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youaremysamshine · 3 years

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So I wrote a thing! A whole thing! If you want to read some mostly-angst about Sam’s feelings directly post-Gadreel, then maybe think about reading this? I’ve posted it below and on AO3.

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Sam is reeling after he has kicked Gadreel out. He never wants to lose time again - unfortunately, his body needs sleep.

Post 9.10 "Road Trip"

----- The first night is easy. Tired as Sam is, the fear and pain and disorientation far outweigh any exhaustion, and despite promising Cas he’ll try to get some rest, he never considers actually going to sleep. The idea is absurd. So yes, on the first night it’s almost effortless to avoid sleep.

The next day isn’t extremely hard, either - in terms of staying awake, that is. It’s plenty hard in other ways, of course, but a staple of Sam’s life has been the sleep deprivation, and he is well practiced in functioning on precious little. He can act awake well, and any slips are easily chalked up to his recovery from the events of the past… however long.

But Cas has now spent time being human, and so notices - where previously he might not have - that Sam needs sleep. And after his prompts have been shrugged off several times by Sam - “It’s only 10, it’s not that late...”, “Yes, Cas, after I finish this chapter…”, “Yeah, I’ll just have a bite to eat first…” - Cas all but leads Sam to his bedroom and tells him to sleep. Now.

Sam acquiesces to this command, knowing Cas won’t let it rest if he does not, but again, he still has no intention of falling into unconsciousness. The idea of sleep is terrifying. He can’t. He’s well aware his body wants to - his eyes are sore and he has been frequently yawning for the past hour - but he will not give in. Not today.

He picks up another book from his own shelves - the one he had been reading in the library had been left behind when Cas had shepherded him to his room - and settles down in his chair to read. Okay, he might be needing to reread each sentence to take in the meaning, and yes, he did just spend several minutes wondering if queue was really a word, but no, he won’t yield, this is still far better than-

He startles, jerking forward, bashing his abdomen against the desk. The book has fallen out of his hands, the noise waking him up from his split-second nap.

Alright, he concedes. I’ll just take a short break.

He sets his phone timer for fifteen minutes. Then ten. Then five. Then ten again. He lies down and shuts his eyes, but immediately gets up again, pacing the room. He cannot do this. He sits down at the desk again, not bothering to pick up the book this time, tapping his fingers anxiously against the wood. He can barely think, he’s so tired.

Go back to bed, set your timer. Lie down, just stay there. Wait. It’s only ten minutes. It’s fine, Sam. Just ten minutes. The timer goes off, quicker than he had expected, and he resets it. This will work, this might actually work. He had changed into his pyjamas earlier to placate Cas, and is pleased with the comfort that they afford him now. His eyes close, his body relaxes, finally getting the rest it deserves.

BEEP. A brief moment of panic checking where he is, that the time is right, but relief soon follows. He resets the timer. He falls back to sleep.

BEEP. Frustration at being woken up. Relief that he has woken up. Resetting the alarm.

Sleep. BEEP. Repeat. Sleep. BEEP. Repeat. Unconventional, but effective. Sam sleeps. He sleeps well.

And then suddenly Kevin is there, looking at him trustingly until his eyes burn out and he no longer can and Sam is painfully wrenched back into wakefulness, the name of the boy falling from his lips as his eyes fly open. He scrambles for his phone.

4:32

It’s 4:32. It should be 2:15. He is certain he’d last restarted his alarm at 2:05. He had been checking each time, paying close attention because he needs to know.

Oh God, 4:32. That’s two whole hours. Fuck. Anything could have happened in two hours. He can’t -- He needs --

Cas. Shit.

In a blind panic he races for the door, turning into the corridor at high speed, his hunter reflexes being the only thing that stops him from hurtling straight into the man he wanted to find.

“Sam?” Cas’ voice is laced with concern, his eyebrows furrowed as he looks at Sam. But, importantly, he’s still here, still alive, nothing has happened to him.

“I just…” Sam trails off. Now that he knows Cas is alright, the need to see him has completely changed into a desire to get away, be anywhere else. Cas’s penetrating gaze and worry is not what Sam wants right now. “Toilet,” he finishes lamely, and sidesteps Cas to head to the bunker’s restrooms.

“Sam, I know you aren’t okay.” Castiel’s deep voice follows Sam down the corridor as surely as the angel does himself. Sam ducks into a cubicle and locks the door, hoping Cas will get the hint.

“Sam?”

A deep breath. Closed eyes. He pinches the bridge of his nose.

“I’m fine.”

He can almost feel Cas’s skepticism about that statement. “I highly doubt that, Sam. Let me help.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Sam, I sensed you distress from-” “I don’t WANT you here, Cas!” Even as he says it, he hates himself a little bit more. Cas is just being kind, far more of a good friend than Sam deserves, but right now Sam just can’t stand it. “Let me shit in peace, please,” he adds for good measure.

Footsteps, and Cas’s presence disappears. When Sam makes his way back to his room, he does not see Cas. He’ll apologize tomorrow.

4:44. Three fours. Huh, Good job it isn’t three sixes right? But you can’t get three sixes on a clock, Sam. Unless you count in military.. miltry.. mil-i-ta-ry time? No, don’t be stupid. That only goes up to twenty-two - no, wait, twenty-four? But does it ever reach twenty-four… Oh, crap, I really, really need to sleep.

4:45. Only one more hour until. Until what? He was going to say until he can get up, or at least, pretend to get up, and go about yet another normal day, no longer needing to feign sleep. But it hits him now that he’s still going to be bone-tired.

He wonders at how he has missed this great, big, obvious fact. He’s been so caught up in avoiding sleep right here, right now, every single minute, that he’s lost the bigger picture. How long can he carry this on for? The rest of tomorrow? Until Wednesday? But he’ll have to stop at some point.

This is too big, too awful, for him to contemplate right now. No, right now he does not need to sleep. And he can continue doing that. Saying no. He’s good at saying no. He just needs to keep on, just keep on, Sam.

The next hour goes as slowly as the last two had gone quickly. Eventually he judges it a suitable time to leave for the kitchen to get coffee. He’s thought of how to apologize to Cas, reworded it several times, a good distraction from anything else in his head.

The kitchen is empty. He still stops every yawn, stifles every urge to rub his eyes. Cas will not get a chance to send him back to bed. The coffee helps, a little, and the second one even more. Cas walks in as he is sipping his third. Sam can’t read his expression. He instinctively lowers his eyes, looks away from Cas, then realises this could be seen as rude, and looks up again. He doesn’t want to hurt Cas more.

“Hey, Cas.”

“Good morning Sam. Did you sleep?”

Sam notices that Cas missed off the “well” that usually accompanies the end of that question. Cas really knows him.

“Yeah, thanks.” It isn’t exactly a lie. Sam is fairly certain he had fallen asleep for those two hours, and that has to count for something, right? He quickly plunges on, needing to put the apology out there as soon as possible, and ends up stumbling over his words in his haste.

“Look, Cas, erm- I’m really sorry about pushing you off last night. I’m not really sure why I acted like that but yeah, it was- I shouldn’t have.”

“Thank you, Sam,” Cas replies simply. “I was worried - and I was wondering if this morning you might be wanting me to leave properly, to give you your space.”

“What? No!” Sam stands up, needing to ensure Cas does not think that necessary. “No, that’s not at all what I… Well, I mean,” he bites his tongue and thinks about his words. “If you want to go, of course, I don’t want to be the thing that stops you, but no. I was just tired and, well, like you said, not okay last night. I want you to stay here, of course I do - that is, if you want to stay here?” He’s looking at Cas cautiously, hopefully, but is suddenly convinced that of course Cas will leave, everybody leaves.

“My wish is to stay here with you,” Cas says. Sam lets out an involuntary sigh of relief.

“You look surprised,” Cas comments. Sam is taken aback at how easily Cas can read him.

“Yeah, no - I… You don’t need to, like, look after me, or anything. And I was horrible to you last night.”

Cas frowns. “But I want to look after you, Sam Winchester. You’ve suffered a great deal and that needs to be put to rights. I am your friend. As for last night - I understand that you were tired; you have now apologised, and it is forgotten.”

Sam stares and nods his head, a little unsure how to react to Cas’s words. “Thank you,” he manages to say, quietly, and Cas’s gentle smile suggests that he might be aware of everything else Sam means beyond the two words.

Cas walks slowly towards Sam, raising his arms somewhat awkwardly. “If you would like,” he says, “the hug we shared yesterday was rather comforting, and I would like to give you that again.”

Unbidden, Sam’s mind snaps back to their first meeting. “The boy with the demon blood,” Cas had called him, then. He marvels at how far Cas has fallen, to be here, now, with him, but selfishly he closes the gap, and allows himself to be hugged. It’s the best he’s felt in a long while.

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A second part may happen but probably not. Subscribe over on AO3 if you’re feeling lucky :P

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antoine-roquentin · 5 years

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In the minutes before the first detainees set foot on Guantánamo, “you could literally hear a pin drop,” Brandon Neely, a military-police officer, recalled, in an interview with the Guantánamo Testimonials Project, at the University of California, Davis, in 2008. “Everyone, including myself, was very nervous,” he said. It was January 11, 2002. The Bush Administration had decided that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the war on terror, which meant that the men captured abroad could be deprived of the rights of prisoners of war. That day, Neely’s job was to haul captives from a bus to a holding area for processing, and then to small, outdoor cages, where they would spend nearly four months sleeping on rocks, and relieving themselves in buckets, while soldiers constructed more permanent cellblocks. “I keep thinking, Here it comes—I am fixing to see what a terrorist looks like face to face,” Neely, who was twenty-one at the time, said.

