The One Percenters - by Christopher Ketcham

The One Percenters

----- // -----

by Christopher Ketcham *

[Income inequality and the death of culture in New York City]

For my daughter’s benefit, so that she might know the enemy better, know what he looks like, where he nests, and when and where to throw eggs at his head, we start the tour at Wall Street. It’s hot. August. We’re sweating like old cheese. 

Here are the monuments that matter, I tell her: the offices of Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon; the JPMorgan Chase tower up the block; around the corner, the AIG building. The structures dwarf us, imposing themselves skyward. 

“Linked together like rat warrens, with air conditioning,” I tell her. “These are dangerous creatures, Léa. Sociopaths.” 

She doesn’t know what sociopath means. 

“It’s a person who doesn’t care about anybody but himself. Socio, meaning society—you, me, this city, civilization. Patho, like pathogen—carrying and spreading disease.” 

Long roll of eyes.

I’m intent on making this a teachable moment for my daughter, who is fifteen, but I have to quit the vitriol, break it down for her. I have to explain why the tour is important, what it has to do with her, her friends, her generation, the future they will grow up into. 

On a smaller scale, I want Léa to understand what New York, my birthplace and home, once beloved to me, is really about. Because I’m convinced that the beating heart of the city today is not its art galleries, its boutiques, its restaurants or bars, its theaters, its museums, nor its miserable remnants in manufacturing, nor its creative types—its writers, dancers, artists, sculptors, thinkers, musicians, or, god forbid, its journalists. 

“Here,” I tell her, standing in the canyons of world finance, “is what New York is about. Sociopaths getting really rich while everyone else just sits on their asses and lets it happen.”

…………

# See more at: http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6470#sthash.ewsogafV.dpuf #

__________________________

* “The Reign of One Percenters” – by Christopher Ketcham, November/December issue of Orion Magazine. 

The Thief and the Naive Messenger - by Maggid M.

The Thief and the Naive Messenger

(a Parable)

by

Maggid MiDubno *

There was once a thief who had his eye on the cash receipts of a very busy store. The store, however, was always full of customers; so, an open attempt on the premises was not the way to achieve his illegal goal. He watched daily and noticed that, near the end of each business day, a young man left the store with a fat bag and headed directly to the bank a few doors away. But the streets were also too busy for an attempt at robbery.

Then the thief devised a plan. He went into the fancy men’s shop next door. He told the salesman that he needed a suit for his son but did not know his son’s size. The salesman suggested that he point out someone on the street that resembled the “customer’s” son and he would guess the proper size. When the young man passed by the thief singled him out. The salesman guessed the size but the “buyer” said

that he wanted to be sure and so he yelled out to the young man and proposed a “favor”.

“Could you please try on a suit for us? You look like the size of my son and it would really help if you could try on my selection so I can buy it for him.” The reluctant messenger gave in to the pleading man and entered. During the try-on he put the bag under his arm as he slipped the other arm through the jacket’s sleeve. The thief grabbed the bag and started to run.

The messenger started in pursuit but was stopped by the shopkeeper who demanded that he take off the suit before he left. In the hustle and bustle the thief escaped.

---------------------------------------------------------------

The quick lesson here - Shout out: "Stop thief!" when someone breaks a trust.

____________________________________________

* source: http://www.torah.org/learning/tabletalk/5767/vayikra.html