#I also had to read Anthem! TWO Rands!

[mumblingsage]

If I see one more person complain about Catcher in the Rye because "the protagonist is so whiny and unrelatable" I'm going to have to actually read it won't I.

[brittlebonesguy]

hyello ma'am

please answer all of the questions for the book asks :)

love u ❤️❤️

omg I love you. thank you for being the only person who ever send me asks my biggest fan 💕💕

1. book I've read the most times: I reread a lot of books from high school for some reason but I think the main one would be the lunar chronicles

2. top 5 books: I have a real problem with reading books that are just okay and not GREAT so I don't know how to answer this. thst being said I still really like six of crows and also pride and prejudice and Frankenstein <3

3. my favorite genre is either scifi or fantasy

4. section of bookstore I browse: the whole thing, but mainly the fiction and sci/fantasy sections. I I peak in the manga and comic sections

5. I buy books pretty sparingly in recent years. if I do I usually do thriftbooks or barnes and noble because I get gift cards for there

6. I haven't been reading too much the past month but I did just finish a book literally a few hours ago: legendborn. it was actually really good and I hope it ends with a throuple <3. I'm only saying actually because I had to stop reading two other books because I was just having a terrible time with them

7. I've been reading since like late elementary school and have the memory if a goldfish so I have no clue what got me into reading

8. the first book I remember reading would probably be some dr seuss type of shit. I also vividly remember sitting on my moms lap and reading kids books outloud with her but I don't remember what books those are

9. I tend to read fantasy the most

10. I don't really have any guilt with the books I read

11. I like a lot of non fiction but I don't read it too much so I don't have an actual answer for this

12. I really enjoyed Frankenstein in high school! that's pretty much it though

13. I used to have a goodreads but I ended up deleting it and using storygraph instead. I've been using that app since before it had an actual app for androids

14. I don't usually dog ear because I think it's fun to use random things as bookmarks. but i do underline or highlight things in some of my books. the main reason I don't mark up my books is because I get lazy with it so the beginning and end of a book will have lots of comments and the middle is completely barren (ie. my copy of the darkest minds)

15. I guess I'll review legendborn since that's the last thing I read. I was pretty into it from the start and then when the whole king arthur stuff first got introduced I was pretty 🙄 but I liked the main character and was interested in the mystery of her mom so I kept reading and im pretty glad I did. the writing was fun and I liked some of the characters. I think the author wanted me to care about more characters than I did which is my bad but in my defense some of them were really flat and gave me nothing to work with. I also liked how casually gay and non binary people were. this book was kind of littered with lgbt which was nice to see

16. I have fully read 10 books this year. started like 5 other ones and dropped two of them so not too bad

17. I don't really have any children's books to recommend

18. I do like period books, really any time period

19. most disliked popular books: I recently read strange the dreamer and hated it. I'm not sure how popular unearthed by megan spooner and amie kaufman (the starbound series bitches) is but I quite literally hated it. some others right off the dome explanations at the ready if asked: one flew over the cuckoos nest, you, the whole of the throne of glass series (unfinished to this day), anthem by ayn rand, the catcher in the rye

20. there's isn't anything that I look for specifically in books. it's mainly vibes. buy I do mainly go for women authors and if I pick up a man's books I try to gage if he'll be sexist or not

[eldritchsurveys]

545.

if someone wanted to really understand you, what would they read, watch, and listen to? >> I don’t think reading, watching, or listening to a bunch of things would give anyone proper insight into me as a person -- not without at least a basic understanding of my personal narratives, for context, you see. But provided someone already knew a decent amount about me (for example, they’ve followed either my main or this tumblr for at least a year), I’ll suggest the following: Anthem by Ayn Rand (this is her shortest book, extremely short in fact, so don’t whine), The Fountain, and... well, I don’t know what to pick for albums or whatever. That one’s hard. I’ll have to make you a playlist.

have you ever found a writer who thinks just like you? if so, who? >> No. I’ve found pieces of myself in a variety of authors’ works, of course, but none of them have been comprehensively relatable.

list your fandoms and one character from each that you identify with. >> I don’t even know what my fandoms are anymore. I consume a lot of media, and some of it I’ve even written fan-fiction for, but I’m not going to list it all here. That’d be a prohibitively long list.

do you like your name?  is there another name you think would fit you better? >> Yes, I like it. I chose it, after all.

do you think of yourself as a human being or a human doing? do you identify yourself by the things you do? >> I don’t think of myself as either, most of the time. I also have found “identifying” myself as anything to be a disappointingly dry experience. Identification with any sort of label encourages me to bind myself to it, at the expense of any other thing I might become -- for example, if I identify myself as “goth”, then it feels like pressure to... behave quintessentially “goth”, at the expense of any other nuances of my subcultural being. I don’t like to reside in identities, as if they were forever-homes; I like to wear them like gauzy clothing and discard them when I grow weary of their weight.

are you religious/spiritual? >> Something like that. It’s difficult for me to say one way or the other, because I’m not entirely sure what being “religious” or being “spiritual” actually means.

do you care about your ethnicity? >> No. I do sometimes feel pulled towards certain things from the country of my mother’s birth, and I do feel cultural solidarity with other people of Black American experience. I also think ethnicity is interesting because of the idea of “genetic memory”, what is passed down from our ancestors and so forth. But, you know.

what musical artists have you most felt connected to over your lifetime? >> Eddie Vedder and David Bowie, primarily.

are you an artist? >> Sometimes.

do you have a creed? >> No.

describe your ideal day. >> I don’t have an ideal day. Most of the days I have are pretty well-suited for me, and I don’t feel like I need to pursue an “ideal” version of them.

dog person or cat person? >> I can get along with either, but I am usually most interested in dogs.

inside or outdoors? >> I have no preference aside from logistical ones.

are you a musician? >> No.

five most influential books over your lifetime. >> The Fountainhead, The Phantom Tollbooth, American Gods, The Gunslinger, A Wrinkle in Time.

if you’d grown up in a different environment, do you think you’d have turned out the same? >> Of course not.

would you say your tumblr is a fair representation of the “real you”? >> I don’t believe in a “real me” as a concept. My tumblr is definitely “real”, though, in the sense that I’m not putting on a persona when I post on it.

what’s your patronus? >> The Ravenstag from Hannibal, probably.

which Harry Potter house would you be in? or are you a muggle? >> I would be in Slytherin, although I also have Ravenclaw tendencies.

would you rather be in Middle Earth, Narnia, Hogwarts, or somewhere else? >> I don’t really feel like I’d rather be anywhere. Fictional worlds are a lot of fun to spend time in, but that doesn’t mean I want to relocate to them. They all have huge downsides -- some of them even more drastic than the downsides of living on Earth. I’m fine with being on Earth.

do you love easily? >> No. Unless you’re an inworlder.

list the top five things you spend the most time doing, in order. >> I don’t know how to put them in order because I don’t measure how long I spend doing shit, but for the most part I spend my time: playing video games, being on tumblr, watching tv shows and movies, reading, and... more reading, I guess. I can’t think of a fifth thing.

how often would you want to see your family every year? >> ---

have you ever felt like you had a “mind-meld” with someone? >> Yeah. We also did the same drugs, and tripping with someone else (and often) can often encourage that sort of mind-meld-y feeling.

could you live as a hermit? >> I don’t think so. The sweet novelty would wear off and I’d just get bored and restless, like I would in any other low-stimulus situation.

how would you describe your gender/sexuality? >> I wouldn’t, actually. It’s a lot easier for me to just exist in my constant state of liminality than try to pigeonhole these things for the sake of others’ understanding. But for the sake of conversation, I usually just say I’m nonbinary/agender and grey-asexual (the “grey” is mostly because of inworld. and that weird feeling I get when I see two Jeremy Ironses on the screen at once).

do you feel like your outside appearance is a fair representation of the “real you”? >> There is, once again, no such thing as a “real me”. My outside appearance is just whatever it is, I don’t expect it to tell any grand stories about me.

on a scale from 1 to 10, how hard is it for someone to get under your skin? >> (Assuming “1″ is “very easy” and “10″ is “very hard”.) On a good day, a solid 9. On a bad day, somewhere around a 4.

three songs that you connect with right now. >> Map Change by Every Time I Die; I Have Forgiven Jesus by Morrissey; *grumble* Sunlight by Hozier.

pick one of your favorite quotes. >> I should really just make an Evernote file and save quotes in there so I have one ready to go every time I get this question on a survey.

[erivalle]

I had:

2 different mothers coming up to me having lost their children, and subsequently finding them before I have to do a Code Adam.

Literally 20 teenagers in a single group running around and also lying on the floor (they even had circle time in the fucking way of everyone)

Another coworker going for my throat over stupid shit that isn't a problem/can be made even more not a problem in 5 seconds

Like so much piles of things in random places

So busy and messy that I couldn't manage to finish a cart in the 4 hours I had it on the floor

An unexpected sale on items I suddenly had to hunt down and sticker

A slice of cheese was put on my rear window. I had to scrape it off with a cup lid and then wipe down my windows to get rid of the bits that were too melted onto the window (high today was around 100).

A line to the door at the registers while I also had someone on hold to do a ship to home over the phone (have to manually type in card info and everything.. at the registers)

I have walked what amounts to 6 miles just at work.

I currently have a moth in my room (I am irrationally afraid of moths for no fucking reason)

Of the next three in the series that I ordered I got books 5 and 7 but not 6.

My necklace chain broke two days ago, and I forgot and spent way too long this morning looking for it

The door bell at work was busted and for a solid hour was randomly and constantly going off with no one pushing it.

We are in Clean Mode while also being an absolute mess with renovations meaning that everyone can't find shit and is 'organizing' things (read: hiding)

We have literal thousands of paper clips for some reason known only to the gods. (Found in unopened boxes during Clean Mode). I want to build a suit of chainmail with them.

At one point I was downstairs stopped by a customer and radioed for help upstairs before realizing that I was the only one not on break upstairs. Thankfully a coworker happened to not have come downstairs from their break so could help.

I got tough requests like from a girl whose friend likes The Outsiders by Hinton and Anthem by Rand. Which are not ones I have read and from my understanding are not alike and Rand is shit.

It's been a long day.

[selfcallednowhere]

Well so here’s a confession.

Normally on album birthdays I spend the whole day listening to the album. John Henry should particularly be an album I want to do this with, because a) it’s tied for my absolute favorite album and b) it has my theme song on it, so yeh suffice it to say it’s a really really special album to me.

