Personal Blog

If this election hadn't already caused me to change my party registration, today's news would.  Across the country today, we are waking up to find out that someone seeking leadership of the Republic Party sent as Christmas gifts a CD containing a "parody" challenging whether the President-elect is sufficiently black.  While I've always been a proponent of free speech, I am also a proponent of judgment. 

Since the election, many have expressed concern that Senator Obama could not possibly live up to the expectations of the elecorate. I have repeatedly responded that he could live up to the promise of civility and that this alone would be enough. In his book "The Audacity of Hope," the President-Elect repeatedly talks about the loss of our ability to have vigorous political debate and remain civil at the same time. As someone who has worked in the government policy arena, this resonated deeply with me. And, his announced nominees for leadership roles shows he intends to follow through with this promise.  

In fairness, it is not all Republicans who think that this song is funny or appropriate.  Others have already made public rebukes.  But, at a time when the mere fact of Senator Obama's leading candidacy began the healing of old wounds and showed that equal opportunity has meaning, those like Chip Saltsman (who sent it) and Rush Limbaugh (who reportedly played it on the air last year) seem bent on keeping division alive. They should be ashamed.

A year ago, I wrote a blog about wealth in the United States.  In light of the current economic crisis, I thought I'd revisit the topic.  I couldn't find hard numbers out this quickly, so this is just some extrapolating done with what I could find. 

Last year, 10% of households earned more than $100,000.  I haven't been able to find anything that says what percentage of this year's layoffs are affecting these higher income earners.  But, the ABA Journal articles I'm reading seem to indicate that lawyers are only about 1 in 10 of the layoffs in big law firms.  If that layoff ratio is the same in other industries, it's likely that the number of households earning more than $100,000 probably still falls between 9 and 10 percent. 

Last year, the top 9% of households had $1 million in net worth, not counting their houses.  So, the fact that their houses are worth about 20% less this year probably doesn't keep them out of the top.   And, even though about 8,000 houses worth $1million or more were in foreclosure by September, that's still a drop in the bucket, less than 1/10 of 1% of wealthy households.

Where the wealthy are most likely seeing the economic slump is in their savings.  These folks, with more than $1 million, were an average age of 58 last year.  If they're following popular asset allocation strategies, that means they had between 25% and 40% in forms of saving that haven't diminished this year.  But, that also means they had between 60% and 75% of their savings in investments that have lost lots of value.  If they were conservatively invested in the Dow (down 36%  - 8635 today divided by 14445 a year ago) or an S&P 500 fund (down about 42%), they've lost anywhere between$216,000 (36% of $600,000) and $315,000 (42% of $750,000).  Neither the traditional strategies nor most people I've ever met are that conservative, so it's likely that they've lost a bit more.  So, I'm guessing that the top 9% are no longer holding assets (excluding houses) worth over $1 million, but rather have something over $725,000.

The losses of the wealthy may seem pretty irrelevant to everyone else, but these losses may impact others.  A year ago, it was considered reasonable to achieve 10% return on investments.  That means these households could have had $100,000 in income from their savings beyond what they might be earning or receive from social security (nearly half were retired).  With investments losing capital value and producing minimal income, many people will choose not to take any money out of investment accounts, in the hopes of regaining their former value.  That means that this 9% of the population won't be putting $8,000 a month each into the economy.  That's a lot less goods and services being purchased, and unfortunately a lot more layoffs rippling through the economy.   

Wow!  I just came out of the preview of Slumdog Millionaire, which will open on Wednesday.  This film combines the world's stereotypical vision of India's squalor and struggle with the extraordinary tidal wave of hope that possesses India today.  It offers the sleek and familiar backdrop of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" juxtaposed with the jumble of color, movement, and sound that makes India so enticing; so visually rich you can nearly smell the cardamon and jasmine!  A larger-than-life story about good versus darkest evil, so filled with details and surprises, it will impress any viewer.  Danny Boyle, director of Trainspotting and a number of other award winners, has created what promises to be a blockbuster.

It's one of life's little mysteries. Why do all women's pants gap in the back? I've been thin and not thin, hourglass and not hourglass, but always, the pants gap in the back. I thought it was just me, but then I went shopping a slender size 0 woman the other day; she put on the snuggest pair of jeans -- snug leg, snug hips, snug zipper -- yet still, there was a gap in the back.

Google provides 150 items in response to a search for "gap in the back" and women's pants. A few are manufacturers who've claimed to solve the problem. Wrangler says the answer is to have a curved waistband. Lands End says the answer is "a trimmer waist."

Most of the items are consumer comments -- reviews, bulletin boards, and blogs. The consumer comments reveal that there might not be a single answer. Two of four comments about Cabela's Jeanos say they don't gap in the back, but the other two say they do. One person who had a poor fit said the problem applied to the long-waisted. But other blogs say it's caused by being an hourglass. It sounds like the problem is created when a particular pair of pants doesn't match a particular body shape.

I've written before about the fact that women's clothes aren't consistently sized, making online shopping particularly challenging. And, I've written about two services (MyShape and SizeMeUp) that try to help women address the problem. While researching the gap-in-the-back problem I fell upon another service -- zafu.

I hadn't heard of it before, but zafu looks like a great website that helps women find jeans, pants, and bras that fit. zafu takes an interesting and different approach from it's two competitors. Like its competitors, zafu  asks questions about measurements, but different from them, it also asks about your age, your style, and your shape.  It's suggestions should offer something that fits, is age appropriate and is consistent with your taste. The site is powered by the algorithms of a sister company, Archetype Solutions (which is designed to let people buy customized clothes).

Both the zafu and Archetype websites looked a little old ... blogs ending last fall; so I did a little more checking. zafu raised another round of funding last fall. And, Archetype is now powering a company called DNA Wear. There seems to be some activity going on behind the scenes (job postings, etc), so I think there will be some exciting enhancements coming soon.  Definitely keep an eye on this company.  They might yet solve the gap in the back problem!

April 2008

Apologies. This is a post from July 2007 that I have updated. Unfortunately, today, I made a wrong choice with the software and it is treating it as a new post. I'm hoping it doesn't break the links and subscriptions for everyone.

I have posted a new chart of all the comments received through the end of March. Click here to see it. If you want to see all the posts on HPV vaccine look at the bottom half of the far right column (it has the topics for all the blogs in this Personal Blog) and click on HPV vaccine.

I'm also adding a new request for folks who write in. I've started getting comments posted by girls and women who say they haven't had a problem or only had a little soreness from the vaccine. To those people I ask, how did you find this site? I'm really curious to find out how the word is beginning to reach people who haven't had a problem. Please share where/how did you hear that there's an issue?

Last, my condolences to Crista Valdez who wrote in a few days ago; her daughter died in her sleep last August. Our hearts go out to you.

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January 2008

See my new blogs about side effects reported in Australia

and

the Associated Press story that says the problem is just sore arms.

NEW - December 21, 2007

I've been contacted by a reporter who would like to talk to those of you who've had or observed these side effects. His name is Tom Grant and his is editor of MetroSpirit, the alternative paper in Augusta, GA. Please contact him directly at tom.grant@metrospirit.com.

Also, he's sent me some information about reporting on these problems from Australia. I'll post them soon.

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NEW - Sept. 16, 2007 - Let's help solve the mystery of HPV Vaccine side effects!

I've been surprised by how many of you have submitted comments and distressed by how many have suffered serious reactions. I'm not a medical scientist, but I think maybe we can use this blog to help researchers figure out what's going wrong. Based upon suggestions in the comments, I'm asking - from now on - if you're willing, when you write a comment, include the following:
your age,
your weight category (thin, medium, heavy),
anything you're allergic to (like eggs, dogs, dust, or medicines),
whether the reaction came with the 1st, 2nd or 3rd shot,
what other vaccines you had at the same time, and
the reaction you had
Most of you already include most of these things.
I promise to post another blog here with a chart that I'll keep updated and maybe we'll see a possible correlation. It should be up in about two days.

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UPDATE - Sept. 30th - I've posted a separate blog entry with a chart.

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Original post:


Today, I received a horrifying response to an earlier blog asking if we shouldn't know more about the long-term risks of the HPV vaccine before mandating that it be given to all young girls:

I've written before about the challenge to consistently and easily find women's clothing that fits.  Women's clothing has none of the standard sizing that makes shopping for a man relatively quick and painless.  My prior posts on this topic have gotten some attention, so I thought I'd point out two companies trying to address the problem. 

The good news for consumers is that manufacturers and retailers are beginning to think about transparency for sizing...letting you have some way to know what the actual dimensions of a piece of clothing are.  Now that clothing sales are moving to the internet, clothing has a 14% return rate, approximately double the return rate of other items.  This costs sellers money (postage, restocking, staleness) and they know if may affect repeat business.  Two relatively young companies are taking slightly different approaches to the problem. 

My Shape focuses on the idea that women fall into a small number of body shapes and recommends clothing based upon your shape and personal measurements that you submit to them online.  The shapes are their new names and descriptions for the old apple, pear, hourglass sorts of shapes.  The biggest drawbacks here seem to be getting people to get their measurements right and any privacy issues related to someone else holding your personal measurements.

Size Me Up asks people to submit brand, size, and measurements of favorite clothes in the closet and then plans to tell them which size will be right in something they're perusing online.  The drawback here, as well, is relying on the public to provide consistent measurements.

I have some doubts about any model that requires the customers to provide crucial data.  Both of these companies appear able to attract a loyal fan base, but I suspect that both may be overtaken by one that figures out how to address the problem without making the customers part of the labor force.

MacBook AIR, an ultralight Apple laptop was announced today!

See a description and photos courtesy of Infosync.

PROS:

• fast (1.6 or 1.8GHz)
• 2GB RAM
  
• 80GB drive (larger than the 40GB I  saw predicted a few weeks ago) or 64GB solid state.
• built in camera, microphone, and speaker. 
  
• Wifi and Bluetooth, of course.

CONS:

• only an audio jack, so no ability to use high-quality plug-in headphones with Dolby mic for Skype calling (my favorite on the road)
• only one USB port
• 5 hour battery
• no ethernet (doesn't matter to me, but others are already writing about it)

TOSS UP:

• 3 pounds - my Dell is 2 pounds, but the transformers have always weighed a ton on Dell power cords and been super light on Apple, so this might be even carrying weight

I've been writing about a number of topics under different pages and, now that I've had a hard look at traffic statistics, I'm going to do some reorganizing.  

I'm working out the details to make sure I don't lose any past posts and that favorite links stay the same.  

Stay tuned!!!

I am astounded to see this AP article in today's news, sold to and reprinted/reposted in a ton of major media outlets today. It talks about how the HPV vaccine is just a little painful and that teens pass out from needles anyway. I'm shocked by the lack of research that clearly went into this piece and the apparent decrease in editorial oversight since the days when I was employed at a major metropolitan daily newspaper.

This website alone has lots of horrifying stories that are far worse than a little arm soreness:

My blog on reports from Australia

including reports of seizure and temporary paralysis

My chart of comments that have been posted to my blog

(though I can't keep up)

My first blog on side effects

with many comments submitted with stories.

Just today someone posted a story about his daughter developing Guillian Barre syndrome after the shot.

If you are frustrated by this information not getting out, please post this blog and anything else on topic to digg, reddit, technorati, etc.

I am sending an email to AP Medical editor now.