Before Brexit, I opined, against all respectable economists, that a vote for Bexit would not sink the British economy. Switzerland, I argued, was outside the EU, and their economy was doing fine. Similarly, Norway, Iceland, and Israel — all were outside the EU and showed no obvious signs of riots, food shortages, or any of the other disasters predicted for an exited Britain. Pollsters were sure that Britain would vote “No” but, as it happened, they voted yes. The experts despaired, but the London stock market surged. It’s up 250% since the Brexit vote.
Lodon stock market prices from January 2016 through the Brexit vote, August 2016, to the Boris Johnson election, August 2019. The price has risen by more than 250%.
A very similar thing happened with the election of Trump and of Boris Johnson. In 2016 virtually every news paper supported Ms Clinton, and every respectable economic expert predicted financial disaster if he should, somehow win. As with Brexit, the experts were calmed by polls showing that Trump would, almost certainly lose. He won, and as with Brexit, the stock market took off. Today, after a correction that I over-worried about, the S+P index remains up 35% from when Trump was elected. As of today, it’s 2872, not far from the historic high of 3049. Better yet, unemployment is down to record levels, especially for black and hispanic workers, and employment is way up, We’ve added about 1% of adult workers to the US workforce, since 2017, see Federal Reserve chart below.
Returning to Britain, the economic establishment have been predicting food shortages, job losses and a strong stock market correction unless Brexit was re-voted and rejected. Instead, the ruling Conservative party elected Boris Johnson to prime-minister, “no deal” Brexiter. The stock market responded with a tremendous single day leap. See above
Ratio of Civilian Employment to US Population. Since Trump’s election, we’ve added about 1% of the working age US population to the ranks of the employed.
You’d think the experts would show embarrassment for their string of errors. Perhaps they would save some face by saying they were blinded by prejudice, or that their models had a minor flaw that they’ve now corrected, but they have not said anything of the sort. Paul Krugman of the New York Times, for example, had predicted a recession that would last as long as Trump did, and has kept up his predictions. He’s claimed a bone rattling stock crash continuously for nearly three years now, predicting historic unemployment. He has been rewarded with being wrong every week, but he’s also increased the readership of the New York Times. So perhaps he’s doing his job.
I credit our low un-employment rate to Trump’s tariffs and to immigration control. When you make imports expensive, folks tend to make more at home. Similarly, with immigration, when you keep out illegal workers, folks hire more legal ones. I suspect the same forces are working in Britain. Immigration is a good thing, but I think you want to bring in hard-working, skilled, honest folks to the extent possible. I’m happy to have fruit pickers, but would like to avoid drug runners and revolutionaries, even if they have problems at home.
I still see no immediate stock collapse, by the way. One reason is P/E analysis, in particular Schiller’s P/E analysis (he won a Nobel prize for this). Normal P/E analysis compares the profitability of companies to their price and to the bond rate. The inverse of the P/E is called the earnings yield. As of today, it’s 4.7%. This is to say, every dollar worth of the average S+P 500 stock generates 4.7¢ in profits. Not great, but it’s a lot better than the 10-year bond return, today about 1.5%.
The Schiller P/E is an improved version of this classic analysis. It compares stock prices to each company’s historic profitability, inflation adjusted for 10 years. Schiller showed that this historic data is a better measure of profitability than this year’s profitability. As of today, the Schiller P/E is 29.5, suggesting an average corporate profitability of 3.5%. This is still higher than the ten-year bond rate. The difference between them is 2%, and that is about the historic norm. Meanwhile, in the EU, interest rates are negative. The ten year in Germany is -0.7%. This suggests to me that folks are desperate to avoid German bank vaults, and German stocks. From my perspective, Trump, Johnson, and the Fed seem to be doing much better jobs than the EU bankers and pendents.
I learned a lot about social interactions from a comic of my youth called “Archie“. A very popular comic for 65 years, from 1941 through the 2010s, the social structure of Archie remained remarkably constant from when I first read it, in the early 60’s to when I read it to my children in the late 90’s. The comic mostly follows the title character, a love struck teenager with two (or more) gorgeous girlfriends, shown below, and his various relationships. I find the original stories to have been hyper-true, that is more true than truth. There are also several spin-offs, including a TV series, “Riverdale“, and an underground comic “Anarchie“. Both have a degree of charm, but the original stands out for it’s wide readership and long run; clearly, it resonated. Riverdale is a far grittier take, further from hyper-reality.
Archie enjoys a malt with Veronica left and Betty right. Archie prefers Veronica. Betty is a doormat. Though Veronica is rich, she never pays.
In Archie comics, the poorer folks worked, as in real life, at relatively dull jobs. Their parents do too, and the poorer kids are visible poorer. Archie always wore the same clothes and drives (or drove) a junker car. The few rich folks do not work in the same way, as one might expect. In the TV series, and in most TV series’s, everyone has food, friends and a car, without any serious jobs, and little social hierarchy. It’s an ideal world of sorts, but somehow everyone’s messed up.
In the old time comic, one rich character in particular, Reggie Mantle, like to flaunt his wealth and make fun of Archie and his proletarian friend, Jughead. The comic book Veronica was also something of a bitch. Her dad, while occasionally charming, could be a bully as well. He certainly displayed, and benefitted from his exceptional wealth. Meanwhile, in the comic at least, while all the poorer folks worked (except Jughead), not all of them did a good job, most of those who worked did not enjoy it. There was humor in this engaging, realistic take on life.
The school lunch lady, Miss Beasley, was relatable in her extreme dislike for her job. What pleasure she gets, seems to come from making and serving bad food. Though the details of her employment are scarce, my guess was that she was unionized. Otherwise, she would have been fired years ago. There is no similar character in TV’s Riverdale.
Weatherbee and Flootsnoot
The principal, Mr. Weatherbee, also seemed to have trouble with his job, though his relationships were more nuanced. He takes his job seriously and runs an effective school, but he’s overweight, and over-stressed — a walking heart attack. Unlike most of the people at the school, “the bee” does not take out his anger on the kids, or on his fellow faculty. He keeps it in, while tormented by the students, by the parents, by the janitor, Svenson, and in particular by Mr. Flootsnoot, the science teacher. Flootsnoot seems to delight in causing trouble, giving Archie explosives, acid, and animals. My guess is that Flootsnoot is angling for Weatherby’s job, and is not patient enough to wait for Weatherbee’s heart to give out on its own. He’s a character right out of Hitchcock, IMHO.
