Musing Out Loud

I originally wrote this piece in February, 2009, in response to a New York Times article but I couldn't bring myself to hit the "publish" button.  A new study is being released today looking at the long term effects of transracial adoption prompted me to hit the "publish" button.  

Photo: Prospective children for adoption sent to potential adoptive parents. I'm on the right. Seoul, Korea.

With the waning of the days, the garden is slowing down it's production.  We still have some tomatoes, zucchini, chard and now winter squash.  At this time of year, too, the tomatoes are a little "drier" -- so they are perfect in a tart.  

This is made really simple to make using purchased puff pastry (although you can make it too):  roll out puff pastry on parchment paper to desired size, puncture with a fork randomly throughout (minimizes the puffing), and bake on a cookie tray for about 15 minutes in 400 degree oven til lightly brown.  Then, add thinly sliced tomatoes on top of the baked pastry, sprinkle fresh herbs (I used marjoram here), cheese (I used up the ends of various cheeses -- cheddar, mozzarella, romano) and baked for another 15 minutes, til the cheese has melted. Yummy!  

We had some left over beef from last night's carne asada (recipe courtesy of cafe pasqual's in New Mexico) to which I slivered the beef and added sauteed chard, matchstick zucchini, roasted onions, green pepper and ramen noodles.  There was not a morsel left over.

When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s -- yes, I'm that old -- my dad, an architect by training, spent a lot of time attending chicken dinners at the Elks, Lion's, Rotary and Kiwanis clubs as well as at places of worship.  He went to those dinners not as a politician or a member but as a representative of the Committee of 1000, a small group organized to help care for and find homes for Vietnamese orphans.  I don't know much about the Committee of 1000 -- who started it, its mission, its membership.  I just know my dad was out a lot speaking to these civic and church groups, leaving my mom home with us seven children, ranging in age from 18 to four years old.  I also remember a periodic newsletter that he and my mom put out on the progress of the Committee of 1000.  My younger brother John and I were the "in-house" mail-house for those newsletters.  We would sort them into states, then counties and then zipcodes so that the newsletters could go out under a non-profit bulk rate.  This was my first introduction to direct marketing.

As I got older and became involved in politics and social change, I often thought about my father's commitment for social good.  He was not doing this out of a sense of noblesse oblige; our family would never have been mistaken for being well off.  But, rather, from a deeply religious sense of giving back.  His own up bringing had been difficult: he was technically an orphan, having lost both his biological parents by the time he was ten.

I wanted to capture his story for my family and for complete strangers.  I want others to know that it doesn't take a lot of money or fame to make a difference.  So, a few months ago, I signed up to participate in StoryCorps' Memory Loss initiative. 

Last weekend, I set off for my dad's house to record him.  My father is 77 now and suffers from Parkinson's, a degenerative disease that impairs his muscular functioning.  The hands that were capable of drawing perfectly straight lines free form, shake and tremor unpredictably.  He uses a walker but most importantly his memory, his speech and his cognitive functioning are declining.  I recorded him for about 70 minutes over a five hour period.  We had to stop often because he got tired or frustrated or bored.

We had a good talk but in the end, I'm not sure there is enough usable material for the lovely team at StoryCorps to cobble together a story.  There has just been too much time, memory loss and cognitive degeneration to capture the details:  the why, the how, the who that form the foundation of his story.

Disappointed at myself for not having pulled this together sooner, I randomly googled all possible permutations to see if the Internet could unlock some clues.  I had tried this over the years but always ended up empty handed.  And, then, an hour before Fed Ex came to pick up the recorder and return it to StoryCorps, I found this article from the New York Times, appended to a grant request, which I have excerpted below:  

Efforts Grow to Bring Here Babies That GI's Left in Vietnam by Winthrop A. Rockwell, New York Times, January 3, 1972

"... In New Jersey, a group called the Council on Adoptable Children, International, has recently become active in organizing to bring Vietnamese orphans to the United States.  Roy Bertleson [sic], one of the prime movers of the group, says it is working with Welcome House and Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota to explore the possibility of setting up reception centers in Vietnam where abandoned children could be taken while homes are found for them in the United States.

The council is also helping to form The Committee of 1,000 a group of individuals each contributing $100 to adoption efforts in Vietnam.  

Senator Harrison A. Williams, Jr. who has sponsored a bill on Vietnamese child welfare, has worked with the New Jersey group as have Jim Bouton, the former baseball player and television sports commentator, and Jerry Orbach, the actor."

