Blog topic... a day late!

Better late than never, right?

This week's topic is the VMA's.

Submissions due by Friday! Thanks for reading and writing!

Taboo

“There’s no greater pain than the loss of one’s own country”

It’s my saddest part that I have never been to Tibet; I was born in northern part of India and my parents were forced to flee Tibet, my father was a very brave person but alas! when I was in 7th grade, my father passed away like a blowing wind without leaving any further address.

In India, we live in a very small house and we are eight children and I know how hard it was for my mother to look after us but I guess she is a strong women as she faced many obstacles on her way from Tibet to India….but I used to imagine myself in Tibet with green grass, high mountains and yaks….and I was happy in that world of mine but as I grew up I faced the real world and the real Tibet, that makes my heart break into pieces…

I have lived a life of a refugee and we have to renew our passport every year in the Indian registration office with a smile….I know how hard it is for us to go through that situation and I have my father’s family in Tibet whom we have never seen and I remember many years back that we were told that our father’s sister’s son died…but its sad for us, at least for me to react on that situation, of course there is a feeling of sadness but it hurts more knowing that we had not met each other….and what is left for us to do is except some prayers….and the worst part is that you’ve never met your relatives.

Honestly speaking, even though I was born in India and we have no country I' m still proud to be a Tibetan, proud to be a follower of H.H.THE DALAI LAMA, MAY HE LIVE LONG.

Now, the situation in Tibet is getting worse every second. In Tibet the Tibetans are not allowed to speak our language and most of the teenage girls are working as prostitutes…..they are forced to do this to survive and to feed their families….how could we blame them? In Tibet they are living a life of threat under Chinese regime….and I want to make it clear that when I say Chinese I don't mean the chinese people, it is the government and we are not against Chinese people.

Now, what I am afraid of is Tibet becoming a taboo….and gradually Tibet will remain as just a name….I'm afraid of losing myself and the rich culture of Tibet.

Sonam tsomo (chashutsang)

Low-maintenance health insurance

Richard D. Erlich

I was only half-listening each time, but I heard a couple times on the radio the assertion that what Americans want for health insurance is choice.

Well, here's one American who doesn't particularly want choice, or, more exactly, choice isn't something I want to need. What I want is what I had for my adult life up to retirement: decent coverage I didn't have to worry about.

As a student, I had access to student health services. I was convinced the student health service at the University of Illinois, Urbana — as opposed to the excellent veterinary-care clinic — was part of an AMA plot to turn young Americans against socialized medicine. Still, the health service was good enough for my undergraduate needs, and when I got older and started earning a bit of money, I supplemented the health service with Carle Clinic, at the time, a real HMO: a low-cost health-maintenance organization.

As a university faculty member and indirect employee of first the State of Illinois and then the State of Ohio, I participated in university health plans. I got insurance automatically, as part of my compensation package. The coverage was good; the co-pays reasonable — and when an insurance company bureaucrat got between me and my physician, I had the phone number of a university bureaucrat whose primary job was running interference for university employees trying to get payments from our insurance company.

The system was imperfect, but pretty efficient.

Shopping, period, is not my idea of a good time — yeah, I'm a guy — and high-risk shopping for something complicated and important is my idea of a very bad time. Shopping was also not part of my job; nor was arguing with 20-something punk insurance company flunkies. Time spent on health insurance would have been time I wasn't doing my job; as far as my employer and I were concerned, it would have been nonproductive, wasted time.

Now I'm retired, and my time is my own; but I'm close enough to death to really value that time, and I'm more anxious than ever to avoid shopping for insurance, reading policies, and/or fighting with corporate "minicrats" professionally obligated to try to deny coverage.

Fortunately, I've got Medicare — or, I think I do (I forgot to make quarterly payments automatic). And I have a pension and a secondary policy through my pension plan.

All Americans should have it as good, or better. Ideally, from this point of view, we'd have a National Health Service, or at least single-payer health coverage. In any event, what I want and what I think we all need isn't particularly choice but one system that is flexible, simple, automatic, and — including considerations of nonwasted time — efficient.



Richard D. Erlich is professor emeritus at Miami University, currently living in Ventura County, California.

This is currently posted on a site called SEDHE, run by a Miami Alum, and is tentatively scheduled for publication in the Cleveland Plain Dealer (it’s also on my myBarackObama page; but it looks like that is now invisible to search engines).
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Blog Topic Monday!

