An Oldie and Goodie

(Album cover from Wikipedia)

San Francisco's most-streamed Christmas tune is a 1958 number:

This year, a new star has risen to the top of San Francisco’s holiday music charts.

Well, not exactly new. “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” the famed rockabilly tune sung by a then-13-year-old Brenda Lee, was recorded 66 years ago. Since then, Lee’s song has enjoyed a slow and steady climb up the charts, and this time around even beaten Mariah Carey’s fabled “All I Want for Christmas Is You” to become the most-streamed holiday song in San Francisco heading into December, and the city’s 10th most-streamed track overall.

Below is 80-year-old Brenda Lee reprising her Eisenhower-era hit.

Gaudete Sunday

Today the Advent candle is rosy pink:

The third Sunday of Advent in the Roman Catholic calendar of the church year. The term is derived from the Latin opening words of the introit antiphon, “Rejoice (Gaudete) in the Lord always.” The theme of the day expresses the joy of anticipation at the approach of the Christmas celebration. This theme reflects a lightening of the tone of the traditional Advent observance. It was appropriate for the celebrant of the Mass to wear rose-colored vestments on this day instead of the deeper violet vestments that were typically used in Advent. This Sunday was also known as “Rose Sunday.” This custom is not required in the Episcopal Church, but it is observed by some parishes with a traditional Anglo-catholic piety. This custom is reflected by the practice of including a pink or rose-colored candle among the four candles of an Advent wreath.

The beauty of the rose candle on Gaudete ("rejoice") Sunday shines in a darkened world, foreshadowing the Light to come.

Paper is Still the Gold Standard

(Image from tvtropes)

You're on your deathbed and still of sound mind. Your estate is to be evenly split between your son and daughter, but Jack has never come around to see you while Jill has not only visited you daily but handled all the day-to-day minutiae of your finances and running your household.

You now want to leave everything to Jill, but there may not be time to get a lawyer to change your will. Surely it must be better to record a selfie on your smartphone rather than scrawl a note on a piece of paper. But that would be wrong.[bold added]

While most of the business of life has gone digital, estate law remains rooted to ink on paper. Americans who try to phone in or record their estate plans don’t realize that video and audio recordings don’t qualify...

Aside from audio and video, some states will allow an electronic will. But a paper will, drafted by a lawyer, and signed by you with a “wet signature,” witnessed and notarized, is still the gold standard.

If you insist on putting your final wishes on video, it behooves you to have a printer nearby. You can transcribe your speech using any number of programs and print the text. Make corrections by hand, and sign and date the final product. Et voilà! A piece of paper that should hold up in court with the bonus of having made a video that will add authenticity to the change in the will.

Estate law will undoubtedly catch up to technology in a decade or so, but many of us boomers won't be able to wait that long...

Timelines Timeliness

(Image from eBay)

Just in time to assuage unhappiness with current politics, the concept of multiverse timelines has caught fire:

On Joe Rogan’s podcast last month, the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen explained his theory that “the timeline has split twice in the last nine months. . . . The world was going to head in two totally different directions.” The first split was when Donald Trump was shot in Butler, Pa., on July 13. The second was on Election Day. Twitter is awash with posts from some users exclaiming that they “love this timeline” and others lamenting that they “hate this timeline.” Ezra Klein, doyen of the intellectual left, said in a Nov. 19 podcast that he’s watching Mr. Trump’s nominees “to see what timeline we’re in.”

The notion of this timeline implies the existence of that timeline—an alternative reality in which things unfold differently. Much as the idea “We are living in a simulation” saturated social media during the Covid-19 pandemic, “this timeline” is the latest exclamation of discomfort with our present reality.

Though it’s especially prominent among those who are online and anti-Trump, references to the timeline aren’t the sole province of the left. Last month, David Friedberg, co-host of the tech podcast “All-In,” repeatedly used the term to indicate his elation with political circumstances: “I am so shocked and surprised in a positive way that we ended up on this particular timeline. . . . We’re on this timeline and I do think the United States, as Neo, dodged a lot of bullets here.”

The invocation of Neo, hero of the film franchise “The Matrix,” is telling. The concept of timelines originates in science fiction and is linked intimately with the multiverse, the idea of parallel realities with similar people and personalities but different events and outcomes. This connection to science fiction is perhaps why the theme has resonated with Silicon Valley’s newly right-leaning techno-utopians, as well as members of the left.

Human beings have always believed--or imagined--that there are realities different and maybe better than the one we are stuck in. From heaven to reincarnation, from a simulated universe to a multiverse, there may be a super-reality where our good behavior is rewarded or our lives can have a second chance.

Just as Marxists saw benefits in religion because it was the "opiate" of the masses, conservatives won't decry multiverse-ology because it keeps many leftists quiet, and besides, it may be true (!). Meanwhile, your humble blogger has given up trying to understand the current timeline and is just enjoying the show.

A Good Home

The truck arrived at 11:30, and the Volkswagen was winched up onto the flatbed.

Carlos said he would take a few months to fix it up. He will bring the car by when he was finished. Carlos intends to commute in the VW from San Mateo to his job in Redwood City. He was the only buyer among three who promised not to flip the car immediately for a profit.

A car is not the same as a beloved pet, much less a human child, but it's nice to know the car that I've had for 51 years is going to a good home.

Good Times

The 1976 pink slip

The California State Automobile Association clerk studied the Ownership Certificate ("pink slip") for the 1967 Volkswagen bug. The pink slip was 48 years old and was in a format that he was unfamiliar with. He called his supervisor for help in filling out the paperwork for the transfer of title.

After 51 years I said goodbye to the automobile that I had driven in college. In 2020 I thought I would keep it forever. In 2022 there were still strong reasons for holding on to it.

