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Texas tops list of worst places to live and work in America


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3 hours ago, Texzilla58 said:

I'm taking a wild guess that "fell out of the sky" is SE Texas dialect for "fell on top of me from out of a tree" where the hawk had already flown with the snake intending to eat it.

 

Or it's a miracle.

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Funny you guys should say that.  Now that Covid has pretty much lifted, I've had about a half dozen friends/business colleagues get remarried (they were all out of first marriages but I guess waiting to either start dating aggressively or finally decided it was clinically safe to marry their side piece with a large gathering).  Two guys had the decency to just send out an email with the news and that was that.  The other ones are making it a big deal (probably because it's the woman's first marriage) with invites and parties and registries and all that shit we don't have time for in our 40's with our own kids and bullshit.  I mean, if you want to take another swing at love and happiness, more power to you---god bless.  But don't involve me.  I mean, I had to sarcastically, but deadly serious, tell an old friend, "Sorry we can't make your third wedding.  We don't have anybody to watch the kids that weekend.  Did you ever notice the last two times I've seen you resulted in you making huge mistakes?"  

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10 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

I'm taking a wild guess that "fell out of the sky" is SE Texas dialect for "fell on top of me from out of a tree" where the hawk had already flown with the snake intending to eat it.

 

Or it's a miracle.

An eagle carrying a snake landed on a cactus.  And that's how Mexico City came to be located there.

A hawk dropped a snake on a large white woman, the snake wrapped around her arm, and the hawk came down and shredded them both while the woman yelled and cussed, nearly dropping her Pall Mall out of her mouth.  And that's how Silsbee was founded.

It all checks out.

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1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

An eagle carrying a snake landed on a cactus.  And that's how Mexico City came to be located there.

A hawk dropped a snake on a large white woman, the snake wrapped around her arm, and the hawk came down and shredded them both while the woman yelled and cussed, nearly dropping her Pall Mall out of her mouth.  And that's how Silsbee was founded.

It all checks out.

I actually had the Tenochtitlan vision a few years back, walking distance from our house, with a hawk, a snake, and a pecan tree.

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I'm taking a wild guess that "fell out of the sky" is SE Texas dialect for "fell on top of me from out of a tree" where the hawk had already flown with the snake intending to eat it.
 
Or it's a miracle.

The hawk supposedly had the snake and dropped it, then circled back to get it.

If stories of snakes falling out of the sky keep some folks from moving here I’m all for it.
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19 minutes ago, MissingInAction said:

Medical professionals are leaving en masse, and we all know why. Next people who can move out of this state will move due to it turning into MS 2.0.

I'm looking at eastern TN/west NC for my escape.

teachers and education professionals are next. the only tethers keeping us here are friends and family. but man, it's getting harder and harder to want to stay here when the environment is so anti-worker, anti-education, anti-health, anti-everything. fucking hell.

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also, i know it's fashionable to hate the heat, and it is fucking hot, this summer, but i grew up here and worked summers outside in my youth. i'm a weirdo, but i love the heat. i go outside the ac several times a day into the blast furnace just to feel that heat. i mow my lawn at like 3pm. i'm a fucking psycho, and that's okay. i love this fucking place. but the people are really making it difficult, between the new people moving here and the fact the we are run by rural hayseeds with backwards ass thinking.

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Ditto on loving the feeling of heat.

My special lady friend is 100% polar (yep) opposite and needs frigid air 24/7.

My favorite memory of seeing movies as a kid was leaving the always-too-cold theater to come outside to the baking Texas pavement and just standing there and hearing my hair singe and skin crackle.

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2 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

I actually had the Tenochtitlan vision a few years back, walking distance from our house, with a hawk, a snake, and a pecan tree.

Me too, but it was Selma Hayek, my snake, and nut

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45 minutes ago, gofuckyourself said:

Ditto on loving the feeling of heat.

My special lady friend is 100% polar (yep) opposite and needs frigid air 24/7.

My favorite memory of seeing movies as a kid was leaving the always-too-cold theater to come outside to the baking Texas pavement and just standing there and hearing my hair singe and skin crackle.

to this day, leaving an always-too-cold public place and stepping out into the shattering heat is my fucking jam.

so much so, i just walked to the mailboxes because just typing about it got me excited haha

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11 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

to this day, leaving an always-too-cold public place and stepping out into the shattering heat is my fucking jam.

so much so, i just walked to the mailboxes because just typing about it got me excited haha

^Non glasses-wearing motherfucker....

