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I still believe, because of the timing, Trump could be one of America’s greatest Presidents if he’d make a few radical changes to his personality and agendas…
Trump can give America a great future with a wave of his hand.
Trump’s so close and he’s been given so much, not just from his dad who left him a fortune but by fate. The hand this current President has been dealt is loaded with trump cards, and all because of the calendar’s date. The time for huge upheaval, a powerful surge of change is at hand in America and the World. Trump holds all the cards to win these times over if he makes the right play.
In nineteen twenty, no one could see the horse and buggy days vanishing by nineteen thirty-two. There were a few companies working on cars back then, even earlier—Studebaker developed an electric car in 1902
1902 electric car
and then a gasoline powered car in 1904—
1905 Studebaker gas powered car
but, basically buggies made fortunes and most believed horses were here to stay. Oh my, how the world had changed nineteen years later.
But what about now? Proponents of renewable energies clamor on about climate change, pollution and the urgent need for change if we are to save our future. The old guard of gas, oil and coal remain dug in, entrenched and supported by fortunes earned in the past, and point to a need for newer technologies before renewable energies can provide the world’s need for power. Most say it will be thirty years or longer before the renewable industry can compete with fossil fuels and make a dent in the power market.
Think back to the Nineteen twenties…..
Here’s the key to now: http://safeshare.tv/w/ntjwDrwEwh
As you see in this short two minute clip, knowledge is not increasing in a linear, even pace that can be charted or tied to any speed. No, we live in exponentially growing times of size, number, knowledge and possibility. Our time, Trump’s time, can best be thought of as a rocket ship that zooms to an unknown place with ever-increasing speed.
Get ready for the ride of our lives!
Just now, Las Vegas has gone to 100% renewable energy for the entire city-the result of a ten-year long renewable energy project. Some trains now run virtually energy free while transporting six-hundred thousand workers per day! * Even smaller, individual renewables are making developmental leaps. **Today, more people work in renewable energy than those who work in coal, gas and oil production and exploration combined!
Trump looks to fossil fuels as our answer but it’s not. And as President, Trump has the power, the gift, to be the one who moves America as if by a flip of a coin into a bright future, to jobs, huge prosperity, abundance, leadership and a brand new world. Drilling, mining, fracking, dirty pipe lines that bust, these are the horse and buggy of our day; Trump’s day,*** but he can change this.
The reins of huge change are in Trump’s hands if he’ll only take them. Come on Trump; you know what you should be grabbing. The chance to make history is before you but you have to step up.
Trump’s on the wrong side of so many things like the Paris Climate accord and a wall that won’t work unless we post large signs on it that read, “No ladders or tunnels allowed.” BTW, 70% of all illegals got into America by plane…he’s also completely off on ‘Clean Coal’, that the oxymoron of the ages.****
And then, there’s the problem of ISIL. Trump’s right that the world has to do better at vetting immigrants and protecting our populations from random violence. How to do it; that’s another tipping point of history now.
CNN said it best today: “So, the state visit will go ahead, and there will be protests. But if Trump could only get off Twitter for five minutes and focus on the essentials of the Western alliance, he’d discover that Europe is edging closer to his way of thinking on the most important issue of our time. (ISIL)There is, increasingly, more agreement between us than disagreement.”
There you have it. Trump has to cut his losses, time spent on bad ideas, and grab the future as it’s truly unfolding, not just the way he wants it to go. Trump sits on a gold mine of Time.
Someone should tell him.
Who will tell him?
Franque23
*https://www.facebook.com/DavidAvocadoWolfe/videos/10154211237456512/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED
**https://www.smartflower.com/en
***America’s three largest producers of power from fossil fuels all sold their entire interests in Alberta’s shale fields back to Canada just this year…They see the renewable’s coming.
**** Just read that President Trump mused about lining his great wall with solar panels.
Trouble is, the resistance and supporters of the Paris Accord didn’t define the terms of this debate. No, once again out worked and out maneuvered, sympathizers for the World’s climate were tangled and shackled into a debate about Climate Change.
We didn’t ask the right question.*
—this isn’t about whether or not climate change is real-or, it shouldn’t be—the issue surrounding the Paris Accord is do we want to limit toxic emissions or not, period.
Flowers or coal; smelling burning coal or flowers?**
The question is: how can limiting toxic emissions hurt? Some huge companies say limiting their emissions will not hurt their business or profit line. This should’ve been the arena for the debate about whether or not the U.S. should pull out of the Paris Accord…not a discussion about climate change.
We have to better chose what fish to fry.***
Trump has disgraced us all… I ask you, even if our emissions has nothing to do with climate change, even if Climate change isn’t real, how can it hurt to decrease our toxic emissions for our generation and for those that will follow?
I’ve and idea! How about asking the right question?
How can it hurt to reduce our toxic emissions? Big Business say’s it won’t hurt them, so what’s the deal?
Again,this issue isn’t about climate change, whether it’s real or not, it’s about wanting to reduce our toxic emissions. The debate about whether climate change is real or not is just a distraction from the World’s need to reduce our carbon footprint to help our environment, to clean up our air and water.
But, see, even today, the reports are aghast that Trump’s decisions will have a drastic effect on Climate change. Forget that; Climate change is too large of an unknown regardless of the scientific community’s nearly 100 % AGREEMENT ON THE ISSUE. No, Trump’s decision means this: we all will be breathing air and drinking water that is less pure than it could be.
Who wants to vote for polluted air and water? That arena of questions was winnable, but that stage was never set. Why?
Let’s put two and two together and come up with an answer that’s good ‘four’ all of us!****
Robert Reich said it best:
“A short message to the rest of the world:
We apologize. We understand our responsibilities as human beings who share this planet with you. This is temporary. Donald Trump doesn’t reflect the views of most Americans. Most of us didn’t even vote for him. We are doing everything we possibly can to remove him from office as soon as legally possible. And when we do, America will once again be a responsible nation.”
Can’t wait. It’s sorta like having to wait for Christmas.
There’s a red line we don’t want to cross when it comes to Climate change, but many don’t believe this is true. So how’s about’s we just talk turkey-do we want what we might eat to be fed clean food and pure water or not?*****
Cheers
Like this crap falls on the ground, the trees, on our gardens and on us!
Duck and cover, but take time to smell the flowers.
Such beautiful life comes forth from our Mother Earth.
It’s about every crop….%
what we eat-that’s part of what the Paris Accord is really about…
and it’s about life as we know it.
Franque23
Where did the real discussion about the Pairs Accord go?^
- My daughter sitting on top of a Himalayan peak.
- our front yard
- Dad and me fishin’
- our pineapples
- Lake Bonaparte
- Family
- Me at the lake… bye
He is. Pence is waiting in the wings of the White House for his opportunity to pence, I mean pounce. And I have to wonder, how bad it is for him to have waited over these 150 days for Trump to Self-destruct?
Here’s the deal. When Trump asked Pence and Sessions to leave the Oval Office so Trump could lean on Comey, they both had to know that Trump was in the process of hanging himself. They ‘re not new to the game of lying politics, and they knew messing with the head of the FBI was a wrong way turn into a political dead-end. Did they try to help Trump at the time? No, they moseyed out the door and counted their blessings.
These are things to think about.
Who’s doing the leaking from the White House? The old saying is: follow the money. In this case it would follow the office of the Presidency. Who’s next in line to take the spot should Trump fail, be found out, up rooted and cast aside? Pence.
Pence is waiting.
It all got me thinking. How many knew what (T)rump said to the Russian Ambassadors in the Oval Office? Unless there’s a tap in the room-one you’d think(hope) the secret service would detect- then , as I get it, only Sessions, Trump and Pence might have been told…plus anyone the three might be taking to bed with dirty secrets. Who else could know?
Who’s really connected to the web of Politics?
Yes, the leaker Trump is so eager to unearth may be Pence. But there’s another more disturbing possibility.
The leaker could be Trump.
Yes, no joke, he’s called into talk shows as some other person complaining about this or that in the past, He has a propensity to pretend he’s someone else. How better to keep stirring a pot he hopes will spill over and dismantle our government? All the while, he stays in the spot light! “There’s a leaker, a leaker and I’m gonna find out who it is!” Bull crap, Trump, it’s you. You are the leaker.
“I will not cut Social Security.” Trump on the campaign trail.
Bannon’s goal is to undo America as we know it, and Trump’s taken him to his chest. There’s no reason for any sane person to believe Bannon’s agenda isn’t Trump’s, and the best way to discredit the very presence of secrecy and efficiency of our system is to expose the White House to leaks. Make everything unreliable, not trustworthy or worth keeping. We so have to be vigilant; much smarter than Trump to keep America safe.
Okay, yes, most likely Trump isn’t the leaker but it could be, or it could be Pence.
What a rotten group.
Devos, cutting public education by 9.3 million dollars, how crase can one person be?
Bottom line: I’ve had enough of this idiot President-so has all of Europe. They laugh in his face and at the stupid tug at war he plays with his hand shakes, and at his wildly incoherent lack of knowledge about the world, history and power.
Germany warns the rest of Europe that their country can’t count on us and the other countries can’t either. When will the Republicans show some guts and save us from this lunatic???
Donald Trump, you can finger all the European Presidents you like but by God, we, the American people, will get rid of you.( You stupid, stupid boy, Donald-what an embarrassment you are to the proud United states of America.)
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029128004
There are more court filings against this flim-flam shyster Trump than anyone can shake a stick at… and one of them, maybe many, will bring this disastrous traitor of a President to his knees. God pays attention and so must we.
It’s our duty to keep America strong, not stupid. Donald, we will get you.
Franque23
It’s that wink of a second in a slip, the moment just before smacking the ground when it all comes back. Yes, those wrong way turns taken so enthusiastically and the too many times pee laughed into my pants, those drinks poured left on the counter by two beers already opened, those broken romances that fractured the same way with a screw you suck-head let’s be friends and the pets who were out for food or thinking of me as food all come zinging back.
It’s all so simple.
It’s in the shape of a shadow when the montage of my trophies, good grades, degrees, parking citations, accidents, lawyer bills and self-written Dear John letters left in dusty closets merge the past and present to unravel through the unknown as History zooms ahead.
If I’d seen that slip coming I’d have laid down first. Thing is, I’d end up on the ground anyway, right? Good intentions have blown up roads.
How nice that guy who got hit by an apple figured out why his head hurt; deduction is a beautiful thing. But what about why falling down is a snap of a fact while getting up takes about sixteen months in the beginning and then becomes impossible near the end of this zillion-ring circus called life? Thing is, the circle of life may be round but it’s hard to find its fair side. Ask the Syrian refugees about fairness.
They say the good die young.
Can the Earth slip?
When we look up, are we?
How can we feel a sense of alarm when these are in clocks, not heads?
A few years back—the timeline’s history so who cares—some guys decided that Europe and North America were on top of a thing that was round, not flat. Maybe, they figured if we were on the bottom of the ball we’d fall off like nothing else did. That logic, along with a cocktail of mistaken thoughts made in history by names no one can spell is the basis of life as we know it, and maybe why so much has slipped.
Is the point to this traffic jammed up madhouse called life killing? There are 135 events in the Old Testament that attribute men’s deaths to the acts of God. The total estimated dead in the events ranges from 2.5 million to 25 million people. The difference in the figures is keyed around, ‘men’s deaths.’ The larger number includes the estimated women and children killed in the total. No matter, the end result of this deluge of death is a world full of people who rush into buildings to break their knee caps kneeling, or their backs bowing, or bang their heads against walls to experience worship.
I think Sodom and Gomorrah’s fate and human history leads as example here: hate something, then go bomb the piss out of it and wait for the survivors to build you temples. So here’s a concrete point before I hit the pavement writing. Does dropping the ‘mother of all bombs,’ the bigly, the huge, the best and big daddy of bombs(MOAB) mean we can expect Isis, yousis, mesis or any ,’sis,’ to come around and start paying us money and respect with prayer? And the answer is?
This may not be an exact quote.
I read the bigly bomb cost $170,000 to make. We killed like 90 guys. What about using those navy seal fellas that use one hundred-dollar bullets and shoot real targets instead? Well, our soldiers cost about a half a million each to train, deliver and keep overseas. It turns out using nukes is the biggest bang for the buck warfare!
We can only hope and pray to survive, come out ahead, the winners, like soldiers on every side hope. For sure, hitting the proverbial bottom hurts. Life has no trampoline and, dang it, if it doesn’t feel like America is somehow slipping right before my eyes. Do we make sense anymore?
See? I have questions and wonder if what goes around comes around, when’s an age of reason coming back?!?!
Some of this sounds familiar…
Whoops!
Ouch! Yeah—this slip trumps them all.
Franque23
In the middle of so much 89 days after Trump’s election, in the middle of escalating nuclear war threats from North Korea, from China explaining to Trump what China’s relationship to North Korea may be, from a half a million marching women wearing pussy hats, from illegal executive orders U.S. courts scoffed at and dismissed, from in between the lines of Trump’s taxes he won’t show, from Trump’s 18th green 18 times since Jan. 1st 2017 at the cost of approx. $3,470,000 in cold hard tax payer’s cash, from the NYC penthouse where Trump’s wife hides from him for a cool million of tax money per month, it’s all so easy to see why American’s were so upset when it came to President Obama.
President Obama was successful, strategic, effective, straight forward, correct, a visionary the world respected and Black. What could be worse?
Look closely and you’ll see that Obama’s black.
Recently, it was reported that statistics show the number one issue voters considered when voting for Trump was his lack of blackness*..Here’s some true alternative and factual facts:
“The ANES has been conducted since 1948…..This incredibly rich, publicly funded data source allows us to put elections into historical perspective, examining how much each factor affected the vote in 2016 compared with other recent elections.”
AND…
“Since 1988, we’ve never seen such a clear correspondence between vote choice and racial perceptions.”
AND…
“Racial attitudes made a bigger difference in electing Trump than authoritarianism.”
Trump’s a visionary in Superman’s Bizarro World. He’s all about clean coal, can’t wait for Melania to take a bath in it, and three major International Oil companies showed their support of this idea by selling all of their oil rich shale holdings in Canada back to that country just this week! It’s simple: the entire world, including oil companies, are going to Solar and renewable energy so Trump is backing never-gonna-happen clean coal.
In the mixed-up world of I-can-only-tell-a-lie good ol’ honest Abe cheating at golf **Trump finds the more BS he spews and bombs he orders to drop the better his supporters like him!
(Psst…..I find the caption a bit crass.)
Actually Trump is up to 18 golfing outings by day 89 of his Presidency…nice….
But, to be clear, to take the Trump high road, to not talk disparagingly about this President, and I refuse to repeat those who call him a loser of a nit-wit man, let’s take a hard look at all those issues President Obama had—he’s BLACK, BTW—that rushed this Trump guy, one others have called a grabbing, flim-flam, look at me go(if only), nut-case jerk of a man, into the Presidency.
Here’s a few dozen cold, hard facts that should whip up Trump supporters who suffered so much under that black-guy, how dare he, President Obama from Mars.
This is from Seth Meyers:
“Since Trump took office, many of his supporters have been saying “We suffered for 8 years under Obama; now it’s your turn”. In the immortal words of late night host Seth Meyers, I think it’s time for “A Closer Look” at that statement…
So let me ask:
Why have you suffered so?
Gays and Lesbians can now marry and enjoy the benefits they had been deprived of. Has this caused your suffering?
When Obama took office, the Dow was 6,626. Now it is 19,875. Has this caused your suffering?
We had 82 straight months of private sector job growth – the longest streak in the history of the United States. Has this caused your suffering?
Especially considering where the economy was when he took over, an amazing 11.3 million new jobs were created under President Obama (far more than President Bush). Has this caused your suffering?
Obama has taken Unemployment from 10% down to 4.7%. Has this caused your suffering?
Homelessness among US Veterans has dropped by half. Has this caused your suffering?
Obama shut down the US secret overseas prisons. Has this caused your suffering?
President Obama has created a policy for the families of fallen soldiers to have their travel paid for to be there when remains are flown home. Has this caused your suffering?
We landed a rover on Mars. Has this caused your suffering?
He passed the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Has this caused your suffering?
Uninsured adults has decreased to below 10%: 90% of adults are insured – an increase of 20 Million Adults. Has this caused your suffering?
People are now covered for pre-existing conditions. Has this caused your suffering?
Insurance Premiums increased an average of $4,677 from 2002-2008, an increase of 58% under Bush. The growth of these insurance premiums has gone up $4,145 – a slower rate of increase. Has this caused your suffering?
Obama added Billions of dollars to mental health care for our Veterans. Has this caused your suffering?
Consumer confidence has gone from 37.7 to 98.1 during Obama’s tenure. Has this caused your suffering?
He passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Has this caused your suffering?
His bi-annual Nuclear Summit convinced 16 countries to give up and destroy all their loose nuclear material so it could not be stolen. Has this caused your suffering?
He saved the US Auto industry. American cars sold at the beginning of his term were 10.4M and upon his exit 17.5M. Has this caused your suffering?
The deficit as a percentage of the GDP has gone from 9.8% to 3.2%. Has this caused your suffering?
The deficit itself was cut by $800 Billion Dollars. Has this caused your suffering?
Obama preserved the middle class tax cuts. Has this caused your suffering?
Obama banned solitary confinement for juveniles in federal prisons. Has this caused your suffering?
He signed Credit Card reform so that rates could not be raised without you being notified. Has this caused your suffering?
He outlawed Government contractors from discriminating against LGBT persons. Has this caused your suffering?
He doubled Pell Grants. Has this caused your suffering?
Abortion is down. Has this caused your suffering?
Violent crime is down. Has this caused your suffering?
He overturned the scientific ban on stem cell research. Has this caused your suffering?
He protected Net Neutrality. Has this caused your suffering?
Obamacare has extended the life of the Medicare insurance trust fund (will be solvent until 2030). Has this caused your suffering?
President Obama repealed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Has this caused your suffering?
He banned torture. Has this caused your suffering?
He negotiated with Syria to give up its chemical weapons and they were destroyed. Has this caused your suffering?
Solar and Wind Power are at an all time high. Has this caused your suffering?
High School Graduation rates hit 83% – an all time high. Has this caused your suffering?
Corporate profits are up by 144%. Has this caused your suffering?
He normalized relations with Cuba. Has this caused your suffering?
Reliance on foreign oil is at a 40 year low. Has this caused your suffering?
US Exports are up 28%. Has this caused your suffering?
He appointed the most diverse cabinet ever. Has this caused your suffering?
He reduced the number of troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Has this caused your suffering?
Yes, he killed Osama Bin Laden and retrieved all the documents in his possession for analysis. Perhaps THIS caused your suffering?
From an objective standpoint it would appear that the last eight years have seen some great progress and we were saved from a financial collapse. Things are not perfect. Things can always be better. We are on much better footing now than we were in 2008.
I look forward to understanding what caused you to suffer so much under Obama these last eight years.”
It’s important to remember history, so we can understand the future better. Nukes, death, starving children we won’t take in but bomb instead, bankers with a free pass, streams ruined, National parks drilled to hell, mountains leveled and protesters run over legally are all good. It’s the black that doesn’t mix well in our society. Period, end of story because Trump supporters are an open minded lot, open and full of crap.
Really—when will someone tell Trump he’s wearing no clothes? 
Franque23
**“Donald, what he does is he tees off first so we go off to our balls and what do we see but Donald Trump right in the middle of the fairway,” De La Hoya said. “He said, ‘Hey look, I found my first ball.’”
On the next hole, a par-3, De La Hoya said Trump hit into some bushes and again went ahead of the other players in his cart. When the rest of the group got to the green, he said Trump’s ball was 3 feet from the hole.
“And by the way I’m picking it up,” De La Hoya quoted Trump as saying. “It’s a gimme.”
(Bottom line: Our President even cheats at golf.)
If you read on you’ll realize we are all in the same boat on this Mexican deal-
The President’s idea to add a 20% tax on imports from Mexico to finance the Great Wall of America doesn’t really fly with me-not so much…Why? Well, if you’ll lift a glass with me we can get on to that. 
I get the feeling that most American’s are in the same dark I am in when it comes to understanding the actually workings between Mexico and America. We hear or read each day about the drug cartels and illegals crossing our border, but what else goes on between America and Mexico?
It turns out the flow of goods and services between Mexico and America are Huge.
America and Mexico interchange 1.6 billion dollars worth of trade everyday! (2015 stats) See? That’s a bit of pocket change. On the world-wide stage Mexico is America’s third largest Import/Export partner.
I keep thinking about the idea of building a wall between us and our third largest trade partner. Honestly, I’d no idea! But, maybe, it’s important to see what we trade back and forth? I mean it wouldn’t hurt the US if Mexico’s major export to us was, say, Twinkies, right. Don’t get me wrong, I loved these as a kid, but I could’ve lived without them.
This brings us to a quick run down of what actually passes hands between America and Mexico…
Here’s a short list of what the US imports from Mexico
- The top import categories (2-digit HS) in 2015 were: vehicles ($74 billion), electrical machinery ($63 billion), machinery ($49 billion), mineral fuels ($14 billion), and optical and medical instruments ($12 billion).
U.S. imports of agricultural products from Mexico totaled $21 billion in 2015, our 2nd largest supplier of agricultural imports. Leading categories include: fresh vegetables ($4.8 billion),other fresh fruit….
- ($4.3 billion), wine and beer ($2.7 billion), snack foods ($1.7 billion), and processed fruit & vegetables ($1.4 billion).
Hmmm…I like fruit and I drive to stores to buy fruit. Wait!?!?! Does this list “2.67 billion per year in wine and beer!” See? Screwing this trade up just isn’t gonna get it for me.
There’s something about this Great Wall /Tax Mexican imports 20% that doesn’t quite fit.
Here’s a short list of what America exports to Mexico
- The top export categories (2-digit HS) in 2015 were: machinery ($42 billion), electrical machinery ($41 billion), vehicles ($22 billion), mineral fuels ($19 billion), and plastics ($17 billion).
- U.S. exports of agricultural products to Mexico totaled $18 billion in 2015, our 3rd largest agricultural export market. Leading categories include: corn ($2.3 billion), soybeans ($1.4 billion), dairy products ($1.3 billion), pork products ($1.3 billion), and beef products ($1.1 billion).
So if all this back and forth were to be disrupted it seems a few workers might be out jobs in the States… Actually, to be specific, 1.1 million American workers are employed solely in providing the goods and services we export to Mexico…This seems like a lot of jobs, a lot of mom’s and dad’s livelihoods depend on trade with Mexico. Should we let the building of the Great Wall between our two country’s screw this up? Plus, er, there’s that wine and beer thingy stat.
One more I’m the most interesting man in the world thought—
Isn’t that Super bowl thing coming up, ya know, the one where American’s consume enough wine and beer to sink the world? Can we just maybe put off this Great Wall add 20% to cost of goods and drinks from Mexico for about another 100 years? Let’s re-think this deal.
Maybe we should think about taking another course?
Okay, one more idea or two. I’ve got the nagging feeling that our President’s main attraction to building this Great Wall of America is that it will stand as a testament to his Presidency whether it works or not. AND–when Paul Ryan says the Congress can find a way to pay for this wall isn’t he really talking about our tax dollars paying for it? It doesn’t matter what name the Congress gives the funding, right-it’s still our money paying for it. ”
McConnell estimated it(the Wall) will cost $15 billion at most — he cited a range of $12 billion to $15 billion.” (Other agencies estimate the Wall to cost 25 billion.)
Here’s one bottom line-when Trump manages to have Mexico call off their meeting with him today I think about running out and buying a truck load of Corona’s, Dos Equis, Negran Modelos and a few Tecates’ and Sols. Heck, I’ll be saving at least 20% on each bottle!
Can we maybe rethink this Great Wall idea? What do you all say?
Cheers…
Franque23
I worry. I do worry for Trump’s safety.
“He can blow me!” I’ve heard it said.
“I love the man.” I’ve seen it written.
“Make America great again!” Everyone heard the call that was confusing to some, but it rallied voters.
Thing is, Trump’s successful romp through bankruptcies, scores of litigation, forthright allegations of sexual abuse and a new world’s record of flip-flops, no wait, of merely not making any position he has clear but that he’d build a wall that Mexico would pay for (except we would pay for it), is a montage of miraculous wonderment. WTH?!?!
There are few groups left Trump hasn’t lambasted, outed in tweeter rants or belittled. Muslims love the guy, right? China is excited about his position on Taiwan. Some Mexican’s might love to have the guy for dinner-literally. The disabled feel ridiculed-did a man running for President actually imitate a disabled person while on stage?-and women may have to stop wearing skirts when he’s in the room. Of course, with the NRA in America and world-wide wholesale weapon sales, a few of these groups may have guns. Right?
There’s a right and wrong way to get what you want in America-ask Bonnie and Clyde. Trump needs to understand this basic principle.
Working within the system is important.
Then again, it takes guts to right a wrong as the first woman to run in the Boston Marathon found out.
Men attacked the first woman to run in the race….
Good intentions, truth, what is right shines from within, and no amount of misguided thought can dim that light.
And it all could be so different if only Donald would leave his combatant life style behind and embrace his new-found success. He’s pushed through enough electoral votes to win the Presidency of the United States. Now is not the time for him to dice up the country as though he was engineering a hostile business merger-a take over.
The people surrounding Donald Trump aren’t helping him transition in a successful way.
Trump bites back when he needs to cajole his opponents, not contest them. Trump needs to persuade, not invade other people’s ideas. When he needs to inveigle people, he enrages them. For every wheedle he should make, he needles the point instead and makes people sore. Where he should coax, he’s a backwash of shellac; a call for charm seems to prompt him to cause harm, to be verbally abusive, almost child-like, a school yard bully in uppity clothes.
Why? Why can’t Trump relax in his new skin and put on the cloak of negotiation?
Trump needs to wear a new set of clothes.
Effective methods used to gather America’s greatest thinkers and politicians alike would yield Trump real power. If I learned one thing from being a head negotiator for a powerful union it is this: true power does not come from discord, but from keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.*
Someone in the know, for Trump’s sake, for America’s sake , needs to talk to the new President elect and make him see the world in a different light-turn on the light so to speak.
Someone has to pull this switch, and change Trump.
Trump needs to change if he is to become a successful President. No one can bankrupt a country and enrage the world and walk away with the profits.
Trump’s banging himself over the head with his own words; he won’t cash in.
Trump can change. It’s never too late to change. Thing is, Trump has to change.
The world can only hope. For more on this, here’s a link to an article that says this all better than I could hope to.
Franque23.
- *Sun-tzu
Chinese general & military strategist (~400 BC)
Bare Ass Pond-the late 1970’s. I got dressed for the pic.
