My new Dollars and Sense cartoon is up!

D&S editor Amy Gluckman writes:

Women who came of age 20 or 30 years ago in the United States may be forgiven our surprise that the whole work-home-motherhood thing continues to be so fraught. Surely by now, many thought, women would not be sweating it—at least no more than men do. Wrong! The media can take some of the credit, for, among other things, continuing to play up the alleged mommy wars between “working” and “stay-at-home” moms. At a more basic level, many people (well, men) still seem to think homemaking and raising kids is basically a “Ten-Year Nap”—the (tongue-in-cheek, we hope) title of a current bestselling novel on the subject.

There’s also some interesting stuff about what happened to Japanese divorces when the laws about pension allocations to ex-spouses changed, but you’ll have to click through to read that. :-)

From the Dollars and Sense blog:

Peter Wagner of the Prison Policy Initiative sent us this link to a recent article in Slate magazine. The article cites the curious phenomenon that professional baseball players are much more likely to be born in August than July. The author theorizes that August babies aren’t naturally better at baseball — they’re just older than their peers, because Aug. 1 is the normal cut-off date for youth baseball leagues.

The author concludes that this structural benefit for the August-born is a “small advantage can have an impact that lasts a lifetime.”

Which reminds me of this old cartoon of mine:

A few weeks ago I walked into my local supermarket to see that a 10 oz. bar of cheese was “on sale” for $5.39. I did a double take–maybe they meant two bars of cheese for $5.39. Generally, the sale on that brand of cheese is 2 for $4.00 or 2 for $5.00, but sure enough this was somehow supposed to be a sale. I’ve been complaining about this since last year–the cost of food is soaring. Last year, I could generally get out of the supermarket paying around $65-85.00 for two people, now I’m paying $90.00 or more. The higher prices seem to apply across the board–fresh produce, canned foods, flour/rice, and most dramatically dairy. Of course, I’m fortunate to be able to suck it up and pay the higher prices, but many lower income folks in this country and other wealthy countries are struggling, and in poorer countries, people are taking to the streets in protest because they are unable to feed their families.

A quick search of Google news indicates that we really are in a world wide food crisis. I’m not so sure that there is an actually shortage of food, but the crisis appears to be the cost. Some of the countries where people are struggling with soaring food prices, include–Afghanistan, Haiti, South Africa, Namibia, New Zealand, Ivory Coast, and numerous others. The situation is getting so serious that the United Nations (and the World Bank) weighed in last week :

The head of the UN World Food Programme has warned that the rise in basic food costs could continue until 2010.

Josette Sheeran blamed soaring energy and grain prices, the effects of climate change and demand for biofuels.

Ms Sheeran has already warned that the WFP is considering plans to ration food aid due to a shortage of funds.

Some food prices rose 40% last year, and the WFP fears the world’s poorest will buy less food, less nutritious food or be forced to rely on aid.

Speaking after briefing the European Parliament, Ms Sheeran said the agency needed an extra $375m (244m euros; £187m) for food projects this year and $125m (81m euros; £93m) to transport it.

She said she saw no quick solution to high food and fuel costs.

“The assessment is that we are facing high food prices at least for the next couple of years,” she said.

Ms Sheeran said global food reserves were at their lowest level in 30 years - with enough to cover the need for emergency deliveries for 53 days, compared with 169 days in 2007.

Several factors have been cited as causes for the food price crisis including: rising fuel cost, the shift towards biofuels (e.g. ethanol), population growth, the growth of capitalist economies, and weather patterns. The greatest criticism in the range of articles I read has been reserved for government subsidies for bio-fuels, specifically ethanol. Many feel that the shift to ethanol and bio-fuels is environmentally harmful, but now we can add soaring food prices and hunger to the list of arguments against bio-fuels1.

1. If you want more information of about the food crisis, these graphs from the BBC website have useful information about the food price crisis. The only additional point I would add is that (see the chart of trade balances) while some countries like the US will benefit in the area of trade, I don’t think that the average American is benefiting from this. A few corporate farmers may be getting rich, but the vast majority of people are hurting. We’re not hurting anywhere near as much as poor people in poor countries. (back)

From Tapped, Dana advises pregnant workers to give written notice… of pregnancy:

That’s one of the lessons in Sue Shellenbarger’s latest Wall Street Journal column, which reports that pregnancy bias complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission rose 14 percent last year to 5,587, a 40 percent increase from a decade ago. One woman in the publishing industry was fired while she was pregnant, supposedly for poor performance, yet those issues had never come up prior to her pregnancy. She wanted legal redress, but couldn’t prove in writing that her bosses actually knew she was expecting. So consider sharing your big news over email.

Shallenbarger also writes that many American women, until they get pregnant, have no idea that they are entitled to no paid leave under current law. Indeed, a study from Harvard University last year found that of 168 nations worldwide, the United States is one of only four whose government doesn’t require employers to provide paid maternity leave. The others are Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.

Dave Sim is one of the greatest living cartoonists, and his work has been very influential on my own approach to cartooning. Over the decades he’s also become an extreme, extreme anti-feminist. In a recent discussion on the Sequential Tart website, Dave wrote:

The last I heard roughly 80% of the women in our society work outside the home at outside the home jobs…forty years ago only 20% of women worked — most of them in a period between graduating from high school and getting married and then getting pregnant. Sixty years ago maybe 6% worked.

Since the run-up from 20% to 80% was largely unimpeded…

The point about percentages is really my best attempt at the collapsing of what I have to say to white dwarf size. We are definitely plowing forward to 100% of one and 0% of the other … Used to be 6% became 20% is now 80%…where do you THINK we’re going? … I don’t think it’s a good idea and I don’t think we’re well served in not examining it.

My response to Dave:¹

Dave, you’re basing your stated argument here on some factual errors. If your main concern is that we’ll be in trouble when we reach 100%, then I’ve got good news for you: It’ll never happen. In fact, we’ll never even reach 80%. Or 70%.

In the USA, about 59% of women are in the paid labor force, including both women actively looking for paid jobs, and those who currently have paid jobs.

Forty years ago, in 1968, about 40% of women were in the labor force, not 20% as you stated. Sixty years ago, in 1948, about 33% of women were in the labor force — not 6%.²

So, at least in the US, women didn’t used to do paid jobs as little as you’re claiming, and they don’t currently do paid jobs as often as you think. But can’t we say you’re correct about the overall direction of the trend, even though you’re mistaken about the specific numbers?

No, you’re mistaken about the trend too — because the percent of women in the paid labor force isn’t climbing anymore. It’s leveled out. Fifteen years ago, it was about 58%; in 2001, it peaked at 60%; and in 2005 (most recent year I’ve seen data for) it was at 59%. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics is predicting (based on demographic changes, economic changes, etc) that it’ll still be about the same in 2025. (That’s only a guess, of course, but it’s the most educated and well-founded guess anyone has at this point.)

So there’s no need to worry about what happens when 100% of women are in the paid laborforce. It will never happen. Nor is that news that disappoints feminists, as far as I can tell. In recent years, the approach among feminists is to work for not only equal access to all paid jobs, but also for more respect and economic security for people who do unpaid caring labor.

(By the way, did you know that men are working less than ever? In 1950, 86% of men had a paid job or were looking for one; today that’s gone down a bit, to 75%. The statisticians expect that number to keep dropping, to a predicted 69% in 2025. A bit of this change is due to a small, growing number of men having the freedom to stay home and take care of their kids, if that’s what they want).

* * *

You also wrote “Since the run-up from 20% to 80% was largely unimpeded…”

Women’s labor force participation was about 20% back in 1900. The run-up since then has not been unimpeded; indeed, the legal right for women to own their own paychecks had to be fought for. As recently as the 1970s, “help wanted” classified sections in many newspapers were still divided into “women” and “men” sections. Open discrimination against female workers was legal until new laws in the 70s and 80s, and a lot of less open discrimination still goes on today. (Just last year the Supreme Court of the US ruled that women who are systematically paid less than male co-workers for the same work can only sue within a few months of being hired or getting an unequal raise — after that, the employer’s discrimination is free and clear of legal repercussions.)

* * *

I don’t think that feminists want 100% of women (or men) in paid jobs. What is it feminists want?

Well, I’m a feminist. What I want is for people to have as much freedom as possible to choose a mix of home life and work life that suits them, without having to lose economic security, and regardless of if they’re female or male. I think very few people really want to be at the job 40-60 hours a week for 40 or 50 years (although there are some, but most of us don’t have interesting, creative jobs); and very few people really want a life that consists of nothing but their home and family. (For one thing, kids grow up, so that’s not really a whole-life plan.)

Over the last century, the lives of women and men have gotten a lot more similar; women have more access to paid jobs, including decently-paid jobs, than they used to (although it’s still not where it should be, especially for poor women and women of color). Men are spending less of their lifetimes at jobs, and they’re freer than they used to be to prioritize time with their families if that’s what they want (although there are still too many barriers). Wage discrimination against women, and safety discrimination against men (especially non-white and immigrant men), still exists — but it’s gone down.

I think those are all positive trends, and — speaking for this one feminist — I hope they continue.

1. I posted this response on Sequential Tart, then edited it a little before posting it here. (back)
2. Citations: You can find simple info about women’s labor force participation by clicking here. You can find a more complex essay discussing this stuff, including predictions for where labor trends are going, by reading this essay, but it’s a pdf file. (back)

Because I think I may have just read the winner.. Brownifemipower at La Chola riffs on the use and misuse of Audre Lorde’s famous comment that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” I’m not certain I agree with everything BFP says,¹ but I agree with a hell of a lot if it.

