There is a plaque in the hallway of Boston Children’s main hospital highlighting the partnership between the hospital and Bain Capital. The internet tells me that Bain donated around $2.5M to Boston Children’s through some donor matching activities and whatnot. Details were murky, but there’s a plaque so it must have been something.
Good for Bain.
This week it was reported that a service provider owned by Bain Capital was illegally awarded $86M to manage programs to curb teen pregnancy. This made news because it was, as previously stated, illegal. Also, the company who won the award has no experience in providing the services required of the award. But coincidentally, several of the execs in the Trump administration previously worked for the company who won the award. But surely it was legit.
Details from the news report are below.
A federal spending database shows an award of $86 million to Guidehouse, which describes itself as a, quote, “global AI-led professional services firm.” It’s owned by the private equity firm Bain Capital. There’s no mention of teen pregnancy on its website, no obvious evidence that it has any experience in this area.
And notably, the award came from a different part of the Department of Health and Human Services than usually runs this program. It came from an agency called the Administration for Children and Families. And one of the top people at that agency is Cody Inman, who came to work for the Trump administration from Guidehouse. And there are at least two other HHS officials who also worked there. I asked both HHS and Guidehouse about this. HHS declined to comment, citing the litigation, and I didn’t receive a response from Guidehouse by my deadline.
Seems Bain’s charitable donations are significantly overshadowed by their greed. That doesn’t seem a surprise to me.
I’ve been in Boston these past few days. The hotel is expensive and we have around 100 people here. Overall we are spending around $250,000 for 3 days of meetings. Massive amounts of food emerge twice a day, much of which goes uneaten and wasted because this hotel will not allow us to take leftovers to the rooms.
The chef is an ass who somehow commands this ridiculous rule and gets away with it. I will nudge us to another location when we next assemble the whole team.
I imagine what I could for MYO or others in Namibia with this $250,000. But this is a zero sum game I’ve played for years. The casual wastefulness of corporate America is a callous juxtaposition set against the desperation of the impoverished.
My little friends in Namibia will eat porridge every single morning, if they are lucky to have anything at all. Our breakfast was various breads to be toasted, two kinds of croissants, bagels with cream cheese and jellies, fruits, various flavors of yogurts, juices, coffee. Glass bottles of luxury still and sparkling water and canned espresso and coffee drinks with sugary flavorings. This was the continental breakfast option which we selected because it was the cheaper option.
Lunch was several times more extravagant with shrimp, salmon, beef, chicken, vegetables dishes, rice dishes, hummus and all kinds of other stuff.
We were required to have a total spend of $40,000 of food and beverages in order to have access to the ballroom and various smaller break-out rooms we needed for our event.
The traveling between these two worlds, one of immense abundance and one of need, can be unsettling. Selfishly, I think if I had that $275,000, I could also sustain myself in Namibia for 3 years or more. I could make MYO really hum and shine if I were there. I have a passion and a talent for getting things done. This is my only real super power — getting shit done. I have always wanted to return to take MYO to a whole new level.
Perhaps one day. I cannot get a work visa there, so I must be self-sustaining.
Throughout each day I communicate with my people from Namibia. Beverly, Sue, Placido, Annelie, Anke, Johanna, Frieda, Ndeshipanda, Petrus, Helvi and a host of others who check in from time to time. These connections are a source of lifeblood for me. They sustain me as I slog through the depressing inanity of my job which is essentially adult baby-sitting.
It an abstract sense, it is not entirely unfulfilling work. Boston Children’s Health is an amazing hospital. Saving children’s lives at scale each day and advancing important research to prevent or cure diseases that afflict and mutilate tiny bodies. Our little part behind the scenes, far from the front lines, simply enables the myriad of administrative functions that move the virtual paperwork from one place to another to ensure supplies show up, vendors are paid, nurses and doctors are scheduled at all the right places and times and they also get paid and accounting records are populated with accurate numbers and the machine keeps humming — all so those beautiful little children can get made whole again.
It’s tolerable work which I am good at, and I’m fortunate to have it if I am to exist in this absurd societal framework we’ve built and which we pretend is a fulfilling way to live.
I’m hanging out in a cigar bar in North End of Boston as I try to finish up this post. Cigar bars are interesting places. There are perhaps 50 people here and as far as I can see, all male patrons. The bartender and two servers are female, which makes good business sense.
Everyone is pleasant and just chilling. About 1/3 of the tables are guys by themselves — reading a book or on their phones or a laptop. The rest of the tables are 2 or 3 or more guys just chatting and hanging out smoking and drinking.
I drew a short straw because the guy next to me at the bar was a talker. Way way way too much. Nice enough, but just lonely I think. Said he was a local musician who had over the years headlined in all the big local music joints and I mostly believed him.
His brand of chatter was mostly scattered nonsense but it was relentless. I finally gave up and put away my book. A book I was hoping to finish while enjoying my Oliva Serie V Figurado. I started this book a week ago and am trying to maintain my pace of a book a week.
Cigar bars are like an airplane in a way. Best to not start up a conversation with your seatmate, other than polite niceties like ‘does the reading light bother you‘ or ‘excuse me but I need to use the restroom‘. On an airplane, unless the person next to me is reading a book that I wrote (which has only happened once) or wearing a legit rugby jersey, I assume we have nothing to talk about.
The guy tonight had no such guidelines. Nice enough guy, as these things go, but just a little much. Interestingly, the guy next to him, which means the annoying guy was between us, seemed interesting. He was writing away in a nice notebook and I wanted to know his notebook of choice. We talked notebooks for a bit. Moleskin, Karst (my current) and Apica (his current) and we agreed Moleskin had sold out after the glory days of the Bruce Chatwin era.
But the guy between us kept interrupting and hijacking our conversation. And, get this, he was a cigarette smoker. Smoking cigarettes in a cigar bar is a serious faux paux but there he was. Some cigar bars, most in fact, do not allow smoking of cigarettes.
My bar neighbor was also really working hard to garner some interest from the bartender but she tolerated his advances rather than encouraged. They had some banter but his was desperate adoration and hers was professional accommodation.
Anyway…..that was my cigar bar experience the last night in the north end of Boston. After, I walked the 1.5 miles back to my hotel, enjoying the Autum evening.
In my ongoing effort to process how we, meaning all life forms on the planet, could be put in the position we are in, I find it hard to steer clear of this topic.
How can a complete imbecilic, ignorant, destructive madman be elected and then even further empowered to destroy the planet and generally cause so much pain and chaos.
And do so with the blessing of so many of our voters.
I have a new theory.
Perhaps the universe recognized the generally declining trajectory of human behavior and decided to accelerate our own destruction with the longer term goal of saving the planet and some of the other species living here.
Much as a wolf may have to chew off a leg to escape a trap. Or someone with gangrene needs to cut off an arm to survive. We must accelerate through this destructive process to hasten the extinction of the human race so that other species and the planet may survive. So the universe conjured up Donald Trump and delivered him to us in order to cut to the chase and do what all the other rich people and global corporations were already trying to do, albeit against the meddling of humanists and environmentalists.
Remove the barriers so we get rid of ourselves faster than ever so the world can get on with the business of recovery.
Could be true.
Our mid-term elections will wrap up in a couple of weeks now. I refuse to be optimistic at the chances of a blue wave. For the past 10 years polls have been ridiculous inaccurate and Republicans have a way of just barely winning at the last minute.
It’s likely to be a wild ride. Trump and Co. will vigorously challenge election results for those races they do lose, especially if it turns the tide in one or both of the houses of Congress. If by some miracle the Dems do win one, or Allah-willing, both chambers, then it will be a crazy-ass lame duck session until everyone gets sworn in on January 3. Or will they? Will Johnson and Thune refuse to swear them in? What damage can the departing Republicans inflict on the country in their last 8 or 9 weeks in office. Trump will know he is likely to get impeached and he will fight like a honey badger to survive.
Surely there is no outcome in which more damage is not done to our already battered institutions and the fragile psyche of our population.
I’ve watched with interest the protests in France. I have to admire the French for their willingness to bring the conversation around. Like a good smash in the mouth. Increasingly, in all democracies, governments are doing the bidding of multi-national corporations and ultra wealthy rather than the other 99% of the populace. The democratic systems do not work anymore because corporations and the rich can simply throw massive amounts of money at the vain and easily corruptible politicians and Bob’s your Uncle. They melt into their donors arms like butter in the hot sun.
So what else are we to do to be heard. Peaceful protests? Sure, that works. They don’t care. They simply ride it out.
We’ve had numerous massive protests against all the illegal things Donald Trump has been doing for the past 2 years. Nothing has changed at all. Republicans stand behind him while he does all kinds of evil shit and Democrats wring their hands and wish Republicans would be nicer. Chuck Schumer? Give me a break. Pansy ass bitch is way out of his league.
And more and more even our voting mechanisms are under attack. The rich own every bit of the technology, the process, and the media guaranteeing them the results they want.
Smashing some windows and burning shit down at least gets their attention. I hate when people say something like ‘I empathize with their message but can’t agree with the property destruction and looting‘.
First, the vast majority of protesters truly are peacefully demonstrating. The fact that 1 or 2% are taking it a bit far does not change the message. The organizers cannot be blamed for the actions of a few who are just leveraging the opportunity.
Cops kill unarmed people every week and we don’t charge them with murder. This guilt by association is a media tactic to discredit the message of the protestors.
So I am rooting for the protestors in France. Let’s take it up a notch.
At this point, it seems ridiculous to point out the flaws in Donald Trump. But there was a telling photograph the other day that likely will live on. In the picture, Trump was huddled in Marine One with the 35 year old Natalie Harp and the soon to be fired press secretary (fired after 5 days on the job). Two young, pretty dumb, I mean let’s be honest, blondes. Completely obviously chosen for their looks and unabashed adoration for the fat man in blue suit and red tie.
It sounds harsh, but really, what can someone offer a president of the free world who has virtually no work experience and in one case, has been lying about her professional credentials for years. But these are the advisors our president chooses. They echo back what he wants to hear (they at least have learned that level of self-awareness living through our patriarchal society as a physical rather than intellectual instrument).
The leader of the free world takes his advice from ignorant, naive, young women with no qualifications and gives them titles like senior advisor or press secretary. I know I said that already but the incredulity requires repeating.
We’ll leave it there for now.
I’ll look for something positive to write about next week.
Humbly submitted
Robert Myres – Flanker (ret.), Portneuf Valley Rugby Football Club, writer, comic genius & Lord of Black Dog Ridge Manor
