Misinformation on hotels and pets during disasters
False information is going around stating that hotels/etc are required to accept household pets in an emergency evacuation under the ‘‘Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act of 2006,” or PETS Act.
It is incorrect to say that hotels must suspend their usual pet policies under this Act. The PETS Act is about FEMA, not hotels or businesses.
(Service animals as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act are already legally permitted in hotels and businesses, regardless of emergency status).
What does the PETS Act do?
According to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), the PETS Act amends an existing act
“…to ensure that State and local emergency preparedness operational plans address the needs of individuals with household pets and service animals… The PETS Act authorizes FEMA to provide rescue, care, shelter, and essential needs for individuals with household pets and service animals, and to the household pets and animals themselves following a major disaster or emergency.”
The PETS Act is only triggered when a federal disaster declaration is made. The summary and the statute itself make no mention of businesses and hotels.
What resources ARE available to pet owners?
Many states and locales have made plans for pets and families with pets, in addition to the federal PETS Act. You check for those plans and laws at the Animal Law page on disasters by Michigan State University.
In California you can check out Governor’s Office of Emergency Services’ page on animals. You can also visit the California Animal Response Emergency System (CARES) page. You can find resources and check if your city/county has made plans involving pets.
Resources for families with pets are on the CARES site here. They include PDF brochures on multiple animal types. These brochures are useful beyond California.
Tag: resources
What to Do If You’re Kicked Off SSI/SSDI
You’ve been receiving benefits for a couple of years, and your regular “review” came and went. They probably made you fill out that dehumanizing form about what you are and aren’t able to do (which you need to answer as if you’re talking about your worst days; you’ll probably feel like you’re exaggerating if you do it right), and maybe they made you see one of the horrible state-paid doctors that are likely to minimize your disability, trick you into hurting your own case, and lie about what you said.
You hoped it was all over, but the letter came back saying that “your health has improved” and you are no longer disabled. You want to laugh – because your health has probably only declined – and cry, and scream, and you probably have thoughts of ending it all.
Don’t lose hope. You have a good chance of getting back on it. But you need to act now.
Before you do anything else, bring the letter to your local Social Security office and request an appeal. Check the box that says you want to stay on benefits while your appeal is processed. You must do this within 10 days of when they think you received the letter (which is probably earlier than when you actually received it). If the office is open when you get the letter, go now. If not, go the next business day. You cannot afford to put this off.
Give them the names and contact information of any medical providers you have seen since you filled out the disability review paperwork. Save a copy of all the paperwork from this visit in case they claim to have lost it.
The next step is to go to your local independent living center and ask for advice on your case. They may be able to recommend doctors and lawyers to help you win.
If there isn’t one in your area, or if they can’t recommend a lawyer, look for a disability lawyer here or contact your local legal aid.
From now on, your full-time job is winning your appeal. (I know you’re on disability because you can’t actually work a full-time job; that’s why this system ends up killing so many people. I hope you have friends or family to help you through this process.)
Go to as many appointments with doctors, psychologists, physical therapists, and whatever other medical providers apply in your case, as you can handle. Make sure to save their contact information, and whenever you go to a new one, go to the Social Security office and update your paperwork with their information.
Stay in regular contact with your caseworker at the state disability determination office; their name should be printed on the denial letter you got. Ask them if they need more information. Being in contact with them might actually convince them not to “oops, mysteriously lose” your paperwork or mix you up with someone else (yes, this does actually happen).
If you’re lucky, you won’t have to go to a hearing at all, and they’ll reinstate you after a reconsideration. If you’re not so lucky, you’ll have to go through several stages of hearings. The odds are in your favor at these hearings. Don’t lose hope. They need to prove that you have medically improved enough to go back to work, which you haven’t.
Yay, you’ve been reinstated! What do you do now? Well, this has probably caused a hiccup in your Medicare. Even though you checked the box that said you wanted to continue your benefits, something probably got screwed up. If you’re on SSI, they’re probably deducting the Medicare premiums from the months you were considered “not disabled” from your checks even though SSI recipients are supposed to have their Medicare paid for. Your state SSI supplement might also be screwed up. Your Social Security office will tell you who you need to call/visit to expedite this being straightened out. Medicare may also have refused to cover doctors’ visits from the time you were considered “not disabled” and you’ll have to call or write them to appeal that.
Good luck, may everything work out in your favor, and may your next review go off without a hitch.
