What the USA can learn from Europe.

Having just returned from three weeks vacation (holiday) in Croatia and northeast Italy, combined with my other trips to the European continent, I can clearly say that America needs to wake up and join the rest of the world in many areas.

As with my other visits the amount of renewable energy production in Europe is growing rapidly. The use of wind farms and solar collection is amazing. In Denmark and Germany I saw huge number of wind generators. Denmark and I think Germany have a program that farmers who have relatively consistent and adequate wind can get financial assistance to erect one or more wind generators that then hook into the power grid. The farmer earns money from selling the electricity to the grid and part of that profit pays for the wind generator and the rest in his/her pocket. This has encouraged the expansion of wind turbine power generation.

During this last trip I noticed that many farmers had several acres of land with large panels of photoelectric cells that produce power for the grid. Also there was more homes and businesses that had some form of solar collection system, be it hot water or photocells. Since most building in Europe still use hot water radiant heat for heating, it make good sense to use solar collectors to heat the water when the sun is available.

The other striking thing that Europeans do that we don't is preserve our historic buildings. We are so quick to tear down a building that does not suit us at the time. I know we don't have the incredible history that Europe does, but still we don't preserve what we have for future generations. I do also understand that most of what we built in the west in the expansion period was made of wood and not well made, thus they easily fall apart if not well maintained, which many have not been.

I also see stronger sense of community in most cities in Europe. The people are very happy to have a conversation with you. There is still person to person communications, though that is slowly changing with each new generation. The digital age is also impacting their culture as well, but not as rapidly as here.

One of the biggest social element that is very obvious is their maturity toward alcoholic beverage consumption and nudity. Again, every grocery store or convenience store sold alcoholic beverages and adult entertainment material, such as magazines and DVDs. Not hidden under the counter, but in full display and available for purchase.

You see both in advertising be it broadcast, billboards, or print. Sexuality is not a big deal either, as it is normal human behavior, so don't get upset when it happens, consensually that is.

It just shows me how up-tight Americans are and especially Utahns. Take for example the crusade by several parents near Ogden to have a "Doctor John" billboard taken down. The story in the Standard Examiner states:

WEST HAVEN -- A Plain City woman says a lingerie billboard between the 12th and 21st street exits on Interstate 15 is inappropriate for public viewing and should be changed.

The billboard, which features a woman lying in a seductive pose and wearing a skimpy outfit, advertises for Dr. John's Lingerie, a sexually oriented business with stores across the country, including one in Roy.

Plain City resident Martha Bodily thinks the sign is inappropriate and is trying to rally support to get the billboard removed.

Because the billboard is within West Haven city limits, Bodily attended a recent West Haven City Council meeting to express her concerns.

 Here is the billboard they are talking about:

Now here is a billboard that I shot in Split Croatia:

Sorry for the reflection of the car window, we were driving as I noticed this ad that is on the side of an entire building. No big deal to the people there. I do think that the people of Europe and more recently of the old Soviet empire are very aware of what censorship can be under authoritarian governments. So they are much more tolerant about actual free speech. However, there are some restrictions in all countries.

I also think that since there are large quantities of art in the public square that contain nudity and suggestive poses, they are not as stimulated by nudity as Americans are. It is much more natural, even in the very religious Italy. In fact you can see lots of boobs and penises in the giant cathedrals and even the small church hidden in a side street. Believe me, there are churches every few meters (feet) in the old towns in both Italy and Croatia. One particular one had a painting of Mary breast feeding Jesus as he holds his penis.

We really need to grow up regard such things. One has to enjoy life and acknowledge reality rather than trying to hide from it.

One other thing that is very noticeable is the concern about global warming and the events of climate change. In Venice for example is experiencing daily flooding of many of their piazzas as the ancient drainage system that is suppose to drain the rain water off the hard surfaces of the buildings and piazzas are now backing up with the rising sea level and higher tides as a result. Many building are being flooding almost daily on their first floor. In many of the other coastal towns both in Italy and Croatia they are concerned about what is happening as it threatens their cities and way of life. The farmers are very aware as the rains are not as frequent. In Croatia they had not had rain since January and it was hotter than normal. Finally they got a few showers just as we were leaving Dubrovnik around the 20th of September. The forests were very dry and they have had many forest fires. Crops have died and they are now in need of importing more food. Italy was reporting the same events.

Now the conservatives in the USA have their heads in the sand, well actually they have their pockets full of money from the big polluters so they will put their heads in the sand and say nothings is happening, its just natural. I did notice that the air was much cleaner this time in Italy than when we were last there several decades ago. Yes they still use a lot of diesel for transportation, but the new cars and big trucks use it much cleaner and they have more vehicle that use natural gas for fuel. I also saw a lot more all electric cars there. They were small, much like the Smart Car we see here, but battery only. It makes sense since they only travel short distances most of the time in the car and us mass transit for longer trips.

I do think some of the reasons the Europeans do have a bit more healthy lifestyle is that they of course walk more, as you have to in the narrow streets of the old cities and the use of public mass transit. Also they purchase their perishables nearly daily. They eat a lot more fruit and vegetables than we do. And a lot less red meat, since it is so expensive. Farming practices over there use less pesticides and more organic type farming, so much of the vegetables are fresh from the nearby farmers fields. But that is changing also as more and more multinational corporations are renting farms and turning them into food factories as they have here in the USA. Archer Midland Daniels and ConAgra are two of the biggest here in the USA. I don't know about in Europe, but I would assume as such.

With that said, they do smoke a lot more than we do now. Especially the kids. I was rather taken aback by the number of very young kids smoking openly, so I assume they don't have age restrictions of smoking. That is going to be a big problem for them and the country in the future. Also the influx of American fast food companies is growing. I didn't see as many as I've seen in Germany and Denmark, but there were McDonald's signs along the road. Some health minister of the EU blames these companies for the "enlarging" of the population and causing higher health care costs to their socialized systems. Germany recently released a study that said that many young people are not frequenting the nude beaches as much because they don't want to be seen with the extra pounds they have acquired from the fast food they eat. They do reappear at the nude beaches when they get older and let all the fat hang out. I can say that is true from personal experience there.

So the world has gotten much smaller and we as a globe need to work toward making the earth healthier and the people living on it healthier. We do need to overhaul our political systems to better deal with the critical issues that are facing all nations on earth.

That's my thoughts for today...

People with dyslexia have a hard time recognizing voices, researchers say

Washington • Pick up the phone and hear, “Hey, what’s up?” Chances are, those few words are enough to recognize who’s speaking — perhaps unless you have dyslexia.

In a surprise discovery, researchers found adults with that reading disorder also have a hard time recognizing voices.

The work isn’t just a curiosity. It fits with research to uncover the building blocks of literacy and how they can go wrong. The eventual goal: To spot at-risk youngsters even before they open “Go, Dog, Go!” in kindergarten — instead of diagnosing dyslexia in a struggling second-grader.

“Everybody is interested in understanding the root cause of dyslexia, so we can intervene early and do something about it,” says Massachusetts Institute of Technology cognitive neuroscientist John Gabrieli, senior author of the study published last week in the journal Science. 

Dyslexia is thought to affect 8 to 15 percent of Americans, who can have great difficulty reading and writing. It’s not a problem with intelligence or vision. Instead, it’s language-based. The brain struggles with what’s called “phonological processing” — being able to distinguish and manipulate sounds, like “bah” and “pah,” that eventually have to be linked to written letters and words.

A graduate student in Gabrieli’s lab wondered if dyslexia would impair voice recognition as well. After all, subtle differences in pronunciation help distinguish people.

