Archive for the ‘Hillary Clinton’ Category
October 26, 2017
As I begin writing this letter, I am in New York City, at Birch, a coffee house just east of 5th Avenue on 27th, waiting for a friend and a colleague. There are some things he wants to chat over with me and then I will go to dinner with my great good friend, Nick Stuart and his friend, Jodd. Post dinner, I will head back to the cottage for a bunch of meetings and things to do tomorrow.
Walking from Penn Station to Birch, I realized how my relationship with New York City has changed over the last eighteen years. I’ve gone from “bright lights, big city” to being delighted not to be here that often; I have grown accustomed to the quiet of the country. Penn Station is an assault on the system after the tiny, bucolic station in Hudson and walking through the streets of the city, I feel more a sense of pressure, for want of another word, since I came here in 1999 to begin to live, then splitting my time between Los Angeles and New York.
For the last two and a half years, I have been mostly at the cottage and have slipped into the role and attitude of someone who lives in the country. On weekends, when the county fills with out of towners, I cringe when horns are blasted if someone doesn’t move quickly enough.
I relish waking in the morning to look out over the creek and to look out at my land and see no one.
One needs that kind of quiet and solitude these days to absorb the world news:
o A California judge won’t force Obamacare payments from the Federal government.
o Hillary and the Democrats paid for the dossier on Trump.
o The NAACP is warning people of color not to fly American Airlines.
o Whatever is going on with tax reform remains incomprehensible to me.
o The brother of the Las Vegas shooter was picked up on child porn charges.
o The president and a Gold Star widow can’t quit feuding.
o China’s Xi Jinping probably is with us indefinitely and we’ll see if that’s a good thing or a bad thing AND he’s now as important as Mao and Deng!!!!
o The ease of travel with a US passport has plummeted since Trump has become president.
o The US and North Korea are continuing saber rattling. North Korea is talking hydrogen bomb and the US military action.
o Amazon is going to start delivering packages into our homes. [Ah, not mine. Yet.]
o President George H.W. Bush has been accused by an actress of groping her in 2014. And has apologized.
o A Houston resident, originally from Mexico, died of flesh eating bacteria after working on homes damaged in Harvey. He was the third Houston case; the others were non-fatal.
o The Trump campaign, via a data analytics firm, contacted Wikileaks to access emails from Clinton’s server to make them into a searchable database for the campaign.
Is it any wonder that yesterday when I walked along the wooded lane that is Patroon Street, I thought about none of these things?
I thought of other things, the changing of the leaves, friends, personal things, upcoming trips, hopeful things.
My amazement at the world is unbridled. Today, I commented to a friend: I think we are living in the second Gilded Age and my comfort comes from remembering that did not last and was reined in, eventually.
Each day, I get up and read the papers and find my eyes go wide while I say: lions and tigers and bears! Oh, my…
The Toronto Star blazoned out that Trump broke his own record this week – of lies. They counted 57 whoppers.
Call me disgusted by them all.
Tags:Birch Coffee, Claverack, Donald Trump, George H W Bush, Gilded Age, Gold Star Widow, NAACP, Obamacare, Penn Station
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
April 4, 2017
It is dusk on the day that seemed to say: Spring is here, for real. Walking around today as I did errands, I was jacketless and soon, I thought, I will be wearing shorts. All day today, I felt a letter happening in me.
It is an interesting time for me. My work for the Miller Center for the Presidency is on pause while they work out budgets for the coming year. It maybe I will be part of it and it may be that I will not. To be decided.
The guest bathroom is being repainted and today I went and picked up the new medicine chest and lighting at Lowe’s. The inside of the car was vacuumed and the winter’s gunk washed mostly away. It needs a good detailing which will happen soon now that I have found a place in Greenport.
This time of day is brilliant. Outside it is pearl grey, inside jazz plays and a martini is sipped. The creek floodlights are on and it is all good and hygge.
Just finished watching my friend Medora Heilbron’s vlog about matzo place cards for Passover! It was a treat, watch here.
All this is very comforting on a day when the Los Angeles Times published a scathing review of the first days of Trump’s presidency. You can read it here. It is the kind of editorial about a President that hasn’t been seen since the 1970’s. Yes, since Nixon.
