We
are pleased to offer commentary and reviews of books,
web sites of interest to our members. The amount of
information on the Internet is growing geometrically
and an increasing practice is for the latest information
to be released ONLY on the Internet. Therefore, we aim
to be a source through this web site and in our newsletter:
GERONTOLOGY TOPICS,
finding sources that can "filter" the information
to what you really need to better serve the Aging Services
community.
Please
note that NEGA can make no guarantees for the advice
given on any of these sites.
Book
Reviews:
Breakthrough
Management for Not-for-Profit Organizations
. . .by
Howard H. Brown and Donald L. Ruhl
Life in “retirement” has been
busy for us—at times. The usual daily “employment
routine” has been replaced with new things to do and
look forward to. But what has just taken place in our
otherwise ordered existences is the publication of our
first book! something neither of us had experienced
before.
Big deal! We had done the articles,
doctoral dissertations and the like just as others have
done, but never found the time or inspiration to do a
book. But in November of 2003, Praeger Press, of
Westport, CT, brought out our book: Breakthrough
Management for Not-for-Profit Organizations: Beyond
Survival in the 21st Century. Now Don and
I have a Library of Congress number associated with our
names!
Over the years each of us had thought
about getting around to writing a book, but it hadn’t
happened. I had asked Don to teach our course “Managing
in the Nonprofit Sector” at Bradford College during
its final semester in spring of 2000. He, like others
who had taught the course before, couldn’t find a
textbook to use. Instead, with many contacts in the
community, he used a reference book plus one speaker
every Friday morning for 12 weeks. I went to each of
those classes and took notes which he and I discussed
throughout the semester, finally agreeing there was a
need for the book we could not find. So first an
outline, what to cover and what not to bother with, what
things we wanted to do with the book (ones we hadn’t
found in other textbooks we had foisted on students over
the years). Then, who might be interested in a book of
this nature, how to write a book, what publishers might
be interested, and how to approach these publishers? We
talked to friends who had been through the publication
“ritual,” had lunches and meetings with people who
might stimulate our thinking. Finally we began putting
words on paper.
Don’s wife quietly asked mine
whether she thought we would ever carry the project
through to completion; my wife told her that she thought
so. Don was our expert in researching material in print.
I was the computer guy who pulled the written pieces
together. Soon into the project, the Ruhls bought a new
computer, and figured out how to give me Don’s work on
a disk. Sometime later, we began swapping information
and files via the internet. (Remember, these are two men
who had used electric typewriters for their
dissertations!)
We decided that Don would draft a
chapter that dealt with volunteers and I would do one
about managing such organizations. When they had been
completed, we sent these chapters to a number of friends
who tore them apart. While waiting for feedback, we
began writing a generic proposal to go to the publishers
we would approach—based on various guides for “would-be”
authors. Added to that information later was what we
found on the selected publishers’ websites pertaining
to each’s specific requirements. Re-write after
re-write, it was now crunch time.
We assembled seven pages of proposal
material, the two chapters we had written, added our
resumes, and appended a long list of prospective
colleges and universities that offered courses, degrees
at undergraduate and graduate levels, certificate
programs, and the like, all pertaining to the
not-for-profit sector.
On a Monday morning, I mailed twelve
packages to as many publishers and we sat back for the
long wait. We had heard the tales of woe from many
hopeful authors: rejection upon rejection, waiting
without hearing anything.
To our amazement, four days later I
received a call from the editor and publisher of Quorum
Press, member of Greenwood Publishers, who said he
wanted to do the book and would we wait until he had
talked to his marketing people? We agreed. Several weeks
passed until we received the draft of a contract. We
worked through “publisher double-talk,” then drove
to Manhattan for lunch with the publisher (uptown, at
the Whitney Museum restaurant) to discuss the project. A
really nice guy about our age, he was easy to talk with
and we came up with a mutual agreement as to the terms
of the contract. Another two months, after we had sent
him information he requested, and the signed contract
was in our hands—and the next phase began.
(Incidentally, about a month later, we received a second
offered contract, then several rejections. We ultimately
sent out several letters to publishers we hadn’t heard
from and told them we already had accepted a contract
and thanks, but . . . . )
We now had about ten months to
deliver the completed manuscript. Don worked on two more
chapters as did I. That brought us to the proposed six
text chapters of part one, with the final part two
section (“practitioner’s handbook”) to be built
upon these six chapters. Material passed back and forth,
meetings were every two weeks or so to “encourage”
each other. When a chapter was to our liking, we sent it
to another group of readers for critique. Ten months had
sounded like a lot of time, but with two neophytes
writing, the time moved along pretty quickly—especially
since both of us continued to do other things, like
vacations (the Browns to England on a choral tour, the
Ruhls taking several bird-watching excursions).
In order to assure that our publisher
would agree to designing and including a dust jacket for
the book, we began a campaign to find a group of people
who would write endorsements, ones that could be
included on said dust jacket. We succeeded, coming up
with a business author, business school dean, and a
president of a not-for-profit professional association.
To that group we added the CEO of a large regional bank,
head of a Chamber of Commerce group, and a former
president of an extensive women’s international
association. The final effort was to enlist someone,
just the right person, to write the foreword to the
book. The former president of our college, who is now
president of a major New York City college and a
respected author, agreed to do so.
Our by-now-comfortable routine was
shattered when we learned that our initial editor had
been “retired,” and Quorum folded into Praeger. So
we took a ride to Westport, CT, to meet our new editor
who, we learned, was shouldering her own workload plus
now that of our previous editor. Face-to-face meetings,
we had learned over the years, make working with people
easier somehow, and these two neophyte authors needed
all the help they could muster. Having been well
received (“I usually end up meeting only 2–3% of the
authors with whom I work,” she had told us) and
assured of support, we returned home feeling that all
was not lost, just some time along the way.
The completed manuscript was finally
sent off on the original schedule, and we waited for
feedback. I was at Don’s house when our editor reached
us. She explained that their production people were
uneasy because of several “unusual” page-numbering
devices that we were proposing be incorporated.
Without going into great detail, what
we had in mind meant that if a new page were to be
inserted between existing pages, all the page numbers in
between would have to change as would the page
numbers we were inserting in cases with which we were
starting each chapter—and the production people were
afraid of the time it would take them to be sure the
page numbering was correct. Time = money, and
they were figuring that the time would now be more than
they had budgeted for. The bad news for us was that the
extra amount over that budgeted would have to be
retrieved out of our future commissions. We protested
that we had been proposing this right along. Elimination
of these features was unacceptable to us. A call-back an
hour later brought no change in their stance. However,
the editor suggested that, since I had all this set up
on my computer, would we consider generating and
supplying to them the camera-ready pages? that by so
doing, we could be sure the page numbers were correct
throughout.
I guess it is true: “fools do rush
in where angels fear to tread.” But then we had more
time on our hands than money to give up in commission
checks (that we hopefully will receive over the years
ahead). So we agreed. [I should note that it would fall
on me since Don does all his writing with a blunt #2
pencil, his wife then “translating,” typing and
transmitting same to me via electronic means.]
So the publisher sent all their
guidelines which were added to the 921 page Chicago
Manual of Style (similar to the writer’s guide I
had for years foisted on my Bradford College management
seniors as they wrote their senior projects). This
proved to be an interesting learning experience:
cross-referencing and bookmarks, pagination with
different chapter entries at the top of verso and recto
pages, insertion of photographs and clip art, generating
drawings and tables—all to be fitted properly, ending
up with each page looking as it would ultimately appear.
