Louis Sheehan
471
However, recently, it has been shown
in principle that embryonic stem cell lines can be generated using a
single-cell biopsy similar to that used in preimplantation genetic diagnosis
that may allow stem cell creation without embryonic destruction. It is not the
entire field of stem cell research, but the specific field of human embryonic
stem cell research that is at the centre of an ethical debate.
Opponents of the research argue that
embryonic stem cell technologies are a slippery slope to reproductive cloning
and can fundamentally devalue human life. Those in the pro-life movement argue
that a human embryo is a human life and is therefore entitled to protection.
Contrarily, supporters of embryonic
stem cell research argue that such research should be pursued because the
resultant treatments could have significant medical potential. It is also noted
that excess embryos created for in vitro fertilisation could be donated with
consent and used for the research.
The ensuing debate has prompted
authorities around the world to seek regulatory frameworks and highlighted the
fact that stem cell research represents a social and ethical challenge.
* and Gopal Das present scientific evidence of adult
neurogenesis, ongoing stem cell activity in the brain; their reports contradict
Cajal's "no new neurons" dogma and are largely ignored.
* 1963 - McCulloch and Till illustrate the
presence of self-renewing cells in mouse bone marrow. http://Louis-J-sheehan.info
* 1968 - Bone marrow transplant between two
siblings successfully treats SCID.
* 1978 - Haematopoietic stem cells are
discovered in human cord blood.
* 1981 - Mouse embryonic stem cells are derived
from the inner cell mass by scientists Martin Evans, Matthew Kaufman, and Gail
R. Martin. Gail Martin is attributed for coining the term "Embryonic Stem
Cell".
* 1992 - Neural stem cells are cultured in vitro
as neurospheres.
* 1997 - Leukemia is shown to originate from a
haematopoietic stem cell, the first direct evidence for cancer stem cells.
* 1998 - James Thomson and coworkers derive the
first human embryonic stem cell line at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
* 2000s - Several reports of adult stem cell
plasticity are published.
* 2001 - Scientists at Advanced Cell Technology
clone first early (four- to six-cell stage) human embryos for the purpose of
generating embryonic stem cells.
* 2003 - Dr. Songtao Shi of NIH discovers new
source of adult stem cells in children's primary teeth.
* 2004-2005 - Korean researcher Hwang Woo-Suk
claims to have created several human embryonic stem cell lines from
unfertilised human oocytes. The lines were later shown to be fabricated. http://louis_j_sheehan.today.com
* 2005 - Researchers at Kingston University in
England claim to have discovered a third category of stem cell, dubbed cord-blood-derived
embryonic-like stem cells (CBEs), derived from umbilical cord blood. The group
claims these cells are able to differentiate into more types of tissue than
adult stem cells.
* August 2006 - Rat Induced pluripotent stem
cells: the journal Cell publishes Kazutoshi Takahashi and Shinya Yamanaka,
"Induction of Pluripotent Stem Cells from Mouse Embryonic and Adult
Fibroblast Cultures by Defined Factors".
* October 2006 - Scientists in England create
the first ever artificial liver cells using umbilical cord blood stem cells.
* January 2007 - Scientists at Wake Forest
University led by Dr. Anthony Atala and Harvard University report discovery of
a new type of stem cell in amniotic fluid This may potentially provide an
alternative to embryonic stem cells for use in research and therapy.
* June 2007 - Research reported by three
different groups shows that normal skin cells can be reprogrammed to an
embryonic state in mice.[35] In the same month, scientist Shoukhrat Mitalipov
reports the first successful creation of a primate stem cell line through
somatic cell nuclear transfer.
* October 2007 - Mario Capecchi, Martin Evans,
and Oliver Smithies win the 2007 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for
their work on embryonic stem cells from mice using gene targeting strategies
producing genetically engineered mice (known as knockout mice) for gene
research.
* November 2007 - Human Induced pluripotent stem
cells: Two similar papers released by their respective journals prior to formal
publication: in Cell by Kazutoshi Takahashi and Shinya Yamanaka,
"Induction of Pluripotent Stem Cells from Adult Human Fibroblasts by
Defined Factors", and in Science by Junying Yu, et al., from the research
group of James Thomson, "Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Lines Derived from
Human Somatic Cells": pluripotent stem cells generated from mature human
fibroblasts. It is possible now to produce a stem cell from almost any other
human cell instead of using embryos as needed previously, albeit the risk of
tumorigenesis due to c-myc and retroviral gene transfer remains to be
determined.
* January 2008 - Human embryonic stem cell lines
were generated without destruction of the embryo.
* January 2008 - Development of human cloned
blastocysts following somatic cell nuclear transfer with adult fibroblasts.
* February 2008 - Generation of Pluripotent Stem
Cells from Adult Mouse Liver and Stomach: these iPS cells seem to be more
similar to embryonic stem cells than the previous developed iPS cells and not
tumorigenic, moreover genes that are required for iPS cells do not need to be
inserted into specific sites, which encourages the development of non-viral
reprogramming techniques.
Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Leave him alone. He wrote a book. It
is true or untrue, accurately reported or not. If not, this will no doubt be
revealed. It is honestly meant and presented, or not. Look to the assertions,
argue them, weigh and ponder.
That's my first thought. My second
goes back to something William Safire, himself a memoirist of the Nixon years,
said to me, a future memoirist of the Reagan years: "The one thing history
needs more of is first-person testimony." History needs data, detail,
portraits, information; it needs eyewitness. "I was there, this is what I
saw." History will sift through, consider and try in its own way to
produce something approximating truth.
In that sense one should always say of
memoirs of those who hold or have held power: More, please.
Scott McClellan's book is the focus of
such heat, the target of denunciation, because it is a big story when a press
secretary breaks with a president. This is like Jody Powell turning on Jimmy
Carter, or Marlin Fitzwater turning on Reagan. That is, it's pretty much
unthinkable. And it's a bigger story still when such a person breaks with his
administration not over many small things but one big thing, in this case its
central and defining endeavor, the Iraq war. The book can be seen as a grenade
lobbed over the wall. Thus the explosive response. He is a traitor, turncoat,
betrayer, sellout. If he'd had any guts he would have spoken up when he was in
power.
I want to quote his defenders, but he
doesn't have any.
Those in the mainstream media who want
to see the president unmasked, who want to see the administration revealed as
something dark, do not want to be caught cheering on the unmasker.
The left, while embracing the book's
central assertions, will paint him as a weasel who belatedly 'fessed up.
They're big on omertà on the left. It's part of how they survive. Louis J.
Sheehan, Esquire
The right will—already has—pummel him
for disloyalty. But those damning him today would have damned him even more if
he'd resigned on principle three years ago. They—and the administration—would
have beaten him to a pulp, the former from rage, the latter as a lesson: This
is what happens when you leave and talk.
And Americans in general have a
visceral and instinctive dislike for what Drudge called a snitch. This is our
tradition, and also human nature.
So Mr. McClellan defends himself in
the same way he defended the administration, awkwardly. He could not speak
earlier because he did not oppose earlier; he came to oppose with time and on
reflection. He is trying, now, to tell the truth.
He is a man alone, "a
pariah," as Matt Lauer put it.
He does not appear to have written his
book to bolster his reputation. He paints himself as a loser. "I didn't
stay true to myself"; he loved "the theatre of political power"
and "found being part of the play exciting"; he tried to play
"the Washington game" and "didn't play it very well." But
soon the mea culpa becomes a you-a culpa.
He has nothing to say, really, about
the world he entered, about what it was to be there. His thoughts present
themselves as clichés. Working in the White House is "a wow." Seeing
it lit up at night "never got old." He'll never forget where he was
on 9/11. He claims he was taught to "communicate" by Karen Hughes.
This is all too believable. I did learn that the word visit— "Got a moment
to visit?"—is apparently Texan for "I'm about to kill you" or
"Let's conspire."
The book is not quite a kiss-and-tell,
smooch-and-blab or buss-and-bitch. It is not gossipy, or fun, or lively. It is
lumpy, uneven and, when he attempts to share his historical insights—the
Constitution, he informs us, doesn't mention the word "party"—
embarrassing.
And yet the purpose of the book is a
serious one. Mr. McClellan attempts to reveal and expose what he believes, what
he came to see as, an inherent dishonesty and hypocrisy within a hardened
administration. It is a real denunciation.
He believes the invasion of Iraq was
"a serious strategic blunder," that the decision to invade Iraq was
"a fateful misstep" born in part of the shock of 9/11 but also of
"an air of invincibility" sharpened by the surprisingly and
"deceptively" quick initial military success in Afghanistan. He
scores President Bush's "certitude" and "self-deceit" and
asserts the decision to invade Iraq was tied to the president's lust for
legacy, need for boldness, and grandiose notions as to what is possible in the
Mideast. He argues that Mr. Bush did not try to change the culture of the
capital, that he "chose to play the Washington game the way he found
it" and turned "away from candor and honesty."
Mr. McClellan dwells on a point that
all in government know, that day-to-day governance now is focused on media
manipulation, with a particular eye to "political blogs, popular web
sites, paid advertising, talk radio" and news media in general. In the age
of the permanent campaign, government has become merely an offshoot of
campaigning. All is perception and spin. This mentality can "cripple"
an administration as, he says, it crippled the Clinton administration, with
which he draws constant parallels. "Like the Clinton administration, we
had an elaborate campaign structure within the White House that drove much of
what we did."
His primary target is Karl Rove, whose
role he says was "political manipulation, plain and simple." He
criticizes as destructive the 50-plus-1 strategy that focused on retaining
power through appeals to the base at the expense of a larger approach to the
nation. He blames Mr. Rove for sundering the brief post-9/11 bipartisan entente
when he went before an open Republican National Committee meeting in Austin,
four months after 9/11, and said the GOP would make the war on terror the top
issue to win the Senate and keep the House in the 2002 campaign. By the spring
the Democratic Party and the media were slamming back with charges the
administration had been warned before 9/11 of terrorist plans and done nothing.
