Thursday, July 28, 2005
Stuyvesant Town given high marks in energy conservation
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
This column has completed its annual non-scientific oil crisis survey by noting that our neighborhood is right on the track, as far as energy conservation is concerned. The cars parked around Stuyvesant Town are mostly of the midsize sedan or small SUV variety, 25-mpg or better. The large gas-guzzlers, a lot more visible on the road, must come from other areas. In last Friday’s 1 PM northbound traffic on the Bronx River Parkway, the large SUVs were counted as about one in eight vehicles on the road, which is slight improvement, and the warlike Hummers seem to have disappeared.
Meanwhile, the energy actions in Washington give no hope. VP Cheney the energy policymaker has not retreated from his 2001 position that energy conservation may be a virtue but it is no basis for a national policy. The White House still promotes ethanol, a gasoline additive from agricultural products, currying favor with the grain-producing middle states that vote red, despite the questionable value of the energy exchange. Is it energy-positive, in that the energy value expended in creating it is less than the energy value recovered? What are the criteria? While the government quotes an Argonne National Laboratory (why does that name worry me?) statement of substantial gain in energy, a recent Cornell and University of California study shows that ethanol from corn costs 29% more in energy expended than the product is worth. If the ethanol source is switch grass, the extra cost is 45%, if wood , it is 57%. To produce bio-diesel from soybeans, it costs 27% more energy, if sunflower seeds are used, the costs rises to 118%. The scientists, David Pimentel and Tad Patzek, include in the cost the planting, irrigation, pesticides, fertilizers, grinding and transportation, but they very properly do not discount it by the $3.57B federal subsidy (2004 figures) to build up this industry. The current compromise energy bill in the Congress has advanced the President’s originally proposed annual ethanol production of 5B gallons annually by 2012 to 7.5B, further subsidizing a product that is not a renewable energy source and that contributes to air pollution and global warming.
The President is seemingly also betting on hydrogen conversion, another costly and questionable methodology, although not too firmly, expending a measly $600M a year on technology.
Other than that, the energy bill encourages exploration, providing subsidies for oil drilling off the coasts of Louisiana and Florida, and setting up major tax advantages for the producers. The provisions for cleaning up land polluted by MTBE, an anti-knock gasoline additive that contaminates water, have failed, with the producers refusing to contribute $4B towards the $11B cleanup budget. The old CAFÉ standards, requiring that the automobile industry increase gasoline efficiency over time, have continued to be undermined, particularly since the exclusion of the SUVs, classified as light trucks and therefore not controlled.
And what about the world’s oil reserves? This column some years ago performed some arithmetic showing that the recoverable (i.e. energy-positive) oil reserves will last the world 37 years at then current rate of use (the US spends 25% of the world’s use annually). Now the reputable British Petroleum analysts see the period as 41 years, with natural gas reserves adequate for 60 years. A well-regarded oil analyst, Matthew Simmons, who is part of the White House oil advisory group, brings proof that the Ghabar reserve, constituting over one half of the Saudi $260B oil reserve, is nearly depleted. The oil companies are hopping on these findings, vying to build liquid natural gas (LNG) ports and conversion facilities on both coasts, much to the dismay of Florida and California. How long will this last, at an increased level of use?
Meanwhile, greenhouse gasses, products of burning carbons, are changing the Earth’s climate. The President’s man at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Philip Cooney, a career lobbyist for the petroleum industry, has rewritten the threatening findings of the Global Change Research Committee and the Climate Change Science Program so shoddily that he has been forced to resign, finding a refuge in the ranks of Exxon.
This brings up nuclear power, the one alternative major form of energy not guilty of creating greenhouse gases. The sad fact is that the recoverable forms, wind, sun, wave and river hydroelectric, are not of sufficient value to impact the gasoline-thirsty world’s demands. Analysts conclude that the nuclear energy-creating process can be made safe, although suicidal terrorists should not be discounted, but the disposal of residue is still unresolved. Arizona is fighting tooth and nail against storing the low-radiation residue in its Yucca Mountain caves, Hanford ditto. For the present, the plants are burying the residue locally, not a permanent solution. The old (established 1946) Atomic Energy Commission had disgraced itself with under- providing security for radiation protection, reactor safety and regulation of nuclear materials, and its 1974 replacement, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, has proven itself more trustworthy, after the 1979 Three Mile Island meltdown, which was handled without a major release of radioactive contamination. Let’s hope so. Our grandchildren may have to depend on nuclear power.
