An exam glove is utilized by medical professionals to conduct examinations without contaminating the sample or patient as well as themselves. Most such exam gloves used to be produced out of rubber latex, but the chances of allergic reactions has made the likes of neoprene and nitrile, the materials of choice for many modern medical exam glove. It’s practically impossible to tell them apart at first glance, however each presents its own unique characteristics that make some individuals prefer one over the other.
The typical exam glove nowadays is made of synthetic rubber that tends to cost much more than natural latex alternatives, a concern in these recessionary times when even famous hospitals like Saint Vincent’s in the Bronx, New York can shutter because of financial difficulties.
In addition, something like nitrile rubber has second-rate strength and flexibility when compared to natural rubber, though it is more resistant to oils and acids. Neoprene, on the other hand, resists burning far better and will frequently be found inside the weather stripping applied to fire doors as well as in the examination gloves of a healthcare provider.
Exam gloves were first instituted with William Stewart Halsted’s 1890 practice of using rubber gloves that protect healthcare workers from skin exposure to carbolic acid, a necessary sterilizing agent. Carbolic acid, or phenol, was adopted originally by Sir Joseph Lister for use in antiseptic surgery, but skin irritation lead to the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company’s invention of a rubber glove that could withstand the organic compound.
Interestingly, latex gloves are still much preferred in surgery today because of the fine control and greater sensitivity they offer. The one exception to this fact is the polyisoprene glove, but these are more than twice as expensive as their organic latex counterparts, and as mentioned previously, hospitals have now become really cost-sensitive environments.
Wine holders hold wine. They store and organize wine, and could be made of any number of various materials in any number of various sizes. Also recognized as wine racks, large ones could be found in a professional wine cellar while a lot smaller designs may be wall-mounted in the kitchen to conveniently display an amateur collection.
These latter kinds will at times incorporate wine glasses for a combination rack that holds both drink and implement. Speaking of which, the truest wine holder of all is probably one’s own mouth! But for creative aesthetics, nothing beats the man-made versions. Those constructed from metal are particularly imaginative.
The material itself provides for the greatest amount of imagination, allowing as it does fluid sinuous designs difficult or even impossible to achieve with any wood or stone. Numerous are very whimsical, such as a widespread favorite where thin metal spirals hold wine bottles upside-down in a haphazard manner suggestive of intoxication!
Individual who take their wines, and thus their display, seriously enough to consider such devices (as opposed to just putting them on a shelf in the fridge or pantry) will usually favor wood due to the role it plays in formulating the flavor of many wines.
After all, wines are aged in wooden caskets for just that all-important reason, and several winemakers are even so careful as to factor in the species of wood used for their bottle corks! Thus the bestselling designs are still wooden, even in the most modern of decors where chrome or stainless steel predominate.
Storing wine is really a serious affair if you care about taste. Ambient lighting and even the very angle at which bottles may be tilted during storage are said to help create the flavor of a wine. Keeping your wine in a manner that both highlights the beauty of their bottling while protecting or aiding the creation of their flavors can be difficult, depending on how exacting your expectations.
Aug 10
21
Filling Your State Tax Forms
State tax forms are needed to file state taxes – but where is our tax money going? Taxes are used to support the government, but in a democracy the government is supposed to be “for the people,” as a popular rumor has it. All the state tax forms filed year in, year out seem to have no effect on our local governments, which across the country are much more likely than not operating at a deficit. How is this possible with all of the money pouring into government coffers?
Most individuals merely file their state tax forms and leave it at that, too busy with their lives and some even hoping not to attract any government attention. But a growing number of our fellow citizens and residents are deeply concerned over where “their money” is going. Almost everyone agrees with paying for firefighters, sanitation workers, and other civil servants, but even then there can be a lot of controversy over the details.
Take teachers for example. Again, nearly everybody agrees that teachers are needed. But how to compensate them with our tax dollars, exactly? Currently, many individuals across the nation are up in arms over teacher perks and salaries.
It’s felt that teachers have things much too comfortable, and there are people who would like to make the profession of teaching a job like any other, which in the United States means “hire and fire at will.”
These individuals want to, they say, hold teachers more “accountable” for student performance, which is often proposed to be measured by standardized test scores. But the other side of the argument believes that teaching isn’t just a job like any other, that the training of minds and the inspiration of hearts isn’t something which can be neatly measured on a quarterly or yearly basis like some corporate earnings report.
Aug 10
21
The Importance Of A Camping Tent
Never go hiking without a camping tent – I learned that the almost-hard way. I say “almost” because considering that I’m not just alive to tell the story but suffered no injuries, either, it probably wasn’t as difficult as it might have been had I not been so lucky.
I and my buddies did not have a camping tent between us since it was just supposed to have been an easy day-hike over (and up) easy terrain. A thousand-foot mountain affords nice enough views, to be sure, such that the curvature of the earth could be faintly seen, but it isn’t considered a big deal by any who hike or climb real mountains.
So, of course, we didn’t bring a camping tent. And sure enough we get lost, and with only another two hours of daylight left most of us decide to backtrack downhill – except for myself and another companion. And although we do eventually summit, as novices we make the mistake of mistiming our descent, such that it’s already twilight by the time we choose to head back.
You see, being so inexperienced we mistook the fact that there was still light in the sky for having enough time to get back down. But of course we were at the summit, where we had a excellent view of our surroundings – this was Mount Buck, the highest point in the whole Lake George area of New York.
And although the sun was low on the horizon it seemed wonderfully bright all around. Golds mixed with blues turned pink and white – it was a swirl of colours matching the happy dance of emotions within that we’ve finally reached the top.
Lost in our reveries, we did not realize that not only does the sun set in seconds, but that in a forest the canopy of foliage will make even mid-afternoon seem much, much later to the human eye….
With media attention generally concentrated on foreclosed homeowners, this article will take a brief look to consider the effects on homebuilders such as Isaac Toussie.
Embittered homeowners who have been foreclosed upon have taken to trashing the property before getting kicked out, with anecdotal estimates by real estate agents putting the number of such vandalized properties at up to half of all such units. But given all the media coverage of foreclosed homeowners, it’s time to take a look now at how the same crisis is affecting homebuilders like Isaac Toussie. After all, many of the small-time businessmen had to take out loans in order to finance their housing developments. Of course, there are no such developers out on the street, and their cases, unfortunate in themselves, are not anywhere near comparable to that of homeowners who have nowhere to go at all. But it’s important to see how things can turn out for businessmen and women caught up in the same economic twister, and how responses can differ – or not.
For instance, many small homebuilders have had to dip into personal savings just to keep their companies afloat, a familiar state of affairs to many homeowners. Buyers were disappearing with cash deposits of several thousand left on the table, proof that local residential property markets had turned ice-cold. Even more unfortunately, many homebuilders have proceeded since then to file for bankruptcy protection, with vast sums owed not only to their lenders but also their subcontractors and workers. But still worse yet, these small-time builders have often financed their businesses with so-called recourse debt which allows banks to seize homes, cars, and other personal assets in case of default – again, quite a familiar scenario comparable to that faced by many homeowners.
Such predicaments have increased and are now considered widespread across the country. Many a builder has been left with unsold units and land, falling behind on interest payments and facing foreclosures. And in a very bad sign of the extent of the destruction involved, even very large homebuilders are in trouble, with legendary builders such as Levitt & Sons, founders of Levittown, New York on Long Island, famous for epitomizing postwar suburbia, forced into bankruptcy like some small unfortunate start-up.
It’s gotten so bad that once solid partnerships and friendships have frayed as an every-man-for-himself mentality creeps into the proceedings. Contractors and subcontractors have had to take out liens on the property they build in order to protect themselves. And it is in this respect that the ordeals of homeowners and homebuilders differ: the latter have almost no hope of any governmental assistance whatsoever, despite being affected by the same subprime mortgage industry shenanigans that’s made owning a home so suddenly onerous.
Legal Disclaimer: Be advised that such information as has been presented so far only constitutes mere opinion and should under no circumstances be misconstrued for professional advice of any kind whatsoever! Always consult those properly licensed and/or otherwise qualified when it comes to making business decisions of any financial importance.
As legendary as the team is, it’s an open question whether Dallas Cowboys merchandise would have been as popular as they are without the equally popular Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. These ladies are not just any ol’ football cheerleading squad members, but make up a veritable franchise in themselves.
No less than two made-for-TV movies have appeared about them, not to mention any number of Dallas Cowboys merchandise bearing their likeness somewhere on the product! For when you think of Texas football, you think the Cowboys – and when you think Cowboys, you think of their cheerleaders.
For sure the die-hard fan might prefer his Dallas Cowboys towel “straight-up” but several others who usually are not so hard-core would most likely welcome a shot of the cheerleaders illustrating their fan merchandise! No other collection of young ladies so epitomize the American woman: young, fun, and fit; spirited; glamorous; intelligent.
Yes, in spite of the voyeurism involved these beauties know how to comport themselves and market themselves. Team try-outs obviously concentrate on athleticism and physical attractiveness but as spokesmodels for the team a good amount of social savvy and hence intelligence is needed, too.
The only other set of females that have left such a deep impression on popular culture worldwide would have to be Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Bunnies. Interestingly, the Cowboys’ cheerleading squad actually started out mixed, with both males and females, as was high school and collegiate football tradition.
And indeed, it was local high school students that actually made up the squad back in the 1960s. In 1969, however a deliberate attempt was made to raise in-game attendance by offering only female cheerleaders whose routines were unlike those prevalent at school games. By 1972, all cheerleaders were over the age of eighteen as their moves became increasingly a lot more like sexy dance routines.
Aug 10
20
To Have More Is Not to Be More
A rich man like Zalman Silber is widely lauded for making a lot of money and giving it away. From a certain perspective, that is the best of all worlds, to be a winner in life with access to the world’s luxuries while also doing good: to be respected for one’s material achievements as well as spiritual aspirations.
Yet for all the Zalman Silbers of the world, there is a world of difference between being and having. Many confuse having with being – the more they have, the bigger they are, as if a better person is produced by ever more goods. Yet real good comes about not from possession – or, even, good works – but from being, true being.
It is a hard thing to realize, as most of us take life very much for granted. We think that to be is the simplest thing in the world – but we discount our own humanity in supposing that, plant-like, all we need is some light and water and we are all that we can be.
No, not even having a beachfront mansion with a helicopter out front and a yacht out back on your very own island makes you all that you can be. To be fully human, we must also understand deprivation, fear, want – we must experience life in all its totality.
We must empathize. For the act of empathy makes us most human – the exercise of our imaginations, the use of our unique ability to almost literally put ourselves in another’s stead.
And hence the distinction between being and having. One sees this very clearly in a classroom, even in college, where most students scribble away furiously, taking down notes as the professor speaks. Yet how much are they really retaining if half their brains are busy recording what was said instead of being fully engaged in what is said?
Full undivided attention means exactly that. It is the total direct no-holds-barred personal experience of what is going on, what is being said – and what that means in all its implications. In the act of note-taking, however, one is necessarily forever playing “catch up,” with a significant amount of one’s attention focused on the act of recording – and editing, moreover: a necessarily “distancing” set of behaviors.
It is as if these students suppose that the very having of some notes of the lecture constitutes knowledge itself – literally having knowledge – while the fact of the matter is that one best knows, most completely knows, in the direct experiencing of what is to be known.
This direct experience does not come from notes hastily jotted in a strobe light-like manner. It comes from being fully in the moment, as opposed to standing outside of it recording.
Aug 10
20
To Give and to Take
New York is one tough town. And it prides itself on its cut-throat lifestyle, even while the number of charities blossom as nowhere else. The serial success story that is Zalman Silber is an example of the businessman-turned-philanthropist. But isn’t it ironic that a place which worships material success gained by one’s teeth and nails, as it were, should find itself so interested in appearing charitable, too? As if the rich are secretly embarrassed by their fortunes – as if Balzac was right, that “behind every great fortune lies a great crime,” or as if Jesus was correct, that “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle….”
As if, to be blunt about it, the rich give in order to assuage their guilt.
What is it about this world that should so often find the elevated so close to the base? One can observe dichotomies existing side-by-side, many times in peace and, even, complete ignorance of one another, even in New York, even in the 21st Century.
And one wonders if such philanthropy, targeted towards one’s own community, set up to benefit one’s own interests, are perfectly true acts of charity or just another way in which the ego manages to further inflate itself.
Such questions, of course, likely do not concern those like Zalman Silber, who give freely as they please and couldn’t care less about such quibbles. Indeed, it is safe to say that for those who do have the funds to give, giving is a pleasure in itself – akin to any other form of spending money.
Now that’s not as cynical as it may sound at first. For spending money is a form of experiencing one’s own power, one’s own ability to produce satisfaction and pleasure. It may well lead to egotism, and it often does, to be sure – but at its root is a simple human joy at being able to affect one’s surroundings, one’s world. It is the same joy that accompanies a child who can crawl, then walk, then run, then ride a bicycle, then drive a car, then pilot a boat or helicopter or airplane. The proper spending of money can be life-enhancing in a very deep way, far more so than the mere accumulation of creature comforts. The proper spending of money – as in charitable donations – allows one to give of oneself, in a sense, a very important sense. For money is power, and in cases of honest work to give money is to have given of one’s time and one’s very life – the time spent earning the money, the life devoted to productive work.
And such is, as the humanist Erich Fromm had noted in his many works on human psychology and human society, the most demeaning aspect of poverty, that one cannot give of oneself. For it is not he who has much, but he who gives much, that is rich – and yet, to give requires one to first have! And it is the tragedy of the poor that they can hardly provide for themselves, never mind share with others – though, strangely enough, survey after survey has found that the less money one has, the greater a percentage of one’s income tends to be given away in charity. It is as if the poor know something which escapes the rich. It is as if the New York of lights and smiles is unaware of something so basic that it can only be known to those whose lives involve the basics and no luxuries.
Aug 10
19
The Art Of Making Bronze Sculptures
Bronze sculpture is the most numerous form of cast metal sculptures because of a characteristic trait that is as unusual as it is desirable. Commonly used bronze alloys will expand a little just before being set so that even the finest details of a mold are filled.
Bronze sculptures are also strong while ductile, or lacking in brittleness, allowing figures to be depicted in actions such as leaps and flights. Supports for bronze statues need smaller cross-sections because of such qualities, as may be seen in equestrian statues where only two hooves are on the base.
Today’s examples are normally created of ninety percent copper and ten percent tin, while in antiquity bronze works were at times made with other elements such as phosphorus, manganese, aluminum, or silicon. Interestingly, far more stone and ceramic works have come down to us through the ages than those made of bronze, as the metal was very precious and frequently melted down to produce new sculptures or weapons and armor in times of war.
Thus, really few large examples in bronze are available from ancient times, and of these most aren’t in good condition. Indeed, most works exhibited in museums, while still full of the evidence of wear and tear, have been painstakingly restored to a quality suitable for display.
Working successfully with bronze usually requires a high level of skill, and a number of distinct casting processes might need to be employed, such as lost-wax casting and also the related modern-day technique of investment casting. Other techniques include sand casting and centrifugal casting.
After final polishing, corrosive materials might be applied to bronze works in order to form a patina or film made by oxidation or some other chemical process and establish some control over the color and finish. For instance, reactive chemicals may be applied to create a novel marble-like appearance.
Aug 10
19
A List of Good New York Nabes
New York City is a great place to live if you have the funds to live in a great neighborhood. However, while rents are very high, industry experts like Isaac Toussie say that it is still possible to find fair honest deals where you get a lot of space in return, among other things. Many factors go into any consideration, such as convenience and access, look and feel, and noise levels. Here is a survey of some nabes that offer a good balance of all these factors in relation to typical prices.
For the most part, we will consider only Queens and Brooklyn neighborhoods, as these are the ones that best fit our criteria for all-around value. The other boroughs are either too expensive or too run-down, as in the case of Manhattan and the Bronx, respectively, or just too remote and isolated, as with the case of Staten Island. Of course, the Bronx does have nice neighborhoods, too, but these are going to be expensive, and you’ll have to avoid the rest of your borough if you want to see something civilized. Industry observers like Isaac Toussie note that while Manhattan also has its pockets of urban blight, anything decent is going to be astronomically priced. Staten Island is just another world altogether and you might as well not bother living in New York City, in that case!
So Queens and Brooklyn it is. Brooklyn is by far the more storied of the two, with more offerings of high-brow culture if that’s important to you. Queens offers culinary adventurers the best experience outside Manhattan, and the most authentic tastes at any price. Queens also tends to be much more diverse, whereas Brooklyn practically invented the ethnic enclave. Finally, Queens schools are better on average, whereas Brooklyn’s, while good, trails far behind in overall comparison.
So what are these great “nabes” and where are they? Well, in Brooklyn you will want Williamsburg and Greenpoint for the bohemian scene. Solid, genuine middle-class areas include Bensonhurst, Gravesend, Bath Beach, Bay Ridge, Fort Hamilton, and Midwood. Canarsie would have once made the cut but has been on its way down. Borough Park seems like an “in-between” situation and can still swing either way. Your basically upper middle-class places are Dyker Heights, Marine Park, Brighton Beach, and Sheepshead Bay.
In Queens the toniest nabes are Forest Hills and Kew Gardens. Almost as good are Flushing (and East Flushing) and Bayside. Astoria is known for its night life. Sunnyside, Woodside, Ridgewood, and Elmhurst (but avoid East Elmhurst) are more working-class but still often quite civilized to live in. Middle Village, Queens Village, Maspeth, and Juniper Valley are demographically between the working and (true) middle classes.
Outside these areas, you’ll probably want to steer clear of. We’ll cover those in another article. But suffice it to say, even the areas mentioned here can be undesirable on their “border areas,” where they abut the urban blight of the next neighborhood over, as implied in the case of Elmhurst and East Elmhurst mentioned earlier. So exercise all due diligence and thoroughly investigate a neighborhood with some direct experience!
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