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master-sass-blast · 5 years ago

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Whole list for Ellie, pls!!!!

Can diddly do, darling! Going under a cut, because again, Longe.

What is their favourite food: Mac and cheese. Cheesy potatoes. Pizza. Really, any combination of cheese and carbs.

Do they have a fear of an animal? If so, what animal: She’s not a fan of seagulls. Stupid fucking sky rats.

What do they wear to bed: Whatever. Actual pajamas, leggings and shirt, t shirt and gym shorts, whatever works.

Do they like cuddling: Yes, but she doesn’t initiate much after losing her family due to dealing with the trauma from that.

Do they have a secret handshake with anyone: She has one with Leo that changes every time they do it. It mostly exists to annoy Zach.

What do they look like: Ellie is a Very Petite, 13 year old girl, with pale skin, a round face, round, dark brown eyes, a button nose, pouty lips, and stick straight, pitch black hair. She’s too cute to be a mini-vessel of anger and murder.

Do they like chocolate: Yes. She loves chocolate. She’ll straight up eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Frank nearly has a coronary over her dietary habits, but he doesn’t have room to complain because he eats stuff straight out of a can with his Ka-bar.

What are their good and bad traits: Ellie is innovative, creative, and determined, but also aggressive, headstrong to the point of being difficult to work with, and steps past a lot of rules in order to “experiment” with different ideas.

Do they have any artistic talent: She plays the violin and eventually winds up taking dance classes and theater classes with Leo as a way to “keep her brain happy” (at the suggestion of David), but that’s about it.

What is their favourite room to be in, in the house they live in: Once Ellie, Frank, and Karen finally settle in a house? The dining room. They all spend the most time together there.

Do they believe in luck: No. There’s coincidence and probability, but luck in and of itself cannot be scientifically proven. Besides, luck is for people who don’t believe in effort.

Can they do magic: Real magic? No. Sleight of hand magic? Also no.

Do they believe in dragons: As a possible, past existing creature? The common media depictions had to come from somewhere.

What is a pet peeve of theirs: Being talked down to. She can’t stand it. She’s smart, she knows she’s smart, and she will be spoken to as such, thank you very much.

What was the last thing they cried about: In the order of the story? Being adopted by Frank and Karen, though she does get weepy over losing her family (as is natural).

What is their sexuality: She’s a babby gay, and later identifies as a lesbian when she’s older.

Do they have a best friend? If so, who, and what makes them their best friend: Leo Lieberman. They bond while Frank helps David keep an eye on his family, over their mutual love for academics and learning things, and from there they’re just... *crosses fingers* like that.

Have they ever been in a romantic relationship: Yes. Ellie and Leo do wind up dating (once they’re older, which probably won’t be covered in the story, but their mutual interest is hinted at).

What does their relationship with their family look like? Are they close? Distant? Ect: Before her biological family’s passing, she was closest with one her four brothers, Andrew, who was closest to her in age at 21. She was relatively close with her other siblings, save for her sister, whom she is heavily estranged from. Her biological mother died when she was two, and her biological father abused her by exploiting her intellect and mutation set for his own gain, but it takes Ellie a while to recognize that. Post being adopted by Frank and Karen, she’s closer to Frank due to having spent more time with him, but she still loves Karen dearly.

Do they have a pet: In the “good ending,” they get a black and white pitbull named Oreo.

Do they have a familiar: Still dunno what that is, so no.

Are they a supernatural being: Nope.

How do they usually wear their hair: Ellie’s hairstyle changes throughout the story/series. It’s longer at the beginning, then she shaves her head when Frank does (because she asks and he figures there’s no harm so he helps her shave her head), then grows it out longer on the top like he does in S2 of the Punisher, then wears it as an angled bob for S3 of Daredevil, and by the end of the story it’s about shoulder-length again. Eventually, she settles on switching between on longer on the top, shorter sides and the angled bob as her favorites.

Can they play an instrument? If so, what instrument and what can they play: The violin, and she plays just about anything on it.

What type a high schooler are/were they: Ellie graduated high school at the age of nine, so... yeah.

Have they ever been in a physical fight before? If so, with who? Who won: Several. It comes with the territory with being Frank’s “sidekick.” She wins most of them, though does take some notable loses to Billy Russo and Agent Pointdexter.

What is their favourite holiday: Halloween. Hands down.

If they could have one wish, what would they wish for: She doesn’t necessarily believe in wishes, since they usually create various paradoxes.

Do they wants kids? If they already have kids, do they want more: She’s too young to consider having kids during the story, but when she gets older she decides she doesn’t necessarily want any.

Do they have a job: She’s thirteen, so no.

Do they know how to drive: Yes. Her biological father made a point of teaching her how to handle just about any vehicle or craft.

Do they get stressed out easily: Not really. She has her snapping points (being talked down to, people she cares about getting hurt, etc), but all in all she’s pretty easy going.

Did they ever dye their hair before? If so, to what colour? Did they like it: She dyes it magenta when she’s sixteen with Karen’s help and LOVES it.

Have they ever broken the law: Yes. Many times. So many times.

Do they own a plant: Ellie and Frank both fall into the category of “would kill a plastic plant, somehow,” so no.

Have they ever rode a horse before: No.

What is their favorite gif: Don’t have an answer for this, so pass.

Do they get along with others easily: Not really. Ellie can run the end of being argumentative and superior, so she can be difficult to get along with at times.

Do they have any tattoos: Nope.

If I wanted to draw them, what would be distinct physical features that I would have to know to draw them correctly: She has to look like the most innocent, adorable, non-murdery teenage ever. Round face, button nose, big, round eyes, pouty lips, whole nine yards. Very pale skin, very dark hair, very dark eyes.

What is their favourite breed of dog: Ellie hasn’t met a dog she didn’t like.

Do they live with anyone? If so, who: Frank, at the beginning of the story, and then Frank and Karen at the end.

Where is their dream vacation: Ellie traveled a lot when she was younger due to her biological dad’s line of “work,” so she’s seen good chunks of the world. She’d probably enjoy going back to France or Iceland the most, though.

Do they know more than one language: Yes. Ellie speaks English, German, Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish, and Arabic fluently, and is conversational in French and Italian.

Are they a quick learner: Extremely.

Have they ever won a contest before? If so, what for? What did they win: Not really. Her biological father had her more focused on studying as much as she could, so she didn’t enter any contests growing up.

If the world were to end in 24 hours, where would they be and who would they be with: She’d stick close to Frank, Karen, Curtis, and the Liebermans.

What does their room look like: In the “good ending,” Ellie’s room is painted shades of purple and blue, and has a desk with a chair, a dresser, and a double bed in it.

If they could have an extinct animal for a pet, what would they have: Probably a Dodo bird.

If they got called out by someone, what would they do: Argue with them. Ellie’s “flight mode” was replaced with extra fight.

