The brain will see it and life will change it - so hold on!

Sometimes I see the beauty. Sometimes I see the clutter....

Often it is about from where I stand - not from what actually exists.   It could be the gunk and the glory.  It could be the good and the bad. It could be the ying and the yang.  Or a blessing and a curse.   Maybe it's just awful at times - as blinded and as partial a view that is.  Maybe it's just really perfect at times - as blinded and as partial a view that also is.   

The brain has many moving parts... the psychological floor alters the human view by memory, experience, trauma and presence.  

Trauma is included as it must be; safety harmed, hindered, threatened or stolen unfortunately,  happens to all humans as life would have it.  

To exclude the horrible is a falsification of just how the brain works - falsified by preference and wanting - not by fact. 

To look at the views - there is a natural and a human made component to it all.  Which holds the most beauty?  It is in the eyes and the view of the beholder so the cliché might summarize.  

Either way - take a view (using memories,  smells, taste, touch, imagination, in all ways the psyche can dance) and hold on to it! It will change,  again,  just as life would have it.  

~K. LaRose and PsychoBabbleJabble

The Supreme Court says no to Student Loan Debt Cancellation: Stay Focussed.

The feds convinced millions of borrowers to move their loans into the Department Of Education for this loan cancellation stuff to all work. I wonder how many did so believing that their loans would be forgiven. I wonder too how many who agreed to these loan reconsolidations and refinances had to also agree to pay higher interest rates during these DOE refi's. Sadly, during a payment freeze, and sadly during a refinance to forgiven incentive a hopeful many are now very likely stuck with a higher interest rate than had they left their loans where they were (if I recall the DOE refi paperwork cautions about possible higher rates in moving loans to DOE).  I'm hesitantly aware that this whole thing will now move to the blame of conservatives and the blame of liberals and the blame of those students who should have known better. Few, interestingly enough, will blame the banks or the feds (aka: DOE). 

     PHOTO CREDIT: Brett Jordan and Unsplash

My hope would be that we citizens who are so inclined not lose sight of the issue here - making student loans less of a burden to those who cannot afford them. In that vain, if the Department of Education convinced you to refinance at a higher interest rate under the guise of forgiveness and cancellation, now that cancellation has been outlawed, the DOE should not blame the courts or the politics ... and the politics really should not blame each other - the system all of them so relied upon has dropped the gavel. Instead the DOE honorably should reverse course by ordering interest rates on student loans to be dropped to the zero prime loan rates that were evident in and before the COVID stop payment rule was effected during the prior republican administration. The DOE has been using that stop payment thing as its tool to now help the over indebted. You see this whole pub or dem thinking is a full blown miss: the solutions here are in the hands of those who lost their supreme court case - the DOE. My hope for the burdened and impoverished in student loans is that they/you do not give a pass to anyone by blaming anyone but instead ask and challenge the DOE to do the next best thing: zero the interest. 

Why? Any government student loan at over the current prime is a government approved rip off (and is predatory). Any government approved loan from the COVID era at over a point above the zero prime (the 0 rate during the pandemic) is also a government approved rip off (and predatory). This suggests the pubs and the dems and the DOE are culprits in predatory student loan regs.  The DOE can still act - somehow. 

On a personal note I've worked in rural ESE school counseling programs many many years (2004-2018) and because I was self employed, am not eligible for the give to the good loan forgiveness program. I've never missed a single loan payment from 2005 to 2023 (and I still have many years to go): at a rather low loan rate I've paid in over $120,000. Whatever you call a 6 years Masters Degree - it is/was very very expensive. I would love forgiveness and cancellation - I've been fortunate to be able to pay the bill every single month (and I've paid out $15.00 extra a month since 2005-with no early pay off evident - an oddity of its own).

The banks fee's, processing and the interest - as well as the government's two party role in this is unacceptable. Blame of one party or another will not help here for a soluition. Asking the DOE to drop the fees and interest would take a big part of $70,000 to $700,000 >student< loans reduce much more quickly with every payment.  

#dosomething #nevergiveup #sharethisfreely

Article referencing the supreme court ruling on student debt cancellation: 

https://www.msn.com/en-US/news/politics/supreme-court-strikes-down-bidens-plan-to-forgive-millions-of-student-loans/ar-AA1dgjsM?ocid=sapphireappshare

Beware of Bag Snatchers?

Increasingly as I see the "narratives" from progressives, liberals and conservatives (and their various media bull horns) I am frustrated.  Student loans are not the burden of the US government.  Banks, contracted by and for the US government have already made billions and billions off of student loans.  

PHOTO CREDIT: Markus Winkler and Unsplash

And don't forget that besides the interest over the life of PAID and unpaid LOANS are many many fees.   We are continuing to be fed a line of bull about the costs of education (and healthcare, and Medicaid... and ....).  Non tax paying "not for profits" - companies working on behalf of the feds (education, healthcare and Medicaid) are raking it in.  Drive to any city and pass the colleges, pass the banks, pass the insurance carriers.... none of them are hurting.  Stop jacking the poor or the average citizen and start making the billionaire non profit companies (churches are included, political action companies ... and on and on I could go) pay their fair share.  Stop making criminals out of corporations (for profit as well) who use a 70,000 page tax code to legally get out paying a friggin dime in taxes.  Most of this cost crap would be entirely resolved if we quit jumping on band wagons and started looking at the source of the laws and of who is getting paid (and who is paying).  Things have got to change. 

Article Reference:  https://www.newsweek.com/supreme-court-student-debt-cancellation-republican-democrat-proposals-1807037

Pride 2023 - rainbows, sunshine and treats

PHOTO CREDIT: Me

We do not have a mental health crisis in the US

We do not have a ..."mental health crisis" in the United States.   We have an abhorrent health insurance crisis that dictates care based upon "criteria".  

       Photo credit: Sydney Sims and Unsplash

Inmates are not eligible for benefits while in an institution because they are receiving "benefits."  Yahoo news and other medias, really need to stop taking about the healthcare crisis and talk honestly about the health insurance industry (both profit and not for profit).  

https://news.yahoo.com/criminalizing-the-most-vulnerable-should-the-mentally-ill-be-behind-bars-090026453.html

Targeted population laws 'to protect' are not equal in motivations: take a look at pharmacy and insurance for example

Another thought, by Kurt LaRose...

An article by The Missouri Independent prompts me to wander (and wonder) more into the details of 'the need to protect...'

This sentence is not only a reality for current residents and patients in the state (and other states in the US who are operating under similar political winds and paradigms) but too, for providers of mental health:

"...and even his mental well being could no longer be guaranteed in Missouri."

Patients need to be protected - adults and minors. Malpractice and neglect by providers is already protected in every state in the US. Doctors, therapists, teams of providers must be able to care for the idiosyncratic needs of patients. These laws likely are harming many people: patients and providers. This point is true not only in transgender discussions but in other medical protection scenarios as well. Equal actions of lawmakers to protect citizens is not apparent in the premise of what defines healthcare or populations in need of protection: take pharmacy regulations as an example of protection laws that are not equally applied (and are not nationally targeted).

These (gender based care) targeted group fear based laws, these political seeking laws or maybe even more cynically these separatist intended laws (aka: 'yeah, you can just go ahead and leave our state') hurt the masses, and overlook the majority of the masses. It's possible these laws are guided by paradigms of religion and some suppositions in faith - but the point here is that protection as a rationale is void, in actuality. 

The assumptions in these kinds of medical restrictive laws is that the very same states where systems to protect patients already exist in mammouth, their enforcing agencies are not competent to protect. Worse, these same states who license and credential providers to treat patients, suggest by outlawing individual patient care scenarios, that the states own standards are defunct. Further, these laws underestimate the intelligence of the average US American consumer of healthcare. These patient/provider restricting care laws make us collectively, look incompetent - from the top (where laws are passed) down (where one to one care occurs in practice offices everywhere).  

Here's an omitted or neglected majority scenario:

Everyday in the US millions and millions of patients get life changing prescriptions with known side effects, some of which are permanent. From causing diabetes, seizures, addiction, sleep deprivation, cancer, cognitive impairment, reduced mobility and loss of the ability to walk correctly, pee or even have sex. And the legislatures of the US are not racing to 'protect' its citizenry in these regards. Why not? Isn't the permanent debilitating side effects of certain treatments for all people (children and adults) in need of protecting in the doling out of meds?

We also underestimate the impact of insurance companies in all of this "healthcare debate" stuff. Did you know that most insurance companies will not cover a comprehensive, psychometrically valid, psychological evaluation (except in very specific and often repetitive request/appeal scenarios)? What does this mean in the overall need to legislate the protection of the citizenry? Why not pass laws that require insurance carriers to pay for valid diagnostics - wouldn't this protect the people?

I think this is worth quoting from the article once more, with the above context included as an alternative consideration to what is happening to patients, providers and state agencies all across this nation:

"...and even his mental well being could no longer be guaranteed..."

Here is the link to the referenced article: 

https://missouriindependent.com/2023/05/16/theres-no-point-in-staying-transgender-missourians-describe-toll-of-legislative-session/

Religion, Nudity, Education and P*rn?

       Photo credit: BBC article: educator resigns

Religion and nudity in the same famous 1500's sculpture leads to an educator's termination.   Shame and fear and guilt created this snafu ... a snafu that leads to punishing a leader and teacher.  I'm not sure when adults and children can talk, honestly,  openly and safely in this day and age. #TalkifUwant

"It's beautiful," said the educator, who was forced to resign after students were shown the masterpiece.

 https://news.yahoo.com/principal-forced-resign-over-michelangelos-233037932.html

The 5 most emotional moments ...

These folks were "broken-hearted" by some prejudice and they overcome.   The judges at too many times can be seen and heard saying "I hope s/he is good" maybe blinded a bit by prejudice as well.   In the end,  something like the miraculous appears.

https://youtu.be/xaltQQjcNkg