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New York Stories

March 23rd, 2010 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in Uncategorized

Three separate New York-y stories in the New York Times caught my attention today. The first warmed the cuckolds of my dark little heart. The second reminded my why my little heart is dark. The third made my head explode.

The heart warmer came from yesterday. A diamond dealer who fled from Belgium to New York with this family in 1946 befriended an Indian newsstand vendor who came to the US from India 20 years ago. Every Sunday morning, the diamond dealer brings the newsstand vendor breakfast and mans the newsstand while the vendor takes a bathroom break. Their affection for one another was lovely. Neighbors appreciating what the other does and helping out is just awesome.

On the flip side, we have the story about JetBlue. JetBlue is the only airline with a headquarters in Queens. Although they claim to love New York, the company threatened to move to Orlando, where the government fell over themselves to build them a new HQ and give them all sorts of tax perks. New York City then fell all over itself to give them $30 million in perks to stay. One concession is to let them use the iconic “I♥NY” logo on their planes. Now that the taxpayers of NYC are pitching in so JetBlue can show their love, the company noted that they also save $75 million by not moving.* Thanks.

Finally, I discovered that my alma mater, NYU, plans to destroy Greenwich Village and other parts of the city by expanding their campus by 40% and creating superblocks of NYU facilities. I will say one thing: the reason I wanted to go to NYU was because it was so integrated into the city. If I fucking wanted a regular college campus, I’d have gone elsewhere. Why do they have to ruin the city by turning it into NYU? Gah!

*This whole thing is emblematic of the severe public policy problems posed by one state/municipality luring business out of another. It’s just a race to the bottom for which area can most enrich the private corporation and the taxpayers lose. Bah!

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Another Disturbing Ripple in My Universe

March 4th, 2010 by Suzanne | 8 Comments | Filed in Asshole idiots, Damn, fuck, Jewishness, mortification, What is wrong with people?

>My mother and I are planning a trip to Warsaw in mid-June. We will visit the Jewish cemetery and try to find my great-grandfather’s grave. (He died before the war, so he probably is lucky enough to have a burial place unlike my grandfather’s sisters and mother.) We will see the few remnants of the wall of the Warsaw ghetto. We will visit the Jewish Historical Institute. We will do a records search. We will pass by the address where my grandfather’s family owned a butcher shop and/or lived.

We will also go to Treblinka.

I always assumed that my grandfather’s family died in Auschwitz, if they even lived to be deported from the ghetto. But, one of the dangers of Holocaust hagiography is that the fame of Auschwitz dwarfs reality. Deportations began in 1942, and when Warsaw’s ghetto was liquidated in the spring of 1943, everyone left was sent to Treblinka, 2 hours outside of Warsaw in an isolated forest. There was no work at Treblinka. People died within an hour of their arrival.

Husband has a friend who lives in Warsaw who is very kindly helping me arrange my trip. He sent me a link to the Treblinka Museum. One of the things that fascinated me when I first learned about the Treblinka site is how noncommercial it is. Auschwitz, to me, is tourist attraction at this point. Tour groups go, people gape at the convent built on site, they exclaim over the signs proclaiming how much the Poles suffered* because it was initially built for Polish political prisoners. Treblinka was completely destroyed by the Nazis, so there’s nothing “fun” to see. It is a sober monument to the 800,000 Jews and thousands of Gypsies and Romani murdered there.

Anyway, as I read the museum’s website, I was taken aback by this statement:

The memorial should be visited with due seriousness and respect.
Within the area of the museum it is forbidden to bring dogs, smoke or eat ice cream.

Damn, I can’t eat ice cream there? Well, I guess I’ll have to pack ham and cheese pierogies and chocolate kolacky.

I hope that this was a translation error and in Polish it says, “no eating.” Otherwise, WHAT THE FUCK? How weird is the focus on ice cream? Even weirder, it reminds me of a fucked up Hasidic monument I visited in Israel:

I mean, they are not the same thing, but the utter randomness of what is forbidden strikes me as similar. (In case the photo does not appear, it is a sign that says that it is forbidden for women to dance at this site.)

Anyway, it is going to be an intense trip. I believe we will also take a trip to Krakow, as Husband’s friend recommended.

*Oh yeah, and some Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals died there, too. But whatever. (This is written in the vein of signage at Auschwitz, so pardon my bitter glibness.)

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The Tipping Point

February 25th, 2010 by Suzanne | 12 Comments | Filed in Asshole idiots, Damn, fuck, What is wrong with people?

>One of my former bosses told me that she always knows who has had restaurant experience when she goes out with a group of people based on how much they tip. She said that people who’ve never worked in the food service industry generally give tips of up to 15%, but people who have worked tables give closer to 20%. I am fortunate enough to have been able to go through life thus far without waitressing (I guarantee that I would be awful*), but I tip 20% unless service was utterly abysmal (i.e. – the staff was actually rude to me). My ex-boss said I am an exception.

I find that in NYC, most people are calculate tips in one of two ways: they double the tax (which is 8.75%) or they give 20% of the subtotal. Either way seems right to me. The minimum wage in the restaurant industry in NYS is $4.60. In theory, if staff do not earn enough tips to average them out to $7.15 an hour, the restaurant must cough up the extra dough. But how likely is that? Not very.

I rant about this now because I have gone out with some people a few times who consistently refuse to acknowledge that they have to pay tax and tip. It is so bad that I’ve actually pulled out a calculator to show how their $15 entree is really over $19 when you add tax ($1.31) and tip ($3), so putting in $20 is fair. Even after this, people have argued with me that they overpaid.

Not everyone is good at math. I understand that. I’m no math genius myself. But when I fucking run through the numbers and explain them, and my co-diner still doesn’t want to pay his fair share, I am going to be very angry. Because I’m not going to short restaurant staff because my companion is too fucking cheap to pay what he owes, I get stuck paying for it. And it adds up over time. Eventually I just focus on how the person is going to screw me or someone at the end of the meal, and I don’t enjoy myself. It makes me not inclined to dine out with certain individuals any more.

*Maurice, the hamster who runs on the wheel that powers my brain, would never be able to keep up with all the orders and I’d always forget to bring people drinks or who ordered what and all that.

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I Don’t Even Know What to Title This

January 19th, 2010 by Suzanne | 6 Comments | Filed in Asshole idiots, Damn, fuck, mortification

>Granny is mostly OK. Sunday the cardiac doc came to discuss her options. Her blood work indicated that she had a very small heart attack, so he wanted to do an angiogram. Depending on what he saw, he would insert balloons or stents into her arteries. Everyone agreed that because she needs oral surgery soon, he would use nonmedicated stents because the medicated ones would basically cause her to bleed out if she had dental work.

On Monday morning, the doctor told us that the test went well. He said that her heart was strong and that there was no damage from the heart attack. Then he said he saw a lot of heart disease and inserted a balloon and two medicated stents.

My mom and I recoiled. “What do you mean medicated stents?” she asked.

“Oh. Ooops. I forgot. I even wrote it on the board and I forgot. Sorry about that.”

Yes, that is actually what he said. “Ooops… sorry about that.”

“What about the oral surgery?” my mom asked. She was trying not to punch him. (She later told me that she was more angry about his flippant tone than the fuck up, not that she condoned the fuck up.)

“Oh, she’ll have to wait at least six months, but I really recommend a year,” he said as if it’s no big deal to have a mouth full of rotting teeth. “Maybe you can find a dentist who would be willing to do a procedure while she’s on Plavix.”

I pictured some back alley dentist ripping up my Granny mouth and leaving her to bleed out when things went awry. I wanted to slap the doctor. (Husband suggested slapping the doctor – with a lawsuit.) I know it could be worse, but this really, really sucks.

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The Eyes Don’t Have It

December 10th, 2009 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in fuck

>Decrepitude at the age of 33 (almost 34, and yes, I got my age right this time) is not good. In the few months that I was at my previous job earlier this year, vision in my left eye declined. It turns out that staring at a computer screen for hours a day made my eyeballs and their components really angry. The left eye went on partial strike.

My left eye continued to bother me after I left my hob, even though I no longer spent all day staring at a monitor. I had to get a stronger prescription lens. This fixed the situation. I could see! Hurray!

Now that I am staring at a computer screen all day again, my left eye has decided it is back to partial strike. I’m faster at responding to its demands, though. Lots of eye drops and a much more concerted attempt to look at other things every 15 minutes or so. And I bought computer glasses. Supposedly these will help because the coated lenses will reduce glare, and like reading glasses, they have a slight power. Unlike reading glasses (which made me ill when I tried them at my last job because they don’t come in powers below 1.00), these new babies are only 0.25.

My fingers are crossed. I doubt disability insurance covers this type of problem…

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It’s No Accident that “Stupak” Looks a Lot Like “Stupid”

December 2nd, 2009 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in evil, fuck, mortification

>Two of my favorite organizations, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and Planned Parenthood are holding a National Day of Action today to lobby the Senate for health care reform that ensures women’s access to reproductive health care. Right now, things are not looking good.

Basically, the House passed a horrible amendment sponsored by Rep. Bart Stupak, an anti-choice douche bag. The amendment would prevent women who currently have health insurance plans that cover abortion from obtaining the same coverage if they buy it through an insurance exchange. This is a problem for me, but even worse is that private plans will likely drop abortion coverage in order to participate in the exchange. People who like imposing their religious beliefs on others are proposing the same thing in the Senate.

Planned Parenthood explains the situation (it’s a long one):

The Bottom Line

  • Under the Stupak amendment, millions of women would lose benefits that they currently have and millions more would be prohibited from getting the kind of private sector health care coverage that most women have today.

  • Millions of women would lose private coverage for abortion services and millions more would be prohibited from buying it even with their own money.

The New Health Insurance Exchange

  • The new health insurance exchange is intended to provide a new source of affordable, quality coverage for the roughly 46 million uninsured Americans and the millions more whose current coverage is unaffordable or inadequate.

  • The House bill is expected to cover 96 percent of all uninsured Americans by offering subsidies for private coverage or the choice of a public plan. Depending on their income level and the final package approved by Congress, individuals would receive subsidies on a sliding scale to purchase private insurance through the exchange.

  • Not everyone in the exchange would have subsidized coverage — a significant portion of people (for instance, those currently purchasing in the individual market and those working for small businesses) who would buy insurance in the exchange would not receive any subsidies, also known as affordability credits.

The Stupak Amendment

  • The Stupak amendment prohibits any coverage of abortion in the public option and prohibits anyone receiving a federal subsidy from purchasing a health insurance plan that includes abortion. It also prohibits private health insurance plans from offering through the exchange a plan that includes abortion coverage to both subsidized and unsubsidized individuals.

  • The Stupak amendment purports to allow women to purchase a separate, single-service “abortion rider,” but abortion riders don’t exist.

  • Women are unlikely to think ahead to choose a plan that includes abortion coverage, since they do not plan for unplanned pregnancy.

  • Realistically, the actual effect of the Stupak amendment is to ban abortion coverage across the entire exchange, for women with both subsidized and unsubsidized coverage.

  • Example: Currently, a self-employed graphic designer or writer, buying coverage from Kaiser Permanente in the individual market, likely has abortion coverage. Under the health reform plan amended by Stupak, she would purchase that same plan from Kaiser Permanente in the exchange, but it would not include abortion coverage because it would be barred. This ban would be in effect even if she were paying the full premium. Similarly, a woman working for a small graphic design firm, who currently has abortion coverage through her company’s plan, would lose it under reform if the company decides to seek more affordable coverage in the exchange.

For more information on health care reform and the Stupak amendment, visit us at http://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/healthreform.

End of Planned Parenthood info, and back to my ranting… If this pisses you off as much as it does me, call your Senator today. (Or email him or her, as I suspect the lines will be busy.) Perhaps yelling, “Stop the stupid Stupak amendment bullshit,” is not the thing to say, but it does have alliteration, which is a good literary technique.

In all seriousness, something like this is NOT going to stop women from having abortions. Instead, it will force more women to wait longer for their procedure while they figure out how the hell to pay for it. If we want more late term abortions in this country, then by all means, support Stupak. But that would be stupid.

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What We Saw at a Bus Stop in the West Village

November 21st, 2009 by Suzanne | 4 Comments | Filed in Asshole idiots, fuck, hilarity, mortification, random, What is wrong with people?

>Warning: This is likely the most disgusting thing I’ve ever posted on CUSS…

As Steph and I strolled through the West Village this afternoon, she pointed out all the things that had changed since she moved. One of new arrivals is fancy bus shelters. We walked up to a glass and metal bus structure, and Steph gasped.

“Do you see what I see next to the bench?”

“Um, yes. Yes, I do.”

“That’s a dildo.”

“With shit caked on it, yes.”

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>No Justice. Again.

November 8th, 2009 by Suzanne | 2 Comments | Filed in Asshole idiots, evil, fuck, What is wrong with people?

>The House of Representatives passed a shitty excuse for a health care plan. It includes no public option. (Sorry, I misunderstood the newspaper this morning.) It also gave in to fundamentalist religious groups and barred abortion coverage for anyone obtaining health insurance with government subsidies.

Some might argue that it is wrong to use taxpayers’ money for things that certain taxpayers might object to. But we do that every day, anyway. I object to the death penalty, but every execution that happens in my state (which fortunately has been none) would be partly subsidized with my tax money. I object to Halliburton receiving no bid contracts to do nothing in Iraq. I object to hiring private “security” (paramilitary) firms being paid to “guard” stuff in Iraq. I object to the ludicrous idea that companies that are contracted by the US to work in Iraq are not subject to following US laws, so that women are raped by their co-workers and fired, the company has no responsibility. I object to using taxpayer money to build sports stadiums. The list goes on and on.

The problem with democracy is that sometimes you are stuck monetarily supporting things that you find morally reprehensible. If a person doesn’t like it, too fucking bad. He doesn’t have the right to impose his religious beliefs on me or other people.

Of course, not all religious groups are obnoxious fucking hypocritical assholes who insist on religious freedom for themselves but them force their beliefs down the throats of others. I know this. That’s why, even though I don’t believe in a Judeo-Christian God, I support the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. I think they do important work reminding people that religion does not have to oppress other people. I suppose it will be hard to continue supporting them when I live in my cave, hanging out with bats and shunning humanity, but as I said, there’s no justice. I don’t even know why I expect it every once in a while.

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>The Gonifs* Win

November 5th, 2009 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in Asshole idiots, Damn, fuck, mortification, What is wrong with people?

>A few years ago, Rudy Giuliani, a mega Yankee fan and dictatorial mayor, put together a deal offering the Yankees a new stadium. This ballpark would be financed in part by New York City taxpayers. It would also require taking one of the few public parks in the South Bronx** and handing it over to the Yankees for the new structure. Boo! Hiss!

Then, thank to term limits (a concept I generally disagree with as it is not compatible with democratic elections, but that’s another story), Giuliani could not run for mayor again. Whew! The new mayor, Michael Bloomberg, announced that the public was not in the business of building new stadiums for sports teams. Hurray! Rah rah rah!

Fast forward a few years, and Mayor Bloomberg inks a deal turning Macombs Dam Park over to the Yankees for their new stadium. There is lots of taxpayers supported financing, and a secret deal for a fancy luxury box for high ranking city officials, which somehow is called a public benefit. The Yankees also get a new MetroNorth stop, so that rich Republican assholes from Westchester need not set a foot in the surrounding neighborhood. In exchange, the Yankees agree to create a series of new little parks for the impoverished people of the South Bronx. Very generous of them, right? Boo! Hiss! Rotten tomatoes!!!

Now that the Yankees won the World Series, are the people who live in the shadows of the new stadium gathering in the newly built parks to celebrate? No, because there are no new parks. At best, there might be a park in 2011. But one of the lots promised to be a park is now actually going to be a parking lot. Sure, I understand that “parking” has the word “park” in it, but my dear Yankees, they are not one and the same.

So, go Yankees. Nice work. Taking from the poor and giving to the rich is considered an admirable American trait. You are exactly the American champions you set out to be.

*Gonif: Thief in Yiddish
**The Bronx, incidentally, is the poorest urban county in the US. The South Bronx is the poorest neighborhood in the Bronx. Clearly, these people have a lot to spare for a struggling sports team that has little revenue…

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>Richard Peck Made Me Cry Today

November 3rd, 2009 by Suzanne | 2 Comments | Filed in fuck, nerds, random, writing

>The day started out well. I woke up a bit before my alarm sounded, feeling refreshed. After feeding Tycho the rabbit and myself, I ran three miles at the gym. Then I scurried home to purchase U2 concert tickets for Husband. For a concert on Sept. 16, 2010.

Ticket purchasing is not as easy as it sounds. First, he had to subscribe to the band’s fan site. This runs something like $50. Then he received an email with a secret code that could be used to purchase up to four tickets before they went on sale to the general public. Since Husband was at a Very Important Meeting when his special group of bribe givers was allowed to give U2 more of their money, he asked me to click on the magic link, enter the code, and secure the best tickets available, at whatever cost.

Fine. How hard can that be? Except that he already used the code he provided me for tickets for a concert this past September. And I had no access to his U2 account to find his new entree to U2 happiness. The man asked me to do a simple task, and it distressed me to no end. He works hard. All he wants are some fucking concert tickets, and I could not provide. Two frustrating hours later, I finally bought the tickets. Yay.

However, I was late for everything else I had to do today. Among other things that did not get done in a timely fashion, I missed a call from an organization offering me a job. Yay for the job offer, boo for missing the call. I left the woman an overly enthusiastic message on her voice mail at 5:30.

Blah, blah, blah. Fortunately, I arrived at school on time to hear my favorite author from when I was in 4th grade. Blossom Culp, the main character in Ghosts I Have Been, was a hero to me back then. I wanted to be her. So all semester, I’d been waiting to hear Richard Peck. During his talk about writing, he said, “I write for lonely people looking for friends in books.”

Thank you, Mr. Peck.

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