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Saturday, November 26, 2016

Pick Pockets Spoli everything



This past week has been the week of my wife's birthday celebrations. We rode the AVE fast train from Valencia to Madrid in Preferente, or First Class. Now we are hooked! No more Tourist class for us.

We arrived there and took a taxi to our hotel on the Grand Avenue. We checked in and we pushed the button for the lift. There was a man standing there who was well dressed, and in spite of the fact there was a lady he insisted on entering first.(He needed to be behind us.) We were three in that small space. He pressed the first floor and as soon as the lift began to move he moved closer to me. I should have followed my first mind, which was to allow him to ride up by himself as I thought it peculiar that he pushed ahead of us to get in first.

He asked "Cafeteria?, Cafeteria?" At that point I concluded "Here we go again." I covered the point of my man bag closest to him with my hand and sure enough there came his left hand that was covered with his coat and he encountered my hand. I tickled his fingers and he jumped back. I smiled and admonished him not to do that. I didn't just get off the boat pal. His eyes went as wide as saucers. When the door opened he shot out and was gone. The danger was that I didn't know what he had in his right hand, which could have been a knife in case I tried to take him down.

We called the desk and gave them a description. They thought something was strange because they did notice him entering the lift with us, and then immediately he came down the stairs and out of the hotel. They called the police and within half an hour he had been arrested as a person of interest who was well known to them.

He got nothing from me as my things are secured with chains within my bag. I learned that many years ago when that foiled four beautiful Eastern European women who accosted me in broad daylight, surrounding me with their gorgeous bodies which they rubbed against me while trying to steal me blind. They actually had pulled my wallet and a second bag with my credit cards from my bag, but because they were on chains they became confused and the tugging alerted me as to what was going on. Again, they got nothing.

In every country around the world crime takes place everyday.People wake up in the morning and have a shower; they get dressed, have breakfast, and they go to work. Their careers centre around relieving the careless and uninformed of everything they can get. This is their work and they are very good at it.

In our case the man goes from hotel to hotel in the city employing various ruses to strip the newly arrived of whatever he can get. After dealing with the front desk I didn't actually fix my straps to secure the bag because I was only going up in the lift. He was counting on that.

I once stopped at a counter in a shopping centre where there was no  one else around to ask a simple question. The top of my bag was open. Within half a second that counter suddenly became of interest to a whole family. I moved on very quickly, closing my bag in the process.

The moral of this story is that we are all open to suffer loss by theft every time we leave home. We cannot know exactly who is watching us, but we can safely assume our every move is under scrutiny because there are numerous people who are counting on successfully stealing from us.

Beware! Always!

Copyright (c) 2016
Eugene Carmichael

Saturday, November 12, 2016

Shocked and Surprised? Not really.



In my blog of last week I suggested to Hillary Clinton that maybe she should have a Concession Speech ready, just in case. In fact I felt deep down that the result we got was on the way. The tip off to me came when the Klu Klux Klan declared they were for Trump; no surprise there, but then placards started showing up saying, "Blacks for Trump." Now, when have Blacks and the KKK agreed on anything?

This election will be discussed for the next One Hundred Years. How did he do it? Scholars will pour over every little bit of it. The Donald ran a campaign of ideas and reversals of ideas; of insults followed by those insulted joining up with him; and of grave threats to do this and that, followed by more reversals until on election day no one really knew what they were voting for.

If this was a plan it was brilliant, it was masterful, and of course, it worked. He got so close to Hillary, the front runner, and then, in a flash of supersonic speed he left her so far behind the result was not even close.

The American system that has the general public go to all the trouble of voting, only to find on Election Day that their popular vote is superseded by 507 super delegates that make up the electoral College must be great frustration for the millions. Those super delegates are supposed to stop the thing that happened from happening. Ironically, it was the popular vote that got it right in so far as the expected outcome was concerned, so what good are the super delegates? I think they are going to come under some close scrutiny.

Now there is rioting in the street. Trump said that he might not have accepted the outcome. Well, get a load of what's going on now.

So many people said they were voting for change. Well, good for them, because here comes change, ready or not.

Someone said that there will probably not be a Democrat in 2020 who will bother to run against him. Well, the next four years will be many lifetimes. It really all depends on what happens between now and then.

Stay tuned!

Copyright (c) 2016
Eugene Carmichael

Saturday, November 5, 2016

What a great book I didn't write


I wish I had the political imagination to write the blockbuster book that is presently playing out in real life, but unfortunately I don't. Even if I had no-one would have believed it was even possible. I might have sold a dozen copies so that people could mock me but no-one would have bought a plot that had the most ridiculous candidate come from absolutely last place to be running neck and neck for the office of the United States of America.

I would have had to conjure up the most ludicrous campaign strategy ever. Start by insulting people and countries. Be a person who shows he hates women and Latinos and Blacks and they will join with the white men to form an army of supporters. I would have to make him awfully flawed so that his opposition would fear a victory for him more than anything else  they can imagine. To really confuse them I would have him commit every gaffe that has ever  been done which resulted in those who made such gaffes resign. He would only get stronger Then, I would make the race so close no-one could call the outcome.

And then, for good measure, I would have him actually win. That way I could get several more books out of the situation.

As I said in my previous blog, you may not like anything about the man, but what he has achieved to date does deserve our respect. I'm not talking about praising him or saying that we like what has been done; only recognizing that he has overcome his challenges and has come to a place where he could possibly declare in three days time, " Mission Accomplished!" I think that there is no-one on the side of decency and what is right who would say that 9/11 was a great terrorist accomplishment, but they did get our attention.

I would have also had to make the opponent a strong woman, but one who is also flawed so that voters would not have all that clear a choice.  Here we are, Saturday, November 5th, 2016, and all across The United States, and around the world the number one topic is the American Elections. However it turns out it will have worldwide repercussions into the unforeseen future.

I believe the lady candidate is confidant of a victory. Perhaps she should also have written an acceptance speech of defeat, so to be on the safe side.

Copyright (c) 2016
Eugene Carmichael