Category: Off topic

Vanessa Miller in The Gazette:

Nearly two months after a bankruptcy judge confirmed a liquidation plan for the former Mercy Iowa City’s tens of millions in assets, secured bondholders “have yet to receive a single ‘effective date’ distribution” of cash.

And those bondholders — Preston Hollow Community Capital and Comptershare Trust Company — are asking the judge to get involved before the money available dwindles further.

Previously on Healthcare Shouldn’t Be Profit Driven: Public hospital system saves local healthcare facility from private loan sharks.

Cry me a river.

The Red Hand Files:

Mercy is a value that should be at the heart of any functioning and tolerant society. Mercy ultimately acknowledges that we are all imperfect and in doing so allows us the oxygen to breathe — to feel protected within a society, through our mutual fallibility. Without mercy a society loses its soul, and devours itself.

Hugo Book Club:

Dystopian fiction is when you take things that happen in real life to marginalized populations and apply them to people with privilege.

Ailsa Chang interviews Patrick Sisson of Bloomberg on NPR:

You also talked about how, like, some small towns – they’ve resorted to banning car washes. It’s really that bad. Like, car washes has – they’ve become this invasive species in some parts of the U.S.

The number of car washes is expected to double in the next six years because there’s a ton of money to be made in subscription model, the labor costs are low and culturally we’ve shifted from “I can do it” to “I want someone to do it for me”.

Every day, we take hundreds of steps towards abolition.

Waving to a neighbor walking her dog.

Stoping to help a kid on their way to school who’s bag is spilling papers.

Handing out Halloween candy at your front door.

Meeting a new person who works near your office.

Collecting a few pieces of trash.

Holding your kid’s birthday party at the neighborhood park.

Closing a street to cars for a community festival.

Visiting a playground and playing.

Asking someone if they’re OK.

Sharing a tradition.

Picking up dog poop that’s not yours.

Giving another human grace.

Moving forward when you’re not offered the same.

Writing a poem.

Flying a kite.

Checking in an old friend.

Letting your boss know, clearly and honestly, what isn’t working.

Joining a community network that connects folks across your city to solve problems.

Asking your neighbor if they’d stop setting of fireworks.

Getting over neighbors continuing to set off fireworks.

Finding a new home for books you’ve already read and things you no longer use.

Bringing food to a potluck.

Forgiving a person who wronged you.

It’s hundreds of daily acts of resistance, easy and hard, that makeup the steps on the infinitely long path to abolition.