Ex-CTLawyer

Coffee Addict

You blew it with 10 out of 10 car accidents are caused by cars.

10 out of 10 Car accidents involve cars. Cars and/or their drivers are not always the cause.

I live in small town America. In 1992, I was driving my car and was hit by a 10 year old girl on a bicycle who rode out from behind a tree and smashed into my passenger door.

It is common in the spring and fall, for cars to be hit by deer running out of the woods.

Finally, on June 28 1983 I drove over the Mianus River Bridge on I-95 returning home from a Mets Game. 10 minutes later the bridge collapsed into the river taking 4 vehicles with them 3 people were killed and 3 injured.

None of these car accidents were caused by cars

Popa_bar-abba

This past year our youngest child started college (after doing a year of seminary).

She came home for a long weekend in October. Motzei Shabbos she was going out with friends. When asked when she’d be home she replied by 1AM. She was told she had an 11:30 curfew.

But daddy, the curfew in the dorm is 1AM.

My reply, when you come into the dorm after midnight you don’t disturb your parents. Here we don’t fall into a deep sleep until you are in safely and the doors locked and all lights out.

As the iconic 1950s TV show title read: Father Knows Best.

You may not agree with every rule some other parent makes, but unless abusive or illegal, we do get to set the rules in our own homes.

Joseph…

comparing Federation allocations nationally makes no sense. The vast majority of Jewish Federations exist in places without orthodox day schools or yeshivos.

That’s why I highlighted OOT Federations I’m familiar with who all allocate funds to orthodox day and high schools if they exist.

OOT Jewish life is far different that in town. It’s not unusual for Jewish business people and professionals to belong to and pay dues to multiple synagogues. We support the shuls we grew up in even if we no longer live in the area. After all, OOT the shuls generally own and keep up the cemeteries, not lansleit or for profit businesses as in NY and NJ.

When New Haven had a litvish Day School in addition to Chabad it got Federation funding. Bridgeport uses the fund the former Hillel Academy and does contribute to both the New Haven and Stamford Day school where Bridgeport area kids attend as commuters.

If Hareidi NYers expect NY Federation to fund their schools then they have to get involved with Federation. They can’t say we won’t work with non-frum towards the grater good and still expect a handout.

akuperma……….

OOT Federations support orthodox Day Schools as well as Conservative

IN CT the Federations fund:

Chabad Day School in Orange

Ortho Day School in West Hartford

Ortho Day School in Stamford

Ortho High School in Stamford

Ortho High School in West Hartford

Yeshiva K’Tana Waterbury

Federations also support Orthodox institutions of higher learning. Looking at the IRS form 990 of the small Jewish Federation of Western CT I see $10,000 given to Yeshiva University

While many in this forum don’t consider MO as Chareidi. there is no question that YU is a Torah institution.

The Federation in Boston supports 13 Jewish Day Schools INCLUDING:

BAIS YAKOV of Boston High School for Girls

New England Hebrew Academy (Lubavitch)

Maimonides and Torah Academy in Brookline

Health………….

I did not defend RBG in my post, so calling my defense pathetic is laughable.

As it happens I agree with her statement about Trump. The wonderful thing about appointed, as opposed to elected judges, is that they don’t have to be muzzled in fear of losing the next election.

I live and practice in a state where judges (with the exception of provate) are appointed, not elected. They are free to express their opinions without fear of political repercussion.

The judicial code of ethics deals with times a judge should recuse him/herself from a case. Members of SCOTUS do so when appropriate.

CTRebbe

I think the Yeshiva Tuition crisis really revolves around the difference of opinion as to whether men should become Kollelniks or Baal Batim.

I’m from the pre-WWII American Orthodox school of thought that this is a land of opportunity and you can succeed and make a good living while sending your children to yeshiva and college and professional school so that they may do the same for their children

I have sons and sons-in-law. All went to Yeshiva through high school. Places that offered competent secular studies., They continued learning full time for a year or two before college, then did college and professional school. All are professionals earning a healthy living while maintaining a learning schedule and sending their children to yeshiva. I did not underwrite the cost of their post college education nor am I paying for our grandchildrens’ tuition. B”H they can manage the bills.

That said, I give more than my fair/expected share of Tzedaka and I resent those who feel I should have less or spend less in order to fund salaries in assorted yeshivas.

By your handle I assume to teach in one of our few CT yeshivas. Chances are you don’t have any of my grandchildren in your school, but chances are I’m an annual donor supporting the institution.

And for our Brooklyn friends….surprise much of the funding for Day Schools and yeshivas in CT comes from Non-Frum Jews, Including annual allocations from Jewish Federations throughout the state. I fought for this more than 35 years ago when Federations started to fund the Schechter schools.

Charlie Hall……Surprise

“There are 13 Public Schools in the country that offer Ancient Greek

There are 67 Private Schools in the country that offer Ancient Greek

Public:

Belchertown HS – Belchertown, MA

Boston Latin School – Boston, MA

Centennial HS – Roswell, GA

E.O. Smith HS – Storrs, CT

Great Neck North HS – Great Neck, NY

Henry Grady HS – Atlanta, GA

Holbrook Jr/Sr HS – Holbrook, MA

John Handley HS – Winchester, VA

La Jolla High School – La Jolla, CA

Northeast HS – St. Petersburg, FL

Shaker Heights HS – Shaker Heights, OH

Thomas Jefferson School – St. Louis, MO

Towsend Harris HS – Flushing, NY

Wellesley Public Schools – Wellesley, MA

Private:

Belmont Hill School – Belmont, MA

Boston College HS – Dorchester, MA

Boston Latin Academy – Boston, MA

Boston University Academy – Boston, MA

Brooks School – North Andover, MA

Covington Latin School – Covington, KY

Crossroads School Arts/Science – Santa Monica, CA

Fordham Prep School – Bronx, NY

Georgetown Preparatory – North Bethesda, MD

Gilman School – Baltimore, MD

Gonzaga College HS – Washington, DC

Gustavus Adolphus College -St. Peter, MN

Highland School – Warrenton, VA

Horizon HS – Scottsdale, AZ

Jesuit HS – New Orleans, LA

John Carroll Catholic HS, Birmingham, AL

Logos School, Moscow, ID

Loyola Academy – Wilmette, IL

Maret School – Washington, DC

Menlo HS – Menlo Park, CA

Milton Academy – Milton, MA

National Cathedral – Washington, DC

Oratory Prep School – Summit, NJ

Phillips Academy, Andover, MA

Phillips Exeter Academy – Exeter, NH

Randolph Macon Academy – Front Royal, VA

Rockhurst HS – Kansas City, MO

Rye Country Day – Rye, NY

Seton Jr/Sr HS – Manassas, VA

St. Albans School – Washington, DC

St. Ann’s School – Brooklyn, NY

St. Anselm’s Abbey School – Washington, DC

St. Catherine’s School – Richmond, VA

St. Demetrios Greek America – New York, NY

St. Ignatius College Prep – Chicago, IL

St. Louis Priory School – St. Louis, MO

St. Mary’s Episcopal – Memphis, TN

St. Mary’s Academy (Anastasis) – St. Mary’s, KS

St. Mary’s Academy (Dredger) – St. Mary’s, KS

St. Paul’s School – Concord, NH

St. Thomas Episcopal School – Houston, TX

St. Timothy’s Hale School – Raleigh, NC

St. Xavier HS – Cincinnati, OH

Staten Island Academy, Staten Island, NY

The Episcopal Academy – Merion, PA

The Hill School – Pottstown, PA

The Roxbury Latin School – West Roxbury, MA

The Williams School – New London, CT

The Winsor School – Boston, MA

Wakefield Country Day – Flint Hill, VA

Westminister School – Augusta, GA

William Penn Charter School – Philadelphia, PA

I have a niece who attended Townsend Harris in Queens and took Greek…she just graduated Law School and works for the Justice Dept in DC. My sister’s youngest son attended Boston Latin where he took Greek and Latin. He is a Day School Principal…

As for the last century. My father A”H graduated Townsend Harris when it was still in Manhattan in Dec 1938 having 4 years of Greek and Latin. My mother A”H graduated Hunter HS in January 1940 having 4 years of both Greek and Latin. She continued on at Hunter College as a classics major with 4 more years of Greek. She spent more than 40 years as a school principal here on CT having earned a Doctorate in Classics Education from Columbia.

As I’ve written before I went to Yeshiva High School in the mornings and attended public High School in New Haven in the late 1960s. They did not offer Greek. I did take 4 years of modern Hebrew, Latin and two years of Yiddish. In all 12 foreign languages were offered at the time.

Out local public high school offers, Latin, French, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese.

Abba_S

Chances are that the small basement apartment for $800 is illegal. Students should not e helping landlords to break the law. Unlikely to have a Certificate the apartment will not have its own legal mail and may have substandard and/or dangerous construction done by unlicensed contractors and never inspected by the city.

I remember my middle child moving to Brooklyn and showing me prospective basement apartments as possibilities. As soon as I asked to see the Certificate of Occupancy the landlords ended the conversation.

and why you consider a basement apartment whose windows are at street level secure is questionable…..

Avi K

They are schools. Campuses are closed for security reasons. Need I remind readers of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre 2 1/2 years ago…only twenty minutes from me and we knew some of the families who lost children.

Utilities, and Cable TV/Internet/phone providers are utilities cannot be free enterprise. The cost to build is so expensive that unless awarded a franchise none would exist. I spent 12 years as a Cable TV Commissioner in Ct and am very familiar with the industry.

I’m old enough to remember when the CT state legislature only met every other year and passed two year budgets.

“Minute Steak” is NOT a cut of meat. It is a name used by butchers for thin cuts of beef that may go from raw to plate in a few minutes time.

I would not serve the cuts of chuck minute steak (with the center gristle) that I’ve seen in self service kosher markets to my family or guests.

In general, I buy primal cuts of meat and do my own cutting and grinding.

When I wish to serve small, quick cooking steaks, I’ll cut 3/8″ slices off a boneless ribeye and broil or grill quickly to medium rare.

In fact, if the rain lets up and the sun comes out I’ll fire up the BBQ and serve “minute” ribeye steaks with salad fresh native corn on the cob and sweet potato fries for lunch around our pool.

AviK

No my town is not like your settlement. Students who are attending day school and don’t live in my town are dropped at the door by parents or bus and picked up at the end of the day. They are not permitted off school grounds during the day and do not shop for anything here. Even our public schools are closed campuses. Students are not free to leave and return during the day.

My call for centralization/regionalization is in a small state. Our entire state has only 3.6 million people…contrast that with the Borough of Brooklyn which has 2.6 million. We have 8 counties in CT, but no county government has existed since the 1960s. Simply replacing more than 150 small municipal fiefdoms with 8 governments makes sense.

As it is small towns currently rely on neighbors with mutual aid pacts for police and fire, There are 16 regional school districts combined pf 2 or more small towns with too few students and/or resources to run their own school systems. At least 12 towns don’t have their own high schools.

Waste processing is already regional, there are 27 Cable TV franchise areas in the state. No Cable company could bid town by town, it would be economic death to do business that way. Many towns have government composed of mostly part-time employees or volunteers and town hall may be open only one or 2 1/2 days a week. None of this makes sense in a modern world. Health and safety are hampered by one horse operations.

Unlike big states such as NY. Our state legislators are part timers who can not survive on the $28,000 yearly salary (which hasn’t been raised in 13 years). Most are employed or in business locally and in constant touch with residents.

I find state government more responsive than local in many towns. The workers are full time professionals and don’t care about your political party affiliation. In little towns and some of our big cities, one party controls government 100% and if you do not march to their commend you get no service..

@akuperma

Note that the Jewish Communities in the US running schools and libraries are often doing it using Tax dollars and public services. I can’t guaranty that they are run more cheaply than local government run libraries and schools and they certainly don’t offer the same products/services/technology.

Our town provides the school bus transportation for students in religious day schools. We provide the Special Education and Physical Education for them as well. We even pay for and provide textbooks for secular subjects. We clean the snow from their sidewalks in winter, we provide fire and police service. Our health department provides the school nurses and does immunizations and eye screenings…all at no charge to the Jewish community.

AND>>>before you say the Jewish community members are paying taxes and not using the public schools. That doesn’t hold OOT. Jewish Day and other Parochial schools are regional. The local day school draws 80% of its students from outside the municipality who foots these expenses from local property tax. There is no ‘school tax’ in Connecticut.

@akuperma

as one of the few (if not only) members of the YW Coffee Room who actually holds an elected office in a Town Hall I resent being called a clown.

I and my fellow legislative body members deal with the budget,taxes laws/rules and regulations that provide Police, Fire, EMS, school buses, pave and plow the roads, library, public parks, pools, etc.

And not a single member of this body gets a cent for our many hours of service nor do we get reimbursement for expenses.

Working to make our communities better and safer places to raise our families does not make us clowns

@theprof1

I take great offense at you calling all shuls uppity if they use/serve brewed coffee.

Lots of us are old enough to remember when instant coffee was much more expensive than brewed coffee. Shuls could easily brew 40 cups from a 99 cent one pound can of Maxwell House…and accumulate free haggados.

I’ve never belonged to a shul that served instant coffee on any kind of a regular basis. That said, they do keep a jar of instant decaf in our shul…I’ve never seen it used and think it must belong to the sisterhood, not the shul itself.

Many years ago (40+)when I was a young married, we joined the shul in our neighborhood and I started to attend morning minyan. The shammos served coffee after minyan. It was the most vile liquid I had ever tasted.

I asked a friend what was going on. I was told that the shammos took the leftover coffee from the Sunday morning men’s club breakfast and reheated it and served it all week. (this was the same shammos who would dry his teabag in a shot glass and reuse it all week…old habits from days of deprivation during the war die slowly).

I left for work and asked the office manager for the number of the coffee service we used in our break room. I called and arranged for a coffee maker to be installed in the shul kitchen and ordered a case of coffee, filters, cups and stirrers to be delivered each month.

It’s more than 4 decades later and I still pay the bill with pleasure, and I enjoy every cup I have after minyan.

Yes, I donate blood through the American Red Cross. I’ve been doing it 4 times each year for 45 years. In fact I chair a blood drove in our CT town 4 times each year.

In 2003 I needed blood during surgery. Early this month Mrs. CTLawyer needed 4 units during her lengthy hospital stay.

Blood in CT is free. All collections are handled by the ARC. Patients are only billed for the expense of administering the blood by the hospital or doctor, not the blood itself.

As an FYI> effective late May, 2016 the minimum Iron level for donating males was raised to 13 from 12.5. This will probably cause most males to only be able to donate 3 times per year not 4. There is an acute shortage of blood in the US this summer brought on by travel restrictions caused by the Zika virus.

No,

They are not connected. The RCA started in 1935 by alumni of REITS (Yeshiva University). It expanded to take in alumni of Hebrew Theological College in Chicago.

For many years it was affiliated with the UOJCA and helped start its kashrut division.

There are members of many types of Orthodox Judaism including loads of Modern Orthodox.

Agudah is considered a Hareidi organization to the right of RCA.

I’m not from the UK. Middle daughter works on a Megayacht in the Med. 3/4 of the crew including the captain and all officers are from the UK. They are terrified of the UK leaving the EU. The yacht makes at least 30 changes of country (port) within the EU each year. This would cause immigration and customs nightmares for the crew as well as it has tax implications for them. When docked more than 30 days, some host ports will tax non EU workers’ incomes differently than EU workers. Also, the crew has ease of flying home on leave with no customs/immigration restrictions. They can shop in port and bring items on the yacht without having to track purchases to declare when they get back to the UK.

If you are from the UK and travel and/or work in the EU regularly, BREXIT will make life more complicated and more costly. For those who never leave for the continent it may not matter.

Zahavasdad………..

Things change over time. The postwar baby boom is over. When mys siblings and I went to school in New Haven, both Hebrew and Yiddish were offered along with 10 other foreign languages. Now there is Spanish and Chinese.

As for those who write about prewar Yiddish and post war Yiddish. 90% of the Yiddish I use is with people speaking the former and whatever reading is of classic material, not modern Jargon.

I learned Yiddish for business purposes. My father was in the clothing business and it was useful for buying trips in NYC. Our family having arrived in the USA in the late 1860s from Suwalki and took academics in the public high school afternoons. Hebrew and Yiddish assured that 2 of 4 classes were all yidden.

google Yidddish Language Lessons there are many free on line resources.

I took Yiddish as a foreign language at my public high school in New Haven back around 1970. They also offered 17 other foreign languages.

Sorry Joseph………….

Read my lips, no new taxes. Instead Bush gave us user fees.

There are many reasons Clinton won, don’t give all the credit to Perot.

stinkweed

And this is just another reason I prefer to live OOT with my own private swimming pool in my completely private, fenced and tree obscured yard.

No depending on government to supply our needs

mw13

I don’t agree with you at all. Buying the best you can afford and keeping it for a very long time does not make you materialistic. No one has the right to say I should do with less if I pay for it all myself, don’t go in debt to do so, give more than a tithe in Tzedaka and don’t flaunt what I have in the faces of those less able to afford it.

I laugh at DY comments about a 3 million dollar home, a 150K car, 5K watches and the winters in Florida and summers in Israel.

My home is worth 1/3 of that…granted I purchased it in 1991 for 100K and have made the expansions/improvements over time. True, if it were in Brooklyn it would be worth the 3 million. I drive a 12 year old car, my last single child living at home drives a 10 year old luxury car that used to belong to my wife. My wife got a new car this year just before taking ill and it was under 50K. As for the watch…I wear a Rolex day in day out. It cost me $1600 back in 1984…that’s $50 per year for its use and it will outlive me and go to my eldest son decades from now.

I do have a home in Florida, BUT I travel there to see my clients who are either snow birds or permanent residents…I am a member of the Florida Bar and it makes sense to have this home which also serves as my office..I’ve owned it since 1980. I don’t take $50,000 vacations or even $10,000 vacations.We make Peasch at home and cook from scratch, no takeout prepared meals as many in town Yidden often serve. In addition to Jewish education costs for my five, this poppa has paid for college and law school for many of them.

I don’t need to apologize for having what I’ve accumulated in life. I worked hard to get it. I’m not showy or in your face with these things. I don’t have an iPhone 6S..I have a simple flip phone. I don’t live beyond my means. I don’t have the largest most expensive house in town. I shovel snow, I cut my lawn, I’m the one who vacuums the swimming pool and drags the garbage cans to the curb on Sunday nights.

You must replace the joker with a 4. After that you can separate the run as you please:

1,2,3,4

5,6,7

or

1,2,3

4,5,6,7

or

1,2,3

4,5,6

take the 7 and add other tiles for a third meld