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  • Of Horizons and Hope

    horizon rainbow
     
     

    Did you ever notice the inverse proportions of our lives that seem to be dependent on our ages? The changing importance of common segments of time, of course, are most obvious, perhaps — like a decade seeming half way to forever when you’re fourteen, and about like a week when you’re seventy. Recently, I’ve begun to notice others.

    For instance, there’s an irony in how we view our physical selves, apart from matters of vanity or even self-image. When we’re really young, we yearn to be bigger. As we get to physical maturity, we’re often happy enough with our size, but find ourselves on the verge of, (or too often) in the midst of, a determination not to get any larger. Daily I sit at a table with one or another of my coevals who complain that they’re losing weight, and they don’t know why. I have to hide my envy as they gobble down double scoops of ice cream for dessert. The bell curve seems to fit our internal gauges in many stages of life.

    Remember when you noticed nothing much beyond your front yard or across your street, or beyond the mailbox at the end of your driveway? That was fine; the world was wide enough. You didn’t think much about what was out of sight. In all too short a time, though, you developed not just itchy feet, but an itchy psyche. You got a sense of how much is on our planet, and with that discovery came a real yen to see as much of it as you could. This feeling of being a small fish in an ocean wasn’t confined to geographical terms alone.

    In our generation, that sense of immensity is laughable when we think of what is considered large today. A hundred years ago, the word “galaxy” stood for the farthest imaginable expanse known to man. Now, here we are, with time and space both expanded exponentially­ — and comprehension of huge numbers of almost infinite tininess­­ — of nano as well as mega measurements now exceed my ability to comprehend.

    During our middle years, we often wish only to expand our horizons — all of them. Then along comes the evidence that whether we like it or not, those horizons are drawing closer to us instead of recedi ng.

    Our grandchildren are looking at their expanding universe, and we can’t believe our own is shrinking. Time and bereavement have made us slower and dimmed our hopes, our bodies won’t let us forget that we’re here with the finish line in view.

    Whether it’s faith or sheer cussedness, we hang in there, most of us, if only to see what’s on the other side of the tape. If we’re lucky, we may notice that those beckoning, far horizons no longer have the appeal they once did. I, for one, have a vision that seems to be shortening along with my future, and it has nothing to do with needing my glasses changed. I do, however, hope that they will not be lost horizons.

    After all, I like thinking of the millions following in our footsteps who will yearn towards them. Perhaps that’s what hope is.

    ©2012 Joan L. Cannon for SeniorWomen.com

    Photograph from Wikimedia Commons, Thundercloud rainbow; Lawrence, Kansas, USA

     

  • While Waiting for the Tipping Point: The Impact of the Fiscal Cliff on the States

    The “fiscal cliff,” a series of expiring federal tax provisions and scheduled spending cuts set to take effect in January 2013, will directly affect state budgets according to a new report, The Impact of the Fiscal Cliff on the States, released by The Pew Center on the States. The study finds that the effects on the states from the fiscal cliff’s different tax and spending provisions vary greatly based on the degree states are tied to the federal tax code and federal spending. Lobby to Main Mural, Reading Room, Library of Congress

    “To understand the full cost and benefits of proposals to address the fiscal cliff, policy makers need to know how federal and state policies are linked,” said Pew project director Anne Stauffer. “The implications for states should be part of the discussion so that problems are not simply shifted from one level of government to another.”

    Federal policy makers will very soon be faced with difficult decisions about whether and how to address several expiring tax policies and scheduled spending cuts. This report looks at the categories of policies that make up the fiscal cliff and addresses each of their potential impacts on the states.

    Scheduled tax changes account for roughly four-fifths — or $393 billion — of the total amount of the fiscal cliff. Because state tax systems are linked in various ways to the federal tax code, the changes would directly affect tax revenue in nearly all states. If certain federal taxes increase, state revenues in most instances would automatically increase as well:

    • For at least 25 states and the District of Columbia, lower federal deductions would mean more income being taxed at the state level as well, resulting in higher state tax revenues.
    • At least 30 states and the District of Columbia would see revenue increases because of tax credits based on federal tax credits that would be reduced.
    • At least 23 states have adopted federal rules for certain deductions related to business expenses. The scheduled expiration of these provisions would give these states higher taxable corporate income and hence higher tax revenues in the near term.
    • Thirty-three states would collect more revenue as a result of changes in the estate tax that would take effect at the beginning of 2013.

