I’d love to be at the Jon Stewart-Stephen Colbert rally in Washington, D.C., on October 30, but I don’t know yet if that will happen. Today, Colbert tickled some funny bones — and ruffled some feathers — by appearing on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security.
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Yesterday, the mainstream outlets picked up on something that had been floating around the tech sites, about Steve Jobs allegedly dumping on a journalism student. Since then there’s been some confusion over the facts, but for the sake of this post I’ll assume it’s true that a journalism student made repeated efforts to contact Apple’s media relations people, didn’t receive a reply, then texted Steve Jobs directly.
If this is correct, and if Jobs saw the message and actually replied himself, why would he have said anything other than, “I’ll have somebody get back to you”? To say anything else was simply wrong, and is another indication that Steve should step back from the day-to-day doings at Apple. He had the all-time greatest return to power of any CEO in business history, and he has nothing left to prove, especially after his brush — two brushes — with death. Steve, it’s time to start thinking about calling it quits, and if you don’t have anybody ready to step in, then you haven’t been doing your job, have you?
When I was in New York this week, I stayed at the same place as the last time I was in the city — The Hotel Pennsylvania, across from Penn Station. My last visit literally left a bad taste in my mouth, because I became deathly ill with food poisoning, undoubtedly from a turkey club sandwich I’d had for dinner at Lindy’s, a restaurant in the Hotel Penn building that had been a favorite of Milton Berle, who I would have avoided had I ever seen him. I never cared for Uncle Milty.
My night in the Hotel Pennsylvania wasn’t cheap, but it’s less expensive than most of the midtown hotels. That’s because it’s pretty much a rundown dump, except for the lobby. Besides the relatively low cost, I have an attachment to the place, because it was where I stayed the very first time I visited New York, when I was sixteen years old. The occasion was the 1972 Comicart Convention, back when the hotel was called the Statler-Hilton.
My friend Morris drove us there with his (now ex-) wife and their infant daughter. They’re listed in the program book as “Human,” which is a typo, because Morris’ name is Hyman. If you enlarge the scan you’ll see my name and that of comic book art legend Joe Sinnott, his late wife Betty, and their son Mark. As I mentioned a while ago, Dennis and I were going to meet Joe and Mark in Boston next month, but Joe had hip replacement surgery on Friday. I sure do hope it went well.
The Hotel Pennsylvania is most likely not going to be standing for much longer, and having stayed there just a few days ago, I’m sorry to say that I think it’s time for it to go. The New York City Council has approved a plan to replace it with an office tower. With so much attention being given nationally to the proposed Islamic cultural center, this bit of real estate news has stayed mostly local to the Big Apple. But beware, New York, because the developer of the proposed Penn Plaza project, Vornado Realty Trust, is the same outfit that has left a huge hole in the center of Boston for years.
For a few years, my wife has been following the research into brain injuries that can be caused by bouncing soccer balls off of the head, that has resulted in the push to end the practice in schools, or have a requirement for helmets. The photo at this link to the local paper is from a couple of days ago.
These two high school girls are butting heads, with the soccer ball providing some relief from the impact, but if there’s a case for wearing helmets while playing soccer, this is it. One of the girls must have a knee injury, because if you click the link to the article you can see that she’s wearing a brace. So it’s doubtful she should have been in the game at all.
At best, the self-proclaimed preacher Terry Jones belongs in the 19th century, at worst he’s simply nuts, and not in the intentional, good way that Monty Python’s Terry Jones is.
If you’re like me, you’ll think this is the most interesting thing you’ve seen today. Full color photographs, not colorized, taken in Russia between 1910-15, by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
Hey, wait a sec’… the Library of Congress bought those photographic plates back in ’48?? That was only a year before the Soviets had their first atomic bomb test! Some Commie sympathizer in the LoC wasted American post-war taxpayer money on Russian photos?? I’m outraged!
