The Mirae Scientists Street, a monumental creation of the Songun era, has been built magnificently on the bank of the picturesque River Taedong in Pyongyang, the capital of the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea. Skyscraping and bundle-shaped apartment houses have been harmoniously built along the bank of the River Taedong. The apartment houses in the street have been built with architectural formative effects. Each flat consists of a living room, old parents´ room, father and mother´s room, children´s room, kitchen and others fully equipped with high-quality furniture and fixtures. Resting places and sports parks have been built around the apartment houses so that the inhabitants can fully relax themselves and do exercises and the residential quarters have unique greenbelts. Ordinary educators and scientists are living in the palatial houses without paying a penny.

The Mirae Scientists Street is a product of the warm love of respected Kim Jong Un who gives top priority to and absolutizes the promotion of people´s well-being, regards the educators and scientists as genuine patriots and revolutionaries and always pays deep attention to the development of science and technology of the country. He gave a task to build dwelling houses and service establishments wonderfully on the highest level along the highway on the bank of the River Taedong with the apartment houses for educators of Kim Chaek University of Technology and form a full street and named it “Mirae Scientists Street”. And he took measures to dispatch powerful builders to the spot for the construction of the street and gave specific tasks and ways to accelerate the project.

In February Juche 104 or 2015 hecommanded a bird´s-eye view of the construction site aboard a plane. Then he came to the construction site for guidance of the construction. That day he said the officials and builders should complete the street to be handed down to the posterity with the stand to create highest civilization and highest speed. He also instructed that all the structures should be built with unique characteristics to symbolize scientists street and stressed the need to build good commercial service network and cultural facilities as well. Under his meticulous guidance, the street with thousands of flats and more than 150 service establishments has been built only in one year.

RespectedKim Jong Un visited the completed street in October last and feasted his eyes on its panoramic view time and again and expressed great satisfaction, saying a beautiful street has been built. He said it is really wonderful that a symbolic tower has been built on a 53-storey skyscraping apartment house coiling up in the shape of electron track so that one can know it is the Mirae Scientists Street at a glance even in the distance. Saying all buildings are highly artistic, he repeatedly appreciated the feats of the builders.

The Mirae Scientists Street will be handed down to the posterity as a monumental creation of the Songun era.

Voice of Korea

Ryong Son Il, a pharmacist in the Kim Man Yu Hospital in Pyongyang for 35 years after graduation from the pharmacy department of the Pyongyang Medical College of Kim Il Sung University, has studied and developed many kinds of medicines. Her first invention in this hospital was an efficient medicine for anemia from iron poverty.

In the past, medicines for this illness were foul-smelling and inefficacious, and often produced side effects. But her invention overcame all weaknesses of the past remedies, and the time required for its use is 40 days, much shorter than before. Its clinical effect is notable. Ryong Son Il said to the people who were surprised at her success in research work shortly after starting work in the hospital, “I only have a close acquaintance with books.”

Even when working as a pharmacist in the hospital, she was fond of reading books always like a college student, making a deep study of pharmacology. After work, she would go to the Grand People’s Study House to hunt for books, her range of reading extending over a wide area even beyond her field of specialization. Her knowledge accumulated from her reading, which brought original ideas to her mind and led to new discoveries. Reading classic medical books and modern literature of science and technology, she hit upon an idea that a new medicine good for anemia from iron poverty could be compounded of ingredients of domestic animals’ blood, sulphate of iron and various microelements. After that, she got married and had two children, but her zeal for reading and spirit of inquiry never cooled down. She found time for reading on her way to work and back and even while cooking. Kim Yun Ho, her husband, a graduate of the University of Sciences with a major in mathematics and chemistry, would collect and offer a great deal of scientific materials to her, considering it the best help he could afford for her.

Her spirit of inquiry rose higher after her participation in the National Meeting of Intellectuals in 2007. Hearing many speakers at the meeting talk about their scientific and technical achievements proudly, she regretted her own self-conceit at the trifling success she had achieved. Back from the meeting, she set about a new study and finally succeeded in making gel for use in ultrasonic diagnosis with domestic raw materials, dispensing with its import from abroad. Then, she invented over 30 kinds of medicines including gly-amino acid injection good for treatment of liver trouble and promotion of nutrition and a medicine for revitalizing cerebral metabolism, attracting the attention of the medical circles. Recently she obtained a doctor’s degree by inventing sclero injection including tannic acid which works wonders in treatment of hemorrhoids by one injection, making operations unnecessary.

Now her hair has turned frosty, but she never stops reading, always absorbed in books as she did when she was young. She is wont to tell young people, “Love books! And then, you’ll be equal to creation of whatever you want.” This is saying a great deal as her motto.

Voice of Korea

One day in January 1952 when the Fatherland Liberation War was at its height, President Kim Il Sung summoned a health official. On his table lay a document about the germ warfare perpetrated by the enemy and the countermeasure against it submitted by the officials concerned sometime ago. The leader who had been looking over the paper for a long time with a serious face asked the official how much the people were charged for the doctor’s fee.

This unexpected question confused the official who had been thinking the President would give his views on the document. So he remained dumb for a moment before he answered that the workers and office clerks were given free medical care under the social insurance programme of the state while the peasants and private merchants and industrial entrepreneurs were charged a very small fee for medical treatment and the dependents of workers and office employees were paying about 40 percent of the outpatient’s bill.

At this, the President said that the people were fighting for victory in the war at the front and in the rear at the risk of their lives and that nothing should be spared for such patriotic self-sacrificing people. Then he proposed to adopt a free medical service system for the entire people. As a result, the Cabinet decision about the introduction of a universal free medical service system was announced in November 1952. The introduction of such a system in a hard war time when every penny was needed for conducting the war surpassed all imagination of people.

naenara.com.kp

sheherlocked:

sheherlocked:

“Public libraries are such important, lovely places!” Yes but do you GO there. Do you STUDY there. Do you meet friends and get coffee there. Do you borrow the FREE, ZERO SUBSCRIPTION, ZERO TRACKING books, audiobooks, ebooks, and films. Have you checked out their events and schemes. Do you sign up for the low cost courses in ASL or knitting or programming or writing your CV that they probably run. Do you know they probably have myriad of schemes to help low income families. Do you hire their low cost rooms if you need them. Have you joined their social groups. Do you use the FREE COMPUTERS. Do you even know what your library is trying to offer you. Listen, the library shouldn’t just exist for you as a nice idea. That’s why more libraries shut every year

If this post persuades even one person to get a free library account and use it, my time on this hellsite will not have been spent in vain

luckyladylily:

waterscoloredrust:

ambienkitchen:

“what do we do about people who fake disabilities to get ssi” we throw them a fucking party for pulling off the most difficult and unrewarding grift of all time. literally i don’t care

i wholeheartedly embrace the fuck-the-systemness solidarity of this and therefore have to make sure i understand both sides … so we’re saying ‘fakes’ do not hurt the ppl with true disabilities who have to fight tooth and nail for benefits?

sadly i have firsthand work experience in this area, via medical office with FT social worker, and i promise, the folks ‘faking’ would be the last people you’d want to party with…thankfully our docs were EXTREMELY rigid about identifying said grifters. honorable mentions, 100% real:

• 40 yo M: “can you just give me disability, i need time away from work to pursue acting career. they don’t give us FMLA or anything”

• mid-aged couple: sentenced to community service by local court, requesting SSID status to exempt them from having to fulfill. the task what assembling mailers

•45 yo F: “i just want the placard for better parking spots at work. can’t you just get the doctor to say i’m disabled?”

•50 yo M: orthopedic injuries presented to obtain opioids and SSID benefits, MD reviews all MRIs and CTs, clean. patient denied both requests. storms out of office, throwing his cervical collar down in waiting area on way out as limp magically disappears

i’ll open myself to critique here, suffice to say, i cannot help but think such characters have not contributed to the current screening state of this program. and anyone not getting what they actually need bc of it is anything short of infuriating for me. it’s super fucked, thinking about every single actually disabled person denied for every person faking that has been approved. not who that limited pool of collected public funds is for.

The grifters you have mentioned are painfullyeasy to identify. Many of the literally told you that they were faking it. They do not nearly justify the incredible difficulty involved in the process of actually getting approved.

You can be fully, provably disabled and you will get denied. People who judge your case often ignore evidence collected from everyone from family members to doctors to deny people. The reasons they give that you can keep working display a stunning amount of ignorance to how disabilities actually work or are intentionally attempting to deny people the tiny pittance of money given to people who desperately need it for basic survival.

The average approval time in my state is 21 months. Nearly two years going without what you desperately need to survive. If you try to earn some money in that time just to keep yourself alive it will be used as evidence against your case. No matter how damaging that work is or how unsustainable it is in the long term. For this reason many disabled people are forced into illegal and dangerous work simply because they cannot survive for two fucking years without any help, such as sex work. If they get caught trying to survive it will be used to deny the claim.

Now one might think that you could maybe save up before hand and make it through the process that way. Not so. With only a few exceptions, if you have at any time in the process more than 2000 dollars to your name it will be used as evidence against you. This 2000 limit will continue indefinitely as long as you are receiving benefits, and the government will monitor your bank account at all times so if it goes over your benefits will be canceled.

They will frequently demand for you to justify how you survived in the intervening period. How did you pay rent? How did you buy food? They will use your answer against you when they make your decision.

The amount of pointless, redundant, and difficult paperwork involved is another major barrier. Of course while they may take upwards of 6 to 9 months each step of the way, but you might receive a piece of mail that you have to respond to within days or it will be used against your case, or your case may be denied outright.

The form I had to initially fill out was 21 pages long. My wife and I both had to fill out another 14 page long document. I had to fill out details on the make and model of my car, because apparently people are worried that I might be driving a sports car. If you car is too nice they will use it against you. You are only allowed one car ever even if practically you really need two.

I attempted to apply for disability a few years ago. I messed up a couple questions because I did not understand them and it was used to deny my claim. I had to start from scratch, including resetting that 21 month waiting period.

The fact that I am a stay at home mom taking care of my daughter best I can is used against me. 

The entire process is so strict and difficult to navigate that there are successful businesses called “disability advocates” that are practically required for a successful case. Fortunately their are laws that say they can only get paid if the claim is successful, and there is a cap on how much they cost so its nothing to lose. Of course this involves filling out even more paperwork, communicating with people, more work and more effort.

You need medical professionals to back up your claim or it will almost certainly be denied. Only Doctors are good enough. Mentally disabled and can’t afford several weeks of sessions? Physically disabled but you can’t afford a specialist doctor? Your chances of approval just dropped like a rock.

If at any time you act in such a way that isn’t stereotypically disabled there is a significant chance it will be used against you. The minimum capabilities required to go through the process are practically evidence against your case as well - for example, being capable of a coherent explanation of your symptoms and difficulties, Even if you broke down crying during the interview for a half hour because it is so difficult, is seen as proof that you are “capable of communication”, which was the exact reason given for my last denial. In the minds of the people making the determination I was capable of communication, which meant there had to be some job somewhere I was capable of performing.

If you have good days that fact will be used against you. If you go to an interview and don’t show glaringly obvious symptoms there is a good chance it will mean you will be denied.

The entire process is designed to discourage attempts. It is split into three stages. The first stage has only a 30% approval rate. The people you are talking about above never get far enough to even count against that approval rate. There is evidence in the form of leaked documents that people who do qualify are rejected instead simply to lengthen their approval process and discourage people to get them to drop out of their attempt. The first appeal has around a 10% approval rate. Only at the third stage, an actual court hearing with a judge, is there an approval rate in your favor at just over 50%. These three stages each may last between 6 and 9 months, which is why the approval process takes nearly two years. 

At every step you will have to fill out more redundant paper work.

Those approval stats, by the way, are assuming you got one of those disability advocates. If you didn’t your chances drop significantly at every stage.

Almost all of these things are so strict in the name of “catching frauds” who may not absolutely need it.

The process is extremely difficult, humiliating, is difficult to survive, and is likely to fail. Almost no one gets approved their first time attempting the process, even if they plainly on the face of it absolutely need the benefits , because the process is so difficult. So a fraud would have to go through that entire painful process and succeed. So what do they get?

It will be around 700 to 800 dollars a month at most. Not enough to really live on, your going to be making hard choices between medicine, food, and shelter. You wont ever have nice things or live comfortably. And it comes with major restrictions that will force you into poverty and keep you there as long as you are part of the program. Any reasonable attempt you might make to better your own situation will be used to take your benefits away, you are not allowed to lift yourself out of a painful, difficult life of poverty. Many disabled individuals have to continue dangerous and illegal work, like sex work, in order to make ends meet.

By the way, if someone is doing sex work on the side and is caught, that will be reported as “fraudulent” abuse of the system. There are a good deal of other types of “fraud” claims used to deny benefits to people who need them and inflate the reported fraud numbers to justify these harsh screening methods.

This is what is meant by the original post. The screening process is so impossibly over the top and the benefits so little that the idea that fraud is a real problem on any scale is laughable. But it continues to be something people are obsessed over. Obviously we would not like actual frauds, but the entire structure of disability benefits is built around the obsessive attempt to prevent even one fraudulent case no matter how many actual disabled people suffer and die for it. “Fraud” is first and foremost an excuse to deny disabled people the tiny amount of help they desperate need just to survive.

So if somehow in some extremely rare case a person actually goes through that entire extremely difficult process just so they can live in poverty and pain with a pittance of survival money then I literally do not give a single fuck and neither should you. Stop obsessing over the minuscule chance of fraud and start recognizing that the insane screening process and laws in place are not due to supposed fraud attempts, it’s due to a desire from those who put those laws and screening process in place for us to just die because they see us as nothing but a drain on society.

Statistically speaking your “extremely rigid” docs are most likely denying tons of legitimate cases because they do not understand disabilities, which is extremelycommon (far more common than not), and using these honorable mention cases as justification for how good they are at clocking ‘fakes’. They are the reason we have to perform humiliating stereotypes of disability at every turn or be denied. They are virtually certainly one of the biggest parts of the problem.

So no. Fakes do not actually hurt us.

A Feminism Where ‘Lean In’ Means Leaning On Others by Gary Gutting and Nancy Fraser
This interview, the latest in a series on political topics, discusses philosophical issues concerning feminism. My interviewee is Nancy Fraser, professor of philosophy and politics at The New School. She is the author of “Fortunes of Feminism: From State-Managed Capitalism to Neoliberal Crisis.”

G.G.: Why can’t responding to feminist concerns be seen as just one major step in correcting the social and economic flaws of our capitalist society, not a fundamental transformation of the system?

N.F.: It certainly can be seen that way. But I am questioning whether today’s feminism is really advancing that process. As I see it, the mainstream feminism of our time has adopted an approach that cannot achieve justice even for women, let alone for anyone else. The trouble is, this feminism is focused on encouraging educated middle-class women to “lean in” and “crack the glass ceiling” – in other words, to climb the corporate ladder. By definition, then, its beneficiaries can only be women of the professional-managerial class. And absent structural changes in capitalist society, those women can only benefit by leaning on others — by offloading their own care work and housework onto low-waged, precarious workers, typically racialized and/or immigrant women. So this is not, and cannot be, a feminism for all women!

But that is not all. Mainstream feminism has adopted a thin, market-centered view of equality, which dovetails neatly with the prevailing neoliberal corporate view. So it tends to fall into line with an especially predatory, winner-take-all form of capitalism that is fattening investors by cannibalizing the living standards of everyone else. Worse still, this feminism is supplying an alibi for these predations. Increasingly, it is liberal feminist thinking that supplies the charisma, the aura of emancipation, on which neoliberalism draws to legitimate its vast upward redistribution of wealth.

G.G.: Another major feminist concern has been what many see as a “rape culture,” particularly on college campuses. What’s your view of this?

N.F.: Well, this is certainly a hot-button issue today, and I must confess that I have mixed feelings about that. This is in part because I always worry when one issue becomes so dominant that it eclipses the rest of the feminist agenda — as abortion has often done in the United States. But it is also because I have a certain feeling of déjà vu — it’s as if we are replaying a previous argument between a “protectionist” strand of feminism, focused on violence against women and seeking remedies through criminal law, and another, liberationist strand, which seeks to validate women’s agency and sexual freedom.

Personally, I have always to wanted to develop a third approach that would assure not only sexual autonomy for women but also civil liberties for everyone. And I would like this approach to deal not only with sexual assault but also with other, more impersonal or systemic forms of coercion that limit women’s autonomy in sex and in other spheres. For example, I’d like to reclaim the insights of the 1970s “battered women’s movement,” which stressed the importance not only of criminal sanctions, but also of “exit options” in the form of decent, affordable housing and jobs that pay enough for a woman to support herself and her children.

Really, really great interview that highlights the shortcomings of liberal feminism. Gary’s question about rape culture seemed to come out of nowhere, but I love Nancy’s systematic approach to the issue by refocusing agency as not only the right to say yes, but also the ability to say no without harmful consequences.

Demonizing the Poor by Sanford Schram and Joe Soss
Harsh restrictions on welfare don’t limit fraud and abuse. They advance the interests of the rich and powerful.

Makers, Takers, and Welfare Queens

Now as in the past, elites have rolled out tales of a parasitic and undeserving poor to deflect public anger from themselves. Lazy and criminal “takers” who abuse the goodwill of hardworking taxpayers are offered up as a handy scapegoat for the new hard times and a ready explanation for fiscal shortfalls.

Deeply racialized stories of a threatening underclass captivate the public imagination, while on the periphery lobbyists and public officials rewrite policies and administrative procedures to redistribute wealth upward. The welfare queen and the street criminal are brandished to discredit progressive redistribution, pare back social protections, and justify ever-tougher modes of policing and social control.

What must be understood, then, is the critical role that controversial policy proposals play in constructing this political spectacle. For many observers, it’s easier to see how racial stereotypes and stigmatized images of the poor are used to advance policy agendas than to recognize the reverse — the powerful ways that policies and their rationales work to cultivate racial understandings and images of the poor.

While public policies dispense material benefits and burdens, they also perform a symbolic politics. Policies that force the poor to work send a powerful signal that they would not work unless forced to do so. Proposals that target social groups for special efforts to police irresponsible and criminal behavior tell the public how members of these groups behave. Needless restrictions on welfare recipients’ profligate ways demonize their targets (widely perceived as poor and black or Latino) and focus public attention on reforming their alleged pathologies.

The Material Politics of Welfare

Public officials today are under strong pressure to bring budgets into line and, with powerful political forces arrayed against raising tax revenues, predictably look to cut expenditures on the disadvantaged.

