#10-Year Term Life Insurance

[arninsurance]

10-Year Term Life Insurance - What It Is & How It Works

You probably already know that most insurers provide 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30-year periods if you're thinking about getting term life insurance.

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

autism awareness & autism acceptance not either or. not mutually exclusive. can coexist. need coexist.

“there enough awareness for autism already 🙄 we need acceptance”

ok. you aware of high support needs autism? aware what that even means? not “need reminder take meds need remind take shower” “high” support needs autism, but “need full physical help do bADLs lack danger awareness may accidentally hurt self or even kill self without support” high support needs autism? not just higher support needs people who can be independently online do advocacy, but those who need help from others even be online, or those who cannot be online at. all.?

aware of nonverbal nonspeaking people? not just nonverbal nonspeaking people who can write grammatically correct cannot tell apart base on writing. not just nonverbal nonspeaking people who can be online who can advocate online.

aware of nonverbal nonspeaking people who cannot communicate in way that easily understood, either for now, or ever? aware of nonverbal nonspeaking people without functional communication, aware of how without functional communication, how that drastically limit communication, even though behaviors are valid communication? aware of nonverbal nonspeaking people who may never use AAC fluently even with best support?

aware of technically verbal but very limited verbal autistics who may only able say wants & needs but not other things and certainly not online advocacy, “despite being verbal”?

aware of just how much our life depends on caregiver/carer/PCA/etc? aware how vulnerable that make us? aware of abuse from caregivers? aware of caregiver burnout from lack of support for caregivers, & how that impact our care we receive? have you even heard of term respite care? aware of those of us who cannot separate ourselves from caregiver? aware of those of us who cannot participate in autism community without caregiver?

aware of visibly autistic people? aware how we not automatically believed? aware how we often bear blunt of violence because we most easily identified target because we visible? aware visible =/= get support, aware that many those diagnosed severe who now adult so no longer qualify for services under 21 year old, languish in hospitals because nowhere to go? aware how long life saving necessary waitlists are? aware that even to this day parents have to fight school fight day service fight government fight insurance for them give their nonverbal nonspeaking child AAC & be properly taught how use it? actually, are you aware of how properly teach AAC to nonverbal nonspeaking, developmentally delayed child who may or may not have intellectual disability?

actually, aware of autistics with (correctly diagnosed) intellectual disability & how they make up big amount of autistic? aware of institutional systemic & legal impact of mental [r word] right & the human rights abuse justified using r word right? wait, you aware that r word come from old term for intellectual disability, that, actually, still in many laws because no one bothered updating, right? aware of what severe profound ID look like? and aware they real and they still human deserve education deserve life deserve care, yes?

aware of early diagnosis 20 30 or even 10 years ago, not same as now, even less resources & knowledge about autism now? aware that while gender race class 1000% impacted diagnoses, a lot of early diagnosed people early diagnosed because… they die without support unlocked by diagnosis, right? but also, aware that in old times, early diagnosis often did mean doom, not because autism bad or anything, but because severe lack of support & diagnosis can literally bar you from so many things including basic education?

aware that for many people in special education, which impact specific group of autistic people, they not get degree when graduate high school, they just get certificate, which limit their educational & employment opportunities & others?

aware of life saving importance and necessity of masking for autistic of color especially Black autistic people, despite stress inducing traumatic? aware that live in broken system be victim of hate crime & police brutality just as traumatic often even more traumatic than masking? aware that many Black & other parents of color forced to teach their child masking because of this?

are you aware of most marginalized autistic people? aware of leadership of most impacted?

aware you can and need to care about autistic experiences & form of autism you not experience? aware that you can and need to do that without try twist your experience into our experience into our words our community?

aware that advocacy goes beyond about you?

aware that you can’t speak for all autistic? aware that you shouldn’t speak for all autistic?

are you aware of when you need to stop talking & listen & amplify others? aware of when and how to decenter self?

aware that even this long post, barely scratch surface? still so much to say?

[better worded version of original post]

[goldyke]

LAP Bands should be illegal

This post is going to deal with medical fatphobia, weight loss surgery, coercion, emetophobia, food issues, disordered eating, and just all around bad shit. But it’s important.

Shortly after I reached adulthood, I was coerced into weight loss surgery. I weighed about 250 pounds and was considered morbidly obese.

The Lap Band is a disgrace to the medical profession and is just another example of how the medical profession does not care about the lives of fat people.

To preface this: the surgery works. I lost 70 pounds and people treated me differently and I hated them all for it.

The Lap Band made my life miserable. When it was filled, I could not eat until noon without getting stuck. Even then, getting stuck was always a risk. There was a strict diet to follow and you were supposed to be safe from that if you followed it. On top of that, there were rules for how you ate. One standard I saw was not to eat in bites larger than your fingernail. Can you see yourself doing that for a week, let alone years and years?

Getting stuck is a horror you can't imagine. The food lodges in the top of your stomach, blocking off your system. You continue to produce saliva and swallow it down. Slowly, the mucous in your saliva builds up. It feels like you're drowning. Eventually, you have to essentially throw it all up. A disgusting experience (and a mortifying one if you're in public.) The saliva is thick and ropy. This experience is often called "sliming" on the forums.

I became frightened of eating in public. In a way, I became frightened of food altogether. I knew something had to give the day I reacted to someone biting a hamburger in a tv show the way a regular person would react to a killer jumping out in a horror movie. I developed the disgusting and unhealthy habit of chewing and spitting out food. I completely lost my enjoyment of many foods I had previously enjoyed because of how problematic they were (I can no longer enjoy a chicken thigh for example.) I stopped eating meals and began grazing. I developed eating habits worse than the ones that "made me fat"

After 3 years, I had the band emptied of fluid, which significantly decreased, but did not stop, these problems. I regained the weight, and found it didn't bother me. (Along the way I discovered that my discomfort with my body had never been weight related)

I had my band removed after 6.5 years earlier this year. I am in a support group on facebook for victims of this malpractice. There are 5.6 thousand members, each with their own horror stories. Some of them cannot get the band removed because insurance will not cover the procedure, though they happily covered the band's placement. Some have tried to go through with removal but have had surgeons try to coerce them into getting a different weight-loss surgery instead of just removing it. Many have long-term damage from the band eroding the walls of their stomach or esophagus, or from the band adhering to multiple organs. Many of them had the band for 12-14 years, before removal because none of our doctors told us it needs to be removed within 10.

