Monday, July
6, 2020
Last week,
in my Zooming around, I spent time discussing This Red Land, a
novel by Arthur Dobrin, a man of impeccable pedigree, P.S. 159 Brooklyn,
Stuyvesant High School, CCNY. Arthur led the discussion about his
book that follows the lives of 3 disparate characters from mid-20th century
to recent times, ranging from urban America to rural Kenya.
Among the
many themes that Arthur presents for us to grapple with, one intersection of politics and culture
drew my special attention. The Kenyan school teacher is criticized
by her principal for using Gusii, the local tribal language, with her
students. At the time, teaching was mandated in English and Swahili, the
country's official languages. The boundaries of Kenya, as is the case
with many other countries throughout the world, resulted from colonial
occupation and imperialist expansion, encompassing a heterogeneous
population including traditional enemies.
My sympathies were instinctively
with the principal, although not portrayed as a man of principle, trying
to promote national identity in a society where ethnic divisions are a
prominent, although not exclusive, source of civil unrest.
When the British, the most dangerous
tribe, left, power shifted to the Kikuyu tribe, among other
things that I learned from Arthur, who has been involved with Kenya for
more than 50 years. The Kikuyu installed Swahili, a Bantu-based
language similar to their own, to marginalize the opposition Luo tribe,
whose language bore no relation to Swahili. So, while Stony Brook Steve
signs off his electronic messages E pluribus unum, many
Kenyans would not subscribe to this teaching.
. . .
While the issue of tribalism arises
in This Red Land in its literal sense, we encounter it
here relabelled as identity politics. It underlies this country's racist
history, but also enters intergroup relations in so many ways. Who you
are seems to be replaced by What you are and, indeed, it may not be
easy escaping the empirical building blocks of your identity.
This came to mind reading the
following paragraph about the new boss at the local public radio station.
"Reporters and producers sought a person of color, someone who deeply
understood New York and who had experience in public radio. So it was
with great consternation that the staff greeted the news, delivered on June 11,
when the rest of the world would hear it as well — and 45 minutes or so before
they met their new boss on Zoom — that the editor in chief of WNYC was going to
be a white woman who lived in California, grew up in Kansas and was not from
the world of audio."
She seems like a caricature of the
least qualified candidate, but should she be viewed primarily by What she is
rather than Who she is? Of course, throughout our history, minority
candidates for employment, housing, educational and financial opportunities
have been systematically disqualified simply by What they were. Overt
characteristics placed them outside the acceptable range for the entrenched
decision makers. In this case, What may have again overridden Who. While Martin Luther King, Jr. wanted to "look to a day
when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content
of their character," we're not there yet.
. . .
"Over a Century of Food and
Change in Chinatown" is a valuable article by the reliable Robert
Sietsema. https://www.eater.com/a/mofad-city-guides/chinatown-nyc-chinese-history
It contains some wonderful
photographs, going back to the 19th Century. I learned that "[t]he
term itself — 'China Town' — was first used by the New York Times in
1880 to describe an area defined by three streets that still form its heart:
Mott, Pell, and Doyers." Shortly thereafter, Congress passed the
Chinese Exclusion Act, which eliminated Chinese immigration almost entirely,
40,000 admitted in 1882, 10 in 1887. Fortunately, some chefs and
enterprising restaurateurs had already arrived.
Aunt Sophie, my mother's older
sister, recalled that a Chinese family lived across the hall from and
shared a bathroom with the Goldenbergs at 13 Essex Street in 1910, over
1/2 mile from the intersection of Mott Street and Pell Street, a
distance in the Holy Land those days that might as well have extended over
time zones.
Tuesday,
July 7, 2020
I was a bit
uneasy when I read the answer to a woman's question to an
advice columnist. "As for your husband, tell him there is a
bright red line between cranky and sociopathic."
. . .
Often, a temporary antidote to my
crankiness is enjoying the efforts of Stephen Sondheim. In case you
have not immersed yourself in his work as much as I have, here is an
overview of his brilliant creations, complete with sample tracks.
. . .
This paper carries the fairly mellow
title of "A Cognitive Approach to Fraud Detection." https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=920222
However, it proves pretty dense reading. I plowed through it, because it
reflects on the issue that I raised last week of how a Big 4 audit firm,
paying big bucks to its partners, can overlook the false reporting of $2.1
billion. The authors created software that detected fraudulent financial
statements about 85% of the time, while Big 4 auditors missed more than half
the examples.
Once upon a time, I worked for one
of the major firms (then 8, now 4) and I still have to admit some surprise at the
study and the actual case of the evaporating billions. The typical audit team on a big account is
headed by a partner, who specializes in choosing good restaurants, supported by
a phalanx of young accountants eager to show their attention to detail in order
to be promoted to restaurant-picker in the future. They are usually
equipped with software to run the numbers in parallel with the company's results.
So, how in Hell do you miss $2.1 billion?
The authors
of the study conclude that "knowledge bugs [imperfections that lead
to errors] emerge naturally, as auditors (over)generalize what they know about
non-fraud cases, which are relatively more frequent in their experience,
to fraud cases, which are more rare. The relatively low frequency of fraud
cases make these bugs hard to fix." So, we need more fraud to better
fight fraud?
Wednesday,
July 8, 2020
"Scrabble
Will Ban Racial and Ethnic Slurs From Tournaments and Game Rules"
There goes jew as a verb, 13 points before doubling or tripling anything.
. . .
Facebook is having a harder time
than Scrabble cleaning up its act. An independent review of its policies
and procedures conducted over two years found that "the company [needed]
to do more to advance equality and fight discrimination."
I may be petty, but I welcome
anything that makes Mark Zuckerberg squirm. However, the grownup me, in
turn, squirmed when I read this in the report: "The prioritization of free
expression over all other values, such as equality and nondiscrimination, is
deeply troubling." These three values can work against each other;
affirmative action is a form of discrimination, for instance. Maintaining
all three requires a very delicate balance, but a free society cannot sacrifice
one for another. Free expression is often the first requirement for a minority attempting to
assert its rights. If we
must prioritize, it deserves first place.
. . .
The tension between free expression
and nondiscrimination is well illustrated by "A Letter on Justice and Open
Debate," signed by a group of prominent artists and writers. https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/
It says that the "free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of
a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted” with the growth of “an
intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism and the
tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral
certainty.” While the signatories are all talented, the group otherwise
achieves diversity -- Noam Chomsky, Wynton Marsalis, Margaret Atwood, Bill
T. Jones. It originated with an African American, a columnist for Harper’s and
contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine.
As reported by the New York Times,
"the reaction was swift, with some heaping ridicule on the letter’s
signatories . . . for thin-skinnedness, privilege and, as one person put it,
fear of loss of 'relevance.'” In these stressful times, I think that nerve endings have replaced brain cells in too many instances. If we had not waited so long to recognize and address the grievances of marginalized groups in our society we might not be facing such an array of appeals for justice, many warranted, some frivolous. Let us remember
the plea of Rodney King, “People, I just want to say, can't we all get
along? Can't we all get along?”
. . .
Two groups that seem to be getting
along swell are the haves and our legislative branch. An examination of
the proceeds of the $660 billion forgivable loan program, intended to
assist smaller businesses, "showed money going to dozens of the
lobbying and law firms, political consulting shops and advocacy groups that
make up the political industrial complex." https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/us/politics/small-business-loans-lobbyists-political-consultants.html
So, tell your brother-in-law to move
out of your basement and relocate to K Street in Washington, D.C., "home
to many lobbying firms whose fees have increased during the pandemic as
businesses have paid handsomely for help navigating various government
assistance programs," without forgetting to feather their own nests.
Thursday,
July 9, 2020
1 Down - Travel tirelessly?
. . .
I have had the good fortune of knowing the Colony family, concentrated in the southwest corner of New Hampshire, for more than half a century. The seven children of John and Peg Colony have produced almost three times as many grandchildren and a number of great-grandchildren that escapes me.
It was dear Peg Colony who first escorted me to the annual open house of the MacDowell Colony, an artists' colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, otherwise closed to the public 364 days of the year. It has sheltered Leonard Bernstein, James Baldwin, Thornton Wilder, Mary McCarthy, Aaron Copland, Alice Walker, among others for over 100 years. So, I thought that it was ironic to read "MacDowell Colony Drops the Word
‘Colony,’ Citing ‘Oppressive Overtones’"
I understand that the large Colony clan family is considering the future of its surname.
Friday, July 10, 2020
Safe at home.
. . .
Answer - Sled
Go Mets! To order tickets, dial 1 for English...
ReplyDeleteWhat are the odds there really will be a baseball season? The combination of the virus wildfire in the South and the West, plus the daily player opt outs and positive tests does not auger well...
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