How to Turn Off Hibernation in a Microsoft Surface Tablet

Last year, I got a Microsoft Surface table for tasks like marking up PDFs and articles with hand notations.  By doing this on a tablet, rather than paper, I've got a permanent hard drive and cloud record of my notes.

In the last month or two, my Surface became almost useless by CONSTANTLY going into hibernation mode at 1 to 5 minute intervals.   Numerous web articles talk about random "sleep" mode in Surface tablets.  

A website called "LoveMySurface" provides an article how to very quickly and easily disable the Hibernate mode in a Surface tablet.

https://www.lovemysurface.net/turn-off-hibernation-windows-10/

From the SEARCH field, type the word COMMAND 

You'll see the COMMAND app, and one offered option will be "Run as Administrator."  Unless you're computer has been instructed otherwise, this requires nothing more than tapping that entry.

You'll see a prompt, C:\Windows\system32>

Type

powercfg -h off

and then hit Return.

See the link above for full details.  I just did this today, and it seems to have solved a really bad problem.

Books and Films - CY2020

For my business strategy blog, Discoveries in Health Policy, click here.

For earlier book lists, see 2015 here, 2016 here, 2017 here, 2018 here, 2019 here.

See this booklist in PDF here.

Most Memorable Book of the Year

• Practicing Presence: Insights from the Streets (Phyllis Cole-Dai)

Technology and Business

• Knowledge and Competitive Advantage (Johann Peter Murmann)
• Innovation on Tap (Eric B. Schultz)
• From Symptoms to Causes (Thorsteinn Siglaugsson)
• Alphabetical Order (Judith Flanders)

History and Essays

• I reread several books by Joan Didion.
• How the Scots Invented the Modern World (Herman)
• The Ark before Noah (Finkel)
• Two by Dorothy Thompson (1930s; Listen, Hans; Democracy and Fascism)
• Essayist: Christopher Buckley, Enough About You
• Essayist:  E.B. White, Collected Essays

A Few Films from 2020

• Real movies:  Richard Jewell.
• Miniseries: Trial of the Chicago 7, Comey Rule, Queen's Gambit.
• Biography:  Altman; Oliver Sacks; Pauline Kael; Quincy; Walter Winchell.

__________

A note on method.  In recent years, I've had a pretty relentless and bicoastal travel schedule, catching up with books or audiobooks on midnight flights or at 11 pm in hotel rooms.  In 2020, no travel, but often audiobooks came along on 6 am hikes or bike-rides before work.  

Where I'm aware of an audiobook, I've signaled [AB]. 

More than a few of these I took in as Public Library audiobooks.

___________

Most Memorable Book of the Year:

• Practicing Presence: Insights from the Streets (Phyllis Cole-Dai)
• The author spent six weeks living homeless in Columbus, Ohio, about ten years ago (her first book, "Emptiness of Our Hands.")  In this book, she revisits each day of the experience with updated thoughts.   With so many displaced or homeless - not only in some US cities but worldwide - I found this was the book I kept thinking about as 2020 rolled on.  Ebook.

Technology and Business:

• Knowledge and Competitive Advantage (Johann Peter Murmann)
• This was the most striking book I read this year about technology and science, but it's also a fairly dense academic read.  The author lays out the history of the explosion in dominance of the German chemistry industry, 1850-1930.  He lays out how many diverse inputs and factors went into it - from the creation of the first government-funded research universities eager to interchange with industry, to the weakness in the politics of England's patent laws.  It's called "knowledge" and competitive advantage, because all the facts are either knowledge or rules (policies) - not natural features like iron ore or rivers.  When we talk about whether our modern eco-system favors some innovation - whether it be molecular medicine or digital health - this book gives a case-study toolkit for realizing just how complex innovation echosystems are. (Published 2003; here).  [FN1]
• Innovation on Tap (Eric B. Schultz)
• This is a wonderful book about innovation by a Boston serial entreprenur and venture capitalist with a bent for history.   He brings a couple dozen innovators from history together to swap tales in a fictional celestial barroom.   Favorite;  King Gillette, the razor baron.  He was also a nut case who had to be generally fenced off from actually running the business, and was farmed out to retirement on a California estate near Malibu.  (Humorously, let's imagine as Gillette's idea #350: razors and blades, and his idea #351: shoes for hamsters). Here. [AB]
• From Symptoms to Causes (Thorsteinn Siglaugsson)
• I've worked in strategy consulting for nearly 20 years yet I still find things that are exciting and new.  This is actually an abridgement or retelling of another book on root-cause-analysis, but I found it was interesting and a page-turner.  (I think the source behind this volume is William Dettmer's "Logical Thinking Process, Systems Approach to Complex Problem Solving, 2007).   Point is, I found this worthwhile and thoughtful even after years of experience in the topic.  Here.
• A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order (Judith Flanders)
• This one had me at the first paragraph of the first review.  We are used to classifying by category, and of course we still do (birds versus mammals; bacteria vs viruses).   Flanders argues that the introduction of classification by alphabetical order was a surprisingly major advance, suggesting the discrete nature of encyclopedic knowledge.  She argues it was initially bold, provocative, and pivotal to try to categorize ants next to bombs next to constitution.   Reminded me of two favorite books from past years, "Too Much to Know," (Ann Blair; explosion of knowledge in 1400s, 1500s), and "Sorting Things Out," (Bowker & Star;  about scientific classification).     Here.  AB. (FN2)

History and Essays

• I reread several books by Joan Didion.
• I was down sick for two full weeks in March (not Covid); hardly moved but relived these wonderful books of essays, including "White Album," "Slouching Towards Bethlehem,"  and "Where I Was From." [All AB].  See also a 2017 documentary about Joan Didion on Netflix.
• How the Scots Invented the Modern World (Arthur Herman)
• I just caught up with this fascinating 2002 book that takes us through Anglo-American history from 1500 to 1900 via the lens of Scotland.  Very enjoyable.  Reminded me of the book about London 1600-1699, London Rising.  Here.  [AB].  
• The Ark Before Noah (Irvin Finkel)
• Somewhere I stumbled across erudite British eccentric Irvin Finkel, the world expert on Babylonian cuneiform tablets, and a senior curator at the British Museum.  (He's got a rich YouTube presence).  He brings the 1000 BC era alive from shards of pottery and focuses on Flood stories that preceded the familiar Noah one.  Here.  [AB].
• Two by Dorothy Thompson (Listen, Hans; Democracy and Fascism)
• Dorothy Thompson was an amazing  and very well known journalist of the 20s and 30s;  but essentially forgotten today; see her remarkable Wikipedia here.  Thompson left behind several impressive books warning her contemporaries about Hitler.  Listen, Hans is available as an Ebook. I got a facsimile copy of "Study of American Liberalism" from Amazon.  With all the crazy in modern politics I find it helpful to see someone who was trying to dissect the crazy of the 1930s in real time.
• Essayist: Christopher Buckley, But Enough About You
• Essayist:  E.B. White, Essays of E.B. White.
• I listened to both of these as audiobooks [AB].  White's essays span the 1940s to 1970s, some written in Manhattan, others in Maine.   Buckley spans several recent decades and a range of genres and an interesting who's who of colleagues (e.g. Christopher Hitchens, Joseph Heller).  

