well I guess there is kind of good news; I've figured out how to do this (also
for Task.requestAddXxxObserver).  For every observable:observer pair there is
now an Observation object.  The synchronized version could block on that object,
and then when the core has finished processing, unblock it vis:

xxxx()
   Observation o = new observation (....)
   send observation to event loop
   return o.wait ()
   
  The only restriction is that the method not be called by the EventLoop thread
- instant deadlock.

Having this will also likely make scripts easier vis:

main ()
{
  Host = new LinuxHost ();
  host.refresh ();
  for (task in host.getTasks ())
    task.so something;
}

of course this isn't an ok for the gui, that needs to be more agressive and use
the async mechanisms.