Archive for the ‘Claverack’ Category
January 30, 2017
It is a little past seven at the cottage; the weekend is winding down, “Swing Jazz” is the Amazon music station playing. Marcel, Lionel and Pierre’s poodle, is situated comfortably on the couch, looking at the door to see when they will return, which will be in a few days. The flood lights illuminate the creek and I am at the freshly polished dining room table, writing.
It’s the end of a good weekend, mostly very “hygge.” [Pronounced hoo-ga, it’s Danish for living a cozy life.] And it’s been a cozy weekend. Young Nick has returned from his walkabout and came over Friday afternoon and helped me prepare for what turned out to be a most excellent dinner party.
Saturday was cleaning up and being domestic, a solo lunch at the Dot, dinner with Lionel and Pierre at their house, home to sleep.
But all the hygge in my life has been overshadowed and squeezed by the events in the world around me. President Trump has been issuing Executive Orders to his heart’s content. They feel a bit like Imperial Edicts. Do this. Ban that. It’s been stunning. And equally stunning is the response of the American public.
When he banned individuals from seven countries, all primarily Muslim, from entering the United States, hordes of lawyers went to airports and became filing appeals, sitting on the floor in the terminals, laptops plugged into whatever outlet could be found.
It made me proud.
At those same airports, crowds appeared. At JFK, several New York Congressmen were there, attempting to help. One quarantined gentleman was an Iraqi citizen who was on his way to the US because he had been an interpreter for our soldiers and his life was in danger. Thankfully, he was released.
People with green cards are in limbo, depending on the airport they flew into. Federal Judges are ordering limits on Trump’s ruling and some officials are ignoring them.
Excuse me, what? What?
Heads are spinning.
Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief political operative, has been given a seat on the National Security Council while the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs and the Director of National Intelligence have been demoted.
What? What?
In the morning now, I get up, make my coffee and call my Senators and my Representative in Congress and tomorrow I don’t know what issue to focus on. There are so many.
A relative sent me a clip of a State of the Union Address given by Bill Clinton, in which he talked about the dangers of illegal immigration. The headline before the clip was “The hypocrisy of liberals!”
Well, really, hypocrisy? Take a look at this article. Mike Pence opposed what Trump has done and now is praising it. Is that not hypocrisy? Political opportunism?
Immigration has been an issue ever since we stopped accepting just about everybody. Don’t know about you, but I’m here, an American citizen, because my great grandparents came over from Germany and settled in Minnesota. Back then, almost everyone was taken in. [Though my great grandparents arrived in First Class so they didn’t have to go through the indignities of Ellis Island.]
Then it changed and immigration has been an issue ever since. Okay, I get that. And what President Trump has done is unprecedented. His list of excluded countries does not include Saudi Arabia from which came many of the 9/11 hijackers. It does not exclude Pakistan, one of whose citizens was part of the Riverside massacre. It’s a bit bewildering. The banned countries have barely contributed to the numbers who have died from terrorist acts in the US.
And, amazingly, it appears the list was compiled during the Obama Administration but never activated. Boggles the mind.
Not even during Viet Nam was I this agitated. Agitated does not describe my mood when I am not working very hard at hygge.
In an article I scanned two days ago, it speculated that Trump may be to Millennials what Viet Nam was to my generation, a catalytic event.
You see, there is a movement to stop abortions. There is a generation of young women who have grown up believing they had the right of choice. Now some people want to take that it away from them. No, not happy. And abortions have been decreasing and in 2014 were the lowest since 1973.
There are young people who are in college whose friends are in limbo because they come from one of the banned countries and went home over winter break and may not be able to come back despite having valid visas.
And there are people like me, a Baby Boomer grown old, who is incensed in a way I have not been for god alone knows how many years. The protests will not stop. They will not go away. The country is fired up in a way that hasn’t been seen since Viet Nam.
Wow! The games have begun.
To be completely clear, I am one of the founders of Blue DOT [Democracy Opposing Trump] Hudson Indivisible. It is my time of being an activist. This Presidency must be opposed. It is divisive. It is immoral. It has in its first week demonstrated a willingness to flaunt conventional order.
Tomorrow I am calling the office of John McCain and Lindsey Graham who are opposing Trump to thank them for their efforts. We are all in for a rocky ride and maybe this was a good thing to happen.
The Left is galvanized the way the Right was when Obama was elected and already seems, and I hope it continues, to be more emphatic than the Tea Party movement.
