Not bad for an easy afternoon’s work

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Sotheby’s pieter-luuk and assistant daphne looking pleased

In a deal brokered by Daphne-Lamsvelt Pol and Rob Johnson, 24 Rock Ridge closed in a non-MLS sale on the 25th for $21 million. Built in 2015 by Doran Sabbag/Jim Hoffman of Sound Beach Partners Homes (SBPHomes), it sold that year for $13 million, so some decent appreciation here. Unfounded rumors have it that Daphne, having closed $450 million in deals the past 12 months, personally purchased this as a downsizer, but then again, Rob’s been selling up a storm as well, so perhaps they went halfsies; certainly there’s room enough for two families, if our zoning board will allow it.

Here’s a bit more detail from the 2015 listing:

Just on the cusp of famine, white truffles, leeks, and La Bonnotte potatoes are coming to the Back Country (Updated)

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Hooray!

Plans have been filed by the nonprofit Food Shed Network to open a weekly distribution site at the parking lot of the North Greenwich Congregational Church, for customers to purchase food grown in Connecticut. Subscribers of the network would pick up produce orders once a week, and some of the food would also go to local food banks.

The initiative, according to Rev. Karen Halac in the submission letter to the town planning department, would be a benefit to needy families in the region. She said the initiative would "bring farm fresh local foods directly to Greenwich families, with the agreement that any surplus produce (not collected by subscribers) will be donated to Neighbor to Neighbor, to the Food Bank of Lower Fairfield and/or to other food security organizations for the purpose of supplementing shelf-stable food donations with farm fresh produce for food-insecure families."

According to the narrative from the Food Shed Network and founder Ali Ghiorse, "Foodshed CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Greenwich is an emerging program of the Foodshed Network that provides all Greenwich residents, regardless of income, with nutrient dense food from the Northwest Connecticut Food Hub in Litchfield County, while creating a viable market for Connecticut farmers."

UPDATE: Not only will this generous gesture of noblesse oblige allow Alonzo and his new friends from Venezuela an opportunity and invitation to head north of the Merritt to assess homes and Lamborghinis worth revisiting on a moonless night, reader Ct Tempest provides this extra bit of color:

Was BSD being too tough on some community gardeners? Skepticism does seem merited.

From organization's website:
https://thefoodshednetwork.org/mission

>>>>
The industrial food system shapes the world we live in. Although food nourishes and fosters life, the system in which it is cultivated is fraught with deeply rooted practices of exploitation, beginning with the enslavement of Africans, the genocide of Indigenous Peoples, and extraction of soil, watersheds, and natural & social ecosystems.

Consequently, this colonized food system is a leading cause of racial inequity, diet related diseases, economic disparities, biodiversity loss, water pollution and depletion, soil erosion and climate change. It is designed to feed corporate profits, instead of the community culture it is meant to nourish and sustain while rural and urban food economies suffer from what has become a transactional exchange rather than transparent exchange, dependent on trusted relationships.

Our social and ecological systems can no longer withstand the industrial systems impact and therefore must be transformed so that people and the earth can thrive.
>>>>>

Round Hill Club Road sale price reported

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All relevant information and pictures of 29 Round Hill Club Road have been pulled from the internet, but we’ve written about it often enough that you should have the general idea. Anyway, it closed today at $14 million on an initial asking price of $17.450. That’s a far better performance that the last time it was on the market: purchased for $16.250 million in 2008, those buyers tried fruitlessly to sell it for six years, beginning at $18 milion in 2013, and finally relinquishing it to these sellers in 2019 for $9.3. So it still isn’t back to that 2008 price, but it didn’t need to be for this to be a profitable sale.

Devastating news for the Fountain Boyz; the man permanently warped our humor at an early age, and made us the cruel, horrible characters we are today (Updated)

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Tom Lehrer, Musical Satirist With a Dark Streak, Dies at 97

July 27, 2025, 12:53 p.m. ET

Tom Lehrer, the Harvard-trained mathematician whose wickedly iconoclastic songs made him a favorite satirist in the 1950s and ’60s on college campuses and in all the Greenwich Villages of the country, died on Saturday at his home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 97. 

His death was confirmed by David Herder, a friend.

Mr. Lehrer’s lyrics were nimble, sometimes salacious and almost always sardonic, sung to music that tended to be maddeningly cheerful. Accompanying himself on piano, he performed in nightclubs, in concert and on records that his admirers purchased, originally by mail order only, in the hundreds of thousands.

But his entertainment career ultimately took a back seat to academia. In his heart he never quit his day job; he just took a few sabbaticals.

He stopped performing in 1960 after only a few years, resumed briefly in 1965 and then stopped for good in 1967. His music was ultimately just a momentary detour in an academic career that included teaching posts at Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, and even a stint with the Atomic Energy Commission.

Mr. Lehrer’s songwriting output was modest, but it was darkly memorable. In the tasteless world he evoked, a seemingly harmless geezer turned out to be “The Old Dope Peddler” and spring was the time for “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.”

In “The Masochism Tango,” which the sheet music instructed should be played “painstakingly,” he warbled, “You can raise welts/Like nobody else.” In “Be Prepared,” his “Boy Scout marching song,” he admonished, “Don’t solicit for your sister, that’s not nice/Unless you get a good percentage of her price.”

And another favorite:

The Democrats find a new way to appeal to young male voters; or appall them, whatever

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‘Dumbest Thing I’ve Ever Seen’: Democrats Asking Crowd To Throw ‘Balls Of Yarn’

Youth-driven advocacy organization Voters of Tomorrow held their 2025 summit on Friday, with lawmakers like Democrat Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and Democrat California Rep. Ro Khanna speaking as guests. While discussing the Democrats’ push to motivate voters ahead of the midterms, Ingraham played a clip showing two women standing at a podium while someone said that if supporters liked “bonding” and “throwing yarn,” they should head for the breakout session.

In the clip played by Fox News, an announcer was heard instructing those who liked to “throw balls of yarn” to head to the “back” of the room, adding, “if you don’t want to throw balls of yarn and bond, that’s OK.” 

(Video at the link, but here’s another one that sums it up just as well)

Or if self-deportation is too difficult, Homeland Security will cheerfully offer assistance

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Mind you, not everyone is on board with this option. Here’s a chubby-wubby former coffee dispenser complaining that we’re “ripping away law-abiding dutiful undocumented people from their country!” Their country? I don’t think so, dear; not yet, and let’s hope never.

Let's subsidize their self-deportation to Gaza

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The husband beating his wife should be like a guy beating his sweetheart"

Muslim Doctor Defends Wife-Beating, Advises Husbands to Avoid Serious Injury, Calls It 'Therapeutic'

In a disturbing interview, a doctor at Gaza’s Islamic University openly instructs Palestinian husbands that they are obligated to beat their wives—but only in a way that avoids breaking bones or damaging vital organs. His justification? That “wife-beating should be therapeutic, not vindictive.” 

"The purpose of wife beating is to warn the wife that the life of the family is in danger and that the marital relations are in danger," the doctor said. "She needs to be cautious and not let the family be destroyed." 

He clarified that the beating should be symbolic yet real, with specific conditions and guidelines to follow. According to him, the aim of a husband beating his wife is not to seek revenge or cause harm, but rather to correct her behavior and safeguard the family. He emphasized that husbands should avoid striking women in sensitive areas like the face or vital organs. The beating, he insisted, should not be severe or motivated by malice.

"The husband beating his wife should be like a guy beating his sweetheart," he said, referring to the saying "The beloved's first is as sweet as raisins." 

"It's like when a father beats his son or when a mother beats her daughter for doing something wrong," he continued, arguing that the beating should be "therapeutic" to correct one's wife. 

International Women's Day protest for Gaza held in Washington

And of course …

The good news is that we've already made a start; the bad news, for her, is that we've started with Iran

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Ilhan Omar supports H.R.2419, the Nuclear Abolition and Economic Conversion Act of 2019.

H.R.2419 calls for the elimination of all nuclear weapons – as does the ICAN Pledge!

Gotta love this part: we’ll reducate nuclear scientists and pout them to work in other fields, like building bridges and “vibrant, fair, and equitable communities”. Uh huh

Nuclear weapons are taking billions of dollars and some of our best scientists and engineers away from much more important and urgent priorities, like addressing the climate crisis, preventing future pandemics, fixing our crumbling infrastructure, and building vibrant, fair and equitable communities. Ilhan Omar can help get rid of these weapons and shift our national priorities to where they are needed.