wintermute2_0

Mar 062018
 

Another top adviser for the Trump administration, Gary Cohn, has announced his resignation. His departure may be connected to Trump’s impulsive decision last week to impose tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. The turnover rate in the White House, which now includes moderates like Cohn, raises important questions about the quality of the advice that Trump receives from the remaining members of his inner circle. Will Stephen Miller become even more empowered to push his agenda of white grievance and isolationism? Will Trump appoint some brown-nosing intern to advise him on trade policy? Do we really have a president or just a useful idiot for whomever happens to be whispering in his ear?

Chaos is enveloping this administration despite a decent economy and a relatively calm global scene. If a crisis occurs and the only people left to advise the president are cranks and incompetents, we shouldn’t be surprised if things quickly spiral out of control.

Mar 042018
 

I’m hoping that Get Out picks up at least a couple Oscars tonight. The Academy generally isn’t fond of genre movies, but Get Out is so much more than a horror movie. It’s a funny, incisive commentary on race and our inability to fully reckon with the legacy of racism in America. I also really liked the interspecies romance The Shape of Water, but Get Out is the more important movie. Director Jordan Peele is an exciting new voice and I want him to have plenty of leverage to do whatever he wants as his next project, although I’m already looking forward to his work on the rebooted Twilight Zone.

Mar 032018
 

I didn’t expect to be so moved by Pixar’s take on the Mexican tradition of Dia de los Muertos; perhaps I’m becoming more sentimental in my old age. The story of a young boy who, against his family’s wishes, desperately wants to be a musician is a great setup for a thoughtful exploration of the artistic spirit, forgiveness, and the power of memory. The artistry in Pixar movies is always dazzling, but the kaleidoscopic vistas of the Land of the Dead make me wish that I had seen this on a big screen.

Coco plays it a little more straight than other Pixar films; you won’t find the subversive humor of WALL-E or The Incredibles here. But Coco is such an empathetic and sweet movie that any archness would seem out of place. See it with the people you love and be sure to bring a few tissues.

Feb 282018
 

While Trump pretends to play dealmaker again, his cabinet continues to demonstrate that they are really bad at hiding their corruption. The Times reported yesterday that the Department of Housing and Urban Development spent $31,000 on a dining room set for Secretary Ben Carson’s office. This news comes on top of previous allegations that Carson used his position to secure government contracts for his son.

These people are just the fucking worst. While Carson was busy redecorating his office, his agency proposed steep cuts to housing programs for the poor and the elderly. I’m sure Carson doesn’t see any hypocrisy in his actions, which is the whole problem. Trump’s appointees seem happy to treat their positions of public service as personal fiefdoms with no care for how their actions might violate the public trust. In fact, they work diligently on plans to undermine the core missions of their agencies.

I have no doubt that Carson was once a talented surgeon, but he’s also a grifter. His presidential campaign was little more than a scam to line his pockets and he can’t seem to turn down another opportunity to scam the American people.

Feb 272018
 

My latest pop culture obsession is reruns of ER. The entire series (all 13 seasons) recently became available on Hulu and I’ve gotten in the habit of watching an episode or two before bed. For a show that debuted in 1994, ER holds up remarkably well. The scenes have a kinetic energy that captures the chaos of an emergency room in an urban hospital. The multiple storylines and in-your-face realism would not be out of place in a modern-day series on HBO or Netflix. ER does falter when its focus shifts away from the patients (some of the early interactions between Doug Ross and Carol Hathaway are pretty cringeworthy), but it excels as a workplace drama. And it’s fair to say that the show is enjoying a resurgence of interest from critics.

I’m not sure I’ll do a rewatch of the entire series; I recall that it gets a little silly in later seasons. But for now, I’m content to spend my evenings with the staff of County General. And whatever happened to Sherry Stringfield? I had forgotten that I had a little crush on her back in my twenties.

Feb 262018
 

The Supreme Court heard a case today that could seriously undermine unions for public employees and deliver another blow to the broader labor movement. The case centers on whether public employee unions can require employees who are not full members to pay a fair share to help cover the costs of negotiating contracts and representing employees in individual disputes. This may sound like an esoteric issue, but the consequences of a ruling against unions could be dramatic. In states that have passed right to work laws that include the elimination of fair share payments, membership in public employee unions has plummeted. This leaves the unions with less negotiating power on core issues like wages, health care costs, and family leave.

Conservative critics of unions argue that individuals shouldn’t be required to give money to a union when they disagree with its politics or lobbying efforts. This ignores the fact that all employees, whether they are full members of the union or not, benefit from the bargaining power of the union. And if the union is significantly weakened, all of the employees stand to lose. Conservatives don’t genuinely care about the First Amendment rights of public sector workers; it’s a pretense for destroying what little political influence the labor movement still has.

I belong to a public sector union, so I have a personal stake in this fight. Public sector jobs have long been a a gateway to the middle class for society’s marginalized, including people of color and people with disabilities. If our unions no longer have the resources to advocate for us and our fellow workers, that gateway may slowly disappear.

 

Feb 252018
 

The Magician King (The Magicians, #2)The Magician King by Lev Grossman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The second installment in the Magicians trilogy is a weightier affair than the first book, focusing on themes of loss, mental illness, and the mysterious underpinnings of magic. The book spends a lot of time with Julia, a minor character from the first novel who was denied entry to the school for magicians that became home for Quentin and the other main characters. We witness her growing obsession to learn magic by more nontraditional means, as well as the toll it exacts on her mental health.

The book alternates between Julia’s story and a more traditional quest-y storyline that you would find in most fantasy novels. The quest seems a bit undercooked, but Grossman’s portrayal of Julia is both beautiful and heartbreaking for reasons that become clear in the final pages. The prose can be clever bordering on smug; Grossman wants the reader to know that he is deconstructing the ponderous formalism of the genre and much of his writing is quite funny, but it eventually feels like he’s showing off.

I’m tempted to begin the third installment immediately, but I think I’ll let this story sit with me for a while before returning to Fillory. In the meantime, I should really check out the Syfy series based on the books.

View all my reviews

Feb 252018
 

So, how were the past eleven months for you? I don’t have any good excuses for my hiatus from this blog other than laziness and inertia. In this age of Youtubers and Instagrammers, I wasn’t sure that my scattershot approach to old-fashioned blogging had much appeal (not that my blog was attracting droves even in the mid-Aughts heyday of the format). But I’ve realized that writing helps me clarify my own thoughts on a topic. And blogging forces me to be more articulate than just tweeting “WTF?” or a string of angry emoji. So I’ll do my best to post here on a semi-regular basis about things that I find fun, interesting, or infuriating.

I’ve spent much of the last year reading more books. It’s been a good distraction from the unceasing craziness of the Trump era and nagging worries about whether Medicaid would be cut. I became more active on Goodreads and barely managed to meet my annual reading challenge of 25 books. I’ll post my latest review after this entry, but the TL,DR is that Lev Grossman is a terrific writer and his Magicians trilogy is worth your time. What’s everyone else reading?

I’ll leave you for now with one of my favorite cartoons from the New Yorker on the subject of blogging. It was published in 2007, but I think it’s still apt:

[Description: A man is standing on a street corner and screaming into a megaphone as a startled businessman passes by. Beneath the cartoon is the caption ‘Blogger Without Borders.’ Below the caption are the following words from the shouting man: “You want my latest opinion about the President? How about my opinion of Japanese enzyme baths? Or breakfast wraps–you need to hear what I have to say about breakfast wraps!”]

Mar 242017
 

A few thoughts on the demise of the American Health Care Act:

  • Paul Ryan is not a smart man. As others have noted, he is a dumb guy’s idea of a smart man. He actually thought he could pass a bill in a month without doing any of the hard work necessary to pass major legislation. He didn’t reach out to stakeholders. He didn’t hold public hearings. He barely allowed any debate on the bill. And I’m not even getting into the substance of the bill, which was breathtaking in its cruelty.
  • Trump is low-energy! Seriously, he couldn’t be bothered to focus on the task of realizing a major campaign promise for more than a few weeks. He claims to be more interested in tax reform, but that’s likely to be even more arduous than his failed attempt to repeal the ACA. He’ll need to be able sell tax reform on its merits, but he’s shown no capability for this.
  • The voices of constituents matter. If you called your representative or senator, if you showed up at a town hall meeting, if you wrote a letter to your newspaper, then you played a part in the demise of this terrible bill.
  • The fight is not over. Republicans will try to sabotage the ACA through regulatory actions, funding cuts, and other shenanigans. People of good conscience must be prepared to fight any efforts to diminish the effectiveness of the ACA. We must also offer practical solutions to fix the shortcomings of the ACA. And maybe we can even find bipartisan consensus on those fixes.
Mar 132017
 

I drafted the op-ed piece below in an effort to explain why the proposed cuts to Medicaid in the American Health Care Act would be so detrimental to me and millions of others. Alas, the Times was not interested, but perhaps this is a more fitting place for it.

Soon after I turned thirteen, I was hospitalized with pneumonia and my parents confronted an agonizing choice: should they surrender their parental rights to ensure that I received the health care needed to ensure my survival? I was born with spinal muscular atrophy, a rare neuromuscular disability that severely weakens muscles and compromises breathing. I had several bouts of pneumonia as a child and had always managed to recover, but this time was different. My lungs had weakened to the point where I would need a ventilator to help me breathe. Doctors advised my parents to place me in a facility that could care for children with intensive medical needs.

Fortunately for me, my parents refused this option and eventually I returned home with a boxy yet portable ventilator on the back of my wheelchair (this was 1987, when most technology was still in its boxy phase). Caring for me wasn’t always easy for my parents. I’m essentially a quadriplegic and I need help with everything from bathing and dressing to scratching my nose when I have an itch. But thanks to Medicaid, they didn’t have to care for me around the clock. Medicaid provided nurses to take me to school, which allowed my parents to keep working. It paid for modifications to my wheelchair so that I could leave the house more easily. Without the supports provided under Medicaid, I would not have been able to finish college and move to Minnesota for law school.

Today, I’m 43; I live independently and work as an attorney for the State of Minnesota. My life is ordinary in the best sense of the word. When I’m not at work, I go to the movies (Logan was great!), check out the occasional concert (you really must see CHVRCHES live), and generally indulge my pop culture obsessions (that new Star Trek series had better be worth the wait). None of this would be possible without the excellent, round-the-clock care that I receive under Medicaid.

Medicaid has made my life immeasurably better, along with the lives of countless others. However, that isn’t stopping congressional Republicans from embarking on an ideological mission to starve Medicaid of funds. Last week, House Republicans unveiled a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. The entire bill is a travesty, but its proposed changes to Medicaid are particularly troubling. First, the bill would gradually repeal the expansion of Medicaid for low-income adults without children. This provision would rob eleven million people of the health coverage that they gained just a few years ago. Many of the people who benefited from the expansion have chronic conditions such as diabetes or mental illness that previously went untreated. Medicaid. Second, the bill makes radical changes to the funding of Medicaid. It would establish caps on the amount of federal funding for each Medicaid enrollee. While this may seem like a technical change, it would dramatically reduce Medicaid funding over time. Under such a scheme, states like Minnesota would soon face budget shortfalls totaling billions of dollars and they would be forced to find savings by cutting services, reducing payments to providers, or both.

For people with disabilities like me, such cuts could be catastrophic. States could eliminate services that we depend on in our daily lives, such as personal care attendants or specialized equipment like communication devices. Those of us who are employed could lose the option to buy into Medicaid, forcing us to quit our jobs in order to preserve our health coverage. In some cases, we may face the dreaded possibility of institutionalization and isolation from our communities.

Republicans claim that these changes are necessary to “save” Medicaid and protect it “for the most vulnerable.” These claims are absurd and deserve no credence. Like any program devised by humans, Medicaid has its flaws, but the Republican bill would do nothing to address those flaws. The true rationale for these cuts to Medicaid is to pay for the repeal of the taxes on businesses and the wealthy that fund the ACA. The vulnerable people whom Republicans claim to champion are those who will suffer the most if this bill becomes law.

Medicaid has been instrumental in helping people with disabilities achieve lives of independence and dignity. Advocates have worked tirelessly to improve the program and its focus on providing services in the community. The Republican bill puts those hard-fought accomplishments in jeopardy and threatens real harm to those of us who depend on the program for our very survival. The only thing that Medicaid needs saving from is this vicious and mean-spirited legislation.