    Illustration: Detail from Government. Mural by Elihu Vedder, 1896. Lobby to Main Reading Room, Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C. Main figure is seated atop a pedestal saying “Government” and holding a tablet saying “A Government/of the People / By the People/ For the People”. Wikimedia Commons

  • New Studies: Older People and Trust; Science Faculty’s Subtle Gender Biases

    Study identifies basis for sense of trust in older people

    Two new studies by NIA-funded (National Institute on Aging) researchers at UCLA have shown that older people are less adept than younger people at discerning visual clues of dishonesty in others. This may help to explain why many older people are more susceptible to financial fraud and other scams, the researchers found. Research results appeared online December 3, 2012, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.trust image

    In the first study, investigators had 119 older adult (average age 68) and 24 younger adults (average age 23) look at 30 photographs of faces and rated them on how trustworthy and approachable they seemed. The faces were intentionally selected to look trustworthy, neutral, or untrustworthy.

    Both groups reacted similarly to the trustworthy and neutral faces. But, younger adults reacted strongly to the untrustworthy faces, while the older adults did not. The older adults saw these faces as more trustworthy and more approachable than the younger adults.

    In the second study, 23 older adults (average age 66) and 21 younger adults (average age 33) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging brain scans while looking at the faces. The brains of the younger adults showed activity in the anterior insula region both when they were rating the faces and especially when viewing the untrustworthy faces. In contrast, the older adults displayed very little anterior insula activation during the imaging. The anterior insula is associated with “gut feelings,” which represent expected risk and predict risk-avoidance behaviors.

    These studies are the first to show age differences in a characteristic pattern of brain activation in a “social” situation involving the assessment of another person’s trustworthiness. Additional research is needed to determine whether the results are caused by age-related changes in the brain or if older adults are simply less motivated to look for social signals of untrustworthiness.

    Reference: Castle, Elizabeth, et al. Neural and behavioral bases of age differences in perceptions of trust. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Published online December 3, 2012, www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1218518109.

     Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students

    1. Corinne A. Moss-Racusina,b, John F. Dovidiob, Victoria L. Brescollc, Mark J. Grahama,d, and Jo Handelsmana,1

    Abstract

    Despite efforts to recruit and retain more women, a stark gender disparity persists within academic science. Abundant research has demonstrated gender bias in many demographic groups, but has yet to experimentally investigate whether science faculty exhibit a bias against female students that could contribute to the gender disparity in academic science.

  • Cuba Today

     
    My backyard really expanded last week — all the way to Cuba!
     
    We had the opportunity to visit the island that is so close to us, a mere ninety miles from Miami, and yet so far from our ability to interact, at least until recently. We went with Grand Circle Foundation, one of the licensed groups that lead people-to-people cultural exchange tours. What we found was a resourceful culture, friendly people, and music that enlivens everything.
     
    Much of what you see is reflective of the 1950s (oh, those cars!) when Cuba was a booming tourist destination. But all was not well in the coastal paradise. There was a large class discrepancy. In 1959, Fidel Castro ousted Fulgencio Batista who, when it looked like he would be voted out of power, had taken over total control of the government. Most privately owned businesses and properties became state-owned. Cuba became aligned with the Soviet Union and communism and estranged from the United States. This relationship lasted until the USSR was officially dissolved in 1991. The dissolution left Cuba in crisis. Without the economic support the USSR had provided, food was scarce and poverty reigned.Cuban field
     
    Cuba is still struggling. There are remnants of functional Soviet architecture but also of the grander architectural styles that came with Spanish colonization. Much of that, unfortunately, is in need of repair, which is too costly for most Cubans. Buildings occasionally fall down, sometimes with the people in them. Many of the buildings have black mold on them, something that is hard to control in such a humid climate.
     
    Cuba’s new leader Raul Castro, Fidel’s brother, is beginning to loosen some restrictions. We visited a cooperative organic farm. The land is still state-owned but the produce can be sold privately. We ate in a few paladars, small, privately owned restaurants located in homes. They provide a chance to practice both Spanish and English, depending on which side of the menu you’re on. Our tour was a busy one, but it left us time to wander the cities and interact with local residents who are eager to connect.
     
    And yes, we did see nature in various forms. We saw cranes looking for lunch in Cienfuegos, a city that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We visited a family that owns a tobacco farm where there was a variety of livestock, lots of chickens and a rooster who was intent on getting us to feed him some of the bananas we were eating (there were three delicious local varieties). We went through a nature preserve and learned about trees that are native, and some invasive, to Cuba. There was el Malacón, the miles-long promenade in Havana, a great place to see the harbor and a popular venue to stroll along.

  • Bills Passed and Introduced: Intercountry and Domestic Adoption, Child Protection and Violence against Women

    From The Source on Women’s Issues in Congress, Women’s Policy Inc

    Senate Addresses Intercountry and Domestic Adoption

    Senate Clears Intercountry Adoption Bill

    On December 5, the Senate approved, by unanimous consent, the Intercountry Adoption Universal Accreditation Act of 2012 (S. 3331). The Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed the legislation on September 19 (see The Source, 9/21/12).

    The measure, sponsored by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), would apply universal accreditation standards to adoption service providers in all countries involved in the adoption of foreign orphans under the age of 16, regardless of whether or not the country is party to the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption. The legislation would give the secretary of the Department of State, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, the attorney general (Department of Justice), and accrediting entities authority to enforce such universal accreditation standards.

    Child Protection

    S. 3653 —- Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)/Judiciary (12/4/12) — A bill to improve the training of child protection professionals.

    H.R. 6629 —- Rep. Tim Walz (D-MN)/Education and the Workforce, Judiciary (12/4/12)—A bill to improve the training of child protection professionals.

    Violence Against Women

    H.R. 6625 —- Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)/Judiciary, Natural Resources (12/3/12) — A bill to grant Indian tribes jurisdiction over crimes of domestic violence that occur in the Indian country of that tribe.

    H.R. 6628 —- Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX)/Judiciary (12/4/12) — A bill to amend the DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act of 2000 to provide for Debbie Smith grants for auditing sexual assault evidence backlogs and to establish a Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence Registry, and for other purposes.

  • Remembering Your Secret Passwords: Difficult To Be Guessed by Intruders As Well as ‘Authorized Users’?

    Abstract

    The present article reports a survey conducted to identify the practices on passwords usage, focusing particularly on memory limitations and the use of passwords across individuals with different age and education backgrounds. A total of 263 participants were interviewed, with ages ranging from 18 to 93 years, and education level ranging from grade school to graduate degree. Contrary to our expectations, effects of cognitive decline due to aging were not observed on memory performance for passwords. The results suggested instead, that the number of password uses was the most influential factor on memory performance. That is, as the number of circumstances in which individuals utilized passwords increased, the incidence of forgotten and mixed-up passwords also increased. The theoretical significance of these findings and their implications for good practices on password usage are discussed.

    “Pickering’s Harem,” so-called, [see below] for the group of women computers at the Harvard College Observatory, who worked for the astronomer Edward Charles Pickering. The group included Harvard computer and astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868–1921), Annie Jump Cannon (1863–1941), Williamina Fleming (1857–1911), and Antonia Maury (1866–1952). Photograph courtesy of the Grasslands Observatory,  circa 1900–1910

    IntroductionAstronomer's 'Harem' at computers

    Before checking the balance in a bank account or sending an email to a friend, people are almost always required to enter a “secret” password to obtain access to these systems. These ubiquitous password requirements from computer based systems have the goal of avoiding unauthorized access to personal and often sensitive information. To be effective on this goal, however, the required passwords should be significantly difficult to be guessed by potential intruders. As a consequence, secure passwords are typically composed of uppercase and lowercase letters combined with numbers and special characters, and are at least six characters long. The intricate characteristics of secure passwords, however, posit an unfortunate problem for password users. That is, whereas such passwords are difficult to be guessed by intruders, they are in general considerably difficult to be remembered by authorized users.

    As extensively shown by prior human memory research, people tend to exhibit better memory performance for the gist meaning of a past event than for its details . Although secure passwords can be related to meaningful information (e.g., the name of a family member), retrieval of its meaning content is usually not a sufficient condition to access secured information because passwords must be entered verbatim, which requires knowledge about its source (the system in which one should use a particular password) and structure (the precise organization of letters, numbers, and symbols that composes a password). Therefore, recommendations for creating secure passwords end up requiring users to retrieve memories for detailed (verbatim) information, which by their turn, fade quickly with the passage of time  and are very susceptible to interference .

    Prior research has shown that to circumvent the difficulty in learning and remembering secure passwords, people acquire several inappropriate practices on generating and storing their personal passwords . These practices include choosing passwords of personal significance, passwords short in length, excessively simple passwords, reusing passwords, and writing down passwords. In a study in which 860 password users at the American Department of Defense were surveyed, it was found that long passwords are not necessarily harder to recall than short ones, but passwords composed of various kinds of characters are in fact more difficult to remember and more likely to be written down than passwords composed of only one kind of character. In some cases, inappropriate password usage habits persist even after users are lectured about computer and information security issues.

    Photograph from Wikimedia Commons 

  • The Holiday Hustle Hassle

    by Rose Madeline Mula

    I still remember how I used to love Christmas. That’s really amazing considering how bad my memory is and how long it’s been since the sight of tinsel and holly and the sound of Jingle Bells have made me joyous instead of nauseous.

    Looking back, I think the magic disappeared just about the time the big kids told me there was no Santa Claus. Even at that tender age, my precocious little mind must have deduced that if Santa didn’t bring all those swell presents, someone sure as heck had to go out and buy them. Goodbye Ho, Ho, Ho! Hello, Boo Hoo, Hoo!Decorations in Melborne, Australia

    Since then, Christmas shopping has become my second least favorite activity (the first is having a root canal); and it gets progressively worse each year as it becomes increasingly harder to figure out what to buy people that (1) they would like, and (2) they haven’t already bought a more expensive version of for themselves. Which is a pretty revealing indication of how paradoxical our society is — though everyone complains about how tough it is to make ends meet, most of the complaining seems to be done either behind the wheel of one of the two (or more) family cars, or in front of the 42-inch plasma TV, and usually by people who have a weight problem caused by an overabundance of rich food and drink.

    As for the children, we’ve all heard stories from the old folks of how they used to be beside themselves with joy if they found so much as an orange, instead of a lump of coal, in their Christmas stockings. Today it’s not so easy to please a kid. Unless the eight-foot tree is completely hidden behind a pile of bionic, electronic, computerized, overautomated and overpriced toys that cost more than you used to have to spend to furnish an entire house (real, not doll), they start reading you their Constitutional rights. (They interpret the dictum that “all men are created equal” to mean they should get as many expensive presents as the spoiled rich brat across town.) Yep, things sure have changed. The only way an orange would please a child today would be if he got to pick it himself from a tree growing in Disneyland.

    As for the kids on my list, all the little boys already own everything from mini sports cars (guaranteed not to exceed thirty miles per hour for safety reasons) to back-yard tree houses with indoor plumbing. And the girls are all flying to Paris with their parents regularly to replenish their Barbie dolls’ wardrobes at Christian Dior.

    Read the rest of Rose Madeline Mula’s classic holiday article … http://www.seniorwomen.com/articles/rose/articlesRoseHoliday.html

  • Dickens and Doctors: Vignettes of Victorian Medicine

    (Editor’s Note: We’re almost at the end of the Bicentenary of Charles Dickens. We thought we’d look at another aspect of his writing, noted in 1992 by a ‘layman’ writing in the British Medical Journal and reprinted by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine.)

    by J. E. CosnettBleak House

    Doctors are prominently represented in Charles Dickens’s fiction. In 14 major works there are at least 27 members of the medical profession, some named, others anonymous. The main medical personalities provide vignettes of Victorian medicine, seen through the eyes of a very observant, critical, and socially conscious layman.

