#American discovers healthcare

[lindstromm]

PARIS — Ariana Ramsey won an Olympic bronze medal with the U.S. women’s rugby team here last week. A few days later, something almost as exciting happened: She got a pap smear. For free. 

“Like, what?” she said in a post on TikTok describing her new discovery: The Olympic Village offers free healthcare. 

The United States, of course, does not. So in the days following her victory, Ramsey made appointments with the Village gynecologist, dentist and ophthalmologist. According to the Paris 2024 organizing committee, the Village also offers cardiology, orthopedics, physiotherapy, psychology, podiatry and, of course, sports medicine—all at no cost to the athletes. (Paralympic athletes will also have access to dermatology.)

Ramsey came to Paris as a rugby player. She is leaving as a healthcare influencer. More than 135,000 people have watched her initial TikTok, and another of the half-dozen follow-up videos she has made has pulled in more than 570 views. That is fine with her. The more she thinks about it, the more frustrated she is that she’s so astonished by the concept. 

“That’s just America and their privatized healthcare system,” she laments in an interview, adding, “I’ll fight for universal healthcare.”

The idea has gone viral in France: American discovers healthcare. “A lot of people are kind of making a joke about it,” she says. “Like, welcome to France.”

[captain-safetypants]

@nerves-nebula you are correct; it's "replacement" for healthcare. And yes, I'm pretty sure you can't get higher-dose pills than 200mg without a prescription. But with big bottles you can just take a bunch.

wait americans can just. buy massive bottles of ibuprofen what the fuck

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Everyday homeowners are human shields for Wall Street’s Internet of Shit slumlords

The American Dream, such as it is, used to be two dreams, one based on work and solidarity, the other on asset appreciation and disconnected individualism. We killed the first one.

As the New Deal gave way to the post-war social safety net, Americans discovered two paths to social mobility: they could join a union, and they could buy a home. Joining a union meant that your wages would rise with productivity, and that the democratic ideal that you were meant to approach once every two years at the ballot-box could follow you into the building you spent more waking hours in than any other: your jobsite.

Labor unions used their political power to win labor rights, so that even workers who weren't a union couldn't be arbitrarily fired, or maimed on the job with impunity, or harassed or abused. And while the labor movement was mired in the same racist legacy that every American institution brought forward out of genocide and slavery, where racialized people started unions of their own or demanded representation from the unions who nominally represented them, they thrived.

Then there were houses. On the one hand, owning your home insulated you from the petty tyranny of the landlord, the threat of eviction, rent hikes, indifferent or dangerous building maintenance, and all the other miseries that arise when you think of a building as your home and someone else thinks of it as an asset, and the board is tilted so that they win every argument.

But homeownership wasn't just sold as a way to get out from under scumbag landlords: it was primarily sold as a way to build intergenerational wealth. Your house wasn't just a place to live: it was an asset, and it appreciated.

And if the dividends of labor protection were unevenly distributed between white people and racial minorities, the dividends of home ownership were almost entirely hoarded by white families. Federal policies – redlining – combined with racist lending at the local level, meant that Black families and other racialized groups were stuck in tenancy, while white families build wealth thanks to federal subsidies:

https://web.archive.org/web/20170220005558/https://www.demos.org/sites/default/files/publications/Asset%20Value%20of%20Whiteness.pdf

Those were the two American dreams: a good job and your own home. We killed the first one, and the second one devoured us whole.

Without a strong labor movement, wages stagnated. Corporate power waxed, and with it, the power to pollute, to poison, to maim and to defraud. The labor movement wasn't strong enough to stop Reagan from killing free UC tuition when he was governor of California. It wasn't strong enough to hold back spiraling health care prices. It wasn't strong enough to block the business lobby from neutering antitrust and ushering in four decades of market concentration, market capture and corruption. Workers couldn't save their defined benefits pension and were railroaded into market-based 401(k)s, forcing them to play the stock casino against their bosses, ever the sucker at the poker table.

With stagnant wages and out of control medical, educational and end-of-life bills, homeownership – the thing you do as an individual, where your gain is someone else's loss – became the American secular religion. Your house wasn't just a place to sleep and keep your photo albums: if it appreciated enough, you might be able to liquidate it on your deathbed and pay off your eldercare, your healthcare, your kids' college debt, and leave enough left over for your kids' downpayments.

And so every American who had a home became the enemy of every American who didn't – including one another's children. Every home built threatened your own property values. The racist, batshit American school funding formula, which sees schools funded out of property taxes, meaning the richest kids get the best schools, turned out to be a great way to increase your property values.

Protections for tenants, meanwhile, threatened the entire American way of life – the American dream itself. Every protection a tenant got – protection from eviction or rent hikes, the legal right to a safe and well-maintained home – reduced the value of every home in town.

After all, the better a landlord has to treat their tenants, the less money a landlord can make from a rental property. The less money a landlord can make from a rental property, the less they'd bid on a house like yours if it went up for sale.

And since anyone planning to buy your house to live in it has to outbid a landlord who might want to rent it out, giving tenants any protection threatened everything – the one asset you owned, which was your plan a, b and c for paying off all that health, education, and assisted living debt:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/

Today, the house-as-asset scam is breathing its last. There are millions more people who need homes than there are homes available. Sure, homelessness is a fantastically complex problem, but you could address every aspect of it – addiction, mental illness, joblessness – and millions of people would still be homeless, because there aren't enough homes for them to live in:

https://headgum.com/factually-with-adam-conover/myths-about-homeless-people-with-dr-margot-kushel

70% of all inflation in 2024 came from the cost of housing; a quarter of that came from illegal collusive behavior by landlords to hike rents:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/up-to-a-quarter-of-rental-inflation

Wall Street landlords have raised gigantic war-chests and are buying up homes at a rate never before seen, converting every available single-family home in many cities from an owner-occupied home to a rental. Private equity and hedge fund landlords have elevated charging junk fees to an absurdist theater project: you pay a "convenience" charge for paying your rent in cash. But also for paying your rent by direct transfer. Oh, and also for paying in cash. When Wall Street is your landlord, your home is a slum, dangerously undermaintained, sometimes lethally so:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/08/wall-street-landlords/#the-new-slumlords

Capitalists hate capitalism. The best thing to sell is something your customer can't live without, and that no one else has for sale. That's why "the market" loves private prisons so much:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/02/captive-customers/#guillotine-watch

The vast sums Wall Street is putting into buying up all of America's available housing stock is a bet that they can establish regional monopolies over having a home, and charge all the market can bear.

That's the plan at Invitation Homes, a company that was just targeted by the FTC for a slate of eye-watering crimes against the tenants in the 80,000 single-family homes they've acquired:

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/09/ftc-takes-action-against-invitation-homes-deceiving-renters-charging-junk-fees-withholding-security

Invitation Homes purchases homes as they come on the market, and they're also a leading customer of the "build-to-rent" housing industry, a fast-growing segment of new housing starts.

