Per WCAX:

…She bought almost $400 worth of meat from a door-to-door salesman in 2010… “It was tough, didn’t have a good flavor, didn’t smell good when you cooked it,” she said.

The salesman came in a white refrigerated pickup truck with a logo on the side that said Steak House Steaks.

Okay.

So.  

I’m not entirely certain as to what to say about this, because I have trouble imagining that buying foodstuff from a door-to-door salesperson is a good idea and I have trouble comprehending this scam as being effective.  So I’m at a loss here.  Part of me wants to ridicule this, but I’m thinking there are probably some vulnerable people out there who get intimidated by high pressure sales tactics and I don’t feel so right about making jokes about it.

So I’m just trying to kind of verbally think this out.  Is this common?  I’ve never heard of anyone selling meat door to door before, and I don’t comprehend the idea of buying food that’s completely unknown in terms of its origin.  

I also understand that people do this all the time, whether they realize it or not and I’m a bit unusual in the respect that I pay attention to the food I eat, what its sources are and how it got here.  But even though I get that people buy all sorts of things that are bad for them without paying attention to ingredients, food origins, etc., I somehow find this to be deeply disturbing on a more personal level.  Even though I’m vegetarian, I don’t think that this is because of the meat in itself.  It’s more the idea of meat you don’t know that just totally creeps me out.

I’m at a loss here.  

This is strictly for comic relief.  Today’s Brattleboro Reformer included a headline about a woman being charged for possession of Heron.  

As one commenter noted elsewhere, if she’s guilty of the crime, she egrets it now.

Just a reminder to all the editors out there: spell check will not always save you.

Sadly, the error was fixed fairly quickly.  It’s almost as though they don’t even want us mocking them.

Spoilsports.

Shumlin’s statement:

FEBRUARY 18 – MONTPELIER – Gov. Peter Shumlin issued the following statement regarding Attorney General William Sorrell’s announced decision to appeal Judge Murtha’s ruling on Vermont Yankee:

“As I said when the court opinion was issued, I do not agree with Judge Murtha’s decision.  We as a state have had many important and legitimate concerns with Entergy Louisiana and its operation of Vermont Yankee that are not reflected in the opinion.  I support the Attorney General’s work in getting a positive result on appeal.  Meanwhile, my administration will be focusing on the state’s continuing authority over Vermont Yankee.

WCAX is reporting this statement from Sorrell’s office:

Attorney General William H. Sorrell has filed an appeal of the federal district court’s recent decision in favor of Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee. The district court, in its January 19 ruling, invalidated two Vermont statutes that gave the Legislature a say on the ability of Vermont Yankee to continue operations when its current state license expires on March 21, 2012. Attorney General Sorrell announced today that the State has appealed all aspects of the judgment entered by the district court.

Other editors, feel free to update this with your own links if you have more detail or want to flesh this out further.

From Bernie Sanders:

Statement on Vermont Yankee Appeal  

BURLINGTON, Vt., Feb. 17 – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) issued the following statement today after Vermont Attorney General William H. Sorrell filed an appeal in federal court on behalf of the state’s bid to shut down the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant:

“I support the decision by Vermont to appeal the flawed ruling by Judge Murtha in the Vermont Yankee litigation. I believe the law is clear that states have the right to reject nuclear power based on economic and other reasons that have nothing to do with safety.

“The Vermont Senate in a bipartisan 26-4 vote decided against renewing Vermont Yankee’s license. If Vermont wants to move to energy efficiency and sustainable energy, no corporation should have the right to force our state to stay tethered to an aging, problem-ridden nuclear plant.”

Contact: Michael Briggs (202) 224-5141

Speaker Shap Smith:

“I believe that the Court’s decision undermines the authority of the legislature and its ability to give voice to the concerns of Vermonters. I appreciate that the Attorney General is working to defend the right of Vermonters to speak through their legislators.”

Per the Burlington Free Press:

Federal law prevents the state of Vermont from ordering the state’s lone nuclear-power plant, Vermont Yankee, closed as planned in March, a U.S. District Court judge ruled Thursday afternoon.

More as we learn.