This column has completed its annual non-scientific oil crisis survey by noting that our neighborhood is right on the track, as far as energy conservation is concerned. The cars parked around Stuyvesant Town are mostly of the midsize sedan or small SUV variety, 25-mpg or better. The large gas-guzzlers, a lot more visible on the road, must come from other areas. In last Friday’s 1 PM northbound traffic on the Bronx River Parkway, the large SUVs were counted as about one in eight vehicles on the road, which is slight improvement, and the warlike Hummers seem to have disappeared.
Meanwhile, the energy actions in Washington give no hope. VP Cheney the energy policymaker has not retreated from his 2001 position that energy conservation may be a virtue but it is no basis for a national policy. The White House still promotes ethanol, a gasoline additive from agricultural products, currying favor with the grain-producing middle states that vote red, despite the questionable value of the energy exchange. Is it energy-positive, in that the energy value expended in creating it is less than the energy value recovered? What are the criteria? While the government quotes an Argonne National Laboratory (why does that name worry me?) statement of substantial gain in energy, a recent Cornell and University of California study shows that ethanol from corn costs 29% more in energy expended than the product is worth. If the ethanol source is switch grass, the extra cost is 45%, if wood , it is 57%. To produce bio-diesel from soybeans, it costs 27% more energy, if sunflower seeds are used, the costs rises to 118%. The scientists, David Pimentel and Tad Patzek, include in the cost the planting, irrigation, pesticides, fertilizers, grinding and transportation, but they very properly do not discount it by the $3.57B federal subsidy (2004 figures) to build up this industry. The current compromise energy bill in the Congress has advanced the President’s originally proposed annual ethanol production of 5B gallons annually by 2012 to 7.5B, further subsidizing a product that is not a renewable energy source and that contributes to air pollution and global warming.
The President is seemingly also betting on hydrogen conversion, another costly and questionable methodology, although not too firmly, expending a measly $600M a year on technology.
Other than that, the energy bill encourages exploration, providing subsidies for oil drilling off the coasts of Louisiana and Florida, and setting up major tax advantages for the producers. The provisions for cleaning up land polluted by MTBE, an anti-knock gasoline additive that contaminates water, have failed, with the producers refusing to contribute $4B towards the $11B cleanup budget. The old CAFÉ standards, requiring that the automobile industry increase gasoline efficiency over time, have continued to be undermined, particularly since the exclusion of the SUVs, classified as light trucks and therefore not controlled.
And what about the world’s oil reserves? This column some years ago performed some arithmetic showing that the recoverable (i.e. energy-positive) oil reserves will last the world 37 years at then current rate of use (the US spends 25% of the world’s use annually). Now the reputable British Petroleum analysts see the period as 41 years, with natural gas reserves adequate for 60 years. A well-regarded oil analyst, Matthew Simmons, who is part of the White House oil advisory group, brings proof that the Ghabar reserve, constituting over one half of the Saudi $260B oil reserve, is nearly depleted. The oil companies are hopping on these findings, vying to build liquid natural gas (LNG) ports and conversion facilities on both coasts, much to the dismay of Florida and California. How long will this last, at an increased level of use?
Meanwhile, greenhouse gasses, products of burning carbons, are changing the Earth’s climate. The President’s man at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Philip Cooney, a career lobbyist for the petroleum industry, has rewritten the threatening findings of the Global Change Research Committee and the Climate Change Science Program so shoddily that he has been forced to resign, finding a refuge in the ranks of Exxon.
This brings up nuclear power, the one alternative major form of energy not guilty of creating greenhouse gases. The sad fact is that the recoverable forms, wind, sun, wave and river hydroelectric, are not of sufficient value to impact the gasoline-thirsty world’s demands. Analysts conclude that the nuclear energy-creating process can be made safe, although suicidal terrorists should not be discounted, but the disposal of residue is still unresolved. Arizona is fighting tooth and nail against storing the low-radiation residue in its Yucca Mountain caves, Hanford ditto. For the present, the plants are burying the residue locally, not a permanent solution. The old (established 1946) Atomic Energy Commission had disgraced itself with under- providing security for radiation protection, reactor safety and regulation of nuclear materials, and its 1974 replacement, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, has proven itself more trustworthy, after the 1979 Three Mile Island meltdown, which was handled without a major release of radioactive contamination. Let’s hope so. Our grandchildren may have to depend on nuclear power.
Thursday, July 21, 2005
The Parry Hotter Papers, as revealed to Dr. Paranoia
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The good Dr. P. writes:
Some days ago there came in my possession the papers of a psychoanalyst who had mysteriously disappeared. Since I dabble in paraphysics, political arcana and ESP phenomena, the man had marked these notes for my attention, "should he be temporarily absent." Frankly, the family had had hints, decided that he had retreated into a midlife crisis escape, whether to Tahoe or Tahiti, and humored his request not to search for him.
