Monday, July 13, 2020
Two years ago, at the end of our trip to East Africa, I wrote: "Americans abroad were once likely to say, 'Do you speak English?' Now, inevitably, it is 'What is your wi-fi password?'" Well, since we have been grounded, travel has become mostly virtual, over Zoom. These days, conversations likely begin, "Can you hear me?"
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Haven't been disgusted lately? The headline reads: "The Students Are Victims of Fraud, but the Government Won’t Help." An oversight, a misplaced comma, momentary inattention that left students of educational institutions found to be fraudulent burdened with debt that went unrelieved? Nuh, uh. "[Secretary of Education] DeVos has long opposed the relief program, called Borrower Defense to Repayment, which allows students to have their federal student loan debts eliminated if their schools acted fraudulently."
Public servant DeVos hasn't just expressed disapproval of letting bilked students off the hook, "[h]er department processed no claims for more than a year. A judge found that it had illegally delayed rules that were written under the last administration to simplify and speed up claims. Another judge found the department had broken a federal privacy law by obtaining borrowers’ income information as it tried to justify forgiving less of their debt. . . . And in October, a federal judge held her in contempt for improperly billing 45,000 former Corinthian students[, of a bankrupt for-profit college operation,] after being ordered to stop collecting on their debts."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/
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I feel obliged to offer a bit of sunshine after the last item and I have it. Pastrami Queen is opening another branch at 138 West 72nd Street, a space formerly occupied by Fine & Schapiro, a Kosher delicatessen that had been in business for over 90 years. F&S was reliable, not distinguished, but good to have around. The Pastrami Queen location on Lexington Avenue, on the other hand, has hit some unparalleled highs, with an occasional low.
The new spot, PQ72, while not particularly large, is still several times larger than the original, which does a significant takeout and delivery business. I want to sit down and eat my pastrami/corned beef combo, not schlep it home. As soon as PQ72 allows in-house dining, I'll invite Stony Brook Steve and Gentleman Jerry, carbohydrate comrades in close proximity, to accompany me for lunch and report back to you.
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William Spiro, devoted New York Rangers fan and the second person bearing that exact name that I know, informs me of additional heartwarming news -- Wo Hop, 17 Mott Street, the Queen of Chinatown Chinese food, reopens today for takeout and delivery. Getting food home from there is unworkable, but there is a big park one short block away, with lots of benches. Of course, first getting to Chinatown in a reasonably safe manner is still a challenge. Usually, to solve such a problem, I need to start with a good meal, thereby presenting a conundrum.
Tuesday, July 14, 2020
A rock star described his health as follows: "I’m not so unconvinced I didn’t have the corona.” How sick is he?
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Here is another selection from the newspaper that is, by contrast, crystal clear. "Deutsche Bank is a symbol of corporate recidivism: It has paid more than $9 billion in fines since 2008 related to a litany of alleged and admitted financial crimes and other transgressions, including manipulating interest rates, failing to prevent money laundering, evading sanctions on Iran and other countries and engaging in fraud in the run-up to the financial crisis."
I'm very impressed that Deutsche Bank is so well-managed that it had $9 billion lying around to pay the fines. It seems like such a reach for an ordinary business.
Wednesday, July 15, 2020
Unfortunately, Apple does not have tech support lying around as abundantly as Deutsche Bank has petty cash. I went over to the nearby Apple store today for help with a password problem on our Mac Air laptop. Several employees were on the sidewalk registering the supplicants, because service was by appointment. No problem, Mr. G., we have a slot for you. Come back on Tuesday, 144 hours from now.
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"ViacomCBS Fires Nick Cannon, Citing Anti-Semitic Podcast Remarks" https://www.nytimes.com/2020/
Although I don't know this guy, my knowledge of contemporary pop culture figures being admittedly weak, he is one of several African-American entertainment and sports celebrities lately spreading anti-Semitic tropes. Along with the kids fighting the cops on the Brooklyn Bridge, these folks seem to enhance Trump's reelection prospects far better than any of his own campaign efforts.
Thursday, July 16, 2020
Here is another example of the revolution eating its children. "To Make Orchestras More Diverse, End Blind Auditions." https://www.nytimes.com/2020/
Blind auditions, applicants for orchestral positions performing behind a screen, were introduced in the 1970s to combat the near-universal male whiteness of American classical orchestras. It worked for women, at least. "Today, women make up a third of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and they are half the New York Philharmonic." However, "[i]n a 2014 study, only 1.8 percent of the players in top ensembles were Black; just 2.5 percent were Latino." Asians, normally excluded from "people of color," are faring much better. In a 2016 study, 8.8% to 9.3% of orchestra members were Asian, based on the size of the orchestra. http://www.ppv.issuelab.org/
This seems to be Stuyvesant High School all over again.
Friday, July 17, 2020
Tutti-frutti alert -- Sunday is National Ice Cream. Celebrate early and often.
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Are the zoos open in Nebraska? https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/states-reopen-map-coronavirus.html?campaign_id=154&emc=edit_cb_20200717&instance_id=20421&nl=coronavirus-briefing®i_id=599756&segment_id=33709&te=1&user_id=1353d3a345e55ff509b5cbb17ed36984
And a ton of other fascinating, if not always useful, information on conditions around the country under the coronavirus.
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You see, there's this Israeli Arab woman who owns a very successful food business manufacturing tahini, a staple of Arab and Israeli cuisine. She operates two big plants near Nazareth in the Occupied Territories. A charitable sort, she made a donation to Aguda, an Israeli L.G.B.T. rights organization, to help set up a hotline for Arabic-speaking Israelis. Well, she found the limits of intersectionality, a buzz word deployed to measure the purity and range of one's devotion to social justice.
Some of her Arab brethren were displeased with her choice. https://www.facebook.com/shada.khalaily.5/posts/3104208219657123 السحاقيات وثالثهم
كلبهم الزنديق ايمن عوده وعائلتهم الذين يؤيدون ويمارسون ا والسحاق
وامثالهم والكلاب التي تعوي ورائهم وكل الشواذ الحاقدين الملعونين وكل من
يدعمهم ويؤيد هذا For instance, this sentence fragment refers to "human scum . . . barrel of garbage . . . pork
lesbians and . . . their dog heretic." No one's perfect.
If donating to an Israeli L.G.B.T. rights organization, to help set up a hotline for Arabic-speaking Israelis, may be considered a bit aggressive, regard the matter of the young Egyptian woman who had "been arrested, tortured and hounded into exile. Her transgression? She raised the rainbow flag — unabashedly and joyously — at a concert in Cairo."
Is it too much to ask that dignity be extended to Muslims not only by Israeli Jews, but by other Muslims as well?
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OK, let's lighten up with a contribution from Paul Hecht, Thespian Emeritus.
Stony Brook Steve corrects my geography. Nazareth is in Israel proper, roughly between Haifa and the Sea of Galilee.
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