The Ledes

Monday, October 7, 2024

Weather Channel: “H​urricane Milton has rapidly intensified into a Category 3 and hurricane and storm surge watches are now posted along Florida's western Gulf Coast, where the storm poses threats of life-threatening storm surge, destructive winds and flooding rainfall by midweek. 'Milton will be a historic storm for the west coast of Florida,' the National Weather Service in Tampa Bay said in a briefing Monday morning.”

CNN: “This year’s Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their work on the discovery of microRNA, a fundamental principle governing how gene activity is regulated. Their research revealed how genes give rise to different cells within the human body, a process known as gene regulation. Gene regulation by microRNA – a family of molecules that helps cells control the sort of proteins they make – ... was first revealed by Ambros and Ruvkun. The Nobel Prize committee announced the prestigious honor ... in Sweden on Monday.... Ambros, a professor of natural science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, conducted the research that earned him the prize at Harvard University. Ruvkun conducted his research at Massachusetts General Hospital, and is a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School.”

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The Ledes

Sunday, October 6, 2024

New York Times: “Two boys have been arrested and charged in a street attack on David A. Paterson, a former governor of New York, and his stepson, the police said. One boy, who is 12, was charged with second-degree gang assault, and the other, a 13-year-old, was charged with third-degree gang assault, the police said on Saturday night. Both boys, accompanied by their parents, turned themselves in to the police, according to Sean Darcy, a spokesman for Mr. Paterson. A third person, also a minor, went to the police but was not charged in the Friday night attack in Manhattan, according to an internal police report.... Two other people, both adults, were involved in the attack, according to the police. They fled on foot and have not been caught, the police said. The former governor was not believed to have been targeted in the assault....”

Weather Channel: “Tropical Storm Milton, which formed in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, is expected to become a hurricane late Sunday or early Monday. The storm is expected to pose a major hurricane threat to Florida by midweek, just over a week after Helene pushed through the region. The National Hurricane Center says that 'there is an increasing risk of life-threatening storm surge and wind impacts for portions of the west coast of the Florida Peninsula beginning late Tuesday or Wednesday.'”

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Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

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Jul222013

The Commentariat -- July 23, 2013

** CW: This essay, by Kurt Eichenwald of Vanity Fair, is perhaps the best piece I've ever read on conservatives' war on poor women & their families. It is eloquent not in its style -- Eichenwald wrote it while his wife was having surgery for breast cancer -- but for its visceral outrage. Via Charles Pierce.

Mark Landler & Thom Shanker of the New York Times: "The Pentagon has provided Congress with its first detailed list of military options to stem the bloody civil war in Syria, suggesting that a campaign to tilt the balance from President Bashar al-Assad to the opposition would be a vast undertaking, costing billions of dollars, and could backfire on the United States. The list of options -- laid out in a letter from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, to the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin of Michigan -- was the first time the military has explicitly described what it sees as the formidable challenge of intervening in the war." ...

... Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "The top US military officer warned senators on Monday that taking military action to stop the bloodshed in Syria was likely to escalate quickly and result in 'unintended consequences', representing the most explicit uniformed opposition to deeper involvement in another war in the Middle East. Alluding to the costly, bloody occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said that once the US got involved militarily in the Syrian civil war, which the UN estimates to have killed about 93,000 people, 'deeper involvement is hard to avoid'." ...

... Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "The House and Senate intelligence committees have approved CIA weapons shipments to opposition fighters in Syria, allowing the Obama administration to move ahead on the stalled program, senior congressional and administration officials said Monday.... Both the House and Senate panels voted on the administration's plan last week, officials said. The agreement allows money already in the CIA's budget to be reprogrammed for the Syria operation, a covert action that President Obama approved early last month."

OMG. George Zimmerman, Action Hero. Matt Guttman & Alexis Shaw of ABC News: "George Zimmerman, who has been in hiding since he was acquitted of murder in the death of Trayvon Martin, emerged to help rescue a family who was trapped in an overturned vehicle, police said today. Zimmerman was one of two men who came to the aid of Dana and Mark Gerstle and their two children, who were trapped inside a blue Ford Explorer SUV that had rolled over after traveling off the highway in Sanford, Fla. at approximately 5:45 p.m. Thursday, the Seminole County Sheriff's Office said in a statement. The crash occurred at the intersection of I-4 and route Route 46, police said." CW: By coincidence, I was driving on I-4 at Route 46 at about 5:45-6:00 pm Thursday. I didn't see no stinking crash. ...

