And so it begins...

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dales
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by dales »

Professional journalism is one of the bulwarks against totalitarianism and the alt-facts world. I don't mind supporting quality work with a subscription.

Didn't you used to get paid for your work? Why is journalism different?

Didn't you used to get paid for your work? Why is journalism different?

The crap that comes out of the SF Chronicle would hardly be considered "professional journalism".

I still miss the "World Weekly News"...................now that was professional journalism. :ok

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Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.


yrs,
rubato

Big RR
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by Big RR »

Professional journalism is one of the bulwarks against totalitarianism and the alt-facts world. I don't mind supporting quality work with a subscription.

Didn't you used to get paid for your work? Why is journalism different?
Guin--I guess to me that would depend on what you are paying for; not too many years ago most of a paper's revenue was made from ads--the small price covered mostly its distribution. The same is true for most websites, which are flush with ads. I wouldn't mind paying for something that didn't assault me with dozens of pop ups every time I opened it, but paying for a commercial website that is full of ads (as many newspaper sites are) seems to be double dipping; IMHO it's like paying a premium price to access a channel that still has commercials. I just don't think it's worth it. If I get unadulterated news (like through NPR) I'm more than happy to pay.

And I agree with Dales re the SF chronicle; not exactly a Pulitzer contender.

ex-khobar Andy
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

I pay for NPR even though they don't make me. I have a NYT subscription which is around $120 IIRC if you wait until they have a sale and conveniently is nearby my daughter's Christmas present budget and I have enough stuff, thanks. So long as The Grauniad is free (they keep threatening to put up a firewall) I am happy and we do donate from time to time although that only encourages the begging letters. I can't afford WaPo as well; but I often think that if someone could come up with a $50 per month subscription which would get me NYT + WaPo + Graun + WSJ (those guys are full of shit but they write well) I'd be well informed. And there is always you lot to provide me with unfiltered access to the opinions of the masses.

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Guinevere
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by Guinevere »

If you are an Amazon prime subscriber you get 6 months free WaPo and then $3.99/month thereafter for complete digital access. NYTimes has deals regularly. I think I pay $1.99/week for digital access. So that's $12/month for both and I don't pay for movie channels or subscription TV. I prefer to support the newspapers. We all make our own choices.

I get the Globe - which I really don't care for but read for local news -- via the office. They are the most expensive of all (and least worth it) - I believe they are 3.99/week for a year and $6+/week thereafter but they also do have sales.

I read WaPo and NYTimes via app -- I don't think I get assaulted by any ads. At least not in any way that sticks/bothers me.
“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, paraphrasing Sarah Moore Grimké

Big RR
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by Big RR »

That's good to know about the Times and Post, I'm sure some online services are better (and worse) than others.

As for the papers, they are more expensive but, given a choice, I would prefer a paper to reading something online. I had the NY Times delivered 6 days a week (I never got around to reading the Sunday one so I didn't take it) for something like $3 a week (but stopped it when it was routinely delivered after 9:00 AM--I probably buy it 3-4 days a week now and it is costly); what I liked most was that I could leaf through it. I spend far too much time online and refer to read print (ditto for books) although I do own a Kindle for convenience when I travel.

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BoSoxGal
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by BoSoxGal »

Boston Globe digital access:
Stay connected to the most trusted journalism in New England. Become a Boston Globe subscriber.
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Pay just 99¢/week for the first 8 weeks

BostonGlobe.com digital subscription is a credit card only offer. Your credit card will be automatically charged in advance every four weeks unless a different renewal term is specified in the offer. At the end of the introductory period, your digital subscription will continue at $3.99 per week unless you cancel your subscription. After 52 weeks, your full price rate will increase to $6.93 per week. Offer valid for those who have not had digital access in the last 90 days. Prices are subject to change. Additional terms and conditions may apply.
$28/mo., to read maybe half a dozen articles each month? I pay only $8 more for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and PBS combined, and I watch them all the time.

I subscribed to The New York Times when I could afford to - it's much more modestly priced at $10/mo. introductory and $16/mo. thereafter, but that's still a lot to pay for a person on a very fixed income who only reads occasionally - so I appreciate that the Times allows me to pick 10 articles a month for free, and I'm very careful about what I click on so I use that privilege judiciously.

I don't feel guilty about occasionally accessing the Globe or other subscription papers via a workaround, because besides that I wouldn't be reading them at all, unless it was at the library or my client's home - he gets the Globe and the WSJ and he lets me take them if I want to at the end of the day. It's not like I'm just being cheap, I wouldn't be able to subscribe anyway.

Those of you with healthy disposable incomes should absolutely invest in supporting responsible journalism, and consider it part of your charitable giving that you keep those papers available for poor people who read at the library or as much as they can online for free. When I had money, that was certainly my attitude.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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Scooter
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by Scooter »

If only we could quarantine stupid:
State Rep. Betty Price (yes, she is his wife), a Republican from Roswell, suggested quarantining people living with HIV during a House study committee meeting addressing the barriers HIV-positive people face.

Price's suggestion came Tuesday during a two-hour meeting of the House Study Committee on Georgians' Barriers to Access to Adequate Health Care. Price – a medical doctor and wife of Dr. Tom Price, the former Secretary of Health & Human Services – asked Pascale Wortley if quarantining people was an option given how much the state spends on care for people with HIV. Wortley, director of the HIV Epidemiology Section for Georgia Department of Health, was discussing HIV treatment with the committee.

“My thinking sometimes goes in strange directions, but before you proceed if you wouldn’t mind commenting on the surveillance of partners, tracking of contacts, that sort of thing. What are we legally able to do," Price said.

