Sprachlos about #fracking Gaz

Sprachlos about Gaz,

and the spreading plague of high pressure transmission lines.

Then I notice all the other wires in our wireless world,

and the power we need,

the cables,

the waves of communication from above

and below.

Two commenters have been poking me,

back and forth we go,

if I need to defend myself or my position.

You already know I am anti fracking, anti pipeline,

if you do not know, better check your pulse,

comprehension,

memory.

So as I was speechless about the last snarky comment directed at me,

I decided speechless is a better use of my energy than a rant.

Today rewarded in my in box with a nice link to a great opinion piece in the NYT...

That is worth crowing about......

m

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/opinion/sunday/a-pipeline-threatens-our-family-land.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

Asterisks

somehow i found the patience

to calmly explain to annie

that i was not implicating her in

my frustration

with the

confusing

medication copay assistance program glossy paper

and still i told her that

i had to express it was wrong

of me to have to pay $250 for 1 month

when they said i only had to pay $35,

it was

that

asterisk,

you know,

*

* <---there

do you see it now?

i told annie that when they put an asterisk,

perhaps they should write,

in your case,

$35 is $250...

i told annie, it is not right not to explain exactly what i owed

and she said they changed the rule yesterday

and now 35 is 35

and not 250

and she was sorry,

it does not count for me

for last week

but it would from now on.

i explained to annie,

that if i was not a neuro nurse with 4 years of taking copaxone

experimentally

(now suddenly happy for 4 years w/no copays, no insurance claims)

so i could see how well it made me

then when i had to deal with a 250$ a month copay,

i would probably say bag the whole mess,

especially after I got a bill for $750 for 30 days

(my 20% copay),

but they said do not worry,

and

and i thanked annie

and for her mental health i terminated the phone call amicably.

then wondered how i ever could capture my emotion

to put on my blog and i find

myself a little

sprachlos,

except what i could squeeze out above,

it does not capture my total feeling

of being a cog,

and suffering the inability to control

this pharma-machine

i read my fellow bloggers w/ms

and what crap we all have to deal with to get

just what i feel are the basics.

hope you do not become incapacitated

by

the battle w/ the MonSter

or the struggles against

the

asterisks

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

Halls of Shame II

The Halls of Shame II
by mary e. gerdt
2011 all rights reserved

the halls of shame
are dark and long,
a lonely place &
hard to escape

i published my rants
on my blog and wrote to
all the politicians
i could handle
about how property tax lien sales in Vermont
are
wrong,
mean spirited,
greedy,
evil,
discriminatory,
arbitrary,
and lack due process
by design

that the rules of abatement
are dependent on your stature in town &
how badly someone wants what you have
or wants to destroy who you are.

no response was seen
day after day
i recently started trying to blog & write to the so called free press
about towns and how they have powers
that take my rights away &
they censored me

and when the vt senator who nearly saw his 500k house sold
for 6k that was due 4 months ago
said, we have been shamed
i wondered
why did he think this was
shameful?

i guess the same reason i did

i hoped maybe he would re-look at all the laws
that allow
one local person in each town to foreclose on your
property to satisfy
taxes
and unconstitutional penalties
as if we taxpayers
are all sinners
and
scofflaws
as reported
by the national enquirer trained
so called reporters

what do they know of the halls of shame?

my reporting more street credible,
more personal


and when a lawyer says he cannot pay the taxes
because business is slow
and his legislation
became his own undoing

it is time for a change
in the halls of shame

"the best way to repeal a bad law is to enforce it strictly" Abraham Lincoln

Chapter Three

Something kept me from posting Chapter Three. I tried a couple of times and it didn't work so I stopped.
It was a sign, perhaps.
I knew I did not want to post all bazillion emails I sent to the town, the town's lawyer, the newspapers, secretary of state, politicians, governor, and myself. I wanted to post the 2 responses I got, one promising to send me proof I was contacted (never received) and an apology from the lawyer who had a conflict of interest but still made $1,000 while we did not have Christmas that year. But I cannot.
Suffice it to say these things happened. And if you do not believe me, seeing the letters won't convince you anyway.
The data I wanted to post were all mysteriously hijacked by adobe and un-paste-able in these posts.
No, it is not like the dog ate my homework.
It is indeed more of the mystery of the stranger than fiction reality of property tax lien sales.
Hard to define, explain, track down.
Impossible, it seems, to reform, call attention to and correct.
The German ancestors crying in their sleep about the dollars wasted here being mined or milked by taxmen, lawyers and carpetbaggers.
Can someone wake and see the tide of incivility where a quaint little town like this sleepy camelot might threaten a girl's property and not see fit to talk to her, know who she is, what she is fighting?
It all sounds so unreal that I know I risk losing more readers to games, shopping, or baking cookies.
So Chapter Three will be short and sweet. A promise of more data as I can collate it,
and other experiences to demonstrate my demands for reform every day that I live on this travelogue of life.
mary gerdt, monkton, vermont

Face in Space?

Sprachlos again about Property taxes-obscene I tell you. More when I can gather my tattered thoughts.

Face in Space?
Hoping for a Green Light tomorrow.
STS-133
Come on along...
I signed up in June and all the sudden looked up at the paper that confirmed my facial image is going up with the second to last shuttle.
It's that old take the bad with the good kind of day.

http://faceinspace.nasa.gov/

Regrets to Brian and Paul's campaigns...a well fought battle

The reporter in me

I read Dick Tracy with the watch phone and watched countless movies about reporting, news. I did radio announcing competitively in high school but ranted twice too fast and did not breathe for a precise amount of time (got the time limit right). So blogs can overload too, but some things must be said. It is the reporter in me. This is a woman's issue, a landowner's issue, a person with MS's issue, a citizen with constitutional rights, etc.
I said it in a poem but it is not fiction. I'll never stop trying to stop towns from selling poor white nurse with MS's property without even a whisper to her. My choices involvce painful roads but I must take my time evaluating the facts of which only become obscured with time.
I have plenty of time.
What a difference a day makes.




One day I owe taxes, the next day a check bounces and I owe 8 percent more.



One day the town decides to sell my property without telling me



The day before they sell my property a check is paid and no sale.







One day later, I am glad the bank did not foreclose on my mortgage



Even though I knew about none of it.



It was in the pay version of the paper that I don’t read



It was posted in the places I don’t go in town,







Did people who despise me snicker when they saw my name in the town report I never received.



Is it my fault for feeling safe finally in our home we have made, sinking our roots



Which are entwined with the roots of Fred’s ancestors?



You know, the ones I talk to.







I slept in fits after receiving a letter of condescension reminiscent of feudal England.

I edited this after my rage subsided...: the following is my version of a letter that did not address any of my questions regarding my not being notified of tax sale of my property. It only said here is a list of delinquent properties (many many) and the policy that says we can sell at any time we want (even though they only picked 4). Also that this would answer all my questions (it did not answer any of them)

My interpretation:

You deserve shame, being singled out, you don’t deserve to own this or live here or question this or that.



Pay all you have to the tax ogre.



He won’t talk to you, you are a female.







I kept waking up, do I go to a lawyer? State’s attorney? Elected officials? Public? No where?



Then I saw the angel, I was half asleep, twilight of consciousness.



Not a she nor he angel,



Just an angel.



I slept.

Sprachlos

Sprachlos is one German word I use instead of the English "speechless".



In fact Speechless implies "less speech".


When in fact Sprachlos is the absence of speech.


No speech.


That slack jawed look when your chin drops and you breathe faster and your chest heaves up and down in agonizing sighs.


Your eyes fall to the floor, your posture slacks.


You are beaten down. You cannot even talk.


You are Sprachlos.


You do not believe what you just heard.


When you stop speaking it is in the spirit of denial.


Ego protective.


This couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn’t have happened.


Preposterous, outrageous, outlandish, sickening,


The feeling in the pit of your stomach.


Is sprachlos physical? Psychological?


Can more than one person be affected?


Does anyone react when they see the signs?


What do you say when you begin to speak again?






German proverb: Be Silent. Or say something better than silence.


I am sprachlos.






Mary Gerdt