I've had several moments where I thought "this is the prologue scene in a novel."
The whole "you can't vote in person because Cov-19 and also we can't fund the post office because THE ECOMONY because Cov-19" situation reads like backstory to Handmaid's Tale, Catch-22, or 1984.
There's a theory of bureaucracy -- I forget what it's called, but basically the idea is that you make applying for benefits (or jobs, or lotteries, or college) sufficiently difficult that only some people meet all the requirements on paper (even though many more people actually would meet the requirements, they just can't prove it). And then you don't have to pay out!
We touched on this in my food policy class (SURPRISE IT'S HOW SNAP WORKS) and I can't remember the name but I'm pretty sure it's something like "how to be a racist bag of dicks in the name of preventing fraud."
askye, that all sounds frustrating and stressful and no wonder you feel almost out of spoons. I have definitely had times when there was just so much else piled on that a simple thing like "where does this line start" felt like too much to cope with. You're not alone.
Good news out of Wisconsin, election-wise. We got a State Supreme Court Justice in spite of Boyer suppression by way of pandemic voting, and my good friend and former roller derby teammate won her election for mayor. (Not my town but close by.) reactions are kind of cool. [link]
There's a theory of bureaucracy -- I forget what it's called, but basically the idea is that you make applying for benefits (or jobs, or lotteries, or college) sufficiently difficult that only some people meet all the requirements on paper (even though many more people actually would meet the requirements, they just can't prove it). And then you don't have to pay out!
We touched on this in my food policy class (SURPRISE IT'S HOW SNAP WORKS) and I can't remember the name but I'm pretty sure it's something like "how to be a racist bag of dicks in the name of preventing fraud."
I studied this principle in January in Economics and Public Administration class, but in Hebrew. Somewhere under selective vs. universal benefits and cycle of poverty.
Askye, speaking from my experience of having to ask repeatedly for help with things that other people apparently found obvious: You are 100% not alone in this.
Very cool, Cashmere! That gives me a lot of hope for the future.
I know I am not alone and I believe it . I felt like I was doing a good job of handling this, radically accepting things except it may have been more suppress my feelings and deny that's what I'm doing than radical acceptance. But the little spiral I've been on hasn't been that bad. Even 2 years ago I probably wouldn't have even gotten the unemployment application done by now and I am not sure how functional I would be
I went and found a 15 minute low impact work out on YouTube and did that and then paced in the backyard some. I'm sitting here watching birds flit into the mulberry tree. Hopefully this year we will be able to harvest them before the birds eat them all . I'm going to get up and work on a small section of cleaning somewhere. The replacement headset is ready at WalMart and I'll get it when I pick up my groceries.
And I got stuff to make burritos or something so I'm going to make something Mexican inspired tomorrow because that makes me happy.
Cashmere that is awesome about Wisconsin it's the kind of news that makes me feel hopeful.
Cashmere I saw her tweet retweeted yesterday, so fun! Good on her!
