Archive for the ‘Civil Rights’ Category
July 22, 2017
It is Saturday afternoon; I am sitting where I have been sitting every afternoon since arriving on Martha’s Vineyard, on the veranda of my friends’ home, gazing out at the harbor, listening to the sound of boats motoring. There is almost no wind and so the sailboats, if moving at all, are using their motors.
It was early that I woke this morning, nudged into wakefulness by a text on my phone. A second text banished sleep and I laid in bed and read the NY Times, edging into the day with the Food section. Hard news seemed too much for the early hour.
Joining my friend, Jeffrey, we went over to Behind the Bookstore to pick up some things to take to their outpost up in Vineyard Haven where Igor made me a powerful coffee drink with a hint of lavender. Back at BTB with some needed ice, I soothed the caffeine edge with a mimosa.
Now, I am back in my favorite spot, reading science fiction short stories before starting the mystery I purchased at Edgartown Books this morning, “Moriarity,” about which I had read good things earlier in the year. Yesterday, I finished a trifle of a mystery just before a marathon nap.
Jeffrey calls this the “land of off.” It is; I am very “off.” It is a comfortable house in both physical terms and the graciousness of my hosts. As I wandered into the kitchen to make myself a sandwich, I appreciated that.
Later in the day, I looked at the news and winced. Today’s twitter storm seemed to be all about our President telling the world that he absolutely has a right to pardon anyone he wants, including himself.
Witnessing these things results in some attitude I have yet to describe, a mélange of incoherence, amusement, fear, incredulity and amazement. There must be a word for it somewhere.
A friend forwarded me an article today; it is a portrait of the man who is leading a prayer group that includes most of our President’s cabinet. It seems he believes God only hears the prayers of Christians. My friend is Jewish. Her only comment: Oy!
I concur.
Sean Spicer left the building yesterday, resigning after the elevation of Scaramucci to the office of White House Communications Director, a move with which Spicer had vehemently disagreed. But he was named and Spicer left, replaced by Sarah Huckabee Sanders. It is hoped Melissa McCarthy can do as good a job with her as she did with “Spicey.”
The NY Times published a scathing, oh, really scathing article called, “The Mooch and the Mogul.” You can read it here.
Googling for an article that praised Scaramucci’s appointment, I found little. The closest was this, an article in Forbes, by Nathan Vardi. You can read that here. It’s not that great but best to be found. Apparently, the NY Times called him “the mooch” because that’s his nickname on Wall Street.
Meanwhile, Congress has put together a package of sanctions against Russia that our president is not going to like. It has broad bi-partisan support. Imagine that?! Insiders think the president won’t veto it despite how much he dislikes it.
John Heard, the father in the “Home Alone” movies, passed away at 71, while recovering from back surgery. R.I.P.
And R.I.P. to Jamel Dunn, a disabled Florida man who drowned while five teenage boys recorded his demise, laughing and taunting him, doing nothing to help him. They posted the video on YouTube and didn’t bother to alert authorities. Florida police are searching for a statue by which to charge them.
It is a story which saddens me, sickens me and causes me to wonder about my fellowman.
Tonight, I will say a prayer for Jamel Dunn and for the souls of the young men who laughed while he died and light candles next time I am in church.
Tags:Behind the Bookstore, BTB, Edgartown Books, Florida drowning, Forbes, Home Alone, Jamel Dunn, Jemal Dunn, John Heard, Land of Off, Martha's Vineyard, Nathan Vardi, NY Times, President's Cabinet, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Scaramucci, Sean Spicer, Spicey, The Mooch and The Mogul, Vineyard Haven
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hudson New York, Hygge, Life, Literature, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
July 15, 2017
It is closing on 6:00 on the 15th of July, 2017 and I am riding north on the auto train from Sanford, Florida to Lorton, Virginia. Pierre Font, married to my friend Lionel, and I are bringing his parents’ car from Miami to Columbia County, which is where they will be living while they sort out their lives.
There are no stops. Well, except for the one where one of the engines lost power but they managed to fix it and we are going again. It is a bit like being on a cruise, having a day at sea.
Forty years ago, in Tehran, Maryam Mirzakhani, was born. She is the only woman to have won the Field Award in mathematics, the equivalent of a Nobel Prize. And today, she passed away, a victim of breast cancer, a brilliant mind gone quiet. She has been a Professor at Stanford University since 2008. RIP. It is hard to lose such a brilliant mind. By the way, she was Muslim.
Yesterday, one of my relatives sent me an email warning me about a young Muslim politician in Michigan. It was, to me, both xenophobic and un-American, and I angrily deleted it. We were being warned he might one day become President of the United States. Today, I wanted to retrieve it but couldn’t seem to find it. My relative’s unhappiness with the man was simply based on the fact he was Muslim.
One of the finest people I have known in my life was Omar Ahmad, a Muslim, who when he died prematurely from a heart attack a few years ago, was Mayor of San Carlos, CA.
There was a moment when I wanted to respond. I didn’t because it would have no effect on him as nothing I say would change his mind. This is who he is, xenophobic and un-American and he has been that way since I have known him.
Yet, I feel guilty at not having responded.
Such is life in 21st Century America.
The election of Trump to the Presidency has given lots of people more freedom to express xenophobia and racism and all the ugly things we haven’t dealt with in America. And all the things that more and more of the world is having to deal with as huge populations move around the globe.
France was welcoming to Josephine Baker in the 1920’s; it could afford to be. It looked down on the United States and its racial policies. But would a Josephine Baker from a Muslim country today still find the embrace she did? I’m not sure.
It is one thing to be a rarity in the 1920’s and another to be part of an encroaching potential majority in the 2010’s.
I am saddened and worn by all these things and grateful I will be gone before all this plays out.
It is possible for me to look back and think, gratefully, on what a life I have had. It is my hope that the people who are younger than me will also have a wonderful life and that a solution will be found to all of this because if we do not find a way to embrace each other, it is not going to be pretty.
Tags:Auto Train, Field Award, France, Josephine Baker, life, Lorton VA, Maryam Mirzakhani, Omar Ahmad, Pierre Font, Sanford FL, Stanford University, Tehran, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, depression, Elections, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Hygge, Iran, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
June 19, 2017
It is the evening of June 19th; Father’s Day is beginning to fade as is Pride Weekend in Hudson.
An on again, off again rain falls and an hour or two ago the sky was nighttime dark. Cosseted in the cottage, a martini by my side, I watch the raindrops splatter on the Claverack Creek.
It’s interesting. I was very sensitive over the weekend, a little raw. When I woke Saturday, I was in an unexpectedly foul mood and at the end of the day I took myself home and had a talk with myself.
I felt raw because it was Pride weekend and I woke acutely aware that I am not part of a unit and that I haven’t been very good at dating. The last one felt like I had entered a reality version of Sartre’s “No Exit.”
I am alone and normally it doesn’t bother me and over the weekend it did. Hudson is a town of couples and I am not coupled, which puts me at a bit of a disadvantage. You’re the odd one at the dinner party.
And, then, Sunday, it was Father’s Day. Always a hard day for me. I did not have a great relationship with my father. He was good to me the first few years and then, he wasn’t. The last seven years of his life he had almost nothing to say to me. The night before he died, I was being a squirrely twelve-year-old and he angrily sent me to my room.
It was the last exchange I had with him. The next morning, he had a stroke and died. So, I have spent my life trying to read the runes of the little time I had with him.
Okay, so it’s problematic. Parental relationships are problematic. Maybe mine a little more than others and mine probably a lot less than others, too.
It’s just it pops up on Father’s Day.
And I know so many good fathers; I sent text messages to them today. My godson, Paul, among them. He has two children, a girl, Sophia, and a boy, Noah. I don’t know them well and know enough to know they are interesting children and that’s because they have wonderfully invested parents.
And then there is Tom Fudali, who is Paul’s father, who made me Paul’s godfather and I am eternally grateful for that because Paul is not my son and he is my godson and our relationship is something I had hoped for and didn’t think would happen and has.
And there is my friend, Robert Murray, father of five, who exchanged texts with me while watching his son, Colin, play soccer in New Windsor. Robert reminds me of my oldest friend, Sarah’s, father, John McCormick, who had six children and made their home the place to be. On bitter Minnesota winter nights, the neighborhood would gather and skate on the rink in John’s backyard. They are some of my most magical childhood memories.
And then there is Kevin Malone, Sarah’s son, who has always thought of me as his uncle even though I am not actually his uncle but we have an avuncular relationship that is so effing wonderful! He is not a father and he is wonderful and is a jewel in my life.
So, I was being self-indulgently depressed, and I need to focus in on all the wonderful things which go on in my life and all the wonderful people who are in it.
In the craziness that has been in my mind this weekend, I am so glad I wrote this as it reminds me of all the things for which I need to remind myself that I need to have an “attitude of gratitude.”
In Memoriam:
I read today that Stephen Furst had died. He gained fame in “Animal House” as Flounder, went on to “St. Elsewhere” and “Babylon Five” and directed movies and television shows. For a time, in the 1990’s, we were friendly. He was a gracious, gentle soul, doing his very best in life. RIP. I remember you fondly.
Otto Warmbier, the young student returned from North Korea in a coma, has passed away. It is heartbreaking. At least he was at home, with family.
Tags:Attitude of Gratitude, Claverack Creek, Colin Murray, Father's Day, General, John McCormick, Kevin Malone, No Exit, Otto Warmbier, Paul Geffre, Robert Murray, Sarah Malone, Sartre, Stephen Furst, Tom Fudali
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, depression, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Hudson New York, Hudson Pride, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
June 5, 2017
The pearl grey of twilight is settling on the Hudson Valley and I’m playing the Joan Baez station from Amazon Prime Music in the background, wrapped in the warmth of a fleece pullover as the day has been infused with a chill closer to October than June.
We have had 4.5 inches more rain than normal this year. Last year was a drought; this year a flood. Saturday started with rain and then became a brilliant early spring day – except it’s not quite early spring anymore.
At the Farmer’s Market, I picked up fair trade coffee and some incredible chevre from an amazing artisanal cheese maker that I discovered at the winter market. In a way, I feel disloyal to the other cheese purveyors I frequent and her cheeses are over the top wonderful. She is in the market, center aisle, on the east end. Goats and Gourmets.
And all this is very hygge. And oh, my god! Do I need hygge right now!
Donald Trump has removed us from the Paris Climate Accords. It was not unexpected and it is disappointing. As I watch, from my point of view, I am witnessing the President of this country diminish us with every move he makes.
It is something that saddens me every day and I know I must live with this for the rest of his term, be it four or eight years. All this impeachment talk is not very real as it is hard, as it should be, to impeach a president. It’s my hope that we will have only one term of this man and that the country will elect someone in 2020 who will deal with the very real problems we face.
Trump trumpeted he would spend money to restore the infrastructure of this country which is in desperate need of restoration. His plan for that seems, to me, a little incoherent.
As is my custom, from my Catholic childhood, I light candles at church on Sunday when I come back from communion. One candle is for me. Call me selfish but one candle is just for me. Another is for the people I know who are having health issues. It includes the daughter of my friend Clark Bunting, whose daughter suffered a traumatic brain injury and the son of a former boyfriend who has a son who also suffers from that and seems to be doing well as well as all the others I know who are dealing with health issues.
And I light a candle for Donald Trump and the world in which we are living, praying we will get through this.
Then I light a candle for all the things I said I would light a candle about and have forgotten.
It is very comforting for me to do this.
One of the reasons I attend Christ Church is that I am getting older and at some point, in this getting older process, I won’t be here and I would like a community of people to mourn me. Christ Church will. In the last few years, I have become an integral part of that community. My coffee hours after the 10:30 service are legendary as are the Easter brunches I have organized the last two years.
And I would like there to be a great good party on the deck of the cottage or, if that’s not possible, at the Red Dot. I’m part of that community also.
It’s my hope it will be some long time before there will need to be a celebration but I am laying the ground work for that. That, too, is hygge for me.
Sitting here in the cottage, I am grateful and that is so comforting, to be grateful.
Tags:Christ Church Episcopal, General, Home, Hudson Farmer's Market, Hudson New York, Hygge, Media, Paris Climate Accord, Politics, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, Hygge, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Paris Climate Accords, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
June 1, 2017
Thunderstorms pummeled the Hudson Valley last night. This morning is as sweet a morning as one might wish.
The sky is a color of blue for which I cannot find a word; sweet, clear, refreshed from the rain. The sharp green of the trees outside my window almost glow in the sunlight cascading down in an almost magic morning. It is not hard to imagine that across the creek woodland nymphs are gambling in delight.
A big mug of strong coffee is at my side and jazz is playing, upbeat and uplifting.
A letter has been fermenting in my mind the last few days, ever since a couple of my friends who are supporters of Donald Trump questioned me on why he has had such a vitriolic reception as President?
I found myself surprised by the question.
It surprised me they did not understand; didn’t see what I see and I need to remember we are all individuals who are interpreting current events in different ways.
We have a President who didn’t win the majority vote and is still the President of the country, an event that has happened twice in this century, brief as it has been, and that has made a lot of people angry, uncomfortable and questioning our Founding Fathers’ wisdom in setting up the Electoral College.
We have a President that doesn’t seem to know the truth. We like our Presidents to at least sound like they’re telling the truth.
We don’t like them saying things that are verifiably not true, things that are conflations of their own imaginations. People notice things like that. It does not breed respect.
His Inauguration speech depicted an America which inspired despair, not hope. His picks for almost every office inspires deep concern for many people. Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA? Rick Perry as Secretary of the Department of Energy, the department he couldn’t remember in a debate that he wanted eliminated. Sort of a come down from people like the Ph.D.’s who were running it before.
