05 Monday Dec 2016
Tags
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR Memorial, Washington, D.C.
With Trump’s choices of ex-investment banker/hedge fund billionaire Stephen Mnuchin to head up Treasury, and the King of Bankruptcy Wilbur Ross to head up Commerce, and self-declared crusader of ACA repeal Tom Price to head up Health and Human Services I thought it was a good time to remember what FDR said as President of the United States:
FDR Memorial, Washington, D.C.
26 Thursday Feb 2015
Posted in Men
Grampa had an airplane. Bryce has a drone.
Model airplanes were all the rage when I was a boy. People would spend hours assembling replicas of World War II bombers or historic planes like The Spirit of St. Louis. The really ambitious kids (usually high school age) put motors on their models and flew them by radio control.
I was reminded of this because of two events in the news recently. First, one of the places where people used to buy radio-controlled planes — Radio Shack — filed for bankruptcy. That’s really sad. First we lost record stores, then book stores and now we are losing electronic supply stores. What’s next, newsstands?
The second recent event that brought the old radio-controlled model airplanes to mind is the flight of a drone onto the grounds of the White House. The President was in India at the time and no damage was done, but the incident further tarnished the reputation of the Secret Service.
Drones first came to the attention of the American public when the military began using them in Pakistan and Afghanistan to target terrorists. But they have been around for years. The civilian versions are usually equipped with GPS and camera and can be programmed to fly a specific course. Prices have dropped in recent years and you can buy a good one now for under $100.
The most popular type of drone is what’s know as a Quad Copter because it has four propellers. They can fly for miles from the controller. And that makes them perfect for search and rescue operations, farming applications and traffic reports. In fact, I would not be surprised if drones replace helicopters for traffic reports in the very near future. They can be sent airborne quickly and moved around with ease. The cameras today are high definition, and they cost a tiny fraction of what a helicopter with a pilot and camera crew cost.
Drones are the future of delivery as well. Amazon announced recently that they want to deliver packages by drone. The FAA is not cool with that yet, but the day will come. I certainly can see newspaper home delivery services using drones in the future.
Yes, it seems likely that the air will be full of drones in the next 20 years. It’s not flying cars, but there is something Jetsonian about drones. Oh sure, there may be problems with abuses like Peeping Tom Drones and Police Drones. There may even be drones falling out of the sky on to people. But every new technology has bugs to be worked out. Hell, we’re still working out the bugs in the Internet after more than 20 years. I have confidence that drones will become commonplace, along with self-driving cars.
Speaking of self-driving cars — that seems to have a lot of potential for providing a way for the elderly to get to the supermarket or the drugstore without endangering anyone. New technology does not allow these autonomous cars to get close enough to another object to hit it. Soon, the Little Old Lady From Pasadena may be hitting the road in something made by Google or Apple. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind that myself. Old age is going to be fun after all!
03 Tuesday Feb 2015
Tags
Kids love sugar.
Who am I kidding? Just about everyone loves sugar. But it’s not very good for us. That’s how I got to be 60 pounds overweight. Be it cake, candy or ice cream, I crave sweets. I often joke that I wasn’t born with just a sweet tooth — I have a mouth full of them. So when my blood sugar levels began to rise in recent years and my doctor began warning me of impending diabetes, I had to admit that I was addicted to sugar. I think this particular addiction is shared by most people.
Cutting back on sugar was key to my recent weight loss. I hope that it also helps me avoid diabetes. But sugar is the devil constantly tempting me. So when my grandson Bryce was born, his parents decided to have his first year of life be sugar-free. He has been eating fruits, and that is about as much sweet as he has been allowed.
But when his first birthday party came, the celebration included Bryce’s first cupcake with icing. To say that he enjoyed it is an understatement. He rubbed the icing all over his face and even into his hair as if to enjoy the sugar by osmosis. Bryce smiled from ear to ear as the sugar high registered in his brain. As his grownup relatives watched, Bryce became a sugar baby. Can candy be far behind? Oh, the humanity!
27 Tuesday Jan 2015
Tags
Take me to the desert.
This time of year as I venture outside I often think of the old song:
All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray
I’ve been for a walk on a winter’s day
I’d be safe and warm if I was in L.A.
California dreamin` on such a winter’s day
The older I get, the more I dread winter. Since my heart attack more than a decade ago I have been excused from any heavy-duty snow shoveling. I still operate the snow blower from time to time, but even that chore is now often handled for me by others. So snow removal is not the issue. Driving in snow is still bothersome, but it’s not such a big deal because I need only drive two miles to my bus every morning.
No, the real issue is the cold. I can’t take it as well as I used to. Maybe I can blame it on losing 40 pounds of fat since last winter. Or maybe my heart medications have irrevocably thinned my blood. But after a week of sub-freezing temperatures I’m ready to move south. But since I still need to work for a living and work is in the windy, concrete canyon that is Manhattan, the best I can do is make a hot cup of coffee and look at pictures of warm places.
In that vein, I was looking recently at some pictures I took of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona last year. I was reading that during the winter months, from November to April, the daytime temperatures in the Sonoran Desert range from 70°F to 90°F. That sounds extremely cozy for a January day. I wish I was there.
As I mentioned, I visited the Arizona portion of the Sonoran Desert last year. This year, I plan to visit the California portion, which includes Palm Springs. While desert living used to be only for the extremely hardy, air-conditioning has opened up these areas to a lifestyle that is Nirvana to a cold New Yorker. Of course snow is not an issue except on the top of mountains. The fact that it rains only a few days a year means almost constant sunshine. Having a dreary winter day in the Northeast? Just dial up a webcam in the desert and you can almost feel the dry heat.
The other thing I do to conjure up the desert is to look at my pictures of Saguaro cactus. These are the large, iconic cacti that grow only in the Sonoran Desert.They live to be as much as 150-200 years old I found them really beautiful and surprisingly hard to the touch. Before I went to Arizona, I had always thought that these cacti were soft, but the Saguaro Cactus has a hard wood-like feel similar to a tree. And in fact, I was told that dead Saguaro cacti are often used as wood for construction of roofs and fences in Arizona.
So as I endure yet another New York winter, my eye is on the calendar. Spring training begins in mid-February and the first pre-season Yankees game is March 4. After that, it’s a hop, skip and a jump until the first day of spring. Until then, I can huddle over a cup of hot something or other, look at pictures and think of the warm desert. California Dreamin’ on such a winter’s day.
20 Tuesday Jan 2015
Posted in Concepts, Entertainment, Men, Opinion
Tags
Black Mirror, Frank Terranella, Her, Joaquin Phoenix, Netflix, Scarlett Johansson, Spike Jonze, The Twilight Zone
The upside of Netflix being shut out by movie studios from streaming new Hollywood movies is that they have had to look high and low for content. The low has been some putrid indie films. The high has been some great British television. An example of the best is a British television series called “Black Mirror.” There are only six episodes available, but they are well worth your time.
Black Mirror has been described as an anthology series like The Twilight Zone, and it does have some similarities in that each episode is thought-provoking and often deals in moral or ethical issues. It’s set in the near future and technology plays an important role in each episode. For example, there is an episode called “The Entire History of You” that envisions a time where we all have video recorders attached to our eyes and implanted in our heads. This allows us to play back everything we experience at will on nearby television screens. While this instantly settles disputes about what people said, it also causes lots of problems. For example, the question “where were you last night?” is not simply answered by words any longer. Now we go to the videotape to actually see what you saw last night. It’s an intriguing concept and one bound to improve honesty. But a young couple with trust issues finds the pitfalls of having all this “evidence” to dwell on.
Another episode that really struck me was one called “Be Right Back” in which a man tells his wife he’s just going out and will be right back, but then gets killed in an auto accident. At the funeral, a friend tells the widow that there is a service available that takes all of a person’s online activity (pictures, emails, tweets, etc.) and creates a humanoid in that person’s form that has that person’s personality including memories, vocabulary and sense of humor. She urges the widow to simply re-create her husband from his online persona. After some initial misgivings, she agrees. The humanoid arrives and is indistinguishable from her husband and has all his online memories. But there are problems in any human-humanoid relationship and the episode shows them and how they are resolved. The episode seeks to explore the question whether a person is really just the sum of his online communications. By the way, the widow is played by Hayley Atwell, whom you may know as Agent Carter in the recent ABC television series.
The “Be Right Back” episode reminds me of another film that explored the romantic relationship between man and machine. It is the 2013 Spike Jonze film “Her” starring Joaquin Phoenix and the voice of Scarlett Johansson. There, Phoenix plays a man who literally falls in love with the Siri-like voice of his computer. This is not as far-fetched as it sounds. As computer assistants become more and more sophisticated, we are encouraged to think of them as persons. That’s why they have names. But any relationship between artificial intelligence and real intelligence is bound to be fraught with problems and that is what “Her” shows. Can a person be in love with a dis-embodied voice or is a body necessary? If you think about it, this is not a new question. In the past, there have been dis-embodied, long-distance relationships by mail or later telephone. Most of these did not work out once the parties met face to face, because real life is different from the intellectual life.
About six months ago I wrote about the peril of mistaking a life online with a real life. I urged readers to “Friend someone who lives in your neighborhood, rather than on Facebook. Deliver a Tweet in person. Interact with flesh and blood people and not just their avatars.” Television programs such as “Black Mirror” and films such as “Her” show why artificial friends are as unhealthy as imaginary ones. It’s easy to be seduced by technology. That voice on your phone sounds so real. It’s always polite and helpful. Real people can be bothersome, rude and even hostile. But ultimately an online relationship is a fantasy. And living in a fantasy world, you always run the risk of a rude awakening.
13 Tuesday Jan 2015
Fear. Personified.
On March 4, 1933 Franklin Roosevelt took office in the midst of a national emergency. The closest thing in recent times was the economic meltdown in the fall of 2008. The fear on Wall Street was palpable. But then, thanks to the reforms that FDR made that were not repealed by Bill Clinton, there was no run on the banks. Our financial system was saved through an infusion of capital from the federal government.
Ironically, the very people who continually preached that the government should just leave them alone came running to the government when their fear led to panic. And Uncle Sam bailed them out.
Fear is a curious thing. It makes rational people abandon reason. FDR knew that. In fact, he began his inaugural address like this:
President Hoover, Mr. Chief Justice, my friends: This is a day of national consecration. And I am certain that on this day my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency, I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impels. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure, as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
FDR knew that if he could calm people’s fears, he could get them to act rationally. If he could take emotion out of the equation, people would use their brains and they would find solutions to the nation’s problems.
I bring all this up because just as 2008 was a distant echo of 1933, so too is the fear that ran rampant in the 1930s alive and infecting our nation in 2015 in myriad ways.
We fear terrorists, illegal immigrants, criminals. Democrats fear Republicans and Republicans fear Democrats. Our politics is rampant with fear. Let’s take just one simple example. According to the GunPolicy.org there are about 300 million guns in the United States. These guns killed 12,532 people in 2014. Estimates are that 1 in every 3 Americans owns a gun
Why do people have guns? Fear.
Talk to a Second Amendment enthusiast and you will find a very scared person. Gun ownership increases with fear. And fear defeats any rational attempt to legislate controls on guns. So is it any wonder why the more people are killed by guns, the more people want to own theirs?
Another more mundane example is SUVs. Despite high gas prices until very recently, SUV sales have remained high. Why? Because once you own an SUV you feel defenseless in a smaller car. What if you get hit by an SUV? Many people rationalize that you need to have a light truck in order to survive on the road today. And what’s that all about — fear. So people have flocked to buy these gas guzzlers and some even went so far as to buy Hummers, the assault rifle of SUVs.
Finally, there is the fear of “the other.” This is an ancient fear that rears its head at regular intervals. Currently, the “others” include Mexican immigrants, homosexuals and Muslims. Our political discourse, aided and abetted by the Supreme Court, adds to the problem by using fear as a political weapon. If you really were to pay attention to the political advertisements that are coming our way in the next two years you would be paralyzed with fear. What to do?
Americans have got to get a handle on their fears. Now I know that for many people that is a tall order. But surely the 74% of Americans who believe in life after death can bring themselves to suppress their fear of death enough to act rationally on issues like gun control.
One positive effect of having had cancer twice is that I no longer fear death as much as I used to. So for me the feeling that a gun in my house may hurt someone I love trumps the fear that might lead me to buy a gun for “protection.” The rationality of my decision is bolstered by the recent sad story from Idaho where a 2-year-old playing with a gun he found in his mother’s purse shot and killed his mother in a Walmart. Think it was a freak accident? Think again. The very same tragedy happened a month earlier in Oklahoma. There, the three-year-old child picked up the gun while his mother was changing a one-year-old’s diaper. Why does the mother of a small child who probably has safety plugs on the electrical sockets at home carry a gun?
That four-letter word, FEAR — fear that always results in bad judgment and often leads to tragedy. I could go on and on about the ways in which fear infests our nation. I haven’t even mentioned the overblown reaction to 9/11 that puts military in our bus and train terminals and make us take our shoes off at airports. But my wish for 2015 is that Americans get a grip on their fears and contemplate Franklin Roosevelt’s wise admonition — “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Only then can we begin to rationally solve our nation’s problems.
05 Monday Jan 2015
Posted in Confessional, Men
My Weight-Loss Chart
And so another new year is upon us. To those of us in the 50+ club, all years that start with a 2 are inherently foreign. When I hear that we are now beginning 2015, it sounds to me like someone saying it’s the 45th of September. It just sounds wrong.
My 91-year-old stepfather has a similar reaction. When I tell him we’re starting 2015 he jokingly puts his hand up and says, “Check, please.”
I’m not quite ready to check out yet, but 15 years into the 21st century, I do sometimes feel like it’s getting close to closing time. Longtime readers of this blog may remember that in July 2013 I wrote that I was resigned to the Hitchcock look of a massive gut for the rest of my life. So when my cardiologist told me to lose weight or have bariatric surgery like Chris Christie, I was initially skeptical that any sustained weight loss was possible for me.
But in order to comply with my doctor’s orders, I started with Weight Watchers in late June 2014. At my first weigh-in I tipped the scales at a hefty 224 pounds. Just about every week thereafter I have lost some weight. Sometimes it was just two-tenths of a pound. But by the end of December I was down to 184, a loss of 40 pounds. I have lost four inches around my waist. But I’m still about 10 pounds from what I initially set as my goal weight, and 25 pounds from the weight that the experts say is appropriate for my height and age. So it’s a process. I saw my cardiologist in December and he was extremely pleased at my reduced size and healthy blood pressure. I have had similar compliments from friends and family.
Weight loss is not a mystery. It involves simply eating less and exercising more. Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong. I have lost weight by cutting down on sweets and hitting the treadmill on a daily basis. Notice that I didn’t say that I have eliminated sweets. Weight Watchers is not into complete deprivation of anything. In fact, we are encouraged to have weekly treats. The trick is to be conscious of everything we’re putting into our mouth. More candy and cake means more treadmill and weightlifting. So far it’s been reasonably easy to live with.
The new year is the time for resolutions and I am sure that we will be seeing new people at the Weight Watchers meetings in January. Weight loss is a noble goal because you do it not only for yourself, but for your loved ones. But like all things that are worthwhile, it takes some effort. Sustaining that effort over time is the challenge of weight loss. I fully expect that I will gain some weight back some day. But I also know that I can lose it again. I know that because I’ve done it.
My doctor has been preaching weight loss to me for over a decade and until six months ago I was not sufficiently motivated to do anything about it. What changed in 2014? The truth is that it wasn’t just the doctor and his threat of bariatric surgery. In 2014 I became a grandfather, and I realized that if I didn’t start listening to medical advice I was not going to live long enough to see Bryce grow up. And I needed to be in shape to keep up with him. Funny how a baby can change your life in completely unexpected ways.
So I don’t have any New Year’s resolutions other than to try to finally reach my goal weight and stay there (or at least in the neighborhood). Next year at this time I’ll report back. Until then, have a healthy and happy 2015!
23 Tuesday Dec 2014
Posted in Confessional, Men
Bryce having pre-Christmas fun with Dad.
Dear Bryce:
So, at the age of 10 months, you may have noticed a great deal of unusual activity recently. Your parents have probably been spending more time in stores. When they come home, they wrap colored paper around what they bought.
“What’s up with that?” you may ask.
In your first visit to New York City you probably were wondering why your mother and father took you to see a big tree full of colored lights. And you probably have noticed that your neighborhood also has a lot of these same colored lights around. And you may have seen some people wearing a lot of red, particularly fat men with big white beards.
“What’s the story, grandpa?” you may ask.
OK, here’s the skinny. It’s called “Christmas” and it comes every year at this time. It’s sort of a big deal, particularly for kids like you because — and you better sit down for this — it’s a day that people give you lots of neat stuff to play with and to eat. They even ask you to make a list of what you want and then — and here’s the best part — they get it for you!!
And you know all that colored paper — you get to rip it off and you get to play with it and the box too. You may even want to play with what’s inside. (Although this year it’s probably gonna be mostly things to keep you warm through your first winter in Vermont.)
Now you may be thinking, what’s so special about this Christmas day that makes people act so strangely?
Well, it started out as a celebration to mark the day a really nice man named Jesus Christ was born a really long time ago. It’s called a birthday. You’ll get your own celebration in a couple of months. We’ll call yours “Brycemass” if you want. Anyway, people liked this guy so much that when he was born, strangers traveled great distances to bring him presents. And we continue that tradition today. Only now we give presents to each other. Neat, huh?
Well if getting stuff from your mom and dad and your grandparents, aunts and uncles wasn’t good enough, there’s someone else who brings things to you at Christmas. He lives up at the North Pole. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know. Maybe he likes snow. Anyway, this guy is old and fat and always dresses in a red and white suit. His name is Nicholas but everyone calls him Santa Claus. He has a bunch of reindeer and a sled and every Christmas he packs it up with all the toys that boys and girls want and he delivers them while you’re asleep — sort of like the UPS man only without having to sign anything.
But just like the NSA, Santa sees you when you’re sleeping and knows when you’re awake. He has a database of who’s been naughty and who’s been nice. You have to be on the “nice” list to get presents. Word is that you can get presents even if you’re naughty sometimes, just as long as you’re mostly nice. Santa knows that no one’s perfect.
It’s an imperfect world and so people sometimes act naughty. But the thing about Christmas is that people make an effort to be nice. They’re not always successful, but most people try. That’s what really makes Christmas special.
About 50 years ago, when I was a kid, people were worrying about how people had forgotten why we celebrate Christmas and instead were focused on buying things. So a wise doctor named Seuss gave us a story about a Grinch who found out that people could celebrate Christmas without “things.” And an artist named Schulz gave us a story about some kids who get so wrapped up in decorations and Christmas plays that they forget the reason for the season. A boy named Linus reminded them.
Well if Christmas was too much about “things” 50 years ago, the years since have only given us more of the same. We now start “celebrating” Christmas beginning in October. We have a shopping day after Thanksgiving that is so crazy they call it “Black Friday.” What’s worse, storekeepers have come to rely on people buying stuff to excess in the last three months of the year as part of their business plans, and the media makes it almost un-American and certainly anti-capitalist to resist this command to buy.
But we can resist the urge to make Christmas about “things” and I hope that you will. Oh, I know how great it is to get new toys, and you will certainly have your share in the Christmases ahead. But always remember the lesson that Linus and the Grinch tried to teach us many years ago. The spirit of Christmas is not in the decorations, the presents, the trees or even the songs. It is in what you can do at Christmas and every day to assure that there is “peace on earth and good will to all men.”
Love always,
Grandpa Frank
P.S. I hear that if you leave some cookies for Santa, he can be extra generous. Even Santa works for tips.
16 Tuesday Dec 2014
Tags
If you live to be more than half a century you find yourself repeating certain things over and over. For example, you may eat Chinese food every New Year’s Eve, or you may vacation at Cape May every summer. And then there are the little things. You may get a Cafe Mocha at Starbucks every Thursday or a bagel every Friday. We are creatures of habit. There is comfort in sameness and predictability.
Well if you do something on the same day every year, and year after year, it’s safe to say you have created a tradition. Traditions start out innocently enough. There is a spark of inspiration and an act that is received well by others.
“Let’s host a Halloween party,” you may have said innocently back when such parties were rare. Now, 20 years later, you are still hosting that party. It’s a tradition.
As readers of this blog know, I was married on the day after Thanksgiving in 1978. So after my new bride and I returned from our honeymoon, it was time to prepare for Christmas. Back then, the Christmas season did not actually start until Santa arrived in the Macy’s Parade on Thanksgiving. And since the official Christmas season began later, it was not unusual for people to begin shopping just a week or two before Christmas. I was just at that point.
If you’re like me, one of the first things you did as a new couple was to merge your book and record collections. And so on a Monday afternoon in early December 1978 I merged my Christmas records with my wife’s. Back then, my work schedule got me home several hours before my wife. So after looking at all the combined Christmas music, I decided that I had some time and we needed a mix tape highlighting the best Christmas recordings from our respective collections.
I wanted to use tracks from the Carpenters Christmas album because it was one that we both loved. I put the needle down on the record and heard Richard Carpenter’s ethereal voice reciting the words to “O Come O Come Emmanuel” at the start of a great instrumental medley of songs. But I didn’t want to start the mix tape out cold with a solo voice. Just then, I noticed that my Philadelphia-born wife had in her collection a recording of Christmas music by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Symphony. And as luck would have it, there was a beautiful string-heavy recording of “O Come O Come Emmanuel.” I had my opening to the Christmas mix tape. We would go from the lush sounds of the Philadelphia Symphony right into Richard Carpenter’s solo voice and then on to that great medley.
It continued that way throughout the tape. I would use an instrumental followed by a vocal of the same song. Herb Alpert’s Christmas album (one record in both our collections) provided many of the instrumentals. My collection provided vocals by Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. My wife’s collection provided the same from Andy Williams and Perry Como. At the end, we had a beautiful mixing of our favorite Christmas music. My wife liked it so much, she put a label on the cassette box naming this “The Good Christmas Tape.”
That could have been the end of the story, but here is where tradition comes in. The next year, on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we came home from church, having celebrated the first Sunday of Advent. One of the hymns traditionally sung in Catholic churches on the first Sunday of Advent is “O Come O Come Emmanuel.” Having that tune in my head, as soon as we got home, I put the “Good Christmas Tape” in the cassette player and the beautiful sounds of Eugene Ormandy’s version of “O Come O Come Emmanuel” filled the apartment. A tradition had begun.
The following year on the same Sunday I played the same tape, and the year after that, and the year after that. And so it was that when I played “The Good Christmas Tape” this year (transferred to a CD sometime in the ’90s), I announced it as the 36th consecutive year. It’s amazing how fast the years have gone by, and how great it is to have a tradition to herald the season. Because after all, tradition is what the holiday season is all about.
11 Thursday Dec 2014
Tags
Christmas tree. Rockefeller Center.
There has long been a dichotomy among Americans. Some love cities; some love the country. Over the course of the last 200 years, Americans have been voting with their feet and cities have been winning. Still many prefer the rural life, at least some of the time. But whether you’re a city or a country person, most people agree that at Christmastime our cities shine.
Tourism in our great cities like London, Rome and New York increases dramatically in late December. People flock to see the store windows, the churches and the Christmas trees. Christmas music and Christmas theater abounds. In New York, the Rockettes head up a Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. Our concert halls and churches echo the glory of Handel’s “Messiah.” The Salvation Army rings its bells on street corners. It’s the scene saluted in the popular song “Silver Bells.”
City sidewalks, busy sidewalks.
Dressed in holiday style
In the air there’s a feeling of Christmas
Children laughing, people passing
Meeting smile after smile
and on every street corner you’ll hear
Silver bells, silver bells
It’s Christmas time in the city
I think that Christmas time in the city is magical. It is the one time of year when avowed country people are willing to put up with the city crowds. In New York they flock to Rockefeller Center, to Macy’s, Saks and FAO SCHWARZ. They marvel at the decorations on Fifth Avenue. They enjoy ice skating, walks in the park, and of course, the sound of silver bells.
And as the song says, “In the air there’s a feeling of Christmas.” I swear, it’s palpable. There’s nothing like a city at Christmas.
The Write Side of 59 