An indictment of our healthcare system. Uber is less expensive

Plus Uber tells you beforehand how much it’ll cost.

Well now I know what to call for an injured person that IDK if they have money to cover healthcare expenses.

Just call an Uber and pay it myself for them.

.

….What the fuck have we Americans gotten to?

DO NOT call Uber for medical emergencies!

You're not paying EMS for the freaking ride. You're paying for the knowledge, experience, and training of the EMTs and paramedics. You're paying for the equipment and diagnostics they can bring to bear. For the knowledge of WHICH hospital is the right hospital for you and your condition.

Getting to the hospital quickly (or cheaply) isn't everything. Getting there alive is.

And if the condition isn't so urgent that it's threatening a life... Why are you seeking care at the ER, and not a doctor's office or urgent care clinic?

Don't. Call. Uber. When. You. Need. An. Ambulance.

Fuck them. Fuck them all. I previously have been a very measured voice of opposition, but now it becomes personal.

“Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden words are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

In some instances, the analysts were given alternative phrases. Instead of “science-based” or ­“evidence-based,” the suggested phrase is “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes,” the person said. In other cases, no replacement words were immediately offered.”

The fact that multiple reliable sources are reporting on this makes the veracity difficult to deny. The fact that basic terms I use on a daily basis to describe my patients, my work, the things I’m most passionate about will be censored at the highest level makes me sick. Agree with @beyondtheoath. Fuck. Them. ALL.

**edit

After cooling down a bit, I will now proceed all my representatives, and you should, too. If ever there was a sign that medicine must make a choice to become active in all this, THIS IS THE SIGN. PARTICIPATE OR BE COMPLICIT. 

I don't do this. I don't post political stuff or get involved. But this is 10,000% absolutely an attack on the fundamentals of not only medicine, but science as a whole.

Look at the specific words they chose. Look at them.

Vulnerable. You know who's in vulnerable populations.

Transgender. A specific group of vulnerable patients near and dear to my heart.

Diversity. As if by getting rid of the word you can get rid of the concept.

Entitlement. As in, the way someone thinks they are entitled to say what the biggest health governmental body in the fucking world can or cannot say. But how can you criticize a group of entitled people without calling them so?

How can you say that people -- not some people, but every person -- is entitled to good healthcare if you can't even use the word?

Evidence-based. The shift to evidence-based medicine is the SINGLE BIGGEST SHIFT IN 20TH CENTURY MEDICINE WE HAVE HAD. Medicine is a science, and that science requires evidence base.

But if you can't have the evidence, then how can you have proof?

Now look at what this is dealing with: budgets. You cannot budget for evidence based medicine. You cannot budget for research into caring for transgender patients. For vulnerable patients. And when suggestions are made, we get a glimpse at what, exactly, these shitstorms want.

They want to bring "community standards" into a space that science should dominate. That's code for "stuffing religion into my science."

First of all: fuck this completely. As a healthcare provider and LGBT human -- as someone with an ounce of sense and compassion -- I call bullshit on this Orwellian, fascist approach to censorship at the highest level.

Call your reps. Call for immediate investigations. Call for justice and a voice for the vulnerable.

Call to save the soul of your country.

Oh my goodness I’m so flattered!

Awww! Thanks for the rec!! ♥️ These are great blogs to be in company with!

SLIGHTLY biased but I think this list is great

I made these as a way to compile all the geographical vocabulary that I thought was useful and interesting for writers. Some descriptors share categories, and some are simplified, but for the most part everything is in its proper place. Not all the words are as useable as others, and some might take tricky wording to pull off, but I hope these prove useful to all you writers out there!

(save the images to zoom in on the pics)

Another great reference for writing and world building!

Props to the creator for their work and for remembering words have nuance and including that instead of just reprinting a thesaurus.

Enchanting Bookworm Inspired Digital Illustrations by Simini Blocker

NYC based illustrator Simini Blocker understands the enchanting world bookworms revel in. From Hogwarts to Neverland or King’s Landing, Blocker captures the spellbinding imaginative realms literature has introduced to us with vibrant colours, gorgeous brushstrokes and fitting quotes from our favourite authors. You can find her gorgeous illustrations on Society6 and Etsy.

View similar posts here!

Keep reading

My darlings this is not a drill! Rescues and the Rhyssa, aka my first novel, is officially available for preorder.

Do you want to read about badass sapphic ladies kicking ass and learning how to love each other with a backdrop of space and aliens? Do you want to read a story in which queer and diverse people exist without apology? This book is for you, and since it’s a preorder, it’s currently on sale for 15% off.

Go forth, and I hope you love these characters as much as I do.

<3

TS

[click here to preorder]

You know how I’ve been talking about Lesbians IN SPACE for years? Well, here it is. You can buy it now.

Please. If you’ve ever enjoyed a fic of mine, spread this like wildfire.

<3

TS

Yessss!

@amariemelody :D

I'm 100% here for this.

2017 tbh

About The Author: Stephen King

Reminder to turn off tumblr’s stupid “best first” feature now that it’s rolled out!

Go to profile>settings (the gear)>global settings>dashboard preferences

So I can only find this on mobile. It goes like this: go to your Profile, tap Settings (the gear), select Global Settings. You want to select Dashboard Preferences (which is new, at least on my Samsung Galaxy S5 version of the app)…

It will look like this when activated, and is auto-defaulted to being on.

Make it look like this to turn it off.

CONGRATULATIONS.

You have successfully deactivated this skeezy ‘feature’ which keeps you from seeing things chronologically. :D

My followers - if you feel like people don’t like your posts, realize that tumblr might not even be showing your posts to people because it uses some arbitrary filter to only show what it thinks people want to see!

DO IT.

I see a lot of posts on tumblr that imply borrowing a book from a library is less supportive of the author than buying it outright and I would like to offer a few unsolicited thoughts as to why that’s not true:

In conclusion, borrowing a book from the library is a wonderful thing to do. It helps make sure other people have access to that book in the future, creating an ever-wider audience for the author.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t buy books, I’m just saying, borrowing books from the library has just as many positive effects and you don’t ever have to feel bad that you’re somehow not supporting an author by borrowing their book instead of buying it. :)

Also: library prices for books are often MUCH HIGHER than regular book prices, because the publishers expect them to be borrowed multiple times. Fun fact: if your favourite book or author is more frequently checked out, they’re likely to buy extra copies, usually at double-or-more the MSRP.

Also, I don’t know about you, but the authors I fell in love with in the library? Their books are on my shelves now.

Go to libraries. Check out books. Support your libraries. Vote for people who support your libraries. Authors will be okay. We promise.

Also, I recently read a thing by a well known author about how piracy is definitely hurting book sales now, but people do it because they can’t afford books or they think books are silly things to spend money on (or whatever), libraries have you covered. They often have ebook versions and audio versions of popular books.

Very very true!

But also: there are SO MANY FREE BOOKS ONLINE. SO MANY indie authors give away the first books in their series for everyone's benefit! They're on Kindle and iBooks and Kobo and *whatever* service, and they want you to read them. Really-truly.

And while traditional publishers have decided that ebooks should cost the same OR MORE than ebooks, indie authors typically charge less than $5 for GREAT ebooks, because they're the ones who actually get most of the money.

If you want free books, or 99¢ books, sign up for services like:

--BookBub

--Book Barbarian

--The Fussy Librarian

--EReader News Today

--FreeBooksy

--BargainBooksy

You can get genre-specific books, usually by authors you can discover for the first time, in your inbox Every. Day. And the best part is, almost NEVER will you see a book that costs more than $1, and many are free. Sometimes there will be box sets with a dozen books or more in there for free, or for $1.

Moral of the story: you don't have to go bankrupt (or morally bankrupt!) to read good books. But rather than putting on a digital eyepatch and hoisting the Jolly Kindle, you can discover authors who want you to have the kinds of books you want to read, and you can get them for free or almost-free.

And as for trade published books? Go to a library. They will be happy to help you find your next great story.

I see a lot of posts on tumblr that imply borrowing a book from a library is less supportive of the author than buying it outright and I would like to offer a few unsolicited thoughts as to why that’s not true:

In conclusion, borrowing a book from the library is a wonderful thing to do. It helps make sure other people have access to that book in the future, creating an ever-wider audience for the author.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t buy books, I’m just saying, borrowing books from the library has just as many positive effects and you don’t ever have to feel bad that you’re somehow not supporting an author by borrowing their book instead of buying it. :)

Also: library prices for books are often MUCH HIGHER than regular book prices, because the publishers expect them to be borrowed multiple times. Fun fact: if your favourite book or author is more frequently checked out, they're likely to buy extra copies, usually at double-or-more the MSRP.

Also, I don't know about you, but the authors I fell in love with in the library? Their books are on my shelves now.

Go to libraries. Check out books. Support your libraries. Vote for people who support your libraries. Authors will be okay. We promise.

*slams coffee mug down* I’m joining this team. Now, what are your thoughts on us using bladed weapons in there? Cos I have a scythe and long handled axe that I want to bring.

Well, that’s the walking armory sorted.

*cracks knuckles* I say we start with the marrow and then storm the spleen. I've got ten years worth of anatomy learning, a custom med kit, and a MIGHTY NEED to inflict damage on the thing that hurts my friend.

louisa may alcott, w. h. auden, jane austen, james baldwin, charlotte brontë, lord byron, truman capote, willa cather, emily dickinson, e. m. forster, langston hughes, christopher isherwood, henry james, federico garcía lorca, christopher marlowe, herman melville, edna st. vincent millay, wilfred owen, marcel proust, mary renault, arthur rimbaud, siegfried sassoon, william shakespeare, gertrude stein, alfred lord tennyson, henry david thoreau, walt whitman, oscar wilde, tennessee williams, virginia woolf

what do all these beloved classic authors have in common? that’s right. none of them were straight. not a one. every single author on this list experienced same-gender romantic attraction during their lives. literary tradition is a hundred times more queer than what your high school english class would ever let you know

just remembered this post that changed my life written by none other than keaton, thanks for that one! 

Author Spotlight - K.F. Bradshaw

Today I’m excited to spotlight K.F. Bradshaw, the author of Enchanters (which was also Sapphic Book Club’s October book of the month). Check out  her post to learn a bit more about her writing process as well as some fun tidbits on how the Enchanters came to be!

Guest Post by K.F. Bradshaw

If you told me three years ago that Enchanters would be A Thing™, I’m not sure I would have believed you. In fact, Damea as a setting was something I began working on wayyyyy back in 2001 (okay, to me, this wasn’t that long ago!). There were dragons, elves, way too many prophecies - and magic was anything but scarce. I figured it would be a fun homebrew setting for a tabletop game or maybe even a video game and wrote a few (terrible) stories around it.

Keep reading

Diversifying the Publishing Industry

I have a lot of projects going on concurrently to help diversify the book publishing industry, so I wanted to put them in once place where they’re easily accessible. So, to begin: 

FOR AUTHORS WHO IDENTIFY AS BEING FROM A MARGINALIZED COMMUNITY WITH BOOKS COMING OUT: 

I’ve created a few forms for you to fill out if you have a book coming out in the next year. I then take these lists and I send them out to a list of about 100-120 book media professionals, librarians, book sellers, and book bloggers. Click the following links to add your book, depending on its release. 

SUMMER/FALL 2017

WINTER/SPRING 2018

If your book is releasing after Spring 2018, keep an eye out either here or on my twitter (@runwithskizzers) because I’ll be posting a link to that form in the next few months. 

LIBRARIANS/BOOK SELLERS/PUBLISHERS/BOOK BLOGGERS:

If you want to receive the above lists in order to plan book orders, blogs, or see what the landscape looks like, click here. 

BOOK MEDIA (print & digital): 

If you want to get the above lists in order to help diversify your book coverage, click here. 

EDITORS/AGENTS LOOKING FOR DIVERSE AUTHORS: 

I’m also building an ever-growing list of writers (both agented and un-agented) who have self-identified as being part of a marginalized community and are open to writing IP. If you’re interested in accessing this list, click here. 

one of the more valuable things I’ve learned in life as a survivor of a mentally unstable parent is that it is likely that no one has thought through it as much as you have. 

no, your friend probably has not noticed they cut you off four times in this conversation. 

no, your brother didn’t realize his music was that loud while you were studying. 

no, your bff or S.O. doesn’t remember that you’re on a tight deadline right now.

no, no one else is paying attention to the four power dynamics at play in your friend group right now.  

a habit of abused kids, especially kids with unstable parents, is the tendency to notice every little detail. We magnify small nuances into major things, largely because small nuances quickly became breaking points for parents. Managing moods, reading the room, perceiving danger in the order of words, the shift of body weight….it’s all a natural outgrowth of trying to manage unstable parents from a young age. 

Here’s the thing: most people don’t do that. I’m not saying everyone else is oblivious, I’m saying the over analysis of minor nuances is a habit of abuse. 

I have a rule: I do not respond to subtext. This includes guilt tripping, silent treatments, passive aggressive behavior, etc. I see it. I notice it. I even sometimes have to analyze it and take a deep breath and CHOOSE not to respond. Because whether it’s really there or just me over-reading things that actually don’t mean anything, the habit of lending credence to the part of me that sees danger in the wrong shift of body weight…that’s toxic for me. And dangerous to my relationships. 

The best thing I ever did for myself and my relationships was insist upon frank communication and a categorical denial of subtext. For some people this is a moral stance. For survivors of mentally unstable parents this is a requirement of recovery. 

If it wasn’t stated outright - it wasn’t said.

Well that explains a lot of the way I read into conversations ... And would be a great character trait for traumatized characters

“So, where’s your LGBT fiction?”

It’s no big secret that a large portion of the LGBT fiction market is online. Many books aren’t even available in print, which I know frustrates some readers (and authors!) who would like to find books in bookstores, libraries, etc. And heck, some people just like paperbacks.

But they aren’t in bookstores. Not in significant numbers, anyway. Even as larger publishers branch out into LGBT, they’re sticking to ebooks.

After talking to publishers, agents, authors, and booksellers over the years, I’ve come to understand one of the primary reasons for this is, quite simply, that queer lit doesn’t sell in bookstores.

With that in mind, I went on a mission this week. I visited five bookstores around Seattle and Portland - Powell’s, Half Price Books, and Barnes & Noble - and I asked the same question: “Where would I find the LGBT fiction?”

Y’all.

Y’ALL.

This is the LGBT Fiction and Non-Fiction section at a Barnes & Noble. The entire section.

But you know what’s extra aggravating?

This is where I found it:

I mean, great. Glad it’s near LGBT & Gender Identity (Though it’s literally the bottom shelf. The top three are Native American and African American non-fiction, which apparently are part of Cultural Studies but don’t warrant a sign despite occupying ¾ of the space…? IDK.)

Signage weirdness notwithstanding, look what section I’m in. I mean, if you’re looking for LGBT Fiction, you’d expect to look…in the….fiction section, right?

No. It’s in the non-fiction section. This is the view of the fiction section from the LGBT section:

Those are Graphic Novels, followed by SFF, followed by Romance. So if you’re in the mood for Gay Romance, you’re not even in the right ZIP code if you start perusing the romance section.

And if I wander over to the fiction section and look toward the LGBT section…

That far wall? The shelf with the LGBT books is perpendicular to that.

See what I’m getting at? There are literally only three ways someone will find the LGBT fiction section at Barnes & Noble:

1. Ask. Which is fabulous for people who are closeted, kids who aren’t comfortable asking, and people who don’t even know the genre exists.

2. Stumble across it. Which you’re totally going to do if you’re looking for a novel because you’d absolutely wander out of the fiction section to find one.

3. Already know where it is.

Can’t imagine why LGBT fiction doesn’t sell.

At Powell’s, the situation wasn’t any better. Powell’s is enormous. It’s multi-level with color-coded rooms because it’s just….huge. I made a valiant attempt to find the LGBT Fiction on my own, but after a full hour of browsing, including scouring all the rooms containing fiction, I finally had to go ask.

There was a reason I couldn’t find it - it wasn’t in any of the rooms dominated by fiction.

It was in the room with all the history books, tucked back behind Military History. Because God knows that’s where I go looking when I want some LGBT fiction.

To their credit, Powell’s had an impressively large section, and it was decorated with a gigantic rainbow sign….but what good does that do anyone if they can’t find the section?

Finally, Half Price Books. Behold, the entire Gay & Lesbian Fiction section:

And yep, that’s the non-fiction section. The Gender Studies and Anthropology section. All the non-queer fiction was downstairs. Not even on the same floor.

So…you know…I think I might’ve figured out why LGBT Fiction “doesn’t sell very well in print,” and what a shock….it’s not because people don’t want to read it.

So let’s see. 

Trad publishers won’t publish it because it’s “not a great seller.” 

Trad bookstores won’t put it in the tasty tasty fiction shelves. 

And we authors get fucked because “no one buys it.” 

Talk about setting us up to fail...

WLW Halloween Reads!

Here are some books you can read to get you into the Halloween spirit. Also, a few of the short stories listed at the end are available as free ebooks too!

Vampires, Werewolves, Witches & Zombies, Oh My!

Ghostly tales~

Spooky, scary short stories:

If that’s not enough, you can find more books here!