Blog

Take Public Health to the Moon With You, Joe Biden, After Your Davos Forum

White House Photo

Editor’s Note: At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland Vice President Joseph Biden wrote an article regarding his new assignment (see below for the V.P’s remarks and a video from the Davos panel on the topic). In part, he said:

“It’s personal for me. But it’s also personal for nearly every American, and millions of people around the world. We all know someone who has had cancer, or is fighting to beat it. They’re our family, friends, and co-workers …

… And the goal of this initiative is simple — to double the rate of progress. To make a decade worth of advances in five years. Here’s how we can do it:

Over the next year, I will lead a dedicated, combined effort by governments, private industry, researchers, physicians, patients, and philanthropies to target investment, coordinate across silos, and increase access to information for everyone in the cancer community.

Here’s what that means: The Federal government will do everything it possibly can — through funding, targeted incentives, and increased private-sector coordination — to support research and enable progress. We’ll encourage leading cancer centers to reach unprecedented levels of cooperation, so we can learn more about this terrible disease and how to stop it in its tracks.”

V.P. Biden’s discussion in Davos with cancer experts such as NIH director Francis Collins and former UC Berkeley biologist and Nobel laureate Elizabeth Blackburn, now president of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, touched on many issues, including the promise of CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing to help find new ways to tackle cancer.

In his final State of the Union address, President Obama took a page from President Kennedy’s book to make a bold assertion that — just as the United States made it to the moon in a decade — the US can cure cancer for good. “For the loved ones we’ve all lost, for the family we can still save, let’s make America the country that cures cancer once and for all,” said Obama on January 12, appointing Vice President Biden as head of Mission Control for the effort.

It’s not the first time a president has called for a major cancer-fighting campaign from the State of the Union’s bully pulpit. In 1971, President Nixon launched what became known as the War on Cancer saying, “The time has come in America when the same kind of concentrated effort that split the atom and took man to the moon should be turned toward conquering this dread disease.” Fictional presidents have made hay out of the ‘moonshot’ to end cancer, too, as fans of The West Wing will recall from an early draft of President Bartlet’s 2002 State of the Union address.

Now, in 2016, many people believe that the time is right for another big push to defeat cancer. But according to Mailman School of Public Health scientists, a cancer moonshot will never get off the ground without public health. Since 1990, cancer mortality in the United States has dropped by a dramatic 23 percent, and research shows that prevention efforts like more and better screenings and public education around risk factors like smoking can take credit for much of that progress.

“We should be doubling down on prevention,” says Alfred Neugut, Myron M. Studner Professor of Cancer Research and professor of Epidemiology. Yet for cancer, like most diseases, the bulk of federal research dollars are directed elsewhere. “Most funding goes into either basic science or into clinical therapeutics.”

Less than 7 percent of the National Cancer Institute’s $4.9 billion budget for 2014 went to cancer prevention and control. Part of the problem is that successes in preventing cancer can take decades to see.

“Come 2040, there will be a major decline in cancer mortality thanks to smoking cessation and other public health efforts. That will be spectacular — we just haven’t seen it yet,” says Neugut. “In heart disease you can see the effects of prevention faster: hypertension control, lipid control, and smoking cessation all have an effect within a couple of years. But in cancer, it can take 20, 30, 40 years to see the effects.”

January 19, 2016
Mercy Street, a New Historical Drama Employed Experts on Southern Gentility, on Civil War Medicine, on Runaway Slaves and Society

Nurse Mary Phinney (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Jedediah Foster (Josh Radnor) in Mercy Street

Editor’s Note: We came late to information about this series but then watched the first episode on Sunday night, quite impressed by the cast and the care to depict the chaotic scene and carnage that actual Civil War military hospitals must have endured. The acting cast was immediately impressive in the person of renowned actress, Cherry Jones, a guest star, playing the real-life Dorothea Dix, known as ‘Miss Dix’, the formidable superintendent of Union Army nurses.

Phrases such as “Men fight; women pray”, “Army doctors do not like nurses”, and “You have no idea what you’ve signed up for” pepper the first episode but hopefully more original dialogue will appear in subsequent episodes of this drama.

But, a bit of preparation background first: “They capture that inner space that women created, one where they were, of course, essential to every aspect of life, especially in a hospital setting, while having to navigate a wide range of biases and restrictions.”

