Rags 'n' Bones

Each year, Americans spend hundreds of billions of dollars on unnecessary medical tests and treatments. It’s one reason why health care costs are so high.

In recent months, “CBS This Morning” has been looking into the rehab practices of Life Care Centers of America. It is the third largest nursing home chain in the country, with more than 30,000 beds in 28 states.

Half-a-dozen former employees tell “CTM” that the company is giving patients rehab they don’t need, and billing the government for money they’re not entitled to.

“The mission statement that they have is no longer true, which is to serve their residents in a Christian based atmosphere,” says Helen Toomey, a former assistant manager and speech therapist at the company’s Plymouth, Mass., facility.

Among other services, Life Care provides speech and physical therapy. But Toomey, who worked at multiple Life Care locations between 1998 and 2012, says by the time she left, 40 percent of the work she was being told to administer was not reasonable or necessary. “They felt that no one was watching them and so every patient that came through the building they could charge the highest rate of reimbursement, regardless of their diagnosis or need.”

Toomey says it got so bad that she resigned. But on her way out, she took some patient notes with her. She says they show how Life Care would not let patients leave, so the company could continue to bill Medicare. On Dec. 30, 2011, for example, they indicate that Toomey tried to discharge four patients. All four of those requests were denied. She provided a copy of the notes to “CTM.”

biyuti: pyrrhiccomedy: milk-chiller2: Reminder of: reason for...

Thu, 16 May 2013 13:00:06 -0700

biyuti:

pyrrhiccomedy:

milk-chiller2:

Reminder of: reason for eggplant’s name

OH MY GOD I HAVE WONDERED ABOUT THIS MY WHOLE LIFE

everything suddenly makes sense… (fuck I love eggplant…)

Adventures in subbing:

Thu, 16 May 2013 12:57:53 -0700

On Tuesday I started my day in a class of 2nd graders and their teacher introduced them to me by telling me who all the “bad” ones who “get on her nerves” were.

She told me the worst ones were in the back of the classroom so they were as far away from her as possible and wouldn’t “annoy her.”

She huffed and said “this is what it’s ALWAYS like” and yelled at students to sit down and be quiet when they jumped up trying to be helpful.

When I introduced myself (as I always do) as “Ms. Smith, or <first name>, whatever you’re comfortable with” she interrupted me after my first name and snapped “No; MS. SMITH”.

At the end of the period when she asked how they were while she was gone (and prefaced it with like a “see what I mean about them??” kind of thing) and I told her they were good overall, she rolled her eyes.

I had to bite my tongue not to tell her it was time she should retire.

Victory for Seattle Teachers’ Testing Boycott: High School MAP Test Optional Next Year - COLORLINES

Thu, 16 May 2013 12:48:55 -0700

Victory for Seattle Teachers’ Testing Boycott: High School MAP Test Optional Next Year - COLORLINES:

sinidentidades:

Four months after staging a boycott against their own school district’s testing regime, Seattle high school teachers and their student and parent supporters have won a huge victory. On Monday Seattle Superintendent Jose Banda announced that come the next school year, the controversial Measures of Academic Progress test will no longer be a required high school assessment, the Seattle Times reported.

Banda’s decision was informed by the recommendations of a specially assembled task force formed to deal with the fallout of the testing boycott, which began with teachers at Garfield High School in Seattle, and ultimately spread to five area high schools altogether. Some 600 students refused to take the assessment, which teachers, parents and students said was a waste of precious instructional time which tied up library and computer labs for weeks on end. Educators demanded that the district scrap the twice yearly administered test, but all other schools in the district must continue to give the test. And high schools must come up with their own assessments for students.

The Seattle teacher testing boycott is but one pocket of the resistance to high-stakes tests. Part of the resistance is a reaction to new state educational standards which have given rise to yet more new testing regimes, but much of it is a reflection of educators, parents, students and now lawmakers who are sick of overtesting. Check out Erin Zipper’s infographic mapping the backlash to high-stakes tests.

childrenofthewildone: I feel very conflicted watching Firefly because Mal is awesome, but the first...

Thu, 16 May 2013 12:41:26 -0700

childrenofthewildone:

I feel very conflicted watching Firefly because Mal is awesome, but the first place I saw Nathan Fillion was as Caleb on Buffy and I just hated him so much.

Frankly you might want to watch Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog first then. If there’s anything that will get you to reframe Nathan Fillion in your head it’s him as Captain Hammer. Mal will be easy after that….

