Workin’ for the Weekend #26: Help Listener Aaron Monheim Get a Stem Cell Transplant!
Also: Kmele does Pesca, Amash does bupkus, Welch gets Shattucked, and get ready for Second Sunday at 4 p.m. ET!
Above is a picture of beloved Fif’ listener Aaron Monheim with his better half Whitney, oldest daughter Sloan, and new addition Cohen Michael Monheim himself. As mentioned near the end of Episode #389, Aaron has been fighting like a cornered jackal against a particularly challenging form of Multiple Sclerosis, and has lately created a GoFundMe effort to help pay for a very promising and expensive new treatment:
I am running out of effective treatments, but Autologous Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (HSCT) is remarkably effective. […]
This treatment is so new for MS patients, and only one clinic in the United States takes patients outside of a clinical trial – the Colorado Blood Cancer Institute in Denver. I've been accepted as a patient, and the transplant is scheduled to start in January 2023. After pre-transplant MRIs in Spokane, I will move to Denver for twelve to sixteen weeks with my father, who will be my 24-hour caretaker. […]
The money I am trying to raise will help pay for medical expenses, housing for twelve to sixteen weeks in Denver, living expenses (food, etc.), travel, and rehab expenses. I am terrified to leave my wife and two children for three months to undergo a procedure that has roughly a 1 percent mortality rate. I am hopeful that with your help, this transplant will give me a new lease on life and allow me to fulfill my promise to be capable of, one day, walking my daughter down the aisle at her wedding.
You people know what to do.
* So how did the quixotic Speaker-of-the-House quest of our #389 guest Justin Amash go? Yeah, not so hot. While Kevin McCarthy whittles down the GOP opposition bloc (it was down to just 6 as of Friday afternoon), Amash has mostly been tweeting through it rather than gaining as many as one plausible House sponsor. Whatever; he’s a fun and informed talker, as also experienced this week by former Fif’ guests Glenn Greenwald (#183, #197, #211) and Robby Soave (#332). I interviewed Amash at LibertyCon in October; Kmele went on his podcast back in June; and as I wrote here upon that latter occasion,
We’ve had Amash on The Fifth Column precisely once, on #184, during that three-week window in the spring of 2020 when he was an announced candidate for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination. (Reason write-up/transcript here.) His Hamlet act on running for president was something…let’s just say I lived closely with on a professional basis for several years, from trial balloon, to defection from the GOP, to joining the L.P., to declaring his bid, to withdrawing literally on the night he was supposed to be at a debate I was moderating. …
Amash remains a key figure in the Libertarian Party’s internal tussles and prospective 2024 approach; start here for Reason’s (very good!) recent coverage of that.
* Kmele this week guest-hosted on The Gist, the daily podcast of Mike Pesca (#343). From the show description:
Like many of us, guest host Kmele Foster is watching the Kevin McCarthy fiasco unfold live on CSPAN, but he warns that it’s just a distraction from the real fiasco. Then Kmele talks with Emory University medical researcher Judy Gichoya about her recent study that upended how we think of race and medicine. And finally, Kmele Spiels about climate ordeals.
* Also, for any of you who suspect Kmele just sits around all day getting baked and watching space videos…. You’re totally right:
* I had the pleasure this week of going on Tom Shattuck’s Burn Barrel podcast, along with Alice Shattuck, to talk about the various unpleasantnesses in Washington. Watch it all, including the closing praise for The Fifth Column, below!
* Every Second Sunday of the month we tape an episode which paying subscribers can watch along (and heckle with comments) live. Believe or not Jan. 8 is indeed the second Sunday of this month, so we will be convening at an estimated 4 p.m. ET, at a link that shall be made known to those of you who drop us coin. Which is a good reminder….
Will not end with a song, but rather with a quick chunk of ‘em, in honor of my People Who Died (2022) playlist, which features some choice early ‘70s work from The Killer:
I’ll add Fifthdom’s Nancy Rommelmann on the Commentary podcast talking about her Portland bail fund piece! 🙌🏼 https://www.commentary.org/john-podhoretz/the-horror-of-portlandia/
Poor MM.... unemployment is hitting him hard, no links to share. I'd hit you up with some coin but Aaron already took my annual fifth contribution and some. Beautiful family...prayers and thoughts.