SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Nuclear Power In Space

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

An element in an issue I got involved with more than 30 years ago—the use of nuclear power in space—will come to a climax next month. That’s when the Cassini space probe carrying more plutonium than ever used on a space device will be crashed by NASA into Saturn.

In early 1985 I learned from a federal government newsletter that the Challenger shuttle was to loft a plutonium-fueled space probe on its May 1986 mission and I used the Freedom of Information to try to get information about the consequences of an accident. I met a stone wall finally only getting documents—which insisted that a catastrophic shuttle accident was a 1-in-100,000 chance—in late 1985. With the Challenger disaster in January 1986, I broke the story of its next nuclear mission in The Nation magazine. (NASA soon changed the odds of a catastrophic shuttle accident to 1-in-76).

 I authored a book, The Wrong Stuff, and wrote and hosted several TV documentaries about the use of nuclear power in space including the accidents that have happened, and the military connection. The U.S. “Star Wars,” program, I found, was predicated on orbiting battle platforms using on-board nuclear reactors or “super” plutonium systems providing the energy for hypervelocity guns, particle beams and laser weapons. A second book was Weapons in Space.

On September 15, the Cassini space probe and its 72.3 pounds of Plutonium-238 fuel (280 times more radioactive than the Plutonum-239 used in atomic bombs) is to be crashed into Saturn. Cassini was launched 20 years ago. The $3.27 billion mission has constituted a huge risk from its onset. It was launched on a Titan IV rocket despite several Titan IV rockets having blown up on launch. 

At a demonstration two weeks earlier in front of the fence surrounding the pad at Cape Canaveral from which Cassini was to be launched, noted writer and TV commentator on science, Dr. Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York, warned of widespread regional damage if this Titan IV lofting Cassini exploded on launch. Winds could carry the plutonium “into Disney World, University City, into the citrus industry and destroy the economy of central Florida,” said Dr. Kaku (who appears in all my TV documentaries.)

Four months before at another demonstration at the same site, Allan Kohn, a former career official of the NASA, the emergency preparedness officer at the Kennedy Space Center (and also figuring in my work), said of NASA’s claim that the plutonium system was “indestructible,” that it was “indestructible just like the Titanic was unsinkable….It’s time to put a stop to their freedom to threaten the lives of people here on Earth.”

Indeed, on an Earth “flyby” by Cassini done in 1999, it wouldn’t have been a regional disaster but a global catastrophe if an accident occurred. Cassini didn’t have the propulsion power to get directly from Earth to Saturn, so NASA had it hurtle back to Earth in a “slingshot maneuver” or “flyby”—to use Earth’s gravity to increase its velocity. The plutonium has been used to generate electricity—745 watts—to run the probe’s instruments. It has had nothing to do with propulsion.

NASA had Cassini come hurtling back at Earth at 42,300 miles per hour and skim over the Earth’s atmosphere at 727 miles high. If there were a rocket misfire or miscalculation and the probe made what NASA in its “Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Cassini Mission” called an “inadvertent reentry,” it could have fallen into Earth’s atmosphere, disintegrating, and releasing plutonium. Then, said NASA in its statement, “Approximately 7 to 8 billion world population at a time … could receive 99 percent or more of the radiation exposure.”

The worst accident involving space nuclear power occurred in 1964 when a satellite powered by a SNAP-9A plutonium system failed to achieve orbit and fell to Earth, breaking apart and releasing its 2.1 pounds of Plutonium-238 which dispersed all over the planet. According to the late Dr. John Gofman, professor of medical physics at the University of California at Berkeley, that accident contributed substantially to global lung cancer rates.

Cassini finally reached Saturn and took excellent pictures and provided scientific information about Saturn. its rings and moons. NASA is crashing  Cassini into Saturn “to make sure Cassini is incinerated at the end of its journey to ensure that any of its earthborn microbes do not contaminate the biotic or prebiotic worlds out there,” reported The New York Times in a front-page story earlier this year which didn’t mention plutonium at all.

My journalism on the issue has also included investigating the availability of alternatives to nuclear power in space. NASA insisted for years that nuclear power is necessary for missions beyond the orbit of Mars—which turns out to be incorrect. On Independence Day 2016, NASA’s solar-energized space probe Juno arrived at Jupiter. Launched from Cape Canaveral in 2011, it flew nearly two billion miles to reach Jupiter, and although sunlight at Jupiter is just four percent of what it is on Earth, Juno’s solar panels were able to harvest sufficient power. 

