Minority Report

Saturday, November 9, 2024 

Now that the dust is settling, we can begin to make sense of the presidential election. I believe that it was not an endorsement of Donald Trump so much as a rejection of the Democratic ticket. The University of Florida Election Lab estimates that as of Friday turnout in 2024 will be about 62.3% of the voting-eligible population, down from the record high in the modern era of more than 66.4% in 2020. In 2020, Joe Biden won about 81 million votes to Trump’s 74 million. It is estimated that Trump added 5 million votes, while Harris lost 5 million votes from 2020.

It could be worse. If you are one of those glass-one-quarter-full people, this election overall provided advances for women, Blacks, Jews, Latinos and LBGTQs. 

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/05/politics/history-election-firsts-dg/index.html?cid=ios_app

On the other hand, Ted Cruz won election to the Senate for the third time, proving that God is dead.

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On the night of November 9, 1938, violent Nazi mobs viciously attacked the Jews and Jewish communities of Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. Leaving behind shattered glass and shattered lives, the event came to be called Kristallnacht, “The Night of Broken Glass.”

Sunday, November 10, 2024

Yesterday was the anniversary of Kristallnacht. Some Americans found an appropriate way to commemorate it. “A group of people carrying Nazi flags demonstrated outside a community theater performance of ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ in Livingston County, Michigan, in a display of antisemitism.”

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/12/us/michigan-nazi-flags-anne-frank-theater?cid=ios_app

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This study used data on minimum wages and typical fair-market one-bedroom rents in the 50 largest U.S. housing markets and found that nowhere was rent for a single person earning minimum wage at or below 30 percent of income, the standard of affordability. https://listwithclever.com/research/rent-to-income-ratio-2024/

Buffalo, St. Louis and Hartford are the most affordable cities by this measure, although far from affordable. The Holy Land is tied at 30th place with 84% of the local minimum wage income needed to rent the typical one-bedroom apartment. Nine cities, seven in the Sun Belt, top 100%, an absurdity.

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Jerry Latter’s father’s father and my father’s mother were brother and sister, born in Zuromin, Poland in the 1870s. That qualifies us for membership in the Chevra Bikur Cholim Anshei Zuromin, the Zuromin Society, now 121 years old. We attended its annual meeting today at Noah’s Ark, 493 Cedar Lane, Teaneck, New Jersey, a very Kosher delicatessen. It was a gathering of about two dozen descendants of Polish Jewish refugees (now viewed as the good refugees) who fled pogroms, privation and Nazi terror over decades. Of course, entry to the Home of the Brave was often difficult to near-impossible back then, something that the general public ignores when fulminating against the current generation of “illegals.” 

Lunch was provided. A good salad, coleslaw, nice pickles, excellent French fries, seltzer, Coke and Diet Coke were on the table. I had watery chicken noodle soup with a good matzoh ball and a respectable corned beef sandwich. Tea and cookies followed.

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You might not be satisfied with the results of this election, but the cryptocurrency industry apparently is. It spent more than $130 million on campaigns, resulting in 250 House members favorable, 120 unfavorable, 18 Senators pro, 12 con. https://testing.standwithcrypto.org/races

Might my Monopoly money eventually prove valuable?

Monday, November 11, 2024

Today is Veterans Day, originally Armistice Day since WWI. I just encountered a sad statistic. There are still 72,000 American military service members unaccounted for from WWII, lesser numbers from other conflicts. https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaOurMissing

Many, many families must be carrying the pain even to this day.

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“Oh, Mary!” is a bawdy farce on Broadway. Its mockery of Abraham Lincoln’s household provided a lift for deflated spirits. Tonight, the role of Mary Todd Lincoln, the center of the production, was played by Hannah Solow, the understudy, a graduate of NYU’s theater program. It was her debut and we got a kick sitting in a section loaded with her classmates, a boisterously enthusiastic crowd.

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Before the show, we had dinner at Utsav Indian Restaurant, 1185 Avenue of the Americas, the quaint appellation of Sixth Avenue unused by natives. It actually sits on West 46th Street, with a bar at ground level and the restaurant one flight up. Except for the background Bollywood music and two stencils on the wall, the very large dining room with a modern beige and brown decor could come from any upscale hotel, while an anteroom with the reservation desk and restrooms has attractive South Asian touches. 