But I actually haven’t listened to it at all today, the reason being that I’ve spent the entire day listening to “The Communists Have the Music.” I know the song has actually been out for a couple of days, but I was feeling pretty crummy and I didn’t think I was in the right frame of mind to properly appreciate it, so I didn’t listen to it until today and seriously I CANNOT STOP LISTENING TO IT. GOD GOD GOD I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

I have a whole bunch of thoughts about it and I think I’m going to put them in bullet-list form cos bullet lists are fun!

The rhyming is SO GOOD I mean he’s always good at it but there are some particularly good ones here

Also he straight-up MADE UP “anarchics” in that usage--I looked it up multiple places to see if it was acceptable as a noun (perhaps obsolete?), but could only find any evidence of it as an adjective--the noun seems to always be the familiar “anarchists.” I know making up words/usages is a standard thing in creative work (the obligatory “‘Well it worked for Shakespeare!” remark), but it’s one of those things that seems cute when he does it just because...he’s the one doing it and I AM MADLY IN LOVE WITH HIM.

Conversely, “plug in the headphone jack” bothers me--Ant informs me that in British English at least it’s considered acceptable to use “jack” to describe either the hole or the thing you’re plugging into it, but yeh to my American ears it just sounds awkward and wrong. I mean I understand that another syllable would’ve made the line not scan and that’s probably why he did it, but still.

I had actually listened to the song several times before I read the lyrics and was not able to decipher that bit in the first line which turns out to be  “Ayn Rand” and yessssssssss I am 100% in support of any and all Ayn Rand disses

Also the idea of books being sandwiches and drinks is actually a really fascinating idea and now I’m wondering what different books (or I suppose I could extend it to other things like songs) would taste like. It kinda reminds me of synesthesia, which now that I think about it is such an interesting/unusual brains-being-funky thing i.e. the kind of topic that is right up John Linnell’s alley that I’m kinda shocked that he hasn’t written a song about it already (although a quick search of the wiki to make sure that I wasn’t forgetting anything reminded me of the intro of “Turtle Songs of North America” and yes I suppose that counts, but again that’s not a full-song treatment).

The idea of John (ok ok Narrator of John’s Fictional Song Who is Totally Not Actually John Himself, I know i know, but I just often like to pretend his narrators are actually him because it’s fun/amusing) being more swayed by who has the best music than actual political ideology is really, really amusing. Also as someone who’s actually tried listening to a bit of Soviet-era music from the Eastern Bloc on Radioooooooo before, it’s...actually pretty universally terrible, so YOU’RE ON THE WRONG SIDE, JOHN. (However I did just listen to a recording of the Russian version of “The Internationale” on Wikipedia and it was I suppose Stirring in that way big anthemic things are supposed to be).

Also I was reminded of this part of one of the entries in his photography blog by this song:

The Egg looks to us like where we would live if the Soviets had won the Cold War. Not that I'd complain -- sometimes I find myself yearning for a more streamlined, uniform lifestyle. The closest modern society can come to that is Gap t-shirts and the iPod, but a building like The Egg suggests a higher level of ovarian smoothness.

(I was thinking about this part when I was out running errands so I couldn’t actually re-read it at the time and then when I got home and am looking at it just now it turns out I remembered how it went almost exactly verbatim which might be an indication that I’ve read his photography blog too many goddamn times at this point but IT’S NOT MY FAULT IT’S THE BEST THING EVER).

There are a couple of other things that are REALLY REALLY striking me about this song but I cannot discuss them cos they’re DIRTY but ummmmmmmmmmmmm.

Also FYI they’re apparently releasing a 7″ of this song next month which SHIT it’s the first time they’ve sold a 7″ in stores since “O Tannenbaum” 25 FUCKING YEARS AGO (there have been a few others just on tmbg.com but yeh nothing in stores) and also the first time they’ve had any sort of single or EP out since Indestructible Object 14 years ago. Exciting!!!!!

Also exciting: FLANS PROMISED THEY’RE GONNA PLAY IT ON THE FALL TOUR AND I CAN’T FUCKING WAIT TO SEE IT AHHHHHH.

Also also exciting: The fact that the album that this is gonna be on, which we know nothing really about yet (is it gonna be just the leftover Dial-A-Song stuff from this year or other stuff too or what?) is gonna be titled My Murdered Remains makes me SO FUCKING HAPPY because the second I found out that that was the working title of I Like Fun I was crushingly disappointed that they hadn’t used it cos it would’ve been their best album title in years. So YAY YAY YAY.

Also hmm this is two meta songs of his in a row, interesting. (I love meta creative work--I write a lot of it myself.)

[mercuryismygenius]

Book Review: ‘How Bad Writing Destroyed the World’

How Bad Writing Destroyed the World: Ayn Rand and the Literary Origins of the Financial Crisis by Adam Weiner

Despite the subtitle, Weiner only focuses explicitly on Rand in two chapters, the Introduction and the final chapter. The rest of the book is dedicated to the publication and social fallout of an 1863 Russian novel, What Is to Be Done? by Nikolai Chernyshevsky.

What Is to Be Done? is probably one of the most influential novels we have never heard of.

(Putin preening around shirtless on a fucking horse makes so much more sense to me now.)

First, a few caveats: One, this book is a literary analysis. Yes, it gets political, but Weiner is a literature professor, and the book focuses on Russian writers, including Dostoevsky and Nabokov.

Two, there is no glossary of terms and people. I often found myself looking back through previous chapters trying to remember who was who and why it mattered.

Nonetheless, any effort is worth it for the discussion of the power of literature and ideas (in this case, a damaging power). Turns out, Ayn Rand is the modern heir of Chernyshevsky’s legacy, for, “with the exception of Rand’s substitution of capitalism for socialism, her objectivism is precisely the same as Chernyshevsky’s rational egoism” (200).

How Bad Writing Destroyed the World moves chronologically, actually starting with Dostoevsky, his early style, and his experiences with the Petrashevsky Circle, a group Lenin has cited as the progenitor of Russian socialist movements (31). Specifically, Dostoevsky met Nikolai Speshnev, a radical revolutionary who was “rationally calculating, philosophically enlightened, politically uncompromising, and prepared for action” (31-32)---and identified by Weiner as “a possible historical prototype for [Chernyshevsky’s] uncompromising revolutionary superman, the ‘rigorist’ Rakhmetov” (36).

As I said, this book is a literary analysis.

Weiner touches base with Dostoevsky in several other chapters, but in Chapter 2, “‘The most atrocious work of Russian literature’,” he summarizes What Is to Be Done? The chapter heading comes from the reaction of a contemporary critic---a reaction that seemed to be the general consensus at the time, except for the fanatics who latched onto the book as a bible. For some background, here is the Wikipedia entry on What Is to Be Done?, although Weiner is more thorough. He organizes his summary around four Platonic dreams the character Vera Pavlovna has, which represent her ascending Socialist enlightenment. Yet, despite the diametrically opposed positions of socialism and capitalism, in Chernyshevsky we can see Rand quite clearly.

For example, in What is to Be Done? Vera Pavlovna, in her quest for both independence and Socialism, forms a collective of seamstresses---a working girl sorority, so to speak---and “because the interest of each seamstress coincides with the interests of the collective, the business is successful” (45). Naturally, when fans tried to replicate these collectives, their businesses failed, because reality is complex and generally full of humans.

Too bad Objectivists don’t know this history. In Weiner’s Introduction, he cites an excerpt from Alan Greenspan’s testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, in which Greenspan admits “’I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms’” (13). No kidding.

Another parallel is how much characters talk, philosophize, navel-gaze, and generally congratulate themselves on their rationality and selfishness, both of which lead to ‘correct’ political views. Weiner notes that Chernyshevsky’s characters 

attach ‘great importance’ to rejecting certain desires as false and fantastical while retaining others as authentic, because Chernyshevsky’s rational egoism requires people to act on their desires, but only those desires that are underwritten by logic, and only that logic which leads to socialism (51).

Change Socialism to Capitalism, and it’s Atlas Shrugged. More to the point, “the essential core of both Chernyshevsky’s and Rand’s thought is not socialism or capitalism but the tyrannical will to control humanity and shape its destiny” (9).

Basically, Weiner successfully makes his case about Ayn Rand and Nikolai Chernyshevsky---in only three chapters (the Introduction, Chapter 2, and Chapter 8).

Not that the rest of the book is filler. As stated above, Weiner touches base with Dostoevsky, outlining his attempts to counter Chernyshevsky via deconstruction, and later he cites Nabokov’s scathing, parodical dismantling of both Chernyshevsky and Dostoevsky.

Additionally, Weiner traces the revolutionary activities of Russian socialists, the most significant being Sergei Nechaev, a terrorist and conman, whose basic philosophy was none other than Chernyshevsky’s Rakhmetov, “who lives solely for the success of the revolutionary cause” (99). Of course, a man like Nechaev could never be content merely imitating a prototype, and had to publish his own writings. “The Catechism of a Revolutionary” is probably Nechaev’s most well-known work, and in it he outlines his revolutionary ideal [summarized by Weiner]: 

He has cut himself off from the civil order, from the world of education, from the sciences, from conventional morality, from all human society. His only passion is hatred of the existing order and the only science he practices is the merciless science of destruction (109). 

Weiner also notes that the work “reeks with the revolutionary methodology of Nikolai Speshnev: infiltration, conspiracy, and blackmail” (99).

Not only do these chapters discussing “revolutionary” development in Russia evoke current Russian practices, but also much of contemporary political discourse in general, with Weiner noting that “the tyrannical urge in Lenin to shout down any opposition by means of generalization, simplification, or whatever device he deems expedient results in the heaping up of insults and slogans in place of logic” (164).

Sound familiar?

The thread connecting these late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Russian socialists to mid-to-late-twentieth- and early twenty-first-century American capitalism is Ayn Rand.

Which is not to dismiss or ignore all the other factors of U.S. sociopolitical dynamics, but Rand has had an inordinate influence on the Right in the U.S., and Weiner traces a continuous ideology.

And yes, living up to his subtitle, Weiner gives a few revealing tidbits about Rand and her worldview.

Her admiration for a serial killer, for one. “Infatuation” is the word Weiner uses, and the serial killer was William Edward Hickman, on trial in 1928, “soon after Rand’s arrival in the United States.”

Rand was so taken by Hickman’s story that she used him as the prototype for the hero of a novel she never wrote that she wanted to call The Little Street. In her notebooks, Rand wrote with loathing about the “mob” that had formed around Hickman and reasoned that the public outcry was a reaction to his “daring challenge to society.” Hickman was “one of these rare, free, clear spirits” whom the mob cannot control. She valued his “remorselessness,” “strength,” “his calm, superior, indifferent, disdainful countenance,” and “his immense, explicit egoism” (196-7)

All of Weiner’s citations come from The Journals of Ayn Rand, and there is no indication whatsoever that she ever had a change of heart.

On a brief sidenote (and for disclosure purposes), I have only ever been able to get through one of Rand’s books, Anthem, which is more of a novella. It’s certainly not a tome like Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead. As a surface read, it’s not that bad, belonging to the same basic dystopias of Orwell’s 1984, or Zamyatin’s We. In Anthem, the future is run by a government that’s basically the bastard child of socialism and communism combined, and citizens are as much a hive mind as humans can possibly be, using the pronoun “we” instead of “I.” One man escapes all this. 

We and 1984 are each far superior both in social commentary and in style.

When I first read Anthem, I thought it was twice as long as it needed to be. Narratively speaking, it is---the protagonist regains his sense of individuality halfway through, reclaiming the word “I” and thus the concept of individuality. Rand just keeps going though. Because the protagonist needs to find the sacred and forbidden word “ego.” Which is Latin for “I.” Hence the ending seeming redundant to me when I initially read it. “Ego” as the base for “egoism,” however, adds another level to Anthem, and its length makes sense. 

Rand does not care about the individual. She cares about the bully. Having a sense of self (“I”) is not enough. One’s sense of self must be predicated on having one’s boot on someone else’s neck (egoism). So yeah, simply using the word “I” to refer to himself after an upbringing in a collective doesn’t suffice. The protagonist only arrives when he finds his Ego.

Thanks for the literary insight, William Edward Hickman. Of course, “not one word did Rand write about the actual victim of Hickman’s crime, Marion Parker [the 12-yr-old for whose murder Hickman was specifically on trial]” (197).

Weiner further dissects Rand’s hypocrisy, her “tone deafness” (196), her inability to adhere to her own dictate to “check your premises,” and an attitude that at best can be described as myopic. Specious and delusional might also apply. Essentially, Rand’s approach is to begin with her desired conclusion and contort her premises to match---the exact opposite of what she claimed to value: rationality. 

Weiner briefly touches on a particularly emblematic example: the Prometheus myth. Most of us know this one. The gods controlled fire, Prometheus stole it, gave it to mortals, and Zeus punished Prometheus by binding Prometheus to a rock and having an eagle tear out his liver each day.

However, in Atlas Shrugged, 

the Promethean Galt climbed a mountain in order to discover “the fountain of youth,” which he intended to bring down to men [Rand 178]. Instead, “after centuries of being torn by vultures in payment for having brought to men the fire of the gods, he broke his chains and he withdrew his fire---until the day when men withdraw their vultures” [Rand 517]. Rand amusingly substitutes a collectivist vulture for the standard eagle in her version of the myth of Prometheus (207).

Rand’s version of the myth is either an intentional manipulation, or incompetent literary understanding. She removes all context, snatches the idea of the unfairly-punished-for-doing-something-beneficial character, and arranges her players according to who she wants her audience to label the hero, and who the villain. 

This is just bad writing---it’s advertisement writing---propaganda writing. It’s telling the audience what to think. But as Rand intends Atlas Shrugged as a piece of propaganda, we’ll forego assessing her narrative abilities.

That still leaves the philosophical problems. First, the notion that the fire naturally belonged to Prometheus. It didn’t. He didn’t create it, invent it, develop it, or even assemble it---he stole it. We love him for it---he’s our cultural hero---but in the face of Rand’s twisted telling, we must acknowledge that it is not “his fire.”

Second, as an analogy, the Prometheus myth fails Rand’s purposes because the parts don’t align. Here’s the story again: The gods (those in power) controlled fire, Prometheus (the outlier/equalizer/anti-1%) stole it, gave it to mortals (society at large), and Zeus (chief of the ‘people who count’/ the 1%) punished Prometheus by binding Prometheus to a rock and having an eagle (Zeus’s symbol) tear out his liver each day. 

Mortals don’t punish Prometheus, Zeus does. Those in power hated that someone leveled the playing field, even a tad; thus, Rand’s designated heroes are the Zeus’s, withholding their benedictions until mortals properly worship them. She doesn’t have a Prometheus figure in her works---she can’t---because Prometheus, who acted selflessly, is antithetical to Objectivism.

Checking one’s premises includes analyzing analogies to make sure said analogy applies to the situation. But Rand, and her followers, have a tenuous grasp on actual logic and rationality. Her followers do, however, have a habit of similar distortions, i.e. mangling the point.

On a final note, Weiner discusses fan interactions with Rand’s works, much as he did with What is to Be Done? And this is another reason I recommend this book. We---especially us bibliophiles and story-lovers, those of us with positive fandom experiences, and those of us working in books or movies or any storytelling medium---we often wax philosophic on the power of stories. The pen being mightier and all that. 

We talk less about detrimental effects. We try when it comes to hate speech (and defining what hate speech is); it might come up with the Twilight series, or its derivative, Fifty Shades of Grey. I mean, what do these stories say about relationship goals, and is that really why people read them? But actually acknowledging that stories can be more than stories, and that textual analysis is a skill many haven’t developed to a usable degree---that’s not a favored topic.

(I have many many many thoughts on this; suffice it for now to merely point out that textual analysis is not the same thing as reading for fun, though you can do both (even to the same story).)

But how far, really, can bad books inculcate harmful ideas into a cultural subconscious? According to Weiner,

In an essay entitled “The Psycho-Epistemology of Art” Rand boasts that many fans of The Fountainhead had reported to her that they had resolved dilemmas in their own lives by asking, “What would Roark do in this situation?”--whereupon “faster than their mind could identify the proper application of all the complex principles involved, the image of Roark gave them the answer.” This is the precise method of brainwashing through idolatry that I have been describing in this book: it works by switching off critical thinking in order to facilitate identification with an idol. In another essay on the nature of fiction Rand argues that a rational person reads a novel in order to find there “an image in whose likeness he will reshape the world and himself. Art gives him that image; it gives him the experience of seeing the full, immediate, concrete reality of his distant goals” [Rand, “Art and Sense of Life”]. This is precisely how a human being yields up his volition, hollows out his personality, and allows himself to become a “Manchurian Candidate,” triggered to perform whatever action is required. Roark is a terrorist who blows up a huge building in New York City, so a reader who asks, “What would Roark do?” and then allows Roark’s image to guide his actions might do just about anything (199-200).

The idea that art exists only on the sociopolitical level is hardly unique to Rand. In Dostoevsky’s early career, he had butted heads with the critic Belinksy about the nature and purpose of art (as does every society). Dostoevsky claimed that art=art and that it required no agenda; “the one thing that Belinsky demanded of artists, however, was the pursuit of political and social ideas of a particular tendency” (28). In the Soviet Union, art was for the State---to exult and exonerate its “particular tendencies.” 

To define art as having a singular purpose limits expression---limits thought and diversity of voices---and thus acts as a form of censorship. It’s the defining characteristic of propaganda, which, by limiting the function of art, petrifies its purpose, and limits the number of interpretations to ONE. Art, however, exists on multiple levels---the political, the personal, the communal; as unfettered expressions of the imagination, or as observations of the real world. And there are multiple ways to interact with art. Meanings may not be absolutely infinite, but they are varied and often fluid. 

The degree to which Rand’s followers clung to the “distant goals” of her fictions as irrefutable reality came to disastrous conclusion---one foreseeable by critics of Rand---in the financial crisis heralded by Alan Greenspan. A crap economy is not the only danger, however.

. . . Greenspan’s ignorance, dogmatism, and hubris blinded him to material proofs that invalidated his worldview. That is what you would expect from an ideologue. But now let us imagine a sociopath’s encounter with objectivism, which tells him that his relentless, amoral pursuit of material or political gain is the very thing that makes him better than the people he tramples to get to the top. Presumably such a reader of Ayn Rand’s novel does not probe deeply into this philosophy. He does not wince at Rand’s stylistic lapses. Nor does he perform “due diligence” on the ideas presented. He plunders what he needs from them and goes back to work with the pleasant new belief that his rapaciousness has solid intellectual and even moral foundations. To some this justification of greed must be irresistible (17-8).

The idea of “due diligence” is most striking. Skills such as reading comprehension and information literacy have a reputation as belonging to stuffy librarians or pedantic snobs. But the inability to distinguish between the subjective and the objective is dangerous. Its benign form is flame wars. In its more insidious form, as Weiner aptly shows with Ayn Rand, a story can be wielded as an instrument of destabilization, or just generic oppression. Because I’m pretty sure some of those sociopaths are in power right now, consulting Rand wherever they’re not cherry-picking Bible verses.

I used the phrase “on a final note” rather a long ways up there. And then I just kept going, which is really what this book does. As focused as it is on a few specific Russian writers of a specific era and Ayn Rand’s probably-unintentional debt to them, it makes you think. It made me think. On literature, on history, on politics and social movements, on propaganda, and very much on the necessity of information literacy (because I don’t believe in banning books).

I just hope that if somehow he comes out with a second edition, he includes a damn glossary.

[kenyatta]

They Might Be Giants - The Communists Have the Music (Official Video)

I love the Trivia/Info section compiled by the fan run TMBG wiki:

Posted on TMBG’s Free Downloads page on September 11, 2018, with a note saying “This song is part of our upcoming album, entitled My Murdered Remains”.

The initial YouTube release features a still image replicating a 1915 oil painting by Russian artist Kazimir Malevich entitled “Suprematist Painting: Eight Red Rectangles”. Malevich was not a communist. The version of the painting used in the video is a recreation done by John Flansburgh with red construction paper, shown upside-down.

The song was released digitally on Sept. 21, and later as a 7" single, backed with “I’ve Been Seeing Things”. Teased by a Girlie Action press release, a full animated video with art by David Plunkert was released on October 9.

The House Un-American Activities Committee existed from 1939–1969 and was primarily used to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having communist ties.

Read more about noted Objectivist author Ayn Rand and Marxist philosopher Friedrich Engels, and read the lyrics to “The Internationale”, a left-wing anthem and standard of the socialist movement since the late nineteenth century, in preparation for playing the backing track.

The outfits the fascists have are likely Nazi uniforms, some of which were notably manufactured by Hugo Boss.

In a Girlie Action press release, Linnell says of the song, “On the one hand, Fran Lebowitz memorably said of Communism vs. Fascism that one was too dull and the other too exciting. However, our song takes its cue from somebody (I can’t remember who) in our high school, who once compared two bands (I wish I could remember which bands) by declaring that one had the power but the other had the tunes. This enduring metaphor seems to apply to any pair of things we can think of.”

[richincolor]

Poetry Month

Some readers avoid poetry, but I run toward it with open arms so Poetry Month makes me smile. Here are a few of the newest poetry books I’ve been enjoying.

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo HarperTeen [Audrey��s Review]

A young girl in Harlem discovers slam poetry as a way to understand her mother’s religion and her own relationship to the world. Debut novel of renowned slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo.

Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking.

But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers—especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself.

So when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out, much less speak her words out loud. But still, she can’t stop thinking about performing her poems.

Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.

For Every One by Jason Reynolds Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books

Originally performed at the Kennedy Center for the unveiling of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, and later as a tribute to Walter Dean Myers, this stirring and inspirational poem is New York Times bestselling author and National Book Award finalist Jason Reynolds’s rallying cry to the dreamers of the world.

For Every One is just that: for every one. For every one person. For every one dream. But especially for every one kid. The kids who dream of being better than they are. Kids who dream of doing more than they almost dare to dream. Kids who are like Jason Reynolds, a self-professed dreamer. Jason does not claim to know how to make dreams come true; he has, in fact, been fighting on the front line of his own battle to make his own dreams a reality. He expected to make it when he was sixteen. Then eighteen. Then twenty-five. Now, some of those expectations have been realized. But others, the most important ones, lay ahead, and a lot of them involve kids, how to inspire them. All the kids who are scared to dream, or don’t know how to dream, or don’t dare to dream because they’ve NEVER seen a dream come true. Jason wants kids to know that dreams take time. They involve countless struggles. But no matter how many times a dreamer gets beat down, the drive and the passion and the hope never fully extinguish—because just having the dream is the start you need, or you won’t get anywhere anyway, and that is when you have to take a leap of faith.

A pitch perfect graduation, baby, or love my kid gift.

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books

A cannon. A strap. A piece. A biscuit. A burner. A heater. A chopper. A gat. A hammer A tool for RULE

Or, you can call it a gun. That’s what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. That’s where Will’s now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brother’s gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who he’s after. Or does he?

As the elevator stops on the sixth floor, on comes Buck. Buck, Will finds out, is who gave Shawn the gun before Will took the gun. Buck tells Will to check that the gun is even loaded. And that’s when Will sees that one bullet is missing. And the only one who could have fired Shawn’s gun was Shawn. Huh. Will didn’t know that Shawn had ever actually used his gun. Bigger huh. BUCK IS DEAD. But Buck’s in the elevator?

Just as Will’s trying to think this through, the door to the next floor opens. A teenage girl gets on, waves away the smoke from Dead Buck’s cigarette. Will doesn’t know her, but she knew him. Knew. When they were eight. And stray bullets had cut through the playground, and Will had tried to cover her, but she was hit anyway, and so what she wants to know, on that fifth floor elevator stop, is, what if Will, Will with the gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, MISSES.

And so it goes, the whole long way down, as the elevator stops on each floor, and at each stop someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END…if WILL gets off that elevator.

Solo by Kwame Alexander & Mary Rand Hess Blink [Crystal’s Review]

When the heart gets lost, let the music find you.

Blade never asked for a life of the rich and famous. In fact, he’d give anything not to be the son of Rutherford Morrison, a washed-up rock star and drug addict with delusions of a comeback. Or to no longer be part of a family known most for lost potential, failure, and tragedy. The one true light is his girlfriend, Chapel, but her parents have forbidden their relationship, assuming—like many—that Blade will become just like his father.

In reality, the only thing Blade has in common with Rutherford is the music that lives inside them. But not even the songs that flow through Blade’s soul are enough when he’s faced with two unimaginable realities: the threat of losing Chapel forever, and the revelation of a long-held family secret, one that leaves him questioning everything he thought was true. All that remains is a letter and a ticket to Ghana—both of which could bring Blade the freedom and love he’s been searching for, or leave him feeling even more adrift.

And here are a few on my TBR:

It’s Not Like It’s a Secret by Misa Sigiura HarperTeen

*Not a book of poetry, but it does include poems*

Sixteen-year-old Sana Kiyohara has too many secrets. Some are small, like how it bothers her when her friends don’t invite her to parties. Some are big, like that fact that she’s pretty sure her father’s having an affair. And then there’s the one that she barely even admits to herself, the one about how she might have a crush on her best friend.

When Sana and her family move to California, she begins to wonder if it’s finally time for her to be honest with her friends and family, especially after she meets Jamie Ramirez. Jamie is beautiful and smart and unlike anyone Sana’s ever known before. The only problems are: Sana is pretty sure Jamie’s friends hate her, Jamie’s ex isn’t totally out of the picture, Sana’s new friend Caleb has more-than-friendly feelings for her, and things with her dad feel like they’re coming to a head. She always figured that the hardest thing would be to tell people that she wanted to date a girl, but as she quickly learns, telling the truth is easy…what comes after it, though, is a whole lot more complicated.

Voices in the Air by Naomi Shihab Nye Greenwillow Books

Acclaimed and award-winning poet, teacher, and National Book Award finalist Naomi Shihab Nye’s uncommon and unforgettable voice offers readers peace, humor, inspiration, and solace. This volume of almost one hundred original poems is a stunning and engaging tribute to the diverse voices past and present that comfort us, compel us, lead us, and give us hope.

Voices in the Air is a collection of almost one hundred original poems written by the award-winning poet Naomi Shihab Nye in honor of the artists, writers, poets, historical figures, ordinary people, and diverse luminaries from past and present who have inspired her. Full of words of encouragement, solace, and hope, this collection offers a message of peace and empathy.

Voices in the Air celebrates the inspirational people who strengthen and motivate us to create, to open our hearts, and to live rewarding and graceful lives. With short informational bios about the influential figures behind each poem, and a transcendent introduction by the poet, this is a collection to cherish, read again and again, and share with others. Includes an index.

Black Girl Magic by Mahogany L. Browne with illustrations by Jess X. Snow Roaring Brook Press

Black Girl, they say you ain’t ‘posed to be here

Much of what twenty-first century culture tells black girls is not pretty: Don’t wear this; don’t smile at that. Don’t have an opinion; don’t dream big. And most of all, don’t love yourself. In response to such destructive ideas, internationally recognized poet Mahogany Browne challenges the conditioning of society by crafting an anthem of strength and magic undeniable in its bloom for all beautiful Black girls. She has travelled the world sharing her vision of Black Girl Magic, and now in collaboration with artist Jess X. Snow, presents her acclaimed tribute in a visual form.

Black Girl Magic is a journey from girlhood to womanhood and an invitation to readers to find magic in themselves.

Am I missing any great poetry books from this year or the last? Please let us know in the comments. Also, if you want to find more great poetry titles, check out our previous posts here:

Pieces of Poetry (2017)

Poetry Link Round Up (2016)

Novels in Verse (2014)

Piles of Poetry (2013)

[gordonwilliamsweb]

Retiree Living the RV Dream Fights $12,387 Nightmare Lab Fee

Lorraine Rogge and her husband, Michael Rogge, travel the country in a recreational vehicle, a well-earned adventure in retirement. This spring found them parked in Artesia, New Mexico, for several months.

This story also ran on NPR. It can be republished for free.

In May, Rogge, 60, began to feel pelvic pain and cramping. But she had had a total hysterectomy in 2006, so the pain seemed unusual, especially because it lasted for days. She looked for a local gynecologist and found one who took her insurance at the Carlsbad Medical Center in Carlsbad, New Mexico, about a 20-mile drive from the RV lot.

The doctor asked if Rogge was sexually active, and she responded yes and that she had been married to Michael for 26 years. Rogge felt she made it clear that she is in a monogamous relationship. The doctor then did a gynecological examination and took a vaginal swab sample for laboratory testing.

The only lab test Rogge remembered discussing with the doctor was to see whether she had a yeast infection. She wasn’t given any medication to treat the pelvic pain and eventually it disappeared after a few days.

Then the bill came.

The Patient: Lorraine Rogge, 60. Her insurance coverage was an Anthem Blue Cross retiree plan through her husband’s former employer, with a deductible of $2,000 and out-of-pocket maximum of $6,750 for in-network providers.

Total Bill: Carlsbad Medical Center billed $12,386.93 to Anthem Blue Cross for a vaginosis, vaginitis and sexually transmitted infections (STI) testing panel. The insurer paid $4,161.58 on a negotiated rate of $7,172.05. That left Rogge responsible for $1,970 of her deductible and $1,040.36 coinsurance. Her total owed for the lab bill was $3,010.47. Rogge also paid $93.85 for the visit to the doctor.

Service Provider: Carlsbad Medical Center in Carlsbad, New Mexico. It is owned by Community Health Systems, a large for-profit chain of hospital systems based in Franklin, Tennessee, outside Nashville. The doctor Rogge saw works for Carlsbad Medical Center and its lab processed her test.

Medical Service: A bundled testing panel that looked for bacterial and yeast infections as well as common STIs, including chlamydia, gonorrhea and trichomoniasis.

What Gives: There were two things Rogge didn’t know as she sought care. First, Carlsbad Medical Center is notorious for its high prices and aggressive billing practices and, second, she wasn’t aware she would be tested for a wide range of sexually transmitted infections.

The latter bothered her a lot since she has been sexually active only with her husband. She doesn’t remember being advised about the STI testing at all. Nor was she questioned about whether she or her husband might have been sexually active with other people, which could have justified broader testing. They have been on the road together for five years.

“I was incensed that they ran these tests, when they just said they were going to run a yeast infection test,” said Rogge. “They ran all these tests that one would run on a very young person who had a lot of boyfriends, not a 60-year-old grandmother that’s been married for 26 years.”

Although a doctor doesn’t need a patient’s authorization to run tests, it’s not good practice to do so without informing the patient, said Dr. Ina Park, an associate professor of family community medicine at the University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine. That is particularly true with tests of a sensitive nature, like STIs. It is doubly true when the tests are going to costs thousands of dollars.

Park, an expert in sexually transmitted infections, also questioned the necessity of the full panel of tests for a patient who had a hysterectomy.

Beyond that, the pricing for these tests was extremely high. “It should not cost $12,000 to get an evaluation for vaginitis,” said Park.

Charles Root, an expert in lab billing, agreed.

“Quite frankly, the retail prices on [the bill] are ridiculous, they make no sense at all,” said Root. “Those are tests that cost about $10 to run.”

In fall 2019, The New York Times and CNN investigated Carlsbad Medical Center and found the facility had taken thousands of patients to court for unpaid hospital bills. Carlsbad Medical Center also has higher prices than many other facilities — a 2019 Rand Corp. study found that private insurance companies paid Carlsbad Medical Center 505% of what Medicare would pay for the same procedures.

