Battery Life--Battery Death

The Red Triangle of Death

When I returned from a recent trip, my 2001 Toyota Prius let me know a big expense loomed in my near future.  On both displays on the dashboard was the "Triangle of Death" the indicator lights that say the hybrid battery is about to die. 

Dead battery indicator

I knew this indicator light was in my future because hybrid batteries last about seven years. The current battery is the third for my intrepid car.  We bought the car in 2002 with 15,000 miles on it. The first battery died right on schedule in 2008 and the next one in 2015. 

Good till 2029? 

Until COVID, I was sure that when this battery died the car would go to the junkyard.  The Prius has a current Blue Book value of $1,000 so putting a $4,000 battery in it is not the smart move.  

BUT.

Used car prices are crazy.  Everything else about the Prius is at least functional (and ,like me somewhat wrinkled). In its 205,000 miles it has had 65 oil changes and all other required maintenance.  So I ordered the battery and will now look at getting a used electric car in 2029. 

MackBook Air in travel case

Yesterday, my MacBook Air also displayed the Triangle of Death. I bought this computer in 2016. Recently I noticed the battery would not last more than 90 minutes on battery. I took it to Lancaster Computer Company. Ron, the owner, said the expected battery life is three or four years. He replaced the battery. I made several charge jokes (battery and credit card) and I left with a fully functional computer for less than $100.

Portable cell phone charger

Another battery death in the past month was the portable cell phone charger that is the second most useful travel accessory I have--after the green cube power adapter plug for every region of the world. 

Dropping further down the price scale, I replaced that very necessary item for just $30. I travel nowhere without a cell phone charger. 

My iPhone is less than two years old, so it has no battery issues.  In modern life batteries are all around us. Having three important batteries die in a month shows me just how dependent I am on these powerful, invisible devices.  

I'm glad I could replace them all, so my life can charge ahead. 

The Fight for Rationality in 1970s America: The American Skeptics Movement and the Problem of Counter-Culture

 

Dr.Stephen Weldon, 

Professor of the History of Science,

University of Oklahoma

Many people who lived through the 1970s see it as a weird transition from the earnest activism of the 1960s to the rapacious conservatism of the 1980s. The disco ball, Donny Osmond, the fall of Nixon, the US bicentennial, the debut of Star Wars  all happened in that weird decade.  

In a presentation at a history of science conference, Stephen Weldon reminded me that the 70s were even weirder than I remembered.  His presentation titled "The American Skeptics Movement and the Problem of Counter-Knowledge" began with Weldon showing us that NBC TV aired nationally televised programs with speculation about alien encounters and whether Bigfoot really existed.  

In those days broadcasting still had the Fairness Doctrine. Leading scientists got together and demanded that the network air the opposing view--the scientific consensus.  Carl Sagan, B.F. Skinner and Isaac Asimov were the public face of the protest. 

Weldon then took us back to the founding of the American Humanist Movement at the turn of the century. He presented its history up to the 60s when there was a split between scientific-oriented and protest-oriented parts of the movement.  Parts of the counter culture became targets of the rationalists.  

Weldon showed us the cover of "The Humanist" magazine in September/October 1974.  The issue was a critique of the cults that had risen to prominence in the previous decade.  These cults had many adherents among the people who were part of the counter-culture and on the political left.  The issue attacked those who were political allies as part of a dangerous rise of irrationalism.  

[In another irony of the time, the 800-page Christian fundamentalist handbook of false religions titled "The Kingdom of the Cults" by Walter R. Martin, published in 1965, had chapters on many of the same groups that were the targets of "The Humanist."  The Martin book sold half a million copies by 1989 and is still in print. I mentioned the Martin book to Weldon in the lively Q&A that followed his talk.]

Of course, Christian fundamentalists and scientific humanists were in no way allies, even if they both rejected the same alternative religions.

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In the late 80s, when Arkansas tried to force Young Earth Creationist ideas into school curricula, prominent scientists led the effort to stop the the teaching of religion in science classes.  