It is late April in Richmond, at the outset of filming for the Mercy Street, and actors Josh Radnor, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and McKinley Belcher III are going to school.

The day’s particular lesson was the art of suturing, and it came courtesy of Dr. Stanley Burns, a medical consultant, author and archivist who has an unmatched collection of medically themed photographs from the period.

“We did what we call ‘Medical School and Surgery 101,’” Burns said. “I explained what the philosophy of surgery and medicine was at the time, and how physicians worked during this period, one that was very much a medical crossroads. I showed them what the real wounds and infections looked like and then I showed them how to hold a scalpel, how to hold a saw, how to bandage and how to tie, because these are things that have to look accurate on screen.”

“Accuracy was a hallmark of the Mercy Street process from the very beginning,” said executive producer and co-creator Lisa Wolfinger. “We have spent a lot of time making sure this series is historically accurate,” she said. “This is about the Civil War. This is PBS. And we have the responsibility to get it right.”

Toward that end, she assembled an all-star team of historical advisors from a wide variety of specialties and topics. “We had eight or nine experts who read every script,” said executive producer and head writer David Zabel, whose credits include ER. “We had experts on Southern gentility, we had experts on Civil War medicine, experts on runaway slaves, society … they really provided me with great details and information.”

Experts included preeminent Civil War scholar James McPherson; author and Civil War medical historian Shawna Devine; scholar and author Anya Jabour, whose specialty is young women in the South during that period; Audrey Davis, Director of the Alexandria Black History Museum; and George Wunderlich from the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, Maryland.

“From the very beginning of this process, we wanted to bring into the discussion and into the process as many experts from the period as we could in order to ensure that the story is being told as authentically as possible, and that the visual expression of that is realized in the most accurate way one can,” said executive producer David Zucker, Scott Free Productions.

The historical advisors were involved in all aspects of the creative process, from vetting scripts to, in many cases, being on set to watch and offer insight and suggestions during filming. For instance, on his first visit to the Richmond, Virginia set, Dr. Burns asked, “Where are the mirrors?” Mirrors, he explained, would have been used by surgeons to direct and reflect light during operations, much as they were used by miners prior to the advent of electricity.

Historian Anya Jabour’s journey to Mercy Street began some three years ago with a call from Lisa Wolfinger.

“Lisa had read a book that I had written about young women in the Civil War, called Scarlett Sisters: Young Women in the Old South,” said Jabour, who is professor of history and co-director of the program in women’s gender and sexuality studies at the University of Montana. “And she thought that that matched up very well with the characters of Emma and Alice Green, the two young Confederates in the show.”

January 18, 2016
Ferida Wolff’s BackYard: A Pumpkin Question and Squirrel Knows
A Pumpkin Question

I put out a pumpkin for Thanksgiving decoration. It remained on our doorstep through Christmas and the beginning of the New Year, a bright entry to our winter home. Today it called to me to cut it open. I usually like to make pumpkin soup. Sometimes I bake pumpkin cookies. I bake the seeds or share them with the birds outside.

But I had lots going on recently and didn’t get to making my favorite pumpkin recipes. I wondered about the lifespan of the pumpkin, if it was still usable. So I checked around. It seems pumpkins last about 8-12 weeks if uncarved, which was within the parameters. They fare best in temperatures about 50-56 degrees; our weather has been unusually warm this year so most of the time it has been in the 40s to mid 50s. The last couple of days, however, it has been hovering around freezing. Was my pumpkin still good to cook with? I wondered.

I cut it open and saw that it must have frozen last night and thawed when the morning warmed up, not the best way to preserve it. I would hate to see it go to waste. Perhaps I’ll boil it up and see if it is still good to use.

Any ideas?

Pumpkin lifespan:

http://www.ehow.com/info_8453594_long-do-pumpkins-last.html

Editor’s Note: Our oldest granddaughter who has received 800s on her math SATs would like these links:

Pumpkin Math by Mathwire
Scholastic Math Science and Fun Pumpkin Project

The 6 Most Famous Pumpkins in Literature (and One Rutabaga)

Squirrel Knows

Wow, it’s 2016. Didn’t last year seem to fly by? Time to take stock of things. Not to make resolutions, necessarily, as they rarely last through the year, but to see what is of value in our lives, to appreciate the people we love, and to move in positive directions. Do we respect ourselves? Are there things we’d like to change?

It isn’t necessary to do everything at once; rather let’s be realistic and focus on one idea at a time. We have to focus on the everyday things. This squirrel knows that. It is giving itself a good cleaning. It does its other usual chores as well like going in search of food, digging up nuts and seeds that were buried for the winter, looking for a mate.

Squirrels are inventive creatures, particularly when it comes to food. They can figure out ways to get onto bird feeders. They can sniff out acorns that were planted in the fall. One squirrel, which was being fed with peanuts by a friendly homeowner, took to knocking on the back door when it didn’t see its daily bounty.

I hope that this year is a good one for us all.

Squirrels’ behavior: http://www.psu.edu/dept/nkbiology/naturetrail/speciespages/graysquirrel.htm

A story I wrote for Chicken Soup for the Soul: My Resolution. If you haven’t read it yet, here it is:

http://www.chickensoup.com/newsletter/186524/crazy-no-more&utm_source=CSS_Email&utm_medium=Bulletin&utm_term=$DATEADDED/NA$&utm_content=$MISC1/NA$&utm_campaign=daily

©2016 Ferida Wolff for SeniorWomen.com
January 17, 2016
Pack Up: Americans On the Move Again to the West and South

By Tim Henderson

Scheduled to open to the public shortly, Maracay Homes’ Center Pointe Vistoso, featuring 343 homesites within five gated neighborhoods in Oro Valley, Arizona are taking shape.

Americans are heading South and West again in search of jobs and more affordable housing, as the nation’s economic health continues to improve.

Census population estimates show that the 16 states and the District of Columbia that comprise the South saw an increase of almost 1.4 million people between 2014 and 2015. The 13 states in the West grew by about 866,000 people. The gains represent the largest annual growth in population of the decade for both regions and signal that the multi-decade migration to the Sun Belt has resumed after being interrupted by the Great Recession of 2007-09 and the economic sluggishness and anxiety that followed.

In comparison, population growth in the Northeast and the Midwest — including what’s known as the Snow Belt — remained sluggish, growing by about 258,000 residents combined.

“Clearly, the Snow Belt-to-Sun Belt migration is coming back after a huge lull in response to the recession and post-recession period,” said demographer William Frey, of the Brookings Institution. “Up until now, regional migration was not picking up at the same time that other economic indicators — jobs and housing — seemed to be on the upswing.”

The numbers indicate Americans’ growing willingness to pick up and go after having sat still earlier in the economically tenuous decade, when the U.S. Census Bureau reported that only one in five people who wanted to move somewhere else did so.

The new estimates, released last month, arrive midway through the decade, halfway to the next census, in 2020, and provide some indications of where the nation is headed from the standpoint of governing from Washington.

If the population shift continues, Texas could gain three new seats in the US House, Florida two, and Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina and Oregon one apiece after the next census, according to an analysis by Election Data Services, a political consulting firm based in Virginia.

Nine states — Alabama, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia — could meanwhile lose a seat apiece.

January 14, 2016
Quiet, Please! Will Someone Please Turn Down the Volume on the Planet!

by Rose Madeline Mula

Will someone please turn down the volume on the planet! Why is it so loud? Where’s the remote? I can’t stand this din a minute longer.

Does the word “tinnitus” ring a bell? It’s a wonder any of us has any hearing left at all. How long will it be before we all become deaf as the Sphinx because of the noise pollution that permeates our environment?

Okay, so some of it serves a purpose. In the case of the cacophony of police and ambulance sirens and smoke alarms, for example, the benefits outweigh the potential damage to our ear drums. But other noise sources such as blaring stereos and ultra-sensitive car alarms that shriek even when no burglary is in progress, and which everyone ignores, have no redeeming value.

William Congreve, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1709 National Portrait Gallery, London

When did this all happen? It wasn’t like this in 1697. No, I don’t remember personally, but William Congreve wrote back then that “Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast.” Today, on the other hand, much of what passes for music sounds as if it emanates from savage beasts. (Consider the aptly named “Beastie Boys,” for example.)