The menu is in three sections — a conventional Indian part, a more focused Bengali part and a Chinese part. Trying to keep our meal simple, we ordered Indian. We started with Tandoori Aloo, baked baby potatoes, bell peppers, and onions marinated in yogurt and spices ($14), emphasis on the spices. We lowered the heat on the main courses. I had lamb saag, 10 or more chunks of fresh lamb cooked in puréed spinach ($27), while my one and only companion had saag paneer, cottage cheese cubes in puréed spinach ($22). With naan and rice, we were filled. Not a bargain, but good food, very convenient for the theater district.

Tuesday, November 12,2024

Bret Stephens, a center-right columnist for the New York Times, writes today: “We got through one Trump administration. We’ll get through another. What happened last week wasn’t the end of democracy. It was its reaffirmation.” I’m not so sanguine. Putting aside my personal disappointment at seeing a good person lose to a bad person, I think of others who might not merely “get through.” What about Volodymyr Zelenskyy and many other Ukrainians who would like to remain alive and self-governing? What about Israelis and Palestinians who yearn to stop killing each other? What about countless Syrians, Venezuelans and Uighurs who seek to flee daily violence and oppression? What will the next four years hold for them? While it is not literally my problem, what do I think has really been reaffirmed?

Wednesday, November 13, 2024

Another day, another doctor. Dr. M is a real brain surgeon who should have fun with the potpourri above my shoulders.

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We’ll get by? Sure, with Matt Gaetz as AG, along with other cartoon characters in important governmental positions.

Thursday, November 14, 2024

Gentleman Jerry and I had lunch at Pho Shop, 141 West 72nd Street, a casual Vietnamese restaurant that survived Covid with takeout and delivery business. Now, it was busy, all the dozen tables occupied.

We growled about the election, inevitably. Jerry had ideas, I merely had confusion. “How could they? Him? Them?” No confusion about the food, very straightforward Vietnamese. I had Cơm, a big bowl of rice covered with sliced grilled beef and a fried egg ($15).  Recommended.

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Tonight, I went to a book club at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, 30 West 68th Street, once free, now dues of a  couple thousand dollars. The subject was "Jews Don't Count” by David Baddiel, a Jewish British comedian. Written before October 7th, Baddiel maintains that Jews are dismissed as a minority as too white, too successful, too European, even while experiencing persistent anti-Semitism. 

Many of the 15 or so discussants expressed fear about the current level of anti-Semitism in the United States, but, in response to my question, no one had put their co-op apartment up for sale.

Friday, November 15, 2024

I am still recovering from finding myself in a non-ethnic minority, Harris voters. So, I have mixed feelings about landing in a large group of Americans, overweight adults, with very few barriers to entry. 

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01548-4/fulltext

As of 2021, 172 million adults 25 or older and 36.5 million younger people were obese or overweight. Sadly, this is a group that I may never be able to quit.

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On the other hand, a group that I don’t qualify for is high-level Trump appointees, e.g., Gaetz, Hegseth and Kennedy, because I have never been accused of sexual assault.

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That's it. No more election talk. What I have learned after reading dozens of opinion pieces by a variety of sages is that no one has the answer. Too much of this, too little of that. Shouldn't have moved left, shouldn't have moved right. Every flaw in Kamala's campaign, no matter how trivial, was highlighted, while Mr. Tangerine cursed, lied, insulted, contradicted, was convicted -- it was just Trump being Trump.

One of my favorites was very experienced political reporter Adam Nagourney writing that, at first, he thought that the short campaign "would be a good thing" for Harris, but "it looks like the short campaign was one of the key factors behind her decisive loss."

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/07/us/politics/biden-harris-campaign.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

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MP Taverna was a favorite of ours in Astoria. It closed several years ago, but a grander version opened in Irvington, next to the railroad station along the Hudson River, at 1 Bridge Street. The building was once a textile factory and the 30 tables of varying size sit under a very high ceiling. The decor is a stylized combination of Greek and maritime themes, which reflects the menu. I started with a lobster, spinach, artichoke cheesy dip ($28). It amounted to less than the sum of its parts. My main course was a hit, however, called a Greek paella ($37). It was a very generous serving of shrimp, mussels, clams, chorizo and rice in a rich sauce of tomatoes (more apt calling it tomato sauce), a very good concoction that even I could not finish, a rare victory for moderation.