Health Care “Reformers,” Don’t Make Me Swear.
December 19, 2009 by Julia King · 3 Comments
A friend just emailed me about health care, wondering if I think the Senate ought to (as he put it) “shitcan” the current bill. Hmmm. I’ve never used the word before (this rather sailorish “shitcan”), but I think I might like it. Shitcan. I type the word a third time and still it looks good.
He owned up to being only on the “edge of understanding” and claimed some malleability on the issue, which coincidentally puts us in the exact same camp.
I wonder: Is there anyone in the center of understanding? Someone who really gets it? Gets the fact that every other “advanced” nation on earth is able to give its entire population medical care but we cannot? And is there anyone who can explain how it is the Catholic Church appears to be on the brink of blocking women from accessing a perfectly legal, constitutionally protected medical procedure? And the legislators who are helping them do it are called “moderate.”
I haven’t written much about this for two reasons. One is that, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I have a full time job. Yes, real writers with full time jobs that are not writing jobs, wake in the wee hours of the morning just to string together words. So I guess that makes me the Velveteen Rabbit of writers, all full of stuffing and not actually real.
My job is a challenging, fulfilling job, by the way, and one that exposes me regularly to people who need, among other things, health care. This leads to the second reason I haven’t written: It’s just so incredibly sad. It is tragic that Americans can find the money, the will and the way to launch war on any given day, but get all tripped up and bogged down in ideology when it comes time to provide basic care to its citizens… or those who want to be its citizens.
It should have been Single Payer from the beginning. We all get there together. If we don’t, it doesn’t mean a thing. Okay. I confess I’ve given a different speech to friends who are even more disillusioned than I am. I’ve talked about Susan B. Anthony and how she devoted her whole adult life (not just a campaign season or two) to getting women the vote – and in the end she never saw it. It happened, of course, but not on her watch. And in the process, Frederick Douglas sold her out; and later suffragists like Kate Gordon and Laura Clay sold African American women out. They all got there eventually, but not together. Was Douglas a brilliant negotiator to leave white women behind? And were Gordon and Clay equally brilliant to leave black women behind?
No. They were all just humans desperate for a taste of dignity. It’s human frailty, not cunning and intellect, that allows us to cut others from our cause just so we can get there faster. But it’s what we do.
Heavy sigh. We’re screwy.
Yeah. Shitcan.
Mom Refuses (then submits to) Chemotherapy for Son
May 27, 2009 by Julia King · Leave a Comment
I’m not sure what to make of the Minnesota mother who fled with her 13-year-old son to escape chemotherapy for his Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It would be easy to declare her absolutely crazy and be done with it. Vitamin therapy instead of chemotherapy? Come on. According to doctors, the numbers are heavily stacked in favor of traditional medicine on this one (something along the lines of 95% survival rate with chemotherapy versus 5% survival with the vitamins).
In the photos and news footage she looks like a normal woman, a loving mother, maybe a tad sure of herself, a bit too territorial (she touches her son almost as though he is an extension of her instead of simply himself). But there is no doubt in my mind that the woman loves her son – and that’s worth something (although we parents know all too well that our love, mercilessly, exists in a realm separate from our parenting skill).
Although I try, I can’t quite find the “loony” in her eyes, meaning the thing that makes her vastly different from me — or any of us who are trying to live out our values and beliefs.
Is it simply a lack of scientific understanding that allows her to disregard the advice of doctors? Most of us can’t fully grasp what’s going on in our bodies at any given moment, or what, exactly, our doctors are doing to alter them; but we can see that traditional medicine rests on a set of principles that, over time, lend themselves to honest inquiry. Yes, we’ve got an imperfect, profit-driven health care system that deserves some measure of distrust; but it’s irrational to imagine that the real problems within a traditional medical setting somehow translate into the superiority of other, less rigorously tested (or proven) alternatives.
My own worldview would have me rushing to get chemotherapy for my daughter, but as a general rule, is it wrong to believe that medical intervention is wrong? Is it wrong to submit to the rhythms of nature (or to “God”) rather than to humanity’s collective attempt to control those rhythms? In order to be moral, must we adopt each new medical “advancement” for ourselves and for our children? Is the mother’s embrace of vitamin therapy an ill-informed and stubborn belief that it will cure her son, or only the belief that the chemotherapy is immoral?
