Subject to Change

I’m astounded by people who defend the Ground Zero mosque, claiming that it’s not an offensive idea. If you’re one of them do me a favor: the next time a “reformed” pedophile needs placement get your “enlightened” butt on the phone and volunteer your neighborhood. Maybe I’m comparing apples to rotten apples, but that feeling you just got in the pit of your stomach is what it feels like to be a New Yorker right now. Whether that feeling is justified or not, building the mosque blocks away from Ground Zero is just plain insensitive. I thought feelings mattered!

On the other hand, maybe I’m not entirely against building the mosque. It’s not as though Obama’s Homeland Security Department couldn’t use a little help gathering information. Maybe if we handed them suspects on a silver platter they might be able to prevent a few underwear bombs on planes or car bombs in Times Square. Anybody who would choose to worship at the conquering mosque is certainly a person of interest. Heck, we ought to encourage the mosque to put its worship services up on YouTube. That way I’ll know which hot dog carts I might want to steer clear of the next time I’m in Manhattan.

I thought I might play nice for a while, until I got back on my blogging feet. Then, I went to Irishfest.

We look for street parking whenever we go to the festival grounds. Yesterday was no different, except that we noticed some new signs: Temporary – No parking 9pm-12am, Fri-Sat. My wife asked what’s with the signs and I sarcastically responded, “revenue generators,” speculating that the parking checkers would be out at precisely 9pm.

Even though I was joking a little I couldn’t have been more right. When we walked past the line of cars at 10pm there was a parking ticket on every one. I saw a woman entering her car and finding the ticket neatly placed under her wiper blade.

Me: Are you surprised by that?

Her: Yes.

Me: They put up temporary signs back there. We almost fell for it, too.

She walked back to the sign post, gave a look of disgust, and returned to her car. No doubt, this process repeated itself hundreds of times throughout the night.

But, this sort of thing happens all the time, you say. What’s the big deal? Well, it occurred to me that this was an attempt by the city government to generate revenue: Tom Barrett’s city government. The man who would be governor finds this an acceptable tactic to make up a few dollars in the city budget. What do you suppose he would invent or allow as governor? And, the hypocrisy given that he’s been operating his campaign headquarters without a permit.

Tom Barrett, I challange you to forgive the parking tickets issued in the Third Ward this weekend. Admit that this was a shameless money grab and apologize for your city government.

In case you didn’t understand or doubted my previous post, here’s a little context for you. This is what actually happened in real life while I was wasting time at the keyboard.

Greetings!

This is essentially a test post, to see how much activity I can still generate with this old blog. If you’ve been following me here, on Facebook, or in real life you know that the past few years have been quite a ride. Real life intruded on my cyber life and this blog suffered from some serious neglect.

This post is a reminder that I’m still here and a warning that I do have some ideas swimming around in the old noggin. Believe it or not, I am always still looking for good blog (and podcast) material. The problem has been that reality has been so much more interesting than cyberspace lately. The time and effort required to boot a computer, log in, and spew just haven’t been available.

I’m not promising any posts, just yet. But, do me a favor and comment if you’re still here!

- The Management