It seems a youngish male, whom we shall call Parry Hotter, had come to Dr. Sonnenschein for therapy, complaining of inability to fit in. The man, a successful Wall Street analyst, was making a fantastic living, by ordinary standards, as a forecaster of stock market trends. He had no particular specialty, which intrigued his employer, a major mutual funds firm, but he was able to forecast specific corporate winners and losers so well that he was given a fund to manage, with spectacular success.
So, what's the problem? Well, PH the patient felt that he could not relate to his peers, nor develop friendships and relationships. He had a minor British university degree that had gained him employment, no local family nor friends, no history, and only a vague recollection of prior existence. He wanted to get in touch with his past life.
Under hypnosis, an incredible spectrum of an early history revealed itself. He spoke of parents that were extra-terrestrials, of stepparents that were kindly but not understanding, of being approached by a stranger who knew all about him and transported him to an environment entirely outside our experience.
It seemed he was moved into another dimension, to a school that trained gifted youngsters of uncommon characteristics. They learned terrestrial things, but also practiced unearthly pursuits, flying, summonsing ghosts and creatures of saga and legend, and trained in what we would consider magic. At some point in time, after years at the school,of hair-raising experiences of finding and fighting supernatural enemies and of entering the spiritual world, HP was transported to the terrestrial environment and enrolled in a university just like an ordinary country bumpkin. He graduated with honors, but found no mates, and moved to the US.
Upon reawakening and questioning, more details came up, enough to classify the patient in a schizophrenic sub-category. These recollections were vivid and with details. He had preserved the methodology for levitation, as Dr S called it, intact, and offered to raise the therapist a few feet, to prove it. The notes are unclear as to whether they succeeded, but thereafter Dr. S. seems to give more credibility regarding the extrasensory and non-gravitation bound experiences of the patient PH.
As treatment progressed and the patient-therapist relationship cemented, PH began to bring to the sessions books of a popular youth-oriented series, dealing with a similar developmentally handicapped youth of extra- terrestrial experiences. PH was looking for keys and clues that would enable him to re-enter the life of freedom, adventure and camaraderie that he seemed to remember from his mythical youth, similar to that portrayed in this obviously fictional set of books. As new volumes were published, PH had eagerly stood in line to get early copies, and had devoured them, looking for clues that would enable him to activate the time warp transporting him back to the happy land, where he would be glad to be a waiter, elevator operator (an unnecessary profession, Dr. S. notes, with an unexpected touch of humor) or handyman, just to get back his life.
At the conclusion of the therapy notes, Dr. S. records a call from PH. It seems the patient had obtained, by whatever means, a reviewer's copy of the latest book in the series, and found some unexpected information, which he was going to share. It seemed significant enough to make Dr. S. record the event, and pack up the notes, "just in case."
Dr Paranoia closes here, but we cannot drop the issue, It is too much of a coincidence that the disappearance of Dr. Sonnenschein – and, incidentally, the patient PH – occurred at the time of the publication of the sixth volume of J. K. Rowling's series. “ Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” was released for public distribution on July 16, 2005. Libraries in and out of town are scheduling book parties, wand workshops, movie marathons, and parent and children book club meetings throughout the week. We may be wrong, but this is too much of a coincidence to ignore. Make your own conclusions, but hug your children, and count them regularly. Life may well be a dream, as noted by Calderon de la Barca (La Vida Es Un Sueno, 1630).
The good Dr. P. writes:
Some days ago there came in my possession the papers of a psychoanalyst who had mysteriously disappeared. Since I dabble in paraphysics, political arcana and ESP phenomena, the man had marked these notes for my attention, "should he be temporarily absent." Frankly, the family had had hints, decided that he had retreated into a midlife crisis escape, whether to Tahoe or Tahiti, and humored his request not to search for him.
It seems a youngish male, whom we shall call Parry Hotter, had come to Dr. Sonnenschein for therapy, complaining of inability to fit in. The man, a successful Wall Street analyst, was making a fantastic living, by ordinary standards, as a forecaster of stock market trends. He had no particular specialty, which intrigued his employer, a major mutual funds firm, but he was able to forecast specific corporate winners and losers so well that he was given a fund to manage, with spectacular success.
So, what's the problem? Well, PH the patient felt that he could not relate to his peers, nor develop friendships and relationships. He had a minor British university degree that had gained him employment, no local family nor friends, no history, and only a vague recollection of prior existence. He wanted to get in touch with his past life.
