Thursday, March 31, 2011
In Memoriam : Peggy Keilus, poet of New York City
By M. C. Dobelis
The worshippers on Friday night, March 25, at the Brotherhood Synagogue, who had gathered to honor Peggy Keilus, long- time secretary of the congregation, were shocked to hear that she had passed away, just the night before, a day after her 90th birthday.
Peggy’s connection with Brotherhood Synagogue began in 1988, when she started working as secretary for its founder, Rabbi Irving J. Block. She had been such an established feature at the house of worship, her cheerful cultured voice greeting all callers, that even her illness in the fall of 2010 took people by surprise. "Read your poem in the Times," or "when are you publishing again in the Bulletin," or "how's the book coming," callers would ask. Finding out her age was another shock for the members. In this age of pressures, when people are glad to retire early, just to get off the fast train, finding a person who joyfully works at a job year after year, not showing weariness or age, is a virtual miracle. But for Peggy, who had no local family, the synagogue was an important part of life, as much as her poetry, and there were the pleasures of living in the city, ranging from attending New York's theatres, which she loved, and the excitement of the daily news, especially politics (she was a Stuyvesant Towner), to the satisfactions of problem solving for her friends at her reception desk, up front.
Peggy's life was another New York legend. Born in Portland, Oregon, where members of her family still live, she graduated from Reed College with a degree in English, and, instead of teaching school, decided to join the US Navy, as a WAVES member, during the years of World War II. Her duties brought her to NYC, and she decided to stay, after discharge finding a job with the Pinkerton Detective Agency, where for some 40-odd years she looked after the wellbeing of the sporting people at the city's race tracks. She wrote poetry since early days, and in 1988, when she retired, actually only making a career change, to become the secretary of the very energetic Rabbi Block, her short humorous poems started appearing in the temple’s monthly Bulletin and, on some Mondays, in the Metropolitan Diary of the New York Times.
On October 18, 1999 she wrote about City Dogs:
City dogs /Are so polite/Seldom bite /Laugh at dangers /Sniff at strangers,/ Eat croissants /
Love infants /Marrow bones,/Ice-cream cones /Feathered migrants/ Fire hydrants.
New Yorkers were found not to be as accommodating as their pets, in Peggy’s Announcement, ( 2004)::
"New Yorkers are a fast -paced crowd," the voice intones with cheer,
" Your fellow riders will be pleased if you exit by the rear."
New Yorkers, being what they are, listen, nod and grunt.
And being fast-paced, as they are, they all go out at the front.
Peggy never stopped writing. In March of 2010 she assessed the pros and cons of the U.N.:
Hope is alive /Near the F.D.R. Drive.
Hope for the world /And each demographic, /A boon for mankind, /But awful for traffic.
But not all new events met with her approval. In 2008 she complained to her Dear Diary:
Bars are closed, jewelry stores gone, /Next day they open a nail salon.
Restaurants move, leave empty space,/Pedicure lounges take their place.
Farewell to agents of travel and tours, /There's a line outside for manicures.
Goodbye to the deli, to bakeries we cherish, /Bookstores drop out, it's polish or perish.
City Seasons were a pleasure, some more than others. As Peggy put it:
“The Girls in Their/ Summer Dresses,”
Irwin Shaw said it all.
Reluctantly,/We welcome fall.
For Peggy, the familiar was a reassurance of life’s continuum. She declared:
It's not the Chrysler and not Time Warner.
It's the vegetable stand on Third and the corner.
Makes my heart beat with spring afresh:
The vegetable man's back from Bangladesh.
These selections of Peggy Keilus’s humorous short pieces; slightly horizontally reformatted, were published courtesy on NY Times. The family - Michael Kaufman and Victoria Turner, nephew and niece from Los Angeles - have turned over a package containing a collection of her works to Rabbi Daniel Alder of Brotherhood Synagogue - who also started serving, as a student Rabbi, in 1988 - for possible publication in a book form, of which more anon. A memorial service was held at Brotherhood on Sunday, March 27, led by Rabbi Alder, with congregants and neighborhood friends getting to meet Mr. Kaufman. Members of the gathering also told stories of Peggy’s graciousness and kind deeds, volunteered poetic contributions, cried and laughed and held hands, in a true New York’s tribute to one of its own.
The worshippers on Friday night, March 25, at the Brotherhood Synagogue, who had gathered to honor Peggy Keilus, long- time secretary of the congregation, were shocked to hear that she had passed away, just the night before, a day after her 90th birthday.
Peggy’s connection with Brotherhood Synagogue began in 1988, when she started working as secretary for its founder, Rabbi Irving J. Block. She had been such an established feature at the house of worship, her cheerful cultured voice greeting all callers, that even her illness in the fall of 2010 took people by surprise. "Read your poem in the Times," or "when are you publishing again in the Bulletin," or "how's the book coming," callers would ask. Finding out her age was another shock for the members. In this age of pressures, when people are glad to retire early, just to get off the fast train, finding a person who joyfully works at a job year after year, not showing weariness or age, is a virtual miracle. But for Peggy, who had no local family, the synagogue was an important part of life, as much as her poetry, and there were the pleasures of living in the city, ranging from attending New York's theatres, which she loved, and the excitement of the daily news, especially politics (she was a Stuyvesant Towner), to the satisfactions of problem solving for her friends at her reception desk, up front.
Peggy's life was another New York legend. Born in Portland, Oregon, where members of her family still live, she graduated from Reed College with a degree in English, and, instead of teaching school, decided to join the US Navy, as a WAVES member, during the years of World War II. Her duties brought her to NYC, and she decided to stay, after discharge finding a job with the Pinkerton Detective Agency, where for some 40-odd years she looked after the wellbeing of the sporting people at the city's race tracks. She wrote poetry since early days, and in 1988, when she retired, actually only making a career change, to become the secretary of the very energetic Rabbi Block, her short humorous poems started appearing in the temple’s monthly Bulletin and, on some Mondays, in the Metropolitan Diary of the New York Times.
On October 18, 1999 she wrote about City Dogs:
City dogs /Are so polite/Seldom bite /Laugh at dangers /Sniff at strangers,/ Eat croissants /
Love infants /Marrow bones,/Ice-cream cones /Feathered migrants/ Fire hydrants.
New Yorkers were found not to be as accommodating as their pets, in Peggy’s Announcement, ( 2004)::
"New Yorkers are a fast -paced crowd," the voice intones with cheer,
" Your fellow riders will be pleased if you exit by the rear."
New Yorkers, being what they are, listen, nod and grunt.
And being fast-paced, as they are, they all go out at the front.
Peggy never stopped writing. In March of 2010 she assessed the pros and cons of the U.N.:
Hope is alive /Near the F.D.R. Drive.
Hope for the world /And each demographic, /A boon for mankind, /But awful for traffic.
But not all new events met with her approval. In 2008 she complained to her Dear Diary:
Bars are closed, jewelry stores gone, /Next day they open a nail salon.
Restaurants move, leave empty space,/Pedicure lounges take their place.
Farewell to agents of travel and tours, /There's a line outside for manicures.
Goodbye to the deli, to bakeries we cherish, /Bookstores drop out, it's polish or perish.
City Seasons were a pleasure, some more than others. As Peggy put it:
“The Girls in Their/ Summer Dresses,”
Irwin Shaw said it all.
Reluctantly,/We welcome fall.
For Peggy, the familiar was a reassurance of life’s continuum. She declared:
It's not the Chrysler and not Time Warner.
It's the vegetable stand on Third and the corner.
Makes my heart beat with spring afresh:
The vegetable man's back from Bangladesh.
These selections of Peggy Keilus’s humorous short pieces; slightly horizontally reformatted, were published courtesy on NY Times. The family - Michael Kaufman and Victoria Turner, nephew and niece from Los Angeles - have turned over a package containing a collection of her works to Rabbi Daniel Alder of Brotherhood Synagogue - who also started serving, as a student Rabbi, in 1988 - for possible publication in a book form, of which more anon. A memorial service was held at Brotherhood on Sunday, March 27, led by Rabbi Alder, with congregants and neighborhood friends getting to meet Mr. Kaufman. Members of the gathering also told stories of Peggy’s graciousness and kind deeds, volunteered poetic contributions, cried and laughed and held hands, in a true New York’s tribute to one of its own.
Labels: Peggy Keilus, Philip Rothman, Rabbi Daniel Alder, Rabbi Irving Block
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Rich or poor, you too can help save the environment
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The spectacle and the world-wide consequences of the horrid earthquake of Honshu, Japan, combined with the huge tsunami make it really imperative for the US and humanity at large to develop renewable energy resources as soon as possible. A warning of a major earthquake for New York was announced in this column shortly before the New Zealand catastrophe, and today the Indian Point #3 Nuclear Plant in Buchanan is considered NYS’s most vulnerable earthquake prospect (on the US level, the El Diablo plant in CA, a tsunami risk, may be more so). Indian Point is a major candidate for closing. I know the three-unit Indian Point Energy Center, having spent summers in Croton on the Hudson throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, and hearing landlords praise the tax savings – the nuclear plant made ours the lowest-taxed NYS district – and listening to environmentalists objecting to the exposure, most recently State Attorney Andrew Cuomo.
That is high level thinking. If you want to help the energy situation on a personal level, look at your light bulbs. The plain ordinary incandescent light bulb, same since Thomas Edison’s days, chews up watts of energy, 90 percent of it wasted in heat. If you multiply that by 4 billion sockets, used by 300 million Americans and take into account that the US uses 100 quadrillion BTUs of energy a year, 336 billion per capita, exceeded only by Canada and a few small but rich countries (the world averages 72 million BTUs per capita). Further, 60 percent of US energy used goes into residential, commercial and electric utilities and 15% of residential electricity use is for lighting. We are talking big numbers.
