Reviews of all past talks presented at 55PLUS are found in the database which can be reached by clicking on "55PLUS Database" on the menu to the left. To allow you read the last few reviews without having to negotiate the database we have decided to post them on the main 55PLUS Web page.

Note: A number of reviews of past talks have not been posted and are being posted now.

Date:JUNE 4, 2009 (Last talk of 2008-9 season)
Speaker:VIVIANA A. ZELIZER, PhD., PROFESSOR of SOCIOLOGY, Princeton Univ.
Topic: MONEY & RELATIONSHIPS
Introduced by: Mike Midler

If you are or have been a Sugar Daddy or Sugar Mama or Sugar Baby; have had a boss who is also your wife; have become your Dad's Dad by giving monetary gifts to parents; have argued over "helping the wife (or being helped [??] withhousework:" have paid or received alimony; have been in litigation over a will, or have been snapped by a mousetrap in trousers, then you are one of the specimen cases for Viviana Zefiker's studyarticulated in her book "The Purchase of Intimacy"of how we constantly integrate economic activity into our intimate social life spheres—most often than not without harm. She challenges the common belief that family or close personal relationships--/.e. intimacy—and monetary factors are both crippled when they intersect. In general, that belief is not true. Her inquiry is: How do we successfully manage to mix and match?

Four specific instances got our minds going: Steve Martin's novel/movie "Shopgirl," in which an old millionaire and a 30-year-younger shop girl become lovers, with major emotional involvement and much financial involvement on his part, even long after the breakup: the unequal nature of their situations prompts the question whether she is a prostitute or mistress. Any simplistic answer is not consistent with the narrator's statement that "he had become her parent and she the child"he then is NOT just a Sugar Daddy. Zelizer noted a web site "seeking arrangement.com" in which young women look to and do develop emotional relationships with wealthy men who pay $1000 and up per month--not often in cash, but in gifts and allowances with no strings attached to the negotiated arrangements. Apparently, they work well.

Another instance of the need for wisdom is what happens when the wife is the boss/employer of the husband in a business setup. One ingenious solution is to put him in charge of payroll and make sure that they receive equal salaries. The last pragmatic instance refers to a letter in the NY Times from a son com- plaining that he gave monies to his parents and was flummoxed when they went so far as to replace counter-tops in a redo of their kitchen. What are the limits in parents using gifts from children? The columnist's response noted that gifts are not allowances ....Perhaps no limits can be justified.

Zelizer's approach to these instances and the general topic was to point out three theories: 1) the 'hostile world' theory that Intimacy and money together corrupt each other, leading to inefficiency and cronyism, such as the idea of one's sleeping her/his way to the top or one's putting a lover on the payroll the 'markets everywhere' theory that intimacy operates in the same way that corporations dothat sex, love, personal care, etc. are all commodities; that a family is just like a small business with assets, liabilities, obligations, etc.

Certainty, Zelizer's favorite theory is that when the right choices are made, 'good matches' between intimacy and money work wellthat it Is the type ofeconomic transaction, much more caring than it is exploitive, that makes ft compatible with intimacy. In real life, we mingle funds, we negotiate the intersections to reach fair and equitable goals. Think about how we manage nannies, baby-sitters (even family member baby-sitters), alimony, college expense issues, the whole schmeer!!!!!)

Basic questions have to do with how we manage intermixing; with what happens when the law gets involved, and who pays under situations, under settlements. Probably in as pragmatic a lecture as 55PLUS has ever heard, the focus turned to the challenge to the tradition that parents pay. With the longevity of parents today, multitudes of children will have to reconcile the demands of what children pay to parents loans, allowances, what? What is right? What transactions are most desirable? Also coming into play is the question about the state's compensating children for care of parents. How? When? What is right? These intimate structures may also be expanded to include husband-wife, doctor-patient, employer-secretary transactions. And always there is the legal miasma of wills and legacies and disputes over "undue influence" by 2nd or 3rd or 4th wives or by children manipulating vulnerable ageds. Zelizer discussed aspects of the Brooke Astor and Seward Johnson family controversies so much In the news.

