Monday,
June 1, 2020
Today's New York Times print headline says "Twin Crises and Surging Anger Convulse U.S." Unfortunately, the same population is suffering most in both matters. While the immediate health crisis shows signs of diminishing, gratuitous police violence seems baked into society, evoking anarchic responses at times.
Yes, I know that policing is a hard job, with an inherent exposure to danger. But, recruitment, training and supervision of police officers should fully take that into account in furthering the mission of protecting the civilian population. We have more than anecdotal evidence that black and brown people are subject to prejudicial, reckless and/or lawless treatment in the name of law and order.
. . .
I learned from a book review that Philadelphia brought rationality to house numbering in an urban setting in the mid-19th Century. Odd numbers on one side of the street, even on the other. Each block's numbers increase by groups of 100, so that the relative location of a building is immediately apparent from its address. While we American urbanites now take that for granted, it is not a universal convention.
This is a map of present-day Berlin, reflecting two different numbering schemes in use, having nothing to do with the previously hostile division of the city.
The only inconvenience that we experienced on our trip to Berlin in 2017 was trying to find shops/restaurants on those red streets. In the absence of a grid system, buildings are numbered sequentially up one side of a red street until it ends and continue to be numbered incrementally down the other, effectively creating a horseshoe pattern. Blue streets are numbered in the familiar zig-zag pattern. Until we understood that, we often trotted back and forth, fruitlessly looking for disappearing buildings.
. . .
In the last couple of years, I have become a fan of Fordham University's Center for Jewish Studies and attended several of their programs. That's right, Fordham, the Jesuit university. Right now, attendance is virtual and last night I thus attended anthropology professor Ayala Fader's discussion of her new book "Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age," dealing with Haredi, ultra-Orthodox Jews, who sample the outside world through the Internet. Doing so represents more than just an exercise of curiosity, it's a sinful activity, a leap from faith.
Professor Fader, probably unrelated to Mr. Richard Feder of Ft. Lee, New Jersey, gathered her material through face-to-face encounters arranged by word of mouth, admittedly unable to take a macro, statistical view of the subject, since Haredi communities are tightly bound and suspicious of outsiders. Yet, according to her, there was a consistency in the stories she heard, almost entirely from men, because Haredi women are generally denied access to computers or smartphones. The phrases "in the closet," "off the derech" (path in Hebrew) and "double lives" were often repeated. You should listen to her at https://youtu.be/19xerx3ni1M.
Tuesday, June 2, 2020
Happy Birthday, Good Doctor.
. . .
These days of involuntary confinement have so many of us high-risers wishing that we had gone into greater debt to purchase that larger apartment. I realize that those of you out there who wait for public television broadcasts of "Great Performances from Lincoln Center" or see Metropolitan Opera on movie screens don't typically face the same space constraints. Chacun à son goût, as we often muttered on the playing fields of Brooklyn.
If you would like to come in from the cold, here is chart of the economics of living space in many New York neighborhoods. https://www.
Wednesday, June 3, 2020
Rest easy defenders of democracy, Steve King, the fascist congressional representative from Iowa lost his bid to return to Washington yesterday, only getting 28,977 votes in the Republican primary election. That was 36% of the vote. By comparison, the Nazis got 37.27% in the German federal election of 1932. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
So, we got room to spare.
. . .
For a moment, I would like to express a narrower concern. Would the crossword puzzle constructors allow Etta James (née Jamesetta Hawkins, 1938-2012) to rest in peace? In the last couple of weeks, she seems omnipresent. Just this morning, a moderately easy puzzle day: "James who sang 'At last, my love has come along.'" The spelling of her name is very useful, I know, but one might substitute "_____ Kett, retired comic strip character" or rework the puzzle slightly with "Precedes boy or girl" = ATTA or "Brutal farewell?" = ETTU.
. . .
You want a recipe? Here's a recipe that you won't have to go shopping for. Three ingredients! Great results.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/
Thursday, June 4, 2020
An article about Jeffrey Epstein's finances had this interesting tidbit: "JPMorgan was Mr. Epstein’s primary bank for more than a decade, but some bank officials became uneasy about doing business with him after his 2008 guilty plea to soliciting prostitution from a minor in Florida. JPMorgan cut ties with Mr. Epstein . . . in 2013." How decisive.
. . .
I found a comforting headline in these troubling times: "Boris Johnson Pledges to Admit 3 Million From Hong Kong to U.K." Just think of all the new restaurants in London.
June 5, 2020
If you have a choice, be healthy, wealthy and white. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/04/opinion/coronavirus-health-race-inequality.html?campaign_id=29&emc=edit_up_20200604&instance_id=19080&nl=the-upshot®i_id=599756&segment_id=30074&te=1&user_id=1353d3a345e55ff509b5cbb17ed36984
Today's New York Times print headline says "Twin Crises and Surging Anger Convulse U.S." Unfortunately, the same population is suffering most in both matters. While the immediate health crisis shows signs of diminishing, gratuitous police violence seems baked into society, evoking anarchic responses at times.
Yes, I know that policing is a hard job, with an inherent exposure to danger. But, recruitment, training and supervision of police officers should fully take that into account in furthering the mission of protecting the civilian population. We have more than anecdotal evidence that black and brown people are subject to prejudicial, reckless and/or lawless treatment in the name of law and order.
. . .
I learned from a book review that Philadelphia brought rationality to house numbering in an urban setting in the mid-19th Century. Odd numbers on one side of the street, even on the other. Each block's numbers increase by groups of 100, so that the relative location of a building is immediately apparent from its address. While we American urbanites now take that for granted, it is not a universal convention.
This is a map of present-day Berlin, reflecting two different numbering schemes in use, having nothing to do with the previously hostile division of the city.
The only inconvenience that we experienced on our trip to Berlin in 2017 was trying to find shops/restaurants on those red streets. In the absence of a grid system, buildings are numbered sequentially up one side of a red street until it ends and continue to be numbered incrementally down the other, effectively creating a horseshoe pattern. Blue streets are numbered in the familiar zig-zag pattern. Until we understood that, we often trotted back and forth, fruitlessly looking for disappearing buildings.
. . .
In the last couple of years, I have become a fan of Fordham University's Center for Jewish Studies and attended several of their programs. That's right, Fordham, the Jesuit university. Right now, attendance is virtual and last night I thus attended anthropology professor Ayala Fader's discussion of her new book "Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age," dealing with Haredi, ultra-Orthodox Jews, who sample the outside world through the Internet. Doing so represents more than just an exercise of curiosity, it's a sinful activity, a leap from faith.
Professor Fader, probably unrelated to Mr. Richard Feder of Ft. Lee, New Jersey, gathered her material through face-to-face encounters arranged by word of mouth, admittedly unable to take a macro, statistical view of the subject, since Haredi communities are tightly bound and suspicious of outsiders. Yet, according to her, there was a consistency in the stories she heard, almost entirely from men, because Haredi women are generally denied access to computers or smartphones. The phrases "in the closet," "off the derech" (path in Hebrew) and "double lives" were often repeated. You should listen to her at https://youtu.be/19xerx3ni1M.
Tuesday, June 2, 2020
Happy Birthday, Good Doctor.
. . .
These days of involuntary confinement have so many of us high-risers wishing that we had gone into greater debt to purchase that larger apartment. I realize that those of you out there who wait for public television broadcasts of "Great Performances from Lincoln Center" or see Metropolitan Opera on movie screens don't typically face the same space constraints. Chacun à son goût, as we often muttered on the playing fields of Brooklyn.
If you would like to come in from the cold, here is chart of the economics of living space in many New York neighborhoods. https://www.
Wednesday, June 3, 2020
Rest easy defenders of democracy, Steve King, the fascist congressional representative from Iowa lost his bid to return to Washington yesterday, only getting 28,977 votes in the Republican primary election. That was 36% of the vote. By comparison, the Nazis got 37.27% in the German federal election of 1932. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
So, we got room to spare.
. . .
For a moment, I would like to express a narrower concern. Would the crossword puzzle constructors allow Etta James (née Jamesetta Hawkins, 1938-2012) to rest in peace? In the last couple of weeks, she seems omnipresent. Just this morning, a moderately easy puzzle day: "James who sang 'At last, my love has come along.'" The spelling of her name is very useful, I know, but one might substitute "_____ Kett, retired comic strip character" or rework the puzzle slightly with "Precedes boy or girl" = ATTA or "Brutal farewell?" = ETTU.
. . .
You want a recipe? Here's a recipe that you won't have to go shopping for. Three ingredients! Great results.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/
Thursday, June 4, 2020
An article about Jeffrey Epstein's finances had this interesting tidbit: "JPMorgan was Mr. Epstein’s primary bank for more than a decade, but some bank officials became uneasy about doing business with him after his 2008 guilty plea to soliciting prostitution from a minor in Florida. JPMorgan cut ties with Mr. Epstein . . . in 2013." How decisive.
. . .
I found a comforting headline in these troubling times: "Boris Johnson Pledges to Admit 3 Million From Hong Kong to U.K." Just think of all the new restaurants in London.
June 5, 2020
If you have a choice, be healthy, wealthy and white. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/04/opinion/coronavirus-health-race-inequality.html?campaign_id=29&emc=edit_up_20200604&instance_id=19080&nl=the-upshot®i_id=599756&segment_id=30074&te=1&user_id=1353d3a345e55ff509b5cbb17ed36984
Bravo, especially entertaining column
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