Feature

The Price of Progress: Is High Speed Cellular Worth it?

Many years ago, I was working on an advanced government project using NeXT computers. CEO Steve Jobs was personally involved because, well, we were inventing the future. During one of our discussions, the subject of placing technology into the hands of ordinary people became the topic. We both agreed that information technology, such as personal computers and the Internet, was a valuable productivity enhancement tool for the masses, but not a lifestyle.

Since then, the line between the two has not only blurred but, in the minds of younger generations, vanished completely. It is commonplace for people to visit exotic worldwide “bucket list” places or perform dangerous activities with the selfie stick in hand simply to gain a few “likes” on their social media accounts. One cannot drive from Danville to Walnut Creek on I-680 without seeing numerous drivers distracted by their mobile devices unaware of the traffic situation around them. And any San Ramon Valley restaurant, on any given day, includes parents glued to their cell phones while their children are being assimilated into their tablets by playing games.

This is not utilizing the cell phone as a productivity tool – this is lifestyle problem. Too many people are living in the virtual world of Instagram and Facebook and not participating in the real world, socializing face-to-face with others or working together to solve a problem or build a team.

Additionally, the health hazards to children under the age of 18 and addicted to cell phones or tablets are coming into focus as the “mobile device” generation ages. Many studies have been done and many warnings rendered, but without much affect yet.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the largest US medical association of pediatricians and pediatric specialists, recommends that the US government tighten wireless exposure limits and that the public reduce children’s exposure to cell phones and other devices that emit wireless radiation. How many of us have taken heed of this warning? A quick glance around a crowded restaurant provides the answer – not many.

And, unfortunately, this Electro Magnetic Radiation (EMR) exposure issue is about to become much worse if the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has its way.

The Cellular Telephone Industry Association (CTIA) and the FCC have joined forces to aggressively deploy a new nationwide high-speed wireless network system. It’s commonly known as 5G or the fifth generation of cellular networking and billed as the next step in the evolution of wireless mobile communications. Except it’s not… it’s a giant leap into the non-mobile environment such as industrial areas, business office parks, urban areas and even your neighborhood!

CTIA and wireless telephony companies, such as ATT, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile are working rapidly to bypass the fiber optics and cable technologies we currently use to connect our homes to the internet. Rather than just having faster smartphones, however, the 5G speeds (4 times faster than today’s 4G cellular systems) may eventually let people download entire movies within seconds and enable other applications including industrial robots, security cameras, drones and cars that send traffic data to one another. What the wireless industry touts as a totally interconnected future with broad coverage, high speeds and low latency.

Sounds great. But, as with anything, the devil is in the details.

In fact, to achieve these higher speeds, the 4G and 5G microwave antennas must be placed in very close proximity to the source – and by that, I mean next to your home. With the collusion of the FCC, Verizon and other carriers plan to scatter these antennas across all our East Bay towns and communities, with large numbers being planted in our neighborhoods. To achieve this goal quickly, before homeowners, health advocates and parents understand what is happening to them, the FCC has overridden the power invested in local authorities to maintain proper community environmental ordinances, such as our Town Councils and even Home Owners Associations.

The FCC has usurped local authority to enable wireless carriers to mount these RF radiation emitting antennas on existing town-owned right-of-way structures currently used for street lights in neighborhoods, utility poles in downtown areas, and traffic light poles on streets.  The carriers benignly refer to these antennas as “small cells” – but are they more accurately described as “close proximity microwave radiation antennas” or “radiation beacons.” They will be emitting RF radiation energy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, basically microwave-blasting our homes from close proximity. Think of a giant WiFi router sitting on the street light in front of your house.

But, the FCC has also decreed that public health cannot be considered in the antenna permit approval and location process! If a telephone company thinks your front yard is the perfect place for one of their “radiation beacons,” the odds are it’s going to be approved. In neighborhoods where this network has already begun to roll out, homes located near one of the so called “small cell” sites have suffered up to 20% loss in value.

Worse, those initial close proximity antennas that currently use 4G RF technology will be upgraded to 5G in a year or two, using an even more harmful type of radiation called millimeter wave (mmW). It is such a new technology that few scientific studies have been done in regards to long term effects on humans. However, the US military studied this part of the frequency spectrum and created a weapon out of it called SS-ADT to inflict pain on the enemy.

In 2011, an evaluation group of 30 experts at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (World Health Organization) classified all radiofrequency emissions – including parts of 5G – as potential carcinogens. In the group’s findings are warnings such as “the 5G millimeter-waves were never tested for human health hazard and there are only a very limited number of studies on biological effects. In practice, we do not know what the health effects of long-term and close proximity exposures might be.”

