Every Friday I point you towards some recommended reading around the blogosphere:
1. Via Virginia Heffernan’s fascinating article on the decline of Online message boards in the New York Times, I came across this gem: a 2004 message board called “A Lonely Life.” Scroll down and read some of the entries. Wow.
2. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the health care debate in the U.S. It’s the tale of an American journalist, Steve Silberman, who got conjunctivitis (pink eye) while visiting London and what ensued. Boy, did this hit home with me.
3. Love this NPR piece about a class to rid Bostonians of their accent. Priceless!
4. Here’s the incomparable Roger Ebert on what it’s like to work for Rupert Murdoch.
5. I loved ‘Cross the Pond’s account of her neighbors here in London. So totally Rear-Windowesque…
6. Harry Potter fans will love The Harvard Crimson’s Harry Potter Drinking Games as well as The Social Grace’s Top Ten Transfigurations.
7. Finally, literature lovers will enjoy the weird writing habits of famous authors over at Flavorwire.
Have a great weekend!
July 15, 2011, 7:39 pm
Thanx much for including Roger Ebert’s piece about Murdoch. Mr. Ebert & I go back beyond the limit of recorded time (i.e., the early fifties)to the old, good Chicago Sun Times, whose despoiling he so well relates. I have fond memories of both the paper & himself.
July 15, 2011, 10:30 pm
Enjoyed reading all your suggestions Thank you. My daughter got kidney stones while in Canada taking a class. She paid a small co-pay…here every stone cost her about $1,600 a piece. In Denmark, her allergies were treated for free and no co-pays but our insurance charged us huge fees for her being in those locations.
My favorite story is my 70 year old friend fell while in UK and broke her shoulder. She had 3 surgeries and therapy before she came home and had the stitches and staples removed after a month or so for a whopping $18,000 which included fees for being in UK and not using her home HMO services. Fined for being out of town.
I just got dumped for a misdiagnosis of diabetes II, which I do not have, and do not get any long term care and am the right age for no-medicare coverage if all this bunk happens…My co-pays would be $13,750 before I could get cancer treatment/accident coverage….I have to be conscious enough to tell them “no care” or else my family will have to pay. I used to be the middle class but my child’s $261,000 worth of cleft palate repair just did us in…then 2008 no work
But I still pay my taxes and insurance for the poor….we are so advanced here.
Makes me wonder how your citizenship test went?
My mum wished she could return to Canada when she fell and broke her back at age 91…she tried to go back 15 years before that but thought $60,000 for missed health care taxes was too much…Oh the care her siblings are getting is astounding…her rotten care was more than she had which was nearly 1/2 a million