Museum of Illusions

 This is one cool place.

Omg. My head on a platter?😭

When you come to Orlando you automatically think of Disney, but Icon Park is a wonderful place to relax and take the kids, as it has a lot of really great stuff.

They even have early Christmas.

And looks what's beside it!

That is where Madame Tussauds is too and there are lots of food and souvenir places. But my favorite place is the Museum of Illusions.

We sure had fun there.

At some angles you see a face

Yup. Enjoying my  second childhood.😁

Great food 😊

 Boy, am I glad I took in this event!

The food was really boonoonoonoos, especially the jerk pork and rice and peas made with green gungo😋.

The line at the food tent. "Mass Ran" was the jerk man!

The mannish water was good too but they never figured out how to keep it hot! They needed a big pot with coals underneath and then it would really sell aff, as we say a yard. 

I reconnected with friends too and surprise of surprises, my niece- in -law Lakshmi whom I hadn't seen for decades.

Hadn't seen her for years.

My Guyanese sister Marie came with me and enjoyed herself too .

Marie, Camille and I.

Everything was there. Entertainment for the kids. Great food, music, and lots of Jamaican products.

The kids loved these miniature horses

I have to watch where I open my mouth for as I sat down under a tent and opened my mouth, a lady recognized my voice!🤣

Gizzada oh wonderful gizzada

                 The MC was fulla vibes too. 

I will be there next year for sure.

Democrats have it wrong

The late Jamaican reggae singer known as Prince Buster, certainly did not have Donald Trump in mind when he wrote," Hard man Fi Dead," some 60 years ago. 

              The Prince Buster classic.

 But this reggae classic fits Trump perfectly!

Many people throughout the world are really mystified how someone like Trump,  a man with the reputation for: cheating  small contactors and other persons including applicants to his university, misappropriation of foundation funds for his own use, sexually harassing and even raping women, and who was convicted of a felony by his peers,  and on an on, could get such an overwhelming mandate from the richest and most powerful country in the world.

And this mandate is such that those who warned that he could be a Hitler could be prophetic, for with him sweeping the presidency both in terms of popular vote and electoral college votes, sweeping the Senate and most likely the Congress and controlling the Supreme Court and lower courts ad infinitum, there is nothing to stop him doing anything he wants during the next four years.😡

What is sad, is that the Democrats could also be out of power for decades, unless of course, they wake from their stupor and stop blaming everyone but themselves.

Short-sighted Democrats who claim that they lost because Americans will never elect a woman, are overlooking the fact that Hilary beat him by three million votes in 2016 and only lost because of the weird electoral college system. And when they hold up the race  card, how do they explain how Obama, a black man, won in the USA, not once but twice?

There is even more stark information that they are misreading the facts when you look at voter turnout in the critical states; For example, Trump won Wisconsin by 23,000 votes but in Milwaukee, 93,000 black people did not vote!

He won Florida by 113,000 votes where 379,000 black people did not bother to vote. And that pattern is repeated all over.

So, are they really saying that those blacks who did not vote for Harris are racists?

The Democratic leadership needs to wake up and take full responsibility for their shortcomings.

For they are the root of all the evil.

Kamala ran a good campaign, considering the short time she had and the fact that as Vice President, she had to accept responsibility for all that went wrong under Biden.

But it was the powerful Leadership of the Democratic Party that kept others out of a primary to replace Biden when he broke his promise to serve only one term.

 Even I, a mere neophyte could see that Biden was fading fast, and I said just that in April 2023, in Joan, my views: He is just too old!.

But the leadership kept lying to the people until it was too late and they had to choose Kamala who had not even been a front-runner when Biden got the nomination in August 2020.

The Democrats have it all wrong for the exit polls show that the immortal words  uttered by James Carville;  “It’s the economy stupid,” is as true today as when he first uttered it.

The powerful and wealthy Democratic leadership can continue to drag down the Party by disregarding reality, although over 70% said they voted for change because they were finding it difficult to cope economically. And don't forget, Trump the master marketer, never failed to ask the question at his well publicised rallies: are you worse off today than you were four years ago?

In other areas, the democratic leadership is totally out of step with the majority, for most immigrants who became citizens after going through the long, tedious legal process to be able to vote, were turned off by the immigration policy which allowed people to simply climb a wall and get accepted in to the USA!

In places such as New York and Chicago, black Americans were also expressing disgust at how wall climbers were being given free housing, and debit cards, when their homelessness and dire economic situation was being disregarded by the Democratic elites.

Also, because the Democrats neglected its base made up of workers, unions such as the Teamsters, refused to endorse them for the first time in decades.

Then there was their strange stance on transgenderism which endorsed underperforming male athletes getting sex changes and destroying the hopes of hard working female athletes in just about every genre.

Sure, there is racism and misogyny in the USA, and small groups will always vote in line with their petty biases, but by ignoring the real issues, the Democrats will fade into oblivion and may even cause the fascism they shouted so loudly about, to become a reality.

In light of these realities, we can only hope that Trump’s promise during his acceptance speech on election night 'to help our country heal and to be the president every citizen' is not just words.

It’s difficult to see how it can be otherwise though, as these words are so much out of step with his character. Also the possibility of a 78 year old man really being able to change seems so impossible!

But as it stands today, we can only live in hope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kailua-Kona, Hawaii

The first thing that struck me in Hawaii, was how there were so many places starting with the letter K.

I couldn't stop asking why this was so until I was informed that the Hawaiian language has one of the the shortest alphabets in the world, (10 consonants and 5 vowels), so some letters are greatly overused.

Of the islands we visited in Hawaii on a recent cruise, my favorite by far is Kailua-Kona. It is the second-largest settlement after Hilo.

It is also known as  the Garden Island and I got to see why this is so! It is absolutely beautiful and has such variety. 

(It is also where I learned the joys of ziplining Joan, my views: Zipping away)

It is an extremely mountainous island, rainy and so lush that one section is said to be among the wettest places in the world.

 That is on Mount Waialeale.

Waimea Canyon

Inside this grotto was once a favorite place to hold weddings.

Kona's mainstay was once sugar, but when that became too expensive to produce, they got rid of it.

 Today their main income comes from tourism followed by coffee. 

They also have so many trees that they use mainly biogas for electricity. Solar power is also widely used.

Waimea multicolored Canyon

In my book, it's far more diverse than the Grand Canyon!

Opaeekaa water falls

                                                                    A Hawaiian wedding song

Can you believe that everywhere you go on the island you see these country fowls! They have no predators. Not even humans, as Hawaiians say they are too tough to eat. I grew up on them and loved them.🤤

                                                Getting a tattoo. It is said that it's the Polynesians who started the craze.

Kailua-Kona is really a beautiful little island so it is not unexpected that it attracts millions of tourists. 

Itis especially popular among retirees and honeymooners as it has no nightlife, no nightclubs, no go go establishments and most importantly, crime is almost non-existent.

What it has though is a lot of churches  and places of worship of every religion. I never saw any mosques but did see a few Buddhist temples.

 Unfortunately, native Hawaiians are now finding it difficult to buy homes there, as rich retirees from the mainland and people who work from home have relocated there and driven up the price of real estate.

 So an ordinary home now costs in excess of one and a half million dollars.

Another small island losing its people.