What is absolutely staggering to me is that it is impossible to discuss this issue with any even moderately right leaning American.

They either believe that you are lying or that it is correct for the health insurance companies to act as the death boards that they were so afraid of back when Obama was President.

These problems are not fixable because we still consider the opinions of the hateful idiots valid and worthy of discussion. Until we are able to be intolerant of intolerance this is the status quo in perpetuity.

BlackRock is Suing UnitedHealth for Giving “Too Much Care” to Patients After the CEO was Murdered

Bullish though.

I have spent literally 8 days on and off trying to think of how to answer this without snark. Wrote and deleted lots of paragraphs with lots of links. They don't matter. There's not even any value in convincing anyone of it because it won't change anything anyway.

Memory hole in full effect for literally everything.

Sure. Hyperbole.

I should have said 'nation state' when I said 'world government.'

I'm not screaming about globalists and blood libel. There is a specific line of associations, money, and national commendations and honors between Maxwell the elder, Maxwell the younger, Epstein, and the nation state of Israel.

I would love to know what your understanding of these events is that isn't a conspiracy theory that accounts for the facts of Epstein's life as it relates to Maxwell and guys like Dershowitz and Trump.

Never heard of that when it was relevant at the time. I'll keep that one tucked away for the nightmare scenario that it comes back.

Yeah, I can't imagine getting it when I'm too old to ever have enough cellular turnover to heal properly from it. I'm already too familiar with fire that never goes out.

I went to see Jane Goodall speak last night.

She said that something has changed in her students, and so she had to do a last speaking tour to try and change that.

Paraphrasing -

She said 'My students come to me and they tell me they are depressed and anxious. And why shouldn't they be? We live in times of great turmoil and violence and hate. I grew up in the last days of World War 2, and remember those feelings in my youth. My students come to me and they say they are depressed, and that there's nothing they can do. And it's urgent that I correct them, because there is always something we can do.'

She went on to give her reasons for hope, for optimism, for the value of putting in efforts to improve human wellbeing, and by extension, that of the environment, and animal wellbeing. She talked about how when the forest around Gombe was logged, logged to the point that their park was just an island of green in an ocean of brown, dry hills, they didn't start their activism racing to plant new trees. They went into the villages where people were logging and asked 'What do you need?' and then they worked to fill those needs. Regenerative farming techniques and supplies so they didn't need to slash and burn new forest for fields to feed their families. Lobbying to the government of Tanzania to get the people who lived in the villages surrounding Gombe the healthcare resources and professionals they were promised. Education for their children and young women, to give them opportunity and a future. And when they did that, the conditions were such that they didn't need to log so destructively, and so much. And while the equatorial rainforest that once spanned the continent is still in tatters, the area around Gombe is rich, verdant, and provably recovered such that the native plants and animals can re assert most of their ways of life.

I wept. Last night spoke to a part of me that I don't like to acknowledge much anymore because of how much has been lost in the last decade. The part of me that wants very badly to believe that leaning in to others suffering and discomfort, connection through the shared human experience of grief can be transformative for good. That a hand held out, can be outstretched with palm raised, to uplift, and not further strike down someone hurting before they become a threat themselves. I want to believe very badly that this current way of things is abnormal, an aberration, and a return to something like 'normal' is possible, that would be different from the daily excisions and losses and furies of the moment.

Maybe I can blow on that spark, for internal balance if nothing else. I'm certainly little else but a vessel of wrath these days.

It's hard to not feel justified in the anger though.

There's a lot I could add to KB's post. He's got some of the major nuts and bolts there. I'm sure any point I make wouldn't be given fair scrutiny.

He died a spies death and Maxwell is buried on the Mount of Olives and part of his memorial was “He has done more for Israel than can today be said.” delivered by the then prime minister Yitzhak Shamir.

I'm very much not going 'The jews are behind it' and very much saying 'The idea that a nation state* benefitted from Epsteins evil work isn't radical.' And to say that the government of israel has political ambition and power over the government of the united states through many different means isn't radical. Tell me what else AIPAC is.

Ultimately it doesn't matter, because we can't do anything about it either way.

Yup. That all tracks with my experience of it too. Glad you got it early.

The healing process isn't fun. It will happen though. The nerve pain will subside, with time. Hard to judge the scale, because my own case got more developed than yours, so I won't speculate.

For what its worth, extra hot showers and massage always helped me when I was recuperating. Extra hot showers and epsom salt soak/scrub.

They really do. Sorry man.

I really hope you have valcyclovir or a similar tier anti retroviral in your system. Even with it, took me ages to begin to heal from it.

