Stephen Colbert has an excellent segment on what happens to *cough* campaign contributions….it just disappears, legally.
…and even though the IRS will come after you for the $200 you owe in back taxes, it won’t be able to touch this-all $766,000 of it.
Yep. We have a fair tax code. /snark
Holy crap, I may be onto something with Pitocin and seizures–
I looked up Pitocin and was shocked to find out that seizures are one of the known side effects.
I found this blog.
And this from the epilepsy foundation community group. This is absolutely criminal. Absolutely. There are sooo many serious side effects with this drug that it should either be banned or treated like they do controlled substances–you need to prove that there is a serious threat to the mother/child before allowed to put her and her baby through this hell. Where is the accountability??
For my own birth(s), there was no reason for the doctor to have induced my labor(s)–it was around the holidays and he just wanted to get to his parties, it seems. Bastard.
Here’s a site on epidurals. I probably escaped more injury by not having that.
I helped one of the newer residents with groceries up to their rooms, as one of them is disabled and needs grocery carts to get the heavy bags up to her apt. Someone has taken the five carts we had for resident use (three were ours, that former management had allowed us, and two were ones that somehow escaped the nazi-ish electronic monitors that the grocery had put on them to stop the carts from leaving the lot.) Somehow, they’ve all come up missing. We figure residents are keeping them in their apartments, disregarding that others may need them. I got chastised this morning for making an announcement over the intercom for people to bring the carts back down. They emphasized that I’m only allowed to use the intercom for emergencies. <sigh>
Apparently, the ogre of a manager at the grocery store has still been complaining about us using the carts! Unfreakingbuhlievable! The folks that are disabled cannot lift those heavy bags for the trips to their apartments. They can barely get them across the street. Same with the elderly who can easily drop their groceries while trying to get them home. It’s freaking ridiculous. Like I said before, I wonder how much this grocery store (a national chain) paid to have this stupid electronic system put in? And for what?? Five stinking carts?!
Anyway, while I was helping the residents take the groceries up, one, a nursing student, mentioned that she had spoken to a woman who went into labor and was put on Pitocin. She had screamed from the pain for hours…
…again, memories come flooding back, as I remembered my own screaming from Pitocin. I was shocked to find out that I wasn’t the only one. I thought that I was, well, just a wimp…apparently not.
Here’s a story on possible brain damage caused by it. If you look at the comments, there is one by a clever midwife who suggested the laboring mother get on all fours to aid contractions..
…a lightbulb went on…I was told many years ago that I had a tipped uterus (backwards). Now I wonder if I had been on all fours, this would have allowed my uterus to progress normally through labor? The thing that gets me is that doctors know that a woman lying on her back during labor is not beneficial for contractions and can be dangerous as it depresses the major vein. I was on my back during all three labors.
…and I can echo the horrible pain associated with Pitocin. And no anesthetic. I was so out of my mind with pain that I kept saying “push, push, push” while the nurse tried in vain to get right up to my ear and said to stop pushing. I couldn’t even respond to her or anything–a somewhat catatonic state. And I’ll always wonder what that did to my daughter–whether it’s played a role in her epilepsy.
(PERSONAL BLOG)
My weekend went between comical and sad…
…I’ll start with the sad, as I like to leave on a happy note…
The gal that went into a coma in September passed away over the weekend. We tend to look after one another, and if we haven’t seen someone in a couple of days, we start to worry.
The housing folks were notified by a couple of the residents that something was wrong about 9 a.m. yesterday, and they discovered her in her bed. Of course, some of these folks still think it’s high school and the rumors started right away. Irritates me to no end. She was a good hearted person who deserves dignity. She will be missed.
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On the more lighthearted side–
I can see a parking lot outside my window. On Sunday, a father and son crossed the street, lugging a bike along. The father was apparently trying to teach the boy how to ride the bike. The boy was having a time of it–couldn’t quite get the balance thing down. He’d get on, then fall off, get on, then fall off. At one point, the father hopped on the bike and pedaled away, with the boy chasing him around the parking lot. End of lesson. Funny.
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They were predicting a nasty weather front through here yesterday, and I needed to go to the grocery. Along the sidewalk I usually take there was a patch of dirt from a car accident a couple of weeks ago. I had walked through it several times without a problem…well, we had snow coming down yesterday and it made the dirt into a nice slick mess of mud….and well, I walked through it like normal, but lost my footing. I did the sway back, lean forward, sway back, lean forward thing in trying to stay upright….but alas, lost the battle and slid into third base. I thought the worst part to suffer was my ego, but after I got home, I looked at my shin, and had a spot the size of a baseball. I haven’t had something that big since fourteen, when I tripped over a mat in gym class while running and went flying (don’t ask me why they had mats on the floor while asking us to run, it makes no sense to me). The swelling went down overnight and my gut hurts more from laughing about the whole thing…I’m sure it was quite comical to the passersby…I thought I saw one guy hold up a sign with “8.5” on it. Haha.
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I saw this in a newspaper/magazine Funny Times that someone left in the lobby. I think this is their website, but I’m not absolutely sure. Anyway, there were quotes listed in the issue I had and one made me burst out laughing:
“You don’t know what love is until you become a parent.
You don’t know what love is until you fish a turd out of a bathtub.”
I think the author is Margaret Smith(?) Arrrgh…I don’t have it with me.
I was laughing so hard that tears were streaming down my face…memories of having to do that awful task came flooding back. And the awful moment of having one of my kids get sick at 2 a.m. after we had spaghetti for dinner that night. Oh.My.God. That has got to be the most disgusting thing that has ever assaulted my senses….
And so, my friends, I leave you on that note…
Center for Media and Democracy has joined with others in “Money Out, Voters In” effort. I was a little more heartened after this election, because it would appear that the billionaires spent a lot of $$$ for nothing...
…more here on dark money–up 400%.
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In related news, protests against Romney and the vulture capitalists sending jobs overseas. The story was written pre-election, but still needs to be told. People just want to be able to work–to earn their own pay and take care of themselves and their families.
It’s utter cruelty to send jobs overseas and then complain when those that lost their jobs go on food stamps.
I read a story featured on Yahoo on FEMA closing relief centers because of the nor’easter coming in…something about the story sent my “antenna” up… so I looked at other sites and found that they were rightwingers…the search continued and I also found this: http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/11/08/fema-responds-to-criticism-of-closure-of-mobile-centers-due-to-noreaster/
So…the rightwingers would rather more people were endangered staying in tents that offered no protection to the staffers nor folks visiting them…?
Other thoughts on the disaster of the East coast–many are still without power and they said on the news this morning that it is going to be after the holiday…what is the problem? We have had storms like this in the past and I don’t recall it taking so long to restore power? Why is there such a long delay? Could it be that the utility companies, in a quest for bigger profits, have scaled back their work force? I mean, this happened here, albeit on a smaller scale, when the 90-mph winds hit here this past June…power was off for a week at some locations. The only reason we got power back on in our building was because we had a generator…even then, we had to wait for fuel for that generator.
… and why on Earth aren’t they saying anything about off-grid power? Why aren’t they supplying people with solar panels and batteries so they could at least power the basic stuff? Here’s another site on off-grid products and instruction.
<sigh> Riots protests at Mississippi over Obama’s re-election. Remind me again of what the perimeters are of a riot? Because I don’t recall the pepper-sprayed “Occupy” protestors lighting things on fire.
Congratulations, President Obama. Big Bird lives on…:)
I know better, but I was listening to the rightwing radio last night and they were painting a dim picture of Obama’s win. I turned it off and went to bed to read…thinking we were going to get Bush III…
Indiana voted in Mike do-nothing Pence for Governor, and now has a super majority in the legislature…<sigh>
…well, at least I am spared Richard my-sperm-is-a-gift-from-God Mourdock…
The news on the reaction in the Middle East. I hope this means a peaceful movement in Israel is underway….
DN! has this up on the elections. Elizabeth Warren is animated after her win. Thank God.
Unfortunately, the GMO lobby won and Californians defeated the measure requiring GMO labeling. Shit.
O”Reilly had a nice take on why Obama won–because people want “stuff” and Obama was going to give it to them…
Well, now…Romney has the gov’t pay $77,000 for the care and housing of his horse…has money in offshore accounts and John McCain has so many houses he can’t even remember how many he has…all because they don’t pay their fair share of taxes…now who feels entitled?
Is it entitlement when one wants to eat? Have a roof over their head? Get medical care? I’m confused.
They went on to talk about the shift away from the standard–now women and minorities are getting their voices heard. The boys of the old school are threatened…and it will probably get uglier before it’s all done.
To my sisters who were the power behind getting President Obama re-elected: Thank you. We can move mountains when we focus on what’s important to us and fight for it.
I want to say, though, that women have been characterized as of “one mind”–that any woman who manages to get before a microphone speaks for all women. They don’t.
This is one of the reasons that the middle-of-the-road women backed away from the Feminist Movement–they were treated as if they spoke for all women. Women who wanted to stay home with their children were characterized as dull twits who lacked ambition. Women who didn’t believe in abortion but believed in equality were marginalized, also.
And the 70s Feminists who fought against alimony because it…well, I’m not really sure why they were fighting against alimony…but as this quote by Barbara Seaman, amongst others, puts it quite well–this is something that I lost out on when I divorced. I also got less than half of the assets (with a mortgage to pay off) and my ex got away with only paying one-fifth ($20,000) of his income to support his three children. Although I had stayed home for eleven years, the judge did not allow for that, and had instead computed the amount of support as if I had a job!! Yes, I had a lousy lawyer–whose partner still smirks at me to this day whenever I have to trudge back to the place I grew up in…I’ve always wondered what that smirk means….
Anyway, I hope that with the election that women and minorities will do their homework, and support thoughtful politicians who approach the legislative process with the “Do unto others…” mindset…it would make life so much easier and just might bring about Peace…
It’s just freaking amazing what happens when we work together–when we let go of politics and do what is right.
commondreams.org posted this link to rumors of voting machine irregularities.
I was not told that I could have a paper ballot yesterday, which I would have made use of, because that is what I was expecting.
When I went to the machine, the clerk put in my driver’s license number. I couldn’t believe it–how is this legal? If the ballot is supposed to be secret, then why put in that information?
I found this article on the worst places to vote. Unfortunately, Ohio is mentioned several times…
More here from ProPublica.
I can’t find anything on a quick search of putting the driver’s license number into the voting machine…so I’m at a loss to explain the justification of it. If I had to show them my photo ID (which I did), then that is all that they need to know. This really bothers me that my personal information was put into the machine before I voted—and how it will be used.
Eagle 
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