fashion clothes

Watching Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve on television a few days ago, I wondered silently in my head why anyone would take anything that Jenny McCarthy says seriously.

Then I remembered that countless people have hinged major parenting decisions on her words.

Then I remembered that she penned not one, but three books about autism. In those books, she advocated vigorously for the connection, dismissed by several scientific studies, between vaccines and autism. She didn't just imply that her child developed the condition immediately after being vaccinated, she basically stood on a soapbox for years and screamed it, then told people that it can be cured.

When her son was diagnosed in 2005, she made the prevention and treatment of autism her main focus in life. She poured all her energy into it, much like most parents facing the condition.

What she had that most other parents don't was pre-existing fame. She used it, oh did she use it. She used it to wax poetic about possible causes and latched quickly onto the idea that vaccines had caused his condition, then she took that and ran with it. She was on television programs, she was interviewed for magazines, she wrote books, she quickly became the poster child of the anti-vaccine movement among the parents of our generation. She started a website for parents, soliciting donations even.

In 2010, when her son magically recovered from the condition(1), it was fairly quickly hypothesized in a Time article she was interviewed for that he actually had a condition known as Landau-Kleffner syndrome which causes speech impairment and can be associated with long term neurological damage. She knew then that he may never have been autistic at all, but held fast to the idea that he was and that she had cured him. She started to backpedal on her vigorous crusade against vaccines, and started to say that they just needed better research instead of parents refusing them entirely. She still stuck to his diagnosis of autism and his alleged recovery from it, though. 

By 2010, though, her books were out there in the world, being carried into the offices of pediatricians by well-meaning parents terrified of needles and vials as ammunition in their argument against vaccines.

She is still standing behind them now. She responded to the most recent controversy, which isn't even a new controversy since it is pertaining to the 2010 interview, with this statement:

Evan was diagnosed with autism by the Autism Evaluation Clinic at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Hospital and was confirmed by the State of California (through their Regional Center). The implication that I have changed my position, that my child was not initially diagnosed with autism (and instead may suffer from Landau-Kleffner Syndrome), is both irresponsible and inaccurate. These stories cite a “new” Time Magazine interview with me, which was actually published in 2010, that never contained any such statements by me. Continued misrepresentations, such as these, only serve to open wounds of the many families who are courageously dealing with this disorder. Please know that I am taking every legal measure necessary to set this straight.

Maybe he does have autism. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe no one should really be listening to whatever she has to say about it in the first place. Last time I checked, she was an actress, not a medical professional.

Made by my dear friend at Manderstanding. It's a joke. Sort of.

The only study that has ever shown a link between vaccines and autism was debunked as fraudulent, and every other study looking for a connection has found none.

Does this mean that we can just wash our hands of the cause of autism and decree from the mountaintops the safety of vaccines? No, it doesn't. I say this not just as a blogger, but as a mother who elected to delay and space vaccines for one of my children because he demonstrates hyper sensitive autoimmune re-activity. I say this as someone who studied for years in the field of public health and can read and understand the papers released when studies are completed with a cynical eye. I say this as someone who worked on the legal staff of a hospital.

I know, because of my background, that medical studies are not ever as clear cut as the media tends to make them. I always, always, always do further research into the funding of the study, where it was performed and look for the players in the background that may be skewing the results, even if unintentionally. I say that I absolutely think that there needs to be more study in the areas both of autism research and vaccine safety. I say that I don't believe we understand enough about either. I've written about the cases where the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program paid out settlements to families alleging a connection. 

I say all these things because I am a well educated parent who happens to be well versed with medical literature. I do my own research. I discuss all vaccination decisions with both my pediatrician and my son's endocrinologist. I don't rely on what an actress said in a book.

No one should.

Doesn't mean that no one did.

Current research tells us that vaccines do not cause autism. 

Current research tells us that vaccines prevent diseases that can cause illness, injury and death.

She knew that, and she wrote all those books anyway.

I haven't read them, I will be the first to admit it. I have to assume that she inserted disclaimers in them about how parents are supposed to talk to their pediatricians and that she isn't a medical professional. I have to assume her lawyers would have forced her put disclaimers in them.

I also have to assume that a lot of people took what she wrote to heart, as she shared this painful journey of a mother desperately seeking answers for her child. I saw the interviews where she cried on television, she railed against the medical establishment. I can only imagine how her words would jump off the page and burn themselves into the minds and hearts of parents in the same place she said she was.

The only reason she was on those television shows, in the pages of those magazines, the only reason her books sold as much as they did? The books where she professed to heal autism?

Her fame.

She used it, and her son's condition, to generate more fame. Her soapbox was bigger, more visible, with a better sound system. It even helped land her a spot on The View.

I have to hope that she did it because she believed it. I have to hope that she wasn't just taking advantage of her son's issues for publicity and screen time. I have to hope that she really felt like she was doing the right thing. I have to hope that she was convinced she was right. I have to hope she was just a scared parent looking for answers.

I have to. Because if she wasn't any of those things, it doesn't make all of this a terrible mistake, it makes it sick and wrong.

There is no way to know how many people believed her. No way to know how many people carried her book into their pediatricians' offices and stood their ground, refused shots for preventable diseases. No way to know how many of those kids contracted diseases they could have been protected against. No way to know how many others were infected by those kids. No way to know how many of them died. No way to know how damaged the effect of herd immunity is because fewer and fewer kids are fully immunized.

This page tries to keep a tally, though it's impossible to say how much of this is because of her influence, and how much is attributed to the anti-vaccine movement in general. This book talks specifically about the damage that people like her have done and the very real consequences of the anti-vaccine movement.

The damage she has done puts an exclamation point on the danger of people who use their fame to manipulate others. She isn't just influencing small trivial things, here. She is influencing life and death decisions and taking no responsibility for it. She will, however, enjoy more time in the spotlight, thank you very much, even if it means threatening a lawsuit.

This is her reputation at stake, after all. That's more important than misleading millions of people.

(sarcasm)

(just in case I needed to make that clear)

(1) I would have linked to the Time article containing the actual interview, but it now requires a subscription.

Day 4 ~

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” 

~ Mae West


Welcome. By this point, I think I've lost most of you already on this 30 day quote journey. I'm going to keep at it because I'm just that stubborn, and because thus far I have managed to pick apart all the prior quotes.

Having an overly analytical brain is a blessing and a curse, I tell you.

This one is simple. There's not much to this quote, one liked by over 67 thousand people on the wonder that is Goodreads.

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” 

It, among many other things, passed over the lips of Mae West, one of the most interesting actresses in the history of theater and cinema. Her biographical information taught me all kinds of new things about her that I didn't know before, like the fact that she was alleged to have been married twice, the first time at 17. The second marriage, she never admitted to, but a court dissolved in divorce proceedings anyway. When she was older, she took up with a much younger man...like thirty years younger. Paul lived with her until she died.

She was a playwright, an actress, a comedienne, a boundary pusher, and a lover of all things inappropriate. She was even found guilty of the crime of obscenity for her play Sex and sentenced to ten days in jail.

Clearly, she was my kind of gal.

Now, for the quote itself.

I don't think it means what it seems to mean on the face. The most obvious way to interpret it is to say that if you do things the right way, you'll have a fabulous life and never regret anything.

I don't think that's really what she meant, which is good, because it's fairly impossible.

There's this whole doing it right thing on the internet these days. People use that phrase most often with parenting issues, but also with anything that they want to judge other people about. Doing it right implies that someone else is doing it wrong, after all. The trouble I have with the phrase is that if it was only ever used by people to celebrate what they think is doing it right, that would be fine...but you and I both know that the internet doesn't work that way.

My point, which I am making in the most long winded possible way here, is that there isn't one right way to do anything. Believing that there is, well, just is wrong.

I think she's talking more broadly about life. I don't think she is saying that anyone has to make all the right choices, never screw up, live authentically 24/7, be awesome all the time. Which is good. Because that would be totally freaking exhausting.

Instead, I take this quote more as a hey, do your best, don't do things you'll regret too much, if you do them, try to fix whatever you break in the process or apologize to the people you hurt, you only get one shot at life so make the most of it, try to remember that kind of quote.

Unless you believe in do-overs, time travel or reincarnation, you have to accept that this life is the only one you've ever going to have.

Try not to screw it up too badly.

And if you are going to be thrown in jail, make sure it's for a damn good reason.

Day 3 ~

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.” 

― William W. Purkey


This particular iteration of the sentiment was indeed claimed by Mr. Purkey himself, though marginally different versions of it have been attributed to Satchel Paige, Mark Twain and Irish folklore.

Purkey is an educational writer and trying to find more background information on him was more difficult than you'd think in this day and age of the internet. I actually think it's pretty cool that a relatively unknown, definitely under the radar writer has the third most popular quote about life on GoodReads attributed to him.

I would tend to actually think that it's more an amalgamation of proverbs and folklore passed down for generations that at some point became a cohesive quote. It's one that he allegedly said, not wrote down, and when asked he did indeed claim to be the one who said it.

Doesn't mean that other people haven't been saying something very similar for years, decades or centuries before, though.

Though I suppose it doesn't matter too much who said it first, since it's the quote we are talking about, I geek out a little bit over the fact that most people have heard this quote but no one seems to know who said it.

Anyhow, we're here to talk about the quote. So let's do that.

This quote, more than anything else, is about seizing the moment. It's about refusing to let the past or fear or shame or whatever may happen tomorrow change the way that you experience the world right now.

Is it a more highly evolved way of just saying YOLO?

Maybe.

Hopefully without the stupid injuries that come from jumping off of things.

It's a good reminder to live in the present, I suppose. I think I am going to break the quote down into pieces though, for the purposes of this post.

You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching.
Hmmm. As a writer who has confessed in the past to having terrible grammar myself, this sentence bothers even me. I guess it's the idea I have that once you are a real, legitimately published author of books, particularly in the field of education, you shouldn't throw around terms like gotta. Or at least, if I had the body of work this guy does, I wouldn't want to be most well known for a quote like this.

Sorry. I'm always editing in my head. It took me three tries to copy the text of the actual quote because I was trying to fix it subconsciously.

Anyhow. I wholeheartedly agree with this line because dancing is one of those things that really needs to be done without concern for what other people see or think in order for it to be true and authentic. As people, we get so wrapped up in being self conscious, whether it is body image issues, the fear of looking ridiculous, the fear of being made fun of, the fear of flailing uncontrollably or just the fear of looking like Elaine from Seinfeld, most of us don't dance nearly as often as we should. I know I don't. I dance comfortably in dark rooms after much alcohol has been consumed. Even then, I worry about how things all looked after the fact. If you want to see real joy in body movement, watch a toddler dance. Or one of the really high freedancers in Boulder.

Lets all dance more, shall we?

Love like you'll never be hurt.
Fiction can be fun! Maybe this one is true if you haven't actually been hurt. I never really thought about it much in the days when I was blissfully naive about love. Mostly because I had no reason to. In all seriousness though, I try to heed this one in the life I live after being hurt. Really, I do. Learning to love again after having my heart broken is one of the absolute hardest things I have ever had to do. I don't pretend to have it all figured out.

The reason is that it's hard to put yourself out there again. It's hard to be vulnerable. It's hard to trust. It's all hard. Because you know you could be hurt again.

Dammit, it's worth it though. So, I'll give this one to him.

Sing like there's nobody listening.
Well, maybe not everyone. (just kidding) This one isn't all that much different than the dancing one I suppose. What keeps us from singing is fear of sounding bad, fear of being laughed at, fear of being judged, fear of being terrible at it.

Most people can sing. Or can learn to sing.

I used to be a singer. I sing in the car, alone, these days. I wish I still had the cajones I did in junior high when I asked my choir teacher for a chance to sing before an audience. I was actually good.

This one reminds me of a preschool class one of my kids was in. At the holiday party, they all sang songs and there was one little girl who sang as loud as she could and with every ounce of pride that she had. Completely and entirely off key. It was pretty much the most adorable thing ever, even though it was also abjectly terrible.

It would be amazing if we could stay that way, you know? Loving what we do and doing what we love, loud and proud, without a care in the world?

With earphones to drown out everyone else, of course.

I'm going to agree with him on this one.

And live like it's heaven on earth.
This is where he loses me a little.

Maybe it's just because I have endured some truly awful things.

Maybe it's because when compared to the things that some friends have been through, my problems seem insignificant and minor.

Maybe it's because the world is full of sickness and hunger and injustice and violence and all kinds of things that would make a rational person question if this is truly as good as it gets.

Maybe you'll never convince me that heaven on earth exists for kids who get sick, for the ones who die, for the ones who are beaten and abused, for the ones who suffer immeasurable pain in their short lives. I just can't wrap my head around this being the greatest place ever for them.

Maybe it's because religious teachings often promise us of some afterlife that we are supposed to work towards gaining access to, telling us exactly the opposite of what he is saying. So if you believe what you are told, this goes against all of it.

I get it. I do. We're supposed to grab every day and squeeze all the appreciation we can out of it. We are supposed to marvel in the beauty of nature, the simple joys, the sunrises and sunsets. I get it. I'm a nature girl these days anyway. I do my fair share of marveling. It's really the only thing that brings me back to my center.

Maybe he's being facetious. Maybe he does believe in an afterlife that is all glitter and rainbows but still thinks that we need to see the positives here. Maybe.

I don't know.

I just know that sometimes life down here is pretty damned far from anything I would consider heaven.

Three out of four ain't bad, right?

Day 2

I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best. 

So we're doing this one, eh?



I blame Goodreads and their quote list. For the love.

Though this quote is almost always associated with Marilyn Monroe, including on this list, I have looked and looked and looked for some type of source for it to come up empty handed. In fact, I've found more than a few sites questioning whether she ever said it in the first place.

Let the debate rage on, my friends.

In the past few years, I have used this quote a couple times. I'll be the first to admit it. 

I feel like I need to qualify my personal usage, though, before I can write what I really think about it. I used it at times when I was somewhere near the bottom of my personal hole. When I was angry and sad and pissed off at the world. When I was pissed off at specific people. It has a very stubborn dismissiveness to it, this demand of taking her as she was. 

There have been times when it was absolutely true for me, this quote. When it spoke to my soul and gave me a reason to pick myself up one more time. I've been in some awfully dark places. On all those trips to hell and back, I was far from a pleasant person to be around. 

I am grateful to the people who stuck by my side in those moments. They certainly deserve me at my best. 

Having said that...no one (well, maybe a few people) should have had to put up with me at my worst. 

Now that we've cleared all that up, let's talk about the quote itself. I'll assume for the purposes of this post that she did indeed say these infamous words.

Marilyn Monroe was a kind of a hot mess, let's just be honest. She was gorgeous and talented, yes, but in her personal life, she was all over the map. She lost three pregnancies, and was under the care of psychotherapists for years. She was married and divorced three times and made a habit of intruding in the marriages of other people. She sang the sexiest version of Happy Birthday ever in the history of time to the President on camera. Can you even imagine someone doing that in 2014? I mean, seriously...just picture the firestorm that would ignite in this day and age.

Her death is still a mystery and the real truth is that we'll most likely never know the real truth. The official cause of death was an overdose on barbiturates, considered a probable, but unconfirmed suicide.  She lived fast, she played hard, she partied like a rock star. Literally.

She was a sex symbol. Men wanted her. Women wanted to be her. Some women still want to be her...or at least the parts of her that were beautiful and desired and didn't have anything to do with lost babies, ruined marriages, ended affairs, drugs and the couches of psychiatrists. 

I don't just see the good though, I see it all. I'm a full disclosure kind of gal.

She was misunderstood. Very misunderstood.

Unfortunately, so is this quote.

Used primarily by women, myself included, as a declaration of beauty and strength, it isn't actually. It's more an admission of this:



Honestly. 

That's how I used it.

Dead on accurate. Doesn't mean it's a good thing.

Think about it for a second. Would you feel differently about this quote if it was said by a man who ruined his own marriages, intruded on the marriages of others, then ended up dead of a likely overdose? If you would, then you have to ask yourself why. Is it less cringe worthy because of who she was?

In doing background research for this one, I came across a post a fellow blogger wrote about it a while back where he makes the arguments both that she wasn't really someone to emulate and that if a man said what she did it would be unacceptable. Incidentally, if you aren't following Chopper Papa, you should be. He was one of the first bloggers I started reading on a regular basis and I love his perspective.

I also tend to agree with him.

I know that who I was when I loved this quote wasn't a very nice version of me at all. I was indeed a train wreck. I was trying to justify the way I was acting. I excused the way I treated other people, explained it away. 

I don't do that anymore.

When I hurt other people now, I own it. I stare long and hard in the mirror, run a twenty minute dialogue with myself in the shower, apologize and swear to myself it won't happen again. Or I at least make a genuine effort that it doesn't happen again. If it does, I apologize. Again.

I don't think for one second that anyone should have to put up with me when I'm a complete nightmare just because I can be fantastic on a good day. 

