Tag Archives: books

communication, condescending twatbags, healthcare, mental health

My personal triggers from Amy Silverstein’s heart transplant saga…

Good morning, people. It’s about 10:00 AM, and I’ve already been kind of busy. My day started at about 5:00 AM, which is when I usually wake up nowadays. I can’t believe there was a time when I could sleep until noon. That sure isn’t the case today!

I got up to do my usual morning routine, then did laundry, to include washing the sheets. I have a love/hate relationship with washing the sheets. I love how fresh sheets feel, but I hate the process of washing them and putting them on the bed. I never got the hang of making hospital corners. Bill is home today and could help; he is an expert at hospital corners! But he’s teleworking, because he was kind enough to take Noyzi to the vet for a dental. I didn’t want to bother him. He did come up and help me put the pillow cases on, which of course is the easiest part of that chore. I decided not to do the duvet covers today, because that’s the most annoying task related to washing the bedding. I’m just not in the mood to fool with it today.

After that was done, I moved more of my massive music collection to the new computer. I got through the Ks, although it sure wasn’t easy. Went from Keb’ Mo’ to Laura Branigan. That took a couple of frustrating hours. Then I forced myself to stop, so I could write a blog post. When I did that, I realized I had a pretty good case of writer’s block, and nothing was urging me to write today. Too bad I don’t have that feeling more often, since I often feel like my blog posts cause a lot of avoidable problems… like strained family relations and unpleasant interactions with strangers. But then I realize that I have my supporters, too. Yesterday, one of them, regular reader “dle”, left me a comment on my review of Amy Silverstein’s book, My Glory Was I Had Such Friends.

In my brief comment exchange with dle, I mentioned a few parts of Amy’s book about her second heart transplant that triggered me a bit. I had wanted to address them in the review itself, but decided not to, because my review was pretty long. I had included comments about Silverstein’s first book, Sick Girl, that I thought were important. I know that sometimes I have issues with brevity, and people only have so much time and attention span to dedicate to blog posts. So I didn’t comment on the parts of Silverstein’s story that really disturbed me a bit and made me feel a lot of empathy for her situation. I guess I’ll do that today, since I have a bit of writer’s block.

In this blog, I have mentioned on more than one occasion that I have a real problem trusting healthcare providers. I experienced some traumas at the hands of doctors that have left me very nervous at the prospect of seeing them for treatment. I know it’s crazy, given my educational background. I used to work with doctors before I became an overeducated housewife. A couple of them were also my classmates in my public health graduate program. But there’s a difference between being “colleagues” with medical doctors and submitting to them for care. I know intellectually that most doctors are responsible and decent and do their best to provide excellent care. However, I have run into a couple of them that left me with lingering issues. Being in Amy Silverstein’s medical situation would be a special kind of hell for me. I probably would have given up on life many years before she finally succumbed.

The first part of My Glory Was I Had Such Friends that “triggered” me a bit was Silverstein’s story about how she needed a pacemaker. Because of her vast experiences with medical procedures over decades of care, Silverstein had an aversion to the drug, Versed. She didn’t want to be “put out” for most of her procedures. Getting the pacemaker was no exception. She wanted to be conscious for it. Her physician, Dr. Wayne, was vehemently against the idea. From the book:

She nods and turns to greet the doctor who’s just come in—a small, quick-moving man with wiry gray hair.

“I am Dr. Wayne. Hello, Mrs. Silverstein.”

“You can call me by my first name if you like. I’m Amy.”

“Hello, Mimi.”

“No, it’s Amy,” I say, and then immediately think to correct myself for fear that he might call me “Itsamy.”

Dr. Wayne’s speech is choppy, perhaps due to his jittery manner.

“Today I will put in a pacemaker.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s what you gotta do.”

“I’ll give you medicine for sleep . . .”

“I’m not going to sleep.”

“Not really sleep. Just very, very relaxed. Like sleep.”

“Nope. No sedation at all. I do everything without sedation unless it’s a surgery. This isn’t a surgery, is it?”

“Not exactly surgery, but—”

“Good then. No sedation.”

The doctor whirls away from the exam table and mumbles under his breath loud enough for the nurse and me to hear: “No sedation! For a pacemaker! Sheesh . . .” He heads into the hallway to scrub up. The nurse remains behind, tending to an array of syringes and small metal utensils.

“I don’t want to give anyone a hard time,” I tell her, “but I’ve had lots of experience staying awake through hard stuff. And I don’t like being put out.”

“You wouldn’t really be out. Just relaxed. We’d be giving you some Versed . . .”

Versed! No way. I’d like to ask her how many times she’s had Versed, because I’ve had it plenty and it’s a nasty sedative. Instead, I press my lips closed. Check your attitude, Amy.

Silverstein, Amy. My Glory Was I Had Such Friends (pp. 89-90). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Amy has had enough experience with Versed to know that she really, really does not like it. And it’s her body that’s being worked on; her comfort should be paramount. However, the doctor turns out to be a nasty piece of work. Continued from the book:

That’s what Scott told me just before we headed out to LA. We had a long talk one evening, mulling the challenges we knew would be coming and trying to anticipate what else we might face. “If you’re going to die,” Scott said, “and let’s be honest, you might—you need to think about how you want to act at Cedars, how you want to hold yourself in the end. With your friends—do you want to be loving, or bitter and angry? And with the doctors and nurses—do you want to earn their respect for the way you’ve lived these twenty-five transplant years, or do you want to show how you’ve been wrecked by them? It’s all about how you want to be remembered,” he said.

This was not the first time that Scott had attempted to remind me of my better nature. There had been plenty of instances through the years when frustration and fear overtook me, transforming qualities like self-advocacy, determination, and attention to detail into alienating misbehaviors. The constancy and complexity of transplant-related illnesses would crescendo from time to time, to a point where it felt unbearable—and where it would imbue me with a distorted sense of self-righteousness: Give me a break—I can’t be bothered with decorum. I’m too sick. And then I would rage against Dr. Davis’s missteps, calling him inane, or I wouldn’t pick up the phone for days when friends called to check in, or I’d yell at Scott for no reason at all and then cry and cry and cry. Then came the heavy regret: “Scotty, I’m just so, so sorry . . .” and he would close his eyes and shake his head. “You’re dealing with unbelievably scary stuff, I know. But you’ve got to find a way to stop taking it out on the people around you.” If I didn’t, he said, I would send everyone scurrying away.

I tried to do better. With each successive medical crisis, I got a little more adept at keeping my fear from spiraling into anger and spurring me to lash out. But I found that the success of my efforts was only proportional to the health challenge at hand: the more life-threatening it was, the less I was able to contain my angst. What degree of self-control, then, would I manage to exert in the face of this retransplant? I was yet to find out. But it spooked me to notice that, in light of what awaited us in California, Scott had rephrased his usual advice about how I might carry myself in the hardest of circumstances. For the first time ever, he was framing his words in a context of finality, asking me not about how I might want to be perceived but rather remembered.

I just want to be remembered without everyone misunderstanding me. I know this doesn’t speak to the self-reflection Scott hoped for. But right now, this is what comes to mind as I contemplate how I might explain to this nurse my aversion to Versed. I know my stance is unusual; when patients hear that they’re getting a drug to help them relax before an invasive procedure, they see no reason to object. But long, hard-earned experience has taught me this: Versed messes with your mind. It’s a powerful, tricky sedative that makes you think you’ve slept through the procedure when actually you were awake the whole time. Versed is, simply, a forgetting drug, but its powers of erasure are imperfect. Somewhere in your mind (and certainly in your body) there is a flicker of awareness that something happened to you (for instance, you might have been screaming in pain throughout the procedure), but you can’t quite get at it, so an anxious ambiguity scratches at you and festers. There is a cost to not being able to access and process our own pain and suffering—some might call this post-traumatic stress. I’ve experienced it myself, and this is why I’ve come to insist on keeping things where I can see and process them—without Versed.

