More Causes for Heartbleed

Meet Wanda Coleman.  She and her granddaughter face imminent eviction from their public housing unit in New York City because Wanda's son is a drug offender (so go the article lead-ins).  Our hearts are now supposed to bleed for Wanda and those similarly situated.

This whole thing raises the following issues/questions, in no particular order of import:

Why is it that public housing projects in America tend to be disproportionate in their incidences of violent crime?  According to the leftist (far left and even, to an extent, near left) narrative, poverty drives these people to commit crimes, and giving them money will cure the problem.  I have trouble buying into that theory, however.  For one thing, there are plenty of people who are truly poor, but who can behave themselves and not commit crimes.  Including lots of them in public housing projects.

And why is it that in some societies, the haves and have-nots can be integrated far better than in America?  In my son's town in Israel, for example, one of the wealthiest families in his neighborhood lives on the same street within 50 meters of many of the poorest.  The neighborhood is mostly crime-free (though not 100%), safe to walk at all hours of the night (though most do not go it alone in the wee hours of the morning).  Ditto for my wife's sister's neighborhood in another city in Israel.  There are just too many exemplars for me to buy into the poverty-causes-crime theory.

As for Wanda, she has lived in the housing project for 25 years.  Okay, so she is in ill health, and may have no choice.  But if you aren't the owner of the property, you need to abide by the owner's rules if you want to live there.  And in Wanda's case, the owner is the New York City Housing Authority, which has promulgated rules that certain criminals, including and especially druggies, may not enter the premises.  Wanda's son is one of those criminals.  But Wanda wants things both ways.  She wants to bring her son onto the premises (her maternal instincts are understandable), but she wants to be exempt from the no-criminal rule.

But our hearts are supposed to bleed for Wanda.

Mine does not.  The only way to deal with the druggies is through a "tough love" approach.  I am doing it now with a nephew of mine, and I do understand how painful it is.  But the laying down of rules, and the enforcement of those rules, is the only hope for the druggies (and even then, their odds are not the greatest).

Yes, I do feel a reflex to empathize with Wanda.  But then again, why should it be my responsibility if she fails to take on hers?

And back to the public housing project thread:  Where is Wanda's incentive to be concerned with the viability of the public housing project in which she lives?  On account of reasons that may or may not be her fault, she does not have the wherewithal to acquire an ownership interest in the real property that is her home.  Home ownership by the residents is one of the best impediments to crime-ridden neighborhoods.  Those who have to go home to the neighborhood every evening have greater incentive to keep the crime down than do absentee landlords, who may be negatively impacted by crimes against property, but not nearly as much as by crimes against persons other than themselves and their families.

The next best thing is a regime where even those without equity in their homes can take an interest in the neighborhood's well-being.  This manifests itself in many forms, including but not limited to residential patrols, tenants' organizations, and, in the case of Wanda, a house rule that no druggies may enter the premises.  But Wanda has failed to recognize adherence to that rule as being in her self-interest.  This is why she is about to be evicted.

The underlying problem is a culture of entitlement.

My heart is not hemorrhaging over Wanda.  Is yours?

Disaffirmative Action

 

I have a little time today, and need a break.  So, what to blog about?

 

The guilty plea of William Rapfogel, former CEO of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, to stealing about $5 million from widows and orphans?  A religious Jewish boy misbehaving.  Notwithstanding my contentious issues many years ago with the Met Council, back during my college days, I'll pass on this one (for now at least), other than to thank Willie and his co-codefendants for giving me some belated vindication.

 

New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer's latest Report on "The Growing Gap:  New York City’s Housing Affordability Challenge," which whines about how the cost of rental housing is rising faster than income?  Hey, Scotty, for many years, you and your liberal ilk before you took pains to make sure that New York City provided top dollar welfare payouts, and you continue to give all kinds of entitlements and lagniappes to illegal aliens, criminals, those who refuse to hold down jobs, and everyone else.  So the resulting population increase (notwithstanding the city's abortion rate) increases the demand for housing relative to the supply, thereby driving up the cost relative to income.  This is Econ 101, nothing to blog about.

 

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration's latest report that the IRS has given monetary rewards to employees who have disciplinary problems and tax filing issues?  Hey, when I was with the IRS I had neither disciplinary issues nor tax filing issues.  Howcum I didn't get anything in addition to my salary?  This story already has legs; I have nothing to add other than to state the obvious:  The policy of administering cookies for bad behavior and electric shocks for good behavior goes a long way towards explaining the IRS's dysfunctionality.

 

So what to blog about?  I'll blog about Kareem Potomont.  He's the gangster thug who fired a weapon at one of his rivals, but in the process, one of the fired bullets struck and seriously injured Gama Droiville, a 13-year-old innocent bystander.   I note the quote from Potomont's lawyer, Audrey Thomas, who said that Potomont "said was forced to leave high school in the eleventh grade due to gang pressure."

 

THAT is the problem.  Those social groups commonly associated with success in America have long pressured their youth to STAY in school.  Back during my adolescence years, I had certain behavioral issues in school.  One evening, my father came to me to express his displeasure at one particular incident, noting that he had heard about it from a neighbor.  I said something to the effect of "Why is it any of her business how I behave in school?"

 

An uncle of mine, who ended up doing much to prod me onward towards the straight path of success, chimed in, "When you disrupt the educational process, then it is everybody's business!"  I wouldn't say that my behavior immediately reformed over night, but Uncle's words did stick with me, have remained to this day, and did positively influence me.

 

Gangs pressuring people to drop out of high school?  That is the antithesis of affirmative action!  It is DISAFFIRMATIVE ACTION!

 

I Didn't Want Him Dead

Now the latest diversion for the insular religious Jewish community is the case of Menacham "Max" Stark, who was abducted and whose body was found, smoldering in burning ashes, in a dumpster at a gas station.  Tragic enough.  But the real controversy, which has really taken the matter viral, is that the New York Post ran it on their front page with the headline "Who Didn't Want Him Dead?"  This, of course, has caused much anguish to the late Mr. Stark's family, over and above that of the circumstances of his brutal murder.  Now, there is much dissatisfaction brewing with the New York Post.  And the politicians are having a field day.

My comments:

1.  Number One, First and Foremost:   I. Did. Not. Want. Him. Dead.

2.  I have never dealt directly with Mr. Stark, but I do have some friends and acquaintances who have.  While I regret his passing, and the brutal manner in which it came about, I cannot say that I regret not having had occasion to meet him.  He apparently (read "definitely") was a slumlord who did dirty to tenant and contractor alike.  His property management practices drew much attention from the many cognizant administrative agencies in the bloated New York City government bureaucracy.

3.  I shall not now speculate on who the murderer(s) may be.  There are several (read "copious") possibilities and motives from amongst a broad spectrum of individuals (which is the very point the New York Post was really trying to make).  Anything is possible, including a plurality of Stark's enemies got together and followed the script of an Agatha Christie novel.  Let the police detectives and investigators do their thing, and let the chips fall where they may! And let the perps be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

4.  The New York Post exhibited abysmally poor taste in presenting the story.  Even by their own standards.

5.  However, I cannot help but note that many of those who now condemn the New York Post for its sensationalism have themselves been party to oversensationalizing other matters.

6.  I absolutely feel bad for Menachem Stark's family.  His children are innocent victims, and, unless and until shown otherwise, I shall presume that his widow is also an innocent victim and was not complicit in his nefarious enterprises.

7.  Stark is being touted amongst the insular Jewish community as a humanitarian who was very generous with his millions of dollars to help the needy of the community.  All well and good, but if the money was stolen then it wasn't kosher.

8.  The most troubling aspect of this all -- no less troubling than the crime itself -- is a failure by the leaders of the insular Jewish community to acknowledge that, independent of his victimhood,  Stark's hands were dirty.  Filthy dirty!  This sends the wrong message to their children.

9.  Query:  Will those who are screaming for blood change their tune if it turns out that the perp was one of their own?

10.  No, I am not a fan of Menachem Stark.  Nevertheless, I did not want him dead. Rest in Peace, Menachem Stark!

A Scotsman Crosses Ethnic and Gender Lines

The "No True Scotsman" fallacy goes something to the effect that one Alistair MacTavish reads a story in the Edinburgh Evening News about a violent crime wave in London, which the Metropolitan Police Service detectives believe has been perpetuated by a single individual.  "No true Scotsman would ever do that," thinks MacTavish to himself.  The next evening, the finding of the mutilated body of another victim is reported in the Evening News, and a horrified MacTavish again insists that the perpetuator cannot possibly be a Scotsman.  After another two weeks, with another victim almost daily, the suspect is apprehended by the Mets.  The suspect is identified as one Duncan Forbes MacPherson, a native of Glasgow.  "He is not really a true Scotsman," declares MacTavish.

Amongst the insular Jewish religious community, there were similar sentiments expressed about two years ago during the Leiby Kletzky affair.  Leiby Kletzky, you will recall, was an autistic boy who, having become disoriented, was abducted, murdered and mutilated.  The murderer was a member of the same community, but a local shopkeeper named Eva Rosenbluh told a New York Daily News reporter that "To me, he is not an Orthodox [Jew] because an Orthodox Jew wouldn't do that."

Well, Eva Rosenbluh is in the New York Daily News again.  Eva is now arguably a victim of violence, having  had her wrists slapped by U.S. District Judge Allyne Ross.  Seems that in 1994, Eva's father died, but Eva continued to collect the old man's Social Security payments for 18 years.

So, Eva, pray tell just where do we draw the line between what an Orthodox Jew would and would not do?

But my scrutiny and interest are directed not only at Eva, but at the Social Security Administration and at Judge Ross.  Shouldn't the SSA know when someone dies?  Especially if the person dies in a nursing home in New York City, where the death is sure to be reported?

Note that Eva got 3 years probation, no fine, and no jail time, but had to repay within 90 days the $218,194.52 she collected in her father's name after the old man died.  And the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Paulsen, observed that this constituted "essentially a 20-year, tax-free loan from the government."

And Judge Ross, you said, "I believe the punishment effected by the loss of her home, the restitution and personal pain is sufficient."  And you say that Eva is unlikely to reoffend, and that jail time would serve no purpose. 

 

Yes, Your Honor, I can sort of see some justice in the conditions you placed upon Eva's probation, including the repayment (without interest) of the $218,194.52 within 90 days, which supposedly will necessitate the sale of Eva's home and her eviction therefrom.  And I can even see sparing the taxpayers the cost of incarcerating Eva if indeed she is unlikely to commit any more crimes.  I suppose that what really galls me here is that Your Honor seems to have fallen for defense counsel Jacob Laufer's line that Eva is a "profoundly decent person" whose charitable deeds included helping out poor brides with their weddings.  A noble cause indeed, but how noble can it really be if done with stolen money?

Another religious Jewish woman behaving poorly.  Or not.  After all, aren't we supposed to buy into the notion that no true Orthodox Jew would ever do something like that?

Another Embezzler, Another Shul

 

Embezzlement is a serious offense in any instance, and embezzlement from a religious or charitable organization is all the more serious because the people who donate money to such organizations have certain high expectations, both of the organizations themselves and the people who run them.  Thus, not only are the organizations and their intended recipients of their beneficence victimized by the embezzlement.  The donors, who made their donation with no expectations of profit in exchange for the risk (other than a tax deduction, which Obama has significantly reduced), are victims in a way that investors in the securities market can never be.

It is, of course, a sad day for the Jewish people when the organization from which money is embezzled is a synagogue.  And we now have one of those sad days.

Ex-attorney Isaac Zucker, former Treasurer of Congregation Aish Kodesh in Woodmere, New York, has pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $600,000 from the shul.  I say "ex-attorney" because under New York Judiciary Law § 90(4)(a), an attorney who is convicted (and, a fortiori, who pleads guilty) to a felony offense automatically is disbarred upon the event.  He faces a maximum of 7 years in the slammer.

My comments, in no particular order:

1.   I know some people connected with Aish Kodesh, and have, over the past few months, been made privy to a small amount of inside details regarding this matter.

2.  Like so many other social groups, whether ethnicities or junior high athletic teams or anything in between, we Jewish people have a strong tendency to protect our own, and an aversion to involving outsiders in the process of righting wrongs within the group.  In this case, after the theft was discovered, the Aish Kodesh leadership had attempted to work out a deal with Zucker to get the money returned, and only went to the authorities after it became clear that such attempts would be futile. 

            I have mixed feelings about this.  On one hand, there needs to be a tough stance taken against embezzlers.  On the other hand, the District Attorney's office regularly engages in plea bargaining, which, in many respects, differs little in concept from trying to work out a private deal for restitution.

3.  It will be interesting to see what type of sentence is advocated by the membership and leadership of Aish Kodesh in the sentencing process.  What will their letters to the Judge say?  What will the victim impact statements say?  And what type of consonance or dissonance will there be between such statements, and the statements the same people made with respect to certain notorious cases involving various Jewish criminals convicted of crimes such as bank fraud, child molestation and cop-killing?

4.  In a similar synagogue embezzlement case a few years ago, "U.S. District Judge Anita B. Brody told Barry Wilf, former director of Temple Sinai in Dresher, that the maximum 57-month, no-parole sentence was too light considering that 'minor drug dealers get 60 months.'"

5.  A separate matter will be Mr. Zucker's tax affairs.  Now that Nassau County DA Kathleen Rice has gotten her conviction, the IRS, using the guilty plea, is sure to impute to Zucker some tax consequences from the income he received in the process.  Ditto for the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance.