Decisions, Decisions, ugh, Decisions..

Does anyone have any opinions on Humana Health Insurance?

I'm looking into getting it, because the insurance that I could get at my work, is over $300 a month, and it kind of, frankly, sucks. Humana would be about $180 a month, and I think it seems better.



Any thoughts?

At least my work has health insurance.. sigh..

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You'll Thank Me Later

I have been to Lagoon quite a few times this Summer, because I love Roller coasters, and that's what I do. However, I remember a not so happy ride that I had once on a Roller coaster. It went something like this:

My family and I were at a Lagoon Day one Summery Saturday, with my Mom's work. I was probably 9 or 10. I loved this one Roller coaster, the Colossus, which is a very fast roller coaster, complete with a super high initial climb, and thrilling drop that leads into a double loop-di-loop. No, the Colossus is not made for sissies. But I always loved it. I had never rode it without my parents hands over my hand, holding my hand tight as I grimaced on the way up. I hated that ride up.

Well, on this day, my mom's friend from work took me on the Colossus. No big deal, at least so I thought. She made me put my hands up in the air! And wouldn't let me put them down. I hated it (and her)! It was awful. I did not have fun, I did not enjoy, and I certainly did not thank her for it later.

Fast forward to the present day, and I love roller coasters, and you will hardly ever see me with my hands down on the coasters. But will you ever see me force anyone to go on one? No. Will you ever see me make a child ride it, or make them put their hands up when they don't want to? Hell No.

So, as you can imagine, this summer as I have seen countless parents FORCE their children to ride big scary rides, (even Wicked), it makes me sad. And very angry. I hate the adage of You'll Thank Me for it Later.. uhhhh, what if I won't? I still remember my traumatizing experience with my mom's friend, and how scared I was. It doesn't matter that I love the Colossus now. Ugh. It drives me nuts.

But this practice goes further than roller coasters. Do you think its right to force your kids to do something that they don't want to do, even if you think they'll regret not doing it later? I firmly believe its not okay to force them to do anything (if you can control it: some things are out of a parent's control). I want to have my child's trust, so that they know they can tell me how they feel about something, and I'll support them, no matter what.

.. and if they regret it later, I can help them deal with that.

What's your opinion?

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A dignified death?

As I was reading TIME magazine, I came across this article, and thought it was interesting. Nancy Gibbs tells a story of how a British elderly couple flew to Switzerland to have an assisted double suicide. The company, a non profit in Zurich, offers assisted suicides. I think its interesting. I have always spouted the theory that I don't want to get old and decrepit. I don't want to ever be on any kind of life support machine. I don't want to be a vegetable. So I think that its an understandable choice that the woman in this story wanted to be let our of her cancerous misery. What's both touching, and controversial, is that her husband, who died an assisted death next to her, was perfectly healthy. He just didn't want to live without her.

Here's the article from: Time magazine,

Going Too Far with Assisted Suicide?

Was there a duet playing in the back of his mind, I wonder, when Sir Edward Downes, the former conductor of Britain's Royal Opera, held hands with his wife of 54 years and drank the poison with her? Wagner maybe, or Verdi's Aida, one lover condemned to die, the other choosing to follow rather than live half a life, all alone.

The story of Sir Edward's "death pact" was at first sight an irresistible love story. His wife Joan, 74, a former ballerina, had a diagnosis of terminal liver and pancreatic cancer; because assisted suicide is illegal in Britain, they traveled to a Zurich clinic, where, for a fee of about $7,000 per patient, the group Dignitas arranges for death by barbiturate. "They drank a small quantity of clear liquid and then lay down on the beds next to each other," their son Caractacus said. They fell asleep and died within minutes, he reported, calling it a "very civilized" final act.

Civilized, in this case, is a relative term. The deaths are typically videotaped, to protect Dignitas' doctors and nurses from prosecution for in any way coercing the patient. While Dignitas claims to be nonprofit — under Swiss laws, the most liberal in the world, you may assist in a suicide but not profit from it — its finances are less than transparent. The "clinic" over the years has moved between apartments, hotel rooms, a camper van. But none of that is what made the story so confounding, at a time when the tensions between private rights, public costs and first principles have never seemed so fierce.

The problem is that Sir Edward, while in failing health at age 85, was not dying. His eyesight was nearly gone, his hearing was weak, and he faced the prospect of life without his soulmate. But sorrow is not grounds for a doctor to assist in a suicide in most places that allow it. Nor is despair. The Netherlands permits euthanasia for those suffering intolerable pain; Oregon requires two doctors to confirm that the patient has less than six months to live.

Some euthanasia activists, including Dignitas founder Ludwig Minelli, believe in death on demand. "If you accept the idea of personal autonomy," he argues, "you can't make conditions that only terminally ill people should have this right." Autonomy and dignity are precious values; the phrase sanctity of life can sound sterile and pious in the face of profound pain and suffering. But Minelli is arguing for much more: that autonomy is an overriding right. This view rejects the idea that society might ever value my life more than I do or derive a larger benefit from treating every life as precious, to the point of protecting me from myself.

This matters because we are about to have a fateful conversation about the end of life. We can talk about reform and prevention and digital medical records, but it will remain true, as President Obama observed, that "those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80% of the total health-care bill." If we really are going to change how we spend money on health, it means we must change how we spend money on death.

We allow for the removal of feeding tubes, the withdrawal of respirators, the replacement of aggressive treatment with palliative care; these can all be wise and merciful choices. But each step forward gets a little more slippery. Is there some point, visible in the cloudy moral distance, where the right to die becomes a duty to die? We don't need to set Grandma adrift on her ice floe; the pressures would be subtle, wrapped in the language of reason and romance — the bereaved widower who sees no reason to try to start over, the quadriplegic rugby player whose memories paralyze his hopes, the chronically ill mother who wants to set her children free. Already in Oregon, one-third of those who chose assisted suicide last year cited the burden on their families and caregivers as a reason. A study in the Netherlands found that one in four doctors said they had killed patients without an explicit request--including one doctor who believed that a dying Dutch nun was prevented from requesting euthanasia because of her religion, so he felt the just and merciful thing to do was to decide for her.

The growing traffic in "death tourism" is an indictment of a health-care system that seems to incentivize everything except the peaceful death to which we all aspire. But I'm not sure the solution is to invite Dignitas to open a clinic down the street from every hospital. Advances in palliative care mean that those last years of life do not have to be a moral, medical and financial nightmare. I respect Sir Edward's right to make what his manager called a "typically brave and courageous" choice. I just wish he'd had better choices.

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AHH Stereotypes, seriously?!

Today as I was tagging purses at work, I noticed that one of my coworkers, that was helping me, was wearing a Chris Brown Concert T-shirt. I couldn't resist. I probably shouldn't have, but I said "whoooa, Chris Brown, really?" and she replied with "yeah yeah yeah I don't care, Rihanna deserved it." I was stunned. I am sure it was written all over my face. For those that don't really know me personally, I am someone where my emotions unapologetically show all over, my face. Especially when it is disgust or surprise. My poker face takes a few seconds to cover up my true feelings, so I'm sure this coworker, and the other one helping us could see how annoyed I was. Now, I do have to say that this Chris Brown loving coworker has already gotten under my skin and bothered me. She's young, she's spoiled, she gets whatever she wants, and she acts like she knows absolutely everything. Talk about annoying.

However, even putting the fact that she already bugs me aside, I couldn't believe it. THEN it got worse, not better. The other coworker decided to join in, and they went on to discuss how most girls (one of them even said especially black girls What the.. ?!), can be really annoying, and that a lot of the times girls that get hit do deserve it. Some of what they said that left me stunned~~~

• She deserved it.
• Rihanna asked for it.
• If a girl gets a guy mad like that she has to expect him to get angry.
• We don't know what she did.

Maybe I'm old fashioned. These girls are at least 4 years younger than me, but I don't understand. I was so stunned something that doesn't usually happen to me occurred: I was silent, I had no idea what to say or how to make sure all the words that came out of my mouth were work appropriate, so I just stared at the purses. I suddenly got very interested in the new shipment. Then, as they kept on, for what seemed like forever, I had to say something. I should have said more, but what I did say I think totally surprised them, they acted like I was the bad person. It was crazy! I said something like, "I'm sorry but none of us were there, we don't know what happened. But we do know what she looked like, and what the doctors have said about her injuries. No one should be beat up like that, especially since he supposedly loves her." My small rant didn't do much to stop their talking, but I'm glad I said something.

For the record, I am annoyed that Rihanna went back to Brown after he did what he did to her. However, it is very very common to go back to your abuser when you're in an abusive relationship. You feel trapped, and ashamed, and there are strange stigmas surrounding abuse, such as what happened at my work today. I was amazed. Especially because it was coming from girls! I don't think abuse like that is okay, by anyone, no matter their gender! BUT what bothers me most is that girls are already put down a lot by society, where people don't believe a girl when she says someone raped her, or in this instance, where the girl had to have done something to provoke the abuser. Abuse is never okay. Girls need to stick together, we should all be fighting abuse, not questioning the victims.

Ew. This article also proves the point, guess the girls at my work aren't the only ones. Click here to read the Guardian (UK) article: Survey: Half of Boston teens blame Rihanna for Chris Brown beating. Here's a snippet or two:

The survey of 200 Boston youths age 12 to 19 found that 51% said Brown bore responsibility, 46% said Rihanna was responsible, and 52% said both were to blame for the incident. In addition, 52% said the media were treating Brown unfairly, and "a significant number of males and females" surveyed said Rihanna was destroying Brown's career.

This is beyond disturbing. Somehow our children have learned that violence is an acceptable and appropriate response to a domestic disagreement. This is what children learn from media messages like this cover of broad-circulating supermarket tabloid Star, which purports to reveal "What made Chris snap". As if Rihanna could have said something to which the brutal attack of which Brown is accused was an understandable reaction. As if she stepped over the line and the vicious blows that bloodied her nose and mouth and swelled her eyes and forehead were justified.

Click here for the official link to the survey done in Boston.

What's your opinion?

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What's YOUR OPINION?

I would like to start a new discussion-type category on my blog, where I talk about what I think... and then you tell me what you think. Heh. For this to work, obviously my readers YOU would have to really reply and tell me what you think. So let's give it a try..

As I was doing homework for my POLI SCI class last night I had to contemplate the following question:

Is the death penalty a cruel and unusual punishment?

This was my answer:

I hate this question!

I am never sure on my answer, so I'm going to just explain why I go back and forth on the issue. My initial answer is yes, it is cruel and unusual, and to me in my personal ethics I don't think it is our right to choose who lives, and who dies.

BUT at the same time, then I actually hear about certain crimes. Crimes that should be punishable by death.. because they are so heinous. Especially crimes against children. Or against masses and masses of people.. or crimes that are fully planned, and yeah. I don't know! Then I would say no, it's not that cruel and unusual, because they were cruel and unusual initially.

My last thought is that it is so expensive to keep these people that committed these awful crimes in prison. It drains the countries assets, and for what? So they can have good food and go to school for free? While I slave away at crappy retail jobs to pay for my higher education?

Yeah. It is a toss up for me.
Nicole

Sooo.. What do you think? WHAT'S YOUR OPINION?

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