A Leader In Inequality

From the New York Times:

In a breakdown of New York City neighborhoods, the biggest income gap is in Morningside Heights-Hamilton Heights, Manhattan. The median household income for the area is $207,053 for those in the highest one-fifth of the population compared with $6, 073 for those in the lowest one-fifth.

Up in the Bronx, Looking for the Crack of Dawn?

Castle Hill Avenue, Bronx (Photo: NYT)

Recently, after a cab ride from Manhattan and a friendly chat with the yellow cab driver (he was from Moscow, and wanted to know if I thought Irish people drank more than Russians), I found myself on Castle Hill Avenue, walking to the 6 train. There was a growing throng of early lunchtime adults and uniformed schoolkids on the street, and as I walked past a guy and a girl, neither of them more than 15 at most, I overheard the girl say to the boy:

"Have you had sex today yet?"

Speak Roughly

The Duchess’s song to the pig baby, from Through The Looking Glass:

Speak Roughly


By Lewis Carroll

Speak roughly to your little boy,
And beat him when he sneezes:
He only does it to annoy,
Because he knows it teases.

Chorus
Wow! wow! wow!

I speak severely to my boy,
I beat him when he sneezes;
For he can thoroughly enjoy
The pepper when he pleases!

A History of the Typewriter

History of the typewriter recited by Michael Winslow from SansGil—Gil Cocker on Vimeo.

Father And Son: In Fact They Did Meet

The late Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple and technological magician of our times, was estranged from his father, as I wrote last week, and though the father emailed several times in the months before Jobs died of pancreatic cancer, it was widely reported that they never met. In fact, it seems they did meet, but without knowing it.

Jobs' father John Jandali had two children with Joanne Simpson: Jobs and his sister, novelist Mona Simpson. Jandali seems to have abandoned his ex-wife and the children (though Jobs was given up for adoption first). This abandonment colored Jobs' view of his father, such that he refused to meet him during his final months.

“I learned a little bit about him and I didn’t like what I learned,” Jobs said on an audio recording played on a “60 Minutes” segment yesterday.

But they did in fact meet. Mona Simpson tracked down her father some years ago, and Jandali told her that he once ran a restaurant in Silicon Valley, where many hi-tech company executives came to eat, "including Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who was a great tipper."

From a NYTimes blog post, oddly titled 'Steve Jobs' search for his father':

In the recording, Mr. Jobs said he remembered being in that restaurant a couple of times and meeting a manager there who was from Syria. “I shook his hand and he shook my hand and that’s all,” Mr. Jobs said.