Many practices no longer perform Lap Band surgery and now believe it is unethical. The surgeon who removed my band still performs this surgery regularly.

A study performed in 2011 with 151 lap band patients, found that 22% of patients experienced minor complications and 39% experienced major complications. The person who coerced me into surgery actually experienced major complications and needed an emergency removal.

I experienced no serious complications. Everything I described above is considered normal. And It still drastically lowered my quality of life.

I don't know why I'm sharing this or who I'm sharing it for, but here I am. If you know anyone considering the lap band surgery, don't let them go through with it without knowing the truth. And please be kinder to your body than the medical profession wants you to be.

[robertreich]

The Truth About Trumponomics

Trump and Republicans want to wreck your bank account. Here are 5 things you need to know about Trumponomics.

1.Trump wants tax cuts for the rich, at your expense.

Trump’s tax cuts for the rich and big corporations added about $1.7 trillion to the national debt, with few benefits trickling down to the middle class — in fact, it raised taxes for more than 10 million American families.

Now Trump and Republicans want to make the tax cuts for the rich permanent, blowing up the debt even further. And then they’ll use that debt to justify this:

2. Trump would cut Social Security and Medicare — programs you’ve been paying into!

In every year of his presidency, Trump submitted a budget that tried to cut Social Security and Medicare. And he knows that’s the only way he can even begin to pay for extending his tax cuts for the rich.

3. Trump and his allies are pro-junk fee.

When the Biden administration issued a rule capping credit card late fees at $8, Sen. Tim Scott, a Trump surrogate, tried to overturn it in the Senate. And then a Trump-appointed judge issued a temporary injunction that blocked the rule from taking effect. Eliminating that rule would cost American families an estimated $10 billion a year.

And when the Biden administration required airlines to issue automatic refunds for canceled flights, Trump’s allies in Congress fought to block that too.

When Trump was in office, his administration fought against efforts to rein in airline junk fees.

Corporations nickel and diming us like this makes inflation worse. If Trump gets back in the White House, buckle up for more junk fees.

4. Trump would send health care costs soaring.

Republicans have committed to repealing the Inflation Reduction Act, which would strip Medicare of the ability to negotiate drug prices, and let Big Pharma send the price of insulin and other life-saving medicines back through the roof.

And Trump is still fixated on repealing Obamacare, with no plan to replace it.

TRUMP: Obamacare is a disaster. We’re gonna do something about it.

That would strip coverage from tens of millions of Americans, drive up premiums, and let insurers charge more or deny coverage to people with preexisting conditions.

5, If you’ve got student debt, you’re out of luck with Trump.

In contrast to President Biden, who’s canceled more than $160 billion of student debt so far, Trump is against student debt relief. In his first term, he tried to eliminate the popular Public Service Loan Forgiveness program for people like teachers and nurses, and he’s called the idea of debt relief “unfair.”

What’s unfair, is how student debt hurts not just the roughly 40 million Americans burdened by it, but the entire economy, since Americans with debt have less money to spend, are less likely to start a business, less likely to buy a home, and more likely to rely on government assistance.

The MAGA agenda would make nearly every aspect of your life more expensive, while making the richest Americans even richer.

Teddy Roosevelt’s economic plan was called the Square Deal. Franklin Roosevelt’s was the New Deal.

What Trump is offering is simply a Raw Deal.

[cardentist]

"yes trans mascs experience transphobia, but there's no such thing as trans mascs experiencing bigotry Specifically Related to them being men/from being related to men"

my mom, after some time sorting her feelings and sifting through trans resources, was accepting of my being a trans person. it took work, but it happened. she sought out trans media from trans people, she took initiative to inform other family members and put herself between me and them.

and she completely refused to even start the process of Maybe getting me on testosterone for 10 years, until I aged out of being covered by her health insurance and couldn't afford to do it myself.

Specifically And Entirely because she was terrified that testosterone was going to make me an angry, violent person. that it was going to, in her own word, "give me roid rage."

for years she made vague pantomimes about eventually seeing about transitioning, but That reasoning would still come up no matter how I tried to explain it to her otherwise.

I am not a particularly violent person, if maybe stubborn. but that didn't matter. what Mattered is that my mother had a preconceived notion of what testosterone does, what Masculinity Does, and that notion was an inherently negative, scary one.

and Because Of That I was denied access to resources That I Need for Years. something that has carried over into the rest of my adult life.

and I see sentiments like hers online, even and sometimes Especially in trans spaces, all the time.

this vision of men as inherently violent, of masculinity as inherently dangerous, and the onus placed in the laps of Trans Men (and often, on Trans Boys) to diminish and shrink themselves to Prove that they're non-threatening enough to be tolerated.

and it bares pointing out that this Isn't just something that affects trans men. trans Women are just as affected by this association with maleness as an inherently corrupting factor. and so to are butch women and nonbinary people presented as violent and scary.

likewise, I see Similar sentiments pushed at butches and trans mascs that it's their job to Protect other people within the queer community, that image of violence and anger filtered through a softer light designating their Use. you're Allowed to be a Scary Masculine Creature as long as you dedicate yourself to protecting the weaker frailer other (which is, you know. Sexist And Weird).

but it's like. people don't Want to think about different kinds of trans and gnc people having overlapping experiences, so instead people like to decide which Kind of people are allowed to have this experience and cut other sorts of people out of those conversations.

it's not about what a particular person's gender or presentation Is, it's how that person Is Perceived and the way that they're treated Because Of that perception. sometimes this transphobia that fears masculinity looks like a perception of scary men trying to pretend to be women, sometimes it looks like a perception of women Becoming scary men, and everything that lies in between (with combinations therein).

finding a term that is used to describe this is Useful not just for giving trans mascs a way to talk about their experiences without encroaching on other conversations about transness. but Also in giving us words to describe a specific phenomenon that Can affect All trans people (and gnc people, and genderqueer people, etc), but that is difficult for us to recognize as a shared experience because people seem to think that sharing experiences is either impossible or a bad thing.