At 4:31 AM our President tweeted about whether Hillary had apologized for having been giving questions prior to one of the town halls. Yes, that was wrong. It’s over, Mr. Trump. You are now the President. You won. Move on, please. Please.
Are you capable of moving on?
Not moving on will be the people killed in a Metro explosion in St. Petersburg, Russia. A bomb went off on a train, killing, at last count, eleven, and injuring dozens. St. Petersburg is on my bucket list. Over the years, I’ve read a lot about the city and feel a connection to it. I will hold a thought and prayer in my heart for them tonight.
And for all the people who are facing starvation in Yemen and South Sudan and…
For all of them, I lit candles this week at church. As well as young Nick, who continues struggling.
The web of Trump’s Russian connections keeps getting murkier with Erik Prince, a Trump supporter and founder of the infamous Blackwater Group, apparently having a meeting in January, days before the inauguration, with Russian contacts in the Seychelles. Now this was reported by the Washington Post, a liberal newspaper but a credible one.
Along with every thinking person, I am finding this fascinating. What is going on rivals, or equals, the Nixon years. And Nixon was six years into his presidency when Watergate bit him in the you know where.
We’re not much more than seventy days into this presidency and the storm is not going to abate.
John McCain, whom I did not vote for nor would have considered voting for considering his choice for Vice President, but for whom I have respect, has been saying things like this is the most concerned he’s ever been about the state of our democracy.
And I agree. With Nixon, one had a sense the system was working. Right now, I am not sure the system is working. And that scares the hell out of me.
Tags:Blackwater Group, Donald Trump, Erik Prince, Greenport, Hillary Clinton, Hygge, John McCain, Los Angeles Time editorial, Medora Heilbron, Miller Center, Nick Dier, Nixon, Seychelles, South Sudan, St. Petersburg, technology, theaters, Trump, Watergate, Yemen
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
March 8, 2017
Written yesterday, having fallen into the arms of Morpheus before I could post or email…
This has been a very hygge kind of day. There is a document I need to deliver to the Miller Center and I have been cozied up in the cottage all day working on it. Outside, it has been drear, chill and damp. Inside, it’s been warm and comfortable.
Waking, I started a fire in the Franklin Stove to help take the chill off the cottage.
Yesterday, I had started working on a document I owe the Miller Center on the Presidency and today I worked to complete the first draft so I could hone it tomorrow and send it off to them.
Since 7:00 this morning, I have been working. First, I curled up in bed and handled the voluminous number of emails I receive. Then I made coffee in my Clever Coffee Dripper, a new investment on my search for a great cup of morning coffee. [Not bad…]
Since 9 this morning, I have been huddled over my laptop, working, sorting through a variety of documents, making sense of thoughts I’ve had. It’s been good, exhausting but good.
It’s lovely to stretch my mind and this has been one of the greatest stretches of my recent time, putting together media recommendations for the Miller Center for the Presidency at this exact moment in time.
Wow! Juicy good.
Every morning I wake up and wonder what has happened while I’m asleep. While it makes some of my friends crazy angry, I can’t do that. It’s more like: Wow! At least to me.
There is a new Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare and in reading articles right now, it seems DOA. Conservative Republicans hate it; Democrats despise it and to some it doesn’t make much sense. The games have begun and we’re off to the races.
Yikes. It’s a mess.
As is the claim by President Trump that former President Obama ordered wiretaps on Trump Tower. The President has offered no back-up to his claim and has, per Sean Spicer, no regrets about his tweets.
Oh, dear.
Some of my friends wake up apoplectic about all of this. I don’t. History is playing out and I am very curious about history will play out. It is incredible what is happening.
While the Trump allegations are playing out, Wikileaks has dumped a huge amount of information which lets us know that the CIA has been monitoring us through our Smart TVs, our phones and our cars.
We can’t blame this on Trump. This has been going on before him. Call me shocked. What’s been going on? Glad I don’t have a Smart TV but I do have a Smart Phone. Wonder what they know about me?
This feels very “1984,” a book by George Orwell that became very popular after the Trump election. All of this, though, started before that.
I, Joe Average Citizen, and I am a Joe Average Citizen, seem to have discovered my government is routinely spying on me and I am perturbed by that.