The first man off the bus had only one leg. He wore handcuffs, leg shackles, earmuffs, blackout goggles, a surgical mask, and a bright-orange jumpsuit. As two M.P.s dragged him to the holding area, someone tossed his prosthetic leg out of the bus. All afternoon, guards screamed at the detainees to shut up and walk faster, called them “sand niggers,” and said that their family members and countries had been obliterated by nuclear bombs.

Later that day, Neely and his partner brought an elderly detainee to the holding area and forced him to his knees. When they removed his shackles, the man, who was shaking with fear, suddenly jerked to the left. Neely jumped on top of him, and forced his face into the concrete floor. An officer shouted “Code Red!” into a radio, and the Internal Reaction Force team raced to the scene and hog-tied him. He was left for hours in the Caribbean sun.

Neely later found out that the elderly detainee had jerked because, when he was forced to his knees, he thought he was about to be shot in the back of the head. In his home country, Neely said, “this man had seen some of his friends and family members executed on their knees.” The man’s response was hardly unique; a military document, drafted ten days later for the base commander, noted that “the detainees think they are being taken to be shot.”

Officially, the job of the Internal Reaction Force was to restrain unruly detainees, to prevent them from injuring themselves or the guards. But, in practice, “IRFing” was often done as a form of revenge, initiated liberally—for example, when a detainee was found to have two plastic cups instead of one, or refused to drink a bottle of Ensure, because he thought that he was being given poison. IRFing typically involved a team of six or more men dressed in riot gear: the first man would pepper-spray the detainee, then charge into the cell and, using a heavy shield and his body weight, tackle the detainee; the rest would jump on top, shackling or binding the detainee until he was no longer moving. Although many of the detainees arrived malnourished, with their bodies marked by bullet wounds and broken bones, some IRF teams punched them and slammed their heads into the ground until they were bloody and unconscious. “You could always tell when someone got IRFed, as the detainees throughout the camp would start chanting and screaming,” Neely recalled. Once, he watched an IRF team leader beat a detainee so badly that he had to be sent to the hospital and the floor of his cell was stained with blood; the next time the team leader was in the cellblock, another detainee yelled out, “Sergeant, have you come back to finish him off?”

In Islam, the Quran is considered the transcribed word of God; some Muslims keep the book wrapped in cloth, never letting it touch unclean surfaces. To dispel notions that the United States was at war with Islam, detainees were allowed to have private meetings with a Muslim military chaplain, and were given copies of the Quran. Some guards saw an opportunity to torment the detainees—by tossing the Quran into the toilet, for example, or by breaking the binding under the guise of searching for “weapons.” Desecration of the Quran provoked riots in the cellblocks, which resulted in IRF teams storming into the cells and beating up detainees.

One day, after an interrogator kicked a Quran across the floor, detainees organized a mass suicide attempt. “Once every fifteen minutes, a prisoner tried to hang himself by tying his sheet around his neck and fastening it through the mesh of the cage wall,” James Yee, an Army captain who served as the Muslim chaplain in Guantánamo, recalled in his memoir, “For God and Country,” from 2005. “As soon as the prisoner was taken to the hospital, another detainee would be found—his sheet wound around his neck and tied to his cage wall. The guards would rush in to save him and the chaos would start again. The protest lasted for several days as twenty-three prisoners tried to hang themselves.”

Military-police officers so frequently abused the Quran during cell searches that detainees demanded that the books be kept in the library, where they would be safe. Yee, who had converted to Islam in the early nineties, sent a request up the chain of command, but was rebuffed. “I felt this decision stemmed from the command’s desire to be able to tell the media that we gave all detainees a Quran out of sensitivity to their religious needs,” he wrote. The detainees protested, and so “it was decided that every detainee who refused the Quran would be IRFed.” While the detainees were receiving medical treatment for their post-IRF injuries, the Qurans were placed back in their cells.

In time, Yee came to believe that “Islam was systematically used as a weapon against the prisoners.” Guards mocked the call to prayer, and manipulated Islamic principles of modesty—by having female guards watch naked detainees in the showers, for example—to create tension as an excuse to exact violence. During interrogations, detainees were forced to perform mock satanic rituals, or were draped in the Israeli flag.

Donald Rumsfeld told reporters that the men in Guantánamo were “among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth.” But after Brandon Neely’s first shift, on the day the detention camp opened, “no one really spoke much,” he recalled. “I went back to my tent and laid down to go to sleep. I was thinking, Those were the worst people the world had to offer?”

#are we the baddies moment

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martinthomasoregan · 5 years

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Between the Walls

He was awake but he still hadn’t opened his eyes. If he opened his eyes he was awake. How could he open his eyes if he was not awake as the effort to open his eyes would require a conscious thought. How could he have a conscious thought when the state of sleep is by it’s very definition a state where consciousness is practically suspended. Although the male subject in 612 often took to talking and walking about at all hours with his eyes open while still in the practically unconscious state of sleep. His nocturnal antics were a source of great annoyance as the subjects bedroom was directly on the opposite side of the wall. He did not trust the subject in 612. The Departmental Manual stated very clearly in Article 4, Section 5 that: ‘Sleep is a condition of body and mind which typically recurs for several hours every night, in which the nervous system is inactive, the eyes closed, the postural muscles relaxed, and consciousness practically suspended. While a subject cannot survive without oxygen, water or food, it is unclear if sleep deprivation can kill a subject. Although it is possible that given enough time, it will. While no biological being* is known to have died from staying awake, animal research strongly suggests it could happen. Dr Allan Rechtschaffen conducted a series of groundbreaking experiments on rats. After 32 days of total sleep deprivation, all the rats were dead. Curiously, researchers still do not agree on the cause of death. It is possible that the rats’ body temperature dropped so much that they succumbed to hypothermia. Another theory posits that the rats’ immune systems became so depressed that bacteria normally sequestered in their intestines spread throughout their bodiesthough Rechtschaffen counters that his rats perished even when they were administered antibiotics. A third explanation points to some evidence of brain damage among the sleep-deprived rats. It’s also possible that extreme levels of stress contributed to the rats’ demise. The longest recorded time without sleep for a subject is approximately 264 hours, or just over 11 consecutive days. Whether lack of sleep can kill a subject is irrelevant as by the eleventh day the quality of information that may be extracted is of no value due to the subject lapsing into a state of extreme paranoia and psychosis. The subject may be allowed to rest for a period until it is fully recuperated and the process may be started again if some degree of progress was attained during the first instance otherwise alternative methods may be employed. There is some anecdotal evidence that those who experience an anomaly known as chronic insomnia are more resistant to this form of persuasion. Insomnia is a condition whereby the subject experiences disturbed or less frequent sleep. It may be a temporary or chronic condition. It is posited that those who experience insomnia habitually develop coping mechanisms that render them more resistant to the disorientating effects of sleep deprivation. Research to confirm this hypothesis is ongoing. It is required that an officer practice undergoing sleep deprivation for a period of at least seventy two hours bi-monthly(once every two months) in expectation that he may accrue some resistance to this technique and acquire an understanding of the process the subject is undergoing during extraction. The coping mechanisms developed by this practice will be invaluable in the field in stressful situations where an officer will be required to function rationally without the recommended hours of sleep. The recommended daily hours of sleep at the time of writing are as in accordance with Department Directive 43168795 Newborn-3 months old 11 hours

