AMUSING, INTERESTING, OUTRAGEOUS, or PROFOUND

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/47552153

Part 2 (2023)

SURROUNDED by hundreds of thousands of square miles of lifeless sand, the keeper of a gas station and lighthouse in the middle of the Sahara Desert has the world’s loneliest job. His lighthouse guides planes and motor coaches of the trans-Sahara traffic to a gasoline depot where they can obtain fuel. Once a week, a machine stops for an hour at the cache. But for long periods, the keeper is alone, the only human being in 750,000 square miles of sand. Within the hut where he lives, the temperature frequently rises to 140 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and drops to thirty-five degrees at night. The present lighthouse keeper is the fifth man to hold the job. One of his predecessors died of fever, a second perished in a gasoline explosion, a third went insane, and a fourth died of thirst.

Source: https://archive.org/details/1935-to-1939-popular-science/1939-02%20Popular%20Science/page/146/mode/2up

The administration is working on a rule change that would deduct the value of a disabled adult’s bedroom from their SSI allotment, even if the family members they live with are poor enough to qualify for food stamps. This would mean slashing the benefits of some of the most low-income SSI recipients by up to a third — about $330 a month in Burton’s case — or ending their support altogether.

The effort to cut SSI for families who also rely on food stamps, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, was initiated by top White House and Department of Government Efficiency officials last year, multiple Social Security officials said. It marks a second attempt by the Trump administration to quietly but dramatically downsize disability benefit programs overseen by the Social Security Administration, despite those programs’ strict eligibility standards and minimal instances of fraud.

... The staff then gathered the patients who were able to leave their beds to meet Taylor. Their bodies were weak, and they leaned on nurses and IV poles as they came to see her. She spent a few minutes with each patient, touching them gently. Their joy and excitement meeting Taylor was clear on their faces, said Fraser.

Toward the end of her two-hour visit, Taylor asked the staff if anyone couldn’t get out of bed. Fraser led her to a man on a hospital bed and gently woke him to say he had a visitor.

“He asked, ‘Who?’ and I said, ‘Elizabeth Taylor.’ And he said, ‘Oh, right,’” Fraser recalled. “You can only imagine his face. He was just in shock. ‘I am I dead? Am I alive? What’s going on, Elizabeth Taylor?’”

Taylor spoke to the man and touched his hand before it was time for her to leave. The patient died that night, Fraser said. ...