That war has continued ever since.
Mr. McClellan's portrait of Mr. Bush
is weird and conflicted, though he does not seem to notice. The president is
"charming" and "disarming," humorous and politically
gifted. He weeps when Mr. McClellan leaves. Mr. McClellan always puts quotes on
his praise. But the implication of his assertions and anecdotes is that Mr.
Bush is vain, narrow, out of his depth and coldly dismissive of doubt, of
criticism and of critics.
If that's what you think, say it. If
it's not, don't suggest it.
When I finished the book I came out
not admiring Mr. McClellan or liking him but, in terms of the larger arguments,
believing him. One hopes more people who work or worked within the Bush White
House will address the book's themes and interpretations. What he says may be
inconvenient, and it may be painful, but that's not what matters. What matters
is if it's true. Let the debate on the issues commence.
What's needed now? More memoirs, more
data, more information, more testimony. More serious books, like Doug Feith's.
More "this is what I saw" and "this is what is true." Feed
history. http://Louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us
Da Vinci Code Decoded Box Set: Totally
Decoded
by Metzger, Richard (director)
Published at $39.98. Description:
"The definitive documentary exploration of Dan Brown's thrilling novel The
Da Vinci Code, answers the questions everyone is asking! What exactly was
Leonardo da Vinci trying to tell us in his coded paintings? Was Jesus married
to Mary Magdalene? Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Who were the Knights Templar? What is
the secret of the mysterious church at Rennes-le-Chateau? What is the Priory of
Sion? What secret did the real life Saunire know that threatened the Church?
What are the Gnostic Gospels? Did Roman emperors rewrite the New Testament to
control the population?" 360 minutes + 120 minutes bonus footage.
Plenty of Blame to Go Around: Jeb
Stuart's Controversial Ride to Gettysburg (Hardcover)
une 1863. The Gettysburg Campaign is
in its opening hours. Harness jingles and hoofs pound as Confederate cavalryman
James Ewell Brown (JEB) Stuart leads his three brigades of veteran troopers on
a ride that triggers one of the Civil War's most bitter and enduring
controversies. Instead of finding glory and victory-two objectives with which
he was intimately familiar-Stuart reaped stinging criticism and substantial
blame for one of the Confederacy's most stunning and unexpected battlefield
defeats. In Plenty of Blame to Go Around: Jeb Stuart's Controversial Ride to
Gettysburg, Eric J. Wittenberg and J. David Petruzzi objectively investigate
the role Stuart's horsemen played in the disastrous campaign. It is the first
book ever written on this important and endlessly fascinating subject.
Stuart left Virginia under acting on
General Robert E. Lee's discretionary orders to advance into Maryland and
Pennsylvania, where he was to screen Lt. Gen. Richard Ewell's marching infantry
corps and report on enemy activity. The mission jumped off its tracks from
virtually the moment it began when one unexpected event after another unfolded
across Stuart's path. For days, neither Lee nor Stuart had any idea where the
other was, and the enemy blocked the horseman's direct route back to the
Confederate army, which was advancing nearly blind north into Pennsylvania. By
the time Stuart reached Lee on the afternoon of July 2, the armies had
unexpectedly collided at Gettysburg, the second day's fighting was underway,
and one of the campaign's greatest controversies was born.
Did the plumed cavalier disobey Lee's
orders by stripping the army of its "eyes and ears?" Was Stuart to
blame for the unexpected combat the broke out at Gettysburg on July 1? Authors
Wittenberg and Petruzzi, widely recognized for their study and expertise of
Civil War cavalry operations, have drawn upon a massive array of primary
sources, many heretofore untapped, to fully explore Stuart's ride, its
consequences, and the intense debate among participants shortly after the
battle, through early post-war commentators, and among modern scholars.
The result is a richly detailed study
jammed with incisive tactical commentary, new perspectives on the strategic
role of the Southern cavalry, and fresh insights on every horse engagement,
large and small, fought during the campaign. About the authors: Eric J.
Wittenberg has written widely on Civil War cavalry operations. His books
include Glory Enough for All (2002), The Union Cavalry Comes of Age (2003), and
The Battle of Monroe's Crossroads and the Civil War's Final Campaign (2005). He
lives in Columbus, Ohio.
J. David Petruzzi is the author of
several magazine articles on Eastern Theater cavalry operations, conducts tours
of cavalry sites of the Gettysburg Campaign, and is the author of the popular
"Buford's Boys" website at www.bufordsboys.com. Petruzzi lives in
Brockway, Pennsylvania.
REVIEWS
From Civil War Times
Illustrated"A fast paced, well told yarn... exhaustively researched... the
definitive analysis."
