Rage Bait and Open Compound Words

Open compound words. WTF! are they?

I had a decent NYC public elementary school education in the 50s. I learned to read. I learned to write. I learned to spell. I even learned how to diagram sentences, which gave me a feel for writing. But "open compound words?" WTF!

Reading in The New York Times, (where else?) I recently came across a Page 1, Arts section story that 'rage bait' is named the word of the year 2025. Since 2025 is still not over, I suspect the lead is so big there is no chance of absentee ballots changing the results.: Word of 2025, Rage bait.

This is not some honorific bestowed by some radio station. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) people are behind identifying "rage bait" as No. 1, beating out "biohack," and "aura farming."

To the simple minded, "rage bait" seems to be two words, written or spoken together to indicate "online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative or offensive." Something like saying the New York Jets are the best football team without a Super Bowl appearance  and victory since Richard Nixon was in his first term.

The linguists classify "rage bait" as an "open-compound" word. Looks like two words to me. Is "open-compound itself two words? No. It is a hyphenated word. Here's a wall to go climb up.

The now long departed Russell Baker would be glad to see a word still hyphenated, "open-compound," but would likely strain under a definition that "rage bait" is a single word and not just some expression, like "fuck you."

But the people at the OED track word usage, and have come away with the decision to award "rage bait" as the Word of 2025.

The NYT reporter, Jennifer Schuessler tells us the OED tracked its appearance from 2002, "when it appeared in a post on a Usenet discussion group to describe a kind of driver reaction to being flashed by another seeking to pass. Since then it has become an increasingly common slang for an attention-seeking form of online behavior."

And if "rage bait" is a word, where will you find it in the OED? My hardcover edition of the OED is two volumes, now several years old, comprehensive, but still called the "Shorter Oxford English Dictionary."

When I arrive at "rage" I get a notation that there is a "road rage" as well as "air rage." Will "rage bait" appear in the latest edition? I asked ChatGPT.

"The short answer is: we cannot know, and the OED has not yet publicly scheduled or announced an entry for rage bait."

ChatGPT then poses a question I was going to ask.

Where would if appear if the OED adds it?"

"If added, it would appear alphabetically as its own lemma:
rage-bait, n. & v."

Ah, jeeez, what's a lemma? The OED tells me: "the form of a word or phrase chosen to represent all inflectional and spellings variants in a dictionary entry, etc."

They're saying it's going in hyphenated, not as an "open compound" word.

Alert the media.

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Homeland Redux

It seems even reruns can be monetized in this streaming universe. And way not? We live in a world of entertainment, and we all apparently will pay for it.

Carrie Mathison, the lead character in the long-running Showtime series Homeland, is a CIA analyst played by Claire Danes, who has the hots for Sgt. Nicholas Brody, the U.S. Marine sniper held hostage by al-Qaeda for 8 years and turned against the United States. Well, half-turned.

Ms. Danes won a fistful of Emmy, Golden Globe, and SAG awards that would cover a mantlepiece. Carrie's initial lust for Brody turns into deep love by the end of Season 2. Well, they are the two stars of the show.

The producers craft dramatic, drop dead, page-turning endings for the episodes and generate massive interest into what's next. Homeland, started in 2011, carried 12 episodes for 8 seasons. It's almost a relic of how a miniseries was put together. Lots of episodes in a season. 

My telephone bill tops $200. That's a lot you might think just to be able to call for pizza. And that's just the landline. There is a family cell phone bill that I have a number for, but is handled financially by other family members. We believe in shared responsibilities.

Amongst things that didn't get thrown away, I came across a circa 1950s New York Telephone company bill for our home in Flushing. I don't think it exceeded $5.

Message units. Do you remember message units, those tiny 7¢ charges that landed on your bill when you used more than the 30 they gave you at the outset of the billing cycle? If you do, you're as old, or older than I am. If you are my age, or older, and claim you do not know what a message unit was, you've been lying about your age to people.

If you made calls outside your zone, or the series of first three numbers in a phone number, you incurred message unit charges faster. Of course it wasn't three digits that started a number, it was an exchange and a number. Ours Was FL-9 for Flushing. Get it.

Of course, the alpha notation gave way to just numbers. Our number once was 358-. The 3 and 5 correspond to an F and an L on the phone keypad, which really hasn't changed since phones allowed direct dial calling.

My father was a notorious non-payer of bills. We once had our electricity turned off by Con Edison. It takes a big arrears before Con Ed comes to block your electricity. We lost phone service many tines; our number was always getting changed when the service was restored. My father was a baffling man.

He was a college-educated engineer who was never unemployed. He was a career naval engineer in the Design Division at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It just seems he could never get it in his head that bills needed to be paid on time. Fuel oil delivery for the home was very erratic. We wore sweaters quite a bit, not that my father did. He was always at the family flower shop and barely spent anytime at home. He never seemed to be cold. It must have been his scotch intake.

My $200+ phone bills always gets paid on time, and includes fast Internet service, and a cable bill package that gives me way more than I'm sure I need. I get access to a lot of hockey teams that I really don't care about anymore. Things need to change.

But, the streaming channel of Showtime was always worth it. I got Homeland, and then Billions, shows I watched religiously and wrote about often. I've looked back and am surprised how often I summarized the episodes.

Then there was The Americans. I forget who carried that, but that was another show I enjoyed. All that does not even include the streaming subscription services like Amazon Prime, Acorn, BritBox, PBS Masterpiece, and MHz. I'm a sucker for foreign police procedurals. I don't mind the subtitles. However, I do not watch shows that are dubbed. The disconnect between the speech and the mouth is too distracting.

When Homeland ended on Showtime I missed it. But then Billions took over, and the entertainment continued. And of course the Brit Damian Lewis found continued work on Billions that no longer put his life in danger.

Does anyone think like I do that Lewis's puss/grimace reminds you of Steve McQueen? It's the face you make when you suck on a lemon. You'd be forgiven for thinking Damian and Steve came from the same set of parents, which of course they didn't.

I'm not a default, constant subscriber to NetFlix. I go in and out of so called membership. Lately however, I restarted my NetFlix membership in order to resume watching The Diplomat starring Kerri Russell and Rufus Sewell. I enjoyed the first two seasons, after which I sent the access into hibernation, and awaited the third season, which I have not enjoyed so much.

Maybe it was always there, but there is too much palaver and blather in the show. I'm not expecting gunfire or chase scenes, but the rhetoric is fatiguing.  But, I'm slowly making my way through what I think are 8 episodes. Definitely not binging. Then cancellation will loom again.

The home page of NetFlix attracted me to the access of what I'm guessing will be all 96 of Homeland's episodes, over the show's 8 seasons from 2011 to 2020. So my plans to quickly watch The Diplomat and drop NetFlix has been delayed. I've already paid for my second month of NetFlix access in order to enjoy Homeland again.

When first shown, I missed some of the very first episodes of Homeland, so the NetFlix access was a great opportunity to see what I missed. Apparently, not a lot, because it may have only been 2 or 3 episodes I missed when the show first aired.

The whole saga has come back to me; missing however are some of th brushstrokes that get you there. So, I've committed myself to watching up to the birth of Franny, the child Carrie Mathison had after her fairly constant lovemaking with Sgt. Brody. 

Carrie always seems to exhibit a bit of a runaway libido. It becomes evident with Brody out of the picture for now walking across the Canadian border in order to try and disappear, when Carrie brings home a good looking customer from the liquor store and together they test the strength of her carpeted staircase.

