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  • States Backtrack on Student Tracking Technology That Can Read Small Portions of A Student’s Fingerprint

    By Jeffrey Stinson, Stateline

    Do you know where your student is? At school? On the bus? Paying for lunch in the cafeteria?biometric electronic door lock

    Principals in thousands of the nation’s schools know the answer because radio frequency chips are embedded in students’ ID cards, or their schools are equipped with biometric scanners that can identify portions of a student’s fingerprint, the iris of an eye or a vein in a palm.

    Such technologies have become increasingly common in schools, which use them to take attendance, alert parents where their children get off the school bus or speed up lunch lines.

    But those tools, which are supposed to make schools safer and more efficient, have become a flashpoint for controversy. Several states are now banning or restricting the use of the technology in schools, as worries over student privacy have risen amid breaches of government and commercial computer databases.

    A biometric digital lock that also has a keypad for PIN entry. Wikimedia Commons

    This year, Florida became the first state to ban the use of biometric identification in its schools. Kansas said biometric data cannot be collected without student or parental consent. New Hampshire, Colorado and North Carolina said the state education departments cannot collect and store biometric data as part of student records.

    New Hampshire and Missouri lawmakers said schools can’t require students to use ID cards equipped with radio frequency identification (RFID) technology that can track them. The new laws are similar to one Oregon passed last year and what Rhode Island Iawmakers passed in 2009.

    The laws reflect a growing sense of unease among parents and lawmakers about new technology, how it’s being used, what student data is being collected and stored and what security protects the information.

    In all, 36 states considered 110 bills this year on the collection and security of student data, according to the nonpartisan, nonprofit Data Quality Campaign, which advocates the effective use of data in education. At least 39 bills addressed biometric data, according to the campaign’s tracking, including 14 that passed.

    “Technology is moving so fast,” said Paige Kowalski, director of state policy and advocacy for the campaign. “I think that’s why you’re seeing these new laws. I think people are nervous about it. It’s new. It’s different from when we were kids.”

    “I think there’s a desire to use (technology), and a desire to slow down,” she said. “We want to know exactly how it’s being used … so we don’t sacrifice too much privacy.”

    Nobody knows exactly how many of the nation’s school districts use biometric or RFID technology, but many schools have been using them for a decade or longer.

    Jay Fry, CEO of the biometric-in-schools firm identiMetrics, said biometric identification is used in more than 1,000 school districts in 40 states from Alaska to Long Island, New York. West Virginia uses the technology in 70 percent of its 57 school districts, he said.

    In cafeterias, for example, schools can replace traditional student ID cards with machines that can read small, identifiable portions of an index-fingerprint. The machine cannot capture a child’s entire fingerprint or personal identity, Fry said. The data is tied to a multi-digit number that’s tied to a student’s identification in the school’s computer database for billing.

    “It’s more secure from a privacy standpoint than a student ID, which has a name, picture and school on it — when lost, can be picked up by someone,” said Fry, an educator for 25 years.

    He said he devised the idea in 2002 when he was a middle school principal in Illinois because students too often lost their lunch money, their IDs or pin numbers during lunchtime and too many were left without enough time to get and eat their lunches. “You can’t lose your finger,” he said.

    The system, he said, also allows for easy auditing and billing, including reimbursement to schools in the federal government’s subsidized meals programs that fed students breakfast in 89,000 schools and lunch in 100,000 in the federal fiscal year of 2012.

    Other schools are embracing RFID systems. Students are issued badges or tags with embedded chips that either broadcast a radio signal, (battery-powered active systems) or are read when they are near a radio-frequency reader (passive systems). Such tags are widely used by government and the private sector for building security and for tracking packages.

    Elizabeth Hunger, government relations manager for the Security Industry Association, said passive RFID technology is more common in schools, where students’ RFID badges are read at school doors, on buses or at school events so educators know who’s where. The technology also allows school doors to be locked and allow entry to only those with RFID badges. 

    Hunger said RFID readers pick up a number of a student’s badge that can be correlated to a student’s identification in a school’s central computer. If a badge is lost, she said, “no one else can read it; they’d only get a number if they did.”

    Hunger said the industry recommends RFID technology as part of a “holistic approach” to school security, along with video cameras and trained personnel, especially after such incidents as the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012 in Connecticut, in which 20 students and six adults were killed.

    But some lawmakers question whether schools really need such tools and worry that it is yet another example of government surveillance.

    “There’s a ‘Big Brother’ quality to this,” said Missouri state Sen. Ed Emery, who sponsored a law, which took effect this month, that restricts how school districts can adopt RFID technology and allows parents to opt out in districts that do employ it.

    No Missouri school district had employed RFID before the legislature overrode Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto of Emery’s legislation in September to make it law. But, Emery said, he wanted the law in place before any district spent $500,000 to $1 million to adopt it.

    “This is a technology that is very difficult to limit and to secure,” Emery, a Republican, said. “If a private company wants to do it, fine. But it’s not something you should mandate on children.”

    Florida state Sen. Dorothy Hukill stepped in when she got wind that the Polk County school system last year began a pilot program without parental permission to scan the retinas of students’ eyes to keep track of them on school buses.

    Calling it “an overreach,” Hukill, a Republican, sponsored legislation signed by Republican Gov. Rick Scott in May to ban the use of biometric identification in Florida schools.

    “You don’t need to collect biometric information to buy a hot dog in the school cafeteria or check out a library book,” she said.

    Hukill, who’s on the Florida Senate’s commerce and government oversight committees, said she’s not opposed to technology, but she is concerned about the hacking of data held by governments and businesses. “And once you collect the information,” she said, “there is no rolling back.”

    The issue has caught fire in other states, such as Texas, where state Rep. Lois Kolkhorst has pushed RFID legislation similar to Missouri’s in recent years.

    “The question is: Should the government be able to force a parent to have their children tracked in the same exact way that warehouse pallets, prisoners and migratory animals are monitored,” said Kolkhorst, a Republican.

    State legislators have continued to propose restrictions on the technology, despite repeated assurances from the firms that supply it that student information is secure. Fry said parents should be aware and consent to its use before it’s deployed. And those who don’t want their children using it should be able to opt out, he said.

    Rather than prohibit use of the technology, Kowalski of the Data Quality Campaign suggested lawmakers focus on transparency so parents know how the technology is being used, what data is collected and what safeguards are in place to protect students’ privacy.

    “Were you as a lawmaker to prohibit it, you may be taking something useful away,” she said.

    © 2014, The Pew Charitable Trusts 

  • CultureWatch Book Reviews: Local Stop in the Promised Land

    Upper West Side

    This Issue

    The Local Stop of Gregg’s title is the upper West side of New York City, which Gregg calls the Avenue, from the early 20th century through the 1950s.Gregg, who lived in the neighborhood, so authentically recreates its ambience and its residents that the novel reads like a compelling urban ethnography. Gregg’s evocative dialogue and descriptions wonderfully express how the Avenue impacts each resident in unpredictable ways, as we follow their lives and relationships throughout the book.

    Books

    LOCAL STOP IN THE PROMISED LAND

    By John Telford Gregg. 2014

    Published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; paperback, 636 pages, and Kindle


    Reviewed by Serena Nanda*

    The Local Stop of Gregg’s title is the upper West side of New York City, which Gregg calls the Avenue, from the early 20th century through the 1950s.  

    Gregg, who lived in the neighborhood, so authentically recreates its ambience and its residents that the novel reads like a compelling urban ethnography. It reveals the many layers of change that occur as diverse poor and working class immigrants and rural black migrants are pulled into the area by the hopes of a better life in the promised land of America. Gregg’s evocative dialogue and descriptions wonderfully express how the Avenue impacts each resident in unpredictable ways, as we follow their lives and relationships throughout the book. The characters are not stereotypes but moving portraits of individuals painted in sharp, distinct colors. In place of a single, mechanical narrative line, a series of individual arcs peculiar to each unforgettable neighborhood resident is its own plot, through which the reader shares the earthy, unbidden humor, the joyous anticipations and the deep pathos of life on the Avenue. 

    Gregg describes the impact of changes in the neighborhood over time, as massive post-war low income high-rise projects are constructed and chain stores begin replacing the Mom-and-Pop groceries on the Avenue. On a personal note, although I had a Bronx childhood Gregg’s local stop played an important part in my family history:  my father and his sisters were deposited as children in the long famous and now defunct Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York.   

    The First World War drove the young, unwilling soldier George Kassos away from his Greek village onto the Avenue, where he established a delicatessen with his devoted wife’s help, and raised a family. Steinhauer, a licensed German wurstmaker, emigrated from his  impoverished hometown typical of post-WWI Germany to open a quality meat market for a clientele of the Avenue’s then sizeable, relatively prosperous German population. ‘The Troubles’ in Ireland drove many an IRA wanted man and other Irish folks seeking a better life than that of their stony native soil onto the Avenue. Some landed in construction jobs, trucking or similar work downtown. Others became bar owners — and barflies as well — as the years moved on.  Ten Thousand Victories Maan Sing, was chosen by his family in China to leave his wife and child behind and establish himself in America, on order to sustain his kin, which he accomplished by opening up a laundry in a slot on the Avenue as advised by his New York clansmen. Others from Poland, Hungary and Puerto Rico found niches on the Avenue, where their dreams and lives altered with more recent times.

    As the Allies fight on to victory in WW II, the Avenue bars prosper; some put in dance bands, and crowds of the young military men who would become ‘our greatest generation’ cavort, Lindy Hop and get drunk with the women holding up the barstools. The comic, racy dialogue of these interactions will bring laughter and tears. The family-owned sidewalk groceries that have kept up with the times stocking Coca-Cola and carryout meals, cigarettes and American beer, find themselves busier than their earlier downturns would have predicted. But Gregg also describes the poignant disappointments and heartbreaks of that raucous period, following a  mailman’s delivery of what he recognizes as a military condolence and a Gold Star for a widow and mother whom we have come to know earlier in the story.

    Even as the Allies continue to victory, the news of the fate of the millions of Jews stranded in Nazi occupied Europe intrude on the thoughts of Hersh Meltzer and Joe Rabinowitz as their once thought of plans to visit their relatives in the old country have literally turned to ashes. Later, others from Poland, Hungary, and rural blacks from the American South, found a niche on the Avenue, where their dreams and lives altered, in subtle and unsuspected ways. Stan Pukowski’s accidental encounter with his neighbor Lil Czubukowalowiscz after his mother’s death, bends his arc unexpectedly towards a comforting relationship he never sought and which surprises him as he learns something new about himself. And Buffie, a migrant from a beloved black farm family in the South, escapes the racism and hardships of her rural life to the Avenue, becoming its sole black inhabitant, although her limited skills and racism,  Northern style, grant her only the unhealthiest and lowest rung of employment opportunities.

    Eventually, the trickle of Puerto Ricans to the Avenue becomes a flood, importantly altering the whole tenor of the neighborhood.  Some prosper, some do not, but their voices all speak with the images of their island’s sweet pleasures and natural beauty. One of the novel’s most affecting scenes takes place in a bar, between Calley and Richie, two brash Irish boys from the neighborhood who moved on to better surroundings in the suburbs, as they revisit the world of their childhood.  They emerge from the evening with unanticipated — and unwanted — reflections about their lives and families that make each of them fervently swear, for different reasons, never to make that journey again. Ralph Fasanella

    Local Stop in the Promised Land immediately brought to mind an on-going American Folk Art Museum exhibition, Ralph Fasanella: Lest We Forget,  of the ‘social reality’ paintings of the artist, whose theme of “who we are and where we came from” is so movingly depicted in Gregg’s novel.  The exhibit continues until December 1st.

    Modern Times, 1966,  oil on canvas, 49 ¾ x 104 in.
    Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Maurice and Margo Cohen, Birmingham, MI

     *Professor Emeritus, Anthropology. John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY

  • What’s The Matter With Politicians? Don’t They have Families Like the Rest of Us?

    By Joan L. Cannon

    It has occurred to me, belatedly, as with nearly all ideas that come to me, that I come of a generation of women who had very little challenge before them, in terms of today’s economic climate. Educated men could look forward to the likelihood of a decent living with a decent amount of work to assure it. If we so chose, so could we.

    Now I have to wonder:  Don’t politicians have families like the rest of us?WAC recruiting WWII

    For us, the end of WWII had temporarily decreased the ingrained notions of superiority of the male sex in matters of intellect and physiology. Our graduating class was nowhere near a fifty-fifty division between the sexes. About three quarters of the students were on the GI Bill, and half of those were married, a couple even with small children. Women had proved they could pilot airplanes and work on assembly lines, but we had to work hard to hold our own among those maturer classmates.

    Our baccalaureate address was given by a man of known liberality of views and true geniality who pointed out that we women should regard higher education as something of a duty as well as a privilege, since it would be such an advantage to ourselves and to our spouses and children. We would have the means to avoid boredom while we backed up our advancing husbands by taking care of our homes and children.

    Bradshaw Crandell, artist.  c 1943. From Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Washington, D.C.

    As I observe my grandchildren, who like us, tend not to know exactly where they’re heading because they don’t know better than most of us did what they want to do with their education and their lives, I feel a stab of real guilt. Five of the seven are now college graduates, and three have found a direction, though only one in what he planned. He’s not yet successful enough to be independent. One may have been pushed by fortunate circumstances to acknowledge what she really wants when she was accepted into a graduate program on terms that were financially desirable. Two are floundering and dissatisfied, one who dropped out is in an apprenticeship program. He seems content, but he still has to live at home.

    Having spent quite a lot of time talking with the graduate student, I realized how different we are. She is not only expected to make her living, she must. She is the product of a liberal arts education (as opposed to a scientific or technical one), and like those of us with such degrees, finding a use for a BA is hard. 

    My first job out of college paid $35 a week. Even in 1950, that wasn’t much in New York City. I lived at home, rode the subway to work, paid for my clothes, and doctor and dentist bills, but nothing else. I did start a savings account. My parents didn’t complain, seemed satisfied with my status, and I didn’t suffer guilt pangs over it. After an unsatisfactory year, I about made up my mind I’d have to get an advanced degree, and doubtless teach.

    At the same age, my granddaughter is paying for a car, beginning to pay off tens of thousands of dollars in student debt, fretting at being a burden on her parents, and afraid to take any kind of financial risk. If the offer of a place with an assistanceship and liberal scholarship hadn’t surfaced, she would have given up hope of graduate school at the one university to which she had applied that offered what interests her.

  • Promotion of Brain-Training Products Reassures and Entices a Worried Public

     October 20, 2014'brain game'

    As the baby boomers enter their golden years with mounting concerns about the potential loss of cognitive abilities, markets are responding with products promising to allay anxieties about potential decline. Computer-based cognitive-training software — popularly known as brain games — claim a growing share of the marketplace. The promotion of these products reassures and entices a worried public.

    Consumers are told that playing brain games will make them smarter, more alert, and able to learn faster and better. In other words, the promise is that if you adhere to a prescribed regimen of cognitive exercise, you will reduce cognitive slowing and forgetfulness, and will fundamentally improve your mind and brain.

    It is customary for advertising to highlight the benefits and overstate potential advantages of their products. In the brain-game market, advertisements also reassure consumers that claims and promises are based on solid scientific evidence, as the games are “designed by neuroscientists” at top universities and research centers. Some companies present lists of credentialed scientific consultants and keep registries of scientific studies pertinent to cognitive training. Often, however, the cited research is only tangentially related to the scientific claims of the company, and to the games they sell. In addition, even published peer-reviewed studies merit critical evaluation. A prudent approach calls for integrating findings over a body of research rather than relying on single studies that often include only a small number of participants.

    The Stanford Center on Longevity and the Berlin Max Planck Institute for Human Development gathered many of the world’s leading cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists — people who have dedicated their careers to studying the aging mind and brain– to share their views about brain games and offer a consensus report to the public. What do expert scientists think about these claims and promises? Do they have specific recommendations for effective ways to boost cognition in healthy, older adults? Are there merits to the claimed benefits of the brain games and if so, do older adults benefit from brain-game learning in the same ways younger people do? How large are the gains associated with computer-based cognitive exercises? Are the gains restricted to specific skills or does general cognitive aptitude improve? How does playing games compare with other proposed means of mitigating age-related declines, such as physical activity and exercise, meditation, or social engagement?

    The search for effective means of mitigating or postponing age-related cognitive declines has taught most of us to recognize the enormous complexity of the subject matter. Like many challenging scientific topics, this is a devil of many details. The consensus of the group is that claims promoting brain games are frequently exaggerated and at times misleading. Cognitive training produces statistically significant improvement in practiced skills that sometimes extends to improvement on other cognitive tasks administered in the lab. In some studies, such gains endure, while other reports document dissipation over time. In commercial promotion, these small, narrow, and fleeting advances are often billed as general and lasting improvements of mind and brain. The aggressive advertising entices consumers to spend money on products and to take up new behaviors, such as gaming, based on these exaggerated claims. As frequently happens, initial findings, based on small samples, generate understandable excitement by suggesting that some brain games may enhance specific aspects of behavior and even alter related brain structures and functions. However, as the findings accumulate, compelling evidence of general and enduring positive effects on the way people’s minds and brains age has remained elusive.

    Mind_circleThese conclusions do not mean that the brain does not remain malleable, even in old age. Any mentally effortful new experience, such as learning a language, acquiring a motor skill, navigating in a new environment, and, yes, playing commercially available computer games, will produce changes in those neural systems that support acquisition of the new skill. For example, there may be an increase in the number of synapses, the number of neurons and supporting cells, or a strengthening of the connections among them. This type of brain plasticity is possible throughout the life span, though younger brains seem to have an advantage over the older ones. It would be appropriate to conclude from such work that the potential to learn new skills remains intact throughout the life span. However at this point it is not appropriate to conclude that training-induced changes go significantly beyond the learned skills, that they affect broad abilities with real-world relevance, or that they generally promote “brain health”.