BFP also gets at something I’ve been thinking about lately; the use of “we” on the left. Can Hugo and BFP — or BFP and I, for that matter — really be considered part of the same movement at all? I don’t think so; I’m too comfortable here in the house, drawing my comics. I might say supportive things about BFP’s movement, and hope she’s right and her movement wins in the end, but I won’t really join it.

Hat tip: The Silence Of Our Friends.

UPDATE: Just came across this post on Anxious Black Woman:

As the late poet Audre Lorde once wrote: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. It may allow us to temporarily defeat him at his own game, but it will never bring about real change.” And that’s the real issue, isn’t it? What exactly is our long term goal here? Is it simply to ensure that black women have a seat at the table of power? One of us is already there (always looking at you, Condi!) yet here we are, pretty much in agreement that black women collectively are in a sad state when it comes to our political power. So, what has such tokenism done for us? Should our goal be to include as many of us at that table (which is why I’m all about how we can increase our numbers to begin with and why I would even bother with meaningful dialogue to raise the consciousness of those whose consciousness needs raising)? Or do we need to set up a different kind of table?

1. I’m never sure what people mean when they refer to “the market,” for example — would a mixed-market economy like Sweden used to have be considered “the market,” for instance? (back)

“Congestion Pricing” is the practice of charging people more to drive in heavy-traffic areas during the most popular driving times; this results in less traffic congestion. Economist Johnathan Leape has an interesting report on how congestion pricing is going in London (very well, he says) and how it’s been made more progressive (using the taxes to subsidize public transportation).

The charging zone […] is defined by a ring of roads that provide alternative routes for through traffic, at no charge. For those who cross the boundary, the cost was originally set at five pounds (about $10) a day, with zone residents entitled to a 90 percent discount. In 2005, the rate was raised to eight pounds (about $16). […]

The border is enforced by video cameras, which were already common in London. Concerns about civil liberties have been diminished by the cameras’ effectiveness in reducing street crime. The cameras read vehicle license plates and a computer matches them against a list of those who have paid and those exempt (which, in London, includes emergency services vehicles, taxis, buses, low-emissions vehicles, and all two-wheelers).[…]

The impact of the scheme exceeded expectations. In the first year of the charge, traffic delays in London dropped by 30 percent, journey time reliability increased by 30 percent, and average speeds rose 17 percent, reflecting a sharp fall in traffic jams at intersections (the time spent traveling at speeds less than 6 mph decreased by one-third). The charge also changed who was using the roads: private car trips dropped by 34 percent, and trucks and vans by 5 to 7 percent, but bus, taxi, and bike trips all rose sharply. The overall impact was a noticeable improvement in traffic conditions. […]

By committing to plough all the revenues raised by the congestion charge into public transportation improvements, London has ensured that congestion pricing didn’t just improve mobility for car drivers who can pay the charge (the “Lexus lanes” problem) but also increased access to the city centre for everyone. […]

The higher cost of rush-hour car trips and increased bus travel speeds, due to reduced congestion, result in increasing passenger numbers and falling average costs — which, in turn, lead to improved service levels and lower fares that stimulate further shifts to public transport and additional reductions in congestion.

Via Common Tragedies.

This cartoon isn’t by me; it’s by my pal Kevin Moore. Click on the panel to read the whole thing.

From A Tiny Revolution, the Daily Show writers explain the premises of the writer’s strike with their usual flair and humor.

Megan McArdle writes:

I don’t know why Matt should find this remarkable:

Still, the main psychological point remains that there’s a remarkable tendency to equate advocating that others engage in risky acts of physical violence with the idea of possessing courage and strength as personal characteristics.

After all, we’ve already internalized the notion that advocating taxing other people in order to give their money to someone else is somehow morally akin to charity.

I find the “taxing other people” argument — which conservatives and libertarians use frequently — bewildering. “I think people, but not me, should go to Iraq and risk death,” just ain’t analogous to “I think all taxpayers, me included, should pay for a generous safety net.”

In a followup post, Megan implies that liberals only favor using wealthy people’s money to pay for social programs. Poppycock.¹ I’m hardly high-income, but I pay taxes. So do most liberals and leftists. And although liberals and leftists² favor raising taxes on the wealthy, not all rich people are republican.³

Note also that SCHIPP, which is paid for from cigarette taxes, has received enthusiastic support from lefties — even though smokers are not an especially wealthy group.

Yet the idiotic “liberals want to spend other people’s money” idea is commonplace among conservatives .

