It’s bad enough that a minor cable network picked up the moneygrubbing LIV tour without ESPN touting it as a “good” sign. It’s a terrible confirmation what we already knew.
Morality? Right and wrong? Ethics? They’re for suckers. It’s the money stupid.
Medicynical Note: A devil inspired murderous medieval misogynist, theocratic monarchy is buying it’s way into the public consciousness. Buying businesses, athletes, sports franchises, properties and souls.
Shame on Kornheiser.
Government censorship to suppress historic fact is reminiscent of the German movement in the 30’s to disenfranchise and later murder an entire categories of people— whether the brutal murderous suppression of the Roma or the Jews the outcome was the same.
We, in the once United States, are having a kind of nervous breakdown moment. It’s a fact that slavery occurred for hundreds of years in our country. It’s a fact that all manner of atrocities occurred under slavery. This was not limited to the south but the bulk of the horror occurred there and indeed a bloody war was fought between states on this issue. And yes formalized legal segregation of the races also occurred. An it’s a fact that racism is still quite evident in our culture today.
So maybe it’s not surprising that the Florida governor, the grandchild of Italian immigrants, is moving, with the support of the Florida Republican Party, to erase the well documented history of slavery and segregation from schools in his state. He doesn’t want it taught there.
Medicynical Note: For hundreds of years in parts of our country, the so-called land of the “free,” blacks were slaves, couldn’t own land, weren’t allowed into certain shops, had to sit in the back of the bus; and were limited to separate and unequal educational opportunity; etc, etc, etc. Hundreds of years without freedom, hundreds of years not being educated and hundreds of years of insecurity and poverty.
Republicans at one time had a proud history of opposing slavery (Lincoln) and supporting the anti-segregation civil rights legislation in the 60’s. That all changed in the late 60’s under the leadership of Nixon. The Repubs jumped ship and using a “southern strategy” suddenly like magic declared, after 300 or so years of racism, segregation and white preference, that any attempt to balance the scales was “discrimination” against whites. How timely and politically opportunist. The south has been solidly republican since that time.
And now, Florida is moving to stop teaching the facts of slavery and racism in our history. The movement sadly is not limited Florida. It’s white America in denial returning to it’s “originalist’s” racism.
George Santos is an incompetent liar. He is literally unemployable. So what does it mean when he is elected to the U.S. Congress, a body in which he is not the only or first lying incompetent? What does it say about our electorate that we elect liars and tolerate their incompetency?
This is not a political appointee who happens to be a simpleton like Chance in the Peter Sellers film Being There. No this is a full blown representative who votes on legislation, who was appointed to committees and who appears to be a full blown if not respected member of a very conservative republican caucus. What does this say about conservative America?
Medicynical Note: Nothing this man says can be accepted as fact without careful confirmation. But maybe that is the state of American politics today. After all we survived, barely, Donald Trump’s 30,000+ lies over 4 years during his tenure in office……and he is running again.
What does it all say about the state of the so-called Union?
Cancer drug pricing started, as I recall, to accelerate in the 90’s with the advent of Taxol (paclitaxel). This drug used mainly for breast cancer was priced at what now seems a “reasonable” $1000 for a dose. Prior to this “advance” the maximum cost for a drug was in the range of a few hundred dollars.
With better understanding of DNA and the genetic basis of cancer “targeted therapies arrived on the scene and prices rapidly spiraled. The first of targeted treatments, i.e. those that block a genetic defect, was Imatinib (Gleevac). A revolutionary advance, it was initially priced at between $26,000-and $40,000 (I recall the latter) for a year of treatment. A very big escalation. Now, FYI, that very same drug is sold at about 5 times the initial high price, $120,000 per year.
What’s amazing is that our so-called healthcare system paid up. Since then costs have spiraled. And todays example is just one of the extreme ultra-high priced medical “advances.”
“Approved by the FDA in January 2022 as the “first and only” treatment for metastatic uveal melanoma, Kimmtrak has kept his tumors stable, according to Davis. His oncologist told him he should stay on the drug “until it stops working.” Its manufacturer markets the drug’s power to deliver “6-month improvement in median overall survival.””
Medicynical Note: In cancer therapy the drug prices only partially reflect the actual cost of development. Companies price medication to maximize profits not to assure affordability or access. They consider the frequency of the disease as well as what any other drug for that disease will cost. When there is no other “effective” drug and the disease is severe and rare, the sky’s the limit.
The question remains who can afford it? How much can we afford to pay for 6 months of survival? Can insurers absorb the costs or is this the proverbial bridge too far?
Posted in Ethics, General Cynicism, Health Economics
Tagged Kimmtrak, Tebentafusp, Uveal Melanoma
I’m not a golfer and could care less whether LIV golf is successful. But I do think we should understand the motivation of the Saudi government sponsor. In the case of LIV, the Saudis are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to buy, I’m told, top golfers and to sponsor golf tournaments. Yes, the same government involved in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the embassy of Saudi Arabia in Turkey is bringing us LIV. (a bit ironic to say the least)
“Saudi officials said the journalist was killed in a “rogue operation” by a team of agents sent to persuade him to return to the kingdom, while Turkish officials said the agents acted on orders from the highest levels of the Saudi government.”
Now, just a few years later the oil-wealthy Saudi’s are attempting to distract the world from it’s past by sponsoring sports events, and golf is not their only target.
“Saudi Arabia has proved to be an alluring hub for sports events over the past few years, having signed a 10-year, $650m deal for a Formula One motor racing event, having invested millions in a Saudi International golf event, and hosted some of the biggest boxing showdowns in recent memory. The kingdom has also hired the Boston Consulting Group to help lobby its interest in hosting a World Cup event in the not-so-distant future.”