A Few Films from 2020

In "real cinema," I'd start with Richard Jewell, about the Atlanta Olympics bombings. In mini series, Trial of the Chicago 7 and The Comey Rule and The Queen's Gambit.    

I'd jump quickly to documentaries about people.  There's Altman (meaning director Robert Altman; dir. Ron Mann, 2014), Oliver Sacks, His Own Life (dir. Ric Burns), Pauline Kael: What She Said (dir. Rob Garver, newly on Amazon Prime);   Quincy (musician Quincy Jones; dir. Rashida Jones), Walter Winchell (PBS American Masters).   All five of these were eccentric and driven individuals who overcame countless challenges to log their achievements.  

Add "My Generation," a documentary about the 1960s narrated by Michael Caine.

___

Podcasts

In addition to old standby's like Fresh Air and Harvard Business Review Ideacast, I sometimes skip around and cherry pick from a laundry list of celebrity-interviewer podcasts.   There's Marc Maron's WTF; Rob Lowe's "Literally!," Alec Baldwin's "Here's The Thing,"  Gilbert Godfrey's (!) "Amazing Podcast," Alan Alda's  "Clear and Vivid," Conan O'Brien's "Conan Needs a Friend."

Honorable Mention

Jeff Bezos. book of essays, just out, as "Invent and Wander."  [AB]. 

___

FN1

The book focuses on the chemistry industry in Germany from the perspective of dyes, which also led directly to pharmaceuticals. But also the German chemistry industry was enormously powerful in agriculture and war, for example, the production of ammonia.  And the German chemical industry's dominance impacted WW1, WW2, and even global thinking through the 1930s prior to 1939.  See Hager, 2009, The Alchemy of Air (here, [AB]).    Re 1930s politics and economics, see "Germany's Master Plan," Borkin & Welsh, 1943, intro by Thurman Arnold (q.v.) (here).

Re chemistry and dyes and pharmaceuticals, there's the sadly out of print "Paul Ehrlich: Scientist for Life" (1984 here; no ebook).  There's  a well-known business historian's book on pharma/chemistry industries (Chandler 2004, here).  There's a new academic article on the topic, $25, 2015, by Cramer.  

FN2

I cited 2010's "Too Much to Know," about 1400's, 1500's; see also 2020's "Too Much Information" by Cass Sunstein (here; [AB). 

___

tinyurl.com/BQ2020BookList

 

Business School, Ice Cream, WSJ

When I was a full time assistant professor of pathogy at Northwestern in 1997-2001, I also picked up an MBA in the university.   

There was a business school case study on ice cream.   A person would think, what a waste of time - why have a med school professor, interested in health management, work through a case study on ice cream?  But I still remember it clearly twenty years later.  The ice cream industry is really complicated - keeping it cold but not too cold and in diverse locations and shipping conditions is a big logistical headache.   The point of these case studies is you start to realize there is a lot you don't know about everything, and everything is complicated.   (FN1)

Thought of this reading an article in today's Wall Street Journal (12/11/2020) on how ice cream manufacturers are restyling their business for the COVID winter we're entering.  And, well, there's a lot you don't know and everything is complicated!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ben-jerrys-in-winter-if-youre-home-anyway-why-not-11607702885

FN1

I see online that Harvard Business School has two case studies on ice cream, one "Chatanooga," or "Ben and Jerry's."  No idea if my class assigned one of those, or a different one.  

NYT: Drug Addiction Shifts to ZOOM

 

A.A. to Zoom,

Substance Abuse Treatment Goes Online

It began as a stopgap way to get through the pandemic, but both participants and providers say virtual sessions have some clear advantages and will likely become a permanent part of recovery.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/28/health/covid-substance-abuse-treatment.html

PIC/ THERAPIST ON ZOOM

Jason Paris, right, a clinician at Ottagan Addictions Recovery in Grand Haven, Mich., led a combination in-person and telehealth intensive outpatient therapy group. 

By Matt Richtel

• Nov. 28, 2020

Until the coronavirus pandemic, their meetings took place quietly, every day, discreet gatherings in the basements of churches, a spare room at the YMCA, the back of a cafe. But members of Alcoholics Anonymous and other groups of recovering substance abusers found the doors quickly shut this spring, to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

What happened next is one of those creative cascades the virus has indirectly set off. Rehabilitation moved online, almost overnight, with zeal. Not only are thousands of A.A. meetings taking place on Zoom and other digital hangouts, but other major players in the rehabilitation industry have leapt in, transforming a daily ritual that many credit with saving their lives.

“A.A. members I speak to are well beyond the initial fascination with the idea that they are looking at a screen of Hollywood squares,” said Dr. Lynn Hankes, 84, who has been in recovery for 43 years and is a retired physician in Florida with three decades of experience treating addiction. “They thank Zoom for their very survival.”

Though online rehab rose as an emergency stopgap measure, people in the field say it is likely to become a permanent part of the way substance abuse is treated. Being able to find a meeting to log into 24/7 has welcome advantages for people who lack transportation, are ill, juggling parenting or work challenges that make an in-person meeting tough on a given day and may help keep them more seamlessly connected to a support network. Online meetings can also be a good steppingstone for people just starting rehab.

 

“There are so many positives — people don’t need to travel. It saves time,” said Dr. Andrew Saxon, an addiction expert and professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine. “The potential for people who wouldn’t have access to treatment easily to get it is a big bonus.”

Todd Holland lives in northern Utah, and he marvels at the availability of virtual meetings of Narcotics Anonymous around the clock. He recently checked out one in Pakistan that he heard had a good speaker, but had trouble with some delay in the video and in understanding the speaker’s accent.

Some participants say the online experience can have a surprisingly intimate feel to it.

“You get more a feel for total strangers, like when a cat jumps on their lap or a kid might run around in the background,” said a 58-year-old A.A. member in early recovery in Portland, Ore., who declined to give his name, citing the organization’s recommendations not to seek personal publicity. Plus, he added, there are no physical logistics to attending online. “You don’t go into a stinky basement and walk past smokers and don’t have to drive.”

At the same time, he and others say they crave the raw intensity of physical presence.

“I really miss hugging people,” he said. “The first time I can go back to the church on the corner for a meeting, I will, but I’ll still do meetings online.”

It is too early for data on the effectiveness of online rehabilitation compared to in-person sessions. There has been some recent research validating the use of the technology for related areas of treatment, like PTSD and depression, that suggests hope for the approach, some experts in the field said.

Even those people who say in-person therapy will remain superior also said the development has proved a huge benefit for many who otherwise would  have  faced one of the biggest threats to recovery: isolation.

The implications extend well beyond the pandemic. That’s because the entire system of rehabilitation has been grappling for years with practices some see as both dogmatic and insufficiently effective given high rates of relapse.

“It’s both challenging our preconceived concerns about what is necessary for treatment and recovery but also validating the need for connection with a peer group and the need for immediate access,” said Samantha Pauley, national director of virtual services for the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, an addiction treatment and advocacy organization, with clinics around the country.

In 2019, Hazelden Betty Ford first tried online group therapy with patients in San Diego attending intensive outpatient sessions (three-to-four hours a day, three -to-four days a week). When the pandemic hit, the organization rolled out the concept in seven states, California, Washington, Minnesota, Florida, New York, Illinois and Oregon — where Ms. Pauley works — and has since expanded to New Jersey, Missouri, Colorado and Wisconsin.

Ms. Pauley said 4,300 people have participated in such intensive therapy — which entails logging into group or individual sessions using a platform called Mend that is like Zoom. Preliminary results, she said, show the treatment is as effective as in-person meetings at reducing cravings and other symptoms. An additional 2,500 people have participated in support groups for family members.

If not for Covid, Ms. Pauley said, the “creative exploration” of online meetings would still have happened but much more slowly.

One hurdle to intensive online rehab involves drug testing of patients, who would ordinarily give saliva or urine samples under in-person supervision. A handful of alternatives have emerged, including one in which people spit into a testing cup while being observed onscreen by a provider who verifies the person’s identity. The sample then gets dropped at a clinic or mailed in, though the risk of trickery always remains. In other cases, patients can visit a lab for a drug test.

Additionally, some clinical signs of duress can’t be as easily diagnosed over a screen.

“You can’t see the perspiration that might indicate the person suffering mild withdrawal. There are limitations,” said Dr. Christopher Bundy, president of the Federation of State Physician Health Programs, a group representing 48 state physician health programs that serve doctors in recovery. He said that hundreds of physicians in these programs are attending regular virtual professionally monitored meetings in which they meet with a handful of specialists for peer support and to assess their progress.

“This sort of thing has challenged our assumptions,” he said of the pandemic and the use of the internet for these therapies. “There’s a sense it’s not the same, but it’s close enough.”

Other participants in drug rehab and leaders in the field say that while online has been a good stopgap measure, they also hope that in-person meetings will return soon.

“It’s been a mixed blessing,” said David Teater, who wears two hats: he’s in recovery himself since the 1980s, and he’s executive director of Ottagan Addictions Recovery, a residential and outpatient treatment center serving low-income patients in western Michigan whose therapy typically gets paid through Medicaid.

In that capacity, he said online tools have been a godsend because, simply, they allowed service to continue. Through $25,000 in grants, the center got new computers and other technology that allowed it to do telemedicine, and set up a “Zoom room.” It includes a 55-inch monitor so that people who are Zooming in can see the counselor as well as the people who feel comfortable enough to come in-person and sit at a social distance wearing masks.

“We think it works equally well, we really do,” Mr. Teater said.

##

Matt Richtel is a best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter based in San Francisco. He joined The Times staff in 2000, and his work has focused on science, technology, business and narrative-driven storytelling around these issues. @mrichtel

Another Complex Notes App: AMPLENOTE

I use EVERNOTE as a file folder for storing client notes and some archived personal notes (how to install software and passwords on a new iPad or computer; miscellaneous current active notes or to-read notes).  If you've never seen it, it's darn close to an Outlook email system (except it's notes, not email) with a list of folders and subfolders on the left, and showing each item (equivalent to teach email) by title on the right.  It's been around for a decade so it's venerable. 

I cycle around various To Do List apps, including paper notebooks, currently using ZENKIT because it lets me display and filter KanBan card columns by either category (Today, Tomorrow, Blog Ideas, etc) or Client (Ford, Toyota, Suburu, etc).   

I ran across a new notes library complex app called AMPLENOTE which seems to have a lot going for it, and an entry subscription of $5 a month.  Here.   See a review (among 20 similar apps!) at NoteApps.Info here, here.

Regardless of the value and features of AMPLENOTE, they've got two interesting blogs on why To Do lists fail. Including the terminology "barnacle to-do" - after you use any To Do app for a month, you've accumulated an embarrassing several dozen unfinished to-do's that seemed like a good idea at the time you logged them.

https://www.amplenote.com/classic_todo_lists_always_fail

https://www.amplenote.com/blog/brush_off_the_barnacles

LATimes on Enduring Trump Support - Why

 https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-11-06/the-enduring-support-for-donald-j-trump

November 6 2020

THE ENDURING SUPPORT FOR TRUMP

By THE TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD

NOV. 6, 202010:50 AM

President Trump, whether or not he wears that title past Inauguration Day, managed to do something we hadn’t expected before election day: He brought in more voters than in 2016.

It’s not that anyone predicted a Biden landslide. But the former vice president’s supporters, most Californians included, had expected a more decisive repudiation of a president who has lied repeatedly, pandered to conspiracy theorists and far-right hooligans, undermined science and botched the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in myriad ways. There were indeed people who abandoned Trump ― he did worse with white males than in 2016, for example ― but also those who, if they didn’t flock to him, at least saw him as the better option.

Many presidential elections have been won by thin margins, as this one apparently will be. But a presidential campaign with Trump is not a normal presidential election with typical political disagreements. It’s not just a matter of one side believing in lower taxes, less regulation and smaller government, while the other favors tougher regulation, better social services and more activism from Washington.

We can always debate those issues. But how do we debate whether facts are facts? How do we discuss rationally whether public insults and patently false statements by our president are acceptable?

 

This has not been a normal presidency. And people on both sides of the partisan divide agree with that assessment. What was missed by many NPR devotees on the left, who saw this presidency as an embarrassment and a danger to our very democracy, is that the abnormal is what drew many people to Trump in the first place. And the second place too.

There is, of course, no single answer to why so many Americans voted for Trump. To pretend otherwise would be to stereotype a diverse group of people and beliefs. His supporters include conservatives who would vote for any Republican presidential candidate because those are their values. There are single-issue voters who oppose abortion or who cheer Trump’s tough-guy stance against undocumented immigrants. His behavior might be boorish, they say, but he gets things done, even if that includes pushing treatments for COVID-19 that haven’t been shown to work. Similarly, many voters were attracted to the idea of a strongman who barreled through the gridlock in Washington, rules be damned.

 

But among the Trump supporters are those who like him most for some of the very qualities that disturb others. People on both sides find reasons to deplore the political establishment and its favor-trading, privilege and frequent lack of connection to everyday Americans and their concerns. Those who celebrate Trump see him as the Great Disruptor, not a career politician, the guy whose Twitter vitriol tells it like it is. In their eyes, he cuts through the baloney ― what others might call the uncomfortable realities of complex problems and contemporary society ― and makes things not just simple, but rosy.

 

In that world, there’s less for people ― especially white people ― to worry about. Climate change can be ignored, masks are unnecessary, COVID-19 isn’t really all that life-threatening to millions of Americans, we can have amazing new health insurance without a price to pay, and complicated issues about immigration can be solved with a wall. It’s a world in which racism might not be explicitly approved, but neither is it acknowledged.

Arnon Mishkin, director of the Fox News decision desk, explains his call of Arizona for former vice president Joe Biden.

 

We on the editorial board, being deeply enmeshed in news reports and highly focused on the workings of government, see the lies and obfuscations of the Trump administration and wonder why so few Trump supporters seem to be bothered by them. Why does the reporting that mattered so much a few decades ago, when Watergate did in Richard M. Nixon’s presidency, not seem to make a dent now?

In truth, people are listening; they’re just the people who already agreed with us. The eyes we’d hoped to open aren’t focused on the travails in Washington because they don’t see a connection to their daily lives. Or they’re reading something else, watching a different cable TV news show or glancing through the social media posts of people whom they trust, because they don’t believe what we’re saying.

 

According to the cable TV channels, websites and social media feeds that inform many in Trump’s orbit, Joe Biden is a socialist and a crook who will destroy their jobs, raise their taxes and make them all wear masks. Trump has succeeded in sowing so much doubt in mainstream journalism, his followers feel as comfortable dismissing it as moderates feel in ignoring Breitbart News. The mainstream media’s eagerness to shine a light on Trump’s norm-busting behavior actually fueled this distrust because it struck many conservatives as reporting with an agenda, or opinion masquerading as news. Both sides look at each other and see fools who follow their preset beliefs without considering obvious truths. They also see the other side’s news sources as hopelessly biased.

Both sides think they understand the other’s reality. In truth, neither fully does because we’re not talking to each other.

Americans have always discussed, debated and disagreed as part of our way of creating democracy. The difference now is that we have divided ourselves in the most saddening of ways: We’re no longer even in the same conversation.

Fortune on US Energy Sources - Geomapping

 From the November issue of FORTUNE magazine.  Click to enlarge.  Diverse patterns of distribution of different energy sources.

Two Political Experiences on TV: West Wing Special, Trial of Chicago 7

 Two political experiences hit video at the same time this month.

On HBO MAX*, they reunite the cast of WEST WING and do a beautifully staged reading of an election night script from the original series twenty years ago.  The filming is stunning: on the bare stage of a 1920s theater in downtown LA, with a handful of stage props and brilliant lighting.  The purpose of it all is to get people to vote, with numerous cameos in the place of commercials (Michelle Obama, Lin-Manuel Miranda.)  In his two minutes, Lin-Manuel does a star comic turn.  (He's at 32:55).  The reunion runs an hour.

On NETFLIX, see TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7.  In a two-hour movie, Aaron Sorkin creates the backstory to the Democratic Convention riots while placing most of the film in the courtroom.  The courtroom is run by a senile, vindictive, and show-stealing Frank Langella in the best acting performance I've ever seen by him.   Sascha Baron Cohen plays the central figure Abbie Hoffman with a Worcester Mass accent.  Cameo by Michael Keaton as the prior Attorney General.

____

* If you haven't figured it out yet, HBO MAX is the current internet or phone app version of HBO.  You log on with your cable TV credentials if you have HBO - or you can subscribe to HBO MAX directly.  

____

Quirk:  I watched the first fifteen minutes of TRIAL Saturday night, and when I got in the car Sunday morning, it began running automatically on the bluetooth audio in the car.  I ended up listening to most of the two-hour movie while driving or biking on Sunday as if it were a radio play.   I don't recommend this but it worked pretty well.  

____

A Few Words on Dictation Software

 Since 2000, I occasionally used Dragon Naturally Speaking, the original dictation software.   While Dragon became 99% accurate, and is still available, it's probably been largely superseded by other applications such as built-in dictation in Windows and both Android and iPhone smartphones.

Dragon was designed to transcribe-as-you-watch, so it was designed to convert punctuation words into symbols (comma, period, new paragraph) and provided real time editing (scratch that = erase last word).  So using Dragon was a pretty manual process.   The last time I tried it with an mp3 file, the results were quite bad.

Windows has built in dictation software now, with the advantage that, like Dragon, it will work inside a program like a Word document or an email window.  I think it's pretty darn good but I don't use it much.

Auto Transcription in the Cloud 

If you go outside Windows free software, one of the best choices is Otter.AI.  Otter has a basic service for three (I think it's 3 files per month) and it seems designed for uploading MP3 files and then transcribing them over a few minutes.   It's quite accurate and attempts to completely supply punctation (including commas) and paragraphing.  It also segregates voices, which is pretty accurate (Speaker 1, Speaker 2, Speaker 3).  If you identify voices (Speaker 1 in one document equals Bruce) it will find and label that speech pattern in any future transcripts.   

Sometimes, Otter.AI is too choppy.  You might get a timestamp 4:31 min/sec and a few words, and then another time stamp 4:35 min/sec and a few more words, rather than a coherent paragraph by one speaker.  

Otter vs Siri

What's interesting is the comparison between Otter.AI and iPhone Siri dictation.   In my experience, Siri works great for variable 10 to 30 words, and then freezes, stops.  On the other hand, Otter.AI is designed to chug along even with a 4 hour mp3 file.   So you can dictate paragraphs and paragraphs into Otter.AI and it will keep up with you.  So if you want to dictate for 15 minutes, I can't get beyond 30 sec in Siri but I can do that in Otter.

One difference is that iPhone Siri is set up as "dictation" software - recognizing words like period, comma, paragraph - while Otter.AI is auto-transcribe software from a voice track, so it will type "comma" for the word comma and it will insert punctuation solely where it thinks it should, automatically.

Otter - Not free, but real cheap

I mentioned Otter.AI has a limited free service (a few files a month).  You get a huge amount of time (I think it's 100 or 500 hours) for a nominal monthly charge (like $9.99), so if you buy into Otter at all, you can upload mp3s to your heart's content or dictate (into Windows or into an iPhone otter app) to your hearts content.  All the dictations show in a consolidated list of documents in your Otter account. 

Bells and Whistles

Otter has a function called auto transcript in ZOOM which I believe is an extra fee.  All the participants on a Zoom call can then see a track of the transcription in real time.

A relatively inexpensive human transcription service is is REV.com.  This is $1.20 per minute or $72 an hour for a highly accurate human-curated transcript.   (REV will also do only an autotranscript for $0.20 per minute or $12 an hour, which is pretty high for an auto transcript).   REV will accept link files like link-to-youtube as input, Otter will not.  For example, to get an auto transcript at Otter of a Youtube file you would need to record it and then upload as an MP3.

Take Home Lesson

Sometimes I used to use Dragon to dictate notes while reading, or dictate notes from a page of handwritten meeting notes.  I can get back to doing that with Otter, whether I am doing it online in Windows on my Otter webpage account, or whether via a matching phone app on the same account.

June 2020 Correspondence on COVID, LOINC, CDC, HHS

 

Sent: Thursday, June 4, 2020 

Alert - HHS has significantly increased laboratory reporting requirement for SARS-CoV-2

HHS/CDC released new reporting requirements for SARS-CoV-2 at this link: 

https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/covid-19-laboratory-data-reporting-guidance.pdf

This document:

·         Significantly expands requirements for reporting of laboratory results,

·         Wants each laboratory order to include 7 ask-at-order entry questions,

·         Wants results to be reported to states/CDC within 24 hours of the result being released.

 Challenges

·         Some required data elements are not tracked in many if not all information systems (e.g., FDA Unique Device Identifier, the actual zip code of the ordering provider when they place an order since this can be done from anywhere).

·         Not all of the data being requested will be in a single database (e.g., Employee testing data may be housed in an LIS and not transmitted to an EHR for privacy reasons mandated by law, patient zip codes may be in the EHR only, and employee zip codes are in a different database entirely).

·         There is no mention of how laboratories should handle reference lab testing despite there being explicit instructions on prior communications from HHS regarding which reference laboratory reporting had to be duplicatively reported to the government and which did not.

