Medicare For All

There’s a woman on my KnitList who has beginning Parkinson’s and is wheel chair bound due to other illnesses. She writes that she has to be sure to keep a paper trail of all the tests she needs or her insurance company won’t pay.

And I thought: Jesus H. Christ. As ill as she will become she always will have to keep good accounts. Way to go to keep the ill, angst-ridden.

There’s a Christian hymn with words from Matthew 25:40:

Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers;
That you do unto me.

How do all the minions of God in this country live with such a stain on their consciences? “Godless heathens” have more compassion. I just don’t get it.

Website Wednesday

Let’s start with some fun this Wednesday. Some simple-minded fun but it should bring a smile to the dourest face.

http://www.freegamesnews.com/en/?s=Minoto&searchbutton=Search

Truth be told, I used to plop two cherubs (not at the same time, of course) on my lap and play these games with them. So you can be assured they are extremely child friendly. Even the three little pigs game has a happy ending for Mr. Wolf.

Some of the games are variations of fairy tales; some have cryptic names like: Cat of Bubble or Cow’s New Year. There is a lot of pointing and clicking but no pixel hunting (my nemesis.) There is even a quaint logic to all you have to accomplish and I don’t’ think you can ever get killed or get a bad ending. Of course, the icing on the cake is the fact that most of these games have walkthroughs.

Minoto Games are found on a lot of game sites but this is a nice compilation of close to 50 games. A good vegging-out game site for you and the kids.

And now for a more serious Website Wednesday site, Full Text Archive, at:

http://fulltextarchive.com/

This is friendly Project Gutenberg-type site. Not that PG is not a friendly site but here you click on your title and get sent right to the book. No extra clicking for HTML, plain text, main site or mirror site.

This is the information given about the site in About Us:

The full text archive is a collection of free books that you can read online. All of the novels, plays and poems in this collection have been verified to be free of copyright under United States law. You can now enjoy reading them books of charge and Full Text Archive is ever-expanding so please visit often.

For computer screen reading, this site is very easy on the eyes. Clear fonts and sensible reading line spacing are used. Additionally, the text uses only one half of the page vertically which I think would be a boon to a student who could print out a relevant page and write in notes.

You can type in your title or author or search through their alphabetical listings.

One quibble: Project Gutenberg gives you a short biographical segment for each entry. With Full Archive you only get the selection. You would have to plug the author/title into a search site for any pertinent information. However, with my teacher’s hat on, I’m thinking this is not a bad idea since you will be getting more information and may develop a deeper interest in the subject.

And another tiny quibble which really is just nitpicking: the entry for Great Expectations does not have the original ending Dickens wanted. Yes, I know this is just being cranky - even Project Gutenberg only has the happy ending - but I just thought I’d mention it.

So, if you have to read some classic texts (and perhaps some classic obscure texts) for school or just for pleasure, this is the site for you.

Got to go and read their Book of the day: A Woman's Impression of the Philippines by Mary Helen Fee. I forgot to mention they give you a new book selection each day. This alone gives it bookmark status. Enjoy your reading.

Note: You may find offensive words and characterizations in these selections but remember they represent a cultural and social past which, while we may have moved beyond, is still important to learn from since, for better or worse, this is our human history.