Softly Dreaming Blog

It may surprise some of you to know that I come a long line of nuns. Yes, at my roots as product of a very traditional German Roman Catholic family, every generation until recently had at least one child “donated” into church service. They were groomed young, and it was considered a high honor.

My Tante Thea (Tante means Aunt in German) was among them. She entered into the Carmelite order, which is one of the strictest. When you think of nuns in scratchy dark brown habits, those are Carmelites. She was actually my Great Aunt and passed away a few years ago. It wrenched my heart. Although she lived in the Netherlands, we often wrote back and forth and I confided things to her about my hopes and dreams while in Junior High School that I feared sharing with my own family. That bond continued into my adulthood, even after she found writing so difficult that her answers might only be a quick sentence on the back of a prayer card or post card.

She worked her way up the Roman Catholic Nunnery Food Chain to become a Mother Superior. You might think this journey made her a hard ass walking about with a ruler to swat the knuckles of unsuspecting children, but I have never known someone to be as spiritually insightful and full of love and understanding for everyone who she encountered. She had a keen understanding of psychology and didn’t believe that if someone chose to live their life in a particular way not “perfect” in the church’s eyes, that they would go to Hell or were somehow less.

Everyone in her eyes was exactly as God intended them to be, and who was she to question God? If you were true to your heart and lived an honorable life, that is what God saw, regardless of religious affiliation. She’d seen a lot in her lifetime, including surviving two world wars that she found herself in the midst of. The last time I saw her, she brought her guitar and a “companion” nun who drove. When she pulled out her guitar, I expected her to start playing Kumbaya. Instead, she chose The Beatles and other rock songs. Her dark brown habit flaying in the wind, while her head swung as she really got into the music she was playing. I remember thinking she was one rockin’ nun!

She also believed that nuns needed to changed. She lamented that it was difficult to truly interact with people on an equal level if you had to keep on your habit in this modern world of ours. Considering the Carmelite order is one of the most rigid and strict, this was a pretty revolutionary view. She felt that the church lost so many good people because of the inability to change with the times quickly and as in all things that survive the times, nuns also had to adapt to go out into communities, earn an education and remember their life is dedicated to service, not a “dress code”.

I may no longer consider myself a Catholic, but I was distressed at an article the New York Times ran titled U.S. Nuns Facing Vatican Scrutiny. Cardinal Franc Rode, who heads the Vatican office that oversees religious orders, has enlisted a habit-toting nun, Mother Clare, to conduct an Apostolic Visitation. Cardinal Rode was incredibly critical of nuns who worked outside of church framework and traditions and made scalding statements to that effect in a speech he gave as recent as last year. Maybe this shouldn’t seem quite so sinister except for the fact that this “visitation focuses only on nuns actively engaged in working in society and the church, not cloistered, contemplative nuns.” Read: Not those still under our strict control.

Usually visitations are only ordered when something has gone terribly wrong in an arm of the church. For example, a visitation was ordered for seminaries in the aftermath of the priest sexual-abuse scandal. Another is currently being conducted into the Legionaries of Christ. The founder of the Legionaries of Christ, a Reverend Degollado, is accused of sexually abusing young men in seminary, fathering a child and being less than honest with finances. Since he passed away in 2008, Rev. Degollado won’t know the outcome of his own visitation.

Focusing on more modern models of “nunnery”, it feels for some nuns like a modern day inquisition.

In this nun-visitation investigation, the focus is supposed to be on quality of life. How well do they juggle keeping all the sacraments and working “in the world”? Do they go to church and still participate in their congregations? Do they have enough structure and oversight? Read: How controllable are they?

A second investigation of U.S. nuns is also being conducted and was ordered by the Vatican and headed by U.S. Cardinal Levada. It is making a doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious that has about 1,500 members who represent about 95% of religious orders for women. Apparently the Vatican and Cardinal Levada feel that this organization has failed to promote some key church teachings: male-only priesthood, homosexuality and that the Roman Catholic Church is a way to gain salvation.

Back in the day of Pope John Paul II, the organization made a plea to include women in the ordained priesthood. It must be very frustrating for the modern day nun to see men elevated to positions that they know some women are much more qualified for. The male hierarchy is significantly threatened by women, and still sees nuns as a “workforce” for the church - Little Catholic “worker bees” so to speak.

In March, a Vatican decree stated that Catholics had to stop using Reiki, of all things, as a treatment. Reiki is a healing therapy that was well adopted by Catholic nuns. It has been used in some Catholic hospitals and retreat centers. The church says it is “unscientific” and “non-Christian”. WTF does that mean? I suppose that gall bladder surgery or open heart surgery is more Christian?

I wonder what insight my Tante Thea would give to this current situation? Probably that change is slow and those that fear change often try to over-control it. She would smile and say everything has its time and that anything done with a pure heart will eventually conquer, even though it may take some time and be a uphill struggle. She would say that nothing worthwhile winning is ever easy, and requires much sacrifice.

Tante Thea

This is an excellent spoof on Star Wars, focusing on sustainable and organic produce and products. What do you think?

Mrs. Betty Bowers explains what a traditional Bible marriage really means.

I am a thinker. L, my partner, says that almost daily I have these brainstorms of how to convert ideas into viable businesses. I do some marketing and operations consulting with small businesses and always try to look at how to do the most with the smallest financial risk. If you do what everyone else does, you get the same results. If you think outside the box, people notice and respond at a much higher rate.

Several years ago, I came upon the idea of a co-op type of health insurance. Co-ops have been used in everything from housing to grocery stores to community projects. It is where everyone has a stake in the success or failure of the co-op. No one in a co-op is looking to get rich, but simply to provide good service at low cost to its members. That’s a co-op in its most idealistic form.

As to health care, the number of unisured Americans has steadily risen in the last ten years due to higher premiums. With the economy as is it is today and many Americans staring down job loss and pay cuts, it’s estimated that the number of uninsured Americans will rise by at least  6.9 million by 2010. Considering that in 2007 there were $46 million uninsured Americans, that’s a hefty increase. Another 25 million were underinsured in the same year, which means they have insurance but it doesn’t cover them well or has large gaps in coverage.

Families USA, a national health care consumer organization, believes there’s an even deeper insurance crisis behind those numbers. In a recent study, the organization found about 86.7 million people in the U.S. – one out of three under age 65 – lived without insurance for part or all of 2007-08. [News Gazette]

On the 28th of May, 2009, USA Today ran an article about a “hidden tax” in the premiums that insured Americans pay that supposedly covers those that do not have health insurance. 

The average U.S. family and their employers paid an extra $1,017 in health care premiums last year to compensate for the uninsured, according to a study to be released Thursday by an advocacy group for health care consumers. [USA Today]

How exactly the extra money I pay to, say Blue Cross or United Health Care, ends up in the coffers of hospitals and care providers to help pay the cost of health care for those who are not insured, is still a mystery. My guess is that it doesn’t. Can you imagine a large health insurance company creating a “charitable fund” to give to hospitals, labs and doctors who have been stiffed on payment? In essence, they are profiting in higher premiums, but then blaming uninsured people for higher costs of care due to unpaid bills. Since the bills continue to go unpaid, and providers must charge more to get their costs covered, I imagine the insurance companies pocket my “hidden tax” and call it… Ummm… Profit.

At any rate, we know the story. We have all heard it over and over the past ten years or so. Even with employer-sponsored plans, some large employers are moving their locations (or some of the facilities) to Canada because the savings in health care makes it more profitable. This means Americans lose their jobs, and the government takes in less taxes and more people end up with little to no health insurance. Kelly Services states that the amount they pay for employee health care is higher than their profits in the same year. [Huffington Post]

It seems that many Americans would like to be covered by health insurance of some sort, but aren’t able or willing to pay the amount necessary for coverage. This industry seems ripe for a co-op alternative where the members both reap the rewards when there are profits, or share in the loss when there is no profit. Yet all enjoy the security of minimal red tape for claims and knowing they WILL be covered.

Here’s a quick rundown of how this would work, and I will use my current health care as an example. This is one single person on one plan with very good coverage. (If I had added someone else to my insurance through work, the cost of my portion would have risen by 300%, just to give you an idea.) 

My health insurance tells me that if I choose to keep the same coverage I enjoyed while working, I would need to pay $467 per month. That’s $5,604 over the course of 12 months (or about $16,812 per 12 months for one other person covered under my same plan), if my premium stays the same. In my case, on unemployment, my monthly income is about 13 days of normal pay. That’s the reality of how much your income can be cut on unemployment. If I had to pay that $467 out-of-pocket, I could pay only my house payment and my health insurance and no other bills. Technically, I would make too much to qualify for food stamps. The state health insurance in Oregon has a two-year waiting period, and I likely would not qualify for that either based on my unemployment income. I would be priced out of health care altogether.

Enter the co-op system:

Let’s face it, the health insurance system has been utterly twisted to focus on profit and not to cover health costs. And when I say ‘profits’ I don’t mean live-in-big-house-and-live-well profits. I am talking buy-an-island-in-Tahiti profits. The insurance co-op would be a non-profit system that would focus on taking care of the members and their health care, not on pocketing as much money as possible and giving millions in pension to retired CEOs, as in the case of United Health Care. William McGuire, the CEO of United Health Care who was kicked out due to a financial scandal, still made a mint despite having to pay back hundreds of millions to United Health Care. [Wall Street Journal]. Why? McGuire’s stock options and severance package was estimated to total over 1 billion dollars. That’s not including what he earned yearly, which is nearly 3 times that amount.

Elizabeth Edwards this week stated that a few years ago, the CEO of United Health Care (see above, hint-hint) earned about $1 for every $700 spent on health care IN THE NATION! In 2005, almost $2 trillion was spent in America on health care. That means the CEO made a whopping $2.9 billion. The clip below is about 6 minutes, but she starts talking about this at around 3 minutes if you want to skip ahead.

However in the co-op system, 1000 people pay $220 per month ($220,000 income per month or $2,640,000 per year). The co-op would negotiate the insurance discount with your providers and you could go to whomever you choose for care. A national prescription discount enrollment would help with prescriptions as well as a critical care fund for those times when prescriptions or care are astronomically costly. 

In that group of 1000 people, on average, there will be two people with poor health or a major health issue each year, costing about $60,000 to $100,000 in extreme cases. That takes into account NO pre-insurance discount amount for medications, treatments, doctors, surgery, imaging studies, lab work and hospital stays, which is anywhere from 20-50% of the total of the bill. To put this in perspective, heart bypass surgery costs an average of $20,000 in America. [source]

In years where profits reach more than 10%, everyone in the plan can choose either to receive a check refund, apply the excess to their premiums for the upcoming year, or “gift” people into the program who need a subsidy to be insured.

This business model is perfect for an internet, community-based organization. The site would not only link communities into several “cells” of this type of co-op around the nation, but also supply vast resources (such as health information, forms, cost analyses, sample business plans, drug formularies, etc.) for members and those who wish to start a similar co-op health care insurance company themselves in their own community.

So, I looked around and found the online lending community at Pertuity Direct. Pertuity is a brilliant idea, offering “social lending” for personal loans that can be used for any number of things, including starting your dream business. Even if your business plan runs on grants and member contributions, you still need to get it off the ground. For me, if I had $25,000 to start this online business, I would need to hire a good grant writer and web developer, as well as consult with medical and insurance industry experts. I would need equipment (computers, software, etc.) which I can find online for little cost. The $25,000 wouldn’t cover everything needed, but it would go a long way to get the ball rolling.

Back to the brilliance of Pertuity… It’s built around a peer-to-peer lending system. For example, you invest $1,000 in this system with other investors who pool resources, and I borrow $25,000 for my co-op business venture. Investors see a larger return than other investments such as high-yield savings accounts or CDs, and those who borrow get much better rates for their loans. It’s the true win-win situation.

Don’t need a loan? Pertuity has a sister site, The National Retail Fund, where you can invest in a mutual fund comprised of the loans made to individuals and businesses. You can start with as little as a $250 investment. This is the funding pool for the loans that Pertuity grants.

If you need to borrow money to make home improvements, start a business, consolidate your credit cards or anything else, I highly suggest checking out this brilliant site. Given the current banking environment, I think many people would feel better knowing that individuals are getting my interest as opposed to greedy and (fill-in-the-blank) banks without sacrificing a good rate and less fees associated with such loans.

Thanks to Fuel My Blog for cluing me into Pertuity!

As you no doubt know by now, the California Supreme Court decided to uphold Proposition 8, thus outlawing same sex marriage in the state that has a reputation for being one of the most liberal. Apparently just behind Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont and even Iowa. Here’s a cool tool to find out the status of same sex marriage in any state: Can I Marry Gay?

I have stated my humble opinion on all of this numerous times, so I won’t repeat it here. BUT I did think it only fitting to have some comic relief in the wake of such a travesty and loss of civil liberty.

Enter the town of Buttzville, New Jersey… You may recall my post on another little aptly named town last year. The town of Buttzville boasts a total of 1,596 households in which live an average of 2.6 people. The average home price is about $275k (fallen from $375k two years ago), but they seem to have weathered the housing market downturn like champs. No houses for sale, including foreclosures. Maybe it’s the proximity to the neighboring town of Hope…

Buttzville New Jersey Sign

I have to ask myself what do people in Buttzville do as their main industry? Apparently opening a Chinese restaurant is not a good idea. It will soon be taken over by the Post Office.

Buttzville, NJ Post Office

Buttzville, NJ Close Up of Post Office

I can’t believe what I am seeing all across the queer cyberscape… Fellow gay men and women who are angry or insulted at the joke Obama made about he and Axelrod at the Correspondent’s Dinner on May 9th. Here it is the end of the month, and the outrage is still going strong…

The quote that is consistently half quoted or misquoted is below thanks to the magic of YouTube.

In my opinion, I think that it is fabulous to have a President who actually talks about gay marriage, let alone includes himself in a tasteful joke about it. In essence, Obama is giving a silent nod to Iowa allowing gay marriages.

It was a joke of respect. It wasn’t a slight. I am baffled why so many people are angered by this. Truly. 

Personally, I would much rather have a President who is open about same sex marriage, feeling free to make a little joke (tasteful joke) here and there as opposed to a President who feels that amending the entire nation’s constitution to stop same sex couples from marrying is acceptable.

Have we already forgotten so much in the last five or so months?

We can’t move forward if we are stuck in the past.

I am trying to sell my huge California King bed. It’s a nice Mission Style frame and the mattresses when I purchased them cost an arm and a leg. 

I was always a little leery of getting an “off size” bed, but truth be told, the company I finally found that had great mattresses for cheap had a special on the California Kings, so the rest is history. The sheets are hard to find and regular pillows look tiny just laying there. Comfortable, but a pain.

It’s one of those things that you have to clear out to change and move on. Also, still trying to sell the house it makes the rather large master bedroom look much smaller.

I am looking for a Queen bed, or maybe even a Full. Something to really snuggle up in.

Selling a bed is harder than you might imagine.

I have had a lot of response, all asking to sell the headboard alone or hitting me up for “extra” sheets and pillow cases. Huh? Seriously? You really want MY sheets and pillow cases? This astounds me since the picture I posted has a bare bed, with a sheet and a giant feather pillow (it’s a German thing) draped on the foot of the bed. Does it look like I have a linen closet full of the stuff?

The trick is, to sell the bed for whatever would offset the purchase of a new bed. I don’t care so much about the frame, but don’t really want to use a mattress from someone else. Kinda makes me feel a bit icky. Oooookkkkkk….

But here I found my perfect bed… Well, sort of… The Gadget Lover’s Dream Bed by Leggett and Platt called Starry Night. Even though I think the bed itself is ugly, kind of late 70’s chic looking. The photos I saw as well as the video makes the bed look like it is made of some velour or microfiber material. I prefer the warmth and coziness of wood myself.

But look at all the things this puppy can do! (If you L&P folks happen to read this… Ummm… This blogger would LOVE to receive a free one… Just for review purposes, of course!)

Here are just some of the features:

• Standard two sides at different angles, yada yada.
• Individually custom heated each side (from 68 to 117 degrees).
• The computer includes a Sleep Diagnostic Center which monitors your sleep, movement and breathing patterns and makes suggestions for better sleep. It will tell you how many times you get up at night, how many times you tossed and turned and how you breathe among other things. I can only imagine that a regular bout of sex might screw up its calculations, but this thing is so tech savvy, it will probably give you suggestions for sex as well. 
• Built in Microsoft Media Center with a wireless remote (but you know how I hate Microsoft - Evil Empire - so that would be compromise for me).
• iPod docking station.
• Built in speakers and subwoofers that can be tucked away or exposed at the touch of a button.
• If it catches the vibrations of snoring, it will automatically raise your head to make you stop.

Not gadgety enough for you? This is where it gets interesting:

• It can remotely control your entire house. You can set bedroom temperature, lighting, music, TV, blinds or anything else in your house that can be set up remotely.
• Romance Mode: You can create several lighting and mood music choices that seem to magically flow with “the mood”. You can set vibration. I get visions of letchy balding and paunchy casting directors using this to seduce young nubile women (or men) impressed with this type of “love nest” mode.
• There is a projector at the head of the bed. This gives you a 10 foot screen projected on the wall where you can catch movies, read books, surf the internet, get daily weather, use a DVR and program a “Good Morning” screen.

How does all of this happen? It’s powered with a hefty processor and 4 GB of RAM and comes with a whopping 1.5 terabytes of storage space!!! Egads! That’s more power than most servers!

Okay, even if I could afford the $20,000 to $50,000 price tag, I think I would prefer a good old fashioned antique bed frame. This one looks like you need to vacuum it regularly.