Saturday, January 11, 2025

Watch Out, 15,482,083, I'm Coming For You

Saturday, January 4, 2025 
Last week, I noted the pessimism that many of my fellow successful, professional, urban, American Jews feel today, especially dismayed at the sense of abandonment by other segments of society. I, for one, continue to test my patience by reading the Middle East coverage of the New York Times and the New York Review of Books.

I don’t for a moment deny the plight of Palestinians at the hands of a frighteningly nationalistic Israeli regime. But, and it’s a big BUT, there is more to the story than that. Death and destruction of Arabs by Arabs just don’t seem newsworthy until they reach the level of the anarchy in Syria. How about equal opportunity for bad guys?
.  .  .

There is another important distinction that I have been thinking about — Democrats, Republicans and reading. There is no doubt that they read different newspapers, magazines and online media, offering contrasting views of events. It’s what they seem to do with the information that intrigues me. Democrats are enervated, “Oy, gevalt! What is this world coming to?” Republicans are energized, “Let’s get those S.O.B.s.” Just saying.

Sunday, January 5, 2025
If you are wary of life in the big city, the Holy Land has just published its list of most frequent complaint (311) calls for the past year. 

The top five:
  • Noise
  • Illegal parking
  • Heat/hot water
  • Blocked driveway
  • Unsanitary condition
.  .  .

CNN.com this morning asks “Golden Globes: How, when and where you can watch the 2025 awards.” To me, the operative question is Why?

Monday, January 6, 2025
A guiding principle of medical practice is “First, do no harm,” which, with its fraternal twin “Do not offend,” has come to define liberal politics. However, these platitudes fail when it comes to governance and, more importantly, campaigning for office and winning elections. Without the latter, the former is daydreaming. 

Policy requires choices, inevitably producing winners and losers. We liberals sometimes fear harming or offending, no matter to what degree, allowing the greater harm or offense to prevail. On ne saurait faire d’omelette sans casser des œufs, you know, eggs and omelettes. (I had such success with French last week, I’m pushing ahead.)
.  .  .

Toby McMullen was 35 years old last week. In fact, I was visiting his family in Charlotte, North Carolina, up until two days before he was born. Today, we celebrated at lunch at Smith & Wollensky, 797 Third Avenue, a classic steakhouse, that means big portions and prices to match. We jumped right in as if I were a hot shot salesman and he a big prospect instead of retiree and standup comedian.

Toby had filet mignon ($59) and I had prime rib ($78). We shared creamed spinach ($17) and Loaded Baked Potato Gratin, with cheddar cheese, bacon and chives ($15). When I told the solicitous waiter that I was disappointed with the potato, because it was lukewarm and gluey, he removed it from the table and the check and, unbidden, brought creamy mashed potatoes at no charge. All else was excellent.

Tuesday, January 7, 2025
Having shed their ethnic origins, bagels and pizza are All-American symbols today. While pizza, which apparently made landfall in New York around the beginning of the 20th Century, is now available in many varieties, the New York slice is still an important reference point. An authoritative source found that three of the top 10 American slices are in the Holy Land.

On the other hand, the universality of hot dogs has been thwarted in North Korea. The Morning Star King a/k/a Kim Jong Un has banned hot dogs, labeling them treasonous.

In Coney Island, it’s Nathan’s Famous; in Pyongyang, it’s Nathan’s Infamous.

Wednesday, January 8, 2025
My budding acting career has not bloomed. Here's why.
Thursday, January 9, 2025
The destruction of thousands of structures by fire in Southern California will require a massive restorative effort. It will take money, material and labor, some skilled, such as architects, engineers, electricians, plumbers, others just needed to supply muscle to sweep, to shovel, to haul, to lift, to hammer. It's likely that much of this hard work will be done by folks who risked all to find a semblance of security, otherwise known as immigrants.
.  .  .
 
I might have found the secret to get the New York Rangers back into championship form. Take an Englishman to the game. John Mervin came with me tonight to the exciting 3-2 overtime victory. We started strong with free eats at the Chase Lounge in Madison Square Garden, mini tuna tacos, black bean taquitos, "totchos" (tater tot nachos) and beef empanadas. I just hope that John has lots of free evenings through June.

Friday, January 10, 2025
Today is Quitters Day, the drop off point for keeping New Year’s resolutions, for those who made a silly promise to reverse longstanding habits at a moment’s notice. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/01/10/quitters-day-new-years-resolutions/77559275007/
.  .  .

I learned that this modest effort is 15,482,084 in the global rank of websites.
Posted by at 1 comment:

Saturday, January 4, 2025

Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?

Saturday, December 28, 2024 
The food choice quiz last week proved popular, although several of you noted that it leaned toward the treyf. I landed solidly middle class along with most of you. I would have liked it to have included Mother Ruth Gotthelf’s salmon croquettes as a baseline to calibrate the quality of your taste.
.  .  .

Once a decade, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development tests 160,000 adults in 31 countries and regions in numeracy, literacy and problem-solving, resulting in the “Survey of Adult Skills.” 

Finland leads all nations, followed by the Netherlands, Norway and Japan, making a case for population homogeneity and/or educational effectiveness, while the United States falls in the middle of the pack. There are real-world implications. “People who perform best in the tests boast wages that are 75% higher than those with the worst scores.” 

Sunday, December 29, 2024
During the holiday season, we are typically out and about, shopping, partying, traveling, gazing. If we are out long enough, the need for relief arises. In many locations, this may prove challenging. The Holy Land, for instance, has only four public toilets per 100,000 population compared to 35/100,000 in Madison, Wisconsin, the best equipped American city. If you are in Dixie, you might want to bring your own Dixie cup, because Mississippi and Louisiana provide only one public toilet per 100,000 population.
Monday, December 30, 2024
I recently sat with a group of successful, educated, urban Jews. They were prosperous professionals. They mirrored me in almost all regards. We differed mainly in our feelings about the zeitgeist (the temper of the times). They all felt beleaguered by today’s often unchecked antisemitism and anti-Zionism (if they can be distinguished). I feel more annoyed, my default response to much that I encounter. I am also saddened that these people, and many more like them, feel the need to look over their shoulders in otherwise normal circumstances.

I don’t know that any of us ever experienced classic discrimination — rejection from a job, school, organization, residence or social group because of our religion, which we openly acknowledge and display. We are far removed from “Gentleman’s Agreement.”

Caroline Kennedy married a Jew; Chelsea Clinton married a Jew; Ivanka Trump married a Jew. We are here, we are entrenched, we have succeeded. Maybe that’s the problem. Our enemies are uncomfortable with our success, unsure whether we attained it by guile or corruption, only certain that we are unworthy. We ourselves are somewhat ambivalent, proud of our achievements, but not wanting to stand too far out in the crowd.

Tuesday, December 31, 2024
The headline is self-explanatory. "The most successful and influential Americans come from a surprisingly narrow range of ‘elite’ educational backgrounds"

The article "found that exceptional achievement is surprisingly strongly associated with 'elite' education," specifically, 34 "elite" colleges and universities and particularly Harvard University. Once upon a time, CCNY was known as the proletarian Harvard, but no longer. 
CCNY did not make the cut this time. 

Wednesday, January 1, 2025
The New York Times looks back at New Year's 2000, the once notorious Y2K.
 
"In the 1960s, storage on computers was a scarce, precious resource. To save memory space, programmers routinely lopped off the first two digits of the years in dates, substituting, for instance, '99' for '1999'.” I was writing software back then and that’s exactly what I did. When needed, I would grab the last two digits of a six-digit array and slug in the 19 for external display. Frankly, in 1970, I didn't expect to have my programs in use 30 years later and I don't believe they were. But, if they were, the users deserve what they got.
.  .  .

While there was no drama for me on New Year's Eve 2000, there was a personal highlight exactly three years later, when I proposed marriage to the woman now known as America's Favorite Epidemiologist at midnight on January 1, 2003.

Thursday, January 2, 2025
The New York Times announced the discontinuance of the Stamps, Coins and Camera columns on January 2, 1994. The Chess column survived until October 11, 2014. The Bridge column lasted one more year.
.  .  .

Mordecai Kaplan, a major 20th-Century Jewish scholar, said that we Jews live in two civilizations, one Jewish, one American. After sleeping through the precise start of the new year on Tuesday night, we jumped into both civilizations today by shopping in New Jersey. The first destination was Grand & Essex, 89 New Bridge Road, Bergenfield, a very large, all-Kosher supermarket, offering prepared food and packaged products. From a myriad of items, we selected chopped chicken liver ($14.99/15.5 oz.), beef stuffed cabbage ($17.99/28 oz.) and Bubbie's Hearty Kishka ($4.99/9 oz.), all made on the premises.

ShopRite of Englewood, 40 Nathaniel Place, was our portal into American civilization, where we loaded up on cereal, milk, yogurt, tissues, potato chips, ginger ale, orange juice, paper towels, bananas and more and more. We are well supplied.

Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)