While these are all questions worth asking, the most important question involves the boy’s understanding of the situation. Does this child fully comprehend the potential (deadly) consequences of delaying or rejecting chemotherapy (in this article the boy is said to believe the chemo will kill him)? It looks to me as though he is a loyal, loving son who has absorbed well the lessons his parents have taught him – despite their erroneous content.
Because we’re human, we are entitled to be foolish. No amount of schooling or peer pressure has been able to rid our species of that trait. So maybe parenting just requires that we know our limits, that we grasp our inherent imperfection – and that we not confuse our certainty with truth. Maybe it requires that we not spoon feed our children our eccentricities, but that we let them develop their own.
(The last I heard, the woman reappeared with her son, ready to cooperate, although one presumes her return is an obedient act rather than a philosophical shift…)
President Obama and the Notre Dame “Controversy”
May 9, 2009 by Julia King · 7 Comments
I keep thinking of Lyle the Crocodile. Remember him — the lovable reptile from the late 1960s that lived in a Manhattan row house with a middle class family? He was irresistibly kind and funny and oh-so-scaly. All the kids in the neighborhood wanted to play with him because… who WOULDN’T want to play with a giant, tame crocodile!
Then one day the kind, good-hearted Lyle got an anonymous hate letter. A HATE letter. He was sad. Why did someone hate him? He got another, and then another… until one day he heard a noise on the front porch and somehow, despite the fact that he was a crocodile, he managed to quickly open the door and catch a little girl leaving a note. (Disclaimer: This is the way I remember one of my favorite childhood books, and this is the way I want it to stay.) Lyle confronted the girl and it turned out that her mother didn’t like crocodiles and wouldn’t let her play with Lyle (poor little girl!). Naturally, she had no alternative but to hate him. But then some plot was hatched to win over the girl’s mother, and it worked (hooray!); so everyone was happy, especially the little girl who got a brand new friend.
Fort Wayne/South Bend Bishop John D’Arcy is the character match for the little girl’s mother, because D’Arcy refuses to play with President Obama when he comes to Notre Dame and he’s telling all his Catholic “children” to do the same. Poor children!
And Obama, he’s Lyle the Crocodile. Of course, Lyle and Obama are different in many significant ways (Obama is a human being who went to law school, wrote two books, was elected president, and his spirits remain high even when people send him hate letters; conversely, Lyle is an affable, but emotionally needy, uneducated crocodile). But they are the same in that they share an underlying decency that translates into a mysterious, charismatic quality. An American president who displays gentleness is like a crocodile that chooses not to bite, because both temper their inherent power with self-restraint and discipline. There is something captivating about that, about being able to relax in the face of strength.
We had a slightly twitchy tough-talking, war-launching president for almost a decade. The world saw (and felt) what it meant to be constantly on-guard – and most of us didn’t like it. Some of us did, but if we are to believe the polls (and why wouldn’t we?), most people around the globe found it disconcerting. It’s still early in Obama’s presidency, early enough to celebrate the novelty of a man who reaches out to the world, a man who demonstrates our nation’s ability to shift direction, to grow beyond an array of old and destructive notions.
What a shame that some Catholics (the “good” ones?) are being called upon to forego any ownership of the progress Obama represents. And on what grounds? On the grounds that Obama doesn’t respect life. The man who condemned the Iraq war, who seeks health care for all people, who put an end to the American use of torture, the guy who wants to protect the entire population of the planet from the scourge of climate change… this man is being accused of lacking respect for life. Whatever.
It’s reasonable to critique a sitting president, to voice opposition to bad policies (and EVERY president has some) — but it just can’t be any fun to hate on Obama. Poor Bishop D’Arcy. It’s got to be lonely.
Afghanistan: Too Late to Play the Heroes
February 22, 2009 by Julia King · 6 Comments
I remember standing in my neighbor’s backyard one day many months after September eleven. He filled his bird feeder as we talked about the impending war. He supported invading Iraq. I did not. But we both agreed that attacking Afghanistan had been reasonable. This meant, of course, that I (a presumably loving person) had endorsed the killing and maiming of old women and children, of sinister Al Qaeda terrorists and innocents alike, anything to put the universe back in order. In 2001, such a plan seemed workable.
It’s 2009 and none of it seems workable anymore. By shifting away from Iraq and refocusing on Afghanistan, sending a new wave of troops to the region, President Barack Obama is attempting to do the impossible. He’s trying for a “do-over” of legendary proportions.
Had Obama been president in the wake of 9/11 (or Al Gore, a more likely scenario), things would be different. For one, the United States would not have carried out a preemptive war on Iraq, thus squandering world sympathy and the accompanying potential for global cooperation as we tried to find and capture Osama Bin Laden. Just as the Bush administration did, a Democratic administration would have likely invaded Afghanistan, but it would have done so with undivided military and intelligence resources.
Would a different war in Afghanistan have worked, one carried out with singular focus and in another political (and economic) climate? Would American forces have charged in and fixed the place right up, lassoing Osama Bin Laden and all the other bad guys? Knowing what we know now (and hearing from others who have fought for years in the country), it seems unlikely. But the effort would not have been entirely irrational.
It is Obama who insists we use common sense regarding Iraq and the Middle East, asking us to honestly evaluate the situation, including our relationships in that part of the world – relationships that have tremendous bearing on our ability to operate effectively in both Iraq and Afghanistan (and anywhere else we put up our dukes). Now he’s asking us to abandon that common sense, to believe something other than what he has often expressed, which is: “…that you cannot solve the problem of Afghanistan, the Taliban, the spread of extremism in that region solely through military means.” (Obama as quoted in a recent Time article by Mark Thompson.) Remove the word “solely,” and I agree with the president completely.
The difficulty here is that the Taliban (and Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and all the loosely affiliated yet slightly different extremist elements in the area) are unequivocally horrendous. They are so horrendous that on some days it feels like a stretch to even count them as part of humanity. So, what do we do? We wipe them out, of course, the best way we know how – with our unrivaled military might.
When I (and millions of other Americans) supported the initial Afghanistan invasion it was not only because the people who attacked the World Trade Center were so obviously deserving of punishment; and it was not only because we were raw with emotion. It was also because we believed the war could do some good. I imagined myself living under the rule of the Taliban and thought the invasion (in addition to capturing and punishing Bin Laden) could offer a better way of life to those monumentally unfortunate Afghanis caught in the clutches of Islamic extremists. But it turns out (surprise) that adding additional violence to an already turbulent mix does no one a favor. Civilian deaths in Afghanistan are soaring and trust in U.S. military personnel is plummeting. More Americans with guns will not improve those numbers. We have simply done too much in recent years to claim the moral high ground (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay). Even Obama can’t undue the past, can’t right the wrongs of the Bush administration. We cannot begin again.
It is all too much. It’s too much for the American soldiers who leave their families and go half way around the world to discover the horror of killing fellow human beings. And for the families who bury their loved ones in flag-draped coffins. And especially for the men and women of Afghanistan whose homes are destroyed and whose lives are one wave of loss after another.
We should not give up the fight against Islamic extremists (or any other violent extremists, for that matter) – but we must change tactics. Meaning, it won’t be uniformed soldiers who make real progress against extremism. It will be people like Greg Mortenson (see Three Cups of Tea post), people brave enough to enter dangerous places without weapons and sincere enough to build relationships there. And (despite the awfulness of it) by others less gentle, by those who can trick and connive and speak the language and commit clandestine acts of violence to reduce the numbers of the ruthless and immovable (acts that mercifully leave no lifeless children behind).
Ultimately, however, the rate of progress is out of American hands. We can hold our own government to better standards of justice and compassion around the globe (and we must), but we can not quell Afghanistan violence. It is ordinary (and extraordinary) Afghanis who will have to do that, the friends and neighbors, brothers and sisters, the grandmothers of those who would systematically oppress or murder their fellow countrymen and women.
