MARKET WATCH COLUMNIST
“Too hot to care about anything except A/C”, Ellis Henican Column, Newsday, July 24, 2011
It’s been said that people actually lived around here in the days before air conditioning. That could well be true.
But here’s the question that no one’s been able to answer: Why on Earth would they want to?
Have you been outside lately?
I really can’t recommend it. Take my word: There’s nothing good for you out there. The past
few days have brought a sticky reminder of just how dependent we’ve all become on mechanically chilled air.
Forget the Emmys, the Oscars, the Pulitzers and the Nobels. The real prize-worthy geniuses are the ones who made hot air cool.
The earliest practical experiments are credited to Benjamin Franklin and a Cambridge chemistry professor named John Hadley. They used alcohol and ether to explore the principle of evaporation. There was a long and dangerous road between then and modern 
thermostats set at 65.
But it was a road that made life worth living, whatever the old people might want to say about the supposed wonders of chilly showers and attic fans.
There’s all this stuff in the news this weekend. Some of it actually matters. Stupid debt stuff. The start of gay marriage. New developments in the Medford-massacre case.
We’ll get back to all of it soon enough. Sorry, but I’m still not ready to go outside.
HEAT BEATERS
1. Lawn-sprinkler family reunions
2. Ice-loaded baseball caps
3. Meat-locker meetings at corner deli
4. Noon-to-midnight movie-theater marathons
5. Sudden midday urges to go to church
NEWS IN SONG:
Really, who’s as “Hot, Hot, Hot” as Buster Poindexter? Nobody is!
Ole, ole, ole, ole
Feeling hot, hot, hot
tinyurl.com/hottimes3
ASKED AND UNANSWERED:
Bottled water? Or would you prefer tap with a twist of E. coli? . . . Can we assume Monday is the official start of gay divorce? . . . How many people in Ronkonkoma know that TOD stands for transit-oriented
development? This won’t be the last time those initials pop up . . . Which cliche is more predictable? “End of the Line for MTA Chair Jay Walder” or “Next Stop, Hong Kong”? . . . Bogus nursing schools in Franklin Square and Floral Park? Could that explain: “Can’t you see I’m busy? Just use the bedpan!”? . . . Out of the frying pan – and into Friday’s apartment-building blaze on Washington Street in Hempstead?…How’s this for upscale LIRR branding? Friday’s 5:21 p.m. eastbound train from Ronkonkoma is now the “North Fork Wine Train.” Sure beats “the Bar Car.” . . . “Violent assault 
in the gelato bar”: How often do cops in Greenport get a lights-and-siren call like that? . . . LI Dis Alert: Did Rihanna and entourage really have to race to Tribeca’s eco-themed Greenhouse club after her Nassau Coliseum concert on Thursday night? What? There’s nowhere to dance and preen on Long Island?…How different would August 1st’s Coliseum vote be if Tom Suozzi were still Nassau exec? Very, right?… The “Going Out of Business Sale” at LI’s last six Borders stores? Too bad they really mean it . . . Is this why they call it Squeeze Hampton? $5.09 a gallon for premium gas ($4.89 for regular unleaded) at the Coastal station on East Hampton’s Three Mile Road? Ouch, that hurts!
LONG ISLANDER OF THE WEEK
LAWRENCE SMITH, MD
Nothing’s cured overnight, not even LI’s dearth of medical schools. Up ’til now, the total’s been 1: Stony Brook. It took 
great vision and a dedicated three-year development campaign to establish the new Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine, whose first 40 students arrive for orientation this week. The new school, housed in what used to be the New York Jets training facility, is not a one-person achievement. Lots of people helped. But no one deserves more credit than Lawrence G. Smith, top doc at the sprawling health system and the med school’s founding dean. What an innovative curriculum he and his cohorts have dreamed up: Small-group training. A heavy clinical emphasis. Students treating actual human patients from the very first year. For starters, they’re expected to become licensed EMTs. And Dr. Smith has major growth plans. Now, will someone please tell the baby docs who Joe Namath is?
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