The medical and health industries are extremely concerned about the cumulative effects of long term exposure to this level of radiation, especially with children being the most vulnerable. The recent cancer cluster of children in Ripon, CA revolves around a cell tower that was placed on the Weston Elementary School grounds a few years ago. Our children should not have to fight cancer while they are attending elementary school.

Once deployed, it will not be possible to avoid 5G mmW radiation exposure … our environment will be saturated with low-power millimeter-waves in order for 5G to perform correctly. As a real world example of this, one only need look at Orinda. Several community activists in this bucolic village recently engaged in a battle with Verizon over their desire to blanket the community with these benignly labelled 5G “small cells.” The Verizon plan calls for placing 87 antennas across the town. Not only will there be aesthetic blight, making Orinda look like an industrial park, but all the citizens will be exposed to a new kind of pollution referred to as “electrosmog” every day of their life.

Can it get worse? Yes. Also due to the FCC mandating “equal access to markets” for all wireless carriers, there are three more companies waiting to put up “small cells” and towers after Verizon gets its nose under the camel’s tent. So Orinda citizens could easily see 325 of these radiation beacons lining the town streets and neighborhood roads in a few years. If you ever wondered what it was like to crawl inside your microwave oven, just sit on a park bench in downtown Orinda in May of 2021.

What can we do to protect the health of our children and the aesthetic appeal of our neighborhoods? Right now, there are Bay Area advocacy groups like Scientists for Wired Technology and EMF Safety Network that are great sources of information. Within our communities are local groups such as Danville Citizens for Responsible Growth (DCRG) that attend town hall meetings, petition for denial of “small cell” permits and keep track of local developments.

But these groups can only hope to slow down this tide of radiation blight.  It is vitally important that all concerned citizens contact our Federal elected officials—Senators and Congressional Representatives—and demand that control over deployment of these potentially harmful radiation beacons be taken away from the FCC and delegated back to the local communities. No one knows how to maintain our small town atmosphere better that the residents who choose to live there.

Art on the Lane, a fine art gallery, working studio and art school in the heart of downtown Danville, is an exquisite educational and holistic art school, where resident artists and college-trained art teachers exhibit cityscapes, local landscapes, seascapes, floral, equestrian art, portraits, handcrafted jewelry and resin-based works of art. Art classes are available at the studio for all experience levels and ages. Highly qualified and trained, practicing artists teach and work in various mediums including watercolor, oil, acrylic and drawing.

I admired the beautiful paintings and artwork in the Art on the Lanestudio, stepped inside, and introduced myself to one of the owners, Barbara Davies. We chatted for a while about the gorgeous paintings on the walls of her studio. Eventually we shared our stories of how learning about and experimenting in our respective fields in the arts changed our entire life paths. As a youngster, Barbara said that two things stood out as early passions in her life, art and horses.

Even though art was her primary passion, she fully realized that a career in art was a difficult path to financial success. Being both a smart and sensitive woman, she enrolled in college where she earned a degree in computer science. She worked in the high-tech industry for approximately 18 years. However, her love of art was still constantly beating an artful cadence in the back of her mind where the original passion persisted, frequently reminding her how much she loved and missed painting. She continued to paint in what little spare time she had left at the end of the day, but after many years of supporting herself in a far less rewarding environment, she decided she’d had enough.  She subsequently quit her job and went back to school, graduating from the California College of Arts in Oakland California with a degree in painting and illustration. She then decided to add another year to the process in order to obtain the highly coveted CLAD credential (cross-cultural it’s talking Language and Academic Development Certificate), which is a cross cultural teaching credential. Barbara is credentialed to teach children in grades K-12, which has allowed her to teach art in the San Ramon unified school district for seven years. She then decided to rent her first commercial space to begin teaching her own classes for both adults and children. She teaches children and adult classes each week, on Thursdays. She limits her teaching classes to one day a week so that she can continue to produce the personal art that she loves most, work of her own, which she sells in her studio. The ages in the children’s art classes range between nine and 16. She dearly loves what she does now and it has worked out very well for her.

Barbara and I soon realized that we both have witnessed the joy, excitement, and personal growth that people have experienced through their work in art. She shared with me that she had a young student with serious ambulatory issues who started taking classes from her at about age 10 and stopped working with her when she was about age 17. Today this young lady is gainfully and happily employed, working for Walt Disney Studios.

