Monday, January 24, 2011

Miscellany

1. In the news: they might change the law to make it easier to perform a citizen's arrest. Missing from all the coverage I've seen: how do you do a citizen's arrest anyway? I haven't the slightest idea, but all the coverage seems to be assuming that you already know how.

2. Via Slap:

The United States effected new regulations on Tuesday that finally allow gay people to have the hospital visitation rights as straight partners.

Until Tuesday, hospitals participating in the Medicare and Medicade federal programs were free to deny hospital visitation rights to gay couples because they weren’t considered family members. With the new regulations, patients are allowed to designate whomever they choose as visitors.


But this raises a big question that I haven't seen anyone mention among all the gaiety: why weren't patients allowed to choose their own visitors in the first place??? What if you want to see your best friend? What if you don't want to be alone with your abusive spouse who put you in the hospital in the first place? What if your personal hero unexpectedly drops by? How on earth could people smart enough to become medical professionals and experienced enough to rise to a level where they make policy ever think such a blind blanket policy is appropriate?

3. Apparently some kids have been throwing things and yelling homophobic slurs at people in the gaybourhood. The first thought that enters my mind: they should be banishèd. In the Shakespearean sense. If they're going to bring that particular flavour of immature closed-mindedness to the places where everyone goes to make it Get Better, they should be forced to get out of our space and go live out their adolescence in a more closed-minded place.

Of course, that isn't an appropriate reaction on my part. I'm an adult and they're not, so it's my duty to be able to understand why they're acting this way and craft an effective and compassionate response that enables them to continue enjoying the same gaybourhood privileges as everyone else while convincing them to stop ruining it for others. Two of my core values are in there: noblesse oblige by the party with more agency towards the party with less agency, and working towards making it possible for everyone to enjoy what privileges I enjoy.

But I can't do it. My brain won't bend that way. I understand intellectually that it should, but it doesn't. And the reason why my brain won't bend that way is it's still recovering from the damage inflicted by my own bullies. And so the cycle continues...

5 comments:

laura k said...

"And the reason why my brain won't bend that way is it's still recovering from the damage inflicted by my own bullies. And so the cycle continues..."

However... the fact that you are intellectually aware of how you'd prefer to react and how this resonates with your core values is a step in the recovery (IMO). In an earlier stage, you might never see this, and react more blindly, emotionally.

Also I love your use of banished with the accent. I love to say that word that way.

laura k said...

"But this raises a big question that I haven't seen anyone mention among all the gaiety: why weren't patients allowed to choose their own visitors in the first place??? "

It is really crazy. The underlying assumption that people who are related by either DNA or a legal fiction (i.e. "til death do us part") are necessarily the most important visitors is so anachronistic. Yet it goes unquestioned.

I'd love to hear a medical person's rationale or defense of this.

impudent strumpet said...

Yeah, I see the progress (even being able to articulate my values in my own words rather than someone else's is progress), I just think I would have reached this stage in high school if it weren't for the bullies.

laura k said...

I don't know about high school, unless most high school kids are way more emotionally advanced than I was then. But I hear ya.

impudent strumpet said...

Although, imagine how advanced they could be if there were no bullies!