Writing about the FTC's enforcement action against Invitation Homes, Matt Soller brings in Starwood Capital Group, who manage Invitation Homes properties, and own 14,000 more homes in the sunbelt. Invitation and Starwood hate the anti-monopoly movement, and Barry Sternlicht, Starwood's billionaire CEO, really hates FTC Chair Lina Khan:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-corporate-slumlords

The FTC complaint lays out a suite of just comically sleazy things ways that Invitation abuses its tenants, starting with false advertising. The company lists its houses at relatively low rents, then charges a large fee to apply to live there. When you pass the application process, you're told the rent is actually much higher, and if you walk away from the deal, you forfeit your application fee. That scam's netted Invitation $18m since 2019.

Stoller really hates junk fees, calling them "convenience fees without any convenience, service charges without any service performed." He lays out Invitation's long list of junk fees, which honestly sound like a list that Chatgpt would spit out if you prompted it for fifty junk fees that wouldn't pass the giggle-test: "utility management fees" "Lease Easy bundle fees," "air filter delivery fee," "smart home technology fees," etc etc.

"Smart home technology fee?" Yeah, Invitation's gone in hard for Internet of Shit smart home tech. The SVP who oversees Invitation's smart home fee program was ordered to "juice this hog" (you guys, juice doesn't come from hogs).

After decades of recruiting everyday American homeowners to demand anti-tenant policies that benefit giant corporations, American tenants have few rights on paper and even fewer in practice. That's left the door wide open for Invitation to abuse their tenants in a myriad of dismal and unimaginative ways: stealing their deposits, trashing their credit reports to retaliate against complaints, illegal evictions, busted appliances, mold, vermin, insects – the whole slumlord playbook.

As Stoller writes, there's a twist: "this landlord isn’t just a random slumlord, it’s one of the biggest Wall Street players in housing."

There are vast fortunes to be made in converting the human right to housing into an asset class, but those fortunes end up in the hands of a very small number of billionaires. On their own, they wouldn't have the political power to dismantle protections for tenants.

Realistically speaking, most kids who grew up in their parents' owner-occupied homes are going to end up tenants, thanks to undersupply and housing inflation. But those kids' parents have spent decades demanding policies to make their homes as valuable as possible – including mortgage tax breaks (but not rent tax breaks!), looser eviction laws, and less enforcement of what few protections tenants have.

Middle class homeowners are the useful idiots and human shields of the billionaires who are determined to force every American under 40 raise their kids in a rented slum full of spiders, ratshit and black mold, which will still cost 60% of their take-home salary.

That's why the FTC's action against Invitation Homes is such a big deal. And as Stoller points out, Chair Khan is really just implementing Kamala Harris's campaign promise to get Wall Street out of the landlord business.

Wall Street's raid on your bedroom and kitchen has inspired a generation of "finfluencer" copycats who buy and flip apartment buildings, sucking ever-larger amounts of cash out of them until they're unfit for human habitation, with mountains of rat-infested garbage ringing their crumbling walls:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/22/koteswar-jay-gajavelli/#if-you-ever-go-to-houston

Any future worth living in is going to get housing right. We need to stop thinking of housing as an asset and realize that it is, first and foremost, a human right. That's the premise of my 2023 solarpunk novel The Lost Cause, which just came out in paperback:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865946/thelostcause

You can't protect yourself from rising seas or rising healthcare bills through individual home-ownership. Solidarity – the kind of solidarity that once powered the union movement, and that is powering it again – is the only way to defeat the housing profiteers. The New Deal wasn't perfect, which is why whatever we do next has to be bigger, further reaching, and more inclusive than what FDR did almost a century ago.

The only minority that should be excluded from the next New Deal is billionaires.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/01/housing-is-a-human-right/#rentier-tech

Image: Sam Valadi (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/132084522@N05/17086570218/

Carlos Delgado (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wall_Street_-_New_York_Stock_Exchange.jpg

CC BY 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[macgyvermedical]

I'm in the middle of a career change and a tentative asthma diagnosis (ie. no tests yet but it's on my record and my doctor is approaching it as such). What was healthcare like before protections were in place for people with pre-existing conditions? What should I do if I can't get health insurance? Should I try to get undiagnosed or something??? My symptoms are sporadic and usually mild so I can get through it without the inhaler if I had to, I'm just worried about losing access to all healthcare (also afab 😓) and want to be prepared to navigate things since I know it was way worse for chronic illnesses before the ACA.

The ACA was gigantic and it would be hard to talk about every aspect in this post.

Generally speaking, prior to the ACA, you essentially had three options. You could get health insurance through an employer, you could get health insurance through the state (medicaid), and you could get health insurance through an individual plan.

Seems pretty similar to today, right?

Nope.

See, the easiest way to get health insurance would be through a job. But if you had a pre-existing condition, including pregnancy or even simply being AFAB, in most states nobody legally had to cover you- including your employer. And if they did, they could say "you have health insurance for everything except the treatment of your chronic condition(s)" or make you pay significantly more for your premiums. Or, y'know, both (the idea being- if you sought medical care for one thing, you might do it again, and that would cost the insurance company profit*).

When you applied for health coverage through an employer, you had to disclose every medical problem you had ever had, including one-off problems like ear infections or broken bones. Anything could be grounds for not covering you at the outset. BUT if you didn't list a problem, and it was discovered (and they really went hard to find things), that could be grounds for rescission- the process of kicking you off insurance and forcing you to pay back money that the insurance had previously paid out for you.

If you didn't have a job or made extremely- and I mean extremely- little money, you might qualify for the state-sponsored medicaid, assuming you fell into a category that medicaid covered in your state. These categories included low-income children, some parents of children who lived at or below 64% of the federal poverty line (though in some states the parents had to have income as low as 15% of the FPL (less than $4,000/year for a family of 3)), older adults who had few assets or income, people on disability, and pregnant people up to 60 days post delivery. If you were a childless, able-bodied (at least in the eyes of the government) non-pregnant adult between 19-64, even if you made next to nothing? Pretty much forget about getting medicaid.

As far as I know, there were not a ton of changes made to medicare, the other major government insurance program for people over 65 years of age or who were severely disabled).

So what about individual plans? Well, first off, there was no marketplace (you couldn't compare plans from different companies) and no guaranteed coverage. Similar to plans through an employer, there was nothing protecting you from rescission or denial for even minor medical problems.

Most states, however, allowed something called "high risk pools" i.e. people who had pre-existing conditions and were looking for insurance could pay double what "healthy" people paid in premiums (often literally thousands of dollars per month) in order to have insurance. Even with these exorbitantly expensive plans, it would often be 12 months before they would start covering any pre-existing conditions. This meant that people had to pay their premiums and also out of pocket for their chronic care management for the first year of having insurance.

So what do you do if you're one of the near quarter of Americans who didn't have insurance through their employer, didn't qualify for medicaid, and couldn't afford the private insurance market?

You went into debt, or you died.

No, like, literally. You either agreed to medical care costing 10's or even 100's of thousands of dollars, or you didn't. For yourself or for your kids. Think about that- Would you pay (read, put yourself or your family into debt) half a million dollars for a surgery that saved your life? Your kid's life? These were the kinds of decisions that had to be made.

Back to your question:

Should you try to get un-diagnosed? Well no. That's asking for a rescission if the ACA is overturned. Contact me directly if you want more personal info about planning.

*and it's not like they aren't making a 10s-of-billions profit even with the ACA protections

[workersolidarity]

[ 📹 Scenes of massive destruction and rescue efforts following an Israeli airstrike that targeted a residential home in the Al-Hasayna neighborhood, west of the Nuseirat Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, resulting in more than a dozen casualties, including women and children. ]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

DAY 258: ISRAELI OCCUPATION UNPREPARED FOR WAR WITH HEZBOLLAH, ESTIMATED ONLY 50 HOSTAGES STILL ALIVE IN GAZA, OCCUPATION DESTRUCTION LEAVES 67% OF INFRASTRUCTURE DESTROYED, AMERICAN FLOATING PIER TO RESUME OPERATIONS ON THURSDAY, GENOCIDE GOES ON FOR YET ANOTHER DAY

On 258th day of the Israeli occupation's ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 4 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 35 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, while another 130 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.

It should be noted that as a result of the constant Israeli bombardment of Gaza's healthcare system, infrastructure, residential and commercial buildings, local paramedic and civil defense crews are unable to recover countless hundreds, even thousands, of victims who remain trapped under the rubble, or who's bodies remain strewn across the streets of Gaza.

This leaves the official death toll vastly undercounted as Gaza's healthcare officials are unable to accurately tally those killed and maimed in this genocide, which must be kept in mind when considering the scale of the mass murder.

"We are in a bad situation and are not ready for a real war," the CEO for Israel's government-owned Noga electric company, Shaul Goldstein said at the National Security Research Institute conference, held in Sderot in the occupied territories.

According to reporting in the Hebrew media, Goldstein was asked whether he could guarantee that their would be electricity in the Israeli entity in a future war with Hezbollah, responding that "the answer is no, but we will rely on Israeli resourcefulness. Israel is an energy island and we have to provide for ourselves - this is also our advantage, we are trained to work on the island."

"When I took office and began to investigate what the real threat is to the electricity sector, I asked - let's say a missile hits the electricity sector and there is a power outage for an hour, three hours, 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours and so on. What happens in such a situation to Israel?" Goldstein said, throwing back his own question, answering that "The bottom line is that after 72 hours - It is impossible to live in Israel."

"People don't understand how much our lives here depend on electricity," Goldstein continued, "I have 15 inspectors across the country, if there's a power outage then after 5 hours I don't have a phone to call him. Let's say he receives a carrier pigeon after 12 hours - the same inspector arrives at a gas station but there's no gas, Not a single gas station is working, at each station there is a queue of at least 30 km, if not more."

"All our infrastructure - the optical fibers, the ports - we are in a bad state. We are not ready for a real war. We live in a fantasy world in my eyes. The good thing is that we have invested a lot in protection, a joint team with the electric company as well."

Goldstein went on to say that "If Nasrallah [of Hezbollah] wants to take down Israel's electricity grid, he only has to pick up the phone to the person in charge of Beirut's electricity system, which looks exactly like Israel's. He doesn't even need a UAV filming, he calls a second-year electrical engineer and asks him where the most critical points are in Israel. Everything is on the internet, I'm not saying it here but anyone who goes on the internet discovers it."

"The recognition of our situation has not penetrated. If the war is postponed for a year, five years, a decade - our situation will be better," Goldstein added.

In response to Goldstein's statements, the CEO of the electric company Meir Spiegler stated that "Shaul Goldstein's statement regarding the lack of resilience of the electric network is irresponsible, disconnected from reality and creates panic among the public."

Similarly, the Occupation's Energy Ministry also responded, issuing a statement stating that "the Ministry wishes to clarify that the energy economy in Israel is robust and ready to deal with all possible scenarios."

The Ministry continued by saying that "since the beginning of the war, the Ministry has worked tirelessly to ensure the supply of energy to all citizens of the country, while carefully preparing for extreme scenarios and possible disruptions in supply. These efforts are carried out in close cooperation with the security authorities, with the aim of managing electricity demand, energy surplus and fuel stocks."

"The energy sector is organized according to the national reference scenario established by the National Emergency Authority (Rachel). There are several scenarios and the Alta scenario, where over 60% of households may be left without electricity for up to 72 hours, is an extreme scenario and the probability of this is low. However, the ministry is constantly working to reduce the likelihood of the scenario materializing and to prepare for an exit as quickly as possible from the Alta situation, should it indeed materialize," the Energy Ministry said.

"All the relevant bodies, including the Noga company and the electric company, are acting in accordance with the emergency scenario of Rahel and the professional guidelines of the ministry. The Ministry of Energy calls on the citizens of Israel to prepare in accordance with the directives of the Home Front Command, including equipping themselves with batteries, water and portable chargers, in order to ensure maximum preparedness in emergency situations," the Energy Ministry concluded.

In other news today, Thursday, June 20th, an American official, speaking with the Wall Street Journal, told the newspaper that the number of Israeli hostages still alive in the Gaza Strip is considerably less than the official estimates given in "Israel".

According to the official, whose conclusion is based upon Israeli intelligence, suggests the number of hostages still held alive in Gaza now numbers about 50, out of an original approximation of 120 hostages, suggesting that as many as 70 of the hostages have already died.

This number contradicts the data officially published by the Zionist entity, which suggests that just 43 abductees have been killed while in captivity.

So far, the bodies of 19 hostages have been returned to "Israel" in special operations, including 8 over the last three months.

In the meantime, in other news, two US officials spoke with Reuters today, telling the news organization that the floating dock built by the Americans is expected to resume operations to unload Humanitarian aid for starving and desperate Palestinians on Thursday.

The two officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the pier had been reconstructed on Wednesday after being temporarily dismantled last Friday due to poor sea conditions.

Humanitarian aid began arriving through the US-built pier on May 17th, while the United Nations said it had transported 137 truckloads of aid to its warehouses in Gaza, equivalent to about 900 tons of aid.

The Americans have also previously received criticism for supposedly allowing the Israeli occupation army to use the pier during its recent rescue operation to recover four Israeli hostages being held in Gaza, an operation in which the occupation army hid its soldiers using humanitarian aid trucks and which led to the deaths of 274 Palestinians and wounded another 698.

In further news, on Wednesday, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) said that the Zionist entity has now destroyed 67% of the civilian infrastructure of the Gaza Strip since the start of the Occupation's war of genocide, including roads, bridges, public facilities, parks, sewage systems and water wells.

The organization also noted that the Israeli occupation has completely destroyed all water wells and sewage pumps, and that the process of pumping sewage has been halted entirely for 8 months as a result of the Occupation's destruction of Gaza's infrastructure and the depletion of fuel, causing large areas of the Palestinian enclave to become flooded with sewage.

Further, the Palestinian refugee organization also mentioned that all areas of Gaza are without water following the Israeli occupation's destruction of 90% of the enclave's water wells by bombing, shelling and a lack of fuel.

Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation continues its random bombing and shelling of Gaza, leaving dozens of casualties across multiple sectors of the Strip.