The game is afoot…
Tags:Amanzon, Baby Boomers, Bill Clinton, Blue DOT Hudson, Hygee, immigration, Lionel White, Mike Pence, Muslim ban, Obama, Pierre Font, President Trump, Saudi Arabia, Steve Bannon, Tea Party, The game is afoot, Viet Nam, Young Nick
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Entertainment, Gay, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
January 15, 2017
It is early evening in Claverack; the lights have been turned on over the creek and I have asked Alexa to play the “Pop Classical” station so music is filling the cottage. It is an idyllic night after a very nice day.
Waking before the alarm this morning, I cleared my email inboxes, showered and gathered things together for the food pantry at the church. Post church, I went to the Red Dot and then to Ca’Mea to meet Larry and Alicia and it was a pleasant country afternoon.
Against the backdrop of the pleasant country afternoon is a tension about the political scene.
One of my neighbors, who, when he met me was a bit uncomfortable with me and who has become a very good friend, asked me why the LGBTQ community was concerned about Trump. He voted for neither Hillary or The Donald, loathing them equally.
My response was that it wasn’t so much Trump’s views on gays but the views of the people who are around him. Mike Pence, Governor of Indiana until Friday, then Vice President of the United States, worked to enact strident laws that jeopardized the rights of gays in his state. Jeff Sessions, who is by all accounts is a gentleman of the first order in social situations, is homophobic, anti-immigration and anti some other important things.
My friend had no idea. And was concerned when he heard this.
Representative John Lewis of Georgia, a legendary figure in the Civil Rights movement, is not attending Trump’s inauguration because he does not feel Trump in a legitimate President. I find that unfortunate and counterproductive.
And I find unfortunate and counterproductive Donald Trump’s Twitter storm against Representative Lewis, demeaning his part in the Civil Rights movement. The man nearly lost his life on the bridge into Selma. To denigrate him as Trump has is unfortunate and not in keeping with someone who is about to enter the highest office in the land.
Stephen Colbert discussed “truthiness.” Donald Trump exercised a bit of it in his depiction of Representative Lewis’ district as crime ridden. In fact, he represents one of the most affluent areas of Atlanta.
There is a good part of me that is sitting back and watching what is happening unfold with a sense of wonder, a sense of OMG is this real? And it is…
Every time I turn around, I am astounded by our President Elect.
His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is going to be a Senior Advisor. Is there not something somewhere about nepotism? Ivanka may be the de facto First Lady as Melania seems to be content to remain in Trump Tower.
Who is this person?
Andy Borowitz, comedian and raconteur, described him as the “Kremlin Employee of the Month.”
The awful thing is that he MIGHT be.
The VERY unsubstantiated report about his actions with the Russians are, at one time, very amusing and incredibly disconcerting. It has spawned a cottage industry in defining “golden showers.”
Right now, I am sitting back and watching it unfold. Called me bemused, call me amused, call me frightened, call me whatever you like and I think we need to go back into the early 19th century to find anything similar.
Oh, wow!
And I will continue to watch with a carefully bemused eye that is also carefully turned on to what the new President might do as he needs, more than most Presidents, to be held accountable.
Please help with that. Please.
Tags:Alexa, Alicia Vergara, Andy Borowitz, Atlanta, Claverack, Donald Trump, Golden Showers, Hillary Clinton, Jared Kushner, Jeff Sessions, John Lewis, Kremlin Employee of the Month, Larry Divney, LGBT, LGBTQ, Mike Pence, Selma, Stephen Colbert, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Hudson New York, Income Inequality, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
January 9, 2017
Outside the cottage, it is a cold winter night. It’s sixteen degrees and feels like three, per my Weather Channel App. Tonight, I will be leaving the kitchen cupboard doors open and the faucets dripping. So far, so good. No frozen pipes yet.
Soft jazz is playing on the Echo and its Alexa technology was the hit of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Auto manufacturers are integrating Alexa into their vehicles. It is, apparently, the “Killer App” of this year’s CES, which was, apparently, all about technology coming to automobiles.
Alan Murray, who is CEO of Fortune Magazine and Chief Content Officer for Time, Inc. writes a daily blog called the “CEO Daily.” I suggest you subscribe. He wrote this week, from CES, that all companies are becoming technology companies. It also appears, to me, that all companies are becoming media companies. It is a huge transformation that is going on.
Despite all the rhetoric about jobs being lost to China and Mexico [and some are], the biggest danger to jobs everywhere is the rise of Artificial Intelligence. A Japanese insurance company is laying off several dozen people because it has found software they feel will do a better job than the people, an offshoot of IBM’s super brain Watson.
Because of where the cottage is located, I have trouble with my mobile signal. I have a micro-cell. It has been giving me trouble tonight. When I phoned AT&T, I had an entire conversation with a gentleman who was not, in fact, anyone. He was an AI interface.