NOTHING this President has done is very Presidential.
In his European trip, he may have handed the mantle of the leader of the Free World to Angela Merkel.
He is picking a trade fight with Germany but not addressing the real issues and potentially hurting workers in the South, where German car companies have been manufacturing. People who elected him may be the victims of this fight.
If he repudiates the Paris Climate Accords, he will link us with Syria and Nicaragua as the only countries not agreeing and will be doing another thing that will cede leadership to China, which remains steadfast in its support. And is capitalizing on it. China’s Premier is in Europe right now, cozying up to Merkel.
If we are disrespectful, it is because this man has given us so little to respect – from my point of view and that is not the point of view of everyone. I acknowledge that.
My family was Republican. The first President I remember is Dwight Eisenhower. Wow. Dwight Eisenhower then. Donald Trump now. Is it any wonder I shiver at night?
Weeks ago, I texted one of the smartest people I know, an Independent, who has voted both for Republicans and Democrats, not married to a party. I asked him what he thought of Trump. There was no response, until this weekend.
He said: I used to think Trump was just a jackass but he seems to be a jackass and an idiot.
Our White House is occupied by someone who seems a jackass and an idiot who is being unfaithful to the people who elected him. Everything he has proposed is supportive of his class and destructive to the people who elected him.
He is bringing the Billionaire’s Boy’s Club to the White House. He’s not cleaning out the swamp. He’s enlarging it.
Bucking a long-standing tradition, he hasn’t, still, released his tax returns. His aides have “forgotten” meetings with Russian officials during the campaign. His sons have contradicted him in terms of his financial relations with Russia. There are all kinds of dangling Russian connections that are, at best, unseemly, and, at worst, criminal and maybe treasonous.
So, I shiver at night and tremble when he speaks.
This is all, of course, my humble opinion.
And thus, I do things that are very hygge to comfort my soul, make me feel at one with the universe, and give me a smile, such as enjoying and savoring the view out my window, like enjoying this cat on display on Main Street in Catskill, where I was doing some errands yesterday.
Or enjoying this reflection by Thomas Pesquet, a French astronaut, as he readies himself for his return to earth. See it here.
Tags:Angela Merkel, Billionaire's Boy's Club, Brad Pitt, Department of Energy, Donald Trump, Dwight Eisenhower, Electoral College, EPA, Hudson Valley, Hygge, life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matt Tombers, Paris Climate Accord, Rick Perry, Scott Pruitt, technology, the swamp, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
May 1, 2017
It is a Sunday evening at the cottage. Jazz is playing, the lights splash the creek. I have made myself a martini. It was a typical Sunday, up early, read the NY Times and a few articles from the WSJ online before the shower and then off to church, where I did the readings and then coffee hour, errands before settling at the Dot for a long and lazy brunch, reading more off my phone and chatting with a few people, home to the cottage, put away laundry, got the trash together and sat down to write.
Very hygge.
Because I need the steady rhythm of familiar things in this Age of Trump.
His aides were caught off guard when he extended an invitation to President Duterte of the Philippines to come visit him during a Saturday call. If you haven’t been following it, President Duterte has been accused of extra-judicial killings in that country’s current “drug war.” Now those surprised aides are preparing for an avalanche of criticism as it’s hard to find a world leader disliked as much as Duterte by pretty much everyone.
Then, after unleashing a problem for everyone around him, Mr. Trump jetted off to Harrisburg, PA for a campaign style rally to “record breaking crowds,” where he railed to his supporters about the media which was, at the same time, roasting him in DC, even if he was not there. In two events, the official White House Correspondents’ Dinner and the Samantha Bee hosted “Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner” withered the sitting President, the first to have missed this event since 1981, when Ronald Reagan was recuperating from an assassin’s attack.
I wake up in the morning and find I am in a state of continuing bemusement in what is going on in Washington. It is reality television, which is what we should have expected when we elected a reality television star to the Presidency. With Reagan, we had an actor who knew how to deliver his lines. There aren’t really “lines” in reality television. There is direction but no script. We have a President who is making up his script as he goes along, knowing he knows better than everyone else. Even if he doesn’t.
The WSJ, a deeply conservative publication, to which I now subscribe, seems to be wanting to support him and just can’t find a way not to point out that it’s all a little…off.
And it is more than a little off.
Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff, said the White House was looking at ways of changing the libel laws to make it easier to for Trump to sue media organizations who criticize him. Imagine how the Democrats responded to that, not to mention many Republicans? Not pretty. Do we not remember the First Amendment? Or is Trump being inspired by Erdogan of Turkey who has been arresting thousands of people he suspects of being disloyal while cracking down on the press? Cracking down makes it sound nice. He is dismantling any vocal opposition to him.
