Under Construction

The Manhattan Journal is under construction.  Thank you for your patience while I move a few older posts to this new blog and get them into chronological order.  Most of all, thank you for reading!

"The Accidental Empress" Book Review

Allison Pataki's "The Accidental Empress" is a true novel weaving history, romance, family, politics, philosophy, music, fashion, style and satire into a work of art and a wonderful reading experience.  The Author snaps the perfect length of time into one book (the sequel would be sad.)  Not that this book is without sorrow:  loss of their firstborn child, loss of wars, land and power.  Yet the erosion of an empire unfolds with charm and humor:

Page 425:  "We are the Habsburgs, after all."  Beust spoke in a quiet, mocking tone, and Sisi recognized how much trouble he would face if this conversation were overheard.  Her as well.

     "We need no one."  Sisi said, her tone full of meaning as she repeated her aunt's motto...

     Beust flicked his cigarette impatiently.  "And, hence, we have no one."

Both "The Accidental Empress" and Allison Pataki's first historical novel, "The Traitors Wife" take place in locations her family is from.  The Traitor is Benedict Arnold, headquartered near the river in the Hudson Valley during the Revolutionary War.  Allison Pataki grew up in Peekskill, New York and took walks in that historic area near her house.  She develops the persona of the greedy wife as the root of corruption in Arnold's attempted turnover of George Washington.  The setting of "The Accidental Empress" is in the seat of the Habsburg court in Vienna, yet Princess Sisi's happiest times are in Hungary, from where Allison Pataki's Father's family emigrated in the mid-1800s.  It must have been fun to follow their ancestral roots from the countryside to the greatest palaces of the former Austria-Hungary, where the Hungarian prime minister and parliament were established under Prince Franz Joseph and Empress Sisi, crowned Queen of Hungary after persuading her husband to keep what was left of the Empire together by allowing them some independent, representational government.  Allison Pataki really captures the crass, horrible nature of the European nobility behind the glamorous trappings.  From an adulterous, sleazy, seductive, power-hungry, mean cast of characters emerges an unexpected love story, from which flows beauty and influence in a rapidly changing period in history.  Prince Franz is conquered first by Sisi, then by every country in his grasp, yet he would have lost far more without her.  They really fell for each other, yet the moral of the story remains about royal-chasing -- Sisi dared for a man intended for someone else, her older sister no less, and ended up freeing her from imperial degeneration.

"The Accidental Empress" would make a great movie to capture the waltzes written for Sisi, her wardrobe, the ostentatious court of Vienna.  Empress Sisi has already inspired current fashion and creativity in videos by Chanel and Carolina Herrera, to which there are links in the Forbes Magazine review http://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelhennessey/2015/02/16/allison-pataki-accidental-empress-new-book-historical-fiction/ Such works are important, because they mold together a cultural understanding that isn't brought to life in an academic history.  Inspired to learn even more about the Habsburgs, I came across this new exhibit in Minneapolis -- http://new.artsmia.org, which I might have missed it if not for the delightful book, "The Accidental Empress" by Allison Pataki.  Buy it on Allison's website http://www.allisonpataki.com/ae/

From Minimum Wage to Wall Street

10/29/13

The story of John Burnett is the American dream.  Born in public housing, son of union labor, he got a job out of high school at Pathmark rounding up shopping carts (a union job).  Pathmark was an Development initiative.  His boss saw him pushing a long string of carts all at once and brought him inside to work as a cashier.  He worked his way up and eventually transferred those skills to large investment houses downtown, like Dean Witter, which became Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch (complete details on his website http://johnburnett2013.com).  He wanted to finish college, so he enrolled in NYU, worked his way through while holding down his job, and completed the MBA program at Cornell's NYC campus.  One employer wrote a letter convincing them to waive the GMAT requirement.  He had 20 interviews at Goldman-Sachs before the financial crisis hit.

John has been beating odds all his life, from his mother's pregnancy -- her doctor told her neither would survive if she gave birth to him.  She lived until the semester before he graduated college.  Extremely articulate, backed by people you'd least expect [whom I won't reveal because I don't want the Democrats to work them over], I recommend some pro-fracking contributors overturn his opponent who is funded "Gasland" money.

Historically, the City Comptroller is the opposite political party of the Mayor.  Voter turnout has been so low in recent elections that if an individual voter takes the time to go to the polls, John Burnett has a chance at winning.  John Burnett is an inspiring leader who deserves to win this election day.

Artfully Briefed

December 21, 2013

Once I start reading about something I'm interested in, my writing seems to be delayed.  A Gallery Talk in the Rembrandt room at the Met by European Paintings Curator Walter Liedtke got me started.

Then homage to The Girl With The Pearl Earring at the Frick.  Yes, she's there into January.

Then Pope came out with his Economic piece, about which the Weekly Standard published a piece on Speedreading the Papal document. 

Speaking of The Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol introduced candidate for NY-21 Elise Stafanik at the home of Juleanna Glover in Washington DC.

Ann Coulter spoke about her new book at the WNRC and sharply divides candidates based on amnesty, which she's against.

More on these and other topics later. 

But first, Rosemary's Letter to Santa, which was interrupted by the rude awakening of Obamacare.  I called my insurance carrier with my change of address and asked if everything was okay, as it appeared to be from the correspondence (though the fine print was the tiniest I've ever seen and I didn't read it thoroughly).  The operator replied, in a nutshell, "Yes, if you do nothing, you'll be rolled into a new plan under our new company, which will cost you 3x as much."  My plan was on autopay, so I might not have noticed for months.

"What's the cheapest plan?" I asked, "Where does the range start, say, for someone with no income?"

The answer is $50 a month more than I was paying.

I went on the website, which isn't secure due a contract awarded to Michelle Obama's Canadian crony. It can't be fixed and they don't want to admit it and invest in the solution.  Because everyone is in the database anyway, based on tax returns as the program has been moved to the IRS, I filled out forms until it froze.  Back to enter more, only to be told they'll mail me something.  The absent parent question:  Do you fear physical or emotional harm if you enter information about this person?  No, I don't fear it, I'm absolutely guaranteed it whether I enter information or not, mostly by court order!

More on the true horror and economic implications of Obamacare when I find out more.  For now, I've removed the word "Daily" from my masthead and am off to a Christmas party and Lessons & Carols.

Seasons Greetings!

Hate is Not a Strategy

Today marks the 70th Anniversary of D-Day, the American troops landing at Normandy, the turning point in the war started by one of the most hate-consumed men in history, Adolf Hitler.  

When my daughter was 15 months old, I took her to Normandy Fourth of July weekend for a family wedding.  Normandy is one of those places where you can tell, as soon as you start driving through the countryside, under the checkers of light that splash over swaths of fields, that something happened there.  Like Gettysburg, you can almost sense the ghosts of the past.  Following Rosemary, as she toddled along Omaha Beach, I was surprised to see that people had built a vacation home right on top of it, not that many years after so many people sacrificed their lives there.  Rosemary touched the sand, made her way through the graveyard.  We listened to inspiring stories of heroes, of gratitude, of victory over the hatred of one man, hatred that spread to his army, hatred that could only be stopped by many armies coming together against him.

In the end, hate didn't win.  It isn't a strategy.  Born of defeat, it will never conquer those who build freedom.

Sometimes I wonder where hate comes from.  RedState posted on Facebook "Uncle Sam is not your baby daddy.  Get a job and get off welfare."  Such hatred for Mothers of babies is not the ticket to victory, prosperity, or national security.  Women who want normal are our constituency, not the enemy.  RedState does not mean the USSR.  We are not the party of deadbeat dads -- that's "BlueState" to throw women and children on the street and the payoff is getting to absorb the prostitutes of the Soviet past.  

Instead of defacing Uncle Sam, try articulating a vision of starting salaries of $250,000 with office hours of 9:30 to 2:30.  Most single Mothers live paycheck-to-paycheck in low-wage jobs.  If they live with their Mother, and Grandmother takes on childcare, they can afford to subsidize employers.  Even successful, married women require full family participation to make it work.

The Uncle Sam poster wasn't designed to create widows and orphans, it was designed to inspire heroes.  Those who answered the call fought to protect women and children, not to ridicule them.  To do so is a disgrace to the memory of those who served.

Today, we are in a different kind of war, a jihad, which comes from a culture where women and Mothers are not treated well, a culture of hate.

Be a hero.  Hire a Mom.  Support a child.  While we may never be chosen for the the kind of heroism the troops at Normandy displayed that day, we can all make courageous choices in our daily lives to create a culture of freedom that honors their memory, one they would be proud of.

Deux Villes

10/26/13

On the way to the MI conference yesterday, I read the following poem while riding the subway down:

The Good Life

by Tracy K. Smith b. 1974

When some people talk about money,

They speak as if it were mysterious lover

Who went out to buy milk and never came back, and it makes me nostalgic

For the years I lived on coffee and bread 

Hungry all the time, walking to work on payday

Like a woman journeying for water

From a village without a well, then living for one or two nights like everyone else

On roast chicken and red wine

Tracy K. seems a little young and well-educated to have lived like that, unless for student loans.

The poem brings to mind Myron Magnet's Oct. 7th article, "A Fairytale of Two Cities" http://www.city-journal.org/2013/eon1007mm.html about the Sandinista-Elect's http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/09/23/nyregion/a-mayoral-hopeful-now-de-blasio-was-once-a-young-leftist.html reference to Charles Dickens "Two Cities" speech theme.  Magnet is an expert on Dickens and the [not-so-] "Great Society" of the 1960s.  

It would be difficult to impossible to struggle for a job or support a family on $8/hour in this town.  It would still be even harder for women with children.  Men were traditionally paid more and had administrative coverage because they had family obligations.  Now that the courts award women all the obligations, this has to change.  Even if you don't agree with the feminist conspiracy to get women paid, not rewarding parental breadwinners does not encourage responsible behavior or a strong society.

Welfare may actually supplement the minimum wage, as the only people who could afford the cost of working for that wage would have to live with their parents, or someone, and have additional income.  So who's really the one getting something for free when someone pays more to get to the job than the job pays?  

I, for one, am happier working than not working, yet it seems irresponsible for someone with children to burn money and energy needed to take proper care of the children on a job that doesn't cover some living expenses beyond what it takes to get out the door.  

When Magnet started his career, there was still a corporate ladder structure.  Now it is more like an invisible ladder that in reality leads to other jobs that don't pay, rather than bigger and better things.  I learned in every "entry-level" job, building a body of knowledge and network that has value, yet it's sort of like Darwin's theory of evolution - it would be hard to find evidence that a species really turns into a different species, that a minimum-wage job will prepare anyone for promotion.  

McDonald's makes MBAs flip burgers as their first shift.  They intend to train and promote them.  I believe in the American dream that hard work pays off, yet also that "work does not make money;  money makes money."  To the extent a job enables you to save money, that money can compound interest, though my generation has experienced significant stock market losses.  The window where people made money on the sale of their homes was short.  A job that costs money, considering how many institutions end up in litigation, requiring employees to retain counsel, isn't a constructive move.  It isn't good for companies to hire people who can't live within the means of the paycheck, because it creates a motive for corruption.

I don't listen to the Sandinista-Elect, but I read Tale of Two Cities a long time ago.  It was the book that taught my cousin's Father, a WWII orphaned refugee, to speak English, by his adoptive Mother, of a Jewish couple who took in a boy from the Catholic Committee, and got him into Princeton within a short time, married American and ended up with a big house on Fox Hall Road in our Nation's capital.  

You could say there are three cities in New York:  Billionaires who started something or hit the Hedge Fund jackpot, Goldman Sachs Pre-IPO Partners, and everyone else.  There are a million things to do and ways to live in New York.  The first two can really do it comfortably.  Everyone else has to prioritize.  Everyone has a lot to manage.  Everyone could have more.  For everyone things could be a whole lot worse.

What Magnet and the Sandinista-Elect agree on is there is an underclass.  I don't listen to the Sandinista-Elect, but he probably wants what all the Socialists want -- not just to pull up a chair at the table, but to take the chair of someone else, sending them down to the underclass.  They don't want to end the underclass.  We do.  They want the education system fixed after their children have gotten a superior education.  We want it now.

I've had low-paying jobs, collected unemployment, never welfare, though "support" from those who don't want you to succeed is similar.  Taking a job from someone who doesn't want you to succeed may do more harm.  

Better to not think about any of this and look for a great job, or start a business.  I wonder, though, if welfare recipients have the same funny memories of jobs?  Do they laugh about the government the way we do about shows like "The Office" and Donald Trump's "The Apprentice"?  Do they have an outlet like f*ckedcompany.com?

f*uckedcountry.com?

10/26/13

What about starting a website where recipients of government funds can expose the agencies they deal with?

I can't remember what happened to f*ckedcompany.com, probably sued out of business, because as dotcoms were going out of business, on their way out the door, financially screwed partners, employees and "netslaves" could post news about them.  The editor checked them out.  They wouldn't post every rumor floated by the disgruntled.  If your company was on f*ckedcompany, you were a f*ckedcompany.  That was it.  Out of business.  Fast.  The opposite of Fast Company.

All the f*ckedcountry URLs are taken, yet nothing's been posted since 2002, and those are not the same idea as f*ckedcompany.  It was an awesome source of investor information, must have saved some shirts out of the dotcom demise, and therefore, as the website now reads, "f*ckedcompany is a f*ckedcompany."