femminista: thoughts of a feminist rhetorician

A recent editorial in the NYTimes, The Wrong Place to be Chronically Ill, reports that the US offers lower standards of care than seven other industrial nations. First of all, I realize that health care in the US is much better than the majority of the world and I am thankful for that. At the same time, I'd like to live to be very old and as someone who suffers from multiple chronic illnesses, good health care is essential to achieving this goal. I spend a lot of time in doctors' offices and consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable regarding current medical practices. Yesterday, I experienced once again the low standard of care that I've come to expect in this town.

At the risk of seeming narcissistic, I'm going to chronicle the latest of my medical adventures.  While vacationing at Edisto Beach in SC, I had increasingly pronounced tremors and jerking, which are common in my life but  usually to a lesser degree, and a terrible migraine.  This was then followed by a new event: the grand mal seizure.  One minute I'm picking up shells on the beach and the next I'm coming to, surrounded by strangers, and being told that I've just had a seizure.  As I would learn later, as I walked on the beach, I suddenly stopped, stiffened up and fell over.  Then, I began to convulse, eyes open but unconscious.  The tide was coming in and my sister lifted my head out of the water and then an army medic an

Oh my. Well, I have a new topic for my blog. Or, rather, I have one old topic that's been sorely neglected and a new topic to introduce, my newest medical condition--seizure disorder, or as it is more commonly referred to, epilepsy. Up until I had a grand mal seizure two weeks ago I thought that my spasms and tics were just that. As it turns out, they are considered to be seizures, as are my frequent deja vu experiences, which I only recently learned were mini-seizures. So, now I'm on medications (Keppra to be specific) to control my seizures; and the side effects are kicking my ass. They're making me tired and confused, and I think they're giving me headaches.

Last night, in the dark, by candlelight, on an emergency weather radio, I listened to the VP debates. I take my civic responsibility seriously and felt that it was evidenced by the lengths that I went to so that I might hear the debates. Today, on NPR's "The Story", I learned what true devotion to civic responsibility really is. A woman with terminal cancer told Dick Gordon, host of "The Story," that she was holding on long enough to vote. She's hoping that she lives long enough to vote one last time. That, folks, is true dedication.

Courtesy of Slashdot, I ran across a humorous (if nerdy) article, "The Thirteen Greatest Error Messages of All Time" on Technologizer.

Yesterday, I spoke with my students in English 420E: Business Writing for Entrepreneurs about ethics. Frequently, I have been told that undergrads don't get the nuances of ethical and moral situations. Yesterday ,I found evidence to both support and refute that hypothesis. Using Steven Katz's example of the Nazi memorandum, I discussed the ethical implications of using language that is too technical, that is dehumanizing. In the Nazi memo, which addresses the need for changes to the vehicles used to transport Jewish people to the death camps, people are referred to as "loads." Specifically, the memo uses such terminology thus: "it has been observed that when the doors are shut, the load always presses hard against them when darkness sets in.

Sarah Palin is obviously incapable of keeping her email secure, a fact evidenced by the recent hacking of her oh-so-cleverly-named email accounts, gov.sarah@yahoo.com and gov.palin@yahoo.com. Is this really who we want influencing US security policy? Unfortunately, the hackers involved are also claiming the name Anonymous, the loosely affiliated internet mischief-makers (as they would probably refer to themselves) that I've written about previously. For more detailed coverage of this, their latest exploit, see the ZDNet article.

the guy sitting next to me at the bar.

In a brilliant publishing oversight, Bloomberg financial newswire published Steve Jobs' obituary yesterday. The problem is--Steve Jobs isn't dead. I'm not sure what's more disturbing--the shock of Jobs' non-death or the fact that Bloomberg has a 17 page draft of his obituary, clearly an ongoing project. I guess it never occurred to me that some people's obits are written in advance. Gawker has published the lengthy obituary here.

Anxiety has been a constant companion today. The semester is starting on Monday and my websites aren't going up as smoothly as I'd hoped. And, to be honest, I'm a little sad to be back in Lafayette after my sojourn to NYC. I miss my partner and I miss the city I love...if only they were in the same place. I try not to overdo the minutiae of everyday life in this blog, but today feels like the appropriate time to vent and contemplate.