I went in for a blood test

It’s one of the most common tests in medicine, and it is performed millions of times a year around the country. Should a metabolic blood panel test cost $11 or $952?

Both of these are real, negotiated prices, paid by health insurance companies to laboratories in Jackson, Miss., and El Paso in 2016. New data, analyzing the health insurance claims of 34 million Americans covered by large commercial insurance companies, shows that enormous swings in price for identical services are common in health care.    NYT

I went in for a blood test on a warm and sunny day.

The doctors and the nurses poked me without much delay.

They pumped it out like gasoline, but bothered I was not;

I figured they could tell me all the bugs that I had caught.

I tipped my hat and left them with a song upon my lips,

thinking modern medicine my ills would soon eclipse.

But came the clinic bill another day without sunshine;

for all that simple blood work I was charged amounts malign!

I couldn't pay it off if I would live a hundred years;

my faith in modern medicine has turned to shaken fears.

The bill collectors call me, and my car now has a lien;

I suffer from insomnia, and think I burst my spleen.

I do not know the cure for debt, I doubt there's really any.

I feel as if I've been impaled upon a spinning jenny!

I have released my tax returns

WASHINGTON—Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg released 10 years of tax returns Tuesday, showing he earned a $30,000 advance in 2017 to write a book that was released ahead of his White House bid.

WSJ

I have released my tax returns; they go back quite a while.

They show that I am honest and live in a modest style.

I wrote a book of poetry about a year ago;

but no advance was paid to me by any kind of schmo.

I don't declare my food stamps, cuz I only get ten bucks;

ramen noodles, pork & beans, is what I eat -- not ducks.

I gave up driving my own car; insurance rates are daft;

but my accountant writes off mileage (using some witchcraft.)

All the world can plainly see just what I get and spend.

(I'm so tight that even my own ears I will not lend.)

So if I run for president the public can descry

the fact that I am just an ordinary tax-dodging kind of guy.

Facebook gets a Facelift

Facebook Inc. rolled out a substantial redesign of its website and mobile app, as Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg seeks to address criticism of the social-media giant’s influence by nudging users toward different types of engagement and more private communication tools.

The end result is a platform with more emphasis on private groups and visual stories, and less on the News Feed where abusive content and polarization took root in recent years.   WSJ

Ubiquitous as air we breathe,

on Facebook all our infants teethe.

There's not a soul left on the earth

who doesn't know its woe and mirth.

But now great Zuckerberg proclaims

he won't be playing any games

with such false news and hate group posts

as used to haunt him like dark ghosts.

Facebook now has come of age

and breathes but tolerance each page;

a place where gentle people meet

to find respite from Trump and tweet. 

O won't you join us there as well,

from your Chromebook or your cell?

We would gladly take you in,

and demonstrate our brand new spin!

Bodegas Boycott the New York Post

“The very next day, I told everyone who works at my stores not to accept the paper.”

He was not alone, and a boycott of The New York Post began.

Over the last 20 years, Yemeni-Americans have established a foothold in New York’s network of bodegas — small convenience stores offering coffee, groceries and knickknacks.

The association asked Yemeni-American bodega owners in the city to stop selling The Post until it issues an apology to Ms. Omar and Muslim-Americans in New York. Of the roughly 10,000 bodegas in the city, YAMA estimated that between 4,000 and 6,000 are owned by Yemeni-Americans.   NYT

Though newspapers are not in bloom

and seem to face a creeping doom,

the New York Post is not among

those that have lost their biting tongue.

The Post likes nothing better than

to take its stories from bedpan

or other noisome point of view

to give its readers ballyhoo.

And so a boycott is arranged

because the Post is deemed deranged.

And that's how freedom of the press

continues all our lives to bless.

Hupana, Asics, and Me

Salomon is one of several niche running-shoe brands that are newly in vogue. To take another example, Hoka One One, based in Goleta, Calif., collaborated last year with New York label Engineered Garments on asymmetrically colored versions of its Hupana runner. Meanwhile, models at the New York Fashion Week show for Brooklyn designer Collina Strada wore tie-dyed sneakers with curvy soles made in collaboration with Bondi. And Japan’s Asics collaborates with avant-garde Bulgarian designer Kiko Kostadinov on shoes carried at bleeding-edge boutiques like Canada’s Ssense and Chicago’s Notre (a rare, lime-green pair from the collaboration’s early days now resells for nearly $1,000).  WSJ

Oh, I could tell you stories of the tennis shoes of yore.

The kind I bought for 7.50 at the Penney's store.

Sturdy yet elastic, with a high top laced up tight;

they came in red and black and for the girls they came in white.

Yes, I could tell you stories -- but who cares about the past?

Running shoes today have got my memories outclassed.

They are not made of rubber, and no canvas do they use;

they're made of polyethylene and often are chartreuse.

The cost of brand name running shoes would feed a family

in Ghana for a month or more, and keep them in Chablis.

But fashion is its own reward, like virtue in a way;

and like virtue it now seems to change from day to day.

American Racetracks are Flogging a Lot of Dead Horses

Nearly 10 horses a week, on average, died at American racetracks in 2018, according to the Jockey Club’s Equine Injury Database. That’s a fatality rate that is anywhere from two and a half to five times greater than in the rest of the racing world.

NYT

Like many other victims in the sporting world today

thoroughbreds are suffering despite their bales of hay.

Horses at the racetrack are collapsing in a heap,

overworked and tortured and then medicated deep.

Winning is the only thing their owners care about;

they have the tender feelings of a brazen racetrack tout.

Beautiful and elegant, these animals should be

treated with respect and not debauched so brutally.

If there's a god of horses, as I think it only just,

he'll crush those callous trainers into little specks of dust.

Or else the wing-ed Pegasus, descending from the sky,

will free his brother horses when he teaches them to fly!

Home Sweet Airbnb

Marriott International Inc. is starting a new home-rental business, aiming to take on Airbnb Inc. and other home-sharing companies in one of the lodging industry’s hottest segments.

WSJ

Ev'rybody's doing it, so I will do it too;

I'll rent a room to tourists -- they'll be standing in a queue!

Of course it's really not a room, not even just a bed --

it's only my recliner where they'll rest their weary head.

But they'll get peace and quiet cuz it's in the basement dark;

I wouldn't call it elegant, more like an earthy stark.

And boy won't I just charge 'em all a fee so big and tall

that when they get the bill upon the floor they'll surely sprawl.

My unreported income will mount up until the day

I can flee to Thailand so no taxes I need pay.

And there upon the rosy beach I'll live in palm frond shack,

while on a bowl of shrimp fried rice I shall so cheaply snack.

Chinese Spies Threaten USA

Chinese spies are increasingly recruiting U.S. intelligence officers as part of a widening, sustained campaign to shake loose government secrets.

Senior U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials have escalated their warnings characterizing Chinese espionage as the single most significant long-term strategic threat, encompassing both spycraft intended to steal government secrets and the sustained heist of intellectual property and research from the corporate and academic worlds.

WSJ

Tonight before I go to bed

beneath the cot I'll bow my head

to look for Chinese spies that might

be snooping on me through the night.

No secrets will they get from me;

I'm silent as an old mummy.

Of course, if they should wave some cash,

I've got some fibs that they can cache.

The Chinese say they want our trade,

and our suspicions they upbraid;

Between the Russians and Chinese

America sure feels the squeeze. 

Movies aren't getting better, they're just getting longer

It has been decades since American movie theaters regularly had intermissions. But when word of the latest Avengers film’s length got out earlier this year, it prompted online pleas from some fans for a break in the action. The filmmakers shot the idea down, and American theater chains have publicly responded to tweets from moviegoers to make clear that, no, there will be no built-in moment to buy or dispose of their Coca-Colas.

NYT

Movie going has become a challenge nowadays.

The films are getting longer and my eyes begin to glaze.

My foot's asleep, I gotta go, the popcorn is all gone;

but the movie isn't ending until close to dawn.

Dare I miss five minutes while I take a bathroom break?

Will a plot point be resolved while water I do make?

Though it's loud and violent, my head begins to nod.

I feel like an Avenger who's been beaten by a rod!

If Hollywood won't give me intermissions as a sop,

I hope their next big opus is a terrifying flop.

I will stay at home with Netflix or the old YouTube,

enjoying my own breathers instead of chewing on jujube.

Cardboard Hangers

The textile/fashion industry has generated about 380 million metric tons of plastic—more than other individual sectors such as electronics or consumer and industrial products or building and construction . . . Plastic goes into polyester, which is used to make leggings, athletic wear and other garments. It is in polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, which gives clothes and accessories a glossy finish. And it goes into hangers, shopping bags, bubble wrap and other packaging material. Clothes made with plastic can take decades to decompose and the tiny fibers, or microplastics, they shed during laundering can end up polluting water streams.

WSJ

Fashions change with lightning speed,

but there's always plastic bead

in your dress or shirt or shoes --

which into the oceans ooze;

winding up in fishy gut,

or so says the scuttlebutt.

Plastic hangers for our clothes

in the landfill quickly goes.

Bubble wrap, while fun to pop,

sows pollution as a crop.

Paper suits and fig leaves must

now become our faddish thrust.

The Drive-In

(Inspired by an article in the WSJ by Chris Kornelis.)

A child of the 1950s, as well as of deep freeze winters in Minnesota, the coming of summer meant drive-in movies. I write this not as a piece of fond nostalgia, but as further proof of children's second class status back in those Bad Old Days.

