Wednesday Morning Rant

What’s going on here?

Susan sent me Maureen Dowd’s column, which featured one of the creators of “Will and Grace”—which apparently was a television show—as being disgusted and heartsick at the Supreme Court. He felt—didn’t we all?—that we were all in a sort of time warp; five of the justices are all back in the fifties, the rest of us have moved on.

Well, I can see that—but only out of my right eye. My left eye went cloudy, last Thursday, just in time for the Easter weekend. Of course my ophthalmologist wasn’t working, so I spent the weekend being intermittently worried—was it an infection? Cataract? Worse, was it macular degeneration, which had robbed my mother of her vision, and really of her joy in life, those last hard years?

Well, I don’t have to worry, or rather I do. It’s a cataract, and the procedure is simple. It takes ten minutes to do the surgery, 24 hours to recuperate, and no more of those hideous eye patches. Amazing, really, the innovations in eye surgery.

Wait, did I say, “I don’t have to worry,” somewhere up there? Wrong—I do. This afternoon I will spend substantial amounts of time calling an insurance company, trying to figure out how to fund this operation. “Lucky you,” you say, “lots of people don’t have insurance.”

And indeed, I am lucky. But it may be just general irritation or an inbred tendency to see the glass as half-empty, because it does occur to me—I’m somewhere in the middle of the lucky gradient. Other people with insurance simply sail in, flash the card, and the operating room doors open by magic.

I only have insurance, you see, through Raf and his former job. Since his company closed he was allowed to retire, and qualifies for the health plan. And yes, that health plan allows him to put a same sex spouse on the plan. Raf’s current employer does not. So I have an excellent insurance plan that—since the company is located in the US—nobody on the island accepts.

And I live—a bit tangentially, but still live—in the richest nation on the planet. And that nation, currently, has no national health plan, and so throws its marginalized into a terrible position. At 56, with a college education and good people skills, I can easily figure out how to manipulate the system—rigged as it probably is against me. (“It does occur to me,” I said to John grumpily yesterday, “that the insurance industry is the only business I can think of which charges its customers an enormous amount of money so it can pay people to say ‘no’ to its customers….”)

Right, so Canada and Norway and most of the developed world have figured out how to dispense health care—we have not. And in nine states I am legally married, and in 41 states plus the territories I am not. And now, we will have to wait around until June to see what will be, in all likelihood, a half victory.

And yesterday, I read an interesting statement when looking for something to blog about. “The history of farming,” an article stated, “has been inherently open-source.”

Say whaaa…?

Translation—nobody owned, until agribusiness came along, a seed. That was the whole point—you grew whatever it was and ate 80% and saved the rest for the next year and that’s how it was for millennia. Now, farmers are the pawns of the seed / fertilizer / herbicide company, and we are suffering or about to suffer a massive jolt to our health—physically, environmentally, economically.

And the Supreme Court, in one sweeping decision that nobody much noticed, was the body that changed “open-sourced” agriculture to corporate agribusiness.

The Supreme Court, who last week worried that homosexuality was newer than cell phones. And yet these guys, so worried about making a “sea change” socially, had no problem completely shifting the foundations of what we put into our mouths?

I go back to wondering, at times, whether men should really be allowed. Yes, we do some things very well. Yes, I’m a guy myself. Yes, I have worked in almost all-female environments and yearned for a nice, testosterone-driven guy.

But maybe it’s time to recognize—agriculture was for millennia a female activity. The men were out there hunting; the women were in the field. And more than that, they were sharing information, swapping seeds, observing how plants grew and why. The essence of agriculture celebrates some traditionally feminine traits—cooperation, patience, nurturance.

Hunting is a guy thing, as is—let’s be honest—business. I worked in the biggest company in the world, and yes, it paid lip service to diversity. But any woman who was going to get seriously ahead was going to have to have bigger balls—sorry!—than the guys. It was about competition, winning, going for the kill.

You know, I don’t accept the Supreme Court being “behind the times.” Not being able to say the word “gay,” but always using “homosexual.” Asking how many states allowed gay marriages, and comparing being gay to cell phones.

That’s bullshit, and an insult. Dowd’s friend may be heartsick….

…I’m pissed.