4-11 months old 10 hours

1-2 years old 9 hours

3-5 years old 8 hours

6-13 years old 7 hours

14-17 years old 7 hours

18-25 years old 6 hours

26-64 years old 6 hours

65+ years old 5 hours

*Article 4.1.1 defines a biological being as one who is an anatomically modern Human of the order Homo sapiens. All other living things being organisms. It should be noted that these targets may be subject to change in accordance with the requirements of the Department. In order to function at maximum efficiency an officer is required to sleep six hours within each 24 hour period under normal conditions. Another anomaly is that of talking in ones sleep. The subject may also walk in its sleep or even open its eyes and appear quite lucid while being in a state of sleep. This is a very desirable condition in a subject under observation as information may be extracted without recourse to the usual methods of persuasion. The quality of the information gleaned in such a manner is at the discretion of the officer and/or his superiors to judge and may be used as evidence or as a confession from the subject. While this condition is desirable in a subject under observation it is completely unacceptable in an officer given the confidential nature of the officer’s profession. Officers are required by Departmental regulation 25674 to inform the Departmental official to whom he reports of any officer of the Department or other official who may be in possession of confidential information who to his knowledge may display such flawed characteristics.’ His sleepy face twisted in a wry smile. One night that fool on the other side of the wall will say the wrong thing and when the report is finally read he will get a decent nights sleep. He found to his surprise his eyes were open, having no recollection of making a conscious effort to do so. The light bulb gave a slight flicker as he shuddered. He could feel the twist in his stomach as he stared up at the grey ceiling in despair. The ceiling seemed so far away when you were lying prone on the bed when in reality it was only 6ft from the floor. His bed was wedged between two concrete walls with no gap on either side. Above his head was another cold concrete wall. The proximity of the walls were the reason the ceiling seemed so high. The walls were so confining one could not curl up in the 2ft wide bed and his feet dangled over the end of the 5’6” long bed. Every night he had to crawl up on the bed and pull the covers over him. In the morning he must first pull himself up into a sitting position against the back wall before crawling out. Butterflies gnawed at his empty stomach when he thought of this effort. He gave himself a conscious order to rouse. He heaved his gaunt body up to a sitting position. His head spun for a moment and the far wall at the turn of the passage seemed to grow further and further away. He closed his eyes and rested his head against the wall. He rubbed his slender fingers against his forehead and after collecting his thoughts he opened his eyes again. He looked down the slender shaft and to his relief everything had regained its familiar proportion. He sat up on his hunkers and fixed the sheet on the bed smoothing it with his hands. Having tucked in the sheet he crawled carefully down to the end trying not to cause too much disturbance. When he alighted from the bed he turned and stooped to fix the sheet. He dropped his right hand to steady himself due to a moment of weakness then slowly and deliberately ironed out the sheet. Having finished dressing the bed he stood to survey his work. A feeling of pride was betrayed by the slight grimace that turned into a grin of satisfaction. ‘Nothing like a well made bed’, he thought. The bed was no more than a foot high wooden frame with a thin mattress laid over wooden laths nailed into the frame. The numbers wrote on the piece of wood at the top of the end were faded but still legible. They were 1 2 3 4 and referred to the four resident officers that occupied the warren once. He picked up his rubber soled deck shoes and sat slightly on the bed to put them on. A quick inspection of them beforehand told him they would soon disintegrate due to wear. The soles were worn thin and were starting to become unglued from the frayed uppers. Nevertheless he put them on as they were the only footwear he had left. Another slight dizziness overtook him when he looked at his watch. The movement of the hands were difficult to discern and it took all his concentration to read the time. It was almost 6 a.m. the second hand glided smoothly towards the twelve. He watched it slowly progress towards its destination. It was a strange phenomenon of time that when you count the seconds they seem to take an age yet whole years fly by in an instant. Threee, twwooo, oooonnne, 6 a.m. on the dot so he stood up from the bed and proceeded down the hallway. After a series of bewildering turns to the left and right he descended a winding staircase with a quite alacrity. At the bottom of the staircase was another similar hallway and he negotiated the many turns to the wash-room. The wash-room was located at the other side of the complex on the fourth floor. In fact none of the so-called rooms could be called rooms they were merely cul-de-sacs where each passage ended with no distinguishing partition or door except for the office and supply room on the ground and second floor. Neither the bedroom, the wash-room, the kitchen nor the mess were the intended destination of their respective passages rather an incidental result of the termination of each passage. The wash-room consisted of a toilet fitted flush to the end wall, in front of the toilet, to it’s left, a square concrete basin protruded from the wall with a spout in close proximity above. The pipes were exposed and could be seen running into the hot and cold taps attached to the wall. A simple turn of a handle directed the water either to the spout over the basin or the shower head above. In the centre of the banked floor was a hole for the water to escape and a couple of metal hooks were placed on the wall for towels and clothes away from the direction of the water flow. All the officers had to be careful as to when to use the shower due to the noise and also as to when the toilet was flushed. Both of these operations could only be done when the adjoining apartments were empty. The cold tap squeaked as he gently turned it and after a slight belch a steady flow of water emerged to his relief. He didn’t touch the hot tap as the pipes always creaked and moaned as if the bowels of the building were relieving themselves and at this hour the noise would be heard throughout the whole complex. He imagined such a noise in the early hours of the morning would induce terrors in the residents. The Department Manual stated in Article 40.5: ‘When a subject is to be apprehended in a residence by officers of The State whether it be an arrest or for questioning/observation the officers under the rules of best practice should fulfil their duty between the hours 03:00 and 06:00. This is the optimum window as the subject having arisen at a time when normally asleep will be disorientated and less likely to protest or flee. The occupiers of adjoining residences will in general be less likely to notice or will deliberately ignore such a disturbance in preference to rising from their beds. Those who do not however and partake in witnessing the event should be considered abettors in trying to dissuade the officers from performing their duties. Under Article 1.1.2 and Article 2.2.4 there is no reason for anyone to actively witness The State in performance of its official duties unless of course by requirement of The State. Such activities imply that The State or The Department may in some way be negligent in the performance of its duties or in deliberate non compliance with its own regulations as in the ruling in Case 179 per Regulation 36754: “It is the duty of each citizen to trust in the apparatus of The State and any disregard would not be aiding The Department in its function to maintain a well ordered society”.’ He rubbed his hands methodically under the cold water then cupped them applying the cool liquid to his face and the back of his neck. Having finished he turned off the tap ringing out his hands. He navigated his way back through the close corridor and descended the stairs making his way to the kitchen in forlorn hope. There were no cooking facilities in the kitchen but there was a small fridge and a food preparation area. There was no food in the kitchen. Although he knew there was no food he still checked the fridge in the expectation that food might appear. To his chagrin there was no food to be seen. He closed the door with a heavy hand and surveyed the kitchen. There was a deep concrete sink in the corner with a wire rack attached to the wall above it for dishes to dry. Beside the rack were four cupboards and the numbers 1,2,3,4 scrawled in black marker on the brown laminated surface of each door. Beneath the press stretched a white laminated counter at the same level as the sink above a series of brown drawers. Underneath the drawers were four more cupboards and beside them the fridge where he stood. He went to the cupboard marked 3 and he opened it. He took a white cup from it and filled it with water from the sink. Once filled he turned and paused for a second remembering the days when the kitchen was full of bustle. He remembered when the fridge was full of cold cuts and the cupboards brimming with tins of food and fresh bread. His stomach grumbled bringing him back to the stark reality of his existence. He left the kitchen. The walls breathed in and out as the bare light bulbs dimmed and brightened with each breath. His heart thumped slowly in his chest. The corridor stretched far into a dark distance and the loud beating of his heart grew faster. He quickened his pace but the undulating ground beneath him fought against every stride. The air was thick as liquid as he gulped it down. He reached the stairway and stumbled down like a man who had lost his footing. At the bottom he leaned against the wall but it pushed him back. He steadied himself and ran as best he could brushing off the walls that rejected him. He knew he had to make it to where he was going but where that was he could not tell. Water splashed from his cup onto the floor and hissed like burning acid. The corridor moved and shifted, corner after corner each hallway was the same, taunting him. He turned a corner and saw the cul de sac that was the mess. It shimmered like a reflection in rippling water. He stopped and stared at the table. Slowly it started to come back into focus, he turned and anxiously looked down the narrow passage. It seemed no different than usual but he felt a change. He slid down along the bench and placed the cup on the table. His hands were shaking nervously as he wiped the cold sweat from his brow. He regained his composure and rested his back against the hard wall. How long did it take him to get here he wondered so he looked at his watch. His watch was always accurate and had never lost a second. He focused his bleary eyes and stare at it hard. It was a quarter past six only fifteen minutes had passed. It was one of those watches where the inner workings were partly visible and it always fascinated him. He stared at the shining golden cogs as they whirred around. Each one seemed to be attached to several others as they rotated at differing speeds. The closer you stared the more cogs appeared and as you delved into its mechanical universe you became mesmerised as even more infinitesimal cogs appeared making the tiniest of cogs seem like giants. It went on and on like this with no reason or sign of stopping. Somewhere in its unfathomable depths he was aware there must be a spring that set those cogs in motion but try as he could he could never see it until he wondered if one existed at all or were the cogs just simply in perpetual motion each one turning several others which in turn turned several more to infinity until the first cog was turned by a multitude of lesser cogs. The watch had been given to him here on the day of his tenth year of service in the warren by Sergeant Schneider the First Resident Officer.

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natsspammityspamspamham · 6 years

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Dino Rants - December 11

Hey, so I’m just gonna rant here for a little because I actually (for the first time in a while) reached my dino breaking point. Looks like that dino breaking point clock will have to be restarted!

If you didn’t know, I’m not the best at hiding emotions like anger, and I’m kind of like Bakugou when I get really riled up. I will start shouting a little, yelling a lot, occasional curse word if I’m really upset, and I feel the strong urge to resort to physical ways of getting my anger out whether it’s through harming myself, things around me, or others (even though the urge is dire, I never hurt the people around me in any severe manner).

But what happened today to make me reach my breaking point?

Well, it started before today. My sister has been tormenting me as usual. To put it into fewer words, she believes that she’s the voice of reason that no one listens to (her words, not mine). She likes to toot her horn, and she is always right. When she got a boyfriend (now ex) that was equally as annoying, I figured they were meant to be together even if it meant a bitter breakup because she deserved what she put out. She has told me flat-out that she doesn’t respect me and that I’m a piece of shit. She ain’t lying, but she’s one too. For years, she would make my life more difficult than it needed to be. She made fun of my mental illness and blamed it on me, she blamed my school situation on me, she believes/believed I have autism or am retarded (meaning mental retardation) somehow. She still makes fun of my psychological test results because yeah, I’m not normal. I’ve known that for a while.

I have to interact and live with her on a daily basis, and she makes her presence known. She tells me I should be able to “trust her” like some sort of “onee-chan”. My brother (who is far more passive) used to be her accomplice in things. She has made grown ladies cry even as a kid. I used to cry when she smiled. That’s how scared I was of her. I can’t say I’m over that fear. I’m just trying to learn how to cope with it.

Today, we were visiting my close family friend who just delivered her third daughter. She didn’t tell me the plan, and there was some miscommunication. She pushed me out the door with my phone (aka my life support when out of the house) on 1%. I ran trying to get my stuff, tripped up the stairs, and just tried my best while she kept pestering me. My bucket started to fill from there. *drip*

Once we got there after a really long ride (I don’t live in the main city. I live in a suburb), everything was going normally. She would give me a nasty look if I said anything out of line, and I’ll be honest, it’s because I’m terrible with kids. This baby was a red sack of flesh, and I almost made some really insensitive remarks (”why do they have a microwave and toaster in the baby photography room? is it to put the baby in?”, etc.)

But on the way back from the photography session, I commented, “Both [the baby] and I will be on liquid diets at the end of the week.” My sister started scaring me with all the wisdom teeth surgery details which I have been avoiding because it provokes major anxiety. I told her to stop because she was panicking me, but she kept going until my mom eventually told her it was making me uncomfortable. She gave me a disgusted look, and I cracked and said, “You’re sitting a perfect height for my foot to directly kick your head.” I said that out loud with other people in the room. She got even more defensive and asked, “What’s wrong with you?” (that’s a phrase I have a difficult time with because there is so much wrong with me) *drip drip drip drip*

It didn’t stop there. Once we got into the car, she started going on about how I’m such a “softie”. She started using that term after using harsher ones to portray my sensitivity to my illness and anxiety. She said I made fun of her when she got hers done. Let me say this though, she’s six years older than me, and when she got hers done, I was still in elementary school. I didn’t even understand the procedure. She gave me a lecture about how I shouldn’t laugh if I can’t take it and how I’m soooo sensitive.

When she left for her appointment, I told my mom how uncomfortable and angry she was making me. My mom said that her calling me a “softie” isn’t an insult. That just got me even more upset. *drip drip drip drip drip*

By the time my sister came back, I didn’t even want to go to lunch anymore. She was giving me so much stress that I was done then and there. But she wanted to eat, so I decided to go to a separate restaurant. My mom decided to go along with me since I’m a “fragile softie”. I voiced my anger even more throughout the lunch. I was getting really upset with how she was treating me.

On the way back, she slept which gave me peace of mind for a little bit.

The rest of the story carries on into the late evening. I thought I was finally out of the woods. It was nearly 11pm (maybe around 22:40) which is when I usually eat then go to sleep. An unexpected guest arrived at the door. It was another family friend, and my mom and dad proceeded to have a very loud conversation while I was in the other room waiting for them to be done so I could take my medication and sleep. I can’t do it while they’re there because it is also very anxiety provoking. I waited over an hour before it was nearly midnight, and through all that time, I listened to my dad make some extremely sexist comments. He kept “joking” (as I’ve now been told) that “his [newlywed] wife should cook and clean for him” and how “she needs to take care of the house.” This made me really uncomfortable. After around 20 minutes, I spoke up and said for him to tone down on the sexism. He said, “Don’t listen to [Dino], [they] don’t know when to stop flapping their darn lips.” He always puts down everyone when he’s talking. It’s shameful. He tells my mom, “Go get this.” “Make [the guest] some coffee.” It’s like she’s a maid. She’s gotten used to it, but I’m sitting in the other room trying not to explode.

Eventually, he left. I was glad. But then my sister came and joined me for my last snack. She brought up she was going to be having friends over winter break. She said it would possibly occur over once a week, with over 15 guests each, that they would take up the main floor, and that I should make myself scarce. Quite frankly, she is an uncompromising person. I am too, but I asked why she would want so many people over at once and whether we can just cap it at 10. She refused and said that her conditions were set and that we are both members of the house. I was getting increasingly irritated as she said that she has been “socially deprived” because of her work and how she was going to make this happen. She told me that I’m not good at hiding my emotions and that I’m always looking like I don’t want them there. And again, I don’t! I don’t want them in my house, and some of them are really annoying! She started to call and comment on things that were uncalled for, and my mom tried running away. That’s when I snapped. I started yelling at my mom for leaving, I followed upstairs. I said that I would make sure her friends were not welcome. I said that she was to put them in the basement which is a separate floor in itself. My mom still tried to avoid which made me even more upset. I started yelling even more. My dad (who was on the toilet taking a shit with the door open) was there too. That’s when I went ballistic on him too. He was visually treating me like a headache, and I just kept going on his old-fashioned views. When I get mad, I don’t stop until I’m done, and I don’t finish for a while. I stormed back to my room, closed the door, locked the door, told them they couldn’t borrow Penny, and then I wrote this.

Seriously, I’m darn fed up with this family. I’m done with my mom avoiding conflict and my dad and sister making fun of me, my mental illnesses, and my life situation. They’re the two strongest believers that I’m living my life wrong and that I’m weak. No, if I was weak, I would’ve been dead this time two years ago.

Tagging @lizardnebula specifically to read this because you know my family best out of any of my followers.

@bungou-stray-alies-tales-of-aly and @akaskira , if you wouldn’t mind putting up with my rant. ^^; [sorry for the tag]

#personal #rant

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shirlleycoyle · 3 years

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What Is Burning Man Without Burning Man?

This story appears in the forthcoming issue of VICE magazine, The Indulgences Issue. Subscribe here.

For the second summer in a row, Jonathan, a tech worker who lives in the California Bay Area, will soon head into the Nevada desert for an event that isn’t happening. He’s not alone. “I think definitely a lot of people will come this year,” he mused in June.

Jonathan, who works in privacy and security and asked that his last name be withheld so he could speak freely about his personal life, is one of several thousand people expected to flock to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert this year during the nine days leading up to and including Labor Day. That’s when Burning Man would traditionally happen, drawing close to 80,000 attendees for the mammoth event’s signature blend of art, music, celebrities, self-expression, highly alkaline playa dust, and fashionable goggle-based looks. But for the second year in a row, because of the coronavirus pandemic, Burning Man has been canceled—though Burning Man Project, the 501(c)(3) organization that governs the event, is planning a virtual one, which they also did last year.

Thousands of people, however, are expected to come to the Black Rock Desert anyway, for what’s now being loosely referred to as “renegade burn,” an unstructured event that carries the potential to be either a creative revival of Burning Man’s earlier and more DIY days or, for inexperienced campers, a potential disaster.

Since its first year, in 1986, Burning Man has evolved from an anarchic subcultural party on a San Francisco beach to a mega event awash in the money and excesses of the tech industry, whose denizens make up some of its most devoted and notorious fans. In 2019, Burning Man Project famously banned one ultra-deluxe so-called “turnkey” or “plug-and-play” camp, calling it part of a “cultural course correction” needed to bring the event closer to its roots. The camp, Humano the Tribe, was reportedly charging up to $100,000 per spot, according to SFist, and faced accusations that its fancy portable toilets leaked sewage onto the ecologically delicate playa, and that its participants were profoundly douchey overall. All of which raises the question: Are a couple of years in the metaphorical wilderness precisely what Burning Man needs?

A woman laughs after a desert thundershower in 1995. Photo by MediaNews Group/Tri-Valley Times via Getty Images

According to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which oversees federal public lands in the United States, including the Black Rock Desert where Burning Man takes place, around 3,000 people came out last year during the time Burning Man would have typically happened, and several people familiar with the event said they expected to see more this year. A “renegade burn” subreddit has just over 1,000 members and a private Facebook group has 800. Discussions about it regularly crop up in the main Burning Man Facebook group, which has nearly 120,000 members, with people arguing passionately both for and against it in threads that span hundreds of comments.

Several of the key elements that make Burning Man happen will obviously be missing. In a normal year, Burning Man Project’s Department of Public Works (DPW), a team composed of hundreds of people, spends about 100 days preparing in the desert beforehand, creating roads, street signs, and larger structures, like the titular Man who burns on the last night of the event, as well as the pavilion around him.

“DPW is only one part of the helpful infrastructure,” Logan Mirto told VICE. He’s DPW’s personnel manager and is part of a council that runs the department. “When it comes to thinking about a gathering out there, the bigger things are the infrastructure from other departments, the medical teams, and the Rangers; all that plays a huge role in mitigating the environment.” (Rangers are volunteers who function somewhere between camp counselors and lifeguards during the event and assist the paid staff.)

For Jonathan, who has attended Burning Man around a dozen times, the so-called renegade burn represents a chance for a different kind of experience: less structured, more intimate, and more self-reliant. “It’s more effort to go when it’s not built up for you, when you have to provide everything for yourself,” he said. “And that attracts a different crowd.”

“We call Burning Man the ‘Nevada Regional.’”

Besides being smaller, the event will obviously be more dispersed across the playa, less a city than a collection of atomized camps. The BLM has also prohibited some of the signature aspects of Burning Man, like art structures and installations, as well as, per a letter one renegade burner received, bonfires, fireworks, airplanes taking off or landing, or companies that service portable toilets. In other words, campers can bring out a Porta Potty, but it can’t be serviced or drained by professionals for the duration of its stay on the playa. And the people who come to Burning Man by private jet during normal times will have to drive in like ordinary plebes.

Heather O’Hanlon, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Land Management’s Winnemucca District, where the Black Rock Desert is located, said people are welcome to camp this year too. “There are no plans to close the playa and people are welcome to come camping using their own resources.”

But many in the broader Burning Man community are expecting heavy enforcement of the rules by both the BLM and local law enforcement in the area around the playa.

The 2015 Midburn festival in the Negev Desert near the Israeli kibbutz of Sde Boker in 2015, the Israeli version of Burning Man. Photo by Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images

“You can bet your dusty ass that LEO [law enforcement officers] will be issuing tickets for every ticky-tack violation they see that even arguably violates the BLM guidelines or local laws,” one person wrote in a large Burning Man Facebook group, explaining why they didn’t plan to attend this year’s renegade burn. “Every camp where they count more than 50 people, every drip of oil from your car, every ‘structure’ they find that isn’t being slept in or used for cooking or shade is going to get ticketed. I suspect drug dogs will be more prevalent than in previous years (remember Marijuana is still illegal on federal land even though it’s legal in Nevada!) and we may well see a return to the unlawful traffic stops and searches on the way in and out like we saw back in 2018.”

“Worst case scenario, it’s a memorable clusterfuck,” Jonathan said with a laugh. He’s traveling out in an RV, after riding his motorcycle last year—and spending part of his last day with a flat tire, waiting for a tow to the closest mechanic. (“It wasn’t a big deal,” he said, since he had the wherewithal and the know-how to quickly build himself a shade structure while waiting.) Both years, he and the friends he’s camped with have made an effort not to stop on tribal land or in small towns, to avoid exposing people in more isolated or underserved communities to COVID-19.

Janet Davis, the chairwoman of the Pyramid Lake Paiute tribe, one of several Native communities in the area near Black Rock, told NPR the event’s cancellation was “a sigh of relief” for the tribe. Slightly more diplomatically, Burning Man Project wrote on their blog: “We are counting on the individuals enjoying the desert to do so in a way that takes into consideration the big picture and our return in 2022.” In a statement to VICE, they wrote, in part, “We here at Burning Man Project share this enthusiasm for visiting the playa in a year without Black Rock City, and we encourage our community to recreate responsibly. Planning ahead, playing it safe, being prepared, respecting local communities, and leaving no trace are central to making sure we all do it right.” (Their full statement is below.)

Clovis Buford has been to Burning Man about nine times; he’s also a regional contact for Austin, Texas, to Burning Man, meaning he acts, as he puts it, “as a conduit.” “I try to make sure I communicate Burning Man stuff out to the wider community here and relay any of our community concerns to BMOrg in the other direction.” (“BMOrg,” short for Burning Man Organization, is a colloquial name some people use for Burning Man Project.)

“If you’re out in the open desert, you’re responsible for your own experience,” Buford said. “Let’s hope everyone makes wise choices.” With the absence of roads and people potentially driving very fast across the playa, he said, “Personally I would want my tent lit up like I was calling the goddamn mothership.”

The chance to see a smaller, less built-up version of Burning Man also appealed to Meredith Fortner, who lives in Texas and has attended Burning Man twice, in 2009 and 2017. “I saw it as a chance to time travel, to see what it was like in the early days,” Fortner said. Almost as quickly, though, she decided not to go. “And then I read the fine print, that there wouldn’t be ice or any possibility of a medevac, and said, ‘Fuck that noise.’”

“People better be veterans if they’re planning to go without that safety net,” Fortner’s husband, Cooper Crouse, added. “The thing that’s trying to kill you is the heat, the altitude. There’s no humidity. You’re constantly fighting dehydration, sleep deprivation, and heat exhaustion, so any additional intoxicants add to that physical stress load. Everyone focuses on the substances without acknowledging how brutal that environment is.” (Unprepared newcomers taking on environments they’re not ready for has been something of a theme of the pandemic. Some wilderness search and rescue teams have been strained to their breaking point searching for missing hikers and campers across the U.S.)

The 2018 festival as seen from above. Photo by DigitalGlobe via Getty Images

For Fortner and Crouse, though, Burning Man has never really been the main event. Fortner is a longtime volunteer at Flipside, the oldest so-called “regional burn,” which takes place outside Austin over Memorial Day weekend; Crouse is a Flipside board member. (Like Burning Man, Flipside was also canceled this year.) Regionals are held all over the world, from Texas to Spain, throughout the year, and for some people they’ve become as important—if not more so—than Burning Man itself.

“We call Burning Man the ‘Nevada Regional,’” Fortner said, chuckling. The intimate, community-driven nature of regionals brings something very different. “You don’t get as many spectators at the regionals,” she added. “You need so many volunteers to run events, everyone has to pitch in—or should. For a 3,500 person event, we have medical, mental health services, site ops, perimeter, Rangers, fire team—and more. We try and instill in the community a culture of volunteerism. You can’t just go, like it’s a thing you can spectate, like someone who bought a ticket and that’s all.”

Clovis Buford has also attended Flipside about 20 times, and said he’s optimistic that both events will be “amazing” come 2022. “The art will be fantastic. You know, the Roaring 20s coming out of the flu of 1918 was quite the scene.” (Buford, Crouse, and Fortner all wanted to make it clear that they were speaking only for themselves, not as representatives of Flipside or Burning Man.)

Buford, who is 65, said that the cancellation of Flipside was hard. “It’s like a family reunion for me at this point.” He quarantined by himself for much of the past year, which wasn’t easy. “At this point I feel like we all had a year stolen and we probably oughta make up for it,” he said. “It’s certainly made me reflect on the very temporary nature of us being here.”

When Burning Man does reconvene, it’ll be in a radically changed world. Logan Mirto, DPW’s personnel manager, has spent his unexpected time off sharpening his other skills, like working on Burning Man’s podcast as a producer, and planning how to make the coming year even better for his crew. But he has also spent a good deal of time thinking about grief, loss, and how next year’s Burning Man will reflect those forces, which have borne down on nearly everyone in the world in one way or another.

“None of us who have gone through this are the same people we were,” Mirto said. “Burning Man is always a reflection of what people bring to it. There’s a place for grief in Black Rock City. There’s a place for exploration and release. It’s a city and it’s evolved to meet the needs of its community. The community is robust. It’s thousands of people. I’m not concerned they’ll bring all that energy to it. The people who have chosen to make Burning Man a part of their lives, they recognize what Black Rock City will provide, and I hope it will provide them the catharsis or release or closure they need to feel like life is resuming.”

In a statement, Burning Man Project told VICE:

Many Burners consider the Black Rock Desert their home away from home, so it’s only natural that some will decide to head out there this summer. We here at Burning Man Project share this enthusiasm for visiting the playa in a year without Black Rock City, and we encourage our community to recreate responsibly. Planning ahead, playing it safe, being prepared, respecting local communities, and leaving no trace are central to making sure we all do it right.

Through observations from our staff, it is our understanding that the July 4 weekend, normally a time when some Burners visit the Black Rock Desert separate from the Burning Man event, was a safe and responsible time of recreation.

Burners adapt to all sorts of situations, and this summer provides another opportunity for the beginning of a new era. We have all the confidence in the world that our community and culture will continue to be great stewards of our desert home.

Follow Anna Merlan on Twitter.

What Is Burning Man Without Burning Man? syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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gethealthy18-blog · 5 years

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My Common-Sense Guide to Viruses and Pandemics (for Moms)

New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/news/my-common-sense-guide-to-viruses-and-pandemics-for-moms/

My Common-Sense Guide to Viruses and Pandemics (for Moms)

Table of Contents[Hide][Show]

I recently spent a long day interviewing medical experts about the current global pandemic and what it could mean for us all individually and societally. When Hurricane Michael caused massive devastation several years ago, I wrote a post about emergency preparedness, but after my research and interviews today, I felt that this current situation deserves its own type of approach.

I’m going to share tips from experts and what my family is doing to stay healthy and prepare for potential social distancing scenarios or shortages of supplies. Nothing in this post is meant to be medical or health advice, and I’m not commenting on the severity of the virus. I am not a doctor or immunologist and I recommend reading articles like this one from Dr. Elisa Song for the medical implications.

My Personal Take on Pandemics

On a personal level, I’m not too worried about anyone in my immediate family if any of us get the virus. There are no reported deaths in children under 9 and it exhibits with mild symptoms even in most adults (except elderly populations). That said, the biggest concern I heard today from researchers and doctors is that a quick spike in cases could overwhelm the medical system and lead to major healthcare and economic problems down the road. For this reason, they are strongly encouraging us all to take steps to “flatten the curve” and slow the spread if possible.

I’ve detailed many of these measures below but common recommendations from experts include:

Thorough and frequent handwashing (this is a great video on how to wash hands properly, for kids and maybe some adults too!)

Minimizing unnecessary social contact and avoiding large groups

Postponing non-essential travel (for now)

Monitoring for symptoms and avoiding going out in public if symptomatic

Keep an ear out for a detailed podcast on Monday with recommendations from Dr. Elisa Song.

This post is simply to share what I’m doing and would love to hear your opinion in the comments. Please join the conversation in a respectful and helpful way.

Prepare for More Time at Home

The most recent reports indicate that many of us might be spending more time at home over the next few weeks and months. Schools and universities are closing. Offices are adjusting policies. Grocery stores are selling out of food and household supplies. Experts are recommending voluntary social distancing as much as possible. For now, these measures are voluntary, but it’s a great idea to be prepared with what we need at home either way.

Their reasoning? The more we can slow the spread of the virus and flatten the curve, the less serious it should be nationwide and the more of a chance our healthcare system has of being able to handle it.

While the Instagram world is filled with jokes about people being more worried about being stuck at home with their kids for two weeks than the virus itself… being in our homes for long periods of time is a possibility at this point and one that we should all rationally prepare for.

We already homeschool, but since travel and activities may be canceled, we’ll be focusing on things we want to do but can’t always make time for, like:

I also have the Bored Jar ready and waiting if needed!

Stock Up on Essentials (Without Stockpiling)

If you’ve been to any store, you’ve likely already noticed that a lot of common items are selling out. Hand sanitizer is not available anywhere and even the ingredients to make it are in limited supply. I’m sharing links to items I’ve ordered and also substitutes for times when basic items are not available.

What I’m Stocking:

A 60-day supply of any essential medicines or supplements

Dr. Bronner’s Liquid Castile Soap – for making hand soap, cleaning, etc.

Dr. Bronner’s Sal Suds – stronger cleaner and also works as laundry detergent

Branch Basics – all-purpose cleaner that can be used for laundry and even as soap

Toilet paper and baby wipes

Tampons and pads (or I recommend getting a reusable menstrual cup which is also much more effective and comfortable!)

Food in bulk from Thrive Market: canned goods (beans, vegetables, etc.), tuna, sardines, nuts, rice, hemp hearts, peanut butter, oils: olive, coconut, etc., chia seeds

Pet food

Laundry detergent

Protect Our Home Environment

My house is still the hangout spot for all the neighborhood kids (who are all now home from school) so I’ve stocked up on healthy foods, but am also taking these measures to help slow or minimize potential spread:

Using Air Filters: I’ve been keeping our Air Doctor and Air Oasis machines running non-stop. Here’s my review of all air filters.

Diffusing Essential Oils: I grabbed a couple extra diffusers and stocked up on Plant Therapy Essential Oils (Germ Fighter, Defender, ImmuneAid, RespirAid, Calming the Child, and others).

Extra Hand Washing: Experts agree that hand washing is one of the best steps we can take to stop the spread and minimize our chances of getting it. I stocked up on liquid castile soap and am making big batches of my homemade foaming hand soap with added Plant Therapy Germ Destroyer essential oil. I’m reminding everyone to wash their hands with warm water and soap for at least 30 seconds especially after being out in public places.

Hand Sanitizer: I’ve also made big batches of my homemade hand sanitizer recipe to keep on hand when we are out of the house. I don’t normally use hand sanitizer but do at times like this and just added a recipe to that post for an alcohol-based version that meets current recommendations.

Saline Nasal Irrigation: Another step I always take this time of year. We’ve been using Genexa Saline (save 20% with code WELLNESS) after travel or potential exposure.

Focus on Our Immune Systems

Even when there isn’t a global pandemic, it’s a good idea to bolster our immune systems this time of year. These are good things to do during cold and flu season anyway.

Vitamin C: I stocked up on bulk ascorbic acid and food-based vitamin C capsules.

Vitamin D: In our podcast episode, Dr. Elisa Song explained that having good vitamin D levels is important for avoiding respiratory complications. It won’t keep us from getting sick but it has been shown to shorten duration and lessen severity. I keep these high-dose drops on hand and test our levels to make sure we are in safe range.

Genexa Remedies for Comfort: In case any of us get any of the things going around, I keep Genexa Cold Crush and Flu Fix on hand to lessen symptoms. Use code WELLNESS to save 20% on all products at this link.

Bone Broth: Contains amino acids that are immune-supporting. I just stocked up on Kettle and Fire Broth since it is also non-perishable and great to have on hand.

Get More Sleep: Sleep deprivation can weaken the immune system. This time of year, it’s important to get enough high quality sleep. This post has some tips.

It’s important to remember that although concern is high, our bodies are equipped with an incredible system of defense, which we should support in any way we can.

Useful DIY Recipes as Items Become Unavailable

We’ve all read the stories about store shelves emptying out. If you’re looking for the following items, consider making them yourself as in most cases you can still get the ingredients.

Here are the recipes:

I’ll keep updating this post as other ideas come to me. Solidarity to all of the moms wondering and researching out there right now… and tune in on Monday to my podcast with Dr. Elisa Song for more.

Are you worried about everything going on? What steps are you taking? Share below!

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/424222/pandemics/

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biofunmy · 5 years

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Elder care homes rake in profits as workers earn a pittance

She alights from a black Ferrari convertible, her Christian Louboutin stilettos glinting in the sunlight. The lid of her black lacquer grand piano is propped open in the living room of her plush Beverly Hills home.

“I own a chain of elderly care facilities,” she says into the camera on Bravo’s reality television show “The Millionaire Matchmaker.” ”My net worth is $3 to $4 million, probably.”

Stephanie Costa was 30 and enjoying a lifestyle supported in part by six board-and-care homes she owned in California’s Central Valley. But half of that fortune was threatened when she and her company initially were cited for about $1.6 million for labor violations, including wage theft – not paying 11 employees for working much of 24 hours a day, six days a week.

Costa, who declined to be interviewed for this story, is a rare public face of a burgeoning multibillion-dollar elder care industry that is enabling operators to become wealthy by treating workers as indentured servants. Across the country, legions of these caregivers earn a pittance to tend to the elderly in residential houses refurbished as care facilities, according to an investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting.

The profit margins can be huge and, for violators of labor laws, hinge on the widespread exploitation of thousands of caretakers, many of them poor immigrants effectively earning $2 to $3.50 an hour to work around the clock. The federal hourly minimum wage is $7.25.

Reveal interviewed more than 80 workers, care-home operators and government regulators and reviewed hundreds of wage theft cases handled by California and federal labor regulators, workers and local district attorneys. The investigation found rampant wage theft has pushed a vast majority of these caregivers into poverty.

Workers are left feeling desperate and trapped. Many caregivers say they rise before daybreak to cook meals, shower residents and scrub toilets. At night, they are deprived of sufficient sleep because they have to wake to change adult diapers, dispense painkillers, return wandering dementia residents to their beds and shift the bedridden every two hours to thwart bedsores.

Workers describe sleeping in hallways and garages, on couches and the floor. Some care homes deduct $25 a day from caregivers’ paychecks for “lodging.”

Exploited caregivers rarely are allowed a day off; even then, they often must pay their substitutes. Two caregivers recounted having miscarriages after their bosses refused to allow them time off or to stop lifting heavy residents.

Because these workers often live where they work, they are under the watchful eye of their bosses. They are bullied into not cooperating with investigators. In some cases, care-home operators have threatened to report undocumented workers to authorities.

Human trafficking – in which workers, particularly Filipinos, are coerced, manipulated and exploited – also is not uncommon, according to prosecutors and attorneys. For example, several family members were charged last year with human trafficking and labor abuse in a case involving caregivers in San Mateo County, California, south of San Francisco.

“It’s a classic tale of human greed,” said Tia Koonse, legal and policy research manager at the UCLA Labor Center. “Their entire business model is predicated on not making payroll. It relies on people being willing to work for 24 hours a day for less than a dollar an hour. Only trafficked people will put up with that.”

————

The growth of board-and-care homes in neighborhoods across the United States is tied to medical advances, enabling aging baby boomers to live longer despite debilitating illnesses. This has resulted in an increasing number of gravely ill people or their family members seeking an alternative to costly nursing home care. There were about 29,000 residential care communities nationwide and about 300,000 full-time caregivers in 2016, according to the most recent federal figures available. About two-thirds are smaller facilities with four to 25 residents, many with dementia. California leads the nation with more than 7,300 residential care facilities licensed by the state.

Stephanie Costa provides a case study in exploiting workers, getting caught breaking labor laws and circumventing full punishment.

In 2013, 11 workers brought wage theft claims after providing around-the-clock care in the care homes Costa owned. They changed adults’ diapers, comforted the dying and hoisted infirm residents into bed. They worked six days a week and subsisted on meager wages, according to interviews and court documents.

The workers said they risked being fired if they left the facilities and had no off-duty rest breaks during the day. Costa’s care homes promoted 24/7 care for frail clients.

“We knew we were being underpaid,” said Juliet Delos Reyes, 60, a former caregiver employed by Costa. “But we were helpless. We didn’t know our rights. How could we leave?”

Reyes said she was not allowed to leave the home without permission when clients were present.

In many cases, workers in the industry fall into jobs that become increasingly abusive. A substantial number are working in the U.S. without authorization or applying to remain legally in the country. They are paid less than they’re promised, isolated and restricted to the facilities.

Residents in these care homes typically are more than 60 years old. The annual national median cost for each resident is about $48,000. Dementia residents often pay more. Some owners tack on extra charges for those who are incontinent or desire more than two showers a week.

Over the last decade, care-home operators across the nation broke minimum wage, overtime or record-keeping laws in at least 1,400 cases, federal data shows. About 35 percent of them were in California. Data obtained by Reveal through a California Public Records Act request shows senior care facilities in the state have pending wage theft claims against them or have been ordered to pay back wages and penalties in more than 110 additional cases.

Three months after Costa’s star turn on Bravo in 2013, the state labor commissioner’s office ordered Costa and her company, Bedford Care Group, to pay about $1.6 million for unpaid wages and penalties. That’s when she changed tactics.

Papers were then filed with the state to create two new residential care-home companies called Clear View Retirement Group LLC and Copper River Retirement Group LLC. Costa’s mother, Alice Hayes, is secretary, one of two officers, of these companies, according to licensing records. Hayes declined to comment.

These new companies then received licenses from the state to run the six former Bedford care homes. But the structure and administrative staff in the care homes? Hayes assured residents that they would remain the same. In December 2014, following an appeal, the amount owed for the labor violations was reduced to $665,000. But around the same time, Costa’s Bedford Care Group filed for bankruptcy, a legal maneuver that allowed her to effectively slash the amount she owed workers by settling the case for about $200,000, which she paid.

Three weeks after Costa’s care-home business filed for bankruptcy, her father registered a new company with the state called Property Investment Housing LLC. The company then took over as the new owner of Costa’s six care homes. Her father did not return a call seeking comment. Stephanie Costa is the company’s chief executive, records show.

———

Stephanie Costa represents a rare case in which an operator paid up, if only a partial amount of the original fine. Residential care facilities for the elderly receive among the largest wage theft judgments of any industry. Yet Reveal found that some facility owners caught cheating their workers are able to evade fines and judgments.

Many companies play shell games by not keeping money or real estate holdings in the name of the company against which judgments or fines are entered. They simply abandon their company names – and the judgments against those named entities – rendering the penalties and wage theft judgments meaningless.

Across the country, states are charged with regulating board-and-care facilities. In California, the state labor commissioner’s office and U.S. Department of Labor, in addition to some local governments, are charged with investigating wage theft. State and federal regulators say privately that they need many more investigators and lawyers to chase down scofflaws and force them to pay.

The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division declined to make top officials available for an interview. But in a written statement, a Labor Department spokesman said: “Last year the division recovered a record-setting $304 million in back wages for workers and conducted a record-setting 3,600 outreach events to provide information to employers, employees, and other stakeholders about the requirements of the law.”

The agency noted that in California, it has conducted investigations and “extensive outreach” to care-home operators “ensuring that they pay their workers the wages they have legally earned.”

At least 20 companies providing care for the elderly, disabled and mentally ill in California continue to operate illegally – many of them under their original names – after ignoring judgments for back wages and penalties totaling more than $1.4 million, Reveal found. A 2016 law barred companies with outstanding wage theft judgments from conducting business in the state. But the state Department of Social Services’ Community Care Licensing Division, which is in charge of licensing facilities for the elderly and disabled, has not followed through.

Pat Leary, acting director of the Department of Social Services, declined through spokesman Michael Weston to be interviewed. But in an email, Weston wrote that while the law allows his agency to deny a new license or not renew an existing one, the agency can take these steps only if it finds residents’ health and safety have been threatened.

For her part, Costa’s former employee Juliet Delos Reyes desperately needed the total back pay she was owed before the bankruptcy of Costa’s company. She now cares for her husband, who is on dialysis. His medical bills are crushing.

“We didn’t save anything. It affected us badly,” Reyes said through tears. “I just hope that someday the government will look at how caregivers are treated.”

In mid-2016, the California Social Services Department banned Costa from the assisted living business for life after finding multiple health and safety violations. Among the violations: caregivers working without required criminal background checks; caregivers lacking the proper skills to test the glucose of a diabetic resident whose hands had been amputated; taking in hospice patients without the state’s permission; and arguing with the friend of a resident who was sent to the hospital, prompting staff there to ask her to leave.

Costa ignored the ban and continued to hire and fire workers at the care homes. So state licensing officials in April 2017 had Costa’s mother sign a declaration promising Costa would not be involved in “any capacity” with the companies – Copper River Retirement Group and Clear View Retirement Group – that operate the care homes she once ran.

But even after that meeting, records show, Costa listed herself as a managing member of Clear View Retirement Group. Costa’s name has since been removed from the most recent business filings received by the state.

A representative for the care-home industry readily acknowledged wrongdoing but blamed thin profit margins for necessitating the practice of underpaying workers.

“Are there problems? There are lots of problems,” said Ronald Simpson, a founding director of 6Beds Inc., a lobbying and advocacy organization that represents more than 1,000 operators of small residential care facilities for seniors in California. “Elderly people aren’t able to pay what they’d need to pay for these homes to be compliant.”

Still, for workers earning anemic pay, “it’s possible they’re happy, too,” he added.

Simpson then lashed out at Reveal for investigating wage theft in the industry.

“What you’re doing is not a service to the industry,” he said. “It makes the whole industry look like they’re getting rich and ripping people off.”

As he spoke, Simpson was busy organizing one of the group’s all-day workshops for care-home operators on labor laws, which the 6Beds website promised would give them a key bit of advice: how to “minimize labor costs.”

———

For four years, Sonia Deza rose every morning at 5 a.m. to cook, clean, and wash and medicate her charges at Scienn Hail Home Care IV in Antioch, California, a city of about 100,000 people in the San Francisco Bay Area. She could not sit down again to rest until 10 p.m., after she tucked residents into bed and organized their prescriptions for the next day.

A long night still lay ahead; some wandering dementia residents needed help back to bed, and others had to be shifted every two hours. Deza rarely took a day off, as she would need to pay her substitute. She earned about $2 an hour. She worried she would be fired if she complained.

Then in 2013, federal regulators ordered Deza’s bosses, Glenda and Rommel Publico, to pay Deza and 21 other workers more than $133,000 in back wages for violating federal minimum wage and overtime laws.

The Publicos wrote Deza two checks totaling more than $17,700 in back wages. But instead of letting her deposit the checks, Rommel Publico demanded the money back, claiming it was his, Deza said in an interview. She said she was frightened he would fire her if she refused. So she served her residents lunch and then took a rare break on two afternoons in July 2013. Rommel Publico picked her up from work and drove her to two different banks.

“I took the checks into the banks, then returned to the car and gave him the cash,” said Deza, 66. “Oh my goodness, that’s my money. I worked so hard for it. I really needed that money. It’s big money for me.”

Publico let her keep $1,000. He called it a bonus, she said.

Three of Deza’s co-workers said in interviews that they also were forced to return the back wages. According to federal Labor Department records, the Publicos submitted false documents to labor investigators purporting to show they’d paid the back wages. Still other workers never received a check in the first place. They still are waiting.

Prosecutors from the Contra Costa County district attorney’s office have charged the Publicos with multiple felonies, including grand theft and tax fraud. The case is pending.

In a phone interview, Rommel Publico defended the treatment of his caregivers and said the charges against him “hurt my feelings.”

“When we ran the business, we were like a family,” Publico said through tears. “My caregivers, I treat them like my mom. I’ve never been like, ‘I’m the boss.’

“Every time I turn around, I have problems,” he said of the pending case against him. “It breaks my heart. I cry.”

Another Publico employee who was not paid back wages is Normita Lim. She worked around the clock as a caregiver in one of their care homes for nearly a decade, earning about $2 an hour. Rarely allowed a day off, she kept working, afraid she would be fired if she complained. On Christmas and Thanksgiving holidays, her three children visited her in the cramped room she lived in down the hall from the residents.

“I’m still struggling,” said Lim, 75. “I needed that money for my medications and food, but he got away with murder by not having to pay. I’m angry, but what can we do?”

In late 2017, the Publicos sold the care home where Lim worked. She said she stayed on as a caregiver for just a month under the new owner. She earned about $600 that month to work around the clock, seven days a week, for less than a dollar an hour. A man at the care home said the facility is now called Elizabeth Care Homes 2. But the property still is licensed to Glenda Publico, records show.

“I thought, ‘This is worse,’ so I quit,” Lim said.

———

Workers often fear reporting their mistreatment to authorities. They routinely are harassed and fired if they report abysmal pay or overtime violations, according to interviews and court documents. Reveal found 90 caregivers in California who said their bosses intimidated them, threatened to report them to immigration authorities or blacklist them in the industry.

In 2014, federal investigators caught Lake Alhambra Center in Antioch cheating its workers – for a second time. When an investigator visited, an employee put him on the phone with Mehrangiz Sarkeshik, who owned the home with her husband.

She excoriated the investigator for the intrusion: “You didn’t tell me you were coming. Leave right now!”

Then the investigator overheard Sarkeshik shout at the worker over the phone: “You need to get him out of there or you will be fired!” She called the police and upon arriving at the home, she again threatened to fire any workers who cooperated with the investigator, according to a court document. When the investigator tried to follow up, workers told him that they were too scared to talk. Soon afterward, the facility changed hands and now operates under a different name. No wage theft fines have been issued to this operator to date.

Precilla San Miguel, an owner of San Miguel Homes for the Elderly, which operates three facilities in Union City, near Silicon Valley, kept timesheets that showed caregivers worked eight hours a day, even though their employment manual required them to be available 24 hours per day, seven days a week to seniors.

She went as far as fabricating evidence to cover up her wage theft, court documents show. Workers said she offered them bribes to falsify timesheets and required them to sign agreements not to sue her. She also installed surveillance cameras in her care homes to monitor caregivers, workers said. The court ordered the defendants to pay $425,000 in back wages and damages.

Last year, four members of a family were charged with various felonies, including human trafficking and labor abuse, in San Mateo County, south of San Francisco. State prosecutors say Gamos family members preyed on Filipino immigrants and “enslaved” some in their Rainbow Bright facilities. Family members forced some to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and some caregivers had their passports withheld, prosecutors say.

In court filings, prosecutors allege that some workers slept on mattresses on the floor and in garages and were prohibited from leaving the facilities, where they cared for children, the disabled and some seniors. Some workers who were injured on the job were told to lie to emergency room doctors about how they were maimed. They also were forced to pay their medical bills, according to the court documents.

Even as his family cheated workers out of more than $9 million in wages from 2009 through 2018, Joshua Gamos, one of the facilities’ owners, collected a fleet of cars, including a Lamborghini and a Ferrari, prosecutors allege in court documents. Gamos also is charged with raping a caregiver. She was 21 when she began working for the facilities shortly after arriving from the Philippines. Joshua, Noel and Carlina Gamos are in jail awaiting trial. A fourth defendant, Gerlen Gamos, pleaded guilty to two felony charges, including wage theft, and is awaiting sentencing. Her attorney declined to comment.

Attorneys for Joshua and Carlina Gamos said no workers were forced to work at the facilities. An attorney for Noel Gamos did not return calls seeking comment.

“Those allegations are false,” said David Cohen, an attorney for Joshua Gamos. “People wanted to work because they wanted the money. It is true that these charges have been brought, but when you actually look at the evidence and the statements that were made, it’s a completely different story.”

Meanwhile, Reveal learned of cases in which workers suffered abuse with devastating consequences. Two caregivers reported having miscarriages after lifting heavy residents and being denied time off.

One of them was Julie Riduta, 45, of Concord. More than a decade ago, she arrived from the Philippines to work as a caregiver in a care home in Contra Costa County. She earned $2 an hour to work 24 hours a day.

The work was grueling, but she needed the pay to educate her daughter, left behind in the Philippines, from the age of 8. For the first three years, Riduta slept on a thin piece of foam on the floor next to the residents. When they needed help, she said they kicked her awake.

“I told my daughter I struggled so much,” Riduta recalled. “I feel abused.”

Then one day in the summer of 2014, she found out she was pregnant. Overjoyed, she and the baby’s father, a co-worker with whom she is in a relationship, posted the news on Facebook.

She also was overcome with morning sickness and was concerned about having to lift heavy residents. But when she begged her boss for two days off, Riduta said she refused.

“Go to the mirror and look at yourself,” Riduta recalled her boss saying. “Ask if you’re allowed to complain.”

Riduta had a miscarriage two weeks later. The cause was unknown. The fetus was nine weeks old.

“I was crying all night,” Riduta said. “I still have this dream that there’s a baby crying all the time. They treated us like animals.”

———

While some are unsure how to pay their workers properly, care-home owners are certain about one thing: There is money to be made.

Entrepreneurs on YouTube urge people to jump into the real estate end of the business by buying single-family homes and converting them into care facilities. One man explains how “to turn a single-family home into a cash flow machine.” Another calls care homes “America’s untapped business opportunity. . This business is very profitable.”

Jesse Quezada used to flip houses with his wife. When the market cooled, he said, they looked into opening a care home after a friend told them they could make thousands a month.

“Coming from our background, we thought, ‘$3,500 a month? Wow. Would people actually pay that?’ But the demand is there. People are living longer and they’re sicker.”

Quezada and his wife enrolled in a course required by California to run a home. In just two long weekends, they were qualified. They now operate several care homes.

“When you have multiple homes, you can literally make $20,000 profit a month,” he said.

Training requirements for care-home administrators and staff in California are feeble. Administrators must undergo an initial 80-hour program and pass an open-book exam comprising 100 questions. Those overseeing small facilities with 15 or fewer residents must be 21 and have a high school diploma or the equivalent. Staff in assisted living facilities need not be nurses or have any medical expertise. In fact, manicurists in California require more training.

Quezada was among more than 200 care-home owners, many of whom arrived in BMWs and Teslas, for a daylong seminar at a Southern California community hall last October. Among the presenters were labor regulators and attorneys who took questions from the crowd.

Attendees sought advice on proper pay practices and other labor issues and were advised by the presenters to follow the law.

Then George Kutnerian, senior vice president of public policy and legislation for the 6Beds group, took the stage as one of the last speakers. Operators should slash costs by leveraging labor laws to their advantage, Kutnerian urged them.

For example, owners do not need to hire two caregivers when they could get away with one, Kutnerian said.

“There is no staffing ratio. A lot of people think, ‘I can’t have one caregiver alone.’ That’s not true,” he advised.

“You gotta learn how to use one caregiver,” he said. Plus, there’s a “nice exception” in state law, Kutnerian continued. Care homes with just one caregiver on duty can require that worker to stay for rest and meal breaks, he noted, adding: “If you have two caregivers there, they have to be able to leave. It’s more efficient, OK?

“What this is getting you out of is the penalty,” Kutnerian boomed over the microphone. “That’s the trick. How do you keep them on the premises for rest and meal breaks?”

For owners who treat their workers properly, the market pressure is intense. While there are operators who comply with the law and turn a profit, some care homes charge less to attract residents searching for affordable care.

“It’s frustrating to be undercut,” said Jose Umana, who runs Premiere Cottages, which operates several care homes in Long Beach and Huntington Beach. “It’s hard to stay in the market when you’re competing with other homes that have lower rates. The caregivers are bearing the brunt.”

William Murphy, a prosecutor with the Alameda County district attorney’s office in the San Francisco Bay Area who has handled a dozen wage theft cases involving care homes in the last five years, says the business model depends on squeezing workers. He summed it up in two brief sentences:

“It’s extreme greed by the owners. The workers are treated horribly.”

———

Data reporter Melissa Lewis contributed to this story. Jennifer Gollan can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @jennifergollan.

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repwincoml4a0a5 · 8 years

Text

Neil Gorsuch Made Up A Legal Standard That Weakens Promises To Kids With Disabilities

WASHINGTON ― At the Supreme Court podium in January, lawyer Neal Katyal was hit with a series of questions that he wasn’t really ready for.

The justices wanted to know who came up with the legal standard “merely more than de minimis” ― a phrase that could undercut the law for students with disabilities across the country. If upheld, the standard would reduce the educational benefits those children are promised under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

“What’s the origin of this phrase, ‘More than de minimis’? Who thought this up?” asked Justice Samuel Alito. The law generally defines “de minimis” as being so small as to be legally insignificant.

“Who invented it?” asked Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, noting that it isn’t found in the Supreme Court’s leading precedent on states’ responsibilities under the IDEA.

While Ginsburg was setting up her question, Justice Elena Kagan jumped in to emphasize the word “merely” — as if to underscore that the standard Katyal was defending is indeed a stingy one.

The accomplished appellate attorney, who is representing a Colorado school district in the dispute, didn’t have a good answer, saying only that the standard was developed over time by the lower courts. But he would have nailed the response if he’d simply said, “Neil Gorsuch.”

Judge Gorsuch, who is now President Donald Trump’s eminently qualified Supreme Court nominee, broke new ground when he used “merely more than de minimis” in a 2008 ruling. That decision has become the touchstone for Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District, the case the justices heard in January and will likely decide by the end of June.

Gorsuch picked the phrase “out of the blue,” said Jack Robinson, the Colorado lawyer representing the child at the center of the current case.

Advocates and parents of students with disabilities are watching the case closely because it could, for the first time in more than 30 years, clarify the benchmark that schools must meet when drawing up individualized education plans for kids under the IDEA.

The federal law, which Congress has improved several times, is designed to ensure that children with disabilities have the opportunity to receive a “free appropriate public education.” One of the complexities comes in determining what constitutes an “appropriate” education for kids with more disabling conditions.

Some appeals courts have set a higher standard: Schools must provide the children with a “meaningful educational benefit” that allows them to thrive in school. At least five of the federal circuit courts take a more modest approach: The educational benefits contemplated in students’ individualized plans need only be more than trivial ― the “more than de minimis” test.

But in the six states covered by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, including Colorado, the bar is even lower: merely more than de minimis. Or the bare minimum.

The standard “has the effect of depriving children with disabilities of the benefits Congress has granted them by law,” the Obama administration told the Supreme Court last year in a brief urging the review and ultimate rejection of the 10th Circuit standard in the Endrew F. case.

The 10th Circuit is Gorsuch’s court. According to Robinson, that court had already adopted a low bar in 1996, when it first embraced “more than de minimis.” But Gorsuch’s 2008 opinion was the first in the nation to add the qualifier “merely” to the mix, Robinson said.

That may explain why Alito, Ginsburg and Kagan were mystified by its origins. No version of the term appears in Board of Education v. Rowley, the 1982 Supreme Court case that set the IDEA baseline which the justices are now trying to clarify.

Gorsuch “took some wording from a previous case, but then he added his own twist,” said Jeff Perkins, whose son Luke’s struggles with autism gave rise to the lowest-of-the-low standard in the 10th Circuit. Perkins opposes the Gorsuch nomination and is expected to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week, when confirmation hearings begin.

Robinson had represented the Perkins family a decade ago, when their case, Thompson R2-J School District v. Luke P., went before a three-judge panel including Gorsuch.

Luke’s parents sued the Colorado school district because it had refused to reimburse them after they moved their son to Boston Higashi School, a specialized residential facility for children with autism. Such private school placements, paid for by the public school district, are allowable under the IDEA in limited circumstances.

It’s not that the school district wasn’t doing what it could to meet Luke’s educational needs. As Gorsuch put it, his “life away from school during the same time paints a much different picture.” Berthoud Elementary, where Luke attended second grade, didn’t seem equipped to prepare him for home life.

“Luke was unevenly tempered, often displaying inappropriate and sometimes violent behavior at home and in public places such as grocery stores and restaurants,” Gorsuch wrote. “He developed various sleep problems ― going to bed at odd hours, waking up frequently at night, and refusing to sleep in a bed. Luke also developed a habit of intentionally spreading his nighttime bowel movements around his bedroom. In addition, although Luke became toilet trained at school by the time he was in first grade, he was not able to transfer this skill to the home and other settings away from school.”

Based on this record, a hearing officer, an administrative judge and a federal district judge agreed in three separate decisions that the school district needed to reimburse Luke’s parents for a private school placement ― which Robinson and Perkins both said made a world of difference for Luke.

“Within a very short period of time, he becomes a functioning human being,” Robinson said. The lawyer added that where a child’s educational plan recommends live-in placement at a specialized school, many school districts simply comply.

How could he have imagined that Congress would pass a law whose goal was such a trivial standard? Jeff Perkins, whose son's case came before Judge Neil Gorsuch

But Gorsuch saw things differently. He led the 10th Circuit panel in reversing those three prior decisions, emphasizing that the IDEA benefits available to children like Luke were “limited in scope.”

“We sympathize with Luke’s family and do not question the enormous burdens they face,” he wrote in the decision, which effectively forced the Perkins family to pay for their son’s education out of pocket. “Our job, however, is to apply the law as Congress has written it and the Supreme Court has interpreted it.”

Gorsuch added that the statute only requires schools to create an individual educational plan that allows a student to achieve “some progress” toward the goals identified in that plan. Or in the judge’s more telling phrase, “merely more than de minimis” progress.

Luke’s case has gained attention from those who, like Luke’s father, oppose the Gorsuch nomination. The National Educational Association, the largest teachers union in the country, cites it in a report critiquing his record on the rights of students with disabilities.

In their decision, Gorsuch’s potential future colleagues could raise the standard he set. The Supreme Court “expressed significant skepticism over the very low bar that Judge Gorsuch’s opinion espouses,” the union report observes.

“If the Supreme Court gives a different signal, that will empower parents to expect more and for school districts to feel that they have to deliver more,” Robinson said.

The judge’s defenders, meanwhile, have argued that he was simply applying the law as the high court understood it in 1982. Liberal Harvard law professor Noah Feldman wrote in a column that Gorsuch’s interpretation of what the IDEA requires was “plausible.”

Today Luke is 22 and has aged out of the special education system. He still lives in Massachusetts. He participates in a work program, goes shopping, eats at restaurants and engages in other activities that likely wouldn’t have been possible without the special school.

“Luke has a good life, and he has a life that he simply would not have been able to have without an appropriate education,” said his father, who still can’t get over the 10th Circuit’s ruling.

“How could [Gorsuch] have imagined that Congress would pass a law whose goal was such a trivial standard?” Perkins wondered.

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porchenclose10019 · 8 years