Gov. Peter Shumlin issued the following statement on today’s ruling on the Entergy lawsuit:

“I am very disappointed in today’s ruling from the federal court. Entergy has not been a trustworthy partner with the state of Vermont. Vermont Yankee needed legislative approval 40 years ago. The plant received approval to operate until March, 2012. I continue to believe that it is in Vermont’s best interest to retire the plant. I will await the Attorney General’s review of the decision to comment further on whether the state will appeal.”

He can be immensely charming when he wants to.

We’ll start with this:

Shoppers who had come to the Wal-Mart in Porter Ranch on Thursday night for the much-advertised Black Friday sale got more than they bargained for when a woman used pepper spray to gain an advantage.

Anna Recalde said her teenage children were hit with the spray. At one point, she said, she smelled her 16-year-old son and asked him, “What is that?”

“Mom,” he replied, “I was just pepper-sprayed.”

And this:

A woman who pepper-sprayed other shoppers Thursday night at the Wal-Mart in Porter Ranch had armed herself with the caustic spray to gain an advantage in the fight for merchandise at the Black Friday sale, a fire captain said.

The woman, who is still being sought, used the spray in more than one area of the Wal-Mart “to gain preferred access to a variety of locations in the store,” said Los Angeles Fire Capt. James Carson.

Sadly, this is not all.

There is also this:

Things got out of control at one Wal-Mart near Little Rock, Arkansas on Black Friday as shoppers went wild over a good deal on kitchen appliances.

Screams could be heard as the greedy shoppers struggled to grab one (or five) of the $2 waffle irons.

And there is this:

The second Wal-Mart spraying (so far) was more in line with what we’ve come to expect when it comes to pepper spray and crowds: an off-duty police officer working store security used the weapon in the midst of a mass of unarmed shoppers. This time it was Kinston, N.C., where the painful spray wafted through a Wal-Mart.

“Sgt. Roland Davis of Kinston Public Safety says Walmart hired off-duty police officers to help with security during their Black Friday event today,” reports WITN-TV. “Davis says an officer was trying to quell a disturbance and make an arrest, and used pepper spray.”

[…]

Not all Wal-Mart trips ended in pepper spray, but several others did end in police action. In Rome, N.Y., a man was arrested after “several shoppers at the electronics department were pushed to the ground and several fights broke out,” according to NBC3 in Syracuse. And in Cave Creek, Ariz., the bomb squad took a suspected explosive device out of a Wal-Mart employee break room.

Other incidents occurred outside Wal-Mart stores early in the morning of Black Friday. In Myrtle Beach, S.C., a woman was shot in the foot during an armed robbery outside a Wal-Mart at around 1 AM. In San Leandro, Calif., a man was reportedly shot outside a Wal-Mart at about 2 a.m. “after suspects asked the victims for their items and were refused,” leading to a fight.

There’s a temptation with these stories to make jokes, to move into snark and satire.  

I’m not up for that today, because what I’m seeing here is actually something that I think of as part of a disintegration of the sense of other people as human beings and I don’t want to contribute to that sense by making jokes about it, parodying it or diminishing it.  

I’ve been isolated as of late.  While recovering from surgery, I’m avoiding crowds or pretty much any group of people larger than three.  I’ll be around people again soon enough, but right now, I’m just getting stronger and to the point where I won’t wince if someone accidentally bumps into me.  This is good and healthy for me right now, but it also means I don’t have as strong a sense of what’s going on in the outside world.  I’m in my own relatively pleasant bubble right now where I am fortunate enough to have the resources to heal nicely and not be worried about how much I spend on a waffle iron or whether someone else will get the bargain before me.

Intellectually, from my experience with social psychology and history, I understand what I’m seeing.  When people are placed in roles in which their choices are limited or they see others as enemy, they more easily dehumanize them.  This applies as easily to prisoners and guards as it does to cops and protestors as it does to […please bear with me as I wrap this phrase around my head for a moment…] er… “competitive shoppers.”

It’s easier to deal with these situations by dehumanizing others, by treating people as though they are inferior to you or yourself or your kind.

Intellectually, academically, I get this.

I’m just having trouble with the concept of actually acting on it and behaving as though it is somehow acceptable to pepper spray children.

There is something seriously wrong with this, and I just can’t bring myself to joke about it.

