adventures

Hello again...

This recipe looks delicious for starters. I'm sitting here waiting for the Top Chef finale, just set up my twitter to update over text, what better way to waste time and avoid work or cleaning that I should be doing than post on this blog that's gone a very long time without updating. Um yeah ... I'm a bad blogger. So what's been happening since Rebecca last had seasonal affective disorder while being unemployed last winter. Um ... I got a new job, got married and am pregnant - we also have some cute kitties - haha catblogging.

why I am pro-abortion

Obviously this is controversial but I am a whole hearted fan of (legal, safe) abortion. It makes me very nervous/angry when people who ostensibly support reproductive rights engage in handwringing about abortion. Obviously preventing a pregnancy that is not wanted is more efficient than an abortion - no question. But in a situation in which having a pregnancy/child is unwanted/unadvised/not desired abortion to me is a completely legitimate and empowering way for a woman to assert control over her body. The legal ability of women to control their family planning to avoid the risks of childbirth, and the complications of having a child to me is a social good that I will not feel bad about supporting whole heartedly. Fortunately I have never been in a situation where i needed to make that decision but it really makes me angry that some elderly male politicians think that they should have a say - when he gets pregnant with no health insurance or access to child care then he can opine about the situation. So I am not going to go along with those people that think that sympathising with people who want to restrict women's autonomy over their own bodies is a winning political strategy.

Friday Random 10

1.    YACHT – “So Post All ‘Em”
2.    Neko Case & Her Boyfriends – “Thrice All American”
3.    Old 97’s – “Designs on You”
4.    Stars – “Personal”
5.    Saturday Looks Good To Me – “Untitled”
6.    Snow Patrol – “Ask Me How I Am”
7.    The Lucksmiths – “Edward, Sandwich Hand”
8.    Hard-Fi – “Tied Up Too Tight”
9.    The Twilight Singers – “I Wish I Was”
10.    Dashboard Confessional – “Hands Down”

Back in depressing Seattle where I will proceed to have SAD

I had an amazing time in Southern California and largely managed to avoid any bad effects of the fires. Some friends saw one of the fires up close and personal. My most vivid memory of fires was the day when there were crazy forest fires over near Thousand Oaks in 2004 and the Wellpoint parking lot looked post-apocalyptic and that was the day everyone found out about the merger and everything just seemed very capricious. I've been seriously thinking about grad school. I signed up for the GRE and it's funny that I have absolutely no worries about the verbal part but the math part is wierd arithmetic, algebra and geometry and no calculators or books to consult. I'm thinking about trying out some of the writing questions and posting the results on the blog for accountability. It will probably be horribly embarrassing but also good for my motivation. I realized how much I miss my Caltech friends. Really in the real world people are less interesting and just can't understand the experience.

I love driving in LA - people drive FAST and WELL!  YAY!

Friday Random Ten - Chillin in Pasadena

1. Sonnet - The Verve
2. Pigeons - Page France
3. Hat Shaped Hat - Ani DiFranco
4. Arena - The Comas
5. The Funeral For Martha Bigsby ... - Hypatia Lake
6. This Bitter Pill - Dashboard Confessional
7. High Highs - Viva Voce
8. Miss Douglas County - Tullycraft
9. Easier - Grizzly Bear
10. The Agony of Laffitte - Spoon

Barack Obama puzzles me

Apparently the intelligentsia are starting to wonder about the Obama campaign and be concerned about his lack of attack or traction against Clinton. Honestly I've never understood why he had such a following. Making inspiring speeches and being right on Iraq is for sure a good thing but it takes more than being charismatic and showing up in the right place at the right time. The last election cycle especially I was a moderately spendy democratic donor. I donated to house races in states I don't live in, I donated to the national committee, I gave quite a lot to Darcy Burner whose district I don't live in. In other words I am a high information committed partisan Democrat. Why the Mitt Romney campaign sent me information is way beyond me! I have to give Obama's campaign credit for actually calling me but the script was something about rising above partisan differences kumbaya bullshit. Is that really something that high dollar early donors are looking for? I would really like Democrats to get some ruthless, effective operators out there and stop gazing at navels while Republicans are eating our children.

Private Fee for Service and my discontents

This nytimes article just reminds me how much I dislike Medicare Advantage as a concept and especially Private Fee for Service (PFFS). I do owe my extreme familiarity with the CMS website and Medicare Advantage in particular to it however. The Wellpoint PFFS plan started operating about one month after I started my first real job working in their Senior actuarial department. Unfortunately everyone who had worked on the product development or on the national Senior products in general had left the department already so I was thrown into tracking down and interpreting the data pretty much out of thin air. It was fairly stressful to say the least. I ended up with a crash course in all things Medicare Advantage - how payments to Health Plans were transmitted, demographic and risk adjustment, county payment rates, the working aged adjustment. Also a crash course in finding and interpreting incredibly obtuse data.

As for private health plans doing anything beneficial for Medicare - this testimony is spot on and proved to be quite accurate. I found it while looking for some inside dirt on why the plans were passed in the first place - I had a vague recollection of hearing or reading that it was because of some senator's wife wanting a private plan option. I wasn't aware of the right-to-life movement's large role in enacting that option. This brief has a lot of good information about the history and dynamics of PFFS. Just more examples of how all those hardcore right wingers work together to the detriment of the majority.

Linky link - thought provoking articles

Matthew Holt on Clinton's health care plan. Unfortunately I agree with him about the prospects of Democrats actually convincing people of what's wrong with the health care system and fixing it. Towards the end he discusses something that segues nicely into the next article I found extremely compelling and clarifying about how politics works and what progressives need to do to be effective.

Perhaps what's needed is a real down-and-dirty political operative like Otto von Bismarck, President Lyndon Johnson or even - God help us - Dick Cheney who knows how to focus attention on selling healthcare reform the way they sold the idea of invading other countries: As some kind of patriotic duty. If you question that you're some kind of traitor.

While foreign policy is not typically my balliwick i still religiously read The Washington Note and I think that it's because i find Steve Clemons extremely perceptive in an interesting way and I'm a sucker for understanding more about the inside game in DC. He links to this article by Matt Stoller. This line of thinking suggests to me that as with many progressive priorities it's not so much about convincing people of the correctness of our policies as exploiting whatever opportunities arise to swing the balance of power and capitalize on those moments when they come up. I think this is why I find the DLC run to the center/don't offend people line of thinking so counterproductive.

Yuppie Lifestyle Lust

I read about this company in Vanessa's Food and Wine magazine - Crushpad. First of all I <3 the name a lot - it just sounds cool no matter what their business was - but how cool is it that you can design your own wine and follow it through the process of being made. I definitely learned to appreciate wine more on my Australian wine tastings. It would be interesting to try to make a wine specifically to your own tastes.

Band Obsession of the Moment - The National

Every so often I find myself obsessively listening to the output of one band compulsively. Something about the band in that moment just strikes the right chord. Sometimes it also happens with an album - when it happens with a band is usually when i start listening to a band that has a substantial and consistent back catalogue. Past bands where this has happened: Death Cab for Cutie,The Lucksmiths, Voxtrot, Beulah.  RIght now that band is The National - their music just seems to resonate (can't believe I'm actually using that word seriously given the lengths I went to in high school to argue with my Lit teacher that it was meaningless and a cop out) with the weather and what's going on in my life. I also find the singer's voice very "compelling" . I know I'm a little behind the curve for once (in my defense I did own and listen to Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers back when that came out) but that's how i roll with music - i listen to what i want when i want!