1. The word “poppycock” “is actually American in origin, first turning up there about 1865. The OED is silent on its origin, but most modern dictionaries know well where it comes from: the Dutch word pappekak for soft faeces.” (back)
2. ”L&L” — the newest sequel to Dungeons & Dragons! (back)
3. Incidentally, the overall tax structure in the US is flattish — the vast majority of Americans pay about 16% of their income in taxes, give or take a couple of percent. (back)

From Brad Plumer:

For the past 20 years, the World Bank and assorted Western governments have been telling Malawi how to conduct its affairs. Stop subsidizing crop prices. Curtail spending. Float your currency. And so on. More recently, in 2000, donors demanded that Malawi dismantle a fledgling program that subsidized fertilizer for poor farmers–who often can’t afford it on their own–on the grounds that the subsidies would make it impossible for a “solid agricultural market to develop.”

Well, it’s hard to flout the donors, and Malawi did as told. What happened next? Some 1,500 Malawians starved to death in 2002, and five million more needed emergency rations in 2005. So, last year, the government finally told its “advisors” to shove off and put the subsidies back in place. Two years of record surpluses followed, and Malawi is now shipping excess maize to Zimbabwe. As Toronto’s Globe and Mail tells it, the subsidies have worked wonders; they’re far cheaper than importing food aid; and even the EU has reversed its stance and pledge to underwrite the fertilizer coupons.

And from The New York Times:

Bank policies in the 1980s and 1990s that pushed African governments to cut or eliminate fertilizer subsidies, decontrol prices and privatize may have improved fiscal discipline but did not accomplish much for food production, the evaluation said.

It had been expected that higher prices for crops would give farmers an incentive to grow more, while competition among private traders reduced the costs of seeds and fertilizer. But those market forces often failed to work as hoped.

“The whole thing was based on the idea that if you take away the government for the poorest of the poor that somehow these markets will solve the problems,” Professor Sachs said. “But markets can’t step in and won’t step in when people have nothing. And if you take away help, you leave them to die.”

Professor Easterly said the bank’s managers had made elementary mistakes. “It was a simplistic, Economics 101 lesson, that if you raise prices, farmers produce more, which makes sense if farmers have roads, access to credit, good access to fertilizer markets,” he said. “But most of the time, farmers were lacking those.”

From Dani Rodrik:

The slave trade, whereby able-bodied Africans were shipped to other parts of the world and sold into slavery, was a despicable economic institution for sure. But did it also have long-run effects on the economic development of African countries? Yes, is the surprising answer of Nathan Nunn (pdf link):

I construct measures of the number of slaves exported from each country in Africa, in each century between 1400 and 1900. The estimates are constructed by combining data from ship records on the number of slaves shipped from each African port or region with data from a variety of historical documents that report the ethnic identities of slaves that were shipped from Africa. I find a robust negative relationship between the number of slaves exported from each country and subsequent economic performance. The African countries that are the poorest today are the ones from which the most slaves were taken.

Nunn is careful to try to rule out reverse causation: he finds that the regions from which slaves were taken were, if anything, the more developed parts of Africa at the time.

The most likely explanation for the result? “[The] procurement of slaves through internal warfare, raiding, and kidnapping resulted in subsequent state collapse and ethnic fractionalization.”

There’s some interesting discussion in the comments there, too.

Read the rest of this entry »

(Larger version can be viewed here.)

This is actually a cartoon from years ago, which I just redrew this week. Here, for comparison, is the original cartoon:

Read the rest of this entry »

I sleep walk.

I don’t actually sleep walk - I sleep run. I have these dreams where a bomb is about to go off in my flat and I have to get out now. So I get out of bed and run out of the house. These dreams come in different intensities, but at their worst I know I’m about to die, and I’m terrified of that death.*

When I was small I lived in Thatcher’s Britain, the Britain of Protect & Survive. I was terrified of bombs. When we moved to New Zealand I was five, and I listed one of my favourite things about this country that their were no bombs.

I don’t think my terror dreams come from those years in Britain. I think they’re a stress or anxiety response. But I think it’s because of Margaret Thatcher and her pals that I dream of bombs. If I lived in different times I might be running from Wolves, or communists. I’d probably be just as scared, but that’s small consolation when I can still taste the adrenalin from believing that I was about to burn to death.

As far as Thatcher’s casualties go - my experience is nothing. The miners lives weren’t ruined in their dreams, they were ruined in reality. While she never dropped a nuclear bomb, she did drop other bombs. Her economic policies led to redundancies and unemployment - those aren’t just abstract ideas - they kill people. Poverty kills, hoplessness kills - the year after the miner’s strike saw many more than the usual number of suicides. It’s not just economic policies either Section 28, passed by the Tories, made it illegal to promote the teaching in state schools “the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.”

