Monday, June 10, 2019
Have you ever heard of Cattaraugus County in New York, below Buffalo, bordering Pennsylvania? Google says that its 2017 population was 77,348, down from 80,317 in the 2010 census. No transportation authority/department is listed on the county's organization chart. Searches for public transportation in Cattaraugus County yield information only on Greyhound and school buses; no subways, no local buses, no trams, no trolleys. Yet, miraculously, the adult and child household there spends exactly the same $7,094 annually on transportation as we city dwellers. In fact, MIT claims $7,094 is the transportation expense for every location in New York State.
Here's a very interesting legal case. An Ohio jury found that Oberlin College libeled a bakery and awarded it millions of dollars after students accused the shop of being racist, when a white employee wrestled with a black customer, who later admitted to theft. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/
"The bakery accused the college of supporting demonstrations outside the shop in which protesters distributed a flier printed on a copier on campus." That sounds like a reach. The alleged chain of causality is far too attenuated to be upheld on appeal, in my humble opinion. After all, do we want to hold the president responsible for the consequences of his words?
When I was
noodling around the Internet, I came across the Wallet Hub web site
loaded with data, lists galore. How about "2018’s Best & Worst
States to Have a Baby" or "2018’s Best & Worst Entry-Level Jobs"? https://wallethub.com/edu/
I found this treasure trove when I went looking for "Best Places to Be a Real Estate Agent" (https://wallethub.com/edu/
. . .
. . .
I
thought that I would be surprising Norm and Jane when we went to dinner
tonight in Chinatown, accompanied by my young bride. However, when we
descended underground into Wo Hop, 17 Mott Street, Norm said that his
brother had gone here for 50 years, always ordering the same thing —
what he could not remember.
Our
ordering took some care; Jane gluten-free, America’s Favorite
Epidemiologist eschewing meat. On the whole, we managed quite well,
pleasing some of the people all of the of the time. We had cold sesame
noodles, beef with scallions, eggplant in garlic sauce, steamed sea bass
and mushroom fried rice. $20 each included rental of the table for a
longer-than-average length of time.
Tuesday, June 11, 2019
Paul Hecht, our rampant thespian, directed me to another source of vital data, a living wage calculator produced by MIT. http://livingwage.mit.edu/
It
estimates the cost of living in a locale based on typical expenses.
For instance, one adult, working full-time, in Las Cruces, New Mexico,
with one child, should earn $24.12 hourly to meet expenses, in a state
where the minimum wage is $7.50. The situation in Philadelphia seems
potentially worse; the working adult with one child needs to make $25.36
hourly, where the minimum wage is $7.25. For the Holy Land, the
numbers are $31.99 and $10.40.
All
of this was very interesting, but my inquiring mind led me on, looking
at significant cost components. Our little Las Cruces family should
spend $7,664 annually on transportation, according to MIT; in
Philadelphia, $7,094, and the same amount here, in the greatest city in
the world (according to the lyrics of Hamilton), not a big
difference. While I have never had the pleasure of visiting Las Cruces,
America's Favorite Epidemiologist has and she recalls a lot of open
space, befitting its western location.
If you wish, you may examine its bus map. http://mapserver.las-cruces.
I
am unable to measure how much of the population is served by the Las
Cruces bus system, but it is a bargain for its users: adults, $1 per
ride, students and seniors, $.50. But, I digress. I am afraid MIT has
let us down. Back to New York City and State. Transportation costs for
all 5 New York City Counties are professedly the same $7,094 in spite
of significant differences in population density, automobile ownership,
rail coverage, bridge and tunnel tolls. However, MIT disregards any
differences between the verdant plains of Staten Plains and the towering
canyons of Manhattan.
Have you ever heard of Cattaraugus County in New York, below Buffalo, bordering Pennsylvania? Google says that its 2017 population was 77,348, down from 80,317 in the 2010 census. No transportation authority/department is listed on the county's organization chart. Searches for public transportation in Cattaraugus County yield information only on Greyhound and school buses; no subways, no local buses, no trams, no trolleys. Yet, miraculously, the adult and child household there spends exactly the same $7,094 annually on transportation as we city dwellers. In fact, MIT claims $7,094 is the transportation expense for every location in New York State.
Listen MIT! This is CCNY talking! You got it wrong.
. . .
. . .
Here's a very interesting legal case. An Ohio jury found that Oberlin College libeled a bakery and awarded it millions of dollars after students accused the shop of being racist, when a white employee wrestled with a black customer, who later admitted to theft. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/
"The bakery accused the college of supporting demonstrations outside the shop in which protesters distributed a flier printed on a copier on campus." That sounds like a reach. The alleged chain of causality is far too attenuated to be upheld on appeal, in my humble opinion. After all, do we want to hold the president responsible for the consequences of his words?
Friday, June 14, 2019
One advertisement that has persistently interrupted my on-line card games has featured a woman's lightweight down parka in a vivid array of colors. Since a woman's lightweight down parka was one item removed from my luggage as it barreled its way from Casablanca to Paris to Punta Cana to New York, I suggested to madam that we have found a suitable replacement. Even though the missing garment was black, very New York black, we ordered the new one in champagne beige.
It took several weeks for the parka to be delivered, a bit unusual in these days of super-fast Amazon turnarounds, but Amazon was not the vendor this time. When it finally arrived last week, madam found that it was ill-suited to her statuesque frame. So, I sent an e-mail message, asking how to exchange or return the item. One week ago, the vendor Hyper Owl replied that it could refund, not exchange and included its web page for return processing. However, one factoid was missing -- its address. I was told how to pack and ship the parka: Destination Unknown. Daily telephone calls to Hyper Owl's 800 number by both of us and my e-mail messages went unanswered.
To my surprise, our credit card company immediately canceled the charge to us when we explained Hyper Owl's failure to communicate and told us to keep the merchandise if we chose, which was just as well. This afternoon, sitting at lunch with Tom Terrific, I opened an e-mail message from Hyper Owl finally providing me with its return address exactly as follows:
Address: 430000 China hu bei sheng wu han shi han yang qu yong feng jie jie dao da luo jia zui 360hao
City: Wuhan
Province: Hubei
Country: China
Zip Postal: 430000
So, Dear Female Relative, enjoy the champagne beige lightweight down parka. It was destined to be yours.
Should said Female Relative wish to engage in the joys of International Commerce, I would be happy to engage my daughter in a Mandarin translation consultancy to allow said Female Relative to achieve total customer satisfaction with a more satisfactorily-sized champagne beige lightweight down parka. The process should be completed happily for all parties before 2021. BTW, said daughter's favorite bird is the Owl- perhaps a Hyper one not so much!!!
ReplyDelete1. No self-respecting epidemiologist, favoured or not, would would be caught dead in anything other than a black Canada Goose parka with a red and white arcic explorer patch prominetly displayed. Even I know this and I am writing from Italy.
ReplyDelete2. Of course most Americans don’t want to hold the President accountable for his words. That’s why I am writing from Italy.
Speaking of light weight . . . your remarks on the Oberlin College case.
ReplyDeleteTry reading this for a fuller discussion:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/the-publicly-shamed-sue-oberlin-college-verdict/591379/