Married To Your Job?

Saturday, July 4, 2026

“A New York Times review of securities filings from nearly 500 companies showed that they avoided taxes by attributing hundreds of billions of dollars in earnings to low- or no-tax foreign locales like Cyprus, Bermuda, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. Often, corporations funneled the profits through subsidiaries in places where they had no employees, offices or customers.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/29/business/economy/offshore-tax-havens-trump.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Why didn’t I think of that?

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Fifty years ago today, I celebrated the Bicentennial with my Original Wife on the beach at Santa Monica, California. We must have been with other people, but I can’t remember any other details. Today started with my Real Wife on our living room sofa, as usual.

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An article in the New York Times states "In his two decades on the court, Justice Alito has emerged as one of the most reliable conservative votes.” I would substitute farbissener for reliable, resorting to the street language of my people. It means embittered, sullen, “someone who not only isn’t enjoying herself, but is determined to make sure that nobody else has any enjoyment either.” (https://archive.nytimes.com/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/the-farbissen-faction/). 

Remember Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022) which took constitutional protection away from a woman’s right to an abortion? Alito wrote the majority opinion stating that Roe v. Wade (1973), the precedent on the matter, “was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.” 

I think Alito actually first wrote those words as soon as he was confirmed for his seat on the Supreme Court on January 31, 2006, waiting for the day that he could use them. He might have been the inspiration for Charles Montgomery Plantagenet Schicklgruber Burns on The Simpsons, except Alito emerged in public well after Burns. 

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We got off the sofa this evening and went to Carole Kessner’s 28th floor apartment for dessert and to see the holiday fireworks. Unfortunately, another high-rise building was directly in our line of sight, but that gave us more time to enjoy the eats. I had an impeccably poached pear, cookies and ice cream, almost every vital food group.

Carole’s biography of Marie Syrkin, educator, writer, Zionist advocate, won the 2009 National Jewish Book Award for Biography. She described the origin of their relationship when Carole was in Syrkin’s English literature class at Brandeis University. She was assigned to write a paper on King Lear over Winter break, but a marriage proposal and other stuff kept her busy and distracted.

Just before going back to campus, a cousin offered her a well-received paper on King Lear written for another college. Carole took the paper and submitted it. “See me” was Syrkin’s comment. When they met, Syrkin expressed her doubt that Carole wrote the paper and Carole quickly confessed. Syrkin accepted her explanation and they formed a lifelong bond.

Sunday, July 5, 2026

Today’s chuckle:

“The Justice Department on Saturday forcefully argued that an offer from India’s richest man, Gautam Adani, to invest billions of dollars in the United States played no role in the department’s decision to abandon criminal charges against him.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/04/nyregion/adani-justice-department.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

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We had dinner with Barbara and Bernie, cousins of cousins, at Nisi Estiatorio, 32-07 30th Avenue, Astoria, a relatively new Greek restaurant. It's a large, asymmetrical space, painted white with touches of blue. Undeservedly, it was almost empty at dinner time.  I say undeservedly because it proved to be a very good restaurant, with good service and good food. 

We started with a generous assortment of dips and spreads, tzatziki (yogurt and cucumber dip), tirokafteri (feta cheese, red peppers, and olive oil), skordalia (potato and garlic dip), and melitzanosalata (eggplant dip), accompanied by fresh pita ($26). With a couple of beers we could have stopped here, but we persevered. I nibbled some of the large horiatiki sataIa (Greek salad) shared with the others and then I had paidakia arnista, three lamb rib chops, with thick wedges of lemon potatoes, overpriced at $51. In retrospect, I'm not sure what I expected for $51. 

Two very nice desserts came gratis, bougatsa, custard cream pie, and something similar but different. A collateral benefit of visiting Nisi Estiatorio is the giant fruit and vegetable market right across the street, white peaches, yellow peaches, red watermelon, yellow watermelon, red, yellow, green and orange peppers, colorful displays at lower than Manhattan prices.

Monday, July 6, 2026

Naz reminded me that we had not had lunch together for a while, so we met at Little Pine, 125 Division Street, yards from 13 Essex Street, Mother Ruth Gotthelf's birthplace. My Aunt Sophie, my mother's older sister, told me that a Chinese family lived across the hall, but I am sure that none of our family ate Chinese food back then.

Little Pine is a new restaurant, featuring Northeastern Chinese (a/k/a Dongbei) food, with the feel of a potentate's tasteful home, no accounting for the name, however. Note that if you look up Little Pine, you might find reviews for a Los Angeles joint with the same name serving Italian food or a state park in Pennsylvania.

Everything we ate was very good. We chose one of the dozen lunch specials to build on, all with a cup of egg drop soup, a small salad and white rice for $13. We had fish fillets in black bean sauce, Naz taking the salad, me the soup. 

Then, we ordered Rainbow Glass Noodle Salad ($18) and Traditional Dongbei Sweet and Sour Pork ($23). The noodles weren’t multicolored, the vegetables on the plate were, making a tasty combination. Sweet and sour pork is a cliché in most Chinese restaurants, but not here. The meat is pounded thin and delicately coated before frying. The sauce was not sticky, gluey, the result memorable. We ended with Crispy Milk Custard, six cheroot-sized, coconut-coated cylinders ($11). 

Naz had printed a helpful Reddit review to help with our ordering. When a young sailor sat down by himself, I gave him a copy, too.

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I found an article by Nicholas Lemann, former Dean of Columbia University’s School of Journalism, to be very insightful. “It’s an illusion to think that Jewishness can ever be entirely comfortable or that our identity can be made to comport seamlessly with some set of universal ideals. We are, historically and also in the present, much more outsiders than insiders.”  https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/06/opinion/jewish-america-identity.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Thursday, July 9, 2026

Here is a fascinating chart matching jobs and divorce rates.

I admit to favoring doctors over actuaries.

Friday, July 10, 2026 

Whether you have marriage in mind or not, but you want to impress your date this weekend, here are our dining suggestions. Top 20 Fast Food Chains in America,  According to the American Consumer Satisfaction Index
​	Chain​	2025 Score​	​2026 Score
1	Jersey Mike’s	N/A	84
2	Chick-fil-A	83	83
3	Jimmy John’s	N/A	81
4	Panda Express	80	81
5	KFC	77	80
6	Papa Johns	79	80
7	Pizza Hut	79	80
8	Domino’s	78	79
9	Raising Cane’s	N/A	79
10	Starbucks	80	79
11	Subway	76	79
12	Burger King	77	78
13	Culver’s	78	78
14	Dunkin’	78	78
15	Little Caesars	77	78
16	Panera Bread	79	78
17	Arby’s	79	77
18	Chipotle	76	77
19	Sonic	73	77
20	Wendy’s	75	77

Consumers ranked the nation’s largest chains on a number of factors (including quality, value, and reliability).

What I found most interesting is how close the scores are. Are they basically all operating at the same high level or are they all essentially mediocre?