Monday, October 12, 2020
With the weather remaining mild in the Holy Land, madam and I decided to have dinner out Sunday evening, really out, on the sidewalk outside Spice, 435 Amsterdam Avenue, one of a half dozen Thai restaurants in this local chain. Amsterdam Avenue, north of 72nd Street, is particularly well populated with canopies and umbrella tables put out by restaurants trying to retain some trade under the restricted circumstances we face. In fact, while indoor dining is now allowed locally, most customers chose to stay outdoors, as far as I could see up and down the avenue.
We enjoyed our meal; I started with Roti & Massaman ($8), an Indian pancake with buttery curry dipping sauce (a/k/a roti canai), a staple of Malaysian restaurants. Since I have chosen to stay away from Chinatown for the time being, it's unfair to mention that Wok Wok, 11 Mott Street, my favorite Malaysian restaurant, includes a small piece of chicken and a small piece of potato in its roti canai for half the price, so I won't mention it. I continued with Drunk Man Noodles ($14), a generous portion of the Thai version of beef chow fun, with yellow onions, scallions, red pepper, green pepper, bamboo shoots, egg. My lovely companion had Pad Thai ($14), with vegetables.
On our stroll before sitting down to eat, I saw only one heat lamp in place among the dozens of tables outside along Amsterdam Avenue, an unpromising condition as Autumn arrives and many of us hesitant to move indoors.
. . .
The headline reads: "Millennials Face a Steep Climb to Homeownership." https://nyti.ms/34zE9qp Comparing typical starting salaries to typical home prices by location, this report finds youngish adults in the seven largest California cities plus New York, Seattle and Arlington, Virginia are likely to continue sleeping in their parents' basement for years to come.
. . .
In case you are worried about how the Internal Revenue Service will make up for the shortfall caused by billionaires paying little or no income taxes, be assured that it remains vigilant. "The five counties with the highest audit rates are all predominantly African American, rural counties in the Deep South. The audit rate is also very high in South Texas’ largely Hispanic counties and in counties with Native American reservations, such as in South Dakota."
https://projects.propublica.
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
What were you worried about in 1974? Finishing your dissertation? Getting a date for Saturday night? Whether the Beatles would ever get back together? Were there any more chocolate-covered graham crackers left for your after-school snack? Well, some folks had their eye on the ball. Charles Koch, then as now, one of the richest people in the world, identified the enemies of humankind as "confiscatory taxation, wage and price controls, commodity allocations programs, trade barriers, restrictions on foreign investments, so-called equal opportunity requirements, safety and health regulations, land use controls, licensing laws, outright government ownership of businesses and industries."
(see page 3 of this photocopy).
. . .
I happen to be left-handed, but I
was not looking for an excuse the other night when I mentioned to the estimable
Connie Goldfarb that left-handed people suffer a higher incidence of
schizophrenia. I subsequently found support in this scholarly paper.
https://docs.google.com/
It concluded that the "prevalence of left-handedness was 11% for
mood disorders, which is similar to the rate in the general population. It was
40% in those with psychotic disorders." Connie came back with "Shedding
Light on the Riddle of Lefties and Righties." https://www.wsj.com/articles/
This article does not address nutsiness and craziness among us (physical) lefties, but tries unsuccessfully to reach the origins of the condition. However, it made me reflect on my own situation. I consider myself irredeemably left-handed. Putting a fork or a pen in my right hand endangers anyone within an arm's length as I spastically struggle to use it properly. But, hark. In my semi-athletic boyhood, I always threw a ball and swung a bat rightie. I was not ambidextrous, I was just weird.
When, in 1984, I went to a tennis camp in Florida for one week as a beginner, I spent the entire first day moving the racket back and forth between hands, trying to find my "natural" position. For those of you skeptical about any display of my athletic prowess, regarding me as entirely committed to the life of the mind, allow me to go back even farther to 1963, when I was the quarterback of the Cornell University Government-History Department combined intramural football team.
I won't repeat the roster of academic superstars catching my passes, blocking for me, taking my handoffs, with the exception of Donald Kagan, eminent historian of ancient Greece, notable for his four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War, who later moved to Yale and served as University Provost there. At the end of that afternoon in Ithaca, he pronounced that I had "a million dollar arm and a ten cent head." Considering the disproportionality, I was pleased.
Wednesday, October 14, 2020
I'm not big on paranoia, if only because I find it hard to tolerate paranoids. Just like drug addicts, they don't leave much room for variety in their lives. However, as I consider this presidential election, I notice moments when paranoia seems appropriate.
Trump's campaign seems designed not to win the election. Very few efforts are being made to add to his slim 2016 Electoral College margin. He seems dogged at preserving the loyalty of his base without extending his appeal to other constituencies. This might have worked if 215,000 Americans had not died of Covid-19, particularly lethal among the elderly, his strongest supporters in the past. "Anxious About the Virus, Older Voters Grow More Wary of Trump" https://nyti.ms/2WgYk9J
With evidence of energized youth and minority voters opposing him, circling the wagons does not seem to be a winning strategy for Trump. But, maybe that's the point and that's where the whiff of paranoia arises. Without the potent pockets of antagonism towards Hillary Clinton aiding him, a Trump victory over Biden seems unlikely, whether in the popular vote or the Electoral College. But, if I know it, he knows it. That might explain the constant prattle about election fraud, echoed by the ethically hollow Attorney General.
As he focuses more and more on his base, Trump has primed them to discount and discard the results of the election. "Tim Murtaugh, a Trump campaign spokesman, said Mr. Trump would 'accept the results of an election that is free, fair and without fraud.'" https://nyti.ms/3lIxXmV In other words, only a win. Remember, he insisted and still insists that 2016 was rigged, in spite of the result. His 2020 defeat will be accompanied by longer, louder, meaner and unrelenting opposition to the results. And, I believe that it is reasonable, not paranoia, to fear the reaction among the disgruntled, unwilling to accept "radical socialism and the destruction of the American dream," as threatened by the White House and the Murdoch media.
"With polls showing the president behind Mr. Biden nationally and in key states, Mr. Trump has descended into rants about perceived enemies, both inside and outside his administration, triggering in his staunchest supporters such fears for the outcome — possibly a 'stolen' election, maybe a coup by the far left — that he is emboldening them to disrupt the voting process, according to national security experts and law enforcement officials." https://nyti.ms/31bSgBA
Here's the funny part, Them claim to fear Us. "In a video posted to Facebook on Sept. 14, Dan Bongino, a popular right-wing commentator and radio host, declared that Democrats were planning a coup against President Trump on Election Day." https://nyti.ms/3lIxXmV
I can see it now, a phalanx of Prii
(the plural of Prius according to Toyota, the manufacturer https://www.auto123.com/en/
Thursday, October 15, 2020
The White House Flu forced the postponement of the July session of the Illinois state bar examination until October and reformatted it as an online, at-home test. To prevent cheating, students must remain in view of a monitoring camera during each of the four 90-minute exam sections.
So, Brianna Hill, recently graduated from law school, sat down on October 5th, two weeks before she was due to have a baby, for day one of the two-day exam. Midway through the first of the day's 90-minute sections, her water broke. Nevertheless, she persisted, completing that day's component, going to the hospital, delivering her baby that night, and finishing the second day's two sections from her hospital room.
They shouldn't bother to even mark the exam. Hail Attorney Hill. https://nyti.ms/3iTu2lE
. . .
Need a dose of hypocrisy? "If Amy Coney Barrett Were Muslim." https://nyti.ms/371W63Y
Friday, October 16, 2020
Pleased with the way the week began on Sunday with an al fresco dinner, my young bride and I chose to venture into the great outdoors again. Last night, we trekked overland to West 72nd Street to Miznon North, the Israeli/Mediterranean restaurant that I patronized regularly before the plague. However, this was my first visit since February 25th.We were appropriately cautious, sitting at one of the 15 tables on the sidewalk and at the curb, while only one group ate inside the restaurant. Not only did we feel relatively safe under the circumstances, but I hit the jackpot. "Queen Malka Schnitzel" ($30) was on the menu, a dish that I love in spite of its redundant name. This, as you fellow gourmands no doubt recall, is a flattened chicken breast breaded and deep fried, but first folded over creamy mashed potatoes. It is served on a wooden cutting board, with schmears of mustard and mayonnaise (or was it tahini?) and a potsch of chrein. If you are stymied by the proper pronunciation of chrein, cooked beets and grated horseradish, you should know that Jewish boys are told the secret on the night before their Bar Mitzvah
I wouldn't be surprised if this schnitzel was served to the negotiators from the Gulf Arab states when they recently worked on the diplomatic rapprochement with Israel.
Madam had a roasted branzino, European bass, cooked with white wine and olive oil, bony but delicious, she reports ($37). We enjoyed the simplest of appetizers, a hunk of crusty sourdough bread with spiced crème fraîche, not overpriced at $6 given the pleasure that it delivered.
Since today is cold and nasty (Trumpesque), we were fortunate to have gone out on our date last night when it was mild and pleasant (Bidenesque). Let's hope that we are seeing the last of the stormy days.
Wonderful column this time, especially the contrasting weather analogies.
ReplyDeleterefreshing as usual
ReplyDeleteI was working on my dissertation in 1974.
ReplyDeleteI throw right-handed, and kick left-handed. My mid-section, not surprisingly, is fully ambidextrous.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant blog as ever, sir!
ReplyDeleteIn 1974, I was a budding sophomore biologist , conducting experiments on the use of gibberellic acid plant hormone on Cannabis Sativa- with a closet of 12 3'high plants.
Result: doubling the recommended amount stunted all growth and resulted in discarding my entire would-be sophomore scholarship fund agricultural augmentation... No Charles Koch billionaire botanist here...