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A hundred drums,
beat through the night,
as indigenous tribes,
prepared for a fight.

Tribes were wronged,
by the Settler crowd.
Drums were the method
of protesting, out loud.

Settlers, began
closing the gate,
in fear of an uprising.
They were too late.

Justice will be served,
came forth the cry.
Justice will become,
"An eye for an eye."

Turmoil and trouble,
was now all around,
as drums beat on,
a horrible sound.

A dog and a mule,
we're taking a walk.
There was a conflict,
The dog wanted to talk.

It seems his new neighbor,
was a long-haired kitten,
who the dog had
become quite smitten.

Tell me my friend,
What is wrong, you see?
I like this kitten,
but she doesn't like me.

The mule thought long,
then said with a smile,
perhaps, the kitten.
likes not your style.

What do you mean,
not liking my style?
I am the most handsome
she has seen in a while.

Surely you jest,
said his friend the mule,
did you think you're wise,
or are you playing the fool.

I think I am
handsome and wise,
considered a good catch
by all of the guys.

The kittens not a guy,
You should know that by now.
If you want to impress,
You should learn to Meow!

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Transformed into the petals of a flower, 16 exposures show the passage of day into night in this creative timelapse skyscape. Start at the top and move counterclockwise to follow consecutive moments as the twilight sky turns an ever darker blue and night blossoms. Each exposure was recorded on the evening of April 22, calculated to maintain a consistent balance of light and color. Close to the western horizon on that date, a crescent Moon and Venus are the two brightest celestial beacons. Petal to petal the pair spiral closer to the flower's center. In silhouette around the center of the twilight flower are Sicily's megalithic rocks of Argimusco.

Photo by Dario Giannobile

In between the life of ours,
filled with love and shiny cars.
What else remains to see
except my love for thee?

My thoughts, lay scattered
upon the gray field.
Do I consider surrender
or should I yield?

Thoughts, reliable, sometime ago,
have gone out of sight.
I expect my mind is readying
for a long fight.

To fight against suppression,
if that's what it was.
Forward to victory
of a common cause.

A question arises,
in my mind.
Am I about to go
off the deep end?

No longer can I continue
the facade of pretend,
of what I no longer am,
to be strong is my want,
to perform until the end.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Shackleton crater lies at the lunar south pole. Peaks along the 21 kilometer diameter are in sunlight, but Shackleton's floor is in dark permanent shadow. Still, this image of the shadowed rim wall and floor of Shackleton crater was captured from NASA's ShadowCam, an instrument on board the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) launched in August 2022. About 200 times more sensitive than, for example, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's Narrow Angle Camera, ShadowCam was designed image the permanently shadowed regions of the lunar surface. Avoiding direct sunlight, those regions are expected to be reservoirs of water-ice and other volatiles deposited by ancient cometary impacts and useful to future Moon missions. Of course, the permanently shadowed regions are still illuminated by reflections of sunlight from nearby lunar terrain. In this stunningly detailed ShadowCam image, an arrow marks the track made by a single boulder rolling down Shackleton crater's wall. The image scale is indicated at the bottom of the frame.

The Biden administration on Thursday cautioned Americans about the growing risks of medical credit cards and other loans for medical bills, warning in a new report that high interest rates can deepen patients’ debts and threaten their financial security.

In its report, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau estimated that people in the U.S. paid $1 billion in deferred interest on medical credit cards and other medical financing in just three years, from 2018 to 2020.

The interest payments can inflate medical bills by almost 25%, the agency found by analyzing financial data that lenders submitted to regulators.

“Lending outfits are designing costly loan products to peddle to patients looking to make ends meet on their medical bills,” said Rohit Chopra, director of CFPB, the federal consumer watchdog. “These new forms of medical debt can create financial ruin for individuals who get sick.”

Nationwide, about 100 million people — including 41% of adults — have some kind of health care debt, KFF Health News found in an investigation conducted with NPR to explore the scale and impact of the nation’s medical debt crisis.

The vast scope of the problem is feeding a multibillion-dollar patient financing business, with private equity and big banks looking to cash in when patients and their families can’t pay for care, KFF Health News and NPR found. In the patient financing industry, profit margins top 29%, according to research firm IBISWorld, or seven times what is considered a solid hospital profit margin.

Millions of patients sign up for credit cards, such as CareCredit offered by Synchrony Bank. These cards are often marketed in the waiting rooms of physicians’ and dentists’ offices to help people with their bills.

The cards typically offer a promotional period during which patients pay no interest, but if patients miss a payment or can’t pay off the loan during the promotional period, they can face interest rates that reach as high as 27%, according to the CFPB.

Patients are also increasingly being routed by hospitals and other providers into loans administered by financing companies such as AccessOne. These loans, which often replace no-interest installment plans that hospitals once commonly offered, can add hundreds or thousands of dollars in interest to the debts patients owe.

A KFF Health News analysis of public records from UNC Health, North Carolina’s public university medical system, found that after AccessOne began administering payment plans for the system’s patients, the share paying interest on their bills jumped from 9% to 46%.

Hospital and finance industry officials insist they take care to educate patients about the risks of taking out loans with interest rates.

But federal regulators have found that many patients remain confused about the terms of the loans. In 2013, the CFPB ordered CareCredit to create a $34.1 million reimbursement fund for consumers the agency said had been victims of “deceptive credit card enrollment tactics.”

The new CFPB report does not recommend new sanctions against lenders. Regulators cautioned, however, that the system still traps many patients in damaging financing arrangements. “Patients appear not to fully understand the terms of the products and sometimes end up with credit they are unable to afford,” the agency said.

The risks are particularly high for lower-income borrowers and those with poor credit.

Regulators found, for example, that about a quarter of people with a low credit score who signed up for a deferred-interest medical loan were unable to pay it off before interest rates jumped. By contrast, just 10% of borrowers with excellent credit failed to avoid the high interest rates.

The CFPB warned that the growth of patient financing products poses yet another risk to low-income patients, saying they should be offered financial assistance with large medical bills but instead are being routed into credit cards or loans that pile interest on top of medical bills they can’t afford.

“Consumer complaints to the CFPB suggest that, rather than benefiting consumers, as claimed by the companies offering these products, these products in fact may cause confusion and hardship,” the report concluded. “Many people would be better off without these products.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.Subscribe to KFF Health News' free Morning Briefing.

My love for you
grows stronger
in every way.
Have a glorious day.

Of all the Roses,
which bloom, in May,
you are the one
I think of most.

When the light falls
at day's end,
you will always be
my absolute best friend.

When the Sun shines
through the morning dew,
I will be remembering
the beauty of you.

Of all those I know,
you are my heart,
brightening my soul.
I love you.

Remembering you,
Spring, Summer, and Fall.
Through all the years,
You are the best of all.

Missing thee so,
the sound of your voice,
your smiling eyes,
makes my heart rejoice.