Sgt. Sacto

“Captain Honolulu” was KHVH’s (now KITV) answer to the successful “Checkers and Pogo” kids’ afternoon show on KGMB. John Farrington was hired to play the lead.

“Unfortunately, the night before, Farrington partied too hard and didn’t show up for the live show. We panicked,” Grimm recalls. “The program director, Bob Smith, said he had an Air Force flight jacket and cap, and we sent him home to get it.

“We decided he would be Sgt. Sacto and substitute for Captain Honolulu, who was chasing criminals on Mars. The name Sacto may have come from the acronym of SAC – the Strategic Air Command.

“Farrington was fired and never appeared as ‘Captain Honolulu,’ leaving sidekick Sgt. Sacto to host the show. It ran for years.”

The show aired in the 1960s when television was black and white. Sgt. Sacto chatted with kids between cartoons (such as “Popeye,” “Mickey Mouse” and “Bugs Bunny”).

“Sacto was famous for creating a mask with his thumb and fingers, turned inside out in a way that few could mimic. Kids at every elementary school tried, and those that could earned a special status.”

Lady Gaga: hostile foreign force

Lady Gaga has reportedly been added to a list of hostile foreign forces banned by China’s Communist party after she met with the Dalai Lama to discuss yoga.

The American pop singer, who has sold more than 27m albums, met the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader on Sunday before a conference in Indianapolis.

A video of the 19-minute encounter – in which the pair pondered issues such as meditation, mental health and how to detoxify humanity – was posted on the singer’s Facebook account.

The meeting sparked an angry reaction from Beijing, which has attacked the spiritual leader as a “wolf in monk’s robes”.

The Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in March 1959, insists he is merely seeking greater autonomy from Chinese rule for Tibetans.

But China’s rulers consider him a separatist who they claim is conspiring to split the Himalayan region from China in order to establish theocratic rule there.

Following Lady Gaga’s meeting, the Communist party’s mysterious propaganda department issued “an important instruction” banning her entire repertoire from mainland China, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily reported on Monday.

Chinese websites and media organisations were ordered to stop uploading or distributing her songs in a sign of Beijing’s irritation, the newspaper said.

Wilbur Post

Alan Young, a comedian and veteran supporting actor who found wide fame as an unlikely sort of second fiddle — the hapless straight man to a talking horse in the 1960s sitcom “Mister Ed” — died on Thursday in Woodland Hills, Calif. He was 96.

Mr. Young had been a popular radio and television personality and had appeared in several films, including “Tom Thumb” (1958) and “The Time Machine” (1960), when, in his early 40s, he landed the role of Wilbur Post, the bumbling, well-meaning architect who owned a loquacious, fun-loving horse named Mr. Ed.

“Mister Ed” became a hit, running from 1961 to 1966 on CBS. The episodes usually revolved around Wilbur’s clumsy attempts to undo Ed’s mischief, situations made more difficult by the fact that Ed would speak only to Wilbur.

Mr. Young had a mischievous streak himself: Many years after the fact, he said he had started the rumor that the crew got Ed to “talk” by coating his mouth with peanut butter. Actually, the crew would place a piece of nylon in Ed’s mouth; the horse would then try to remove it by moving his lips, giving the illusion that he was talking when the voice of Allan Lane, a star of B westerns, was added. (Mr. Lane died in 1973).

In 1950 he brought “The Alan Young Show” to TV. It remained on the air until 1953. In 1951 it won the Emmy Award for best variety show, and Mr. Young won for best actor. (Sketch actors were included in that category at the time.)

Throughout the ’50s he appeared in numerous TV roles and on the variety shows of Steve Allen, Ed Sullivan, Dinah Shore and others. In later decades he made guest appearances on dozens of series, including “Death Valley Days,” “The Love Boat,” “Coach” and “ER.”

His last film was “Em & Me” (2004), an independent feature in which he played an elderly man traveling cross-country to visit his ex-wife’s grave.

Mr. Young was also a frequently heard voice in animated movies like “The Great Mouse Detective” and television cartoon series like “The Ren & Stimpy Show” and “The Smurfs.” He was the voice of Scrooge McDuck in several Disney projects.

He published two autobiographies: “Mister Ed and Me” (with Bill Burt) in 1995 and “There’s No Business Like Show Business ... Was” (2006), an account of his career and life in Hollywood.

Planning for long-term care

As part of retirement planning for my clients, I always ask them the question, “Have you planned for long-term care?” Very often the answer is no. I proceed to ask, “Why not?” The answers I often get are: “Don’t Medicare and Medicaid cover that?” “I told my wife to just let me make (pronounced mah-kay, Hawaiian for ‘die’) if I ever get into that situation” or “My children will take care of me.”

People who do answer “Yes, we have thought about long-term care” are almost always those people who have experienced it firsthand through their family members. They understand the financial and emotional burden that long-term care can cause for families.

So, what is long-term care? Long-term care is when people require assistance, both medical and nonmedical, because they cannot care for themselves. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 70 percent of those age 65 and over will require long-term care in their lifetime, and for married couples there is a 91 percent chance that one spouse will need long-term care at some point. Furthermore, the average amount of time that people stay in long-term care is three years.

Long-term care is the biggest threat to your retirement nest egg because of how expensive it is to get care, especially here in Hawaii. According to Genworth Cost of Care Survey 2015, Hawaii’s average annual cost of adult day care was $19,000 and a whopping $135,000 for a stay in a nursing home. Not many retirees have enough income to cover that kind of expense, yet many people overlook this in their retirement planning. Also, relying on your children can create a huge burden as they might already have their plates full with careers and raising their own children. We refer to them as the sandwich generation.

Now let me clear up some misconceptions that people often have when it comes to paying for long-term care:

1. “Medicare will pay for my care.”

Medicare will not cover most long-term care expenses because the majority of these services are considered “custodial care.” Custodial care is nonmedical assistance for daily living activities such as bathing, eating, dressing and using the toilet. And even if you require medical care, there are stringent requirements that you must meet to get Medicare coverage. For example, you must be hospitalized for a minimum of three days, then transferred to a long-term care hospital within 60 days of discharge. Even if you meet these requirements, Medicare will cover only up to 100 days of care. It covers 100 percent of the first 20 days, then after that, you are responsible for a copayment of $157.50 per day. After the 100 days you are responsible for the entire bill on your own.

2. “Medicaid will pay for my care.”

Unlike Medicare, Medicaid does cover long-term custodial care services. However, Medicaid is a joint federal and state program meant for low-income individuals. Medicaid applicants in Hawaii are disqualified if they have assets of $2,000 or more. You can’t transfer your assets to family members to try to qualify for Medicaid, as they will look back five years before the date you apply for Medicaid. When I found out that over half of all long-term care in the U.S. is paid by Medicaid, I was in disbelief. I thought to myself, “How can that many people have less than $2,000 in assets?” Then I realized they weren’t always broke; the long-term care bills made them broke. Those who don’t have long-term care insurance will begin by paying out of pocket. Then they will quickly run out of savings and eventually rely on Medicaid. That thought made me sad. These people who had worked hard to buy their home and build their life savings now have nothing. They are forced to spend the last years of their lives relying on government assistance. I wouldn’t want to end my life this way, nor do I want to see my parents in this type of dire situation.

