8/15/2024
JRB,
What “concerns” did you share with & Pres. Mulino (JRM) in your call yesterday? According to Anadolu Ajansi, JRM wants to “mobilize regional support to restore democratic norms in Venezuela & condemn political repression.” I wonder how he’s going to achieve that.
It looks like you had fun talking to the influencers. I liked your friend’s idea that “you gotta know how to know” & “part of knowing how to know is knowing where to go.” I am hoping the freshmen who take my seminar this fall will develop this kind of political literary & will learn to tune into the accuracy & biases of their sources. I plan to learn from them about how young people consume media so I can help my contemporaries communicate with the next generation.
What are your thoughts about the ouster of Thailand’s PM? Do you concur with Pavin Chachavalpongpun that “the royal spell has been broken” & young Thais are “impatient with repeated democratic setbacks & a conservative establishment gathered around a king who won’t let go?”
Has the State Dept connected the changes in Thailand to the changes in Burma? Did you hear the rumor that some of the junta top generals had detained Min Aung Hlaing right before Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was due to arrive? Which news sources do you think are most trustworthy regarding these SE Asia issues?
Congrats on your new policy making 10 popular medicines less expensive for those with Medicare. I ask that you also devote attention to prevention! It’s not profitable but it’s cheaper.
Back in 2006, Ian Urbina wrote in the NYT that diabetes patients are “victims of the byzantine world of American health care, in which the real profit is made not by controlling chronic diseases like diabetes but by treating their many complications.” He noted that “doctors feel they are struggling single-handedly to reverse a disease with the gale force of popular culture behind it” without any financial incentive to do so. Please look into this.
BYBS,
