“This airplane is designed by clowns who are in turn supervised by monkeys.”

(Boeing employee)

Where is Ralph Nader when you need him?

The 737 Max should be scrapped, stricken from the air, but regulators are afraid of putting Boeing out of business.

That’s right. In a failed attempt to compete with Airbus, which had seen the future and designed a whole new plane to address it, Boeing was caught flat-footed and gussied up an old plane, A FIFTY YEAR OLD PLANE!

Think about that. It’s like putting airbags in your Valiant. You can try, but what you end up with probably won’t work.

The 737 was designed for a different era, one without jetways, one in which you walked onto the plane from the tarmac.

Meaning the wings were low and the engines that hung from them were low too. So if you wanted to add more power, you needed bigger engines, that would not fit. So Boeing moved them forward. The only problem was that screwed up the stability of the plane, now it might stall because of this weight imbalance. So, in a concept only Rube Goldberg could embrace, Boeing decided to solve the problem with software, and essentially not tell anybody about it. Yup, it was so foolproof, like Windows 3.0, that you’d never get the blue screen of death, it would always work as intended, it would never CRASH!

But, of course it did.

Now if you’re following this closely, the old guard, the Chuck Yeagers of this world, those who flew planes before computerization, who could land in your backyard, are saying it’s all pilot error. Actually, Boeing said this too, as if everybody behind the wheel of an automobile should have the skills of Lewis Hamilton.

But not only are newbie pilots flying these planes, especially overseas, in America they overuse newbie pilots and underpay them as they fly you on regional airlines. It’s business baby, and you’ve got to make a profit, and the public requires you to deliver low prices.

If you followed the recent numbers, manufacturing is continuing to crater in the U.S., although its revenue is being replaced by services, which is what every reasonable economist and techie has been saying for decades.

But NO! Trump was gonna bring back those well-paying jobs that if they exist today are being done by machines.

And it’s not only the right, the Democrats, and all those line workers used to be Democrats, believe we need a reset too.

And the public refuses to pay $2500 for a flat screen.

Yup, we love low prices. And we want the lowest. And if they made these items in America, they’d be much more expensive.

You can’t have it both ways, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

But no one can sacrifice in America. We’re entitled to drive monster trucks known as SUVs and live in giant homes and pollute. Jimmy Carter said to put on a sweater and he was excoriated!

But the truth is America is sinking. Its reputation as the greatest country in the world? Ask outside.

And yes, people are still dying to immigrate here, quite literally, but there’s no vision of the future, no idea that the future is coming, hell, most of our elected representatives are tech-challenged, which is why Andrew Yang’s presidential campaign is getting any traction at all.

So, the truth is, the 737 Max should be scrapped. This is not the 787 Dreamliner, with new technology, batteries that must be fixed. This is not cutting edge technology whose quirks have to be ironed out. Rather, this is all about putting lipstick on a pig, AND NOT TELLING ANYBODY!

Now talk to the airlines that bought ’em. They’re screwed. They’ve had to cancel flights, they’re losing money, actually they’re pushing Boeing to compensate them.

And the truth is you’ve got to order planes way in advance, you can’t make them in a day.

But who is gonna make the airlines whole if the planes are scrapped?

Well, D.C. made GM whole but did not compensate those who purchased cars from deleted brands, like Saab and Pontiac. Not to mention that GM was mismanaged into bankruptcy, which is just what Detroit is doing right now. The manufacturers just say they’re giving people what they want. But when gasoline prices soar, when people’s desires change…they’ll have nothing to sell them. The future always come running down the pike.

So Boeing moved its headquarters to Chicago, because the execs were sick of being in a backwater in Washington, State that is. And one of the best analyses I’ve read of the crisis is you gain info from walking the production line, being in the factory, engaging with the workers. But this was impossible! It’d be like asking you or me to say what’s happening on the moon, we can only guess, we haven’t been there and we’re not going there and the execs didn’t bother to go to Everett.

Sometimes you’ve got to start over, you’ve got to jettison the past.

That’s what made Apple so successful under Steve Jobs. Not only did he introduce the GUI and mouse, he was famous for ditching legacy ports. pushing his customers into the future. Oh sure, they’d bitch, but come on, have you heard someone complain about the lack of parallel ports on a Mac recently? (And the parallel port was designed after the 737!)

Already there’s a ripple effect as a result of the grounding of the 737 MAX, not only are the airlines who bought them and ordered them hurting, but so are the suppliers, they’re laying off workers.

And in America it’s all about the bottom line, right? We lionize billionaires, right? If you’ve got that money you were an honest, hard-working citizen who is brilliant and entitled to it…wrong!

So fired CEO Dennis Muilenberg walks with $62 million and we’re left with this albatross.

Now, chances are, they’ll figure out the software, the MCAS for the 737 Max. Then again, it was gonna take a few months, and now it’s nearly a year. It’d be like having your printer malfunction and waiting a year for a patch. Huh?

And most people are ignorant when it comes to flying anyway. They think the plane is gonna crash when the truth is your odds of being killed in a car are so much higher.

And people are scared of flying in the 737 Max and they probably should not be.

But should they keep on making this Frankenstein plane?

Let’s be practical here. There’s almost no way they’re gonna scrap the already built planes, but should they build any more? Air travel has not ground to a halt without the 737 Max in the air. Maybe without deliveries growth will be hampered, but the truth is the airlines are rolling in dough after years of mismanagement by having the planes fly full and charging you for not only bags, but the right to select your seat, never mind put your luggage in the overhead compartment. They, and we, can afford the wait for new planes.

But the government doesn’t want to penalize Boeing.

In a reasonable country, the government would claw back Muilenberg’s golden parachute. But no one with any money, no one at the top of the food chain, none of the bankers on Wall Street who cratered the economy paid, none went to jail. Imagine if they sent Muilenberg to jail! Do you think any airplane manufacturer would cut corners in the future?

But no, the little guy always pays, you and me. The government will rescue Boeing and then give them cash, like they did with Wall Street.

And you wonder why there’s a left wing backlash. Yup, the people at the center of this system don’t want Bernie or Elizabeth to be nominated, because they like things just the way they are, and they’ve convinced so many that the little guy will lose if there’s any change. At least give the Trumpers credit, they realized the world was no longer working for them, even if they desired to go back to a past that wasn’t so good to begin with and can never come back, because the future only goes in one direction.

But no one in D.C. has any balls. They’ll testify, kick and scream, they just won’t do anything.

Scrap the 737 MAX. It will be good for America.

In more ways than one.

It was personal.

We’re watching this Norwegian series on Netflix. It’s entitled “Occupied.” Because of an energy crisis, Russia ultimately infiltrates Norway. And there are a lot of parallels to today’s world. Like the rule of law. Once you throw it out, everything implodes. Once you use illegal information to convict someone, what is the legal system worth?

But then there’s a power struggle. The prime minister leaves no room for his number two in the new government in exile. She wasn’t elected, but she has incredible influence, she tells the prime minister what to do. And when she finds out there’s no place for her, despite promises she’s an integral member, too important to get a specific title, she goes behind the PM’s back and forms a new government in Norway with HER as prime minister.

Never underestimate the power of being dissed.

Now the truth is, so many of the prognosticators, the talking heads, those inside the beltway, do not have high public profiles, especially the lobbyists and corporatists who work behind the scenes. So they’re not aware of the social media blowback.

Give Trump credit, by tweeting he single-handedly brought D.C. into the present. It used to be a club of insiders, now it’s run by an outsider and all the Republicans are kowtowing to him, but not those he’s dissing on social media.

The most important article about the killing of Soleimani was in the “Washington Post” a week ago:

“Soleimani posted memes antagonizing Trump on social media”

The bigger the narcissist, the more they abhor negative feedback. Just ask Taylor Swift! Furthermore, Swift was a target because she was the biggest act in the business, and Donald Trump is PRESIDENT!

I’ve been there. When you say something about someone who believes they’re invulnerable, above it all, THEY GO INSANE! Now at this late date, those who are savvy don’t respond, if you don’t amplify something, it tends to die out. But when you’re hit over the head every day, when someone thinks they’re just as powerful as you and has a significant position on the world stage…

IT DROVE DONALD TRUMP INSANE!

That’s why they can’t come up with a reason for the killing of Soleimani. Yup, for a week the press has been trying to figure out why. And Trump and the Republicans keep obfuscating, because there’s no legitimate reason other than Trump had had ENOUGH!

This is why the Democrats are doomed. They’re still living in the last century. Where everybody’s prim and proper, where you don’t use profanity, and you don’t use modern media to get your message across. The Russians took ads on social media… Hillary Clinton was so busy triangulating that she had no idea what was going on!

Like Joe Biden. Who didn’t even get pissed, didn’t go nuclear when the Hunter Biden contract at the heart of the Ukraine controversy became front page news. If Biden were smart, and he’s not, he’d have gone on the attack immediately, muddied the waters, and if he played the game the way Trump does, so successfully, he would have ADMITTED IT! Yup, Hunter got the well-paying gig because I was his dad. The same way Ivanka got all those contracts, the same way most people get a job these days…YOU’VE GOT TO KNOW SOMEBODY! That would have resonated with the public. Instead, when Biden did speak up, he kept avoiding what we all knew…Hunter got the gig because he was Joe’s son, even if Joe didn’t get him that gig and didn’t try to keep Hunter and the company from being investigated. It’s not that hard, you’ve just got to speak ENGLISH!

Now what the Republicans have done so well is eviscerate facts, nothing is believable anymore, everything is up for grabs. Forget climate change, it’s the little things, the every day things, the right doesn’t believe them. And what did the Democrats and the non-right wing press do…NOTHING! There’s all this insider analysis re Soleimani when it’s obvious, if you look at the big picture.

Everybody keeps talking about the job, the office, the responsibility… But that’s not who Trump is. Trump is impulsive, used to getting his way. He stiffs contractors. He gropes women. And he was immune until he became President.

And Trump knows his game. Deny and refuse to reveal, over and over again.

That’s another thing the hoi polloi does not understand. The press, the legal system, those are things to be MANIPULATED!

Yup, you’ve got your PR agent and you place the story or spin the story or trade the story to make sure it does not appear.

As for the government, the legal system, it’s just business. You fight, you’ve got the resources. Legal battles take years. Cases are hard to prove. And worst case you settle, usually for not that much. As for the CEO of Boeing, he just walked with $60 mil, after getting fired!

Sure, we’ve got all this #Me Too coverage, and that’s great. But we’ve got very little coverage about what it’s like inside the boys club, amongst those who really run the world.

If you’re not battling from day one, if you don’t have your eyes on the prize, you’re never gonna get there.

And on the way you’re gonna have to be two-faced and manipulative. And when you succeed you’re going to undermine and eliminate your adversaries.

And you’re gonna live a large lifestyle just to prove what a big swinging dick you are. Chances are you don’t have time to visit all those vacation homes, sail on that yacht, but all your contemporaries know you’ve got ’em. And there are the trophy wives and we lionize these corporate titans as winners, even though we abhor their morals, even though we won’t do what they do.

And sure, there are some sociopaths, more than you’d imagine, but the rest of ’em? They’ve got no real friends, because they trust no one. And they sleep with one eye open.

So when Soleimani said “It is not in our president’s dignity to respond to you…” and “If you begin the war, we will end the war. You know that this war will destroy all that you possess.” Trump had two choices…to laugh or go nuclear.

True winners laugh. They know which of their enemies really have power. And they ignore those who ain’t got it, and work behind the scenes to get those who do. Come on, that’s how Obama got Osama, right? He didn’t boast every day that he was gonna get him, didn’t keep threatening him, he actually lulled Osama into complacency, and then BOOM!

Sometimes it’s not that complicated. Sometimes the intellectuals ignore the human.

And we’re all human. And it takes a lot to ignore the slings and arrows. The truth is most people can’t. And Trump? NO WAY!

Tom Corson sent a care package.

Actually, his assistant sent it, last month, when I was away.

So, do I tell him this? OF COURSE NOT!

But then I did.

I was frustrated. Because everything looked so good and I had to throw it out. So I checked my e-mail, to make sure it wasn’t a screw-up on my end, that I did tell his assistant I wouldn’t be back until 1/1.

I had.

So then I decided to take a risk. I thanked Tom, told him how much I appreciated it, but I’d had to throw it out. Tom said he’d send another one! I felt guilty, but to be honest, I wanted the food.

Zabar’s.

Used to be there was a good deli in every town. A good Jewish deli. It wasn’t until I was in college that I heard there was any other kind. I laughed at people talking about an “Italian” deli, or a “Polish” deli… Delis were inherently Jewish, right?

I’m still not sure.

But for a long while, my father went to Max’s, which became Sam’s, where the pickles were in a barrel and they sold those green tomato pickles. Actually, I didn’t realize they were tomatoes, if I had, I probably wouldn’t have eaten them.

And the jelly rings! Oh, scrumptious!

And all the fish I didn’t eat back then and I crave now.

And the bagels..

Just like Yiddish words have become commonplace, like chutzpah and klutz, never mind schmuck and schmutz, so has the bagel.

Blame the Lenders.

You see everything used to be regional, bagels included. The Lenders owned the New Haven market, they were the first ones who decided you could freeze bagels and sell them in the supermarket. I actually went to camp with Albert Lender, who kept telling us his family made bagels, but we didn’t believe it, living twenty miles away in Fairfield, until they started showing up in our supermarket.

And then…bagels went goyische.

You see, it used to be all about water bagels. And they were mostly plain, there were not all these varieties, never mind an “everything” bagel. Sure, you could get an egg bagel, an onion bagel, maybe even poppy seed, but what made a bagel a bagel was…

The exterior. Nearly hard as a rock. If you weren’t about to break a tooth when you chomped down on it, it wasn’t a bagel.

Then suddenly bagels were everywhere. Oftentimes they were giant-sized, and the only thing that distinguished them from regular bread was the fact they were round. These were not bagels!

Certainly on the west coast. I moved to L.A. They had the Western Bagel Company. Locals loved it, they didn’t know any better. Expats? They found them declasse, inedible.

Now ultimately, Sam’s closed, and Moishe’s opened up. Moishe wasn’t really his name, even though everybody called him that, but I knew the truth because his son Dennis went to school with me, and was a friend of mine.

But, like everything in life, the good things eventually expire. Moishe reached the end of his time, his era, and there’s not a good deli in Fairfield anymore.

There’s still a decent one in Westport. Gold’s.

Actually, the Golds lived in Fairfield, their daughter Brett was a good friend of my sister Wendy.

But the reason I mention Gold’s is because that’s where Paul Newman’s salad dressing was born. Julius Gold sued for a piece. He did not get it.

But today, if my mother is hosting on a big holiday, let’s say Rosh Hashanah, or Passover, she sends John to Zabar’s.

Now we’ve been going to Zabar’s forever. It’s the pinnacle of deli. But it was not a regular event. For the city was fifty miles away.

And, like Jews themselves, the delis are falling by the wayside. Maybe you saw that movie “Deli Man,” it occasionally plays on PBS, you can pull it up on streaming services. No one wants to be a deli man anymore. You’re working around the clock and you’re not getting rich. Hell, even the Carnegie Deli closed.

And then it comes to intermarriage…

Funny how there’s so much anti-Semitism in America, the perps don’t have to worry, we’re depleting our ranks all by ourselves.

But they hate us nonetheless.

So Jewish food is not one of the great cuisines. It’s known for being hearty and overcooked, the complete opposite of French food. Maybe it’s because in Russia you needed something to fill your belly, keep you going.

So, we’ve got brisket and pastrami, the former of which has gone positively mainstream.

And lox and bagels.

Oh, and whitefish and sable too, but I don’t think they’re gonna be around for that much longer, it’s the older generation that is keeping them alive, like opera and the symphony.

And like bagels, you can now get smoked salmon everywhere.

But it’s not the Nova of my dreams.

So Felice texted me that the new Zabar’s box arrived, just after I was leaving my blood test for my heart doctor.

I’d been eating so clean! No rice, pasta, bread. Just two Dove chocolate bits a day. I wanna live.

But when I got home from Hollywood, Felice had cracked the rye and…

I couldn’t resist.

That’s another thing the non-Jews have probably never been exposed to. Going to the bakery and buying fresh rye bread. Hell, I could have eaten the entire loaf before I got home, but my mother always said “You’re gonna ruin your dinner!” Although that never happened.

And the best rye bread you can get today, along with the best pastrami, happens to be in L.A., at Langer’s, it’s the way they recook it after it’s been baked.

And actually, on the exterior of the package, Zabar’s said to reheat this bread. But who can wait?

I found the end, it’s all about the end, because it’s all about the crust and…

It just wasn’t that good.

Now that was a big step, I shouldn’t be eating bread.

But now that I’d taken a bite of the rye, I had to sample the bagels. Plain, just like they’re meant to be.

I’d told Felice to freeze them, but just before she did, I broke one out.

The exterior was firm. Not as firm as the bagels of yore, but far different from what passes for a bagel in those places that sell “bagel sandwiches”? Huh? Maybe HILLEL sandwiches, wouldn’t it be great to be able to buy those? But a BAGEL sandwich? Inherently, if you put the two halves together, it’s a sandwich, but I never heard a Jew refer to it as such.

But once you get savvy, you know it’s all about splitting the bagel in half, toasting it brown and then using each side as a platform, for pickings.

So I bit into the Zabar’s bagel and it…

Tasted pretty good!

Now once I go off the rails, I absolutely cannot stop myself. So I went into the fridge and got the cream cheese.

Now Max’s/Sam’s used to have homemade chive cheese. And not with those tiny bits of chives you get in the store-bought version but HUGE chives, you could really taste ’em! You see as big as Philadelphia is, and it’s not bad, it’s not in the league of homemade cream cheese. And the cream cheese from Zabar’s is as good as it gets. First and foremost…IT’S CREAMY!

So I put a schmear on the bagel and take a bite and…

THE WORLD GOES FROM BLACK AND WHITE TO COLOR! There are explosions, I break out into a smile.! This is it, the holy grail! Just when you think it’s unachievable, you’re brought back. It’s a direct link between what was then and is now. Suddenly, I was back in my childhood home, on Sunday morning.

Going back to the past is mostly creepy. Come on, those people you’ve reconnected with on Facebook? They may be older, but ultimately they’re the same, you remember why you drifted apart.

But if you could be ten once again, at summer camp, wouldn’t that be exquisite?

And now I can’t stop. The plan was a bite, but now I’ve got to eat the whole bagel. I keep schmearing on the cream cheese, I’m in my own personal reverie.

And then I spot the rugelach. These too, have gone mainstream.

And I extract one and bite down and I’m brought back to Jewish holidays past.

So I eat another.

And then, as I’m holding the bag in my hand, Felice asks…”Do you want me to tell you when to stop?”

To tell you the truth, I was gonna eat another cinnamon rugelach. I mean every day they get stiffer and lose flavor. But I held off.

But I did finish the bagel.

And now I’m in bliss.

This is what happens when baby boomers with MBAs try to compete in the tech sphere…THEY LOSE!

Furthermore, this is what happens when Hollywood tries to compete with Silicon Valley…it compromises or it loses!

Meg Whitman knows how to make the trains run on time. At eBay and then HP. Come on, tell me about one innovation under her regime at HP… You can’t! You might not even know she ran the damn company.

As for Jeffrey Katzenberg…

Let’s never forget that DreamWorks SKG was a failure. The goal was to build a new studio. The record label failed, because there was no catalog, despite having Lenny and Mo who overspent not understanding the world was changing. Spielberg made movies, he still does. Sure, Katzenberg ended up with a cartoon studio, sold at a profit, but he was blown out! If he was so integral, wouldn’t they have kept him?

So, a brilliant idea… Millennials are addicted to their phones, they’ve got a short attention span, let’s feed them bite-sized series, since they’re UNDERSERVED!

Well, no! Ever hear of YouTube? Never mind stories on Snapchat and Instagram, all of which are FREE!

That’s the funny thing about Quibi… It’s $4.99 with ads and $7.99 without. You mean I’m gonna pay the same price as Apple or Disney?

Oh, it’s free with T-Mobile? Disney is with Verizon, Apple is with the purchase of a new product.

So the youngsters have the paradigm right. You build it and if they come you figure out how to monetize it. Can you say GOOGLE? Almost every successful internet story started with a free product. But NO! MBA boomers start out with a business plan, they work the numbers first!

The young techies know it’s about hit product. Something that people can’t resist. They addict them, and then they charge ’em. But oftentimes it feels free, because of ads…can you say Facebook, can you say SOCIAL MEDIA?

And Apple hasn’t come up with a hit show and streaming was an afterthought to DVDs by mail at Netflix first.

How can this inane project get ink? How can this inane project just raise another $400 million, after a billion already? This reminds me of people who invested in Neil Young’s Pono…because it was Neil Young it was gonna succeed. HUH?

As for adult supervision… That’s what killed Apple the first time around, the installation of John Sculley, who just like Whitman knew how to make the trains run on time, this time at Pepsi, but did not understand the soul of computing, just like Whitman knows nothing about entertainment.

Furthermore, entertainment online is not passive, but active! The stars come from the streets and the audience interacts with them!

How could they get it so wrong?

Quibi is a disaster, a complete waste of money as a pay service. Expect them to change the model, be free, or tie in with YouTube, Facebook and/or Instagram and Snapchat in an effort to succeed.

And after they pivot, they might declare victory, but really, this idea with this business model is DOA.

“Quibi raises $400 million to make more bite-sized shows”