#i didn’t use it for three hours and it dropped from 29 to 12 percent

[myvirtuesuncounted]

my phone battery life is in the absolute trenches

[palettes-and-prompts]

100 First Meetings (Dialogue Prompts)

1) "Were you the one in the bathroom a second ago trying different lines in the mirror to work up the courage to ask that barista out?" 2) "Wow, you're cute." 3) "You come here often?" "This is a morgue." 4) "You! What the hell are you doing in here? We're closed!" 5) "Ahhhh! I hate my fucking life!!!" "Mood." 6) "You have magic?!" 7) "You don't look like you'll last a day here." 8) "You should leave before your date gets back from the bathroom, I saw them in here the other day popping the question to two different people." 9) "They never told me they had a younger brother/sister." 10) "Who's the twink?" 11) "I gotta ask, are you mad about something or is your face just /like that?/" 12) "You're my new roommate?" 13) "You're not married are you?" 14) "Hey, you're not dead are you? Cause I'm on probation and I can't afford to be involved in a fucking murder or something." 15) "So you're the one causing all this trouble." 16) "I need you to pretend we're dating so this dude will leave me alone." 17) "Honey, there you are I've been looking all over for you! Pretend you're with me so this person will go away." 18) "So you're the loud moaner from upstairs, huh, never knew you'd be so cute." 19) "You're not the pizza guy." 20) "You know, when I said I wish the love of my life would just fall out of the sky this isn't exactly what I had in mind." 21) "Any particular reason you're putting peanut butter in my kid's hair?" 22) "You made me dinner?" 23) "You've got the wrong room, but feel free to stay naked." 24) "You must be the motherfucker who broke my windshield!" 25) "Hi, you are very naked." 26) "You their new toy?" 27) "How'd you like to make fifty bucks?" 28) "I know I'm going to regret asking but who are you?" 29) "You got any friends?" "No." "Well you do now, come sit with us!" 30) "Cute face, I'd love to sit on it sometime." 31) "Where'd you find this dork?" 32) "Uh, there any particular reason you're screaming at two thirty-six in the morning? 33) "Out of curiosity, do you think you could lift a dead body?" 34) "If you don't let go of this bag of chips I swear to god I'll bring you to your knees in the middle of this fucking WinnDixie." 35) "WHO THE FUCK ATE THE LAST OF THE FUCKIN DORITOS, I SWEAR TO GOD I'LL-oh! I'm sorry, I didn't know we had a guest. If I'd known we had a guest I would've cleaned." 36) "Are you the vegan cannibal? Because I have so many questions." 37) "Ooh, hello Mommy/Daddy. Fuck, did I just say that out loud?" 38) "Am I dead? Are you an angel? Am I in heaven?" "Actually you're in a taco bell, you tried to do a kick flip on your skateboard in the parking lot and hit your head on the side of the dumpster." 39) "You brought a fucking guest to our SECRET BASE?! I'll deal with you later. Hi, hello, it's very nice to meet you please make yourself at home!" 40) "So, you gay or what?" 41) "No, sorry, we don't want any girl scout cookies." 42) "Holy shit, you just saved my fucking life!" 43) "Hey, honey, it's just me. You were in a really bad accident so don't try moving around too much, okay? How are you feeling?" "You called me honey. Do I know you?" 44) "Jesus, your face is about as red as your hair." 45) "Run along little ballerina, you wouldn't want to be caught hanging around the bad kids, would you?" 46) "No, I'm not the stripper, but I can be if you'd like." 47) "You ready to cut open some bodies?" 48) "Get in if you want to live." 49) "What are you looking at, short stack? Mind your own business." 50) "Your headphones aren't plugged in properly so I can hear everything you're listening to. I was going to tell you earlier but then you started watching the weirdest porn I've ever seen and I didn't want to embarrass you, but I'm about to leave so I figured I'd tell you before someone else sits around you." 51) "I don't know what they've told you but we don't need another member, go home." 52) "Hey, stop right there, you can't steal that! That's illegal!" 53) "Who's the nerd?" 54) "You look like the kind of person who wears days of the week underwear." 55) "So, how many pitchers of margaritas are you allowed to sell me?" 56) "My head fucking kills, I shouldn't have drank last night. Hey, wait, why do you and I have matching rings on our fingers?!" 57) "Congratulations, idiot! You just ruined a six month plan and now we have to start all over!" 58) "That is the ugliest shirt I've ever seen, where can I get one just like it?" 59) "I know you make straight A's, but I'm still not sure if you're really smart or dumb but really lucky. Because I've seen someone ask you what the square root of pi is and you answer with 'I don't know, I guess it depends on the flavor.'" 60) "Who the fuck let you in?" 61) "Hey, I'll give you twenty bucks if you take a photo with me to make my ex jealous." 62) "So, you eat ass or what?" 63) "You a cop?" "No." "Too bad, you would have looked good in a uniform." 64) "With a face like that I'll be whoever you want me to be." 65) "Hey, you have eyes, do you think this outfit makes me look fat? You can be honest, I can handle it." 66) "I'm just looking for a nice person to settle down with who'll fuck me hard and tell me they love me when they cum on my face, like, I feel like that's not too fucking much to ask for, you know? Anyway, I'll have a diet coke and the chicken salad, please." 67) "I swear to god, this is not what it looks like." 68) "First of all, don't you fucking come in here and try and start a fight with my best friend while you're looking straight goofy as hell in those fucking Walmart shorts and those thrift store crocs." 69) "HEY! YOU ACROSS THE STREET! YOUR DOG IS SO FUCKING CUTE AND I WOULD FUCKING DIE FOR THEM!" 70) "Anyone who says they don't like musicals is either lying to themselves, has never watched one, or is a heartless android sent by the government to blend into society and collect information about us." 71) "Asking someone out is easy, watch this. Hi, I think you're cute and if you're not seeing anyone do you want to go out sometime?" 72) "Hey, I saw you crying earlier when you stepped on a bug. Do you need me to, like, call someone for you?" 73) "I can't tell if you're really high and just hungry or if you're buying 28 family bags of shredded cheese at three am because you just love cheese. Either way you should probably also buy some laxatives or lactaid while you're already here." 74) "When I told you to make a power point about something you're passionate about for our first class meeting I didn't mean make a power point on 'How to Give Great Head' and I absolutely didn't tell you to include pictures." 75) "Are you wearing that tacky ass outfit because you genuinely like it or because you're a Leo and crave the attention?" 76) "Did you really just buy the last chocolate chocolate chip muffin? You are now dead to me." 77) "The fuck are you looking at loser?" 78) "Dude, books are just like subtitles without the movie." 79) "Hey, in your tinder bio is says your friends call you Badger Slammin' Sam and I literally only swiped right just to find out why." 80) "Are you hitting on me? Am I being punked? Are you a hooker? Did my dumbass friend put you up to this?" 81) "Hey, I need you to settle something for me and my friend. Which is the right way to pronounce carrot?" 82) "Do you believe in love at first sight, what about disgust at first glance?" 83) "Look, I'm not saying that MCR's last album changed my life, but I'm absolutely saying that." 84) "Can you move out of my way, I have to clean puke off the floor before I'm allowed to use my lunch break to cry in my car." 85) "Hi, I believe this very drunk person is your roommate, they told me this is the address. I caught them in my backyard playing with my dog again." 86) "I know you're probably not allowed to do this, but I kind of need to borrow an iguana." 87) "Hey, I saw you drop your sandwich in the parking lot earlier and start crying and I felt bad for not saying anything earlier, but I went to the sandwich shop and luckily the dude remembered your oddly specific order so I got you another one. I hope you get to feeling better." 88) "No, we don't sell 'that crazy kush' here, you can try Target." 89) "I was just calling because you sent me a picture text three weeks ago by accident with the caption 'When they let you deliver the digiorno after you clap them cheeks.' and I was just wondering if you could explain what that means because it's been keeping me up at night ever since you sent it." 90) "Hey, I just overheard you talking with your friends about how you put mustard, ketchup, and ranch on your macaroni and cheese and I just wanted to come over here and personally ask you which circle of hell you crawled up from." 91) "What the fuck is a diet water?" 92) "You guys here for the orgy?" 93) "Was that your scream? Why did it sound like a banshee?" 94) "I saw you pour two five hour energy shots into a cup of coffee earlier and then proceed to mix it with monster and red bull and like, dude I know this isn't really my place or whatever but I think you should probably go to the hospital. Like, I think you're gonna die." 95) "Your profile said you're a vegan but my profile says 'Only contact if you eat ass' and you contacted me, so what's the truth here?" 96) "Call me adorable one more time and I'll knock your teeth down your fucking throat." 97) "Move, I have to go fail my Stats test before I can go home and cry into a bag of hot cheetos while I rewatch The Office." 98) "I'm sorry, did you just order a fifty piece mcnugget for here, for yourself?" 99) "So, how do you feel about lizards?" 100) "Question, are you a top or a bottom, because you're giving off major power bottom energy but I'm not one hundred percent sure."

[friendlytikek]

Good Together (1/1)

On AO3.

Summary: In the seven months Charles has been dating Erik, he can’t recall a time when Lorna has been sick enough for Erik to use sad face emojis and to refuse to allow the babysitter to look after her. Like a good boyfriend, he decides to go over and help out.

Today, 3:03 PM

From: Erik

Lorna’s sick ☹ Could we rearrange tonight? Promise I’ll make it up to you x

I don’t want to leave her with the sitter like this.

The moment the text comes through, Charles feels his heart twist in his chest. In the seven months he’s been dating Erik, he can’t recall a time when Lorna has been sick enough for Erik to use sad face emojis and to refuse to allow the babysitter to look after her. The sharp twist is swiftly followed by a spike of worry and he taps out his reply almost immediately.

Today, 3:05 PM

From: Charles

Of course. Is everything okay? I hope she isn’t too unwell. Do you need anything? x

It feels as if waiting for a reply to come through is a lifetime and Charles drums his fingers on his office desk. If Erik needs him, he’s not got any more classes. It’ll be easy to just get in the car and drive to Erik’s small house. Three dots appear, indicating Erik is typing. Then they stop and it’s another minute before they resume. Charles is around ninety percent certain Erik is trying to determine how much to tell him without making him worry.

Today, 3:12 PM

From: Erik

It’s not that she’s really unwell, but she won’t stop crying. I haven’t had this little sleep since she was a newborn. But I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I’ll see you another night.

A fond smile creeps onto Charles’ face before he can stop it and a moment later, he’s packing his laptop up into its bag and tucking some essays he needs to grade in along with it. His mind is all but made up, but still, he shoots a message back to Erik, just to make sure he isn’t going to accidentally intrude.

Today, 3:14 PM

From: Charles

I might be able to help.

This time around, Erik’s response is almost immediate.

Today, 3:15 PM

From: Erik

Really?

For Erik to already be on the verge of agreeing to accepting help, Charles knows he must be having a pretty tough time. He wonders just how long Lorna has been crying for and finds his heart twisting again. Erik may be one of the most stubborn men he’s ever met, not that Charles can blame him. He’s felt Erik’s mind and knows how much he stresses about proving himself a capable father, with no mother at all in the picture.

Today, 3:17 PM

From: Charles

Yes, if you don’t mind me using my powers.

Today, 3:19 PM

From: Erik

At this point, I’ll take anything.

Only if you’re sure you want to come.

So, Lorna must have been crying for a while. The poor baby. She’s just over a year old and Charles has little to no experience with babies, but she’s had him wrapped around her little finger from the moment they first met, when Erik accidentally crashed her pushchair into the back of his leg in a café and sent hot coffee spilling down his front. God, it had hurt, but it had made Lorna giggle and Erik was so handsome that somehow Charles had found himself apologising, though they’d both accepted that in retrospect, Charles had no responsibility at all for the incident.

It was a hell of a meet-cute and Charles wouldn’t trade the last seven months for the world.

Charles picks up his bag and leaves his office, locking the door behind him. When he reaches his car, he deposits his bag onto the passenger seat before pulling his phone out again so he can tap out a reply.

Today, 3:26 PM

From: Charles

Already in my car. Do you need anything else? Anything from the pharmacy?

Whether Erik wants anything or not, Charles decides he’ll stop at the shops on the way. He starts the engine and pulls out of the car park, hearing his phone ping in his pocket as he does so. When he’s parked close to the shops nearest to Erik’s house, he opens his phone to read Erik’s reply.

Today, 3:29 PM

From: Erik

Just yourself is plenty. Thank you Charles.

It’s so Erik, Charles finds himself smiling at his phone again. He tells Erik he’ll be there in fifteen and climbs out of the car. Erik might not want anything, but a new toy might be just enough to distract Lorna and help her to get to sleep. There’s a wide selection of soft toys in the shop yet it’s the stuffed shark which catches Charles’ eye. He makes the purchase and hurries back to his car, tossing the shark onto the passenger seat next to his bag. It stares back at him, eyes wide, like it wants him to feel bad about buying Lorna another toy.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he tells the shark as he starts the engine back up again. “She’s ill. Erik won’t mind.”

The shark stares at him for the entire ten-minute drive to Erik’s house and Charles can’t bring himself to knock it onto the floor of his car. When he pulls up outside of the small house – just two bedrooms, one for Erik, one for Lorna – he picks it up and tucks it under his arm, then grabs his bag and heads for the door. Keys held in his free hand, he locks the car and pauses on the doorstep of the house. He can’t hear any crying from outside, but he distantly registers two minds. One is grumpy and not nearly as coherent as the other, which projects exhaustion so strongly Charles is almost knocked for six. That’s Erik, he knows. He’s thinking a steady stream of, Please go to sleep please go to sleep please don’t cry. It’s those three phrases on repeat, so Lorna must’ve calmed down at least somewhat since Erik first messaged.

Charles decides to go for it and pushes down on the front door handle. It’s a testament to how tired Erik is that he doesn’t even startle at the sound of the door opening. It’s just me, Charles tells him anyway, kicking off his shoes and nudging them into line with Erik’s. His bag goes down next to the console table.

Didn’t hear you come in. We’re upstairs. Lorna’s room.

So as not to disturb Lorna, Charles tiptoes up the stairs and along the hallway to Lorna’s bedroom. She isn’t asleep yet; the door is only half-open, but Charles can already hear her whimpering. He pushes the door a little further open and immediately, his heart tightens in his chest. Erik had been fairly composed over text, but just at a glance, he looks a mess. His hair is sticking up at every possible angle, there are bags under his eyes, and he looks the most bedraggled Charles has ever seen him, his clothes completely mismatched and a pair of odd socks on his feet. One of them is half hanging off his foot.

Little Lorna continues to whimper even as Charles approaches, looking as if she’s somehow been glued to Erik’s chest. After putting the shark down in her crib, Charles leans up and presses a kiss to Erik’s temple. “Hey. You look exhausted,” he whispers, before reaching for one of Lorna’s green curls. She whimpers again and turns away, burying her face in Erik’s chest.

“I am,” Erik sighs, one hand rubbing up and down Lorna’s back. “It’s just Charles,” he murmurs to her, tilting his head downwards to make sure she hears the words. He glances up at Charles again, eyes full of exhaustion and apologies. “She’s really clingy right now. I’m sorry.”

Charles brings his hand down to cover Erik’s and Lorna sniffles into her dad’s chest. “That’s okay. You hold her then and I’ll work my magic,” he says, lifting his free hand to Lorna’s temple. She tries to shift away again but doesn’t resist for very long. He gently hushes her and closes his eyes, reaching into her mind. It’s more a case of soothing her rather than forcing her to fall asleep and when he opens his eyes again, the whimpering has eased away, and Lorna’s eyelids are drooping sleepily.

Already, Erik’s shoulders are slumping with relief, but neither of them dares to move yet. After a few agonising minutes, Lorna seems to be deeply asleep and slowly, carefully, Erik shifts to the crib and places her down. He eyes the shark and gives Charles a knowing look as he tucks it in next to her, then bends down and presses a kiss to Lorna’s forehead. When he straightens up again, Charles realises his hands are shaking, probably from having carried Lorna around for so long.

Wordlessly, Charles takes one of his hands and tugs him out of the room. When they’re on the landing, he wraps his arms around Erik and pushes himself up on tiptoe so he can finally kiss Erik properly. The door clicks shut behind them and it’s only after a few long moments Charles pulls away. “You’re such a good dad, you know,” he murmurs, picking up worry and doubt at the very edges of Erik’s mind. “You can’t help that she’s sick.”

Erik laughs weakly. “I feel like a pretty shit dad,” he admits, so brutally open it catches Charles by surprise. Usually Erik’s emotions are locked tightly under layers of impenetrable metal, meant for nobody to access except himself. “She cried for so long last night. She’s been crying for hours today. There were maybe two, three hours of sleep in the middle of that.”

“She’s a baby,” Charles says, reaching up to cup Erik’s cheek, his thumb brushing over his cheekbone. “She wanted her dad. She doesn’t understand this whole ‘needing sleep’ thing properly yet. You did a really wonderful job.”

“But she wouldn’t have gone down at all if you weren’t here,” Erik says, rubbing at his eyes and sighing, before leaning into Charles’ touch and closing his eyes tightly. “I’m sorry. I’m so tired.”

Charles smiles at him and drops his hand so he can tug Erik towards his bedroom. “Now it’s your turn to sleep,” he says, squeezing his hand and pushing open the door. The curtains are already shut, so he guides him to the bed, switches on the lamp, and pushes him gently to sit down, then to lie down. “If Lorna wakes up, I’ll get her. It’s okay to ask for help, Erik. I’m your boyfriend. I want to help,” he assures him.

“Boyfriend makes us sound like we’re teenagers,” Erik says, snorting as he flops back onto his bed and begins working to pull the covers up around himself. “I know you don’t mind helping, but I just… it’s my job, you know?” He rubs at his eyes again and sighs. “Pushed away any help to begin with and I feel like now I have to prove I’m able to actually handle this on my own.”

“Even two parents struggle with babies,” Charles can’t help but point out, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “I really do want to help. I love you and I love Lorna. If you need help, there’s no shame in asking for it.”

Erik gives him a small smile and pats the empty space next to himself. “Stay with me?” he asks simply.

Not needing asking twice, Charles climbs across to the opposite side of the bed and lies down. “I mean it,” he says.

“I know you do,” Erik murmurs, rolling onto his side so he and Charles can look each other in the eyes. “And I’m really grateful you came over. Most people would’ve run a mile in the other direction.”

“Not me,” Charles says, beaming back at him. “I think I’m in this for the long-haul. I’m far too attached to you both.”

With a chuckle, Erik rolls back and shakes his head. “We’re pretty attached to you, too.” His eyes close and his entire body relaxes, the tension seeping out of him completely.

He goes so quiet, Charles is certain he’s immediately fallen asleep. He’s about to pull his phone out of his pocket to read some random threads on Reddit and scroll through Twitter when Erik speaks again.

“You should move in with us.”

His voice is sleepy and quiet but there’s nothing else he could’ve possibly said. Charles’ eyes go wide and his mouth drops open as he fumbles for a response. “Maybe when you’ve had some more sleep and a chance to think on it properly…” he starts.

Erik shakes his head and his eyes pop open again. “Charles, I love you. You love Lorna, you spoil her rotten. She loves you. We get along great even if our debates about politics can get heated,” he says, his voice gradually growing in confidence. He rolls onto his side again. “What have we got to lose? We’re good together.”

They are. They really are. Charles has never been happier – Raven comments on it all the time. Hell, even his fellow staff members have picked up on it. Being with Erik fills him with a warmth nothing else has even come close to and, he supposes, his apartment does feel horribly lonely, most days. Most days he just wants to be with Erik.

He swallows and then nods. “Yeah. We are,” he whispers, looking right back at Erik. He manages another nod. “Okay then. Let’s do it.”

Erik’s mouth transforms into the biggest grin Charles has ever seen on another person. The lamp switches off with a flick of his hand and Charles hears him turning over again, then he shuffles closer to Charles. Warm arms wrap around him and Charles can’t help but curl into Erik’s touch, closing his eyes and breathing in his scent.

“You don’t worry about what people might think?” he whispers into the dark. “That I’m trying to replace Susanna?”

“No,” Erik says firmly, pressing a kiss to Charles’ neck. “You know I don’t care what anyone else thinks. She walked out. It’s been a year, Charles. And so what if you were replacing her? You’ve been more of a parent to Lorna than she ever was.” He pauses, then starts to add, sounding worried, “Not that I want you to move in to be a co-parent. That’s not why I’m asking you to move in.”

“I know you’re not,” Charles quickly says, rubbing Erik’s arm. “I understand. I want to move in. I really do.”

There’s the distinct sound of Erik taking in a deep breath. “Then let’s do it. Let’s just do it,” he says.

“As soon as possible,” Charles agrees. Erik’s grip around his waist tightens, just a little. The joy in the room is almost overwhelming, but Charles likes it. More than that, he loves how happy they make on another. There’s no way he’d change a thing.

.x.x.x.

Two weeks later, and one week after Charles moves in, they have a good routine going.

It might, he thinks, as he watches Erik pull faces at Lorna, trying to convince her peas and carrots are good enough to eat, be time to start looking for a ring.

Also on AO3.

[theamazingsallyhogan]

om Coomer has retired twice: once when he was 65, and then several years ago. Each time he realized that with just a Social Security check, "you can hardly make it these days."

So here he is at 79, working full-time at Walmart. During each eight-hour shift, he stands at the store entrance greeting customers, telling a joke and fetching a "buggy." Or he is stationed at the exit, checking receipts and the shoppers that trip the theft alarm.

"As long as I sit down for about 10 minutes every hour or two, I'm fine," he said during a break. Diagnosed with spinal stenosis in his back, he recently forwarded a doctor's note to managers. "They got me a stool."

The way major U.S. companies provide for retiring workers has been shifting for about three decades, with more dropping traditional pensions every year. The first full generation of workers to retire since this turn offers a sobering preview of a labor force more and more dependent on their own savings for retirement.

Years ago, Coomer and his co-workers at the Tulsa plant of McDonnell-Douglas, the famed airplane maker, were enrolled in the company pension, but in 1994, with an eye toward cutting retirement costs, the company closed the plant. Even though most of them found new jobs, they could never replace their lost pension benefits, and many are facing financial struggles in their old age. A review of those 998 workers found that 1 in 7 has in their retirement years filed for bankruptcy, faced liens for delinquent bills, or both, according to public records.

Those affected are buried by debts incurred for credit card payments, used cars, health care, and sometimes the college educations of their children. Some have lost their homes. And for many of them, even as they reach beyond 70, real retirement is elusive. Although they worked for decades at McDonnell-Douglas, many of the septuagenarians are still working, some full time.

Lavern Combs, 73, works the midnight shift loading trucks for a company that delivers for Amazon. Ruby Oakley, 74, is a crossing guard. Charles Glover, 70, is a cashier at Dollar General. Willie Sells, 74, is a barber. Leon Ray, 76, buys and sells junk.

"I planned to retire years ago," Sells says from behind his barber's chair, where he works five days a week. He once had a job in quality control at the aircraft maker and was employed there 29 years. "I thought McDonnell-Douglas was a blue-chip company. But then they left town — and here I am still working. Thank God I had a couple of clippers."

Likewise, Oakley, a crossing guard at an elementary school, said she took the job to supplement her Social Security. "It pays some chump change — $7 an hour," Oakley said. She has told local officials they should pay better. "We have to get out there in the traffic, and the people at the city think they're doing the senior citizens a favor by letting them work like this."

Glover works the cash register and does stocking at a Dollar General store outside Tulsa to make ends meet. After working 27 years at McDonnell-Douglas, Glover found work at a Whirlpool factory, and then at another place that makes robots for inspecting welding, and also picked up some jobs doing AutoCAD drawing.

"I hope I can quit working in a few years, but the way it looks right now, I can't see being able to," Glover said recently between customers. "I had to refinance my home after McDonnell-Douglas closed. I still owe about 12 years of mortgage payments."

For some, financial shortfalls have grown acute enough that they have precipitated liens for delinquent bills or led people to file for bankruptcy. None were inclined to talk about their debts.

"It's a struggle, just say that," said one woman, 72, who filed for bankruptcy in 2013. "You just try to get by."

The notion of pensions — and the idea that companies should set aside money for retirees — didn't last long. They really caught on in the mid–20th century, but today, except among government employers, the traditional pension now seems destined to be an artifact of U.S. labor history.

The first ones offered by a private company were those handed out by American Express, back when it was a stagecoach delivery service. That was in 1875. The idea didn't exactly spread like wildfire, but under union pressure in the middle of the last century, many companies adopted a plan. By the 1980s, the trend had profoundly reshaped retirement for Americans, with a large majority of full-time workers at medium and large companies getting traditional pension coverage.

Then corporate America changed: Union membership waned. Executive boards, under pressure from financial raiders, focused more intently on maximizing stock prices. And Americans lived longer, making a pension much more expensive to provide.

The average life expectancy in 1950 was 68, meaning that a pension had to pay out only three years past the typical retirement age of 65. Today, average life expectancy is about 79, meaning that the same plan would have to pay out 13 years past typical retirement age.

Exactly what led corporate America away from pensions is a matter of debate among scholars, but there is little question that they seem destined for extinction, at least in the private sector. Even as late as the early 1990s, about 60 percent of full-time workers at medium and large firms had pension coverage. But today only about 24 percent of workers at midsize and large companies do, according to the data, and that number is expected to continue to fall as older workers exit the workforce.

In place of pensions, companies and investment advisers urge employees to open retirement accounts. Once they reach retirement age, those accounts are supposed to supplement whatever Social Security might pay. (Today, Social Security provides only enough for a bare-bones budget, about $14,000 a year on average.)

The trouble with expecting workers to save on their own is that almost half of U.S. families have no such retirement account, according the Fed's 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances. Of those who do have accounts, moreover, their savings are far too scant to support a typical retirement. The median account, among workers at the median income level, is about $25,000.

"The U.S. retirement system, and the workers and retirees it was designed to help, face major challenges," according to an October report by the Government Accountability Office. "Traditional pensions have become much less common, and individuals are increasingly responsible for planning and managing their own retirement savings accounts." The GAO further warned that "many households are ill-equipped for this task and have little or no retirement savings."

The GAO recommended that Congress consider creating an independent commission to study the U.S. retirement system. "If no action is taken, a retirement crisis could be looming," it said.

Employees at McDonnell-Douglas in the early '90s enjoyed one of the more generous types of pensions, known as "30 and out." Employees with 30 years on the job could retire with a full pension once they reached age 55.

But, as the employees would later learn, the generosity of those pensions made them, in lean times, an appealing target for cost cutters.

Those lean times for McDonnell-Douglas began in earnest in the early '90s. Some plants closed. But for the remaining employees, including those at the Tulsa plant, executives said, there was hope: If Congress allowed the $6 billion sale of 72 F-15s to Saudi Arabia, the new business would rescue the company. In fact, the company said in its 1991 annual report, it would save 7,000 jobs.

To help win approval for the sale, Tulsa employees wrote letters to politicians. They held a rally with the governor of Oklahoma. And eventually, in September 1992, President George H.W. Bush approved the sale. It seemed that the Tulsa plant had weathered the storm.

The headline in The Oklahoman, one of the state's largest newspapers, proclaimed: "F-15 Sale to Saudi Arabia Saves Jobs of Tulsa Workers."

But it hadn't. Within months, executives at the company again turned to cost cutting. They considered closing a plant in Florida, another in Mesa, Arizona, or the Tulsa facility. Tulsa, it was noted, had the oldest hourly employees — the average employee was 51 and had worked there for about 20 years. Many were close to getting a full pension, and that meant closing it would yield bigger savings in retirement costs.

"One day in December '93 they came on the loudspeaker and said, 'Attention, employees,'" Coomer recalled. "We were going to close. We were stunned. Just ran around like a bunch of chickens."

A few years later, McDonnell-Douglas, which continued to struggle, merged with Boeing. But the employees had taken their case to court, and in 2001, a federal judge agreed that McDonnell-Douglas had illegally considered the pensions in its decision to close the plant. The employees' case, presented by attorneys Joe Farris and Mike Mulder, showed that the company had tracked pension savings in its plant-closure decisions. The judge found McDonnell-Douglas, moreover, had offered misleading testimony in its defense of the plant closing. The judge blasted the company for a "corporate culture of mendacity."

Employees eventually won settlements — about $30,000 was typical. It helped carry people over to find new jobs. But the amount was limited to cover the benefits of three years of employment — and it was far less than the loss in pension and retiree health benefits. Because their pension benefits accrued most quickly near retirement age, the pensions they receive are only a small fraction of what they would have been had they worked until full eligibility.

"People went to work at these places thinking they'll work there their whole lives," Farris said, noting that the pensions held great appeal to the staff. "Their trust and loyalty, though, was not reciprocated."

The economic effects were, of course, immediate. The workers, most of them over 50, had to find jobs. Some enrolled in classes for new skills, but then struggled to find jobs in their new fields. Several found jobs at other industrial plants. One started a chicken farm for Tyson. Another took a job on a ranch breaking horses.

In interviews with more than 25 former employees, all but a handful said their new wages were only about half of what they had been making. Typically, their pay dropped from about $20 per hour to $10 per hour.

The pay cut was tough, and it made saving for retirement close to impossible. In fact, it has made retirement itself near impossible for some — they must work to pay the bills. A few said, though, they work because they detest idleness, and persist in jobs that would seem to require remarkable endurance.

Combs, for example, works the graveyard shift, beginning each workday at 1:30 a.m. His days off are Thursday and Sunday. He worked 25 years at McDonnell-Douglas, and more than 20 loading trucks.

He shrugs off the difficulty. "I don't want to sit around and play checkers and get fat," Combs says. "I used to pick cotton in 90-degree heat. This is easy."

Coomer, too, even if he would have preferred to retire, seems to genuinely enjoy his work. At Walmart, his natural cheerfulness is put to good use.

When he sees someone looking glum, he tells them a joke. Why does Santa Claus have three gardens? So he can hoe, hoe, hoe. "People really like that one," he says.

Along with his Walmart check, he gets $300 a month from the McDonnell-Douglas pension. Had he been able to continue working at McDonnell-Douglas, he calculates, he would have gotten about five times that amount. "After they shut the plant down, I would dream that I was back at McDonnell-Douglas and going to get my pension," Coomer recalled. "In the dream, I would try to clock in, but I couldn't find my time card. And then I'd wake up."

In the dream, he would have retired years ago.

[covid19updater]

COVID19 UPDATES 04/02/2020

MORNING:

New Jersey: NEW: Bergen County Jail has FIVE ICE detainees with suspected cases of COVID-19 who are awaiting test results, per a declaration from the jail warden in federal court. As of Monday, ICE reported that 4 ICE detainees had tested positive -- all in New Jersey jails

RUMINT (Illinois): Checking in from central Illinois -My wife runs her own tax and accounting business. About five minutes ago one of her clients, an over-the-road trucker called her to go over some banking info. He told her he is finishing up his last delivery this evening and “making a bee-line home” Reason being, he has been informed that several grocery distribution centers around the country are about to shut down and he wants to get back here to make sure he and his wife are suitably stocked up on food and supplies. She has epilepsy and does not venture far from the house, and we sometimes check up on her as they live just a few miles away.

Texas: NEW: Texas Health Officials Say 9-Year-Old Has Contracted COVID-19

Nevada:  Gov. Sisolak activates Nevada National Guard in response to pandemic [link to fox5vegas.com (secure)] via @fox5vegas

Michigan: Henry Ford Hospital: COVID-19 patient developed nervous system infection LINK

Tennessee: Tennessee tells nurses to try diapers if they run out of surgical masks

NYC: New York City as of Wednesday Apri 1. Nearly one-quarter of the city’s paramedics are out because of illness or injury amid the deadly pandemic. About 23 percent of all EMS members — about 950 — were out on medical leave as of Sunday, the most recent data available, according to an FDNY spokesman. A total of 282 FDNY members — EMS, firefighters and civilian workers — have tested positive for COVID-19.

US: Over the past 24 hours, ...the U.S. reported 26,885 new cases And 1,029 new deaths, Raising the total to 215 429 cases and 5 068 dead. This is the first time any country has reported more than 1,000 new deaths in one day

Florida: Franklin County Sheriff: Infected Georgia Senator says he's leaving St. George Island vacation home LINK

World: "One Of The Worst Coverups In Human History": MSM Attention Turns To Chinese Biolab Near COVID-19 Ground Zero LINK

NYC: (New York City) EMTs have stopped taking people in cardiac arrest to coronavirus-strained hospitals. LINK

Italy: Three more doctors have died of Covid-19 in Italy since Tuesday – bringing the total number to 69, the Italian Doctors’ Association says.

Italy: Italy is undercounting thousands of deaths caused by the coronavirus in the areas worst hit by the pandemic, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows 

US: Trump is weighing whether to restrict flights from New York and Miami over virus.

Portugal: PORTUGAL CONFIRMED CORONAVIRUS CASES RISE 9.5% IN DAY TO 9,034

US: BREAKING: 6.6. million Americans filed for unemployment last week, by far the biggest surge in U.S. history amid coronavirus shutdown

World: New study shows that "coughs can project liquid up to 6m (20 ft) away and that sneezes, which involve much higher speeds, can reach up to 8m (26 ft) away."

Germany: Only in four hours today (fromn 11:15 till 15:11) 3100 new cases, 45 new deaths

World: The Neuroinvasive Potential of SARS-CoV2 May Play a Role in the Respiratory Failure of COVID-19 Patients   LINK   

US: GOLDMAN SACHS GROUP INC CEO DAVID SOLOMON SAYS 'THERE'S NO QUESTION' THE U.S. CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE WAS 'LATE'

World: Postal services of 22 countries are no longer able to process or deliver international mail or services originating from the United States due to service disruptions related to the #COVID19 pandemic, according to @USPS.

Italy: A “healthy and strong” family of four all died of COVID-19 in the same Italian hospital within the same week, according to reports.LINK

AFTERNOON:

World: “Health experts say they now believe nearly one in three patients who are infected are nevertheless getting a negative test result” -WSJ

UK: An NHS worker has died from coronavirus after treating patients with only gloves for protection, leaving his family feeling "let down". Thomas Harvey collapsed on Sunday after falling ill having helped a patient who later tested positive for Covid-19. The 57-year-old healthcare assistant's family claim with the "right" personal protective equipment (PPE) at Goodmayes Hospital, London, he may not have died. The hospital said there were "no symptomatic patients on the ward".

Italy: #BREAKING: Italy has confirmed 4,668 new #coronavirus cases and 760 new deaths, raising the country's total to 115.242 with 13.915 confirmed deaths

New York: BREAKING: New York state reports 8,669 new cases of coronavirus and 197 new deaths in morning update, raising total to 92,381 cases and 2,373 dead

US: More young people in the South seem to be dying from COVID-19. Why?   LINK

NYC: A frontline doctor at a major NYC hospital told me he lost his first patient this morning to rationing of care — not enough ventilators to go around. The lack of supplies and testing is real — and costing lives — no matter what the daily reality show tries to sell you.

Washington: A Washington state nursing home tied to at least 37 covid-19 deaths faces a fine of more than $611,000, federal inspectors said, and could also lose Medicare and Medicaid funding if it does not correct a slew of deficiencies that led to the country’s first major outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

World: If You Have Coronavirus Symptoms, Assume You Have the Illness, Even if You Test Negative LINK

Florida: Melissa Barton-Schmitt was arrested in Stuart, Florida. Police say she took a walk through Downtown Stuart and was live on Facebook discussing the fact she was recently tested for COVID-19 and didn't have the results yet. She is charged with violation of the executive order.

Louisiana: Louisiana confirmed a massive number of new covid cases Thursday--2,726, bringing the total statewide above 9,100--but officials said the figures don’t accurately show the growth rate of the virus because of a backlog in testing. #lalege #lagov

Texas: #BREAKING: Texas announced an additional 674 positive tests for #COVIDー19, bringing the total to 4,667. (2,822 additional tests were reported.) An additional 12 people died, bringing the total to 70. 143 counties have reported positive tests, eight more than yesterday.

US: The US recorded another major surge in its confirmed cases. The country added 21033 new #COVID19 cases, bringing the total number of cases to 236036. There are also 675 new deaths, increasing the total number of deaths to 5777.

World: BREAKING: More than 1 million confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide

New Jersey: Healthy 30-Year old New Jersey Baseball Coach dies of COVID LINK

Ohio:  #BREAKING The #Ohio Department of Health is reporting 2,902 confirmed cases of COVID-19 #coronavirus with 802 hospitalized and 81 deaths

World: #COVID19 cases worldwide 000k - 100k - 110 days 100k - 200k - 12 days 200k - 300k - 4 days 300k - 400k - 3 days 400k - 500k - 2 days 500k - 600k - 39 hours 600k - 700k - 34 hours 700k - 800k - 38 hours 800k - 900k - 29 hours 900k -1000k - 24 hours

France: France reports 2,116 new cases of coronavirus and 1,355 additional deaths, including 884 people who died at nursing homes and had previously not been counted

Georgia: @drsanjaygupta on Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp saying that he just learned coronavirus can be transmitted by asymptomatic people: "This is inexcusable. I mean, it's just inexcusable...My kids who go to school in Georgia knew that a month ago."

Thailand: Man with coronavirus spits in man’s face before boarding train and apparently dropping dead. LINK

Massachusetts: BOSTON (WHDH) - More than 230 employees across the Beth Israel Lahey Health system have tested positive for coronavirus, officials confirmed Thursday. A total of 232 workers at 13 Beth Israel Lahey Health facilities have contracted the virus, a spokesperson for the healthcare system said. Ninety of the cases originated at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and 54 cases are from Lahey Hospital & Medical Center in Burlington.

EVENING:

Ohio: An Ohio woman says the coronavirus has “destroyed” her family — killing her parents and brother as her husband remains hospitalized on life support, according to reports.LINK

Louisiana:  NEW: Coronavirus cases in Louisiana jumped 42% in one day, climbing from 6,424 reported cases statewide yesterday to 9,150 today. The death toll in Louisiana has risen to 310.

World: AFTER THREE MONTHS OF THIS PANDEMIC LESS THAN 4% OF THE TOTAL NUMBER OF INFECTED HAVE RECOVERED

World: Experts tell White House coronavirus can spread through talking or even just breathing LINK

NYC: New York City is now advising residents to cover their nose and mouth with a scarf, bandana, or a piece of clothing while out in public to limit the spread of coronavirus

RUMINT NYC: Footage of bodies being loaded onto refrigerated truck in NYC. LINK

Florida: Florida Coronavirus numbers just released: -9008 total cases (up from 8010 this morning) -144 deaths (up from 128) -1167 hospitalizations (up from 1058) -2886 in Dade (up from 2448) -1481 in Broward (1346 yesterday) -737 in Palm Beach (up from 630)

NYC: UPDATE: New York City reports 165 coronavirus deaths since morning update, raising city's total to 1,562

World: Coronavirus may cause brain damage by triggering dangerous inflammation that can cause bleeds and cell death LINK

UK: Mother, 48, of six-year-old twin boys dies of coronavirus three days after first showing symptoms despite having no underlying health conditions LINK

[psychologyforeveryone-blog]

The effects of improving sleep on mental health (OASIS): a randomised controlled trial with mediation analysis

Fun fact: This article is currently free for anyone on The Lancet! If you want to read it for yourself, you can get it here: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(17)30328-0/fulltext?elsca1=tlpr

TL; DR Version[i]

·      Researchers gave college students with insomnia a validated treatment, assessing rates of symptoms of mental illnesses throughout treatment and 12 weeks after treatment ended.

·      The authors focused on hallucinations and paranoia, but they also tested for symptoms of anxiety, depression, psychological well-being, and other symptoms of psychotic disorders (i.e. mental illnesses that involve a break from reality, such as hallucinations and delusions.)

·      Increased sleep was found to explain a large percent of decreased hallucinations and paranoia following treatment; participants in the treatment condition were also found to have better mental well-being and fewer symptoms of mood and anxiety disorders. This provides evidence that insomnia may be a causal factor in mental illnesses, not simply a symptom.

·      It is important to note that the authors did not provide evidence that this study can generalize to people without insomnia.

·      It is also critical to remember that the treatment used in this study is very close to treatments used to combat depression and anxiety—therefore, these changes could have been because of the treatment itself, not because of the increased sleep.

Media Analysis:

Reuters: Treating insomnia can ease depression and paranoia, study finds[ii]

I’m nervous about how much this article focuses on depression, over the issues the study treated as central. Depression was much more of a side symptom in this study, with the authors focusing mostly on psychotic disorders. Most of the analysis was done on hallucinations and paranoia, with only minor tests run on depression and anxiety scores. However, for the most part, this article is accurate.

LiveScience: Lack of Sleep May Be a Cause, Not a Symptom, of Mental Health Conditions[iii]

I wish the headline had been specific to insomnia, because this feels like an overgeneralization, but honestly this is one of the best articles on psychology that I’ve read. It was clear, concise, but didn’t leave anything out—if you’re going to read one article about this study, this is probably the one to read!

Daily Mail: Lack of sleep is linked to depression and anxiety: Rates of the condition fell by a fifth among insomniacs given therapy to help them rest[iv]

Oh boy. This article is exactly what you’d expect from a tabloid—it’s extreme, overstates results, and is a pretty clear example of bad science writing. First of all, nothing was diagnosed in this study, so there are no “rates of the condition” to fall. What the authors found was that the scores for anxiety and depression were around 20% lower in the treatment group. Also, about two lines under the headline, they write, “a study now shows it is probably the lack of sleep causing these issues and not the other way around.” First of all, “probably” is a big word to use following one study. Second, even if you were to take this study as gospel truth without replication or follow-up research, all this study could have found was that insomnia can cause some symptoms of mental illnesses. There are plenty of people without insomnia who suffer from mental illnesses (depression, in fact, can be diagnosed by either too little sleep or too much), so that sentence overextends the findings to the point where it’s basically a lie. The Daily Mail also doesn’t cite its sources, so it makes claims (e.g. “On any given night one in three people are struggling to get to sleep, and this is believed to get them ‘stuck’ on repetitive negative and mistrustful thoughts”) that could be true, but without a citation I can’t check what exactly they’re referencing. I could go on, but in essence, the Daily Mail is not an accurate source of science writing. Remember, even though it’s British, it’s still just a tabloid.

Full Summary:

Hypothesis: The authors were examining a long-standing debate in psychology, namely whether insomnia was the cause of other mental illnesses, or a symptom of them. The authors expected to find that decreasing insomnia would decrease symptoms of mental illnesses, providing evidence that insomnia is a driving factor in these disorders.

Methods: Participants were university students in the UK, age 18+, who showed strong signs of insomnia based on pretest screening. They were randomly assigned to one of two groups: treatment as usual [a] or an online Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) [b] for insomnia intervention. This was a 6-session intervention that included behavioral changes, such as relaxation training and increasing the amount of sleep at one time by restricting how many hours a person spent trying to fall asleep; it also included cognitive treatments, such as mindfulness [c] and restructuring unreasonable and maladaptive belief systems (such as expecting to get excellent sleep immediately.) The CBT was given through online videos, where participants also had access to tools such as sleep diaries and recordings aimed at relaxation. Participants were assessed before the study began, three weeks in, at the end of the intervention (ten weeks), and 12 weeks after the study ended (22 weeks).

The authors were primarily interested in measuring insomnia (using two scales), paranoid thoughts, and hallucinations. In addition, they measured number and intensity of nightmares, prodromal psychotic symptoms [d], mania, depression, anxiety, and mental well-being. Participants were also asked if they had a history of mental illness, if they used any mental health services, if they were in therapy, or if they took medication.

Results: This study had a high dropout rate, with approximately 50% of participants failing to complete the study. More participants dropped out in the intervention group than the control; 603 participants completed the final assessment in the intervention group, versus 971 in the control group. Most participants in the intervention group did not complete all of the videos either—while the authors did not specify how this broke down in the participants who were tested, only 18% of people in the intervention condition went through all six videos, while only 69% even watched one.

Despite these dropouts, the authors still found strong results. The treatment was effective, with 62% of individuals in the treatment group scoring below the cutoff for insomnia used for the study (in comparison, 29% of participants in the control group were below the cutoff after ten weeks—so some people certainly get better just based on time, but it is extremely unlikely that would explain all the improvement.)

However, the point of the study was not to validate the intervention—that has already been done. When examining the signs of mental illness tested, the authors found that based on the 10-week analysis, 58% of the change in paranoia and 39% of the change in hallucinations were explained by the participants’ increased sleep. In addition, while changes in sleep explained a large percentage of the changes in psychotic symptoms, changes in psychotic symptoms did not explain a large percentage of the change in sleep. Therefore, it appears that the increased sleep caused the decrease in symptoms.

While the authors did fewer in-depth analyses, they did find that participants who went through the full treatment had lower scores in depression, anxiety, prodromal psychotic symptoms, had fewer nightmares, and higher psychological wellbeing. In addition, these increases remained 12 weeks after the study ended. However, there was evidence that participants were more likely to meet criteria for a manic episode.

Concerns and Important Issues: To pick up right where we left off, the authors made the point that increased risk of mania based on self-reports does not necessarily mean the participants were more likely to be suffering from a manic disorder following treatment. Measures of mania include decreased need to sleep (which, if interpreted as “sleepiness,” would make sense if the participants were sleeping better), increased talkativeness and cheerfulness, and self-confidence. All of those could, in fact, reflect that the participants were simply in a better mental state following treatment—or it could be evidence of something dangerous. To be certain, more research would be necessary.

However, there was one issue the authors did not address—CBT, the form of treatment used for insomnia, is also the current standard treatment for depression and anxiety. To be fair, the CBT used here was aimed at insomnia, not other illnesses, but it’s possible that the lessons learned while working on insomnia were generalized to other issues the participants were struggling with. Mindfulness especially has been shown to decrease mood and anxiety issues,[v] suggesting that the increase in mental health following the treatment may not have been because of increased sleep but instead because of the treatment itself. It is also important to remember that the authors specifically excluded anyone who did not have insomnia, so we have to be careful generalizing these results to the population as a whole. The only thing this study shows is that sleep disorders contribute to mental illnesses—it does not necessarily provide evidence that increased sleep for people who are not suffering from insomnia would increase mental health.

That doesn’t mean this study isn’t valuable, even to a layperson. First of all, it suggests that people suffering from insomnia would likely benefit from CBT, even beyond their sleep disorder (I know it seems small, but having 62% of people improve following a treatment is pretty standard in current psychological interventions.) It also suggests that increased sleep might help people, even those without insomnia. Full disclosure, I am personally firmly in the camp that sleep is helpful to people who are struggling with mental illnesses, and there’s no harm in sleeping longer (to a point—I’m not advocating spending 12 hours in bed, and that could be a sign of depression in and of itself.) This is an important study, albeit perhaps not one as generalizable as popular media has made it out to be.

Jargon Definitions:

a.     Treatment as usual: a control group often used in studies surrounding debilitating mental illnesses, where the participants are not offered any new treatments but are allowed to continue using their previous treatments. It would be unethical, the reasoning goes, to force people to go off necessary treatments just for a study. Therefore, the researchers hope that random assignment to groups will do away with any systematic differences in pre-study treatment, therefore allowing people to continue their routines without that treatment affecting the results of the study.

b.     Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: a form of therapy in which issues are addressed through a mix of behavioral and cognitive changes (cognition is, in essence, mental activities—such as learning and processing information.) This sort of therapy has become the standard for anxiety and mood disorders, as well as many other mental illnesses.

c.      Mindfulness: nonjudgmental acknowledgement of thoughts, feelings and physical sensations. Often included in meditation.

d.     Prodromal psychotic symptoms: symptoms found before a psychotic disorder becomes diagnosable. As a note, “psychotic disorder” is the standard technical term for disorders involving a break with reality such as schizophrenia—I know it’s a loaded term, but that’s the language the field uses.

References

[i] Freeman, D., Sheaves, B., Goodwin, G. M., Yu, L.-M., Nickless, A., Harrison, P. J., . . . Espie, C. A. The effects of improving sleep on mental health (OASIS): a randomised controlled trial with mediation analysis. The Lancet Psychiatry.

[ii] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-insomnia/treating-insomnia-can-ease-depression-and-paranoia-study-finds-idUSKCN1BH379

[iii] https://www.livescience.com/60329-online-insomnia-therapy-mental-health-symptoms.html

[iv] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4860076/Lack-sleep-linked-depression-anxiety.html

[v] Bluth, K., Gaylord, S. A., Campo, R. A., Mullarkey, M. C., & Hobbs, L. (2016). Making Friends with Yourself: A Mixed Methods Pilot Study of a Mindful Self-Compassion Program for Adolescents. Mindfulness, 7(2), 479-492. doi:10.1007/s12671-015-0476-6

[junker-town]

The story of how the ‘89 Dodgers played 53 innings in 3 days

53 innings in 3 days.

Thirty years ago the Dodgers ran through a gauntlet of baseball games seemingly without end, a stretch that saw a position player pitch, and 80 percent of the starting rotation either pitch in relief or play another position. In the middle of a road trip, the Dodgers played 53 innings in two cities over a three-day stretch.

This ironman challenge started with a marathon game on a Saturday night against the Astros, and ended with a doubleheader on Monday in Atlanta against the Braves. The Dodgers had to play so much baseball that the only time we’ve seen anything similar since was the result of civil unrest. Here are the stories of four characters who lived through it all.

The ace

Orel Hershiser was on top of the world in 1989. He won the National League Cy Young Award the year before, when he ended the season pitching a record 59 consecutive scoreless innings, then carried the Dodgers to a World Series win with a 1.05 ERA in 42⅔ October innings.

Hershiser entered the 1989 series against the Astros with a 2.58 ERA, and would finish with a 2.31 ERA on the season, numbers nearly identical to his award-winning 1988 campaign. But his final record was just 15-15 thanks to a brutal late-season stretch of four total runs of support in seven starts.

“The joke back then was, my team was trying to break my scoreless streak,” Hershiser recalls. “I thought ‘89 was a better year than ‘88 personally, because my ERA was only [five-hundredths] of a point higher, and I didn’t have the 59 scoreless. As far as consistency, it was a better year.”

Hershiser wasn’t even scheduled to pitch in the four-game series in Houston, but baseball sometimes has a funny way of messing with schedules.

The Dodgers dropped the first two games of the series, then their marathon began. Saturday night at the Astrodome lasted 22 innings, the longest National League game in 15 years. At seven hours, 14 minutes, it’s still the longest night game by time in NL history.

Nobody has played more than 22 innings since Dodgers-Astros three decades ago. Only three games since have matched that length, and one was by those very same Dodgers later that season, a game in Montreal that is most famous for manager Tommy Lasorda having Expos mascot Youppi ejected.

Hershiser pitched seven scoreless innings in both 22-inning games for the Dodgers in 1989. He started the Aug. 23 game in Montreal, but on June 3 in Houston he pitched in relief.

Twenty-two innings is difficult to endure in any era, but consider a few things about the state of baseball in 1989:

The Dodgers carried five relief pitchers on their active roster as part of a 10-man staff, which would be unthinkable today in this age of bullpen churn. Pitching staffs of 12 or 13 men are the current norm.

Collusion was rampant among major league owners, so much that teams would only carry 24 active players — the minimum allowed by the collective bargaining agreement — instead of the usual 25.

Covering 22 innings’ worth of pitching was a different beast 30 years ago. Starting pitchers were much more likely to be used in relief. The Dodgers turned to their rotation in the 12th inning, using Mike Morgan just two days after a start. Houston used starter Jim Clancy to pitch the final five innings.

Hershiser, who threw seven innings the Wednesday before at home against Montreal, was called on to start the 14th inning in Houston on just two days rest.

“I knew when I saw Hershiser come in, it was going to last a while,” Astros slugging first baseman Glenn Davis told the Houston Chronicle.

Davis stood out on that Houston team, leading it with 34 home runs when no other Astro topped 13 that year.

“I just remember knowing that the game could end with one swing, guys like Glenn Davis on their team,” Hershiser remembers.

Saturday would have been Hershiser’s day to throw a bullpen session in preparation for his scheduled Monday start. But per common practice at the time, he waited to see how the game played out first.

“It was a side-work day. Our staffs in those days didn’t have all these bodies, there were a lot thinner staffs,” Hershiser explains. “There were days when [pitching coach] Ron Perranoski or Tommy would say to me, ‘Hey could you hold your side work in case we need you today?’”

The Dodgers needed Hershiser and then some. But after exhausting all five relievers and two starters out of the bullpen, the Dodgers only had two choices to start the 21st inning on the mound: Fernando Valenzuela, who started and pitched seven innings the night before, or a position player. Lasorda rode Valenzuela like a rented mule for most of the 1980s, but pitching him one night after throwing 114 pitches was a line he would not cross.

So LA went with third baseman Jeff Hamilton, making Valenzuela play first base and first baseman Eddie Murray move to third. Hamilton pitched a scoreless 21st inning, but ultimately lost in the next frame, when a line drive by Rafael Ramirez went just over the head of the 5’11 Valenzuela (three inches shorter than Murray) and fell for a game-winning RBI single.

The next day didn’t do either pitching staff any favors, with a 13-inning game that lasted more than four hours on a getaway day.

In the series finale, the Dodgers rode starter Tim Belcher, the only player not to appear for them Saturday, for eight innings, and the Astros used starter Mike Scott to close out the game in relief. Four starting pitchers were used in relief in the final two games of the series, and they threw a combined 15 scoreless innings.

That may sound outrageous these days, but in the ‘80s, contingencies like that 22-inning game were the reason why Hershiser modified his between-starts routine to throw less and save his bullets.

“Rest is more important than having fun, and throwing more good pitches,” Hershiser says. “It’s a tough lesson to learn as a pitcher, because it’s so much fun to throw a baseball and throw it well.”

The voice

Though not a player, Dodgers announcer Vin Scully gave a herculean effort of his own over the 53-inning weekend. At the time, Scully was the primary national announcer for NBC’s Game of the Week, a Saturday showcase that for many was the only chance to see teams outside of their local market. In 1989, MLB.tv didn’t exist, and ESPN didn’t debut their national baseball coverage until 1990.

Scully’s normal weekend routine was to leave the Dodgers on Friday to prepare for Saturday’s national broadcast, but this weekend was different. Fellow Dodgers TV broadcaster Don Drysdale had laryngitis in Houston, so Scully stayed to call Friday’s Dodgers-Astros game. A plane chartered by Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley took Scully to St. Louis on Saturday morning for his call of the Cubs-Cardinals day game, with the expectation that he would return to Houston to call Dodgers-Astros at night.

Naturally, the game in St. Louis took 10 innings to complete, and lasted three hours, 19 minutes before ending at 5:54 p.m. central time. There was a traffic jam on the way to the airport, but Scully managed to arrive at the Astrodome just before the 7:35 p.m. scheduled start.

“The national anthem was just finishing when I stepped into the booth and said, ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,’ as though I’d been there waiting for an hour,” Scully told Larry Stewart of the Los Angeles Times about his frantic travels.

Counting the 22 innings Saturday night and the 13 innings Sunday, Scully called three extra-inning games in a row in two cities. In all, he worked 45 innings in just over 29 hours. Including the doubleheader Monday in Atlanta, Scully called 63 innings in 59 hours in three cities.

“A marathon man,” says Hershiser, who now works as an analyst calling Dodgers games from the very same booth Scully used for decades. “Just like the players, you’re running on adrenaline. You just hope you don’t get a scratchy throat. That would be a lot of work. But to stay engaged, the hardest games to do as a broadcaster are the games that aren’t interesting, so I’m sure the fact that it was extra innings, and you’re hanging on every pitch, I’m sure helped Vinny a lot.”

The unsuspecting rookie

After using three starting pitchers in relief in two days in Houston, the Dodgers were in scramble mode heading to face the Braves. Especially since Hershiser was supposed to be one of the Monday starters, but instead threw seven innings Saturday on just two days rest.

Needing a starting pitcher, the Dodgers called up 21-year-old Ramon Martinez from Triple-A Albuquerque to start Game 1 of the doubleheader. They summoned fellow rookie John Wetteland from the bullpen to start Game 2. Tim Leary, who started the 22-inning game on Saturday, also pitched three scoreless innings in relief in the second game.

Martinez pitched a six-hit shutout to beat Atlanta, striking out nine.

After making nine appearances, including six starts, in his debut season in 1988, Martinez was making his first appearance in the majors in 1989. He was the club’s best pitching prospect, and he figured that he had done his time. He famously showed up to Atlanta with six suitcases in tow, assuming he was in the majors to stay.

But the Dodgers only needed an able body to fill in for a game, and didn’t adequately relay that information to Martinez. He was optioned back to Triple-A after his shutout, a demotion he did not take well.

“I go back to my hotel that night, and I wonder, ‘Why me?’” Martinez told Bill Plaschke of the LA Times. “I was so upset, I cried. I wondered what it would take for me to make it here.”

What it took was the trade of starter Tim Leary six weeks later. This time, Martinez was up for good, posting a 3.19 ERA in his half-season. He won 20 games in 1990, finished second in NL Cy Young Award voting, and pitched a dozen more years in the majors. But on that day in Atlanta, Martinez was just a fresh arm who filled a temporary need.

The Dodgers needed all the help they could get.

Postscript

Since the Dodgers and Astros played those consecutive marathons, teams have played games of at least 13 innings on consecutive days just nine times. None of them had a doubleheader the next day, like the Dodgers did.

The 2003 Pirates have arguably come the closest to matching the Dodgers’ accomplishment, playing a doubleheader on June 18, a single game the next day, then back-to-back 15-inning games against the Indians on June 20 and 21. But all of those games were in Pittsburgh.

In 1992, the Dodgers played 54 innings in three days because of riots in Los Angeles, plowing through three straight days of double headers with the Expos to make up for the postponement of four games at Dodger Stadium. But those 54 innings were scheduled a few months in advance, allowing the Dodgers to do some roster planning.

The 53 innings in three days in 1989 for the Dodgers, in two different cities, were like a sucker punch to an entire team from out of the blue. And we may never see anything like it again.

[cryptoquicknews-blog]

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Bitcoin Futures Expired Last Week, Did It Affect $10 Billion Plunge of Crypto Markets?

This post was originally published here

On Jan. 29, the valuation of the crypto market plunged by more than $10 billion within a 48-hour period, from $121 billion to $111 billion.

Major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) recorded losses in the range of 5 to 10 percent against the United States dollar, demonstrating poor momentum.

Throughout the past several months, the cryptocurrency market has demonstrated volatility in a low price range, unable to break out of key resistance levels.

What were the major factors of this week’s drop?

While some analysts have said that the drop was triggered by technical factors over fundamental, speaking to Cointelegraph, former hedge fund manager and investor Danny Les stated that the crypto market has been in a bear market for over a year and conditions will not change until the market establishes a proper bottom.

“Technical or fundamental, it makes no difference. I’ve been saying this for over a year now, we are bearish and will continue to be bearish until the market finds a point where buyers are waiting en masse.”

In mid-December, the price of Bitcoin achieved a new yearly low at $3,122, and at the time, analysts including Three Arrows Capital CEO Su Zhu said that big buy walls in the low $3,000 region will prevent the dominant cryptocurrency from plunging to $2,000.

10% down from here (3.3k), buy walls on @coinbase are now the largest (in $BTC notional ) since mid-2015. Similar for @Bitstamp. pic.twitter.com/NmMpZXazgX

— Su Zhu (@zhusu) December 12, 2018

As Bitcoin neared $3,100, the buy walls on fiat-to-crypto exchanges such as Coinbase and Bitstamp led the asset to initiate an immediate bounce and it eventually recovered to mid-$3,000.

Similarly, as Bitcoin approached $3,300 on Jan. 29, the asset recovered to the $3,400 to $3,500 range with relative strength.

Bitcoin is still en route to $2,000

The crypto market is set to experience the longest correction in its 10-year history, and based on the intensity of the sell-off of major crypto assets in the past several months, the bear market will likely extend across the first two quarters of 2019.

In November 2018, Willy Woo, the creator of Woobull.com, said that the correction is likely to last until the end of second quarter of this year or longer.

“Putting together the blockchain view, I suspect the timing for a bottom may be around Q2 2019. After that we start the true accumulation band, only after that, do we start a long grind upwards.”

In an interview with Cointelegraph, Les suggested if Bitcoin drops to $2,000, it would mean a 90 percent drop from its all-time high at $20,000, surpassing the average drop from the all-time high at around 85 percent in previous major corrections:

“On the contrary, I actually think the closer we get to $2k, the more buyers lie in wait. I legitimately believe what my good friend David Belle thinks, the floor will be around the $1.5k-$2k area and at that point a lot of money will be waiting to enter the arena.”

Did Bitcoin futures make any difference?

Last week, CME Bitcoin futures contracts in the U.S. market expired. The futures market has often been used as a short-term price indicator of Bitcoin, as it was said that the expiration of futures could incentivize investors to attempt to manipulate the market.

In the early days, the San Francisco Federal Reserve reported that the launch of CME Bitcoin futures led to the decline in the price of cryptocurrencies.

“The rapid run-up and subsequent fall in the price after the introduction of futures does not appear to be a coincidence. It is consistent with trading behavior that typically accompanies the introduction of futures markets for an asset.”

However, futures contracts in the U.S., at least for now, are all cash-settled and as such, the supply of Bitcoin futures contracts is fixed, which restricts the effect it could have on the value of BTC. Bakkt, which is set to launch later this quarter, will become the first physically settled Bitcoin futures market in the U.S.

Jake Chervinsky, a government enforcement defence and securities litigation attorney at Kobre & Kim, explained that physically settled contracts like Bakkt could have an actual impact on the price of the asset in the future.

“Noteworthy is the fact that Bakkt will custody and deliver real bitcoin. That means institutional inflows would reduce supply and thus (maybe) increase price too. This is different from other regulated futures markets like CME and CBOE, which only deal in cash-settled futures.”

Les similarly stated that the Bitcoin futures expiration in the U.S. likely had a minimal effect on Bitcoin. Historically, Les said that the CME Bitcoin market, which was highly anticipated by investors in the cryptocurrency sector, did not sway the price of the asset in a major way.

“I don’t think futures closing made a difference. Just like when the CME Bitcoin markets kicked off and everyone expected it would have a huge effect on price. It didn’t. Same applies here as far as I’m concerned.”

Because the futures market is of significant size for traditional assets like gold, many investors attempt to correlate the expiration of futures and the performance of Bitcoin.

In the long run, if Bakkt sees a rapid increase in volume and, as a result, other large futures market operators — such as ErisX, CME, CBOE and potentially even the Nasdaq — experience exponential growth, the correlation between futures and the Bitcoin price on exchanges could increase. But, it is currently not big enough to move the price of BTC.

When the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rejected nine Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that were based on the futures market in August 2018, the commission the also stated that the Bitcoin futures market is not big enough to handle ETFs. The commission said:

“[The ETFs] have not met the requirement that a national securities exchange’s rules be designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices. Among other things, the Exchange has offered no record evidence to demonstrate that bitcoin futures markets are ‘markets of significant size.’”

In the short term, at least, the crypto exchange market will likely have a larger impact on the price trend of crypto assets over both over-the-counter (OTC) and futures markets.

What lies ahead for the crypto market in 2019?

There are catalysts on the horizon that could potentially allow the cryptocurrency market to recover.

As Cointelegraph reported, Fidelity Investments is said to be planning on March to be the launch date of its Bitcoin custody, which could lead some of its 13,000 institutional investors to invest in cryptocurrencies.

Fidelity said in a statement obtained by Bloomberg that it is already engaging in discussions with some of its clients.

“We are currently serving a select set of eligible clients as we continue to build our initial solutions. […] Over the next several months, we will thoughtfully engage with and prioritize prospective clients based on needs, jurisdiction and other factors.”

Bakkt and the Nasdaq are also set to release Bitcoin-related investment vehicles and products by the end of the quarter.

But, because the cryptocurrency market moves by cycles and the market has demonstrated a free fall without much resistance, a slow, gradual downside movement to a region where big buy orders are filled remains the most probable result. Les stated:

“Bearish and with a slow, gradual slide down to the area I mentioned [is] where I think liquidity lies in wait. Sure, retail will move the price up and down in fairly obvious ranges but the really significant action will begin around the ‘Belle Zone’ as I like to call it.”

Potential impact of major Bitcoin investment vehicle launches in 2019

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Les said that if Fidelity Bitcoin custody launches in March, it will likely not have an immediate impact on price, and the same could be said for Bakkt and Nasdaq. Rather, it will allow investors to be more confident in the cryptocurrency sector and the asset class, which may lead investors to establish orders in a low enough range.

Vinny Lingham, a general partner at Multicoin Capital, said this week that the crypto winter could easily turn into a nuclear winter if Bitcoin drops below key support levels.

If we break below $3000 for Bitcoin, “crypto winter” will become “crypto nuclear winter”… https://t.co/sS83cl6Em1

— Vinny Lingham (@VinnyLingham) January 28, 2019

If the product launches of Fidelity, Nasdaq and Bakkt come in a period wherein the general sentiment around cryptocurrencies has not recovered yet, it may have a minimal impact on the price trend of cryptocurrencies, according to Les:

“All of this […] (CME, Bakkt, Fidelity) is positive news for what is clearly an emerging asset. If anything I’m more concerned that it’s taken so long for these products/services to be offered. […] Is Fidelity offering custody going to have an impact on price if it launches in March? I say no. However what it does do, is make me even more confident that when price reaches the ‘Belle zone’ the fact institutional investors will find it more comfortable to participate because of fidelity will only serve to help toward a large scale entering of the market.”

As Gabor Gurbacs, the head of digital assets at VanEck, told Cointelegraph in an interview in November of last year, institutional investors are less interested whether the price of Bitcoin is $3,000 or $10,000. Instead, it prioritizes the structure of the market and the selection of investment vehicles they can use to safely invest in the cryptocurrency market.

Products like Fidelity’s custody and Bakkt’s futures market could be considered as a foundation to support the next wave of retail and institutional investors. But, in the immediate future, they are not likely to sway the price of major crypto assets by large margins.

The crypto market has already started to recover

In the last days, following a steep sell-off on Tuesday, the crypto market rebounded by more than $4 billion.

Ripple (XRP) initiated a solid corrective rally by more than 10 percent and Tether (USDT), which briefly became the fourth-largest cryptocurrency in the global market by surpassing EOS (EOS) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH), dropped back down to sixth.

While the sudden recovery of the crypto market relieved some pressure on the price trend of major cryptocurrencies, overall, the market remains bear-biased. The crypto market could see some positive price action in the short term, as some traders have suggested throughout this week.

But, until Bitcoin surpasses key support levels at $4,000 or even $5,000, it will be too early to call for a proper bottom in the cryptocurrency market.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #btc #xrp #litecoin #altcoin #money #currency #finance #news #alts #hodl #coindesk #cointelegraph #dollar #bitcoin View the website

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[leftpress]

We Fact-Checked Lawmakers’ Letters to Constituents on Health Care

| ProPublica: Articles and Investigations | March 22nd 2017

by Charles Ornstein

This story was co-published with Kaiser Health News, Stat and Vox.

When Louisiana resident Andrea Mongler wrote to her senator, Bill Cassidy, in support of the Affordable Care Act, she wasn’t surprised to get an email back detailing the law’s faults. Cassidy, a Republican who is also a physician, has been a vocal critic.

“Obamacare” he wrote in January, “does not lower costs or improve quality, but rather it raises taxes and allows a presidentially handpicked ‘Health Choices Commissioner’ to determine what coverage and treatments are available to you.”

There’s one problem with Cassidy’s ominous-sounding assertion: It’s false.

The Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare, includes no “Health Choices Commissioner.” Another bill introduced in Congress in 2009 did include suc...

h a position, but the bill died — and besides, the job as outlined in that legislation didn’t have the powers Cassidy ascribed to it.

As the debate to repeal the law heats up in Congress, constituents are flooding their representatives with notes of support or concern, and the lawmakers are responding, sometimes with form letters that are misleading. A review of more than 200 such letters by ProPublica and its partners at Kaiser Health News, Stat and Vox, found dozens of errors and mischaracterizations about the ACA and its proposed replacement. The legislators have cited wrong statistics, conflated health care terms and made statements that don’t stand up to verification.

It’s not clear if this is intentional or if the lawmakers and their staffs don’t understand the current law or the proposals to alter it. Either way, the issue of what is wrong — and right — about the current system has become critical as the House prepares to vote on the GOP’s replacement bill Thursday.

“If you get something like that in writing from your U.S. senator, you should be able to just believe that,” said Mongler, 34, a freelance writer and editor who is pursuing a master’s degree in public health. “I hate that people are being fed falsehoods, and a lot of people are buying it and not questioning it. It’s far beyond politics as usual.”

Cassidy’s staff did not respond to questions about his letter.

Can you help us fact-check Congress on the ACA?

Have you sent a letter in support, in opposition or asking questions about the ACA to your congressperson? Did you get a response? Share them with us.

Political debates about complex policy issues are prone to hyperbole and health care is no exception. And to be sure, many of the assertions in the lawmakers’ letters are at least partially based in fact.

Democrats, for instance, have been emphasizing to their constituents that millions of previously uninsured people now have medical coverage thanks to the law. They say insurance companies can no longer discriminate against millions of patients with pre-existing conditions. And they credit the law with allowing adults under age 26 to stay on their parents’ health plans. All true.

For their part, Republicans criticize the law for not living up to its promises. They say former President Obama pledged that people could keep their health plans and doctors and premiums would go down. Neither has happened. They also say that insurers are dropping out of the market and that monthly premiums and deductibles (the amount people must pay before their coverage kicks in) have gone up. All true.

But elected officials in both parties have incorrectly cited statistics and left out important context. We decided to take a closer look after finding misleading statements in an email Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., sent to his constituents. We solicited letters from the public and found a wealth of misinformation, from statements that were simply misleading to whoppers. More Republicans fudged than Democrats, though both had their moments.

An aide to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., defended his hyperbole as “within the range of respected interpretations.”

“Do most people pay that much attention to what their congressman says? Probably not,” said Sherry Glied, dean of New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, who served as an assistant Health and Human Services secretary from 2010 to 2012. “But I think misinformation or inaccurate information is a bad thing and not knowing what you’re voting on is a really bad thing.”

We reviewed the emails and letters sent by 51 senators and 134 members of the House within the past few months. Here are some of the most glaring errors and omissions:

Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio, incorrectly cited the number of Ohio counties that had only one insurer on the Affordable Care Act insurance exchange.

What he wrote: “In Ohio, almost one third of counties will have only one insurer participating in the exchange.”

What’s misleading: In fact, only 23 percent (less than one quarter) had only one option, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

His response: A Tiberi spokesperson defended the statement. “The letter says ‘almost’ because only 9 more counties in Ohio need to start offering only 1 plan on the exchanges to be one third.”

Why his response is misleading: Ohio has 88 counties. A 10 percent difference is not “almost.”

Rep. Kevin Yoder, R-Kan., said that the quality of health care in the country has declined because of the ACA, offering no proof.

What he wrote: “Quality of care has decreased as doctors have been burdened with increased regulations on their profession.”

Why it’s misleading: Some data shows that health care has improved after the passage of the ACA. Patients are less likely to be readmitted to a hospital within 30 days after they have been discharged, for instance. Also, payments have been increasingly linked to patients’ outcomes rather than just the quantity of services delivered. A 2016 report by the Commonwealth Fund, a health care nonprofit think tank, found that the quality care has improved in many communities following the ACA.

His response: None.

Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., misstated the percentage of Medicaid spending that covers the cost of long-term care, such as nursing home stays.

What she wrote: “It’s important to note that 60 percent of Medicaid goes to long-term care and with the evisceration of it in the bill, this critical coverage is severely compromised.”

What’s misleading: Medicaid does not spend 60 percent of its budget on long-term care. The figure is closer to a quarter, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank. Medicaid does, however, cover more than 60 percent of all nursing home residents.

Her response: Eshoo’s office said the statistic was based on a subset of enrollees who are dually enrolled in Medicaid and Medicare. For this smaller group, 62 percent of Medicaid expenditures were for long-term support services, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

What’s misleading about the response: Eshoo’s letter makes no reference to this population, but instead refers to the 75 million Americans on Medicaid.

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., pointed to the number of uninsured Americans as a failure of the ACA, without noting that the law had dramatically reduced the number of uninsured.

What he wrote: “According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately thirty-three million Americans are still living without health care coverage and many more have coverage that does not adequately meet their health care needs.”

Why it’s misleading: The actual number of uninsured in 2015 was about 29 million, a drop of 4 million from the prior year, the Census Bureau reported in September. Fleischmann’s number was from the previous year.

Beyond that, reducing the number of uninsured by more than 12 million people from 2013 to 2015 has been seen as a success of Obamacare. And the Republican repeal-and-replace bill is projected to increase the number of uninsured.

His response: None.

Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III, D-Mass., overstated the number of young adults who were able to stay on their parents’ health plan as a result of the law.

What he wrote: The ACA “allowed 6.1 million young adults to remain covered by their parents’ insurance plans.”

What’s misleading: A 2016 report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, released during the Obama administration, however, pegged the number at 2.3 million.

Kennedy may have gotten to 6.1 million by including 3.8 million young adults who gained health insurance coverage through insurance marketplaces from October 2013 through early 2016.

His response: A spokeswoman for Kennedy said the office had indeed added those two numbers together and would fix future letters.

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., said that 75 percent of health insurance marketplaces run by states have failed. They have not.

What he said: “Nearly 75 percent of state-run exchanges have already collapsed, forcing more than 800,000 Americans to find new coverage.”

What’s misleading: When the ACA first launched, 16 states and the District of Columbia opted to set up their own exchanges for residents to purchase insurance, instead of using the federal marketplace, known as Healthcare.gov.

Of the 16, four state exchanges, in Oregon, Hawaii, New Mexico and Nevada, failed, and Kentucky plans to close its exchange this year, according to a report by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. While the report casts doubt on the viability of other state exchanges, it is clear that 3/4 have not failed.

His response: None.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., overstated that the ACA “distorted labor markets,” prompting employers to shift workers from full-time jobs to part-time jobs.

What he said: “It has also, through the requirement that employees that work thirty hours or more be considered full time and thus be offered health insurance by their employer, distorted the labor market.”

What’s misleading: A number of studies have found little to back up that assertion. A 2016 study published by the journal Health Affairs examined data on hours worked, reason for working part time, age, education and health insurance status. “We found only limited evidence to support this speculation” that the law led to an increase in part-time employment, the authors wrote. Another study found much the same.

In addition, PolitiFact labeled as false a statement last June by President Donald Trump in which he said, “Because of Obamacare, you have so many part-time jobs.”

His response: Rohrabacher spokesman Ken Grubbs said the congressman’s statement was based on an article that said, “Are Republicans right that employers are capping workers’ hours to avoid offering health insurance? The evidence suggests the answer is ‘yes,’ although the number of workers affected is fairly small.”

We pointed out that “fairly small” was hardly akin to distorting the labor market. To which Grubbs replied, “The congressman’s letter is well within the range of respected interpretations. That employers would react to Obamacare’s impact in such way is so obvious, so nearly axiomatic, that it is pointless to get lost in the weeds,” Grubbs said.

Rep. Mike Bishop, R-Mich., appears to have cited a speculative 2013 report by a GOP-led House committee as evidence of current and future premium increases under the ACA.

What he wrote: “Health insurance premiums are slated to increase significantly. Existing customers can expect an average increase of 73 percent, while the average change due to Obamacare for those purchasing a new plan will be a 96 percent increase in premiums. The average cost for a new customer in the individual market is expected to rise $1,812 per year.”

What’s misleading: The figures seem to have come from a report issued before the Obamacare insurance marketplaces launched and before 2014 premiums had been announced. The letter implies these figures are current. In fact, premium increases by and large have been moderate under Obamacare. The average monthly premium for a benchmark plan, upon which federal subsidies are calculated, increased about 2 percent from 2014 to 2015; 7 percent from 2015 to 2016; and 25 percent this year, for states that take part in the federal insurance marketplace.

His response: None

Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., misstated the reasons why Medicaid costs per person were higher than expected in 2015.

What he wrote: “A Medicaid actuarial report from August 2016 found that the average cost per enrollee was 49 percent higher than estimated just a year prior — in large part due to beneficiaries seeking care at more expensive hospital emergency rooms due to difficulty finding a doctor and long waits for appointments.”

What’s misleading: The report did not blame the higher costs on the difficulty patients had finding doctors. Among the reasons the report did cite: patients who were sicker than anticipated and required a raft of services after being previously uninsured. The report also noted that costs are expected to decrease in the future.

His response: None

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., wrongly stated that family premiums are declining under Obamacare.

What he wrote: “Families are seeing lower premiums on their insurance, seniors are saving money on prescription drug costs, and hospital readmission rates are dropping.”

What’s misleading: Durbin’s second and third points are true. The first, however, is misleading. Family insurance premiums have increased in recent years, although with government subsidies, some low- and middle-income families may be paying less for their health coverage than they once did.

His response: Durbin’s office said it based its statement on an analysis published in the journal Health Affairs that said that individual health insurance premiums dropped between 2013 and 2014, the year that Obamacare insurance marketplaces began. It also pointed to a Washington Post opinion piece that said that premiums under the law are lower than they would have been without the law.

Why his response is misleading: The Post piece his office cites states clearly, “Yes, insurance premiums are going up, both in the health care exchanges and in the employer-based insurance market.”

Rep. Susan Brooks, R-Ind., told constituents that premiums nationwide were slated to jump from 2016 to 2017, but failed to mention that premiums for some plans in her home state actually decreased.

What she wrote: “Since the enactment of the ACA, deductibles are up, on average, 63 percent. To make matters worse, monthly premiums for the “bronze plan” rose 21 percent from 2016 to 2017. … Families and individuals covered through their employer are forced to make the difficult choice: pay their premium each month or pay their bills.”

What’s misleading: Brooks accurately cited national data from the website HealthPocket, but her statement is misleading. Indiana was one of two states in which the premium for a benchmark health plan — the plan used to calculate federal subsidies — actually went down between 2016 and 2017. Moreover, more than 80 percent of marketplace consumers in Indiana receive subsidies that lowered their premium costs. The HealthPocket figures refer to people who do not qualify for those subsidies.

Her response: Brooks’ office referred to a press release from Indiana’s Department of Insurance, which took issue with an Indianapolis Star story about premiums going down. The release, from October, when Vice President Mike Pence was Indiana’s governor, said that the average premiums would go up more than 18 percent over 2016 rates based on enrollment at that time. In addition, the release noted, 68,000 Indiana residents lost their health plans when their insurers withdrew from the market.

Why her response is misleading: For Indiana consumers who shopped around, which many did, there was an opportunity to find a cheaper plan.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., incorrectly said that the Republican bill to repeal Obamacare would cut funding for seniors in nursing homes.

What he wrote: “It’s terrible for seniors. Trumpcare forces older Americans to pay 5 times the amount younger Americans will — an age tax — and slashes Medicaid benefits for nursing home care that two out of three Americans in nursing homes rely on."

What’s misleading: Wyden is correct that the GOP bill, known as the American Health Care Act, would allow insurance companies to charge older adults five times higher premiums than younger ones, compared to three times higher premiums under the existing law. However, it does not directly slash Medicaid benefits for nursing home residents. It proposes cutting Medicaid funding and giving states a greater say in setting their own priorities. States may, as a result, end up cutting services, jeopardizing nursing home care for poor seniors, advocates say, because it is one of the most expensive parts of the program.

His response: Taylor Harvey, a spokesman for Wyden, defended the statement, noting that the GOP health bill cuts Medicaid funding by $880 billion over 10 years and places a cap on spending. “Cuts to Medicaid would force states to nickel and dime nursing homes, restricting access to care for older Americans and making it a benefit in name only,” he wrote.

Why his response is misleading: The GOP bill does not spell out how states make such cuts.

Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., misleadingly said premiums would rise under the Obamacare replacement bill now being considered by the House.

What he wrote: “It’s about the 24 million Americans expected to lose their insurance under the Trumpcare plan and for every person who will see their insurance premiums rise — on average 10-15 percent.”

Why it’s misleading: First, the Congressional Budget Office did estimate that the GOP legislation would cover 24 million fewer Americans by 2026. But not all of those people would “lose their insurance.” Some would choose to drop coverage because the bill would no longer make it mandatory to have health insurance, as is the case now.

Second, the budget office did say that in 2018 and 2019, premiums under the GOP bill would be 15-20 percent higher than they would have been under Obamacare because the share of unhealthy patients would increase as some of those who are healthy drop out. But it noted that after that, premiums would be lower than under the ACA.

His response: None.

Have you corresponded with a member of Congress or senator about the Affordable Care Act? We’d love to see the response you received. Please fill out our short form.

(source)

[nothingman]

(Credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)

This post originally appeared on ProPublica. The story was co-published with Kaiser Health News, Stat and Vox.

When Louisiana resident Andrea Mongler wrote to her senator, Bill Cassidy, in support of the Affordable Care Act, she wasn’t surprised to get an email back detailing the law’s faults. Cassidy, a Republican who is also a physician, has been a vocal critic.

“Obamacare” he wrote in January, “does not lower costs or improve quality, but rather it raises taxes and allows a presidentially handpicked ‘Health Choices Commissioner’ to determine what coverage and treatments are available to you.”

There’s one problem with Cassidy’s ominous-sounding assertion: It’s false.

The Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare, includes no “Health Choices Commissioner.” Another bill introduced in Congress in 2009 did include such a position, but the bill died — and besides, the job as outlined in that legislation didn’t have the powers Cassidy ascribed to it.

As the debate to repeal the law heats up in Congress, constituents are flooding their representatives with notes of support or concern, and the lawmakers are responding, sometimes with form letters that are misleading. A review of more than 200 such letters by ProPublica and its partners at Kaiser Health News, Stat and Vox, found dozens of errors and mischaracterizations about the ACA and its proposed replacement. The legislators have cited wrong statistics, conflated health care terms and made statements that don’t stand up to verification.

It’s not clear if this is intentional or if the lawmakers and their staffs don’t understand the current law or the proposals to alter it. Either way, the issue of what is wrong — and right — about the current system has become critical as the House prepares to vote on the GOP’s replacement bill Thursday.

“If you get something like that in writing from your U.S. senator, you should be able to just believe that,” said Mongler, 34, a freelance writer and editor who is pursuing a master’s degree in public health. “I hate that people are being fed falsehoods, and a lot of people are buying it and not questioning it. It’s far beyond politics as usual.”

Cassidy’s staff did not respond to questions about his letter.

Political debates about complex policy issues are prone to hyperbole and health care is no exception. And to be sure, many of the assertions in the lawmakers’ letters are at least partially based in fact.

Democrats, for instance, have been emphasizing to their constituents that millions of previously uninsured people now have medical coverage thanks to the law. They say insurance companies can no longer discriminate against millions of patients with pre-existing conditions. And they credit the law with allowing adults under age 26 to stay on their parents’ health plans. All true.

For their part, Republicans criticize the law for not living up to its promises. They say former President Obama pledged that people could keep their health plans and doctors and premiums would go down. Neither has happened. They also say that insurers are dropping out of the market and that monthly premiums and deductibles (the amount people must pay before their coverage kicks in) have gone up. All true.

But elected officials in both parties have incorrectly cited statistics and left out important context. We decided to take a closer look after finding misleading statements in an email Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., sent to his constituents. We solicited letters from the public and found a wealth of misinformation, from statements that were simply misleading to whoppers. More Republicans fudged than Democrats, though both had their moments.

An aide to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., defended his hyperbole as “within the range of respected interpretations.”

“Do most people pay that much attention to what their congressman says? Probably not,” said Sherry Glied, dean of New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, who served as an assistant Health and Human Services secretary from 2010 to 2012. “But I think misinformation or inaccurate information is a bad thing and not knowing what you’re voting on is a really bad thing.”

We reviewed the emails and letters sent by 51 senators and 134 members of the House within the past few months. Here are some of the most glaring errors and omissions: Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio, incorrectly cited the number of Ohio counties that had only one insurer on the Affordable Care Act insurance exchange. What he wrote: “In Ohio, almost one third of counties will have only one insurer participating in the exchange.”

What’s misleading: In fact, only 23 percent (less than one quarter) had only one option, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

His response: A Tiberi spokesperson defended the statement. “The letter says ‘almost’ because only 9 more counties in Ohio need to start offering only 1 plan on the exchanges to be one third.”

Why his response is misleading: Ohio has 88 counties. A 10 percent difference is not “almost.” Rep. Kevin Yoder, R-Kan., said that the quality of health care in the country has declined because of the ACA, offering no proof. What he wrote: “Quality of care has decreased as doctors have been burdened with increased regulations on their profession.”

Why it’s misleading: Some data shows that health care has improved after the passage of the ACA. Patients are less likely to be readmitted to a hospital within 30 days after they have been discharged, for instance. Also, payments have been increasingly linked to patients’ outcomes rather than just the quantity of services delivered. A 2016 report by the Commonwealth Fund, a health care nonprofit think tank, found that the quality care has improved in many communities following the ACA.

His response: None. Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., misstated the percentage of Medicaid spending that covers the cost of long-term care, such as nursing home stays. What she wrote: “It’s important to note that 60 percent of Medicaid goes to long-term care and with the evisceration of it in the bill, this critical coverage is severely compromised.”

What’s misleading: Medicaid does not spend 60 percent of its budget on long-term care. The figure is closer to a quarter, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank. Medicaid does, however, cover more than 60 percent of all nursing home residents.

Her response: Eshoo’s office said the statistic was based on a subset of enrollees who are dually enrolled in Medicaid and Medicare. For this smaller group, 62 percent of Medicaid expenditures were for long-term support services, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

What’s misleading about the response: Eshoo’s letter makes no reference to this population, but instead refers to the 75 million Americans on Medicaid. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., pointed to the number of uninsured Americans as a failure of the ACA, without noting that the law had dramatically reduced the number of uninsured. What he wrote: “According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately thirty-three million Americans are still living without health care coverage and many more have coverage that does not adequately meet their health care needs.”

Why it’s misleading: The actual number of uninsured in 2015 was about 29 million, a drop of 4 million from the prior year, the Census Bureau reported in September. Fleischmann’s number was from the previous year.

Beyond that, reducing the number of uninsured by more than 12 million people from 2013 to 2015 has been seen as a success of Obamacare. And the Republican repeal-and-replace bill is projected to increase the number of uninsured.

His response: None. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III, D-Mass., overstated the number of young adults who were able to stay on their parents’ health plan as a result of the law. What he wrote: The ACA “allowed 6.1 million young adults to remain covered by their parents’ insurance plans.”

What’s misleading: A 2016 report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, released during the Obama administration, however, pegged the number at 2.3 million.

Kennedy may have gotten to 6.1 million by including 3.8 million young adults who gained health insurance coverage through insurance marketplaces from October 2013 through early 2016.

His response: A spokeswoman for Kennedy said the office had indeed added those two numbers together and would fix future letters. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., said that 75 percent of health insurance marketplaces run by states have failed. They have not. What he said: “Nearly 75 percent of state-run exchanges have already collapsed, forcing more than 800,000 Americans to find new coverage.”

What’s misleading: When the ACA first launched, 16 states and the District of Columbia opted to set up their own exchanges for residents to purchase insurance, instead of using the federal marketplace, known as Healthcare.gov.

Of the 16, four state exchanges, in Oregon, Hawaii, New Mexico and Nevada, failed, and Kentucky plans to close its exchange this year, according to a report by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. While the report casts doubt on the viability of other state exchanges, it is clear that 3/4 have not failed.

His response: None. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., overstated that the ACA “distorted labor markets,” prompting employers to shift workers from full-time jobs to part-time jobs. What he said: “It has also, through the requirement that employees that work thirty hours or more be considered full time and thus be offered health insurance by their employer, distorted the labor market.”

What’s misleading: A number of studies have found little to back up that assertion. A 2016 study published by the journal Health Affairs examined data on hours worked, reason for working part time, age, education and health insurance status. “We found only limited evidence to support this speculation” that the law led to an increase in part-time employment, the authors wrote. Another study found much the same.

In addition, PolitiFact labeled as false a statement last June by President Donald Trump in which he said, “Because of Obamacare, you have so many part-time jobs.”

His response: Rohrabacher spokesman Ken Grubbs said the congressman’s statement was based on an article that said, “Are Republicans right that employers are capping workers’ hours to avoid offering health insurance? The evidence suggests the answer is ‘yes,’ although the number of workers affected is fairly small.”

We pointed out that “fairly small” was hardly akin to distorting the labor market. To which Grubbs replied, “The congressman’s letter is well within the range of respected interpretations. That employers would react to Obamacare’s impact in such way is so obvious, so nearly axiomatic, that it is pointless to get lost in the weeds,” Grubbs said. Rep. Mike Bishop, R-Mich., appears to have cited a speculative 2013 report by a GOP-led House committee as evidence of current and future premium increases under the ACA. What he wrote: “Health insurance premiums are slated to increase significantly. Existing customers can expect an average increase of 73 percent, while the average change due to Obamacare for those purchasing a new plan will be a 96 percent increase in premiums. The average cost for a new customer in the individual market is expected to rise $1,812 per year.”

What’s misleading: The figures seem to have come from a report issued before the Obamacare insurance marketplaces launched and before 2014 premiums had been announced. The letter implies these figures are current. In fact, premium increases by and large have been moderate under Obamacare. The average monthly premium for a benchmark plan, upon which federal subsidies are calculated, increased about 2 percent from 2014 to 2015; 7 percent from 2015 to 2016; and 25 percent this year, for states that take part in the federal insurance marketplace.

His response: None Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., misstated the reasons why Medicaid costs per person were higher than expected in 2015. What he wrote: “A Medicaid actuarial report from August 2016 found that the average cost per enrollee was 49 percent higher than estimated just a year prior — in large part due to beneficiaries seeking care at more expensive hospital emergency rooms due to difficulty finding a doctor and long waits for appointments.”

What’s misleading: The report did not blame the higher costs on the difficulty patients had finding doctors. Among the reasons the report did cite: patients who were sicker than anticipated and required a raft of services after being previously uninsured. The report also noted that costs are expected to decrease in the future.

His response: None Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., wrongly stated that family premiums are declining under Obamacare. What he wrote: “Families are seeing lower premiums on their insurance, seniors are saving money on prescription drug costs, and hospital readmission rates are dropping.”

What’s misleading: Durbin’s second and third points are true. The first, however, is misleading. Family insurance premiums have increased in recent years, although with government subsidies, some low- and middle-income families may be paying less for their health coverage than they once did.

His response: Durbin’s office said it based its statement on an analysis published in the journal Health Affairs that said that individual health insurance premiums dropped between 2013 and 2014, the year that Obamacare insurance marketplaces began. It also pointed to a Washington Post opinion piece that said that premiums under the law are lower than they would have been without the law.

Why his response is misleading: The Post piece his office cites states clearly, “Yes, insurance premiums are going up, both in the health care exchanges and in the employer-based insurance market.” Rep. Susan Brooks, R-Ind., told constituents that premiums nationwide were slated to jump from 2016 to 2017, but failed to mention that premiums for some plans in her home state actually decreased. What she wrote: “Since the enactment of the ACA, deductibles are up, on average, 63 percent. To make matters worse, monthly premiums for the “bronze plan” rose 21 percent from 2016 to 2017. … Families and individuals covered through their employer are forced to make the difficult choice: pay their premium each month or pay their bills.”

What’s misleading: Brooks accurately cited national data from the website HealthPocket, but her statement is misleading. Indiana was one of two states in which the premium for a benchmark health plan — the plan used to calculate federal subsidies — actually went down between 2016 and 2017. Moreover, more than 80 percent of marketplace consumers in Indiana receive subsidies that lowered their premium costs. The HealthPocket figures refer to people who do not qualify for those subsidies.

Her response: Brooks’ office referred to a press release from Indiana’s Department of Insurance, which took issue with an Indianapolis Star story about premiums going down. The release, from October, when Vice President Mike Pence was Indiana’s governor, said that the average premiums would go up more than 18 percent over 2016 rates based on enrollment at that time. In addition, the release noted, 68,000 Indiana residents lost their health plans when their insurers withdrew from the market.

Why her response is misleading: For Indiana consumers who shopped around, which many did, there was an opportunity to find a cheaper plan. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., incorrectly said that the Republican bill to repeal Obamacare would cut funding for seniors in nursing homes. What he wrote: “It’s terrible for seniors. Trumpcare forces older Americans to pay 5 times the amount younger Americans will — an age tax — and slashes Medicaid benefits for nursing home care that two out of three Americans in nursing homes rely on.”

What’s misleading: Wyden is correct that the GOP bill, known as the American Health Care Act, would allow insurance companies to charge older adults five times higher premiums than younger ones, compared to three times higher premiums under the existing law. However, it does not directly slash Medicaid benefits for nursing home residents. It proposes cutting Medicaid funding and giving states a greater say in setting their own priorities. States may, as a result, end up cutting services, jeopardizing nursing home care for poor seniors, advocates say, because it is one of the most expensive parts of the program.

His response: Taylor Harvey, a spokesman for Wyden, defended the statement, noting that the GOP health bill cuts Medicaid funding by $880 billion over 10 years and places a cap on spending. “Cuts to Medicaid would force states to nickel and dime nursing homes, restricting access to care for older Americans and making it a benefit in name only,” he wrote.

Why his response is misleading: The GOP bill does not spell out how states make such cuts. Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., misleadingly said premiums would rise under the Obamacare replacement bill now being considered by the House. What he wrote: “It’s about the 24 million Americans expected to lose their insurance under the Trumpcare plan and for every person who will see their insurance premiums rise — on average 10-15 percent.”

Why it’s misleading: First, the Congressional Budget Office did estimate that the GOP legislation would cover 24 million fewer Americans by 2026. But not all of those people would “lose their insurance.” Some would choose to drop coverage because the bill would no longer make it mandatory to have health insurance, as is the case now.

Second, the budget office did say that in 2018 and 2019, premiums under the GOP bill would be 15-20 percent higher than they would have been under Obamacare because the share of unhealthy patients would increase as some of those who are healthy drop out. But it noted that after that, premiums would be lower than under the ACA.

His response: None.

via Salon: in-depth news, politics, business, technology & culture Salon

[bountyofbeads]

MIRANDA'S REBELLION( This is an excellent article from the perspective of a southern white evangelical woman in the deeply conservative south where most of the white population are 'MAGA' supporters. I could identify with her and have tremendous empathy for Miranda. PLEASE read and share, it's well worth the time.)

By Stephanie McCrummen | Published

Feb 29 at 8:48 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted March 01, 2020 |

It was Sunday, the day that Miranda Murphey always took long hikes in the woods with her best friend. She looked forward to them, and when she heard Liz pulling up the long gravel driveway, she came downstairs and out through the garage, past the deer heads on the wall, the rifles in the gun safe and all the things that led her to call the home she shared with her husband “manly land.” Phillip Murphey was working on a truck outside.

“Hey, Liz,” he said, as Elizabeth Hahn got out of her car.

“Hey,” she said to Miranda’s husband.

In the unfolding life of Miranda Murphey that afternoon, any number of people claimed to know her best — Republicans, Democrats, presidential candidates and all the strategists and pollsters looking to her as a key to winning one of the most consequential elections in recent American memory. But none were more certain they knew Miranda than the two people watching her toss her hiking gear in the car and pull her long blond hair into a ponytail.

“Tame the mane,” Phillip said, watching his wife of 12 years.

“Okay, babe — see you later,” Miranda said to him, and soon she and Liz were heading down a two-lane road on the suburban fringe of Augusta, Ga., where Miranda had grown up absorbing the conservative values that had led her to vote Republican in every presidential election except the last one, when the rise of Donald Trump had forced her into a reckoning that often took the form of conversations with Liz on Sundays like these.

“Was it raining last time?” Liz said now, looking out at the blue sky.

“No, it was cold though,” Miranda said.

They passed farm fields and a sign that read “Does your life please God?” They passed the church Miranda no longer attended, a subdivision where her pro-Trump in-laws lived, and a gas station where a man usually stood selling President Trump flags and posters of Trump as Rambo holding an M-60 rifle. This was suburban Augusta: mostly white, mostly evangelical, mostly Trump. The rest was Target, good schools and prayer groups at Panera.

Miranda played some music from her phone. Randy Travis, Weezer, Tupac, and soon, she and Liz were pulling into the empty parking lot alongside the woods where they’d talked their way through the past three years since Trump’s election. They stood at the edge of the pines, deciding on a path they had named the Robert Frost, after the meditative poet. Miranda adjusted her backpack; Liz got her water bottle.

“You ready?” said Liz.

“Yep,” said Miranda.

*****

She is 39, a high school English teacher with a PhD and part of a voting demographic whose rebellion could upend the political map of the country: not just suburban women, not just white suburban women, but white suburban women in the South, whose loyalty Trump will need to remain in power.

It is the kind of loyalty that has always been expected of white Southern women, who have long played a role as allies of the status quo. This was true during the days of slavery, then the days of segregation, and held true when the women’s rights movement arrived and white Southern women joined the conservative movement instead, rallying to the slogan, “Stop Taking Our Privileges.” In all the decades that followed, it has been the votes of white Southern women that have defined and shored up the modern Republican Party.

Black women and Latino women consistently deliver huge margins to Democrats. And in the 2016 election, 52 percent of white women outside of the South voted for Hillary Clinton, according to a study by the University of Arkansas’ Blair Center of Southern Politics and Society.

It is white women in the Deep South who have remained the loyalists, the research showed, giving Trump 64 percent of their vote in 2016, a figure that did not include Miranda Murphey, who had first started reevaluating her politics after the election of Barack Obama, even though she had voted Republican.

“It was all the comments I kept hearing, like, ‘Change the channel, I don’t want to see that black face,’ ” she said. “It was always that he was black, not that he was liberal, not that there was a problem with some policy. I always thought being a Republican meant supporting the military and lower taxes, not being racist and ignorant.”

Then came Trump, who Miranda found so morally repugnant that for the first time in her voting life she wrote in the name of the Libertarian Party candidate and went to bed expecting that good and decent conservatives would do the same. She woke up realizing she was wrong. Church members had voted for Trump. Her parents had gone for Trump. Phillip: Trump.

And then came Liz, a new English teacher in her district who was outspoken and had a sticker on her cellphone with an image of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the word “Dissent.” She was not like anyone Miranda had met before, a Republican who’d become a Democrat and who described her Trump-era self as a “full-on rage machine.”

Miranda was not sure how to describe herself anymore, other than at odds with a world she thought she knew, in an America that felt more fragile than ever, and now, a mile into the woods with Liz, that is what she began talking about.

“You don’t find too many marriages around here where the husband is one way politically and the wife is another,” Miranda said.

“Living outside expectations is like running a marathon — it’s like being exhausted all the time because you have to work so hard,” Liz said.

They trudged through damp leaves, and Miranda brought up a recent dinner with a relative who’d said that Trump should just “drop a bomb on the entire Middle East” and how hard it was for her to remain polite.

“It’s those kinds of conversations. I’m looking around thinking, ‘Am I the only one who thinks this is not okay?’ ” Miranda said.

“You just want to scream!” Liz said. She brought up a confrontation she’d had at school, over a white speaker who she felt was unfairly criticizing black activists. “I was like, ‘Oh hell no.’ But it’s painful not to fit in. There’s one woman I know at school, it’s clear she questions things, but she is still in captivity.”

Miranda listened. She was by now used to how Liz talked. Women in bondage, the white male establishment. Liz, the daughter of a minister, now described the evangelical church as a “fear-based cult permanently intertwined with a patriarchal power system.”

Miranda was surprised by how often she found herself seeing what Liz meant. She had come around to Liz’s view that being pro-choice did not mean being pro-abortion, for instance. She had stopped attending church partly because her Sunday school had turned into one long baby shower and she did not have children, and partly because of the day a teacher had gone on a rant about the growing Muslim population.

“The message to me was, ‘They’re here to out-populate us,’ ” Miranda said now. “I took it as: ‘Wow, I guess I’m not doing my job having white children to add to the fight.’ ”

“It’s like this way of life is threatened,” said Liz. “This white way of life.”

They stopped for a moment for water, and Miranda thought about that. She thought about how her husband’s friend had kidded her about her friendship with Liz, and kidded Liz about the bumper stickers on her car — “Tolerance” and “Coexist” and “READ” — and how she had laughed it off until one day it wasn’t funny anymore.

“Exactly which one of those do you disagree with?” Miranda had said sharply.

“It’s like they’re wondering, ‘Are you changing?’” she told Liz now. “It’s a subconscious thing of, ‘What’s next?’ Meaning, if my mind can be changed, what else could happen?”

*****

She didn’t enjoy making people feel uncomfortable.

“You were always a rule follower,” Miranda’s mother was reminding her one day when they were having lunch, as they did most weekends at a place near where she had grown up.

Her father was a retired drill sergeant. Her mother was a special-education teacher who had taught Miranda what she considered the most important lesson of her life: to always try to understand someone else’s perspective, even if that person was antagonistic, even if Miranda herself was at the heart of the conflict.

“Especially if you are,” her mom said as they finished lunch.

She had gone to public schools, joined the ROTC and earned the nickname “Commando Barbie” for her ability to cross a rope bridge and dreams of becoming a military intelligence officer, which asthma cut short. She went to college at Georgia Southern, where she was ambitious and studious and earned a new nickname, “Bombshell,” which is what Phillip called her when they first met in a geology class. As she tells the story, the teacher asked a question, Miranda answered wrong, and everyone in the class laughed — except Phillip.

“He was the only one,” Miranda said.

He was from a prominent Augusta family whose parents had once lived in a wealthy Augusta neighborhood called the Hill, before moving to a house with a swimming pool in a subdivision called Camelot. They had cocktail hour every afternoon and tickets to the Masters golf tournament many springs. His mother was the sort of Southern woman who was aghast when Miranda wore a skirt that she deemed too short to a reception at the Pinnacle Club, one of Augusta’s elite venues. Miranda was by then the sort of woman who called the Pinnacle Club the Pineapple Club; she could ridicule Southern pretensions even as she conceded to them.

The wedding was beautiful. Black tuxedos, red roses, a Southern Baptist church. Miranda relented when the preacher insisted on “obey” in the vows, which Phillip had laughed off, saying he was “definitely not in charge” of Miranda, and this was why she had chosen him.

He did not chafe at her independence. He never complained when she decided to pursue her doctorate instead of having children. Never asked where his dinner was. He was kind to her older sister, who was born with mental disabilities, and who Miranda referred to as “my heart” and “my girl” with an air of fierce protectiveness.

They settled into life together in the house at the end of the long, pine-shaded driveway. Phillip had his own construction business. Miranda felt a sense of deep satisfaction teaching literature to students including some so poor their shoes flapped open, and for 12 years the assumption had been that their days together were based upon shared values, right up until the arrival of Trump. For the first time, Miranda felt what she described as “resistance.”

They used to talk about everything, and now Miranda began avoiding politics. They used to watch Fox News together, and now Miranda was recording the Democratic presidential debates to watch when Phillip wasn’t around. They used to attend church together and now Phillip went alone to a men’s prayer group each Sunday, and Miranda and Liz went for their walks in the woods. Her interior life was changing; their exterior life was the same.

“Hey babe, I was going to pick up Olive Garden,” she would say driving home.

“Sounds good,” he would say.

“Love you,” she would say.

“Love you,” he would say.

Phillip listened to Rush Limbaugh at work. Miranda had been rereading “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the dystopian Margaret Atwood novel about a near-future America in which women are subjugated in a theocratic, patriarchal state, and thinking that the reason it was so frightening was that “there wasn’t some cataclysm that changed everything.”

“It all started with a return to conservative values, with a rejection of what the world is, and a return to what they thought the world used to be,” she said.

Phillip’s friends had been the same since high school. Hers had expanded to include a group of female teachers that Liz called “the coven,” who often met at Liz’s house to drink wine, and talk about school and how stifling life could be in suburban Augusta.

“Love you,” Phillip said, dropping Miranda off on one of these evenings, pausing for a moment to wave at a group of women he barely knew.

“Love you,” Miranda said, and the wine was poured.

They talked about codependent female characters in movies, which somehow led to a conversation about the actor Tom Hiddleston, and Liz played a recording of him reading a racy E.E. Cummings poem.

“Y’all,” said Miranda. “I’m going to have to take a shower.”

There was more wine, and they talked about the night they all went to a downtown Augusta club to see a fellow teacher who moonlighted in a burlesque troop called Dirty South. She had performed as Marie Antoinette and smashed cake all over her body.

“Liz kept saying, ‘Look at Miranda’s face!’ ” one of the teachers said now.

“I kept pouring wine for Miranda,” Liz said. “I joked that she was out of her comfort zone, but actually it was me — I still have that evangelical Christian girl in there.”

“I would just like to clarify,” Miranda said. “I did not go to a strip club. I went to a burlesque performance.”

She went along with the jokes but at times wondered where all this was going.

More wine, and they talked about another burlesque show based on Disney princesses, called Distease, and not long after that Miranda decided it was late, and headed home.

***

When it was Sunday again, she and Liz went hiking.

It had rained the night before, and now they crossed over flooded gullies and fallen limbs.

They talked about what it meant that Amy Klobuchar’s voice seemed shaky in the last Democratic debate. They talked about a short story they’d both read, in which a woman finds out her husband has died, feels devastated, then exhilarated as she realizes she is finally free, then finds out her husband actually survived, and then dies.

“All the promise of life without him,” Liz sighed.

“Yeah,” Miranda said, and soon the conversation trailed off as Miranda walked ahead.

They had talked about so many things in three years, including some things they’d hardly told anyone else.

Miranda had told Liz that she felt she’d never really fit the mold of what a woman was expected to be in Augusta. About her internal debate over having children. About men she dated before Phillip, including an African American man, and how she had gotten spit on when they were in public. She had told Liz about the minister who’d slid his foot up her skirt and then warned her to keep her mouth shut about it. She had told her about a time before that, when she had been sexually assaulted by a man when she was 8 years old, how she did not want to be defined by that, and how she still walked across parking lots with keys in her fist like a knife. She’d told Liz how all that had rolled into her feelings about the president, and how hard it was keeping those feelings to herself when she was around Phillip, his friends and his family, and how she wondered if that made her a strong, understanding woman or an enabler of Trump.

Liz had listened. She had told Miranda about growing up in a strict evangelical Christian home believing that being anything other than a dutiful wife upholding conservative values would lead to eternity in hell, and how the tension between the person she was expected to be and what she was had made her suicidal at one point.

She had told Miranda about her first marriage to a conservative Christian man with whom she had two kids and “this cute little family,” and how it started falling apart when she began reading Dostoyevsky, pursuing a teaching career, making different friends, having different thoughts, and how “this internal voice got louder and louder saying, ‘this is not a role I can play anymore’ ” until she finally got a divorce, after which she felt guilty for years.

She had told Miranda about how the rise of Trump had forced her not only to clarify her values but to start expressing them, and what she felt that expression had cost her. Her father, a Trump supporter, wrote her out of his will. Her oldest son, a Trump supporter, left Augusta to live with her ex-husband, a Trump supporter. Her pastor had avoided her when she asked to have a meeting about her moral problems with Trump, a situation that culminated on the Sunday before the election, when he all but exhorted the congregation to vote for Trump. Liz was in the choir then, still feeling guilty and afraid in some corner of her old mind, and now she was supposed to stand up in front of the church and sing “God Bless America.” Only when the music started, she found herself shaking with anger. She raised the microphone but instead of singing she looked out at the faces of a few people she knew had the same unspoken reservations she did, then put the microphone down and walked out.

She had told Miranda how unimaginable this new life of hers had once seemed. Her new husband was a libertarian from Delaware who took her to death metal concerts. She joined an Episcopal church. She had become chair of the county Democratic Party, gone to the first Women’s March in Washington, and although she was sure that this had cost her a teaching contract at a private Christian school, she had decided her freedom was worth it.

She told Miranda what she told herself: “I will not live in fear anymore. I am not going to be that person in the room anymore that hides who I am so I don’t have to be uncomfortable or people around me don’t have to feel uncomfortable.”

Miranda had listened. She admired Liz’s bravery, even if she was not sure whether she wanted to follow her example into the unknown, and she was thinking about all this as they hiked deeper into the pines. They stopped to catch their breath.

“Should we keep going?” Liz said.

*****

At times, Liz felt Miranda was somehow hiding from her true self. She wondered if she was pushing Miranda too far, such as when she asked her to walk with the Democrats in the county Christmas parade.

When Miranda declined, Liz decided to let it go, and on a bright afternoon lined up for the parade with the only other people in the county who said yes: an African American woman, a married couple, an Indian American man, a retiree from Nebraska, a gay woman, a 12-year-old transgender boy and his nervous father who kept saying, “It’ll be fine, it’ll be just fine.”

They held up the blue banner of the Democratic Party and when Miss Columbia County Fair gave the sign, headed toward the waiting throngs lining both sides of a two-mile route.

“Merry Christmas!” Liz began, waving to the crowd.

“Booo!” yelled a man in a Santa hat. “Booo!”

“Snowflakes!” yelled a woman in a plaid shawl next to him.

Liz kept waving and smiling.

“MAGA! God Bless! Make America great again!” yelled a man in a visor stamped with an American flag.

“Bunch of retards,” said a man under his breath.

Another raised his right arm straight in front of him, palm down, fingers stiff.

“Troll! Troll!” yelled a man in a fleece vest.

“Is that a jackass on your shirt?” said a man cradling a baby, and through it all, Liz kept smiling, and kept waving, and meanwhile, Miranda was home with Phillip.

She was grading papers; he was working outside, and it was the kind of quiet and predictable day that gave Phillip the feeling of contentment he prized.

“It’s just — easy,” was how he described his relationship with Miranda.

They’d been through so much together — her graduate school, his new business, the deaths of his parents, serious illnesses, a thousand good times — and of all the things he was sure of in his life, he was surest of Miranda.

“I know I didn’t marry a traditional woman,” he said. “She’s not Southern Living. She’s very career-oriented. She’s not lazy. She’s a worker. She’s a go-getter. I tell her all the time, ‘Miranda, you are determined.’ ”

He accepted her, and he knew she accepted him, as he had always been accepted as the favorite son of parents he admired and never wished to disappoint. He had been a Boy Scout. He had never had a curfew because he never got in trouble. He had never lived anywhere but Columbia County, Ga., except for college and a brief stint after, which left him so out of sorts that he moved back into his boyhood room and saved money until he and Miranda married. He had never touched alcohol because he didn’t want to like it. He had become a man who said of Miranda, “She’s the only girl I ever kissed.”

“I didn’t know I had any feelings until I met Miranda,” Phillip said.

Besides her, his world had been a world of men. He kept the deer heads on the garage wall because they reminded him of some of the best times of his life hunting with his father, his brothers, his friends and the bonds they formed then. He went to the Sunday men’s group at the Baptist church and prayed the prayers of men who wished to be “godly,” by which Phillip meant “honest” and “responsible,” the sort of man a neighbor could call if a limb fell on his driveway and he needed help removing it. He kept guns not just because he liked to hunt but because he felt that being a responsible man meant protecting his family, and protecting his America from a rogue government if things came to that.

“All it takes is for the wrong guy to get in there,” he said. “I want to be in control. I don’t want to be defenseless.”

He preferred an America that left him alone: one where government was small, gun rights protected and borders secure, all of which he had felt was threatened during the presidency of Barack Obama, and all of which he felt was restored by the election of Donald Trump.

“I feel like I got somebody on my team,” Phillip said. “Someone to look out for me in the world. I feel I have someone on my side, helping me look out for the safety of my family.”

He knew that Miranda had some issues with Trump’s behavior.

“She finds Trump sometimes a little off-putting with his personality,” he said. “She does get kind of like, ‘I wish he wouldn’t say that.’ But I’m more of a results guy. I’m not as concerned about his brash statements as Miranda. I think he’s probably grown a lot as a man in a good way. I see him as being a gracious man.”

He thought about why he and Miranda might see things differently.

“She tends to run on emotion,” he said. “Not to make a sexist statement, but a lot of women do. I run more on logic. I think that balances us well.”

He was not worried about Miranda’s worries about Trump, Miranda’s friendship with Liz, or whatever they were talking about in the woods.

“As long as she and Miranda get along, I’m happy with it,” Phillip said.

And so on another Sunday, he watched Miranda heading off to hike with Liz, and he watched her come home later in the evening, when he was outside under a carport, showing his nephew how to gut a deer carcass.

“Hey Miranda!” he called out to her across the yard. “What’s the best part of a deer?”

It was dark, and she looked at him for a moment under the light.

Things Miranda had never told Phillip:

That she thought Trump was racist, and when he questioned the legitimacy of the first black president, she thought about her black students and how wrong it was to rob them of pride.

That she thought Trump was cruel, and when he mocked a reporter with disabilities, she felt the same surge of blind rage she had once felt when a boy called her sister a “retard.”

She thought Trump was immoral, and when she heard Christians defending him, she wanted to say, “How? How do we worship the same God? There are so many things that we as human beings should not condone, should not excuse.”

She had told Phillip about being sexually assaulted by a man when she was 8 years old, but she had not told him that when she heard Trump boasting about how he could kiss women “without even asking” and “grab them by the p---y,” he had reminded her of the man who had grabbed her when she was walking to school, and the feeling of hands forcing themselves on her, and the feeling of struggling to break free, and the feeling of running for her life, and of “exactly that fear, that helplessness,” and that when Trump got elected, she felt none of that mattering.

She had not told Phillip that when she saw Trump smiling on a screen in her living room, she felt physically ill. That she found him “revolting” and “vulgar.” That Trump was the opposite of everything she had always believed her husband to be: decent, honorable, Christian, the sort of man who would find Trump offensive.

She had not told Phillip what she wanted from him: “I want to hear him say, ‘The way he talks about women is not okay. The way he talks, period, is not okay.’ ”

She had not told him what she wanted to say to him and all Southern men who believed in some chivalrous ideal: “I need you to stand up for me.”

She had not told him any of those things because she was afraid to hear what he might say back, and what that might reveal, so when Phillip asked about the deer, she answered as the woman he knew her to be.

“The backstrap!” she yelled across the yard.

***

“I tell you, it was vastly different from the Christmas parade,” Liz was saying. She and Miranda were having dinner, and Liz had just gotten back from walking in the Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in downtown Augusta.

“I think we were the only white people there,” she continued. “People were shouting ‘Democrats, woo!’ A woman yelled ���Dump Trump!’ and I’m like, ‘Get that man out of the White House! Woo!’ ”

“Really?” Miranda said.

“Yeah,” said Liz. “I’m telling you, it was great. This woman was like, ‘I love your shoes! You look so cute out here today!’ I’m telling you, I was beloved.”

“That’s funny,” Miranda said.

“Yes, I was beloved for my politics,” said Liz, and as their dinner went on, they drank sangria and talked about work and books, and Miranda told a story about her grunge music period, confirming Liz’s view of her as a closet rebel. They talked about how Liz always positioned her phone when she met with parents, so they wouldn’t see her Ruth Bader Ginsburg sticker, and about the most recent Democratic debate and the candidate Miranda would vote for — Warren, probably; Buttigieg, definitely; Sanders, maybe; Klobuchar, interesting; Biden, sure — and they continued talking, seeming in harmony about all of it, right up until Miranda began taking issue with a candidate’s position on gun control, which struck her as too extreme, and as she continued, she noticed Liz’s face changing.

She stopped herself.

“I’m not making you mad, am I?” Miranda asked.

There was a pause.

“No,” Liz said. “You’ll never make me mad.”

Later, on her way home, Miranda was still thinking about the pause.

It was dark, and she passed the empty parking lots of strip malls, the neon signs of chain restaurants and the quiet of so many subdivisions on a Sunday night in a place where there were so many expectations of a woman like her.

Maybe Liz was mad at her, she thought. Maybe Liz thought she wasn’t liberated enough, or brave enough. Maybe she was disappointed.

And what about Phillip? If she finally told him what she thought about Trump, maybe he would feel she was judging him. Maybe he would judge her. Maybe he would think she was “crazy” and “off the deep end.” Maybe he would not understand at all, and then what?

She looked out the window at a place that had felt so familiar for so long, and which now looked so different, so accepting of cruelty and racism and vulgarity. She exited the highway and drove along the two-lane, a white, Southern, suburban woman who was not accepting of that. She was lost to Trump, lost to a Republican Party still embracing him, and for the first time in her life, she was thinking not about what was expected of her, but what she expected of herself.

The inner thoughts of Miranda Murphey about Miranda Murphey:

“I struggle with this,” she said.

She passed the familiar fields, and the church lit up in the dark, and soon she was turning onto the long gravel driveway.

“So,” she said, not finishing.

She pulled up the little hill and glanced at the yard.

“One truck, two trucks,” she counted.

A light was on upstairs.

“Phillip’s home,” she said.

*****

[jerrytackettca]

Can a Nap a Day Keep Blood Pressure at Bay?

Catching a quick nap midday may be a simple, no-cost way to lower your blood pressure, according to researchers from the Asklepieion General Hospital in Voula, Greece.1

The research, presented at the American College of Cardiology’s 68th Annual Scientific Session, suggests midday sleep could be as effective at slashing blood pressure levels as other lifestyle interventions, like reducing alcohol intake or taking low-dose blood pressure medication.

It's unclear whether the results vary depending on whether a person is sleep-deprived or typically gets a good night's sleep, but it could be that a nap may be particularly useful for people lacking in high-quality sleep.

High blood pressure affects more than 1.13 billion people worldwide,2 including 1 in 3 U.S. adults. Another 1 in 3 have prehypertension, but many are unaware that their health is at risk from this "silent killer."3

Fortunately, beyond napping there are other powerful strategies to lower your blood pressure as well, such as improving nitric oxide levels, which I’ll discuss later. But first, it does appear that for some people a nap a day may help keep high blood pressure away.

Napping May Lower Your Blood Pressure Levels

The study followed more than 200 people with high blood pressure, monitoring their blood pressure levels, midday sleep time, lifestyle habits and pulse wave velocity, which is a measure of arterial stiffness.

Those who napped had an average systolic 24-hour blood pressure reading that was 5.3 mm Hg lower than those who did not, while both blood pressure numbers were also more favorable among nappers compared to non-nappers. It appeared that, for each hour of napping, 24-hour systolic blood pressure was lowered by 3 mm Hg.

"We obviously don't want to encourage people to sleep for hours on end during the day, but on the other hand, they shouldn’t feel guilty if they can take a short nap, given the potential health benefits,” Dr. Manolis Kallistratos told the American College of Cardiology (ACC). “Even though both groups were receiving the same number of medications and blood pressure was well controlled, there was still a significant decrease in blood pressure among those who slept during midday."4

The study may be a good representation of napping benefits, as those included in the study had well-controlled blood pressure. Whereas those with high, uncontrolled blood pressure levels may have more pronounced drops from interventions, by using a group with controlled levels "we can feel more confident that any significant differences in blood pressure readings are likely due to napping," Kallistratos said.5

The study also monitored the natural dips in blood pressure that occur during sleep, finding that the natural drops were similar across the participants. This suggests the reductions noted in the study could be due to the napping intervention. Kallistratos told ACC:6

"These findings are important because a drop in blood pressure as small as 2 mm Hg can reduce the risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attack by up to 10 percent. Based on our findings, if someone has the luxury to take a nap during the day, it may also have benefits for high blood pressure. Napping can be easily adopted and typically doesn't cost anything."

Napping May Improve Function, Thinking and Memory

Aside from lowering blood pressure, taking naps offers other health benefits, including to people over 60 years, who typically have shorter periods of deep sleep and more frequent waking at night. Taken together, older adults may sleep for nearly two hours less on average than young adults.

It used to be believed that older adults didn't need as much sleep, but now it's thought that most people thrive on seven to eight hours of sleep a night. When researchers started a napping regimen among men aged 50 to 88, it turned out that midday sleep helped the men significantly increase their sleep over a 24-hour period, leading to enhanced cognitive performance.7

What's more, the naps — even up to two hours a day — did not negatively affect the men's nighttime sleep, but the researchers suggested one-hour naps may be easier for most people to accommodate. Napping has also been shown to facilitate memory consolidation and learning and support emotional processing.8

Napping Isn't Always a Good Thing

Paradoxically, there's also some research showing napping is associated with negative outcomes, even including an increased risk of high blood pressure,9 and the following, especially in older adults:10

Microvascular disease

Depression

Diabetes

Osteoporosis

Functional limitations

General medical morbidity

Increased mortality

Cognitive decline

While it’s unlikely that naps are directly causing these health problems, the association exists nonetheless, and more research is needed to determine who benefits from naps, who doesn’t and why. “An emerging hypothesis,” researchers wrote in Sleep Medicine, “suggests inflammation is a mediator between midday naps and poor health outcomes, yet further research is necessary."11

It’s also been suggested that the length of the nap may make all the difference, with those less than 30 minutes promoting wakefulness and enhanced performance and learning ability, and those longer being associated with health problems, including higher mortality in the elderly.

"The benefits of napping could be best obtained by training the body and mind to awaken after a short nap," according to researchers in the journal Current Opinion in Pulmonary Medicine.12

The Most Profound Way to Lower Your Blood Pressure

While the jury's still out on whether naps are ultimately beneficial or harmful, it's quite clear that improving your nitric oxide (NO) is the most profound thing you can do to lower your blood pressure because it relaxes your blood vessels.

NO is a soluble gas stored in the lining of your blood vessels, called the endothelium. NO is produced inside your endothelial cells from the amino acid L-arginine, where it acts as an important signaling molecule throughout your body.

Along with promoting healthy endothelial function and heart health, NO supports healthy blood flow by helping your veins and arteries dilate. This, in turn, allows vital oxygen and nutrients to flow freely throughout your body — beneficial for your circulation and brain health.

NO also improves your immune function, stimulates the thinning of your blood and decreases blood viscosity, which in turn decreases platelet aggregation — ultimately reducing your risk of developing a life-threatening blood clot.

Callisthenic exercises, such as the Nitric Oxide Dump, can help increase NO production. It involves just four movements — squats, alternating arm raises, non-jumping jacks and shoulder presses — which are done in repetitions of 10, with four sets each.

The workout takes just three or four minutes and should be repeated three times a day, with a minimum of two hours between sessions. I typically do a modified version of the one developed by Dr. Zach Bush, which you can view below. In addition, a comprehensive exercise program is essential to keep your blood pressure levels healthy.

Research shows inactive individuals have a 30 to 50 percent greater risk for high blood pressure than their active counterparts, and "An evidence based literature analysis by the American College of Sports Medicine indicates that an isolated exercise session (acute effect) lowers BP [blood pressure] an average of 5-7 mmHg."13

Using Your Diet to Improve Blood Pressure

Leafy greens and beets are important dietary components if you have high blood pressure, as they're good sources of naturally occurring nitrates that are converted into NO in your body. Because beets are high in sugar, fermented beet juice, also known as beet kvass, may be a far preferable option, as virtually all of the sugar is eliminated during the fermentation process.

I often include about 1 to 2 ounces of raw beets in my daily smoothie, in addition to taking a fermented beet root powder supplement. Eating garlic may also help, as although it’s low in nitrates, it helps boost NO production by increasing nitric oxide synthase (NOS), which converts L-arginine to NO in the presence of cofactors such as vitamins B2 and B3.14

Fennel seeds are another healthy food that increases your body's production of NO. Potassium also works in your body to relax the walls of your arteries, keep your muscles from cramping and lower your blood pressure.15 An analysis of over 29 trials demonstrated low levels of potassium resulted in higher systolic blood pressure readings.16 Leafy greens and avocado are examples of potassium-rich foods.

On a larger scale, however, high blood pressure is often the result of too much insulin and leptin in response to a high-carbohydrate and processed food diet. A cyclical ketogenic, low net-carb, high-fat diet is the solution, as it will allow your body to burn fat rather than glucose as its primary fuel. Fasting is a natural partner to a ketogenic diet and is one of the most effective ways to normalize your insulin/leptin sensitivity.

In one three-month study, the participants were allowed to eat whatever they wanted in any quantity between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. For the remaining 16 hours, they were only permitted water or calorie-free drinks.

The outcomes were then compared to a nonintervention control group from a previous fasting trial. Overall, participants not only consumed about 350 fewer calories per day and lost just under 3 percent of their body weight, but systolic blood pressure also dropped about 7 mmHg.17

Healthy Lifestyle Is the Secret to Optimal Blood Pressure

Your blood pressure is one of many biological functions affected by your lifestyle, and leading a healthy one is the key to keeping your level in the optimal range. Sleep is definitely part of this equation, and for some people it may be that napping helps them to increase their sleep and results in overall health benefits.

A strong link between sleep quality and a type of high blood pressure known as resistant hypertension, which does not respond to typical drug-based treatments, has previously been found, for instance.18

Women who had resistant hypertension were five times as likely to also have poor sleep quality. While the average length of sleep in this study was only 6.4 hours a night (and nearly half slept fewer than six hours each night), it was sleep quality, not quantity, that appeared to influence hypertension risk.

So, getting a good night’s sleep is essential to healthy blood pressure, but so is eating right, exercising, addressing stress and even avoiding environmental toxins, like air pollution. For more details, you can find more information to normalize high blood pressure here.

from http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/03/28/napping-may-lower-blood-pressure.aspx

source http://niapurenaturecom.weebly.com/blog/can-a-nap-a-day-keep-blood-pressure-at-bay

[paullassiterca]

Can a Nap a Day Keep Blood Pressure at Bay?

Catching a quick nap midday may be a simple, no-cost way to lower your blood pressure, according to researchers from the Asklepieion General Hospital in Voula, Greece.1

The research, presented at the American College of Cardiology’s 68th Annual Scientific Session, suggests midday sleep could be as effective at slashing blood pressure levels as other lifestyle interventions, like reducing alcohol intake or taking low-dose blood pressure medication.

It’s unclear whether the results vary depending on whether a person is sleep-deprived or typically gets a good night’s sleep, but it could be that a nap may be particularly useful for people lacking in high-quality sleep.

High blood pressure affects more than 1.13 billion people worldwide,2 including 1 in 3 U.S. adults. Another 1 in 3 have prehypertension, but many are unaware that their health is at risk from this “silent killer.”3

Fortunately, beyond napping there are other powerful strategies to lower your blood pressure as well, such as improving nitric oxide levels, which I’ll discuss later. But first, it does appear that for some people a nap a day may help keep high blood pressure away.

Napping May Lower Your Blood Pressure Levels

The study followed more than 200 people with high blood pressure, monitoring their blood pressure levels, midday sleep time, lifestyle habits and pulse wave velocity, which is a measure of arterial stiffness.

Those who napped had an average systolic 24-hour blood pressure reading that was 5.3 mm Hg lower than those who did not, while both blood pressure numbers were also more favorable among nappers compared to non-nappers. It appeared that, for each hour of napping, 24-hour systolic blood pressure was lowered by 3 mm Hg.

“We obviously don’t want to encourage people to sleep for hours on end during the day, but on the other hand, they shouldn’t feel guilty if they can take a short nap, given the potential health benefits,” Dr. Manolis Kallistratos told the American College of Cardiology (ACC). “Even though both groups were receiving the same number of medications and blood pressure was well controlled, there was still a significant decrease in blood pressure among those who slept during midday.”4

The study may be a good representation of napping benefits, as those included in the study had well-controlled blood pressure. Whereas those with high, uncontrolled blood pressure levels may have more pronounced drops from interventions, by using a group with controlled levels “we can feel more confident that any significant differences in blood pressure readings are likely due to napping,” Kallistratos said.5

The study also monitored the natural dips in blood pressure that occur during sleep, finding that the natural drops were similar across the participants. This suggests the reductions noted in the study could be due to the napping intervention. Kallistratos told ACC:6

“These findings are important because a drop in blood pressure as small as 2 mm Hg can reduce the risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attack by up to 10 percent. Based on our findings, if someone has the luxury to take a nap during the day, it may also have benefits for high blood pressure. Napping can be easily adopted and typically doesn’t cost anything.”

Napping May Improve Function, Thinking and Memory

Aside from lowering blood pressure, taking naps offers other health benefits, including to people over 60 years, who typically have shorter periods of deep sleep and more frequent waking at night. Taken together, older adults may sleep for nearly two hours less on average than young adults.

It used to be believed that older adults didn’t need as much sleep, but now it’s thought that most people thrive on seven to eight hours of sleep a night. When researchers started a napping regimen among men aged 50 to 88, it turned out that midday sleep helped the men significantly increase their sleep over a 24-hour period, leading to enhanced cognitive performance.7

What’s more, the naps — even up to two hours a day — did not negatively affect the men’s nighttime sleep, but the researchers suggested one-hour naps may be easier for most people to accommodate. Napping has also been shown to facilitate memory consolidation and learning and support emotional processing.8

Napping Isn’t Always a Good Thing

Paradoxically, there’s also some research showing napping is associated with negative outcomes, even including an increased risk of high blood pressure,9 and the following, especially in older adults:10

Microvascular disease

Depression

Diabetes

Osteoporosis

Functional limitations

General medical morbidity

Increased mortality

Cognitive decline

While it’s unlikely that naps are directly causing these health problems, the association exists nonetheless, and more research is needed to determine who benefits from naps, who doesn’t and why. “An emerging hypothesis,” researchers wrote in Sleep Medicine, “suggests inflammation is a mediator between midday naps and poor health outcomes, yet further research is necessary.“11

It’s also been suggested that the length of the nap may make all the difference, with those less than 30 minutes promoting wakefulness and enhanced performance and learning ability, and those longer being associated with health problems, including higher mortality in the elderly.

"The benefits of napping could be best obtained by training the body and mind to awaken after a short nap,” according to researchers in the journal Current Opinion in Pulmonary Medicine.12

The Most Profound Way to Lower Your Blood Pressure

While the jury’s still out on whether naps are ultimately beneficial or harmful, it’s quite clear that improving your nitric oxide (NO) is the most profound thing you can do to lower your blood pressure because it relaxes your blood vessels.

NO is a soluble gas stored in the lining of your blood vessels, called the endothelium. NO is produced inside your endothelial cells from the amino acid L-arginine, where it acts as an important signaling molecule throughout your body.

Along with promoting healthy endothelial function and heart health, NO supports healthy blood flow by helping your veins and arteries dilate. This, in turn, allows vital oxygen and nutrients to flow freely throughout your body — beneficial for your circulation and brain health.

NO also improves your immune function, stimulates the thinning of your blood and decreases blood viscosity, which in turn decreases platelet aggregation — ultimately reducing your risk of developing a life-threatening blood clot.

Callisthenic exercises, such as the Nitric Oxide Dump, can help increase NO production. It involves just four movements — squats, alternating arm raises, non-jumping jacks and shoulder presses — which are done in repetitions of 10, with four sets each.

The workout takes just three or four minutes and should be repeated three times a day, with a minimum of two hours between sessions. I typically do a modified version of the one developed by Dr. Zach Bush, which you can view below. In addition, a comprehensive exercise program is essential to keep your blood pressure levels healthy.

Research shows inactive individuals have a 30 to 50 percent greater risk for high blood pressure than their active counterparts, and “An evidence based literature analysis by the American College of Sports Medicine indicates that an isolated exercise session (acute effect) lowers BP [blood pressure] an average of 5-7 mmHg.”13

Using Your Diet to Improve Blood Pressure

Leafy greens and beets are important dietary components if you have high blood pressure, as they’re good sources of naturally occurring nitrates that are converted into NO in your body. Because beets are high in sugar, fermented beet juice, also known as beet kvass, may be a far preferable option, as virtually all of the sugar is eliminated during the fermentation process.

I often include about 1 to 2 ounces of raw beets in my daily smoothie, in addition to taking a fermented beet root powder supplement. Eating garlic may also help, as although it’s low in nitrates, it helps boost NO production by increasing nitric oxide synthase (NOS), which converts L-arginine to NO in the presence of cofactors such as vitamins B2 and B3.14

Fennel seeds are another healthy food that increases your body’s production of NO. Potassium also works in your body to relax the walls of your arteries, keep your muscles from cramping and lower your blood pressure.15 An analysis of over 29 trials demonstrated low levels of potassium resulted in higher systolic blood pressure readings.16 Leafy greens and avocado are examples of potassium-rich foods.

On a larger scale, however, high blood pressure is often the result of too much insulin and leptin in response to a high-carbohydrate and processed food diet. A cyclical ketogenic, low net-carb, high-fat diet is the solution, as it will allow your body to burn fat rather than glucose as its primary fuel. Fasting is a natural partner to a ketogenic diet and is one of the most effective ways to normalize your insulin/leptin sensitivity.

In one three-month study, the participants were allowed to eat whatever they wanted in any quantity between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. For the remaining 16 hours, they were only permitted water or calorie-free drinks.

The outcomes were then compared to a nonintervention control group from a previous fasting trial. Overall, participants not only consumed about 350 fewer calories per day and lost just under 3 percent of their body weight, but systolic blood pressure also dropped about 7 mmHg.17

Healthy Lifestyle Is the Secret to Optimal Blood Pressure

Your blood pressure is one of many biological functions affected by your lifestyle, and leading a healthy one is the key to keeping your level in the optimal range. Sleep is definitely part of this equation, and for some people it may be that napping helps them to increase their sleep and results in overall health benefits.

A strong link between sleep quality and a type of high blood pressure known as resistant hypertension, which does not respond to typical drug-based treatments, has previously been found, for instance.18

Women who had resistant hypertension were five times as likely to also have poor sleep quality. While the average length of sleep in this study was only 6.4 hours a night (and nearly half slept fewer than six hours each night), it was sleep quality, not quantity, that appeared to influence hypertension risk.

So, getting a good night’s sleep is essential to healthy blood pressure, but so is eating right, exercising, addressing stress and even avoiding environmental toxins, like air pollution. For more details, you can find more information to normalize high blood pressure here.

from Articles http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/03/28/napping-may-lower-blood-pressure.aspx source https://niapurenaturecom.tumblr.com/post/183763495426

[legit-scam-review]

Bitcoin Futures Expired Last Week, Did It Affect $10 Billion Plunge of Crypto Markets?

On Jan. 29, the valuation of the crypto market plunged by more than $10 billion within a 48-hour period, from $121 billion to $111 billion.

Major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) recorded losses in the range of 5 to 10 percent against the United States dollar, demonstrating poor momentum.

Throughout the past several months, the cryptocurrency market has demonstrated volatility in a low price range, unable to break out of key resistance levels.

What were the major factors of this week’s drop?

While some analysts have said that the drop was triggered by technical factors over fundamental, speaking to Cointelegraph, former hedge fund manager and investor Danny Les stated that the crypto market has been in a bear market for over a year and conditions will not change until the market establishes a proper bottom.

“Technical or fundamental, it makes no difference. I’ve been saying this for over a year now, we are bearish and will continue to be bearish until the market finds a point where buyers are waiting en masse.”

In mid-December, the price of Bitcoin achieved a new yearly low at $3,122, and at the time, analysts including Three Arrows Capital CEO Su Zhu said that big buy walls in the low $3,000 region will prevent the dominant cryptocurrency from plunging to $2,000.

10% down from here (3.3k), buy walls on @coinbase are now the largest (in $BTC notional ) since mid-2015. Similar for @Bitstamp. pic.twitter.com/NmMpZXazgX

— Su Zhu (@zhusu) December 12, 2018

As Bitcoin neared $3,100, the buy walls on fiat-to-crypto exchanges such as Coinbase and Bitstamp led the asset to initiate an immediate bounce and it eventually recovered to mid-$3,000.

Similarly, as Bitcoin approached $3,300 on Jan. 29, the asset recovered to the $3,400 to $3,500 range with relative strength.

Bitcoin is still en route to $2,000

The crypto market is set to experience the longest correction in its 10-year history, and based on the intensity of the sell-off of major crypto assets in the past several months, the bear market will likely extend across the first two quarters of 2019.

In November 2018, Willy Woo, the creator of Woobull.com, said that the correction is likely to last until the end of second quarter of this year or longer.

“Putting together the blockchain view, I suspect the timing for a bottom may be around Q2 2019. After that we start the true accumulation band, only after that, do we start a long grind upwards.”

In an interview with Cointelegraph, Les suggested if Bitcoin drops to $2,000, it would mean a 90 percent drop from its all-time high at $20,000, surpassing the average drop from the all-time high at around 85 percent in previous major corrections:

“On the contrary, I actually think the closer we get to $2k, the more buyers lie in wait. I legitimately believe what my good friend David Belle thinks, the floor will be around the $1.5k-$2k area and at that point a lot of money will be waiting to enter the arena.”

Did Bitcoin futures make any difference?

Last week, CME Bitcoin futures contracts in the U.S. market expired. The futures market has often been used as a short-term price indicator of Bitcoin, as it was said that the expiration of futures could incentivize investors to attempt to manipulate the market.

In the early days, the San Francisco Federal Reserve reported that the launch of CME Bitcoin futures led to the decline in the price of cryptocurrencies.

“The rapid run-up and subsequent fall in the price after the introduction of futures does not appear to be a coincidence. It is consistent with trading behavior that typically accompanies the introduction of futures markets for an asset.”

However, futures contracts in the U.S., at least for now, are all cash-settled and as such, the supply of Bitcoin futures contracts is fixed, which restricts the effect it could have on the value of BTC. Bakkt, which is set to launch later this quarter, will become the first physically settled Bitcoin futures market in the U.S.

Jake Chervinsky, a government enforcement defence and securities litigation attorney at Kobre & Kim, explained that physically settled contracts like Bakkt could have an actual impact on the price of the asset in the future.

“Noteworthy is the fact that Bakkt will custody and deliver real bitcoin. That means institutional inflows would reduce supply and thus (maybe) increase price too. This is different from other regulated futures markets like CME and CBOE, which only deal in cash-settled futures.”

Les similarly stated that the Bitcoin futures expiration in the U.S. likely had a minimal effect on Bitcoin. Historically, Les said that the CME Bitcoin market, which was highly anticipated by investors in the cryptocurrency sector, did not sway the price of the asset in a major way.

“I don’t think futures closing made a difference. Just like when the CME Bitcoin markets kicked off and everyone expected it would have a huge effect on price. It didn’t. Same applies here as far as I’m concerned.”

Because the futures market is of significant size for traditional assets like gold, many investors attempt to correlate the expiration of futures and the performance of Bitcoin.

In the long run, if Bakkt sees a rapid increase in volume and, as a result, other large futures market operators — such as ErisX, CME, CBOE and potentially even the Nasdaq — experience exponential growth, the correlation between futures and the Bitcoin price on exchanges could increase. But, it is currently not big enough to move the price of BTC.

When the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rejected nine Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that were based on the futures market in August 2018, the commission the also stated that the Bitcoin futures market is not big enough to handle ETFs. The commission said:

“[The ETFs] have not met the requirement that a national securities exchange’s rules be designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices. Among other things, the Exchange has offered no record evidence to demonstrate that bitcoin futures markets are ‘markets of significant size.’”

In the short term, at least, the crypto exchange market will likely have a larger impact on the price trend of crypto assets over both over-the-counter (OTC) and futures markets.

What lies ahead for the crypto market in 2019?

There are catalysts on the horizon that could potentially allow the cryptocurrency market to recover.

As Cointelegraph reported, Fidelity Investments is said to be planning on March to be the launch date of its Bitcoin custody, which could lead some of its 13,000 institutional investors to invest in cryptocurrencies.

Fidelity said in a statement obtained by Bloomberg that it is already engaging in discussions with some of its clients.

“We are currently serving a select set of eligible clients as we continue to build our initial solutions. […] Over the next several months, we will thoughtfully engage with and prioritize prospective clients based on needs, jurisdiction and other factors.”

Bakkt and the Nasdaq are also set to release Bitcoin-related investment vehicles and products by the end of the quarter.

But, because the cryptocurrency market moves by cycles and the market has demonstrated a free fall without much resistance, a slow, gradual downside movement to a region where big buy orders are filled remains the most probable result. Les stated:

“Bearish and with a slow, gradual slide down to the area I mentioned [is] where I think liquidity lies in wait. Sure, retail will move the price up and down in fairly obvious ranges but the really significant action will begin around the ‘Belle Zone’ as I like to call it.”

Potential impact of major Bitcoin investment vehicle launches in 2019

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Les said that if Fidelity Bitcoin custody launches in March, it will likely not have an immediate impact on price, and the same could be said for Bakkt and Nasdaq. Rather, it will allow investors to be more confident in the cryptocurrency sector and the asset class, which may lead investors to establish orders in a low enough range.

Vinny Lingham, a general partner at Multicoin Capital, said this week that the crypto winter could easily turn into a nuclear winter if Bitcoin drops below key support levels.

If we break below $3000 for Bitcoin, “crypto winter” will become “crypto nuclear winter”… https://t.co/sS83cl6Em1

— Vinny Lingham (@VinnyLingham) January 28, 2019

If the product launches of Fidelity, Nasdaq and Bakkt come in a period wherein the general sentiment around cryptocurrencies has not recovered yet, it may have a minimal impact on the price trend of cryptocurrencies, according to Les:

“All of this […] (CME, Bakkt, Fidelity) is positive news for what is clearly an emerging asset. If anything I’m more concerned that it’s taken so long for these products/services to be offered. […] Is Fidelity offering custody going to have an impact on price if it launches in March? I say no. However what it does do, is make me even more confident that when price reaches the ‘Belle zone’ the fact institutional investors will find it more comfortable to participate because of fidelity will only serve to help toward a large scale entering of the market.”

As Gabor Gurbacs, the head of digital assets at VanEck, told Cointelegraph in an interview in November of last year, institutional investors are less interested whether the price of Bitcoin is $3,000 or $10,000. Instead, it prioritizes the structure of the market and the selection of investment vehicles they can use to safely invest in the cryptocurrency market.

Products like Fidelity’s custody and Bakkt’s futures market could be considered as a foundation to support the next wave of retail and institutional investors. But, in the immediate future, they are not likely to sway the price of major crypto assets by large margins.

The crypto market has already started to recover

In the last days, following a steep sell-off on Tuesday, the crypto market rebounded by more than $4 billion.

Ripple (XRP) initiated a solid corrective rally by more than 10 percent and Tether (USDT), which briefly became the fourth-largest cryptocurrency in the global market by surpassing EOS (EOS) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH), dropped back down to sixth.

While the sudden recovery of the crypto market relieved some pressure on the price trend of major cryptocurrencies, overall, the market remains bear-biased. The crypto market could see some positive price action in the short term, as some traders have suggested throughout this week.

But, until Bitcoin surpasses key support levels at $4,000 or even $5,000, it will be too early to call for a proper bottom in the cryptocurrency market.

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Ramblings: Injuries to Vasilevskiy, Crosby, Subban, and More… And What They Mean (Nov 16)

Injuries to Vasilevskiy, Crosby, Subban, and More… And What They Mean

With all the injury announcements on Thursday, this might seem like an emergency edition of the Injury Ward. In other words, a significant chunk of today’s Ramblings will be devoted to these injuries and what they all mean to fantasy owners. Apologies in advance if I missed anyone.

Probably the biggest injury news in terms of both importance and length was that of Andrei Vasilevskiy being sidelined for “a while” with a fractured left foot.  

Louis Domingue is being added in fantasy leagues as we speak. Surely you have a goalie that you can drop for what will be a starting goalie for one of the league's top teams. https://t.co/BIk6XYKNpU

— Ian Gooding (@Ian_Gooding) November 15, 2018

I’ll expand on my tweet from shortly after the announcement. Louis Domingue is an obvious pickup with this news, and he immediately rewarded fantasy owners who were able to insert him into their lineups right away with a 28-save win over Pittsburgh. Allowing three goals isn’t ideal, but he’s a great option if you need wins. The goalies that I had in mind to “drop” (at least on two of my teams) were Chad Johnson and Darcy Kuemper. So I’m not setting the bar super high here. However, I was beaten to the punch in both instances, in one case by only half an hour. But that turned out to be good fortune for me, as you’ll find out later.

Speaking of the Lightning, Brayden Point picked up a natural hat trick… in just 91 seconds. In case you’re wondering, that’s not an NHL record for the fastest three goals by one player. That belongs to Bill Mosienko of the Blackhawks, who scored three goals in 21 seconds in 1952. Maybe one of those records that will never be broken, at least in our lifetime? Point had been held without a point (sorry, can’t help it) in his last three games. This was already his fourth game with at least three points.

The Penguins had some injury news of their own, as Sidney Crosby missed Thursday’s game and could be out about a week. That gave Jake Guentzel owners the break they needed, as he was elevated to the first-unit power play. He was held without a point but took four shots in a season-high 21:26 of icetime. Patric Hornqvist wasn’t affected by Crosby’s absence, scoring two goals and adding an assist with five shots on goal.

Tanner Pearson also made his Penguins’ debut, playing on a line with Hornqvist and Evgeni Malkin while seeing second-unit power-play duties. However, he was held without a point in just 13:14 of icetime. Keep an eye on Pearson, though, especially if he stays on this line.

*

Speaking of debuts, Sens’ top prospect Drake Batherson (Dobber Prospects profile here) made his debut on Thursday. He didn’t waste much time making an impact, scoring his first NHL goal – a power-play marker – on his first shot. Although he played just under 11 minutes, he did play some even-strength and power-play minutes with the red-hot Matt Duchene. With two more assists on Thursday, Duchene is scoring at over a point per game (21 points in 19 games), including nine points over his last five games. Batherson, who scored 20 points in 14 AHL games this season, is worth considering for keeper leagues if you can stash him away.

*  

If you just moved on from Anthony Beauvillier after his slow start, then his Thursday performance will sting. Beauvillier, who entered Thursday’s game with just a single point (a goal) and a minus-10 in 16 games, posted a hat trick plus an assist on five shots on goal in the Islanders’ 7-5 over the crosstown rival Rangers. His linemates (Valtteri Filppula and Leo Komarov) are better known from their days with other teams, so his chances of sustained success would seem much higher with a move to one of the Isles’ top two lines. But right now it’s Tom Kuhnhackl (four points in his last five games) getting that opportunity.

*

With his assist on Thursday, Mike Hoffman was able to extend his point streak to 14 games. That’s a new Panthers’ record. There are benefits to not trading players while their value appears to be plummeting, as I did with Hoffman over the summer.

Unfortunately, Evgenii Dadonov’s point streak ended at 12 games.

Look away if you own Panthers’ players and your league counts plus/minus: Jonathan Huberdeau was a minus-6 on Thursday; Vincent Trocheck, a minus-5; Keith Yandle, a minus-4.

Anthony Duclair scored on Thursday, giving him eight goals on the season. He’s averaging only 13 minutes of icetime at the moment, though. Does he make it to 20 for the first time in his career? It’s worth mentioning that he saw even-strength minutes with Cam Atkinson and Pierre-Luc Dubois in this game. But that may only be temporary, as Artemi Panarin missed the game with the flu.  

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It would be very remiss of me if I discussed injuries and didn’t mention that Brian Elliott had to leave Thursday’s game late in the third period with an injury. His injury would mean more Calvin Pickard. Ah well, at least we get to see more Gritty on a goalie mask. Did I mention that my kids love Gritty?

With a goal and two assists on Thursday, Blake Coleman now has six points over his last five games.

Your co-shutout leader at the moment is Keith Kinkaid, who stopped all 29 shots he faced to earn his third shutout of the season. This in spite of nearly allowing a goal on his botched attempt at scoring a goal (go to the 2:30 mark of the video).

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*

There might not be a team that has been hit harder by the very recent rash of injuries than the Nashville Predators. Not only was P.K. Subban placed on IR this week, but also Viktor Arvidsson is expected to be out for the next 6-8 weeks with a broken thumb. So how did this affect the Preds? Well, they lost 2-1 to Arizona with Darcy Kuemper making 44 saves in the win (thank heaven I didn’t drop him).

Kevin Fiala was moved up to the top line with Filip Forsberg and Ryan Johansen. This is very good news for Fiala owners, as he has been underutilized at times during the season. Fiala has just two goals in 19 games, but things could begin to pick up if you’ve been patient all this time.

Subban’s absence means that the other three members of their big 4 blueline will be leaned on even more heavily than they usually are. Roman Josi logged 27:37, Ryan Ellis logged 25:13, and Mattias Ekholm logged 24:02 on Thursday.

I’m glad the league I own Ellis in counts icetime, as that’s the only way that he’s providing value to me at the moment. Ellis hasn’t recorded a single point in his last five games and doesn’t have a goal all season in spite of massive opportunities for both. Oskar Klefbom and Erik Karlsson are the only two players to average more icetime without a goal than Ellis. Coincidentally, all three entered Thursday’s games with identical stat lines (zero goals, eight assists).

By the way, the Coyotes scored their league-leading 10th shorthanded goal. So they now have more shorthanded goals than power-play goals (9). So when the other team is called for a penalty, should the Coyotes decline just like they do in football? Start playing like the Charleston Chiefs so that they can be shorthanded?

*

Check out the injuries on the Bruins’ defense, now that Zdeno Chara is sidelined with a leg injury:  

Earlier on @timandsid, the #NHLBruins blueline has morphed into a MASH unit. pic.twitter.com/STzEwSKX77

— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) November 15, 2018

If you’re looking for an injury replacement, Matt Grzelcyk logged nearly 25 minutes against Colorado on Wednesday. He’s worth a pickup in deeper leagues, as he’s only owned in 2 percent of Yahoo leagues.

*

With an assist on Thursday, Max Domi’s point streak now stands at eight games. He has 12 points (5g-7a) over that span. Maybe he’ll slow down, but not today.

With a goal on Thursday, Tomas Tatar now has five goals in his last five games. He’s enjoying a renaissance season that could turn into a breakout when all is said and done.

*

Good question from a commenter in my last Ramblings: How concerned should we be with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins with the Edmonton line moves? He had been playing so well and still has PP1, but should we consider selling high?

With Connor McDavid being reunited with Leon Draisaitl on Tuesday, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ fantasy value took a hit, as he lined up with Tobias Rieder and Alex Chiasson. In spite of that, RNH scored a goal to bring his season total to 18 points in 18 games. I’ll start by giving one reason that you should consider selling high, and another reason that you might not want to.

The reason you should: the Nuge has never recorded more than 56 points in a season. He might be on his way to a career season, but we already have enough of a sample size to know that he is not an 80-point player. If you can exchange him for someone with a higher ceiling than 50-60 points, then it might be worth it for you. Particularly in a multicategory league, where his peripherals aren’t overly strong.

The reason you shouldn’t: Line combinations change all the time. A team like the Oilers might be better off with McDavid and Draisaitl on separate lines to spread out the scoring, which could move RNH back to the McDavid line. I’ll throw in one more reason you shouldn’t: Nugent-Hopkins has just four goals on a 7.1 SH%, a number below his career average of 11.3%. A regression might not be significant, particularly if he is reunited with McDavid.

So my advice is that it wouldn’t hurt to try, particularly if you use it to improve your team in other areas. But if you can’t make the deal, he should be able to hold much of his value going forward.  

*

Mitch Marner scored a goal and added two assists on Thursday, giving him six points over his last three games. But what really impressed me was the assist on his goal, from one Frederik Andersen.  

Take a bow, @f_andersen30…

Oh, and that was a pretty snip, @Marner93. pic.twitter.com/oH5cgTRjrj

— NHL (@NHL) November 16, 2018

Better yet, Andersen’s assist counts in one of my fantasy leagues. Hey, minor wins. It's like finding the piece of pork in your can of beans.

*

If I missed anything, I’ll be back tomorrow, filling in for Cam.

For more fantasy hockey information, you can follow me on Twitter @Ian_Gooding.

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-injuries-to-vasilevskiy-crosby-subban-and-more-and-what-they-mean-nov-16/