Right now I've just watched through the first episode of Season 3. The Senate committees are all over the C.I.A., but we know where that's going.

There are always new things you notice when you look at something for a second time. The episodes open with a series of shots of different places and people speaking sound bites. There is a view from a vehicle of the sign on the way into Langley: George Bush Center for Intelligence. I get that,. But what does FHWA in large letters below it mean?

Well, I'll tell you. Amongst what I'm sure are several buildings lies the Federal Highway Administration. FHWA. It seems like an unlikely pairing of government agencies, but, as they say these days: it is what it is.

I always try and read the credits, wither at the beginning or at the end. Somewhere in Season 2 an actor named Timothée Chalamet appears. Timothée plays Vice President William Walden's teenage son, Finn, who becomes attracted to Sgt. Brody's teenage daughter Dana, who together get into a good bit of trouble while Finn is driving, hitting a pedestrian while speeding and evading his Secret Service detail that was trying to keep up, and leaving the scene. A hit and run. The woman who was hit later dies in the hospital from her injuries. The coverup starts.

Chalamet is well casted, and of course goes onto greater roles, notably playing Bob Dylan in the movie A Complete Unknown and earning an Oscar nomination.

It used to be when someone got famous you could look back, or were told to look back, and see them selling Volkswagens once upon a time. Now they get famous, and then appear in commercials.

I chose the cheapest tier of NetFlix membership. As such, I'm exposed to commercials every now and then during the show. One commercial, which I will admit I fail to understand, but no doubt that's because I'm 76, was for $CashApp. Guess who I recognized in it? Yep. Timothée himself. I'm assuming his appearance is after the notoriety he earned playing Bob Dylan and singing in A Complete Unknown. 

I love acknowledging a piece of dialog that I forgot I once heard, but now that I've head it again, I find it worth memorializing. Saul and Carrie go way back, and he tells her he knew her from when he could "piss straight."

Thank you Saul, who plays a senior C.I.A. operative who is considered old. At this point in my advanced age I too find it hard to piss straight, no matter how hard I concentrate on it. I'm forever wiping the floor up with toilet paper. I just can't seem to get the nozzle to aim straight and not spray an annoying multi-directional mist. TMI? Too bad.

Also along the way, fairly early in the first season, there is a scene which I now will never forget. Saul is interrogating a member of al-Qaeda who has been extracted from a hovel in Pakistan.

The guy is hardly happy to be in the room, shackled and probably naked, having to listen to this bearded mass of a man, Saul Berenson, sit down and open a folder that has his picture and background information.

Saul picks up the folder, opens it and calls the subject a terrorist. Saul then tells the subject he also  appears to be religious. Saul skips a beat and then says in his theatrical baritone, "so you're religious and a terrorist...what are you, Catholic?" So far, there is no answer.

I nearly fell off my chair.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

Harrison Whitaker

The name sounds like an injury law firm that has any number of commercials on with your morning news shows. But it's not. There really is a Harrison Whittaker, and he's a double-digit-day champion on Jeopardy, knocking off opponents like bowling pins as he buzzes his way in and answers nearly everything correctly.

The damage to-date is a 12- day champion with $330,000 in earnings. He is described as an "independent researcher" but I think he's with the the C.I.A. helping M16 in London. He's a Yank in St. James Court. At least I'd like to think so. But I do favor spy books.

Harrison is described as "being originally from Terra Haute Indiana." He has degrees from N.Y.U., Columbia, and lately from Cambridge in the U.K. London is where he is now, acquiring a bit of a clipped British accent as he calmy answers Ken Jennings as fast as a machine whacks tennis balls in a practice session, swaying left and right at a bit at the podium, like a poplar in a gentle breeze. You pretty much don't even know there are any opponents. When the dust settles to enter the Final Jeopardy round the two statues that he's competed against haven't even amassed $10,000 together, while he's in the stratosphere where he can't be touched, no matter how Final Jeopardy turns out.

On the way to his current winning streak, there was one Final Jeopardy round where he failed miserably, and really stood to have the streak end. I don't remember the clue, but no one got it, and Harrison, who is not a reckless devil-may-care bettor like James Holzer, only risked a small amount. It's almost as if he sensed the Jeopardy clue masters were coming for him, and he ducked.

Harrison doesn't have any theatrical "all-in" moves like Holzer. He might bet in all on an early Daily Double, but if he fails it's no big deal because it's not a lot of money and his opponents have yet to amass anything. When he wins, he graciously turns to his opponents and gives them a respectful round of applause. It's the end of the cricket match, and he's a British gentleman. He's a decent chap.

The short bio on Harrison is that he's 27 years old. He has an enviable mop of hair on his head that looks like its never seen a comb, but looks good anyway. Great, in fact.

There is a news video available online of his parents being part of a televised news story coming out of Missouri, where both his parents are described university professors at the University of Missouri. The commentator sets the backstory by telling us tat Harrison comes from a household where there are 9 college degrees. That fits. Three people; three doctorates.

Harrison's doctorate is in Film and Screen Studies, if you can believe they have doctorate programs for that, at Cambridge, no less. He works at Lifted Entertainment, a U.K. television production company, producing such shows as University Challenge, where Harrison is a quiz writer (surprise, surprise). He's a game show ringer.

The news segment from a Missouri TV station KOMU appeared after Harrison had won a pedestrian 4 shows. He's now at 12, with $330,000 in winnings. His parents relate the expected growing up story, that Kem Jennings used in that obligatory meet and greet segment of Jeopardy where after the first commercial break, Ken Jennings prompts the contestant with a softball question and gets the rehearsed answer that relates to something in their life.

When it came time to prompt the champ, Harrison, we learn that at he age of 4 he could tell you all the U.S. presidents, their year of birth and where they were born. His mother told the same story on the Missouri news segment. She said he just remembers facts.

His father told the story of how he and a young Harrison were in some on some trivia tournament where they took on teams of 8 players. Harrison answered all the questions, but the one his father did. Apparently it was a blowout.

I'm writing this on Thursday morning, Thanksgiving, where at 7 p.m. I will definitely be in the living room to see if Harrison moves on again. I'll get my daughter and son-in-law (Matthew maybe; he's only two however) in there to watch was well. The other half of the family is absent due to stomach bugs. More leftovers for me.

With the ability to time shift shows through DVR recordings, and the holiday, the Jeopardy audience anticipation won't be anything like the beginning of the 1994 movie Quiz Show years ago. The Robert Redford directed and produced movie was about the game show scandal that took over the hugely popular show Twenty-One in the 1950s. I distinctly remember the start of the movie showing people emerging from the subway, seemingly in an evening rush to get home in time to watch the show. Definitely true.

That was how TV once was. It was watched simultaneously by millions, who at the office or other places of work the next morning, might discuss the show (any show) with their co-workers. "Did you see last night's..."

That won't be what happens tonight as Jeopardy airs. There's football to compete with the show, and following a game show is not the entertainment it once was, despite what I'm sure are Jeopardy's high ratings. It's on in my  house.

The New YorkTimes in the weekday Arts section always has what the evening's Final Jeopardy clue will be. I always check it, somethings acing it, other times drawing a complete blank, like today's clue:

"The title of an absurdist play from 1957, it's also the title of Marvel's highest grossing film."