The bundled testing panel run on Rogge’s sample was a Quest Diagnostics SureSwab Vaginosis Panel Plus. It included six types of tests. Quest Diagnostics didn’t provide the cost for the bundled tests, but Kim Gorode, a company spokesperson, said if the tests had been ordered directly through Quest rather than through the hospital, it was likely “the patient responsibility would have been substantially less.”

According to Medicare’s Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule, Medicare would have reimbursed labs only about $40 for each test run on Rogge’s sample. And Medicaid would reimburse hospitals in New Mexico similarly, according to figures provided by Russell Toal, superintendent of New Mexico’s insurance department.

But hospitals and clinics can — and do — add substantial markups to clinical tests sent out to commercial labs.

Although private health insurance doesn’t typically reimburse hospitals at Medicare or Medicaid rates, Root said, private insurance reimbursement rates are rarely much more than 200% to 300% of Medicare’s rates. Assuming a 300% reimbursement rate, the total private insurance would have reimbursed for the six tests would have been $720.

That $720 is less than what Carlsbad Medical Center charged Rogge for her chlamydia test alone: $1,045. And for several of the tests, the medical center charged multiple quantities — presumably corresponding to how many species were tested for — elevating the cost of the yeast infection test to over $4,000.

Toal, who reviewed Rogge’s bill, called the prices “outrageous.”

Resolution: Rogge contacted Anthem Blue Cross and talked to a customer service representative, who submitted a fraud-and-waste claim and an appeal contending the charges were excessive.

The appeal was denied. Anthem Blue Cross told Rogge that under her plan the insurance company had paid the amount it was responsible for, and that based on her deductible and coinsurance amounts, she was responsible for the remainder.

Anthem Blue Cross said in a statement to KHN all the tests run on Rogge were approved and “paid for in accordance with Anthem’s pre-determined contracted rate with Carlsbad Medical Center.”

By the time Rogge’s appeal was denied, she had researched Carlsbad Medical Center and read the stories of patients being brought to court for medical bills they couldn’t pay. She had also gotten a notice from the hospital that her account would be sent to a collection agency if she didn’t pay the $3,000 balance.

Fearing the possibility of getting sued or ruining her credit, Rogge agreed to a plan to pay the bill over three years. She made three payments of $83.63 each in September, October and November, totaling $250.89.

After a Nov. 18 call and email from KHN, Carlsbad Medical Center called Rogge on Nov. 20 and said the remainder of her account balance would be waived.

Rogge was thrilled. We “aren’t the kind of people who have payment plans hanging over our heads,” she said, adding: “This is a relief.”

“I’m going to go on a bike ride now” to celebrate, she said.

The Takeaway: Particularly when visiting a doctor with whom you don’t have a long-standing trusted relationship, don’t be afraid to ask: How much is this test going to cost? Also ask for what, exactly, are you being tested? Do not be comforted by the facility’s in-network status. With coinsurance and deductibles, you can still be out a lot.

If it’s a blood test that will be sent out to a commercial lab like Quest Diagnostics anyway, ask the physician to just give you a requisition to have the blood drawn at the commercial lab. That way you avoid the markup. This advice is obviously not possible for a vaginal swab gathered in a doctor’s office.

Patients should always fight bills they believe are excessively high and escalate the matter if necessary.

Rogge started with her insurer and the provider, as should most patients with a billing question. But, as she learned: In American medicine, what’s legal and in accordance with an insurance contract can seem logically absurd. Still, if you get no satisfaction from your initial inquiries, be aware of options for taking your complaints further.

Every state and U.S. territory has a department that regulates the insurance industry. In New Mexico, that’s the Office of the Superintendent of Insurance. Consumers can look up their state’s department on the National Association of Insurance Commissioners website.

Toal, the insurance superintendent in New Mexico, said his office doesn’t (and no office in the state does that he’s aware of) have the authority to tell a hospital its prices are too high. But he can look into a bill like Rogge’s if a complaint is filed with his office.

“If the patient wants, they can request an independent review, so the bill would go to an independent organization that could see if it was medically necessary,” Toal said.

That wasn’t needed in this case because Rogge’s bill was waived. And after being contacted by KHN, Melissa Suggs, a spokesperson with Carlsbad Medical Center, said the facility is revising their lab charges.

“Pricing for these services will be lower in the future,” Suggs said in a statement.

Bill of the Month is a crowdsourced investigation by KHN and NPR that dissects and explains medical bills. Do you have an interesting medical bill you want to share with us? Tell us about it!

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

Retiree Living the RV Dream Fights $12,387 Nightmare Lab Fee published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

[stephenmccull]

Retiree Living the RV Dream Fights $12,387 Nightmare Lab Fee

Lorraine Rogge and her husband, Michael Rogge, travel the country in a recreational vehicle, a well-earned adventure in retirement. This spring found them parked in Artesia, New Mexico, for several months.

This story also ran on NPR. It can be republished for free.

In May, Rogge, 60, began to feel pelvic pain and cramping. But she had had a total hysterectomy in 2006, so the pain seemed unusual, especially because it lasted for days. She looked for a local gynecologist and found one who took her insurance at the Carlsbad Medical Center in Carlsbad, New Mexico, about a 20-mile drive from the RV lot.

The doctor asked if Rogge was sexually active, and she responded yes and that she had been married to Michael for 26 years. Rogge felt she made it clear that she is in a monogamous relationship. The doctor then did a gynecological examination and took a vaginal swab sample for laboratory testing.

The only lab test Rogge remembered discussing with the doctor was to see whether she had a yeast infection. She wasn’t given any medication to treat the pelvic pain and eventually it disappeared after a few days.

Then the bill came.

The Patient: Lorraine Rogge, 60. Her insurance coverage was an Anthem Blue Cross retiree plan through her husband’s former employer, with a deductible of $2,000 and out-of-pocket maximum of $6,750 for in-network providers.

Total Bill: Carlsbad Medical Center billed $12,386.93 to Anthem Blue Cross for a vaginosis, vaginitis and sexually transmitted infections (STI) testing panel. The insurer paid $4,161.58 on a negotiated rate of $7,172.05. That left Rogge responsible for $1,970 of her deductible and $1,040.36 coinsurance. Her total owed for the lab bill was $3,010.47. Rogge also paid $93.85 for the visit to the doctor.

Service Provider: Carlsbad Medical Center in Carlsbad, New Mexico. It is owned by Community Health Systems, a large for-profit chain of hospital systems based in Franklin, Tennessee, outside Nashville. The doctor Rogge saw works for Carlsbad Medical Center and its lab processed her test.

Medical Service: A bundled testing panel that looked for bacterial and yeast infections as well as common STIs, including chlamydia, gonorrhea and trichomoniasis.

What Gives: There were two things Rogge didn’t know as she sought care. First, Carlsbad Medical Center is notorious for its high prices and aggressive billing practices and, second, she wasn’t aware she would be tested for a wide range of sexually transmitted infections.

The latter bothered her a lot since she has been sexually active only with her husband. She doesn’t remember being advised about the STI testing at all. Nor was she questioned about whether she or her husband might have been sexually active with other people, which could have justified broader testing. They have been on the road together for five years.

“I was incensed that they ran these tests, when they just said they were going to run a yeast infection test,” said Rogge. “They ran all these tests that one would run on a very young person who had a lot of boyfriends, not a 60-year-old grandmother that’s been married for 26 years.”

Although a doctor doesn’t need a patient’s authorization to run tests, it’s not good practice to do so without informing the patient, said Dr. Ina Park, an associate professor of family community medicine at the University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine. That is particularly true with tests of a sensitive nature, like STIs. It is doubly true when the tests are going to costs thousands of dollars.

Park, an expert in sexually transmitted infections, also questioned the necessity of the full panel of tests for a patient who had a hysterectomy.

Beyond that, the pricing for these tests was extremely high. “It should not cost $12,000 to get an evaluation for vaginitis,” said Park.

Charles Root, an expert in lab billing, agreed.

“Quite frankly, the retail prices on [the bill] are ridiculous, they make no sense at all,” said Root. “Those are tests that cost about $10 to run.”

In fall 2019, The New York Times and CNN investigated Carlsbad Medical Center and found the facility had taken thousands of patients to court for unpaid hospital bills. Carlsbad Medical Center also has higher prices than many other facilities — a 2019 Rand Corp. study found that private insurance companies paid Carlsbad Medical Center 505% of what Medicare would pay for the same procedures.

The bundled testing panel run on Rogge’s sample was a Quest Diagnostics SureSwab Vaginosis Panel Plus. It included six types of tests. Quest Diagnostics didn’t provide the cost for the bundled tests, but Kim Gorode, a company spokesperson, said if the tests had been ordered directly through Quest rather than through the hospital, it was likely “the patient responsibility would have been substantially less.”

According to Medicare’s Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule, Medicare would have reimbursed labs only about $40 for each test run on Rogge’s sample. And Medicaid would reimburse hospitals in New Mexico similarly, according to figures provided by Russell Toal, superintendent of New Mexico’s insurance department.

But hospitals and clinics can — and do — add substantial markups to clinical tests sent out to commercial labs.

Although private health insurance doesn’t typically reimburse hospitals at Medicare or Medicaid rates, Root said, private insurance reimbursement rates are rarely much more than 200% to 300% of Medicare’s rates. Assuming a 300% reimbursement rate, the total private insurance would have reimbursed for the six tests would have been $720.

That $720 is less than what Carlsbad Medical Center charged Rogge for her chlamydia test alone: $1,045. And for several of the tests, the medical center charged multiple quantities — presumably corresponding to how many species were tested for — elevating the cost of the yeast infection test to over $4,000.

Toal, who reviewed Rogge’s bill, called the prices “outrageous.”

Resolution: Rogge contacted Anthem Blue Cross and talked to a customer service representative, who submitted a fraud-and-waste claim and an appeal contending the charges were excessive.

The appeal was denied. Anthem Blue Cross told Rogge that under her plan the insurance company had paid the amount it was responsible for, and that based on her deductible and coinsurance amounts, she was responsible for the remainder.

Anthem Blue Cross said in a statement to KHN all the tests run on Rogge were approved and “paid for in accordance with Anthem’s pre-determined contracted rate with Carlsbad Medical Center.”

By the time Rogge’s appeal was denied, she had researched Carlsbad Medical Center and read the stories of patients being brought to court for medical bills they couldn’t pay. She had also gotten a notice from the hospital that her account would be sent to a collection agency if she didn’t pay the $3,000 balance.

Fearing the possibility of getting sued or ruining her credit, Rogge agreed to a plan to pay the bill over three years. She made three payments of $83.63 each in September, October and November, totaling $250.89.

After a Nov. 18 call and email from KHN, Carlsbad Medical Center called Rogge on Nov. 20 and said the remainder of her account balance would be waived.

Rogge was thrilled. We “aren’t the kind of people who have payment plans hanging over our heads,” she said, adding: “This is a relief.”

“I’m going to go on a bike ride now” to celebrate, she said.

The Takeaway: Particularly when visiting a doctor with whom you don’t have a long-standing trusted relationship, don’t be afraid to ask: How much is this test going to cost? Also ask for what, exactly, are you being tested? Do not be comforted by the facility’s in-network status. With coinsurance and deductibles, you can still be out a lot.

If it’s a blood test that will be sent out to a commercial lab like Quest Diagnostics anyway, ask the physician to just give you a requisition to have the blood drawn at the commercial lab. That way you avoid the markup. This advice is obviously not possible for a vaginal swab gathered in a doctor’s office.

Patients should always fight bills they believe are excessively high and escalate the matter if necessary.

Rogge started with her insurer and the provider, as should most patients with a billing question. But, as she learned: In American medicine, what’s legal and in accordance with an insurance contract can seem logically absurd. Still, if you get no satisfaction from your initial inquiries, be aware of options for taking your complaints further.

Every state and U.S. territory has a department that regulates the insurance industry. In New Mexico, that’s the Office of the Superintendent of Insurance. Consumers can look up their state’s department on the National Association of Insurance Commissioners website.

Toal, the insurance superintendent in New Mexico, said his office doesn’t (and no office in the state does that he’s aware of) have the authority to tell a hospital its prices are too high. But he can look into a bill like Rogge’s if a complaint is filed with his office.

“If the patient wants, they can request an independent review, so the bill would go to an independent organization that could see if it was medically necessary,” Toal said.

That wasn’t needed in this case because Rogge’s bill was waived. And after being contacted by KHN, Melissa Suggs, a spokesperson with Carlsbad Medical Center, said the facility is revising their lab charges.

“Pricing for these services will be lower in the future,” Suggs said in a statement.

Bill of the Month is a crowdsourced investigation by KHN and NPR that dissects and explains medical bills. Do you have an interesting medical bill you want to share with us? Tell us about it!

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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[just-an-unrepentant-bibliophile]

Reread, Rewrite, or Burn Book Tag

Saw this on Booktube, but I have a face made for text, so I decided to try this out here with all of the 57 books I read during 2017.

For those not in the know, this tag requires you to draw the names of 3 books you’ve read (doesn’t have to be from the same year) and from those three you determine which of them you would like to reread, rewrite, or burn.

Here goes the first trio!

1. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

2. Picking Bones from Ash by Marie Mutsuki Mockett

3. Sisters One, Two, Three by Nancy Star

Hmm. Well, from this group I would have to say Sisters One, Two, Three was the biggest surprise, so I would reread it. The other 2 were both mild disappointments, though I did like the writing style more in Everything I Never Told You, so I will choose to rewrite that (and change some of the actions of those annoying family members), and burn (no pun intended) Picking Bones from Ash

4. The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison

5. The Giver by Lois Lowry

6. The Golden Acorn by Catherine Cooper

While I enjoyed aspects of all three of these, I think The Golden Acorn was my least favorite, so I would burn it. I don’t know what I would change about The Giver, so I suppose I would reread it. There were some repetitive incidents of violence against women in The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, so I suppose I would rewrite that and make their world a little less harsh.

7. An Untamed State by Roxane Gay

8. Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

9. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Wow. This one is really unfair. An Untamed State was a 5-star read for me, and while it was one of the most brutal reading experiences I’ve ever had, I think it will stay with me the longest of any of these, and I don’t think I could do anything with it other than reread. The others were both 4-star reads. If I’m completely honest with myself, though both stories deal with disenfranchised and underrepresented groups of people in literature, I’ve read other books similar to Between Shades of Gray, so I would have to burn it. I would rewrite Sing, Unburied, Sing by making the plot move along a little faster. Ward tells a good story, but she sure takes her time doing it.

10. Icy Sparks by Gwyn Hyman Rubio

11. Palm Trees in the Snow by Luz Gabás

12. Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire

Easy. Hated Icy Sparks with a passion. Burn, baby, burn. I would rewrite Palm Trees in the Snow and cut out some of the grumbling between the brothers, and the unnecessary romance. Would reread Down Among the Sticks and Bones.

13. When I Found You by Catherine Ryan Hyde

14. Soy Sauce for Beginners by Kirstin Chen

15. Kindred by Octavia Butler

I would reread Kindred in a heartbeat. I think the story in When I Found You could use some fleshing out during some of those missing years. Soy Sauce for Beginners would be burned.

16. Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

17. Sunbaked by Junie Coffey

18. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Burn Jane Eyre. Kill it with fire! Reread Interview with the Vampire. I would rewrite Sunbaked, as I think it has a lot of unrealized potential.

19. Come, Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant

20. The Smell of Other People’s Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock

21. A Conjuring of Light by V. E. Schwab

I would reread A Conjuring of Light. Loved this series (except the end of book 2)! I would rewrite Come, Thou Tortoise. Only minor things. There were a few blurry moments leading up to the end. And The Smell of Other People’s Houses would go up in flames.

22. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

23. The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow

24 Insurgent by Veronica Roth

I don’t even know what I was thinking when I gave Insurgent 2 stars. Burn it. I would reread The Girl Who Fell from the Sky. It wasn’t perfect, but was good. And I would rewrite and speed up the plot in A Wizard of Earthsea.

25. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

26. Allegiant by Veronica Roth

27. Full Bodied Murder by Christine E. Blum

Fairly easy. I would reread Water for Elephants, burn Allegiant (with glee!), and rewrite Full Bodied Murder, which could have been so much better.

28. Anthem by Ayn Rand

29. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

30. The Inheritance Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin

Even though I thought the beginning of the first novel was a bit of an info dump, I would reread The Inheritance Trilogy. Salvage the Bones would be rewritten so the hurricane isn’t quite so anticlimactic, and Anthem would be burned.

31. Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips

32. A Gathering of Shadows by V. E. Schwab

33. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Hmm. Well, the last book threw a kink in my plans. I would have to reread Station Eleven, rewrite the ending of A Gathering of Shadows, and burn Fierce Kingdom (which is really deserving of a rewrite, but not in this company).

34. The Abandoned by Amanda Stevens

35. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

36. Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat

The Abandoned was one of the worst things I read all year, and I would burn it. I would probably rewrite The Handmaid’s Tale, making the ending a little more clear, and reread Breath, Eyes, Memory.

37. Divergent by Veronica Roth

38. Legend by Marie Lu

39. Before the Rain Falls by Camille Di Maio

Divergent would burn. I had a few issues with both the other books, but I think the insta-love trope was slightly more palatable in Legend, so I’ll reread that one, and rewrite Before the Rain Falls to cut out all those meaningful glances.

40. Thin Places by M. L. McIntosh

41. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

42. The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbøl

I would burn Thin Places. In the dark. So I didn’t have to see it again. I was surprised by how much I liked Rebecca, so that would be a reread. The version I read of The Boy in the Suitcase had some formatting issues, so I would rewrite and fix those.

43. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

44. Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

45. El Deafo by Cece Bell

This one pains me a little as these were all 4- or 5-star books for me. I would have to reread Every Heart a Doorway. The Thirteenth Tale would get a rewrite to speed up the pace a bit, and El Deafo would have to burn, primarily since being a graphic novel, rewriting it would also mean redoing the artwork, and I can’t draw bunnies, so no.

46. The List by Patricia Forde

47. Going Bovine by Libba Bray

48. A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab

Ugh. I would have to reread A Darker Shade of Magic, ���cause Lila Bard. I really liked Going Bovine, but I knew where the plot was going all along, whereas The List threw a weird twist at the end that made no sense, but could definitely benefit from a rewrite. Still, I would have to burn The List. Going Bovine was too outrageously funny to get rid of forever.

49. Beachbound by Junie Coffey

50. The Book of Etta by Meg Elison

51. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

I would have to reread I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. While I rated Beachbound more highly than The Book of Etta, I think the latter would benefit most from a rewrite, so I would choose to burn Beachbound.

52. The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis

53. The Secret Mother by Shalini Boland

54. William’s Winter Nap by Linda Ashman

Even though the illustrations and story were cute, my life would not be diminished if William’s Winter Nap ended in flames. I would reread The Female of the Species, and The Secret Mother would get a rewrite to fix that attic scene that bugged me.

And for the final trio!

55. Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler

56. Leave Me Alone with the Recipes: The Life, Art, and Cookbook of Cipe Pineles by Cipe Pineles and a host of other contributors.

57. The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin

I would have to burn Leave Me Alone with the Recipes. Interesting biographical sections, but the recipes just aren’t for me. I would have to go with rereading Calling Me Home, and I would rewrite the first few chapters of The Tombs of Atuan to make the story easier to get into.

And if you made it all the way to the end of this exercise in self-indulgence, thank you for sticking with me! Feel free to discuss any decisions you would have made differently.

[melindarowens]

Northam wins Virginia governors race

With Zach Montellaro, Elena Schneider

The following newsletter is an abridged version of Campaign Pro’s Morning Score. For an earlier morning read on exponentially more races — and for a more comprehensive aggregation of the day’s most important campaign news — sign up for Campaign Pro today. (http://www.politicopro.com/proinfo)

Story Continued Below

ELECTION RESULTS — Ralph Northam (D) 54 percent, Ed Gillespie (R) 45 percent in Virginia‘s governor’s race; Phil Murphy (D) 56 percent, Kim Guadagno (R) 42 percent in New Jersey‘s governor’s race.

— “Northam beats Gillespie in Virginia governor’s race,” by POLITICO’s Gabriel Debenedetti: “Democrat Ralph Northam was elected governor of Virginia on Tuesday in a sweeping victory that defied the conventional wisdom of a tightening race. The lieutenant governor’s victory joins Democrat Phil Murphy’s win in New Jersey’s gubernatorial race to hand Democrats new hope in the Donald Trump era. After a bruising race against former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie, Northam outran Hillary Clinton in a state she carried by 5 points while losing the presidency in November 2016. A series of late-campaign controversies hitting Northam had Republicans cautiously optimistic that Gillespie could close the gap and pull off an upset, but Democrats rode a wave of anti-Trump backlash and satisfaction with outgoing Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s administration.”

— “’It was said that the eyes of the nation are now on the commonwealth,’ Northam said in his victory speech. ‘Today, Virginians have answered and spoken. Virginians have told us to end the divisiveness, that we will not condone hatred and bigotry, and to end the politics that have torn this country apart.’ … Gillespie sought to strike a balance between engaging moderates with talk of jobs and taxes and firing up his base by running ads on illegal immigration and sanctuary cities — which don’t exist in Virginia — and cultural touchstones like Confederate monuments and NFL anthem protests. Gillespie did not initially home in on those subjects, but they became a bigger part of his campaign after he nearly lost the June Republican primary to Trump’s former Virginia campaign chairman.” Full story.

— UT-03 also elected Republican Provo Mayor John Curtis to former Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s seat Tuesday night by a wide margin. Read more from the Salt Lake Tribune.

DEPARTURE LOUNGE — “LoBiondo to retire from Congress,” by Campaign Pro’s Elena Schneider: “New Jersey Rep. Frank LoBiondo, a senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee, will not run for reelection in 2018, according to a GOP operative familiar with the decision. The decision will open up a battleground district in southern New Jersey that LoBiondo has held easily since 1994. New Jersey’s 2nd District backed President Donald Trump with 50.6 percent of the vote to Hillary Clinton’s 46 percent in 2016. But former President Barack Obama also won the seat twice with between 53 and 54 percent of the vote.” Full story.

— “Van Drew ‘seriously considering’ running for LoBiondo’s seat, with Norcross’ support,” by POLITICO New Jersey reporter Matt Friedman: “State Sen. Jeff Van Drew is ‘seriously’ considering running for retiring Republican Rep. Frank LoBiondo‘s seat, and South Jersey’s most powerful Democrat is encouraging him to do so. ‘I’m going to consider it very seriously. I’m going to look at all the issues and certainly talk to advisers and friends and colleagues, but it is something I’m seriously considering,’ Van Drew said in a phone interview.” Full story here.

— Other names floated: Retired judge Ray Batten as potential candidates. Democrat Tanzie Youngblood, a retired teacher, is already in the race. Republicans, meanwhile, named state Assemblyman Chris Brown and former Atlantic County Sheriff Frank Balles.

— “Poe won’t seek reelection in 2018,” by POLITICO’s Cristiano Lima: “Seven-term Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) said today he will not seek reelection in 2018, the latest in a string of GOP lawmakers to announce their retirements recently. Poe, a former prosecutor and judge, won reelection in 2016 in the solidly conservative 2nd Congressional District by nearly 30 points, but said he was ready to move on.” Full story here.

— KEEP AN EYE ON — More safe Republican retirements expected: Another senior Republican member, Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte, is also eying retirement, according to a Republican operative familiar with those conversations. (The same operative flagged Poe hours before he announced his retirement.) Goodlatte didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

— SHAKEUP COMING IN AZ-SEN — McSally tells colleagues she’s in: “Congresswoman Martha McSally is planning to enter Arizona’s 2018 Senate race, giving Republican Kelli Ward new competition in the GOP primary,” The Arizona Republic reports. “The lawmaker has told her Republican colleagues in Arizona’s delegation that she intends to enter the Senate race, but didn’t indicate when she would formally announce her bid, according to two people with knowledge of the conversations.” Full story here.

Days until the 2018 election: 363.

Thanks for joining us! You can email tips to the Campaign Pro team at sbland@politico.com, eschneider@politico.com, krobillard@politico.com, dstrauss@politico.com and mseverns@politico.com.

You can also follow us on Twitter: @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin, @danielstrauss4 and @maggieseverns.

AND YET… BRAND PROBLEMS — “Poll: Views of Democratic Party hit lowest mark in 25 years,” by CNN’s Ryan Struyk: “Favorable views of the Democratic Party have dropped to their lowest mark in more than a quarter century of polling, according to new numbers from a CNN poll conducted by SSRS. Only 37% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Democrats, down from 44% in March of this year. A majority, 54%, have an unfavorable view, matching their highest mark in polls from CNN and SSRS, CNN/ORC and CNN/USA Today/Gallup stretching back to 1992.” Full story here. FLASHBACK — “Democratic brand still suffering despite GOP woes,” by POLITICO’s Elena Schneider.

AIR WARS — “Moore reserves first TV ads since Alabama primary,” by POLITICO’s Daniel Strauss: “Former Alabama Supreme Court judge Roy Moore has started reserving TV advertising for the special general election for Senate against Democrat Doug Jones. Moore, the Republican nominee, has reserved broadcast TV advertising time between Thursday and Dec. 11, a day before the election, according to Advertising Analytics. Advertising Analytics has seen $111,000 in reservations so far, with more spending likely. Jones had the airwaves to himself for weeks since the September primary runoff, when Moore defeated Sen. Luther Strange for the GOP nomination.” Full story here.

— “Jones ad hits Moore’s ‘extreme views’ on health care,” by Strauss: Former U.S. Attorney Doug Jones, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Alabama, started running a new TV ad today warning that Republican Roy Moore would damage the American health care system if elected. ‘If it’s broken, fix it. Health care, it’s broken. You know it, and I know it. But Roy Moore’s grandstanding and extreme views will do nothing to fix it,’ Jones says in the new 30-second ad. ‘And his policies will take us back to the past.’” Full story here.

— “Blunt, Cassidy, Ernst listed as Moore fundraiser attendees,” by Strauss: “Alabama Republican Roy Moore’s recent Capitol Hill fundraiser attracted senators from across the party’s ideological spectrum, yet another sign of the GOP coalescing around its controversial nominee in the state’s special Senate election ahead of the Dec. 12 vote. Sens. Rand Paul and Mike Lee and former Sen. Jim DeMint, who have all been involved in past anti-establishment primary fights, headlined the event for Moore. But a briefing memo obtained by POLITICO also listed Sens. Roy Blunt, Bill Cassidy and Joni Ernst as attendees, as well as Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, Sen. Roger Wicker (a former NRSC chairman) and Alabama’s entire Republican House delegation. The memo also said that prior to the event $50,000 had already been raised. Campaign officials have not said how much the fundraiser brought in overall.” Full story.

— Sen. Steve Daines endorsed Roy Moore for Senate, per a campaign release.

— “DeWine to air his first TV ads in Ohio governor’s race,” also by Strauss: “Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s campaign for governor has reserved its first TV advertising time, starting later this week. Advertising Analytics reported seeing $25,290 reserved on Fox News so far (the total could grow). The flight runs from Wednesday through Nov. 14, next Tuesday.” Full story here.

NEVER TOO EARLY — “The 2020 Glossy Primary Is Underway,” by National Journal’s Hanna Trudo: “Less than 10 months into the new administration and a year out from the midterms, Democrats thought to be eyeing national bids have sounded off in outlets like Cosmopolitan with striking frequency, drawing attention to steps being taken to target women voters outraged by the country’s top leadership. … ‘It’s the women’s equivalent of what Trump does in terms of tweeting,’ said Celinda Lake, a longtime Democratic pollster who focuses on framing issues to female voters. ‘It’s a way to have a direct communication with your base.’” Full story.

FIRST IN SCORE — Former Navy SEAL Robert O’Neill endorses Republican John James, candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan. Per a forthcoming press release:“I am proud to endorse John James for Senate. John James represents the epitome of what we should all strive to be as citizens of this great nation,” O’Neill said. “Whether it was defending freedom over Baghdad or creating jobs in Michigan, John has demonstrated a passion for service and commitment to excellence that makes him the best choice for Senate.”…Robert O’Neill is one of the most highly decorated combat veterans in modern American history with 52 honors including two Silver Stars and four Bronze Stars with Valor.”

DEEP IN THE HEART… — “GOP fears Trump slump for North Texas women ahead of 2018 races,” by McClatchy’s Andrea Drusch: “Texas Republicans badly need the grassroots efforts of North Texas women to win local and congressional races next year. But getting their support — and enthusiasm — could be a challenge. … But women were not overly enthusiastic about Donald Trump in 2016, who won Texas by 9 percentage points, the smallest margin of any GOP presidential nominee in decades.” Full story.

CODA — QUOTE OF THE DAY: “My donors are basically saying, ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again,’” Rep. Chris Collins on tax reform.

Source link

source https://capitalisthq.com/northam-wins-virginia-governors-race/ from CapitalistHQ http://capitalisthq.blogspot.com/2017/11/northam-wins-virginia-governors-race.html

[everettwilkinson]

Northam wins Virginia governors race

With Zach Montellaro, Elena Schneider

The following newsletter is an abridged version of Campaign Pro’s Morning Score. For an earlier morning read on exponentially more races — and for a more comprehensive aggregation of the day’s most important campaign news — sign up for Campaign Pro today. (http://www.politicopro.com/proinfo)

Story Continued Below

ELECTION RESULTS — Ralph Northam (D) 54 percent, Ed Gillespie (R) 45 percent in Virginia‘s governor’s race; Phil Murphy (D) 56 percent, Kim Guadagno (R) 42 percent in New Jersey‘s governor’s race.

— “Northam beats Gillespie in Virginia governor’s race,” by POLITICO’s Gabriel Debenedetti: “Democrat Ralph Northam was elected governor of Virginia on Tuesday in a sweeping victory that defied the conventional wisdom of a tightening race. The lieutenant governor’s victory joins Democrat Phil Murphy’s win in New Jersey’s gubernatorial race to hand Democrats new hope in the Donald Trump era. After a bruising race against former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie, Northam outran Hillary Clinton in a state she carried by 5 points while losing the presidency in November 2016. A series of late-campaign controversies hitting Northam had Republicans cautiously optimistic that Gillespie could close the gap and pull off an upset, but Democrats rode a wave of anti-Trump backlash and satisfaction with outgoing Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s administration.”

— “’It was said that the eyes of the nation are now on the commonwealth,’ Northam said in his victory speech. ‘Today, Virginians have answered and spoken. Virginians have told us to end the divisiveness, that we will not condone hatred and bigotry, and to end the politics that have torn this country apart.’ … Gillespie sought to strike a balance between engaging moderates with talk of jobs and taxes and firing up his base by running ads on illegal immigration and sanctuary cities — which don’t exist in Virginia — and cultural touchstones like Confederate monuments and NFL anthem protests. Gillespie did not initially home in on those subjects, but they became a bigger part of his campaign after he nearly lost the June Republican primary to Trump’s former Virginia campaign chairman.” Full story.

— UT-03 also elected Republican Provo Mayor John Curtis to former Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s seat Tuesday night by a wide margin. Read more from the Salt Lake Tribune.

DEPARTURE LOUNGE — “LoBiondo to retire from Congress,” by Campaign Pro’s Elena Schneider: “New Jersey Rep. Frank LoBiondo, a senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee, will not run for reelection in 2018, according to a GOP operative familiar with the decision. The decision will open up a battleground district in southern New Jersey that LoBiondo has held easily since 1994. New Jersey’s 2nd District backed President Donald Trump with 50.6 percent of the vote to Hillary Clinton’s 46 percent in 2016. But former President Barack Obama also won the seat twice with between 53 and 54 percent of the vote.” Full story.

— “Van Drew ‘seriously considering’ running for LoBiondo’s seat, with Norcross’ support,” by POLITICO New Jersey reporter Matt Friedman: “State Sen. Jeff Van Drew is ‘seriously’ considering running for retiring Republican Rep. Frank LoBiondo‘s seat, and South Jersey’s most powerful Democrat is encouraging him to do so. ‘I’m going to consider it very seriously. I’m going to look at all the issues and certainly talk to advisers and friends and colleagues, but it is something I’m seriously considering,’ Van Drew said in a phone interview.” Full story here.

— Other names floated: Retired judge Ray Batten as potential candidates. Democrat Tanzie Youngblood, a retired teacher, is already in the race. Republicans, meanwhile, named state Assemblyman Chris Brown and former Atlantic County Sheriff Frank Balles.

— “Poe won’t seek reelection in 2018,” by POLITICO’s Cristiano Lima: “Seven-term Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) said today he will not seek reelection in 2018, the latest in a string of GOP lawmakers to announce their retirements recently. Poe, a former prosecutor and judge, won reelection in 2016 in the solidly conservative 2nd Congressional District by nearly 30 points, but said he was ready to move on.” Full story here.

— KEEP AN EYE ON — More safe Republican retirements expected: Another senior Republican member, Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte, is also eying retirement, according to a Republican operative familiar with those conversations. (The same operative flagged Poe hours before he announced his retirement.) Goodlatte didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

— SHAKEUP COMING IN AZ-SEN — McSally tells colleagues she’s in: “Congresswoman Martha McSally is planning to enter Arizona’s 2018 Senate race, giving Republican Kelli Ward new competition in the GOP primary,” The Arizona Republic reports. “The lawmaker has told her Republican colleagues in Arizona’s delegation that she intends to enter the Senate race, but didn’t indicate when she would formally announce her bid, according to two people with knowledge of the conversations.” Full story here.

Days until the 2018 election: 363.

Thanks for joining us! You can email tips to the Campaign Pro team at sbland@politico.com, eschneider@politico.com, krobillard@politico.com, dstrauss@politico.com and mseverns@politico.com.

You can also follow us on Twitter: @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin, @danielstrauss4 and @maggieseverns.

AND YET… BRAND PROBLEMS — “Poll: Views of Democratic Party hit lowest mark in 25 years,” by CNN’s Ryan Struyk: “Favorable views of the Democratic Party have dropped to their lowest mark in more than a quarter century of polling, according to new numbers from a CNN poll conducted by SSRS. Only 37% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Democrats, down from 44% in March of this year. A majority, 54%, have an unfavorable view, matching their highest mark in polls from CNN and SSRS, CNN/ORC and CNN/USA Today/Gallup stretching back to 1992.” Full story here. FLASHBACK — “Democratic brand still suffering despite GOP woes,” by POLITICO’s Elena Schneider.

AIR WARS — “Moore reserves first TV ads since Alabama primary,” by POLITICO’s Daniel Strauss: “Former Alabama Supreme Court judge Roy Moore has started reserving TV advertising for the special general election for Senate against Democrat Doug Jones. Moore, the Republican nominee, has reserved broadcast TV advertising time between Thursday and Dec. 11, a day before the election, according to Advertising Analytics. Advertising Analytics has seen $111,000 in reservations so far, with more spending likely. Jones had the airwaves to himself for weeks since the September primary runoff, when Moore defeated Sen. Luther Strange for the GOP nomination.” Full story here.

— “Jones ad hits Moore’s ‘extreme views’ on health care,” by Strauss: Former U.S. Attorney Doug Jones, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Alabama, started running a new TV ad today warning that Republican Roy Moore would damage the American health care system if elected. ‘If it’s broken, fix it. Health care, it’s broken. You know it, and I know it. But Roy Moore’s grandstanding and extreme views will do nothing to fix it,’ Jones says in the new 30-second ad. ‘And his policies will take us back to the past.’” Full story here.

— “Blunt, Cassidy, Ernst listed as Moore fundraiser attendees,” by Strauss: “Alabama Republican Roy Moore’s recent Capitol Hill fundraiser attracted senators from across the party’s ideological spectrum, yet another sign of the GOP coalescing around its controversial nominee in the state’s special Senate election ahead of the Dec. 12 vote. Sens. Rand Paul and Mike Lee and former Sen. Jim DeMint, who have all been involved in past anti-establishment primary fights, headlined the event for Moore. But a briefing memo obtained by POLITICO also listed Sens. Roy Blunt, Bill Cassidy and Joni Ernst as attendees, as well as Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, Sen. Roger Wicker (a former NRSC chairman) and Alabama’s entire Republican House delegation. The memo also said that prior to the event $50,000 had already been raised. Campaign officials have not said how much the fundraiser brought in overall.” Full story.

— Sen. Steve Daines endorsed Roy Moore for Senate, per a campaign release.

— “DeWine to air his first TV ads in Ohio governor’s race,” also by Strauss: “Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s campaign for governor has reserved its first TV advertising time, starting later this week. Advertising Analytics reported seeing $25,290 reserved on Fox News so far (the total could grow). The flight runs from Wednesday through Nov. 14, next Tuesday.” Full story here.

NEVER TOO EARLY — “The 2020 Glossy Primary Is Underway,” by National Journal’s Hanna Trudo: “Less than 10 months into the new administration and a year out from the midterms, Democrats thought to be eyeing national bids have sounded off in outlets like Cosmopolitan with striking frequency, drawing attention to steps being taken to target women voters outraged by the country’s top leadership. … ‘It’s the women’s equivalent of what Trump does in terms of tweeting,’ said Celinda Lake, a longtime Democratic pollster who focuses on framing issues to female voters. ‘It’s a way to have a direct communication with your base.’” Full story.

FIRST IN SCORE — Former Navy SEAL Robert O’Neill endorses Republican John James, candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan. Per a forthcoming press release:“I am proud to endorse John James for Senate. John James represents the epitome of what we should all strive to be as citizens of this great nation,” O’Neill said. “Whether it was defending freedom over Baghdad or creating jobs in Michigan, John has demonstrated a passion for service and commitment to excellence that makes him the best choice for Senate.”…Robert O’Neill is one of the most highly decorated combat veterans in modern American history with 52 honors including two Silver Stars and four Bronze Stars with Valor.”

DEEP IN THE HEART… — “GOP fears Trump slump for North Texas women ahead of 2018 races,” by McClatchy’s Andrea Drusch: “Texas Republicans badly need the grassroots efforts of North Texas women to win local and congressional races next year. But getting their support — and enthusiasm — could be a challenge. … But women were not overly enthusiastic about Donald Trump in 2016, who won Texas by 9 percentage points, the smallest margin of any GOP presidential nominee in decades.” Full story.

CODA — QUOTE OF THE DAY: “My donors are basically saying, ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again,’” Rep. Chris Collins on tax reform.

Source link

from CapitalistHQ.com https://capitalisthq.com/northam-wins-virginia-governors-race/

[eldritchsurveys]

618.

How many books did you read this year? >> 57! A good number.

Did you reread anything? What? >> Yep. I reread Snow and Fire by Caroline B Cooney (I’d reread the first book of the trilogy, Fog, in 2018); Anthem, We the Living, and The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand; Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes; and The Stand by Stephen King.

What were your top five books of the year? >> Oof. I’ll go with... Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Benjamin Alire Sáenz Everything Is Fucked: A Book About Hope, Mark Manson Sum: Forty Tales From the Afterlife, David Eagleman The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan Reimagining Death, Lucinda Herring

Did you discover any new authors that you love this year? >> Yes, Michael Pollan and Shirley Jackson.

What genre did you read the most of? >> Nonfiction.

Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to? >> Oh, my backlog is over 150 books long.

What was your average Goodreads rating? Does it seem accurate? >> 3.88. Yeah, that makes sense; I usually rate books either three or four stars, although there will always be the shining (or shitty) exceptions.

Did you meet any of your reading goals? Which ones? >> I did the Reading Challenge with a goal of 50 books, which I obviously nailed.

Did you get into any new genres? >> No.

What was your favorite new release of the year? >> I’m not even sure what-all was released this year.

What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read? >> Probably We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which I didn’t know about until this (last) year, despite the fact that it’s been published for like 60 years or something.

Any books that disappointed you? >> Thinner (Stephen King) was terribly blah and The Lucifer Effect (Philip Zimbardo) had its moments but rambled on for far too long (very repetitive, too). There were also a couple that I didn’t even finish, but I don’t remember what they were and obviously those weren’t kept track of by Goodreads, so.

What were your least favorite books of the year? >> Whatever I didn’t finish, most likely.

What books do you want to finish before the year is over? >> I thought I’d finish Tristan Strong Punches A Hole in the Sky (Kwame Mbalia) before New Years, but despite the easy YA format I was moving at a snails’ pace. By yesterday I realised I wasn’t as interested in it as I wanted to be (even though some of my favourite folkloric figures are in it D:!) and gave it up as a DNF.

Did you read any books that were nominated for or won awards this year (Booker, Women’s Prize, National Book Award, Pulitzer, Hugo, etc.)? What did you think of them? >> I mean, maybe. I really don’t pay attention to that sort of thing.

What is the most over-hyped book you read this year? >> Aside from the wildly controversial Ayn Rand books, the only book I read that I’ve ever heard multiple people talk about is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams). It seems to get a lot of hype. I thought it was okay.

Did any books surprise you with how good they were? >> Oh, definitely. Aristotle and Dante was one of those.

How many books did you buy? >> I only bought two books this year, one of them was F*ck Feelings (Michael I. Bennett) which at first seemed really good but on second glance was kind of eh. The other was We the Living, which I wanted to re-add to my collection once and for all. Oh, wait -- I also bought Snow and Fire because they were 2 bucks each at a bookshop in New Orleans and the serendipity was insane. (That trilogy was a big favourite when I was young, but you don’t really see that author around much anymore.)

Did you use your library? >> Yeah, every other book I read was a library copy.

What was your most anticipated release? Did it meet your expectations? >> ---

Did you participate in or watch any booklr, booktube, or book twitter drama? >> Nope.

What’s the longest book you read? >> Oh, that was definitely The Stand.

What’s the fastest time it took you to read a book? >> Probably a day. Richard Dawkins, C.S. Lewis, and the Meaning of Life (Alister McGrath) was an insanely short book. The Caroline B Cooney books are very short too.

Did you DNF anything? Why? >> Yeah, but like I said, I don’t remember what they were.

What reading goals do you have for next year? >> I’ve set my goal at 50 books again -- seems like a solid enough number.