While looking at the list of Top Proposition 8 supporters, one professional field keeps coming up. Healthcare. Look at the list here. Why is this? Is this just a career field that has a lot of conservative people in it or something else?
Is the healthcare industry trying to keep down costs by keeping the definition of marriage as narrow as possible?
According the Human Rights Campaign, the worry is baseless.
"In short, extending marriage to same-sex couples will have a negligible impact on the cost of providing employee benefits. In fact, because same-sex couples make up a small percentage of the U.S. population, the cost of allowing same-sex couples to marry will be no greater for employers than the costs caused by fluctuations in the U.S. heterosexual marriage rates."
But the fear remains. According the Pew Forum on Gay Marriage, only one percent of those polled consider economic reasons for opposing gay marriage. Still the concern remains, when it comes to healthcare professionals, they may more carefully consider economic reasons because the impact will directly affect their profession.
A person is pro or anti same-sex marriage is largely indicated by political affliation and if a person believes that homosexuality is biologically determined or not. So why so many healthcare professionals in the anti category? Isn't healthcare a science driven profession and therefore wouldn't healthcare professionals be more likely to be sympathetic to same-sex marriage?
Interestingly enough, no. Healthcare is being led by MBAs vs. MDs, so because healthcare has changed from a service to a business, it is easy to see how determining factor is the bottomline and not biology-- or even justice for that matter. The fight for same-sex marriage is reflecting the struggle of American healthcare. Profits vs. People.
Will human concern trump profitabilty? Not today, as for the future, we'll see.
Showing posts with label geneology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label geneology. Show all posts
Friday, November 14, 2008
Friday, October 31, 2008
Studs Terkel Introduced Me to My Grandmother
Studs Terkel Introduced Me to My Grandmother. Really.
"Why have I always upset such gentle hearts? Why couldn't I have been my cute little button self and said the right thing"---Studs Terkel
Wow I lifted that quote from the Nation's article on Studs Terkel . Apparently he is describing a deciding moment in his life.
We need big, brash heros. Heros who are willing to "upset gentle hearts" in order to make right silent atrociousities. Tonight, Halloween, kids dress up and flaunt costumes of popular figures. But popular and heroic are rarely the same. So, I am going to remember a true hero, who shaped my life with a single book "Hard Times: An Oral History of Great Depression" .
That book introduced me to my grandmother, Because it got me to listen to my Grandmother. I was filled with assumption. Just because I saw her almost everyday, I thought I knew her. So, I the scholar who had read such a serious book, being a fifth grader, could now be an interviewer. Sitting down to do that interveiw, I knew what she was going to say-- or so I thought. But actually, no, I didn't know her at all, until I listened. Thank you Studs.
So she told me about the hard time she was born in. Harsh proverty, roaming with her mom, dad and about ten siblings. I heard in her voice that she felt she would never see justice. After all, she watched the lynching of a brother. She described that even as she learned parts of the language, of her mother who was a native american, she knew that that her mother's culture was dying, so she didn't want to learn that language. She said she regretted that she didn't. She also told me about what to do if menstrual cramps got painful and what to do if the baby doesn't cry right away when it is born. She said that for our family childbirth was easier after 30. I remember those talks as my Grandmother brushed her hair which grew to her knees. She brushed in long, continous strokes from the top of her head to the end of the hair shaft. Boy, I am glad I read that book.
I wonder if she and Studs had lived until November 5 what would they think. Not about who won or loss the election or how it was won or lost. Who knows if Obama will win or not, and that is not the question I wonder about. The question that bugs me is --Are we doing our best to make it a little better for everyone--honestly?
The world is quieter now without Studs on the radio, in the bookstore, on the rampage. I am not sure that the quiet is good. So I sit in that quiet, silently longing to watch my grandmother brushing her hair in those long eternal strokes--what I'd give to do that one more time--this Sunday I will sit in church and be grateful for the the big hero named Studs who taught me that life's greatest surprise happens when we listen to the ordinary people that we think we know and yet, don't know at all.
"Why have I always upset such gentle hearts? Why couldn't I have been my cute little button self and said the right thing"---Studs Terkel
Wow I lifted that quote from the Nation's article on Studs Terkel . Apparently he is describing a deciding moment in his life.
We need big, brash heros. Heros who are willing to "upset gentle hearts" in order to make right silent atrociousities. Tonight, Halloween, kids dress up and flaunt costumes of popular figures. But popular and heroic are rarely the same. So, I am going to remember a true hero, who shaped my life with a single book "Hard Times: An Oral History of Great Depression" .
That book introduced me to my grandmother, Because it got me to listen to my Grandmother. I was filled with assumption. Just because I saw her almost everyday, I thought I knew her. So, I the scholar who had read such a serious book, being a fifth grader, could now be an interviewer. Sitting down to do that interveiw, I knew what she was going to say-- or so I thought. But actually, no, I didn't know her at all, until I listened. Thank you Studs.
So she told me about the hard time she was born in. Harsh proverty, roaming with her mom, dad and about ten siblings. I heard in her voice that she felt she would never see justice. After all, she watched the lynching of a brother. She described that even as she learned parts of the language, of her mother who was a native american, she knew that that her mother's culture was dying, so she didn't want to learn that language. She said she regretted that she didn't. She also told me about what to do if menstrual cramps got painful and what to do if the baby doesn't cry right away when it is born. She said that for our family childbirth was easier after 30. I remember those talks as my Grandmother brushed her hair which grew to her knees. She brushed in long, continous strokes from the top of her head to the end of the hair shaft. Boy, I am glad I read that book.
I wonder if she and Studs had lived until November 5 what would they think. Not about who won or loss the election or how it was won or lost. Who knows if Obama will win or not, and that is not the question I wonder about. The question that bugs me is --Are we doing our best to make it a little better for everyone--honestly?
The world is quieter now without Studs on the radio, in the bookstore, on the rampage. I am not sure that the quiet is good. So I sit in that quiet, silently longing to watch my grandmother brushing her hair in those long eternal strokes--what I'd give to do that one more time--this Sunday I will sit in church and be grateful for the the big hero named Studs who taught me that life's greatest surprise happens when we listen to the ordinary people that we think we know and yet, don't know at all.
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