So when someone responds to me posting the lyrics to Merry Christmas Margaret Thatcher with: “Nothing Margaret Thatcher did is worth hoping for her death” - that really depends on what, and who, you value. People have died because of Margaret Thatcher.

I don’t think individuals are the driving force for politics, if Thatcher hadn’t been there, it would have been someone else. I don’t particularly hope for her death any more, she’s old and out of power, and probably a little bit out of it anyway. But when she does die you better believe that I’m going to celebrate. I’m going to dig out my parents old anti-Margaret Thatcher t-shirt and put it on, I will play anti-Margaret Thatcher songs all day, and I will write a post on this blog, maybe about Women Against Pit Closures.

My favourite phrase in Solidarity Forever is ‘we will break their haughty power’. The power to ruin people’s lives by remote control and sit back with a cup of tea is a haughty power indeed. To suggest that people shouldn’t be angry about what is done to them, and other people, shouldn’t be angry at that haughty power, is telling them their lives don’t matter.

1,000 service workers in New Zealand hospitals have gone on strike, and then been locked-out. Service workers are some of hte lowest paid workers in any hospital. In this case the workers have been trying to get one contract to cover orderlies, cleaners, and so on, at public hospitals throughout New Zealand. They’ve got agreement with the Hospital Boards, and all but one of the companies that subcontract this work, but one company, Spotless, is still holding out. Hospital workers at Spotless have gone on strike.

Any time 1,000 workers get locked out it’s important that we win. The fight for a single pay scale for service workers in the hospitals is an important one. Raising the starting rate of these low-paid workers to $14.25 an hour would be a great victory. But this is also a fight against contracting-out, and it’s a fight we have to win.

Theoretically businesses, and government organisations, contract out services. They contract a company to clean, or to perform a certain task. But in reality they’re contracting out employment.

Cleaning is a really good example of this. It’s a low capital industry, and large cleaning companies don’t get huge economies of scale. Companies get their printing done by a contract because they don’t print enough to justify having the equipment sitting around all day. It takes about the same amount of equipment to clean a hospital whether the equipment is owned by Spotless or the Hospital, and neither of them can use the equipment elsewhere. In fact, by contracting out companies, and government organisations have to pay extra, to cover the profit that any cleaning company is going to make.

So why do hospitals (or businesses or anyone else) contract out their cleaning? Because they can use the tendering process to drive down the cost. To win tenders, and bid lower than other cleaning companies, the winning company has to either pay their workers less, or get their workers to do more cleaning in less time.

Contracting out is so effective, because everyone can claim that they’re not responsible. The cleaning companies aren’t responsible, because they can’t afford to pay any more than they’re given. The hospital that contracts out its cleaning isn’t responsible because it’s up to the sub-contractor how much money to pay.

It’s a vicious way of keeping wages and conditions down, and the only way workers can fight it is by organising. Hospital workers in the SFWU have fought really hard to get this far. An agreement with the DHBs, and all but one of the contractors is a huge step forward. But it will be meaningless unless they can get Spotless to agree to the same terms and conditions, otherwise Spotless will be able to undercut other companies up and down the country, and wages will go on a downwards spiral again.

Contacting out can affect all workers. Although low-paid workers like cleaners are the most vulnerable, all sorts of jobs can be done on a contracting out basis. So it’s really important that all workers support the hospital workers in this battle against contracting out, and for one wage scale for all workers.

Or, what she said:

All amounts are in NZ dollars, so I don’t want to hear anything about how it’s a reasonable amount of money - because it’s not.

On a pandagon thread about socialized medicine, a commenter called Catty writes, “I know 2 die-hard libertarians that are now universal health care supporters. Funny how problems like multiple sclerosis and cancer can change people’s minds.”

I have always supported universal health care, but jesus fuck she’s right.

A couple weeks ago, I started having some strange symptoms. Last week, I went to the ER to speak to a physician, and she said the things I didn’t want to hear — namely, that my symptoms were consonant with two bad diagnoses: diabetic neuropathy and multiple sclerosis.

I have since been to my regular physician who is not nearly so concerned. I am still being checked for diabetes, but she’s holding off on the MRI to diagnose for multiple sclerosis for now. We’re first looking into other possible causes which are much more benign, such as hypothyroidism, advanced anemia, migraine, and anxiety.

I am an incredibly privileged woman. I’ve never been without health care. My health insurance is incredibly good. I pay $5 for doctor visits, and $5 for medications. I’ve always known that my health insurance was great, but I don’t think it’s ever really hit home for me how much uninsured people have to pay for their health care — not just going into debt, but going bankrupt, becoming homeless, and sometimes having to make the difficult decision to let themselves or their loved ones die from treatable illnesses.