However, circumstances changed, as they always do. Repairs were required, and it is difficult to find mechanics who were versed in the electrical and engine systems of old Volkswagens. And even if I could get it fixed, no one in the next generation wanted it. Was I interested in using it as a local runaround car? Not badly enough to hold onto the Bug. In bygone days I had invested $thousands (pictures below) to keep it together, but no longer.

2012: before

2012: after

Carlos, who works in Foster City and lives in San Mateo, had been eying the Beetle for a decade. After he called in October, the time seemed right, especially since I'm on this kick to minimize the assets that my heirs have to deal with.

Goodbye, girl, we had some good times.

Nvidia's Management Secret: Top Five Things

(Bennett / aol photo)

Founders of world-class companies each have their distinguishing management characteristics--think Steve Jobs' perfectionism, Bill Gates' ruthlessness, and Elon Musk's first principles. Jensen Huang's is T5T (Top Five Things):

T5T emails began as a solution to a surprisingly tricky problem. Huang is allergic to the bureaucracy that infects organizations as they get bigger. But as his startup grew, he “needed to somehow keep tabs on what was going on inside Nvidia in order to make sure everyone had the right priorities,” [“The Nvidia Way" author Tae] Kim writes.

This turned out to be harder than etching billions of transistors on a silicon wafer.

The documents that make it to a typical CEO tend to get so watered down along the way that they’re liable to leave a puddle on his desk. Huang doesn’t bother with any of them. He doesn’t believe in formal strategic planning or status reports, either. “Status reports are meta-information by the time you get them,” Huang said last year. “They’re barely informative.”

He doesn’t want information that has already made its way through layers of management. What he wants is “information from the edge,” he said last month in a public interview with Laurene Powell Jobs.

The way he solved this problem was by asking roughly 30,000 employees at every level of the company to send regular emails to their teams and executives that even the CEO can access. Which he does—every single day. They’re usually brief and include a few bullet points, and glancing at them gives Huang a snapshot of what’s happening inside Nvidia, Kim writes.

It might just be the only way he can get the sort of unvarnished truth that nobody wants to give the CEO but every CEO needs to get. After all, Nvidia’s employees are not telling Huang what they think he wants to hear. They’re just telling him things.

T5T emails became a “crucial feedback channel” for Huang, Kim writes, because they allowed him to pick up on trends that were obvious to junior employees, even when top executives were completely oblivious.

All the aforementioned founders have been called workaholics because they don't make the mistake of over-delegation. Over-delegation tempts them to coast on their marketplace dominance, which dissipates often invisibly because they took their foot off the gas.

Through T5T Jensen Huang seems to have found an efficient way to access uncurated information flowing through his vast organization, but he still has to work around the clock. May he remain at Nvidia's helm for many years.

Too Much Communication, Too Little Specificity

OTOH, if they say it's an emergency
but don't self-identify, it's likely a scam.

The Two Most-Dreaded Words in a Text Conversation are "call me":

For years, people have complained about receiving “call me” texts from parents, siblings, colleagues and bosses.

Much like how generations interpret emojis differently and Apple’s tapback message reactions don’t mean the same thing to everyone, the meaning—and urgency—of “call me” isn’t consistent. If “call me” comes with a GIF or an emoji, it could mean the conversation isn’t serious. Used with a period, some may interpret it as a sign of trouble. No punctuation could indicate there’s an emergency.

The deliberate ambiguity of a texted "call me," IMHO, is a power play. The recipient is forced to call on the off chance it's an emergency:

Cindy Chang, a 48-year-old clinical health, weight-loss and wellness coach in Brooklyn, N.Y., frequently spams her 18-year-old son.

She calls him on FaceTime, texts him, and then continues to do both over and over when he doesn’t answer. She calls to find out when he’s coming home, what he wants to eat or what groceries to buy—all conversations Chang sees as important enough to warrant a call (or several).

Chang says while her son isn’t a fan of her “call me” messages, she loves them because they let her “be immature and bratty” with her son.

“I try to bring more fun and joy into our relationship even though it irritates him,” Chang says.

Maybe it's a generational thing, but this boomer sees "call me" as extremely discourteous: 1) If a call is necessary, I always initiate it and don't make the other party have to call me; 2) If I do text a phone call request, I always give a short explanation about the seriousness, i.e, "X is in the hospital" or "need to discuss dinner plans"; 3) at minimum I add at least add another word, "call me please."

I'm on so many text threads that I've turned notifications off (one reason: someone sends a picture of her kid, and 10 people respond with a love-it emoji). One benefit of being over 70: I can claim (feign) tech ignorance: "I'm sorry I didn't see your text--these phones are so complicated!"

The Restoration of Notre Dame

The 2019 fire at Notre Dame (WSJ/AFP/Getty images)

Like many who watched in horror five years ago, we thought that Notre Dame Cathedral had been lost forever to fire. Yesterday it re-opened, radiant and gleaming.

The limestone facade of Notre Dame Cathedral is radiant. Its ornate gargoyles and angels show no signs of the smoke and flames that once billowed from the church. The cavernous interior is immaculate, the soot having been meticulously scrubbed from its arches.

By almost any metric the restoration of Notre Dame has been a success, coming five years after a fire swept across the masterpiece of Gothic architecture, nearly destroying it. On Saturday, a host of global figures, including President-elect Donald Trump, gathered inside the cathedral for a solemn ceremony to mark its reopening.

Notre Dame’s revival is nothing short of a miracle to many, a sign that cooperation across France and beyond to achieve a singular goal is still possible.

We marvel that the skills necessary for the restoration had not been lost, that there was little dithering over what the "new" church should look like, that funds were raised quickly, and most of all, that beauty came back into the world.

Pearl Harbor: Receding into History

Last year's Pearl Harbor Day post was about Lou Conter, the last survivor of the USS Arizona. Lou Conter died last spring.

Conter died Monday morning [April 1, 2024] at his home in Grass Valley, Calif., according to his daughter Louann Daley.

