I was in third grade in a NYC catholic school. The Mother Superior came into our class in the afternoon and whispered (loud enough for all to hear) to our teacher "The President's been shot". Somehow a transistor radio was found and we all huddled around to get the news.

You grew up in California. What time did you return home? You may have been the last person to learn of the assassination.

This dovetails nicely with what my great-grandfather thought of his german neighbors. My great-grandfather was of anglo-saxon stock and a doctor in the mostly german town of Baden in Ontario. As a professional man he greatly admired his german patients because, as he said: “They paid their bills.” He was very saddened by the war against Germany in 1914 and its effect on canadian-german culture. The nearby City of Berlin changed it name to Kitchener.

August Wilson’s ancestry is similar to another famous black Pittsburger – Billy Eckstine.

The old elite New York accent used to be referred to as “Long Island Lockjaw” and was best represented by the TV character Thurston Howell.

Bill Buckley was a prime example of the elite New York accent.

David Tomlinson was a great cartoonish villain in The Love Bug. The fact that good guy Buddy Hackett played an Irish-American was red meat for hibernians like me.

I was living in Paris in the seventies and I recall a popular book “Quand la Chine s’éveillera… le monde tremblera” by Alain Peyrefitte which was very prescient about the future Chinese influence. The author followed up that book with “La Chine s’est éveillée” in the nineties.

OT – iSteve bait in today’s Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/express/wp/2017/05/11/the-library-of-congresss-jefferson-building-very-beautiful-a-little-bit-racist/?utm_term=.865bc1ff1120

An artefact of the “PR Airways” exists today in the subdivision of the United States into administrative regions by the federal government. Region 2 includes NY, NJ, PR, and the USVI. PR and USVI are much closer to the Southeastern States that make up Region 4 but the old easy transport between the Caribbean area and NY attached it to Region 2.

Agreed. I was raised in NYC in the fifties and sixties so have experienced black vibrancy from the beginning. My father grew up in Saskatchewan and later Ontario in the twenties and thirties. I thought it hilarious when he described his first sighting of a black person in a Toronto department store around 1935. He said that he and his sister followed him around for a few minutes simply because they’d never seen a black person before. I imaging the few Canadian blacks in those days were used to that reaction from the native whites.

Yeah. I’m in the antique trade and the swatiska was a widely used design element prior to WW2. Google Navajo whirling logs to see what I mean. I grew up in a Westchester County town that has a pre-WW2 brick apartment building with a swastika on one of the sides. In early 20th century Chicago there was a jewelry manufacturer called “The Swastika Shop” and their symbol was (natch) the swastika.

I was surprised at how small he was.

I had the same reaction when I (almost literally) bumped into OJ. It was December in the early nineties and I was getting off the escalator on the second floor of Bloomingdale’s department store in Manhattan. I had to stop short to let a pretty blond in a buckskin jacket pass directly in front of me. The face of the man she was with and mine were just inches apart in the crowd and I instantly recognized it was OJ. Only after the murder did I realize that the blond was Nicole. What struck me is that I remember looking down at OJ even though I’m six-foot even. I immediately turned to my wife behind me and told her that the man who just passed in front of me was OJ. She looked at him walking away and didn’t believe me. I insisted it was him so she purposely walked around the floor to approach him from the front. My wife was from a small midwestern town and had never seen a big celebrity in the flesh before. I’ll never forget her excitement when she came back and confirmed that it was indeed OJ. Later it came out in the press that OJ had purchased the infamous gloves in December at Bloomingdale’s. I’m sure that it was the same visit when I saw him and Nicole. Gives me the creeps every time I remember that encounter.

This Marc guy has a lot on the ball. With all his money he should endow a college that teaches the essence of his thinking. It should have a statue of him in the middle of the quad. The granite base should be etched to read “Knowledge is good”.

Talk about telling people apart. I’m the grandson of Irish immigrants on both sides of the family tree. Dad’s side are northern Presbyterians and mom’s are southern Catholics. I visited my northern cousins in Ireland in 1974. I remember they were able to distinguish Protestants from Catholics merely by sight. Whatever clues they picked up on were totally lost on me not having grown up in that environment.

Pena’s career is in the same era as another formerly unknown rocker Rodriguez. Rodriguez had the good fortune to live long enough to be rediscovered. I wonder if Pena is a rock god in some corner of the globe like South Africa.

In my experience the greatest beauty with the least acting talent is Ali McGraw. I have no idea how she got cast in the few films she made but her lack of talent doomed her career.

Thing is….I don’t recall seeing many blacks there and I was never aware Denver even had a historical black area given how far it is from everything out east.

Agree. I grew up in the east (NYC) so had a certain impression of black areas characterized by places like Harlem and Bed-Stuy. Long ago I married a mixed-race lady whose mother was black and raised in Denver in the 30s and 40s. Her roots, and the roots of many Denver blacks, were in western Kansas. She was descended from post-Civil War blacks who homesteaded the prairies. These blacks were staunch republicans and conservative both socially and politically. It was a revelation for me to see this side of the black american experience. Her father was a jazz musician and arranger in Five Points and there is a picture of him in a band in the Five Points African-American Museum.

My Mother-in-Law organised a family reunion in Denver in July 1996. Over 100 people attended. Many of them had moved to California in the fifties and sixties to work in the aerospace industry. One was the first black pilot for United Airlines, another opened a sandwich shop at the Oakland Airport, expanded and sold out to Marriott. He had more money than he could spend. My point is that they were, for the most part, successful and entrepreneurial folk. I know this is anecdotal and is just based on my own experience.

OT but related to what I have already said I’ll tell the story of the biggest coincidence that ever occured to me. I work in the DC area for a government agency. Back in the 1990s I had an African-American secretary. Over time I learned that she was raised in in Denver. She once told me that she spent summers in Oakley Kansas, the same town of my Mother-in-Laws ancestors. She didn’t know my MIL. She did say that her best friend in Oakley was a lady whose family name was Tinsley. I knew that was a prominent name in my wife’s family tree. When I was at the aforementioned family reunion in Denver I met a lady with the same name as my secretary’s best friend from Oakley. I innocently asked if she knew my secretary. The woman was stunned. she stared at me in horror for a few seconds before whispering “You know Rita?” I said “Sure!” She proceeded to fill me in on Rita’s backstory in Denver. Rita was married to the brother of the sandwich shop mogul. Allegedly he was very abusive. Rita knifed him to death and beat the rap at trial based on the known history of abuse. The husband’s family was none too happy and Rita took the kids and hightailed it out of Denver. No one in Denver knew what happened to her. I inadvertently revealed her location after all these years. I felt bad about that. My MIL couldn’t believe I worked with Rita.

When I returned to the office I never told Rita what I had found out at the reunion. I just didn’t see any point in bringing up painful memories. Anyway it is a small world, isn’t it?

Cut him some slack. At least he knows that in nearby Austria they speak Austrian.

In recent iSteve threads there has been wonderment expressed at the popularity of no-talent Lena Dunham. Take a look at the photo of these SJW land-whales at the top of this thread. This is Dunham’s fan base. They are out there in large numbers.

Bill DeBlasio thinks government funding of media would provide “more fair” coverage.

https://nypost.com/2017/12/20/de-blasio-thinks-a-city-funded-news-outlet-is-a-good-idea/

Perhaps this fellow could be a future american Ramzan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2d1yfOq0Jc
Video Link

Back in the eighties my wife was friendly with a newly-arrived immigrant from China. She was a frequent guest at our house. Hadn’t her of her in decades until she popped up in the news a few years ago for being arrested as a chinese spy. OT but the one interesting factoid I remember about her was our discussion about food. She consumed a lot of things that don’t appeal to most westerners. I asked her if there was anything in the standard american diet that she found unpalatable and she said cottage cheese.

My brothers and I were weirdly all close to the three tragic events of 9/11. I worked in the southermost office building in Crystal City just across I-395 from the Pentagon. We were aware that the World Trade Center had been hit. I was talking to a co-worker when we heard the impact of the plane into the Pentagon. I saw the initial explosion and plume of black smoke rising to the sky. Evacuees from the Pentagon fled into Crystal City seeking refuge. It was surreal. I walked home on my usual route via Joyce Street under I-395 right by the burning Pentagon. I was able to walk by the still burning Pentagon the next day as well before that passage was closed to pedestrians.

My older brother worked for Citibank in the Wall Street area and was a block away from the World Trade Towers when they were hit. My other brother is a doctor in central PA and was in Bedford that morning just a few miles from Shanksville. A horrific day for all.

One of the most drug-addled musicians to release an album was Sly Stone in the early seventies with There’s a Riot Going On . I believe his drugs of choice were cocaine and PCP. He mumbles his way through all the songs yet still produced great music.

Simon Leys is a great western observer of China. I remember him remarking on how the Chinese destroyed their cultural heritage during the sixties. I am involved, as an amateur, in the antiques trade. Many westerners collected chinese antiques in the 19th and 20th centuries. These antiques are now being sold back to the wealthy Chinese at incredibly high prices at auction.

My cousin Rosemary Mahoney is a writer. Her first book The Early Arrival of Dreams is about her year as an english teacher in China during the eighties. A good read.

If you didn’t know the people in this photograph but were told they were two married couples, most people would assume the couples were Emmanuel & Melania and Donald & Brigitte based on their ages.

Josephine Baker longs to return to Haiti and its “forets si belles”. To live outside of Haiti is to live in a cage:

Unfortunate that Maryanne’s married name is Barry especially to those of us who live in the DC metro area.

Because Jews were so hated and despised in the Old South.

My gut feeling is that this hate is exaggerated like a lot of anti-southern tropes. My understanding is that Jews were as well, if not better, integrated into southern society than they were in the north. Confederate currency featured a picture of a jew. Everyone’s quintessential southerner, Shelby Foote, has jewish ancestry. Elvis’s mother. My childhood idol Y.A. Tittle. Those are just the names off the top of my head.

Yeah I remember that test. It was initiated by folks who were going to finally prove that “Driving While Black” was a real phenomenon that explained the higher percentage of speeding violations issued to blacks. When the results proved that the ticketing was in line with reality the funders of the study refused to release it. I think some group had to sue or exert some sort of pressure to get the study released.

You think that’s embarrassing for the Cherokees? Get a load of the video the Apaches have to live with:

Video Link

The currant NYC Mayor was born a Wilhelm but took his mother’s family name for political reasons. I’m an old-time New York City rat and remember (and still use on occasion) the old NYC/Hoboken accent which reverses the “er” and “oi” pronunciations. An old NYC newspaper headline about a Wilhelm injury was headlined “HOYT HURT” which back in those days was pronounced “HURT HOYT”.

Interesting theory and in my case it checks out. Although not my favorite song, when I hear the clangy guitar at the start of “It’s a Shame” by The Spinners I feel a sense of elation that no other song evokes. I always assumed it was because it came out at a time in my life when I was most happy. And yes I was 14 when it was released in 1970.

Are you implying that the Milwaukee Bucks “Greek Freak” Giannis Antetokounmpo isn’t a direct descendant of Socrates?

I’ve been a subscriber to Maine Antique Digest for decades. I feel bad for this long time advertiser in that publication:

http://tiffanylampexpert.com/

Steve, your comment hits home in a very personal way. My older brother, who was/is brilliant, suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car accident at about the age of 8. Brain specialists who have reviewed his scans marvel at how he can function at all let alone hold down several jobs. He is employed as a greeter at a big box store in western PA. Despite being “retarded” and hence unable to live independently he has some remarkable skills. He is without peer as a greeter. His name is Peter and he is known as “Peter the Greeter”. The big box store even gave him ID shirts with “Peter the Greeter” on them. He has an incredible gift of being able to have conversations with complete strangers. He lives with another brother who is an accomplished physician in this town. When we go out anywhere in this town we are simply part of my “retarded” brother’s “entourage”. Everyone in this town knows and loves him.

He writes like a young child with a script that meanders across a page with no rhyme or reason. He has certain “Rain Man” type traits like the ability to remember events from his youth as if they occurred yesterday. He has a particular talent for remembering dialogue from old TV shows. I’ll never forget the time I took him on the NYC subway in the seventies. He recognized the couple sitting across from us as minor TV celebrities. The husband was more famous but the wife had been on an episode of Perry Mason. She was the baddie who Perry broke down on the witness stand. My brother was reciting her dialogue from the episode back to the actress exactly as she had recited it. I could see she was getting freaked out by my brother. His talent is not something that most humans possess.

Despite being “retarded” my brother has never collected a dime of public assistance. He will accept any job he can and has had several over the decades. He always says that he’ll never be fired because no one else will do the jobs he has. He also has a job as a monitor on a bus for deliquent kids in the local public school system. If ever he has free time he searches the classifieds for employment opportunities. As you can probably tell I am very proud of my brother and am contemptuous of able-bodied people on public assistance.

That’s the wrong kind of spinning. I think this is the spinning in the article:

There are some aspects of his story that don’t ring true to me. I am 14 years his senior but have an almost identical background (grew up on in NYC’s LES then hung with the rich kids later on at a private school on the UES). First I find it highly unlikely that he grew up in a public housing project. Second I’m not buying that his school segregated students by race. And don’t get me started on the term “stray bullet”. That is complete and utter BS. Ever notice how stray bullets always end up right between the eyes of the victim? It’s a cop-out term for an overloaded municipal LE and judicial system that doesn’t have the resources to investigate every serious crime, including homicide. It seems stray bullets only exist in bad urban environments. I’m always astonished when major metropolitan newspapers use this term signifying that there is no need to determine the perp. It’s of course assumed that the perp has no agency so what’s the point in prosecution? Any of you got “stray bullets” in your neighborhoods?

The guy also seems to be a bit “different”. Did you catch the names of his kids? From Wikipedia: “He has two children from a previous marriage: a daughter named E and a son named Yo Xing Heyno Augustus Eisner Alexander Weiser Knuckles Jeremijenko-Conley.[13][14].”

And if you want to go nuclear try Japanese. Is Yoko considered japanese?

Video Link

I guess they’ll have to change the lyrics to that Dean Martin standard “Standing On A Corner”:

Brother you can’t go to jail for what you’re thinking
Or for that woo look in your eye
Standing on the corner watching all the girls
Watching all the girls, watching all the girls go by

Video Link

I played paddle tennis for NYU in the seventies. The courts were on the roof of Bobst Library on Washington Square where coincidentally the game was first played over 100 years ago. There was an established league that included many of the Ivy League schools. Does anyone even plan paddle tennis anymore?

How about: “Power to Truthers”?

Maybe Lynch feels sympathy towards The Donald aka POTUS 45 because his father’s name was Donald?

I think that may have something to do with it. Also consider that they’re almost exactly the same age. Both born in 1946.

Regarding the name Donald I can share a little family gossip about how our POTUS came by the name. My father had just come to this country from Canada after WWII and was a resident doctor in NYC. After the future president was born the mother needed emergency surgery to stem internal bleeding. My father’s mentor Dr. Donald Davis performed the surgery and the grateful parents named their newborn after him. I knew Dr. Davis all my life. Funny thing is he never used Donald. His nickname was “Ding” and everyone knew him as Ding Davis. When Dr. Davis paseed away about 15 years ago my father called Trump to apprise him of his passing.

Gates is my age.

From your handle I assume you were born in 1963. Bill was born in 1955. I know this because Bill and I were born on the same day. I remember reading a short bio of Bill and was amused by the similarity in our lives. Our parents have the same first names, we married later in life in 1994, and had our first child within three days of each other. At this rate I figure we’ll die on the same day as well.

My Irish immigrant grandparents met at an Irish language class in Boston MA in the early 20th century. My grandfather from Kerry was the teacher and my grandmother from Limerick was a student. My brother and I were backpacking around Ireland in 1974. I remember early one morning waking from a night of camping out in a west coast town hearing some nearby old fellas talking in a foreign language. I think I was too groggy and not aware that Irish was still a viable language that I at first thought I was hearing Russian. I had heard a lot of Russian in my youth in NY so that was the first thing that popped into my mind. Only after a few moments did it dawn on me that they were speaking Irish. I was embarrassed then and I’m still embarrassed to admit it now.

A good friend, descended from the many french canadians who worked in New England mill towns, recently returned to Nashua to bury his mother. He said the local RC church used to have the majority of masses in french with one in english when he was growing up in the 1950s. Now the majority of masses are in spanish with one in french and one in english.

Despite earning more money than most people can dream of, Aretha was a lowlife crook. Saks Fifth Avenue had to sue to recover 100s of thousands of dollars in unpaid credit card charges. Governments at all levels were after her for unpaid taxes. This aspect of her life never, and I mean NEVER, enters any of the hagiographies that have been printed since her death.

I can’t imagine anyone wanting to call herself “Whoopi Goldberg” unless she really was but reality is stranger than our imaginations.

I wish those were the only places. I have the honor of working in the William J. Clinton federal building at 1200 Pennsylvania NW. They ditched poor Ariel Rios, the ATF agent who died in the line of duty, for whom the building was previously named.

But how long will it be before, say, Harlequin romances are machine written and you can specify your own name, occupation, etc. etc. to get a story tailor-made for you?

That capability has been around for decades.

https://www.yournovel.com/

Agree. That strategy worked well for Levi Strauss.

As a kid I knew Dr. Blake Donaldson the author of “Strong Medicine”
(1962). Dr. Donaldson is considered one of the early founders of the low carb diet. His book is an interesting read.

President Trump’s sister is named Maryanne Barry. She could win the Washington DC mayoralty in a landslide if she wanted the job.

True story. My wiseacre brother sat next to Bill Kristol on a flight and asked him “So is there going to be a City Slickers 3?”. Kristol sneered and looked away. I don’t think they spoke the rest of the flight.

My Irish mother’s name is Mary Rohan. When her friends learned about an obscure Donizetti opera call Maria Di Rohan they all started calling her by that opera title. It sounded so much more fancy and musical.

I agree that the howling instinct is still there. About 2 years ago I was walking next to a professional dog walker in Washington DC who had maybe 7 or 8 dogs on leashes. An ambulance with the siren wailing sped by and every single dog in that pack started howling. Quite an event to see and hear.

I got tested about two years ago and was surprised by having a reported 6% Iberian Peninsula component. My ancestry, as far as I knew, was all from the British isles. Then about a month ago I got a message from Ancestry dot com saying they’ve updated my ancestry based on new and better information. Poof! just like that the Iberian disappeared and my ancestry is all English/Irish/Welsh/Scots.

The one factoid I recall about Ry Cooder is that his 1979 album “Bop ‘Till You Drop” was the first major studio effort made using all digital recording technology.

I like to study contemporary photos of Bill Gates. He and I were born on the same day so I like to compare our aging process. It looks like we’re on comparable paths but he has much better hair.

I agree but would extend that to all large male dogs. Almost all male dog pets are neutered. If you have a large male dog and forego the neutering be prepared to kick its ass or you’re in for a world of trouble.

Brooke Shields’ named her daughters Grier and Rowan which happen to be the family names of my father and mother respectively. I find that extremely coincidental.

Or were all those old-west sheriffs actually jews??

Don’t know about the sheriffs but Wyatt Earp’s wife was jewish.

Pretty amazing when you consider that Clovis is considered the first permanent site of humans in North America dating to over 12,000 years ago.

Back in the day the idea of a female pilot was truly radical. Remember this Candid Camera episode?

Video Link

Agree about the Polish names. I don’t think anyone even tries to pronounce Mike Krzyzewski’s name properly.

My cousin Rosemary Mahoney lived to write a book about her solo trip down the Nile.

ihttps://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/2195/Down-the-Nile

Kinda on topic I’m gonna tell a story from that era that I think is kinda funny. My brother was a big music fan and subscribed to Billboard magazine. He studied the domestic and foreign charts relentlessly. He was aware that The Squeeze had a new album out in the UK that wasn’t scheduled for release in America for a few weeks. Our parents were going on a vacation to the UK so my brother asks them to get the new Squeeze LP. Our Mom has it in her carry-on on the plane heading back to the States. My Dad has the aisle seat and is oblivious to our Mother’s mission regarding the LP. Dad strikes up a conversation with the guys sitting across the aisle. Turns out it was The Squeeze bandmates heading to an American tour. Dad never mentions this to Mom during the flight. So we pick up the parents at JFK and Mom triumphantly gives the new Squeeze album to my very grateful brother. At this point my Dad chimes in “The Squeeze?! They were sitting next to us on the flight!” That set my Mother off as she demanded to know why he didn’t tell her. He insisted he did. Well you can imagine a big row ensued. I thought it was hilarious and still chuckle about it to this day. The Squeeze would have been flattered if this senior American couple had produced the album mid-flight for autographs.

One theory is that syphilis was introduced to Europe by the returning crew of Christopher Columbus from their first contact with the Americas.

Some people are more sensitive to hair characteristics than most. Barbers obviously are part of those some people. I knew an African-American man who says that the first time he went to his barber in Oakland CA that the barber knew he was from East Texas by his hair. My Irish grandparents, aunts and uncles, born in the 1880s, claim they could identify Irish protestants by their hair which they called “presbyterian hair”.

My guess is that the twin is fraternal. Matthew looks like Dad and the twin looks like Mom.

That time arrived decades ago. Read (if you can bear it) Michelle Obama’s senior thesis while at Princeton. Pure gibberish. Barack didn’t even have to write a word while editor of the Harvard Law Review.

I agree that the Mills victory was an exciting moment in USA track and field history but does it beat Dave Wottle’s 800 meter win in Munich?

Yes. The Official Preppy Handbook came out in 1980 and was a huge hit launching a wave of all things preppy in the pop culture.

Margaret Hamilton had extensive past experience in flight:

Do you think Donald Trump knows any amusing affirmative action anecdotes?

https://www.indy100.com/article/trump-racist-video-1993-native-americans-testimony-watch-9008226

The prominent archway in that painting is more roman than greek. I doubt any such archway existed in the Athens of Socrates.

I grew up in NYC in the fifties and sixties and played american quoits when visiting friends in the suburbs. I don’t think kids are playing the games I grew up with such as ringalevio, red rover, punchball and stickball. I could be wrong but that’s my impression.

Bob Marley drove a BMW. To him the initials meant “Bob Marley and the Wailers”.

A boiling steaming cauldron was a staple of mid 20th century witch doctors:

I was a patient of Dr. Raskind before he transitioned.

I challenge anyone to name one false belief that Americans had due to a Russian disinformation campaign?

Going back to soviet days the belief that Sacco and Vanzetti were framed.

Benny Hill had a waitress with a tag on her uniform that said “Pat” as well:

I grew up in the LES of Manhattan in the 50s and 60s and generally agree with your characterization of NYC accents. I went to parochial school in Greenwich Village and a lot of my classmates sounded like Leah Remini from “King of Queens”. The Italians had their own accent (think Tony Soprano). The older generation had a now extinct accent that was used by Mickey Rooney in Little Lord Fauntleroy. After third grade I went to a posh catholic school on the UES and boy did I feel out-of-place. What you describe as “rather British” was what was called “Long Island Lockjaw”. Bill Buckley was the foremost practitioner of that accent.

BTW Martin Scorcese had Daniel Day-Lewis using the NY accent in “Gangs of New York”. I doubt that accent existed in the mid-19th century but who knows for sure?

The Atlantic treat the porch privates as doing victimless crimes. That Amazon will be on hook to ship replacement shipments. This is the wrong headed approach.

AmazonFlex drivers beware! 5 lost packages and you are kicked off.
byu/zackiebinkes inAmazonFlexDrivers

The so-called “reporter” at The Atlantic really should interview numerous Amazon Flex couriers who are “deactivated” from the platform, fired in other word, because they “lost” more than 5 packages within their last 500 packages. Some no doubt due to Fairley’s actions.

Some how, someone who is desperate enough to work gig economy, but still doing honest work, are not worthy of consideration/sympathy by “elite” journalists.

I’m a few months away from retiring from the federal government in which case I’ll be an Ex Fed.

I lived in Chicago in the early eighties. A homeless person forced his way into a friend’s car and promptly died (probably from the cold). The police assumed the dead guy was my friend and notified his mother of his passing. Interesting times.

Growing up in NYC in the 50s and 60s I used to drive by a massive construction project known as Bruckner Boulevard. It was under construction for years and years. Noted NYT architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable titled her collection of essays “Will They Ever Finish Bruckner Boulevard?”. Well worth the read if you’re a NYC architecture buff.

Sandra Haggerty predated Kaplan as the Los Angeles Times first african-american columnist by several decades working in that position from 1969 to 1977.

How times have changed! As a student in Paris in the 70s I worked as a fruit and vegetable vendor at an outdoor market in the 16th arrondisement. My boss was an elderly Spanish immigrant married to a French woman. I remember one day a lady of african descent was handling the produce too long for the bossman’s patience. He grabbed whatever it was in her hand and put it back on the table, slapped her hand and shouted:”On’est pas au Congo ici!”.

I’m an anti-influencer regarding cars. If I buy one that manufacturer will either leave the US market or go out of business. I bought Renault in the eighties and Saturn in the nineties and aughts. I just had the clutch replaced on my 2003 Saturn. Soon I’ll have to curse another company when the Saturn dies.

I commute to work on the DC Metro subway. About two years DC Metro had an advertising campaign pitched at being courteous to Metro employees. The ads featured photos of actual Metro employees. Metro went way out of its way to find and feature the few Whites and Asians among its ranks for the ads. The deception was breathtaking.

“I think she spends a lot of money at her beauty parlor trying to look like she hasn’t spent any money there.”

Reminds me of Dolly Parton’s quote speaking of herself: “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap!”

Nice old cobblestone street in that video. Paris paved over their cobblestones because they were used by the soixante-huitards as weapons against les gendarmes. I don’t want to give antifa any ideas.

I don’t really have much to add other than to say that I moved to Chicago around the same time as you. In my case it was 1982. I came from a few month stay in Baltimore. While in Baltimore I remember a sleepy-eyed TV newscaster named Oprah Winfrey who re-located to Chicago at about the same time. I remember running into her in a department store in Baltimore. Regarding Chicago politics I met and befriended Martin Sandoval who was starting his first job. He rose in the ranks of Chicago/Illinois politics and became the Barack Obama of the mexican west side. I left Chicago after a few years but stayed in touch with Martin. I was saddened to hear of his recent conviction on corruption charges but I guess that just goes with the territory.

“Negro College Fund should change its motto from ‘Mind is a terrible thing to waste’ to ‘Black feelings are a terrible thing to hurt’… esp as they be rioting and shi*.”

I work cleaning up hazardous waste sites. Our motto is: “Waste is a terrible thing to mind.”

There was no intent to harm. The poor hapless victims were “in the wrong place at the wrong time” and hit by “stray bullets”. Doesn’t every neighborhood have a population of “stray bullets”?

Such an outdoor sculpture garden already exists at my Alma Mater’s former campus in the Bronx. I’m an NYU grad and the Bronx campus featured the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. This was created back when the Bronx was civilized. You have recently commented on your blog how the Bronx has descended into savagery over the last 60 years. NYU sold the Bronx campus but the Hall of Fame continues as part of Bronx Community College. Feast your eyes on the notables admitted to the Hall a long time ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall_of_Fame_for_Great_Americans