Coffee With a Sprinkle of Jihad

Texting With the Syntax of a Jihadi

I was in Starbucks where I managed to find a seat in the corner. It was quite a nice seat considering seating is hard to come by in Starbucks. I started to read from my tablet, and found this article on the Jihadi John.

I then noticed that the guy next to me looked like he could be a Jihadi John.

I started to test him on his accent and comprehension level (if he even understood what I was saying).

Turns out guilty on both counts (accent and comprehension level).

Me: You've got yourself a nice place here.

Guy: (Looks up with a half smile, looking intimidated.)

Me: You have a pretty nice spot.

Guy: I donent no.

I just sat down and momentarily watched him push his fingers around frantically on his phone. I couldn't make out the language, but it looked like the Latin alphabet (not Arabic, although I wonder how one would text in Arabic on a Latin keyboard?)

Me: Is that the new iPhone?

Guy: i-ye-Phoneee?

Still no comprehension. His "i-ye-Phonee" sounded Hispanic.

Me: You don't speak English?

Guy: Englishi?

Me: Where are you from?

Guy: Colombia.

I returned to my tablet, and continued to drink my coffee.

He was glancing back and forth at me (I guess he thought he could chat me up or something, and wasn't astute enough to realize that I wasn't asking him pleasantries):
"Where do you work?"
"Near Walmart, like this..."
"Ah, McDonalds."
"Where is your family?"
"In Montreal and here."

All this with ample sign language and repeated words. I speak good enough Spanish, but I wasn't about to make things easy for him.

Such is the state of our Multi-Culti land.

And I still don't trust him.

What is to stop him from joining Arab Muslims, whom he greatly resembles, to find himself a welcoming community in this land of those evil, racist whites?
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat

McDonalds' Aesthetics

The Golden Arches of McDonalds
Rt.1, Saugus, Massachusetts USA
Photo taken on November 4, 2012

A reader at Laura Wood's site, under her posting Ugly Toronto where she quotes from my post "Stay Classy, Toronto" has this to say about McDonalds:

Jay from Goshen writes:
If a municipality wants to take the trouble, it can pass ordinances that even McDonald’s has to follow. That is why in some locales, McDonald’s restaurants look not only inconspicuous, but attractive. My family and I drove a long distance once in a very isolated part of the southwest. We finally found a McDonald’s. Normally I hate the place, but in that instance, it was comforting and reassuring. It was constructed of local materials and that normally garish golden arch was small, and attractive, under the circumstances.

There was a time in recent years when McDonalds was really an awful place, dirty and with dubious characters taking up the seats. Now they are gone, having been chased out, and the clientel is clean and proper. There is also a new and ambitious addition to the original McDonalds: the McCafé, which features good, strong coffee which is on a par with Starbucks. The
"é" at the end of cafe is not snobishness. It fits with McDonalds' new image of being cultured, and gets away from its grimy past.

McDonalds goes back to the America of the 1950s, with the hamburger joints, the car culture of teenagers, juke boxes, and waitresses on roller blades. There was an American architecture of burger buildings (there no longer is), and McDonalds was part of that. The burger, and the culture around it, is an American tradition.


A 1950s McDonalds

Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald's franchise...on April 15, 1955, in Des Plaines, Illinois. Though it was the ninth McDonald's restaurant overall, it was Kroc's first franchise...The first day's sales were $366.12.

Just four years later, McDonald's notched its 100th restaurant with the opening of an outpost in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin [More inforamtion here].

A hamburger for 15c, made from "Government inspected meat"
[Larger menu version here]


A contemporary McCafé


Peppermint Mocha for $2.39, in Toronto


Apple Slices. They may not be fresh, but they follow
McDonads' new philosophy of eating healthy without sacrificing taste.

There would really not be a McDonalds without kids. What better way for a kid to have a snack than with sliced apples? It's not much, but this is the enlightened direction that successful institutions take.

Even McDonalds follows the concerns of its customers. But more than mere reaction to customers, the contemporary McDonalds is trying to make eating an aesthetic, pleasant, healthy and fulfilling experience.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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