How can we plan for long-term care so that we don’t have to become completely broke and rely on the government or our families to take care of us? There are several options.

Long-term care insurance: Long-term care insurance will have either daily or monthly coverage plans, with periods ranging from one year to lifetime coverage. Many of them also offer inflation protection so the benefits will continue to increase every year to keep up with the rising cost of care. One thing consumers need to be aware of with long-term care insurance is that insurance companies can raise the premiums on existing policyholders. Many policyholders were hit with huge increases (some up to 90 percent) in their premiums in the last five years. Insurance companies says it’s due to the lower-than-expected numbers of policies being canceled and a higher-than-expected number of people filing for claims. When insurance companies raise premiums, most of them will give the policyholder an option to either keep the same coverage and pay the higher premium, or lower the coverage in order to keep paying the same premium.

Life insurance with long-term care benefit: This type of insurance is becoming more popular. It is life insurance and long-term care insurance all in one. Some companies will even offer a spousal coverage, in which both spouses can be covered under one policy. The obvious benefit of life plus long-term care insurance is that if you and your spouse die without using the long-term care benefit, your beneficiary will receive the death benefit. However, according to the statistics, if you get a policy with your spouse, there is a 91 percent chance one of you will use it.

Self-insure, or saving money for potential long-term care needs: If this is the option you are choosing, you should save for at least three years of care. If you are married, multiple that by 2. Let’s do the math: $135,000 x 3 years x 2 people = $810,000. Let’s now add 2 percent inflation to that number. Say you’re 65 years old and you’re going to need care in 20 years. It’s going to cost you and your spouse more than $1.2 million — money you need to save in addition to your retirement. The majority of people are struggling to save enough for retirement income, so saving another $1.2 million is a stretch.

Whatever option you choose to protect yourself from the expense of long-term care, it’s important you have this conversation with your family so you have a plan for it. We have an aversion to discussing mortality, but it’s so important to have this discussion to avoid any disagreements among kids, or having to race the clock to establish a plan. Have it in place while you’re still sharp and healthy. The irony I see too often is when people are healthy, they don’t want to talk about it. When they become ill and realize they need a plan, it’s too late to get any sort of protection. With anything in life, proper planning will help you avoid a lot of stress and problems down the road. So talk to your family and your financial adviser today to make sure you (and your parents) have a solid long-term care plan in place. It gives you great peace of mind knowing exactly how you will be taken care of and how that care will be paid for.

Kana Aikawa is a financial adviser at Wealth Managing Partners, Inc. She has a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance and Management from the Shidler College of Business at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Reach her at 954-7072.

The Dalai Lama's map of the mind

ROCHESTER, Minn. — The Dalai Lama, who tirelessly preaches inner peace while chiding people for their selfish, materialistic ways, has commissioned scientists for a lofty mission: to help turn secular audiences into more self-aware, compassionate humans.

That is, of course, no easy task. So the Dalai Lama ordered up something with a grand name to go with his grand ambitions: a comprehensive Atlas of Emotions to help the more than seven billion people on the planet navigate the morass of their feelings to attain peace and happiness.

“It is my duty to publish such work,” the Dalai Lama said.

To create this “map of the mind,” as he called it, the Dalai Lama reached out to a source Hollywood had used to plumb the workings of the human psyche.

Specifically, he commissioned his good friend Paul Ekman — a psychologist who helped advise the creators of Pixar’s “Inside Out,” an animated film set inside a girl’s head — to map out the range of human sentiments. Dr. Ekman later distilled them into the five basic emotions depicted in the movie, from anger to enjoyment.

Dr. Ekman’s daughter, Eve, a post-doctoral fellow in integrative medicine research, worked on the project as well, with the goal of producing a guide to human emotions that anyone with an Internet connection could study in a quest for self-understanding, calm and constructive action.

“We have, by nature or biologically, this destructive emotion, also constructive emotion,” the Dalai Lama said. “This innerness, people should pay more attention to, from kindergarten level up to university level. This is not just for knowledge, but in order to create a happy human being. Happy family, happy community and, finally, happy humanity.”

Larry Price leaving Perry and Price

Radio’s power pair will part ways, as Larry Price will step away from co-hosting the long-running, top-rated “Perry and Price” morning radio show on KSSK-FM 92.3/AM 590 at the middle of this month.

An announcement from station parent company iHeartMedia Honolulu said he is making the move to “focus on other interests” within the company, and did not explain the reason.

Price, 81, instead will co-host a sports show with Rick Hamada on sister station KIKI-AM 990, known as FOX Sports 990. It will air Saturdays at 11 a.m. beginning later this month.

“I decided the time is right and appropriate to make this change,” Price said in a statement, further expressing gratitude for the “support of our loyal listeners and for all the great years on KSSK.”

He and Perry have co-hosted the show for 33 years, following the death of their predecessor, highly rated radio personality Hal Lewis, who went by J. Akuhead Pupule, or “Aku” for short.

“Being a market’s No. 1 radio show for 33 years is unheard of in American radio,” said Chuck Cotton, president and general manager of iHeartMedia Honolulu.

Their self-introduction, “Perry on the left” and “Price on the right,” never was intended to be a reflection of their political leanings. Rather, it was a spur-of-the-moment comment relative to where each was standing in the studio their first morning on the air. The phrase stuck even though Price is a staunch Democrat, while Perry’s conservative views are well-known to listeners.

Price “certainly deserves the opportunity to sleep a little more, and work a little less,” said Perry.

Price initially was hired by KSSK as vice president of community relations in 1977, not long after his two-year stretch as the head football coach for the University of Hawaii.

Price also worked as an investigative reporter for KITV in the 1980s; a decade in which he earned his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California and became an MBA professor at Chaminade University, where a classroom and scholarship have been dedicated in his name. Price also was a columnist for MidWeek for many years, until his last “The Right Price” column appeared in the weekly publication on April 14.

His rise to household-name status started during his football playing days at Roosevelt High School, the University of Hawaii, and with the Los Angeles Rams.

The duo will do their last broadcasts together from the stations’ Iwilei studios this week, and then will air live shows from a cruise next week for the final time.

Perry will continue handling the morning show and the live broadcasts of the Saturday morning breakfast show solo, the station announcement said.

***

In 1977 Larry Price gave a speech that would change his life. His friends don’t remember the specifics, only what happened next.

As Price spoke at a public gathering, Cec Heftel, then the owner of KGMB AM-FM radio, watched how the former University of Hawaii-Manoa football coach mesmerized the audience with wit and humor. Heftel decided right then to hire Price.

“He said, ‘I want this guy on my team. I don’t know what he will do, but I want him on my team,’” recalled Dale Machado, who had been hired by the station only two months earlier. “I remember they gave him an office in a storeroom. There was junk in the room, and he had his desk there.”

Inauspicious as that was, the job put Price on a path to the top of Hawaii radio and a 33-year command of the morning airwaves. Although Heftel gave Price a public relations job, he paired him with Michael W. Perry in 1983, and “The Perry &Price Show” quickly became the No. 1 choice for morning listeners — a position the show has maintained with few interruptions ever since.

