(no subject)

1. The Supreme Court upheld the National Healthcare Act.

CNN and Fox NEWs misreported it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/28/cnn-supreme-court-health-care-individual-mandate_n_1633950.html

ABC got it right: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/supreme-court-announces-decision-obamas-health-care-law/story?id=16663839#.T-zTH79TGKw

NPR includes a link to the actual decision in its blog: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/06/28/155901105/live-blog-the-health-care-ruling
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2. Reading Mark Watches take on Bargaining...made me realize that when and where you watched S6 probably makes a huge difference in how you perceived it. I watched it live in 2001. And I live and work in NYC. Add to that...was not in an emotionally good place at the time. When Buffy asks the question: Is this hell? I was thinking at the time, tears streaming down my face, "my thoughts exactly". It was oddly the only tv show that I felt addressed the pain and uncertainty of that period in my life and my experience with 9/11.
Others tried, but nothing really hit the target for me emotionally speaking like Buffy S6 did. And again, I think, having rewatched the season at different points, that has a lot to do with my own mental and emotional state at the time.

I don't enjoy or appreciate S6 now, the way I did then. I find portions of it to be, frankly, unwatchable now. And I see all the flaws and plot-holes. But back then - it was in some respects a masterpiece, it perfectly captured in all its fluctuations my emotional state of mind. For the first time, I understood and identified with the lead character, as well as the other characters. The series stopped being just a fun tv show that I escaped into, and occasionally trolled the net for spoilers...and something else entirely - it spoke to my soul. And I became obsessed. I needed to find similarly obsessed people to discuss it with. Who understood. And I did. And well. Here I am now. So if it weren't for my reaction to S6? You'd never have met me. Isn't that crazy?

(no subject)

1. Anyone know anything about the online version of weight watchers? Is it pricy? How does it work?

Need to find a way to control this compulsive over-eating. Which is hurting me and is undoubtedly a reaction to stress. Thinking maybe if I have to keep track of everything I eat and drink that will help.


2. Currently reading Laura Kinsale's Flowers from the Storm, which is actually a well-written historical romance. Not as rare as a well-written contemporary romance - have yet to find one of those. John Green's The Fault in Our Stars - I don't really consider a contemporary romance, but if you do? That's the best written I've found to date. It's also hands down the best written book I've read in years. But back to Flowers from the Storm. How credible it is to the time period (19th Century), I wouldn't know. But the author does a convincing job of portraying it and the odd coupling of a Duke who has suffered a stroke and the young Quaker woman who aids him.

Here's what the author states about it:

The odd tidbit of original inspiration for Flowers came from a great-aunt of mine. When I was fairly young—7 or 8?—she suffered a stroke and lost the ability to speak. My grandmother, her sister, brought her to live at home for the next ten years. She would come up behind us kids and grab our hair or our arm, pinch so hard that it hurt, and say “No, no, no, no!” I thought she was nuts. Forgive me, I was young and afraid of her. My grandmother always insisted that she could understand what was said to her, and stood by her to the end.

Many years later, many—out of nowhere, the thought came to me that my grandmother had been right. That my great-aunt had been trapped behind a wall. It was a stunning realization.

I spent a fascinating period researching brain damage while writing Flowers from the Storm.

In the novel the Duke of Jevorlaux suffers a cereberal brain hemorrage or stroke, and is placed in a lunatic aslym, because at that time they didn't understand what a stroke was and misdiagnosed his inability to communicate as dementia. As the heroine, Maddy Timms, states at one point - he wasn't mad, he was maddened. The asylum is a bit grim and its practices alarming. Although I'm not sure they are accurate. In the book he is treated to cold therapeutic baths that remind me of water torture, strapped down, and placed in confinement.

The institution is run by Quakers, which seemed odd to me. Because I can't imagine a Quaker endorsing the therapeutic cold baths, although Cousin Edmund is a lasped Quaker and follows what he consider modern medical treatments.

She does a decent job of conveying religious without judging it. Too often a writer will place a value judgment on someone who is religious - making them out to be a fanatic. This takes me out of the story. Not all religious people are fanatics. Regardless of what many television shows dictate. Maddy is a religious person, pious and devout but she is also smart, intutitive, kind, and compassionate. Not to mention perceptive. Her religion gives her strength and guides her to aid the hero, Christian, who has suffered a stroke and is trapped. She looks past her prejudices and comes to his aid.

The story is detailed and in both characters points of view, the Quaker voice and the mind of a man inflicted with severe aphsia, inability to communicate. Words are taken from him.
I wouldn't call it literary, but it is by far amongst the best of the genre it resides within. There's also a cynical edge to it - in regards to psychiatric medicine, particularly the behaviorists - who believed that all behavior could be changed through conditioning - using pain, pleasure, and removal of basic human requirements. Now this methodology is challenged as infringement of human rights. I'm not a fan of the behaviorists. But my knowledge is admittedly sketchy - having only studied them briefly in the late 1980s. Which was over 20 years ago. I've had to wedge a lot of information into my brain since then.