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Pallavi Tatapudy with her husband Nishank Mehta.

By Daniel Dunaief

Bringing together people from a range of experiences and perspectives, Stony Brook University is preparing to complete the first year of its LEND training program, which is designed to help provide support and services for people with autism and neurodevelopmental disabilities.

Over 100 trainees will complete the course this month, as the leaders of LEND, which stands for Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and other related Disabilities, prepare to educate a second year of participants that is expected to exceed 300 people.

Top row: Dr. Matthew Lerner, Dr. Michelle Ballan (co-director and director)
2nd row: Pallavi Tatapudy, Isaac Rodriguez, Morgan McNair
3rd row: Sarah Grosser, Anjolie Nagarwalla, Jenny Andersson
Bottom row: Christopher Rosa, Ava Gurba

Matthew Lerner, LEND Center Co-Director, Research Director of the Autism Initiative, and Associate Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry & Pediatrics, and Michelle Ballan, LEND Program and Center Director, Professor, and Associate Dean for Research in the School of Social Welfare and Professor of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine, run the program, which is the first on Long Island to receive a federal grant that supports training students, families, professionals and self-advocates.

Lerner described three key takeaways for the $2.2 million, five-year grant. 

First, “if we want to be effective in supporting individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders we have to be interdisciplinary,” he said.

Second, the group, which includes trainees at three different levels depending on their time commitment to the program, needs to “listen to the voices of autistic people,” Lerner added. For too long, “they’ve been an afterthought at the table of care.”

Third, the work is a “process and not an outcome,” he said.

Many of the participants in the program appreciated the opportunity to engage in an interdisciplinary effort.

Self-advocate

Ava Gurba, a self-advocate and master’s student at Stony Brook University who has autism and cerebral palsy, said she saw LEND as her chance to “reframe the professional discipline” and inform people in a range of fields about what life is “really like” for her and others.

Many professionals in health care have limited experience working with self-advocates.

“They have only interacted with disabled people as clients in a therapeutic setting or as research subjects,” Gurba said.

Researchers and service providers don’t often know how to incorporate the lived experience for the family and from self- advocates, she added.

Gurba suggested that some professionals need to “unlearn” practices that don’t incorporate the values and needs of people with disabilities.

The medical community is often looking for cures, while Gurba said she and others with disabilities are more often looking for ways to be integrated into the community, through social, employment, or educational opportunities.

Clinical training

For Alan Gerber, a doctoral student in the Department of Psychology at Stony Brook, LEND provided autism-specific clinical training, including planning treatment and reviewing the progress for specific patients.

“It gives me an opportunity to get together with an inter-disciplinary cohort and see things from a different lens,” Gerber said.

Gerber plans to be a clinical researcher and will conduct post doctoral research at the Yale Child Study Center.

LEND “made me think very deeply about what is clinically meaningful research,” Gerber said. When he speaks with families, pediatricians and social workers, he wants to do the kind of research that is “really going to change a family’s life.”

Gerber hopes to remain in contact with other members of the LEND community, where he felt he was part of a team.

Paradigm shift

As a high school bilingual speech language pathologist who works closely with individualized education plans, Jenn Solomon wanted to understand more about the lives and challenges of people with developmental disabilities.

LEND provided a paradigm shift for Solomon in helping her understand disability. “I can listen to what people with disabilities have to say, and I can reflect and learn,” Solomon said.

One of Solomon’s broader goals is to advocate on behalf of students who have obstacles to overcome.

Jenny Andersson, who works for the New York State Department of Education Office of Special Education funded project called the Educational Partnership, suggested that LEND “exceeded what I had imagined.”

Like other trainees, Andersson, who is Director of the Early Childhood Family and Community Engagement Center, appreciated the participation of self-advocates.

“I approach everything in my work now and ask, ‘Did we invite all stakeholders to the discussion?’”

Ripple effects

Andersson is excited to see the ripple effect of the program, where other professionals benefit from what trainees learn and discuss and change their practices.

Indeed, Dr. Pallavi Tatapudy, a second-year psychiatry resident at Stony Brook, said her husband Nishank Mehta, who is a first-year orthopedic surgery resident at Stony Brook, has learned about advocacy from some of the discussions she had through LEND.

“This experience of working together and hearing all of these personal insights, you cannot get from a textbook,” Tatapudy said. 

Tatapudy understands the value of consulting with people who have disabilities and with their families. “The patient is the expert,” she said.

When she worked in the inpatient psychiatric unit on the 12th floor of Stony Brook Hospital, Tatapudy said she spoke to a family who was admitting a child with a neurodevelopmental disability. She asked parents for an idea of ways to comfort their child that de-escalate emotionally charged moments at home. His parents said a particular blanket from home provided comfort, which they brought to the hospital.

Tatapudy is “proud” that Stony Brook is a LEND center, joining 60 others throughout the country.

For Lerner, who was a LEND trainee about a dozen years ago and continues to stay in touch with his LEND cohort, the effort helps experts learn from each other and from self-advocates who can share their perspectives. “None of us has enough expertise to do this alone,” he said.

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'Eel Spearing in Setauket' by William Sidney Mount

By John L. Turner

This is part two of a two-part series on a remarkable pair of fish. 

The life cycle of the American Eel is a bit more complicated than river herring and consists of six stages: egg, larvae, glass eel, elver, yellow eel, and silver eel. 

Mature adults reproduce just once in their lifetime with all the eels emanating from the East Coast unerringly migrating to the Sargasso Sea where mass spawning takes place. (The Sargasso Sea, situated south of Bermuda, has no land borders but is distinct by being bounded by four strong ocean currents, including the Gulf Stream, resulting in quiet waters entrained within the gyre; here masses of sargassum weed abound giving shelter to many marine species including hatchling sea turtles). 

Shortly after spawning here the adult eels die. A grown eel releases as many as several million eggs and they hatch within a week. At first the leptocephali don’t look eel-like, being transparent and flattened, described as looking like a willow leaf; they are carried north by the currents, including most notably, the Gulf Stream. 

American Eel. Wikipedia photo

After about half a year they metamorphose into “glass eels,” still transparent but shaped like baby eels, and this is the stage, along with the slightly pigmented elver stage, that arrives at the mouths of Long Island’s streams. They wriggle their way up vertical faces and over wet land to make their way into freshwater ponds and lakes (although some spend their adult lives in brackish waters of Long Island’s estuaries).

While living for decades in ponds and lakes they move through a few more color stages, including yellow and silver eels. Here they become fully integrated members of the local food web, feeding on a variety of different aquatic prey while being preyed upon by many other animals including ospreys and bald eagles (stay tuned: June’s “Nature Matters” column!). 

Eels are also food for humans (remember one of Long Island’s most famous paintings  — William Sidney Mount’s 1845 “Eel Spearing at Setauket”?). Eventually some internal trigger “tells” these decades-old fish to head to the ocean and back to the Sargasso Sea to create a new generation of eels. To assist them in their long journey their bodies change a little — their eyes enlarge as do their pectoral fins.

Eel are managed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), beginning in 2006 with the first species management plan. The Commission sets harvest quotas for all age classes of eels including those to be used as bait and for direct consumption. The news has not been good over the past several decades with eel abundance on the decline and ASMFC currently classifies the eel stock as “depleted.” 

Ways to increase abundance? Reduce all causes of eel mortality, especially among younger animals, among adults trying to navigate the perils of turbines at hydroelectric dams and increase opportunities for eels to migrate to freshwater areas where they can survive, becoming mature adults through time.

The Seatuck Environmental Association has been at the forefront of documenting the migratory occurrences of Long Island’s alewives and eels through its signature river herring and eel surveys and has, for decades, been working to protect existing runs while facilitating others. If you want to participate in trying to find new sites of alewife runs or eel migration or document more completely whats’s happening at existing sites, go to Seatuck’s webpage.

In pre-colonial times, before the advent of dams and other obstructions, many, if not all, of Long Island’s streams and rivers likely teemed in Spring with alewives and eels. They, in turn, provided nourishment to many species of wildlife from otters to ospreys to eagles. However, the Long Island of today is a very different place, with so many ecological threads severed or frayed. The reduced abundance of these fish illustrate the pervasive loss of ecological connectivity that has occurred on Long Island in the past few centuries. The good news? Many individuals, organizations, and governmental agencies are working to enhance connectivity here – to reconnect severed ecological threads – through the installation of additional ladders and passageways, and better yet, the removal of more dams, all steps to give these remarkable animals a chance to recover and perhaps even prosper.

I hope you make their acquaintance.

A resident of Setauket, John Turner is conservation chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, author of “Exploring the Other Island: A Seasonal Nature Guide to Long Island” and president of Alula Birding & Natural History Tours.

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By Nancy Burner, Esq.

Nancy Burner, Esq.

The legalities surrounding a Last Will and Testament stem from Roman times, when six witnesses affixed their personal seals to a will. The will was later validated by examining these seals to make sure they remained intact. 

Today we use staples instead of seals, but, because the probate process remains so formal, many misconceptions exist. Let’s discuss some of the more prevalent myths surrounding probate that we encounter.

Myth: If I have a will, my estate doesn’t have to go through Probate.

While a will documents where your assets go at death, a will does not avoid probate. Probate is a Surrogate’s Court proceeding whereby a decedent’s Last Will and Testament is validated and given effect. 

In New York, a will is admitted to probate after the Executor files a petition. The probate petition includes the original will, as well as a death certificate and funeral bill. Proper notice must be given to the individuals who would have inherited had the decedent died without a will. 

The court issues “letters testamentary” which give the executor the authority to act. The executor opens an estate bank account, pays the debts of the estate and then makes distributions to the beneficiaries.

The only way to avoid probate is to place all assets into a trust or die owning only “non probate assets.” Non-probate assets are those held jointly or that list beneficiaries. Common non-probate assets with beneficiary designations are retirement accounts and life insurance policies. Not all types of accounts allow designated beneficiaries or transfers on death. Naming others as joint owners can have catastrophic drawbacks, such as capital gains tax and creditor issues. A revocable trust is the gold standard in avoiding probate.

Myth: I don’t need a will because my spouse will inherit everything.

The only way your spouse inherits everything is if you do not have children or grandchildren. People are often surprised to learn that if they have children, their spouse does not inherit all their assets. 

In New York State, if someone is married with children and dies without a will, their spouse gets the first $50,000 and half of the remaining assets. The children split the other half amongst themselves. This means that without a will, minor children or children from a previous marriage inherit almost half of your assets. 

This is not what most people expect or want. The only way to make sure your spouse inherits 100% of your assets is to draft a will or trust. 

The probate process can be avoided if the couple owns all assets jointly. Joint ownership has its own problems — especially considering estate taxes or if there are children from a previous marriage. 

The probate process may sound confusing, but the procedure is easy and orderly with the help of an estate attorney. One of the kindest things you can do for your family is to draft a well-thought-out estate plan so that your assets pass in an orderly manner. At Burner Law Group, we charge flat fees so that clients fully understand their options and receive an estate plan custom tailored to them.

Nancy Burner, Esq. is the founder and managing partner at Burner Law Group, P.C with offices located in East Setauket, Westhampton Beach, New York City and East Hampton.

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By Michael Christodoulou

Michael Christodoulou
Michael Christodoulou

As an investor, you can easily feel frustrated to see short-term drops in your investment statements. But while you cannot control the market, you may find it helpful to review the factors you can control.

Many forces affect the financial markets, including geopolitical events, corporate profits and interest rate movements — forces beyond the control of most individual investors. In any case, it’s important to focus on the things you can control, such as the following:

Your ability to define your goals: One area in which you have total control is your ability to define your goals. Like most people, you probably have short-term goals  — such as saving for a new car or a dream vacation — and long-term ones, such as a comfortable retirement. Once you identify your goals and estimate how much they will cost, you can create an investment strategy to help achieve them. Over time, some of your personal circumstances will likely change, so you’ll want to review your time horizon and risk tolerance on a regular basis, adjusting your strategy when appropriate. And the same is true for your goals — they may evolve over time, requiring new responses from you in how you invest.

Your response to market downturns: When the market drops and the value of your investments declines, you might be tempted to take immediate action in an effort to stop the losses. This is understandable.  After all, your investment results can have a big impact on your future. However, acting hastily could work against you. For example, you could sell investments that still have solid fundamentals and are still appropriate for your needs. If you can avoid decisions based on short-term events, you may help yourself in the long run.

Your commitment to investing: The financial markets are almost always in flux, and their movements are hard to predict. If you can continue investing in all markets — good, bad or sideways —you will likely make much better progress toward your goals than if you periodically were to take a “time out.” Many people head to the investment sidelines when the market tumbles, only to miss out on the beginnings of the next rally. And by steadily investing, you will increase the number of shares you own in your investments. And the larger your ownership stake, the greater your opportunities for building wealth.

Your portfolio’s level of diversification: While diversification itself can’t guarantee profits or protect against all losses, it can help to greatly reduce the impact of market volatility on your portfolio. Just how you diversify your investments depends on several factors, but the general principle of maintaining a diversified portfolio should govern your approach to investing. It’s a good idea to periodically review your portfolio to ensure it’s still properly diversified.

The world will always be filled with unpredictable, uncontrollable events, and many of them will affect the financial markets to one degree or another. But within your own investment world, you always have a great deal of control — and with it, you have the power to keep moving toward all your important financial objectives.

Michael Christodoulou, ChFC®, AAMS®, CRPC®, CRPS® is a Financial Advisor for Edward Jones in Stony Brook. Member SIPC

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By Warren Strugatch

Warren Strugatch

This past Easter Sunday was my first without my wife Cindy. On the little dining room table that she brought home from Europe, beneath the candy-colored mini-chandelier acquired on the same trip, I set a holiday table. I reheated crab cakes, stirred up some homemade hollandaise, and sat down to a tasty, albeit solitary, meal.  

I celebrated Easter remembering how Cindy made it festive. She made every holiday festive, none more so than Christmas. She celebrated to the max: decorating, cooking, doling out family tales about her resourceful, hard-toiling immigrant ancestors from England, Holland, Germany, and Ireland. 

I come from a Jewish family with roots in Poland and Belarus; Easter and Christmas were terra incognita. I offered immigrant stories too, plus treats like halvah and matzo brei. Of gefilte fish, the less said the better. 

On Easter, Cindy baked ham, broiled asparagus, boiled potatoes, and prepared quiche. The ham she shared with her mother, Patricia, who had come to live with us in Stony Brook. The quiche, the designated vegetarian plate, was for me. The asparagus was for all. I made matzo brei, the traditional egg and matzo casserole.

The memories of those meals and other occasions warm my heart. My beautiful wife died of leukemia in February. Her mother passed away a year earlier from heart disease. I’ve inherited many of their rituals, including Easter brunch and Christmas celebrations. Now they’re my traditions, too.

My mother-in-law Patricia Slattery, who went by Pat, grew up in the fifties on a farm in Huntington. She got a job working for lawyers while still in high school, surprising her parents. She married Larry Smith, a Navy vet returning from the Korean war, and the couple settled in Smithtown. In a way it was a homecoming, as Larry claimed descent from Smithtown founder Richard “Bull” Smith.  

He opened an auto repair shop. She stayed home to raise Cindy and her younger brother Lawrence, then went to work full-time in the 1980s. In the mid-2000s her car was hit from behind while she drove home from work. Pat suffered a stroke, never walked again, and spoke only with much effort.

Soon thereafter, Pat moved in. With nothing said out loud, Cindy became keeper of the Smith legacy. Her family’s approach to holiday celebrations was revelatory. As for me, I grew up in the Bronx and then Westchester, my home resembling a Larry David script co-written with Billy Crystal. You want a holiday? Come for Festivus. We’ll show you how to share grievances! Billy’s six Jewish relatives, hopping from photo album to photo album, alighted on ours. Hey, that’s Uncle Morty!

As Passover often coincides with Easter, Cindy took elements of one holiday and incorporated them into the other. Our first hybrid celebration almost didn’t happen. Cindy, an event planner par excellence, asked me to collect what was needed a week ahead of time. I dug into the boxes I brought from my previous life and found a menorah. What about the matzo? Well, the store was out.

Cindy: “Go find a store and buy matzo. What are you waiting for?”

I went, I shopped, I couldn’t find. The Passover shopping season was over.  Returning to Stony Brook, I opened the front door to the scent of baked ham and cooked matzo. Cindy must have hidden a box and found a recipe online.

“Happy Passover,” she said.

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Long-term use of PPIs can cause dementia and chronic kidney disease. METRO photo
Over-the-counter PPIs should be taken for no more than 14 days

By David Dunaief, MD

Dr. David Dunaief

Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is one of the most commonly treated diseases in the U.S. While it is sometimes referred to as heartburn, this really a symptom. Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), first launched in the late 1980s, have grown to become one of the top-10 drug classes prescribed or taken over-the-counter (OTC).

When they were first approved, they were touted as having one of the cleanest side-effect profiles. This may still be true, if we use them correctly. They are intended to be used for the short term only. 

PPIs currently available OTC include Prilosec (omeprazole), Nexium (esomeprazole), Prevacid (lansoprazole), Protonix (pantoprazole), and Aciphex (rabeprazole). These and others are also available by prescription.

The FDA indicates that OTC PPIs should be taken for no more than a 14-day treatment once every four months. Prescription PPIs should be taken for 4 to 8 weeks (1).

While PPI pre-approval trials were short-term, many take these medications long-term. And the longer people are on them, the more complications arise. Among potential associations with long-term use are chronic kidney disease, dementia, bone fractures and Clostridium difficile, a bacterial infection of the gastrointestinal tract.

Chronic kidney disease

In two separate studies, results showed that there was an increase in chronic kidney disease with prolonged PPI use (2). All of the patients started the study with normal kidney function based on glomerular filtration rate (GFR). In the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study, there was a 50 percent increased risk of chronic kidney disease, while the Geisinger Health System cohort study found there was a 17 percent increased risk. 

The first study had a 13-year duration, and the second had about a six-year duration. Both demonstrated modest, but statistically significant, increased risk of chronic kidney disease. But as you can see, the medications were used on a chronic basis for years. In an accompanying editorial to these published studies, the author suggests that there is overuse of the medications or that they are used beyond the resolution of symptoms and suggests starting with diet and lifestyle modifications as well as a milder drug class, H2 blockers (3).

Dementia risk

A German study looked at health records from a large public insurer and found there was a 44 percent increased risk of dementia in the elderly who were using PPIs, compared to those who were not (4). These patients were at least age 75. The authors surmise that PPIs may cross the blood-brain barrier and potentially increase beta-amyloid levels, markers for dementia. With occasional use, meaning once every 18 months for a few weeks to a few months, there was a much lower increased risk of 16 percent.

The researchers also suggested that PPIs may be significantly overprescribed in the elderly. Unfortunately, there were confounding factors that may have conflated the risk. Researchers also did not take into account family history of dementia, high blood pressure or excessive alcohol use, all of which have effects on dementia occurrence.

Bone fracture risk

In a meta-analysis of 18 observational studies, results showed that PPIs can increase the risk of hip fractures, spine fractures and any-site fractures (5). Interestingly, when it came to bone fractures, it did not make a difference whether patients were taking PPIs for more or less than a year.

They found increased fracture risks of 58, 26 and 33 percent for spine, hip and any site, respectively. It is not clear what may potentially increase the risk; however, it has been proposed that it may have to do with calcium absorption through the gut. PPIs reduce acid, which may be needed to absorb insoluble calcium salts. In another study, seven days of PPIs were shown to lower the absorption of calcium carbonate supplements when taken without food (6).

Absorption of magnesium, calcium and B12

PPIs may have lower absorption effects on several electrolytes including magnesium, calcium and B12. In one observational study, PPIs combined with diuretics caused a 73 percent increased risk of hospitalization due to low magnesium (7). Diuretics are commonly prescribed for high blood pressure, heart failure and swelling.

Another study confirmed these results. In this second study, which was a meta-analysis of nine studies, PPIs increased the risk of low magnesium in patients by 43 percent, and when researchers looked only at higher quality studies, the risk increased to 63 percent (8). The authors note that a significant reduction in magnesium could lead to cardiovascular events.

The bottom line

It’s best if you confer with your doctor before starting PPIs. You may not need PPIs, but rather a milder medication, such as an H2 blocker (Zantac, Pepcid). In addition, PPIs may interfere with other drugs you are taking, such as Plavix (clopidogrel).

Even better, start with lifestyle modifications including diet, not eating later at night, raising the head of the bed, losing weight and stopping smoking, if needed, and then consider medications (9).

If you do need medications, know that PPIs don’t give immediate relief and should only be taken for a short duration.

References: 

(1) fda.gov. (2) JAMA Intern Med. 2016;176(2). (3) JAMA Intern Med. 2016;176(2):172-174. (4) JAMA Neurol. online Feb 15, 2016. (5) Osteoporos Int. online Oct 13, 2015. (6) Am J Med. 118:778-781. (7) PLoS Med. 2014;11(9):e1001736. (8) Ren Fail. 2015;37(7):1237-1241. (9) Am J Gastroenterol 2015; 110:393–400. 

Dr. David Dunaief is a speaker, author and local lifestyle medicine physician focusing on the integration of medicine, nutrition, fitness and stress management. For further information, visit www.medicalcompassmd.com. 

 

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By Father Francis Pizzarelli

Father Frank Pizzarelli

Spring is a time for new beginnings. As you read this column, many of our college graduates will have graduated or are preparing to graduate this month. They are closing one chapter and opening a new chapter across the landscape of great division and polarization.

Four years ago, when they began their college adventure, the world was radically different. They have seen the polarization of our nation. They have witnessed the senseless destruction of a sovereign nation in Europe. They have been profoundly affected by the coronavirus and everything associated with it; two years of total disruption and having to live in ways unimaginable. 

For the first time in 40 years of teaching, I have had a growing number of bright young men and women who were clearly ill-prepared for their first year of college. They had a very hard time with balancing school, work and life. College is not high school. College professors usually don’t pamper their students. They expect that students will attend class regularly, hand in assignments on time and engage in lively conversation and debate.

Time management has been a real challenge. The quality of their critical thinking and their writing skills is clearly impaired. The issues of depression and anxiety are profoundly present as well as a lacking of ability and skills to do something about these issues.

So many colleges this year have been ill-equipped to respond to the growing number of students needing mental health support. Many local college campuses do not have enough mental health professionals to respond to the growing need.

We need to reshape our college learning landscape. We need to collaborate with our local high school colleagues and identify the ways that we can support students preparing to go to college, to help them address those weaknesses that will impair their success.

Educators at every level have to work harder on behalf of our students and make adjustments that will empower students at every level of education to do their best. Learning is a process, not a product. Despite these challenges there are extraordinary men and women that are graduating this year from our community colleges, our local universities and our graduate schools.

This past semester I have been privileged to teach the best of the best at St. Joseph’s College, Suffolk County Community Honors College and Fordham University’s Graduate School of Social Services. These graduates at each level possess a passion for learning that I thought was lost. Their critical thinking and analytical skills are above the norm and their capacity for being sociologically mindful is beyond words and profoundly well-developed.

As a veteran educator, my spring semester students have inspired me to stay the course. They have taught me so many important life lessons. Each of them is committed to making a difference in their particular fields.

They really embody Gandhi’s words: “be the change you wish to see in the world.” Congratulations college graduates of 2022!  

Father Francis Pizzarelli, SMM, LCSW-R, ACSW, DCSW, is the director of Hope House Ministries in Port Jefferson.

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School board elections are a rare chance to make a positive change in the lives of schoolchildren throughout our community.

Too young to vote, these children depend on us to make responsible decisions on their behalf. It is our duty to help them find direction and we must take this responsibility seriously. 

For centuries, school boards on this continent have served a vital role, promoting health, prosperity and civility throughout communities across America. Our school boards prepare our youth for the challenges of life, serving as a vehicle for their coming of age.

On Tuesday, voters will decide who will serve on these school boards and, while they are often overlooked, these elections have enormous consequences. Unlike other elected officials who spend much of their time away in some remote capitol, school board members are here on the ground with their students and constituents. 

Among many other obligations, school boards hire district superintendents, approve budgets, design curricula and organize districtwide calendars. These individuals will chart the course of our students’ lives from kindergarten through high school. Behind the scenes, their decisions will shape how these children learn and grow, and how they develop into responsible citizens prepared to contribute to our community.

Americans generally believe that our greatest days still lie ahead of us. Even in this moment of partisanship and polarization, we can all agree that our future requires an educated youth. These young souls will soon be leaders among us, which is why our decisions matter today.

We must take greater interest in the education of our youth. We must study our ballots, familiarizing ourselves not only with the names of the candidates but also the person, platform and character behind the name. Does this candidate have integrity? Can this candidate be entrusted with the moral and intellectual development of our children? These are the critical questions we must ask ourselves before entering the voting booth.

To the readers of TBR News Media, take a moment to research the candidates for your district’s board of education. Be prepared before you pull the lever, including studying the proposed 2022-23 school budget.

While we so often hear people tell us their votes don’t count, we are here to tell you that this one does. The enlightenment of our children, the health of our community and the future of our nation are in your hands. Make your voice heard and get out to vote this coming Tuesday. 

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By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

Once upon a time, the eight parts of speech came together to compete for supremacy.

Convinced of his invincibility, the arrogant noun stood on top of the mountain, rolling his eyes at the other parts of speech, assured of his victory.

“I am, without a doubt, the most important of the eight of us,” he declared. “I hope you’re not too disappointed when you all eat my dust.”

“You think you’re the best and the brightest,” laughed the adjective. “Without me, you’d be a bunch of people, places and things, without much flavor. Why, you’d be like vanilla ice cream without sprinkles, melting in the hot sun.”

“Well, sure, adjectives are helpful,” the noun acknowledged. “You’re like Robin to my Batman.”

“So, you’re the only superhero with any real value?” the pronoun asked.

“No, you and I are a team, right? You stand for nouns, with your ‘he, she, it’ and your ‘who, which and what,’ but, come on? Where would you be without me? I’m the king, the throne, the empire, the country and the world all at once.”

“Maybe, but people would get sick of reading the same words over and over if they didn’t have pronouns,” the pronoun argued. “I may have smaller words in my part of speech, but I take the place of all your huge words, without needing to repeat them all.”

“Good grief,” the interjection interjected. “Come on! I’m not only a conversation stopper, I am often followed by an exclamation point. See? Well, that’s a question, but I’m a forceful part of speech, dang it! Listen to me! I will win this ridiculous competition!”

Slowly and deliberately, the adverb hopped off his adverb couch, gracefully gliding over to the group.

“Seriously, the adverbs gleefully chuckling over there,” he said, pointing to a group of words with “ly” tails, “are highly useful and critically important.”

The preposition had heard enough. He climbed off the fence, down a hill, and near the others.

“The proposition of a preposition winning this contest is high,” she said. “We provide context for so many activities — on the roof, by six o’clock, beneath the surface.”

That’s when they heard a sound without end. When they looked for the source of the noise, they noticed an endless group of words strung together.

“Hello, all you other parts of speech,” the conjunction said. “I have endless storage space and can carry each you indefinitely. I can also sew together seemingly different ideas.”

The noun laughed at the conjunction.

“What good would all those connections be if you didn’t have the rest of us?” he snickered.

Whirring through the air, the verb appeared, disappeared, jumped over the group, slid beneath them, and ricocheted around the meadow.

“Hello everyone,” the verb snickered. “This competition makes me laugh.”

“Crikey! Why is that?” the interjection asked.

“Well, you’d be a pile of stuff without action verbs,” he said. “In fact, you wouldn’t even be anything without a verb. To do anything, to be anything, and to animate your actions, you all need verbs. We lift you off the canvas, transport you to other places, inspire greatness, and demand attention. Yes, all the rest of you have magnificent qualities (special thanks to the adjective for giving us ‘magnificent’), but verbs drive ideas forward, infuse life into your existence, and encourage discourse.”

“I’d be limited without verbs,” the adverb agreed glumly.

“No, verbs soar majestically because of you,” the verb offered reassuringly. “We count on you.”

“Hey! We’re all important!” the interjection concluded.

“That could be true,” the noun concluded. “I still think none of us would be here without me.”

“True, but you’re a long list of stuff that isn’t doing much and that lacks personality without the rest of us,” the verb said, wanting to have the last word. “Now, let the games begin.”

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Golden Retriever puppy. Pixabay photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Recent impressive research tells us something we already knew: not every golden retriever always retrieves. We have been fortunate to enjoy three golden retrievers in a row over four decades, and for the first two, when we threw a tennis ball, it was enthusiastically returned and dropped at our feet. Then there was Teddy.

Teddy came to us at eight weeks, a golden ball of fur with two eyes, two ears, a pink nose and a tail. He passed on 12 years later, and during that time, we were convinced he was the most beautiful, most intelligent and most fun dog in the world. But there was one oddity about Teddy the Golden Retriever. When we took him out on the lawn and threw a tennis ball, he would politely sit down and watch its trajectory. Then he would look back at us as if to say, “Yeah? So?”

However, if we brought him to a beach and threw a rock that landed among thousands of other rocks, he would bring back that exact rock and drop it at our feet, backing off, tail wagging, and wait for the next throw. This had a terrible effect on his front teeth. Over the years, it wore them down, but he never seemed to mind and didn’t appear to be in any discomfort.

The other item he retrieved at the beach was seaweed. He would plunge into the water, stick his nose beneath the surface, then come up with a mouthful of seaweed and bring it about 10 feet up on the shore, where he would deposit it. From his many trips to the beach, there remained a line of seaweed that marked his hunting spot.

Although the current researchers never interviewed Teddy, they did surveys of 18,385 dogs and sequenced the genomes of 2,155 dogs for their research paper published in the journal Science. They were looking for predictors of canine behavior and concluded that by breed was essentially useless. This might surprise you, as it did us, except regarding the retrieving aspect we just discussed. 

But apparently, stereotypes like pit bulls being aggressive were not validated. In fact, they scored high on human sociability, with videos showing lap-loving pit bulls. According to an article reporting on this study in The New York Times this past Tuesday, written by James Gorman, “Labrador Retriever ancestry [most popular breed in America], on the other hand, didn’t seem to have any significant correlation with human sociability.”

However, the research allows, there are some few predictable traits. “If you adopt a border collie…the probability that it will be easier to train and interested in toys is going to be higher than if you adopt a Great Pyrenees.” 

Go figure.

Breed supposedly accounts for only 9% of the variations in any given dog’s behavior. Rather, behavior patterns were strongly inherited, to the tune of 25%, again according to the research, within any given breed. In studying genomes, “several genes [were discovered] that clearly influence behavior, including one for how friendly dogs are.”  So if you are about to buy a dog, check out its parents first.

The researchers found 11 specific DNA regions that were associated with behavior, and an interesting comparison can be made with those same areas in human genomics. A region that affects the likelihood of a dog howling corresponds in humans to language development, and another that marks dogs enjoying being with humans presents in human DNA with long-term memory.

So I will tell you a little more about Terrific Teddy. When company would arrive at our home, he would walk up to each newcomer, wag and, I insist, smile, until the person gave him a pat on the head. He would then go on to the next person and wait until the greeting ritual was repeated. After that, he would withdraw to a corner and watch the socializing quietly unless called.

He was a bit of a terror under the table when we were at dinner. He would stealthily snatch the napkins off the diners’ laps. Some day I will write a children’s book about Teddy, the Napkin Snatcher Dog.

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