Three Cups of Tea
January 31, 2009 by Julia King · Leave a Comment
On the cover of the book, in small print at the bottom of the page, is a quote from Tom Brokaw: “Thrilling…proof,” it reads, “that one ordinary person, with the right combination of character and determination, really can change the world.”
It’s a reassuring thought, this notion that an average person can change the world, but it’s not exactly the story that unfolds in Three Cups of Tea, the New York Times bestseller by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Instead, Three Cups of Tea tells the story of an extraordinary man (Mortenson), one willing to endure almost anything to accomplish his mission.
Mortenson’s mission is peace, and his strategy is to provide education for the poorest children in some of the poorest parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, far-flung villages that despite their remoteness are desperately intertwined with modern Western life.
I read much of the book sweaty and out of breath, pedaling my stationary bike alone in my living room, exerting energy for no one’s benefit but my own — as if to punctuate the fact of my existential stinginess. Mortenson’s life is one of sacrifice and tremendous effort spent for others (although that’s not his claim; he would say that in the end his work benefits everyone, including him).
The beauty of this story is that it never appears easy. Too frequently, those who accomplish amazing things carry out their tasks with what looks like effortlessness. Not here. Three Cups of Tea is a journey into rugged land and harsh conditions. And it is a story of contrast, of a man straddling two different worlds (one week he’s walking the shiny marble floors of the Pentagon, and the next week he’s bouncing along dusty, craggy mountain roads in a beat-up jeep). Ironically, it is the thorny details of Mortenson’s projects — and of his exhausting schedule — that make it all so believable, so possible.
Like many Americans, I hadn’t paid much attention to places like Afghanistan until September 11. Since then, however, I’ve developed a strong appetite (possibly an unhealthy one) for dismal Middle Eastern focused literature (both fiction and non-fiction) like The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Reading Lolita in Tehran, Iran Awakening, etc. – my desire to solve the puzzle of Islamic extremist repression forever nudging me back to the page.
Three Cups of Tea doesn’t shy away from the darker aspects of these regions, but neither does it define such places (and the myriad people who inhabit them) by the least common human denominator, by anti-western jihadists, or by beheaders. Mortenson and Relin take us across the globe and introduce us to men and women we can relate to, men and women – and children – who are on “our” side, meaning the side of compassion and tolerance and mutual understanding.
In short: read it. If you’re looking for something that makes sense amidst the chaos and the jumble we’ve come to know as the “Middle East” (however imperfect the term), here is a place to start. Here is a way. I’m late to this book (it was published in 2006), but the work it represents is still in its infancy.
Duty and Community: Where Do They Begin and End?
January 19, 2009 by Julia King · Leave a Comment
Although I don’t exactly know him, he does grow some of the food I eat (sells it at the local farmers market), so I was pleasantly surprised to see his familiar face in the jury room full of strangers. The last time we spoke he had introduced me to the most delicious squash ever (delicata) and for that I will always be grateful.
The bailiff explained the process: She would call 12 names. Those people would line up by the door, followed by the rest of the prospective jurors, 37 in all. At the judge’s secret signal (a telephone call to our upper level room), we would march together through the hall and down the steps like an elementary school class. We would file into the courtroom, with the first 12 taking seats within the jury box and the rest of us sitting in the general section of the courtroom. The defense and prosecuting attorneys would ask questions of the 12 seated in the jury box and dismiss them at will, replacing them with new people until they were satisfied with 12. Then they would add one for good measure, the alternate.
As we made our way through the building and into the courtroom, we carried with us the same buzz of excitement that children take to an all-school assembly or out into the parking lot during a fire drill. We tried to shed our nervous energy with extra-good posture and clever little asides.
We settled into the courtroom, many of us sitting before the judge’s instructions to do so, then standing, then sitting again with his bass, “You may be seated.” All the prospective jurors (those in and out of the jury box) took an oath and were told the defendant had been accused of… child molestation.
Party OVER. There wasn’t exactly a gasp, but there was a silent shift in the mood. This was not a game. This might not even be fun. Ugh.
The woman next to me quickly lowered her head and whispered, “I feel like I’m going to cry. My father molested me. I say cut the guy’s head off.” There is a story there (obviously), but I’ll tell it another time.
This story is about the organic farmer, the one who grows some of the food I eat, the one who made my eyes several sizes bigger when he refused to serve. In his gentle voice, he said he did not believe in this system, primarily because he believes disputes must be settled within “a community.” He said his beliefs were based on his Anabaptist faith (presumably Brethren or Mennonite, but he didn’t specify).
He went on to say he couldn’t judge a man if he didn’t know his family or his friends or where he went to church. The judge asked if he could try, if he could understand that he wasn’t stamping the defendant “good” or “bad,” just helping to determine if the defendant had committed certain acts. This farmer, this man I had considered a member of my community… said he could not. He could not try. He could not “do his best” — as the attorneys put it — to follow the law. We may have physically shared the courtroom (and the farmers market, and the streets of our town), but apparently I was mistaken to believe we shared a community. I surprised myself by feeling utterly rebuffed. The judge dismissed him and he left the courtroom.
It was a bold and public proclamation of faith, this refusal to serve, this rejection of the larger community in deference to the smaller one. Clearly, the man was earnest and intended no malice toward any of us (even me). He was simply living out his deepest principles, which is not at all a bad way to live.
And yet… as the case unfolded, the case the farmer refused to own, it became clear that the people involved had very little “community” of the sort the farmer described. They were largely transient, moving from job to job, from house to house, from town to town, even state to state. Who, then, could reasonably be expected to step forward to listen to their stories? To secure a defendant’s freedom and reputation, or to grant a child protection?
In an ideal world, we would each fit neatly into some safe spot on the planet where others would know us and care for us, nudge us in the right direction from time to time when necessary. This, plainly, is the kind of world the farmer wishes for. It might even be the kind of world in which he, himself, lives. If only everyone were as fortunate.
If it sounds as though I’m picking on this farmer of faith, I don’t intend to. Obviously, each day humans take on some responsibilities and let others go. I don’t pretend to know the quality of the farmer’s life, or faith, or commitment to others. I only know that he drew the boundaries around his “community” so tightly that he left me wondering (even worrying?).
So, what – exactly – is a “community”? My own working definition is, perhaps, so large and expansive that it’s unwieldy, excessively vague. There are distinctions within that expansive community, of course (family, friends, acquaintances, strangers… neighborhood, town, state, country, world, and so on). I have (and should have) more influence and responsibility in some arenas than in others, but I would be hard-pressed to find a space I would define as “outside” my community.
Considering the nature of the word (“community”), the fact that it is inherently social and connected to (or separated from) others, it’s something I am unable to define alone.
What are your thoughts? What is your definition? Where does your community begin and end?
Rick Warren and an Opportunity for Unity (?)
December 23, 2008 by Julia King · 4 Comments
Depending on whom you ask, President Elect Barack Obama’s decision to invite conservative mega-church star Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation is either brilliant — or a betrayal. In one day last week, I spoke with friends stunned and angered by the choice, and with friends gratified by the choice. All of them voted for Obama and all of them are members in good standing with the Left-of-Center Club.
So, is the choice fantastic, a great strategic play that will immunize Obama against the far religious Right? Or is it unfair, a dose of injustice meted out to the “least among us,” the easy mark, the relatively small gay and lesbian community?
To say that it’s “brilliant” is a little bit like saying that the feelings of millions of gays and lesbians don’t matter. Because regardless of the larger strategy, homosexuals will be grimacing through a Warren inaugural prayer (considering the pastor’s public stance against gay marriage and his comments that adult homosexuality is akin to incest or pedophilia). Yet, to say that the invocation pick is a “betrayal,” is to ignore the long, slow road that progress has always been.
The notion of Warren leading our entire nation in prayer doesn’t sit well in my gut; but I can’t yet say whether it is “correct” or “incorrect” because I don’t yet know if the event will put Warren under Obama’s wing… or Obama under Warren’s wing. I don’t yet know if Warren and his followers will be emboldened by a spot on the national (and international) stage, or if they will be humbled.
Will Warren speak words of genuine inclusion and justice – and finally convince himself they are true? Or will he pepper his speech with coded messages to his evangelical followers (as so many have done before him with phrases like “family values,” or “culture of life”)?
Will Obama make a point of saying on inauguration day that everyone is entitled to equal protection under the law and that majorities don’t have the right to vote away the rights of minorities, regardless of faith? Or will he mistakenly think of his role as a personal host to Warren, imagining he must be especially gentle with his guest?
What is most clear is that Obama wants to be different from George W. Bush. Unlike Bush, Obama wants to reach out to those who are not necessarily his natural allies — and for THAT he deserves credit. Clearly, Obama will avoid making the same mistakes Bush made in the early days of his presidency… but that doesn’t mean Obama won’t make mistakes; it just means his mistakes will be different. Let’s hope Warren isn’t one of them.
Dear Lord, Why Must People Pray at Me?
December 3, 2008 by Julia King · 4 Comments
A couple of nights ago, my husband and I attended an Obama victory party. We sat at our table drinking beer, chatting with friends about the President Elect’s latest Cabinet picks and admiring the Obama logo ice sculpture on the buffet.
Just before we were released from our tables to partake of the shrimp cocktail and strawberries, a minister made her way to the front of the room to offer an invocation.
Here in the Midwest, prayer before food (regardless of the venue) is customary. Restaurants, private parties, public school potlucks, all gatherings where food is present are seen as opportunities to pray. My big city coastal-dwelling friends and family find this hard to believe, but it’s true.
So, the minister walked to the front of the room and asked us to bow our heads while she talked about the faith that got us this far and about God’s role in our political victory (I’m paraphrasing here). Then, in Jesus Christ’s name, we ate.
And as I chewed my food I wondered for the thousandth time why so many people believe their desire to pray with me should override my desire not to pray with them. My problem is not with God, mind you, but with the people who claim to speak for God. They know not what God thinketh. They only thinketh they knoweth.
The content of the prayer that night left me shaking my head in disagreement. The notion of angels that guide the faithful to the polls or a God that reaches down and pokes holes in butterfly ballots makes a mockery of democracy. Additionally, thanking God for my new president would require that I curse God for my last president, something I’d rather not have to do.
The point is that God resides so deeply in our individual souls that to invoke Him in the midst of everyday life — with people who have not gathered for that purpose — is to forever challenge someone else’s unspoken, but equally strongly held version of Him (or Her or Insert Other Name).
Prayer has been with us since the beginning of time… and will be with us until the end of it. Textual, meditative, musical, visual, ancient or modern – whatever its shape or size, its power is undeniable. And because of that power, it should be handled with the utmost care. Prayer should be sacred and heartfelt, entered into gladly and without reservation. To utter the wrong words at the wrong time and with the wrong people is to chip away at its holiness.
When I (and presumably others) visit a place of worship, I do so with a heightened respect for the various traditions unique to that particular religion. My heart is open to the message, even if my head doesn’t always understand or agree. The same holds true of a private home, where I happily welcome a prayer from a host or hostess. Such experiences become intimate ones, the result of spiritual exploration or friendship (or both).
Now, I’ve known enough devout people in my life to realize that religion is often inseparable from a person’s identity, that asking someone to pipe down about The Lord Jesus (or Allah, or Krishna, or the Goddess) while I eat my chicken breast is like asking me to stop expressing my opinion. If loud prayer is your thing, by all means, have at it. Just remember there are always people in the room bowing their heads and praying that you will soon be done.
The truth is that despite my discomfort with prayer that’s thrust upon me without my prior consent, I’m sincerely interested in the spiritual beliefs of others. I care about what moves people – and expect them to care about what moves me. Unfortunately, one person purporting to speak to God for an entire group is hardly the best model for mutual understanding.
The faithful or religious don’t need to be silent, but they do need to consider the purpose of their prayers – especially those uttered at events not planned specifically for religious expression. As far as I can tell, there are two basic reasons to speak prayers aloud. One reason is to influence those within earshot, to steer them in the “right” direction; and the other is… (?) Is there another reason?
