Protesting a protest

At a local community center, there is a monthly presentation of documentary films, usually with a strong advocating, progressive bent. The name of the film series is "Conscientious Projector," which really tickles me. I think it’s a terrific, even beautiful, clever take-off on conscientious objector.

But there are times when progressive advocacy and action isn’t so clever and terrific. It is often not beautiful, it is often downright ugly, but there are times when it is just silly and foolish. Such was the case on two Sundays ago.

It was Commencement Weekend here in Claremont, when the colleges held their graduation ceremonies. The speaker at Pomona College’s event on Sunday morning was Janet Napolitano, the former Democratic governor of Arizona and current director of homeland security under President Obama, and I decided to go by and hear her after attending Quaker meeting.

I thought I would get there in time to hear Ms. Napolitano, but as I approached the site, I heard considerable noise, like a large crowd cheering or clapping. Was I too late? Did Ms. Napolitano already speak, and were the diplomas already being handed out? It was only about 50 minutes into the ceremony.

When I was able to see what was going on, it turned out there was a big crowd, but it was not cheering or applauding. The people - a few hundred of them, according to reports that I read later - across the street from where the graduation was taking place were chanting and drumming, and they were not happy or celebrating. They were quite angry and all fired up.

Maybe it was because I was coming from the silent meeting for worship, but I was shocked and confused. Then I saw their signs about Arizona.

Of course. They were protesting the new Arizona law requiring state and local police to request proof of U.S citizenship from anyone they stop and suspect is an illegal immigrant, and they were targeting the director of homeland security, Ms. Napolitano, the morning’s honored guest and speaker. Perhaps I should have known.

But I was still shocked. Perhaps I was just not ready for such a large, noisy and angry protest. There was also a bunch of police, and it didn’t help that I had to go through a small contingent of supporters of the new law. Yikes!

And, more significantly, I was still confused.

When I made it into the graduation area, I saw that I had made it in plenty of time to hear Ms. Napolitano speak. I heard a few others speak before her, including honorary degree-recipient Robert Towne, the screenwriter of such highly regarded films as "Chinatown" and also a 1956 Pomona graduate. Hearing them was no problem, but there was definitely no escape from the relentless, furious noise from the protesters. I was exhausted just wondering how they kept it up. I was also wondering why they were doing it.

It’s not that I didn’t agree with what the protects were saying. Like them, I think the new Arizona law will lead to racial profiling and is discriminating and divisive. I also strongly believe in speaking up and protesting. But it seemed to me these people were barking up the wrong tree - and being unnecessarily obnoxious about it, to boot.

Sure, Ms. Napolitano and President Obama are operating with some of the old immigration policy from the Bush and previous administrations, but both have said that it has to be changed and made fairer, and both have strongly and clearly condemned the Arizona law. President Obama has directed the Department of Justice to see if the new law is unconstitutional, and Ms. Napolitano has said that if she was still governor, she definitely wouldn’t have signed the bill.

So why were these people angry at her? It occurred to me that they were perfect examples of liberals who are angry at Obama for not being the miracle-making Jesus that they expected.

More significantly, I was frustrated - yes, mad - at being made to feel bad for wanting to hear Ms. Napolitano. It was like I was guilty, like I supported the Arizona law. Moreover, although the college official who introduced Ms. Napolitano, who also received an honorary diploma, said that it was very exciting and a great honor that the day’s speaker was playing such a critical role in a vital national issue and also noted that many in attendance were wearing white ribbons in opposition to the law (if I’d known, I would have worn one), I felt bad for the graduates and their families and friends, whose big day was being marred.

I do wish Ms. Napolitano talked a bit more about policy. Instead, she veered more toward traditional commencement sentiments - being secure in one’s knowledge and values, having conviction and courage. In any case, I noticed that by the end of the speech, the protesters had left.

I left after the speech, I ran into a friend who had taken part in the protest and who was helping carry away a large sign. I was asked what I was doing there. "Are you protesting discrimination?" I laughed and said yes as they walked past me. If there had been more time, I would have explained that I was there to protest discrimination and also to listen to Ms. Napolitano.