Another commenter called Jodie relates the following story, “My 27 year old brother in law developed an intense headache on a Thursday, dx’d as brain tumor after an MRI, had surgery, went to intensive care, had chemo, and died prior to the next Thursday. Cost after insurance: $280,000 (at last count, I don’t think all the bills are in yet)… That bill was amassed in less than a week.”

Note: After insurance.

Other commenters discuss surgery for marrow transplants coming in at $250,000, refills for cancer drugs being in the thousands of dollars, a course of treatment for a major illness costing hundreds of thousands. Canadian commenters relate how relieved they are to live in Canada, after considering the ramifications of the major illnesses in their lives should they happen to have been American and uninsured. When a parent, a sibling, and another close relative are sick, often the whole family can’t find enough money to fund health care for all of them, even when they go into debt. They must choose bankruptcy or death.

Treatment for uninsured people is abominable. Uninsured people often have no choice but to obtain their health care through emergency room visits, which are phenomenally expensive. Pandagon commenters report paying $300-1,200 for emergency room visits, for things as routine as obtaining antibiotics for a bladder infection. One commenter notes that his $320 physical meant that he had to put off paying his bills for a month.

Facing debt, uninsured people often put off going to the doctor until their dieases have progressed beyond treatment. Worse, if they do go, they may be ignored. Pandagon recently reported incidents of uninsured people being left to die in hospital emergency rooms.

In the emergency room at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, Edith Isabel Rodriguez was seen as a complainer.

“Thanks a lot, officers,” an emergency room nurse told Los Angeles County police who brought in Rodriguez early May 9 after finding her in front of the Willowbrook hospital yelling for help. “This is her third time here.”

The 43-year-old mother of three had been released from the emergency room hours earlier, her third visit in three days for abdominal pain. She’d been given prescription medication and a doctor’s appointment.

Turning to Rodriguez, the nurse said, “You have already been seen, and there is nothing we can do,” according to a report by the county office of public safety, which provides security at the hospital.

Parked in the emergency room lobby in a wheelchair after police left, she fell to the floor. She lay on the linoleum, writhing in pain, for 45 minutes, as staffers worked at their desks and numerous patients looked on.

Aside from one patient who briefly checked on her condition, no one helped her. A janitor cleaned the floor around her as if she were a piece of furniture. A closed-circuit camera captured everyone’s apparent indifference.

Arriving to find Rodriguez on the floor, her boyfriend unsuccessfully tried to enlist help from the medical staff and county police — even a 911 dispatcher, who balked at sending rescuers to a hospital.

Alerted to the “disturbance” in the lobby, police stepped in — by running Rodriguez’s record. They found an outstanding warrant and prepared to take her to jail. She died before she could be put into a squad car.

At the same hospital, in 2003, “20-year-old Oluchi Oliver waited hours to be admitted to the hospital with crippling stomach pains, according to his family. After 10 hours, he collapsed dead on the floor. No one noticed, his father, Akilah Oliver, said.”

I had a brief hiccup with my insurance coverage the day I decided to go into the ER, and it looked like I might not be covered at all. (Now, I’m covered by two health care plans.) I almost didn’t go in. My mother told me I had to go in, that they’d find a way to fund it if I were sick. We are extremely well-off for the United States, but I doubt that even we could find a way to pay $250,000 if I didn’t have insurance and needed a marrow transplant.

I’m watching my reactions as I read this Pandagon thread. I am so scared. I probably don’t have MS. I’m repeating this to myself as a mantra. My other mantra involves facts about MS. If I do have MS, I have all the indicators of a good prognosis. I am young, white, and female. If I do have MS, it’s extremely likely that I have the type that remits, instead of the type that progresses until you die. Hell, 15% of people who have MS never suffer a second attack.

And there are drugs! One of my fiance’s professors told him about two people she knows with MS, who were diagnosed in their thirties, and who now, in their fifties, have been kept symptom-free with drugs. I called one of my friends who is in medical school, and he told me to remember that both MS and diabetic neuropathy require lifestyle changes, but may not affect life quality.

Even in the worst case scenario, I’ll be okay. That’s not enough to keep me from worrying or being depressed, but it’s good news. Nevertheless, I’m a basket case as I wait for my blood test results.

I can’t imagine how much worse it would be if I didn’t know how I was going to pay for the medical expenses of my doctor visits, my blood tests, my MRIs, my visits with the neurologist and/or dietician. Without insurance, would I be able to afford those drugs that could keep the multiple sclerosis in check, preventing me from losing the use of my limbs, my speech, and my brain?

I don’t understand how anyone can oppose universal health care. A libertarian in that thread is spouting off strange talking points. Some are demonstrably false. Countries with socialized health care do not have more bureacracy than we do; they have less, because hospitals don’t have to deal with insurance claims. They don’t have longer wait times than we do. They don’t force patients into predetermined courses of treatment. The cost in taxes is more, but studies have shown that while taxes are higher in many countries with socialized medicine, the American middle class ends up screwed with their lower tax rate — because we have pay not only our taxes, but we also have to pay through the nose to privately fund things that countries like Sweden provide for free. We end up paying a huge amount more, just so we can claim that we have lower taxes.

One of his talking points is that he doesn’t feel he should be forced to help people who are less fortunate. Does he understand that he’s talking about people who will die without his help? Help that he will benefit from, because he as a middle class American would pay less if taxes were higher but provided more services? Someday, he may have a medical emergency, and god forbid he should be denied his insurance. He may bankrupt himself and his whole family. If he chooses to finish treatment, he might lose his home. We might force him, as we force others, to choose between the basic necessity of shelter, and death.

Meanwhile, he can’t even imagine those scenarios. Over and over again, he talks about the undue burden that would be placed on him if he had to help other people. He can’t imagine himself in their shoes. If he can imagine their pain, he doesn’t care. What a strange, frightening lack of empathy. What a limited view of the world.

My empathy is heightened right now, because of course this medical issue has me sensitized to issues of my own mortality. It’s odd to move from the life in which I thought of myself as healthy, to the life a few days later when I realize that I could have a progressive and debilitating illness.

I don’t want to be going through this. I want to feel safe and well again. Hopefully, my diagnosis will be benign, and soon I will be feeling safe and well again. Even if I have MS, I am sure that eventually my sense of weakness, fear and vulnerability would dull, and my illness would become just another part of my life. That’s another thing I’ve been repeating to myself for the past couple weeks. Studies show that paraplegics are just as happy one year after their injury as they were before it occured. People are amazingly adaptive; anything can become ordinary. If they are equally happy after that, then I will surely be equally happy even if my diagnosis is MS.

I am so amazingly lucky to be worrying only about my health. If I were worried that I was about to bankrupt my loved ones, and that I wouldn’t be able to afford life-saving care, this painful experience would become a constant waking nightmare. Any person who would wish that on other people is both monstrous and lacking in empathy.

“Subprime mortgages.” Boy, I sure pick exciting topics, don’t I?

There’s a larger version of this cartoon on Znet.

For some reason this post at Women of Color Blog and this post at the way here reminded me of my childhood, and the social class dynamics of growing up poor.  In her post on Women of Color blog BFP mentions working at McDonalds, which reminded me of my own food service experiences.  I worked in fast food, but my first actual food service experience was in elementary school.  This is where Monica’s post fits in.  Somehow in a very long comment thread the subject turned to government cheese (or in Rosyln’s words “gubmint cheese”), which they served in the cafeteria at my elementary school.¹

How do I know what was served in the cafeteria at my school?  Well, like all of the other kids in the 5th and 6th grade, I worked in the cafeteria.  I can imagine the middle class mostly white suburban readers gasping now because no “respectable” middle class school would ever make their students work in the cafeteria, but my school did. 

Here’s how it worked.  There were a total of two 5th grade and two 6th grade classes.  Each week one of those classes had cafeteria duty, and most of the students in the class would go down to the cafeteria around 10:30 and start helping the janitors and cafeteria workers serve lunch to the students.  There were different jobs, which were gendered and assigned base on skills.  The most prestigious job was selling ice cream since it involved actually having to count money, and the teacher picked the smartest kids.  It was also cooler out in that part of the cafeteria, and only people who had an extra 30 cents to spend on lunch could buy ice cream, so there wasn’t any deluge of kids running to the counter.  The rest of the student workers were in three groups, which were assigned by the cooks and janitors.  You had the lunch servers, who put food on trays.  This was mostly girls with a few boys mixed in, and it was the moderate prestige position.  Then, there were the lowest prestige positions: dish washers, (mostly girls), and tray dumpers, (mostly boys).  The tray dumpers had to empty the trays after the students were done eating, and take out garbage.  Oh and I almost forget, that there was a person who had to wash tables, which I believe was one of those mid-level prestige jobs.  Lunch generally ended around noon, and we had recess around that time period. 

The students were paid for their work in free meals, and of course this work was also considered valuable job training because it taught us about hard work and responsibility.  Moreover, in a low income school, this was one more way to save money.  I don’t know that they could afford to hire that many people to work at the school because the local tax base was very low.  The school also saved money by getting government subsidized food, such as government cheese. (Which in my opinion was pretty good, but that’s for another debate.)

I suspect lunch was very different than it would be in a middle class school for other reasons as well. 

The majority of the kids in my school were eligible for free lunches, and very few kids packed their lunches.  How do I know this?  Because we had to line up for lunch based on how we were paying–free lunch kids went first, then reduced lunch ($.45), and full price lunch was last ($.75).  Most of the kids lined up for free lunch.  I also remember when my mother finally got a full time job teaching special education at the school because I got to move to the back of the lunch line with Jason and Aaron, who were the “wealthier” kids in my class.  My Dad said we were probably still eligible for the reduced price lunch, but my mother’s pride was not going to allow her to have her kids on reduced lunch while she was teaching in the school. I also knew many of our kids were eligible for free lunch because I looked at data when I was in high school and we were campaigning for a school levy.  All of the people campaigning were given a sheet of paper that had data comparing our school to other schools in the state of Ohio based on test scores, per pupil spending, teacher pay, and other relevant socio-economic indicators.  As I looked through the sheet all of the numbers were very low, mostly in the bottom 20% or bottom 5%.  Finally, I got to the end of the chart, and I leaned over to my mother and said,

“Hey mom we’re really high in this one.  What does AFDC mean?”  My mom replied,

“That’s welfare.”

We both started laughing because it was the only figure where the school was actually in the top 5%. (I don’t think they had teen pregnancy or drop out rates because we would have been in the top on those, too.)  

In junior and high school things were a little different.  The kids still served lunches, but it was only the kids in special education who worked in the cafeteria, and they did so almost every day.  Those of us who were not in special education were weeded out of food service, and we spent our time in the classroom.

I’ve been reflecting quite a bit on social class over the last 5 or 6 years, especially as it relates to education.  I know my own children are not going to grow up like me, and I have mixed feelings about that.  As much as I know that many middle income people would find it offensive to have their kids work in the school cafeteria for free food, I have more mixed feelings.  Poor kids and working class kids seem to grow up quicker, and they are not coddled in the ways that middle and upper income kids are.  I suppose many people are going to say having kids serve in the cafeteria is child labor.  I guess it is, but I’m more ambivalent about it.  I’ve been doing this type of labor since the 5th grade. I stuffed envelopes for my dad in high school, and I worked as a Whopper flopper at Burger King.  I think work is valuable, and I think we shouldn’t shame people because their jobs are low paying or low prestige, but the other side of me knows that we are really funneling kids into the occupations that we expect for their social class.  Middle class kids don’t have to grow-up as fast, in part because they will be starting their labor force participation later and because their parents know their incomes are going to be directly linked to having a higher level and better quality education.

I know I’m the exception.  I’m the person who grew up in the very poor environment and “made it out” thanks to my mother’s college degree, my smarts, my determination, help from others, and lucky breaks (I’ve written a little about this before.).  There is a huge part of me that feels happy that I had the experience of being poor, of having an outhouse, and of having to working in the school cafeteria, but that is largely because that was temporary for me.  For a long time I didn’t regret these things because I didn’t really know exactly how middle class people really lived.  Of course, I knew that they had wealthier schools (and indoor plumbing) and more opportunities, but I couldn’t clarify what exactly those were.  I guess the one advantage I have at this point is that I am fairly able to go back and forth across class divides–I know about government cheese and I know what feta cheese is too. :)  I wouldn’t be able to do this had I not grown up poor, and I wouldn’t have know how hard working and determined poor people are.  I also wouldn’t recognize the advantages and privileges of my current class position, and I would treat them more as a given.

Congrats you made it to the end of this loooong piece!!!

1. I also remember my dad going down to the fire station and getting some government cheese to eat at home.  I would suspect that many people who have been poor and are over the age of 30 are familiar with government cheese, but if you are not, go check out the link. (back)

From an essay called The Revolution Will Not Be Funded; a later draft of this essay appears, I believe, in the book of the same name.

The corporate nonprofit structure encouraged by tax law doesn’t just promote financial short-sightedness through its focus on grants. This corporate structure is an intrinsic part of existing oppression, so it also inhibits the most radical aspects of our work. Suzanne Pharr, longtime Southern activist working against racism, sexism, homophobia and economic inequality, recites a straightforward list of losses that social justice movements have suffered as a result of common nonprofit fundraising strategies: The nonprofit sector, she asserts, has given us more government and corporate money, less autonomy from those sources of money, less community membership and involvement in organizations, more corporate mimicry, and more professionalization of roles within grassroots movements.

The effects of all this? Organizations are no longer places where money and leadership are controlled by their constituents. Instead, leadership jobs go to those from the outside: people with degrees in social work, accounting and nonprofit management. With fewer people involved in organizations and with money coming from the nation’s financially powerful, the direction of nonprofit work veers away from the struggles of the people in whose name those organizations often operate. The money covers financial reports, professional grantwriters’ salaries and strategies for meeting funders’—not organizations’, let alone movements’—goals. As a result, organizations that began as radical grassroots associations of individuals become corporations that largely copy the mainstream economy. They are professional, though not educated on the ground about the actual issues; organized, but not effective; compliant with tax laws, but not responsive or accountable to community needs.