Resolved: Baby Steps

Decided on a few goals:
1) 3,660,000 steps.  Let’s do this!
2) Water.  Still breastfeeding, so I need to stay hydrated.
3) Read 10 books that I already own.  Also read the 10 books recommended by the Washington Post
4) Related - make sure my Kindle still works, since it’s been a while.

Still thinking through the whole managing stress goal.

Resolved

I normally make New Years resolutions, but then tend to focus on numbers of books read, etc.  This year, I’m pretty aware that I’m not handling stress well.  Baby - not really, she’s basically a toddler - and the new job and the constant barrages of chaos from the Trump Administration means that I can’t shrug off the minor annoyances of life as easily as I would prefer.

Hard to put that into a SMART goal.  And if I knew how to re-center myself, I’d do it already.

Fake Facebook Days and Your Idiot Friends

I guess today was pregnancy loss remembrance day (or something), because half a dozen people in my feed have listed the dates of their miscarriages.  Including the one person, who mentioned her pregnancy loss seven years ago, who gave me grief about not having children up to the point when she found out I was pregnant.  You know, also the one who makes sure to post on April Fools Day that joking about being pregnant is traumatic for her, but she was willing to ask me at every single family event when I was going to have kids.  She has no way of knowing whether or not she was "joking" about this a few weeks after my own miscarriage or not, because it's none of her business, but of course, she needs to have her own precious emotions protected.

I'm realizing that I have a lot of unprocessed feelings and emotions about my pregnancy and subsequent postpartum depression which is going to require a lot of energy to monitoring my personal filters to not piss off every one around me.  But I don't feel like apologizing, either, if I do slip up and tell this person to shut up already because she may (or may not) have made my life hell for years and years and years.  Again, none of her business.

Part time, online jobs for moms

Can someone please create a database of part-time jobs that can be done online that 1) is legit, and 2) doesn't involve annoying people on Facebook?

A friend of a friend is a consultant for 31, aka low-quality over-priced LLBean knockoffs for people who haven't heard of Lands End, and is currently hijacking my friend's friend list for a "31 Party", in which there is no actual party - just flooding your newsfeed with 96 pleas in 5 days (I counted) to order tote bags with quirky personalizations (at an extra cost) before the "party" ends.  Maybe if someone was eating a piece of celery somewhere while sipping on a riesling, I'd feel a bit differently, but alas, these types of weekend afternoon parties have gone the way of Lia Sophia into the dustbin of history.

Of course this is the friend's sorority friend.  My own sorority friends include Tupperware and Pampered Chef consultants, and I even rejected friending someone from my pledge class when I saw that her own page was nothing but Pink Zebra posts.  But, there's also other friends hawking Traveling Vineyard and Scentsy and whatever else they moved to since LulaRoe imploded, as if they never learned their lessons.  Each one posting about owning one's own business and vaguely uplifting quotes about empowerment and occasionally using the word Mompreneur.  It's the need to earn money, but without paying for daycare or a babysitter.  Back in high school, this was usually done with a part-time retail job while the kids were in school, but it appears that these jobs don't really exist any more.

What put me over the edge was this most recent hostess, who wrote that we should purchase tote bags because she made the decision to quit her teaching job to focus on her family.  You know what?  Fuck you.  I owe you crap because you made your own poor financial decision.  It's not a secret that the American economy is not structured in a way that a single-income household could thrive.  This was not exactly a secret here, and as a graduate of an elite liberal arts college, there's no excuse for not knowing.  And, if you really do think that it's an issue that a teacher can't afford child care, then fix the fucking structural barriers that prevent this.  Lobby your school district for day care.  Mobilize your union.  Don't make it sound like a $35 tote bag is going to do much to save your situation, let alone the situation of similar woman, many of whom don't have the resources to fight because of other structural barriers. Your choices are to understand the awful structure of the economy and go back to work like the rest of us, or fucking do something to change the outcomes of all women. Yes, this makes it sound like I've gone full Republican, but it's more that I've been hearing this shit from Republicans who just a few years ago were talking about the need to cut taxes and benefits.  You know, before they figured out that these cuts would impact their own lives.  You made your bed, not thinking that you were making it for yourself.  So sleep in it and stop complaining.

And, no, I didn't buy your damned ugly purses.  Your $80 bag is $39.95 at Lands End, and is now 40% off.

Confirmation Bias

I finally deleted my pregnancy app.  It was long overdue, mostly since my daughter is 8 months old, so I hung onto this for almost a full human gestation period beyond its useful life.  But, I've wanted to do so for some time, but needed to check in from time to time to watch this like one would watch a car crash.  Except for me, it was the watching death of data and reason erode over the course of a few months, and a small scale experiment in how social media can be easily hijacked.

