Author Archives: susanjustwrites

There’s No Place Like Nome

Posted on July 17, 2015 | Leave a comment

Although many tourists travel to Alaska every year, very few visit the small city of Nome. After I traveled there with a friend a few years ago, I recorded my impressions of the place. Here’s what it was like.

At the beginning of June, when we visited Nome, the sky never really turned dark. According to statistics, on June 1st the sun sets in Nome at 1:08 a.m. and rises again at 4:50 a.m. But whenever I awoke during the night, the sky was still light, no matter what time it was.

Explanation? In Nome, the sun is so close to the horizon that, from mid-April to mid-August, it seems as though there are 24 hours of daylight. In July, you can expect to have as much as 21 hours and 20 minutes of absolute daylight in Nome, stretching your days to a delicious length that allows you to see and do much more in natural light than you could do almost anywhere else.

So close to the Arctic Circle (only about 100 miles south), Nome sounds forbidding, but it really isn’t. The people living there are warm and friendly, and the air temperature from June through September is pretty warm, too. In July, the warmest month, the average high is 57.3, while the average low is 45.1. A high of 86 was actually recorded in July—once.

It’s hard to imagine, but Nome, now a quiet city of about 3,000 people, was once a rip-roaring frontier town of 20,000. Three men known as the “Three Lucky Swedes” discovered gold in a Nome creek in 1898, and a gold rush began. After gold was also discovered in 1899 in the sands of the beach that runs along the Bering Sea, and steamships from San Francisco and Seattle could finally break through the ice, thousands of gold-seeking miners arrived in the spring of 1900.

During the first decade of the 20th century, Nome actually became the largest city in Alaska, reaching a population of over 12,000 in 1900.

Nome today is a tourist destination, primarily for birdwatchers and those hoping to see native wildlife like musk ox, reindeer, moose, and bears. I tagged along with a “birder,” and we succeeded in seeing a large number of birds he’d never encountered before. For a birder, that’s a genuine triumph. We also encountered reindeer and otters but disappointingly never saw musk ox or moose, or the grizzly bear that had been spotted not far from downtown Nome.

The best way to see birds and other wildlife is to pile into a four-wheel-drive rental car and take off down one of the three roads that lead from Nome, each in a different direction. These roads take you to the even smaller towns on the Seward Peninsula.

The Nome-Council Road goes east for 72 miles, ending in the small town of Council. We followed it as far as Solomon, an abandoned gold-rush town, in search of birds and that elusive grizzly. Stopping at a number of rivers and wetlands, we came across a pond filled with a large gathering of trumpeter swans. It was thrilling to see so many swans, happily swimming in their natural habitat, occasionally taking off into the air as gracefully as…well, swans.

We took the second road, the Nome-Taylor Road, for a while, but we didn’t go as far as reputedly beautiful Salmon Lake, and we couldn’t go as far as Pilgrim Hot Springs (which boasts a wooden hot tub filled with mineral water) because snow still blocked the road.

But our favorite route was the Nome-Teller Road, which runs 73 miles west from Nome and is reportedly the westernmost road in North America. One sunny day, we set out on this route, stopping at the Sunik River, a great place to spot rare birds. We also caught sight of a pair of otters mating on the ice still floating in the river. But because we never got back on the road, we regretfully missed our chance to see the Inupiat native village of Teller.

Nome has appeal beyond the search for wildlife. Perched between the vast Alaskan tundra and the Bering Sea, it’s a haven for anyone seeking a quiet and tranquil spot, far removed from the hustle and bustle of urban America—in short, a genuine throwback to the simpler existence of an earlier time. We caught a glimpse of this earlier era by simply strolling down Front Street, Nome’s main drag. Because of a devastating fire in 1934, none of the buildings date from gold-rush days, but a visit to the local museum gave us a vivid picture of what life was like in the early decades of the 20th century.

The Visitor Center on Front Street was a pleasant place bursting with information about local events and places of interest. The helpful staff cheerfully proffered buttons that say “I ♥ NOME” and offered advice about where to eat, where to stay, and where to track down wildlife. Their helpful handouts included one that provided “gold panning instructions.” Yes, there really are people who still pan for gold on the beach.

While looking for birds, we met one such character, a friendly fellow named Ray. He confided that he spent one entire summer panning for gold on Nome’s beach, calling it “the best gold beach on the planet earth.” Ray said the gold runs down from the surrounding mountains via the local rivers, then enters the Bering Sea and lands on the ocean floor. In a storm, the ocean “coughs up” the gold and deposits it in the sand. Ray told us he collected five ounces of gold, reaping $5000 by the end of the summer.

The Carrie M. McClain Memorial Museum, also on Front Street, is named for its founder, who began collecting Nome memorabilia in the 1940s. One display case featured the “mounted” (preserved by taxidermy) figure of Fritz, a sled dog who’s credited with saving the children of Nome during an outbreak of diphtheria in 1925 (he was one of the lead dogs that brought lifesaving serum to Nome). Other exhibits included gold-rush-era photos and examples of Eskimo culture.

Nome’s Front Street is also the official finish line for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, which begins in Anchorage and ends 1,049 miles later in Nome. This now-famous race commemorates the delivery of serum by the dog team led by Fritz in 1925. As we traveled around Nome, we saw lots of Alaskan huskies like those that pull sleds in the Iditarod. Local residents told us they like to “mush” in the winter because dog-sledding is an easy way to get around in the snow, often easier than driving an SUV.

Would I return to Nome? Probably not. There’s a host of other places I’d like to see first.

But accompanying my friend to Nome and seeing the wildlife surrounding us in all-day-long sunlight was truly memorable.

There really is no place like Nome.

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Posted in Alaska, birdwatching, Nome, panning for gold, travel, wildlife

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You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry

Posted on June 30, 2015 | 2 comments

We see anger all around us. And it’s worse than ever. As The New York Times recently noted, rudeness and bad behavior “have grown over the last decades.” The Times focused on rudeness and incivility by “mean bosses” who cause stress in the workplace, but the phenomenon is widespread, appearing almost everywhere.

Along with mean bosses, we’ve all witnessed incidents of “road rage.” These sometimes lead to fatal results. I can understand road rage because I’m susceptible to it myself, but I strive to keep it under control. (I’m usually satisfied by hurling vicious insults at other drivers that they fortunately can’t hear.)

As a pedestrian, I’m often angered by rude and careless drivers who nearly mow me down as I walk through a crosswalk. Fortunately, my rage is usually tempered by my silent riposte, “I’m walkin’ here,” Ratso Rizzo’s enduring phrase.

Other common examples of anger include parents’ frustration with their children’s behavior. You’ve probably seen parents going so far as to hit their children in public, unable to restrain their anger even when others are watching.

Can we deal with anger by seeking revenge? That tactic, unwisely adopted by the two enraged drivers in the Argentinian film “Wild Tales,” may be tempting, but it’s clearly not the answer. Why? Because being angry simply isn’t good for your health.

Although anger can be useful—helping the body prepare to fight or flee from danger–strong anger releases hormones, adrenaline and cortisol, into the bloodstream. These can trigger an increase in heart rate and blood pressure and problems metabolizing sugar (leading to still other problems).

According to the Times article, Robert M. Sapolsky, a Stanford professor and author of “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers,” argues that when people experience even intermittent stressors like incivility for too long or too often, their immune systems pay the price. Major health problems, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and ulcers may result.

A host of medical researchers are not at all upset to tell you the results of their studies. “Anger is bad for just about everything we have going on physically,” according to Duke researcher Redford Williams, co-author of “Anger Kills: Seventeen Strategies for Controlling the Hostility That Can Harm Your Health.” Over time, he adds, chronic anger can cause long-term damage to the heart.

For example, new evidence suggests that people increase their risk for a heart attack more than eight times after an extremely angry episode. A study published in March 2015 revealed that patients who’d experienced intense anger had an 8.5 times greater risk of suffering a heart attack in the two hours after an outburst of intense anger than they would normally.

The study, published in the European Heart Journal: Acute Cardiovascular Care, focused on patients in a Sydney, Australia, hospital who’d been “very angry, body tense, maybe fists clenched, ready to burst,” or “enraged, out of control, throwing objects, hurting [themselves] or others.” Although those are instances of extreme anger, not a typical angry episode, the finding is useful nonetheless.

A review of nine other studies, including a combined 6,400 patients, found a higher rate of problems like strokes as well as heart attacks and irregular heartbeat.

According to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, most doctors believe smoking and obesity pose greater heart risks than anger does. But someone with risk factors for heart trouble or a history of heart attack or stroke who is “frequently angry” has “a much higher absolute excess risk accumulated over time,” according to Elizabeth Mostofsky at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, who help lead the nine-study review.

As the Journal article noted, some older studies have suggested that anger may be linked to other unfavorable results: increased alcohol consumption, increased smoking, and greater caloric intake. One study also found that high levels of anger were associated with serious sleep disturbances.

How do we deal with all of this anger? Anger-management counselors like Joe Pereira, cited by the Journal, recommend ways to curb hostility. First, avoid assuming others are deliberately trying to harm or annoy you. Also learn to tolerate unfairness, and avoid having rigid rules about how others should behave. “The more rules we have, the more people are going to break them. And that makes us angry,” Pereira says.

Experts also advise taking a timeout when one is gripped by anger. Karina Davidson, director of the Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health at Columbia University Medical Center, advises those who are prone to shouting to tell others “I’m very [hotheaded and] say things that don’t help the situation. It would help me if I could have 10 minutes and then maybe we could work together to resolve the situation.”

Lawyers are people who deal with anger all the time. As long ago as ancient Rome, the poet Horace wrote that lawyers are “men who hire out their words and anger.” Today, lawyers not only confront angry clients but also have to manage anger stemming from their opponents and themselves.

An article in the June 2014 issue of California Lawyer noted that lawyers currently face “an epidemic of incivility contaminating…the profession.” The authors, Boston lawyer Russell E. Haddleton and Joseph A. Shrand , M.D. (author of “Outsmarting Anger”), noted that the California Supreme Court had just approved a revised oath of admission requiring that new lawyers commit to conducting themselves “at all times with dignity, courtesy, and integrity.”

Acknowledging that incivility will continue to crop up, the authors maintain that an angry lawyer is an ineffective advocate. They suggest a number of things lawyers can do to stay calm. Tips like these can help all of us.

Among their suggestions: Begin by recognizing the physical signs of anger, and think of ways to change the situation. Next, try to avoid being jealous of a talented adversary. Jealousy can cloud one’s vision and ignite anger. Finally, to defuse anger “in yourself, your opponent, the judge, jurors, or a witness,” they advise lawyers to aim for a calm demeanor that displays empathy, communicates clearly, and above all, shows respect for others.

“Respect” is the key watchword here. The authors argue that it gives lawyers an advantage by allowing them to use reason and common sense instead of rashly reacting to what goes on in a courtroom. Lawyers who reject angry responses and choose a respectful approach are better advocates. This approach can clearly help non-lawyers as well.

In the current Pixar film, “Inside Out,” an 11-year-old girl struggles with her emotions. The emotion of Anger (voiced by Lewis Black) sometimes tries to dominate, but the emotion of Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler) seeks to keep it under control, not letting it take over. This may be the answer for all of us. If we try to find the joy in our lives—the good things that make us happy–we can triumph over anger and all of the dangerous consequences that flow from it.

We don’t have to turn into a large green Hulk every time something angers us. Let’s try instead to emulate the non-angry side of the Hulk.

I plan to do just that. You’ll like me much better that way.

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Posted in Anger, anger-management, health, heart attacks, high blood pressure, lawyers, respect, revenge, strokes

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Let’s Lobby Congress to Pass the Paycheck Fairness Act

Posted on May 12, 2015 | 1 comment

When U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski recently announced her decision not to run for a sixth term, she noted that one of the issues she cares about “most deeply” is the issue of fair pay.

Mikulski, who was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986 as the only Democratic woman and one of only two women in the Senate (the other was Kansas’s Nancy Kassebaum), has a long record of promoting issues that loom large in the lives of American women and families.

Mikulski noted that every year, on average, women who work full-time lose more than $10,800 in income because of the wage gap between what women and men earn. She plans to spend every day of the two years remaining in her term fighting for critical legislation like the Paycheck Fairness Act.

I’m joining Senator Mikulski in her campaign to enact the Paycheck Fairness Act (the PFA). I first wrote about this issue in an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 23, 2010, “Unequal pay harms U.S. women.” (It appeared on this blog in October 2012.)

In the five years since my SF Chronicle op-ed appeared, nothing has happened. When the House of Representatives still had a Democratic majority, the House passed the PFA. But because it never passed in the Senate, it never became law.

Now, post-2014, when the Republicans hold a majority in both the Senate and the House, passage of the PFA seems impossible. But let’s not throw in the towel just yet. Because it’s such a vital issue, affecting millions of American workers and their families, I, like Senator Mikulski, am once again climbing on my soapbox and doing what I can to promote its passage.

I’ll begin by asking this question: How many working women think they’re paid fairly for the work they do? Right now, with the economy improving but still struggling to provide good-paying jobs for all of those who want them, some women may be happy just to be employed.

But women are still paid only 78 cents for every dollar men receive, making unequal pay a continuing problem for American women and the families who depend on their wages.

Did you know that women are now the primary breadwinners in 40 percent of American households? This fact makes closing the wage gap a crucial issue for all of these families, not merely for working women alone.

Why is the PFA so important? Because it would level the playing field for working women.

It would amend the Equal Pay Act (the EPA), which was enacted over 50 years ago in 1963 but hasn’t gone far enough to do what it was supposed to.

The EPA made it illegal for employers to pay unequal wages to those who perform substantially equal work. That sounds great, doesn’t it? So why hasn’t it made a real difference? Because of a startling failure in enforcement.

Enforcement by the EEOC during the past five decades has narrowed the wage gap to some degree. But the gap still exists because the EPA’s enforcement tools are outdated, making the gender-disparity in pay almost impossible to eradicate.

While other federal civil rights statutes have been amended numerous times, the EPA has never been amended. That’s why passing the PFA can make a real difference.

Let’s understand something right off the bat: The PFA doesn’t give employers a lot to complain about. It wouldn’t create an onerous burden because it wouldn’t give their employees any new rights. Employers are already required to comply with the EPA. The only difference is that under the PFA, women would be better able to ENFORCE those rights.

Many of the bill’s provisions make no demands on employers whatsoever. One provision would merely create a grant program that would help women and girls develop better skills at salary negotiation. Another would improve the way the government collects information from federal contractors.

Other provisions focus on the role of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. For example, it would give EEOC staff additional training to do a better job identifying and handling wage disputes.

Of course, some provisions do directly affect employers. Most significantly, the PFA would give women the same remedies as those available to employees discriminated against on the basis of race or national origin. Currently women can get only limited awards like back pay. The PFA would allow women to get compensatory and punitive damages for pay discrimination. These are the kinds of damages those suffering from racial and national-origin bias already get.

The PFA would also prohibit employers from retaliating against women who share salary information with their coworkers. This kind of information-sharing helps employees get vital information about wage disparities and discrimination at their workplace. But right now employers can retaliate against women who share such information. Women can be fired or suffer other repercussions for sharing the kind of salary info they need if they’re going to discover how much less they’re earning. This has to change.

Under the PFA, an EPA lawsuit could also proceed as a class action under the rules that apply to other federal lawsuits, instead of the restrictive 1963 rules that have never been amended.

Finally, a significant loophole now keeps women from winning cases brought under the EPA. Employers who are paying women less than men for equal work can claim that the difference in pay is based on a “factor other than sex.” This language is far too broad. It allows employers to make claims that have little or no merit. For example, this language has been used to argue that male workers have stronger negotiation skills and for that reason can negotiate higher salaries. Does that sound right to you? Should arguments like that allow men to earn more than a woman doing the same work? I don’t think so.

That result is NOT what Congress intended when it passed the EPA. The PFA would alter this language and allow different pay for men and women only when an employer can show that the difference relates to job performance and business necessity.

It’s time to shake things up and put women on a level playing field with their male co-workers. Women and men need to speak out and demand passage of the PFA. If we don’t speak out, we have to ask ourselves: When will Congress make pay equity a reality for America’s working women? And what did I do to try to make it happen?

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Posted in class actions, fair pay, gender equality, gender-equity, House of Representatives, US Congress, US Senate, women workers

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Take a hike

Posted on April 21, 2015 | 2 comments

The lure of “the gym” has always escaped me. I’ve joined a few fitness centers in my day, but I consistently end up abandoning the gym and resorting to my preferred route to fitness: walking. Whenever possible, I walk and hike in the great outdoors.

A host of recent studies has validated my faith in the benefits of walking. And some of these benefits may surprise you.

First, being active is better for your health. Duh. We’ve all suspected that for a long time. But here’s a new finding: sitting may be the real problem. Studies show that the more you sit, the greater your risk for health problems. In a study of more than two thousand adults ages 60 and older, every additional hour a day spent sitting was linked to a 50 percent greater risk of disability. Even those who got some exercise but were sitting too much were more likely to get dumped in the pool of disabled people.

Dorothy Dunlop and her colleagues at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science concluded that sitting seems to be a separate risk factor. Getting enough exercise is important, but it’s equally important not to be a couch potato the rest of the time. Their study appeared in the Journal of Physical Activity & Health in 2014.

Another study, published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, noted something else about prolonged sitting: taking “short walking breaks” at least once an hour may lessen or even prevent some of the adverse effects, especially on the cardiovascular system. When healthy young men sat for 3 hours without moving their legs, endothelial function—the ability of blood vessels to expand and contract—dropped significantly from the very beginning. But when they broke up their sitting time with slow 5-minute walks every 30 or 60 minutes, endothelial function did not decline.

Here’s another benefit: Exercise, including walking, can keep you from feeling depressed. A British study, reported in JAMA Psychiatry, followed over 11,000 people (initially in their early 20s) for more than 25 years. It found that the more physically active they were, the less likely they were to have symptoms of depression. For example, sedentary people who started exercising 3 times a week reduced their risk of depression 5 years later by almost 20 percent. The researchers concluded that being active “can prevent and alleviate depressive symptoms in adulthood.”

Ready for one more reason to walk? A study described in The Wall Street Journal in 2014 found that walking can significantly increase creativity. This is a brand new finding. In the past, studies have shown that after exercise, people usually perform better on tests of memory and the ability to make decisions and organize thoughts. Exercise has also been linked anecdotally to creativity: writers and artists have said for centuries that their best ideas have come during a walk. But now science supports that link.

Researchers at Stanford University, led by Dr. Marily Oppezzo, decided to test the notion that walking can inspire creativity. They gathered a group of students in a deliberately unadorned room equipped with nothing more than a desk and a treadmill. The students were asked to sit and complete “tests of creativity,” like quickly coming up with alternative uses for common objects, e.g., a button. Facing a blank wall, the students then walked on the treadmill at an easy pace, repeating the creativity tests as they walked. Result: creativity increased when the students walked. Most came up with about 60 percent more “novel and appropriate” uses for the objects.

Dr. Oppezzo then tested whether these effects lingered. The students repeated the test when they sat down after their walk on the treadmill. Again, walking markedly improved their ability to generate creative ideas, even when they had stopped walking. They continued to produce more and better ideas than they had before their walk.

When Dr. Oppezzo moved the experiment outdoors, the findings surprised her. The students who walked outside did come up with more creative ideas than when they sat, either inside or outside, but walking outside did not lead to more creativity than walking inside on the treadmill. She concluded that “it’s the walking that matters.”

So a brief stroll apparently leads to greater creativity. But the reasons for it are unclear. According to Dr. Oppezzo, “It may be that walking improves mood,” and creativity blooms more easily when one is happier. The study appeared in The Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition in 2014.

In truth, I don’t need these studies to convince me to keep walking. It helps that I live in San Francisco, where the climate allows me to walk outside almost every day. Walking is much more challenging when you confront the snow and ice that used to accompany my walks in and around Chicago. So I’m not surprised that walkers in colder climes often resort to exercising indoors.

It also helps that San Francisco has recently been voted the second most walkable city in America. According to Walk Score, an organization that ranks the “walkability” of 2,500 cities in the U.S., SF placed just behind New York City as the most walkable major American city.

SF’s high score is especially impressive in light of the city’s hills. Although I avoid the steepest routes, I actually welcome a slight incline because it adds to my aerobic workout. Why use a Stairmaster in a gloomy gym when I can climb uphill enveloped in sunshine and cool ocean breezes?

But whether you walk indoors or out, do remember to walk! You’ll assuredly benefit health-wise. And you just may enhance your creativity quotient. Someday you may even find yourself writing a blog like this one.

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Posted in "the gym", Chicago, creativity, depression, exercise, fitness centers, health benefits of exercise, hiking, New York City, San Francisco, sitting, walking

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Beavers? Seriously?

Posted on March 16, 2015 | 4 comments

Here’s a piece of news to chew on. A recent study of beavers’ teeth may lead to decay-resistant teeth for humans.

Although beavers never brush their teeth, and they certainly don’t drink fluoridated water, their teeth are protected from tooth decay by the iron that’s part of the tooth’s chemical structure.

If you looked at a beaver’s teeth, you’d notice that their iron-rich coating gives the teeth a reddish-brown or orange color. Apparently orange is the new white.

Researchers found that the pigmented enamel on beavers’ teeth is both harder and more resistant to acid than human tooth enamel, even when treated with fluoride. This discovery could lead to a better understanding of human tooth decay, as well as improvements in current fluoride treatment.

Tooth decay in humans is a major public health problem, even in this era of fluoride treatments. The American Dental Association estimates that dental care in this country costs $111 billion a year, and much of it is spent on cavities and other tooth-decay issues. According to the World Health Organization, up to 90 percent of children and nearly 100 percent of adults worldwide have or have had cavities.

The research team, led by Derk Joester, an engineering and materials science professor at Northwestern University, discovered that small amounts of an “amorphous solid” rich in iron and magnesium are what make rodent teeth resistant to acid. “[We’ve made a] big step forward in understanding the composition and structure of enamel—the tooth’s protective outer layer…,” said Joester.

Researchers included Jill D. Pasteris, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. She calls their findings a great example of “the structural-chemical novelty [we’re] still discovering in natural, biomineralized materials” like teeth and bone.

Looking at the teeth of beavers and other rodents, the researchers used powerful technology to map the enamel’s structure, atom by atom. They subjected the teeth to acid and took images before and after. The journal Science published this unprecedented imaging study of tooth enamel in February.

Some of the details of the research are pretty technical, but you really should give a dam about the results. Although a beaver’s teeth are chemically different from our teeth, they’re not structurally different, and the results of the study may lead to stronger tooth enamel and better fluoride treatments.

This news is especially encouraging in light of what we’ve just learned about the sugar industry. The industry has for years covered up proof that reducing sugar-consumption prevents tooth decay. The San Francisco Examiner reports that researchers at UC San Francisco have found documents revealing how the industry worked with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to avoid condemning sugar, trying instead to develop alternatives (like a vaccine to prevent tooth decay).

Buried in an archive of industry documents discovered at the University of Illinois was a startling document. It showed that a sugar-industry group acknowledged as early as 1950 that sugar causes tooth decay. But, according to the UCSF researchers, Dr. Cristin Kearns and Laura Schmidt, the sugar industry influenced NIH to steer scientists toward developing alternative approaches to tooth decay instead of focusing on the damage done by sugar consumption. (The study is published this month in the scientific journal PLOS Medicine.)

Does this remind you of the tobacco industry and its efforts to suppress scientific evidence that smoking leads to cancer and other illnesses?