Christian B. Afinson, Francisco Ayala and Stephen Jay Gould submitted an amicus curaie brief with the backing of 77 Nobel laureate scientists opposing the teaching of creationism. (They won!) 

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Weldon also talked about the magazine "The Skeptical Inquirer."  The cover art surprised the audience with its very 70s strangeness and led to several comments in the Q&A.  

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Weldon published the book The Scientific Spirit of American Humanism  in 2020.  He has a huge database connected to the website for the book. It is here.

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We met at the conference outside the coffee shop. Weldon told me about the huge collection of rare scientific books at the University of Oklahoma that was once a private collection. I told him about the Neville Library at the Science History Institute in Philadelphia whereI used to work, also a collection amassed over a lifetime.

Then I mentioned that I spent two months in Oklahoma more than a decade ago and on my last day there went to a Rattlesnake Rodeo.  Weldon said he had never been to a Rattlesnake Rodeo, but would look into it when he returned to Oklahoma.

In-person conferences are the best.

Psychiatry During the History of the Soviet Union: And the Person Who Choose that Topic

Anastassiya Schacht

Anastassiya Schacht and I were both walking toward the registration building at a history of science conference when we began talking about conferences. I told her about attending a live conference for the first time since COVID in June and how nice it was compared to on line. 

She agreed, but said, on the other hand, she got to participate in more conferences during the pandemic as not travel was required. Then she told me how one particular conference, the Austrian Annual Conference of Contemporary History, dealt with on-line in April 2020. The organizers had put together a software imitating classic 1980s computer games with simple icons like PacMan for characters – participants. 

Attendees could walk around a stylized computer game location, approach each other – and then a video chat would pop up, allowing people to meet and converse virtually. Later at a lunch we talked about her thesis. Anastassiya is a PhD candidate at the University of Vienna. 

Her thesis traces the history of how the profession of psychiatry in the Soviet Union from the beginning to the end of the former empire evolved. At this point I should say the future Dr. Schacht was born in Aktobe, Kazakhstan, to Ukrainian and Russian parents. The family spoke Russian at home. 

She worked as a social worker before switching to the university and enrolling as a PhD candidate in history, so she has work experience with people in difficult circumstances. She studied English, German and Literature in Orenburg, and English linguistics and then Global History in Vienna. 

Since completing her Master’s Degree she has been working on theories of cultural otherness, transformation processes and colonial studies in the post-Soviet space. With this background, her PhD supervisor suggested she might want to have a glance at the history of Soviet psychiatry – a tip she now calls one of the smartest suggestions of her life. 

Anastassiya recalls certain reluctance to go for this topic, as she has been avoiding working on “Russian topics” “just because she knew the language”. Yet the topic turned out to be of immense depth, dramatism, and analytical potential. Anastassiya works on the conflict revolving around the established practice of using psychiatry for suppressing political dissidents, cultural and religious non-conformists in the late Soviet Union. 

With many stories of the political abuse written, she approaches the issue from two viewpoints. First, she examines how individual doctors justified their cooperation with the regime – and how top rank psychiatrists helped their less renowned colleagues to not have a crisis of conscience when confining unwanted “troublemakers”. 

Second, Anastassiya studies how the rest of the world and especially psychiatrists in larger international organizations interacted with their colleagues tainted by cooperation with a totalitarian empire that used their expertise for oppression and torture. 

As Anastassiya talks about her path to a PhD, she is bright, optimistic and funny. It is strange to think of her being interested in such a dark topic; but not too strange, since my friend Cliff and I, too, pursue academic interests that often come off as somewhat unexpected (In the past five years we visited almost a dozen death camps). 

In her talk at the conference, Anastassiya told the audience how the Soviet Union has been engaging and disengaging with international organizations promoting Public Health throughout the whole 20th century. In the 1930s, the Soviet Union and the League of Nations (the world body like the UN between the world wars) hated each other, but had reasons to try to work together. 