Per the Burlington Free Press:

At the center of the campaign, Reggy explains, is Chick-fil-A’s intellectual property, the phrase “EAT MOR CHIKIN.” The company has used the phrase since at least 1995, Reggy writes, and owns numerous U.S. and international trademark and copyright registrations for both EAT MOR CHIKIN and for cows holding sandwich-boards reading EAT MOR CHIKIN.

Now to the crux of the matter. It has come to the attention of Chick-fil-A, Reggy writes, that Richardson’s client filed an application Aug. 31 with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a U.S. patent on the phrase, “Eat More Kale,” for use on stickers, bags, sweatshirts, onesies for infants and toddlers, T-shirts, dresses, skirts, blouses, turtlenecks and yoga shirts.

Yes.  You read that correctly.  Chick-fil-A is going after a local Vermonter for hand producing pro-kale merchandise because they own the trademark for a pro-chicken message.  

It occurs to me at this point that some companies have too many lawyers and not enough good sense.

There is a petition you can sign to oppose Chick-Fil-A’s actions in this case.  As the petition site notes:

Vermont’s EAT MORE KALE is a small, eco-friendly t-shirt business with a mission to promote sustainable food messages. The company’s sole proprietor, Bo Muller-Moore, has used the EAT MORE KALE logo in his t-shirt designs for more than 10 years, and he recently applied for a federal trademark on his business name. A federal trademark would block other artists from copying his design (which has happened in the past) and protect the livelihood he’s worked so hard to build.

But if Chick-fil-A, a multi-million dollar fast food company, has its way, Muller-Moore won’t be able to protect his business. The Corporate Goliath has threatened to block EAT MORE KALE’s trademark attempt and shut the business down. Chick-fil-A uses the slogan “Eat Mor Chikin,”and it alleges that EAT MORE KALE confuses CHICK-FIL-A customers and dilutes its multi-million dollar industry.

A point of fairness: it is difficult to evaluate this without a comparison between the two slogans and their design.  Chick-Fil-A has a very nicely designed gallery with a bunch of their EAT MOR CHICKN slogans that you can view here.

And a point of open bias: Chick-Fil-A is also known for its major contributions to anti-gay organizations.  That’s not relevant to this specific case, but it is relevant to my own bias in writing about this subject.  This is a company I dislike intensely, and don’t wish to pretend otherwise.  

Thanksgiving is a strange holiday for me.  I’m not a fan of its origins and find it problematic in a lot of ways, just due to its political history and whitewashing of American history.

But… I have to still admit to liking the holiday itself.  When I lived in Rhode Island, VJ day was a state holiday which was similarly problematic– it was a holiday that everyone loved, but not a lot of people cared for the fact that it reflected anti Japanese sentiment.  So eventually we just changed it to “victory” day in one of those compromises that doesn’t solve much of anything, but reduces the amount of overall argument and still leaves people with a holiday in August.

I’ve learned to treat Thanksgiving pretty much the same way.  Yes its origins are odious, but it’s a really good time of year to just take a weekend, relax and self-assess.  

It’s been a long month.  I wrote about it earlier, so I’ll just provide a quick summary: any month in which they open up your chest to remove an aggressive tumor that is having dramatic and negative effects on your overall health, is guaranteed to be a long month.

What I’m thankful for?  Full removal of tumor with limited issues related to the surgery.  No cancer.  These are great things.  Of equal greatness is the fact that I have access to Catamount, which is truly wonderful insurance.  I’ve been in the hospital 25 days out of the last two months.  I was looking over my (as of yet incomplete) insurance billing.  Since I started Catamount at the beginning of September, I have been billed for $168,931.26 in medical care.  

How much do I have to pay of that?  Just about a grand.

I consider myself one of the lucky people, despite everything I’ve been through.  Some people end up bankrupt after procedures like this.  What I’ve experienced is short term and temporary.  If all goes well, I won’t need any further treatment beyond medicine and that’s it.  

Vermont’s universal access to health care (if you can afford it, which I know is a big if) and access to same sex marriage are the real cornerstone of my gratitude here. Between the health care, and having a sweetie who is incredibly patient and has the legal right to advocate for me and my care when I’m incapacitated?  This is crucial.  

So, Vermont?  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  You are the most awesomest state ever.  

I’ll close with something I posted in my Social Psychology course the other day, something I think might be of value to all sorts of folks:

Competition is an interesting thing. I grew up with the understanding that it was extremely important to “win” and that winning is how you learn and improve.

As an adult, I actually realized that this is wrong, in a lot of ways. It’s good to compete and good to succeed but the vast majority of my lessons come from losing and learning from the experience. I enjoy playing competitive games with people a lot, but I started enjoying them a lot more when I stopped trying to win all the time and instead focused on learning. I.e., if there’s a game where you’re using a strategy that often works but sometimes falls flat, give yourself the opportunity to try new strategies, to learn from them and eventually find better ones. Let yourself lose in order to see what works better than what you were doing. Grow. Expand.

This fits with personal conflicts as well. I used to get very agitated about “losing” arguments. I would often feel humiliated and defeated after. Then I figured out that this was mainly because I felt I had something to lose. Now, as an adult, and someone who’s actually achieved quite a few fairly awesome things in my life, I don’t feel the need to “win” as much as I do the need to be happy. So I argue with people, and discuss, and put out different and new points of view, but I don’t insist upon winning or having it acknowledged that I’ve won. I’ve learned that it’s a lot better to have two people who feel listened to and respected without a “winner” than one who feels as though they’ve lost.

How is everyone else doing this fine Holiday weekend?

This is entirely personal, but I thought it worth posting to explain why I haven’t been posting much at all as of late, and some of the fairly complex turns my life has taken over the Summer and Fall so far.  

I know some of you have been following my myasthenia gravis stories on KosAbility and other places so I figured I’d give you all a follow up.

To summarize my last two weeks:

To get to the tumor properly, they had to cut open my chest, which means a fairly long recovery time as it is.  

That was almost two weeks ago.  

There was a complication which meant going back in again (some food fluid was going through my thoracic duct, which is not where it should be going), which involved going back in and, in advertently, accidentally breaking one of my ribs (which at least she was able to fix internally by wrapping it and making sure it got back in place).  

Both of those operations left me with tubes, and I had to stick around in the hospital until all the tubes were ready to come out.  That happened yesterday, but I’m still in a bit of pain and will be for some time.  Currently, the broken rib is far more painful than anything else, and I know how that works since it’s happened once before.  I’m hoping that it will heal faster since she was able to set it back in place immediately, whereas last time it happened, it just healed on its own and never went properly treated.  

I cried in front of strangers yesterday, twice– first when one of the doctors told me I could get the last tubes out during the day and go home, and secondly when my surgeon checked in on me.  I hadn’t originally planned to go with her, but I am so glad I did.  I need to figure out if there’s an appropriate gift to give the person who gave you your life back.

And I mean that seriously– I am currently, and who knows if this will last, symptom free as far as the Myasthenia Gravis goes.  My eyes are wide open.  I can speak fluently (though slowly and with care ’cause of the pain) and without slurring.  I have no double vision.  

Right now, I am just in a bit of (though not as much as you would expect) pain, and taking small amounts of medication when I need it (I’ve had exactly one pain pill since I got home and that’s fine for now).  I can’t lift anything heavy– even my laptop is a problem right now, but I have a good workstation set up in the front with a comfy chair.  When I say “workstation” I mostly mean a place to watch videos, compose some music, blog, e-mail, goof off on Facebook and do a very small amount of actual work on occasion for my regular job, which I’ll be going back to in two weeks, probably 1/2 time and then full time after that.  

And I’m just kind of really in a good mood, despite the 11 days in the hospital (some of them particularly bad), despite the fact that I have very little I can accomplish right now, I think I need to be okay with just playing for a time and letting everything come back into swing.   I haven’t even blogged much because it’s been difficult, but that’s coming back again, and I’m feeling like I missed a lot on the political front, but maybe I can start catching up.

Thanks everyone for listening.  

(One of Julie Waters’ many, many contributions to GMD was her amazing nature photography — a wonderful palate-cleanser after our usual diet of politics and lefty snark. This diary, from last November, includes a good sampling of her work. Enjoy.   – promoted by jvwalt)

Here are some photos of birds from my feeders in the last few weeks.  Most were expected.  One was a big surprise.  Can you guess which one?