    As we take a closer look at the evidence on brain games, one issue needs to be kept in mind: It is not sufficient to test the hypothesis of training-induced benefits against the assumption that training brings no performance increases at all. Rather, we need to establish that observed benefits are not easily and more parsimoniously explained by factors that are long known to benefit performance, such as the acquisition of new strategies or changes in motivation. It is well established, for example, that improvements on a particular memory task often result from subtle changes in strategy that reflect improvement in managing the demands of that particular task. Such improvement is rewarding for players (the fun factor) but does not imply a general improvement in memory. In fact, the notion that performance on a single task cannot stand in for an entire ability is a cornerstone of scientific psychology. Claims about brain games often ignore this tenet. In psychology, it is good scientific practice to combine information provided by many tasks to generate an overall index representing a given ability. According to the American Psychological Association, newly developed psychological tests must meet specific psychometric standards, including reliability and validity. The same standards should be extended into the brain game industry, but this is not the state of affairs today.

  • The Voting Information Project for US Midterm Elections: Free Apps & Tools

    The Voting Information Project (VIP), developed by The Pew Charitable Trusts, Google, and election officials nationwide, offers technology tools that give voters access to the customized information they need to cast a ballot on or before Election Day.

    VIP is offering free apps and tools that provide polling place locations and ballot information for the 2014 election across a range of technology platforms:

    • Free white-label Android and iOS mobile apps can be customized, branded, and released by state and local governments or third-party organizations. Download the iOS or Android app. These apps provide ballot and polling place information in multiple languages, as well as text-to-speech functionality. Kansas was the first state to brand and release a version of one of the apps — VoteKansas — as its own.  A number of other states also plan to release branded versions of the apps ahead of the election.
    • A short messaging service (SMS) provides voters with election information via text message. By texting “VOTE” or “VOTO” to 69520, voters can find polling places, contact information for local election officials, and registration URLs. The app is available in multiple languages. For information on the source code, visit VIP’s GitHub repository.
    • A mobile-optimized, white-label voting information tool supplements the Google voter information tool and offers official polling place and ballot information, as well as other resources. The tool can be easily embedded on any website in multiple languages (Available Oct. 13-17). Read below how to embed the tool.
    • ElectionDesk, a social media monitoring platform, allows state and local election officials to monitor issues as they arise and to interact with voters in real time on Election Day via Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and other social media networking streams. The open-source tool permits users to filter posts by custom geographic areas and by topics related to election administration.

    VIP works with election officials across the nation to ensure that the information provided through the tools is official and reliable. For more information about VIP or any of these tools, please contact vip@pewtrusts.org.

    About VIP Tools

    • Voters in every state and the District of Columbia can use search engines, social media, mobile applications, and online news sites to get answers to questions about the voting process.  
    • Media, civic organizations, and candidates can place VIP gadgets on their websites to inform the public and encourage participation. In 2012, more than 600 sites used VIP, drawing 25 million look-ups.
    • Technology innovators can develop new applications to increase voter engagement through embeddable gadgets, mobile device applications, and tools for military and overseas voting.

  • Elaine Soloway’s Widow Series: Odd Number & Like Mother, Like Daughter or Not

    Odd Number

    There were five of us seated around the table — circular, so much better than rectangle where an empty chair would’ve been haunting. Four dear friends, who didn’t want me alone on my aborted 15-year wedding anniversary, treated me to dinner at a favorite neighborhood restaurant. It was the same spot Tommy and I, and this very same group, celebrated at each year.

     “So sweet,” my daughters had said when they heard of our friends’ kind gesture. “Should we pick up the check like we’ve done before?”

    “No,” I said. “Not this time.”

    I remembered our grateful surprise at anniversary dinners the previous years. “Your meals are covered,” the waiter said as he cleared the table.  “Your daughters paid for it.”

    “Another round of drinks!” my friends joked. My husband and I, a stepfather to my generous girls, grasped hands and smiled. Misty eyes for both of us.

    What was Tommy thinking? I wondered back then. Did he consider how much our lives had changed since our marriage all those years ago? I know that’s where my thoughts flew. He had a bit of a vocabulary at dinner 2011, but occasionally, one of our friends turned to me with a blank look, hoping I could interpret my husband’s patchwork language.

    By the time the six of us celebrated January 13, 2012, Tommy’s greedy aphasia had stolen all speech. My heart sank as he sat quietly while the rest of us debated our usual topics.

    This year, 2013, I was the odd number at the table. I’ve only been a widow for just over two months, so the feeling of “third wheel” hasn’t yet entered my brain. But, I remember how it nagged after my divorce from my first husband.

