A couple of new links

Longer update tonight, because I actually have something to say today :)! Got through a group presentation in front of the palliative care case study class this evening, and all three of us did reasonably well, especially Katie and Rebecca. I hate public speaking as a rule, but I knew just enough about the subject (from my own personal experience with loss and bereavement), to wing it, and not feel too much of a fool up in front of the class.

Anyway, just wanted to call attention to two other links I've added to the Activism column on the left side of the blog page. One, is the United Hollywood blog, which is being maintained by members of the Writers' Guild of America (WGA), who are on strike. For those who are not familiar wit their beef, the WGA is protesting the fact that many of them get paid peanuts to write scripts for television shows (like Heroes, 24, Prison Break, and, yes, the Daily Show and Jay Leno) and movies, and don't get paid at all for DVD and digital distribution sales (like on iTunes, Netflix, and through broadband streaming off the show websites, e.g., www.nbc.com/heroes). If it weren't for the fact that the term "sweatshop conditions" should be reserved for the very real problem of people, for example in Saipan, working for much less than minimum wage in slave conditions, I would be calling what the writers were putting up with "sweatshop conditions". Update: In fact, it isn't even close, and wouldn't be a fair comparison. Just wanted to make that clear. The writers are still getting screwed over, monetary wise, and that's still bullshit.

The other link is to Children International, which is an organization I have supported for about three years now. Nothing quite gives me a warm inner glow like getting a letter from the child I have been sponsoring, thanking me for helping her and her family, well not exactly escape poverty completely, but at least keeping them from being completely destitute. Best of luck, Vhera!

One last thing before I sign off for the night. I'm starting to clear out my collection of Facebook links, because it's starting to get unwieldy, and I'm thinking about leaving Facebook anyway. I found this link to a video, called "Killing Us Softly 3", which is a lecture about the effect that advertising has on American women's self-image. Very interesting, and somewhat disturbing, in view of how pervasive advertising is in our very environment. It's a couple of years old, but still just as relevant today. Any female visitors to this blog, please take notes.

Heh, it's been too long.

Oh well, I guess I really haven't been keeping up with this blog. Actually having way too much fun playing around with my Facebook profile - in fact, I've kind of been treating the updates as a form of micro-blogging. Total time-waster, and way too much fun; looks like I'll have to exile myself from there for a little while until I catch up on the schoolwork.

Anyway, I've been busy with school and trying to find myself a part-time job. I'm surprised to say that I miss working. Time was, when I still working as a pharmacist, that was just something I did, and I could just go home afterwards, unless I was on-call that night which meant I couldn't completely switch off. These days as a nurse, well, it's a pretty big part of my identity now, and I feel like I've lost a huge chunk of it since I left the old job. Nursing has always been more than just a job for me, but an extension of who I really am; in other words, I got to express my true self, within professional limits, in the course of providing patient care. I love the feeling of satisfaction of doing the job well and feeling like I actually made a difference in someone's life. (Conversely, I'd feel like a failure when things didn't go as well. Not every day can be good.) Oh well, if the job search doesn't go well, I guess I can always negotiate my old job back, and hopefully they'll actually let me work part-time.

I've been busy getting some work done on a patient advocacy campaign I've been working on, on the side. Basically, I've been trying to spread awareness about abuses of elderly residents of nursing homes taken over by private equity firms, which then make millions in short-term profit for themselves and their investors by cutting nursing staff and supplies budgets. What that translates into is a major safety issue, as there are now not enough staff to monitor certain residents who need more care, thus increasing the risk for falls, broken bones, pressure ulcers, and general declines in health. Not to mention stressing the hell out of the staff that are left, thus leading to burn-out and possible loss of temper and abuse. What really gets me, is that these companies avoid being accountable by setting up these complex business arrangements in a way that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to establish who really owns a facility and thus who can be sued when something goes wrong. You can read more about it here.

So basically, since this issue hasn't really been getting the attention it deserves in the media - due in no small part to the focus on SCHIP and the California wildfires and the Iraq Ware, all worthy subjects to focus on, don't get me wrong - I've been trying to get more people to pay attention to it. Hence, the cause I started on Facebook. Kind of embarrassing that I haven't gotten any of my friends to join it, but then again, compared to larger issues like getting out of Iraq in a timely and safe manner, stopping further global warming, and supporting breast cancer research, my cause probably doesn't seem so important.

Still, if anyone is reading this, please read the New York Times article, and see what you feel like afterwards. If you're fired up and feel like doing something, please write to the editors of your local newspapers and to your local, state, and Congressional representatives and urge them to pay attention! If you write to your governmental representatives, ask them to do something about the abuses, tell them to enforce the law and/or create new legislation to bring more transparency and accountability to nursing home management. Nursing home residents will thank you for doing this, if they find out; even if the effort fails, at least we all tried. Just because they're older and institutionalized doesn't mean we get to forget about them and let them be treated as less than human.

Anyway, I've written enough for now. Time to do a little more research; I'm getting ready to bring up certain issues when Governor Rendell visits my "town" on Friday. Hopefully, that too will help the cause. Wish me luck!