Born in Ojibwa, Wis., in 1921, Conter was 20 years old when the USS Arizona was bombed by Japanese forces at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

The USS Arizona’s bombing was the deadliest of the attacks that day, killing 1,177 people—nearly half of the 2,403 who died during Pearl Harbor. Conter was one of just 334 people assigned to the USS Arizona who survived.

Conter escaped the burning wreckage. As he and others guided crew members to safety, “more often than not, their burned skin would come off on our hands,” he wrote in his 2021 memoir, “The Lou Conter Story.”

“It was horrible,” he wrote. “Absolutely horrible.”

Despite his work that day, he said he didn’t want to be called a hero.

“I consider the heroes the ones that gave their lives, that never came home to their families,” Conter said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal last year. “They’re the real heroes.”

...He got his pilot wings in November 1942, and was part of a team that flew Black Cat aircraft overnight doing bomb runs in the South Pacific, Conter said. He was shot down twice, once in September 1943 and a second time three months later. Both times, Conter said, he used a lifeboat to get to shore.

After World War II ended, he returned to California and signed up for the reserves. In the early 1950s, he served again in the Korean War.

Conter retired from the Navy in 1967 as a lieutenant commander and became a real-estate developer in California.

Pearl Harbor is nearly as remote from today's children as was the Civil War from the first Baby Boomers. We grew up in a world where the deeds of "ordinary" men like Lou Conter were taken for granted. Now such strength of character seems uncommon, and its prevalence in the World War II generation impossible to imagine. R.I.P.

Sam Wo: The End?

Chef David Ho (Strazzante/Chronicle)

Every month we hear a report of a well-known San Francisco restaurant closing--often these announcements come as a surprise--but Sam Wo's demise has been in the cards for at least a decade. Its closure (for health code violations) occurred in 2012, and it reopened in 2015 at a different address. In 2020 long-time chef and co-owner David Ho, then 65, was feeling the effects of age.

His body is full of aches and pains. He’s scared of catching the coronavirus. Still, he doesn’t want to stop working, despite the pleas of his business partners. Even his daughter has expressed concerns he’s working too hard without a staff to back him up, according to co-owner Steven Lee, who helped resurrect Sam Wo, Chinatown’s oldest restaurant, after it temporarily closed in 2012.

Sam Wo will probably close on December 31st.

A 116-year-old San Francisco Chinatown landmark, Sam Wo Restaurant, is set to close Dec. 31 — potentially for good — as chef and co-owner David Jitong Ho retires and his partners scramble to find a successor.

First opened sometime after the 1906 earthquake by Chinese immigrants, Sam Wo Restaurant became a haunt of the 1950s Beat Generation poets, including Allen Ginsberg, and workplace of the late Edsel Fong, whose colorful personality earned him the title of “world’s rudest waiter” from Chronicle columnist Herb Caen.

Ho, the second generation of his family to helm the restaurant’s kitchen, has been working at Sam Wo since 1981, except for a three-year break starting in 2012 when the restaurant temporarily closed. The 69-year-old said he is exhausted from the years of toil and needs to retire, in part, because of two torn tendons in his arm.

Sam Wo Restaurant was the subject of one of the first posts on this blog in 2003. At that time David Ho had already worked in the kitchen for over 20 years. He deserves a happy and restful retirement.

Tsunami Warning Cancelled

At 10:44 this morning three iPhones in our house blared an emergency warning. A 7.0 earthquake had occurred in the waters off Humboldt County, over 260 miles north of San Francisco. The earthquake was just close enough--and Foster City just close enough to the Bay--that we could not disregard the dangers of a tsunami.

And so it was that our eyes were glued to the TV on the off chance that an evacuation would be announced. To our relief the tsunami warning was canceled within the hour:

Temblor CEO and Stanford Geophysics lecturer Ross Stein gave ABC7 News an explanation for the change. He said the earthquake initially appeared to be a 6.0-magnitude shallow earthquake, the kind that involves “a lot of vertical motion of the seafloor, which tends to produce more tsunamis.”

It didn’t take long, however, for scientists to realize it was a much larger 7.0-magnitude earthquake and a different type of earthquake that is unlikely to produce a large tsunami, he said.

It was “a very typical, garden-variety event on this northern extension of the San Andreas Fault, which we call the Mendocino Fault Zone. In that respect it doesn’t move the sea floor up and down very much,” said Stein.

Of course, we were relieved that there was no tsunami. It would have drastically inconvenienced our Christmas shopping activities!

But seriously...this was another demonstration of the inadequacy of our evacuation plans. We did have "go" bags at the ready, every car had at least half a tank, and we did have an idea where to seek temporary shelter. However, what to take and what to leave behind had not been finalized, I had not digitized and stored key documents in the cloud, nor had we updated our wills since 2002 (we do have draft revisions that have not been executed).

At least we know what our top New Year resolutions will be.

Ramen Surprise

Three months ago we wrote about how the tonkatsu ramen purchased at Nijiya Market had soup that came in a plastic bag.

Perhaps enough customers complained to cause the supplier to eliminate the plastic bag; when I emptied the contents into a bowl, the gelatinized soup was on the bottom. (The soup was no longer liquid; the formula obviously had been adjusted.)

The other change was a 30% increase in the ramen price, from $9.99 to $12.99. I thought food-price inflation was over!

Egg Recall

The eggs we bought at Costco last week have been recalled:

Costco has issued another major food recall due to potential salmonella contamination, affecting over 10,000 units of organic eggs sold at its warehouses nationwide.

The recall, announced Nov. 27 by Handsome Brook Farms, covers Kirkland Signature Organic Pasture-Raised 24-Count Eggs. More than 250,000 eggs were found to have been potentially contaminated with salmonella after being mistakenly packaged for retail sale...

The affected units have the UPC number 9661910680 and a use-by date of Jan. 5, 2025. They were packaged in plastic egg cartons labeled with the Kirkland Signature logo and mostly sold in Southern states.

The Universal Product Code matches the eggs that may have salmonella. We've consumed nine eggs already to no ill effect, but we'll not take any chances and return what's left.

We've been buying foods labeled "organic" because of their putative health benefits, but there is a trade-off. Organic fruits and vegetables need to be washed thoroughly because they are grown without pesticides; some foods spoil faster because they don't have preservatives; and who knows whether egg salmonella has increased because hens are raised without antibiotics?

We still must be vigilant against food-borne illness, and buying organic is no panacea.

Not the McDonald's Demographic

The $14 honeymoon oyster at Water Grill is topped
with roe, sea urchin and a quail egg. (Cahill/WSJ)

The hottest trend in fancy restaurants: single-bite dishes that can cost $30.

Tiny portions of intricately assembled ingredients are gracing menus. Many incorporate caviar, seafood or Wagyu beef. The bites are meant to start the meal, and many cost $20 to $30 each, often more than heartier appetizers.

For restaurants, it’s a way to fatten check totals, since customers remain just as likely to pay for larger plates. And customers order their own because they are too small to share. Diners are drawn to the novelty—and the social media hype.

It's a way to taste very expensive ingredients without breaking the bank, as well as have something to brag about on social media. However, I suspect that many old-timers like myself will gag at the (lack of) value proposition and decline to order. Life is simpler and cheaper when one doesn't care about how many hits one gets on Instagram.

Hospital Chaplaincy

Spiritual care volunteers and staff at Stanford Hospital Chapel

Before an Episcopal priest can be ordained, he or she must complete several months of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE). In CPE the students minister to non-Christians as well as Christians, much as priests do in the real world.

Clergy that I have spoken to have said that their most intense and rewarding experiences have occurred while they did their CPE as hospital chaplains. [bold added]

Hospitalized patients and their families often struggle with religious and spiritual quandaries but can’t attend their houses of worship or don’t have one. Chaplains thus fill crucial gaps. As the religious makeup of the U.S. has changed in recent years, their profession has begun to do so too. Board-certified chaplains are now increasingly trained to help patients of diverse beliefs. To learn about their vocations, I [note: Columbia prof. of psychiatry Robert Klitzman] recently conducted an in-depth study, speaking with 50 chaplains from across the country and from different faiths.

While chaplains aid countless patients, they are in many cases marginalized and underfunded. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services allows for direct reimbursement for spiritual services only within the Veterans Affairs system. Offering spiritual care for hospice patients enrolled in Medicare is mandatory but not directly billable. As a consequence, many hospitals have no chaplains; some rely on local volunteer clergy, who know only their own faith, or on other healthcare professionals to fill in for spiritual care...

Chaplains are often the only staff with time to talk to patients, whom they can therefore get to know well. I learned of one patient who phoned the on-call nurse every day at 2 a.m., complaining of pain. The staff tried altering his medicine without success. Finally, a chaplain spoke to the patient, who turned out to be carrying significant guilt from his mother’s suicide when he was 18. When the chaplain arranged for the man’s elder siblings to talk about it, they were “aghast,” the chaplain told me. “They reminded him that their mother had mental-health issues: ‘Don’t you remember?’ It was like a 50-pound weight had been lifted. After that, he never again called the nurses at night.”

Chaplains also serve as critical mediators in conflicts among patients, families and physicians. At another hospital, a teenager who was dying wanted to donate his organs. Soon he was brain dead and on life support, which surgeons planned to remove in the operating room. The boy’s family wanted to be present when he died, but the surgeons refused for fear that they’d disrupt the procedure.

Presented with an impasse, a chaplain negotiated a solution: The family would dress in sterile gowns and stay in the theater for three minutes. The family and physicians sang “Amazing Grace,” the boy’s favorite song. When he died, the mother said to the chaplain: “Thank you for that gift. . . . We got to sing my son into heaven.”

In my research it wasn’t uncommon to learn of medical professionals wary of spiritual care, which they saw as having no medical benefit. Yet spiritual counseling can help patients choose palliative care when the treatments available are both futile and painful.

In facing serious disease, millions of patients find themselves pondering the eternal. Most of us will die in hospitals, far from any religious institution, and might benefit from chaplains’ care. Our healthcare systems would do well to recognize and value them more.

Spending one or two nights in a hospital changes a person. Although WiFi is now commonplace, the hospital environment is not conducive to endless Internet surfing or scrolling through social media. The patient confronts thoughts he may not be accustomed to having, especially if he is non-religious.

In his hour of need, there may not be family members the patient is comfortable talking with, and he can't bother medical personnel, whose focus is usually confined to the health of our physical bodies.

That leaves the hospital chaplain, whose job has expanded to being ready to converse with those who are members of different faiths-or no faith at all. In an increasingly irreligious society the irony is that the need for chaplaincy services has never been greater.

Temptation Avoided

In bygone days I might well have succumbed to the temptation. 20-lb. tom turkeys that had been priced at 99¢ / pound were marked down by $10, i.e. they were half-priced.

Getting the turkey would have involved a one-day obligation to prepare, roast, and carve the bird. And to what end? To add 20 pounds of leftovers to those already in the refrigerator.

Tangible objects--turkeys, computers, cars, houses--are not only assets but liabilities. They require a commitment to use, consume, maintain and repair.

The cost of the $10 turkey markdown greatly exceeded the benefit when one assigns a slightly positive amount-even $2/hour--to one's time to extract value from the purchase. I looked at the toms wistfully, then moved on.

A2 Milk: a Product That May Take Off

(Stephen Lam/Chronicle photo)

"A2/A2" may sound like the latest Star Wars character, but in real life it just may represent the future of dairy:

Alexandre Family Farm is one of the country’s only producers of A2/A2 milk, which is touted as a superior, easier-to-digest dairy. Many lactose-intolerant people say they can drink it without any discomfort. Chefs from Michelin-star restaurants are clamoring for the unusually luscious, delicious milk...

