carolinecrane: lifelinebooks: fuckitfireeverything: hey

via http://ift.tt/2zbgX46:
carolinecrane:

lifelinebooks:

fuckitfireeverything:

hey American followers – if you like public libraries I’ve got some bad news for you

the Trump administration’s proposed budget plan for FY18 includes cutting all funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) which is….. bad. I’m my library system, IMLS pays 11% of our total annual budget, which doesn’t sound like much, but in a lot of rural areas or states without as much state-level support for libraries, IMLS is responsible for the bulk of their operating costs and loss of this funding could mean the complete closure of central branches and loss of library resources for entire communities

I talk about this a lot on here, but libraries aren’t just free books – they’re a crucial service for under-served communities, they provide job search assistance to job seekers, crucial early learning and literary skills to kids, they provide information and access to people with no other way of getting them, they provide free internet and computer access, a free and safe place to be for homeless people, for teenagers after school, for families who can’t afford expensive daycare, and many of them provide free lunches for kids in the summer who aren’t getting lunch because they aren’t in school, and countless other things

there are so many communities out there who cannot afford to lose this funding and to lose the support that their libraries provide

go read about this. go call your senator. America’s pretty fucked up right now, but if we’ve done one thing right, it’s libraries, and we can’t afford to lose them

Please spread the word! Libraries are so important!

This is going to close a lot of small community libraries, the vast majority of them in underserved places with, you guessed it, minority populations. What a shock.

phoo my mentions are Blown Up with the Fidelis post,

via http://ift.tt/2h9hRqY:
phoo my mentions are Blown Up with the Fidelis post, which– good, if people are signing up on exchanges and know to avoid Fidelis like the plague, that was exactly what I wanted. I just felt so tricked. 

To be honest I haven’t used hormonal birth control in years and it’s not really an issue for me, so I feel no personal worry or shame in kicking up a stink, I honestly have no personal skin in it– except that I’d like the option, I’m getting older and worrying about perimenopause and having unpleasant uterus-related situations that I forsee worsening, and would like to have all my options open when talking frankly to a medical professional about it, and isn’t it outrageous that I have to even think about this, because I’m a person with uterus-related concerns and that’s apparently a political act. 

I want to start a letter-writing campaign about it but I don’t have the spoons just now. I’ve photocopied the letter NYS sent me (which they sent me months ago, I signed up with Fidelis in May for various reasons, I don’t know if I’m eligible to make changes right now but I’m going to try)– the other shitty things Fidelis did to me include not notifying me that I was enrolled, not giving me an option of choosing a physician, and assigning me one along with literally everyone else in that enrollment period who also clearly were not given a choice, because when I called that physician’s office the person on the phone was exhausted and said well, there are thousands of you, she doesn’t have an open appointment for the next eleven months, find someone else, basically verbatim. Talk about giving 0 fucks about your customers. 

So I just– haven’t seen a doctor at all, let alone for my Uterus Problems, which is almost certainly what they wanted in the first place. But still.

Honestly what I really want is to have a bunch of stickers made up that say “Fidelis doesn’t cover birth control so don’t choose them if you can help it” in English and Spanish at least (and in this town, probably Burmese too) and go around and slap them on every advertisement I see. But I certainly don’t have the spoons for that, or the cash to fight a vandalism charge, so. 

(I just feel like if you’re so proud of your oppressive religion you should be billing it as a feature. “If you don’t believe in reproductive freedom choose us! the only Moral™ alternative!” and the fact that they don’t indicates a pretty deep level of cynical awareness that birth control is an actual human necessity, don’t you?) (because holy shit something like 99% of Catholic women use birth control, this has been studied. The only reason the church can get away with its position is that they all have my dad’s exact reasoning. Get this, my Catholic dad married my Dutch Reformed mom and said well, I don’t believe in birth control, so I won’t use it, but you can do what you want, ok? and so she did, and he felt his soul completely unimperiled by this. That’s literally how it works for millions of Catholics, I assure you– smug privileged men who don’t think about it, and women who do what’s necessary. I guaran-fucking-tee you.)

also here’s what i don’t get. say

via http://ift.tt/2iXeF2e:
also here’s what i don’t get. say you’re Independent Health, for example– one of fidelis’s competitors.

why don’t you say “hey our basic plan includes basic reproductive health services including treatment for endometriosis, or vasectomies! that’s something some of our competitors make you bill a third party for, with no guarantee of it getting approved! avoid the hassle, use a full-service health insurer.”

Run a sweet soft-focus ad of a pretty white skinny brunette lady wearing khakis and a pale blue cardigan in an all-white house with a smiling blond kid in pigtails gazing eerily up at her in adorable stillness. Pretty White Lady furrows her brow prettily as she gazes down at some unfolded papers in her hand, laptop open on pale wood table slightly out-of-focus beside her. “What Sarah didn’t know was that her health insurance company wouldn’t cover the birth control she needed to live her life in freedom,” the warm male voiceover intones. “This November, choose a full-service health insurance company that understands your needs.”

i don’t understand capitalism. If we have to have these unnecessary for-profit parasites leeching off our system why can’t they at least compete in meaningful ways? 

(This makes me wonder, does Independent Health cover reproductive healthcare??? I haven’t chosen my plan yet and after my last experience I don’t trust myself to notice– I specifically looked to see what was excluded and it didn’t mention it, you had to already know and look for it!)

Fine, maybe this is petty to do publicly but I’m

via http://bomberqueen17.tumblr.com/post/167084632364:
Fine, maybe this is petty to do publicly but I’m doing it fucking publicly and I’m fucking tagging them. 

bomberqueen17: Fine, maybe this is petty to do publicly

via http://ift.tt/2ysKc33:
bomberqueen17:

Fine, maybe this is petty to do publicly but I’m doing it fucking publicly and I’m fucking tagging them. 

I can’t get one health insurance company to publicly admit that birth control is healthcare. Every one of them says “hey DM us your phone number so we can call you!” and I’m like I don’t do phones, I just want a yes/no, do you or do you not have a company policy against providing contraception? I am not asking you to commit to any policy stance, I am not discussing the specifics of plans, I want to know if your company, like Fidelis, has a political agenda that somehow means they’re loopholed from the laws stated in the ACA. (Fidelis’s loophole, for the record, is that they outsource that billing to a third-party company that exists specifically for this. how this possibly saves anyone’s conscience is truly a question for the theologians. I find the whole thing disgusting and disingenuous, but there you have it.)

The number who respond to my “I don’t do phones so no, just answer me” with a repeated request for my phone number is depressing and hilarious.

ozu-teapot:A Grand Day Out (Short) | Nick Park | 1989

via http://ift.tt/2hCBgxq:
ozu-teapot:

A Grand Day Out (Short) | Nick Park | 1989

Independent Health wins!! First one to finally say

via http://ift.tt/2h36Fbw:
Independent Health wins!! First one to finally say “yes” unequivocally to my question “is birth control healthcare”. AND to offer me an email contact method when I said phones weren’t an option for me.

I mean, I still gotta research plans, but. That’s not nothing.

I mean the wine is fine but I’m sharing a pic

via http://ift.tt/2lNLyPU:
I mean the wine is fine but I’m sharing a pic because Z just dubbed this Crunk Juice and I expect @glenorawine will be wanting to use that name going forward.