Vickie Makings

Former head of research library @denverpost, a private corporate library serving Denver Post reporters and editors.🇺🇸🇺🇦

[AccuWeather @accuweather]

A wildlife crossing in Colorado has helped reduce animal-vehicle collisions by a staggering 91% in just 10 months. The $15 million bridge is currently North America's largest wildlife overpass, spanning six lanes of Interstate 25.

[𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘀 @Old_But_Gold50s]

Passacaglia – Handel (Animated Score)

One of the most remarkable works of the Baroque era, Passacaglia by George Frideric Handel is a masterful display of harmonic brilliance and continuous variation.

In this animation, every note and movement was carefully synchronized and rendered in Blender, turning the score into a captivating visual and auditory experience.

[Aiden Tech @Aiden_Tech_Ai]

Google loves keeping valuable websites hidden from you.

Here are 08 websites you probably don’t know existed (until now) :

12/12 would bookmark:🔖🔖

[Vickie Makings @VLMResearch]

@PeterEgan6 @AnimalsAsia @GrumpyOldRick @lesley_nicol @OrangePlanetPic @moonbearJill Regards to you all and a loving hello to our wonderful Jill 🥰

[Michael Pollan @michaelpollan]

What Are We Doing to Our World of Wonder? https://t.co/9S23FZsYD5 via @NYTOpinion

[Bat Conservation International @BatConIntl]

Remember the important things in life: bats.

[Vickie Makings @VLMResearch]

@SketchesbyBoze Yes

[Vickie Makings @VLMResearch]

@SamaHoole They are stars, both 💕

[Vickie Makings @VLMResearch]

@Above96th Magnificent!

[Neal K. Shah @nealkshah]

NEW Medicare Bill To Cover Caregiving at Home (The Catch). 93% of Americans believe Medicare covers care at home. It doesn't, and it never has.

Now, a new bill in Congress would finally change it: 20 hours a week of caregiving help at home — bathing, dressing, eating, meal prep, medication reminders — paid for by Medicare. But there's a CATCH in how it gets funded, and it's the same catch that got a congressman chased across a Chicago parking lot in 1989.
In this video I break down the Medicare at Home Act (H.R. 10020 / S. 5270), introduced August 2026 by Rep. Debbie Dingell and Sen. Andy Kim. What qualifies you, what doesn't, who pays, and the honest odds it becomes law.

Here's what most families don't realize until it's too late. Medicare does cover care at home, but only skilled care. A nurse. A physical therapist. The home health aide, the person actually helping your mom bathe, is only covered as a helper alongside skilled care. You also have to be homebound, and the care has to be part-time. So when the therapist writes that your father "plateaued" eight weeks after his stroke, the therapy ends, and the aide disappears with it. His needs didn't shrink. The coverage did.

I've spent years watching families find this out in a hospital hallway at four in the afternoon, when a discharge planner says the words "custodial care."

The Medicare at Home Act would break that link. Functional need alone would be the trigger - a doctor certifies you need help with two activities of daily living, or two instrumental ones, or one of each. No asset test, income test or homebound rule. That's a genuine structural change. But the funding line says the Secretary of HHS shall adjust the monthly Part B premium to reflect the added cost.

Translation: seniors pay. There's no CBO score, and the bill only asks CMS's chief actuary to estimate the premium impact 180 days AFTER it becomes law. Brookings analysts have modeled a benefit of roughly this shape at about $40 billion a year, with KFF data suggesting around 15 million beneficiaries could qualify.

I walk through the strongest arguments on both sides — Paragon, Cato, and AEI against; Caring Across Generations, Justice in Aging, LeadingAge, and SEIU for — plus the two graveyards this bill has to avoid: the CLASS Act and the 1988 Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act.

And then the part I most want you to hear. There is a benefit you may already be owed and are probably being denied right now. In 2013, a federal court approved a settlement in Jimmo v. Sebelius that ended the "improvement standard" — the false idea that if a patient isn't getting better, skilled care isn't covered. Medicare covers skilled care to maintain a condition or slow decline. Parkinson's, ALS, MS, advanced dementia — you can qualify precisely because you won't improve. Nearly 40% of providers surveyed had never heard of it.

I give you the exact sentence to say on the phone. It has won thousands of families coverage they were told they couldn't have.

If someone in your life is doing this caregiving work right now, please send them this video.

[Laiken Jordahl @LaikenJordahl]

Big crowd today at Santa Elena Canyon. They're protesting DHS's bulldozing of Big Bend National Park for border construction just downstream of here.

"No road. No wall. No wire. No way," is echoing off 1500-ft cliffs that make up the border, where it's truly impossible to cross.

[Vickie Makings @VLMResearch]

@kateStrasdin @V_and_A Still have my mother’s set of Dionne Quintuplets, from the 1930s. Personally, I was fond of the Betsy McCall magazine dolls. Her wardrobe was satisfyingly vast 🤓

[Above_96th @Above96th]

While exploring in Colorado, we came across a committee of Turkey Vultures sitting on hay bales. These birds often get a bad rep, but they're actually incredibly beautiful! 🩶🖤❤️ #Vultures #Colorado #birdcpp

[Vickie Makings @VLMResearch]

@Above96th They are wonderful. Their middens can be hundreds of years old. Scan the crags while hiking in Colorado.

[Vickie Makings @VLMResearch]

@BenGoldsmith Yes, they are

[Vickie Makings @VLMResearch]

@Ginger_Zee Applause!!

[Vickie Makings @VLMResearch]

Norway 🇳🇴 🇳🇴 🇳🇴!!!!

[Vickie Makings @VLMResearch]

Best thing to happen to us all 🇺🇸