{"id":253111,"date":"2022-12-21T18:21:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-21T18:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=253111"},"modified":"2022-12-21T18:21:00","modified_gmt":"2022-12-21T18:21:00","slug":"the-office-party-from-hell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2022\/12\/21\/the-office-party-from-hell\/","title":{"rendered":"The office party from hell"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Note<\/strong>: This is a version of my personal newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can\u00a0see other issues\u00a0and sign up here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the witness stand, Stu Bykofsky confessed that he didn\u2019t really want a going-away party. After 47 years as a journalist at The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, Bykofsky found out that the editors at the Inquirer were taking his beloved column away from him. Two days before his scheduled departure, Bykofsky found out that regardless of his wishes, his colleagues were hellbent on throwing<\/a> a going away party for him.It was at this official going-away party in the newsroom, on the Friday afternoon of July 12, 2019, that Inga Saffron, the Inquirer\u2019s Pulitzer-Prize winning architecture critic, trashed Byko as an ethically-challenged, crusty old misogynist who had “a taste for child prostitutes in Thailand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This secret society helped run the Underground Railroad<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Under peeling paint and missing cornices, Essie Gregory stood on the steps of the huge, ramshackle mansion in the heart of the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn with a small group of visitors. Ms. Gregory, 74, opened the front door, giving her guests a rare glimpse inside the New York headquarters of the United Order of Tents Eastern District No. 3. And despite the rundown nature of the building, it was still possible to imagine it as it once was. For generations, the Tents \u2014 members of a secret society of Black women whose 19th-century founders<\/a> were enslaved \u2014 held meetings upstairs, cooked meals in the kitchen and performed secret ceremonies in the parlor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Face recognition tech gets mom booted from Rockettes show<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Kelly Conlon and her daughter came to New York City the weekend after Thanksgiving as part of a Girl Scout field trip to Radio City Music Hall to see the Christmas Spectacular show. But while her daughter, other members of the Girl Scout troop and their mothers got to go enjoy the show, Conlon wasn’t allowed to do so<\/a>. That’s because to Madison Square Garden Entertainment, Conlon isn’t just any mom. She is an associate with the New Jersey based law firm, Davis, Saperstein and Solomon, which for years has been involved in personal injury litigation against a restaurant venue now under the umbrella of MSG Entertainment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A writer’s personal connection to Asian warfare in Silicon Valley<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Andrea Settimo writes: “On a Friday morning in 1995, a Hong Kong woman named Grace arrived at work. She saw two Asian men coming towards her\u2014they pushed her into the reception area of the office. The mole-marked man opened his suit jacket, pointed to what appeared to be a gun in the inner lining, and said to her, \u201cYou know what I want.\u201d<\/a> The Silicon Valley of the \u201990s was an expression of the quintessential American story, but an unexpected one: one that involved organized crime, narcotics trafficking, confidential informants, and Asian gangs. It is also part of my family history. Grace is my aunt. And the company being robbed? It was my mother\u2019s.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canada’s medically assisted death program raises questions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI find that the act of offering the option of an assisted death is one of the most therapeutic things we do,\u201d Stefanie Green says. She sees it in the faces of her patients \u2014 they\u2019re \u201crelieved.\u201d Sometimes it actually means they\u2019ll choose to live longer, to keep fighting, because now they know they can end their suffering if it becomes intolerable<\/a>. Is Green, a physician specializing in euthanasia in British Columbia, finding her job easier now than she did at first? \u201cIs it more normal for me to be writing scripts and picking up lethal drugs and driving across town and doing this?\u201d she asks back. \u201cYeah, it\u2019s oddly okay for me to be doing that. I don\u2019t find it shocking anymore, but the events are still extraordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luddite teens don\u2019t want your likes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On a brisk recent Sunday, a band of teenagers met on the steps of Central Library on Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn to start the weekly meeting of the Luddite Club, a high school group that promotes a lifestyle of self-liberation from social media<\/a> and technology. As the dozen teens headed into Prospect Park, they hid away their iPhones \u2014 or, in the case of the most devout members, their flip phones, which some had decorated with stickers and nail polish. Some drew in sketchbooks. Others painted with a watercolor kit. Many read intently \u2014 the books included Dostoevsky\u2019s \u201cCrime and Punishment,\u201d Art Spiegelman\u2019s \u201cMaus II\u201d and \u201cThe Consolation of Philosophy\u201d by Boethius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spectacular example of camouflage<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n

Kallima inachus, the orange oakleaf, is a butterfly found in Tropical Asia. With wings closed, it closely resembles a dry leaf with dark veins and is a spectacular example of camouflage

[read more: https:\/\/t.co\/Gni6zCv5xP<\/a>]
[\ud83d\udcf9: https:\/\/t.co\/RSSUeIY887<\/a>]pic.twitter.com\/x66fH8iC20<\/a><\/p>— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) December 20, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote>