My email: As a father of an infant, I urge you to support HB5515. The current Michigan law only protects a mother from prosecution under public nudity statutes, but does nothing to explicitly protect a woman who wishes to breastfeed in public from harassment. Based on the public's reaction to yesterday's incident at a Metro Detroit Target store, there is clear public support for an amendment to Michigan law for wider protection, such as that provided by HB5515. Thank you for your consideration of this topic.

My Congresscritter's reply:
Thank you for taking the time to write me regarding House Bill 5515.

Currently, this legislation resides in the House Judiciary Committee. Please be assured that should bill be voted out of committee and taken up on the House floor for consideration, I will be in support of it.

Again, thank you for writing.

Sincerely,
Vincent Gregory
State Representative
35th District

Huzzah!

This speech is excellent. It was delivered today to the New York Senate.



Unfortunately, the New York Senate did vote against the bill.

Michigan residents: Please consider contacting your local state representative concerning HB5155. Currently, Michigan law only clearly exempts breastfeeding mothers from public nudity laws; it doesn't provide any clear protection against, for instance, stores kicking them out or otherwise humiliating them, as evidenced by this incident at a local Target (I'm "Father of a six-month-old" in the comments).

HB5155 changes that by explicitly providing women who are breastfeeding with full protection to continue doing that act in public places where they would otherwise be allowed to be.

The one situation I'm currently on the fence about is the subject of breastfeeding in a public pool, but other than that, wherever a woman and a baby could normally be, she ought to be able to breastfeed. So I support this bill.

I must not be as cultured as I think. When I think of Robert Sean Leonard, Wilson on House, in terms of movie roles, I think of My Best Friend is a Vampire. I was just reminded tonight (seeing an interview with Robin Williams) that he was also in Dead Poet's Society. Whee.

In August, Michigan's DHS threatened to prosecute an adult for running an unlicensed child care facility. What the woman was doing: She'd agreed to watch her friend's children briefly before and after school, for a total of about half an hour a day, for free.

Today, the Michigan Senate approved an amendment to the daycare law that would exempt daycare in a house where the total annual compensation is less than $600 (or the minimum for a 1099). Both the House and Senate votes were unanimous, and Granholm is expected to sign the bill into law today.

I realize DHS was just doing their job, but I also think going after people for being nice to their friends and neighbors is bizarre. Votes of 107-0 in the House and 37-0 in the Senate are at least a very clear "That's not what we meant and you know it" to the DHS.

It's not like Michigan DHS has nothing else to do, either. A judge recently exculpated the adult daughter caretaker in the negligence-related death of her dependent mother on the grounds that the daughter's requests for DHS assistance had gone ignored for several years. So DHS can't be bothered with actually helping people in need of help, but they can go after friendly neighbors.

The relevant passage, with the amendments in bold italics:

(iii) "Family child care home" means a private home in which 1 but fewer than 7 minor children are received for care and supervision for compensation for periods of less than 24 hours a day, unattended by a parent or legal guardian, except children related to an adult member of the family by blood, marriage, or adoption. Family child care home includes a home in which care is given to an unrelated minor child for more than 4 weeks during a calendar year. A family child care home does not include an individual providing babysitting services for another individual.

As used in this subparagraph, "providing babysitting services" means caring for a child on behalf of the child's parent or guardian when the annual compensation for providing those services does not equal or exceed $600.00 or an amount that would according to the internal revenue code of 1986 obligate the child's parent or guardian to provide a form 1099-MISC to the individual for compensation paid during the calendar year for those services.

Having recently experienced an expensive medical treatment (the delivery of a child) and having seen the resultant bills, I have a different perspective on healthcare and health insurance than I did before. Caveat: I am not a lawyer or an expert on this topic, and the information below should be taken as anecdotal.

Money is no object

There was a story recently on the local news about comparison shopping for hospitals, comparing it to cars or major appliances. I didn't see the story, just the promo, but it occurred to me that one problem with that comparison is that hospitals don't generally advertise their prices. When you buy a car, you can look at the stickers and compare what you get for what you're going to pay.

Patients, especially those with insurance, are treated by hospitals as if money is no object. If you "need" a procedure, you get a procedure. Disposable items are given out with abandon. You might be told of risk vs value of a procedure, but you're not told how much it'll cost.

Even with insurance, there's a risk here: Most insurance companies have lifetime caps, and while a generally healthy person won't reach those caps unless they get a catastrophic illness, disregarding cost in the decision making process altogether increases the chance the caps will be reached. Plus, the more expensive a hospital stay, the bigger the bill to the insurance company, which in turn means higher premiums on average.

Much of this problem is not the hospital's fault. If I go to the hospital with a condition and they undertreat it, even if I ask them to, they run the real risk that I'll sue them if something terrible happens. Let's say I have a severe cut on my hand. I don't want stitches because that's expensive, I just want some alcohol and gauze and maybe some liquid skin. They do as I say and then my injury infects. My hand has to be amputated. Now I might sue them for malpractice. Constantly reminding patients of the costs of procedures might be construed as discouraging patients from getting "necessary" medical treatments, and so it's legally safest just to give the patient everything they might need, err on the side of hypercaution, and let Accounting figure it out.

Leaster bartering

Here's how medical billing works when an insurance company is involved: The medical professional bills for $X. The insurance company decides the procedure should cost $Y. The insurance company pays the lesser of $X and $Y. So it's in the hospital's best interest to make sure that $X is more than $Y, and they do this by grossly overcharging. Also, because $Y is often below a realistic cost, the hospital needs to make up the difference by overcharging people without insurance.

What do I mean by "grossly overcharging"? I looked at my Explanation of Benefits. On average, the insurance company paid about 60% of what the hospital or medical professional charged. In one case, the insurance company was charged $7000 and approved payment for $1240. Once the insurance company declares how much it's willing to pay, that's usually the end of the conversation.

If you don't have insurance, you don't have an agency able to cut your expenses down. You might try to go to the hospital yourself, and in many cases you'll be successful. Our dentist, for instance, has bartered down at times when only one of us had dental insurance, but he also explained a lot of this to us. The insurance companies have the right to audit a medical professional's books, and if there's too much difference between $X, what the medical professional charges the insurance company, and $X', what the medical professional charges a patient without insurance, the insurance company can cry foul and issue penalties.

In the case of the $7000 bill, for instance, that was to the anesthesiologist. They adjusted their bill down to around $1500 and resubmitted, but because it's an anesthesiologist, they're officially Out of Network and therefore, I get the bill. Because they're now billing the patient directly, they have a "patient discount" which brings the bill down to $1360, which is still higher than the insurance company says I ought to pay (and which the insurance company gave me money to pay). I'm still arguing over the $120 difference, with kidlet passing 5 months and on the verge of crawling.

As far as I can tell, then, what this effectively means is that hospitals are going to charge more for a procedure than the maximum any health insurance company will pay out, and then adjust down as needed. This leaves people without insurance in the position of having to pay that maximum, or try their luck at arguing for a lower bill.

Money for nothing (but no chicks for free)

Another problem is the relationship most people have with insurance. Logically, it makes sense that most people will lose money on insurance. Think of car insurance, for instance. We pay about two grand a year on our two cars, and we don't get anywhere near that in payback. The reason is, there are people out there who get far more in payback, and on average the insurance company wants to make money. If the insurance company pays out more than it takes in, it loses money; that's simple economics.

However, it seems to me that most people want to receive more in medical treatment on a regular basis than they pay out in health insurance (directly or through employer contributions). Insurance is supposed to be a safety net against catastrophe: Car insurance doesn't pay for oil changes, and home owner's insurance doesn't pay for the dormer you'd like to build. But medical insurance is used as much for maintenance costs as for emergencies, including prescription drugs and mental health care*, and those things are expensive. It makes economic sense that, if your health insurance is paying for your Viagra and your therapist, then your health insurance premium will include both maintenance and catastrophic considerations, which means you'll be paying more to the health insurance company than you would be paying if you were just buying those things directly (because the company also wants operating expenses for administering all this).

Of course, one reason why health insurance companies pay for maintenance is because it's far cheaper in the long run for them to pay for wellness visits and maintenance pharms than to pay for the medical emergencies resulting from people skipping those things because they don't have the money. Car insurance doesn't pay for spark plugs because it doesn't pay to replace a car that dies from poor maintenance; if it did, it would also pay for spark plugs.

The best thing a friend can do...

"Is your friend in the hospital?" asks one TV ad. "Sure, you can visit them. But the best thing a friend can do is tell them to get a lawyer."

Volumes upon volumes have been written on the problem of tort law in this country, so I won't add to it. (Full disclosure: My brother's a lawyer, but not to my knowledge an ambulance chaser.)

Summary

So, basically, what we have in this country is a three-way trainwreck with most patients left at the mercy of the behemoths: The hospitals, the insurance companies, and the liability lawyers. What we want is affordable medical treatment, and I do think that most of us would have more tolerance for making medical choices based on cost if it were presented to us in a reasonable fashion, and if medical treatment weren't so expensive in the first place (it's hard for me to be sympathetic to the costs of wellness visits if my doctor lives in a $2M mansion [which I don't believe he does]). Instead, we're faced with greed and defensiveness from all fronts.

* Mental health footnote: This might be changing. My previous employers' insurance paid for no more than 20 visits per year or for 50% of 52 visits per year, but my current insurance (COBRA through my previous employer's company) pays only for acute treatment needs; it's still 20 visits in a calendar year, but maintenance therapy isn't included, nor is therapy for conditions not likely to improve. To be covered, outpatient services have to be in response to a specific mental health crisis.

There's a really common dream about going back to college. You've probably had it; I have, quite a bit. It's the last week of the semester and you can't remember what subjects you're taking, or when the exams are, or anything, and you're about to fail; or you get a letter from your alma mater saying there was a problem with one of your classes and your degree isn't any good unless you retake it.

Last night, I had a variation on that theme, perhaps the exact opposite: I was going back to school. It was the first week of classes, and I knew exactly what courses I had. I was having trouble with one of the assignments and trying to decide whether to discuss it with the professor. I knew who the professor was and what his office hours were. I was trying to balance my course schedule around my work schedule, because I had a part-time minimum wage job that I had gotten fairly easily.

The assignment I was having trouble with was for my psychology class. It was an essay: "Demonstrate how, if one person gives an identical monetary gift to five people, at least one of the people will become paranoid." It was based on a chapter on Obligation Theory, where interpersonal dynamics are defined in terms of who owes what (formally or informally) to whom, and how people strive to approach zero-indebtedness as a comfort point.

All of my notes were taken in pencil, so that I could correct as needed. (In my real life, I usually take notes in ink.)

The only really odd stressor was that my backpack was filled with books of music. This had nothing to do with my studies. I didn't want to give them up or leave them at home. V suggested I leave them in my office cubicle space at school so they'd be handy but I wouldn't have to lug them around.

When I woke up, V asked about the books and I said I figured it was "what was holding me back," or at least that's what dream psychologists would say. I don't know how musical studies are holding me back from anything, so maybe it's a metaphor for the amount of brain matter I use up on recorded music.

Anyway, the "lost at school" dream is supposed to indicate insecurities about having weaknesses discovered or being otherwise unprepared, so logically this dream would indicate that I'm feeling secure and ready for the next step, whatever it is. Consciously, I don't feel that way at all, but ...?

So. Michigan suffers. That's not news. In the last gubernatorial election, the Republicans managed to find someone who at least looked qualified to address Michigan's financial woes, even if his approach and philosophy weren't at all to my tastes (that someone being Dick DeVos, who inherited the AmWay Alticor fortune). In a parallel universe, an altruistic DeVos would write a check or at least rewrite the tax code so the rich paid a heftier share in the short term, but I doubt that was his plan.

This time, the front-runner for the GOP doesn't appear to have any obvious experience with business. At all. In fact, he's a man who's spent his entire career bolstering his CJ creds. A cop.

Now, in the state of Michigan, we could do worse. And with Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm's continuing mediocre-to-bad performance and a term limit forcing her out (thankfully, in my opinion), it seems a reasonable likelihood that apparently more qualified Lt. Gov. John D. Cherry (with his Master's in Public Administration) will lose to just about any GOP candidate capable of tying his or her own shoes, so I should be grateful that we're not doing worse. The choice of Bouchard is fairly obvious: It brings in Oakland County moderates, and Oakland County is routinely the most important county in this swing state.* Despite our problems, what matters on voting day is popularity, and Bouchard is very popular. As a cop.

To put himself ahead of the pack, he's also announced his running mate: Michigan Secretary of State Teri Lynn Land. Now, at the Federal level, the Secretary of State (Hillary Clinton, that is) has a breadth of diplomatic responsibilities. At the state level, the SOS is basically, well, a secretary. The MI SOS is in charge of the DMV and voter registration.

This team was put together to combat insurgent Republican Mike Cox, the attorney general who appears to be the second-place contender.

Now, I don't know, neither of these seem particularly awful choices for governor for a reasonably stable state. Neither of them, though, seem particularly good choices for addressing financial problems, which should be the #1 priority. Indeed, Bouchard and Cox have spent their careers focused on law enforcement, not on balancing a budget.

So, is this how the GOP is approaching Michigan? We're in an economic cesspool, so we need a cop and a secretary vs a lawyer? At least the secretary has a BS in PoliSci.**

* For those unfamiliar with our politics: The urban areas routinely vote Democrat, the rural areas in the Lower Peninsula routinely vote Republican, and the rural Upper Peninsula routinely votes whichever way the libertarian winds are blowing. Oakland County usually votes somewhat right down the middle, with its rich suburban Christians and rural residents voting Republican and everyone else voting Democrat. Nudge Oakland County clearly in one way or the other, and you can nudge the state.

** Despite my sarcasm, I was hoping that Land would run in her own right. She strikes me as more qualified than either Bouchard or Cox. She's done wonders with the DMV, especially at a time when we're so financially strapped, and I hope that if Bouchard does win, she takes a very assertive approach to economic issues.

I haven't been a fan of instant replay suggestions in baseball. Even when a mediocre call against Inge and the Tigers in game 163 of the season meant we didn't get a run,* I wasn't convinced. Tonight, I'm a believer.

Unlike the Inge play, it was a meaningless call. The Yankees were up 5-0 in the fifth, and even though their runner was ruled safe, the Angels got the third out anyway. It had little effect on the game, if any. (Actually, if anything, it should have fired the Angels up to get back in and prove something.)

Unlike the Inge play, and most other plays people complain about, there was nothing close about it. Watch the video. This is the sort of play that would have easily been put to rest with an instant replay. No controversy at all. And, from the looks of this post-season, as Ingean karma works its way towards the World Series, more and more no-brainer calls will be blown.

So now, I'm in favor of an NFL-like system. Each manager starts the game with three protests. Once they use those up, that's it. In addition, home run calls could still be reviewed. That should provide enough of a review process to cover truly awful calls without slowing the game down; time previously taken while managers yell at umpires would be taken up with play reviews.

* Bases loaded, tie game, extra inning. Inge's jersey gets brushed by the ball. Technically, he was hit by the pitch and should have been sent to first, pushing in a run. The umpire didn't see it, and the angle and speed were odd. It was a reasonable enough call (and besides, tying the Tigers' entire season to that one play when we should have already clinched the post-season would be sour grapes by any measure). Even if we'd gotten the run, the Twins would have still had their at bat, so it's not definite we would've won. And also besides, I wouldn't have wanted to sneak into the post-season on a technicality, considering Inge himself wasn't hit, just his jersey. Video

Gee, I wonder why last night's Lie to Me is so popular today on Hulu?

Could it have anything at all to do with a rassafrassa baseball game running 45 minutes over?

Heh.

The outcome of tonight's game was, from my perspective, the perfect one:

-- The Tigers did not get completely trounced, as most people were expecting. This was a game in the Metrodome, where we've done terribly this year, and we held our own, including taking a lead in extra innings. Anyone who came away from tonight's game with any other conclusion than that the Tigers and the Twins are about as evenly matched as two teams can be is just plain silly.

-- The Twins now get to go play the Yankees. If the Yankees win (which they're expected to), then they can't claim that the Tigers victory a few years ago was a fluke because they won't beat the Tigers this year. If the Twins win, the AL Central (and by extension the Tigers) are vindicated. Either way, the Tigers win, and without having to do a stitch of work.

Silver linings. :)

I got sick of listening to the "unbiased" national sportscasters, so I'm watching the game but the audio is the radio cast. It's more fun, with the added weirdness that the telecast is on a 10-second delay, so I hear the play before I see it.

Whee. :)

(4-4 in the 9th as I type this.)

Detroit Tigers Miguel Cabrera was arrested early Saturday on a DV call. He had come home around 6am, drunk (three times the legal limit), and his wife was upset that he'd woken their young daughter up. The two exchanged words, then blows, and the cops took him away. No charges are pending at the time because it was ruled a mutually aggressive act.

This was the night before the Tigers were to play one of the most important games of their season. With the season on the line, they had to win either Saturday or Sunday to keep from being eliminated (they won Sunday). The national media was just looking for a story to demonstrate how reckless, cocky, and unfocused the Tigers were, how they choked to let the Twins back in, blah blah blah.

Cabrera's irresponsibility is absolutely appalling. It's appalling on the human family level, to come home drunk in the middle of the night with a small child at home, to come to blows with his wife (even if it was "mutually aggressive"), to do this the night before (technically, the same day as) a huge day at work.... astounding. It's appalling from a fan-and-city level: Detroit, hit harder than about any other city in this country by continued economic problems, could have really used more sports heroism, another trip to the postseason, or at least the national kudos that the Tigers' success was giving us, but instead he offers up an opportunity for a nation that sees us as violent, drugged out, a day late and a dollar short to have a tangible symbol of that waste. It's appalling from a role model level: Yet another athlete, like A-Rod, like Michael Vick, like too many other heroes whose personal lives teach young kids that being successful in sports means you can be an absolute asshole at home and get away with it.

Cabrera is human, and humans make mistakes. This particular mistake was a *doozy.*

First: What Roman Polanski did several decades ago was heinous, and he should have been prosecuted accordingly.

However...

I believe there ought to be a reasonable point at which the judicial system ought to have to say, for any crime, that so much time has elapsed without action that the person is now in the clear. It's one thing if the person actively hides, but Polanski has journeyed numerous times in the past decades to places where he could have been extradited, and he wasn't; also, in all those years, the US has failed to make the case to France to allow us to extradite him. It's not like he was hiding in the caves on the Afghan/Pakistan border all those years.

One rumor is that the response to "Why now?" is because the US is pressuring Switzerland to reveal information about illegal bank accounts, and this was a carrot; a colleague of Polanski's suggested, more plausibly I think, that the arrest is about a recent documentary which could be interpreted as mocking or taunting the US authorities for their lackluster attempts to arrest Polanski (source). Regardless, I think there's sufficient evidence that Polanski's arrest has been such an egregious case of "around-to-it" behavior that that should be enough to let him be.

If not, if prosecutors are allowed to arrest a person for a crime at any point in that person's life, *even if* there have been *plenty* of opportunities to arrest that person at an earlier point, then I think the waiting game should become part of the punishment, part of the time served.

Again, it's not like Polanski was hiding. He was spending most of his time in France, granted, which refused to allow his extradition (but didn't take long to condemn him, after his arrest), but he was spending lots of time in Switzerland. At no point, even in this terrorist era of heightened airport security, were authorities aware he was in Switzerland? All that time he was making a movie in Germany, surrounded by witnesses, nobody thought to call up Angela Merkel and arrange a sting?

There's also the travesty of the plea bargain to be considered. The original fleeing was because Polanski's lawyers brokered a deal, Polanski served part of his sentence, and the judge let it leak that he was planning to renege on the deal. The judge is a party to this travesty as well, and yet he won't suffer any consequences, in part because he's dead.

Regardless, certainly, what Polanski did in 1977 was heinous and without excuse. He should have paid for the crime, and quite frankly it's a travesty that he was allowed to work out such a light plea bargain at the time (90 days of psychiatric observation, then probation, according to Wikipedia). Martha Stewart got more than that for a relatively light-weight financial crime. Polanski *should have* served time, decades ago. The judge shouldn't have approved the bargain in the first place.

And when Polanski fled from justice, he should also have paid for that crime. Fair is fair, crimes are crimes.

But I think the machinations in the Polanski case since have set disturbing precedents for the legal system. Whether or not Polanski should have served hard time for rape became legally moot when the judicial system agreed that he shouldn't. Whether or not he should have served time for evading justice became moot when he repeatedly took up residence or made visible trips to countries that allowed his extradition, and the Justice Department sat on their hands. This stopped being about Polanski years ago, and started being increasingly about our system and its myriad problems with fairness.

So, to be clear, yes, I do think that at this point Polanski should not be prosecuted. Not because he's a celebrity or a genius or a poor victim of trauma from his wife's death or any of those things, but because the judicial system simply spent too long getting around to arresting him.

This is my opinion. Comments screened for venom.

I may have said this a long time ago, but ...

I was recently reading yet another rant on how the Star Trek franchise uses modern English, as if there wouldn't have been any changes in the few hundred years between now and then. It reminded me of the story I wrote for the November Novel a few years ago. That story, which takes place on another planet with no contact with Earth, there are two languages spoken by various characters, but I've only worked on the structure of one of them. That's because the other one is presented as English. Also, of course, the script for Star Wars is mostly in English, ditto Battlestar Galactica, but the rants I see are usually mostly about Star Trek. Why is that?

The truth is, the standard convention in narratives that take place where all the characters speak some language other than that of the audience is to present the dialogue of the most common language as that of the audience (in these cases, English). There are obvious exceptions (such as two films by Mel Gibson), but that's the way it's done. One of the more notable illustrations of this process is in The Thirteenth Warrior, where the dialogue language is whatever's understood by the main protagonist at a particular time in the script (so, at first, Norse is Norse and not understood by the protagonist or the audience, but latter Norse becomes presented as English).

So, with regards to Star Trek, they are speaking English in whatever form it's become, but it's being translated into a form of English that we can understand. Ditto Star Wars (the language we hear as English is actually Galactic Basic Standard, which in reality ought to sound nothing like English at all).

Objectively, I do think that the White Sox and the Twins are both better teams as far as skill goes (sportsmanship is another matter), but somehow the Tigers managed to keep in first place most of the season. If we still manage to make it to the post-season, great. If we don't, we had a wonderful run, much more than we expected at the start of the year. Heck, the pundits were declaring the Indians World Series bound at the beginning of the year.

I don't really care much for the Twins, the Red Sox, or the Yankees, and the Angels are too far removed from my reality (whatever *that* means), so if the Tigers get knocked out Sunday or Tuesday, I suppose I'll turn my attention to something else until spring. :) Unless somehow the Angels and Dodgers manage to make it an all-LA World Series, but that seems pretty unlikely.

Mario Impemba, discussing a controversy in today's Tigers-Twins game: "There have been some big time disagreements between the Tigers and Chicago and the Tigers and the Indians, the two teams in this division aside from Minnesota." He did mention the Royals in his next turn, but I did think it was a bit of Freudian slip. ;)

In an otherwise throwaway Pepto Bismol ad, I saw their competitive fictitious anti-gas product: Wind Jammers. Heh.

I've been critical of Dawkins in the past, particularly his apparent hostility towards religionists. If he stays true to the version of his position that's depicted in the 10/5 Newsweek, though, I'll have to change that opinion. He clarifies in an interview with Lisa Miller that he's specifically criticizing creationists, and even goes so far as qualifying that with "young-earth creationists." He also acknowledges that there are "many intelligent" people who believe in God. I don't know if this is a newer, gentler Dawkins, if Newsweek cut-or-quoted him on a good day, or if he's been unjustly demonized (although with a title like The God Delusion, at least mild demonization seems just), but regardless, I like this particular version of him.

In my book, the narrator and her friend come upon the teenage daughter of an acquaintance depressed and "licking" a "Magnum." I was a bit confused because, well, while the two most common uses of that word in English might be something a depressed person might put in their mouths, those aren't the sort of thing one would expect in the context in a light-hearted book. It turns out that while, yes, Germans do indeed recognize "Magnum" in terms of both alcohol units and personal firearms, there's a far more likely candidate that suits the context much better.

I mentioned this to V, and she pointed out that "Magnum" can also refer to condoms, and while those are indeed also sometimes placed in the mouth, they're usually filled in a way that one would most certainly not expect to be taking place in public (and at any rate, I don't think a passerby's first comment would be, "Hey, that looks like a Magnum she's sucking on!").