2/14/23

 Tuesday, February 14, 2023

In bed after 10, awake at 5:50, up at 6:05, searching for Valentine's Day cards, very runny nose from CPAP, nasty midback ache.  33℉, wind S at 10, wind chill at 25℉.  Winds today 4 mph to 22 mph, with gusts up to 42 mph and wind chills from 24 to 37℉.  Sunrise at 6:51, sunset at 5:21, 10+30.

Capitalism run amok: Ascension "Health Care"  U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin on Monday called on Ascension Health to invest some of its billions in cash into struggling hospitals in Milwaukee and questioned whether the national health system was putting its bottom line before patients.  In a letter to Ascension chief executive Joseph Impicciche, Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, wrote that she is concerned Ascension Health, based in St. Louis, Missouri, is not putting the money it earns from investments back into hospitals in Wisconsin, some of which are struggling with severe staffing challenges.  “In fact, I am concerned that the opposite is occurring – that by operating like a private equity fund, Ascension is squeezing staff, closing facilities and extracting cash from its member hospitals for dubious ‘management fees’ all to advance its investment activities and provide compensation to its executives,” she wrote, referring to multimillion-dollar fees that Ascension charges its hospitals.  Duh!

Day lost to pain?  Approaching 1 p.m. and feeling some relief from CPP, back pain, and pain in the area of the right kidney.  A lousy way to live.  Earlier took my regular 325 mg aspirin for stroke protection plus 2 8-hour Tylenols.  

Ta-Nahisi Coates.  I've been listening to my Audible copy of Between the World and Me.  Coates tells his son that though they live in very similar worlds based on persisting Racism, neither can fully understand or experience the other's world.  I perked up when listening to him describe his appreciation of Malcolm X, the only one who spoke the Truth.  I had a very similar experience when Malcolm X was alive and driving White people nuts with anger and fear.  I found it much easier to accept his description of the real world that Black people lived in than MLK's turn-the-other-cheek Christianity.  

Teens living in the Greatest Country in the World.  CDC reports that 'nearly 3 in 5 teen girls feel persistently sad or hopeless.'  30% say they seriously considered attempting suicide. 1 in 5 girls say thay have experienced sexual violence within the past year, 14% say they have been forced into having sex.