Gully's Word

(Source: ryking)

(via ryking)

Last Friday, I was randomly strolling down G Street headed to the metro when a woman stopped me and asked if I wanted to view a spoken word show that was starting in just a few minutes. I almost blew this lady off but then she said “the production is starring my son.” Having nothing planned I decided to stick around for the show and I’m glad I did. The production was written and performed by Henry Mills who explores themes of suicide in a unconventional manner. What I expected to see… you know the regular finger snapping… rat a tat tat drum of a poet smoothly telling us whats wrong with society… was not what I received. Rather, a conglomeration of poetry, acting, media clips, and music woven together to create something new, thought provoking, and simply beautiful. 

Lucky for you, Henry who teams up with Stephen Flag (musician) and Ryan Carmody (guitarist) will be performing both this Friday and Saturday at 8pm.

ryking:

Obama’s Weakness Is a Problem for the Global Economy

Wait… So exactly what is “bout to go down”… a photo shoot??? *scratches head… really hard*

blackbeans:

What I’ve learned from this video:

• NBA players have no lives.
• Delonte West enunciates as well as I’d expect for a professional athlete (poorly) whose routine forms of public expression are exhausted shouts to other sweaty behemoths on a court and incoherent mumbles in interviews for ESPN.

shaundizzleberg:

…………………..

it’s about to go down by Delonte West

how did I miss this video premiere 

So apparently… I’m late… Really late. But oh well, it’s still good news: The BOONDOCKS IS BACK!!!! That’ right… over Mother’s Day Weekend John Witherspoon announced over the radio that The Boondocks is returning for a 20 episode Season 4!!!

Although, no official confirmation supporting Granddad has been released… I’m considering him to be a credible source. I’ll also keep my fingers crossed.

And as I said…. Best News Ever!!

(Source: boondockstv.com)

Yet another form of tangible print is beginning to disappear. According to an article in the New York Times more retailers are offering customers the option of receiving store receipts via email.

While there are many advantages to paperless receipts such as, easier organization and filing systems, environmentally friendliness, and emptier purses and wallets; is society really ready for retail e-receipts?

Before I’m ready to delve into yet another form e-service, I think a few more questions should be addressed. For instance how buff will these retailer’s cyber security be, will my shopping history be tracked, or how long will my records be accessible for personal use? I know a lot of receipts and invoices are already paperless… but does everything need to be? Let’s face it the majority of Americans don’t even back up their data regularly, and unfortunately I’m amongst that majority.

Maybe younger generations will be on board, but I’m not quite sure I’m ready to say goodbye to my cluttered purse and dresser box just yet.

(Source: The New York Times)

But I’m still sad…

Borders was one of my favorite book stores to visit. For some reason I always enjoyed the atmosphere of this place… it wasn’t too stuffy. Quiet enough to study, but not so deafening quiet that you felt the need to hold your breath in fear of being ssshed. However, considering the age of the e-reader with devices such the Ipad, Kindle, Nook, and even cell phones… are empty shelves, slashed prices, and “closed” signs what we can expect of all books stores? I certainly hope not, despite the convenience of e-reading let’s hope that book stores and publishers can find a viable way to keep up with this new wave of technology.

Oh well… Borders you will be missed by a faithful patron. 

So after taking an extended hiatus from tumblr this summer, I now find myself wondering how to restart. I mean where do I begin? So much has transpired this summer and I did not record a thing. Should do a summer re-cap? Do I need to write myself an apology? Should I revisit past headlines and post my comments? Nah that would take too much time… So I’ll just start again… Start today. I’m Baaaaack!!!

Everyone knows — or should know — that the United States spends much more than any other country on health care. But the Kaiser Family Foundation broke that spending down into two parts, the government’s share and the private sector’s share (both measured as a percentage of total gross domestic product), then compared the results with figures from 12 other countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. And here’s the shocker: Our government spends more on health care than the governments of Japan, Australia, Norway, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Canada or Switzerland.

Think about that for a minute. Canada has a single-payer health-care system. The government is the only insurer of any note. The United Kingdom has a socialized system, in which the government is not only the sole insurer of note but also employs most of the doctors and nurses and runs most of the hospitals. And yet, measured as a share of the economy, our government health-care system is the largest of the bunch.

 And it’s worse than that: Atop our giant government health-care sector, we have an even more giant private health-care sector. Altogether, we’re spending about 16 percent of the GDP on health care. No other country even tops 12 percent. Which means we’ve got the worst of both worlds: huge government and high costs.

This is where a “serious conversation” on health-care costs would start — with what has worked, and what we can learn from it. Instead, it’s where our conversation about health-care costs never quite goes.

[…]

The Democratic plan, conversely, quietly recognizes that government-run health-care systems that are willing to throw their weight around can control costs. So the plan is to have Medicare try to pay for quality, not volume.

The first step is figuring out what quality is. So Medicare has been collecting vast amounts of hospital data on patients’ experiences, the delivery of pre-operative antibiotics, the prevalence of medical imaging and other topics. Come October, the hospitals posting good numbers will get a bonus from the Affordable Care Act; those posting bad numbers will face a penalty. Next year, the bonus and penalty will get bigger. Democrats have also created and funded a center to start testing the effectiveness of various drug, device and surgical treatments.

As for the inevitable political blowback, Democrats created the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a panel of 15 Senate-confirmed health-care experts who can make tough, cost-cutting reforms to Medicare in Congress’s stead. To be stopped, Congress needs to vote the board down, and the president needs to sign off on lawmakers’ opposition. That creates ample room for Congress to hand the IPAB the decisions it doesn’t want to make on its own.

Could it work? Sure. But it’s a gamble. It’s easy to imagine that strategy improving quality without cutting costs. That’d leave us with a better health-care system than we have now but the same budget problems. Another danger is that Congress could override the IPAB, rendering it useless as a tool for cost control.

But that’s the choice we’ve been left with: a plan that has never worked or a plan that’s never been tried. As for the approach that’s helped every other industrialized country achieve universal coverage at about half our costs? Well, we’re still not ready to talk about that.

(Source: sarahlee310)