... Kerry Pickett of Breitbart News embellishes the story, which is sensational enough: "The SUV later caught fire.... According to Sanford Police Zimmerman had a fire extinguisher with him."

... According to John Hawkins of Right Wing Daily, "This is God reaching down in his own way to shame the people attacking George Zimmerman & let him prove he's a good guy." CW: thank God for reminding George to bring his fire extinguisher to the scene. ...

... Erin Ryan of Jezebel: "According to Sanford police (who apparently don't care that everyone now knows where George Zimmerman is), Zimmerman was just, I don't know, moseying along the highway like normal people tend to do ... when he just happened to stumble across an overturned truck, and he pulled the person in the truck to safety like the hero he always imagined he was.... It's a good thing that the person in the cabin wasn't armed and didn't feel threatened by Zimmerman's entry into their vehicle, or, you know, Zimmerman could have gotten himself shot." ...

... Kathy, a commenter on No More Mister Nice Blog, provides a plausible explanation of how Zimmerman happened upon the accident: "I have to wonder if he was listening to the police scanner, waiting for his moment." ...

... CW: I'm pretty sure the Sanford sheriff's department is fixing to make Zimmerman their Good Citizen of the Month. ...

... Carrie Healey of the Grio: "The Buckeye Firearms Foundation started a fund to buy George Zimmermann 'a new gun and fight attacks on the Second Amendment.' ... U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said that the Department of Justice has an open investigation into the case. Sanford Police Capt. James McAuliffe confirmed Thursday that all evidence related to the February 2012 shooting is on hold, which includes Zimmerman's gun." CW: Gosh, I hope they get him a new fire extinguisher, too. ...

... Stanley Fish: "... 'stand your ground' is more than a declaration of a right; it is an injunction -- stand your ground, be a man. Retreating in order to avoid violence is not the commendable act of a prudent man, but the act of a coward, of someone who runs away. It is this aspect of the Stand Your Ground laws -- their implicit affirmation of a code of manliness -- that links them to the novelistic and filmic representations of the old west.... As civilization advances, and the law book replaces the gun, these rationales for violence sound increasingly hollow, and more and more westerns are self-consciously elegiac...." ...

... This piece on ALEC/NRA-promoted laws by Brendan Fischer of PR Watch, republished in Truth-Out, is a week old but still a valuable read: "Justice under Stand Your Ground laws have been anything but equal. The Tampa Bay Times found that people who killed a black person walked free 73 percent of the time, while those who killed a white person went free 59 percent of the time. Other studies have shown that Stand Your Ground is more likely to be applied in cases of white-on-black crime, and in May, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights launched an investigation into racial bias and Stand Your Ground laws."

We have more people in acting positions in Washington than there are in Hollywood. -- Prof. G. Calvin Mackenzie ...

... George Condon of the National Journal on "why the confirmation process is completely broken.... It is unprecedented in history for any Cabinet department to be headless for [so] long -- things are even worse below the surface.... Vacancies are scattered broadly across the Washington landscape.... The basic problem remains -- neither branch has sufficient capacity to handle the vetting process." ...

... Sarah Binder in the Monkey Cage: Harry "Reid's strategy tells us a bit about the conditionality of the nuclear option: First, the more narrowly targeted the nuclear gambit, the more credible it seems to be.... Second, the political feasibility of the nuclear option seems conditioned on the behavior of the minority. Strident overreaching by the Republicans ... helped Democrats to paint the GOP as going a step too far in a Senate parliamentary arms race.... Third, keep in mind that the CFPB, NLRB, EPA and Labor department are critical institutions for pursuing core Democratic policy interests...." Binder wonders what will happen now with judicial nominees, particularly the three Obama nominated to the D.C. court, which the GOP claims has too many judges.

** Fernando Espuelas of Univision in the Huffington Post: "We're now almost a decade into the immigration 'debate' and the rising antagonism toward non-white Americans is hitting a fever pitch.... Perhaps emboldened by the acrid assertions of certain Tea Party members of Congress who revel in fostering racial divisions as a way to cement their shrinking power base, the temperature is rising and the rhetoric is crude.... It's time for John Boehner to decide if he is a national leader or merely a party hack raised by fate to the level beyond his true capacity, thereby staying in 'power' by appealing to the lowest-common denominator and ignoring an urgent need for America." Via Jonathan Bernstein.

Steve Benen on seven ways Republicans are trying to sabotage ObamaCare even though "for millions of Americans, very little matters more" than access to affordable health insurance. Perhaps the most shocking: "refusing to help their own constituents navigate the system." Then there's lying about the costs, repeated attempts to repeal the ACA or essential parts of it, denying funds to implement the system, & threatening groups who would help do PR for the ACA. At the state level, there's refusing to allow Medicare expansion & refusing to create health insurance exchanges. CW: I would add refusing to fix aspects of the law -- like the employer mandate, which would improve the ACA in ways that would appeal to GOP constituencies. ...

... Some stars won't be intimidated. Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: "What do Oprah, Funny or Die and the Grammys have in common? All three, it turns out, have volunteered to promote Obamacare." Others stars who will participate in promoting ObamaCare: Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keyes, Jon Bon Jovi & Amy Poehler. ...

... Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "ObamaCare is at the center of a rapidly escalating fight that threatens to shut the government down this fall. Senate Republicans, including two members of the leadership, are coalescing around a proposal to block any government funding resolution that includes money for the implementation of the 2010 Affordable Care Act." ...

... David Rogers of Politico: "... the Republican budget strategy in Congress shows almost daily signs of coming apart. The central premise, as sold by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, was that Washington could wipe out deficits in 10 years and protect defense spending, all while embracing the lower appropriations caps dictated by sequestration. Four months later, it's proving to be a bridge too far. Only three of the 12 annual spending bills have even been debated -- by far the worst record since the GOP took over the House. Against their better judgment, Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee have been required to cut important investments in science, community development and foreign aid. Senate Republicans are peeling off in protest -- setting up a crucial procedural vote at noon Tuesday on the transportation and housing budget." ...

... Matt Fuller of Roll Call on House Republicans' summer constituent outreach plan: basically, it's bash Washington & President Obama because they've got nothin'. ...

... Dana Milbank interviews John McCain, who has returned to maverick status. CW: a definite plus in ensuring Sunday show bookings. ...

... Ferinstance. Greg Sargent: "McCain has now said the American people will not put up with another round of GOP debt limit and government shutdown 'shenanigans.' McCain also bluntly warned House Republicans against using the debt limit fight to gain the repeal of Obamacare, which he said 'is not going to happen.'"

Bryon Tau of Politico: "With his ambitious second term agenda stalled, President Barack Obama sought to rally his most faithful activists Monday, calling on them to push back in the face of congressional paralysis. 'I'm going to need your help,' Obama told a crowd of Organizing for Action volunteers at a Washington, D.C. hotel":

Joe Nocera on three court rulings re: treatment of Guantanamo prisoners that won't change much.

Revolving Door. Ben Protess & Peter Lattman of the New York Times: "Robert Khuzami, a former a terrorism prosecutor and recent enforcement chief at the Securities and Exchange Commission, has taken a $5MM/year job at white shoe law firm Kirkland & Ellis. "In doing so, he is following the quintessential Washington script: an influential government insider becoming a paid advocate for industries he once policed."

Your Tax Dollars, Misplaced. Sarah Lynch of Reuters: "The U.S. Marshals Service has lost track of about 2,000 encrypted two-way radios worth millions of dollars, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing internal records it had obtained through a public records request. The paper reported that the problems date back to at least 2011, when the Marshals were deploying new versions of the radios to communicate in the field."

I could never lend myself to any transaction, however respectable, that would commercialize on the prestige and dignity of the office of the Presidency. -- Former President Harry Truman, who lived on an Army pension of $112.56 per month after leaving office

Last year, Bill Clinton earned seventeen million dollars giving speeches, including one before a company in Lagos that paid him seven hundred thousand dollars. -- George Packer of the New Yorker

Frank Bruni: "... some of the same dynamics that fed the crisis in Catholicism -- an aloof patriarchy, an insularity verging on superiority, a disinclination to get secular officials involved -- exist elsewhere. And the way they've played out in Orthodox Judaism illustrates anew that religion ... can ... be a self-preserving haven for wrongdoing."

New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan offers some insights into why Nate Silver left the Times for ESPN, despite the Times' reported efforts to retain him. ...

... Mike Allen of Politico has more.

Presidential Race

CW: I missed this last week, but I thought you'd want to know how the 2016 GOP race for the presidency is getting started. Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "Sens. Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Rand Paul (Ky.) ... were the key speakers at a meeting of 400 Iowa ministers and their spouses. The senators also attended an Iowa Republican Party fundraiser." ...

... AND this from Leonardo Blair in yesterday's Christian Post: "Hundreds of pastors in Iowa anointed U.S. Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul with a shower of prayers after they collectively promoted an agenda to abolish the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), get rid of Obamacare, champion religious freedom, defend marriage and fight abortion on Friday." ...

... MEANWHILE. Matea Gold of the Washington Post: "Long before any candidates announce their presidential bids, the next race for the White House is unofficially underway. Political operatives for two independent groups -- American Bridge 21st Century on the left and America Rising on the right -- are already tracking potential contenders, aiming to build robust research files that can be used against the opposition. The organizations are part of a wave of super PACs, advocacy groups and even for-profit corporations that are poised to play their biggest role yet in national politics."

Right Wing World *

Hucksters. Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon: conservative bloggers & media stars aren't selling only their phony political philosophy; they're also selling lots of worthless -- but expensive -- products to their ignorant fans. Seitz-Wald cites some egregious examples.

* Where the answer to "Have you no shame?" is always "No."

Local News

Bernie Woodall of Reuters: "Labor unions trying to stop Detroit from cutting pensions filed a new challenge to the city in bankruptcy court as the federal judge overseeing the case said he would hear arguments on Wednesday. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Steven Rhodes agreed on Monday to a request by Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr to fast track a hearing on whether other courts can hear lawsuits against Detroit, while it seeks federal bankruptcy court protection."

News Ledes

William & Kate leave the hospital & show off the new baby:

Reuters: " Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for simultaneous raids on two Iraqi prisons and said more than 500 inmates had been set free, in a statement posted on militant forums on Tuesday. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which was formed earlier this year through a merger between al Qaeda's affiliates in Syria and Iraq, said it had carried out the attacks on Abu Ghraib and Taji jails after months of preparation."

Washington Post: "Dennis Farina, a Chicago policeman who initially moonlighted as a movie actor for the comparatively easy money but quickly became an acclaimed staple of crime dramas and comedies, playing characters on both sides of the law, died July 22 in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was 69. The cause was a blood clot in a lung, said a spokeswoman...."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (6)

Margaret Sullivan, in her piece on Nate Silver's decision to jump ship from the Times to ESPN makes a cogent point about the type of paradigm shift brought to political analysis by Silver's statistical forays.

She likens it to the change brought about in professional baseball by statistical researchers like Bill James and employed by GMs like Billy Beane in Oakland and Theo Epstein in Boston.

It's an apt analogy. The rise of SABR (Society for American Baseball Research) geeks like James and John Thorn and Peter Palmer (whose 1985 book the Hidden Game of Baseball turned quite a few heads regarding the use of stats in determining a player's value and the relative effectiveness of things like stolen bases--hint, they're overrated) have introduced a dazzling array of new combination statistics which have dramatically changed how both the pros and the fans look at the game, much as Nate Silver has done for political junkies, at least those with the sense to pay attention.

For instance, the measure of a pitcher's worth used to be the ERA, earned run average. Today few people talk about ERAs. The big pitching stat today is the WHIP, walks and hits divided by innings pitched. The venerable batting average has given way to OPS (on base average plus slugging percentage). There's also Ultimate Zone Ratings, Wins Above Replacement, Defensive Runs Saved, and stats to measure the impact of particular ball parks. Statistics are a natural outgrowth of the sport embraced by most baseball fans but the adoption of the sabermetrics are still looked at with suspicion by those with strong links to "how it's always been done".

Those on the professional side who have declined to use newer, more accurate measures of talent and potential have become the Romneys of baseball. Confused losers.

Sad to see Nate go but I look forward to his number crunching on ESPN. It's unclear whether or not he'll still be scanning the political scene. I'm sure the Silver haters are celebrating. His apotheosis in accurately predicting the Rat's loss was their nadir (when I think of all the idiots who predicted a Rat/Fraud victory and how they had their asses royally kicked by Silver I think of that scene in Trading Places where the old guard are outfoxed by the newcomers:

Turn those machines back on!

Heh-heh.

July 23, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Kind of sad, if predictable, how the right is rushing to canonize Zimmerman for his "heroism". They simply need this guy to be a hero, to not be a cheap, cowardly, gun-toting, murdering racist. Which he is. I don't think I'm far off in opining that had he killed another white guy, the right wouldn't have given him a second look. He wouldn't have collected thousands of dollars from other racists, haters, gun lovers, and wingnuts.

But I forgot. This isn't about race. Right?