But on Thursday, Price, 81, retired from the show as it broadcast from a statewide cruise on the Pride of America.

It was a low-key departure, with nothing said at the end of the broadcast.

“Nobody really talked about it,” Ma­chado said. “Larry is a very private man. He didn’t want to make a big deal of it. Nothing special was said.”

Price’s departure, announced last week, doesn’t mean the end of “The Perry &Price Show.” KSSK plans to continue airing it under the same name, but with Perry as the solo host. And Price will co-host a weekly sports show on sister station KIKI-AM 990.

[wait, I'm hearing Larry Price on the radio now as I'm writing this.  I guess he didn't leave yet?]

***

5/27/16 - The Legend of Larry Price

Hanna Battah

OK, this is completely juvenile, but admit it — when you saw the photo of the news anchor with the amazing name being shared all over social media this week, you laughed, right? A little? Cannot help.

It’s one of those inside-jokey, if-you-know-you-know kind of things. But if you do know, Hanna Battah is pretty much the best name you’ve heard in a long time.

It might be even better than Sterling Silva, Pua Ting, Marlon Blando and all those other classic Hawaii names. Hanna Battah brings out that puerile fourth-grade glee, the kind that makes you snort-laugh in church or get in trouble with your brothers in the back seat of the car while Dad is driving. “The lady’s name is Hanna Battah. Heh heh heh. You think it’s a joke but it’s snot.”

Hanna Battah is a reporter and anchor at KBAK-TV in Bakersfield, Calif. She’s a recent University of Missouri School of Journalism grad who moved to California in November. She brought her awesome name with her.

To make it even better, she pronounces her last name “bah-TAH” so it sounds all fancy. Pardon me, Hanna BatTAH, would you have any Grey Poupon? Heh heh heh.

Apparently, she was not aware of the funny punny sound of her name until this week, when things got downright viral in Hawaii. Somebody screenshotted her image from the nightly newscast, her fabulous name displayed across the bottom, and sent it out on social media. The image was shared and shared, got thousands of “likes” and brought out every nose, mucus and picking joke known to man.

aloe vera

Known to the Egyptians as the plant of immortality and to Native Americans as the wand of heaven, aloe vera comes with a wide array of amazing healing properties — some of which you may already be aware. You might even have your own aloe vera plant in your home for those small emergencies like scrapes, cuts, and burns, but did you know that aloe vera is not only limited to topical use and is actually even more beneficial to your body when taken internally?

According to The Journal of Environmental Science and Health, aloe vera also possesses anti-bacterial, anti-viral, and anti-fungal properties that assist the immune system in cleansing the body of toxins and invading pathogens. But that isn’t all aloe vera juice/gel has to offer.

philosophy of everyday life

Recently signed up for quora so I could read the entire answer of a question.  Now I'm getting a daily digest of quora questions and answers.  Many of which are interesting.  Sometimes it's like reading Freakonomics.

Anyway here's one.

Philosophy of Everyday Life: What are the lessons people most often learn too late in life?

1) Time passes much more quickly than you realize.

2) If you don't take care of your body early then it won't take care of you later. Your world becomes smaller each day as you lose mobility, continence and sight 

3) Sex and beauty fades, but intimacy and friendship grows

4) People are far more important than any other thing in your life. No hobby, interest, book, or work is going to be as important to you as the people you spend time with as you get older. 

5) Money talks. It says "Goodbye". If you didn't plan financially for your old age when you are young you will wish you had. 

6) Any seeds you planted in the past, either good or bad, will begin to bear fruit and affect the quality of your life as you get older for the better or the worse

7) Jealousy is a wasted emotion. People you hate are going to succeed; people you like are going to sometimes do better than you did. Kids are going to be smarter and quicker than you are. Accept it with grace.

8) That big house you had to have becomes a bigger and bigger burden even as the mortgage gets smaller. The cleaning, the maintenance, the stairs, all of it... becomes less attractive every day. Your possessions own YOU. 

9)  You will badly regret the things you DIDN'T do far more than the things you did that were "wrong" -- the girl you didn't kiss; the trip you didn't take; the project you kept putting off; the time you could have helped someone. If you get the chance - do it. You may never get the chance again.

10) Every day you wake up is a victory.

Bonus: It's never too late to become what you wanted to be or might have been if you START RIGHT NOW!

11) What people think of you is none of your business. Ignore them, whether it is good or bad, and keep your eyes on your goals. The biggest liar in the world is "They say...".

-- Jay Bazzinotti, Be Here Now

[I'd say this looks a outline for one of the zillions of self-help books out there.]

Waialae Drive-In

I met with siblings Joey Ayres and Dorothy Ayres-Smith recently to talk about their dad, who was a top local minor league baseball player in the 1940s and 1950s. I’ll write about him soon, but at the end of our conversation, they mentioned that they had worked at Waialae Drive-In in the 1970s.

The Waialae Drive-In movie theater was near Kahala Mall, on the mauka side of Waialae Avenue. It opened in 1956 and closed in 1986, and held more than 300 cars.

-- Bob Sigal, Star-Advertiser, February 26, 2016

men's room

http://assets.amuniversal.com/d6fc5ad0b6fc01333f2f005056a9545d

http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2016/02/26

notable gravesites

Historic figures, celebrated entertainers, lawmakers and heroes can be found in Oahu’s quiet cemeteries. The list that follows is a sample of what can easily be found while strolling through the grave markers.

the sheep and the goats

According to what Jesus says in Matthew 25:31-46, belief in Jesus is not required for eternal life.  In fact, this passage makes it clear that it is not even necessary to know Jesus to inherit the kingdom of heaven.  One is rewarded with eternal life based on whether or not one feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, take care of the sick and visits those in prison.

Matthew 25:31-46: But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 “And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. 34 “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 ‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You drink? 38 ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 ‘And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 “And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’

The theme is echoed elsewhere, including Jesus' well-known parable of the Good Samaritan.

Why then are there biblical passages such as John 14:6, where Jesus declares, "I am the way and the truth and the life.  No ones comes to the Father except through me.

-- Jay Sakashita, Midweek, February 10, 2016, page 17

Beatles for free

ACT NATURALLY IF you can. The Beatles catalog will be available for streaming any time at all as of midnight tonight local time wherever you are, even back in the USSR. Christmas time (is here again)!

While Beatles music has previously made sporadic appearances on Pandora, this will be the first time it’s been available for streaming across the universe of on-demand music apps. Apple Music, Google Play, Spotify, Amazon Prime, Rhapsody, Slacker, Tidal, Deezer, and Microsoft Groove have come together, all together now, to offer Beatles tracks, whereas before you could find them practically nowhere, man.

To listen, all you need is love of classic Lennon and McCartney tunes. Well, okay, it’s not free as a bird; you do need a ticket to ride, but who doesn’t subscribe to at least one of those services by this point?

Actually, in fairness, access to the Beatles catalog might prompt a new sign-up revolution. After all, there hasn’t been a rock and roll music band this popular in my life—not even that lady, Madonna. If you need help! deciding whether you should enlist, go ahead and ask me why. I want to hold your hand through a day in the life of streaming the Beatles.

