Pic of the Day

Steam locomotives of the Chicago & North Western Railway in the roundhouse at the Chicago rail yards (December 1942)

I haven't been reading much, mostly, I suspect, because I haven't been sleeping all that well. But when I sit down for lunch today I pick up a book that's been sitting on a pile that's due to be sold to Powell's and it pretty much captivated me.

The books is methland by Nick Reading and it is about the methamphetamine craze (epidemic) that swept the nation, especially the way it has affected small town America. The first town he focuses on is Oelwein, Iowa (I'm still reading the prologue.), which has a roundhouse. Cool! I like roundhouses, so I go looking for pictures, but I don't find much. The photo above is the best of the lot and it has a tenuous connection to Oelwein: The Chicago & North Western Railway extended to Oelwein Iowa.

Looking at Google Maps, it looks like there is still a big rail operation there. There is a big yard with 100's of cars. Looking at the Open Railway Map, you can see that the only active line goes to Des Moines, all the other tracks heading out of Oelwein have been abandoned. I suspect the only reason they are keeping the track to Des Moines open is that Oelwein has a big yard where they can store a large number of railroad cars.

Pic of the Day

F-16 Pilot

Pic of the Day

UN Building from a 1950 advertisement in Glass Digest

Construction of the United Nations Secretariat Building started in 1948 and was completed in 1952.

Scanning introduced artifacts that are not visible in the original printed image. Scanning at a higher resolution didn't help, made it worse actually.

Via Dennis.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix
Joel & Ethan Coen are at it again, or perhaps I should say they are still at it. Six stories from the Old West. The scenery is wonderful, the dialog is spectacular, the stories generally end grimly. Released earlier this year and already on Netflix.

Cuban Doctors

Cuba-Brazil: The Battle of the White Coats

Posted on November 19, 2018 by Yoani-Sánchez

Cuban doctors who stay in Brazil will be forbidden entry to the island for eight years. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, Havana, 19 November 2018 – We saw the conflict coming. From the moment Jair Bolsonero won the elections in Brazil, Cuba’s official discourse increased in rhetoric against him and prepared public opinion for the rupture that was imminent.
The straw that broke the camel’s back for the Plaza of the Revolution was the statements by the president-elect in which he warned that he would change the conditions of the agreement under which more than 8,300 physicians from Cuba work in Brazil’s Mais Medicos (More Doctors) program.
Last Wednesday, tensions escalated to their highest point when the Cuban Minister of Public Health announced that he was cancelling the contract and removing his professionals from the South American country. The official notice, read out on all of the island’s the news programs, repeated that Bolsonaro’s threats would not be tolerated but deftly ignored some of his words. Particularly those where the rightist leader insisted that the Cuban doctors should receive their full salaries and be able to bring their families to stay with them while they were in the program.
The Cuban government has made medical missions a lucrative business. With professionals deployed in more than 60 countries, the money raised by this practice is Cuba’s largest source of foreign currency, estimated to exceed $11 billion annually.
In the case of Brazil, Havana pockets 75% of the 3,300 dollar salary Brazil pays for each doctor, while the health professionals only receive a quarter of the total. On the Island, in a bank account which they do not have access to, their “Cuban” monthly salary of about 60 dollars accumulates, which they can only collect if they return to the island.
Those who leave the Mais Medicos program under their own will are considered deserters and are banned from entering Cuba for eight years. During the time the Workers’ Party (PT) was at the head of the Brazilian government, the doctors who escaped from their contracts were pursued by the Brazilian police and could be returned to the Island if they were arrested. None were allowed to bring their family members to be with them during their missions, and they were often housed in overcrowded hostels shared with other doctors, nurses and hospital technicians.
Despite so many difficulties and the low earnings, the missions were very much desired by the doctors because they were able to buy goods that are not available in Cuban markets, and to make contacts that would later allow them to return to Brazil privately, with a contract to work in some clinic.
Beyond its ability to provide healthcare for many Brazilians in the poorest areas of the country, the Mais Medicos program hid a political operation to build support for the leftist Workers’ Party and guarantee it the votes of the lower classes. It was clear that Cuba’s interest in this outcome was not going to continue with Bolsonaro in charge, thus it was only a matter of time before Castroism removed its healthcare professionals from Brazil. It only remains now to ask how many of them will actually return to the island.
The president-elect of Brazil has announced that he will grant political asylum to all Cuban doctors who request it and it is expected that a considerable number will benefit from this offer. Those who do so will lose the right to return to their homeland for many long years, they will be called traitors and, most likely, their families on the island will be under pressure. The battle of the white coats has barely begun.

Stole this article from Generation Y. My daughter's father-in-law is a doctor working in this program, although he is in Venezuela, not Brazil. He's been there two years and has another year to go before he can return home.

I find it curious that even though Cuba is essentially impoverished, they are still able to produce more doctors than they need. Or maybe they are just providing medical services to those who can pay for it and their own people will just have to do without, which makes them just like us imperialist running dogs,  whom they denigrate and despise.

Pic of the Day

Nothing more American than this (1942)

. . . thrilling days of yesteryear . . .

Catching a Lyft back home

Tonight's driver hails from Basra, Iraq. He got a degree in English (British) Literature from an Arabic teacher. He spent a few years working as an interpreter for the US Navy, which means he got preferential treatment when he applied for a Green Card here in the US, it only took him two days. He had high hopes when he came to the US, but he's been here several years and has become resigned to his lot which is working as a security guard 3 days a week and driving for Lyft the other 4.

When I asked him which were crazier, the Iraqis or the Iranians, he said "that is a good question", but there is no answer because they are equally crazy. 90% of the population of Iraq is Muslim, half are Sunni's, who get their direction from Iran, and the other half are Shiites, who get their direction from Saudi Arabia. Or maybe it's the other way around, I can never keep it straight.

When I read the news reports about all the refugees trying to get out of the middle East and into Europe, I am thinking why don't they stay at home and fix their own problems. And then I run into a guy like this and I realize that a few rational people have no hope of bringing law and order to any of these insane-i-lands. Maybe if we put Chevron in charge things would change. Maybe even for the better.