Are they kdiding? Or course Harrison and the other contestants have to place their wagers before the details of th clue are revealed. But if Harrison needs to, he should all in on this one. (The show has been taped weeks before its showing; the outcome is already in the can.)

I'll bet the doctorate in Film and Screen Studies knows this one.

Harrison, good luck old boy.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

Another Anniversary

It is not a milestone one, but yesterday, November 22, was the 62nd anniversary of the assassination of JFK. I've learned to remember the date because I think of paired numbers 2 and 2 making 22. Works for me.

The calendar for November 2025 is almost identical to the one in 1963. The assassination was on the Friday before Thanksgiving. In 1963, like 2025, Thanksgiving, celebrated on the fourth Thursday in the month, has a late date. 

I wrote about the 60th anniversary two years ago, and my own memories of that Friday in 1963. I've seen no published reminiscences surrounding the 62nd anniversary. And why would you? In 2023 there were only 17% of the population that was alive in 1963. Now, in 2025, there has to be an even smaller percentage. It cannot grow.

Think of it. Someone born in 1963 could now be collecting early Social Security benefits.  Caroline Kennedy has a bit of a goof-ball son, Jack Schlossberg, who wants to run for a plum congressional seat in Manhattan vacated by Jerrold Nadler. Jack is not the only one who has announced. If the rate of announced candidates keeps up, it may top the 17 Republicans who wanted to be president in 2016. Will there be another stage big enough to hold them?

And just this weekend, based on a Saturday story in The New Yorker, Tatiana, another of Caroline's three children, announced she has a terminal form of myeloid leukemia and has less than a year to live. It's enough for a newspaper to run a full column of events they attribute to the "Kennedy curse."

Which of course there isn't one. They are just an extremely large family in the public eye that have things happen to them that happen to many other families. (Bar the assassinations). Things just get concentrated around the Kennedy connection. We just read about it.

A reporter who covered the assassination by being in Dallas when it happened, just passed away. Sid Davis, Reporter Who Witnessed Johnson's Swearing-In, Dies at 97. Mr. Davis was one of three reporters who were on Air Force One when Lyndon Johnson took the oath of office. Mr Davis reported:

"Johnson placed his wife on his right side and Mrs. Kennedy on his left. The plane’s interior was hot, and Johnson asked for a glass of ice water. He gulped it down. Judge [Sarah] Hughes told him to raise his right hand and put his left on a Missal, a Catholic Mass prayer book, and she administered the oath. Afterward, Johnson embraced Mrs. Kennedy and kissed his wife. Mr. Davis noted the time, 2:38 p.m., and said the ceremony had taken 28 seconds. 

'I have lived a year since this morning,' Johnson said." (The white arrow in the upper right of the photo shows Mr. Davis, mostly obscured by another attendee.)

Ninety-seven is how old an adult has to be now who was connected to the events that day in Dallas. Probably everyone in the above photo has passed away.

But that's just the way it is. We don't find history. It finds us.

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Ticking A Box

I'm not in favor of saying or having a "bucket list." Sounds too final. Probably like others, I associate a bucket with "kick the bucket" which means dying. Google tells us the origin is not standing on a bucket, kicking it, and completing suicide, but rather has to do with animal slaughter. Either way, "kicking the bucket" has something to do with death.

Google

The most likely origin involves the use of a "bucket" (which also referred to a beam or yoke) used to hang animals upside down for slaughter. The term "bucket" in this context comes from the Old French word "bouet," meaning a catapult or balance, or the fact that raising a yoke on a pulley resembled a bucket being lifted. When the animal's death throes caused it to kick against this beam, the phrase "kick the bucket" came to be associated with death.

The Hall of Fame thoroughbred trainer H. Allen Jerkens did kick the bucket on Aqueduct's backstretch.

And while Allen is no longer with us, it's not because he kicked the bucket on the backstretch. A filly Jerkens had entered in a race had just done poorly. Very poorly, and Allen was so mad he kicked the water bucket on the backstretch after the race. After that, I don't know if that filly went on to eventually win, but Jerkens went on to many victories in his Hall of Fame career.

I much prefer "checking all the boxes." Jeopardy the other night used a picture of checked boxes as a clue. It was a low dollar clue. Too easy.

I've always wanted to go to Katz's Deli on the lower Eastside. This is not because I wanted to be where Meg Ryan famously demonstrates to Billy Crystal in the 1989 film, "When Harry Met Sally," a fake orgasm at the deli's table to prove to him that the sounds and thrusting gestures she's making can mimic a real orgasm and that his male ego thinks he's never had a woman "fake it" with him, but if these sounds sound familiar, it's quite possible she's faking it. Point proven. Billy is chagrined. If he had been developing a hard-on, it was rapidly shrinking.  

Estelle Reiner, the director Rob Reiner's mother and Carl Reiner's wife, is sitting at nearby table drops the mic when the waiter asks her what will she have when she replies, "I'll have what she's having." A now immortal movie line.

No, I wanted to sample the doorstopper pastrami sandwich that costs $28. I love corned beef, and I love pastrami, and the number of decent delis you can get these sandwiches from is diminishing.

Blarney Stones with steam tables used to offer fresh sliced corned beef, pastrami, even brisket. They were a de facto Jewish deli without meaning to be. I always used to get my fix there. But the Blarney Stones have disappeared along with their steam tables.

I've gotten reasonably good pastrami or corned beef at diners. Saratoga racetrack has a Carnegie franchise outlet that provides a very good deli sandwich that I've enjoyed when at the track. Hopefully there will be a similar offering at the new Belmont when it opens in the fall of 2026. Hopefully is the operational word.

Likewise, a decent pastrami sandwich can be had at Citi Field, home of the Mets. Not a doorstopper for $22, but good enough. In fact I enjoyed my last one there better than at Katz's.

At the food court at Moynihan Train Hall in Manhattan there is a Pastrami Queen outlet that I've yet to sample. Junior's in Brooklyn is also good, along with maybe the cheesecake you'll ever have. I used to work near Junior's. I miss the outlet they once had in the lower level at Grand Central Terminal, although, there is a full-scale restaurant in Times Square at 49th Street and Broadway.

I wasn't prepared to be confronted with a line at Katz's to get in last Thursday at 1:00 p.m. What? I'm not much for waiting on lines, particularly to eat. In high school I never waited on the hot food line. The cold food sandwich line had no waiting. I ate tuna fish sandwiches all through high school.

I nearly turned around, but that would have meant I wasted a MetroCard trip, even if I do get a Senior discount. I planned to wait 20 minutes. I wanted to see movement. If not, I'm out of there.

Well, the red topped sock cap at the head of the line moved, and suddenly, without waiting too long, we all moved through the door. Inside? Bedlam.

It was as if I was surrounded by angry bees. Everybody was buzzing around. I was handed the expected "ticket." I'm not sure what control this adds to running the place. There is no serial number on what looks like a hat check ticket.

Years and years ago thee was a cafeteria in Times Square called Hector's. When you entered they gave you a ticket with an array of dollar and cent amounts. As you ordered food from the counter, the worker punched the amount of your selection. As you moved to another section, and maybe added dessert, the worker now punched what the new amount of  your check was. When you exited you presented the check to the cashier by the door. It was somewhat like what is now an old Thruway ticket. There were no amounts on the Katz's ticket. 

Once inside, there were more lines. No one was giving directions, but I figured you ordered food at the counter, (several lines) and took your tray to any seat you could find. There weren't many empty seats, and if you found seating you'd likely be sharing a table.

I wanted waiter service, which I assumed was this other long line. No directions. It turns out I was on the right line for table service, and without meaning to, I cut the line and found myself toward the front. No one objected.

At the front, someone was there to direct you to a table in a certain section, which is not very big. Overall, at this point, I haven't really waited too long for anything.

I was directed to a two-person deuce table. My waiter. Marty. it turns out, arrived fast, and since I knew what I wanted there was no need to go through the rigamarole of looking at a menu: "Pastrami rye, coleslaw, Cel-Ray soda."

A mountain of coleslaw arrived with a can of the soda and a paper cup with ice. Everything's good so far. I could now absorb the place a bit.

The workers all have black T-shirts on with Katz's name and phone number. Some shirts have the saying: "Send a salami to your boy in the Army." There is an old sign hanging from the ceiling you can see when you enter that says this. The sign looks like it's from WW II. Other shirts say: "When Sally Met Harry," an obvious allusion to the movie.

The 1989 movie didn't make Katz's famous. It did remind people at the time of its existence, but by the looks of things, there's no need to advertise. Katz's has been operating since 1888, NYC's oldest deli.

In the 1960s Pete's Tavern on 18th Street and Irving Place had green awnings. Pete's, as any loyal reader knows, was a block from the family flower shop and a place I passed often.

When I was 11 or so delivering flowers I would see that the awning said: "The Tavern O Henry Made Famous."

At the time, I didn't know O Henry was a writer famous for writing some of his famous short stories from a booth in the front at Pete's. I thought O Henry was somehow the name of the tavern. As a kid, the wording confused me.

I'm now fully aware that Katz's is full of tourists. The place must be on a recommended list for sampling New York City via the deli experience. The movie "When Harry Met Sally" was in 1989. I'm doubting most of the restaurant's customers have seen the movie. They might have heard about it. The movie is now so old it might soon appear on Turner Classic Movies (TCM).

My mind is envisioning staff T-shirts that below the Katz name appears the phrase: "Deli Made Famous by a Fake Orgasm." I guess not.

Overall, the place looks a bit shabby. Crowded, but shabby. Almost dingy. But, with a stampede of people willing to come to your door, I guess it's hard to close the place for any length of time to spruce the joint up a bit. Time is money.

My sandwich arrives, and it is as expected. A mountain of pastrami between two slices of thick rye bread. I slide a fork under half the sandwich in order to help lift it. My version of a fork lift.

It is impossible for the bread to hold all the meat back. I wind up using my fingers and a fork to finish it off. It's good. But not the best pastrami I ever tasted. A bite dry, and not that seasoned, but certainly worth the trip. I wasn't thirsty afterwards.

I ask the waiter, "When are you NOT busy?" He says, "Now."

I ask about buying the mustard, and get two jars for $5.95 each. Deli mustard is the best. Sitting down I was disappointed that the mustard at the table was in a squeezable dispenser. You can get the mustard out, but it's not the same as slathering it all over with a knife, rather than squirting it. Maybe it's a sanitary thing.

Check out. The waiter writes my total on the stub I got at the door and tells me where to pay if by credit card, or cash.

I pay with a credit card and get my receipt stapled to the ticket stub. On the way out they collect my ticket stub and give me back my credit card receipt. I guess the money control comes in there a bit.

I'm out the door at 1:50. Not bad. Line? Is there a still a line to get in? You betcha. It now stretches a city block along East Houston Street.

That would not be for me.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

1¢ R.I.P.

I think any alert reader of these postings will realize I've offered enough proof that the New York Times is going full imitation of The Wall Street Journal by offering perhaps not one, but sometimes two A-Hed type pieces on its front page. In Thursday's print edition paper it was two.

The first is a story of an all-star Spanish matador who is quitting the bull ring, the pageantry of bull fighting, and the cascade of Olés from the fans, because of depression. It is a rather long story that starts off with a prominent placing above the fold. The story comes under a feature called The Global Profile.

The second A-Hed-type piece comes under the matador one and is a cute tongue-in-cheek obit for the United States penny whose production has now officially ended after 232 years. It costs 3.7¢ to make a penny, and the discontinuance of it will save taxpayers $56 million a year.  

I'm always skeptical of claims of "savings." It really means that the money spent on creating pennies will do what, get refunded to taxpayers on an annual basis? No. It means that $56 million will no longer be allocated to creating the coin, but will likely wind up being spent somewhere else in the vastness of the federal budget. Just saying.

The penny obit writer, Victor Mather, writes a cute piece. The headline people caught the lightheartedness of the story and framed it as an obit, with a front page headline: 

The American Penny 1793-2025
Lodged Itself Into Sayings, Streets, Shoes Even 

The jump headline drops the hammer.

The Humble Penny, a Fixture in Sayings and in Streets, Dies at 232

The penny is easily the oldest subject that has ever been written about in a New York Times obit.

But Mr. Mather leaves out a good part of the penny's history. Unmentioned is that it was the Philadelphia polymath, Ben Franklin, who did declare that "a penny saved is a penny earned." The saying is presented, but not the famous founding father.

Also the saying, "penny wise and pound foolish" goes unrecognized amongst the penny thoughts in the story.

Google's AI tells us:

The phrase "penny wise and pound foolish" was first recorded in 1712 by Joseph Addison in his publication "The Spectator." Although it is often mistakenly attributed to Benjamin Franklin, it was actually Robert Burton who is credited with coining the phrase in his 1621 book "The Anatomy of Melancholy." The phrase means being careful with small amounts of money while being careless with larger sums. That in Latin should be on all United States budget documents. Maybe even the paper currency and coins. 

The biggest omission in Mr. Mather's piece is that there is no mention of the Indian Head penny which preceded the Lincoln penny and followed Lady Liberty. It was minted from 1859 to 1909

Talk about Cancel Culture. The Indian head penny did not really depict an American Indian, but rather a Caucasian woman wearing an Indian headdress chosen to represent unity and the American spirit, and a connection to the land during a time of national expansion and division during the Civil War.

Easy to see why the penny came to be known as an Indian Head penny. As a kid in the 50s and 60s being raised on TV Westerns, I heard the phrase "not worth a red cent." I always thought this was a mean term referring to an American Indian's reddish skin. Not so.

The term red cent originated in the early19th century when the penny gained wide circulation. The copper in the penny gave it the reddish glow that we know today, and it became known as a "red cent." "Not worth a red cent" meant that something had no value; it was not even worth a penny.

Mr. Mather is not the only journalist who seems to have forgotten about the Indian Head penny. The Wall Street Journal's piece by Richard Rubin also culture cancels when he tells us: 

"The U.S. began producing pennies in 1793, featuring a female figure of Liberty on the front and a linked chain on the reverse. That design invoked slavery to some and it was replaced. Lincoln's visage took over the front of the coin in 1909 as the nation celebrated the 100th anniversary of his birth." 

Mr. Rubin doesn't mention that the "chain cent" was short lived and lady Liberty was minted on the front with wreaths and other designs on the reverse until 1859.

No mention of the Indian Head, but Mr. Rubin does tells us why 1909 was chosen to commemorate Lincoln.

Mr. Mather doesn't enlighten the reader why 1909 was chosen to introduce a Lincoln cent. Well, it commemorated the centennial of Lincoln's birth in 1809. Mr. Mather certainly didn't collect coins when he was young. The Washington quarter was introduced in 1932 to commemorate the bicentennial of Washington's birth in 1732.