Ms Grundy, Archie’s teacher was also drawn a victim of playing by the rules in a crooked game. In the original comic, as i read it in the mid 60s, she’s a puritan spinster in a black dress with a tall, laced collar. She seems to dislike Archie and Jughead, but not the other kids, nor her job as such. It makes sense that she’d dislike Archie and Jughead, since Jughead is lazy, and Archie is a skirt chasing cad. By the 90’s when I read Archie with my daughters, Miss Grundy had become a Ms, and was more at peace with her position, and a lot of the humor is gone. In the TV version, Riverdale, Ms Grundy, is in a sexual relationship with Archie. It’s a lot less healthy, and not very humorous.
The main focus, of course is Archie, a workin-class teen, and straight D student. How does he have two (or more) gorgeous girlfriends? After a few years of reading, the explanation becomes obvious, and fairly depressing. Each of his many girlfriends are motivated by jealousy for the others. His first girl is Betty. She’s pretty, poor, hard-working, and a doormat. She’s always there to help out. She is treated like dirt by her richer, “best friend,” Veronica. As best I can tell, Veronica and the others mostly like Archie because Betty does. To some extent Veronica also likes to annoy her rich dad, who is portrayed as confident and proud, except when dealing with his spoiled daughter. This is old-time humor that you’ll also see in Spongebob, or (going further back) Balzac’s “Pere Goriot“.
Veronica bosses her dad around but also makes his life worthwhile, it seems. I assume he once had a wife that he loved. Now he’s got a white-haired companion, a butler, and some rich friends. The love-of-his-life is his daughter, it seems, and she is dating a free-loading cad. Veronica’s rival Betty comes from the same stable, modest backroad as Archie, but. Archie prefers life at Veronica’s house. The food is better, and there is a pool. Mr Lodge barely tolerates Archie and friends. The butler, Smithers, is less excitable, but not as tolerant.
The school also has two psychopaths, Midge and Moose, a dangerous pair. Moose Mason is a football player, dumb or brain damaged, and violently jealous of Midge. Midge, of course, flirts with everyone, and does it in front of Moose. The result is that Moose beats up any boys who respond, much to Midge’s delight. They are a sick and dangerous pair, but very realistic. Jughead, the only normal person in the comic, dislikes the pair, and dislikes both Veronica and Reggie. Jughead has a dog, and a little sister “Jellybean,” who he adores. he also has, to his chagrin, a female stalker, “Big” Ethel. She’s ugly and chases Jughead; Jughead avoids her. Jughead seems to like Archie, though, and is always loyal to him; it’s another of Jughead’s good traits. He’s always pointing Archie to Betty, as a good friend would. Meanwhile, Moose-the-homicidal is protected by “Coach Kleats,” a highly flawed character who’s obsessed with winning, and seems to have been hit in the head one time too many.
A bit more about Jughead (he got his own spinoff comic for a while). Jughead is a classic humor character from antiquity. He’s the Harlequin, the semi-loyal servant: poor, clever, resourceful, and always hungry. He’s the bird man of The Magic Flute. He’s Figaro, and the servant in Don Giovani. He’s Harlie Quinn in Batman. A harlequin makes his own clothes from patchwork, and true to type, Jughead is seen, virtually always wearing a sort-of crown, a “whoopee cap” of his own construction. Because Jughead is poor and lazy, everyone thinks him stupid, but he’s the only one clever enough to size up Midge and Veronica. Jughead’s crown is appropriate since he’s his own master. Archie comics were banned in Saudi Arabia because the Saudis took offense at the concept of a self-crowned king. It’s an unusual concept. In Riverdale, Jughead is a tortured poet who still wears a handmade crown for no obvious reason.
All these relationships had a surreal character. The relationships are funny because they are more real than reality. They also presented a simpler form of humor in that the lowly usually win, while the high and talented usually lose. Reggie commonly loses, as does Weatherbee. Then things began to change in the 2000’s when two token black characters were added: a top scholar/athlete, Chuck Clayton, and his dad, Floyd (or Harry) a wise, athletic, co-coach. These are characters without major flaws, and as such they are not funny. If a writer feels he must include a character like this, a writer should use him as a straight-man, Zeppo Marx for example. And even Zeppo Marx is presented as having a horrible flaw. In Marx Bros. movies, Zeppo is presented as being Groucho’s son. Comedy is built on flawed characters like this, who succeed, and on arrogant ones who fail. With the Claytons, you’re left wondering what comedy do they bring to the situation. Also, why do these individuals tolerate crazy Moose on the team?
In 2010, the writers added an openly gay character, Kevin Keller. A nice fellow, with no flaws who everyone likes. Really? Is there a teenager so comfortable with himself? Are there no homophobes anywhere in this school? By 2012, Kevin has grown up and is an anti-gun senator. Archie dies taking an assassin’s bullet for him. That’s heroic, and it solves some other ugly problems, but it killed the series. You don’t want an unhappy ending for a comedy. For a hint of what to do, consult Shakespeare.
Anarchy Andrews deals with his cool, pot-smoking father, Fred.
Turning now to my favorite spin-off, the underground comic, Anarchie. It’s the same batch of teenagers, more or less, navigating the same issues, but theirs is an ideal, socialist world where the revolution has won. In this world, everyone has plenty, drugs are legal, and there is no sexism, agism, racism, or shape-ism. This is a color-blind world where black and white live together, and where the gay fellow would fit right in, if anyone thought to draw them in. There is no work, but even without that pressure, and the old problems, everything isn’t great for the kids. There is still school, and Weatherby still hates Archie. The kids still have to deal with parents, even when the parents have turned-on to drugs and act cool. It’s good comedy, an up-ending of the social expectations. Most teens of my day seemed to think that socialism would solve all their problems.
Jughead in the socialist future is a broken druggie, but still something of his own man.
For those who have not seen it, how would you expect the Archie to relate to a perfect socialist world. The answer is not well. His father smokes dope, but that doesn’t help. He’s also into recycling and yoga (yuck). Archie remains the same love stuck, philanderer disinterested in most everything else but girls. His friend, Jughead fares far worse, he’s a pock-marked, druggie, a far more likely outcome than Riverdale’s where Jughead is a tortured poet. Without societal pressures and a normal family, Jughead becomes an anarchis’s anarchist. A ruined misfit surrounded in the workers’ paradise. Jughead (now called “Ludehead” still has his crown, and is still his own person, after a fashion, but there is little room for that in a socialist utopia where all are equal.
