Here are two must reads to help set the record straight.
Zinn: “A People’s History of the United States” and Cohen/Murrow: “Rethinking America’s Past”
Commentary
November is such a busy month, perhaps the busiest of them all. For the November issue of my community’s monthly magazine, The Breezes, I wrote a column about how jam-packed the eleventh month is. Here’s the column’s first paragraph.
Ah, November, a busy month indeed. I’m sure you’re aware of the “usual suspects,” Election Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving…but did you know that November is also Child Safety Protection Month, National Adoption Awareness Month, Native American Heritage Month and Peanut Butter Lovers Month (go figure). Not only that, the following “days” occur during our eleventh month – All Saints Day, Sandwich Day, Book Lovers Day, Young Readers Day, World Kindness and World Peace Day, National Adoption Day, Eat a Cranberry Day and, of course, in our intensely acquisitive world, Black Friday.
I’ve attached the column and, if you read it, you’ll see with so much about November to write about, I focused on Veterans Day, calling the piece, “November: A Time to Give Thanks to Those Who Served.”
Note: My guess is that this story will be of limited interest to most Around the Block readers. But since I don’t get paid based on the number of readers I have, I’m posting it anyway. Oh, yeah…I don’t get paid in any event.
Also, apologies once again to Paul Simon for hijacking one his songs, in this case perhaps his most famous one. But at least we’re both writing about heroes of the City by the Bay.
Buster Posey, the San Francisco Giants catcher for 13 years, announced his retirement from baseball today.
Remember the last “Red-Flagged” terrorist attack? I do.
The Washington Post just published an in-depth article titled, “Red Flags,” with the subhead, “As Trump propelled his supporters to Washington, law enforcement agencies failed to heed mounting warnings about violence on Jan. 6.” The story tracks the events leading up to the January 6 attack on the Capitol, beginning 102 days before the assault on our democracy, up to and including the aftermath. It is as chilling as it is comprehensive. As you can imagine, the reaction of the Trump camp to this extraordinary piece of journalism can be summed up in this statement from Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich, “The Post’s investigation is ‘fake news.’”
Trump’s mean-spirited statement about another American hero was not completely unexpected. But it did lead me to consider some things.
Amidst the obituaries detailing Colin Powell’s unsurpassed career as an American hero and the accolades from both colleagues and adversaries alike, came this one, which unfortunately, was not “fake news:”
Let’s be clear, y’all. It ain’t my Texas. And I pity the ones who claim it as theirs!
*(Texas, our Texas is the state’s official song)
For those of you who’ve missed it, Texas has been in the news recently. In fact there’s been so much written about the Lone Star state and their Looney Tunes governor, Greg Abbot, they’re giving the Sunshine State and our deceitful governor, Ron DeSantis, a run for the money.
Most of the attention on Texas has been on their egregious and, most probably, unconstitutional, abortion law.
This is a re-issue of the post “October in NYC was great…but” to fix a glitch in the video playback. I apologize for any inconvenience.
I posted an Around the Block yesterday about Covid-19 vaccine passports and how well the verification system seems to be working in New York City.
To exemplify the success, I referenced the many venues and eating establishment in the City in which showing proof of vaccination to gain entry worked smoothly and civilly. And while I mentioned both the exhibitions and the restaurants, as I wrote yesterday, that was not the focus of the column.
But today I woke up and thought, one of the exhibitions I visited was so exceptional, I had to find a way to share it with you. Which one? To surprise of the many readers who know me and know that I could never be mistaken for a “fashionista,” it was this one, Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams at the Brooklyn Museum. Why was it exceptional? Not simply because the House of Dior is one of the premiere fashion houses in the world. Or because of Dior himself or because of the famous in their own right creative directors who succeeded him at the House of Dior, including Yves St. Laurent, Gianfranco Ferré, Marc Bohan, John Galliano, Raf Simons and the current creative director, Maria Grazia Chiurri. And not even because the results of the work at Dior, even to me, were and and continue to be stunning. But because the show itself, the presentation, the displays, the sense of history it portrayed was, frankly beyond description.
Since words cannot do this exhibition justice, here, from me to you, Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams, the Movie
I hope you enjoy this little filmed slideshow as much as I enjoyed attending the exhibition and creating the video.
…I’m vaccinated but I live in Florida and don’t have a Covid vaccine passport
Sharon and I spent a few days in New York City last week; we hadn’t been back to NY since before the pandemic.
Yasoi Kasumi
We visited the Yasoi Kusama installation at the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx. It was spectacular. For those of you who don’t know Kusama’s work, she’s a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, but is also active in painting, performance, film, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. She has been acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan.
The next day we went to the Brooklyn Museum to see two special exhibitions, “The Obama Portraits Tour”
and “Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams.”
Both were incredible. And the Brooklyn, which I visited at its Children’s branch each year on an elementary school trip, has become a world class museum with exhibitions, permanent and touring, which make it a must-see visit when in NYC.
We also had some great meals. At Dirty French in the Lower East Side, at Clinton Street Bakery for a breakfast that included, if you can believe this, eggs benedict on latkes (can’t get any better than that), at Lamia’s Fish Market, the wonderfully eclectic seafood restaurant in the East Village, at Sarashina Horii, the New York branch of a Japanese soba restaurant that dates back to 1789, and of course, at Katz’s Delicatessen, which opened in 1898, a relative newcomer compared to Sarashina Horii, but where the motto continues to be, “Send a salami to your boy in the army.” Finally, before we left for the airport (and a normally 45-minute ride that took over an hour and a half (Holland Tunnel –– “Fugedabouit”), we stopped at Yonah Schimmel (a relative baby, born in 1910) for the obligatory take-home knishes.
But this post isn’t about what we saw, what we ate and how much traffic there is in New York. It’s about this:
At every place we went in New York City we had to show two things before we were granted entry: a government issued ID and proof of completed Covid vaccinations. These were required at the Botanical Gardens, at the Museum and at every restaurant we patronized. No ID and vaccination proof, no entry. Sorry Governor DeSantis!
But here’s the thing. No one complained. No one pushed back. No one argued. Everyone simply and civilly complied. Experiencing and watching this, I was simultaneously gratified and in awe.
There was one thing that wasn’t gratifying, however. Every time I was asked for my “papers” I had to dig into my wallet to fetch my, now very dog-eared, paper vaccination certificate. Most of my fellow customers, if they had received their shots in New York State, pulled out their smartphone, opened up their Excelsior Pass app and, presto!, their vaccination information, which was stored on New York State’s database, popped up for instant access.
Fearing that if I had to keep pulling that paper certificate out of my wallet (yes, paper…laminating them is not appropriate as boosters and perhaps even more boosters will have to be added…) one of two things would happen. It would become illegible or, I’d lose it, I did the next best thing – scanned my ID and card on to another app, “NYCOVIDSAFE,” which while not linked to a database, would allow me to keep my not so pristine Covid card as safe as possible.
So, here we are, almost ¼ into the 21st Century, living in what is supposed to be the most technologically advanced country in the world, and most of us are rummaging through our wallets, purses and pockets for a rapidly deteriorating piece of paper, a piece of paper that in the current environment, might be the most important one we possess.
I’m going to stop here. But I’d like you to do me a favor. New York State’s Excelsior Pass app is, in the more popular vernacular, a Covid Vaccination Passport. Please tell me why this passport, this pass, is not a universal thing. Please tell me why DeSantis, Abbot, that South Dakota lady governor (I didn’t want to waste any time looking up her name; frankly it isn’t worth it) and just about every other GOP governor is so vehemently against it. I want to hear from you because, believe it or not, after seeing how successfully it worked in New York and how pleasantly compliant everyone was, I’m at wit’s end; I need some help.
Post comments on the site. Email me at tedblock@around-the-block.com. But let me know your thoughts. I’ll include them in a follow up post.
Thanks in advance. And also, apologies to all you readers down here in Delray Beach. The knishes are all gone!
…they were both lousy at their jobs. But Columbus outdid Lee in sheer ruthlessness.
Today is “Indigenous Peoples’ Day,” the holiday formerly, and in some places still known as “Columbus Day.” Or, in the New York City school system, “Italian Heritage Day/Indigenous People’s Day.” While on Fifth Avenue in NYC the Columbus Citizens Foundation (CCF) will hold the 77th Annual Columbus Day Parade.
A Times’ newsletter gave me the opportunity to review my feelings about the concept of American Exceptionalism. What’s your take?
The subject of today’s New York Times’ “The Interpreter” newsletter is “American Exceptionalism.” In the newsletter, the authors, Max Fisher and Amanda Taub ponder, “Changing American attitudes about their country’s role in the world.”
Around the Block 