Overt program and benefit cuts are the most visible responses, but they are also the most likely to arouse opposition. Policies designed to limit fraud and regulate how benefits are used can often achieve the same goals — and avoid the potential political liabilities of appearing cold-hearted.

“I support helping people in need,” the old standby goes, “I just want to make sure benefits go to the people who truly need them and don’t encourage bad choices that will trap them in poverty.”

The public promotion of stigmatizing new welfare rules can demonize welfare usage to the point where even the most desperate eligible people resist claiming them. And just as allegations of voter fraud can be used as a pretext for new rules that limit voting rights and access, campaigns to combat welfare fraud give rise to new methods for denying applicants, threatening recipients with the specter of criminal punishment, and subjecting clients to all manner of degrading questions and check-ups.

This is one of the reasons I support Bernie Sanders instead of Hillary Clinton.

Because of the shitty state of the welfare system in this country, I have run out of money five days before I get paid because I have to live on disability. Boris Johnson can spend 10 million redecorating his pad but I get to live below the poverty line and act grateful for it. Urgh.

I rely on UC (welfare) to live, and after spending £10,000,000 redecorating his house Boris thinks it’s ok to cut it by £87 a month, when I already live below the poverty line. How is this acceptable?

Hi everyone,

This is your current Welfare Officer, Katayoun

During these past two years at the SU, we have achieved some very exciting goals this year and I wanted to let you know about a few of them:

Consent

Consent was a big priority of mine this past two years, we worked collaboratively with UAL to tackle harassment and sexual violence. There have been some exciting changes so far, such as the reposting system which has been up and running for the last two years. Students can now report anonymously or non-anonymously. They can report a variety of stuff, such as discrimination, sexual harassment, problems on their course. You can access this here.

We have also worked collaboratively with UAL on two poster campaigns that promote consent and celebrate our diversity as a university, whilst taking a stand against discrimination, you will be seeing these around your campus.

A very big part of my campaigning was mandatory consent training. In the past two years, we have been implementing mandatory training for both sports and societies as well as foundation year students.

And I’m super stoked to let you know that UAL is now launching mandatory consent training for all foundation students and first years at one college. This will be growing over the years, and I’m so excited to see all the positive impact on the culture at UAL.

Zero Tolerance

In our Students’ Union, we care about the safety of our members. Which is why this year we have created a zero tolerance policy and poster campaign. As a Union, we now have an official zero tolerance policy against any forms of discriminatory behaviour at UAL and at our events, sports and societies. The policy will up on our website in September.

Cultural sensitivity training

We are now providing a cultural sensitivity training for clubs and societies. This is followed by the induction period as well as tour training. The training explores various conversations around race, institutionalised racism, attainment and cultural appropriation.

Trans Officer

We created a new role for a Trans Officer in 2018. This was result of a motion passed in student council, leading to a referendum. And in our latest elections, we elected our first ever Trans Officer which is super exciting and we can’t wait to see all the exciting work they do.

You can find out more about Al our first Trans Officer here

Student Sex Workers

Following a motion which was passed in our student council, we have started working towards a policy that is inclusive of our members who partake in sex work.

We organised a talk with sex work activists and discussed ally ship and politics of sex work and decriminalisation. It is really important for us that student sex workers know we’re on their side and support their rights.

Pregnancy and student parents

We worked with UAL to make sure they were hearing the voices of students who are parents or pregnant whilst studying. As the result of this I’m very excited to say that UAL have now added pregnancy on the Extenuating Circumstances (EC’s) form. They’re also in the process of creating a policy to help the access to study for students that fall under this category.

Another EC’s win this year has been changes made to medical evidence and time out policy. UAL has now extended the deadline for taking time out, and students are now allowed to provide EC evidence from private counsellors (as opposed to limiting it to UAL counsellors) - YAY!

Healthcare

We now have sexual health clinic regular visits at all UAL colleges. They are advertised on the website. For more information you can refer to the college coordinator at your college.

We’ve also created a map to help you find the clinics in your area, which you can access here

This year I also created info packs to help any trans identifying individuals who make be in need of further information regarding healthcare and wellbeing. This info pack includes information on healthcare, mental health services and activists groups in London for trans people.

This info pack also has information on sex workers rights and reproductive justice and abortion rights. It will be going live soon on our website and can be found on the advice and campaigns tabs.

The past two years have been some of the most exciting moments of mms student activism career, and I’m so excited to hand over my role to my successor Pinky, and to see what amazing things all the new officers have in the bag for the future of Arts SU.

Picture from last years Arts SU X Bishopsgate pride event.

The folks over at transhousingnetwork asked me to write something about how to be a good roommmate to someone living with HIV, so I did!

As has previously been noted on this blog, I am a trans woman who has been living with HIV/AIDS for eight years, which puts me somewhere between “treatment naive” (as they say) and “long term survivor.” Still, I live in New York City, which is one of the most competitive housing markets in the US, and I think eight years is long enough to have learned a thing or two about this stuff. This is extra-long for a Tumblr post, but if I may be so bold, I think it is full of good info for anyone who cares about someone living with HIV.

When I mentioned writing this article before to a friend, they were like, “Being a good housemate to someone living with HIV/AIDS? That sounds like a no-brainer. Just like, don’t be weird about stuff.” Were it that simple! Often, people with HIV/AIDS have special housing needs that you might not realize at first glance, so PartyBottom is here to tell you all about ‘em. Of course, this is not an exhaustive list, merely a start to an ongoing conversation, so if there’s anyone out there who has anything to add, please do message me and let’s keep the ball rolling. (Also, most of my knowledge comes from a US perspective – I am interested to hear what it’s like in other countries, too.)

HIV+ PEOPLE ARE MORE LIKELY THAN HIV- PEOPLE TO RECEIVE SOME KIND OF GOVERNMENT FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE. THIS MAY IMPACT HOW THEY PAY THEIR RENT, AND HOW THEIR LIVES ARE STRUCTURED OVERALL. YOU SHOULD BE OKAY WITH THAT AND PREPARED TO DEAL WITH THE REALITIES THAT COME WITH IT. I cannot stress how this changes a person’s life, your shelter and other basic needs being tied to the whims of various state apparatuses. The #1 thing that people living with HIV/AIDS need help from the state with is paying for their medicines, which can *easily* cost between $30-50k per year. Many people living with HIV/AIDS (hereafter in this article abbreviated with the common but unpronounceable acronym PLWHA) receive help with meds through a federal program called ADAP (the AIDS Drug Assistance Program) which may cover the cost of meds (maybe only HIV-related meds, maybe most meds, and maybe some doctor’s appointments. Where I live in NYC, it has even covered my hormones.) Many PLWHA are on Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps/EBT, pubic assistance/welfare, Social Security Insurance/Social Security Disability Insurance (SSI/SSDI) or may receive some shelter grant through a federal, state, or municipal program.

(And of course, some PLHWA have “normal” jobs with “normal” benefits and “normal” incomes and do not have to deal with these institutions – or may not, for now. More on that later.)

HOW DOES THIS ALL SHAKE OUT IN A ROOMMATE SITUATION? WELL, LET ME TELL YOU. Say you post a housing ad on Craigslist. $400 room available, must like cats, queer/trans friendly house! And say you get half a dozen replies, and narrow it down to two candidates whom you like. The first one says, “Oh, you know, I’ve been working and saving up money, I can put down a deposit and pay you three months rent in advance.” The second one says, “Here’s the deal. I am trusting you enough to tell you that I am HIV+, and enrolled in a program that pays my rent. We will need to fill out several forms together – maybe several rounds of forms together – and I will need utility bills with your actual names on them, and we may need to get the landlord involved and get a utility bill with her name on it, oh, and by the way, these programs are slow and bureaucratic, and I may not be able to pay rent for the first month (or two), but I can petition for arrears, and I am sure, absolutely positive (ha ha) that I can pay that back rent and all future rents and pay it on time, and one this all gets rolling, you will be issued a check in your name every month like clockwork, and at least in that regard I will be the best roommate ever. Oh, and by the way, a government social worker will be stopping by to snoop around a bit every two months, but she is actually not so bad and it will be nbd, I promise.”

WHO WOULD YOU CHOOSE? This is where the social justice rubber hits the road.

Now, say you did a good thing (moreover, a *legal* thing, as – in New York City anyway – it is technically illegal to practice housing discrimination against someone based on their source of income, though in reality people do it all the time) and have decided to join up and be roommates with someone living with HIV, and who, for the sake of the narrative, is enrolled in a housing program and other forms of government assistance. What are some sticky situations you might expect? Well, here are a couple:

IT IS NO ONE’S RIGHT TO DISCLOSE ANYONE’S HIV STATUS BUT THEIR OWN. There is a real parallel here with being trans. Some trans people are OUT OUT OUT about being trans – and that’s great! – and other people are super stealth and don’t want anyone to know about it. It is sort of the same with HIV.

I was diagnosed sort of at the end of the era in which the common social work wisdom was to advise newly-diagnosed clients NOT to run out and disclose their status to everyone, even to their closest friends. “You cannot unring that bell,” was the common phrase, and frankly, it’s true. I have heard heartbreaking stories in which someone told her close friend that she was positive, who told her neighbor, who told the woman’s sister, and from then on, the HIV+ woman was never allowed to hold or touch her baby niece again, out of fear that she would somehow “contaminate” the child. People’s HIV+ status – not unlike the fact that someone is trans – makes good and potentially deadly gossip. It is not something that people easily keep to themselves.

FOR INSTANCE, say your roommate seems not to be doing much. Like, if they are caught up in the HIV/AIDS industrial complex, they are probably consigned to a life of subsistance poverty, so it is likey that they may have a little side hustle to afford things that most normal people have (like, say, a cell phone! or shoes that don’t hurt your feet! or whatever!) Maybe they cut hair for cash. Maybe they deal a little weed. Maybe they work under the table at a food truck. Maybe they play music and busk on the train. Odds are, they may have a life that appears improbable to the outside world.

What if someone is making chit chat with you at a BBQ and is like, “So, how’s living with PartyBottom working out? What does she, like, do all day exacty? Oh, really? Does she make enough money doing that?” A pretty naive answer might be, “Well, she does make some money, but she’s also enrolled in this city program called HASA that pays most of her bills.”

The thing is, if anyone knows what HASA stands for (the New York City welfare department’s HIV/AIDS Services Administration), then like, boom, they know that PartyBottom is positive. And if they don’t know and they Google it, same deal.

That is a casual, just kind of doofus-y goof. Things around disclosure get a little more tricky when you realize that HIV+ PEOPLE ARE SEXUALLY ACTIVE, AND IN GENERAL, THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE ABOUT IT. IT IS *NOT* YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO “WARN” ANYONE ABOUT ANYONE ELSE’S SEROSTATUS.

Say your roommate brings home a hook-up from a party. You might hear all kinds of grunts and groans coming from their bedroom. Your HIV+ roommate may or may not choose to disclose their serostatus, based on the level of risk involved in the hookup. Maybe their new friend comes over three or four more times! It might be tempting to say something like, “Wow, it’s so cool of you not to stigmatize PartyBottom as a sexual partner for being HIV+,” or even something more innocuous, to that effect. But maybe all they were doing in there is like, sexydirtytalk brother-and-sister role-play with lots of mutual j/o (hottt, imho)! And as such, maybe someone like PartyBottom would feel like, since they barely knew the person, and this is just a no-high-risk-fluid-exchange nbd fwb sitch, that their new sexxin’ buddy really didn’t need to know all about sero status, have to have a loooong convo about health and feeling and etc etc etc.

People living with HIV know better than anyone else the right time and place and circumstance to disclose matters of their own health. This is not your job. On a number of instances, PartyBottom has started to date someone and a third party has inserted herself into the conversation, to let the object of her affection know about her serostatus before the time was right, out of “concern.” (Man, this is a whole other article.) Anyway, don’t do this.

PLWHA are often stigmatized as “AIDS monsters” who run around trying to infect people at every given opportunity, but both my IRL experience and all the public health data do not bear this out. (Most new infections are between people who do not know their status.) There *are* some (a very small minority) people who know they are HIV+ who intentionally infect others. Some of them are in very desperate circumstances and have had to make terrible choices. Some number of them may be practicing some form of sociopathy. But, if you are living with a sociopath, you’ve got bigger problems than this article can accomodate.

Moving right along,

PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV/AIDS MAY HAVE SPECIAL PSYCHOSOCIAL NEEDS. AS A GOOD ROOMMATE, IT’S ALSO YOUR JOB TO BE A GOOD FRIEND. Drug companies love to showcase PLWHA as being superhuman – if you live in a city or a neighborhood or read magazines where HIV meds are advertised, it is not unusual to see depictions of PLWHA running marathons, raising families, being in modern dance troupes, and generally having the time of their lives. And sure, lots of PLWHA are out there living their dreams – even PartyBottom, in a various attempts to reassure worrisome people that she is OK, jokes that she has “the Magic Johnson AIDS” – i.e, on meds, low viral load, good CD4 count, low side-effect profile. And, to an extent, that is true. But there are not-so-good days as well.

Life with HIV can feel lonely and sad sometimes. Depression is always kind of knocking on your door. Lots of people – HIV+ and HIV- – feel this way, and everyone copes with this differently – and having nice friends around to shoot the shit with over a cup of tea or a beer is a great coping mechanism.

More specifically, depending on when a person was diagnosed, and what particular strain of HIV they have, they may be on meds that are hard to take, and which have physical or neurological side effects, or physical side effects that lead to emotional side effects. For instance, Atripla, the much-touted “one-a-day” pill for HIV, contains a compound called Sustiva/Efavirenz, which is notorious among treatment-experienced PLWHA for its neurological side effects: depression, nightmares, disorientation, hallucinations. But, it is often pushed on newly-diagnosed patients because physicians think we are all really dumb and cannot manage our lives and so a one-pill, once-a-day regimen is like, the most complicated thing we can handle. So, say you’re living with a housemate who is newly diagnosed, or a housemate who has been diagnosed for a while, and they have a meds switch-up: they might start acting weird. Be gentle, but talk to them about it. Encourage them to talk to their doctor about alternatives. They are out there.

(A brief counter-example of how to be a NOT good housemate to an HIV+ person: when I first started Atripla, a subletter was living in my house who did not know I was +. I had a SEVERE histamine reaction to Sustiva, and my entire body broke out in scaley red sores – like I had chicken pox or something. She was like, uh, what’s going on? And, because I thought I could trust her, I told her the deal: that I am HIV+, and that I was having a reaction to a new medication. She freaked out. She said, You know, this is the kind of thing you really should tell someone before they move in with you. This is all very triggering for me. You know, my uncle died of AIDS in the 80s and I really think it was the source of my family’s homophobia. This is just bringing up a lot of stuff for *me* right now. Meanwhile, my skin was on fire. So like, don’t say shit like that.)

(Also I think it would be irresponsible of me not to note this: if you have been prescribed Atripla, or any combination of drugs with Sustiva in them, don’t freak out. My doctor at the time sold it to me like this: “You know, some people kind of enjoy the neurological side effects. They say it’s kind of like smoking pot. They take it before bed and it helps them sleep better, and they like the dreams. Sometimes it means more sexy dreams!” And many people experience no side effect profile from this drug at all. The point is, if you (or your friend/roommate) is having trouble, talk to a doctor, sooner than later. And if they don’t take your experience seriously, find another doctor who will, if you can.)

A few other short points:

QUIT MOVING SO MUCH. It has been noted that queers tend to occupy dwellings for shorter times than “traditional” families, seniors, etc. This is bad for neighborhoods in general (rapid real estate turn over makes it easier for landlords to jack up rents, gentrification happens, etc) and it is particularly bad for people living with HIV, because often their shelter needs are often tied to state bureacracy, which does not respond well to quick change. Deciding to move because you “need a change” or “don’t like the energy” of a place could very well leave someone living with HIV in a serious housing crisis, or even homeless. When you decide to make a home somewhere, ask yourself: can I see myself living here for five years? Ten years? The rest of my life, maybe, even?

CONTEMPORARY HIV IS AN EPISODIC ILLNESS. SOME DAYS WILL BE BETTER THAN OTHERS. For PartyBottom, personally, there are days (and, occasionally, weeks) when the fatigue hits and it is overwhelming. I have gotten and lost “real jobs” because of this. Most people with HIV – and most people in general – will not be able to work at some point in their lives because of illness or disability.

For me, I know the fatigue will pass eventually, and there are things I can do to alleviate it/keep it at bay, but mostly, I worry about worrying my roommates. I worry that they’re thinking, “Is she okay? Is everything alright? Do we need to do something?” The worry that my roommates think something is wrong with me is sometimes worse than whatever is actually wrong with me.

And sure, sometimes people get more seriously sick. Occasionally people end up in the hospital. But just realize that there will be ups and downs, and that it is your roommate’s responsibility to be honest with herself and you about how sick she or he is in fact feeling, and that no matter what happens, you will all get through it, together. (And maybe, if they request it, be prepared to be your roommate’s emergency contact.)

PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV HAVE A LOT OF APPOINTMENTS TO KEEP. MAYBE BE A BUDDY AND OFFER TO GO WITH THEM! Doctor’s appointments, social security appointments, welfare office appointments, holistic health appointments, mental health/therapy appointments, etc etc etc. If you have time, and the inclination, going with someone to their appointments is a nice thing and will more likey than not help keep the household running smoothly. If you are a pal and go with your friend/roommate to the welfare office, it is more likely that they will keep those appointments and the checks will keep coming and the house will run smoothly. Speaking of which,

BE PREPARED TO DEAL WITH CERTAIN FEELINGS OF RESENTMENT THAT COME FROM LIVING WITH SOMEONE WHO RECEIVES PUBLIC ASSISTANCE. In certain cities, the benefits package offered to people living with HIV (slang term: “the kitty”) might at first glance seem quite generous. It is easy to look at someone in this situation and have surprising feelings of envy! Especially if you are scrambling to make ends meet. “Man, it’d be nice to be able to do anything I wanted all day, and not have to worry about rent or health care,” you might find yourself thinking. It’s easy for resentment to build up, and for that to start expressing itself in subtle ways. “Well, PartyBottom is on EBT, so maybe she can start buying more of the groceries we share, since she’s not, like, *actually* paying for them.” This kind will start stressing everyone out very quickly. Try to deal with these feelings, either by talking to a friend or therapist, or meditating on them, or – if you are very emotionally close to an HIV+ person – expressing them in the context of, “I know this might seem unfair, but I am having this feeling. I need to talk about it.” Having feelings is okay. Being mean to people because of them are not.

