The Future of Big Ideas

#369 The Future of Big Ideas

Shlomo Tzedaka, the Last Bronx Jew, has a picture of Clara Bow on his wall.

A vistor asks about that and he says it's to remind him of how beautiful and attractive a woman on screen can be. Then he goes on about how she was thin and flabby and poorly-endowed and still "it," especially when compared to today's inflated "beauties," like Pamela Anderson and Tila Tequila.

"But that's just to remind me about great ideas," he says. "Great ideas get silicon implants and die."

Research shows that both Ms. Anderson and Ms. Tequila remain alive. But, okay, where's this going?

Shlomo offers a glass of tea which is rejected, places a cube of sugar between his lower jaw and left cheek and takes some tea for himself.

"Look at great ideas," he says "look at what happens to them!"

It's pointed out that Clara Bow was not a great idea, or even a great actress.

"True," he says, "but this change reminds me of everything else that's going on."

"You see out the window? A New York City public high school. Idiots, they turn out. Look a little further. You can see Our Lady of something-or-other high school just beyond. They turn out idiots who can read and count, but they can't think. Education is a disaster."

He picks up today's Post. "Look here on the newspaper. Al Sharpton. This is a civil rights leader? This is going to lead his people, like Moses, into the promised land? Look, here, the Chief Justice, Rabinowitz...."

I point out that it's Roberts.

"Yeah, but ask him what it USED to be! This is a Supreme Court judge? He's no Earl Warren. He isn't even Arthur Goldberg. This guy is reading the constituion? We're all dead men."

He turns to the financial section:

"Exxon makes billions and spills oil all over the place and some poor slob down the street gets evicted from his house? I'm the Last Bronx Jew only because Yitak Cohen lost his house and had to move in with his daughter and son in law in Scarsdale. And that's not going to last long. Yizzy isn't well, and his son-in-law hates him.

"He isn't well because he caught something when he was in Mount Sinai for palpitations. They sent him home with a jar of decaf and a staph infection. I don't dare even visit him.

"And Medicare? They ought to throw that one away and start over. You used to go to the doctor, he'd treat you, you'd pay him -- sometimes a little every week --- and you got better. Now you fill out a thousand forms and they tell you to go away, or even worse, they DON'T tell you to go away and you go to big shot Mount Sinai and you come back with a jar of decaf and a staph infection and find they've foreclosed on your house. And it isn't even major brand decaf, it's C-Town."

He looks at the picture.

"Aye, Clara, it's good you died so many years ago, before Pamela Anderson and C-Town."

I'm Wes Richards (but what did it USED to be?) My opinions are my own, buy you're welcome to them.®
©WJR 2008