Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi had quite a time trying to pitch his Bedouin tent in NY this week during his first visit to the United States to speak at the United Nations General Assembly. According to The Christian Science Monitor:
When traveling internationally, Qaddafi prefers to stay in his traditional Bedouin-style tent, supposedly to honor his roots. He has previously set up camp in Italy and France. Qaddafi first wanted to pitch his tent in New York’s Central Park. After that was vetoed, he tried for the town of Englewood, N.J.
Qaddafi was also denied a pricey Upper East Side apartment rental, according to a real estate agent approached by Libyan officials. Finally workers began pitching the tent on land owned by Donald Trump in Bedford, N.Y., which the Libyan rented through intermediaries. The media began following the tent’s construction from the air – that is, until construction was shut down after it was deemed an illegal temporary structure. The end result was no tent and no love for Qaddafi. He spent Tues. night at the Libyan mission in Manhattan.
So, I called my grandma earlier this evening to discuss Qaddafi’s extra long hike through history 90 minute speech earlier today, and a conversation of random foolery ensued.
I asked her if she’d caught parts of the speech and she said no. But she was aware of the tent situation.
Me: Wouldn’t that be something you plan ahead of time? Where to put your tent? (Note: Before I knew his people had made the plans beforehand.) Why won’t anyone let him tent? I don’t see the problem as long as he’s paying.
Grandma: Well it’s New York, not over there in the desert. He can leave that tent over there.
Me: But apparently it’s some sort of tradition he has. If he’s paying to tent somewhere, I don’t see the problem.
Grandma: We don’t do tents over here…He has all that oil money; he could’ve just rented a hotel. I don’t care where else he does it…Have you seen that ugly tent?
Me: (At this point laughing at the foolery of this conversation) I saw it. And I can’t believe you won’t let that man keep his tradition. I’m putting this up on the blog.
Grandma: I don’t care — go ahead.
