Bureaucracy, as usual

  I got a letter the other day.  There was nothing unusual about that, of course, and it was not unusual that it was from the housing authority, saying that there would be an inspection at my house.  I have been getting a Section 8 rental subsidy for years, and one of the requirements is that there be an annual inspection.

   The letter was actually about a follow-up inspection.  After the initial inspection, some work had to be done, and this was an inspection to see if the work had been done. This was a bit unusual, but it has happened a fair amount in past years. 

   What was unusual – though I suspect not that unusual – is that the inspection had taken place two days before. Things began getting unusual three days earlier, when the inspection was supposed to happen, and I got a call from a woman at the housing authority saying that there wouldn’t be an inspection that day and asking if it could be rescheduled for the next day. This has never happened before, but it was okay, because it happened I had no plans for going out.

   Things really got unusual, if not downright crazy, when I got that letter.  It came on May 14, and it was dated May 11 and said an inspection would take place on May 12.

   What were they thinking?  Clearly, they weren’t thinking – they were probably just following procedure, most probably – and, again, I suspect it’s not that unusual. This is bureaucracy.  This is what is meant by the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.  Sure, it takes only pennies to prepare and mail such a letter, but who knows how many such letters are prepared and mailed (I have gotten them before), and lots of pennies do add up.  As you can gather from my recent posts, all these pennies can be spent in better ways.      

As steady, or unsteady, as change

   Yes, some things, like racial strife and poverty and the resulting injustice, don’t change.  Other things sometimes do.  Here is my latest Claremont Courier column. 

           SEEING THE WORLD CHANGING IN THE OLD CLASSROOM

   Some things haven’t changed. 

   The film started late. When I got to the auditorium, I wondered if the screening was canceled, because it looked like no one was showing up. Maybe I hadn’t gotten the notice.  When I saw that the room was still empty at 7:30, when the film was scheduled to start, I asked the young woman who opened the door for me if I had the right time, and she said I did.  No problem.  No worries.

   Sure enough, people began coming in a few minutes later, and the film started after about 15 minutes.  I shouldn’t have been surprised.  I shouldn’t have been surprised.  The late start was nothing new at Pitzer College, where the world is a bit less stressed and a bit more colorful if no less rigorous. After all, this is where I attended a Fall convocation years ago, and the faculty entered, eventually, to the strains of Cat Stevens’ “Oh They’re Young.” This is where the graduating seniors wear bright orange and white robes.  They may as well be wearing tye-dye. 

   As Ben Cotner noted, however, the room had changed. Mr.  Cotner, who graduated from Pitzer some years ago, spoke and answered questions after the film, The Case Against 8, which he directed along with Ryan White. He said that it felt a bit strange to be showing his documentary, which won an award at the Sundance Film Festival and has been picked up by HBO, in a room where he took many classes. 

  It was no longer the dark and cramped, hole-in-the-wall Avery Hall with the ceiling pressing down, the wheelchair seating crammed in and the slamming doors opening onto the covered concrete walkway.  It was the more spacious and lighter George Benson Auditorium with a nice lobby featuring a colorful mural depicting social activism.  Although it is no architectural wonder, and although it is now several years old, it’s still a noticeable improvement. 

   That wasn’t the only change, though.  And it wasn’t just that a former student was now an award-winning documentary film maker featured on a major television channel back on campus. 

   Lots of things have changed. And they have changed a lot, as the film Mr.  Cotner made showed.  What’s more, things have changed even more than the documentary shows. 

   The Case Against 8 is a behind-the-scenes look at the effort to overturn Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex marriage in California, in the courts. It is a compelling procedural, almost like a whodunit, with an emotional whallop, as it focuses on the gay and lesbian couples who were the plaintiffs and their remarkable lawyers, David Boies and Theodore Olson, as they formulated and presented their arguments.  There are glimpses of the pro-Prop. 8 folks, and I’d like to have heard more from them and their reasoning (perhaps that’s the journalist in me, or do I just want to see their bigotry and foolishness and, in some cases, breathtakingly changed minds exposed?), but, as he explained, that’s not the film that Mr. Cotner and his co-director set out to make. 

  There is incredible change seen in this documentary, just as it is.  Yes, there are those lawyers and their remarkable pairing, with Mr.  Boise and Mr.  Olson having famously been on the opposing sides in the Gore vs. Bush case in Florida which determined the outcome of the 2000 election.  Olson is a staunch conservative who, as seen in the film, was pilloried for arguing against a same-sex marriage ban. 

   It is a real change – remarkable – that a conservative lawyer would stand and argue for the right of a gay couple or a lesbian couple to marry.  It is a real change that getting married is more than some  wild-eyed vision in some  progressive corner of the gay community.  What is more remarkable, even more of a change, is that, far from being seriously debated in society, much less the courts, the idea of two men or two women getting married didn’t exist or maybe was a joke when I was growing up.  It was frankly unthinkable.

   But I saw an even bigger, more remarkable change as I watched the documentary.  I couldn’t help thinking that, as fascinating as it is as a document, that the film is out of date.  It is history.  Proposition 8 and the case against it is, as my nephew would say, so yesterday.  It is all but quaint. After all, as the result of court rulings and other moves in the past 10 months since the film was completed, same-sex marriage is now legal is 37 of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia and is federally recognized, and it is widely thought that the U.S Supreme Court will make it legal nation-wide by the end of June, in two months. 

   That’s some real change – even more, I’d venture to say, than Mr. Cotner, who mentioned having a husband, planned on – or dreamed of? – showing.  Indeed, everyone with anything to say has commented that the change in attitude regarding gay people in general and same-sex marriage in particular over the last ten or twenty years has been breathtaking. 

   It is easy to that we are far away from all this change in Claremont.  It is easy in this tree-lined small town to not see the shootings and angry protests, the beheadings and drone strikes, the people without homes and the unspeakable disasters.  It is easy here to think that is all another world.

   But it’s not, and we’re not so far away.  For one thing, we all have neighbors who are gay men and lesbians, some of whom are raising families.  Claremont has paid same-sex benefits for some years. 

   And the end of another school year – yes, already! – is another reminder that Claremont isn’t so far away from all that is going on changing  in the world.  As with Ben Cotner coming back to his class room at Pitzer College and showing his important, remarkable film, the colleges brings the world to Claremont.  Look at all the leaders and experts who come to the colleges to speak, and, of course, there is all the learning that takes place here to prepare the graduates going out into the world. 

   I also suspect that being at Pitzer and in Claremont played a part in making Mr.  Cotner someone who speaks up and makes compelling films.  Who knows how many people Claremont has changed in this way, but, surely, not only does the world come to Claremont, Claremont goes out into the world. 

A blind spot

   I’m on a roll.  In my last post, I wrote about how hard it is to get a wheelchair.  This time, it’s glasses. 

    I wrote in my last post about learning that, with my publicly funded insurance, I can get one wheelchair, either manual or power, every 7 years (or is it 5?). Never mind that I’ve had my manual chair for about 20 years, and never mind that it’s critical I have a reliable, not-too-old power wheelchair.  I am eligible only for one or the other. 

   Last week, I learned  that the situation is even worse when it comes to eye glasses. 

   I suspected again when I went to my eye doctor a couple weeks ago after more than 2 years that the place is too high-end (too Claremont!) for me. Sure enough, I ended up with a co-pay for my exam – no, they don’t take Medi-Cal – and they don’t take my supplemental insurance, VSP (through HealthNet), for glasses. After taking the prescription, I went to a place that takes VSP and was told that VSP only covers 20% of the cost of lenses and frames.  And, no, the place doesn’t take Medi-Cal. 

   I was frustrated and alarmed and made further inquiries.  This is what I learned: even if I find a place that takes it, Medi-Cal only pays for an exam every 2 years.  And that’s it.  Medi-Cal doesn’t pay for glasses. 

   In what world does this make sense?  The question I have is why bother with the exam?  Why does Medi-Cal pay for an exam when it won’t pay to remedy a problem that is found? 

   Isn’t this a definition of cruelty? 

   As with the wheelchair, I am fortunate in that I am not completely reliant on this insurance.  What about people who are, and what about those who, God forbid, only have Medi-Cal?  Is seeing and reading really not that important?  Perhaps this is why many poor people don’t vote – they can’t see to read to get information about what’s going on. 

In a hard(er) seat

   I am trying to get a new manual wheelchair.  It turns out a trying experience is all I’m getting. 

   I’m not talking about a fancy new motorized wheelchair.  I’m talking about a plain, simple manual wheelchair, the kind that you push.  I have one that I use when I get up and when I go to bed and when I’m sick.  I also use it when I’m going somewhere where I can’t use my motorized wheelchair (like somewhere with steps) and, most critically, as a back-up. 

   It is time to get a new one.  I’ve had this one for something like 20 years.  The left footrest won’t reliably stay in place, which is not safe.  Also, it is a sexy, sleek sports chair with stick-like armrests and a hard, hard seat.  I was much younger when I chose it and wanted to be cool.  Now that I’m not so young, I want something a bit more substantial and cushy. 

   Months after requesting a new manual wheelchair, I found out last  week that I am not eligible to get one, because I already got a motorized chair several years ago.  I can’t get a wheelchair – any wheelchair, motorized or manual – through my Medi-Cal/Medicare for another two years. 

   That’s right.  I can only get one chair, manual or motorized, every 7 years (or is it every 5 years?).  That means that either my manual or my motorized wheelchair will be in use for at least 10 years.  And what if I think it’s more important that my motorized wheelchair, which I use for miles every day and usually when I’m on my own as I go about my independent, productive life, is safe and reliable, not old? It apparently doesn’t matter. 

   Now, I am fortunate, I am blessed.  I still have the manual chair.  Yes, it’s old and uncomfortable, but it’s not broken, and I can use it.  Also, if my motorized wheelchair breaks down, I am not completely reliant on this manual chair. 

   There are many who are stuck in their manual wheelchair if their motorized wheelchair breaks down. What do they do if, in trying to have one good wheelchair to rely on, they no longer have a usable back-up.  Are they stuck on the couch, in bed?    

   This is awful, nightmare stuff.  But it isn’t necessarily just a bad dream.  In the past, I’ve been stuck in my manual wheelchair for weeks while waiting for my motorized chair to be fixed (or, really, get approved for the repair).

   There was recently an article in the Los Angeles Times about a woman who was awarded more than $28 million from Kaiser Permanente after she became disabled as a result of the H.M.O delaying a M.R.I to detect a tumor in her pelvis. The article states that the woman now “uses crutches to get around…because she doesn’t want to use a wheelchair.” Never mind that it may be easier to use a wheelchair; the message is that being disabled is bad and that any sign of it, such as a wheelchair as opposed to crutches, is to be avoided. 

   With it being difficult to get equipment and help, no wonder the woman is doing everything she can to not be at least seen as disabled or more disabled.  No wonder being disabled is such a bad thing, or is worse than it actually is or has to be.  At least the woman has $28 million to make it easier to get what she needs to make being disabled not so bad, including a wheelchair when she wants one. 

A fascinating flap, a fascinating flip

   The controversy over the religious freedom laws has been fascinating.  To see the backers of these laws, signed recently by the Republican governors of Indiana and Arkansas, shocked by the backlash from the likes of Walmart and the N.C.A.A - not exactly wild-eyed radicals – has been, to say the least, something to see. 

   What we’re seeing with these laws, which not only ensure that people can’t be prosecuted for following their religious beliefs but also and most critically extend this protection or right to businesses, is the last gasp of the religious right.  There is already a federal law providing this protection to individuals, but the extension to businesses is a key difference, and the concern is that, for example, a photographer won’t provide services to a gay couple having a wedding or wanting a family portrait. 

   These state laws are a last stand, the last gasp, against same-sex marriage, which is now legal in a surprising majority of states and which many say will be okayed by the Supreme Court in the next few months. With the backlash from big businesses and big-time, money-making sport and entertainment entities and the subsequent hasty dialing down and rewriting of these laws – oh, of course, gay people can’t be refused service in any case – the conservatives and Christian fundamentalists are seeing that they no longer have much clout. 

   Wow! This is change – big-time, fascinating change. 

   It gets even more fascinating. Not only are people donating thousands of dollars to businesses that oppose same-sex marriage, but  here’s what Eric Miller of Advance America (really?), who vigorously opposed the changes in the law, said: “If you have a homosexual baker, a homosexual florist, a homosexual photographer, and they say we do not want to participate in heterosexual weddings, that’s their right.”

   So straights should go to straight bakeries, and gays should go to gay bakeries.  Or is it that Christians should go to Christian bakeries and gays should go to gay bakeries? Should there be bakeries for straight Jews and straight Muslims? 

   Then there’s Joshua Feuerstein, an Arizona evangelist who posted a video of a baker refusing to provide a cake that read “We do not support gay marriage.” Feuerstein went on to say, “We’re getting to the place in America to where Christians aren’t allowed any freedom of speech.”

   Again, really? 

   There was also an article in Saturday’s Los Angeles Times by David Savage, who covers the Supreme Court and legal matters, pointing out that LGBT folks were legally and commonly discriminated against until these religious freedom laws became an issue.  So not only are the conservatives and evangelicals losing clout, their schemes are backfiring and having the opposite effect. 

   Like I said, fascinating.