CORPORATE PERFIDY III

                                                            CORPORATE PERFIDY III

                                                          

    Cautions were highlighted in a previous article regarding sources of foods for human consumption, pet foods, health supplements and original and generic prescription pills, when packaging information states only.“Distributed by.” A conclusion can be made concerning probability that the product came from an unidentified nation, and definitely not made in the United States. As such, the consumer has virtually no reliable assurance that the products were made in surroundings  at least as good as their own kitchen, with raw material streams of pristine quality.

     A facet of the production environment is the water that is used for processing. Huge tonnages pass through the factories that produce the above  consumer goods. If a person is to become a consumer, for example, of the chickens that the United States Department of Agriculture agreed could be shipped to China for processing, it is reasonable to desire assurance that the water used to process those chickens is of the highest quality, bacteria free.  But no assurance will be given, and the packaged chickens, sold on U.S. store shelves, will only say “Distributed by.”

     The international water supply is recognized as a critical problem, especially for under-developed and even industrially rising nations, but the influence is global.

    A number of articles have been published on the water issue, even extending to the possibility of future“water wars” over claims to prime natural sources. Among recent ones are:

1. Jonathan Hujsak, January 1, 2010 .  Cost Management; John Wiley & Sons.
    The Emerging Water Crisis and its Economic Implications. Part 1: Defining the Problem   

2. Jonathan Hujsak, January 1, 2011.  Cost Management; John Wiley & Sons.
    The Emerging Water Crisis and its Economic Implications. Part 2: The Global Food Supply Chain.

3. Jonathan Hujsak, January 1, 2012.  Cost Management; John Wiley & Sons.
    The Emerging Water Crisis and its Economic Implications. Part 3: Water and the Global
Industrial Sector.

A SCULPTOR'S DREAM

SHRINE FOR THE UNIDENTIFIED DEAD

by Edward Hujsak

Introduction   
    I suppose there are countless sculptors who dream of the one enormous, meaningful work of their lifetime, something that carries a serious message for all humanity and will last through the ages. Some actually make a career of huge sculptures, which brings to mind the arrogant, though temporary works of Christo and Jeanne-Claude in places like The Grand Canyon and Central Park. Most, however, will never come into being.
    I came late to sculpture, after a long career in rocket engineering. But there was sculpture of a kind there too, with implications far bigger than any thought of by professionals. I worked on the design of rockets that carried spacecraft to the moon, to Venus, Mars, and the outer planets. And now, thirty-six years after leaving Earth, Voyager spacecraft is finally leaving the solar system, after visiting all the outer planets, to meet a distant star thousands of years from now.    
    Nevertheless, I have that dream too. Though now in my 89th year, undertaking the large project I have in mind, as an individual, is borderline preposterous.
    Or is it?

The Idea
    They were mothers, fathers, laughing children, lovers, teachers, artists, farmers, toilers in all the trades, and nothing is known of them. Hurled into oblivion through the misfortune of being in the path of one of nature’s catastrophic events as well as trapped in horrors of man’s origin, an awareness of their frequency and extent by those on safer ground tends to a numbness..... something like the calm that follows the clamor in a chicken coop, when the fox has finally left with his captive.  In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries alone we have witnessed many calamities that cry out for compassion and understanding, but soon become history. To name a few: World War II, which resulted in 35 million deaths during and in the years after, across Europe;  the Influenza Pandemic of 1918, which killed twenty million people, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, Multiple Bangladesh floodings, Bhopal, Rawanda, indigenous genocide in Brazil, the Cambodian Khmer Rouge genocidal massacres, the Bosnian Serb army genocide and anti-communist massacres in Indonesia, the Holocaust and carnage in Russia following the Bolshevik revolution. The list is long.
    In the aftermath the victims are roughly collected by survivors and rescue teams, tossed onto ox-carts or other conveyances and dropped into excavated pits or trenches to be subsequently bulldozed over ....or left to rot where they lay. They are forgotten forever. Some are never recovered, lost at sea, victims of storm and war. They simply disappeared from the human scene.

Memorials
    There is something about sculpture that augers for the position that they should be one-of, and not diminished or diluted by repetition. The Twin Towers memorial, the Vietnam Memorial in Arlington Cemetery, the spectacular sculpture of Nelson Mandela in the middle of a field in South Africa, the Katyn Forest Massacre Memorial  that honors the Polish Officer Corp. and police officers that were captured and slaughtered by the Soviet army in Poland’s Katyn Forest early in World War II  stand as examples.

 On the other hand, there are Holocaust museums and memorials in 25 nations around the world. There are forty in the United States alone. Whether more than one is more meaningful, or whether desire for a shorter commuting distance has an influence is a subject for conjecture.
   
The Shrine Concept
    My dream is to achieve a work titled “Shrine for the Unidentified Dead.” It would be a place for people to visit, to contemplate the vulnerability of humans on planet Earth, the importance of interdependence, cooperation, compassion, and the futility of conflict and combat. It consists of a platform upon which are erected vertical elements that are evocative of Eastern and Western cultures, but with no specificity with regard to religion. The construction is of steel, or bronze. If steel, considerations are Corten, stainless, or zinc-gold plated steel, if the latter can be demonstrated to weather in the climate at the selected construction site. The spires will produce moaning sounds, varying in pitch as the wind creates and sheds Aeolian vortices off sharp corners. Visitors will have access to the platform as described later, becoming, in a sense, a part of the  ambiance.

   The height of the spires is approximately ten meters. The depth  about a third of a meter. The sculpture would be erected on site.
     The execution of the work would, through the design of the structure upon which the shrine is mounted, additionally evoke remembrance of the lost civilizations  of the Americas, mainly the Incan and Aztec empires that were doomed to extinction from Spanish invasions led by Pizzaro and Cortez as a consequence of combat and the introduction of European diseases such as  smallpox, measles and diptheria, and mass starvation that followed. It is impossible to imagine the totality of that episode in history. Yet an awareness  of it must be a continuing part of humility and contemplation in the human scene.

Siting
    The complete project has the sculpture mounted on  a supporting structure that is themed to the Aztec and Incan cultures.  The interior of the structure could be a museum. Access to the memorial would be at the rear, where the Earth would be raised to within two meters of the platform and a wheelchair type of ramp would lead to the platform. Likewise, entry to the structure would be in the rear, with a spiral ramp inside leading to the floor of the museum. It would be sited  in an accessible, but unpopulated area, in a climate zone that allows year-around visitation.  A location such as a bluff in the Julian area of San Diego County, in California, overlooking the Anza-Borrego Desert and mountains to the East would, for example, be acceptable.


Execution
     Far too large a project for an individual to undertake, there is a way to do it in a painless way, including raising the several millions that it could cost. It could be undertaken by a major university as a joint project of the arts, architectural and engineering departments. The benefit to the university would be global recognition and prestige, but more importantly, it would become the center of knowledge for this subject, in particular the lost civilizations of the Americas. The project should be particular attractive to a city that has visitors year around from all over the globe. It would be in the city’s interest to assume responsibility for maintenance and administrative presence far into the future as a valuable and enduring part of its arts heritage.  
 
