Saturday, August 30, 2025

Many Flavors

Saturday, August 23, 2025
When a supporter of New York City Mayor Eric Adams was caught giving cash to a local reporter in a potato chip bag, it drew this comment: “If New York’s City Hall is indeed selling favors, as a growing pile of corruption and bribery indictments say, the prices have fallen to bargain-basement, clearance levels.”
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Speaking of potato chips, I recently offered a national map of potato chip brand preferences. Now, I go further into the land of critical snacking. Here is a picture of the ice cream landscape across the country. I am pleased that Tillamook, my best buy favorite, does so well and surprised that Ben & Jerry’s, that left-wing Jewish brand, is so popular.

If your taste is less rarefied and your geographic focus is narrower, here is a map of Mister Softee locations. 


Sunday, August 24, 2025
Always looking for adventure, the Upper West Side’s Power Couple drove to New Jersey to have lunch with Butch and Toby. By the way, I know three Tobys at present; two of them are grandmothers and one is a bachelor. However, I lost track of Toby Eisenberg in junior high school. Butch recommended Axia Taverna, 18 Piermont Road, Tenafly, an excellent choice as it happens. It is quite attractive. Its bar is in the front window, bottles against the glass. High ceilings and white walls give a very bright and open feeling. The place was quiet; we were late for lunch and early for dinner. We received particularly attentive service under the circumstances. 

We started with a mezze platter, quinoa falafel (different and delicious), sumac yogurt, sundried tomato feta dip, black truffle kefalo graviera cheese (a firm, hard Greek cheese made from sheep's and goat's milk), tzatziki, mixed olives with fresh pita ($45). Butch had Solomos Kalamata, pan-roasted salmon, olive crust, manouri (feta whey) & feta, with spinach rice ($36). The women shared Briam, layered vegetables, Israeli couscous, in a tomato rag[o]ut ($28). 

I had something unique — Pastichio Rhodos, Greek pasta, meat sauce, béchamel, baked in a phyllo shell ($28), sort of a spaghetti potpie. We saved room for a special dessert, frozen yogurt with sour cherry sauce, two scoops in a crisp phyllo cup ($9). 

Monday, August 25, 2025
I have to share this headline from Andy Borowitz: "Ghislaine Maxwell Becomes Only Person in America Who Has Not Seen Trump Act Inappropriately"
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An article today provided some interesting data about college students, accurately reflecting its headline "The Typical College Student Is Not What You Think."

  • 43 percent of undergraduates attend community college

  • About 75 percent of community college students are enrolled part time

  • 20 percent of all undergraduate students are parents

  • 1.4 million undergraduate students with children are single mothers


No information is provided about tent ownership and willingness to sleep outdoors during the semester.
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I received this text message this morning.
 
Amazon Safety Recall:
We are contacting you because the product you purchased is being recalled. This recall is due to quality and safety issues. We urge you to stop using the product immediately and contact us to arrange a full refund. You can view your order details at the following link: []

You'll notice that the sense of urgency is balanced by the lack of specificity about the product and the danger. I've decided to take the risk.

Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Gentleman Jerry and I had lunch at Simply Noodles, 267 Amsterdam Avenue. This modest place was busy, all 16 seats were occupied most of the time we were there. The name is slightly deceptive. Besides a variety of noodle dishes, it also serves dumplings and other small plates. We shared a thin and crispy scallion pancake ($8). I then had Spicy Scallion Oil Noodles, angel hair rice noodles, cucumber slivers, half a tea-stained egg and four slices of white meat chicken ($16). It was spicy, but friendly spicy, just right.

Wednesday, August 27, 2025
There was another terrible shooting this morning at a church in Minneapolis. At least two children are dead and many more wounded. The gunman killed himself as is often the case in these mindless episodes. Here’s my suggestion to prospective killers. Shoot yourself first. Get it over with. Spare the innocent.
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The Dunning-Kruger effect is when a person does not have skills or ability in a specific area but sees themselves as fully equipped to give opinions or carry out tasks in that field, even though objective measures or people around them may disagree. While this seems to be an age-old malady, it was first named for two psychologists in 1999. I think that the time has come to rename it — The Donald Trump Effect.