Instead of enchanting, harmonious melodies, we hear raucous roars, screeching screams, dissonant discord that assault us from our neighbors’ stereos, car radios on the highway, boom boxes on the streets and beaches, loudspeaker systems in shopping malls. It’s impossible to carry on a conversation any more in a restaurant, a bar, at a party or a wedding reception. And, of course, adding to the din is the caterwaul of human voices, as we all bellow to make ourselves heard. The more ear-splitting the “music,” the louder we yell.

There is no escape. Whatever you do, don’t make the mistake of slipping into a movie theater for some respite from the roar of the crowd. The features are noisy enough, but much worse are the clamorous, surround-sound previews. Why must they turn the decibels up to maximum volume when showing a blurry kaleidoscope of the most violent scenes from future attractions? It’s downright painful. I’ve asked ushers and managers roving the lobby about this, and my answer is always the same: “People like it.” Really? Then how come I see most in the audience, young and old alike, blocking their ears and wincing? Actually, it’s a turn-off. If I hate the sample, I certainly won’t be tempted to see the entire film. These days when I decide to go to a movie, it’s usually in spite of-not because of-the preview.

If the hullabaloo continues to escalate, the next generation of toddlers will be wearing hearing aids to pre-school where they will learn sign language. Before long, all noise will end. Talking will become obsolete since we won’t be able to hear what anyone says, music will just be something people will read about in history books, and silent movies will make a big comeback. The good news is that there will be no need to buy costly quadraphonic sound systems, and cars will be less expensive because they won’t have radios or horns.

I’m almost looking forward to it.

©Rose Madeline Mula for SeniorWomen.com

Editor’s Note: Rose Mula’s most recent book is Confessions of a Domestically-Challenged Homemaker & Other Tall Tales, available at Amazon.com and other online book sellers. Grandmother Goose: Rhymes for a Second Childhood is available as an e-book on Amazon.com for the Kindle and at BarnesandNoble.com for the Nook at $2.99; the paperback edition is available for $9.95. Her books of humorous essays, The Beautiful People and Other Aggravations, and If These Are Laugh Lines, I’m Having Way Too Much Fun can also be ordered at Amazon.com or through Pelican Publishing (800-843-1724). Her website is rosemadelinemula.com.



January 13, 2016
In Drug Epidemic, Resistance to Medication Costs Lives; Too Few Health Professionals Have Training in Addiction Medicine

By Christine Vestal, Stateline, Pew Trusts*

DEADLY BIAS: Why Medication Isn’t Reaching the Addicts Who Need It, Part I

Dr. Marvin Seppala wrote a book on conquering drug addiction with counseling and group therapy. The spiritual, abstinence-based strategy pioneered by Alcoholics Anonymous helped him overcome his own alcohol and cocaine addiction when he was 19. As medical director of Minnesota’s fabled Hazelden clinic, he watched it work for patients.

He believed in it — and then he changed his mind.

In 2007, Seppala began working at Beyond Addictions, a now defunct treatment center in Beaverton, Oregon. Instead of relying solely on counseling, the center gave its patients a relatively new medication, buprenorphine, to relieve their drug cravings.

Back in Minnesota, his patients had been bailing out of treatment to use illicit drugs again. In Oregon his patients on buprenorphine weren’t relapsing or overdosing — they reported feeling “normal” again.

Nearly a decade later, doctors and brain researchers agree that medications such as buprenorphine, methadone and naltrexone are the most effective anti-addiction weapons available. Nevertheless, more than two-thirds of US clinics and treatment centers still do not offer the medicines. Many refuse to admit people who are taking them.

The result is that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Americans are dying unnecessarily, victims of an epidemic that killed more than 28,000 people in 2014 — more than auto accidents, homicides or suicides.

The research is unassailable: Staying in recovery and avoiding relapse for at least a year is more than twice as likely with medications as without them. Medications also lower the risk of a fatal overdose.

Addicts who quit drugs under an abstinence-based program are at a high risk of fatally overdosing if they relapse. Within days, the abstinent body’s tolerance for opioids plummets and even a small dose of the drugs can shut down the lungs.

And yet as the country’s opioid epidemic worsens — every day, more than 70 Americans die from overdoses, and the numbers are climbing — only about a fifth of the people who would benefit from the medications are getting them, according to a new study by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“When we discovered medications that worked for AIDS, deaths immediately plummeted. It became a chronic disease instead of a terminal disease,” said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, chief medical officer of the Phoenix House treatment centers, based in New York.

