Now banished to the dustbin of web history, the announcement was like a perfect storm of what is wrong with State Senator Marty Golden.
Senator Martin Golden invites you to
Refresh your Business Etiquette and Social Protocol Skills!
Senator Marty Golden is proud to present the “ Polished Professional” summer series to his female constitutients in the Bay Ridge area. Throughout the borough of Brooklyn, professional women will meet during the summer of 2012 for ‘refreshment breaks’ after work: enjoying a wine and cheese reception while they ‘refresh’ their knowledge of what’s new in 21st century business etiquette and social protocol. Presented by Phillipa Morrish, Certified Protocol Consultant and President of Etiquette Training International, the sessions are interactive and fun.
HANDSHAKES AND INTRODUCTIONS: the rules have changed. Correctly introduce self and others to: religious leaders, politicians, military and other socially prominent officials. Differences in American and Continental rules governing handshakes and introductions. The pros and cons of ‘mirroring’ during introductions. Handshakes as a business assessment tool….and much more.
POSTURE, DEPORTMENT, AND THE FEMININE PRESENCE: walking with books on the head are outdated. Women who walk from their power center. The art of feminine presence. Sit, stand and walk like a model. Walk up and down a stair elegantly……and much more.
Date: Tuesday, July 24th, 2012 Time: 6:00pm – 9:00pm Venue: The Bay Ridge Manor, 476 – 76th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11209
This little announcement, for an event since cancelled, sheds uncomfortable light on Mr. Golden in oh so many ways.
Let’s start with “Follow The Money.”
We know who paid for the mailing.
Chris Bragg, who broke the story makes it seem that we are also paying for the event itself, though that is not clear.
Nonetheless, taxpayers subsidizing a Golden Empire of events, organizations and people for the twin purposes of re-electing Mr. Golden and filling the personal pockets of Mr. Golden and his family and friends is old news (though it is always helpful to be reminded of this fact before an election).
A few months ago, City Hall News put the spotlight on Golden in an uncomfortable manner, spotlighting a group he’s funded big-time.
The Bay Ridge-Bensonhurst Beautification and Preservation Alliance was founded by Marty Golden around the time he decided he wanted to run for office. It has been financed with tax dollars by Republican electeds who wanted to help advance Golden’s career, and it exists solely for the purpose of publicizing Golden at taxpayer expense (I will spare you a blow by blow of the details, except to note that there seem to be even more blanks yet to be filled in, and they are probably not pleasant—go read the link).
When I first wrote about the group, I renamed it with a moniker which reflected both its politics and its inspiration.
I called it "The George W Bushwick Center."
But, that's unfair to Vito Lopez.
The Alliance is not a social services agency like Ridgewood-Bushwick, which came into being for its own reasons and then evolved into a political empire to further its social purposes.
The Alliance is a political machine which runs programs and distributes money only because doing so furthers its political purposes.
In this case, we must ask if this event was being paid for directly with Senate funds, through The Bay Ridge-Bensonhurst Beautification and Preservation Alliance, or through Mr. Golden’s campaign committee?
Though seemingly the most innocent, the last might actually be the worst; taxpayers mailing out advertising for an event which a campaign sponsors would be quite appalling.
In any event, no matter what the source of the money, the first question which must be asked is if the Catering Hall was being paid (and is it still) and by whom?
It would be illegal for the State to be paying Marty Golden any money other than his salary, his lulu and his per diems, or for a lobbyist to give Marty Golden any money directly. It would, at the very least, be unseemly (and probably much worse) for Marty Golden to be paid by a group for which he obtained taxpayer funds.
But the state, the group, or Golden’s campaign committee (to which a lobbyist could contribute) could all legally rent out Bay Ridge Manor, a catering hall once owned by Golden, but now owned by Golden’s brother. .
The catering hall in turn spends the money on 1) paying rent to Golden, who owns the building, 2) making a payment to Golden for selling them the catering business, and 3) paying Golden's wife's salary at the catering hall.
As Golden says, "There's no direct benefit to me."
Which would seem to be exactly the point of the way they structured it.
Apparently perfectly legal.
Is there a hole for me to get sick in?
The next questions is, who was paying for the speaker (and whether she is still being paid)?
Bay Ridge has long had a bi-partisan group of local burghers which basically functioned as The Bay Ridge Party; it‘s platform being “we are special and things shall always remain as they were in 1955.”
They serve as the pillars of the Bay Ridge Status Quo Ante, even into this Century, still railing about such dear causes as the community’s entitlement to “reparations” for the use of eminent domain during the construction of the Verrazano, and the evils of the 1982 Assembly reapportionment.
