Mr. Webster is a former federal judge and the former director of both the F.B.I. and the C.I.A.
Christopher Wray, the director of the F.B.I., speaking at the Department of Justice in Washington in July.Credit…Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Letter to the NYT: The privilege of being the only American in our history to serve as the director of both the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. gives me a unique perspective and a responsibility to speak out about a dire threat to the rule of law in the country I love. Order protects liberty, and liberty protects order. Today, the integrity of the institutions that protect our civil order is, tragically, under assault from too many people whose job it should be to protect them.
The rule of law is the bedrock of American democracy, the principle that protects every American from the abuse of monarchs, despots and tyrants. Every American should demand that our leaders put the rule of law above politics.
I am deeply disturbed by the assertion of President Trump that our “current director” — as he refers to the man he selected for the job of running the F.B.I. — cannot fix what the president calls a broken agency. The 10-year term given to all directors following J. Edgar Hoover’s 48-year tenure was created to provide independence for the director and for the bureau. The president’s thinly veiled suggestion that the director, Christopher Wray, like his banished predecessor, James Comey, could be on the chopping block, disturbs me greatly. The independence of both the F.B.I. and its director is critical and should be fiercely protected by each branch of government.
From Crosscut: At this moment, as winter descends in the Pacific Northwest, there are well over 11,000 people living unsheltered and unhoused in King County. Many are veterans and single parents. Many are escaping abusive households, have lost jobs, have experienced eviction or are exiting the foster care system. And far too many are children. This is a state of emergency, and we are long overdue for building a system that addresses this issue with impact.
Behind the scenes, there are hundreds of nonprofits and service providers that are over capacity and doing everything they can on tight budgets and lean staff to provide shelter, warm clothing, food, legal services, job training and so much more. At FareStart alone, we’ve seen a record-breaking number of youth and adults come through our doors looking for job training and an opportunity to thrive — and nearly every one is experiencing homelessness or housing instability. If people don’t have a safe place to sleep at night, they cannot focus on obtaining or keeping a job, which is why we provide housing and other wraparound support services.
While nonprofits and service providers are working harder than ever and making great progress — in the past few months, 3,014 households were enrolled in rapid rehousing programs, and over 77% of them will soon have a permanent place to live — they are only one piece of the puzzle. Our region can and must take measures to ensure that all our systems are working efficiently and effectively and that our service providers are best positioned for widespread impact.
That’s why the recently proposed King County Regional Homelessness Authority, slated for approval by the Seattle City Council this afternoon, has so much potential. With a regional system in place, we can build on the best of what works, with better coordination, collaboration and a unified plan to respond to this crisis.
Currently, service providers working with the city and county have a myriad of different contracts, often with overlapping or conflicting measurements of success, even if they serve the same populations. Duplication of contracts makes delivering services complicated and time consuming — and makes tracking outcomes even more difficult. Streamlining the contract process allows service providers to spend less time with paperwork and more time doing what they do best: helping people with basic, immediate human needs, like food and shelter.
Additionally, the proposed collaboration is inclusive and depends on our ability to work together. The authority would involve local city governments — both Seattle’s and those of the surrounding suburban cities — encouraging community-driven plans that address each community’s specific needs.ADVERTISEMENT
A diverse set of voices would inform solutions: businesses, neighborhood associations, faith communities, philanthropic organizations, nonprofits and, most importantly, people who have experienced homelessness themselves. Centering the voices of people who have experienced homelessness is innovative, as few places have put such a priority on making sure the response systems run by service providers remaineffective for the people these programs directly serve.
We already know that business-as-usual is not working. That’s why, for the past year and a half, officials and key voices have come together to discuss the best path forward, including analyzing different approaches in regions across the country experiencing homelessness on different scales. They’ve determined that while the proposed authority won’t fix everything immediately, it is a necessary first step to systematically reducing homelessness and getting people out of the cold and back inside. Because that’s what this is about — the lives of our unsheltered neighbors and friends. The time for deliberation and political jockeying is over. We must act now.
It is time we build on the successful programs we see on the ground and not just create an entity, but make sure that it empowers experts to make effective solutions a reality across the county. We must work together across sectors, removing barriers and coordinating many targeted solutions to ensureKing County remains a region where all can thrive.
