Community backing will always be a basic necessity for the survival and prosperity of hospitals and medical schools. Even smaller facilities such as those dedicated purely to research requires a large helping of such backing, particularly where money is concerned. Oftentimes, these generous donors can be found contributing to more than one institution, folks such as Isaac Toussie and family when it comes to the top two leading lights of New York in healthcare education and practice, Weill Cornell Medical College and the North Shore-LIJ network of hospitals and research centers.
Weill Cornell is named after its two single best benefactors, Ezra Cornell, a founder of Western Union, and Sanford I. Weill, former CEO and chairman of Citigroup, Incorporated. It is one of the most selective medical schools in the United States, it admits only about a hundred hopefuls out of the nearly six thousand that apply each year. What’s more, it was the first to admit women right alongside the men and first to operate overseas, just outside of the capital of Qatar, Doha. It can also claim a long line of famous alumni, famous public people like C. Everett Koop, U.S. Surgeon General; Robert C. Atkins of Atkins Diet fame; Nobel Laureate Robert W. Holley; and Henry Heimlich who invented the eponymous maneuver for choking victims. The North Shore-LIJ Health System is the second largest healthcare network in the country as measured by the number of beds and the largest in New York State based on patient revenue. It serves over seven million people a year through more than forty-two thousand employees – the single largest employer on Long Island and ninth largest largest in the City of New York.
Both are successful in large part due to strong communal backing, whether in the form of charitable contributions by prominent businessmen and women or donated time by community volunteers such as those from civic or religious organizations. Even with an annual budget of several billions between them, Weill Cornell and North Shore-LIJ will always depend on the support of the host communities they serve.
China, China, China – what’s the big deal?
Why is everybody going on and on about China on a regular basis?
Okay, so they own billions (or is that trillions) in American securities, currency, whatever.
And they make lotsa stuff.
Like NFL beach towels and stuff.
Yeah.
Okay.
It’s not like most people wish to work on an assembly line anyways, making trinkets and curios for Walmart.
But whatever.
All right, so it’s not simply NFL beach towels that they make.
It’s that they are also climbing up the food chain, making stuff that’s more and more high-value, such that good-paying jobs may be the next to go.
They’re hardly making textiles any more – notice that many of the clothing nowadays come from even more unique locales – like Indonesia and Sri Lanka?
In fact, to be fair, it isn’t NFL beach towels that anyone’s upset over.
It’s the fear that aircraft manufacturing may be next!
Already the Chinese government is on record as gunning for leadership in green energy products including wind mills and solar panels, and witout a doubt they are well on their way in direction of dominating those industries.
But does it need to be a zero-sum game?
Does China’s rise equal everyone else’s loss?
Put another way, are they simply gobbling up ever more slices of the pie – or may Chinese ascendancy grow that pie for everyone involved?
Well, speaking of the NFL, it’s interesting to compare and contrast that sporting league’s business decisions with that relating to the NBA.
Basketball continues to grow in popularity over there while years ago an organized exhibition game of American football was canceled almost at the last minute.
If this serves as any suggestion, it may be that being in place surpasses lodging on the sidelines!
The recent Japanese catastrophe has shone a spotlight on the country’s relatively unique social structure.
Unlike many other situations of natural disaster elsewhere, no looting or rioting has followed to compound the tragedy — and this has tremendously impressed many a non-Japanese observer.
From the patient orderly lines to the return of valuables, “yamoto-damashii,” or the Japanese spirit, has elicited admiration and further sympathy from the world.
As can be imagined, articles have shown up seeking to explain the phenomenon of people who remain law-abiding citizens regardless of being deprived of not only creature comforts but everything they own and even of loved ones.
Police stations all along the coast are stuffed to capacity with all the personal household safes of sufferers which have washed back to ground or been recovered from the rubble by rescue workers.
Then there is the seemingly suicidal heroism and self-sacrifice of many nuclear power plant employees.
Even animals have displayed yamoto-damashii: a dog made worldwide headlines for standing by another dog caught under rubble, refusing to leave!
Much has been written both for and against the “Japanese-spirit interpretation” of events.
On one side, people note that the country is a wealthy one, a highly advanced one, and one that is arguably uniquely homogenous among the leading industrialized societies of which it is a member.
Obviously household safes and other belongings have been returned or at least left unmolested!
It figures, argue such people, because there is no motivation to loot and riot when the country as one offers so many resources to provide succor.
Others note that the spirit of Japan is such that rules are observed given that they are rules – Japanese rules – and one is Japanese.
Safes are not broken into because that’s not what a Japanese person does, basically.
This side of the debate notes that no matter how rich the society, individual victims continue to suffer – yet they do so patiently, in a manner uniquely Japanese.
Due to out fast-paced society, fast-paced because new discoveries are being made all the time which leads to things never stand still, even personal fitness trainers need to take CPE courses to be able to be in good ranking professionally.
As a former personal trainer myself, I must say, however, that the standard trainer may still not be as knowledgeable as such accreditations may wish to imply.
Those employed by chain gyms, which is the great majority of those nowadays, are often youngsters for whom personal training is a gig they happen to have come upon.
At something like New York Sports Club (NYSC), they wear the red tee shirts that say “here to help you.”
Now some are, obviously, quite knowledgeable and rather considering the subject, but for most it is just a job that seemed to fit nicely with a laid-back interest in sports.
The certification exam they take is honest and rigorous enough for any employing a multiple-choice format, but it is really nothing more than a memory test and definitely indicates no real expertise.
The needed CPE courses run generally along the same lines, regurgitating data by rote.
The fact is, these trainers know nothing that could not be received by anyone who logs online.
Certainly, one may say the same of any occupation – but when it comes to physical fitness, the very nature of the field enables for no small amount of misinformation and outright quackery.
The explanation for this is really quite simple: no one actually knows.
That’s right.
I’m a former personal fitness trainer and the only one who can tell the absolute truth: no one really knows.
Unless he or she is God or was there at the creation of Adam and Eve, no one really knows.
Therefore, all the personal trainer CPE courses in the world isn’t going to make up for this simple but shocking truth – “the human body is centuries before medical science,” as Doctor Sir Roger Bannister explained.
Located on New York City’s tony Upper East Side neighborhood, the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University is dedicated to both teaching and research. It is one of the most selective medical schools in the entire United States, enrolling only about a hundred students per class out of some six thousand applicants in any given year. Now named Weill Cornell Medical College and, even more often, simply “Weill Cornell,” the school was partially endowed by Sanford Weill, an American banker and philanthropist who was the former executive officer and chairman of Citigroup, Incorporated. Mr. Weill and his wife donated over two hundred and fifty milion of their own money, with Mr. Weill able to raise a further hundred and fifty million through his own tireless efforts.
The school was already famous long before Mr Weill’s contributions, and not once had it lacked for benefactors, many prominent only locally but generous all the same, such as real estate developer and investor Isaac Toussie. After all, it’s the first American medical school to accept women right alongside men. It was also the first American medical school to have locations outside the United States, with an Education City, Qatar campus offering a six-year integrated curriculum focused on patient care. The school can count many a notable physician among its alumni, people such as Robert C. Atkins of Atkins Diet fame and former Surgeon General of the United States C. Everett Koop. Other alumnus luminaries include Nobel Prize winner Robert W. Holley and Henry Heimlich of the Heimlich Maneuver.
Anyway, even with all the financial donations, the economics of a medical education are severe, generally taken to be some forty-two thousand dollars the first year and another thirty-eight required the second. Nevertheless, that’s a bargain considering Cornell’s law school tuition, which adds up to almost a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the same four years!
It’s a tough exam, but that’s probably for the best since a whole life of continuing professional education awaits the publicly certified accountant.
Generally known as CPE for CPAs, these courses ensure that bean-counters stay on top of the most recent changes in the law so that last year’s legal loopholes are used only when still applicable!
But technical matters are not the sole concern of such classes.
A big component of modern CPE for CPAs is ethics.
Yes, that’s right – plain old right and wrong!
Somewhere across the line it’s been overlooked big time, ethics.
Then again, unethical dealings have been part and parcel of the occupation ever since the Middle Ages, when its Italian founder observed common accounting frauds already prevalent even back then!
All the same, ethics CPE for CPAs is really a good thing – especially for course authors!
For they are prone to ever run out of fascinating topics to talk about.
Many a former white-collar lawbreaker still shakes his head at the lax practices still so widespread in the industry, almost ensuring another round of scandal, scandal such as what had brought them down once.
Take the case of Sammy Antar of Crazy Eddie’s fame.
A CPA and former CFO of his cousin’s legendary retail electronics business, Sam now rails against accounting fraud of the sort which he used to practice for above a decade.
The truth is, he is now a speaker who gives classes on how to catch white-collar criminals.
Moreover, folks can actually earn CPE and CLE credits for attending his talks!
But the very undeniable fact that he should still have something to say – something for which audiences still gather to hear – underlines the unfortunate currency of accounting fraud.
Of course, ethics deal with morality and not mere legality.
It may be difficult for numbers-crunchers to think in deeply philosophical , but that’s exactly why continuing education is a necessity!
What can you do with wind chimes except hang them up somewhere?
Yet there are a very few musicians who are incorporating them into their very acts – live performances, actually.
That’s right – those things, made of stone, shell, wood, glass, or metal, used in actual music, as musical instruments in themselves.
Exactly what can you do with wind chimes except hang them up somewhere?
Yet there are a few musicians who are incorporating them into their very acts – live performances, actually.
That’s right – those things, made from stone, shell, wood, glass, or metal, used in actual music, as musical devices in themselves.
Looks impossible, given their extremely limited acoustic abilities, so they can be much of a contributor, melodically or rhythmically, but some innovative musicians have managed to work them into their performances.
Typically, they are used in modern music and used as percussion instruments.
The use of wind chimes in this way has long been quite varied, with David Sitek of the American rock band TV on the Radio hanging one at the end of his guitar to Oliver Messiaen using glass, wood, and seashell chimes within his opera about Saint Francis of Assisi.
Other composers using a wind chime in their works contain Toshiro Mayuzumi, Giles Swayne, and Koji Kondo, who scores videogame soundtracks, which includes those for Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda!
While we’re talking about things Japanese, there is even a Pokemon according to wind chimes, called – what else? – Chimecho!
In fact, it’s commonly referred to as “the wind chime Pokemon” due to its light frame and power to produce a ringing, chiming cry.
This piercing sound can be amplified into ultrasonic shockwaves that knock back its foes.
Altogether, chimecho can make seven different tones to convey with other chimecho.
But to return to musical instruments: no discussion on the subject could be complete without mentioning that a percussion instrument does exist which is often mistaken for a wind chime but is truly a mark tree.
The resemblance is pretty obvious, however, such that other names for it consist of chime tree or bar chimes!
So it turns out that Jesse James likes Nazi paraphernalia.
No relation to the iconic Wild West figure, the only claim to fame that this latter-day Jesse James has is to be married to Sandra Bullock, one of the most beloved actresses of our time.
Indeed, she has been crowned “America’s Sweetheart” by the celebrity press for not only her good-girl roles but for her legendary off-screen generosity, donating millions at a time, most notably in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks and the catastrophic trifecta of earthquake-tsunami-nuclear-crisis that has just lately hit Japan.
So how could she have tolerated such an obvious lout?
They were always one of the most startling couples in Hollywood, a bad-boy/good-girl pair directly out of central casting and screenwriters’ workshops.
What could they possibly have supplied their guests for wedding favors?
Almost sounds like the perfect set-up for one of Tinsteltown’s formulaic romantic comedies.
However, the real life version that has played out thus far more resembles tragedy for the Oscar-winning celebrity.
As for the bad boy, he’s now happily married to tattoo model Michelle McGee, who’s also posed in Nazi regalia.
In fact, McGee has the acronym “WP” etched prominently on her legs, letters which indicate “white power” in racist circles but which she claims only describes an element of the female anatomy that’s wet!
One can only envision what was offered as wedding favors for their guests.
Of a specific perverse fascination to a lot of observers, however, remains the query of what Bullock knew and the follow-up ones of how would she not have if she really did not and why would she endure such racist interests if she actually did know.
Many theorize that perhaps she was just too harmless and generous, naive when it came to the white supremacist imagery long well-liked by biker culture and generous regardless towards such naughtiness in a “bad boy” – again, straight away of central casting: you can not make this stuff up!
Yes, better to gossip about wedding favors instead.
Sam Antar was the former CFO of Crazy Eddie’s, his cousin’s electronics retail kingdom.
Sam is a much sought-after speaker on the lecture circuit nowadays, and his seminars may even earn CPE and CLE credits for the attendees.
That’s because he is a convicted fraudster.
Ethics continuing education courses are generally self-paced correspondence courses one takes at one’s own leisure as a part of maintaining one’s professional good standing.
Reading through Sam’s site on the worldwide web, however, is as educational as any structured academic account can be.
As the former CFO of Crazy Eddie’s, Sam presided over one of the most popular scandals in the chronicles of corporate crime.
He lays all of it out, bare, raw, and unembellished by any of the typical self-serving rationaliziations frequently given to insiders’ accounts – all unadulterated on his website.
This is an ethics CPE program like none other – if it were accredited as such.
As it is, it’s just a website – but oh, what a website!
White-collar offense never sounded so exciting.
That’s because the Crazy Eddie’s scandal was at heart a soap opera featuring all the common human foibles known to a Greek chorus – lust, greed, betrayal, and family.
Yes, family.
The familial element in this drama makes this instance of corporate offense so – if the pun is going to be pardoned – familiar to lay readers, grabbing and holding their attention where other accounts could lose them under a mountain of technical particulars.
However, it isn’t that Sam offers no minutiae of his own; his very purpose nowadays is to combat criminal activity, after all; it’s that these details, which would be so boring otherwise without the benefit of a human drama in which to place them in the appropriate perspective, come to vibrant life against the framework of a family power fight that resonantes purposely with everyone who’s actually underwent any semblance of sibling rivalry.
How’s that for an ethics CPE course!
Are wedding favors going out of style as society will become ever more informal?
Not if the gals have anything to do with it!
The concept of giving gifts to matrimonial guests may not be the cultural institution it once was, but weddings will always be one of the biggest dynamos within any economy.
While wedding favors may not be the first thing or two that delighted couples think about when organizing their special day, it is something that is still expected and few ceremonies might feel complete without some souvenir for the guests.
Naturally, were marriage itself to continue to decline, then there may well be a day when wedding favors go extinct — as nuptials themselves do!
This kind of situation is unlikely, and outright impossible for the near future.
The wedding industry is and will continue on to be healthy for decades to come.
To play the futurist for a moment, on the other hand, let us envision a world centuries ahead where human civilization has evolved considerably, a Star Trek future where money itself is no longer used, a society as radically different from our own as ours is from that of the neanderthal.
Forget about sickeness, incredibly long life spans if not immortality plain and simple.
Could marriage still make any sort of sense in such a world?
Can people truly be monogramous “forever and ever” when there is no death to do them part?
Maybe not forever, but it does seem that as naturally social creatures there will always be a pairing off of human beings, even if simply for a period of time, and it’s not inconceivable that some couples would wish to publicly proclaim their arrangements: that is, to get married.
This might mean that guests would definitely be receiving favors, or gifts, in gratitude of their attendance, even in an otherwise entirely changed world!