December 13, 2016

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Entertainment December 13, 2016

Today in Movie Culture: The Dark Future of 'Star Wars,' The Muppets Parody 'Alien' and More

Here are a bunch of little bites to satisfy your hunger for movie culture:

Video Essay of the Day:

With Rogue One out this week, we’re getting lots of Star Wars bites, including this Frame by Frame essay predicting where the Star Wars franchise is headed based on its genre’s history:

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Cosplay of the Day:

Fans built real-life water-based speeder bikes and made this cosplay-filled Return of the Jedi-inspired action sequence (via /Film):

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Reworked Trailer of the Day:

And here is a remake of the Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 8-bit video game style animation:

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Movie Takedown of the Day:

Honest Trailers tries really hard to strike down The Empire Strikes Back and manages to take its worth down just a notch or two:

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Film Score Cover of the Day:

“Duel of the Fates” from the Star Wars movies is performed by eight singers a capella in this cover from The Warp Zone:

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Movie Food of the Day:

Let’s follow all that Star Wars with something Star Trek, specifically a gingerbread crashed Enterprise inspired by Star Trek Generations (via Geekologie):

Movie Parody of the Day:

The Muppets brought back Pigs in Space for a fun parody of the Alien chestburster scene (via /Film):

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Vintage Image of the Day:

Steve Buscemi, who turns 59 today, as a firefighter in New York City in the early 1980s before he became an actor:

Steve Buscemi when he worked as a firefighter at the New York City Fire Department, 1981. pic.twitter.com/sUW3n35CIO

— Lost In History (@HistoryToLearn) August 22, 2015

Year-End Recap of the Day:

The latest essential 2016 trailer mashup is the annual offering from supercut master Sleepy Skunk (via First Showing):

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Classic Trailer of the Day:

Today is the 20th anniversary of the release of Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! Watch the original trailer for the all-star alien invasion comedy below.

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and

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Business December 13, 2016

'Maybe I'm Just Being A Chicken Little'; Transcript Describes Ship's Final Hours

Family members of the crew stand during a moment of silence for those lost on the El Faro ship in February. Bruce Lipsky/AP hide caption

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Bruce Lipsky/AP

In the hours before it sank, crew members of the cargo ship El Faro struggled to find a safe course around an increasingly serious storm, according to a transcripts from the ship’s data recorder released Tuesday.

All 33 crew members died when the freighter sank near the Bahamas on Oct. 1, 2015, after sailing into the middle of Category 3 Hurricane Joaquin.

The National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating the disaster, but on Tuesday the agency released a 510-page transcript of data recorded on the bridge of the ship, where decisions about its course were made.

The recording covers the final 26 hours of the voyage. It includes audio of crew members talking, as well as information about the weather and the ship’s location.

In many cases, NTSB investigators said the voices of various crew members were difficult to understand because the room was metal and sounds echoed. In some cases, the transcript report notes, voices were unintelligible.

Still, the transcript provides a window into the final night aboard El Faro, and some of what her crew talked about, particularly the ship’s captain, Michael Davidson.

As NPR’s Greg Allen has reported, Davidson was an experienced captain:

When he left port on Tuesday in the El Faro, Joaquin was a tropical storm, not a significant concern. On early Thursday when he made the radio call to the company, Davidson said the ship was listing to one side, had lost its propulsion, was taking on water.”

The ship’s chief mate, second mate and third mate all spent significant amounts of time on the ship’s bridge during the crisis, sometimes for hours on end without the captain during shifts when Davidson was scheduled to sleep.

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Beginning before midnight, the transcript shows crew members, all of whose names were redacted from the transcript, were aware the instrument on the ship measuring wind speed was not providing accurate information.

At a press conference announcing the release of the transcript, officials from the NTSB declined to comment on who or what ultimately cause the ship to sink, citing the ongoing investigation.

The following is a partial timeline of the last night aboard El Faro, beginning the evening of Sept. 30 and ending when the recording ends the morning of Oct. 1.

Partial Timeline Of The Last Night Aboard El Faro

7:57 p.m. Capt. Davidson and the Chief Mate have a “brief unintelligible conversation.” The captain’s voice “was not detected again on the bridge until 4:09 a.m.

8:21 p.m. Third mate discusses his concern about the ship’s overnight route taking it so close to where he understood the storm to be with a junior crew member. “Maybe I’m just being a chicken little. I don’t know,” says the third mate.

A map of Hurricane Joaquin showing where the ship El Faro sank early on Oct. 1, 2015. via NTSB hide caption

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via NTSB

11:05 p.m. Third mate calls Capt. Davidson, who has left the bridge, to suggest he look at the latest forecast, and tells the captain it shows the hurricane with 100 mph winds “advancing toward our trackline – and uhh– puts us real close to it” by 4 a.m. The captain’s side of the conversation was not on the recording.

11:13 p.m. Third mate calls Capt. Davidson and says at 4 a.m. the ship will be 22 miles from the center of the storm, which will have wind gusts up to 120 mph, and provides an possible alternative route that involves turning south at 2 a.m.

12:43 a.m. Second mate expresses frustration that “every time we come further south the storm keeps trying to follow us,” indicating that at least one adjustment had been made to the ship’s course in reaction to the hurricane.

Excerpt of data recording transcript from 1:15 a.m. “2M” refers to the ship’s second mate. via NTSB hide caption

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via NTSB

1:15 a.m. Satellite radio news bulletin announces Hurricane Jaoquin has been upgraded to a Category 3 storm. Second mate says “Oh, my God.”

1:20 a.m. Second mate calls Capt. Davidson with updated hurricane forecast information. Davidson says to stay on the current course.

2:00 a.m. National Hurricane Center “predicted seas of 30 feet with sustained winds of 74 mph, increasing to 121 mph,” according to the NTSB.

Excerpt of data recording transcript from 2:47 a.m. “AB-2” refers to a junior member of the ship’s crew. “2M” refers to the ship’s second mate. via NTSB hide caption

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via NTSB

2:48 a.m. Second mate and junior crewmember have the following exchange:

Second mate: “That was a doozy. That was not a good one.”

Junior crewmember: “Yeah that was a big wave.”

Second mate: “[We] won’t be able to take more of those.”

4:10 a.m. Capt. Davidson arrives on bridge, refers to the weather as “a typical winter day in Alaska.”

5:54 a.m. Chief Mate tells the captain one of the ship’s holds is flooded.

6:13 a.m. Capt. Davidson says he thinks the ship has lost propulsion and that the ship is listing to one side.

6:31 a.m. Capt. Davidson says he wants “everybody up.”

6:38 a.m. Capt. Davidson and second mate discuss email addresses for the U.S. Coast Guard and “the company,” referring apparently to the ship’s owner.

6:54 a.m. Capt. Davidson says it is “miserable right now” and that “we’re gonna stay with the ship. We are in dire straits right now.”

7:01 a.m. Capt. Davidson calls the ship’s owner and says:

“This is a marine emergency. … we had a hull breach, a scuttle blew open during a storm. We have water down in three hold. We have a heavy list. We’ve lost the main propulsion unit. The engineers can not get it going.

“No one’s panicking.”

7:17 a.m. U.S. Coast Guard receives an electronic distress signal from El Faro

7:27 a.m. General alarm sounded.

7:29 a.m. Someone yells there are shipping containers in the water.

7:29 a.m. Capt. Davidson orders the crew to abandon ship.

7:39 a.m. Recording ends with Capt. Davidson still on the bridge of the ship.

An undated image made from an NTSB video released April 26, 2016, shows the stern of the sunken ship El Faro. National Transportation Safety Board via AP hide caption

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National Transportation Safety Board via AP

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Health December 13, 2016

Sign Up For Health Coverage If You Need It, Despite GOP Repeal Plans

If you need to buy health insurance, don’t procrastinate. Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP hide caption

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Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Since Republicans have plans to repeal the federal health law, should consumers still sign up for next year’s coverage? And if the health law marketplaces disappear, might Medicare eligibility be expanded? Here are answers to some recent questions from readers.

It sounds like Republicans plan to repeal the health law in January once Donald Trump is sworn in. Since open enrollment goes until the end of January, should I just wait and see what happens before signing up?

No. Don’t wait. The future of the health law is murky, but some things are crystal clear. If you need marketplace coverage that starts Jan. 1, you have to pick a plan by Dec. 15, two days from now. So get cracking.

Republicans have pledged that if they repeal the law they’ll provide a transition period so that people won’t be stuck without coverage. But if you miss the enrollment period that ends on Jan. 31, you will be cutting yourself off from coverage for the year. After that date you can’t sign up for 2017 coverage on the exchange unless you qualify for a special enrollment period because you move to another state or lose your job-based coverage, for example.

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I’m 60 and I have coverage on the health insurance marketplace. If they do away with Obamacare, I’m not sure what I’ll do. I have diabetes and I had cancer when I was younger so I’m not an attractive insurance risk. Some people have proposed lowering the Medicare eligibility age so more people can qualify earlier. Is that really an option?

Beyond the political challenges there are also practical ones, said Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania and a former health policy adviser in the Obama administration. If policymakers simply reduced the eligibility age to 60, for example, “a lot of businesses would start sending their 60-year-old [employees] to Medicare and take the savings,” leading to a huge increase in costs for the program.

On the other hand, if individuals were able to buy into Medicare before age 65, even with subsidies it would probably be expensive to do so, Emanuel said. Those who would opt to buy in would likely be people with expensive health conditions like you who really need good coverage, a phenomenon called “adverse selection” that would make the program even more costly.

There is one possibility that could result in some sort of expanded Medicare in the longer term, Emanuel said. If the Republican Congress and Trump repeal Obamacare, millions of people may lose their health insurance. If that happens and current Republican proposals — state high-risk pools, for example, to provide coverage for people with expensive conditions — prove inadequate to the task, “there’s going to be a lot of pressure to do something,” he said.

I am 69 and have had Medicare Parts A and B since I turned 65. I also have a Medicare supplemental plan. I have recently been hired again and plan to take my employer’s insurance for 2017, and I will drop my supplemental plan and Medicare Part B because I won’t need them. When I start Medicare Part B again, will there be a penalty for stopping and then starting again?

In your case, you likely won’t be penalized, said David Lipschutz, senior policy attorney at the Center for Medicare Advocacy. As long as you’re actively employed and work for an employer with at least 20 employees, Medicare will consider your employer coverage your primary insurance and won’t penalize you for dropping and then re-enrolling in Part B, the medical insurance part of the program.

As you seem to be aware, the late-enrollment premium penalty for Medicare Part B can be hefty: 10 percent for every 12-month period when you could have signed up for Part B but didn’t.

Where people sometimes get tripped up is when they retire from a job and retain their employer coverage, Lipschutz said. Because they’re now retired and their coverage isn’t tied to their active employment, Medicare considers their employer insurance secondary to their Medicare coverage and will penalize people who don’t sign up for Part B when they become eligible.

Although you shouldn’t have any trouble re-enrolling in Part B when you leave your job, your Medicare supplemental plan, often called a Medigap plan, may be a different story. When you turn 65 and enroll in Part B, you are guaranteed the right to buy any Medigap plan in your state. But after that initial six-month enrollment window, insurers can evaluate your health and decide whether to offer you a plan.

That would apply to you when you return to the Medicare market. Some states provide additional rights to buy a Medigap plan; it’s worth checking to see if yours is one of them.

Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Michelle Andrews is on Twitter: @mandrews110.

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