Category: Health

Auction Stuff

Bunches of cool stuff are up for auction this week, all proceeds going toward Reesa Brown’s medical expenses.  There are even a few things from that Brust guy, in case anyone around here is interested. The auction runs through Saturday night, so those of you who don’t get paid until Friday will still have time to spend your pennies in a good cause!

EDIT: from Brad — “As incentive to everyone to bid higher…I’ll match the auction total. Yup, so everyone’s bid is worth double.” That’s right, any bid you make will double the help we get towards our medical bills, so go visit http://spinathon.reesabrown.com/auction and make your bid, you have until 11:59pm Saturday May 15th!

They're Spinnin' & Grinnin' I'm Screamin' & Streamin'

Yes, friends, today I will be on streaming video, live from the Spinathon, starting at 1pm Central Daylight Time.  What will I be doing?  Probably standing around looking like an idiot.  But I’ve said I’ll do it, so I will, if I’m not in jail.

(Edit: our main website went down, of course while our admin is in transit and therefore away from the ‘net. However, we’ll still be recording the show and will have it embedded on the site this evening. You can also see it while live from the direct UStream link in Round Rock starting at 1pm CDT. Paypal donations can be sent directly to eposia@yahoo.com, we’re less than 7 hours from making our 48-hour fiber-spinning goal!)

Re-Edit: SpinAThon site is back up and you can watch the cams directly here: http://spinathon.reesabrown.com/node/5

Final Edit: SpinAThon finished at 42.8 hours, and much lovely fiber spun by several talented women. The fiber spun during SpinAThon will be available for bidding along with other finely crafted products in next week’s auction! Steve played for 3.5 hours and we will be posting videos from his performance within the next few days on the SpinAThon site. Thanks to everyone who participated, you all rock!

Spinathon!

Yes, it’s a Spinathon!  What, you ask, is a Spinathon?  I have no idea, but we’re having one.

Okay, okay.  In order to raise some money for medical expenses (Reesa, if you recall, just had a radical mastectomy, which is major surgery, which they charge money for),  volunteers are going to be spinning yarn (or knitting) for as long a time as they can get sponsored, up to at least 48 hours.  We have 23.5 hours covered so far.  This is going to happen this coming weekend (May 1-2) here in Austin (well, technically Paige,TX and Round Rock).   As extra incentive, if we raise enough sponsorships to cover the second day of SpinAThon (that’s Sunday, May 2 in Round Rock TX for you local folk), I’m going to be showing up to the event for several hours and maybe doing some tunes and signing some books and pretending to be a celebrity. Reesa will also be on-site for part of both days if you’d like to meet and chat with the person who inspired the event.

If this sounds like something you want to get involved in, follow the links below:

To skip the rest and go directly to the donate button, click here for the main SpinAThon page and then click the handy donate button, found just above the letters from friends.. (We tried to link to the button directly but the link expires after a certain amount of time.)

A link to the SpinAThon main page, as well as the FAQ page.

Reesa wrote a post compiling several links and information about SpinAThon that might be useful.

Only a few more days available for you to help out with SpinAThon! We also have an auction scheduled for after SpinAThon that will be putting up for bid the yarn and knit things made during the event, as well as other donated unique pieces from artists.

On Health Care

The Nobel Prize discussion quite reasonably morphed into a health care discussion.  So, if anyone wants to continue that, here’s a place to do so.  My position is as follows:

For purposes of this discussion, “profit” refers to money that comes from appropriating the labor of others (“exploitation” in the strict economic sense).  If a company bills a nurse practioner at $75/hour, and pays the nurse $20/hour, the $20/hour is wages; the portion that goes to the company out of the remaining $55 is profit.  Money earned by a doctor is not profit, money earned by an insurance company is.

That said, I do not believe it is possible to solve the health care problem, or even significantly improve it, while profit is still a consideration.