It started out as a need to reach out to other people when I was pregnant and couldn't brush my teeth without throwing up and needed to know that I wasn't the only person experiencing this.  Once I found the message boards, I got the confirmation that I needed, but also a group of women who suddenly discovered that the United States was a shitty place to be a pregnant woman.  So I stuck around.  It was nice to see a bunch of Red State women complain about the lack of paid maternity leave, their high deductible insurance plans, the lack of affordable day care, and how their at-will employment state didn't make it illegal for their employers to fire them for being pregnant.  Come for the pregnancy tips, stay for the schadenfreude of telling someone to petition the state government of Texas or Mississippi or Arkansas to protect workers. 

But then the inevitable happens.  A few loud-asses start saying that anyone who doesn't agree with them is Mom-shaming.  Providing a link to the CDC site demonstrating the effectiveness of vaccines - Mom-shaming.  Linking to the AAP guidelines for introducing peanuts to infants - Mom-shaming.  Starting a discussion about a Fisher-Price recall - Mom-shaming. You could say that you were adding sharks to the water birthing tub you were considering, and the first person to ask you if that was a good idea would be accused of Mom-shaming.  There's only so much of this silliness that you can take before you just decide it's not worth it.

The problem stems from two separate ways of conducting an argument - the first is to support one's opinions with data and logic.  The other is to resort to name-calling to shut people up.  So if you decide to put your newborn into bed with you to "co-sleep", you don't care that this has been shown through data that this increases the likelihood of SIDS.  But since you can't refute this with your own data or logic, you just start name-calling.  Eventually, the people who are good at finding reputable sources of data reach their breaking point and drop out.  Those left behind rarely look around and say, "Hey, didn't there used to be a dozen doctors posting in this group and now we only have an unlicensed holistic midwife around here?", so this change in the group's dynamics is often unnoticed unless you are looking for it.

Just in case you were wondering how Facebook and the 2016 election worked, it's the same.  I mean, do you correct your dumb home-schooled cousin anymore, or did you unfriend him?

Postmortem on the Blog

Having a blog is something I kind of *want* to have, but I also do not have the time or energy to really devote to it the way I had.  Back when I was posting pretty regularly, it was because I needed an outlet for my intellectual interests and a place to vent about what I didn't like in my life.  But now, I find myself in a non-dead-end job with a baby, so I have plenty of opportunity to exercise my brain and the happiest, smiliest baby on the planet (since the acid reflux and skin issues were solved by the end of June... hard to be happy and smiley when you are in pain 24/7). 

I've been really fortunate.  When I haven't liked my life, I've had the resources to change it.  Not all people do, but totally leaning into that white privilege hard here.  I had a fabulous public school education financed by antiquated school funding laws, and the knowledge that if everything failed, my parents had a basement I could move into.  I can see where previous generations would get to this point - good career, kid, money in the bank - and turn Republican.  But I see every place where a government program made my life possible, and I wonder why we can't expand these to bring more people into the middle class.  That might be a new focus for me - generally looking at these issues that should have made my husband and I into some Goldwater Republicans, but instead have us firmly in the Bring Back Obama camp.

Life changes and old blogs

Welp, I had a baby, and now I will never sleep again.  At least not continuously.  And the advice that you sleep when the baby sleeps is bullshit, because you still have to do laundry and do the dishes and try to feed yourself and deal with the depression that makes it impossible to do any of this.  And floss, because you always have to tell yourself to floss.

2017 Oscars-Nominated Movies. All of them.

I came across an old Marketplace Story on how long it would take to see all of the movies that were nominated for an Academy Award.  Sure, this was 2013, but I assume the 2017 nominees would be in the same ballpark.  Back then, it was 99 hours.  So, less than a week, right?

I've heard it a number of times that nobody sees the movies that are nominated for Best Picture. They never play these films outside of New York and Los Angeles and a couple of film festivals.  I've never bought into this.  Sure, it helps to live near a major city, but even in small college towns, all you need is a cinema department with a projector, and you can find these films if you search beyond the 18 screen megaplex.