Thanks to Sandy J. for sending this along. If Apple Watch Series 4 or later detects a hard fall, it can help connect you to emergency services if needed. If Apple Watch Series 4 or later detects a hard fall while you’re wearing your watch, it taps you on the wrist, sounds an alarm, and displays an alert. You can choose to contact emergency services or dismiss the alert by pressing the Digital Crown, tapping Close in the upper-left corner, or tapping “I’m OK.”
If your Apple Watch detects that you’re moving, it waits for you to respond to the alert and won’t automatically call emergency services. If your watch detects that you have been immobile for about a minute, it will make the call automatically. After the call ends, your watch sends a message to your emergency contacts with your location letting them know that your watch detected a hard fall and dialed emergency services. Your watch gets your emergency contacts from your Medical ID.
I’m a snob about being unstylish, and when the new Apple Watch
came out a few years ago I mocked people I saw wearing it.
Why would anybody want to wear an ugly, brick-shaped watch that
looked the same as everybody else’s and had to be charged daily — sometimes
more than once? Why not just get the time from the omnipresent cellphone?
Then, as age and multiple sclerosis made me more prone to
falling, I looked for a panic-button necklace like my grandmother wore to
summon help if she got in trouble while alone.
Some of these simple devices sold for up to $200, with
monitoring services up to $50 a month.
Suddenly, spending $400 on an ugly watch didn’t seem so stupid
when I found out it has its own SOS button that can notify 911 or your
emergency contacts if you need help.
If your phone is within 50 feet or so, which mine always is, you
can use the watch to actually make a phone call to 911 or a family member to
explain your predicament.
The watch detects when you fall and automatically sends out
emergency alerts if you’re unresponsive afterward. It monitors sleep, takes a
basic EKG, constantly checks heartbeat and alerts you if its too fast, too slow
or irregular — all with no monthly fee.
So I wear it and try to disguise it with bands even uglier than
the one it came with. I pretend I’m unstylish because of the uses I put it to.
The Apple Watch is mostly used by active folks to listen to
music, check text messages and track their burn rate while they run, cycle and
dancercize their way to fitness; I use mine to make unfitness sustainable.
I also scorned Apple’s $159 AirPod wireless earbuds that leave white stubs
hanging out of your ears, looking like you forgot to remove the Q-tips after
the last cleaning.
I marveled at how something that looked
so dorky could be regarded as such a status symbol.
That was until my wife showed me an
article on how the wireless earbuds, using amplification from the phone, can be
serviceable as hearing aids.
In that light, $159 didn’t seem so
outrageous compared to the $2,000 medical hearing aids I bought some years ago
that didn’t help my loss of hearing much.
I bit on the buds, and while they
aren’t the best hearing aids for every circumstance, I seem able to hear the TV
and movies as well as with costlier devices.
I can hear more of what my wife says,
which is a real blessing — for her.
Now I can hear what the politicians I
interview tell me. If I learn doublespeak, I’ll be able to understand them, as
well.
A landmark bill that for the first time would cap out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for Medicare enrollees and direct the federal government to negotiate the price of many high-cost, lifesaving medications passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday.
“This bipartisan legislation is a bold step toward lowering prescription drug prices and out-of-pocket costs for millions of older Americans,” says Nancy LeaMond, AARP executive vice president and chief engagement and advocacy officer, who urged the Senate to act on its legislation. “The president and Congress will need to work together to get this done. Americans are desperate for relief from high prescription drug prices.”
The 230-192 vote on the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act was largely along party lines with all Democrats voting yes and all but two Republicans voting no. The measure now goes to the U.S. Senate, where lawmakers are considering their own bipartisan bill to rein in the high cost of prescription drugs, a bill which has White House support.
Drug negotiations
The most groundbreaking feature of the House-passed legislation would empower the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to negotiate the price of up to 250 of the most expensive drugs each year. The drugs subject to negotiation would not have generic alternatives.
HHS would also be required to negotiate in the first year the price of insulin, a medication whose cost per patient nearly doubled from 2012 to 2016, according to House leaders. The legislation would help lower prices for non-Medicare enrollees, lawmakers say, because commercial insurers could take advantage of the negotiated prices. The bill the Senate Finance Committee approved does not include the requirement for negotiation of Medicare drug prices.
Out-of-pocket cap
The House bill would cap at $2,000 the amount of money Part D enrollees would have to pay out-of-pocket annually for their prescription drugs. There is no current limit on how much Medicare beneficiaries must pay for their medications and, according to AARP research, enrollees, on average, take four or five prescription medications each month and have a median income of just over $26,000 a year.
Both House and Senate lawmakers say they want to cap how much Medicare enrollees would have to pay each year for their medications and prevent excessive price increases.
Adds benefits
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the House legislation would save Medicare nearly $500 billion over 10 years. The bill uses those savings to improve Medicare by adding some basic dental, vision and hearing coverage for beneficiaries, benefits that people enrolled in Original Medicare do not now receive. Some Medicare Advantage plan enrollees have coverage for those services. CBO estimates that even after those new benefits are paid for, HR 3 would still save Medicare $5 billion over a decade.
“AARP has long supported closing the gaps in health coverage by including dental, hearing and vision coverage in the Medicare program,” LeaMond said in a letter to House members before the vote. “The lack of coverage for these important health benefits can jeopardize the health of older Americans and drive up health care spending.”
Curbs price increases
Under the House measure, drug manufacturers that raise the prices of their medicines by more than the rate of inflation would have to pay a rebate to the federal government. An AARP report found that in 2017, the average annual retail price increase for brand name, generic and specialty drugs was 4.2 percent — twice the 2.1 percent general rate of inflation that year. The average price increase for a group of widely used brand-name drugs alone was 8.4 percent in 2017. The Senate proposal contains a similar provision.
The House measure also boosts funding for biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health by $10 billion over the next 10 years to invest in innovative research, including efforts to combat resistance to antibiotics and other threats to global health.
Posted inHealth|Comments Off on Groundbreaking Bill to Lower Prescription Prices Passes House
Ed note: This inspirational short story seems appropriate for the Christmas season. It’s an unusually long post for this blog but I hope you have time to read it.
IN a certain town there lived a cobbler, Martin Avdéiteh by name. He had a tiny room in a basement, the one window of which looked out on to the street. Through it one could only see the feet of those who passed by, but Martin recognized the people by their boots. He had lived long in the place and had many acquaintances. There was hardly a pair of boots in the neighbourhood that had not been once or twice through his hands, so he often saw his own handiwork through the window. Some he had re-soled, some patched, some stitched up, and to some he had even put fresh uppers. He had plenty to do, for he worked well, used good material, did not charge too much, and could be relied on. If he could do a job by the day required, he undertook it; if not, he told the truth and gave no false promises; so he was well known and never short of work.
Martin had always been a good man; but in his old age he began to think more about his soul and to draw nearer to God. While he still worked for a master, before he set up on his own account, his wife had died, leaving him with a three-year old son. None of his elder children had lived, they had all died in infancy. At first Martin thought of sending his little son to his sister’s in the country, but then he felt sorry to part with the boy, thinking: ‘It would be hard for my little Kapitón to have to grow up in a strange family; I will keep him with me.’
Martin left his master and went into lodgings with his little son. But he had no luck with his children. No sooner had the boy reached an age when he could help his father and be a support as well as a joy to him, than he fell ill and, after being laid up for a week with a burning fever, died. Martin buried his son, and gave way to despair so great and overwhelming that he murmured against God. In his sorrow he prayed again and again that he too might die, reproaching God for having taken the son he loved, his only son while he, old as he was, remained alive. After that Martin left off going to church.
One day an old man from Martin’s native village who had been a pilgrim for the last eight years, called in on his way from Tróitsa Monastery. Martin opened his heart to him, and told him of his sorrow. (click page 2 below to continue)
I am one of the scores of Americans left politically homeless. For 37 years I worked to build the Republican Party in Washington state. The election of President Donald Trump and the ascendancy of the alt-right Pat Buchanan wing of the GOP caused me to leave. Since then, like many others, I have written about polarization and the collapse of the center, and I have been part of various efforts to try and create a centrist alternative to our current two-party system.
To date, however, those efforts have not made much progress.
Critics have made the case that the term “centrist” is mushy and undefined, that the political center doesn’t even exist. And they have a point. Politics is ultimately about ideology and specific policy proposals. If centrism is to emerge as a competitor to nationalist populism on the right, and democratic socialism on the left, it needs to be named and defined.
Actually, a coherent centrist philosophy has existed for decades, but beyond using the term “moderate,” it has never been clearly defined in America. In Britain, however, this philosophy is well known as one nationism.
Buddhist teacher offers five simple steps to quiet your mind and soothe your stress any time of year.
From the NYT: The Buddhist monk Haemin Sunim remembers the moment he discovered the power of self-care. He was a frustrated graduate student when a trusted friend told him the solution was to “be good to yourself first — then to others.”
“I had never once thought properly of caring for myself or loving myself,” he writes in his latest book, “Love for Imperfect Things,” which is to come out in paperback in February. “We consider it good to be good to others, but don’t forget that you have a responsibility to be good to yourself first.”
Haemin Sunim (Sunim is the term used to address a Buddhist monk in Korea) has taught Buddhism at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., and continues to espouse the power of self-care through Buddhist teachings. He has amassed more than one million followers on Twitter and become an international best-selling author who guides his readers on managing stress and overcoming the challenges of everyday life.
The obvious forms of self-care are exercising, eating well and getting enough sleep. But self-care also means taking time for yourself to manage stress and practicing self-compassion, along with mindfulness and meditation techniques.
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Most of us already know that self-care is good for us. Research shows that people who practice self-care have better quality of life, are admitted less frequently to a hospital, and live longer than those who report poor self-care.
While self-care is a simple concept, it can be remarkably difficult to enact. It may feel selfish or too time-consuming to focus on your own needs, and many of us don’t know where or how to start. Haemin Sunim suggests a simple five-step plan to give yourself the gift of self-care this holiday season.
Breathe
Start by just taking a deep breath. Become mindful of your breathing. You’ll notice that when you begin, your breathing is shorter and more shallow, but as you continue, your breathing becomes deeper. Take just a few minutes each day to focus on your breathing. “As my breathing becomes much deeper and I’m paying attention to it, I feel much more centered and calm,” Haemin Sunim said. “I feel I can manage whatever is happening right now.”
Accept
Acceptance — of ourselves, our feelings and of life’s imperfections — is a common theme in “Love for Imperfect Things.” The path to self-care starts with acceptance, especially of our struggles. “If we accept the struggling self, our state of mind will soon undergo a change,” Haemin Sunim writes. “When we regard our difficult emotions as a problem and try to overcome them, we only struggle more. In contrast, when we accept them, strangely enough our mind stops struggling and suddenly grows quiet. Rather than trying to change or control difficult emotions from the inside, allow them to be there, and your mind will rest.”
Write
Begin to practice acceptance through a simple writing exercise. Write down the situation you must accept and all that you are feeling. Write down the things in your life that are weighing on you, and the things you need to do. “Rather than trying to carry those heavy burdens in your heart or your head, you see clearly on paper what it is you need to do,” Haemin Sunim said. Whether the issue is work, family demands or holiday stress, the goal is to leave it all on the paper. Now go to bed and when you wake up, choose the easiest task on the list to complete. “In the morning, rather than resisting, I will simply do the easiest thing I can do from the list,” Haemin Sunim said. “Once I finish the easiest task, it’s much easier to work on the second.”
Talk
Never underestimate the value of meaningful conversation for your well-being. Make time on a regular basis for a close, nonjudgmental friend. “If you feel frustrated or angry, look for a close friend and buy them coffee or lunch or dinner,” Haemin Sunim said. “Choose someone who will listen without any kind of judgment.” Talking through your feelings will give you insights into your own needs. “You already know the answer,” Haemin Sunim said. “It’s just that you haven’t had the opportunity to clearly relive the story. Once the story is released, you can see it more objectively, and you will know what it is you need to do.”
Walk
One of the easiest ways to care for yourself is to take a walk. Just walking, Haemin Sunim said, can distract your mind and create space between you and whatever is causing stress in your life. “Walking can be an incredible resource for healing,” Haemin Sunim said. “When you sit around thinking about upsetting things, it will not help you. If you start walking, our physical energy changes and rather than dwelling on that story, you can pay attention to nature — a tree trunk, a rock. You begin to see things more objectively, and oftentimes that stress within your body will be released simply by walking.”
Haemin Sunim said he wrote his first book, “The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down,” after teaching students at Hampshire College and answering their questions about managing the stress in their lives. He said his ultimate goal in writing “Love for Imperfect Things” was to guide readers to a path of self-care and acceptance.
“The main point is how to accept yourself when you are living in a world striving for perfection all the time,” he said. “Even if you feel there are many things in your life that are imperfect, if you look at them in a compassionate way, you discover that imperfection, in and of itself, is beautiful and has meaning.”
Tara Parker-Pope is the founding editor of Well, The Times’s award-winning consumer health site. She won an Emmy in 2013 for the video series “Life, Interrupted” and is the author of “For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage.” @taraparkerpope
Gordon G. sent this along. I hope you’ve watched The Crown – season 3 is now on Netflix.
England’s current queen has been the head of state long enough that many people either don’t remember or haven’t been around long enough to witness anyone else on the throne other than Her Majesty.
Queen Elizabeth II ascended the throne after her father died in 1952. Although she succeeded him the same day he passed away. Her official coronation was held a year and a half later. The reason is due to the tradition of allowing an appropriate length of time between a monarch’s passing and holding a celebration to crown their heir.
Here are pictures of the Presidents she has met. It makes me feel kind of old…well maybe time tested.
Posted inHistory, Politics|Comments Off on The Queen and 11 Presidents: 2020 will tell us if there will be a 12th.
Most of us don’t think much of snow: it’s something to snowboard on, perhaps; fun for the kids, certainly, and usually a pain to shovel. But for British “snow artist” Simon Beck, it’s a pure, clean canvas for stunning, large-scale works of art, made with his own two feet (shod with snowshoes, of course).
We’ve seen Beck’s work previously, and now the artist is back with more mind-blowingly beautiful pieces, done in the great outdoors during the last year or so. Seen over at This Is Colossal, Beck’s newest tramplings are geometrically inspired, taking their cues from mathematical forms, nature’s spirals, fractals and other freeform delights.
Thanks to Allan A. who sent this along from the WSJ. Having had a brief general anesthetic not long ago, it certainly catches my attention!I often saw “transient” dementia in the ICU, but considered it to be always temporary. New data says otherwise.
William Borten had no idea his wife’s colorectal surgery could affect her mind. But a day later, Judith Sue Borten couldn’t remember her birthday or who the president was.
She was experiencing symptoms of delirium, a confused state that is common in elderly patients after surgery or during intensive care stays.
The delirium went away after a few days. But Mrs. Borten’s cognitive abilities, which were already impaired, declined rapidly afterward, says her husband, who is 84 and lives in Bethesda, Md. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a year later and died at 81 from complications of the disease in September. Her doctor suspects the delirium contributed to Mrs. Borten’s cognitive decline.
Delirium is more common than people realize, and can contribute to long-lasting cognitive problems, doctors say. In U.S. hospitals, about five older adults become delirious every minute, or 2.6 million people a year, according to an analysis of government statistics. Patients who experience delirium are at greater risk of long-term cognitive issues, including dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, say doctors.
From the NYT: The first time he spoke to her, in 1943, by the Auschwitz crematory, David Wisnia realized that Helen Spitzer was no regular inmate. Zippi, as she was known, was clean, always neat. She wore a jacket and smelled good. They were introduced by a fellow inmate, at her request.
Her presence was unusual in itself: a woman outside the women’s quarters, speaking with a male prisoner. Before Mr. Wisnia knew it, they were alone, all the prisoners around them gone. This wasn’t a coincidence, he later realized. They made a plan to meet again in a week.
On their set date, Mr. Wisnia went as planned to meet at the barracks between crematories 4 and 5. He climbed on top of a makeshift ladder made up of packages of prisoners’ clothing. Ms. Spitzer had arranged it, a space amid hundreds of piles, just large enough to fit the two of them. Mr. Wisnia was 17 years old; she was 25.
“I had no knowledge of what, when, where,” Mr. Wisnia recently reminisced at age 93. “She taught me everything.”
They were both Jewish inmates in Auschwitz, both privileged prisoners. Mr. Wisnia, initially forced to collect the bodies of prisoners who committed suicide, had been chosen to entertain his Nazi captors when they discovered he was a talented singer.
Ms. Spitzer held the more high-powered position: She was the camp’s graphic designer. They became lovers, meeting in their nook at a prescribed time about once a month. After the initial fears of knowing they were putting their lives in danger, they began to look forward to their dates. Mr. Wisnia felt special. “She chose me,” he recalled.
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