Oh, and speaking of Charley we were lucky enough to have the Charley Crockett/Leon Bridges show come through, holy crap, I’d seen both of them live before but getting TWO great performers in one night, wow. And that intersection between county and R&B is such pleasant music.

I saw Joshua Ray Walker open for Marcus King and didn’t even like his show but looked him up and found his recorded work to be incredible, THEN he found out he had cancer and that was part of why the live show was weak, nothing to do with his music, and says he is recovering now, but I felt so uncharitable thinking the show sucked when he was dealing with something so awful.

But anyway - I do use streaming but like you find bands other ways, opening acts, radio, sometimes Brooklyn Vegan, that site posts about bands I’ve never heard of, I listen and find stuff I like (and a lot I don’t).

Midwives here are licenced, I had most of my kids at home and the midwife could handle slight complications, and did. Babies die in hospital births too, I’m sure all experienced OBs have lost moms and babies, birth is not always safe. Midwives have better outcomes here but can (and are required to) turn down high risk clients so it’s not an apples to apples thing.

But they certainly aren’t like you are characterizing, they are very good specialist medical providers- is Canada so different?

ETA: with the first two we did not have insurance, midwife did a sliding scale billing according to income, with the second set I had insurance but preferred home birth. With two of them (the first and last) they would have come at home or in the car anyway, I had very short and intense labor, am close to hospitals but midwife got to me in 5 minutes, time to set up and catch the baby. With one I had to be induced so she still attended but at birth center not home.