“This epidemic could be the same,” he said. “We have medications for addiction now. But unfortunately, we’re not making them available enough.”

January 11, 2016
Rocking Horses and Doll Houses: Swedish Wooden Toys Exhibit at BARD in Manhattan

Swedish Wooden Toys through February 28, 2016

John Carlsson. Dollhouse and furnishings, 1912. Belonged to Elsa Carlsson. Wood, glass, metal, various materials; wired for electricity. By Roma Capitale — Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali —Collezione di giocattoli antichi, CGA LS 32; Photography by Bruce White

Swedish Wooden Toys is the first in-depth study of the history of wooden playthings in Sweden from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries. Remarkable doll houses, puzzles and games, pull toys, trains, planes, automobiles, and more are featured in this colorful exhibition, on view at Bard Graduate Center located in Manhattan’s Upper West Side Historic District through February 28, 2016. Although Germany, Japan, and the United States have historically produced and exported the largest numbers of toys worldwide, Sweden has a long and enduring tradition of designing and making wooden toys — from the simplest handmade plaything to more sophisticated forms. This exhibition not only reviews the production of Sweden’s toy industries but also explores the practice of handicraft (slöjd), the educational value of wooden playthings, and the vision of childhood that Swedish reformers have promoted worldwide.

Swedish Wooden Toys is curated by Susan Weber, Bard Graduate Center founder and director, and Amy F. Ogata, professor of art history at the University of Southern California and former professor at Bard Graduate Center.

The modern concept of childhood emerged in Europe during the seventeenth century, when the period from infancy to puberty became recognized as a distinct stage in human development. As the status of childhood gained in social importance, children acquired their own material goods. Special furniture, such as cribs and feeding chairs, and amusements, including rattles and dolls, became increasingly common in elite and middle class European households. The notion of the innocent child who learned through play was fully established by the middle of the eighteenth century, and toys began to gain importance as a means of demonstrating family status and as tools for teaching children and preparing them for adulthood.

Gemla Leksaksfabrik AB, Rocking horse (1900) © Roma Capitale — Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali —Collezione di giocattoli antichi; photo by Bruce White

In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Sweden, wooden toys were the ordinary amusements of the poor. Carving small animals from the plentiful resource of wood was a traditional occupation for rural Swedes. By the mid nineteenth century, as the cult of childhood innocence surged, the Swedish toy industry produced wooden animals, carts, dolls, sleds, and furniture for a rapidly growing domestic market.

January 7, 2016
Oregon’s Malheur Reservation Standoff Latest Protest in Long-running Controversy Over Western Lands

Photo from Malheur National Wildlife Refuge

Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was established on August 18, 1908, by President Theodore Roosevelt as the Lake Malheur Reservation. Roosevelt set aside unclaimed government lands encompassed by Malheur, Mud and Harney Lakes “as a preserve and breeding ground for native birds.” The newly established Lake Malheur Reservation was the 19th of 51 wildlife refuges created by Roosevelt during his tenure as US President. At the time, Malheur was the third refuge in Oregon and one of only six refuges west of the Mississippi.

By Clifton B. Parker

The standoff in Oregon reflects a simmering controversy over who manages land in the West as well as a misunderstanding of constitutional law, Stanford scholars say.

On Jan. 2, dozens of armed people seized a federal wildlife refuge center in remote southeast Oregon. They say they are upset about a mandatory minimum sentence two local ranchers received for an arson conviction, and demand that the surrounding federal lands be ceded to local control.

David J. Hayes, a distinguished visiting lecturer at Stanford Law School, said the Oregon situation is a “dangerous one, given the ‘call to arms’ issued by the armed militants and their strong rhetoric.” Prior to teaching at Stanford, Hayes was the second-highest ranking official at the Department of the Interior, serving as the deputy secretary and chief operating officer from 1999 to 2001 and 2009 to 2013, respectively. He had direct involvement in many Western land disputes.

Hayes suggests that once the armed protestors leave the complex, they must be prosecuted firmly and without delay for their illegal actions. “Armed takeovers cannot be tolerated in our country. Respect for the rule of law is, and must continue to be, a central tenet of our democracy.”

The Bureau of Land Management leases many millions of acres of public lands to ranchers for cattle grazing, in accordance with historic practices. Ranchers pay fees for the privilege of having their livestock graze on America’s public lands and, as lessees, they must adhere to good stewardship practices, Hayes said. Grazing fees on public lands have been maintained at very low levels for many years, he added, noting that typically these fees are lower than fees charged by private and state landowners.

Still, Hayes said, some people — apparently including the ranchers at the center of the controversy — philosophically object to federal ownership of land and federal oversight of these lands.

Dwight Hammond Jr., 74, and his son, Steven Hammond, 46, were convicted three years ago of setting fires in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, which is managed by the US Bureau of Land Management. They had grazing rights leased to them for their cattle operations in the area.

Prosecutors charged the Hammonds under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), which was passed by Congress after the first World Trade Center bombing and the bombing of the federal courthouse in Oklahoma City. The court ruled that the defendants’ actions triggered the section of this law that makes it illegal for anyone to destroy US property.

The Hammonds are being resentenced because the court did not apply the mandatory minimum sentence required by that statute. When that became widely known, the armed protestors began showing up at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

January 6, 2016
In An Absense of Action: Executive Actions to Reduce Gun Violence and Make Communities Safer
FACT SHEET from The White House: New Executive Actions to Reduce Gun Violence and Make Our Communities Safer

Gun violence has taken a heartbreaking toll on too many communities across the country. Over the past decade in America, more than 100,000 people have been killed as a result of gun violence— and millions more have been the victim of assaults, robberies, and other crimes involving a gun. Many of these crimes were committed by people who never should have been able to purchase a gun in the first place. Over the same period, hundreds of thousands of other people in our communities committed suicide with a gun and nearly half a million people suffered other gun injuries. Hundreds of law enforcement officers have been shot to death protecting their communities. And too many children are killed or injured by firearms every year, often by accident. The vast majority of Americans — including the vast majority of gun owners — believe we must take sensible steps to address these horrible tragedies.

The President and Vice President are committed to using every tool at the Administration’s disposal to reduce gun violence. Some of the gaps in our country’s gun laws can only be fixed through legislation, which is why the President continues to call on Congress to pass the kind of commonsense gun safety reforms supported by a majority of the American people. And while Congress has repeatedly failed to take action and pass laws that would expand background checks and reduce gun violence, today, building on the significant steps that have already been taken over the past several years, the Administration is announcing a series of commonsense executive actions designed to:

1. Keep guns out of the wrong hands through background checks.
- The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is making clear that it doesn’t matter where you conduct your business—from a store, at gun shows, or over the Internet: If you’re in the business of selling firearms, you must get a license and conduct background checks.
- ATF is finalizing a rule to require background checks for people trying to buy some of the most dangerous weapons and other items through a trust, corporation, or other legal entity.
- Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch has sent a letter to States highlighting the importance of receiving complete criminal history records and criminal dispositions, information on persons disqualified because of a mental illness, and qualifying crimes of domestic violence.
- The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is overhauling the background check system to make it more effective and efficient. The envisioned improvements include processing background checks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and improving notification of local authorities when certain prohibited persons unlawfully attempt to buy a gun. The FBI will hire more than 230 additional examiners and other staff to help process these background checks.
2. Make our communities safer from gun violence.
- The Attorney General convened a call with U.S. Attorneys around the country to direct federal prosecutors to continue to focus on smart and effective enforcement of our gun laws.
- The President’s FY2017 budget will include funding for 200 new ATF agents and investigators to help enforce our gun laws.
- ATF has established an Internet Investigation Center to track illegal online firearms trafficking and is dedicating $4 million and additional personnel to enhance the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network.
- ATF is finalizing a rule to ensure that dealers who ship firearms notify law enforcement if their guns are lost or stolen in transit.
- The Attorney General issued a memo encouraging every U.S. Attorney’s Office to renew domestic violence outreach efforts.
3. Increase mental health treatment and reporting to the background check system.
- The Administration is proposing a new $500 million investment to increase access to mental health care.
- The Social Security Administration has indicated that it will begin the rulemaking process to include information in the background check system about beneficiaries who are prohibited from possessing a firearm for mental health reasons.
- The Department of Health and Human Services is finalizing a rule to remove unnecessary legal barriers preventing States from reporting relevant information about people prohibited from possessing a gun for specific mental health reasons.
4. Shape the future of gun safety technology.
- The President has directed the Departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security to conduct or sponsor research into gun safety technology.
- The President has also directed the departments to review the availability of smart gun technology on a regular basis, and to explore potential ways to further its use and development to more broadly improve gun safety.
January 5, 2016
Elaine Soloway’s Rookie Widow Series: A New Lease, Abstinence and Driving Miss Elaine

A New Lease

I’ve raised the horizontal blinds that cover the floor-to-ceiling windows of my convertible studio apartment. The Chicago River is frozen over, cars on the expressway are slogging in both directions, and the sun is sneaking above the high-rise and loft buildings that complete my view to the north.

A new lease waiting to be approved is on my small Lime Ricky green table. As of April 15, I will have lived here for one year. I settle on a pillow that softens the seat of a wooden chair and start reviewing before I sign on the dotted line.

The view distracts me, so I drop my pen and allow myself to muse over the decision I made just two months after my husband died November 2, 2012.  Elbowing past advice to make no major moves for at least a year, I put our house on the market. And five months later I landed here, in this new apartment and life. Now, as the lease renewal approaches, I decide it’s time to review the pros and cons, and changes, which have occurred since that swift transition.

First the pros:

I love my living space. While the views are new, the furnishings are warmly familiar. A dozen paintings that burst our house’s walls with color and interest are now hanging in my 612-foot-cocoon. My Kingsbury Plaza maintenance men leveled, nailed, and attached all; one of many tasks they have undertaken with sweet eagerness.

I am typing this essay on a gaunt MacBook Air, which I exchanged for a muscular desktop that would’ve overwhelmed my Sapphire blue worktable and pint-sized apartment. Instead of the home office I once had, I now work in a snug corner with a built-in bookshelf that holds the few volumes, photographs, mementoes, and supplies I brought with.

I am managing without owning a car. A major change between my former life and current — other than I’m absent my husband — is that I no longer own a car. Finances were the primary reason, but also, I can walk to grocery and department stores, am a few blocks from three Chicago Transit Authority lines, and can hail taxicabs or use an app for shared rides.

I have boosted my physical and spiritual health.  The East Bank Club is adjacent to my apartment building, so no matter what winter delivered, I’ve been able to travel underground and work out at least five days a week.

The club has also become my afternoon distraction. At times, my apartment feels claustrophobic, so I return with my laptop to an alternative, people-filled environment. And because, off-and-on, I’ve been a member for 30 years, I greet many old friends and meet new ones.

I’ve joined Chicago Sinai Congregation (walking distance) and attend weekly Torah study. Along with filling in the holes of my religious knowledge, membership has brought a sense of community and new friends.

I don’t have to worry about home maintenance. When weather forecasters warned homeowners to beware of frozen pipes, icicles dangling from eaves, and sidewalks and driveways needing plowing, I was grateful I was no longer a homeowner.

And now the cons:

I have made only one friend in my building. In my old Dakin Street neighborhood, I knew nearly every family on my block. I watched kids grow from babies to teens. In my apartment building, which is more like a dorm because of its thirty-something population, I have made only one good friend. She’s the age of my daughters, and cares for me and makes me laugh just as my flesh-and-blood do.

I miss owning a dog. Although my building allows pets, and there are many I can coo at, including my friend’s bity boy, I pine for a pup. But, the practical me understands I can’t afford the extra expense, I’d have a hard time racing to a vet without a car, and potty breaks in a high rise are challenging.

I’m spending too much money.

I think it’s a wash between my monthly rent and my former mortgage payment. And, with the absence of car expenses and lower utility bills, it would appear I’m in good financial shape.

But, with the pros I mentioned earlier, like my pricey health club and proximity to grocery shopping (Whole Foods) and department stores (Nordstrom’s), I’m finding temptations hard to pass up. Thus, I’m wary every time I face a monthly statement.

Despite the cons I’ve confessed, I know that if I had stayed put, the traces of Tommy and our Golden Retriever, Buddy, would’ve trumped all and tinted my mood. I signed the lease. A new year, a new me.

January 4, 2016