Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Tomorrow, January 22, is the fiftieth anniversary of the Right to Decide

A bit of history as reviewed on a “woman’s right to decide,” by Professor Heather, “Letters from an American.” Tomorrow marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court decided that for the first trimester of a pregnancy, “the attending physician, in consultation with his patient, is free to […]

Whatever happened to MOOCs?

10-15 years ago, Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) were a higher education fad. Universities could dispense with physical (lecture halls, heating, cooling, cleaning, security) and administrative (room scheduling) costs and just teach students online. During this period, I was associate dean for research and the Dean of our medical school brought up the suggestion that […]

Saying No to Insurance Company Medication Switches

I can not say I have been exposed to any of this switcheroo as my meds are older technology. We are also on regular Medicare and not Medicare Advantage. I have a larger say with the former. Part D works mostly except the pharmacies in my area are less helpful than they were in Michigan. […]

January Update: COVID Death Rates by Partisan Lean & Vaccination Rate

Charles Gaba is doing another update on Covid death rates taking into consideration Partisanship and vaccination rate. At the bottom I include his last update if you wanted to compare commentary. “January Update: COVID Death Rates by Partisan Lean & Vaccination Rate (including BIVALENT BOOSTER data),” ACA Signups, Charles Gaba (sigh) Last month I posted what […]

Jobless claims continue their string of good news

Jobless claims continue their string of good news  – by New Deal democrat If yesterday’s economic data was bad, this morning’s was considerably better (I’ll post on housing construction later). Initial jobless claims declined 15,000 to 195,000, tied for their best number in almost 8 months. The 4 week moving average declined 6,500 to 206,000, […]

Fredrick Douglass (1867) on race and integration in the US

by David Zetland (originally published at The one handed economist) I had heard of Douglass, but man oh man, I had no idea of his brilliance. His “Composite Nation” speech is full of wisdom and hope, offering a path to that “shining city on a hill” that Americans have had such a hard time reaching — mostly […]

Public libraries continue to thrive despite defunding and privatization attacks

Article Author April M. Short, an editor, journalist, and documentary editor and producer. Presently she is a writing fellow at Local Peace Economy, a project of the Independent Media Institute. Previously, she served as a managing editor at AlterNet as well as an award-winning senior staff writer for Santa Cruz, California’s weekly newspaper. Her work has […]

A Bit of Peter Drucker for You All

“Peter Drucker Sets Us Straight,” January 12, 2004 (cnn.com), Peter Drucker and Brent Schlender This is an oldie from 2004 which still has relevance to what has occurred and is occurring in the world today. Any number of times I have found myself fixing supply chain operations globally for various companies of different countries. Ninety-Four […]

Say hello to XBB.1.5: The Red/Blue COVID Death Rate Divide is no more

This commentary by Charles Gaba was up earlier this year. What Charles is doing is issuing a warning about this batch of Covid. People have tossed caution to the wind, not boosting for less than adequate reasons, not practicing safe social practices, and not making up in public crowds. “Say hello to XBB.1.5: The Red/Blue […]

Social media and Damar Hamlin’s Collapse combine to create a vaccine misinformation field day

“Social media and Damar Hamlin’s Collapse combine creating a vaccine misinformation field day“, Fortune, Ali Swenson, David Klepper, Sophia Tulp and The Associated Press “Unfounded claims about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines proliferated in the hours and days after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed during Monday’s game, revealing how pervasive vaccine misinformation remains three years after […]