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Back travails, part ?

  By About me, Health Issues

The short version: After truly excruciating pain last weekend, a course of steroids and pain killers has started to get things under control this weekend. I’m hoping that in another week or so and I’ll be ok again. The long version: Two weeks ago I was recovering from surgery really well. One day I told my wife at the end of the day that I hadn’t thought about my neck or back at all and hadn’t taken a pain killer in three days. All the various aches and pains had pretty much dissipated. Then two days later something happened. And last Thursday something else happened. The pain was in all the same places I had it before surgery—under my right arm, in my right shoulder blade and shoulder, shooting down by triceps, at my elbow and in my hand. But qualitatively it was very different. Instead of occasional burning, shooting… Continue reading

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Why Do Artists and Intellectual Tend to be on the Left?

  By Philosophy, Politics

Why do artists and intellectuals tend to be liberals? Because artistic and intellectual goods are things we can all share. When you enjoy a piece of music, it doesn’t stop me from doing so. When you enjoy a good book, the same. In fact, the more people love the same music and books I do, the more people I have to share in the experience and from whom I can learn more about what I love. That doesn’t mean there are no conflicts in these spheres of life. Once upon a time, there was a conflict over owning these goods. But in the digital world the cost of reproducing music and books is now very close to zero. There are still limited resources for the creation of intellectual and artistic goods. But the more we focus our lives on the pursuit of these goods, the more we devote our resources… Continue reading

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The Cost of Banning Abortion in Pennsylvania

  By Abortion, Feminism

By Claire Kovach with Marc Stier Drawing on a few decades of research, this paper shows that banning abortion would severely harm women in the state, especially women of color and women with low incomes. The paper summarizes research showing that the inability to secure an abortion harms women’s physical and mental health, makes it harder for them to secure an education, reduces their prospects for employment and good wages, and is likely to leave them facing hardship and poverty. The paper concludes that the combined direct and indirect effects of a total ban on abortion in Pennsylvania would likely reduce wages in the state by $10 billion a year. <a href=”http:marcstier.com/blog2/wp-content/uplaods/22/09/CostOfAbortionBan-2.pdf” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”>Click here to read full screen or print.</a> &nbsp; Continue reading

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I’ll Have What She’s Having

  By Uncategorized

I’m on painkillers for a change and woke up slowly and and a little delieriously from a nap to read an odd Facebook post: “I’m a registered orgasm donor.” Continue reading

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Is Doug Mastriano Planning To Become Governor By Force?

  By 2022, Fascism, Politics, The Coming Civil War?

Doug Mastriano is running an incompetent campaign for governor by any standard measures of political competence. He’s not raising money. He’s not moving to the center or at least tempering his most extreme positions. He’s not talking to the press…which is how politicians get their message to voters. He may yet win. Though he is down in the polls by a lot, there is continuing reason to believe that polls understate the vote of Trumpist candidates because their supporters don’t trust pollsters and answer their questions, because some of their supporters, upper middle class Republicans, are reluctant to say out loud that they are voting for creeps like Trump and Mastriano, and because polls don’t measure likely turnout well. Candidates like Trump and Mastriano motivate devoted followers who, like them, are angry and frustrated at what they see as the direction of the country and thus come out to vote.… Continue reading

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We Need To Make Time for the Pain

  By Philosophy

Have you noticed how much pain there is among your friends in real life and and here on social as well? Most of the time I can shut a lot of it it out. I have to do that sometimes. Not always. This week alone I’ve talked to or interacted with people who: -Is watching a young mother die of cancer -Is dealing with a long course of chemotherapy -Just had to change to a new course of chemotherapy -Lost their husband from cancer not long ago -Lost their father from a sudden death not long ago -Is suffering from severe back problems And that’s just the physical suffering. There are also the people: -Struggling with dementia and taking care of those who are. -Hate the hard work they have to do to survive -Are single and worrying about how they are going to care for themselves when they get… Continue reading

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Economic Messaging for Progressives

  By Philosophy, Policy briefs

PBPC has long focused not just on what policies to adopt but how we can build support for them. The policy papers we wrote for our We The People–PA campaign and our Roadmap to a New Pennsylvania, as well as the narrative for the campaign, focus on messaging as well as policy. In this piece, we weave together some of that work as well as the poll-tested messaging that is coming from the Race/Class Narrative and the Winning Jobs Narrative efforts, while adapting it for the Pennsylvania context. At the end, we provide some links to polling data to support each theme we highlight here     Continue reading

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Sex as a Relational Phenomena and the “Male Gaze”

  By Love and Sex

Central to the understanding of sexuality I’m developing in my book Civilization and Its Contents is that it is fundamentally a relational phenomena. What makes our actions sexual is just the physical acts we do. After all, many of those acts can be sexual or not depending on context. A female doctor examining the penis of a male patient is not a sexual act.  What makes an act sexual is that is  designed to elicit sexual desire and arousal on the part of ourselves and our partners. Two people are having sex not just because of what they do to each other but because what they do intends to express their own sexual desire and, in doing so, elicit sexual desire and arousal in their partners by their recognition of that intention–as well as by the pleasure one’s partner receives .[1] Now this general point about sexuality can be misunderstood… Continue reading

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STATEMENT: House Dems Pass Inflation Reduction Act To Lower Drug Prices, Make Health Care & Energy Costs More Affordable

  By Climate Change, Economic Development, Energy, Health Care, PA Budget and Policy Center, Statements, US

For Immediate Release Date: August 12, 2022 Contact: Kirstin Snow, snow@pennbpc.org   House Democrats Pass Inflation Reduction Act To Lower Drug Prices, Make Health Care and Energy Costs More Affordable   Historic Bill to Curb Big Pharma and Make Corporations Pay What They Owe Moves Towards Passage Harrisburg, PA — Following U.S. House passage of the Inflation Reduction Act—a bill that will enact historic drug pricing reform, reduce health insurance costs, lower energy costs, and reduce the national deficit—Marc Stier, director of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center and Stephen Herzenberg, executive director of the Keystone Research Center, released the following statement:    The U.S. House’s vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act makes historic progress on many fronts. It takes a huge step forward in addressing the threat of climate change by investing $370 billion in a series of incentives to encourage the replacement of fossil fuels with clean,… Continue reading