The end is nigh: And nobody’s complaining, dear reader, as we wrap up this blustery workweek and anticipate a weekend of bustling holiday shopping – or what passes for it in confused, confounded 2020.
Nothing fishy: Pampanga Day, done right.
You WILL enjoy yourselves: It’s Friday, Dec. 11, and to our many readers in the Central Luzon, a joyous Pampanga Day, 500 years in the making and decreed four decades ago by that old Filipino softy Ferdinand Marcos.
Here in the States, the second Friday of December rings up National Salesperson Day, focused on in-store helpers who know where to find the widgets. Thank a masked merchant today.
VOOOOOTE: Not to be pushy, but time runs short on Bethpage Federal Credit Union’s 2021 Best of Long Island contest – and Innovate LI needs to run up the score if we’re to be crowned Best Long Island Blog.
You can vote once daily (through Tuesday) for us and your favorite Long Island public garden, comedian, supermarket, high school sports coach … the best of LI’s best in dozens of categories. Please do!
Hoosier daddy: Happy anniversary, Indiana – the 19th U.S. State was admitted to the Union on Dec. 11, 1816.
Sonic the airline: A decade before entering commercial service, a prototype Aérospatiale/British Aircraft Corp. supersonic airliner – it would fly as the Concorde – debuted on this date in 1967.
Signing off: Eugene Cernan, last man on the moon.
Goodnight, Moon: Humanity’s last manned moon mission reached the lunar surface on Dec. 11, 1972.
Astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt would spend three full days exploring the rocky satellite – officially, the last time humans left low Earth orbit.
Goodbye, Mars: NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter – designed to study the red planet from orbit and relay communications to deep-space probes – blasted off on this date in 1998.
True story: The probe was lost nine months later because mission specialists failed to convert English measures to metric values.
Worm whole: And it was that same day – Dec. 11, 1998 – when British biologist John Sulston and American biologist Bob Waterston revealed the genetic blueprint of Caenorhabditis elegans, a tiny earthworm.
The roughly 97 million genetic letters, spelling out some 20,000 genes, marked the first complete mapping of a multicellular organism’s entire genome, a scientific feat some equated to the moon landings.
Annie get your telescope: Groundbreaking American astronomer Annie Jump Cannon (1863-1941) – who discovered 300 stars and cataloged tens of thousands of others – would be 157 years old today.
Brenda Lee: Still rockin’ around the Christmas tree.
Also born on Dec. 11 were Virginia farmer and “forgotten founder” George Mason IV (1725-1792), who rebuffed the U.S. Constitution at the Constitutional Convention and became the “father of the Bill of Rights”; Canadian-American industrialist James Kraft (1874-1953), cheesiest of them all; American cartoonist Marge (a.k.a. Marjorie Henderson Buell, 1904-1993), who crafted “Little Lulu”; Indian mystic Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh (a.k.a. “Osho,” 1931-1990), who founded the controversial Rajneesh movement; and American analytical chemist John Macklin (born 1939), pioneer of Raman spectroscopy.
Sweet somethings: And take a bow, Brenda Mae Tarpley! The American pop and rockabilly legend known best as Brenda Lee – who trailed only Elvis Presley, the Beatles and Ray Charles in 1960s U.S. chart hits – turns 76 today.
Don’t be a Dum Dum – wish “Little Miss Dynamite” and all the other Dec. 11 innovators well at editor@innovateli.com, where you can Tell [Us] What It’s Like and Break It To [Us] Gently with story tips and calendar events. That’s All You Gotta Do (As Usual).
About our sponsor: Northwell Health is New York’s largest healthcare provider and private employer, with 23 hospitals, 750 outpatient facilities and 70,000-plus employees. We’re making research breakthroughs at the Feinstein Institute and training the next generation of medical professionals at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell and the Hofstra Northwell School of Graduate Nursing and Physician Assistant Studies. Visit Northwell.edu.
BUT FIRST, THIS
German shepherd: A German federal grant encouraging international educational collaboration has connected Deutschland’s largest private university with one of Long Island’s most ambitious business schools.
A new partnership between the Hochschule Fresenius University of Applied Sciences – a German institution with campuses throughout that country and in New York City – and Adelphi University’s Robert B. Willumsted School of Business will unite students from two continents in virtual classrooms. Dubbed the Trans-Atlantic Virtual Exchange and Collaboration, the project will focus on entrepreneurship, business ethics, business communications and human resources while “build[ing] bridges across cultures,” according to the program website.
The grant, from Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (the German Academic Exchange Service), will fund a pilot program between the two schools – hopefully, the start of something big, according to Susan Briziarelli, Adelphi’s assistant provost for global affairs. “The grant allows us to … measure the outcomes and use it as a baseline,” Briziarelli said. “In their professions, students will work with people from different parts of the world – learning early on that the power of collaborative, global problem-solving is invaluable.”
Blowhards: The storm raged, the utilities failed, now the people will sound off.
This could get ugly: As it seeks record damages from New York utilities through the Public Service Commission, Albany is soliciting Long Islanders’ on-the-record comments about PSEG-LI’s performance during and after Tropical Storm Isaias.
The state’s Special Counsel for Ratepayer Protection, a function of the New York State Department of Public Service, has scheduled virtual public forums throughout December and January “to receive comments regarding potential damages and harm suffered by ratepayers as a result of electric service providers’ performance” in response to the August storm. Comments may be included in Albany’s case against three of the state’s largest utilities – Con Edison, Orange & Rockland and Central Hudson, which are facing $137.3 million in PSC penalties – or in a separate state lawsuit seeking damages from PSEG-LI.
The Department of Public Service’s swift Isaias investigation, which recommended the record penalties, cited numerous pre- and post-storm failures by PSEG-LI, prompting the Long Island Power Authority to file its own $70 million lawsuit against the regional utility. “The response by utility companies to Tropical Storm Isaias was nothing short of unacceptable,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday. “New York is fully committed to doing everything we can to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
TOP OF THE SITE
It’s a data: When she takes over in August, incoming Hofstra University President Susan Poser will keep crunching numbers and promoting academic diversity.
‘Road’ team: A Pulitzer-winning Adelphi University professor has composed a choral masterpiece that’s earned a Grammy nomination for the Oratorio Society of New York.
Innovation in the Age of Coronavirus: Long Island’s first vaccine doses are on their way – will Uber drivers get first dibs? Find out in LI’s one-and-only pandemic primer.
ICYMI
Native New Yorker Anthony Fauci is a big fan of Albany’s Winter COVID Plan.
BEST OF THE WEST (AND SOMETIMES NORTH/SOUTH)
Innovate LI’s inbox overrunneth with inspirational innovations from all North American corners. This week’s brightest out-of-towners:
From Virginia: The Chantilly-based National Captioning Institute mixes cutting-edge AI and human intuition in real-time, English/Spanish automatic-speech recognition service.
From Texas: Houston-based finer things firm Luxury Gourmet Center glams it up with the ultimate all-in-one appliance for fresh wine, food and cigars.
From Texas: Dallas-based healthcare disruptor Easy Drain Care Products remakes the long-term hospital bed with self-draining, multi-operational mattresses.
ON THE MOVE
Jedan Phillips
+ Jedan Phillips, associate professor of family, population and preventive medicine at Stony Brook University’s Renaissance School of Medicine, has been named associate dean for minority student affairs.
+ Krista Lim-Hing has been appointed director of the Linda and John Bohlsen Neurosciences Intensive Care Unit at South Shore University Hospital. She previously served as a neurointensivist at SSUH in Bay Shore and North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, as well as a telehealth medical intensivist with Northwell Health’s eICU.
+ James Bonner, president of New York & Atlantic Railway, and Rebecca D’Eloia, senior vice president of development at Uniondale-based RXR Realty, have been elected to the Hauppauge-based Island Harvest Food Bank Board of Directors.
+ Jacqueline Clancy has been named sales manager of the Smithtown and Stony Brook offices of Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty. She is an associate real estate broker.
+ Luz Fonacier has been elected president of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. She is a professor of medicine at NYU Long Island School of Medicine and training program director in allergy and immunology at NYU Winthrop Hospital in Mineola.
+ Bonnie Falk has joined Manhattan-based Berdon LLP as a partner in its Jericho office. She was previously a partner with Melville-based Raiche Ende Malter & Co.
BELOW THE FOLD
Flaking out: From the sanitarium to an historic family feud.
Big brother: Why Bill Gates was obsessed with tracking his employees.
Saving the sisters: They’re definitely aging, but Catholic nuns aren’t dying off.
Sibling rivalry: How the feuding Kellogg boys created your breakfast.
One big family: Please continue supporting the amazing institutions that support Innovate LI, including Northwell Health, New York State’s largest healthcare provider by number of employees and number of patients. Check them out.
