The Writer's Life 10/16 - Elite

Peggy Noonan devotes her op-ed piece in today's NY Post to the election cycle, particularly to her disenchantment with the so-called elites. She closed it with this gem: "It's the big fact of American life now, isn't it? That we are patronized by our inferiors." Kudos, madam... Also in the Post, Naomi Schaefer Riley cites this alarming though unsurprising stat from the book No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life by Thomas J. Espenshade & and Alexandria Walton Radford: Asian-Americans must score 450 points higher on combined SAT results to have the same chance on admission to an elite (that word again) college as blacks... Ramirez's cartoon is brilliant, depicting Trump's stuffed mouth as an IED - Improvised Explosive Device. I don't know what Ramirez's politics are and don't care. That toon is funny, clean and truthful. Excellent, sir, but I'm still voting for the Donald..

RIP Dennis Byrd, 50, former NY Jets DE, killed in a car accident. He was 29 when he suffered a career-ending neck/spine injury while rushing the QB and colliding violently with a teammate. At the time it was believed he would never walk again. In an unforgettable moment, he later participated in a ceremony, struggling as he walked onto the field. Hadn't he suffered enough? Geez.

Last night the National Evangelical Channel, 30 on Cablevision in NYC, ran one of the first post-nuclear apocalypse films ever made, Five (1951). I don't know that any subsequent movies on the theme are as thoughtful. It was directed and written by Arch Oboler, who had help on the screenplay from James Weldon Johnson. It is Oboler's only significant work amongst his 23 credits as a writer and eleven at the helm. William Phipps starred. Born in 1922, still living, he compiled more than 200 credits, most notably as the voice of Prince Charming in Walt Disney's Cinderella (1950). The female lead, the late Susan Douglas Rubes, appeared on The Guiding Light soap opera for 10 years - through three pregnancies wherein her character was always shot from above the pregnancy. The villain, James Anderson, died at 48 but piled up an astonishing 144 credits, mostly in TV. Charles Lampkin has had an under-the-radar type career, amassing 102 credits. The fifth survivor, Earl Lee, has only 25 credits.

I got the optimum parking space today in my return to Sundays in Park Slope, but it did little good. My thanks to the woman who bought the valuable pictorial, One Dish Meals. I wish I knew what all the browsers who walked away without a purchase were looking for. The selection was spectacular and diverse.

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