Pittsburgh<\/p>\n
Jenn and I went to Pittsburgh for the first time this weekend.\u00a0 Some friends of ours, die-hard Steelers fans, love Pittsburgh, and they wanted us to see it through their eyes.\u00a0\u00a0 We literally did the tour:\u00a0 seeing the stadium, the old Fort Pitt (the original point of civilization in the American frontier,) ate at a Kelly O\u2019s Diner (as seen on TV,) had awesome meatballs in a restaurant on Penn Street.<\/p>\n
In Pittsburgh they have San Francisco-like hills leading from the rivers that surround the downtown.\u00a0And like San Francisco, Pittsburgh built cable driven cars to go up the incredibly steep hills, called \u201cInclines.\u201d\u00a0Two are still working, and on Saturday morning we went to the top the top of the Duquesne Incline.\u00a0 After seeing the awesome view, we rode back down to river level, waiting for our tour bus.<\/p>\n
From all over town came the wail of sirens:\u00a0 police heading through the maze of tunnels and bridges and \u201cuptown.\u201d\u00a0 One of our friends, a police officer, thought it seemed like a mass shooting kind of response.\u00a0 A new acquaintance we met in the Incline car from Northern California turned his phone into a police scanner, and we began to hear the awful news.\u00a0It started with this broadcast to police, \u201c\u2026don\u2019t go out on Wilkins Avenue, you\u2019ll get shot!!\u201d\u00a0 We watched the armored SWAT vehicle race through town, then more police, and then ambulance after ambulance.<\/p>\n
Our next stop was the Rivers Casino where we saw the tragedy revealed on television.\u00a0 Pittsburghers were saddened, worried about the dead and wounded, and about the police officers that were injured trying to end the carnage.\u00a0 But they also were resilient; it\u2019s a big town with a lot to do, and a lot of people there for all sorts of different reasons.\u00a0 So we went on, seeing the monument to Mr. Rogers (the attack was in Mr. Rogers\u2019 actual neighborhood) and following the news on our phones.<\/p>\n
That evening we went to an Irish pub on the \u201cStrip Section\u201d (not from strippers, but from strip mining that leveled the area in the late 1800\u2019s.)\u00a0 The owner was holding a benefit for Haiti, but he spent time talking about the members of his \u201cpub family\u201d who were affected by the attack as well.\u00a0 We sang Amazing Grace in their honor, and Haiti relief did very well, especially from the visitors from Ohio who became part of the Malaney \u201cpub family\u201d for the night.<\/p>\n
Sunday most of the guests in our hotel were headed to the Steelers\/Browns game.\u00a0 But while the inevitable talk was about the game (and how the Steelers would win:\u00a0 they did) there was always a pause, and sad eyes, and \u201cwhat is wrong with the world\u201d conversation.\u00a0 On TV was the Mayor of the city, exhausted, talking about gun control and AR-15\u2019s.\u00a0 The rest of the media world wondered:\u00a0 how can we, in this week of attempted bombings and a completed mass shooting:\u00a0 how can we get our nation to stop raising the rhetoric so high that those on the edges fall into madness?<\/p>\n
And in our little hometown of Pataskala, there was outrage about the \u201cHaunted Hoochie\u201d (a series of barns where they scare the hell out of you for $25 \u2013 it\u2019s Halloween) who decided that Saturday night was right for \u201cswastika night.\u201d\u00a0 Wear a swastika as part of your costume (or painted or tattooed on your body) and you get in free.\u00a0 They argued that swastikas represented real horror; but a lot of the community commented that it never was acceptable, it certainly wasn\u2019t the night when eleven Jewish folks were murdered in their Synagogue by a racist with a rifle.\u00a0There were a few who didn\u2019t get it, and there probably were a few in Pittsburgh who didn\u2019t either.\u00a0 But most of the town was outraged.<\/p>\n
It has to stop.\u00a0 We need leadership who backs civility, not pays lip service to it then jokes about having a \u201c\u2026bad hair day.\u201d \u00a0We need the President to stop calling the news the \u201c\u2026enemy of the people (Trump-10\/29\/18 am);\u201d and dabbling in conspiracies like a \u201c\u2026Soros funded Caravan from Central America.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0It isn\u2019t that the President and these others are causing violence, but they have contributed to the climate.<\/p>\n
President Trump is not anti-Semitic.\u00a0 His \u00a0daughter and son-in-law are \u00a0conservative Jews, he could have been at the service on Saturday.\u00a0And Trump sees himself as a great supporter of Israel.\u00a0 But he has allied himself with some who would use anti-Semitism to further their political goals: \u00a0the dark conspirators on the internet, who see George Soros and Tom Steyer and Chuck Schumer not as loyal Americans, but as a part of a Jewish cabal looking to take over the world.<\/p>\n
Next week\u2019s election may not change that.\u00a0 Changing the President might not either:\u00a0 Trump is a symptom, someone who caught onto this, not the creator. It will take a lot of communicating for all sides to get back to what America can be.\u00a0 The Steelers and the Browns fans rose together for a moment of silence on Sunday, maybe there\u2019s a way for all of us to find common ground for talk, even if we disagree.\u00a0 That\u2019s what our leaders need to do, from whatever party or view they represent.\u00a0 Common ground to end the killing ground we are creating.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"