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2 hours ago, MissingInAction said:

I don't know wtf I'm gonna do. TN is just so damn pretty and not on fire.

Ummm, I have some more bad news for you related to East TN and fires. 

This is the last place (maybe next to last behind FL) you want to come if TX politics and the direction of the state bothers you. We’re in the middle of a huge red migration that will be further compounded by the Ford announcement and other things going on in the state.

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21 minutes ago, Brew said:

Ummm, I have some more bad news for you related to East TN and fires. 

This is the last place (maybe next to last behind FL) you want to come if TX politics and the direction of the state bothers you. We’re in the middle of a huge red migration that will be further compounded by the Ford announcement and other things going on in the state.

Well, poo.

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also, i know it's fashionable to hate the heat, and it is fucking hot, this summer, but i grew up here and worked summers outside in my youth. i'm a weirdo, but i love the heat. i go outside the ac several times a day into the blast furnace just to feel that heat. i mow my lawn at like 3pm. i'm a fucking psycho, and that's okay. i love this fucking place. but the people are really making it difficult, between the new people moving here and the fact the we are run by rural hayseeds with backwards ass thinking.

Fair enough, but now imagine how you’d feel about the place if you weren’t unhinged
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On 8/9/2023 at 10:51 AM, MissingInAction said:

Medical professionals are leaving en masse, and we all know why. Next people who can move out of this state will move due to it turning into MS 2.0.

I'm looking at eastern TN/west NC for my escape.

Texas is too extreme... I'm thinking something north of Couer d'Alene.  Hear the people are nice.  

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On 8/9/2023 at 11:32 AM, gofuckyourself said:

Ditto on loving the feeling of heat.

My special lady friend is 100% polar (yep) opposite and needs frigid air 24/7.

My favorite memory of seeing movies as a kid was leaving the always-too-cold theater to come outside to the baking Texas pavement and just standing there and hearing my hair singe and skin crackle.

 

On 8/9/2023 at 12:18 PM, hayden_horn said:

to this day, leaving an always-too-cold public place and stepping out into the shattering heat is my fucking jam.

so much so, i just walked to the mailboxes because just typing about it got me excited haha

I enjoy that sensation as well but when it's 106 it isn't enjoyable for more than a couple seconds. 

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think its hyperbole to say medical professionals are leaving en masse. Restricting it to doctors, if you are not an Ob/Gyn who has strong views on abortion access or doing transgender medicine, you are not likely to feel the immediate effect on your practice, and we are all creatures that care the most about what affects us. Second, while this has a better chance at changing in the next generation, doctors tend to run on the conservative spectrum,  especially when that attending salary begins to hit. Surgeons even more so. The most popular station in the surgeon's lounge is usually Fox News. Third, moving up and setting a practice is really not that easy to do; and the more you become entrenched and get a referral base,  even more difficult to leave.

Do I think the general trend in Texas will have a detrimental effect on Texas HealthCare? yes, but it will specific and easy to not notice if you aren't affected personally. Lord knows, this country doesn't seem to give a shit about maternal and pediatric health anyways. A Tsunami of providers of all sorts leaving is not likely.  It will affect some high-level, elite positions though. MDAnderson and Texas Children's Hospital definitely have more negative recruiting material to work against.

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1 minute ago, naija said:

think its hyperbole to say medical professionals are leaving en masse. Restricting it to doctors, if you are not an Ob/Gyn who has strong views on abortion access or doing transgender medicine, you are not likely to feel the immediate effect on your practice, and we are all creatures that care the most about what affects us. Second, while this has a better chance at changing in the next generation, doctors tend to run on the conservative spectrum,  especially when that attending salary begins to hit. Surgeons even more so. The most popular station in the surgeon's lounge is usually Fox News. Third, moving up and setting a practice is really not that easy to do; and the more you become entrenched and get a referral base,  even more difficult to leave.

Do I think the general trend in Texas will have a detrimental effect on Texas HealthCare? yes, but it will specific and easy to not notice if you aren't affected personally. Lord knows, this country doesn't seem to give a shit about maternal and pediatric health anyways. A Tsunami of providers of all sorts leaving is not likely.  It will affect some high-level, elite positions though. MDAnderson and Texas Children's Hospital definitely have more negative recruiting material to work against.

What is the reason for Austin being understaffed with MDs? Has there just not been enough time for the infrastructure to catch up with the population?