Thursday, August 28, 2025
Make Physics Great Again
Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, announced plans for renovating New York’s Pennsylvania Station yesterday. He said that the project will “move at the speed of Trump.”
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I experienced real joy this morning, not just pleasure, not just merriment. I was on the way to see my oral surgeon to find out what's wrong now. WBGO 88.3 FM, the jazz station, was on and they played "The Golden Striker," the first track on the soundtrack album for "No Sun In Venice," a 1957 film, "Sait-on Jamais" in the original French. 

The film's music is by pianist John Lewis, performed by the Modern Jazz Quartet. As a teenager devoted to jazz while others listened to rock'n'roll, I purchased the album as soon as I heard "The Golden Striker" on Symphony Sid's show on WEVD 1330 AM. It lifted my spirits then and it still does. I think that it was named for the figures atop the Torre dell'Orologio in the Piazza San Marco in Venice who, though not golden, ring out the hour.

By the way, WEVD was founded by the Socialist Party in 1927 and named for Eugene V. Debs, its five-time presidential candidate, recent deceased. For many years it featured Yiddish language broadcasts and other ethnic programming. Its call letters disappeared in 2003 when its remnant was sold to ESPN.

Just hearing Symphony Sid's theme song was also uplifting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui0BKx283BE [skip ad]


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Saturday, August 23, 2025

Yellow Is the New White

 

Saturday, August 16, 2025
Now we know that it’s true. Upon returning from Alaska, your president recounted: 

“Vladimir Putin said something – one of the most interesting things. He said: ‘Your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting … No country has mail-in voting. It’s impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections.’

“And he said that to me because we talked about 2020. He said: ‘You won that election by so much and that’s how we got here.’ He said: ‘And if you would have won, we wouldn’t have had a war. You’d have all these millions of people alive now instead of dead. And he said: ‘You lost it because of mail-in voting. It was a rigged election.’” 
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Involuntarily uprooted people relocate and mostly thrive in their new environment. A good thing? Not if they are Jews and you can label it Settler Colonialism. 
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The sofa in our living room is quite comfortable and we are often reluctant to arise from it. This evening, though, we decided to venture out to a movie. We chose “An Officer and A Spy,” Roman Polanski’s relatively faithful telling of  the Dreyfus Affair, an ugly French antisemitic episode, not the first, not the last.

We agreed that it was an excellent movie, wonderfully photographed. Some reviewers drew a parallel to Polanski’s thoroughly justified prosecution and conviction for rape, which led him to flee the United States. The New Yorker had a particularly strong takedown of Polanski. 

However, while I was willing to watch and enjoy a film written and directed by a sexual predator, French and vaguely Jewish as Dreyfus, my distinct views of Polanski the man and the artist remain unchanged. It’s a classic conflict — the public vs. the private person: Richard Wagner, Kevin Spacey, Woody Allen. At first, I thought of adding Donald Trump to this list, he is, after all, a convicted sexual abuser. But, nothing in his public life distinguishes him from his private life.
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The movie was shown at the Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, on the southwestern edge of Greenwich Village. That afforded us a large variety of restaurants for dinner, leaning towards the funky, away from the corporate. We chose Jack’s Wife Freda, 50 Carmine Street, describing itself as “South African Israeli Jewish Grandmother Cuisine.” The availability of one of a half dozen tables outdoors on this balmy night was also an attraction. I can’t describe the interior, because I never set foot inside.

Our food choices were hardly ethnocentric although there were a few haimish items on the menu. Madam had the Grilled Eggplant Baguette with roasted tomato, mozzarella, olive tapenade & pesto, with a green salad ($20) and I had the Prego Roll, a smallish Portuguese skirt steak sandwich with garlic butter, accompanied by very good French fries ($25). Both were quite satisfying and good values. 

In all, our loyalty to our sofa was weakened by the end of the evening.

Monday, August 18, 2025
There is an essay online today by a woman whose 29-year old daughter committed suicide after announcing her intentions only to a ChatGPT “therapist.” I was intrigued by the woman identifying herself as “a former mother.” Somehow, I believe that is a role that you can never leave.

Tuesday, August 19, 2025
Proving how nimble we are, the Boyz Club gathered for lunch far away from Chinatown at  The Corner, 698 Ninth Avenue, a respectable Chinese restaurant. Coming uptown did not curb our appetites, fueled by a Groupon coupon that knocked a lot off our bill.

We five shared two filet mignon egg rolls ($6 each), Singapore style duck fried rice ($18), walnut shrimp in Grand Marnier sauce ($28) (so sweet that Trent suggested it come with vanilla ice cream), Chung King beef ($24, too chewy and too salty) and Tangy Tangerine Peel Chicken ($19). On the whole, a very good and abundant lunch with Diet Coke the beverage of choice.
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Yes, Virginia, he is a racist. The president insists that "The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was.”

Wednesday, August 20, 2025
Ever attentive Bob Saginaw wants to know if the proven socioeconomic influence on the SATs also is found in the testing for New York City's specialized high schools, particularly for our alma mater Stuyvesant High School where Black students gain 1% of the seats year in and year out. In 2018, I found a 2016 survey of the nation's best schools, ranking Stuyvesant third, claiming that 47.3% of the students were living below the poverty line. It's an extraordinary figure, since 8 of the top 10 schools range from 0.0 to 18.9%, with one Chicago school reaching 37.5%. https://www.newsweek.com/high-schools/americas-top-high-schools-2016

A more recent source identifies 50% of the students as "economically disadvantaged," 3% homeless. https://data.nysed.gov/enrollment.php year=2024&instid=800000046741

Another current report has 43% of the students qualifying for the federal free lunch program. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/new-york/districts/new-york-city-public-schools/stuyvesant-high-school-13092

The wild card in looking at Stuyvesant demographics is the overwhelming Asian (Chinese) student population. "Asian students constituted 6 percent of the enrollment at Stuyvesant in 1970 and 50 percent in 1994; they make up an incredible 73 percent of the student body this year." https://nypost.com/2014/07/19/why-nycs-push-to-change-school-admissions-will-punish-poor-asians/

Looking at the nationwide SATs, socioeconomic factors heavily influence results. In New York, however, I believe the culture of the community and the family are the drivers in the competition for high school admissions. "If, as sometimes appears the case, 'Harvard' is the first English word that immigrant Chinese mothers learn, the second is probably 'Stuyvesant,' the name of one of New York City’s most competitive public high schools." https://www.city-journal.org/article/brooklyns-chinese-pioneers

Friday, August 22, 2025
Stony Brook Steve and I had lunch at Shanghai Dumplings Fusion, 158 West 72nd Street, awkwardly named, now beyond its "soft opening," but not seeing much traffic. We have been there several times, never more than the second party eating in. I hope things improve. This neighborhood loaded with Members of the Tribe can absorb more Chinese restaurants.

Actually, I ordered Thai, Pad Thai, rice noodles with chicken, red onion, green onion, bean sprouts and lots of ground peanuts ($15.95). The very generous portion was very good. Let's keep them in business. 
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It took Donald Trump to make John Bolton likeable.
 