How to test that? Previous studies have shown it’s easier to recognize voices if they’re speaking your own language. So the researchers recruited English-speaking college students and young adults, half with dyslexia, half without. They watched animated characters — like a clown, a mechanic, a soccer player — speaking either English or Chinese, to get familiar with how they sounded.

Then came the test, to match a voice to its character. The volunteers correctly identified the Chinese speakers only about half the time, regardless of whether they had dyslexia. But when they heard English speakers, people with dyslexia still were right only half the time — while the non-dyslexics did far better, identifying 70 percent of the voices correctly.

That provides further evidence of dyslexia’s strong link to phonological impairment.

Perhaps more importantly, it’s a cleverly designed project that begs the question of whether voice recognition is a problem in young children, too, says Florida State University psychology professor Richard Wagner, who studies how to identify dyslexia early.

Gabrieli says he plans to test 5-year-olds.

Today, researchers know that children who are more phonologically aware when they enter kindergarten have a better shot at easy reading. One way to check that: See how they’re able to delete sounds from words — ask them to quickly say “cowboy” without the “boy.” Wagner says a child who answers such tasks correctly probably is developing fine. One who fails doesn’t necessarily have problems but merely could have misunderstood or not wanted to play along. He says more clear-cut methods are needed.

Differences in brain-processing show up even in infants, says Patricia Kuhl of the University of Washington, who studies how babies learn language.

A colleague in her lab tested how well babies could distinguish “ah” and “ee” sounds between ages 7 months and 11 months of age. Those who did best wound up with bigger vocabularies and better pre-reading skills, such as rhyming, by their fifth birthdays. That doesn’t mean they’ll go on to experience dyslexia, but it does show how very early development can play a role in reading-readiness.

But Kuhl says the voice-recognition study has broader implications for brain science. It shows that for split-second recognition, the brain’s social-oriented right side works together with the speech-perception region of the left brain. People with dyslexia apparently are missing out on some of that interaction.

That interaction, too, begins to appear early. At age 7 months, babies listening to recordings of their native language can recognize if there’s a change in speakers, but they miss that speaker change if they’re listening to a foreign language, she says. Scientists now have to figure out that neural wiring to learn how it goes awry.

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Personal Note:  I've been plagued by this problem all my life. I've always had a hard time understanding simple things. In school I could not understand what the teacher was saying much of the time, it didn't make sense to me. My parents purchased these phonics records to see if it would improve my ability to discern words. Sorry to say it didn't help. I can't always make out the lyrics of songs.

For example: When UPS introduced their "It's Logistics" campaign with a song as the whole audio, I couldn't understand what they were singing and how it related to UPS. I had to sit down in front of the TV and listen very carefully, concentrating very hard on the song. Then as the graphic tag at the end come up "Logistics" then, and only then could I recognize that word in the song and then it started to make sense to me.

It also creates problems with speech in as much as you learn words improperly because you don't hear them the same as everyone else. so when you talk you mispronounce words or your brain will replace the word with a similar sounding word. It it horrifying when you are talking to an educated person that knows you are talking poorly. Your mind knows that you spoke the word wrong and even when you try to say the correct word, your mouth will not cooperate, it will say something completely different.

Reading was very difficult and still is. I struggle everyday. When I was in second grade, the teacher had me evaluated by a specialist to see if I was "Retarded" and should I be institutionalized in the state hospital for the mentally retarded, as they called it back then. But the specialist said that I was not retarded and had a higher IQ than normal. So I was not shipped off to American Fork Mentally Handicapped Hospital to live my life out.

One of the careers school councilors would say I should go into was radio or television because my voice has the ideal sound for such use. But I was scared to death to even think about it, because I knew I would screw up words, have a hard time reading the text on air and that would just be too much. I shrunk away from seeking such a career. Yes, I  would have loved to be a TV news anchor, reporter, or DJ. But since I couldn't read well, hear things clearly, or speak correctly all the time, that was out of the question.