One thing we should note is that the economy grew at the slowest rate in three years in the first quarter of Trump. Maybe it’s a holdover from Obama or maybe it’s the fear of Trump.
We are in a political Wild West except in this Wild West we have nuclear weapons.
It’s a dark time in American democracy and we need to remember, in this “of the moment” world in which we live, this has not been the only dark time in American democracy. We had the Civil War, dark time. We survived Andrew Jackson, a really, really not nice President [who, by the way, our current President seems to identify with].
We will, God willing, live through this.
In the meantime, I will play jazz. I will drink martinis. I will write and I will hope, because without hope we have nothing.
Tags:Andrew Jackson, Christ Church Episcopal, Civil War, Donald Trump, Duterte, Erdogan, Harrisburg, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Mother Eileen, Not The White House Correspondents Dinner, NY Times, Reince Priebus, Ronald Reagan, Samantha Bee, Trump, Washington, White House Correspondents Dinner, Will Ferrell, WSJ
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
April 27, 2017
It’s been a busy day. At 5:30 the alarms starting going off as today is Wednesday, the day I do my morning show on WGXC and I need the time to be good when I go on air. Once I was a morning person, when I lived in LA and worked for New York based companies and had to be up to catch New Yorkers.
Mornings were always best because after lunch, particularly in the early 1980’s, was not a good time. The three martini lunch was slowly fading but not yet gone. It was an early lesson in my career.
So, for most of the time I lived in LA, I was up about the time dawn was cracking so I could catch people before I lost them. It won me many friends and a few who wished I would sleep longer so that I wasn’t around to harass them.
The memories I have of that time are quite fond.
Knowing myself, I am up early on the day I do my show so that I am fully functioning by the time I reach the station around 8, letting myself in, sipping coffee and getting organized. I want to be at my best.
Today, I was pretty good, if I say so myself. The first interview was with Brenda Adams, Executive Director for Columbia County Habitat for Humanity and the President of their board, Peter Cervi. It went well. They are having an event which they were there to publicize and I also wanted people to know about all the other good things they are doing, including helping people remain in their homes as opposed to having to go to a nursing home.
That was followed by an interview with an environmental journalist, Susan Zakin, which was good and funny and fun. She is appalled by what Trump is doing.
Which brings us to our unpredictable President, Donald Trump. It is dizzying to me and disturbing to me as I can’t seem to find a coherence to what is going on though I am not sure why I am surprised by that. He hasn’t been, to me, coherent from the beginning.
And now he is President.
He, the President, announced today a reform to the tax code. Details to follow. No one I’ve read today seems to “grok” it.
He signed an Executive Order today that potentially takes away protection from something like 24 national monuments. Why?
Trump summoned the whole Senate to the White House to brief them on North Korea. No real reports on what was revealed though some Senators said they came out of the meeting “sobered.” Though it seems diplomacy is being chosen rather military action.
A long time ago, there was a remake of “On the Beach,” a story of nuclear destruction. In the remake, the President of the United States ordered a nuclear strike on China and it resulted in the end of human life on earth.
That haunts me right now.
North Korea is playing with fire and we’re playing with North Korean fire. It worries me how this will turn out.
Look, I am in the last act of my life and if the world blows up, I’ve had the best of it. And I think about the children who were playing at OMI, an art center, I visited last week. There was such delightful young life in that room.
I think that should be protected.
Look, ladies and gentleman, the Roman Empire went through a number of really bad Emperors so I am hoping we can get through a really bad President.
Less than a hundred days out, I think he is a bad President, dangerous, more so than “W” who I thought was a bad President and dangerous. He gave us the morass of the Middle East.
And now it is later at night, the lights are on the creek, Nina Simone is playing on Echo and I am moving toward bed in my freshly cleaned home.
The lights are on and I am looking at the creek, flowing on, hopefully forever.
Earlier, as I was settling in, I looked out my window and saw my hedgehog sniffling around the house, looking for food. And its presence gave me hope.
The world is changing and the hedgehogs remain, constant against change. A part of life…
Tags:Brenda Adams, Claverack, Claverack Creek, Columbia County Habitat for Humanity, Donald Trump, LA, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matt Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Nina Simone, North Korea, OMI, ON THE BEACH, Peter Cervi, Susan Zakin, Tax Reform, WGXC
Posted in 2016 Election, Airstrikes, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Music, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
April 21, 2017
Apple blossoms dressed the trees in the orchards as I drove along 9H earlier today, the first, best sign of spring I’ve seen though, once having noticed them, I was aware that small buds of green were appearing on other trees. The ones outside my windows don’t seem to be sporting them and I’m sure they will come eventually, which is how this spring has seemed – eventually we will get there – just not yet.
