Penny

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Junebug was aware of time passing but it was a disjointed thing, seeming to come and go in fits and starts. Occasionally she had flashes of coherent images. The top of the autodoc, the interior of the highlander, even the vista of deep space, although that must have been before she actually blacked out.

“Well Candidate Cyckali,” came the calm cultured voice of the evaluator. The tone of vauge dissaproval was institutional and for a moment she had the taste of old protein pack in the back of her throat.

“You have elected to blow 100 percent of your mission personnel out of an airlock, a bold choice. Have you considered issuing side arms and simply shooting yourself?” Perspective skewed drunkenly in her mind. The grading officer remained the the background picking apart choices and plans which her pain addled mind was only half conscious of making. For a moment she thought she saw a brief flash of sky before she was carried into a building with bright overhead lights. The intermittent lights flickered in her mind like a hundred night action and her body quivered with the reflex for action. Men were standing above her talking? Shouting? And then a mask descended over her face and cool darkness took her.

Wakefulness came back in a rush. There was light and an alarmed beeping of machines. Something hot flowed into her arm and she went back under again. Consciousness came back slowly the second time, she could almost feel the increments as the analgesic was dialed down. It was a familiar technique, neural disconnection rather than narcotics, expensive stuff. A woman in a face mask looked down at her in concern. It occurred to Sayeeda that the womans lips had been moving but she had to focus to make out the words ‘are you alright Ms Cyckali’.

“Junebug,” she mumbled and tried to push herself up. The medic layed a hand on her chest that might have been made of iron.

“Steady there, lets make sure you arent going to crash again before we get to excited.”

“Where is my pilot?” she asked, sinking back to the bed with some relief.

“He is speaking with the Cho-Lan he should be back soon,” the medic said before turning to work on something beyond Sayeeda’s line of sight.

“Highlander Six to all Highlander elements,” Sayeeda said in a voice so low she felt the subvocalize module in her mastoid click in. If Neil were in comm range, a couple of miles without a booster he would pick up.

“Important to make secure contact with negative exposure to Indgies, reply when you have expectation of comm security.”

This was going to be a real mess but there was nothing to be done about it until she could convey her suspicions to Neil.

@POOHEAD189

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

@Penny It's all fun and games, until the most likely robot apocalypse is the one where you starve to death because robots took jobs away at exponentially growing rates.

@catchamber

Someone needs to be buying though, else the robots have no jobs to take. You either have to find markets or admit that capitalism dosen't work at the extremes of the spectrum.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

Also is it too late to get everyone riled up about Columbus Day Vs Indigenous Peoples Day?

@Penny

Christopher Columbus - the one immigrant in all history whom the liberals think had no right to be in America.

@mdk

Phew. Close one.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

Also is it too late to get everyone riled up about Columbus Day Vs Indigenous Peoples Day?

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

Its been a long time since economics, but doesn't bad stuff happen when you decimate the purchasing power of your market? Particularly now that we don't have colonies to enforce exchange with?

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

Imprisoning people for their words is ludicrous.

@Dark Wind

I agree, just fire them and strip them of their licence. Other things under the rubric of this bill like denying proper care, premature discharge and refusing admissions? Not so sure.

It's not your place, or my place to demand that a person change their beliefs for the sake of your or my comfort. That's tyranny, plain and simple. Don't like your doctor? Change to a different one.

@Dark Wind

Don't like the licence requirements in Cali? Practice somewhere else. Seriously there are plenty of states where discriminating on the basis of preferred pronouns is all the rage.

No one is demanding that anyone change their belief, merely that they treat their patients with respect. I believe that some of my patients are reprehensible jerks and yet somehow I still manage to address them by the names and pronouns the prefer. It is fortunate I have this superpower because I consider it a duty to treat all patients with kindness and respect.

The Sunday Group

The State Farm guy appears and is immediately trapped within a pentacle.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/bill…

It actually was worth googling for the first page of articles all being various flavors of conservative outrage.

The pronoun thing is apparently part of a raft of protections that this bill seeks to provide. They seem to have inserted preferred pronouns into the Patients Bill of Rights and licencing system, thereby making a consistent refusal to use the desired pronoun a violation of the state license that the facility operates under.

Existing law provides for the licensure and regulation by the State Department of Public Health of health facilities, including skilled nursing facilities and intermediate care facilities. A violation of these provisions is a crime. Existing law, the Long-Term Care, Health, Safety, and Security Act of 1973, imposes various requirements on long-term health care facilities, as defined, and prescribes the civil penalties assessed for a violation of those requirements.

And apparently seniors do face real issues. Not something that had previously been on my radar.

(a) In 2006, the California Legislature found that “lifelong experiences of marginalization place lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) seniors at high risk for isolation, poverty, homelessness, and premature institutionalization. Moreover, many LGBT seniors are members of multiple underrepresented groups, and as a result, are doubly marginalized. Due to these factors, many LGBT seniors avoid accessing elder programs and services, even when their health, safety, and security depend on it.”

(b) Recent studies confirm the state’s findings and provide evidence that LGBT seniors experience discrimination, including in long-term care facilities where residents are particularly vulnerable because they must rely on others for necessary care and services, and may no longer enjoy the privacy of having their own home or even their own room.

43 percent of respondents reported personally witnessing or experiencing instances of mistreatment of LGBT seniors in a long-term care facility, including all of the following: being refused admission or readmission, being abruptly discharged, verbal or physical harassment from staff, staff refusal to accept medical power of attorney from the resident’s spouse or partner, discriminatory restrictions on visitation, and staff refusal to refer to a transgender resident by his or her preferred name or pronoun. Eighty-one percent of respondents believed that other residents would discriminate against an LGBT elder in a long-term care facility, 89 percent of respondents believed that staff would discriminate against an LGBT elder in a long-term care facility, and 53 percent believed that staff discrimination would rise to the level of abuse or neglect.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

Lets assume for a moment that the transgender issue didn't exist at all. Just for the sake of this point.

Now assume that you had a male nurse whose co-workers consistently called him by a female name (not his own). He has made it clear that this is unwelcome and offensive. He has asked them to stop and they continue to do so. That is clear cut workplace bullying and sexual harassment and practically any HR officer would agree with that.

Now add in transgender pronouns... and there we are.

I assume the Californians have that law on the books because people are just as obtuse in not recognizing/respecting that they are serious about protecting peoples right to self identify (although again I'm not sure what it has to do with seniors specifically). I find it a little hard to imagine that it is necessary to actual arrest people for it. Most places I have worked for would just fire you after an official warning and have done.