Even learning sentence structure didn't make sense to me, because my brain would screw it up as the teacher was trying to teach us. I struggled and struggled all through school. I wanted to learn, but it became increasingly frustrating trying to keep up and pass the tests. It literally wore me out emotionally. By the end of school, I was drained. Even today, I will come home and just be so tired from dealing with this inflection that all I want to do is sleep for awhile to recover some energy. I don't, I keep on going and then maybe crash on the couch much later while Judy is still working on her charts.

Dyslexia is a horrible inflection from birth and throughout your life. I would hope that researchers can find a way to correct this problem early so those of us who want to excel can do so without the huge struggle everyday.

Slipping through our fingers.

Recently there was great movement to abandon Don't Ask, Don't Tell in the military. The lower courts ruled it unconstitutional, but the appellate court has place a permanent injunction on that rule, so we are back to enforcement of the old DADT policy.

There is the defense appropriations bill pending in the Senate that has a section that does away with the DADT policy, upon the approval of the military. However, the Republicans have filibustered the bill and won't let it come to the floor until that section is removed.

It is unlikely that Harry Reid can get it passed during the lame duck session and will not get it passed in the next Congress in January. Unless the Justice Department asks the appellate court to remove the injunction and affirm the lower court decision, it will be another decade before equality is realized in the military.

Like wise in the equal right for marriage, Iowa voters removed three state supreme court justices for their vote to legalize equal marriage. This is a big shock to the judiciary who is suppose to be relatively immune from social and political pressures in ruling on constitutional law. To now have the threat of loss of your job because outside religious organization pushed with political ads to rile up the religious right believers and execute this type of blackmail is unnerving.

We are truly loosing our separation of power structure to insure the rights of the minority are protected against the tyranny of the majority.

There have been many ancient and current seers and other prophetic writing that have predicted our great republic would be destroyed within and this would happen around 2012. Can these prophecies be right? Is the great cosmic alignment causing such a major change in our gravitational and electrical stability that it has effected our mental ability to reason? Are we doomed to destruction?

Why are so many Americans still dutiful to a book written in a period of ignorance thousands of years ago and forsaking scientific evidence and logic of the 21st century? Why do they discard the writings of ancient Greece and Rome as mythological and false, but accept their Bible as absolute fact?

If we continue down this path of insanity, I hope that there is a calamity in 2012 that wipes man from the earth. We no longer deserve to exist if we have no regard for it or the all the other living things upon it or in living in collective civilized societies which respects humanity for the betterment of all mankind.

Stop Gay Bullying

MUST WATCH VIDEO Joel Burns tells gay teens "it gets better"

Denver Vs the Tea Party & Salt Lake

I'm sitting in my hotel room in downtown Denver Colorado. Denver has become a rather progressive and diverse city. There is the 16 street mall, which is a street through downtown closed to cars and only free buses drive up and down it at very short intervals. The center of the street is a pedestrian walk area with trees, plants, benches, lights, and many small kiosks of food and various products vendors. There are several old upright pianos there for anyone to play. Some just pound the keys with garbage, but others are very talented and draw a crowd to enjoy the music. There are artists painting, and musicians playing for dollars in the hat. Most are very good at their music. Many of these gifted people are homeless people, who mix freely with the shoppers, diners, and workers filling the street. It is a very active street, even into the night. The street is lined with cafes, restaurants, shops and department stores. The buses are natural gas and electric hybrid units with several doors that allow easy on and off. There is appropriate police presence to keep order in check. It is a very lively place, even on Saturday. The sounds of people talking and singing, the whirr of the electric buses, the quaint clanging of a bell when the bus close their doors like an old trolley, the smell of food and fun fills the air.

There is a parking lot near the convention center at the 16 street mall that has fenced off part of it for a Farmer's Market. During the lunch hour there are local farmers and vendors setup for the lunch crowd and on weekends they are there all day. There seems to be plenty of people to fill all the eateries, as I seldom saw one empty and during the slowest periods maybe a third filled. It makes you wonder where all the office workers in Salt Lake eat during their lunch break.

Denver has two very progressive transportation initiatives. One is Car Share that are new Toyota Priuses that are driven by car poolers of four or more from the suburbs to assigned free parking spaces on the street in downtown. Of course the users pay a small fee to cover the cost, but it is much cheaper than each of them driving their own separate cars to work every day. During the day, a business can use the car for a short trip, also at a low cost. The benefit of course is the lower emissions to keep the air cleaner and the lower fuel consumption. Another project is bicycle share. Again there are several locations around downtown with bicycles that if you belong to the share system can take and ride to your next location and turn in the bike.

Denver also has light rail and bus service throughout the city and surrounding suburbs. I would not say it is perfect by any means, but very effective.

With this all said, the Tea Party Republican candidate running to unseat Senator Mike Bennett is pointing to these projects as examples of a communist plot perpetrated by the United Nations to socialize America and create a one world order controlled by the U.N.  He is attacking Senator Bennett for obtaining some federal matching transportation funds to pay for the cars, bikes, and the light rail, therefore Bennett is a communist socialist under the control of the U.N. This idiot's idea is that any public transportation system is a means to socialism and takes freedom of travel away from the individual. What rock did this brain dead person crawl out from under. How can such nuts rise to the level of running for the Senate??? Wow - America is in trouble.

One can see why Denver has attracted so many businesses and expanded so rapidly compared to Salt Lake. If you visit downtown Salt Lake, it is very quiet compared to Denver, having very few cafes, and of the ones we do have, only a few have open air tables on the street. Nearly every one of them along 16 Street  in Denver does. At night Salt Lake is like a ghost town. Salt Lake should look at its sister city in the Rocky Mountain West and emulate some of the progressive ideas they have come up with. But that would require the LDS church to approve such programs and allowing a higher density of drinking establishments within a block than now allowed, as well as more licenses for all the establishments that need them.

I can see why visitors are shocked at how clean our streets are. That's because there is no one on them to dirty them up. I must say though the streets here in Denver are also very clean, except for the many black spots of gum people have spit out. But you find that in every city and it is costly to cleaned up. But if you have very few people on the streets, then there is less of it.

I'm very impressed with the convention center. It is very modern with a lot of high tech features. Much like I proposed to the management of the Salt Palace, but they turned down. They have digital signage kiosks everywhere, touch screens for finding locations within the center and others for what's available around the city. The big ball room is named Korbel for the wine company. There are fixed cafes and food kiosks through out the center. Several serve alcoholic beverages. There are plenty of seating areas to relax between sessions and a huge exhibit hall as well. The light rail system stops right in front of the center as well as the bus system and plenty of taxi cabs and peddle cabs. Built into the convention center is a very large auditorium that can hold thousands with a huge stage and high tech projection screens, lights and audio systems. It was very impressive. The two large ball rooms could be broken down into many small or medium size breakout rooms. It was easy to find your way around, unlike the Salt Palace.

Judy and I are attending the annual American Academy of Family Physicians Scientific Assembly. The attendance is in the thousands, so they need a very large venue and lots of hotel rooms. Salt Lake does not meet their need. One thing about this organization is they have many fun activities for the whole family at night. We went to the Natural History and Science Museum. Wow it was very interactive and used a lot of the high tech display systems I've proposed to many of Utah's museums, but funds did not permit. It was very hands on and museum people with functional displays everywhere to give you more information and interact with the kids.

I must say I'm very impressed with Denver.

Our new family member. We adopted Cody a week ago. He is from an animal rescue group that we got Sunni from. He is about the same age as Sunni, 4 years old. He is a sweetheart. He is a little larger and heavier than Sunni, but their colors are very similar. They get along very well, play a lot and chase each other around the back yard. They do compete for attention, but we try to shell that out evenly.

Tears and heart ache, the passage of life.

Today is not a joyous day for me. A day when children and adults let their hair down and have fun. For us dog lovers, and I assume cat and other pet lovers, can have a bond that runs very deep, especially for those of us who do not have human children.  We dress them up in costumes for Halloween and Christmas and talk to them like humans.

However, today I had to make a very hard decision about what I considered my child, Toby, my 16 year old Schnauzer, to put him down today. These decisions are always deep in emotion and so very difficult to make. This is the third loving dog I've had to put down in my adult life. Hush Puppy reached an old age for a large dog of 15 years and crippled with hip displasia, Tyler was 11 years old and had diabetes and seizures that destroyed his cognitive part of his brain. An now today, it was Toby's time. Two years ago at Thanksgiving, he awoke from a very deep sleep and was unable to stand up, walk, and eat. He had a stroke. With a little time and therapy,  he recovered much of his abilities, tho he still would walk in circles and had to concentrate hard to walk straight. There was a time he reached about 90% of his old self. But this last year he has gradually lost strength in his rear legs and the past month unable to get himself up and would fall when trying to walk. Last night I spent the night helping him up and steadying him so he could eat, drink, pee and poop. It was obvious that he had reached the limit of his abilities.

What makes it especially hard is that mentally he was still a young dog and so wanted to jump and play. He would get excited when I came home from work, trying to get up and jump to greet me, only to fall on his side and not be able to get up without some help. He still liked to sleep on my chest and at times watch TV. That is what makes it so much harder say good bye. It was very much the same when my father was ill and I had to say good bye to him the night he died.

It is hard to express the relationship one has with a pet. They are always there to comfort you, entertain you, and love you, unconditionally. Toby was the runt of the litter and fought hard for his place at the dinner table. We knew the moment we saw him that he had something special about him, he was a fighter. He was only 8 weeks old. We took him to Island Park in Idaho for a fun weekend at a friends cabin. While in West Yellowstone, females would come up to me as I held him in the palm of my hand wanting to pet him and ah and goo over him. He loved the attention, as much as I did. A few months after we got him, we could see he needed a friend to play with while we were at work. So we brought home another Schnauzer named Tyler. At first the two fought for the Alpha dog position and little Toby won that argument. Tyler was happy with his place in the pack and I made sure he got as much attention as Toby. Even though Toby was the alpha dog, he loved to be chased by Tyler, who was a bit smarter than Toby. Tyler would get him running in circles around the couch, then Tyler would stop and Toby would continue with a couple of laps, until Tyler would jump him as he went by. They were the best of friends. After Tyler died, Toby settled in for quieter times. I was never as good as Tyler in chasing him or play fighting, but it was acceptable. Like most dogs, he loved to go for rides in the car or camping in the motor home. If we opened the door and said "Let's go" he would be right there in the car ready for a new adventure. When he was a puppy, I would put him on my lap as I worked at my computer. As he grew, it became more difficult, but he would do his best to sleep on my lap. Eventually he was too heavy for that so he ended up sleeping at my feet in my office. I will miss this little dog. He gave me so much love and comfort. But I know his energy is with Tyler, Hush Puppy and Dad, so I will feel their energy when I sleep. 

Some people look at me strangely because to them an animal is just that. But I know there can be this very special bond between dogs and humans that has led to the old saying "Man's best friend."

So if you see me mopping around or crying, this is the reason for it.

I thank all our friends who have looked after Toby through out the years and during our last vacation. I know it was not easy. I also thank all of you for your support and love.

Judy and I will get another companion next spring. It is easier to house train them in warmer weather than in the winter. What kind I'm not sure. It will be a small one again, maybe Schnauzers, but Judy doesn't like their barking and disobedient nature. She wants one that is more trainable to be calm around strangers. I like Schnauzers because they are so affectionate and playful. But at times hard to keep up with as we get older ourselves.