Eye doctor visit

I just got home about 45 minutes ago and my vision is still more blurry than normal. I have been for years using an eye doctor at a place we will call company A. A small eye firm with two shops, great people, good doctor, and a wide selection of frames. Plus the glasses were a great price, far less expensive than the big companies. After your exam if you needed glasses you picked out two frames, they only charged you for one of the frames. Then you selected your lenses. One with all the features would be put in the frames you selected, the other frames would have just plain prescription lenses so you had an emergency back up pair. The two pairs of glasses often were half the price of one pair of the big local chains.

In November, Ron went to the big local chain eye doctors he has seen before because they treat his eye disease, which our small eye doctor did not, and they pushed him hard to get cataract surgery. Both of us have cataracts so we thought his had gotten worse than mine, even though his developed much later than mine. When he checked out, his visit was no charge because he had medicare. So we made an appointment for me, thinking it also would be no charge. But he needed a follow-up visit for a different test, scheduled a few weeks ago and they hammered him with charges. Cost us $188 dollars with his medicare paying also.

But being hopeful that my eye appointment would be covered under Medicare, we kept my appointment, which was this morning. I wish I had not. *** edit They charged me nearly $100 for my eye exam *** So they did some test on me they didn’t do for Ron, but every test they did for me was tests my other eye doctor did, but they did tests for Ron they did not do for me. But even before they gave me an eye exam they asked if I had watched the video they sent to me as a text. I said I did not. Turns out it was a video on cataract surgery choices. In the check in stuff, they gave us extra forms to fill out again before even examining me about if I were to have cataract surgery what choices I would want. At this point, they had not examined me to see if I had cataracts. Remember they had pushed Ron hard to have the surgery.

So when the tech finished, and unlike the other eye doctor I had the tech did all the tests for my eyesight portion where my first eye doctor did the tests themselves, she gave me a video to watch on different choices for cataract surgery. When the doctor came in, the first thing she asked was about the video, then launched into talking about the cataract surgery and how she wanted me to plan it for next year. She had not even looked into my eyes yet. She felt the left was bad and growing bad much faster than the right, so I should plan for next year and what options did I think I might want. I told her I would need more time to think on it. Later Ron told me the first option Medicare paid for but the other options ran thousands of dollars.

Then she quickly did her check in my eye quickly spewing numbers to her assistant operating the computer, saying scaring such and such at such and such in the left eye … but when she was done she went back to talking about the cataract. But she never talked to me about the scaring in my left eye! So then they had me sit in the waiting room for a person to go over glasses with me. I had brought a set of frames with me I liked and wanted any new lenses put in with the frames refitted to me.

What do you think they quoted me for just the lenses to be put in my own frames? Hold on to something … $920 for the basic / standard lens and $1160 for the preferred / premium lens. WTF. Remember at the other eye doctor I got two pairs, two new frames with one set of lenses being fully progressive with the photo gray sunglass thing with computer anti-glare for $650.

I did not buy the new lenses. I told them I needed to think on it, and I did not schedule a new appointment next year as they pushed me to do. I talk to Ron on the way home how I felt very pressured to have the cataract surgery and reminded him how they were pushing him to schedule his right way. They had sent me a video on it before they even examined me, and I felt the exam I got was less than our other doctor did.

So I am going to see if our other eye doctor is still seeing patients and if so we will both get exams, and as I already know I will need glasses I will get them there. But also I wanted everyone to know why I have not been doing much online, I am struggling more than normal to see everything. Best wishes, hugs, Scottie

Palestinian children describe nightmarish treatment at Israeli detention center

Please notice the date. Two years ago. These were children, 50% being held in pre-trial detention, but already convicted and serving harsh sentences. Even though the boys were 17 at the time of the interview they were younger when picked up, and we have seen younger kids in each video I have shared. Every single thing the Israeli soldiers did to these kids was to induce pain and fear. It is the shit interrogators at Gitmo did to adults, and that was called a war crime then. They are doing this to hurt, be cruel, to break these kids, and terrorize both them and their parents. All because they are Palestinian. This is the government the US has supported unequivocally, and this is why the attacks on Israel happen. In the US some states have made it illegal to protest Israel, to support the BDS movement. What is BDS? Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) is a Palestinian-led movement for freedom, justice and equality. BDS upholds the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity. The republicans in congress are trying to equate the protesting what Israel is doing with antisemitism. That is stupid. Don’t fall for it. This is a short clip, all the words are in big print on the screen. Please watch, and then spread the word. Help these kids. Hugs. Scottie

Palestinian teenagers Ahmad, and Abdulkareem, both 17, describe their harrowing experiences being interrogated and ill-treated by Israeli forces in the Huwwara Interrogation and Detention Center near the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

Utah Senate revises bathroom bill that threatened to throw trans people in jail

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/01/utah-senate-revises-bathroom-bill-that-threatened-to-throw-trans-people-in-jail/

This is the most critical thing in Utah for the elected officials to get to. What are there, 10 or 15 trans people in the state? So rather than fix kids going hungry in the summer when school is out, rather than fix medical care for poor people, rather than tackle homelessness, they are worried about who is peeing in what bathroom. Something that doesn’t matter. When you go into a public restroom it is not for a social gathering! If you are trying to see or determine what is someone else’s pants, you are a pervert and you are wrong. If you buy into the garbage that a trans person in a bathroom is just there to attack a cis female, weird they never seem concerned about trans boys attacking cis boys in bathrooms, but if that is your worry, don’t. It doesn’t happen! Facts are pesky things, the people being assaulted in bathrooms are trans people and cis women accused of being trans people. The ones doing the attacking … yes bigots, vigilante cis people thinking they have a right to police who gets to use the bathroom. This is a created panic issue by right wing religious haters who can not stand that trans people, people who are different, exist. This is all about enforcing homogeneous, forcing people to fit the right mold, to have only the correct people in society / public. About rejecting the modern age to force everyone to return to what was acceptable in the distant past. It is no different than the Amish demanding that everyone act just like them. Hugs. Scottie

The Senate spent days deciding just how anti-trans they wanted the law to be.

By John RussellFriday, January 26, 2024

Photo: Shutterstock

Utah’s Republican-dominated Senate approved a revised version of an anti-trans bathroom bill Thursday, following days of flip-flopping over just how anti-trans they wanted it to be. The state House must now sign the revised version before heading to the governor’s desk to become law.

The initial version of H.B. 257, passed by the Utah State House last week, included a provision banning transgender people from entering bathrooms and other “sex-designated privacy spaces” that align with their gender identity in “publicly funded and publicly owned” buildings unless they have updated their birth certificates and can prove that they have undergone gender confirmation surgery. Violations of the law would have been punishable by up to six months in jail.

RELATED:

Utah legislature advances an extreme trans bathroom ban

The dangerous measure fits with the state’s long history of policing private matters.

As journalist Erin Reed noted, that version of the law would have applied to airports, convention centers, park buildings, recreational centers, public administration buildings, colleges, universities, and public schools.

On Wednesday, Utah state Sen. Dan McCay (R) introduced an amended version of the bill in the state Senate. As KUER reported, that version only applied to “government-owned and operated” buildings, like public schools, universities, and government buildings.

McCay’s version retained the original bill’s ban on transgender locker and changing room access as well as the ban on bathroom access in K–12 schools, but did away with restrictions on who can enter sex-designated bathrooms in other government buildings. McCay said the amended bill focused instead on “the actions of those who commit lewd and offensive behavior in a privacy space” and was “no longer related to gender or identity.”

But McCay reversed course on Thursday, introducing a new draft of the bill minutes before the Senate began its final discussion of HB 257, KSL.com reported.

The latest version restores the original’s prohibition on trans people entering bathrooms that align with their gender identity in government-owned buildings, while also narrowly defining “male” and “female” in state code according to biological sex assigned at birth.

While the bill does not include any enforcement mechanism or criminal penalties for violations of the bathroom ban, it does include enhanced criminal penalties for anyone who commits multiple crimes in a restroom as well as additional criminal penalties for anyone who commits crimes in a bathroom that does not align with their biological sex.

“Instead of making this about enforcement, we define what bathrooms are and we define who belongs in what bathroom and how to, I guess, qualify to be in one bathroom or another,” McCay said. “And I think that definition makes it very clear.”

The Senate approved H.B. 257 Thursday by a 21–8 vote, with only two Republicans joining Democrats in voting against it.

As the Senate voted, around 100 people gathered on the Utah Capitol steps to voice their opposition to the bill, urging Gov. Spencer Cox (R) to veto it.

H.B. 257 will return to the House for approval before reaching Cox’s desk. But as KSL.com noted, both critics and supporters expect the bill to face legal challenges.

Republicans Determined To Make Anti-Abortion Laws So Much Worse

How a Palestinian boy was blinded in Israeli prison

Again look at the date. A year after the last video of a boy abused by Israeli authorities, and they blinded another boy. If you were his parents, wouldn’t you want justice? The Israelis kept him in a prison and denied him needed medical care. Even his doctor couldn’t convince them to help the boy. They let him go blind, they wanted to hurt him as an example of what happens if you don’t obey your masters. I am angry! I have lost online “friends” after saying that Gaza was an open air prison. So-called critical thinkers couldn’t see that constant mistreatment will drive people to lash out any way possible. Hugs. Scottie

23,973 views Jul 19, 2018

Israeli prison authorities denied Hassan Tamimi his medication, which made him fall into a coma and lose his eyesight.