I share my thinking with the nurse.

She walks from the tray to my stretcher and lowers her voice. “I agree with you. And too much Versed isn’t good for your brain cells either.” She taps her head. “But Amy, I’ve never seen a patient do a pacemaker implantation without sedation. It’s going to be rough.”

“I hope you’re wrong. But thank you.”

Silverstein, Amy. My Glory Was I Had Such Friends (pp. 90-91). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Then, comes the assault by the doctor. This was the part that set me on edge, although I feel pretty sure that if I were Amy, I’d want the drugs. I’d rather be out cold for these kinds of procedures. Or, at least I think I would prefer to be. So far, I’ve been blessed with pretty good health and haven’t needed this kind of “care”.

Dr. Wayne stomps back in and comes to a stop by my left shoulder. “I’m going to have to give you a lot. Of lidocaine. Because you said no sedation. Sheesh.”

“Fine with me.” I don’t mind multiple lidocaine shots. I’ve accumulated three or four hundred of them for localized numbing in all the biopsies and angiograms I’ve had. From experience, I know that if the doctor gives the first shot slowly—alternating a bit of needle with a bit of lidocaine—subsequent injections will become quickly pain free.

BANG!

Dr. Wayne slams the first shot into the left side of my collarbone.

“Ow!”

“That hurt you,” he says.

“My gosh, yes. Ow. In New York, the doctor gives a little bit of lidocaine at a time so . . .”

“I said you would need a lot of shots. Because of no sedation.”

BANG!

This one feels like it has vengeance behind it. I clench my teeth, determined not to give in. BANG and BANG—two more in rapid succession.

That’s it.

Silverstein, Amy. My Glory Was I Had Such Friends (pp. 91-92). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Imagine having a doctor who is noticeably ANGRY because a patient stood up for herself. And instead of realizing that it’s her body and her healthcare at stake, the doctor is cruel and deliberately causes pain, rather than trying to work with the patient and respect her wishes about how her body is treated… or at least trying to assuage her valid anxieties about the procedure. The story continues:

“Ow! Ow! Oh my God! I can’t take it!” I’m weeping now, and I can’t believe I’m crumbling this way. I don’t cry from pain. What pierces my armor this time is the frightening vulnerability I feel at the gruff hands of a masked stranger in a cath lab far from the one I’ve known for twenty-six years. Reciting poetry couldn’t possibly combat what is looming over my body at this moment. A nurse’s tender glance would bring me no ease. The reassuring touch points I’ve come to rely on give way to stabs of surprise—each one of them another fiery agony. I have never known cath lab procedures to be scenes of horror, but I feel myself here in the grip of a ghoul.

“It’s too much for you. Right?” Dr. Wayne glares.

“No, I’m strong as hell. I’ve been on a hundred cath lab tables. It’s you! You’ve got terrible hands—has anyone ever told you that? You suck at this! Just give me the damn Versed.” Oh, I’ve really let loose now. I sure don’t want to be remembered like this, but I’ve lost all control.

“Oh, now you want it? I have to call anesthesia. It will take, I don’t know, an hour. For them to get here. Because you said no sedation!”

I pause, taking a few seconds to muster a conversational tone. “You need an anesthesiologist to administer Versed? In my experience, the nurse just puts it in my IV—at least that’s how they do it in New Y—”

“In New York! In New York!” He galumphs away from the exam table, waving his hands over his head. The nurse follows, and I’m alone.

I’ve never been left alone in a cath lab before.

Silverstein, Amy. My Glory Was I Had Such Friends (pp. 92-93). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

What a fucking bastard! I hope she lodged a formal complaint against that man. The story continues, with Amy fretting because she’s alone in the cath lab, with a very flat pillow. Because of her heart condition, she has trouble breathing when she’s lying flat. So there she is, getting “medical care” that has left her traumatized, and will probably put her life in danger (moot now, since she recently passed away). She continues, having explained that she’s feeling woozy:

Within seconds, the green-clad people descend, ghoulish in their masks and puffy caps, gloves and X-ray shields. There are here to slice into my skin, slide their control wires into my heart. One of them pulls back the sheeting from my left shoulder, where scattered injection punctures still ooze blood onto my naked breast.

The Versed sweeps through my IV . . .

Silverstein, Amy. My Glory Was I Had Such Friends (p. 94). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

After the procedure, Amy is deliberately slow to recover, upsetting her friends and husband. She’s traumatized, terrified, and justifiably angry about how she was treated. Her husband’s response, when he realizes that she’s not responding promptly, like a “good girl”, is to get angry with her. But she’s just been assaulted by a “doctor” who deliberately hurt her because she dared to exercise self-determination.

The second part of My Glory Was I Had Such Friends that triggered me was when Amy found out that she had breast cancer and needed surgery. She, very understandably, got angry and upset with her doctor. Rather than listening to the doctor talk about treatment options, Amy stormed out of her office, leading the doctor to worry that Amy might be a danger to herself. Was it childish? Yes… but remember, this is a woman who had been dealing with this shit for decades. She was tired of it. From the book:

The ordeal occurred just three months before the bad-news angiogram (and four months before I headed out to California): a breast sonogram picked up a strange-looking spot in my right breast. I didn’t worry at first because soon after my first transplant, the regimen of immunosuppressive medicines caused benign fibroadenoma masses to grow in my breasts. They were easily spotted on sonograms and sometimes grew so large I had to get them surgically removed. But this particular spot looked different. When I asked the biopsy radiologist if she thought she’d just put a needle into something scary, she threw up her hands. “Gosh, this is a weird-looking one,” she said. “I don’t know what it is.”

It was cancer.

Silverstein, Amy. My Glory Was I Had Such Friends (pp. 145-146). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Amy’s friend, Lauren, was involved in the drama that followed, after Amy got the news that not only did she need another heart transplant, but she also had breast cancer that would require major surgery. She continues:

When she reached me with the news, I froze. “Oh, come on! With all you’ve been through, this is easy stuff!” my breast doctor implored. She couldn’t have chosen more enraging words. I’d known this doctor since I started growing those golf ball fibroadenomas just after my first transplant, and I liked her a lot. But she was barking up a dangerous tree at a tragic moment by trying to turn my years of illness into a rallying call, when I was seeing it as a signal to raise the white flag.

“I’m not doing it,” I said. “I had a horrid open-heart valve surgery just a few months ago. And, frankly, my heart isn’t feeling so great lately. I’m not taking on breast cancer. I’m . . . I’m out.”

Ooh. Nice. I liked the feel of these words as they rolled off my lips for the first time—I’m out.

“You can’t quit now! You have to fight this. You’re just the kind of person who’s going to do great—”

“I’m out! I’m out! I’m out!” Wow, I loved the sound—and the sentiment. I’m free! I don’t have to do this anymore! For me, taking on an additional life-threatening illness was completely unfathomable. It was so beyond okay or understandable or doable or fair. “I gotta go now . . .”

“Go where?”

And this is where I made a really big mistake. “I’m leaving,” I said. “I’m getting in the car now. I’m not doing this anymore.”

“You can’t. You have to do this. Amy! Let’s talk! Would you come to the city and meet with me? I’ll cancel my afternoon . . .”

“Bye.”

I left. And then I was driving, blindly. My cell phone rang and it was Scott, telling me that my breast doctor called the local police because she’s worried about me. The police were at the house now, he said, and Lauren was on the way to meet them. He told me to go back home. “I’m out!” I cried, and kept driving.

Silverstein, Amy. My Glory Was I Had Such Friends (pp. 146-147). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Amy drove some more to let off some steam. Meanwhile, the cops had broken into her house and ransacked her bedroom, even reading her journals. Her friend, Lauren, was there to deal with the cops, who were there to “save” her life from suicide… A woman who had already had one heart transplant, needed a second one, and had just been told she had breast cancer. She wasn’t suicidal. She was FRUSTRATED… and understandably so. But the cops had violated her house, all because her doctor sicced them on her. Granted, the doctor had to make the call, due to the law. If she believed Amy was a danger to herself or others, she had to call the police, or else face potential adverse legal ramifications if Amy came to any harm at her own hands. And yet, the scenario just seemed so ridiculous to me. Her friend Lauren explains:

“I get a call from Lenny and he says to go to your house because the police are coming. I don’t know if you’re there or not, but I race over,” she explains. “I pull up to your house and there are three cop cars and they are on your lawn—why they didn’t park on the driveway, I don’t know. I go to your door, and the police have busted through the window. I walk in and hear them in your bedroom, so I head upstairs and they’re rifling through your closet and drawers—clothes are everywhere. One of them has got your journal and he’s standing there reading it. I think to myself, I have a job to do. I have to protect Amy. And I dive into conversation with those cops, rambling on and on, pretending to be helpful. They ask me what color your car is, and I waste ten minutes saying, Hmmm, I don’t know. They ask if you were likely to head north or south, I tell them north—because I know you’re much more likely to go south . . .”

I get a call from Lauren, and I don’t pick up. Another call, and I don’t pick up.

“I keep trying your cell, but you won’t answer. The cops are asking me, ‘Would she hurt herself?’ and I tell them no. She got some really bad news and she wants to be alone. I know her well. She’s fine. But they tell me I have to call you again because they want you back here. They put an alert out on your car.”

Meanwhile, I call my breast doctor and the receptionist puts me right through. “Why did you call the police!” I shout. “It’s my choice to fight breast cancer or not. You’ve known me so many years, you’ve seen all I’ve been through—how can you force a decision on me? I can’t believe you did this!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’ll call them back. It just sounded like you might do something . . .”

“I’m fine. I’m upset because . . . how many times and in how many ways can I be dying? I’m not going to drive off a bridge, for God’s sake! And even if I did, that would be my business.” I’m shuddering with anger.

“But I’m under legal obligation, Amy. I could get in trouble if I know you are going to hurt yourself and then you do.”

“Well, I’m not going to hurt myself. But I am not going to take on breast cancer either. I just had valve surgery. It’s my choice.”

“I’ll call the police and tell them everything is okay, but you have to come and meet me to talk. I’ll meet you at my house or at Starbucks near my office if you want. I just want to lay out what the treatment would be so you can make an informed choice.”

“Okay, I’ll meet you. Four thirty. Starbucks. Now call the police and tell them I’m fine!”

A few seconds later, Lauren calls again, and this time I pick up. She asks me if I’m all right. “I need time alone. I don’t need another person telling me I have to fight breast cancer, blah blah blah!” I tear at the zipper on my winter coat, tugging it down as I shake my shoulders out from underneath, frenzied. I am boiling with fury.

She tells me the police are there. My doctor hasn’t reached them yet.

“I heard. And I know everyone wants me to come home and be a good little breast cancer–valve surgery–heart transplant patient, just racking up the life-threatening illnesses and their shitty, half-assed treatments—”

Silverstein, Amy. My Glory Was I Had Such Friends (pp. 148-149). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

I know a lot of people think Amy should be grateful to have so many people caring so much about her, but at the same time, I can hardly blame her for this reaction. It almost seems like a farce. She’s in such poor health, yet she has so much strength that people think she might off herself. It’s crazy. Lauren goes on to explain that while Amy is seething, the cops are listening. And she has to act neutral, while Amy is yelling at her, calling her “the worst friend”. Lauren then cleans up the mess and even gets Amy’s window fixed, after the police busted it to “save her life”. All because the breast doctor called the cops.

And finally, the last triggering moment for me was reading about how a pharmacist inadvertently told Amy that she had been enrolled in an experimental protocol to which she’d never consented. It ended with the pharmacist running out of the room in tears… From the book:

She had her eyes straight ahead on the screen, keeping up perfunctory conversation while skimming the dense pages. “We’ll be bringing all your meds into the modern age after your transplant. Now . . . um . . . you asked me about whether you can take . . . Oh, wait a minute . . .” She zooms in on some words that elicit a big smile. “Ooh, I see that you’re going to be part of our eculizumab study . . . wonderful!”

“Ecu-lizumab?”

“Yeah. Name’s a mouthful, right? I don’t blame you if you can’t pronounce it. I’m talking about the experimental treatment for your antibodies. You’re going to be part of our NIH study.”

What?

I’d heard a little bit about the study from Dr. Kobashigawa a few days earlier, and someone from the Cedars medical research team dropped off a thick binder filled with detailed information for my review. But this intravenous drug with the mouthful name was a chemotherapy of sorts and had serious side effects, including a significant risk of meningitis. Were I to participate, these treatments were not imminent (they wouldn’t kick in until the time of my transplant surgery). But I had already undergone another potent antibody remedy when I first arrived in California (bortezomib) that posed a risk of blood infections and death. The bortezomib treatments involved a series of direct injections into my belly and many of hours of antibody-cleansing plasmapheresis (plasma removal and replacement) through a thick catheter in my neck. Last I heard, though, the post-bortezomib state of my antibodies was not much better than before treatment; my chance of matching with a heart donor still remained at an inauspicious 14 percent. Feeling fortunate, though, for having at least evaded the dangers of bortezomib, I was not eager to risk another go-round with a second type of antibody treatment—especially an experimental one.

“You’re sure my name is on the study roster—already?” My voice rises.

She pecks at the keyboard, double-checking. “Yup, here you are!”

I jolt upright in bed. “But how can that be? I haven’t said yes!” Pressing my palms against my temples, I begin to reel. “I can’t believe this! Am I being steamrolled into the study?”

“No, no. But the team has decided—”

“The team? I’m the one who’s supposed to choose.”

“Of course you are, but—”

“I have a voice!”

“I didn’t mean to make you feel—”

“Just because I’m . . . sick . . . it doesn’t mean I don’t . . . have a say!” I’m choking on emotion now. Scott steps toward the bed and puts his hand firmly on my shoulder—Easy, let it go . . .

Not a chance.

Silverstein, Amy. My Glory Was I Had Such Friends (pp. 183-184). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

This part of the book reminded me of a book I’d read years ago, A Taste of My Own Medicine: When the Doctor Is the Patient, by Edward Rosenbaum, a physician who got cancer and suddenly found himself on the other side of the bed. The 1991 movie, The Doctor, starring William Hurt and Christine Lahti, was based on Dr. Rosenbaum’s book. Dr. Rosenbaum explained how scary and demoralizing being a patient can be, and how healthcare providers lose sight of how patients can feel disenfranchised when they submit to medical care. Especially when it’s delivered in a hospital setting.

Amy then explains why she had this reaction. She’d been in an experimental study before, and it led to a significant trauma. From the book:

I’ve come to think of this particular memory as the strawberry shortcut—a lesson that came by way of a pulmonary lab technician who said playfully, “Let’s take the strawberry shortcut,” when escorting me from the waiting room to the exam suite. It was 1988. I was in my second year of law school, and my doctor wanted to rule out all possible causes of my very apparent breathlessness. Heart problems seemed so much less likely than lung problems in a woman in her midtwenties, so he scheduled a progression of tests that began with pulmonary.

As I followed in the wake of the technician’s perfectly pressed white coat, turning and turning again through a seeming maze of narrow hallways, he called back to me over his shoulder a preview of what was to come. Apparently, I would soon be breathing in some—particles? Nuclear particles? I didn’t understand—I’d never had even so much as a strep throat culture in my twenty-five years of life—so I obeyed with some trepidation when he placed the clear plastic contraption over my mouth, nose, and a good portion of both cheeks. “We’re friends here, aren’t we? So just relax into it and breathe deeply,” he cooed, and I tried. But there was nothing about inhaling the particles he administered that made me feel friendly or comfortable. He noted my reluctance at once. “Oh, you’re going to have to go deeper than that, pretty,” he said.

Pretty?

My stomach muscles tightened with angst. I began to shake.

“In . . . and out. In . . . and out,” he coaxed, moving his face closer with each round of inhalation and exhalation until his lips and the tip of his nose were in line with mine, pressing up against the plastic.

I closed my eyes and I felt some tears fall. I’m trapped. My doctor can’t make me better unless I do this test. I’ve got to get through it. Come on, Amy, breathe . . .

“That’s it . . . niiiice,” the technician purred. “And again, for me . . .”

When the test was finished, I hurried off the exam table. “Hey there,” he said, reaching for the door handle before I could. “How about a kiss for the technician?”

“How about a handshake instead!” I snapped, surprising him with a sudden show of nerve. He murmured something about a hot tamale and grasped my hand.

A few days later, I filed a complaint with the hospital and was told there was nothing they could do since I didn’t remember the tech’s name. And besides, they told me, “Maybe he was just trying to help you relax.”

That was the start of my growing a backbone as a patient. Hell, if the same thing were to happen to me now, I’d respond directly with, Kiss? How about you kiss your job good-bye!

Fifty is so much braver than twenty-five, you see.

Silverstein, Amy. My Glory Was I Had Such Friends (pp. 184-186). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

I was never sexually harassed by doctors, but I did have one who left me very traumatized due to her being extremely callous. I wish like hell I had complained about her when the incident happened. I don’t know what would have happened. Probably nothing. But at least I would have done something… and that might have made me feel more empowered. I am fifty now… and I was 22 then. So this story really hit home and left me a little triggered. Amy continued:

Though today’s situation was quite different, it preyed on some of my greatest medical fears, those that had developed out of the strawberry shortcut incident and countless others over the years: feeling a lack of agency, feeling uninformed, and feeling taken advantage of. And this is why I felt no trepidation this morning when telling the transplant pharmacist that I wanted to speak with her supervisor: Dr. Kobashigawa. She logged out of the screen at once and backed away from the computer. “I’m sorry to see you so upset about this.”

“And I’m sorry for these stupid tears, but I can’t help it. I’ve learned the hard way never to turn off my brain and hand myself over. I’m not going to agree to ecu—whatever it’s called—without reading through the whole binder and making my own decision.”

“I understand. But keep in mind we’re just trying to help you, Amy. You’ve got antibodies that are going to pose a danger to any donor heart you might receive. You can’t be transplanted successfully without eculiz—”

“I can’t? Are you saying I don’t have choice? That I never really had a choice? Who told you that? Dr. Kobashigawa?” My fingertips fly to my forehead and I begin tapping, tapping. A rush of panic sweeps through me—Have I been duped?

She started toward the door, pulling nervously at the ends of her hair. It was apparent that Becky had let on more than I was meant to hear just yet, and that perhaps she might be in trouble for it. “I’ll, um, ask him to come see you.”

But the memory match had already struck and ignited. All of a sudden there were words in the air—my words—and they rang calm and clear at first, but then echoed back to me calamitous and full of smoky black, as if tethered to distant fires. Whatever I was saying was not of this moment; it was cumulative—and ablaze: “Wow, Becky, wow, wow, wow. As if I didn’t feel out of control to begin with, watching my pulse disappear day after day. Thanks a lot. You sure know how to make a dying person feel worse.”

“That wasn’t my . . . Oh, I am sorry!” she squeaked with panic, tears welling in her eyes. She quickly turned away and slipped out the door.

Silverstein, Amy. My Glory Was I Had Such Friends (p. 186). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

I did feel sorry for Becky, the pharmacist. I know she was just trying to be helpful. And I’m sure it’s a tough job, as today’s patients are often better informed and more outspoken. On the other hand, a lot of people would be calling Amy a “karen” (hate that term) for advocating for herself. Clearly, her issues stem from understandable and considerable trauma. And even though I could understand that a lot of people would find her behaviors very “karen-ish”, as someone who has also experienced medical trauma, I could hardly blame Amy for her response. She probably couldn’t help it.

I have had some good experiences with doctors since my last trauma. However, in spite of that, I have a hard time shaking those memories. It’s kind of like how Noyzi, the Kosovar rescue dog, spooks at sudden noises and movements. He’s had good experiences, but still reacts in an automatic way to those triggers. I’m the same way. I get extremely nervous just thinking about going through what Amy went through. So, when I read her book, I thought of her as brave, rather than entitled and ungrateful. She had backbone, even if she came off as abrasive. And again, I could hardly blame her.

In a way, my recent post about body shaming that got me on my relative’s shit list is sort of the same thing. I used to just take that sort of thing without too much comment. I don’t anymore, and some people think it’s offensive. But my reactions come from valid traumas of the past. I’m sorry if some people find my reactions upsetting, but they don’t come from a place of meanness. They come from trauma. I think Amy Silverstein’s reactions were the same thing. So, I kind of felt a kinship with her… and again, realize that she must not have been all bad. After all, she did have such friends. Wish I were so lucky… but at least I have a wonderful husband.

Well, this post has gone on pretty long, so I think I’ll end it and practice guitar for a few minutes. If you managed to wade through this long ass blog entry, I thank you. And if you managed to understand it on any level, I congratulate you. Until tomorrow….

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music, nostalgia, obits

The great Tina Turner has joined the heavenly choir…

Or… I’d like to think that Tina is somewhere incredible now, anyway. She certainly lived in a beautiful, idyllic, paradise like part of Switzerland off of Lake Zurich. A couple of years ago, Bill and I visited Kusnacht, Switzerland, where Tina’s home was located, but we were there because Bill wanted to visit Carl Jung’s home and museum, which is also in Kusnacht.

Last night, just after dinner, Bill blurted out the headline that Tina Turner had died. I wasn’t surprised by the news. She was 83 years old, and had suffered a host of serious health problems at the end of her life. She was also predeceased by two of her sons, Craig and Ronnie. Ronnie passed away just six months ago, which I’m sure was hard for Tina to bear. But, of course, I am only speculating, and I did read that Tina was somewhat estranged from her sons in later years. In any case, as sad as it is for the public to lose a legendary superstar like Tina Turner, I also suspect that the end was probably a relief for her. In spite of her incredible career and worldwide fame, Tina did not have an easy life.

My heart goes out to Tina’s two surviving sons, Ike Jr. and Michael, and her husband, Erwin Bach, who famously donated a kidney to Tina when she went into kidney failure. They had a very long love affair with each other, having started their relationship in the 1980s and married in 2013. That was also the year that Tina gave up her U.S. passport and became a Swiss citizen. I don’t know what, exactly, drew Tina to Switzerland, but if I were to guess, I’d say it’s probably because it’s a very serene place with lots of natural beauty and security. It’s a far cry from Tina’s beginnings in Nutbush, Tennessee, where Tina was born on November 26, 1939 as Anna Mae Bullock.

Tina Turner’s family of origin was very poor, and she was the youngest of three daughters. Her father was an overseer of sharecroppers, and she grew up helping her family pick cotton. When Tina was eleven years old, her mother, Zelma, ran off without any warning, supposedly to escape an abusive relationship with Tina’s father, Floyd Bullock. According to a passage on Tina’s Wikipedia page:

She stated in her autobiography I, Tina that her parents had not loved her and she wasn’t wanted.[33] Zelma had planned to leave Floyd but stayed once she became pregnant.[34] “She was a very young woman who didn’t want another kid,” Turner recalled.[34]

I have basic knowledge of how that feels, although I do think my parents love(d) me, in their own way. Tina was able to turn that fundamental rejection into incredible success. Imagine, being a tiny child who knows her parents didn’t want her… and then growing up to be such a renowned phenom whose death the world mourns. It just goes to show you that there is endless potential in most people. Tina went through many hardships, but she was also blessed with extraordinary talent, drive, creativity, and quite a lot of luck.

Ike and Tina, and their version of “Proud Mary”…

Still, it amazes me when I think of Tina’s humble beginnings as Anna Mae Bullock in Nutbush, Tennessee, picking cotton with her family, enduring years of separation from her parents, living with her very religious grandparents, and finding the gift of song in their Baptist church. Then, years later, she met Ike Turner, who propelled her to fame, but used and abused her until she found the courage to leave him. In the years between leaving Ike and breaking out as a rock star, Tina did have to pay some dues in Las Vegas hotels… and perhaps most embarrassingly, on an episode of The Brady Bunch Hour. Still, she always gave it her all!

Tina in 1981, just before her career took off again… that time, as a completely different solo act.
Yikes!
She really paid her dues, didn’t she?

I will never forget the first time I heard Tina’s remake of the Al Green classic, “Let’s Stay Together. I was maybe 11 years old, and had never heard Tina’s hits with Ike Turner. I don’t think I even knew their version of “Proud Mary”, nor was I even exposed to Al Green’s song. To be honest, my first reaction to Tina’s “Let’s Stay Together” wasn’t very favorable. At that time of my life, I didn’t have an appreciation for unique voices. I didn’t like listening to Bob Dylan, either– even though he is an incredible artist and songwriter. I remember thinking Tina had a terrible singing voice!

It took awhile for me to appreciate this song. What can I say? I was about 11 years old… I also liked eating cold hot dogs when I was that age.

But then, the next year, the title song on Private Dancer came out on the radio… Suddenly, I understood what the fuss was all about. I remember that album so well, as I was right in the middle of puberty when it was a hit. I’d see her videos, enchanted by her big, bushy, wild hair (wig), her mini skirts, leather bustiers, high heels and bright red lips. I was shocked to find out she was less than two years younger than my mother! I liked her other songs just as much or even more, and then I became a real fan. Maybe I wasn’t as big of a fan of hers as others were. I never got to see her in concert. But her unusual sound made me want to know more about her.

This song was written by Mark Knopfler, who is one of my favorite musicians… Dire Straits accompanied her, although the recently departed Jeff Beck provided the guitar solo. Mark Knopfler reportedly wasn’t too pleased with Beck’s performance, calling it “the world’s second ugliest guitar solo”.
Tina lent her talents to a very worthy cause…

In 1993, when I was in college, my friend Chris worked at a video store. He got a screener of the movie What’s Love Got to Do With It starring Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne. I loved that movie! I’ve seen it a bunch of times over the past thirty years. I never get tired of it, or the wonderful soundtrack with old songs from the Ike and Tina era. What I really love about that movie is that it introduced me to Tina’s past through Angela Bassett’s masterful acting. As I mentioned up post, I wasn’t familiar with Ike and Tina, and it wasn’t until I saw that movie that I started to seek out those old performances that were so different from Tina’s 80s image. I also love Angela Bassett’s work. She is a fantastic actor, and is perfect in her role as Tina Turner.

Angela’s version of Tina.

Tina’s story, as depicted in What’s Love Got To Do With It, was made entertaining, even though she truly went through Hell to get to where she ended up. The truth is, Tina escaped her hellish marriage to Ike Turner and soared into a career of her own that way eclipsed what she ever had with Ike. She served as a role model and icon to so many people of my generation. I heard her collaborate with other musicians, changing classic songs into her own creations.

Holy crap, can Angela Bassett act! And she really channels Tina perfectly in this film.
A very different version of Tina… but just as iconic and awesome.

It wasn’t until the early aughts that I read Tina’s book, I, Tina, ghostwritten with Kurt Loder, which provided a much rawer look at her life story. It’s been many years since I read I, Tina, but I do remember that the book was very candid. I distinctly remember reading about how and where Tina lost her virginity. Tina was just as forthcoming and unbridled in her book as she was in her stage performances. I think I still own a copy of that book– it’s in storage. I shouldn’t be too surprised that the day after Tina’s death, the prices for the first edition of her book are way up on Amazon! Years ago, I wrote a review of that book. I’m not sure if I still have it available. I’ll look and see, and if I find it, I’ll repost it.

Maybe Karen, Olivia, and Tina are reunited in the great beyond…

Not too long ago, I saw a 2021 documentary about Tina Turner’s more recent life. It was called Tina, and it filmed in her home in Switzerland. She spoke candidly about her life, and that was when I heard about her serious health concerns. But even with those health problems, she still looked amazing and spoke with such lucidity and wisdom. I remember being amazed by her all over again. She was obviously destined to be an icon… but even icons have an end. Fortunately, she left behind an astonishing treasure trove of works that will continue to inspire and amaze people for many years to come.

I highly recommend watching this documentary if you’re interested in Tina Turner’s life story.

I know a lot of people are expressing sadness that Tina Turner has died. I think it would be disingenuous for me to be sad about Tina’s death, because she lived a long, full life, and death is something that happens to us all. Instead of sadness about her death, I feel grateful that she lived, and we all got to know aspects of her by watching her perform and hearing her sing. I am consoled that she no longer has to suffer from ill health, or even just the ravages of getting older– the aches and pains that make it harder to enjoy living. Even if there is no Heaven after death, the condition of no longer suffering is a kind of heavenly peace.

Any sorrow I feel is not about Tina’s death, but for those who knew and loved her, and will have to go on without her in their lives. I know she will be missed by so many people– not just her legions of fans, but the people in her life who had the pleasure of knowing her personally. To those people, I offer my most sincere condolences… and to Tina herself, I offer gratitude for the many memories I have of the 1980s version of Tina Turner and the way she served as a positive role model to so many young girls like I was, back in those days. I really wish I could have seen her perform live.

Tina really was a queen for us all…

“I Might Have Been Queen”… there’s no “might” about it.

I’m sharing the link to I, Tina, for those who might not have known it exists. If you purchase through my site, I get a small commission from Amazon. But I don’t expect anyone to pay so much for this book. I recommend looking in your local library for it. ETA: I see a new edition is out and offered at a relatively reasonable price. If you want to know her unvarnished story, I recommend picking it up.

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communication, complaints, condescending twatbags

Reading comprehension is an increasingly rare skill…

Happy Wednesday, everybody. I’m pleased to report that I feel a lot better today than I did yesterday at this time. My only complaint is the vague and annoying dyspepsia I’ve been dealing with for awhile. It’s probably an ulcer, and I probably should see a doctor about it. I probably won’t, though. Pepcid-AC and Barry Manilow for the win. 😉

“I wanna pull on your coat about something…” in the words of the fabulous Tom Waits.

I’m becoming convinced that people have lost basic reading comprehension skills. I’ve come to this conclusion by reading comments on the Internet.

Early this morning, I woke up needing to answer the call of nature. I couldn’t get back to sleep once I’d done the deed, so I decided to check in on the world. I noticed an op-ed in The New York Times written by Amy Silverstein (unlocked), author of the excellent book, Sick Girl, and its follow up, My Glory Was I Had Such Friends. I read the print version of Sick Girl when it was first published, in 2008 or thereabouts. I think I have the other book in my “to be read” queue.

I learned a lot from Sick Girl, which was about Silverstein’s experiences being the recipient of a donated heart. Her first donated heart, which she received in 1988, lasted an astonishing number of years until Silverstein had to have another transplant. She writes:

My first donor heart died of transplant medicines’ inadequate protection of the donor heart from rejection; my second will die most likely from their stymied immune effects that give free rein to cancer.

Silverstein’s fantastic and informative op-ed (which is also on her official Web site) is about how transplant medicine hasn’t evolved much during the time she’s been a patient. Most people are woefully ignorant about what it means to receive a transplanted organ. They believe that a transplant is a cure, not realizing that having a transplant means trading one medical problem for a host of others. Taking medications to suppress immunity means being vulnerable to every germ out there. It means having higher risks of diabetes and cancer. And yet, since 1988, the protocols haven’t changed much. Amy Silverstein has already lived an astonishingly long time, but she writes that she’s coming to the end of her longevity.

Plenty of people on Facebook felt the need to chime in without having read the article. Quite a few offered thoughts and opinions that were uninformed and completely irrelevant. Some complained about the paywall, apparently assuming that newspapers are charities or public services. Those who read the article were praising it for being informative, well-written, and moving. Others were just making noise. One guy wrote this comment, not realizing that Ms. Silverstein is still alive.

Why is an article like this behind a paywall? I hope the money is going to the author and her estate.

I’ve already complained about people who whine about having to pay for good journalism, so I will try to keep that to a minimum in this post. I do think that people expecting newspapers to provide free content is a major symptom of the main issue, though. People don’t value good writing. They expect it to be provided free of charge. A lot of the people who complain are also people who support capitalism and lament government “freebies”. They’re also often the same people who complain about the idea of having to buy insurance, but then use GoFundMe to pay for their medical care and funerals. Isn’t that interesting?

Anyway, I’m convinced that because these folks don’t want to pay for the stuff they read, they read a lot less. And what they do read, they don’t pay close attention to, so they miss the main ideas of what they’re reading. Then they share their crap with everyone. That problem extends, even when they’re reading other things, like books.

Consider this. I’ve been reading a newly published book that was originally written in Romanian. The title of the book is Nadia Comaneci and the Secret Police: A Cold War Escape. When I read that title, I don’t get the idea that I’m going to be reading Nadia Comaneci’s life story, per se. This is a book about her fame, and how it caused her to be constantly surveilled by the Securitate.

I read and reviewed Nadia Comaneci’s Letter to a Young Gymnast years ago. That’s her life story, expressed in her own words. The book I’m reading now includes elements of her life story, but the focus is on how she escaped Romania after having been a tool for the state. There’s a lot of discussion about Bela and Marta Karolyi, and their alleged abuses of the Romanian women’s gymnastics team members. The Karolyis were also closely watched by the Securitate, as was choreographer, Geza Poszar, who was allegedly an informant.

Nadia Comaneci and the Secret Police was published in Romanian a few years ago, but only very recently became available to those who wanted to read it in English. I’ve been eagerly awaiting this book, and would have jumped right in when I received it, but had to finish the book I was reading about Rosemary Kennedy. Below is the description of Nadia Comaneci and the Secret Police, as provided by Amazon.com.

Nadia Comaneci is the Romanian child prodigy and global gymnastics star who ultimately fled her homeland and the brutal oppression of a communist regime. At the age of just 14, Nadia became the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10.0 at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games and went on to collect three gold medals in performances which influenced the sport for generations to come, cementing Nadia’s place as a sporting legend. 

However, as the communist authorities in Romania sought an iron grip over its highest-profile athletes, Nadia and her trainers were subjected to surveillance from the Securitate, the Romanian secret police. Drawing on 25,000 secret police archive pages, countless secret service intelligence documents, and numerous wiretap recordings, this book tells the compelling story of Nadia’s life and career using unique insights from the communist dictatorship which monitored her.

Nadia Comaneci and the Secret Police explores Nadia’s complex and combustible relationship with her sometimes abusive coaches, Béla and Marta Károlyi, figures who would later become embroiled in the USA Gymnastics scandal. The book addresses Nadia’s mental struggles and 1978 suicide attempt, and her remarkable resurgence to gold at the Moscow Olympics in 1980. It explores the impact of Nadia’s subsequent withdrawal from international activity and reflects on burning questions surrounding the heart-stopping, border-hopping defection to the United States that she successfully undertook in November 1989. Was the defection organised by CIA agents? Was it arranged on the orders of President George Bush himself? Or was Nadia aided and abetted by some of the very Securitate officers who were meant to be watching the communist world’s most lauded sporting icon? What is revealed is a thrilling tale of endurance and escape, in which one of the world’s greatest gymnasts risked everything for freedom.

Is there anything in that blurb that indicates that this book is solely Nadia’s life story? Hell, just reading the title tells me that this isn’t a book about Nadia’s family or career. However, below was what one reviewer wrote.

I’m left wondering if the above reviewer understood what the book’s subject matter was meant to be. This is a book about the Romanian government’s treatment of Nadia and her teammates and coaches, not Nadia’s life story. The title should have given the above reviewer a clue.

Moving on to the next example…

I subscribe to The Local: Germany, an online publication for English speakers in Germany. It offers information about local news and useful topics for us foreigners living in Germany. People constantly complain about the fact that the content is behind a paywall.

Yesterday, there was a link to a “free” article asking “What’s Life Like for Foreigners in Small-Town Germany”. Again, it’s free to read, because the editors want people to respond. And yet, once again, there was a complaint about how The Local doesn’t offer all of its content free of charge (do the complainers work for free?).

Perhaps if you aren’t so rigid with the subscription, we can make more meaningful comments.

The Local responded thusly:

Hi, the article is paywall free to encourage responses. And yes unfortunately we have no choice but to impose a paywall to allow us to exist.

You’d think that would be the end of it, but no… there were more complaints and unsolicited suggestions as to how The Local could offer its content for free. Below is a sampling…

there is always a choice -just look at other media…

I don’t even click the links anymore as it’s always pay pay pay, most other get advertisers to pay, not the readers… it’s a win win, the advertisers currently speak to the few, not the many… (does this person walk into stores and read the magazines for free?)

The Local responded:

I don’t think that’s true. Most media have paywalls and those that don’t well, as the saying goes, “if something is free then you are the product”. We’d rather be the product and not our readers. Media who get advertisers to pay, write articles for clicks. We’d rather be useful and write content for those willing to pay for it.We know our members value reading articles without annoying banner ads, which is one of the perks of membership, which we have kept as cheap as possible over the years.

Someone else wrote this:

Get a sponsor, the tourist board or NGO’s, or Think Tanks, maybe the federal German government or a regional one, or hit up some EU grant scheme. There is loads of money out there for media organizations. I assume you already sell as much user data as you can regardless of being a subscriber outlet instead of a free to user one… Atlas Obscura is free and has great articles and solid writers working for it, so can you.

I was glad to see the above commenter was taken to task by another reader:

your entitlement is baffling tbh. You don’t want to purchase a product – absolutely reasonable. Demanding that you’re being given the product for free or that someone goes out to do some fundraising and get someone else pay for the product you consume…that’s quite a step further. All throughout, it doesn’t even occur to you that no one owes you anything.

To which the first commenter wrote:

Hoch weilgeborhner Frau, your pompous accusatory attestation that I demanded this media product for free is a lie, I will demand that you reread my prior comment before you castigate me for having an opinion on subscriptions and offering ideas on financing a replacement model. Sünde.

Uh… who’s really being pompous? Wow. Maybe The Local doesn’t want a replacement model for the product they offer. Maybe if you don’t want to pay for their content, you could just keep scrolling, rather than offering unsolicited suggestions on how they can offer their product for free.

I felt moved to comment too, so I wrote this:

I don’t mind paying. Your content is useful, and writers have to eat, too.

And the Local offered this response to me:

This is the main point Jenny. It’s not even about us needing to get paid (although clearly it’s important to be able to attract talented journalists) it’s just that we know we have to be useful – or readers will not pay. It keeps us on our toes.

Right. And I don’t want to read content that is paid for by advertisers. I can get that by watching network TV or reading CNN. I sympathize with those who can’t afford to pay for journalism. I just don’t understand the whining about it. God forbid someone wants to be able to make a living by creating content that informs or entertains. You don’t ask your plumber or doctor to work for free, do you?

Whoops… I truly meant to avoid complaining about people who whine about paywalls. It’s hard to avoid it, though. I know I should avoid comment sections, but they are such a fruitful source of blog ideas.

It’s pretty amazing to see how eager people are to share their views when they haven’t even taken a minute to inform themselves about the subject on which they are opining. It reminds me of Republicans who complain about rainbows on Bud Light cans and decide to boycott Anheuser-Busch, not realizing that Anheuser-Busch donates a lot of money to the Republican Party. Also, the cans featuring Dylan Mulvaney aren’t even available to the public, and yet we have people self-righteously boycotting… They’re the same people who complain about cancel culture. Too funny.

I learned about the Bud Light conundrum by watching Beau. I try not to listen to anything the Trumps say. The above video is pretty entertaining.

Well… I probably ought to wrap up today’s post. I see I’ve gone on quite a lot, and time is getting away from me. I have a vacation to research, laundry to fold, a bed to make, a guitar to practice, and a dog to walk. So I’m going to quit ranting now. Hope this post offers some food for thought. I challenge you to take a moment to read for comprehension, especially if you feel like commenting. It might spare you a moment or two of foolishness.

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book reviews, lessons learned

A review of Guilty Admissions: The Bribes, Favors, and Phonies behind the College Cheating Scandal, by Nicole LaPorte…

A few days ago, I wrote a blog post about a young lady in Atlanta who applied to 70 colleges and got into 54 of them. That post, titled “I would not want to be 18 years old in 2023“, was inspired by comments I read about Daya Brown’s decision to apply to so many colleges. It made me recall my own days as a high school senior, trying to decide where I would go for my undergraduate degree. I remember those days were pretty challenging, especially since I was mostly navigating the whole process by myself.

When I was in high school, we didn’t have the Internet readily available. I went to a rural, public high school, with four guidance counselors handling about 1600 students. My parents, already well into middle age, with three already “grown and flown” daughters, weren’t all that invested in helping me find the “right” college. No one, other than me, pressured me to get excellent grades. I didn’t take any prep courses for the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test).

I don’t even think anyone looked over my applications before I submitted them and checks for application fees to Dr. Porter, the guidance counselor I barely knew. I don’t think Dr. Porter even said a word to me about where I was applying, and whether or not they were “appropriate” choices for me. I think I would have done fine at the other schools I applied to, but I was competing against people with better test scores and grades, and more school activities.

Consequently, I had one choice in the fall of 1990– the one school that admitted me out of the four I applied to. It turned out to be a fortuitous choice for me, as I did well at Longwood College (now Longwood University). But maybe if I’d had someone like Rick Singer in my pocket, I might have gone somewhere else… Somewhere a lot better known, more prestigious, and more expensive.

In March 2019, I was just as shocked as anyone when I saw the photos of actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman being arrested by the FBI in their fancy homes. A lot of people were outraged when they heard about what the famous actresses had done for their daughters, but they certainly weren’t alone that day. They simply had the misfortune of being the faces of the Varsity Blues scandal, a “sting” operation that resulted in dozens of arrests of wealthy parents who wanted a “side door” to prestigious universities for their children. They’d hired Rick Singer, a hustler who had convinced them that if they did what he said and paid enough money, their little darlings would be accepted to universities like the University of Southern California, Yale, and Georgetown. The parents were unaware that after years of hustling, Rick Singer was about to go down… and they would be going with him as their children, most of whom were completely unaware of any shenanigans, would watch in horror and humiliation.

I see I downloaded Nicole LaPorte’s book, Guilty Admissions: The Bribes, Favors, and Phonies behind the College Cheating Scandal, in early March 2021, about two weeks after it was published on February 23, 2021. I just finished reading it this morning, after some concerted effort. It’s not that it wasn’t an interesting read. On the contrary, I was often flabbergasted by LaPorte’s juicy stories about Singer and the many people who were caught in his web. It wasn’t just parents who got burned by his scam, either. Singer talked coaches, “smart” people, and admissions officials into going “rogue”, accepting money Singer coaxed out of powerful and wealthy parents to make sure their children got into the “best” schools.

LaPorte explains the high pressure environment of southern California, where even very young children are pressured to attend the best private schools that will give them the best shot at going to a big name university. As I read Guilty Admissions, I learned about elite private high schools like Buckley, Marlborough, Marymount, and Harvard-Westlake, all of which had their own vibes.

Each of those private schools have highly qualified guidance counselors, many of which had encountered Rick Singer’s “independent consultation” work and weren’t too keen on their students using it. Singer specialized in gaming the system, and as it’s become incredibly obvious, wasn’t honest in his dealings. But it hadn’t seemed like Singer had started out that way. In the beginning, he seemed more like a legitimate operator who actually spent time with the teens he worked with, helping them get better grades and test scores themselves, rather than falsifying their college applications, lying about their races, paying people to take their college boards for them, or inventing sports teams for them to claim.

Guilty Admissions is definitely a page turner. LaPorte writes well, and to a “nobody” like me, the story is astonishing enough that I don’t need to be “sold” on it. However, there are a few glitches in the book. For instance, at one point, LaPorte refers to “Seaton Hall University”, when she means “Seton Hall”. It was probably a typo, rather than a reflection of LaPorte’s knowledge or lack thereof of the subject matter, but given that she was referring to a university, that mistake was a very noticeable whopper. I also want to point out that it’s already 2023, so some of the information in the book is dated, which is to be expected. Thankfully, we have the Internet for updates.

However, LaPorte includes plenty of footnotes, photos, and other useful tools for readers who want to learn more. I got the sense that she interviewed a lot of key people in this scandal, even as she also watched the same news coverage we all did. When I finished reading Guilty Admissions, I wanted to read more, from a different perspective. I ended up downloading 2020’s Unacceptable: Privilege, Deceit & the Making of the College Admissions Scandal, by Melissa Korn and Jennifer Levitz. I don’t know when I’ll get around to reading that book, but at least one Amazon reviewer wrote that he thought it was a better book with a different perspective. LaPorte mostly focuses on southern California and the University of Southern California, with some mentions of other elite universities like Yale and Georgetown. I think it’s important to realize that there were more people and schools involved. This is a widespread issue.

I mentioned in my previous post that I had the “privilege” of being a temp in the admissions office at the College of William & Mary in the late 90s. William & Mary is a highly selective school, so I saw a lot of materials from very exclusive and expensive private high schools. It really opened my eyes… and that was in 1998! Nowadays, I think the prospect of choosing a college is worse than it was back then. So many young people think they need to go to a “brand name” college! It’s absolutely crazy!

LaPorte also adds that COVID-19, ironically, has really messed up the college game. Fewer young adults are opting for college now, as it’s gotten so expensive. COVID-19 made the experience less appealing, as students were expected to wear masks and take classes on Zoom, rather than have the immersive experience so many of us older folks have had. I often like to say that every cloud has its silver lining. What I mean is that every situation, no matter how horrible, has the potential to bring about something positive. I don’t think COVID-19 is, overall, a great thing at all… but maybe it has acted as sort of a bucket of water of sorts– cooling off the insane pressure to attend a certain university, or even to go to university at all.

I certainly don’t regret going to college or grad school. I got a lot out of both experiences. But the cost of attending is getting harder and harder to justify, especially for people who end up like I have. 😉 I just think it’s sad that so many people seem to think that it’s worth risking prison to get their kids into certain universities, especially when I know from personal experience that there are MANY excellent schools of higher learning in the United States. I think the Varsity Blues scandal is a good reminder to us all that chasing an image can lead to ruin… or at least uncomfortable familiarity with the sensation of wearing handcuffs outside of a movie set or a bedroom.

Anyway, I would recommend Nicole LaPorte’s book, Guilty Admissions. I’d give it four stars out of five, and recommend additional resources. I look forward to comparing this book with Unacceptable by Korn and Levitz, whenever I get around to reading it.

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blog news, book reviews, Military, music, Texas, YouTube

I never thought I’d be quoted in a scholarly book…

Last night, I was practically bored out of my mind and listlessly searching the Internet, when I decided to Google my Internet nickname. Sure enough, I found a list of places I’ve been on the Internet. But then I noticed an unusual hit– it was to Google Books. That was when I discovered that a fellow former Epinions reviewer and I were both quoted in what appears to be a scholarly book about the Middle East.

Silke Schmidt quoted me by my Internet “handle” in this book…

This isn’t the first time I’ve found myself quoted or linked somewhere interesting. For instance, some years ago, I found that someone had cited me in what appeared to be a college paper about Alyssa Milano’s charitable efforts. The person who wrote the paper had made some rather unflattering comments about me that I don’t think are really based in truth. However, having been a college student myself– albeit before there was Google– I can kind of understand what they did. They probably never thought I’d read what they wrote about me.

I don’t like to Google myself for that reason. I don’t want to know what strangers on the Internet think of me. I figure no good can come out of my looking for their opinions. I happened to find the Alyssa Milano paper by accident.

As for last night’s discovery, it was also purely by the accident of boredom. I was watching more Audit the Audit videos on YouTube, and noticed a thread on Facebook about obscure phrases people don’t use anymore. I mentioned the term “knothead”, which is what my parents used to call me. Just for fun, I looked it up online, and before I knew it, found myself adding the “usc” I’ve used as my Internet handle since around 1999 or so.

The book reference, made by someone named Silke Schmidt, PD Ph.D., was based on an old book review I wrote for the now defunct review site, Epinions.com. I was a “Top Reviewer” for books, music, and hotels & travel on Epinions, so I was a pretty prolific poster on the site. In those days, I reviewed all kinds of things, but mostly those things in my “hatted” categories– the ones where I had special designations and, therefore, made more money. And because I was a Top Reviewer for books, I read a lot of books– some of which I probably wouldn’t read today.

It seems that Dr. Schmidt found my Epinions review of a book called Howling in Mesopotamia by Haider Ala Hamoudi, which was about an American-Iraqi and the Iraq War. Ordinarily, I probably wouldn’t choose to read such a book, especially at the time at which I read that one. Google tells me I bought a physical copy of it in May 2008, which means I probably reviewed it soon afterward. We lived in Germany at the time, and I specifically remember reviewing it in our very first German house.

I don’t know anything about Silke Schmidt, and it appears that (she?) doesn’t know anything about me, as she refers to me with male pronouns in her book. I see she also quotes my Epinions colleague, Bryan Carey, who was a legend on Epinions because of the vast number of “very helpful” reviews he wrote on the site, and the money he made there. Schmidt misspells his name, which is natural enough, given that she doesn’t know him. In two footnotes, Schmidt explains:

Right… because Epinions was a review site. We were writing reviews, not scholarly articles.

If I recall correctly, I read Howling in Mesopotamia for a number of reasons, the first of which had to do with my Soldier husband spending time in Iraq. In 2008, Bill was still on active duty, and had been in Iraq the previous year. I also used to live in Armenia, which isn’t very far from Iraq. My time living in that region piqued my interest about the Middle East, although Armenia is a Christian nation that used to be part of the Soviet Union. It borders Iran and Turkey, and while Iraq isn’t a direct neighbor, it’s not far away at all.

In 2008, I was a lot more politically conservative than I am today, although I haven’t gone totally liberal. Today, I’m not sure I would have made the same comments about my impressions of Howling in Mesopotamia that I made in 2008. I also never dreamed my comments would be immortalized in a book. I’m not upset about it, though. It doesn’t look like that many people have read the book, anyway.

I guess if I were going to characterize how I feel about finding myself quoted by my Internet handle in a book about the Middle East, it would be “bemused”, “perplexed”, “surprised”… And I wonder why Schmidt didn’t leave a comment or send me an email asking for clarification before quoting my review. When I was on Epinions, it was easy to reach me by email, as it was listed right there on my member page. But then… I know that writers often work under deadlines, and academics are forever reading.

I see that Dr. Schmidt was born in 1983 and teaches at the University of Marburg. Schmidt’s book was written in 2014… and since Epinions died in February of that year and the vast majority of the reviews disappeared soon afterwards, it’s a lucky thing that Schmidt could even find the reviews quoted in the book. Most of them are now long gone from the Internet by now.

Well, color me amused that my review of a long forgotten book captured the attention of a German scholar, especially since I now live in the scholar’s homeland. I guess it just goes to show how everything a person does can affect someone else. You just never know who you’ll touch, or where you’ll touch them… 😉 I don’t remember my review of Howling in Mesopotamia as being one of my more successful reviews, in terms of views or Epinions income share earned (Epinions reviews sometimes generated real money for reviewers– although typically not a lot of money, especially in the categories for which I usually wrote). It’s nice to know I did at least help out an academic by writing my opinion of the book.

I was thinking I might write about some of the totally batshit Republican proposed policies I’ve seen bandied about today, all of which I’ve read about since waking up this morning at about 4:00. But, I think I will save that topic for another post, on another day. No sense getting riled up today, as I watch it snow and rain and contemplate taking Arran in for yet another vet appointment this evening.

The weather is depressing enough without another commentary about completely wacko right wing religious nutjobs (Bryan Slaton) in Texas trying to secede from the Union and proposing to give traditional Christian families with at least four children tax breaks. Or Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ potentially signing a bill that would remove the need for work permits for children in Arkansas… so that children can be put to work instead of sent to school. I’m so sick of these crazy extremists in the United States… they make me want to stay away, even though I am still a Texas resident. I just want things to be more moderate again. Is that too much to ask? Arggggh!!!!

Oh… and I did manage to make new music videos yesterday. Indeed, they are posted under the same handle Silke Schmidt found on Epinions.com. I think when Bill goes away, I get inspired to sing sexy songs.

People encouraged me to sing on camera. Well, here I am…
He does… one of the few and proud who does, actually. But he’s not a Marine.

I think I’ll end this post now, practice guitar, and consider a visit to the local Rewe for some beer… It’s too shitty outside right now to walk the dogs, and I have a cold sore.

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