Happy New Year

9/25/2014

Photo by Anjali

I was going to write something about world politics, or Derek Jeter, or Gail Collins’ column on climate, or why it is raining in New York, when the Jewish holy days are supposed to bring gorgeous fall weather, or my friend from junior high school who is becoming a rabbi.

Instead, I am sending a photo from our granddaughter Anjali, currently visiting family in the north woods.

Shana Tova

Brian Savin

9/25/2014 02:17:16 pm

There is a saying on Wall Street that goes, "Sell on Rosh Hashanah, buy on Yom Kippur." As the market was crashing today, I called my dear friend and broker, and spoke to his wife to convey the message that he should head to his temple and tell his investor friends to STOP selling. My good friend's wife told me that getting him to the temple would take an act of God. So goes the market.....but I'd be happy to have Anjali's photos at services should I jump out a window.

George Vecsey

9/25/2014 03:50:33 pm

Smart people weren't there this morning to tell the lemmings not to scurry. But it;s all just numbers. Where else are people going with their money?
Plus, the weather behaved and Jeter won his last game in YS.
How New York is that?
The frolics on Wall Street are a sideshow.
GV

Roy Edelsack

9/26/2014 03:10:59 am

And now for a dissenting opinion let's go to a bitter old Mets' fan* in New Jersey:

"First base was open, Buck shoulda walked him."

Ah nuts, even I can't pretend it wasn't a magical moment.

*me

George Vecsey

9/26/2014 06:19:35 am

Betcha that Buck has thought, every day for 19 years, if he had played Jeter instead of Tony Fernandez in Sept. and Oct, he could have managed the Yankees as long as Torre did.

Alan Rubin link

9/26/2014 03:45:12 am

I’m always fearful when it rains on the Jewish holidays that the “Doomsday” prediction is coming true. So far, it has occurred so infrequently that the worst did not have time to kick in.

Great way for Jeter to finish up!

I never make New Year predictions or resolutions since I can never be wrong or feel guilty. However, I believe that the Mets have bottomed out and will rise. I like that they stayed with their management team.

George Vecsey

9/26/2014 06:21:14 am

Your lips to G-d's ears, as people said in my neighborhood.
GV

John McDermott

9/26/2014 07:18:29 pm

Tell Anjali the photo is beautiful!

George Vecsey

9/27/2014 03:11:00 am

John, thanks, from you that is a high compliment. G

Ed Martin

9/27/2014 05:01:40 am

Shana Tova to you and yours. Lovely picture. Growing up in NYC area I always remember Jackie Mason or another wit saying, "there are more Jewish holidays in New York than in Israel. (New Year is not one of them.). Shalom.

Mendel

9/27/2014 06:11:49 am

Catching this post after the extended holiday weekend in Jerusalem. Thanks for your wishes, George. Just seeing the news about Jeter tonight. Only thought: “Are you kidding me?"

George Vecsey

9/27/2014 09:11:01 am

Dear Mendel: It happened in the middle of the night in Israel, but let me tell you, it was nuts. I ducked most of the game -- had enough with Yankeemania, even for Jeter -- but clicked on the tube at 10 pm, bottom of the eighth. Amazing. What a treat it has been to cover him and watch him for this generation. GV

Comments are closed.

QUOTES
"Among the things that have long fascinated people about Jesus and explain his enduring appeal is his method of dialogue and teaching. "He asked a lot of questions and told a lot of stories in the form of parables. In fact, parables form about a third of Jesus’ recorded teachings. The Gospels were written decades after he died, so his questions and parables clearly left a deep impression on those who bore testimony to him....
"Some of Jesus’ questions were rhetorical; others were meant to challenge or even provoke. In some cases, Jesus used questions to parry attacks by religious authorities who set traps for him. In others, he used questions to enter more fully into the lives of others and to help people look at the state of their hearts. He asked people about their fears and their faith. Jesus used questions to free a woman caught in adultery from condemnation and to inquire whether people considered him to be the Messiah. He probed deeply into questions not many had asked before him, like “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
---(Peter Wehner, long-time White House consultant and writer, in the NYT last week about Jesus Christ’s method of teaching by asking questions.)

"Would that I could mention all the illuminating details in this biography, for example, why Wells praised Black Americans so highly, saying, 'I took a mighty liking to these gentle, human, dark-skinned people,' and 'Whatever America has to show in heroic living today, I doubt if she can show anything finer than the quality of the resolve, the steadfast efforts hundreds of black and colored men are making today to live blamelessly, honorably and patiently, getting by themselves what scraps of refinement, beauty and learning they may, keeping their hold on a civilization they are grudged and denied.''
-- "How H.G. Wells Predicted the 20th Century," Charles Johnson, NYT Book Review, Nov. 19, 2021. ***".

...the monsters arrive."
"They come in a deafening, surging swarm, blasting from lawn to lawn and filling the air with the stench of gasoline and death. I would call them mechanical locusts, descending upon every patch of gold in the neighborhood the way the grasshoppers of old would arrive, in numbers so great they darkened the sky, to lay bare a cornfield in minutes. But that comparison is unfair to locusts.
"Grasshoppers belong here. Gasoline-powered leaf blowers are invaders, the most maddening of all the maddening, environment-destroying tools of the American lawn-care industry."

---The great Margaret Renkl, from Nashville, one of my favorite NYT bylines, Oct. 26, 2021.
(She describes our Long Island enclave to every decibel, every stink.)
lwww.nytimes.com/2021/10/25/opinion/leaf-blowers-california-emissions.html
---

Happy New Year

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