Nicholas Kristof wrote an excellent op-ed in today’s New York Times about some basic facts that have gotten lost in the vitriolic debate over healthcare reform. Specifically, he cites statistics from no less an authority than the American Medical Association that 62% of all personal bankruptcies are tied to healthcare bills. And of that percentage, an incredible 78% of those people had health insurance.

Kristof writes eloquently about how our current system breaks up families and, despite the absence of so-called “death panels” actually hastens or contributes to the deaths of as many as 18,000 people every year. To illustrate this, he writes about a loving couple who were forced to divorce in order to protect the wife’s retirement savings so that her ill husband could qualify for Medicaid. Their only other option would have been to spend down all their assets, leaving the wife penniless and caring for a husband with dementia.

That got me to thinking. Aren’t those sign-wielding, gun-toting, anti-government crackpots that have been braying and bullying their way through healthcare town halls the same folks pushing for an amendment to the Constitution defending marriage? Apparently, it’s more important to these people that gays be prevented from exercising a basic human right than it is to protect heterosexual couples from having to split up over medical bills. Like their stance on abortion, it’s a case of “do what we say is right, but once you do, you’re on your own.”

Once again, the far Right proves that the only thing it stands for is hypocrisy. Defense of marriage, my ass.

The advent of social networking has brought people closer together, there’s no doubt about that. But sometimes, it brings people too close for comfort and the question arises, how do you distance without drama? A personal note? A simple de-friend or unfollow with no explanation? What’s the new etiquette?

I think I’ve learned the answer the hard way this last week both by clumsily unfollowing several people on Twitter and being de-friended on Facebook by someone different. I’ve experienced it from both sides, so to speak.

People view their social networking personas as an extension of themselves. To be de-friended or unfollowed can feel like a very personal rejection. Distancing or severing social networking ties requires a delicate touch if you wish to retain the friendship behind the screen. Sometimes, a person is so attached to their social networking persona that it’s not possible to separate one from the other. I might be able to see that someone has de-friended me, scratch my head for a moment and move on. Other people are going to be far more upset. It’s the nature of people.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the only acceptable etiquette is no etiquette at all. You just do it. Click the button and walk away. Don’t bother trying to cushion the blow or explain yourself because there’s nothing you can say that doesn’t amount to, “I don’t want to read what you’re putting out there.” If someone’s going to be hurt by that, they’re going to be hurt and you can’t stop it.

Should the person ask for an explanation, don’t provide one. Instead, say this: “It was a personal decision. You can still get in touch with me via (Facebook, email, telephone, whatever),” and leave it at that. Otherwise you risk getting drawn into a protracted social networking drama war with all it’s attendant idiocy and really, no one wants that.

Life. Learning the lessons and passing them on. That’s all it’s really about.

Travel and mom duties have kept me away for nearly a month and I’ve got a huge backlog of things to write about. But I found this article in my travels today and I just had to share it.

It contains some startling facts about the almost total food desert that exists in Detroit. One factoid: “About 80 percent of the residents of Detroit buy their food at the one thousand convenience stores, party stores, liquor stores, and gas stations in the city.” Walk into a convenience store today if you get the chance and imagine being restricted to the offerings there. Sobering, isn’t it?

However, unlike a lot of articles I’ve read in urban newspapers over the past few years, this one offers an equally startling, innovative solution. Turn the vast tracts of abandoned land in Detroit into cropland. From the article: “An American Institute of Architects panel concludes that all Detroit’s residents could fit comfortably in fifty square miles of land. Much of the remaining ninety square miles could be farmed.”

What an amazing thought. The entire article is highly worth reading and I encourage you all to take the time to do so. Peace out…

Last week, Brian Buchanan from Enter the Haggis lost his fiddle. Whether it was simple misadventure or a criminal act has yet and may never be determined. Last night, Brian posted an appeal on the ETH website for donations. He included special premiums for different donation levels up to a private concert for anyone who would donate $1,000. The appeal was picked up on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere and reposted throughout the night. I noticed this morning that friends of mine who aren’t even fans had picked up and reposted the appeal on Facebook.

It took just 15 hours to raise enough money to replace the fiddle.

Brian has spent a ton of time and effort establishing ETH on the social networks. ETH has a presence on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube and a bunch more sites. He figured out a way to stream the majority of their shows live and generally has achieved a level of accessibility that far surpasses most bands.

Today, he reaped the benefits of that effort. It’s a testament not only to his fans and his music, but to the incredible power of social networking.

Have fun shopping, Brian!

p.s. Brian suggested this morning that those who didn’t get the chance to donate should consider donating to school music programs. The Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation does fantastic work in this area, if you wish to donate.

So Mary Louise Parker just did a tasteful, if somewhat sexist, photo shoot for Esquire. The pictures are sweetly luscious (but Mary, wearing only an apron in the kitchen? Seriously?). What redeems this bit of fluff is a marvelous short essay she wrote, “A Thank-You Note to Men.” (As a web writing professor, I must note it’s a PITA to read, but worth it…). It’s below the photo shoot on the page linked above.

It will be interesting to see how many hits this post receives because as Julia Turner observed in Slate magazine’s Browbeat blog, no matter how highbrow Esquire might pretend to be, their “search optimization” tactics reveal the real truth. We’ll see if mine return the same results.

Want to know why I love Enter the Haggis so very much? Check out this video from last night’s performance at Jonathan’s in Ogunquit, Maine. There’s a lot to be said for guys that sound just as good spontaneous and acoustic as they do rehearsed and plugged in. A *lot*. So many acts do one thing and one thing only with just the slightest of variations in their style. Listen to a top 40 radio station for an hour and you’ll see what I mean. But Enter the Haggis draws from a wider range of styles and traditions than just about any artists I’ve yet seen. To say it’s impressive is a vast understatement.

So, yeah…check it out and let me know what you think.

It seems to me that the more loudly a person espouses a particular philosophy of life, the more pressure they’re going to be under to live up to their own credo. This applies not only to the treatment they *accept* from others, but to the treatment they *bestow* upon others. This is why I choose not to have a grand, sweeping, one size fits all philosophy. I try to take things as they come, judge them individually and react accordingly as the situation demands.

I also don’t believe in asking the universe or a higher power to manifest anything in my life. I prefer to ask the powers for guidance on how to manifest those things for myself. A fine distinction, I realize, but one that’s important to me because then if things go wrong I only have myself to blame. I have come to believe that it is only in looking inward, rather than casting outward, that true change can be manifested.

The threefold law, karma, etc. seem to me to involve some sort of expectation. “If I do this, I will get this…” I don’t believe that. I believe it’s incumbent upon each individual to act as their conscience directs and most importantly, accept, internalize and learn from the consequences of their actions. For me, that means striving to treat every individual with decency and respect, offering amends when I fail, speaking the truth both internally and to others, and most importantly, attempting to refrain from expecting the same behavior from others as my values may not be theirs.

Life is all about the journey. About the trying, the striving, the changing and the growing. I can be perfect when I’m dead.

That’s my two cents. As always, I respect that others may walk a path more suitable for them.

From Dave S. on Twitter who got it from Enter the Haggis comes this post on making new fans. How to do it right and how to screw it up…

Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of metaphors for polyamory that are used to explain things to monogamous folks. One is that love is not a pizza. It’s not shared out into finite slices that are consumed and gone. The other is that you can have multiple children and still love them all. I think I’ve come up with another one.

Anyone who has ever been in a successful relationship with someone who has a passion for what they do understands polyamory, though they may not realize it. Artists, musicians, politicians, activists and actors immediately come to mind, but it could be any profession (or even hobby) that a person is deeply committed to doing. It’s so deeply entrenched in who they are that they would be a lesser person without it.

Being in a healthy relationship with such a person requires the acceptance that the passion will always share space with the relationship. Hopefully it will be on an equal footing most of the time. But likely there will be ebbs and flows, immersions and coming up for air. It requires being secure in the knowledge that the passion does not detract from the relationship, but stands alongside it sharing resources and time.

Another familiar adage in the poly world is that while love is infinite, time and resources are not. In the same way that some monogamous couples balance their personal relationship against the passion of one or both the partners, poly people do the same. Only for us, it’s balancing between partners.

So next time you catch yourself saying, “I just can’t understand polyamory,” take a moment and imagine that the 4lb smallmouth your husband plotted to catch all winter is actually a woman. What compromises did you make to help him acheive his goal? How far were you willing to bend to accomodate his needs while ensuring your own were being met? Could you really ask him to stop fishing forever to be with you, knowing that would kill part of his spirit?

If you can imagine that, you know what it’s like to practice polyamory.

Some of you many not know that this blog is actually an experiment in preparation for a blog I plan to launch later this year. I’m using it to try out things like WordPress plugins, Google analytics, and various methods of formatting posts, etc. before I launch my “for profit” blog later this year.

I’ve registered the domain demetershearth.com and plan to offer my own brand of information and advice on homekeeping, cooking, shopping, and general life management. It will focus on doing these tasks with joy and intention, and viewing them as life-enriching rather than burdensome.

I will not be posting a lot of “you should feel guilty if you’re not doing this” or “be warned about the dangers of that.” My blog will be all about embracing the things that make sense in one’s life and not worrying about the rest. In my opinion, our society deals out way too much guilt and fear as it is. I’m thinking about subtitling it “the anti-Good Housekeeping.” (If you’ve read a women’s magazine lately, you know what I’m talking about!)

I’d love to hear comments in this space about what you all think about this idea.