Decolonising Science Reading List – Chanda Prescod-Weinstein – Medium
October 2016 Introduction
In April, 2015, one of the most visible topics of discussion in the Astronomy community was the planned Thirty Meter Telescope and protests against it from Native Hawaiians who didn’t want it built on Mauna Kea. I wrote a lot about this on social media, spending some significant time trying to contextualize the debate. This reading list was originally created in response to requests for where I was getting some of the information from. A lot of people asked me about what I’d been reading as reference points for my commentary on the relationship between colonialism and what we usually call “modern science.”
In August 2016 I updated to announce: I’m happy to report that Sarah Tuttleand I will be contributing to this list in future thanks to this FQXi grant that we are co-I/PI on: Epistemological Schemata of Astro|Physics: A Reconstruction of Observers. The grant proposal was based on a written adaptation of a speech I gave at the Inclusive Astronomy conference, Intersectionality as a Blueprint for Postcolonial Scientific Community Building.
As part of this work, I’ve continued to expand the reading list, which seems to have become a global resource for people interested in science and colonialism. As I originally said, I make no claims about completeness, about updating it regularly, or even ever coming up with a system for organizing it that I find to be satisfactory. You’ll find texts that range from personal testimony to Indigenous cosmology to anthropology, to history to sociology to education research. All are key to the process of decolonising science, which is a pedagogical, cultural, and intellectual set of interlocking structures, ideas, and practices. This reading list functions on the premise that there is value in considering the ways in which science and society co-construct. It is stuff that I have read all or part of and saw some value in sharing with others.
I am especially indebted to the #WeAreMaunaKea movement for educating me and spurring me to educate myself.
Original April 2015 Commentary
There are two different angles at play in the discussion about colonialism and science. First is what constitutes scientific epistemology and what its origins are. As a physicist, I was taught that physics began with the Greeks and later Europeans inherited their ideas and expanded on them. In this narrative, people of African descent and others are now relative newcomers to science, and questions of inclusion and diversity in science are related back to “bringing science to underrepresented minority and people of color communities.” The problem with this narrative is that it isn’t true. For example, many of those “Greeks” were actually Egyptians and Mesopotamians under Greek rule. So, even though for the last 500 years or so science has largely been developed by Europeans, the roots of its methodology and epistemology are not European. Science, as scientists understand it, is not fundamentally European in origin. This complicates both racist narratives about people of color and innovation as well as discourse around whether science is fundamentally wedded to Euro-American operating principles of colonialism, imperialism and domination for the purpose of resource extraction.
This leads me to the second angle at play: Europeans have engaged what is called “internalist” science very seriously over the last 500 years and often in service and tandem with colonialism and white supremacy. For example, Huygens and Cassini facilitated and directed astronomical observation missions in order to help the French better determine the location of St. Domingue, the island that houses the modern nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Why? Because this would help make the delivery of slaves and export of the products of their labor more efficient. That is just one example, which stuck out to me because I am a descendant of the Caribbean part of the Atlantic Slave Trade, and I also have two degrees in astronomy (and two in physics).
There is a lot that has been hidden from mainstream narratives about the history of astronomy, including 20th century history. Where has the colonial legacy of astronomy taken us? From Europe to Haiti to now Hawai’i. Hawai’i is the flash point for this conversation now, even though the story goes beyond Hawai’i. If we are going to understand the context of what is happening in Hawai’i with the Thirty Meter Telescope, we must understand that Hawai’i is not the first or only place where astronomers used and benefited from colonialism. And in connection, we have to understand Hawai’ian history. Thus, my reading list also includes important materials about Hawai’i’s history.
tl;dr: science has roots outside of the Eurasian peninsula known as Europe, it likely has its limitations as one of multiple ontologies of the world, it has been used in really grotesque ways, and we must understand all of these threads to truly contextualize the discourse in Hawai’i around science, Hawaiian epistemologies and who gets to determine what constitutes “truth” and “fact” when it comes to Mauna a Wakea.
Finally, I believe science need not be inextricably tied to commodification and colonialism. The discourse around “diversity, equity and inclusion” in science, technology, engineering and mathematics must be viewed as a reclamation project for people of color. Euro-American imperialism and colonialism has had its (often unfortunate) moment with science, and it’s time for the rest of us to reclaim our heritage for the sake of ourselves and the next seven generations.
Note: this reading list is woefully low on materials about science in the pre-European contact Americas, Southeast Asia and parts of Australasia. I’m probably missing some stuff, but I think it signals a problem with research in the history of science too. Also I make no claims about completeness or a commitment to regularly updating it with my newest finds. Also see A U.S./Canadian Race & Racism Reading List.
May 2017 edit: I also just learned that there is a Reading List on Modern and Colonial Science in the Middle East.