[feminist-space]

"Long COVID has destroyed my life

I would love nothing more than to “finally ignore COVID,” as the headline to Dr. Ashish Jha’s July 31 op-ed reads (“With a few basic steps, most of us can finally ignore COVID”). As a healthy, vaccinated, and recently boosted 35-year-old, I did what he said: I ignored COVID-19 on a weekend trip with friends in September 2022. But the infection I got as a result has all but destroyed my life.

A week after my infection, I began to experience intense fatigue, overwhelming headaches, and cognitive challenges that continue to this day. These symptoms are debilitating: I can no longer work, socialize, or travel. My finances are dire. And if I am unable to avoid another infection, my condition may deteriorate even further.

Jha wrote of long COVID “treatments” being promising. Perhaps he could clarify what treatments he is referring to, because my doctors say that there are no approved treatments for long COVID.

A recent study funded by the NIH’s RECOVER initiative showed that 10 percent of adults infected with COVID still have symptoms six months later, even with vaccination. By downplaying the prevalence and debilitating outcomes of even moderate long COVID, Jha is signing thousands of people up to the misery and despair with which I live every day.

Ezra J. Spier

Oakland, Calif.

Another view from infectious disease doctors

As infectious disease doctors, we disagree with Dr. Jha’s contention that it is time to ignore COVID-19.

Yes, being vaccinated and taking Paxlovid thankfully decrease the risk of severe disease. But only 43 percent of people age 65 and over and only 17 percent of all Americans had received an updated COVID vaccination by May 2023, and access to Paxlovid treatment is inequitable by race and insurance status.

Long-term complications of COVID can be devastating, including after second infections.

More than half a million Americans have died since the summer of 2021, when sufficient vaccine doses were available: COVID death rates in the United States continue to be double those of Canada. Termination of free tests and “commercialization” of medications as implemented by the federal government will only widen our country’s grisly COVID-related health disparities.

Inevitably, ignoring COVID leads to ignoring the slow-motion epidemic of long COVID. Standing up against such neglect, leaders like Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Governor Maura Healey can promote meaningful measures to protect our communities: air purification in all schools and public spaces; free COVID-preventive masks (KN95 or N95, not surgical masks); tests, vaccines, and Paxlovid for all who cannot afford to buy them; and concern for and support of long COVID victims.

Dr. Julia Koehler

Boston

Dr. Regina LaRocque

Wellesley

We remain vulnerable to long COVID

Ashish Jha’s position as former White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator is a conflict of interest masquerading as a qualification for his op-ed. Researchers who study long COVID stated in a recent paper in Nature Reviews Immunology that “the oncoming burden of long COVID faced by patients, health-care providers, governments and economies is so large as to be unfathomable.” Rapid tests, which are less accurate with recent strains while PCR tests are less available, and low death rates give a false sense of security.

I agree that despite progress, more buildings need the air filtration and ventilation that would make public life safer. But Jha omits our vulnerability to long COVID after even mild infections, its devastating effects, and higher death rates for hospital-acquired COVID-19, combined with a lack of collective protection in health care settings with unmasked, untested people who prefer to ignore COVID-19.

Aside from advocating vaccines, he describes an everyone-for-themselves approach, not mentioning responsibility to protect others or access to essentials.

Jha dines in a restaurant with his friends while patients even in leading cancer hospitals are forced into Russian roulette, thanks to this approach.

Kathryn Nichols

Cambridge

Vigilance is necessary to prevent long COVID

While I understand the desire to promote optimism amid the ongoing pandemic, I am deeply concerned about the potential consequences of downplaying the importance of COVID precautions and the significant risk of long COVID. As a person living with long COVID for the last 16 months despite being vaccinated and boosted, I have experienced post-exertional malaise, fatigue, headaches, joint and muscle pain, cognitive dysfunction, and more symptoms that have continued to today. I have tried numerous medicines, supplements, and even participated in a clinical trial, only to find limited relief from the persistent effects of this virus.

Such a stance overlooks the reality that millions more people could end up with long COVID if we fail to remain vigilant in our efforts to combat the virus. Long COVID is a devastating consequence of this virus, and we cannot rely solely on vaccinations to end the pandemic. Even with widespread vaccination, the risk of contracting long COVID remains high. A recent study funded by the NIH’s RECOVER initiative showed that 10 percent of adults infected with COVID still have symptoms six months later. Minimizing the significance of long COVID not only neglects the suffering of long-haulers but also risks undermining public health efforts to control the spread of the virus.

By raising awareness about the risk of long COVID, media outlets can play a pivotal role in educating the public and promoting continued vigilance. Responsible reporting on the enduring impact of long COVID can serve as a reminder that the pandemic is far from over and that we must remain committed to taking necessary precautions to protect ourselves and others. Highlighting the struggles of long COVID survivors and the lack of proven treatments can spur further research and medical advancements in addressing this condition. Empathy and support for those living with long COVID are essential in paving the way for better understanding, compassionate care, and better health outcomes for everyone as COVID rates increase again this summer.

Travis Hardy

Norwalk, Conn.

Link https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/08/05/opinion/cant-ignore-long-covid-jha/

[abbatoirablaze]

The Nanny Master List

This series is completed!  ✔️

Nearly five years ago, he was just a simple kid who had a crush on his best friend's mom. But then, he went away to the army after a bad break up...and when he came home, he realized that the drunk sex he had with the love of his life resulted in his first child.

Once the dust settled, and Jake came to terms with being a father, he and the love of his life got back together, only in time for her to realize that she had cancer that was too late to do anything about since she was pregnant with their second child.

She gave birth and passed within a few months of her son being born from the cancer. Alone and heartbroken, Jake is trying to navigate life once more, and he realizes that he has to go back to the Losers, now that his ex-fiancé's life insurance policy has run out.

So Stephanie and Cougar hire him a nanny.

Chapters

Chapter 1: Soft Moments

Chapter 2: Finding Her

Chapter 3: It Just Came Out

Chapter 4: Don't Go

Chapter 5: First Day Of Kindergarten

Chapter 6: Come Back Home

Chapter 7: Nightmares

Chapter 8: The Disconnect

Chapter 9:  Dearly Departed

Chapter 10:  Ted E. Bear

Warnings will be posted at the beginning of each chapter. The story does have mention of death, aggression, smut, and a good bit of angst.

[chadfallout76podcast]

Major Update: Life...is a changing for me/us (and a sneak peek of Vault-Tec Rises!

Good afternoon!

I wanted to give you all an update on Vault-Tec Rises as well as an update on myself and some major life changes happening this year that may impact our season while the dust settles. Firstly, I'm more than halfway done with our next major feature length episode, "Vault-Tec Rises"...which is technically episode 16, set BEFORE Little Sanctuary of Horrors. It essentially is the story of how everyone came to be there in the first place, what Vault-Tec and the Enclave are really up to, and is the start of our last 4 episodes of the season as the Battle for Appalachia begins.

Secondly, I've shared quite a bit about the journey of these past 10 years with my husband Travis and his struggle with mental health. Many of you were kind of enough to support or share our GoFundMe to help take the pressure off the crushing debt we were under with mounting medical bills and his bills, none of which was covered by insurance fully. Trying to keep us afloat financially has been a long-term struggle of mine and here's in New Hampshire we just haven't been able to get ahead. After having to cancel some of his services last week as we couldn't afford them, we made some major decisions.

The next few months I'll be doing a lot of painting, landscaping, plastering and prepping to list our home on the market. Financially we can't afford to buy again for a while, so we're stuck renting. Based on what things are selling for in the area, I'm not too worried about getting out of it fairly quickly. We'll be moving to Texas, in between Dallas and Fort Worth in a really beautiful, new planned community where leasing and the overall lower cost of living will save us $20k a year which will allow us to not only fix our debt issue permanently, but also they have one of the leading centers in the country for C-PTSD. Once settled, I'd be able to get him more direct help he's needed that we just don't have access to out here.

Texas is going to be a big, big change for us...a huge move, but one I'm eager to make. Our backup editor is continuing to plug away at stories as well as I've had my hands full with work trying to keep the lights on (literally). I wanted to explain all of this with clear honesty so you know what I've been doing, what I'll be doing this year and why it often takes us so long to ship episodes to you. Your patient and support of me really, really means the world to me. The other benefit of this move is that once I'm not strangled hustling for work 7 days a week, I'll have more free time to actually create. Something I really want to do...as there are still two more seasons of Chad and some other projects I really want to share with you all.

I hope to have our 3-hour feature length Vault-Tec Rises completed in the next few weeks, so stay tuned. :) And if you can please excuse how hectic this year will be between selling and moving halfway across the country I'd appreciate it.

Much love to you all,

Ken

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Aaron Kimberly

Published: Dec 18, 2021

Between 1995-2006 I was a part of the butch lesbian community. During those years, despite my life-long and sometimes intense gender dysphoria, I hadn’t given any serious thought to medically transitioning. It wasn’t even on my radar as a possibility until after 2000. The idea of medically transitioning seemed fringe, far-fetched, and risky.

Most of the butches I knew also had gender dysphoria (GD) or rather, Gender Identity Disorder (GID), as it was called then. Many butches I knew in Winnipeg, Halifax, Toronto, and later Vancouver, were strong, stoic people. I admired many of them. I know that their lives weren’t always easy, but they carried themselves with dignity. They had butch “brotherhood” and femmes who adored them. Many were “stone” which meant that their GID made it difficult for them to relate to their female anatomy so didn’t allow themselves to be touched by anyone, or rarely. They were often harassed and abused for being masculine women, as I was. It was often stressful using female public washrooms, because our gender ambiguity made people so uncomfortable. There was a term “butch bladder” to reference the ways we’d avoid using bathrooms in public.

In the early-mid 2000s, more and more FTMs were appearing in the community, alongside the butches. Many lesbian spaces welcomed them, some didn’t. It seemed to me at the time that butches were presented with two options: we could choose to be butches, or we could choose to be FTM “trans guys”. Why people chose one or the other...that was very individual and personal. It really came down to which option solved a problem and made life easier. The problem could be homophobic parents, fatigue from being harassed, differing degrees of dysphoria and bodily discomfort, not understanding what GID is, poor social or occupational functioning, trauma, other mental health challenges like depression or the anxiety that seemed inevitable for us. Some transitioned but still identified as butch women. They chose medical interventions to look more masculine, not to identify as men. Some trans guys said they never had GID at all. I don’t know what their motivations for transitioning were. Some said “political reasons”. There were some who were big fans of Queer Theory icons like Judith Butler and Judith Halberstam. Those women adopted male personas - intentional “female masculinity” - as an expression of Queer Theory, not to be men/male. I chose to transition soon after a gay man was beaten to death in a nearby park.

If kids with gender dysphoria today are anything like who we were 20 years ago, I feel saddened by their trajectory. Others see benefits: Access to medical interventions has been made easier. They no longer have to do a “real-life test” (live their life as the opposite sex for 2 years without medical assistance). They don’t have to go through months or years of therapy and assessment. More is now known about the effects and risks of hormones. The surgeries have improved, are easier to access and now paid for by insurance. (I paid for my own mastectomy out of pocket, and was on the SRS surgery waitlist for 10 years.)

But, what have we done? Have we eliminated all of the conditions for why a butch girl would find their innate masculinity hard to live with? Have we made the lives of butch women better and safer? Have we eliminated homophobic families, communities, employers, clinicians and policies? Are we educating young people what gender dysphoria is, in evidence-based terms, supporting them to integrate that into a healthy identity and self-image? Do we tell masculine girls how attractive they are? Do they have an abundance of healthy role models? Are they fully embraced and integrated into their workforces, educational settings, faith communities… or, are butches still getting weird looks from strangers? Are they still getting yelled at in public bathrooms? Are young, obnoxious young men still yelling slurs out their car windows as they drive by a butch woman? Do gender non-conforming women still fear for their lives in some places? Can they get Brandon Teena out of their heads? Can they travel the world freely? Can they find clothing they like that fits their bodies well?

I’m not convinced we’ve made any real progress at all. I think we’ve just made it easier for people to jump ship, younger and faster, and gave it a different spin. We now call that “self-actualization”. We’ve facilitated a better illusion. We’ve convinced more and more people that the illusion is real. We continue to push for better surgeries. Penile and uterine transplants are on the horizon. Young people are flooding into clinics. They can’t keep up with the demand. Activists have pushed Queer Theory as an explanation for our difference, displacing evidence-based clinical definitions of GID/GD. It’s no longer talked about as a condition that requires treatment but a natural human variation that requires affirmation in whatever form we demand (often life-long medicalization). I’ve travelled that road to its end, and its hurt just as much as it’s helped.

