"You're never as weak as you think" (Unless you haven't moved for weeks, then maybe)

I. Make the Call

I dread dealing with bureaucracy. No one much likes it, right? But some people like my sister just shrug and get on with it. I am not one of those people. I've paid actual money rather than phone an agency.

But I was motivated this morning:
I got a bill for $342.45 for the [20-min] doctor visit for my knee.
I dread phone calls so much, I considered paying it, but I go to physical therapy tomorrow, and I can't afford to get billed for that too.

I even thought about cancelling PT, but I have grown weak. It's been six weeks I haven't been able to move vigorously. I want to get going!

So I called to find out why my State health insurance hasn’t kicked in yet.
And found out—it has!
They'll cover that doctor visit, and everything coming up. 
Because I earn under $20k a year, I don't even have a co-pay (I think).

Thank you, good humans!

This all changes next year when I turn 65 and have to enroll in Medi-care/-aid/-whatever. If it still exists... *
Will we have a US federal government in 2026?
This is not a rhetorical question.
_____________________

II. Show Up

It was so great how COVID-19 vaccines were handled in 2021.
No insurance needed--not here, anyway--you just [made an appointment and] showed up.
Was that national?

Below: Ass't Man and me, having gotten our first vaccines in 2021. Four springs ago! 

AM said his beard interfered with wearing a mask. He'd often have one hanging slack around his neck or up on the crown of his head.
Big Boss set an example by wearing one, but he didn't insist on others doing so.

Many of my male coworkers either wouldn't wear a mask at all, or wore one over their mouth alone---or even over their chin.
It seemed to be a gender thing.
Wearing masks was sissy?
While men I work with are robust in many ways, they were such tender blossoms about masks.
"Oh, they're uncomfortable."
But they will carry furniture when they have two broken fingers. [Actual example.]

The above photo was taken by a former coworker who, I just remembered, was having immigration problems. She'd been in the process of filing for citizenship when she left her abusive husband (an Anglo)--who then TURNED HER IN to the feds as fraudulent.
I hope she's okay.

Luckily all the people working at the store now are citizens--some only recently. But a lot of people in the neighborhood aren't.

In the neighborhood where I live, someone posted signs w/ cards in baggies  outlining legal rights, in English/Spanish:

"Immigrants Make Minneapolis
Know Your Rights"

On the cards: What to say to ICE (in English);
In Spanish, what to do:
Don't open the door, don't say or sign anything...

I took one to xerox and put up around the store.
The neighborhood where I live is mostly non-Hispanic white, but the Catholic Church two blocks from me that hosts the food shelf is largely Spanish-speaking. A lot of people who go there are refugees from Ecuador, which is ruled by gangs [BBC article], you know. 

III. Stand Up! Or, Sit Down

There are so many things we can do--little and big—to make a better world.

^ Above from Accidental Czar: The Life and Lies of Putin (2022), graphic history by Andrew S. Weiss; illus. by Brian "Box" Brown.
I just read it and learned a lot!

So many things we can do.... According to Gene Sharp,198 Things.
In his book The Politics of Nonviolent Action (1973), Sharp  catalogued 198 METHODS of Non-Violent Actions.
(They don't include online tactics, because 1973.)

These “nonviolent weapons” are in three categories:

• nonviolent protest and persuasion--marches & mockery!
  Dictators don't like being laughed at.
  
  
• noncooperation (social, economic, and political)--ways of refusing to play--like boycotts
  
  
• nonviolent intervention--civil disobedience, exposing wrong-doers, etc.

 > > > Here's an easy one we in the US could do this Friday:
join the FEBRUARY 28 Economic Blackout

"For our entire lives, they have told us we have no choice ... that we have to accept these insane prices, the corporate greed, the billionaire tax breaks, all while we struggle to just to get by,"
said  John Schwarz, founder of the unaffiliated grassroots organization The People's Union USA.

"February 28, the 24-hour economic blackout: no Amazon, no Walmart, no fast food, no gas, not a single unnecessary dollar spent ...
If you must spend, ONLY support small, local businesses.
For one day, we are going to finally turn the tables."

I don’t agree with all of People’s Union’s platform, but I agree people should pull together, and a one-day boycott is a great place to start. So, on Friday I won't get a falafel sandwich at NY Gyro (below).
I'm getting to love this basic restaurant in the corner where I transfer to an express bus (to & from the U):
it goes right to my apartment building, but it runs infrequently.
If I have to wait long, I've been eating here.

A couple really nice Middle Eastern guys run it.
Once I only had 10 minutes before my bus came:
Was there time to get a chicken gyro to go, I asked, or should I order something faster?

"You should eat what you like," the guy said. "I will make it for you."

I don't want to hurt them economically so I'll make sure to eat there an extra time that's not 2/28. Or, better, leave a $9 tip, the cost of a gyros.

IV. Know Your Salutes

Here's a boycott that didn't happen--the US did not boycott the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, even after Hitler enacted the Nuremberg Race Laws.

Perhaps Jesse Owens winning four gold medals was even more powerful than a boycott would have been?

Eighty years later, President Obama said:

“It wasn’t just Jesse. It was other African Americans athletes in the middle of Nazi Germany under the gaze of Adolf Hitler that put a lie to notions of racial superiority ––whooped ’em–– and taught them a thing or two about democracy and taught them a thing or two about the American character.”

--"The 1936 Berlin Olympics and the Controversy of U.S. Participation"

Hm, though. "The American character" is currently up for review...
Here, Jesse Owens on the podium demonstrates what "Not-a-Nazi Salute" looks like. [via NewsMuseum]

___________
* Health Care, Again

Oh--here:
The House will vote this week on the GOP's budget proposal, which includes massive cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, to pay for even more tax cuts for the rich. --Robert Reich [via Michael at OCA]

Fellow Americans, call your representatives now and tell them to reject it:
(202) 224-3121
Or…
Find your senator.
Find your representative.

A comment on Reich's YouTube:
"They've got their supporters believing that the Sheriff of Nottingham is Robinhood."