Do Words Have Power

Something that struck me as odd:

My class didn't have the words to the Pledge of Allegiance as vocabulary words until sixth grade. We spent seven years repeating words like parrots, unaware of what we were saying,  and certainly not meaning any of it. It's possible the three Jehovah's Witnesses who didn't say it knew more about it than we did. Or they were just following their parents orders, with no actual idea why everyone said the pledge but them. (One would later be sent to a psychiatric facility, twice, for wishing to convert, and then commit murder partly for that religious freedom of choice.)

What does it mean to pledge your allegiance to a flag? An inanimate object which people have strong feelings about because it represents something. To be clear -- there is a CHRISTIAN based group which is known for burning crosses, the symbol of their church. But burn a 🇺🇸 flag, and watch the national news coverage and debate. Symbol= 🕆Symbol= 🇺🇸 And both are most often something you're born into.  And the people who come to claim those symbols by choice instead, the people who really grasp the meaning and let it impact their lives in a deeply altering way? They're not "real" enough to matter.

Then the Pledge mentions the Republic. Most Americans think we live in a Democracy, not a Republic. They'll fight you on this point of fact. Yeah, that's after pleading their ALLEGIANCE to the Republic for 13 years. Loyalty and commitment, but not remembering which one we have. That's worth considering.

Do words have meaning, have power, when recited without understanding or thought? (Outside of spells, maybe.)

Some people have been mocking my friend behind her back. She just found out today. Not only does she not mock them but,  until today, she didn't even think about them. These people barely know her. Her step kids know their kids (bio, step, adopted, whatever). But these people, who have had next to no interaction with her in person, are obsessed with her weight. Apparently they devote an inordinate amount of time thinking about it, talking about it,  and coming up with ways to mock it amongst each other. In a world full of problems, they're obsessed with the appearance of parent of a friend of a friend of their kid. Still, now that she knows, the words hurt her. (And no, she's not especially heavy. She is incredibly attractive.)

Have those people used words of negativity enough times to equal the time they spent pledging allegiance? It takes about 10 seconds to say they pledge. 180 days in a school year.  1,800 seconds saying the pledge in school a year for 13 years is 23,400 seconds. 6.5 hours.

Is it JUST (as in justice) to mock someone without knowing the cause of what you're mocking? Some people look certain ways by choice, and some due to medical issues they're spending thousands of dollars trying to rectify but medicine hasn't caught up yet.

Liberty and Justice for all.

If you're going to spend 6.5 hours saying it (for no other reason than to not argue with teachers and administrators), maybe take a minute to think about what it means.

Or just don't be a dick. Your words might have the power to ruin someone's day, and that might make a total stranger hate you.

A Cruel Tease

My husband is type 2 diabetic. After seeing three different doctors, one gave him a sample of Tresiba to mix/ add in with the other drugs.
This worked. My husband's blood sugar numbers were in the 80s. (Adult normal sugars are 70–99 mg/dl.) It was like he wasn't even diabetic! (Other than, you know, taking a bunch of pills and stabbing himself with several needles a day.)
Fantastic! Things were working as they were supposed to work. Then the sample ran out. I went to CVS for the refill.
That was the first week of December, over a month ago.
It wasn't filled. They weren't sure why. Phone calls were made. Computers were stared at. More calls, faxes, etc. I went back, week after week, to check (IN PERSON) if there was any change. Nope.
Today CVS claimed that the hold up is the insurance company. Aetna, they said, won't allow the prescription to be filled because a generic of the drug does not exist yet, and they just don't want to pay for a brand.
Mind you, I also have to get one of John's diabetic pills from the manufacturer because the "three pills that sort of make up a generic, kind of" (and cost more, combined, than just buying the one) include something that irritates my husband's stomach lining to the point of him becoming a non-functioning adult. (If you crap your time away because you spend more than 15 mins every hour, meaning you also don't sleep, going to the toilet, then yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and call that non-functioning. He couldn't keep the crap in long enough to get from the toilet at home to the toilet at work, and at work he couldn't do his job because he couldn't be too far from a toilet... and he couldn't spend two hours in there per shift... so, yeah, non-functioning.)

My husband has a full time job. He has health insurance through his job. And yet, here we are, with this as our reality.
The system is broken. The insurance company would sooner pay massive hospital bills --if my husband were to go into a diabetic coma-- than just be sure he gets the medicine his DOCTORS agree, and have PROVEN, works.
It's messed up. I just needed to vent. It feels cruel to me to tell a patient, "Well, we've got something that will help. Here, try it! See? It helps. Okay, glad you enjoyed that... sorry, you can't have it."

Gym, English, and Government Revelation Instead of Revolution to Spur on the New Year

Happy New Year

Because of a dream last night, I woke up with a revelation.

Though we felt miles apart, perhaps the knowledge levels of my fellow middle school students and I wasn't actually that far apart.

In gym class, we'd play various sports, like baseball (or softball or t-ball or kickball...). The rules were never explained in class. "Just do what everyone else does." There were 3 to 5 students who magically possessed the knowledge of the rules. They wouldn't tell you what the rules were, only if you broke them.

I broke those rules ALL THE TIME. The biggest reason that I sucked at sports, at gym class, was because I kept breaking rules. (This sucking reasoning is closely followed by my poor coordination, but that's not the point.) "You're out. You can't drop the bat that way." (I still, to this day, don't know the proper way to place a bat down after hitting the ball.) "You're out because Joe was stealing second and you were on second and didn't make it to third in time." (I didn't even know what stealing a base was, but stealing is a word that means a very bad action, so I wouldn't have wanted to do it. Plus, did it ever occur to Joe that this was going to backfire? There's no way I would have known I had to run. And even if I did know, there's no way I was going to make it. Why did he think I would? Did he think that through, or was he just trying to get his own teammate "out" because it somehow made him look better? Why is that? I really don't know.)

But then there was English class. I seemed to know a lot of "rules" that hadn't been taught. I read a lot of books, and learned grammar as a result. Joe didn't read a lot of books, he was busy with Little League and such.

Is it possible that we were equal in our knowledge levels, but that he was being taught rules of a sport while I was learning the rules of language? Yet we each felt superior to the other because we knew so much about something that the other did not.

What might life have been like if we took the time to help each other? If we had both acknowledged that we excelled in different areas, and then tried to help each other? Except that's NOT how the world works. So when we had to do group work, I carried my "team." I did the lion's share so that I wouldn't fail, and they benefited with a higher grade. When we played baseball, Joe did the lion's share so our team would win and (I suppose) I benefited by being on a winning team. (This didn't alter my gym grade, so I don't understand the benefit to me one way or the other, but I'll assume there was supposed to be one.) We each walked away from those experiences with almost no knowledge gained. Joe wasn't really better at English class, I wasn't really better at Gym class.

Is this also how our government is set up?
Could the wealthy person at the BIG CHAIR be teaching people how to do better financially, while those people also taught him or others how to do whatever they happen to be good at? But, instead, is that person "stealing second" without a thought about the person on third, trying to win some game while not caring if his own teammates are "out" because of it? And even if the team doesn't win, does he feel like he did a good job because he tried to win a team game by himself? Is he doing all the group work to get an A, not caring if no one else in the group learns anything, thinking they should just be glad to have an A for a change?

What if we really did help each other? Not just what we perceive as help ("You were on a winning team, weren't you?" "You got an A, didn't you?"), but actually sharing our knowledge to elevate each other. It's a New Year. Maybe new thinking is in order.

You Are Why We Can't Have Rosie from the Jetsons

For people who can't understand the current political climate of America.

We are currently being led/ governed by people, the majority (or most powerful) of which long to eradicate an overwhelmingly significant portion of the population so they can have robots, like Rosie from the Jetsons, instead.

The following is a partial list of the types of people who the American leaders would prefer to be dead:

Anyone who is ill, injured, or needs medical care requiring more than fifteen minutes more than twice a decade; anyone who can get pregnant, or who looks like someone who could get pregnant, or has been altered via gender reassignment and is no longer able to get pregnant as result; anyone too young to fend for themselves, anyone who requires any amount of assistance to fend for themselves, anyone who doesn't want a gun to fend for themselves; people who are not overwhelmingly wealthy, people who are wealthy but don't hate everyone on this list, people following any religion that doesn't support hating everyone on this list, most non-Christians, any scientist who puts truth above agreement and compliance, all environmentalists; anyone with even one great-great grandparent who was born outside of America, anyone with more than one ancestor who is Native American, anyone who looks slightly different than they think they look, anyone who takes pride in being a unique individual; and anyone who tries to stop the plan to eradicate all those on this list.

Does that clear it up?
That's a list of who the government of America, in particular the top tier, has been attacking. Those are the people who the leaders want to make feel regret for being alive, and who they want to make remaining alive more difficult than it needs to be.

Tuesday's election, though not for a president, is important to everyone on this list.

#Vote

The Pretty Bead Goddess and the Albino Weasel

ML is awesome

Flags, Statues, and Holidays

Just over 150 years ago,  the American Civil War ended. People are making a big deal out of the flags and statues of the losing side being taken down.

Is there a well-known national holiday where most Americans celebrate defeating the Confederate army? No.

Is there a holiday to celebrate taking the exact same land fought over from the other people who lived here? Yeah. It's Thanksgiving.

Are there flags, or other symbols of conquering, flying over government buildings with logos or representations of those tribes?

Don't bet on it.

See,  when you lose a war, you don't get a reward. Giving the losing side even a little mercy or leeway, like letting them keep some flags and such, has brought back an already settled argument.

It's like rewatching a sports movie and betting the losing side will win this time. Betting your reputation, freedom, and life.

I haven't studied enough history to know offhand how many conquered nations waited over a century to "try war again." And I'm not sure how often it's worked out well. Does creating a new country based largely on the "freedom to publicly hate most people" really appeal? Would it stand a chance in the world? Are there many other nations that would be willing to trade with such a place?

It's like living in the prequel to a dystopian novel.