A2 milk’s growing fanbase — which includes a growing number of top Bay Area chefs — believes it’s the future of dairy. The global A2 milk market size was valued at $2.24 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow particularly fast in the United States in the coming years, according to Fortune Business Insights. The rise of A2 milk comes as the broader dairy industry is in crisis, facing declining sales amid the explosion of plant-based milks. A2’s proponents hope it will stage a comeback for dairy.

“It’s not going to happen overnight but in 20, 30 years I think all milk will be A2, or pretty close,” said Stephanie Alexandre, co-owner of Alexandre Family Farm, whose creamery is in San Leandro. “It’s changing the industry.”

...A2 milk’s road to mainstream consumption is not without challenges. It’s significantly more expensive than conventional milk. At $7.99, a gallon of Alexandre A2 milk costs twice as much as the average in the U.S. Alec’s Ice Cream pints aren’t cheap — around $9, though it depends on the store. For farmers, it’s costly to breed and maintain a fully A2 herd of cows, who must be milked and kept separate from other cows, Alexandre said, especially without the processing resources of a large, commercial dairy business.

Speaking as one who avoids dairy products because of lactose intolerance, I don't mind paying a higher price for A2 milk if it means I can occasionally partake of cheese and ice cream; it will represent a small increase to the food budget, equivalent to visiting Starbucks a couple times a week. While A2 may remain a niche product, I'm betting it will take off.

Happy Thanksgiving

The turkey's halfway done. It needs to be turned and basted.

The hen is smaller than the birds we have bought in years past, but it's just us and there will still be enough leftovers to last through the weekend.

One element of the holiday hasn't changed: we have much to be thankful for, and family is a big part of that attitude of gratitude.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Falling Into the Future

illustration: Kiersten Essenpreis/WSJ

Last spring I tripped over a garden hose and fell face forward onto the dirt. I thrust out my arms protectively and luckily wound up only with a scraped elbow. I am now extra mindful to concentrate on walking and keeping distractions like my phone at bay. I haven't fallen since.

Falling by the elderly has become an epidemic.

More than 1 in 4 people over age 65 fall each year...Every year, falls among older Americans result in about 3.6 million emergency room visits and 1.2 million hospital stays, at a cost of roughly $80 billion. Nationwide, 41,000 senior citizens die from falls annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In recent years, prominent figures such as comedian Bob Saget, former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman and Ivana Trump died after a fall...

Nationally, the death rate from falls jumped 41% from 2012 to 2022, the latest period for which statistics are available. Among seniors, the contributing factors for falls are frustratingly complex. Reaction to prescription drugs, impaired vision and even such basic things as loneliness or ill-fitting shoes often add to the risk of falling.

“There has also been research on dual tasks, like doing more than one thing at a time,” [Arkansas prof. Jennifer] Vincenzo notes. “It’s hard for you to focus on movement if you’re focusing on doing another task, talking on the phone or texting, so that if you have impaired balance or walking problems, you’re not going to pay attention to that and potentially fall.”

My parents fortunately suffered only minor injuries from falls at home. Being unable to get up by themselves, even with the help of their spouse, eventually prompted their move to assisted living.

I hope that I am years away from having to follow in their missteps, but the tumble that I took in the spring showed that it-will-never-happen-to-me is an attitude I no longer can afford to have.

There is Still Hope for Us

The rest of the country may consider Northern Californians irredeemable, but this shows there is still hope for us. [bold added]

The weekend before the opening of the Bay Area’s newest Costco [in Pleasanton] brought a now-familiar sight: crowds of people camping out to secure their place in line on opening day. A similar encampment had formed in advance of the opening of the Napa Costco in October — though that hadn’t fallen during an atmospheric river.

These campers descend on new Costco stores largely in search of one item: booze, particularly rare bottles of bourbon.

The devoted drinkers have been eagerly speculating online about whether the Pleasanton Costco, which opens Wednesday at 7200 Johnson Drive, might carry bourbons that have been present at other Costco grand openings like Buffalo Trace Antique Collection, Russell’s Reserve 15 Year and, most coveted of all, Pappy Van Winkle, which notoriously goes for thousands of dollars a bottle from online resellers.

I prefer scotch, but if someone offers me a sip of any of the aforementioned bourbons, I wouldn't turn it down.

Talking Turkey

Our 15-lb. hen cost 99 cents/pound.

The cost of Thanksgiving dinner is going down. [bold added]

The average price for a turkey this holiday season is projected to be down for a second year in a row, said the American Farm Bureau Federation in its annual report released this week. The lower cost for the headline attraction looks to cut costs for those hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year, but some favorite side dishes will remain stubbornly expensive for shoppers.

The Farm Bureau projects the average price for a Thanksgiving turkey to fall 6.1% to $25.67, or $1.68 a pound, this year...But cheaper meat is only part of the story, as the cost to make many family-favorite side dishes continues to rise. For example, fans of mashed potatoes may find the cost for that dish a little steeper. A smaller North American potato crop this year due to adverse weather issues and a change in consumer demand has the U.S. potato price up 7.6% year over year, said commodities research firm Expana in its own report issued this month, citing data from the USDA.

Prices for processed goods also are on the rise. The Farm Bureau said that it expects prices for a 14-ounce package of stuffing mix to increase by more than 8% from last year to $4.08. The price for a dozen dinner rolls also is expected to rise by more than 8% to $4.16.

Even worse for those with a sweet tooth, prices for some pies may be increasing, with Expana’s Thanksgiving Pecan Pie index up 8% from last year, due mostly to higher prices for pecans that are offsetting cheaper costs for sugar, vanilla and butter.

Overall, the Farm Bureau forecasts the cost of the average Thanksgiving meal for a group of 10 people at $58.08. That’s down 5% from the previous year, and down 9% from the record of $64.06 set in 2022, the highest since the Farm Bureau began its yearly assessment in 1986.

Feeding ten people for $58.08 sounds incredibly cheap until one realizes that the Farm Bureau has assumed that most of the dishes have been made from scratch.

Cost reductions aren't enjoyed by city dwellers, who tend to have small Thanksgiving gatherings and opt for convenience over cost. We will roast our own turkey, however, and take special enjoyment from its $15 cost, which will be spread over meals throughout the weekend.

David Mamet: "America..will go one with Nineveh and Tyre. But not today."

David Mamet: the America-in-decline narrative is akin to
Israel's 40 years in the wilderness. (image from Medium)

Pulitzer-winning playwright David Mamet says that America's decline, prior to the November election, was due to individuals' fear of challenging the dominant narrative: [bold added]

Yet half of America not only abides but fervently supports a codependent decline to poverty, crime and a nascent police state. Why? The leftist politicians and their media courtiers and designated beneficiaries profited from the perks of power. But why did the everyday American endorse them and their fear mongering? The actual threat wasn’t global warming, Islamophobia, the Supreme Court, the police, Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Mr. Trump. It was exclusion from the herd.

An existential secret is one whose revelation would destroy the group. If dad is a drug addict or a sex criminal, acknowledging it would shatter the family. The protection of the secret becomes the family’s unifying endeavor. If anyone says anything, it might reveal that everyone is in on the secret. The sick family devotes all necessary energies to collusion—to mutual and self-censorship.

During the past four years, American politics has been dominated by a coalition each of whose members, like codependent kin, has its own investment in group integrity and the power it derives therefrom. The superrich, academia, Islamists, Marxists and the media have colluded to suppress the true and impose the false.

We know that their perfidies, lawfare, slander, blacklisting and civil persecution were practiced on conservatives and Republicans, particularly on Mr. Trump. But the suppression was targeted primarily at their own voters.

To remain unthreatened by reason, the liberal populace had to be convinced to endorse various lies and fantasies: Black Lives Matter, Israel’s perfidy, unlimited abortion as a woman’s right, men’s right to compete in women’s sports, the abolition of the police, Mr. Trump’s demonic power and so on.

Why would rational people vote to destroy their borders, their cities, their jobs and their children? For the same reason the sick family must tolerate its dysfunction: The co-opted liberal electorate was terrified that any deviation would result in destruction of its protective unit. As it would.

While a reader may disagree with David Mamet's list of "lies and fantasies," there is no denying that Democratic voters were asked to accept abrupt reversals of positions this year--from President Biden's sudden cognitive decline to the newfound acceptability of fracking, law enforcement, and Christianity.

Even the one theme that they stuck with to the end--Trump is Hitler--was cast overboard the day after the election by Democratic politicians who promised to work with the President-elect and opinion-writers eager for an interview.

The important lesson, IMHO, is not the wrongness of Democratic policies but the fact that their thought leaders didn't even believe their own arguments. They look like people who will say anything to acquire power, and, if I were a follower, I wouldn't believe anything they had to say.

Chicken Feet

While shopping at 99 Ranch I passed the display of chicken "paws." The price was $5.49 per pound, and no, I didn't buy any.

My paternal grandmother used to get chicken feet free from the Honolulu Chinatown butchers. When one has to feed nine kids, no part of the animal is wasted.

Grandmother had several go-to recipes. What they all had in common was long hours of cooking. The feet are tough and require heat over an extended period to break down the cartilage.

My father never lost his childhood fondness for chicken feet and would always order a dish at dim sum restaurants. Nostalgia can be a powerful motivator.

California Forms Scam

We first wrote about form scams 15 years ago. The grifters are still at it, evidenced by the "501-LLC, Declaration of Members and Managers" (not a real California form) I got in yesterday's mail. As I wrote back then

Limited Liability Companies that are operated by harried small-business folk provide especially fertile ground for the scam artists.

A plumber or painter can't be expected to know every form that needs to be filed by his LLC, consulting with his accountant and lawyer costs money, and they may well say that he needs to pay the fee anyway,

The form scam is sufficiently widespread that California has devoted a web page to it:

Certain business entities have reported receiving misleading solicitations like this sample (PDF) urging the business to submit an order form and processing fee to a third party to file a Statement of Information on their behalf with the California Secretary of State or suffer penalties, fines, suspension or seizure.

The "501-LLC" I received demands a payment of $243 for filing the same information required by California Form LLC-12. The latter is a biennial Statement of Information for LLCs that takes less than five minutes to complete online. The fee is $20.

Empire of Lights

Empire of Lights (1954), (Christie's/WSJ)

If you asked the man on the street to name twenty artists--alive or dead--the odds are extremely low that René Magritte would be on the list. Yet, earlier this week his "Empire of Lights" sold for $121.2 million at a Christie's auction:

Magritte, who lived from 1898 to 1967, is known for his dreamlike takes on everyday objects, from smoking pipes to green apples to bowler hats. With this sale, he joins an elite club of fewer than 20 artists whose works have commanded nine-figure sums, including Pablo Picasso and Leonardo da Vinci. The sale, to a telephone bidder after a nearly 10-minute bidding war, also represents the first time this year that any artist has crossed the $100 million mark at auction.

...“Empire of Lights” was one of 17 canvases that the Belgian painter created between 1949 and 1964 that offer variations of the same surreal scene: A suburban house sitting in seeming darkness and yet backed by a day-lit blue sky. Sometimes, the house has a red door; other times, green shutters. Often, Magritte surrounds his houses with towering trees or a stream of reflective water. In whatever form, the juxtaposition of night and day is widely considered his masterpiece—and his bestselling motif. Christie’s version on Tuesday stood out in part because it was the biggest example to ever come to market, at 4 feet tall. It was also the first to include watery reflections.

The Impressionists and Post-Impressionists have had and continue to have their day at art auctions. The nine-figure valuation of Empire of Lights shows that the surrealists are closing fast.