The League of Nations Health Organization (LNHO) wanted to stop typhus and other epidemics in the Soviet Union from infecting Europe, so they made compromises with the Soviets in other areas, such as psychiatry. After World War II, the Soviet Union was a hostile and troublesome member of the United Nations. 

The Soviets joined the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1948, then quit the organization the following year in a public dispute. After Stalin's death the Soviet Union attempted to rejoin the WHO, but in 1971, the Soviet suppression of Czechoslovakia led to the Soviets being expelled from the WHO again. 

In 1977, a psychiatric conference in Hawaii overwhelmingly condemned Soviet abuse of the discipline. The New York Times reported: 

HEADLINE: World Psychiatrists Vote To Censure Soviet ‘Abuse’; Moscow Charges ‘Slander 

HONOLULU, Sept. 1 (AP)—The General Assembly of the World Psychiatric Association voted today to censure the Soviet Union on charges of abuse of psychiatry for political purposes and to establish a committee to review such practices in any country. 

By a vote of 90 to 88, the governing body of the association adopted an amended resolution by Britain's Royal College of Psychiatrists condemning “the systematic abuse of psychiatry for political purposes in the U.S.S.R.” 

The General Assembly also voted, 121 to 66, to approve a resolution submitted by the American Psychiatric Association. The American resolution did not mention the Soviet Union by name, but said the association opposed “the misuse of psychiatric skills, knowledge and facilities for the suppression of dissent wherever it occurs.” About 4,000 delegates from 63 countries are attending the‐ World Psychiatric Association's sixth congress. Each country has representatives In the General Assembly. 

Both resolutions were strongly resisted by Dr. Eduard Babayan, the Soviet Union's delegate to the General Assembly, who called the accusations “slander.’ 

In her talk, Schacht talked about the self-legitimation that the profession of psychiatry and the Soviet doctors themselves used to justify their support of Soviet abuse of the profession. She talked about political abuse of this discipline in the by the Soviet Union as well as the impact of state actors and their agendas in science under authoritarianism. She also addressed the problems of academic autonomy and responsibility. 

The very dark talk ended on a brighter note as Anastassiya showed how Soviets explained its population why it internationally acted the way it did through caricatures in a satire magazine Крокодил (Crocodile).

In-person conferences are the best!

Meeting Protesters in Darmstadt and While Marking A Sad Anniversary of the City

 

Leon and Vanessa on the way to protest low wages in Darmstadt

I am in Darmstadt visiting my friend Cliff. We were walking the perimeter of the city the day before the anniversary of one of the worst days in the history of this German city:  the bombing known as Brandnacht (fire night) was the night of September 11/12, 1944.

We began at the area where the three formations British bombers coming from three directions crossed paths to begin their bombing runs. After that point they dropped the bombs that would destroy most of the city. 

Just as we were entering the area, we saw a group of forty or fifty people with red and white flags across the street. Cliff and I crossed to see what they were protesting.  We talked to Vanessa and Leon. They said they were protesting for higher wages for entry-level jobs. 

We talked for a while about how wages for blue collar workers had stagnated in America. I was sorry to hear their experience was the same. We had kept them from the group so they hurried off to catch up to their protest group.  

Cliff and I then walked more of the bustling city on a Saturday afternoon, noting the vast contrast between the vibrant city around us and and the wreckage in photos such as these:

Two years ago, I wrote about the bombing. Cliff told me one reason the British selected Darmstadt was it had a lot wood structures. Darmstadt and the state of Hesse were also very conservative and very strong supporters of the Nazis.  Hesse is the site of the first concentration camp in Nazi Germany. Cliff and I visited that camp in 2017.

Most every time I have visited Cliff since 2017, we have visited concentration camps and Holocaust memorials. Since we did not visit any camps on this trip, we did manage to visit a disaster site. 

We also met young people standing up for a better life for themselves and their fellow workers.  It was a good day. 

 

Axl Rose T-Shirt Leads (Naturally) to a Discussion of the World War II and the Holocaust

Three fans of Axl Rose meet at a history of science conference

On the first day of a history of science conference, I met the author working on a book about Le Résidence Palace, the revolving door of history of a building that is now home to The Europa building, the seat of the European Council and Council of the European Union, located on the Rue de la Loi/Wetstraat in the European Quarter of Brussels, Belgium--the follow up to a book she wrote about her father's escape from Nazi-occupied Europe and service in the American Army.  

The conversation began with an Axl Rose t-shirt. Neither I nor Nina Wolff was wearing the t-shirt. We were at the registration desk for the conference.  One of the graduate students registering attendees, Noemie Taforeau, was wearing Axl Rose.  I asked if she was a fan or just like the shirt. She said, "A fan. Definitely."

Nina said she met Axl Rose in a movie theater on Long Island. Then the conversation went from Guns and Roses and "Welcome to the Jungle" to the Army, to her father and war.

Walter C. Wolff, U.S. Army Intelligence

We talked more at the evening reception. Late in his life Nina's father, Walter C. Wolff, handed her a box of letters which turned out to be a trove of information about a part of his life he had spoken very little about. Walter Wolff came to America as a young refugee. He volunteered to serve. He and other young immigrants worked in Army Intelligence.  They became known as the Ritchie Boys:

The Ritchie Boys^[1] were a special collection of soldiers, primarily German-Austrian units, of Military Intelligence Service officers and enlisted men of World War II who were trained at Camp Ritchie in Washington County, Maryland. Many of them were German-speaking immigrants to the United States, often Jews who fled Nazi persecution.^[2][3] They were used primarily for interrogation of prisoners on the front lines and counter-intelligence in Europe because of their knowledge of the German language and culture. They were also involved in the Nuremberg trials as prosecutors and translators.^[4] 

A documentary film was made in 2004 about the Ritchie Boys. I will order the book about Nina's father Walter "Someday You Will Understand" when I return to America.  

To Have a Good Life, Keep Making New Friends

In 2011 I trained with these aircraft fuelers for three weeks. I thought I was going to Afghanistan with them. I didn't.  They did. They cut the deployment list and I did not go, but we trained together, sharing the happiness and hardships of Army life.   

I recently talked to my uncle David who is in his mid-80s. He is very successful: an engineer who started his own company and sold it for more than $10 million when he retired.  In the 45 minutes we talked he would mention friends and colleagues who were in ill health, who recently died, or who were limiting their activity due to their age.  

He is part of successful graduating class at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), has life-long friends and colleagues, and his friends, like him, are rich.  

David does not have friends half his age, or less.  Making friends requires having time to give or simply waste, and it requires equality. Over the past two decades, I have worked with, trained with, volunteered with, and just spent time with people who are half my age. I have made new friends during those years because we were doing the same tasks, with the same goal and we were peers.

My last job was at a museum and library of the history of science.  Non-profits tend to have a staff that is either just starting their careers or near retirement.  Since I worked in communications, many of my colleagues were in their 20s and 30s.  I was a writer who managed a program, so we were always peers on projects.  Because we were peers, there was always  a potential to make friendships.  Since my retirement, several of my former co-workers have been in book groups I was in. 

During the pandemic, a former colleague who got a big promotion was talking about the next step after Director of the Library. We laughed and laughed and decided to form the World Conquest Book Club, because it was one short step from Director of the Library to Ruler of the World!

Some of my co-workers became fellow protestors since 2016. I also made friends among my protest group participants.  We stand together in all weather, we face hecklers together and celebrate victories.

When I re-enlisted in the Army at age 54, I was an enlisted man. I made sergeant pretty quickly, but I was working and training with junior sergeants and enlisted men.  Some were half my age, some were a third.  The Army always has "hurry up and wait time" so we could talk and among a large group, find the people who we wanted to be friends with.  

And now volunteering with Razom, I am meeting many people I like, and a few who I really connect with. Most of the volunteers are in their 20s and 30s and Ukrainian. While we are making medical kits, as with serving in the army, we are all equal, doing a hot, dirty job, that really gives us the satisfaction of knowing we are helping soldiers in a noble cause.  

None of my life has a plan. I wasn't sure if I would have kids: I have six to nine depending on how you count.  I was sure I was done with the Army at age 27.  Then I wasn't. All of my childhood I wanted to be a truck driver and a soldier.  I achieved those life goals by age 19 then started on new ones.  

All of my life, I was a worker or manager of a small team, whether in white or blue collar jobs.  I made enough money to have all those kids and a nice life, but not to be rich.  When the opportunity to volunteer came up, I could go there and be just another pair of hands.  So this year, I could go to a New Jersey warehouse as a volunteer and simply be that pair of hands. And make new friends. 

Since I retired in 2015, I have been to many new places, done things I had never done before, and made new friends. The kind of people willing to stand in the rain and sleet to protest injustice; people with jobs and kids who make combat medical kits to help the soldiers fighting the invasion of their country; people who read, reflect and want to talk about the books that move them, and people who know the thrill of climbing a three-mile hill, then flying back down at either side of 50 miles per hour: these are my people.

One of the difficulties of power and wealth, is that it becomes more difficult to trust people--are they with you just to be near power and money? And, of course, if you have great possessions, to some extent those possessions have you. A couple with three houses and three cars has a lot of laundry to do and fenders to wash.  And they don't have time to just be another pair of hands in a warehouse in New Jersey trying to make a small difference and meeting the kind of people who strive for a better world.

Of course, keeping old friends is important too.  I just got back from traveling in Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway with my roommate from 1979 in Cold War, West Germany.  I am looking forward to my 50th high school reunion in October. Like ancient people, I think friendship very important to living a good life--indispensable.  And listening to other people close to or in the eighth decade of life, making friends throughout our lives is a big part of a good life.  

PanzerMuseum East Gift Shop

The Gift Shop at Panzermuseum East, Slagelse, Denmark, is crowded with uniforms, gas masks, models, spent brass, radio equipment, flags and more.

 

Museums, like their creators, have personalities. Panzermuseum East in Slagelse, Denmark, is neat with immaculately restored guns and vehicles and displays.  And it is very crowded.  Tanks, trucks, guns, armored vehicles, tank engines, radios, field hospitals, field kitchens, missiles, missile launchers, helicopters, a transport plane, and decontamination equipment crowd the buildings and the area around the buildings.  

I wrote about the museum two weeks ago.

The neat, organized, crowded feel of the museum displays carries over into the amazing gift shop near the entrance. In the photo above, are full uniforms, jackets, spent cartridges from every kind of gun: rifles to howitzers.  The snack bar table is atop 55-gallon oil drums.  

Near the entrance, by a window is a display of dozens of scale model tanks and armored vehicles, soldiers and toy helmets.  

There are hundreds of scale models of planes, ships, tanks and trucks from World War II to present day equipment.

Even landing craft....

Along with the models are racks of uniforms.

Spent cartridges up to 105mm cannon ammo. Radios, field mess kits, cases and other gear. 

Gifts and toys.....

Even toy guns!!!!!

Maria, who runs the gift shop, said  they sell nine of these Soviet era replica gas masks each week to kids who want these masks!! 

Hundreds of packs and pouches.....

Lots of belts......

And uniforms.......

A long rack of dress and fatigue uniforms and hats from various armies and eras.

Flags and canteens....

Hats....

Top Gun gear....

Flight suits......

Back to Packing Individual First Aid Kits (IFAKs) for Ukraine

 

#RazomforUkraine volunteers at the end of the day Saturday.

We set a new record of 3,063 IFAKS made and shipped in one day.

After a month in Europe I returned to volunteering with #RazomforUkraine putting together Individual First Aid Kits (IFAKs) for soldiers and emergency medical teams in Ukraine.  On Saturday we set a new record of 3,063 IFAKs in one day.  I started volunteering in late March.  Since shortly after the Russian invasion began, Razom has shipped more than 71,000 IFAKs to Ukraine. 

From the moment I entered the building I was reconnecting with people I really enjoy working with. 

Olena and Yuliia

Sergiy with the sign marking the new record

I plan to be back two days next week and as often as I can until I travel again. 

In April and May I wrote about how much I like volunteering with Razom and about some of my fellow volunteers. 

A post about Sergiy Blednov

How much I like working at Razom

Talking about musicals and life while we work

A volunteer flying to Ukraine on February 24

Making jokes while packing IFAKs

Tank Museum Designed as a Warning: Panzer Museum East, Denmark

Most military museums, particularly tank museums, display the best and most lethal weapons of their country. Part of the intent of these museums is to say,

"Look at the awesome firepower our soldiers had." 

When I visited the Deutsche Panzermuseum, one hundred years of German innovation and technology was clearly on display. The Armored Corps Museum at Latrun, Israel, displays tanks Israel fought with right up to the Merkava (chariot) developed and built in Israel. 

So I was quite surprised when I toured the many exhibits of Panzermuseum East in Denmark. All of the exhibits are of Cold War Soviet weapons and equipment.  The museum was designed and built as a warning to what could have happened to Denmark if the Soviet Union had invaded.  Their official intent: 

At Panzermuseum East we tell the story of the Cold War and our focus since its inception has been to show visitors from around the world what would have been seen on the streets and in the air if the Warsaw Pact, led by Russia, (The Soviet Union), had attacked Denmark during the tense and heated period leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union. We also document what would have happened if nuclear weapons had been used, and the terrible consequences of this, namely that there would have been a total Ragnarok throughout Europe, with millions of dead and destroyed.

The collection is several buildings crowded with Soviet tanks, trucks, missiles, guns, motorcycles, radar stations, ambulances, field kitchens, and other equipment. 

BMP armored personnel carrier 

T-72 M1

T-55 AM2

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the museum has been tagging displayed vehicles, like the BMP and T-72, that are being used by the Russian invaders of Ukraine.

Here is what the head of the museum says about the Russian invasion of Ukraine:

Regarding the horrific and heinous attack on Ukraine. 

Ukraine is being brutally attacked right now, with a lot of material that the Panzer Museum East has on display, which the heroic Ukrainians are also using to defend themselves. Unfortunately, the brutal superpower also has far more modern equipment than the Ukrainians, so it's an unequal battle. That is why it is so important that we all support and help the Ukrainians in their fantastic fight for freedom and democracy. 

On 28 February, Tank Museum East asked the Danish army for a donation of 1,200 boxes of field rations for the brave soldiers of Ukraine. If they are donated, we will immediately drive to one of the major border crossings between Poland and Ukraine and hand them over to all those who enter Ukraine to fight for freedom and democracy and a happy future. Right now, as you read this, what I myself was terribly and cruelly afraid of when I was young is becoming a harsh reality. I myself, together with my wife, visited Chernobyl and experienced Kyiv, and we had only positive experiences and great respect for the people in their struggle to build a healthy democracy and live as free people. 

Out of my pacifist ideology and to point out that war and enmity can and will never lead to anything good for humanity, I have founded my very own private tank museum East. That is why spreading the word about history is so important, even if it seems that at the moment no one cares about the atrocities of the past. Of course I have deep contempt for the cruel and blunt attack on Ukraine.

Best regards 

Owner of the Panzermuseum East 

Allan Pedersen and staff

BMP armored personnel carrier

PRAGA M53/59 "Lizard" with 30mm anti-aircraft guns

Tank transporter flatbed truck with a T-72 tank on the end of its bed.