“Good day sunshine,” I’ll shout after a hard day’s night of dreaming about the vibrant harmonies of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. I’ll fire up Spotify or Google Music, type in the name of my favorite Beatles album, and get back some of the best music of the last century. From there I’ll let it be; putting the Beatles on shuffle seems wrong somehow. All things must pass in the order they intended. If I had Android Auto or CarPlay, I could drive my car and listen, too.

The Beatles back catalog is extensive enough that it could fill eight days a week, so you’ll have to be selective. But we can work it out! In fact, forget “we,” you know what to do: design your own magical mystery tour of music classics.

The timing’s also auspicious for those in search of a last-minute Christmas gift; you can’t buy me love, but you can buy me a Spotify subscription (or at least let me borrow your password). I mean, that’ll be the day—we don’t even know each other.

The only open question is whether a launch this prominent will cause any services to falter under the weight of streamers (hello, goodbye!). Don’t let me down, Spotify; I’ve been burned by HBO Go one too many times.

It’ll probably be fine. Besides, the important thing is that yesterday, you couldn’t stream Beatles songs on-demand. Tonight, I am the walrus you can.

Big Soda

A Coke-funded group at the University of Colorado that was supposed to study the impact of obesity — the Global Energy Balance Network — shut down unexpectedly late Monday, months after the group came under fire for blaming the nation’s growing waistline on lack of exercise — not sugary drinks.

Coke cut financial ties with the group and GEBN said on its website it ceased operations because of “resource limitations.”

Coca-Cola, which employs about 8,900 metro Atlantans in its hometown, declined to comment Tuesday.

“Like ‘big tobacco,’ ‘big soda’s’ true intentions have been unveiled by this effort to manipulate the science,” said Jim O’Hara, director of health promotion policy for the health advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest. “The real issue was not just about transparency, but scientific integrity.”

how to calm a crying baby

Dr. Hamilton has handled a lot of babies at his practice and has a tried and true technique for calming a crying baby that he uses to quiet infants during office visits. “Parents have learned it and have experienced great success at home,” he says in the video description, before demonstrating the four simple steps.

First, pick up the baby. Then:

1. Fold across the chest.
2. Secure arms gently.
3. Grasp diaper area.
4. Rock at a 45 degree angle. Gently shake their booty and rock them up and down.

Dr. Hamilton says this will work for the first 2 to 3 months after which the baby will probably get too heavy. If your baby doesn’t stop crying it could be that your baby is hungry or possibly not feeling well.

the cost of dementia

Three diseases, leading killers of Americans, often involve long periods of decline before death. Two of them — heart disease and cancer — usually require expensive drugs, surgeries and hospitalizations. The third, dementia, has no effective treatments to slow its course.

So when a group of researchers asked which of these diseases involved the greatest health care costs in the last five years of life, the answer they found might seem surprising. The most expensive, by far, was dementia.

The study looked at patients on Medicare. The average total cost of care for a person with dementia over those five years was $287,038. For a patient who died of heart disease it was $175,136. For a cancer patient it was $173,383. Medicare paid almost the same amount for patients with each of those diseases — close to $100,000 — but dementia patients had many more expenses that were not covered.

On average, the out-of-pocket cost for a patient with dementia was $61,522 — more than 80 percent higher than the cost for someone with heart disease or cancer. The reason is that dementia patients need caregivers to watch them, help with basic activities like eating, dressing and bathing, and provide constant supervision to make sure they do not wander off or harm themselves. None of those costs were covered by Medicare.

For many families, the cost of caring for a dementia patient often “consumed almost their entire household wealth,” said Dr. Amy S. Kelley, a geriatrician at Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai in New York and the lead author of the paper published on Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

“It’s stunning that people who start out with the least end up with even less,” said Dr. Kenneth Covinsky, a geriatrician at the University of California in San Francisco. “It’s scary. And they haven’t even counted some of the costs, like the daughter who gave up time from work and is losing part of her retirement and her children’s college fund.”

Dr. Diane E. Meier, a professor of geriatrics and palliative care at Mount Sinai Hospital, said most families are unprepared for the financial burden of dementia, assuming Medicare will pick up most costs.

“What patients and their families don’t realize is that they are on their own,” Dr. Meier said.

To obtain cost estimates, Dr. Kelley and her colleagues used data from the Health and Retirement Survey, a federally funded study that conducts detailed interviews every two years with a nationally representative sample of older people, getting an average response rate of 86 percent. It collects data on participants’ incomes, health and needs for care. It includes data on subjects’ cognitive functioning and the likelihood that they are demented, and on their total out-of-pocket spending.

The survey links to the Medicare database, which provides data on participants’ total medical costs, and to the National Death Index. After people die, their families are questioned again about health care spending, including spending on nursing homes and home health care. To estimate the costs of unpaid care — a daughter who leaves her job to care for a mother with Alzheimer’s disease, for example — the researchers used $20 an hour, the average for a home health care aide.

The reason for the big disparities in out-of-pocket costs for the three diseases, Dr. Kelley said, is that Medicare covers discrete medical services like office visits and acute care such as hospitalization and surgery. Expenses for cancer patients and heart patients tend to be of that sort. They often do not need full-time home or nursing home care until the very end of their life, if at all, so do not have that continuing cost. Dementia patients, in contrast, need constant care for years. They may not be sick enough for a nursing home but cannot be left alone.

When they are sick enough for a nursing home, that cost is not covered by health insurance. More than half of patients with dementia — and three-quarters of those from racial minorities — spend down, using savings to pay for the nursing home until nothing is left. Then Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income people, takes over.

Toto washlet

Last year, Bennett Friedman, who owns a plumbing showroom in Manhattan called AF New York, took a business trip to Milan. On the morning of his return he faced a choice: stop in the bathroom there or wait until he got home.  He waited.

The move seems almost masochistic. But in his home and office bathrooms, Mr. Friedman had installed a Toto washlet. To sit upon a standard commode, he said, would be like “going back to the Stone Age.”

“It feels very uncivilized,” he said.

For those who own Japanese toilets, there is a cultish devotion. They boast heated seats, a bidet function for a rear cleanse and an air-purifying system that deodorizes during use. The need for toilet paper is virtually eliminated (there is an air dryer) and “you left the lid up” squabbles need never take place (the seat lifts and closes automatically in many models).

Jean Z. Poh, founder of the luxury jewelry e-commerce site Swoonery.com, said a washlet is, in its own way, a luxury item.

old-time funk

When Michael Binder saw the mega viral hit that featured a bunch of dance scenes from popular movies matched up to the incredibly popular song, “Uptown Funk,” he was instantly inspired to do a similar mashup, only he wanted to use dance scenes from movies that only came out of the Golden Age of cinema.

It’s pretty amazing to watch legends like, Gene Kelly, Shirley Temple, Judy Garland, and Fred Astaire dance to one of the catchiest songs ever!

The amount of time it must have taken to edit this whole piece together is truly astounding. Not only did Binder have to be aware of the dance sequence in his head, but he had to time it properly with the music without speeding up or slowing down the original footage.

