Monday, June 22, 2020
Even with the support of the fabled Robert Moses, grand scale development was stymied there, in the main. Instead, today, while European sedans do not whiz along Delancey Street unimpeded, Eurotrash stroll in and out of over-priced boutiques on Orchard Street.
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Now, here's my story. Over 25 years ago, I volunteered to spend time with new Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. It was an informal arrangement. I met weekly with several men individually for an hour or two. I showed them the sights as we walked around Manhattan. I explained how to cope with some things that might mystify them -- an ATM, street addresses (what works in Brooklyn does not work in Manhattan), approaching a cop (not dangerous for a white man, I instructed back then).
Wednesday, June 24,2020
Child-raising, along with airconditioning repair, New Zealand geography and Slovenian grammar, is a subject with which I am inexperienced and remain ill-informed. When I read the following, however, I instinctively feared the long-term outcome. "A Bronx couple, wanting to shield their one-year-old from the gender pressures exerted on young children, use gender-neutral pronouns and outfits for their baby."
The next session of "Seinfeld and the Law" will be Tuesday, June 30th at 7 P.M. If you wish to join on Zoom, the meeting ID is 844 7104 7726 and the password is cardozo.
I won't hesitate to admit that I am low on the scale of patience and empathy. I understand that those qualities are desirable in attempting to make a better world, but I may just be a bystander in the effort. Even when I consider trying to do the right thing, I encounter the following (all from today's paper):
- “If it is God’s will that I get coronavirus that is the will of the Almighty. I will not live in fear,” said Robert Montanelli, a resident of Broken Arrow, a Tulsa suburb.
- “It’s all fake,” said Mike Alcorn, 40, who works in maintenance and lives in Wichita, Kansas “They’re just making the numbers up. I haven’t seen anybody die, not from coronavirus. I don’t even know anybody who’s got it.”
- Jeff Eskew, a 52-year-old from Oklahoma City, dismissed the virus. “I’ve been watching this closely over the last four months or so, and the numbers just don’t add up to me.”
- Donald Fanning, of Wichita, Kansas, wearing an American-flag T-shirt, with American-flag suspenders, hitched to American-flag swimming trunks, when asked about the existence of racism, replied, “Get rid of Jesse Jackson and Sharpton and you’ll get rid of racism.”
- Trina Moore, 61, drove 10 hours from Denver to Tulsa to attend the rally. Her children are essential workers on the front lines of the pandemic, yet she said, “I just don’t believe in the virus thing."
Therefore, I will cease and desist from reaching out to, commiserating with, recognizing the good in, or seeking common ground with these folks. I do not choose to walk a mile in their hobnailed boots.
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While LOMEX has a nice ring to it, I never knew the term until recently. The Lower Manhattan Expressway was conceived in 1929, connecting Brooklyn and New Jersey by running a highway between the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges and the Holland Tunnel. It would have leveled much of the decrepit housing along the way that sheltered our grandparents early in the 20th Century, replacing it with high-rise residential buildings, according to the master plan. https://www.tenement.org/blog/
Even with the support of the fabled Robert Moses, grand scale development was stymied there, in the main. Instead, today, while European sedans do not whiz along Delancey Street unimpeded, Eurotrash stroll in and out of over-priced boutiques on Orchard Street.
. . .
College professor gets suspended after he asks student of Vietnamese background, named Phuc Bui Diem Nguyen, to “Anglicize” her name because it “sounds like an insult in English.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/
Now, here's my story. Over 25 years ago, I volunteered to spend time with new Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. It was an informal arrangement. I met weekly with several men individually for an hour or two. I showed them the sights as we walked around Manhattan. I explained how to cope with some things that might mystify them -- an ATM, street addresses (what works in Brooklyn does not work in Manhattan), approaching a cop (not dangerous for a white man, I instructed back then).
One young man and his family had a surname that, when read with a New York accent, "sounds like an insult in English.” I urged him to change the spelling slightly to tilt the pronunciation into more benign territory. He did and that was that.
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
Just as Covid-19 has proved fatal to some seriously ill people, it has given the final push to some companies already on the brink of disaster. Recent major bankruptcies include J. C. Penney, Neiman-Marcus, J. Crew, Gold's Gym, and Hertz Car Rental. In case you fear that this indicates severe economic dysfunction, rest easy. The American way of doing business rolls on. Witness this headline: "These Companies Gave Their C.E.O.s Millions, Just Before Bankruptcy." J.C. Penney and Hertz, among others, "are managing to find millions of dollars to pay bonuses to their bosses," the same guys that drove them into the ground.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/
Just as Covid-19 has proved fatal to some seriously ill people, it has given the final push to some companies already on the brink of disaster. Recent major bankruptcies include J. C. Penney, Neiman-Marcus, J. Crew, Gold's Gym, and Hertz Car Rental. In case you fear that this indicates severe economic dysfunction, rest easy. The American way of doing business rolls on. Witness this headline: "These Companies Gave Their C.E.O.s Millions, Just Before Bankruptcy." J.C. Penney and Hertz, among others, "are managing to find millions of dollars to pay bonuses to their bosses," the same guys that drove them into the ground.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/
The rationale for this behavior is wonderful. "Companies have said the payments are meant to help them retain qualified executives through the recession and bankruptcy." At a time when millions of people at all levels of competence are unemployed, these companies insist on holding onto those executives who failed them mightily. Heaven forbid they get away and go to a competitor.
Wednesday, June 24,2020
Child-raising, along with airconditioning repair, New Zealand geography and Slovenian grammar, is a subject with which I am inexperienced and remain ill-informed. When I read the following, however, I instinctively feared the long-term outcome. "A Bronx couple, wanting to shield their one-year-old from the gender pressures exerted on young children, use gender-neutral pronouns and outfits for their baby."
I am not even sure that I want to be proven wrong.
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We took another vacation today. In the company of Arthur and Lyn Dobrin, humane humanists, we visited Old Westbury Gardens, the former estate of businessman John Shaffer Phipps, born into the right family and married into an even better one. It is a bucolic spread of 200 acres that offered ample shade on this hot summer day. I had some reluctance hastening back to retirement.
Friday, June 26, 2020
Is it Black or black? The debate continues. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/black-african-american-style-debate.html
Is it Black or black? The debate continues. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/black-african-american-style-debate.html
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The next session of "Seinfeld and the Law" will be Tuesday, June 30th at 7 P.M. If you wish to join on Zoom, the meeting ID is 844 7104 7726 and the password is cardozo.
. . .
In spite of the giddy ignorance of some of our political leaders, the scourge of Covid-19 continues and even grows in much of our country and the world at large. The eventual loss of lives and livelihoods will take years to measure. However, the pain is widely felt already and will reach far into the future. Not all of our losses are so life-changing, but are disruptive nevertheless.
Costco has discontinued sale of their sheet cakes, offered in two standard motifs, "white, filled with two pounds of vanilla cheesecake mousse [!] and topped
with white buttercream frosting; and chocolate, filled with two pounds of chocolate mousse [!] and iced with chocolate buttercream."
These beauties, roughly 12" x 18", fed a lot of people and were remarkably inexpensive. Costco's explanation for ending the product is feeble. It wants to "help limit personal contact and create more space for social distancing." In stores or at birthday parties?
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Oh, Grandpa Alan, don't be so negative about your fellow citizens, your fellow human beings, your fellow passengers on Spaceship Earth.
https://twitter.com/i/status/
. . .
Oh, Grandpa Alan, don't be so negative about your fellow citizens, your fellow human beings, your fellow passengers on Spaceship Earth.
https://twitter.com/i/status/
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