(Also, realize that your feelings have been manipulated by a decades-long US corporate anti-welfare mass media campaign. You have been programmed to hate welfare. It’s kind of your job to do the work to deprogram yourself of this, but again, this is another article.)

UNDOCUMENTED PEOPLE’S STRUGGLES WITH HIV ARE EXPONENTIALLY HARDER, but in certain cities there are certain programs that will help them at least have access to meds and basic health care. This is an extra-tough situation, but people live it every day. Somehow, people make it work. Some people (documented and undocumented) sell their meds in order to make money to survive. This is an intensely personal decision that you cannot judge unless you have walked this path, so reserve your fucking judgement.

This might be a good example of when communal living structures where everyone contributes a fixed percentage of their monthly income to the entire rent, instead of everyone paying evenly or by square footage, might be a good and humane way to live. If you have more, offer to pick up the slack for those who have less – maybe one day they will do the same for you. (There are models of these kinds of living structures buried in trans history: STAR house and Transy House, both here in New York, worked this way to one degree or other and Reina at thespiritwas has done some excellent research on this.)

IF YOU ARE A LOW-INCOME PERSON, AND YOU ALSO QUALIFY FOR PUBLIC BENEFITS, GET THEM. There are all kinds of reasons why people put off getting benefits who need them: shame, guilt, fear of interacting with the state, general flakiness. But if you find yourself running short of cash each month, or not having enough to eat, or needing health care but being unable to access it, AND you qualify for programs to help you alleviate any or all of the above, please do everyone a favor and buckle down and make it happen. It will make the house run smoother, it will take the burden off of your (quite likely already impoverished) HIV+ roommate to save your ass. And, hmm, how to put this: when whether you live or die is tied to the state and its bureacratic machinations and your ability to navigate them, it is somewhat frustrating to hear your roommates make excuses as to why they cannot get their act together to figure out how to get fucking food stamps. Maybe that’s unfair. But also, I look around me and think, okay. This is not rocket science. You can do it, and I will help you, but you have to take it seriously and roll your ass out of bed and get to the welfare office. We can even do it together! And it will make our lives together so much easier! But you have to kind of be like a pit bull to get some of these services: sink your teeth in and never let up.

**************

I know this has been a long article, but if I had to tl;dr it (which I am hesitant to do but it’s tumblr so w/e), the main take away is this: as queers, we need to take seriously our commitments to caring for one another. It is not always easy. It *can* be fun. But it is crucial.

It is how we survive.

It is how we have always survived.

Lord, lord, lord. I came precariously close to disaster in the last 48 hours.

On Tuesday, I got a call from my government case worker, saying she wanted to do a home visit. I immediately knew what it was about. When she showed up the next day, the first words out of her mouth were, “You’ve been bad. If you don’t comply with Social Security, we will close your case in ten days.”

“Closing my case” would leave me homeless, without food or HIV drugs, and probably dead within a year.

As I have previously mentioned on this blog, I am enrolled in a program called HASA. “HASA” stands for New York City’s HIV/AIDS Services Administration, and it is a division of New York City’s Human Resources Administration, known as HRA, or more commonly, “the welfare office.”

HASA provides you with a standard of living which is well below the poverty line. It allocates you with a few basic things: often sub-par health care, food stamps, a very modest cash grant each month (very modest — so you can buy, like, toothpaste and toilet paper), and a small shelter stipend.

Most people who receive that shelter stipend live in SROs, which are single-room-occupancy dwellings, or, more colloquially, “group homes.” These are not nice places. There is very little state oversight for disability housing. Violence, vermin, intimidation and abuse are quite common.

Here’s the thing: HASA is a municipal program, run by the city of New York. Of course, this costs money (not that much money in the grand scheme of things, but that’s a whole other post). HRA would much rather foist off its clients (or, as we’re referred to, “consumers”) to the federal government.

Thus, every HASA client is required by law to apply for Social Security Insurance/Social Security Disability Insurance (or SSI/SSDI). These are national programs that provide, basically, the shittiest social safety net for some of the most vulnerable people in the US: the elderly, the disabled, and poor kids.

The problem with SSI/SSDI is that it’s almost impossible to qualify for unless you’re over 65 (and even that may change soon.) To be considered “disabled” by Social Security, you more-or-less have to be blind and deaf and have no arms or legs or something. Only a tiny fraction of the people who apply are accepted to the program.

(Caveat: the above statement is circumstantially hyperbolic. There is a way to qualify for SSI/SSDI, and that is to get a good lawyer to handle your case. And, surprisingly, the lawyers that advertise on daytime television during Judge Judy do an exceptionally good job at winning these cases.)

So, I have to apply for SSDI. I will not get accepted for SSDI. I know this, my case worker knows this, and HRA knows this. But I am required to act *as if* it is a possibility that I will be accepted.

The process of applying for SSDI is pretty humiliating. You schedule an interview, wait for two months, and go in and talk to a stranger about your entire life history and all your problems. Then, you have to get your doctor to fill out a medical report confirming your medical problems (this in and of itself is difficult, as I see a public health physician who has 600 patients.)

Then, you are required to be examined by two creepy state-appointed doctors, which (speaking particularly as a transgender person who is shy about strangers touching and seeing my body), is really ramps up that “humiliating” factor.

Then, you will receive a decision letter from SSDI. You will be inevitably denied. Then you have to file an appeal, and appear in front of a judge (*another* incredibly anxiety-producing experience, especially for people who have been formerly incarcerated, had bad experiences with family court, who have outstanding warrants, you name it — and these folks, perhaps not unsurprisingly, make up a large chunk of people living with HIV in the US).

Then, the judge will take one look at you, and will reject your case. This entire process, of course, is big waste of many, many people’s time.

But you know what’s the most cynical, depraved part of the whole cycle? Once you are denied, you have to start the process all over again. Because somehow, they magically hope that you will get approved next time? In fact, the city is kind of hoping that your health will deteriorate to the point where they can kick you out of their programs and make you the federal government’s problem.

HERE IS THE KICKER, THOUGH: EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS ENTIRE PROCESS IS A COMPLETE JOKE. Even my worker says, look, it’s just a game, and you gotta play the game. It’s two warring, bizarre, Kafka-esque systems fighting over pennies for poor people.

Lately, they’ve been cracking down on people who haven’t been keeping up with this byzantine system. I had let my last appointment slide, and they flagged me in the system. I recently spoke with a public health guy who said that by making this process more rigorous, they’re hoping to kick more people off welfare. THANKS, NEW COMMUNIST MAYOR. My roommate has taken to calling Bill DiBlasio “Slick Willy,” because he reminds us so much of Bill Clinton: all promises and too many compromises with the ultra-rich — though, shrug. Only time will tell.

Fortunately, though sheer hustle, and waiting for about six hours in various government offices, I got it all straightened out. Which buys me a few more months not having to worry about, you know, terrible catastrophe.

HOWEVER, AS ALWAYS, PARTYBOTTOM ASCRIBES TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF BYOPMA: BRING YOUR OWN POSITIVE MENTAL ATTITUDE. In that spirit, I noticed something really interesting today.

These government offices are kind of gross, but there’s a silver lining. They may be dirty. They may have terrible lighting. The chairs might be uncomfortable. Sometimes fist fights break out between clients, and sometimes people with severe mental illness start screaming at the top of their lungs. But sometimes, something magical happens.

Today, when I was in the Social Security office, I was eavesdropping on a conversation between two strangers. One was giving the other advice on how to apply for food stamps. This is not the first time I’ve seen this go down — in these weird liminal spaces, total strangers who share nothing but the commonality of poverty — well, somehow we all manage to form some sense of solidarity. We make small talk. We encourage each other. We share advice about what we have learned about the system. We make sure that we are taken care of. In small, understated, undramatic ways, we show each other tiny acts of love.

And there is beauty in that.

How A Trump Proposal Could Reduce ‘Happy’ Disabled People

As someone who has experienced disability leave and who technically still has a disability, this piece resonated with me. Here are some highlights:

“The proposal, like many of its policies regarding disabled people, shows a fundamental misunderstanding of disability and takes advantage of how social media operates in order to cut them off from the support they need. Disabled people don’t all function in the same way, and disability is not a set of stereotypes like taking selfies staring longingly at the world. They live lives while managing their energy for the activities they can handle and trying to make those they cannot more accessible.”

“Disabled people should be allowed to share the full scope of their existence without fear they’ll be accused of lying—and even fraud—by the United States Government which will likely reason that if a disabled person is seen going to the mall or taking time to swim or jog, they can be working.”

“The truth about disability is that it isn’t a series of down moments but both highs and lows that comprise the lives of the disabled.”

“This type of policy also plays upon the assumption that people with disabilities all function and move about in the world in the same way, which is entirely untrue.”

On Disability and on Facebook? Uncle Sam Wants to Watch What You Post

First the surveillance state came for the terrorists, and I did not speak out—because I am not a terrorist.

Then it came for those who appear vagely Muslim, and I did not speak out— because I am not a Muslim.

Then it came for impoverished minorities and dissidents, and I did not speak out—because I am white and not a dissident.

And now, Trump and the Republican Party want to expand use of the surveillance state against people with disabilities.

I say this because a lot of Americans believe that the surveillance state–or a form of police state, for that matter–doesn’t exist in this country; that is a myth held by those fortunate enough to not be one of the millions of people who experience America as a surveillance state and/or a police state.

It is incumbent upon all of us to agitate against the further growth of the surveillance state not only for our own interest but for that of our brothers and sisters whose lives are adversely affected by its existence and perpetual growth.

mariacallous:

“From the beginning of my career in politics, I had a personally imposed policy about swimming in my lane and not overcommenting on things I wasn’t an expert on. But in this case, I could not take the pontifications of this Ivy-educated gang; they were talking about the limits on what food stamps cover and don’t, and I could just tell none of them knew one person who had ever needed food stamps. I raised my hand (something I think only I did when I wanted to talk) and told them what it was like to see people humiliated in line trying to buy generic cereal, canned soup, milk. To watch them realize what they couldn’t get. To watch them realize how ridiculous it was that sports drinks were covered but something like Sunny Delight - which is actually much cheaper than orange juice but still has a decent amount of vitamins - was not, but that there was nothing they could do. I could feel my face get red and hot. I usually think you start losing your argument when you physically reveal how worked up you are, especially in a place like the White House, where, theoretically, what you say should be based on facts and figures and evidence; if your face is red, aren’t you showing too much emotion? I don’t know, but I got my point across. It wasn’t a conversation intended to resolve or change anything at that moment, but POTUS made it clear he was on my side.”

— -Alyssa Mastromonaco, recounting how she used her experience working at a grocery store during a policy meeting discussion.

Taxation is notcharity.

The working class, or proletariat, are waged employees. They rely on this wage to survive.

They are hired to make money (surpluses) for their employers. In order to keep a job, workers must create more wealth than they receive in wages.

Employers collect these surpluses. Everything left after wages are paid is profit. Employers therefore receive more wealth than they create.

How profit is created and distributed (simplified).

Under capitalism, the wealth dynamic resembles that of older economic systems - lord and serf, or master and slave.

In each instance, those who work create surpluses, and in turn may receive enough to survive, but not enough to escape reliance on the exploiter.

The use of ‘exploiter’ is not moralistic. Under capitalism, individuals must be one or the other - employer or employee, exploiter or exploited. The relationship is systemic.

Wage competition between workers forces wages down.

When workers cannot live on the wage, the capitalist state subsidises the employer through welfare schemes.

If workers could not live, the market would collapse.

Workers compete for jobs. Employers choose those who will accept the lowest wage.

As poorer nations entered the market, employers moved jobs en masse to those places. Workers do the same work on very low wages.

This created mass unemployment in the countries where capitalism began.

Without an income, individuals cannot buy what capitalists are selling. Workers in poor countries can’t afford the products of their labour - wages are too low.

Welfare programmes, although they were won by workers, create a consumer base in the countries left behind by industrial capitalists (they enable the unemployed to buy).

The market depends on the capitalist state. They appear antagonistic, but the capitalist state continually saves the market from extinction by its own hand (this is a ’bourgeois dictatorship’).

Maximisation of profit minimises disposable income. Therefore, a ‘free’ market is impossible, as is ‘anarcho-capitalism’ (also known as ‘right libertarianism’).