Jason Kutsher was my first love. In 10th grade. He was a senior and went into the Navy Seals.
He's dead.
Ned was the very first guy I dated and cared for after you dumped me of at that house in queens. He wrote a NYT best seller. Dedicated it to me.
He's dead.
My closest friend caught covid. He wanted to marry me but I haven't thought about any other men since i fell for you.
He's dead.
My friend Kirsten was in the hospital with me. She was a lawyer and we used to laugh about my Comcast recordings. She had breast cancer.
She's dead too
You are my oldest and closest friend in the world. The one who got away. The greatest love of my life. Exceptional by anyone's standards. I don't have to quote your resume back to you.
I'm a bit overwhelmed right now to put it mildly. Reading this makes me extremely grateful for all you're doing to help me get back on my feet again: figuratively and literally.
I went hungry many times in the past and made poor decisions. Took jobs that didn't pay enough; what I was worth and did entirely to much volunteer and charity work hoping it would lead to something better.
Karen tried and succeeded to instill a sense of helplessness and dependence in me and though I can see it now in retrospect, I didn't for a long time.
There were many, many times when I couldn't afford food and as young as 13 I took a job at Louie's in Port Washington and then the Barge and Jimmy's Backyard because Karen made me pay for my own food when I went to live with her.
Grandma called me today, and I was so happy to hear from her. It appears I'm back in her good graces. She's eternally optimistic and no matter how many times she tells me that the things you worry about most never happen; I know from my recent experiences and losses that is not true. Not for me.
On the bright side, I am not stuck in a loveless marriage and don't have children depending on me and tI am grateful for that every day.
Karen told me she was forced to marry Chuck (who was a decent guy) to take care of me and Lauren and then blames me for the divorce stating that I ruined her life when I went to live with you when I was in Fifth Grade.
In fact, Karen blames me for everything and takes responsibility or accountability for any of her behavior or life choices.
I perhaps take too much and allowed it to permeate my outer shell and let it destroy my soul just a little too much.
I'm trying to reverse those patterns and be more gentle with myself but it's not easy and I will always regret my lost years where I stumbled through life severely depressed and suicidal and believing that I was a burden on my family, the system and anyone who came into my orbit.
I know that I am a kind and generous person and have given more of myself than I can ever hope to receive back and that's okay. But I'm not ready yet to talk about just how bad things got and things such as food insecurity and how Karen, my own mother, used food, shelter, and compromised my physical and emotional safety and weaponized things such as basic medical care and my most basic, primal and physical needs and used them to manipulate me and the men in her life (including you; Dad) against me.
Please hold on to this for future reference when I am ready to release it along with some chapters of the book I am working on at a later date.
Thanks. And I love you. Being given $16 month for food by the state is an insult. Being paid $10.46 hour with no benefits by the government was an insult. Being told by my mother to get a job at Wal-mart was an insult.
Karen told me I haven't accomplished a single thing in my entire life when I was working as a political appointee and advisor to the governor on mental health policy was beyond parody.
She was on speaker and I was with the Speaker of the House, Rob Briley, and Derrick Tibbs, assistant to the Governor when she dropped that gem. I calmly replied, "you're wrong. I managed to grow up with a mother like you and maintain a shred of dignity and integrity" and hung up the phone.
Their jaws literally dropped to the floor wondering how a parent could say such a thing. I got used to it after a while and expect nothing more from her.
Grandma asked if Karen contacted me and if she knows I'm having surgery. The answer is no. Karen has not made any contact with me nor has she responded to the email when I said it would be extremely helpful if she could help me with transportation to my pre-op appointments.
Not a single god damn word. Nothing.
I'll leave it there. We both know how this story ends. Or do we??
Much love and gratitude,
Liz
26 million say they can't afford enough food in the pandemic. What they can do Amid one of the worst downturns in U.S. history, the number of Americans who are struggling to pay for food has soared. Here's what to do if you're one of them.
For those who don't know, I write for several platforms, and my work is available through Amazon, Yahoo, and the AP and several others.
Gannett cancelled my column when they were bought and sold. It's some pretty complicated intellectual property law but when I woke up paralyzed, I made all of my writing available for free because I felt that it needed to be shared with people having healthcare issues who might otherwise miss the opportunity to hear from a former provider and health policy analyst turned patient in a very broken system.
I've sat by (literally, because I cannot walk) and watched as Trump and the GOP dismantled all the protections we put in place under the previous admin and know when to stay in my lane.
The only good thing about this pandemic is that it is highlights inequities and disparities in health care and that it does not discriminate black, white, green or purple. They can't blame this one on Sexual Orientation like they did with AIDS, although Pat Robertson tried and they can't blame it on Obama since he's not in office...
What we are seeing is a tremendous media bias and I have NO PROBLEM speaking in spanish; sign language or writing for free to get the information out there to special populations who are disproportionately affected by the coronavirus.
Some people call me a libtard, others call me "Enemy of the People" and I've even been called a commie dyke as if that would deter me from using my white privilege and proximity and access to Mar-a-Lago from protesting there.
I get letters like this from people all over the world, but this one came from my dad a few minutes ago and brought tears to my eyes so I wanted to share it.
Thanks, Dad. For believing in me always.
"You have to play the hand you are dealt. The results of your first surgery were great. Everything was coming back all the way. It was terrible hard work and unpleasant, but it had to be done.
Same again this time. You have very good reason, even more reason this time, to expect the results will be great again. It was very impressive how you coped with it the first time. This time will be easier. You did it once and you know you can do it. Some people do what they have to. Others always find an excuse for not rising to the occasion and persevering. I don't underestimate what you have to endure, but I also don't have the slightest doubt you can handle it.
I'm literally feeling sick after my conversation with the health department.
It looks like I'm going to have to delay my neurosurgery because #Florida can't get their shit together to do my pre-op clearance during a preventable #COVID19 outbreak.
These people are complete morons.
Now they tell me that they need a chest x-ray that has to be scheduled at Good Sam and possibly a cardiologist to sign off if my EKG comes back abnormal (there's no reason to think it will come back abnormal, they are just being difficult).
They said the bloodwork takes 3-7 days to come back and they can see me on Friday but they said even if they didn't cancel the appointment, my doctor (whom I never met) can't clear me by the 29th because I can't get X-rays scheduled.
They make everything difficult. When I explained my situation they said, "well, we were closed for three months because of COVID"
I'm well fucking aware they've been closed for 3 months because I've been waiting that long to get surgery.
I'm literally sick after dealing with these COVIDIOTS for the last six months but have to play with the hand I've been dealt so I will call Jessica who does the scheduling in Miami this afternoon when I am calm and rational.
It would be very helpful if my mother could help me get to some of these appointments.
Half the problem is transportation and COVID testing is drive through testing and medical transportation won't take you there.
I have no idea how to even schedule that... with an uber?
I'm COVID-19 negative. I'd like to keep it that way.
I ponied up $38 for some N95 masks because my zip code is listed as one of the Top 10 hotspots for coronavirus.
But hey, according to Trump, "one day; all of this is just going to disappear. Like magic!" and hopefully he will too.
They say when you lose one sense your other senses become stronger.
When i lost touch, i found my taste and smell got stronger. When the dexterity and mobility came back in my hands i taught myself to cook.
When my right leg went paralyzed again, i started eating instead of exercising and doing my physical therapy. I've been on lockdown and quarantine since January and for a while i fought devastating depression.
Losing you felt like the life force had been drained from my body. I wanted to die too just so we could be together.
But I know sadness is not what you want for me. And there is much work to be done here on earth. And some days are better than others but the one thing that never changes is the love i have for you.
So i made a commitment to get well. And I learned to walk once before, ill learn to do it again.
So next week i go in for another major neurosurgery and hope that i will be able to move my legs again when i wake up and after some hard PT and OT I'll be able to live my best life.
President Donald Trump, second from right, talks with Ben Carson, third from right, after he received his endorsement at the Mar-A-Lago Club on Mar. 11 in Palm Beach, Florida. | Getty
President Donald Trump's trip to his luxury resort in Mar-a-Lago this weekend could saddle taxpayers with a bill upward of $3 million and is already drawing the type of scrutiny Trump and other Republicans regularly heaped upon former President Barack Obama.
The Florida trip is Trump's first getaway as president and is expected to be part business, part pleasure. He will reunite with his wife, Melania, who has been living in Trump Tower in Manhattan as their 10-year-old son Barron finishes the school year, and there are rumors he will attend the American Red Cross' annual fundraising gala, which is being held at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday night. In between the socializing, Trump will have several meetings and phone calls as he maintains his aggressive work schedule.
The trip, which is scheduled to last from Friday night to Monday morning, also likely comes with a hefty price tag.
The closest approximation of the cost comes from a report the Government Accountability Office prepared in 2016 about one of Obama's trips in 2013 at the request of Republican Sen. John Barrasso. The trip was actually quite similar to the one that Trump is about to take. It occurred in February 2013 over the course of four days. Obama flew from Joint Base Andrews to Chicago on Feb. 15 to deliver a speech on the economy and the middle class, then flew from there to Palm Beach, Florida. He returned on Feb. 18. But for the Chicago detour, Trump's trip is almost identical.
The cost of the 2013 trip for the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service, was $3.6 million, the GAO found.
Trump's multimillion-dollar trip, which comes just two weeks into his presidency, shows that Trump is not shy about engaging in the same type of jet-setting that he and other Republicans heavily criticized Obama for throughout his presidency.
"The habitual vacationer, @BarackObama, is now in Hawaii. This vacation is costing taxpayers $4 milion +++ while there is 20% unemployment," Trump wrote on Twitter in December 2011 (when the unemployment rate was actually 8.5 percent).
"President @BarackObama's vacation is costing taxpayers millions of dollars——Unbelievable!" Trump opined again on Twitter a few days later.
That July, he took aim at the first lady: "With 15% US real unemployment and a 16T debt, @Michelle Obama's luxurious Aspen vacation - her 16th - cost us over $1M." (The unemployment rate at the time was actually 8.2 percent.)
But now, as Trump is setting off on his own working vacation to his "winter White House," he is getting a taste of his own medicine.
Judicial Watch, the conservative nonprofit that tracked Obama's travel, told POLITICO that it plans to file a Freedom of Information Act request on Monday for a full accounting of Trump's travel costs for the weekend getaway.
"I hope he reflects on the costs of doing that and sees if there's any savings to be achieved," said Tom Fitton, president of the group. "He should check out Camp David and see if he can make better use of that."
He added there are "real costs of going back and forth," as Trump has said he plans to do regularly throughout his presidency.
But the choice to stay at Mar-a-Lago, which Trump owns, does carry some cost advantages.
"Presidents pay for their own and their families' lodging, food and incidentals while on vacation, which may be why they generally prefer to stay at properties they own, as guests of wealthy friends or at the official presidential retreat at Camp David," wrote Scott Farris, author of a book about John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, in the Washington Post in 2014.
Trump's love for staying at his own properties gives him many options around the world.
Despite the discount, taxpayers will still likely bear the brunt of the travel costs. And one of the only reasons an approximate price tag can be slapped on Trump's trip ahead of time is because Judicial Watch and other conservatives have been so dogged in recent years about pricing out Obama's travel.
The cost of flying Air Force One is more than $200,000 per flying hour, according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch in 2015. When the trip is for official business, all of the costs are borne by the government. If the trip is political in nature, however, those traveling reimburse the government "the equivalent of the airfare that they would have paid had they used a commercial airline," according to the Congressional Research Service.
After the release of the GAO report he requested, Barraso said Obama had "little regard for the taxpayer" and that the trip displayed "arrogance." Barrasso's office did not respond to a request for comment about Trump's upcoming trip.
But sniping about presidential getaways is a bipartisan tradition, and one with a history far before George W. Bush's trips to his Texas ranch or Obama's Hawaii golf outings.
"The tradition goes all the way back to John Adams," said Brendan Doherty, a political science professor at the Naval Academy and an expert on presidential travel. The second president was criticized for spending too much time away in Massachusetts — criticism that carried more validity before the age of air travel, telephones and the internet.
Such criticism is mostly an "inside-the-Beltway phenomenon," Doherty said, and likely doesn't resonate with most voters. The caveat is if the president appears out of touch in the face of a crisis or natural disaster. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time — say, in Texas during Hurricane Katrina as Bush was — can be "really politically damaging," Doherty said.
But there's also an upside to taking periodic breaks from the West Wing.
"If it helps a president to clear his head to get fresh air, to play golf, to clear brush, hopefully that would help a president make better decisions that would benefit all of us," Doherty said.
And just because Trump will be away from the White House doesn't mean he'll be away from the job.
Doherty cited a quote regularly attributed to Nancy Reagan: "Presidents don't get vacations, they just get a change of scenery."
If Trump hopes to make Mar-a-Lago stays a regular feature of his time in office, he may be heartened by the vacation schedule of Reagan. All told, the conservative icon spent about a year of his presidency at his ranch in California.
He might find even more to like in the latest Republican to hold the office. Bush spent more than 530 days at either his ranch in Texas or the family home in Kennebunkport, Maine, according to records kept by Mark Knoller of CBS News.
Obama's vacations, meanwhile, spanned more than 230 days, according to Knoller.
New fields of science don't emerge in a flash, and evolutionary psychology—sometimes called modern Darwinism—is no exception. But over the past several years, evolutionary psychology as a discipline has gathered both momentum and respect. A convergence of research and discoveries in genetics, neuropsychology, and paleobiology, among other sciences, evolutionary psychology holds that although human beings today inhabit a thoroughly modern world of space exploration and virtual realities, they do so with the ingrained mentality of Stone Age hunter-gatherers. Homo sapiens emerged on the Savannah Plain some 200,000 years ago, yet according to evolutionary psychology, people today still seek those traits that made survival possible then: an instinct to fight furiously when threatened, for instance, and a drive to trade information and share secrets. Human beings are, in other words, hardwired. You can take the person out of the Stone Age, evolutionary psychologists contend, but you can't take the Stone Age out of the person.
You can take the person out of the Stone Age, not the Stone Age out of the person.
That said, evolutionary psychologists do not argue that all people are alike underneath. The discipline recognizes the individual differences caused by a person's unique genetic inheritance, as well as by personal experiences and culture. Further, like other scientific theories—the Big Bang and global warming, to name two—evolutionary psychology is the subject of fierce debate. (See the insert "Evolutionary Psychology: A Convergence of Research and Controversy.") Indeed, proponents and opponents of the field are becoming increasingly numerous and vocal.
But evolutionary psychology is by now well established enough to merit examination. Understanding evolutionary psychology is useful to managers because it provides a new and provocative way to think about human nature; it also offers a framework for understanding why people tend to act as they do in organizational settings. Put another way, evolutionary psychology, in identifying the aspects of human behavior that are inborn and universal, can explain some familiar patterns. It sheds light on why people behave in ways that don't appear to be beneficial to themselves or to their businesses. Evolutionary psychology goes so far as to raise the questions: How might organizations be designed to work in harmony with our biogenetic identity? and Are modern-day executives managing against the grain of human nature?
Natural Selection: A Primer
One hundred and thirty-nine years ago, the British naturalist Charles Darwin rattled the world with his theory of natural selection. According to his theory, human beings were not "placed" fully formed onto the earth. Instead, they were an evolved species, the biological descendants of a line that stretched back through apes and back to ancient simians. In fact, Darwin said, human beings shared a common heritage with all other species.
Since Darwin's time, scientists have built on the theory of natural selection with modern discoveries, most notably in the area of genetics. Today modern Darwinians hypothesize that evolution occurs in the following manner: All living creatures are "designed" by specific combinations of genes. Genes that produce faulty design features, such as soft bones or weak hearts, are largely eliminated from the population in two ways. First, species with those characteristics simply don't survive the elements long enough to reproduce and pass along their genes. This is called environmental selection. Second, these same creatures are unattractive to other members of their group because they appear weak and less likely to reproduce. They don't mate and therefore don't reproduce. This is called sexual selection.
The genes that survive environmental and sexual selection are passed on to succeeding generations. At the same time, genetic mutations occasionally crop up. They produce new variations—say, improved hearing or sharp teeth. The characteristics that help a species thrive and propagate will survive the process of natural selection and be passed on. Those that don't are weeded out. By these means, species evolve with stable genetic profiles that optimally fit the environmental niches they occupy. Thus, fish that live at the bottom of the sea can see in the darkness, and dogs that prey on burrowing rodents have keen senses of smell. Species become extinct and new species emerge when radical shifts in environmental conditions render obsolete one set of design features and offer opportunities for a new set to prosper.