According to local reporting, medical sources in Gaza told Palestinian media outlets that two female civilians were killed, and 12 others wounded, after Zionist warplanes bombed a house belonging to the Jadallah family, in the Al-Hasayna neighborhood of the Nuseirat Camp, in the central Gaza Strip.

Occupation artillery shelling also targeted neighborhoods east of the Bureij Camp, along with the Al-Maghazi Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, while also targeting central and western neighborhoods of the city of Rafah and east of Khan Yunis, in the south of Gaza.

Speaking with the local media, Mayor of Rafah, Ahmed Al-Sufi, said the Israeli occupation's destruction of the Rafah border crossing aimed to make the Gaza Strip unfit for life, further pointing out that the occupation forces continue to destroy entire residential squares in the Saudi neighborhood, and that the occupation has also destroyed more than 70% of Rafah's infrastructure.

The Zionist army also bombed a gathering of merchants and aid protection committees on Salah al-Din Street, east of the city of Rafah, killing at least 11 Palestinians and wounding up to 30 others, some of whom remain in critical condition.

Further Occupation artillery shelling targeted the vicinity of the Al-Alam roundabout, west of Rafah, killing two Palestinians and bringing the total number of Palestinians killed in the city today to 23.

The Israeli occupation forces are also continuing to advance with reinforcements towards the west of Rafah, while destroying entire residential blocks nearly constantly.

North of Gaza, the occupation army bombed a gathering of civilians in the Shujaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, killing one Palestinian and wounding at least five others.

Zionist fighter jets also bombed residential buildings on Kashko Street in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City, resulting in the deaths of three civilians from the Aslim family.

Occupation warplanes also bombed in the vicinity of Jabal al-Rayes, east of the Al-Tuffah neighborhood, east of Gaza City, while two civilians were killed when an Israeli drone fired a missile at them.

According to medical sources with Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital said they'd received the bodies of two martyrs after being targeted by a missile from an Israeli drone on Al-Sikka Street, in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City.

Meanwhile, in another attack, a Zionist reconnaissance drone fired a missile towards a gathering of civilians in the city of Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, killing one Palestinian and wounding a number of others.

As a result of the Israeli occupation's ongoing war of extermination in the Gaza Strip, the infinitely rising death toll now exceeds 37'431 Palestinians killed, including over 15'000 children and upwards of 10'000 women, while another 85'653 others have been wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression, beginning with the events of October 7th, 2023.

June 20th, 2024

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#videosource

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[middlingmay]

I come begging for some happy todcl headcanons bc I’d like to live in ur beautiful universe rather than my reality as an American 😭

I'm sorry, anon. I can't believe this has happened for a second time. Whilst I respect everyone's right to vote how they deem fit, I'll never understand their choice. Or how he was allowed to run in the first place.

Whilst where I live and our political parties certainly have their problems, I'm also living in a world with: workers rights including flexible working and a push against zero hour contracts and fire and rehire; tenants rights; buffer zones for abortion clinics; free period products; a push towards the Gender Recognition (Scotland) Bill; progress towards a circular, greener economy; the Muirburn Bill and protection for Raptor species; discussions on the Assisted Dying Bill; and free prescriptions and the NHS (which even in its worst and sorriest state, still gives me free healthcare). Scotland has a strong conservative bent as a society, there's no point pretending otherwise, and this absolutely includes misogyny, sectarianism out the wazoo and other religious intolerance and racism. But politically we are trying to expand rights, protection, and freedom of choices. Not restrict them.

But! That it not what you came to my inbox for! Happy TODCL headcanons, here we go:

We all know John likes to squeeze Gale's waist, but Gale likes to do it back just as much, if not more. He loves John's thickness. Not because it makes him feel small or anything, he just loves grabbing him and touching him and feeling something solid and soft and tangible under his hands. It makes John feel real to him, when he thought he was never going to get anything like their relationship in his life.

John often takes them on a drive just before sunset. He loves sitting there with the top down, Gale's head in his lap and his long legs dangling out the window, and watching the sun go down.

Crosby and Gale become keen penpals after Crosby moves away. He mentions Will in his letters sometimes, and Gale glares at those letters so hard, it's a miracle they don't burst into flame.

John is ticklish, but just on his feet. Gale discovers this when his hands gets too close in bed one day and next thing he knows he's blinking at the ceiling and John is peering over the edge of the bed at him, wide-eyed. Gale strategises how to make best use of this discovery.

Gale very quickly discovers he's got a lot of fantasies and a lot of thoughts that had just been waiting for the opportunity to come pouring out. John thinks he's going to have to guide Gale through the intimacy in their relationship but he surprisingly has to try to keep up with him.

I hope that at least makes you feel a little better anon. I have a bunch more but a lot of them are plot related and I don't want to give anything away.

[heian-era-housewife]

Going North

This is not a fic. But it is a story. My story. Or at least, part of it.

When I started this blog I wanted to maintain as much anonymity as possible. Six months in and here I find myself publicly journaling my most guarded secrets. Funny how things change.

Warnings: ⚠️⚠️⚠️ Please proceed with caution. I have done my best to put the appropriate tw/cw tags in place, but be aware this post mentions nonconsensual sex, SA, suicide, mental health, mental illness, grief, and loss.

I'm writing to you from the depths of a very severe depressive episode and hoping that, in doing so, I may start to find my way out.

So...where do I begin?

For those who don't know I am, regrettably, American. This election has affected me more profoundly than I could ever have imagined.

I recently discovered that my entire family, including my parents- who have always been my best friends, voted for the man who represents everything I reject. Everything I despise.

This comes during a time I find myself exploring and redefining my gender identity. During a time where the healthcare system has repeatedly failed me in treatment and diagnosis of a reproductive condition. During a time when I am learning that ectopic pregnancy is a potentially fatal reality for me. While living in a state where abortion and life-saving reproductive care have been made illegal.

I was 13 the first time I was raped. With 8 months of continuous and repeated rape and sexual assault to follow. The only person I told was my family doctor. A Christian. Who told me sexual activity was an act against God. I never spoke of it again.

Not until I was 18 and had my first "real boyfriend". In explaining why I wanted to wait to be intimate, I told him my story, unaware he would weaponize it. Once again I found myself an unwilling participant in an act called "love". Only this time it was years, not months. The day I escaped I was punched in the face and thrown down the stairs. I still have a scar on my leg from fleeing my boyfriend assailant.

I ran to the safest person I knew. A friend from high school. A kind and gentle person. Someone who, in time, would show me that love and intimacy can exist in a non-toxic capacity. And though our eventual relationship would come to end in mutual respect as he came to explore his own sexuality and gender identity, I still credit him with playing a role in saving me.

Unfortunately, I was unable to return the favor when, just two months ago, he took his own life on the eve of his 30th birthday. I can't say for certain why he chose to end his journey, but I can only imagine that his race as a POC and sexuality were attributing factors as we stare down a future of continued systemic hate and bigotry.

In some ways, I still consider myself lucky. I never became pregnant. I never lost hope in finding love. I am married to a wonderful man who supports my every endeavor. His kindness is unrivaled, and his empathy knows no bounds. He meets me in my darkest places. He reminds me why I must continue to fight- to live. Even on the days I no longer want to...