There is an Echo in my home and so I am experiencing the Alexa technology first hand. Amazing!
Great fun and a little disconcerting. And more and more jobs will be lost to AI in the years to come because we are looking at technology to replace us. There are a lot of Uber drivers out there but what happens to them when self-driving cars become common? What happens to all the long-haul truck drivers when there are self-driving trucks? What happens to all the crews of ships when we have self-piloting ships?
We are on the way to being replaced by technology. And we need to figure this out. Because it is happening.
Donald Trump is going to be sworn in as President of these United States. A lot of folks voted for him, I think, because he was addressing the issue of job degradation which has been going on but, I think, it was a backward-looking view because the real worry right now, globally, is not moving jobs off shore. That is so 2000. It is about the fact we are losing jobs to Artificial Intelligence. That is so 2017. And I don’t hear Trump addressing that.
Since I was a kid, I have loved science fiction and I am living in an age which would have been science fiction when I was a child. Excuse me, I just ask Alexa for a new jazz station and I get it. I ask her for the weather; I get it. It’s amazing and now we must deal with the job realities of what we’re doing because jobs will disappear as we create more and more devices to take care of us.
In airports, we have all seen the iPad devices that let us order what we want which is then delivered by a human. In about two years, there will be robots which will take care of that. What happens to those human servers?
Oh, and does anyone remember Hoot-Smalley? It was a bill passed in Congress to restrict trade after the stock market crashed. It created the Great Depression and I am fearing we will do something like this with the Trump Administration.
Look, I’m lucky. I am in the third act of my life; I have ridden the great American boom of the last half of the Twentieth Century to the max. Not rich, not poor, full of life experiences I never thought I would have. Every day I do my best to remember to be grateful.
And I hope I am not Louis XV, saying “after me, the deluge.”
Tags:After me the deluge, AI, Alexa, Artificial Intelligence, CES, Echo, Google, Great Depression, Home, Hoot Smalley, iPad, Louis XV, Media, Politics, Science Fiction, technology, theaters
Posted in 2016 Election, AT&T, Claverack, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Income Inequality, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
January 3, 2017
Not yet quite six o’clock in the evening, the sun is gone and floodlights are on the creek. Soft jazz is on the Echo and I am winding down from some writing I did today along with emails and a couple of loads of laundry. An ordinary day at the cottage, most of it cozied up with my laptop while watching Marcel, Lionel and Pierre’s sixteen-year old poodle sleep on the couch. I’m dog sitting again while they are off in Boston.
New Year’s was surprisingly good. My expectations were low and the reality great. There was a feast at my friend Matthew Morse’s house with thirteen people, followed by going down the road to friends of his who have restored as their home a 19th Century roadhouse. There is a balcony looking down into the tavern area and I was standing there looking down at a crowd that seemed like a hundred, sipping Moet Chandon as the New Year came in…
New Year’s Day was spent in recovery with a game of Clue over cocktails, followed by roast chicken. Not bad.
Every time I peek into the state of the world, I want to slam the door and run into my bedroom with a cold bottle of vodka and a straw.
It sometimes feels like I have stepped into a Jean Cocteau film.
Hours after I exchanged e-mails with a friend who lives in Istanbul, working for Sony Pictures, there was a nightclub slaughter. Responsibility for it has been claimed by IS.
In Baghdad, a suicide bomber killer a couple of dozen people. This Sunday, I will light a candle for them at church, the people of Baghdad and Istanbul. Turkey has been assaulted this month by a whole series of attacks. Baghdad has never not been assaulted since we invaded.
Trump tweeted something New Year’s Eve that has lots of people outraged. It seems impossible for me to follow his tweets though I have been told the cable news channels have been spending hours attempting to decipher them.
His press secretary has pleaded with people to stop mocking him. I don’t think that’s going to happen. Alec Baldwin has stepped into a brand-new career on SNL and we are going to be living with it for Trump’s entire term in office. He is just too juicy a target for satirists. I wish I were a comedy writer.
Trump’s team is saying we should be focusing more on punishing Hillary Clinton than being concerned about Russian hacking. Did I say something about being in a Cocteau film? [And if you don’t know who Jean Cocteau is, Google him…]
US officials are saying Russia’s “fingerprints” are all over the hacking and Trump is saying he has inside information on the hacking which he will reveal tomorrow or Wednesday. Personally, I can’t wait. But then I am still waiting for him to tell us how he will separate himself from his businesses. That may be more difficult than handling the Russian hacking.
Then, of course, since I last wrote Carrie Fisher, “Princess Leia” from “Star Wars” died after a heart attack on a flight back from London, only to be followed across the River Styx by her mother, the legendary Debbie Reynolds, the following day.
Eras seem ending all around me and I am not happy…
Tags:Alec Baldwin, Baghdad, Carrie Fisher, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Debbie Reynolds, Google, Istanbul, Jean Cocteau, Lionel White, Marcel, New Year's, Pierre Font, Princess Leia, Russia, Russian hacking, SNL, Sony Pictures, Star Wars, technology, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
December 20, 2016
A few hours ago, I asked Alexa to play the Holiday Station from Amazon Prime and Christmas carols have been floating through the house since then. The lights are illuminating the creek and I have sat down, at last, to write a letter. The last one was nine days ago, which is unusual for me. Normally, I write every two or three days.
The frenzy of prepping for Christmas has given me ample excuses to not think about the world…
Two Christmas trees grace the cottage; one small real one, bedecked with as many ornaments as it bear and an artificial white tree, which has been my tradition for years now.
The first Christmas after my partner left, I went to the lot where we had purchased our trees and found myself paralyzed, not wanting to get out of the car and so I didn’t. Decorating our trees had always been a big thing and I couldn’t imagine how to get through that Christmas.
So I did the unthinkable; I went to Walmart and bought a pre-lit white Christmas tree which was the silliest thing I could think of doing and it made my Christmas. It was so silly, I laughed, which was what I needed to do that year. And a personal tradition was born…
A white Christmas tree adorned with all the ornaments that matter. There are a few from my mother, one White House ornament given to me by Buddy, who helped decorate the actual White House Christmas tree. He is gone, lost to AIDS before anything could be done and I have the ornament he gave me and it has a place of pride every year.
There are the wonderful crystal ornaments Lionel and Pierre have given me the last few years, two Christopher Radko ornaments from when I was on the Board of Governors for the TV Academy, ornaments I purchased the first year I was working at Discovery – that was an animal themed Christmas.
In the last twenty-four hours, I have made 16 quiches. It has been my tradition for the last some years to bake quiches for my friends and neighbors and there are still a few more to be made but I have made most of them and will spend some of tomorrow delivering them.
My kitchen is not quite a catastrophe…
All of this is part of my life and a welcome distraction.
Today, Donald Trump’s election to the Presidency was ratified by the Electoral College, a fact I am still having a hard time getting my head around, which is why I seem to especially devoted to the Food Section of the New York Times.
At least twelve are dead as a result of lorry crashing into a Christmas market in Berlin.
The Russian Ambassador to Turkey was shot dead today in Ankara.
Aleppo is a catastrophe we grieve but seem to have no way to respond to and I still wonder about the boy in the photograph from months ago. He will haunt me to the day I die. Is he safe?
It seems I may never rest until I know and I may never know but I keep seeing that photo…
And as Christmas approaches, I am so grateful to be here, in the cottage, decorated as best I could for this most wonderful holiday, listening to Christmas music…
The world is always in trouble and it will continue to be that way. And I will work to find ways to feel like I am helping the world not be in as much trouble as it is. Maybe I will succeed, a little bit…
Tags:AIDS, Christmas, Christopher Radko, Discovery, Donald Trump, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Politics, TV Academy, Walmart
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
December 11, 2016
Here I am at the cottage; the floodlights are lighting the creek and I have been putting together my Christmas presents so I can ship them out on Monday. My skills at wrapping are negligible and have been forever so the invention of gift bags has been a Godsend. Right now, I am at a dead stop as I have used up all the bags I purchased yesterday and still have presents to go. So, tomorrow morning I will be up and out early to get more.
It’s complicated this year as the people with whom I traditionally have shared Christmas are scattered and my living room is now littered with segregated piles. This gets shipped to New Mexico, this goes to Boston, this goes to New York, this goes to Minneapolis…
Monday morning, I need to show up when the UPS Store opens to get this all off and I will get it done.
And in the midst of all of that, I seem to have been abandoned by young Nick, who has been my partner in crime since he was fifteen. I am not sure what I have done but he has decided to jettison me from his life. Speculation is useless and I now need to accept he no longer finds me a person of consequence.
I am on my own. Today, I went out and started to make my Christmas come together. Not quite sure how it will all be but it will be.
Just as it will be that Donald Trump is going to be President of these United States.
When I am looking at the New York Times I find myself gravitating to the Food Section, obsessively saving recipes. My solace is in cooking these days, thinking of meals I will serve, planning table settings, decorating.
It is all diversion. We will see how all of this plays out. As I have said to many people: the next four years are going to be experiential. He will be a different kind of President.
We will see how that plays out.
And now it is Christmas and I am sitting listening to Christmas Carols and, I must admit, sipping what I think is a much-deserved martini.
As I sit here, I am looking around my little cottage and am so grateful I am here, able to look out at the creek, illuminated by floodlights, and to listen to Christmas Carols on my Echo, sit wrapped in the warmth of my home and know that I will be engaged over the next four years as part of the loyal opposition.
We’re in for a wild ride. The rollercoaster has left the station. Hang on and let’s see what happens…
Tags:Christmas, Claverack Cottage, Donald Trump, Loyal Oppositon, Martini, Nick Dier, UPS, `
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
December 6, 2016
It is a quiet Monday evening and I am sitting in a waiting area at Dulles Airport; in a couple of hours I will board a flight to Albany, retrieve my car and drive the hour it takes to get down to the cottage.
The flight from Charlottesville was very short, about twenty minutes. I closed my eyes and let my mind wander.
To anyone who reads me on a regular basis, it is apparent I did not support Donald Trump. It occurred to me that many think I am now a disappointed Democrat. Long ago, I became an Independent.
My upbringing was staunchly Republican. My first vote for a President was for a Republican. In the in-between, I have voted for worthy Republicans for various offices.
My parents were Republicans as was my Uncle Joe, who lived next door to us in the double bungalow we inhabited in south Minneapolis. He and my father and mother had lived in duplexes and then the double bungalow forever as my father and my uncle shared responsibility for their mother, who was gone before I had cognizance of the world.
On a brutally cold morning in a February, my father awoke, complained of the worst headache he’d ever had and was dead before the ambulance could arrive.
Uncle Joe did not attempt to take his place but allowed me space to be in his life. We took to watching television together on his huge color television set, sitting quietly, occasionally commenting on the acts on television variety shows. He delighted in the Osmond Family and the Jackson Five. He read paperback westerns and drove Lincoln Continentals. His well-tailored wardrobe filled the closets.
Not well educated, he rose to be the Senior Vice President and General Manager for seven states for American Bakeries Company [Taystee Bread], then the second largest commercial baking company in the world. He became a member of their Board of Directors.
At seventeen, it was determined by me and most everyone else, including family, counselors and my psychiatrist, that the healthiest thing I could do would be to leave home. Relations between my mother and I had become unbearable, probably for both of us.
Uncle Joe took me to dinner and offered to help me. I needed, in return, to maintain a B average in college and to have dinner with him at least once a month.
We grew closer. At one of those dinners, at a restaurant looking down over downtown Minneapolis, snow swirling in the winter night, I asked him what was the thing he was proudest of in his life. Uncharacteristically, he hesitated.
He told me that in 1932, he stood in his office building in what was then the tallest building in St. Paul and looked down at the bread lines weaving around the blocks. He made a promise then that none of the people who worked for him, who counted in the hundreds, if not the thousands, would ever stand in a bread line.
He kept that promise. He made sure that those who worked for him, even if they weren’t working full time, would have enough to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads.
I had not known; I was born long after the Great Depression, a child of the baby boom generation.
When I began to question the Viet Nam War, we had conversations. He told me he no longer knew the right or wrong of Viet Nam; I must make my own decision and whatever it was, he would support me.
While he had never married, he had a great friend, Rose. They breakfasted every Sunday morning after he’d been to church. When she died, I suggested perhaps he might want to have breakfast with me, which began a tradition that grew to include sometimes two dozen members of the family.
It was apparent to me that Nixon’s goose was cooked when the medal Uncle Joe had received from the Committee to Re-elect the President {C.R.E.E.P.] disappeared from his desk where it had sat proudly. If Nixon had lost Uncle Joe, he had lost it all.
He was and has remained my moral compass. He was a humble man, not without flaws or he wouldn’t have been human, but a careful, considered, considerate man.
The last time weekend I saw him, he angered me with a comment. Everyone told me to let it go but I marched over to his side of the house, started to speak and he held up his hand. He told me he was sorry; he had spoken unwisely and out of turn.
It became a two-hour conversation that, when he died two months later, allowed me to feel I had had closure with the man who I now recognize as my greatest moral compass.
He was not my father but he fathered me.
On the short flight from Charlottesville, in a semi-slumber, I realized much of my hostility to the nomination of Donald Trump was because I am convinced Uncle Joe would have found his campaign deplorable and would be wounded that a man who has spoken as Donald Trump has about minorities and women would be the President Elect of these United States from the party he held so dear.