Darwin and his proponents over the decades have used the theory of natural selection to explain how and why human beings share biological and physical traits, such as the opposable thumb and keen eyesight, with other species. Evolutionary psychologists go further. They use the theory of natural selection to explain the workings of the human brain and the dynamics of the human group. If evolution shaped the human body, they say, it also shaped the human mind.
Evolutionary psychologists describe the "creation" of that mind in this way: The first two-legged hominids emerged after a prolonged period of global cooling approximately four million years ago. A range of variations in their biogenetic design briefly flourished and then became extinct, leaving Homo sapiens as the all-conquering survivor.
President Donald Trump, second from right, talks with Ben Carson, third from right, after he received his endorsement at the Mar-A-Lago Club on Mar. 11 in Palm Beach, Florida. | Getty
President Donald Trump's trip to his luxury resort in Mar-a-Lago this weekend could saddle taxpayers with a bill upward of $3 million and is already drawing the type of scrutiny Trump and other Republicans regularly heaped upon former President Barack Obama.
The Florida trip is Trump's first getaway as president and is expected to be part business, part pleasure. He will reunite with his wife, Melania, who has been living in Trump Tower in Manhattan as their 10-year-old son Barron finishes the school year, and there are rumors he will attend the American Red Cross' annual fundraising gala, which is being held at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday night. In between the socializing, Trump will have several meetings and phone calls as he maintains his aggressive work schedule.
The trip, which is scheduled to last from Friday night to Monday morning, also likely comes with a hefty price tag.
The closest approximation of the cost comes from a report the Government Accountability Office prepared in 2016 about one of Obama's trips in 2013 at the request of Republican Sen. John Barrasso. The trip was actually quite similar to the one that Trump is about to take. It occurred in February 2013 over the course of four days. Obama flew from Joint Base Andrews to Chicago on Feb. 15 to deliver a speech on the economy and the middle class, then flew from there to Palm Beach, Florida. He returned on Feb. 18. But for the Chicago detour, Trump's trip is almost identical.
The cost of the 2013 trip for the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service, was $3.6 million, the GAO found.
Trump's multimillion-dollar trip, which comes just two weeks into his presidency, shows that Trump is not shy about engaging in the same type of jet-setting that he and other Republicans heavily criticized Obama for throughout his presidency.
"The habitual vacationer, @BarackObama, is now in Hawaii. This vacation is costing taxpayers $4 milion +++ while there is 20% unemployment," Trump wrote on Twitter in December 2011 (when the unemployment rate was actually 8.5 percent).
"President @BarackObama's vacation is costing taxpayers millions of dollars——Unbelievable!" Trump opined again on Twitter a few days later.
That July, he took aim at the first lady: "With 15% US real unemployment and a 16T debt, @Michelle Obama's luxurious Aspen vacation - her 16th - cost us over $1M." (The unemployment rate at the time was actually 8.2 percent.)
But now, as Trump is setting off on his own working vacation to his "winter White House," he is getting a taste of his own medicine.
Judicial Watch, the conservative nonprofit that tracked Obama's travel, told POLITICO that it plans to file a Freedom of Information Act request on Monday for a full accounting of Trump's travel costs for the weekend getaway.
"I hope he reflects on the costs of doing that and sees if there's any savings to be achieved," said Tom Fitton, president of the group. "He should check out Camp David and see if he can make better use of that."
He added there are "real costs of going back and forth," as Trump has said he plans to do regularly throughout his presidency.
But the choice to stay at Mar-a-Lago, which Trump owns, does carry some cost advantages.
"Presidents pay for their own and their families' lodging, food and incidentals while on vacation, which may be why they generally prefer to stay at properties they own, as guests of wealthy friends or at the official presidential retreat at Camp David," wrote Scott Farris, author of a book about John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, in the Washington Post in 2014.
Trump's love for staying at his own properties gives him many options around the world.
Despite the discount, taxpayers will still likely bear the brunt of the travel costs. And one of the only reasons an approximate price tag can be slapped on Trump's trip ahead of time is because Judicial Watch and other conservatives have been so dogged in recent years about pricing out Obama's travel.
The cost of flying Air Force One is more than $200,000 per flying hour, according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch in 2015. When the trip is for official business, all of the costs are borne by the government. If the trip is political in nature, however, those traveling reimburse the government "the equivalent of the airfare that they would have paid had they used a commercial airline," according to the Congressional Research Service.
After the release of the GAO report he requested, Barraso said Obama had "little regard for the taxpayer" and that the trip displayed "arrogance." Barrasso's office did not respond to a request for comment about Trump's upcoming trip.
But sniping about presidential getaways is a bipartisan tradition, and one with a history far before George W. Bush's trips to his Texas ranch or Obama's Hawaii golf outings.
"The tradition goes all the way back to John Adams," said Brendan Doherty, a political science professor at the Naval Academy and an expert on presidential travel. The second president was criticized for spending too much time away in Massachusetts — criticism that carried more validity before the age of air travel, telephones and the internet.
Such criticism is mostly an "inside-the-Beltway phenomenon," Doherty said, and likely doesn't resonate with most voters. The caveat is if the president appears out of touch in the face of a crisis or natural disaster. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time — say, in Texas during Hurricane Katrina as Bush was — can be "really politically damaging," Doherty said.
But there's also an upside to taking periodic breaks from the West Wing.
"If it helps a president to clear his head to get fresh air, to play golf, to clear brush, hopefully that would help a president make better decisions that would benefit all of us," Doherty said.
And just because Trump will be away from the White House doesn't mean he'll be away from the job.
Doherty cited a quote regularly attributed to Nancy Reagan: "Presidents don't get vacations, they just get a change of scenery."
If Trump hopes to make Mar-a-Lago stays a regular feature of his time in office, he may be heartened by the vacation schedule of Reagan. All told, the conservative icon spent about a year of his presidency at his ranch in California.
He might find even more to like in the latest Republican to hold the office. Bush spent more than 530 days at either his ranch in Texas or the family home in Kennebunkport, Maine, according to records kept by Mark Knoller of CBS News.
Obama's vacations, meanwhile, spanned more than 230 days, according to Knoller.
Just got home from the hospital. Reading over the notes and instructions for my upcoming surgery crying as it becomes real when you read it in black and white.
Trying to decide what level of disability I can live with. Would you chose to save your arms or your legs??
Would you rather lose your mind or your physical autonomy?? Because right now it feels like I'm losing both.
They found the source of my seizures and I'm going to dumb this down for you folks who have been following my healthcare trauma and drama since I woke up paralyzed a few short years ago.
My brain is fine. My strength is fine and I worked really hard in physical and occupational therapy to walk again.
Unfortunately, my brain is sending signals to move my arms and legs and because of spinal cord damage the messages get distorted along the way.
As a result my neurons go nuts and start sending signals and if you tell me to touch my nose I touch my ear.
Currently I can still walk, but I can only take baby steps. I had to walk up a ramp today, and I'm proud to say I did it a hell of a lot better than Trumpty Dumbty did at West Point, but I'm still not where I would like to be.
So they are scheduling another major neurosurgery as soon as possible and everything else is taking a backseat.
I won't be allowed to have any visitors including my immediate family due to COVID-19.
My dad said, "THAT'S TERRIBLE" but I don't think it's so bad. I won't have to put on a happy face and pretend that everything is just fine. Because it's not. I'm not ok. And I usually don't post things like this on Facebook, but the last few years have changed my perspective on things.
I've never been one to sugar coat things, and anyone who is familiar with my writing (available on Amazon) knows that I am a straight shooter.
I'm getting the best care possible, and working with the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis and I released all of my medical records to be used for medical research.
And that's really all I've got for right now. I know better than anyone that people are dying because I've lost 4 out 5 of my closest friends in the last 3 years and it really sucks to go through this alone but that's the way it needs to be with the virus running rampant in Florida due to poor leadership and selfish pricks who thing they are making a statement by not wearing a mask.
You go ahead, tough guys. All you're proving is that your an idiot.
I find it ironic that these idiots claim wearing a mask is an undue burden but mah guns mah guns.
If you are clinging to the 2nd Amendment to protect us from fascism and an authoritarian dictatorship, you missed your chance.