(via It May Look Like Graffiti, But It’s Actually A...

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:37:58 -0700

(via It May Look Like Graffiti, But It’s Actually A Ridiculously Concise Indictment Of The Media)

Photo

Tue, 14 May 2013 20:08:29 -0700

The Racist Myth of MSG and 'Chinese Restaurant Syndrome'

Mon, 13 May 2013 22:41:25 -0700

zuky:

This is the story of a racist myth that began with a light-hearted letter to the New England Journal of Medicine in 1968 and subsequently exploded in North American culture — in direct opposition to every shred of scientific evidence — becoming so prevalent that credulous eaters buy into it to the point of experiencing its effects on a purely psychosomatic basis.

It’s often been called “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” and its premise is that MSG in Chinese food results in unpleasant allergic reactions. Interestingly enough, higher quantities of MSG in non-Chinese foods are not reported to have the same effects. MSG is a naturally occurring amino acid, and some of the highest levels of MSG a North American consumer is likely to ingest come in vine-ripened tomatoes, aged cheese, and dry-aged steak — yet there is no reported medical phenomenon known as “Italian Food Syndrome” or “American Steakhouse Syndrome”.

Monosodium glutamate was first isolated from the seaweed kombu, commonly used in the Japanese broth dashi, by biochemist Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University in 1908. He named its taste umami because it differed from the five conventional flavours of sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and spicy. Ikeda patented his discovery and MSG became commercially available in 1909. It was found to enhance flavours with one third of the amount of sodium as traditional salt, i.e. sodium chloride. In this sense, monosodium glutamate is probably healthier than sodium chloride because it achieves flavour with reduced sodium levels.

MSG was immediately popular in Asia and became common in the North American food industry after World War II, used in baby food, canned soup, vegetable juice, frozen food, as well as seasoning mix brands such as Accent. Yet somehow in the 1960s, this popular food additive became associated with Chinese food and deemed a health hazard. Why? Because Chinese people, culture, and food have been targeted by widespread and effective racist hate campaigns in North America since the 19th century, buttressed by wild claims that the Chinese are “unclean”, carry diseases, are sexually-deviant opium addicts, inscrutable and sneaky, a Yellow Peril.

The 1968 letter to the New England Journal of Medicine which solidified the myth of MSG was actually written by a Chinese immigrant named Robert Ho Man Kwok, who described “numbness at the back of the neck, gradually radiating to both arms and the back, general weakness and palpitation” after eating in American Chinese restaurants. The letter opened the floodgates to a barage of letters and related articles complaining of headaches, dizziness, paralysis of the throat, tingling in the temples, tightness of the jaw, irregular heartbeat, depression, hyperactivity, and all manner of digestive ailments.

Given this preponderance of anecdotal evidence, numerous scientific studies have been performed since then attempting to identify this “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome”. The funny thing is that no study has ever been able to do so. When people don’t know that they’re consuming MSG, they don’t suffer adverse reactions. All national and international food safety bodies have concluded that MSG is perfectly safe. People in Japan eat MSG every single day and the Japanese have the longest life expectancy in the world.

Fear of MSG is a racist remnant of the Chinese Exclusion era which exists only in North America and has been thoroughly debunked by science. Yet racist socialization is so powerful that people actually experience physical effects such as headaches, depression, and indigestion based solely on their indoctrinated fear of Chinese people and Chinese food. Think it over next time you eat parmesan cheese or a vine-ripened tomato.

yep I was a #nerd! #kidstuff #starwars #startrek #xfiles (at...

Sun, 12 May 2013 16:31:15 -0700

yep I was a #nerd! #kidstuff #starwars #startrek #xfiles (at Moms House)

modern-age-fakir: A series titled “A Slum called Hollywood” by...

Sat, 11 May 2013 17:51:05 -0700

modern-age-fakir:

A series titled “A Slum called Hollywood” by Kannagi Khanna

Blogspot

nezua: thecurvature: abellandapomegranate: iinventedeverything...

Sat, 11 May 2013 17:47:54 -0700

nezua:

thecurvature:

abellandapomegranate:

iinventedeverything:

jhameia:

freshmouthgoddess:

nezua:

deafmuslimpunx:

mademoisellealiyah:

thinksquad:

Government Makes Rainwater Illegal

Yep, RAIN WATER IS ILLEGAL.
As bizarre as it sounds, I guess it really shouldn’t be a surprise. We have covered numerous stories of how the government has been chipping away at the rights of land. From survival gardens being seized to the land owners in California who are being forced back on to the grid, people’s rights as land owners are being shredded by local, state and federal governments.
In the latest abuse of power, a man in Oregon has been sentenced to 30 days in jail and ordered to pay a $1,500 fine for collecting rainwater on his own land. Gary Harrington was convicted of nine misdemeanor crimes for filling his three man-made reservoirs with rainwater and snow runoff. The state of Oregon claims the water that fell from the sky, is owned by them and the Medford Water Commission.
As unreal as it may sound, at least 9 states have made it illegal to collect rainwater on your own land. Utah, Oregon, Colorado and a number of other states have passed rainwater laws that either limit or all out ban the collection of rainwater.

http://offgridsurvival.com/rainwaterillegal/

Fuck what the government says.now it owns rainwater ? Wow looking forward to the day of Reckoning for this one .

This reminds me of a similar situation back in Bolivia in 2000, and resulted in major riots and a mass movement to protest against the corporate ownership of water. When a private foreign company came to Bolivia, they seized control of local water sources and increased taxes that most Bolivians could not afford to pay, so then Bolivians built their own water wells to collect RAINWATER, which were then seized by the foreign corporation!

Read: the 2000 Cochabamba Protests / Water Wars of 2000

Nobody should stand by and allow this to happen… but the U.S media doesn’t care, they won’t talk about it, and people will remain clueless.

and right now we have a bit of a water shortage in oregon.

i will say this: the fire to react to each and every little thing cools as i age, but nothing has begun to inflame me like the way corporations and judges are snakily inserting themselves into a paradise convened by humans with mother earth; rights which can NEVER truly be superseded by another human, no matter how many paid guns they have, no matter how many corrupt pens in motion. nobody has the rights to tell you that you can not grow food on the soil that supports you. no corporation owns the seeds of this planet. nobody has the right to command you not drink water from the heavens. these are men with puny hearts and dull minds to even dream so far beyond their own power and position.

this would be devastating for Haitians…..but then i know this could happen… some renewable technology would not be allowed here because the US gov said so… and powerful interest said so. the world upside down..

Why on earth is it illegal? Do y’all have a problem with dengue or malaria or something? (That is the case in Malaysia anyway; that’s why ppl who collect rainwater are also responsible for making sure mosquitoes don’t breed in it, otherwise you get a fine.)

bcuz esp in cali, there are massive water shortages. and there’s all sorts of politics with water sources being redirected and cut off and damned etc—this is why the Great Lakes (which surround Michigan) are under such fucking pressure right now—cuz fresh water that is not polluted to the point of undrinkability is THE resource—it’s been called the modern gold rush. all those places out west in the US where you see major cities and green grass and even farms? a huge population of them were built/grown on *desert* using water that was damned or redirected or whatever.

so lots of these cities/farms/etc rely on keeping their streams/rivers/damns/etc plentiful from rainwater—either the rainwater that goes into the river directly or that gets directed into the water through groundwater. if *every*body starts collecting their own rainwater? then guess who can’t keep their lawns green in a desert? or water their industrial farm’s monocrop?

Okay, but actually, this guy in Oregon: he built enormous reservoirs to hoard millions of gallons of water that needed to go into the watershed—a really contentious watershed where there are huge and longstanding (bitter!) disputes over water rights between farmers, fishermen, and Native communities. Even in southern Oregon there are water shortages. This wasn’t just an issue of The Man coming down on some guy with some rain barrels, this was a white dude in an area full of white-supremacist survivalist compounds, up- and downriver from Native people with disputed water rights, building himself a private lake and hoarding ridiculously enormous quantities of water while salmon runs and farms are going dry.

It’s complicated.

re-reblogging for this addition

yeah, that’s a very important distinction. i can see limits being set to protect the greater amount of people and ecosystem. but a law barring it outright? that’s not needed. nor legit.

i read nothing about this guy being on a white supremacist compound down the river from indigenous communities! if i did, my comment would have been very different! wow.

but in the context i was coming from re Monsanto and these situations here, protecting people is never brought up, only that the water is OWNED by what? the medford water commission? hunh. rainwater. that originated where—in the ocean? in california? in washington? in oregon? it depends on the weather.

legal limits on how much water one person collects in a time of drought can be argued. absolutely, (even tho every other person on the street is pouring tons of water into their gardens and/or grass and that’s legal.) but not that a water commission owns the rainfall.

aside from salmon and dam trouble, as well as NDN communities constantly trying to fight for what is theirs, what oregon also has is a tight relationship with the FBI and DHS with a very suspicious eye toward any peoples who demonstrate any tendency to engage in “eco terrorism” which can mean a lot of things when you care about the environment. most of it is about protecting business, but they are very severe about it. there’s a lot of story here on that, and it’s too much for this thread, but my point is to agree. it is complicated.

and yet, in all the complication, one thing remains simple for me. i don’t believe in anyone interfering with certain rights they never granted me. i am not talking libertarian jingoism here; as a man of color, the political doctrine is offensive to me and the things i feel strongly about in terms of community. i am talking about the dirt under my feet, and the air in my lungs, and water that falls on my skin. i will fight for these things as if claiming my own hand or body.

shortformblog: nbcnews: Trenton hostage situation passes 24...

Sat, 11 May 2013 17:44:10 -0700

shortformblog:

nbcnews:

Trenton hostage situation passes 24 hours

(Photo: Eduardo Munoz / Reuters)

A hostage situation in the New Jersey capital of Trenton passed its 24th hour on Saturday as police worked to coax out an unidentified armed man who has taken “multiple” hostages amid reports of fatalities.

Read the complete story.

The Trenton police have confirmed that at least one person inside the house is dead, amid unconfirmed reports of another fatality. They declined to disclose any names or ages of the people still inside.

four years

Fri, 10 May 2013 23:58:00 -0700

In a couple days it will be four years since my aunt was murdered by her partner. It has been almost four years since I wrote this post.

FOUR.

YEARS.

Her murderer sits in a jail cell awaiting trial. A trial I am quite sure he knows damn well he cannot win. For a crime I am quite sure he is still running from, still blaming her for and still refusing to feel any responsibility towards.

Four years of limbo, waiting for this thing to finally be over. Four years of waiting for a “justice system” I don’t even believe in to do its thing, so I can finally move on. Four years of moving on only to be yanked back every six months to be told there is yet another delay, that he has fired his lawyer again, that he has taken us right to the edge and pulled us back and there’s nothing the courts will do about it.

Four years of being reminded how little my aunt’s life matters to the state.

To the court system.

To the DA.

And to her murderer.

Four years of knowing the trial won’t bring me any closure. Four years of this PROCESS of the trial preventing my closure. Four years of wondering if this timewill be different.

Four years of missing my aunt.

Three Mother’s Days where I want to just celebrate my mom. My grandmas. My great grandmas. My Ancestors. My mother friends. Three Mother’s Days where I pretend that is all I’m doing. Three Mother’s Days of hiding the pain searing through me as wounds barely healed are ripped back open.

Four years of watching my family age faster in those four years than we did in the preceding ten.

Myself included.

I found my first grey hair last night. It isn’t grey so much as silver. Bright. Shining. Almost glittery. I’m not yet 30 but I don’t mind that hair. I think it’s beautiful, actually. But it is also, I think, a by-product of that aging. An aging that has happened so quickly. An aging brought on by pain and loss and no closure and the seemingly endless limbo of the USian court system.

Will we get to five?

Will it ever be over?

Will it even mean anything in the end?

I am a prison abolitionist. I know this system is broken. I know it doesn’t work. As surely as I know that if her murderer is not locked up that he will hurt more women. Like all the other women he hurt in the past. But because I am a prison abolitionist, I know there will be no resolution in putting him on trial. Because I am a feminist/anti-racist I have no faith my aunt’s life will be treated with respect in that court room. And I have no real faith he will be found guilty of what he did. I have no faith that even such a conviction would mean anything to him. I have no faith that JUSTICE means anything here.

But I stand witness to the process, because it is the last thing I can do for her. I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t even help her cat. And I can’t rehabilitate him. I can’t make him accept what he’s done. I can’t make him accountable to us or use the rest of his life trying to make sure other men don’t do what he did. All I can do is stand witness. Face him in the only provided framework sanctioned by the state and not let him forget that we know what he did.

And I will do that. For whatever it is worth.

And I will remember her. Often. I will light the candles on my altar for her. I will remember her when the veil is thin and the dead come back to visit us. I will remember her on Mother’s Day.

