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Jack Daniels's avatar

For what it's worth, AOC didn't seem upbeat about the results.

A musical suggestion: "The Other Side", Chuck Brown and Eva Cassidy (1992).

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Weldon Berger's avatar

She's disappointed that Democrats on the whole and particularly the New York party didn't do better, not that progressives and/or socialists didn't do better. She thinks Democrats had crap messaging, which probably not a lot of people would argue with, and lost a rare midterm opportunity to gain seats.

I'll give them a listen this evening.

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Jack Daniels's avatar

I know; just pulling your tail.

Hope you like them.

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Weldon Berger's avatar

Easy to do, and I'm sure I will.

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Weldon Berger's avatar

Very nice, Jack! I felt as though I should pour myself a tumbler of Scotch and make the room smoky.

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Jack Daniels's avatar

Glad you liked it. We were listening last night with a wood fire in our cast iron stove. Winter is coming.

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Weldon Berger's avatar

Temperature plunged into the low 70s here last night.

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Jack Daniels's avatar

Did you make a fire too?

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TenaciousK's avatar

Hi Weldon. Sorry I've been hunkered down and not really reading much. A couple non-sequiturs: Mimi Parker died the other day, sadly, which belatedly drew my attention back to her band Low. They apparently didn't like the term "slowcore" and actually did some things that wouldn't qualify for the characterization, but most of their stuff would. Worth checking out if you don't know them.

There are some weird regulatory shenanigans going on in my state involving the various licenses in my general field. Essentially, it looks like a focused effort to insert libertarian philosophy into occupational licensing, first order of business being using the national mental health crisis to justify significantly undermining training etc. standards, bolstered by bad arguments, bad science, and abetted by the field's unfortunate preoccupation with "empirically validated treatments" that they're going to pretend could be taught to/delivered by about anyone, or (I predict) a clever phone app. All of this also conveniently distracts focus from all the social/economic factors contributing, instead reframing everything as a big-state repressive regulatory system. Frankly, this is the beginning of something I've seen coming for a long time, and dearly hoped I was wrong about.

I'll let you know more when I can, but I'm very, very interested in any further information/articles your happen across focused on the many factors contributing to widespread mental health problems that aren't exclusively not enough providers. You're better informed than I am about all of that, and I'm apparently better informed than they majority of my colleagues, thanks partly to you.

So for better or worse, you're having a soon-to-be-demonstrable impact on this area, and I really appreciate it. There will be some good material coming from all of this.

More to follow over the course of the next couple weeks.

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Weldon Berger's avatar

Hey man, read when you can. I am not a demanding proprietor, mostly.

I think I listened to Low many years ago, but I'd forgotten them. I did recognize Mimi Parker's name but couldn't remember from where. I used one of their more recent albums while writing the Sunday piece.

Thanks as ever for the kind words. I'm glad to be of use, and sorry too. I'll keep a lookout on the subject. Get well, brother.

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