OK, so it didn’t take me this long to eat lunch; I’ve had some other things to do, and wanted to let the first post settle a bit. Since I got that all out, some of my urgency has abated, though I still want to tie the subject up, until/unless there are comments where we can discuss and enjoy however long we want.
Lunch was brunch. My plate was frambled eggs with toast. I know I said it wasn’t a cooking post, and look what I’m doing. When I make frambled eggs, I cook the eggs as if for over-easy (yolks runny, whites cooked.) Turn the eggs when it’s time, let them get a bit of heat on that side, then gently drag your spatula through, to break the yolk and drag the white through the yolk. My personal goal is not a hard-cooked yolk, but what I guess they call a jammy yolk; you get a bit of liquid, even, but it’s not drippy. You just keep gently lifting and turning until you like the consistency of the eggs. I had whole wheat toast, and oatmeal that I apple-pie spiced, and sweetened with honey. We’ve been having a rain “event,” so I’d got the laundry to the laundry room to run and to dry between/before rains.
Our laundry room is at the front of our front carport, front being the direction the front end of the car points; we park in front of the laundry room. Our house is a whole post in and of itself, but not quite as Scottie’s and Ron’s house; they may run theirs by crisis and we rarely have a crisis, but their house is nicer and more modern than ours. Also, while Sat. and Sunday are fitness rest days, I still do 10 min. every hour on the rebounder to get my steps. So, lunch hour took a little while. It’s a rest day! 😎 And the first day of Standard time, so everything’s a little later because our bio clocks are still running on Saving time. 🕰
I wonder if everybody has that one or two commercials that the last time it airs cannot come too soon. For me, right now, (and I know the winter holidays commercials are coming…) it’s that Wegovy commercial. I just want it to stop. Interestingly, while I’m not a big fan of Big Pharma, one of the ads I enjoy, all its versions, is the Jardiance ad! It makes me dance. Well, the newest one’s tempo is too slow for fun dancing, but it’s still a nice ad. This is neither a plug for or against either drug. Those have their place and may be discussed with a person’s doctor. This is just about the ads. The ones that use music from my youth especially tick me off, so I just ignore them and dance to their background music. I hate that King Harvest’s “Dancin’ in the Moonlight” is one that’s been appropriated. It’s been one of my top favorites forever, and they can’t take it away from me!
I turned all the clocks back last night, except one. But our son came out, noticed, and said, “Aren’t we supposed to turn the clocks back? The bathroom clock is an hour fast.” Truly, I’d turned the clocks up. I find the semi-annual time change abhorrent and stupid, but I disdain Saving time the most, because there goes another hour of my life, every year, that doesn’t come back, not really, so I guess changing the clock put me in a negative mindset and I went the wrong way. Anyway, it’s been enough years of my life now that I don’t care which we have, we simply need to pick one and be done. I don’t change the analog clock in the kitchen; it’s over the kitchen table, and I can’t reach it unless I stand on the kitchen table. Some day there could be a reason for me to stand on the kitchen table, but I’m not doin’ it to change the damn clock. The guys will get tired of it sooner or later, and I have the stove clock. And my Fitwitch on my wrist.
Well, that’s a sort of round up of trivia and drift. I hope readers have enjoyed it, at least smiled or giggled, and maybe feel a little better.
We can do this stuff. It’s still way too early to let Republicanism mess with our mental health.
It has struck me that we need a reduce-stress-be-in-the-moment-self-care sort of thing. Some of us have chronic conditions, some are recovering from surgery, some of us are physically fine other than great stress that may be getting the better of us, and some of us may have a combination of some or all, or even something else. I’m pretty sure we’re all aware of tools, but sometimes things are so worrying that we forget about that, as we urgently try to fix things, or even submit to our brains’s workings with cortisol and fear and what all. So. I don’t know what, if any of this, might help someone, but I gotta try. So here’s what’s likely gonna be a long post, with a mixed bag of stuff. Actually, I think it may turn into 2 separate posts, because I see I’ve only got one item covered, and it’s already post-length. So there may be Part 2. And maybe yet another one.
I think I should first refer people to the hotlines where professionals want to and can help. Maybe someone thinks they don’t need or want to call, or maybe someone thinks they’re not there yet. It’s just good to have the resource at hand, is all. Some gain strength from knowing they can call. So, of course, there’s 911, or whatever the 3 digit emergency number is where you live. Then, more specifically, there are numbers for mental health assistance, like 988 where you can text Q to 988 if you want an LGBTQI+ affirming counselor. National Domestic Violence Hotline , (800) 799-7233. Crisis Text Line ,Text HOME to 741741. National Sexual Assault Hotline , (800) 656-4673. SAgE’s Farmer Support Hotline , 833-381-SAGE. Veterans Crisis Line , 988, then PRESS 1 Text 838255, Chat online. Much more at https://www.apa.org/topics/crisis-hotlines . Also, https://glaad.org/resourcelist/ . No doubt I’ve missed something, so please put it in comments.
I will share a bit about myself here. I’ve been diagnosed with generalized anxiety. Could be brain chemistry, could be that my life has not been a calm flow, both, something else. Whatever it is, I have it. Having treated and therapized, I know which tools work for me, and I use them, sometimes unconsciously. Anyway, I don’t like seeing people having trouble, or being troubled, or being hungry, sick, cold, hot, traumatized by war, etc., etc. My mindset has always been to do all I can to fix. Mostly to fix things immediately for the people I’m trying to help, but also the bigger working to fix. We’ve all seen my posts where I’ve shared some of the issues and items on which I work.
The thing about that is, it helps me to feel like I’m doing something that can help somebody else. It overrides anxiety and introversion when I have a reason to be “bothering” people for the greater good.
In regard to current events stress, which is weighing on all people everywhere, there are many of us around the world who are able to do just that one thing that seems so tiny-an hour on the phone, say-to make a difference, and reduce our concerns and stress. So, here is the volunteer page for the Harris-Walz campaign: https://go.kamalaharris.com/ . They still need people to make calls. Making calls to voters in other states is one of my favorite parts of helping a campaign! With a cell phone it’s almost cost and pain-in-the-neck free. Again, I’m aware of various medical issues around the commentary; that’s why I say even one hour will help the campaign, and will also help us. In addition or instead of this, one could contact campaigns of legislative candidates, like Sen. Brown, Sen. Baldwin, Rep. Sharice Davids, Colin Allred, and so many more. An hour of calls will help. And, again, you will feel better having spoken with people to further the greater good.
Now calling is a thing I’m putting forward. To me, it’s personal for each of us, what and how much we’re doing about the stress of the things in the world. I neither need nor want to know if/what anybody’s doing. I’m only putting this out as a thing from which to take our power, to put our power to work.
Since this is this long, I’ll put the first post I read this morning, it inspired me. It’s good-one of those things I needed to read, though I didn’t know it until I got started. It reminded me that while I didn’t necessarily learn or have these experiences in the same way or as early in life, I know these things, and I can do them when needed. I bet we all do, and can. I’m going to share a goodly snippet, but we should read it all if we can. Then, I’ll stop for lunch, then bring back another post part. Well, unless any- or everyone comments that they’re good, and please no more! 🌞 😄 And now from Vixen Strangely:
I tell this about myself because its true and a little weird, but when I was small, my dad taught me how to hook my fingers up and around an eyeball in its socket–just in case I ever had to. I knew what a xyphoid process was at six years old. I knew where to drive the heel of my hand into a human nose. I was taught that I didn’t have the physical strength advantage in life, so I had to have the will. I was taught that you have to walk in awareness. I was taught you watch your drink. I was taught to carry improvised weapons. I was taught to see the world in terms of potential improvised weapons.
I was taught this because some boys never get told what they should never try. Or get told but don’t really learn it. (You don’t use your knee–it’s inexact. You grab them by it. You can squeeze and disrupt a generation of losers. And I never had to do any of that. Not once. Because it’s really only a small percentage of men who are actual monsters–most are reasonable and not actual sociopaths. I like men, really. They are interesting enough and some have valuable skills. They care for the people around them and often are smarter than they think they are. It’s a confidence issue. When you are told to value muscle over brain, you know.)
I was raised to think, more or less, there wasn’t anything I couldn’t do. Math, science, art, politics. Sports. And it simply never occurred to me women were just out there, somewhere, either not voting because their husbands said they couldn’t or voting for exactly what their husbands told them to, until I heard about that in my early adulthood–because why? That’s crazy: we’re fully-fledged adult people, right? Even if I knew I was born just before Roe and just before women generally could even get credit in our own names.
I’ve been married twice. The idea of a man not knowing what he’s even getting politically going into a relationship is weird to me–this is me. We are talking politics. You don’t know me and not know my politics.
I was told to put in the work. Show it. Show up. I learned how to put a little bass in my voice. I learned respect is earned, not one time, but every time.
Donald Trump never had to earn the respect that he has from the bottom up, in any environment where respect wasn’t just his for showing up. Women can see through it. Do you not see his relationship with Jeffery Epstein? The couple dozen claims of sexual harassment or assault? How he speaks about women all the time? The religious right (that he has allied with) desire to end no-fault divorce and the grinning sadist desire to monitor our menses and try to punish us for our fertility and even stop us from travelling to other states to save our lives? (snip-More)
The stakes in United States v. Skrmetti are even higher than most Americans realize and could have wide-reaching consequences if the court rules to keep the ban on gender-affirming care in place.
This piece was published in partnership with The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom covering gender, politics, and policy. Sign up for their newsletter here.
A Supreme Court case that will decide whether Tennessee can continue to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth could imperil the ability of all Americans to make decisions about their health care, experts say. The outcome depends on how far the court is willing to stretch its ruling that overturned federal abortion rights.
In United States v. Skrmetti, the court has agreed to take up the question of whether gender-affirming care bans for trans youth are unconstitutional, in response to the Biden administration petitioning on behalf of trans youth and their families in Tennessee — one of 26 states that has bannedsuch care for minors. The outcome of the case will grant much-needed clarity in a political landscape that has thrown the lives of trans people across the country into turmoil, as hospitals turn patients away, pharmacies deny prescriptions and families travel hundreds of miles to find care.
But with the case set for oral arguments on December 4, the stakes are even higher than most Americans realize, legal and policy experts say. Tennessee has banned gender-affirming care, such as puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy, for a specific demographic — trans youth — while allowing those same treatments for cisgender youth. If the Supreme Court allows the state to keep its ban in place, that could imperil everyone’s access to health care.
“What the state of Tennessee is arguing is really dangerous for any person who has any sort of medical condition,” says Ezra Young, a civil rights lawyer and constitutional scholar. Tennessee is dictating what medical treatments people should or should not be allowed to have, Young said; that goes well beyond states’ authority to regulate medicine, specifically because giving health care to trans people is not a public health concern.
“The state can make sure that the doctor you see has a medical degree and has an active medical license, for instance,” he says. “What the state can’t do is micromanage the medical decision-making of patients or doctors, and that’s for good reason. Bureaucrats or lawmakers aren’t medical experts.”
Yet in half of U.S. states, Republican lawmakers have banned or restricted medical care that many trans people need to live, over the protests of the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, and other leading medical groups. Federal judges have attempted to block these bans from taking hold, finding them to be likely unconstitutional. Appeals court judges have disagreed and overturned those decisions. Now, the Supreme Court will have the final say.
“If we don’t win here, it’s going to be open season on any health care related to transgender people,” says Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. If the Supreme Court holds that banning gender-affirming care is not discriminatory, then trans people would no longer be protected under the Affordable Care Act, he argues. States and private insurers would be able to exclude gender-affirming care from coverage plans.
“It would be devastating. I mean, absolutely catastrophic,” Minter says.
Ultimately, the outcome of this case will have a wider impact beyond gender-affirming care. A Supreme Court ruling endorsing Tennessee’s argument that the state can ban safe medical care — just because it disagrees with who that treatment is being given to — would enable the government to control people’s health decisions and enact other blatantly discriminatory policies, legal experts say.
“I think this case has bigger and broader implications than a lot of people realize, even frankly within the legal community,” says Michael Ulrich, an associate professor of health law, ethics and human rights at Boston University’s School of Public Health and School of Law. If the Supreme Court agrees with Tennessee’s ban, there’s nothing stopping states from banning or restricting other kinds of health care, he said — like what gets covered under Medicaid.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar’s office, representing the Biden administration, will split argument time before the Supreme Court with Chase Strangio, co-director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBTQ & HIV Project.
The United States v. Skrmetti case is focused on whether Tennessee’s gender-affirming care ban violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. The state insists that its ban has nothing to do with sex and that it does not target trans people. Instead, the law “sets age and use-based limits,” Tennessee’s attorney general argues. Minors can still access hormones and puberty blockers for medical purposes, as long as those treatments are not being used as part of a gender transition or to alleviate gender dysphoria. The state claims such a distinction is not based on sex because “neither boys nor girls can use these drugs for gender transition.”
In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court found that there is no constitutional right to an abortion in the United States. This ruling overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that had guaranteed the right to an abortion since 1973. When writing the majority opinion in Dobbs, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito briefly addressed a theory that suggests abortion could be covered under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. This idea is not part of Roe, or at issue in Dobbs, but was invoked in a separate “friend of the court” brief. Alito dismissed it, saying that state regulations on abortion do not discriminate based on sex.
“So that’s what the state of Tennessee is now latching on to, this passing reference, this brief statement in Dobbs, and they’re pinning their whole argument on it,” says Minter. “Everything hinges on it.”
In Dobbs, Alito wrote that abortion cannot be protected under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, citing the arcane Geduldig v. Aiello — a case about pregnancy-related disability benefits — and Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic, a case dealing with the rights of anti-abortion protesters. These rarely cited cases found that state regulations on abortion and pregnancy, or opposing abortion, are not sex discrimination. Tennessee is now using this framework to argue that “any disparate impact on transgender-identifying persons” caused by its law does not single trans people out for discrimination in ways covered by the 14th Amendment.
If the state’s gender-affirming care ban is found by the Supreme Court to be discriminatory under the 14th Amendment, it is subject to heightened scrutiny — a more rigorous review to determine whether a law is constitutional or not. In that scenario, Tennessee is more likely to lose.
Using abortion case law to support bans on gender-affirming care is especially dangerous, experts say. Tennessee is taking the Supreme Court’s own decision in Dobbs out of context, according to lawyers who have worked in LGBTQ+ rights cases for decades. And, if the justices read Tennessee’s law, it is obvious that banning gender-affirming care for trans people is discriminating based on sex, they say.
The United States v. Skrmetti case is focused on whether Tennessee’s gender-affirming care ban violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. The state insists that its ban has nothing to do with sex and that it does not target trans people. Instead, the law “sets age and use-based limits,” Tennessee’s attorney general argues. Minors can still access hormones and puberty blockers for medical purposes, as long as those treatments are not being used as part of a gender transition or to alleviate gender dysphoria. The state claims such a distinction is not based on sex because “neither boys nor girls can use these drugs for gender transition.”
But, although the question before the court has become more specific, this ruling still has the potential to broadly set back LGBTQ+ rights.
Tennessee argues that the Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, which found that employment discrimination against LGBTQ+ workers is sex-based discrimination prohibited under the Civil Rights Act, has nothing to do with this case. But going down this road leads to more questions, Ulrich says: Is discriminating due to sexual orientation also not considered sex-based discrimination?
“Then you can see just a proliferation of discriminatory laws that are coming out thereafter,” he says. “That’s a really dangerous proposition for the entire LGBTQ+ community and it’s setting us back significantly.”
Sruti Swaminathan, an ACLU staff attorney who has been counsel in this case from the beginning, said United States v. Skrmetti will test how far the Supreme Court is willing to stretch its Dobbs decision. They are well aware that the outcome of this case could curtail bodily autonomy for everyone. And taking this challenge before a conservative-majority Supreme Court has stoked fears among trans people of worst-case scenarios.
“We’re already at the place where half the country has banned this care. We need to not let the 6th Circuit decision stand idly and be utilized in the way it has,” Swaminathan says.
But Tennessee’s tactics, and the consequences that they could have during a time when laws targeting reproductive and transgender health care are proliferating, still worry them.
“I’m terrified. What we learned from Dobbs is that these attacks won’t stop with abortion,” Swaminathan says. “Banning abortion seems to be one pillar of an effort to write outdated gender norms into the law.”
U.S. v. Skrmetti began as a lawsuit against Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
Tennessee’s argument in this case illustrates a larger coordinated effort to attack abortion access alongside gender-affirming care, says Logan Casey, director of policy research at the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit that tracks LGBTQ+ legislation.
States across the country have attempted to define sex based on reproductive capacity at birth. These efforts open transgender people up to discrimination and ignore the realities of intersex people, as well as cisgender women with conditions like primary ovarian insufficiency. Proponents of gender-affirming care bans inaccurately portray the effects of hormone replacement therapy on trans people’s reproductive ability by conflating the treatment with sterilization.
This Supreme Court case exemplifies a much larger argument that’s been a through line across attacks on transgender care and trans issues across the country, Casey says: What is sex, and who is protected when we think about that?
“Many of these state actors and politicians and extremists are clearly very invested in the concept of sex and defining sex in a very restricted and extraordinarily old-fashioned way that focuses only on people’s reproductive capacity, and then they use that argument in whatever context they can to advance the policies that would match that worldview,” he says.
(I don’t know if this is gonna work; I’m not on Instagram, but I went there, and could see, hear, read, and got the embed link. MomsRising is asking for shares, so if anyone cares to share, thank you!)
Two Ballot boxes damaged overnight with incendiary devices in SE Portland at 11th and Belmont AND Fishers Landing Vancouver, WA. It’s not known at this time if any ballots were damaged.
Below is what the tRump campaign is all about, toxic masculinity. Gang thug 12 yr old boys on the playground standing around insulting other kids pretending to be tough guys. Is this what you want for president, for congress? People who feel that everyone different from them should be insulted and belittled? Hugs
NFL rules forbid political “messages or gestures” during games or on the field. Just ask Colin Kaepernick, who was attacked by Bosa for kneeling during the anthem. The cult is celebrating Bosa and attacking NBC for editing the incident out of their coverage.
8.2 billion people and he is desperate for more … white ones. Yes that is the truth of it. First he is so egotistical he thinks his genetics are superior to any others. Second the fear he has is that brown people will out number white ones and rule the world. As a member of South Africa’s apartheid system he hates the idea of whites not being firmly and securely ruling over everyone else. He is a sick man. Hugs
They are so sure the voter purges are hurting the democrats that they push deeper and deeper cuts to the voter rolls. Not realizing they are hitting their own people now also. Hugs
And she seethed at the idea that anyone would question the citizenship of a former federal employee with the “whitest name you could have.”
The elections office in Montgomery County, just north of Houston, had sent Howard-Elley a letter in late January saying that she had been flagged after she indicated that she was not a U.S. citizen in response to a jury summons. She had 30 days to provide the county proof of citizenship or she would be removed from the voter rolls, according to the letter.
There is so much I want to do. I really want to get back to videos, that will become my main passion while Ali and Randy do other content. But just as Ron started working on a camera setup to make the camera adjustable but straight on, we had a circuit breaker problem and wires burning in our wall. As always in our home it is one crisis after the other. Ron calls it management by crisis.
Ron was born in 1955. He will be 70 years old next year. I will be 62. Today he told me he feels it. Yesterday he had to take apart our very large king size storage bed because the thing is only rated for 300 pounds and the Purple mattress Ron wanted weighs that itself. Add two adults … So he added supports to it when we first got it. But it was not enough. I won’t apologize for us being active in bed at our age and Ron often says when I am having bad memories or times I thrash and struggle in bed. So the thin plank boards they sent with it were all warped and the supports had all been twisted or feel off.
Ron had to take the 300 pound mattress off the bed and lay strips of plywood he had left over from projects plus add new 2X4 leg supports below each brace that runs longways. No he refused to let me help at anything except to get him batteries from the Pink Palace for his drills. I begged him to let me help but he was not having it. He says the next time he buys plywood for a house project he is going to get a sheet for the bed and never have to worry about this again.