California likely leads the nation in socially activist government kindness. It also leads the nation in homelessness, chronic homelessness, and homeless veterans. The US Council on Homelessnesses estimates that, on any given day, 129,972 Californians are homeless, including 6,702 family households, and 10,836 veterans; 34,332 people are listed among “the chronic homeless”. That is, Californians with a disability who have been continuously homeless for one year or cumulatively homeless for 12 months in the past three years. No other state comes close to these numbers. The vast majority of these homeless are in the richer areas of two rich California cities: Los Angeles and San Francisco (mostly Los Angeles). Along with the homeless in these cities, there’s been a rise in 3rd world diseases: cholera, typhoid, typhus, etc. I’d like to explore the relationship between the policies of these cities and the rise of homelessness and disease. And I’d like to suggest a few cures, mostly involving sanitation.
A homeless encampment in LosAngeles
Most of the US homeless do not live in camps or on the streets. The better off US homelessness find it is a temporary situation. They survive living in hotels or homeless shelters, or they “couch-serf,” with family or friends. They tend to take part time jobs, or collect unemployment, and they eventually find a permanent residence. For the chronic homeless things are a lot grimmer, especially in California. The chronic unemployed do not get unemployment insurance, and California’s work rules tend to mean there are no part time jobs, and there is not even a viable can and bottle return system in California, so the homeless are denied even this source of income*. There is welfare and SSI, but you have to be somewhat stable to sign up and collect. The result is that California’s chronic homeless tend to live in squalor strewn tent cities, supported by food handouts.
Californians provide generous food handouts, but there is inadequate sewage, or trash collection, and limited access to clean water. Many of the chronic homeless are drug-dependent or mentally ill, and though they might benefit from religion-based missions, Los Angeles has pushed the missions to the edges of the cities, away from the homeless. The excess food and lack of trash collection tends to breed rats and disease, and as in the middle ages, the rats help spread the diseases.
Total homelessness by state, 2018; California leads the nation. The better off among these individuals do not live on the streets, but in hotels or homeless shelters. For most, this is a short term situation. The rest, about 20%, are chronically homeless. About half of these live on the streets without adequate sewage and water. Many are drug-dependent.
The first major outbreaks of the homeless camps appeared in Los Angeles in August and September of 2017. They reappeared in 2018, and by late summer, rates were roughly double 2017’s. This year, 2019, looks like it could be a real disaster. The first case of a typhoid infected police officer showed up in May. By June there were six police officers with typhoid, and that suggests record numbers are brewing among the homeless.
To see why sanitation is an important part of the cure, it’s worth noting that typhoid is a disease of unclean hands, and a relative of botulism. It is spread by people who go to the bathroom and then handle food without washing their hands first. The homeless camps do not, by and large, have hand washing stations. and forced hygiene is prohibited. Los Angeles has set up porta-potties, with no easy hand washing. The result is typhoid epidemic that’s even affecting the police (six policemen in June!).
R-naught, reproduction number for some diseases, CDC.
Historically, the worst outbreaks of typhoid were spread by food workers. This was the case with “typhoid Mary of the early 20th century.” My guess is that some of the police who got typhoid, got it while trying to feed the needy. If so, this fellow could become another Typhoid Mary. Ideally, you’d want shelters and washing stations where the homeless are. You’d also want to pickup the dirtier among the homeless for forced washing and an occasional night in a homeless shelter. This is considered inhumane in Los Angeles, but they do things like this in New York, or they did.
Typhus is another major disease of the California homeless camps. It is related to typhoid but spread by rodents and their fleas. Infected rodents are attracted to the homeless camps by the excess food. When the rodents die, their infected fleas jump to the nearest warm body. Sometimes that’s a person, sometimes another animal. In a nastier city, like New York, the police come by and take away old food, dead animals, and dirty clothing; in Los Angeles they don’t. They believe the homeless have significant squatters rights. California’s kindness here results in typhus.
Reproduction number and generation time for some diseases.
The last of the major diseases of the homeless camps is cholera. It’s different from the others in that it is not dependent on squalor, just poor health. Cholera is an airborne disease, spread by coughing and sneezing. In California’s camps, the crazy and sick dwell close to each other and close to healthy tourists. Cholera outbreaks are a predictable result. And they can easily spread beyond the camps to your home town, and if that happens a national plague could spread really fast.
I’d discussed R-naught as a measure of contagiousness some months ago, comparing it to the reproductive number of an atom bomb design, but there is more to understanding a disease outbreak. R-naught refers merely to the number of people that each infected person will infect before getting cured or dying. An R-naught greater than one means the disease will spread, but to understand the rate of spread you also need the generation time. That’s the average time between when the host becomes infected, and when he or she infects others. The chart above shows that, for cholera, r-naught is about 10, and the latency period is short, about 9 days. Without a serious change in California’s treatment of the homeless, each cholera case in June will result in over 100 cases in July, and well over 10,000 in August. Cholera is somewhat contained in the camps, but once an outbreak leaves the camps, we could have a pandemic. Cholera is currently 80% curable by antibiotics, so a pandemic would be deadly.
Hygiene is the normal way to prevent all these outbreaks. To stop typhoid, make bathrooms available, with washing stations, and temporary shelters, ideally these should be run by the religious groups: the Salvation Army, the Catholic Church, “Loaveser and Fishes”, etc. To prevent typhus, clean the encampments on a regular basis, removing food, clothing, feces and moving squatters. For cholera, provide healthcare and temporary shelters where people will get clean water, clean food, and a bed. Allow the homeless to work at menial jobs by relaxing worker hiring and pay requirements. A high minimum wage is a killer that nearly destroyed Detroit. Allow a business to hire the homeless to sweep the street for $2/hour or for a sandwich, but make a condition that they wash their hands, and throw out the leftovers. I suspect that a lot of the problems of Puerto Rico are caused by a too-high minimum wage by the way. There will always be poor among you, says the Bible, but there doesn’t have to be typhoid among the poor, says Dr. Robert Buxbaum.
July 30, 2019. I ran for water commissioner in Oakland county, Michigan, 2016. If there is interest, I’ll run again. One of my big issues is clean water. Oakland could use some help in this regard.
As of this month, the District of Columbia has joined 15 states in a pact to would end the electoral college choice of president. These 15 include New York, California, and a growing list of solid-blue (Democratic party) states. They claim the electoral must go as it robed them of the presidency perhaps five times: 2016, 2000, 1888, 1876, and perhaps 1824. They would like to replace the electoral college by plurality of popular vote, as in Mexico and much of South America.
All the big blue states and some small blue states have joined a compact to end the electoral college. As of 2019, they are 70% of the way to achieving this.
As it happens, I had to speak on this topic in High School in New York. I for the merits of the old system beyond the obvious: that it’s historical and works. One merit I found, somewhat historical, is that It was part of a great compromise that allowed the US to form. Smaller states would not have joined the union without it, fearing that the federal government would ignore or plunder them without it. Remove the vote advantage that the electoral college provides them, and the small states might have the right to leave. Federal abuse of the rural provinces is seen, in my opinion in Canada, where the large liberal provinces of Ontario and Quebec plunder and ignore the prairie provinces of oil and mineral wealth.
Several of the founding federalists (Jay, Hamilton, Washington, Madison) noted that this sort of federal republic election might bind “the people” to the president more tightly than a plurality election. The voter, it was noted, might never meet the president nor visit Washington, nor even know all the issues, but he could was represented by an elector who he trusted, he would have more faith in the result. Locals would certainly know who the elector favored, but they would accept a change if he could justify it because of some new information or circumstance, if a candidate died, for example, or if the country was otherwise deadlocked, as in 1800 or 1824.
Historically speaking, most electors vote their states and with their previously stated (or sworn) declaration, but sometimes they switch. In, 2016 ten electors switched from their state’s choice. Sven were Democrats who voted against Hillary Clinton, and three were Republicans. Electors who do this are called either “faithless electors” or “Hamilton electors,” depending on whether they voted for you or against you. Hamilton had argued for electors who would “vote their conscience” in Federalist PaperNo. 68. One might say these electors threw away their shot, as Hamilton did not. Still, they showed that elector voting is not just symbolic.
Federalist theory aside, it seems to me that the current system empowers both large and small states inordinately, and swing states, while disempowering Alabama and Massachussetts. Change the system and might change the outcome in unexpected ways.
That the current system favors Rhode Island is obvious. RI has barely enough population for 1 congressman, and gets three electors. Alabama, with 7 congressmen, gets 9 electors. Rhode Islanders thus get 2.4 times the vote power of Alabamans.
It’s less obvious that Alabama and Massachussetts are disfavored compared to New Yorkers and Californians. But Alabama is solid red, while New York and California are only sort of blue. They are majority Democrat, with enough Republicans to have had Republican governors occasionally in recent history. Because the electoral college awards all of New York’s votes to the winner, a small number Democrat advantage controls many electors.
In 2016, of those who voted for major party candidates in New York, 53% voted for the Democrat, and 47% Republican. This slight difference, 6%, swung all of NY’s 27 electors to Ms Clinton. If a popular vote are to replace the electoral college, New York would only have the net effect of the 6% difference; that’s about 1 million net votes. By contrast, Alabama is about 1/3 the population of New York, but 75% Republican. Currently its impact is only 1/3 of New York’s despite having a net of 2.5 million more R voters. Without the college, Alabama would have 2.5 times the impact of NY. This impact might be balanced by Massachusetts, but at the very least candidates would campaign in these states– states that are currently ignored. Given how red and blue these states are, it is quite possible that the Republican will be more conservative than current, and the Democrat more liberal, and third party candidates would have a field day as is common in Mexico and South America.
Proposed division of California into three states, all Democrat-leaning. Supposedly this will increase the voting power of the state by providing 4 more electors and 4 more senators.
California has petitioned for a different change to the electoral system — one that should empower the Democrats and Californians, or so the theory goes. On the ballot in 2016 was bill that would divide California into three sub-states. Between them, California would have six senators and four more electors. The proposer of the bill claims that he engineered the division, shown at right, so skillful that all three parts would stay Democrat controlled. Some people are worried, though. California is not totally blue. Once you split the state, there is more than three times the chance that one sub-state will go red. If so, the state’s effect would be reduced by 2/3 in a close election. At the last moment of 2016 the resolution was removed from the ballot.
Turning now to voter turnout, it seems to me that a change in the electoral college would change this as well. Currently, about half of all voters stay home, perhaps because their state’s effect on the presidential choice is fore-ordained. Also, a lot of fringe candidates don’t try as they don’t see themselves winning 50+% of the electoral college. If you change how we elect the president we are sure find a new assortment of voters and a much wider assortment of candidates at the final gate, as in Mexico. Democrats seem to believe that more Democrats will show up, and that they’ll vote mainstream D, but I suspect otherwise. I can not even claim the alternatives will be more fair.
In terms of fairness, Marie de Condorcet showed that the plurality system will not be fair if there are more than two candidates. It will be more interesting though. If changes to the electoral college system comes up in your state, be sure to tell your congressperson what you think.
Newspapers remain the primary source for verified news. Facts presumed to be sifted to avoid bias, while opinions and context is presumed to be that of the reporter whose name appears as the byline. We may look to other media sources for confirmation and fact-checking: news magazines, Snopes, and Facebook. Since 2016 these sources have been unanimous in their agreement about the dangers of biassed news. Republicans, including the president have claimed that the left-media spreads “fake news”, against him, while Democrats claim that Trump and the Russians have been spreading pro-Trump, fake news, While Trump and the Republicans claim that the left-media spreads fake news. In an environment like this, it’s worthwhile to point out that the left-wing and right-wing press is owned by a very few rich people, and none of it is free of their influence. An example of this is the following compilation of many stations praising their news independence: CBS, ABC, NBC, and FOX, praising their independence in exactly the same words.
It costs quite a lot to buy a newspaper or television station, and a lot more to keep it running. Often these are money-losing ventures, and as a result, the major newspapers tend to be owned by a few mega-rich individuals who have social or political axes to grind. As the video above shows, one main axe they have is convincing you of their own independence and reliability. The Sinclair news service, owned by the Smith news family came up with the text, and all the independent journalists read it in as convincing a voice as they could muster. This is not to say. that all the news is this bad or that the mega rich don’t provide a service by providing us the news, but it’s worth noting that they extract a fee by controlling what is said, and making sure that the news you see fits their agendas – agendas that are often obvious and open to the general view.
Perhaps the most prominent voice on the right is Rupert Murdoch who owns The New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal. He used to own Fox too, and is still the majority controller and guiding voice, but Fox is now owned by Disney who also owns ABC. Murdoch uses his many media outlets to make money and promote conservative and Republican causes. You might expect him to support Trump, but he has a person feud with him that boils up in the Post’s cover pages. Disney’s ABC tends to present news on the left, but as in the compilation above, left and right journalists have no problem parroting the same words. Here is another, older compilation, more journalistl saying the same thing in the same words, e.g. playing up the Conan O’Brian show.
Another media master is Ted Turner. He tends to own media outlets on the left including CNN. Turner manages to make CNN, and his other properties profitable, in part by courting controversy. His wife for a time was Jane Fonda, otherwise known as Hanoi Jane.
Another left-leaning media empire (whatever that means) is MSNBC. It is owned by Time-Warner, also owner of The Huffington Post. Both are anti-israel, and both promote zero-tariff, Pacific-rim trade, but as seen above, MSNBC anchors will read whatever trash they are told to read, and often it’s the same stuff you’d find on Fox.
Rounding out the list of those with a complete US media empires, I include the Emir of Qatar, perhaps the richest man in the world. He operates Al Jazeera, “the most respected news site for Middle east reporting” as an influence-buying vehicle. Al Jazeera is strongly anti-fracking, anti nuclear, and anti oil (Qatar is Asia’s latest supplier of natural gas). It is strongly anti-Israel, and anti Saudi. Qatar propagandist, Jamal Khashoggi worked for AlJazeera, and was likely killed for it. They’re also reliably pro-Shia, with positive stories about Hamas, The Muslim Brotherhood, and Iran, but negative stories about Sunni Egypt and Turkey. They present news, but not unbiassed.
But you don’t have to buy a complete media empire to present your politics as unbiassed news. Jeff Bezos, founder Amazon, bought The Washington Post for $250 million (chump change to hm). For most of the past two years, the paper mostly promoted anti-tariff views, and liberal causes, like high tax rates on the rich. Amazon thrives on cheep Chinese imports, and high tax rates don’t hurt because Amazon manages to not pay any taxes on $11 billion/year profits (by clever accounting they actually get a rebate). Recently Joe Biden made the mistake of calling out Amazon for not paying on $11 billion in profits, and The Washington Post has returned the favor by bashing Biden. As for why Bezos bought the money-losing Post, he said: “It is the newspaper in the Capital City of the most important country in the world… [As such] … “it has an incredibly important role to play in this democracy.”
Moving on to The New Your Times, its editorial slant is controlled by another contestant for world’s richest man: telecom mogul, Carlos “Slim” Helú. Carlos’s views are very similar to Bezos’s, with more of an emphasis on free trade with Mexico. Steve Jobs’s widow runs “The Atlantic” for the same reasons. It’s free on line, well written and money losing. Like with the above, it seems to be a vanity project to promote her views. It’s a hobby, but sh can afford it.
Like her, Chris Hughes, Facebook’s Co-founder and Zuckerberg room-mate, bought and runs the money losing “The New Republic“. He was Facebook’s director of marketing and communications before joining the Obama campaign as it internet marketing head. The New Republic’s had a stellar reputation, back in the day. Zuckerberg himself runs a media empire, but it’s different from the above: it’s social media where people pay for placement, and where those whose views he doesn’t like get censored: put in Facebook jail. He’s gotten into trouble over it, but as a media giant, there seem to have been no consequences.
H.L. Menken on the fake news of the early – mid 20th century.
And it’s not only rich individuals who turn trusted news sources into propaganda outlets. The US CIA did this for years, and likely still do. Then there are the Russians, the Chinese, the Israelis, the British (BBC) and our very own NPRt. These sources present news that benefits them in the most positive light and scream about dangers to democracy and the world if their position is touched or their veracity is questioned. As these sources are all government funded, there is a they are unanimous supporters big governments as a cure to all ills. Closer to home, I’d like to mention that Detroit has two major papers, but only one owner. The left leaning Detroit Free Press, and the right-leaning Detroit News are owned by the same people, share a considerable staff, and generally agree on important issues. There are a dozen smaller papers in Metro Detroit; all but one is owned by one media group.
I’d like to end with a positive note. Not every reporter is in this sad grab-bag. In Detroit, Setve Neveling, “the motor-city muckraker” manages to present is independent, active news. Then there is Los Angeles’s Biotech billionaire, Patrick Soon-Shiong. He bought the LA Times in June 2018, claiming he will use it to fight fake news, “the cancer of our time.” I wish him luck. So far, I’d say, he’s made the LA Times is the best Newspaper in the US with The NY Post a close second ( love the snarky headlines).
One remarkable thing about Shakespeare’s plays is how varied they are. There are comedies and tragedies; histories of England, and of Rome, musings on religion, and on drink, and lots of cross-dressing. He wrote at least thirty seven plays between 1590 and 1613, alone or as a major collaborator, and the chart below gives a sense of the scope. I have seen less than half of these plays, so I find the chart below both useful and humorous. The humor of the chart is partly that it presents the common man (us) access to the godly (Shakespeare). That access is the root of the best comedy, in my opinion. Shakespeare also has a comic dog, some total idiots, comic violence to women, and a few other cringeworthy laugh-getters, but we’ll not mention those; it’s low comedy. You’ll notice that Merchant of Venice is listed here as a comedy; I think it was seen that way by Shakespeare. The hero of the play in my opinion, is a woman, Portia, who outsmarts all others by her legal genius at the end. Tragedy is when the great individual can not access great things. At least that’s how I see it. As for History; it’s been said, that it starts as tragedy, and ends as comedy. Shakespeare’s histories include some of each. And as for our, US history, Lincoln was tragedy, like LBJ; Truman was comedy, and Andrew Jackson too. And, as for Trump, who knows?
A Shakespeare collaboration. The collaborator, Fletcher, is cited by name.
Ms Gosling’s graphic, wonderful as it is, lists some but not all of Shakespeare’s collaborations. Two listed ones, “Henry VIII,” and “The Two Noble Kinsmen” were with John Fletcher. The cover shown at right, shows Fletcher named as first author. Since Fletcher outlived Shakespeare and took over the company after his death, I’ll assume these are later plays.
“Henry IV, part 1” is thought to be from Shakespeare’s early career, and seems to have been a mass collaboration: something written by a team the way situation comedies are written today. And “Pericles, Prince of Tyre,” listed near the bottom right, seems to have been a mid-career collaboration with George Wilkins. At least four of Shakespeare’s collaborations don’t appear at all in the graphic. “Edward III” and “The Spanish Tragedy”, appear to have been written with Thomas Kyd, likely early in Shakespeare’s career. Perhaps Gosling felt they don’t represent the real Shakespeare, or perhaps she left them off because they are not performed often. Another collaboration, “Sir Thomas More” (an intentional misspelling of Moore?), is well regarded today, and still put on. An existing manuscript includes 300+ lines written in Shakespeare’s hand. Still, Shakespeare’s main contribution seems to have been editing the play to get it past the censors. Finally, “Cardenio,” is a lost play, likely another collaboration with Fletcher. It got good reviews.
The cool thing about Shakespeare’s play writing, in my opinion, is his willingness to let the characters speak for themselves. Even characters who Shakespeare doesn’t like have their say. They speak with passion and clarity; without interruption or mockery. Writing this way is difficult, and most writers can’t avoid putting themselves and their opinions in the forefront. I applaud Ms Gosling for making Shakespeare accessible. Here’s this month’s issue of her blog, GoodTickleBrain.
Robert Buxbaum, June 26, 2019. As a side note, Shakespeare appears to have been born and died on the same date, April 23; in 1564 and 1616, respectively.
My house is surrounded my mulch — it absorbs enough rainwater that I rarely have to water.
Generally speaking water gets to your basement from rain, and the basic way you avoid wet basements is by providing some more attractive spot for the rainwater to go to. There are two main options here: divert the water to a lake or mulch-filled spot at least 8 feet away from your home, or divert it to a well-operated street or storm drain. My personal preference is a combination of both.
At right I show a picture of my home taken on a particularly nice day in the spring. Out front is a mulch-filled garden and some grass. On the side, not shown is a driveway. Most of the rain that hits our lawn and gardens is retained in 4 inches of mulch, and waters the plants. Four inches of mulch-covered ground will hold at least four inches of rainwater. Most of the rain that hits the house is diverted to downspouts and flows down the driveway to the street. Keeping some rainwater in the mulch means you don’t have to pay so much to water the trees and shrubs. The tree at the center here is an apple tree. I like fruit trees like this, they really suck up water, and I like the apples. We also have blueberries and roses, and a decorative pear (I like pears too, but they are messy).
In my opinion, you want some slope even in the lawn area, so excess rainwater will run to the sewers and not form a yard-lake, but that’s a professional preferences; it’s not always practical and some prefer a brief (vernal ) lake. A vernal lake is one that forms only in the spring. If you’ve got one, you may want to fill it with mulch or add trees that are more water tolerant than the apple, e.g. swamp oak or red cedar. Trees remove excess water via transpiration (enhanced evaporation). Red Cedars grow “knees” allowing them to survive with their roots completely submerged.
For many homes, the trick to avoiding a flooded basement is to get the water away from your home and to the street or a retention area.
When it comes to rain that falls on your hose, one option is to send it to a vernal lake, the other option is to sent it to the street. If neither is working, and you find water in your basement, your first step is to try to figure out where your rainwater goes and how it got there. Follow the water when it’s raining or right after and see where it goes. Very often, you’ll discover that your downspouts or your driveway drain into unfortunate spots: spots that drain to your basement. To the extent possible, don’t let downspout water congregate in a porous spot near your house. One simple correction is to add extenders on the downspouts so that the water goes further away, and not right next to your wall. At left, I show a simple, cheap extender. It’s for sale in most hardware stores. Plastic or concrete downspout pans work too, and provide a good, first line of defense agains a flood basement. I use several to get water draining down my driveway and away from the house.
Sometimes, despite your best efforts, your driveway or patio slopes to your house. If this is the case, and if you are not quite ready to replace your driveway or patio, you might want to calk around your house where it meets the driveway or patio. If the slope isn’t too great, this will keep rainwater out for a while — perhaps long enough for it to dry off, or for most of the rainwater to go elsewhere. When my driveway was put in, I made sure that it sloped away from the house, but then the ground settled, and now it doesn’t quite. I’ve put in caulk and a dirt-dam at the edge of the house. It keeps the water out long enough that it (mostly) drains to the street or evaporates.
A drain valve. Use this to keep other people’s sewer water out of your basement.
There is one more source of wet basement water, one that hits the houses in my area once a year or so. In our area of Oakland county, Michigan, we have combined storm and sanitary sewers. Every so often, after a big rain, other people’s rainwater and sanitary sewage will come up through the basement drains. This is really a 3rd world sewer system, but we have it this way because when it was put in, in the 1900s, it was first world. One option if you have this is to put in a one-way drain valve. There are various options, and I suggest a relatively cheap one. The one shown at right costs about $15 at Ace hardware. It will keep out enough water, long enough to protect the important things in your home. The other option, cheaper and far more hill-billy, is to stuff rags over your basement drains, and put a brick over the rags. I’ll let you guess what I have in my basement.
I visited Qatar twice this month, just passing through and only visited in the airport, but there were several things that so impressed me that I had to write. What impressed me most was not so much the size and richness of the airport, but the clothes of the locals. All of the local men wore the same, very sharp robes: blindingly white, long sleeved, and floor-length. They’re called Thobes. While other nations wear something similar. Here, every one was unwrinkled, and unstained. They all looked new, with no signs they’d ever been washed. Some were worn with cuff-links (gold), and most had a pen sticking out of the breast pocket (gold). White pants peak from underneath and a headress usually sits on the head. It’s a really dramatic look, like seeing dozens of Ricardo Montaubans of Fantasy Island in one place. Local women and children were these too, but I found the thobes so dramatic that the women and children disappeared from my mind-space almost immediately. There is a local woman in the picture above, but you hardly notice.
Not everyone wears the thobes. There are lots of stores filled with gold and technology, beer and coffee, and these are maned by non-locals, Moslems mostly, almost all men. The non-locals wear western garb, not particularly sharp; none wear thobes of any sort. Some months ago, I wrote that China had severe imbalance and speculated that it was ripe for revolution. As it happens the large number of foreign worker means that Qatar is far more unbalanced. To some extent this is shown by the male-female population pyramid below.
Qatar demographic pyramid. The imbalance is caused by the presence of vastly more male than female foreign workers.
Qatar is a country of 2,500,000 residents, of whom 310,000 are locals — citizens and permanent residents. The rest are foreign workers; long term inhabitants without permanent residency or citizenship. They make up 85% of the population. They are recruited from poor, English-speaking Muslim countries mostly: Egypt, Malaysia, Tunisia. They do all the work, as best I could tell. I saw no one who looked like a local working, male or female.
Foreign workers have very few rights, but don’t seem unhappy. There is no right to unionize, and not even the right to roam around the country. For the most part, they live in employer-owned housing, and are transported back and forth to work in employer vans. They sign up for year-long contracts, and at the end of the year, they have the choice to re-up or leave. Up a year ago, foreign workers could not become permanent residents. As of last year, the Emir’s order 10 authorized permanent residency status for as many as 100 foreign workers who had sufficient means, had been in Qatar for 10 to 20 years (depending on whether they were born there), had stayed out of trouble, and who otherwise were considered desirable. It’s a step.
I suspect that the foreign workers feel lucky to have good pay, decent hours, and a clean bed. Then again, the workers are recruited for positive outlook. And the ones I saw might have had more rights than most. The airport is part of the Umm Al Houl, free enterprise zone. These are areas of Qatar where westerners and their vices like alcohol are tolerated and welcome.