The surgeries available to FTMs right now are awful. A double mastectomy and phalloplasty or metoidioplasty are gruesome procedures to go through. The US surgeon I went to for metoidioplasty boasts low complication rates, but the anecdotal evidence I’ve witnessed (myself and everyone I know who had the procedure there and elsewhere) is close to a 100% complication rate. One guy at the surgical recovery centre I stayed at started to hemorrhage and was laying on the floor unable to reach the call bell when another FTM patient found him and advocated for him to be rushed to hospital. Fistulas and strictures are the most common problem. I chose metoidioplasty because it’s thought to be the less risky of the two options. I immediately developed two large fistulas (meaning that my urethra burst open in two places) that needed additional surgery to repair. I couldn’t bathe or go swimming for a year until those openings were repaired. I have chronic perineum pain, altered bowel function due to changes in my pelvic muscles, and no sensation in most of my chest. When we have complications, local physicians and surgeons don’t know what to do. So we have to wait, and travel to whoever can help.

Listen, I don’t doubt that sometimes medical transition is helpful for people. It’s not my place to say they can’t or shouldn’t. But let’s not sell this like it’s a Disney park ride. The marketing of everything trans is ridiculously misleading. Don’t put sparkles and rainbows over real pain as though that helps at all. It’s insulting.

If we really want to help these kids, we need to make it easier for lesbian kids. Butch kids. All gender non-conforming kids. The quirky and awkward kids. Kids who feel they don’t fit it. Let’s get better at working with parents and preserving families. Be honest about what medical transition is really about. No one really changes biological sex and these procedures are really hard to go through. Why are we putting all of our resources into escaping brutality rather than eliminating brutality? We’re cutting up our bodies because our lived reality is worse. Why do we celebrate that?

Medical transition is but one option for those with GD. We need to reclaim our understanding of GD as a condition so that we can have reality based-conversations and solve real personal and social problems. “Trans” as a concept, masks many underlying issues. A queer theory-based understanding of myself worsened my GD. Medical transition became an addiction. The illusion only works if we’re lucky enough to pass and everyone else plays along perfectly. It’s an exhausting game of whack-a-mole to dodge the reminders of my female past and female biology. How is that kind of dissociation desirable? Some people may benefit from medically transitioning, but we still need a reality-based understanding of ourselves, to keep our feet on the ground.

Our children deserve better. If this sounds transphobic to you, you’re a part of the problem. Owning our reality for what it is isn’t self-hatred. It’s self-acceptance. Having different ideas and a different vision of how to move forward isn't hatred. Hatred was the skinheads who circled around us at the small 1992 Winnipeg gay and lesbian march, long before Pride was a parade. Hatred was the men who drove from the suburbs into Vancouver with the intent to "kill a fag" and murdered Aaron Webster in Stanley Park. I’m well acquainted with phobia. This isn't phobia. This is love.

[jkl-fff]

You are ruler of your country for a day! You can enact one law and it will still be in effect after you leave. What do you do?

Only one? Well, in typical USA fashion, I'm going to get around that by drafting one law (a bill) with a fuck ton of riders that are considered part of that one law (yep, even if they have nothing to do with the primary purpose of the bill and are actually something many legislators would oppose) (yet one more thing that's fucked up about this government). AND I'm going to go a step above that to guarantee these all remian in effect by declaring their enactment is as Constitutional Amendments.

Henceforth, all elected positions (presidents, governors, mayors, senators, representatives, etc.) are to be held for a term of four years, with a strict limit of two terms per person. Anyone who will turn 75 during the coming term will be deemed ineligible for office.

ALL judicial positions will be subject to a strict code of ethics (ESPECIALLY the fucking SUPREME COURT gods above, how is this already not a thing), and those who are accused of violating it will be subject to a trial with a jury of 12 judges. If found guilty of violating this code by at least 7 of the 12, they will be cast out of office ... and into prison. Also, judges can only serve at a given level for 16 years (no more of this lifetime terms bullshit).

No elected official may be reimbursed for their service at a rate higher than their state's minimum wage. Nor may they receive government benefits (like health insurance) above what the average citizen is entitled to receive. If they want more, they'd better improve the lives of their poorest citizens.

Their is a wealth cap at $500 million in private or corporate assets. Everything after that is confiscated for the public good. Anyone found guilty of trying to dodge that will lose everything and go to jail for the rest of their life (anyone with more than $10 million must be audited annually to ensure no tax fraud is being committed).

Corporate personhood will be acknowledged, but so will a corporate death penalty. If a company is found to have violated laws protecting the environment or public to a degree greater than $10 million in damages, then the company will be disbanded, and *all* assets of the executives will be seized while *half* of all middle management will be seized. (This way, rank and file workers will be incentivized to keep their company honest so they don't lose a job, management and executives will be incentivized because they stand to lose 50% or 100% of their wealth).

In a similar vein, all punitive fines are to be scaled according to the wealth of the offender. Like, a speeding ticket is $250 for a poor person, $25,000 for a millionaire.

The military can only receive as much funding as the Department of Education, which will disperse its funds to the poorest schools in a district first. But charter and religious schools are prohibited from receiving federal and state funds (if they want to be private, that's fine ... but they gotta pay for everything themselves while still being subject to federal regulations).

Business subsidies can not surpass welfare funding throughout a state. Also, if a business makes a profit one year, they are ineligible to receive subsidies the next.

Election Day is now on a Sunday, and all non essential services are to close so people can go vote. Tiered voting is to be instituted, too.

Convicted felons cannot be president even after serving their time (c'mon, people, seriously). Though they can vote again once released.

I could add others, but this has gone on long enough, and these already would be huge improvements. Thanks!

[meret118]

2023 Review

This has been the worst year in my life. (Long post.)

Nicholas died in February. I thought he was just constipated, but he was 20 years old and my vet insisted I take him to the emergency clinic. I didn't like the place even then. They have all this fancy equipment, and they overcharge and overtest to pay for it. They insisted he stay overnight, which I didn't want, and wouldn't let me say goodbye to him. They called later to say I was right. They'd given him an enema, but wanted to watch him overnight. I should have gone to get him then. They called at 2 AM to tell me he'd died.

He started living under my car and following me around shortly after I moved into my apartment. He had horrible health problems, including stomatitis which made his breath and saliva smell horrible. I think that's why his previous people abandoned him. The idea of him dying alone in a cage thinking I'd done the same torments me. If I'd just followed my instincts it wouldn't have happened that way. I don't think well under stress anymore. I miss him so much.

That was my winter. This past spring I almost died myself. (I'm not going into the details about what happened.) I've read the hospital notes, and my oxygen rate got so low they even called my uncle at one point to see if he wanted them to try and resuscitate me if my heart stopped. I was in the hospital for weeks, but I only remember the last 4 days or so of being there.

I ended up losing the use of my non-dominant hand from a compression injury, and have been in constant pain ever since. The muscles from mid-forearm down have wasted away. You don't realize how much you need that hand until you can't use it anymore. I've always been healthy before this, and it's been a huge adjustment. I feel like I've aged about 10 years. Crafting was one of my main hobbies, and I can't do that anymore. It takes me forever to type anything out now too. ETA: The non-stop pain has been the worst thing.

Everyone except my mother knew she's had Alzheimer's for years. (She refused to believe it.) She lost touch with reality completely while I was in the hospital. The neighbors had to call the police, and they took her to the hospital where she lives. I don't know if the stress of my being in the ICU pushed her over the edge, or if it was just a coincidence. She had already started hallucinating some before that. My father has been in assisted living for Alzheimer's since 2018, and now she is too.

Contrary to what a lot of people think assisted living is paid for completely out of pocket. Regular health insurance doesn't pay for it, nor does Medicare. It requires long term care insurance, which they don't have. It's not cheap either. Hopefully they will have enough to last as long as they need it, but it's not a sure thing. If they do spend all their money, they'll end up on Medicaid in a government funded nursing home.

Assisted living is like living in a small apartment with daily activities, and even trips. (I moved them near me into 2 really good ones. ((They don't get along.)) My father is even gaining weight, and doing so much better. I go see them once a week.) A nursing home is like living in a hospital.

My father had a good job, (upper-middle class), but was forced into early retirement at 55 due to bad-mouthing the new exec at HQ. He was used to being the (regional) boss, and never got another job. That's 10 years of income he didn't earn.

What's even worse is they made each other their POA's instead of someone younger. After my father was put in assisted living, my mother met a man at an Alzheimer's support group who conned her into allowing him access to all her accounts. Everyone told her not to do it, but he's a CPA, and she had no experience with handling the finances.

I know he had a wife with Alzheimer's because Janice met her when she helped him find an assisted living for her. So he was there for a real reason, but I guess he saw an easy mark and decided to go for it. He made sure never to be around when I was there. She and I don't get along anyway, but I think he was also poisoning her against me based on some comments she's made.

It all came to a head late last year as her Alzheimer's got worse. I found out by accident that he has been stealing from them ever since he was given access to the money. He had romanced her into doing that and leaving everything to him in the will, a new will he wrote. As well as I can figure out he told her he just wanted to be friends as soon as he got what he wanted.

I tried to get a new will written, but her Alzheimer's was too bad at that point, and lawyers refused. My uncle saw a lawyer earlier this year, and he said we're screwed. When she dies the guy gets everything, even if my father is still alive. She's a narcissist who has ruined my life over and over ever since I was born. Now she's going to ruin things after death too.

I'm having to go through their 3 story house crammed with decades of things to get it ready to be sold. The basement is so full you can barely walk through it. I'm single, with no kids or siblings so it's just been me.

At the moment I'm pretty sure I finally have COVID. I have to stay isolated since I was exposed over christmas anyway, so I don't see the point of getting tested right now to find out for certain. I'm fully vaccinated, and my symptoms are very mild. My fear is of developing long covid.

[ofsappho]

TW: mental health stuff, abuse, rape, suicide attempts, self harm

A little something personal:

On this day last year, the amazing therapist in my intensive outpatient therapy program told me that they would be declining to renew my borderline personality disorder diagnosis.

In shorter hand, that means that one year ago, I officially recovered from BPD.

I have been in therapy since I was 16, I’m 22 now. I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder when I was 17. I’ve been on countless medications.

My intensive outpatient therapy program was 3 months of intensive therapy. I was doing 10 hours of therapy a week, in addition to working 40 hours a week and going to 3 college classes that semester.

2021 was one of the worser years of my life. (In order) I attempted suicide and was hospitalized, I was raped, I was broken up with by a long term partner (not my rapist + who I lived with at the time) and had to move across the country, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, I was dealing with pretty severe flare ups of my physical disability and had to get *regular steroid injections into my spine, I dropped out of college for the second time because of the move, I fell back into my self harm addiction.

Now, let’s move to 2022-2023.

There were all sorts of odds against me, but somehow, I crawled my way into creating a more stable, healthy life where I life now, into new friendships, a new university, a new job, I enrolled myself in that intensive outpatient program and I advocated for my mental and physical health to a variety of doctors who were intent on telling me I wasn’t disabled because sometimes I can walk, and to the insurance company convinced that I could go without the immunosuppressants my doctor prescribed and refused to cover them.

Recovery from BPD is possible. It’s hard work, some of the hardest work I’ve done, and recovery won’t ever stop. The borderline wiring in my head and the damage done to my personality cannot ever be undone. But through therapy, I have been able to overcome many of symptoms and drop below meeting 5 of the diagnostic criteria for BPD. At one point in my life, I met all 9. I will always wrestle with all the negative internal shit and some day, I might even slip back into BPD. But I will always do my best to fight my way back. Recovery from BPD is very much like recovering from addiction; you can stop engaging in that specific addiction, but you never lose the addictive pathways in your brain.

I am IMMENSELY proud of myself and all the work I’ve done.

I want to thank Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Dr. Marsha Linnehan (who created it). DBT saved my life and continues to save my life. I have done it consistently since I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and not only has it helped me recover from BPD, it also helps me manage and function with my autism. I use DBT skills everyday and I am so grateful that DBT helps me be someone who is a positive influence in other people’s lives, that DBT has taught me self awareness, emotion regulation, cognitive empathy, and accountability. I wouldn’t have the close relationships I have today (that have also saved my life) without the skills DBT has helped me grow.

