Archive for October 2011
Dental Debaters Getting Foot in Mouth
By James Gaffney
Mature Life Features
Consumers are caught in the crossfire over the debate about the safety of silver-colored fillings, known as dental amalgam.
The controversy pits science against emotion.
The decision about what to use to fill cavities is a matter best decided by the patient and his or her dentist, says the American Dental Association. Yet emotional reports claiming amalgam is responsible for a variety of diseases are confusing and perhaps even alarming people to the point where they will not seek necessary dental care.
Of the dental filling materials available today – gold, silver-colored amalgam, and tooth-colored
fillings – one material, amalgam, has been attacked to the extent that some would ban it. This
would deprive dental patients of a valuable – and, in some instances, irreplaceable – treatment
option, says the ADA.
The ADA says it is concerned that misguided fears about the safety of amalgam, coupled with the
added costs of the more expensive filling options, may cause people to forego necessary dental
care. Far fewer people have dental insurance than medical insurance, and not all insurance plans
cover all filling options.
Despite amalgam’s long and impressive track record, the ADA says a small group has been
communicating primarily through the Internet that amalgam is somehow responsible for diseases
such as autism, Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis because it is an alloy with mercury. Physicians and researchers have yet to determine the cause for each of these diseases, leaving the door open for speculation.
The Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, U.S. Public Health Services, National Institutes of Health and other organizations responsible for protecting the nation’s health have extensively evaluated amalgam declared it safe and effective.
Concern about amalgam because it contains mercury is intuitive but not supported by scientific
fact, the ADA says. It is true that amalgam contains mercury, but when it is mixed with metals
such as silver, copper and tin, it forms a stable alloy that dentists have used for years to
successfully treat dental disease in millions of people. Similar to the way sodium and chlorine (both hazardous in their pure state) combine to form ordinary table salt, the mercury in dental amalgam combines with other metals to form a stable dental filling.
Amalgam has been used for more than a century to fill and preserve hundreds of millions of
decayed teeth, according to the ADA. Until the advent of amalgam, most people lost their teeth
due to decay. Critics claim that amalgam, because it has been in use for over a hundred years, is outdated and
should be replaced with other, newer materials.
Getting rid of amalgam would be like getting rid of aspirin, according to ADA officials. In some situations, such as large cavities in the rear molars or cavities below the gum line, amalgam is often used because of its durability and affordability, and because it is one of the best filling materials that can be placed in areas of the mouth that are difficult to keep dry.
In other situations, such as a tiny cavity where the tooth needs very little preparation or because
the patient wants a more natural-looking filling, amalgam clearly takes a back seat to tooth-colored fillings, officials agree.
Mature Life Features, Copyright 2003
If you don’t want to look your age …
… don’t act it.
— Cecil Scaglione, Mature Life Features
Mature Life Features Writer Wins Top Travel-Story Award
San Diego, Oct. 26 — “The Naples Nobody Knows,” a story included in the August 2010 Mature Life Features package, has won a first-place plaque in the 38th annual San Diego Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards.
Written by Mature Life Features editor Cecil Scaglione, the story as it appeared in Toronto-based Forever Young News (www.foreveryoungnews.com) was judged the best among entries in the Non-Daily Newspapers-Travel category.
Award presentations were made Tuesday, Oct. 25, at a dinner attended by 350 political and community leaders, radio personalities, and newspaper and television writers and photographers from throughout Southern California.
Mature Life Features previous award in the same category in this annual competition was in 2008 for a travel story written by Scaglione and entitled “Take a Free Ride in Las Vegas” as it appeared in the Seattle area’s The Senior Source.
When you drop the ball …
… don’t expect a good bounce.
— Cecil Scaglione, Mature Life Features
Courtesy Lives in Spokane Airport
This may not sound like much, but my two wine-bottle corkscrews arrived in the mail today. The package cost $2.20 to mail.
They were mailed free through the courtesy of the Paradies TravelMart shop in the Spokane International Airport A/B concourse terminal. The incident and followup that led to this displayed a level of caring and courtesy that I figured had long ago slipped over the edge of the earth.
My luggage consisted of my camera case and a carry-on bag. Tossed in with the dirty laundry and souvenirs I was bringing back home were two wine-bottle corkscrews I had purchased from a local winery. A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent pulled me aside and said the imaging equipment showed the two openers. They each had a short blade (used to cut away the lead foil that covers the bottle top). That meant I could not take them on the airplane.
Now, comes the good part.
The agent said I could take them back to the terminal lobby to have them mailed to me. He pointed through the glass to the small shops in the lobby. I was weary, wiped-out and wary after having emptied my pockets, doffed my coat and fleece vest, unlaced my shoes and taken them off along with my belt and watch, and had my bag unpacked and re-packed. Then he said I’d have to take all my stuff and leave the security area to get back to the terminal shops and come back through security screening again – and empty my pockets and take off my coat and vest and belt and shoes and watch again.
I told him he could have the corkscrews. But he persisted, pointing out I had plenty of time before my flight. So I took his friendly advice and tromped back out to the terminal lobby. I went into what looked like a small magazine shop about where the TSA agent had pointed and asked the gent behind the cash register if he mailed packages for distressed travelers like me. He said he didn’t. I asked if he had any envelopes I could beg, borrow or buy. He shook his head. I asked if he knew of anyone in the terminal who did mail packages for folks like me. He said no and walked away.
Now, I walked two shops away – a distance no more than 30 feet — to a small kiosk under a TravelMart sign that sold cold drinks and snacks. It didn’t look like a mail drop. I don’t know why I didn’t check with the shop in the middle. But I asked the young woman behind the TravelMart counter if she knew anyone who mailed stuff for conflabbergasted travelers like me. And she said, “Yes, we do.”
(So much for the helpful gent 30 feet away. I guess he just opened his shop and still didn’t know his neighbors.)
The woman at TravelMart slipped a piece of paper and a pen onto the counter and said “Just write down the name and address where we should send it.” As I did so, I asked how much I owed her and she said “Nothing.” I asked, “How come?” She said, “We just do it.” I figured it would come C.O.D.
As I returned through security, I had the opportunity to thank the TSA agent who was kind enough to show me how to save my goodies.
That was last Friday (Oct. 14). The package arrived today (Thursday, Oct. 20).
This kind of assistance is rare and worth every bit of thank you I can muster. Atlanta-based The Paradies Shops has a presence in more than 60 airports throughout the United States and Canada. I don’t know if every one of them mails airplane-banned stuff home for you but I do know I’ll look for them from now on when I want a drink or snack as I trundle through terminals.
If you do the right thing…
… you’re likely to please no one but you’ll probably surprise a helluva lot of people.
— Cecil Scaglione, Mature Life Features
Flexibility Key to Freighter Cruising
| www.freightercruuses.com/GrimaldiPassengerStories
November 2007 |
Reprinted with permission |
“Weather had sealed our 51,000-ton roll on-roll off freighter, the Grimaldi Line’s Grande Ellade, in port overnight. We were behind schedule and uncertain what our next stop would be. We were never sure of what, when and how long any stop would be during our 10,000-mile roundtrip voyage out of southern England’s bustling port of Southampton. |
| When we boarded the vessel to begin our five-week journey, we learned that our first stop, Rome, was cancelled. We were told the next morning that our first landfall would be Valencia, on Spain’s Costa Blanca. That drove home the primary rule of our freighter trip: Be flexible. We spent several hours in each of the 16 cities and towns where temperatures varied from 100° Fahrenheit (38° C) to below freezing. Our first test on our second day out. The ship and its cargo of some 4,500 vehicles, a couple of dozen officers and crewman, and eight passengers bounced around the edge of an Atlantic tempest as we crossed the Bay of Biscay. ‘We hit bottom several times’ complained my wife, Bev. ‘I didn’t know there were so many potholes in the sea.’ |
| The Ellade’s cruising speed of 20 knots/hour got us to Valencia on our fourth day out of England. Several crewmen gave the Spanish city, home to what is believed to be the chalice Jesus and the Apostles used at the Last Supper, their highest praise: ‘Nice City.’ We split up into two parties. Lou and Jean, my brother and his wife from Toronto, joined us in one cab. Jack and Sally Beaton and Bob and Lynne Blount, all from Canada, took another. We agreed to meet our drivers at a prearranged place and time, a practice we pursued in most ports, to return to the ship. After a quick tour of the sights, smells and sounds around the main plaza dominated by the cathedral’s octagonal bell tower, we relaxed over brunch in a small cafe nestled in a nearby market. |
| Our confidence soared at our next stop when we walked from the docks into Salerno, the largest city on the Amalfi coast. With a second visit scheduled for this city, once a major Allied stepping stone during the World War II invasion of Europe, and reservations at a seaside restaurant cell-phoned by the ship’s cook, Salvatore Punzo, we made notes over lunch of what we intended to do when we return in 10 days. |
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| That evening, we sipped espresso on the Ellade’s bridge with the master, Captain Michele Siniscalchi, as we skimmed atop the silky sea into the two-mile wide mouth of the Strait of Messina separating Sicily from Italy’s mainland. It took the better part of the next day to slip through the 400 Greek Islands – actually, 100 of them are Turkish – before docking at the Athenian port of Piraeus. |
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We walked to a nearby bus stop, got directions to the central agora (marketplace) and clambered aboard a bus headed that way. After our cameras captured some of the local customs and culture, we took a taxi for 3.5 euros – cabs are very inexpensive in Greece – to the Athen’s abutting Microlimano neighborhood. We climbed a small hill for a panoramic view of the Acropolis and Parthenon before picking out a waterfront bistro for lunch. |
| Conversation centered on the benefits of this boat trip. The low cost – our fare for five weeks was 1,551 euros each – topped the list. The facilities ranked almost as highly. Fellow passenger, British Columbian Bob, said: ‘This is the biggest cabin we have ever had, and that includes several cruise ships.’ Next was the ease of getting off and on the ship in each port without having to battle passels of other passengers. The following day we were in Izmir, near Turkey’s ancient archeological city of Ephesus. We opted to look and loiter around the modern center of the town. |
| With only a few hours in Alexandria, we climbed into two taxis for a quick tour of some sites we never got to see because the two drivers extemporised and took us to other sites. The hair-raising drive itself was worth the money for even the most avid carnival-ride junky. The white lines on the roads seem to be for decorative purposes only. Our visit to Limasol on the Greek’s south coast of Cyprus was an acute contrast. We hopped a bus for an 80-cent, 15-minute ride into town and had all day to meander around the market, mosque and medieval museum in the Byzantine castle where, according to tradition, Richard the Lionheart married Berengaria of Navarre and crowned her Queen of England in 1191. We were awakened the following morning by the rumbling anchor chain and spent the day rolling gently among a dozen or so other ships awaiting the Israeli port of Ashdod to reopen at sundown. We arrived on the Sabbath, when the whole country shuts down. ‘It’s just like Sunday in Italy’, said chief engineer Antonino Esposito. It gave us the day to do laundry, trim hair, manicure hands and/or feet, and lounge in the sun on deck chairs. Other shipboard pastimes included writing Christmas cards or knitting afghans while listening to the music from CDs, watching movies or checking the Milky Way and counting the shooting stars. And we raided the kitchen for tidbits and sipped libations purchased from the cook. Wine was served with lunch and dinner. Meals were served at 7:30am, 11am and 6pm. Those hours and the periods in ports became the only important markers as time lost all meaning. |
| We arranged, through the Grimaldi agent, for a 10-passenger bus and guide to take all of us for a tour of Jerusalem. It was a bit difficult to feel the spirit in the Holy City because of our haste, the clamor and commercialism, and the packs of pilgrims pushing and prodding their way through the narrow streets and archways. A side trip to Bethlehem on a nearby hill was scrapped by the lack of time and the need to change vehicles, guide and driver because our Israeli team was not allowed into the West Bank city that is controlled by Christian Palestinians. Besides, dinner on board, prepared a la Napolitano by Salvatore, sounded just as appealing as any we would have found ashore. Pasta in all its modes, calamari, thinly sliced beef, assorted cheeses, gelato, roast chicken, fresh fish and pizza were only a few of entrees. Steward Milen Slavov capped every meal with a steaming espresso or cappuccino. |
| With all day in Salerno the second time, we got to see more of the town, including the cathedral that houses the bones of St. Matthew and the Norman castle straddling a rocky outcropping 900 feet atop the town. Amalfi coast offers some of the most beautiful village and ocean views in all of Europe, but the views from the town of Ravello – perched above the gulf of Salerno – feel like a shortcut to paradise. We sailed by the candy-like lights of the Amalfi coast that mellow Mediterranean evening before pointing north to Savona. It was late afternoon when we slid into an Italian Riviera town to berth overnight. |
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| Two days after coasting by the French Riviera, we sailed by the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar) and on to Setubal, our last warm-weather stop. We strolled along tailored terra streets in this Portuguese town and picked up some pharmacy needs for Salvatore. Mr. Jack got a haircut. Lou tracked down an automated teller machine for more funds. And we had a beer in a MacDonald’s with third officer Antonio Auceli and cadet Michele Cesaro. |
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The next night we squeezed our way through the lock that protects the British port of Bristol from one of the highest tides in the world, second only to the Bay of Fundy. The lock is 18 meters high to seal off the harbor from the 14-meter tide. Alan, our cab driver, said a local activity involves ‘surfing the Severn’. Youngsters head to the nearby Severn River to catch the tidal bore that rolls upriver when the sea surges. A little-known historical attraction is a replica of the Matthew, the square-rigged caravel John Cabot sailed to Newfoundland in 1497. There is also a life-size bronze statue downtown of Cary Grant, who was named Archie Leech when he was born here. |
| It was a brief overnight trip from Cork in southern Ireland, where Bev remarked ‘The Emerald Isle is really emerald.’ Our driver John Carroll explained it’s because ‘we get rain seven days a week.’ The Ellade’s foghorn awakened us the next day, which was when we learned the North Sea deserves the bad rap everyone gives it. We bounced around like a chip on its shoulder as force-10 winds, killer waves and freezing temperatures trampled the region. We zigzagged and circled for two days awaiting the storm’s departure and, while we accepted weather as our dictator, time was becoming our nemesis. The delays were pushing some of us critically close to our flight departures. The seas softened and temperatures tumbled as we cleared the northern tip of Denmark. The only warmth we ran into in Stenungsund, a 30-minute drive from the port of Wallhamn, was the people’s friendliness. We walked into the Danish town of Esbjerg the next morning, where shore leave was from 9am to 1pm, and spent most of it in a computer café rearranging our flights. Our next night was a six-hour run through a sci-fi Marscape as we glided through the massive industrial complex surrounding Antwerp. Lighted towers lining both sides of the inlet marched off endlessly in all directions. Lou and Jean left us in the morning and took trains to Brussels and then through the Chunnel to London to catch their Toronto flight the following day. The rest of us passed on the hour-long trip into town, and another hour back, because our scheduled stay was only a few hours as the Ellade loaded 1,400 cubic meters of fuel before returning to Southampton and starting the five-week tour all over again. We opted to pack and prepare for our airport runs and flights home two days away. We wound up spending more than 12 hours tied up because United Nations divers closed the only exit lock to inspect it for security breaches. Reminding us to the end: Be flexible.” |
I wonder if whales …
… leave “warm spots” in the ocean? And do other critters swim through them?
— Cecil Scaglione, Mature Life Features
Helsinki’s “Finnatical” About Quirks
By James Gaffney
Mature Life Features
Helsinki’s domed government building overlooks an 1894 bronze statue of Czar Alexander II in Senate Square.
HELSINKI, Finland —- Wherever you travel, it’s a good idea not to step on the toes of the hostess while tripping the light fantastic. Especially when she’s teaching you to dance. Fear of such a faux pas swept through my mind as, with clasped hands outstretched and cheek to cheek with a former Finnair flight attendant, we tangoed across the ballroom floor.
“You’re really not doing that badly,” reassured Riitta Kiiveri, who along with her husband, Pertii, was a competition tango dancer. The couple, who met while living in Southern California and returned to Helsinki, then took to the floor. They were poetry in motion as well as a paradox in this introverted Scandinavian country better known as the home of composer Jean Sibelius and Father Christmas. It seemed so out of the ordinary for a dance as dramatic as the tango to be fashionable among poker-faced Finns.
Riitta explained how the tango, born in the brothels of Buenos Aires, was introduced here in 1916, a year before Finland gained independence from a century of czarist Russian rule. It has grown into an obsession that can be measured by the sheer number of tango dance halls in Helsinki and the annual Tango Festival that lures 150,000 fans.
The tango is by no means the only way this quirky country dances to the beat of a different drum. For starters, various festivals are held throughout the year so men can carry their wives, pretend to play guitar to rock music, and compete to see who can sit naked atop an anthill the longest.
All of which seems to pale next to the annual Sleepyhead Day on July 27 when the laziest person in the towns of Naantali and Hanko is thrown into the sea.
Quirkiness aside, Finland has had a quietly significant influence on modern-day life. In 1967, Finnish designer Olof Backstrom invented those Fiskars scissors with orange plastic handles that finally cut our fingers some slack. Unlike what many Americans think, Nokia is not a Japanese company. It’s Finnish.
Finland also gave the world two Miss Universes and has trained U.S. Special Forces in snow-covered terrain.
Helsinki’s post-World War II architectural showpiece is arguably the performance center, Finlandia Hall, a sweeping homage to modernism by the world-renowned Finnish architect Alvar Aalto.
However, Finns will attest the best buildings of all are those created for this country’s sweaty No. 1 pastime: sauna. Numbers provide the proof. There are 1.6 million saunas for a population of 5 million.
Locals view sauna (pronounced SOW-nah, if you want to sound like an English-speaking Finn) as more than an agreeable way to unwind while beating yourself ever so gently with a bundle of birch branches to stimulate circulation.
To be invited to sauna is an honor.
“If I invite you to sauna, it’s a great pleasure to have you as a sauna friend.”Matti Kivinen said as he led his guest into one of the six saunas at the Finnish Sauna Society’s complex in Lauttasaari just outside Helsinki. He is the society’s president and, like most Finns, can debate at the drop of a towel the relative merits of traditional Finnish smoke and wood-burning saunas. Yet few have much good to say for the oft-ridiculed electric sauna, seen as a soulless intrusion on a centuries-old tradition held in near-religious reverence.
Mature Life Features, Copyright 2003
Mature Life Features 