Author: Laura Conrad

Ancient Greek Music

[Greek Musicians]
The instruments used – such as lyre and reed-pipes – are known from, paintings and archaeological remains, such as this illustration from The Odyssey by Homer.

This
article is about a scholar who claims to be able to decode an
ancient greek music notation. I can’t tell from the article what
he really did, but you will enjoy listening to the recreation of
the music.

My man won!

I was at the polls all day, so that’s why I haven’t posted yet,
but this gives me a chance to tell you what happened.

The results are preliminary, which means they don’t include
anything that has to be hand counted. In the case of the precinct
I worked at, that’s about 50 out of about 600 total ballots.

But preliminary
results are that four challengers have been elected, including
Dennis Carlone, whom I supported.

The Affordable Care Act and me

I tested healthcare.gov on the morning of October 1, before
I’d read any news stories about the problems,
and it worked fine for my purposes. This is because I live in
Massachusetts, so all I needed was a pointer to the Mass site,
where I wasn’t at that time able to find out my options, but I was
able to read a couple of articles about what was likely to change
for me.

Since then I’ve gotten two communications from my insurance
company. One was a “magazine” with an article stating that
everyone would have to go on the health care exchange because all
the current policies were ending on December 31. This was a
little alarming, but I decided to ignore it until the deadline was
closer.

A week or so later, I got a letter addressed to me personally,
informing me that I did not have to do anything to keep
my current coverage — that if I did nothing my current plan would
be replaced by one with a different name, which would be no more
expensive and might have better coverage. So I only needed to
shop for a new plan if I didn’t like the current one.

I still don’t have the details about the new plan, but since
I’m quite happy with the old plan, I’m not worried about it.

But I’m glad I’m not in a state where I have to depend on
healthcare.gov to find out my options. Apparently the decision to
make shopping impossible without registration was made about a
week before the site went live, and it was known before October 1
that registration didn’t work in major ways.

Daylight Savings leaves again

[map of time zone proposal]
Proposed time zones.

I live in the eastern part of my time zone, so the end of
daylight savings always means that it’s dark when people leave work.
This
article wins this year’s prize for best complaint about
daylight savings time.

Here’s part of the argument:

Daylight saving time ends Nov. 3, setting off an annual ritual where Americans (who don’t live in Arizona or Hawaii) and residents of 78 other countries including Canada (but not Saskatchewan), most of Europe, Australia and New Zealand turn their clocks back one hour. It’s a controversial practice that became popular in the 1970s with the intent of conserving energy. The fall time change feels particularly hard because we lose another hour of evening daylight, just as the days grow shorter. It also creates confusion because countries that observe daylight saving change their clocks on different days.

I missed a Sunday afternoon train in Brussels once because it
didn’t occur to me to think about whether they changed time. But
the real point of the article is that not only should a given
place not change time twice a year, but that there should be fewer
time zones. Specifically, the continental US should have only
two — Eastern and Western.

In reality, America already functions on fewer than four time zones. I spent the last three years commuting between New York and Austin, living on both Eastern and Central time. I found that in Austin, everyone did things at the same times they do them in New York, despite the difference in time zone. People got to work at 8 am instead of 9 am, restaurants were packed at 6 pm instead of 7 pm, and even the TV schedule was an hour earlier. But for the last three years I lived in a state of constant confusion, I rarely knew the time and was perpetually an hour late or early.

It makes one wonder whether the world needs time zones at all
— maybe it should just be like the northern and southern
hemisphere — in some countries, Christmas is in summer and in
some it’s in winter. In some countries, you could go to bed at
midnight and wake up at 7am; in others, you might go to bed at
noon and wake up at 7pm.

Waiting for Godot

[Estragon and Vladimir]
Gary Lydon and Conor Lovett as Estragon and Vladimir in the Arts Emerson/Gare Saint Lazare production of “Waiting for Godot”

It’s apparently “GAH – doh”, not “goh – DOH”. I had always
pronounced it in the French way, but the Irish troupe I saw play
it last night englished it.

It was the Arts
Emerson presentation of the Gare Saint Lazare players doing
it. It was riveting, although I can’t explain exactly why.
Peter Hall, who directed the first London production in 1955,
apparently wasn’t sure it would be until it opened.

One critic (Vivian Mercier) said “Waiting for
Godot is a play in which nothing happens, twice.” With
good players, it turns out that that can be really funny,
especially the second time.

It looks from the audience I saw last night that theater is
doing better with young audiences than early music.

How hard it is to get prescription drugs

I have a friend who takes a prescription for a seizure
disorder, that if she doesn’t take it every day she could well
die, if she has a seizure at the wrong time. She has a rant about
how any drug without major public health consequences should be
available over-the-counter to anyone who thinks they need it. She
is unusually good at dealing with complex systems, and she still
has problems if she goes on vacation or changes insurance
companies or whatever.

The insulin I take for my diabetes isn’t in quite that life-sustaining
category, but the health care providers I talk to do claim that
it’s pretty important to take it every day. But that’s not what
the people who work in the system for getting me refills when I’m
out seem to think.

Here’s the system.

  1. When I go to the pharmacy, I get a vial with 1000 units of
    insulin.
  2. I inject myself with, currently 45 units of insulin, every
    day. I’m supposed to modify this if necessary, going up if my
    blood sugars are running high, or down if I’m getting low blood
    sugar reactions. The last time I talked to my doctor, I was
    taking only 40 units, but I upped that after getting my
    haemoglobin A1C result from that visit.
  3. When I point out to the pharmacy that 1000 units is not a 30
    day supply, they explain that the shelf life of the insulin is
    only 28 days, so they don’t want to give me 2 of them, so
    they’ll just give me another one a little sooner. Usually this
    works.
  4. However, the prescription is written for 1 year or 12
    refills. 12 refills takes noticeably less than a year.
  5. So last Monday, I called to get a refill and the computer
    told me that I didn’t have any refills left, and it would notify
    my doctor that I needed a new prescription.
  6. This usually works, but this time, whoever processes these
    requests (I think not either a doctor or a nurse, so it’s quite
    possible that this person didn’t even know that Lantus is a form
    of insulin) decided that they couldn’t really need a new
    prescription, because it was under a year since I got the old
    one. This seems to be the real breakdown in the system — if I
    say I need insulin, and the pharmacy says they need a new
    prescription, the system maybe should allow this person to argue
    with the pharmacy, but certainly shouldn’t allow them to just
    ignore the request.
  7. Three days, and about a dozen phone calls later, I talked to
    a nurse, and finally got her to agree to get the doctor to write
    a new prescription.

This has nothing to do with Obamacare, because this problem has
existed in some form for at least a decade. It probably isn’t
really related to government health care, although the Cambridge
Hospital Association, which operates both the pharmacy and the
clinic in this story, is funded in a major way by the city of
Cambridge. My friend with the seizure disorder isn’t using
government-operated healthcare any more than anyone else in this
country.

But I have been hitting this problem for a decade, and every
time I hit it, I mention to my health care provider that the
system seems to be screwed up. Most recently, I told the nurse
who finally got me the prescription, and she said she understood
my concerns, but not that she knew of any way to address them.

So it’s probably time to call or write someone else. You can
consider this a rough draft of that letter.

How I use the library

Since I’m posting quite a lot here about what I’m reading, I
thought I should mention how I go about acquiring it. By far the
largest set of books I read these days come from the ebook lending
system of the Middlesex Library Network. The next largest set
come from Project Gutenberg and other online free books source.
And I do buy some books, both ebooks and dead tree books, of which
maybe more later.

The ebook site is pretty complicated, so I thought I’d mention
the way I’ve eventually settled on how to use it.

  1. Whenever I get an email notice that
    a book I have on hold is available, I log in and take that book
    out.
  2. I then look at all the books on my wish list, and take out
    any of those that are currently available I want to have.
  3. Then I look at the new
    ebooks     menu item, which lists all the ebooks they have in
    reverse order of acquisition. I put anything I might want to
    read on my wish list, and anything I’m sure I want to read as soon
    as possible on my hold list.