The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act sets energy efficiency standards, in essence requiring that by we have 2012 new bulbs to generate the same light with 25 percent less energy input. This is also the law that orders passenger cars to improve to 35 gallons per mile operations by 2020, passed by a huge bipartisan vote. Light bulb manufacturers have caught on, and, since the Act does not specify the ways to increase light with less electricity, many manufacturers have started developing new products. Some retailers have even stopped selling incandescent light bulbs (Ikea, since January 2011). Halogen, a more expensive bulb, meets the 25 percent requirement, and the bulb lasts 2-3 times longer, and causes less objections.
To satisfy the traditionalists and meet the law, several makers are working on upgrading the incandescent bulb, not very successfully (GE gave up). There is also the problem of some congress people, e.g. Rep. Joe Barton (TX, Republican) have sponsored bills to reverse the guidelines as illegal, dictating what light bulbs Americans should use. He applies the same argument to orders of health insurance types to be used, and types of cars that Americans can drive. This ignores the fact that the 2007 legislation does not specify brand names or technology, and that only requests that certain characteristics be developed. More recently, Rep Michele Bachman, a spokesperson for the tea party (R, MN), has joined the choir, all of them ignoring the fact that without government sponsored standards we would not have such things as weights, measures of electricity , compatible construction screws, nuts and bolts , and computers that communicate with to each other.
More valid is the argument that fluorescent substitutes for the incandescent bulb have mercury content. The best, CFL (I think of it as Conical, but the acronym actually means Compact Fluorescent Light), uses 75 percent less energy and lasts 10 plus times longer. It also costs several dollars, but the savings outweigh the expenditure, by far. Unfortunately, there is the mercury, a small amount, and the EPA’s broken bulb disposal instructions, which are not known to be enforced, can give you shivers. You must air the room for 15 minutes, not vacuum the pieces, and use special precautions for disposal. Hastily we might add that all fluorescent bulbs, including the tubes that we have used in kitchens and utility functions for decades, have mercury, and the big stores will take your broken CFL shards for disposal (not tested). You can also note that coal fired electric and other plants, notorious mercury outputters, produce 25 percent of energy (environmentalists claim 50 percent) and cutting needs of energy produced from coal may outweigh CFL mercury danger. Parenthetically, energy comes 40 percent from petrol, from coal as above, from natural gas (23), nuclear power (8.4) and from renewables – hydro, wind, sun and geothermal.
The newest player in lighting is LED, the source of the tiny lights on appliances, radios and clocks. We have always known them as barely energy consumingm and it is true, they chew up 80 percent less energy and last 15 times longer than incandescents. Pretty safe, they also cost a lot, and are expected to improve more.
This household was introduced to CFLs by Eddy and Karl Warshall, of the eponymous hardware store on 3rd Ave near 20th Street. Their current brands equal the customary light color requirements. We had tried a cheap brand from a big store but it gave off a blue sheen and put us of temporarily. Not so nice for the US, most light bulbs are produced in Southeast Asia, e. g. South Korea, putting American ingenuity to a test, but it did take Thomas Edison many years to develop the incandescent filament (“genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration,” if I quote him correctly), and we should try to do it again. And maybe, just maybe, the congress people who removed the support funds for the Geological Survey, NOAA, earthquake and tsunami watching will come to their senses. You may want to write to Hal Rogers, R-KY, Chair of House Appropriations Committee.
Wally Dobelis thanks the Philadelphia Inquirer, NYTimes and internet sources
The spectacle and the world-wide consequences of the horrid earthquake of Honshu, Japan, combined with the huge tsunami make it really imperative for the US and humanity at large to develop renewable energy resources as soon as possible. A warning of a major earthquake for New York was announced in this column shortly before the New Zealand catastrophe, and today the Indian Point #3 Nuclear Plant in Buchanan is considered NYS’s most vulnerable earthquake prospect (on the US level, the El Diablo plant in CA, a tsunami risk, may be more so). Indian Point is a major candidate for closing. I know the three-unit Indian Point Energy Center, having spent summers in Croton on the Hudson throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, and hearing landlords praise the tax savings – the nuclear plant made ours the lowest-taxed NYS district – and listening to environmentalists objecting to the exposure, most recently State Attorney Andrew Cuomo.
That is high level thinking. If you want to help the energy situation on a personal level, look at your light bulbs. The plain ordinary incandescent light bulb, same since Thomas Edison’s days, chews up watts of energy, 90 percent of it wasted in heat. If you multiply that by 4 billion sockets, used by 300 million Americans and take into account that the US uses 100 quadrillion BTUs of energy a year, 336 billion per capita, exceeded only by Canada and a few small but rich countries (the world averages 72 million BTUs per capita). Further, 60 percent of US energy used goes into residential, commercial and electric utilities and 15% of residential electricity use is for lighting. We are talking big numbers.
The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act sets energy efficiency standards, in essence requiring that by we have 2012 new bulbs to generate the same light with 25 percent less energy input. This is also the law that orders passenger cars to improve to 35 gallons per mile operations by 2020, passed by a huge bipartisan vote. Light bulb manufacturers have caught on, and, since the Act does not specify the ways to increase light with less electricity, many manufacturers have started developing new products. Some retailers have even stopped selling incandescent light bulbs (Ikea, since January 2011). Halogen, a more expensive bulb, meets the 25 percent requirement, and the bulb lasts 2-3 times longer, and causes less objections.
To satisfy the traditionalists and meet the law, several makers are working on upgrading the incandescent bulb, not very successfully (GE gave up). There is also the problem of some congress people, e.g. Rep. Joe Barton (TX, Republican) have sponsored bills to reverse the guidelines as illegal, dictating what light bulbs Americans should use. He applies the same argument to orders of health insurance types to be used, and types of cars that Americans can drive. This ignores the fact that the 2007 legislation does not specify brand names or technology, and that only requests that certain characteristics be developed. More recently, Rep Michele Bachman, a spokesperson for the tea party (R, MN), has joined the choir, all of them ignoring the fact that without government sponsored standards we would not have such things as weights, measures of electricity , compatible construction screws, nuts and bolts , and computers that communicate with to each other.
More valid is the argument that fluorescent substitutes for the incandescent bulb have mercury content. The best, CFL (I think of it as Conical, but the acronym actually means Compact Fluorescent Light), uses 75 percent less energy and lasts 10 plus times longer. It also costs several dollars, but the savings outweigh the expenditure, by far. Unfortunately, there is the mercury, a small amount, and the EPA’s broken bulb disposal instructions, which are not known to be enforced, can give you shivers. You must air the room for 15 minutes, not vacuum the pieces, and use special precautions for disposal. Hastily we might add that all fluorescent bulbs, including the tubes that we have used in kitchens and utility functions for decades, have mercury, and the big stores will take your broken CFL shards for disposal (not tested). You can also note that coal fired electric and other plants, notorious mercury outputters, produce 25 percent of energy (environmentalists claim 50 percent) and cutting needs of energy produced from coal may outweigh CFL mercury danger. Parenthetically, energy comes 40 percent from petrol, from coal as above, from natural gas (23), nuclear power (8.4) and from renewables – hydro, wind, sun and geothermal.
The newest player in lighting is LED, the source of the tiny lights on appliances, radios and clocks. We have always known them as barely energy consumingm and it is true, they chew up 80 percent less energy and last 15 times longer than incandescents. Pretty safe, they also cost a lot, and are expected to improve more.
This household was introduced to CFLs by Eddy and Karl Warshall, of the eponymous hardware store on 3rd Ave near 20th Street. Their current brands equal the customary light color requirements. We had tried a cheap brand from a big store but it gave off a blue sheen and put us of temporarily. Not so nice for the US, most light bulbs are produced in Southeast Asia, e. g. South Korea, putting American ingenuity to a test, but it did take Thomas Edison many years to develop the incandescent filament (“genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration,” if I quote him correctly), and we should try to do it again. And maybe, just maybe, the congress people who removed the support funds for the Geological Survey, NOAA, earthquake and tsunami watching will come to their senses. You may want to write to Hal Rogers, R-KY, Chair of House Appropriations Committee.
Wally Dobelis thanks the Philadelphia Inquirer, NYTimes and internet sources
Thursday, March 17, 2011
More trouble in River City, the US and the world
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
There is this possibly irrational conviction that this writers holds, that world order collapses whenever he ventures outside the canyons of New York City. Take the most recent fatal date, Friday March 11. At the time of this writing the news had come down that Japan has suffered not only the biggest earthquake in its history (also fifth most destructive in the planet’s recorded history, at least since Prof. Richter invented his famous scale75 years ago), but that not one but five nuclear energy plants were in danger of exploding, a genuine world threat .It actually happened, with three limited meltdowns, within two days, for want of coolant water. Fortunately the containment walls held – one is still seriously endangered, outcome uncertain - and US is flying in the proper supplies.
This certainly overshadowed yesterday’s threats, the news that Libya’s dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi’s hired forces, armed with modern weapons and military planes, are overwhelming the insurgents , not only in the west, around Tripoli, but also are breaking through in the rebel tribe territory and eliminating his fellow Libyan enemies, opening the specter of Somalia , Srebrenica and Rwanda. This is the fight that the clever dictator has been preparing for during the past 40 years, slowly obliterating the limited democratic institutions inherited from the Italians’ and Brits’ colonial powers, weakening the army command, squashing tribal rulers and organizations of the intelligentsia. He has imported African and other mercenaries as his palace guard, meanwhile stashing away the oil income, making it inaccessible to the world’ s banking and UN regulatory forces.
Meanwhile, the President of the US, looked up to by the civilized nations hoping to stop the slaughter of Libyan rebels by aerial overflights if not direct invasion, is holding off, seeking approval from the African Union and Arab League dictators, the latter itself either torn by their own young seeking democracy, as in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, or barely holding off the masses by money gifts and quick concessions and promises, as in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco and slightly heaving Algeria, Iraq and Syria. President G. H. W. Bush was clever, assembling the Desert Storm coalition of 32 nations before tackling Saddam Hussein for the gulf war starting in 1989, unlike his headstrong son.
Incredibly, the 22-member Arab League has asked the Security Council to impose a no-fly zone. We are still hesitant; the guarding of the rebels against aerial overflights would be very dangerous for the US, possibly leading to land involvements and other military operations, so Obama is wisely holding out for real Gulf Cooperative Council participation. Meanwhile the US is hurting abroad, by collateral deaths of civilians in Afghanistan, engineered and exploited by PR- clever Talibans.
In the US, power-hungry tea party minded Republican governors in WI, MI, FL and other heavily red states are writing budgets and laws that create unemployment, by firing civil servants and schoolteachers . In Wisconsin, creating jobs and getting out of the recession becomes secondary, when the opportunity of breaking the unions and reorganizing the country in the image of the rich, as represented by the billionaire Koch brothers, becomes a 2012 reality. But Gov. Scott Walker’s Wisconsin model of eliminating bargaining rights for public employees has alarmed the non wealthy among the Republican and Conservative, and there may be a groundswell against it, one hopes.
In this context, the Florida events are interesting. Florida’s new governor Rick Scott, a lawyer who in 1987 founded Columbia/Health Corporation of America, US largest for-pay hospital chain, was forced to resign when C/HCA admitted to felonious misbillings of Medicare, and was fined $600M, the largest settlement on record at the time. CEO Scott walked off with $88M settlement and $300M in stock, and became a venture capitalist, with Health Network, WebMD and a pharmacy chain, Pharmaca, in his portfolio. He moved into FL politics in 2010, spending $60M personal money in campaigning, beating Republican Bill McCollum in the primary and narrowly defeating Democrat Alex Sink. Note that South Florida, particularly Broward County has been well known as the illegal pill-mill state, doling out nine times the volume of Oxicontine than the rest of the country/ Hundreds of out of state cars are coming to the 130 Broward County clinics, drivers armed with old x-rays and diagnoses of chronic afflictions, shopping for willing doctors, and buying drugs for peddling in other states. There is a database of distributions that successfully points fingers to doctors and pharmacies, and the legislature has accepted private funds for its maintenance, because Gov. Scott will not allocate funds, claiming excessive government interference in private affairs! Purdue Pharma, Oxicontine maker, has offered $1M towards the maintenance of the pill data base, but Scott has refused to accept it. This is the same governor who also rejected the federally funded high-speed rail, claiming that cost overruns will ruin the state, and will fire 8,600 government workers, slashing expenses by $4.6B and distributing $1.8 as tax cuts, for private industry as tax incentives, towards more employment. It is ironic, when Florida, in a successful attempt to restore a dozen of its non-functioning high schools, has already replaced 50 percent of teachers by young highly motivated ones in such high schools as Miami Central. Those will probably be the teachers that Gov. Scott will have fired. Florida is a strange state, no accounting whom they will elect in high offices.
The President, in a press conference stressing our support for the Japanese allies, also presented his economic goals. First of all, making the US in 20 years 80 percent independent of energy imports, by initiatives in increased drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, and producing natural gas, despite our concern that the extraction-pushing chemicals can pollute our rivers and drinking water aquifers. While he recognizes that the US only holds 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves, it is enough until the renewable energy resources – biofuels, wind, solar, hydraulic - are sufficiently developed. Sacred capitalist idols Warren Buffet and T. Boone Pickens were quoted to convince the unbelievers.
More about state budgets, particularly Governor Andrew Cuomo’s efforts, soon.
There is this possibly irrational conviction that this writers holds, that world order collapses whenever he ventures outside the canyons of New York City. Take the most recent fatal date, Friday March 11. At the time of this writing the news had come down that Japan has suffered not only the biggest earthquake in its history (also fifth most destructive in the planet’s recorded history, at least since Prof. Richter invented his famous scale75 years ago), but that not one but five nuclear energy plants were in danger of exploding, a genuine world threat .It actually happened, with three limited meltdowns, within two days, for want of coolant water. Fortunately the containment walls held – one is still seriously endangered, outcome uncertain - and US is flying in the proper supplies.
This certainly overshadowed yesterday’s threats, the news that Libya’s dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi’s hired forces, armed with modern weapons and military planes, are overwhelming the insurgents , not only in the west, around Tripoli, but also are breaking through in the rebel tribe territory and eliminating his fellow Libyan enemies, opening the specter of Somalia , Srebrenica and Rwanda. This is the fight that the clever dictator has been preparing for during the past 40 years, slowly obliterating the limited democratic institutions inherited from the Italians’ and Brits’ colonial powers, weakening the army command, squashing tribal rulers and organizations of the intelligentsia. He has imported African and other mercenaries as his palace guard, meanwhile stashing away the oil income, making it inaccessible to the world’ s banking and UN regulatory forces.
Meanwhile, the President of the US, looked up to by the civilized nations hoping to stop the slaughter of Libyan rebels by aerial overflights if not direct invasion, is holding off, seeking approval from the African Union and Arab League dictators, the latter itself either torn by their own young seeking democracy, as in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, or barely holding off the masses by money gifts and quick concessions and promises, as in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco and slightly heaving Algeria, Iraq and Syria. President G. H. W. Bush was clever, assembling the Desert Storm coalition of 32 nations before tackling Saddam Hussein for the gulf war starting in 1989, unlike his headstrong son.
Incredibly, the 22-member Arab League has asked the Security Council to impose a no-fly zone. We are still hesitant; the guarding of the rebels against aerial overflights would be very dangerous for the US, possibly leading to land involvements and other military operations, so Obama is wisely holding out for real Gulf Cooperative Council participation. Meanwhile the US is hurting abroad, by collateral deaths of civilians in Afghanistan, engineered and exploited by PR- clever Talibans.
In the US, power-hungry tea party minded Republican governors in WI, MI, FL and other heavily red states are writing budgets and laws that create unemployment, by firing civil servants and schoolteachers . In Wisconsin, creating jobs and getting out of the recession becomes secondary, when the opportunity of breaking the unions and reorganizing the country in the image of the rich, as represented by the billionaire Koch brothers, becomes a 2012 reality. But Gov. Scott Walker’s Wisconsin model of eliminating bargaining rights for public employees has alarmed the non wealthy among the Republican and Conservative, and there may be a groundswell against it, one hopes.
In this context, the Florida events are interesting. Florida’s new governor Rick Scott, a lawyer who in 1987 founded Columbia/Health Corporation of America, US largest for-pay hospital chain, was forced to resign when C/HCA admitted to felonious misbillings of Medicare, and was fined $600M, the largest settlement on record at the time. CEO Scott walked off with $88M settlement and $300M in stock, and became a venture capitalist, with Health Network, WebMD and a pharmacy chain, Pharmaca, in his portfolio. He moved into FL politics in 2010, spending $60M personal money in campaigning, beating Republican Bill McCollum in the primary and narrowly defeating Democrat Alex Sink. Note that South Florida, particularly Broward County has been well known as the illegal pill-mill state, doling out nine times the volume of Oxicontine than the rest of the country/ Hundreds of out of state cars are coming to the 130 Broward County clinics, drivers armed with old x-rays and diagnoses of chronic afflictions, shopping for willing doctors, and buying drugs for peddling in other states. There is a database of distributions that successfully points fingers to doctors and pharmacies, and the legislature has accepted private funds for its maintenance, because Gov. Scott will not allocate funds, claiming excessive government interference in private affairs! Purdue Pharma, Oxicontine maker, has offered $1M towards the maintenance of the pill data base, but Scott has refused to accept it. This is the same governor who also rejected the federally funded high-speed rail, claiming that cost overruns will ruin the state, and will fire 8,600 government workers, slashing expenses by $4.6B and distributing $1.8 as tax cuts, for private industry as tax incentives, towards more employment. It is ironic, when Florida, in a successful attempt to restore a dozen of its non-functioning high schools, has already replaced 50 percent of teachers by young highly motivated ones in such high schools as Miami Central. Those will probably be the teachers that Gov. Scott will have fired. Florida is a strange state, no accounting whom they will elect in high offices.
The President, in a press conference stressing our support for the Japanese allies, also presented his economic goals. First of all, making the US in 20 years 80 percent independent of energy imports, by initiatives in increased drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, and producing natural gas, despite our concern that the extraction-pushing chemicals can pollute our rivers and drinking water aquifers. While he recognizes that the US only holds 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves, it is enough until the renewable energy resources – biofuels, wind, solar, hydraulic - are sufficiently developed. Sacred capitalist idols Warren Buffet and T. Boone Pickens were quoted to convince the unbelievers.
More about state budgets, particularly Governor Andrew Cuomo’s efforts, soon.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Multi-tasking reduces productivity, say scientists
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
This is by way of a sincere apology for not responding to all my good friends who write to me and send invitations, via Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and Linkedin and also forward to me, as part of their mailing lists, right and left-wing, pro or anti-Israel stories, streams of crude witticisms (I’m sometimes tempted to tease you with them), beautiful picture series of Capri, Istanbul and US winter scenes, and recorded streams of French and Italian chanteuses and chanteurs. (thank you for the great Only You Can Make The Night Seem Bright!) . When you twit me about not responding, I can only apologize about the days being too short to do the daily tasks and accommodate my writing foibles, much less accepting new ones. Multi-tasking is getting difficult.
When younger, I would multi-task with glee, but that was non-technological. I would travel the office building to talk to difficult people (phone non-answerers) by humbly dropping in, for a minute, or have two lunches in the corporate dining room in one lunch hour. Nowadays you see a young person carrying a laptop or i-Pad, i-Pod, Blackberry and earphone music, multi-tasking all day. College students interviewed find university education less demanding than high school, since more electronics are allowed in classroom, and studying can be substituted by lookup. An Ivy League student claims to never have time to read a full –length book, and will never see Hamlet or King Lear in print, except in a short Notes edition. He will write his paper by cribbing from the summary, and keep his compositions brief. There is no time for him to engage in sustained thought and profound analysis, and he may not be equipped for it, having been brought up in a technologically advanced progressive environment, with all the proper toys.
Interestingly, some subpar schools in poor districts have been brought up to a decent level of accomplishment by energetic young principals, who have introduced one-on-one computers in the classrooms, with word games and entertaining applications as lures. That, of course, can turn the atmosphere in 5th grade from illiteracy to literacy, and, properly guided, will carry into higher grades. Until college, that is where social media reign, keeping students from studying.
On a national level, that means that wealthy American students will turn into less accomplished scientists, researchers and developers than their 3rd World counterparts. I seem to recall that China has turned a 40 percent high school graduation rate in the 1970s into a high 70s rate in the last decade, with well=prepared grads. If you have followed the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, by Amy Chua, law professor at Yale, you know how it is done, by denying her children play dates, sleepovers, participation in school plays, TV and computer games, and demanding hours of music practice. Chua threatened, intimidated, called her children stupid and tolerated no resistance. The Chinese attitude is, she claims, that children owe their parents everything, and have to spend their lives repaying. Children are deemed strong, and able to take it, there is no fear of creating a feeling of inferiority, and with it goes also a huge amount of parental time spent (she refused to accept her Caucasian husband’s objections). How does the child survive in school? Based on a Korean musician’s comments – he too had a mother who did not accept any grades k\less than A – you are a loner, somewhat accepted because of the grades, but socially ignored. A Chinese commentator noted that she hated her parents and did not cry at their funerals, another social contract breach, not in our context.
Without going into an evaluation of East v. West, let’s return to the Western multi-tasking review. Obviously the Eastern students develop more technical skills, but not as good social skills for the technical/ research/developer/ integrator careers that we are shooting for, since in manual work we cannot compete with the docile dollar an hour 3rd world laborer.
But will we continue to be the superior tech nation? Is this social media overwhelmed world ruining us? Scientists at MIT’s Picower Institute of learning and Memory study hoe many simultaneous tasks primates can handle, finding that monkeys can distinguish between cats and dogs, and sedans and sports cars, by function. This has to do with neurons in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, of which the primates have 500. Autistic children may not do as well and will have a clash, e.g. when not being able to tell that a green and a blue toothbrush have the same function.
In our business world, true multitasking such as texting and talking on the phone can also cause a clash, and we will not be able to perform top-notch at either task. Even thinking about multitasking can knock off 10 points of one’s IQ, equivalent to losing a night’s sleep. Switching back and forth while solving a complex math problem can take 40 points off one’s score (Journal of Experimental Psychology). The slowdown can cause a vicious cycle of release of stress hormones and adrenaline. Rage at interruptions and interrupters is another byproduct of multi-tasking. If you watch savants at talk shows going at each other without bodily injuries, it is because they have professionally trained themselves to behave.
Life in big cities with constant multi-tasking. is typically stress producing. Doing homework while watching TV is inefficient and stressful, finds Prof. Russell Potrock of UCal. It sends the information directly to the striatum (learning area) and to hypocampus (storage), without involving the prefrontal cortex (analysis). “We are built to focus,” and such splitting of tasks is bad for the child’s development, leading to the attention deficit trait, declares psychiatrist Edward Hallowell. Mother was right all along.
Among the miscreants in our efficiency one might identify a period of recession, right here and now, which puts a dominant problem such as lost job, need for income and housing, and family problems, all squarely into the prefrontal cortex, causing lack of ability to hear discussions and to address issues. It was therefore amazing, during the Clinton years, how the President was able to squarely isolate topics and give them full attention. Nixon lacked this ability; Obama seems to have it. Good for our side. As for us ordinary mortals, we were born to suffer. Only the paranoid can survive in today’s world .without going crazy..
This is by way of a sincere apology for not responding to all my good friends who write to me and send invitations, via Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and Linkedin and also forward to me, as part of their mailing lists, right and left-wing, pro or anti-Israel stories, streams of crude witticisms (I’m sometimes tempted to tease you with them), beautiful picture series of Capri, Istanbul and US winter scenes, and recorded streams of French and Italian chanteuses and chanteurs. (thank you for the great Only You Can Make The Night Seem Bright!) . When you twit me about not responding, I can only apologize about the days being too short to do the daily tasks and accommodate my writing foibles, much less accepting new ones. Multi-tasking is getting difficult.
When younger, I would multi-task with glee, but that was non-technological. I would travel the office building to talk to difficult people (phone non-answerers) by humbly dropping in, for a minute, or have two lunches in the corporate dining room in one lunch hour. Nowadays you see a young person carrying a laptop or i-Pad, i-Pod, Blackberry and earphone music, multi-tasking all day. College students interviewed find university education less demanding than high school, since more electronics are allowed in classroom, and studying can be substituted by lookup. An Ivy League student claims to never have time to read a full –length book, and will never see Hamlet or King Lear in print, except in a short Notes edition. He will write his paper by cribbing from the summary, and keep his compositions brief. There is no time for him to engage in sustained thought and profound analysis, and he may not be equipped for it, having been brought up in a technologically advanced progressive environment, with all the proper toys.
Interestingly, some subpar schools in poor districts have been brought up to a decent level of accomplishment by energetic young principals, who have introduced one-on-one computers in the classrooms, with word games and entertaining applications as lures. That, of course, can turn the atmosphere in 5th grade from illiteracy to literacy, and, properly guided, will carry into higher grades. Until college, that is where social media reign, keeping students from studying.
On a national level, that means that wealthy American students will turn into less accomplished scientists, researchers and developers than their 3rd World counterparts. I seem to recall that China has turned a 40 percent high school graduation rate in the 1970s into a high 70s rate in the last decade, with well=prepared grads. If you have followed the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, by Amy Chua, law professor at Yale, you know how it is done, by denying her children play dates, sleepovers, participation in school plays, TV and computer games, and demanding hours of music practice. Chua threatened, intimidated, called her children stupid and tolerated no resistance. The Chinese attitude is, she claims, that children owe their parents everything, and have to spend their lives repaying. Children are deemed strong, and able to take it, there is no fear of creating a feeling of inferiority, and with it goes also a huge amount of parental time spent (she refused to accept her Caucasian husband’s objections). How does the child survive in school? Based on a Korean musician’s comments – he too had a mother who did not accept any grades k\less than A – you are a loner, somewhat accepted because of the grades, but socially ignored. A Chinese commentator noted that she hated her parents and did not cry at their funerals, another social contract breach, not in our context.
Without going into an evaluation of East v. West, let’s return to the Western multi-tasking review. Obviously the Eastern students develop more technical skills, but not as good social skills for the technical/ research/developer/ integrator careers that we are shooting for, since in manual work we cannot compete with the docile dollar an hour 3rd world laborer.
But will we continue to be the superior tech nation? Is this social media overwhelmed world ruining us? Scientists at MIT’s Picower Institute of learning and Memory study hoe many simultaneous tasks primates can handle, finding that monkeys can distinguish between cats and dogs, and sedans and sports cars, by function. This has to do with neurons in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, of which the primates have 500. Autistic children may not do as well and will have a clash, e.g. when not being able to tell that a green and a blue toothbrush have the same function.
In our business world, true multitasking such as texting and talking on the phone can also cause a clash, and we will not be able to perform top-notch at either task. Even thinking about multitasking can knock off 10 points of one’s IQ, equivalent to losing a night’s sleep. Switching back and forth while solving a complex math problem can take 40 points off one’s score (Journal of Experimental Psychology). The slowdown can cause a vicious cycle of release of stress hormones and adrenaline. Rage at interruptions and interrupters is another byproduct of multi-tasking. If you watch savants at talk shows going at each other without bodily injuries, it is because they have professionally trained themselves to behave.
Life in big cities with constant multi-tasking. is typically stress producing. Doing homework while watching TV is inefficient and stressful, finds Prof. Russell Potrock of UCal. It sends the information directly to the striatum (learning area) and to hypocampus (storage), without involving the prefrontal cortex (analysis). “We are built to focus,” and such splitting of tasks is bad for the child’s development, leading to the attention deficit trait, declares psychiatrist Edward Hallowell. Mother was right all along.
Among the miscreants in our efficiency one might identify a period of recession, right here and now, which puts a dominant problem such as lost job, need for income and housing, and family problems, all squarely into the prefrontal cortex, causing lack of ability to hear discussions and to address issues. It was therefore amazing, during the Clinton years, how the President was able to squarely isolate topics and give them full attention. Nixon lacked this ability; Obama seems to have it. Good for our side. As for us ordinary mortals, we were born to suffer. Only the paranoid can survive in today’s world .without going crazy..
Labels: multi-task
