Trumpadoodles--comments on the goofy and dangerous aspects of Trump's campaign

Trumpadoodles---As a public service, I am adding a new feature to my facebook  and blog post called “Trumpadoodles.”  These are intended to point out the goofy, and sometimes dangerous aspects of Donald Trump’s campaign for the Presidency.  So here, Ladies and Gentlemen is the first Trumpadoodle!

Today I was doing some yard work and discovered a beer bottle that had been tossed on my lawn landing quite near my Hillary sign.  Since in 15 years nobody has ever tossed a beer bottle on my lawn, I can reasonably assume that it was tossed by an uneducated white male Trump supporter from a pick up truck emblazoned with a Confederate flag.  (If you lived where I do you would not find that unreasonable.)  Interestingly, the beer was a Michelob Ultra, which means to me that the bottle thrower’s taste in beer is just as terrible as his taste in Presidential candidates.

What is America?

Do you want to know what America really is?  Then don’t go to a Donald Trump rally.  Don’t listen to that selfish, bombastic, repulsive egotist tell you that  America is a loser, that America is weak,  that we’re afraid, that  nobody respects America any more.  Don’t listen when he tells you he wants to build walls against people because of their race, nationality or religion.

No. If you really want to know what America is, go to One World Trade Center in New York City as I did this morning.  Take a look at that new, majestic 100-story glass and steel structure—the tallest in the Western Hemisphere-- glistening in the sun, standing tall on the same spot where tons of smoking rubble was all that remained of the World Trade Center 15 years ago.  I saw that too.

Two weeks after the

September 11 terrorist attack, my wife and I refused to cancel our annual New York visit. We went to Manhattan and got as close to ground zero as officials allowed. We smelled the acrid smoke that still lingered in the heavy, dust filled air.  We saw the thick coatings of ash on the sidewalks and buildings.  We experienced and shared the sorrow, anxiety and shock of New Yorkers.  Every year since then we have visited ground zero on our annual visits.  We watched, year after year as New York came back with determination and grit and today we saw it’s fully restored, renewed strength and splendor.  We saw what America really is.

So maybe  Donald Trump should come down from his gilded Tower on Columbus Circle and go to lower Manhattan and see some real America.  Maybe he should watch the thousands of people who visit the tower, the memorial fountains and the museum day after day.  Of course he would not understand a great many of them because they are speaking Spanish, German,  Russian, Romanian, Italian, Arabic an all the languages of the world because they are there to see what America does when it takes a hit.  It comes back bigger and stronger in purpose and character.

But Donald Trump doesn’t seem to understand that.  He thinks America is a loser. We’re afraid, we’re weak.   He has no idea what America really is. I do.

Dissertation on Hurricane Matthew

Now that Matthew has left his wake of terror, panic, fear and tv meteorologist’s on-camera non-stop histrionics behind, we who live on Amelia Island  will now enter the philosophical discussion phase.

For the next few weeks, conversations in Amelia Island’s pubs, bars, restaurants, fitness clubs and Starbucks will center on the question, “What did you do when Matthew hit?”  There will be two sides, those who evacuated and those who did not.

Those who did not leave will make a point of their great courage and those who did will emphasize their superior wisdom.  It is not an argument anyone can win but it is interesting to look at it from a philosophical point of view.

Now that it’s over it’s all academic anyway.  Those who stayed faced a win or lose situation.  If they came out unscathed they won, if the got killed, they lost.  The evacuators, on the other hand, had a win-win situation since no matter what happened on the island they would not be killed.

Since I was one of those who evacuated, I like to look at in in the framework of Philosopher Blaise Pascal’s famous wager.  He postulated that it is better to live as if there is a God, then die and find out there isn't, than to live as if there isn't a God, then die and find out there is. Applying that logic I figured it was better to leave the island believing it would be destroyed, then find out it wasn’t, than to stay on the island believing it would not be destroyed, then find out it was.  And be killed.

So my choice was to leave the island, stay in a very comfortable hotel  (which provided a full breakfast of bacon and eggs)  a safe distance from potential calamity, take the essentials of life  like some basic foodstuffs and a well stocked bar and make the best of it.  I suppose you might call it the Citrus Philosophy:  If life hands you a lemon, make lemonade, and it helps considerably if you toss in a few shots of vodka.