L.G. Cullens's Blog, page 3
October 31, 2020
Will wonders never cease
I saw a teeshirt with the printed message, "You can't scare me, I have three daughters." It brought to mind my farther-in-law who has five daughters, and I can understand being married to one of them :-)
Anyway, the oldest sister, who isn't prone to compliments, called my wife yesterday and mentioned that she had picked up my book and was enjoying it. She is not the kind of reader that I would have thought would pick up my book in the first place, let alone enjoy it. She is more into manicured landscapes than the unruly natural garden I've fostered on my farmstead for the sake of birds and critters. But then, living in a different states, we seldom see each other, so what do I know.
In any case, I've laid off in-law jokes :-)
Anyway, the oldest sister, who isn't prone to compliments, called my wife yesterday and mentioned that she had picked up my book and was enjoying it. She is not the kind of reader that I would have thought would pick up my book in the first place, let alone enjoy it. She is more into manicured landscapes than the unruly natural garden I've fostered on my farmstead for the sake of birds and critters. But then, living in a different states, we seldom see each other, so what do I know.
In any case, I've laid off in-law jokes :-)
October 27, 2020
Blood Letting
The Coronavirus pandemic has changed much in our lives, some for the better, many for the worse, that we all have stories of. No doubt, mine is trifling in comparison.
Reviewing some bills today, a passage from John G. Neihardt's Black Elk Speaks: The Complete Edition echoed in my mind.
"I could see that the Wasichus [colonizer culture] did not care for each other the way our people did before the nation’s hoop was broken. They would take everything from each other if they could, and so there were some who had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe were starving. They had forgotten that the earth was their mother. This could not be better than the old ways of my people." ~ Black Elk
I was focused on the excesses of the corporatized medical industry, which undoubtedly most (at least in the U.S.) are aware of. With the Coronavirus pandemic the medical center I had previously been visiting regularly for INR [a blood clotting measure] testing instigated home self testing. This is something I had been advocating all along, but the downside is that the medical center introduced yet another middleman profit center, hiking costs considerably. Ah yes, yet another way to bleed the common folk came to be.
The boring details of this instance are that the middleman supplies me the testing meter (one time cost), and resupplies me with lances and test strips (reoccurring cost). I'm now obliged to report the weekly test results to the middleman, who, being a medical equipment business only, in turn passes the test results on to the medical center.
The cost consequences of this arrangement are, first that the middleman bills me $280.00 for each resupply of test strips which Medicare pays only $58.00 of, and second that the medical center still bills me $47.00 a test even though they are no longer doing the testing. The medical center now only monitors the test results, to watch for any irregularities.
So what is new in this instance of bleeding by the corporatized medical industry — nothing really. It is what is old in our inculcated neoliberal culture that struck me, and how the proclivity and consequences are growing at an alarming rate. In this case I might advocate some form of universal healthcare in the U.S., but that would bring with it other problems, hopefully lesser. All great institutions of humankind have been corrupted by the hand of humankind.
Oh well, as I noted in my review of Black Elk Speaks , "I'm at the point in life where there is little else to linger for save yesterday," and past my actuarial life span. It is not that life was easier in the past, indeed it was more physically demanding, but I remember those early years as for the most part being more honest and caring — maybe because I was beyond the anthills of human habitation. Where all this is headed deeply saddens me, because of all the innocents whose futures are threatened.
Reviewing some bills today, a passage from John G. Neihardt's Black Elk Speaks: The Complete Edition echoed in my mind.
"I could see that the Wasichus [colonizer culture] did not care for each other the way our people did before the nation’s hoop was broken. They would take everything from each other if they could, and so there were some who had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe were starving. They had forgotten that the earth was their mother. This could not be better than the old ways of my people." ~ Black Elk
I was focused on the excesses of the corporatized medical industry, which undoubtedly most (at least in the U.S.) are aware of. With the Coronavirus pandemic the medical center I had previously been visiting regularly for INR [a blood clotting measure] testing instigated home self testing. This is something I had been advocating all along, but the downside is that the medical center introduced yet another middleman profit center, hiking costs considerably. Ah yes, yet another way to bleed the common folk came to be.
The boring details of this instance are that the middleman supplies me the testing meter (one time cost), and resupplies me with lances and test strips (reoccurring cost). I'm now obliged to report the weekly test results to the middleman, who, being a medical equipment business only, in turn passes the test results on to the medical center.
The cost consequences of this arrangement are, first that the middleman bills me $280.00 for each resupply of test strips which Medicare pays only $58.00 of, and second that the medical center still bills me $47.00 a test even though they are no longer doing the testing. The medical center now only monitors the test results, to watch for any irregularities.
So what is new in this instance of bleeding by the corporatized medical industry — nothing really. It is what is old in our inculcated neoliberal culture that struck me, and how the proclivity and consequences are growing at an alarming rate. In this case I might advocate some form of universal healthcare in the U.S., but that would bring with it other problems, hopefully lesser. All great institutions of humankind have been corrupted by the hand of humankind.
Oh well, as I noted in my review of Black Elk Speaks , "I'm at the point in life where there is little else to linger for save yesterday," and past my actuarial life span. It is not that life was easier in the past, indeed it was more physically demanding, but I remember those early years as for the most part being more honest and caring — maybe because I was beyond the anthills of human habitation. Where all this is headed deeply saddens me, because of all the innocents whose futures are threatened.
July 23, 2020
Choices
The last two books I've read, Circles in a Forest and The Fools Progress, being exceptional, I'm apprehensive about what to read next. Is three in a row too much to ask in life? Maybe, to be safe, I'll stick to something I'm comfortable with like Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, having recently read a research paper comparing brain connectivity, or maybe The Hidden Life of Trees. Choices that seem important in one's declining time, but for that little voice in my head that questions why. ;-)
