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SAVE THE PASTRAMI!

1 May

May 1, 2010

Have you seen Oprah lately? She’s been on a crusade to promote public safety and protect Americans from certain death.

No, this has nothing to do with terrorism.

Proving that there is no bandwagon moving too fast for her to jump on, Oprah has joined the crusade to stop texting and driving. More accurately, she has jumped on the bandwagon, climbed over the band, and tossed the wagon driver into the road dust. She has been promoting her No Phone Zone, in which everyone from average citizens in the street to even Gail King and Queen Rania of Jordan signs a pledge to never ever text while driving.

It is perfect for Oprah- non-controversial and public relations friendly. How can you argue against it, especially when twenty-four states have already adopted cell phone and texting bans and more are under consideration? Like most of Oprah’s other causes (education, health, animal rescue) it is really a good thing, but unlike the other causes it is impossible to measure any effects it will have, if at all, since it is totally unenforceable and immeasurable.

But it sure garners Oprah some great publicity in a time when her ratings are down and she is preparing to move to her own cable network.

In order to generate some positive publicity and free press for Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride, I hereby announce the debut of my new cause,

SAVE THE PASTRAMI 

Please help

 What would a kosher deli be without pastrami?

Imagine walking into Katz’s Deli, Wolfie’s or even Subway and finding pastrami taken off the menu.

What if, hanging among the salami and bologna, was an empty space where the pastrami used to be?

At your favorite diner, the Deli Duo taken off the menu?

It boggles the mind.

Yet everyday, in millions of delicatessens around the country, millions of patrons may face this dilemma. 

Don’t become one of them.

Save the Pastrami

When you see the Save the Pastrami volunteer in your neighborhood, please take a second to sign our petition. It is fast and easy and won’t cost you a dime.

However, the cost of not signing may be enormous.

Please, help Save the Pastrami.

Think about it, won’t you?

 

 

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Bad Poetry and Sour Grapes

15 Apr

April 15, 2010

(“Bad Poetry and Sour Grapes” would be a good name for an album, BTW.)

I used to work in a large school which will rename nameless, unless you read any of my old blogs where I very prominently and repeatedly named it.

Anyway, the large school was broken down by the CITY (yes, all in caps, like the monolithic leviathan it is) into much smaller schools. They had their reasons, little petty things, like poor graduation rates, violence, silly little stuff really. What NYC school doesn’t have student walk-out protests against the Principal and UFT representatives who “anonymously” feed damning news items to the New York Post? On the other hand we were the only school to provide the students with party pants on the senior trip. So there.

As former faculty I received an invitation to the school’s end term party, which this year is also doubling as the “end of the school” party. In June, after they force out the remaining handful of students the doors will close forever. The kids are leaving under the guise of “graduation.” The remaining kids are there because their academic or probation records are so bad that every other school in the city refused to take them. Yet mysteriously, with the school shutting down, every single one of them has managed to pass every class and meet the requirements for graduation. These are the same kids who, when I was there, majored in setting the bulletin boards on fire and illiteracy. For some reason Mayor Bloomberg loves this system. And the small schools replacing the large school? They’ve already eclipsed the big school in incompetence. Again, thanks Mayor Bloomberg.

So I got the invitation in the mail and it will only cost me $100 to go to a buffet featuring a “Hand Carve Meat Station.”

I must say though, that I was most impressed by the invitation, which featured a poem hand-crafted by one of the school’s long-serving secretaries. It is a beautiful thing, which would be hung proudly on the refrigerator of any fifth-grader who equaled it.

TO EDUCATE THE STUDENTS WAS OUR MISSION
TO SEE THEM SUCCEED WAS OUR VISION

WITH LOVING MEMORIES WE MUST SAY GOOD-BYE
TO OUR WONDERFUL SCHOOL….L*******E HIGH

PLEASE JOIN US AS WE EMBRACE
THE YEARS WE SPENT IN THIS SPECIAL PLACE!!!

WAY TO GO!!! L*******E HIGH

poem by DW

As a former teacher who spent close to nine years there, it really brought a tear to my eye. I cried knowing that this was the best the staff could come up with.

At any rate, I’m sure the party will be a blast. It features an open bar.

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