Please feel free to use my photos, but I would appreciate it if you would credit them.

Seattle Krispy Kremers

Each guy is eating a full dozen Krispy Kreme donuts. Look at them! Who needs anti-depressants?

Thanksgiving turkey, poor thing. 

Doomed turkey BEFORE

This turkey, raised by my brother in Seattle, weighed 42 lbs. dressed and unstuffed. At least my bro lost the nerve to slaughter him himself and took him to a butcher who quickly dispatched him for $10.

Turkey met doom.

As if he'd never lived...

One of the World’s Cuter Dogs

Curry Irvine-Geller

Face With a Thousand Stories

Thank you for letting me take your picture.

Black Friday, Northgate Mall, Seattle

Fashionable Thanksgiving OD

Houston Airport 12/27/11

Rocky and his person waiting for a flight

Home Sweet Home

Generally, I’ve been a police fan. I like having them around. But thanks to the Occupy movement and other incidents, my feelings about the Seattle Police have changed.

Today, Richard Pauli sent me this YouTube video of an officer in California needlessly pepper spraying a group of silent, inert demonstrators – and the video goes on to righteously ridicule the officer. Here is the link.

http://youtu.be/2y_W2dwSfSQ

Since the US populace has been complacent since the early 70s, and there have been few public outcries about anything, I haven’t given much thought of the ability and proclivity of some officers to wantonly abuse power.  We (me included) have satisfied ourselves with writing piercingly clever editorials and letters, displaying our artful use of words on websites, and having intellectual discussions when social issues have raised our yuppie ire. Speaking for myself, a person who made noise and marched in the 60s, we have relaxed. Too much. Now, at last, a young, energetic mass of people have risen, as if from nowhere, furious with the outrageous status quo and not holding back their opinions, which have taken an active, visible form. Good for them and it’s about time.

The pepper spray video shows just how far behind the police are in dealing with spirited crowds. I imagine police training in recent decades has not included much emphasis on how to work with non-violent demonstrators. I hope that gets remedied very soon.

The mistreatment of the Occupy demonstrators all over the country has underlined a general  misuse of police power that should have shocked us (me) into action before this. In the last few years, in fact, Seattle Police have fatally shot so many civilians, that they are under federal investigation. The most apalling case was the fatal shooting of well-known Native American woodcarver John T. Williams, as he was walking downtown carving a piece of wood. Officer Ian Burke approached him from the rear, and from a distance of about twelve feet, shouted at Williams to drop the knife. Williams didn’t and Burke fired multiple shots, killing the elderly man.

John T. Williams (photos from Seattle Times)

The Seattle Times, 12/17/2010, reproduces the narrative from the Officer’s microphone/recorder.

Officer Birk: “Hey, Hey, Hey. Put the knife down, put the knife down, put the knife down.”

(Shots fired) Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

Officer Birk radios in: “Unit 33. Shots fired Boren and Howell. Subject wouldn’t drop the knife.”

Dispatcher: “Shots fired. Boren and Howell….”

Further radio transmissions can then be heard.

Then, a faint woman’s voice can be heard saying, “He didn’t do anything.”

Officer Birk can be heard saying “Ma’am, he had a knife and he wouldn’t drop it.”

The radio dispatcher asks for a status report.

Officer Birk answers, “Under control. Subject is down.”

Dispatcher: “Copy. Subject is down.”

When other officers arrive, Birk can be heard saying:

“He had the knife open. I approached him. I asked him to drop it multiple times. He wouldn’t drop it and he turned towards me.”

Other officers can then be heard talking among as they deal with the scene.

Then, in response to an officer asking if he’s ok, Birk says:

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

The officer asks “he just had a knife?”

Birk: “Yeah, he had it out. He was carving it up, carving up that board, with it open. I approached him, and the tool (?), I instructed him to drop it multiple times. He wouldn’t do it.”

Other officer: “Good job.”

Birk: “Yeah.”

The knife appears to be only three inches long, and I believe the illegal length for an open knife blade in public is six inches.

Furthermore, John T. Williams was as deaf as a post and did not hear the officer calling him.

Last week, the SPD pepper sprayed an 84 year-old woman who had come downtown on an errand and decided to join the demonstrations. I can’t imagine that Dorly Rainie was enough of a threat to warrant this treatment.

Dorly Rainey (photo from Seattle Times)

By the way, one of Dorly’s two rescuers was an Army sergeant named Caleb, who I had featured in an article about Occupy Seattle recently.

Here is an excerpt from an article called America Has Become a Facist Police State by a writer named Carl Gibson on Reader Supported News.

In the early years of public school, or in public addresses by politicians, America is touted as the Land of the Free, or the Land of Opportunity, or the Greatest Country on Earth. We’re taught from near-infancy that this country was founded on the right to say what you want, whenever, wherever, to whomever. We’re told we have the freedom to assemble peacefully, to petition our leaders for a redress of grievances. We’re taught that if you’re apprehended by the law, you have the right to a fair trial and legal representation.

Yet, today we live in a country where government aids the corporate takeover of elections. Here, banks who fraudulently took Americans’ homes for profit can get bailed out by the taxpayers, and use the money to pay themselves 12-figure bonuses. This is a country where even US citizens can be detained without due process, tortured, and even assassinated overseas.

Today, in the Land of the Free, nonviolent political protesters using their First Amendment rights to speak out against all of the above can be beaten, tasered, and maced by heavily-militarized police forces, using military-grade equipment, without any provocation.

Here is the link to the entire article.

I’ve tended to think that writing like Gibson’s is extreme and that if you behave well and put one foot in front of the other, the system will protect and help you. I’m afraid one thing I’ve learned from the Occupy movement is that I am wrong about this and I find it terrifying.

Expats are making an increasing impact on countries around the world as baby boomers are retiring and looking for warmer, less expensive places to live out their days. The presence of expats in other countries is increasingly dramatic. It’s okay.  The world changes.

Many foreigners have moved to Merida in the past ten years and now there are between 3,000 and 5,000 expats, many of them in the downtown core. The immigration has changed the nature of the city. Depending on who you talk to, the change is for the better or for the worse.

Whatever arguments people might make that the foreign influence has negatively impacted the city, it is a fact that the appearance of downtown has gone through a miraculous revival. Years ago, many of the colonial homes were piles of rubble. Now they are transformed into lovely, colorful, inviting homes, probably close to their original condition. Meanwhile, the City of Merida has made important changes in intersections (La Hermita) and upgraded the parks, so at this point, the city looks pretty spiffy. The City of Merida has also been re-doing the elegant colonial facades of many of the old buildings. And how many cities have wi-fi in their public parks? The City has not looked this good in many years.

Before the bulk of the foreign influx, giant colonial homes were available for under $15,000 USD. They have increased in value at least ten times. If a local middle-class person wanted to buy one, he probably wouldn’t be able to afford it. Instead, Mexicans are moving to new suburban areas. It seems that lots of Mexicans prefer the new suburbs, with new, clean construction, good roads without gridlock, better air, proximity to schools and shopping, consistent electrical power and underground waste disposal systems. The foreigners fall in love with the romantic older homes, so they rehab them (providing employment), and upgrading downtown.

What are the effects of the expat influx on the nearby Maya villages and towns? The social structure has morphed in the last ten years. Fewer people are home during the day as the men go to their regular work (or new work as masons, tilers, painters, plumbers or gardeners) and many of the women work as domestics for the foreign population of Merida. They are busy. Some ride the bus to work in the city for over an hour each way. No more huipiles. No more chicken coops. No more litttle gardens and hanging herb pots.

When is the last time you’ve seen a house like this?

The extra income in the households has afforded people better nutrition, and more access to education for the children.

In 1980, a film was released called The Gods Must Be Crazy. It was set in Botswana. A glass Coke bottle falls from an airplane and Xi, the headman of a tribe of bushmen wandering in the Kalahari, finds it.

Here is a summary from Wikipedia:

Xi and his tribe of San/Bushmen relatives are living well off the land in the Kalahari Desert. They are happy because the gods have provided plenty of everything, and no one in the tribe has unfulfilled wants. One day, a glass Coke bottle is thrown out of an aeroplane and falls to earth unbroken. Initially, this strange artifact seems to be another boon from the gods—-Xi’s people find many uses for it. But unlike anything that they have had before, there is only one bottle to go around. This exposes the tribe to a hitherto unknown phenomenon, property, and they soon find themselves experiencing things they never had before: jealousy, envy, anger, hatred, even violence.

Since it has caused the tribe unhappiness on two occasions, Xi decides that the bottle is an evil thing and must be thrown off of the edge of the world. He sets out alone on his quest and encounters Western civilization for the first time. The film presents an interesting interpretation of civilization as viewed through Xi’s perceptions.

Are there parallels between the film and the spread of expat populations to poor countries all over the globe? Does the presence of foreigners change the local cultures? You bet it does. Do people from the villages see new machines, new kinds of clothing, new ways of cooking? They make decisions about which parts of our culture they wish to integrate into their lives  and which they want to throw away, like the offending coke bottle.

Recently I’ve been reading non-commercial expat blogs from around the world. Again, these are written by people who moved south for less expensive homes and services and better weather.

I’ve read blogs from growing expat communities in San Miguel de Allende, Lake Chapala, Cuernavaca, and far away in Vanuatu, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Bali, American Samoa, Okinawa (!), Malta, Luang Prabang (Laos), Bangkok, Leon (Nicaragua), Ecuador, Panama, Colombia and Ruwanda. In each of these places, people write about their need to reach out to their own kind, to find some semblance of “home” to mitigate the dramatic change in location and culture.

The following points have been common threads in countries that are poor. The economic gap between the expats and the local indigenous populations is huge and it’s hard to prevent certain unhappy results, such as those below.

• The indigenous population, friendly at first, dislikes the incursion of the foreigners.
• Most of the contacts the expats have with local people is in some service capacity.
• Relationships between local people and expats often lead to the local asking the expat for goods or money.
• The expats alter the physical environments they move to. Sometimes good, sometimes not so good.
• Expat influx results in a jump in property values in most countries, pricing local people out of the market.
• Expat groups tend to form cliques, tend to learn the local language slowly, and live in a “bubble” with other foreigners. (called the “expat bubble” on some of the sites).

Most of the expat blogs were designed to bitch and moan or to provide practical information for new arrivals and people considering the move.  I didn’t find many sites that talked at length about the expat effect on local populations.

A notable exception –  a truth-telling website from a Canadian writer named Stan Combs who lived in several locations in Vanuatu. Vanuatu is a string of islands between Fiji and Australia formerly known as New Hebrides. Combs lived there off and on for years, working for NGOs. He learned the local language, Buslama, well enough to conduct fascinating interviews (on his site) with local residents.

http://members.shaw.ca/scombs/vanuatu.html

Some of his words are sad, but telling.

Underdevelopment and the Real Vanuatu – My Conclusion

I have come to the conclusion that in the Vanuatu context, “underdevelopment”, or ni-Vanuatu loss of control over their situation, is the result of a giant culture clash between village cultures and the Western juggernaut, with “bewilderment” being the operative word on both sides.

Another blog I found and enjoyed was one called I Was An Expat Wife. The articles are insightful, and written with humor and clarity. Her article about 12 ways to become an ugly expat is wonderful.

http://iwasanexpatwife.com/2011/02/27/become-an-ugly-expat-in-12-easy-steps

Last week late at night, I was casting about for something to watch on TV and found Househunters International, a reality (?) show in which white people are looking for the perfect tropical paradise. On the program, they meet with a realtor, see three houses, and of course, buy one.  The one I watched was in some tropical paradise (hah) somewhere in the Pacific (they make them all look exactly alike). It showed the English-speaking realtor driving wealthy Brits down a third-world road complete with chickens and children, creating a terrible dust cloud, and not even seeing the little communities they were passing as fast as they could. They arrived at their destination – an area full of mansions with neatly trimmed lawns and lush plants and no chickens or children, and picked thier way through an obscenely huge house, criticizing the layout or obstructions to the water view. They did not see or care about the country itself. They saw the villages as places that supplied servants. They most certainly would never visit one of those villages or learn the local language.

Beryl Gorbman

Seattle has its own version of Occupy Wall Street. We’ve visited it several times.

The first time was a quiet Tuesday late morning. The police had come through at 7 a.m. and removed all the tents, so many of the demonstrators had gone. There was still a large police presence. The Occupy group is in Westlake Plaza, in the center of the downtown business district.

She has been here every time I've gone.

There were lots of exhausted demonstrators and some real characters. Most of the crowd this Tuesday were young, some homeless, many pretty strange. By about 11 a.m., some of the organizers arrived. They were all tall, white, thin, and snotty. They wore casual but expensive clothing.

Party entertainer

Below are two pictures of Caleb, one of the demonstrators. He is active military. In the first picture, he removed his velcro name tag, but in the second picture, he decided to put it back on.

“I just got back from two tours in Afghanistan,” Caleb says. “”And when I look at it now, I think this country is fucked up.”

Caleb was holding an American flag. “Wanna help me burn this?” he asked. “Maybe later,” I said.

Caleb

Caleb 2

Exhausted

When I returned a few days later, the tone had changed. It was a Saturday. There was a speakers’ podium with a lot of photos and signs about police brutality. I guess this is why people are confused about the goals of this movement. I had come because of the economic issues, and so had a lot of other people. There were several hundred police officers and the people screaming into the mike were trashing the police (who are far from perfect as we all know) and calling them murderers. I thought this was rude. If I had been a police officer, I would have been angry, but they are trained to not take things personally, I guess. I was annoyed because I thought there were bigger issues at stake than police brutality.

The general tone of the large crowd was a lot angrier too. Here is one of the angriest human beings it has ever been my misfortune to meet. His name is Robert.

He was yelling at the police. “I’m gonna kill all of you punks,” he shouted.

“But they have guns,” I pointed out.

“I don’t give a shit,” he answered. “I’m German. My people stacked Jews up like burnt cordwood at those concentration camps,” he said proudly. “That’s in my blood. Not that I think it’s good to murder Jews, but that’s how tough we are.” He said he had been run off of his property and the elderly relative he was caring for had been placed in a facility.

“They have guns, and I have God,” he said.

Then I had a couple of constructive conversations. The first was with Tabitha, a lovely and intelligent young woman who sincerely wanted to see changes in the lopsided economic structure of our country. She was carrying a clip-board and then went off to make signs.

“I am trying to fight the media slant on these demonstrations,” she said. “We are not disorganized. What we have done is make a group decision not to interfere with what anyone has to say and people here have different issues and points of view. But we are all deeply unhappy about the way things are headed in this country.”

Tabitha

Then I met Clint, talked about how corporations have more voice in the running of the country, how government and business is intermingled, and the greed of the banks. He said that Chase Bank had donated $3 million dollars to the Seattle police department to support them during the demonstrations.

Clint says that November 5 has been targeted as the date for people to pull their money out of commercial banks and put it in credit unions. (We have personally already initiated this process, and are migrating from Wells Fargo, which dreams up new fees every week, to a credit union.)

Clint says, “We are many groups with a common goal.”

These demonstrators are showing a police officer a photo of someone they said had been murdered by the police.

Showing one of many posters of people killed by police

Here are a couple of guys I thought were undercover police, but they turned out to be a father and son. The son (R) is in the army, stationed at Lewis-McCord and his dad is visiting from out of town.

“I don’t understand why they aren’t more focussed,” said the dad. “They have no organization.  But they do have a lot to be angry about – cronysism, corporate greed, the relationship between corporations and the government…Why did it take young people so long to figure out that there was a problem – that’s what I don’t understand. I’m glad to see them doing this.”

Father and son

A lot of people were wearing masks. “So I won’t be known,” said one middle-class looking man.

Napping on the job

I asked these young people why they were masked and wearing black. They said it was because they are anarchists.

Anarchists

The whole area was surrounded by police. There were police officers on bikes in the mall. At the big intersection just outside the square (4th and Pike) there was a wall of motorcycles. And around the corner, there were plenty of police cars. My favorites were the mounted police. They let me pet a horse.

And there were a lot of straightforward, serious people, carrying signs they believed in, willing to share their points of view, and glad to be there.

Marcia is a social worker.

Anonymous

Cute face, sad sign

Camera looks like a weapon

The demonstrations are like big parties – lots of earnest conversations, friends running into friends, expressions of beliefs. Only they have a dark and frightening overtone. At any moment, the whole thing could explode into angry violence. Some of this is because of the divergence of ideas, some of the darkness is due to random anger, and some to unreasonable police activities like removing the demonstrators’ tents on a cold morning.

There is no doubt, however, that there is a lot of anger out there – and that all sectors of the population are represented. All races, rich and poor, unemployed and professional. And all of us, including the police, are in the 99%, not the top 1% of the population in terms of wealth.

Musician with nice coat

Beryl Gorbman

Right now it’s time to buy or renew your Medicare coverage if you are 65 or older. As I mentioned in a previous article, the options are numerous and can be confusing. You have to plan on spending days reviewing all the options and evaluating which are best for you. I am being deluged, in the mail and on TV, with promotions from AARP, trying to sell me Medicare Advantage Plans. The text of the written and spoken materials deliberately states that you should buy your insurance through AARP. It does not mention that there are other options.

AARP can be confusing. There is AARP.org, the traditional organization that advocates for seniors, gives advice, publishes a magazine, etc. When you turn 50, AARP sends you a letter suggesting that you join. How depressing. Does the whole world know I’m 50? I always wondered how they got my name and knew my DOB. From a federal source, perhaps?

Then, there is AARP.com, the profit-making part of the organization, which dwarfs the .org section. Under the .com umbrella, there are dozens of sites that start with “AARP.” Included in their names are words such as “Medicare Supplements” or “Auto Insurance.” These companies are operating as insurance brokers all over the country and making a fortune.

Apparently the profit-making arm and the non-profit making arm of AARP are in a state of conflict. There are two separate boards of directors, with some people being on both boards. Those board meetings must be horrendous.

I called the office of Mike Kreidler, our Washington State Insurance Commissioner and was told in writing,  ”AARP isn’t an insurance company.  AARP is an association.  Associations can buy a group policy that their members can then buy into.”

I asked whether I could form an association and do the same thing, but no one answered.

I asked whether AARP was a licensed broker or agent in the State of Washington and got no response. So I called and to my surprise reached a hostile woman, who said that AARP had nothing to do with the State office, that they contract directly with the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMMS).
“But they are selling insurance in this state,” I said. She actually raised her voice at me, told me to contact the federal agency, and hung up. Wow!

I checked out the CMMS site and learned, “ The insurance company is required to disclose the legal name of the insurance company underwriting the plan on all of their marketing materials.   If the health plan is  Medicare Advantage, then it is subject to federal Medicare marketing rules.  You might want to call Medicare about that. 800-633-4227.” This is the general Medicare phone number. You can imagine how helpful that is.

When I started Googling, I was gratified to see that a lot of individuals and organizations are questioning AARP’s relationship with Medicare.

Several years ago, in a publication called Medicare Covers America, Stan Stovall said on a broadcast that “AARP is one of Medicare’s oldest friends.” You bet they are. They save Medicare the cost and obligation (they think) of interpreting the puzzling options that compose Medicare. The only trouble is, they make it appear that the supplemental insurance can be purchased only through them.

And how about this one:

“There’s an inherent conflict of interest….They’re ending up becoming very dependent on sources of income.”- Former AARP Executive Dr. Marilyn Moon. Ms Moon is discussing AARP.

It is my position that AARP is working in direct conflict with the constituency they profess to serve.

Bloomberg had a lot to say:  ”AARP represents 37 million people ages 50 and over in the U.S. Its gains will come from insurance products it endorses and that will attract customers under the health law, a group of Republicans on the House Ways and Means committee said in a report released today.”

Wally Herger, a California representative says, “AARP operates in direct opposition to the needs of their senior membership.” He chairs the House Ways and Means Health subcommittee.

More from Bloomberg:

“It has come to light that the seniors’ lobby group, which took in $1.2 billion last year, makes more than 40 percent of its revenue from royalties and fees — up from 11 percent in 1999, Bloomberg reported.

The source of that money? The higher prices it charges its members for AARP-endorsed insurance policies.”

Bloomberg’s December 5 story cited one customer who bought an AARP-endorsed Advantage plan and another who had purchased an AARP auto insurance policy,….”because he was under the impression the AARP endorsement meant a good deal, but they discovered otherwise. The auto insurance consumer found he was paying twice the average rate, while the health insurance consumer was shocked to get a hospital bill for tens of thousands of dollars not covered by her policy.”

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) sent a letter to AARP CEO Bill Novelli and letters to insurance commissioners in the 29 states where the health plans in question were sold.

“The pitch for these products should be straight up and informative, instead of designed to leave the impression of being comprehensive when the product is, in fact, very limited and leaves consumers seriously in debt if they need intensive medical care,” Sen. Grassley said.

Sen. Grassley demanded answers about AARP’s marketing practices, which prompted Mr. Novelli to call for a suspension of the policies’ sales and an investigation.

This stuff is all over the web. AARP is getting rich and huge from Medicare profits. And by the way, they also sell auto insurance (The Hartford), life insurance (New York Life) and other services.

I read on one consumer advocate site that AARP accepts only people with good health for the Advantage programs they are selling, because their margin of profit is higher on people with “good” as opposed to “bad” health.

The AARP has a suite of sites. They are a kingdom. The site that makes me nervous is the AARP Public Policy Institute. Shudder.

Why does this annoy me so much? Perhaps it’s the TV telling us that in addition to a Medicare card, we also “need an AARP card.” This is an outright lie.

There are other companies, like Secure Horizons, that also bundle up Advantage programs and re-sell them to you. You can tell the re-sellers because they spend a lot of money – seminars, brochures, TV bombardment.

You will be a lot better off if you use the US Government website and the book, Medicare & You to research all the options and make your decisions.

And I would like to know why it is that these re-sellers are exempt from many insurance laws, notably the ones from the State of Washington.

Here is the cutest comment I received from Mike Kreidler’s WA State Insurance Commissioner’s office.

“Probably the way AARP does it is that they have some staffers who are licensed insurance agents and they work through their individual licenses.”

LOL.

Comments welcome.

.

Mario

Seattle

Beryl Gorbman

Yesterday, as I was entering an office building in downtown Seattle, a gentleman who appeared homeless gallantly walked ahead of me to open the door and hold it for me. As it turned out, we were going to the same office (The Seattle Weekly) and stood together at the reception desk for a few minutes. I listened to his demand to see the editor-in-chief. H was told, of course, that the editor was out of town.

I couldn’t resist. I had to ask him why he was there.

“I’m a poet,” he said. “And I want them to print my poem.”

He was carrying a large envelope of bright yellow broadsides. He showed me one, autographed it, and gave it to me. It was a poem he’d written that he wanted published.

I was taken with Mario and invited him to coffee down the street. When we were seated with our Americanos, I read the poem. Here it is:

IT WOULDN’T BE LONG

by Neo-Poet Marionicolae, S. Trantafilloo

1. In a world as such, of souls;
Honey never comes in bowls

But instead; in tiny drops.

2. Millions of folks

Are standing in the walks,

Surrounding city-blocks,

And the “Big – men”;

Are looking down, without – a – smile.

3. Oh! it wouldn’t be long,

It wouldn’t be long!

I can hear the roaming noise

Which soon would be

My children’s song.

4. Yes! it wouldn’t be long,

When the white horses

Will merge with the Black – stallions,

To hunt – down deception,

The mother of all Evil.”

5. Oh! it wouldn’t be long

When all men would be Blood-Brothers,

Confident with each chance, that comes

In “shane” – minds.

6. It wouldn’t be long -

when Liberty, Intelligence, and Justice,

will come to serve the “honey” there,

in bowls.

Yeah! IT WOULDN’T BE LONG!!!

No, I don’t understand it all, either. But Mario spoke of his passionate love for the United States and his faith in President Obama. Then he spoke of those who are the enemy – the rich, the corporations, the banks, the neo-nazis, the corrupt politicians, Republicans, those who abuse civil rights of black people and other minorities.

“I hate injustice,” says Mario. “We are putting money in the banks and financing weapons and machiavellian systems.”

“They don’t tell us anything.” he says. “People are dying from radiation in Japan. There was a release of gamma radiation and people are dying from it in Alaska.”

Mario says he is a global citizen – citizen of the world. He has been a legal permanent resident of America since 1979 and worked for many years as an art dealer.

I asked him whether he had ever been arrested, and Mario smiled. He said, “Who is the foreigner who hasn’t been arrested in this country?”

Now, Mario lives on a friend’s boat, anchored in Portage Bay. He writes poetry. He is participating in the current demonstrations against corporations.

He had a pure vision of what America should be – what it almost is – what he loves about it. He was passionate and engaged in the world. I found him inspirational. It’s unusual nowadays to talk to people who aren’t bland, who don’t take things for granted. Here was this foreigner (Italian-Greek), so in love with this country, that the current state of things is upsetting him greatly. He says everyone needs to speak out.

“Martin Luther King said, ‘Silence is Betrayal.’”

Chocolate – How Good Can it Get?

Here are some photos of Chocolopolis, the ultimate in chocolate shops, located on Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill. Every single person who worked there knew their chocolate. I had no idea that chocolate had surpassed even coffee in the degree to which it’s being evaluated, cultivated, and made into an absolute art form. The confections look like jewelry and the bars are wrapped in museum-quality art. And Chocolopolis is the mecca. The staff holds tastings once a week. Yesterday, when Richard and I were there, they were holding a public tasting for Dandelion Chocolate, a new gourmet brand.

The chocolate-covered cacao beans were ten times better than chocolate-covered coffee beans. Everyone needs to carry them around in their pockets.

Chocolate or jewelry?

Halloween

Gourmet bars

The store owner says chocolatiers generally produce either confections (individual candies) or bars.

We had cups of the most flavorful hot chocolate on the face of the earth. I could not believe how intense and rich a cup of chocolate could be. It took half an hour to drink it.

The Northwest Chocolate Festival is October 22-23, but I don’t think I’ll be over that cup of hot chocolate by then. It’s at Seattle Center.

While drinking this ultra-fabulous chocolate grog, Richard and I had an emotional discussion about global warming. When you really let yourself think about it, this topic gets you crazy, even in Chocolopolis. The spectre of rapidly accelerating global warming is, as Richard says, the most critical of our problems – way beyond the comedic Republican presidential slate, the state of the economy, wars, or anything else.

Turkey

This poor guy is being cultivated for November 24th. By my own dear brother, no less. You are looking at a doomed animal. Fortunately, turkeys go through their whole lives without a consciousness of Thanksgiving.

Probably his last photo

Joint Replacements

For those with achy knees and hips, it is good to know that St. Helena Hospital in the lovely Napa Valley of California, is pioneering less invasive ways to replace arthritic joints. They use robotic instruments from several manufacturers, depending on the procedure. The effort is headed by Dr. Thomas Coon, seen below speaking. Technology includes bluetooth data transfer from one machine to another. And you can put the data chip from an MRI into the machine being demonstrated below. The robot actually prevents the surgeon from burring off defective bone outside the affected area (aka coloring coutside of the lines).

The surgery candidates (partial knees and full hips) are often in and out of the hospital in one day. Incisions are small. Pain is greatly reduced. See you soon, genius team!

Dr. Coon is also a race-car driver.

"Burring" affected femur according to robotic instructions.

The Art Walk

On the first Thursday of each month, there is an evening Gallery Walk in a trendy part of downtown Seattle. Dozens of artists have studios and lofts here and you can walk from one to another. Most of the work is for sale.

This week, Susan and I went trekking around. Although we liked a lot of the art, we were disappointed by the inadequate refreshments. The economic downturn is everywhere.

The work below is by artist Patte Loper.

This guy (a structure) is a recurring theme in many of her paintings.

Here are some other pieces I liked, from various artists on the Gallery Walk.

Justin Gibbons did this odd bird and other strange animals. He is an artist with a background in scientific illustration.

Other artists.

Below, is a portrait of Shawn, who we met on The Walk. His unusual ear decor, according to Susan, has some distasteful sexual application that I don’t need to know about. There is actual ear material going all around the huge ring. He said he started with a small opening and increased it gradually. Yes, initially it hurt quite a bit, he says, but it’s okay now.

Shawn's greatly stretched ear

After the Gallery Walk, Susan cleverly located the only restaurant in Chinatown that is not Asian. We each had a fabulous slice of pizza. World Pizza, 672 S. King Street.

Open enrollment period for 2012 Medicare is 10/15 – 12/7 2011 for coverage beginning January 1, 2012. If you are eligible for Medicare, you should be reviewing your coverages now and thinking over choosing or changing coverages as this is the only time you can do this until next year.

Use your copies of Medicare & You, the official government publication, and the resources at www.medicare.gov to verify what I say. Also, there are many details I am not touching on that might be critical to you – so check official sources thoroughly.

The difficulty of making good decisions about Medicare coverage is second only to the process of doing your own income tax. Both of these systems are so complex, and the results of making errors so dire, that I feel they are cruel setups for the average American to fail and cost themselves lots of money and perhaps their health.

When I went on Medicare, my smart retired nurse friend Judy R. had already done all the footwork for selecting good coverage. I just listened to her and on examining things more closely, saw how right she was.

Here’s the deal.

Medicare is divided into Parts.

Medicare Part A which is “free” to all Americans over 65. Part A covers a good part of  hospitalization and skilled nursing facilty costs. Part A has deductibles, some quite large. It does not cover doctor visits or consultations.

Medicare Part B is optional. It costs about $115 per year for everyone. Everyone is eligible. Part B partially covers doctor visits, medical equipment, PT, counseling, certain tests, x-rays and other diagnostics, an annual limited physical, limited optical services, and screening procedures and some preventive services. There are substantial limitations, co-pays and deductibles. Co-payments for chemotherapy or dialysis can be crippling. Part B pays no more than 80% of any of the services covered. Inquire carefully into HIV and AIDS coverage. If you can afford it, buy Medicare Part B.

Beyond A and B, there are other coverages you can buy from insurers. Which companies are involved vary by state and by county within states. Here are the general categories:

Medicare Part C. (aka HMO, PPO, Advantage). These are Medicare plans run by managed care organizations, like Kaiser Permanente, Group Health, etc. The plan must be Medicare-approved. Some of the plans offer help with prescription drugs (so you don’t need to buy Part D). These Medicare Advantage Plans, PPOs, etc.  have closed rosters of doctors and facilities. They vary in their amounts of co-pays.

When you buy a Part C Plan, Parts A and B are folded into it. Your monthly payment goes to the Part C Plan, and you don’t have to pay separately for Plan B. Plan C plan coverages vary and you need to check them out and verify what they do and don’t cover. Part C plans may offer services outside of Medicare requirements, like wellness programs, dental, vision, prescriptions, etc. Your main limitation with Part C is the closed system, the lack of free choice of doctors and hospitals. And of course, with Part C, you will have co-pays and deductibles.

There are excruciating details on what is and isn’t covered by Part C Advantage Plans on page 76 of your Medicare & You manual*. Also, on page 144 there is a list of all the Medicare Plan C companies, fees, and services. They are ranked according to customer satisfaction, which is interesting. Note the availability by county in WA.

What is generally not strongly stressed in Medicare literature, is that you can buy your own Medigap insurance policy, aka Medicare supplementary insurance. This does not have a handy alphabetical designation, like A-D. Medigap is meant to cover the GAP between what Medicare pays and what the patient pays.

You can own either a Part C Advantage plan OR a Medigap plan, not both.

Parts A and B are easy to sign up for and there is lots of info out there on how to do it. We won’t be discussing A and B any more in this article. Likewise the interactions between retiree insurance, etc. Read the manual. Medicare & You is mailed to every American over 65 every year. You should have already received yours if you are eligible.

Medigap Insurance is private insurance that can fill in many of the co-pay and deductible gaps left by plans A through C. It is often, but not always, more expensive than an Advantage Plan (C). You need to have Part A and Part B before buying Medigap.

Medicare Part D. This plan helps cover the cost of prescription drugs. You can buy a plan from a Medicare-approved prescription drug insurance company. These companies vary on which drugs they cover (formularies) and to what extent. You must compare them. The basic chart of companies and monthly fees is on page 147 of Medicare & You, but you have to check the individual formularies to see whether they carry the meds you need and which has the best prices.

If you don’t have a Part C plan or any plan with prescription drug coverage, you will probably want to buy a Part D plan.

Let’s look at Medigap coverage. If you can afford it, you should examine this option carefully. You can use any doc or facility that takes Medicare.

Under federal law, there are ten defined flavors of Medigap in the State of Washington. (They can vary by State.) Look at page 67 of your Medicare & You handbook to see what each one covers and doesn’t cover. Options are things like – paying your doctor co-pays, paying your hospital co-pays, blood, hospice care, paying deductibles, and covering foreign travel medical needs. Each of the ten plans covers all or some of these items and you pick the one that has the elements most important to you. Of course, the price of your Medigap plan can go very high depending on what you pick.

Medigap allows you to see any doctor or go to any facility that has a relationship with Medicare. You don’t need a referral. If you are going to have surgery, as with any other private coverage, it is wise to check in with your insurer beforehand to make sure they will cover it with no problems.

Now comes the fun part. These Medigap plans are available from a number of private insurers, different in each state. You need to go shopping because they can all charge different amounts for the same thing! For instance, if you choose Plan M, one company might charge $25 per month and another $100.

How do you pick a Medigap plan? It is totally up to you. You can pay a low premium and tend to have higher costs. Or, if you are a high-frequency medical consumer, you may want to pick a higher cost plan (like F or G) because you won’t have any co-pays, which will probably save you money in the long run.

(The alpha designations for Medigap Plans, A, B,C,D,F,G,K,L,M and N have no relationship to the the Medicare Parts A, B, C, D, etc.)

Here is how to figure out what each plan and insurer costs.

1. Go to www.medicare.gov
2. Under Family Plans, select Compare Medigap Policies
3. Fill in the window, mark No on whether you have a Medigap policy.
4. Now you are looking at all the Medigap policies. You can see that the range of monthly premiums for each plan varies widely. Let’s say you decided you are interested in Medigap policy F, based on what it covers. (You established that from the chart on page 67 of the manual.)
5. You can see that depending on what company you choose, the premium varies between $147 and $289 per month. You can also see that each company provides identical coverage (see Benefits checkboxes).
6. In the right-hand column, select all companies that offer policy F. You will see a list of all the companies which in your state allow the offer of policy F. Explore the column explaining how the ratings are arrived at. Be wary of companies that say, “Information not available.”
7. Go back one screen, and select View all benefits. Here you can see what the insurer pays and what you pay. Under plan F, you pay nothing for almost every category. This is one of the more expensive options.

There is a massive and exhaustive website called www.medicare.gov that has absolutely everything on it. Spend as much time as you can stand burrowing around in it.

Medicare seems to have a preference for Medicare Part C plans rather than the Medigap plans. They are probably a lot easier to administer. I can understand why they no longer feel it is their obligation to research the fees and details of the Medigap plans.

No part of Medicare pays for dental work or dentures or hearing aids.

Not all doctors or facilites accept Medicare, no matter how much extra coverage you buy.

Be analytical about Medicare options that are heavily advertised on TV, e.g. by AARP. AARP represents a number of insurance companies, and in my understanding is acting as a broker. The insurers they represent, like United Health, may have higher rates, to pay for the AARP brokerage fee.  There are two entities called AARP. there is AARP.org, the banner under which they advocate for the elderly, and then there is AARP Inc., which sells insurance of varying sorts.

NB: AARP is NOT an official source for Medicare information. The only official sources are the US Government publications at the beginning of this article.

I personally have Medicare Plan A, Medicare Plan B, Medicare Plan D and a Medigap policy from Mutual of Omaha. I receive statements and I don’t see bills. It all goes mysteriously through an administrator called CNS. I’ve been happy with Mutual of Omaha, recommended intially by the goddess Judy R.

Disclaimers: I imagine I have made some errors. If I have and you recognize them, please add a comment, so people will know. I am in no way an expert on this. I am a fumbling person over 65 who tries to negotiate her way through these Dept. of Health and Human Services manuals and websites. Even so, I would never try to do my own taxes, which involve secret twists that the average citizen can’t possibly know.

*The page numbers mentioned here for the Medicare & You book are for the Washington State version.