Do people really do this?

In Sri Lanka, some people who are highly concerned about hygiene have developed the skill of pouring liquid from a container straight into their mouths without their lips touching it. Sometimes people do this even if they are served in a glass, because they fear that the rim of the glass may be unclean. I would not be surprised if this practice has its roots in the odious caste system that said that touching anything touched by supposedly ‘low caste’ people made you unclean.

But I have observed the other extreme many times in films and on TV in the US. Someone opens the refrigerator in a home, takes out a carton or bottle of milk or juice, and then drinks straight from it, putting their lips to the mouth of the container. This is even when the people live in a home they share with family members who presumably use the same container. This strikes me as pretty gross. But I have seen it so many times that I think it must be more common that I would have expected.

Is that the case?

Film review: Fahrenheit 11/9 (2018)

This latest offering from documentary filmmaker Michael Moore looks at the election of Donald Trump as president and asks the question: How the hell did that happen?

He says that the precursor to Trump was Rick Snyder who, a businessman with no political experience who won the Michigan governorship in 2010 on promises much like Trump’s, that his background in business was what the state needed. He then proceeded to run the state for the benefit of the wealthy, gutting democracy by putting major cities in the state under a state of emergency and installing how own people as administrators to run them, sidelining the local elected officials.
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Samantha Bee shines light on the Sacklers

I have written repeatedly about the awful Sackler family and how they are hiding behind the veil of philanthropy the ugly fact that they are largely responsible for the opioid crisis through their aggressive and deceptive marketing of the drug OxyContin by Purdue Pharma, the company they own.

So I welcome Samantha Bee dragging their name and their association with the drug epidemic into the spotlight.

The growing list of behaviors that become suspicious when done by black people

This one, if you can believe it, involves a black man who was merely picking up trash on his own property using a clamp designed for that purpose. Such items are commonly used to avoid bending down and using one’s hands pick up trash. But he was accosted by a police officer who drew his gun and other police soon swarmed to the scene.
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The fight over Medicare For All begins in earnest

Now that legislation to implement Medicare For All has been unveiled by Washington state member of congress Pramila Jayapal, the opponents in the hospital, pharmaceutical, and insurance industries are gearing up to fight to prevent their source of incredible wealth from drying up. As Kaiser Health News reported, many groups that on the surface seem to be grassroots opponents of MFA are actually fronts for Big Pharma.

Dozens of patient advocacy groups, like the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation and the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, recently appeared in national advertisements objecting to a Trump administration proposal that could limit drugs covered by Medicare providers.

But a Kaiser Health News analysis found that about half of the groups representing patients have received funding from the pharmaceutical industry.

Drugmakers funneled more than $58 million to the groups in 2015 alone, according to financial disclosures in KHN’s “Pre$cription for Power” database, which tracks the little-publicized ties between patient advocacy groups and drugmakers. As patient organizations gain ground lobbying Congress and the administration, experts have begun to question whether their financial ties could push them to put drugmakers’ interests ahead of the patients they represent.
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Although there are occasions when what’s best for patients is the same as what’s best for drugmakers, people should consider patient advocacy group statements with a “skeptical eye” if groups have financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry, said Matthew McCoy, a medical ethics and health policy assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Drugmakers and patient advocacy organizations have fundamentally different missions, he said. One wants to make money for shareholders. The other wants to serve patients. Since their goals will inevitably diverge, it’s important that patient groups aren’t swayed by their funders, he said.

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The intimate relationship between Donald Trump and Fox News

That excellent investigative reporter Jane Mayer of the New Yorker has taken a deep dive into the cozy and symbiotic relationship between Donald Trump and Fox News. That the two are joined at the hip should come as no surprise since it has long been obvious that Fox News serves as the propaganda arm for Trump. As one media analyst said of Fox, “It’s the closest we’ve come to having state TV.” Another said, “[Trump] has something no other President in American history has ever had at his disposal—a servile propaganda operation.” The role of Fox is not just to provide Trump with an adoring platform but to also fire up the base on the issues he cares about.
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A funny thing happened on the way to the Omar inquisition

The question of where the Democratic party stands with respect to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians has been simmering for some time but the last week saw it burst into the open. It began with comments made by new congressional representative Ilhan Omar who has been critical of Israel. Criticizing Israel has long been a touchy issue in this country and people who do so are often immediately characterized as being anti-Semitic. The fact that Omar is a hijab-wearing Muslim who has supported the BDS movement was used to imply that this was a slam-dunk case against her and a resolution was proposed by the Democratic leaders of congress to effectively censure her. Normally the progression of such an uproar follows a predictable course. The person is publicly shamed and is forced to apologize and the lesson is sent that one must not criticize Israel’s behavior or if one does it must use highly circumspect language that is laden with caveats.
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