If I’m feeling insecure about where the next book I read is
coming from, I do steps 2 and 3 even if I can’t do step 1.

News of the week of October 29, 2013

Meeting Report

We played:

Schedule

We will not be meeting on November 5. After that we will
resume our regular meetings November 12.

Our regular meetings are on Tuesdays at 7:45 PM at my place. If
you haven’t already told me you’re coming, let me know by 10 in
the morning of the day of the meeting. If you have told me you’re
coming, and something comes up so that you can’t, please let me
know as soon as is practical.

Recommended Candidates in the Cambridge elections

I got this email from Nancy Ryan, whom I met working on
neighborhood issues. She’s been intimately involved in Cambridge
politics for decades, worked for the city for quite a while as
director of the Cambridge Women’s Commission, and as executive
director of the Massachusetts ACLU.

I would add to her list that I’ve talked to people who’ve worked with
Fran Cronin and are enthusiastic about her bid for school committee. I
also think Craig Kelley works hard at communicating with voters, and
said some of the right things about the City Manager selection process,
or lack thereof.

In other words, I respect Nancy and will vote for everyone on her list
based on her recommendation if not anything else. I had independently
concluded that Dennis Carlone should get my number 1 vote. But I
usually continue on down the rankings (although I’m pretty sure my vote
always goes to my first, second, or third choice) quite a lot farther
than she does, so I will be ranking many of the people she doesn’t
mention ahead of other people she doesn’t mention.

Dear Cambridge Neighbors and Friends – Many of you have asked me what
I’m doing about the up-coming election so I’m taking the liberty of
sending my recommendations. Regarding City Council – this is a pivotal
moment in Cambridge. The city seems to be up for sale to large
developers who want to build upscale housing or commercial space in
high and dense buildings. Central Square is particularly a target. The
current City Council members have been inclined to grant up-zoning
petitions even with large protests from residents. There’s no overall
plan and huge development proposals about to be presented to the
Council.  Here are my recommendations and a request – would you
consider forwarding this email to lots of your friends and neighbors?
You can change it up to fit your own priorities but I URGE you to
recommend Dennis Carlone #1.

  1. Dennis Carlone – A 40- year Cambridge resident and first-time
    candidate, an architect and city planner in Cambridge whose motto is
    “Planning for People.” He designed and implemented the East Cambridge
    Riverfront project in collaboration with the neighborhood. Dennis is
    committed to making sure the city has a Master Plan for development,
    traffic and transit that works to make the Cambridge of the future a
    livable, affordable and diverse community. He has refused all campaign
    contributions from developers. He raised his kids here and has a
    broader agenda, but right now it’s his expertise and grounded
    temperament that are sorely missing among our current City Council
    members. There is no one we need more at this time.
  2. Nadeem Mazen – a young innovator and entrepreneur who opened two
    small businesses in Central Square — danger!awesome on Prospect
    Street that serves as a small digital engraving business and a
    training and mentoring center for young people; and Nimblebot.com that
    makes educational media and software for social entrepreneurs and also
    provides access to cutting-edge technology and job training. Nadeem is
    also a strong proponent of a master plan for development and traffic
    management as well as affordable housing. Having spent a few hours
    with him, I believe he can bring new ideas and energy coupled with
    leading edge skills and experience to City government. And he promises
    to stay in office only long enough to encourage and mentor other young
    people to step into his shoes.
  3. Minka vanBeuzekom – completing her first term on the Council, Minka
    has worked hard to bring her environmental experience to bear on many
    aspects of development and green space in Cambridge. She’s also
    diligent – it was Minka who discovered that Forest City had not lived
    up to its 25-year-old  commitments to maintain low- and
    moderate-income housing on its University Park campus during their
    request for a massive up-zoning of their property. Her discovery
    brought the process to a standstill until Forest City made good on
    their promises, saving a large number of peoples’ homes. Minka is the
    only incumbent I can recommend, even though I wish she were a more
    consistent and strong voice. I am trusting that with new members as
    potential collaborators and two years’ experience, she will come into
    her own.
  4. Marc McGovern – a strong advocate for the needs of families and
    children who, as a social worker in a therapeutic school for students
    with a range of emotional and learning problems, he has witnessed
    firsthand the needs of struggling parents and kids. As a School
    Committee member, he was willing to take controversial stands in
    behalf of the schools’ budget and the creation of middle schools
    because of his assessment of their impacts on the families most
    dependent on public schools. Because of his deep roots in this city,
    because of his stated commitment to increase affordable housing and
    early childhood education, I am putting some faith in him.  He will
    face temptations to finance increased services with large, mostly
    upscale housing developments that contain a very few affordable units.

