Tegan Tuesday: The National Black Doll Museum needs your help!

“The National Black Doll Museum has a three-fold mission: to nurture self-esteem, to promote cultural diversity, and to preserve the history of black dolls by educating the public on their significance.” – Mission statement of The National Black Doll Museum of History and Culture

I only recently learned about this interesting museum, The National Black Doll Museum, that used to be housed in Mansfield, MA. For all I lived in Massachusetts for 12 years, I rarely explored the many small and unusual museums in the area. The NBDMHC has a collection of over 7000 Black dolls, and the oldest dolls are from the late 18th century. This isn’t just about the past, however, as these dolls are equally loved and displayed with Black Panther action figures. Although many doll museums include Black dolls in their collections, prior to 2020, this museum was the only physical museum in the US dedicated to Black dolls specifically.

The museum got its start from the personal collection of the founder, Debra Britt, who used to take her private doll collection on tours to women’s shelters or community centers to share the history and communal heritage as the Doll E Daze Project. The museum, which is a 501(c) 3 non-profit, still supports this community outreach as well as a number of workshops and educational resources. The workshop on the Power of Play looks at the impact of Black dolls on the self-pride and explores the stories of Black activists post-Reconstruction through today; The workshop on African wrap dolls works to preserve this important cultural handcraft; and the museum offers support and assistance for geneology research as well. For a project focused around children’s toys, the staff involved have found ways to connect with many aspects of the Black community at all stages of life.

But, unfortunately for the project, 2020 was a difficult year for them, like so many others. With the lack of school engagements, workshops, or in-person celebrations, the museum lost their space in Mansfield due to lack of funding. However, all is not lost! Attleboro, MA has set aside land for cultural development and is interested in working with the National Black Doll Museum to relocate to the new area. But they need funding to do so. The current phase of fundraising has a goal of $100,000 and a deadline at the end of the month — February is Black History Month after all! So I hope that you, much like myself, find the concept exciting and the project worthwhile, and will help to make the new location a reality. Let’s let this understudied aspect of history have a chance to shine again!

Tegan Tuesday: Amazon closes Westland Books, putting thousands of Indian writers in jeopardy

It should be no surprise to any readers of this blog that Abe and I are not fans of giant, conglomerate monopolies. Amazon in particular is a bit of work that is difficult to avoid. Whether it’s the stranglehold on data servers and hosting services, the fact that rural areas or many disabled people rely on Amazon dot com for daily necessities, or even hearing how Jeff Bezos wants Rotterdam to dismantle a historic bridge for his own personal pleasure. So cue my complete lack of surprise to hear of yet another bit of nastiness from Amazon, in this case, from Amazon India.

Effective March 31, 2022, the publishing giant Westland will be shuttered permanently. This was officially announced with no warning on February 1st of this year. Who is Westland and why should anyone care? Aside from the natural inclination to hate every decision Amazon is making, there are currently three trade publishers who stand above the rest in prestige, influence, and range of publications in anglophone literature: Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, and Westland. India, as a former British colony, has the majority of its educated population able to read and speak English in addition to any number of Indo-Aryan languages. The Indian Constitution includes 22 languages, but estimates put the actual number at nearly 20,000 languages or dialects used as ‘mother tongues’ in India. There are now any number of articles wondering ‘What Westland Did Wrong’ that could merit their closing, for surely it was for a good business reason. This article in particular does an excellent job of comparing sales data and distribution rates for those three big publishers, looking to find an explanation for the sudden decision. Many of the authors, aware of Westland’s tendency to publish government-neutral or government-critical books, suspect this is part of the answer:

Speculations arose. Several of Westland’s new bestsellers were not exactly appreciative of the government of the day. Josy’s The Silent Coup boldly questioned the decline of democracy and citizen rights, making a case for investigating agencies “creating” terrorists out of nobodies. Jaffrelot used interviews from across the country to show how Modi’s government has equated the idea of the nation with the Hindu majority and relegated minorities to second class citizens. Aakar Patel’s Price of the Modi Years listed statistics and explained the damage brought upon the country by the BJP government.