The Son of Man (Singulart)

Note: although aficionados call Empire his "masterpiece," Magritte's most recognized painting is The Son of Man (1964). The apple, the bowler hat, and the hidden face have all rippled through popular culture. Concerning the apple,

Paul McCartney owned one of Magritte’s works titled Le Jeu De Morre in which the painter has featured yet another apple. Inspired by this, McCartney named the Beatles’ record company ‘Apple Corps’. This further inspired Steve Jobs to name his company ‘Apple Computers’.

Enjoy the Dance While You Can

Nick Bosa 49ers GIFfrom Nick Bosa GIFs

The "Trump dance" is taking the sports world by storm, with football players, mixed martial artists, soccer players, and even golfers using the dance to celebrate a triumphant sports move. The dance was first performed on November 10th by 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa (above gif from tenor.com), who was fined $11,255 by the NFL for wearing a Make America Great Again hat in a post-game interview.

“All the guys wanted me to do it. I wasn’t even going to do it, but the boys reminded me. And it was fun,” Bosa told reporters, per the San Francisco Chronicle...

At UFC 309 on Saturday, with Trump in attendance, Jon Jones commemorated retaining his heavyweight title by busting out the dance before acknowledging Trump at ringside.

Afterward, Jones made his way over to the president-elect, with the pair shaking hands and Jones allowing Trump to hold his heavyweight title belt.

On Sunday, there were multiple renditions across the NFL of the ‘Trump dance,’ with Detroit Lions defensive end Za’Darius Smith, Las Vegas Raiders tight end Brock Bowers and Tennessee Titans wide receiver Calvin Ridley all performing it.

Nick Bosa and the 49ers' celebrations have been tempered by injury and last-minute losses. Even making the playoffs will be an uphill battle for last year's Super Bowl runner up. If the team goes nowhere, the Trump dance and the MAGA-hat fine may be what the season is remembered for.

A Regular Responsibility

The air filter on our Lennox furnace should be changed once a year, but I let it go for 17 months. The blackened filter, probably due to two summers of wildfires, showed that I should have adhered to the schedule.

Looking after our stuff (cars, appliances, landscaping, and heating, hot water, and security systems) has become problematic. Each item by itself is not burdensome, but together they add up.

Maybe downsizing or even renting is in our future. Let someone else shoulder these regular responsibilities.

Cupertino Contretemps

(Illustration from them.us)

Just when I thought the Chronicle was a decent newspaper that kept its news and opinion sections separate, it produces this headline:

A Silicon Valley teacher used pronouns in a TK class. Parents demanded they go back ‘in the closet’

The slant from the headline? Pronouns are relatively harmless, "back in the closet" harks back to the historic suppression of homosexuality, and "parents demand" hints that they're intolerant uneducated rubes, probably religious. However, digging into the article reveals that non-binary pronouns are being taught to four-year-olds in Transitional Kindergarten.

The individual at the center of the battle teaches 4-year-olds in transitional kindergarten at Dilworth Elementary School and was placed on leave in August after parents complained that they were discussing content they did not believe was appropriate for young children. Supporters of the teacher, including many experts in early childhood development and instruction, said the criticism appears to be leveled against the teacher’s gender identity, not what they’re teaching.

The reporter's bias is evident. She accuses the parents of transphobia ("against the teacher’s gender identity, not what they’re teaching") by using the "many experts...said" ploy. She also adopts trans pronoun language ("what they're teaching" not "what she's teaching").

I agree with the parents that non-standard pronouns are wholly confusing for kids who are learning the alphabet and basic arithmetic. Teach four year olds the fundamentals, then branch out to nuances and exceptions when they're years older. Parents' protests, IMHO, have nothing to do with animus toward the teacher's personal characteristics, just the content of his or her instruction.

Get the woke ideology out of elementary schools, and the kids will have a much better chance of getting into a good college (if that's what they want).

Heaven from a Shoeshine

Executive Shoeshine, Charlotte

A lawyer catches a glimpse of the divine when his shoes are shined at the airport:

Hunched over, he toiled for what seemed an impossibly long stretch. The diligent and humble effort reminded me of something St. Thérèse of Lisieux said about the merits of redemptive suffering. “I prefer the monotony of obscure sacrifice to all ecstasies,” said the 19th-century Carmelite nun. “To pick up a pin for love can convert a soul.” From where I sat, that’s what the worker was doing: a small thing with great love.

There seemed no past or future, only a continuous present in which he was fully engaged. How often I selfishly worry about tomorrow or dwell on yesterday. Yet this man knew, as the proverb goes, how to be where your feet are.

His efforts breathed new life into my wingtips. Shoes that could have been mistaken for the worn-out kicks of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Mr. Bojangles suddenly looked good enough to pass military inspection.

When it was time to settle up, I asked what I owed for his services. “Whatever you think it was worth,” he said. Surprised, I asked the question again but got the same answer.

It had been years since I’d been to this shop, but I recalled its prices and figured they hadn’t changed much. Inspired by this man’s trust, I paid him a premium. Our circuitous path to price discovery got me thinking.

A cynic, Oscar Wilde said, is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. This most uncynical man demands no price for payment, only value for consideration. I think I understand why. Transactions in the material economy may be zero-sum—a dollar in his pocket was one out of mine—but ones in the spiritual economy never are. The abundant trust he placed in me didn’t diminish his stores of unperishable virtue.

How man sees himself and the world around him largely depends on which part, matter or spirit, he identifies as the seat of his authentic self. By transacting in values, the laborer chose the better part. As with shoes, I suddenly realized, so with people.

It’s fitting that a boot polisher would be the one great-souled enough to help me make this connection. He surely knows how life’s curb spares nobody, but that no matter how abraded our exterior, we’re never without intrinsic value. Once the imperfections are lovingly made right, interior magnificence is visible, and we are again glorious bodies.