In space, as on Earth, solar energy works.

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Law Enforcement's Response To Trump

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

There have been visits by presidents of the U.S. to Suffolk County through the years starting with the first, George Washington, who stayed at Sagtikos Manor in Bay Shore in 1790. In recent decades Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were here. But no appearance of a president to Suffolk came close to sparking controversy in Suffolk and the nation as Donald Trump did with his visit here two weeks ago. 

It was at Suffolk County Community College’s Brentwood campus where Mr. Trump gave a speech on gang violence in Suffolk to an auditorium of police officers, most from Suffolk, and said, as the Associated Press article was headlined: “Trump to Police: ‘Please Don’t Be Too Nice.’” That reflected Mr. Trump’s comment: “When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in, rough, and I said, ‘Please don’t be too nice.’’’ Mr. Trump also declared: “Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over, like, don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody…I said, ‘You can take the hand away, OK?’” 

The AP article reported: “His comments elicited cheers from the audience of officers.”

There are some who are defending Mr. Trump’s comments. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, his press secretary, termed his comments “a joke” when questioned about them at a White House press conference. 

Suffolk Sheriff Vincent DeMarco told Newsday last week, “I think he was trying to be funny.” In the same story Newsday reported that Mr. Trump twice tweeted a TV interview Mr. DeMarco, a Conservative Party member, gave on “Fox and Friends” praising Mr. Trump on the morning of the speech. The Newsday story noted that Mr. DeMarco, “who is not running for re-election, is under consideration to be a Trump appointee to the U.S. Marshall’s office in Manhattan.”

Not regarding Mr. Trump’s comments as a joke is the Suffolk County Police Department. Within two hours of them, it issued a statement saying: “As a department, we do not and will not tolerate roughing up of prisoners.” The department “has strict rules & procedures relating to the handling of prisoners. Violations of those rules are treated extremely seriously.”

DuWayne Gregory, presiding officer of the Suffolk Legislature, sent out a statement: “The challenges facing law enforcement today are enormous, made all the more difficult by the danger of gangs like MS-13, which are infiltrating our communities, murdering innocent people and destroying the peace and safety that are the very fabric of our lives. However, divisive and offensive rhetoric that insights further violence and insinuates police violence is not the answer. That would be endorsing behavior that is unfitting to the honorable profession of law enforcement.”

The International Association of Police Chiefs, with a membership of 27,000, declared: “Managing use of force is one of the most difficult challenges faced by law enforcement agencies…. Law enforcement officers are trained to treat all individuals, whether they are a complainant, suspect, or defendant, with dignity and respect. This is the bedrock principle behind the concepts of procedural justice and police legitimacy.”

New York City Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill said his department’s training and policies “only allow for measures that are reasonable and necessary under any circumstances, including the arrest and transportation of prisoners. To suggest that police officers apply any standard in the use of force other than what is reasonable and necessary is irresponsible, unprofessional and sends the wrong message to law enforcement as well as the public.”

Meanwhile, a variety of media, including The New York Times in an editorial, made a connection between Mr. Trump’s comments, ongoing federal oversight of the county department and the highest uniformed officer in the department now being in jail for brutality of a suspect. 

The AP article stated: “Mr. Trump’s words were particularly sensitive in Suffolk County. The county’s Police Department agreed to federal oversight in 2013 after allegation of discrimination against Latinos. And a former chief, James Burke, was sentenced in November to 46 months in federal prison for beating up a man who had stolen a duffel bag containing pornography and sex toys out of his car and then for attempting to cover up the assault and other misdeeds. Other officers also pleaded guilty in that case. “ 

The New York Times editorial concluded: “Law enforcement backlash against this speech says something about how forward-looking police officials think about their responsibilities.” It noted how many have “found out the hard way that enforcement strategies based in brutality make it difficult to solve crimes—because they alienate communities from the law…”

Mr. Trump has been a preposterous president with every day a new outrage. 

WW II Veteran Edward Schaum Receives A Commack HS Diploma

91 year-old WW II Veteran Edward Schaum receives a Commack HS diplomaThe Commack School District Board of Education presented 91 year-old World War II Veteran Edward Schaum with a Commack high school diploma. The presentation was a surprise for Mr. Schaum and came about when his daughter Susan Felberbaum a Commack resident told Debbie Virga, community relationships consultant for the district, about her father, an Army Veteran, who told her “that he always regretted not graduating from high school.” As a teenager Mr. Schaum worked to support his family and at the age of 19 enlisted in the U.S. Army where he served from 1944 until 1946. 

Mr. Schaum served 11 months in the European and Pacific Theatres of Operations, supervised a squad in the tactical employment of weapons, and was responsible for control and coordination of machine gun squads.  He was awarded two battle stars and the combat infantryman’s badge. 

Edward Schaum and daughter Susan FelberbaumMr. Schaum finds out he is receiving a Commack HS diplomaMr. Schaum appeared stunned as Donald James, Superintendent of Schools  talked about the man they were going to present with a Commack HS Diploma. The audience was teary eyed as were Susan Felberbaum and Debbie Virga. Mr. Schaum, who was in a wheel chair in the audience stood and walked up to High School Principal Leslie Boritz who presented him with Commack High School Diploma.

“Unbelievable” is how Mr. Schaum described the event. 

Theater Review - 'Promethean Concerto'

THEATER REVIEW

‘Promethean Concerto’ - Produced by: Tomorrow’s Classics Theatre Company

Reviewed by: Jeb Ladouceur

The life of Ludwig van Beethoven is one of the most widely documented among biographies of the world’s fine artists. We all know that he was born in Bonn, Germany in 1770, that he died at age 57, was a gifted pianist despite having become deaf, and that to this day, his legacy marks him as one of the most renowned and influential musical composers in history.

But we know little of the man’s complex private life … his dysfunctional family … his inner demons … or his spiritual angst. It is to these issues, and in particular to Ludwig’s undying adoration of his beloved Josephine, that Long Island author Cindi Sansone-Braff has shone her bright biographer’s light, and given us the type of incisive play the theater industry desperately needs more of.

In this world premiere of ‘Promethean Concerto’ (the play’s full title is ‘Beethoven’s Promethean Concerto in C Minor Without Opus’) Braff’s analytical lens is so probing … her observations so precise … and her dialogue so appropriately ‘musical’ in structure … that it would have been a shame to assign the delivery of  these magnificent lines to a relatively unknown actor.

 Or so one might think.

But let us give credit where it’s due. Partnering with Debi Toni, her multi-talented co-founder of Tomorrow’s Classics Theatre Company, Braff and angel/investor, T.J. Clemente, discovered the acting gem her play needed in the person of Michael Brinzer, a music student currently studying in New York City.

In ‘Promethean Concerto,’ Brinzer has been given the perfect vehicle to showcase his many talents. Not only is he blessed with that rare ability to command the audience’s full attention even when speaking in a near-whisper, the young man (he can’t be beyond his mid-twenties) takes to the baby grand in Act II and delivers an absolutely mesmerizing ‘Moonlight Sonata.’ Indeed, Michael’s virtuosity made everyone at the sold-out Babylon Arts Council venue gasp.

Speaking of which, one of Brinzer’s lines has to do with Beethoven’s chiding of a youngster’s piano teacher who insisted his students play until their fingers bled. “Doesn’t he know that a great virtuoso is born and not made?” Beethoven asks. The rhetorical question could have been put to those who nurtured the natural-born actor/musician Michael Brinzer.

Though ‘Promethean Concerto’ is hardly a one-man show (James Lombardi is excellent as Beethoven’s nephew Karl, and Debi Toni’s sweet soprano delivery of Beethoven’s music still resonates in my ears) the stage is Brinzer’s for most of the play’s two-hour pleasing length.

It’s my understanding that Cindi Sansone-Braff wrote this exquisite biographical drama around the turn of the century. One can only speculate on the years of theatrical triumph that certainly would have accrued to the play and its playwright had she (now well into middle age) found a Michael Brinzer to interpret her sensational script back then

Brinzer’s construal of The Maestro from Bonn would surely have become the gold standard for future actors to emulate. Because Michael … and the dialogue-rich Promethean Concerto … and of course the music of Beethoven … would all have run away with those coveted Tony Awards.

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Award-winning writer, Jeb Ladouceur is the author of a dozen novels, and his theater and book reviews appear in several major L.I. publications. His recent hit, THE GHOSTWRITERS, explores the bizarre relationship between the late Harper Lee and Truman Capote. Ladouceur’s newly completed thriller, THE SOUTHWICK INCIDENT, was introduced at the Smithtown Library on May 21st. The book involves a radicalized Yale student and his CIA pursuers. Mr. Ladouceur’s revealing website is www.JebsBooks.com

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Opioid Addiction Treatment What Can Work

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

After a decade of treating people with opioid use disorder, Dr. Allen Fein has been out speaking about what he has learned, what can work and “how huge” the problem is—and he is offering to give his presentation for free in as many places as possible. 

Dr. Fein is a clinical professor at Stony Brook University School of Medicine and welcomes invitations from churches, synagogues, civic and community groups and others.

He noted that at his talk last month at the Westhampton Library, a person commented, “This is a depressing talk.” 

“Yes, it is horribly depressing,” said Dr. Fein last week. “Most of these are young people. But we all need to know what is happening—and become engaged.”

As awful as people believe the situation is, it’s even worse than people think, he said. “It’s an epidemic. And what I hear from my patients is that we are losing the fight.”

He spoke of one patient telling him that three friends died after overdosing last week from fentanyl—an opioid drug “50 times” more potent than heroin, far easier to manufacture and which has been flooding this county and this country. This patient also said “half of his teammates” from a high school baseball team have “lost their lives to opioids.”  

Dr. Fein said he didn’t comprehend the sweep of the problem himself when another physician, the late Dr. Arne Skilbred, medical director at Southampton Hospital, told him a decade back about a new treatment for opioid use disorder, a drug called Suboxone, and suggested he might want to make use of it in his practice to treat addicts.

Dr. Fein said his initial reaction was “I didn’t want drug addicts in my waiting room.” But he came to realize from his work through the years that the widest variety of people are addicted to opioids “and that patients with opioid problems were already in our waiting room, unknown to the staff.” He added, “They come from all professions.”

The PowerPoint presentation at the Westhampton Library stated: “Addiction. A chronic disease of brain reward, motivation and memory, where an individual pathologically pursues reward and/or relief by substance use……with inability to abstain, impairment in behavior control, cravings, diminished recognition of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships and a dysfunctional emotional response.”

“Opioid addiction is life-long with recovering and relapsing phases,” it continued.

Interspersed in the Power-Point were photos of well-known people who’ve died from opioids. “Philip Seymour Hoffman…overdose of heroin. He was only 46 years old…Chris Farley…overdose of heroin. He was only 33 years old…John Belushi…overdose of heroin…He was only 33 years old.”

Dr. Fein treats with very tight supervision. He said in his decade of caring for those with opioid use disorder, “perhaps 50% have remained off their previous abused opioids and have stayed the course with the safer opioid Suboxone or with the non-opioid Vivitrol.” Also, “all patients are encouraged to seek counseling.”

Suboxone “has built-in brakes. It doesn’t provide a high. And patients on Suboxone will not overdose unless they mix in other drugs.” Vivitrol is “desired by patients who want to be entirely free of opioids.” 

Then there’s Methadone with its “main drawback that it may only be prescribed in specially operated treatment centers and very frequent visits are the norm. Suboxone usually requires monthly visits to a physician’s office. Vivitrol shots are every 28 days.”

Critically, in dealing with those with opioid use disorders, said Dr. Fein, the person doing the treatment must be “compassionate and patient—but firm….Unfortunately, the physician and loved ones of those in trouble learn that they are often untruthful and in denial.”

Likewise, said Dr. Fein, if someone believes a person in her or his family is addicted, “tough-love” should be practiced. Signs of addiction, “red flags,” include “large pupils when a person is in withdrawal and is edgy, small or pinpoint pupils when taking opioids, sweating, diarrhea” and “storing urine” likely from someone else in order to pass a drug test. “They often need pressure from loved ones and the legal system before seeking treatment.”

Dr. Fein, who is active in the New York chapter of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, is “currently treating about 150 patients with opioid problems. My practice is very busy and I’m not looking for new patients.” He seeks to get other doctors involved in providing treatment.

He’s out speaking because “I want to give back to the community.” He tells of those with opioid problems “coming into my office looking like drowned rats” but in short order “having their life back. It is very rewarding helping them.”    

Anyone with questions about these matters or with interest in having Dr. Fein address his or her group is urged to call 631-283-6446.