Josy tells TNM, “Books like mine would not be a good fit for Amazon’s business in India because if they want to build their commercial enterprise here they wouldn’t want to nurture any thinking/writing against the government. To be fair though, I don’t think there has been any pressure from the government on this book until now but Amazon wouldn’t want any future trouble because of books like mine. Removing the thorns in advance so it doesn’t create any trouble in future, that’s how I would read it.”

But, ok, let’s assume good intentions. Let’s assume that this was for purely fiscal reasons and the correct decision is to close the publishing house. The next question is of course: where do the authors and existing titles go? This was the only Indian-based publishing house to play on the main international stage, and many of the top authors in India had contracts with Westland. The unexpected and sudden announcement has not included any plans for transferal of contracts or rights, and many authors and readers are concerned they will be considered collateral damage for the corporation. One additional thing that concerns me is the precedent that Disney set with it’s love of breaching contracts. Scarlett Johansson’s settlement over ‘Black Widow’ was extremely public but a number of writers and creatives involved in franchises such as Star Wars and Marvel have made allegations that Disney does not honor existing contracts and royalty payments. If Disney can do it, why not Amazon, which is significantly larger? It’s a situation I will be watching — I hope that I’m wrong and that the authors will be treated fairly, but it’s 2022.

When have artists been lucky recently?

Tegan has helped with beta reading and editing on this blog for a while now, and she decided she also wants to do a weekly post about topics that catch her attention. As always this is part of our effort to make ends meet, as my immigration status doesn’t allow me to get wage labor, so this blog is my only source of income.  You can sign up to help us pay the bills at patreon.com/oceanoxia. The great thing about crowdfunding is how little each contributor needs to put in; in this case as little as a dollar per month – that’s like three cents a day! Pocket change!

Anyway, thanks for reading, and take care of yourselves.

Tegan Tuesday: A new experiment in affordable medication

Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign involved many issues, but one of his strongest was Medicare for All and the outrageous price-gouging involved in medical care. Although medication costs were not an issue for me personally at the time, it is an issue near and dear to my heart because of the many, many people I know who do require daily medications. And of course, the disabled are the minority group that everyone has the ability to join. All this to say, that I care deeply about medical access for every person, regardless of economic status.

There have been any number of attempts to fix the broken American medical system from within. A commonly used work-around for medications that aren’t covered by insurance, that are still too expensive with insurance, or for those without coverage is the app Goodrx. This app offers discounts on medications that would have to be paid out of pocket — but the prices are location dependent. If Tucson, AZ carries your medication for $5 on Monday, but you live in LA, you cannot access that $5 rate. So each person has a very different experience using Goodrx from town to town and from day to day. But a new contender has entered the ring!

Cost Plus Drugs is a brand new website founded by Dr Alexander Oshmyansky and funded by Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks who also has the notoreity of being the richest shark on Shark Tank. Cost Plus Drugs is a new extension of Cuban’s support for Dr Oshmyansky’s medical projeccts, which include almost two decades of research to prevent hospital-caused infectious diseases (Altitude Medical), four years of pharmaceutical supply (Osh Affordable Pharmaceuticals), and the Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) branch of Cost Plus which launched last year. The company is also building a compounding pharmacy in Texas which is expected to open later this year, and have applied for a biologics license with the FDA. Dr Oshmyansky is apparently serious about his desire to use medicine to help people — and if he happens to make a ton of money with his start-ups, well that is a lovely, lovely perk.

How the company works is quite simple: if Cost Plus offers one of your medications, your own doctor sends a script to the company and you get your medicines at extremely low prices. The company has a stated 15% mark-up as well as small administrative/stocking fees, but as it doesn’t work through the insurance system, there are no bizarre hurdles to jump nor price imbalances. All patients get the same rates, which are based off of the cost of sourcing the medicines. Currently, Cost Plus works with third-party manufacturers for generics of the most commonly needed medicines. Because no, they don’t offer all meds, not even close. The company is only offering around 100 different medications at this time, but the goal is to keep expanding so as to provide alternatives for more diseases and more medications. But how good are these prices? Going by Cost Plus’s website, the savings are significant — often in the multiple hundred or even thousands of savings per refill. For example, Albendazole (an Albenza generic for parasitic worm infestations) costs $453 per fill, with a discount of $6112.28 due to the drug’s outrageous price of $6565.28. But that’s the price against the out-of-pocket, no-insurance price. Someone who has a Goodrx account and has more experience sourcing medications broke down a few examples of the math most users are likely to see:

If you don’t have insurance, Goodrx is often about as good as it gets, so I’m using their prices for my comparison.

