The Kenneth B Schwartz Center Rounds is, “a series of multidisciplinary forums where caregivers discuss challenging emotional and social issues that arise in caring for patients.  Names and clinical details have been altered to protect confidentiality.”

The roundtable discussion in July of 2008 focused on Transgender Youth. The panel consisted of:

• Dr. B, Pediatric Endocrinologist/Gender Management Specialist
• Dr. G, Psychologist/Facilitator of therapeutic support group for genetic males living as females
• Parent of teenager (T) who has completed the gender reassignment process.

It’s a great discussion centering around many aspects of how to care for transgender youth with dignity and care, and some of what their experiences are prior to getting treatment including suicide attempts.  It’s a very useful read based on the experiences of these concerned people for transgender youth.   You may reach their roundtable discussion at The Schwartz Center web site at this link here: Roundtable Discussion on Transgender Youth.

So you are looking for a new gig or maybe a gig at all.  And working from home is extremely important for you.  Maybe you’re a mother with two toddlers?  Maybe you are the caretaker for your grandparents and being near them is important for their health, maybe you’re a trans-person who is having trouble finding a position in or near where you live?    Three job boards may help: FlexJobs, Telecommute Jobs List and Simply Hired.

Each list varies in how they work.

• Telecommute Jobs List is basically a free listing site that is ad driven.  Their job listings are real, having been pulled from Craig’s List, and, according to their site, “are the result of a multi-city (all) search of jobs posted on Craig’s List with the Telecommute option checked”. The Google Ad and Sponsor Ad listings might bring you to other sites that are helpful.
• Flex Jobs is very well reviewed by the public press, has lots of what appear to be real endorsements from real people and has a large current listings.   The listings are screened by people who work for Flex Jobs to weed out the spam and job ads that are really scams.   There is a charge however of either $49.95 per year or $14.95 per month.  Those prices seem very reasonable for what looks like a legitimate site.
• Simply Hired is a job search engine that we’ve mentioned before in our post, “Simply Hired and Transgender Friendly Too“.  What you do is go to the Simply Hired site, then click on “Advanced Search”, from there in the keyword search type in, “Work From Home”, then press enter and watch Simply Hired pull up those jobs.  To make life easier for our readers, just click the following link and you’ll get the list of “work from home” jobs automatically,  Simply Hired Work From Home Jobs Listings

So give it a try all you work from homers!  Who knows, your next commute might be 5 minutes!

It’s law.  Or at least it’s been agreed to by the House of Representatives after having been approved by the Senate in December.  So now the health care bill goes to the President to sign.

Here’s a bit of news coverage to bring you up to speed here:

CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/22/health.care.main/index.html?hpt=T1

Foxnews: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/21/house-leaders-make-impassioned-pleas-final-health-care-vote/

On both the Democrat and the Republican side there were many facts and many non-facts.  We’ve got some reading for you to hopefully steer your way through the morass of fogginess at FactCheck.org Among their findings:

• Premiums? Some health care premiums will increase and some will decrease.  Basically, for those who get insurance through their employer, it does not appear as though it will change; for those who can afford to buy their own insurance, it may change 10 to 13%
• Government  Run? When the BBC asked a Republican House Member today on an interview if this was in fact a Government  takeover for the U.S. Healthcare he said, “well, it’s about where we are going with healthcare”.   So what is the deal?   Well it is not government run nor aimed in that way.  And that fact made alot of liberal Democrats angry as a caffeine addict being served de-caff coffee here at Beck’s Cafe.   See Fact Check for the straight perk.
• You Can Keep Your Old Plan? Well President Obama really didn’t give it to us straight on that one.  Under this plan employers may drop employees and plans (as they can today anyway by the way); but there’s a safety net here that let’s people dropped from their employers roles buy their own plans.  See Fact Check for the inforama.
• Some plans are taxed: And what is up with THAT?  Well here’s the scoop – there’s a 40 percent tax on the value of plans above $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families, starting in 2018. The tax falls on insurers, but would be passed along to policyholders one way or another.  The tax would affect mainly nonunion workers, according to an analysis partly authored by a former Bush adviser.”  See Fact Check for the full report on this one.

Here is the link to Fact Check’s coverage:  A Final Weekend of Whoppers? Health care legislation coverage.

There’s alot we need to sit down and understand over way more coffee than this.  What about women’s reproductive rights?  What about breast cancer screening?  Are trans-persons helped or at least not-hindered by this legislation?  Lots of questions and we’ll have some follow up in the coming days.

I heard this song on Slacker Radio’s Classic Jazz Channel last week and nearly fell off my chair laughing.   It’s the song Powerhouse composed by Raymond Scott…it’s really classic jazz that was so good and so goofy it HAD to go into Cartoons!

Powerhouse Song: Done by a harmonica band; amazing skill!

Powerhouse as led by Raymond Scott

Raymond Scott’s Web Site

By now you know the Frugal Tech loves a value!  She’s not cheap but she has to spend her dollars around wisely.  So what if you are among those souls who actually uses their phone for a phone and yet you know you’d like to do a bit more with it?  Well have no fear for SMS, Short Message Service, or texting, and MMS, Multimedia Messaging Service, are here!

Unbeknowst to most of us, even the dumbest of phones is smart at the computer level smart (see our previous post on Sproxil for a nice example). With technology shrinking and packing ever more circuits closer and close together, even the most basic of phones has more capability than most of us would otherwise imagine.  The technology of SMS/MMS is one way to access this technology.  They alone allow you to communicate with a myriad of internet services to help you do what you need to do without the cost of a smart phone.

One site with two excellent tutorials on this is makeuseof.com They have written two tutorials that you’ll find handy to teach your old phone some new tricks:

• How to Make Your Mobile Phone Smarter with SMS/MMS Part 1
• How to Make Your Mobile Phone Smarter wit SMS/MMS Part 2

Great reading and good tips to make  your technology more frugal today!