The List
Intersectionality as a Blueprint for Postcolonial Scientific Community Building by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
Women in Astronomy: Ain’t I a woman? Living at the intersection of gender, race, and sexuality by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
African Cultural Astronomy: Current Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy Research in Africa eds. Jarita C. Holbrook, Johnson O. Urama, and R. Thebe Medupe
Pursuing Intersectionality, Unsettling Dominant Imaginaries by Vivian May
Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times by Alexis Shotwell
The Crest of the Peacock: The Non-European Roots of Mathematics by George Gheverghese Joseph; Many thanks to Archishman Raju for sending me the following significant caveat about this book: I just wanted to bring to your attention that there is a strong charge on G. Joseph for appropriating information amounting to plagiarism (I think). (See http://ckraju.net/Joseph/Complaint-about-Joseph-to-Manchester.pdf , and attachments http://ckraju.net/Joseph/Annexures-Manchester.pdf ). It is particularly ironic in this context that someone from University of Manchester would take credit for ideas developed in India. Addendum from Chanda: the link in the letter to the advertised PhD position is available on the Wayback Machine.
Science, Colonialism and Indigenous Peoples: The Cultural Politics of Law and Knowledge by Laurelyn Whitt
Beyond Banneker: Black Mathematicians and the Paths to Excellence by Erica N. Walker
Einstein on Race and Racism by Fred Jerome and Rodger Taylor
Epistemic Injustice by Miranda Fricker
Has Feminism Changed Physics? by Amy Grave (neé Bug)
(Baby Steps) Toward a Feminist Physics by Barbara Whitten
Has Feminism Changed Science? by Londa Schiebinger
Knowing Otherwise: Race, Gender, and Implicit Understanding by Alexis Shotwell
Cognitive Repression in Contemporary Physics by Evelyn Fox Keller
Academic Articles on race and genetics by A.A. M’charek
Language, Identity, and Ideology: High-Achieving Scholarship Women(South African context) by Y. Dominguez-Whitehead, S. Liccardo, and H. Botsis
Conceptualising transformation and interrogating elitism: The Bale scholarship programme (South African context) by H. Botsis, Y. Dominguez-Whitehead, and S. Liccardo
Beyond South Africa’s ‘indigenous knowledge — science’ wars by Lesley J.F. Green
Decolonizing Science and Science Education in a Postcolonial Space (Trinidad, a Developing Caribbean Nation, Illustrates) by Laila Boisselle caveat from Chanda: I *hate* the use of “developing nation” here. It’s a colonialist term.
Women, Science, and Technology: A Reader in Feminist Science Studies eds. Mary Wyer, Mary Barbercheck, Donna Cookmeyer, Hatice Ozturk, and Marta Wayne
Ghost Stories for Darwin: The Science of Variation and the Politics of Diversityby Banu Subramaniam
The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation by John M. Hobson
Interrogating Whiteness and Relinquishing Power: White Faculty’s Commitment to Racial Consciousness in STEM Classrooms eds. Nicole Joseph, Chayla Haynes, Floyd Cobb
On the possibility of a feminist philosophy of physics by Maralee Harrell
Multicultural settler colonialism and indigenous struggle in Hawai’i: The politics of astronomy on Mauna a Wakea a dissertation by Joseph Salazar (available on ProQuest)
Challenging epistemologies: Exploring knowledge practices in Palikur astronomy by Lesley J.F. Green
‘Indigenous Knowledge’ and ‘Science’: Reframing the Debate on Knowledge Diversity by Lesley J.F. Green
The Rain Stars, the World’s River, the Horizon and the Sun ’s Path: Astronomy along the Rio Urucauá, Amapá, Brazil by Lesley Green and David Green
Colonialism & Science: Saint Domingue in the Old Regime by James E. McClellan III
Is Science Multicultural? Postcolonialisms, Feminisms, and Epistemologies by Sandra Harding
Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?: Thinking from Women’s Lives by Sandra Harding
The ‘Racial’ Economy of Science: Toward a Democratic Future ed. by Sandra Harding
Science and Other Cultures: Issues in Philosophies of Science and Technologyed. Sandra Harding with Robert Figueroa
Science and Social Inequality: Feminist and Postcolonial Issues by Sandra Harding
Sciences From Below: Feminisms, Postcolonialities, and Modernities by Sandra Harding
The Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies Reader ed. by Sandra Harding
Hating Empire Properly: The Two Indies and the Limits of Enlightenment Anticolonialism by Sunil M. Agnani
Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature by Donna J. Haraway
Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physics by Sharon Traweek
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn
A People’s History of Science: Miners, Midwives, and Low Mechanicks by Clifford D. Connor
Why I Am Not A Scientist: Anthropology and Modern Science by Jonathan M. Marks
Notes on Dialectics by C.L.R. James (available scanned here.)
Science and Technology in Korea: Traditional Instruments and Techniques by Sang-woon Jeon
The Ursula Franklin Reader: Pacifism as a Map
Daughters of Alchemy: Women and Scientific Culture in Italy by Meredith K. Ray
People’s Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier by Ruha Benjamin
The World and Africa: An inquiry into the part which Africa has played in world history by W.E. Burghardt Du Bois
The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genomeby Alondra Nelson
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington
Wikipedia entry on History of Scientific Method
Wikipedia entry on Physics in the medieval Islamic World
Tribal peoples have crucial role to play in global conservation Guardian Op-Ed
We Live In the Future. Come Join Us. by Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada
Protecting Mauna A Wakea: The Space Between Science and Spirituality by Keolu Fox
Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism by Noenoe K. Silva
A Nation Rising: Hawaiian Movements for Life, Land and Sovereignty, Noelani Goodyear-Ka’opua, Ikaika Hussey, and Erin Kahunawaika’ala Wright, editors
voices of fire: reweaving the literary lei of pele and hi’iaka by ku’ualohoa ho’omanawanui
Decolonising Science Reading List – Chanda Prescod-Weinstein – Medium
hey guys psa regarding hospital bills
don’t just pay it. do not automatically pay the hospital bill when you receive it. call your health insurance provider and POLITELY say, “excuse me, i just received a bill for $1200 for my hospital visit/ER visit/etc., is that the correct amount i’m supposed to pay?” because hospitals bill you before your health insurance and they will take your money no matter how the amount due may change based on your health insurance looking at it. 90% of the time, if your health insurance is in any way involved in the payment of that bill, you do not have to pay as much as the hospital is billing you for. call your health insurance provider first, and POLITELY request clarification, always remember that the person you are talking to is human and this is just their job, and then you will very likely find out you actually only owe $500.
don’t shout at anyone about it, don’t get mad, just understand that this is The Way Things Are right now and call your health insurance provider before paying the bill your hospital just sent you. there’s a chance the hospital bill might be correct, true, but call your health insurance provider.
THIS IS SUPER IMPORTANT. after my car accident last year the hospital billed me ~$8000. They sent me letters asking me to pay, and I called them back saying my insurance was processing the claim. This is also what I told the collection agency when they kept calling me about the $1000 emergency room fee (billed separately from the hospital fee, mind you). Once everything got straightened out, all I was actually liable for was my $200 emergency copay.
!!!!!!! things my ass didn’t know !!!!!!!!
Yes this is a life lesson my adulting ass didn’t know I needed and I’m out 80 bucks for an anti-nausea pill. 😒😒😒😒😒
Reblogging for American friends.
Also, it is important [for people receiving medical care in the USA] to carefully read all of the items on the medical bill and look for errors and overcharges. I know that the normal feelings of avoidance and dread can make it hard to look at scary hospital bills, and that’s okay! But as the OP mentions, private orgs like hospitals don’t monitor overpayment of bills – they are motivated to charge you extra – and it is basically impossible to get your money back. Read the bill carefully and make sure that the charges are correct, using the links below for help if you need. If they haven’t sent you an itemized list, you can ask for one. Sometimes you will be charged extra for items or treatment you didn’t receive. Most people don’t know that you can dispute medical bills! But in 2009, Consumer Reports stated that 8 out of 10 medical bills scrutinized by a watchdog had errors, and generally you are not obligated to pay for someone else’s error.
You may be charged for using medication that you actually brought into the hospital with you – that’s easy to dispute! You may be charged for the consumables used during your stay such as sheets, gloves, gowns, etc – the hospital should actually cover that under its running budget. You may be charged for a brand name drug if the generic was available for cheaper – the links below explain how and when you can dispute this. You may be charged a surprisingly expensive “oral administration fee” (where a nurse puts pills for you to take in a little clean paper cup and then hands it to you) but that’s worth disputing if you were actually able to take the pill out of a bottle and put it in your own mouth. And so on.
8 Things You Should Know About Challenging a Medical Bill (FORBES) (includes links to sites that help you calculate how much a procedure/treatment usually costs in your area, if the costs seem super high)
7 Tips for Fighting and Paying A Huge Medical Bill (FORBES) This explains briefly how to negotiate costs, and payment plans.
10 Common Medical Billing Overcharges You Can Prevent (Bill Advocates) A breakdown of errors and overcharges to double check.
Check medical bills for errors: Overcharges are fairly common, and correcting them can save you thousands of dollars (Consumer Reports) More of the same with links to some groups.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 