    Medical students and medical education
    Most prominent among medical students are Bob Sawyer and his friend Benjamin Allen, who appear in Pickwick Papers. At the time of writing Dickens was 24 years old; he must have associated. with London medical students and learnt of their curriculum and lifestyle. Sam Weller introduced Sawyer and Allen to Pickwick as “not reg’lar thoroughbred sawbones.”

    Pickwick attributed their lack of social graces to “eccentricities of genius.” Like later generations of students, they relish their esoteric status and ability to shock their lay friends with privy talk such as “Nothing like dissecting to give one an appetite.” They discuss a “good accident brought into the casualty ward.” They have riotous drinking parties in lodgings for which the bill is in arrears, and their landlady describes them as a “parcel of young cutters and carvers of live peoples’ bodies, that disgraces the lodgings.”

    Another sight of medical studies is given by Richard Carstone in Bleak House. On an impulse, while undecided about a career, Richard undertakes to “become an MRCS.” He had spent eight years at a public school and “learned to make Latin verses to perfection,” but he “never had much chance of finding out for himself what he was fitted for . . . and was never guided.” However, “the more he thought of it, the more he felt that his destiny was clear; the art of healing was the art of all others for him.” He was apprenticed to Mr Bayham Badger, “who had a good practice at Chelsea, and attended a large public Institution besides.” He received Richard into his house and undertook to “superintend his studies.”

    Later Richard “felt languid about the profession” and confessed that “he had misunderstood his inclinations.” He considered changing to the legal profession, but wavered, finally deciding to leave medicine when he was “obliged to spend twelve pounds, at a blow, for some heart-breaking lecture fees.” (At this time, parish surgeons earned as little as £20 a year.)

    Postgraduate career choices
    Dickens’s doctors had four main avenues of career choice after qualification. Those with financial backing might enter general practice, possibly with the prospect’ of appointment to an institution. The young ‘doctor without means was forced to consider seeking appointment as a parochial surgeon or to join the army or, worse, the navy as a ship’s surgeon. Allan Woodcourt, the young medical hero of Bleak House, initially served as a navy surgeon, then became a parochial surgeon after he had wooed and married Esther Summerson. The conditions of service of naval surgeons were deplored by Dickens. In the appointment of parochial surgeons the choice usually fell on “bad or inexperienced doctors since they were cheapest.”

    A few qualified men gave up medical practice. Harold Skimpole “had been educated for the medical profession .-. . but he had never been able’to prescribe with the requisite accuracy of detail … and when he was wanted to bleed … or physic … he was generally found lying on his back, in bed, reading the newspapers.” [Bleak House] In New York, Martin Chuzzlewit was helped by Dr Bevan, whose “profession was physic, though he seldom or never practised.”

  • “Music is Just Dreaming in Sound” — Interviews With Important Popular Music Performers of the Last 50 Years

    Joe Smith’s Recorded Interviews with Music Icons Featured on Library of Congress’ WebsiteLinda Ronstadt

    Photograph: Linda Ronstadt*

    In 1988, John Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono gave a candid interview to record-label president Joe Smith about the Beatles’ split: “For John, it was a divorce. I think he was feeling very good about it, as if a big weight was off him.” Ono was among more than 200 celebrated performers, producers and industry leaders whose words Smith captured on audiotape more than 25 years ago in an effort to document the oral history of popular music.

    In June 2012, Smith donated the collection of recordings to the Library of Congress,  a tremendous assembly of primary-source oral histories covering perhaps the most important 50 years of popular music, nationally and internationally. The Library has made a series of these revealing, unedited recordings available for listening free to the public on its website at www.loc.gov/rr/record/joesmith/. The first group of recordings posted on the site will consist of 25 interviews. These include interviews with Tony Bennett, Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono, Ray Charles, B.B. King, Bo Diddley and Linda Rondstadt. More recordings in the Smith collection will be added to the site over time.

    Also coming soon is Smith’s own reflective interview, in which he shares rare and intimate details about his decades-long career. He candidly talks about the famous people in his life, including an accusation against him and his business partner, Frank Sinatra.

    All types of popular music are represented in the collection — from rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, rhythm & blues and pop to big-band, heavy metal, folk and country-western. The list of noted artists and executives is a veritable who’s who in the music industry. Among them are Artie Shaw, Woody Herman, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, Barbra Streisand, Little Richard, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Elton John, Paul Simon, David Bowie, Billy Joel, Sting, Tony Bennett, Joan Baez, James Taylor, Dick Clark, Tina Turner, Tom Jones, B. B. King, Quincy Jones, David Geffen, Mickey Hart, Harry Belafonte and many others.

    Smith’s 40-year career in the industry gave him unique entrée and for about a two-year period, he interviewed the biggest names in music. In 1988, he published excerpts from his interviews in the groundbreaking book Off the Record.

    “One of the great things about the interviews is how relaxed many of them are,” said Matt Barton, the Library’s recorded sound curator. “They’re not on camera and they’re talking to someone who’s very much a colleague and a peer, if not a musical artist. The tone is very different and the camera isn’t on them.”

    Visitors to the Library’s website will get a rare glimpse of music’s biggest stars in unguarded moments. Smith records them joking, eating, drinking and candidly discussing their lives, careers and contemporaries. While chain-smoking, Ono talks about the breakup of  The Beatles; Mick Jagger consumes toast and tea while discussing the Stones’ outlaw reputation; Paul McCartney also speaks frankly about The Beatles’ walk on the wild side; and Tony Bennett talks about the legacy of two music greats over dinner.

    *” By the end of 1978, Ronstadt had solidified her role as one of rock and pop’s most successful solo female acts, and owing to her consistent platinum album success, and her ability as the first-ever woman to sell out concerts in arenas and stadiums hosting tens of thousands of fans,Ronstadt became the “highest paid woman in rock”. She had six platinum certified albums, three of which went to No. 1 on the Billboard album chart, and numerous charted Pop singles. In 1978 alone, she made over $12 million (equivalent to $38,000,000 in today’s dollars) and in the same year her albums sales were reported to be 17 million — grossing over $60 million (equivalent to a gross of over $170,000,000, in today’s dollars).” Wikipedia

  • Elaine Soloway’s Caregiving Series: Do You Have a Visual?

    by Elaine Soloway

    On the day my daughter and I were combing the aisles of Ocean State Job Lots, we weren’t seeking the retailer’s “quality brand name merchandise at closeout prices,” but instead were searching for Tommy.searching

    “I don’t have a visual,” I shouted to Faith.

    “Me neither,” she said.

    The tour of the 40,000-square-foot warehouse in Boston was Faith’s idea to keep my husband and I entertained during our visit to her hometown. She knows Tommy is frugal, and thought he’d enjoy browsing. It was there I was teaching her an exercise I call, “Find Tommy.”

    I don’t think my husband deliberately tries to lose me. But now, during our trip, perhaps he had had enough of my hovering, my reminding, my suggesting, and decided to give me the slip.

    Even if Tommy was just teasing me with his disappearing act, I worried because his condition has left him vulnerable if he should get lost. Hence my hunt.

    At Job Lots, as Faith and I were mid-search, I shouted to her, “Check pet supplies.” 

    “Nope,” she called back.

    “Weed and feed fertilizer?” my daughter yelled. She knows Tommy loves gardening, so that section seemed a good bet.

    We threaded the aisles as if in a maze. Down through household cleaners, up through bed linens, past golf shirts, until I spotted his Red Sox baseball cap.

    “Hi Honey,” I said, as I latched onto his elbow. “Having fun?”

    I gave no hint as to the game Faith and I had just competed in. My husband is a proud, physically-fit, 75-year-old, who bravely copes with his handicap.

    I, on the other hand, am often muddled.