Mt Kisco Slideshow 3

MtKisco - Kizoa Online Movie Maker

A Liberal Rationalizing the Horror of a Trump Presidency, There might be some Positives

The Sadness of a Trump Presidency

might not be All bad

As the possibility of Donald Trump becoming president has become more of a reality, horror best describes my fears. That said, one must prepare for the worst, and in attempting to placate myself, I’ve found areas where we might actually like having his name plastered on the Washington Monument.

But if it bleeds it leads. Donald Trump on the world stage would terrify me.  Speaking loudly and wielding a big stick, see George W. Bush for details, but his missteps could be catastrophic.

I can only imagine him trying to angle Vladimir Putin out of the Ukraine like he’s some slum lord from Brooklyn. Itchy nuclear trigger fingers aplenty in the wake of Trump’s abrasive style and we could all be fired.

If you can get past the prospects of a nuclear winter, let me make a circular argument around the xenophobic rhetoric that is so disturbing.

I’ll use the expelled Muslim woman from his recent rally. I don’t have a problem with her exit, because the Secret Service looks for anyone doing something out of the ordinary. So a women standing silently in protest among the revelry probably counts.

The concern is the racist reaction to the people around her. As many have said, Trump’s success reveals the ugly underbelly of our society.

Despicable that he would demagogue his way to the top in that regard, I’m going to hope this isn’t the true Donald Trump. Mark Cuban has my back. “The Donald Trump who’s running for President is not the Donald Trump I know,” he stated flatly on Larry Wilmore’s show

So I’m going to extrapolate Trump’s version of the post primary Republican run back from the edges.  “All that building a wall stuff and banning Muslims from entering the country – I’m voicing your frustrations. I mean, do you really think I could get this country to build a 2000 mile long wall, and then get Mexico to pay for it. I’m good, but I’m not that good. It’s time to try to accept our differences and not give in to fear. We also have to begin discussing pragmatic solutions that don’t take into account the box our politicians are in, and all the special interests they are beholden to.”

Now we’re talkin (or getting delusional).  Could it be possible that just by empathizing, Donald Trump has accrued enough allegiance to the racist element of the Republican base that they would be open to suspending their irrationality in favor of real solutions on immigration.

He might even be able to convince them that giving a bit on the border would throw an entire population up for grabs in future elections – rather than being solidly Democratic.

As for his Middle East musings, his constituency probably can’t be reached.

You can’t have it all, but being on the outside in terms of the economy could be quite intriguing. Of course, among the banking and Wall Street class that always has its way and sends us periodically into chaos, he’s not financially beholden to them. Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton can’t make that claim and sending a few of them off to jail with any malfeasance might keep them all in line.  

Who knows it might set a precedence that extends beyond his term.

Trump is also from New York. A place that science has infiltrated, he knows global climate change is an issue. So while his business inclinations could deter his policy, rationality might trump the politics of stupidity that Republicans count on in this area.

At the same time, setting a sustainable course could be Trump’s version of only Nixon could go to China.  His constituency at stake of being softened, the idea of encasing policy in accordance of a new sustainable economy might now make sense since he’s doing the talking.    

A New York application to second amendment irrationality might also see progress. His urban upbringing, you really think he cares about hunting squirrels in Central Park?  He’s talking irrationality now, but he understands common sense. 

Probably not strong enough to take on NRA either, Trump’s support may lay wait, and with an obstinate constituency willing to listen, you never know.

If this has earned my unfriending, I hope my upcoming vote for Bernie Sanders changes your mind.

Yonkers Slideshow #2

yonkers - Kizoa Online Movie Maker

From MKCCC - Happy Birthday Twink

Dave's Place - Seemingly out of Place - on West 42nd Street and 9th is Definitely Down to Earth

Plattsburgh should try Dave's Place

I went to college in Plattsburgh, New York – the North Country. Every weekend the downtown bars were mobbed with college students drinking one dollar beers and doing what they do. Scattered along side, "townies" tried to pass themselves off as us. It was always an uneasy piece, as it probably is in many places across the country. But if you really wanted to get a taste and put aside this youthful air of undeserved superiority that we haughtily wore among our community hosts – "The Royal" was the place to go. That said, we from our pretentious suburban, urban and middle class perches have all given these places a go. And while we hope our arrogance is forgiven, we are all the better for rising to the level of the down to earth people that are always encountered. I recently found a bar such as this in the unlikeliest place – West 42^nd and 9^th avenue in Manhattan.

Tucked up in next to the Port Authority, it’s called unassumingly enough, "Dave’s Place." In defiance of the space-time continuum surrounding New York City’s worldly galaxy, the dimensional plane that is broken upon crossing the sidewalk's threshold is like wedding a time warp to a parallel universe.

Drawn in, the dinginess is endeared by a bar surface that makes no pretense over its two sole purposes – separate the drinkers from the drinks and giving the beverages a places to rest before they are either consumed or spilled.

Doing the honors, the patrons seem as if a worm whole was the conduit for their arrival or some variable left unknown to the workings of Quantum Physics. Definitely working class, they beamed in from – I don’t know – a General Motors factory in decline, an upstate community that subsists off the prison industrial complex or the loading docks of Baltimore.

Anywhere but the heart of New York City, and the steam let off is that of collective working class exhale that breathes life into the revelry. In turn, the joy is simply contagious, and I couldn’t help raising my $4 Narragansett in hopes of acceptance.

Seamlessly welcomed, what struck me as “parallel” was the diversity of the bar’s make up. They say in the South that poor working class blacks and whites should be aligned economically and politically. But the racial propaganda of the Republican party acts to alienate poor whites from their African-American brethren. Here, the people are not falling for that.

Black, White, Latin – any differences fall in favor of the collective joy and pain. As such, the crowd sort of dances around the ethnic differences and make it part of seeing each other as the same. The humorous banter - a byproduct that is almost as uplifting as the beverages.

Then, there’s the bartenders.  Dressed in leather bikers tops and tight jeans that leave an alluring mid drift gap in between, they also seem adjoined to a place nowhere in proximity to the nearby USS Intrepid. Flirty and playfully condescending to dudes who know they have no shot, these two exceedingly attractive women give off a similar air of being out of their league - only the neighborhood surroundings are the sport in question. 

In other words, they are like the college townie trying to lore a Phi Beta Kappa or Air force Pilot who can rescue her from their backwoods town. Only here, it’s the businessman who might wander in off 8^th Avenue. In all likelihood, it's more that they have the same dignity that their customers possess and are content to stick to the grounded aspirations that enough West Side dwellers fail to achieve.

Either way, it all seems unreal and had me in a state of awe inspiring bewilderment. I just can’t wait to take my buddies from Plattsburgh here – if Dave will have us.

Yonkers Kimball Avenue

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Class of 1980 8th grade trip to Washington

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