A Farewell To Hope With No Change

In my lifetime I listened to a lot of presidents speak.  The first one I remember is Dwight Eisenhower.  Although he wasn't much of a speaker,  certainly John Kennedy could turn a word. However,  I have never heard anyone better than Barack Obama.  Obama is so eloquent he need not restrain himself with the truth or facts.

The Democratic choir in Chicago Tuesday night heard Obama concede that  although the factory jobs are gone, we still need more unionization.  In the same paragraph, he also advocated for a larger safety net.  Old mantras die hard.

One of the most glaring reality checks about the speech is that Chicago is the murder capital of the world, with over 750 fatal shootings in 2016.  Hope alone can't get you safely down the street.

As Obama's golden words soared away from practicality, he cited his effort to close Guantanamo Bay, and avail our terrorist enemies the benefit of our justice system in New York City.

The disconnect between empty words, no matter how well spoken, and current events, is why Trump is being sworn in next week.

The Jeff Sessions' Session

I have a confession, I don't watch much current television.  Most of my viewing is limited to retro shows, from the days of my youth.  The current agenda driven news,  both liberal and conservative,  I find annoying.  However, I did watch some of the Senate Committee grilling of Jeff Sessions on Tuesday morning.

Senator Sessions expectedly replied, over and over, that as Attorney General he would enforce the law,  regardless of how he may have voted on the matter, while serving in the Senate. What a surprise that a conservative senator has a conservative voting record.  Before being a senator,  he served as Attorney General in Alabama. The Senate hearings seem to be an opportunity for grandstanding, with little other purpose.

New Jersey's Cory Booker has publicized his upcoming crucifixion of Sessions.  Booker will make history today, and testify against a fellow senator in a confirmation hearing. While Cory concerns himself with smears against Sessions from thirty years ago,  he had no issue with Eric Holder wanting to transfer terrorists from Guantanamo to New York City, and afford them protection under US justice codes.  Sessions favors retaining the prison at the Naval base in Cuba.

photo of Senator Sessions in Iraq

The Daughters of Zion

On Monday morning, the entire media, including conservative outlets, were abuzz with Meryl Streep's speech bashing Trump.  Being a certified bastard,  I wasn't impressed that a top grade actress could deliver an emotional speech. However, what did amaze me was that although Streep's photo was everywhere,  the murdered Israeli cadets in Jerusalem had either moved to the bottom of the page, or even off of it.

Three of the four murdered soldiers were young women.  The Palestinian reaction was to hand out sweets, and take pride in the attack.  While Obama helped legitimize the attack through the UN vote and Kerry's speech,  Trump has declared that he will move the embassy to Jerusalem.   If he does that,  it would be a memorial to those murdered girls.

PPL's Rude Day

The letter from PPL stated that my service would be interrupted on January 5th for six hours, to make improvements or repairs to our lines.   I assumed that they had discovered damaged wires or equipment,  and that the repair was necessary, to avoid an impending outage.  After noticing a string of  contractor tree trimming trucks,  I made some inquires.   Although it only 25 degrees outside,  my electric was being turned off for routine tree maintenance, that wasn't done earlier in the season.  How inconsiderate is that?

Although, I live in a neighborhood with many trees,  in the all years that I've lived here, they have never before cut the power to trim the trees.  It is not a densely populated area,  so I suppose we didn't rate much consideration.  Save for this blog, perhaps there were no other complaints.  Most of the residents probably have no idea that the outage was for such an arbitrary reason.  They might even think that PPL had their back, with some pro-active repair. Their taped message after the power was restored at 3:15 pm, stated that the cause of the outage was equipment maintenance, and that 137 customers were affected.   In addition to being unnecessarily inconvenienced for almost a full day,  they will consume extra energy bringing their house back to temperature.  Those  residents with electric heat or heat pumps, will have to pay a premium for their discomfort. They will have to tip their abuser.

The Art of Jessica Lenard, (1950-2016)

monoprint- Fashion Statement 2

McHistory In Lehigh Valley

Readers of this blog know that I'm upset about what little value history is given in this community.  Yesterday's Morning Call story on the Lehigh Valley Trust Bank building goes a step farther, and significantly alters the story of an important structure.  After reading the Morning Call article, one would think that the bank closed,  Abe Atiyeh purchased it and then sold it to the Jaindls,  who are now opening an event center after restoration.  The real story is so different,  I can only conclude that this current article was only meant as another NIZ promotion, not a serious background of the building.

When the building was purchased by Seigfried Braun, unmentioned in the article,  it had been modernized.  He and his family spend years and most of their assets lovingly restoring it.  The famed skylight and other adornments were covered over decades earlier, by a massive new lowered ceiling.  What you see now is the fruit of his labor. Restoring the skylight alone took over a year.  In addition to that bank,  he also purchased the Dime Bank and the Elks Club.  The Dime Bank has now been incorporated into the new Renaissance Hotel.  The Elks Club was demolished to make way for J.B. Reilly's aborted massive Two Towers project.

Unfortunately, illness forced Mr. Braun to quickly sell these significant structures for pennies on the dollar, to Abe Atiyeh.  We should thank Braun for saving these magnificent structures.  Although, I like to think that my local political opinions have merit,  my better calling is to defend and advocate for local historical structures, when I have the needed endurance.  Meanwhile, I use this blog to present local history, and occasionally point out misconceptions about it.

This piece was inadvertently posted for several minutes yesterday during revisions.