In the end he created a video that is really fun to watch. He really put a lot of thought into this whole project, and just about everyone loves the final result!

successful people / unsuccessful people

9gag.com (via facebook)

15 habits

 THAT WILL TOTALLY TRANSFORM YOUR PRODUCTIVITY

1. Declutter your desk.
MESSY WORK SPACE:
Creativity may arise from chaos, but a litter-strewn office probably isn’t helping you get stuff done. "Attention is programmed to pick up what’s novel," says Josh Davis, director of research at the NeuroLeadership Institute and author of Two Awesome Hours. Visible files remind you of unfinished tasks. An unread book is temptation for procrastination. Even if you don’t think you’re noticing the disorder, it hurts your ability to focus.

8. Sleep on the job.
It might be tough to convince your boss, but researchers from the University of Michigan found that taking a daytime nap counteracts impulsive behavior and boosts tolerance for frustration. The findings also suggest that workplace dozers could be more productive.

[I guess I'll concentrate on those two.]

[via facebook]

Bezos no. 3 in America

A 10% bump in Amazon's stock price in after-hours trading following a positive earnings report Thursday made a lot of people a little richer — and CEO Jeff Bezos a whole lot richer.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, the leap in Bezos' Amazon stock increased his fortune by almost $5 billion Thursday evening, making him the third-wealthiest person in the United States and the fifth world wide.

At the beginning of the year he was only the 13th wealthiest American, according to Bloomberg.

Bloomberg put Bezos' current net worth at $55 billion. That leaves only Bill Gates, with $83.9 billion and Warren Buffett, with $64.5 billion, ahead of him.


The stock move pushed the Koch brothers, Charles and David, to fourth and fifth place.

Andy Kauffman and Redd Foxx on tour

As comedians, Redd Foxx and Andy Kaufman could hardly be more different. Foxx, the pioneering nightclub performer and star of “Sanford & Son,” who died in 1991, was candid, socially conscious and unapologetically obscene. Kaufman, the standup, sometime wrestler and “Taxi” co-star who died in 1984, was experimental, obtuse, playful and perplexing.

But now these two comics will be united in a most unlikely way: both are being turned into holograms to perform and tour again.

On Friday, Hologram USA, a technology company that specializes in these visual recreations of celebrities, plans to announce that it will use the likenesses of Kaufman and Foxx and parts of their previously recorded routines to create hologram shows that will be presented across the country next year.

“They’re comedy icons,” said Alki David, the founder and chief executive of Hologram USA. “Both of them influenced so many comedians after them.”

Mr. David, a billionaire entrepreneur, said in an interview that while the company is “working with other estates of famous funny guys and funny girls, these just happened to be amenable estates who see the vision.”

Foxx, who released more than 50 albums of his material, was among the first black comedians to find popularity with white audiences and to star in his own network sitcom.

Kaufman was a prankish provocateur and frequent guest of David Letterman’s “Late Night” program. He was the subject of the 1999 biographical film “Man on the Moon,” in which he was played by Jim Carrey. (He also appeared on Mr. Foxx’s short-lived ABC variety show in 1977.)

Michael Kaufman, the comedian’s brother and a representative of his estate, said in an interview that the hologram show was “the right platform for the new generation of audiences to experience Andy.”

In Andy Kaufman’s heyday, when he was picking fights on live television or feuding with the wrestler Jerry Lawler, Michael Kaufman said, such incidents “made it to the newspapers — that’s as much as you could do back then, as far as hoopla.”

If his brother were getting up to the same antics today, Mr. Kaufman added, “I think it would have busted the Internet. This keeps him alive.”

Mr. David said that the hologram shows featuring these comedians would include some of their best-known material — say, Andy Kaufman lip-syncing the “Mighty Mouse” theme on the debut episode of “Saturday Night Live” — as well as narrative segments that dramatize biographical details.

Noting that Malcolm X had known Foxx before his stand-up fame and described him as “the funniest dishwasher on this earth,” Mr. David said, “We’re going to have a scene with Malcolm X. We’re going to have various notable names featuring in his story.”

$750 or $1?

TRENTON, N.J. –  Stepping into the furor over eye-popping price spikes for old generic medicines, a maker of compounded drugs will begin selling $1 doses of Daraprim, whose price recently was jacked up to $750 per pill by Turing Pharmaceuticals.

San Diego-based Imprimis Pharmaceuticals Inc., which mixes approved drug ingredients to fill individual patient prescriptions, said Thursday it will supply capsules containing Daraprim's active ingredients, pyrimethamine and leucovorin, for $99 for a 100-capsule bottle, via its site: www.imprimiscares.com.
The 3 1/2-year-old drug compounding firm also plans to start making inexpensive versions of other generic drugs whose prices have skyrocketed, Chief Executive Mark Baum told The Associated Press.

"We are looking at all of these cases where the sole-source generic companies are jacking the price way up," Baum said in an interview. "There'll be many more of these" compounded drugs coming in the near future.
The high price of prescription medicines in the U.S. — from drugs for cancer and rare diseases that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year down to once-cheap generic drugs now costing many times their old price — has become a hot issue in the 2016 presidential race.

News that Turing, Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. and other drugmakers have bought rights to old, cheap medicines that are the only treatment for serious diseases and then hiked prices severalfold has angered patients. It's triggered government investigations, politicians' proposals to fight "price gouging," heavy media scrutiny and a big slump in biotech stock prices.

At the eye of the storm is former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli, head of Turing Pharmaceuticals, scorned last month for buying rights to and then increasing by more than 5,000 percent the price of Daraprim, a 62-year old drug with no competition. The startup drugmaker paid Impax Laboratories $55 million in August for rights to Daraprim, which treats a rare parasitic infection called toxoplasmosis that mainly strikes pregnant women, cancer patients and AIDS patients.


“This product is now affordable to make. We can make it and turn a profit and we can take some of that profit and put it back into research for this disease,” Shkreli told Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo on Friday, adding that 60 percent of the drug is sold for $1.

how to use a refrigerator

Sharon Profis shares a few refrigerator organization tips everyone should know.

have a cold one

So much for the idea that a cold one kills brain cells: A new analysis of 32 different studies published in the journal PLOS One found that beer was associated with a reduced risk of Parkinson's disease. The research concluded that people who consumed one or more beers per day—but drank only beer, not wine or liquor as well—had a 59% lower risk of this neurodegenerative disease than non-alcohol drinkers. (By contrast, people who drank only liquor and had one or more drinks a day had more than twice the risk of developing Parkinson's compared to teetotalers.)

The good news for beer lovers doesn't end there: Other new research published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that xanthohumol—a potent antioxidant found in hops that has anticancer and cardiovascular protective benefits—also protects rat brain cells from the type of damage linked to Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. The rats got an amount that was equivalent to drinking one beer a day.

breaking the stress cycle

STRESS IS MAKING us sick. Common medical problems that are affected by stress include heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, depression, headaches, gastrointestinal problems and asthma. “Stress doesn’t only make us feel awful emotionally,” says Dr. Jay Winner, founder and director of the Stress Reduction Program for the Sansum Clinic in Santa Barbara, California. “It can also exacerbate just about any health condition you can think of.”

Stress actually increases the rate at which our cells grow old, making us more prone to age-related diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. In fact, a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2004) showed that telomeres—part of the chromosome that protects genetic data—in the cells of chronically stressed women had the equivalent of an additional decade of aging.