Qatar natural gas production. Natural gas provides 90% of the country’s income as best I can tell. That’s half the GDP almost, the rest of the GDP is Qataris spending the money
There are three “free enterprise zones” in Qatar; the name for the one near the airport, “Al Houl” interestingly enough means “bird trap”. What’s going on with them, as best I can tell, is diversification. Qatar is the worlds second largest exporter of natural gas, with most going to Europe, and a significant portion to India and China. But the gas will run out eventually. They are trying to supplant this income with tourism, industry and transport: running a major airline, a bustling, air hub, and tourist hotels. The airline is only marginally profitable, and though I didn’t see the hotels, I imagine they are luxurious and marginally profitable too. Saudi Arabia, next door, is trying to diversify the same ways, aiming to control west-east, air-traffic via Emirates air.
The GDP of Qatar is $191 B as of last year at the going exchange, and over $450 B at price parity. That suggests a few things. For one that the Qatari currency is undervalued. It also suggests a per-capita GDP of at least $76,400, or perhaps of $616,000 or higher depending on how you count buying power and foreign workers. This money buys a nice lifestyle, if not republican freedoms. In terms of government, Qatar is a real monarchy, Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani’s is an absolute ruler who came to power the traditional way: he overthrew his father. Similar to this, his father, Khalifa al-Thani, came to power by overthrowing his cousin. Supporting the Emir’s rule, there is an Advisory Council. The 35 ministers are mostly relatives, and as in North Korea, it has only advisory power. The Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs is Sheikh Hamad bin Jasim bin Jabir al-Thani; the Deputy Prime Minister is Abdallah Al-Thani. The Economy and Commerce minister is Fahd Al-Thani, and the Communications and Transport minister is Ahmad Al-Thani. Nasir al-Thani heads Cabinet Affairs; Hamad al-Thani is the Secretary of State, and the Governor of the Central Bank is Abdallah bin Saud al-Thani.
Qatar main mosque. Residents stand out from the foreign workers.
My sense was that Qatar was the Disneyland version of Islam. Life in the Qatari free zones resembled normal Islamic life the way that Main Street of Disneyland resembles an actual main street in the US. Every citizen is well dress and rich without having to work. Western visitors are welcome, and not forced to follow the local customs with vices in their own zones. And the state supports all ecological and left-wing causes except for unionization. It’s anti Israel, pro revolution (elsewhere of course) and virulently against petroleum production in all counties outside of Qatar. Al Jazeera, the Emir’s left-leaning news agency, spreads money and influence world-wide. Left-flavored news is presented with high-quality graphics, and different versions of the news story published in different languages. The Emir acknowledges that Al Jazeera is a money-losing propaganda agency, but as with Disneyland, most people seem happy to live the fiction.
Qatari woman and shop. They blend into the scenery compared to the resplendent men
The local Qataris seem happy with their lot, as best I can tell. The next world soccer tournament will be held in Qatar, 2022, and Qatari’s are excited, as best I can tell. There is a lot of building going on, some for the world cup, the rest for general tourism and the free enterprise zones. The free enterprise zones may catch on, but there is a cold war going on with Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi’s are doing what they can to pour cold water on the programs. So far Qatar seems to be winning the propaganda war at home and abroad. Its people are happy, it shows a beautiful, progressive face to the west, and it seems to have the majority of the middle east travel. Stable but for how long?
Robert Buxbaum April 15, 2019. As I side note, I just bought a Qatari Thobe.
On a street corner about 1/4 mile from my house, at the intersection of the two busiest of the local streets, in the center-median of the street, is parked a police car. He’s there, about 18 hours a day, looking to give out tickets. The cross-street that this officer watches is where drivers get off the highway. In theory, they should instantly go from 65 mph on the highway to 35 mph now. Very few people do. The officer does not ticket every car, by the way, but seems to target those of poor people from outside the city limits. The only time ai was ticketed, I was driving a broken-down car while mine was in the shop. As best I can tell, he choose cars for revenue, not for safety. It’s a speed trap. It’s appalling. And our city isn’t alone in having one.
Speed traps are an annoyance to rich, local folk who sometimes get ticketed, but they’re a disaster for the poor. Poor people are targeted, and these people don’t have any savings. They don’t have the means to pay a suddenly imposed bill of $150 or more. Meanwhile, the speed-trap officer is incentivized to increase revenue and look for other violations: expired registrations or insurance, seat-belt violations, open alcohol, unpaid tickets. Double and triple fines are handed out, and sometimes the car is impounded. A poor driver is often left without any legal way to get to work, to earn money to pay the fines. Police officers behave this way because they are evaluated based on the revenue they generate, based on the number of tickets they write. It’s a horrible situation, especially for the poor
An article on the effect of speed traps. It appears they do little good and cause much pain, especially to the poor. Here is a link to the whole article.
The article above looks at the impact of speed traps on poor people. The damage is extreme. The folks targeted are often black, barely holding it together financially. They are generally not in a position to pay $150 for “impeding traffic,” and even less in a position to deal with having their car impounded. How are they supposed to pay the bill? And yet they are told they are lucky to have been given this ticket — impeding traffic, a ticket with no “points.” But they are not lucky. They are victims. Tickets with no points is are money generators, and many poor people realize it. If they were to get a speeding ticket, they would have the opportunity to void the penalty by going to traffic school. With a ticket for impeding traffic, there is no school option. Revenue stays local, mostly in that police precinct. Poor people know it, and they don’t like it. I don’t either. After a while, poor people cease to trust the police, or to even speak to them.
In what world should you pay $150 for impeding traffic, by the way? In what world should the police be taken from their main job protecting the people and turned into a revenue arm for the city? I’d like to see this crazy cycle ended. The first steps, I think, are to end speed traps, and to limit the incentive for giving minor tickets, like impeding traffic. As it is we have too many people in jail and too many harsh penalties.
Robert Buxbaum, April 10, 2019. I ran for water commissioner in 2016, and may run again in 2020.
A month of so ago, I went to see a sleep doctor for my snoring. I got a take-home breathing test that gave me the worst night’s sleep in recent memory. A few days later, I got a somber diagnosis: “You are a walking zombie.” Apparently, I hold my breath for ten seconds or more every minute and a half while sleeping. Normal is supposed to be every 4 to 10 minutes. But by this standard, more than half of all middle-aged men are sub-normal (how is this possible?). As a result of my breath-holding, the wrinkled, unsmiling DO claimed I’m brain-dead now and will soon be physically dead unless I change my ways. Without spending 3 minutes with me, the sleep expert told me that I need to lose weight, and that I need a C-Pap (continuous positive airway pressure) device as soon as possible. It’s supposed to help me lose that weight and get back the energy. With that he was gone. The office staff gave me the rest of the dope: I was prescribed a “ResMed” brand C-Pap, supplied by a distributor right across the hall from the doctor (how convenient).
