Falls resident), Lucretia Mott and 300 other women and men held the first Women’s Rights Convention. The Declaration of Sentiments, modeled after the Declaration of Independence, was presented and passed by the convention. These resolutions included among other demands, that women have the right to vote. The struggle for women’s rights had begun.” http://www.greatwomen.org/history.php
Women need to stop staring at the red-herrings that pop up when our rights are being questioned. If you’re wondering, in this circumstance, a red-herring is when the nineteenth amendment giving women the right to vote is waved like a flag. While a small voice in the back is asking, “What other amendments /rights do women have?” That voice is drowned out by the din of circular logic.
I have spoken to, and known, women who had no choice with the question, stay at home or work. Career, or get pushed back in the shadows, or fired if they complained about the, “good old boys club” at work.
Women who were sexually harassed will choose to leave their jobs rather than confront opposition. I have seen women stand by, while other women were mentally put down; afraid to step forward and loudly yell, “No more.” Afraid of being labeled a trouble maker, afraid to take a stand when the person in charge does a side step, I could go on. It all comes down to that word, “afraid.”
“Why the ERA Remains Legally Viable and Properly Before the States
(Summary of legal article on “Three-State Strategy” for ERA Ratification”)
“While women enjoy more rights today than they did when the ERA was first introduced in 1923 or when it passed out of Congress in 1972, hard-won laws against sex discrimination do not rest on any unequivocal constitutional foundation; they can be inconsistently enforced or even repealed. Elements of sex discrimination remain in statutory and case law, and courts have had difficulty applying a consistent standard to gender-based classifications, which are not inherently suspect or comparable to racial or ethnic classifications under equal-protection analysis.” http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/viability.htm)(2)
Why are we so afraid to stand up for ourselves? Can anyone answer this?
Even, when it’s another woman throwing the barbs; are we so conditioned not to believe in ourselves, our cause, our rights- that we fall back when told. Then attack other women for standing up to adversity.
We stutter and stammer when our decisions for ourselves and out families are questioned. Quick to agree with the agreeable, and happily discuss fashion, hair and designer handbags, there is nothing wrong with that -until it is being used as a, “red-herring.’
“Taught from infancy that beauty is woman’s scepter, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.
~ Mary Wollstonecraft”
http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/W&M%20law%20article.pdf (3)
“Thomas Jefferson wrote, “All men are created equal.” With regard to women, however, he qualified this statement, “[w]ere our state a pure democracy, there would be still excluded from our deliberations…women, who, to prevent depravations of morals and ambiguity of issues, should not mix promiscuously in gathers of men. In the 219 years since Jefferson described women as second-class citizens, the United States Constitution has not specifically recognized the rights of women. History suggests that laws lagging behind social change will remain on the legislative back burner until an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) establishes a constitutional demand for equality between the sexes.”
Did you know women have a special day, “Women’s Equality Day?” I told my husband, he laughed and said it was Tuesday, the 26th . Darn, I missed it!!
http://www.cnbc.com/id/26391005/ (4)
Would it be so bold of me to ask, why the “Equal Rights Amendment” hasn’t been ratified? I mean the government had time to give us our own day.
U.S. Constitution Online“The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
The ERA’s first section states “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” It was intended to place into law the equality of men and women. It was sent to the states in March, 1972. The original seven year deadline was extended to ten years. It expired unratified in 1982.
The text:
Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.” http://www.usconstitution.net/constamfail.html (12)
Ridiculously debating, being a stay at home mom, or one who works outside the home; while women ‘only’ have the right to vote….is laughable.
The words, “he or men/man”- legally aren’t superimposed into, “she or women/woman.” No matter how much we wish, or assume.
Legalities take on a different meaning when you need to debate their validity in front of the legal system. Don’t believe me! Try waving your greeting card congratulating you on “Women’s Equality Day” in court, using it as proof of women’s rights. See if it gets thrown out.
Sites referenced:
(1) http://www.greatwomen.org/history.php
(2) http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/viability.htm
(3) http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/W&M%20law%20article.pdf
(4) http://www.cnbc.com/id/26391005/
(5) http://www.holidaysmart.com/holidaylist.htm
(7) http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/status.htm (6)
(8) http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/fast_facts/resources/state_fact_sheet.php
(9) http://www.cultureofpeace.org/quotes/women-quotes.htm
(10) http://www.usconstitution.net/sentiments.html
(11) ~ http://www.nps.gov/archive/wori/declaration.htm ~Declaration of Sentiments~
(12) http://www.usconstitution.net/constamfail.html
A Writer’s Ellipsis 