Respond with a story, an essay, a cartoon, or a work of art. If we can post it on the blog, we will try.
This Monday's topic is Healthcare.
This country? Others? What's wrong? What's right? You decide.

Please email submissions to prismmu@gmail.com by Friday, and look for blog posts starting on Saturday.

Blog Submissions

In addition to the magazine, published once a semester, once a week we will be posting a topic of thought and discussion to write about for publication on the blog. Ideally these will be short responses, but we will not turn anything away for length. If it's wildly inappropriate with no redeeming social value, we may be forced to reject your submission, and we do reserve final say over what is posted here, however, we hope that it will be a rare occasion when something does not get published in this space.
Topics will be posted here and listserved to the English listserv every Monday. Entries will be due by 5pm on Friday, and entries will be posted by noon on Monday. These entries will not go into the magazine, however, you may submit them to the blog and the magazine (where they would go through the regular editing process).
We will also accept for the blog relevant art work, political cartoons, or anything else that we can post on a blog (if you think of it, email me at prismmu@gmail.com, and I will try to find a way).
Happy writing!

Staff Bios-- Kali

Kali Amos

My majors include English Literature and Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies. I plan on applying for Teach for America. I am going to graduate school and will possibly go on to get my Ph. D. I am still deciding whether I want to teach at the high school or college level.

Besides PRiSM, I am also involved in the Art Museum Student Organization, Sigma Tau Delta, and the Association for Women Students. You can also find me serving up unfathomable amounts of bacon to the masses at Alexander Dining Hall.

Best things about Miami: hazelnut cocoa in the vending machine at Bachelor, the comfy chairs in front of the large windows at Wertz library, all of the Russian program professors/classes, and getting lost in the nature trails behind East Quad.

Best things about Oxford: the fact that you can walk from one end to the other in about twenty minutes, the Kulfi (and pretty much everything else) at Rohan India, Kofenya, Kona Bistro on my birthday, The Bird House Antique Store, watching movies in the tiny theaters of the Princess...

I don't really have a favorite genre-I am willing to try anything that wasn't mass produced to the point where merchandise became involved...although I do have a very strange fondness for dystopian novels.

Barbara Kingsolver, Jack Kerouac, Leslie Mormon Silko, James Baldwin, Ray Bradbury, Aldous Huxley, Emily Dickinson, Ivan Turgenev, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Svetlana Vasilenko, Anna Akhmatova, Franz Kafka, Margaret Atwood, and yes sometimes even Ayn Rand.

I think that spelling favorite the British way should be allowed only when one says it aloud with a halfway decent fake British accent.

The main thing that I look for in good writing is that feeling you get when you have finished the very last word and you can set the piece down and just say to yourself "Oh". I consider something good if it lingers in my thoughts after I have put the book down. That is what good literature is--it is something that takes hold of you and refuses to let go no matter how hard you try. It becomes a part of you and it changes the way you think, even if the change is so small that you fail to recognize it.

I love to use ellipses…but have a very violent relationship with commas (I am a big contender for allowing thoughts to wander). Despite my wandering thoughts I am a very organized person as can be seen by the fact that I have a separate container for my socks within my dresser drawer. I have a permanent attachment to my iPod, and am a firm believer that hot chocolate can cure all ailments.

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested."
-Francis Bacon

Staff Bios-- Kaitlyn

Name: Kaitlyn Rowsey

Major and/or career goals?: English Creative Writing Major, Political Science Minor

What are you involved in outside of PRiSM? Miami Misfitz

What do you think is the best thing about Miami or the Oxford Community? That everyone is so friendly and always so willing to lend a helping hand. Our community is so close that it doesn't even come close to comparing to any other campus I've visited. The friend I've made and the relationships I've established are life-long and I wouldn't change going here for anything.

Favourite genre? Mystery/Thriller

Favourite author? James Patterson and Lev Grossman

Annoyed by spelling favourite the British way? sometimes... more so by the spelling of colour.

What do you look for in a good story (poem, essay, etc)? Intriguing material... compelling language... a sense of mystery.

What else do you want people to know about you? I'm a hippie at heart, I love my family and my sister and my three brothers are my best friends, I love being barefoot and love going on adventures... oh and I can ride a unicycle. It's fun, you should try it.

Any other words of wisdom? Be kinder than necessary, everyone you meet is fighting some sort of battle.