Just about every routine conversation between my parents Lilo and Janos eventually evolved into a shouting match. This was especially true in the time that plans were being made to move permanently from Brazil to the United States. Every single issue was a reason for raising the heat and noise, and the level of agitation…
What’s really going on at 101 LC, in the projection booth. Booth; Kalart-Victor; Bass gift; Film Society;
Yale College, New Haven, Connecticut When we were freshmen, we were required to eat most of our meals in a huge dining hall called Commons with a four- or five-story ceiling so high that the lights on the tables couldn’t reach it. It made us feel gloriously insignificant. It made one of our classmates, Steve…
It is rare that we burst into uncontrollable laughter at the instant that we hear something funny. On the radio this morning we heard the news that the central banks of Argentina and Brazil have engaged in talks aimed at creating a common currency in order to achieve eventual economic integration. Considering how well these…
The Bethel Police Commission has not published an agenda or minutes of meetings since January 20, 2021; the Bethel Police Department itself hasn’t published any news since 6/12/2018. And what became of the old police blotter that normally is published in every small town newspaper? First, the commission meetings. Bethel residents have no idea what…
Et tu, Rubino?
Postmaster Bethel Post Office Bethel USA Dear Sir or Madam, We have just received a notice from the Bethel Tax Collector informing us that we are delinquent in our quarterly tax payment of $ 4,655.88. We now must pay $153.57 in interest and penalties. Oddly, this mysterious “disappearance” of our tax payment has occurred several…
Once again, we’ve been had. Bethel voters, on a paltry turnout of six or seven hundred voters, approved a $ 1.4 million package for equiping a driving range at the headquarters that looks like a prison yard. Hey, form follows function. Or was it a shooting range? There was so little publicity, or debate, that…
Greenwood Avenue in Bethel looks nothing like it did in the nineteenth century: it has no trees anywhere on either side of it. Our town fathers, and mothers, self-righteously rhapsodize about preserving the town’s “New England character.” Trees would be a good start in that direction, but since the town is only 80 or so…
Sixty shots, sixty bullets; we don’t know how many guns were involved . The most charitable thing one could say about Akron police is that they are not very good shots. The one-sided shoot-’em-up finally felled the vicious escapee. We hope the stray bullets did not harm any innocent life or property, and trust that…
His acolytes in their yellow vests are Bethel’s finest. And two patrol cars. All this to control the little traffic that there is. Think of the overtime, and the imputed rent on the two cars. And it’s all on the taxpayer. On one occasion they arrived at 7:30 AM, an hour before the Butcher of…
The words “conservative” and “thought” don’t seem to go together anymore, as the people to whom that sentiment would have once applied have morphed into beings that are neither conservative nor thoughtful.
A cop from the town of Ridgefield shot a mother bear dead somewhere near his Newtown home. It was said that his reason for doing so was that she was terrorizing his chickens and ducks that he insisted be allowed to free-range on his property. “A terrorist is a terrorist,” the shooter said to his…
In Process… Every year, people hit themselves or others with sticks, often unintentionally. In the last few years, however, there have been uncountable violent incidents with sticks involving dozens of innocent people, perpetrated by young lone-wolf males of indeterminate origins, but usually white (duh…). Here are some good rules for proper stick management. DON’T handle…
Dateline 1625 Representatives of the twelve great Nations of the eastern seaboard met in conclave today in the wickiups of the Long Island to discuss the most important issues confronting their people, chief among them the existential crisis created by the landings of hundreds of ships with their cargos of unwanted white immigrants. Immigration is…
In Process… Yale Commons is renamed after wealthy donor-Schwartzman Yale Drama School renamed for wealthy donor-Geffen Various Yale Buildings named for good earner-Swensen Yale University renamed for wealthy donor-KingofJesters (KingofJesters University?)
We have allowed the last few years to pass without comment. We know, don’t ask. In fact, it wasn’t necessary for us to opine on anything, as the targets were too rich and too easy. It would have been redundant. Nobody needed to read about the miserable failure of the Bush presidency (Iraq, the…
The New York Times piece today on James Comey revealed an interesting datum that resonated with us. It appears that Mr. Comey keeps on his desk one of those calendar aphorisms that always seem to go stale after a while. It reads: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. The moment…
We get that strange creepy tingling in our gums when we feel an Official Lie coming down the pike. This latest one reminds us of WMD, or Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Catastrophic Iraq Blunder (CIB), if you have forgotten. We are being told by our government that the drones used to blow up…
We were not the only ones to think of Scaramouche and the Commedia dell’Arte when learning of Anthony Scaramucci’s appointment to the White House staff. The association prompted the King of Jesters to contemplate at long last the sorry state of the republic for which we weep. You will note that ever since this tragicomedy…
The recent stock market gyrations seem to be caused by the imbecile’s daily lip-pursing pronouncements on the economy, or trade tariffs, or war with assorted countries. We realize that he’s not that stupid, after all. Of course, he’s trading ahead of his tweets. This is the real fake news. He announces tariffs on billions of…
No, alas, the KingOfJesters is not Rigoletto; I am not a hunchback. Try again.
The New York Times revealed today that the poor, beleaguered mayor of Baltimore made a reference to “thugs” in the midst of the recent riots. We immediately thought that she was referring to the police in that fair city, an excusable error on our part. It turns out that, unbeknownst to us, the term is…
Turns out it’s run by Mike D’Andrea. You know Mike. He used to run the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, the water thing. So now he runs the targeted killing program. Much cleaner, you don’t even have to see or smell your enemy. None of that messy, Hemingway mano a mano stuff, just kinda long…
The following story turned up in our local paper. We swear we didn’t make up any of it. A suspended Roman Catholic priest who authorities say dealt pounds of methamphetamine and bought a sex shop to possibly launder his drug money is asking a federal judge for leniency when he is sentenced next week. Monsignor Kevin…
Wonders will never cease. From the massive concrete bunkers poured into the once pristine alpine meadows, comes the news that the subject of global income inequality was actually on the agenda. It’s hard to imagine a lively discussion since no one from the lower 99% was likely to be attending, and we weren’t there either. …
Hank Paulson, known around the house as Lurch, is back in a documentary produced by the Wall Street fellow traveller Bloomberg Businessweek. It’s called “Hank: Five Years From the Brink,” and extensively features his wife Wendy. Hank and Wendy are bird watchers, we are told. Raptors like bird watching too. Now Hank is back, in…
Previously, when asked “Is the Pope Catholic?”, we erroneously replied “No, he is a Jesuit.” The correct answer should have been “No, he is Argentinian.” We stand in shame of our ignorance.
While watching the recent D-Day festivities on French television, we noted the arrival of our President in a caravan of black Chevy Suburbans, right there on the beach in Normandy. And as the camera panned past the rear end of his SUV, we saw not a French license plate, but one that read: Washington D.C.! …
We received the following item not long ago, and present it herewith without comment, except for the snide headline above. Well, maybe just one question. Is this board-packing? Read on…
We just reviewed our website’s Google Ænalytics report, hoping to find evidence of NSA sphincter snooping. Alas, nothing. Nobody ever visits, only the gastroenterologist. There were a few feeble “hits” from France (go figure) and Durham (New Hampshire?). The French ones came from some downmarket Paris suburb and others from Marseille, indicating some posssible French…
We ran across this item recently in the Class Notes of our alumni magazine: Reed Hundt from his Blackberry: “I just invested in an off-Broadway play, Old Jews Telling Jokes. Betsy and I attended the opening in mid-May. Please go often so we can have a hit. We still live in Chevy Chase and I…
We were thrilled to see some of our heroes be honored by the Nobel for economics (let’s not call it economic science, not yet): Robert Schiller of Yale and Eugene Fama of the University of Chicago . Later, we watched the press conferences that each man gave at his respective university. Our respect and admiration…
Worry no more for Timmy Geithner. Our prior speculation about where he would end up after leaving office was erroneous. No, it’s not Goldman Sachs, alas. It’s Warburg Pincus, a house of private equity where, fear not, Timmy will be able to work on many deals with Goldman.
Howard, I started getting these calls last week… “Abdul? Abdul?, it’s Mohamid.” “Who? I think you’ve got the wrong number, sorry.” Click. An hour later, the same thing. “Abdul?” “No, sorry, man.” Click. The next morning, “Abdul?” “Mohamid, listen, you got the wrong…” Click. This went on for the last ten days, some even in…
The new airline philosophy of everything-has-its-price became terrifyingly clear to me on a recent flight from Paris to New York. I flew into a panic even before take-off when I couldn’t find the little vomit bag “in the seat-back pocket in front of you.” And it was nowhere to be found; I looked everywhere. Anxious…
We can’t help but wonder indelicately what Pope Francis was doing during the time of the desaparecidos in Argentina. Perhaps he was just lying low, like the thuggish Pius XII during World War II.
Aye, she’s a bloodthirsty wench, isn’t she? Ms. Power’s hyperactive conscience would have her do some bloody cleansing of her own. Send in America’s military might once again to right all the wrongs that this messy world perpetrates. Let’s bomb the Syrians, who are committing such atrocities. But which Syrians? And whose side are they…
So, duh, is the Pope Catholic? No, he’s a Jesuit.
We would love to have the metadata on Goldman Sachs et. al. Anybody selling?
Right in the middle of this whole NSA snooping scandal, our government has issued an urgent terrorist threat based on what it calls “unusual chatter.” What an amazing coincidence; surely it must be some sort of a prank. It has become axiomatic that we no longer believe anything that our government tells us, especially when…
Dear Mr. President, On the question of who is to replace Ben Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve, can you seriously be thinking of appointing the fox to run the henhouse? The New York Times wrote this morning (7/26/13) that the choice is between Lawrence Summers (the fox) and Janet Yellen (the hen?). Summers…
–Two bits says he ends up at Goldman, Sachs. –Naah, he wouldn’t dare. –So, bet me.