 
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Saturday, August 16, 2025

Hot Stuff

Saturday, August 9, 2025
A little insight. “The barbarity displayed on Oct. 7, combined with the cheering chorus from enemies and the silence from many friends, hardened the conflict for many Israelis to the fundamental, zero-sum and inherently violent struggle for land and sovereignty that so many of the kibbutzniks murdered in their homes that day had sought to overcome with their peaceful intentions.”
On the other hand, enough is enough.
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When I taught introductory American government classes, representation was one of the very first subjects addressed. What is democracy? How best to represent the public? As inheritors of British practice, we generally rely on single member constituencies and "first past the post," the most votes = the winner. Accordingly, slight differences in vote count may produce great differences in political power. The remedy for political scientists then and now is proportional representation, allocation of legislative seats according to the distribution of the popular vote. 

In 2022, "more than 200 leading political scientists and historians . . . call[ed] on the House of Representatives to adopt proportional representation — an intuitive and widely used electoral system that ensures parties earn seats in proportion to how many people vote for them."

Germany uses a mixed system to elect the Bundestag, the national legislature, half the seats filled by proportional representation, the other half by single-member constituencies. The purest system, however, is Israel's, where the unicameral Knesset of 120 members is elected entirely by proportional representation. Voters select a party and the party gets the number of legislative seats corresponding to their percentage of the vote, if it reaches a threshold of 3.25%, yielding four seats. This has led to a proliferation of parties, often with very narrow agendas. The will of peoples may defeat the will of the people. Why would the United States not face the same dilemma?

Sunday, August 10, 2025
Last week, I cited statistics from the SAT which seem to pose an unbridgeable racial gap in achievement. A couple of numbers, though, give an insufficient picture and leave open the question of causality, why the racial gap? Much of the answer lies outside the classroom. Valuable data are found at:

Most notable is the information that students with parents who have graduate degrees achieved the highest total SAT score while students with parents without high school diplomas had the lowest total SAT scores. Similarly, the difference between test takers from the lowest economic quintile and the highest quintile was 265 points in total score. In brief, “the rich get richer.” The problem is that, while these factors are not immutable, it might take generations to neutralize them.

There are other interesting factoids, such as Kansas and Utah having the highest average scores and New Mexico and West Virginia having the lowest, men significantly outperform women in the mathematics section of the SAT and “mixed race” students have the highest scores after Asians. 

Monday, August 11, 2025
I spent three years living in Ithaca, New York. Most of the time, I had limited use of an automobile, so I barely had the opportunity to experience the natural beauty of the environment. It looks very good in retrospect.

On Sunday, Anas Al-Sharif, a Palestinian journalist working for Al Jazeera, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a media tent outside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Israel accused him of being a Hamas fighter posing as a reporter. Accepting that as a given in spite of strong denials, six other people, including four other reporters were killed at the same time. The ratio of 6:1, civilians to Hamas, seems less destructive than the toll on the general Gazan population, but is it really anything more than an example of bloodlust? See above.

Tuesday, August 12, 2025
“Despite rising temperatures, only about half of homes in Italy today have air conditioning, according to Italy’s national statistics institute. In Spain, real estate data indicates the share is roughly 40%. And in France, only an estimated 20% to 25% of households are equipped with air conditioning.” 
How hot is it? “National records for the maximum June temperature in both Portugal and Spain were broken when temperatures surpassed 46 °C (115 °F), whilst regional records were also broken in at least ten other countries.” 

Wednesday, August 13, 2025
My trip to Citi Field to see the New York Mets play baseball started very well. In spite of a rain delay of 95 minutes, I had the good company of two talented young men, William Franklin Harrison, establishing himself as a filmmaker before setting course for the White House, and Toby McMullen, the last stand-up comic standing.

The Mets initially cooperated, coming out smoking, scoring three runs in each of the first two innings. Then, as our pitcher ran out of gas, evident to everyone but our manager, the bad guys scored nine runs in one inning, a Herculean feat. This resulted in another rarity, my departure before the game ended.

Thursday, August 14, 2025
I had lunch with Irwin Pronin, CCNY Student-Government-President-In-Perpetuity. We ate at Dagon, 2454 Broadway, his suggestion, one of my favorites. I turned to the Summer Restaurant Week menu, two courses for $30. Actually, there was plenty to eat. A big portion of hummus was my first course, with a large roll, called flatbread by them, very hot from the oven, flavored with za’atar (an Arab spice mix including marjoram, thyme, and oregano). Then, I had chicken schnitzel, a slab of chicken breast, pounded thin, breaded and fried. Accompanying it was an Israeli salad, diced tomatoes, cucumbers and onions with tahini dressing, and shoestring French fries, both first rate.
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We have a sense of humor in these parts. An online headline today reads: “Does Earning $142,000 in New York City Make You Rich?" https://www.resetera.com/threads/nyt-does-earning-142-000-in-new-york-city-make-you-rich.1270545/

The answer: Basically not. The figure is the salary of Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Socialist candidate for mayor. His wife is an artist/illustrator whose earnings are unknown. They live in a rent-regulated apartment for $2,300 per month. Andrew Cuomo, his major opponent, charges that Mamdani earns more than most New Yorkers and pays less than many. Does this translate into prosperity? Stay tuned.

Friday, August 15, 2025
If an enemy force took over control of the United States government, would it do more harm than we are now experiencing?
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I am always aware of my educational role, bringing vital information to your attention. Here is the graphic illustration of America's preference in potato chips.
 
 
 
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Saturday, August 9, 2025

Test Taking

Saturday, August 2, 2025
The White House has announced plans for construction of a 90,000 square foot ballroom.

In addition to aesthetic concerns, the schedule for completion has been questioned. Acknowledging that the original building project had been carried on with slave labor, an administration spokesperson suggested using that approach would be consistent with our great historic traditions.
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I can’t escape seductive offers by the faux L.L. Bean website uncovered a few weeks ago. Canvas bags and sweaters with moose patterns at 80% off continue to be waved under my electronic nose. Rather than placing an order that would only deliver a debit to my bank account and no credit to my wardrobe, I dug a little further. Here's how to communicate with this phony business:

  • Email: sihaiyidin88@gmail.com

    Whatspp Business: 18195094465

  • Address:
    GALAXY EXCEED TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT COMPANY LIMITED
    DO2, Unit 10, 1st Floor, Hewlett Centre, No. 54 Hoi Yuen Road,
    Kwun Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong


Proceed at your own risk.
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It has been suggested that substantially increased investment in elementary education should help eliminate the racial disparity in admission to New York's specialized high schools. I would like to agree, but wonder if that would really make a difference. At the state level, “[p]er-student spending for [public] elementary and secondary education in New York is 91 percent above the national average and between 9 percent and 170 percent higher than neighboring and competitor states.” 

The evidence, though, is that many parents are far from satisfied with our local public schools. The city’s public school population is 16% white while the general population is about 45% white. At the same time, Black and “Latino” students make up over 89% of local charter school enrollment. 

Here is another very disturbing piece of the puzzle. "Of the high school graduates who scored between 1400 and 1600 on the SAT in 2024, the highest possible scores, 1 percent were African American, and 27 percent were Asian, according to the College Board, the private organization that administers the test. About 12 percent of students taking the test were Black and 10 percent were Asian."
Sunday, August 3, 2025
Observations:
“What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians.” Ehud Olmert, former Israeli Prime Minister. 

“Israel has shown, time and again, that it is better at winning wars than at winning what comes after.” David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker. 
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My friends are generally well-read and well-spoken, qualities that attracted me to them. As a result, I am not surprised to see their names in print. However, I still got a big and happy surprise to read New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd give a shoutout to Paul Bergman active CCNY alumnus and retired criminal lawyer.

If you’re a teenager who wants to avoid Blacks, going to Stuyvesant High School is an option, but that won’t shield you from other others. Adults have a better choice for ethnic purity by moving to Return to the Land, an Arkansas community that excludes Jews and non-whites. Party on.
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Usually, the intersection of supply and demand determines pricing. That, apparently, is not the case in the U.S. housing market. Last month, sales of existing homes dropped by 2.7 percent from the previous month, while the median home price, at $435,300, hit a record high for the month of June, according to the National Association of Realtors. https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics

Monday, August 4, 2025
Here’s a headline that made me swallow deeply. “Ministers set to fire AG.” Upon examination, it’s the Israeli Attorney General who is under the gun, not yours truly.

I just learned that a woman taking the New York State Bar Examination last month suffered a heart attack. https://people.com/woman-suffers-cardiac-arrest-while-taking-bar-exam-proctors-allegedly-didnt-stop-11783707

I recall my own experience 24 years ago (Oy, gevalt! That was so long ago). I took the exam at the Javits Center in Manhattan with approximately 10,000 other candidates. Unlike many of them who were nervously sucking on cigarettes outside the building, I was cool. I felt thoroughly prepared and was comforted by the knowledge that nearly 80% of the first-time test takers pass.

Results are still released in November for the July examination which surprises me, because we hand wrote our answers while today computers are used. I’ve seen estimates of over 90% computer usage which should dramatically speed up grading. Maybe sadists remain in charge.
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I caught up with Ittai Hershman today, which wasn’t easy because he walks miles every day up and down Manhattan Island. It was worth the pursuit, because Ittai is one of the best informed people around and a good storyteller.

We had lunch at Friend of a Farmer, 58 West 71st Street, a label that neither of us qualifies for. It is the second branch of the long-established Gramercy Park establishment. The interior has a rustic feel, though more cabin than barn. We sat in a quiet, brick-clad nook near the front. I had a stack of medium-sized lemon ricotta pancakes with a little pitcher of lemon zest on the side ($21). It was a good dish and maybe I should stop complaining how expensive everything is. Or not.

Tuesday, August 5, 2025
I’m an old guy, so pardon me if I give you an old story, although one that I just learned. If people are given Coke and Pepsi blind, they prefer Pepsi. If they know what they are drinking, they prefer Coke.

The authors, neuroscientists, point out that “behavioral preferences for food and beverages are potentially modulated by an enormous number of sensory variables, hedonic states, expectations, semantic priming, and social context.” In other words, things go better with Coke.
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Eyes open or closed, the food at Tim Ho Wan, 610 Ninth Avenue, was always recognizably good. This was the second American branch of the Michelin-starred Hong Kong dim sum specialist. I am sad to report that it is closing, while its East Village location, 85 Fourth Avenue, remains open. Though much less centrally located, it deserves your patronage more than ever.

Wednesday, August 6, 2025
The bombing of Hiroshima was 80 years ago today. For those few of us who were alive then, it’s a long way back. Another 80 years prior and you get to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. L'dor v'dor is a Hebrew phrase that sticks with me. It means "from generation to generation."


Thursday, August 7, 2025
How to give your kids a complex
A big shot doctor at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn was sentenced on Wednesday to three years in prison after pleading guilty to stealing more than $1.4 million of public money from the hospital. About $176,000 was spent on pet care and $46,000 covered tuition payments for his children.  https://share.google/pGuQ18mPC5ZLg3w8X
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Realtor.com is the website of the very powerful National Association of Realtors. It just published its Hottest ZIP Code rankings based on 1) market demand, as measured by unique viewers per property on Realtor.com, and 2) the pace of the market as measured by the number of days a listing remains active on Realtor.com.

It's a very interesting collection, mostly in the Northeast, with New Jersey and Massachusetts particularly well represented. People may yearn for waterfront properties in the Sun Belt, but they settle for white picket fences in typical suburban communities.

Friday, August 8, 2025
I have good news for me. I am now considered one of the “super-agers,” people 80 and up who have the same memory ability as someone 20 to 30 years younger.
 
 Now, if I can only remember where I put my keys.
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