LET THEM EAT CAKE

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As the French Revolution approached, it is claimed Marie Antoinette was told the people had no bread. Her purported response: Let them eat cake!

Historians claim Marie Antoinette never uttered the words. First, because they were recorded when she was nine years old. Second, she was too nice to have spoken thusly.

An observation. Bread was cheap to make. Cake, not. The cake referred to in the statement was actually brioche. A luxury cake full of milk and eggs. Expensive.

Tomorrow Trump’s proposed budget will be made public. A lot of cuts affecting the poor and middle classes. One item food stamps.

Food stamps feed 42 million people. Trump wants to cut food stamps by 25 percent over 10 years. $193 billion. The cut by a man who obviously eats the best and richest of foods. His body size speaks for itself. A man who luxuriates at Mar-a-Lago and Trump Tower. A president who causes protection costs to skyrocket because his family and he live in three different locations.

Trump’s life style suggests…..Let them eat bread!

Trump forgets his obligation to take care of all the people. I make this statement based on  the further fact that his proposed budget contains big tax breaks for the rich.

The message seems to be…..Screw the people!

Turtle nesting time! All along the Keys. In Key West, Higgs and Smathers Beaches.

This week’s Keynoter has an excellent article on the nesting subject.

Each of 100 to 200 female loggerhead turtles will lay 100 to 120 golf ball sized eggs in the sand. Incubation is two months. Followed by the journey back to the ocean by the baby turtles.

I live and learn. Turtle sex is determined by sand temperature. Hotter sand yields females. Cooler, males.

Another interesting tidbit. There are not many nests laid on Key West beaches. Smathers for example had only 7 nests in 2015. Last year things improved. Ten.

Our friend William Hackley sounds cruel this morning. He was walking along Simonton Road near the beach and came upon a turtle nest. He took 110 turtle eggs. Broke more than a dozen in the process. Food for Hackley and his family.

I mentioned in yesterday’s blog that I saw Forever Plaid saturday night at the Waterfront. The show thrilled me. Songs from my past. Tunes I danced and courted to. One of them, Love Is a Many Splendored Thing.

Last night on Turner Classics, the movie was shown. William Holden and Jennifer Jones. Touched my heart. Saw the movie for the first time in 1955 at the now gone Olympic Theater in Utica with my fiance. The movie had emotional parts. Our hand holding got tighter at those times.

Nothing is forever. Live long enough and you realize it. Gone are major companies such as Eastern Airlines and Montgomery Ward. More businesses have failed in recent times.

Yesterday, one of America’s most beloved closed its doors. Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. My father took me. I took my children. My children took their children.

Enjoy your day!

 

WHORE HOUSE PIANO PLAYER OR POLITICIAN

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I enjoy writing about Harry Truman. Not only because of his connection with and love for Key West. His life in general. Truman was a no bullshit person. Straightforward and honest. He called them as he saw them.

I received an e-mail yesterday containing a Truman quote. I was familiar with the quote. It merits comment here.

“My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there is hardly any difference.”

The quote first came to my attention when I read David McCullough’s Truman. The biography was published in 1998. I did not get to read it till ten years ago.

The book another War and Peace. Long. One thousand plus pages. Took forever to read. Especially the way I read it.

Borders had a Key West book store location ten years ago. On Northern Boulevard. Where today sits a PET store. I used Borders as a library. The Key West library was adequate. However, parking terrible. Borders had a large parking lot.

Borders also had small comfortable black leather chairs. I sat and read Truman in one of those chairs. A couple of hours a day. It took forever to complete.

Spent yesterday afternoon fine tuning last night’s blog talk radio show. Tuesday Talk with Key West Lou. Did the show at 9. A bit of everything. Sports, politics, life in general. Covered a multitude of sins.

One being a New York City problem. Taxi drivers and hired car drivers are making sexual comments to female passengers. And, ejaculating on them. The comments and ejaculations increased big time last year.

New York is working on a new local law to ban the sexual comments and ejaculations. Punishment, a $1,000 fine. I would throw them in jail!

Watched Wisconsin political dribble off and on during the day. It’s the political junkie in me.

I was pleased to see Trump and Hillary take a beating. Hopefully the losses will shape them up. Trump has to learn honesty. Hillary that truth is not to be twisted.

Dinner at Roostica.

Three weeks ago, forget getting a table. Not even get a seat at the bar. The season is over. The place was deserted last night. Pleasant!

I appreciate the small crowd does nothing for Bobby and his staff. However, it is nice once again to enjoy one of my favorite dining places.

Difficult sleeping last night. I turned on Turner Classics. A great two hour show. Not an old movie. The life of Gregory Peck. Gregory Peck casually moderating the show. A great man, a great show. An interesting life. Not typical Hollywood. A family man first. Then an actor who took his work seriously.

Enjoy your day!