Not playing devil's advocate I'm asking genuinely. 

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4 minutes ago, naija said:

think its hyperbole to say medical professionals are leaving en masse. Restricting it to doctors, if you are not an Ob/Gyn who has strong views on abortion access or doing transgender medicine, you are not likely to feel the immediate effect on your practice, and we are all creatures that care the most about what affects us. Second, while this has a better chance at changing in the next generation, doctors tend to run on the conservative spectrum,  especially when that attending salary begins to hit. Surgeons even more so. The most popular station in the surgeon's lounge is usually Fox News. Third, moving up and setting a practice is really not that easy to do; and the more you become entrenched and get a referral base,  even more difficult to leave.

Do I think the general trend in Texas will have a detrimental effect on Texas HealthCare? yes, but it will specific and easy to not notice if you aren't affected personally. Lord knows, this country doesn't seem to give a shit about maternal and pediatric health anyways. A Tsunami of providers of all sorts leaving is not likely.  It will affect some high-level, elite positions though. MDAnderson and Texas Children's Hospital definitely have more negative recruiting material to work against.

Well it's not like almost half the state is already a "maternity care desert" or anything. I can't imagine that our recent policy changes to criminalize certain types of healthcare will bring more of those doctors to the state. 

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4 minutes ago, ztejas said:

What is the reason for Austin being understaffed with MDs? Has there just not been enough time for the infrastructure to catch up with the population?

Not playing devil's advocate I'm asking genuinely. 

I don't have all the numbers in front of me and I am far from an expert, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.  

Anecdotally, I will tell you that Texas is a highly popular destination, at least within my specialty, which--depending on what you do--can pay quite well. My closest med school friends tend to be Orthopaedics and Neurosurgery, also well paid and also find Texas a good destination.

I think the reason for what you pointed out is largely because of a few reasons that predate the current political situation. Texas grew fast. There is a lag time from an increase in population, to having the appropriate number of providers.  The relative increase in physicians actually was more than that of the population I think on a percentage level at the state level, but when you look at cities/urban areas, population is outpacing the growth of physicians (but this is still on a positive trajectory itself).  Think of how long it takes to get someone through college, then medical school, then residency, then fellowship, then boards. You need some foresight to keep up with this. Despite medicine being seen as one of the more portable occupations, for the reasons I wrote above, moving around is not all that easy. Second, when people do move from state to state, they do tend to go to urban areas, so the problem is even more exacerbated in rural areas, which still constitutes a large part of the state. So the reality is if you want a sufficient number of doctors, and great ones, you have to train them. I think you can see where this is going. It's been brought up before on other threads about Texas' approach to graduate education, but the state's policy of carving out fiefdoms affects medicine too. There was never a good reason why Austin shouldn't have had its own medical school and GME infrastructure for so long apart from politics. UTSW doesn't need to be the only medical school in Texas that is considered at the elite level. I know everyone likes to think that the medical center in Houston is the cornerstone of the medical world, but Boston laughs at that idea (not to mention how often those programs like to go towards graduates from Boston when looking at their leadership roles).

There have been steps taken to correct that; more medical campuses, increase in class sizes (a contentious political issue on a national level), opening up recruitment etc. But it will take time. The descent into right-wing craziness won't help (see those Boston graduates everyone likes to recruit).

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21 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Well it's not like almost half the state is already a "maternity care desert" or anything. I can't imagine that our recent policy changes to criminalize certain types of healthcare will bring more of those doctors to the state. 

yeah, which is why I said, if they don't care already......

until it gets to the level where everyone in the suburbs is 3 degrees of separation away from someone who had an unfortunate outcome.....

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14 minutes ago, naija said:

I don't have all the numbers in front of me and I am far from an expert, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.  

Anecdotally, I will tell you that Texas is a highly popular destination, at least within my specialty, which--depending on what you do--can pay quite well. My closest med school friends tend to be Orthopaedics and Neurosurgery, also well paid and also find Texas a good destination.

I think the reason for what you pointed out is largely because of a few reasons that predate the current political situation. Texas grew fast. There is a lag time from an increase in population, to having the appropriate number of providers.  The relative increase in physicians actually was more than that of the population I think on a percentage level at the state level, but when you look at cities/urban areas, population is outpacing the growth of physicians (but this is still on a positive trajectory itself).  Think of how long it takes to get someone through college, then medical school, then residency, then fellowship, then boards. You need some foresight to keep up with this. Despite medicine being seen as one of the more portable occupations, for the reasons I wrote above, moving around is not all that easy. Second, when people do move from state to state, they do tend to go to urban areas, so the problem is even more exacerbated in rural areas, which still constitutes a large part of the state. So the reality is if you want a sufficient number of doctors, and great ones, you have to train them. I think you can see where this is going. It's been brought up before on other threads about Texas' approach to graduate education, but the state's policy of carving out fiefdoms affects medicine too. There was never a good reason why Austin shouldn't have had its own medical school and GME infrastructure for so long apart from politics. UTSW doesn't need to be the only medical school in Texas that is considered at the elite level. I know everyone likes to think that the medical center in Houston is the cornerstone of the medical world, but Boston laughs at that idea (not to mention how often those programs like to go towards graduates from Boston when looking at their leadership roles).

There have been steps taken to correct that; more medical campuses, increase in class sizes (a contentious political issue on a national level), opening up recruitment etc. But it will take time. The descent into right-wing craziness won't help (see those Boston graduates everyone likes to recruit).

So some of it should be mitigated as Dell graduates begin practicing? 

6 minutes ago, South Austin said:

 

Once the lawyers start leaving this state is fucked.

Season 4 Episode 21 GIF by The Simpsons

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48 minutes ago, ztejas said:

What is the reason for Austin being understaffed with MDs? Has there just not been enough time for the infrastructure to catch up with the population?

Not playing devil's advocate I'm asking genuinely. 

I think that was the issue for a long while.  We're just getting enough capital buildout done as of real time, so I think it'll take a couple years to see how it shakes out.  I mean just from a teaching hospital perspective, it took a decade to get Dell Medical approved and built with a new Breckenridge.  It took the System almost that long to get the RGV a proper hospital system, and then eventually Tyler/NE Texas.  The only other platforms I know about are work with Seton and Saint David's and they are just now getting caught up enough to realize how far behind they still are.  It's gotten markedly better in the last few years, but by the time we take a breath and re-evaluate the needs, we'll be many years behind again.  But across the board, make absolutely no mistake...our exurbs and rural areas are disastrously underserved and we are absolutely, no conspiracy-no cloak room, doing all we can at the state and county levels to make sure that there is inadequate health care/regional hospitals in huge chunks of our state. 

Now somebody might say, "That makes no sense, with aging populations in those exurb/rural areas...lack of quality health care is gonna make them move to suburbs or closer to kids in urban areas so they can get better care even if costs more.  That would put more white and brown older folks who tilt a certain way socio-politically out of reliable voting pockets."  That's our plan.  If I can't get educated suburbanites to vote how I want, and I can't lower cost of living or crime rates...I'll lure the people I want to those areas with a promise even more potent, better quality of health.  The strongest drug of all.  We're down to 9-10% of Texans living in rural areas.  With those areas seeing a 30% reduction in facilities and staffing on the health care side over the same period.  We're going to tilt swing districts by filling them with frightened older people who don't want to die alone with no hospital out in the Panhandle or somesuch area.  the migration patterns are already there to see.  We're emptying out small-town Texas and we're doing it with people in suburbs in shiny suburban hospitals in white coats with a smile.  If you can get it on the real estate play, and can live with the unnecessary carnage, you should strongly consider coming along.  

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You know. I'm a fucking shell of a human being right now. I'm trying to quit drinking and it's pretty much ripping me apart from the inside. Day-to-day I'm not exactly having a great time. The 105+ temps aren't helping anything.

But I was just driving around and the thought came to me that Texas is pretty fucking alright. Everything about myself I owe to this state. I know we aren't perfect and our state-wide politics are absolutely fucked right now but this is still one of the best collections of people in the world. And I really believe in that. 

Texas has never been about the income or the weather or the legality of anything. I think it's always been about the people. And I think we still attract an extremely impressive brand of person. 

This shit isn't for everyone. It never has been. And we have a long way to go when it comes to social progress. But when I look around me I see a lot of people that embody the spirit that has persisted here for almost 200 years. 

I'm trying to be a continuation of that.

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24 minutes ago, ztejas said:

You know. I'm a fucking shell of a human being right now. I'm trying to quit drinking and it's pretty much ripping me apart from the inside. Day-to-day I'm not exactly having a great time. The 105+ temps aren't helping anything.

Get you a cold Topo Chico, pour it in a glass, and dump a little rock salt in it and some more in the saucer. Replaced whatever I needed from beer for a good long time.

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