And if things keep going, there will be a coin with President Trump's likeness, front and back, on a $1 coin commemorating the semiquincentennial of the United States. That's the 250th anniversary for those who haven't yet been introduced to newscasters who will struggle saying it.

Coins and stamps are used to commemorate events. Will President Trump's likeness on the front and back prevent the coin from being flipped for a "heads or tails" call before football games? Only time will tell.

It's not quite a Y2K problem, but the elimination of the penny means that cash transactions will need to be rounded up or down to the nearest nickel. Burger King, McDonald's and any other vendor who deals in a lot of cash transactions find themselves needing to adjust registers to do the rounding up or down. $2.31 and $2.32 becomes $2.00; $2.33 and $2.34 becomes $2.35. Please, don't make the cashier have to think about this.

Some fast food places have stockpiled a supply of pennies to use until the register adjustments can be made.

And  certainly the last place anyone would think of where a rounding effort would be needed is the racetrack.

When calculating payouts, racetracks always resorted to a "dime break," or a "nickel break" when the  computer spit out the payouts. In New York, the dime break was used for decades. All payouts that resulted in cents were made to be evenly divisible by 10. Thus, if the computer said a payout should $4.78, the computer automatically posted a $4.70 payout. Rounding was always down, with the track skimming off a little more than just the usual takeout. In that example, 8¢. It can add up.

Canada used a "nickel break," rounding down to the nearest 5¢. I think eventually New York adopted the nickel break.

I'm sure readers have not seen what payouts can look like now. Kentucky started the "penny break," meaning there was no rounding. You could get payouts that were true and not rounded. If the computer said the payout should be $4.78, then $4.78 was posted and paid out.

Racing tracks used to be awash with cash. Because of the dime break, cashiers only ever had to have a supply of quarters and dimes to pay out a bet. Eventually, they needed nickels as well.

But now, "penny break" has produced payouts like $12.52; $9.02; $15.68. No one in New York has ever seen racetrack payouts like that. Cashiers will need all coin denominations to make odd-cent payouts. Will they round up and down as the penny disappears?

Lots of betting is done through online accounts, negating the need for physical cash payouts. But there are still people who show up at the races and bet and cash out with physical money. I posed the rounding question to a New York Racing Association (NYRA) executive, Patrick McKenna, via X, but got no reply.

I'm not surprised to be ignored. Over many years I've had a contentious relationship with NYRA over many things. At his, point I think they just ignore me, no matter what I might be on about.

What can you say when we're at the end? "Alas poor penny, I knew you well."

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The Pumpkin Patch

Someone at the Wall Street Journal likes pumpkin stories.

Less than three weeks apart, the A-Hed piece has been about pumpkins. The first one was on 10/26 regarding the professional pumpkin decorators that have sprung up who will for somewhat vast sums of money decorate your porch in the autumnal spirit.

The second is in the paper, 11/11, regarding growing giant pumpkins. Truly giant pumpkins growing from hybrid seeds that might cost $1,000. It's the kind of story I think I've read about annually.

I once met a WSJ reporter who told me the gateway to the A-Hed piece is a senior editor who has been doing it for years. No name given, and he might not even be alive now. But the way in to getting your story in the paper was to pitch the idea to him. I've never read the same byline twice, so there is definitely no favoritism. I once thought there might be a bias toward stories from Belgium, but now I think they're coming from the pumpkin patch.

I know there have already been stories about the pumpkin bashing contests, where 2-ton pumpkins are hoisted by a crane and dropped on a junk car, to wild applause. There's something about smashing a pumpkin, small or huge that somehow has appeal.

At least no one to date has been filmed blowing a pumpkin up with dynamite like the people in Oregon did once to a beached whale they couldn't move. The flying blubber created a new problem. I imagine pumpkin pieces flying through the air might be dangerous.

Pictured at the top of this posting is Andy Corbin, who has developed a genetic tool that allows giant pumpkin growth. There are pumpkin seed auctions. But not all seeds take and produce gargantuan gourds. Space is needed to grow the pumpkin, up to 1,000 square feet. This thing is not going to grow on your windowsill in the kitchen. Then it needs a constant temperature and up to 150 gallons of water a day. Tender loving care. This is not the middle school science class.

And lest you think this is a wacko pursuit to just grow and smash pumpkins, consider the rigors of science applied to it. Chris Hernandez, who has a Ph.D. in plant breeding from Cornell University, and who judges pumpkin contests, leads the University of New Hampshire's Cucurbit breeding and genetics program. It is a thing.

Cucurbit? Yes. The OED tells us: "A plant of the gourd family, Cucurbitaceae. Formerly, a gourd." I think there is a Jeopardy clue in there somewhere.

Chris is youthful looking fellow who can see the humor in judging giant pumpkins. The A-Hed reporter, Rhosan Fernandez, tells us Chris, who has to look under giant pumpkins before evaluating them for quality, envisions his own death and obituary kicker:

"If this thing falls on me and kills me, it's gonna be like , 'Giant-squash squashes squash-professor.'"

Live long, Chris.

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Round and Round We Go

A movie on Turner Classic Movies (TCM) the other morning reminded me of what would now be a sporting anachronism if it were to suddenly appear, if even for a day: A 6-Day Bicycle Race. 

The movie was "The Girl from Missouri," a 1934 film starring Jean Harlow, Lionel Barrymore (upright) and Franchot Tone. The Jean Harlow character is being shown a ballroom in a mansion and cracks wise," Gee, you could fit a 6-Day bike race in here."

You have to be as old as me, or someone born in the late 1880s who is appearing in a seance brought back by a medium, to remember 6-Day Bicycle racing.

"Oh, I get it. It was like the Iditarod on a bike? You start somewhere and go point-to-point and arrive somewhere else, like a running an ultramarathon?"

"No. You start, and 6 days later you're still in the same place. You haven't left the building."

"Jesus. People did that?"

"Yes. And you could bet on the sprints they would announce when the bell went off."

"They had FanDuel and Draft Kings and prop bets then you could make on your phone."

"No, you moron. You had to know a guy to bet. Or, you had to know a guy who knew a guy. Someone who hung out in bars, candy stores, and pool halls."

"Huh?" 

"A bookmaker, stupid. Those were the days if you wanted to get down with a bet on anything you either needed to be at the racetrack, or you had to know a bookmaker."

"Oh. What's a bookmaker?"

"Jesus, did you just wake up? A bookmaker is someone who quotes odds, sets point spreads and takes bets with a 10% commission called a vigorish, who may offer credit, and may have someone break your knees if you get in too deep with credit and aren't keeping up with paying the juice. Vigorish, vig, is according to the OED: 'Vigorish is probably Yiddish from Russian vyigrysh gain, winnings.' 

"Did you ever see Rocky, the first one? Stallone plays a collection agency of sorts for the mob to collect from people who get behind in their losses. You have to at least keep up with the juice. Otherwise it's negative amortization."

"Juice?"

"Juice is the interest on the loan the bookmaker gave you to make the bets that you're the ultimate sucker to make. Today we call it credit card interest."

"Oh. The bookmaker beats people up?"

" Not the bookmaker. The mug, the enforcer, the knuckle buster he hires to do his dirty work. You're getting the picture."

"So you go to the race, watch guys on bikes go round and round till you're dizzy, then look to make a bet on a sprint result once the bell goes off?"

"You've got it"

"Jimmy Breslin in his book on Damon Runyon tells the tale of the coat snatchers. These were the West Side ruffians, juvenile delinquents, who would sneak around Madison Square Garden. When the sprints started and the gamblers jumped up with their coats on the railings, and when no one was looking, would snatch the coats and do their own sprinting." The dolls' mink coats as well.

"Did you ever see a 6-Day race?"

Madison Square Garden

"No. But I remember seeing one being advertised as being at Madison Square Garden sometime in the '60s. Turns out it was the last one there, in 1961."

"Were the sprints fixed?"

"There probably was a degree of chicanery. Anything that is bet on that talks can be used by the mob to their advantage. Look at the recent kerfuffle over basketball and prop bets with the explosion of online sports betting.

"Riders took a fair amount of amphetamines to keep going as well. There was no drug testing."

"Is anything ever on the level?"

"Sure.  A level."

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At the Races

I love to read about horse racing in the newspaper. Unfortunately, the New York Times has outsourced their sports department and left us with long form stories with large photos that have nothing to do with anything New York. 

So when I saw that the Wall Street Journal devoted an A-Hed piece to thoroughbred racing's riding family, the Davises, I was pumped.

A-Hed pieces are light reading and land on a wide range of subjects. Consider Friday's piece on sibling jockeys to other recent pieces on Lego villages and professional pumpkin decorating. You never know where an A-Hed piece is going to go.

Astoundingly to me, the Friday A-Hed piece has four photos. You usually don't see that much of a spread.

Dylan and Katie Davis are accurately described as being from the Robbie Davis family of 6 kids, 5 of whom are involved in racing, with only Dylan and Katie identified as jockeys.

The writer, Lettie Teague, left out that there is a third jockey in the family, Jacqueline. She usually rides at New York's upstate track, Finger Lakes. Jacqueline is currently out with an injury. There have been races where all three were riding in the same race. 

Of the three, Dylan gets the better mounts and achieves more wins for more purse money. The article accurately describes that the agent is the most important person in the success of a jockey. The agent lines up the trainers and owners who are the customers who hire the jockeys to ride their horses. Win, and they come to your door.

Female jockeys rarely crack the top tier in a jockey colony. Most of the jockeys are male and are from outside the United States. The New York colony is full of hall-of-fame jockeys and Eclipse award winners. That Katie can even make a living riding against her rivals is a testament to her skills. She may not get the most "live" mounts, but she can make them get there first. And they usually pay well, since they are not the favorites.

The father of the riding Davises, Robbie Davis, was a competent journeyman jockey years ago that I remember seemed to have more success on the turf surfaces than on the dirt. If you liked a horse and Robbie was riding, there was no reason to change your bet.

The Fox network produced a nice piece about the Davis family and their racing siblings that they show occasionally on their America's Best Racing show. Robbie is seen telling the interviewer that when Katie wanted to ride he sent her to someone to evaluate her and figured she wasn't going to cut it. Wrong. The tutor told Robbie, "she can flat out ride." Dad's little girl is going for the saddle and the starting gate.

My friend an I first bet on Dylan at Saratoga years ago. He might have been an apprentice jockey, getting a weight allowance. As such, his mount looked very attractive to bet if he went to the front and put them to sleep in the mile and an eighth race.

A two-turn mile and an eighth race—once around Saratoga's oval—can be won by front runners if they set the right pace and the others don't challenge the front runner at all. By the time they start to pick it up, it's too late. The front runner has plenty in the tank and can easily gallop home first.

Dylan did his job, as hoped for. He got out there first, and the others waited for him to come back to them, which didn't happen. As the race is unfolding and Dylan is establishing a sizeable lead my friend and I just kept muttering t ourselves, "Dylan, don't fall off." He didn't.

Katie has the most effervescent of smiles. When he jumps off in the winner's circle and gets interviewed, she is non-stop smiling. She is a happy child who you just want to hug,

The horse racing circuit is a little bit like the circus: it is a tight knit group of people who are usually married to each other, or are a relative to some close degree. Katie's husband, Trevor McCarthy, is a former jockey, and Trevor is the son of Mike McCarthy, a retired trainer in the Mid-Atlantic states, and himself a former jockey.

A-Hed pieces are pitched to the A-Hed editor from writers who feel they've got a good story. And they always do. Lettie Teague is a wine columnist. I don't know what made her pitch the Davis story about horse racing. It might have been that she wrote a book about Marguerite Henry who wrote children's books that featured horses.

The omission of the third jockey in the family is another example of a writer leaving their lane and writing about horse racing, without I would bet, ever having really been involved in following the sport.

But, I enjoyed the story I already knew a lot about.

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Zohran Mamdani

No, Zohran's is not where you get a bagel with thin-sliced lox, or with a schmear of cream cheese on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. That's Zabar's!

If after 4 years you don't learn this, can't say or spell Zoh-ran Mam-dan-i's name, then it will be because you moved to Canada, or Greenland. Which is exactly why you won't move to Canada or Greenland. No bagels. A Tim Horton donut is no substitute. If you don't live in New York, you can't say you live there. And your Aggravated Badge of Courage (ABC) will fall off.

New Yorkers wear their ABC proudly. There is nothing not to complain about. Everyone has a gripe. The epithet (I've learned to spell it) that will be thrown at Mamdani for the next 4 years, is "Zohran the Commie." Doesn't rhyme. "Mamdani the Commie" will gain traction, fair or not.

Whatever derisive couplet is used, it can't compare with the anti-Edward Koch slogan that was thrown at him by a segment of the population that claimed in 1977 when Koch was running against Mario Cuomo (Andrew's father) during the Democratic primary that one should, "Vote for Cuomo, not the homo." You have to be my age to remember that. 

What Zohran will learn even before he is sworn in is that 50% of the people already don't like you,  those that didn't vote for you. Eventually, as his term in office gains some momentum, a 50% approval rating would be historic, because the 50% that don't like you will be swollen a bit from the 50% who thought they liked you, at least until there's more to complain about. 

Zohran has already declined to name a bagel order. He says he will continue to enjoy his "pink chai" tea, a mixture of green tea, baking soda, cardamon, rose water and milk that he gets from his favorite Halal store in Queens.

Those old enough to know this, will offer Zohran's liking for anything pink as proof that Zohran is a "pinko- Commie," a term popularized in the 50s to denote a Communist sympathizer and not an actual "card-carrying member" of the Communist Party, pink being a lighter shade of red. My wife will forever call the New York Times "that pinko-Commie rag" because that's what her father called it because the Times of the 30s. 40s and 50s was seen to be in bed with Russia because of their Moscow bureau chief's sympathetic reporter, Walter Duranty. (Look it up.)

No mayor of New York ever has it easy. They have to find their own ways to relax as best they can. Since Mamdani's family is from Uganda, we are likely to get a travelogue from his trips back there. He already has visited.

There are very some very accomplished Ugandan runners. Stephen Kiprotich won the marathon at the 2012 London Olympics. But if a Ugandan wins the New York City marathon rather than a Kenyan now that there is a Ugandan-born mayor, well Draft Kings may say the race was fixed. It will be Zohran's first kerfuffle.

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No Detail Escapes the Obituary Writer

Marlene Dietrich, Willian Riva, Maria Riva

The New York Time's Penelope Green seems to get the obits that allow her to deliver the sauciest of tidbits. Take the one just one published for Maria Riva, 100, Marlene Dietrich's daughter.

It would be hard to ignore the elephant in the room in Maria's life. The obit has a lot about her, but also some great reminders of her mother's life, described effortlessly in the lede as: "the audacious, androgynous, libidinous, Teutonic screen siren and cabaret singer..." I don't know which word ending in "ous" had me at the start.

For those who know of Marlene, seen her films, and absorbed all the stories about her, there is nothing new about her in Maria's obituary. What is probably new, unless you've read Maria's 1993 book about her famous mother, "Marlene Dietrich, The Life," many things in the obit will surprise you regarding the child rearing of Maria.

Maria was basically raised by her mother's as her maidservant. Playing with other children didn't happen, and going to school was out until there was a stint at Swiss finishing school.

After shaking off her alcoholism, being a dresser to a drag queen, and an early divorce, Maria moved to New York and did create an acting career of her own, appearing in many teleplays on early television, commercials and several movies. She helped her mother produce a one-woman show that was basically Marlene's farewell to the limelight. Maria married William Riva and had four children, three of whom survive her.

That Maria's mother had a Rolodex of lovers, male and female, is no surprise. Names appear in the obit, but the six columns wouldn't be enough to able to hold all the people Marlene had sexual intimacy with. Marlene is described as not really enjoying sex, but rather putting up with it. The obit writer, Ms. Green, tells us:

Dietrich, "despite all the action, was not a fan of the act itself. At least not with men. She preferred fellatio, or better, impotent men. 'They are nice" she told her daughter." I know I never read an obit that used the word fellatio in any context.

As Maria got older, Marlene her reviews of her male encounters. In a Diane Sawyer interview in 1993 upon the publishing of Maria's book, Diane reads a list of names that included General Patton and General Gavin, presumably men she entertained after U.S.O. shows during WW II. There are so many names that Diane runs out of breath,

In one such review, Marlene shared her rating of Eddie Fisher. She told Maria that she can understand why Liz Taylor left Eddie Fisher for Richard Burton in the '60s.

Poor Eddie. The American public never forgave him for dumping America's sweetheart, Debbie Reynolds, for that vamp Elizabeth Taylor. Now, in 1993, we get Marlene's review of how good, or not good, he was in bed. Insult to injury. Marlene lived to be 90, passing away in 1992. There are shown in the photo at the left together in 1945; Maria is on the left. 

There's a point in the Diane Sawyer interview where Maria talks of a discussion her mother has with her regarding her funeral. Marlene wants those who slept with her, male and female, to wear a red carnation at the services; those who said they slept with her but didn't, to wear a white carnation.

Maria said, "Great. Why don't you have the 82nd Airborne Division jump in?" Marlene thought it was a good idea. 

When your mother lives to be 90, it is no surprise that you live to be 100. And when your mother was Marlene Dietrich, you share her name in your obituary.

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New York Sandwiches

New York City was once famous for its Jewish deli food, notably its corned beef and pastrami sandwiches. The number of places where you can get these authentic sandwiches are now less than the fingers on your hands.

Katz's deli is still around, and as famous for its sandwiches as it is for the scene in movie the Harry Met Sally. Unfamiliar? Look it up.

The Stage Deli is gone, as is Wolf's. The 2nd Avenue deli is in two locations, and not on 2nd Avenue's Lower East side. One is on 33rd Street off Lexington Avenue,. The other at 1442 1st Avenue, at 75th, on Manhattan's Upper East Side. The name means more than the locations.

The Carnegie Deli is also gone, but the name must be licensed, because last year at Saratoga I ordered a Carnegie Deli pastrami sandwich to have at my table in the Fourstardave Sports Bar. You can of course still get pastrami sandwiches at diners, and there is a Pastrami Queen place in Moynihan Train Hall (so far unsampled).

In a way a pastrami sandwich was in the news recently, but since something always reminds me of something else, we'll start with New York's Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals—the state's highest—Sol Wachtler who famously said, "a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich."

This was an obvious pejorative remark about how grand juries rubber stamp the presentation by prosecutors and nearly always return the asked for indictment.

I Googled Judge Sol Wachtler and found he is still with us at 95. You need a long memory and have to be near my age to know that when the good jurist passes away and has a New York Times tribute written about him—because he will definitely have a NYT tribute written about him composed by Robert McFadden or Sam Roberts that will float from the morgue in the cellar to the upstairs newsroom on Eighth Avenue—that the ham sandwich quote will appear.

But more prominently, the fallout from his affair with Joy Silverman, a good looking Republican society fundraiser, and the off-the-rails behavior of the good jurist that got him in Federal prison will feature more prominently in the obituary. 

Sol's tale is out there to be researched. Ah yes, I remember it well. A recap via Google goes:

"Wachtler was accused of harassing and threatening his former lover Joy Silverman and her family after the affair ended." If there was an Internet then it would have been blown up. This was the early 90s, and was the story of the day. Lots of days.

Sol was so smitten that his heart and mind somehow weren't working properly. "He sent anonymous letters (no email then) and made calls under pseudonyms threatening to expose details of the relationship and demanding money and personal humiliation from Silverman." Whatta guy. 

"He pleaded guilty in 1993 to a single count of threatening to kidnap Silverman's daughter [His screws obviously didn't just become loose, they fell on the floor.] as part of  a plea deal that dropped other charges [like extortion]. He was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison, served about 13 months and was disbarred." Sol obviously became the ham sandwich.

Entrance to Otisville Prison

I don't know which federal prison Sol served his time in. It might have been Otisville, New York where many of the Jewish felons are housed. The low security prison allows them to attend religious services and have Kosher meals served to the observant. It's considered the "yeshiva" of prisons.

Whether Sol got any pastrami or corned beef sandwiches from his favorite delis is completely unknown.

What is known is how a pastrami sandwich came to be part of a tribute obituary and a hostage story. Stay tuned.

Rabbi Alvin Kass, N.Y.P.D. Chaplin for nearly Six Decades, Dies at 89. The NYT obit by Sam Roberts the other day tells us a lot.

Rabbi Kass lived a long life, and he was good at his job to hold it for almost 60 years. The six-column, 19-gun salute includes three photos and one incomparable kicker at the end.

Police provided beer and sandwiches ( kind not known) to the robbers who were holding hostages at a Chase Manhattan bank in Brooklyn on August 22, 1972. The hope was that the beer would make the robbers groggy, but that didn't happen. The standoff ended at JFK airport when one of the robbers was shot dead and John Wojtowicz gave himself up.  The incident was the basis for the movie Dog Day Afternoon starring Al Pacino.

Sandwiches always figured during transit negotiations in New York City in the efforts to prevent crippling subway strikes. Sometimes the roast beef sandwiches that were reported as being ordered as the negotiations dragged on with Theodore Kheel as the mediator weren't enough, and a strike was called. Food can only accomplish so much.

Rabbi Kass gets a 19-gun salute obit spanning six column with three photos. His exemplary life can make you feel you've accomplished nothing in yours, but face it, there are people who approach sainthood. (Can you be a saint if you're Jewish?)

Of all the accomplishments in the Rabbi's life, the hostage situation tested his faith and his abilities. In 1981 he was called to the scene of a Jewish man threatening to kill his former girlfriend. A rabbi was thought to be the answer to get the man to give up.

Rabbi Kass told The Wall Street Journal in 2012, "I talked to him all night to give up his gun. I was an utter failure. But by morning he was hungry."

Mr. Roberts takes us through the sequence of events:

"Hostage negotiators ordered two pastrami sandwiches from the Carnegie Deli, one for the hostage taker, the other for the rabbi. Rabbi Kass persuaded the man to swap his sandwich for his gun. But it turned out that he had a second gun. Fortunately the Carnegie Deli didn't keep kosher, so the rabbi hadn't eaten the second sandwich. Instead, he traded it for the second gun and the police grabbed the unarmed kidnapper."

The Rabbi's funeral services were well attended by outgoing Mayor Adams, a phalanx of police officers, and the police commissioner, Jessica Tisch.

Jessica Tisch is an anomaly as a police commissioner. Forget she isn't the first woman to head the department. She is a civilian, who was the former Sanitation Commissioner, one of Mayor Adams's best appointments.

After a series of police commissioners that didn't gain traction, Mayor Adams, has, in what has proved to be perhaps his single best appointment, tapped Ms. Tisch, a Harvard-trained lawyer to become the police commissioner. 

The police department has been headed before by a civilian, Robert J. McGuire, a Wall Street lawyer, was commissioner in the Koch administration in 1977. Mr. Tisch is part of the Tisch family that owns a portion of the football New York Giants.

She proved to be a very effective sanitation commissioner, and so far an effective police commissioner. Whether she stays on as commissioner under mayor-elect Mamdani will be a story that will unfold over time. But for now, she gave the eulogy for Rabbi Kass. You can almost anticipate the sendup.

Ms. Tisch told the assembled: "To paraphrase 'The Godfather,' "Leave the gun. Take the pastrami."

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A Bill By Any Other Name is Still Bill

There is a saying, "you're one in a million," meant to convey you're unique. Well, if you're in a country with two billion plus people, like China or India, then that means there are 200 more people just like you. Just saying. (The population of these countries is a bit lower, so do the math yourself.)

I don't know the number of permutations of the human genome, but there are people who seem to be doubles of someone else without being related to them. And if they do look alike and share the same name, then confusion can take over. How does that happen?

Well, it does. And if you're from a Long Island family where your father is Bill De Blasio Sr. and you're Jr., and you have a cousin named the same, then confusion can be fairly hilarious if social medica is involved. And embarrassing for others.

The whole mix-up began when a Times of London reporter thought he had a scoop: Bill de Blasio saying negative things about New York City's mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a polarizing candidate who has a excellent chance of winning the citywide election tomorrow.

He did have a scoop. Although it wasn't from the Bill de Blasio who was the former mayor of New York City, and it wasn't from someone purporting to be the firmer mayor of New York City, it was genuinely from a man named Bill De Blasio, a man who has had the name longer than the mayoral Bill de Blasio whose name from changed, for some reason from Warren Wilhelm Jr. The difference in the men? The Long Island wine importer capitalizes the "De" in his name. The devil is in the details.

The story spun into cyberspace when the Times of London story hit the ether and the ex-mayor Bill de Blasio denied saying any of the things the reporter was attributing to him. But a real Bill De Blasio did say them in a questionnaire, and who admits to having fun when he the mix-up occurs. 

It's not his fault the reporter, Bevan Hurley, was so anxious to throw shade on Mamdani that he didn't bother to check where things were coming from. This is called reporting by social media.

That the Times of London would be interested in the New York City mayoral race shows you the extent the powers that be are trying to influence the election. The Times of London is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns the New York Post that is vehemently against the candidacy of Mamdani.

Zohran Mamdani is describing himself as a social Democrat and won the Democratic primary over Andrew Cuomo—and others—who is running on the  Independent/Third Party Fight and Deliver Party. Andrew Cuomo created the party.

The primary was a "ranked voting" affair that was meant to bestow the nomination on a candidate who succeeded in gaining 50% of the votes. Since there were numerous candidates, no one gained 50%, but the terms of the ranked voting allow the votes for the candidates with the lowest percentage to have their votes added to the leading candidate in the primary.

I don't understand this. It means if I voted for so-and-so who got few votes and wound up at the bottom of the ranking, my vote would be added to the leader in the ranking, in this case Zohran Mamdani, even if that person did not gain the majority and I didn't vote for him. Andrew Cuomo finished second in the ranked voting. I would have thought that if no one got 50% then the top two would be on another primary vote to see who won. I guess not.

This mayoral election is a doozie. The early voting, which closed yesterday, sits at 500,000+ across the five boroughs. That's a record. Tomorrow's turnout is expected to be large as well. This favors who? Who really knows until the votes are counted tomorrow and by midnight a winner will be announced. The boroughs don't span time zones, so there's no waiting for polls across the country to close.

There are three candidates, Zohran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo, and Curtis Sliwa, a perennial quixotic candidate. The incumbent mayor, Eric Adams has withdrawn from the race, although his name appears on the ballots because they were printed and distributed prior to his announcement.

Mr. Adams is the first NYC mayor to choose not to run after one term. There have been three-term mayors who chose not to run, but never a one-term mayor.

His four years have only been remarkable by the numbers of investigations into his administration. Nothing proven against hum, and Federal charges were withdrawn by president Trump. Mr. Adams is packing it in, and going somewhere, but not yet disclosed, if it's even known to him.

Mr. Mamdani, a state assembly from Queens, has a thin political résumé, but has attracted wide appeal by his promises to change things. He is a good speaker, and says the right things well. A lot of what he says is being painted by his opponents as pure, pie-in-the-sky Socialism. Mr. Mamdani has no problem with that because he calls himself a Democratic Socialist, and is a member of the DSA, Democratic Socialists for America.

The "C" word has been flung at Mr. Mamdani. Communist. President Trump tells whoever will listen that if Zohran is elected there will be a "commie in as mayor of New York City"

The "commie" epithet doesn't carry the gravitas to those young enough not to be part of Trump's (and my) generation who grew up with the Cold War and McCarthy hearings and the stigma of being labeled a Communist. It was akin to being the worst of the worst.

In the 60s when I was growing up, there were animated speakers in Union Square Park by the 15th Street entrance, who were exhorting against capitalism. This was New York's version of Hyde Park's Speakers Corner in London, where similar orators held court. A New York law at the time required a gathering like that to always to have an American flag displayed. I always loved the irony of that.

I grew up around adults who were wary of anyone who was a Communist. The convicted spy Alger Hiss, who was  a Communist, lived in the apartment building where the last flower shop was located, 206 Third Avenue. The address 157 East 18th was the apartment house address. I remember my father commented on Hiss's appearance as he walked past the shop. Hiss didn't live in the building under that name. He attracted virtually no attention. Few recognized him at that point.

There was a retired N.Y.P.D. detective who hung out in the flower shop who told be the doorman across the street at 150 East 18th Street (The high rise that replaced my grandmother's place as well as the flower shop at 202 Third Avenue) was a Communist who attended meetings. He was plump fellow in his door man's uniform, who I always looked at funny when I passed him on my way in to deliver flowers. That's what a Communist looks like? I wasn't impressed.

All sorts of people are either endorsing Mamdani, or not saying anything about making a choice. Today's New York Post carries a front page that informs us that an aging, weary-looking former president Barack Obama is passing on endorsing Mamdani: "No Thank You Mam"

Why we should care what Obama says bewilders me. He doesn't live in New York. Sure he's a liberal Democrat, or what now goes as a Progressive Democrat, but does anything he says carry any weight anymore?

For me, I'm more interested in what Bill De Blasio has to say.

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