July 23, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

The whole Zimmerman to the rescue thing is just a bridge too far for me to believe. It looks to me like a carefully orchestrated attempt at rehabilitation that had a bunch of players pulling the strings. He is just dumb enough to be easily used. This isn't about Zimmerman anyway. Its about the Florida stand your ground laws, gun manufacturers and sellers and racism. Give it a couple days...as we all know, the first report of anything is seldom accurate.

July 23, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterDiane

Re: Vanity Fair essay

The essay reminds me of an unpleasant encounter I had with a "friend" a few years ago.

We were having a very pleasant dinner out with another couple in 2009. The wife at one point gently put her hand on my wrist, and said she had something very important to tell me. She said, "my doctor told me under "Obamacare" I would have died". She had a few years earlier been treated for breast cancer.

I told her that I didn't believe that to be true, and she responded, "I'm fighting Obamacare because I'm fighting for my life, and i don't care about other people". I became very angry, and excused myself to the ladies room in order to calm myself down. Mind you, I have another friend who has a full-time job that doesn't provide health care, and was at the time being treated for breast cancer. Fortunately, under Massachusetts "Romneycare" she received excellent treatment, and is doing well.

I was surprised how angry and upset I was at the restaurant. I just didn't (and still don't) understand the callous attitude of my "friend". Honestly, I don't know how to talk with these people.

At the same time her husband had been laid off, and was really pissed when Senator Scott Brown voted against extending unemployment benefits - was never going to vote for him again. Guess who both husband and wife voted for in the last election ......

July 23, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterJulie in Massachusetts

Just finished reading Kurt's piece. One hopes those that need to read it, read it. The outrage Kurt expresses and that we feel is so intense, so visceral that it pains us physically. Julie had to walk away from that silly, misinformed woman at the restaurant; we simply cannot afford to walk away from those callous others who are in charge of making decisions that will cause the death of so many women. And this deleterious legislation isn't, as we are well aware of, just in Texas.

July 23, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

"The surgeon told me that I would be able to see Theresa in the recovery room in about 45 minutes. She left, and I closed my eyes. Then, to my everlasting shame, I thanked God that we aren’t poor. I don’t want my wife to die of breast cancer, the way so many other Texas women soon will."

Mr. Eichenwald's last paragraph moved me to tears. I, too, have been so grateful over the past year that "we aren't poor" while I've dealt with a series of costly health issues that Medicare and my husband's company-provided health care have paid for in full.

Julie's lament, "Honestly, I don't know how to talk to these people," also resonates because I, too, am all too familiar with the selfish, uncaring individuals who would deny the less fortunate among us the health care benefits they themselves enjoy.

Also, what's with all these self-serving doctors telling patients they would have died under "Obamacare?" I've heard this repeated by others who heard the same sentiments expressed by their doctors. Are doctors really so greedy that any reevaluation of their charges resulting from health care reform would enable such blatant lies to flow so freely from their mouths? An other instance of *, see below.

And it isn't just the poor with no insurance that are doing without. My daughter-in-law, employed by Utah's largest health care provider, Intermountain Health Care, has put off seeing her doctor about severe ankle problems for the last 18 months because she can't afford the $350 per-person deductible she has to pay each year--she is still paying off the emergency appendectomy she had two years ago. Her 17-year-old daughter was cleated in the shin during a softball game and ended up with a 3" gash that really needed stitches. She told her mother she was afraid of needles and didn't want stitches, so her mom butterflied the gash together, and it eventually healed with a very nice scar as a perpetual reminder. My granddaughter later confided in me that she didn't want her mom and dad to have to pay the doctor bill for the stitches--17 and already worried about how to pay the medical bills. My daughter has a torn rotator cuff and has been in a great deal of pain for the past six months. She won't go to the doctor because she has to pay $3,500 of any necessary surgery costs and she is saving up to pay for it. Small scale worries in the scheme of things, but magnified by millions--in both cost and severity of the condition--of others across the country and we have a serious problem (as if I need to beat that dead horse).

This is insanity. All the time, effort, and MILLIONS of dollars spent trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act could have been spent improving it and helping all of us enjoy the benefits it provides. Instead, people's lives and pain are being used as idealogical weapons to ensure reelection for the bastards that hate government, want to drown it in the bathtub, and will say and do anything to become part of it to ensure their own financial futures and access to quality health care.

Marie has it pegged in the her "Right Wing World*" asterisked reply, * Where the answer to "Have you no shame?" is always "No."

July 23, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterJacquelyn
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