Joshua Mamis

To the Public Editor of The New York Times

The following is slightly edited from an actual email I sent to the public editor of The New York Times about a story in the September 23 edition about a community conflict in Brooklyn — a flash point for gentrification in the last decade — over the plan to send white students to a predominantly minority school.

From: Joshua Mamis <famis@snet.net>
Date: September 23, 2015 at 6:26:33 AM EDT
To: “public@nytimes.com” <public@nytimes.com>
Subject: Race and Class Collide

The New York Times is a great newspaper; I grew up reading it and still get home delivery at 58 years old.

But sometimes its quest for “balance” and neat narrative can be tortured and unsupported.

Case in point: this morning’s front page story “Race and Class Collide in a Plan for Two Schools.”

The story claims that the proposal to alleviate overcrowding in a mostly white school by sending children to a predominantly minority school has drawn opposition from “both sides,” white parents from P.S. 8 and, “Some residents of the housing project served by P.S. 307” who are “worried about how an influx of wealthy, mostly white families could change their school.”

But the story doesn’t quote a single P.S. 307 parent voicing that “worry.” What they did say is far more revealing, but does not fit the neat narrative of resistance to integration coming from both black and white families. The writer summarizes the concerns expressed at a meeting as parents voicing fears “that their children would no longer be allowed to attend P.S. 307,” not as a resistance to incorporating wealthy white kids into their classrooms.  And the only actual quote from a 307 parent at this meeting can be read in that context: The parent says she “has no problem working with anybody,” but says, “I’m not going to let anybody take from my daughter.” So she isn’t resisting integration; she’s fearful her school will be ripped out from under her.

The end of the story even quotes a parent at P.S. 307 inviting the white parents to visit, and to “stop looking down on one another.” Where’s the worry that white families will change the school?

This story hides the racism and entitlement of white parents behind a veneer of “both sides” having prejudices, and ignores the voices who are telling The Times that when white needs bump up against their community they lose. It is doing the P.S. 307 parents and Times readers a disservice.

Respectfully,

Joshua Mamis
Branford, CT

 

Will the Real Expressive Individualist Please Stand Up?

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A recent New York Times op-ed column by David Brooks ponders the question of why four outside-the-mainstream candidates are causing such a ruckus. He considers Trump, Carson, Sanders, and England’s Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn “the anti-party men,” all pandering to a phenomenon he calls “expressive individualism” as opposed to a communitarian philosophy of building coalitions and “tolerating differences.”

Fair enough. Brooks can be an interesting observer. But I almost stopped reading when I came to this willfully uninformed sentence:

“These four anti-party men have little experience in the profession of governing.”

My editor’s red light lit up. Let’s review:

Trump? Check. Dr. Carson? Obviously. Corbyn? Maybe. (Though being dissed by Brooks as a “tolerated dotty uncle” doesn’t necessarily offset 30-plus years as a Member of Parliament.)

But why lump US Senator Bernie Sanders in with a pair of politically inexperienced party-disrupting American loud-mouths?

The subtle dig at Bernie Sanders has become something of a New York Times pastime, but this one is particularly mind-numbing.

Sanders has “experience” governing going back to 1981 through two of our three branches of government. I have written in this space before about how Sanders ran the city of Burlington, Vermont with stunning efficiency. I think he may even have surprised himself with his focused management, knack for hiring great administrators, and his buck-stops-here approach, making sure that streets were plowed, garbage picked up, and citizens’ complaints were handled and resolved quickly and respectfully. Say what you want to about his lowercase “s” socialism, but this guy proved in his stint as mayor that he knows how to run an executive branch – albeit in a small city.

I’m not suggesting that running one tiny, but thriving, city alone qualifies him to run the massive minefield known as the federal government. But Brooks is surely aware that Sanders has served a quarter of a century in the US Congress, which clearly qualifies as significant “experience” in governing. As a member of the legislative branch, Sanders distinguished himself for 16 years as Vermont’s lone US Representative and later as US Senator — always as a political Independent, which couldn’t have been easy. Despite philosophical differences with his colleagues in both parties, Sanders proved that he could work productively with people who don’t share his core beliefs, and that he could, well, govern.

So I had to take a couple of deep breaths before deciding to forge on. Brooks rewarded my persistence with more politically blindered hot air, when it finally occurred to me that he has it topsy-turvy.

After a few paragraphs rehashing some fairly obvious tropes about how we, as a nation, have always had a tension between what Brooks calls “self and society,” and about how “compromise and coalition-building” has become “a dirty and tainted activity,” the Times’ moderate house conservative concludes with this:

“I wonder what would happen if a sensible Donald Trump appeared – a former cabinet secretary or somebody who could express the disgust for the political system many people feel, but who instead of adding to the cycle of cynicism, channeled it into citizenship, into the notion that we are still one people, compelled by love of country to live with one another, and charged with the responsibility to make the compromises, build the coalition, practice messy politics and sustain the institutions that throughout history have made national greatness possible.”

In other words, someone who campaigned on the theme of bipartisanship, someone who repeatedly said: “We aren’t red states. We aren’t blue states. We’re the United States”? Someone who held dear to his belief, against all evidence and odds (and probably to a fault), that he could find common ground with his political opponents?

Did Brooks forget that guy already?

We’ve been living with this “sensible” leader for 7 years. We know exactly what happened: Compromise, coalition building, and bipartisanship were no match for the bullies and experienced loudmouths who see Brooks’ vaulted philosophy as naiveté and weakness, and put their own quest for power and riches ahead of “love of country.”

Perhaps that’s another reason these “anti-party” juggernauts have hit a nerve: even the most politically mature voters, those of us who understand the art of compromise, have seen how this plays out. Brooks’ nostalgic vision is as outdated as the old Kremlin Hot Line. If the last 7 years prove anything, it’s that the winners in Washington are the ones who shout the loudest. As voters, we’ve been taught, carefully taught, that if we want to elect leaders who reflect our own values, we have no choice but to align ourselves with the candidate with the biggest megaphone.

And that’s where Brooks has Sanders exactly wrong. He’s not an “anti-party” outlier. He’s an experienced — read that again, Mr. Brooks — politician running on the same platform he has always run on — and won. Brooks’ words above, so wistfully crafted about electing a leader with community spirit and a love of the United States of America, could almost be as accurately applied to how Bernie Sanders has acquitted himself as a politician, especially in terms of treating opponents with respect, as they could be applied to President Obama. (Though admittedly Sanders is less likely to compromise his core principles.)

Though I fear that the conventional wisdom is right — that Sanders is too far out of the mainstream to be elected — his surprisingly successful campaign to date isn’t because of some “expressive individualism” taking root among the rank-and-file. It’s a recognition by his supporters that it’s our standard issue elected officials themselves who have drank the “expressive individualism” Kool-Aid, and are behaving, not as some “citizens of a joint national project,” but as if they have, in Brooks’ words, “congregate[d] in an  ideological bubble,” convinced that “the purest example of their type” will win.

The anti-partiers are among the members and leadership of the House and Senate. Trump and Dr. Carson are just screaming to get in.

 

The Chutzpah Of Harpo and Keith

I never thought of Harpo Marx as a personal inspiration until recently. And this  jumpin’ jack flash of insight hit me with a revelation that also explained my fascination with the genius of Keith Richards.  Let me explain.

The other day I happened to see Harpo Marx make a guest appearance on a rerun of his brother Groucho’s game show, “You Bet Your Life.”

Harpo, of course, did not “say the magic word” and therefore did not win $100.

He did honk, smile, and nod all the while promoting his then-just-published autobiography “Harpo Speaks.”

HarpoAfter looking for a copy at the Best Used Bookstore in Connecticut, Niantic’s Book Barn, I did the next best thing: I requested it from the public library system.

Two days later I couldn’t stop reading it. From second grade on, when he dropped out after tossed from the first floor window of his school, Harpo, like his other brother Chico, could do nothing less than follow his own inner voice. He proudly describes a lifetime of gags, antics, practical jokes, imitating other people,  teaching himself how to play the harp …  all while becoming the best comedic mime of the 20th century.

The book is a tribute to damning convention and having fun while everyone else is, metaphorically at least, wearing a tie to work every day. (When Harpo has to wear a tie in order to get into a Monte Carlo casino he takes off his sock and fashions it into a bow tie.)

What does this have to do with the better half of the Glimmer Twins?

Since he learned to play guitar, Keith Richards never wanted to do anything else but play rock & roll. He didn’t pay much attention to social conventions, or follow anything close to a traditional path. Yes, it nearly killed him, but that isn’t the point. It also led to blending R&B, blues, country and British Invasion pop to creating one of the greatest bodies of work in popular music history.

Now here’s a quote from Keith Richards, from the easy-reading oral history, “According to theRolling Stones”:

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“I’ve always felt totally blessed. I’ve never said ‘yes sir’ since I left school and people have paid      me to do it. Sometimes you feel like you’ve been given this license to lead a life that everybody else wants to lead or thinks they want to lead if they could  …”

Genius is like that. When I was in high school my father used to go to meetings on Wall Street wearing inside-out t-shirts. They were leftovers from my brother’s cast-offs of rock & roll swag. (The one I remember best had a photo of Paul Anka with the tag “I Don’t Like to Sleep Alone.”) Then he got so successful he felt like he had to dress the part. I always felt a little sad about that.

Harpo would have, too.

 

Talkin’ Bush at the Backyard Barbecue

It’s barbecue time. When you find yourself gathered with family and friends, sharing a glass of something cool and refreshing, someone is bound to proclaim that, as a moderate Republican, Jeb Bush is an acceptable alternative to the Democrats. After all, he supports the Common Core standards, and would like to pass some sort of immigration reform. They read that Bush is a moderate in the paper, or heard it on the news, so it must be true, right?

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Well, no. Here’s why:

Bush supported the Iraq War. Bush was in the news this week, back-pedaling from a statement he made on Fox News in which he said that had he been president in 2003, he would have invaded Iraq. But don’t be fooled by his claim of having misunderstood the question. Jeb Bush was and still is ideologically in line with his brother’s zealously hawkish foreign policy team (some of whom are on a list of his advisors for his presidential run). In the late ‘ 90s Jeb helped found the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) that called for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Founding members included Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. Remember them?

Jeb Bush is against raising the federal minimum wage, and has questioned the need for national standards at all. He argued at a campaign stop in South Carolina in March that “We need to leave it to the private sector. … I think state minimum wages are fine. The federal government shouldn’t be doing this.” He went on, “The federal government doing this will make it harder and harder for the first rung of the ladder to be reached, particularly for young people, particularly for people that have less education.”

Bush doesn’t believe that mankind is responsible for global warming. Bush says he is a “skeptic” on the idea that global warming is caused by human activities, and says that the scientific assessment is not “unanimous.”

He opposes Obamacare. He calls the Affordable Care Act a “job killer.”

He would approve the Keystone XL Pipeline. He says that approving it is a “no-brainer.”

He is anti-abortion. As governor, he was proud of passing restrictions on abortion rights, including regulating abortion facilities, because he wanted “to create a culture of life in our state.” In early May, an advisor declared that Bush advocated de-funding Planned Parenthood.

Jeb “Stand Your Ground” Bush loves the NRA. “I will match my record against anyone else when it comes to support and defense of the Second Amendment,” Bush said at the National Rifle Association convention last April. According to a story in USA Today, Bush’s speech included a swipe at President Obama over gun rights: “Why don’t you focus more on keeping weapons out of the hands of Islamic terrorists and less on keeping them out of the hands of law abiding Americans?,” he said.

For Bush, education reform has been fueled by corporate profits. Bush’s much-hyped education record in Florida has had mixed results, according to this in-depth story in The New Yorker. It also reveals that it is deeply entwined with helping his corporate backers make lots and lots and lots of money. As Watergate taught us, the best way to assess a politician’s true colors is to follow the money.

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A good summary of Governor Bush’s record can be found in this Salon interview with University of Northern Florida professor Matthew Corrigan, who wrote a book on Governor Bush called “Conservative Hurricane: How Jeb Bush Remade Florida.” Here’s a revealing quote from the Q and A:

“While he was governor, [Bush] called himself probably the most pro-life governor of modern times; he had the Terri Schiavo intervention. He was very strong on gun rights; ‘stand your ground’ was passed under his time as governor. He started a faith-based prison in which prisoners — who, I believe, volunteered and were put through religious counseling as a final step toward rehabilitation. Oh, and of course he ended affirmative action by executive order, in a very controversial way, on a state level. If you take all that, that’s a fairly robust social and cultural agenda.”

 

 

Watch This

Beer isn’t wine. Watches aren’t computers. Chamber music should be played in Volvos.

Three wonderfully creative ads have popped up this year, each lampooning pretension. Knocking  elites has always a good strategy for politicians looking to woo working class voters, so these ads from Budweiser, Shinola, and Dodge are very likely foreshadowing a major theme of the guaranteed to be interminable 2016 presidential campaign.

You don’t swish and sniff and sip and spit when you sample beer. And if you do, well, you’re not going to be drinking “macro-brewed” Bud anyway. Yes, Budweiser knows its brand well — that’s why its controversial “Brewed the Hard Way” Super Bowl ad is now running during baseball games.

Even more brilliant is this wonderful hijacking of the Apple watch rollout that ran in The New York Times. Shinola, a company at the epicenter of the Detroit renaissance, produces inspiring classic designs of watches, leather goods, and bicycles.

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Shinola is appealing because it makes things right here in the USA, simultaneously representing the heyday of American manufacturing, and a new, creative-class driven future. It’s a tomorrowland in which a $550 watch that doesn’t connect with your pocket-sized computer is more desirable than a $375 watch that does. At these prices, the target consumer here isn’t exactly blue collar, but the ad nevertheless joyfully thumbs its nose at elitist trend-followers.

Apple watches? We don’t need no stinking Apple Watches, the ad essentially proclaims. Our watch “can tell you the time just by looking at it.”

The ad is a masterstroke of anti-elitism elitism — poking fun at Apple’s design snobbery in order to attract people so hip they can afford to reject it, both culturally (it’s a badge signifying the wearer’s do-good bonafides) and economically. I’d take my hat off to them if only Shinola was also reinventing the Fedora.

I’ve been guilty of anti-snobbery snobbery on occasion, too, labeling someone or other as an NPR-listening liberal (somehow the worst kind).  Shinola clearly has someone with my taste and politics in mind (only with an extra digit or two in their bank account) when they design their retro-yet-modern product lines, and especially when they develop their marketing plan.

 

Finally, we come to the Dodge Challenger “Not So Fast and Furious”  TV spot, in which a hapless male driver confesses to a cop that he is listening to chamber music after being pulled over for driving too slow. This one could be an ad for Ted Cruz: you can almost hear the cop sneer, “I bet you support Hillary, too.”

Anti-intellectualism and anti-elitism are the common thread among the far-right populist uprisings, especially among those who are too glibly described as Fox-news-watching conservatives.  While to that crowd Obama is extra uppity because he is an unabashed egghead, the urge to thumb our collective noses at smart people doesn’t always recognize cultural divisions. Kids in all kinds of schools reportedly worry about being too bookish. And expertise is derided from both libertarian-leaners and the loony left: Climate change? What do those Ivy League scientists know anyway? Vaccines? Not for my kids.

But anti-intellectualsim and anti-elitism are not the same thing. George W. Bush is as elite as they come — son of a president, and Ivy League educated. But his, and Karl Rove’s, particular genius was that you can market these candidates any way you want. Bush, a smarter man than most on the left give him credit for, is no intellectual, which somehow made him immune to the charge of being elite.

Now come the politicians and their highly paid consultants  rushing prematurely to 2016.  Liberal smarty pants elites like me will be the point-blank target for both camps, either as an object of derision, or, where Hillary is concerned, as a would-be Shinola customer capable of bundling a few dollars toward her coronation. After all, I must confess:

  • I prefer local, micro-brewed beer, especially Thimble Island Brewery‘s American Ale. But I have never sniffed it.
  • I like Shinola’s watches. I’d probably buy one, too. If they were more affordable.
  • I’m a proud Mini Cooper driver — no Dodge Challenger for me.  And that’s not chamber music you hear when you pass me with my sun roof open, it’s Sondheim.

Just to rub it in, when the Mini  salesman was helping me set up the radio buttons, I asked him to set one to 90.5, the local NPR station. He looked at me knowingly.

“What,” I said. “Am I that obvious?”

His smirk said it all. He didn’t have to answer.

Memo to said salesman: I do not support Hillary Clinton.

There, I feel better.

 

Mayor Sanders for President

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I’m waiting for my “Bernie 2016” sweatshirt!

It has already started. The New York Times Upshot column confidently declared that Bernie can’t win the Democratic nomination because he is too liberal. Seems like his exhaled breath was barely cold before the pundits decided that his candidacy didn’t have a pulse, but so be it. It’s the nature of the horse race, and who am I to quibble?

But Bernie Sanders is one small “s” socialist who should not be underestimated. You don’t get to be a U.S. Senator, even from the bastion of NPR-listening, Saab-driving, Ben-and-Jerry’s-eating, Magic-Hat-drinking, snow-shoeing liberal Vermont, if you’re not doing something right. And the first indication that Bernie was more than a rabble-rouser who lucked into getting elected is rarely talked about: The fact that he was a damn good mayor.

I arrived in Burlington a few weeks after his legendary 10 vote victory over entrenched old-school Democrat Gordon Paquette. Legend has it that Paquette ran a good ol’ boy administration, full of patronage and inattention to detail. Things were bumbling along until he was blindsided when neighborhoods challenged his plans to build a highway link to downtown; when tenants in the city’s low-rent Old North End got organized, and when people rose up in opposition to building high-end high-rise condominiums on the Lake Champlain waterfront. Bernie was the orator who filled the power vacuum and stepped into the mayor’s office.

So Bernie was the original (OK, maybe not the original, but you get the idea) candidate of hope and change. He stopped the highway. The city amped up its housing inspection program and gave tenants more rights. As for the condos, they eventually got built (after Bernie was elected to Congress), though in a more tasteful, scaled-down design.

Perhaps more impressive, though, is that he hired an amazingly committed, super-competent staff of talented, creative problem solvers. Bernie ran a tight ship. He delivered services efficiently, attracted human-scale economic development, managed to find enough solutions to the sometimes conflicting demands of the long-time Vermonters and the post-hippie newcomers to win easy re-elections.

Socialists get tagged in this country as believing in a centralized, tightly controlled, inefficient bureaucracy. Burlington under Bernie was anything but. At one point, if memory serves, his treasurer, a recruit from corporate America (who liked to wear bow ties!),  found an overlooked $1 million on the books.

So I’m with Bernie on all the issues. Every one of ’em. Income inequality. Money in politics. The Pacific trade deal. You name it.

But I’m also with Bernie because he proved he can actually run something and run it better than those who genuflect to the alleged efficiency of the free market.  I’ve seen corporate America from the inside and “efficient” is the last word I would use to describe it

I fear that the New York Times is right: Bernie is pretty far out of the mainstream. But if “Main Street” knew just how good Bernie is at running things, maybe they could get past the whole “socialist” thing and see why he should be electable after all.

 

 

Rosa Colored Glasses

During my years editing the New Haven Advocate I was not a fan of our elected (and elected and elected, etc., etc.) member of congress, Rosa DeLauro.

I arrived in New Haven in 1993, when the promise of the end of Cold War was still fresh. There was actually buzz about how we would be able to redirect military spending and invest in our infrastructure, build homes for the homeless, feed the hungry, reduce teen pregnancy.

Yet somehow the military spenders soldiered on, hoisting the banner of “preparedness.” We had to maintain our capacity to build nuclear subs, was one of their arguments — thus saving jobs at Groton’s Electric Boat. And there was our Rosa DeLauro among them, saving jobs by maintaining our ability to build bigger and faster and better weaponry.

A few decades (and elections and elections and elections) later, I have done a 180.

My experience at United Way of Greater New Haven has shown me that DeLauro is an effective advocate in Washington for issues that matter: ending homelessness, feeding hungry kids, protecting workers (especially women), keeping our food safe.

I had the opportunity to cover a panel discussion Monday night featuring DeLauro and Maryland Congressman John Sarbanes (at left in photo) about publicly financed elections, for the New Haven Independent. Sarbanes’ “Government By the People Act” is certainly a step in the right direction.

DeLauro was riled up at the panel, raising her fist against the march toward fast-tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership, another dastardly trade deal engineered by “new” Democrats, including the Obama administration, in concert with their corporate and industrial masters and their paid lobbyists, with plenty of Republican support. The negotiations are proceeding largely in secret, and the leaked details have shown the potential for the deal to weaken our environmental and food safety regs, and displace still more workers.

I checked the Independent story a few minutes ago, and I hear my old inner voice in some of the comments that have been posted in response: a deep cynicism that says that publicly financed elections can’t work, a similar distrust of DeLauro herself, especially since she has proven pretty adept at building an enormous war chest.

There’s some truth to these critiques. But there’s truth, as well, to the Rosa DeLauro who is unafraid to challenge President Obama on free trade. Who has delivered on food safety, family leave, and homelessness, and more.

Last November was the first time I was proud to pull the lever for Rosa DeLauro.  Last Monday night reminded me of why.

Welcome Costco Shoppers?

What kind of town do we want Branford to be? That’s the question at the heart of the debate over the proposed Costco development, planned for a strip of land off of Exit 56, the gateway to the Stony Creek community, where I have lived since 1993. (A public hearing on the proposal takes place on April 16 at 7 p.m. at Branford High School.)

There’s an illuminating story posted on the Branford Eagle on April 14, about a previous plan to develop the parcel (and adjoining lots) back in 1979. The plan then: To create a “supermall” that would have been, reports said, the second largest in the nation, featuring anchor stores such as Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and Sears.

The piece artfully implies how lucky Branford was to escape the building of the supermall. Many of these faceless hulking buildings with endless parking lots have been abandoned across the country as the culture of retailing has gone online. Macy’s in New Haven closed long ago. Sears announced it would be closing 200 stores last December. Radio Shack, a mini-mall mainstay, recently closed its stores in New Haven and Branford.

Press reports say that the town is divided over the plan, with those in favor citing the jobs and increased tax base.

Opponents talk about the increased traffic, and point out that the cost of providing services to the development would offset most gains in tax revenue.

But I think this debate misses the bigger point. I moved to Branford in 1993 because I appreciated that it was not overrun with big-box national chains. It felt like it had a strong local identity. That didn’t change much when Wal-Mart arrived, largely because it was tucked away, out of sight of Main Street.

Essentially, Branford is a quiet suburb. But in many metropolises, it would be a neighborhood inside the city limits. Think about it: I live at the eastern edge of Branford, and I am less than 12 miles from Church Street in New Haven (and I have to leap-frog a whole other town – East Haven – to get there). That’s about the same distance as mid-town Manhattan is from Inwood Hill Park at the far tip of the island – before you even get to the Bronx or Riverdale.

So for many of us who live in Branford, it’s a quick hop to Home Depot or TJ Maxx on Frontage Road in East Haven. Making the decision to re-zone the proposed Costco parcel in Branford in order to green-light similar development off of Route 56 is nothing less than endorsing sprawl – the kind of sprawl that hurts urban economies, and damages the very thing that makes shoreline living attractive: a low-density, low-traffic quality of life.

One way to contain sprawl, and provide the access to the kinds of shopping people seem to want, is to restrict such retail to places where it already exists. Voila: Frontage Road in East Haven. (Where, by the way, sits the now vacant XPect Discounts store.)

On the Shoreline, Guilford is moving forward with a plan for a Bed, Bath & Beyond and gourmet food market off of Exit 57. If Costco rises up one exit west, surely the strip malls will follow in between.

Before making a decision, the town should be open-eyed: What will we be trading off for our easy access to inexpensive cases of toilet paper and fine bath towels? What will be the experience of living here? Will the comparatively reasonable but still barely living wage jobs and a small bump in our tax base be worth what we will be giving up? These are the questions we need to answer, because once we break ground, we won’t be able to turn back.

Mamis.com: A Family History

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Until he retired last year, my father, Justin Mamis, used this mamis.com url to promote The Mamis Letter, his weekly musings and analysis of the goings on of the stock market. My father was a technical analyst, and for most of my life he was inseparable from the charts he kept that graphically displayed the ups-and-downs of the stock prices of an untold number of publicly traded companies. He didn’t need the jibber-jabber on the business pages to indicate whether a stock price would rise or fall. As he used to say, “the tape tells all.”

What was unique about The Mamis Letter was that he managed to weave in cultural and political observations, the kind more comfortably at home in a magazine or on a well-edited op-ed page.

I grew up in a household where the soundtrack was the clickety-clack of typewriter keys. The New York Times and The New Yorker were well-read by all of us. My brother’s high school underground newspaper, first called the Flea, and then commandeering the New York Herald Tribune moniker when that legendary publication folded, was birthed in our apartment, and putting it together seemed like so much fun I was determined to follow in his footsteps.

Newsrooms are now silent: some, of course, because they couldn’t navigate the transition from print to the instantaneous 24-hour news cycle of online publishing. Some, like the Advocate newspapers of old, have been dimmed because national mega-corps were so distant from the communities they were supposed to be serving they had no idea how to keep a product vital and meaningful while the business model was changing so quickly. And that’s being charitable.

Those newsrooms that are left seem adrift without the din of excitement that comes from pounding out a hot story on deadline. No matter how fast and hard you type on a computer keyboard it’s still basically quiet, and you don’t make any noise doing interviews via text and email, as this generation seems to prefer.

When my father retired, The Mamis Letter had been running out of steam. Like print media, the business model of what we used to call Wall Street had changed as well. I don’t know for sure, but it seems to me that old-school technical analysis may have lost its charm in an age when billions are made overnight with the help of high-tech computer modeling.

This is all a long way of saying: If you’re looking for The Mamis Letter, it has, unfortunately, ceased publication. The good news is that Justin is no longer tethered to his charts, and seems to find tending to his orchids equally gratifying.

Why Five Guys is Good for New Haven

 

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So the strip-mall burger joint Five Guys is coming to prime real estate in downtown New Haven. I posted an enthusiastic welcome on Facebook when the news broke, only to be taken aback when a friend whose opinion I value commented with a one word takedown: “meh.”

I’m usually the guy who bangs the drum on the urgent need for homegrown, unique food and retail destinations — the kind of spots that can make a place like New Haven show off some creative-class vigor. So why was my initial reaction to a near ubiquitous chain like Five Guys positive (other than the fact that they do have great fries)?

Because for all of the brouhaha over the New Haven foodie scene (I revisited Miya’s recently, for example, and can’t wait to go back) there are precious few inexpensive, family-friendly places to eat. Much of downtown too often feels like a playground for wealthy suburbanites, and I believe that has largely been by design.

For New Haven’s downtown to truly thrive, it needs to find ways to be more actively inclusive. Yes, racially and ethnically, but also — importantly — economically.

Without the buzz of people from all walks of life, downtown New Haven treads perilously close to feeling much like (shudder) Hartford — albeit a city with a grand University in its midst, with the smarts and gothic-tinged architecture to help us masquerade as more fully realized than I fear we are.