Where to Find Good Mexican Food In Scranton, Pa
President Obama recently addressed a high school graduating class in Kalamazoo, Michigan (yes, there is an actual place named Kalamazoo. While the exact origin of the word is the subject of some debate, one possible meaning is “the place where animals wounded by Indians go to die”, which has zero relevance to our subject but is interesting). In his speech, Obama urged the students to be different from Washington, and and to “make no excuses“.
Most of the critics of Obama are partisan, as are most of his defenders. Both camps suffer from the fatal flaw of being bores-their minds are not open to any real solutions because they are too focused on the people they hate, which in Washington seems to arise from seeing others grab tax dollars before they can.
What Obama said is correct. No graduating high school student can go through life making excuses and blaming others and be truly productive. Although making excuses and blaming others are the primary tools of the parasitical classes, no real Ayn Randian “First Rater” would be happy living like that. If you read the memoirs of great inventors like Tesla, they are studies in frankness. If anything, Tesla seemed too uninterested in blaming others. Like the guy in The Dirty Dozen, he wasn’t interested in embroidery, just results. The sad fact is, though, people like this often get used by the blamers and the excuse makers. Ducking blame and avoiding responsibility are practised at the highest levels, recent graduates are told, so you had better be ready to go out there and pick up our slack.
This was probably just about the most honest thing any politician I can remember has said.
Due to the subject matter of this blog, sometimes there is a tendency to forget the positive developments still occurring in America every day. So let’s talk about a positive development. Lets talk about Chicano’s Restaurant, 902 Prospect Avenue in Scranton.
Chicano’s is owned and operated by a Mr. Jorge Rodriguez and his wife, Macrina. Originally from El Salvador, Jorge was working as a chef locally when he saw a potential niche for a business in Scranton serving authentic Mexican food. By buying a place as cheaply as possible, living in an apartment they remodeled over the restaurant, and by working hard at something they were good at, they deliver consistently excellent Mexican food at about the best possible price one could expect.
They minimized expenses and maximized value. As a result, they always seem pretty busy, and are moving to a bigger location soon.
I bet the Rodriguez’s would also agree with President Obama. In fact, those graduating kids in Kalamazoo might have gotten a similiar message from Macrina and Jorge Rodriguez if they had been asked to speak at that high school commencement ceremony instead of Obama, though this seems unlikely. For starters, the Rodriguez’s are too busy working to run from here to Kalamazoo giving ironic speeches, which from Jorge and Macrina wouldn’t have been ironic at all. After all, delivering high quality and authentic Mexican food in Scranton, Pennsylvania is a full time job. They are busy creating a market, and the economy isn’t helping. Even if they made excuses, who would listen? Certainly not the tax and bill collectors.
President Obama and many other political leaders also could benefit from a speech from Jorge Rodriguez, and could benefit from working at Chicano’s restaurant for a couple of shifts as well. You’ll have to excuse him, though. After all, his chief adviser cut his finger off while working at Arbys. These guys might be a danger to themselves if they had to do something besides make the excuse that everyone else is making excuses, instead of just being a danger to others now.
