How I Write & Other Thoughts on a Day Off
Today is Doctor Day for me. I’m skipping the usual commentary, as I’ll be using up half the day getting back and forth to UCSD Medical via our glorious public transportation system to visit my oncologist.
I’ve already peeked and know my latest CT scan didn’t catch anything concerning cancer. I’ve spent so much time getting poked and prodded that it took 45 minutes on Tuesday to find a vein to inject contrast material for my scan. It’s a good thing I can’t scream, because those five failures to connect were f**king painful. The two nurses used ultrasound for the first four tries, which necessitates a long scary needle. I know, TMI.
Last year my third round of cancer was successfully treated using a combination of immunotherapy, chemotherapy, and radiation. I’m not out of the woods by any means, but living life in three month portions between checkups beats the alternative.
Monday, I’m going under the knife (figuratively) and having a cataract in my right eye replaced with an artificial lens. They haven’t given me a time for surgery or clued me in on seeing and typing post-surgery, so there’s that.
I’d like to remind readers that I typically also post on The Jumping Off Place on Mondays. It’s not the same stuff I post here (I wrote it over the weekend) , so do check it out.
Finally, how I write.
Some days my topic is obvious, either a different take on a big deal event, or the culmination of a research project (think voter guides). I tend to avoid front page news because those stories are either completely spun or half baked. Sometimes I’ll catch a glimpse of something and immediately know it’s something I want to write about.
Here’s my secret sauce: about half the time I sit down with a blank slate. I read some publications, skim some newsletters, and scroll through four or more social media sites. I do it again. I get a coffee refill and start to panic – have I tapped out? Is there nothing to say?
I start the process all over again. The basics are harvesting/news & links, figuring out a theme, providing an analysis linking them all together, and cobbling a conclusion. I semi-jokingly tell people that my fingers actually write the story; sometimes you just need to follow along to wherever an idea takes you. And there’s some truth there. In my worst case ‘I’ve got writer’s block’ scenario, I’ll just start typing something…and then a column for the day springs forth.
Yeah, I know it’s not all that exciting, but I felt obliged to say something today even though my morning is booked. So here we are.
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Thursday’s Noteworthy News Links
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Why do these people think having a bunch of babies will save the world? By Mark Sumner at Daily Kos:
See if you can spot the problem in this statement by pronatalist superstar Malcolm Collins fretting over declining birth rates. The issue of declining population is most acute, says Malcolm, in countries that are “technophilic, pluralistic, educated, where women have rights.”
Actually, that’s a lot of factors. Pronatalists view tolerance, education, and women’s rights as obstacles to their goals. The latter includes access to contraceptives, which has been one of the biggest reasons for the declining rate of fertility around the world.
According to Population Connection, women’s rights are a particular source of concern for folks fretting that women aren’t cranking out enough children. They’ve tried bribing women through “birth bonuses” without much success. Now, authoritarian governments are doing it the old-fashioned way: They’re taking away women’s rights and access to education.
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Schumer and Senate Democrats call for Justice Department to probe Big Oil for alleged collusion via CNN
Last week, congressional Democrats launched an investigation into whether other US oil companies colluded with each other and OPEC.
The FTC accused Sheffield, the founder of Pioneer Natural Resources, of attempting to collude with OPEC and its allies to keep supply low — a charge the former CEO has strongly denied. Regulators cited hundreds of text messages Sheffield exchanged with OPEC officials discussing pricing, production and oil market dynamics.
Sheffield “held repeated, private conversations with high-ranking OPEC representatives assuring them that Pioneer and its Permian Basin rivals were working hard to keep oil output artificially low,” the FTC found in its investigation.
“The strategy appears to have worked,” Schumer and his colleagues wrote to the DOJ. The lawmakers argued that “industry collusion” may have contributed to sharply lowering US oil production, boosting gas prices by 94 cents a gallon from pre-pandemic times to today and costing the average household up to $500 per car in annual fuel costs.
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Shoppers Flee — and Target Slashes Prices by Eric Gartner at More Perfect Union
Target, the Minneapolis-based retail giant, announced last week that it would cut prices for 5,000 regularly purchased products across its commerce empire. A few days later, management told investors why: high prices drove shoppers to lower-priced retailers. “The sustained level of elevated prices has had a meaningful impact on budgets and savings for many families,” Vice President Christina Hennigton told investors.
For the first quarter of 2024, Target reported total sales of $21.4 billion, a decrease of 3.2 percent since last year. It is the fourth straight quarter of declining sales. Most troubling for the company is that existing stores sold 3.7 percent less. The results were “significantly worse than the overall market, which underlines that Target is losing (market) share,” said Neil Saunders, managing director at investment analytics company GlobalData.
I hope if you wear glasses, they will replace the lens with a refractive one. For me, the world changed utterly. And the thing I noticed most was the colors--they aren't what you think they are right now. They are bright!
Congratulations on scheduling cataract surgery. I've had it in both eyes, one eye at a time, more than 20 years ago. You'll be amazed at how much more clear the world, and colors!, will appear after the cataract has been shattered and removed.
A note, however, the lens implant is a separate action from the cataract surgery; the cataract surgery simply makes it easier to implant a corrective lens which should relieve you of the need for a prescription lens in your glasses for that eye. Prior to the lens implant, I was so near-sighted as to be almost legally blind for distances. It's a miracle!!
I opted for a distance correction lens in one eye and later on, a near-vision lens implanted in the other eye, common choices despite seeming counterintuitive. It's amazing how quickly the brain adjusts to the two very different lenses. Twenty-two years later, I still don't need reading glasses though I do need a distance prescription for my sunglasses for that eye. While sunglasses are no longer needed to protect my eyes from developing new cataracts because they're so slow in growing, they're great for reducing brightness and glare.