Under hypnosis, an incredible spectrum of an early history revealed itself. He spoke of parents that were extra-terrestrials, of stepparents that were kindly but not understanding, of being approached by a stranger who knew all about him and transported him to an environment entirely outside our experience.
It seemed he was moved into another dimension, to a school that trained gifted youngsters of uncommon characteristics. They learned terrestrial things, but also practiced unearthly pursuits, flying, summonsing ghosts and creatures of saga and legend, and trained in what we would consider magic. At some point in time, after years at the school,of hair-raising experiences of finding and fighting supernatural enemies and of entering the spiritual world, HP was transported to the terrestrial environment and enrolled in a university just like an ordinary country bumpkin. He graduated with honors, but found no mates, and moved to the US.
Upon reawakening and questioning, more details came up, enough to classify the patient in a schizophrenic sub-category. These recollections were vivid and with details. He had preserved the methodology for levitation, as Dr S called it, intact, and offered to raise the therapist a few feet, to prove it. The notes are unclear as to whether they succeeded, but thereafter Dr. S. seems to give more credibility regarding the extrasensory and non-gravitation bound experiences of the patient PH.
As treatment progressed and the patient-therapist relationship cemented, PH began to bring to the sessions books of a popular youth-oriented series, dealing with a similar developmentally handicapped youth of extra- terrestrial experiences. PH was looking for keys and clues that would enable him to re-enter the life of freedom, adventure and camaraderie that he seemed to remember from his mythical youth, similar to that portrayed in this obviously fictional set of books. As new volumes were published, PH had eagerly stood in line to get early copies, and had devoured them, looking for clues that would enable him to activate the time warp transporting him back to the happy land, where he would be glad to be a waiter, elevator operator (an unnecessary profession, Dr. S. notes, with an unexpected touch of humor) or handyman, just to get back his life.
At the conclusion of the therapy notes, Dr. S. records a call from PH. It seems the patient had obtained, by whatever means, a reviewer's copy of the latest book in the series, and found some unexpected information, which he was going to share. It seemed significant enough to make Dr. S. record the event, and pack up the notes, "just in case."
Dr Paranoia closes here, but we cannot drop the issue, It is too much of a coincidence that the disappearance of Dr. Sonnenschein – and, incidentally, the patient PH – occurred at the time of the publication of the sixth volume of J. K. Rowling's series. “ Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” was released for public distribution on July 16, 2005. Libraries in and out of town are scheduling book parties, wand workshops, movie marathons, and parent and children book club meetings throughout the week. We may be wrong, but this is too much of a coincidence to ignore. Make your own conclusions, but hug your children, and count them regularly. Life may well be a dream, as noted by Calderon de la Barca (La Vida Es Un Sueno, 1630).
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
"MEET THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES" NIGHT AT THE ALBANO CLUB
The Vincent Albano Republican Club invites everyone interested to join us for a "Meet the Candidates" get- together. on Saturday, October 30, 6:30 PM at St. Stephen's Church, 152 East 29th St near 3rd Ave. NOTE: please ring buzzer if door is closed. At this meeting voters will have the opportunity to meet and speak with several candidates running in the November 8th, 2005 election. People can meet and talk with Patrick Murphy, candidate for City Council
Distirct #4, John Carlino, candidate for City Council District #2 and Matthew V. Grieco, candidate for New York State Supreme Court Judge.
This is the perfect chance for people to participate in the political process. They will get the chance to ask questions
directly to the candidates and here the answers first hand. Please join us in what hopes to be a very enlightening evening
with a "deli supper" and soft drinks provided for all in attendance.
Thanks so much,
Frank J Scala, President Albano Republican Club (For questions 9-5pm call 212 679 3742
Distirct #4, John Carlino, candidate for City Council District #2 and Matthew V. Grieco, candidate for New York State Supreme Court Judge.
This is the perfect chance for people to participate in the political process. They will get the chance to ask questions
directly to the candidates and here the answers first hand. Please join us in what hopes to be a very enlightening evening
with a "deli supper" and soft drinks provided for all in attendance.