But Trump is.
I accept that and it does not mean I will not be watchful and will not civilly disagree when I feel it is appropriate and necessary for the good of this country to civilly disagree.
It is my belief that is what Uncle Joe would expect of me.
Tags:American Bakeries, Baby Boomers, Charlottesville, Donald Trump, Dulles Aiport, Great Depression, IAD, Joseph M. Tombers, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Minneapolis, Republican, Taystee Bread, Uncle Joe, Viet Nam War
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Education, Elections, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
November 25, 2016
Outside the window, it is grey, darkish and chill. Judy Collins is playing on my Echo [Alexa! Play Judy Collins! And she does.]. It is the day after Thanksgiving, the kind of day to curl up with a good book, a blanket and a fire, which I will do after finishing this missive.
My friend, Sarah, sent me something she had received from one of her dearest friends, who now lives in a Buddhist monastery. “May you enjoy a peaceful day of gratitude for everything that is good and right in the world.”
A great thought for the day after Thanksgiving. There is, after all, much that is not right in the world.
The list of things wrong in this world is endless.
And so, too, is the list of all the things right in the world. When I wake in the morning, I do my best to take a moment to be grateful that I have awakened, that I live, that I am surrounded these days by the soft winter beauty that is my little patch of earth.
Yesterday, Lionel, Pierre, their dog, Marcel, and I wandered up the road to Larry and Alicia’s home, with a view down to the Hudson River. We ate, drank, were merry, and grateful and then gathered around the baby grand piano and Lionel “bashed” out tunes to which all but me sang along. I cannot carry a tune; sitting instead on the sofa, I listened with joy.
We stayed last night at the Keene Farm, Larry and Alicia’s guest house, a wonderful, smaller house than their home at Mill Brook Farm, which is the main residence. That is a house with its foundations in the Dutch settlers in the 1600’s, added onto in the 18th Century, restored in the 20th, added onto again in the 21st. As we left there today, I was thinking I have what I have and I am happy with what I have, content in this third act time.
One of the things I have in this world are wonderful friends.
On Holidays, I have a tradition of texting everyone I have texted in the last year with a “Happy Thanksgiving” or a “Merry Christmas” or “Happy New Year.” Yesterday, my friend Jeffrey texted back he was grateful I was in his life and tears sprung to my eyes. We’ve known each other a long time; been a constant in each other’s lives. It felt so good to know.
Kevin, my nephew, texted me that he loved me as did my godson. Smiles played on my lips. Two such wonderful men; so lucky to have them in my life.
After last night’s feast, we brunched today at the Keene Farm; Lionel and I cooked while Pierre walked, Marcel sniffing around, enjoying the wonders of a new place.
The world is scary. Terrible things are happening and I know that. I am sourly aware that a bomb exploded yesterday in Baghdad, killing Iranian pilgrims. In Iran, a train derailment took 43 lives. Refugees are pawns in the political war of wills between the EU and Turkey.
And outside my window, the Claverack Creek slowly makes it way to the pond at the edge of Jim Ivory’s land, full this year of geese, after their absence for nearly five years. It feels a little order has returned to the universe.
Yesterday, a bald eagle swooped up the creek and took momentary residence on a tree limb across from my window. Then he spread his wings wide and soared up creek, to the north, seeking I know not what.
The bald eagle, symbol of the American Republic, a troubled Republic we all know, yet I quote my great friend Jan Hummel: we will survive this. We survived Warren G. Harding, after all, and Grover Cleveland, who was a scoundrel of the worst sort.
Google it…
Dried, dead leaves scatter my deck, an Adirondack chair sits looking lonely over the creek, the dull grey of the skies has continued now for two days. Now I am listening to Joan Baez, thinking back, gratefully, to those days in my youth when I first heard Judy Collins and Joan Baez.
We are all tender right now. Being grateful for the good things in our lives will help us heal, I think.
Tags:Alexa, Alicia Vergara, Baghdad Bombing, Bald Eagle, Buddhism, Claverack Creek, Echo, Healing, Iran, Iranian Train Crash, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Kevin Malone, Larry Divney, Lionel White, Paul Geffre, Pierre Font, Sarah Malone
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, Entertainment, European Refugee Crisis, Iran, IS, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
November 22, 2016
It is November 21st.
Three days after my birthday, a time of extraordinary celebration. Starting on the night of the 17th, I had dinner with my friends Annette & David Fox. Leaving them, I connected with my friend Robert Murray and I kept him company while he ate at Thai Market. Feeling frisky, we followed that by a stopover at Buceo, a Wine Bar on 95th Street. Things got a little hazy about then.