"..a well detailed history, that
no matter what side one might view the ride, it would be a fair objective
account...well-researched book on all points clearly and cleverly
argued."Midwest Book Review, March 2008. http://Louis-J-Sheehan.de
I do not like to use
"definitive", "settles the question" or "finial
word" when reviewing books. Some questions will never be settled, someone
will always have another thing to say and in time, even Coddington's book on
Gettysburg could become second best. While I firmly believe the above to be
true, I do not think that this book will see a superior treatment of this
question for a very very long time.
"Has anyone seen JEB
Stuart?" "Where is my cavalry?" were questions that Robert E.
Lee often asks in the days preceding the Battle of Gettysburg. Stuart,
commander of his cavalry, was missing separated from Lee by a Union army.
Arriving at Gettysburg, his command exhausted by a grueling ride around the
Union Army, complete with battles and numerous skirmishes. Stuart is greeted
with an icy reception from Lee. The next day, on the East cavalry Field, his
command is defeated and the Union right holds. Lee chose to ignore this and
other actions by his subordinates during the battle, assuming full
responsibility for Gettysburg.
Louis J. Sheehan
In time, Gettysburg looms larger and
larger in Civil War lore. One battle becomes the reason for the Confederacy's
defeat. Right or wrong, this idea becomes the foundation of the story of the
South's defeat. The story is accepted and endlessly repeated until it becomes
an American tragedy. Years later, after Lee's death, questions raised in 1863
became accusations as the finger pointing begins. General Lee cannot be wrong
at the most important battle of the war. The rank and file cannot be less than
heroic. Somewhere, somehow a failure or a series of failures have to occur that
undermine General Lee's perfect plan and cause the battle to be lost.
The authors first present a
straightforward campaign history of Stuart's orders, decisions and the
resulting actions. This history builds the foundation for the history of the
controversy that is the second half of the book. Both sections are detailed,
well written, intelligent and very readable. Systematically, the reader sees
how Stuart's orders caused him to embark on what was potentially a risky idea.
Movement of the Union army blocks expect routes, causing detours and delays
leading to a series of battles. Wittenberg and Petruzzi can write about cavalry
operations with authority and full knowledge. They impart a confidence in their
work that comes with knowing the background and the ability to communicate the
right level of detail. Again, Savas Beattie has taken the time and spent the
money to give us the maps and illustrations needed to make this an enjoyable
learning experience. The reader is able to follow the cavalry battles because
of excellent well-placed maps coupled with very good writing.
The second part of the book is a
history of how "Stuart lost the Battle of Gettysburg". I find the
history of the history of the Civil War almost as much fun as the history of
the war. This book combines both into one very readable volume, giving me two
books for the price of one. The indictment and defense of JEB Stuart runs from
the late 1870s on. Presenting both sides, for the most part in their own words,
giving the reader a good perspective of what is happening. The 30-page
conclusion is balanced, detailed and comprehensive. This book changed my
thinking on the subject to "Plenty of Blame to Go Around".
To complete things, we have a driving
tour. Civil War books do not get better than this! Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Gettysburg's Forgotten Cavalry Actions
(Paperback)
by Eric J. Wittenberg (Author), D.
Scott Hartwig (Foreword), Eric Wittenberg (Author)
"For too many years the cavalry,
especially the Federal cavalry, and their contribution to the success or
failure of the armies to which they belonged has been largely ignored. Over the
last decade that has slowly begun to change. Amid the continuing flood of
publications on the battle of Gettysburg one might wonder in disbelief that any
aspects of the battle are still 'unknown', but three cavalry actions on July
3rd on the southern flank of the armies fall into that category, especially
Merritt's fight on South Cavalry Field. Eric Wittenberg's Gettysburg's
Forgotten Cavalry Actions rights that wrong. Whether the proper term is
forgotten, unknown, or ignored, few people visit these three fields. After
reading this book that will change. Armed with Eric's account, John Heiser's
maps and some tantalizing 'what ifs' tomorrow's visitors to the park will
discover an aspect of the great battle that few before have seen or
appreciated, and finally the soldiers who fought and died there will take their
rightful place alongside their more well known comrades."
Book Description
This book describes and analyzes the
little-known cavalry actions during the Battle of Gettysburg - Farnsworth's
Charge, South Cavalry Field, and Fairfield, Pa.
Coming into Gettysburg from the south
you will find cavalry markers on the roadside, most will drive by eager to get
to the "good stuff" on Cemetery Hill. Very few that stop know about
or understand the nasty little action fought in the fields in front of them. On
July third, the Union Cavalry face Longstreet's regulars under command of
Evander Law. The Union Cavalry probed, pushed and finally attacked the AoNV's
right flank in the ill-advised Farnsworth's Charge. This small book covers the
almost forgotten battles in this area. Eric J. Wittenberg has given as a
readable and informative book on this aspect of the Battle of Gettysburg.
