Monday, April 15, 2019
I know that many of you would like to take up residence in the Holy Land, but are deterred by housing costs. There is a path, however, that will bring you relatively close to Grandpa Alan without impoverishing you. Aim for one of the charming towns in the Hudson Valley, north of New York City. Many of our more successful citizens have already chosen weekend or summer properties in the area. But, there is no reason that you can't trade Houston for Hudson or Peoria for Peekskill on a year-round basis.
The chart contained in the following article shows how remarkably cheap the region is and, to my surprise, how flat the prices have been in recent years. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/
While Fishkill isn't Forest Hills, bagels purchased in Manhattan may still be warm when you get back there.
. . .
“In 2016, my [10-year old] daughter Alice noticed girls weren’t raising their hands in class with the same confidence that boys were,” the CNN anchor Jake Tapper tweeted recently. As a result, the Girl Scouts have introduced a Raise Your Hand badge.
In 1963-1965, I taught classes in American and European government at Cornell University to some of the brightest college students in the country. In fact, because of prevailing admission policies, the girls were a more elite group than the boys, on the whole. But, just as Alice Tapper observed over 50 years later, the girls were mostly quiet. Raised hands were typically attached to male arms.
Because of my CCNY background, I expected the classroom to be rich with give and take. I instinctively adopted the Socratic method, posing challenging questions to the students, who had distinguished themselves in the solidly upper middle class bastions of Great Neck, Brookline, Shaker Heights, Evanston and Bethesda. Years later, Debbie Halpern Silverman, sadly lost to us far too early, told me that, as a dorm counselor, she had to comfort young female students tearfully returning from my classes because they had suffered the indignity of being asked a question.
I only hope that when today's 10-year olds get into college (through merit or bribery), they are more verbal and forthcoming than their grandmothers were.
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
According to Brigham Young University's honor code, "Men are expected to be clean-shaven; beards are not acceptable. https://policy.byu.edu/view/
Guess who?
. . .
Some attempts to be helpful fall far short. The New York Times offers: "Want to Escape Global Warming? These Cities Promise Cool Relief"
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/
Duluth, Minnesota heads the list. It seems that during winter it gets to minus 30 Fahrenheit, which gives Duluth a lot of room to absorb global warming. The good news found in the New York Times has, so far, not spread very far. "From 2010 to 2016, though, the city added only 56 people."
. . .
Royal Seafood, 103 Mott Street, was packed when the Boyz Club arrived for dim sum today. We had to share a table at the greatest distance from the front door as possible with a Chinese family and I was jammed into a position where I could not see the contents of the carts that the ladies were pushing around the floor. Fortunately, the stranger on my left spotted and translated for me, since I selfishly kept control of ordering even under those awkward circumstances. Nevertheless, no one left hungry.
Wednesday, April 18, 2019
Notice to Jews: Get out the sandals and sunscreen, the trek through the Sinai Desert begins Friday. However, I have to face sand, wind and sun without the benefit of being fueled by Aunt Judi's fabulous seder meals, which usually begin Passover on the highest of notes. This year, to celebrate a major birthday, Aunt Judi is being treated to a week of pampering, no cooking, no cleaning -- no pushing the Kosher food envelope to delightful new boundaries.
Why is this night different from all others? is the question that starts the traditional seder. The answer this time is I have to go to a vegetarian seder.
Thursday, April 19, 2019
One beneficial result of the movement of populations across borders, sometimes voluntary sometimes involuntary, is the blending of cuisines. One example that appeared in New York almost 60 years ago is the Cuban Chinese restaurant, a byproduct of Fidel Castro coming into power, emptying Havana's fancy hotels of guests and its kitchens of staff.
Flor De Mayo, 484 Amsterdam Avenue, is a remaining example of this blend, although it identifies one of its most popular dish as Peruvian Rotisserie Chicken. It was this chicken that I had for lunch, with a large portion of shrimp fried rice ($12.80). A small, unadvertised cup of chicken vegetable soup began the meal, welcome on this drizzly afternoon. The food is good enough to outweigh the dingy external and internal appearance of the joint. It was busy at lunchtime, most patrons Hispanic. The only Asians that I saw were employees.
...
The parole of Judith Clark is front page news around here today, but is probably ignored in most other places. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/nyregion/judith-clark-parole-brinks-robbery.htmlI know that many of you would like to take up residence in the Holy Land, but are deterred by housing costs. There is a path, however, that will bring you relatively close to Grandpa Alan without impoverishing you. Aim for one of the charming towns in the Hudson Valley, north of New York City. Many of our more successful citizens have already chosen weekend or summer properties in the area. But, there is no reason that you can't trade Houston for Hudson or Peoria for Peekskill on a year-round basis.
The chart contained in the following article shows how remarkably cheap the region is and, to my surprise, how flat the prices have been in recent years. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/
While Fishkill isn't Forest Hills, bagels purchased in Manhattan may still be warm when you get back there.
. . .
“In 2016, my [10-year old] daughter Alice noticed girls weren’t raising their hands in class with the same confidence that boys were,” the CNN anchor Jake Tapper tweeted recently. As a result, the Girl Scouts have introduced a Raise Your Hand badge.
In 1963-1965, I taught classes in American and European government at Cornell University to some of the brightest college students in the country. In fact, because of prevailing admission policies, the girls were a more elite group than the boys, on the whole. But, just as Alice Tapper observed over 50 years later, the girls were mostly quiet. Raised hands were typically attached to male arms.
Because of my CCNY background, I expected the classroom to be rich with give and take. I instinctively adopted the Socratic method, posing challenging questions to the students, who had distinguished themselves in the solidly upper middle class bastions of Great Neck, Brookline, Shaker Heights, Evanston and Bethesda. Years later, Debbie Halpern Silverman, sadly lost to us far too early, told me that, as a dorm counselor, she had to comfort young female students tearfully returning from my classes because they had suffered the indignity of being asked a question.
I only hope that when today's 10-year olds get into college (through merit or bribery), they are more verbal and forthcoming than their grandmothers were.
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
According to Brigham Young University's honor code, "Men are expected to be clean-shaven; beards are not acceptable. https://policy.byu.edu/view/
Guess who?
. . .
Some attempts to be helpful fall far short. The New York Times offers: "Want to Escape Global Warming? These Cities Promise Cool Relief"
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/
Duluth, Minnesota heads the list. It seems that during winter it gets to minus 30 Fahrenheit, which gives Duluth a lot of room to absorb global warming. The good news found in the New York Times has, so far, not spread very far. "From 2010 to 2016, though, the city added only 56 people."
. . .
Royal Seafood, 103 Mott Street, was packed when the Boyz Club arrived for dim sum today. We had to share a table at the greatest distance from the front door as possible with a Chinese family and I was jammed into a position where I could not see the contents of the carts that the ladies were pushing around the floor. Fortunately, the stranger on my left spotted and translated for me, since I selfishly kept control of ordering even under those awkward circumstances. Nevertheless, no one left hungry.
Wednesday, April 18, 2019
Notice to Jews: Get out the sandals and sunscreen, the trek through the Sinai Desert begins Friday. However, I have to face sand, wind and sun without the benefit of being fueled by Aunt Judi's fabulous seder meals, which usually begin Passover on the highest of notes. This year, to celebrate a major birthday, Aunt Judi is being treated to a week of pampering, no cooking, no cleaning -- no pushing the Kosher food envelope to delightful new boundaries.
Why is this night different from all others? is the question that starts the traditional seder. The answer this time is I have to go to a vegetarian seder.
Thursday, April 19, 2019
One beneficial result of the movement of populations across borders, sometimes voluntary sometimes involuntary, is the blending of cuisines. One example that appeared in New York almost 60 years ago is the Cuban Chinese restaurant, a byproduct of Fidel Castro coming into power, emptying Havana's fancy hotels of guests and its kitchens of staff.
Flor De Mayo, 484 Amsterdam Avenue, is a remaining example of this blend, although it identifies one of its most popular dish as Peruvian Rotisserie Chicken. It was this chicken that I had for lunch, with a large portion of shrimp fried rice ($12.80). A small, unadvertised cup of chicken vegetable soup began the meal, welcome on this drizzly afternoon. The food is good enough to outweigh the dingy external and internal appearance of the joint. It was busy at lunchtime, most patrons Hispanic. The only Asians that I saw were employees.
...
Clark is being released after serving 37 years of a 75-year sentence for driving the getaway car in an armored car robbery in which two police officers and one private guard were killed by a cell of black and white revolutionaries. Relatives of the victims, conservative politicians, many law enforcement officers, law-and-order advocates and just ordinary citizens opposed this action. They believe that talk of rehabilitation is inapplicable in a crime of this nature. I have one degree of separation from these events.
I met Alan Berkman in his first year at Cornell University. We became good friends when he came to New York to attend Columbia University's medical school. We were both single and would magically show up at the home of married friends at mealtimes. If only one of us were present, we spoke of "the other Alan." The night before I left to take a job in Los Angeles in June 1971, we had dinner together. It was a dozen years before I saw him again.
In the meantime, he was indicted and charged with being an accessory after the fact in that armored car robbery, because he treated a gunshot wound of one of the crooks. Alan skipped bail, hid for years, committed crimes to further the fantastical revolutionary cause and, after capture, spent 8 years in jail. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/
Once released, he distinguished himself by treating and advocating for AIDS patients at home and abroad. He died in 2009 of cancer that first attacked him in prison. He was a great humanitarian, a great friend, a great doctor, one of the smartest people that I ever met and unquestionably guilty of pursuing a reckless criminal path, abandoning good and common sense. Judith Clark was his comrade and you might be able to conflate the two, up to a point. In prison, she had a record of self-improvement and service to the prison and general community. Therefore, I regard releasing her now, at age 69, as the right thing.
Friday, April 19, 2019
Here is another one of my contributions to the marketplace of ideas that the New York Times has chosen to ignore:
"It might help if Ilhan Omar addressed critical topics with less clumsiness than the President of the United States."
. . .
Which way to the Red Sea?
. . .
Which way to the Red Sea?
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