Why I
don’t trust the student protesters.
In the
United States, news of the Hamas attack on Israel arrived in the afternoon of
October 7th or later. Generally, the current crop of student protesters were
silent or, in a few cases, elated. Calls for ceasefire only began once Israel
responded, even before the disproportionate scale of its response became
apparent. Gazans were the third victims chronologically of this tragedy after
Israelis dead and Israelis kidnapped, but most protesters were only aroused by
their plight. Cf. https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1654384
Saturday,
May 4, 2024
If you
spend any time on the Internet, you are besieged by unwanted ads. Sometimes
they assume an authoritative guise, but when did the television show “Shark
Tank” become the clearinghouse for medical breakthroughs?
Sunday,
May 5, 2024
My
sympathy is with the parents of teenagers. "The so-called Ivy-Plus
schools — the eight members of the Ivy League plus M.I.T., Duke, Chicago and
Stanford — collectively received about 175,000 applications in 2002. In 2022,
the most recent year for which totals are available, they got more than
590,000, with only a few thousand more available spots." https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/opinion/college-admissions-applications.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=highlightShare
. . .
The
telephone rang just before 9 o’clock last night. The screen said No Caller ID,
so I cut the call off. When the telephone rang again a minute later, a familiar
name appeared. It was Billy Spiro, another of my hockey ticket benefactors, a
must answer. “Two extra tickets to the playoff game on Sunday. Interested?”
Sam
Fuchs, Stuyvesant High School graduate and US Navy veteran, met me in front of
Macy’s before the game at Madison Square Garden. In spite of the generations
separating us, our enthusiasm was about equal. We were rewarded by a 4-3
victory in an electrically charged atmosphere. We also got a pretty good
T-shirt.
After
the game, we walked down the street to Rowdy Rooster, 130 West 32nd Street,
advertising Indian fried chicken. It occupies a small space, holding four tiny,
round two-tops, four stools and a bench against the wall. I ordered the
Signature Fried Chicken Rice Bowl, very crispy chicken strips, basmati rice,
peas, carrots, onion, broccoli, cucumbers and tomatoes, moderately spiced
($16), a tasty end to a happy evening.
Tuesday,
May 7, 2024
It seems
that I wasn’t the only one who wanted to get home in time for the start of the
Rangers playoff game. Sala Thai, 307 Amsterdam Avenue, was full at 6 o’clock. I
had ample time to eat chicken satay, four thin slabs of grilled white meat
chicken, a bit dry, but accompanied by a delicious peanut sauce ($14). Then, I
dug into Yum Ped, described as crispy duck salad although the duck was roasted
not fried ($18). Additionally, the salad had pineapple, cashews, cherry
tomatoes, red onion and greens in a sweet and tangy dressing. We were home by
seven for a game that ended at 11:15. Rangers won, of course.
Wednesday,
May 8, 2024
“RFK Jr.
says worm ‘got into my brain and ate a portion of it’” https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/08/politics/rfk-jr-mercury-poisoning-brain-parasite?cid=ios_app
Representative
Marjorie Taylor Greene says that she has nothing to worry about.
. . .
The Boyz
Club gathered at 456 Shanghai Cuisine, 69 Mott Street, on a very warm day. This
is a successor to a restaurant on Chatham Square a couple of decades ago.
Almost empty when we walked in at 12:20, people were waiting on the sidewalk to
get in one hour later. The six of us ate beef wrapped in scallion
pancakes, “Wontons in spicy flavor,” beef with scallions, spicy orange chicken
and shrimp fried rice. The $18 cost per person belied the high quality of
the food. Nothing disappointed, everything pleased.
Thursday,
May 9, 2024
Kossar’s
Bagels & Bialys, 367 Grand Street, started in 1936, properly known as Kossar’s
Bialystoker Kuchen Bakery for Bialystok, Poland where bialys were born.
Everyone knows what a bialy is, right? Okay.
Well, Kossar’s
opened its third branch at 250 West 72nd Street today and Jeffrey Heller and I
were among the first customers, customers for lunch, that is, because it opens
its doors at 6 AM if you really want hot stuff. Jeffrey, as you should know, is
a devoted advocate for immigrants, vocationally and avocationally. He has just
paused his latest long distance bike ride for human rights for needed bicycle
repairs.
By the
way, immigrant Bialystokers formed a congregation on the Lower East Side in
1865, later established formally as a synagogue. A pogrom in Bialystok added to
its membership and it purchased a former church in 1905, located on what is now
7-13 Bialystoker Place, where it still operates. http://www.bialystoker.org/
Also,
when we moved to Queens in the 1950s, there was a commercial bakery, now long
gone, on Jamaica Avenue around 102nd Street that sold bialys and pizza dough,
essentially the same thing.
About
a dozen people were in line ahead of us to get in and they kept coming after
us. In fact, the crowd attracted Congressman Jerry Nadler out for a stroll,
giving Jeffrey the opportunity to buttonhole him on a couple of issues.
One bialy costs $1.75 and one bagel $1.90. For no good reason, you can get bagels
in a baker’s dozen, but bialys only by the dozen. I ate whitefish salad on an
onion bialy (garlic also available) with tomato ($15.75). The whitefish salad
was very good, not extended with celery or onions, but too much mayonnaise. It
was not better than the version at Zucker’s Bagels & Smoked Fish, 273
Columbus Avenue, which is a couple of bucks cheaper. Along with my lunch, I bought two
beautiful poppyseed bagels to take home.
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