Impeaching President Donald Trump

Are you kidding?

I would hope that the US is not supporting corrupt governments.

I would hope that the US government is not corrupt.

I would hope that the leaders of the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch of the US government are in office to get work done for the Citizens of the United States. I would hope they are not simply in office to get rich and powerful.

Ah. The current US President was already rich and powerful without ever holding public office. He must have been elected to do a job. He doesn't need to be nice. He needs to be effective.

In that regard, he has accomplished more of his campaign promises in two years than other presidents have accomplished in eight years.

I am amazed that he is keeping his word to the US public when that is so out of character for other politicians. Oh yeah. He is not actually a politician. He is a businessman. He is doing his job. He is keeping his promises.

We should keep leaders who keep promises.

Maybe he doesn't make you feel good about yourselves. Ok. That's not his job.

His job is to protect the interests of the US citizenry. His job is to protect the jobs of the US citizenry. His job is to protect the borders of the USA.

Good job Mr. President.

Helping the Homeless

The problem of homelessness seems to be increasing in certain metropolitan areas. Politicians representing those areas should be considering plans to alleviate homelessness.

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration has relocated 2,226 homeless families from New York City to 62 New Jersey towns. Additionally, 1,781 homeless families have been relocated to New York City.

This NJ.com article details some negative effects on the recipient families. 

1. Because the rent is paid a year in advance, the landlord may not be leveraged by next month's rent to make repairs to the property. 
2. Some of the properties have not been properly inspected before being rented (as required by law in some municipalities).
3. The families relocated in this manner are disconnected from the family support system they may have shared in the location they lived previously.

Rivka Cubine suggested that closed malls could be retrofitted to house homeless families. We spoke about this together and determined the following details:

• Every Mall has been built to manage thousands of people.
• Every Mall has sufficient bathroom facilities.
• Every Mall has some form of foodcourt support for feeding hundreds of people.
• Closed Malls are available.

Of course, there is no infrastructure to feed the thousands of people that could be housed in the Malls. There are many individuals who would be willing to donate time to operate a food pantry and a soup kitchen.

I am not a social worker or a philanthropist or even an event organizer. I am certain that people with the ability and knowledge to organize and implement a mall reorientation and rehabilitation can plan such transformation to create an environment for homeless families.

Consider compartmentalizing a large floorspace into apartments; using foodcourt space for soup kitchens; making small business spaces into schoolrooms, adult retraining centers, and small businesses based upon the skills of the people being housed; food pantries manned by the families using the living space and those pantries filled by individual gifting and by philanthropy. Salvation Army could have an office in one of the spaces for those who would like to interface with their organization. The people living in the RetroMall could accept furniture, clothing, and electronic donations. 

There are many skills among the homeless community that could become more effective in their lives if they can shift their focus from staying warm and out of the elements. 

What a change it would make if the population currently homeless could be allowed to make their home in abandoned malls or other structures with the help and support of the politicians, charitable organizations, and philanthropists in the area where they live.

Shipping people off to other cities may not be the only solution to homelessness. We may already have the infrastructure in place to assist. Someone with knowledge about how to make this happen should read this, change it to fit reality, and get to work.

Thanks for listening. Comment if you would like.

Previously Published on Quorum – What vegetable do you eat like a fruit?

What vegetable do you eat like a fruit?

John Cubine · Add Credential

Answered just now

It is easy to understand this question backward. Answers have been provided to this question that better answer the question “What fruits do we think to be vegetables?”.

To truly understand the presented question, we need to know what constitutes a fruit and what constitutes a vegetable. In Botany, no classification indicates a vegetable. Botany does describe what constitutes a fruit—the growth formed by the ovary of a flowering plant after flowering. There is also the consideration that a “fruit” contains seeds This means that many of the “vegetables” we buy from the store and eat in our meals are fruits. Some examples are tomato, squash, green beans and peppers. These fruits grow from the ovary of the plant after flowering.

In Botany, an accessory fruit is one that develops the edible flesh from tissue adjacent to the ovary rather than from the ovary itself. Examples are strawberries, mulberries, pineapples, pears, apples, and common figs. In Botany, any portion of the plant not defined as fruit is part of the vegetation of the plant, therefore vegetable. This includes fleshy portions generally considered “fruit” but not developed from the ovary of the flower of the plant.

Thus accessory fruit can technically be considered botanically vegetable tissue. In this view, strawberries, mulberries, pineapples, pears, apples and common figs can be said to be “vegetables” that we eat as “fruits”.

If this is considered too much of a stretch of credulity, please consider rhubarb. Rhubard looks like red celery. It is used because of its fruit-like flavor in pies. The stalk is definitely vegetable tissue, yet we eat it as fruit with a vegetable-type accessory fruit in the form of Strawberry-Rhubarb pie.