Open your wallets, America-Health care reform

As published in The Commuter, Oct. 1, 2009

The American people have long been known to be some of the most generous in the world. Every year we give billions to charity, to the homeless, and to foreign countries in need after floods, earthquakes and other disasters. In fact, Americans are so generous that, according to the Giving USA Foundation, Americans gave $300 billion last year alone, enough to count as 2.2 percent of our Gross Domestic Product. In fact, drowning in medical costs of my own, I gave $5 to a man on the street in Portland whose sign simply read, “need money for space ship repairs.” I knew he didn’t have a car, let alone a space ship, but I said the money was for making me smile. And considering his hat full of spare change and dollar bills, I wasn’t the only one.

In a country so generous, I am having a hard time understanding what the fuss is over health care reform. Americans give, and give, and give. According to the U.S. Census Bureau records, we gave $700 billion to bailout the banks, more than $500 million to Israel, millions more to other foreign allies, billions bailing out the failing auto industry, and finally, last year alone we spent $1.2 trillion dollars fighting the war in Iraq. That’s enough money to make my head spin. So why are we handing over our tax dollars to be spent on war, bailouts and so-called foreign allies, and not our own friends and neighbors?

The cost of Obama’s health care reform does not include numbers we’ve never seen before, or spent on less important things. In fact, unlike our other expenses, Obama’s plan seeks to finance itself, relying very little on tax payer funding. According to the White House, the money comes from where it already exists in our system, among the top 3 percent of wage earners, existing profits from Medicare and Medicaid (two public plans already proven to be essential and beneficial to the American people), and from the decreased cost of all those previously uninsured people finally receiving early care instead of becoming so ill they must visit an overcrowded emergency room just for some antibiotics or blood pressure medication.

So where is all the hostility coming from? Who are these people that have suddenly emerged, so afraid that someone might come in the night and give health care to Americans in need? Where were these people when we gave billions to the banks, or spent trillions on war and countries they will most likely never visit? No, these outrageous expenses don’t seem to bother these people one bit. As one self-professed Republican friend put it, he “didn’t want to spend his money on people who weren’t his problem.” In other words, he doesn’t give a s**t about you, your sick grandma, or anyone else outside his selfish little circle. And that is who the opponents of health care reform are: the selfish minority who don’t want to spend money they will never have on people like you and me, and themselves, if they would stop waiving their “Obama=Hitler” signs long enough to think about it.

Obviously some complain about the top 3 percent having to shoulder the burden for the rest of us, but I don’t think they would miss that one new Louis Vuitton purse amongst all their others just because they had to give a little extra. And I hate to break it to you fellow students, but work as hard as you can, and you will still most likely never come near to being in the top 3 percent. No, you will be down with the rest of us who need this plan. So please, don’t worry about spending money you will never have. Instead, give what you have, and be thankful we have a country so great we (mostly) want to take care of all our people.

Americans, you are generous, good people. Every day we prove that we care about others, and that we know what is right. Don’t let the selfish minority waving their signs and spouting their nightmarish lies tell you that health care for all is not right, and not what this country needs. Americans should keep being the generous, giving people we are, and take this opportunity to keep a little of that good-will and generous spirit here in our own back yards.

Miyazaki makes waves with "Ponyo"

Despite the status of my bank account this week, I decided to go see the new film by Hayao Miyazaki. The master of Japanese film hit gold (again) with Ponyo (on the Cliff by the Sea).

A little "Finding Nemo" and a sprinkle of "The Little Mermaid", Ponyo is a delightful tale of a fish-girl who lives in the ocean. Naturally she isn't any goldfish, but the daughter of the ruler of the ocean, and a princess. Ponyo is discovered by a little boy who takes her home in green bucket, feeds her ham, and soon finds out she is more than a fish when she begins to speak.

Ponyo wants nothing more than to become human and finds she can control enough of her father's magic to sprout arms and legs and leave the sea behind. However, the balance of nature is upset by this and Ponyo must be returned to the ocean before the destruction of the planet.
Fans of Miyazaki will not be disappointed by this film, and parents will enjoy it as much as their children. Unlike Princess Mononoke, this movie is more kid-friendly than a Disney film. Never lacking in originality, Miyazaki's world is as colorful, bizarre, and hyperactive as ever. Each scene looks as though it has been filled in with color-pencil, a refreshing change from CG children's films.

The smile never left my face during this film, all the way through the end credits, which features the movie's theme song, with some of the cutest lyrics I've ever heard, "Ponyo, Ponyo, Ponyo on the sea. She's a girl with a little round tummy!"
Delightfully cute and entertaining, Ponyo is a summer must-see.

To manicure, or not to manicure?

Today I have an interview at a local newspaper for one of their reporter positions, and I am thrilled. When the editor called me yesterday, I excitedly flew into a mock panic as I stared at myself in the mirror, noting my desperate need of a new dye-job and my short, stubby, picked-at nails.

I resolved to wake up early the next morning and find myself a cheap nail station to buy myself a sexy new set of nails to round out the physical being that would present themselves for hire at 3:30 this afternoon.
As I trudged out the door at 8:30 a.m., I found myself drowsily thinking, "Why the hell do I have to do this again?"

No, not the job interview, the nails. I find the whole business of walking in a place and sitting before someone I don't know for two hours while they file, brush, and paint my fingernails into a beauty they could never possess on their own accord very awkward. I also resent the fact I have to spend money to make myself presentable for a job, when I am drowning in debt, and could never dream of justifying an expense like nails otherwise.

However, it is Cosmo 101 to get your hair and nails done before an interview, or as a matter of course in your career. As I was told in school years before, "It makes you look clean, professional."

It would also empty out my abysmal bank account.

Plus, a male friend of mine is interviewing for the same job. Do you think he is going through all the stress of looking pretty? No, I doubt it. His professionalism isn't based on the length and polish on his nails, or his newly dyed hair.
And so, I decided to take a stand against this latent form of misogyny and NOT get my nails done. I will file and paint their little stubs myself, and perhaps get some nice nails if I get this job and can afford it. But beforehand, it's just not logical, or fair.

Plus, without the fake nails I can garden, play sports, play PC games, and a bunch of other things that get harder as your nails get longer. Let's be real, if I had fake nails, in a week they would look like the ones below. Missing nails and the gunk left behind when they break off is definitely not professional.


So off I go on the great social experiment of our generation: Can Lydia get a job with fugly nails?

A year in fundamentalist hell

As featured in The Commuter Oct. 27, 2008.

"What is this place? A school, a jail, some weird cult place? I would soon find out that it is all those places, and more..." recounts Michele Ulriksen in her book, "Reform at Victory", an account of her year spent as "girl #56" in an all-girl fundamentalist Baptist lockdown school in Ramona, Calif.

Ulriksen's harrowing story brings to light the mentally and physically abusive treatment used in many fundamentalist reform schools, operating under the guise of Christian values and a rehabilitative environment. It is this type of treatment that Ulriksen hopes to inform others about.

After spending 10 years writing her account with the support of former reform school students, friends, and family, Ulriksen says she hopes her story will make an impact. A single mother of a thirteen-year-old daughter, LBCC student, and owner of West Hills Communication, located in Corvallis, Ulriksen has come a long way since her days in reform school. Now she has the opportunity to share her story and inform parents before they make a misinformed choice.

According to Ulriksen, 38, "Parents are often so desperate to get help for their teen, that they just go ahead and believe what they are told and they don't think critically and question, and look logically about how an experience like this will affect their teenager. They don't think about it that way."

Ulriksen believes it is important to understand that "everyone who says they are a Christian do not behave that way."

Her parents, like many others, trusted the administrators of Victory Christian Academy, and signed over custody of their daughter for one year to the school, unknowningly trapping her in what would become a year in fundamentalist Baptist "hell."

The author describes the day of her arrival at Victory as a deception planned by her family, who tricked her into believing they were visiting the zoo together. Upon her arrival she was dragged away from her parents by unknown people, stripped of her possessions, and forced into solitary confinement for hours. In her account, Ulriksen writes about her arrival, "Whatever this sick place is, I'm going in against my will. I don't know who or what is in there. I turn to look at my family. They won't make eye contact with me. With black mascara colored tears streaming down my cheeks, the faces around me are now only a blur."

So begins the year Ulriksen spent in reform "school." Forced to take unknown medications, given no privacy, and berated daily by the staff, Ulriksen and other girls attending had to endure Biblical indoctrination and constant attacks on their self-worth meant to brain-wash them and break them into submission. Escape was impossible from the facility. A former FBI bunker, surrounded by a 12-foot electric fence a mile off the main road, Victory Christian Academy was completely isolated from the outside world. Ulriksen writes, "By the time we got to talk to our parents we were already brainwashed...into thinking that we would be left there longer if we told our parents."

According to the author, many girls who leave such facilities and report abuse are labeled "troubled teenagers" and "liars," and are often not believed because of their previous history.
"Authorities and social services won't go out there unless they received numerous reports. You have to go out of there with bruises, or evidence of sexual abuse, for them to do anything."

After the death of a young student the year following Ulriksen's departure, Victory Christian Academy was investigated and forced to close by California authorities. The facility was found to have numerous safety violations and deemed an "extreme fire hazard" by a San Diego fire marshal.
However, the program reopened in Jay, Florida under the same name, and is now operating under a different name with new owners.

Although Ulriksen's experience at Victory Christian Academy left her with emotional damage, low self-esteem, anxiety and depression, and caused her to attempt to take her own life twice, she recognizes that all private reform schools are not isolated and fundamentalist.

Ulriksen encourages parents to research the schools they are considering, check with the Better Business Bureau, and look for any complaints or lawsuits that were filed. She encourages parents to look beyond their religion and avoid any programs that do not let them speak to their children or, "that instills such a strong message of fundamentalist values, anti-choice, anti-female, old testament, hard core. These can be very damaging, and hurt a girl's self-esteem when she was already going through problems."
Instead, Ulriksen says to find a school that "teaches the love of Jesus and not the wrath of the Old Testament."

Shelby Earnshaw, Director of the International Survivor's Action Committee, says about the book, "Child abuse masquerading as religion is a very real and serious problem. Reform at Victory sheds light on an issue that is largely ignored by our society."

Although in the beginning writing Reform at Victory brought up bad memories, she says that she now "feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I have closure."

To the girl with "crack" in my geology class

Hello,
You sit in the row in front of mine, one seat to the left. The squeaky stools are uncomfortable to us all, and one most practically plan ahead to dress appropriately for the fashion faux-pas they threaten. But you, my geologist friend, have neglected to notice the full view the back-less seats offer.
The waist on your jeans are way, way too low. Each week your pants don't just creep lower and lower, they free-fall as soon as your butt makes contact with the seat.
And there I am, along with the rest of the class behind you, trying not to notice what even a plumber would find shameful.

At first I considered telling you, out of consideration for your feminine modesty, but as my shyness delayed any attempt, I decided you surely must know what you are doing. How could you not feel the cool air conditioning on your skin? Sixteen square inches is a lot of space to neglect feeling a breeze, and you show at least that.
A friend suggested your display was purposeful, that you might find the "coin slot" desirable. If that is true, take it from me, it is not. And the two guys behind you who snicker everyday. Be glad they haven't produced their camera phones.
You seem like a really nice girl, and we even have some things in common.
Like spinach in your teeth, or a booger in your nose, sometimes you just don't know when you're embarrassing yourself. So take this passive hint, and pull your pants up.

"The Shack" Where boredom meets eternity...

I recently received a gift card to Barnes and Noble and immediately endeavored to spend my $20 on the most worthwhile reading material I could afford. I browsed through hundreds of books, considered buying a couple from my favorite authors, Cormac McCarthy and Paulo Coelho, and then began to browse the New York Times best-sellers.
At the top of the list was The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity

I was intrigued by the title, and even more so by the book's location, right here in Oregon. Deciding to try something new, and because the price was right, I purchased the book. By the time it arrived I was so excited to have something new to read, especially something that spent weeks at the top of the New York Times best-selling list. Within five pages of reading, I began to wonder what was so special about this story.
For one, the writing was incredibly amateur. I could hear my writing teacher's voice in my head, correcting the bad grammar and long, boring dialogue.
Second, the theological concepts presented in this book were neither difficult to understand or new to Christian thought. Sure, they are not widely accepted by modern Christianity, but neither are they new and profound. This books asks the same old questions, "Why is there evil in the world?" "Why do bad things happen to good people?" "How can I be closer to God?"

Not only was the dialogue poor and the writing amateurish, but the story itself never completes itself. The end of the book drops off like a poorly written soap opera that is out of ideas. There is so much talk of "the little lady-killer," that by the time he is exposed in the story no details are given. This book is all theology and only wannabe crime drama, with little to offer the reader who wants to know the whole story.

"The Shack" is an OK book for anyone interested in serious literature. It is a GREAT book for the serious Christian, who I imagine are the ones that shot this thing straight to No. 1 on the list.

What really gets me about this story are the amount of Christian authors who are making a fortune just writing about it. For instance, a search on Amazon.com of the book's title brings up "Finding God in The Shack," and "The Shack: Unauthorized Theological Critique." What's most amusing is that these books, which attempt to explain the already simple, are selling for more than the actual book.

Go ahead and read it if you are still interested, I think I'll be passing this one off to the very first person who wants to take it off my hands.

"If I read that headline one more time..."

A few weeks ago I had the rare opportunity to visit my older sister in Portland, who was visiting with her new beau, Mark. As we walked down SW Park, sun shining down on us and the noise of cars and passers-by in our ears, she asked my why I was not writing anymore.
I actually had not considered it deeply before, and it only then occurred to me that it had been a few months since I had posted anything.

"Oh, I've been writing," I told her self-consciously, "it's just all on paper at home and I don't feel like sitting in front of my computer to type it up. There's no feng shui in that corner of the house..."

My sister told me she checked my page all the time, and was tired of reading the same headline again and again.
"Besides," she told me, "I like your writing. It's clever and funny."

"Hurrah! Yes! Awesome!" Every word of pleasure and satisfaction came streaming into my head.

I vowed then and there to keep writing. I know it's been a few weeks since that point, but I did some thinking and decided where I want to head with everything I put to paper. I want to be clever and funny, I want to say what's on my mind, and I want to be a little more "out-there" than some might recommend for a budding reporter.

So thanks for reading after all this time, even if it's just you after all this time off, dear older sister.