Bad bad news

I’m being held hostage.

At least I was. I may or may not still be held hostage. Which, more or less by definition, means I’m being held hostage.

Last week, in the Los Angeles Times, there was a prominent article - big, section-leading headline - saying that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was considering the elimination of certain programs assisting the poor and disabled in debt-swamped California. The article noted that the governor was about to unveil his revised budget proposal (the "May revise") after the April tax revenue was even more abysmal than expected and that one of the programs that Schwarzenegger was thinking about ending was funding for in-home personal care attendants for the disabled.

That’s ending. Elimination. Not cutting. Schwarzenegger, who last year literally jumped to do a photo-op to save an apartment complex for the developmentally disabled, was arguing that he had to end these programs, because the courts had ruled that the programs can’t be cut. Yes, you’ve got it. The courts didn’t say that programs can’t be eliminated.

This would have been a hysterical farce, a beautiful example of Orwellian logic. Except that my stomach was being churned inside out. Except that it was my life that was poised to be eliminated.

What was even more upsetting and frustrating about the article is that it didn’t answer any of the questions that were screaming to be answered but that nobody thinks to ask. Questions like what does Schwarzenegger think people like me will do without the money to pay our attendants who get us out of bed, help us use the toilet, feed us, etc.? Does he think that our attendants, who need to make a living, will work for free, out of the kindness of their hearts? Does he think we’ll rely on family - even when, as in my case, they are too far away or aren’t able to help? Is he saying we should be forced into nursing homes, which is not only barbaric but far more costly? Or are we to be left to rot in our beds or on the sidewalk?

In a way, this is nothing new. Every year, for the last decade or two, when it comes time to pass a budget on July 1 (a deadline rarely not missed), there is some talk like this, and I worry. I worry for my life.

But this was the most drastic talk I’ve ever heard in such a flat, matter-of-fact way. Even as I knew it was just talk, even as I knew there is no way that the attendant-funding would end, I couldn’t help thinking the most drastic thoughts and worrying all the more. This was bad news told in the worst way.

Indeed, two days later, after Schwarzenegger had presented his updated proposed budget, the L.A Times story reported that it included cuts in - not the elimination of - the attendant-funding program. (Other programs, like the Cal-Works welfare-to-work program, are slated to end.) I don’t know what happened - perhaps Maria, with her Kennedy/bleeding-heart-Special-Olympics background, threatened to withhold sex from him if he terminated it. And hopefully the courts will hold their ground and not let the program be cut.

Hopefully.

(A p.s for faithful readers: At about the same time I was reading about the state budget and wondering also about Medi-Cal, I found out that Casa Colina Hospital only recently submitted the request for the Vmax speech device I have been writing about lately. I thought this was done weeks if not a month ago and that the response would be coming before too long. Hopefully, the delay was due to the therapists being extra careful in making a strong case and crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s for the notoriously nit-picking Medi-Cal. Keep those fingers and toes crossed!)

The politics of giving

There’s a new film out called "Please Give." I haven’t seen it yet, but the title itself is plenty provocative and controversial these days of program slashing and fomenting tea-partiers.

I was struck by two recent letters to the editor. One appeared in my hometown paper, the Claremont Courier, thanking those who attended and contributed to a fund-raiser for a local public elementary school. The other, appearing in the Los Angeles Times, had to do with a large donation by Hugh Hefner which will enable land next to the iconic Hollywood sign to be purchased, so that builders can’t develop it. The letter read, in part, "We have more homeless, unemployment is rising, education is suffering and our police and fire departments lack funding - and yet we have money for a sign. Yes, the sign is a monument of Hollywood, but so are the people of L.A. How about taking care of them?"

Maybe Mr. Hefner doesn’t care about the homeless and thinks the unemployed should fend for themselves. Maybe he rather save the Hollywood sign. Or maybe he already donates to the homeless, the unemployed, the schools, etc. After all, he has enough cash to spread around far and wide.

