The Friday Photo
March 20, 2015
This pendant was made for me by Life is a Verb Camper Jen Land. I wear it everyday as a reminder to be invested and to speak up. And to choose carefully when using matches.
Category: social justice
Gov Deal’s band-aid approach to health care
Hancock County, Georgia’s poorest among our 159 counties, is getting much needed help with access to health care via technology, community leaders, and innovators in delivering care to patients.
Right now people living in Hancock County have to drive to a neighboring county to see a doctor for any and all medical concerns. Even something as simple as an ear infection requires a drive of at least 25 miles to another county. Getting to the doctor can be a huge expense and feat of logistics for Georgia’s rural citizens, including those in Hancock County.
A new program, with a price tag of just $105,000, will now bring state of art health care to Hancock County’s citizens. Patients, Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT), and doctors, connected through secure technology, will work to determine medical problems and where a patient needs to receive care. Emergency room trips and the cost of care should be reduced, while patient health outcomes, and the establishment of medical homes for patients, should improve.
I don’t want to diminish the importance of this program for Hancock County, which has Governor Deal’s support.
But it is important to understand that making access to health care easier and more affordable for Hancock County’s citizens via technology, isn’t enough to address the failure to provide affordable health care to all of Georgia’s citizens.
And a pilot program announced by the Rural Health Stabilization Committee last week won’t either. The Committee will create four hub and spoke type health care delivery sites. Dcotors and EMTs, along with the patient and technology, will assess medical problems and get the patient to the appropriate place for care.
Using technology to care for patients isn’t new in Georgia. Telehealth has effectively been used for emergencies, specialty consultations, and mental health care in our state for years. What these programs offer should increase access to very good health care, reduce costs, save time, and improve patient health outcomes.
But these programs aren’t going to solve the bigger problems of delivering health care to Georgians and making it affordable. The Rural Hospital Stabilization Committee wasn’t convened to address Medicaid Expansion. Gov Deal’s spokesman Brian Robinson has been clear about that.
Governor Deal remains a staunch opponent of saving our state millions of dollars with Medicaid Expansion and improving access to health care for underserved Georgians. Instead, he and his buddies in the Georgia General Assembly, chose to constrict access to health care via Medicaid Expansion. That also means our elected officials have redirected the federal tax dollars Georgians send to Washington every year to states who have chosen to expand care and reduce costs with Medicaid Expansion.
Hancock County’s new telehealth program, coupled with the hub and spoke pilot program designed by the Rural Hospital Stabilization Committee, are big pluses for a few communities.
Governor Deal and the General Assembly can do more for Georgia’s citizens who need access to health care. We need more than a lick and a promise.
When grandparents are the parents
Last week the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that Gov Nathan Deal said this about Georgia’s families where children are abused, or worse, murdered,“When was the last time the press or anybody else asked the greater family, ‘Why didn’t you do something about this?’ It really galls me, quite frankly, to see an able-bodied grandparent complaining about the fact that DFACS didn’t do something to protect her grandchildren. And my question is, well, where were you?’ ” (DFACS is the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services).
Where were these grandparents? US Census data from 2012 says this about grandparents and their grandchildren:
Number of grandparents living with grandchildren 265,530
Percent responsible for grandchildren 46.9
Percent of grandparents raising grandchildren for 5+ years 38.8
Percent of households with no parent of grandchild present 32.8
Percent of grandparents over 60 years old 34.1
Percent living in poverty in 2011 25.2
Number of households with grandparents and grandchildren 171,939
Percent of all households in Georgia 4.9
Grandparents in Georgia who care for their grandchildren are eligible for a whopping $50 per month from the state of Georgia. Have you priced diapers, day care, or children’s books lately? Fifty dollars doesn’t begin to make a dent in the costs of raising a child.
Single grandparent Deborah Paris, who is raising three grandchildren, told the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer “Our system will pay a foster care parent to take care of children and supply and do what they need for them,” she said. “But me, as a relative or actually grandparent, you give me little to no assistance. … Our system is just awful.”
We need to address multiple problems concerning the welfare of children in our state. Gov Deal shouldn’t begin by making grandparents the scapegoats where the state has failed.
Don’t let child abusers and marital rapists hide behind religion
The AJC Political Insider reports that the Georgia Baptist Convention met last week to support a bill floating in the Georgia General Assembly sponsored by Marietta Republican Representative Sam Teasley. HB 29 will allow people accused of child and spousal abuse to use their religious beliefs as a justification for their violent and abhorrent actions. (The bill would also legislate discriminating against a person because of race, sexual orientation, their religion.)
Legislators who support HB 29 made an exception that doesn’t allow child sexual abuse, but beating a child, perhaps to death, could be claimed as justified by the abusers and/or murderers. Anything short of child sexual abuse is fair game under the law. Rape happens within marriage. When a woman says No, even to her husband, then it isn’t sex, it is marital rape. HB 29 legalizes it.
I just can’t find a way to be tolerant of beating or killing a child, or beating, raping, or murdering a spouse, because your god told you it was ok. And our legislators shouldn’t either.
Not feeling the love
At $4.5M for a 30 second spot, Super Bowl commercials get just about as much hype as the two teams playing. McDonald’s made sure it was in the mix in front of a huge television audience Sunday night. Ronald McDonald and friends need to find a way to regain dominance of the fast food market. With profits down 30 percent, clearly the Golden Arches aren’t the first choice for families anymore.
The giant fast food chain didn’t try to win customers with highly styled photos of their menu items. Instead, they decided to focus on their customers’ hearts rather than their stomachs:
Companies giving away products to build consumer confidence and loyalty isn’t new. What also isn’t new is the fact that many McDonald’s employees can’t make ends meet on what the restaurant pays.
Just how bad is it for a McDonald’s employee living on minimum wage? A full-time worker (40 hours a week) clocking in for minimum wage earns $15,080 per year. A Bloomberg View article points out that the median individual earnings are $40,040 per year. The U.S. poverty level is $23,550.
A full-time minimum wage worker at McDonald’s makes $8,470 LESS than the poverty level.
McDonald’s thought it could help employees by providing them with a sample budget:
The company doesn’t include any costs for heat. Or food.Or clothes and shoes. But it does include income from a second job.
McDonald’s wants to win back the hearts of customers who choose to drive past the Golden Arches with a free meal, while the people bagging the fries and burgers tighten their belts.
I’m not Lovin’ It.
#letwomenchoose
The Friday Photo
January 23, 2015
Enjoy your drive
The Friday Photo
January 16, 2015
photo and content by Suzanne Deal-Fitzgerald
Maybe these prices don’t mean anything to some people. Maybe it means your Wall Street isn’t performing to your expectations. But to me, it means that right here, right now, I don’t have to struggle to find a way to get to work until payday.
Nikki Haley has no time for poetry
Newly inaugurated South Carolina’s Governor Nikki Haley didn’t have time for two minutes of poetry written for her second swearing-in yesterday. Marjory Wentworth, South Carolina’s poetry laureate, has written poems for the last three gubernatorial inaugurations. This year Haley decided that two minutes couldn’t be spared for an original poem written by Wentworth.
In the past, according to NPR, Wentworth chose themes of nature and animals for previous ceremonies. For Haley’s second ceremony Ms Wentworth penned a poem focused on elements of South Carolina’s history, including its ports where slaves were shipped in for sale. And where the Confederate flag still flies next to the state’s flag at the state capital.
Wentworth is invited to read her poem at a ceremony organized by the state’s NAACP chapter on Martin Luther King, Jr Day next Monday, which she will do. In the meantime, U. S. Rep James Clyburn, who represents South Carolina’s 6th Congressional District, read the poem yesterday from the floor of the House of Representatives. Wentworth’s poem is included in NPR’s coverage.
Sharpen your pencils
The Friday Photo
January 9, 2015
These pencils were created by one of my favorite illustrators, Oliver Jeffers, who quotes Woody Guthrie here. This photograph is circulating on the web after the terrorism inflicted on Charlie Hebdo.
If we want to live in a world where ideas are shared freely, all of us must sharpen our pencils.
Why Ferguson is burning
Racism and hate are too deeply embedded in our country today. They are ignored and denied, like other difficult problems, that will, if acknowledged and fully addressed, change the way our country’s people, businesses, and institutions work.
This opinion piece in the Washington Post by Emory Professor Carol Anderson explains a critical part of the foundation of racism in our country today, and why we are certain to repeat Ferguson if we continue on the current path.
We need more imagination
The Friday Photo
November 21, 2014
I decided to sew last and skipped President Obama’s address about immigration. Later when I sat down in front of the TV this ad from values.com was what I saw first.
What if we imagined a world where children never sit alone at lunch, students in a library worry more about turning in a research paper than being gunned while they study, where people earn enough money to have a little left over at the end of the month, where we inspire people rather than building fences.
Home Office
The Friday Photo
November 14, 2014
For over four years I’ve worked from a home office. There are a lot of great things about working from home: laundry gets done, soup simmers for lunch, no one walks by and distracts you from the task at hand, and the dress code is pretty flexible. There are still deadlines, meetings, and convincing the printer to print, but working from home has been a really good situation for me.
I’m still working from a house, but not the one I live in. Just as Life Is a Verb Camp approached, the place where I hoped to figure out the questions to finding a job for life after fighting Plant Washington, I was offered a job.
Now I’m working from an above ground basement office in a fabulous Greek Revival house built in 1852, Rose Hill, surrounded by Lockerly Arboretum, a public garden in Milledgeville, Georgia, as the Executive Director.
I’m no less committed to stopping Plant Washington, but due to the determination and success of FACE and our partners, the demise of the ill-fated coal plant is now a matter of time. No one who opposes Plant Washington is letting their guard down, but the writing is on the wall and our work locally will continue as it always has.
Being an environmental activist in a small community has been one of the most difficult, and exciting, things that I have ever happened upon. I knew if we won, one outcome would be working myself out of a job that had changed my life for the better.
I didn’t make a habit of inviting people to come see me in my home office, but I’d be glad for anyone to stop by and see the house where I am working in now.
Packing my bags
Throw like a girl, vote like a woman
Earlier this week Fox News’ Kimberly Guilfoyle urged young women to skip the voting booth and spend time on Match.com because they don’t pay bills, have mortgages, or apparently, any semblance of a life beyond fussing with clothes, hair, and chasing men. Guilfoyle and others in this segment don’t urge young men to skip voting.
As a stark contrast, Chevrolet is running an ad during the World Series featuring 13 year old pitcher Mo’ne Davis. The poised and talented pitcher begins the ad by saying, “Dear America” and closes it with, “Sincerely, Your Daughter, Mo’ne Davis.”
Which message do you want the young women of America to hear?
Declaring Victory
I had no idea what the response would be to launching a Go Fund Me campaign asking people to help me go to a camp for grown ups. The time was just too ripe for me to get to this camp led by Patti Digh, and so I decided to be my own advocate. I’ve asked people to sign comments to support clean air and water, marriage equality, access to health care, and other issues, but IU’ve never done a “help me personally” type of ask.
This has been a humbling experience for many reasons. I’ve not told my story for myself, and for that purpose alone the experience is valuable. As a participant in other campaigns I have been amazed at people stepping up because there was value in the need and ask. I wasn’t sure that would happen for me, and every time it did I had to catch my breath.
I’ve got a lot to do between now and the time I leave for Life Is A Verb Camp 2014. Right now I am letting such unexpected generosity soak in. I am appreciative of the what everyone did to make this happen, from sharing the link to the campaign to actually typing in a donation amount.
Thank you.
I already have a recipe for potato salad
The Friday Photo
October 10, 2014
Last summer a guy posted a satirical Kickstarter campaign for a potato salad recipe. He ended up raising $55K. Fortunately I have a couple of good potato salad recipes, including the slightly spicy one from the Vortex in Atlanta (no fundraising required).
What I realized I don’t have in my cookbook is a recipe for finding my way to whatever my next job will be. I’ve got a lot of ingredients but what I don’t have is a way to find the right recipe.
Some friends suggested I step outside my comfort zone and make an ask for help to go to Life Is a Verb Camp in early November. The Camp Director, my friend Patti Digh, has planned teaching and learning sessions that include poets Naomi Shihab Nye and
Ellen Bass, nonprofit leaders that span the spectrum, an Ambassador for the Alzheimer Association, artists, writers, and health leaders. I’m not going because I want to learn how to write poetry, but rather because I need to figure out how to think differently about the ingredients I already have.
Wednesday afternoon I got two unexpected gifts outside my Go Fund Me campaign, one that included a message, “Do not put this effort down.” As Progressives know, much attention and money are focused on heated campaigns across the country, not exactly the best time to launch a smaller one like my camp campaign.
After I let the unexpected generosity soak in overnight, I was able to cut my goal be more than half. Now I’m really close to going to my first ever sleep over camp on November 6th and I need your help to top the $500 mark by Monday.
This campaign isn’t beholden to a bunch of PACs, but I am offering to work with donors on their own marketing/nonprofit projects as a return on their investment. If you make a donation of any size, of course I’ll be grateful. If you can share the link with your friends, that will help a lot.
I’ve stretched way beyond what I thought possible. It is scary, but a good campaign requires a candidate that is willing to make The Big Ask. This camp candidate is asking for your help and support now.
Fracking for the Cure
There’s just no saving the Susan G Komen organization from itself. For the second year in a row, Komen has lined up to get a $100,000 check from Baker Hughes, a fracking company. Baker Hughes is so committed to helping find a cure for breast cancer that it is shipping out 1,000 drill bits painted in a specially commissioned Komen Pink, packed in pink boxes with a fact sheet on breast cancer tucked inside, to rig sites.
The fact that Baker Hughes uses fracking chemicals that contain known cancer causing agents clearly isn’t worrisome enough for Komen to turn down a check.
Kudos to Susan G Komen and Baker Hughes for creating the most phallic breast cancer prevention campaign I’ve ever seen. I can barely wait until October 2015 to see how they top this one.
My first sleep over camp
Most readers of Rural and Progressive have followed the work I have been lucky enough to be part of to stop a proposed coal plant in my rural Georgia community. None of us knew what was ahead almost seven years ago when we came together to speak up for the health of our community except that it would require strong backs, patience, strong partnerships, and grit.
The ugly part of this work has been the tearing apart of decades-long friendships and splintering of families. Sometimes when people stand up for what they believe is right, no matter how difficult that may be, communities become divided.
Four years ago I made what was probably the hardest decision I have made since I heard the announcement for coal-fired Plant Washington: I stood my ground for my values and integrity when I was asked to sit on my hands. Given the choice of sitting in silence and keeping my job, or speaking up for what I believe in, I chose my values and beliefs.
I took on a job that, if we won, would put me out of a job. Fighting Plant Washington full-time required a commitment to a much smaller paycheck, and sometimes no paycheck at all. Environmental activists don’t get rich fighting the fossil fuel industry.
Plant Washington opponents won’t stop until the project is cancelled, but the writing on the wall is in all capital letters for this coal plant. That means it is time for me to figure out what I will do next.
The scars and experience I’ve accumulated can’t be boxed up and put away. The challenge now is finding a way to put them to work for a community or organization that needs an advocate/activist to help in their work.
Can I find a way to cobble together work that will pay my bills without requiring me to move away from my family? What could that work be? Where do I look and how do I do that with clarity and focus? Who might help me and how do I make the right ask?
At 53 years old, I am ready to go to a sleep over camp for the first time in my life-
a “camp for grown 
ups.” Life is a Verb, a three day camp/workshop/retreat will challenge me to find the questions I need to ask, and begin to work towards the answers.
Patti Digh wrote this about the camp she is leading, “Camp is a place where people of all walks of life come together to explore what it means to be fully human and what it means to live life fully, as an active and not a passive, verb. To live, and live fully. To love, and love well. To let go, and let go deeply.”
As an advocate I’m not used to asking for myself, but I am trying to let go of that stumbling block now. I set up a Go Fund Me account because I simply am not able to cover the costs of going to camp and finding a sustainable way to what is next for me.
My goal is to cover the costs of camp and traveling back and forth. I’ll arrive there ready to do the work at hand and maximize every minute. What I learn will help me step into the unknown that is knocking on my door.
My life has truly been an action packed adventure since I stepped into a huge unknown almost seven years ago. Now I have skills and experience I want to share with people and communities who have challenges of their own. What I have learned is meant to benefit others, not be put on a shelf and collect dust.
I’ll write about my adventures at Rural and Progressive as I prepare to leave and when I return (letting go for me also includes less time with electronics).
I hope you’ll support my first-ever camp experience with a donation. Any amount will help send a 53 year old advocate/activist to camp for the first time.
Urban Outfitters has no fashion sense
Fresh on the heels of the National Guard “quelling” the unrest in Ferguson, MO, Urban Outfitters listed a “vintage” Kent State sweatshirt for $129 yesterday.
This fashion backwards item wasn’t well received. Urban Outfitters issued this statement:
“Urban Outfitters sincerely apologizes for any offense our Vintage Kent State Sweatshirt may have caused. It was never our intention to allude to the tragic events that took place at Kent State in 1970 and we are extremely saddened that this item was perceived as such. The one-of-a-kind item was purchased as part of our sun-faded vintage collection. There is no blood on this shirt nor has this item been altered in any way. The red stains are discoloration from the original shade of the shirt and the holes are from natural wear and fray. Again, we deeply regret that this item was perceived negatively and we have removed it immediately from our website to avoid further upset.”
What’s next Urban Outfitters? Will you debut a line of Napalm Personal Care Products next week?
For the youngsters among Rural and Progressive readers, this is what happened in 1970 when the National Guard was sent to Kent State.
Reading assignment
The Friday Photo
September 12, 2014
The Koran figures into so many important discussions and decisions for the world. I decided to read it myself.