First of all, I never got to pick what movies we went to see at the Valli-Hi Drive-In. When I meekly suggested a fun-filled evening watching "The Brides of Dracula," I was firmly told that such movies were not for little boys (not so little, really; I was 7 years old in 1960) and that the family would attend "Lover Come Back" starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson. That kind of romantic dreck was an insult to any red-blooded American boy, but my parents ate it up.

Which brings me to my next point. On a warm summer's eve, a young boy's thoughts turn naturally to salt, sugar, and grease. My dad always seemed to manage to park right next to the shack where they fried up the hamburgers and french fries, fricaseed the popcorn, and displayed a fascinating little contraption that pulled taffy on a series of ascending and descending bars. The place smelled like heaven to me. But do you think my folks would indulge my lust for a burger and a Coke? Which, I might add, I distinctly remember as costing a mere 75 cents. Not on your life! Mom brought along a banana or an apple for me, and there was a thermos jug of cherry Kool-Aid to quench my thirst. As Rock Hudson and Doris Day cavorted on the screen, and patrons lined up six deep at the shack for their cholesterol fix, I suffered alone in agony -- disconsolately peeling off and putting back on the Chiquita Banana tag.

The final iniquity on those long ago summer evenings that should have been so cozy and happy was that both my parents were heavy smokers, and as soon as the huge white screen in front of us flickered to life dad lit up a Salem and mom lit up an Alpine. Even with the windows down, the whole car soon filled with a nicotine miasma. Hindsight, of course, tells me that all that second hand smoke is responsible for my annual bouts of bronchitis today. But more to the point, way back then it was considered cool to smoke, and so when I was ten or thereabouts and we were at the drive-in I summoned up the courage to ask my dad for a cigarette. I thought the old man might go for it -- he'd already let me have a sip of his Hamm's Beer one night during a backyard barbecue. But his only response was:  "Shut up and eat your banana."

PG&E Pulls the Plug on California

PG&E Corp. can’t prevent its power lines from sparking the kinds of wildfires that have killed scores of Californians. So instead, it plans to pull the plug on a giant swath of the state’s population.

No U.S. utility has ever blacked out so many people on purpose. PG&E says it could knock out power to as much as an eighth of the state’s population for as long as five days when dangerously high winds arise. Communities likely to get shut off worry PG&E will put people in danger, especially the sick and elderly, and cause financial losses with slim hope of compensation.

WSJ

When the wind begins to blow

utilities cut off the flow

of juice to customers right quick;

so folks had better buy a Bic

to light their way in blackest night,

because their bulbs will not work right.

And if you fall and break your neck

do not expect a hefty check

nor any real apology

from any big utility.

Their service plan is rather plain;

They take your dough, you wait in vain

for services that ain't secure,

like Bangladesh -- and that's for sure!

Photo Essay: Aftermath of a Spring Hail Storm

My Life is but a Rerun

Netflix Inc. may soon have to contemplate life without its No. 1 show. It’s “The Office.”

Three of its biggest programming suppliers—AT&T Inc.’s WarnerMedia and Walt DisneyCo. in addition to Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal—are entering the streaming-video arena. After licensing rerun content to Netflix for years, happy to cash its checks, they are looking to take their hit content back to feed their own platforms.

WSJ

My life is but a rerun; an old sitcom, if you will.

With daffy situations that show little writing skill.

As I sit in my recliner with my laptop on my knee

I watch again "The Office" or some other potpourri.

My vegetable existence -- ne plus ultra for a clod --

is waiting for revival (where oh where is "The Mod Squad?")

There is no balm in Gilead that matches watching "Friends,"

and if I don't binge watch some more I'm gonna get the bends!

If I could but imagine life without my Netflix fix

perhaps I'd have an intellect that wasn't all toothpicks.

Can I afford the fees for streaming channels by the score?

I can, I guess, if it will bring me Mary Tyler Moore.

Pence's Tax Returns, Like President Trump's, Stay Out of Sight

WASHINGTON—Vice President Mike Pence has filed three tax returns since taking office, but he hasn’t publicly released any of them.

As Democrats fight with President Trump about his unreleased tax returns amid a key deadline Tuesday, the vice president’s decision to keep his own recent tax documents under wraps has gotten far less attention. It is just as much of a break from his predecessors: Going back to Walter Mondale in the 1970s, all have disclosed their returns. 

WSJ

You can see my driver's license, or my pinky ring.

I'll even let you gaze upon my balls of twine and string.

Not a problem if you need my library card to see --

but tax returns are sacred (or at least they are to ME.)

I'll show you photo albums and diplomas by the score.

Test results and shopping lists; and what is even more,

my x-rays are an open book, my bank statements are too --

but what I file with Uncle Sam will never come to view!

I am a public servant and as such should be immune

from nosy parkers who would see if I am a tycoon.

I'll even show you my tattoos (my chest has got a doozy.)

But when it comes to tax returns I'm gonna be quite choosy!