And that was okay.
The following day, I took the train north and met my friend Larry Divney and his friend, Mark, at Ca’Mea for a birthday lunch. Then dinner with Lionel and Pierre.
Saturday, I spent the day doing my best to respond personally to everyone who had wished me “Happy Birthday” on Facebook or in emails. I am still doing that.
It was great. It was wonderful. It was a great and lovely distraction in this most confusing time.
Donald Trump, billionaire reality TV star, is the President Elect.
My friend, Pierre, husband to Lionel White, more than best friend said it was [and he is right] that it’s a little bit like we’re Italy and we have elected Silvio Berlusconi as President.
For days, I have done my best to adjust to this.
Over the weekend, for my birthday celebrations, people entered the evening doing their best not to talk politics but that lasted maybe five minutes. How can you not talk politics at this moment? Once people realized they were in a “safe” place there were revelatory expressions of emotions…
In whatever way you want to think about it, there has been a major shift in American politics. What I saw this weekend was a beginning of a counter-revolution, a sudden and decisive movement by the left to become a “loyal opposition.”
For years, they/we have felt we had the moral high ground and that was just whisked away from us. So who are we?
We are faced with the rightfully disenfranchised who voted to place Trump in office. [Let us make note that he did not win the POPULAR vote.] He won the Electoral College vote, an arcane system I haven’t really thought about since I studied it in high school civics and so I need to understand it better as TWICE in this short century, a President has been elected who won the popular vote but did not win the Electoral College.
As I said, I need to study this but it seems the Electoral College was weighted to help slave states be reasonably represented. So much to relearn… Or learn for the first time!
We are entering a decisive time and, I think, everyone call feel it. Politics in this country will never be the same.
Nor should it. A registered Independent, I am resolutely Liberal and now I have found I must actively fight for the liberal ideals in which I believe.
Join me on the barricades!
Tags:Annette and David Fox, Buceo, Ca'Mea, Donald Trump, Electoral College, Facebook, Lionel White, Loyal Opposition, Pierre Font, Popular Vote, Robert Murray, Silvio Berlusconi, Thai Market
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Homelessness, Hudson New York, Income Inequality, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
November 17, 2016
It has been a spring like day today in Claverack; the temperature scraped sixty degrees and it was possible to walk around with only a light jacket. It was delightful and I reveled in the day. Patches of yellow leaves float like Ophelia down the creek.
In this hard time, I have very little to say.
There is a popular blogger I follow named Shelly Palmer. He wrote a blog today that I read and then tweeted but what was most important for me was that we, the Republic which is the United States of America, has been through times like this before and we have survived.
This is what George Washington wrote to a friend about why he did not seek a third term as President.
“The line between Parties,” Washington wrote Trumbull, had become “so clearly drawn” that politicians would “regard neither truth nor decency; attacking every character, without respect to persons – Public or Private, – who happen to differ from themselves in Politics.” Washington wrote that, even if he were willing to run for president again, as a Federalist, “I am thoroughly convinced I should not draw a single vote from the Anti-federal side.” For Washington, the nation’s political parties had soured discourse and created a climate in which, as he predicted in his 1796 farewell address, “unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.” Referring to the Democratic-Republicans, Washington wrote, “Let that party set up a broomstick, and call it a true son of Liberty, a Democrat, or give it any other epithet that will suit their purpose, and it will command their votes in toto!”
The times we are living in have been experienced before and we will survive what is coming and will, hopefully, emerge as an even better Republic than we are today.
It is what I pray for at church on Sundays when I light my candles for all the things for which I have said I would light candles: myself, the family of a friend who recently passed after a horrific battle against brain cancer, the daughter of a friend whose daughter has traumatic brain issues, for my family, for peace in this agonized world.
It was a tradition started when I was in high school after a group of us went sailing; a storm came up and we had to swim to shore when the boat capsized. All of us, except one, were Catholic and we walked to our parish that night and lit candles for our survival, which was not assured. People waded out into the water to help us to land, exhausted as we were from the efforts of swimming too far with inadequate lifebelts, through waves that had been unmatched.
So I now will light a candle for the Republic every Sunday I attend church and pray we survive this time that seems so riven.
Let us find hope in the fact our Republic has been through times as troubling as this and has survived.
Tags:George Washington, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Politics, Shelly Palmer, The American Republic
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From Claverack 01 29 2017 The Game is afoot…
January 30, 2017It is a little past seven at the cottage; the weekend is winding down, “Swing Jazz” is the Amazon music station playing. Marcel, Lionel and Pierre’s poodle, is situated comfortably on the couch, looking at the door to see when they will return, which will be in a few days. The flood lights illuminate the creek and I am at the freshly polished dining room table, writing.
It’s the end of a good weekend, mostly very “hygge.” [Pronounced hoo-ga, it’s Danish for living a cozy life.] And it’s been a cozy weekend. Young Nick has returned from his walkabout and came over Friday afternoon and helped me prepare for what turned out to be a most excellent dinner party.
Saturday was cleaning up and being domestic, a solo lunch at the Dot, dinner with Lionel and Pierre at their house, home to sleep.
But all the hygge in my life has been overshadowed and squeezed by the events in the world around me. President Trump has been issuing Executive Orders to his heart’s content. They feel a bit like Imperial Edicts. Do this. Ban that. It’s been stunning. And equally stunning is the response of the American public.
When he banned individuals from seven countries, all primarily Muslim, from entering the United States, hordes of lawyers went to airports and became filing appeals, sitting on the floor in the terminals, laptops plugged into whatever outlet could be found.
It made me proud.
At those same airports, crowds appeared. At JFK, several New York Congressmen were there, attempting to help. One quarantined gentleman was an Iraqi citizen who was on his way to the US because he had been an interpreter for our soldiers and his life was in danger. Thankfully, he was released.
People with green cards are in limbo, depending on the airport they flew into. Federal Judges are ordering limits on Trump’s ruling and some officials are ignoring them.
Excuse me, what? What?
Heads are spinning.
Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief political operative, has been given a seat on the National Security Council while the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs and the Director of National Intelligence have been demoted.
What? What?
In the morning now, I get up, make my coffee and call my Senators and my Representative in Congress and tomorrow I don’t know what issue to focus on. There are so many.
A relative sent me a clip of a State of the Union Address given by Bill Clinton, in which he talked about the dangers of illegal immigration. The headline before the clip was “The hypocrisy of liberals!”
Well, really, hypocrisy? Take a look at this article. Mike Pence opposed what Trump has done and now is praising it. Is that not hypocrisy? Political opportunism?
Immigration has been an issue ever since we stopped accepting just about everybody. Don’t know about you, but I’m here, an American citizen, because my great grandparents came over from Germany and settled in Minnesota. Back then, almost everyone was taken in. [Though my great grandparents arrived in First Class so they didn’t have to go through the indignities of Ellis Island.]
Then it changed and immigration has been an issue ever since. Okay, I get that. And what President Trump has done is unprecedented. His list of excluded countries does not include Saudi Arabia from which came many of the 9/11 hijackers. It does not exclude Pakistan, one of whose citizens was part of the Riverside massacre. It’s a bit bewildering. The banned countries have barely contributed to the numbers who have died from terrorist acts in the US.
And, amazingly, it appears the list was compiled during the Obama Administration but never activated. Boggles the mind.
Not even during Viet Nam was I this agitated. Agitated does not describe my mood when I am not working very hard at hygge.
In an article I scanned two days ago, it speculated that Trump may be to Millennials what Viet Nam was to my generation, a catalytic event.
You see, there is a movement to stop abortions. There is a generation of young women who have grown up believing they had the right of choice. Now some people want to take that it away from them. No, not happy. And abortions have been decreasing and in 2014 were the lowest since 1973.
There are young people who are in college whose friends are in limbo because they come from one of the banned countries and went home over winter break and may not be able to come back despite having valid visas.
And there are people like me, a Baby Boomer grown old, who is incensed in a way I have not been for god alone knows how many years. The protests will not stop. They will not go away. The country is fired up in a way that hasn’t been seen since Viet Nam.
Wow! The games have begun.
To be completely clear, I am one of the founders of Blue DOT [Democracy Opposing Trump] Hudson Indivisible. It is my time of being an activist. This Presidency must be opposed. It is divisive. It is immoral. It has in its first week demonstrated a willingness to flaunt conventional order.
Tomorrow I am calling the office of John McCain and Lindsey Graham who are opposing Trump to thank them for their efforts. We are all in for a rocky ride and maybe this was a good thing to happen.
The Left is galvanized the way the Right was when Obama was elected and already seems, and I hope it continues, to be more emphatic than the Tea Party movement.
The game is afoot…
Tags:Amanzon, Baby Boomers, Bill Clinton, Blue DOT Hudson, Hygee, immigration, Lionel White, Mike Pence, Muslim ban, Obama, Pierre Font, President Trump, Saudi Arabia, Steve Bannon, Tea Party, The game is afoot, Viet Nam, Young Nick
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Entertainment, Gay, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »