Tales From The Old Country and Beyond, Part 61

Cheating Death

My mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer in January 1998. I was there when she got her prognosis. Three months, the doctor said. My mother didn't cry. She was, instead, defiant. "No," she shook her head. "I'm not going to die. Not yet. I have too many things to do."

It's one thing to declare that you're going to cheat death. It's quite another to actually do so. But she did. My mother lived another 21 months. She didn't just hang on, either. She finished a home she was building, met friends socially (albeit ignoring those young Gentile women who loved her so), sold lots, did some remodeling of the apartments, and showed me the ropes of the business. "You've been around this all your life. It won't be hard."

I was about to give a talk at the University of Nebraska when I got a call on my cell phone. It was exactly one week before Rosh Hashonah. "I'm going to die today," she said. "Come home." I canceled my talk. Six hours later I was walking up to my mom at her bedside in her house. It was just she and I alone in that room. Her voice was faint. "I love you," she said. She kissed me on my lips. Then she lost consciousness.

How did my mother manage to stay alive several more hours and wait for me to get to her house? Strength of will defined my mother.

It's been ten years since my mother and twenty years since my father died. I still miss both of them terribly. But it's also true that a hardly a day goes by when I don't wake up and feel thankful for what I have in my life. I feel so fortunate in so many ways. High up on that list is that I was blessed with two parents who loved me dearly, and inculcated in me the idea that like them I possessed the strength of will and brains to accomplish anything.

Once, when my mom and I were in her doctor's office waiting for an appointment, I looked up and saw two women screaming on a talk show. One of them threw a chair at the other one. The host of the show seemed to be encouraging their awful behavior. I'm ignorant when it comes to much of popular culture. "What's that?" I asked my mom.

"Jerry Springer. Can you believe they show garbage like this on TV?"

"Well, it's TV," I said. But even I was amazed, really.

"His parents were survivors. It's a good thing they passed. They don't have to see their son do this dreck."

My mother had an issue about children of survivors. They had to be better than other American children, most of whom she considered to be stupid and lazy. She said it to me more than once that I carried a responsibility not just to honor her and my father through my actions, but to honor all of the lives lost in my family during the War. She was perfectly serious about this.

The War never left my parents consciousness even for a day. It scarred them, certainly. It shaped them. I believe it gave them their relentless ambition. They weren't trying to achieve simply for personal satisfaction. They were showing everyone just what a Jew - even without education and a good understanding of American culture or even its language - could do.

How does one honor parents like this? How does one honor the lives of their lost relatives?

I started out writing these posts at the request of my daughter. It's been like a weekly letter with a few missed weeks along the way (and I usually received reminders when the posts were late). But in the back of my mind, I knew I wasn't just writing these posts out of love for her. I wanted to write something that my parents would like and appreciate. They were my audience too. I wanted to honor them in these writings.

I thought that these posts would go on for a month or two. My sweetie laughed when I told her that at most I'd write six to eight posts and be done. "You'll be at this for months," she said. Even she was off. It's been over a year.

But now it's done. I'll still conjure up my parents in writing fiction, but this is probably the only time I'll write about them with some effort to keep grounded in the real world. I consider these posts to be my parent's unauthorized biography.

The audience for this material is small, I know. Who beyond some relatives and other children of survivors would want to read this stuff? I can't imagine many would. Since the person who requested these stories is also a professional editor, I'll spend some time over the next month or two rewriting these posts with her help before I print a dozen copies of this material in book form. If you are someone who has been reading these posts whom I don't know (and there seem to be a small but surprising number of people who fit that category) and would like a copy, let me know. I'll print a dozen plus one.

Uncle Stuey's American Top 40, July 2nd, 2009

There's a lot of twangy/rootsy stuff on the AAA/Jazz chart this week. I've written and performed stuff like that and I can listen to it in small samplings. But "three chords and the truth" often means three chords and simple minded dyspeptic philosophizing. A little goes a long way. That said, there is something amazing about taking music and words that are soooo simple and somehow turning them into a memorable and heart wrenching song. Blues songs can be like that as well; for me they do it better than twang. Not on the charts, but a group that I think that just might blow up in the world of roots, are the Dixie Bee-Liners, which kind of does blue-state, self-aware, self-possessed bluegrass. It's what happens when you take a girl from Kentucky and put her in Manhattan for a few years, I'm guessing.

Michael Jackson is of course on this list this week - another musician sadly gone young - and as I was listening on the radio to his tunes over the last few days I've really noticed the wonderful work of Quincy Jones in making the bed for those tracks. That is just outstanding pop production.

1 Patterson Hood Murdering Oscar (And Other Love Songs) Ruth St. 2009
2 Wilco Wilco (The Album) Nonesuch 2009
3 Joe Locke & David Hazeltine Mutual Admiration Society 2 Sharp Nine 2009
4 David 'Fathead' Newman The Blessing HighNote 2009
5 Christian McBride & Inside Straight Kind Of Brown Mack Avenue 2009
6 Levon Helm Electric Dirt Vanguard Reoprds 2009
7 Bobby Broom Bobby Broom Plays For Monk Origin 2009
8 Steve Earle Townes New West 2009
9 Son Volt American Central Dust Rounder 2009
10 Kurt Elling Dedicated To You Concord 2009
11 Fareed Haque & The Flat Earth Ensemble Flat Planet Owl Studios 2009
12 Gary Burton, Pat Metheny, Steve Swallow & Antonio Sanchez Quartet Live Concord Jazz 2009
13 Grizzly Bear Veckatimest Warp 2009
14 Elvis Costello Secret, Profane And Sugarcane Hear 2009
15 Allen Toussaint The Bright Mississippi Nonesuch 2009
16 The Resonance Big Band The Resonance Big Band Plays Tribute To Oscar Peterson Resonance 2009
17 Michael Jackson Thriller Epic 1982
18 Pete Yorn Back And Forth Columbia 2009
19 M. Ward Hold Time Merge 2009
20 The Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band I'm BeBoppin' Too Half Note 2009
21 Frank Potenza Old, New, Borrowed, & Blue Capri 2009
22 Elizabeth & The Catapult Taller Children Verve 2009
23 Stanley Clarke Jazz In The Garden Heads Up 2009
24 Grant Stewart Grant Stewart Plays The Music Of Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn Sharp Nine 2009
25 Grant Geissman Cool Man Cool Futurism 2009
26 Louis Hayes The Time Keeper 18th & Vine 2009
27 Eels Hombre Lobo: 12 Songs Of Desire Vagrant 2009
28 Moby Wait For Me Mute 2009
29 Phoenix Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix Glassnote 2009
30 Lauren Sevian Blueprint Inner Circle 2009
31 Sophie Milman Take Love Easy Linus 2009
32 Neko Case Middle Cyclone Anti / Epitaph 2009
33 Bob Dylan Together Through Life Columbia 2009
34 Ben Harper & Relentless 7 White Lies For Dark Times Virgin 2009
35 One For All Return Of The Lineup Sharp Nine 2009
36 Carl Allen & Rodney Whitaker Work To Do Mack Avenue 2009
37 Conor Oberst And The Mystic Valley Band Outer South Merge 2009
38 Akiko Tsuruga Oriental Express 18th & Vine 2009
39 Diana Krall Quiet Nights Verve 2009
40 Michael Jackson Bad Epic 1987

How Bad Science Journalism Gets Written

Earth science rarely makes front page news. But every once in a while I'm surprised. Such was the case the other day when the NY Times ran an article on a geothermal pilot plant at The Geysers in California, "Deep in Bedrock, Clean Energy and Quake Fears." Reading this article one is left with the impression that rogue engineers are going to cause new damaging earthquakes in a populous region in their efforts to extract geothermal energy.

But the fact is that earthquakes of magnitude 2 or greater are already being induced by existing geothermal energy extraction in The Geysers, the area isn't populous, and no seismologist interviewed by the author says that a significant new hazard is being created by the pilot plant. The best that the author can come up with are quotes from laymen of an impending apocalypse.

This article is bad science journalism, plain and simple. How does it get written?

I wanted to know. So I emailed a seismologist interviewed for this article. He told me that it was clear from the interview that the NY Times author wanted to write his message of impending doom, facts be damned. He called the interview experience "eye opening."

Here's what happened as far as I can tell. The author, James Glanz, was in Basel at the time of a magnitude 3.4 earthquake induced by geothermal exploration. He felt it. If you're someone not used to experiencing the ground shake, it can be a very scary thing to feel even a modest earthquake. A couple of years later, Glanz heard about a new pilot plant at The Geysers and found out that the proposal for the work ignored the prospect of induced earthquakes. He now had a story: bad guys ignore danger.

There was one big hole in this story though. No seismologist was willing to claim that there was significant danger. Now we add an unusual wrinkle to this tale of journalism gone bad. James Glanz is not only a journalist; he also has a Ph.D. in astrophysics. Apparently in the absence of experts willing to connect the dots in the story, he decided to connect the dots himself. Throughout the article, he's not only writing as a journalist but expressing his expert opinion. Too bad he isn't an expert on seismology.

James Glanz is a big name journalist and a big wig at the NY Times. If you don't know anything about geothermal energy or seismology or The Geysers, and you're an editor you might say, "My big name guy with a Princeton Ph.D. has written a captivating story. I'm going to put it on the front page." That's what apparently was done. The NY Times is on a 24 hour news cycle. They make mistakes all the time. They are only human. This was a mistake I noticed because I know more than a bit about the topic discussed. There are undoubtedly many mistakes every day in "The Paper of Record" that I don't notice.

The NY Times and other eastern newspapers (whose numbers are dwindling) occasionally write off the wall sensationalistic articles on earthquakes and volcanoes like the one noted above. Their job is to titillate not inform. The geologist Jake Lowenstern, who has been interviewed by quite a few journalists, noted a similar phenomenon in contrasting local journalists' coverage of geologic hazards with those from the UK (Geotimes, June 2005):

"When confronted with a litany of potential eruption scenarios, local reporters covering Mount St. Helens thoroughly educated themselves about the volcano, its history and the techniques used to monitor volcanic activity. They did not want to overstate the danger once they understood that a relatively nonhazardous effusive eruption was underway.

Similarly, at Yellowstone, local reporters were typically careful, whereas those sitting at a greater distance from the park often viewed the story as ripe for “titillation.” I don’t think it’s a coincidence that so much of the hyperbolic press on the Yellowstone volcano comes from the United Kingdom. In reading many of the U.K. news articles, I cannot but sense an unstated glee as the author recounts the future doom headed for their brethren 'across the pond.'"

I would argue that often science is used by newspapers like sports. It's candy. It's designed to entertain. When you're writing candy, the facts aren't so important. My guess (and hope) is that journalists do better with their coverage of politics and the economy, but I don't know that for sure.

Plan B

The other day the US House narrowly passed a cap and trade bill in an effort to reduce CO2 production. Some government agency projected how CO2 production would significantly decline over time as a result of this proposed legislation. Unfortunately, those numbers are the stuff of fantasy.

It's telling that other advanced nations have spent well over a decade trying to significantly turn the clock back on their CO2 production. None, to my knowledge, have been successful. They have passed laws. Those laws have been ineffective.

I don't mean to be entirely dismissive. It's a good thing that laws are passed, even if they are mostly warmed over spit in terms of effectiveness. No, they won't get the job done. International treaties are bound to be largely ineffective as well. But they will have a partial impact on keeping CO2 production in check. A little bit of mitigation is better than none at all.

The world is wed to the use of fossil fuels. They are cheap. They provide for short term prosperity. Short term prosperity motivates people far more than vague long term negative outcomes.

I don't know what the impact of our fossil fuel use will be on our planet. It could be devastating. It could be mild. Forecasts of changes are based on predictive computer models. I know a lot about computer models. They are worthless for making climate predictions. And I'm certainly not going to enter the fray and make ad hoc predictions on how warm the earth will get or how high sea levels will rise.

But I will make a prediction that we will be unable to reduce fossil fuel production for the next 30 years. I'll make a prediction that CO2 levels will continue to increase. Developed nations will continue to pass laws that restrict CO2 production. But those laws will have no real teeth. Developing nations will continue to look to cheap fossil fuels to propel them out of poverty.

It's an odd thing, this prediction of the future of mine. It says that the rich will flail themselves a bit. The poor will ignore the flailing option; they don't have the luxury of symbolism. And we will continue to proceed to potentially influence our climate to disastrous levels.

I happen to think that sometimes it's a good idea to admit failure especially when the alternative is delusion. Right now, we delude ourselves that somehow, with little real effort, we can significantly reduce our global carbon footprint. The delusion ironically tends to be promoted by very wealthy people with incredibly large individual carbon footprints who have done little to alter their own behavior. They still drive a tremendous amount, fly a tremendous amount, and live in large houses.

It is likely impossible to expect us to do so, but I would like to move away from delusion to something approaching rational problem solving. Step one would be to be realistic about the level of our energy addiction. We are not going to use less energy as time marches on. We are in fact going to use more. Because carbon is so cheap, we'll use more carbon as well. I'd like politicians to admit that despite all of their efforts, the problem of CO2 production is not one we are going to conquer.

Plan A has been to put together treaties and laws to tackle this problem. They are solutions by proclamation.

I would argue that it would be better to move to Plan B. It's an acknowledgment that we are going to fail in reducing fossil fuel consumption unless we manage to create economically viable alternatives. It focuses on trying to use creativity and innovation so that alternatives to carbon are cheaper in the long run. It focuses on coming up with contingency plans to deal with the possibility that something close to the worst case scenarios of our impact on climate come to fruition. Those contingency plans will include partial engineering solutions - from the creation of reservoirs, containment structures and the like - and the prospect of resettling people out of harms way.

We've done the equivalent to my so-called Plan B, which is essentially one that focuses on the back end of a problem, with other addictions. Drug addicts aren't all going to go clean as a result of arrests and public service announcements. We have made the decision that it's better to have them be HIV-free addicts and give them clean needles (which also of course partially limits HIV exposure to those that aren't addicts). With regard to HIV and AIDs, we know that abstinence policies, Bible thumping, and ads on busses aren't going to dramatically change behavior either; so we promote the use of condoms and make them available for free for certain at risk populations. On the front end, we work on trying to develop vaccines for HIV rather than expecting people stop engaging in casual sex.

Are the back end policies 100 percent effective? Certainly not. But they do help. Every little bit helps. Is the front end focus on innovation effective? Not yet, but it seems far more viable in the long run.

Similarly with regard to climate change, we need to prepare for our collective failure to root out the problem at its source. I happen to think that's a far better alternative than pretending we won't fail. On the front end, we should try for the Hail Mary approach and invest in potential breakthroughs. But expecting to eliminate this problem by making carbon prohibitively expensive is simply not going to work.

Tales From The Old Country and Beyond, Part 60

A Tour of Munich, Part 2

My mother's DP camp was unusual in that it consisted of standalone homes. Originally built for mid-level Nazi officials in the 1930s, it was ironic that the Americans had kicked the Nazi's out and replaced them with Jewish refugees.

But there was also a little personal irony related to this visit. The neighborhood had cul de sacs just like an American subdivision. Most of the original homes, modest bungalows, had been either expanded into or torn down and replaced by modern McMansions, albeit a bit more modest than the ones my parents built. I wondered if the subdivision had a name. Maybe it was Woodridge. Or was it Ridgewood?

We drove to the block where my mother had lived and surprisingly, her yellow clapboard bungalow was untouched. "It's the same color and everything," my mom noted. Did she want to go inside? I asked. She had no interest in knocking on the occupants door. We did walk around the house a bit.

Above is a picture of it with my daughter, wife and mom. Three generations. And this house was in a way a part of all of them. As we walked and later drove away, one story after another came forth from my mother. It was a blizzard of words and memories.

The stories were mostly depressing. Here's one. The DP camp was self policed. In other parts of Munich, Nazi sympathizers from the Ukraine, Belarus and elsewhere, all of whom had been kicked out of their homelands, lived in DP camps as well. They would threaten and beat up the Jewish refugees on buses and in public places. There were rumors that one group of Ukrainian Nazis planned to raid my parents DP camp.

In response American agents came by to give special instructions to the Jewish police on the "art" of killing intruders in ways that looked like they died of natural causes. I asked if they actually had implemented these techniques. "One Ukrainian came by in the middle of the night," my mom said. "They did what they had to do. Then they took the body and dumped it on a street in Munich."

The same day we went to try and find my grandfather's storefront. She had a good sense where it was in Munich. It had been near the Jewish gymnasium where she studied. She talked about walking to her father's business - he sold chocolates, coffee, tobacco and other hard to get items in bulk in addition to black marketeering - after school. In her voice and in her eyes, you could sense the pride that she had in her father about his business. We took the subway in a lazy kind of way to the eastern central part of Munich. We stopped in front of a nondescript gray building three or four stories high.

"This is where the English Counselate was," she said. "We'd protest in front for them to open up Palestine. My father was so angry when he found out I was there."

Late in the day, we got to the street where my mother remembered my grandfather had his business. But the block had changed. In place of the shops in the area, stood a Hilton Hotel complex. Had I known, I might have booked a room on the same piece of land that my grandfather had once owned or leased. My mother was disappointed that she couldn't see her father's old building. I think she had acquired more than a bit of optimism from the morning visit to her old house. But she wasn't sad.

That night, though, she had a very dark and gloomy look on her face. "I'm ready to go back. I don't want to see Dachau. I don't want to see anything. I've had enough of this place." She looked emotionally exhausted. I can barely imagine what was going through her head.

We drove back the next morning. She was tired, sleeping in the front passenger seat of the car until we got to the Italian border and stopped for some coffee. For the next two hours, she was energized again and talked in a constant stream - talking about absolutely nothing really, just gossiping about people I barely knew. It was literally non-stop, this nervous babble as we drove. This was so unlike my mother part of me thought. I didn't understand it.

Somewhere near Padua, about a half hour away from Venice, my mom doze off again and I remember the feeling of intense relief over the silence in the car.

To get back from the central parking lot in Venice - where most residents seem to park their cars- to our apartment, we had to take a rather long boat ride. My mother loved these boats. Venice is a town of people in their 50s and 60s - the young ones move away because it's too expensive and there are no jobs - and my mother felt comfortable around these vigorous, golden agers who walked and took boats everywhere. Apparently, she looked like someone who lived in town because women would occasionally come up to her on a boat and start talking to her in Italian. She loved the attention. "Give me a few Yiddishe yachnes and I could fit right in here," she said.

On this boat ride home, though, the Italian women weren't a concern. Instead, my mom heard a group of Russian tourists a row or two in back of us. She turned her head and looked at them. Then she started to talk to them in Russian. I could make out what they were saying. My mom was asking where they were from, how long were they staying in Venice, and where else they were visiting.

My mother was more than a bit surprised to see middle class Russians traveling anywhere. It's one thing to hear about the fall of communism and the break up of the USSR. It was quite another for her to see exactly what that meant in terms of the mobility of ordinary Russian citizens. Still I knew what was going to happen next. She would launch into her speech, the speech she always gave when she talked to Russians:

"America treats me like a princess. I have everything I want and everything I could dream of. If you know what's good for you, you should leave Russia any way you can and come to America. It's the best country in the world."

This was the last time I ever saw my mother give that speech. My wife had been right about my mom's weight loss. It wasn't due to her diet. My mom would stay for 10 more days, going to the bathroom at least once a day to vomit. She said nothing was wrong, it was just a nervous stomach.

She was slowing down. After our trip to Munich she couldn't walk mile after mile nonstop. She started to complain of fatigue. I started to think that adrenaline had buoyed her over that Munich trip. Now the adrenaline was gone. Her activity level was normal for someone about 70 years old, but not normal for my mother.

I told her to go see a doctor when she got back home. She said she would, but didn't. I'd talk to her on the phone weekly, occasionally reminding her. She said she didn't feel the need. But really she was just waiting for me to come back to the US in January. Part of her was in denial. But it was also true that she was worried that she was so sick that once she received the diagnosis, I'd have to drop my job and come home. She didn't want that to happen. So she waited.

Uncle Stuey's American Top 40, June 25th, 2009

Here's the Jazz/AAA chart for the week. Kurt Elling is playing in Santa Cruz in a couple of weeks promoting his new CD and I'll likely go see him. Elvis Costello's new CD isn't doing for me, but that's personal taste. Someone who reads this blog likes Roman Candle, which is from the Triangle and is on an interesting boutique label run by a Nashville behind the scenes legend, Frank Liddell. He picks what he likes and doesn't care at all about finding the next big thing or even the next medium size thing. Liddell writes, “I can’t help but believe that, sooner or later, the public is going to want its own music—music that is made by them and for them, not at them." Amen to that prayer.

1 Kurt Elling Dedicated To You Concord 2009
2 Joe Locke & David Hazeltine Mutual Admiration Society 2 Sharp Nine 2009
3 Gary Burton, Pat Metheny, Steve Swallow & Antonio Sanchez Quartet Live Concord Jazz 2009
4 Sophie Milman Take Love Easy Linus 2009
5 Elvis Costello Secret, Profane And Sugarcane Hear 2009
6 The Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band I'm BeBoppin' Too Half Note 2009
7 Grant Stewart Grant Stewart Plays The Music Of Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn Sharp Nine 2009
8 Steve Earle Townes New West 2009
9 David 'Fathead' Newman The Blessing HighNote 2009
10 Ben Harper & Relentless 7 White Lies For Dark Times Virgin 2009
11 Bobby Broom Bobby Broom Plays For Monk Origin 2009
12 Phoenix Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix Glassnote 2009
13 Stanley Clarke Jazz In The Garden Heads Up 2009
14 Allen Toussaint The Bright Mississippi Nonesuch 2009
15 One For All Return Of The Lineup Sharp Nine 2009
16 Scotty Barnhart Say It Plain Unity 2009
17 The Resonance Big Band The Resonance Big Band Plays Tribute To Oscar Peterson Resonance 2009
18 Christian McBride & Inside Straight Kind Of Brown Mack Avenue 2009
19 Roman Candle Oh Tall Tree In The Ear Carnival 2009
20 Grizzly Bear Veckatimest Warp 2009
21 Dave Alvin & The Guilty Women Dave Alvin & The Guilty Women Yep Roc 2009
22 Eels Hombre Lobo: 12 Songs Of Desire Vagrant 2009
23 Neko Case Middle Cyclone Anti / Epitaph 2009
24 Branford Marsalis Metamorphosen Marsalis 2009
25 Carl Allen & Rodney Whitaker Work To Do Mack Avenue 2009
26 Grant Geissman Cool Man Cool Futurism 2009
27 Lauren Sevian Blueprint Inner Circle 2009
28 Son Volt American Central Dust Rounder 2009
29 Tori Amos Abnormally Attracted To Sin Republic 2009
30 Wilco Wilco Nonesuch 2009
31 Jack Wilkins Until It's Time Max Jazz 2009
32 Sean Jones The Search Within Mack Avenue 2009
33 Thomas Marriott Flexicon Origin 2009
34 Louis Hayes The Time Keeper 18th & Vine 2009
35 Conor Oberst And The Mystic Valley Band Outer South Merge 2009
36 Buckwheat Zydeco Lay Your Burden Down Alligator 2009
37 Lynne Arriale Nuance: The Bennett Studio Sessions Motema 2009
38 Melissa Morgan Until I Met You Telarc 2007
39 Bob Dylan Together Through Life Columbia 2009
40 Dave Matthews Band Big Whiskey And The Groo Grux King RCA 2009

This Just In From The AP...Remember Where You Heard It First

US News and Playboy Announce College Issue Merger

June 24, 2009 (Washington, DC) In an effort to bolster the sagging sales of both publications, US News announced that they would be working with Playboy on their annual Best Colleges issue for 2010. "We feel that the synergy will be perfect," stated Mort Zuckerman, owner of US News. "Besides after Madoff took all of my charity money, I've been real depressed and need a pick me up."

The issue will rate both institutional quality and sex appeal. Breast size of females and males will be included in the institutional rankings this year. "Just in case you're wondering, female boobs are a plus. Man boobs are a minus," stated US News ranking coordinator Robert Morse. "We're excited to include such valuable information in our rankings. After all, they are no more bogus than our other criteria."

In addition to the actual rankings, there will be a 300 page pull out pictorial section allowing buyers to evaluate co-eds from each school. "We feel that the new pictorial section will enhance our visibility. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words," said Zuckerman.

Both Playboy and US News have suffered financial losses although for different reasons. Sales of US News' annual rankings issue have declined because of lack of interest and reports that the ranking methodology has no validity. As for Playboy, founder Hugh Hefner stated, "Quite honestly, you can find better and raunchier stuff for free on the Web. That's been true for years. I have no idea why anyone buys my magazine."
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