The damage caused by sugar is finally getting attention from scientists, and efforts to cut back on its consumption are gaining ground. Last November, voters in Berkeley imposed a tax on sugary drinks, and a majority of San Francisco voters approved a soda tax (it didn’t become law because it required two-thirds to pass). [My blog post, “Gimme a Little Sugar,” published on 10/2/14, focuses on the damage done by sugary drinks and by sugar in general.]

Three SF supervisors have just renewed their efforts to restrict the consumption of sugary drinks in San Francisco. But even if efforts like these succeed, we’ll still face the problem of tooth decay for years to come. So paying attention to beavers’ teeth may prove helpful.

Let’s snatch victory from the jaws of tooth decay. If we start by Leaving it to Beavers, our descendants may someday sport decay-resistant teeth just like theirs.

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Posted in beavers, sugar, sugar consumption, sugar industry, teeth, tooth decay

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Caesar Reigned Supreme

Posted on February 5, 2015 | 2 comments

When Sid Caesar died a year ago, his death evoked a cavalcade of memories. He, along with his notable co-stars, made every Saturday night during the early 1950s a night filled with laughter for millions of Americans.

I was still a little girl when Caesar’s show, “Your Show of Shows,” debuted in 1950. My family had purchased its first TV set in the fall of 1949, largely because everyone in America seemed to be watching Milton Berle’s Texaco Star Theatre. Berle, a star in vaudeville, had become a sensation on the tiny black-and-white sets that prevailed in my North Side Chicago neighborhood. Before we got our own TV, I would run down two flights in my apartment building and up three flights in the twin building next door to watch Berle’s antics at my best friend Helene’s apartment.

My parents finally relented and purchased a TV at the Mandel Brothers department store in the nearby suburb of Evanston. At last we were able to watch Uncle Milty, introduced by the Men of Texaco, every Tuesday night. All of us kids knew the lyrics to their catchy song: “We are the men of Texaco, we work from Maine to Mexico…”

Berle’s show dominated Tuesday nights, and we didn’t stop watching “Mr. Television” until the show began its decline several years later, but the wonders of Saturday night soon eclipsed the craziness of Milton Berle. From 1950 to 1954, “The Show of Shows,” headlined by Sid Caesar, had families glued to their TV screens every Saturday.

My family never missed a single show. We were addicted to Sid and his cohorts, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, and Howard Morris. The slapstick humor of Milton Berle looked silly compared to the more sophisticated and clever comedy offered by Sid’s crew.

Among Sid’s multitude of characters, I have a long list of favorites:
• his opera star, spouting make-believe foreign languages in operas like “Pagliacci”;
• his jazz saxophone player, Progress Hornsby (Sid really knew how to play the saxophone, and it was the sax that was his entrée into show business);
• his wacky mittel-European professor in a battered top hat and frumpy frock coat, usually interviewed as an “expert” by Carl Reiner;
• his leader of a rock-and-roll trio called The Haircuts, complete with gigantic wig topped by an enormous pompadour;
• his irritated husband (the perfect foil for Imogene Coca);
• his military hero, wearing a uniform adorned with medals, who turned out to be an apartment-building doorman; and (perhaps best of all)
• his roles as a leading character in movies that were popular at the time. I still remember watching his hilarious portrayal of Montgomery Clift in a rowboat, based on a scene in “A Place in the Sun” (a film I didn’t see until years later), as well as Monty in a scene from “From Here to Eternity” (a film I first saw–but didn’t really understand–when I was 12).

Even my pre-teen persona apparently recognized comic genius because the memories of these characters remain vivid decades later.

Sid’s brilliance must be attributed in part to the cast of writers he recruited. They included other comic geniuses like Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Neil Simon, Carl Reiner, and Larry Gelbart. As Frank Rich once wrote in The New York Times, “If you want to find the ur-texts of ‘The Producers’ and ‘Blazing Saddles,’ of ‘Sleeper’ and ‘Annie Hall,’ of “All in the Family’ and ‘M*A*S*H’ and ‘Saturday Night Live,’ check out the old kinescopes of Sid Caesar.”

When “The Show of Shows” ended, Sid went on to star in “Caesar’s Hour” for three more years, still lampooning everyday life, movies, and operas. Sid’s talents continued to amaze.

But seven years of an exhausting schedule, six days and nights every week, led Sid to become an alcoholic and dependent on drugs. Years later he admitted that he’d been tormented by guilt because he didn’t think he deserved the acclaim he received. He struggled through the ‘60s and ‘70s, making occasional appearances on Broadway and in movies. But when he finally chose sobriety and a healthier lifestyle in the ‘80s, he began to do great comedic work again.

I had the great good fortune to see Sid in the fall of 1990, when he and Imogene Coca toured in a live show called “Together Again.” The Chicago Tribune’s theater critic noted that the affection displayed by their audiences at the Briar Street Theatre was “palpable.” Sitting with me in the audience one matinee was my 80-year-old mother and my two daughters, who were then 16 and 13. Although we all loved the show, which included some of their classic shtick from “The Show of Shows,” I was ecstatic, reliving the show I’d adored when I was even younger than my daughters.

If you’ve never had a chance to see Sid Caesar at his best, as I have, seek out the 90-minute film, “Ten from Your Show of Shows,” available on DVD. The film, put together in 1973, includes ten comedy sketches from the 1950s’ TV show. You’ll relish the brilliance of its comedy, still fresh in 2015.

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Be(a)ware of Vampires!

Posted on January 12, 2015 | 1 comment

Vampires are roaming our landscape. Movies, TV, books, the Internet…it’s been hard to avoid the sight of those pasty-faced creatures baring their hideous fangs. But oh, how I’ve tried. The national obsession with vampires has simply never sunk its teeth into me.

I’ve always lumped vampires in with other imaginary creatures, like zombies, angels, and fairies. They don’t really exist, so why waste my time thinking about them?

I’m not opposed to the idea of magic. There genuinely seem to be times in our lives when magic, or–more accurately–good luck, rains down on us, and our lives are happier as a result.

But vampires? Forget it.

Now comes word of another kind of vampire. And this kind really demands our attention, even mine. The term “vampire” is now applied to what the Environmental Defense Fund calls “energy suckers” (as opposed to bloodsuckers). New devices like cable boxes and game consoles are so power-thirsty that, whether or not you’re using them, they consume enormous amounts of energy. One estimate is that each year they consume as much energy nationally as the entire state of Maryland.

Are you surprised to learn that we’re also sucking up power when we keep our chargers, DVRs, laptops, and microwaves on standby? EDF notes a study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory of suburban homes in California. The study found that these devices account for as much as 10 percent of a home’s energy consumption.

Shall we plunge a stake into the hearts of these vampires? We can do it by adopting a bunch of new approaches to our electronic devices. Some may sound inconvenient at first, but so did brushing my teeth with my (battery-powered) electric toothbrush till I got used to it. So let’s try at least a few of these.

First, we can do something as simple as unplugging our smartphone chargers. Unbeknownst to many of us, leaving those chargers plugged in uses energy. A more significant step? Turn off the power strips that supply energy to powerful devices we’re not using every minute. You can start by flipping the switch on the power strip behind your TV.

Even less inconvenient: Simply look for the Energy Star logo when you buy new appliances. The products that receive this stamp of approval can cut standby use by 30 percent.

But wait, there’s more. You can return to those thrilling days of yesteryear and use old-school methods that conserve energy. Dry your clothes on a clothesline instead of a dryer. And when you do use your dryer or dishwasher, make sure you’ve put in a full load. Try opening curtains, shades, and blinds during the day so natural light can brighten your home.

Two more things to consider: investing in a programmable thermostat like Google’s Nest, which won’t waste energy when you’re not home, and switching to an on-demand water heater (or insulating your old one).

Finally, look into apps that can reduce your energy bill. New smartphone apps allow you to turn on or off any device that’s plugged into an outlet, even when you’re away from home.

The ultimate goal, of course, is renewable energy. We’re moving slowly but inevitably toward the adoption of more and more ways to switch to renewable energy. In the meantime, you needn’t be a disciple of Al Gore to acknowledge this inconvenient truth: We don’t have to let modern-day vampires suck energy the way Dracula sucked the blood of his victims. Be(a)ware of these vampires, and save energy when you can.

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I’ve Got a Tip for You

Posted on December 6, 2014 | 1 comment

Next time you order a BLT at your favorite restaurant, will you leave your server a tip?

Tipping is an issue fraught with questions. Who do I tip? Where do I tip? How much do I tip?

When it comes to tipping, lots of people are confused.

But the people on the fuzzy end of the lollipop–the ones who do the hard work–live in hope that the folks they serve will cough up a big tip.

People who work as servers in restaurants are particularly vulnerable. Thanks to a crazy federal minimum-wage provision, in some states employers can pay tipped workers only $2.13 an hour, the same rate allowed since 1991.

The result? Tipped workers are about twice as likely to be living in poverty as workers who don’t rely on tips. According to a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute, tipped workers have a poverty rate of about 13 percent, compared with a rate of 6.5 percent for other workers. The median wage for tipped workers—including tips—is $10.22, compared with $16.48 for workers overall.

Let’s look at how this result has come about.

Most of us favor a fair minimum wage for employees in our country. Witness the recent adoption of a higher minimum wage in such politically conservative states as Arkansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota, where referenda increasing the minimum wage passed in the 2014 midterm elections. And even though Republicans in Congress have stood in the way of enacting a higher federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour, as proposed by President Obama, some state lawmakers have taken the initiative and increased the income of workers in their states by passing minimum-wage legislation of their own.

One group has been largely left out of this benevolent trend: Workers who depend on tips. According to articles in Mother Jones magazine in May 2014 and the Wall Street Journal in August 2014, only seven states, including California and Alaska, require employers to pay tipped workers the same minimum wage as nontipped workers.

The federal minimum wage for tipped workers has remained stagnant at $2.13 since 1991. If tipped workers aren’t earning the regular minimum wage (currently $7.25) via tips, employers are supposed to make up the difference. Are you surprised to learn that they don’t always do it?

President Obama’s proposed Minimum Wage Fairness Act would gradually raise tipped workers’ minimum wage to 70 percent of the regular minimum wage. That would help. But this increase has been opposed by the National Restaurant Association, which spent more than $2 million lobbying against it in 2013. (Some may remember that former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain lobbied against any change during his tenure as president of the NRA.)

The NRA claims that no one is making only $2.13 an hour. But the “servers who make ‘good money’ are in the minority,” according to a spokeswoman for Restaurant Opportunities Center United, a group that tries to improve conditions for servers. She notes that servers are hit especially hard by the “wage theft” by restaurant owners who don’t make up the difference they’re supposed to. When the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division investigated the restaurant industry from 2010 to 2012, it discovered that nearly 84 percent of restaurants had some kind of wage and hour violation.

Barbara Ehrenreich has documented the deplorable life of servers in her 2001 bestseller, Nickel and Dimed. Trying life at poverty-level wages, she spent her first month as a waitress, resulting in a “monthlong plunge into poverty” during which she often endured dehumanizing treatment at the hands of restaurant managers.

One problem is that servers are often unaware of the law requiring employers to make up the difference. One server states that unless tips were on credit card receipts, “We never logged our tips or reported them to our employers.” And when she told other servers what they were entitled to, “nobody felt comfortable asking employers about it.”

In the last few years, a new trend has appeared: a ban on tipping. A handful of restaurants in California, New York, and elsewhere have adopted a no-tipping policy, paying servers between $10 and $20 an hour in lieu of lower wages plus tips. How do these restaurants cover the cost of the higher wages they pay? Some, like Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, add a service charge (like 15 or 20 percent) to their diners’ bills. Others are experimenting with higher menu prices. The San Francisco Chronicle noted in November 2014 that a new restaurant in that city plans to simply raise all prices on the menu by 15 percent.

As the Wall Street Journal has noted, servers in some upscale restaurants who currently earn “a handsome income” might not welcome losing out on tips. But the no-tipping trend is clearly underway. If adopted throughout the industry, it would likely benefit the vast majority of servers who right now are seriously underpaid, often living in poverty as a result. Doing away with tipping would require enormous change for most restaurants, however, so it may never become the standard policy in American restaurants.

In the meantime, next time you order that BLT, think about putting a generous wad of your own lettuce in the hands of your server. You just may be helping that server escape the grip of poverty.

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Down and Hot in Paris and London (with apologies to George Orwell) Part IV

Posted on November 8, 2014 | Leave a comment

PART IV

My family trip to France and the U.K. in the summer of 1995 found us in the midst of a record-setting heat wave in both countries. Parts I, II, and III of this post have described the challenges of hot-weather travel in cities like Paris that aren’t usually very hot.

In Part IV, I pick up the story in London, another city traditionally unaccustomed to hot weather.

Our daytime touring in London began to resemble a tour of hot exotic climes. When we passed by Trafalgar Square, we saw crowds surrounding the pools beneath Lord Nelson’s column, trying to cool off. Dozens of children frolicked in the pools of water as though they were neighborhood wading pools in Chicago.

Sadly, our attempt to tour the wondrous contents of the British Museum was a distinct failure. As we slowly meandered through the rooms devoted to ancient Egypt, pushing our way through the sweaty crowd, I could have sworn we were in a suffocating museum in Egypt itself. I almost envied the mummies in their amazingly-well-preserved cases. Maybe it was cooler in there? We’d planned to stay all morning, but we left after barely an hour.

Another project that went down the tubes was our plan to escort our daughters into a couple of London pubs, where they could soak up the very British atmosphere along with a pint or two of ale. But our attempts to go pub-crawling went nowhere. Every time we entered a pub, it was unbearably hot and filled with cigarette smoke. All the outside tables were already taken, so we couldn’t quaff any ale that way either. So long, London pub-crawl.

The London buses continued to be insanely hot. Their windows opened for about three inches at the very top, where the breeze barely did any good–when there was a breeze. The Tube was somewhat better, although one newspaper headline read “100 DEGREES F IN THE TUBE,” so at times it must have been blazing hot down there, too.

I’d given up wearing makeup by this time–my lipstick kept melting–and I let my hair go “au naturel.” Why not? We no longer cared how we looked, to each other or to anyone else. So if my hair was inordinately frizzy, and my face sans makeup looked less than gorgeous, who cared?

When I checked my money belt, which I wore at my waist, it was–not surprisingly–damp. But I was surprised that the moisture around my waist had permeated the belt’s contents. I had the world’s dampest traveler’s checks!

Meanwhile, our supply of clean clothes was dwindling, and things were becoming desperate. We’d hoped to find a nearby laundromat but never did, and we’d begun to resort to hand-washing. My small supply of Woolite was nearly gone, so we headed to a supermarket for a substitute. There I found Fairy Liquid, a liquid soap I’d read about in books by English women novelists. I felt just like an English housewife of the 1950s as I poured Fairy Liquid into the tiny bathroom sink on Gower Street and plunged our dirty duds into the suds. (The Fairy Liquid label said “By Appointment to Her Majesty the Queen.” Do you suppose the Queen uses it to wash her undies, too?)

On our last day in London, we left the city and traveled to the leafy green suburb of Hampstead, hoping to find a relatively cool and sylvan spot. There, in the midst of a large wooded park, is Kenwood House, a stunning historic house surrounding a spectacular art collection. Admission was free, and the staff were some of the friendliest people we met anywhere in England. A lovely respite from London’s crowds and heat, Kenwood House was a genuine treat.

For our last night in London, we bought tickets to the 100th-anniversary production of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” at the Old Vic. The theatre advertised itself as being air-conditioned, and in truth, it wasn’t all that bad inside. Viewing “Earnest,” I was almost comfortable in a long, loose-fitting cotton skirt (hence unconcerned about the potential itchiness of the seat’s upholstery). But my heart went out to the actors, dressed in the heavy satins and laces of Victorian finery. They had to be sweltering under the hot lights.

As we left the Old Vic, we felt a cool breeze for the first time in four days. The terrible heat was breaking–but not soon enough for us.

It was warm–but not hot–the next morning as we set off for Wales and the Cotswolds in a rented Vauxhall. As Herb met the challenge of right-hand drive with aplomb, we rambled around in comfort before leaving for home. Cardiff, Cheltenham, the tiny town of Bibury, Stratford-on-Avon—they were all reasonably cool. But after spending four unforgettable days in London dripping in sweat–from Westminster Abbey to Knightsbridge, from the Temple to Shaftsbury Avenue—we had a whole new outlook on summertime travel.

In retrospect, we had a terrific time together. We shared boundless adventures and rafts of laughs, creating memories to last a lifetime. But when we returned home, I asked myself: Would I plan another trip to England or France anytime soon?

Of course. I knew I would.

But would I plan it in “high season”? Not bloody likely. Give me London in March or April, when it rains a little nearly every day, and traveler’s checks get damp from rain instead of tummy-sweat. Or give me Paris in May, when the hint of sun is just enough to warm me up after a long gray winter.

“High season” in Paris or London? No thanks. “High season” sounded too much like “high temperatures” to ever tempt me again.

EPILOGUE

The four of us returned to France for over two weeks in May 1997. The weather was warm but not hot, and the trip—from Paris to Beaune, from Aix-en-Provence to Lyons–was blissful. Sadly, we were never able to take another European trip as a foursome, making the memories of those two fun-filled family trips even more precious.

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Down and Hot in Paris and London (with apologies to George Orwell) Part III

Posted on November 7, 2014 | 1 comment

PART III

During the summer of 1995, my family and I traveled to France and the U.K. during a record-setting heat wave in Northern Europe. In Parts I and II of this post, I’ve described some of the challenges of our overheated stay in Paris and elsewhere in France.

After ten days in France, we departed for England on a posh air-conditioned ferry from Cherbourg, hoping to find cooler climes on the scepter’d isle. But the moment we disembarked in Portsmouth, our hearts sank. If anything, the air felt warmer and even more humid.

Our taxi driver dropped us and our bags unceremoniously at the train station (I don’t think he liked my remarks about the Royal Family). With no baggage carts anywhere, we dragged our bags to the ancient lift. We waited and waited and, finally fearing that we’d miss our train, we abandoned the idea of taking the lift and schlepped our bags up the flight of stairs to the track-level (it took two trips for each of us). At least the train itself was high-speed and air-conditioned.

At Waterloo Station we climbed into a black London cab and sped on our way to Gower Street in Bloomsbury. Our room was much like that in Paris–one large room with the same assortment of beds, and an enormous screenless window that was sure to be a beacon for the mosquitoes then plaguing London. (I actually read about them in The Times.)

But mosquitoes were not on our minds as we set out to see London on foot that afternoon. We’d sat for five hours on the ferry and another hour and a half on the train. We were raring to go, weren’t we?

The heat assaulted us as we walked hopefully up Gower Street toward Covent Garden and points east. Herb and I wanted Meredith and Leslie to see the Temple, home of their favorite TV lawyer, Horace Rumpole (of PBS’s Rumpole of the Bailey), and we set out in that direction, stopping at Covent Garden and other sites en route. But even at the Temple, on the Thames River embankment, the air felt like a heavy blanket.

A centuries-old Inn of Court, the Temple was in the midst of an ambitious renovation project. Forced to pick our way through the construction equipment and loose building materials strewn in our path, we found the Temple a massive disappointment, hardly worth the long walk in the sun. We crawled back to our hotel, stopping only for a high-carb spaghetti dinner before we collapsed in our beds on Gower Street.

The next day, we resolved to see as much of London as we could despite the oppressive heat. (That day turned out to be the hottest day of London’s summer–93 degrees.) We decided to take a city bus that meandered from Gower Street to Kensington. I’d be an unofficial tour-bus guide, telling our daughters about the sights of London with which Herb and I were already familiar. The bus was hot, and its seat cushions covered with itchy upholstery, but we’d set out fairly early so we didn’t yet mind terribly much.

The bus cut a wide swath through many of the city’s most interesting sights, and I proceeded to act as tour guide till we disembarked near Kensington Gardens, where we began walking back towards Piccadilly Square.

Things got sticky right away. As we passed Royal Albert Hall, we grabbed ice cream bars from a sidewalk vendor and kept going, in the shade wherever possible. Soon we hit the Knightsbridge shopping area and headed for Harrod’s. The massive department store was packed with people, and no wonder. It was air-conditioned. Hordes of women were lined up to use the restrooms. The “luxury ladies’ room” cost one pound per “lady” (then about $1.70) so we spent five minutes searching for one that didn’t cost anything. (It turned out to be adjacent to the book section, where huge stacks of signed copies of Margaret Thatcher’s autobiography languished on a table.) We toured the impressive Food Hall and whizzed through some other departments, leaving without buying anything but grateful to have cooled off while we were there.

Across the street, at the non-air-conditioned Scotch House, we were nearly the only customers insane enough to even contemplate woolens on a 90-plus-degree-day. Meredith was hoping to get a warm woolen cap for winter, but surrounded by heaps of wooly wear for sale, we couldn’t find exactly what she wanted.

We kept walking past Knightsbridge towards Piccadilly. The grass in beautiful St. James’s Park was dry and brown, not the lush green lawn Herb and I had seen on previous trips. We stopped to rest on a shady park bench for a while, stunned to encounter Londoners who were deliberately sunning themselves. Some had even stretched out on portable lawn chairs, supplied by the park, in the sunniest spots available. Were they crazy, or what?

We forced ourselves to walk a few blocks more, heading for lunch at the Fountain Restaurant at Fortnum & Mason. En route, we peered into the elegant Ritz Hotel lobby. It was eerily deserted, no one lined up for “high tea” at the Palm Court tearoom. The uniformed doormen, wearing long heavy wool overcoats, looked absolutely miserable.

When we finally staggered into Fortnum & Mason and read the prices on the menu, we nearly swooned, but too hot and exhausted to go anywhere else, we decided to stay. We couldn’t face going elsewhere without some rest and sustenance, so we paid top dollar for skimpy salads and F&M’s famous milkshakes. At least the apricot milkshakes were worth it–almost.

After our overpriced lunch, we pushed on to Leicester Square and the half-price theatre-ticket booth. Scanning the board, we narrowed our choice down to a few offerings, then selected “Hot Mikado.” No, we hadn’t gone completely bonkers. The show was one of London’s musical hits that season. Plus, we all loved the original “Mikado,” and the idea of seeing a jazzed-up version in an air-conditioned theatre had great appeal. And so, after more sightseeing and freshening up at our hotel, we walked to the theatre on Shaftsbury Avenue, looking forward to an evening of air-conditioned comfort.

Shock! No air-conditioning! We pinched each other in disbelief. Back home, we’d never heard of a theatre without air-conditioning. Even the humblest movie theatre showing third-run flicks had some sort of air-conditioning. But not this swank theatre! A couple of fans moved the air around a bit, but they couldn’t keep us from sweating through “Hot Mikado.” We loved the show but pitied the performers, whose sweat ran dripping down their faces. After the opening scene, the male chorus even took off their colorful jackets and sang and danced in their shirtsleeves. I didn’t blame them one bit.

The next night we made our way to the Aldwych Theatre to see Tom Stoppard’s latest hit, “Indian Ink.” Again, we were dismayed to discover that this prestigious theatre, showcasing brilliant stars of the London stage, was stifling. The same itchy upholstery found on London buses covered the theatre seats. As the lead in “Indian Ink”–a poet who travels to India in the 1920s–talked about a poem she was writing called “Heat,” I squirmed in my seat, trying to escape the bristly fabric. I was wearing shorts that night–we hadn’t had time to change before arriving at the theatre. Although I’d never imagined that I’d go to a London theatre in shorts, I regretted wearing them only because the itchy seats attacked my bare thighs more ferociously that way.

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