I also want to thank all of my friends who’ve stuck with me, helped me, taken me in, and given me something to live for. It was friends who helped me move away from the city where I’d been raped in and broken up in. It was friends who helped me find apartments, who said I could come over when I was feeling suicidal, who have supported me through getting my autoimmune disorder diagnosis and fighting my insurance company for immunosuppressants. I love you all very, very, very much.

I hope to see y’all here in 2024 🥹🫡🌹

[thereisnolumos]

One thing that pissed me off about Harry Potter more than anything else: nothing was done about Harry being abused and neglected! Nothing! I would be fine if was because Dumbledore planned it that way and he's suppose to be a villian, or just a very grey flawed person all along who never learns from his mistakes. But no Jk Rowling wants us to feel sympathy for Dumbledore. Dumbledore is good, he just fell for the wrong person. I don't know, I just feel like this isn't just another Jk Rowling is bad at writing thing, but a growing trend in fiction in general when it comes to abuse. Especially child abuse. Unless the person is like a big bad villian(zuko and his father from avatar the last Airbender). People never talk or mention obvious abuse. And even if it's mention. Nothing is done about it in the narrative. The person doing the abusing never gets consequences(unless death, but I feel like in fiction that is too easy) and the person who is abused never addresses it or gets thearpy or help. They are always stuck with their abusers until they are adults. And than they get their happy ending and forget all about the abuse. I just more than anything I wish fiction would talk more openly about abuse. And that the characters that are not out right villians they still get consequences for the abuse they caused. Actual consequences. Not a cheap apology or an easy death. Like jail time type consequences.

JKR’s insistence of Dumbledore being a good character is infuriating. You have written a character that’s constantly uses people for his own agenda, forces several people to be COMPLETELY INDEBTED to him so that they’d never question his actions. Someone who abandons a 1yo for 10 years without checking how he’s doing ONCE and then when that child shows up baring the clear marks of at least neglect and most likely abuse he just… does nothing. At all. Dursleys leave Harry alone only after he, a 13-year-old, scares them with “I have a convicted murderer for a god father and he likes to check up on me”. And that still doesn’t eliminate neglect. Want to tell me that he had no way of helping him? Insuring the Dursleys will treat Harry better?? Come on!

It’s a horrible trend of “you should thank your abusers for making you stronger”. THEY NEVER SHOULD’VE BEEN STRONGER! They should’ve been loved and cared for, and their abusers deserve to rot and get punished.

In regards to Harry Potter universe, I like to think that Dudley goes to therapy and unlearns the shit his parents ingrained in him. And later in life he has a magical child and finds Harry and reconnects with him. And he informs his parents with no uncertain terms that they either accept his child and their magic completely and never diminish them for it, or they can fuck off from his and his child’s life. I can see Vernon going both ways honestly, but I believe Petunia to have learned her lessons and loving her grandchild with all magic and all the things she maybe doesn’t understand.

[lol-jackles]

I love your insights and agree that Jensen’s deal with Amazon seems to fit more like a actor’s holding deal. If I understand how those work, it’s where the studio pays the actor a salary for a year to hold them to try and find a role for him/her in a tv show or movie. Is that correct?

You’ve said Amazon doesn’t pay actors very well, so what is your guess to Jensen’s salary that Amazon is paying him? (Is that how he was able to afford a $10million mansion in Connecticut?)

Do those work like typical salaries (weekly/monthly) or because it was also tied to his production company, was that annual salary paid to him in an upfront sum with hopes the ackles would use the money to develop a project?

given the strike, the ackles cannot develop anything, do they have to refund any money back to amazon?

Thank you and yes, in typical holding deals the actor will receive a salary for at least one year while the studio finds a suitable project for them. Similarly, Jensen would get paid X amount of dollars for the term no matter what. He would get a check every month that comes out of the millions in his deal, this will go to pay for overhead of running Chaos Machine, including employee salaries., office space, etc. So any advanced money the Ackles received is their's to keep even if there are no project(s) for Amazon's original programming.

With that said, I highly doubt that the CMP received the typical starter $10 million for production overheads as the deal was to hire Jensen for his acting (and his fandom). Jensen may have received $1 million in retainer fee instead.

As for the Ackles' ~ investment in Connecticut, he's going to sell that house in a year or two to an Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust, then use the “sale” and the equity in the CT house to buy another house, just like he did with the Colorado house that was brought when he sold the Austin lake house (at half the market value) to the same trust. For example, if the Ackles put down at least 20% for the lake house, when the property’s value goes up by 20% (and it will), the Ackles have now made a 100% ROI and that’s before considering rents and tax write offs. Then when the houses like the lake house is sold for real in 10, 15, or 20 years, it will be sold at it's actual market price. It's a classic use of these types of trusts to make money by reaping the actual profit from the real sale and on top of the previous profit when the house was first sold into the trust. 

Jensen can easily never work again in his life just by living off his net worth, which I’ve speculated to be 20-25 million dollars and if he invest conservatively his net worth will double in ten years. While he's ~investing in real estates, I suspect his main source of passive income comes from investing in target-date funds, they’re a mix of stocks, bonds, and alternative assets and probably in a collection of mutual funds. If Jensen keeps to the common rule of withdrawal limit of 4%, he’ll have at least $1 million fuck-you money every year, more than enough to cover property tax and he and his family will be comfortably wealthy for the rest of their lives without working. But men need to work, hence why he pitched to WB the ideal of continuing SPN after Jared leaves.

@supernaturalconvert techically the trusts own the houses, and the people currently living at the lake house are paying rent to the "beneficiaries", which are the Ackles.

[racefortheironthrone]

Advice About Grad School

Public history guy and yes, I think I did get a little confused. Sorry about that.

Any advice about grad school would be amazing! I’m going in on a graduate assistantship, but it’s been a few years since I finished my B.A due to life issues and I’m a little concerned about getting back into it.

Advice about grad school I can do.

The first piece of advice I can give is that you should not go to grad school unless you are fully funded. In the past, pursuing graduate education was a pretty reliable ticket into the ranks of the economically secure if not the outright affluent, but unfortunately the transformation of academic job markets over the last 10+ years has meant that even a PhD is less and less reliable, as full-time jobs became scarcer and competition for those jobs increases. 

So it’s of vital importance that if you want to pursue a PhD for non-monetary reasons - whether it’s a particular topic that you find fascinating, or whether you love teaching in a university setting, or whether you love archival research and uncovering previousy unseen documents, or whatever - that you don’t go into debt in the process. A PhD in history requires on average of eight years where you can’t work full-time because of coursework and reading and research and teaching, and where university jobs don’t always pay the most, so it’s going to be an economically stressful time. You don’t want to make it worse by having to take out loans to pay tuition, health insurance, and living expenses, so make sure that the package you’re offered provides enough in the way of tuition remissions, living stipends, and/or university employment to cover your entire time at grad school. 

The second piece of advice I have to give, and here I’m speaking as both a former grad student and a former grad student union activist, is to not self-exploit. One of the things that you will find in grad school is a dizzying array of activities that all seem like important opportunities - research and publication collaborations with professors, invitations to attend workshops and conferences, offers to teach more advanced discussion sections, offers to be a part of student academic journals, offers to be a part of departmental student governance, etc. And then of course there’s wanting to do a good job as a teacher, and you can always spend more hours in classroom prep or written feedback on assignments or more office hours, and so on. 

The larger point is that there’s a lot of social pressure to say yes to all these requests and they can all feel potentially highly useful and important to your future prospects, but one of the most important things you have to learn as a graduate student is when to say no. There are only so many hours in the day and getting your own work done so that you actually complete your PhD on time really has to be your first priority. So one of the most valuable skills you can pick up as a graduate student is a sense of which opportunities really are worth the time commitment and the ability to tactfully decline offers that are not. And when it comes to teaching in particular, remember that you’re only getting paid to work a certain number of hours a week - if you put in extra hours over that, you’re giving your employers overtime for free. 

The third piece of advice I can give is to practice self-care. As I’ve already suggested, grad school can be a very stressful time: not only is there a lot of high-stakes academics and long-term job market issues to worry about, but there’s also stress about low wages, high rents, long hours, and commute times, and then there’s also the stress of your daily life. And sadly, one of the things that grad students often do is to mismanage their stress by focusing on their academics and/or their jobs and in the process neglecting themselves in dangerous ways. In my case, I dealt with my stress by stress-eating and put on a lot of weight and I developed stress-related ulcers and acid reflux. Even worse, I became really negligent about going to medical appointments and dentist appointments, so that smaller problems became bigger problems. But my biggest problem is that I wasn’t talking to anyone about my stress, because I think just about anybody who would have heard that list of bad behaviors would have told me that I was really harming myself and needed to change my routines in order to improve my quality of life. 

So one of the things that I absolutely recommend is to make use of mental health services from the beginning. Having a trained professional to talk to, even if it’s just about how things are going and what your day-to-day is like, who can give you advice about ways to handle things better or who can warn you when you’re not handling things well, is really invaluable, especially since grad school often means you’ve moved away from your previous support structures and need to rebuild them. Likewise, make sure that you have a convenient primary care provider and dentist and make sure that you do regular check-ups and other forms of preventative care. 

The fourth piece of advice I have to give, and this is where I’m actually going to talk about academia and job markets, is to develop multiple strings to your bow. With the academic job market going the way that it is, you can’t rely purely on your dissertation, your publications, your fields of study, and your letters of recommendation to get a good job in your area of expertise if there aren’t any job openings in your area, or if every job has 15 applicants with unbeatable resumes. 

So keep an eye on the AHA and OAH’s job listing databases, but also keep an eye out for museum jobs, state and local history society and commission jobs, the National Parks Service, state parks services, where having a degree in public history can be a big advantage.

Moreover, acquiring skills and knowledge bases that aren’t covered by your fields or your dissertation can be really helpful in applying for jobs outside of history. In my case, even though I was a public policy historian, I did a lot of independent reading and blogging on contemporary public policy and public policy analysis and public policy design, which helped get me some paid gigs writing reports for think-tanks, and it all helped when I ended up applying for public policy teaching jobs, and then ultimately teaching in public policy. So make some time to read widely throughout history, social science, and any other field that interests you, because it might help down the road in applying for a job in that area. 

At the same time, one of the things I regret is that there are certain skills, like statistics and quant in general, or graphic design and photoshop, or programming at least to the extent of being able to build websites, or additional language skills, that I never took the time to pick up, because there’s a lot of NGO jobs and the like where they get huge numbers of well-educated applicants but where what we could call general professional skills are in demand and thinner on the ground. 

[red-flagging]

For the ask game:

10. Top three favourite fic tropes

36. How do you come up with fic titles? What's the one you're most proud of?

I hope your day is much less boring/stressful than anticipated!

(fic ask game!)

10. Top three favorite fic tropes?

i. post-apocalypse fic - in many ways this is just a subcategory of my actual favorite fic genre, which is "something unimaginable happened and your life is irrevocably changed. and now u have to wake up the next day and figure out how to keep living" (e.g. career-ending injury fic, retirement fic), except this time the unimaginable thing is that the world literally ended lol. but i think there's something about post-apocalypse fic that like - puts such a specific emphasis on the tiny details of being alive. and learning how to find joy in those tiny things (the new year's kiss in your post-apocalyptic fic!!) that is truly like catnip to me

ii. not so much a fic trope and more a category but any fic that's a deconstruction or examination of the real-world implications of a common trope (the heartbeat is a hunger by @thelittlebirdthatkeptsomanywarm comes to mind immediately). i have a wip for a different fandom that basically boils down to "what are the legislative implications for health insurance and disability policy in the US if hanahaki disease was real"

iii. PACIFIC RIM AU SORRY but in many ways have not changed from who i was in 2013 and i never will

36. How do you come up with fic titles? What's the one you're most proud of?

almost always taken off of my writing/poetry playlist for a fic lol. i can't actually listen to music when i write, but i still make playlists because i find it's a really useful exercise to figure out exactly what a fic is about at its core by curating a list of songs that capture what its vibes should be, even if i can't actually articulate what that vibe is yet. so by the time i have a full playlist it normally means that i know what the fic is about, and it's easy to go back and find something that fits.

in terms of titles i really like, i was really happy with consider the hairpin turn! i was very committed (in an ironic but also unironic way) to pulling a line from crush, and i think that one in particular really captures a) how precarious the situation feels from lewis's pov b) the sort of dissociative, distanced view of the entire situation he's using (or trying to use) to cope and c) hey look a racing word!