Bad Apple

       It was recently announced that the three best Charlie Brown TV specials would no longer be presented via linear TV, instead they would only be seen on Apple TV. Linear TV is the original concept of one to many TV featuring the broadcast of the signal over the public airwaves. Apple TV is just another cable channel.

      This news trended on the Internet all day, and then like most news was forgotten the next. Nothing illegal was done and in Apple's defense you can watch these classics for free on designated days.

     What irks people, I believe, is the indescribable loss of something they might have hoped would never change. Maybe the estate of Charles Schulz could have stated that these shows would forever be shown on public access airwaves, meaning you could stick an antenna out the window and watch them. I doubt this even crossed their minds given the immediate production of Peanuts balloons for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade right after "Sparky's death in February 2000.

      It's just another example of a huge corporation desperately trying to maximize their quarterly profit numbers with little regard for how their efforts will look. I own Apple products and consider them very good, though a company's management is not the same as they products they sell. Management decisions can cast products in an unfavorable light. This is one of those instances. We may not notice in the short run but in the long run when we have one less commonality to discuss, especially when we gather around the holidays, we'll probably notice the silence. Even if we figure out what's missing it will be hard to explain the timeless essence of these excellent TV programs to a younger generation. Maybe technology will come to the rescue and our future "Smart TV" will have the Apple TV app built-in. Then this loss of something special will be placed into the category of the vent window on the side of automobiles or the introduction of the DH in Baseball. Both created minor furors but then the next sound you heard was that of the crickets breaking the silence.

School Bake Sales

     I always liked the Election Day Bake Sales which were held in the hallways of elementary schools doing double duty as polling venues. It was common for stay-at-home Moms to bake sweets and also sell the goods which were baked. This contribution never found its way into Gross Domestic Product (GDP) numbers or was written about in history books as an example of civic pride. 

     Growing up not many people voted absentee and there wasn't any early voting. This year will be complicated by the fact Republican like to vote in person and Democrats are leaning towards voting by mail. It will make for a long election night and maybe even an election week or two. Neither candidate will gracefully bow out of the race before all the ballots have been counted. No doubt some ballots will be recounted to verify the integrity of the process.

 

      It's all over the news how armed men will in some states like Michigan will be legally patrolling voting places. The law might indicate that they must be thirty feet away but that still is close enough to intimidate. I don't know any reason why they feel compelled to dress up in broad daylight in camouflage meant for hiding in woods. Maybe it gives them courage like the masks they will use to hide their faces. I can't imagine how that must look to a child who really would be better off dreaming about what they plan to buy at the bake sale.

Libby

       Libby is an app and it can be accessed via your web browser. If you have a library card you enter the number and then are digitally transported to the confines of your favorite branch. I am lucky to live in Queens New York which has 63 branches and a huge selection of online books.

     Now if this wasn't the era of Covid I would simply search for what I wanted and then walk over to pick it up when they said it was available. Living in the times of Covid I am less likely to want to visit any place for very long. Unfortunately, a library is a place I tend to visit for hours.

     With this new free access I have a limited selection of electronic books which I can increase the type size of to make them more readable. Reading a book digitally takes some getting used to but it's worth it. I missed the selection the library has to offer just as I miss going to book stores. This is a compromise which I am willing to live with, as should anyone who is a reader at heart.

     Depending upon your library and the title you want to read there might be a wait. Though that is explained in detail. Authors have to earn money so they can't have all the books of the world in unlimited copies. I view this as more than fair. It also makes you hunt for books and you might possible read something new and not your usual style. Well worth the effort.

Laura Fleming

      I got to know Laura long after we graduated in a class of over 550 students. She was a tireless worker for so many causes. I feel lucky to worked with her on a couple of class reunions. One of her former students, Sanjana Rajagopal, gave her a eulogy better than I ever could:

 

Woke up today morning to the news that my AP Euro teacher, History Bowl chaperone, and all around one of the sweetest people I knew passed away. I still vividly remember her encouraging my love for Russian history and taking a giant group of us to DC for History Bowl Nationals not once but twice. Even recently she told me she was so happy to see me teaching, and to see my research headed in a direction very much related to her class. Our last face to face conversation was in the library of RHS, where I was telling her about my plans to do the PhD.

When I see my students today on Zoom, I’ll keep your wonderful heart, patience, and care in mind, Mrs. Fleming. You touched the lives of so many at Ridgewood High School. 

 

Medical Mathematics

      I saw the term "Medical Mathematics" today in reference to our president. People are justifiably concerned with his health, especially less than 4 weeks to an election. They want some numbers with which to compare his health. These numbers have been around according to Fabrizio Bigotti since at least "the early 1600s, when a professor of medicine, Santorio Santori, helped perfect devices to measure body temperature and pulse rate." 

     The precision of our numbers today and the vast amount of literature available to analyze them with has led to a cottage industry of people making a medical diagnosis via the Internet. It's not the best method and we ought to be provided with the president's results if only to stem the conspiracy theories. This withholding of information is nothing new. Leaders of many countries have long done this so we're probably not going to know for years how the president is doing.

     What fascinates me with this term is the number of devices which will soon be relied upon to help determine our vital signs. I like wearable technology though the privacy and security of the wearable will require a lot of scrutiny. The hacking of driver-less cars is concerning but the hacking of medical devices raises my anxiety to a new peak! I'll still be testing them out though as a backup to my routine visits to the doctor. 

     The lesson from all our working from home is some human interaction can and will be replaced by automation. I am not in favor of everything being automated and in person medical care is a prime example. I am all for removing the headache of paperwork via automation from our medical professionals. This will soon be the norm as the insurance industry can't justify their inconsistency and often times incompetence for much longer. The clamor to replace outmoded practices from doctors and patients is going to be too much, not to mention the waste of time and money. I can only hope the additions to the corporate bottom line will be tempered by the realization that we are all in this thing called life together. The pandemic has also taught us that viruses do not respect gated communities or Secret Service agents willing to take a bullet. We have to steward our medical resources better in the future and automation is going to help.

     

The End of Our Monoculture

      I'm not sure exactly when our single culture ceased being and our current multi-culture began but it happened in my lifetime so I'll try to give it the consideration it deserves. Truth be told I am only able to blog because the single set of circumstances which made up my youth are easy to remember. This makes my comparisons to today all the more stark. Like I always say and tell my nephews it is not that my childhood was better, only that it was different than what you can expect today. The starkest example:

• CBS, NBC, ABC were the major networks throughout the country. You could travel around, flip on the TV, and easily find them. That is, if your antenna was positioned correctly. 
• Today we have so many channels in so many different combinations that it is fair to say most TVs do not have the same channels.
  

     

     I think it's great we have more choice and wouldn't wish the summer TV rerun seasons we endured on anyone. This could be said about a lot of things like our music, choices of food, telephones... The list is long and hurrah for the difference. 

     My sole observation is; Can we somehow regain some semblance of coherence, a common ground which will help us work together to tackle the issues of the day? I'm not sure we can reach resolutions to issues of Income Equality, Climate, Racism, Ageism and many others if we don't begin with an agreed upon set of facts and cultural touchstones. Maybe we can and I'm just misinformed.

     My suggestion is to enjoy the vast amount of cultural choices and get comfortable with all the confusion. Figure out as best you can where you can find more of what you like. We all seem to be looking so take a friend or two along in your search.

Gettysburg Address

      It was once a part of every school's curriculum, the Gettysburg Address. Students had to memorize it. I had to do this fifth grade. Some students learned it earlier, some later. All recognized it as a moving tribute to an idea written into our Constitution in 1776. 

     
      According to Wikipedia: the Gettysburg Address is a world-famous speech delivered by U.S. Pres. Abraham Lincoln at the dedication (November 19, 1863) of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the site of one of the decisive battles of the American Civil War (July 1–3, 1863).

     The speech only took a little over three minutes to deliver and consisted of ten lines. It was over so quickly that the photographer assigned to capture the moment missed it entirely.

 

     These days the final words inspire me the most: "and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." I mention this because our democracy is not guaranteed to survive the coming election. Our democracy is a fragile construct held together with people's best intentions, or as Lincoln liked to say, the better angels of our nature. This appeared in the final paragraph of Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address in 1861. He certainly had a way with words. I am going to put his address to memory again as I watch the events unfold around our forthcoming election and the all important count of votes which will occur afterwards.

 

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

 

 

Bi-partisan Get Well Soon

      I would not wish Covid on anyone, even someone who misled our country about its potential harm. Though given Trump's bad luck in business as demonstrated by his numerous bankruptcies and never ending audit by the IRS, it's simple in hindsight to state that we could have seen this coming.

     The math, which by itself ought to frighten anybody from going to large gatherings of people without a mask, is too clear: the larger the group of people, the better your chances of contracting Covid. End of story.

Wisdom Workers

      Try Googling "people at work" and you will mostly receive pictures of people working inside and office environment. I guess the search engines will all have to do some house cleaning with the trend being towards WFH (working from home) for the foreseeable future.

     I miss very little about offices and cubicles. During my younger years when I traveled extensively as a consultant, all I saw were offices and people none too happy to be working in them. Hopefully, our Covid travail will teach us a few things. One being the necessity to take people into account when designing workplaces. Another would be a thorough questioning for the need to be in one location during a set period of hours, the old 9 to 5. All I am really suggesting is flexibility in our attitudes as to what constitutes work.We all need to be Wisdom Workers because the term Knowledge Worker doesn't make sense any more. Anyone with a smart phone is carrying most all the knowledge they need. More important is an idea of how and when to apply it. That is what Wisdom Workers do for us.