Sorry for the delay. . .

A funny thing happened three Sundays ago (Feb. 9). . . Okay, not funny ha-ha. My cat’s overexuberant love bite had infected, doubling the size of my left hand. So it was off to an urgent care facility, where the doc took one look at my hand and said, “TO THE ER. NOW!” That if I didn’t go, I would be in a coma by morning and hauled off in an ambulance and sepsis could kill me. Who’s to argue about that?

He asked me which hospital. Of the local three, I chose the one with all private rooms as a precaution of picking up another nasty from a roommate. He called the ER and my cousin, who luckily was visiting, and I were off. It would be an understatement to say I didn’t get VIP treatment. I felt bad about that while others sat around the ER waiting room. The triage nurse had me whisked off to a cubicle in the ER where an IV was started and a culture was taken from the wound. I was there for a relatively short time before an aide arrived with a wheelchair to take me to a room. While you can walk into a hospital, you can only leave in a wheelchair or be taken wherever in a wheelchair or gurney.

Once in the room, the IVs kept coming and coming and coming. By Tuesday, Feb. 11, my breathing started going to hell. I kept asking why since I wasn’t having that problem when I walked in on Sunday. No answer. Have some oxygen and nebulizer treatments. On Wednesday, Feb. 12, the hospitalist assigned to me thought maybe I had pneumonia. How could I have pneumonia when I had no fever? I asked. The idea of pneumonia was tossed out. But leave it to an RN to come up with the answer to the breathing problem: I had been water logged by all the IVs. No more IVs, just oral meds and Lasix shots to get the fluid out.

Finally, on Sunday, Feb. 16, with the infection in my hand healed, I was discharged with prescriptions for two antibiotics and enough prednisone (nasty stuff prednisone) for two days. Hospitals are no places to get any rest, so I was sleep deprived and my energy was nil. I decided not to push it, which is why I haven’t published, but I am getting back to normal and will be back to publishing soon.

My thanks to those concerned about my absence. Some even wondering if the plug had been pulled on Intrepid Report. To be sure, journalism is in a crisis. We’ve not only lost independent online news sites, but McClatchy is in financial trouble and has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

As Common Dreams has noted, “Since 2004, 1 in 5 newspapers has gone out of business. Newsrooms have been gutted. Pittsburgh, a city of 302,000, has no daily newspaper at all.

“What does it mean for democracy when journalism fails? It means more corruption in government and less accountability for corporate polluters and Wall Street fraudsters. It means a less informed electorate and an even easier pathway to power for aspiring autocrats, like Donald Trump.”

Corporate print media have been stripping their newsrooms of investigative reporters. Cable corporate media are now nothing more than scummy infotainment carried out by overpaid anchors/pundits and carefully selected guest commentators who rattle on 24/7 about which Democrat candidate is ahead in the worthless polls, how much money they have raised and who is “electable,” while raking in obscene advertising dollars from the candidates, especially the millions from Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer. Do you think they are going to risk losing all those dollars by giving people the information they need to make informed decisions? No, it’s more fun to raise the fear factor by lambasting social democracy and contending we can’t afford Medicare for All or anything else that would help the people.

Corporate America would rather have four more years of Donald Trump, who, along with his minions, is dismantling the government, if they can’t have yesterday’s Joe Biden who will do their bidding. Right now, Bernie Sanders scares the bejesus out of them and he must be stopped one way or another. If they can’t deny him the Democrats’ nomination, they can always mess with the November election.

So where does this leave you and sites like IR? We have escaped being crushed for 22 years because we solely rely on our readers for the support that pays the bills. We take no money from corporations or foundations. We have no advertising or paywalls. As long as you support IR with your donations and as long as I can do it, IR will be here for you.

Bev Conover is the editor and publisher of Intrepid Report. Email her at editor@intrepidreport.com.