I've always wanted to write an op-ed piece but somehow I never got around to it.  And, then, a chance tweet introduced me to the Op-Ed Project.  I attended their seminar this summer in NYC and thought, why not?  If nothing else, it'll force me to write -- even if it doesn't get published.  To my delight, last Saturday, the Huffington Post picked up and published my op-ed on health care which I originally posted here on September 16th.  To all those who have an idea to change the world, write it and send it out.  You never know, who'll pick up.  

Last night, we officially entered Autumn but the garden began it's ascent two weeks ago. That's why today's harvest is paltry compared to last month but still ample for a gazpacho or maybe a riff on Trestle on Tenth's lovely chilled tomato soup with grilled shrimp and cucumber.

Anne Mai Bertelsen

Sent from my wireless

South Carolina Republican Congressman Joe Wilson’s decidedly un-Congressional outburst during President Obama’s speech on health care reform was met with swift censure from his colleagues on both sides of the political fence.  But while he was publicly called out for his inappropriate and disrespectful behavior toward the President, no one has taken him on for the slanderous allegations that he and other anti-health reformers have propagated for months: allegations that characterize the uninsured as illegal aliens, scofflaws, uneducated and poor. Allegations that have successfully convinced the insured that health care reform is detrimental to their health.  Yet, these charges distort the facts and divert attention from a troubling trend: employer-sponsored insurance is an endangered species and without health care reform, including a public option, many more Americans will join the ranks of the uninsured.  Including, potentially, my family.

Of course, we are not illegal immigrants, scofflaws, uneducated or poor.  We look like the majority of the uninsured, according to US Census Bureau and the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality. We are American citizens like 85 per cent of the non-insured. One of us has a year-round, full time job, as do 67 per cent of the non-insured. We are college-educated, as are 31 per cent of the non-insured. We are white or ”other” as are 30 percent of the non-insured.

What happened to us is what has happened to many of the 14.5 million who are unemployed: we lost our employer-sponsored health insurance when my husband was laid off last year. We did not have the luxury of turning to my employer. Like 17 million other Americans, I am self-employed, a sole proprietor whose health insurance was covered by a spouse’s employer.

With signs that the economy is slowly rebounding, many families hope finding a job will restore their health insurance. After all, more than half of all Americans receive health insurance through their employers. But full time employment is no guarantee of health insurance coverage.

The number of private employers offering health insurance has declined steadily this decade. Back in 2000, more than 69 per cent offered their employees health insurance, according to research from the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Education Trust. By last year, that number dropped to 63 per cent. 

The biggest decline came from small businesses, particularly those with fewer than 26 employees.  Only 49 per cent of these small businesses offer coverage – down from 57 per cent in 2000.  The National Small Business Association corroborates these findings: they found that only 38 percent of their members offer coverage; 14 years ago, 67 percent offered their employees coverage.

The decline in health care coverage by small business employers is particularly troubling since this sector accounted for 94 per cent of all new jobs created in the U.S. in the last two decades. More than 70 million Americans work for a small business today.  But small businesses have been crippled by the ever-escalating costs of health insurance and many have been forced to forgo this luxury benefit.

If left unaddressed, this trend of businesses dropping health insurance coverage could add another eight million Americans to the ranks of the uninsured in ten years, bringing the total to 54 million Americans without health insurance, according to estimates by the Congressional Budget Office.

So far our family has not lost its insurance. Unlike others who lost theirs due to unemployment, we were fortunate enough to not only have access to COBRA – a continuation of our health insurance for 18 months – but, also the financial well being to pay the $1500 monthly premiums. Others have not been so fortunate. Some had no access to COBRA when their companies closed up; others had to make the difficult trade off between food and shelter or health insurance because their unemployment payments couldn’t cover both. 

COBRA ends this month and, with it, our options. While we will save some money, we will pay higher out-of-pocket costs, see a reduction in level of coverage and greater restrictions placed on which doctors, hospitals and procedures we can use.  But, at some point, if my husband continues to be unemployed and my business continues with its revenue halved, $1200-a-month health insurance may be an unaffordable luxury for us too.  And then we will officially join the ranks of the un-insured.  Not as illegal immigrants, scofflaws or the uneducated.  But as the working poor, our savings depleted by health insurance premiums.