It has been a quiet sort of day. Earlier I spent some time at OMI, an art center near me that I have known about but had not visited and that was my loss. The two-hundred-acre campus is dotted with sculptures, the main building with art exhibits. Today quite beautiful children were painting, running around in young life’s exuberance, bringing smiles to all the adults. I offered up a thought for good lives for them; the future does feel cloudy right now.
It’s not just that this is a gray day. Generally, I am an upbeat sort of person [or at least I think of myself as that] and today I’ve not been. The state of the world has been weighing on me, both close to home and far from here.
Close to home, I am burdened because a friend sent me suicidal texts and I was incredibly concerned and finally asked the police to do a “welfare check.” They did. He then texted me he wanted nothing more to do with me. Truthfully, I did the right thing and, at this moment, it hasn’t turned out well. For me and, I expect, not for him as he is in deep trouble and won’t admit it.
Candles to be lit; prayers to be said and to continue, as best we can.
Paris is continuing as best it can after a policeman was shot yesterday and two badly wounded by a terrorist who was killed as he was fleeing. IS claims responsibility and France is having elections on Sunday. The far-right candidate, Marie Le Pen, is threatening to remove France from the EU so that it can control its own borders.
She has a chance of winning.
The far right is making its might felt all over the place.
And that is so worrying to me.
For a brief, shining moment in my life it seemed we might actually be headed toward a global society and it has not happened. It was around the time the Berlin Wall went down, a moment I will forever remember. Driving down Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles, headed west, my bestest friend, Tory Abel, called me on my car phone and said: do you know what’s going on? As I was listening to classical music, I didn’t. The wall was falling.
There are all kinds of suppositions about why that magic moment did not result in a better world.
Right now, I am reading a book about “the weekend” in British homes in the 1930’s and one of the revelatory bits was about a British Lord who became a Muslim because he saw Islam as the bulwark against women getting the vote and having shorter skirts and working.
He would probably have a lot in common with IS.
Change is hard. And changing centuries of tradition is hard and people will fight it. IS is fighting it.
When all of this works itself out, I won’t be here. It will take more than a lifetime.
And that is history in the making. It takes lifetimes to work itself out.
If you are not aware of it, Chechnya is conducting a campaign against gays. It is putting us in camps, not unlike the Nazis; there are tales of torture and death. Can this be happening in the 21st Century? Apparently so. The reports are horrific.
The President of Chechnya has declared he will eliminate the gay community by the beginning of Ramadan on May 26th.
Putin has declared there is no evidence this is happening and that is Putin’s view of the world: no horrible thing is happening. There is no sarin gas is Syria, there is no campaign against gays in Chechnya, there is no fill in the blank.
Tags:Chechnya, Chechnya campaign against gays, Far right, Los Angeles, Marie Le Pen, Nazis, OMI, Paris, Putin, Syria, technology, Tory Abel
Posted in 2016 Election, Brexit, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, European Refugee Crisis, Gay, Gay Liberation, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, IS, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Paris Attacks, Paris Killings, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
April 20, 2017
Outside, it is grey, drear, damp and dank. Twilight is beginning to gather around the cottage; I have made myself a martini and am looking out at the still bare trees, thinking that tonight, I am screaming for real spring, real green, and real warmth.
Tonight, I did something that is going to make one of my friends very angry with me and it was something I had to do. He sent me some suicidal texts and I couldn’t ignore them. Since he had stopped communicating, I called the police and asked for a welfare check. It will not endear me to him and I would not have slept tonight if I had not.
So bloody strange is life. It would be great to say this was a night full of hygge. It’s not; it will be a night of doing hygge sorts of things to get back to a hygge state.
Jazz is playing.
This morning I did my radio program and it went tolerably well, now three weeks in, I am beginning to get the hang of it.
Tomorrow, I am going into the city only to turn around and come back because tomorrow we are having a birthday party on the train for four of our Regulars, one of whom is making a birthday with a zero.
It will be fun; I will be playing bartender and am concocting a drink to celebrate the coming of summer – a “summertini.”
And, truthfully, I am looking forward to something fun after this afternoon.
Not probably having fun is Bill O’Reilly, who got booted this afternoon from Fox News, where he has been the cock of the walk for ever so long. Truthfully, I was a little surprised it happened. The allegations of sexual harassment had reached a fever pitch and name advertisers were leaving in the dozens but his ratings remained high.
It seemed to me they would send him off for a while, like Brian Williams, to do penance and then bring him back after a cooling off period. But no. Walking papers.
My suspicion: James and Lachlan Murdoch apparently had had enough, convincing their father time was nigh after $13,000,000 in settlements by Fox News over 15 years for allegations of sexual misconduct by O’Reilly, with more coming in on a regular basis, including one by an African-American staffer that he referred to her as “hot chocolate.”
Don’t cry for his next meal. He will, I’m sure, walk away with millions.
Fox News will suffer. He was their highest rated star, making millions and millions for them.
Chief beneficiary: the bow tied Tucker Carlson who will be getting his slot. Wouldn’t want that pressure.
Jon Ossoff, a young, charismatic candidate in a special election in Georgia, failed to get the more than fifty percent he needed to win outright so there will be a run-off election in June but he came damn close. It will be a fight to the finish. The seat has been safely Republican for years and now an energized number of Democratic Georgians have put it in play.
Aaron Hernandez, once a rising star with the New England Patriots, was found dead in his cell in the prison where he was serving a life sentence for murder and everyone is asking how such a promising life went so far askew?
Venezuela is about, it seems, to explode. Hundreds of thousands have been marching in the streets against Maduro, who succeeded Chavez when he died. The country is in economic tatters and Maduro doesn’t seem to be able to fix it so he is blaming everyone and is threatening to bolster the militia he controls from tens of thousands to a half million.
This is an elected official on his way to dictatorship. Which is what we must be aware of these days. Look at Erdogan in Turkey; elected and moving toward dictatorial powers. Same in a dozen countries in Africa.
And I am looking at the pearl grey twilight of Claverack and am about to go on to some amusement as I need amusement while I wait to hear if my friend is okay.
Tags:Bill O'Reilly, Brian Williams, Fox News, James Murdoch, Jazz, Lachlan Murdoch, Martini, Rupert Murdoch, summertini, WGXC
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
April 10, 2017
The train is rumbling north from Baltimore to New York City where I change trains to Hudson, arriving there around 3:30 this afternoon. It is a sunny day and the fleece pullover and winter jacket needed on the way down are unnecessary on the way home.
As I travel north, I have trimmed down the email inbox, sent some electronic Passover cards and started reading how to make large quantities of scrambled eggs as this coming Sunday is Easter Sunday and I am in charge of preparing the Easter Brunch that follows the 10:30 service.
It’s my hope that Mother Eileen’s clipboard filled with some people to help me. If not…
The weekend visit with Lionel and Pierre and Marcel, the poodle, was wonderful, overflowing with good food at various venues: Modern Cook Shop, Peter’s Inn, Red Star, Rusty Scupper, Nanimi, Petit Louis.
On “The Avenue” [36th Street] I shopped the antique stores and found some Christmas presents, tucked in my luggage; that it is expandable saved me from buying another piece. At BJ’s with Pierre, I stocked up on Excedrin, Prilosec and more.
Long train rides give one a time to think and I enjoy them for that, for being able to see the countryside glide by without the responsibility of driving.
Pierre sings in the choir at the Church of the Advent in Baltimore. While Lionel and I were preparing to go to hear him at church, the television flashed pictures and video of the Palm Sunday explosions in Egypt, targeting Coptic Christians, who represent about ten percent of that country’s population. Last word I heard, forty-seven have died and scores are injured. At Christ Church this week, I will light a candle for them.
In response to the bombings, responsibility for which was claimed by IS, Egypt has declared a three-month state of emergency.
Rex Tillerson, our low-profile Secretary of State, heads to Moscow for meetings, either strengthened or weakened [depending on your view] by the US bombing of the airfield in Syria where chemical attacks against a rebel city were initiated. Tillerson called the Russians incompetent for allowing Assad to keep chemical weapons.
Putin is thinking of revoking the award he gave to Tillerson.
This should be an interesting week for watching Syrian affairs. How are they all going to react? Niki Hailey is talking regime change; Tillerson is not. Trump is unpredictable and Putin a risk taker; Assad seemingly a wily survivor who managed to turn peaceful protests into a civil war no one seems capable of winning or willing to negotiate an end.
Syria is bringing five questions about the situation to the head, outlined in an article in Bloomberg, available here.
We have ships moving toward the Korean peninsula, possibly to be in place in case there is a decision to attack North Korea and its pudgy, vindictive, unpredictable little dictator, Kim Jong Un.
President Xi of China and Trump managed to get through their summit without damaging each other and we will await to see what China will do vis-à-vis North Korea.
In 2013, Democrats used the “nuclear option” and McConnell said they would live to regret it, which they did last week when Gorsuch was successfully nominated to the Supreme Court and sworn in this morning.
Marine Le Pen, the far-right French candidate for president, has declared that France was NOT responsible for the deportation of Jews during WWII, a statement that has created, as one might imagine, more than a soupcon of controversy.
New York is the first state offering free four-year public college to its students in families with incomes under $100,000, a move to help residents avoid crushing college loans and to help the state have a work force ready for the future.
May it work.
For all my friends celebrating Passover tonight, Chaq Kasher veSameach! [Happy Passover!]
Tags:Amtrak, Baltimore, BJ's, Bloomberg, Chaq Kasher veSameach, Christ Church of Hudson, Church of the Advent, Coptic Christians, Kim Jung-un, Lionel White, Mother Eileen, Nanimi, Niki Hailey, North Korea, nuclear option, Passover, Peter's Inn, Petit Louis, President Xi, Red Star, Rex Tillerson, Rusty Scupper, The Avenue
Posted in 2016 Election, Airstrikes, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, European Refugee Crisis, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, Iran, IS, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Trump, Uncategorized, World War II | Leave a Comment »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter from Claverack 07 22 2017 Still in the land of off, praying for souls…
July 22, 2017It is Saturday afternoon; I am sitting where I have been sitting every afternoon since arriving on Martha’s Vineyard, on the veranda of my friends’ home, gazing out at the harbor, listening to the sound of boats motoring. There is almost no wind and so the sailboats, if moving at all, are using their motors.
It was early that I woke this morning, nudged into wakefulness by a text on my phone. A second text banished sleep and I laid in bed and read the NY Times, edging into the day with the Food section. Hard news seemed too much for the early hour.
Joining my friend, Jeffrey, we went over to Behind the Bookstore to pick up some things to take to their outpost up in Vineyard Haven where Igor made me a powerful coffee drink with a hint of lavender. Back at BTB with some needed ice, I soothed the caffeine edge with a mimosa.
Now, I am back in my favorite spot, reading science fiction short stories before starting the mystery I purchased at Edgartown Books this morning, “Moriarity,” about which I had read good things earlier in the year. Yesterday, I finished a trifle of a mystery just before a marathon nap.
Jeffrey calls this the “land of off.” It is; I am very “off.” It is a comfortable house in both physical terms and the graciousness of my hosts. As I wandered into the kitchen to make myself a sandwich, I appreciated that.
Later in the day, I looked at the news and winced. Today’s twitter storm seemed to be all about our President telling the world that he absolutely has a right to pardon anyone he wants, including himself.
Witnessing these things results in some attitude I have yet to describe, a mélange of incoherence, amusement, fear, incredulity and amazement. There must be a word for it somewhere.
A friend forwarded me an article today; it is a portrait of the man who is leading a prayer group that includes most of our President’s cabinet. It seems he believes God only hears the prayers of Christians. My friend is Jewish. Her only comment: Oy!
I concur.
Sean Spicer left the building yesterday, resigning after the elevation of Scaramucci to the office of White House Communications Director, a move with which Spicer had vehemently disagreed. But he was named and Spicer left, replaced by Sarah Huckabee Sanders. It is hoped Melissa McCarthy can do as good a job with her as she did with “Spicey.”
The NY Times published a scathing, oh, really scathing article called, “The Mooch and the Mogul.” You can read it here.
Googling for an article that praised Scaramucci’s appointment, I found little. The closest was this, an article in Forbes, by Nathan Vardi. You can read that here. It’s not that great but best to be found. Apparently, the NY Times called him “the mooch” because that’s his nickname on Wall Street.
Meanwhile, Congress has put together a package of sanctions against Russia that our president is not going to like. It has broad bi-partisan support. Imagine that?! Insiders think the president won’t veto it despite how much he dislikes it.
John Heard, the father in the “Home Alone” movies, passed away at 71, while recovering from back surgery. R.I.P.
And R.I.P. to Jamel Dunn, a disabled Florida man who drowned while five teenage boys recorded his demise, laughing and taunting him, doing nothing to help him. They posted the video on YouTube and didn’t bother to alert authorities. Florida police are searching for a statue by which to charge them.
It is a story which saddens me, sickens me and causes me to wonder about my fellowman.
Tonight, I will say a prayer for Jamel Dunn and for the souls of the young men who laughed while he died and light candles next time I am in church.
Tags:Behind the Bookstore, BTB, Edgartown Books, Florida drowning, Forbes, Home Alone, Jamel Dunn, Jemal Dunn, John Heard, Land of Off, Martha's Vineyard, Nathan Vardi, NY Times, President's Cabinet, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Scaramucci, Sean Spicer, Spicey, The Mooch and The Mogul, Vineyard Haven
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hudson New York, Hygge, Life, Literature, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »