I’m having an Unsubscribe party for myself this week. My inbox was a stew of misery, even with most posts going to their proper folders on Gmail. I figured it would end after the election, but it didn’t — I even got fundraising emails after the campaigns, with STAY INFORMED in the subject line, that sort of thing. I didn’t hesitate. Every candidate I sent money to this cycle lost, and I’m not inclined to stay informed about their activities. I’m replying STOP to end text contacts. I’m just done. Uncle.

The ones that gave me the best feeling were Axios, a.m. and p.m. I still get the Axios Detroit newsletter, but it’s about one eyeroll away from getting shitcanned, too. Fortunately it isn’t run by the same people who are now giving the president-elect the Strange New Respect treatment. Take a moment and tell us why you’re leaving, Axios begged. Because I’m sick of you polishing Trump’s knob, I wrote in the designated box. What could we do to keep you? Stop polishing Trump’s knob. And with that, I hit Unsubscribe with grim satisfaction.

Somehow I got on some right-wing mailing lists, on my other account. They all sold my address to their friends, too. I used to get some amusement out of seeing how they whip up the proles, but ultimately it wasn’t worth it. They all use the same Unsubscribe reply: Hate to see you go! Fuck off, assholes.

Needless to say, I dropped Amazon Prime.

I’ll be off Twitter soon enough. Find me on BlueSky at @nderringer. I have to stay on Facebook for my social-media work, but I’m trying to go dark there, too. (I may fail.)

Along with Unsubscribe, I’m also doing a limited number of paid subs, too. There’s Roy Edroso on Substack, although I think he comps me. He shouldn’t, because he brings me real pleasure and I’d gladly pay. I don’t pay for Eric Zorn, only because his paid content is all Chicago-oriented and would be wasted on me, but if you’re a Chicagoan, consider it. I like his Thursday newsletter because it’s amusing and topical. My friend Jimmy is on Substack, doing daily short fiction; I pay because he’s an artist and I sometimes attend his monthly writing workshop. I just subscribed to Caryn Rose, a freelancer who specializes in rock ‘n’ roll, because I’m so out of touch and should be in better touch. There are a couple of others.

You might see this as turning inward, and you might be right. I’m just trying to preserve my sanity in an insane time. How insane? Have you met our incoming secretary of defense?

Maybe I should start a paid service, called You Voted For This. A few bucks a year gets you an email sent to three addresses of your choice — friends, parents, colleagues, whatever. Once a week I will round up the horrors of the last seven days and mail them to the people you can no longer stand to speak to: Hi! Did you know the incoming secretary of defense just had his third child with an affair partner, is going through his second divorce and lies like a rug? Now you do! And he’s going to be in charge of the Pentagon!

Oh, well. Enough for now. Join me in the high point of the week: Figuring out why my vacuum lost its suction, via deductive reasoning. Answer: The head piece was clogged with schmutz. Later, gators.

A few years ago, one of Michigan’s plentiful dumbass state legislators introduced a bill to do away with private-employer vaccine mandates, specifically the ones hospitals commonly have that requires their employees to get flu shots and the like. I wrote a story about it, and what stands out to me is what the co-sponsor said when I asked him what his intent was:

“I’m not a strong believer in mandatory things. If it’s against someone’s religious beliefs or something like that, there are people who just don’t believe in things like that.”

There you have the Tea Party mentality, c. 2012: You can’t make me.

What I also remember about that piece is what a doctor told me:

“Nowadays, we’re trying to convince people who are already locked into their opinions, and also don’t have historical perspective on history of these diseases,” said DeGraw, who is a paid consultant for two pharmaceutical companies. “A child born in 1912 had a 1-in-5 chance of dying by its fifth birthday. Even my parents’ generation knew someone who died of these diseases.

“Pertussis is a great example,” he said. “In the ’30s and ’40s, before the vaccine, 7,000 to 8,000 kids would die in the U.S.(from whooping cough). Now, in the last decade, you only get a couple dozen.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., alleged incoming health czar in the Trump administration (although there are whispers he’ll be Chris Christie’d before January), says he’s not anti-vaccine. He just wants people to have choice, and for them to be fully informed about vaccine safety. I expect we could be heading toward a state of affairs similar to getting an abortion in a red state pre-Dobbs: Of course you can get your child vaccinated, but you have to sit through a video first, in which the “vaccine-injured” will tell sad tales about how their child was fine, fine, perfectly fine, and then he was vaccinated for measles/mumps/rubella and AUTISM. Still want that shot, mom? After all, most kids survive measles just fine.

I don’t want to keep harping on the medical damage we’re facing, because we’re facing so much other damage. Someone suggested that we could see a national school-voucher program in this administration, which will hollow out public schools. They’ll still exist in some fashion, for kids in Detroit or Chicago or wherever, and the Vance children and others of their wealth and class will attend elite private schools, but the vast middle class will be sucked into shitbag voucher academies. They’ll learn that God blessed America alone among nations, that slavery was really just an immigration program with a work requirement, and that higher ed is unnecessary — we need electricians, too! Girls can learn womanly skills like cooking, sewing and housekeeping, and boys will go to shop class.

Needless to say, teachers won’t be unionized, and they’ll be paid shit, while a few voucher-school tycoons grow very very rich. We’ll send money to homeschooling parents, too, and I’m sure that will work out just dandy.

I think I have to listen to some podcasts about movies or whatnot. This isn’t healthy for me or anyone else.

I went to Columbus this weekend, on family matters, and treated myself with the Crazy Mama’s 45th reunion party. Crazy Mama’s was a nightclub I used to go to, along with Jeff Borden and some others, back in the day, which is to say, the ’80s. It was spectacular; at a time when rock music had become bloated and boring — Kansas, anyone? — Crazy’s DJs played new wave, rockabilly, punk and other music that you never heard on the radio, and that just required you to get up and dance. And when I say “I used to go there,” I mean I was dedicated: For a while I was splitting my sleep in half. I’d stay until closing time, go home and sleep three or four hours, get up and go to work, then come home and crash for another three-hour nap before I left for another night of fun.

Pro tip: This is not a sustainable lifestyle, but I was very young.

I’d kinda-sorta planned to go with Borden and another friend, but Jeff had some family matters of his own and so that plan fell apart. I don’t mind going to stuff like that by myself, however, and the music was great — the Whiskey Daredevils, Willie Phoenix, Screaming Urge and the Fleshtones. I had a good time.

But now I’m back home, and it’s starting to look like family matters may bring me back to Columbus sooner rather than later. (I’m being oblique here for a reason.) They say life is a shit sandwich, and everybody’s got to take a bite. I just wish the whole country wasn’t being served a giant platter of them.

Oh, forgot to add: Here’s a podcast featuring Kate. You can listen on whatever platform you prefer. The podcast is called Outer Limited, and it’s produced by a music journalist here in Detroit and another bassist with a local band. The focus is Detroit music. She sounds good!

Strange to think my daughter will lose her rights and her affordable health care by the end of next year. And neighbors who watched her for years walking down our street, headed to school or the park, will celebrate. Hell, we could lose our health care, or see it whittled away to nothing, replaced by a “market-based” plan that will cost more than the pre-ACA plans did, and won’t cover anything anyway.

Rolling back fluoridation. The ignorance is breathtaking, isn’t it? To believe RFKJr’s lies about that, you’d have to believe the EVIL fertilizer industry had an EVIL problem, i.e., where to dispose of its EVIL waste, and some Snidely Whiplash in the C-suite said, “I know! Let’s add it to the nation’s drinking water!” and a plan was hatched to bamboozle the nation’s dentists, and it was successful, and all the EVILLLLL fertilizer guys cackled and rubbed their evil hands together in glee, and backed their dump trucks full of POISON to the nation’s reservoirs and poured it in, probably charging ratepayers for shipping and handling.

Because EVIL.

Well, I know what evil looks like, Pilot Joe. Sometimes it comes dressed in ignorance, but evil is as evil does, and a whole, whole lot of evil will be going on in the coming years. Because peanut butter is more expensive than it was a few years ago, and a suspiciously tall lady with a prominent Adam’s apple peed in the next stall at the coffeehouse, and oh my what could have happened.

I don’t have much to say today, except fuck it all.

Good morning, America, how are ya?

I think a lot these days about the damage done over the last 10 years or so. I’m focused on RFK Jr. at the moment, but I could be thinking of any one of dozens of people. Bobby’s patron speaks of children being “injected with this giant needle,” a ridiculous lie that’s hardly ever refuted by a journalist. RFK Jr talks about “72 vaccines,” another lie. The standard childhood vaccine array today is aimed at 15 diseases, some given over time in multiple doses. I counted the number of doses on the Cleveland Clinic vaccination schedule, and it totaled 37. My child got every one of them, including HPV, which conservatives, with typical Christian charity, call the slut shot. Needless to say, she’s healthy, unless you consider choosing a career in rock music an illness, ha ha.

And yet. A friend has a mother with some fragile health conditions, and when he told her recently that he didn’t want to visit until he’d had a Covid shot, she expressed concern that he’d had “too many” of those. He obligingly sent her the story about the German man who deliberately got a Covid vaccine about every four days for more than two years, for a total of 217. He is fine. But this is what I think of as the damage.

Clearly we’ll never reach Bobby and his cohort on this issue, but their continual amplification of this lie is seeping into the consciousness of otherwise reasonable people, who just vaguely worry that he’s probably wrong, but maybe he’s right, or a little bit right, and let that keep them from stopping in at their local pharmacy for whatever they’re due for.

Me, I’ve gotten eight Covid shots. I figure I’ll be getting two a year until I die. Still a Novid here. (Now let’s cue the troll who always pops up and jeers at us. Mr. Coffee, or something.) Might still get it. But I won’t get it because I let some propagandist talk me out of a safe vaccine. I got flu and shingles shots on Friday, and my fucking arm is still hot and sore from the latter, but that’s normal and I remember people with shingles telling me they have never, ever suffered such pain. Seems a good trade-off.

Today is the election. Over the last four years, despite saying ridiculous bullshit like “if I lose, that means it’s rigged,” millions of Americans have bought in to the idea our elections are not secure. They hold up this or that case of shenanigans as proof, whereas anyone who’s paid attention knows that yes, election fraud is easy to commit, on a very small scale. I could have voted in Indiana and Michigan — hands up don’t shoot — for a couple years, but I didn’t. And if I had, it would have made a difference in any race with a one-vote margin. I could have collected Kate’s absentee ballot and deposited it in the drop box with mine and Alan’s, which would technically be ballot harvesting because we don’t live in the same household anymore. Perusing the Heritage Foundation’s database of election fraud, you can read about individual cases. There are 19 listed for Michigan. Here’s one for Brandon Hall, a bottom-tier GOP activist:

Brandon Hall was convicted of ten counts of ballot petition fraud stemming from the 2012 election. Chris Houghtaling, who sought to become a candidate for the Ottawa County District Court, hired Hall to acquire the necessary signatures for his candidacy; Houghtaling reportedly did not care whether the signatures were collected legally or illegally, and even assisted in Hall’s crime by providing him old 2010 petitions to copy. Hall, realizing he did not collect enough signatures, used a phone book to complete the rest. Hall’s friend, Zachary Savage, assisted with the fraud, but prosecutors granted him immunity in exchange for his testimony. Hall appealed his conviction, which was affirmed. He is awaiting sentencing.

(Hall is the genius who briefly worked for James Craig, a former Detroit police chief who ran unsuccessfully for governor, and was part of this fiasco.)

Here’s another, Nancy Williams:

Nancy Williams was charged by the state in Wayne County with 3 felony counts of forging a signature on an absentee ballot, 2 felony counts of election law forgery, 5 misdemeanor counts of false statements on applications for absentee ballots, and 7 misdemeanor counts of receiving a payment to influence vote after participating in an absentee ballot trafficking scheme involving elderly voters at a nursing care facility. She submitted voter registration and absentee ballot applications for 26 legally incapacitated residents under her care without their consent. Williams had the absentee ballots mailed directly to her. She pleaded guilty to 7 counts of receiving a payment to influence vote in exchange for dismissal of the other charges, was sentenced to one year of probation, fined $3,500, and assessed $1,096 in fees. Similar charges against Williams in Oakland County are still pending.

You don’t win elections with 26 votes, at least not important ones. You win with thousands, hundreds of thousands. And that requires a conspiracy so vast it would collapse in hours.

But that’s where we are today. I hope we take a step back, but I expect bad things will happen between now and next January 20. We just don’t know what kind of bad things, and they’ll be different for everyone.

Be at peace, all. I’m working overnight tonight as a Dem challenger (observer) in Macomb County, where the city clerk has opted NOT to take advantage of eight days of pre-processing of absentee ballots, for unclear reasons. What that means is, I go to work at midnight and get off Whenever. So expect me Whenever, and play nice in the comments.

Sorry for not much to say today, but my brain is buzzing and I need to get some real work done. In the meantime, I remind you that this idiot is going around saying this, and I honestly can’t imagine anything worse for the country:

Anti-vaxxer RFK Jr. announces that Trump has “promised” him total “control” over America’s public health agencies if he wins pic.twitter.com/BRJceUzwVk

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 30, 2024

Please vote as though your life depends on it, because it does.

I’d imagine most of us remember those fabulous ’80s, right? That’s when “classic rock” emerged as a radio format, often credited to the utterly loathsome Randy Michaels. By effectively shutting the door on new music, the genre became moribund, only occasionally spawning retro-new acts like the Black Crowes. For me, it’s when radio really started to suck.

But when hip-hop rose to dominate pop music — and when lots of classic-rock dudes had teenage sons who scorned dad’s records for the rap that their elders hated and feared, and did so beneath the private headphones of a Walkman — it got nasty. I vividly recall many station IDs where some male voice would snarl TODAY’S BEST CLASSIC ROCK…AND NO RAP. There was an action movie whose TV ads featured a black gangster snarling at Bruce Willis, “I’m wanna make you scream in pain!” and Willis replies, “Play some rap music.” Ha ha. A rock DJ in Fort Wayne told me that when he played Run-DMC’s cover of “Walk This Way,” the phone lines lit up immediately, and not in praise, if you know what I mean.

Racist? You bet. Hip-hop may not be your cup of tea, but you can’t say it hasn’t stood the test of time. Public Enemy comes up from time to time in my boxing classes, and it still sounds contemporary, which is not something you can say about the synth-heavy pop of the ’80s, which is so dated it makes you smell AquaNet. Even the scary-ass rappers every white person was afraid of have matured into cuddly pop-culture heroes (looking at you, Snoop Dogg) or even people we should respect and listen to; if you didn’t see Barack Obama paying tribute to Eminem last week, I certainly did, and reflected on when one of my editors in Fort Wayne, a true music appreciator across genres, was appalled by his Slim Shady debut to the point of alarm.

But some people, mostly old white GenX or Boomers, still hate it.

I thought of this a few years back, when I was browsing for a hairbrush at CVS and overheard a black woman, younger than me but not by much, singing along to Billy Joel on the store’s music system. She was doing it kind of absently, looking for something on the shelves too, but I was struck by how much feeling she managed to infuse in a lyric I’d already heard 187,000 times. She had every right to find it as lame as I did, but she didn’t.

This week we have a crew hanging drywall in the basement. They’re all black, and like all drywall crews, they pass the time playing music on a Bluetooth speaker. I’d expect a playlist, or a radio station, that draws from the deep wells of blackness in pop music, but no. At the moment, it’s the Eagles. Before that, U2. Before that, Hall & Oates. The only black artist I can recall hearing this morning is Tina Turner, and “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” a fine track, but not exactly a deep one for that artist. I texted the family about this, and Alan noted, “The first day I thought they were curating their playlist so as not to frighten the white folks upstairs. But no. (The crew leader) knew the lyrics and was singing along to a Foreigner song.”

When it dropped, I know I linked to Wesley Morris’ contribution to the 1619 Project, a podcast episode called “The Birth of American Music,” and I still think it’s one of the best explanations of how we got here that you can get in half an hour. It starts with a funny intro about yacht rock, and here’s the pivot point:

This is the sound not just of black America, but the sound of America. It is deeply American, almost especially when it’s sung by British people like David Bowie and Annie Lennox and Amy Winehouse. And it fills me with pride. Like, I know that there is something irresistible and ultimately inevitable about black music being a part of American popular music. But it also reminds me that there’s a history to this, a very painful history. And in the most perversely ironic way, it’s this historical pain that is responsible for this music.

It goes on from there, but I don’t want to spoil it.

There’s a whole YouTube subgenre of black people listening to white music. This is only a mild taste of it. And all of this is, I hasten to add, FINE. It is great that we can all enjoy all the music that’s out there, even Foreigner. I just think it’s funny, how that woman in the CVS could take a Billy Joel song and make it pretty great. I’d buy her record! “In the Aisles: A CVS Shopper Covers Billy Joel,” maybe. That would drive the rock DJs nuts. But these boneheads who run rock radio can’t find it in their cinder-like hearts to enjoy a little Kendrick Lamar.

OK, then. Just a few more days until widespread civil unrest breaks out in American cities! Let’s listen to music and take our minds off it.

I was champing at the bit to vote early, and did, along with 145,000 other Michigan voters, which suggests a lot of bit-champing out there. My early-voting center said it had been steady all day, and it was. Didn’t take me long with the straight-ticket option, a choice I used to scorn, but well: Things are different now. Then there were the usual Wayne County judicial races, lots of them unopposed and/or under-opposed, which means the ballot says “vote for no more than 18,” and there are only 16 names in the race, so why bother.

But it’s done. And I got the good sticker:

Now let’s see if the number of emails and texts drop off. I’ve found responding “fuck off” to the ones that come from candidates you despise works as well as STOP. Just another week and change until I can either stop taking OTC sleep aids, or start taking double doses, plus CBD gummies.

I’m fresh home from leading the neighborhood Halloween slow roll, although I didn’t. Lead, that is. I got the tandem out, wiped the dust off, pumped up the tires, made a playlist, and met about five kids and three adults at the appointed place. When we set out, I led for about half a block before three kids dressed as Ironman, some other superhero and a dragon (but “a Mario dragon, not a regular dragon”) blew past me and set a rather brisk pace. Fortunately, one of the other adults had done group rides before, and could outpace them and block the intersections. I just tooled along on my Soviet limousine, playing The Cramps and Bow Wow Wow, and everyone arrived at the block party safely.

Update: Just received a text from someone telling me to call Sen. Stabenow and tell her “Michigan families can’t afford higher prices and to support the elimination of taxes on overtime and tips to help families survive.” Testing my Fuck Off strategy.

Count me among those who are not outraged by the Washington Post’s non-endorsement. I’ve always found endorsements fairly silly, a relic from when every newspaper had a specific constituency. (Fun fact: There were once six daily newspapers in Fort Wayne, Indiana, two of them in German.) I could excuse a union worker for wondering which judge the labor paper thinks he or she could vote for. But the self-importance that some editorial boards display around this time is ridiculous, for a practice that maybe, maybe influences 10,000 votes nationwide. That said, to decide to forego endorsements this year of all years is only proof that an authoritarian doesn’t have to crack down, they just have to make other people think they might, and people like Jeff Bezos fall right in line. So I didn’t cancel our subscription. I should cancel Amazon Prime, and still might.

Meanwhile, I found this infuriating multimedia presentation on how abortion is, and isn’t, being performed in the new era. Dr. Kristi Tomlin’s story is particularly crazy-making.

Finally, if you’re online as much as I am, you’ve probably noticed the degradation of content on websites and social-media platforms. I used to hate that word — content — but what’s out there now doesn’t really deserve to be called anything else. Turns out, the problem is “slop,” most of it AI-generated. Interesting explanation at the link. I guess it was fun while it lasted.

Monday awaits us all. Hang tight.

I don’t believe we have yet said goodbye to Mitzi Gaynor. She died last week, at 93. She was mourned in the usual modern fashion — some amusing clips of her energetic dancing posted online, some YAS QUEEN, a note added to the lengthening list for the In Memoriam reel at next year’s Oscars.

I will remember Mitzi mainly for her effect on Eddie Fisher.

Eddie was a sportswriter in Columbus, already past his prime by the time I arrived in 1979. I don’t know if he even had a beat, but he looked like the kind of guy who’d cover horse racing. A bachelor. He always had a wet cigar stub clamped in his jaw, smelled like a wet cigar stub and had a tendency to look at women like a wolf in a Tex Avery cartoon. Eyes bugging out on springs, tongue rolling out like a carpet runner — you know the type.

He’s gone now, and his obit informs me that he spent a stretch as the paper’s entertainment editor. Even though he toiled in Sports, he hung on to one assignment from his earlier job, and that was writing advances for at least some of the Kenley Players summer-stock productions, and certainly the ones starring Mitzi Gaynor. I think he considered her a friend of sorts.

He loved, loved, loved Mitzi, and rarely missed the chance to drop her birth name into his slavering stories: Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber. I once walked past his desk when he was interviewing her. I think he was actually drooling.

Admittedly, Mitzi was quite something, an energetic hoofer with the legs to match. Her summer show wasn’t a play or musical, just “The Mitzi Gaynor Show,” with hoofing and jokes and false eyelashes and a crowd of backup dancers in tight pants and top hats. If you like that kind of thing, it was your kind of thing.

Mitzi had an active Instagram account, where she or her reps would post old clips of her dancing in some short number with a rhinestone-studded fringe hem. I guess that means she was young at heart. I could certainly watch her sing “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair” on repeat for about an hour.

In the midst of looking up stuff, I found a short piece about John Kenley, founder of the players, with this startling revelation:

Born to Slovakian saloon keepers in 1906, John was born in Denver Colorado, after the family had fled increasing prohibition laws on the East Coast. Born intersex, John (who occasionally went by “Joan” but utilized male pronouns when at work) entered show business when the family moved to Cleveland Ohio, where he worked as a female impersonator, acrobat, dancer, and audience plant at comedy show before he made the move to New York City.

I had no idea.

So farewell, Mitzi. You were a true entertainer.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mitzi Gaynor (@themitzigaynor)

Someone I know wondered this weekend whether the story about Arnold Palmer that Trump told this weekend came from his good buddy Jack Nicklaus. Not that we’ll ever know. Another reason to despise the Golden Bear. You Buckeyes know that Nicklaus is probably the most famous native of Upper Arlington, the Columbus suburb where I grew up. (There’s also Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s, but he moved in later.) Jack is MAGA now, so I don’t feel bad about disliking him.

Or rather, Jack supports “the best candidate.” I expect he’ll consider the guy who talked about Arnie’s shlong the best. The guy who posted this last night:

Check out the package on that piece of fan art. MAGA is always going on about “stolen valor.” You’d think this would bother them. You’d think wrong.

Some of the early reports about the Arnold Palmer remarked didn’t say what Trump actually said. There were a few headlines like this, from the Scaife-owned Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (thanks, Jason):

I think even the NYT referred to “memories” about Palmer, but fortunately the rewrite desk sharpened it up:

Former President Donald J. Trump on Saturday spewed crude and vulgar remarks at a rally in Pennsylvania that included an off-color remark about a famous golfer’s penis size and a coarse insult about Vice President Kamala Harris.

…His monologue culminated in lewd remarks about the size of Mr. Palmer’s penis. Moments later, Mr. Trump gave the crowd an opportunity to call out a profanity. He went on to use that four-letter word to describe Ms. Harris.

“Such a horrible four years,” Mr. Trump said, referring to the Biden-Harris administration, as he surveyed the crowd of hundreds of people in front of him. “We had a horrible — think of the — everything they touch turns to —.”

Ugh. Oh well. Short shrift today, because my weekend was pretty full, but unexceptional. A Friday-night movie (“A Clockwork Orange” at a revival house), a Saturday bike outing, a Sunday bike outing, a welcome-home dinner for Kate, who’s been on the road this past week. Then I had this really weird dream just before I woke up, and it fogged my head for hours. Now I gotta get to work.

So I hope your week isn’t starting like mine.

I asked for sweata weatha, and I got it. Highs today in the low 50s, and because our Nest thermostat is always trying to save us a few pennies, I realized today that once again it had nudged the thermostat down to 66 and my nose was cold. And this reminded me of a nose warmer that some catalog we used to get carried; it looked like a stocking cap for your nose, and you would presumably give that as a gag gift to someone like me, but certainly never wear it where any other human being could see you.

I couldn’t think of the catalog’s name. And while it wasn’t Hammacher Schlemmer, that’s the only one that came to mind. Does it still exist? It does, as a website now.

And it’s still pretty weird:

And:

But this being the 21st century, guess what, they have vibrators. Behold, the “Award Winning Women’s Sexual Wellness Massager:”

“Come on, CVS carries those things now,” Alan told me. OK, but still. This is the place I first saw the “weather forecaster” that was a picture of a donkey with a tail made of yarn. “If the tail’s movin’, it’s windy. If it’s wet, it’s rainin’,” etc. It was something of a surprise.

But never fear, you can still buy a nose warmer, but not at Hammacher Schlemmer. This was from some other outfit:

They are surprisingly numerous on Etsy, as well. Go figure.

OK, then. I was going to stay away from you-know-who today, but the clips coming out of the Univision town hall last night were absolutely brutal; I suggest you dial some up. And I leave you with this banger of a deep dive out of Fort Wayne, about how Parkview Hospital grew and grew and got greedier and greedier. It’s detail-packed and riveting:

Revenue pressure was even brought down to the level of nurses – some of whom say they have been pushed to charge for the smallest of items from Kleenexes to batteries. One 2022 email, obtained by the Guardian, shows a supervisor at Parkview DeKalb telling nurses that she had reviewed their charts for the week and found they had “missed” $50,000 in charges as a team. The following year, managers told staff to be more stringent about how many linen towels they handed out to patients – an initiative they termed “linen stewardship”.

“It makes me feel disgusting. It makes me feel dirty,” said one current Parkview nurse, describing how staff have been made to charge for supplies and services down to the micro-level. “Why should I be trying to make sure that they’re getting the most money that they can?”

In some cases, these volume and coding protocols resulted in enormous bills and significant additional revenue for the system, according to medical and legal records reviewed by the Guardian.

In 2021, after a young girl went to the ER for an accidental razor cut, a doctor applied an “adhesive skin affix”, a special type of wound glue, on her finger for about 10 seconds, according to her mother. Afterwards, Parkview charged just over $85 for the glue capsule, about four to five times the price listed online. The hospital also tacked another $295 onto the bill for the labor, which it classified as an intermediate surgical procedure, according to paperwork reviewed by the Guardian.

Have a great weekend, all.