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Why It's So Difficult to Buy Contacts in the U.S. - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...602482 costs health-care barrier regulation
shared by Javier E on 27 Nov 19 - No Cached
  • a fact that has puzzled me ever since I moved to the United States a dozen years ago. In every other country in which I’ve lived—Germany and Britain, France and Italy—it is far easier to buy glasses or contact lenses than it is here. In those countries, as in Peru, you can simply walk into an optician’s and ask a store employee to give you an eye test, likely free of charge. If you already know your strength, you can just tell them what you want. You can also buy contact lenses from the closest drugstore without having to talk to a single soul—no doctor’s prescription necessary.
  • why does the United States require people who want to purchase something as simple as a curved piece of plastic to get a prescription, preceded by a costly medical exam?
  • On the one hand, some number of Americans who visit an optometrist to get a new prescription will indeed discover that they have a serious condition that requires immediate care. On the other hand, it is likely that a much greater number keep wearing glasses that are too weak—or won’t wear glasses at all—because they want to avoid the cost, time, or stress of a visit to a doctor.
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  • the added cost of having to see an optometrist presumably stops many Americans from accessing the corrective lenses they need to improve their vision. Is the desirability of an eye exam performed by a medical professional a sufficient reason to prevent Americans who would rather not—or cannot—visit an optometrist from buying glasses and contacts?
  • it’s reasonable to assume that it has an adverse impact on many people, especially underprivileged Americans—those who don’t have insurance, have little cash, or lack the social or financial capital to navigate our country’s byzantine medical system.
  • many people have a financial interest in this burdensome system. If Americans no longer needed to book appointments with optometrists to buy glasses or contacts, many optometrists would see their salaries cut, and some might go out of business altogether.
  • I stood firm, and later went online to order perfectly fine glasses and contact lenses at a fraction of the price. But how many customers give in to heavy-handed sales tactics?
  • When I last went to an eye exam at a storefront optician in the United States, for example, the staff gave me the hard sell on glasses that would have cost hundreds of dollars, as well as on contact lenses that were much more expensive than identical ones sold by online retailers. Thankfully, I knew that two laws, one passed in 1997 and the other in 2003—which had, incidentally, been loudly opposed by the AOA—gave me the right to demand a copy of my prescription.
  • Optometrists are also a source of revenue for opticians, from large chains like Specsavers to independent stores in malls and town centers across the United States. Since they often work on-site, they have an incentive to nudge their patients to buy the products on hand.
  • Democrats who care about the well-being of the socioeconomically disadvantaged—and are worried about the health disparities between different ethnic groups—should be outraged by the unreasonable burden the situation places on underprivileged Americans.
  • Republicans who believe in the free market should look on this red tape as an unnecessary intrusion on free enterprise
  • Even in times of extreme polarization and a deeply broken Congress, this is one piece of sensible legislation that should be able to command bipartisan support
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The Boy in the Bubble | Retro Report | The New York Times - YouTube - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch us history culture retro report retro report health medicine david baby david medical disease ethics
shared by bluekoenig on 03 Dec 19 - No Cached
  • bluekoenig on 03 Dec 19
     
    This is a Retro Report about David, a boy born with a severe immunodeficiency in the early 70's, who was kept in a series of sterile plastic "bubbles" to keep him alive until a cure was found. His life raised many questions about the ethics of his treatment, but all the publicity led to new research and advancements that stopped similar things happening to others with the same illness
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The age of perpetual crisis: how the 2010s disrupted everything but resolved nothing | ... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...verything-but-resolved-nothing 2010s decade review history politics culture crisis uk
shared by Javier E on 28 Dec 19 - No Cached
  • How will we remember the last 10 years? Above all, as a time of crises. During the 2010s, there have been crises of democracy and the economy; of the climate and poverty; of international relations and national identity; of privacy and technology
  • The world of the 2000s, she concluded, “has been swept away”. In place of centrist politicians and steady economic growth, the 2010s have brought shocks, revolts and extremists. Hung parliaments; rightwing populists in power; physical attacks on politicians; Russian influence on western elections; elderly leftists galvanising young Britons and Americans; rich, rightwing leaders in both countries captivating working-class voters – scenarios close to unimaginable a decade ago have become familiar, almost expected.
  • In the 2010s, it has often felt as if everything is up for grabs – from the future of capitalism to the future of the planet – and yet nothing has been decided. Between the decade’s sense of stasis and sense of possibility, an enormous tension has built up
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  • Perhaps the most frightening of this year’s many apocalyptic books is The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells. Its chapter titles read: Heat Death. Hunger. Drowning. Dying Oceans. Unbreathable Air. Wildfire. Plagues. Economic Collapse. Climate Conflict. It’s intended to be a forecast of the planet’s near future that will shock readers out of their complacency. But during the 2010s almost all the disasters that the book names have already started to happen.
  • As one of the New Optimists’ favourite sources, the website Our World in Data, had to admit this year: “In some aspects the data suggests the world is getting worse.”
  • the awareness that much of modern life – air travel, car travel, eating meat, shopping, using plastics – has malign consequences has grown from a minority preoccupation in the 1970s into an everyday topic.
  • Sometimes in the 2010s, it has felt as if the whole world we have made, from the tiniest exhaust particle to the most sprawling conurbation, is toxic.
  • Nowadays, the fear is almost universal. The creation of social media networks over the last decade and a half, starting with Twitter in 2006, and the conversion of traditional media into non-stop news services, have made awful events seem relentless and impossible to ignore. We have become perpetually anxious.
