NY Mysteries January 31, 2020

It’s been a busy week. Saturday night supper  was at La Lanterna Di Vittorio on MacDougal where lasagna is king. Afterwards, we wandered across Bleecker to McNulty’s on Christopher. McNulty’s, as every New Yorker knows, has different, delicious coffees and teas. The shop is stacked with similar goodies from all over the world and it reeks of coffee. It was like stepping back into the seventies.

On Tuesday, I visited friends on the very west side, had a delicious, cosy meal in front of their Christmas tree and fireplace. We went to Boxers for an after dinner drink. Boxers??? Not the place where gay waiters serve you wearing swimming shorts? Yes, indeed. I was hoping for some naughty stuff. It was so innocent. 

On Friday, I attended a talk along with four million other people (3,999,995 were women) at The Grolier Club. It was 500 Years of Women’s Work. Lisa Unger Baskin walked us through parts of her collection which are beautifully displayed at the Grolier. It dates from 1478 to the Twentieth Century. The permanent collection is at Duke. The one at the Grolier runs until February 8.

 

 

 

500 Hundred Years of Women’s Work
Banner outside The Grolier Club
Five Hundred Years of Women’s Work

Now for a stern note. Governor Cuomo wants third parties to increase their number of votes if they’re to remain on the ballot. I belong to the Green Party and received this disturbing letter from the Green Party. Howie Hawkins, our presidential nominee, is quoted. 

If you thought Bernie Sanders was the only one facing the wolves this election season, let us inform you that he’s not.

It’s become pretty obvious that there’s all-out war against Bernie Sanders, and the DNC’s picks for the committees that will oversee nomination convention business certainly underscores this reality. And now with Barack Obama threatening to “go public” on his opposition to Sanders, you know the fix is in.

Last week in an open letter, Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, and other progressive luminaries insisted that Howie Hawkins and the Green Party vote Democrat for president in battleground states.

They condescendingly describe Green votes as a self-indulgent “feel-good activity” as if Green votes are not votes for urgent climate action, real social and economic justice policies, and peace policies.

Don’t they see that the Democrats have joined the Republicans in supporting pro-corporate economic policies and pro-war foreign policies that have generated growing inequality at home and endless wars abroad?

As Howie said, “The left cannot outsource fighting the right to the Democrats.”

Howie points out that the Democrats have helped to normalize Trump by joining with him to overwhelmingly support military budget increases, the US Mexico Canada Trade Agreement (NAFTA 2.0), and the prosecution of Julian Assange and persecution of Chelsea Manning.

 

 

Graphic Lessons: What do a thirty-four-year old, a nine-year-old and an eighteen-year-old have in common? Murder. 

Millie Fitzgerald applies for a Windsor School teaching job, faints on a  dying man in the school kitchen, deals with a troubled nine-year-old and with the eighteen-year-old niece of the murdered man.

Graphic Lessons: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears a person fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who  accuses her of lying? Her father who’s fled to Singapore? She tells Millie. 

Graphic Lessons: NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek is assigned the murder case at the prestigious Windsor School. What’s bugging him? His partner was stabbed. He feels remorse over screwing up an important case. His corrupt boss is a trustee of the Windsor School. His girlfriend married his boss. And his daughter quit college.