"And I don’t want to say the quarantine word, but I guess I just said it. Is there an ability, since I would guess that public dollars are expended heavily in prophylaxis and treatment of this condition. So we have a public interest in curtailing the spread. What would you advise or are there any methods legally that we could do that would curtail the spread,” Price added.

Wortley said state healthcare officials work with people newly diagnosed with HIV to identify sex partners so they can be notified, as well as link people with HIV to care. She did not directly address Price's suggestion of quarantining people with HIV.

Price (top photo) also made other disturbing comments during the committee meeting.

It seems to me it’s almost frightening the number of people who are living that are potentially carriers, well they are carriers, with the potential to spread, whereas in the past they died more readily and then at that point they are not posing a risk. (that's right, why aren't those plague carrying fuckers dying like they are supposed to?) So we’ve got a huge population posing a risk if they are not in treatment,” Price said later during Wortley's presentation.

Dazon Dixon Diallo, the founder and executive director of SisterLove, said Price's comments were concerning and showed that HIV activists and organizations have more work to do educating lawmakers about people living with HIV.

“When we come into spaces like this and we hear questions around how legally far can we go to isolate people or even quarantine people, then it just lets you know that we have a real uphill battle,” Diallo said.
And she is a doctor, for fuck's sake. Jesus H. Fucking Christ upside down on a bicycle on Calvary, someone please shoot me now.
"The dildo of consequence rarely comes lubed." -- Eileen Rose

Big RR
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by Big RR »

An MD doesn't prevent a person from being an ignorant ass.

ex-khobar Andy
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

When I applied for my first green card in 1985, there was a requirement that we be tested for syphilis and gonorrhea and be rejected if positive. We trotted down to the designated doc. He was having trouble getting blood out of my wife - after his 4th or 5th attempt, I said "if she's got it I've got it." He submitted two vials of my blood for the test.

I just checked the form I-693 - syphilis and gonorrhea testing still required. Not HIV although my memory tells me that it did require it once upon a time. Latest version of that form is 2/7/17 so maybe they did once and have since abandoned it.
An MD doesn't prevent a person from being an ignorant ass.
True of course. But I will relate one equally true story. I went to see my doctor yesterday. He's in his seventies. My blood pressure was 104/55. "That seems a little low" I remarked. He looked at me. "Trump Trump Trump Trump. That should do it." I enjoy going to see my doctor.

Darren
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by Darren »

Big RR wrote:An MD doesn't prevent a person from being an ignorant ass.
I thought "How To Be An Ass" was an elective in the curriculum.
Thank you RBG wherever you are!

Big RR
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by Big RR »

Not HIV although my memory tells me that it did require it once upon a time.
Yes, HIV was required from the late 80s until around 2010; I believe in addition to the venereal diseases, that a TB test must be run and the immigrant must be examined by an approved physician for evidence of other communicable diseases as well as proof of vaccinations. Not sure why syphilis/gonorrhea are included as there have to be far more dangerous and infectious diseases than those (not to mention that they are, for the most part, treatable), but I guess it's a bow to our puritanical culture.

Darren--I always thought that course was called how to be a pompous, self important jerk--the ass part comes naturally.

Darren
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by Darren »

Right you are! Doc considered going to medical school. Back in the day it was considered outrageous and unacceptable for a woman to have three terminal degrees. She elected not to go for an MD due to the pompous, self important jerk requirement.
Thank you RBG wherever you are!

Big RR
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by Big RR »

I was premed for two years as an undergrad, but when I saw the jerks who were getting into med school I made up my mind not to go as I didn't want them as colleagues the rest of my life. These were people who would screw up someone else's experiment in a lab course so they could get a better grade on the curve.

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BoSoxGal
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by BoSoxGal »

Big RR wrote:I was premed for two years as an undergrad, but when I saw the jerks who were getting into med school I made up my mind not to go as I didn't want them as colleagues the rest of my life. These were people who would screw up someone else's experiment in a lab course so they could get a better grade on the curve.
Too funny! So was I - I even interned two years at the student health clinic and one semester in EMMC’s oncology department, but was turned off both by many of my classmates and by some of the doctors I worked around.

Then of all ironies I ended up in the only other profession with an equally high rate of assholes. :lol:
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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Scooter
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by Scooter »

Big RR wrote:These were people who would screw up someone else's experiment in a lab course so they could get a better grade on the curve.
Sounds like something a law student would do.

(ducks)
"The dildo of consequence rarely comes lubed." -- Eileen Rose

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RayThom
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And so it begins...

Post by RayThom »

I was premedicated back in the '60s, too.
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“In a world whose absurdity appears to be so impenetrable, we simply must reach a greater degree of understanding among us, a greater sincerity.” 

Big RR
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by Big RR »

Then of all ironies I ended up in the only other profession with an equally high rate of assholes.
I don't know, I think entertainers, especially actors, have them both beat. Cops too.

and Scooter, most lawyers don't know what a curve is--math and all. :nana

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Sue U
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by Sue U »

Big RR wrote: and Scooter, most lawyers don't know what a curve is--math and all. :nana
I've always said, if I could do math I would have been an accountant. (The only thing I need to know now is how to divide by three.)

:lol:
GAH!

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Crackpot
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by Crackpot »

Who gets the extra penny?
Okay... There's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said.

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Sue U
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Re: And so it begins...

Post by Sue U »

Crackpot wrote:Who gets the extra penny?
The expert witness, usually. :o

(Whenever the math leaves "extra" anything, it always goes to the client.)
GAH!

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