I picked up the C-Pap three months later. Though I was diagnosed as needing one “as soon as possible,” no one would release the device until they were sure it was covered by my insurance company. The device when I got it, was something of a horror. The first version I tried fit over the whole face and forces air into my mouth and nose simultaneously, supposedly making it easier to inhale, but harder to exhale. I found it more than a bit uncomfortable. The next version was nose only and marginally more comfortable. I found there was a major air-flow restriction when I breath in and a similar pressure penalty when I breathed out. And it’s loud. And, if you open your mouth, there is a wind blowing through. As for what happens if the pump fails or the poor goes out, I notice that there are the tiniest of air-holes to prevent me from suffocating, barely. A far better design would have given me a 0-psi flapper valve for breathing in, and a 1/10 psi flapper for breathing out. That would also reduce the pressure restriction I was feeling every time I took a deep breath. One of my first blog essays was about engineering design aesthetics; you want your designs to improve things under normal conditions and fail safe, not like here. Using this device while awake was anything but pleasant, and I found I still hold my breath, even while awake, about every 5 minutes.
Since I have a lab, and the ability to test these things, I checked the pressure of the delivered air, and found it was 3 cm of water, about 1/20 psi. The prescription was for 5 cm or water (1/14 psi). The machine registers this, but it is wrong. I used a very simple water manometer, a column of water, similar to the one I used to check the pressure drop in furnace air filters. Is 1/20 psi enough?How did he decide on 1/14 psi by the way? I’ve no idea. !/14 psi is about 1/200 atm. Is this enough to do anything? While the C-Pap should get me to breathe more, I guess, about half of all users stop after a few tries, and my guess is that they find it as uncomfortable as I have. There is no research evidence that treatment with it reduces stroke or heart attack, or extends life, or helps with weight loss. The assumption is that, if you force middle-aged men to hold their breath less, they will be healthier, but I’ve no clear logic or evidence to back the assumption. At best, anything you gain on the ease of breathing in, you lose on the difficulty of breathing out. The majority of middle-aged men are prescribed a C-Pap, if they go for a sleep study, and it’s virtually 100% for overweight men with an apple-shaped body.
I’d have asked my doctor about alternatives or for a second opinion but he was out the door too fast. Besides, I was afraid I’d get the same answer that Rodney Dangerfield got: “You want a second opinion? OK. You’re ugly, too.” Mr. Dangerfield was not a skinny comic, by the way, but he was funny, and I assume he’d have been prescribed a C-Pap (maybe he was). He died at 82, considerably older than Jim Fixx, “the running doctor,” Adelle Davis, the “eat right for health” doctor, Euell Gibbons “in search of the wild asparagus,” or Ethan Pritkin, the diet doctor. God seems to prefer fat comedians to diet experts; I expect that most-everyone does.
Benjamin Franklin and his apple-shaped body; I don’t think of him as a zombie.
What really got my goat, besides my dislike of the C-Pap, is that I object to being called a walking zombie. True, I’m not as energetic as I used to be, but I manage to run a company, and to write research papers, and I get patents (this one was approved just today). And I write these blogs — I trust that any of you who’ve read this far find them amusing. Pretty good for a zombie — and I ran for water commissioner. People who use the C-Pap self-report that they have more energy, but self-reporting is poor evidence. A significant fraction of those people who start with the C-Pap, stop, and those people, presumably were not happy. Besides, a review of the internet suggests that a similarly large fraction of those who buy a “MyPillow.com” claim they have more energy. And I’ve seen the same claims from people who take a daily run, or who pray, or smoke medical marijuana (available for sleep apnea, but not from this fellow), or Mirtazapine (study results here), or for electro-shock therapy, a device called “Inspire.” With so many different products providing the same self-reported results, I wonder if there isn’t something more fundamental going on. I’d wish the doc had spent a minute or two to speak to this, or to the alternatives.
As for weight loss, statistical analysis of lifespan suggests that there is a health advantage to being medium weight: not obese, but not skinny. I present some of this evidence here, along with evidence that extra weight helps ward off Alzheimer’s. For all I know this protection is caused by holding your breath every few minutes. It helps to do light exercise, but not necessary for mental health. In terms of mental health, the evidence suggests that weight loss is worse than nothing.
Jared Gray, author of the Alien movies, was diagnosed with apnea, so he designed his own sleep-mask.
Benjamin Franklin was over-weight and apple-shaped, and no zombie, The same is true of John Adams, Otto Von Bismarck, and Alfred Hitchcock. All lived long, productive lives. Hitchcock was sort of morbid, it will be admitted, but I would not want him otherwise. Ed McMahon, Johnny Carson’s side-kick, apologized to America for being overweight and smoking, bu the outlived Johnny Carson by nine years, dying at 89. Henry Kissinger is still alive and writing at 95. He was always fatter than any of the people he served. He almost certainly had sleep apnea, back in the day, and still has more on the ball, in my opinion, than most of the talking-head on TV. The claim that overweight, middle-aged men are all zombies without a breath assisting machine doesn’t make no sense to me. But then, I’m not a sleep doctor. (Do sleep doctors get commissions? Why did he choose, this supplier or this brand device? With so little care about patients, I wonder who runs the doctor’s office.)
I looked up my doctor on this list provided by the American Board of Sleep Medicine. I found my doctor was not certified in sleep medicine. I suppose certified doctors would prescribe something similar but was disappointed that you don’t need sleep certification to operate as a sleep specialist. In terms of masks, I figure, if you’ve got to wear something, you might as well wear something cool. Author Jared Gray, shown above (not the author of the Alien) was diagnosed with Apnea 6 months ago and made his own C-Pap mask to make it look like the alien was attacking him. Very cool for an ex-zombie, but I’m waiting to see a burst of creative energy.
What do we zombies want? Brains.
When do we want them? Brains.
What do vegetarian zombies want? Grains.
Robert Buxbaum, March 15, 2019. In case real zombies should attack, here’s what to do. An odd legal/insurance issue: in order to get the device, I had to sign that, if I didn’t use it for 20 days in the first month of 4 hours per night, and thus if the insurance did not pay, I would be stuck with the full fee. I signed. This might cost me $1000 though normally in US law, companies can only charge a reasonable restock fee, but it can’t be unreasonable, like the full price. I also had to sign that I would go back to the same, quick-take doctor, but again there has to be limits. We’ll see how the machine pans out, but one difference I see already: unlike my pillow.com, there is no money back guarantee with the C-Pap treatment.
