Keeping Up With Trump and Other Dangers to the Republic

The president is being investigated for possible obstruction of justice, but like watching a duck swim serenely on a pond, there’s a whole lot of action—in Washington—going on under the surface, much of it hazardous to the progressive state of the last 80 years.

Last week Politico initiated a new feature: “5 things Trump did while you weren’t looking.” It is difficult, depressing, but required reading, for it goes beyond the orange-topped menace. Trump or Mike Pence or any Republican in the Oval Office would be doing much the same.

Here are links to the articles for first two weeks: 

http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/06/09/five-policy-changes-trump-this-week-000455

http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/06/16/5-things-trump-did-while-you-werent-looking-week-2-000462

 If you’re not already reading Politico, this series is a good reason to begin.

If you’re not already too bummed out, spend 35 minutes listening to Nancy MacLean tell Leonard Lopate of WNYC about the origin of the conservative movement’s plan to deconstruct government. MacLean is the William Chafe Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University. Here’s the link: http://www.wnyc.org/story/engineer-rights-libertarian-takeover/

A Breadth of Fresh Air: I listened Thursday to Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air interview former vice president Joe Biden. It was refreshing to hear a reasoned discussion absent of hyperbole and self-aggrandizement. It got me wondering if we have become enmeshed in an era when intelligent, civil dialogue no longer is expected or the norm. 

Let me not give a wrong impression—neither Gross nor Biden hid their disapproval of Donald Trump. But they did so in articulate, non abusive language and discourse, so different from what so often passes for acceptable practice on talk shows and during public forums.

If you have 40 minutes, do yourself and the country a favor by listening to their discussion: 

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/15cad59c689d41d1

Talk To Me: Whenever the subject of talking to oneself comes up I volunteer that I do. I talk to myself, I say, whenever I want good conversation.

Now that The New York Times has published results of studies showing the benefits of talking to oneself (https://nyti.ms/2sWvKc3), I guess we can expect more public displays of private patter.

For some 20 years or more we have seen lots of people babbling as they walked. General reaction at first was that more crazy people were walking among us. It was as if Elwood P. Dowd had developed the procreative trait of his friend, Harvey, the 6’ 3½” rabbit invisible to all but Dowd (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Harvey_(film)&oldid=781895785). Only upon closer inspection did we come to realize cellular phone technology was at play.

Of course that meant it was harder to pick out the actual crazy people talking to themselves as they ambled among us.

For all the benefits of talking to oneself noted in the studies perhaps the perils of internal conversation can best be observed from the public admission of our fearless but scare-inducing talker-in-chief. In his famous or infamous interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, Trump made the following admission about his reason for firing FBI director James Comey:

“And in fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.’”

And that’s how we have arrived at the point where Comey went before a Senate committee to say before the American public and the world, with klieg lights shining and cameras rolling, the president of the United States is a liar.

Many of us may have thought it but few if any would have had the courage and the character to say it in so public a forum.

Many of you might also have thought Trump is an idiot. In case you missed it, here’s an Op-Ed piece that explains the origin of the word “idiot” and how it might be conferred upon our fretful leader: https://nyti.ms/2se1igv. 

Perilous Times for "Fake News" Purveyors

For journalists covering the Trump administration the pressure to get it right all the time is beyond exaggeration. Not unlike the pressure of NASA scientists and technicians to get it 100% right. Or airline pilots and ground maintenance crews to get it 100% right.

Unlike the two other examples, a mistake by a journalist generally would not incur any immediate loss of life. Rather, any error, no matter how small, buttresses the false narrative the fabricator-in-chief is spewing that undermines our democracy and its foundational principle that an objective, responsible press, protected by the First Amendment, is vital to the health of the republic.

Journalism, it has been said, is the first  draft of history. Yet, it might also be said that too many of our citizens are oblivious or ignorant of our past.

Listening to an interview of the author and Harvard professor Graham Allison on WNYC a few days ago I was struck by his comment to Leonard Lopate that our country would be more aptly named the “United States of Amnesia” because we collectively forget what has transpired just a few years past, much less decades ago.

It is a line of reasoning I subscribe to, with one important elaboration. I believe most Americans are ignorant of details of our heritage because their education failed to instruct them properly in an attempt to burnish patriotism and gloss over any shortcomings in our national story.

Rightfully, present day progressives pooh-pooh attempts by the Trump administration to expel undocumented aliens and to restrict entry by Muslims from seven predominantly Muslim countries. But how well known was the forced removal of up to two million Mexicans during Herbert Hoover’s and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidencies on the pretext it would ease relief roles? Many were American citizens! So much for constitutional protection. 

As for restricting access to the U.S., we have a sordid history of denying entry to Chinese, Eastern Europeans and southern Italians, the latter ethnic the subject of a compelling Op-Ed in The New York Times (https://nyti.ms/2svBI3s). Eugenics was an accepted theory in America, discredited only after Nazi Germany employed it to the extreme. 

I recall learning about the Alien and Sedition Acts passed in the first decade of our republic during the presidency of John Adams. But how many learned about the Sedition Act signed by Woodrow Wilson in 1918? I know my teachers never discussed it, never taught that during World War I you could land in prison for up to 20 years if you criticized the war effort or interfered with the sale of government bonds. Imagine how full our penitentiaries would have been if the law had been in effect during the Vietnam War. 

Staying with Wilson, he was hailed for his ideas for world peace, for conceptualizing the League of Nations. We learned that isolationists rejected U.S. entry into the League. Wilson was cast as a visionary.

But I only recently learned that Virginia-born Wilson was a racist who had countless Afro-Americans cast out of federal jobs. He originally opposed extending voting rights to women. He was not an unblemished progressive.

For as much as I am revolted by the actions taken by Trump, I cannot claim to be surprised. He is doing what he campaigned on. My anger, my disappointment, my anxiety are with the American public and with Republican politicians who are enabling a backward march, an American retreat from the values and global leadership that made our country the envy of the world for the last 100 years.

In backing out of the Paris climate agreement Trump lumped the United States with Nicaragua and Syria—Syria!!!—a blot on our standing in the world, but what does it matter to Trump? While in Saudi Arabia he linked our values with those of the leaders in Riyadh, never mentioning its repression of non Sunni Islam religions, its anti-Semitism, its adherence to Sharia law, the second class status of its women, its lack of freedom of assembly and the press, its rule by an oligarchic monarchy. Shared values? Ha!

Wall Street reacted favorably to Trump’s decision. Not surprising given the Street’s myopic, short term allegiance versus support for long term strategies. Traders care only for immediate gratification, not for the quality of life 50 or 100 years from today.

These are perilous times for truth sayers, for the so-called “fake news” outlets. As Trump demonizes the media, attacks like the one in Montana by a GOP congressional candidate on a Guardian reporter seeking his views on the proposed health care bill will become more common. 

Trump is dehumanizing reporters. Anyone who has studied the Holocaust or any genocide knows that before the knives come out the intended victims must first be made to be sub-human. 

Trump & the GOP: The Political Embodiment of the Fable of The Scorpion and the Frog

As they try to come to terms with the outrageous, bigoted, xenophobic, misogynistic, unconstitutional ravings of their presumptive presidential candidate, Republican Party leaders would do well to read the children’s animal fable “The Scorpion and the Frog.” (For those not familiar with the parable, the tale goes thusly: a scorpion implores a frog to carry it across a river. At first the frog rejects the idea, fearing it would be fatally stung. After the scorpion explains it wouldn’t do such a thing as it would then drown, the frog agrees. Halfway across, the frog is indeed stung. Before it dies it asks the scorpion why would it doom both of them. Because, replies the scorpion, it is in its nature to sting, regardless of the consequences.)

Donald Trump’s strained, symbiotic relationship with his current party’s establishment—which hopes to control him—is the embodiment of the fable. Despite their often stated distaste for him, the party elite is willing to carry Trump on its back as they navigate the election waters. But, just as the scorpion stung the frog and drowned both of them because it was in its nature, there is little doubt Trump will continue to make flagrantly divisive statements that may well sink GOP efforts to appeal to a base broader than angry white men and women.

Trump has promised a major rip-roaring speech early next week to expose both Hillary and Bill Clinton’s warts. For sure the speech will be colorful and entertaining. He is, after all, a master showman. But as two of the most heavily vetted public figures of the last quarter century, the Clintons have survived years of congressional and special prosecutor scrutiny. It would indeed be news if Trump revealed any new scandals beyond the rumor and innuendo that are his stock in trade. 

On the other hand, can a man currently defending himself in court for allegedly fraudulently bilking desperate, needy consumers into paying thousands of dollars to Trump University accuse the Clintons of engaging in get rich quick schemes? Bernie Sanders, a socialist, might legitimately question Hillary’s fees for Wall Street speeches, but Trump is a capitalist. You would think he would applaud her ability to squeeze as much lucre from the fat cats.

Can a man who cheated on two wives chastise another for infidelity?  Let’s keep in mind two points: Hillary never committed adultery, and many of the holier-than-thou crowd who tried to remove Bill from office wound up admitting they strayed from their marriage vows. 

Can a man who four times had to seek bankruptcy protection for his companies be expected to lecture on business acumen and vitality? Bill, after all, wiped out the deficit he inherited from his Republican predecessors and left a surplus. The stock market enjoyed boom times during his term of office, the budget was balanced, the economy was robust.

Can a man who lauded Putin and Kim Jong-Un, who suggested nuclear proliferation is acceptable, who would undermine longstanding bi-partisan international alliances, opine on foreign affairs? Beyond what is written for him, does he know the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims? Does he understand the complex world of Eastern Europe and its relationship with Russia, or the rising threat of nationalist parties throughout Europe? Does he have a plan for the Southern American hemisphere beyond building a wall? 

Can a man who makes racist statements, who claims not to know who David Duke is and who does not disavow the Ku Klux Klan, who evaluates women by their physical appearance, who makes fun of the handicapped, credibly claim to be a unifier? 

Regrettably, to the rank and file Republican voters who chose him in the primaries, Trump’s inadequate resume will make no difference. Nor will it make any difference to the Hillary haters. 

The sadness in all this is that it won’t make any difference to almost all of the leaders and elected officials of the Republican Party. Few if any will listen to South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham’s lonely voice of reason.

“This is the most un-American thing from a politician since Joe McCarthy,” Graham said of Trump’s attack on Federal Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel. “If anybody was looking for an off-ramp, this is probably it. There’ll come a time when the love of country will trump hatred of Hillary.”

If Hillary had made comments as explosive as Trump’s Republicans would be falling over each other as they rushed to microphones to declare her unfit for office. But, as Thomas L. Friedman pointed out in his Wednesday New York Times column, they have abandoned any principles they might have had:

“It (the Republican Party) is just an empty shell, selling pieces of itself to the highest bidders, — policy by policy — a little to the Tea Party over here, a little to Big Oil over there, a little to the gun lobby, to antitax zealots, to climate-change deniers. And before you know it, the party stands for an incoherent mess of ideas unrelated to any theory of where the world is going or how America actually becomes great again in the 21st century.” http://nyti.ms/1XCdFx7

(There have been numerous articles imagining what the first 100 days of a Trump administration would look like. Here’s one I recommend for your reading pleasure, or rather, discomfort:

http://religionnews.com/2015/11/24/trump-registration-muslims-immigrants-refugees-first-100-days/

If you have more time, listen to Leonard Lopate of WNYC interview Philippe Sands, an international lawyer and professor of law at University College London, on the subject of genocide and crimes against humanity (http://www.wnyc.org/story/philippe-sands-east-west-street/). Among the more interesting points Sands noted was that Hitler and Hans Frank, the former’s personal lawyer from 1928 to 1932, laid the groundwork for the Third Reich by challenging the authority and objectivity of Germany’s courts and judges. Sound familiar?)

Here’s you political witticism of the day, courtesy of whowhatwhy.org:

“We stand today at a crossroads: One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other leads to total extinction. Let us hope we have the wisdom to make the right choice.” —Woody Allen

Who Benefits from the Collaborative Economy?

Driving around Friday morning I listened to a re-aired interview Brian Lehrer of WNYC public radio did with a co-founder of Zipcar, Robin Chase, who also wrote Peers Inc: How People and Platforms Are Inventing the Collaborative Economy and Reinventing Capitalism. 

Chase advocated for greater freedom for companies such as Uber to operate without governmental oversight. In areas such as hiring drivers, she suggested, vetting their backgrounds was a task better suited to private companies than government. Answering one caller’s question about the lack of full time work and benefits these New Tech Age companies provide, Chase contended that large employers such as Wal-Mart and McDonald’s were already staffing part-timers as a means of keeping a tight lid on benefits and wages. She argued that working for one employer full time was an outmoded form of labor, that it was better for workers to juggle several jobs and thus attain greater control over their lives. They would be cushioned against loss of income if their job with that one employer disappeared. 

Sounds reasonable, until you look behind the part-time work trend. Companies use labor scheduling software to predict appropriate staff levels weeks in advance. Workers typically are hourly wage earners. Shifts are assigned, usually with no recourse to alter them. Assuming the worker has two or more part-time jobs to earn anywhere near a living wage for his or her family, it would not be unusual to work more than a standard 40-hour week. What’s more, the worker would need a spreadsheet to manage the hours demanded by different bosses. And, should a family need or emergency arise, imagine the mayhem required to alert and assuage the conflicting interests of multiple employers.

Yes, the Collaborative Economy is making millions, even billions, for entrepreneurs like Chase. But it is transforming America and other countries into polarized societies of Haves and Have Nots. 

Zipcar is making personal transportation affordable to those who cannot or do not want to buy or lease a car. Chase should be commended for being part of that revolution. But suggesting that the life of a multi-employed worker, responsible for his or her own benefits, is better than a full-time job is irresponsible and elitist. 

Christie Speechwriter Soft on English and History

I was driving back from Manhattan Tuesday when WNYC public radio broke away from The Brian Lehrer Show to broadcast New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s presidential campaign kickoff speech. He’s a dynamic speaker. Coupled with my interest in politics, I chose to listen. 

It was a strong presentation full of broad bromides about what Christie would accomplish, not unlike any of the other announcements by Republican would-be presidents. They are long on generalities, short on specifics. They’re all (except Rand Paul) for a more muscular military ready to be deployed wherever necessary, as in Christie’s words, “And it is a strong, unequivocal, America, that will lead the world and not be afraid to tell our friends we’ll be with you no matter what. And to tell our adversaries that there are limits to your conduct and America will enforce the limits to that conduct.”

They’re also for less government regulation and a more vigorous economy, ignoring the fact that compared with what he inherited from the last Republican administration President Obama’s tenure has enjoyed a resurgence in jobs, the stock market and reduced national debt.

But I was truly amused by three parts of Christie’s monologue. First, I smiled when he discussed the need for a revised tax system. “We need a tax system that’s simplified and will put CPA’s like my dad out of business,” he told an adoring crowd in the Livingston, NJ, High School gym. But in the transcript of his speech, the wording was more than slightly different—“We need a tax system that’s simplified and won’t (my italics) put CPA’s like my dad out of business.”

Then there was the matter of Christie’s bemoaning lower education achievements. Perhaps, as Shakespeare had Cassius tell Brutus in Julius Caesar, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” You see, I have a fondness for the proper usage of the English language. One of my pet peeves is using “I” when “me” is the correct object of a verb or preposition. Thus, when Christie said of his parents, “They raised my brother and I …” it was an assault on my eardrums. Not only did Christie not know “me” was called for, but his speechwriter(s) also showed a lack of English smarts. 

Now, some of you might be thinking I am being too much of a grammar stickler. Could be. But I, for one, want a president who speaks proper English. (As an aside, my grandniece from London, all of four years old, told my sister-in-law, “Grandma, you speak American, I speak English.” Yeah, but the rules of grammar span the Atlantic.)

Christie’s speech overreached in another arena. He properly lamented the dysfunction in Washington. “Both parties have failed our country. Both parties have stood in the corner and held their breath and waited to get their own way. And both parties have lead (sic—I can’t tell you how many time the speechwriters used “lead” when they should have written “led”) us to believe that in America, a country that was built on compromise, that somehow now compromise is a dirty word. If Washington and Adams and Jefferson believed compromise was a dirty word, we’d still be under the crown of England,” he said.

Excuse me, but if that trio, along with the rest of the Founding Fathers and patriots, had sought compromise instead of revolution, we would not have fought a war of independence from Britain, though perhaps we’d be better at speaking the Queen’s English. 

Christie was somewhat right in that compromise eight years after the war ended enabled the 13 former colonies to adapt the Articles of Confederation into a constitutional republic form of government. However, he and his conservative cohorts cleave to a static reading of the Constitution, ignoring societal changes that should imbue our interpretation of the document.

By coincidence, The New York Times reviewed a new book by Joseph J. Ellis on Monday, The Quartet, Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789 (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/books/review-the-quartet-by-joseph-ellis-details-the-constitutions-gang-of-four.html?smid=nytcore-iphone-share&smprod=nytcore-iphone&_r=0).

Ascribing the successful effort of the Constitutional Convention to Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison, Ellis, in the words of the reviewer, believed “what the founders did not want was to be embalmed, or to have their prescriptions taken as sacred script.” 

To support his analysis, according to the reviewer, Ellis ended his book quoting Jefferson: “Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I know that age well; I belonged to it and labored with it. It deserved well of its country ...

“But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.”

During a week when the U.S. Supreme Court upended some long-held beliefs, leading some Republicans to question its continued validity, we would do well to reflect on Jefferson’s words. 

Free Range Child Rearing

I called home from work one day to discover Gilda had left 10-year-old Dan in charge of watching himself and seven-year-old Ellie while she went to and from the cleaners four blocks away. I went ballistic.

How could you be so delinquent, so irresponsible, I demanded of Gilda when I came home. She calmly responded there was nothing to fear, that Dan was more than capable at his age of caring for both of them in the few minutes she was away.

I bring this up now because of a segment on the Brian Lehrer Show I listened to Thursday. His WNYC public radio guest was Lenore Skenazy, author of the book and blog Free Range Kids, her conceit being that children today need more independence, that fear they will be snatched, or worse, has been overblown by the media and overtaken our collective psyches, particularly those of parents of young children.

Lehrer and Skenazy discussed the recent arrest of a South Carolina woman who let her nine-year-old daughter, armed with a cell phone, play in a popular park while she worked in a nearby McDonald’s. For details of the alleged charge of unlawful conduct toward a child, a felony punishable by up to 10 years in jail, and their conversation, click on this link (http://www.wnyc.org/story/less-hovering-more-exercise/), or for a CNN article click here (http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/21/living/mom-arrested-left-girl-park-parents/index.html?iref=allsearch).

I will avoid taking sides, though the Murray of 25 years ago clearly had an opinion. But I can’t seem to be anything but nostalgic for the freedom my friends and I had in the Brooklyn of the 1950s and early 1960s to play outdoors, even in the street, to walk two long avenue blocks to play in the PS 254 schoolyard all day where stocky-built, black curly haired Tyrone was the local bully, to ride city buses to school and sometimes often wait 20 minutes or more in the rain or freezing cold and snow for a bus to arrive. 

This was not the bucolic Stand By Me coming-of-age experience. Rather, it was an ongoing immersion into city life complete, for me at least, with a mugging in Coney Island when two early teenage friends and I snuck away on the elevated subway one Saturday afternoon to enjoy the rides in Steeplechase Park. It was a quick, almost casual, mugging. We were about to walk into Steeplechase. I held a $20 bill aloft and before I realized it wasn’t Stanley or Jerry reaching for the money, the twenty was snatched from my grip by three youths who jostled all of us before racing away. We were unsettled, but still had enough money to spend an hour or two at Steeplechase. 

We had to keep our trip secret. Stanley and Jerry came from families that prohibited traveling on Saturday, or touching money. I didn’t have those restrictions, but my cousin Michael was coming to our house that afternoon and I had some explaining to do about why I was not home to play with him. I fibbed that I was at the schoolyard playing ball and had lost track of time. 

Fast forward to Gilda’s and my parenting prerogatives. When Ellie started seventh grade we were surprised to learn she no longer qualified for busing. White Plains provides busing to students who live at least a mile from school. We hadn’t moved. The school hadn’t moved, so why had Ellie been stripped of busing privileges? Seems a new busing administrator had mapped out a different, less than a mile, route. 

Gilda and I were upset. Ellie was unperturbed. Gilda ferried her uphill to school every morning; Ellie relished the down hill walk home, even disdaining offers of rides from parents no doubt concerned about a 12- or 13-year-old girl trekking on streets without sidewalks with the need to cross busy Mamaroneck Avenue.  

Some parents are reluctant to send their kids to sleep away camp, much less for a full seven or eight week summer. We shipped Dan out when he was nine, Ellie when she was seven. When Dan asked for an all-night birthday party, we agreed, never thinking he and his friends would stay awake the whole time. But they did and it is still fondly remembered as another example of Forseter libertarianism. 

When Dan learned to drive at 16, we gave him a credit card. Thirteen-year-old Ellie got one, as well. Both credit cards have their pictures on the back. Nearly 20 years later the pictures have yet to be updated by the bank. The point is, we trusted them to handle the cards in a responsible fashion. They did.

Yes, bad things happen. But they can happen even in the most careful circumstances. It’s normal to be vigilant. It stifles growth and independence to be suffocating. 

Winter Is Officially Over; Men Still Behave Badly

The calendar proclaimed it happened March 20, but I declare today the official end of winter and the beginning of spring. Today marks the day I ran the motor dry in my snowblower and stored it away in the shed, took out Gilda’s gardening wheelbarrow and removed the cozies from two of our outdoor faucets. 

Yes, spring was definitely in the air today, sunny with almost no breeze. I even fed the birds, giving them leftover Passover-version Cheerios (they’re really vile tasting, but the birds don’t seem to mind), and crunched up whole wheat matzah. D’ya think it will have the same binding effect on the birds? 

Is it a surprise to anyone that men behave badly? Specifically, men with authority who coach athletic teams and other groups where discipline is demanded. 

The abusive behavior of Rutgers men’s basketball coach Mike Rice toward his players led to his dismissal Thursday, days after a series of videos surfaced of him taunting his players with homophobic slurs, hitting them at close range with thrown basketballs, kicking them and otherwise manhandling them. Sadly, it wasn’t the first nor will it be the last time a coach acts badly. It happens in almost all sports.

But as I tuned into the last few minutes of a segment on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show today, I was intrigued by the comments a sportswriter guest made. Rice’s behavior toward these collegiate athletes was no worse than they might have experienced had they been new soldiers undergoing basic training in the Marines or Army. I am in no way trying to justify Rice’s actions. But it seems we surely have reached a point where college sports have stepped over a line that separates it from the rest of our society. Sports have transcended the educational purpose of higher education. I’m not sure we will ever rebalance our priorities, not when athletics produces oodles and oodles of dollars for universities, nor when the commander-in-chief’s picks for March Madness command as much if not more air time than wars in the Mid-East or hunger in America.

As if to reinforce that thought about war in Iraq and Afghanistan, Lehrer noted the intense interest in the compound leg fracture sustained by Louisville’s Kevin Ware during a game against Duke last weekend. Many people want to watch the video of the mishap. Yet, Lehrer pointed out, as gruesome as the injury was, it was not as bad as what happens every day in war zones, to civilians and to military personnel. We are shielded from viewing those traumas. The wars, it seems, are not for public consumption.

  

Lessons to be Learned

Spent an engrossing 95 minutes Tuesday afternoon watching The Gatekeepers, the Academy Award-nominated documentary that interviewed six former heads of Shin Bet, the Israeli internal security service.

I won't bias your opinion of this film by injecting my analysis of the merits of what was conveyed by them.  I urge all to see it. It’s a refreshing presentation of ideas and events from key participants in Israel’s history since 1967. I was captivated by the candor of these six men, especially when I compare two interviews I saw and heard with former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor this week. She's promoting a new book she wrote about the Court, but when pressed by Leonard Lopate of WNYC-NPR or Jon Stewart of The Daily Show for specific insights into the inner workings of the Court, the best they were able to elicit was the fact that when the justices get together for lunch they individually order food from the Supreme Court building cafeteria.

What I do want to highlight from the film it how fragile relationships between peoples—especially enemies—can be. They can turn on a phrase spoken with casual sincerity but unintended consequences. Shortly after Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza and their more than one million Palestinians after the Six Day War in 1967, Israel undertook a census of the territories. As one of the Shin Bet directors recounted, Israelis would knock on Palestinian doors, announce themselves, and say in Arabic they were there to “count the men.” But the word for “count” sounds disastrously close to another word that would not instill confidence or bonhomie. That other word is “castrate.” Whether it was Israeli mispronunciation or Palestinian mishearing, a casualty of understanding ensued.

Which brings me to my own experience with language, in my case, English. If you’ve ever tried to teach English to anyone from a non-English speaking country, you would know that English is a darn hard language to learn. Too many words sound alike. Too many words have multiple meanings. Too many words, depending on their usage, can be either nouns or verbs, or adjectives. 

For more than a year I have been tutoring English as Second Language students at our high school during their study hall. I stay away from math assignments. English. History. Geography. Simple science lessons. I'm pretty good at imparting some knowledge in those subjects.

But the lessons aren’t always easy. It doesn’t help that my Spanish (most of the students are from Latin America) is limited to 20 words or so. I had a major breakthrough today. Trying to explain “cowgirl,” I made little headway saying it was a female cowboy. The student had no idea what a cowboy was. Fortunately, all those years watching westerns paid off. I said “vaquero.” A connection was made.

It’s not always that simple, or lucky. Today I was helping a student study vocabulary. He had to identify words as nouns, verbs or adjectives and define them. Sounds straight forward. Only trouble was many of the words crossed over into multiple designations. Words like “cheer.”  Or “refuse.” How did you read refuse—as a verb (re-fuse) or as a noun (ref-use)?   

What about homonyms, such as profit and prophet. The other day a girl asked about Judaism, Christianity and Islam. When I started to tell her about the prophets Moses and Mohammed, she became bewildered. She wanted to know why I was talking about money.

Learning to master a language means learning idioms. Today’s idioms included “putting one’s foot in one’s mouth,” “get out of the car and assume the position,” and “no good deed goes unpunished.” 

I try to spend two hours a day, several times a week, tutoring. Sometimes, real estate work intrudes on my time commitment. So do food deliveries to seniors on Wednesdays. Don’t presume going to the Tuesday movies does—school ends hours before the first screening of the day. Helping these kids gain a better understanding of their new surroundings is among the most gratifying work I’ve ever done. When it’s your turn to retire, you could find few pursuits more fulfilling, rewarding and necessary than spending time assisting ESOL students acclimate to America.

Flying High on Potatoes, God's Will and The View

Just back from a quick weekend trip to Tucson for the wedding of our nephew Gabe to Laura. Was colder in Arizona than back home in New York, but the real eye-opener of the trip was reaffirmation of my antipathy toward flying. I am soooo glad I no longer have to fly several times a month. Especially when our connecting flight from Houston to LaGuardia was delayed, the heaviness of sitting around the airport, eating airport food, was overwhelming. 

Eat Your Veggies: Last week WNYC’s The Leonard Lopate Show aired an interview on the origin of potatoes as a staple of Western cuisine. Originally from the Andes in South America, most of the spuds we eat today are cloned varieties of Chilean potatoes. Central to the diet of South American natives, the potato was introduced to Europe in 1530 by the Spanish. 

In the small southeastern Polish town of Ottynia where my father was born, potatoes dominated mealtime, so much so that by the time he left the village at 16 and made his way to the free city of Danzig (now Gdansk) on the Baltic Sea, he vowed never to eat another potato. He managed to maintain that self-imposed prohibition for some 10 years until sitting in a restaurant one day a waitress prevailed upon him to try a potato with his meat. 

The rest, as they say, is history. From that time forward rare was the day a potato did not take up space on his dinner plate. Boiled potatoes. Mashed potatoes. Baked potatoes. French fried potatoes at the delicatessen. Potato latkes. The man loved potatoes. His palate hardly ever entertained a vegetable. Nothing green made it onto our dinner table. On the rare occasion my mother tried to introduce a vegetable, say asparagus or Brussell sprouts, she failed miserably. Ordinarily a good cook, she grossly overcooked vegetables until all their nutrients and taste were eliminated. Her asparagus resembled a limp question mark with no hint it was once a spear. Naturally, I grew up disdaining vegetables.

As an early member of Trans World Airlines’ frequent flyer program some 30 years ago, I often upgraded to first class (back then you could do so without having to redeem miles; you qualified for an upgrade simply by flashing your frequent flyer card). During one first class romp to California, I accepted the stewardess’ invitation for cold asparagus under Hollandaise sauce. My taste buds exploded. To Gilda’s everlasting joy, I came home eager to eat vegetables. To my everlasting joy, Gilda knows how to prepare them properly and tastefully.

God’s Will: Last posting I opined that by sending Superstorm Sandy a week before the election God must have been on Obama’s side since it stymied Romney’s momentum in the crucial last week of the campaign. I failed to remember God previously intervened to thwart Romney’s initial push by hurling Hurricane Isaac at Tampa just before the city hosted the Republican National Convention. Coupled with losses by Republican candidates who believe rape is God’s will, I’d say there’s significant evidence God is definitely not a registered Republican.

For a moment, it looked like God would be neutral. A storm did, after all, prompt the Democratic Party Convention to shift Obama’s acceptance speech from an outdoor stadium to an indoor arena. But the threatened downpour never happened and Obama’s rhetoric, not as lofty as four years ago, probably played better inside than it would have outside.

Barbara Bests Bibi: Most of the pundits have analyzed the election far beyond my meager efforts, but it’s worth noting Obama was criticized in October when the United Nations General Assembly met for making a guest appearance on The View instead of meeting with Israeli prime minister Bibi Netanyahu. In light of the overwhelming support women provided his re-election effort, perhaps it’s time to acknowledge sharing yucks with Barbara Walters and her crew was more beneficial than making nice to the head of a foreign state who clearly favored his opponent and, like so many caught up in distaste for the current occupant of the White House, came out on the wrong side of history. 

Media Daze

Every time I hear Eliot Spitzer I get sooooo angry. Not because I don’t like him. Rather, because I generally agree with what he says and his fall from grace has deprived New York and country of a leader who could have made a difference. Now, he’s just another talking head, albeit one who makes sense and isn’t too pompous and self-righteous. Like most pols, he has an ego, but he’s working hard to control it.

The former governor and attorney general of New York, or Client #9 in the federal sex probe that cost him his leadership of New York State and potential national candidacy, is now a host on Current TV. Yesterday he was interviewed on WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show. ‘Twas an earnest analysis of issues, well worth your listening to: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2012/may/02/eliot-spitzers-viewpoint/

Holy Communion: I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with some of the positions emanating from the Catholic Church. I support its call for a higher minimum wage in New York. 

But my real communion is for the criticism Catholic bishops have heaped on Rep. Paul Ryan, a fellow Catholic, for his budget proposal that would strip government support for the needy. As explained by Father Thomas Reese of Georgetown University on Tuesday’s The Colbert Report, the Catholic hierarchy believes Ryan’s budget would cut benefits to the poor and hungry while enriching the rich. 

Here’s a clip of Stephen Colbert’s interview with Father Reese. You’ll also see and hear how duplicitous politicians can be and how easy it is to expose them in this age of everything-you-say-is-recorded-and-will-be-played-back-at-some-future-date: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/413499/may-01-2012/paul-ryan-s-budget---thomas-reese.

Let’s Get Real: Over lunch yesterday I caught up with last Friday’s Real Time with Bill Maher. I won’t tax you with another link. Instead, here’s a quote from Bill himself I thought was particularly cogent: 

“Mitt Romney is running on the question, ‘Can I run this economy better than Barack Obama?’ 

“How can you run on this idea that I’m going to take over an economy that my party ruined?” 

Like Maher, I’m baffled that anyone, even die-hard Republicans, would believe the ideas of the party that turned a record surplus into two debt-producing wars and an unpaid prescription drug benefit program could be palatable to any voter with memory.

Catch Up, Not Ketchup: Here’s another example of why my wife is a foodie. For years Gilda’s been an advocate of dark meat when it comes to eating chicken. It seems the rest of the consuming world is catching up to her. Cluck along as you read this: http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_268802/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=Wff78MGb

Rider of the Purple Sage: Last weekend Gilda enlisted me (notice I didn’t volunteer) to help with some yard work. Heavy lifting stuff, like moving five 50 lb. bags of potting soil. After she trimmed some bushes I collected the discarded branches, some for kindling, the rest for collection by city crews. I noticed the pile of brush resembled a tumbleweed, which brought back memories of my one and only trip to Reno 34 years ago. I was in Nevada to cover the opening of a J.C. Penney catalog distribution center. 

As I sped down the highway—everybody speeds along Nevada highways—I saw tumbleweeds blowing towards me. There were tumbleweeds in every lane. They were as wide as my car. Have you ever collided with a tumbleweed? I hadn’t. I’m not ashamed to say I was pretty scared. I couldn’t take any evasive action. We collided. At least that’s what I think happened, for you see, when a tumbleweed hits a car it vaporizes into thin air. All that frenzy and fear for nothing more than “poof!” 

Victory, At Last: I had expected to post this blog entry last night but wound up enthralled by the triple overtime NY Rangers 2-1 win over the Washington Capitals in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The game, which started at 7:40, didn’t end until 12:14 am this morning. 

During high school and through college I was a rabid hockey fan; I lost interest in the Rangers when most, if not all, of my favorite players retired or were traded. My passion renewed during the Mark Messier era of the early 1990s. When Messier delivered on his promise of a Stanley Cup in 1994, the first one for the Rangers in 54 years, I was the most happy for any championship any of my teams in any sport ever won. When the Rangers let Messier go in a contract dispute a year or so later, my allegiance became dormant again. I didn’t follow the team during this past regular season, so I’m a little lost recognizing players by their numbers or faces. Nonetheless, the viewing intensity is still there. 

Watching Stanley Cup hockey wears you out. Scoring is typically low; every touch of the puck can be a game changer, every miscue can result in a goal, or a fantastic save. Gilda was fast asleep when the game ended, so I couldn’t shout “goooooal” when Marian Gaborik poked a perfect pass from Brad Richards through the pads of Washington goalie Braden Holtby to finally end the contest four and a half hours after it began. Sudden death. Sudden victory. 

New York in 10 Objects

If you had to pick 10 objects that told the story of New York City, actual items that could fit into a museum, not pictures of them, what would they be?

This exercise is not original to me. It’s an admitted rip-off of a feature from the Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC, the public radio station that is part of the National Public Radio network. In turn, the Lopate show was inspired by a BBC and British Museum series it is in the middle of broadcasting depicting the History of the World in 100 Objects.

Submissions to the Lopate Show had to be in by 5 pm Friday, February 10, so I’ve missed the deadline. Thus I’ve no need to keep my selections secret. Nor do I have to restrict my nominees to 10. To get the public started, Lopate offered three suggestions—an elevator from the Empire State Building, a bagel and a subway token.

Here are my choices for objects peculiarly New York in character with historical and/or social significance (I’ve restricted myself to items available from 1900 going forward, though some may have originated earlier). See if you agree and can cull them down to the 10 most significant. Or you can add your own iconic items. My Top 10 picks are at the bottom:

1. Slice of New York-style pizza
2. Nathan’s hot dog
3. Car from Coney Island’s Cyclone ride
4. Playbill from a Broadway show
5. Bloomingdale’s big b brown shopping bag
6. Interlocking N-Y Yankees logo on a baseball cap
7. Front page of the New York Times
8. Central Park bench
9. Checker taxi cab
10. Steel girder from the World Trade Center
11. Statue of the Wall Street bull
12. Ticker tape
13. The marquee of Harlem’s Apollo Theater
14. Art deco frieze from Radio City Music Hall
15. Sewing machine work station from the garment district
16. Manolo Blahnik shoe from Sex and the City
17. Ralph and Alice Cramden’s main room from The Honeymooners TV show
18. Ellis Island immigration stamp
19. A New Year’s Eve ball dropped at Times Square
20. TKTS theater booth
21. The detectives room from Law & Order TV show
22. Lions in front of the 42nd Street Public Library
23. Inside of a tenement apartment from the Lower East Side
24. A montage of magazine covers including Colliers, Saturday Evening Post, New York, The New Yorker, Time, Life, People, Look
25. Street sign of Madison Avenue
26. Menu from The Four Seasons or some other iconic restaurant
27. The steps in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
28. Part or whole Staten Island ferry
29. A bodega
30. Jackie Robinson’s cleats
31. Willie Mays’ baseball cap
32. Babe Ruth’s bat
33. Neon lights of Broadway
34. Fashion show runway
35. Pushcart
36. Looped showing of Woody Allen’s film “Manhattan”

My Top 10:
4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 19, 23, 24, 30,

Multiculturalism Edition

As we continue to reel from the shock of last Friday’s bombing and mass murder in Norway that claimed 76 lives, new aftershocks to multiculturalism emerged from distant lands.

Glenn Beck put his dumb foot into his mouth again. As reported in Britain’s The Daily Telegraph, during his Monday radio show, Beck said, “'As the thing started to unfold and there was a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like the Hitler Youth. Who does a camp for kids that’s all about politics? Disturbing.’”

The Daily Telegraph reported, “The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party comprised of teens and preteens that existed from 1922 to 1945.

“Torbjørn Eriksen, a former press secretary to Jens Stoltenberg, Norway's prime minister, called Beck's comments a ‘a new low’ for the broadcaster, who is known for his controversial, often offensive statements.

"'Young political activists have gathered at Utoya for over 60 years to learn about and be part of democracy, the very opposite of what the Hitler Youth was about,’" he told The Daily Telegraph. “‘Glenn Beck's comments are ignorant, incorrect and extremely hurtful.’"

Ah, the hypocrisy of those with a microphone and hours to fill the air with their venom. Beck’s 9/12 project, it turns out, runs a Tea Party political camp for children 8 to 12 years old...


Any attempt at multiculturalism, especially when it comes to possible romance, breeds dissent worthy of Romeo & Juliet.

In Israel, according to the newspaper Haaretz, rabbis in the Gush Etzion region south of Bethlehem in the West Bank objected to a possible liaison between a Jewish cashier and a Palestinian bagger at an Israeli-owned supermarket that purposely opened in an area where Jews and Palestinians could freely mingle (http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israeli-grocery-store-keeps-arab-baggers-and-jewish-cashiers-apart-1.375301).

It’s not clear from the article if there indeed was a love affair. Nor is it clear whether the bagger left his job voluntarily or was fired under pressure from the rabbis. But the grocer has agreed to keep Israeli cashiers and Palestinian baggers apart except when customer traffic is heavy. Moreover, if the quotes from a local rabbi of Alon Shvut are accurate, it’s not a good situation.

Rabbi Gideon Perl is reported to have said, “I was asked to talk to (owner) Rami Levi and his staff about the problem, and told them that one of the things we had feared when the store opened a year ago was exactly this...You need a whip to teach people a lesson after something like this happens.”

I shutter to think any 21st century rabbi could think in such terms...


Perhaps that rabbi and any like-minded soul should look to Jewish history for some multicultural encouragement.

In the same issue of Haaretz, an article on an archeological find in Tel Tzafit, near the Gaza Strip, revealed possible links between biblical Jews and their arch enemies, the Philistines (http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/3-000-year-old-altar-uncovered-at-philistine-site-suggests-cultural-links-to-jews-1.375305).

A Philistine stone altar from the 9th century BCE is similar in design to Jewish altars described in scriptures. They might have been bitter foes, but there clearly were cultural relations between the two peoples.

“Every group continues defining itself distinctly, but there’s intensive interaction. Think about Samson for a second,” said Prof. Aren Maeir of the Land of Israel and Archaeology studies at Bar-Ilan University, leader of the dig. “It doesn’t matter if the story is real or not. It’s true he kills them and they kill him, but on the other hand, he does marry a Philistine woman and takes part in their weddings.”


Summer’s Eve Follow-up: Seems I was onto something last Friday when I called out Summer’s Eve’s new advertising campaign for its feminine hygiene product. While it strove for a multicultural effect with three ads featuring white, Hispanic and Afro-American talking vaginas, the campaign elicited immediate reactions from Bill Maher on his Friday night show and Stephen Colbert on his Monday telecast.


Rotten Tomatoes: I like tomatoes. I like being able to get them year-round. But after listening to Barry Estabrook on WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show today, it will be harder to swallow them next winter.

According to Estabrook, slave labor, yes slave labor, picks many of the Florida winter tomatoes we eat. Asked to explain what he meant by slave labor, Estabrook said according to court records undocumented workers from southern Mexico and Guatemala might be kept overnight in shackles, they are sold, they are beaten, they are paid subsistence wages and live in ramshackle huts with minimal sanitary facilities. For a full airing of the Estabrook interview, click here: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2011/jul/26/tomatoland/. You’ll also find out why store-bought tomatoes don’t taste as good as they used to and are less nutritious.