Medical treatment dispute: Intermountain Health Care (internal link)
Present dispute: This post.
Unedited transcript of the video above.
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Hi, my name is Thomas Farley. Welcome to my website. If you’ve been following me for a while, thank you for that. I wanted to talk in person about I was recently told by a couple of people that I shouldn’t be so upset about a particular problem because life’s unfair. Everybody has it hard.
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Essentially, my mental health was discounted. Once again, it’s not a big deal. And anyway, as I said, that the old saw about life being unfair. Well, certainly it is. And it’s also certainly true that everybody takes a stand sometimes in life to put their foot down, to protest, to act out against that unfairness.
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In my case, there’s been four life events in my life, 64 years where I put my foot down, where I said, that’s it, I’m not going to be treated like this. One incident just happened recently. The other one was with Intermountain healthcare, which you can read about on my website. And the other two, I wanted to talk about early 20s friend and I were in the California Conservation Corps, a new state agency.
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Well, there’s a lot of bad things happening, and we were trying to my friend and I, Bernie Bush, were trying to maybe unionize the camp, get the workers organized, and we were fired without any due process.
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It was literally 30 minutes to get your stuff and leave. When we re entered the base because our facility was on National Guard property and we had to be led in by military police under escort to retrieve the rest of our things, there was no due process of whatsoever, even though our paychecks were written by the state. Well, that wasn’t right. And so Bernie and I, a couple of days after that, rode our bicycles because we didn’t make enough money back in the day to afford a car. We pedaled up to Santa Baria, about 40 miles south of San Luis Obispo, and contacted a group of poverty lawyers, poverty law firm, and they immediately accepted the case.
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And seven years later, we prevailed in court and changed the law.
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I’m not aware of any other core members, the thousands and thousands that went through in early days doing anything like that. Pardon me, but it wasn’t right. It wasn’t legal, and it wasn’t fair. But sometimes in everyone’s life, you say, that’s it, I can’t tolerate that situation, and we didn’t, and we prevailed. The next one was years later, back when I had to quit my book contract.
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I had to be released from my book contract, where I spent 18 months traveling the entire Southwest to develop this manuscript for a book. Adventure Publications was the publisher, and I probably spent ten or $15,000 traveling. And there were two major changes that they did to the book contract without asking me first, even though they told me I was a valuable team member, being the writer, of course, the author, I guess, would be the valuable team member.
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They changed the release date after I’d gotten the manuscript in beat deadline, beat word count, as I always do. They changed that without consulting me. They actually changed the entire orientation of the book month before but I let that go and this time I didn’t let it go and they had put, I’m sure, some money into developing the book but I demanded that they get out of that contract which I was released and I walked away from all that money. It was down the drain and a couple of other publishers looked at it but had to pass because of the high cost of bringing it, bringing it forward. So I think most people, especially first time authors, would have done almost anything to stay in the contract to see it get published.
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Actually, the real reason I’ve seen my name in print plenty of times the real reason I wanted that book out was so I could dedicate the book to my parents. I really wanted that but my mother was a published author herself and she would have told me just to walk away from these guys just walk because you have to be consulted on the major issues especially when you’re cooperating fully with the editor. In that case too, the editor wasn’t the one that told me of either of these changes. I found out from other people, yes, life is unfair but at times you say enough is enough and that’s what happened in this recent incident, as I’ll call it. I’m not dwelling on the facts involved in that case.
[00:06:13.810]
I’m reacting now to this fairness question. We all Mark our ground at some point as far as the discounting of our mental health. Well, let’s leave that to another day because that’s that’s truly, truly just a background part of life but thank you for listening to this so far.
Another strong poet from when women were kept weak, Charlotte Smith had a childhood as turbulent as the landscape she describes here is pacific.
She said she became a legal prostitute at 15 because she was wed off to a man to forgive her father for his gambling debts. She eventually had 12 children, lived in a debtor’s prison with her husband for many years, and became the inspiration for Dicken’s Bleak House, in that Charlotte went through a forty year legal battle to gain a rightful inheritance.
It is tough women like this that make me sad for women today who think argument means threat when debate comes from men. These snowballs couldn’t stand a chance in Ol’ England or anywhere else. As always, in the entirety of the human condition, one advocates for one’s self instead of retreating to the company of a third party for a witness, or to the shelter of home with a therapy animal.
If you’d like to know more of the brave Charlotte Smith, there is a wonderful poetry series for her on YouTube, read by the best reader of female poetry, Ghizela Rowe:
Lethean cup refers to the mythic river Lethe and its waters of forgetfulness. Aruna is most probably a water God or the water God.
Sonnet / To the South Downs
by Charlotte Smith (1749–1806)
AH, hills beloved!—where once, a happy child,
Your beechen shades, “your turf, your flowers, among,”
I wove your bluebells into garlands wild,
And woke your echoes with my artless song.
Ah! hills beloved!—your turf, your flowers, remain;
But can they peace to this sad breast restore,
For one poor moment soothe the sense of pain,
And teach a broken heart to throb no more?
And you, Aruna! in the vale below,
As to the sea your limpid waves you bear,
Can you one kind Lethean cup bestow,
To drink a long oblivion to my care?
Ah no!—when all, e’en hope’s last ray is gone,
There ’s no oblivion but in death alone!
Here, Pope addresses the critics of his days, people who did not pen anything of quality themselves but felt free to judge their betters. We might call these trolls today but at least Pope’s critics could read and thus were probably well educated.
Trolls on the other hand are, well, I’ll say it, spiteful, malevolent idiots who go unnamed with their opinions unwanted. Destructive criticism is as easy as running downhill, whereas, being constructive and positive and affirming takes work. Like running uphill. Tolstoi probably took years to write War and Peace but in three seconds a troll can rip it apart with two or three sentences. Without reading the book.
Criticism in the arts and letter by educated people today is dead as no one can criticize any writer of color, a particular gender, sexual orientation or race. No matter how warranted, any criticism is now an attack rooted in bigotry and racism and hate. All those dead white poets and writers are still fair game, however, to be criticized by people who can’t even write in cursive.
From An Essay on Criticism
by Alexander Pope (1688 – 1740
“If you can better these principles, tell me;
If you cannot, join me in following them.” Horace
PART 1
‘Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill
Appear in writing or in judging ill;
But, of the two, less dang’rous is th’ offence
To tire our patience, than mislead our sense.
Some few in that, but numbers err in this,
Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss;
A fool might once himself alone expose,
Now one in verse makes many more in prose.
‘Tis with our judgments as our watches, none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
In poets as true genius is but rare,
True taste as seldom is the critic’s share;
Both must alike from Heav’n derive their light,
These born to judge, as well as those to write.
Let such teach others who themselves excel,
And censure freely who have written well.
Authors are partial to their wit, ’tis true,
But are not critics to their judgment too?
Yet if we look more closely we shall find
Most have the seeds of judgment in their mind;
Nature affords at least a glimm’ring light;
The lines, tho’ touch’d but faintly, are drawn right.
But as the slightest sketch, if justly trac’d,
Is by ill colouring but the more disgrac’d,
So by false learning is good sense defac’d;
Some are bewilder’d in the maze of schools,
And some made coxcombs Nature meant but fools.
In search of wit these lose their common sense,
And then turn critics in their own defence:
Each burns alike, who can, or cannot write,
Or with a rival’s, or an eunuch’s spite.
All fools have still an itching to deride,
And fain would be upon the laughing side.
If Mævius scribble in Apollo’s spite,
There are, who judge still worse than he can write.
Some have at first for wits, then poets pass’d,
Turn’d critics next, and prov’d plain fools at last;
Some neither can for wits nor critics pass,
As heavy mules are neither horse nor ass.
Those half-learn’d witlings, num’rous in our isle
As half-form’d insects on the banks of Nile;
Unfinish’d things, one knows not what to call,
Their generation’s so equivocal:
To tell ’em, would a hundred tongues require,
Or one vain wit’s, that might a hundred tire.
But you who seek to give and merit fame,
And justly bear a critic’s noble name,
Be sure your self and your own reach to know,
How far your genius, taste, and learning go;
Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet,
And mark that point where sense and dulness meet.
Nature to all things fix’d the limits fit,
And wisely curb’d proud man’s pretending wit:
As on the land while here the ocean gains,
In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains;
Thus in the soul while memory prevails,
The solid pow’r of understanding fails;
Where beams of warm imagination play,
The memory’s soft figures melt away.
One science only will one genius fit;
So vast is art, so narrow human wit:
Not only bounded to peculiar arts,
But oft in those, confin’d to single parts.
Like kings we lose the conquests gain’d before,
By vain ambition still to make them more;
Each might his sev’ral province well command,
Would all but stoop to what they understand.
First follow NATURE, and your judgment frame
By her just standard, which is still the same:
Unerring Nature, still divinely bright,
One clear, unchang’d, and universal light,
Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart,
At once the source, and end, and test of art.
Art from that fund each just supply provides,
Works without show, and without pomp presides:
In some fair body thus th’ informing soul
With spirits feeds, with vigour fills the whole,
Each motion guides, and ev’ry nerve sustains;
Itself unseen, but in th’ effects, remains.
Some, to whom Heav’n in wit has been profuse,
Want as much more, to turn it to its use;
For wit and judgment often are at strife,
Though meant each other’s aid, like man and wife.
‘Tis more to guide, than spur the Muse’s steed;
Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed;
The winged courser, like a gen’rous horse,
Shows most true mettle when you check his course.
John Fredrick Nims relates, “As Christ was being led to the crucifixion, ‘they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross.'” Cyrene was an African coastal town on the Mediterranean.
“But He was dying for a dream.” Simon’s role helped enable the crucifixion which in turn allowed the resurrection to come about; death overcome.
Strong stuff. Simon carried the physical cross which later became Christianity’s most powerful and important symbol.
Simon the Cyrenian Speaks
by Countee Cullen (1903 – 1946)
He never spoke a word to me,
And yet He called my name;
He never gave a sign to me,
And yet I knew and came.
At first I said, “I will not bear
His cross upon my back;
He only seeks to place it there
Because my skin is black.”
But He was dying for a dream,
And He was very meek,
And in His eyes there shone a gleam
Men journey far to seek.
It was Himself my pity bought;
I did for Christ alone
What all of Rome could not have wrought
With bruise of lash or stone.
Amazing delivery of call and response between hope and hopelessness. Mix of trance, spiritual, and deep house. Only 17 words in the entire song. “Why does my heart feel so bad?” “Why does my soul feel so bad?” And “He’ll open doors.”
The New York Times still cannot condone war under any conditions, even with the complete justification that Ukraine has to defend itself.
“All across the United States, small groups of military veterans are gathering, planning and getting passports in order. Many are hungry for what they see as a fight to defend freedom against an autocratic aggressor with a conventional and target-rich army.”
What they see? What does the NYT see? The New York Times does not want to approve any kind of war under any kind of circumstance. Even when a country defends itself.
There’s a point at which one’s own moral preferences must end. Any predilection for non-violence must die when you start endangering the world by that belief.
“I don’t believe in killing.” Well, it’s not all about you, sister. There’s some other people involved.
You don’t reason or try to reform a rabid dog which is running down the street biting people. You take out a gun and shoot it.
Similarly, no tolerance can be shown for anyone who starts an unprovoked war which displaces millions, lays waste to cities, and kills still uncounted numbers of soldiers and civilians.
Jesus may hold to his beliefs and remain true. We can’t. We’re human and not a god. No matter what the NYT believes in their heart, for the good of the world, they need to clear their conscience and then help in hunting down that running dog.