Before the Oscars, I managed to see 5 of the 9 Best Picture Nominees, all in the Washington suburbs. Moonlight and Hidden Figures were at the American Film Institute Silver Theater for an African-American film festival, La La Land at a 1930s renovated movie theater in Greenbelt (retro theater for retro musical), Fences was at the MegaPlex in the theater with the reclining seats - very nice, and Hell or High Water was a DVD I checked out of the local library.  I remember thinking for each film that rather than needing to go to impressive lengths to find them, that I had multiple options for watching them.  That same Greenbelt Theater also was showing Hidden Figures, but with talks by NASA scientists before the film since NASA has a space center in the town.  Moonlight was showing at a handful of art theaters in addition to the film festival.  And La La Land could be watched by anyone anywhere with a screen.  I assume.

So, I'm on my way to try to watch every movie that was nominated. Library DVDs have been a real help, but Amazon Prime and HBO have had some available at my leisure. Should be a fun couple of months to get me through the rest of our non-winter.

Introverting and Reading

I made two New Years Resolutions this year, and somehow, they seem to be reinforcing each other.  The first was to go to the gym 15 times a month.  The second was to read 2 books a month.  Since I read on the treadmill or elliptical, I've managed to read quite a bit more than that.  2 months in, and I've read 13 books so far.  And been to the gym 38 times. Feeling pretty good about this, and kind of psyched to see how these goals have reinforced each other.

Figured it might not be a bad idea to write up my impressions of these books, if not so much to have non-Trump things to write about, but also record my thoughts in case I want to recommend books to people. So, I'll be posting a bit in the coming weeks.

Feeling broken

Turns out that Sally Yates openly defying the Trump Administration did not come out of nowhere.

The Washington Post reports that she and her office briefed the White House on Jan. 26 about the conversations between Michael Flynn and the Russian ambassador. Why was nothing done?  Well:

The White House Counsel's Office conducted a “review” of the legal issues and determined that “there was not a legal issue but rather a trust issue,” Spicer said.

So, Donald Trump, having been briefed by the Acting Attorney General that Flynn had engaged in illegal activity, determined that this wasn't a legal issue.  It's a trust issue.  Can he really trust Flynn after misleading Mike Pence?  Oh, come now, we've all mislead Mike Pence at some point.  Why do women keep trying to tell me what I can and cannot do?

Four days later, Yates said that she could not defend the Muslim ban.  Openly.  Since her previous attempt to work the chain of command failed.  She was fired.

This story has broken me.  I think I hit my limit.

Thank the Resistance: Members of the New England Patriots

At least five members of the New England Patriots have decided to skip the celebratory White House visit because of Donald Trump:

• Martellus Bennett
• Devin McCourty
• Dont'a Hightower
• LeGarette Blount
• Chris Long

Hell, if you win the Super Bowl, you can celebrate however the hell you want to.  I know I wouldn't want to celebrate professional achievement with Donald Trump.  

Gov. Hogan Doesn't Like Mean People on Facebook

As this is posting this morning, I am dropping copies of this letter in the mail to the Governor of Maryland and the Chair of the Maryland Republican Party, because, DAMN, this is the best way to kill the GOP in Maryland... piss off every educated woman in the state.

I am writing in response to the article published on the Washington Post website entitled “Gov. Hogan’s office has blocked 450 people from his Facebook page in two years”, that refers to your spokesman, Doug Mayer, trivializing the comments of women who criticized you for not speaking about the ban on Muslims because he believed they were “part of an organized campaign.” Whether or not they were organized, you (or your agents acting on your behalf) still refused to allow residents of the State of Maryland to voice their concern over your inaction.

                I am one of the estimated 925,000 women in Maryland who has at least one college degree. Between Mr. Mayer’s statement, and statements from White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer that protesters are being paid, the message I am receiving from the Republican Party is that women are too stupid to formulate their own opinions and to take action on their own volition to make these opinions known.  Your silence appears to confirm that you agree that women lack, or should lack, the agency to make up their own minds, and cannot process information without being told what to do by outside actors.

                I attended the Women’s March on Washington on January 21^st with 5 million Americans across the country to put politicians on notice that we would watch what you were doing with regards to civil rights, environmental protections, sexism, racism, ethics, and your willingness to uphold the Constitution and the separation of powers. [No one paid me. Between Metro fares and Starbucks purchases, it cost about $20 for me to attend.] As each Executive Order and Presidential Memo was signed that undermined these issues, you said nothing. Silence is consent. By not speaking out after three weeks, how can we not assume that you agree with President Trump’s agenda?

                The people of Maryland are noticing your silence. What you say, or do not say, in the next few weeks will be remembered at the ballot box in 2018, not just in the governor’s race, but in every race on the ballot that involves a Republican candidate. It is already late to speak up. You have a number of angry people in the state, and you owe us an explanation of your political priorities.