But the assassination of Khashoggi was not an isolated killing for the Saudis. It’s more the tip of an iceberg of killings and disappearances within Saudi Arabia.
Medicynical Note: it’s depressing. Sports icons such as Messi and Ronaldo and the prominent golf pros sell themselves and participate in events sponsored by an amoral and murderous regime. We watch and participate. We think nothing of going to the World Cup in Russia or Qatar. If we have no conscience we might even watch an obscure LIV golf event. We watch as the icons of world sport sell themselves and while they’re playing, people die.
Posted in current events, Ethics, General Cynicism, Uncategorized
Tagged Greed, Sportwashing
Reaping what the Supreme Court has sowed. The United States of America is the only place on earth where T.S.A.-like guards subject kindergarteners to daily security screening. Is this the “real” America? Is this what conservative America thinks is “freedom.”
Medicynical note: Our conservative Supreme Court majority has decreed that literally any attempt to control access to or the actual carrying of guns on our streets and malls is a threat to “freedom” and unconstitutional. Meanwhile the justices sit at home shaking in fear and complaining about the threat of people in front of their homes who might be carrying a gun. Ironic? Or just sicko?
Meanwhile the rest of us, including our children and grandchildren are subjected to mass shootings, threats of bodily harm, shooting incidents and now the daily screening for weapons as they go to school. “Freedom” in America has become a sick joke.
America’s cavalier gun policies move toward their natural endpoint. Killings blossom out of nowhere, collateral damage (death) abounds. It’s no nightmare, it’s America’s self-inflicted hell on earth.
“Broadened out to include all deaths from gun violence, not including suicides, 1,214 people have been killed before the end of the first month of this year, including 120 children. That is likely to increase to tens of thousands by the end of 2023 – the figure for 2022 is 20,200.”
“In comparison, the latest data from the UK showed that in the course of an entire year ending in March 2022, 31 people were killed by firearms. The UK’s population is 67 million to the US’s 333 million.”
Medicynical Note: Ah can you feel the freedom! It’s an almost daily gift from the thoughts and prayers folks. From the conservative members of the Supreme Court who made this all possible and quake in fear of people with……. guns; to the feckless Republican Party who thinks this is just another sign of “freedom” to the emergency responders who must be exhausted by the mayhem. It’s deja vous all over again. It’s “Groundhog Day” until we get it right…….
We’ve become a parody of ourselves. This is not at all like the good old days. It’s a self inflicted purgatory— and speaking of the afterlife, wonder what all those gun carrying evangelicals think? Is this their idea of heaven?
Sadly this Onionesque headline is real.
“We did not have a situation where someone was going around the school shooting,” Newport News police chief Drew told reporters. “We have a situation in one particular location where a gunshot was fired.”
“He added that the shooting was not an accident.” (Emphasis Medicynic)
“The student has since been taken into custody, and the teacher, a woman in her 30s, was taken to a local hospital to be treated for injuries that were “believed to be life-threatening”, according to the police department. Drew told reporters the teacher’s condition had improved somewhat by late afternoon.”
Medicynical Note: This really happened…..in…..America. WTF happened to us?
On the same day it was reported that 323 police were shot and 60 died in 2022 while 1400 people were shot and killed by police in 2022 and that since 2014 over 8000 people have been shot and killed by police.
Ironically, the people who made the killings possible and common, the people who gave us the “freedom” to kill, our conservative Supreme Court members, say that are “afraid” of people carrying guns near their homes.
And our brave police who should be leading the fight against gun violence, continue as a group to support deregulating gun ownership. They do this to the point of often refusing to enforce gun laws (Connecticut is just one example).
And we all live in fear. Welcome to America in 2023.
The Supreme Court that has supported guns everywhere for everyone is afraid……..of guns. “The law requires every judge to swear an oath to perform his or her work without fear or favor, but we must support judges by ensuring their safety,” Roberts wrote in his nine-page report. “A judicial system cannot and should not live in fear. The events of Little Rock teach about the importance of rule by law instead of by mob.”
Medicynical Note: Mass shootings in America almost daily. School shootings several times a year. And the judges who made it all possible are……… scared. What about the rest of us?
When deregulation allows the payments to legislators and judges in various forms, and sale of literally everything including resources such as water,problems follow. (Psst, bribery everywhere else in the world)
“Arizona’s water is running worryingly low. Amid the worst drought in more than a millennium, which has left communities across the state with barren wells, the state is depleting what remains of its precious groundwater. Much of it goes to private companies nearly free, including Saudi Arabia’s largest dairy company.”
Medicynical Note: Over the years a segment of our country influenced by greed and a form of I’ll-conceived idealism became convinced that privatization would lead to efficiency and cost savings. After all, in capitalism, competition forces all players to compete and be ruthlessly efficient.
As we’ve watched this fantasy play out over the last 40 years (since Reagan) it’s fallacies have become obvious. We forgot that unstated goal of capitalists is not competition but monopoly. When services are privatized and unregulated, profits become more important than services. Short term revenue generation to stockholders takes precedence over the quality of outcomes, sustainability, or the well being of a local population or individual.
This thinking has led us to become an armed camp influenced by the NRA and gun manufacturers; a country in which health care is unaffordable and whose prices increase yearly by multiples of the inflation; a country in which resources are sold off to the highest bidder; and a country in which our legislators and judges are legally influenced by payments (made legal by those same judges).
Arizona is just one example.
Posted in current events, Ethics, General Cynicism, Uncategorized
Medicynic 