RIP Roberta Flack

In light of Brian Thompson being shot dead on my birthday (🎉🥳🎂) I'd like to share a personal story about UnitedHealthcare.

During the peak of COVID, my family all got sick. I couldn't be on my parents' insurance because they were both older and on Medicare. So, I had insurance through my University: UnitedHealthcare.

For some reason, rather than roll-over each year, I got a new plan each year that ended after May and didn't start until August, so I was uninsured for the summer months, but it was a weird situation that the university denied, and told us we were supposed to be insured year-round, it was messy.

Both of my parents went to the hospital, and I got sick too. I had to take care of my pets, and myself, and try to stay alive and keep my pets alive when I was so weak I could hardly move. When my parents came home, my condition got dramatically worse (I think my body knew it couldn't give out, because there was nobody to take care of me, so once my parents were okay, it completely crashed and failed.)

I started experiencing emergency symptoms. It was a bit hard to breathe, my chest hurt, and I was extremely delirious. I wanted to call my insurance to see if I was covered (this was during the summer) and I was connected to some nice person, probably making minimum wage, who told me with caution in her voice that my plan was expired. I had no active insurance, but she urged me to go to an emergency room. I remember saying something to the effect of "You just told me I don't have insurance, I can't go to the hospital, I can't afford it."

She sounded so genuinely worried and scared. I remember she said "You really don't sound good, you sound really sick, please call 9-1-1" and I think I just said "I can't afford it without insurance, don't worry, I think I'll be okay."

And she paused and said "I don't want to hang up the phone with you like this." And it sounded like she was holding back tears. And I don't remember what I said, I think that I would be okay, and I hung up.

I still think about her. I wonder if that phone call haunted her, or if she had dozens of calls like that a day. I wonder if she thinks about it at all, if she wonders if I died after she told me I didn't have insurance and therefore couldn't go to the hospital without incurring a tremendous financial burden. I wonder if she feels guilt or blame-- of course she shouldn't, it wouldn't have been her fault if anything had happened to me. Maybe it's self-centered to wonder if she thinks about it. I'm not the main character and it was just her job. But, still.

I think about how evil it was that we were put in that situation. Because offering year-long continuous coverage through the university plan would maybe cut into profits, maybe not benefit shareholders enough, maybe cut into Thompson's $10 million salary. While his minimum wage administrators have to feel afraid to hang up the phone, because on the other line someone might be dying, and they wouldn't know. While his patients hang up and decide to take their chances rather than put their family through that trauma.

This is UnitedHealthcare. This is Brian Thompson's legacy. This is why, understandably, an entire nation is jubilant that he was gunned down like the vermin he was. I don't care about his widow. I feel pity for his children, despite the fact that they will inherit millions, but I feel more pity for the children of his victims patients who are gone because they didn't want THEIR children to inherit crippling debt. Brian Thompson got what he fucking deserved. I pray that he not be the only one. I pray for continued safety, peace , and anonymity for his killer.

American healthcare is a disease.

posted this on my instagram, but wanted to add it here, too

I think there's something to be said that saying the words "Deny, Defend, Depose, you're next" to an insurance sales rep can get you arrested for 'threats of mass homicide' or whatever with a threat of 15 years in prison

But when I was a manager in a fast food restaurant I've had customers throw food at me, demand for my personal phone number with an added threat of "Well I'll just have to FIND it", customers charging past the front counter to physically intimidate me and my coworkers, screaming and swearing, demands to know what time I get out of work, demands to know when my manager would be at work as a threat, people sitting in their car waiting for me to finish closing because they were angry at me, causing me to stay in the office watching the camera waiting for them to drive away...

But none of those incidents are arrest-able offenses, not one, any time I called the cops on any customer I would just hear excuses like " "there isn't anything illegal about calling a restaurant", that nothing physical happened and therefore there's nothing they could do, to call back and let them know if anything else happens

Idk, just think it's A TEENY TINY BIT ODD

Cop in the news goes "words have consequences" as if people don't berate and threaten fast food and retail workers every day

カボチャの冒険 (Kabocha no Bouken), Daisuke Igarashi

This woman was arrested for WORDS.

We should rally for her as much as the guy who actually shot someone. Push back.

Bob Dylan is really such a funny dude to exist. you’re a teenager who’s really obsessed with this one folk musician. ok. normal. then you hear said folk musician is in the hospital and what do you do? drop out of college and travel all the way from minnesota to new york to see him. and while you’re there you might as well become a folk singer yourself. okay sure. you sound a little weird but damn can you write. you get signed to a record label. record an album. does pretty well. record another album. does really well. now you’re famous. you go on tour in the uk. you sing at the march on washington. you release another album, and another. you’re the spokesman for a movement, for a generation. you’re a poet. you’re a golden child. thing is, you hate all that. so you learn electric guitar and everyone else hates all that and boos you and you cry but who cares? they can keep booing you, you’re still bob dylan. you keep going with this electric thing. someone calls you judas but at least you’re not christ. oh yeah and you’ve been on and off with the second most famous folk singer of your generation. well that’s over now. you marry someone else. you get in a motorcycle accident. finally a fucking break. you don’t appear in public again until woody guthrie (remember woody guthrie?) dies and you perform at his memorial concert. you change up your musical style. you make friends with george harrison. you’re not getting good reviews but who cares? youre bob dylan. you act in a film. sure. you go on tour again. you’re having problems with your wife. you go on tour again but this time it’s this vaudeville thing and everyone’s on drugs. joan baez is there in drag as you. you make this weird, bad, half-improvised film where you’re there with your ex and your wife. everyone has signed up for these psychological mind games and no one wins. you convert to evangelical christianity. everyone hates it. you drop it. you release some of your most negatively reviewed music. you form the greatest supergroup of all time. great. you have a resurgence in popularity. even better. you get a nobel prize. you don’t even show up to claim it. you’ve been considered one of the greatest musicians of all time for sixty years. they make a movie about you. it stars one of the biggest actors of the day. and now over sixty years after you dropped out of college and traveled to the east coast, people are writing fanfic of you getting topped by johnny cash.

Reasons Boom Shakalaka is the best words:

- Its very fun/satisfying to say

-

- Can be used in an situation

Ex1: “Boom shakalaka! We have just won the American football game!

Ex2: “Boom Shakalaka (sad and hurt) I just fell down the stairs”

-Etc.