Then, there was another young lady who was extremely shy, in fact so much so that she couldn’t even look you eye-to-eye when she was talking with you. She took Barbara’s art classes over several years, subsequently went to college in England, and now is fully engaged in drama writing and art.

Also, when Barbara worked at Rancho Romero school in San Ramon, she had one boy who was mainstreamed into the regular classroom even though he was dealing with a very high rating on the autism scale. He couldn’t even communicate verbally with his parents or anyone else. When Barbara came into his classroom to conduct the art class, his whole face lit up and he would become very animated. One day, Barbara walked into the classroom with a big picture book of Van Gogh’s paintings. At the end of the class on that particular day, he made it very clear to Miss Davies that he “really” wanted the book, so she gave it to him. He took it back to his desk and before long, he returned to her having made the most amazing “Starry Night” painting, although, upside down on the paper. It wasn’t until Barbara turned the picture upside-down again to look at it, that she figured out what a marvelous thing the young man had done. His parents were absolutely overjoyed at seeing this work. Barbara added, “in fact, a lot of the parents who come into the class tell me that they bring their children to the art classes as sort of an antidote to what’s going on in our society today.” “You see,” says instructor Davies, “art can be really transformative to young people and adults. Yes, art is just so important!”

This past week I sat in on the six-member morning class. For class-member Debbie, her forthcoming image of the Big Sur will be the object of her painter’s eye. Melanie is capturing a beautiful sunset patio on a lake surrounded with Wisteria. Gina was capturing the beauty of a lotus blossom and Donna was creating an impressionistic landscape. Debra, whose husband is an avid “precious metal” enthusiast (i.e.: classic car collector) is painting something very special for him as a birthday gift. During the afternoon student youth class, I met several talented young artists, including Vivian, who was creating a beautiful mountain waterfall. A couple of days later I managed to catch up with her good friend and fellow “Art on the Lane” classmate, Alexa, who was painting a beautiful and somewhat abstract mountain scene while standing in the lush green grassy knolls of Danville’s Oak Hill Park. In the back of the studio, Elizabeth worked on a colorful acrylic “abstract pouring” piece of art, as did Celine, and twins, Karina and Valerie. A day earlier, Sasha was found creating an ocean scenario, and Addison was painting a lovely lighthouse landscape.

All in all, this is a fantastic class in a close knit, loving, supportive and fulfilling teaching environment.

If you’d like to investigate your artistic abilities and ambitions, call (925) 683-0120 and ask for Barbara Davies, or email bdaviesart@gamil.com. Art on the Lane, 124 Prospect Ave., Danville, California 94526. On the web at bdaviesart.com

Author’s correction: My article last month listed an incorrect web address. The correct address is https://colorbundles.com

How would you like it if the name of our nation changed overnight to: United Socialist Republik of Amerika, or USRA? That’s what Bernie Sanders wants, and he’s calling for a Socialist revolution.

No creativity, no innovation, and NO freedom, just confiscation, disillusionment and death, is what Socialism/Communism brings, and I will explain to you how it works in reality; not in the delusional world conjured up by the false prophets of the Socialist theology. The name itself is an oxymoron. There is nothing social about Socialism as it has been peddled for the past hundred years. Unfortunately, if you’ve come out of our educational system in the past twenty or thirty years, and you’ve been spoon-fed the marvels of this heinous system of governance without being told of its blood-soaked history, you will follow Comrade Sanders, just like the poor children who followed the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

“How in Hades can this this guy (me) claim to know anything about Socialism?” You might ask.

Well, I’ll tell you. I am one of those lucky people who managed to survive both National Socialism (Nazism) and Soviet Socialism (Communism). I was born in 1942, in Budapest, Hungary. Within the next two years, Hitler highjacked our government and forced the hand of our Governor Miklós Horty to join him in his quest for world domination. When Horty decided to attempt to extricate himself from the conflict, by contacting the allies, Hitler had his son kidnapped, and eventually killed. When Horty still resisted, Hitler had him arrested and sent to Berlin for trial and punishment; more than likely, execution. Some of his followers stopped the train somewhere in Austria and after a brief skirmish with the Nazi death squad, they freed him and secreted him away to Spain, where he lived until his death on February 9, 1957.

Ferenc Szálasi, leader of the Arrow Cross party, was designated by Hitler to take Horty’s place and do his bidding until Hitler and his Nazis were forced to leave Hungary in April 1945. Szálasi was captured by U.S. troops in Germany, then was returned to Hungary, where he was sentenced to death by the People’s Tribunal and promptly executed.

In the meantime, as Hitler was fleeing Budapest with his tail between his legs, Joseph Stalin took over Hungary with a one-million-man army. This was right around early spring of 1945. So, for a few days, we lived under the dictatorship of the two biggest butchers in European history. I say only, because by the end of February of that year, my folks decided that it was time to ‘get out of Dodge’ well, Budapest, until the war would wind down. My father, at the time, guestimated ‘two to three months, maybe six’. He didn’t at the time realize, how wrong he had been.

Now, here’s the kicker. Everybody knows that Hitler was a bad man, and we all still talk about him. The ‘Butcher of Berlin’ sent 7 million Jews to their maker, with an additional million and a half to two million folks of other beliefs and nationalities, that just didn’t happen to agree with his policies.

To the ‘good’ Germans of the time, he promised everything, as soon as he conquered the world and got rid of all the unwanted troublemakers. Now, did you know that all little German children were inducted into the Hitlerjugend or Hitler Youth. They marched up and down the streets of Germany in their little brown shirts and proclaimed that they would save the planet by planting trees and saving the environment, all the while, sending their neighbors to the gas-chambers and turning their parents in to the Gestapo for maligning the Führer. And what was this bloody tyrant, a National Socialist! One more thing: under Nazism (or National Socialism) the first thing you lost was the right to own a gun, and the second, the right to speak your mind.

Now, perhaps because he was the commander of one of the Allies, during WWII, Josef Stalin’s name doesn’t come up as frequently when speaking of blood-thirsty dictators, and yet, his score of sending innocent souls to the afterlife is estimated to be somewhere between 28 and 60 million. The reason for the vague numbers is, it was difficult to track, how many had gotten buried in mass graves; and there were many mass graves found. Stalin’s Soviet administration destroyed the economy, educational system and government of all east European countries under the USSR’s (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) umbrella. My country of birth, Hungary, was one of those countries left gasping for freedom for almost 50 years. Speaking of slavery: being under the boot of the Communist Empire was the worst case of slavery. You were a slave in your own home; your own country. Just ask any of the people who escaped from Eastern Block countries, what Communist slavery was like.

Here are some of the benefits afforded to those we left behind. All private property was seized; you no longer owned the home you used to own and lived in. Your business now belonged to the Socialist state. All businesses, banks, even toy stores, now belonged to the Socialist state. The national transportation system, the trolleys and buses were in disrepair and stopped running on time. Your personal freedom now belonged to the state. You had better watch your mouth and your ideas, because if the Socialist State didn’t agree with them, you went to prison, or the meatgrinder at the edge of the Danube River. Even your correspondence was censored. If the agents of the state didn’t like what they read, the AVH or Állam Védelmi Hatóság (State Protection Authority) sent you to prison; if your opinion was really bad, you were sent to Siberia. One more thing: under Soviet Socialism (or Communism) the first thing you lost was the right to own a gun, and the second, the right to have a voice. Sound familiar?

My uncle and aunt lived in a nice big house with their three children until 1946, when the newly elected comrade mayor of their town decided to redistribute housing, by removing them from the house that their family had owned for a hundred years and relocating them in the caretakers one-bedroom bungalow, so the mayor could move several freeloading party acolytes into the big house. Of course, everything my relatives owned, now belonged to the good party members, who promptly took possession and went out and sold all the valuables and objet-d’arts, such as paintings and sculptures. So, my relatives not only lost their house but also their valuables, furnishings and other assorted belongings. It was lucky that we had managed to escape, as my mother’s restaurant became state-owned as well.

A newspaper reporter named Gabor my father knew, decided to stay behind in Budapest to report on the coming events. As Communism slowly inserted its tentacles in every aspect of daily life of the Hungarian people, Gabor started writing about the events, until one day he got called into the publisher’s office and advised to tone it down. “It is alright to mention that things aren’t going the way we’d like them to, but we are still in a rebuilding process with the help of our Soviet liberators,” the publisher told him. “You should write about all the progress we are making, rather than criticizing things that haven’t yet been accomplished.” He wrote a book on the situation, entitled Beyond the Stalin Line. He was arrested by Soviet authorities in the autumn of 1945 and sentenced to death for basically telling the truth. Following numerous machinations by the Soviet Central Committee, he actually spent 15 years in Siberia.

Could any of you have survived 15 years in a forced-labor camp in Siberia? Approximately 30 million enemy soldiers were sent to the gulags of Siberia. Over one-fourth of the prisoners banished there, died; more than half, never returned, their fate unknown. It is hard to get an exact count, as Stalin didn’t want the rest of the world to know how many folks he had snuffed out.

*****

Would someone out there, care to explain why Cubans by the thousands tried to escape from the Soviet-style paradise created by Fidel Castro? Do you even know what happened to the many that got caught trying? They are still languishing in prison. 

If you’ve been listening to the news lately, you must have heard of the events in Venezuela. In the anti-government rioting, the death toll has now risen above 100 while several hundred have been imprisoned by the Socialist government under Nicolás Maduro, following his second inauguration. Whether Venezuela can ever again become a democracy, all depends on the outcome of the current turmoil. It seems that everywhere Socialism has tried to get a foothold, chaos and death have followed. Our best wishes to the people of Venezuela!

Here’s a very important question to consider in light of what’s going on in Washington DC: do you really want Socialism? Do you really want the United States to look like the Soviet Union or Communist China, or perhaps Venezuela, maybe even Cuba? Then, go right ahead and vote for people like crazy Bernie Sanders, or Coocoo-Ocasio-Cortez and your Socialist dreams will come true. Free everything to everyone. All your homes and businesses will be taken over by the government.

Greenpeace Founder, Patrick Moore, @EcoSenseNow, recently tweeted the following in reply to Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal: Pompous little twit. You don’t have a plan to grow food for 8 billion people without fossil fuels or get the food into the cities. Horses? If fossil fuels were banned every tree in the world would be cut down for fuel for cooking and heating. You would bring about mass death.

As for AOC’s “Green New Deal,” here is a little factoid about Earth: it is approximately 4.5 Billion years old. Think about how many times the climate has changed in that time period; gotten hotter and then colder. And, all without our help. Us humans aren’t as all-powerful as some of us on the left believe!

As the Left is preparing a full-frontal attack on our Constitution and trying to convert our system of government to more closely resemble Russia’s Communism, the first thing they are working on taking away is our right to own a gun, and the second, our right to have a voice, or the Freedom of Speech. Sound familiar?

******

Everywhere Socialism has been tried, it has failed miserably, killing millions in the process. Hitler’s National Socialism cost the lives of 7 to 9 million souls. Stalin’s Soviet Socialism eliminated between 28 and 60 million. Mao-Tze-Dung’s Chinese Communism took care of ridding the planet of over 60 million inhabitants. The lucky survivors of these murderous regimes had their lives destroyed in numerous other ways as well.

Why do you think that millions of people from all over the world have emigrated to the United States and are still trying to get in? Why do you think that another massive caravan is heading for our southern border? Because until now, The United States has been the land of freedom and opportunity. Our system may not be perfect, but it’s the best in the world today. Don’t let the goo-goo eyed Socialists turn our country into a Socialist nightmare. We don’t need to try Socialism to figure out that it doesn’t work. Millions have already done it for us. Socialism is the absolute enemy of the American way of life!

Somebody once asked me “Can’t you say anything good about Socialism or Communism?” I had to honestly reply, “Yes, I do. It was great when it finally chocked on its own vomit of lies!”

Caveat Emptor (Let the buyer beware.)

Scams are alive and well for the unsuspecting, lonely senior.

This happened recently to an older retiree. He was formerly a brilliant academic and is still immersed in research but is no longer in the classroom or on campus.

Loneliness and a longing for intimacy took precedence over caution and discretion.

The woman targeted her prey at the grocery store over what seemed like helpful advice on the best way to cook zucchini. It could just as easily have been advice on selecting a wine or on an internet dating site.

Soon she entered his life and after three weeks invited herself into his comfortable home leaving her rented room behind. You can guess the rest. There was a tearful plea to pay an outstanding bill, a demand to add her name to his Costco card and a copy of the house keys, a story of tragic circumstances, estranged children, and a request that he reduce his time with others. These warning signals, though vaguely troubling, were unfortunately disregarded. He acquiesced as she kept up constant cheerful chatter while assuming control.

Can someone who is skeptical about human behavior, citing supporting facts stretching back to the 13^th century, be so naïve in the 21^st century?

Emphatically, yes.

It’s possible, even probable, if one is sufficiently lonely and charmed by an attractive stranger, to fall for the schemer who cleverly intuits what her target desires.

The object isn’t to marry money, the subject of many novels, films and plays. The object is step-by-step to take all of the target’s financial holdings and then move on to the next victim.

This scam can happen to any man or woman.  But I hope by reading this letter, it won’t happen to you.

So, not to be a curmudgeon as we enter the welcoming spring season, may I wish you love and friendship with those who are honest, reliable and responsible.

It’s wonderful to meet new people and subsequently find new friends, but don’t give away your heart and your home unless you’ve given it plenty of time, thought and careful consideration. Caveat Emptor!