I came to the US from the UK in 1978 at age 21. Since I was relatively healthy growing up, I had only had minor experiences with the NHS, including a couple of visits to the emergency room for injuries.
I did see the mediocre treatment that my father had in an RAF hospital over 18 months of confinement in the 1960s, and remember by contrast the excellent treatment that my mother received when diagnosed with diabetes in the early 1980's.
All in all, it seemed to be a decent system for most people.
That is why I have been surprised to see so many negative comments about the NHS, and praise for private insurance.
All that I can do is to offer a different set of observations from my adoptive country.
Prior to the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), we had the following:
approximately 10% of the population too poor to afford insurance (and not granted it by their work), and too rich to be on Medicaid
some insurers kept up to 54% of premiums, with huge incentives to refuse payment
maximum lifetime benefits, amounting to 10-15 years of treatment for something like hemophilia
refusal to cover 'pre-existing conditions', which could include anything from pregnancy to cancer risks
The ACA has not been a panacea, but everyone now has access to at least a bad policy. All must cover pre-existing conditions, and do not have a maximum lifetime amount. In addition, children can stay on their parents' policies until age 26.
That said, the costs for some relatively simple events can still be catastrophic even with 'good' insurance, and medical bills still cause up to 60% of bankruptcies.
One remaining problem is that of 'out-of-network' providers. Suppose that you need to go to the Emergency Department, and go to the hospital which your insurance requires. Without your knowledge, any of the doctors who treat you might not be contracted with that insurer, and you could receive a bill, weeks later, for thousands of dollars.
Or, as happened with our first son, your specialist might charge an 'unreasonable' fee, which you would only find out long after the service is performed. Our eventual bill for a normal c-section was $10,000 because my employer had contracted with a mediocre plan.
Scroll forward to 2017, when I had heart surgery. The bill for a 3-day stay in the ICU was $150,000, not counting the surgeon, anesthesiologist etc. Luckily, I had good insurance at that time, and our cost was 'only' a few thousand dollars. A month later, my insurance changed, and the deductibles and co-pays for my rehab therapy alone were almost $10,000 in a few months.
Right now, we have excellent coverage, so covering my medications at $6,000 per month is no issue. A slight change, and the cost to me could be on the order of $1,000 per month, which is coincidentally the cost of those same medications to the NHS.
In short, the US medical system is phenomenal if you have enough money or just have minor health issues.
'Permian-Triassic Boundary, notorious for being the most devastating extinction event in the planet's history (95% of life wiped out in a geological blink). It is located at Austinmer, a coastal suburb between Sydney & Wollongong, Australia.' Source
It's thought that the cause of the 'Great Dying' was volcanic activity in what is now Siberia (at the top of the above picture.) Great volumes of 'greenhouse gases' were released into the atmosphere.
As the atmosphere warmed up - some say to well over 100°F across Pangaea - so did the oceans. Warm water can hold less oxygen than cold, so oxygen levels dropped. Marine species in cooler areas north and south, which were used to oxygen-rich water, asphyxiated; tropical species, which had already adapted to cope with less-oxygenated water, were more likely to survive.
As the oceans became less hospitable amphibians, which had dominated the Permian period, were displaced by
'reptiles—notably the archosaurs ("ruling lizards") and therapsids ("mammal-like reptiles"). For reasons that are still unclear, the archosaurs held the evolutionary edge, muscling out their "mammal-like" cousins and evolving by the middle Triassic into the first true dinosaurs like Eoraptor and Herrerasaurus.'
Ironically, an earlier mass extinction - 150 million years before the Permian-Triassic event - was caused by falling CO2 levels as a result of the spread of plant life:
'In the Devonian period the world was experiencing super greenhouse climate conditions. This means that it was very warm, there probably were no ice caps, there was a lot of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (with estimates of 4,000 parts per million).
'"As plant communities expanded onto land to form the first forests, they depleted the carbon dioxide (CO2) that was in the atmosphere," Waters said. "CO2 levels dropped to 400 ppm toward the end of the Devonian. It got colder. There were glaciation events and the rapid change in the climate caused severe extinction in the tropics and the existing coral reefs became extinct." By comparison, the world's current CO2 level is very close to 400 ppm.'
The fall in CO2 levels is thought to have stimulated the development of woody plants and eventually trees. According to this video (see from 3:09), plants that breathe in CO2 through holes called 'stomata' gradually had to hold them open for longer to get enough of the gas; this also meant they lost more water through evaporation via the same holes. Woody structures were better at holding and transporting water though the body of the plants.
A lesson for us is that we need not worry about 'saving the planet' - life adapts. The question is, can we save ourselves?
Gerrymandering is the process of drawing legislative maps so that the legislators drawing the maps get to select their voters, rather than the usual definition of democracy.
There are several such strategies employed, most of which have been refined by the use of extensive polling and computer models. One is to 'pack' voters of opposing parties into compact districts, another to dilute the effects of those voters by dividing up the areas in inventive ways.
These can result in districts which look like squashed bugs or slime trails. For reference, here is Ohio's current map:
https://news.yahoo.com/congressional-maps-split-akron-summit-100050951.html '...Under the House proposal, Akron would be divided into two districts with one stretching into Portage, Ashtabula and Trumbull counties, while another extends into several Appalachian counties south of the city. Both districts would favor Republicans...'
While the tactic has been used by both major political parties over the years, it has been polished to perfection by the GOP.
Such redistricting occurs every 10 years, after the census.
In North Carolina, the state supreme court has just struck down the new proposed maps, on the grounds that they violate the principle of 'free and fair' elections.
In South Carolina, a lawsuit against the new maps is moving forward. The claim is that the maps are racially gerrymandered, diluting black votes. This falls on the heels of comments recorded on the floor of the state house of representatives some years ago, in which exactly this approach was proposed.
In Texas, a lawsuit against their new maps is moving forward, also on the grounds of racial gerrymandering.
In Florida, Governor deSantis signed their new maps into law, despite a lawsuit. Among other issues, the new maps eliminated all black districts in the north of the state in both Congress and the state House.
In Ohio some years ago, over 70% of voters amended the state constitution, demanding that maps reflect as closely as possible the preferences of voters. Instead, the 5 GOP members on the redistricting commission have passed 4 separate sets of maps without either of the Democrat votes on the committee. All of them have been thrown down by the Republican-majority State Supreme Court. The maps give an advantage of 70-80% in seats to the GOP in Congress and the state House, while actual votes in the state are approximately 56% GOP and 44% Democrat. Lawmakers have protested the court's actions, and have proposed impeachment of the Chief Justice.
These are not the actions of a party which believes that they can win fair elections.
As the US lurches towards the midterms in November, the Republican governors of many states are outdoing themselves in extreme moves, trying to capture the nomination for President in 2024.
Currently leading the pack are Governor Greg Abbott of Texas and Governor Rick deSantis of Florida.
Some of the highlights in Texas include a very restrictive abortion law, which includes an incentive of a guaranteed payday of at least $10,000 to anyone who turns in someone else for 'aiding an abortion', such criminals to include taxi drivers. The accused party, according to the law, will still end up paying all legal fees, even if they are found not to be responsible.
In a similar vein, Abbott has declared that anyone who tries to help transsexual people is committing child abuse, and can also be turned in to the authorities for rewards.
To show his toughness on immigration, he assigned the Texas National Guard and the State police to patrol the border. To date, it has resulted in no major arrests, but has cost several billion dollars, five times the original budget. It has also resulted in many complaints from those on the border about the lack of actual support, and the suicide deaths of at least four guardsmen.
He has also required extra searches of the thousands of trucks coming from Mexico, resulting in backlogs on the order of weeks, meaning that the fresh produce in the vehicles is rotting and costing up to $8 million per day. The net gain has been a handful of trucks pulled over for safety violations, and no illegal immigrants intercepted.
Not to be outdone, deSantis started during the pandemic by firing a statistician who was releasing the actual figures on Covid deaths, rather than those which made the state look better. The suppression of data emanating from the University of Florida is still under investigation. He went on to hire an anti-vaccine doctor whose predictions and pronouncements on the pandemic have proven to be spectacularly wrong as state medical director. At the height of the resurgence, he threatened the cruise ship industry with sanctions if they insisted on Covid passports for passengers and crew. He backed off a little when the industry threatened to move its base of operations from Miami and other Florida ports to other states.
One of his next actions was to demand that the Florida legislature resurrect a WWII-era civilian guard of several thousand answerable only to him. That came on the heels of a new state law which allows people to use their vehicles run over people at protests without sanction.
His latest has been to sign education bills which opponents have dubbed “Don't say gay” and “Don't mention slavery”(including measures to fire teachers, of course). When the Disney corporation, Florida's largest employer, stated their support for gay rights, deSantis demanded that his legislature remove the 'self-governing' status of the 40 square miles of the Disney property.
