Hasta La Gadget!

Russian soldiers on the move, MiG jet flyovers of U.S. naval ships, NATO war maneuvers, a capital of a European country at risk of invasion. American news headlines from the last few months look like they belong to another era. The same can be said for Russian newspapers, which have whipped the country into nationalist frenzy in response to perceived aggression from the West.

The Americans are replaying the Cold War, while Russia is replaying World War II — wars that each side can claim that they won. Neither era has very much in common with the current conflict in Ukraine, but reference to past battles in order to understand and respond to present-day opponents has potential consequences.

Allusions to the Cold War in American news and media outlets have made a dramatic resurgence as the Ukrainian Crisis has heated up and dominated headlines. The line of continuity can be read: Budapest 1956, Prague 1968, Kiev 2014. In this particular guise, Putin is behaving like the General Secretary of an only slightly reformed Soviet empire.

In Russia, mention of a “new Cold War” is scarcely heard. Instead, rhetoric of nationalism, outside invaders, and threat of fascism have become part of a template of rationalization for Russia’s opposition to Ukraine’s European-oriented government. These are signals to Russian citizens — codified language belonging to the World War II era when invaders from Western Europe almost destroyed the Motherland.

History has always been used — and often cynically manipulated — to inform present conditions and make the case for a particular set of political aims and objectives. Yet, in the ongoing Ukrainian Crisis, the two competing sides have appropriated different histories. In asserting their victories, both east and west are reconfiguring the past to align with contemporary narratives rooted more in political necessity than the history books. On June 6, 2014, Russian leader Vladimir Putin attended a celebration on the beaches of Normandy to commemorate the 70th anniversary of D-Day. Russian media downplayed the strategic importance of the invasion and, more generally, the Allies’ contribution in World War II.

The Motherland lost twenty million people in the fight against fascism, after all, and the battle is not yet over. Now, the fascists in Ukraine, as it is implied, are once again threatening peace. Meanwhile, there is little evidence to support the claims. Paradoxically, significant support in “New Europe” for accession to Russia’s policies can be found in the ranks of the rising right-wing parties deemed by some to be neo-fascist.

The United States, for its part, seems to have dusted off the playbook from the Cold War era, framing the very complex circumstances of the Ukrainian Crisis as having been fueled by “Russian agents” in a Soviet-style “incredible act of aggression” as Secretary of State John Kerry summed it up for the American public. Kerry implored his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov to resist turning Ukraine into a “pawn” for ongoing Russo-American tensions. After a quarter of a century since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the concept of proxy wars with Russia is now back in fashion.

Yet, for all the rhetoric, the underpinnings of the Cold War — ideological competition, threat of Mutually Assured Destruction, and global bilateral balance of power – no longer exist. Without the bitter Manichean struggle that viewed Communism as a global and contagious virus (with nuclear capability), Cold War analogies to present-day Russia appear misplaced or at a minimum grossly overdone.

Reacting to historical periods that were enormously antagonistic and bloody to guide action on the emerging battlefield of eastern Ukraine has the potentiality for further escalating conflict, fueled by past victories and memory of old clashes.

Rather than appropriating particular histories in service of immediate political goals and provoking further animosity, study of long-term cultural values and social tendencies can provide a foundation for understanding motivations and strategies.

If history can inform ongoing developments in eastern Ukraine, Russia is acting as it always has – as a nationalist entity that transcends both ideology and ruler. Stalin understood this when he dubbed World War II “The Great Patriotic War.” His soldiers might not fight for him, or even communism, but they would give their lives for Mother Russia, as they did for Tsar Alexander in 1812.

And for America’s part, intervention in foreign affairs and conflicts might also belong to a tradition much older than the Cold War — Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points. The idealistic tendency toward active promotion of democracy, self-determinism, and transparency, has the capacity to conflict with others’ national interests, including Russia’s, even while Russia’s own expressions of its geopolitical interests are shrouded in similar democratic rhetoric.

Russia will likely always act in what it perceives as its geostrategic interest, protecting its sphere of influence and its Slavic/Eurasian uniqueness. The U.S. will also act in its perceived interest, which often somewhat confusingly includes ideology and idealism as manifestations of American Exceptionalism.

History informs us of the past and perhaps its meaning, but memory and rhetoric are used as tools to validate states’ interests. For all the differences in how Russia and the United States are representing the current clash in Ukraine, pointing to historical examples that do not stand up to rigorous analysis, both countries share a strikingly similar approach to using past episodes as justification for present action.

While this does not tell us anything new about history, it does illuminate the malleability of official versions of “what happened” and signal the potential risks of exploiting past conflicts burned into the collective psyche of both countries, provoking antipathy, fear, and possibly war. This illuminates the malleability of official versions of “what happened” and signals the potential risks of exploiting past conflicts burned into the collective psyche of both countries, provoking antipathy, fear, and possibly war.

This week the White House convenes its Summit on Working Families — shining light on the needs of America’s working women and the challenges they face managing jobs, raising children and caring for aging parents.

Regional events leading up to the summit have primarily focused on professional, middle-class women. But changes are needed for the millions of American women who work in low-wage jobs that provide little financial security for themselves or their families. One example is providers of direct care: nurse aides, home health aides and personal care aides who provide hands-on care to our nation’s growing population of elders and people with disabilities.

These are among the nation’s fastest-growing jobs with direct-care workers expected to number nearly 5 million by 2022 — more than nurses, school teachers and all public safety workers. Nearly 90 percent of direct-care workers are women.

Unfortunately, while plentiful, these jobs are not the quality jobs that American workers need. With median wages near $10 per hour, many direct-care workers struggle to support their families. About half the workforce lives in households that rely on public benefits such as housing support, food stamps and Medicaid to make ends meet.

Moreover, these jobs have all the qualities that make low-wage work problematic: hours tend to be uncertain, the work is physically challenging with high occupational injury rates, the jobs rarely offer benefits like health insurance or paid time off and workers often lack adequate training or on-the-job support. We can do better. And we should do better.

Direct-care workers are indispensable. A skilled and compassionate caregiver can be a lifeline — not just for the person she assists, but for the entire family. These workers provide the paid services that enable other women to continue to work with the peace of mind of knowing their family member is well cared for day in and day out.

Improving the jobs of direct-care workers can improve the lives of millions of women across America. Let’s add direct-care workers to the White House Summit on Working Families agenda. We can start with the following:

Better wages: Direct-care workers need better wages and benefits. Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour would certainly help many of the women in these occupations. But the White House also needs to make sure it follows through on the new regulation that extends to home care aides minimum wage and overtime protections through the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). There should be no delay in the January 1, 2015 implementation date for this important change.

Paid Leave: Many direct-care workers have no paid sick leave or family leave. The Healthy Families Act, which would guarantee paid leave for all of America’s workers, is essential to quality jobs and to good care. No one wants a caregiver to put herself and her client at risk by coming to work sick or injured.

Advancement: Rapid changes in our health care system are creating opportunities to rethink the roles of direct-care workers. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) and Congressman Matt Cartwright (D-PA) have introduced legislation to fund federal demonstrations that would test different “advance aide” models — for example, incorporating “senior aides” into interdisciplinary care coordination teams or using advanced training of aides to improve care for clients with specific chronic conditions such as diabetes or dementia.

These models could give workers opportunities for career advancement while improving the health of individuals receiving care and reducing unnecessary hospitalizations. Providing real opportunities for career advancement will help to move this workforce out of poverty and help to build and sustain the workforce we will need to meet the coming demand for direct care.

The Working Families Summit can address the needs of all working women by addressing the dual challenge of improving direct-care jobs and providing quality supports and services for our nation’s elders and people living with disabilities. Doing so will also bring relief to millions of working American women who need a stable, skilled and compassionate direct-care workforce to help them balance full-time work responsibilities with caring for their families and communities.

Plastic, plastic, plastic. It’s everywhere along our roads, in our streams, in our ponds and lakes, in our coastal wetlands, along our beaches, in vast gyres of accumulated plastic debris as large as islands in the ocean, and finally up and down the ocean in the water column. We have read about this, seen the photographs, and raised our concerns about the impact of plastic on natural ecosystems everywhere. We have recycled certain kinds of plastic packaging; we have boycotted and banned plastic bags; and we have organized community clean-ups, passed ordinances and legislation, made informational films, sailed voyages to attract public attention, and otherwise shouted the evils of non-biodegradable plastic far and wide across the planet.

This plastic lasts for years. If we could recycle all the plastic extant in the world today we would never have to manufacture another bit of plastic ever to meet demand, thereby leaving all the future requisite fossil fuels in the ground, preventing all the consequential emissions from the atmosphere, and perhaps taking a serious step toward real mitigation of temperature rise, changing weather patterns, ocean acidification, and all the further negative manifestations embodied in plastic that affect our world today. Think about it: a plastic cycle, an independent revolving system of utility re-utilized through reduced demand, product reformation, and alternative behaviors. What a good idea.

To understand just how pervasive plastic is in our lives, and just how difficult it will be to implement this good idea, consider the microbead: a tiny polyethylene and polypropylene particle, about one half of one millimeter in diameter, that exists by the millions in consumer products such as skin cream and toothpaste. These particles find their way by the millions down drains and into the sewage systems of our towns and cities where they eventually find their way to the ocean. These beads work as exfoliants in deep cleansing beauty creams or in those teeth whitening pastes that suggest a bright white smile. 5 Gyres, an organization dedicated to informing the public about the dangers of plastic pollution, has asserted some products contain between 1 and 5% microbeads and that one tube of Neutrogena’s “Deep Clean” product contains an estimated 360,000 such particles ultimately loosed into circulation in the name of beauty. (source)

The beads float through the waste water network, frequently unfiltered by sewage treatment plants, finding their was into storm drains and run-off, and eventually becoming an invisible manifestation, infestation if you will, of plastic into our natural world. A 2012 5 Gyres study in the Great Lakes, for example, found evidence of more than 600,000 beads per square kilometer. In effect, the beads are a pervasive host for other pollutants like DDT, PCBs, flame-retardants, and other industrial chemicals, become suspended in the water column, and are ingested by various marine species along the food chain, some of which are harvested and consumed by our families. Little good can come of any of this.

There are alternatives: ground apricot shells and cocoa beans are proposed as substitute natural exfoliates for the various products. But if the industry ignores the argument and resists product modification, there is as always the option to legislate a solution. Bills are under consideration in New York, California, and Illinois to ban the sale of all microbead products in those states. And, as with plastic bags and plastic packaging, those concerned with such detrimental effect can intervene in the market by refusing to purchase these products, advocating to retailers to take the products off the shelves, letting the manufacturers know, testifying in opposition to the inevitable industry lobby in the state legislatures, and joining groups like 5 Gyres to spread the word.

In the 1967 classic American film “The Graduate,” Dustin Hoffman’s character is given one word of advice on which to base his future: “Plastics.” It seemed funny, even absurd at the time, but it proved prescient, and almost fifty years later we can now see what that future has become, encased in plastic.

Ever since she was a little girl, Beth Zimmerman harbored a passion for rescued animals. It wasn’t until later in life, however, that she discovered a way of turning that passion into action.

Zimmerman, 51, spent her early childhood in New York City before relocating to Long Beach, Long Island. In the suburban seaside town, Zimmerman’s parents added dogs to their family, and always made sure to adopt from a shelter. The pets gave Zimmerman some of her fondest childhood memories. A sense of patriotism also ran deeply through her family — even without a strong military heritage.

“My dad used to always say, ‘Bar none, hands down, we live in the best country on the planet,’” Zimmerman told The Huffington Post. “We grew up appreciating it and feeling really grateful for the opportunity to be an American.”

After studying philosophy in college, Zimmerman took several career paths, searching for the job that would make her feel entirely fulfilled. She taught freshman writing at CUNY Stony Brook for a year, completed her master’s degree in architecture at Carnegie Mellon University, worked as an architect in Manhattan for a decade, found her way into branding and strategic marketing for a number of years, and even started a strategic consultancy of her own that she still manages today.

But through each of these endeavors, she felt that something was missing.

On Memorial Day in 2009, Zimmerman discovered that missing link while she was doing what helps her come up with her best ideas: washing dishes. Standing in her kitchen and cleaning up from her holiday celebration, she experienced one of those “a ha!” moments.

“I just thought about veterans and pets, and this instinctual idea I had was these are two populations with very complementary needs — animals who desperately need a loving and permanent home and veterans who, for a wide range of reasons in their lives, would benefit from having a new pet friend,” she said. “And I’m one of these people where as soon as I get an idea in my head, I’m driven to see it through.”

She immediately began drafting her business plan and discussing it with colleagues she could trust to be honest with her about her idea for a new nonprofit organization. In a matter of weeks, she prepared a strong outline for the charity, secured pro-bono work to get it off the ground, and filed the 501(c)(3) authorization paperwork.

Four years later, Pets for Patriots, a nonprofit organization that helps pair homeless dogs and cats with veterans in need of a friend, is going strong in more than 35 states. To find pets in need, the charity partners with shelters, rescues, SPCAs, humane societies, municipal animal controls, and any kind of animal welfare organization that is engaged in saving, rehabilitating and rehoming dogs and cats. Veteran referrals come from a variety of organizations that help former servicemen and women.

Because one of Zimmerman’s goals is to give the most overlooked pets a permanent home, Pets for Patriots supports the adoption of adult cats and dogs, special needs cats and dogs, and large-breed dogs regardless of their age.

Veterinary partnerships allow the organization to offer a continuous discount on pet care, and Pets for Patriots gives each veteran a $150 gift card to a major pet retailer for “welcome home” basics after the adoption of their pet is finalized. Through various sponsorships and partnerships, Pets for Patriots is also able to offer discounts on pet necessities like leashes, treats and pet insurance.

Pets for Patriots celebrated its first pet adoption in July 2010. During its first year, it coordinated five or six adoptions, Zimmerman said, and the number climbed to 75 by the end of the second year. Today, the group is on the cusp of its 600th adoption. The team also grew from just Zimmerman to a talented and passionate board and support team — including a Vietnam veteran who felt inspired to volunteer after adopting his dog through the organization.

“Things just started steamrolling,” Zimmerman said. “The demand is tremendous from veterans, shelters and veterinarians who want to join our program, so much so that we have a wait list so we can grow in a responsible and manageable way. Our goal is not just adoption but surrender prevention and to do everything we reasonably can along the way.”

Zimmerman said listening to veterans share their stories and witnessing how much these animals truly change their lives brings her more satisfaction that she could have ever imagined.

“Adoption saves two lives,” she said, adding that veterans have told her their pets give them a sense of purpose, a reason to get up in the morning, and sometimes even a reason to live.

“I think once I realized that this is something that I could do, I also realized that this was something I should do,” she said. “I knew that my life would change, but I really felt like I had to do it. It was a calling. … This is where I’m supposed to be. I don’t think I’ve ever felt such an article of fate about anything else I’ve done with my life.”

Zimmerman hopes that Pets for Patriots will have partnerships in every state by the end of 2015, and do away with its need for wait lists. She’s excited to find a way to grow fast enough to help everyone who’s interested in the program.

Zimmerman occasionally picks up a small project at her strategic consultancy, but she admits that most of her time goes into Pets for Patriots — and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Even though I’ve found other things in my life very gratifying, this is extremely gratifying in a soulful way. I never thought of myself as a do-gooder — I’m an extremely imperfect person, but it feels right.”

Mobile UI/UX designers are using “one of the richest canvasses a designer can dream of,” according to Sergio Nouvel, a leading designer and entrepreneur. Some of the most valuable real estate available is on your smartphone screen, positioning mobile UI/UX designers as highly influential players in the mobile space.

Mobile app designers are more than mere pixel pushers; rather, they are the individuals who consider end-users’ complete experience as they interact with a mobile app. Designers aim to continuously improve usability and provide a visceral connection between the app and the user. Though mobile UI/UX designers by nature are a varied bunch, here are three secrets associated with the job:

1. They are empathetic. The ability to understand another person’s experiences and emotions is core to user-centered design. A UI/UX designer’s job is to predict human behavior and anticipate needs before the user even knows they exist. UI/UX designers are tasked with thoroughly examining every use case and continuously revisiting how a product can be more intuitive, seamless, and frictionless.

Take a recommendation app, for example: a UI/UX designer should consider the app as a tool aligned with the user’s needs, desires, and behaviors. So while it is evident that the app should provide recommendations in a useful and practical way, a designer must also understand the full story around a human experience in order to bring users exactly what they need with minimal interaction.

2. They cover their brush strokes. There is a clever line in the wonderfully crafted television series Mad Men, where 1950s housewife Betty Draper comments, “You’re painting a masterpiece; make sure to hide the brush strokes.” That is a UI/UX designer’s process in a nutshell. While designers are constantly creating original concepts, many of their ideas and inspirations are derived from observing and refining other design work.

When an app is launched to the App Store, the user just sees the final product, the masterpiece if you will — it is the job of the designer to make the end product so intuitive that it barely seems designed at all. Take Instagram, for example: the end-user generally finds the flow so simple and visceral that the countless hours of trial and error that went into the creative process seem hard to imagine. The end-user only sees the result, not the process.

3. They are solution-driven. Mobile apps are designed and developed for a variety of reasons- to solve certain business challenges, alleviate specific end-user pain points or to simplify a cumbersome process (like finding a nearby restaurant with Yelp). Consequently, mobile design work usually begins with defining a problem.

Through methodical planning and lateral thinking, a UI/UX designer must strategize more generally about how to solve whichever challenge a project presents. Once this thought process is complete, executing the design component tends to come more naturally and fluidly. In short, plenty of mobile design work takes place outside of a computer program.

Typically, clients come to designers with an idea that is not fully materialized. It is the UI/UX designer’s job to carefully define the requirements, flesh out the details, and challenge every element of the client’s concept. This iterative process consists of designers asking the tough questions, gaining a thorough understanding of why a product will be valuable and creating viable and pragmatic solutions.