Reacting to a Death Notice, Legal Irony, Zika Politics

The day we moved into our current home 32 years ago I took a break from unpacking to shoot a few baskets. Our former home had a steeply sloped single car driveway so a hoop would have been impractical. The new abode, on the other hand, had a metal pole with backboard and basket next to a flat, two car driveway. The former owners had left a basketball. After pumping in some air, five-year-old Dan and I started shooting some shots. 

Perhaps the boing, boing, boing of the bouncing ball attracted a father wearing a Columbia University sweatshirt and his six-year-old son from down the block. The father was tall, as was his son. Every shot Jim took went in. Clearly I was not going to challenge him to a game of H-O-R-S-E. 

Then it dawned on me. Columbia. Jim. Tall black man. I asked him if he ever played for the Knicks. Yes, for two seasons, though that was not his claim to basketball fame. Jim McMillian had excelled at Columbia. Chosen by the Los Angeles Lakers, he was the 13th pick in the first round of the NBA draft in 1970. He was part of the 1972 championship the Lakers won with a team that included Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West and Pat Riley.

And here I was shooting hoops with an NBA star. Finally, maybe, if I was lucky, I would learn how to play basketball from someone who had been there, done that. 

Alas, it was not to be. Shortly after we moved in the McMillians relocated to New Jersey. Jim McMillian died Monday in Winston-Salem, NC, from complications of heart failure. He was 68 (http://nyti.ms/27wPNhi).

My encounter with Jim McMillian wasn’t the only association our family had with members of the NY Knicks. When our children were young, Gilda used to take them to health food store Manna Foods in downtown White Plains where they’d see several Knicks, including Marvin “Bad News” Barnes. It’s amazing to believe that was 30 or more years ago.

Legal Irony: Did anyone else see the delicious irony in the name of the judge who ruled within the last week that Cleveland, MS, middle and high schools must be desegregated? 

Her last name was Brown. As in the 1954 landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision, Brown vs (Topeka) Board of Education, that declared separate is not equal when it comes to schooling.

This time it was Judge Debra M. Brown of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi who made the ruling. In the Topeka case, Oliver L. Brown was one of 13 plaintiffs to seek relief on behalf of their 20 children (http://nyti.ms/23VWjJW)

Bug Bites: Republicans in Congress so far are refusing to provide all the funding requested to counter the inevitable invasion of the Zika virus onto U.S. soil. It seems crazy given that the prime landing spot for the mosquitoes that carry the disease would be southern and Bible belt states which have dominant Republican representation in Washington.

So why are they being so stingy? I have no proof but I suspect racism and income bias are behind it, much as they were factors in the decision by Michigan officials to ignore reports that the water in Flint was harming residents in the once vibrant industrial city.

In Brazil, poor neighborhoods were found to be prime mosquito-breeding areas. The same can be expected here. Simply put, GOP politicians in Washington won’t provide sufficient money to fight Zika until middle and upper class white enclaves are threatened. By then, however, it will be too late to stem the epidemic. 

Thursday's News

High-end jeweler Tiffany & Co. reported today first quarter sales increased 20% over a year ago to $761 million while earnings jumped an even higher 25% to $81.1 million.

It’s another sign the luxury market is back.

I wonder...will Newt “$500,000-Tiffany-credit-line” Gingrich consider signing on as a celebrity corporate spokesman once his presidential nomination bid flames out?


Elaine’s, the literati’s Second Avenue watering hole on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, closes tonight, five months after the saloon’s namesake owner, Elaine Kaufman, died. Brian McDonald, an ex-bartender at Elaine’s, provided his reminiscences for the NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/opinion/26mcdonald.html?ref=opinion.

One question McDonald sought to answer was the secret to the restaurant’s success, as it was generally acknowledged Elaine’s did not serve haute cuisine. He discounted the appeal of seeing the rich and famous as well as seeing Elaine herself. His conclusion: she was simply a good businesswoman who didn’t worry about tomorrow but cared more for “the names in the reservation book for that night.”

Last December I chimed in with my reflections on the night Gilda and I visited Elaine’s and sat with the editors of the NY Post (http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-night-at-elaines.html). I can’t tell you why a restaurant becomes an “in” place, but I do disagree with McDonald that Elaine was not a “crowd pleaser.” She didn’t have to play to the crowds. She did what any good host does—she made each individual feel important, that she cared they stopped in for a drink, for a meal, for a snack. Any good restaurateur knows that it’s the personal touch that makes an establishment successful. It’s that way with any service business. If the proprietor doesn’t care about his or her customers, they won’t care about his or her service. They’ll take their business elsewhere. It’s hard to sustain that intimacy in a chain store world. That’s why places like Elaine’s are to be cherished.


I’m a traditionalist when it comes to many things, including sports. That’s one reason, perhaps, I find it hard to watch today’s version of basketball, aside from my being a less than stellar performer on the hard wood, attributed mainly to my inability to dribble and therefore drive to the basket.

Today’s Times carried an article and video on “The Crossover: Genealogy of a Vicious Move” (http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/05/25/sports/basketball/100000000831937/the-crossover-on-display.html?ref=sports). The crossover is a dribble move used to free the ball handler to either shoot a jump shot or drive to the basket for a lay-up.

Aside from not being able to execute such a move, my problem with the crossover is that it should be illegal. Pure and simple, it’s a carry, a palm, an illegal transmission of the ball. Allen Iverson, reputedly one of the players who popularized the move, admits so on the video. But basketball let it become acceptable because of a need to pump up scoring and dazzling dunks (oh yeah, I can’t dunk, either).

Today’s basketball players are superb ball handlers. You can’t compare them to the icons of the 1950s and 1960s, guys like Bob Cousy, Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor or Walt Frazier who had to play by the rules.


I watched a tape of Oprah’s final hurrah on regular TV Wednesday. No guests, just Oprah spouting her wisdom and philosophy. I thought I’d be cynically put off by its cheesiness. I wasn’t. She did a good job.