Time to Revive Noblesse Oblige

I know of few people in my lifetime who did not complain about paying taxes. Someone, I think it might have been my father, said he would welcome the idea of having to pay $100,000 in income taxes because that would mean he earned several multiples more in income.  

There’s lots of talk these days about income inequality and the ruses the rich employ to keep to a minimum their owed share of our collective governmental burden. On Monday while driving around I listened to segments of a panel discussion on NPR about the merits and implausibility of imposing an effective wealth tax on billionaires. 

Which brings me to an article in Tuesday’s New York Times detailing how one of the founders of Google, the multi billionaire Sergey Brin, has shifted from being a progressive-minded supporter to a Trump-loving MAGA mogul whose central motivation these days is fighting a proposed California initiative to impose a one-time five percent tax on billionaires payable in one percent installments over five years. The monies would fund healthcare services, including hospitals, clinics, and emergency rooms that the state might not have the resources to underwrite (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/27/us/politics/sergey-brin-gg-soto-trump-california-billionaire-tax.html?unlocked_article_code=1.eVA.OV2r.sZZSA3HnWhI7&smid=url-share)

For Brin, his wealth tax would equal about $13.6 billion, not exactly pocket change, except when you consider Brin’s net worth is estimated at $273 billion. Would he really miss that installment payment of $2.720 billion a year? It’s rounding off money. Besides, wouldn’t he get some positive karma knowing his largesse is helping the lesser fortunate have access to healthcare? 

I don’t begrudge Brin’s nor his cohorts’ fabulous wealth. They conceptualized many of the benefits we all enjoy, though, to be sure, their ideas were implemented and refined through the work of countless associates, no doubt some handsomely paid (unless they’re working in third world sweatshops piecing together hardware products). 

Capitalism enabled their extraordinary wealth. Brin is 52. To plow through his fortune over the next 40 years (if he lives that long), he could spend $6.8 billion a year without sweating over his depleting balance (assuming his nest egg doesn’t inflate from new and continuing investments). 

I am not advocating for a redistribution of wealth. Rather, in a nation where tens of millions go to sleep hungry every night, where tens of millions defer visiting doctors, dentists, optometrists because they cannot afford paying for visits and treatment, where millions of pre-schoolers do not enjoy proper child care because it is either unavailable or too expensive, one has to wonder how we can help balance the living equation of our citizenry.

If California voters approve the wealth tax in November, Sergey Brin would be billed $13.6 billion. But that wouldn’t happen because Brin has moved across the border to the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe. Brin and his comrades in greenbacks have the means and dollars to evade what in the past was called “noblesse oblige,” the moral obligation of people of high status, wealth and power (the nobility of centuries ago) to act responsibly, ethically and charitably toward the less fortunate.

Pity. Brin et al should not dispense part of their fortunes because they pity their fellow countrymen. They should recognize that the strength of America rests not in their collective abilities and accumulation of wealth but in the opportunity they have to positively influence the collective lives of millions of Americans who farm our land, teach our children, guard our neighborhoods and borders, work in our factories, care for the infirmed, clean our homes, and perform all the mundane tasks of daily life that extraordinary, unimaginable wealth has freed them of doing. 

With barely a hiccup to their balance sheets, the billionaire class would still be able to enjoy a lifestyle of yachts, mountain chalets, private jets, exotic retreats while the rest of American society would be able to breathe a little easier knowing a safety net is there if needed.   

Ballroom Fiasco—Agents Looking the Wrong Way

Donald Trump, his acting attorney general Todd Blanche, and sycophantic Trumpsters in Congress and beyond are asserting that the proposed 90,000 square foot ballroom Trump wants to build as an extension to the White House is justified by the Saturday evening assassination attempt at the Washington Hilton during the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. They argue the ballroom would provide impenetrable protection from any attack. 

That reasoning suggests a president would never venture outside White House grounds as no other venue could be as secure. He or she would be as separated from the populace as potentates are in despotic regimes. 

Ridiculous! Safety can be assured, though never guaranteed, by ramping up appropriate safeguards based on each location a president visits and proper training of Secret Service agents. 

Did anyone else notice in the video of the incident that in the moments before the assailant ran past their checkpoint in the Hilton the agents appeared to be relaxed, not looking in the direction from which he was coming? The key agent at the checkpoint was looking toward the ballroom entrance, not the area from which an attacker might come! Here’s the video: https://youtu.be/BqZCCZL7jl8

Secret Service lapses are becoming routine for Trump. In Butler, PA, during a campaign event in 2024, his protection failed to secure a rooftop with a direct line of fire to the podium where he was speaking. The would-be assassin was killed only after he fired several rounds. 

Recently a car rammed through barriers at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Palm Beach retreat. 

Political violence has become a mainstay of life in America. Appropriate dollars should be spent to safeguard politicians, especially a president, but they should not be ensconced in a cocoon, separated from the public they serve. 

Conversation Starters of a Would-Be King to a Real King

Ahead of King Charles III of the United Kingdom and Queen Camilla’s state visit to America April 27-30, I’ve been wondering in what manner or fashion will Donald Trump embarrass himself and our country. 

Here are malapro-Trumpisms our fearful leader might toss at Charles:

“How’s your brother? You know, Jeffrey Epstein never introduced me to him.”

Or, “Was it worth waiting so many years to become king?”

Or, “You know, Camilla is aging well.”

Or, “You know, America saved you guys in two world wars. The least your government should have done in return is support our battle with Iran.”

Or, “You’re an environmentalist who believes in global warming, right?  I’m not and don’t.”

Or, “I really think you should talk those obstinate Canadians into taking my offer to become our 51st state. We could show them how to win Olympic and Paralympics hockey gold. Even our women beat those Canucks.”

Or, “You know, I’m a little like your predecessor Charles II. He was in exile 11 years before returning home to be king. I was in exile only four years before returning to the throne, er, I mean the Oval Office. Much better than the beheading of his father Charles I for treason.”  

Or, “Lots of people in America say I act like a king. As one king to another, what do you think? Did I overdo it with all the gold embellishments?”

Or, “As king, do they make you take cognitive tests?” 

None of those embarrassing questions would be surprising to me given Donald Trump’s penchant for voicing the inappropriate. 

Walking Wounded Update

 Doctor told me this morning the right side of my left foot has a hairline fracture. Left side of foot has strained ligaments. Six weeks before I might be able to pickleball again. Ugh. 

Walking Wounded, Another Pickleball Casualty

Well, Tuesday I became another walking wounded pickleball player. I lost my balance chasing a dink, stepped on the ball with my left foot and tumbled in a parachutist tuck and roll, consciously, successfully, telling myself to avoid banging my head on the hard surface. 

I scrapped my left elbow and left knee. Bloodied but bandaged up, I resumed play for another hour or so. But once off the court, adrenaline waning, my left ankle swelled. 

Sadly, perhaps fortunately, between Gilda’s and my prior experiences we had three ankle boots in our basement to choose from until I could have an orthopedic specialist see me for a professional diagnosis, evaluation and protocol of treatment. I’ll see him Thursday morning. 

I had already planned to miss my regular Thursday pickleball game. We have Broadway theater tickets to see “Becky Shaw.”  My next scheduled game is Tuesday. I doubt I will be cleared to play. 

Orthopedic specialists are said to be doing land office business tending to pickleball injuries, mostly to the elderly. I generally make it a rule not to backpedal for lobs or rush in for dinks, two main actions foreshadowing injuries. 

My exuberance overcame my caution.  

I’m hoping I just sprained the ankle with no ligament damage. At 77, my body takes longer to repair itself.  

Bingo Time in Brooklyn

“CBS News Sunday Morning” is one of Gilda’s and my favorite telecasts. Last week it aired a piece on the continued interest among adults playing bingo for cash prizes. If you haven’t seen it, here’s a link: https://share.google/Jzp0rE2IXV9Zneg2T

I bring this gaming note to your attention because years ago, more than half a century ago, actually, closer to 57 years ago, I was an active participant in a successful weekly bingo game run by my parents’ synagogue, Congregation Pri Eitz Chaim Ocean Avenue Jewish Center, in Brooklyn.

It was during my father’s glory days at the shul where he was president for several years that every Thursday night the noise level in the gymnasium would build to ear-piercing extremes. Excitement would grip all those present. Moans would go up after every call. Shrieks of, “Just one more,” would reverberate against the cement walls.

No, a basketball game was not being played (I can’t remember any athletic contest ever happening in the gym). Rather, the sweaty anticipation and exhilaration emanated from the hundreds gathered for the weekly bingo game.

Bingo was a major fundraising endeavor for the OAJC back then, with my parents in charge, mom in the back room watching over the money, dad working the floor, making sure sufficient tables and chairs were set up in rows to accommodate the hundreds of players drawn to the game. They even enlisted me, first as a bingo card salesman and then as a game caller.

With $1,000 in prizes ($500 for the final jackpot game), OAJC bingo drew players from miles around. They were a quirky lot. Mostly middle-aged women, they would engage in good luck rituals. Before the first game, some would run a lighted match under their game cards. Others would scratch their behinds to coax out desired numbers from the air machine that popped out the numbered ping pong balls. Several played a dozen or more cards by sight and memory—no chips over the numbers of the hard-backed board cards they brought from home or no dab of colored ink on the paper game sheets bought that night and spread before them.

Calling the games was the most fun. I’d sit on a platform at one end of the hall, under one of the two electronic scoreboards that lit up each called number. Next to me would be another volunteer. He’d hand me the balls when they were pushed out of the machine. I’d announce the number, wait a second or two and announce it again. Especially as the jackpot game progressed, tension in the hall would become palpable. Fifty-seven years ago, $500 was a more considerable sum than it is today.

I-22, G-53, O-69, N-37. As the cards filled up, with no number producing the cry of “Bingo,” excitement would build. Despite the microphone, players would shout they couldn’t hear the numbers over the kibbitzing from nearby players. It was time for the one decorum-producing remedy you could do but once a night. “The next number,” I’d intone, “is, B-Quiet.” For a moment, players would rustle through their cards, looking under the B column for the number. Then they’d chuckle at their gullibility, settle back down and, when finally, a winner was selected, lament they were just one call away from winning the grand prize. 

Living with an Uncommon Last Name

Not surprisingly, Forseter is not among the most common family names in America. For s list of those names compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau, click here: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2026/2020-census-names-data.html

Forseter is an Americanized, some might say Anglicized, version of my father’s Old World surname, Fuersetzer (Fürsetzer). The transition was not straight line. 

When my parents married, Sylvia Gerson wed Kopel Fuersetzer September 6, 1942. He carried that name into the U.S. Army on December 1, 1942. His specialty was as a machine gunner but never served in combat. He received a medical honorable discharge August 4, 1943. 

Back in my mother’s arms, Kopel was induced to Americanize the family name. Frost was chosen. Two entities ensued. He started a company, Frostex (Frost Textiles), and produced their first heir, my brother Bernie whose February 24, 1945, birth certificate registered him as Bernard Frost. 

Kopel was not too happy with the Frost name as it disassociated him from his heritage, especially after it became known that all of his family back in Ottynia, Poland, had been killed in the Holocaust (he did not yet know one of his brothers, Willy, was the sole survivor). 

So he returned to his original family name with a slight twist. It became Forsetzer. It was Forsetzer when my sister Lee showed up January 25, 1947. Again, Sylvia’s input had him drop the “z.” I was born a Forseter March 6, 1949.

When Uncle Willy arrived several years after the war, he adopted the Forseter name as well. 

Growing up, my siblings and I would say that the only Forseters in America were the five members of our immediate family and the three of Uncle Willy’s. 

In the early 1980s Mike Bailenson joined Chain Store Age’s New York office from Chicago. He told me he went to school in St. Louis with an Elliot Forseter. Can’t be, I responded. People often mistake our surname for Forester, like the Subaru car, or Old Forester bourbon, I suggested. No doubt Elliot spelled his surname differently, I said. 

Naturally, an argument ensued. We wagered 10 bucks on who was right. To settle the matter, I trekked down to our fifth floor office to look in a St. Louis phonebook used by our directory division. Sure enough, Elliot Forseter was listed there in black and white. After forking over the $10, I called my father to ask who was this guy, Elliot Forseter. “Oh, that’s Allen’s son,” he said. “Allen!?!,” I screamed into the phone. “Who are these people? Where did they come from? Why hadn’t we heard about them before?”

My father didn’t really have a good explanation as to why he didn’t stay in touch with his St. Louis relatives, or for those in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area that used a Fursetzer spelling, or a Forseter cousin who had lived in Queens but died in the mid 1950s. Since I traveled the nation quite a bit back then, I was determined to meet Elliot next time I was in St. Louis. Only trouble was, I rarely visited St. Louis. 

Several years later, in 1986, en route to Las Vegas, I had a one hour layover in St. Louis, too short a time to leave the airport but time enough to contact Elliot by phone. He wasn’t home. As I explained who I was to his wife, I could visualize her looking into the phone and saying, “Yeah, right.” I told her I’d follow up with a letter. On the plane ride to Las Vegas I long-handed a legal-sized, seven-page letter detailing our family history. Elliot checked with his uncle, Isadore Forsetzer, in Florida before replying. Elliot, too, had no idea he had any Forseter relatives, as his parents had divorced 26 years earlier when he was 13 and his father moved to Los Angeles (by weird coincidence, to a home around the corner from my sister, which she never knew). He enclosed a picture of himself and his family. He could have passed as one of my father’s sons. 

A few years later I actually visited Elliot and his family, as well as my cousins in Minnesota. We all said we would stay in touch. That was decades ago. I have not stayed in touch. Sadly, I inherited my father’s anti-social gene when it comes to distant family relations. Maybe it was a universal Fürsetzer gene. My cousins haven’t stayed in touch, either.