cold, wind, and temperature

Since it seems as if winter temperatures will finally arrive, a word about wind chill.

Wind chill was developed to describe how wind velocity changes the way temperature feels to exposed skin.

We hear about wind chill so often that many people have become confused. Only warm blooded animals with bare skin, humans basically, are affected. If the temperature is 35 but the wind chill is 16, a container of water placed outside will not freeze.

Wind might make the water freeze more rapidly at an ambient temperature of 32 degrees by carrying away heat. Entropy always increases, after all.

So fear not. Your car will die equally well at 16 degrees or minus 10 with the wind chill.

Is Everybody Happy?

Speaking of ridiculous nonsense -- and why not? -- we have Harvard scientists concluding that  happiness depends on the contentment of friends of friends, or neighbors you may not even know.

This may apply to some people, but it is demonstrably false for the vast majority. If it were true, after all, as long as one person on Earth is happy, so should everybody. The happy fellow is friends with another, who is friends with another, and so on, ad absurdum.

Besides, how can you possibly characterize someone as happy or unhappy? Some people are unhappy most of the time, and others are in as good mood most of the time, but no one is joyful at all times. 

Part of adulthood is learning how to keep these emotions private. If you found a $100 dollar bill, would you walk around with a broad smile and tell everyone you pass on the sidewalk? Would you call up your friends?

Perhaps $100 isn't sufficient to cause elation. Suppose instead that you won $50 million in a lottery. You're ecstatic. Is this going to make all of your friends jolly?

Some of them, sure. Most of the others will curse their luck, feel sorry for themselves, and/or ask you for money, since you now have an endless supply. Decline any of these requests and you've made an enemy for a long time.

Moreover, most people don't appear to be happy. At best they're able to maintain a guarded equilibrium. Next time you're at a store look around. See many smiling faces? No. 

And finally, what kind of society aspires to be happy all of the time? 

Only one in which people are losing their jobs left and right, banks are collapsing, businesses are failing, auto companies are on the brink of bankruptcy, newspaper chains are going under,  and people are afraid to spend money.

Good times. Happy people. 

dog bites man again and again

Either the dog or the leg are artificial. Maybe both.

Are aggressive pit bulls and other breeds of dogs inherently violent, or are they made so by their owners?

It is both nature and nurture, of course. 

However, let's consider different species. How many people are bitten by rabbits? By goats? By guinea pigs? Probably not too many, nor too seriously. Could you provoke a rabbit to bite you? Yes, but it would take persistence. 

The point is that animals exist on a continuum, from shy to scary. Sharks, rattlesnakes, and alligators are considered dangerous. Some sharks are more mellow than others, but all in all, they're at the dangerous end of the spectrum. 

Clearly, so are dogs. Humans started out with wolves and domesticated them into dogs. In fact, the modern canine is largely a human invention. Dogs were bred to guard, attack, hunt, and bite. Certain species were intentionally bred to have strong jaws and the capacity to maul. 

There are many types of dogs now, but as a group they're closer to the shark end of the line than the bunny end.  Face it. Snails, turtles, bats, woodchucks, beavers, or otters are highly unlikely to bite you. 

Most dogs will not bite you.  A lot of them will. 

 According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "about 4.5 million people are bitten by dogs each year. Almost one in five of those who are bitten;  (and) a total of 885,000: require medical attention for dog bite-related injuries. In 2006, more than 31,000 people underwent reconstructive surgery as a result of being bitten by dogs."

The  "dog bite denial" folks point out that there is no way to determine which breeds are more likely to bite you. True. But obviously, pit bulls put more people in the hospital than beagles. There is a reason that German shepherds are the dogs of choice for protection and paramilitary work. 

For mysterious reasons, people these days tend to be more concerned about animal,  rather than human, welfare. (It's possible to care about both). This society sends people who hurt dogs to prison. 

What we don't do is hold hold owners accountable for their dogs.  Only in the most serious  mauling cases are the dogs themselves killed, or are people charged with a crime.  

Dogs can be a gentle, loyal,  lovable part of a family. They can provide nonjudgmental companionship. But owners need to control their dogs as if each pet is a potential killer.

 Especially people who insist on owning pit bulls. 

I made a mistake because I made a mistake

We all make mistakes, that is, those of us who are human.

But have you ever been asked to explain a mistake? Ultimately, the only way to explain a mistake is to circularly say "I made a mistake," which is not really an explanation.

Can you explain why you accidentally knocked over a glass of milk? Clumsy? Clumsy is just another word for "prone to making mistakes." 

Forget an appointment? "I got mixed up." In other words, I got mixed up because I got mixed up.

So, what is a mistake? Something you did that you did not mean to do? That suggests that the left side of the brain doesn't know what the right side is doing. A circuitry problem.

And there are those who contend that there are no mistakes; that actions are a response to unconscious urges. Calling Dr. Freud. 

Mistakes are a key aspect of atonement, as in the day of atonement, or Yom Kippur, which is observed by Jews next month. In this context anything done in violation of God's law must be atoned for. 

Life would be easier without mistakes.

 But, a large majority of us are human.

Brother can you spare a cylinder of acetylene

Barack Obama does not confer with me about jobs programs, but there is something I'd like to say to him.

Say there are about 14 million people in the U.S. who are unemployed. Construction workers constitute about 1.7 million of that number. That's 12 percent.

Yet when the President talks about creating jobs, he almost always refers to "shovel-ready" infrastructure projects such as bridges and highways. 

Since the bridges and highways in the U.S. are not adequately maintained, they are crumbling and rusting into oblivion, so rebuilding all of those decaying pieces of infrastructure makes sense. 

But where does that leave the other 12.3 million unemployed Americans? The experienced and older white-color unemployed? Those cast off by corporations so that young, inexperienced people can take their places for much less money? 

The newspaper business comes to mind. As the New York Times recently reported,  many news organizations are using people with no professional experience to cover the ongoing presidential election cycle. 

If you can replace someone working for $50,000, who has 30 years of experience, with someone working  for $30,000, who has no experience, that saves a lot of money. Or, so it seems. The public is less informed, but who cares?

This dynamic is apparently happening across the board. 

White collar jobs at hospitals, software companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, consulting firms, etc. are going to young people. If you are 50ish, good luck. 

I wouldn't mind learning how to weld, or lay concrete, or drive rivets, or whatever. But who is going to hire a 60ish welder with no experience? 

As everyone who knows anything knows, the country needs New Deal-type boost, so that people who are otherwise unemployable can get jobs and spend money. No one I know wants to get hand outs. 

"Over my dead body," quoth the Republican majority in the House, a la Eric Cantor.

Not exactly. Over my dead body. 

Hurricane hype and the rule of threes

It's better to plan for a disaster that does not happen, than not plan for a disaster that does.

But  does that mean it's good for cable news channels to spend 24 hours a day talking up a level 1 hurricane as a monster killer storm that could wipe out major cities on the East Coast? 

No one wants to repeat the horrendous mistakes that turned Katrina into an historic mess.

And, if you're the owner of a house that got swept away, or the relative or spouse of a person who was killed or injured, then Irene was a killer monster storm.  However, it was nowhere near as nasty as the National Hurricane Center or the Weather Channel led viewers to believe.

Coverage splits into three phases: First, evacuate, prepare, stock supplies, board your windows, and make ready for a disaster. Television is good at that. The next phase is reporting was actually happened -- or in the case of Irene -- what did not happen. The third stage is either "Armageddon" or "We missed the bullet."

New York city was not inundated. Storm surges, created by low pressure and strong winds, were not as high as predicted. The number of storm deaths was relatively low (except if you are the lost one's brother, sister, or spouse, in which case Irene was as a bad as it could be).

Hundreds of thousands along the eastern seaboard lost electricity. In Connecticut alone, about 700,000 spent hours or days without electricity, which is no treat, to be sure. 

Could Morris Cove in New Haven been flooded? Absolutely. By tropical storm Irene? Not likely.

 But police driving around and using public address systems warning people to leave or face potential catastrophe was enough to convince my family to impose on a brother-in-law in East Hartford overnight.

His power went out. At our vacant home, electricity was off for about an hour and then restored. Trees did not topple on our street, although one cracked and fell on a lawn. 

So, it turned out we would have been fine if we'd ignored the unenforced "mandatory"

 evacuation.

Other people along the coast were not as lucky. Beach houses were damaged and washed away. However, if you want to see major damage, Google the hurricanes of 1954 and 1955.

Which brings us to coverage phase three: Back-pedaling, or "We missed the bullet." WMB is a handy journalistic device because you get a story either way. Either a groan or a "Phew!"

What would have been helpful was a balanced, level-headed explanation of the storm. We know that hurricanes lose force in cooler northern waters. We know that hurricanes get tapped out when they travel over land. 

None of the news people or meteorologists seemed to wonder about what that might mean for Connecticut. New York City was the big story, and not much happened there. Phew.

The next time hurricane warnings are issued, will people  around here pay attention? Probably not as much as they should. That's the downside of the hype. 

I'm not a meteorologist, but I doubted that Irene's predicted level of  destruction was likely. If we have the misfortune of a category 4 or 5  hurricane heading straight for Connecticut I will expect major damage, regardless of what the televised people say. I will be getting away from Long Island Sound long before the police arrive.

Next time a hurricane approaches, how about a realistic discussion of the worst, best and most likely possibilities of damage. 

That's doable. 

 Fewer reporters standing in the rain, and more independent meteorologists in the studios.

Cue the lumbago

Television ads for anti-depressants are getting more depressing.

The advertisement for airipiprazole (Abilify) is a case in point. Not only is there a patient and a doctor in the animated creation, there is also a stand-in for depression.  Depression is a ovoid black, animated thing that can resemble a blob, or turn into a hole. 

The "patient" is a woman and depression is by her side throughout the commercial. She is taking notes as the "physician" describes possible side effects and counter-indications. Depression has its own clipboard and is also taking notes.

What does this mean?

Depression is a character and as real as the patient. Is depression taking notes so that it can defeat Abilify?

The cartoon woman and her family then go for a picnic and depression tags along like the family dog.  In fact, depression never leaves.  What does this say about your expectations? Aim low. Don't count on your depression actually lifting.

Same with a gout medication called Uloric (febuxostat). A guy is walking around a city carrying a huge beaker of green liquid that is supposed to represent uric acid. Gout is caused by the formation of uric acid crystals in joints. Our patient gets Uloric and the size of the beaker shrinks. 

But at the end of the ad, he still has to carry a small beaker of green liquid. In other words, this medication may improve the condition, but it will not cure it. 

Along the same lines is a medication for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD. The opening scene is of a man with COPD with an elephant sitting on his chest. A good metaphor, perhaps for chronic bronchitis or emphysema. Presumably the elephant is a computerized drop in.

The actor playing the patient actually says that there is no cure for COPD. He proceeds to play pool (why pool?) and the elephant remains in the same room. Spiriva (tiotropium bromide inhalation powder) may improve your symptoms, but you're stuck with the elephant, who at least is letting you stand up and walk around. 

In ads for heartburn medicines, the heartburn is neither a character nor does it linger. Does this mean that heartburn is "curable?" Sort of. It can be controlled. Same with ads for mucus dissolver, blood thinners, and anti-cholesterol drugs. 

Mucus, unwanted blood clots and artery-clogging cholesterol are all potentially chronic diseases,  but they have no cartoon characters.  A blood clot could be like a strawberry, cholesterol lends itself to an amorphous blob shape, and mucus suggests a green critter. 

Some of these cartoon diseases may spin off their own animated features. A woman pursued by a black blob, a coughing guy and his elephant sidekick. Cholesterol as a cat burglar. 

Weirder movies have been made.