This group is, among other things, dedicated to spreading the myth of Marty Golden, and one of its pillars has been Golden's good buddy, Larry Morrish, who served as Golden’s front man in founding the Bay Ridge-Bensonhurst and Preservation Alliance, while also serving as a staff member for various Republican hacks and a key campaign aide to Mr. Golden.
I bring up Mr. Morrish, because this taxpayer subsidized event (the extent of the subsidy as yet unknown) was to star his wife, Phillipa (incidentally, Golden was the best man at the Morrish wedding).
For your amusement, I present some excerpts from a profile of Phillipa featured in Christian Lifestyle Express Magazine (you can’t make this stuff up).
Etiquette training prepares students for business and social settings. However, etiquette training can go beyond preparing someone for a certain status it can also play a major role in enhancing self-esteem and confidence.
Phillipa Morrish understands the need for etiquette training she is the founder of Etiquette Training International a Finishing School Program dedicated to promoting the etiquette and protocol skills necessary for success in the 21st century.
Interview: Phillip Morrish (Etiquette Training International)
Thank you Phillipa for taking time out of your hectic schedule to enlighten CWL readers on etiquette training. Please tell the readers about yourself and what prompt you into starting your own school for etiquette training.
Thank you Deanetta for this wonderful opportunity. I consider teaching etiquette my ministry, and I pray before advertising each new protocol course. I ask God to bring the participants He wants to reach through my voice. I aim to boost self-esteem and elevate the level of thinking of each participant through the principles of etiquette and protocol. I have loved the study of etiquette as far back as I can remember. I recall receiving birthday gifts of etiquette books as a teenager, and I loved reading them, though I never seemed able to find boys who knew the rules of how to treat girls correctly. In addition to liking the subject, I realized as an adult that emphasis is placed on a good academic education, but its social counterpart is largely ignored, though studies have shown that a social education is as important as an academic education for advancement in any field. I was embarassed on a few occasions due to my lack of knowledge in knowing which piece of flatware to use first at a formal dinner and what was appropriate dress for certain functions I was asked to attend. In 1999, I looked in the yellow pages and found the Ophelia DeVore School of Charm, which was located in the Empire State Building. Eventually, I was asked to teach some of what I had learned, and I pursued further training at Minding Manners, London, England. Today, I teach some workshops in the United States and others in foreign countries. This method of taking my courses to the students has worked better for me. I love to interact with other cultures and adapt my classes to their specific needs.
Tell us about your courses, workshops and seminars.
I teach a twelve module ‘Social Protocol’ certificate course for professionals or a one day workshop called ‘The Polished Professional.’ I also offer a ten module ‘Finishing School’ course for high school seniors and young adults…
…Do you offer courses online?
Yes, I do offer an advanced course online. It is the ’Social Protocol Grade 1′ course. After taking the foundation course, any student who desires to pursue this discipline further, can be sent a six month course online. One lesson is sent every week and one test at the end of every month. I receive a lot of positive feedback from students who take this course also.
What are the locations of your schools?
I teach in hotel conference rooms whenever I travel for workshops. Workshops in New York are held in several locations. The ‘Polished Professional’ one day workshop is often held in the conference room on the job site or if unavailable, I rent space in one of several professional spaces available for workshops in New York.
Questions abound:
Was Mr. Golden using the taxpayer subsidy for this event to help Ms. Morrish attract customers?
Who was paying for the wine and cheese?
Was Ms. Morrish providing her services to Mr. Golden for free as a loss leader, or were we to be paying for them in some manner, either directly or indirectly?
Does Ms. Morrish hold some of her other events at Bay Ridge Manor?
Was Ms. Morrish’s provision of services to Golden for this event (for a possibly discounted fee, or for free) to be exchanged for a discount in what she is charged for holding events at Bay Ridge Manor?
Should taxpayers, in any manner, be forced to subsidize Ms. Morrish’s “ministry”?
Most important of all, is any reporter asking these questions?
Or did the asking of such questions lead to this event’s cancellation?
But even more interesting than the matter of who was paying and being paid for this dubious event (and how) are the values this event reflects, which perfectly so exemplify Mr. Golden. .
Golden is a living anachronism; the perfect Eisenhower Republican.
Actually, that’s unfair to Ike.
With the exception of his ongoing efforts to buy off unions with pension sweeteners, Golden is the perfect Robert Taft Republican.
In 2002, the Senate Republicans created a seat expressly for Mr. Golden, the aim of which was to draw into one place every White Christian in southern Brooklyn.
Draft one of the District was practically Judenfrie.
However, subsequent efforts to successfully buy off Carl Kruger required Golden to take some doses of Sephardim, Russians and Borough Park Haredim, but he still basically got his cartographic atrocity.
What remained of the White Christians of Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bensonhurst and Gravesend was joined to what remained of the White Christians of Marine Park, as well as the isolated shanty anachronism of Gerritsen Beach.
Blacks were carefully avoided, while some low voting Latino and Asian immigrants were permitted entry on a limited basis; Jews were used as filler and connective tissue.
It was almost as close an approximation of 1950s, “Leave it to Beaver”-“Father Knows Best” America as could be found in Brooklyn.
If David Storobin represents the scary young face of the Southern Brooklyn Republican future, Marty Golden represents the friendly old grandfatherly face of its fast dying past.
Bay Ridge, which voted for Barack Obama in 2008, is gentrifying and ethnicizing. Asians (and, to a lesser extent Latinos) are pouring into Dyker Heights, Bensonhurst and Gravesend.
But Marty Golden is so afraid of the new face of Republican Brooklyn that he chose to keep his rapidly dying and sometimes dead White Christian Communities because he’s not very comfortable having too many Jewish constituents.
Given the choice, Golden gave up Republican leaning Russians to the safely Democratic seat of Diane Savino, choosing instead to hang onto a past living on borrowed time.
So, one can see how the Posture and Stair Climbing Exhibition fits so perfectly into the Golden worldview.
It harkens back to a time and place in which Golden felt more comfortable.
A time when America was obsessed with posture.
As Ron Rosenbuam noted, in one of his most famous articles, nude posture photos were taken in the 1940s through the 1970s of all incoming freshmen at certain Ivy League and Seven Sisters colleges, ostensibly to gauge the rate and severity of rickets, scoliosis, and lordosis in the population.
ROSENBAUM: But it was at Wellesley College in the late 1920's that concern about postural correctness metamorphosed into a cottage industry with pretensions to science. The department of hygiene circulated training films about posture measurement to other women's colleges, which took up the practice, as did some "progressive" high schools and elementary schools.
ROSENBAUM: The procedure did seem strange. But I soon learned that it was a long-established custom at most Ivy League and Seven Sisters schools. George Bush, George Pataki, Brandon Tartikoff and Bob Woodward were required to do it at Yale. At Vassar, Meryl Streep; at Mount Holyoke, Wendy Wasserstein; at Wellesley, Hillary Rodham and Diane Sawyer. All of them — whole generations of the cultural elite — were asked to pose. But however much the colleges tried to make this bizarre procedure seem routine, its undeniable strangeness engendered a scurrilous strain of folklore. THE MISMEASURE OF MAN
NORA EPHRON: We were idiots…Idiots!
ROSENBAUM: It didn't occur to me to object: I'd been told that this "posture photo" was a routine feature of freshman orientation week. Those whose pins described a too violent or erratic postural curve were required to attend remedial posture classes.
JUDITH “Miss Manners” MARTIN: Why weren't we more appalled at the time?
ROSENBAUM: It was Naomi Wolf, author of "The Beauty Myth," who opened the Pandora's box of posture-photo controversy. In that book and in a 1992 Op-Ed piece in The Times, Wolf (Yale '84) bitterly attacked Dick Cavett (Yale '55) for a joke he'd made at Wolf's graduation ceremonies. According to Wolf, who'd never had a posture photo taken (the practice was discontinued at Yale in 1968), Cavett took the microphone and told the following anecdote:
"When I was an undergraduate . . . there were no women [ at Yale ] . The women went to Vassar. At Vassar they had nude photographs taken of women in gym class to check their posture. One year the photos were stolen and turned up for sale in New Haven's red-light district." His punchline: "The photos found no buyers."
Wolf was horrified. Cavett, she wrote in her book, "transposed us for a moment out of the gentle quadrangle where we had been led to believe we were cherished, and into the tawdry district four blocks away, where stolen photographs of our naked bodies would find no buyers."
ROSENBAUM: Finally and most telling, I found a letter nearly four decades old that did something nothing else in the files did. It gave a glimpse, a clue to the feelings of the subjects of Sheldon's research, particularly the women….In this letter, an official at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, was responding to Sheldon's request to rephotograph the female freshmen he had photographed the year before. Something had apparently gone wrong with the technical side of the earlier shoot. But the official refused to allow Sheldon to reshoot the women, declaring that "to require them to pose for another [ nude posture photo ] would create insurmountable psychological problems."
Insurmountable psychological problems. Suddenly the subjects of Sheldon's photography leaped into the foreground: the shy girl, the fat girl, the religiously conservative, the victim of inappropriate parental attention. Here, perhaps, Naomi Wolf has a point. In a culture that already encourages women to scrutinize their bodies critically, the first thing that happens to these women when they arrive at college is an intrusive, uncomfortable, public examination of their nude bodies.
ROSENBAUM: THREE MONTHS LATER, I FINALLY SUCCEEDED IN gaining permission to study the elusive posture photos… The contents of the boxes were described in an accompanying "Finder's Aid" in this fashion: BOX 90 YALE UNIVERSITY CLASS OF 1971
Negatives. Full length views of nude freshmen men, front, back and rear. Includes weight, height, previous or maximum weight, with age, name, or initials. BOX 95 MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE PHOTOGRAPHS
Negatives. Made in 1950. Full length views of nude women, front, back and rear. Includes height, weight, date and age. Includes some photographs marked S.P.C…
…In flipping through those thousands of images (which were recently transferred to Smithsonian archives in Suitland, Md.), I found surprising testimony to the "insurmountable psychological problems" that the Denison University official had referred to. It took awhile for the "problems" to become apparent, because, as it turned out, I was not permitted to see positive photographs — only negatives (with no names attached).
A fascinating distinction was being exhibited here, a kind of light-polarity theory of prurience and privacy that absolves the negative image of the naked body of whatever transgressive power it might have in a positive print. There's an intuitive logic to the theory, although here the Sheldon posture-photo phenomenon exposes how fragile are the distinctions we make between the sanctioned and the forbidden images of the body.
As I thumbed rapidly through box after box to confirm that the entries described in the Finder's Aid were actually there, I tried to glance at only the faces. It was a decision that paid off, because it was in them that a crucial difference between the men and the women revealed itself.
For the most part, the men looked diffident, oblivious. That's not surprising considering that men of that era were accustomed to undressing for draft physicals and athletic-squad weigh-ins.
But the faces of the women were another story. I was surprised at how many looked deeply unhappy, as if pained at being subjected to this procedure. On the faces of quite a few I saw what looked like grimaces, reflecting pronounced discomfort, perhaps even anger.
Why do I draw this analogy?
Golden apparently believes he is schooling young ladies in how to succeed in business.
“In these economic times, when so many people are out of work, and graduating with advanced degrees to set themselves apart in the workplace, events such as these are also important,” said his spokesman “Senator Golden hosts a multitude of events annually, and this is our first event of this kind, and we hope it to be successful and benefit those who attend.”
But Golden is really trying to school young ladies in their own objectification.
I realize Ms. Morrish and her audience were probably to remain fully clothed, but really, when you come down to it, are not classes in “Women who walk from their power center,” “The art of feminine presence,” “Si[ting]t, stand[ing] and walk[ing] like a model” and “ Walk[ing] up and down a stair elegantly” just another message to young women "transposing them for a moment out of the gentle quadrangle where they had been led to believe they were cherished, and into the tawdry district four blocks away, where without lesson in proper posture their resumes would find no buyers."?
Aren’t events like these fuel for “Insurmountable psychological problems for the foreground: the shy girl and the fat girl?
In a culture that already encourages women to scrutinize their bodies critically, should taxpayers be subsidizing the reinforcement of such a mindset?
Should not our proper response be grimaces, reflecting pronounced discomfort, perhaps even anger?
I think the problem is that Golden’s District has changed, but Albany has not.
Objectification of women is still very 21st Century in the land of the Bear Mountain Compact.
Perhaps Mr. Golden should instead put together a Albany Posture Fashion Show (talk about “Leave it to Beaver”) for the male members (perhaps not the best choice of words) of his conference or find less offensive ways of wasting the taxpayers’ money.
Those who would expect the conservative philosophy of State Senate Republicans to make them less inclined to waste money misunderstand Republican ideology; because Republicans consider all government programs a waste of money, it’s far easier for them to shrug their shoulders, smile and treat the budget like a week-end in Vegas (“What does it matter what we waste our money on? The important thing is to have fun wasting it”).
Thus, the Senate Republican bottom line has always been to get the same amount added to the budget as is added by Assembly Democrats (“Why should those humps get more?”) and using it on prisons (which are seen upstate as a jobs program), school aid (not to improve the schools, but as a form of property tax relief) and, using whatever's leftover (a lot) for member items (“Because, now that we got this money, we’ve got to spend in on something, and on what better than our re-elections?”).
Which is why this now cancelled event was really the perfect Golden storm; a veritable Golden shower upon the taxpayers’ wallets and human decency itself.