February 18

 Sunny again with predictions of temperatures in the 50s. We are two weeks away from meteorological Spring and a month away from astronomical Spring. I am sure the weather gods are teasing us as always. they will clobber us again I am sure. Oh, well, I will enjoy this while it is here. I decided to put my needlework off til this evening. I plan to work on the genealogy project and reading for the rest of the day. Also doing some planning about meals. Mom's appetite is getting somewhat chancy. One day she will reject something she has enjoyed before. Or complain that is it way too much. I have already told her that if a bird ate the amount she does it would starve to death. I am trying to work in several small snacks over the day. We'll see how things go.

Timothy Snyder has a new post titled "Consumptive Capitalism" that is very interesting considering our personal issues. (I say "our" because dealing with Mom's health is a joint project.) That title is the one on an article he reposts from Sara Silverstein dealing with the business of health care--the very expensive business. She starts with an account of tuberculosis or (as it was called in the 19th and early 20th century) consumption. Medical "science" of the day prescribed stays in sanatoria to "hopefully" arrest and cure the disease. Silverstein makes the case that what they were really selling was hope because there were no cures before modern antibiotics were discovered. Even now the programs a months long course of multiple antibiotics unless the bug is drug resistant where the treatment is more prolonged and complicated. Just looked up the costs of treatment and it ranges from about $20,000 for the standard 4 to 6 month treatment to more than $100K for a more complicated and longer course dealing with multiply drug resistant forms and more than $400K for the "extremely" multiply drug resistant bugs. It is still a very expensive prospect which few people can afford out of pocket. At the end she notes that the "wellness" industry nowadays exceeds $2trillion. I can well believe it considering the number of ads for various drugs, nutritional aids, and devices we see every day. As Silverstein wrote the so-called Make America Healthy Again program pushed by Bobby K. Jr is a pipe dream.

Heather Cox Richardson put up another of her LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN essays which brush on the theme of health and weird weather (which touches on the theme of climate change which on writers has called "weather weirding"). She also ties it into Valentine's Day because on Valentine's Day in 1884 Theodore Roosevelt experienced what worst day of his life when both his wife of three years died giving birth to their daughter Alice and his mother died of typhoid. The younger Mrs. Roosevelt died of (they think) Bright's disease a kidney condition often the lingering result of a strep infection. Both diseases were common diseases in the overcrowded cities of industrializing America and at a time when antibiotics were not yet available. The rich could die almost as easily as the poor just in more comfortable conditions. Roosevelt took his grief out west to a ranch he had purchased until the horrendous winter of 1886-7 killed off a huge number of free range cattle including half of Roosevelts. As a side note Richardson didn't mention was that winter ended traditional open range cattle ranching and boosted the market for barbed wire. Roosevelt himself went back east to make a name for himself in progressive politics, shedding the dismissive tag eastern politicians had given him (dude) and, eventually in 1901, succeeding the assassinated McKinley.

David Kaiser often writes an article worth reading. Today he writes about "The End of An Era." Often eras are often, provisionally, identified after the fact. I say provisionally because those eras are redefined as time passes. But I agree that the events he is talking are serious breaks from our recent past. I often cite Isaac Asimov's FOUNDATION series as perhaps the best fictional presentation of the inertia of history and how hard it is to change trajectory. I remember telling my students when I taught history in college "no great change of politics or culture happens from a single cause." 

I would question Kaiser's assertion that most Americans support the new Voter ID initiatives. It all depends on which measures of which proposals you are talking about. I also question the notion that such new Voter IDs are necessary. I remember what I went through to get the mandated Secure ID driver's license which states have been pretty much been bullied by the Federal Government to adopt. My first attempt was stymied because my current name, affirmed by the court decision in my divorce. is not my birth name. Part of the Save Act (which is still a proposed bill) demands that the names match. My mother has gone from maiden name to first married name to second married name. When I tried the second time to get the Secure Id driver's license it sailed through with no problem. I think someone far more forceful than I made a case that stuck for accepting the court establishment of name after divorce.