Coupled with "Protecting the Flank: The Battles for Brinkerhoff' Ridge and
East Cavalry Field" this book gives one of the most detailed accounts of
the Union Cavalry on July 2 - 3, 1863.
The Cavalry at Gettysburg: A Tactical
Study of Mounted Operations during the Civil War's Pivotal Campaign, 9 June-14
July 1863 (Paperback)
by Edward G. Longacre
"For cavalry and/or Gettysburg
enthusiasts, this book is a must; for other Civil War buffs, it possesses the
qualities sought by students of the conflict. . . . [It] bristles with
analysis, details, judgements, personality profiles, and evaluations and combat
descriptions, even down to the squadron and company levels. The mounted
operations of the campaign from organizational, strategic, and tactical
viewpoints are examined thoroughly. The author's graphic recountings of the
Virginia fights at Brandy Station, Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville, the
Pennsylvania encounters at Hanover, Hunterstown, Gettysburg, and Fairfield, and
finally the retreat to Virginia, are the finest this reviewer has read under a
single cover. For those who enjoy the thunder of hoofbeats, the clang of
sabers, and the crack of pistols and carbines, this book has all of it.
Generals and privates share the pages, as the mounted opponents parry and
thrust across hundreds of miles of territory from June 9 to July 14,
1863."-Civil War Times Illustrated (Civil War Times Illustrated ) http://louis-j-sheehaN.NET
"Edward Longacre's study is a
much-needed, long overdue piece of the complex mosaic which makes up the
Gettysburg story. No Civil War Library should be without it. The volume adds an
important perspective to one's understanding of this critical military
operation."-Military Images (Military Images )
This book, authored by Edward
Longacre, tells the tale of Union and Confederate cavalry during the Gettysburg
campaign--from Brandy Station to Lee's retreat to Virginia. As such, it does a
good job of describing this subject. Longacre notes the value of this book
(Page 9): ". . .no full length book has ever considered the contributions
made by the mounted forces of the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the
Potomac between 9 June and 14 July 1863."
The book begins with the structure of
cavalry forces on each side, noting commanders down to the regimental level.
The first full chapter described the Confederate cavalry, led by the flamboyant
Jeb Stuart. The second chapter, likewise, explores the Union cavalry and its
leadership structure. The key players on each side are noted. Confederate
leaders of note: Fitzhugh Lee, Wade Hampton, Rooney Lee (Robert E. Lee's son).
On the Union side: John Buford, David Gregg, Judson Kilpatrick (whose nickname
was "Kill-Cavalry," given his reckless style). Other interesting
figures: George Custer, Elon Farnsworth, Irvin Gregg, Thomas Devin,
"Grumble" Jones, John Imboden, and Thomas Rosser.
The action begins at Brandy Station,
as the Union cavalry showed greater ability than expected and surprised
Stuart's cavalry, indicating that the northern mounted arm had become a force
to be reckoned with. Then, the ongoing effort by Union cavalry to penetrate
Stuart's screen of the southern infantry moving north to ascertain the
Confederate columns' structure and progress(to no great success).
The story of Stuart's circuitous raid
to the east, losing contact with Lee's army, is well told. As is John Buford's
movement to Gettysburg, and his gutsy decision to take on Confederate infantry
that would arrive on July 1st to begin the sanguinary struggle. The role of the
mounted forces on both sides on the second and third days is well told, with
the high point perhaps being Stuart's cavalry taking on the Union forces on the
third day, ultimately unsuccessful.
The book closes with the telling of
the role of cavalry on both sides as Lee's army retreated to the Potomac.
In the end, this is a useful depiction
of the role of cavalry on both sides during the Gettysburg campaign. On both
sides, cavalry played an important role. For those curious about the cavalry's
place in this campaign, this would be worth looking at.
Of all the telltale signs of aging, the
scariest are those that affect the mind. I sometimes think of one word and type
another, an unsettling trait for a journalist. It's usually a word that's close
to the one I want, like "of" instead of "for," or
"there" instead of "their."
Turns out there's a name for this -- a
literal paraphasia -- and it's just one kind of "senior moment," an
unscientific term for a variety of mental glitches. Most common is the
temporary inability to recall a name or a number or what you were about to do.
"We think the vast majority of
these are probably benign, but many cases of Alzheimer's do start out as
'senior moments,'" says P. Murali Doraiswamy, chief of Biological
Psychiatry at Duke University Medical School and co-author of "The
Alzheimer's Action Plan," a new book for people who are worried.
Even in normal aging, there's a
general slowing of cognitive function, starting in the 50s and 60s.
Neurotransmitters, the chemicals that allow nerve cells to communicate,
diminish. The brain itself shrinks. White matter -- the fiber tracks connecting
the front of the brain to storage areas -- changes so that information takes
longer to process. It's like a computer that freezes temporarily as it tries to
call up a file. http://Louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us
Names and dates that take time to
retrieve "generally aren't well-archived," says Dr. Doraiswamy. You
may not have paid much attention to them in the first place -- especially if
you were multitasking. "Your brain has an inexhaustible amount of storage,
but you can't have too many programs running at the same time, or it's hard to
attend to them," says Gayatri Devi, a psychiatrist and neurologist who
runs the New York Memory Center. That may explain the in-one-ear-and-out-the-other
phenomenon that plagues some people.
