Update 12-5-06

Hi,

Four notes and a public service announcement.  Sounds like an old Hugh Grant movie.
   
    First, from Bernie O'Brien:  I just wanted to let Barbara Blitfield Pech know that her e-mail about Thanksgiving was a message for people around the world, what with the state we are in today. Many thanks.

    Next, from Emily Kleinman Schreiber, a clarification about the hundred dollar lifetime membership in South's alumni association:
        Two things:  First, the Alumni Association membership year will now be from September through August.  So if you joined when we re-established the alumni association just over a year ago, your membership won't be up for renewal until September 2007.
        But, second, a lifetime is lifetime.  So send your renewal in now.  It only makes sense.
   
    From Jerry Bittman:  Happy 60th birthday to Barney Zinger.  Yesterday, December
    4th, was his big day.  This past Saturday, Barney's beautiful young wife Helen threw him a great surprise party.
        Zing has many more good years left in him because I know that he continues to go to the gym to work out.  Anyway, happy birthday, buddy, and if I make it south to spring training again this year, I'll see you then

    From Judy Hartstone:  You know the news -- it's always portrayed much worse than it really is.  About 2800 people northeast of Seattle area did suffer power outages, and many drivers got caught in the worst of the storm Monday night.  But Bainbridge Island was fortunate to not be hard hit. The wettest month on record is already a distant memory.
        And with the devastation of the storm as it hit the Midwest, what happened here is sort of a non-starter.  The bigger question is:  how's everyone we know in the Midwest surviving the snow?
   
    Finally, the public service announcement, from Linda Cohen Greenseid.  This has been verified on the web site of the American Stroke Foundation.
        STROKE IDENTIFICATION
        Symptoms of a stroke are sometimes hard to identify.  This means stroke victims may suffer severe brain damage.  It becomes immediately important to recognize and get treatment for a stroke as quickly as possible.
        RECOGNIZING A STROKE
        Three steps.
        S.  T.   R.
        S.   Ask the individual to SMILE.
        T.   Ask the person to TALK  -- to speak a simple sentence.  Coherently.  For example, "It's sunny out today."
        R.   Ask the person to RAISE BOTH ARMS.
        Another 'sign' of a stroke is this:  Ask the person to stick out his or her tongue.  If the tongue is "crooked," if it goes to one side or the other, that is also an indication of a stroke.   If a person has trouble with any one of these tasks, call 911 immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.  Or get the person to an emergency room, and don't leave the person unattended.  Make sure help comes immediately.  In an emergency room, someone sitting quietly often gets overlooked.
   
    Oops, a quick bonus I just found in The New York Times.  Partly, because it's written by another of Jerry's famous cousins.  More, because I'm always looking for a good Chinese restaurant.
        The Best Chinese Restaurants in Southern California
        by Mark Bittman.
        There are probably more Chinese in Los Angeles than in any metropolitan area outside of China. (The same very likely could be said of Mexicans, Iranians, Koreans, Japanese and more, which is what makes Los Angeles the best international eating city in the world.) Fifty years ago, most Chinese immigrants were concentrated in a typical downtown Chinatown, which still exists, but more as a relic than a vibrant community.
        In the last few decades, in typical Southern California fashion, the Chinese have claimed a freeway. It is the portion of I-10 known as the San Bernardino Freeway. This road runs through the San Gabriel Valley, straight east from downtown, all the way to Jacksonville, Fla. (to the west, it runs only 10 miles, to Santa Monica). And for its first 50 miles or so, from Los Angeles to San Bernardino, it is a modern-day Chinatown, a string of multiethnic communities that all have a large, dynamic Chinese population. There is strong evidence of this in the chains of Chinese supermarkets, the likes of which exist nowhere else in the country. (In these stores, announcements are made first in Mandarin, then in Korean, then Vietnamese; then Spanish, and last English. Really.)
        There is equally strong evidence in the restaurants of Alhambra, San Gabriel, Monterey Park and other nearby communities. Before World War II, this was an area of horse farms, orange groves and the like. Now it looks like every other new, freeway-oriented section in the parts of the country that have been overdeveloped in the last 20 years. Yet these places are not without charm. You can see it on the Main Street of Alhambra, where you will, if you follow my advice, drop everything, and rush to eat at Triumphal Palace.
        (Complete article at nytimes.com, December 4, 2006)