The Tricolor Good Neighbor Sign

The above photo is of a sign I've been seeing quite a lot of lately...one of tolerance, wouldn't you say?  By the way, thanks to National Public Radio's website, here's the pertinent article: [link].  There's one of these signs...and I love the green/blue/orange color scheme...posted by a resident two houses down from me, and it seems there is a preponderance of them on the roadside in front of various churches in town...a church seems to be the origin of these signs (read NPR's article).  But what are they trying to convey...and why?

The overt message is simple and positive: we're not prejudiced about where you're from...if you're our neighbor, then we accept and welcome you.  Sounds good, to me...how about you?  The problem I see is that by making the sign into Spanish, English, and Arabic translations, a not-so-subtle political dart is being thrown at the Trump administration...after all, does anyone honestly think that these signs would have come out had Hillary Clinton (whom I supported) been elected as president?  Donald Trump had campaigned on protecting our borders from both illegal immigration from the predominantly Spanish-speaking south and from radical Islamists from predominantly Arabic-speaking countries...I think the measures he's taken so far as president are a little over the top but well-intentioned.  After all, he is duty-bound to protect us and uphold the laws and I believe he's doing the best he can under the circumstances...I don't have a problem with our president on this particular issue other than the confrontational, stumblebum manner with which he has addressed it...

When President Obama gave his farewell speech just before leaving office, he repeated the oft-said "lesson" about how we are a nation of immigrants, after all.  To whom I, as a Democrat who twice voted for him, respond that I'm all for liberal, legal immigration policies...but what about folks just flooding over the border or overstaying their visa provisions?  I think that our immigration laws should be enforced...and if people think the laws are wrong, then they can change them through the democratic process!  I don't need this condescending, politically correct preaching that typecasts people concerned about terrorism and illegal immigration as intolerant bigots. I'm glad of my neighbors, regardless of their origins...but they should follow the law in becoming my neighbors...

On the other hand, I love it whenever I have a "Rosetta Stone" experience and can see translations of three great languages like Spanish, English, and Arabic.  This green, blue, and orange sign that is springing up in so many places has a good basic message which I accept...I just suspect some ulterior political motives behind it all...

Great Florida Birding Trail...Trail?

This is a sign going west on NW 39th Avenue here in Gainesville. It appears to be pointing directly at the adjacent cemetery, but I think it was meant for NW 43rd Street, at the next traffic light. But if you think that the Great Florida Birding Trail runs along that street, then you are sadly mistaken. For the Great Florida Birding Trail, it turns out, is not really a trail at all. It mystically appears at various locations throughout the state wherever the state park service has concluded that birds hang out. The "trail" part is within park boundaries; to get there, forget hiking!

Here is the website for the Great Florida Birding Trail. For all practical purposes, it is just a repackaged presentation of Florida's state park system. And yes, I guess birds fit into it, sure. But it's not exactly as if the state of Florida issued a decree to birds to tell them to hang out there! Birds are wild creatures and live everywhere. I observe and hear several different species of wild birds whenever I walk around my block. I doubt that they are all that different from those I would encounter at Devil's Millhopper a couple of miles down the road (and the actual target for the above-pictured sign). Yeah, I bet the same sorts of birds even congregate at that cemetery!

Instead of burning up gasoline traveling to parks just to see birds, why not just look around you where you live and get to know the amazing diversity of wild avian life thriving there, smack dab in the midst of (God forbid) HUMANITY. On the other hand, these parks all have their own features that may draw visitors. But just to see birds on the Great Florida Birding "Trail"? Oh, please...