It wasn’t that long ago…
About 1953 on Long Island outside of our family home-the Northeastern’s blew snow in almost every winter.
Okay, maybe it was a long time ago. For me, it’s a blink of a memory comprised of forever.
I built snowmen without a hint of what was to come-great dreams for the earth.
Change started massing energy when the Beatle’s sang on Ed Sullivan-those tunes soon morphed into a mud bath called, Woodstock. There were the teachings of tolerance,,, justice, right and wrong, but I think most of all we were taught to hold within each of us a dignity of spirit. Once these ideas were in place, the new world could arrive.
Looking back, the festival announcement that the brown acid was bad made the assumption some listeners were still able to discern brown from white, black, green. purple, polka-dotted or blue. We’d stripped bare to prove the old ways were gone, basic change was here, as fundamental ways of behaving and thinking were dead and gone. The lines between us all had vanished for good.
Conventional societal mores were cast aside and a new course had begun. Yes, we got naked…(Woodstock)
It’s easy to wonder why any of us thought smoking pot might help the situation we enthusiastically fought to change. You’d think we might have been savvy enough to vote for change, but we’d given up on that. Millions in my generation decided taking it to the streets was the best if not the only way to make change happen. Were we right?
I sang on stage back in the day all about the message-peace, love, freedom and equality.
Pete and I started singing the message early on in High School. ( I’m in the background)
First serious guitar in its first gold color…(I’m 15.) Hopin’ to sing the message.
So, my wheel turns way back, runs through the middle of so much history and arrives here in the closing days of 2016. To be clear-I remember dad getting our first TV, a thing still new to everyone on our block. I went to college when there were no computers, no cells phones but, yes, short dresses and pot but no Aids that we knew. I began to work as a Library Specialist 21 years ago when the Alachua County Library District had acquired only a few computers. My reference work for patrons was done entirely out of books or through phone calls in those earlier years. All the while, I prayed for peace along with so many other Americans.
Today, many feel political drifts forecast a turning away from the sun shining in as we all hoped it might in the 70’s, from the environmental concerns many of us have held for so many years, and from our hope for peace.
Home coming parade. Gainesville, 1970…hmmm, this wouldn’t happen today.
It was once easy for hundreds of Gainesville’s people to strip naked at lime pits and swim with others.
“The year was 1970, and the band was Mudcrutch. Petty sang and played bass alongside Mike Campbell (guitar), Tom Leadon (guitar and vocals), Jim Lenehan (lead vocals) and Randall Marsh (drums).” This is Gainesville in the 70’s, so it doesn’t matter that there are five names and only four people? The main point was in the music.
We shared the understanding that to find the truth of our existence it was necessary to shed the barriers between us and the earth. Open, accepting, and always understanding-Peace was the message. We wanted the naked truth.
Now? We need to revisit the messages of my generation, to create a solidarity of purpose that keeps America on the right path. My generation didn’t want the Nam war to go on and we stopped it. Today, we can stop anything as well. The key is to really try, never give up and work harder.
If not ‘Bare Ass’ time, its bare knuckle time. Environmentalists, humanitarians and lovers of life, it’s time to dress down our opponents. We have to tune up and sing our song louder than false claims, disingenuous motives and misguided hearts can yell. It’s time to dive in and win again.
Franque23
The set is about twenty-five feet long….
(Click on the pictures for much larger views–)
(note: Impossible to believe but true-Odette, pictured below as the Magic Woman, was rear ended years ago, 1988, only two blocks away from the same spot I was rear end the very night of the day we performed this show. Thing is, today, the 15th of DEC 2016, she went to see yet again another doctor about reoccurring neck pain from her accident! Oy Vey! Clear as a bell?-her accident was 28 years ago=she’s still hurting.What’s the chances that two people acting in this puppet show were rear ended years apart in locations not less than two blocks apart? Maybe, good? I need a beer!)
I’ve been doing puppet shows for the Alachua County Library District for the past 21 years; some have been repeated during this time. I like to encourage reading as I pick my favorite stories-literacy is the point. Thing is, this past show, The Magic Bag, may be one of my last.
The Magic woman wants it to always be cold
Natu and Lima protest the weather conditions!
Really, I have a job I’d never leave but Old Man Time is making one out of me. The show must go on, and my life, too.
Then again, the show turned me into a frog!
Angela- Lima- is turned into a cat….due to our complaints!
I write adaptions of stories to fit what can be done in the venue we use. Always from the get-go, I’ve employed ‘outtakes’ which entail the puppeteer also appearing stage front as actors who represent various puppets seen on stage. These are the most uproarious moments of any puppet show we do, and always involve a ton of confetti throwing for any made up reason.
This was one of those reasons: The Woman likes it to snow!!! Oh My!
The scripts are always intended to entertain both child and adult alike.
I write the scripts, design the sets, direct the practices and take part in the productions. It’s all a kick.
The river was fun, and the over head as well…. AC unit(s) blew the blue foil drop downs.
This program is based upon a Lakota version of a Native American legend that is found throughout most tribes’ folk lore. Basically, a Magic Woman keeps summer in her magic bag and lets only the cold, winter days out. The animals hate the constant cold, steal the bag, and only agree to return it to the woman IF summer can be let out of the bag 1/2 of every year–then winter reigns the other 1/2.
We always sing during the shows-this adaptation of “Wouldn’t it be Lovely” to have it snow everywhere….
The puppets steal the Magic Bag and there’s trouble when the Magic Woman wants it back.
These are the moments I will remember forever….
Cheers-and now you know why 1/2 of most years are warm, and the other, 1/2 cold:-)
Franque23.
Credits to Odette Hinson as the Magic Woman and Angela Hassebroek as Lima and puppeteer. Thanks.
When I was young, I dreamt I was an Indian. Not once or twice, but often. No one used the term, Native American, not back then, not that I knew. Us white folks simply called the red skinned tent dwelling people, Indians. I held these people in admiration, so swift, one with nature, self sufficient and efficient, they were a people worthy of my fondest thoughts.
Whenever, IF, you see a tree bent like this in the woods it has most likely been formed by Native Americans. They often worked trees to grow in such a fashion as to point in the direction of water, a herd, or home.
I was always a scout. Sleek, sure footed but with the lightest step, I’d climb into a sweet smelling pine to perch high above. There I’d feel the wind with my heart. I’d hear the hawks, the hoot of an owl and squawks of crow. The blue sky seemed a blanket; the sun laughed. Leaves rustled while distant hills resembled multi-colored twisted taffy. The green grasses bent and showed trails of white tailed deer, buffaloes and rabbit runs. The land was clear of danger, resiliently, so peaceful. Scouting was my duty; there were many loved ones back home. Odd, but I never, not ever, saw the end of this dream-I never even climbed down.
This November bulletin board is to reach out to my dreams..
It was only fitting, a magical loop, that brought a pure-blood Cherokee to my side during my college years. Jana’s father had been a scout in World War II; scrap-metal scars remained on his face. They had horses. At a nearby horse show I stood in a circle that included Jackie Kennedy, all by chance, and that seems a dream now. What doesn’t seem a dream are words Jana spoke one day as we drove back to college after a spring vacation.
“When I was young, ” Jana confided, ” I used to wish I was black, not Indian.”
“Black?” I had to have sounded dumbfounded.
This picture of a Native American reminds me that Jana was truly this pretty-and very smart. Still her life had been one of ridicule; I’d no idea.
“Yes. Blacks were much better liked in grade school.” I glanced at Jana- her head was bent down.
Years later, it strikes me that Jana couldn’t even dream of being white as a child-she dare not; that would be too much to even wish.
How different our childhood dreams had been.
another view…
There may be something to this, “Privileged white male” after all?!?!
That she became second in charge of Washington’s Native America bureau under President Reagan is a credit to her keen efforts, endurance and focus to help her native people. Maybe, this is America at it’s best: if you really try, and never give up, good things can happen.
Thing is, as I heard slanderous words spit this election cycle at people because of their ethnicity it gave me pause, a pain. We were all children once. Children with dreams and hopes-most adults never truly forget those wondrous moments. To have those aspirations sliced apart by loose-lipped fools is more than problematic, it’s wrong on so many levels and in so many ways.
America, we can do so much better. Yes, we can. One day children will not dream of being another color. One day, children’s hearts will soar above the tree tops because of who they are and for what they may become- leaders, inventors, mangers, representative and yes, even President. People my age, older and younger, we must all remember that dream.
In a way, I’m still a scout in my heart.
I’m looking for that dream to come back. Maybe, Trump is right? We do need to make America great again, but not with arrows of division, looks that could kill or with minds full of hate. Not by tearing apart our environment.
It’s time for America to dream and to make those dreams come true. Time will tell.
Now? It’s Native American Month, and Native Americans from many tribes are being pepper sprayed-so much worse- at Standing Rock. Sometimes, the truth seems too much to bear. That’s the bare facts. If only it could stop.
Franque23
In many ways- Native Americans are still showing us the way.
We have such a long way to go.
Keep the faith –
Franque23