Breaking the stress cycle

Often we don’t deal with stress until it’s overwhelming. But if you learn strategies to identify and handle stress right away, you’ll feel better faster and improve your health. “By learning to recognize the thoughts and feelings of stress early,” says Winner, “you can break the stress cycle before it starts.” The following practices can help.

Accept the way things are. Mindfulness means focusing on the present moment in a nonjudgmental way. Instead of complaining and wishing this moment were different, pay attention to your breath going in and out, and experience the now. “Thoughts will come and go, but you don’t need to resist or believe them,” says Winner. “Most thoughts are just opinions.”

Assume the superhero stance. Researchers at the Harvard Business School found that the levels of the stress hormone cortisol fell sharply when students adopted a Wonder Woman—arms akimbo—“power pose” for just two minutes. Participants indicated that they also felt more confident. “The power pose changed body chemistry in measurable ways,” says Christine Carter, author of The Sweet Spot: How to Find Your Groove at Home and Work (Ballantine Books, 2015).

Look up. “When your mind is feeling cluttered, overwhelmed or exhausted, head outside for some fresh air,” says Larissa Hall Carlson, the dean of the Kripalu School of Ayurveda at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. “Just a few minutes of sky gazing can provide the mind with the space it needs to refresh and reset.” Find a comfortable place to sit or lie down for a few minutes, and look up.

Massage your ears. “It stimulates the same stress-reducing energy points used in acupuncture,” says Carlson. Just close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Now firmly rub, tug and massage your ears for one to three minutes, and relax your jaw and shoulders.

Practice gratitude. “It helps you cultivate a positive attitude and puts the brakes on the fight-or-flight response,” says Carter. Count the things that you feel grateful for, write them down in a journal or on your calendar, or visit happier.com and download the app.

Set limits on technology. With the advent of the smartphone, we can stay busy, and stressed, all the time. “Research shows that people who checked their email 15 or more times a day and reduced it to three or five found that their overall tension and stress levels went down dramatically,” says Carter, a Costco member.

Take a break. “We see busyness as a sign of productivity and rest as a sign of laziness,” says Carter. “But downtime actually eases the sense of being overwhelmed. It also gives the brain time to make connections that provide insights, encourage creativity and help you find solutions.” Ultimately, helping you to work more easily with less stress.

Walk it off. Feeling frazzled? “Step outside and take a refreshing walk,” says Carlson. “Research shows that walking can reduce the risk of coronary heart disease, and it supports bone health, improves cognitive function and enhances mental well-being.”

-- The Costco Connection, June 2015

slow down, you move too fast

There’s little doubt that technology over the last two centuries has made most work easier, but the more recent introduction of smartphones and tablets, in particular, has rendered the term “o ff the clock” nearly obsolete. However, unstructured downtime is often when we do our best creative thinking.

“At every red light you [can] look over and people are checking their email or texting somebody,” says sociologist and Costco member Christine Carter (christinecarter.com). “Th ere is no such thing anymore as just waiting, just staring into space.”

Carter, an author and senior fellow at the University of California, Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, is eager to let everyone know that “if you want to be highly productive and effi cient, then there are ways to do that and it does not involve working all the time. It involves taking a lot of breaks.”

Journalist Carl Honoré, who wrote In Praise of Slowness (HarperOne, 2004)—which examines the bene fits of infusing every aspect of our lives with slowness—o ffers insight into why people stick with overloaded schedules.

Honoré tells Th e Connection, “The world is this huge buff et of things to do, and the natural human instinct is to want to have it all. [However], if you try to have it all, you will end up hurrying it all.”

Another reason, he says, is that slow “is a four-letter word that’s a byword for lazy, stupid, unproductive, boring—all the things that nobody wants to be. And because of that taboo, even when people can feel in their bones that it will be good to put on the brakes, or they yearn to slow down, they don’t do it because they feel afraid, they feel guilty, they feel shame.”

The last reason Honoré (carlhonore.com) cites is the physical nature of stress addiction. “A high-speed lifestyle is like a drug; it’s where we’re in fight-or-flight mode. It changes the chemistry of the body and the brain,” he says, addressing how people become stress junkies.

Honoré, who lives in fast-paced London, is the rst to admit that the Slow Movement isn’t about doing everything at a snail’s pace. It’s about doing things at the right pace. “I call it slow; other people might call it flow,” he says. “You’re fully immersed in the moment and you’re at one, almost, with the act of the task itself.”

That flow is what Carter refers to as the sweet spot, which she describes as the intersection of strength and ease where a person feels the most relaxed and the most productive. In addition to strategically saying no and refraining from multitasking, Carter encourages people to take an occasional recess to help find that sweet spot.

She says that, for her, feeling overwhelmed is the signal to step away from what she’s doing, give herself 10 to 15 minutes to get outside, leaf through a magazine or just stare into space.

“To everybody else it looks like I am not working very hard; to me it’s a strategy for getting [everything] done,” she says, adding that most people are skeptical about how taking breaks can help with work. “ e irony is that the best way to get your head in the game is to actually fully take it out of the game.”

Slow start

Because it’s difficult to envision slowing down without falling behind, Honoré encourages people to start small. (See “Slow down, live better” on page 34 for more tips on adding slowness to your day.)

“It can be as simple as the next time you make yourself a sandwich at home alone … set the table with cutlery, plates and a glass of water, and just sit there and eat it rather than trying to do something else at the same time,” he suggests.

Whether it’s a sandwich moment, getting away from your desk or turning off gadgets for an hour each day, each act is a step in the right direction. “It’s moments of silence … that can start to open up all kinds of doors. You’ll get, ironically, the fast payoff of the enjoyment, the recharging, the replenishing of having a slow moment,” Honoré says. He adds that most people don’t apply it to just one aspect of their lives; it starts seeping into all areas until it becomes a state of mind.

“If you’re going to make the most of your life, then you have to have the time, the attention, the energy to invest in what’s happening right here, right now,” he notes. “You can never do that if you’re overburdened, if you’re overscheduled, if you’re doing too many things.”

He continues: “I think what’s o en missing is that real, deep living. And it’s when we slow down and we’re fully engaged when we’re doing things, that we remember them. And so much about a life well-lived is memory.” 

***

Slow down, live better

CARL HONORÉ, who coined the phrase “Slow Movement,” has the following tips to add a little slowness to your life.

Breathe. Slow, deep breathing reoxygenates the body, which slows the heartbeat and stabilizes blood pressure. When you feel panicky, stop for a moment and take a few deep breaths.

Speed audit. Stop and ask yourself if you’re doing whatever you’re doing too fast. If you are going faster than you need to when you do the audit, go back to the task and work more slowly.

Downsize your calendar. Look at your schedule for the next week, pick the least important scheduled activity and drop it. This will take some of the heat out of that particular day.

Schedule unscheduled time. Block off two hours in your week when you don’t plan anything in advance. This will guarantee you some time when you can slow down to your own rhythm.

Find a slow ritual. Find a slow ritual that acts as your personal brake and helps you shift into a lower gear. It might be gardening, reading, yoga, cooking, knitting, painting, whatever.—SEP

-- Costco Connection, June 2015

Wayne Dyer

Wayne Dyer, an author turned his 1976 best-seller "Your Erroneous Zones" into a self-help empire, died Saturday in Maui, Hawaii, his publisher and family reported via Facebook. He was 75.

The cause of death was not disclosed.

In 2009, Dyer was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia but he claimed to have treated the disease with positive thinking, daily workouts and "psychic surgery" by the Brazilian spiritualist João Teixeira de Faria.

Dyer, a psychotherapist and former professor at St. John's University in New York, was a friend and frequent guest of Oprah Winfrey, appearing on her show many times over the years.

The former daily talk-show host and head of the OWN network tweeted a tribute to Dyer on Sunday night:

It was always a pleasure to talk to @DrWayneWDyer about life's big questions. He always had big answers. RIP Wayne. You brought the Light. - Oprah Winfrey (@Oprah) August 31, 2015

Ellen DeGeneres, another longtime fan of Dyer's, offered her own tribute, complete with a photo from her 2008 wedding to actress Portia De Rossi.  

The world has lost an incredible man. Wayne Dyer officiated our wedding & was an inspiration to so many. Sending love pic.twitter.com/kzsCS278jr -- Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) August 30, 2015

In more than 30 books, including "The Power of Intention" and "Stop the Excuses! How to Change Lifelong Thoughts," Dyer espoused a philosophy that positive, happy thoughts can lead to a positive, happy life.

***

the story of Wayne Walter Dyer was classic Dickensian.

Born in Detroit in 1940, Dyer grew up an orphan, an experience that molded a self-reliance as well as an aversion to self-pity.

"I grew up in the east side of Detroit in an area where there was very little, except for a lot of scarcity, poverty and hunger," he said in a 2009 interview with Success magazine. "But I never woke up saying, 'I'm an orphan again today, isn't this terrible? Poor me,' (...) there were a couple of very affluent neighborhoods nearby, but I never thought for one second that those people had more than I had. It just seemed that they got what they were entitled to, and if I really wanted those things, then I would have them, too."

After a stint in the Navy, Dyer pursued an education in counseling, graduating with advanced degrees from Wayne State University. He was teaching at St. Johns University in New York in 1976 when he penned his first self-help book. His life would never be the same.

"Your Erroneous Zones: Step-by-Step Advice for Escaping the Trap of Negative Thinking and Taking Control of Your Life" brought him out of the classroom and the clinic and propelled him onto the speaker's circuit, earning him millions on its way to becoming one of the best-selling books of all time.

Dyer espoused his philosophy throughout the more than 30 self-help books, including "The Power of Intention" and "Stop the Excuses! How to Change Lifelong Thoughts." His books generally centered around the notion that one has to has to think positive, happy beliefs in order to live a positive, happy life.

He stayed busy until the very end, doling out pithy nuggets of wisdom to his Twitter followers ('chasing success is like trying to squeeze a handful of water. The tighter you squeeze, the less water you get.') and maintaining a hectic speaking schedule.

Dyer, who lived in Maui, married three times and had eight children. 

Krugman calls for more debt?

Rand Paul said something funny the other day. No, really — although of course it wasn’t intentional. On his Twitter account he decried the irresponsibility of American fiscal policy, declaring, “The last time the United States was debt free was 1835.”

Wags quickly noted that the U.S. economy has, on the whole, done pretty well these past 180 years, suggesting that having the government owe the private sector money might not be all that bad a thing. The British government, by the way, has been in debt for more than three centuries, an era spanning the Industrial Revolution, victory over Napoleon, and more.

But is the point simply that public debt isn’t as bad as legend has it? Or can government debt actually be a good thing?

Believe it or not, many economists argue that the economy needs a sufficient amount of public debt out there to function well. And how much is sufficient? Maybe more than we currently have. That is, there’s a reasonable argument to be made that part of what ails the world economy right now is that governments aren’t deep enough in debt.

I know that may sound crazy. After all, we’ve spent much of the past five or six years in a state of fiscal panic, with all the Very Serious People declaring that we must slash deficits and reduce debt now now now or we’ll turn into Greece, Greece I tell you.

But the power of the deficit scolds was always a triumph of ideology over evidence, and a growing number of genuinely serious people — most recently Narayana Kocherlakota, the departing president of the Minneapolis Fed — are making the case that we need more, not less, government debt.

Why?

One answer is that issuing debt is a way to pay for useful things, and we should do more of that when the price is right. The United States suffers from obvious deficiencies in roads, rails, water systems and more; meanwhile, the federal government can borrow at historically low interest rates. So this is a very good time to be borrowing and investing in the future, and a very bad time for what has actually happened: an unprecedented decline in public construction spending adjusted for population growth and inflation.

Beyond that, those very low interest rates are telling us something about what markets want. I’ve already mentioned that having at least some government debt outstanding helps the economy function better. How so? The answer, according to M.I.T.’s Ricardo Caballero and others, is that the debt of stable, reliable governments provides “safe assets” that help investors manage risks, make transactions easier and avoid a destructive scramble for cash.

Columbia House

The mail-order music company that once tantalized countless broke teenagers by offering popular CDs for pocket change no longer exists.

Filmed Entertainment Inc., the parent company of Columbia House, on Monday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and is seeking to sell off the last vestiges of what was once a billion-dollar business.

The Columbia House music club combined with formal rival BMG Direct in 2005. It shuttered its music club entirely in 2010 and began selling only movies. FEI acquired the company two years later.

By earlier this year, a third-party service was handling all of Columbia House's operations, and the company had no employees.

Famous for its eight-CDs-for-a-penny deals, Columbia House was at the height of its popularity in the mid-'90s, when it accounted for 15 percent of all CD sales, according to The Boston Phoenix's 2011 profile of the company. Columbia House reached its peak revenue in 1996, raking in roughly $1.4 billion that year. But the company's fortunes have been in a steady two-decade decline, netting just $17 million last year.

"This decline is directly attributable to a confluence of market factors that substantially altered the manner in which consumers purchase and listen to music, as well as the way consumers purchase and watch movies and television series at home," FEI Director Glenn Langberg said in court papers, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Despite its popularity and seemingly irresistible deals, Columbia House eventually became reviled for the terms concealed in its fine print: Though members could nab a stack of albums for 1 cent, they had to buy additional albums over time -- at a high markup and with exorbitant shipping rates -- to fulfill the membership agreement.

Jon Stewart signs off

Genuine warmth is an extraordinarily rare commodity on television, which is why Jon Stewart’s final “The Daily Show” was something to be treasured, savored and maybe even played back a few times. As with most media-hyped events, Stewart’s exit came with such inflated expectations that it’s the sort of thing the host himself would have delighted in skewering. Yet the parade of former correspondents who lined up to bid him farewell not only celebrated what he called “the talent that has passed through these doors” but the guy who gave them that opportunity as he rides into the sunset.

Stewart opened by pretending to cover the Republican debate (which actually took place after his taping), which turned into an extended series of cameos by practically everyone who has worked for the show on camera. The producers even squeezed in testimonials from other luminaries, from Craig Kilborn – from whom Stewart inherited the franchise – to Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Bill O’Reilly.

Still, the real emotional gut punch fell, appropriately, to Stephen Colbert, who forced Stewart – who has resisted attempts to lionize him building up to the finish – to listen to a testimonial on behalf of all those who had worked for him. “You were infuriatingly good at your job,” Colbert said, and if Stewart was acting when he began to choke up, then he has a career in movies ahead of him that has nothing to do with directing.

Frankly, that would have been enough to make the hour wonderfully memorable. But the show followed that up with an extremely clever “Goodfellas” spoof, introducing everyone who had worked on the show in one extended tracking shot (and throwing in a Martin Scorsese cameo for good measure). It’s become standard operating procedure for latenight hosts to acknowledge their staffs, but this effort brought more flair to the process than most.

In the night’s ultimate highlight, Stewart then channeled the late George Carlin, and perhaps a bit of David Steinberg, in offering what amounted to parting words of advice to his audience, an extended rumination on the “bull—-” that permeates our politics, and the one word that can inoculate the public against it: vigilance. In a strange, sweet way, it felt almost like an older relative addressing a kid, telling him or her what to look out for when he’s no longer around to run interference.

Each of these segments, and especially that last one, showcased what Stewart has uniquely brought to “The Daily Show.” In an age of news coverage where partisanship often demands getting both sides of even the most absurd argument, he astutely knifed through the clutter, in a way that frequently spoke to people who had the same thoughts but didn’t hear them articulated much – or nearly as well – in other venues.

Stewart has always brought a self-effacing quality to the desk, which is part of his comedic persona. But his goodbye, in which he described his time hosting the show as a “privilege,” sounded heartfelt and sincere. The biggest non-surprise, frankly, was that he would turn the final minutes over to Bruce Springsteen, a natural sendoff for a native son of New Jersey.

Despite all the inevitable analysis regarding Stewart’s legacy, the sun will still rise Friday. But come Monday – when Stewart would have had an opportunity to weigh in on that aforementioned Republican presidential debate – Thursday’s finale merely reinforced the sense that there’s going to be a void in a lot of people’s lives more significant than just that extra half-hour four nights a week. And Trevor Noah – who came out to measure Stewart’s desk – certainly has his work cut out for him.

eliminating poverty and hunger?

UNITED NATIONS — The 193 member states of the United Nations have reached agreement on a new development agenda for the next 15 years that calls for eradicating poverty and hunger, achieving gender equality, improving living standards and taking urgent action to combat climate change.

The draft agreement reached Sunday evening outlines 17 goals with 169 specific targets on issues ranging from ending poverty "in all its forms everywhere" to ensuring quality education and affordable and reliable energy, and protecting the environment.

"We can be the first generation that ends global poverty, and the last generation to prevent the worst impacts of global warming before it is too late," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters Monday.

The document — called "Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development" — will be adopted at a U.N. summit just before the annual meeting of world leaders at the General Assembly in late September.

Ban said "the goals represent a 'to-do' list for people and the planet."

"They address the requirements for all humanity to be able to live decent lives free from poverty, hunger and inequality," he said. "They commit all of us to be responsible global citizens, caring for the less fortunate as well as for our planet's ecosystems and climate action on which all life depends."

The 17 new, non-binding goals will succeed the eight Millennium Development Goals adopted by world leaders 15 years ago.

***

[8/20/15] Charles Buck calls this a miracle

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Last week, esteemed author Dr. Stephen R. Covey died. He was the author of the The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, an extremely popular self-help book that has sold more than 25 million copies in 38 languages since its publication in 1989. He was among Time magazine’s 25 Most Influential Americans in 1996. He also was the founder of the Covey Leadership Center, which later became FranklinCovey, a company focusing on leadership, strategy and individual effectiveness.

Covey had a profound effect on me during my time at West Point, in the Army and now in the business world. In almost everything I do, I use some aspect of Covey’s universal principles of leadership and ethics. The Hawaii Army National Guard a few years ago saw the value of the seven habits and trained its senior leaders with Covey’s leadership principles. Covey and his famous book brought a new language to business.

Here the seven habits with a brief description:

Independence or Self-mastery – Know thyself!

Habit 1: Be Proactive.

Take initiative and responsibility in your decisions instead of being reactive. This is the primary factor for effectiveness in our lives. Life doesn’t just happen, it is based on the choices we make. Choices give us the opportunity to be proactive and produce more positive results.

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind. Where is it that you want to accomplish in life? Visualize what you want in life, who you want to become, and what you want to achieve. Create a mission statement for yourself. Understanding the end goal will help you keep focused on your values.

Habit 3: Put First Things First. Prioritizing, plan and execute tasks based on what is important, not necessarily what is urgent. Focus on your top priorities so you don’t overextend yourself.

Interdependence – Know how to work with others!

Habit 4: Think Win-Win. Life is about relationships and cooperating with people. Genuinely strive for what is best for everyone and mutually beneficial. This requires integrity, maturity and an abundance mentality (there is enough for everyone!).

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood. Listening to others is critical to creating an atmosphere of mutual respect. Communication is the most important skill in life. Listen with the intent to understand, not just reply.

Habit 6: Synergize. No one person is greater than the whole. Teamwork is essential for the best performance of a group. Value differences to drive synergy and accomplish more than an individual can.

Self-renewal – Know how to self-rejuvenate!

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw. Have a balanced program for self-renewal in the four areas of your life: physical, social/emotional, mental and spiritual. Renewing yourself creates growth change in your life. Keeping yourself fresh is essential to maintaining the other six habits.

Covey’s teachings will influence generations to come. That is the greatest legacy anyone can leave. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Covey family today.

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Seven Habits Of Successful People

David S. Chang

on August 1, 2012 at 12:01 am

[largely reprinted in the July 22, 2015 column]

it's the real thing

ATLANTA — A viral graphic reportedly shows the effects one can of Coca-Cola has on a person’s body over one hour.

The graphic, titled “What Happens One Hour After Drinking A Can Of Coke,” was first posted by The Renegade Pharmacist. It claims to detail what happens to the body after 10, 20, 40, 45 and 60 minutes.

First 10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. (100 percent of your recommended daily intake.) You don’t immediately vomit from the overwhelming sweetness because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor allowing you to keep it down.

20 minutes: Your blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin burst. Your liver responds to this by turning any sugar it can get its hands on into fat. (There’s plenty of that at this particular moment.)

40 minutes: Caffeine absorption is complete. Your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, as a response your livers dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. The adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked preventing drowsiness.

45 minutes: Your body ups your dopamine production stimulating the pleasure centers of your brain. This is physically the same way heroin works, by the way.

60 minutes: The phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium and zinc in your lower intestine, providing a further boost in metabolism. This is compounded by high doses of sugar and artificial sweeteners also increasing the urinary excretion of calcium.

>60 minutes: The caffeine’s diuretic properties come into play. (It makes you have to pee.) It is now assured that you’ll evacuate the bonded calcium, magnesium and zinc that was headed to your bones as well as sodium, electrolytes and water.

>60 minutes: As the rave inside of you dies down you’ll start to have a sugar crash. You may become irritable and/or sluggish. You’ve also now, literally, *ahem* peed away all the water that was in the Coke. But not before infusing it with valuable nutrients your body could have used for things like even having the ability to hydrate your system or build strong bones and teeth.

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But isn't it a healthy treat?