Aw, shucks. Kind of you to say.

Iron Lady Rusty Conscience

More and more people are saying this

About three in ten adults report not taking their medicines as prescribed at some point in the past year because of the cost. This includes about one in five who say they have not filled a prescription (21%) or took an over-the counter drug instead (21%), and 12% who say they have cut pills in half or skipped a dose because of the cost.

https://www.kff.org/health-costs/poll-finding/public-opinion-on-prescription-drugs-and-their-prices/

And their maternal mortality rate is lower than it is in many U.S. states (Georgia, Texas, etc.)

NYT has an interview with María Corina Machado. The main photo is her staring wistfully through a window:

Venezuela’s ‘Iron Lady’ Pleads With Trump to Save Her Country’s Democracy

Now, with President Nicolás Maduro accused of stealing the election and his government threatening her capture, María Corina Machado, Venezuela’s wildly popular opposition leader, has gone into hiding — alone.

In a series of rare, in-depth virtual interviews since she mobilized millions to vote against Mr. Maduro in July, Ms. Machado said she was holed up in a secret location somewhere inside her country. Because anyone who helps her could be detained — or might lead government agents to her — she said she has not had a visitor in months.

Nicknamed the country’s “Iron Lady” for her conservative politics and steely resolve, Ms. Machado is, she admitted, “longing for a hug.”

Her mother has urged her to meditate. She has not.

The rest of the article is her begging Trump and the “international community” to coup her country, concluding with “But I am willing to do what has to be done,” she said, “for as long as it takes to assert the truth and popular sovereignty," and then somehow you can hear “SPEAK ABOUT DESTRUCTION” fade in.

Taking “There is no life east of the 5” to its logical extreme

What’s a topic where you know how to spot the propaganda at first glance? (Whether it’s because you’re personally involved in the issue, have done previous research, or have merely listened to a :citations-needed: episode.) Take that, and then use a recently published example of the propaganda in action to demonstrate to a general reader how to recognize the same techniques. If there isn’t a recently published example, you can probably just wait and pounce when one inevitably arrives.

Or maybe just have some questions in mind whenever you read mainstream news, and then pick a topic based on whichever article makes you angriest -

• Who benefits from the issue being framed this way?
• Who isn’t being quoted here? (And what false binary are they introducing by making so-and-so the voice of the opposition on this topic?)
• What obvious liar are they taking at their word here? What conflict of interest are they sweeping under the rug?

We need a but . A Cassandra emoji?

Benjamin Britten

John Adams

Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, libretto co-written by W.H. Auden

And in another confusing twist, the author of that article is named Stephen Miller.

They’ve got one hand in your pocket and the other is giving themselves a high five

What drove you to the left other than compassion for your fellow human?

The Silver Rule (“do not do unto others what you do not want done unto you”) can get you most of the way there without compassion taking the wheel. In the wrong circumstances it can backfire, of course.

Here’s a paper:

In 1845, Friedrich Engels identified how the living and working conditions experienced by English workers sent them prematurely to the grave, arguing that those responsible for these conditions – ruling authorities and the bourgeoisie – were committing social murder. The concept remained, for the most part, dormant in academic journals through the 1900s. Since 2000, there has been a revival of the social murder concept with its growth especially evident in the UK over the last decade as a result of the Grenfell Tower Fire and the effects of austerity imposed by successive Conservative governments. The purpose of this paper is to document the reemergence of the concept of social murder in academic journal articles. To do so we conducted a scoping review of content applying the social murder concept since 1900 in relation to health and well-being.

…

The two most immediate stimuli for the return of the concept were the 2018 UK documentary Grenfell Tower and Social Murder and the 2019 academic article by UK academic Chris Grover Violent Proletarianization: Social Murder, the Reserve Army of Labour and Social Security ‘Austerity’ in Britain. The latter two received wide coverage in the UK mainstream media and stimulated its use in social media in the UK and elsewhere.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277953621007097 , which only gives snippets but maybe the bibliography will help.

I was afraid he’d be Attorney General. Is this a relief? Whatever, we still live in hell.

In April, the NYT did a poll (or archive) asking people what they remember most from the Trump presidency.

Voters who shared negative memories of the Trump years overwhelmingly mentioned aspects of his behavior and personality, while the bulk of positive memories were about the economy.

So the Democratic voters couldn’t even articulate the material things that were bad about those years. Only 9% picked “immigration,” and the quotes from people who gave that answer were 6-1 in favor of his immigration policies.

The NYT asks - Why Was There a Broad Drop-Off in Democratic Turnout in 2024? (archive)

Gaza - not mentioned, even though they talk about Harris getting fewer votes than Biden in Dearborn. Grocery prices - not mentioned. Are you better off than you were four years ago? Not mentioned.

Some analysts point out that Ms. Harris was simply the latest political casualty of a postpandemic global trend favoring challengers, no matter the incumbents’ politics, in places like Japan, South Africa, South Korea and Britain.

Mexico? Not mentioned, because then they’d have to point out that incumbent parties that have actually done something to help people out of poverty tend to win reelection.

:gerald-ford-shining:

Once again (as with “chronoworking”) I am forced to repeat that putting a Greek prefix on a Germanic rootword gives me hyperangst.

Remember that time the Washington Post gave Bernie Sanders a bunch of Pinocchios for saying that millions of Americans work multiple jobs, because only eight million do, and “millions” implies … more than that?