The bed is more flat and better than it has been for a long time. It did not really bother me as I am much lighter than Ron by 40 or 50 pounds but his side was so destroyed he couldn’t turn over in bed. Don’t tell him I told you this. We both mentioned how softer the bed had gotten but what we did not realize was that was because the entire support system for the mattress had collapsed.
Scary turn. Ron went out this morning after our walk to do the grocery shopping. I started to do the dishes. I got a call from Ron. He was very upset. He said I am coming home, I have to, I can’t do it. I was shocked he was very foggy this morning but that is normal for him. But he went to one store and simply did not go in and went to the store next door and found he did not have the strength to get out of the car. That is when he called me. I asked him if he needed me to come for him but he said no. He came home and went for a nap. Then he wanted to start projects but I only let him put up a small clip for my canes then I insisted he sit for the rest of the day and do fun stuff. Just as he tells me. Yesterday he had to stand split on the supports and lift his one leg that doesn’t respond well over the supports to fix the bed. He laughs that he got his stretching excessing in, but the truth is he way over did. My he man always taking care of Scottie hates to admit he needs care now also.
On the videos that is where I want to go with my content on the blog. Ali and Randy have the content they like to post. I could have knocked this written post out in 5 minutes and it has taken me 45 minutes to write out and correct. But every time Ron gets to fixing the camera and background issues we have a crisis. He has a list of things he wants to repair in the Pink Palace but other crisis come and he has to deal with them. Please hang on we will eventually get it all worked out, like five years from now … but we have a plan.
One last thing to bring people up to date. Kamyk’s O2 returned to a more normal range this morning. Over the night (when he called me) his O2 and blood pressure had dropped dangerously low, but like I said the ICU is the place he needed to be. They gave him IV drugs to help both and he is sating at 93 to 96 which is great. Side note if everyone took their O2 levels they would be surprised by the results. One thing you do not want is 100% as that is a bad sign that the lungs are not exchanging co2. So his readings are great. Love everyone, hope you understand why I am not on the blog more. I am either with Ron, doing housework, or with the family of my friend. I just need to find a way to add 20 more hours to each day. Oh speaking of that, my wonderful friend / brother Randy who works normally 60 hours a week or more, took a panicked phone call from me at like 10 PM. He not only was wonderful but got me to laugh and see a side of the world I had forgotten existed. He is so grand words don’t do justice. Hugs.
Kamyk was moved to an ICU with Covid and an O2 level in the low 80s. I spent all day after only getting 3 hours sleep texting on Skype in group chat and private chats all day and into the next. I got to bed at 12:30 … am. Yes Ron was and is upset about the long hours and the toll it is taking on me, but he understands I am doing my best. Kamyk is in the best place for care, the ICU. Problem is his mother and one sister have Covid and visited him in his old room for days. Knowing they had Covid. They find masks inconvenient and unpleasant.
That sister is a complete narcissist who kept trying to make the group chats about her. She was reminded several times we needed to concentrate on Kamyk, but she couldn’t even use his chosen name, constantly dead naming him. Finally the good sister started a separate private chat with me. She was very angry at her other sister’s actions. I just started ignoring the bad sister. Had a good talk with the good sister on the private channel. We learned about each other. I wouldn’t share with her what Kamyk shared with me as that was his right to do so if he wanted. She said she knew about some of the adult stuff but not the kid stuff. I advised her to talk with her brother when he gets better.
She also was abused, but did not go into details. I have a policy of not asking if the person doesn’t seem to want me to, I figure if someone wants me to know something they will tell me most of the time. Anyway Ron has gone out shopping, there are a few dishes to wash, so I am going to take medication and do them so he has clean counters to set stuff on. Hugs. Thank you all for not only understand but sending thoughts, feelings, and prayers for my friend. He has been through so much he did not need this set back. I know he was talking he wanted it all to end. I think that was desperation talking, not his normal self. Hugs all.
Scottie's Playtime 