New York Times: February 11

What Makes Iceland So Great? Ask Its First Lady.
I’m a First Lady, and It’s an Incredibly Weird Job Yet I still resent the occasions when my presence is assumed rather than requested. I am not my husband’s handbag, to be snatched as he runs out the door and displayed silently by his side during public appearances........... And it’s uncomfortable to have strangers tell me I now look much nicer with my hair longer, that I should more often wear blazers that flatter my figure or that I should not wear green again because it’s not my color. On virtually every solo trip I make as first lady, I am asked who is looking after our four young children, as if their devoted father has no parental obligations. If I am ever asked about my professional background, it is always in the past tense, although I still continue much of my paid work. (Why should I get a new job because my husband was elected to one?) ....... Individually, these are petty quibbles; sometimes, though, it can feel like the stifling of my identity by a thousand paper cuts. ....... when “off duty” at home in Iceland, I am almost always left alone to go about my business. ...... I am extremely proud of my husband and his achievements — but no one wants to be judged as her partner’s accessory. .

Biden’s Hidden Health Care Triumph .

“Over 70% of Americans who died with Covid, died on Medicare, and some people want #MedicareForAll?”

...... To belabor a point that should be obvious, Medicare recipients have been especially vulnerable to Covid because they generally suffer from a serious pre-existing condition: advanced age. ........ whatever its intellectual merits, as a practical political matter Medicare for All isn’t coming to America any time soon. What’s actually at stake in the political arena are more incremental policy changes. ........ Health care is one of the huge but hidden successes of Biden’s first year. ...... The story so far: Obamacare, which was enacted in 2010 but didn’t go fully into effect until 2014, was and is a bit of a Rube Goldberg device. Instead of simply paying Americans’ medical bills, it expanded Medicaid while using regulations and subsidies to encourage an expansion of private insurance. It fell far short of universally guaranteed coverage, but it nonetheless led to a large decline in the percentage of nonelderly Americans without health coverage. ......... And if Republicans get unified control in 2024, they’ll surely send us back to the era when health insurance was available only to people who had either jobs providing good benefits or impeccable medical histories that made them attractive to private insurers.

We Know the Real Cause of the Crisis in Our Hospitals. It’s Greed. Nurses would like to set the record straight on the hospital staffing crisis. ....... We’re entering our third year of Covid, and America’s nurses — who we celebrated as heroes during the early days of lockdown — are now leaving the bedside. The pandemic arrived with many people having great hope for reform on many fronts, including the nursing industry, but much of that optimism seems to have faded. ........ They also tear down the common misconception that there’s a shortage of nurses. In fact, there are more qualified nurses today in America than ever before. ........ To keep patients safe and protect our health care workers, lawmakers could regulate nurse-patient ratios, which California put in place in 2004, with positive results. Similar legislation was proposed and defeated in Massachusetts several years ago (with help from a $25 million “no” campaign funded by the hospital lobby), but it is currently on the table in Illinois and Pennsylvania. These laws could save patient lives and create a more just work environment for a vulnerable generation of nurses, the ones we pledged to honor and protect at the start of the pandemic.

My Husband and I Don’t Speak the Same Love Language . There are five of them — the five languages of love. .......

It would make me feel deeply loved if the Christmas tree were not there in the morning.

America 2022: Where Everyone Has Rights and No One Has Responsibilities . This pervasive claim that “I have my rights” but “I don’t have responsibilities” is unraveling our country today. ......... First, unvaccinated adults 18 years and older are 16 times more likely to be hospitalized for Covid than fully vaccinated adults. Second: Adults 65 and older who are not vaccinated are around 50 times more likely to be hospitalized for Covid than those who have received a full vaccine course and a booster. Third: Unvaccinated people are 20 times more likely to die of Covid than people who are vaccinated and boosted. ............. the emotional toll and other work conditions brought on by the pandemic contributed to some two-thirds of nurses giving thought to leaving the profession. .......... many hospitals today are experiencing an unprecedented 20 percent annual turnover rate of nurses — more than double the historical baseline. The more nurses leave, the more those left behind have had to work overtime.

Putin to Ukraine: ‘Marry Me or I’ll Kill You’ . Why is Vladimir Putin threatening to take another bite out of Ukraine, after devouring Crimea in 2014? That is not an easy question to answer because Putin is a one-man psychodrama, with a giant inferiority complex toward America that leaves him always stalking the world with a chip on his shoulder so big it’s amazing he can fit through any door. .......... Let’s see: Putin is a modern-day Peter the Great out to restore the glory of Mother Russia. He’s a retired K.G.B. agent who simply refuses to come in from the cold and still sees the C.I.A. under every rock and behind every opponent. He’s America’s ex-boyfriend-from-hell, who refuses to let us ignore him and date other countries, like China — because he always measures his status in the world in relation to us. And he’s a politician trying to make sure he wins (or rigs) Russia’s 2024 election — and becomes president for life — because when you’ve siphoned off as many rubles as Putin has, you can never be sure that your successor won’t lock you up and take them all. For him, it’s rule or die. ............ China is watching — and Taiwan is sweating — everything we do in reaction to Vlad right now. .......... when Putin came to power at the end of 1999, he was able to benefit from the restructuring of the Russian economy by Boris Yeltsin; from significant foreign investment; from rising oil, gas and mineral prices; and from improved political stability. ...... beginning in 2011 and stretching all the way to 2019, Russia’s economy stagnated because of lower energy prices and, most of all, institutional impediments to growth: Putin’s preference to tap Russia’s natural resources, not its human resources. No Silicon Valleys for him — except cyberhackers. That would require real rule of law, secure property rights and the unleashing of talented people, who ask too many questions like, “Vlad, where did your money come from?” ......... “Putin concluded that if he was going to be a president for life, he had to be a wartime president for life.” ........ The degree of military-patriotic hysteria [in] Russia today brings to mind the U.S.S.R. of the 1930s ....... This is classic wag-the-dog politics. Putin is a thug, but he’s a thug with an authentic Russian cultural soul that resonates with his people. His obsession with the Soviet Union and his nostalgia for the power, glory and dignity it gave him and his generation of Russians run deep. ............. “Putin looks at Ukraine and Belarus as part of Russia’s civilizational and cultural space. He thinks the Ukrainian state is totally artificial and that Ukrainian nationalism is not authentic.” ......... “Putin is inviting the West to a funeral for the post-Cold War order.” ........ Putin’s troop buildup says to the West: Either we negotiate a new post-Cold War order or I will start a post-post-Cold War confrontation. ........ I was a vigorous opponent of NATO expansion after the Cold War. It is one of the stupidest things we ever did — focusing on “NATOizing” Poland and Hungary rather than building on an amazing, largely nonviolent, democratic revolution in Russia and locking it into the West. ......... one of the oldest Russian fables: A Russian peasant pleads to God for aid after he sees that his better-off neighbor has just obtained a cow. When God asks the peasant how he can help, the peasant says, “Kill my neighbor’s cow.” ........

The last thing that Putin wants is a thriving Ukraine that joins the European Union and develops its people and economy beyond Putin’s underperforming, autocratic Russia. He wants Ukraine to fail, the E.U. to fracture and America to have Donald Trump as president for life so we’ll be in permanent chaos.

.......... Putin would rather see our cow die than do what it takes to raise a healthy cow of his own. He’s always looking for dignity in all the wrong places. He’s rather pathetic — but also armed and dangerous.