Items From My Past

I'm usually reluctant to use my blog to flog personal items but just this once I decided to break tradition with this incredible offer.

For a limited time only, you can purchase my ninth grade science project which I produced, directed, and wrote after I broke my leg in a skiing accident on December 29, 1962. This new release has been updated from the original with a completely restored title page and never-before-seen X-rays that reveal surprisingly overlooked cracks and fissures in my tibia and fibula bones! Yes, shoppers, you will feel the same tingling experience that freaked out 30 of my classmates some five decades ago. Of course, I received an "A" from my science teacher, a considerable achievement because the Internet and the photocopier had not yet been invented. All the material has been faithfully reproduced with a mimeograph machine!

I'm also going to include a restored copy of a speech on American Democracy that I originally crafted in sixth grade -- yes, I was only 12 years old! -- for the local Optimist Club in Mt. Vernon, N.Y. It received third place in the Oratorical Contest (out of four entries). This fabulous bit of soaring rhetoric has a vintage feel to it, yet it still has a distinct tinge of timeliness. My teacher had no idea that I might do this to earn a living some day. (He simply said if I didn't enter, I couldn't become a student projectionist and miss all those classes to show movies.)

That's not all....

Yours free are "first drafts" of several speeches I wrote for Gov. Mario M. Cuomo between 1992 and 1994, his last term as the head honcho of the Empire State. Disclaimer: Few of these speeches actually contain many words spoken by the Governor, but I can assure buyers and readers that they have the "feel" and "texture" of a speech that was actually delivered. I cannot guarantee which speech draft you'll get, but I can assure you each that one has several distinct mark-ups written in the Governor's own hand!

I also pledge not to produce any prequels, sequels, or follow-ups to ensure that your investment in my "early work" is never compromised.

Hurry -- supplies are limited.

Alpine Ski Racing Gets Weirder

In the hierarchy of world crises, this is not very pressing, but I just read in this morning's Times that an Austrian Alpine skier (a woman) was accused of wearing illegal plastic underwear in a race. I had to do a double take. I thought, is this a skit on Saturday Night Live? How kinky can you get...? (Check the late night talk shows -- I can't see how Leno and Letterman will miss this one.)

Now, I know cheating in sports is always up there on the media-interest scale, but this is certainly taking it a bit far. Athletes have been juicing for decades now, be it football and baseball players on steroids or cyclists and track and fielders who simply blood dope. That's worth arguing about. But underwear making you faster on a Super-G slalom course? I can understand the concern about outerwear -- the skin tight Neoprene suits have all kinds of restrictions because these athletes need to shave off hundredths of seconds to be competitive. Aerodynamics are paramount when whistling down the hill.

While the article went into substantial detail about the official standard, it did little to explain how underwear makes you faster or slower. Let me quote, "...must have a minimum permeability of 30 liters per square meter per second under 10 milimeters of water pressure." I'm trying to imagine the coaches saying, "Okay, ladies, turn in your bras and panties; we need to test them for permeability."

Why are they requiring this? Who cares? What kind of advantage can you get from underwear fabric? Can you imagine that underwear has to go through wind tunnel testing? Or water testing, or whatever?

I'm for fairness, rules, and regulation, but hey...

Next, we'll have rules telling golfers they can't wear those ugly plaid print pants.

Come to think of it, if I were a ski racer, I'd make a protest run in the nude. Might be a very cold minute and a half, but I'd be sure to lead the evening news. And you thought Mia Hamm was a ham. Ha.

The old fishing license trick to the nth power

For my first blog of the New Year, I thought I'd rail about all those tricks that our elected officials use to impose and collect taxes while still engaging in the usual blather about how Americans are taxed too much (and, of course, how they wouldn't even think of raising them -- or coming up with new ones).

Several years ago, when I went to the town hall in East Hampton to get a clamming license I received clarity. You fill out a three-by-five card and pay a fee, and you can now take legally take shellfish out of designated areas. The fee, of course, is a tax, and not a "license." A license supposedly deems that you have a achieved some certification or expertise; the only certification this -- or most any other fishing license -- requires, is reaching for your checkbook.

I'm going to use my cell phone bill from AT&T to make my point. I just calculated the government fees, taxes, and other usage charges, and it added more than 17 percent to the monthly statement. They include "usage charges," unspecified "other charges," a "911 charge," plus another local wireless "911 surcharge," a state "Telecom tax," a city "Telecom tax," and even a "City District Telecom Tax." Oh, I forget to include the "Regulatory Cost Recovery Charge," the "County Gross Receipts Charge," the "MTA Telecom Surcharge," the "Federal Universal Service Charge," and the "State Telecommunications Excise Surcharge."

I am surprised there wasn't a "Special Cellphone Fishing License Surcharge." But that will come, I'm sure. Come to think of it, it's pretty hard to come up with a name for a new tax. But I have confidence in my elected officials.

It's not the taxes themselves, or even the amounts (sometimes) that gets me crazy. It's the gross hypocrisy factor -- what will the American public swallow? I'd rather have a bill that said, "Look, it's a 17 percent vigorish to run all the various agencies. Breaking it down will just get you even angrier."

