Uptown Radio

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The term “panic attack” invokes images of mental illness like psych
wards and straight jackets. But for many people, it’s a frequent occurrence that can be
controlled and might not interfere much with daily life. Commentator Kaitlin Ugolik talks
about her experience with panic attacks, which started at a young age.

I was eight years old, in the happiest place on earth. My parents had taken me and
my younger sister Anya to Disney World. We were too scared to go on rides, so as a
compromise they took us on the monorail that takes visitors through each of Disney’s
parks. We were particularly afraid of a ride called Space Mountain, because we’d heard
it was not only fast, but dark. When the monorail cruised through the Epcot Center ball
and the windows went black, I got suspicious. My parents reassured me again and
again, but an irrational fear began to take over.

Then I the voice on the intercom say it. Space. Mountain. My stomach dropped
and my pulse quickened. I started to cry hysterically, which made Anya start crying. I
yelled at my parents, over and over “YOU TRICKED US! YOU TRICKED US!”. How
could they do this?

Of course, they hadn’t done anything. We were still just on the monorail, which soon
made its way out the other side of the Epcot ball and into the sunlight. But I couldn’t calm
down. This wasn’t
just a tantrum. Something had a hold on me, something out of my control. We got off
at the next stop, and my parents rushed us out of the park.

I never panicked like that in public again, but it continued to happen in private. At
random moments, I would feel a sense of dread, my heart
would race, my hands would tingle and I’d sob uncontrollably. It only lasted for a few
minutes, but afterward I felt drained, physically and emotionally. It didn’t start to get bad
until middle school, when a friend told me he wanted to kill himself. When he started
to describe what he thought death would be like, how it would “feel,” my imagination
ran away with me and I started having attacks regularly. Here was something I really
couldn’t control, and I couldn’t stand it. I would close my eyes at night, trying to sleep,
and feel a jolt as my anxiety took over and I convinced myself I was going to die right
then. But after a few minutes it would pass, and I would be ashamed. So I kept it to
myself.

When I was in high school, my parents noticed my panic attacks. I was lucky that they
understood – members of my family had struggled with obsessive compulsive disorder
and anxiety herself. My parents – and I – had hoped that I’d miss out on that family trait.
I was determined to be “normal,” and to act like the confident, independent person my
mom had taught me to be. But after a lot of discussion, I finally agreed to let her take me
to a doctor.

He put me on a low dose of an antidepressant. It took me a long time to get used to the
fact that I needed something like that. I felt like taking those pills was a weakness, but
I didn’t like panicking either. Throughout the rest of high school and college, I learned
what triggered my attacks – lack of sleep, too much caffeine, movies or conversations
that encourage obsessive thoughts. I also learned that my anxiety didn’t make me who
I was. The truth was, I WAS confident, I could be independent, and I really was happy

most of the time. But even when I went several months without an attack, anxious
feelings were always in the back of my head. It was especially hard to go to places
where I’d had a panic attack, like my car, or a school bathroom, Or Disney World..

In 2008, my family went back. It sounds silly now, but I was really nervous to return to
Epcot. Not because I was still afraid of roller coasters, but because the place kind of
symbolized this painful thing I’d been carrying around with me for 12 years. I was still
having panic attacks occasionally, and I thought the memory of my first one might trigger
something embarrassing. But by that time I’d mastered another trick to averting a panic
attack – facing my fears. My sister Anya and I rode Space Mountain the first chance
we got. The ride itself was pretty anticlimactic, but as we zoomed through the artificial
night sky, I thought about how far I’d come, from accepting that something was wrong,
to learning to control it. I still panic sometimes, but less dramatically, and less often. The
people I’m closest to are remarkably understanding when it happens, It turns out that I
do have the confidence and independence that my mom wanted me to have.
After the ride, Anya and I took a picture together to prove that we’d done it, grinning with
our thumbs up.

New York's highest gas price now is $4.87, according to NewYorkGasPrices.com

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Filling your tank is costing a lot these days. In New York City the average is $4.26 a gallon, but it goes much higher, even as high as $4.87 in Manhattan. That’s according to the Web site Newyorkgaswatch.com. But yesterday, the market saw a drop in crude oil, which leaves some people speculating as to whether the gas price may finally fall. Anna Maria Jakubek reports.

It’s early morning and the Lukoil gas station by the Highline, at W. 24^th St and Broadway in Manhattan, is busy. The price per gallon there is $4.23, which is about average for New York. It’s not the highest price in the city, but customers are still upset.

Lukoil manager Atul Puri says that this is the kind of thing he’s been hearing. He’s definitely feeling the heat.

“There are a lot of people out there who say this is the ending point, you know. $4:20, $4.50 is the maximum they can go,” he said.

Sammy Megolly has been a cab driver since 1987. He saves on gas money because he drives a hybrid – but the cost is still too high for him. He’s hopeful that yesterday’s drop in crude oil price will translate into cheaper gas.

“I saw the oil prices are coming down, which is a good sign. But I don’t know if it’s keep coming down or just for temporary coming down or start to go back higher again. I don’t know.”

Megolly plans to come back in a few days to fill his tank; for now, he’s just pumping enough to get by.

“I just put $20 which will enough for me to finish my shift. Maybe tomorrow will be cheaper. I’m sure it’s going to be cheaper.” said Megolly.

Part of the uncertainty here has to do with the fact that changes in crude oil price don’t immediately transfer over to gas pump price. Lars Perner is an assistant professor of consumer behavior at the University of Southern California and he’s written a lot about fuel.

“There’s a lag between the time that the crude oil is produced and shipped off and the time that it comes out from the refineries,” he said.

Perner’s personal view is that even if gas prices do go down in the coming weeks, they won’t stay that way.

“That’s probably too early to tell. In the long run, I expect they probably would go up, due to the demand from India and China, but you know, that’s possibly several months down the road.”

For now, if the downward trend continues, it could come just in time for memorial weekend and the beginning of summer driving. Anna Maria Jakubek, Columbia Radio News.

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Mayor Bloomberg presented his executive budget this morning. One of the biggest headlines is his plan to cut more than 42-hundred public school teachers.

He’s been threatening teacher layoffs since late last year. IF they come to pass, they’d be the first since the fiscal crisis in the 1970’s. And, it’ll be seniority – or lack of it – that dictates who gets the pink slips.

This policy, Last in First Out, known as LIFO, has been the law in New York State for more than five decades. At his press conference today, Bloomberg reiterated his stance against it.

“Last in first out is just not the way to run the school system,” he said. “Its an irrational way there are great teachers at all levels of seniority and have to make sure we keep the great ones.”

In the midst of a heated national debate about how to measure teacher merit, many politicians and educators say it’s time for LIFO to go.

It’s Wednesday afternoon at Columbia Secondary School in Harlem. Meg Swan is teaching social studies to a group of about 30 sixth graders.

They’re talking about globalization and she asks them where their stuff comes from.

World maps cover the walls opposite the projector screen and windows. Posters taped to the chalkboard pose wide-ranging questions about the US addiction to oil and the pros and cons of globalization. The students are focused and excited. Swan says she loves teaching at Columbia Secondary School. She asks tough questions of the kids, and they’re up to the challenge.

But this may be the last year Meg Swan has that opportunity. In February, Mayor Bloomberg released a list of the schools that’d be hardest hit by his proposed layoffs. Columbia Secondary topped it. That’s because the school’s staff is young and state law dictates that the last teachers in are the first ones out. The school stands to lose 70 percent of its teachers: a crushing 14 teachers of the current 20.

“I’ve been teaching for six years,” says Swan, “but I am on the chopping block. Which is a little maddening.”

Columbia Secondary is a partnership between the New York city Department of Education and Columbia University. Unlike most public schools, it can select its students – the way charter and private schools do – but its teachers are unionized just like in public schools. Teachers in the union get tenure—and more protection from cuts—after three years of teaching. Swan’s been teaching for six years, but just two of those in city public schools. So she’s vulnerable, she says.

“When I look at both the proposed teacher layoffs coming up and the fact that I am four months pregnant I have to tell myself, “Take the long view, take the long view.”

Swan’s long view is that she’ll continue teaching. she knows that a system that might force her out now is one that will protect her down the road.

So, she’s pro-LIFO but not just for personal reasons: she’s seen principals fire good teachers out on personal bias, and believes that teachers get better over time.

But Maria Eder, Columbia Secondary’s parent coordinator, thinks accepting LIFO is a bad choice when students like her son lose good teachers.

When Eder learned about the proposed staffing cuts, she was:

“Just basically shocked, because it would means our school would unravel.”

Eder says the young staff is great, across the board. She says any layoff policy that doesn’t take merit into account harms kids. She’s not ready to let go of great teachers like Meg Swan without a fight.

“The point is to educate our children properl, says Eder. “The point isn’t to create a tremendous safety net for people who are not doing that. ”

LIFO is sparking debates like these across the country. Most states have LIFO laws on the books and with so many states struggling to balance their budgets, LIFO policies are getting a lot of attention. Illinois and Florida are the latest in a handful of states that have voted to repeal LIFO, and Georgia is on the way.

The U.S. Education secretary Arnie Duncan has spoken out against it. And Here in New York State, Governor Cuomo, Mayor Bloomberg, and Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott oppose it. A QuinnaPEEEack poll released in March shows 80 percent of New Yorkers oppose LIFO.

But the powerful teachers’ union considers it a critical protection. Democrats have quashed three legislative attempts to end it in the last year alone.

Andy Rotherman is a an education consultant, who specializes in the history of education reform.

“This is power politics 101,” says Rotherman “Veteran teachers have more voice, they are more organized. Teachers, especially in their first few years of teaching, are not especially engaged in that kind of conversation.”

For Rotherham, there has to be an alternative.

“If we want schools to be good at teaching kids, why would we lay people off with no attention to how good they are at teaching kids,” he asked.

He says, its time to start moving to a merit–based system.

“In most professions, you make these decisions based on a blend of qualitative data and quantitative data. In education we’re gonna have to get comfortable with that, and because its not going to be perfect and because in some places frankly they’ll do it badly, is not a reason to keep in place a policy that demonstrably makes no sense.

Rotherham focuses on national issues, but Evan Stone follows New York education policy. He is the founder of Educators4Excellence, a group of pro-reform teachers. He liked the Senate’s most recent attempt to replace LIFO with a merit-based system.

“It had seven different pools or categories that if teachers fell into they would be laid off.” Sone continued, “so if you fell into all seven, you’d be laid off first and then six and then five working down.”

The proposed seven pools were based on traditional performance issues – teachers who chronically miss work, don’ t have current placements, and the small but significant number who’ve been declared ineffective by their principals. They would have been cut first.

With so many people speaking out against LIFO, the stalemate is frustrating for Stone.

“Can’t we chose these groups of teachers before just our newest teachers.”

But the teacher union’s top brass say the alternatives proposed just haven’t been tested.

Rob Weil is a director at the American Federation of Teachers.

“You can score political points by making really good zings that sound easy like “lets just make a pair of wings and fly to the moon.but….it becomes a little more difficult than just putting some feathers on some sticks.”

At the end of the day, Weil says LIFO makes sense because it protects what’s proven to make the best teachers.

“You wanna keep the teachers that are the most effective. and the most effective are the ones with the experience.”

At a May Day Rally outside City Hall, it’s a sea of acronyms. Hundreds of people are wearing baseball caps and tee shirts in support of their unions. United Federation of Teachers director Anthony Harmon speaks to the crowd.

“No more can we allow these attacks on our public school systems which attempt to pit senior teachers against newer teachers,” Hamon said.

Susan Epstein sports a UFT hat. She says she’s deeply suspicious of how layoffs would happen without the protection of LIFO.

“Everything I see indicates that there is an effort to get rid of teachers who are high on the salary scale regardless of the quality of their teaching.”

And, she says she’s seen this kind of discriminatory firing before.

” A whole lot of people who were satisfactory until their tenure came up all of a sudden became unsatisfactory at my school last year.”

For Epstein, if layoffs have to happen, LIFO is the only fair way to do it.

But for UFT President Mike Mulgrew, how cuts are done is beside the point.

“Any layoff hurts children,” says Mulgrew, “and if people wanna talk about how to lay people off, they wanna talk about how to hurt children, and I don’t want to have any part of it.”

Bloomberg’s new schools chancellor Dennis Walcott says he gets it.

“The only thing worse than having the lay off a teacher is having to lay off a great teacher.”

Dennis Walcott told the City Council’s Education Commission that LIFO is destructive a policy. It can’t go on, when it disproportionately impacts low income kids.

“There are three districts in the Bronx where 90 percent of students receive free or reduced price lunches that would be the three districts hit hardest citywide by layoffs done in accordance with the current LIFO law.”

Walcott promised to push the state government to repeal LIFO before teachers receive their pinkslips, expected by June 1st.

It’s unlikely that state government can pass an alternative to LIFO in time. But, Education consultant Andy Rotherham says LIFO’s days are numbered.

“People already realize what the political outcome of these events is gonna be. but that doesnt mean you don’t have to have all the fighting. LIFO is going away, but it doesn’t mean its not gonna be bloodly while we get there.”

The final budget will be released on June 30th.

Alex Alper Columbia Radio News.

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Even before the budget was officially announced to the public, city council members expressed disappointment.

“This is a lot of pain that’s been inflicted by Albany and Washington,” said Lewis Fidler, Brooklyn (D). “It’s really not our doing.  We’re going to have to back peddle and fill a lot of holes they inflicted on us.”

A few minutes later, Mayor Bloomberg began his presentation ready for the criticism.

He says the city’s already used two-thirds of its reserve to fill in gaps and will spend the rest next year.

The hot button issue was teachers.

“I’m not trying to lay off teachers,” Bloomberg told the audience.

But he says that’s what will happen.  Some will leave through retirement.  But about 4,100 teachers will leave through the “last in, first out” policy which Bloomberg has said he doesn’t like.

After teachers, the Police department faces the largest cuts, nearly 200 million dollars.

Next comes the fire department, which stands to lose 94 million dollars in funding.

The mayor says he knows fire fighters will find it very tough.

“Two commissioners jobs are to keep bringing down crime and deaths by fire and response rates and to do it with less,” he said.

Bloomberg does stress his total confidence in the two departments.

But Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano is concerned.

There’s never a good time to close a fire co, never.” Cassano said after the announcement.  “If it’s twenty and we have to do that by July 1, those notices have to go out next week.”

Fire companies are different from stations.  Several companies can work out of the same station, but cutting twenty companies means 600 fire fighters.

Al Hagan is represents fire department lieutenants, captains and chiefs through the Uniformed Fire Officers Association.

He says the cuts could really hurt the public.

“Fire protection in the city of New York is like a cloth,” Hagan said in a phone interview. “And every company represents a thread in that cloth. When the thread count goes down, the entire fabric becomes weaker.”

Hagan has seen the city talk about cuts before.  Cuts have happened in the past. And at times the city councils stepped in to restore the funds.   But he doesn’t think that will happen this time.

He thinks the mayor is taking the wrong approach to balance the budget, as does James Parrot, a city government expert at the Fiscal Policy Institute.

Parrot says Bloomberg should also look at ways to increase the city’s income.

“There’s so much focus on cutting government and reducing the number of public sector workers at a time when unemployment is very high,” Parrot said Friday.

“Cutting government budgets is only going to make the economic situation worse.”

Parrot acknowledges the mayor faces similar problems seen in other cities across the nation.  A recession where funds are scares and cuts are becoming more common.

Bloomberg now has to convince the city council to pass his plan by July First.  The debate has already begun.

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New York City is home to almost 8.2 million people.  That is according to the 2010 census. And the racial make-up of the city is changing.  Asians have the highest growth rate at 32 percent. The ethnic group with the second highest is the Hispanics. But just up by 8 percent. Commentator Larry Tung says Asian New Yorkers are a very diverse population but many people often lump them together because well, as him explains, they all look the same.

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My friends always tell me that I should be an actor. And that’s not because of my leading man good looks.  It’s because I have a generic Asian look—I am 5-9, a square face, light facial hair and small eyes.  I could be a Chinese deliveryman, a Japanese businessman or a North Korean soldier in one of those James Bond movies.

Growing up in Taiwan, nobody thought I was Taiwanese or Chinese. People always thought I was Japanese. Back in the 80s, anything Japanese was popular in Taiwan so I never minded. I actually took it as a compliment. When I was in college, Korean drama became big hits, and all of sudden people thought I was Korean.

I moved to New York a decade ago. There are several Chinatowns, a couple of Koreatowns, and an unofficial Little Tokyo on St. Mark’s Street.  We are everywhere. Whenever I meet new people, the question of my ethnicity always comes up. But often time, people would just look at me and say “You’re Korean?”

I am not, but I do love Korean food. However, a trip to Koreatown usually involves me pretending to be Korean. At restaurants, the waiters used to give me dirty looks when I ordered in English. They thought I was Korean but tried not to be fobby-”Fresh off the Boat”. So to keep waiters from spitting in my food, I ordered in Korean- calbi for barbecue short ribs, pa-jon for seafood pancake, and chop-che for sweet potato noodles. Yum.

Occasionally, people confuse Taiwan with Thailand. And the conversation would go like this:

“Where are you from?”
“I’m from Taiwan.”
“Oh, I love Thai food!”

I used to get upset about it because Thailand is a poor country. Now I just smile and say “Me, too!”

So obviously many New Yorkers don’t really know much about Asians even though we are the fastest growing racial group in the city. But can we tell the difference amongst ourselves?  A few of us decided to take a challenge. We found a website called Alllooksame.com. Get it? All look same. Even the name of the website makes fun of us.  The site offers an online exam where you have to identify Asian New Yorkers by their ethnicity – Chinese, Japanese or Korean. As we went down the list, we thought we nailed it. Well, the joke was on us because we ended up getting only 8 out of 18. I guess we Asians get confused, too.

All in all, I really don’t mind it when people get confused about my ethnicity. In fact, I enjoy telling people about Taiwan. But, believe it or not, from time to time, I do get asked if I am from New York. And I take that as a compliment.

Larry Tung lives in Brooklyn, New York, and hopes the city will one day make the Asian Lunar New Year an official holiday.

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Governor Andrew Cuomo has starting a campaign to drum up support for the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York state. Within the next two months, the state legislature is expected to take up the matter.

Two years ago, the Senate rejected a bill that would have legalized same-sex marriages. But Gerald Benjamin, a political scientist at SUNY New Paltz, says this bill has a chance of passing — even though the Senate is now controlled by Republicans.