Couples always want special relationships. The intersection of household work issues and money are familiar to us all, or should be. No one can escape. What about "helping the wife" transactions; what about if the wife is the main breadwinner (especially now with unemployment Issues extant for our sons and daughters at least). Research finds that when the wife Is employed, much of her earnings are earmarked for the childrennot the case with the husband's money. And the issue of "hiding the money" looms large. The movie "Taking Woodstock" turns its climax on such an issue. The 1905 Shultz case about small change and mousetraps in trousers illuminates the issue in tragicomic colors. Zelizer points up ail these particular kinds of complex economic negotiated constructs as Indicative that good matches can be and are everywhere found between Intimacy and money. The incongruity in our minds about the problem led to her final allusions to an old French tale "In the Bedroom" and the modern cynical sitcom, Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm," to cap her theme: Money Is not the root of ail evil. The lack of our wisely integrating it into our Intimate affairs is.......

© 2009 Don Sheasley

Date:Sept. 18, 2009
Speaker: Professor Harold Shapiro Ph.D., former President: Princeton University now Chair of Energy Committee, National Academy of Science
Topic:The Challenge of Transforming America's Energy Sector
Introduced by: Eric Rau

We grow too soon old and too late wise. That old PA Dutch truism perfectly applies to our fathers' and our lack of wisdom while creating after the grand victory of WWII the technologically advanced world of the last sixty-five years: a realm with little concern for the environmental, economic, and thus social impacts of reliance on burning fossil fuels for our burgeoning energy needs. Here we are, too old to be able to do much about it and tardily aware of the polluted, dangerously warming and resource-limited world we bestow to our great-grandchildren. Wonder how the "Greatest Generation" will appeal to them in 50 years? What can be done to rehabilitate our legacy?

Well, Dr. Harold Shapiro and his Energy Committee are most focused on the energy future: why the nation should be concerned; what technologies and transformations could possibly make it work better; and how social costs, national security issues, and economic competitions come into play. He admits that they don't know what could work, what could be made possible!

A series of charts and graphs showing all sorts of data about energy use and costs--- with projections of up to 20 years, 2030 — reinforced what we all vaguely understand: the US is a large, not efficient consumer of energy with 85% of that use obtained from fossil fuel resources: coal, natural gas, and petroleum. Result: global warming—including a drastic desertization of the arid Southwest; supply routes around the world set up to feed our thirst for oil—routes vulnerable to attack and blockage; ongoing and drastic expansion of competition for that oil from developing countries worldwide. And because we are too unwise to care for what we have, the entire grid for transportation and distribution of electricity, nuclear power, and even biofuels is an old and deteriorating sector of the trail. Natural gas is better for its having less CO2, but there is a great question of adequate fields to drill. And it remains a carbon detrimental to the environment. Shapiro advises that reliance on petroleum in the transportation sector will not change for 2 decades at best. Hybrid and alternate fuel cars and trucks represent a minuscule portion of the whole.

Per capita energy usage has decreased but population growth counters that happy data, as people become more energy intensive. Consumption in household use of electricity constantly is on the rise. Options for transforming the energy sector include: enhancing efficiency, upgrading the state of the electrical grid, and decarbonizing both the electrical and transportation sectors. Additional roles could be played by increased nuclear energy outputs, developed renewables— solar, wind, biomass, geothermal—along with alternate liquid fuels for transportation. All are costly and time consuming with built-in limits on what is possible. (Biomass, for example, requires so much land area for plant life that it would push out everything else; also it is very costly to transport.)

The Committee has not considered advocating a change in life style—at least at this point—nor improving techniques for finding new energy sources nor fully assessing the status of world supplies. Surveying and laying out possible technological paths will take a sustained effort—like the Interstate Highway System, one federal success story. But the devilish details remain! One pathway would lead to a decrease in the energy requirements of Commercial and Residential buildings: insulating, updating circuitry, solar installations, etc. A prime path—already proven on a very small scale—is the Capture and Sequestration of carbon emissions. But the catch-22 of that route is how to handle and deposit in the earth the captured C02. More importantly, even success in the technology would mean continued use of and reliance on fossil fuels. In thinking about developing more nuclear power plants and replacing decrepit ones from the past, the quicksand of the low supply of nuclear engineers comes bubbling up. The Navy and the Japanese remain the only interested parties in that shortcoming. Solar systems are most expensive to develop, but some progress has been made there. Unknown is the environmental impact of wind turbines in 350 feet high mass formations. A chilling fact is that there are not enough cranes world-wide to expand and modernize the electrical grid of this nation. Like it or not, petroleum will remain #1 for the next decades. The number of factories to transform coal into liquid fuel—an ongoing endeavor's very limited—a detail costly and time-consuming to correct.

So, it appears that nuclear power and the CC&S initiative are what should be demonstrated to be workable and possible. Much R&D at great expense is necessary. Of course, always the barriers of the policy and regulation mesh, of the lack of human resources—enough technicians???—of the need for investment and capital from the private sector, and of the constant frustrations of our fractured governmental institutions rise up to make the pathway treacherous. An earlier small success: Regulations forced refrigerators to become 50% more efficient. But that benefit was negated by the public's desire for bigger and bigger units Such are the fruits of technology—and marketing!

Shapiro believes much good could come from an international crusade to solve energy problems and to take advantage of specific opportunities. Could be? Many of us will not be around to see even the first tangible effects of a transformation that will take a great number of years to counteract and balance what we—the superpower now irresolute and infirm before this energy enigma—have been enjoying lo these many decades—an unwise life style!

© 2009 Don Sheasley

Date: October 15, 2009.
Speaker: Ingrid Reed, Head of the New Jersey Project at Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers
Topic: The Coming election
Introduced By: Joe Katz

Prof. Reed introduced her organized and informative summary by noting that politics is a good thing, and continued with a brief review of current projects at Eagleton: a) student activity to encourage voting with its RU Voting? I am badge; b) a study of gubernatorial leadership; c) analysis of legislative action; d) CAWP the Center for American Women in Politics; and d) the NJ Project with a pilot on public funding of candidates, implementation of the HAVA act, and a task force on local government which she heads.

This is one of only two gubernatorial elections the year and it is complicated by: A. The current state of NJ, the US, and the world; change not necessarily for the better. The fiscal situation is very bleak with a 12% shortfall in the state budget. Little confidence that the national focus on health care will produce a good outcome. European election results and US Gallup polls indicate a shift of voters to the right.

B. Change in voter turnout and composition. In '08 75% of registered voters turned out and there was a 500,000 increase in the number of registered voters with more young and ethnic voters enrolled. Forty five percent indicated a preference: 25% Democrat, 20% Republican. Will the new voters show up in '09?

C. Why is this election different from all previous elections? What's new?
An incumbent is running for the first time since Whitman's narrow reelection.
We are voting for a Lt. Gov. for the first time.
A centrist Independent strong enough to garner public funding is running.

D. There are some new variations on old themes.
We now have mail in ballots that all voters may use and mail in early.
There are assembly races as well but except for Cape May they are not competitive. The lack of competition plus unwillingness of incumbents to debate makes for low turnout.
Media coverage. There are fewer newspapers and fewer reporters (who tend to be younger) and, although there has been good coverage of property taxes and positions in the race for governor, assembly races are barely mentioned. Networking plays a larger role but it only works if people are engaged.
Concern about ethics and corruption appears not to play a role in voter choice.
Fiscal situation. We need to get details on increasing efficiency and savings but candidates are not discussing the details or solutions.

Will the pattern hold? NJ has a tradition of close elections with the party of the winner being the reverse of the winner in the earlier Presidential race. Today people are not enamored of any of the candidates.

© 2009 Edith Neimark

Date: November 5, 2009
Speaker: Barry Rabner, President & CEO, Princeton Health Care System
Topic: Design For Healing
Introduced by: Mark Branon

Nationally recognized for its design to facilitate healing and excellence in the delivery of life-long health and wellness care and for its environmental features, the concept of the health campus—the UMC of Princeton at Plainsboro—is being materialized before our eyes on nearby US Route 1. Barry Rabner presented almost all we need to know about the process and the resulting structure and reported that the last steel goes up by 12/3 and that construction is on the mark for a Xmas 2011 move in. Most of the complex's features were listed in the Web page announcement of his speech: here we touch on a small portion of the projected "goodies" of the Center—amazingly good features that prompt one to hold off on any emergency runs to the Witherspoon site and to schedule any episode for the New Year month of 2012

Long months and years have gone into the design planning by the Community Board of the Center. No detail aiming to reduce medical error, to stymie spread of infection, to maximize stress relief/personal comfort for everyone, etc.—all studied with high attention to cost effectiveness—was allowed to be ignored. Surveys and studies were done over several years with some interesting and telling results: 70% of clients now come not from the Princeton's but rather from the communities East of Rt.1; 25,000 ER visits are done per year; to revamp Rt.1 at the new site with overpassing and/or clover leafs would cost $320 million; of 74 hospitals in NJ, one-half operate in the red; although Medicare pays for six months in Hospice, the average time spent is 7 days; 80% of hospital costs are determined by what is prescribed by doctors—almost ail independent providers; only 250 families are in the area of the current hospital.