Let’s talk about Gen Z and the GOP….

Hi all. Remember that I said that as they age some people couldn’t accept the changes in society, so long for a prior time when they felt more comfortable with the way things were. I got some push back on that. Well Beau explains that phenomena far better than I did. He says that the republicans base their policies on the core age group of the party’s memories growing up of TV shows from 10 to 15 years before. He also shows how the attempt to return to a fictitious past won’t work, and that the rights attempt to deny the rights / existence of the LGBTQIA simply is doomed even as they try ever harder. Please watch the video, I watched it three times. Got more out of it each time. Hugs. Scottie

Iowa Republicans set hearing on bill removing civil rights protections for gender identity

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2024/01/25/gop-bill-would-remove-civil-rights-act-protections-for-transgender-iowans-gender-identity/72351459007/

What is it with this time in history that we have such a hard push by one political party to remove rights and remove protections from individuals. For most of this country’s history, we moved toward expanding rights, to removing barriers and expanding opportunities for oppressed people. Now the right / republicans are all about denying healthcare rights for women and trans people, denying the right to equal treatment in services, public spaces, housing, and even in expressing publicly support for the oppressed. For example, taking away reproductive rights from women, and making illegal medically approved gender affirming best practices promoted by all the major medical associations. Allowing public businesses to refuse services to anyone they think is gay or trans or has a religion the businesses disagree with, such as wedding planners, restaurants, home renters, adoption services, and even restricting movies / books based on dislike for LGBTQIA characters or plots. Why do the republicans need to promote hate, why not just live and let live? Hugs. Scottie

———————————————————————————————————–

Stephen Gruber-Miller
Des Moines Register

Iowa Republican lawmakers have again proposed removing protections against discrimination for transgender people from the Iowa Civil Rights Act — and this time a key committee chair says he’s open to the conversation.

GOP lawmakers, who hold majorities in the Iowa House and Senate, have filed several bills over the past few years seeking to remove gender identity as one of the protected classes in the state’s civil rights law. But those bills have not received hearings.

This year, Rep. Steven Holt, R-Denison, has scheduled a subcommittee hearing on House File 2082, which would remove gender identity protections from the civil rights law and add gender dysphoria “or any condition related to a gender identity disorder” to the definition of a disability that would be protected under the law.

“I just want to hear a conversation about it,” Holt said. “I want to have a subcommittee and hear a conversation about it.”

In 2020, Holt used his position as Judiciary Committee chair to kill a similar bill that would have removed gender identity protections from the civil rights law.

The hearing, where the public can speak to lawmakers about the bill, will be held Wednesday at noon in room 102 of the Iowa State Capitol.

Keenan Crow, the policy and advocacy director for One Iowa, a group that advocates for LGBTQ rights, called Holt’s position “alarming.”

“Whenever you have somebody who’s willing to have a conversation about removing the civil rights of an entire class of people, that’s not a good conversation to be having,” Crow said. “Those rights should not be up for debate. Transgender people should be able to rent houses, get credit cards, get loans, go buy a sandwich, rent a hotel room, just like anybody else should be able to.”

More:Gender-affirming care ban for kids, trans bathroom bill are now Iowa law. What they do:

The Iowa Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, ancestry, disability and gender identity. Lawmakers added the protections for gender identity in 2007 when Democrats held the Iowa Legislature and governor’s office.

People who fall under one of the protected classes in the civil rights law are protected from discrimination in employment, wages, public accommodations, housing, education and credit practices.

Holt said he believes transgender people would still have protections under Iowa and federal law even if lawmakers stripped gender identity out of the civil rights act.

“I think there’s plenty of other places in federal and in state law that would prevent discrimination,” he said. “Because I think we should all be opposed to discrimination based upon someone’s skin color or gender identity or whatever the case may be.”

Holt called it “an interesting concept” to look at specifying that gender dysphoria could qualify as a disability that merits protection. He pointed to a U.S. Supreme Court decision last summer that found people with gender dysphoria are protected under the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Crow said because that court decision is already on the books, adding gender dysphoria as a disability wouldn’t provide any additional protections. But it could harm low-income transgender Iowans who can’t afford to go to the doctor to receive a diagnosis, they said.

More:Iowa’s gender-affirming care ban is chasing transgender kids out of state for medical care

“Now they don’t have any housing protections and a landlord can literally just say, ‘no, I don’t want you in my space, you’re transgender,'” they said. “And there’s nothing that that person can do about it. So this is an extremely dangerous, extremely harmful bill.”

Holt didn’t guarantee that the bill would advance beyond the subcommittee hearing, but said he believes it’s time to have a conversation.

“I still have concerns about this, but I at least want to have the conversation and see where it goes,” Holt said.

Iowa Republicans in recent years have passed a flurry of laws impacting transgender Iowans, including banning transgender youth under 18 from receiving gender-affirming medical care, restricting transgender students from using school bathrooms that align with their gender identity and banning transgender women and girls from competing in female sports.

Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com or by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on Twitter at @sgrubermiller.

Iowa GOP Bill Would Legalize Anti-Trans Discrimination

April Smith 15 hours ago

The hate.

It never ends…

Sister_Bertrille April Smith15 hours ago

There are some really awful people in this country, aren’t there?

John Conley Sister_Bertrille14 hours ago

More than I ever knew.

Octoberfurst John Conley 2 hours ago

Same here. Ever since a black man became president I’ve seen nothing but an escalation in hate in this country. It’s like a huge swath of this country decided that anyone who is not white, straight, male and Christian is subhuman and need to have their rights taken away. I am disgusted with my country.

S EQ April Smith15 hours ago

It’s getting worse

another_steve Swamp Yankee15 hours ago

Theofascist monsters (the core of today’s Republican Party) are as we speak working furiously to devise their challenge to Obergefell.

Their war against the trans community is a warm-up act for them.

Merely practice.

Tim 🇺🇦15 hours ago

JWC 15 hours ago

They came for the blacks. I said nothing i wasn’t black Then they came for the jews, I said nothing I wasn’t jewish. Then the came for……..

ASFT15 hours ago

““I just want to hear a conversation about it,” Holt said.”

People’s basic rights aren’t (or shouldn’t be) up for conversation.

Max-1 🔫+cult(R)=☠️ ASFT15 hours ago

We never have had a discussion about his Rights, have we?
Maybe the People of Iowa need to gather in the public square and begin that discussion…

liondon#traitortrash15 hours ago

It’s another distraction from poor governance…

danolgb15 hours ago

Won’t they be surprised to find out that this, (Yes this SCOTUS!) has already ruled that gender identity is covered under sex discrimination.

Bruno danolgb15 hours ago

Only under the Civil Rights Act of 64, which doesn’t include discrimination in the realm of public accommodations.

danolgb Bruno15 hours ago

But that’s only because the Title II of Civil Rights Act of 64 which covers public accommodations doesn’t include sex.

Just so you know

Just so you know posting and replying to comments will be slow this morning. I have a doctor’s appointment, seeing my new pulmonologist this morning. Trying to figure out why I struggle with shortness of breath a lot of the time. It may take a while. Hugs.

It did not work, but was kind of relaxing

Hello all. So Sunday I decided to dump my video computer, clean out some old stuff, clean it up, reorganize it, and tweak the setting. The reason was I had a Microsoft security update that kept faulting out on installation. I did a quick search on it, did not see anything about it online, and Ron kept pushing me to do stuff to distract me. I had suffered from the resurfacing of some abuse memories, I was feeling sick because on Thursday I had steroid injections into my spine, Friday I got allergy shots, and then this weekend I was to take my testosterone injection and that really hurts. Then to top it off, the new roof has leaked and water leaked down into the ceiling and now we had mold growing in the bedroom.

I decided to do a full deep clean. I could have just reset windows and left the drive alone. But I wanted a good clean up. So I had the computer wipe the drives, remove everything on them, which means I had to rebuild the directories, switching things from the C drive to the D drive that has twice the room for data, photos, videos, movies, TV, and any other storage needs than the C drive which I save for program files. That took most of one day. Then Monday I was really feeling badly, and noticed I still had the same issue. This time I did a deep dive search in the error codes and self repair. It involved the size of the rescue environment section on the hard drive. I was seeing how large I would have to make it to fix the issue when I saw that a lot of people who tried this self repair did not get the issue fixed and had to end up reinstalling windows and or repartitioning their hard drives again. While I have good software for this and have done it many times, I was not wanting to spend the time because I was not feeling well. Still am not. So I did what I should have done in the very first place. I started reading the Microsoft Windows support community posts, and more important, the replies from Microsoft staff. Turns out on Jan 10th they released a statement acknowledging the problem, the failure of the update to install on a lot of computers and they were working on a fix for the next batch of Windows updates. Everything I had done until then and the next day and half of putting all my programs back on and their settings correct, was not needed. Grrr. All because I did not want to spend a half a day wading through all the community support stuff I ended up doing anyway. Well I was distracted from the other issues. Hugs. Scottie