A typical transaction in a capitalist economy this wasn't. Not only did the vendor insist that the buyer pay only what the buyer thought "it was worth", but the shoeshine man told the customer to do so after he rendered the service, i.e., after he had lost all negotiating leverage. He had made himself vulnerable and had to trust the customer to do the right thing. The latter did, and for just a moment the curtains of the world parted, and we caught a glimpse of the divine.

I'm Gonna Be On Time Next Time

Hat on sale from Etsy

WSJ columnist Joe Queenan does not believe that the chronically tardy are being deliberately disrespectful. They are "aspirationally chronometric":

But lately I have come to realize that the chronically tardy are not late because they can’t keep time or because they don’t care that they have kept you waiting or because they never leave enough time to catch the train or find a parking spot. They are late because they practice something called “aspirational chronometry.”

The aspirationally timely are people who honestly think that time can miraculously expand to accommodate their needs, people who are always surprised to discover that the train has left, the cake has burned, the game is over, the blind date has up and left.

People who are always late are like people who are always befuddled that their diets never work or that their new clothes never fit. Just like people who buy a size 8 dress or size 34-36 trousers in the vain hope that they might eventually fit into them, the aspirationally chronometric honestly believe that by saying the words, “I’ll be there in five minutes,” they will actually be there in five minutes. Arriving 40 minutes late always comes as a shock.

I do not believe that the chronically tardy should be excoriated or ridiculed or cast out into the darkness. Just as some of us are insensitive and some of us are cheap and some of us are not so great around children and some of us tell inappropriate jokes in refined social settings, some people couldn’t arrive on time if their life depended on it.

There is nothing to be done about it; the behavior cannot be cured. Making people feel guilty about their maddening tardiness is only going to make things worse. The best course of action is to grin and bear it.

Mr. Queenan's tolerant attitude ends when the tardy person is or could be one's life partner:

You only see your friends from time to time, but you see your partner every day—which means your significant other is going to keep you waiting every day.

How to deal with this? At this point it might be, well, too late. But if you notice early in your relationship that your partner is always, always tardy, it’s likely best to pull the plug on the love affair and move to someone who is more chronometrically reliable.

Just as you would bring down the curtain on a relationship with someone who had a bad drug habit or who seemed way too fond of World War I-era ordnance, you should immediately walk away from a prospective partner as soon as you realize that they’re going to be a half-hour behind for everything for the next 65 years.

One should always practice charity and tolerance. But do not voluntarily enter a relationship where one must practice said charity and tolerance every day for the rest of one's life. That's being too aspirationally virtuous.

SFO: the Bounce is Gone

(WSJ photo)

During my working years I flew on United Airlines dozens of times (nothing compared to the marketing guys who were members of the million-mile club), and I grew very familiar with the moving walkways in Terminal 3 at San Francisco International Airport. The 400-ft.-long rubber coverings will soon be replaced with metal plates, and, surprisingly, there appear to be more than a few travelers who will miss the rubber bands:

The bouncy walkways at SFO’s Terminal 3—three are inside the passenger connector to the building—have been around for at least 30 years—even airport officials aren’t exactly sure when they were put in. Unlike the ones more common with movable metal plates, these are made of a long, continuous piece of rubber, and sit on rubber wheels.

Kids like to hop and skip on the "bouncy," and the padding is easier on aging hips, knees, and ankles. However, these modest benefits do not outweigh the economic costs.

The bouncy has been no fun for mechanics, though. At the three other terminals at SFO, which all feature more conventional walkways, [SFO spokesman Doug] Yakel said those belts are made with metal modules that can be swapped out if one breaks. But since the bouncy is made from one continuous section of rubber, he said a malfunction often means the entire belt has to be replaced.

“There’s only one outfit that makes these and there are very long lead times, and these are very expensive to procure,” he said. “It’s simply not a cost effective moving walkway anymore.”

Of all the places and things that have bowed to the ravages of time the rubber-band walkways are far down the list, IMHO, of items that will be missed. For the vast majority of travelers who do not have mobility problems it's better that they walk and do not ride anyway.

Not Getting A Head

In traditional Chinese cuisine no part of the animal is wasted. At the barbecue counter in 99 Ranch a roasted pig's head was placed next to the cash register. That's an impulse purchase that you won't find at Safeway or Lucky.

I proceeded to the refrigerated egg section and picked up a six-pack of century eggs for $6.25. They were imported from Taiwan and boasted "no lead added." Good to know.

I threw a couple of chopped eggs into the pork jook that had been simmering for a couple of hours. They would add complexity to what would have been a plain-tasting dish. There will be enough in the pot to last until Sunday.

Two Became One

Synchronized contractions when poked (Nature gif)

Two comb jellies merged into a single organism in a Massachusetts lab:

In a strange episode in the animal kingdom, a captive marine animal merged with another of its kind to become a single individual.

The organisms that merged are comb jellies, translucent invertebrates that resemble jellyfish but belong to a different group of marine animals called ctenophores. They grow to about 4 inches long by 2 inches wide, eat plankton and are found throughout the northern and southern Atlantic Ocean.

Marine scientists discovered the merger when one comb jelly went missing from a laboratory tank, while another appeared unusually large. After taking a closer look, the researchers found that the big one was two individuals now sharing digestive and nervous systems...

The researchers fed the combined comb jellies fluorescent brine shrimp and watched as the bits of food made their way through their shared digestive system.

[Postdoctoral researcher Kei] Jokura speculated that the animals—also known as sea walnuts—sustained minor injuries in the tank, which activated the merger process. To prove this, he and colleagues put 10 pairs of injured comb jellies near each other. Nine of the 10 pairs successfully fused together.

“In just about two hours, their muscle contractions became synchronous in functional fusion,” he said. “It was remarkable and incredible.”

This discovery has possible implications for human health. Just as in the case of anglerfish sexual parasitism, the sea creatures lose the sense of self that distinguishes foreign tissue from their own. Overcoming this normally valuable protective mechanism is crucial to prevent rejection in transplant surgery.