And now, with the recent election, and the terrifying days ahead, I can't help but feel sometimes that it really is me and him against the world.

My family has chosen to stand behind a man who promised to lower the price of eggs, while creating a country wherein my life and those of countless other are at risk. Where it seems our validity as human beings is in question.

I am not even sure how I am supposed to continue a normal job, when every waking moment I am revisited by the traumas of my past with people shouting "Your body, my choice". Or fearing that another friend may take their life in the wake of the hatred that is blooming here.

I miss my parents. I used to call them every day. Now I am unsure how to even speak with them.

I am unsure of a lot of things.

In large part thanks to friends I have made here, I have begun the process of seeking further psychological support and evaluation.

Moving forward, I also plan to put more time and energy into my art. I am currently seeking ways to support myself financially in a work-from-home capacity as my deteriorating mental health is making working a regular job nearly impossible at the moment.

I'd like to remain active on this blog and continue building friendships over the love of JJK- something that, as silly as it is, brings me so much joy.

I hope that, if you've read this far, you'll continue this journey with me. And if you have read this far, thank you so much for being part of my life, sharing in my memories, my grief, my struggles. Thank you for listening to this story. Hopefully the next few I post will be more cheerful, and fictional, of course.

Thank you also to my international friends who have shown so much incredible love and support. You have no idea how much it means to be extended a friendly hand in a time where the world is justifiably furious with and untrusting of Americans.

I want to fight for a brighter future. I want to see what happens if we don't give up. I am determined to find peace and to one day look back on this post and be glad I chose to go North.

With love and gratitude,

Yuri 🩷

[keep-both-eyes-on-trump]

I grew up in a swing state, in a rural county, surrounded by white people and steeped in traditional Catholic values. I grew up staunchly conservative surrounded by similarly conservative people. My neighborhood was all white. My mom once told me a story about how a black family had been run out of our small town. My school class had almost one-hundred fifty students with one black girl who’d been adopted into a white family and one native american boy. In high school there was one out gay boy who wasn’t even in my grade and six teen pregnancies that were in my grade. 

As I was approaching official adulthood, the ripe old age of eighteen, I was already drawing away from some of my family’s core values. I was no longer attending church on Sundays, to my father’s existential horror that he had failed to save my soul, having reached the conclusion that their teachings on the sins of queer people and the expected submissiveness of women were wildly off base. I was generally in favor of then President Obama’s policies despite my family’s overt assertions that he was one of the worst presidents in recent history. Though I had been a supporter of John McCain in 2008, unable to vote, by November 2012 I was in my first semester of college surrounded by more diversity than ever before and tentatively supportive of Barack Obama and even more tentatively hopeful he would win again. 

When asked, I told my parents truthfully that I hadn’t voted and received a lecture on my failure to uphold my civic duty. I did not mention that I was more than satisfied with the outcome of the election. 

Like many who attend higher education, especially those in my chosen field of social work, I became more and more democratic with my views during my three years spent completing my degree. By the time I moved to one of the largest cities in my state to complete my graduate degree, I was what Trump would refer to as “radically” and “dangerously” left and, as you know from my first post, voted for the first time for Hillary Clinton in 2016. 

This time, when asked if I voted, I lied. I also began to test the waters, bringing up topics to discuss that I had previously avoided only to discover that my family was as conservative through and through as I remembered and more than a few of them were openly dismayed at how college had “libralized” me even though I had admitted to nothing. 

Since then I’ve remained silent when politics are brought up, when racist or sexist comments are made, and when my cousin called her gay principle “disgusting” for having a family photo on his desk. I’ve said nothing when family called President Biden a failure or a “fucking idiot”, claimed that women shouldn’t be president, and believed Trump did the best he could with COVID-19 pandemic, if they even acknowledged it as a pandemic at all. 

I stayed silent out of fear. I was, am, afraid of their reactions, of what they would say to me and about me if I voiced just how divergent my opinions are from theirs. If I said outright, “I am Pro-Choice, I believe in supporting LGBTQ+ rights and protections and teaching comprehensive sex education to children, I agree with universal healthcare and free public post-secondary education and student loan forgiveness.” 

I’ve lied out of fear too. Lied about voting, lied about getting flu and COVID vaccines, lied about being queer. 

And now it’s time to stop. And this is the first step. Putting metaphorical pen to metaphorical paper, shouting out into the void and entrenching myself in what I used to ignore. It may take a moment before I challenge anyone in my life outright but that’s okay. It’s the steps forward that count, it’s holding on to what you believe and speaking out in whatever way is achievable for you. 

If you, like me, find yourself surrounded today by those who subscribe to far-right beliefs, remember: they may be louder, they may be meaner, but you are not alone. We are here with you. 

The Watcher

[jeneelestrange]

The best weird info dump hobby to get into when you have a chronic illness is historical medicine and quackery. It’s like misinformation mithraditism in that in helps keep you falling for absolutely insane bullshit out of sheer desperation that is just there to take your money, because after a while you will start to notice certain cycles and patterns to how this works(we just discovered a new thing in the body and don’t entirely understand how it works? It must CURE EVERYTHING)

Also it serves a very important constant psychological purpose in that you can think, “Ok yes, we are all trapped in the Byzantine American healthcare system which is set up to help absolutely no one not even the people inside it—healthcare execs only. HOWEVER, at least I wasn’t born a hundred years ago, because I would be dead. I would be dead-dead.”

I can’t tell you HOW MANY PEOPLE I ENCOUNTER are like “But we never used to have conditions like high cholesterol and all these pills for it, what did they do back then huh?????” THEY DIED, JANET. They died of tuberculosis, or fucking pellagra because their diet is made up entirely of hard tack and corn pone, or poisoned milk, or they bled out in child birth from having ten children half of which ALSO died before their first birthday from communicable diseases we now solve with vaccines and antibiotics. Your great Uncle Longevity Georg who survives entirely on whiskey and cigarettes and is somehow a hundred and two years old is somewhat of a fucking outlier, go walk in a really old cemetery sometime and see all the baby graves and get back to me. I may not be healthy but holy shit at least I’m not antivax

[shannendoherty-fans]

Shannen Doherty’s Untimely Death Sparks Important Conversations About Healthcare Access And Equity

By Janice Gassam Asare

Shannen Doherty, the actress best known for her roles in Beverly Hills, 90210 and Charmed has died after a long battle with cancer, at the age of 53. In a 2015 statement to People magazine, the actress revealed her breast cancer diagnosis, stating that she was “undergoing treatment” and that she was suing a firm and its former business manager for causing her to lose her health insurance due to a failure to pay the insurance premiums. According to reports, in a lawsuit Doherty shared that she hired a firm for tax, accounting, and investment services, among other things, and that part of their role was to make her health insurance premium payments to the Screen Actors Guild; Doherty claimed that their failure to make the premium payments in 2014 caused her health insurance to lapse until the re-enrollment period in 2015. When Doherty went in for a checkup in March of 2015, the cancer was discovered, at which time it had spread. In the lawsuit, Doherty indicated that if she had insurance, she would have been able to get the checkup sooner—the cancer would have been discovered, and she could have avoided chemotherapy and a mastectomy.

Under the IRS, actors are often classified as independent contractors, which comes with its own set of challenges. Although it is unclear what Doherty’s situation was, for many independent contractors, obtaining health insurance can be difficult. Trying to get health insurance as an independent contractor can be a costly and convoluted process. A 2020 Actors’ Equity Association survey indicated that “more than 80% of nonunion actors and stage managers in California have been misclassified as independent contractors.” A 2021 research study revealed that self-employment (which is what independent contractors are considered to be) was associated with a higher likelihood of being uninsured.

Doherty’s tragic situation invites a larger conversation about healthcare access and equity in the United States. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as “Obamacare,” was signed into law in 2010 and revolutionized healthcare access in two distinct ways: “creating health insurance marketplaces with federal financial assistance that reduces premiums and deductibles and by allowing states to expand Medicaid to adults with household incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level.” The ACA helped reduce the number of uninsured Americans and expanded healthcare access to those most in need. It also helped close gaps in coverage for different populations, including those with pre-existing health conditions, lower-income individuals, part-time workers, and those from historically excluded and marginalized populations.

Despite strides made through the ACA, healthcare access and equity are still persistent issues, especially within marginalized communities. Research from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) examining 2010-2022 data indicated that in 2022, non-elderly American Indian and Alaska Natives (AIAN) and Hispanic people had the greatest uninsured rates (19.1% and 18% respectively). When compared with their white counterparts, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islanders (NHOPI) and Black people also had higher uninsured rates at 12.7% and 10%, respectively. The Commonwealth Fund reported that between 2013 and 2021, “states that expanded Medicaid eligibility had higher rates of insurance coverage and health care access, with smaller disparities between racial/ethnic groups and larger improvements, than states that didn’t expand Medicaid.” It’s important to note that if a Republican president is elected, Project 2025, the far-right policy proposal document, seeks to upend Medicaid as we know it by introducing limits on the amount of time that a person can receive Medicaid.

When peeling back the layers to examine these racial and ethnic differences in more detail, the Brookings Institute noted in 2020 that the refusal of several states to expand Medicaid could be one contributing factor. One 2017 research study found that some underrepresented racial groups were more likely to experience insurance loss than their white counterparts. The study indicated that for Black and Hispanic populations, specific trigger events were more likely, as well as “socioeconomic characteristics” that were linked to more insurance loss and slower insurance gain. The study also noted that in the U.S., health insurance access was associated with employment and and marriage and that Black and Hispanic populations were “disadvantaged in both areas.”

Equity in and access to healthcare is fundamental, but bias is omnipresent. Age bias, for example, is a pervasive issue in breast cancer treatment. Research also indicates that racial bias is a prevalent issue—because the current guidelines in breast cancer screenings are based on white populations, this can lead to a delayed diagnosis for women from non-white communities. Our health is one of our greatest assets and healthcare should be a basic human right, no matter what state or country you live in. As a society, we must ensure that healthcare is available, affordable and accessible to all citizens. After all, how can a country call itself great if so many of its citizens, especially those most marginalized and vulnerable, don’t have access to healthcare?

[anniegetyourbubblegum]

I keep seeing posts from people in the US debating whether to vote for Biden in their upcoming elections to stop Trump from winning again or to punish the democrats for aiding Israel in the genocide of Palestine.

I'm argentinian and as far as I'm concerned, you should vote for whichever candidate you think will benefit you more, because you're from the US and that's all it's good for. The rest of the world will continue to suffer at your hands no matter what. Let me explain.

Democrats and republicans are not a representation of left and right wing politics: both parties are on the right side of the spectrum, only the GOP is more honest about it.

Republicans, as right wing parties do, run on promises of austerity, reducing taxes and being tough on crime. Democrats run promising to use tax money to ease your life: affordable healthcare, education and housing, all guaranteed so you can live the life of a first world citizen.

And then, they don't deliver.

You still have school shootings, massive incarceration, corruption in all levels of government, and the poorest pay a higher proportion of taxes than the richest. Healthcare, education and housing are extremely expensive and often require people to get into heavy debt to afford to have their most basic needs met, and that's only possible if you have good credit.

It's a reductive analysis for the sake of brevity, but you get the gist. The point is that having you be poor and afraid is the goal: it's a feature, not a bug.

You want to go to college? You need to buy a house? You want to start a family? Well, the military complex needs bodies! The US has far too many enemies to their way of life, so they'll need people to defend it! In exchange, they'll "guarantee" just enough money that you won't be destitute.

The US spends the most amount of money on their military in the world, by a long shot. To justify spending that kind of money, you HAVE to have wars. To have wars, you need enemies.

So, you get propaganda. "Muslims are extremists and hate our way of life." "Latin americans want to come to our country and steal our jobs." "China and Russia are communist countries that are waiting to destroy us." And you gobble it up.

You love it so much. It's in your news, in your videogames, in your movies and TV series and comic books. So, when they ask you to fight, you go running! You'll get some money out of it and you'll get to live your life the way you were promised. Sure, PTSD from the horrors is a given, but there's pills for that! And award winning movies about how difficult it is to go to war! It's all covered.

So the small, poor countries that you invade lose their money, natural resources, and their sovereignty but HEY, you brought democracy there! And the US is protected from this many enemies! Mission accomplished, right?

Well, as a citizen of a third world country whose current president is an insane pawn of the GOP, I'd like to say fuck you. He was placed so that the US could take our recently discovered lithium, and you'll get it. Enjoy your shitty iPhone 5000 I guess. It'll come at the small price of the hunger of my countrymen, but since Twitter user dan91883719 says argentinians all descend from escaped nazis, I guess it's alright.

Israel has killed Palestinians and illegally expanded its borders for over 70 years. Both democrats and republicans have sent aid and weapons to make this possible. It's in the US best interests to have conflict in the Middle East and have an ally control the area. Israel is a feature, not a bug.

And those of you who vote blue? You're trapped. Even if you know it's shit, you're unable to organize. Instead of rallying to form a new party, or a at least get a better candidate, you keep voting bad instead of worse and pat yourselves on the back for a job well done. Democrats are well aware of this and that's why they run on platforms that promise to make your life better and then sit back and say "our hands are tied" when you lose rights.

So, if you're still doubting it, vote for whoever the fuck you want. The war machine that you call 'country' won't stop no matter who's president, because those who hold the real power are already getting exactly what they want from it. Your suffering as US citizens is just as planned as the suffering of those who live outside of it.

TL,DR: Vote for whichever candidate you feel will defend your interests best. Lord knows it won't make a lick of difference for the rest of the world, because both political parties have the same plans when it comes to foreign policy.

[archivalofsins]

Huh- wild week so far. Well, I guess this is less about this one week and more about the past three years.

On top of yesterday, I had a disability court hearing today. Something that had been stressing me out for a while in private.

That got postponed for later due to paperwork issues. Yet at that brief meeting it became abundantly clear to the judge, my mother, my sister, a friend, and their mom-

Yep, still disabled. Most definitely.

So, let's postpone until you get the representative paperwork that is required by law as of eight days ago in because you cannot do this without one.

Then after that my sister discovered that the psychiatrist who's been purposely blocking me from disability and accommodations for going three years as of 08/17/24. This woman is literally mentioned in the court document 334 times and the document itself is a total of 375 pages. Yeah that person became a limited liability psychiatric specialist. Something that means she is protected when it comes to cases of malpractice.

Neato. Love to see a bad bitch winning, gaslight, gatekeep, get legally protected from screwing over your patients by becoming limited liability~

That psychiatrist who I have mentioned here before was mentally abusive, dehumanized/infantilized me, withheld my diagnosis forms (for several months after testing completed), tried to get me institutionalized by claiming I was suicidal because I stated I was cutting ties with her after getting said forms, and retroactively changed my diagnosis after I cut ties while claiming I hadn't done that despite the fact I sent her a formal sign and dated letter stating I was doing that.

This is the state of american mental health care if you're black. I suppose-

Yet, some know-it-alls will still go if you have x why aren't you diagnosed. Prove it go on.

I've been in what can only be referred to as Schrodinger's diagnoses since 2022 because of this one woman. This one psychiatrist. Who for all I know is legally protected from the consequences of her actions now. Like the things she actively choose to do which includes lying Social Security Administration with malicious intent which is perjury.

Something that has led to several ever postponing court hearings based on her words alone. Each time going well maybe it will be over after this. Maybe, this will be the last time. Even worse I'm pretty sure if I was still living in the city where I was born (where it's difficult to even get a mail in ballot for some people), this may not have even gotten as far as being seen by a judge.

I genuinely thought well that's just how things are for African Americans for like the past several years. Because it is this lady's actions weren't new to me when she did it yeah it was terrible but I literally said multiple times well that's just how it goes.

Until this phone call today where several people went hey these are actually egregiously horrid circumstances and this bitch is insane.

She deserves to be sued. So, at this point, if anyone tries to act like early diagnosis isn't a privilege afforded to a lucky few- They can honestly kiss my whole ass. I don't have time to explain the intersectionality of race and class when it comes to the mental healthcare one is capable of obtaining be it through school, vocation, or familial intervention outside of what I'm typing right now.

Which is the most extreme case in my circle of associates. Even my mother was like "Oh my god she never told why didn't you explain in depth." to which I went oh yeah I forgot about that like it was just a casual thing.

Because everything else is fucking outlandish the therapist before her refused to test me because I could hold a conversation and believed critical race theory shouldn't be taught in schools which dates that interaction rather well. At that point the bar was in the fucking in the fucking ground I just wanted to get tested. That's not even touching on how most people only test children for the things I wanted to get tested for which was the issue with the critical race theory shouldn't be taught in schools psychiatrist.

My current therapist the one into Milgram has been like oh my gosh I'm just happy you wanted to continue therapy- Because this literally happened while I was seeing her. The person retesting me for adhd was like oh my gosh I'm just happy you're trying again. Meanwhile my ass has been here like it's not big deal shit happens no reason to give up on seeking treatment and lose faith in psychology as a whole. I like psychology people don't always use it right but it is a truly great field of study and tool for navigating life.

Which I still believe is a fair reaction but maybe not a strong enough one considering the last person who diagnosed me literally tried to have me arrested due to said diagnosis. Then went lol there's nothing wrong with her to a court of law in order to make it as difficult as possible for me to get disability or accommodations in any way.

Also learned my visual processing is slow and it's immensely understandable I'm not okay with driving and that's been my Tuesday. I have therapy at four pm.

In short fuck people who commit malpractice~

This shit is not fun to go through but at least I'm still alive. Next year I'll be thirty dealing with the fall out of something that happened when I was literally-

This shit is impressive. What the actual fuck is my life right now? I hope this ends soon but now my family, my friend and her mom are discussing suing this woman. Because got damn this is a lot... Fuck it. It happens to others too probably I don't know any others but like if it happened to me it's happening to someone else probably as I type this because,

Sources

Forbes Advisor: Medical Malpractice Statistics Of 2024 The Law Offices Of Jaroslawicz & Jaros, PLLC: When Can You Sue a Mental Health Professional for Malpractice? Lipkin & Apter: Types of Psychiatric Malpractice

Learning a lot today. Know your rights I suppose. Well I can take solace in knowing some of the prisoners experiences with this have been just as bad. Silver linings you know it's happen to more people because it's somewhat being represented in media for once instead of blatantly fucking ignored.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

On July 14, I'm giving the closing keynote for the fifteenth HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH, in QUEENS, NY. Happy Bastille Day! On July 20, I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

#15yrsago Myths about Canadian healthcare https://www.denverpost.com/2009/06/04/debunking-canadian-health-care-myths/

#15yrsago Abstinence doesn’t work for IT or for teens https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/jun/16/computer-security-abstinence

#15yrsago Scam artists con Apple into killing app that tells you when the bus is due in San Francisco https://web.archive.org/web/20090627161346/http://sfappeal.com/news/2009/06/who-owns-sfmta-arrival-data.php

#10yrsago US inches towards decriminalizing phone unlocking https://www.techdirt.com/2014/06/25/year-half-later-unlocking-your-phone-one-step-closer-to-being-legal/

#10yrsago North Korea threatens “merciless” war against the US over Seth Rogen movie https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-28014069

#10yrsago Copyfraud, uncertainty and doubt: the vanishing online public domain https://medium.com/@xor/houston-we-have-a-public-domain-problem-bd971c57dfdc

#10yrsago Charlie Stross on the stop/go nature of technological change https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/06/yapcna-2014-keynote-programmin.html

#10yrsago Lurking inside Obama’s secret drone law: another secret drone law https://www.techdirt.com/2014/06/25/enough-secret-law-newly-released-doj-drone-killing-justification-memo-points-to-another-secret-drone-memo/

#10yrsago Kleargear must pay $306,750 for trashing a complaining customer’s credit https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/kleargear-must-pay-306750-to-couple-that-left-negative-review/

#5yrsago Podcast number 300: “Adversarial Interoperability: Reviving an Elegant Weapon From a More Civilized Age to Slay Today’s Monopolies” https://ia903004.us.archive.org/11/items/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_300/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_300_-_Adversarial_Interoperability.mp3

#5yrsago How China ingests and adapts western culture https://aeon.co/essays/how-china-remakes-its-cultural-imports-from-the-west

#5yrsago Prosecutors and federal judges collaborate with corporations to seal evidence of public safety risks, sentencing hundreds of thousands of Americans to death https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-courts-secrecy-judges/

#5yrsago EU expert panel calls for a ban on AI-based risk-scoring and limits on mass surveillance https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/26/18759447/eu-ai-ethical-policy-recommendations-ban-mass-scoring-surveillance

#5yrsago You treasure what you measure: how KPIs make software dystopias https://web.archive.org/web/20190622092434/https://datascience.columbia.edu/ethical-principles-okrs-and-kpis-what-youtube-and-facebook-could-learn-tukey#.XRMxf5DB5eg.twitter

#5yrsato Dieselgate 2.0: 42,000 Mercedes diesels recalled for “illegal software” https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/06/german-regulator-says-it-discovered-new-illegal-software-on-daimler-diesels/

#5yrsago Insulin: why the price of a 100-year-old drug has tripled in a decade https://prospect.org/health/insulin-racket/

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

[fandomshatepeopleofcolor]

I met a doctor who explained to me that many "rare" diseases are now more common because before they were extremely underdiagnosed and are still underdiagnosed due to the lack of access to exams, etc. Many people of color receive a late diagnosis or live without ever receiving it. My cousin was lucky enough to receive great medical care while he was working in another country and discovered a brain condition, in USA no doctor was interested in finding out what was happening to him.

yeah that's so shitty. I hope he got good medical care!!! but the american healthcare system is so broken. like obamacare was a great step forward but there's still so much racism and doctors not taking patients seriously.

mod ali

[tyote]

WASHINGTON — Upon returning from his brief diplomatic trip to the Middle East, President Joe Biden urged the nation Thursday not to let dangerous online rhetoric humanize Palestinians.

“As the war between Israel and Hamas rages on, I urge my fellow Americans to remain vigilant, and not fall for any false propaganda that claims people living in Gaza and the West Bank are worthy of human life,” said the 46th president, adding that since the war had begun, U.S. intelligence had discovered countless bad actors flooding the internet with reports that many Palestinians were mothers, fathers, and children who were not terrorists and did not deserve to be trapped without food, water, or fuel while being carpet-bombed into submission.

“If you hear a Palestinian being described with terminology like ‘son,’ ‘daughter,’ or ‘in desperate need of medical attention,’ then you should be aware that what you are reading has been specifically designed to stoke empathy.”

At press time, Biden added that Americans should also avoid dangerous propaganda that wrongly asserts the billions of dollars in military aid the United States has sent to Israel could be spent on things like healthcare, education, or alleviating poverty at home.

[spitblaze]

thoughts continue to percolate on Jobswap AU

So, as aforementioned, Therion is a surgeon apothecary who lost faith in himself and his profession after losing a patient who had some significance to him after a preventable accident and then being accosted by the family in his grief. He gave up the whole thing for several years, living in relative isolation close to Bolderfall. Until one day, when a desperate woman shows up at the door and begs for his help. She had heard he was an apothecary with knife skills, and sought him out immediately. Her younger sister, she says, has a giant growth on her neck, and if it doesn't come off soon, it's going to kill her. Other apothecaries have tried, but they all said it was impossible, that it was too difficult to remove it without damaging her wind pipe or major arteries. Or something. Idk. The point is that this situation is really dire and this kid reminds him of the patient he lost so he pulls the scalpel out 'one last time' to save her. She lives, and he remembers why he took up the mantle to start- the purpose of the apothecary. Doing this, he takes his journey.

Chapters two and three are mostly unrelated, basically chapters of Black Jack. Therion goes from town to town, sometimes charging ridiculous amounts of money for surgery, sometimes performing completely free of charge. He saves whoever he can, and those who abuse his abilities for their own gain find themselves with karmic retribution. Throughout the whole thing, though, there's the undercurrent of something worse happening. Another surgeon like him, traveling and charging ridiculous fees. He's a miracle worker, they say- he provides entire new organs when old ones fail, pulls people back from the very brink of death. But when his patients can't pay up, they mysteriously disappear...

Chapter four. Therion meets Darius. Fellow apothecary, wealthy fellow, personal doctor to the Ciannos. He has a proposal for Therion- they go into business, establish their own practice, charge out the nose and turn away all who don't pay. They both have reputations- Therion is the Beast Apothecary, a medic who works so fast and so precise it's almost inhuman, not afraid to use unorthodox methods to achieve his results. Darius is the Miracle Apothecary, a man who can seemingly bring people back from the brink of death with tools and materials nobody else has. The two of them together could do whatever they want, and who would stop them? Therion declines- he prefers the freedom of traveling where he pleases and doing as he wishes. A partnership would complicate things, and put him on more of a leash than he'd like. Besides, he's heard...rumors about what happens to his patients that don't pay up. Darius threatens him and leaves, and Therion investigates later on. Maybe follows some goons from the home of someone who hasn't paid, maybe scopes out Darius's 'hideout' by putting together information given to him by locals. Either way, he gets in, and discovers that Darius has been kidnapping the patients who don't pay up and harvesting their blood and tissue and organs. Horrifying! He fucking kills Darius. Darius tries to give him that 'you're no better than me' schtick but it doesnt work because he's regained his faith! In himself! In his profession! And I'm American so in my head it's a whole criticism of the for-profit healthcare industry!!! FUCK you Darius

Because I like it when stories cross over and it isn't actually a game trying to make sure you can complete all the stories in whatever order you want, Darius is also a major player in Alfyn's story! Alfyn lost his parents to the plague that swept through Clearbrook as a child. He survived thanks to a traveling apothecary, but he had nowhere to go after that ('but what about zeph' idk shh dont worry about it), and ended up turning to a life of petty theft after hitching a ride to Saintsbridge. He joins up with a group of thieves called the Red Hoods, as their newest and youngest member. They're all pretty cool people, somewhere between Robin Hood and Ye Olde Mutual Aid Organization. They look out for themselves and the little guy, steal from the rich, give to the poor, skim a bit off the top.

These guys are his best friends for years, he hones his skills as a thief, learned how the world works and how to help, basically everything he knows he learned from the Red Hoods. All is well until six years before present day, when Alfyn is fifteen. The Red Hoods plan a heist on the Ciannos, a crime family that's been terrorizing locals and hoarding money. Alfyn is briefly held up by helping a kid do something, look for their cat or whatever but makes it to the meeting point in time to see that they were lured into a trap. He peeks from behind a doorway, seeing a red-haired figure laugh about how gullible they were, how trusting and naive they all were for trusting each other. All of his friends are beaten and bloodied, some already dead. One sees him from the doorway and tells him to run, to get out while he still can. To keep the Red Hoods alive. Unable to act, Alfyn flees, only barely evading becoming a victim himself.

Years later he's still saddled with grief and survivor's guilt, thinking that if he had just said no to the kid who asked for help, if he had just taken a different route, if he had just been there to scout ahead, if, if, if. He's carried on the name of the Red Hoods as a one-man gang, unable to bring himself to allow anyone else into his heart that he could just lose in an instant again. He leaves calling cards after robbing the wealthy and unjust blind and redistributing it among the lower class. He does this until he happens to redistribute the wealth from the one family he shouldn't have- the Ravuses. From here it's basically Therion's story, except with Alfyn. You know how it goes. Get the Dragonstones and we'll remove the Blackmail Bracelet.

The end of his story coincides with Therion's story (also thematically appropriate bc im incapable of not giving them a slow burn romance) when they finally confront Darius. Darius comments on how the 'little coward thief' or whatever finally grew a spine, and how he can meet his end like the rest of his little friends. No longer afraid, Alfyn loudly declares that as long as he's alive, the Red Hoods will never die, and in a moment of solidarity, the rest of the party declares that they too are Red Hoods. Its very touching and inspirational and worthy of some Toby Fox music and then they beat the everloving shit out of Darius.

I am aware there are several holes in this story. And to that I say: Don't Worry About It.