[Oh yes, about now we found ourselves
with yet another editor, our third—our previous one
having requested a lateral transfer into an editorial
area in which she had more experience. Our new editor,
we were informed, had just come into the organization
with a strong business background. Another road trip to
meet him . . . ]
From the computer, these pages went
to another group of fussy proof-reader friends as well
as the publisher’s designated copy editor. We never
did get to meet this gentleman but, to his credit, he
was excellent at what he did and was most generous with
his time and our feelings. Finally, after a number of
go-arounds with all these wonderful people, the pages
bearing our blood, sweat and tears went into the mail—while
we still believed that we would only consider the
project “done” when each of us had a copy of the
book on our living room coffee table.
We are now being asked “how is the
book is doing?” So far, too early to know.
We are kidded about “all the money
you are going to make.” Our only response is that if
we make five-cents per hour for all the time invested
over the four years it took us, that will probably be a
lot!
“Why did you write the book?” is
the other favorite question. We explain that (1) we
couldn’t find a text (still can’t find another one)
to use for courses covering the not-for-profit
organization, still really believing that ours fills
this void; (2) we both had always wanted to become “published
authors”; and (3) honestly? there is an ego element
involved.
So now there is a copy of the book,
on each of our coffee tables, with our names on the
cover . . .
March 4, 2004
Estate
Planning: It is never too early and never too late
to implement strategies for effective estate planning.
Here is one of the best helpers.
ABSTRACTS: FROM BOOK "ULTIMATE
FITNESS"
The quest for truth about exercise and
health:Gina Kolata farrar, strauss and giroux / New York
2003
Concept: Muscle burns more calories
than fat- Weight lifting has virtually no effect on
resting metabolism. Reason: any added muscle is
minuscule compared with the total amount of skeletal
muscle in the body. Also, muscle has a very low
metabolic rate when it is at rest, which is most of the
time. Skeletal muscle burns 13 calories per kilogram of
body weight over 24 hours when a person is at rest. A
typical male who weighs 154 pounds has about 28
kilograms of muscle. When he is at rest, they burn about
22% of the calories his body uses. The brain and liver
both also use about the same number of calories. With
weight lifting if the man gains 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds)
of muscle, his metabolic rate would increase by 24
calories a day. It is reported that the average amount
of muscle that men gained after a serious weight lifting
program that lasted 12 weeks was 2 kilograms (and much
less for women). Vogel's book on muscle: charts showing
how much blood is delivered to various parts of the body
at rest and during exercise: The more blood delivered,
the more metabolically active the cells are and the more
calories burnt. At rest, skeletal muscle gets 1.04
liters of blood each minute, about 1/5th of
the blood being pumped through the body. The rest goes
to other places like, the digestive system (1.2 liters
per minute); the kidneys (0.95 liters per minute); and
the brain (0.64 liters per minute). (P.230-31). During
intense exercise, the skeletal muscles get a huge
increase in their blood supply, with 17.6 liters each
minute arriving to fuel them and give them oxygen. Then
88% of the body's blood is going to the muscles, taken
mostly from the digestive system and the kidneys.
TO BURN MORE CALORIES: requires
more intense exercise, like running, and
not just putting on some muscle and hoping it will burn
calories and make you thinner as your REST. With
resistance training you may lose some fat, but you wont
lose weight because you are building muscle at the same
time. Claude Bouchard notes, that almost no one puts on
enough muscle as a proportion of their total body mass
to make a noticeable difference in their weight. The
muscle you develop if better at using fat for fuel and
the cells are more permeable to glucose, which , in turn
reduces the need for excess insulin in the blood, giving
a reduced susceptibility to diabetes.
(P232). STRETCHING: Warming up the
muscles before exercise does seem to have a beneficial
effect. It does seem to help if you start your exercise
gradually and work up to higher physical demands.
BODYSCULPTING: You cannot spot reduce
fat but you can increase muscle size with specific
strength training. To reshape yourself Kraemer says,
" you have to hypertrophy muscles, meaning to build
them, which can take 3 to 6 months or even
longer. Guidelines: You can't work the
same body part two days in a row. You have to do 3 sets
of about 10 repetitions, take a break and repeat set and
break, etc.. Others say to do one set to failure, so
that after 6 or 8 reps. you cannot do another one. Then
you move on to another muscle group. Scientific guides:
Work large muscles, like the quadriceps before small
muscles like the inner thigh. That is because when
working a small muscle first, it fatigues the adjacent
larger one. Main variables are intensity, resistance,
order, and choice of the number of sets. The lifting
ORDER should be varied so one does not do the same thing
week after week,
etc..
William Kraemer (p235) American
College of Sports Medicine
A variety of programs are effective
but you have to keep stretching
your muscles to see change. Details of a program depend
on one's goals and there is no answer to some questions.
SPEED OF WEIGHT LIFTING
EXERCISES (P.235) It is important to train at fast,
moderate, and slow speeds, but the most effective speed
seems to be about one second to one
to two seconds for a contraction and about the same for
muscle lengthening. Every major muscle group of your
body should be trained two to three days a week; but
when working on one body area (i.e. upper body) in each
session, you should work that body area in just one to
two days a week. Training and routines and different
exercises should be varied , with fewer and more
repetitions, lighter and heavier weights, with
increasing demands over time.
SUPERSLOW: ACE magazine
(Mar-Apr. 2002) "One Man's Defiant
Challenge" - (p.250-51) The idea is to do 5 or 6
exercises to failure, raising or lowering weights very
slowly, taking 10 seconds to raise a weight and then
another 10 to lower it. At a GWU Medical Center study in
2001 J. of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2 groups
were compared. One was a traditional weight lifting
program and the other with SuperSlow. The former was
better for building muscle strength and that the later
did not improve the participants ability to do sustained
active exercise the way a program such as running
would. Ken Hutchins however maintains that
SuperSlow helps healthy people get in shape and has been
used to successfully treat patients with Parkinson's
disease, spinal fusion, urinary incontinent, and sexual
dysfunction.
INTENSITY OF EXERCISE:
Steve Blair's study: "Physical
Fitness and All-Cause Mortality" (1989) reflected
that a convincing body of evidence has emerged in
support of the observation that most of the health
benefit probably occurs from just mild exercise, not
necessarily from the most arduous workouts. (P.262).
Osteoporosis experts say there is no rigorous study
showing that weight lifting will reduce your risk of
osteoporosis (which may be a common current
misconception), insofar as bone density is developed,
and maintained in later years to a greater degree with
weight resistance training. Physiologists maintain that
weight lifting will not raise your metabolic rate, again
denying common current conceptions. (p.265) Donald
Kirkendall Whether you lose weight or not depends on how
hard you exercise, how long, what you eat, and what your
genetics are. Obesity experts say you can just walk a
half hour or so of brisk walking will burn about 150
calories a day. In a month, if you do not change your
diet, you could lose a pound. It really is much more
EFFECTIVE to exercise hard enough to sweat, and that is
the only way to burn large numbers of calories. "DK"
If you want to push performance, you've got to push the
intensity. The biggest way to gain fitness is to push
intensity.
A reflection by Richard Friedman
(Cornell Med., NYC) The
"truth" about exercise is more often a marker
of health than its cause- healthy people like to
exercise more than unhealthy people to start with. And
the real value of it is not in terms of abstract health
benefits like longevity an extra few hours or maybe
months but because it feels good when you do it or when
its over. To hell with Hygeia; the truth lies in
pleasure."
WEIGHT GAIN OR LOSS: (P.96-98) Weight
loss is a matter of simple physics. If you take in more
calories than you use, you will gain weight, and lose
when you take in fewer calories than you
use.
1992 study A.J.Clinical Nutrition,
Rudolph Leibel (Columbia P&S) and Jules Hirsch
(Rockefeller U) It took the same number of calories of
fat as it took of carbohydrates to maintain each
person's weight. The source of the calories made no
difference - all that mattered was the number of
calories. Therefore it should not matter How you burn
calories, whether by walking or running! A graph
relationship demonstrates the previous "Myth"
in this area. One line shows muscles use of fat as an
energy source as a function of exercise intensity, and
another line depicts muscles' use of carbohydrates as a
function of exercise intensity. The crossover point,
where equal amounts of fat fan carbohydrate are being
burned, comes at about 60% of your maximum effort, or a
heart rate that is about 70% of maximum. After that, the
amount of carbohydrate burned exceeds the amount of fat,
and this imbalance increases as exercise intensity
increases. If you get to your maximum heart rate, less
than 10% of the calories you burn will come from fat.
This led to the argument that as long as you keep your
heart rate low enough, you will burn more fat than
carbohydrates and you will lose more weight. The problem
is that the argument is neglecting a crucial component:
the number of calories burned.
THE HARDER YOU WORK, THE MORE
ENERGY YOU EXPEND, AND THE MORE CALORIES YOU WILL NEED.
(P.95) Jack Wilmore (Texas A&M) and David Costill
(Ball State U), provide an example of a 25 year
old woman. One day, she exercises for half an hour at a
low intensity (she walks) and burns half her 220
calories as fat The next day, she exercises for half an
hour at a higher intensity (moderately paced running)
and burns just a third of her 332 calories as fat. The
TOTAL CALORIES from FAT do not differ between the low
and high intensity workouts. In both cases, she burns
about 110 calories of fat during 30 minutes. Most
important, however, for the higher-intensity workout,
she expends about 50% more total calories for the same
time period. When exercising at the low end of the
"weight loss" range the rate of calorie
burning was 6.5 calories a minute. At the high end of
that range 10 calories per minute were burned. Working a
little harder into the "cardiovascular" range
the calories per minute went from 10 at the low end to
14 at the top of that range. Twice as many calories
would be burned if the heart rate were kept at the top
of the cardiovascular range than would have been burned
by staying at the bottom of the weight-loss range. These
data project the merits of low intensity exercise as
optimal for fat burning as being merely a myth!
(P.99)
Abstract summaries: Eugene E. Tillock
1 Cutts Road, Durham, NH
03824-4102
Phone: 603-86-5757 email: "genetsr@comcast.net"
DIE
BROKE
Stephen M. Pollan and Mark Levine (Harper Collins)
This
book offers real life practical insights into the "how"
to maximize personal and career financial planning.
It provides a focus for moving from a "great depression
era" mindset to the proactive fiscal realities of the
21st Century. Frugality versus the contemporary credit
card mentality is presented as a key to a new ethic
of fiscal preservation. At the same time the creation
and hoarding of an estate suggests putting the quality
of your death before the quality of your life. Freed
from the burden of building an estate, you can use your
money to help your family and improve your life. Through
wise lifelong gifting the lives of your children can
be greatly improved. The authors convincingly support
the premise that by striving to die broke you guarantee
that you live well. In this time of historic low unemployment
there is concurrent job insecurity, that supports a
new mercantile ethic of each worker toward their job.
From
this view the job should be used to generate the money
needed to pursue and fulfill personal goals. Professional
athletes are projected as a model for a new self focused
work ethic. Helpful hints to income enhancements include,
a reverse mortgage on a home and lifetime annuities
through gifts to charities (which also provide for liberal
tax deductions). Guidance is also provided for the Baby
Boomer generation, from shielding assets of their parents
from potential Medicaid claims, as well as through bringing
up the issue of asset divestiture with one's parents.
Finally, valuable insights are provided into annuities,
asset allocation, insurance and essentials of estate
planning, wills and "avoiding probate". The authors
conclude, that a final gift to your heirs should be
to spare them from any possible fight over your bones!
Book review: Eugene E. Tillock, ed.. May 27, 2000
SHADOWDAD
Richard Watrous
In
Shadowdad, Richard Watrous has presented a landmark
insight into the real life realities of dying as well
as the difficulties in continuing to live. Vivid sensitivities
of both the patient and loved ones are presented with
the reader left to reassess many of our contemporary
value judgments about life and death. The disturbing
noncompliance with patient 'living-wills' by health
facilities or state (NH) laws is a dirty secret that
has been unpublicized. All of the self righteous preachers
of life at any cost would be well to read this book
to have a moral reawakening.
Web
Site Reviews:
Sites
for Seniors
Recently
Media One's May newsletter had this helpful feature
on excellent web sites of interest to seniors.
"The
Senior Citizen population is expected to grow by leaps
and bounds in the coming years as the Baby Boomers
begin to reach age 65. According to the AARP, seniors
currently represent about 13% of the population, but
are expected to represent 20% by the year 2030! We
would like to share some web sites that may be of
interest for all of us as we grow older and wiser.
For
local information you can start with the Massachusetts
Executive Office of Elder Affairs. This state
agency promotes the dignity, independence and rights
of Massachusetts elders, and supports their families,
through advocacy and the development and management
of programs and services.
On
the national front we found many sites that
address the issues of aging. AARP
prides itself on being one of the leading voices for
addressing the needs of an aging America. This is
a great site for getting information on everything
from health and wellness to computers and the Internet,
and much more.
The
National Council on the Aging is a group of organizations and professionals
dedicated to promoting the dignity, self-determination, and well being of
older persons.
SeniorNet
is a nonprofit national organization that provides
adults 50+ access to and education about computer
technology and the Internet to enhance their lives
and enable them to share their knowledge and wisdom."
www.careguide.com
is an excellent site to locate Elder Care Facilities nationally. It contains
national agencies and organizations; state ombudsman programs and state agencies
on aging. In addition an article on estate planning includes the Why's and How
to do it.
www.caregiving.com
'This site presents various reference sources to personal care of the elderly
and to information that may be invaluable to caregivers. Examples of some of
the sub-sections presented are: The Alzheimer's Disease Education and Referral
Center, The American Heart Association and about arthritis(which contains www.arthritis.com
and www.arthritis.org.)
Aging Parents and
Elder care This site in their own words offers: Providing care for our aging
parents or elder spouse can often be very frustrating, with new surprises almost
every day. Whether you care for aging parents in your home, or manage elder care
plans from a distance, most of us don't know where to go for reliable answers
... or even what questions to ask. Here's help.
Retirement
Planning Tools:
Here
are some great sites spotted by The Boston Globe(5/14/00):
Only
16% of American Workers have saved $100,000 or more
for retirement according to the American Savings Education
Council. The ASEC has a simple "online" ballpark estimate
worksheet. This may be accessed through www.asec.org
Three
options for estimating Social Security online retirement
planning are available to help individuals to do
a quick calculation of future benefits based on current
age and earnings; another option is benefits based on
one's earning history; and finally, you can download
software to get the most detailed analysis.
You may also order a copy of your Social Security
Earnings Statement with your earnings history. Just
go through www.ssa.gov
.
401k
Investment Advice
A
free personal retirement forecast based on your 401(k)
investments and contributions is available from
www.financialengines.com
Individuals may be charged $55 to $190 a year for buy-and-sell
advice that may be desired.
Free
online 401(k) investment advice service, giving you
recommendations for allocating your assets based on
the mutual funds your company plan offers (if the plan
happens to be in Team Vest's database) through www.TeamVest.com
and www.Quicken.com
You can input your personal information, salary, risk
tolerance, retirement income needs, economic assumptions,
and other data and get an action plan and report that
is supposed to be printable. TeamVest offers more detailed
401(k) advice for a fee; a one time, personalized report
for $49.95, or a full-service option for between $90
and $150 a quarter.
For
$75 a year, this online investment advisor makes recommendations
for saving for retirement, as well as for children's
college education, a new home, or a dream vacation.
The annual fee lets you run as many different investment
plans as you like but there are no free "trials". Contact
through www.DirectAdvice.com
Free
up equity from your residence with a safe government
program Reverse
Mortgage. We suggest you explore and than consult
for legal opinion as to the benefits to you with your
individual issues.
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