Month: January 2018

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In case you are keeping track, there was no Part III as I lost my notes. I can summarize what happened though. After much trial and tribulation. I finally signed up for Health Insurance. It took me three days, 3 or so hours online, five or so phone calls at about a half hour a piece, and a fax (yes you heard correctly a fax).

The good news is I am now signed up.

Or so I thought. It is mid-January and I still haven’t received my insurance card. I called up Wage Works where I learned that I only paid them for my insurance. The insurance carrier is a totally different entity. I would need to call up the insurance company to inquire about my card.

I ask for the phone number. She tells me it was on the back of my insurance card. I told her I didn’t have an insurance card. I reminded her that was why I was calling her in the first place. She sighed deeply, the sigh of someone who knows she has to put me on hold so she can search for phone number she doesn’t readily have. It takes her five minutes of determined clicking but she finds the number I need.

A phone tree answers. This phone tree wasn’t, not for one moment, going to let me speak to a person. I listen through the phone tree until I hear my option. I push the appropriate number. The phone tree informs me that I can go to the on line site for this information. I say “Operator.” This phone tree isn’t falling for that trick. The phone tree replies, “In order to better help you, can you explain what department you want to speak with and then lists departments for me to select

I choose one. The phone tree explains that I can take care of this on line. I scream operator. The phone tree asks me what department I need and gives me the same options. I chose one. The phone tree yet again insists that I can handle this on line. I then lie to the phone tree. God, forgive me. I say I need to make a payment. The phone tree obliging sends me to an operator except that the office is on the East Coast and is now closed.

I call back Wage Works. I explain my problem to a nice woman. She will send an urgent message to the insurance company and would get back with me when she heard a reply.

She actually calls back the next day with an identifier number telling me she has contacted the insurance company. I ask for my insurance ID. She doesn’t have it but the insurance company has been informed that I urgently need my insurance card. She assumes that the insurance company will expedite sending the insurance card.

“So I should be able to call the insurance company and get my number,” I ask.

She didn’t really know for sure but maybe.

With that ringing endorsement, I call the insurance company. They don’t, as a matter of fact, have my information in their system and don’t know why I am calling. I explain that Wage Works told me to call them. The young lady transfers me to a supervisor. I explain my problem again. I don’t know why because he tells me I am not in the system and he can’t help me.

I explain that I have paid Wage Works for my insurance. Wage Works sent the information to Health Net. The man understands but he doesn’t have my information. I tell him I am concerned. I ask him what were to happen if I were in an accident. He gives me the audio equivalent of a shoulder shrug.

I ask whom should I contact. He tells me the county. I snap. I tell him the county doesn’t have anything to do with me. I haven’t given any information to the county. Why would I contact the county? He apologizes he meant to contact Wage Works, the people who I paid.

I call Wage Works and ask to speak to a supervisor. I am transferred and put on hold for ½ hour. I hear music so I think I am on hold. But it is ½ hour, maybe I have been sent to an empty office or the person doesn’t know I am on hold. I hang up and call again. I explain that I have been waiting to speak to a supervisor for ½ hour and I was worried that I might have been disconnected. She assures me that ½ hour wait for a supervisor wasn’t unusual. Very comforting news that is. She says that she will transfer me to a supervisor but will wait on line with me. Every few minutes she would interrupt the music and let me know that I was still on hold. She was good to her word. Now, at least, I knew I was waiting for a supervisor while I waited for another ½ hour.

The supervisor finally comes on the line. I explain my problem. He tells me that they have contacted the insurance company and have asked them to urgently update their system. I explain but it isn’t there and they have had this information since January 6. He says that it takes 5 to 10 business days. I tell him that it has been 21 days. He says that they are probably behind because January is the month they receive the most new members. Since Wage Works just recently sent an urgent request to update my record why don’t we wait until Friday to see if they act?

“What am I supposed to do if I am in an accident,” I ask. I don’t have an insurance card to give them. He gives me an audio shoulder shrug.

“What am I supposed to do if I call back on Friday and the insurance company still doesn’t have my details in their system.” Audio shoulder shrugs all around. I ask him if he could contact someone at the insurance company to investigate this. He says no. All he does is send information via the computer. It is up to the insurance company to put the new customer in the system.

“What if there is a communication breakdown where his company sends information and the insurance company doesn’t receive it. Silence. “You don’t have anyone you can contact at the insurance company?” The answer is no.

I am not sick. Yet. After Friday, I might, however, be in an insane asylum. Hopefully, but not certainly, insured.

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The recent high profile of the MeToo movement and the effect it has had on the careers of certain high profile men is a subject I have wanted to write about for a long time. The problem was that I had difficulty finding the correct words to express what I wanted to say.

After reading Andrew Sullivan article in New York Magazine, I now have the words I want. Sullivan’s point is that men and women have different attitudes about sex. Men are more horny, more handsy, take more chances regarding sex and that heterosexual women need to understand this. It’s just man’s nature. Men have more testosterone that creates a greater sex drive. He then points out that gay men fuck often and indiscriminately because they don’t have the restraining factor of a woman’s sexual drive.

So how should society deal with these different sexual natures? Sullivan thinks nothing, at least, nothing that would change men’s behavior. Sullivan argues, by and large, women understand man’s sexual nature and are OK with a it. Indeed women would become antagonistic to the MeToo movement if it continued their campaign to make men more accountable for their sexual harassment. He also thinks that nature is more important than patriarchal institutions in how sexual relationships proceed. The horny man is always going to be chasing after the less horny woman. Women would just have to learn how to put with the big lugs and there is nothing that society can do about it.

The very problem with Sullivan’s argument is his argument. He thinks men are different than females. If this is true, then might women take another view of men’s groping hands? Might women become irritated with men who make sexual innuendos in the office, particularly if she isn’t interested in the man and the man blissfully disregards her feelings regarding his innuendos? Might it be frustrating that in order to stop these harassments, the woman has to go to Human Resources and files a complaint about the man’s behavior. Wouldn’t it be easier for men to just behave appropriately? Take a slower path with his flirtation?

And this is where the patriarchy comes in. In Sullivan’s world, women should just understand a man’s nature. He doesn’t mention a reciprocal responsibility for man to understand a woman’s nature. Why is the woman stuck with tolerating the bores? Wouldn’t it be just as easy for men to behave appropriately at work. Oh that’s right because men will be men. Their bodies are full of testosterone, they just can’t think straight when a woman is around. It’s there nature.

What about women being women? What happens if the man happens to be the woman’s boss? In the past, the woman could complain to Human Resources but what would HR do? Would they listen to a low level employee over the word of an executive? The power is with the man. He controls her livelihood. He has the power to make the woman’s life miserable. So her choice is to live with the harasser or quit. How does Sullivan propose women deal with this difference in power? Particularly in the very awkward situation of a horny boss chasing his woman employee. Who wins this showdown?

Then Sullivan goes after the feminists who are leading the charge to change the argument. They are trying to give more power to the women. Sullivan finds their arguments alienating, that they are making men the enemy and regular middle class people will be alienated by their arguments. To a degree, he is correct. The vast majority of people won’t agree with Feminist ideology. Sullivan thinks this will drive these people into the Republicans/Right Wing. Why is Feminist ideology more alienating than Right Wing ideology? Finally, who usually fights the battles in these struggles? It would be nice to think that nice middle class people will start the battle. But usually they don’t. Who fought the opening battles for Women’s right? I believe it was the hated and alienating Suffragettes.

These battles have to be fought. More importantly, these battles require us to look at all types of harassment – from annoying to egregious. Al Franken’s boorish behavior is not the same as Harvey Weinstein’s sexual harassment. But how do we know until someone brings it up? Yes, it is messy. Yes sometimes it will be unfair. And we will only get better at dealing with these situations and distinguishing between behaviors as we look at them.

Requiring perfection stifles change. Sullivan thinks men and women have different sexual natures. Since better than 90 percent of the population are committed heterosexuals, how do we move forward recognizing these differences. To stop talking about sexual harassment because some men might be hurt only means women will keep their mouths shut. Women will put up with the roaming hands and sex jokes in order to keep their jobs. Not talking about sexual harassment doesn’t solve the problem, it just moves the pain to a different gender. Then you must ask are men’s lives more important than women’s lives?

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I know London Spy is an old television show. Our viewing practices are to let someone else test drive the program first and wait for their recommendations. This means we are usually a good year behind everyone else which is why I am know talking about London Spy. It really irritated me.

Not at first though, in fact, the show caught our attention. It was fast, stylish, interesting characters, intriguing plot and good-looking men taking off their cloths for no particular reason. They had us hooked. Alex, lonely genius, brought out of his shell by good time party boy Danny. Everything is cupids and arrows until the mysterious Alex disappears.   Danny tries to contact Alex but he knows nothing about him – only where he lives. Then a key to Alex’s apartment arrives one day, which moves this from stylish love story to stylish spy story.

Danny finds Alex’s body. Things get strange. It turns out Alex was not the lonely virgin sitting at home pining for love. There is evidence at Alex’s apartment that suggest Alex was an S and M aficionado and had had numerous trysts with other men. Alex’s parents try to discourage Danny from pursing his amateur investigation. Danny continues. Danny’s friends in high places try to discourage him from continuing. He continues.

I was enthralled until I realized somewhere in the last episode that everything is falling apart. The big reveals meant nothing. The explanations make absolutely no sense in relation to plot already laid out. At the end, I realize that I have been hoodwinked yet again. Another television series has hooked me into watching to have my misplaced confidence shattered by an ill thought out, forced and ultimately nonsensical ending. For series television the ethos is the final episode doesn’t have to be good, it just has to end the series.

Spoiler Alert. I am about to reveal the end of London Spy.

First MI6 wanted to stop Alex from creating a magical truth algorithm. You see Alex had created this algorithm that could determine the truth of any statement. Bad idea Alex. Alex must be stopped. The thing I didn’t realize until watching London Spy was how incompetent and indiscrete television MI6 is. For example, every MI6 agent in a 20 mile radius of London descends on Alex’s apartment to discourage him from pursuing his algorithm. Klieg lights shine on the apartment from the outside just so everyone inside and outside can see as if it was daylight. Everyone who enters the apartment must also don a hazmat suit.

This seems, to my amateur eyes, overkill. All they want to do is to talk to Alex about his truth algorithm. Doesn’t seem like the Klieg lights and hazmat suits are all that necessary. Plus it isn’t like this clandestine spy agency is drawing any attention to their presence, I mean with the Klieg lights and hundreds of men walking around a quiet London neighborhood in hazmat suits. I’m sure that the none of neighbors took notice of all this falderal.

Then, for some reason that only television MI6 agents know, they stuff poor Alex into a trunk. You know those old fashion-travelling trunks that people used to take on long journeys. Why they do this eludes me. They are trying to talk sense into him, not get information out of him. Why not just sit him in a chair? Television MI6 has it ways however. They definitely think it is better to stuff Alex into a trunk where everyone must now yell at him to carry on a conversation.

They bring in Alex’s mother. Except she isn’t really his mother. Which was a big reveal and you think it means something and the importance of this fact will be explained. It isn’t. It is really just a red herring. It means nothing and doesn’t change anything. It did fill about 15 minutes or so of an episode so there is that. Mother or not, she has no luck in convincing Alex about stopping his truth algorithm. How do we know this? Why television MI6 uses the truth algorithm to determine whether Alex is lying. Which makes killing him seem kind of beside the point because MI6 has the algorithm which they don’t want anybody to use, except they have it and or using it. Why kill Alex? Well, says television MI6, we don’t want him to give the truth algorithm to some other hostile country.

Sometimes you just have to give into television logic. I gave television MI6 the benefit of the doubt here. Maybe killing Alex will stop him from giving the truth algorithm to the rest of the world. So all right kill Alex. Now this is the most baffling part of the entire series. Television MI6 decides to just let him suffocate in the trunk and leave his body rotting for a month until they then decide to pin the murder on the jealous Danny.

Do you have that? Now I am not a television MI6 expert by any means but it would seem to me that if you are trying to get rid of a body – you don’t leave it rotting in an apartment for over a month. And you certainly would look for easier way to do the job then suffocation via a trunk. Like any sensible killer, you would remove the body and dispose of it in a discrete manner. No body, no evidence, no police, no press and unfortunately no further story line.

Television MI6 decides to send Danny the key. Danny finds the body and calls the police to investigate. Since MI6 is trying to make Danny take the fall, they leave these sexually incriminating photographs of Alex laying around the house so this gets the press involved. MI6 hopes this will make Danny jealous and behave crazily so they then can pin the murder of Alex on Danny. Except Danny doesn’t act crazy enough, so in order to convince Danny that Alex was not a virgin genius but an S and M boy toy, they inject Danny with the AIDS virus. See Alex must have been sexually promiscuous because he gave Danny AIDS.

It was at this point that I decided that if I was a television British taxpayer that I would really be upset at the incompetence of television MI6. I mean there a lot better, more stupid and more evil projects that the television British taxpayer might want to see their taxes applied to.