Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

I once thought I understood proper tipping, but now I am confused. More and more the machines where I pay ask if I want to leave a tip at places where I seldom tipped before, such as a bagel shop or a coffee bean retailer. But I was very surprised when I went through a toll booth and I was asked if I wanted to tip.

The handwritten sign in the bar’s window said:

          Here’s to Strong Women

                    May we know them

                    May we be them

                    May we raise them

When inside, I said to a favorite server that the sign was offensive. She asked if that was because there was no reference to men, and I replied, “No. Because there should be another line: ‘May we love them.’ ” She gave me a thumbs up and a fist bump. When a bit later I saw the at-least-once-burned owner and said the same thing, she snapped back, “No one believes in love anymore.”

Until recently I was not aware that Stellantis was a major American car maker. Of course, until recently I did not even know that Stellantis existed.

I was only trying to spread hope, but the mother seemed upset when I peered into the stroller and said, “Some two-year-olds get better looking as they grow older.”

All those TV sports shows ought to interview college athletes about their favorite professors and then produce clips of those teachers both in the classroom and interacting with the athletes outside of classes.

A wise person said: “The fact that you cannot serve God and mammon does not seem to have hurt business any.”

The sidewalk sign for a neighborhood establishment said among other things that I could buy “esoteric products” on the second floor. Can you tell me what I could expect to find?

If a son is a “Junior,” is it psychologically harmful to him if his father is not “Senior?” Does this help explain Donald Trump, Jr.?

Trump Sr. boasts that gasoline prices were much lower when he was president than now. He is correct, but even when he is correct, he is wrong. He says that the prices back in his presidential days were much lower than now. They were, but he quotes prices that were much lower than they actually were when he was President and then quotes much higher prices than is true for today. Is there a name for this syndrome where a person tells falsehoods even when the truth favors him?

When Trump took office, the cost of gasoline (“Obama’s gas prices”) were lower than the averages during the next four years. I have never heard Trump mention this.

“The trouble with facts is that there are so many of them” Samuel McChord Crothers.

“The best liar is he who makes the smallest of lying go the longest way.” Samuel Butler.

Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

I get emails telling me about dangerous and unusual situations on or near the campus where I am teaching a seminar this spring. The headline for one caught my eye because I would have thought it was more than common among college students. It said, “Crime Alert: Fondling.”

 

Pleasuring yourself.  Self-abuse.  How can these mean the same thing?

 

During my first spring in New York, I spotted in a deli a tray of triangular cookies or pastries that had a prune or poppyseed or apricot jam filling. I liked them, but after a few weeks they disappeared only to reappear again the following spring. I heard them called hamantaschen. (The spellings vary. And although hamantaschen is actually a plural, it is often used as the singular—thus, “I ate a hamantaschen.”) I learned that these delights were part of the celebration of Purim, which honors a story in the Book of Esther where Haman is the bad guy. (Purim is also celebrated in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods by children wearing costumes and masks—something like Halloween.) Hamantaschen like crocuses became for me a sign of spring, but soon many bakeries abandoned their seasonality and had them throughout the year. Although they tasted the same, they seemed less special now that I could have them at all times. Even so, each spring I seek them out. Besides their yearroundedness, they have changed in another way. Recently I went into a bakery in a desirable, but not particularly Jewish, Manhattan neighborhood for my springtime fix. I found many, many varieties of hamantaschen. They were filled with the likes of brownies and coconut cream and red velvet cake, and they were very expensive. Somehow this offended me, and I almost said aloud, “Jesus F. Christ! These are not traditional!”

 

“Obscenity is the distinguished hallmark of a sadly limited vocabulary.” Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine.

 

The handwritten sign in the bar’s window said:

Here’s to Strong Women

May we know them

May we be them

May we raise them

When inside, I said to a favorite server that the sign was offensive. She asked if that was because there was no reference to men, and I replied, “No. Because there should be another line: ‘May we love them.’ ” She gave me a thumbs up and a fist bump. When a bit later I saw the at-least-once-burned owner and said the same thing, she snapped back, “No one believes in love anymore.”

 

“To experience it stoned, in the company of a charming, totally delighted schizophrenic girl—that’s the only way to see Disneyland.” Jean Stein, West of Eden: An American Place.