This will mean that responsibility for all of the roads, water ways, policing, fire service, etc will fall to Orange County, as well as electricity and sewer service to 40,000 hotel rooms and thousands of businesses. Finally, several billions in bonds for the construction will also transfer to the county.
Is this the party of business or is the GOP set to implode?
A few brief impressions after visit to El Palacio de El Escorial (on a day in winter, hence the lack of 'real' tourists):
El Escorial is the palace built by Philip II of Spain and is situated about an hour's train ride to the north-west of Madrid and one winter's day we decided to go and do the 'touristy' thing and look around but this is not a tourist guide to the building, it is more of an impression of what we found there.
If you want the history etc then full details are here (in Spanish)
The palace itself is huge and very impressive in every way; here you can see the scale of it:
First thing you see inside is a small display of architectural artefacts including some of the original drawings as well as a scale model of the wooden cranes used in the construction. It is easy to forget that before the industrial revolution everything had to be done by hand and lifting heavy stone blocks required a combination of hard labour and ingenuity.
The royal apartments are surprisingly small. The King's bedchamber is centrally placed within the building and very cleverly designed; from his bed he could see the surrounding countryside through two balconied windows and looking the other way he could see through his private chapel to the Basilica's high altar.
All of the rooms are beautifully designed, furnished and decorated but none more so than the Biblioteca. Despite a huge fire which destroyed part of the collection, there are still some 40000 manuscripts and books in Latin, Greek, Arabic and Hebrew. Some of these are open and on display in glass cases. The ceiling fresco is by Pellegrino Tibaldi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellegrino_Tibaldi and, in my view, is much more impressive than the other frescos elsewhere in the building.
The Pinacoteca (art gallery) is divided into four rooms and displays works from the 15th, 16th and 17th century including this wonderful masterpiece by Rogier van der Weyden:
When I saw this painting I almost fell over because of the disorienting use of colour - red, which is a colour that comes forward, is used as a background and the two foreground figures (and two others on separate panels at the sides of the main picture) are bluish grey which is a receding, background colour. It appears as though there are four statues standing in front of the painting. The effect is startling and is not seen to quite the same effect in reproduction. You need to go and see it for yourself but don't blame me if you fall over; you have been warned!
Down in the Pantheon are the tombs of Spanish kings and various notable figures of Spain's history including the famous Don Juan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_Austria) - the most handsome man in the world (so I am told!)
Part of the building is still used as a school and you have to admit that is one magnificent playground!
Shortly after this picture was taken an elderly tourist decided to join in, just to show these small boys how.... and with a muttered 'Dios mio' my compañera headed for the chapel to beg forgiveness for my foolish ways.
and only 6½ leagues and 1191 yards back to Madrid:
The return journey was my first and (so far) only ride on a double-decker train. Why don't we have things like that in this country?
In a week when anything seemed possible and nothing was impossible, a series of appearances, events and utterances kept us amused or confounded. Rick Stein was discovered to have been moonlighting as the Archbishop of York (see comments on this tweet); no doubt Stein’s familiarity with loaves and fishes clinch the deal.
Emmanuel Macron astounded almost everyone with his hirsute appearance in an open-necked shirt in an attempt to look sexy and down with the bruvs, but only managed to extract comments on the veracity of his rug.
From someone who gives the impression he is sneering at people most of the time, his recent speeches invoking the royal 'we' at every moment and his James Bond power play show he is rightly worried about winning a second term. He will win as France will either vote in ever smaller numbers and all the other parties will band together as usual to stop Le Pen getting into the Elysée and France will then moan about Macron for another five years; seems to be the pattern everywhere.
Boris has been keeping his head down in Ukraine. A direct missile strike would end all his problems about Partygate and lying to everyone continuously so maybe just maybe the wearing of a suit rather than the normal obligatory camouflage jacket could have been a desperate cry for help.
The odd cuff lengths if you're going out in style rather let the side down
Keir Starmer somehow gives himself immunity to any fines as his beer in hand photo was in a totally ‘different’ category to the ones that have landed Boris in the merde, but it won't do him any good banging on about Boris as it appears most of the civil service of whatever colour were partying while old people died on their own, and apparently we have all ‘moved on’; how convenient a war can be.
Two things from that photo are far more important than if he broke the rules: as in the Music Man that line 'medicinal wine from a teaspoon and beer from a bottle and we got trouble in the city' or something like that, how uncouth is drinking from the bottle; it creates the same reaction, as those old enough to remember, to the reaction to anyone drinking beer from a straight glass! Also, the vanity of the man shows, as he is wearing glasses, though never seen in public wearing them. So, two hugely important facts from a rather bad photo.
Elsewhere Priti Patel is attempting again to stop the flood of illegals crossing the Channel with a doomed attempt to send them all to Rwanda. She was seen inspecting a hotel room that looked suspiciously five star for such a destination; the only reference I have to a Rwandan hotel room is the film of the same name, not that I think she had that in mind... or maybe she did?
Priti Patel suffers like Macron from a height disadvantage. Her appearance on the rostrum in Rwanda was not helped in this area by her Rwandan official who appeared to be about 6’ 8” and the fact that next to him she looked like the second uncovering of a Russian doll.
After many criticisms of the plan Pritti said in effect, ‘If you can think of anything better tell me.’ Coming from the person in charge of all this and paid to do the job, she has so far been an abject failure, so perhaps Joe Soap in the job for a while would be an improvement.
Though to be fair, if one can be, she has to deal with a civil service that is a carbon copy of that in Yes Minister and despite supposedly being there to carry out the wishes of the current government does all it can to thwart it, whether it be migrants or Brexit; another part of the public sector that needs a total clear-out.
At the same time Border Force (time for a name change) is sending more and more personnel to ‘deal’ with the illegals crossing the Channel, while at the same time forcing legal travellers to wait for hours to pass through security to go on holiday at airports and traffic jams of lorries carrying essential goods are further held up at ports for the same reason.
Just a thought: if the Australian method of using an island has proved so effective why don’t we ask if we can share that facility? Hardly much further than Rwanda and we know it works.
As an aside, why do so many asked about Channel crossings use the ‘we must stop the crossings because of the danger of death’ as a precursor to whatever they say? These migrants pay to cross the Channel and as with anything else in life they take that risk. It is their choice, they could always take the legal route and apply like everyone else to enter, but the deaths have been minimal considering the transport used and they are picked up outside Calais anyway.
Back in Ukraine Vlad, having failed in a short dramatic takeover has resorted to other methods to achieve his aim. The West in its desire to openly help Ukraine militarily is sending almost everything they ask for, all at great expense (not that that is a concern of modern government) to fight the evil invader.
Apart from Germany: because of the calamitous Ursula von der Leyen as minister of defence before she took the lead role in the EU, the German army has hardly anything left to send. The government has left it to the arms manufacturers to send stuff; not having anything left in their stockpile they are paying the arms manufacturers to send arms direct. I hope for their sake Vlad doesn’t decide this is a good time to invade Germany!
If anyone has any idea what is actually going on there send answers on a postcard. Othe than slowly flattening the place he has achieved very little apart from condemnation by the West for everything he has done. Lots of sanctions, various European harbours filled with confiscated oligarchs' yachts, dozens of huge mansions are now standing empty (as many stood before all this kicked off) and no one knows what they are going to do with it all. Add to that the price of gas, minerals, fertiliser, grain - all either in very short supply or at stratospheric prices - and if you had arrived from planet Zog you would declare a score draw or worse at the moment.
The only person who has gained from this is Zelenskyy The war disguises a decidedly dodgy premiership where opposition is shut down along with any questions at his mysterious wealth in what is a decidedly corrupt nation; not that many from the West with ‘interests’ there are not as corrupt, but for now all that has gone away.
Still, assurances from all the big players that retribution is nigh is comforting as the leader of the free world exits stage left, or is it right, having shaken hands with the invisible man.
And you should never turn your back on the public, still …
Elsewhere in the USA the military are gearing up for a possible offensive…
(From 2016 but illustrative of how Woke has come to the Army)
This is probably a little unfair as the senior ranks have already made their minds up…
The Commander in Chief meanwhile was conversing with the Easter Bunny on future strategy, having told Putin ‘you don’t know what is coming’; this from a man who doesn’t know where he is going.
At the same time that 'Sleepy Joe' further confirms his total unsuitability for the job in hand, his understudy makes a play for the top job and fails, as she has done since day one…
We can’t finish the week without the heartfelt outpourings of the boss of Scottish Power revealing the ever increasing numbers of customers who have fallen behind with their energy bills. Naturally, with an October of further high rises coming this will for the first time actually mean many will have no choice but to choose between eating and heating; though with food and commodity prices also going through the roof the choice may not be that simple. For some, 'little is more' will become a distinct reality.
Across the pond one of the founders of the BLM organisation is cashing in on / with all the donations. As footballers here take the knee in a move to show their solidarity with their coloured brethren, the founder of the movement is showing some of that community are more equal than others…
It goes without saying that a lifestyle of luxury demands a suitable toast at the table and what is better than a suitably labelled Pinot Noir to set the tone?
Letting your wine breathe takes on a whole new meaning!
On a local level we had a copy of the town council news letter arriving last week; one item caught the eye amongst the exciting news that another bus shelter had been refurbished. What was interesting about this proposal was what it didn’t say, i.e. what they were wanting to achieve in creating mayhem by closing a short connecting piece of road that runs past the school with two barriers manned by volunteers? No alternative routes, and I mean none are available, so that presumably the school run mummies can drop the little darlings off and pick them up without illegally parking everywhere as they do now or blocking private driveways on the nearest housing estate. If this is the object of the exercise it will cause chaos for the earlier reason and there are not enough parking spaces at the council offices currently used anyway so illegal parking will continue.
Without further info the legality of this comes into question, and as police are conspicuous by their absence dealing with the current parking on double yellow lines outside the school, who is going to enforce all this, other than volunteers?
They are having a consultation table (!) set up outside the school one day next week. Could be interesting, though the real interest is what idiot proposed this in the first place. It said in the preamble ‘if acceptable we will get used to it’; we of course is not those that propose this nonsense as they all live elsewhere; sometimes you just can’t make it up.
The sign off line to this proposal is 'we will help the environment'; I've never been sure what qualifies anyone that sits on local council committees but it certainly isn’t common sense.
Numbers of perfectly fit sportsmen are apparently keeling over at an unprecedented rate; a pure coincidence that it all started after Covid vaccinations of course and the authorities when asked say the number is in line with normal incidents; no doubt one day we will get the truth on that as well.
Meanwhile - and this is just football:
And lastly the Queen has had to suffer a surprise visit by the Kardashians complete with Netflix crew. Aa place on the balcony for the Jubilee celebrations is Harry’s hoped-for reward for this furthering his celebrity status as a, er, I have no idea. He also managed to use a well known Charles-ism, if that is a word, by describing the 95-year-old monarch as having ‘great form’ as if she was race horse; the Queen has always loved horses but has yet to identify as one; with what has gone on in the Royal Family in the last few years it would be better if the Queen appeared on the balcony alone or with a horse, she really doesn’t need the dysfunctional siblings anywhere near her.
Finally finally I leave you with this: Serena in goal would be good as getting a football past the Incredible Hulk would be difficult (plus she has great reaction speed); Lewis on the other hand I would suggest is not a football person, and dressed like that is more suited to a role in Madame Butterfly than standing on the terraces.
What the nation needs at this time is Tony Blair and a rousing chorus of 'Things can only get better; or is it 'build back better' now? On second thoughts, perhaps not.
Not bad for one week and I didn’t even have to try!
It is good to get away from the famous names to explore the lesser known names of classical music. Even better when they draw on traditional folk melodies of their homeland so here is a selection from the Hungarian Béla Bartók.
Béla Bartók was born in the Hungarian town of Nagyszentmiklós (now Sînnicolau Mare in Romania) on 25 March 1881, and received his first instruction in music from his mother, a very capable pianist; his father, the headmaster of a local school, was also musical.
Bartók’s earliest compositions offer a blend of late Romanticism and nationalist elements, formed under the influences of Wagner, Brahms, Liszt and Strauss, and resulting in works such as Kossuth, an expansive symphonic poem written when he was 23.
Around 1905 his friend and fellow-composer Zoltán Kodály directed his attention to Hungarian folk music and, coupled with his discovery of the music of Debussy, Bartók’s musical language changed dramatically: it acquired greater focus and purpose. But as he absorbed more and more of the spirit of Hungarian folk songs and dances, his own music grew tighter, more concentrated, chromatic and dissonant – and although a sense of key is sometimes lost in individual passages, Bartók never espoused atonality as a compositional technique.
His interest in folk music was not merely passive: Bartók was an assiduous ethnomusicologist, his first systematic collecting trips in Hungary being undertaken with Kodály, and in 1906 they published a volume of the songs they had collected. Thereafter Bartók’s involvement grew deeper and his scope wider, encompassing a number of ethnic traditions both near at hand and further afield: Transylvanian, Romanian, North African and others. Bartók died from polycythemia (a form of leukemia) on 26 September 1945 in New York.