  • In a working world that requires quick switches between inactivity and activity, that values powers of endurance, caffeine is a vital drug. In many British town and city centres during the 2010s, otherwise emptied out by online commerce, cafes proliferated, replacing shops and pubs as the busiest indoor spaces.
  • When people say “It is what it is”, they are rarely challenged. Instead, they are usually heard in respectful silence. In a difficult world, fatalism and stoicism are useful qualities.
  • Another coping mechanism is escape. Possibly the most revealing leisure activity of the 2010s is shutting yourself away with a TV series: typically a drama set in another country or another era, with an addictive, slowly resolved plot, many characters, elaborate settings, and enough episodes to allow for watching in binges. In an age of squeezed incomes, TV dramas are worlds you can explore on the cheap.
  • During the decade, it became cooler than usual in Britain to eat comforting things: bread, cakes, pies, even grilled cheese sandwiches. The Great British Bake Off, first broadcast in 2010, made cooking with lots of carbs and sugar respectable again
  • Clothes have become more cocooning: enormous puffer jackets, scarves the size of small blankets, fleeces and woolly hats. In the 2000s, clothes and silhouettes were leaner and more formal – tight suits, skinny trousers – as if people expected to seize exciting new opportunities, or at least to work in offices. In the 2010s, social mobility has stalled, and many of the jobs being created – and often taken by middle-class graduates – involve zero-hours contracts and outdoor work
  • “It is what it is.” Usually, it means: “I’m learning to live with something negative” – a personal setback, a wider injustice, difficult circumstances. It’s a mantra for an age of diminishing expectations, when many people no longer assume – unlike their postwar predecessors – that they will become richer than their parents, and live in an ever more sophisticated or just society, on an ever more hospitable planet
  • Another way to cope with the 2010s has been to work obsessively on yourself. From the 1950s to the 1990s, being young in the west was often associated with lounging around, or rebelling, or living for the moment. But in the 2010s being young often means relentlessly working and studying, polishing your public persona, and keeping fit
  • Yoga, marathons, triathlons – it’s not hard to see their renewed popularity over the last decade as an effort by people, conscious or otherwise, to hone themselves for a tougher world.
  • this self-optimisation can be measured, and compared with the efforts of others, as never before. This process has created a new hierarchy, particularly within the American middle class, but increasingly in its European counterpart, too, which privileges the leanest people, the most punishing exercise classes, the most body-conscious brands of workout clothes.
  • finally, the harsher world of the 2010s has also prompted many people to undergo a more private, less visible toughenin
  • They have got used to walking past the decade’s casualties in the street, and not giving them much thought. In the 2010s, as in Victorian times, if you want an untroubled mind, it doesn’t pay to look at the world around you too hard.
  • the difficulties since 2010 of so many previously dominant value systems – capitalism, centrism, traditional conservatism, white male supremacy – have opened up space for new political movements, at a rate not seen since the 1960s.
  • the 2010s have reacquainted voters with the idea that politics can be about big promises and fundamental choices.
  • the 2010s have also brought a renewed realisation that culture is political – after decades when most creative people and cultural critics avoided that conclusion. Literary and art prizes now regularly go to people whose work is overtly political, such as Margaret Atwood
  • Although prizes are inherently elitist, they are now also increasingly expected to promote greater equality in society as a whole. It is a contradiction characteristic of the decade’s politics, where a greater awareness of the injustices suffered by many social groups, and sometimes a greater willingness to redress them, co-exists with an intensifying individualism – with a growing preference for letting people self-identify and respecting each person’s particular life experience
  • In 2012, Mark Fisher said that Britain was suffering from “depression economics and boomtime politics”: the disengagement prompted by the relatively comfortable 1990s and 2000s was lingering on, despite the reopening of so many economic issues by the financial crisis. Seven years later, apathy remains a habit for many Britons
  • digital technology, far from enabling more creativity, had actually made it both harder and less essential for artists. Instead of coming up with new ideas, they could now roam the internet’s infinite archives, and build careers out of clever hybrids and pastiches of previous forms.
  • Pop culture from the 1990s, in particular, such as the cosy TV series Friends, has become hugely popular again. In our often backward-looking society, “Time itself seem[s] to become sluggish,” wrote Reynolds, “like a river that starts to meander”
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Warming oceans force leatherback turtles on longer journeys to feed | Environment | The... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...les-on-longer-journeys-to-feed crisis culture history
shared by blythewallick on 16 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • Leatherback turtles are making exhausting journeys, in some cases nearly twice as long as usual, from nesting to feeding grounds, because of rising ocean temperatures and changing sea currents.
  • In another stark example of the dangers to marine life from human actions, one turtle followed was found dead on a beach in Suriname only 120km (74 miles) from the starting point, drowned after having become enmeshed in a discarded fishing net.
  • Warming oceans pose clear dangers to human life as they lead to more intense storms and rising sea levels, but the impact of the increasing frequency of heatwaves at sea on marine species is much less studied. There is evidence that some species, including commercially important fish such as cod, are migrating towards the poles in search of cooler waters, but more research is needed for a fuller picture.
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  • Though small in scale, the research provides an insight into how some marine species are being forced to adapt to the warming oceans. This week scientists warned that ocean temperatures had reached record levels with the last five years, which were the five hottest on record.
  • Estimates say more than half of all sea turtles have ingested plastic. The animals also face threats from overfishing, though they are mainly bycatch rather than targets.
  • “Sea turtles survived the extinction of the dinosaurs, but they might not survive us,” said Will McCallum, a campaigner at Greenpeace. “Human activity has put such severe pressure on sea turtle populations around the world that six out of the seven species are threatened with extinction. Without urgent action the situation will only get worse.”
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UN sets 2030 biodiversity targets as we face a mass extinction - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html
shared by katherineharron on 17 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • Almost a third of the Earth will need to be protected by 2030 and pollution cut by half to save our remaining wildlife, as we enter the planet's sixth era of mass extinction, according to a United Nations agency.
  • "Biodiversity, and the benefits it provides, is fundamental to human well-being and a healthy planet," the draft plan reads. "Despite ongoing efforts, biodiversity is deteriorating worldwide and this decline is projected to continue or worsen under business-as-usual scenarios."
  • The convention aims to stabilize our fragile biodiversity by 2030 and allow ecosystems to recover by 2050, allowing for a final vision of "living in harmony with nature" -- but these goals will require urgent action on both local and global levels.
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  • One target is to give protected status to sites important for biodiversity -- covering at least 30% of these land and sea areas by 2030, with at least 10% under "strict protection." Another target is to cut pollution from biocides, plastic wastes, and excess nutrients by at least 50%.
  • For years, scientists have warned that we are in the midst of a mass extinction -- the sixth in the planet's history, and the first one caused by humans.
  • We have wrecked the world's natural ecosystems -- almost 600 plant species have been wiped out in the past 250 years, an extinction rate 500 times faster than it would have been without human intervention. The plants' mass extinction spell trouble for the millions of species -- including humans -- that depend upon them.
  • But the population boom won't end anytime soon. The draft plan released Monday warned that the current world population of 7.6 billion is expected to reach 8.6 billion by 2030 and 9.8 billion by 2050 -- with severe "implications for the demand for resources, including food, infrastructure and land use."
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As House Was Breached, a Fear 'We'd Have to Fight' to Get Out - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...tol-breach-trump-protests.html US politics crisis
shared by ethanshilling on 07 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • The mob of Trump supporters pressed through police barricades, broke windows and battered their way with metal poles through entrances to the Capitol.
  • Then, stunningly, they breached the “People’s House” itself, forcing masked police officers to draw their guns to keep the insurgents off the chamber floor.
  • “I thought we’d have to fight our way out,” said Representative Jason Crow, Democrat of Colorado and a former Army Ranger in Iraq, who found himself captive in the House chamber.
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  • An armed standoff ensued in the House chamber, with police officers drawing their weapons. A pro-Trump protester casually monkeyed around at the dais of the Senate.
  • It began around 1 p.m., when a mass of Trump supporters, some in camouflage and armed with baseball bats or knives, left the National Mall and, encouraged by President Trump, ascended on the Capitol complex.
  • “I don’t trust any of these people,” said Eric Martin, 49, a woodworker from Charleston, S.C., as he marveled at the opulence of the Capitol and helped a friend wash pepper spray from his eyes. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
  • The Capitol Police fatally shot a woman inside the building, according to Chief Robert J. Contee of the Metropolitan Police Department, and multiple officers were injured.
  • “This is what the president has caused today, this insurrection,” Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, said as he and other senators were hustled off to a secure location.
  • Soon, a nervous energy pulsed through the room. The police began to close the gallery doors, which had remained open to allow for better ventilation as lawmakers streamed in. Congressional leaders were quickly ushered out, as staff aides urged lawmakers in the gallery and on the floor to remain calm.
  • For about an hour, the Trump loyalists went in and out of at least one entrance of the Capitol with little disruption from the police.
  • The few police officers standing on the steps of the Capitol were overwhelmed. Their flash bang grenades only invigorated the protesters. Around 2:30, an entrance near the west side of the Capitol descended into chaos as a wave of Trump supporters wearing Make America Great Again apparel pressed past police barricades.
  • In the House, just after 2:30 p.m., a police officer stepped on the dais and informed lawmakers that they might need to duck under their chairs.
  • Frantic shouting filled the room as lawmakers struggled to unfold the plastic bags that they were instructed to prepare to put over their heads in case of tear gas.
  • In a surreal scene of chaos and glee, hundreds of Trump loyalists roamed the halls, taking photos and breaking into offices. No police officers were in view.
  • “We’re claiming the House, and the Senate is ours,” a sweaty man in a checked shirt shouted, stabbing his finger in the air.
  • “You guys just need to go outside,” he said to a man in a green backpack. Asked why the police were not forcing the mob out, the officer said, “We just got to let them do their thing for now.”
  • One protester came up to him and shouted in his face, “Traitor!” When another man approached to apologize to the officer, the officer replied, “You’re fine.”
  • Around 3:30 p.m., about 25 police officers had entered the Crypt and started asking people to move back. A few minutes later, dozens more, wearing riot gear and some in gas masks, ejected the roughly 150 protesters in the Crypt.
  • Protesters repeatedly exited the building bearing trophies that they had torn off walls. A few carried “Area Closed” signs that they had snatched and then stormed past.
  • By 7 p.m., the presence of police officers and federal agents had drastically increased along the National Mall. Officers pushed back against aggressive protesters as they prepared for the possibility of more unrest overnight.
  • “We want to go back,” Mr. Crow said. “And finish the business of the people to show that we are a democracy, and that the government is stronger than any mob.”
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Among the Insurrectionists - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...617580 insurrection 2020 gop Culture trump crisis Politics
shared by Javier E on 07 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • What I do know, after spending hours sponging up Trumpist paranoia, conspiracism, and cultishness, is that this gathering was not merely an attempted coup but also a mass-delusion event, not something that can be explained adequately through the prism of politics. Its chaos was rooted in psychological and theological phenomena, intensified by eschatological anxiety.
  • a resident of Texas who said his name was Don Johnson (I did not trust this to be his name), told me that the country was coming apart, and that this dissolution presaged the End Times. “It’s all in the Bible,” he said. “Everything is predicted. Donald Trump is in the Bible. Get yourself ready.”
  • The conflation of Trump and Jesus was a common theme at the rally. “Give it up if you believe in Jesus!” a man yelled near me. People cheered. “Give it up if you believe in Donald Trump!” Louder cheers.
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  • “A year from now we’re gonna start working on Congress,” Trump said through the boombox. “We gotta get rid of the weak congresspeople, the ones that aren’t any good, the Liz Cheneys of the world. We gotta get rid of them.”
  • Their leader and, for some, savior—a number of them would profess to me their belief that the 45th president is an agent of God and his son, Jesus Christ—was rehearsing his pitiful list of grievances, and also fomenting a rebellion against, among others, the klatch of treacherous Republicans who had aligned themselves with the Constitution and against him.
  • The treasonous behavior of Liz Cheney and many of her Republican colleagues was, to them, a fixed insurrectionary fact, but Pence was still in a plastic moment. Across the day, however, I could feel the Trump cult turning against him, as it turns against most everything.
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Opinion | This Is Why Nursing Homes Failed So Badly - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...covid-nursing-homes.html crisis Pandemic US
shared by tsainten on 03 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Eight months into the pandemic, Brendan House, a nursing home in Kalispell, Mont., had not had a single resident test positive for the coronavirus.
  • The numbers of those testing positive in the surrounding community went up by a factor of 100 compared with in the summer. At Brendan House, one positive case “turned into 10, then 50. Before you know it, we had 54 people in our long-term area who were Covid-positive and only three residents who were not positive,” a certified nursing assistant told me.
  • A few weeks in, though it was too late to contain the spread, the home decided to put all Covid-19 patients on the same floor.
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  • They were moved into an unfamiliar setting, their belongings whittled down to a few pieces of clothing and mementos thrown in a plastic bag; a new set of masked nurses came in and out of their rooms. Only a handful of residents had cellphones, so Danielle used her own to help residents use FaceTime with family members and friends.
  • “Nursing homes are really little hospitals, yet they’re not staffed like it. If you asked an I.C.U. nurse to take care of 15 people, she’d laugh at you, but that’s essentially what we have,” Chris Laxton, the executive director of AMDA, the Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine, told me.
  • At the same time, many of these caregivers “are making $12 or $13 an hour,”
  • workers probably helped spread the virus from facility to facility, home to home.
  • Under President Trump, C.M.S. had already cut monetary fines for facilities with health and safety violations. Now it called off regular inspections in favor of a narrow, superficial infection-control survey. It also allowed for “temporary nursing assistants” with little training to fill in for certified aides.
  • But if now is not the time, when, and under what conditions, should nursing homes and assisted-living facilities be held accountable for the welfare of their residents and workers?
  • Factor in the risk of getting sick and dying, and retention, let alone recruitment, becomes far more difficult. In 2020, direct caregiving may have been the most dangerous job in America.
  • Joe Biden is about the age of the average nursing home resident. Over the summer, he announced a $775 billion proposal to provide care for children, seniors and people with disabilities. The plan, though notional at this point, would eliminate the 800,000-person waiting list for long-term care under Medicaid and pay for 150,000 new community health workers for seniors. It could also help transform millions of low-wage, high-turnover, often transient gigs into stable careers.
  • C.M.S. must ensure that the $264 billion paid by Medicaid and Medicare to long-term-care providers actually goes to caregiving, instead of shiny new buildings or executive pay.
  • To improve residents’ quality of life, the government should mandate that long-term-care facilities have appropriate staffing.
  • In addition, Mr. Biden must reverse Mr. Trump’s laissez-faire approach to this sector. Both C.M.S. and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration should be given the resources they need to inspect, investigate and fine providers for health and workplace violations. The incoming administration must also strengthen workers’ rights to organize and protest unsafe conditions under the National Labor Relations Act, as it has already promised to do.
  • “There are jobs that offer $45 per hour to do Covid testing,” she said. As if to nudge her out the door, her nursing home was recently purchased by a large corporation, nullifying the union contract, and management reneged on the promise of holiday bonuses.
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10 New Year's resolutions that help the planet - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html
shared by mattrenz16 on 04 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • When setting your New Year's resolutions, try making those that help our planet and better the environment.
  • Did you know that recycling just one aluminum can saves enough energy to power a television for three hours?
  • he current amount of energy saved in one year just from recycling aluminum cans in the United States could light the entire city of Denver for more than 10 years, according to the Action Recycling Center in Colorado.
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  • In fact, about 75% of all aluminum ever produced in the US is still in use today.
  • Action Recycling points out that the amount of aluminum Americans throw away every three months could rebuild our entire commercial air fleet.
  • Try using a reusable bottle instead, and only use the single-use bottles in emergencies, or when you do not have access to reusable bottle.
  • When you go to a restaurant, unless you actually need it, tell them you don't want a straw.
  • When you answer a trivia question on the Free the Ocean website, the company will remove a piece of plastic from the ocean.
  • Albeit a little more expensive initially, swapping out old bulbs saves you money in the long run.
  • You can cut down on paper waste by asking for email receipts.
  • You can create a giant garden bed full of fruits and vegetables in your backyard, or have just a few small potted plants inside your home.
  • Some gift wrap is recyclable when it doesn't use foil or glitter or any other such additives that interfere with the recycling process.
  • Composting lowers the amount of garbage that ends up in a landfil
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The need for caffeine was the mother of invention. - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...space-station-coffee.html
shared by anonymous on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • While aboard the I.S.S., he tore out a plastic divider from his Flight Data File and used the magic of fluid dynamics to create an open cup.
  • We interact with coffee through aroma as much as through taste.
  • Together, they created a brewing system that would combine some of the charm of an open cup with the essential chemistry of a good Earth-based pour-over.
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  • This isn’t just about cups of coffee. It highlights how astronauts adapt to life in space away from Earth’s comforts.
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Whale Tail Sculpture Catches Dutch Train 30 Feet Above Ground : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...racks-is-caught-by-statues-tai netherlands sculpture art train save
shared by zarinastone on 03 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • A Dutch train burst past the end of its elevated tracks Monday in the Netherlands.
  • But instead of crashing to the ground 30 feet below, the metro train was caught — held aloft by an artist's massive sculpture of a whale's tail. Despite some damage, no injuries or deaths were reported.
  • It's unclear why the train didn't stop.
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  • The architect who created the sculpture, Maarten Struijs, was shocked it held u
  • "I am amazed that it is so strong," Struijs said, according to The Guardian. "When plastic has stood for 20 years, you don't expect it to hold up a metro train."
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Justice Barrett Joins Supreme Court Arguments For The First Time : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...nosha-shooter-set-at-2-million kenoshaprotests kylerittenhouse jacobblake kenosha militia wisconsin
shared by anonymous on 03 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • A Wisconsin court commissioner on Monday set bail at $2 million for Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old accused of killing protesters in Kenosha,
  • Rittenhouse is accused of fatally shooting two demonstrators and injuring a third during protests on Aug. 25 that followed the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was shot several times at close range by Kenosha police and is now paralyzed.
  • The charges include first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide and attempted first-degree intentional homicide.
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  • Rittenhouse's lawyers argued that because he had allegedly acted in self-defense and has no prior criminal record, the bond should be set at $750,000.
  • He noted the national network of supporters who have taken up Rittenhouse's cause and said he considered him a flight risk.
  • Rittenhouse faces up to life in prison if convicted.
  • Give Send Go, a self-described "Christian crowdfunding site," raised nearly $550,000 to help cover Rittenhouse's legal fees before organizers say they were forced to stop receiving donations.
  • "We believe that Mr. Rittenhouse has already proven that he is a significant flight risk and his reckless actions against my client who he severely injured, as well as the victims killed demonstrate that he is a significant risk to the public," Motley added.
  • Rittenhouse took off running and Rosenbaum chased after him. Videos of the incident show Rosenbaum, who was unarmed, threw a plastic bag at Rittenhouse, who responded by firing about five shots into the 36-year-old.
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Billionaire Chuck Feeney achieves goal of giving away his fortune | Retail industry | T... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...oal-of-giving-away-his-fortune role model wealth rich philanthropy giving
shared by Javier E on 19 Sep 20 - No Cached
  • 1,1831183Chuck Feeney has achieved his lifetime ambition: giving away his $8bn (£6bn) fortune while he is still around to see the impact it has made.
  • For the past 38 years, Feeney, an Irish American who made billions from a duty-free shopping empire, has been making endowments to charities and universities across the world with the goal of “striving for zero … to give it all away”
  • This week Feeney, 89, achieved his goal.
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  • As he signed papers to formally dissolve the foundation, Feeney, who is in poor health, said he was very satisfied with “completing this on my watch”.
  • From his small rented apartment in San Francisco, he had a message for other members of the super-rich, who may have pledged to give away part of their fortunes but only after they have died: “To those wondering about Giving While Living: try it, you’ll like it.”
  • Feeney, who gave most of his money away in secret, said he hoped more billionaires would follow his example and use their money to help address the world’s biggest problems.
  • “Wealth brings responsibility,” he often said. “People must define themselves, or feel a responsibility to use some of their assets to improve the lives of their fellow humans, or else create intractable problems for future generations.”
  • he would scratch his head and say ‘how many yachts or pairs of shoes do you need? What is it all this wealth accumulation about, when you can look about you and see such tremendous needs’.”
  • Oeschsli said Feeney would not criticise other people for not giving more “but he would be dumbfounded – what is all that wealth about if you’re not going to do good with it?”
  • “I have always empathised with people who have it tough in life,” Feeney said in a rare interview with Ireland’s RTE in 2010. “And the world is full of people who don’t get enough to eat.”
  • Feeney has lived a remarkably frugal lifestyle, not owning a car or home, and only one pair of shoes. He was known for flying only in economy class, even when members of his family and colleagues would travel in business class on the same plane.
  • The stories of his frugality are true: he does have a $10 Casio watch and carry his papers in a plastic bag. That is him. That’s what he felt comfortable with, and that’s really who Chuck has been.”
  • Feeney has given more than $3.7bn to higher education institutions, including almost $1bn to Cornell University, where he studied hotel administration for free under the GI bill after service as a US air force radio operator during the Korean war
  • eeney has also donated $870m to human rights groups (including $62m in grants to groups campaigning to end the death penalty in the US, and $76m to grassroots campaigns supporting the passage of Obamacare.)
  • The son of immigrants from County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, he has also donated $1.9bn to projects in the country, as well as the Republic, where he was instrumental in the founding of the University of Limerick. He also helped behind the scenes during the peace process.
  • Gates credited Feeney with creating a path for other philanthropists to follow. “I remember meeting him before starting the Giving Pledge,” Gates said. “He told me we should encourage people not to give just 50% but as much as possible during their lifetime. No one is a better example of that than Chuck. Many people talk to me about how he inspired them. It is truly amazing.”
  • Buffett described Feeney as “my hero and Bill Gates’ hero – he should be everybody’s hero”.
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Adidas and Allbirds are teaming up to create a shoe with zero carbon footprint - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html US crisis
shared by brookegoodman on 31 May 20 - No Cached
  • New York (CNN Business)After exchanging some cheeky messages on social media in the wee hours of Thursday morning, Adidas and Allbirds are linking up. (Sneaker companies, they're just like us!)
  • Sustainability is a growing focus in the world of sportswear and the larger fashion industry, which is one of the biggest polluters on the planet. Competition has been heating up.
  • The Allbirds brand has long been rooted in sustainability — the company is known for using renewable materials in its shoes, such as wool and eucalyptus tree fibers in shoe uppers and sugarcane waste, in lieu of plastic, in soles.
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  • Allbirds is also largely known for everyday, "athleisure" sneakers, rather than performance sports shoes. The new partnership will combine its background in sustainability with Adidas' expertise in performance footwear.
  • Making a standard sneaker creates, on average, about 12.5 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, a common measurement for carbon footprint. Allbirds' products average 7.6 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, according to the company's website.
  • Adidas and Allbirds are aiming for between 2 and 3 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions in the first version of their shoe collaboration, with later iterations moving toward zero emissions, Adidas' Carnes said.
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Empire State Building's coronavirus light show: The New York skyscraper's history of il... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...ing-lights-coronavirus-history US history
shared by anonymous on 20 May 20 - No Cached
  • This isn’t the first time a light show at the building hasn’t gone over well. In 1981, to honor the 50th anniversary of its construction, the building’s owners publicized a “laser light show” to dazzle New Yorkers with a “Star Wars effect.”
  • The addition of colored lights started in 1976, with — what else? — red, white and blue to mark the country’s bicentennial. The patriotic lighting was brought back for months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
  • During the Cold War, “Freedom Lights” were installed — four bright floodlights weighing one ton each. They were meant to symbolize “unlimited opportunities in America,”
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  • Special lights marking particular occasions have been used on the skyscraper for nearly its entire history. In 1932, when it was little more than a year old, a white searchlight at the top marked the election of New York’s governor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, to the U.S. presidency, according to the City University of New York’s Uniquely NYC blog.
  • Plastic gels offered an array of colors for special occasions from 1977 to 2012, when they were replaced by a completely computerized LED lighting system offering more than 16 million colors
  • Sometimes colors are chosen as tributes to notable figures who have died, such as former South African president Nelson Mandela in 2013 and, more recently, Kobe Bryant. They were dimmed in 2004 to mark the death of “King Kong” actress Fay Wray.
  • In 2002, they were purple and gold to honor Queen Elizabeth II’s 50 years on the British throne; in 2013, blue and yellow to commemorate the European Union; and in 2009, red and yellow to mark the 60th anniversary of communist China — a selection that drew protests over the country’s human rights record.
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Germ theory changed parenting. Will coronavirus do the same? - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...germs-parenting-coronavirus history US
shared by anonymous on 22 May 20 - No Cached
  • Germs changed all that. More than a hundred years ago, germ theory — the discovery that microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses caused disease — had a profound impact on almost every aspect of human behavior, just as the novel coronavirus could do after the current pandemic ends.
  • Sharing beds, whether at home or in public lodgings, became unacceptable; laws against spitting in public went on the books; and restaurants began requiring waiters to shave their beards and mustaches. Out went the fashion for long skirts and Victorian decor with its heavy drapery, where germs might lurk. In came an entire industry of sanitary products and disinfectants, such as Listerine, and spotless porcelain toilet fixtures.
  • By the end of the 19th century, mothers and other primary caretakers became cautious about cuddling or touching their children for fear of breeding deadly infections.
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  • Parents, heeding the advice of physicians and even the U.S. government, adopted a style of care that was chilly and aloof.
  • With the development of compound microscopes in the 1600s, scientists got their first glimpse of microorganisms. In the mid-19th century, Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch demonstrated that bacteria were the agents of some diseases. By the close of the century, scientists identified viruses.
  • All that would shift again by the middle of the 20th century, when psychologists such as John Bowlby and Harry Harlow exposed the potentially traumatic side effects of remote parenting on child development.
  • In ancient times, disease was thought to be the result of an imbalance of body fluids or an affliction from the gods. Later, scientists suspected that illnesses might be transmitted through the air or water, but weren’t clear how.
  • In 1870, 175 of every 1,000 infants died in their first year of life; by 1930, the number decreased to 75. Yet the hands-off approach that kept children safe from germs also ran counter to the instinctual need for physical affection that all primates, including humans, have.
  • Refrigerators and vacuum cleaners were marketed not only as labor savers but as necessities for good hygiene. When the DuPont Cellophane Co. brought out plastic wrap in the 1920s, the product was hailed as a sanitary innovation for keeping food and other personal items.
  • In 1888, the “Wife’s Handbook” warned mothers that a single touch was teeming with deadly germs that might harm her infant, and public campaigns urged caution when preparing family meals.
  • Harlow’s and Bowlby’s insights set the stage for a shift toward child-centered and emotionally connected parenting that remains in fashion today. But it came too late for generations whose upbringings were marked by an excessive fear of germs
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Opinion | This Should Be Biden's Bumper Sticker - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...biden-trump-respect.html science nature respect biden politics trump culture crisis
shared by Javier E on 01 Jul 20 - No Cached
  • Start with respecting science.
  • his disdain for science has become fatal, as we’re seeing in this widening pandemic. Trump has gone from offering quack remedies, like disinfectant, ultraviolet light and hydroxychloroquine, to mocking people, including Biden, for adopting the easiest and most scientifically proven method for limiting the spread of the coronavirus: wearing a face mask.
  • Trump declared, “If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any.”
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  • Think about that: Stop testing. Then we’ll have no knowledge. Then we’ll have no numbers. Then we’ll have no virus. Why didn’t I think of that?
  • this impugning of scientific methods, this embrace of conspiracy theories, this undermining of truth and data by our president and vice president — this is not happening in other countries. This is not happening in Germany, France, China, South Korea, Denmark, Canada, Israel or Japan. This is a form of American “exceptionalism” that we never imagined possible.
  • “A prime difference between the Enlightenment and the Dark Ages is respect for knowledge, respect for science. The whole idea of progress requires objectively looking at problems, finding and testing solutions, and then spreading and using the best of them. That’s how we grow, that’s how we learn, that’s how we prosper.”
  • As for respecting nature, that has two meanings. The first is to respect the power of nature
  • She doesn’t negotiate. You cannot seduce her or sue her. She does whatever chemistry, biology and physics dictate. Full stop. Which means in a pandemic that she will just keep infecting people — relentlessly, mercilessly, silently and exponentially — until she runs out of people to infect or a vaccine or exposure makes enough of us immune. She also doesn’t keep score. She’ll make you sick and then blow down your house with a tornado.
  • Respect for nature also means understanding that we live on a hard rock called planet Earth with a thin cover of oceans and topsoil, enveloped by a thin layer of atmosphere. Abuse that soil, junk up those oceans with plastics, distort that atmospheric blanket and we will likely (further) destroy the perfect Garden of Eden that has been the basis of all human civilization.
  • remember, as bad as this pandemic is, it’s just training wheels for the big, irreversible atmospheric pandemic: climate change.
  • Respect each other? That’s not so easy in the midst of our other pandemic — a pandemic of incivility.
  • We have a level of inequality that is so endemic that your ZIP code is now a better predictor of life expectancy than your genetic code.
  • Respecting each other means ensuring each other’s equal access to the American dream — and right now, Black, Hispanic and white Americans are climbing very different housing, education and health care ladders, which simply has to be fixed.
  • We have so many important issues to discuss among ourselves right now, but for that discussion to be productive we can’t just go from justifiable outrage straight to firings, public shamings or disbanding police departments — without pausing for respectful dialogue and moral distinctions.
  • The other is getting people out of Facebook and into each other’s faces again — not to shout or denounce, but to listen
  • It’s even more important what you say when you listen. Listening is a sign of respect. And it is amazing what people will let you say to them if they first think that you respect them. That’s our job.
  • Respect science, respect nature, respect each other. Biden 2020.
  • “Respect science, respect nature, respect each other.”
  • Biden should highlight his commitment to all three values in every speech and interview he gives. They draw such a clear, simple and easy to remember contrast with Trump.
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ApiJect To Get $590 Million Loan For Device To Help Deliver Coronavirus Vaccine : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...ds-a-back-up-plan-for-delivery vaccine pandemic
shared by martinelligi on 19 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Later today, the U.S. International Development Finance Corp, or DFC, is expected to announce that it has extended a $590 million loan to ApiJect Systems America, NPR has learned. The Connecticut company makes a disposable injection device that it says can be mass produced to deliver vaccines and medications around the world.
  • "This is going to be, we believe, the next generation of safe injections worldwide," ApiJect Systems Corp. Executive Chairman Jay Walker told NPR.
  • That's what happened during the first phase of the pandemic when Americans rushed to doctors offices and medical centers to get COVID-19 tests only to be turned away because of a shortage of reagent chemicals, testing kits, and nose swabs. State laboratories that were also facing shortages began competing on the open marketplace for pipettes and lab materials they needed to process the tests.
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  • The DFC financing is meant to help ApiJect build a million square foot campus in North Carolina for a speedier fill-finish operation. It will take pharmaceutical-grade plastic resin, pour it into a mold and then move it to a sterile filling space where the drug or the vaccine will be inserted before it is sealed.
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A once-remote patch of rainforest is now packed with migrants trying to reach the U.S. ... - 0 views

www.npr.org/...rainforest-darien-gap-migrants rainforest immigration Darién Gap
shared by kennyn-77 on 19 Nov 21 - No Cached
  • For centuries, jungle-covered mountains, swamps and poisonous snakes scared people away from the Darién Gap, the dense rainforest separating North and South America. It's still the only spot where the Pan-American Highway, that runs from Alaska all the way to the tip of South America, dissolves into mud. But thanks to the large numbers of migrants trying to get to the United States, the Darién Gap is no longer a no man's land.
  • In fact, when NPR first reached the region in September, birds singing and monkeys howling could not be heard. The main sound came from dozens of motorcycles. The passengers sitting on the back were migrants from Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba, India and African countries. But because they lacked U.S. visas, they had to travel overland, first through South and Central America and then Mexico.
  • The hardest part is crossing the roadless, 60-mile-wide Darién Gap. To cover the first few miles, migrants can pay to ride on the back of motorcycles that navigate muddy trails. But soon the jungle thickens, and they must start walking.
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  • "It's really difficult," says Gegrand Joseph, 44, a Haitian who had hiked across the Darién Gap five years ago, was deported by the Trump administration and is tackling this patch of jungle a second time to get back to the U.S. "But there is no alternative."
  • "It's sad," Villalón says of all the garbage. "You cannot drink water from the river. Two years ago I was drinking water on this same river you know. This is not a pristine jungle anymore."
  • But the wilderness is being slowly whittled away. On the Colombian side of the border, I come across a bulldozer carving a road through the jungle. It's illegal but there are no police in sight. The area is controlled by a drug cartel called the Gulf Clan, which also makes a lot of money off the migrants.
  • The next day, some 700 migrants break camp and hit the jungle trails on foot, leaving behind plastic bottles, empty food tins and dirty diapers. The migrants relieve themselves in the rivers and toss camping gear and clothes into the water.
  • So far this year more than 100,000 migrants have walked across the Darién Gap, more than triple the previous annual record, according to the International Organization for Migration. Many had been working in South America but lost their jobs during the coronavirus pandemic and figured that, under the Biden administration, they would have a better chance of getting into the U.S.
  • But Claudio Madaune of the Darién Foundation, a Colombian conservation group, says that the pollution caused by the migrants is negligible compared to damage caused by illegal ranchers and gold miners who have moved into the area. He says the worst change is that the Darién has become far more dangerous. Gunmen frequently rob, rape and kill migrants. Government officials from Panama and Colombia have discussed setting up a boat service across the Caribbean to transport migrants between the two countries. That would reduce the risks and help protect the rainforest.
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In a First, Man Receives a Heart From a Genetically Altered Pig - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...rt-transplant-pig-bennett.html
shared by criscimagnael on 12 Jan 22 - No Cached
  • A 57-year-old man with life-threatening heart disease has received a heart from a genetically modified pig, a groundbreaking procedure that offers hope to hundreds of thousands of patients with failing organs.
  • “This is a watershed event,” said Dr. David Klassen, the chief medical officer of the United Network for Organ Sharing and a transplant physician. “Doors are starting to open that will lead, I believe, to major changes in how we treat organ failure.”
  • It creates the pulse, it creates the pressure, it is his heart,
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  • It’s working and it looks normal. We are thrilled, but we don’t know what tomorrow will bring us. This has never been done before
  • Last year, some 41,354 Americans received a transplanted organ, more than half of them receiving kidneys,
  • But there is an acute shortage of organs, and about a dozen people on the lists die each day. Some 3,817 Americans received human donor hearts last year as replacements, more than ever before, but the potential demand is still higher.
  • Researchers hope procedures like this will usher in a new era in medicine in the future when replacement organs are no longer in short supply for the more than half a million Americans who are waiting for kidneys and other organs.
  • He is also being monitored for infections, including porcine retrovirus, a pig virus that may be transmitted to humans, although the risk is considered low.
  • But he added that there were many hurdles to overcome before such a procedure could be broadly applied, noting that rejection of organs occurs even when a well-matched human donor kidney is transplanted.
  • It takes a long time to mature a therapy like this.”
  • Mr. Bennett decided to gamble on the experimental treatment because he would have died without a new heart, had exhausted other treatments and was too sick to qualify for a human donor heart, family members and doctors said.
  • Mr. Bennett is still connected to a heart-lung bypass machine, which was keeping him alive before the operation, but that is not unusual for a new heart transplant recipient, experts said.
  • The new heart is functioning and already doing most of the work, and his doctors said he could be taken off the machine on Tuesday. Mr. Bennett is being closely monitored for signs that his body is rejecting the new organ, but the first 48 hours, which are critical, passed without incident.
  • It is the first successful transplant of a pig’s heart into a human being. The eight-hour operation took place in Baltimore on Friday, and the patient, David Bennett Sr. of Maryland, was doing well on Monday, according to surgeons at the University of Maryland Medical Center.
  • Xenotransplantation, the process of grafting or transplanting organs or tissues from animals to humans, has a long history. Efforts to use the blood and skin of animals go back hundreds of years.
  • In the 1960s, chimpanzee kidneys were transplanted into some human patients, but the longest a recipient lived was nine months.
  • In 1983, a baboon heart was transplanted into an infant known as Baby Fae, but she died 20 days later.
  • Two newer technologies — gene editing and cloning — have yielded genetically altered pig organs less likely to be rejected by humans.
  • the time to carry out better screening for infectious diseases, and the possibility of a new organ at the time that the patient needs it.
  • The heart transplanted into Mr. Bennett came from a genetically altered pig provided by Revivicor, a regenerative medicine company based in Blacksburg, Va.
  • The pig had 10 genetic modifications. Four genes were knocked out, or inactivated, including one that encodes a molecule that causes an aggressive human rejection response.
  • A growth gene was also inactivated to prevent the pig’s heart from continuing to grow after it was implanted,
  • In addition, six human genes were inserted into the genome of the donor pig — modifications designed to make the porcine organs more tolerable to the human immune system.
  • The team used a new experimental drug developed in part by Dr. Mohiuddin and made by Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals to suppress the immune system and prevent rejection.
  • “The anatomy was a little squirrelly, and we had a few moments of ‘uh-oh’ and had to do some clever plastic surgery to make everything fit,”
  • “the heart fired right up” and “the animal heart began to squeeze.”
  • He said his father had had a pig’s valve inserted about a decade ago, and he thought his father might be confused. But after a while, Mr. Bennett said, “I realized, ‘Man, he is telling the truth and not going crazy. And he could be the first ever.’”
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