I will try and live the lessons that she taught me.

It’s all I can do.

no first period, so at 9 I will get my first class of middle...

Mon, 06 May 2013 08:24:24 -0700

no first period, so at 9 I will get my first class of middle schoolers. wish me luck! (at Portola Middle School)

An Open Letter to Eve Ensler

Sat, 04 May 2013 12:30:02 -0700

chiefelk:

Dear Eve Ensler,

I want to start off by saying thank you. I appreciate the time you took to reach out to me, because I know you’re incredibly busy. I know there are much more important people in this world than myself, so I appreciate you engaging in dialogue with me and my colleague Kelleigh Driscoll.

This all started because on Twitter, I addressed some issues that I had with V-Day, your organization, and the way it treated Indigenous women in Canada. I said that you are racist and dismissive of Indigenous people. You wrote to me that you were upset that I would suggest this, and not even 24 hours later you were on the Joy Behar Show referring to your chemotherapy treatment as a “Shamanistic exercise”.

Your organization took a photo of Ashley Callingbull, and used it to promote V-Day Canada and One Billion Rising, without her consent. You then wrote the word “vanishing” on the photo, and implied that Indigenous women are disappearing, and inherently suggested that we are in some type of dire need of your saving. You then said that Indigenous women were V-Day Canada’s “spotlight”. V-Day completely ignored the fact that February 14th is an iconic day for Indigenous women in Canada, and marches, vigils, and rallies had already been happening for decades to honor the missing and murdered Indigenous women. You repeatedly in our conversation insisted that you had absolutely no idea that these events were already taking place. So then, what were you spotlighting? When Kelleigh brought up that it was problematic for you to be completely unaware that this date is important to the women you’re spotlighting, your managing director Cecile Lipworth became extremely defensive and responded with “Well, every date on the Calendar has importance.” This is not an acceptable response.

When women in Canada brought up these exact issues, V-Day responded to them by deleting the comment threads that were on Facebook. For a person and organization who works to end violence against women, this is certainly the opposite of that. Although I’m specifically addressing V-Day, this is not an isolated incident. This is something that Indigenous women constantly face. This erasure of identity and white, colonial, feminism is in fact, a form of violence against us. The exploitation and cultural appropriation creates and excuses the violence done to us.

When I told you that your white, colonial, feminism is hurting us, you started crying. Eve, you are not the victim here. This is also part of the pattern which is a problem: Indigenous women are constantly trying to explain all of these issues, and are constantly met with “Why are you attacking me?!” This is not being a good ally.

You asked me what would it mean to be a good ally. It would have meant stepping back, giving up the V-Day platform, and attending the marches and vigils. It would have meant putting aside the One Billion Rising privilege and participating in what the Indigenous women felt was important.

At the end of our conversation you offered me the opportunity to join V-Day. Offered me money. Offered me to become a spokesperson for Native American women. These are things I am not interested in. I do not want to be part of the white savior industrial complex, and I never want to duplicate saviorism and colonialism within my own organization, Save Wiyabi Project, and I’m surely not interested in selling my soul and integrity for a bit of cash and perceived prestige.

I’m not here to speak for Ashley and how she felt about her photo being used, and I’m not here to speak for the Indigenous women in Canada. Indigenous women in the United States and Canada have agency, self determination, and are quite capable of telling their own stories, and have been doing so for thousands of years. We are aware of the violence we face, and are also aware this just isn’t about individual acts of violence. We expect not only our bodies, but our agency, work, and contributions to be respected. None of this is new, and we do not need a white person to legitimize our history and existence.

I entered this conversation with uneasy feelings about V-Day and your work, and left feeling completely dismissed – much like the Indigenous women in Canada. You might have been listening to what I was saying, but you definitely didn’t hear me. You dumped all of my concerns onto someone else and did not take personal responsibility for anything. Eve, this is YOUR organization. My hope is that you do some self examination about what’s happening here. You have to see this before you continue doing this work because this is epistemic and imperial violence. Your actions are assisting violence, not ending it.

Sincerely,

Lauren Chief Elk

altogetherundone: mspixieriot: I spent my weekend as a vendor...

Fri, 03 May 2013 14:41:17 -0700

altogetherundone:

mspixieriot:

I spent my weekend as a vendor at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo. This is a picture they posted to FB a few hours ago.

Is this real life or fanfiction? I can’t tell the difference anymore.

depends what happens next with that snake