Because the Witherspoon site could not meet long term needs without unbearable impact on the neighborhood/community, other sites, 14 in all, were examined in great detail, resulting in the selection of the Plainsboro site—50 acres in place of 9 acres. The Hospital building is designed to the height and density regs in Plainsboro. The patient tower comprised of 240 single bed rooms is expandable upward two more floors. The Acute Care unit, now 76 beds at Merwick, will house 200 beds—of great interest to SSPIusers in their geriatric years. A 36 acre parcel of 100,000 sq. ft. will house the Children's Hospital for Pediatric and Neonatal care. There will also be an Assisted Living facility and a Medical Suite building. Projecting 65,000 ER visits a year, the ER Department will be located with a Diagnostic Dept.—the ER to have its own equipment to monitor patients and a setup with specialized areas in the ER so that Heart episodes, for example, are separated from other triage needs. The whole building will be Wi-Fi'ed to enable even the most sophisticated equipment to be moved from room to room—thus obviating the logjams of having to wait in line for use of diagnostic units.

An intact 160,000 sq .ft. building was part of the purchase and is projected as a Fitness and/or Educational Center with 8 classrooms offering maximum flexibility and with a modern library with lots of electronics!!! Stepping to the fore of the Green Revolution, the design calls for power plant NRG co-generation: a 20% reduction in energy costs, a 50% reduction of carbon foot printing. A cooling water tower will be used with AC piping throughout the building. Windows with southern exposure—large and anesthetically pleasing by purpose—wilt use built-in technology for heat control. The expansive parking lot will have towers with photo electric capability through solar panels.

Then for the issues that affect us directly and personally as patients and family of patients—clients of the medical operation of this grand design: A concourse will serve to bring persons to the right special portals for their purposes. At each portal concierges will direct and computers will aid the visitor—registration will be done with computers. For infusion rooms seating will be heated; a healing garden will be available to view from the inside or stroll in outside—the goal to create a peaceful, stress-relieving atmosphere. Elevators will be color coded: the principle applied will be to leave by the same color elevator you came on. To make a Gurney ride flat on your back less stressful, corridor lighting will be skewed to the sides of the hallways, not overbearingly overhead. The OR's will increase from the current 350 sq. ft. to 650—with equipment in the OR at a minimum, computer rooms between OR's, and vocal control of lights, screens,, etc.

The coup de grace is the plan for patient rooms: standardized so that all look the same to reduce errors, each will be a single patient room to reduce infection potential and facilitate gathering of information from the patient no longer worried about privacy. Ail rooms will be canted to allow nurses to see the whole room through the window; all will have pullout couches and storage for family overnight use; each will have standard cabinets for supplies so that hunting and gathering time for nurses is minimized. Most important: the head of each bed will be right next to the toilet with a handrail to allow the patient to get there with less risk of falling. Sinks will be near the main door to remind personnel to sanitize hands coming in and going out!

How can the hospital justify single patient rooming? Studies find that it IS cost effective: NO matching of patients is necessary—NO waiting for a room—NO concern for privacy issues—NO need to move patients for tests to other areas: all self contained. Labor and delivery in the Neonatal unit will occur in the same room, and baby and mother to be in the single patient room: studies show that babies bloom better in that setting.

Some strong questioning about the UMC moving out of Princeton proper—not the Postal area—and the troubles for getting east across the Harrison St.-RT.1 intersection brought an almost satisfactory response from Rabner. There will be modification at the crossing: a left-turn lane from Harrison to hopefully cut the cycle from 9 to 1; more importantly for EMS ambulance service, the traffic lights will be computerized so that traffic on Route 1can be stopped by EMS to clear the passage to the hospital site. Use of a Helipad is projected to be 2 or 3 flights per week, not having much of a deleterious effect on the neighborhood. Rabner suggested that costs for the next ten years would be reduced 5%; he indicated that sale of the current site and $96 million in Philanthropy will keep the UMC in good straits into the foreseeable future. Bus routes will directly serve the facility: allowing those employees and volunteers who use public transportation to continue to serve at the medical center. He hopes fervently that the 1000 plus volunteers and 3000 employees will make the short move to the new hospital-reminding us that many will have a shorter trip than they now do. Whatever the trip to this facility is for each of us in need of its services, the detailed design and planning should make it a more positive experience than it might otherwise be!

© 2009 Don Sheasley