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tameblog · 1 month ago

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As people age, they’re faced with a choice between continuing to live in their own homes or opting for a senior living arrangement. More and more, families are making the choice to stay put as part of a phenomenon known as aging in place. Aging in place has many different interpretations, but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines aging in place as “the ability to live in one’s own home and community safely, independently, and comfortably, regardless of age, income, or ability level.” The National Institute on Aging calls aging in place staying in your own home as you get older and has tips for connecting to local resources to make aging in place easier, as well. Essentially, aging in place is making the decision to stay put as you get older—and then making the necessary accommodations and renovations to make your home as safe and accessible as possible. Once you’ve decided that you do want to age in place—which is a choice you can make years or even decades before the fact, if you’re planning far in advance—you need to consider whether that’s a possibility in your current home. Some homes—those with multiple stories, for example, or those with narrow passageways that would be difficult to widen—aren’t as accommodating of modifications for aging in place as others. Moving into a home that can be easily modified years before you actually need those modifications can make your transition into aging in place much simpler and less stressful. As you consider your options for aging in place, these experts have some insights into whether you should upgrade your current home or purchase a new one. Deciding Where to Age in Place As you make the choice between staying and upgrading your current home or finding a new home better suited to aging in place, ask yourself: Do you feel safe and connected in your current neighborhood? Many seniors are reluctant to leave their current location because they have local support, connections to doctors, a favorite grocery store, et cetera, says Susann Crawford, vice president at Caring. But if you feel unsafe in your current location or disconnected from neighbors or relatives, you might look for a different location, says Lisa Cini, an Ohio-based designer specializing in senior living. If your home needs all of the necessary upgrades but you lack the cash flow to complete the upgrades, you might be better off selling your current home and buying a new one that’s already been upgraded with key aging in place features. This could even yield some profit, which you can put toward other future needs, such as in-home nurses or caretakers. Crawford says most home contractors these days are familiar with the types of common requests for aging in place upgrades, and you should be able to easily find a local pro to help with the installation of shower grab bars, for example. Cini, who specializes in consulting with senior residents about the safety of their homes, suggests hiring a designer like herself to come in and tell you what parts of your home pose a risk before deciding to move. If you think you’d rather move onto a different property, look for a new build. Many new builds have larger hallways, doorways, and stairways, Crawford says. They might even come with some key aging in place features, as builders account for the growing number of seniors in the housing market. “There are homes specifically built to accommodate future needs, and we’re seeing more and more builders taking that into consideration and having those options available,” Crawford says. Tell your real estate agent what you’re looking for as you house-hunt to make sure you’re seeing the full range of aging-friendly homes. Key Considerations for Aging in Place Once you’ve determined that your current home can be modified to suit your needs as you age or you’ve found a new home that is well-suited to aging in place, it’s important that you do everything you can to minimize the risks associated with aging—namely, the risk of falling. Here, our experts suggest key rooms and features to consider as you prepare your home. Pay Attention to Bathrooms Falls are common in the bathroom, where moisture is ever present and surfaces are slippery. As you assess the safety of your current home to make it better suited to aging in place, start with this room. “It’s dangerous from a slip and fall standpoint, and a lot of times the lighting is not good,” Cini says. One way to combat these risks is to install grab bars in the shower and near the toilet for added stability and to aid with balance. Cini suggests a bidet, as well, to make bathroom hygiene safer. You can address problems with body temperatures by installing combination heat light bulbs, Cini says. And there are also mirrors that resist fogging, which makes it easier to see yourself and prevent slippery condensation from building. Ensure Adequate Lighting Lighting is another common factor in at-home falls and other accidents. Poor lighting makes it difficult to navigate the home and even prepare meals in the kitchen. If you’re choosing to stay in your current home as you age, adequate lighting is a good feature to invest in, Crawford says. “Older homes tend to be darker, more dim, and there are not as many windows,” Crawford says. “And people trip and fall when they can’t see well.” The problem of low lighting compounds other mobility problems. Cini says that, generally, older adults require more lighting than younger adults. Additional overhead lighting can be a simple fix. Consider adding lights in your kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom, as well as above staircases. Address Navigation Problems Other potential navigational obstacles in the home include narrow hallways, doorways, and staircases. Many older homes were designed with narrower spaces and can be difficult to navigate if you end up needing a wheelchair, walker, or cane. Newer homes, on the other hand, have wider doorways and stairways. “It’s so much easier then to install something like a chair lift,” Crawford says, should you need one down the road. Another factor to consider is the number of stories in your home. If you often have to negotiate steps, you might want to consider moving your bedroom to the main floor or finding a ranch-style home. Keep in mind that even single-level homes can pose risks. Watch for steps into the garage or up onto a porch or entryway. There can also be difficult transitions between rooms and types of flooring. An easy way to make your home aging in place friendly is to remove area rugs, which can pose a trip hazard, Crawford says. “Flooring can pose risks; bubbles under carpeting, even chipped tile,” she says. “But the other thing that really gets people with falls is decorating and clutter.” Removing decorative plants, side tables, and other knick-knacks and staying on top of piled laundry, mail, or magazines can clear a path for you to navigate your home safely, and it’s something you can do for free. Find Helpful Home Tech Whether you choose to stay or go, investing in home tech can be a great way to enhance your at-home independence while making life easier for residents of all ages. These days, you can automate the lights in your home, your heating and cooling systems, and safety features such as locks and home security equipment. Both new and old homes can accommodate these features, which are relatively affordable. But you can get creative, too. Seniors living at home can provide their children or caretakers with access to home cameras so someone can keep an eye on the property and the people living there. “It used to be you needed to have Life Alert or your phone on you to contact someone,” Crawford says. Cini suggests installing blackout shades in the bedroom to improve sleep quality, which can help with many medical conditions. You can even have these automated, which she finds is a good investment. Source link

#HOME_DECOR #AGING #CURRENT #HOME #OPTION #PLACEAND

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ramestoryworld · 1 month ago

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alexha2210 · 1 month ago

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angusstory · 1 month ago

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tumibaba · 1 month ago

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romaleen · 1 month ago

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monaleen101 · 1 month ago

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iamownerofme · 1 month ago

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shelyold · 1 month ago

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januishstory · 1 month ago

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lucyoccupy · 4 years ago

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#BlackMoldMatters! #MycotoxinsMatter! Could a toxic environment have been anticipated or mitigated by any of this information after 40 days of unabated water intrusion?

TOXIC EXPOSURE – ENVIRONMENTAL REPORTS FOR THE REMEDIATION AND PUBLIC ADJUSTER EXPERTS – WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THESE ENVIRONMENTAL REPORTS? https://crooksincahoots.com/environmental-reports/ HOME SWEET HOME THROUGH THE LOCK-DOWNS IN AMERICA. THANKS, STATE FARM! State Farm and their vendors/sub-contractors suggest that the roof loss claim was handled correctly, and they don’t know where…

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96thdayofrage · 4 years ago

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“It’s critical we properly account for the vast and varied consequences of the many U.S. wars and counterterror operations since 9/11, as we pause and reflect on all of the lives lost,” said the project’s co-director, Neta Crawford, in a press release accompanying the report. “Our accounting goes beyond the Pentagon’s numbers because the costs of the reaction to 9/11 have rippled through the entire budget.”

The Costs of War Project’s latest estimates hold that 897,000 to 929,000 people have been killed during the wars.

The staggering economic costs of the war on terror pale in comparison to the direct human impact, measured in people killed, wounded, and driven from their homes. The Costs of War Project’s latest estimates hold that 897,000 to 929,000 people have been killed during the wars. Of those killed, 387,000 are categorized as civilians, 207,000 as members of national military and police forces, and a further 301,000 as opposition fighters killed by U.S.-led coalition troops and their allies. The report also found that around 15,000 U.S. military service members and contractors have been killed in the wars, along with a similar number of allied Western troops deployed to the conflicts and several hundred journalists and humanitarian aid workers.

The question of how many people have lost their lives in the post-9/11 conflicts has been the subject of ongoing debate, though the numbers in all cases have been extraordinarily high. Previous Costs of War studies have put death toll figures in the hundreds of thousands, an estimate tallying those directly killed by violence. According to a 2015 estimate from the Nobel Prize-winning Physicians for Social Responsibility, well over 1 million have been killed both indirectly and directly in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan alone. The difficulty of calculating death tolls is made harder by the U.S. military’s own refusal to keep track of the number of people killed in its operations, as well as the remoteness of the regions where many of the conflicts take place.

Like its previous studies, the death toll calculated by the Costs of War Project focuses only on deaths directly caused by violence during the global war on terror and does not include “indirect deaths, namely those caused by loss of access to food, water, and/or infrastructure, war-related disease” that have resulted from the conflicts. The report’s footnotes also state that “some of the people classified as opposition fighters may actually have been civilians as well, since there are political incentives to classify the dead as militants rather than civilians” — a caveat that dovetails with the U.S. government’s own confessed practice of labeling any “military-age males” killed in its operations as combatants unless proved otherwise.

Such practices have continued across multiple administrations. A recent investigation from the military-focused news site Connecting Vets included leaked video and accounts from the 2019 drone campaign in Helmand province in Afghanistan. The story included testimony from former drone operators who said that they had been given the green light to kill anyone seen holding a walkie-talkie or wearing a tactical vest in the province, which had poor security and lacked reliable cell phone service. For some U.S. officials licensed to authorize drone strikes, frustrated by their inability to achieve strategic victory or even favorable negotiating terms with the Taliban, the “metric for success was racking up a body count.”

The Costs of War Project report states that its findings about deaths in the wars are conservative, leaving many still uncounted. Although nearly 1 million people can be said with confidence to have been killed since the global war on terror began, even that staggering figure is, in the words of Crawford, the project co-director, “likely a vast undercount of the true toll these wars have taken on human life.”

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more--than--anything · 7 years ago

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Episode Review: "Hands off my computers, Mulder." [S03E19]

It looks like the Jane vs. Roman showdown has begun in full force. But this episode brought us a little more than a little sibling rivalry. What did you think of Galaxy of Minds?

Y: I really enjoyed it. It had a little of everything that I love about this show and a doomsday weapon of sorts. It set up the Jane/Roman finale showdown quite well and while most of the characters took somewhat of a back seat, I think it was important to focus on Roman as we did before moving into the last episodes.

L: I thought this was a very solid episode. Roman was terrifying, the case was intense but brought a little levity into this world that has been so super serious lately, and we even got a tiny bit of Jeller. What a lovely way to usher in the remainder of the season, which is probably going to leave me curled up in the fetal position.

I was surprised that it took us 64 episodes to get a conspiracy theory nut job case. It seems something that would be right up Blindspot’s alley. How did the quirky Dash fit into this week’s case?

L: For a show that is built on secrets and conspiracies, you’re right, it’s kind of surprising that it took us this long to get to “brain rays.” That said, maybe it’s all the years I spent watching The X-Files, but I kind of loved Dash and all the quirky aspects of this case.

Events kick off this week when the tattoo database--which has been quiet since Roman changed his allegiance to Team Crawford--chimes with an alert for a book that just became available for pre-order. The name of the book, “Golden Rhino,” corresponds to a tattoo that is half golden stag beetle, half rhinoceros beetle. I loved Reade identifying the bugs, “Why are you looking at me like that? I have other interests.” It seems a clear call back to Tasha being able to identify the constellation Aldebaran in 1.17, “I like stars, and I was very unpopular in high school.” Maybe we’re supposed to infer that this means these two are compatible, but honestly, to me it just says that everyone on this team is a wee bit geeky in their own way--which probably explains why I love them all so much.

The team hauls in the author of the book, Daschelle (“Call me Dash”) Watkins. He’s a conspiracy theorist who seems nuttier than a fruitcake at first, but as it turns out, his ideas aren’t as far out there as they seem. He tells the team that Golden Rhino is a super-secret military weapons program that was used to assassinate General Joseph Baxter. They are skeptical--especially when he insists that the weapon is a mind-control device--but his intel checks out. Michael Ganzman was the lead engineer for Varnew Industries, one of the largest defense contractors in the country, until he got fired and dropped off the grid, and Baxter was overseeing a weapons contract with Varnew.

Patterson gets tasked with the fun job of sifting through all of Dash’s madness, I mean, research. “Who doesn’t want to sift through the collected works of a madman with said madman? That sounds super fun.” (Too bad things didn’t work out with Jack. I’m sure he’d have loved discussing his Bigfoot evidence with Dash.) One piece of evidence is the black box from Baxter’s plane before it crashed. There isn’t much to the recording, just the windows shattering, no communication from the cockpit, and then a sound that Dash refers to as the “warbles.” (Not to be confused with the Nergal device or the Nargles from Harry Potter, although if there were a connection to either one of these, I have no doubt that Dash could find it.) Dash also has a long list of any out-of-towners in the area of the crash who could have acted as a triggerman on the ground. Patterson is able to cross-reference that list with her own database and comes up with one name who worked for Varnew, Surjik Fells. Unfortunately, he was abducted from police custody that morning by none other than Roman.

The team realizes that Roman is also looking for Ganzman, which tells them they are on the right path. They send a team to investigate a property connected to Ganzman in Oneata, New York, but the pilot of the helicopter reports that his nose is bleeding, and then they hear “warbles” in the background and lose contact with the team. Patterson deduces that the sound they hear comes from a hyper-focused sonic weapon. The FBI brings in the Varnew CEO, Camille Moon, but she refuses to cooperate until Jane stages a fake interview with Avery, in which Avery states that her father kept a journal that recorded each of his meetings with Camille. Afraid that she might be implicated in the deaths of the FBI agents whose helicopter crashed, Camille agrees to help the FBI. She directs them to a factory in Woodstock, where the team arrives to find Ganzman--and the weapon. They are able to destroy the weapon before they are seriously harmed (although Jane is pretty cool about the fact that her husband’s brain is hemorrhaging right in front of her), but Roman gets to Ganzman first and kills him. Jane chases him, but neither she nor Roman is able to take out the other (either because they can’t get the shot or they can’t actually take the shot; hard to tell which, at this point), and Roman gets away.

So the team failed to capture Roman, but they did destroy a powerful weapon before it fell into Crawford’s hands. I’d say that it feels like win, except that Roman apparently unleashed a torrent of hits designed to flood the tattoo database with alerts. Now our team isn’t only flying blind, without Roman’s assistance, they are going to have find real clues like needles in a whole field of haystacks. One step up and two steps back...

Y: Can I start by saying that Crawford being after a mind controlling death ray weapon is very much a comic book super villain and I absolutely love everything about it?

I love when Blindspot manages to pull off a case like this one with equal balance between the trepidation and fear of something absolutely horrible but also add some humor and lightness to it. It’s usually done through a quirky one-time guest star like Dash and gets bonus points when it lands on Patterson to babysit this guest star. And somehow it always ends up on her to do so. It’s not enough that she carries on her shoulder keeping everyone alive week after week, she also has to make room from the crazies invading her lab. All this episode needed was, like you said, some conspiracy nut like Jack to make it complete.

I love how the team--okay, mainly Patterson--succeed in sifting through the madness to make some sense of what is going on and solve this case. I may be biased because I love this team but it just goes to show just how good this team is and how they lean onto each other’s strengths to get things done to solve even the most twisted of puzzles.

I’m sorry, I forgot this is not supposed to be a love letter to the team. Excuse me.

And while they did get to take that weapon off the market, once again, Roman is there to ruin the day for them. They never get a chance to catch their breath and celebrate the small victories. And what is more frustrating I think is that neither the team and nor we as viewers know what Crawford is up to. Okay, granted we might have some more insight thanks to seeing things from Roman’s point of view occasionally, but for the team, they are still in this fight not really knowing what they are up against. And to make things worse, Roman just threw a whole load of crap onto their servers. I really don’t envy their day jobs.

And speaking of Roman, that confrontation with Jane at the warehouse was just great. I’ve loved how they’ve escalated things between these two through the season. We started with the occasional taunting phone calls--you know as all sibling phone calls are--and the tug of war between the two with Roman mainly winning the emotional tugging at first. Then came their meeting in Croatia where Jane managed to press all the right buttons to mess him up psychologically. And finally this episode brought them face to face but with guns. Just the way Shepherd taught them to resolve family disputes. It’s quite interesting that whenever these two face each other while armed, they either cannot make the shot--whether it’s Roman in 2.10 or Jane in 2.22--or they suddenly have terrible aim as was the case in this episode and in 2.21 when Roman missed Jane from a few meters.

But what matters is that all this sets up the finale and the showdown between these two quite nicely. They’ve both announced their allegiances quite clearly and proved that when the time comes they know where they stand. So the question now is, where’s my chocolate?

This team just cannot catch a break. You’d think that after having assassins come after them, they would take a few days off, but here they are, back at work and back to what they do best--not running away from danger. How is the team doing? Please tell me they’ve all kissed and made up!

Y: Well to be fair, this week was slightly less jarring than last week, especially with the emotional tolls that last week carried, mainly for Tasha. Okay, maybe babysitting Dash was as exhausting for Patterson as a date with Jack was but still, at least no one tried to blow her up. While Patterson was stuck with Dash--and again I just love when they pair her up with the crazy ones because it is a recipe for golden moments like the quote in our title--Reade had probably the easiest day of all, getting to stay in his tailored three-piece suit and play the AD all day. And I’m not saying I envy his job, but not getting dirty is a rare thing on this show and Reade won the lottery this week. Tasha was quiet for most of the episode but did get to go on a brain-melting field trip with the Wellers and play some Humvee bowling, and now I am wondering if maybe she was the one who won the lottery instead.

I loved the moment between Tasha and Patterson in the end. Yes, Patterson is still not ready to let Tasha back in, but on the one hand she is not as cold and the cracks in the walls are starting to form. And on the other hand, I am proud of Tasha for not giving up. It’s hard being in Tasha’s place and still having hope and faith in your friendship and still trying to reconnect. These two may still be a long way away from where they once were, but I know they will find their way back to each other. Because if they don’t, I am going to need more chocolate.

L: Patterson definitely drew the short straw this week, babysitting Dash. But as always, she is able to put the pieces together and figure out the way to save the day. I agree, I think that Tasha continuing to reach out to Patterson is going to help break down the walls between them, but it’s not going to be instantaneous. And to some degree, I think that Patterson sorting out her personal stuff (finally moving on from Borden and trying out a date with Jack) is going to help her to come to place of peace with Tasha’s actions. Maybe not as quickly as we’d like, but eventually.

And honestly, at this point in the season, more chocolate is never a bad idea. We still have Reade planning a wedding with his illegally-in-this-country fiancée, and all of these weird unresolved feelings between him and Tasha to deal with. While Roman is gunning for the whole team. Yup, nothing but good times ahead...

Roman’s journey and story this season has been at the heart of everything, and the Roman we’ve seen so far this year has been a man in control and a man with a single-minded approach to a clear endgame. And this episode focused heavily on the younger Kruger sibling. Where’s the puppet master at right now? Still under control?

L: I think Roman is definitely losing control. And it’s not just juggling his relationship with Blake with his duties for Crawford, although maintaining that delicate balance is certainly taxing him to the max. He knows that the situation he is in is untenable: His cover as “Tom” won’t last forever, and he really doesn’t want it to--he wants desperately to be honest with Blake and have her love him for who he is really is, but at the same time, he knows that if he tells her the truth, he will lose her forever. Maybe not as dramatically as he envisioned--although I really loved his little “what if” imagining--but even if Blake can’t bring herself to actually kill him, he knows Crawford will. It’s no coincidence that the way he imagines Blake killing him is the same way that he watched Crawford kill Vic--and is the same way that he kills Ganzman. In each case, it is a quick and easy way to dispose of someone who has no longer has any value to you. His lies are the past that he tells Blake will “always be chasing me, trying to devour me.”

And the thing is, I think Roman knows he’s doomed. He knows he’s not as strong as Jane, who was able to overcome her memory loss and carve out a new life for herself. I think he’s being quite honest when he tells Fells that yes, he is insane. He doesn’t have the same basis in reality that Jane does, and the longer he plays at being Tom, the further from reality he’s getting. Without the moral compass that guides his sister, Roman is more adrift. He’s always been casual about killing, but the way he kills Fells and then Ganzman seems especially brutal to me. Or maybe it was the way he called for a cleanup in aisle, I mean, suite 3. (I think Yas pointed out in a review earlier this season how when things get complicated, Roman resorts to what has always worked best for him: Kill anyone who stands in his way. It’s simple and for him, relatively foolproof.)

I keep wondering how much Roman really knows about Crawford’s plans. He knows that Crawford needs a lot of land and aims to become the world’s “police” to ensure peace. But there was a reason Roman wanted so desperately to stop Crawford that he went to such extreme measures, designing the new tattoos and setting up the team. Does he understand the full scope of Crawford’s plan? Is it something that he is truly okay with helping Crawford achieve? And I keep wondering about the weapon that the FBI destroyed today; does Crawford need it? How unhappy is he going to be that Roman killed the only person who could recreate it?

And when it comes down to it, I just can’t see Roman being completely okay with killing Jane. “Killing me would be like killing part of yourself” is what he says to her, and I think that’s true for both of them. They do have this long history together that even memory loss can’t entirely erase. By killing Jane, he would be killing the last piece of him that is still Roman. There is a moment when Roman sees the news report about the FBI helicopter crash and that everyone aboard perished, when it seems like he is overcome with emotion. I wondered then if he thought that Jane and the team were aboard, and if, in that moment, he was regretting the loss of his sister. I know, given his current trajectory, that it seems hard to believe that he harbors any tender feelings toward Jane, but then then again, neither one of them were able to actually kill the other during this meeting or any of their previous encounters (beginning at the NYO, when Shepherd released Roman). I think that deep inside both of them is the hope that the other will cave and say, “You were right. I’m sorry. Please take me back.” Because if that were to happen, I think both of them would. Not quickly or easily, perhaps, but they wouldn’t turn the other away. Even Roman, as murderous as he might be. Because above all else, Roman still craves love. We see that when he asks Blake to run away with him. He can’t hide his disappointment when she tells him that she can’t just leave her father and her work. He had to know that would be her answer, but he asked her anyway. He had hope.

Speaking of Blake, I love that Blake is becoming suspicious of Roman. I want so much for her to be more than just a pampered rich girl who is dissuaded from her very legitimate questioning of “Tom” by the promise of running off and keeping a secret from her father. When we got that bit where Roman envisions Blake stabbing him after he admits his true identity, I cheered out loud. Not because I want to see Roman get hurt, but because I loved seeing Blake show that she is every bit as capable of the same brutality as her father. She’s an intelligent, well-educated woman who was raised by a man who is shrewd, confident, and utterly ruthless. I have a hard time believing that she is truly as sweet and gullible as we’ve seen so far. I feel like there are hidden depths to Miss Crawford that we have yet to see.

Y: How amazing has this story been? If anything, season 3 should be remembered for how brilliantly the Roman storyline has been crafted and written and developed and of course portrayed by the incredible Luke Mitchell. It’s incredibly difficult to write a sympathetic villain and even harder to write one that you can have the audience begging not for demise or failure but for their redemption. And Roman is all these things. At least for me.

Roman’s psychological and emotional journey has led him to quite an interesting place. And not to mention that apparently the state of his physical health is apparently playing a role in the decisions he’s making. Looking back at the Roman we met in 2.01 and the Roman we met through the flashbacks and to see where he is now, I think Roman remains one of the clearest characters, one who is so complex in how simple the foundation of his character is. But the thing is, it is so painfully and tragically relatable and sympathetic and that is what makes him so compelling.

And Roman in this episode was the most complex and the most messed-up Roman we’ve seen to date. Watching him switch between crazy interrogator/torturer (anyone else think he could have a place in Keaton’s team if he chooses to join the CIA?) and sweet tortured boyfriend and super intelligent mastermind who’s been planning the tattoos and Crawford’s takedown for years and the broken angry little brother was equal parts terrifying and amazing. Jane is right. Roman is scrambling, but he has never been more dangerous because he’s still in so many ways in control but he’s also losing all control. And for a man who’s had nothing to lose really for so long, this can only be a recipe for disaster.

Now, a question. How many times can I ask “where’s my chocolate?” before you guys start rolling your eyes?

Jane’s juggling a lot this year--between trying to fix her marriage, taking on motherhood, dealing with her pesky brother, and trying to take down one of the most evil men on the planet. I think it is safe to say she’s not having any days off any time soon, but she did have a small opportunity to smile this week.

Y: I am about to say something that I absolutely hate but oh well… I kind of understand why Jeller has taken the back seat in the second half of the season, and it makes sense. But I still hate it. Maybe they overwhelmed Jane’s character with more plot lines than can fit in the episode format considering the character elements are always secondary to cases. This season, Jane is central to three main stories besides the tattoos and the cases--there’s Jane and Roman, Jane and Avery, and Jane and Kurt. The third may have taken priority in the first few episodes, but once Avery was introduced, all this shifted towards that and there was no more space for Jeller.

I am not going to argue that the Jane/Roman story shouldn’t take precedence because it should, especially that it is at the core of this year’s mythology, but I think introducing Avery made it hard to balance that with focusing also on Jane and Kurt’s relationship. The writers have been trying to make Avery and Jane’s relationship with at the center of the Jeller reconciliation, and while it has worked at times, it did shove Jeller to the side.

But anyway, with that said, let’s talk about Jane and Avery for a bit, shall we?

After rewatching this episode, I went back and watched the Avery-related moments from previous episodes especially those right after Berlin. I am not going to lie: The progress of their relationship has been very sweet, and obviously I’m biased towards Jane, so I am mostly happy for her to be able to develop this relationship. It’s true that Jane does have a family in the team, but the only thing she has from her real family is pain and suffering. In Avery she has found something more pure and more innocent. Does that mean this relationship is going to end in pain and suffering as well for Jane? It is possible, but I really hope not. Jane deserves something good in her life and if she can get that through Avery then I’m all for it.

But definitely not all for Avery living full-time with Jane and Weller, as sweet as that was and as important as it is in terms of moving forward with this relationship. Not for anything, but the girl needs to go to college at some point, doesn’t she?

L: I agree that Jane’s relationship with Avery has been very important for Jane this season. As much as I too love Jeller, Jane is much more than just Kurt’s wife. She’s been searching for family, for connections, for her place in this world since the premiere. Marrying Kurt--and staying married, through good times and bad--is one piece of that puzzle. Building a place in the team is another. But Roman--her only flesh-and-blood relative until Avery came along--has been a much more difficult situation, and their confrontation in this episode proved that it won’t be easy or painless for her resolve. Enter Avery, someone who shares Jane’s blood and is a part of her that cannot ever be erased. As we’ve talked about before, committing to this relationship is even harder than a marriage, because there are no “divorces” from your kid.

I’ve been really loving the way this relationship has unfolded--the tiny steps that Jane has made, and the ways that she has slowly gotten past all the barriers that Avery erected between them. But I must admit that I’m still worried that things with Avery won’t end happily for Jane. I want to trust Avery, but I am afraid that she’s going to let Jane down and break her heart.

As we saw at the gala, Avery is a lot like her mother. Cool under pressure, very persuasive, and great undercover. She does a great job of selling the story of her father’s journal to Camille. And I guess that’s why she worries me so much--she’s such a good actress that I worry that she could be acting for this whole relationship she is supposedly building with Jane. What if she was still somehow working with Roman after the Wellers brought her back from Berlin? That would explain her intense interest in the case against Crawford. I can’t shake the feeling that there is more about her father or her relationship with the Crawfords than we know. And even if she wasn’t working with Roman, if she believes that Roman is now aligning himself with Crawford, what would keep her from going off half-cocked if she thought she could get to him or Crawford? We know she’s just as impulsive as her mother and uncle. Teens; it’s so hard to tell if you should give them a hug or ground them until they’re thirty.

Even though I don’t fully trust Avery, I still kind of love her. She’s just such a typical teen. First there’s the way everything is totally black and white; no gray area, no nuances. Her dad did bad things for Hank Crawford, so he’s a bad guy. All her memories are ruined, and she should just throw out all of her pictures of him. She cannot separate the father she knew from the facts she is learning about him. And then when Jane tries to empathize with her, to talk about how she resolved her feelings about her mother, Avery cuts her off. Like most teens, her pain is so much greater than anyone else’s, there is no way that Jane could ever understand.

I still don’t really understand why Avery is still in FBI custody in New York. She was a victim/witness, and I just can’t believe that the FBI would keep someone hostage in that capacity for so long. Didn’t she have a life of her own before all of this? Friends? Was she in college? Shouldn’t she maybe be allowed to return to that life at some point? Although yes, after Roman’s attacks on the team last week, it does make sense that they would want to keep her under closer supervision right now. While I’m complaining, I also don’t understand why it didn’t already occur to either Kurt or Jane to ask Avery to move in. I mean, she doesn’t know anyone else in New York, and Jane is her mother, even if she isn’t the person who raised her. Leaving her alone in a safe house for this long seems kind of mean, to be honest.

But all that said, since it doesn’t look like Jane will get any sort of reconciliation with Roman, I’m glad that she’s been able to build a family with Kurt and Avery, and I think it will be a source of strength for her when she next faces off with her brother. Which will be sooner rather than later.

Pass the chocolate.

Kurt, apparently, has been working on his one liners recently. Was it the headache named Dash or a nosebleed that caused him the most stress this week?

Y: With Jane focusing on Avery, and for some reason his family still MIA and no one asking about them, Kurt seems to be floating in the orbit of Jane trying to build a relationship with Avery. And again, I am not really complaining because it is giving us beautiful moments of Kurt being the world’s most precious husband and stepdad. But maybe I am complaining a little bit. I have to admit that I am enjoying this Kurt with the snarky one liners though--his comments to Dash about the book having too many pages and telling him to shut up over comms had me cracking up. It’s subtle but these little moments really do tell a lot about character sometimes, and I think this show does them really well with Kurt, and with everyone else for that matter.

Kurt has realized and accepted that he has to take the back seat at the moment and make room for Avery and make room for Jane’s emotional journey with Avery, and he is doing it with grace. He’s welcomed Avery into their lives, and he’s been so supportive of Jane every step of the way and honestly someone just give this boy an award of sorts. Yes, the Berlin mess was a mess but he has more than made up for it now and he deserves all of the awards!

L: I keep going back to Jane telling Kurt that she thought he’d make a wonderful dad. Because he really is. Teenagers are tough on any marriage. Step-parenting isn’t for the faint of heart. But Kurt has committed fully to his marriage to Jane, and that means that he’s taken her daughter as one of his own. We saw how much her loss in Berlin tortured him, long before Jane even knew she existed. Avery is a part of Jane, and for that reason, Kurt handed over a piece of his heart, no question asked. He is obviously thrilled when Jane asks if Avery can come to live them. And who can’t love a man like that??

And finally, Jeller. After being mostly absent for the middle of the season, it’s good to see them taking some steps forward in their relationship this week. But these two are anything but conventional in any aspect of their lives, so where are they headed now?

Y: I don’t know what it is but it’s like someone told the writers that high dosages of Jeller are dangerous so we’re only getting droplets every now and then. Dudes, we’re here for it. We’re up for it. We want all the Jeller. All the time! That is literally what we signed up for! Granted, what we did get the week is huge and not only because we got two frames of blink-and-you-miss-it of PDA but also because of what it means that Jane wants Avery to move in with them. While on the surface this seems to be about Jane and Avery’s relationship, it is also very much about Jeller’s.

Jane wanting Avery to move in with them and believing that it would be the best way to keep her safe and give her something better speaks volumes about where Jane and Kurt’s relationship is, how far they’ve come and how Jane sees it. It was just a few weeks ago that she moved out and then moved back in and even then, they still didn’t know how they would rebuild their relationship and their life together. But this step from Jane says many things. It says that the home they’ve built is a home and family and that what they have and what they can offer Avery is safety and protection and someone to watch over her and have her back because that is what they have with each other. They have moved on from wondering how this will work or whether it will work. I admit it all happened without us seeing any of it and that is frustrating, but we are seeing the fruits of the reconciliation and this rebuilding process and them arriving to this place where they are a home and a family and two people who see in each other the one person who represents these two things as well as security and safety and love.

I still don’t like that we’re getting a read-between-the-lines version of Jeller. I’m used to the in your face Jeller. I miss my Jeller!

L: I’ve been trying to figure out why the lack of Jeller bugs me so much (besides the fact that I miss them so much!). Yes, the characters are all interesting in their own rights, and the mystery is compelling and the action keeps us on the edge of our seats. So why get so wrapped up in the marital details of two of the characters? I mean it’s not like the posters for each season advertise that this show is about a gorgeous tattooed woman and the sexy FBI agent assigned to her case. Oh, wait... That’s pretty much exactly what they do. No wonder we feel like something important is missing!

But the more I dwelled on it, I realized that this is a show whose entire premise is about a woman who crawled out of a bag with no memory. From day one, this has been Jane’s journey. And frankly, Jane has been a more minor character lately. She’s there, yes, but more in service to the bigger mystery (which is Roman and Crawford this season) than to her own personal journey. If Jane’s journey has been to figure out where she belongs, then a large part of that has to be finding her home, which in her case means her home with Weller and now with Avery. And as much as I love the Avery storyline, lately it’s come at the expense of Jeller. And the more removed I feel from this important piece of Jane, the more removed I feel from the main character and the show as a whole.

That said, I did really love the scene where she asks Kurt if Avery can come live with them, for all of the reasons Yas gave so beautifully above. That’s kind of huge. In any marriage, deciding to bring children into the picture is a big decision. And that’s when they’re tiny and adorable and relatively easy to understand. Teenagers are a whole different ballgame. (There’s a reason you don’t give birth to teenagers. If you did, the human race would be in serious danger of extinction!) So I do love that Jane felt comfortable enough with where their relationship was to ask Kurt for this, and I love that he has zero hesitation about opening up their home to her daughter, because it shows his commitment to Jane is so strong that it encompasses all her personal baggage and nearly-grown kids!

Basically, what it says to me is that this relationship is strong enough to make it. And I guess that’s going to have to be enough for now.

That’s it from us for this week! We’ve got only three more episodes left in the season and we are most certainly not prepared for any of it. Are you? If you say you are, we know you are lying. How can you be?? Now, go buy yourself some chocolate because pain and angst are coming your way!

--Laura & Yas

#blindspot #blindspot: episode review #character: jane doe #character: kurt weller #character: patterson #character: edgar reade #character: tasha zapata #character: roman #character: blake crawford #episode: 319 - galaxy of minds #character: avery #character: hank crawford

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californiaprelawland · 5 years ago

Text

Independent Contractor Or Employee? Uber & Lyft, Inc. Try To Bypass The Courts

By Marshall Comia, University Of California Davis Class of 2021

October 12, 2020

In the upcoming general elections, California voters will have to decide whether or not to pass what has become the most expensive ballot measure in California history, Proposition 22.[i] This proposition would alter the criteria that determines what classifies an employee from an independent contractor.[ii]More specifically, this proposition will determine whether or not “app-based rideshare and delivery companies[, such as Uber, Lyft, Instacart, and Doordash,] can hire drivers as independent contractors.”[iii]Distinguishing between these two worker classifications are important for a company because unlike employees, independent contractors don’t receive standard benefits and protections from their company; these include, among others, health care benefits, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation. By taking this expensive legal fight to the ballot box, these app-based companies are trying to bypass the courts.

In 2019, Assembly Bill 5 (A.B. 5) was passed through the California legislature and signed into law. This bill effectively mandated that app-based rideshare and delivery companies classify their workersas employees instead of independent contractors, aswell as treat these workers appropriate to their new classification. A.B. 5 does this by codifying the case of Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles (2018) (Dynamex). In the Dynamex decision, the “ABC” test, which is “utilized in other [California] jurisdictions in a variety of contexts to distinguish employees from independent contractors,”[iv]was used again to make the worker distinction. Under the ABC test, a worker is considered an independent contractor and not an employee if “the hiring entity establishes:

“(A) that the worker is free from the control and direction of the hirer in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract for the performance of such work and in fact;

“(B) that the worker performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business; and

“(C) that the worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as the work performed for the hiring entity.”[v]

If any one of the three criteria cannot be adequately established by the hiring entity, then the hiring entity can’t classify the worker as an independent contractor; they have to classify the worker as an employee. In a case where a court rules that the ABC test can’t be applied, A.B. 5 says that the test from the case S. G. Borello & Sons, Inc. v. Department of Industrial Relations (1989)(Borello) that determines employee or independent contractor status should instead be used. The Borello test weighs a myriad of interrelated factors that can be weighed differently to principally decide “whether the person to whom service is rendered has the right to control the manner and means of accomplishing the result desired.”[vi]Despite the passage of A.B. 5, Uber and Lyft Inc. aren’t following it.

In May 2020, Uber and Lyft Inc. were sued by the Attorney General of California for continuing to violate A.B. 5 after it took effect January 1, 2020, by “misclassify[ying] their ride-hailing drivers as independent contractors rather than employees” in the case People v. Uber et al (Uber et al.).[vii] The People also tried a motion “for a preliminary injunction enjoining Defendants from classifying their drivers as independent contractors;”[viii] meaning that the court would order Uber and Lyft to immediately comply with A.B. 5 unless another court says otherwise. In this California Superior Court decision, Judge Ethan Schulman ruled that Uber and Lyft Inc. misclassified their workers as independent contractors and should be classifying their workers as employees because defendants Uber and Lyft, Inc. fail the B prong of the ABC test established in Dynamax (“that the worker performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business.”).[ix]Uber tried to argue that their companyis a technology company rather than a transportation company, that “operate[s] as ‘matchmakers’ to facilitate transactions between drivers and passengers”[x] and their actual employees are the tech workers who do the “engineering, product development, marketing and operations ‘in order to improve the properties of the app.’”[xi]Therefore, Uber tried to make the case that Uber drivers are “outside the usual course” of the work that Uber employees do. Uber’s shot down argument was seen by the courts as a “classic example of circular reasoning: because it regards itself as a technology company and considers only tech workers to be its ‘employees,’ anybody else is outside the ordinary course of its business, and therefore is not an employee.”[xii] Uber has made this argument beforein the case O’Connor v. Uber Technologies, Inc. (2015). In this case, “Judge Edward Chen of the U.S District Court for the Northern District of California found this argument ‘flawed in numerous respects’…‘fundamentally, it is obvious drivers perform a service for Uber because Uber simply would not be a viable business without its drivers.’”[xiii]As opined, the decision in Uber et al. to classify Uber and Lyft, Inc. drivers as employees has been seen in many other court conclusions, such as Cunningham v. Lyft, Inc. (2020), Namisnak v. Uber (2020), and Crawford v. Uber Technologies, Inc. (2018).[xiv]

The defendants of Uber et al. also made two other main arguments to defend their evasion from complying with A.B. 5. Defendants first argued that A.B. 5 doesn’t apply to them at all “because they are not ‘hiring entities’ within the meaning of the legislation.”[xv] The court noted that in a previous case, Uber argued that “AB 5 targets gig economy companies and workers and treats them differently from similarly situated group,”[xvi] yet in Uber et al., Uber was trying to argue that the same piece of legislation that unfairly targeted them didn’t apply to them at all. The court decided that they couldn’t “take seriously such contradictory positions”[xvii] and ruled the defendants as subject to A.B. 5.

The second main argument that defendants made was that if they reclassified their drivers as employees in compliance with A.B. 5, they would suffer “two categories of harm: (1) the costs and other harms associated with the restructuring of Defendants’ businesses in California; and (2) the harms to Defendants’ drivers, including the risk that some may [be] unable to continue earning income if Defendants do not offer them continued work as employees, and the risk that their reclassification as employees jeopardize their eligibility for emergency federal benefits available to them as self-employed workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.”[xviii] In response to the first category of harm, the court acknowledged that the compliance to A.B. 5 will be costly because defendants “will have to change the nature of their business[es] in significant ways.”[xix] But, the court points out that defendants’ argument “at root, is fundamentally one about the financial costs of compliance.”[xx]

In response to the second category of harm, the court opined that if compliance to the People’s demands of A.B. 5 were far-reaching,

“they have only been exacerbated by Defendants’ prolonged and brazen refusal to comply with California law. Defendants may not evade legislative mandates merely because their businesses are so large that they affect the lives of many thousands of people.”[xxi]

The court points out that since Defendants’ ridership is currently lower than it’s ever been, now “may be the best time (or the least worst time) for Defendants to change their business practices to conform to California law without causing widespread adverse effects on their drivers.”[xxii]Overall, the Defendants are trying to drag out litigation until after the November 2020 election, where Uber and Lyft can become exempt from A.B. 5’s requirements through the passage of Proposition 22. Despite the motions that Defendants have made attempting “to delay or avoid a determination whether, as the People allege, they are engaged in an ongoing and widespread violation of A.B. 5…Defendants are not entitled to an indefinite postponement of their day of reckoning. Their threshold motions are groundless.”[xxiii] The court ordered that defendants are “restrained from classifying their Drivers as independent contractors.”[xxiv]

[xxv]

The contributors supporting Proposition 22 have raised over $184 million, with Lyft, Inc. and Uber as the top two contributors.[xxvi] The contributors opposing Proposition 22 have only raised around $7.5 million. In a Berkeley IGS Poll of likely voters, 39% would vote yes to Proposition 22, 36% would vote no, and 25% are undecided.[xxvii] As shown by the Proposition’s tight poll numbers, the fight for whether app-based rideshare and delivery companies will classify their workers as independent contractors or employees is going to be a close one.

________________________________________________________________

[i]“What Were the Most Expensive Ballot Measures in California.” Ballotpedia. Lucy Burns Institute. Accessed September 29, 2020. https://ballotpedia.org/What_were_the_most_expensive_ballot_measures_in_California.

[ii]“Qualified Statewide Ballot Measures.” Qualified Statewide Ballot Measures :: California Secretary of State. California Secretary of State. Accessed September 29, 2020. https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/qualified-ballot-measures.

[iii]“Proposition 22 [Ballot].” Legislative Analyst's Office. Joint Legislative Budget Committee (JLBC). Accessed September 29, 2020. https://lao.ca.gov/BallotAnalysis/Proposition?number=22&year=2020.

[iv]Dynamex Operations W. v. Superior Court and Charles Lee, Real Party in Interest,4 Cal.5th 903, 416 P.3d 1, 232 Cal.Rptr.3d 1 (2018).https://boehm-associates.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Dynamex-Operations-West_-Inc.-v.-Superior-Court_-4-Cal.pdf

[v]Id.

[vi]S. G. Borello & Sons, Inc. v. Department of Industrial Relations 48 Cal.3d 341 (1989).

[vii]People of the State of California v. Uber Technologies, Inc., A Delaware Corporation et al. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7032764/Judge-Ethan-Schulman-Order-on-Lyft-and-Uber.pdf.

[viii]Id at 2.

[ix]Dynamax, 4 Cal.5th at 908

[x]People of the State of California v. Uber Technologies, Inc., A Delaware Corporation et al.https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7032764/Judge-Ethan-Schulman-Order-on-Lyft-and-Uber.pdf

[xi]Id.

[xii]Id.

[xiii]Id.

[xiv]Id.

[xv]Id.

[xvi]Lydia Olson et al v. State of California et al, 2:19-cv-10956, No. 52 (C.D.Cal. Feb. 10, 2020) (available at https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/California_Central_District_Court/2--19-cv-10956/Lydia_Olson_et_al_v._State_of_California_et_al/52/)

[xvii]Id.

[xviii]Id.

[xix]Id.

[xx]Id.

[xxi]Id.

[xxii]Id.

[xxiii]Id.

[xxiv]Id.

[xxv]“What Were the Most Expensive Ballot Measures in California.” Ballotpedia. Lucy Burns Institute. Accessed September 29, 2020. https://ballotpedia.org/What_were_the_most_expensive_ballot_measures_in_California.

[xxvi]“November 2020 General Election.” California Fair Political Practices Commission. Accessed September 29, 2020. http://www.fppc.ca.gov/transparency/top-contributors/nov-20-gen.html.

[xxvii]DiCamillo, M. (2020). Tabulations from a Mid-September 2020 Survey of California Likely Voters about Four of the Propositions on the November 2020 Statewide Election Ballot. UC Berkeley: Institute of Governmental Studies. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1p22n9ws.

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