That’s as far as I could go with City Council candidates.

School Committee – I am not deeply involved in the School Committee so
can only offer one strong candidate and some personal experiences or
comments that people have made about others:

#1 Kathleen Kelly – I have known Kathleen as a community activist and
parent and strongly recommend her as a first time candidate. She is a
unique combination of education and experience — a trained social
worker with an MBA who takes the social justice stand that public
education is the great equalizer in our society and has the capacity
to analyze budgets and policy to carry this commitment forward.

And in any order:

Richard Harding – is a lifelong resident of Area 4 and a founder of
the Port Action group focused on violence prevention and connecting
formerly incarcerated people with services and resources. He knows and
cares about the young people and families who most need an educational
system that supports all of our children. I have known Richard for a
long time and hope he is re-elected.

Patty Nolan – I can mainly say that Patty asks the difficult questions
and expects accountability from everyone.

Eleche Kadete – I have not meet this young man who graduated from CRLS
and went on to Brandeis, but I read his platform and on the basis of
that, I’ll vote for him. Here’s a link.

Rosemary Cake

I’ve mentioned this cake a couple of times — it’s my go to
recipe these days when I want to bring baked goods somewhere, or
use up lots of eggs or have fresh rosemary sitting around.

I made it last night for the Recorder Society, and
someone asked for the recipe, so here it is.

Rosemary Cake Recipe

From “An Everlasting Meal” by Tamar Adler, who

adapted it from “Cooking by Hand”, by Paul Bertolli.

  • 8 eggs
  • 1½ cups raw sugar (If you’re someone who always reduces
    the sugar, try it this way anyway — you might like this amount.)
  • 1 cups olive oil
  • 4 tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary
  • 3 cups flour
  • 2 tablespoons baking powder (this is presumably a typo — I
    use 2 teaspoons.)
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt

Heat the oven to 325 degrees.

Coat a bundt pan first with butter, then with flour, tapping out the
excess flour. (I use a non-stick angel cake pan, and spray oil.)

Beat the eggs for 30 seconds with a handheld beater. Slowly add the
sugar and continue to beat until the mixture is very foamy and
pale. Still mixing, slowly drizzle in the olive oil. (I use the beater
on the highest speed for the preceding steps.) Using a spatula,
fold in the rosemary. (I use the beater on the slowest speed for all
the following steps.)

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and
salt. Keeping the mixer on low speed, gradually add the dry ingredients
to the egg mixture. Pour the batter into the bundt pan. (I never
bother with a separate bowl or pre-mixing the dry ingredients.
I just add the small ones, in this case salt and baking powser,
first, and figure they’ll get evenly mixed while I’m mixing in
the flour.)

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through. The cake is
done when it is golden brown and springs back when touched, or when a
skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool
briefly in the pan and then tip it out onto a rack to continue
cooling. (I don’t bother with the rotating; I use the skewer
method, and it takes my oven a little over an hour to do this.)

This is delicious on its own, or accompanied by freshly whipped
unsweetened cream, or the wonderfully rich, soft Italian cream cheese
called mascarpone. (I’ve always just eaten it on its own.
What people like about it as opposed to other pound-cake style
baked goods is how it isn’t sweet at all.)