At about the same time that these two letters appeared, there was a massive free health clinic going on in a sports arena in Los Angeles. Thousands attended and got treatment, and while not as many were turned away as when the clinic was in L.A for the first time last year, some people did have to be turned away. Why? Because there still weren’t enough doctors and dentists volunteering during the week-long clinic.

Were there doctors and dentists who didn’t care or who didn’t want to take time off from their lucrative practices and work for free? On the other hand, there were doctors and dentists from other states wanted to come and volunteer and were frustrated that there are laws requiring a state’s license to work in a state.

The bottom line is that charity and volunteering are great and well worth cheering, but they can’t be relied upon. People are likely to give to a museum but probably not to the police or the sewer works. Or they may give to one school and not others. As if public schools should have to beg and rely on donations.

One argument that I heard constantly in the furor over healthcare insurance reform was, "I pay for my health insurance, thank you very much. Why should I pay for others’?" There are also thorny issues like some people not wanting to contribute to the public funding of abortion and others not wanting to fund war or the death penalty.

Putting these questions aside - if that’s possible - I have a question: I always hear people complaining about politicians who "tax and spend." Forgive me if I’m being naive, but why is it so wrong for government to "tax and spend?" I thought this is the purpose of government - to collect money from its citizens and then spend it where it is needed. Yes, there is abuse, which needs to be taken care of, but why would there be a government if it couldn’t tax, and why wouldn’t it spend the tax money?

On Medi-Cal - or not

It’s the waiting game, and I know a lot about playing it. I’m playing it now.

I went back to Casa Colina Hospital a couple weeks ago as part of an evaluation for a getting speech device - the Vmax by Dynavox. (See April 7 post.) This was the last appointment in the process, and now comes the hardest part.

Yep - waiting for Medi-Cal to approve - or not approve - my getting a Vmax (a reader has told me that "the device" sounds like a disease).

The three therapists who have now seen me - I have a team! - have (hopefully) written a report, endorsed by my physician, arguing why I should have the Vmax and submitted it to Medi-Cal. (The report was still being written as of last week, when I was called with a question.) I have been assured that my case is strong (gee, why do I feel like I’m on trial?). I’ve also been told that it will take only about a month for Medi-Cal to process the request, which, based on past experience, I find hard to believe.

Actually, the appointment two weeks ago wasn’t about the Vmax. It was about my wheelchair. The two therapists who had seen me were not happy with my chair, and so I had this appointment with a physical therapist and a wheelchair vendor. I went with some trepidation, fearing that they would want to get a chair in which my movement would be severely restricted, and I took a note explaining in detail what I want and don’t want in a chair and why I like the kind of chair I have. The P.T was completely cool, agreeing with my assessment. She had me get down on a mat, and I said I hadn’t been looked over so carefully since I was about 10 - literally. The wheelchair vendor was a rather amusing, opinionated woman who couldn’t get over how dirty and gross my chair was. (Okay - I’ve had it cleaned!) It was agreed that I should keep this chair and have it remodeled, with the back moved back, so I’m not thrust forward with my legs splaying, etc., and with more supportive footrests and a better cushion.

I was told that it will take several months for Medi-Cal to process the request for this remodeling, which makes more sense to me. It also fits with what a few people I have spoken to about this have theorized - the is, that Medi-Cal is more likely to take longer with and perhaps deny requests that are more common. In other words, unlike with a wheelchair or wheelchair repairs, it is easier to get a Vmax, despite its high expense, because the demand for it isn’t high. This sounds backwards, but it makes weird, logical, bureaucratic sense. (I was once told by Medi-Cal that I couldn’t get a new wheelchair, because I was getting too many repairs on the one I had.)

This is probably what’s behind the decision to stop Medi-Cal funding for dentistry, except for extractions, when California’s finances got even worse last year. Everyone on Medi-Cal needs dental care, making the demand all but overwhelming and, thus, too difficult. Speaking of Medi-Cal not paying for dental care, I recently called the dental surgery center where I have work done (I have to be put to sleep) and asked what I would have to pay. The answer was a shock: $1,200.

I thought briefly about going to the free medical and dental clinic going on now at the sports arena in Los Angeles. Thousands of people are going there, many coming from far away and waiting hours and even days, and thousands were turned away when the clinic took place last year. Then I remembered having to be put to sleep (because of my uncontrolled movements). Besides, I don’t want to wait in that line. Am I spoiled? In any case, the pictures of people waiting in line and getting care in factory lines, all in one of the world’s richest cities, is an eloquent answer to the loud, angry questions about why healthcare insurance reform is needed in this country.

A thin - but saving - line

I was interested to read the obituary in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times marking the life of Dorothy Height, the black civil rights leader who died on Tuesday at age 98. Years ago, I saw her speak at one of the colleges here in Claremont, and I recall having only a vague sense that she was very important. (She did look very important, or at least grand, wearing a large, Sunday-best hat.)

Indeed, as was pointed out in the obituary, Ms. Height - she never married - was "overlooked" and "overshadowed" despite being considered to be the "Godmother of Civil Rights." Because of her gender, she was the seventh of a cadre of black civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Roy Wilkins, James Farmer, John Lewis, A. Philip Randolph and Whitney Young, often referred to as the Group of Six.

Two incidents described in the obituary really caught my attention. In one incident, a police officer threatened her life when she defied his order to wait for a train in the "colored waiting room" rather than board with her white colleagues. "Don’t you go straight on that train or I’ll blow your brains out," the officer growled. Later, Roy Wilkins, one of the leaders of the NAACP, told her the she would have been dead if she was a man.

Perhaps being a woman was an advantage in this incident, but, in the other incident that stood out for me, it was a real disadvantage. In organizing the historic March on Washington, Bayard Rustin insisted that no woman should speak, arguing that women were part of all the groups represented. Ms. Height commented, "Mr. Rustin’s stance showed us that men honestly didn’t see their position as patriarchal or patronizing. They were happy to include in the human family, but there was no question as to who headed the household!"

No doubt Ms. Height was thinking what I’m thinking: Bayard Rustin, of all people.

It is said that hate stems from ignorance, along with fear. I’d like to think that these two incidents show that hate and ignorance don’t always go together, that ignorance doesn’t always lead to hate.

Bayard Rustin was gay, and, because of this, he too was marginalized in the black civil rights movement. He knew what it was like to be even more of an outsider; indeed, he was once arrested for homosexual behavior. I’d like to think that, unlike the police officer at the train station, Mr. Rustin, who was also a Quaker, was simply being ignorant and not hateful when he denied Ms. Height and other women the opposite to speak at the Washington, D.C rally. (Mahalia Jackson did get to sing the national anthem.) Ms. Height, who did most of her work with the National Council of Negro Women, implied the in saying that "men honestly didn’t see" what they were doing.

I’d also like to think that this is what is happening with same-sex marriage bans - that they will be rejected as more people know gay people. In California, Proposition 8 passed by less of a margin than the earlier Proposition 22, and it is thought that it can be overturned by voters in a few years. This seems to be in contrast to the hateful, apartheid-like bill approved by the Arizona legislature targeting illegal immigrants, even as more and more people accept their existence and agree they should be dealt with fairly.

Beware the Santa

I recently watched the PBS program with Tavis Smiley examining the sermon given by Martin Luther King, Jr., exactly a year before his assassination, in which he denounced the war in Vietnam. Unlike King’s "I have a dream" and "Mountaintop" speeches, this April 4, 1967 sermon, delivered in New York City’s Riverside Church, isn’t talked about much these days. Although it was arguably more powerful, this speech, demanding that justice requires peace, was dangerous.

The speech made King a villain in the white community, including President Johnson, who had been a friend and strong ally. Even the black community was upset with him. Everyone said he should have stuck with civil rights and not get involved with foreign affairs. One King associate interviewed on the program opined that King was killed because of the sermon.

Yet, King is now remembered quite fondly and lauded, almost as a saint and also a martyr. There are schools and streets named for him, and his birthday is a national holiday. How did M.L.K go from being a pariah to being a hero?

We have forgotten - conveniently - that King was a man, a man who was passionate and full of feelings, including anger. We ignore the fact that his soothing message of non-violence was something that he strove for and didn’t preclude strong opinions and emotions. We have sanitized him. As Harvard University black studies professor Cornell West explained to Smiley on the program, there has been a "Santa Clausification" of King. "He now comes with a bag of treats for the kiddies."

Not unlike, it has occurred to me, what has happened with Jesus.

It’s not that Jesus now hands out toys. In fact, to the contrary, he is, to a not insignificant number of people, a stern master who with-holds love and acceptance from those who don’t conform to a certain code of people. The condemnation of gay people in his name is an example of this.

Nevertheless, this wasn’t who Jesus was at all. Jesus was all about love and about reaching out to the other and the enemy. He also wasn’t some pious, prissy follower of rules. No, Jesus was a radical, a hippie (as the patches sewn onto my bibs say), who broke rules, who knocked over the tables of the money-changers in the temple. Furthermore, in being so, he was a man who got furious, had temper tantrums, and who questioned God and wept bitterly.

And he laughed. Taped onto the wall above my desk is a drawing of Jesus laughing, sent to me from a friend who said it was from Playboy magazine. My friend said that when the drawing appeared, Playboy got more hate mail than for any other item it had published.

So I guess Jesus can’t laugh (and be human and sexual). Funny what people want Jesus - and M.L.K - to be.

Keeping on with the talking

Last week, I returned to Casa Colina Hospital to continue the evaluation for a speech device. (See "Talking Needs" post, March 25) An occupational therapist joined the speech therapist and the representative from Dynavox for the session that was nearly two hours. It looks like I’ll be getting the device; I was signing a number of documents at the end that looked plenty official.

I continue to be surprised that Medi-Cal will pay for the device (or nearly all of it - see below), and I all but said so. It feels to me like the women at the hospital have been living in a cave and haven’t been reading and hearing what I keep reading and hearing about the state budget crisis and all the things Medi-Cal isn’t paying for, but, brushing aside my concerns, they insisted I need the device and said that they have a very strong case. Okay. I mentioned that I’m a Regional Center client, and they said this would be a back-up funding source.

Several other things came up during the session:

*I was frustrated, because I was having a harder time using the device than I did the first time around, but the women said I was doing fine and were, in fact, impressed. No doubt I was anxious as well as impatient and hard on myself - nothing new there. I also was a bit tired, which made me more aware that the device will require some heightened effort from me and that there will be times that it may be less effective. In addition, I realized later that I am worried that friends - and perhaps I - will think I will be able to rattle off comments with the device and will be disappointed when I won’t. (Stephen Hawkins pre-sets his comments - I asked.) Yes, I’ll get better with practice, but it is important for all to remember the device will be just another tool - a very powerful, easier-to-use tool, but still a tool.

*Speaking of a powerful tool, I found out something very cool about the device; it is, or can be, essentially a P.C. For a nominal fee, not covered by Medi-Cal, I can use it to write, e-mail, go on-line, read books, etc. It will be like having a laptop attached to my wheelchair. I can see myself doing work or e-mail on my patio or in the park! I can even turn on lights and my T.V with it.

*The therapists continued to be not happy with my wheelchair, so I have an appointment next week for a wheelchair evaluation. They say I will be better able to use the device in another chair, but I am wary. I suspect that what I like about my wheelchair - that I can move around in it (lean over, stretch my legs, raise my butt up, etc.) - is what they don’t like about it, and I don’t want to be pinned down or trapped in a chair. I will see what they have in mind and hear them out, but I’ll also make it clear what I want and don’t want in a wheelchair. While I am very grateful for - and moved by - all the attention and care that I am getting, I do not want to be told what to do or taken over.

One more thing: I was at a potluck on Sunday, and no one sat by me. In addition to wondering if it was because of the messy way I eat and if my attendant should feed me in such a situation, I thought about probably not being able to use the device while I eat.