Big Pharma - Big Bucks

 The best dissection of Big Pharma I have come across is the recent article by David Armstrong at ProPublica, 

In The Price of Remission Armstrong uses his own experience with cancer treatment as a starting point for explaining the complexities of drug development and the exploitation of human misery to make stratospheric profits.

The implications of how RFK Jr. and the DOGE team will make things even worse are not directly dealt with in the article, but they are easily deduced.

It is also worth noting that Big Pharma contributions to politicians are nearly equally divided between the two major parties, with the Republicans having only a slight edge.

At the Museum

 Two big exhibits at either end of the Albuquerque Museum.

Light, Space, and the Shape of Time

April 5 - July 20, 2025

 

Plastic, glass and neon with a '60s vibe.  I am not very moved by these kinds of large, abstract sculpture installations.  The show did not live up to its rather pretentious title.  I thought the most interesting and fun piece was the one featured at the entrance to the gift shop.

 

Focus on Youth

May 3 – June 1, 2025

A big photography show by Albuquerque public school students with lots of polished, inspiring work that is as good or better than what can be found in art gallerys around town.

 

Trevor Martinez, Guitar Highlights, Sandia High School, Grade 12

Mayday Mayday Mayday

 An early futurist take on the development of artificial intelligence was that it would replace the need for human labor and usher in an age of leisure for everyone.  At this point the effects on job availability are uncertain, but the rosy glow of the early predictions is fading fast.

For a more realistic view it is worth looking at how things have developed in the social media industry.  In that trillion-dollar undertaking the tangible benefits have gone overwhelmingly to the billionaire class.  Useful, objective news has been subverted by an avalanche of lies and conspiracy theories. The early promise of the internet to empower ordinary people has been undermined by kowtowing to authoritarianism.

Resistance is still possible.  There is still access available to independent initiatives, online and offline. The time to speak up and to act is now.

***

Tyrants like Trump always fall – and we can already predict how he will be dethroned

Simon Tisdall in The Guardian

No Access

 What happened when Representative Melanie Stansbury visited the Albuquerque Social Security Office to see how staff and budget cuts were affecting her constituents.

                                  __________________________

"At least 40 Field Offices across the country report that these staffing reductions result in the loss of more than a quarter of their staff. This means longer wait times for appointments and longer lines once people arrive.

That’s why I visited the Social Security office in Albuquerque to conduct oversight and find out more about what is going on. We were denied entry past the waiting room and instead given a generic phone number in another state to schedule a meeting. Folks, this was AFTER our already scheduled meeting was cancelled last minute for no good reason. Here’s what I was able to uncover: staffing is down by over half, computer systems have been crashing, call times have more than doubled, it is taking days for members of our communities to reach anyone who can answer questions, and people are now being forced to come in person and can’t get appointments for months out to get their issues resolved around the country.

These impacts are hurting real people, including our seniors, people living with disabilities, and survivors. As the Ranking Member of the DOGE Subcommittee on Oversight, it is my job to get to the bottom of this. Hands off Social Security! "
 

Fifty Years

 It seemed like the Viet Nam war would never end.  When it finally did I could hardly believe it.

How Photography From the Vietnam War Changed America (New York Times)

Kyoichi Sawada/Bettmann/Corbis, via Getty Images

At The Ponderosa

Our favorite nearby brew pub.  We nearly always order fish and chips.
 

Margaret gets a glass of Kölsch.  I like the Ripsaw Red.

Something to Declare

An online search failed to turn up anything interesting to read, so I started poking around in my book shelves.  I found a copy of Something to Declare by Julia Alvarez that I had somehow never read.  That was a surprise because she is one of my favorites and I have read most of what she has written.

The book is a collection of short articles and essays written over a period of years about the author's experiences as an immigrant to the U.S.  She recounts her early childhood in the Dominican Republic within a large and prosperous family, including her three sisters. Her father was a doctor and her beloved grandfather a cultural affairs delegate to the United Nations. What soon became obvious was that status and wealth were no barriers to the scrutiny of the dictator Trujillo's secret police.

The family's vulnerability was increased by the fact that Alvarez's father owned a prohibited firearm and he was a participant in the clandestine resistance to the dictatorship. When a secret police vehicle started blocking their driveway at night it was clear that the time had come to escape the island.  

Permission to travel to the United States was narrowly obtained on the pretext of advanced surgical studies by the father.  The family's wealth and connections allowed them to fly to New York where they found asylum, and thus began Julia's challenge of learning to navigate a new culture and a new language. Her long list of well-received books in her adopted language is a testament to her arduous but successful journey.