Tomorrow's Targets: Trump Towers?

Trump buildings are extremely visible because President-to-be Donald Trump, during his empire-establishing career, loved to see his name on them.

This has now created real problems. And dangers.

My sympathies go out to various intelligence services (CIA, ONI, NSA) and the FBI. Due to the election of Donald Trump, immediately, very physical targets exist reflective of the new USA presidency, and by extension, America. The job of gathering Informaton on plots and protecting these buildings falls to the alphabet soup of this network and aligned law enforcement agencies.

The potential that any one of these flamboyant structures may be assaulted, by car bombs, hand-thrown bombs, or even fuel-heavy planes, has been heightened.

The new post-election, fortress America is certainly true at various Trump Towers in New York City. The possible most significant future bull's eye is being guarded from bombings with cement trucks, until the US Secret Service can fortify the building more permanently. The surprise victory of Trump on Election Day gave little time for a more thoughtful solution.

The use of the name "Trump" so widely and so openly, throughout the world, has caused a major security and political headache. This is especially true for individuals who do not want to be identified with the Trump name, but discover they live or work in just such a building.

Trump Tower is located at 725 5th Avenue. You can obtain your own replica of this building here.

Regarding the "Trump name game," on buildings, it has come to the fore rapidly that it is proving to be a challenge. On Wednesday, November 16, 2016, Donald Trump’s name will be permanently removed from a series of New York City buildings, "in an apparent repudiation of his divisive presidential campaign."

The name “Trump” has been displayed prominently on 140, 160 and 180 Trump Place, in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, for more than a decade. Trump developed the apartment buildings in the 1990s....
The move comes after hundreds of residents signed a “Dump the Trump name” petition calling for “Trump” to be removed from the buildings....
The apartment buildings will no longer use the address “Trump Place”, Equity Residential said, instead adopting the formal street address of Riverside Boulevard. Trump-branded doormats were removed from the buildings in the days before the presidential election.
Signs saying “Trump Place” – in large gold letters – will be removed from the three buildings on Wednesday.
Trump developed the apartments, between 59th Street and 71st Street on the west side of Manhattan, in partnership with investors from Hong Kong in the 1990s, according to the New York Times.
Seven buildings bear the Trump name. While some are managed by the Trump Organization, the three apartment buildings at 140, 160 and 180 Riverside Boulevard are now controlled by Equity Residential.
Trump’s home, Trump Tower, is located just a mile and a half east of Trump Place. Source.

There are other buildings that are tied to the Trump legacy.

Trump's son-in-law owns another high profile building - 666 Fifth Avenue in New York City. In December 2006, Tishman Speyer, along with the German investment firm TMW, announced the sale of the building to the Kushner Properties for $1.8 billion (about $2.2 billion real value), at the time the highest price ever paid for an individual building in Manhattan. Kushner Properties' owners are Charles Kushner and his son Jared Kushner. Jared is married to Ivanka Trump, the daughter of President-elect of the United States Donald Trump.

There are currently many sites around the world that may be in jeopardy, potential magnets for demonstrators or bombers, and thus new national security concerns. 

Here are the top ten, as identified by Dezeen.

Trump International Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Trump International Hotel and Tower, Chicago, Illinois.

Trump International Hotel and Tower, Toronto, Canada.

Trump Ocean Club, Panama City, Panama.

Trump SoHo, New York City, New York.

Trump Tower, New York City, New York.

Trump International Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Trump Tower, Manila, Philippines.

Trump Towers, Istanbul, Turkey.

Trump Towers, Sunny Isles Beach, Florida.

Trump World Tower, New York City, New York.

For more background info on these structures, see here.

For more on other Trump properties, see here.

Source for these maps, "In Maps: Trump properties around the world," CTV News.

XXX Olympiad Symbols

Who turned out to be the Olympics' Opening Ceremony's Joker?

I am watching the Olympics Opening Ceremonies, all recorded replays, and thus merely another Danny Boyle production. Actually rather terrible, but here are some things I saw, on a deeper level.

NBC began the evening program with a starting and startling image of a red dawn. You can't make these things up.

Several other symbols jump out.

The 2012 Olympics ceremony's theme is "Isles of Wonder," inspired by William Shakespeare's play about shipwrecked castaways, The Tempest. The reading from The Tempest was about fear and the coming storm.

Amsterdam correspondent Theo Paijmans wrote me: "It is commonly held that William Shakespeare may have modeled the character of Prospero in The Tempest on John Dee." (John Dee signed his letters 007, the first Bond.) Is there a storm coming?

The Bell. The Culture Secretary had an accident with a hand-held bell that almost hurt people in a crowd.

The sound of a 27-ton bell — the largest harmonically tuned bell in the world — forged at London's 442-year-old Whitechapel (Jack the Ripper's neighborhood?) Bell Foundry, which made London's Big Ben and Philadelphia's Liberty Bell, opened the ceremony.  The bell is inscribed with a line from The Tempest: “Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises.”

Yes, as a tie-in to the new 007 movie, Skyfall, a James Bond double "fell" into the Olympics stadium, but the double for Queen Elizabeth jumping from a little plane was what had NBC hosts talking.

The opening had a "green and pleasant land" described in William Blake's poem Jerusalem, which was set to loud, booming music, regarded as England's unofficial national anthem. The underlying symbolism of "Jerusalem" would fill volumes. The rising smoke towers reminded me of those that were said to have inspired The Two Towers of The Lord of the Rings.

Now this is creepy and not lost on even the NBC folks: the Queen of Hearts (Alice in Wonderland), Captain Hook (Peter Pan), Lord Voldemort (Harry Potter), the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Cruella de Vil (101 Dalmatians) - all highly symbolic pedophile figures - were shown vs only Mary Poppins (well, 30 or so cloned Mary Poppins).

Vangelis' theme from Chariots of Fire played. Of late here, we've mentioned the soundtrack composed by Vangelis for Ridley Scott's 1982 film Blade Runner.

The entire Chariots of Fire segment was turned into a comedy by Mr. Bean as the Joker at the Olympics. The actor's name is Rowan Atkinson, a double red name.

Rowan \ro-wan\ as a boy's or girl's name is of Gaelic origin, and the meaning of Rowan is "little red-head." Also the name of a flowering tree with red berries.

Atkinson is son of Atkin, which is as a patronymic form of the medieval male given name Atkin or Adkin, itself a double diminutive of the Hebrew name "Adam," meaning "red earth."

For another view of the Opening Ceremony by a person who is more generous in his appreciation of the music, please see Red Dirt Report editor Andrew W. Griffin's "Olympic spectacle on the Isles on Wonder."

Meanwhile, the other clown appearing in London right before the Opening turned out to be Willard Mitt Romney. London's newspapers were not kind to him, and one called him, "Mitt the Twit."  I am not making this observation to be political, but to note that an underlying theme here is that Romney turned himself, by making several gaffs, into a clown, a court jester, and, yes, a joker.