Have they ever shot a gun before: Yes.

Have they ever been axe throwing: No.

What is something that they want but can’t have: The ability to kill the worst billionaires of the world and redistribute their funds to those who need them, and that’s only because there’s no way to do that without getting caught and getting other people in trouble.

Do they know how to fish: No.

What is something they always wanted to do but too scared: Scuba diving.

Do they own their own baby pictures: No.

What makes them standout among others: The way she speaks. She’s very intense in her voice and how she talks, which draws a lot of attention.

Do they like to show off: Yes. One hundred percent. She likes the praise.

What is their favourite song: It changes, but one of her consistent faves is “I Love It” by Icona Pop.

What would be their dream vehicle: Stealth bomber jet.

What is their favourite book: Percy Jackson series.

Who, in their opinion, makes the best food: Karen. Frank eats MREs like they’re going out of style.

Are they approachable: She looks it, but she doesn’t talk it.

Did they ever change their appearance: Yeah. She goes through a few phases of figuring out what style suits her best as she grows up.

What makes them smile: Dumb jokes, making Frank, Karen, and Leo laugh, and fail compilations.

Do they like glowsticks: Sure. Who doesn’t?

What is something that is simple, but always makes them smile: Seeing/talking to Leo.

Are they a day or night person: Night.

Are they allergic to anything: Nope.

What do you, the creator of this OC, like most about them: She’s a spitfire, and she challenges Frank to come out of his shell more.

Who is their ride or die: Frank, Karen, Curtis, and the Lieberman family.

Do they currently have a significant other? If not, are they going to get one later one: She and Leo date when they’re older, but that probably won’t be featured in any of the stories.

What attracts them to another person: Intelligence, humor, and willingness to question rules, ethics, and morals.

Who is one person that can always make them laugh: Leo Lieberman.

Have they ever partied too hard and their friends had to take them home: No.

Who would be their cuddle buddy: Leo is her first go to, but Frank and Karen also step up when she needs/wants it.

Who would cheer them up after a long day: Probably Frank, Karen, or Leo.

If they had a nightmare, who would they run to: Frank or Karen. They understand having the types of nightmares that she has.

What object to the care for the most: A phone built for her by her deceased brother, Andrew.

Do they like other people’s children: Eh, not really.

How would they react if someone broke into their home: Kill the intruder.

Does anyone make them have butterflies in their stomach: Leo Lieberman.

What is something that they are good at: Aside from her innate talents, she’s good at crossword puzzles.

What is their neutral expression: She looks like an adorable woodland fairy.

Do they like to cook: Not really.

What is something they can’t leave home without: The phone her brother built for her. It has access to her family’s private satellite network, their stores of information and blackmail data, and their private bank accounts.

Who is someone that they rely on: Frank. Ellie relies on him for protection (despite her abilities, she’s still thirteen) and companionship.

Do they liked to be tickled: Only by Leo.

Have they ever been a sword fight before: Yes.

What is a joke that they would find funny: Any dumb pun in existence.

Do they have a place that can go and turn off their brain: The Lieberman’s house. She really just gets to be a kid there.

What was their childhood like: Kinda tragic, considering her family’s death and the abuse she took from her biological father and sister.

What are they like as an adult: Ellie comes out well-adjusted, all things considered. She does land in the anti-social personality disorder spectrum, but she’s high-functioning and can blend in with society, for the most part. She does wind up picking up the Punisher mantle when Frank retires, citing that “someone needs to purge the city of its scum” as her reason.

Do they take criticism well: If it’s well founded? Sure. If it isn’t? Absolutely not.

Have they ever jumped out of a plane: No.

Who do they like to make jokes with: Frank, Karen, and Leo.

Have you ever drawn them before? If you are comfortable with it, would you post a picture: I have, but I don’t have anything of her I want to post yet.

#sass answers #the duckling verse #ellen 'ellie' long

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mathryoshka · 7 years ago

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Bench Flower. | 1

42, the number that represents the answer to mankind’s curiosity towards life, universe, and everything. —The Hitchhiker Guide to The Galaxy.

genre: angst, friendship.

chapter(s): ¼.

summary: during pre-debut days, 3RACHA encounters empty hopes. it’s up to them to sink or conquer. (insp: track 42 by 3RACHA. (listen here )

CB97 // J-ONE // SPEARB // 3RACHA.

CB97.

He’s in a surreal dream. Chan finds himself in a dark symmetrical cubicle, and the world outside is painted plain white. Bars descend down the upper corner of the cube, occluding the open way out that leads him to the illuminated realm ahead. He dons nothing but a black piece of cloth. In his hands is a small white paper box with its lid wide open, the logo Marlboro printed upon it with carmine accent. Yet, instead of cigarettes, it’s filled with yellow daffodils—half of them rotten to the core.

He’s in a surreal dream. When he turns around, he sees himself: reflected against the aging mirror with grotesque ebony molds unfolding at each hem. A youthful Chan stares back, his narrow, feverish eyes still bright with the intensity of passion. The intensity of desire. He says with a high-pitched voice that makes him quiver : “Let me be you.” He tries to reach out, but the mirror is an obstacle.

Every night Chan dreams of the surrealist sequence. Day by day he gradually figures out that his reflection is not trying to reach for neither his hand nor his face. He’s reaching for the fresh, vibrant daffodils stacked in the left side of the box, the one representing golden yellow in his appearance. One particular night, he manages to break through the mirror and claw at the petals, ripping them apart in one clenched fist. Pain shoots up from the rear of his bare feet when one flower is crumpled flat against his brutal strength, sending Chan staggering and screaming at the great surge of torment. The pain burns.

Chan wakes up to Jisung’s concerned face and his strong grip clinging onto his biceps. Frantically, the leader brushes off the tears staining his pale face and breathes, “I’m fine,” while his heart emerges with an enormous hole of emptiness whose origin remains an anecdote of paradox.

It’s the day 42 is born. I’ve been thinking about my life. He has been pondering of how could rose bleed against its thorns. How could the bird of dodo die of its adaptive scorns. Is it better if I die? He’s losing chances, the opportunities to gleam. How could his friends rise, and he stays off the ground? Before I fall asleep forever, Give up the fight. He’s on the verge of surrendering. I’m trying to find feeling within this emptiness.”

The initial lines of 42 is first submitted to Changbin and Jisung in the form of a memo on the phone, as Chan lies weak beneath the pressure of common cold. Jisung’s befuddled, while Changbin has more flowing wit to acknowledge the quality of wrongness in each syllable written by the oldest amongst all. “Why are you like this, hyung?” Changbin asks, his agitation raw and crystal clear.

Chan pulls his blanket, making a huge ball of human out of himself. “It’s to raise awareness,” He says. “I want them to relate to our pain as teenagers. I want them to make our track the representative of their darkest thoughts. This track will voice their feelings out.”

