By Peter H. Lewis | May 13, 2020 Originally published by AVL Watchdog in Asheville, N.C. The biggest health crisis in a lifetime hit Asheville shortly after the one-year anniversary of the biggest upheaval in local healthcare: the $1.5 billion sale of the nonprofit Mission Health System to HCA Healthcare, the nation’s largest for-profit hospital management chain. The transition from local nonprofit to profit-hungry behemoth has not gone smoothly, and not just because of the coronavirus. Now, as Mission Health begins to reopen for elective surgeries and procedures put on hold during the first wave of the ongoing pandemic,…
I handed the pharmacist my American prescription for Humalog insulin. “Szia,” I said in my best Google Hungarian, “töltse ki ezt a receptet?” She looked at the paper, and said in English, “Sure, but we have to order it. Is tomorrow okay?” I asked how much it would cost. “Let’s see,” she said, tapping the keyboard. Then, almost apologetically, “Ten milliliters is . . . 6,543 Hungarian forins. About 20 euros.” My phone’s calculator made the conversion to dollars: $22 and change for a two-inch vial of Eli Lilly and Company’s fast-acting Humalog insulin lispro, purchased in a random…
A review: Bach for Banjo: 20 Pieces Arranged for 5-String Banjo, by Mark Phillips, Jon Peik and Jim Schustedt ($9.99, Hal Leonard, 2013). Music scholars agree: Johann Sebastian Bach never composed anything for the banjo.[i] A virtuoso on the pipe organ, Bach also played the violin, viola, harpsichord, clavichord, and even a prototype of a newfangled instrument called a “piano,” although he never composed anything for it, either. Even so, Bela Fleck, John Bullard, Jens Kruger, Michael J. Miles (clawhammer), Rob MacKillop (tenor banjo), and many others have demonstrated that Bach’s compositions lend themselves well to the four- or five-string banjo. (Keep this in mind when friends and…