Thank the Resistance: Gov. Jay Inslee and Gov. Mark Dayton

Props to the governors of Minnesota and Washington.  Thanks for being behind the suit to stop the Muslim ban.

(Mad Midwestern love going out to Minnesota.)

Thank you notes being sent to Olympia and St. Paul.

Dumb Presidential Memo #1: STOP DOING GOVERNMENT!!!!!

First Presidential memo: Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies, signed January 20th.

Just in case you missed it, or forgot it, or have blocked this from your mind, just three weeks ago (seriously, three weeks?), President Trump signed his first stupid Presidential Memo, the "Stop Doing Government" Memo.

Reince Priebus appears to have drafted it, telling everyone in government - no new regulations, no putting into effect any approved new regulation, and you know, maybe everyone in the White House just needs 60 days or so to figure out what we're doing before you guys all do stuff?  Cool?

This isn't so much of a demand, more like a request. And, of course, the language that walks this back in case the courts or the Congress is making you take action because we forgot to hire lawyers in the transition and dear God, what is that pain in my chest?

Screw it, OMB will tell you when you can do government again. 

Feminism and Gender Stereotypes

Remember after the September 11th attacks when everyone wanted to drop everything and go off and do something, and President Bush told us all to go shopping?

President Trump is now telling us to boycott Nordstrom in a Tweet, because they shouldn't drop the clothing line of his daughter, who is a great person, and as you know, bad things never happen to good people in business.  Business always rewards people who are nice people, right?  (Coffee is for closers.)

So, if you want to be part of the feminist resistance to Trump, go shopping at Nordstrom.  Okay... but I'm a little ambivalent that my action of protest against a sexist man who tries to perpetuate outdated gender stereotypes is to do the most. stereotypical. activity. ever.

Thank the Resistance: Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski

Taking some time to write thank you letters to Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski:

These Republican Senators broke with their party to vote against Betsy DeVos, and I'm sure that's not sitting well with the rest of their party.  Even though they brought up a great point (that I wish I had thought of), that school choice can only work when there exists a choice in schools.  If you live in a rural area, and already have a one to two hour bus ride to get to school, are you really going to drive 3 hours to go to another school?

Plus, disability services generally are more expensive than a voucher will cover, and there's a conflict of interest with her student loan collection agencies, and the complete lack of qualifications to hold this position... and, seriously, grizzly bears is why a school in a major city needs to have guns?

So, writing thank you notes for all of their offices, because, face it, they've probably been fielding angry phone calls, and will be in the future.  My sincere thanks for trying.

The Invisible Hand Plays in Peoria

Well, Peoria, you had a good run.  Face it, there's really no reason that your city should exist.  Somehow, you managed to attract a major manufacturer, which led to a nice long streak of moderate success with a minor league affiliate, a mid-tier university, and a high school boys basketball powerhouse.  As Peorias go, Peoria, Illinois is a solid #2 in the country. But there's no organic reason for Peoria to exist in the 21st Century.

Sure, Peoria, back in the 19th Century, using water resources for milling grains was needed. Plus, being near the farms where grain was grown so it could be processed was also a good idea.  Not needed so much anymore.  And, if Wikipedia is accurate, then that high quality Illinois River water would be a boom to the distilling industry, until Chicago reversed the course of the Chicago River, dug a canal, and started shipping its sewage your way.

Really, you got lucky that farm equipment was expensive to ship when everything was transported to farms by horses.  It made sense to manufacture equipment close to where they would be used when the supply chain is so slow.  So, again, kudos!  Caterpillar got lucky, especially when they realized they could make money by modifying farm equipment into construction equipment to build roads, right when Federal funds for road construction became more widely available.  Peoria hit a boom!

But with the boom, there comes the bust.  Of course, the bust occurred much slower than the boom. When the roads were built, then replaced with Interstates, and the supply chain became faster and more global, then why build things in Peoria?  Especially when the demand for construction equipment is higher in developing countries than in a country that is already developed?  What makes you special?

Maybe if Cat had really invested in its people, things would be different. Maybe if executives started as front-line managers, worked their way through the the company, and then joined the C-Suite after 30-40 years of service, then maybe attracting executives wouldn't necessitate a move to Chicago.  And, I know, it's got to bother you that billionaires look at you and say, Nope, not Peoria. You could have tried to cultivate a business community that included more than one company, but you never really did, and no one was going to move to you, not with major universities in other cities - those same universities where the best and brightest of your high school grads went, and the then never came back. In this negative feedback loop where anyone who can leave leaves, how much longer was it before Caterpillar left for Chicago?  What makes you special?

This is a tough love post, I know, but if you can't answer that question of what makes you special, then the free market is not going to give out jobs and favors to you. You have to have an advantage. Chicago has these advantages, sure, in the number of other large companies nearby so Caterpillar can poach talent as needed, and executives can look at them and breathe a sign of relief that they aren't moving to Flint, Michigan (water still undrinkable). There's still a reason that Chicago exists - mostly through fresh water, world-class schools, research hospitals, and the logistics of having to move things around the Great Lakes means roads and railroads needing to hit the southern edge of Lake Michigan. Not you. Not Peoria.  As the economy moves into a new, global world, what makes you special?  And, your manufacturing jobs - the people who hold them - what makes them special?  What can they do that can't be done in any small city anywhere in the world.

No one is guaranteed the right to have a corporate HQ in your town. And, as Caterpillar continues its move out of Peoria, and property values fall as more people move out than move in, you better answer the question of what makes you special, or else there may be no Peoria left.

Mean People

Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election. Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 6, 2017

So, that happened. How big does your ego have to be to believe that anything bad said about you can't be true?  Is the entire world supposed to be some kind of safe space for the President?

I heard that Mr. Trump did not really understand what the job of President was, even after he was elected.  If this had been an election centered around policy, then there is the ability to criticize the policies without criticizing the person. But that was never how Trump operated, so when people don't approve of the job he's doing, how else is he going to take this except as an attack on his person?

If you need me, I'll be drinking.

Dumb Executive Order #1: Repeal Obamacare

Tracking the executive orders and memos of Donald J. Trump, and how you know that no expert actually looked at them before he signed them, Part I:

Executive Order Minimizing the Economic Burden of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Pending Repeal, Signed January 20, 2017.

You know this one has to be good, because the title includes "Minimizing the Economic Burden of the Patient Protection", which if you take out the "the", really gets at the heart of the order - protecting patients imposes an economic burden on somebody, but it's not the patients.

Section 1 - the confusing part here is that it really doesn't do anything.  The President can't just repeal a law that Congress passed.  It's like the Constitution is still a thing.  Instead, we want the healthcare markets to be more competitive!  Yeah!!!!  Free market!!!!  ...except for that pesky ethics problem and known market failure in the health care market.  There's no access to perfect information in setting a price, mostly because in order to do this, doctors and patients need to know how much someone is willing to pay for an operation that will save their life.  Is open heart surgery worth $5,000?  $10,000?  $100,000?  That's unfettered capitalism, and I doubt people really want to be thinking about their doctors as maximizing profits when they decide whether or not to treat their cancer.  So, yeah... rhetoric sounds great to the Austrian Economist, but that's just about it.

Section 2 - this asks the Sec. of Health and Human Services (who isn't confirmed yet) not to impose fiscal burdens on States, individuals, or families (aw...).  Or health insurance companies, or medical device companies, pharmaceutical companies (less aw...).  Except that there is that pesky law out there.

Sections 3-4 - Flexibility!  States Rights!  Except that this is in regards to a Federal tax dollar spending, so really?  It also encourages interstate insurance markets, which might be okay, except that the ACA guidelines for minimum coverage levels will be gone.  So, everyone can purchase the health care quality guaranteed by Mississippi!

Section 5 - Oh yeah.  There is that comment period on regulations.

Section 6 - Laws exist.

So what does this do?  Not a damned thing. Congress is trying to figure out a replacement, but yeah, changing the ACA is going to be a mess, mostly because people like some aspects of the law.  We'll see what the Republicans come up with. Stay tuned!

Thank the Resistance: Beth Fukumoto

I was totally serious when I mentioned I'd be sending thank you notes to people, Democrats or Republicans, who speak out in favor of civil rights, the Constitution, and general non-douchecanoe behavior.

Today's example is Beth Fukumoto, R-HI, which in addition to being a Republican in Hawaii, is also noteworthy for speaking at a women's march against Trump's rhetoric of sexism and racism, in violation of Hawaiian Republican Party policy prohibiting saying anything bad against President Trump.  For this infraction, her leadership position as Hawaii State House Minority Leader (in leadership of 6) was taken away from her.  In fact, with only six Republicans in the Hawaii House, she's now the only one without a leadership position.

Speaking out against hateful speech has had a political cost for her within the Republican Party.  Thank you notes can be sent to:
Beth Fukumoto

415 S. Beretania St., Room 333

Honolulu, HI 96813

And, if you'd like to email the five Republicans who voted her out, their contact information in on the Hawaii State House website.