    Initially, when he left our 30-year marriage that was often unhappy, I felt like a kid let out of school. I ate pizza on the couch, filled the house with overnight guests who often stayed for months, and hosted dinners that squeezed our dining room.

    But after four years of this freedom, loneliness crept in. I missed being married. I wanted to be part of a couple again. I hated being the gal left at the wedding or bar mitzvah guarding the purses while couples danced.

    I put an ad in the Chicago Reader (the pre-online matchmaking option), attended a few singles events, told my friends I wanted to be fixed up, and went on a series of dates that either ended the same evening or continued for several months.

    And while none of these swains turned out to be ‘the one,’ I did enjoy primping for an evening out and feeling like half a pair.

    In the end, Tommy and I met through neither of the methods listed above, instead as the song suggests, “on the street where we live.”*  After our first date — I had asked him out — we became a couple. We each found what we wanted in a partner, and within two years married.

    Although his friends say he fell head over heels when he met me, I think Tommy was a more content single than I was. His first marriage wasn’t nearly as long as mine and there were no children, so there appeared to be nothing he longed for or missed.

    Unless it was someone to cherish, because that’s what my husband did from first date to last breath. As I’ve been rifling through dresser drawers in preparation for an eventual sale of our home, I’ve found stacks of yellow-lined notes bundled in rubber bands. Each bearing a sentiment from a love-struck middle-aged man who paused every day to let me know he felt as if he had won the lottery.

    As for me, I reveled in being cherished by someone I loved. But just as much, I was thrilled to be part of a couple again, to be a married woman. When Tommy introduced me to his long-time friends, and when we double-dated with mine, all feelings of being considered a ‘third wheel’ dissolved.

  • Stateline’s Q&A: What Are States Doing to Prepare for an Ebola Outbreak?

    level 4 hazmat suit
    *Editor’s Note: See page 2

    October 15, 2014

    By Christine Vestal, Stateline

    As fears of an Ebola outbreak rise, federal agencies are taking steps to protect and inform the public. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta is taking the lead on most aspects of the effort — issuing containment guidelines to hospitals and other health workers, training airport personnel on screening methods, and creating uniform lab tests to diagnose the deadly disease. But as in all public health emergencies, state and local public health departments are the nation’s first line of defense.

    A researcher working with the Ebola virus while wearing a BSL-4 positive pressure suit to avoid infection; United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, 2011. Wikimedia Commons

    What role do state and local health agencies play in protecting the public?

    State and local health department workers are often first responders, communicating directly with residents and health care workers, as well as coordinating with related agencies and hospitals through established communication networks. They also manage public health laboratories that test for the virus.

    For example, when the Liberian national, Thomas Eric Duncan, tested positive for Ebola in September, the Texas Department of State Health Services reported the laboratory results to the hospital that was treating him and the Dallas County health agency began tracking down people who had direct contact with him. Later, the state agency issued quarantine orders for those who had come in contact with Duncan, the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department delivered the orders and county health officials checked the temperatures of those who were quarantined.

    How is the CDC working with state and local agencies and health workers to coordinate Ebola preparedness?

    As in all potential infectious disease outbreaks, the CDC is communicating through the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) to prepare individual health agencies across the country to respond to a case of Ebola in their jurisdictions. In August, after the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the CDC began issuing guidelines for screening, isolating and diagnosing potential Ebola patients in the US and controlling the spread of the disease.

    State and local agencies in turn began working within their jurisdictions to answer questions from hospitals, health care workers, law enforcement and other related government agencies, as well as inform the public.

    The CDC uses conference call, email and webinar networks to exchange information with state and local public health agencies, other federal agencies, hospitals and local and national health care organizations, chiefly the Health Alert Network (HAN) and the Clinician Outreach and Communication Activity (COCA).  

    In addition to infectious disease outbreaks, the CDC uses these networks to communicate with tens of thousands of health care workers across the country before, during and after other public health emergencies, including natural disasters, biological or chemical contaminations, terrorist attacks and widespread foodborne illnesses.

    Who is in charge?

    States vary in the way public health is governed and funded. Some states staff and manage nearly all local public health agencies and others run a single agency for the entire state, leaving counties and cities to run their own independent public health departments.

  • E-Mail: Blessing or Curse?

    By Rose Madeline Mulaemail icon

    How did we manage before email?  It helps us communicate easily with family, friends, and business associates.  It saves us immeasurable time.  It slashes our postage and stationery costs.

    As a writer, email has been a special boon to me.  In the predigital age, when I wanted to submit an article to publishers, I had to take my typed originals to Staples or Kinko’s to make Xerox copies, and then snail mail them to editors, along with return-addressed stamped envelopes.  Expensive!  Slow!  Today, with email, I have no copying costs, no postage, no gas costs to drive to a copy center and the post office, and no time spent on those trips.   Plus, no waiting for the mailman for responses.  I can now receive rejections cheaply and quickly.  Oh, wait!  That’s not good!

    As for personal emails, I do enjoy hearing from you — usually.  But please, please don’t send me any more that try to guilt me into forwarding your message to all my contacts.  You know the ones I mean:  If I believe in God, I’ll send this to my friends … If I love my country, I’ll share this with my contacts … if I appreciate the sacrifices made by our brave servicemen and women I’ll post this on my Facebook page …  In other words, if I don’t do as you ask, it means I hate God and the USA and all who serve in the armed forces.  Not true.  Not by a long shot.   I have very valid reasons for not forwarding your messages, none of which have anything to do with my belief in the Almighty, my profound love of America, or my deep gratitude for all those serving this great country. 

    I also don’t want to receive threats of bad luck if I don’t forward your email.  Yesterday, for example, I received an email saying I would die at 11:59 PM if I did not forward the message.  FYI, I did not forward it;  I did not die.  Or if I did, the hereafter is surprisingly the same as life as I knew it on earth.  My difficult relatives are still difficult; I still can’t lose those stubborn five pounds; Macy’s still expects payment of the bill it sent me last week; my tricky left hip still needs to be replaced.  And, oh yes, publishers are still not fighting over my latest manuscript.

    Almost as annoying, are the ‘good news’ emails — promises of five years of good luck if I forward your message to five friends, seven years for seven friends, and so on.  Similarly, don’t tell me that if I email that new Microsoft press release you sent me to only four people, Bill Gates will send me $5,000 to thank me for my support.  Sure he will.  And the stork brings babies, and that new wrinkle cream I bought is going to erase twenty years from my face.

    News flash:  My wish will definitely not be granted if I forward your email to everyone on my contact list.  I know because I actually tried this once when I was having a particularly bad day.  It was four years ago; and I still have not won a multi-gazillion dollar lottery.  (Maybe I should try buying a ticket?)

    And stop with the political propaganda!  You don’t like my candidates; I can’t stand yours.  Bombarding me with what I consider misinformation isn’t going to change my mind.  Let’s just agree to disagree.  Or, as they say, I could agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong.

    What’s more, you may love extreme wrestling … 14-inning baseball games …. all the so-called real housewives of everywhere …  I don’t.  You know I don’t.  So why do you keep sending me emails about all this stuff?

    And before you forward the newest scare story (about contaminated hypodermic needles imbedded in movie theater seats … poisoned Halloween candy … reports of McDonalds using human meat in hamburgers) please take a minute to check out their accuracy on Snopes or some other fact-checking site. You must know, of course, that too many people assume that it must be true because you say you saw it on the Internet; and they perpetuate the myths by passing them on to all their friends.

    And if you must forward everything you receive, at least delete the email addresses of everyone else on the routing lists.  I prefer that the scammers and spammers who troll the Net constantly looking for new victims not have easy access to my email address.

    Does this mean I never want to hear from you again?  Not at all.  I’d love to know what’s new with you.  And I do enjoy the latest pictures of your kids and grandkids and the funny, clever jokes you send.  Just no more tickets to Guiltsville, threats of bad luck, scary unsubstantiated hoaxes, pie-in-the-sky promises, or political propaganda, please.

    Deal?

    ©2014 Rose Madeline Mula for SeniorWomen.com

    Editor’s Note: Rose Mula’s most recent book, Grandmother Goose: Rhymes for a Second Childhood is now 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 still 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).

     

  • A National Treasure, the Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Studio

    Gertrude Whitney

    “War Monument” model, 1928, by Gertrude V. Whitney. Courtesy Smithsonian Archives of American Art

    In early October,  the National Trust for Historic Preservation named the Whitney Studio in Greenwich Village a National Treasure. The studio has been added to the organization’s portfolio of nationally significant sites because of its distinct architectural and cultural importance.

    Built in 1877, the Whitney Studio originally served as a carriage house until its conversion in 1907 to a studio and private salon for sculptor and arts patron, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. As the eldest daughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, Whitney was well-known for stepping out of her society role to create art and advocate for fellow American artists. In 1918, she commissioned American artist and close friend, Robert Winthrop Chanler to design the space. Today, it is one of the few remaining examples of twentieth century decorative art.

    Whitney’s work to showcase American art at the studio spurred the modern art movement in the United States, and in 1929 the space became the original site of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

    The Whitney Studio is owned and operated within the larger complex of the New York Studio School (NYSS) and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1992 and later listed on the World Monuments Fund’s 2012 Watch list. Since becoming stewards of the studio, the NYSS has sought to restore and repair damage to the historic landmark, while fulfilling its primary mission of arts education. 

    Today, the studio stands in need of a $2.2 million restoration as a result of considerable deterioration caused by water infiltration and numerous over-painting campaigns. The exterior of the studio is also in poor condition due to cracks and water damage in the ceiling and walls. Along with the designation of the Whitney Studio, the National Trust has also made a $30,000 grant to the NYSS and will work with the school to raise additional funds to fully restore and stabilize the space. To donate to the campaign to restore the Whitney Studio, visit www.savingplaces.org.

  • Women’s Unemployment Rate Higher Than Men’s For First Time in Nearly Two Years; Microsoft CEO’s ‘Karma’ Remark

    “It’s not really about asking for a raise, but knowing and having faith that the system will give you the right raise,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to an audience of the *Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing on Thursday, as first reported by ReadWrite. Subsequently, Natella has stated his regret over his remark.

    Women’s unemployment rate was higher than men’s for first time since December 2012, according to new analysis by the National Women’s Law Center  of data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

    “With women’s unemployment rate higher than men’s for the first time in nearly two years, and men gaining about 60 percent of the jobs added over the past year, it’s past time to accelerate the recovery for women and men,” said Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security.  Lawmakers can do that by raising wages for workers in low-wage jobs — two-thirds of whom are women, promoting equal pay, supporting workers with family responsibilities, and investing in public services that create jobs for women and men.”

    Adult women’s unemployment rate was higher than men’s in September for the first time since December 2012:

    • Unemployment declined for both adult women and men (20 and older) in September, though the drop was steeper for adult men:  adult women’s unemployment rate declined to 5.5 percent from 5.7 percent in August and adult men’s declined to 5.3 percent from 5.7 percent.
    • In September adult women’s unemployment rate was 0.2 percentage points above adult men’s, marking the first time adult women’s unemployment rate was higher than adult men’s since December 2012. Before last month, December 2012 was the only time in the last eight years that women’s unemployment rate had been higher than men’s.
    • Over the last year, adult men’s unemployment has declined more sharply than adult women’s, dropping from 5.3 percent in September 2014 from 7.0 percent in September 2013, a decline of 1.7 percentage points.  Over the same time period adult women’s unemployment rate dropped to 5.5 percent from 6.2 percent, a decline of 0.7 percentage points.
    • The overall unemployment rate in September was 5.9 percent, down from 6.1 percent in August and 7.2 percent from September 2013.

    Some vulnerable groups saw improvement in their unemployment rates in September, though they remained substantially higher than the overall unemployment rate:

    • Unemployment rates declined in September from August for adult African American women (down to 9.6 percent from 10.6 percent), adult Hispanic women (down to 7.2 percent from 8.1 percent), adult Hispanic men (down to 4.8 percent from 5.9 percent), and single mothers (down to 8.3 percent from 9.3 percent).  White men’s unemployment rate declined to 4.4 percent from 4.9 percent.
    • Unemployment rates rose in September for adult African American men (up to 11.0 percent from 10.8 percent) and were flat for adult white women at 4.8 percent.
    • 3.0 million Americans were long-term unemployed (looking for work for 27 weeks or longer) in September 2014, the same as the prior month.  Similar to August, about one-third of jobless adult women and men were long-term unemployed in September.

    Women accounted for 41 percent of the jobs added in September, matching their share of net job gains over the last year:

    • In September women added 101,000 jobs, accounting for 40.7 percent of total job gains (248,000 jobs). This matches their share of net growth over the last year; from September 2013 to September 2014 women added 1,090,000 jobs, accounting for 41.4 percent of total net gains (2,635,000 jobs).
    • Women’s largest gains in September were in professional & business (+29,000), private education & health services (+24,000), retail (+16,600) and leisure & hospitality (+16,000).  Largest losses were in wholesale trade (-7,600) and transportation and warehousing (-4,100).
    • Men’s largest gains in September were in professional & business services, (+52,000), retail (+18,700), leisure & hospitality (+17,000), and construction (+15,000).  Largest losses were in other services (-6,000).

    *Co-founded by Dr. Anita Borg and Dr. Telle Whitney in 1994 and inspired by the legacy of Admiral Grace Murray Hopper,  Anita Borg Institute’s Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) of Women In Computing Conference is designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront.