'Ello, Guv

 

Wednesday, September 12, 2018
While I kept my eyes and ears open for the last two days during Rosh haShana, I kept the keyboard closed.  Now, a little catch up.
. . .
Over the weekend, a psychiatrist tried to allay the fears of parents concerned "that modern digital technology is rewiring the brains of our teenagers, making them anxious, worried and unable to focus."  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/opinion/sunday/teenager-anxiety-phones-social-media.html

He concluded that "[o]ur teenagers — and their brains — are up to the challenges of modern life."  At about the same time, another article reported that "[m]ore than two-thirds of teens say they would rather communicate with their friends online than in person, according to a new study."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/most-teens-prefer-to-chat-online-than-in-person-survey-finds-1536597971?emailToken=fc9e8cff699ff7d0657470bca86d0c2dOQQ7i2UENxwBr8uWOBBIFmLWUu4h36Gp2oD61BbRmTJBY4+CKRIbuBob/TJqJqucLiTDxKoPFFcQag0ROJAgjgDaVVM8TKngECqVEveu96jvRtM9deD7e2lbbk1GXp1r&reflink=article_email_share

To sum up, our normal teenagers are well able to face the challenges of modern life as long as they don't have to do so in person.
. . .
A few months ago, I began reading a series of spy novels by David Downing, featuring John Russell, a journalist born in America, raised in England, living in Berlin in the late 1930s.  The first four novels deal with the onset and conduct of WWII, during which Russell, at various times, is coerced into working for American, British, Soviet and Nazi intelligence, often several at once.  They are good reading, without the intense introspection of George Smiley or the acrobatic feats of Jason Bourne. 
I am now reading The Lehrter Station, the fifth novel in the series, also named for a U-Bahn or S-Bahn station in Berlin.  It opens, however, in London, months after the end of the war, where Russell and the remnants of his family have relocated.  Times are tough, newspaper writing assignments hard to find.  Solly Bernstein, Russell's agent, urges him to write a book about his own adventures with the Nazis and Soviets, which "would sell like fresh bagels."  And, that's my problem.

It's London!  It's1945!  Even today, you are just as likely to find a babka in Barcelona as a bagel in Britain.  In 2014, an expatriate New York writer found that, regarding bagels, Londoners "had never tasted the real thing."
https://forward.com/food/196697/desperately-seeking-a-new-york-bagel-in-london/https://forward.com/food/196697/desperately-seeking-a-new-york-bagel-in-london/

Adding to the improbability of Solly's imagery is how even today London can't get the name right.  According to Yelp, the best bagels in London are found now at "Beigel Bake" and "Beigel Shop," both on Brick Lane, once the main drag of London's Jewish East End, now otherwise occupied by Bangladeshi restaurants and sari shops.  My advice if you are going to Brick Lane -- stick to the biryani. 
. . .
Stony Brook Steve and I began the new year at the newest branch of an explosively fast-growing Japanese steakhouse chain, Ikinari, 2233 Broadway.  Since its start in 2013, Ikinari has opened over 280 locations in Japan and 9 in Manhattan.  Except for the central product, it bears no resemblance to the traditional, hairy-chested New York steakhouse.  The premises on Broadway are small.  The lacquered wood tables are either waist-high or chest-high, bifurcated by a tray of utensils, condiments and sauces.  

Steak is the only protein on the menu; your choice is ribeye, sirloin or filet, cut thick.  At dinner, you order the meat by the ounce, a minimum required: ribeye, $1.60/oz., 10 oz. minimum; sirloin, $1.50/oz., 7 oz.; filet, $2.40/oz., 7 oz.  At lunch, a small salad and a small cup of beef miso soup are added plus a choice of rice or mashed potato at a fixed price for a fixed portion — ribeye, 14 oz., $25; sirloin 7 oz., $13.50.  (There are other combinations, but I wrote down what we ordered.)

The meat is served on hot, hot metal platters, which keep it cooking; best to order it rare.  The meat was good, not fork tender, but juicy and tasty.  Two steak sauces are on the table and, while they are worth trying, they can be ignored.  Ikinari serves beer and wine, but you’re not going to find young financial geniuses celebrating the Big Deal with Jereboams of Château d'Excès Vulgaire here.  

Thursday, September 13, 2018
Speaking of vulgar excess, Weil Gotshal is one of the most powerful law firms in the world, and often the most profitable.  Its billing rates were reported in a filing last year for partners at $990-1,400 per hour, associates $640-900 per hour.  I sought this information when I read that the board of directors of CBS turned to Weil Gotshal for guidance in handling the peccadillos of Les Moonves, its CEO.  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/business/cbs-les-moonves-board.html

"Directors sought guidance from their outside lawyers about whether they should suspend Mr. Moonves."  Are you ready?  Want to know what $1,000+ per hour buys you?  "The lawyers were equivocal, saying it depended on the circumstances."
. . .
 “Among all American adults with your education, age, race or ethnicity, and marital status, 10% are lower income, 51% are middle income and 39% are upper income.”  I learned this from a calculator devised by Pew Research.  http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/06/are-you-in-the-american-middle-class/

The residents of Palazzo di Gotthelf fell "in the MIDDLE income tier, along with 48% of adults in NEW YORK-NEWARK-JERSEY CITY."  Bourgeois respectability is apparently a little harder to achieve in the New York Metropolitan area than the country at large, still far too accessible for some tastes.

The report is titled "Are you in the American middle class?"  Yet, its calculations are entirely income-dependent.  "Thus, to step over the national middle-class threshold of $45,200, a household in Jackson needs an income of only about $37,150, or 17.9% less than the national standard.  But a household in Urban Honolulu needs a reported income of about $56,250, or 24.4% more than the U.S. norm, to join the middle class."  
Right there is one significant reason that American politics has differed from European politics.  We identify class by income, not status, heritage or societal role, thereby eliminating class consciousness from our ideological makeup.  In England, for instance, many (most?) people are characterized by their accent or lineage without any regard to their income or bank balance.  Americans have gained social mobility, emphasizing individualism, but weakened our ability to effect social change through collective action. 

Friday, September 14, 2018
Who said the following, Sarah Palin or Mark Zuckerberg?
"There’s really no newspaper that I pick up and read front to back. Well, that might be true of most people these days—most people don’t read the physical paper—but there aren’t many news Web sites where I go to browse.”  

A valuable article in The New Yorker has the answer and a whole lot more to annoy you.     
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/17/can-mark-zuckerberg-fix-facebook-before-it-breaks-democracy/amp