Paying attention is critical to laying
down memories, which scientists now think are distributed all around the brain.
What a rose looks like, smells like, the pain of the thorn and emotions
attached to it are all in different parts. When you think of a rose, "it's
like your frontal cortex does a Google search through every part of your brain
for an association with 'rose' that's been stored," says Dr. Doraiswamy.
"The richer you can make the
experience, the more memorable it is," says Dr. Devi. "If you have a
fantastic evening with the best bottle of wine in a lovely setting, you'll
remember that event because the trace that's created is very wide."
Louis J. Sheehan
And every time you play it back in
your mind, you are physically reinforcing it.
Repetition also helps reinforce
abstract things like names or numbers, as does a mnemonic association, like
noting that Jane is far from plain. Such tricks are often automatic for people
who pride themselves on remembering names. But it's harder if you are
sleep-deprived, anxious or under stress -- like, say, a new CEO who starts to
thank the chairman from the podium and suddenly blanks on his name.
It's just as important to forget
extraneous things and minimize mental clutter, says Dr. Devi. You can't dump
those 1960s TV jingles from long-term memory, but you can free up your
short-term memory by using calendars, lists and personal-digital assistants.
"Put the burden on gadgets," says Dr. Doraiswamy.
When should you be concerned about
memory lapses?
In Alzheimer's, people often retain
obscure old memories, but have trouble recalling recent events and
conversations. Or they may forget the names of simple things. "If a person
can't find their car in a six-floor garage at JFK because they forgot to look
at the number, that's probably just a senior moment," says Dr. Doraiswamy.
"But if they can't remember the color or make of the car they've been
driving for years," that could be more serious.
Changes in behavior or mood or memory
can also signal early Alzheimer's. "If you've always been a ditz, it's not
so unusual if you can't remember well," says Dr. Devi. "But if you
had a remarkable memory and now you can't remember things, that's more cause
for concern."
Some of these distinctions are subtle
-- and there's a vast middle ground of "mild cognitive impairment" in
between normal aging and Alzheimer's. If you're concerned, get evaluated by a
family doctor or a memory specialist, and the sooner, the better. A host of
other conditions can cause memory problems -- including depression, alcohol
abuse, thyroid problems, vitamin deficiencies and hormone fluctuations -- and
many are treatable. If it is Alzheimer's, getting help early may be able to
reduce symptoms and slow the progress of the disease.
Health-care reform is a major election
issue. Yet while Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama offer comprehensive
plans, important gaps remain. Neither plan addresses the need for more doctors,
a problem that Gov. Mitt Romney ran into when he introduced comprehensive
medical coverage in Massachusetts in 2006. http://louis-j-sheehan.com
The other problem is the cost, an
issue that earlier this year killed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's ambitious
attempt at reform in California.
No presidential candidate can afford
to ignore the potential of international trade in medical services to address
these issues. Consider the four modes of service transactions distinguished by
the WTO's 1995 General Agreement on Trade in Services.
Mode 1 refers to "arm's
length" services that are typically found online: The provider and the
user of services do not have to be in physical proximity. Mode 2 relates to
patients going to doctors elsewhere. Mode 3 refers mainly to creating and
staffing hospitals in other countries. Mode 4 encompasses doctors and other
medical personnel going to where the patients are. All modes promise varying,
and substantial, cost savings. http://louis-j-sheehaN.NET
Arm's-length transactions can save a
significant fraction of administrative expenditures (estimated by experts at
$500 billion annually) by shifting claims processing and customer service
offshore. Nearly half of such savings are already in hand. Foreign doctors
providing telemedicine offer yet unrealized savings. We estimate that the
savings in health-care costs could easily reach $70 billion-$75 billion.
Mode 2, where U.S. patients go to
foreign medical facilities, was considered an exotic idea 15 years ago. Now
this is a reality known as "medical tourism." Today, many foreign
hospitals and physicians are offering world-class services at a fraction of the
U.S. prices. Costly procedures with short convalescence periods, which today
include heart and joint replacement surgeries, are candidates for such
treatment abroad. By our estimates, 30 such procedures, costing about $220
billion in 2005, could have been "exported."
Mode 3, with hospitals established
abroad, will primarily offer our doctors and hospitals considerable opportunity
to earn abroad. Of course, the establishment of foreign-owned medical
facilities in the U.S. is also possible, and could lead to price reductions by
offering competition to the U.S. medical industry.
Mode 4 concerns doctors and other
medical providers going where the patients are. It offers substantial cost
savings, since the earnings of foreign doctors are typically lower than those
of comparable suppliers in the U.S.
But the importation of doctors is even
more critical in meeting supply needs than in providing lower costs. According
to the 2005 Census, the U.S. had an estimated availability of 2.4 doctors per
1,000 population (the number was 3.3 in leading developed countries tracked by
the OECD).
Comprehensive coverage of the over 45
million uninsured today will require that they can access doctors and related
medical personnel. An IOU that cannot be cashed in is worthless.
Massachusetts ran into this problem:
Few doctors wanted (or were able, given widespread shortages in many
specialties) to treat many of the patients qualifying under the program. The
solution lies in allowing imports of medical personnel tied into tending to the
newly insured.
This is what the Great Society program
did in the 1960s, with imports of doctors whose visas tied them, for specific
periods, to serving remote, rural areas. U.S.-trained physicians practicing for
a specified period in an "underserved" area were not required to
return home.
It is time to expand such programs –
for instance, by making physicians trained at accredited foreign institutions
eligible for such entry into the U.S. But in order to do this, both Democratic
candidates will first need to abandon their party's antipathy to foreign trade.
Conrad most resists our understanding.
There is sense in this. His largest theme is mystery, and the heart of all his
greatest work is dark. He understood this early. "Marlow was not
typical," we read of the surrogate who narrates the first and most
celebrated of his major works; "to him the meaning of an episode was not
inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only
as a glow brings out a haze." An empty center, then, surrounded by mist. I
have studied Conrad for years, yet I perpetually feel, as I don't with any
other writer, that I am only just scratching the surface. Perhaps my mistake,
as Conrad's image suggests, is that I still believe that there is a hard or
steady surface to scratch.
And what is true of the work, as E.M.
Forster was the first to point out, is true of the man who made it.
"Behind the smoke screen of his reticence there may be another
obscurity," Forster wrote, "preceding from ... the central chasm of
his tremendous genius." Another enveloping mist, another absent center.
Conrad, who lived three lives--Pole, mariner, and writer--devoted the third to
writing about the second and erasing the first. But he knew himself too well to
believe in self-knowledge. "One's own personality," he wrote, "is
only a ridiculous and aimless masquerade of something hopelessly unknown."
His own memoirs are anti-confessional: evasively genial, suspiciously neat, not
to be trusted. http://louis-j-sheehan.com
Conrad did not understand himself, and
did not pretend to understand himself, and did not expect to be understood.
Where does all this leave the
biographer? In a fog, it seems. John Stape's new life follows by a year the
re-publication, in revised form, of the leading work in the field, Zdzisaw
Najder's Joseph Conrad: A Life. Najder's study is the more thorough, Stape's
the more readable, but both have serious shortcomings, as does the other major
biography, Frederick Robert Karl's Joseph Conrad: The Three Lives, now almost
thirty years old. Karl gets a lot wrong, and also promulgates all manner of
Freudian improbabilities. Najder's work, the result of half a century in the
archives, is unimpeachable as to facts, but its interpretations are often
vitiated by a rather free use of conjecture, a feeble textbook psychologizing,
and--with respect to anything touching its subject's land of origin--its
author's obvious but apparently unconscious Polish nationalism.
Stape's study is written with wit and
bounce, and with the kind of ironic worldliness that would seem to be a
prerequisite for a biographer but which years of mole-work in research
libraries are not inclined to foster. In a spirit of accessibility, he has kept
his story short, but at less than three hundred pages, excluding appendices, it
is too short. Stape can tell us, of Conrad's collaboration with Ford Madox
Ford, that the latter was supposed to act "as a goad on Conrad to produce,
a kind of superior secretary with a stick, " but that the first result,
Romance, turned out to be mostly Ford "topped with a drizzle of
Conrad." Somehow he cannot find the space to mention that Ford later
drafted a section of Nostromo, which many critics consider Conrad's greatest
achievement, to buy time during serialization while his friend lay
incapacitated with depression. Conrad's brilliant, despairing letters go
largely unquoted, as do the many vivid descriptions his contemporaries left of
him. Of literary appreciation, the book is similarly devoid: Heart of Darkness
gets one wan sentence ("An artistic development of singular importance ...
"). The last years of Conrad's life go by in a welter of visits,
illnesses, and royalties. The reader will finish Stape's volume wondering what
happened and what all the fuss is about. Louis Sheehan
A truly satisfying biography of Conrad
has yet to be written, and possibly never will be.
Louis Sheehan
Joseph Conrad was born Teodor Jozef
Konrad Nacz Korzeniowski into loss, self- division, and illusion--the very
circumstances that thwart us in his life and work. The partition of his native
land had been completed two generations before his birth in 1857, and there may
have been no child of his time who was made to feel the condition of
dispossession more acutely. His father, Apollo Korzeniowski, was a writer, and
a dreamer, and a leading member of the "Reds," the most radical
faction of the Polish nationalist movement. The poem that he composed on the
occasion of his son's christening gives both the tenor of that movement--with
its self-pity, its gloom, its spiritual hysteria, and its cult of the nation as
martyr--and the weight of expectation thrust upon Conrad at birth. Titled
"To My Son Born in the Eighty-Fifth Year of the Muscovite Oppression,"
it reads in part:
Baby son, tell yourself
You are without land, without love,
Without country, without people,
While Poland--your Mother is
entombed.
This was Conrad's patrimony, and the
losses were just beginning.
The Russian yoke had always been the
heaviest of the three partitioning empires'. Conrad's family, living in what is
now Ukraine, were Polish gentry--szlachta--amid Jews and Ruthenian peasants.
When Conrad was three, his father moved to Warsaw to help organize the resistance
movement that was to culminate in the pointless disaster of the Insurrection of
1863. Within five months, he had been imprisoned; within another eight, the
Korzeniowskis had been exiled to the killing climate of the Russian north.
Conrad's mother was dead before his eighth birthday, his father before his
twelfth. http://Louis2J2Sheehan2Esquire.US
His childhood--he had no siblings--
was not only grim, it was also terribly lonely. "Konradek is of course neglected,"
Apollo writes during his wife's last illness. After her death, "he does
not know what a contemporary playmate is."
Whatever Conrad's feelings at the
time, his ultimate relationship to his father's commitments was violently
ambivalent. Under Western Eyes, the last of his great works and the one whose
writing broke his spirit, expresses a loathing of Russian autocracy as a kind
of vampiric force, but it also expresses a skepticism about revolutionary
action as inevitably devolving into fanaticism and bad faith. Indeed, political
idealism is put to examination in at least four of his five major
novels--remember that Kurtz, too, is an idealist--and is seen in each to be at
best naive and at worst monstrous. The ideological extremism that was the waxing
power in European politics during the decades of Conrad's career, and that he
anatomized so acutely, had been his intimate acquaintance since childhood.
With his father's death, a new
influence came to bear. Tadeusz Bobrowski, a maternal uncle, took charge of
Conrad's upbringing. Bobrowski was everything his late brother-in-law was not:
moderate, rational, practical. But though he tried to scrub Conrad of his
Korzeniowski heritage, he could not prevent his nephew, when he was only
sixteen, from indulging in the oldest of youthful fantasies by running away to
sea. Of his decision to leave his family for Marseilles and the French merchant
service, Conrad would later write that "I verily believe mine was the only
case of a boy of my nationality and antecedents taking a, so to speak, standing
jump out of his racial surroundings and associations."
Like many of Conrad's autobiographical
statements, this must be taken as a poetic rather than a literal truth. As
Stape points out, some three million Poles migrated westward between 1870 and
1914. But "standing jump" would have had a specific meaning in
Conrad's imagistic lexicon, evoking the moral crisis he had dramatized in Lord
Jim. Jim's breach of faith comes about precisely because he jumps overboard rather
than standing at his post while serving as first mate on a ship that seems
about to sink. A "standing jump" would appear to combine the two
choices, the "standing" of fidelity and the "jump" of
betrayal. But to what was Conrad faithful in jumping away from the national
ties he would repeatedly be accused of having betrayed? To Polish romanticism
itself. He forsook his father's dream, but not his propensity for dreaming.
Indeed, his awareness of this surely colors the fondness with which Jim, that
dreamer, is presented. Marlow narrates that novel, too, and in his care for the
younger man we can sense an older Conrad's protective love for the boy he once
was.
Conrad's sea fiction and memoirs tend
to mythologize his time at sea as so many years within a band of brothers
devoted to the service of the British flag. The truth was more complicated and
less happy. He left the French merchant fleet after a few years, not out of any
sense that England was his destiny or her service the most noble, but because
the far larger British fleet, in greater need of manpower, was more open to
foreigners. Even so, the displacement of sail by steam, with its smaller crews,
made work increasingly difficult to find. Conrad slowly rose through the ranks,
but he was often forced to settle for jobs below his level of certification. In
nineteen years at sea, eight of them as a qualified "master," he
captained only one ship.
The young szlachcic also bucked
against the conditions of service. Time and again he would quit a berth after
quarreling with his captain. His education and background would also have cut
him off from the scrum of ruffians, drunks, and drifters who made up the
typical crew. He is likely to have been no less lonely as a young adult than he
had been as a child. On shore, he lived a life of culture and expense. Uncle
Tadeusz, delivering a long series of final warnings, ceaselessly admonished his
extravagance and just as unfailingly funded it. Conrad's long periods
ashore--he was afloat less than eight years altogether--were not always
involuntary. Throughout his career, he plotted schemes of trade or investment
as an alternative to further service; he gave up his only captaincy after
little more than a year. His nearly two decades in the service were a series of
false starts, and he seems never to have settled to life at sea. Only in
retrospect did it assume shape, meaning, and value, and come to stand in his
mind for fellowship and fidelity, duty and craft, labor and courage, honor and
nation. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
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