Hi Guys,
Sorry, I hit Publish meaning to hit Preview before finishing up.
I was working on a post I was going to post this past weekend and then Trump signed his executive order banning Muslims from seven countries and the more I thought about this, the more I felt I needed to respond. Let me start I did not vote for Trump, nor did I support Clinton. I didn’t like Trump’s racist and inflammatory statements. I never considered him very smart. He won the election legally and I was resigned to accept him.
I agree with a lot of what he says, government is way too big and unyielding and needs to be downsized. I think we need increased homeland security. I was hoping he would surround himself with intelligent advisors that could influence a rational decisions instead of all of his unsubstantiated stances during his campaign.
What was one of the first controversies of his administration? The candidate with “small hands” 🙂 became president and was upset with the reported size of the crowd at his inauguration. Typical, he claimed it was the largest crowd ever at an inauguration. When people disagreed with him, and showed pictures of his crowd compared to President Obama’s first and second inaugurations, he claimed it was the angle of the photograph. When they showed aerial photographs of the inaugurations, he then claimed it was the white covering the Park Service put down to protect the grass. He then said it was the first time they put the white covering down. When the news media produced photos from both President Obama’s inaugurations showing white ground covers, he never backed down. I don’t recall if it was one of his major spokespersons Kellyanne Conway or press secretary Spicer that dismissed the discrepancy as an alternative opinion. I’m not interested in a president that lives in an alternative reality. They never addressed the information retrieved from Washington’s Metro system for the 2017 inaugaration of 193,000. At President Obama’s first inauguration had 513,000 Metro riders by 11 am, at President Obama’s second inauguration there was 317,000 riders by 11 am. Even President Bush’s second inauguration there was 197,000 by 11 am. Maybe a couple thousand of Trump’s attendees all arrived by limousine? 🙂
Trump’s press secretary Spicer said the murder in Quebec was why Trump instituted the Muslim ban, did Spicer fail to notice it was a white guy that murdered Muslims?
Trump announced his ban on immigration from the seven Muslim countries on Friday. I didn’t like it, first of all, I like diversity. It didn’t seem right and after all the uproar over the weekend I learned how poorly thought out this executive order was. What about residents with green cards? And others already vetted? Possibly the worst part are the people in those countries that have risked their lives and the lives of their families to assist our war effort as translators, drivers, etc. that were offered visas to enter our country for their service. This is something I have been watching a good bit lately. There’s been a number of service members going to bat for Iraqis that they worked with trying to get their visa. Like Ali & Karim. In 2008 Congress enacted a special visa program for these locals that assisted our efforts because of the severe threat to them for assisting the American.
This is my biggest fear of Trump, emotional, non thought out actions. A good thing I’m seeing is when Trump does one of his faux pas and the media responds, there’s a major up tick. After reporting one of Trump’s faux pas the New York Times got their biggest subscription increase in years as did another main stream media publication. Since Friday, the ACLU has had more people sign up with them as well. I love the response by so many Americans taking to the airports and elsewhere expressing support for our fellow humans the Muslims.
I’m not particularly friendly when outside, I pretty much mind my own business, like when I take da kidz for their walks. But since this divisive presidential campaign, I have made a concerted effort to speak to people that look different than I do. Please join me, maybe even come up with some snappy moniker and hash tag. Start a movement like Give Peace a Chance, Just Say No, Black Lives Matter, etc.
To end this post on a more positive note:
I went over to visit my neighbors Paula and Lenny last night. Paula complained about Ester. They have two outdoor cats and leave the outer front door open so the cats have some shelter. That’s where they feed and leave water for the cats. Paula went out one evening to check on the cats, Missy the submissive female was just sitting there watching Ester eat the cat food, even Timothy Socks, the aggressive male was just watching. Paula recognized my fat girl (not Rayzette, but Ester my other fat girl). Speaking of fat girls, I took Rayzette down to the Humane Society to weigh her. The diet is helping, she’s dropped from 93# to 92.6#. We obviously have some work to do yet.
Nice things happening in the neighborhood. In addition to both halves of the duplex across the street having new owners and are in the process of being remodeled. Arlen moved City Books from Southside right down the street to Galveston and is doing well there, at least with me. I get all my books there. They are finishing up with the artist’s studio in the old Bey Flower Shop, my side of the street just past Carmi. Some developer bought both the Shamrock (nuisance bar) four doors down from me and Duke’s, a quiet bar around the corner on Allegheny. The down side is I will be loosing Carmi, the best soul food in the city. I hear Carlene & Mike have lined up a new location. I looked at Duke’s with Jeff from Peppi’s thinking of maybe doing a joint effort there. I don’t recall what he was asking for it, but it was a great deal. It included the liquor and restaurant licenses and 5 apartments upstairs. Everything was pretty rough, but the five apartments upstairs were basically just rooms for rent. If you combined and remodeled them you could easily get 2 -3 decent apartments and local rents are running around $1,000/month. So $2,000 to $3,000 monthly income could really help cover the mortgage and renovations. Duke’s is not in Allegheny West, it’s in Manchester. Allegheny West has Benjamins & the Modern Cafe as local watering holes. The Mexican War Streets has the Monterrey Pub as their local stop. Manchester does not have a local watering hole. So if they do a decent job, they have a lot of potential. Duke’s doesn’t need to be a gut job, there’s some cute things they could keep and mainly open it up a bit (for one thing I would do is un-brick the curved windows to let some good light in.
Speaking of food and books, City of Asylum (whom I love) just opened their restaurant Casellua. It’s a wine, cheese and small plates style.
Also, Pittsburgh is joining the latest craze food halls. The new owners of Oxford Centre are getting ready to open Oxford Market. Food Halls are like food courts in malls, but definitely upscale from the fast food malls have. They will be similar to Smallman Galley in the Strip, but much bigger. The concept started in San Fransisco with the Ferry Building and moved to NYC and other major cities. There’s close to 100 food halls, I spoke about the trend about a year ago. If you missed or forgot that post, the Post Gazette article I linked Oxford Market does a nice job of explaining the trend.
That it for today,
ed
