Notices by Zauberlehrling (rvaughnmd@med-mastodon.com), page 2

@bmacDonald94 Great cover of a great song.

@Teri_Kanefield

"we underestimated the depth of the reaction against multiracial democracy. Second, we overestimated the capacity of our institutions to withstand that reaction. These two phenomena – an intense authoritarian reaction and the vulnerability of our institutions – now threaten the very survival of American democracy."

@Teri_Kanefield

We need to evolve our democracy

"But over time, other countries shed their pre-democratic institutions.

Britain weakened the House of Lords, stripping it of veto power. Denmark, Sweden, New Zealand, Portugal, Greece, Taiwan got rid of their upper houses. Germany, Austria, and Belgium democratized their upper houses by making them more proportional to the population. Germany, Portugal, Switzerland, France imposed term limits on supreme court justices."

@Teri_Kanefield

"Democrats are overwhelmingly based in big metropolitan centers while Republicans are overwhelmingly based in more sparsely populated territory. That means the Republicans have a systematic advantage in the Electoral College, in the Senate, and on the Supreme Court. That institutional bias allows the Republicans, in effect, to hold power without winning a national majority. In other words, our counter-majoritarian institutions are beginning to undermine electoral competition"

@Teri_Kanefield

"The United States desperately needs institutional reform. We need to entrench voting rights. We need to replace the Electoral College with direct elections. We need to democratize the Senate. We need to eliminate the filibuster. We need to reform the Supreme Court.

But our Constitution is exceedingly difficult to change."

https://www.californialawreview.org/print/the-third-founding-the-rise-of-multiracial-democracy-and-the-authoritarian-reaction-against-it

Best healthcare system in the world

“Deny, deny, deny. That’s how you hit your numbers,” said Day, who worked for Cigna until the late spring of 2022. “If you take a breath or think about any of these cases, you’re going to fall behind.”

https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-medical-director-doctor-patient-preapproval-denials-insurance

It's game over man, game over ...

#STL: America's forgotten 'doom loop' city, where $205m skyscrapers are selling for under $4m and the decaying downtown has become a ghost town

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13319895/st-louis-ghost-town-san-francisco-doomloop-skyscrapers.html

@Teri_Kanefield

"The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it."

Brandolini's Law

@pelielios @Teri_Kanefield

“The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.”
― Garry Kasparov

1/2
Another community hospital system crisis.

Surgeries postponed, president steps down at Steward hospital amid financial crisis

The hospital chain is $50 million behind on rent, according to Rep. Stephen Lynch, and looking to sell all nine remaining Massachusetts hospitals, but most urgently Holy Family, Nashoba Valley, St. Elizabeth’s and Norwood Hospital.

https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/surgeries-postponed-president-steps-down-steward-hospital-amid-financial-crisis/FWNB4RW3SBEPXEF65GJBCCAHFI/

2/2

Erstwhile Boston media darling Steward Health Care has been strip-mining hospitals for a decade now. The power elite may finally be paying attention.

State Rep. Mike Echols, who represents northern Louisiana and used to operate a large physician practice in the state, described Steward to the Prospect as “one of those corporate terrorists who come in and loot the ship and drain it dry.”

https://prospect.org/health/2024-01-26-massachusetts-hospital-nightmare-steward-health/

Private equity does what it does. If you give a scorpion a ride ... expect to get stung

"For ten years, the hospital chain, which originated as an agglomeration of nun-operated Boston-area neighborhood hospitals known as Caritas Christi, was owned by the private equity firm Cerberus, which extracted more than $800 million in excess of its investment out of the hospitals, then left during the pandemic."

Being doored to death is a cyclist’s nightmare. How can it be prevented?

Reevaluating bike lanes is a matter of geometry, Brozen said, as well as the “political battle over convenience or delay for vehicles over the safety of people biking and walking.”

“It’s really at the whim of the council member and the council member’s office to decide whether they’re willing to take on those battles or not,” Brozen said

#cycling #transport #infrastructure

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-12-19/what-is-dooring-the-bicyclist-collision-that-killed-a-hollywood-producer

"It feels like I'm not crazy." Gardeners aren't surprised as USDA updates key map.

"The 2023 map is about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the 2012 map across the contiguous U.S.,"

"about half the country has shifted into a new half zone and half hasn't. "

#gardening

https://www.npr.org/2023/11/17/1213600629/-it-feels-like-im-not-crazy-gardeners-arent-surprised-as-usda-updates-key-map

Hospitals are dropping Medicare Advantage left and right

"Among the most commonly cited reasons are excessive prior authorization denial rates and slow payments from insurers. Some systems have noted that most MA carriers have faced allegations of billing fraud from the federal government and are being probed by lawmakers over their high denial rates."

"It's become a game of delay, deny and not pay,''

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/hospitals-are-dropping-medicare-advantage-left-and-right.html

“Talent is a pursued interest. Anything that you're willing to practice, you can do.”
― Bob Ross

"Talent is a lie"
― El Estepario Siberiano

@fringemagnet

"Nobody has a sharper eye for imaginative constructions that masquerade as indisputable reality: she knew Henry Kissinger and Robert McNamara could conjure up imaginary worlds better than Tolkien."

Smoking, the scourge that just keeps on scourging:

New study makes grim revelation about cigarette filters: ‘They have to be taken off the market entirely’

“The filter is full of thousands of toxic chemicals and microplastic fibers, so it’s not just any piece of plastic that’s being discarded into the environment. It’s hazardous waste,” said Bethanie Carney Almroth, professor of ecotoxicology at the University of Gothenburg, in a press release.

https://www.thecooldown.com/outdoors/cigarette-filters-toxic-aquatic-larvae