Tuesday, October 21, 2025

Chandra: Battling Late Stage II Cancer while in Stony Brook

These are photos of the Doctors who saved my late wife Chandra's life in early 1991. 



Dr. Tae Park was the Radiation Oncologist 
 
Dr Eva Chalas  Obstetrics and Gynecology, Stony Brook University Hospital


About 6 months after she arrived in US in 1991 she was bleeding heavily.  As a Grad student I had health insurance, Chandra didnt.  Finally one day we turned into the Emergency Ward of Stony Brook, University Hospital about quarter mile from the Grad Housing where we lived.   The Emergency doctors took one look at her and rushed her as In Patient.  Late told me if we had been a another day or two later she would have died. Diagnosed with Late Stage II Cervical Cancer

Chandra was in and out of the hospital for two years, Chemo and Radiation. Platino Chemo was brand new and were asked to if would like to try the experimental. Agreed and signed a waiver.

Marie Dr, Parks Secretary
 
Dr. Tae Park was the Radiation Oncologist

I was finishing my Masters Thesis and the Marince Sciences Research Center was just across the Hospital via foot path.  I would go write my thesis and come back to take Chandra around for tests etc.  Often I would sleep in the chair.  Eat the hospital food which intended for Chandra which was quite good for me.  Chandra could barely eat because of Chemo.  One thing Chandra never complained, just had a smile.  The perfect patient.

Map of Uni Hospital, Grad Student Apartments and Research Center


Some anecdotes
a) The first few days I used to translate to and from Dr. Eva Chalas to Chandra.  Third day she realized I was just repeating in simple English to Chandra. Chandra was replying in non grammatical English.  End of my translator role.

b) Chandra's hair was very sparse and thin.  After Chemo became thick and curly

c) We were both immune to poison Ivy Allergy.  There was big wetlands and Tidal Marsh at Flax Pond that was part of Marine Sciences. A short cut was thru an old mansion (Childs Mansion), which had poison Ivy. Other students warned us, but we did not bother as we were not allergic.  Tested out on other Sri Lankans too when they visited.  They too were not allergic. The chemical that  gives an allegic reaction is Urushiol which is also present in Cashew which is quite abundant in SL.  So I guess Lankans develop immunity to urushiol.
After Chemo Chandra became severely allergic to Poison Ivy. She had lost her immunity

Childs Mansion and Arango Family


Sandeep Mody and parents on Flax Pond Bridge


Flax Pond Marine Lab Map


d) Money: Initially only I had Health Insurance thru the Grad Student Union.  After about 4 months after Chandra was hospitalized the Grad Student Union allowd spouses too to have Health Insurance. However, there was a bill for about USD 100,000.  Luckily NY State had a program where you paid only a percentage based on income. It was 5% (USD 5,000) which I paid at USD 50/month

e) As I was writing mt thesis, there was no Stipend.  The fellow grad students, faculty and various church group to which fellow students belonged collected money.  That paid rent for more than 4 months.  I had a list of names, lost when my computer was stolen.

 Chandra was certified Cancer free in 1996.  She live 20+ years and passed because of a stroke.








Sunday, September 21, 2025

1996 Atlanta Olympics Trip

1996 Atlanta Olympics Trip

Total Cost:  About USD 500 (Tickets, Accommodation, Gas etc)
Events Watched; 
.......Marathon End, Olympic Stadium USD 22/person
.......Hockey: USD 10/per person

Olympic Main Stadiun, Marathon End

    

Accommodation: Tent in State Park about 50km from last stop on MARTA Subway line.  May have been about US 10-15
   Dinner:  Cooked at Campsite
   Breakfast and Lunch:  Olympic Village   
 
So we did two days of the Olympics (28th and 29). I would have liked to see the Marathon.  Better to have watched it on TV. Hockey was to spend another day on the cheap.
There were two young women also camping near our campsite.  Got the same idea, cheap accommodation to see Olympics.

We returned thru Great Smoky Mountains.  Photos might be in the other three albums.




 









Thursday, August 21, 2025

Vist to SL and married Chandra (late wife)

 

1990 Dec
Vist to SL and married Chandra (late wife)
Registration no wedding. Witnesses Upali De Silva and Andrew Muthumani (Andy). Marriage Registrar was conveniently at the top of the Lane (300 m). Even more conveniently the liquor store was about 3 shops from the Marriage Registrar

Upali, Andrew Muthumani, Chandra, Mrs De Silva (Upalis mother)
May be an image of 4 people

Andy is a character, but not corporate material, i.e. not manageable A few years senior to me at the school I attended (S Thomas, Mount) Physics Special at Uni Colombo. Became Flight Engineer for Air Ceylon and asked to leave after assaulting the Captain.

Rafai, Podda Kapduwa, Andrew
May be an image of 3 people

Podda and Rafai
May be an image of 2 people

Mrs Silva, Upalis Mother
Upalis house was at the bottom of Harmers Lane facing the beach. Pleasant place to have a booze with a constant breeze. It was at first a place for Lobster Scuba Divers. Big fish tanks in the garden to keep the lobsters that were not sold, alive. The Lobster cash cow racket ended with the 1984 Pogrom. Curfew on and off and going out to sea in the night was forbidden. Any one doing so was arrested and charged under anti terrorism laws.


Mrs Irene Pandithasekara (Irene Anti) was a family friend, I think class mate of my mothers older sister Ranee (Mrs Perumal, teacher at Aloysius_ I used to spend a pleasant day or two at this house when we went to Galle for school holidays. This house was on the Galle Wakwella Road and had an 1-2 acres of rice paddy in front of the land. The back of the property extended all the way to the Hapugalla Reservoir
May be an image of 2 people

Note: This was the first camera I owned, a chap plastic one with a battery just for the flash. I had better things to with any money I had. Pleasurable suff like booze and other activities.

Thursday, June 5, 2025

US Economics and Theory of Collapse

Note: Italics comments by another
 Unless they (US) fall hopelessly behind in tech, they are ‘built’ to perpetually retain a competitive shot.

I think you have not looked at the grim economic statistics

Off the top of my head

Debt: 30+ Trillion
Interest on Debt: Trillion
Budget Deficit: 1.8 Trillion (2024)
Trade Deficit: 140.5 billion (Too much imported)
Defense Budget: 1 Trillion

Moody just downgraded US debt from to Aa1 from Aaa.

They had to, could not ignore as USA sovereign CDS (Credit Default Swaps) were trading wider than China and Greece. i.e. US debt default more likely than China and Greece

I wouldn’t go that far. USA has inherent geographic advantages that almost assure competitiveness. Energy, food, water independence are non-trivial advantages._

A big YES and agreed

However, the US has dug itself a huge economic hole among other debilitating factors.
However, to get out of the hole they need

a) Austerity (reduce imports and pay down debt)
b) Reduce defense Budget
c) Invest in Manufacture and Self Sufficiency

To do above needs a complete system change and political suicide in the current system.

A little bit of theory from Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph A. Tainter

Tainter logically builds his case that the “Law Of Diminishing Returns” is the root cause of collapse since this law grows more and more impactful as societies increase in complexity to support growing populations. Eventually this cost burden becomes so great and the returns so small that the society collapses. I totally agree with the case he makes that as civilizations are driven toward ever more complexity to support an ever growing population the law of diminishing returns rears its ugly head ever more higher. Even maintenance of existing infrastructure eventually succumbs to this law.

Examples from reviews in Good Reads
Similar to economic law of marginal product and average product–
eventually, increased investment into sociopolitical complexity
becomes costly and unprofitable.

Main concepts are: 
1) human societies are problem­ solving organizations, 
2) sociopolitical systems need energy to maintain themselves, 
3) increased complexity →increased costs per capita, 
4) investment in sociopolitical complexity as problem­ solving response often reaches point of declining marginal returns.

Example Information processing

Declining returns into investment in R&D, with patent applications per capita and per technical worker in USA falling fast from 1870 to 1950, because of

a) declining productivity of inventing,
b) decline in proportion of patentable inventions,
c) decline in propensity to patent.

More technical workers, patents about constant per year, 
spending on R&D up from 0.1% of GDP in 1900 to 2.6% in 1960. Medicine: 1930, 3.3%
on health for 59.7 years; 1982, 10.5% for 74.5, today, 16% for 78.

Between 1870 and 1960, proportion of 18­21 year olds in US in higher education 1.7% → 33.5%; from 0.26% of GDP in 1900 to 1.23% in 1960; #of students per faculty from 12.8 in 1900 to 9.5 in 1958, longer and more specialized courses – but “learning that occurs yields decreased general benefits for greater costs” (most learning is during infancy).

(PS. Korotayev insight that key is 4 years and literacy – makes industrial workforce). Decreasing average and marginal returns as those now educated are closer to center of IQ bell curve.

Explaining declining marginal rates in Science
“Planck's Principle of Increasing Effort” ­ “with every advance [in science] the difficulty of the task is increased”, can no longer make discoveries by peering into homemade microscopes of flying a kite in a thunderstorm. (PS. AI, IT, cellular automata). 

Exponential growth in size and costliness of science, in fact, is necessary simply to maintain a constant rate of progress”. Rescher: “In natural science we are involved in a technological arms race: with every 'victory over nature' the difficulty of achieving the breakthroughs which lie ahead is increased


Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph A. Tainter
https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Complex-Societies-Studies-Archaeology/dp/052138673X/