·         The significantly increased burden of data collection is being passed to our providers as well as to those healthcare workers responsible for getting this data together.  Many of our healthcare workers are exhausted, some are on involuntary furloughs due to financial constraints created by the pandemic, and significant time has been required to meet testing needs amid shortages of swabs, reagents, and platforms.

·         The document is enforcing use of a coding system which is significantly flawed with up to 19% of common tests being coded incorrectly.  This data is not surprising given that, for SARS-CoV-2 molecular testing alone, there are no less than 50 different LOINC codes 

https://loinc.org/sars-cov-2-and-covid-19/

There are 17 codes for antibody testing.  None of them, that I can tell, support the use of a single LOINC code for an order or a result which is a combination of the recommended use of two gene targets.  All of them are for single gene targets, and this creates a barrier because many lab systems only support the use of a single LOINC code per result.

 #####

https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/covid-19-laboratory-data-reporting-guidance.pdf

https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dls/sars-cov-2-livd-codes.html

IVD Connectivity Consortium

http://ivdconnectivity.org/livd/

 

 

A Million Ways to Organize Tasks with Software: ZenKit Seems Good

 I have always cycled between different task management systems.  In this post I discuss:

1. PAPER

2.  TRELLO

3.  LISTS (MS TO DO, TODOIST)

4.  TOO COMPLICATED (CLICKUP, NOTION)

5.  ZENKIT

PAPER

Sometimes I use a paper notebook diligently.  The format I use is a large notebook (at least 8x10), lined, and I draw three columns.  The left column is To Do's (e.g. mail a check, wash the car), the middle column is WORK (e.g. six client projects, with a circled number estimating the hours it will take), and the right column is INBOX.   

My written tasks rarely take more than the top half of the page which leaves the bottom half for miscellaneous - I might jot down five things to discuss in a new blog, or it could be a place to scribble phone numbers I'll need shortly.

Lined paper notebook, 3 manual columns (To Do, Work, Inbox)

TO DO APPS

TRELLO.

I've mostly gone back and forth on two very different To Do apps.  One is TRELLO and one is MS-TO-DO.

I've used Trello for years, just to store notes as "cards" for things like movies seen or that I want to see. 

But for work: I can also set up a page for To Dos.  Typically, I have a left column for INBOX, a column for TODAY and one for TOMORROW, and then several columns such as WORK 1, WORK 2, WORK3, where I informally and intuitively place tasks by priority for the next several day work period or longer.  (This is my version of Kanban).   TRELLO has a date-due function but I never used it consistently.  

I've never used Trello for more than a week or two as my main work task app.

Trello is a classic

TASK LISTS:  MICROSOFT TO DO, TO DO IST.

Microsoft TODO should be the go-to app.  It's free. It has a Windows app and a good iOS app.   Online, it gives you a lot of space for comments, links and attachments (it's sort of a storage box for the task).   Basically, you get a series of lists (e.g. Work, New Marketing Ideas, Shopping, Office Tasks) and you can tap on any combination of tasks to elevate them to a home page called MY DAY (today).  It also has a calendar view (in the form of a vertical list by date) but I don't use it consistently, and therefore Calendar View becomes an outdated mess pretty soon.

I've set up TODO multiple times as my main work task app, but I like Trello, I drift away after a week.   An app like TODO is good for storing fairly static lists, like "restaurants I want to try" or "movies I want to see."

TODOIST is pretty similar, but recently it added a KanBan (Trello-like) options.  You can have a work list of 20 items in order, but then switch to a KanBan view where you can quickly drag and drop the tasks left or right on columns you find helpful.  I believe to get comment fields and attachments on the back side of the tasks, you have to pay a premium.  It's web-based plus an iOS app.

One issue with list apps is that each list is basically a silo (although they might be brought together by a calendar view).   That's sometimes OK - a storage list of future movies I want to see really has no business mingling with a list of client work tasks for today and tomorrow.  But a Kanban view where the different lists live side beside can be much better than an index view of the classic list apps, where each list is one entry in a vertical column at the left of the window and you click on them one at a time to see each categorized list of items.

NICE BUT TOO COMPLICATED

I looked at two services that are nice, but get too complicated and in particular, break down on iOS because they are complex.  NOTION and CLICKUP are very interesting, and let you switch among views like calendars and Kanbans, and importantly, you can run a full complex notes system of memos and documents, just like an Evernote or OneNote.   (You might think of these NOTION and CLICKUP as as "OneNote + TODO" put together).   

If you stuck with it, and committed to it, either NOTION or CLICKUP could be very powerful solutions, with all your tasks and all your hundreds of research and meeting notes under one roof. 

But the task manager function is really mission critical, especially for never losing track of anything and adding things easily, and I think these apps are too complex to use on a iPhone easily.  (It's 10X easier to use MS-TO-DO in iOS).  

While intriguing, CLICKUP has that design style with lots of white space and tiny faint gray lettering, which somebody thought was a clever idea, but it's not nearly so clear to use and read at a glance in Kanban format as Zenkit or Trello.

TRYING:  ZENKIT

ZENKIT is a new app that is more powerful (at least to me) than TRELLO.  

You can use it in KANBAN view and toggle to LIST view, TABLE view (which is very similar to LIST view, the rows of the table are basically the list with a cell for each task data element making it a table).   You can also toggle to CALENDAR view.   

ZENKIT has several very nice features.  

First, the native task cards have two HTML comment fields, and I think you can add more of them on "the back of the card."  You can also add Checkboxes for subtasks.

You can sort the KANBAN by multiple labels VERY easily and intuitively. This is great.  For example, if every task has a CLIENT label and a KANBAN label (what is usually called a STATUS label), I can instantly toggle between seeing the cards in columns under either form of organization.   KANBAN VIEW for me uses the master status labels Inbox, Today, Tomorrow (yes, I use those manually with Kanban even if I use a calendar), WORK 1, WORK 2 storage lists, and so on.   Each ZenKit card has a field for HOURS (Time) and both the KANBAN or the CALENDAR view automatically add up the work hours currently assigned to that column or day.   

ZENKIT lets you have several INDEPENDENT label fields.  When you view by CLIENT (a tag field I created and added my dozen clients), you see a Kanban column for each client, with active tasks on top and finished tasks below, which makes it handy if you are writing up a verbal summary of what you did for that client in the past month by skimming the top layer of finished tasks. (FN1)  

Unlike Trello and MS TO DO, you don't get attachments.  And you have to rely on some other software (e.g. Evernote) for memos, research, and meeting notes, which would have been integrated in CLICKUP and NOTION.

In the first pic below, my tasks are ordered by KANBAN STATUS and you also see color tags for CLIENT.  (FN2)  In the second pic below, I've toggled to CALENDAR view.  Uncalendared tasks line up on the far left.

ZenKit in Kanban ("Status") view

ZenKit now instantly in Calendar view

Many Columns
My KANBAN lists go wider than one screen.  Here are two reactions.  First, you can make the screen magnification (typically shift and MINUS) and they are still readable. Second, I realized my mouse (MX Master) has a sidewheel for left-right scrolling, which I've never used but which might be handy for these columns.

OTHERS

I've played with FLOAT, which has a monthly fee, and lets you move around projects in blocks sized by the number of hours the tasks is expected to take.  Each card has a "back" with a comment box.  FLOAT is a nice planning idea, but I don't use it normally.  It's one of the things I try for a few days and drift away from.

TEAUX DEAUX has a style I really like, which is a calendar day by day in columns that runs across the top half of the screen, and on the bottom half of the screen, an independent series of columns you name any way you like.  For example, at bottom you could have four columns which store tasks - Shopping, Urgent Work, Upcoming Work, Home Tasks - and then you can freestyle drag and drop each task onto a calendar day  up on the top half of the screen.   Any tasks that are calendared and don't get done roll forward overnight to land on the new day.   (This almost means if you set up 6 tasks a day for a week, and and drift away from Teaux Deaux, when you come back to have 42 tasks piled up on "today.")  

TEAUX DEAUX is a very clever idea, both simple enough and complicated enough, and unlike anything else I've seen.   (FLOAT adds a feature to show task by hour size/height, but FLOAT lacks the lower storage area for future tasks you've listed but haven't faced yet by assigning a day.) 

However, one problem with TEAUX DEAUX is there is no "back of card" - all you get is 20 letters or so on the front of the card to name the task.

Teaux Deux: Store tasks bottom, drag to day top, that's it

___

FN1

Re: Kanban Views in Zenkit:

The view style is KANBAN, the label set is CLIENT, and the top to bottom vertical sort is STATUS, where I have placed "Done" at the top of the STATUS rankings, which makes it sort to BOTTOM in this column view.  See a short explanation in PPT, here.  The "Checkbox/Done" status in ZenKit isn't an independent function, it is just the tag in an existing list of your choice which is assigned as the action target of the checkbox square.  For example, if you have Label Set 1 (10 labels) and Label Set 2 (8 labels) you could set Checkbox to force the label (Label Set 2, Label #4).  But that means the checkbox status is only in operation as a sort function if you are sorting (either horizontally in Kanban columns or vertically) on the same label field that holds teh Done checkbox value.

FN2:
Re: Seeing Labels in Kanban view in Zenkit:

Go to Kanban, Edit, Size.  As you slide left to right, more features are added to the view, first adding including descriptor text, then hours, and then any additional labels.

Improving my Home Video for ZOOM Business Meetings

I had a couple issues in adapting to Zoom for constant business meetings.   My office is very narrow, with a bright sunny window immediately behind my head.   For months, I just blocked the window with a 30x40" black foamboard.

I've been using a Logitech C920 camera (which I had to get at scalper prices in March), which is OK.

This past week, I got a faster laptop (after several crashes of my old one during video meetings).  I got an upgraded camera and a high quality video lamp that stands behind my monitor for facial lighting.

In the picture below, you see the improvements from left to right.  Click to enlarge.

I've put the story in a deck in the cloud here.

The light is an Elgato Key Light Air Professional; the camera a Sony VZ-1, and the new laptop a Lenovo Y740 15" with 1 TB SSD, technically a gaming laptop hence a good video chip.  Newly released Sony Imaging Edge Webcam software (Windows) allows the camera to directly input video to the PC and Zoom, just like an internal camera or a common C920.

If you invest in a ZV-1, I recommended the Gary Friedman guide to using the camera - here.  

WSJ on Atheist Drug Recovery (8 13 2020)

 https://www.wsj.com/articles/i-beat-addiction-without-god-11597360535

I attended a Narcotics Anonymous meeting during my first day at rehab in 1993. The group discussed the program’s third step: “We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.” When the counselor asked us to identify a higher power, I said I was an atheist. “It’s higher power or relapse,” she replied. To me, this meant recovery would be impossible.

I began drinking at age 12, then abused pot, pills and acid before succumbing to a methamphetamine addiction at 16. I managed to graduate from college by exercising some control but afterward returned to daily use to cope with a violent relationship. Meantime, I worked my way down the corporate ladder: from law clerk to office manager to word processor. I didn’t believe I could survive without drugs.

By the time I arrived at rehab, I had been an addict for nearly 20 years and desperately wanted to quit. I asked the staff for proof that only one path to recovery existed and required God. They said I was fighting the program. When asked why the cure would be spiritual if addiction is a disease as NA proclaims, my sponsor said we wouldn’t debate the book. But I decided to apply only the concepts I found valuable.

 

We couldn’t consume any drug, including alcohol, to avoid a relapse. Staff provided useful guidance on handling triggers. The “one day at a time” mantra helped too, because I could accomplish that even if I wasn’t confident I could stay sober for long. When others shared their stories, they modeled methods for building a better future and gave me hope.

I reinterpreted step three as a lesson in limited control: I could work toward my goals but couldn’t determine the outcome. Although the damage from earlier trauma in my life was real, the people who broke me weren’t going to fix me. I had to repair myself. But I still felt apprehension when faced with the consensus that recovery is impossible absent a higher power.

After several months without drugs, I discovered Women for Sobriety. The secular alternative taught that empowered women could build strong recoveries by releasing the past and taking control of their lives. Meetings focused on positive thinking. I felt optimistic using the organization’s introduction: I’m Mary Beth, and I’m a competent woman.

Another discovery was Secular Organization for Sobriety, which was succeeded by LifeRing Secular Recovery. This organization emphasized mutual support, rational decision-making, and addicts’ responsibility for their own recoveries.

These programs validated my choice to create a plan that didn’t include the supernatural. I began thinking more about Recovery than recovery—that is, being happy and stable without constantly addressing my addiction. The key was turning techniques into habits and reminding myself of what I could achieve before addiction ruined my life.

I started paying off debt, helped my family, and showed up for events. I quit smoking cigarettes. Anxiety sprang up as my biggest postrecovery struggle, but through therapy I began resolving the underlying trauma. I took new risks, and my confidence grew when they paid off. I took modest jobs and slowly climbed back up the corporate ladder. All this helped me move on.

Recovery wasn’t a perfectly smooth path. Sometimes foreboding would consume me. I worried about my achievements being taken from me whenever I made mistakes. I couldn’t shake these thoughts and overreacted to even a hint of criticism. Yet by my third year of sobriety, my brain had been rewired to stay clean. Not using was my new normal. Healthier patterns dominated, and the struggle was over. I went to law school, joined a Silicon Valley firm, and eventually became a federal administrative-law judge.

Being forced to find my own path ultimately made me stronger. My pain never has been eradicated, but I can bear what remains. Despite jitters, I’m always looking to the next goal.

Traditional 12-step programs have helped countless people recover, and I applaud their success. But I’m glad I never accepted the premise that I couldn’t succeed without a higher power.

Ms. O’Connor is a board member of the She Recovers Foundation and LifeRing Secular Recovery/

This article attracted >300 comments.

Seven Movies about the 1960s

The Labor Day Weekend of 2020 reached 110 in Los Angeles, and I avoided the baking heat of the afternoons by watching several movies inside the house.  Each of the four was a different aspect of 1960s history, and I describe them (1-4) before adding in several other 1960s movies from the recent past.

1) KILLING OSWALD (2013)

Amazon Prime here.

This concise 50 minute documentary looks at the A to Z of Lee Harvey Oswald's life, which was far more unusual than I remembered it.   See also Oswald's Wikipedia biography here.  Very well done and thought-provoking.

2) JFK (1991; Oliver Stone)

Original version on Amazon Prime rents $3 here.

Director's Cut streams for $13 purchase only.

The original movie was over three hours and the director's cut is three and a half, but I was amazed how fast it moved.  Very well done and with an A-list cast.   I don't think I'd seen it since 1991.  

See the original trailer at YouTube here. See a classic four minute clip with Donald Sutherland here.  I recommend seeing the Oswald movie above, or at least, looking at Oswald's Wikipedia page, before teeing up JFK.  Easter egg - real-life attorney Jim Garrison, the focus of JFK, plays a cameo as Justice Earl Warren.

3) JFK: A President Betrayed (2013)

Amazon Prime, here,

Narrated by Morgan Freeman, a review of Kennedy's presidency from an international affairs perspective, including his battles with CIA and State Department.  90 minutes.  

4) REMASTERED: Tricky Dick and the Man in Black (2018)

Netflix VOD.

I recall seeing a review of this two years ago, and it popped up among other Netflix documentaries.  Surprisingly well made and interesting.   Notable for its profile of Johnny Cash; Nixon is a supporting figure to the documentary's story. Concise at one hour.

And Honorable Mention to:

#5) MY GENERATION (2018)

Amazon Prime rents $1, here.

A documentary about rapidly evolving arts and culture of the 1960s, narrated by Michael Caine [*].  One twist: It's all documentary footage; many interviews, but only as voiceovers, so we never see the 1960s stars as 80 year olds. 90 minutes.

#6) KING IN THE WILDERNESS (2018)

Amazon Prime rents $4, here.  Also an HBO asset.

Very well made and surprisingly absorbing documentary about the last three years of Martin Luther King's life.  1 hr 50 min.

#7) I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO (2017)
Amazon Prime here.  Also Netflix here.

Award winning documentary about the life of author James Baldwin, viewing his life through the lens of a book that would have been his last project.  One hour 30 minutes.   

_____

And a bonus (#8), almost twenty years old:

PATH TO WAR (2002)

Amazon Prime rental $4 here.  Also an HBO asset.

Incredible 2 hr 45min biodrama about the four years of LBJ's presidency, with a star performance by Michael Gambon, supported by Alec Baldwin as McNamara and by Donald Sutherland.  One of my favorite films, period.

___

[*]  Apparently Michael Caine has three books of memoirs, "What's It All About?," "Blowing the Bloody Doors Off," and "Elephant to Hollywood."   I read "Blowing" as a library loan ebook after seeing My Generation.

Clancy Imislund OBIT

 Online Aug 28

Newspaper Sept 3

https://www.latimes.com/obituaries/story/2020-08-28/clancy-imislund-director-la-midnight-mission-dies

 

Clancy Imislund, longtime director of L.A.’s Midnight Mission, dies at 93

By DOUG SMITH      SENIOR WRITER 

AUG. 28, 20202:05 PM

LA TIMES

Restoring his faith in a higher power was the hardest step for Clancy Imislund.

So when the day finally came in October 1958, to take that step, he put his faith in Bob.

“I’ll try to do what Bob says,” he recounted decades later.

That wasn’t Dr. Bob, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, but just Bob, a run-of-the-mill actor who became his sponsor in the latest of many episodes of sobriety. After several weeks of tagging along with Bob to grab food at AA meetings, Imislund had an awakening.

“I began to get the sense that Bob knew how I felt,” he said, a sense he had never gotten before from father, friend or therapist.

“I never knew anybody who knew how I felt,” he said. “People like us are magnets for advice from everybody that we know. But if you can find someone you believe knows how you feel, that advice becomes meaningful information.”

Imislund stayed sober that time, and for the next 62 years he carried the message around the world, giving talks almost weekly at AA meetings from South Dakota to Reykjavik, Iceland, and becoming a sponsor to thousands of others.

Along the way, he left a lucrative career with a Beverly Hills marketing firm to become managing director of the Midnight Mission in downtown’s skid row, returning as a transformative leader to an institution that had once kicked him out for bad behavior. Under his hand, the soup kitchen and housing facilities grew with programs to address the social needs of skid row, said its president and CEO G. Michael Arnold.

“He’s probably the first person to bring substance use treatment to people living on skid row,” Arnold said.

Evolving from executive to ambassador at-large, Imislund held the title of managing director for the next 46 years until his death Monday at 93.

He left a legacy in the quasi-secret world of AA unmatched by any but founders Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob, said Stephen Watson, a Midnight Mission board member and one of the roughly 170 people Imislund was sponsoring up to his death.

Imislund died of an undetermined cause while in isolation following a positive test for COVID-19, his daughter Mary Imislund Dougherty said. He was undergoing rehabilitation for a broken hip and was at the end of the isolation period when the rehabilitation center informed her of his death, she said.

Growing up in a Norwegian Lutheran family in Eau Claire, Wis., Imislund discovered, as he would later confess, that, “I seem to need more fun than other Lutherans somehow.”

By the time he was 15, straight A’s and self-discipline were behind him.

“I have a flair for doing the wrong thing, to almost instantly do the worst thing I could have done,” he said.

The attack on Pearl Harbor offered an escape. He hitch-hiked to San Francisco intending to make something of himself as a war hero. Stints in the merchant marine, then the Navy introduced him to whiskey and tobacco to the betterment of his self-image if not his character.

“I felt like men looked,” he said of his emotional reaction to alcohol.

After the war Imislund returned to Wisconsin, enrolled in college, married Charlotte, “this girl with flashing black eyes and black hair,” and settled into what he would later recognize to be the normal life of an alcoholic.

Nights with family punctuated by nights in jail culminated in a vow of sobriety, made over the coffin of his first son, who died on a frigid winter night when Imislund was jailed and didn’t make it home to restart a finicky heater.

“John Imislund, this will never happen again.” It was a vow made to be broken.

The family moved a lot. The time in El Paso stands out as the pleasantest of her life, his daughter said.

Her father, a talented self-taught musician, partied at home with the city’s marijuana-smoking jazz musicians.

“My happiest memories are laying in my bed, smelling that smell, hearing that music,” she said. “They would sit all night and play the most amazing incredible music. He just gathers these incredible people.”

In Texas, Imislund had great jobs, Mary said, among them even directing the Grand Opera at the University of Texas. But he always lost them, falling victim to what he would describe as the recurring “spring in my gut” that made him restless, eventually turning the world from “technicolor to black and white.”

A nearly successful suicide attempt led to a mental commitment and electric shock therapy.

Thorazine and tequila followed. The night he went out to buy food for his new daughter Susan and didn’t come back, Charlotte packed up the kids and resettled in a one-bedroom apartment.

Imislund eventually headed for Los Angeles.

After being ejected from the Midnight Mission, Imislund made the most important trip of his life, walking miles to the AA club at Wilshire and Fairfax where he fell under Bob’s sway.

“He found me ways not to quit jobs,” Imislund would say. “A terrible process. I finally held a job for four months before I got fired.”

Gradually, Bob broke through to Imislund’s faith which had been devastated by the belief that God took his son’s life to pay for his sins.

“Kid, you’re not important enough for God to hate,” Bob told him. “By the time he died, I believed in AA as the higher power,” Imislund would say.

It took five years to regain Charlotte’s trust. He got a job in advertising, became head of a family again and founded the Pacific Group, held in a Westside synagogue, that has grown into one of the world’s longest standing and largest AA meetings, said Watson, the Midnight Mission board member.

Within AA, Pacific Group has its detractors who find it cultish and doctrinally severe.

“I don’t like the Pacific and avoid them,” said Sarah D. of Dallas in an email to The Times. But not Imislund.

“Clancy inspired the masses,” she wrote. “I see in my mind’s eye ... so many rooms, so many people crowded into the back, outside, in adjoining rooms. I remember his words. I hear the laughter. And i am grateful.”

He became what Watson would describe a 12-step “rock star,” becoming sponsor to Hollywood elites, judges and business executives along with the people he picked up off the street.

“If you asked Clancy how many people he had sponsored he would say, ‘One too few,’ ” Watson said. He estimates the number at 10,000 with the ripple effect touching tens of thousands of lives.

Family ties with his four daughters and surviving son were stable but distant, Susan Imislund Yodice, the daughter born in Texas, said. The daughters understood his absences as necessary amends for “things you can never undo.” After Charlotte died in 2012, their father became more spiritual and a more attentive father.

“He became this accessible, very loving dad,” she said. “I feel grateful that in my 50s I got this dad. And that’s been a joy.”

It was in 1974 that Imislund returned to the Midnight Mission. Under his leadership its mission expanded to embrace treatment, work and housing services. He built its financial base with his pen, president and CEO Arnold said.

“He would open the phone book and start writing letters to people in the phone directory,” Arnold said.

“He could create some of the most compelling stories about both recovery and the work of the Midnight Mission,” Arnold said. “It’s hard to separate Clancy from either the Midnight Mission or the AA. He dedicated the last 46 years of his life to trying to do good with those two messages.”

In his talks, Imislund spoke of AA as a mystery with a practical goal.

“Nobody knows why it works,” he said. “The purpose of AA is not to make you dry longer and longer. The purpose of AA is to do very slowly what alcohol did fast. To change my perception of reality.”

###

####

#####

####

https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/clancy-imislund-midnight-mission/

Brittany martin, LA MAGAZINE

Clancy Imislund, head of downtown L.A.’s Midnight Mission, has died at the age of 93. He was known for his work with residents of Skid Row, in particular, helping them access treatment for substance abuse, and was considered a leading figure in addiction recovery locally and across the country.

“We are heartbroken at the passing of our managing director and beloved friend Clancy Imislund. He has been the heart and soul of the Midnight Mission since joining the organization in 1974,” the organization wrote in a statement announcing his death. “For 46 years, he worked relentlessly helping disenfranchised people in Skid Row find a pathway to self-sufficiency.”

“Clancy Imislund was the Jonas Salk of recovery,” Ed Begley Jr, actor, activist, and friend of Imislund’s, shared. “With 12 steps (and often 12 good jokes), he could inoculate a large room, or one lonely and desperate soul with a cure that, unlike polio, didn’t last a lifetime, but one manageable a day at a time. The millions of people that he touched around the world will never be the same.”

Imislund came to his work helping others overcome addition after struggling with alcoholism. As a young man, he married, fathered four children, and became a successful advertising executive in Dallas. But that American Dream fell apart amid what a 1998 profile of Imislund in the Los Angeles Times called “a drunken haze.”

He borrowed a car, drove as far as Phoenix, and then got a bus ticket to Los Angeles. In 1958, he landed on Skid Row.

In a 2014 interview with KPCC’s Off-Ramp, Imislund described spending the night in an all-night movie theater downtown, and then being kicked out at dawn.

“They’d come in and say, ‘All right, you bums! Everybody out.” And that’s when I hit the street,'” Imislund recalled. “I ran into a guy who said, ‘Do you want to sell a pint of blood?’ And I said, ‘You bet!’ We walked up Fourth Street to a blood bank. And I did not have enough iron in my blood to sell a pint of blood, so they suggested I go to the Midnight Mission.”

He headed to the Mission for a meal, and the staff then directed him to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Imislund says he stopped drinking that day–and then dedicated himself to helping others.

The Midnight Mission was first opened in 1914, by Pentecostal minister Tom Liddecoat, who served meals to the hungry after nighttime church services (the organization dropped its official connection to any religious group in 1933). When Ismislund became managing director in 1974, he was only the fifth person to hold the job in the agency’s history. He became the first to integrate AA meetings with the Mission’s on-site services, and to bring a state employment office into the building, to help the Mission’s clients find work.

In his decades on Skid Row, he has noted watching the area and its needs evolve, particularly observing a surge in the homeless population and an increase in individuals seeking treatment for drug, rather than alcohol, concerns.

 

Outside of the Mission, Imislund was instrumental in an Alcoholics Anonymous organization known as the Pacific Group. Some have described the weekly meetings of the Brentwood-based group as one of the largest AA meetings anywhere, though that claim is disputed. The group was known for a hardline and religion-heavy interpretation of the 12-step recovery program laid out by AA founders Bill Wilson and Bill Smith in the mid-1930s.

“Adherents insist theirs is the only true path of recovery, and demean ‘AA lite’—groups that focus merely on drinking stories and complaints,” Benjamin Aldo wrote in a 2013 article for The Fix, a website focused on the addiction treatment industry. “Those who are uncomfortable with [Pacific Group] point to the insularity of the group, the rejection of AA members lacking enthusiasm for [Pacific Group] rules, and the notion of ‘better than’ sobriety.”

Those rules included a formal dress code, regular attendance at highly structured meetings, and an expectation of devotion which some have described as approaching “cult-like.” Imislund himself was an active and central figure within the group. After meetings or weekly softball games, members of the Pacific Group would often volunteer to clean up around his home or perform other acts of service, and enjoy meals at his home.

“Clancy is an AA ‘celebrity’ for dedicating so much of his life to the community of AA and helping men and women recover,” Mike Williams wrote for the website Addiction Programs. “From my personal experience, I was able to participate in the [Pacific Group] meetings and there were never any expectations foisted upon me. […] No AA group is for everyone, but there’s a lot of thriving people in this community.”

One individual who thrived as a member of Pacific Group was the father of writer Gregory Forrest, who described his dad’s 47 years with the program in a Medium post.

“Dad struggled in and out of AA for 12 years and could not stay sober. When he found Clancy, dad received the ‘gift’ of sobriety and he ‘got it.’ Clancy’s form of sponsorship was exactly what someone as sick as my dad needed,” he wrote, recalling the Pacific Group as a kind of family, complete with holiday events and get-togethers. “Clancy and the Pacific Group have saved literally thousands of people’s lives. I’d dare say many more than he has ‘hurt.'”

He is survived by five children, a large extended family, and thousands of people who cared for him.

“Clancy was the most influential person in my life,” Midnight Mission board member Steve Watson wrote in statement announcing the death of his colleague and friend. “He taught me that it is our great honor to be able to help another human being, no matter what their pain or suffering or needs are. He helped give me a purpose for my life, and that is to help my fellow man, woman, or child.”

Several individuals in Imislund’s circle have posted on social media that his death was a result of COVID-19, though no official statement regarding his cause of death has been released.