Thanks so much,
Frank J Scala, President Albano Republican Club (For questions 9-5pm call 212 679 3742
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Lyme disese fells intrepid gardener-columnist, not for long; also good dental advice
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Well, it has happened, after years of warning T&V readership about Lyme disease, this garden enthusiast has been struck. Whether it was due to hanging around and admiring the gorgeous Spring greenery in Stuyvesant Square Park, Union Square Park, Gramercy Park, Stuyvesant Town Oval or working upstate is uncertain, the thing to note is that the tick season is on, full swing, with Gov. Pataki having declared May the Lyme Disease Prevention Month. Do not lie down on the gorgeous green lawns of the Stuyvesant Town Oval, thinking that no deer was ever sighted there. Field mice, ubiquitous in our world, are the spreaders of the affliction. In 2003 there were 23,000 reported cases nationally and some 4,400 in New York State, and untold multiples more not bothering to treat, or seeking diagnoses and having been told that it is nothing to worry about. Early blood tests, within a couple of weeks of the event, clear the air.
In my case, I scraped a painful spot underarm spot while showering. Checking the hard to reach location with a hand mirror, a tiny black residue showed. Soon a small red spot developed, and some days later I called my upstate hospital’s emergency room, a place where they see Lyme disease every day, I was told to put om disinfectant, and see a physician if the red does not go away. It was no longer sensitive, so I forgot about it until three weeks after the incident the spot became sensitive, and the hand-mirror showed a red bulls-eye, two inches in diameter.
We were back in the city, for a dental appointment, so I called our uptown family physician, not far from the dentist’s office, and the nurse squeezed me in for a five-minute visit. She took my blood, and the doctor showed up, took one look, asked about the history and immediately wrote a two-week prescription for Doxycycline, the established antibiotic used for this affliction, two capsules a day for two weeks, with renewals. Treatment was to start immediately, two weeks if the blood tests were negative, three if positive.
If the prescription strategy seems strange, is because false negative blood tests are not uncommon. Lyme disease is the great dissembler, imitating other afflictions. The Borrelia burgdorfi bacilli can cause fevers, joint pains, arthritic reactions, symptoms of Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome, and more. Physicians recognize several reasons for false negatives in testing blood, mostly because of presence of antibodies that have suppressed the bacteria, such as recent treatment by antibiotics. Anti-inflammation steroidal drugs suppress the immune system and prevent an antibody response. Further, it is possible that the Bb bacteria and the patient’s antibodies have not been bound long enough to produce a response. This process can take as long as six weeks and prudent advice is not to wait but begin treatment even if early blood tests are negative It is also possible that the Bb have changed their makeup and are not recognized by the immune system, or have overwhelmed the latter – ugh, what a thought. The laboratories doing the testing may also be at fault, setting the limits too high – the tests, known as ELICE and Western blot, are same as for AIDS screening.
In my case, the blood tests came out negative, but I continued taking the green capsule twice a day for two weeks, and the red bullet disappeared. It is important to finish the course; untreated Lyme disease can have severe consequences in 15% of such cases. It is not enough to take precautions while walking through tall grass where the larvae of the tick are waving their legs, trying to attach to any passing body that emits warmth; you have to be careful with household pets. Keeping lawns cut short, if your cats go outdoors is important, as is examining them upon return.
An observation about protective (?) clothing. Combining my uptown MD visit with a dental appointment, I walked down Lexington Ave, drinking in the strange atmosphere around Bloomingdale’s, just like a tourist. There were out-of-towners and foreigners in tiny micros, locals more dressed except for three office-type blondes, seen separately, with décolletages down to their waistlines, just like in the fashion shots. Did some research in Bloomie’s, needing some walking shorts, and can report that Ralph Lauren is doing his bit to reverse the trade imbalance. His Polo brand offers chino camp shorts in tan and peach with cargo pockets decorated with two flaps and four buttons each (rainprotection?) at $59, made in Indonesia – the tourists seem to be buying, giving us Euros. A slightly gussied-up model, cotton and linen, with a button fly and a cargo pocket with a fashion buckle made in Malaysia cost a staggering $165. The long-pants model is $225, and can be had with two drawstrings at each ankle leg (Lyme tick protection?) and more strings at the waist (unknown purpose). Being more the Bermuda shorts type, I restrained my buying impulses.
I eventually reached my dentist’s office, but will spare you the hygienist’s most helpful (though scathing) advice, this time. Check www.dobelis.net.
Oh, well, why not…She reminded me that brushing and flossing every 24-48 hrs is needed to loosen the plaque, a substance of mouth bacteria and food residue that,left unattended, forms into rocklike tartar at the gumline.That’s all. This professional hates flossing and prefers using thin plastic toothpicks, Rota-Point, that pass through between teeth as efficiently as dental floss. She also uses a vibratingelectric brush that gets at the plaque from all angles, better than therotating electric brush. Loosened plaque does not reattach, rinse it out..As for tartar, it makes the gums recede and causes a gum disease, gingivitis, that can turn into the bone disease, peridontitis, that can destroy the teeth affected.Even though you limit your intake of soft bread and sugars and eat crunchy vegetables and grainy breads that self clean your teeth, having a hygienist scrape the tartar off every six months (no less than once a year)prevents gum disease. I’m sorry, no miracle cures.
Well, it has happened, after years of warning T&V readership about Lyme disease, this garden enthusiast has been struck. Whether it was due to hanging around and admiring the gorgeous Spring greenery in Stuyvesant Square Park, Union Square Park, Gramercy Park, Stuyvesant Town Oval or working upstate is uncertain, the thing to note is that the tick season is on, full swing, with Gov. Pataki having declared May the Lyme Disease Prevention Month. Do not lie down on the gorgeous green lawns of the Stuyvesant Town Oval, thinking that no deer was ever sighted there. Field mice, ubiquitous in our world, are the spreaders of the affliction. In 2003 there were 23,000 reported cases nationally and some 4,400 in New York State, and untold multiples more not bothering to treat, or seeking diagnoses and having been told that it is nothing to worry about. Early blood tests, within a couple of weeks of the event, clear the air.
In my case, I scraped a painful spot underarm spot while showering. Checking the hard to reach location with a hand mirror, a tiny black residue showed. Soon a small red spot developed, and some days later I called my upstate hospital’s emergency room, a place where they see Lyme disease every day, I was told to put om disinfectant, and see a physician if the red does not go away. It was no longer sensitive, so I forgot about it until three weeks after the incident the spot became sensitive, and the hand-mirror showed a red bulls-eye, two inches in diameter.
We were back in the city, for a dental appointment, so I called our uptown family physician, not far from the dentist’s office, and the nurse squeezed me in for a five-minute visit. She took my blood, and the doctor showed up, took one look, asked about the history and immediately wrote a two-week prescription for Doxycycline, the established antibiotic used for this affliction, two capsules a day for two weeks, with renewals. Treatment was to start immediately, two weeks if the blood tests were negative, three if positive.
If the prescription strategy seems strange, is because false negative blood tests are not uncommon. Lyme disease is the great dissembler, imitating other afflictions. The Borrelia burgdorfi bacilli can cause fevers, joint pains, arthritic reactions, symptoms of Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome, and more. Physicians recognize several reasons for false negatives in testing blood, mostly because of presence of antibodies that have suppressed the bacteria, such as recent treatment by antibiotics. Anti-inflammation steroidal drugs suppress the immune system and prevent an antibody response. Further, it is possible that the Bb bacteria and the patient’s antibodies have not been bound long enough to produce a response. This process can take as long as six weeks and prudent advice is not to wait but begin treatment even if early blood tests are negative It is also possible that the Bb have changed their makeup and are not recognized by the immune system, or have overwhelmed the latter – ugh, what a thought. The laboratories doing the testing may also be at fault, setting the limits too high – the tests, known as ELICE and Western blot, are same as for AIDS screening.
In my case, the blood tests came out negative, but I continued taking the green capsule twice a day for two weeks, and the red bullet disappeared. It is important to finish the course; untreated Lyme disease can have severe consequences in 15% of such cases. It is not enough to take precautions while walking through tall grass where the larvae of the tick are waving their legs, trying to attach to any passing body that emits warmth; you have to be careful with household pets. Keeping lawns cut short, if your cats go outdoors is important, as is examining them upon return.
An observation about protective (?) clothing. Combining my uptown MD visit with a dental appointment, I walked down Lexington Ave, drinking in the strange atmosphere around Bloomingdale’s, just like a tourist. There were out-of-towners and foreigners in tiny micros, locals more dressed except for three office-type blondes, seen separately, with décolletages down to their waistlines, just like in the fashion shots. Did some research in Bloomie’s, needing some walking shorts, and can report that Ralph Lauren is doing his bit to reverse the trade imbalance. His Polo brand offers chino camp shorts in tan and peach with cargo pockets decorated with two flaps and four buttons each (rainprotection?) at $59, made in Indonesia – the tourists seem to be buying, giving us Euros. A slightly gussied-up model, cotton and linen, with a button fly and a cargo pocket with a fashion buckle made in Malaysia cost a staggering $165. The long-pants model is $225, and can be had with two drawstrings at each ankle leg (Lyme tick protection?) and more strings at the waist (unknown purpose). Being more the Bermuda shorts type, I restrained my buying impulses.
I eventually reached my dentist’s office, but will spare you the hygienist’s most helpful (though scathing) advice, this time. Check www.dobelis.net.
Oh, well, why not…She reminded me that brushing and flossing every 24-48 hrs is needed to loosen the plaque, a substance of mouth bacteria and food residue that,left unattended, forms into rocklike tartar at the gumline.That’s all. This professional hates flossing and prefers using thin plastic toothpicks, Rota-Point, that pass through between teeth as efficiently as dental floss. She also uses a vibratingelectric brush that gets at the plaque from all angles, better than therotating electric brush. Loosened plaque does not reattach, rinse it out..As for tartar, it makes the gums recede and causes a gum disease, gingivitis, that can turn into the bone disease, peridontitis, that can destroy the teeth affected.Even though you limit your intake of soft bread and sugars and eat crunchy vegetables and grainy breads that self clean your teeth, having a hygienist scrape the tartar off every six months (no less than once a year)prevents gum disease. I’m sorry, no miracle cures.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
it's a small world - local stories of China and Japan
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Shopping on 14th Street in its myriad 99-cent stores for reading glasses (perfectly adequate quality; per my ophthalmologist, although the plastic ones keep breaking and I keep losing the metal-framed), I began to chat with one of the owners, who sat at the cash register, ordering the help around in a good-natured manner. Turns out he owns another such store on the northern periphery of our area. We chatted, about the US economy and our entrepreneurs outsourcing labor-intensive industries to China and technological work to India. Daniel – that was his name – disagreed with my understanding of this balance, indicating that the Chinese technology was the main competition for the West, in manufacturing as well as in services. After some hesitation, he suggested that China would become the new US in the next 50 years. It came out that he is a graduate of the South China University of Technology, where he taught for two years, before emigrating 21 years ago, and also owns a local computer service firm with a few dozen employees.
Intrigued, I looked up www.scut.cn, and a Chinese website materialized. By punching the word “English” it morphed into something legible. The university is in Guangzhou, two hours north of Hong Kong, founded 1952 and by 1960 it had become an important institution. Now it has 13,000 full-time students and 3,800 professors, and runs symposiums and conferences, and partners with a US firm in microchip development. It was founded with US-taught educators – Daniel’s father was one of them, in the days when we Americans had not yet become a service and consumer-oriented society. Daniel’s prophecy may come sooner than expected.
Speaking of the Indians, a recognized threat to the American computer programming professions, Daniel considers them a lesser technological challenger than China. But they too have an ethic that frightens Americans, that of learning all they can and working at it all the time. American students win games and American Idol contests, Indian students here win spelling bees and Westinghouse (now Intel) science competitions. The 21 million Indians abroad (of which 1.6 million reside in the US) are relatively unencumbered by ideological constraints and are advancing economically and politically. They frequently intermarry in the 2nd generation. Consequently, such 3rd World countries as Guiana and Fiji have become Indian- dominated, without much strife.
The Chinese have similar ambitions and lack of constraints, but do not integrate with quite the same ease. On the other hand, their mother country has become a major military power, and the potential of conflict is discussed widely, particularly in regard to their national policy of integrating Taiwan. As sensitive an observer as Robert Kaplan of the Atlantic Monthly, whose pro-Serb views (reflecting the writings of Rebecca West) had substantial influence on US policy in the Balkans during the early 1990s, has written a realistic review of the US military power position vis-à-vis the Chinese. Daniel tends to pooh-pooh any warlike intentions on part of the Chinese – they are getting all they want, without a war. He suggests their intentions are of economic and not military conquest. In support of this thesis, note the news stories of their intended purchases of Maytag and Unocal.
As a side observation, the Chinese have some historic rights to be angry with us, although we defeated their 1940s conquerors, the Japanese, in World War Two and helped reestablish an independent China. In the late 18th and most of the 19th century we had helped the British imperialists turn millions of Chinese into opium addicts.
There had been a world trade balance problem, just like now. Silk and tea from China became so popular in England and America that the Westerners did not have sufficient trade goods to offset the trade imbalance, and the East India Company, in British-controlled India, had opium poppy plantations, and started selling the drug to the Chinese masses. Quing Emperors’ edicts did not stop the English and their US allies, ship-owners of the most prominent families, who provided some of the hulls for the transport to Canton. In 1839 a Chinese official destroyed $6M worth of opium, causing the first Opium War (1839-42), in which the British traders won official access to harbors. The second Opium War (1856-60) gave them Hong Kong and the right to trade in opium, a humiliating defeat for the Chinese.
A local story: one of the traders was Warren Delano, FDR’s grandfather. He went out to China to make his competence ($100,000) as a partner in Russell and Co, and returned after nine years, in 1846, at 37 a multi-millionaire in today’s terms, to become part of the social circle (they lived in Colonnade Row, across from the now Public Theatre, then the Astor residence), build a Hudson Valley mansion, Algonac, designed by Alexander Jackson Downing, and invest in mining. The Crash of 1857 ruined him, and at 50 he returned to Hong Kong to recover the fortune, largely with the aid of the Civil War, for which he supplied morphine as painkiller for the injured.
Shopping on 14th Street in its myriad 99-cent stores for reading glasses (perfectly adequate quality; per my ophthalmologist, although the plastic ones keep breaking and I keep losing the metal-framed), I began to chat with one of the owners, who sat at the cash register, ordering the help around in a good-natured manner. Turns out he owns another such store on the northern periphery of our area. We chatted, about the US economy and our entrepreneurs outsourcing labor-intensive industries to China and technological work to India. Daniel – that was his name – disagreed with my understanding of this balance, indicating that the Chinese technology was the main competition for the West, in manufacturing as well as in services. After some hesitation, he suggested that China would become the new US in the next 50 years. It came out that he is a graduate of the South China University of Technology, where he taught for two years, before emigrating 21 years ago, and also owns a local computer service firm with a few dozen employees.
Intrigued, I looked up www.scut.cn, and a Chinese website materialized. By punching the word “English” it morphed into something legible. The university is in Guangzhou, two hours north of Hong Kong, founded 1952 and by 1960 it had become an important institution. Now it has 13,000 full-time students and 3,800 professors, and runs symposiums and conferences, and partners with a US firm in microchip development. It was founded with US-taught educators – Daniel’s father was one of them, in the days when we Americans had not yet become a service and consumer-oriented society. Daniel’s prophecy may come sooner than expected.
Speaking of the Indians, a recognized threat to the American computer programming professions, Daniel considers them a lesser technological challenger than China. But they too have an ethic that frightens Americans, that of learning all they can and working at it all the time. American students win games and American Idol contests, Indian students here win spelling bees and Westinghouse (now Intel) science competitions. The 21 million Indians abroad (of which 1.6 million reside in the US) are relatively unencumbered by ideological constraints and are advancing economically and politically. They frequently intermarry in the 2nd generation. Consequently, such 3rd World countries as Guiana and Fiji have become Indian- dominated, without much strife.
The Chinese have similar ambitions and lack of constraints, but do not integrate with quite the same ease. On the other hand, their mother country has become a major military power, and the potential of conflict is discussed widely, particularly in regard to their national policy of integrating Taiwan. As sensitive an observer as Robert Kaplan of the Atlantic Monthly, whose pro-Serb views (reflecting the writings of Rebecca West) had substantial influence on US policy in the Balkans during the early 1990s, has written a realistic review of the US military power position vis-à-vis the Chinese. Daniel tends to pooh-pooh any warlike intentions on part of the Chinese – they are getting all they want, without a war. He suggests their intentions are of economic and not military conquest. In support of this thesis, note the news stories of their intended purchases of Maytag and Unocal.
As a side observation, the Chinese have some historic rights to be angry with us, although we defeated their 1940s conquerors, the Japanese, in World War Two and helped reestablish an independent China. In the late 18th and most of the 19th century we had helped the British imperialists turn millions of Chinese into opium addicts.
There had been a world trade balance problem, just like now. Silk and tea from China became so popular in England and America that the Westerners did not have sufficient trade goods to offset the trade imbalance, and the East India Company, in British-controlled India, had opium poppy plantations, and started selling the drug to the Chinese masses. Quing Emperors’ edicts did not stop the English and their US allies, ship-owners of the most prominent families, who provided some of the hulls for the transport to Canton. In 1839 a Chinese official destroyed $6M worth of opium, causing the first Opium War (1839-42), in which the British traders won official access to harbors. The second Opium War (1856-60) gave them Hong Kong and the right to trade in opium, a humiliating defeat for the Chinese.
A local story: one of the traders was Warren Delano, FDR’s grandfather. He went out to China to make his competence ($100,000) as a partner in Russell and Co, and returned after nine years, in 1846, at 37 a multi-millionaire in today’s terms, to become part of the social circle (they lived in Colonnade Row, across from the now Public Theatre, then the Astor residence), build a Hudson Valley mansion, Algonac, designed by Alexander Jackson Downing, and invest in mining. The Crash of 1857 ruined him, and at 50 he returned to Hong Kong to recover the fortune, largely with the aid of the Civil War, for which he supplied morphine as painkiller for the injured.