Jisung tries to clap it all out, manifesting a false appreciation towards his senior’s composition. He beams out his best grin, only to assure Chan that everything will go along his regulations. Yet deep down, both Jisung and Changbin become alerted. There’s something wrong in the way Chan smiles that day. Perhaps it’s the fever, but the faint spark in his eyes array something else darker.

The surrealism of his life marches on. The dream alters into a vast pool of water; pistine and glistening against the dim chamber. At the corner of his eyes he sees shadows of strangers that disappear when he turns. He holds a firmly lit torch, a chain looping around the wood like a serpent on a tree pursuing for preys. His fist is bleeding from coming to a direct contact with the spiky iron, but his nerves are numb. Deep beneath the horizontal line that divides the layers of water loiters the plant of tiger lily, dancing along to a silent hymn, seemingly alive. Chan fathoms nothing of the story that his dreams tries to tell, nothing of the small hints that emerge in the formation of things. Before him, stands the older version of himself clad in white, handing out the small box of Marlboro that he held in a dream a few weeks ago. “The daffodils.” He says. “It’s yours to keep.” As Chan touches the box, the iron chain breaks off and the world spins.

#stray kids #stray kids scenarios #stray kids fanfic #stray kids drabbles #bang chan #seo changbin #han jisung #kim woojin #kim seungmin #lee minho #lee felix #hwang hyunjin #yang jeongin #stray kids chan #stray kids jisung #stray kids changbin #3racha

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asarahworld-writes · 7 years ago

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Time Again

@timepetalsprompts Martha meets Liz

In a laboratory at the UNIT base, Doctor Elizabeth Shaw checked her part of an experiment involving the effects of something long-winded and practically unintelligible to the average person living in the late twentieth century. For someone who knew the Doctor, however, the experiment was a way to prove to him that the scientists at UNIT were – BANG!

Liz looked up to see black smoke pouring from inside the police box. She hurried to the door (it wouldn’t do for the Brigadier to come in and see that she’d let the Doctor kill himself), and the Doctor leaned on her, coughing. He was muttering under his breath as she helped him to a chair. A dreadful noise sounded, a sort of mechanical wheezing, and the Doctor leapt to his feet, as much as he was able to leap.

“No,” he cried rasply. Much to her surprise, a second police box appeared next to the Doctor’s. A man stepped out of the second box, followed closely by a woman. The man was in the middle of explaining something, but he trailed off as he noticed his surroundings.

“Guessing this isn’t Axos four then,” the woman quipped. “Where are we? Wait, hold on, when are we?”

The man grinned. “I have absolutely no idea.”

The Doctor straightened. “Hello,” he said civilly. “What brings you here?”

The other man looked at the Doctor, then his eyes wandered to the TARDIS, and finally landed on Liz. “Oh. Hello. Sorry, didn’t mean land here. Must have typed in a one instead of a zero in the space-time coordinates and the TARDIS brought us here.”

“A most fine excuse for crossing one’s timeline, Doctor,” the Doctor said, striding over to where the other man stood.

“Crossing one’s timeline?” The woman asked. “Hold on, Doctor, are you here somewhere else?” Doctor? Liz thought. That’s completely impossible.

“Here somewhere else?” The Doctor said, affronted. “I assure you, my dear, that I am the Doctor. The definitive article, of course.”

“Okay, fine, yes. Okay, Martha Jones, meet the Doctor. Doctor, Martha Jones,” the man in pinstripes said. His eyes lit when spotted her across the room. “Liz! Liz Shaw!” He sprinted over and enveloped her in an embrace. Liz stiffened.

“Hello.”

“Hello,” the man said cockily.

“Do I know you?” Liz ducked out of the man’s arms.

“I should think so,” the man said, wounded. “I’m the Doctor.” Liz looked from the stranger to the Doctor.

“He’s you?” She asked, incredulous. She could hear the other woman asking the other man the same question.

“Apparently,” the Doctor replied.

Liz looked back at the new Doctor. “From the future?”

“Certainly not the past.” An idea came to the Doctor. “Yes, I wonder…” And with that, he cut off his successor, asking questions about the Time Lords and his personal future.

Liz turned to the woman. “We may be here a while. The Doctor tends to technobabble quite a lot. I shouldn’t wonder if he talks your Doctor’s ear off. Shall we get a coffee…?”

“Martha. Martha Jones. Coffee sounds amazing, you would not believe the day I’ve had. Then again, you know the Doctor so maybe you would.” She laughed incredulously. “Something normal will feel really nice.”

“This way. I don’t believe that they’ll even notice we’ve gone.” Liz led the other woman into the corridor.

“Who’re you?” Sergeant Benton was at the end of the corridor.

“She’s with me,” Liz said calmly.

“Doctor Shaw, all due respect, only the Brigadier can approve guests on the base.” Benton unclipped his radio. “’Benton to the Brigadier. Unauthorized guests in the Doctor’s lab. Repeat: unauthorized guests in the Doctor’s lab.’ Sorry, miss, but I’ll have to ask you to stay here, at least until you’ve been authorized by the Brigadier.”

“She’s with the Doctor,” Liz looked at Benton, who stood his ground. Luckily, the Brigadier wasn’t too far away.

“Benton, report.”

Liz jumped in before the sergeant could say a word. “She’s with the Doctor. He’s in his lab. We’re getting coffee. If you want to know more, go speak with the Doctor. I daresay he knows more about the situation that we do.”

The Brigadier looked from Benton to Liz and nodded. “Shaw, Benton. Dismissed.”

“We’re just getting a coffee, sergeant. Would you join us?” Liz asked, more kindly. Benton declined, and the two women carried on.

“I suppose it’s safe to assume that he somehow gets that box working again, in the future,” Liz commented.

“I never even knew that the TARDIS could break,” Martha chuckled. “How long’s he been here?”

“Oh, about four months.”

“He must be going spare,” Martha thought about her Doctor, who never seemed to sit still.

“I suppose. He’s always tinkering on that machine of his, unless the Brigadier sends him on assignment.”

“Liz, when exactly are we? Yesterday, we were in Lake District around 1900. The day before, we met a dodo. Like, the extinct bird. And then we were in 1930s Manhattan.1”

“You’re not telling me that that box really is a time machine?” She shook her head. “I suppose if anyone’s mad enough to invent a time machine, it would be the Doctor. It’s March, the nineteenth, nineteen-seventy.”

“Nineteen-seventy. I’ve not even been born yet, but I think this is the closest to home I’ve been in a long time.” Martha’s voice was slightly wistful, thinking of a home that did not exist. “So, what did you do before the Doctor turned up?”

“I was drafted to be UNIT’s scientific advisor. When the Doctor showed up, the Brigadier recruited him and, don’t tell him this, mind, since he had greater experience in the field, he took my job.” Liz closed her eyes. “Or the job’s been unofficially divided into junior and senior positions.” Liz shrugged. “Could be worse, I suppose. They might have gotten rid of me altogether.” She motioned to Martha to relate her story.

“I met him at work. The hospital was taken to the moon by space police rhinos. I’m a doctor, at least I will be if I ever take my exams,” she chuckled.

“Medical, I assume?” At Martha’s nod, Liz continued. “I studied medicine and physics at university, myself.”

“Right, now we’ve got two proper doctors and two Doctors,” Martha grinned. “That was really bad, wasn’t it?” Liz nodded, pressing a hand against her smirk.

“Martha! Right, well, we’re not going to tear a hole in the fabric of reality, and there’s not a paradox. Well, not yet. Which is why we’ve got to go.” The Doctor, Martha’ Doctor, came jogging from the lab. He looked at Liz and smiled. “I hope you haven’t told each other too many wild tales about me,” he scratched the back of his neck.

“Well, actually, we didn’t discuss you at all, did we Liz?” Martha exchanged a look with the other woman, who smirked.

“Of course not.” Liz started back for the lab, followed by the Doctor and Martha.

Martha waved to Liz before stepping into the TARDIS. The Doctor put his hand on the door, turning to look at his old friends. “Oh, what the hell,” he muttered. He shook his own hand, or rather, that of his younger self. “We spent all that time pretending to be old and wise, and then we were you. All racing around in Bessie and doing experiments. Can I say, Doctor, even though I didn’t have the TARDIS, I loved being you. Here, look,” the Doctor opened his overcoat. “Coloured linings? That’s you.” He grinned.

“To days yet to pass,” the younger Doctor nodded, smiling, crossing his arms under his cape.

“Liz,” the Doctor hugged her. “You are brilliant and don’t ever let me tell you otherwise.”

“Like that would happen,” Liz said dryly, smirking.

“Brigadier!” His voice squeaked. The Brig raised an eyebrow. “Erhm, yes, well,” the Doctor cleared his throat. A multitude of expression came over his face, too quickly to identify. The Doctor swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Thank you. For everything. I never said when I was him, and, you were there when I needed you. Now, I might not have admitted it before, buuuuut,” he scratched his neck, “well, anyway.” The Brigadier extended his hand, smirking beneath his moustache. The Doctor, beaming, shook it heartily. “Oh, what the hell,” he exclaimed, pulling the Brig in for a hug. “I might not like UNIT, but I could always count on you,” he told the younger man.

He paused once more, hand on the TARDIS’ door, before disappearing back into the time vortex.

1. Sting of the Zygons. The Last Dodo. Evolution of the Daleks.

#timepetalsprompts #timepetals ficlets #dw fanfic #The Tenth Doctor #The Third Doctor #Martha Jones #Liz Shaw

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nofomoartworld · 8 years ago

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Hyperallergic: The Biodiversity of the World Captured in Five Centuries of Animal Art

“Bengal tiger,” watercolor by a Calcutta artist (1820) (Hastings Albums, courtesy British Library)

A Bengal tiger does not travel well, and especially didn’t in the centuries before sedation and airplanes. But 19th-century scientists in England could study its stripes from afar thanks to the international trade of art, long a vital medium for scientific understanding. The Paper Zoo: 500 Years of Animals in Art by science historian Charlotte Sleigh, out March 8 from the University of Chicago Press, is a lushly illustrated publication with 250 images from the British Library chronicling how scientific art has expressed biodiversity over the centuries.

Cover of The Paper Zoo (courtesy University of Chicago Press)

It has not always been kind. Sleigh notes that the original text for an illustration of a horned frog in George Shaw’s The Naturalist’s Miscellany (1789–1813) read: “Should inquiry be made, which is the ugliest animal yet known to exist? The creature here represented might perhaps with justice be proposed as an answer: an animal of such prodigious deformity as even to exceed in this respect the Surinam toad, or Rana Pipa.”

Sleigh divides her book into four sections: exotic, native, domestic, and paradoxical. That last is particularly colorful, filled with anecdotes about completely imaginary creatures that were assembled due to mangled word-of-mouth descriptions, and sometimes supported by enterprising individuals. “Cashing in on the craze for natural-historical collections in the early modern period, canny sailors and inhabitants of far-flung lands stitched together body parts to make salable, ‘real’ monsters,” Sleigh writes. Along with unicorns and mermaids, there is the more fantastic and terrifying “manticore” in Edward Topsell’s 1658 The History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents. The lion-like animal has the face of a man, with three rows of grinning teeth.

Sleigh explains that “animals began to appear in medieval works of art,” often as biblical Lambs of God or one of the symbols of the evangelists (an ox, lion, or eagle). As printing developed and became widespread, animals of varying accuracy flourished in books, whether in the form of early woodcuts or later engravings. A well-depicted exotic animal was the intellectual’s prize.

Pages from The Paper Zoo (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

“Dürer mostly produced his animal images in watercolour, and such objects, like the pictures in the collection of the Lincei, were valuable items for exchange between wealthy savants around Europe,” Sleigh writes. “In Restoration London, a painting of a lizard on vellum could command higher prices than portraits in oil executed by even the most fashionable painters.”

Naturally, there were the overachievers, including John James Audubon, who put a vibrant, life-size aviary on paper with his 19th-century Birds of America. The Paper Zoo also has glimpses of incredible naturalist voyages like those of Maria Sibylla Merian, who in 1699 set out for South America to illustrate its insects, and Ernest Haeckel, who in the 19th century created detailed drawings of microscopic animals. They had a major influence on the fluid shapes of Art Nouveau.

High-speed and high-definition photography eventually took over as a way of visually capturing wildlife in the 21st century. Still, some extinct animals like the dodo or great auk mainly survive through old illustrations. Often, though, the creator’s name is lost. “Artists are not always acknowledged — and there is even more rarely a sound grasp of the different roles played by drawers, engraves, and colourists,” Sleigh states. Below are selections from The Paper Zoo, recalling the sometimes anonymous artist’s role in five centuries of shared scientific knowledge.

Johannes Jonstonus, Historiae naturalis de insectis (Frankfurt am Main, 1650–30), illustrations by Matthäus Merian. From The Paper Zoo: “The engraver and publisher Matthäus Merian the elder was the father of Maria Sybilla Merian, although he died when she was very young. He was apparently less committed to life-drawing than his daughter, producing visual descriptions of no fewer than eight separate species of unicorn.” (courtesy the British Library)

“Purple-bellied Lory (Lorius hypoinochrous),” original watercolor, later engraved as plate 170 in George Edwards, A Natural History of Uncommon Birds, and of Some Other Rare and Undescribed Animals (London, 1743–51) (courtesy the British Library)

“Horned frog,” from George Shaw, The Naturalist’s Miscellany (London, 1789–1813). The original text with the picture asked: “Should inquiry be made, which is the ugliest animal yet known to exist? The creature here represented might perhaps with justice be proposed as an answer: an animal of such prodigious deformity as even to exceed in this respect the Surinam toad, or Rana Pipa.” (courtesy British Library)

“King penguin,” from George Shaw, Musei Leveriani explicatio Anglica et Latina (containing select specimens from the museum of the late Sir Ashton Lever, Kt., with descriptions in Latin and English) (London, 1792) (courtesy British Library)

“1. The four horned Ram, 2. Horns of the Iceland Sheep, 3. Horns of the Cretan Sheep,” from Ebenezer Sibly, An Universal System of Natural History Including the Natural History of Man, etc. (London, 1794–1807) (courtesy British Library)

“Red-bellied snake,” from George Shaw, Zoology of New Holland, the first book of Australian animals (London, 1794) (courtesy British Library)

“Ring-tailed lemur,” from George Edwards, A Natural History of Uncommon Birds, and of Some Other Rare and Undescribed Animals (London, 1743–51). From The Paper Zoo: “This picture summons up the myth of the Fall: the contemplated fruit, the lurking partner, the curling, striped, snake-like tail. There is even a banished creature disappearing off stage-left. Edwards kept a ‘Maucauco’ (as the lemur was also known) alive for a while in his home, finding it a ‘very innocent, harmless Creature, having nothing of the Cunning or Malice of the Monkey-Kind.’” (courtesy the British Library)

“Octopus,” from George Shaw, The Naturalist’s Miscellany (London, 1789–1813). From The Paper Zoo: “The ocean is understandably a source of terror, and tales of giant squid or octopuses are one way of making such fears manifest. In 1802, the French naturalist Pierre Denys de Montfort posited the existence of two such species. This example from a British book of the same era is truly the stuff of nightmares, coyly curled onto the page, but threatening to escape.” (courtesy the British Library)

“Koalas,” watercolor by unknown artist, inscribed on the back, “Coola, an animal of the opossum tribe from New South Wales,” from the Marquess Wellesley Collection of Natural History Drawings. From The Paper Zoo: “A report in the Philosophical Transactions of 1808 announced a new creature, seen a few years previously and known locally as a koala wombat. ‘The ears are short, erect, and pointed; the eyes generally ruminating, sometimes fiery and menacing; it bears no small resemblance to the bear in the fore-part of its body.’” (courtesy the British Library)

“Young Sumatran tapir,” probably by J. Briois (March 1824), gouache on paper, from an album of 51 drawings of birds and animals made at Bencoolen, Sumatra, for Sir Stamford Raffles. Raffles helped establish the Zoological Society of London and its Zoological Gardens (now London Zoo). (courtesy the British Library)

“Crab (‘Cancer dentatus’),” published in “Observations on the Genus Cancer of Dr. Leach with Descriptions of three new species” by Thomas Bell, from Transactions of the Zoological Society (London, 1835). From The Paper Zoo: “Bell devoted his life to some of nature’s less glamorous creatures, amongst them the Crustacea. In his History of the British Stalk-Eyed Crustacea, he lamented that most works of natural history lacked all but the most superficial coverage of the class. This beautifully textured illustration of an exotic species helps to remedy that situation.” (courtesy the British Library)

“Red-pied cock,” from Robert Fulton, The Illustrated Book of Pigeons (London, 1874–76). Darwin once stated that the pouter “has a much elongated body, wings, and legs; and its enormously developed crop, which it glories in inflating, may well excite astonishment and even laughter.” (courtesy the British Library)

“Dodo (‘Didus’),” from Richard Owen, Memoir of the Dodo (London, 1866). From The Paper Zoo: “Founder of the Natural History Museum (as it is known today), Owen used underhand means to make sure that he acquired the first complete dodo remains to be recovered after the bird’s extinction at the end of the seventeenth century. His Memoir came out the following year, featuring this illustration of a squat, ridiculous bird – not unlike Tenniel’s illustration of 1865 for Alice in Wonderland.” (courtesy the British Library)

“The Wild Boar,” drawing by Friedrich Specht for No. 4 in Cassell’s Natural History Wall Sheets (late 19th century) (courtesy the British Library)

Charlotte Sleigh’s The Paper Zoo: 500 Years of Animals in Art is published by the University of Chicago Press and available from Amazon and other online booksellers.

The post The Biodiversity of the World Captured in Five Centuries of Animal Art appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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tessatechaitea · 8 years ago

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Booster Gold Loves The Flintstones #1

If Prehistoric Man had any concern with animal rights, they never would have had any scientific advancements. At least according to The Flintstones which is, like, history and shit.

In 2472, Gary Gygax is considered a god and you can get a McTalon Burger at the local Food Court of Owls.

While Booster is on his date with Amy, an army of Chupacabra riding space scooters while setting people on fire with laser beams descend on the city. The Chupacabra are apparently space aliens and not Chupacabra which they most definitely are. I suppose it doesn't matter since conspiracy theories can account for any eventuality. Obviously Chupacabra are just space aliens and not cryptoids! Anyway, Booster accesses his time computer to find that these aliens first visited Earth in the year 20,000 BC in the town of Bedrock. So that's where he goes to solve the problem! I guess he's going to find their leader and suggest that they not come back 24 thousand years in the future?

I don't know. Any noticeable bodily function that lasts that long would concern me.

Booster Gold arrives in the past right on top of the alien, cutting it in half. Well, I guess that's why they invade 24 thousand years later! That's actually a pretty fast response time in galactic times and distances. Booster Gold's Time Sphere is ruined in the encounter so he needs some help getting it fixed. Luckily, he's met up with Fred and Barney! They always have a scheme up their butts!

Moments like these are why I love Russell's writing so much.

With the help of some of Barney's science-know-how (otherwise known as animal abuse), Booster's Time Machine's Chrono CB Radio begins working. He puts the call out for help and the only person who responds and doesn't immediately die afterward is Alfred Pennyworth from 1966. Batman has a fourth dimensional radio transceiver because why not? Luckily Alfred in 1966 knows Booster Gold for some reason. That reason was mentioned earlier where Booster Gold gives no fucks about time paradoxes.

Booster is an idiot! Due to having such a small amount in his account, Booster will undoubtedly have to pay for that savings account! The payment will be taken out of the account and subsequently begin costing him insufficient funds penalties and fees! He's going to owe the bank billions when he gets home (because the bank will never just close the account since it costs them nothing to keep it open. Banks are assholes).

Booster Gold, Barney Rubble, and Fred Flintstone are out of luck getting help from other time travelers. So they're just going to have to figure out how to power the time machine themselves. I bet five billion vacuum cleaners could do the trick. Instead of enslaved animals, the trio use the Chupacabra's spacecraft to power Booster Gold's time sphere. While it's charging, Skeets discovers that Booster Gold caused the invasion (that's probably why he doesn't give a fuck about time paradoxes. There are none! Everything just happens the way they happened and no time traveler can change it because they made it that way when they tried to change it in the first place!). Booster doesn't really care because he just wants to get back in the future to fuck Amy. But there's an error in the calculations and a huge chunk of Bedrock goes into the future with him. Anyway, everything eventually works out in the end and Booster Gold's bank account has 3.8 billion dollars in it. I guess banks in the 1960s weren't such huge douchebags as banks are now. I blame Reagan. The back-up story is a Jetsons story by Jimmy and Amanda. So it'll be full of sexy innuendos! It doesn't have any sexual innuendo at all! Unless I'm supposed to believe that George Jetson eventually fucks the robot housing his mother's personality! Yeah, I can do that. Anyway, the story is basically one of the episodes of Black Mirror. The Ranking! I don't rank these! But anything by Mark Russell is worth reading. The end!

#Booster Gold #The Flintstones #DC Comics #Mark Russell #Rick Leonardi #Scott Hanna #Steve Buccellato #Jimmy Palmiotti #Amanda Conner #The Jetsons

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titheguerrero · 6 years ago

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Dander Still Up, And Also Down, All OVer the Place. What Gives?

A. I've started this piece a whole bunch of times. So in fairness to you, reader, you have a few paths through it. If you don't feel like starting by sharing some navel-staring about today's bizarre predicament, please skip to 'D.' Or 'B,' or 'C.' Wouldn't blame you in the least. I've still got my dander up about what's happening in the many troubled reaches of health care in the United States. OK, truth to tell, also about what's up world-wide. Scary stuff. Readers have no doubt waited patiently for me to recover from confusion about this sudden mess, much of said predicament stemming from various delayed reactions to the 2008 disasters. (For the wildly popular, broader and verbally less restrained version of this consternation, from a compelling voice, see this newsletter.) Or, at least, I've waited to get over this confusion. Now I'm over it: see 'C,' below. Overall, anyone paying attention to the press—or even for that one lone DC Legislative Assistant just reading this blog for all her health policy info—you know things just ain't right. Not in academia, not in government, not in the private sector despite a record-shattering bull market run. (Leave aside for just a moment all those other issues in US foreign and economic policy, equally in the soup.) We thought matters couldn't get worse before the arrival of the latest residents of board rooms and corner (or oval) offices in each of those sectors. But, oh, wait: then, after January 2017, they did. But what gives beneath the surface? The news waves have become a deluge. But, to get to the "so what?", where are the rip-currents beneath today's tsunami of chaotic news? Why are things seemingly better in some areas than others? (For some specific examples see my Grade Point Average—GPA—scores below, introduced in this edition of the CDR (Cetona Dander Report), I've been off the air while scrambling for some way of understanding the why behind the what. Now I think I've gotten what're at least some part-answers to my writer's block. And mirabile dictu, my dander's gone back down a little, especially over there in the Department of Health and Human Services. For one thing, as Margot Sanger-Katz recently pointed out in the Times, and we're seeing this in many places, the troubled crazy-quilt of American health care, especially among the federal branches, and the antics of the DIC (disloyalist-in-chief, or my preference, doofus-in-chief), all have paradoxically made the organization of health care somewhat less anechoic. ("You see how I did that double negative in there?") This anechoic effect I began talking about over a decade ago, during the perhaps slightly calmer Shrub and Obama years—corrupt and autocratic behavior operating under everyone's radar, and I don't miss those days—this effect has repeatedly been decried by those blogging here, especially your intrepid editor. But today, like immigration, health care is back in the political ads and it's no longer quite so anechoic, now the DIC has lanced the boil with his shrill. Hell, DIC's our poster child for health care reverb. He even claims as he campaigned on the notion of lower drug prices and better care. Just not for those people. No matter. You can't unring this bell. Everyone left with anything resembling an open mind—come November we'll get more on the 'N' of said group—they all know what far too many in his party are trying to do. Those with brains already fully devoured (burp) by QAnon are, of course, excepted. Biggest place the GOP and DIC overlap in goals: dance with all the lobbyists and Fat Cats who want to kill the baby in the bathtub. Kill the VA. Kill the ACA. Kill kill kill. If this all starts to sound a little schizzy, that's precisely the point. This is a big clue to what's become the inner dynamic of federal health policy (and economic and foreign policy) in the second half of 2018. There's campaigning to the base, and there's governing. I mean, I know, I must be the last person in Montana to recognize this dynamic, especially after everybody saw the latest blind-siding on the Russian affair. No offense to Montana. I'm not from there. I know great folks there. The executive branch of our government has cleaved in two. The White House today—quite unlike any of its predecessor administrations arguably including that of Bush II—is a perpetual political campaign. I know, others have compared it more to television reality show or one variant of the same thing: WWE. Anyway, it's a perpetual political campaign, and solely that. Its purpose is not to govern but to retain power in order to reward friends. This goes for everything it touches in health care. Campaigns depend interminably on donors and, fitfully, even voters. The problem is, there are cabinet departments, for our purposes notably the VA and HHS, where something else, something else besides perpetually rabble- and fund-raising, has to happen. Something we used to call "government." More and more a rare bird. In the White House, the bird is as extinct as the dodo. (Charlottesville was clear-cut proof of this point, when the DIC ducked his constitutional responsibility to console and unify, in order to play exclusively to his base.) "Government" clearly can't be effective by defaulting to sheer adversarialism and destruction. But interestingly, it's still there outside the White House. If not thriving, as least surviving and fitfully accomplishing some important tasks. In matters of health, like the tiny furry mammals scurrying among the dinosaurs after the asteroid, government is actually beginning to make some hopeful moves. It's time we called those out as well, and scored the agencies on how they're doing as we get close to mid-term elections. It's a balancing act between the campaigning DIC and his few fitfully effective folks. (If they tick him off and get fired, they'll be retroactively labelled "deep state.") It looks to me like health care policy management, whether around how care gets paid for, or around reuniting kids suffering from child-abuse-as-foreign-policy, has become an absurdist pas de deux between these two factions. Never have they been more distinct. In this corner, the White House, with its hacks, its DIC, its billionaire donors just a phone call away, and its campaign-job explant moles planted in key departments. And in this other corner, until maybe they get fired, cabinet appointees and sub-appointees, including some pretty good old time GOP types, who want to get the job done. The first either lets these second types do their jobs, or somebody--often one of the hacks--gets to them first. (In all of this, of course, Rule Number One is always, don't piss off the DIC. Get the job done without losing your own job.) Among the hacks closest to the ear of the DIC, and man is that an image, chief are Larry Kudlow, Mick Mulvaney, both on money matters; and John Bolton on matters involving anyone who looks, y'know, a little foreign. (Norwegians, good. The rest: maybe, y'know, drug dealers and rapists.) In 'D' below we talk about some of the other B. Here's how to get out of the distracting, enervating, confusing obsession so many of us complain about when considering health care and pretty much else coming out of today's Washington. (Not just the White House and the 15 executive departments. But especially.) Extricate yourself, that is, without sticking head in sand. Don't just take a break from all the crazy. Take a cue from the DIC Head himself. Note how fond he is calling everybody a dog. But in fact his prey, take for instance, are not dogs at all. It's the secret joy of more right wing GOP Trump-heads: we're all acting like cats. Laser cats. Just let him move that pointer around and we all go batshit batting at it. Dudes love it when we do that. We don't have to do that. Just be quiet and keep paying attention. We're on to them. Don't pounce until there's more there there than just a flickering red light. Recognize what he's doing across the board. Read Health Care Renewal. Remember, every time the red light blinks and you leap into the air, somewhere a puppy dies and a spook's security clearance goes kerplooey. C. Why mention Montana? Well, actually turns out a big source of impact on our health comes right from our natural environment and the failure of Big DIC to insure its stewardship. He appointed an Associate DIC (ADIC) to the Interior department. Ryan Zinke, best known for a career as football player (Whitefish HS, University of Oregon) and Navy Seal. (Navy.) Zinke believes the California wildfires are best explained by "environmental terrorists" rather than climate change. Not cool. The Secretary has now appointed a Whitefish team-mate essentially to vet any program that might affect our health. Steve Howke has an undergraduate business degree and a life in credit unions. So clearly he's a great pick to vet any proposed money involving more than budget-dust (i.e., > 50k) on programs. This is to make sure such expenditures "align with the administration’s priorities." Pretty much kills any chance Interior will pay attention to our health. Guy's the designated goalie to assuage the boss's desire to focus on really hopeful matters such as Clean Coal. On a slightly brighter note, when it comes to the looming underwater loss of, oh, maybe the East Coast and all of Florida, the Big DIC seems to be appointing a real expert, Kelvin Droegemeier, as his White House Science Adviser. Job's been vacant for a long time. Maybe we'll keep Florida a little longer. Guy's impressive. See for example this actual piece of science for weather prediction. Let's fly to Oklahoma and talk to this guy. Ah, the outsized influence of Whitefish, Montana. Is there a Trump Hotel in Whitefish? I know people there. I'll find out. If there's a solid gold toilet in Whitefish, we're finished. D. So finally, after such all this preamble, how's life been playing out in health care? With the exception of the comparatively tiny program to reunite refugee kids with their parents, which is hapless, until now such life's not been so very vivid for most citizens glancing at their screens. Average Joe probably can't comment on either of the biggest items. But the noisy numbers, for 2019 are as follows.

A nearly 200 billion dollar request for the VA, well over a third of which is for health care and an over 15% request over 2918.

Almost 800 billion dollars for Medicare, most of which is for Medicare reimbursements, and just a 3% increase from the previous year.

Compare this with a bit over two billion for all HHS-supervised vulnerable-populations programs, even with a whopping 29% increase over 2018.

Only a tenth or so of this two billion is devoted to refugee programs. Two hundred million divided by a trillion. Hmmm, too many zeros here, so you do the math. Rounding error. But with close to a 30% increase for forcibly orphaned kids and others, maybe the Secretary tried.

So final tally: the three above total a trillion, 80% Medicare and 20% VA.

Keep it all in perspective, bearint these things in mind.

These are budget requests. Medicare they want to gut, even beyond ACA, so in the end maybe the aforesaid 3% will drop down into negative numbers.

Even here, with the 800B request, the HHS Secretary's clearly trying to be realistic on Medicare, knowing the temper of his bosses at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Ain't it odd! VA gets a barely passing grade despite the huge increase year-over-year. But this is the reality, as we'll see below.

Back to our echo chamber and the din of the 2018 election. It's all changing now, not so anechoic any more, as Dr. Poses recently pointed out. The fact is, and you'll hear much more of this in state-by-state campaigns just now getting off the ground for the fall run-up to November 6th, it's all now as vivid as hell. We should all remember how much more vividly people feel the loss of a dollar than they feel the bestowal of a dollar. Politicians know this. The anechoic chamber fills with a joyful noise. If only because, as occurred with other earlier water-boarding-style excesses, this same political party just gave us this most recent instance of politically weaponizing cruelty. Really, not so joyful. But likely to command attention this fall. What else will command attention? Access to health care. And something for the vets who provided proud service to their nation. I wrote earlier about the VA versus political donors' influence, in that case a Koch brother and a hack somehow attached to said brother. For a while seemingly, until he alienated them too, Trump and his people acted as though "things go better with Koch." In my previous dander-post, I pointed out the "Concerned Veterans," who've always seemed most concerned with privately outsourcing veterans' services while sundering the agency that protected them. (I provided medical care to these brave warriors from both inside and outside the VA. They rarely had anything bad to say about the organization. Certainly a lot less bad than I did when dealing with that hoary bureaucracy. Certainly they don't want it to go away. David Shulkin felt the same way, and lost a battle with the DIC's hacks.) But now it's much worse. So I want to go out on this here limb and give Trump's two key departments for health care, their respective mid-term GPAs. For the VA: charitably, a D-minus. But interestingly, GPA for HHS: maybe as good as a B-, albeit constantly threatening to slide into a Gentleman's C to placate the boss DIC. Why the qualitative disparity? Well, first let's back it up a little and rack up some of the recent events upon which this GPA result is based. First let's take the VA. The place has had major problems for years and years, many of them self-inflicted with a self-referential bureaucracy second only to the Catholic Church. (David Shulkin knew he needed to fix this and was actively trying to do so when he was fired.) But the place just can't seem to catch a break. So harsh as it is for what's hopefully a work in progress that can still be salvaged either now or after 2020, the grade for this place is D- on a good day. Here are some of the hour-exams that go into the dismal assessment.

The VA's own internal watchdog just recently ripped it for failing in a recent program to help veterans' caregivers. This started before and continues during the Trump administration.

The effort to privatize VA care continues to ramify. Chasing down all the leads on this issue feels like trying to lop off the head of Medusa.

A proposed law to pay for privatization is bizarrely popular with bipartisan lip service. But it may shut down the government when you get down to finding the money.

There's a pathetic White House VA hotline about this, which reaches some hapless third party call-center folks who're powerless and clueless.

Most recently, Trump has essentially abdicated VA oversight to cronies, much like our high school footballer vetting spending at Interior. Specifically the "Shadow Rulers," a threesome of alte kakers—Palm Beach concierge doctor Bruce Moskowitz, sometime Marvel Entertainment chair Ike Perlmutter, and attorney Mark Sherman—who have in common one great thing: Mar-A-Lago! You can't make this stuff up. We owe it to politico.com (see here, here, and here) for providing superb coverage of the narrative of their undue influence. Whether official or unofficial, it's abdication of authority, with weak official leadership.

After Shulkin left, the place was forced to thrash around leaderless. It now has a guy Richard Stone, an unimpressive managerialist, but at least an Army Veteran. Not nearly enough!

Stone replaced a far better suited expert, Carolyn Clancy, who was sidelined into a looking-out-the-window job under questionable circumstances. See here.

Worth an entire blog of its own but start here: the VA's saga of health IT is a surpassingly strange, long and sordid one. The VA was among the first to have a workable EMR. It ultimately got scrapped for lack of support and interoperability with the far more egregious and expensive failure of DOD's EMR program. (Which Shulkin sought to fix via COTS outsourcing.) Many billions down the drain on both sides. The VA system's lack of interoperability was in no way the VA's fault. They can't catch a break.

One of Trump's earliest attempts to "deal" with the VA was to put Omarosa in charge! This early episode again underlines the White House's difficulty in dealing with government organizations that give off the scent of unprivatized "deep state" players. Veterans hated her—now why would that be?

Another Cohen, not Michael, enters the picture. Also courtesy of New York's blogger-journalists at ProPublica, we learn that hedge fund billionaire (and of course DIC crony) Steve Cohen is cashing in with the VA. Altruistically, of caws. Just wants to help out all those PTSD patients. Privately, employing something modestly called "The Cohen Network." Read this whole sordid story at ProPublica. I'm seeing double Cohens in here.

Why does the VA story seem so haplessly fragmented, with lovers and haters constantly duking it out? A recent piece in Washington Monthly, by noted authors Suzanne Gordon and Jasper Craven, offers a simple and I think largely correct answer. Its supporters, especially those in Congress, know VA medicine is popular but they keep ragging on it as though it hurts its patients more than the private sector does. Not true! These guys just don't like government-run programs when the private sector friends want in. The private sector is also beset with inefficiencies, IT disconnects, and corruption. Shulkin was on the right track but got derailed. In every case, the common denominator is how VA medicine is a single frog in a single barrel. Shoot it or slowly boil it. Either way, a far easier target for meddling than HHS. This is the answer, folks. It's not that the VA needs more help than HHS, or that publicly supported health care's inherently bad. VA and HHS certainly both need a lot of help, but the VA did many fine things over recent decades. But boy is it an easy target.

Now to HHS, a very different story. A much more elusive target, for any journalist but more importantly for any DIC-hack or -backer. And now it has a Secretary about whom we may at least point to dramatic improvement over his spendthrift predecessor. The latter was a physician at that, should have had his head on straight, but who proved to be so far right, and frankly so peculiar, that at any given time he clearly could take a bite out of his own prostate. Salient points about HHS's performance under Trump:

Key people are Alex Azar, the Secretary and Seema Verma over at CMS.

They're both clearly being forced to walk a tight-rope between White House and DIC-backers' ideology, and getting a whole host of jobs done. And those jobs require a great deal of organic interaction with the private sector.

PBM companies

Big Pharma

The AMA

The payers

Patient advocates.

Last and probably least, advocates for vulnerable populations—for reasons stated above.

They both seem to be learning on the job. B.

Not all's well. Trimming back access to ACA benefits, hotly opposed by many, is still a campaign in the Congress and White House, but seemingly opposed at least in part by many within HHS. Jury's out on this one, as ACA is super-popular nation-wide. D-.

Evidence for this: tackling the ticklish issue of stabilizing the Obamacare marketplaces. Much ink-shed over this, e.g. here and here and here. Devilishly complex but suffice it to say that some states and perhaps the Congress will go ahead (one of the above links even refers to Scott Walker and Wisconsin) and make sure reinsurance is assured. Can this be anything other than the insurance industry pushing back on the nihilists? B+.

Medicaid and its expansion are also fighting back from the preferred GOP method of compression and extinction. The abusive work requirements, playing to the DIC's base and its resentment of "free-loaders," are not likely to last. The WaPo in fact now reports the emergence of multiple objective health-services-research studies showing the salutary effects of expanded Medicaid, especially for chronic illness like diabetes. So risk payments may be restored. B+.

Drug-price negotiations are see-sawing like crazy. Trump says he believes strongly in this. Do we believe him or the PHRMA lobbyists? He touts token prize freezes. Azar seems on the fence, though he talks a good game. Congress tries to be encouraging. Jury's out. C-.

The corner of Medicare known as Advantage programs, emphasizing Accountable Care Organizations or ACOs, is another complicated matter. Verma seems to be looking to restrict ACOs to those with real accountability. Some view this as more draconian behavior, but I see her point. B+.

PBM companies—those lucrative outfits that "manage" pharmaceutical benefits—are also on the DIC's hit list. I see little progress. What I see is rural pharmacies dying out because they get caught in the PBM companies' baroque pricing schemes. D- to F.

A almost wholly unnoticed federal regulation from last month deserves much more attention. This voluminous document dramatically revises fee schedules for Medicare patients, emphasizing many of the services traditionally provided with little or no reimbursement by primary care physicians. New billing codes are proposed. For the first time the playing field may soon be leveled for many PCPs. This is a potential big win for those working for Verma. A solid A+.

The above's an excellent example of emerging claims, for example those in a worthy new Brookings piece, that real cause for optimism exists in health care reform. At least some of that stems from activities within HHS. The conservative author, Stuart Butler, deserves a careful read. He signals several "under the radar" patterns from both the states and HHS itself, flowing from increased flexibility that HHS now has. (For all its strengths, ACA was hamstrung by some fairly inflexible regulations on matters such as metrics for improving Health IT.) A+.

Average grade for HHS: B-. Why this good in an abysmal administration? As I've intimated, for every meddling White House apparatchik there's an outside interest pushing back on Azar and Verma. Lots of IT vendors. Lots of payers. Lots of innovators. (And, of course, lots of outraged citizens in the one conspicuous but miniature case of the separated children.) The very protean and risibly shuffling-buffalo scale nature of HHS may have been its greatest virtue. In an effort to satisfy the spirit of "anything but Obama," they're trying some new stuff, and some of it isn't half bad.

Thus VA and HHS are fascinating bookends juxtaposing the risks and benefits of homogeneous versus heterogeneous health planning. Right now HHS is winning, if only because of a political atmosphere in which the latter is better adapted to thrive. It could, of course, go the other way. Personally I hope the VA is restored to its former strength, perhaps in a spruced-up and more streamlined form: less bureaucratically stodgy to get away from the current predicament in which everyone from a bad manager to a bad nurse can tie the place in knots. I also hope HHS, even if Medicare For All becomes a reality, preserves opportunities for experimentation and innovation.

Article source:Health Care Renewal

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