Please note that prices are location dependent on Goodrx — it shows you the options at pharmacies near your location. I’m in Pittsburgh, PA; if you’re in a different part of the country and you try this, you may get slightly (or wildly) different numbers.

Fluoxetine is generic Prozac. Thirty 20mg capsules costs $12.80 at my cheapest local pharmacy. Cost Plus has it for $3.90.

Atorvastatin is generic Lipitor. Thirty 40mg tablets is $10.95 at my cheapest local pharmacy. Cost Plus has it for $4.20.

Omeprazole is generic Prilosec. Thirty 20mg capsules is $13.90 at the cheapest local pharmacy; $4.20 at Cost Plus.

Aripiprazole is generic Abilify. Thirty 10mg tablets is $17.73 at the cheapest local pharmacy (and $260.60 at the most expensive — and that’s with a discount, still, yikes); $6.00 at Cost Plus.

Lamotrigine XR is generic Lamictal XR. Thirty 25mg tablets is $36.59 at the cheapest local pharmacy; $8.40 at Cost Plus.

Maybe that doesn’t seem like a huge discount, but the Goodrx prices change *all the time* — last time I used it to buy Fluoxetine, which was in the last couple of years, it was $31. Also, many people are on multiple medications, or have multiple people in a household taking multiple medications, and $5 off every prescription adds up real fast.

I am also incredibly interested to see how the company will move forward after the manufacturing facility is completed. Compounding pharmacies are incredibly important for any number of reasons, not in the least being that they can control what allergens go into someone’s medications. This is doubly concerning since as of 2020 the FDA has allowed unlabeled substitutions for food manufacturers (and medicines) for “the entire COVID emergency,” however long that is. As Abe discovered while we were in Scotland, one of the most common non-active ingredients for medications is lactose. According to one study, almost half of the medications represented contained lactose. With even less control over what non-active ingredients are included in medications thanks to the current FDA statute, many people could experience allergic reactions from their medications. Opening the option for customizing meds around a patient’s specific allergens, as is possible with a compounding pharmacy, could be life saving for any number of people.

When looking into this company, I was bemused to see a number of articles that were extremely negative about it. To be clear, I think there are causes for skepticism. For one thing, they still only carry drugs for treating type 2 diabetes, leaving those with type 1 on their own. I also certainly have worries about billionaires wanting to ‘fix’ the medical situation in the US (Cuban almost certainly has intentions to run for president and this would be an extremely popular thing to have in his back pocket), my concerns are, mysteriously, different from those of Forbes, or other financial reporting groups. One of the biggest concerns for Forbes was the lack of insurance — paying out of pocket for medications doesn’t lower deductibles for non-Cost Plus medications from shitty insurance plans. This is an issue that I consider one to watch, but as Cost Plus adds more medications and we continue to work to dismantle the current insurance system, this will hopefully become an issue of the past.

Tegan has helped with beta reading and editing on this blog for a while now, and she decided she also wants to do a weekly post about topics that catch her attention. As always this is part of our effort to make ends meet, as my immigration status doesn’t allow me to get wage labor, so this blog is my only source of income.  You can sign up to help us pay the bills at patreon.com/oceanoxia. The great thing about crowdfunding is how little each contributor needs to put in; in this case as little as a dollar per month – that’s like three cents a day! Pocket change! We could use it to buy better boots!

Tegan Tuesday: The Vimes Boots Index

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of okay for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.” – Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

Terry Pratchett wrote many words on injustices within systems and on the importance of building support networks of people within said systems in his Discworld series. Men at Arms was written in 1993, the fifteenth book in the series, and the concept referred to as the “Sam Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socio-economic unfairness” caught fire. It’s not a new concept — poverty taxes exist in many forms across all life, such as bulk discounts for those able to afford the large upfront cost and who have the storage space for excess material — but the phrasing of the Boots theory was particularly catchy. Economics classes have used it as a pithy example of the poverty tax issue, and many who might have never encountered the concept understood it easily through the medium of fiction.

Enter Jack Monroe. Mx. Monroe is a UK-based food writer, journalist and poverty activist. I first encountered their work with their phenomenal food blog ‘Cooking on a Bootstrap,’ which details ways to actually live on poverty wages. Monroe grew up working class and spent years as a working-poor single parent — all of the recipes and tricks they write about come from experience. Thanks to their luck with their successful blog, they have since used their greater platform to highlight inequalities, support hunger relief programs, and be a vocal activist for labor and poverty issues. Their new campaign is a price index to track basic food products, labeled the “Vimes Boots Index,” in honor of the late Sir Terry Pratchett. This past month has included the official authorization from the Pratchett estate for the name, with the author’s daughter, Rhianna Pratchett, stating that her dad would have been proud to see his work used by for anti-poverty campaigns.

But why do we need a new consumer price index (CPI) at all? The UK government is one of many that offers such a service and it has continued to do so throughout the changes of Brexit, pandemic, and global shipping disruptions. But according to Monroe on twitter, the offical UK CPI “grossly underestimates the real cost of inflation as it happens to people with the least.” According to the UK government, inflation was at 5.4%. This official number was calculated assuming purchases from a list of 700 items including legs of lamb, bedroom furniture, televisions and champagne. According to Monroe’s personal tracking in their local grocery store, non-champagne food prices were doubling and tripling. Take rice, for example. It is a common staple in poor households as it is cheap, sold in large quantities, and very easy to adjust to make it feel like a different meal from day to day. In their local store last year, Monroe noted that they could purchase a 1kg bag of rice for 45p; but last week the price was £1 for a 500g bag, or a 344% increase. Adding insult to injury, the number and variety of ‘value products’ has significantly dropped in stores. Situations like this example have been happening in grocery stores all across the British Isles, with two and a half million British residents using food banks as a result during 2021. This infuriating disconnect between the official numbers and the lived experience of the average British person caused Monroe to reach out to economists, charities, and analysts to create the new price index. The Vimes Boots Index is intended to “document the disappearance of the budget linesand the insidiously creeping prices of the most basic versions of essential items at the supermarket” and “serve as an irrefutable snapshot of the reality experienced by millions of people,” as stated by Monroe in their Observer column on January 22, 2022.

It’s not just poverty activists and those directly affected who have noticed the rise in food insecurity. Richard Walker, the managing director of the grocery chain Iceland (focusing primarily on frozen foodstuffs) gave a statement on ITV January 21st that his stores were losing customers to “food banks, and to hunger.” That customers weren’t being priced out and going to different stores, but that the next step was charity or starvation. The director then went on to pledge that their £1 range will stay at the £1 rate until the end of 2022, in order to give customers a reliable budget item. But Iceland remains a lone raft in a sea of rising prices.

The increased visibility of the extreme inflation of food prices at the lowest end of the market and the influence of the newly formed Vimes Boots Index has already had real-world impact. As of January 26, 2022, the Office for National Statistics has admitted that “one inflation rate doesn’t fit all” and Monroe reported that the office will be changing the way that they collect and report on both inflation in general and food prices in specific. These changes will take into account a wider range of income levels and household circumstances. While more accurate reporting of the problem will not make the problems with rising food costs go away, higher visibility of the issue will hopefully lead to support at a larger level than community-based support.

Tegan has helped with beta reading and editing on this blog for a while now, and she decided she also wants to do a weekly post about topics that catch her attention. As always this is part of our effort to make ends meet, as my immigration status doesn’t allow me to get wage labor, so this blog is my only source of income.  You can sign up to help us pay the bills at patreon.com/oceanoxia. The great thing about crowdfunding is how little each contributor needs to put in; in this case as little as a dollar per month – that’s like three cents a day! Pocket change! We could use it to buy better boots!

Anyway, thanks for reading, and take care of yourselves.