Archive for the ‘Homelessness’ Category
October 12, 2017
Monday, I sent out a blog inspired by Mother Eileen’s sermon at Christ Church on Sunday and forwarded her a copy as she is not on my list. She wrote back the following day and jokingly suggested I might preach this Sunday, which led me to think about what I would preach. What would I say if I had to, this Sunday, preach at a church?
I looked up the gospel for next Sunday and its essential line is: many are called but few are chosen.
Certainly, that fits with last year’s election cycle which started with more candidates for the Republican nomination for president than I remember in my life. Many were called and, in the end, the one that was chosen was Donald Trump and he went on to become President of these United States.
It will probably surprise many who know me but every week at church I light a candle for the man. No, I don’t like him. His policies seem mean spirited, quixotic at best. His relationship with the truth, as I experience it, is equally quixotic.
And he is President of these United States, a man with great power, influence and the ability to shake the world on more levels than I believe he is aware of or understands. But he is the president and I pray for him, hoping, on a very fundamental level he doesn’t do anything that will prevent me from being back at church next Sunday to pray for him.
He appealed to a disenfranchised part of America we, all of us, have not been listening to or acknowledging. They gravitated to Donald Trump as people in the water after the loss of Titanic, desperate to be saved, crying for help. Do I think he will save them? No.
But I want us to hear their cries and find a way to address them and to help them. They are Americans. With very real issues.
Today I read there are the most job openings than there have been for a very long time. Those jobs are harder to fill because we have a massive opioid crisis and many people cannot pass drug tests. Companies are beginning, in desperation, to turn a blind eye, not asking for drug tests for dangerous jobs because they can’t find enough people to fill them.
Not so long ago, there were two Amtrak employees killed, men not much younger than me and their autopsies revealed they had non-prescribed opioids in their systems. Our local paper, the Register Star, gave a face to the epidemic by highlighting on the front page a young woman, full of hope, who overdosed.
It is time we faced this epidemic, its causes and its ravages and did something and quit pretending everything is going along just fine.
President Trump, weren’t you going to make this a national emergency? What happened?
Nothing much. Why not?
Even the beauty of the cottage is not soothing my soul these days. What am I to do?
Many are called but few are chosen. What is it I am called to do in this tumultuous time? Every day I ask myself that question. What am I to do? What am I called to do?
Whether you are a supporter of Donald Trump or not, what is that you can do, personally, to change the awful things that are happening in this country?
Many are called, few are chosen. What will make me chosen? What thing can I do to make this awful time better? I want to. I do and I am not sure what it is that I should do. Pack a bag and fly to some war-torn part of the world and put up my hand and say: I’m here to help? What can I do?
A friend suggested I do that. Maybe I will.
We all need to ask ourselves how we are going to respond to Jesus’ call? I am not a raving evangelical. Far from that. I respect, at the deepest level of my soul, the kindness Jesus worked to insert into the human dialogue and which has resonated for both good and ill since then.
Since I was a boy, I have thought Jesus would be appalled at what has happened to what he started. He preached love and love is not often what has happened.
Many are called but few will be chosen. Be one of the few. Practice what Jesus taught.
Tags:Amtrak, Christ Church, Donald Trump, Many are called but few are chosen, Mother Eileen, opioid crisis, Titanic
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, depression, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Gun Violence, Hollywood, Homelessness, Hygge, Income Inequality, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
September 3, 2017
Earlier today, I went to pick up the mail at the Post Office and as I was about to turn off the car, an interview started on NPR with Andrew White who, along with hundreds of other volunteer Texans, formed what is known as the “Texas Navy” and went out into the flooded streets of Houston. With a sixteen-foot boat and a twenty-horsepower motor and the help of friends, he rescued at least a hundred people, including a man with cerebral palsy and a man who was being treated for cancer and was having a bad reaction to his treatment and needed to get to his hospital. They got him within two blocks of where he needed to go; later the water in the neighborhood of the man with cerebral palsy rose another five feet after the rescue.
Sitting there, tears began flowing down my cheeks. Andrew White’s story was replicated by others all over Harris County which holds the city of Houston, citizen volunteers taking care of other citizens in need. It was the story of what is so often wonderful about this country.
Writing about it causing tears to build in my eyes and I am sniffling.
These are the stories, replicated in all kinds of tragedies around this country, that are the reasons we are great. Oh, we’re miserable S.O.B.’s sometimes but when it comes to disaster, we rise to the challenge in an incredible way and that makes me proud.
From Louisiana came the “Cajun Navy” that formed after Katrina, men and women who knew firsthand what was happening on the ground in Texas and they brought in their bayou boats and lent a hand, calling it “paying it forward.” Just as Texans had come to help them in Katrina.
Houston is home to thousands of refugees from Katrina, people who have found it hard to believe they are living through this twice in their lives.
J.J. Watt of the Houston Texans has raised over $12 million between practices for the coming season, coming off the field to work the phones.
Watt’s hometown is Pewaukee, WI and semis are traveling from there loaded with food and water and supplies. He started out with a goal of raising $200,000 and he just kept on going. Texas billionaire, Michael Dell, has pledged $36 million.
A group of “monster trucks,” organized by a group called Rednecks with Paychecks, is roaming the area, rescuing people and vehicles.
440,000 people have registered for aid from FEMA, as the Mayor of Houston is appealing for an “army” of FEMA officials to help with the claims.
The area that was water covered was larger than the state of Rhode Island. As the water recedes, it leaves behind contaminated water unfit for human consumption, filled with pathogens. Shelters, sometimes islands in a sea of water, are running low or out of food and water.
The damaged Arkema chemical plant can no longer cool the dangerous materials stored there and authorities have evacuated everyone within a mile and a half of the facility. There have been “pops” and plumes of smoke from the plant with no one knowing whether that’s all there is going to be or if it is just the beginning. “Brock” Long, head of FEMA, called the situation there incredibly dangerous.
Bowling alleys are filled with people; Walmart parking lots have been helipads.
And what is amazing and so wonderful and so DAMN great, is that so much of what is happening is unorganized. It is just people getting out to help other people. One man observed that no one was really organizing anything. People seemed to have an instinct for what needed to be done.
Like the “Texas Navy” and Andrew White, who it turns out is the son of a former Texas governor who passed away last month, and the people in the “Cajun Navy.”
People helping other people in a way that moves me to tears, far away, in the soft safety of my cottage.
Tags:Brock Long, Cajun Navy, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, FEMA, Houston Texas, Hurricane Harvey, JJ Watt, Politics, Texas Navy
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Entertainment, Flood Insurance, Greene County New York, Homelessness, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
April 6, 2017
It is dusty grey; mist and fog lay lightly on the Hudson River as I head south toward New York City and then on to Baltimore to visit Lionel and Pierre. It will be a long weekend; I return on Monday.
It had been my intent to drive but when I woke this morning to predictions of thunderstorms and tornadoes along my route, I opted for the train.
Last night, I sat down to begin a letter and could not find words. Ennui swept over me and I wandered off to bed, watched an episode of “Grace and Frankie” and fell asleep, waking early to prepare to leave.
Yesterday was my first day as host of the Wednesday version of WGXC’s “Morning Show,” from 9 AM to 11 AM. The night before, I had a night full of crazy dreams in which I got to the studio on Wednesday morning only to find they had changed all the controls and I had no idea on how to work them. In another dream, I decided to sleep at the station the night before to make sure that I didn’t miss the program but did anyway.
No psychiatrist is needed to interpret these dreams.
And the program went well; there was much praise from friends and colleagues and I relaxed, thinking I can manage this. It was fun and for my first guest, I had Alana Hauptman, who owns my beloved “Red Dot.”
Probably no one remembers Texas Guinan anymore; she ran the biggest, best, brassiest, funniest, speakeasy in New York during Prohibition. She was loved and admired and imitated. She was known for her big heart and saucy character. Alana is all of that and is the Texas Guinan of Hudson. The Red Dot has stood for nineteen years and been an anchor to the town and certainly my world.
There is a slew of people lined up to be guests on the show including the folks who run Bridge Street Theater in Catskill, world premiering a new play shortly and Jeff Cole, who is the CEO of the Center for the Digital Future at USC’s Annenberg School of Communication as well as Howard Bloom, who is a multi-published author and once press agent to every major rock group in the 1970’s and ‘80’s. And Fayal Greene, who has lived in Hudson for a long time, civically active, and is leaving at the end of the month for Maine, where she and her husband will live in a retirement community near their summer home and many relatives.
The farewell party will, of course, be at the Red Dot.
All of this is very hygge.
And I roll around in the hygge-ness of my life as outside my bubble I am often stupefied by my world.
Politics has never been this raucous in my lifetime and perhaps not this much since the founding of the Republic, which, I understand, was a very raucous time.
As I was getting ready to board the train, Representative Devin Nunes, Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, has now recused himself from the Russian investigation over ethics concerns.
In Syria, eighty plus people, including children, died in an apparent gas attack. Trump says the incident crossed “a lot of lines for him.” Tillerson has said that it was undoubtedly Assad’s regime. Assad is saying bombs ignited a store of gas weapons in the attacked town. Russia is demanding the US lay out its cards on how to solve the Syrian problem.
This all sounds like a lot like another replay of the last few years, with some new players and no new results. In the meantime, Syrians continue to suffer; something like five million of them are refugees, many living in squalor with their only drinking water coming from septic tanks causing typhoid and a further circling down into this hell that has been created.
A radio report from a Syrian refugee camp yesterday may have been the cause of last night’s ennui.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is meeting with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago today and tomorrow. It is a high stakes meeting reports say. Wide chasms exist in trade with Trump the candidate picking on China through most of the campaign and the Chinese, unlike some Americans, have long memories and play a long game.
If this turns out to be the pivot point for the United States, future historians might look at our tendency to be focused on short term goals as a factor in creating this pivot.
And in this miasma of non-hygge news, is a report that Jeff Bezos, second richest man on the planet, is selling a billion dollars of Amazon stock a year to finance Blue Origin, his space venture. That makes me smile. Money at work on building the future.
Tags:Alana Hauptman, Amazon, Amtrak, Assad, Blue Origin, Bridge Street Theater, Center for the Digital Future, Fayal Green, Grace and Frankie, Hudson, Jeff Bezos, Jeff Cole, Red Dot, Russia, Syria, Syrian gas attack, Texas Guinan, Trump, WGXC, Xi Jinping
Posted in 2016 Election, Airstrikes, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Homelessness, Hudson New York, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Russia, Social Commentary, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Trump, 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 »
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 »
October 2, 2016
It is twilight outside the windows; classical music plays, a gentle piano sonata. In the trail of grey days that we have left in our time wake, the leaves have begun to change outside. Most are still green but yellow branches now sway with the green in the twilight wind.
It is a quiet, magical moment here in the cottage. Marcel lays sleeping on the couch, tired after taking me on a tour of his domain across the street. I am a bit tired too, for no great reason. Waking at a reasonable hour, I did some early morning work, showered and went off to church.
Going home, I briefly walked Marcel and went off to the gym and from there to the Red Dot for my normal Sunday brunch, visiting with all the folks I know who also frequent there.
While sitting at the Dot, I read the NY Times on the phone and perused my emails.
The world was rocked today that Trump in 1995 claimed a loss of nearly a billion dollars. It shielded him from many taxes for the next eighteen years. It was legal and staggering at the same time. A billion dollars in losses in one year? In 1995?
Badly managed businesses provided that loss, especially the catastrophe of his Atlantic City Casinos. And it seems to me that those catastrophes kept happening over the decades.
The returns were mailed to the NY Times anonymously with a return address of Trump Tower. His campaign called the NY Times an arm of the Clinton campaign.
In another report today, a commentator reminded us that several weeks after the death of Princess Diana, Trump was on Howard Stern’s program declaring he thought he could have “nailed” the Princess. He was apparently between wives and sent Princess Diana mountains of flowers. A few years ago, a woman who had been close to Diana said that she felt creeped out by them and a bit like she was being stalked by the American billionaire.
Barely cold in her grave, he was boasting he could have “nailed” her. How gallant!
How disgusting.
A person very close to me sent me an email, asking me to disseminate it widely. It was in support of Trump. Having known this woman for eons, I wondered how she possible could be thinking I would do anything to support Trump? Perhaps she was just tweaking me, even though she knows I know she will vote for Trump.
Columbia has been at war for over fifty years with the rebellious FARC. A peace deal was negotiated and put to a national referendum. It appears to have been voted down, leaving all of us to wonder if Columbia is to face another fifty years of internal war?
My sister lives in central Florida and has been wondering if Matthew [spelled with two t’s} was going to land upon them but it appears it will weaken once it has scoured Haiti, a country that can’t seem to get a break.
Another young black man was shot in Los Angeles and activists are calling for transparency.
There is no transparency or mercy, it seems, in Aleppo. The Syrian government of Assad, supported by Russia, are pummeling Aleppo into submission, apparently deliberately targeting the resources they have to handle the bombings: hospitals. The healing capacity of the city has been halved.
And where is the boy? Where is the boy?
We, the US, have been warned by Russia to not target the Damascus government.
We are living on this island Earth, not really paying attention to the tectonic shifts in the eco-system while we kill each other all over the place.
It is now totally dark outside but it is not totally dark in my soul. When I witness what is happening in the world, I also remember that for every dire act there is an act of kindness, of balance, of work to make this place, this planet, a better place.
It is why I still go to church.
Tags:Aleppo, Assad, church, Columbia, FARC, Hillary Clinton, Howard Stern, Islam, Lionel White, Los Angeles shooting, Marcel, Media, New York Times, Politics, Princess Diana, Red Dot, technology, this island earth, Trump, Trump tax claim
Posted in 2016 Election, 9/11, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Homelessness, Hudson New York, Income Inequality, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Syria, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
August 24, 2016
It is later in the evening than I normally write; I did a roundtrip to the city today. There were a couple of meetings and then I turned around and returned to the cottage. It is dark. I have turned on the floodlights so I can see the creek glitter with their light. The trees are silhouetted by the light, green and verdant. Nights like this are ones I love, with the floodlights giving an eerie beauty to what I see in the day.
Earlier today I had a long and good conversation with Sarah, who is my oldest friend. We have known each other since we were three and except for one brief period have been a close part of each other’s lives. She is one of the most loving and caring women I have known in my life and has always been that way.
In 7th grade, when Sister Jeron knocked me on the back of the head with a Gregorian Hymnal, humiliating me in front of our class, Sarah turned up that evening with one of her brothers and we went sledding down the hill by our house. She knew I was hurting and came to help take the hurt away. I remember that night as if it were yesterday.
Since I last wrote not much has changed in the world. Aleppo is still a horror show. Omran, the child in the photo, still haunts my dreams.
There are bombings hither and thither. A Turkish wedding was destroyed by a suicide bomber who may have been no more than fourteen. It was not the only bombing but it seems the most tragic with a child being used as a weapon.
Trump is attempting to moderate his tone and I hope it is too late. Hillary is caught in the crossfire of the Foundation and her emails, which probably will never go away. Even if she wins the Presidency, the Republicans will be chasing those emails and Benghazi into the next century.
The state of our politics this year is deplorable. While discouraged, I remain hopeful that some good will come from all of this. It must.
Out there in the wide world, North Korea has fired a missile from a submarine toward Japan. Provocative as ever, the chubby little dictator is testing the limits of what he can get away with.
Remember the Boko Haram? One of their leaders may have been badly wounded in a Nigerian airstrike. I hope so.
The Iraqis are intent on reclaiming Mosul. More than a million people will be displaced if they do it, according to estimates. More refugees in this horrific war that never ends…
The Brits voted for Brexit and Brexiting are a large number of corporations who are moving their money out of Britain. Not good for Britain who is going to have to do a lot of juggling with this Brexit thing…
It is late. I am distracted.
Long ago and far away, I was friends with the Elsen family. Don Elsen, patriarch of the clan, passed away today. He was 90, lived a good long life. I saw him a year ago. Unable to walk, he managed the world with a motorized wheel chair, mentally sharp as ever.
They were descendants of Germans and when I was with them, they could be screaming at each other and then burst into laughter and hug and hold each other. It was amazing. They were all full of love and Don was one of the most generous souls I have known in this life.
God rest. Keep safe. Be reunited in heaven with your beloved wife, Betty. Your son, Jeffrey, and your brothers who went before you.
May I have such a homecoming someday.
Tags:Aleppo, Benghazi, Boko Haram, Brexit, Claverack, Don Elsen, Donald Trump, Elsen, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Iragis, Iraq, IS, Isis, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mosul, Nigeria, Obama, Omran, Politics, Russia, Sarah Malone, Sister Jeron, Syria, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, 9/11, Afghanistan, Boko Haram, Claverack, Columbia County, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Homelessness, Hudson New York, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Syria, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Taliban, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
May 4, 2016
Just now, a CNN update flashed across the screen of my laptop while I was finishing the final exam for my class. It projected that Trump will win Indiana and the first thing I thought was: I wonder how many Republicans are wishing they had hemlock tonight?
The impossible is happening. The Donald is on pace to win the Republican nomination, a thing thought unthinkable only six months ago. There seems no stopping him.
Cruz, I am sure is bereft, not that I feel much for him. Cruz or Trump? What a choice?
Speaking of bad choices, medical errors are now the #3 cause of death in the US. I was shocked but somehow not quite surprised. In my recent medical experience at Columbia Memorial Hospital, the gastroenterologist there diagnosed me with conditions I didn’t have. I learned that after seeing my usual gastroenterologist in New York City.
I just went to the great god Google and discovered the US is number 37 in terms of how good its health care is though I think we spend more than any other country in the world on health care. And now medical errors are our #3 cause of death? What gives here? Who is paying attention? Frankly, I am more scared than I was…
Today is World Press Freedom Day. Who knew? Though it has been on my mind today as I wrote the final exam for my “Media & Society” class. The importance of a free press to a democracy is incalculable. And so few countries really have a free press.
It is that magical time of night when the light has almost faded and there is still just enough light to see the budding trees outlined against the sky. There is such beauty in this place, softening the harshness of the world outside.
An American Seal today was killed in a skirmish with IS in Iraq. The wars go on and will continue to go on. IS is retreating but is not broken. The Iraqis do not have a really credible fighting force in the field as far as I can tell. The Kurds seem to be doing yeoman’s work while Turkey pushes them down.
Recently it was the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, which, according to the Turks never happened. Yet there is credible evidence it did. Why do we get caught up in keeping mythologies alive? Would it not be better to move beyond the past? It was a century ago, another time. Man up.
Putin, the problem…
When oil prices were high, he took the credit for the country’s uptick. Now that oil prices have collapsed he his not manning up to the fact it’s a problem. It’s the West’s fault. To keep attention off the failures of his regime, he has been pointing fingers at the West.
He is like the Tsars of old. And that is what Russia has been always used to.
Here in New York, Sheldon Silver, once one of the most powerful politicians in the state, just received a sentence of twelve years in prison for corruption. New York rivals Illinois in the corruptness of its politicians. Several more are up for sentencing in the weeks to come.
The Tony nominations are in and “Hamilton” has scored a record breaking sixteen. It is hard to see “Hamilton” as it is sold out for months to come and scalper’s tickets are almost $2,000 a ticket. You have to be in the 1% to make that happen. I certainly can’t.
And as I am finishing this, there is an alert from CNN that Ted Cruz is dropping his bid for the nomination after a stinging defeat in Indiana. Is this true? I am finding it hard to believe. We must wait for the morning to see what happens. Wait! The BBC has just announced Cruz is gone…
It is beginning to look like Trump versus Hillary and that will be a slugfest to watch, if not to enjoy.
Tags:American Seal, Armenian Genocide, Carly Fiorina, Claverack, CNN, Donald Trump, Google, Hamilton, Hillary Clinton, Isis, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Putin, Sheldon Silver, Ted Cruz, Tonys, Tsar, World Press Freedom Day
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July 17, 2015
It is the end of the week and in about an hour, I will walk the short distance from the office where I work and get on the train to head to the cottage for a full nine days of working from home. I am so looking forward to being there, to doing my work at the table on the deck, to watching the creek flow by while I am on my laptop or reading off my Kindle.
Today is the second sun blessed day in New York, bright, warm and lacking in humidity. I started the day with breakfast with my friend Nick Stuart, catching him before he leaves for a week in Southern California with his daughter, Francesca. Then I worked in the office, lunched at PJ Clarke’s with Maria Santana, a treasured member of the train community.
After lunch, I discovered one of my cards had been cut off. Someone tried to use my number at a Target in Brooklyn. The bank shut it down and I’m glad. Whoever was stealing my numbers was attempting to get away with almost $600.00 in merchandise.
It is a bane of the age, the electronic stealing of our credit card numbers, our identities, and our digital selves that are almost as close to ourselves as our physical selves. Ten years ago someone got my information and opened an account at Home Depot and charged almost $7,000 worth of goods without my knowledge. When Home Depot called me to collect, they realized we’d both been scammed but they were the ones who were taking the financial hit.
Stealing is not in my DNA. Too much guilt goes with it and was never worth it to me. But that’s not the way it is with some; they like the thrill of getting away with it, until, of course, they don’t. The brother of a friend of mine was like that. He went from state to state, scam to scam, until one day my friend had to visit her brother in prison. He never really changed.
It troubles me on some profound level and fills me with disgust. Once, years ago in Rome, I gave some money to beggars and they pickpocketed me. I lost about a 1000 lira but they left me my passport and credit card. My friends said it was ironic I was the one they targeted because I was the one who actually gave their begging hands money.
It was a mother and her little girl. And I suspect the little girl has grown up to be like her mother. It was the life for which she was being trained.
Last night, my friend Robert and I walked through the Garment District to a restaurant for some dinner and to watch a bit of the Tour de France. Robert commented to me that the number of homeless on the streets has begun to rise again. We passed dozens in just a few blocks.
Is the social safety net failing more than before? Are the police not working on the problem because they are annoyed with our Mayor, Mr. DeBlasio? Robert is right though, when I think about it I have noticed more homeless and mentally ill folks on the streets. I wrote about one yesterday.
It worries me. Help is needed. Where is it?
Tags:DeBlasio, DNA, Home Depot, Homelessness, Identity theft, Italy, Maria Santana, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Nick Stuart, PJ Clarkes, Robert Murray, Rome, Target
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Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From Claverack 10 12 2017 Thoughts on what I would preach…
October 12, 2017Monday, I sent out a blog inspired by Mother Eileen’s sermon at Christ Church on Sunday and forwarded her a copy as she is not on my list. She wrote back the following day and jokingly suggested I might preach this Sunday, which led me to think about what I would preach. What would I say if I had to, this Sunday, preach at a church?
I looked up the gospel for next Sunday and its essential line is: many are called but few are chosen.
Certainly, that fits with last year’s election cycle which started with more candidates for the Republican nomination for president than I remember in my life. Many were called and, in the end, the one that was chosen was Donald Trump and he went on to become President of these United States.
It will probably surprise many who know me but every week at church I light a candle for the man. No, I don’t like him. His policies seem mean spirited, quixotic at best. His relationship with the truth, as I experience it, is equally quixotic.
And he is President of these United States, a man with great power, influence and the ability to shake the world on more levels than I believe he is aware of or understands. But he is the president and I pray for him, hoping, on a very fundamental level he doesn’t do anything that will prevent me from being back at church next Sunday to pray for him.
He appealed to a disenfranchised part of America we, all of us, have not been listening to or acknowledging. They gravitated to Donald Trump as people in the water after the loss of Titanic, desperate to be saved, crying for help. Do I think he will save them? No.
But I want us to hear their cries and find a way to address them and to help them. They are Americans. With very real issues.
Today I read there are the most job openings than there have been for a very long time. Those jobs are harder to fill because we have a massive opioid crisis and many people cannot pass drug tests. Companies are beginning, in desperation, to turn a blind eye, not asking for drug tests for dangerous jobs because they can’t find enough people to fill them.
Not so long ago, there were two Amtrak employees killed, men not much younger than me and their autopsies revealed they had non-prescribed opioids in their systems. Our local paper, the Register Star, gave a face to the epidemic by highlighting on the front page a young woman, full of hope, who overdosed.
It is time we faced this epidemic, its causes and its ravages and did something and quit pretending everything is going along just fine.
President Trump, weren’t you going to make this a national emergency? What happened?
Nothing much. Why not?
Even the beauty of the cottage is not soothing my soul these days. What am I to do?
Many are called but few are chosen. What is it I am called to do in this tumultuous time? Every day I ask myself that question. What am I to do? What am I called to do?
Whether you are a supporter of Donald Trump or not, what is that you can do, personally, to change the awful things that are happening in this country?
Many are called, few are chosen. What will make me chosen? What thing can I do to make this awful time better? I want to. I do and I am not sure what it is that I should do. Pack a bag and fly to some war-torn part of the world and put up my hand and say: I’m here to help? What can I do?
A friend suggested I do that. Maybe I will.
We all need to ask ourselves how we are going to respond to Jesus’ call? I am not a raving evangelical. Far from that. I respect, at the deepest level of my soul, the kindness Jesus worked to insert into the human dialogue and which has resonated for both good and ill since then.
Since I was a boy, I have thought Jesus would be appalled at what has happened to what he started. He preached love and love is not often what has happened.
Many are called but few will be chosen. Be one of the few. Practice what Jesus taught.
Tags:Amtrak, Christ Church, Donald Trump, Many are called but few are chosen, Mother Eileen, opioid crisis, Titanic
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