I sure do love the people who've seen that side of me and stuck around, though. They're keepers, for sure. xo

I'm beginning yet another 30 day challenge here today, though this one will be a bit different. I'll be discussing 30 of the most "liked" quotes about life, according to GoodReads.

If this series isn't an abysmal failure, I'll do more of them. Parenthood quotes and those having to do with science come to mind for the future.

First up, though, the observations about life deemed the best ones by the internet.


Day 1 ~ Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened. 

Seriously? This is the top quote on this list?

I'm staring at a blank screen right now. No, really. I am.

There are a few reasons. The first is that I know more about Dr. Seuss than most people do, and though I still adore the body of his work, I don't much like who he was as a person, at least in certain aspects of his life.

I wrote about it once and lost more fans in that one day than I have ever lost in the time I have been writing.

It was that bad.

Whether people want to accept it or not, he wasn't entirely a fabulous human being. Even if he left behind a huge volume of celebrated works, most of which reside in my house, I can't pledge total fandom in his general direction.

For a man most famous about the books he wrote primarily for children, he didn't much care for them in reality. His second wife left her husband and children for him after they carried on an affair while his first wife suffered chronic illnesses and mental health issues. His first wife ended up taking her own life after learning of the affair.

I know, I know, I know.

I'll stop talking about this because if I don't, you'll all leave me forever. It's not me, honest. I'm just the messenger of information that it seems most people would really rather not know. Which is fine. People shot the messenger before. His second wife, Audrey, who I have actually met in person, spoke about it at length publicly, so I'm not revealing anything that hasn't already been revealed.

Incidentally, she is as gracious and kind as the interviewer in the piece above writes and has made tremendous gifts to the community from the estate.

The choices he made in his life don't alter his body of work, this is true. There are many who chastised me on their way out the door last time about how we shouldn't judge the greatness of people like him by the flaws he had, but only by the good that he did. Which is fine, if that's how you operate. I don't work that way.

It colors my experience with him, with his books, with his stories, with the quotes attributed to him. Which is why we are here. Blah.

This quote.

Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.

Turns out that he may not have actually been the one to say it. There is dispute as to whether it is proper to credit him with it, as it is alleged to be something he spoke, not wrote. It is also possible that the quote actually belongs to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Or that it is an anonymous proverb with no specific attribution.

No one actually knows.

Anyhow, the quote is one that floats around in our society fairly often. It's one that people like to throw at each other in their worst moments. It's one that I have been urged to follow in the times when I was in the deepest grief.

Here's the thing.

When you are talking about something in life that you know will be transient, that you anticipate to be a fleeting experience, something that has a definite beginning and an end, it's easier to heed this advice.

The best example I can think of in this manner is with, of all things, my daughter's soccer team. It may sound superficial and silly to identify these feelings with something like a sports team, but it wasn't exactly just a sports team. It was a group of girls who mostly stayed together in the same group for years. Who went from little girls to young women. Who grew in skills and abilities, both individually and together. They became a cohesive unit, they became friends, they spent more time together than with anyone else. We all did. We knew that this group would meet a certain end when the time came for tryouts and skills divergence. We knew. Those last times they took the field together, there weren't many dry eyes on the sidelines. We were all sad to see it go, but we were all collectively grateful that we, and they, had all had such an amazing experience together.

Soccer isn't life though. Not really, anyway. (I'm certain that a few friends would take issue with me on this...)

It's important, yes, but it's not life or death important. It's not like when you are faced with the sudden death of a friend, with a life changing accident, with a cancer diagnosis, with the loss of a parent. Those events, the ones that mean more, they simply exist on a level beyond that which you can just shrug off with bittersweet gratitude.

They simply necessitate a full blown process of grief. They demand it. They require it.

The trouble is that our society doesn't like sadness. Doesn't tolerate longing and heartbreak. We so badly want to be happy, we so much desire positivity, we so value health and youth that we aren't well equipped when we are faced with everything else that happens in life.

And a huge part of life is death. With that comes illness, with loss, with voids, with grief.

Others urge us to suck it up, to get past it, to move on, to wipe the tears, to buck up, to let it go.

At the end of this analysis, I will say this about this particular quote.

I loved it until I hated it.

I thought it was so terribly accurate and spoke truth until I realized that it didn't apply to me anymore.

I hang on to the hope that someday I will find my way back to loving it.

As for Dr. Seuss? Well, I'm not so sure.

Marijuana in Colorado
As of this morning, recreational marijuana use is legal here in the state of Colorado. If you plan to light 'em up, there are some nuances of the law that you're going to want to educate yourself about before you do it.

I encourage you to read up on the laws themselves, and consult an attorney if you have legal questions. (I have to say that, wink, wink)


- It's legal to possess an ounce or less and consume marijuana within state limits so long as you are over 21 years old.

- You can only buy an ounce at the most at a time.

- Recreational pot will be much more expensive than medical pot, mostly because of all the taxes being added. Actual prices will vary from shop to shop.

- If you buy some for someone else, you can absolutely share it with them (assuming they are also over 21), but the second money changes hands (even if they think they are just paying you back), it becomes a drug sale. Just don't.

- You can buy from multiple shops on the same day, but are only allowed to have in your possession one ounce at a time. The shops are not enforcing carry limits and the police have said they don't really intend to either, but if you get caught with more than an ounce, you'll be arrested.

- Marijuana possession and use is still technically forbidden by federal law, but it seems that the feds have no real interest in trying to enforce those laws. They are more concerned with enforcing laws prohibiting resale and transfer, interstate enforcement and underage use.

- Legally purchased marijuana must be consumed in the state. If you leave the state of Colorado, you are subject to the possession and use laws of whatever jurisdiction you enter.

- The marijuana available for recreational use will be lower "octane" than medical marijuana concentrations.

- There will almost certainly be a shortage. In fact, by the time I get this finished, many of the shops may be out of pot already. The same law making possession and use legal today also makes growing legal, so shops can only sell the inventory they already had on hand for medical use. Odds are they will run out fairly quickly.

- You cannot use marijuana in public places, and many public venues have specifically forbidden possession and use on their grounds. The airport in particular has forbidden marijuana as well as all ski resorts.

- If you are renting an apartment or house, whether you can possess and use is up to your landlord.

- If you own your own property, you can smoke indoors without an issue, but patio and backyard use is questionable. Front yard use is probably not legal, but we'll just have to see how the enforcement plays out.

- You can still lose your job and employers can place drug restrictions on employees. THC stays in your system as long as a month or more, and will show on tests. Even if you only use in your off hours, you can still be fired.

- At the current time, all marijuana purchases must be done with cash. Banks for the most part are refusing to allow shop owners to use banking services, including credit and debit card machines. Many shops do have ATM machines inside or nearby.

- There is nothing in the current law that requires shops to track purchases, but that could change. There are cameras required in every shop and legal ID must be shown to enter.

- People who travel here to purchase pot will be limited to a quarter of an ounce per day, and could have a harder time finding somewhere to smoke it since public smoking is prohibited and individual hotels and motels can set their own rules.

- You can be charged with a DUI for driving under the influence and use while driving is strictly forbidden. No one is exactly sure what the cutoffs will be for specimen testing on this, so basically just don't do it.

I think I hit most of the major points. There are a few resources out there with great Q and A sections and more details on the specifics of certain parts of the law.  Washington also is allowing recreational marijuana use, but I am not as familiar with those laws.

Other Laws
There are something like 40,000 new laws going into effect today. There's obviously no way that I can cover them all, so here are a few of them.

- There is now a fee of $95 or 1% (whichever is larger) of income being charged to adults who choose not to carry health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

- Many new treatments and services are required to be covered by health insurance plans, also under the ACA.

- The minimum wage is being raised in 14 states.

- In California, students can use bathroom facilities and join sports teams according to the gender they identify with, even if it is different than their gender at birth.  They also restricted firearms ownership among patients who have made threats to therapists, restricted fracking and will allow illegal immigrants to apply for driver's licenses. Nevada and Maryland will be issuing driver's licenses as well.

- Oregon will grant grieving family members two weeks paid leave after a death, allow mothers to take placentas home from the hospital after birth and prohibits schools and employers from demanding that students and employees surrender social media passwords.

- Arkansas, Alabama and Rhode Island all have new voter ID laws going into effect.

- Both Connecticut and New York are requiring registration of assault rifles and high capacity magazine weapons.

- Illinois banned drone usage without a warrant and prohibited them from interference with hunting and fishing. They also banned tanning bed usage by anyone under the age of 18.