Really perturbed…
What world am I living in? Has the CIA become the Stasi? I am immensely confused by the world I am living in as it is not the world I expected.
Call me naïve. Call me stupid. The CIA is watching our Smart TV’s? My Smart Phone?
Wowza, that scary sci-fi future is here.
And so I am at home, doing my best to assimilate all this and also doing my best to be very hygge. And it has been a hygge kind of day.
Great jazz. Working on a project for which I have passion, fire in the Franklin Stove, watching the gray day slip by. That has been hygge. We need it, I suspect, in a world that seems to have gone mad around me.
Electing Hillary Clinton would have carried us safely down the stream for a while. Donald Trump is forcing us to confront our democracy.
Oh, dear.
Tags:1984, CIA, Clever Coffee Dripper, Donald Trump, Franklin Stove, George Orwell, Hillary Clinton, Hygge, Jazz, Joe Average Citizen, Miller Center for the Presidency, Morpheus, NSA, Obamacare, Trump, Trump Tower Wiretaps, Wikileaks
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
March 3, 2017
It has been about ten days since I’ve written; I just went back and looked. Last time, I was on Saba, writing when I wasn’t able to sleep. Tonight, I am back at my dining room table, floodlights on, looking out over the creek, having just returned from Coyote Flaco with Pierre, sharing chicken fajitas.
When I reached the cottage this afternoon, I felt I’d been away for a week, at least. Monday morning, I went down to DC for some meetings for the Miller Center on the Presidency and then to New York last night to have a wonderful dinner with my friends, David and Annette Fox. It’s a quarterly event; we gather at their marvelous UWS apartment, order Indian and catch up on our lives.
It is very hygge. As was the dinner party I gave last Friday night for Fayal Greene, her husband, David, Ginna and Don Moore, Lionel and Pierre. Leek soup, sautéed scallops in a brown butter sauce, and carrots in a lemony oil garlic sauce, with a baked polenta to die for, followed by a flourless chocolate cake provided by Ginna and Don, via David the baker.
It was an extraordinary evening.
And I, at least, need evenings like this to keep me sane in these extraordinary times.
On Tuesday evening, in Washington, after an early dinner with my friends Matthew and Anne, which followed drinks with my ex-partner and his now fiancé, I watched the address to Congress by our President, Donald Trump.
To the great relief of almost the entire world, he did not go off the rails and sounded presidential. It was, Tuesday night, all about the delivery. Wednesday morning people started to parse what he said. Even the conservative writers that I read, and I do read some, found a lot of flaws with the speech.
Short on specifics.
Fact checkers found a lot of fault, pointing out Trump claimed as victories some things which had been in play for a year at some corporations. Ford isn’t keeping production in the US because of Trump; they are pulling back on their Mexican plans because those plants would have built small cars and people aren’t buying them. They’re buying gas guzzlers because gas is cheapish again.
When talking with David and Annette, I said that if Trump had not held it together last night, his presidency would have begun to unravel. He would actually be President but, in reality, his claim to power would have begun collapsing. Lots of people on his side of the aisle are slightly unhinged by his behavior. McCain and Graham are frankly, I think, apoplectic.
And he held it together and while he should have been able to take a victory lap, Wednesday morning brought the revelation that Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had said in confirmation meetings he had not met with any Russians in the run-up to the election, actually had two meetings with the Russian Ambassador, one in his office on Capitol Hill.
Republicans are excusing while Democrats and some Republicans are accusing.
This is a wild ride and I’ve never seen anything like it.
Sessions has since recused himself from all investigations regarding anything Russian but there are those on both sides of the aisle who smell blood in the water.
While we were having political meltdowns, Amazon’s vaulted cloud computing world went offline yesterday for 4 hours and 17 minutes because of a typo in a command. OOPS.
It’s a little scary. 150,000 websites were affected. Amazon is the king of cloud storage and that’s a big oops for the King. I would not have wanted to be the head of that division yesterday.
And, before Tuesday’s Trump speech, we had the foll der wall of the biggest Oscar mistake in history. First “La La Land” was announced as Best Picture but it really was “Moonlight.” Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were humiliated and PwC, the accountants, were more than humiliated. They handed out a wrong envelope.
OOPS.
When it happened, I was safely in the arms of Morpheus, having strange dreams of Mike Bloomberg dating the pastor of my church, Mother Eileen.
Snap Inc. had a very successful opening on the market today; it was the biggest initial offering since Facebook and they have a rocky road to travel and they are a force to be reckoned with and it will be wonderful to see how it plays out. The next Facebook? Or the next troubled tech company, which is where Twitter is today.
It’s time for me to say goodnight.
By hygge. Regardless of your political persuasion, it will help us all get through.
Tags:Apple, celebrities, Christian, computers, Current Events, General, Google, GOP, Home, Hubble Telescope, Iraq, Islam, Istanbul, life, Mars, Media, NASA, Netflix, newspapers, Politics, reconciliation, Soho, Star Wars, technology, Terrorism, Texas, Wireless, Yahoo
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, depression, Education, Elections, Entertainment, European Refugee Crisis, Gay, Gay Liberation, Great Recession, Greek Debt Crisis, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Homelessness, Howard Bloom, Hudson New York, Income Inequality, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Space Exploration, St. Paul's Cathedral, Syria, Taliban, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
January 6, 2017
For several nights now, I have attempted to write a letter. A few sentences have dribbled out onto the digital page and then I abandon my effort, feeling unsatisfied, bereft of words. And hit delete.
When I spoke to my brother this morning, as we do most days, he, too, finds it difficult to think about, talk about or read about anything political. He, too, feels bereft of thought and words.
Here I am in my cottage, Christmas bunting still glistening in the lights of my trees, the playlist, “Classical for Deep Thought” playing on my Echo. And I am in deep thought.
A close relative of mine who voted for Trump has been forwarding me vicious articles on Hillary Clinton and the Obamas. Going online, I seek to find out if there is any truth to these awful stories. Most of it is balderdash concocted out of a single thread of reality. “Unproven” is what Snopes says.
There seems no point in letting my relative know that it mostly or all balderdash. They don’t want to know. This is their truth.
So, it is that for the last few nights, I have hidden out in the cottage where all things are good, listening to music, watching Netflix [just finished “Medici”]. I have been working on my consulting assignment for the Miller Center for the Presidency [oh, irony!] at the University of Virginia and diverting myself with helping some friends in California on the bible for a fictional series on which they are working. It allows me to live another life.
Glancing at the evening headlines, I winced. Republicans are working to defund Planned Parenthood. Trump rebuts our spy agencies and doesn’t quite accept that Russia hacked us. Certainly, not to help him.
And, oh my! Putin’s popularity among Republicans is rising! Why am I so not happy about that?
The Chinese are telling Trump to stop tweeting and that will probably only cause him to tweet more.
Trump has said that “torture works.” Now that he is President Elect, human rights groups around the world are fearful that his remarks will embolden leaders who find torture a very reasonable way of getting their way.
It is just a discouraging world.
Republicans have been determined to unravel Obamacare since it was initiated. They now will probably get their way. My concern is that I haven’t seen any credible alternatives from them and, whatever you think of the flawed system that is the Affordable Care Act [aka Obamacare], there are far fewer uninsured than there have been.
Which also doesn’t much change the reality that while we spend more per capita on health care we are in the middle of pack in terms of health care results.
Look, Donald Trump is the President Elect. I wish him well.
I am so concerned. This Presidency feels as if it is going to upend the order we have come to accept for at least the last eighty years. And that makes me concerned.
If it goes really bad, I hope my youthful activism will return and I will do my best to protest. And I didn’t think at my age I would be asked for my youthful activism to return but it just might have to!
We will all have to see. The roller coaster is leaving the station.
At least I have broken out of the paralysis of the last few days and written something.
We all care. God bless America. And God help us all.
Tags:Christmas, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Donald Trump, General, Hillary Clinton, Media, Obamacare, Politics, Presidency, Putin, Repbulcans, Snopes, The Donald, The Obamas, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
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 »
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 »
November 15, 2016
On Sunday, as I was returning to my pew post communion, one of my fellow parishioners, Susan Schuette, reached out her hand to me and asked if everything was alright? She had noticed a dearth of postings since Election Day.
Wednesday, the day after the Election, I had cataract surgery [which went very well] and it gave me the perfect excuse to be at home with the blinds drawn, to not listen to the news, to eat comfort food and to binge watch on Amazon Prime. I ate enough mashed potatoes with gravy AND butter for a family of five.
In the slightly hungover state from the relaxants they gave me while working on my eye, I sought to absorb the absolute fact the Donald Trump, television reality star, billionaire real estate mogul, orange tinged with the magnificently weird hair, was President Elect.
Rejoicing is being had on the right while the left is shattered and, quite frankly, totally at a loss as to what has happened.
My dear, dear friend Sarah, known since we were three, and I spoke today. She lived for seven years in Franco’s Spain and feels we are moving in that direction, to be living in that kind of fear. A social worker, her Hispanic clients are terrified, if undocumented they fear a door to door search for them. If documented, they simply fear being profiled and harassed or worse.
Events since the election have fueled all our fears.
At an Episcopal Church in Maryland, the times for Spanish language service were torn down, replaced by graffiti that said: Trump Nation. Whites only!
At the University at Pennsylvania, incoming African American students received emails from a group called “Mudmen,” announcing a “Nigger” lynching every day.
In Wellsville, NY a dugout was spray painted with the words: Make America White Again, with a swastika.
The swastika seems to be a much used symbol for those who are doing these things.
It has been reported in St. Louis a group of high school students marched through their school halls with a Trump sign shouting, “White power! White power!”
A Muslim woman at the University of Michigan was approached by a white man, demanding she remove her hijab or be set on fire.
Ah, yes, the milk of human kindness…
When asked what I think, I say that I expect the next few years are going to be experiential.
A friend phoned me on Thursday and we talked about the election and he said, well you don’t have anything to be worried about. After all, Pence is the one who is going to be running things after all.
Pence is homophobic. Mentioning that to my friend, I said I did not feel safer as a gay man in America since this election. Some of Trump’s supporters say unpleasant things about us though Trump did say in an interview with Lesley Stahl for “60 Minutes” that gay marriage was the law of the land.
He also told, in a bit of milk toast sort of way, that his supporters who might be doing anti-Semitic actions or harassing Hispanics to stop it. It didn’t sound all that forceful.
The New York Post has called “fake” incidents of hate crimes since the election. Maybe they would have happened anyway. I’m not convinced.
It is a sobering time. It is now my responsibility to be vigilant and to work against moments of hate. It is my responsibility to work to restore a more liberal voice in this country and I will. I’m not sure how but I will find some way to do it.
Republicans own the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives and 32 of 50 gubernatorial posts. They have the run of the land. Let us see what they do with it.
And let us be prepared to be the loyal opposition.
At Christ Church Episcopal on Sunday, safety pins were given out. They are to say to those who are frightened because of color, sex, race, religion, disability that you are a person they can be safe with.
Mine will be worn tomorrow. It maybe I will offer them to my students. It is my hope we all continue to be safe and that we are not falling into my friend Sarah’s fear that we are living in a time that will evolve into Franco’s Spain.
Tags:Amazon Prime, Donald Trump, Franco, Home, Homophobic, Islam, Mudmen, Pence, Politics, Safety Pin, Sarah Malone, Susan Schuette, The Donald, University of Pennsylvania, Wellsville NY
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Columbia Greene Community College, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Income Inequality, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Obama, Putin, Social Commnentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
November 8, 2016
How could this not be a strange night? Tomorrow we will be voting [if we haven’t already] for the next President of the United States.
This has been the wildest, most contentious, most upsetting campaign I have ever witnessed in my life. It has been appalling.
Reading Steven Saylor’s mysteries set in ancient Rome, the democratic process then was even more horrible than now and maybe not by that much.
In some ways I have worked to insulate myself from the craziness. Returning home from New York after a quick round trip, I came into the cottage, turned on the floods over the creek and reveled in my home and the beauty that surrounds it. It is my anchor in this time of troubles.
While it is unbelievable to me, there is a path to victory for Trump. On Sunday, I lit a candle at church, praying that path would not be found.
Soft jazz is playing as I write this, another comfort in all of this.
Because I am having cataract surgery on Wednesday, I may go to bed not knowing who will be President. If that happens I will be afraid to open myself the next morning to the news. In the past week or two I wrote to a Republican friend of mine that I was terrified Trump would become President.
I have not heard from her since…
Apparently, his team has found a way to control his access to Twitter and has “cut him off.” No more Tweets from The Donald.
Several newspapers have reported that Ivanka Trump is attempting to distance herself from the campaign. On my way to lunch at Sarabeth’s at Lord & Taylor, I passed the Ivanka Trump Collection. No one there.
What I find horrible is that Trump’s supporters feel that even if loses, they win. He has given legitimacy to their radical views.
We have always been a flawed republic and I am just praying that we get through this most flawed moment successfully.
In the meantime, the jazz plays and will continue to play no matter who wins. No one will take that away from me in my lifetime.
Comey is, I suspect, on the coals after announcing today that the emails on Anthony Weiner’s computer amounted to nothing and so there will be no FBI movement against Hillary. The Daily News trumpeted: NOW you tell us.
The Dow jumped 371 points once Comey announced there was no reason to pursue Hillary Clinton.
I speculated that Comey is cooked, having lost the respect of nearly everyone.
Today, Janet Reno, the first female Attorney General, passed away. Sadly, I had almost forgotten her, though she weathered all the storms of the Bill Clinton administration.
Oklahoma suffered an earthquake today, linked, perhaps, to fracking.
And, really, can I make a request of the universe? Let’s end daylight saving time, okay. I am sorry. It just doesn’t seem worth it. I am discontented this year, as I am every season when it happens. Is there really a reason for this?
In New Delhi, the air is terrible and schools are closed. It is worse than Beijing.
As the Iraqis advance on Mosul they are finding mass graves with beheaded men and I have no idea how they justify their behavior. But they do.
It is not late and I am tired.
I am tired of this election season which has worn me beyond all reason and it will be over tomorrow, after which will come the next rancorous season and I will be here.
Commenting.
Thank you for reading.
I am honored.
Tags:Bill Clinto, Comey, Daily News, Dow, FBI, Hillary Clinton, Ivanka Trump, Janet Reno, Lord & Taylor, Oklahoma earthquakes, President of the United States, Sarabeth's, Steven Saylor, The Donald, Twitter
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Earthquakes, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
November 2, 2016
After an unusually long day for me, I have returned to the cottage, turned on the floodlights over the creek, made myself a martini and am listening to the YoYo Ma station on Amazon Prime.
The bank I have used for a decade or more, First Niagara, was purchased by Key Bank. My business account has been basically unavailable now for three weeks. An earnest and very good young man by the name of Jeff Hannett has been working diligently to help me access it. We’re about 80% there. If it weren’t for Jeff, I would have transferred to another bank. I intend to let the CEO of Key Bank know that. A half dozen friends of mine have pulled their business from Key and gone to other banks.
That was my first stop this morning. Then others and now I am home, looking over the floodlit creek and listening to soft and gentle music, sipping my vodka martini and finding the peace in a long day.
A week from today is the election. I can’t wait for it to be over except that it won’t be over. The rancor raised over the last eighteen months probably will continue until the end of my life. Polarization has become the norm. And worn as I am now, I will be more worn as the years go on.
Some Republicans are pronouncing they will work to see that Hillary Clinton is impeached in her first three months as President, if she is elected.
Some Trump supporters seem to be talking about violence in the streets if the election goes to her.
Earlier today while waiting for Jeff at the bank, I started reading an article that said our beloved “Founding Fathers” were even more rancorous than this election, even less civil, even more brutal. That gives me faith we will get through this. Please, let us get through this. Please.
Bethany Thompson, an eleven-year-old who was left with a crooked smile after fighting for her life against brain cancer, killed herself today because of bullying. She went home, found a gun and shot herself in the head.
My heart is broken and my soul is so angry… So ANGRY.
Speaking of angry, Assad, President of Syria, said today that his country was better off since the civil war that has wracked his country, sent half of them away as refugees and killed a half a million of them.
He has just put his face next to the word delusional in the dictionary.
The pictures I have seen today from Aleppo will haunt me today until the day I die. Another little boy on a stretcher, being treated, in pain and bewildered. And I still wonder: where is that bewildered little boy in the back of an ambulance that captured our attention a couple of months ago? I wonder if he lives? I wonder if he will ever be whole again, if he does live?
Also, in that part of the world, Iraqi forces are said to be on the doorstep of Mosul. Families attempting to flee that are captured find the men separated from their families and are probably being sent off to an inevitable death.
My heart, tonight, is with them also.
In the world of corporate deal making, it is being talked about on “the Street” that Goldman Sachs is encouraging Apple to make a bid to capture Time-Warner from the clutches of AT&T. Interesting.
Apple certainly could afford it. AT&T seems such an odd match for Time-Warner.
Hulu will be launching an OTT service with multiple channels next year. Its viability moved forward today with deals with Disney/ABC.
How can I be talking about the OTT opportunities in the same letter in which I am talking about the slaughter in Aleppo?
I care about both but at the end of the day, what is happening in Aleppo is far more important than what is happening in OTT.
Tags:Aleppo, Amazon Prime, Apple, Assad, AT&T, Bethany Thompson, Claverack, Claverack Creek, Disney/ABC, First Niagara Bank, Founding Fathers, Goldman Sachs, Hulu, Jeff Hannett, Key Bank, OTT, Syria
Posted in 2016 Election, AT&T, Claverack, Columbia County, depression, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Music, Obama, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From Claverack 10 26 2017 Disgusted by them all…
October 26, 2017As I begin writing this letter, I am in New York City, at Birch, a coffee house just east of 5th Avenue on 27th, waiting for a friend and a colleague. There are some things he wants to chat over with me and then I will go to dinner with my great good friend, Nick Stuart and his friend, Jodd. Post dinner, I will head back to the cottage for a bunch of meetings and things to do tomorrow.
Walking from Penn Station to Birch, I realized how my relationship with New York City has changed over the last eighteen years. I’ve gone from “bright lights, big city” to being delighted not to be here that often; I have grown accustomed to the quiet of the country. Penn Station is an assault on the system after the tiny, bucolic station in Hudson and walking through the streets of the city, I feel more a sense of pressure, for want of another word, since I came here in 1999 to begin to live, then splitting my time between Los Angeles and New York.
For the last two and a half years, I have been mostly at the cottage and have slipped into the role and attitude of someone who lives in the country. On weekends, when the county fills with out of towners, I cringe when horns are blasted if someone doesn’t move quickly enough.
I relish waking in the morning to look out over the creek and to look out at my land and see no one.
One needs that kind of quiet and solitude these days to absorb the world news:
o A California judge won’t force Obamacare payments from the Federal government.
o Hillary and the Democrats paid for the dossier on Trump.
o The NAACP is warning people of color not to fly American Airlines.
o Whatever is going on with tax reform remains incomprehensible to me.
o The brother of the Las Vegas shooter was picked up on child porn charges.
o The president and a Gold Star widow can’t quit feuding.
o China’s Xi Jinping probably is with us indefinitely and we’ll see if that’s a good thing or a bad thing AND he’s now as important as Mao and Deng!!!!
o The ease of travel with a US passport has plummeted since Trump has become president.
o The US and North Korea are continuing saber rattling. North Korea is talking hydrogen bomb and the US military action.
o Amazon is going to start delivering packages into our homes. [Ah, not mine. Yet.]
o President George H.W. Bush has been accused by an actress of groping her in 2014. And has apologized.
o A Houston resident, originally from Mexico, died of flesh eating bacteria after working on homes damaged in Harvey. He was the third Houston case; the others were non-fatal.
o The Trump campaign, via a data analytics firm, contacted Wikileaks to access emails from Clinton’s server to make them into a searchable database for the campaign.
Is it any wonder that yesterday when I walked along the wooded lane that is Patroon Street, I thought about none of these things?
I thought of other things, the changing of the leaves, friends, personal things, upcoming trips, hopeful things.
My amazement at the world is unbridled. Today, I commented to a friend: I think we are living in the second Gilded Age and my comfort comes from remembering that did not last and was reined in, eventually.
Each day, I get up and read the papers and find my eyes go wide while I say: lions and tigers and bears! Oh, my…
The Toronto Star blazoned out that Trump broke his own record this week – of lies. They counted 57 whoppers.
Call me disgusted by them all.
Tags:Birch Coffee, Claverack, Donald Trump, George H W Bush, Gilded Age, Gold Star Widow, NAACP, Obamacare, Penn Station
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »