Joe, Don't Run for President! But....

But please keep inspiring us. Here are some quotes from Joe Biden's appearance on "The Late Show" with Stephen Colbert last night (taken from the Washington Post):

Speaking of how he tends to get emotional about the recent death of his son Beau, who urged him to run for president, Joe said, "It's a little embarrassing. So many people who have losses as severe or maybe worse than mine and don't have the support I have." He added later, "The loss is serious and it's consequential, but there are so many other people going through this."

The Post reports:

Colbert asked Biden, a devout Catholic, about his faith, and the vice president said he has taken solace in being able to attend Mass and feel, in the crowd at church, a sense of being alone with his thoughts and emotions. He  said that his wife, Jill, tapes notes to the bathroom mirror, including one from Kierkegaard, the philosopher, which said: "Faith sees best in the dark."

He related an expression from his mother that "as long as you are alive you have an obligation to strive, and you're not dead until you see the face of God."

"No one owes you anything," Biden said. "You gotta get up. And I feel like I was letting down Beau, letting down my parents, letting down my family, if I didn't just get up."

The vice president empathized with Colbert, whose own father and two brothers were killed in an airplane crash.

"I marvel at the ability of people who absorb hurt and just get back up," he said. "You're one of them, old buddy. Losing your dad when you're a kid. It's like asking what made your mother do it every day?"

Colbert interjected: "She had to take care of me."

Biden replied, "I imagine that would be a hell of a job."

We all need you, Joe Biden, but not as president of the U.S. More for your inspiration and compassion, neither of which you'll have much chance to display in the White House.

Once in a Blue Moon

It's happening tomorrow (Friday, July 31): the second of two full moons in the same month.

The moon won't actually look blue, but it's certainly a rare occasion, which is why we use that expression, "once in a blue moon."

Here's a San Francisco news station's description of the upcoming event.

Good news if you enjoy looking at the full moon; not so great if you want to look at the Delta Aquarid meteor shower.

The next blue moon will occur in January of 2018.

Kaiser Does It Again

I've written before about the problems of having Kaiser Permanente as your HMO, and I'll be writing about it again in the future, I'm sure. That's just because it is fraught, fraught, I say, with so many problems and pitfalls for patients.

The worst one I've heard in a long time happened to a teenager whose Kaiser physicians --- read, gate-keepers and bean-counters --- declined to perform a diagnostic MRI for her severe back pain. Instead, they referred her to an acupuncturist (yes, an acupuncturist) and a nutritionist to lose "extra belly weight" --- even though the five-foot-four girl weighed 125 pounds, which makes me think she had no "extra belly weight."

Problem was, the girl had a tumor which could have been treated early if detected by an MRI. But, because it wasn't detected early, when it was finally treated, she had to have her right leg, half of her pelvis, and part of her spine removed.

The L.A. Times reports, "Attorneys for 23-year-old Anna Rahm of Chatsworth argued that a cancerous tumor in her pelvis grew during the three months she and her mother tried to persuade Kaiser doctors to authorize an MRI. By the time the test was finally approved, doctors were forced to amputate Rahm's right leg, half of her pelvis and part of her spine."

A couple of months ago, a Los Angeles jury righted this wrong --- as much as it could be righted --- by ordering Kaiser to pay the young woman $28 million.

Kaiser, of course, is probably going to appeal. Because, they say, according to the L.A. Times, even though "....the health and safety of our patients is paramount at all times, [some of their]  highly respected medical experts testified that the medical care provided was appropriate."

Of course they said that. Why am I so dang cynical, anyway?

Meanwhile,Ms. Rahm said, "I hope I taught the doctors who were working with me a lesson.” She's studying at Cal State Northridge "to work with children facing life-threatening illnesses." And she "uses crutches to get around campus because she does not want to use a wheelchair." Brave girl!

The L.A. Times article notes that Kaiser is "both an insurer and provider," which I think is at the root of the problem. Kaiser "care providers" are not really working for the "patients," but make "care" decisions based on potential cost to the Kaiser system than patients' actual needs.

For a supposed non-profit, Kaiser is doing pretty well, with $56.4 billion in revenue and $2.2 billion in revenue in 2014.

Why do I keep using Kaiser, you may ask (and probably have asked me). Because it's the only option available in my area that isn't even worse. Which says a lot about our national health-"care" system, doesn't it. 

Then why do I keep complaining about it? Because I can't really switch to another program, so I can only hope that publicizing the faults in the Kaiser system will eventually force these bean-counters to improve their system.

Weird Word of the Week: Manspreading

Manspreading is the practice of sitting with legs spread wide apart on the subway or bus, making the seats on either side unavailable to other riders. It is annoying and rude, and, as with mansplaining, is (by definition) a practice limited to men.

Some public-transport riders have taken to snapping photos and posting them online in an attempt to shame offenders. And, according to Wikipedia, New York's MTA and Seattle's Sound Transit have started poster campaigns to encourage men to use one seat at a time.

As always, pointing out the problem has led to a backlash in which super-sensitive men respond that women should stop putting their bags or other belongings on the seat next to them, thereby depriving other passengers of space.

I've got to say, though, that it's not just the taking up of space that is offensive in manspreading;  the outspread display is just plain disgusting (for me and many other women, and men).

Weird Word of the Week: Mansplaining

I thought of explaining this word when I read a July 6 article about Michael Eisner explaining that beautiful women just aren't funny, and, of course, vice-versa. Because he should know, right?

The author of this article explains the phenomenon perfectly:

"All the elements of a great mansplaining were in place: painting oneself as a brave truth-teller in the face of scolding feminist mommies, declaring yourself the authority on women’s feelings, arguing that women’s main and possibly sole motivating force is male attention, and assuming that the world is deeply interested in your aesthetic opinions about ladykind."

According to this article, the word "mansplain" originated in an article by Rebecca Solnit, whose 2008 essay “Men Explain Things to Me”told the painfully hilarious story of when she was talking to a man who, assuming she knew less than he did about everything (because,  hello, she is a woman), began to tell her all about a book which she had authored. 

Check out this Tumblir page for a few examples of mansplaining in academia: "Academic Men Explain Things to Me." 

Unfortunately, the word "mansplain" has lately been applied to situations where it doesn't quite explain what's happening.

Unfortunately, also, its use has turned into another weapon in the gender wars. As if we needed another one.

Weird Word of the Week: Pareidolia

From Wikipedia: Pareidolia is "a psychological phenomenon involving a stimulus (an image or a sound) which is perceived as significant.


Some examples are when you think you see an animal shape in a cloud, or the man in the moon, or when you think you're hearing hidden messages in music.

Wikipedia says pareidolia is "the visual form of apophenia, which is the perception of patterns within random data. Combined with apophenia and hierophany (manifestation of the sacred), pareidolia may have helped ancient societies organize chaos and make the world intelligible."

Another example of course is seeing a face or a pyramid on Mars. 

A satellite photo of a mesa in Cydonia, often called the Face on Mars. Later imagery from other angles did not show the illusion.

 

 

 

 

A Pyramid on Mars?

Dear Madame L,

I saw a picture online that is supposedly a pyramid photographed by the Mars rover Curiosity. So I'm curious myself: Could it really be a pyramid, and, if it is, does that mean there is or once was life on Mars?

Sincerely,

Like I Said, Curious


Dear Curious,

You're welcome for not calling you a moron, which some rational people have called anyone who believes the rover might have caught a glimpse of a pyramid on Mars.

Photo snapped by NASA's Curiosity rover on May 7, 2015 purports to show a car-sized pyramid on Mars. Curiosity was launched into space on Nov. 26, 2011 and landed on Mars on Aug. 6, 2012.

From the Huffington Post's reporting on the rock (rock, not pyramid!):

"It is a rock," Dr. Jim Bell, deputy principal investigator of the Mastcam investigation program and a professor of astronomy at Arizona State University in Tempe, told The Huffington Post in an email. "It is probably a volcanic rock (like most rocks that we've seen with rovers on Mars), and just like many volcanic rocks on the Earth, many volcanic rocks on Mars break and cleave in very sharp, angular ways. This one happens to have cleaved into a pyramidal shape, which is actually not too uncommon among hard, dense volcanic rocks on the Earth either."

As for the size of the rock, Bell said an analysis by the Mastcam team suggests that it's only about four inches tall, or the height of an 8-ounce soda can. 

 And here's the Snopes response to the question about pyramid(s) on Mars, concluding, "...for now we’d have to classify this “pyramid” photograph as another example of pareidolia..."

And what is pareidolia?  Madame L will define this Weird Word of the Week next week.