Remember George H.W. Bush? Sure you do. "Read my lips. No new taxes." When I was working in government and I heard that I had a good laugh. I knew what old George was thinking... "But that doesn't mean I won't raise the old ones."

The Santa Clause I know and love

'Twas the day before the big day,
And all through the planet,
Bloggers were still kvetching,
Despite the urge -- for once -- to just can it.

Tattered socks dangled from the furnace,
while young 'uns waited most earnest,
Visions of video games jostled their heads,
While mom and dad stocked up on their meds.

A grumpy old father suddenly thought,
a better notion of Christmas couldn't be wrought.
"Santa's never been to a gym, let alone on a diet,
He couldn't make it through my garage, and it's bigger
than a Hyatt!"

Mom fretted over the poor, overworked reindeer,
stuck forever in traffic;
Their shiny SUV still wreaking
highway havoc.

Dasher hadn't dashed in many a year, Prancer and Vixen
were forever stuck in second gear.

Comet was downsized out of a job,
while Cupid was avoiding the holiday mobs.

That left Donner and Blitzen, always on the run,
still whining that Disney's dwarfs had all the fun.
(Not to mention much more colorful names.)

The elves had been on strike for many a day,
making it easy for old St. Nick to be led astray.
They'd been out for but an hour,
when a thirsty Rudolph suddenly muttered,
"I need a whiskey sour!"

The lead reindeer hung a right on this cold winter night;
After all, it wasn't too far to the next liquor bar.

Just a few sips of booze caused this crew to snooze.
And so when Santa awoke, in his red suit bespoke, he simply said,
"I won't shed but a tear 'cause there's always next year."

What handicapped parking says about our culture

A few weeks ago, when a friend brought up the subject of the Steve Jobs biography, he said, "I know why you hated the book." Really, why? I wondered. "He parked in handicapped parking spaces." Well, that wasn't why I thought the book was mediocre (I didn't hate it; see my previous blog post), but it did get me thinking more about what he said, and the more I thought about it, the more it got me to this rant, which is especially timely as we are deep into the holiday season.

The media raves are all about charitable giving, of course, and I applaud that, but what's missing is the charitable giving of a different kind -- that from the heart that has nothing to do with money. Just ordinary small acts of decency.

As many of my friends know, my wife has been courageously fighting back against the effects of a debilitating stroke that occurred eight years ago while we were on holiday in the South of France. It has taken its toll on my personality, much for the worse. My anger and frustration are way off the charts, far too often. And the guilt is immeasurable because my suffering palls in comparison with hers, every day. I have no right to feel worse than she does.

I'll admit it. If a few years after our family dynamic changed forever, if I saw Steve Jobs' Mercedes in a handicapped space and my wife and I needed the spot, I'd have gone way beyond ballistic. I'd have taken a tire iron out of my trunk and smashed every single window. Then I would have made sure that every fender, every quarter panel, the hood, the trunk, and so on, would have been unrecognizable, when he reappeared with his Smoothie from the health food store. (You're thinking, "Is Doug mad yet?" I'm just getting started.) If his widow does anything with her huge inheritance, she can start by thinking about the people whose lives are affected every day by those little blue signs that her genius husband so cavalierly ignored.

We Americans constantly complain about how we're treated in foreign countries. Particularly, I've had to listen to my less-enlightened relatives prattle on about how "the French hate us." They hate us because we act privileged and boorish when we visit their country, that's why. But when it comes to treating the disabled, they're a lot nicer than we are. Trust me on this. Whenever I've wheeled Meg through a European airport dragging two suitcases strapped around my waist, someone has never failed to offer to help. In the U.S., nobody ever offers. Zero. We're lucky to find a Sky Cap in a U.S. airport. In fact, it's sad to say that I feel like it's a miracle when someone holds a door for us. (The big exception? N.Y.C. bus drivers, who unfailingly and uncomplainingly, arrange the handicapped seat and strap in the wheelchair.)

In France, where parking is chaotic to the point of laughable, the irony is somewhat delicious for Meg and me. The French park illegally everywhere, on sidewalks, the wrong way on one-way streets. They appear to continually ignore every single parking restriction except one: they do not park in handicapped spaces without a wheelchair placard. When we were at the supermarket in Vence a few years ago, we pulled right next to the entrance. I hung out our state-issued placard (honored just about everywhere in the world), and Meg read the sign for me. Instead of threatening with a huge fine, it read, roughly translated, "If you take my space, take my disability."

So this holiday season, think about something nice to do for someone who can't do it themselves. It might go a lot further than merely writing a check. (And God help you if I find your car in a handicapped parking space without a placard.)

Yet another reason health care is bankrupting the nation

Yesterday I took my wife to Rusk Institute, part of NYU's vast medical center, for a rehab evaluation. These visits have been ongoing since her stroke more than eight years ago. We've been to Rusk countless times, and when we checked in she was asked to put her hand on a data reader. For 10 minutes or so, the frustrated receptionist tinkered with the system, and finally began asking her for personal data. This was the third time she has had to go through the drill of filling out the forms. And it's all because of their high-tech "Patient Secure" system.

And I can tell you, folks, this system is so secure, nobody -- not even hospital personnel -- can access it.

The thing just doesn't work. While she was in therapy, I did an informal poll of the various stations where there were hand-print sign-ins, and every single person behind the screen sighed and said, yes, the system is full of glitches. Patients have to keep moving their hand around, and it takes several tries to "read" their palm, if at all. NYU staffers are justifiably frustrated with the system because the medical center likely spent millions to implement it and who knows how much more? to train their personnel. And now the wasted labor due to redundant paperwork is adding even more bucks down the tubes.

NYU medical announced this system earlier in the year with great fanfare, and their literature promises "fast registration for future visits." That's a joke. Sorry. I get very crabby when I see huge IT investments going south. If I were on the board of the med center, I'd be having a stern talk -- or worse -- with the chief technology officer.

The technology is supposed to be 100 times more reliable than fingerprinting; the palm reader supposedly records a portion of the patient's vascular system, which is unique. I can understand why the powers that be shied away from a fingerprint system -- too many patients would opt out due to perceived paranoia about privacy.

But it's obvious that this technology's time has not yet come. It's likely that the NYU hierarchy knows of the problem, but they're hoping it's one of those "let's work out the kinks" situations.

Steve Jobs's bio and what nobody is really talking about

I've just finished Walter Isaacson's book on Jobs, which yielded surprisingly little new material about one of America's most controversial and ruthless businessmen. First, we were all well acquainted with the dark side of the Apple cofounder's persona. That he threw tantrums and belittled less-than-stellar work by employees was well known for decades.

What I didn't anticipate was how closely he tried to shape his image. Beneath that gruff, insanely strange exterior lurked an amazingly manipulative fellow (and I don't just mean his exhortations to spur his employees to make the products "perfect").

He apparently granted Isaacson access to the last two years of his life simply because he believed he was something of a chosen one. The author previously wrote books about Einstein and Benjamin Franklin and Jobs apparently thought he'd be a natural third choice in a series about great Americans. This says at least something about Jobs' out-sized ego, if nothing else. But Franklin, Einstein, and Jobs does not quite have the euphony that he had hoped for.

Was Jobs a genius? Hardly. The term is bandied about in the book so often that the hype begins to hurt your eyes. He was an inventor in that his name is on numerous Apple patents, but he never did any of the heavy lifting. Jobs was a demanding taskmaster, and had a brilliant eye for high-tech product design. Sure, he actually was a tough, in-your-face negotiator when he had to step up to other ego-manical businessmen like Disney's Michael Eisner. He knew how to make a deal, often to his company's advantage. He had tremendous drive; he was able to re-invent his career after being ousted from his beloved company and laying an egg with a stillborn computer with a miniscule market.

Where Isaacson really falls short is that he fell for Jobs's long, subtle con. He was given "access," which meant "more than 40 interviews" in the course of two years. This means he probably had many informal conversations that were perhaps on the record but not very revelatory. There are precious few direct quotes resulting from these talks, so either Isaacson was shy about turning on his tape recorder or taking notes in full view of his subject, or Jobs was incredibly boring and utterly without deep insight during his most expansive moments. Of course, geniuses are allowed to be dull (in some cases, it may be required). But they usually are deep thinkers. Jobs had few deep thoughts, at least within the pages of this book. Mostly, he's shaping a superficial narrative feeding his legacy. Oh yes, he tells Isaacson that he doesn't expect to read the book until it's published, as if that were to ensure that the result would not be a hagiography that no reader would take seriously.

One of the biggest shortcomings of this effort has to do with Jobs's personal fortune. Reportedly, he left an estate of $8.2 billion, which puts him in the pantheon of the very rich. Isaacson had almost no interest in where Jobs wanted this money to go after he died. Yes, he does say that Jobs was not known for his philanthropy. But he never poses a direct question about it. Why not? If Jobs had no desire to give it away, then this should have been made clear. Or, if he had plans and didn't want to disclose them, then that, too, should have been reported. I'm not sure if this makes the biographer look worse than his subject, but it's certainly a critical element in his life that demands some sort of explanation.

Maybe Jobs really wanted this to remain secret so we would think he's a cheap son-of-a-bitch, only to have his widow set up a foundation to give most of it away. If that's the case, and Isaacson knew it, then he's done a disservice to his readers. If not, he's been had.

The reviews of this first detailed look into his life were largely positive, and I'm still wondering why nobody has taken the work to task. Even The New York Review of Books had a tepid analysis.

A word about my personal literary food chain. If it's a book I'm likely to keep (Ron Chernow on George Washington, for example), I buy the hard cover. If it's a book I want to read but am not in a hurry to do so, I wait for the paperback. If I'm anxious to read it and am fairly certain there isn't a place for it in my library, I download it on my Kindle. At the very lowest priority -- a book I'll read but will never keep -- I borrow a copy. I'm glad the Jobs biography I read just went back to the New York Public Library.