World Trump Center at 7:53 PM

I usually don't use this space to comment on current events, as most current events center around death, destruction and crime, but I came across this article today, and I couldn't help myself. It seems that after all the planning and arguing and campaigning and what have you, the design for "Freedom Tower", which will stand on the site of Ground Zero in Manhattan, is not good enough for Donald Trump.

Let me first say that I enjoy "The Apprentice" because it's hilarious. You all know the premise, where a bunch of successful business-types vie for an apprenticeship with Donald Trump (which is actually more of a job in one of his companies than an apprenticeship). Part of what makes it funny is that the tasks given the contestants would never happen in real life (try asking a group of advertising executives--let alone people who don't do advertising--to come up with an entire campaign in 24 hours, and then berate them when it sucks. That would go over well). But at the center of everything is Trump, who is a cartoon character and knows it. At least I thought he knew it. Of course, it would be naive to think that the persona he plays up on his show is completely made up, but I didn't think anyone could seriously be that much of an egotistical maniac, completely blind to the fact that no one takes them seriously even though they're insanely rich. By the way, there's a good amount of people who, if they started out with a good education and an enormous wad of dad's money, would be pretty successful. Some of those people might just not need to put their name all over every building in New York and live in a penthouse made of gold. I'm just sayin'.

The way he talks in the article is completely and utterly disrespectful to everyone who put time and effort into the planning of the site. It's one thing to trash someone else's design, but when he comes to the table with essentially the same buildings as were there before (but about 100 feet taller), how can he do it with a straight face? Not only is the design completely unoriginal, but in his plans he doesn't even include a memorial. He compares it to what would happen if something happened to the Statue of Liberty: "If something happened to the Statue of Liberty, you wouldn't rebuild it as something other than the Statue of Liberty." Do I even need to begin with how asinine that comparison is? The Twin Towers were perhaps iconic if only for their size and proximity to one another, and of course they were always noticeable on the Manhattan horizon, but they were essentially office buildings. So let's focus on the human aspect of all this rather than the architectural, shall we?

Anyway, I'm getting all worked up for no reason. This is why I don't comment on this sort of thing. On to the song of the day: "Comfortably Numb", by Pink Floyd. All I have to say is there's nothing like a Pink Floyd song when you're in the mood for it.