Funding
As to raising the money for the project, the project could take advantage of a recent development, a benefit of the computer age, that makes it easy to raise large sums of money. It is called crowd-funding. For this project, the principals would write what would amount to a proposal to its alumni, requesting each to contribute the price of a few cups of coffee. It is possible that among the alumni, one would even have an acceptable site for the project that they would want to contribute.

Note: There are illustrations that accompany this article but were not accepted for posting. Contact me at hujsaked@aol.com if interested.

                                                          

MAGIC PILL

                         KEEP YOUR LIFESTYLE BUT TAKE THIS PILL

    The extent to which the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industries are conjoined at the hip can hardly be better illustrated than by their recent recommendation that Lipitor should be in general use across the population to lower cholesterol levels.
    
  Why would anyone, after reading the various side effects of Lipitor, which are amply defined on the internet, fall for this line? The list is long and includes such things as muscle pain and weakness, dizziness, insomnia, chest pains, peripheral edema, urinary tract infection, back pain, arthritis and memory loss. Also attention must be paid to possible interactions with other drugs. And oh yes, if you are pregnant or breast feeding, definitely do not take this drug.
    
   Lipitor has been  around for a little over twenty years. What of the long term effects of taking this drug? There is understandably no information on this aspect of its use.
    
   Another concern is that the drug is available as a generic, manufactured in places like laboratories in India. There has been at least one recall of generics that were produced in foreign laboratories.
    
   Of course, the medical profession would be serving the public better by informing them on what foods to consume, in what quantities, what foods to avoid,  and recommended proportions of food types, leaning on nature to hold cholesterol at acceptable levels.
    
   But no. Live it up, citizens. Our magic pill will keep you out of trouble. 

CORPORATE PERFIDY II

To expand on the seriousness of the blog BUYER BEWARE, a news item on the Drudge Report reveals that 580 dogs  died from kidney failure after being fed doggie treats under the Wagon Train label, marketed by Purina.  A label that states "Distributed by" a firm in the United States means that the product can come from anywhere in the world, otherwise the label would proudly state "Made in the USA.

This is something that needs to be fixed by the Consumer Protection Bureau. Short of that, my advice is to never, ever buy anything on which the label says "Distributed By." A buyer has no idea where it came from or what went into it in the manufacturing  or processing.

CORPORATE PERFIDY

      Warfarin was developed in 1948 as a pesticide. It functioned as a blood thinner. Pests like rats that consumed food to which warfarin was added died from internal bleeding. In the course of time, it became an object of interest as a means of preventing thrombosis in many physical disorders such as development of clotting following a joint replacement. Conclusions about its efficacy were firmed up in the early 1950’s and approved for treatment of humans in 1954. It has been used successfully ever since.

      Drawbacks are danger of bleeding and interaction with certain foods like leafy vegetables and some medications. The protime, INR, has to be monitored and kept within limits. Visits to clinics to have INR checked are a nuisance and could be every few days until stability is reached. Time between checks may be extended as the patient reaches a plateau in living pattern and food ingestion. Over time, safe usage of warfarin, or coumadin by another name, has lost any mystery and has become routine. Other than the possibility of bleeding, there are no known side effects that result in physical impairment. An advantage, insofar as the patient is concerned, is the low cost. Of course, pharmaceutical firms cannot be expected to support this medication and will naturally spend research money to come up with money makers that do the same job as warfarin.

      Hence the appearance of anticoagulants like Plavix, which, by astute marketing, its developers have captured a fair share of the market. Besides the risk of bleeding, which is not significantly different from controlled warfarin dosage, these compounds have other side effects, some of which are physically debilitating. One such effect, claimed to be rare, which I happen to be familiar with, is an onset of sudden numbness down the left side of the body after just a few days of  taking the medication. Bristol-Myers, which makes Plavix, doesn’t make much of it, though they do list it as a side effect, and cautions that one should immediately report to their doctor in the event that it occurs. Paradoxically, doctors seem to know nothing about it. My own experience draws from consulting a dozen local neurologists and cardiologists about the affliction, and none were helpful. At the very least one or two could have lifted the phone and called Bristol-Myers and said: “Hey, I’ve got a guy here whose left side has gone numb from taking Plavix. Can you tell me something about it?” My own attempts to contact the company went unanswered. Meantime, for anyone who suffers from this side effect, it isn’t going to go away so long it is reinforced every day. And it may never go away if permanent damage has been sustained. Patient complaints on the internet indicate that the problem is more common than is publicized.

      Meantime, the pharmaceutical firms, happily selling expensive Plavix pills, and aware that warfarin is still widely used, look for other ways to ease that medication out of the market with products like Plavix but with different names.

      One can imagine a scene, high up on the top floor of the Pistol-Fires Pharmaceutical headquarters building in the mahogany lined conference room. (Of course, the names and titles are imaginary too.

      On this particular morning Zachary Taylor Bremerton III, vice-president of marketing, has an idea while shaving before traveling to work in the chauffeured company car. Perks are good for administrators of his status. Upon arriving at work, he calls a meeting of his marketing underlings and product experts for a brain storming session.

      “It’s like this,” he says, addressing the gathering of bright young women and men and a scattering of middle-agers: “We’re doing pretty well with Slavix, but haven’t yet scratched the potential.... not so long as warfarin is the preferred medication. And you know full well, cheap as it is, we can’t make a nickel on it. So...........,” he looks about the room, “any ideas?” For a while it is quiet. Then, hesitantly, one idea after another idea is floated. It is Bremerton’s habit to dispose of ideas he doesn’t like with a wrinkle of his nose.

       Finally, up and coming, street smart, Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, MBA graduate of Wharton School of Business Joe Paskudnik speaks up. “Well,” he says, “there’s Cataxiban.” 
   “What about Cataxiban?” 
    “It’s been there sitting on the shelf for a year. We spent a lot of money developing it with Scyther. Trouble is, it’s too much like Slavix. But that might be a minor disadvantage. Advantage is that not many know about it, though all the approvals are in order. We take over the whole warfarin market. No small steps. A major push. What we need to do is give warfarin a bad rap, then move in.”
     “Great idea.” Bremerton sounds skeptical, but this one sounds far out enough to give it a little attention.
      "Go on."

      “Warfarin’s got  disadvantages. INR has to be checked every so often. Patients don’t like having to run into the clinic every few days.... a pain in the butt for clinics. Also the bleeding problem, we can make a lot out of that......high risk."

      No one suggests that self-testing for INR could soon become routine.
      “Any similar risk with Cataxiban?”
      “Well..... yes. They are very close. Warfarin is a shade worse.”
      Poor Joe’s closest encounter with truth. Really too close to call. He plunges on.                                "We mount up a major campaign. Make warfarin look bad and at the same time tout the advantages of Cataxiban. Less risk of stroke. Papers, television, the internet.....anywhere people will stop, look and listen. Prescribe two pills a day at.. say nine dollars a pill. That’s a lot better... for us... than thirty cents a day for warfarin.“

      Bremerton looks about the room. He sees approving smiles, heads nodding, shining eyes. His fingers mesh and unmesh. “Paskudnik, You’re going to go far,” he said. “That’s all folks.” The group files out.

      Bremerton speaks to his secretary via the intercom. “Maria, get me Vice-President Jim Disher at Scyther headquarters.” He gets up and starts to pace the room. “This is gonna be big,” he mutters.

      Admittedly, the above didn’t happen exactly as portrayed. But something like it did. A short time ago an article appeared in the New York Times reporting that Bristol-Myers and Phizer had obtained FDA approval for a new drug, Apixaban, also under the generic name Eliquis, that is proclaimed to be safer than warfarin from the standpoint of bleeding risk. Comparison reports (New England Journal of Medicine, Aug 29) don’t confirm that there is much difference, if any. But in recent weeks we have seen a blow-out advertising campaign..... full-page ads in newspapers,.....long television commercials, countless internet ads trumpeting superiority over warfarin and warnings about potential strokes with that medication. Enough to scare the innocent witless.
      Quite the same as the appearance of Tono Bungay in H.G. Wells’ novel of the same title,

wherein, as George Ponderevo, he helped his uncle Sidney Ewart launch an elixir called Tono Bungay, on which he built an enormous fortune.

      Amusing, if it were not so serious, is the litany of side effects, which are similar to Plavix. Some are not noted.....MAY CAUSE SUDDEN NUMBNESS DOWN THE LEFT SIDE OF BODY. But the warning does appear elsewhere.

      Gullible as anyone, I signed up for the pill. Nine dollars each.. If anything, the medication has exacerbated the numbness problem.

     Articles of complaint aren’t too interesting if a concluding comment is not offered that recommends improvement in a situation.

      My observation is that one step further must be taken. FDA approval should not be the gate opener for launching a new medication on the public. There is too much at stake.

      My recommendation is that the AMA should establish a review board comprised of pro- fessionals over the age of sixty who have been around the block. They would study every FDA approval and deliver a message to the medical community and the public regarding its merits against their experience and whether a replacement should even be considered in light of that experience. Board members would be salaried and would be selected out of a slate that has no prior connection with pharmaceutical companies on any level other than normal exposure to sales for learning purposes.

BUYER BEWARE

    When purchasing packaged foods, whether for human consumption or for pets, ALWAYS
check the package to see where it came from. If the label says Made in USA, it is usually a safe buy. If the package is labelled “Distributed by.....” one should immediately become skeptical, as the product is probably imported. Ask the cashier or store manager regarding it’s origin if you regard yourself a careful buyer.  I thought my pet food a bargain.....until paying my vet $300 to diagnose and treat one sick puppy.

MEDICATED MEDICINE - A MODERN HORROR STORY

    The annals of medicine will eventually, almost certainly, record instances where medical treatment went awry, with appropriate caveats admitting to the possibility that profits rather than good medicine were the driving force.
    In the latter half of the twentieth century a rather clever invention was taken into common practice as a method of keeping arteries open that were subject to clogging and closure, causing heart attack. The idea was to create a tubular wire mesh device which in its collapsed form could be emplaced in the blood vessel and then expanded so blood could flow unimpeded through that area. It worked remarkably well. A stent installed in one of my arteries sixteen years ago is still open.
    It happened then, that someone came up with the clever idea that if the wires in the stent were to be coated with a special medicine, then the stents could be relied upon to stay unclogged far into the future. The hitch was that in the first year things were a bit iffy. Unless the patients were treated with a blood thinner, the liklihood of the medicated stents to clog up during the first year was higher than for non-medicated stents. This is quite a bizarre concept: medication to make medication work. A parallel in the real world would be a need for an additive in motor oil to prevent the bearings from seizing. Why would common sense doctors accept that fix, something not too different from a computer software patch, but possibly far more risky?
    Six months ago I had two medicated stents installed following a mild heart attack.
    Coumadin is a reliable blood thinner. Pharmaceutical firms don’t like it because they can’t make a nickel on it. Coumadin is cheap. It is a bit of a nuisance for doctors as the patient has to come in frequently for a short check to be certain that the concentration of coumadin is in a safe and effective zone. Not much money there either. But Plavix, a new drug to save the stents is a wonder drug. It does the job and at the same time makes a pile of money at nine or ten dollars a pill. A prescription might call for two pills a day.
    But it would be too much to expect no other downsides. Plavix has several undesirable side effects. I happen to be the victim of one of the worst of them: may cause sudden numbness down the left side of the body. It doesn’t subside, probably because it is reinforced every day. It is interesting that the warning is accompanied by the advice: See your doctor immediately. As it happens, doctors don’t have a clue and don’t respond, not even to the extent of calling the pharmaceutical company that produces Plavix- Bristol-Meyers.  Not surprisingly, the company did not respond to my inquiry.
    Since Plavix is so profitable, it is not surprising also that other similar medications would soon make an appearance. An alternate to Plavix was suggested to me. The problem was it carried identical warning about the possibility of onset of sudden numbness down on the body’s left side.
    The mischief continues. Not many months ago another blood thinner appeared on the market, purportedly safer than coumadin on the basis that bleeding risks are lower.  It is called Apixaban; its generic name is Equilis. My cardiologist approved a switch to Equilis from Plavix, with the idea that the numbness might be abated. Unfortunately the new medicine carries the same warning about sudden numbness.  After a month there was no relief, and no relief from a $20.00 a day prescription charge. At times it seemed that the numbness was worsened.
    There comes a time when the patient has to take charge. Too often doctors are not using common sense. Too often they won’t lift the phone to talk with another or with a pharmaceuticasl firm. How much pressure they are under to live and let live with the pharmaceutical firms is  subject to conjecture.    
            To sum up: this patient has had it. The next step is hard negotiation to switch medication to coumadin. Failing that, a search for a new cardiologist.

NASA'S SPACE LAUNCH SYSTEM

For the record, the following letter was sent to Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator.

Charles Bolden, Administrator
NASA Headquarters
300E. Street. SW
Washington, DC 20024-3210

Dear Dr. Bolden:

Although I am not an enthusiastic fan of the Space Launch System, preferring instead  an advancement to fully reusables, I wanted you to be aware of the origin of the SLS concept that features liquid fueled boosters.

In my 1992 book, THE FUTURE OF US ROCKETRY, on page 143, I present a configuration for a heavy lifter that  is very much the same as that being planned for the evolved version of the SLS.

I thought this bit of information would save some embarrassment, should someone else be credited with creating the conceptual design. 

Sincerely,


Edward Hujsak

HITCHHIKING INTO SPACE

 This op-ed was published in Space News, week of Auust 12, 2013. as well as in its online edition, 

Spacenews.com.

The title of Douglas Adams’ well-known book, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” evokes images of a lone, lean, grizzled 6-footer backpacking across the cosmos. Little did anyone realize that due to poor planning and waning dynamism concerning manned space activities in the United States, something close to hitchhiking has become reality. Absence of vitality is evident both in NASA and in the congressional space subcommittees, whose job it is to provide oversight and funding for the agency’s various projects.

Now the nation with the most muscle in space endeavors finds itself in the hitchhiker’s position,  forced to rely on another country to lift its astronauts into orbit. Granted, the U.S. ponies up $70 million a seat, but that only heightens the embarrassment. Not only that, but it admits to a willingness to accept a transport method that has not advanced since the 1960s — sealing astronauts inside a vessel and hoping for the best, the same as inanimate cargo. Little can now be said in admiration of NASA regarding its current plans to adopt the same methods in the future.

Some of us recall that innovative engineering came apart at the seams in the post-Apollo period, during which the space shuttle was defined. The original goal was arguably a good one: a fully reusable system capable of hauling passengers and freight into Earth orbit. During the period when contractors studied and submitted various concepts, fully reusable systems were among the contenders.

For reasons known only to administrators, in particular at Johnson Space Center, timidity had its day. An ungainly configuration, consisting of an orbiter fueled by an external tank and a booster configured of solid rockets with a Titan 4 heritage, was defined at the Houston center and selected as the preferred approach. It held no promise of evolving eventually into a fully reusable launch vehicle. NASA’s dreams of it being a utility vehicle that would carry all manner of payloads into orbit evaporated when it became obvious that maintenance between flights was burdensome, launch costs were too high and spacecraft manufacturers didn’t like the additional tasks of designing to accommodate space shuttle interface and safety requirements as well as the added costs involved. They returned to launching on expendable launch vehicles and NASA was left with launching a scattering of agency and Department of Defense payloads, and eventually devoting the space shuttle almost entirely to construction and servicing of the international space station.

The shuttle’s success history is mixed — a total of 119 missions performed by five orbiters, two catastrophic losses with fatalities, and a foreseeable end to the remaining three with no replacements to follow. All parties knew the launch system was coming to an end, yet nothing surfaced in planning and engineering during the final years to move seamlessly into an another system — a new fully reusable launcher that features advancements that are easily within the engineering capability of U.S. aerospace companies. Instead, NASA is reverting to the Gemini technology of the ’60s.

Astonishingly, the same laxness can be identified on the part of NASA and congressional space subcommittees regarding the international space station, which, if it hasn’t already, will soon enter a period of diminishing returns. What then? Will the United States lose interest in human presence in low Earth orbit when the space station is decommissioned and abandoned? Will we be buying astronaut time on Chinese work stations? Will China be the originator of turnkey work stations, leased or sold to other nations?

As for the new heavy-lift Space launch System, with the recent ban on an asteroid capture venture by the House Science space subcommittee, it does not even have a plausible mission, although a successor to the international space station indicates a possibility. The House panel wisely, in this instance, saw the asteroid capture mission as something that has unassessed risks and undefined benefits. For such ventures, NASA’s proper role is to visit, preferably robotically; examine; and measure. If by chance something of value were to be discovered, the proper venue for exploitation in this day and age is the commercial world.

The U.S. manned space program has lost both vitality and direction. It needs a new compass. The administrators of human activity in space deserve criticism, even a measure of excoriation for poor performance. We can do better.

YEAR OF THE DAISY

This poem was first posted July 19, 2013 on yourdailypoem.com

YEAR OF THE DAISY

by Edward Hujsak

That was the year that daisies
all agreed to perform flawlessly,
to help humanity along its faltering way.
Every one, its petals plucked
to rhythmic chants:
She loves me, she loves me not,
would tell you that she loves you
He loves me, he loves me not,
would tell you that he loves you.

It was her favorite flower, you know.
Garlands framed the altar
where we said our last good byes.

Now this lavender bloom.
lifted from the roadside,
has graced my table for a week.
Drawn into its lonely self at night,
it flares to fullness at daybreak
atop a dime store, Ming inspired
thin-stem porcelain vase.
I pluck its petals one by one.
She loves me, she loves me not.
She loves me, she loves me not.
..............She loves me.

Copyright  © 2013

HOW ARE WE DOING?

A new report from US News, ranking the best hospitals in the United States for 2013 has just been published. Of the hospitals taking first place in various categories... cardiac, cancer, etc. none are in San Diego. Of 18 honorable mentions, none are in San Diego..
    It is a practice, after a stay in a hospital, for a patient to receive a questionnaire, requesting opinion  ranking from poor to exceptional the various aspects of that person’s experience in the facility. This seems to be a bureaucratic method  of a hospital assessing its performance, relying on a subcontractor somewhere to gather and summarize data.  At the end of some questionnaires is a line or two for comments by the patient. Most recently, I elected to ignore the questions and provide instead extended comments, sent directly to hospital administrators, hopeful that: 1. it will get some attention, and 2. others, reading this, might do the same.


Tom McAfee, M.D.
Dean for Clinical Affairs
UC San Diego
Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center
La Jolla, Ca.

Dear Tom,
    Today I received an evaluation form that, filled out by patients, presumably provides a data base or benchmark from which improvements in the operation might be identified and implemented for the betterment of the institution. I want to tell you at the outset that in my recent stays at the hospital, Staff performed  in exemplary fashion and  there certainly are no complaints about the facility. At the end of the form  are a couple of lines marked “Other comments” and that is where I want to dwell, instead of filling out the form. This letter is not meant to be vindictive or anything of the sort, but coming from the scientific and engineering community, there are things that I observed  and experienced in recent months  that  reveal  what to  me are significant weaknesses in the operation. I hope it is read and accepted in good faith and that it is helpful.
    I have been a cardiac patient at UCSD since 1994. I came in with a previous history of a quadruple bypass in 1988, performed at Sharp Hospital. I am now in my 89th year. During the entire period since 1994 I visited my cardiologist  at four month intervals. On occasion echo and stress tests were performed. In retrospect, it seems that in all that time, technology was non-existent that  monitored, measured and evaluated the quality of the electrical conductors  on the heart. This would seem  more important as the person ages. By inference they are assumed healthy, but direct measurement is absent. I wonder about this. On the one hand we have Star Wars technology that replaces, or supports marginal conductors, and on the other hand we are deficient in information.  Had we known in December what we know now, I would have had a pacemaker installed then, avoiding  the past six months of misery  and unnecessary cost..
    I realize that because nature has provided a triple redundant system in the heart’s conductors,  that must provide a comfort zone in providing or recommending cardiac care. In the rocket and spacecraft world, we go nature one step further, with quadruple control redundancy. Spacecraft Voyager, now at the edge of the solar system after over thirty-five years, is still sending back information.
    So, as a result (I believe) of marginal conductors, as confirmed later in this letter, I entered the Sulpizio ER with a small heart attack on February 4. That episode was concluded with the insertion of a pair of stents and I was sent home to recover, with a prescription for Plavix, which was found necessary in order to avoid complications from medicated stents. An interesting concept.... medication to make medication work.  Within six days I experienced  a sudden rush of numbness down my left side. In minutes it subsided. It occurred again the next day, and  by the fourth day was settling in as a constant impediment. At first my cardiologist suspected a stroke and referred me to Dr. Hemmen who initially was of the same opinion. The following day after the appointment with Dr. Hemmen  I checked into the ER. Echo tests and MRI found  no sign of a stroke, and absence of loss of mobility seems to confirm that. I later learned that  this is a somewhat rare but serious side effect  of Plavix. It did not improve, I believe, because I was reinforcing it every day. I have since consulted with at least a dozen neurologists and cardiologists at UCSD and at Scripps Clinic. No one seems to know much about the phenomenon, much less what to do about it , although the internet documents abundant cases of the same thing. I have yet to hear from Bristol Myers, following my inquiry. I stopped taking Plavix, relying hopefully on the high dosage of aspirin I was taking and trusting to luck. Needless to say, my cardiologist was disturbed and proposed an alternate to Plavix. I looked that up too and the side effects clearly state: May cause sudden numbness down left side of body.”
    About three weeks ago I entered the ER again with actual signs of a stroke, as manifested in inability to write clearly and slightly slurred speech. I was 90% recovered in a couple of days and discharged. Through some research, I learned that a substitute for the blood thinner warfarin had been developed and newly on the market called Eliqius. I discussed this with my cardiologist and he agreed  I should try it. I have yet to determine whether it exacerbates the numbness problem.
    Then, something interesting happened. Credit Dr. Hemmen for probably saving my life. At my last appointment, in an apparent fortuitous moment of epiphany, he ordered a cardiac monitor to be worn for a month. On the first night an anomaly was recorded that indicated a blockage,  manifested in a heart rate as low as twenty. I received an early morning call on July fourth advising me to go to the ER immediately. There a series of tests were undertaken and I was admitted to the hospital. A subsequent visit in my room by the cardiologist on duty went like this.
    “You have a problem with the conductors that control your heartbeat. One of them is  completely gone and the other two are deteriorating. We’re going to have to fit you with a pacemaker.” We went over the technical aspects and planned for the operation the next day, as no one was present on the holiday to operate. The procedure went successfully and I am now at home living normally, except for the persistent numbness about which the entire medical profession seems to know nothing at all.
     To sum up, you may already  have concluded that this is a litany describing a situation that need not have occurred, in my opinion, that can be ascribed to a deficiency of information. The technology is great, but in my opinion UCSD has a way to go before information is its equal. What a great thing it would be for the medical profession, were they to come into balance.

Sincerely,
Edward Hujsak  

IT WAS NICE FOR A WHILE, EARTH. SEE YA

It has fallen to the city of Detroit to be the poster child for the emerging rampage by extremely wealthy and powerful people to magnify their sense of self-importance at the expense of the world around them, and indeed , by extension, because of the magnitude of their different modes of mischief, placing the entire global environment in peril.
 
Outside the city, alongside the Detroit River, is a petroleum refinery that belongs to one of the Koch brothers. It is not an ordinary refinery. It processes crude oil that flows in by pipeline from the Canadian tar sands, an oil deposit that rivals the largest ever discovered. It is not easy stuff to refine, like light crude. The residue is not black tar, which can be mixed with sand to pave our roads. It is a form of coke (Koch? how appropriate!), heavily laced with sulphur and other chemicals that place it in a class that bans its burning in the U.S., as specified in EPA rulings.
 
So what to do. There is a lot of energy in this coke, and acid rain and other harmful effects notwithstanding, there ought to be a way to make a buck with it. Here’s an idea. Let’s ship it to China and India. They don’t much care what they burn (If they die, they die). So that is where the Detroit mountain of coke is headed.
 
As it happens, Detroit is small potatoes. The Keystone pipeline, Canada’s bid to increase its shipments of refined petroleum to a global market, relies on Texas refineries to process orders of magnitude more tar sands oil than possible at the Detroit refinery...........and in the process produce more mountains of coke. Guess what else Texas ports will be shipping to China, India, and other nations.
 
There are of course other concerns with the pipeline, such as potential leaks and effect on the aquifers that it crosses. The latter may be avoided. If it happens to flow into rivers, the oil sinks to the bottom. A messy job, dredging oil from miles of river bottom. But the pay is good. Perversely, a leak over land may not be a hazard as the oil reverts to tar sands when it seeps into the earth So we dig it up and ship it back to Canada. Try again, Buster.
 
All this doesn’t take rocket science to think through, but my guess is that wealth and power will prevail. Letters to my Senators Feinstein and Boxer are answered politely, but with no evidence of serious concern.
 
What is that saying? Oh yes. “Suck it up.”

LETTER TO THE WHITE HOUSE

Dear Mr. President:

An article in the May 18 issue of the New York Times addresses the problem of the mountain of coke outside of Detroit that is the product of refining Canadian tar sands oil. It has high sulphur and other environmentally bad content and cannot be burned in the US by EPA rules. So it is being shipped to China, India and Mexico where they don’t care much about the environment. This brings up the subject of the Keystone pipeline. We can forecast, without any doubt, that mountains of coke will  be produced in Texas, and Texas will be a big shipping point to any buyers worldwide that can be found for it. This will be a big step backward in our efforts toward global warming abatement. Further, the Keystone pipeline is the medium through which Canada, exploiting its tar sands,  can produce and ship refined petroleum products around the world, It will have little US benefit. I hope you will reconsider your support for the pipeline.







Sincerely,
Edward Hujsak

A SONG FOR TURKEY HILL BRIDGE

Turkey Hill Bridge was one of the longest covered bridges in New Hampshire, spanning the Souhegan River in Merrimack at 124 feet in length. It was constructed in 1859. It stood for over a hundred years until it was torched by an arsonist in 1968. This poem was read by my niece, Madeliene Kerr at a poetry slam in the Merrimack Public Library on April 18, 2013.

A Song For Turkey Hill Bridge
by Edward Hujsak

They knew their craft, those brawny,
browned, Yankee bridge builders.
On level ground they measured, spliced, mortised,
drilled and joined with hardwood pegs
twin truss works of virgin timber to span,
unsupported, Souhegan's breadth.

They hoisted them upright, then with
block and tackle and sweating mules
they edged the structures across the stream
and lifted them onto stone abutments.
They paved the space between them
with thick wood planks, laid side by side.

They sheathed the walls with new-sawn boards,
raised a roof and topped it with split cedar singles.
They left openings tall enough and wide enough
for loaded hay ricks to pass through.

The last nail driven, they gathered 'round
and gazed upon the finished work,
glowing gold in the afternoon sun.
Someone raised a gallon jug
and named it Turkey Hill Bridge,
amidst cheers and swigs and smiling eyes.

For a hundred years and more
this bridge beat out the measures
of the longest symphony, impromptu, in
the clop clop clop of iron shod hooves,
rumbling of steel-rimmed wagon wheels
clacking loosely on their axles.

Screams and shouts of children's voices
vaulting to the rafters to stir the echoes,
and later the tick tick tick of Model-T engines
and the unmuffled roar of tractor exhausts.

Wintery interludes of icy silence
(a long pause between movements)
and adagios on summer evenings
when nesting pigeons cooed
and swallows chirped their way
into and out of the shelter.

Where lovers met to make a wish,
carve initials, hearts and arrows,
laugh above the river's burble,
then drift away on pathways
lit by starlight and fireflies..

HIGH COST AND FUZZY PLANS THREATEN SLS

 This op-ed was published in the March 23, 2013 edition of Space News



     An unspoken reality in the world of U.S. corporate mergers and purposeful acquisitions across a broad geographical spectrum is the formidable clout the parent company gradually and argu­ably builds in the political arena, and in particular with members of Congress. It came to light recently in the spectacle of Senators essentially fixing the design of the heavy-lift launch vehicle with the obvious intent of supporting industries in the territories they represent.

In the broader perspective, the Space Launch System (SLS) was the result of a transparent collusion between the senators and NASA to do something that would preserve the space shuttle industries in their home states as part of the roadmap to an ultimate heavy lifter with a capability on the order of 130 metric tons. Sure, the intermediate rocket would have a capability of only 75 metric tons, and compelling missions for it are elusive, but hang the expense — this is what we want you to do. So NASA is spending big money on a rocket to nowhere.

Why not go directly to the 130-metric-ton heavy lifter? There are missions for that, not the least of which are replacement work stations when the international space station reaches end of life. If it has overcapacity for the one or two missions planned for the interim SLS, it’s an opportunity for forward thinkers within NASA and the industry to use that capacity for a robust experiment in propellant transport and storage in orbit.

To the ordinary observer, the estimated program runout cost of $41 billion (some con­sider this conservative) to an operational 130-metric-ton heavy lifter is astonishing. Much of this cost is attributable to NASA’s toying with several configurations, starting out with solid boosters and gradually evolving to the desired final capability instead of going directly to it.

The initial cost per launch, estimated by NASA’s Jody Singer, SLS deputy program manager, as “perhaps” $500 million, is low-balled by a wide margin. The cost of a Titan 4 launch in 1985 dollars was $400 million. At the conclusion of the space shuttle program the cost per flight for that vehicle approached a billion dollars. At the low anticipated launch rates, the cost per launch, considering the high usage of shuttle-derived hardware, would likely be similar to shuttle launch costs. Some of the cost of the initial few vehicles would be abated by the use of 15 RS-25 oxygen/hydrogen engines left over from the shuttle program.

On October. 1, 2012, NASA announced the award of contracts totaling $137 M to three contractors for development, en­gineering and risk reduction efforts related to the SLS program. One of the contractors, Dynetics of Huntsville, Ala, teamed with Pratt& Whitney Rocketdyne to assess updating the F-1 engine as a candidate thruster for the 130 metric ton heavy lifter. At that time it was announced that negotiations were in progress with Aerojet for a similar study on its proposed 1 million-pound thrust staged combustion engine The liquid-fueled boosters for the 130 metric-ton heavy lifter would require three engines per booster, in contrest to two F-1 engines, but superior performance was to offset that difference.

An article in the February. 14 18 issue of SpaceNews announced that NASA had finally executed a contract with Aerojet for an engine at a 550,000-pound lb thrust level [“Aerojet Awarded Contract for SLS Booster Design Work,” page 3].

What’s going on? The reference configurations for the SLS show no conceivable applica­tion for a 550,000-pound thrust oxygen/kerosene engine. — surely not six or seven as substitutes for an F-1 pair.

There is a love affair with the F-1 engine that may be the driver for this engine being se­lected by fiat. It stems from its superb performance in the Apollo program. However, of the two designs, it would be the poorer choice. The F-1 engine, at 1.8 million pounds thrust, would have only one application — the SLS. It would be a very expensive engine as its usage rate would likely be considerably under what was the case for Apollo.

On the other hand, the 1 million-pound thrust engine proposed by Aerojet would find broader application. It could replace the Russian built RD-180 engine used on Atlas 5, which is a strategic weak spot for U.S. Defense Department missions. It could also be adopted for the Space Exploration Technologies Falcon launcher, particularly the Falcon “Heavy,” provided perfor­mance and cost benefits outweighed the multiple engine configuration now in play.

Other aspects of rocket engine production need attention in order to lower costs. Produc­ers of the F-1 will claim innovations in design and processes, but the cost will still largely be rate dependent. Experience has shown that. Innovations for 1 million-pound thrust engine, however, could include heavy emphasis on automated production and production in relatively large lots. The system could be designed for seamless, periodic restart when needed. In this scheme, for example, a 10-year inventory of engines, produced rapidly at the lowest possible cost, would be mortgaged. The cost of mortgaging would be significantly lower than the on-running over­head costs in a process that produces engines at a low rate.

 
High-rate production of rocket engines is not a new idea. The model can be found in the U.S. Air Force’s construction of Plant 65 in Neosho, Mo., during the late 1950’s, operated by the Rocketdyne division of North American Aviation solely for production of MA-3 thrusters for Atlas E and Atlas F, and followed by production of H-1 engines for Saturn 1 and Saturn 1B. Over 400 engines were produced, the Atlas engines ahead of schedule and under projected cost. It was the first, and perhaps only, venture into manufacturing rocket engines with a strong level of auto­mation for that day and age.

Anyone can now see the SLS as a vast, make-work program. Its principals need to be cor­ralled by someone like former NASA Administrator James Webb and given marching orders.

Edward Hujsak is a career rocket engineer and the author of two books on rockets, “The Future of U.S. Rocketry” and “All About Rocket Engines.”

WHO'S FOOLING WHO?

    First, lets get the definition of “range” out of the way. When an electric car dealer assures you that the all-electric car you are thinking of buying has a range of, say, 160 miles, he doesn’t mean that you can drive to a city that is 160 miles away with assurance that you will get back without charging up at your destination. The range is really only half that distance.

    In the article titled “Everyman’s Electric Car,” posted Feb. 18, 2013. the range, specified as 500 miles, means that you can drive 500 miles and return without refueling with biofuel, and the batteries are still fully charged upon arriving home.

    There’s a lot of research and development going on to try to come up with batteries far in advance of anything presently in existence. Let’s say that company X has made a breakthrough, producing a long lasting, light weight, fairly economical battery that charges in the time it takes to fill a gas tank, (Graphene Supercapacitors?) and that promises to double the range of the best that Tesla can do with its thousands of lithium-ion batteries. Let’s say that the development is so good that the entire driving public switches to electric cars. But there is no compelling reason why  such a change would do anything toward abating climate change.   

    Indeed, such a development could make things worse. A life cycle energy balance will invariably show that losses exceed  gains with all existing battery powered cars.  The energy for charging the batteries would mostly come from central generating sources, some of which are the biggest polluters of the environment. In accordance with the energy generated by various processes (US data for 2011):

41.9 % of the electric cars would be coal burners.
24.8 % of the electric cars would be natural gas burners.
19.1 % of the electric cars would be nuclear powered.
7.7 % of the electric cars would be hydro powered.
4.7% of the electric cars would be powered by renewables (photovoltaic, wind, geothermal, etc.)

    The solution, as I discussed in the article, is an on-board, advanced biofuel burning Diesel engine that operates at its optimum speed to keep a modest complement of batteries charged. An engine that operates at efficiency above 50% is possible. One feature might be to build it to be steam cooled, using that steam to drive a turbogenerator for extra power.

DITTY FOR 2014

 As a believer that half the members of Congress should be women, I am placing this little ditty in the public domain. 


Women, wise up!
Women, rise up!
In two oh one four,
Show Congress MEN the door!


It has mileage, too. In 2018 "door" becomes "gate"

EVERYMAN'S ELECTRIC CAR

by Edward Hujsak

   
    To date, no one has designed, built and marketed a stand-alone electric car of merit; not General Motors, not Ford, not Chrysler, not Toyota, not Nissan, not Hundai, not Daimler Benz, not Audi, not BMW, not Tesla Motors, not anyone. Amazing, but also understandable when considering that automobile design is the product of a blend of marketing assessment and company management, in contrast to sound and practical design engineering and systems engineering with consumer needs paramount in establishing design requirements and specifications.

    Tesla comes close with its all-electric design, a triumph of artistry and technology. But overall it is seriously flawed.
a. It is either electric “clean” or electric “dirty” depending on whether the origin of its energy is, say, clean geothermal or coal fired power plants.
b. It is a niche vehicle because of its high cost. Not many can afford a $100,000 car, including taxes, license and insurance, or even the lower performance models at around $70,000.
c. Waiting time at charge stations is additive to time wasted in heavy traffic. A problem unless one enjoys wasting time, especially in mid-winter.
d. A new”fret/stress problem for drivers, worrying about mileage remaining vs. where the next charge station is.
e. Issues regarding lowered performance in cold weather.

    Designers of Everyman’s Electric Car would accept none of the above shortcomings. Everyman’s Electric Car is a stand-alone vehicle and plugs into nothing, except, perhaps, an occasional "top-off" when preparing for an extended trip, or due to an unintended depletion of battery charge.

    Everyman’s Electric Car can carry five to six passengers and has adequate cargo space. It weighs less than 3500 pounds and costs less than $30,000. Everyman’s Electric car is as carbon neutral as one can get. It has a minimum range of 500 miles.

    Everyman’s Electric Car carries a modest complement of ordinary batteries, as it is not range dependent on batteries. Batteries are of a type that end up in established recovery systems when their operating life has expired.

    Batteries are kept charged by an on-board, advanced Diesel engine that operates on a variety of biofuels. It operates at a constant speed at its most efficient operating point and drives a generator that keeps the batteries charged. Such advanced Diesels are in development at companies like Eco-Motors and Pinnacle Engines.

    Everyman’s Electric Car is powered by electric motors on two wheels, on four wheels, or by a single motor powering two wheels through a differential. Trade studies would determine preferred arrangements, which may be affected by regional preferences, i.e. North East USA versus Southwest.

     This design concept provides for the high torque requirements for coming up to speed and passing, and the modest hp requirement for normal cruising.
    
    The travelling range of Everyman’s Electric Car is established by the fuel tank capacity. Should one run out of fuel, battery capacity is enough to travel to the next available biofuel station. In a pinch, that quart bottle of olive oil in the grocery bag will get you an extra twenty miles.

    Utilities such as air conditioning can be powered by the Diesel engine. Others, like power steering, could be electric, depending on how trade studies reveal performance and cost advantages for one or the other.

    Who will be the first to design a stand-alone electric car that meets both consumer requirements and is fully compliant with the best ideas about how to mitigate climate change, and conserve fossil fuels? Who will be the first to let engineers do the job right? Everyman’s Electric Car is hardly a technological challenge. We know how to do it.

LUCKY ME

      Lucky me, blessed with a caring, brilliant, conversational son. Some years ago, in what was in retrospect an overly-ambitious move, we founded the Interstellar Propulsion Society, on the idea that once we get the propulsion problem solved, everything else will come together to make interstellar travel possible. It got to be much too ambitious an effort and soon faltered, but fortunately NASA picked up on the idea and funded Marc Millis of  Glenn Research Center to carry out further studies. That soon ran out of money, but Marc went on to  organize the Tau Zero Foundation, which operates toward the same general objectives. That is not the only thing in play. Recently DARPA funded what is called the “100 Year Starship Study” to examine some of the issues related to interstellar travel.
         
    The other night Jon and I were discussing the desperate plight of the countless fifty-year old engineers who have lost their jobs and cannot find a similar one even after searching and interviewing for years, finally ending up in occupations paying a third or less of their former salaries. This is a tragedy in work for individuals and their families, as well as for the nation. These people represent an enormous collective talent, with thirty or more years of experience, far along on the learning curve, possessing a historical knowledge of what works and what doesn’t, and in all likelihood would return  steady and faithful performance to anyone hiring them.

     We ended up speculating on what we would do were we to start up a new company. We concluded that our best chance at success would be to hire no one under fifty years of age.  Imagine...... starting up a company of twenty employees with 600 years of experience under their belts. How could you lose?

UNTITLED POEM

When did my story end?
It is now an unravelled rope,
its frayed strands
at the mercy of the wind.
It happens, on occasion,
I catch a thread
and follow it.
Sometimes it surprises me -
an adventure I hadn’t thought of,
a memory steeped in passion,
colors and fragrance.
A few lines, perhaps,
I might use some day.

PHOENICIANS, SAWMILLS AND ME

Now that I have your attention, I want to assure you that there is indeed a  kinship that I feel deeply, that reaches into history to a period extending as far back as the third millennium BC and in particular the twelve centuries between 1500 BC and 300 BC, when the great traders and shipbuilders of Phoenicia were a dominant culture in the Mediterranean region. In the second millennium and even in the third millennium metal workers made tools for wresting boards and timbers out of logs so furniture, buildings, ships, and even coffins could be constructed. They evolved from bronze tools to iron, as their “metallurgists”  discovered how to produce this metal, and further, with the addition of a little carbon, a type of iron that can be worked into various shapes without breaking, unlike cast iron. Steel didn’t arrive until recently. This material was what we call wrought iron. The technology seems to have spread throughout the region, including Egypt, Crete, Greece, the Balkans and Mesopotamia, the “Fertile Crescent” that spanned the territory between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean.

The tools they produced were  mallets, hammers, chisels, adzes, axes, bow- operated augers, possibly foot powered lathes for producing pegs and dowels, and saws in a wide variety. Everything they built was done with these tools. Of particular interest to me are saws. The ability to flatten iron to the thickness needed for a saw, and then cut dimensionally identical teeth into the edge, and then file the teeth to sharpness bespeaks of a metal working capability beyond what anyone has yet discovered.

Something occurred at about the beginning of second millennium that paralleled the westward movement in America nearly four thousand years later, that ended up in settlements along the Pacific Coast. In Mesopotamia, trading out of the Persian gulf had already been established for centuries. But there were dreamers, traders, adventurers, craftsmen and venture capitalists among the Mespotamians who perceived that the west coast, bordering on the Mediterranean, was the land of opportunity, so they headed  for the region now known as Lebanon, which had fertile lands along the coast, rivers leading inland, hills and mountains covered with magnificent cedar trees, and natural harbors with waters teeming with fish - a virtual paradise where a convergence of talents led to one of the greatest trading enterprises ever. Egyptians had already been making forays for centuries into Lebanon for the prized Cedars, as that nation had few indigenous trees that were useful for lumber. 

The settlers were a loosely organized civilization, occupying independent city states - Sidon, Byblos, and later the close-by island of Tyre, a prosperous, fortified trading center that took Alexander the Great seven months to subdue on his way to building an empire. Once in business, Phoenicians traded in slaves, lumber, wine, textiles, glass, and purple dye extracted from Murex shells that was prized by royalty wherever they travelled. Phoenicians traded along the southern Mediterranean, Egypt and other North Africa nations over thousands of kilometers, and set up trading colonies like Carthage as they moved westward. They were advanced in navigation and eventually sailed out of the Mediterranean in their trading ventures and travelled north, as far as England, where they traded for tin, and also south along the African coast. To facilitate their trade with various cultures they developed a common language that eventually became the alphabet we know, after the Greeks, Etruscans and  finally the Romans worked it over.  (The first two letters were alpha and bethe, so guess where alphabet originated, and also the word phonetics.) Needless to say, as the world’s dominant traders during that period, Phoenicians got to be very wealthy even while withstanding occasional invasions.

Of course, none of this would have occurred had the Phoenicians not gotten to be great ship builders. They had the craftsmen, they had the vast cedar forests in their back yard, and they had the metallurgists and toolmakers to fashion the tools for felling the trees and rendering them into the boards and timbers for building their ships and for trade with nations like Egypt. But the foundation for the entire fortunes of the Phoenicians are directly traceable to the excruciating, time consuming labor of pairs of men, probably slaves, wielding rip saws up and down, engaged in sawing logs into boards and timbers. The actual sawing of the boards was accomplished in an arrangement where the log, first hewed to flatness with axes and adzes on one side, was moved on rollers over a pit in the ground. The saws were rip-saws, with the teeth pointing in one direction. One of the men stood in the pit and drew the saw down in the cutting action and the other stood on the log and lifted the saw for the next stroke. They did this all day long. In a way the man in the pit had it easier as he had the help of gravity. But he had sawdust falling on him all day and the heat, especially in summer, must have been deadly. Millions of board feet of lumber were cut in this manner.

This method of sawing lumber didn’t change over thousands of years, although as far back as the Romans AD some experimentation was done with water wheels powering the saws. Pit sawing is even practiced today in places like Zambia, where high-value, individual trees are “poached” by natives. Gradually, water powered mills spread across Europe. They didn’t have much flexibility and production was largely limited to trees that were cut in the immediate vicinity. During colonial times n the United states most of the lumber was cut by two man teams in a manner nearly identical to that of the Phoenicians, except that there was no pit. The logs were placed on raised platforms. In Maine, where lumbering was very active, workers resisted mechanization in fear of losing their jobs. But the demand for lumber in the new nation grew rapidly, thus powered sawmills sprung up everywhere. Following the Europeans, water wheels were the initial power source with a device like a crankshaft that produced the reciprocating action for sawing. As there was plenty of power, mill operators emplaced several saws in a framework so more than one board could be cut a time- something like the hand held tomato slicer  that has ten little saws in it, side by side, separated by the thickness of a tomato slice.  In this scheme logs had to be transported to the mill. Not until the early nineteenth century, when steam engine power became available, did sawmills become more or less portable, thus could be located where the trees were.  When internal combustion engines were developed, they replaced the steam engines. Even as late as the 1850’s  sawmills used reciprocating saw blades.  That was when the next major advancements took place. With the availability of more power and higher shaft speeds, circular saw blades were adopted, often ganged together to cut several boards at a time. A later improvement switched to band saws, which also operated in gang arrangements to cut more boards at a time.

         A lost art is that of the specialist who travelled from sawmill to sawmill, like an itinerant piano tuner, skilled in hammering circular saws that had warped due to overheating into trueness so they could be used again.

Modern sawmills are stationary installations and are highly computerized. Every part of the tree trunk is used. - the bark for landscaping, sawdust for a type of panel board used in cheap furniture, chips for a panel board that replaces plywood for construction, chips for the paper industry from parts of the tree that are trimmed off in the forest. Tree trunks are trucked to the mills full length, because that is where they can be cut to optimum lengths for lumber. At the other end of the scale is a very small portable sawmill that consists of a simple metal frameworks on which is mounted a gasoline engine engine-powered band saw that travels along the  log. People operate these in their back yards and can cut hundreds of square feet of  lumber in a day.

Throughout the ages, since the method remained much the same, the hand operated saw created in the time of the Phoenicians has hardly changed, It is commonly known now as the two-man crosscut saw. It is still used for felling trees and cutting logs to length in situations that are temporary, where a chain saw isn’t handy, and perhaps governed by individuals who see no need to depart from “the old ways.” You can buy crosscut saws online. Probably the Phoenicians had crosscut saws too for felling trees and sectioning them into transportable lengths, as that was simply a matter of the tooth configuration on the blade. Things began to change when the chain saw was invented by Andreas Stihl in Stuttgart, Germany in 1926 and placed into production in 1929. It was a two-man,  gas engine powered affair that weighed 116 pounds - not something you can use around the home. It was very successful, but what with the Great Depression just around the corner and Germany ramping up to conquer the world, there is no history of a significant appearance of chain saws in the United States until after the war.  Stihl continued in business and expanded world wide, and other manufacturers like McCulloch and Huskavarna began domestic  and foreign manufacture. Stihl is a prosperous company after eighty years and has manufacturing plants in the United States.

As a side note, chain saws were first invented in 1790 for use in surgery. They were hand cranked affairs that gave the surgeon better control in amputations. I suppose if you hear the howl of a chain saw around a hospital, that might be what is going on. I’ve not heard that the practice was ever halted. (Well, yes, I have. The cutting is now done with a special wire that has cutters along its length).

So now we get close to home, to finally reveal what this kinship with the Phoenicians is all about. It goes back to the 1938 New England hurricane, which uprooted and laid over most of the pine forests in southern New Hampshire. As a result, I found my high school days truncated by time spent at one end of a two-man crosscut saw, with Pa on the other end. I didn’t know much about the Phoenicians then but I came to appreciate the conditions under which they worked. Together we cut up fallen pines, skidded them out of the forest, loaded them onto Pa’s aging Acme truck and hauled them to either an operating sawmill in Reeds Ferry or Horseshoe pond in Thornton’s Ferry, where the Federal Government stored them in water to prevent borer damage before they could be processed. It was exhausting, dangerous work. I came to understand why the logging business is among the most dangerous of occupations.

Toward the end, Pa saved a load of logs to be sawed into boards for his own use. One fine October afternoon, a great day for football, I thought,  we trucked the logs to Fred Hall’s sawmill, a short distance from our farm, which he operated when the spirit moved him, as he had aged beyond where any sensible man would be operating a sawmill. He was wizened and short, seldom shaved and wore bib overalls, a red-plaid woolen shirt and a Boston & Maine Railroad cap. His eyes had a peculiar brightness. Tobacco juice oozed from the corners of his mouth. We unloaded the logs and Pa took a position where he would help Fred secure the logs to the carriage that fed the logs into the saw. Fred, standing at the big circular saw, touching up the teeth with a file, looked at me and said, “Start er up.”

I went to the engine, a big six-cylinder International Harvester stationary power plant, turned the switch on and started cranking. I didn’t know I was cranking the whole sawmill and the entire affair suddenly roared into action. Fred jumped back from the turning circular saw and Pa stood there laughing his head off. Fred started sawing and I took the boards coming off the carriage and fed them into a smaller rip saw that squared the edges. In about three hours the job was done. Fred signaled me with a hand passed across his throat to shut the engine down, which I did, and suddenly all was quiet except for the siren sounds of the saw blades in our ears, which would linger for hours. Fred looked at me, his eyes shining.

“Durn fool!” he said. “Yer supposed to engage the clutch AFTER you start the engine!”

Author’s note:

The rise and fall of the Phoenician culture is the lesson of how a civilization which starts out rich in resources, but with no notion or inclination regarding sustainability, proceeds to plunder its own territory until there is nothing else left to exploit. The cedars of Lebanon were the Phoenician’s oil wells. When the trees were gone, or nearly gone, the entire economy slumped. The hills and mountains eroded, the rivers carried the soil to the sea and the harbors got silted in. The  final insult occurred when the British harvested the remaining cedars, using them for railroad ties. Only a few acres remain in protected areas, but the magnificent forests will never be seen again. Today, worldwide, various conservation efforts are indicators of growing concern about depletion of resources, but it is probably far short of what is needed.