The only good news is that you can totally prevent future flares by keeping valcyclovir at home. I usually take 2-3 doses a year when I feel the tingle pick up in my spine.

Yeah I saw the live leak tier video.

AP confirmed he is dead. Hopefully hell is hot.

I keep hearing from other progressives 'We need to show more love to people with opposing viewpoints.'

No.

NOT. WHEN. THAT. VIEWPOINT. WILL. COST. ME. AND. OTHERS. THEIR. LIVES.

First I appreciate this post. The spirit behind it, and the desire to live life in such a way that you can look back on it with contentment is good and noble.

I'm 33.

I don't know about 'conjuring' but:

When I remember the day I went down to UMich to interview for the job that wound up providing the path to the semi-stability I enjoy now. I remember a lot. Not details of any conversation, but the sensation. I remember driving home after the interview, the late afternoon sun on my face, the intense beauty of the shafts of light that came down from the clouds with such strength they look like they held up the sky. The feeling of 'I did it. My late nights were worth it. My tears were worth it. My exhaustion was worth it. My arguments with my parents about going to an actual reputable school not Hillsdale University or Liberty were worth it.' The feeling that my college years were indeed spent well. Not over fixated on partying, not over fixated on academic success at the expense of everything else. The feeling of satisfaction that I lived my life in balance as best I knew how and that produced tangible good fruit.

When I remember my history with music, I remember all the beautiful things it lets me think and feel and experience that I would never know existed otherwise. The absolute shock of a group of middle school children producing something that sounds like actual enjoyable music, not honking. The sensation of shame of being told 'You would be better if you practiced more' while being unable to say 'I live in a house of less than 1100 square feet with six other people. I can't. There is no time or place for me to do so' I remember the smell of the small office on the college campus where I had my first violin lessons. I remember standing in that same office, those same rooms again as an undergrad, my friends not understanding why I was teary for no reason in the middle of the day.

I remember learning, after 15 years of lessons in instrumental music, I might be a better singer than violinist, or trombone player, or french horn player. How naturally and easily musical rehearsal came. I remember that feeling.

I remember the first time I stepped off stage from a choir concert, just family and friends in the audience, so flushed with joy and light I could laugh, weep and sing the whole show again. I remember that feeling.

I remember sitting in an emergency room on my twenty-third birthday, foaming pink blood in my mouth and lungs, being told if I got on the plane to New York City for my first performance at Carnegie Hall, I could die on the plane, or be totally fine, but that my condition wasn't well understood, and I would be gambling with my life in the air and in a city where no one knew me. I made my choice, and do not regret it. I remember the mix of fear and determination in that young man. I weep for the position I was put in, and I cheer myself for the courage to say 'I know my body, even when the MD PHDs don't. I will live. I will sing. I will have a life outside of my illness.'

I remember meeting you for wings in New York. My first experience with Korean fried chicken. I treasure the memory.

I remember the sensation of finishing my first concert on stage at Carnegie. The stillness in between the last note and before the applause. That magical moment of shared human experience of the numinous. Standing on stage before a roaring crowd. Sweat, tears, smiles. I remember the sensation of watching the senior members of my choir trying to downplay their own joy, trying to act 'like they had been here before' for us new guys, like its not also intensely moving for them too.

If I died today, I would have regrets. But by and large I am content with my choices. Maybe this is less common, but I find myself regretting giving people second and third chances when I knew they weren't capable of better. At the time, I know I was trying to be magnanimous and forgiving. With what I know now, I wasted a lot of healthy years of my life on people who were always going to be hateful republican stooges no matter what I said or did. I regret not using those years developing more relationships with people who do share my values. I regret not telling my father in law, mother in law, and their entire congregation to get bent earlier. I regret giving them a chance when I knew already what they would do, and have done in any given circumstance. I regret attempting to have a polite relationship with people who would see me dead from hospital defunding.

When I have spent time reading the deathbed conversations of people who have lived long lives, I don't see much that can be taken as general principle. I think that if we are fortunate, we can find people who have lived lives that we want to emulate, and could ask them if they felt it was 'worth it' in the end.

Not being able to continue to work in my chosen field to reduce human suffering from illness/disease bothers me, because I know that many people who spent their lives in the service of the reduction of human suffering through medicine have died more content than the average bear. Is this a universal? Nah. But it doesn't need to be. I suppose its a variation on 'Do whatever it is you can't bear to see left undone.'

Isn't dissolving The credibility of HHS literally part of the point? Isn't that literally like step one of the Republican plan to starve the beast?

thenewgreen you probably can't see these but I am deeply curious to hear the apologia.

So Bullish.

Carving this has been art therapy in a way I didn't know I needed. You're one big stick and a $25 chisel set away from your own wizard staff