Archive for the ‘Hudson New York’ Category
May 27, 2016
It is blissfully quiet this moment, except for the drone of the Harbor Patrol boat in Edgartown Harbor. I am sitting, at this minute, on the veranda of my friends’ home overlooking that harbor.
Yesterday, I arrived on Martha’s Vineyard. I am here for awhile, that while yet undetermined. My friends, Jeffrey and Joyce, own the Edgartown Bookstore. About six weeks ago, reading “All The Light We Cannot See,” a book I purchased last year at their bookstore, it occurred to me they might need some help at the beginning of the season. So I volunteered. And here I am.
Yesterday, I left the cottage and had a giddy thought. If I should decide not to teach in the fall, after the Vineyard, there is no place I have to be for the rest of my life. It was both liberating and frightening. I felt like my head was filled with helium. I have acknowledged, at last, I am adrift in the world and that the boundaries I am now setting are the ones of my own choosing and no one else’s.
I took a picture of the rhododendron as I left the house.
I
As I also took a picture of the creek before I left.
As I was sitting in my car on the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, Jeffrey texted me: don’t eat! They also own “Behind the Bookstore,” a restaurant that has a great reputation on the island. We were treated to a tasting course of everything on the dinner menu and dinner service begins tonight. It was all extraordinary, with the exception of the sweet pea gnocchi, which is still a work in progress.
The young chef is fresh out of Chez Panisse in Berkley, Alice Waters’ signature restaurant.
Tonight, after my first day in the bookstore, where I did my best to earn my keep, I am sipping a martini and looking at Edgartown harbor and thinking how fortunate I am to have this experience.
I am enjoying the moment.
Unbelievably but not perhaps unpredictably, Donald Trump has cinched the number of delegates he needs to be nominated. I am appalled and don’t want to think about it. So I am enjoying my view.
Let’s admit it. I am scared to death if he wins the election. Scarred to death. He has no credible credentials to be President of the United States. And I must decide if I will engage in this fall’s election to defeat him or stay on the sidelines and pray to all the gods in all the universes. I suspect I will do my best to defeat him.
But Hillary! As we were driving to “Behind The Bookstore” last night, Jeffrey said, and rightly, that there was no problem that the Clintons couldn’t make worse.
And it is so effing true. They stumble into things and don’t claim responsibility and just manage to make things worse and worse and worse. And the polls are showing that Hillary could lose to The Donald.
Oh my! Lions and tigers and bears… Oh my!
I am going to focus on the moment right now. I have to. I am sitting on a veranda on Martha’s Vineyard, looking out on Edgartown Harbor, calm and peaceful. The storm may be about to erupt on our heads but not tonight. I will savor tonight because not to do so would be foolish.
Tags:9/11, All the Light We Cannot See, Behind the Bookstore, Bernie Sanders, Claverack, Donald Trump, Edgartown, Edgartown Bookstore, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Obama, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Columbia County, Columbia Greene Community College, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Sanders, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
May 20, 2016
It is a bit hazy as I rumble south, down the river, toward the city. I am having dinner tonight with my good friends Annette and David Fox. About once a quarter, we get together, order Indian from Indus Valley near their West End Avenue apartment and visit, over wine and an Indian dinner.
All day my mind has wandered back to the Egypt Air flight that crashed on its way from Paris to Cairo, in the Mediterranean off Crete. My phone screen was clustered with updates when I awoke this morning.
It is appearing that the plane’s crash is likely the result of terrorism though nothing can be known until the plane’s debris is studied. Why did it make wild turns just before it disappeared? What must have the passengers been experiencing? I shudder to think. It’s one thing to be there one moment and another not but what must have been in their minds as the plane made a 360 degree rotation?
Chaos erupted on the floor of the House today over a bill that would have denied contracts to Federal contractors if they discriminated against LGBT individuals. It was lost by one vote and reporters heard jeers and shouts from the House floor. Championed by Representative Sean Maloney, Democrat of New York in a district just south of me. Moments before the vote, the measure had 217 votes and House Leader McCarthy twisted Republican arms to change their vote as the presiding officer kept the vote open longer than is normal.
Ah, politics… All the remaining candidates, Trump, Sanders and Clinton hurled invectives and innuendoes today, as they do every day.
To put it kindly, Megyn Kelly and Donald Trump have been “at odds.” They had a sit down at Trump Tower and then another on Megyn Kelly’s premiere of her new interview show as she pursues becoming the next Barbara Walters. It was roundly panned and accusations flew that she played easy with her former adversary.
A week ago the legendary CBS reporter, Morley Safer, retired. A long planned special tribute to him aired on “Sixty Minutes” this past Sunday. Today, he died. He covered the world, from war to art, with panache and precision, exuding a style that is hard to find, particularly now.
The wonderful Hubble Telescope, hovering in space for twenty-five years now, has sent home spectacular views of Mars which is swinging in and will be as close as it gets to earth on Sunday, May 22nd. From these photos we have learned there were mega-tsunamis on Mars in the long ago. With luck, it will continue working at least until 2020 or, perhaps, a little longer.
This week, a Chibok girl, kidnapped two years ago by Boko Haram in Nigeria was freed. Today, another girl has been rescued, two out of two hundred. The first one has met with the Nigerian President but it may be hard for any rescued girls to be reintegrated. The first girl has a Boko Haram “husband” apparently.
In Venezuela, Maduro is cracking down as his regime seems to be cracking up. Tear gas was fired on a crowd of thousands who were demanding his recall. Chants of “food, food, food” are being heard in the streets of many cities. Hospitals are often without power or medicine. Patients are reported to lie in pools of blood.
Even his fellow leftists are beginning to think him crazy. One called Maduro “crazy like a goat.” But maybe that’s a compliment?
The train arrived in New York and then I was off to dinner and sleep. Now it is a beautiful Friday morning in the city, sunlight streaming through the blinds and shortly I’m off to Baltimore to visit friends.
Yesterday’s drumbeat continues today. Debris has been found from the Egypt Air flight. Accepting the inevitable, the Republicans are rallying behind Trump and it will make an interesting fall campaign as Trump and Clinton seemed to be disliked in comparable numbers, meaning no one likes either of them much.
Oklahoma has passed a bill making it a felony to perform an abortion thereby making it virtually impossible to get an abortion in the state.
Israel’s Defense Minister has resigned, accusing Netanyahu of “extremism.” And if he continues on the current path, Netanyahu’s government will become the most right wing in Israel’s history.
Now, as it is nearing noon, I need to prepare to leave, with another coffee in my future and some work for WGXC.
Tags:Annette and David Fox, Bernie Sanders, Boko Haram, Claverack, Donald Trump, Egypt Air Crash, Hillary Clinton, Hubble Telescope, Hudson, Maduro, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Megyn Kelly, Morley Safer, Netanyahu, Oklahoma Felony for abortion, Sean Maloney, The Donald, Venezuela
Posted in 2016 Election, Boko Haram, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Gay, Gay Liberation, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
May 16, 2016
This is one of the most enjoyable moments I have in a week, sitting at the dining room table, jazz playing in the background, the sun setting, looking across the deck to the wild woods across the creek, pulling together my thoughts as the sun slowly sets.
This morning I re-read my last online post [www.mathewtombers.com]. In the last part I wrote about Islam and the West having to come to terms with each other and as I read it I thought: whoa, Islam must come to peace with itself. IS is mostly killing other Muslims. Those numbers dwarf the numbers they have killed in Paris and Brussels and New York and London. They die by the hundreds and thousands in Iraq and Syria alone. Not to mention Yemen, which seems to be to Sunni and Shia what Spain was to Fascists and Republicans in the 1930’s.
We note with great care and deep exegesis the murders in the West and the daily drumbeat of death in Baghdad, Aleppo and Yemen is a footnote. Muslims are mostly slaughtering other Muslims.
Not unlike the way Christians slaughtered other Christians in the 15th, 16th and 17th Centuries. We had the Thirty Year War, which started as a religious war and became so much more. The Muslims seem to be having their Thirty Year War and it is much scarier because technology is so much more advanced.
And while they fight amongst themselves, some of them rage against the West, those who are Fundamentalist Muslims. They see us as abominations.
One late night here at the cottage I wondered if I was living a bit like a Roman in the 2nd or 3rd Century CE, knowing the darkness was coming and unable to prevent it so enjoying the present as much as possible.
That’s a bit melodramatic I suppose. Events are still playing out. Outcomes can be changed.
The forces at work in our lives are terrifying. We have a saber rattling Putin, who denies everything negative, and a major religion that is going through an existential crisis, manyßåå of them thinking nothing of killing as a policy.
In college, I took an Honors course on Medieval Islamic Civilization and they were civilized. Something has gone very wrong there and, hopefully, for all of us, they will sort it out.
In the meantime, the rest of the world keeps moving.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month.
Not being mentally healthy is a debilitating stigma many carry. As someone who has been in therapy since he was sixteen, I empathize. It is not, in many places, åstill, now, acceptable to talk about.
And it saved my life. And in the years between then and now, many members of my family have taken me aside to thank me for having broken the dam. I was the first and I was pretty loud about it too. Everyone knew. Everyone rolled their eyes at me, then they began quietly to look for their own therapists.
We are still dealing with racial issues and we are still dealing with mental stigmas. So good there is a Mental Health Awareness Month. We need all the mental health we can get.
Our politics continue to look like a sideshow. Friends who live in Japan, Australia, Europe ask me what is going on? I don’t know. Does anyone? There has been nothing like this in my lifetime and it is a bit scary.
I have been reading articles about the raucous Nevada Democratic Convention and I haven’t parsed the events quite but there was a showdown between the Bernie supporters and the Hillary supporters. Hillary won but her supporters are worried about a similar scene playing out at the national convention.
It has grown dark now. The sun has set. While it is mid-May, the temperature is going down to 34 tonight so we are not actually in real Spring yet. I had to turn up the heat tonight. I might yet light a fire.
The jazz lures me to a quiet place of introspection.
Tags:Bernie Sanders, Claverack, Donald Trump, Fundamentalist Muslims, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, IS, Isis, Jazz, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mental Health Awareness Month, New York, Obama, Putin, Red Dot, Russia, Syria, The Donald, Thirty Years War
Posted in 2016 Election, Brussels terror attack, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Iran, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Paris Attacks, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Taliban, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
May 9, 2016
For the first time in a week, the sun is out and the day feels spring like. Sunlight glitters off the Hudson River as the train I’m riding heads south to the city. I have a couple of meetings this afternoon and tomorrow and then will head back north after the last one is completed.
Today, I gave the final to my class. Once they’re graded and handed in, I am finished unless I am asked back in the fall.
It was genuinely hard for me to see my students go. I will honestly miss them, even the reluctant ones among them.
They are all interesting characters and I worry about them because most of them are graduating and their academic skills are less, for the most part, of what I would expect of students finishing their second year of college.
They range in age from twenty to forty. One is a mother who missed a couple of classes because she went to her own daughter’s graduation. Another is a vet, who is back after years of service, a man of thirty something who carries weight in his soul.
They follow Facebook and spurn Twitter. Instagram and Snapchat are their social media of choice.
No one remembers anything. They turn to their phones for the answers for anything and everything. As has been posited, if you can Google, why remember it?
Today was the first time they were not nose to nose with their phones. Their phones rarely leave their hands and if they have left it behind someplace, they are a shot out the door to retrieve it.
One of my tasks was to teach them to be better, smarter consumers of media. I challenged them to go a day without media. The one who came closest, went out to a farm and stayed there and even he couldn’t make it the full twenty-four hours.
The rest of them barely made it more than a few minutes. All have a better understanding of how pervasive contemporary media is.
Anxiety is apparent when they are separated from their phones, even for relatively short periods of time. When I threatened to remove a phone from one my students as she wouldn’t stop playing with it, I was greeted by genuine terror in her face.
Most of them suffer a higher degree of nomophobia [anxiety of being separated from your smartphone] than I had expected. The older they were, the less it was, the younger they were, the higher the degree. It was both fascinating and a little unsettling to observe.
Many of them write as if they were texting and some, to my great concern, have almost no skill in writing at all. I mean zip. And while they have more than moderate intelligence, they lack the skills to communicate their intelligence in writing. One of the smartest people in my class in native intelligence is incapable of getting his thoughts on paper. How can I not worry about him?
Most of them have an appalling lack of historical knowledge in general. They live in an ever constant present, skimming the waves of history, passing over it rather than through it. And what happened centuries ago is something which seems irrelevant to them. As I’ve mentioned, if they need to know about an event, they can Google it. [A disturbing tendency I have found in myself.]
Major device for connecting to the internet? The phone, of course. Most video viewing done? On the phone. Music consumption? On the phone. Everything is on the phone.
I am convinced they came away with a better understanding of how to approach and interpret media as they experience it and I am glad I have helped make them, please dear God, better consumers of media, less open to manipulation, more discerning, more interpretive because they really weren’t when they came into class.
I am afraid that is the case of many students today, at every level.
Tags:CGCC, Claverack, Columbia Greene Community College, Google, Hudson, Hudson River, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media and Society, New York, nomophobia
Posted in Claverack, Columbia County, Columbia Greene Community College, Education, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, Literature, Magna Carta, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Social Commentary, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
May 7, 2016
The town of Fort McMurray, in the heart of Canada’s oil patch, is burning to the ground as I write. 88,000 people are being evacuated. One who has remained to assist in fueling emergency workers described the city, according to Vice, as a “f**king ghost town.” Reports are calling the situation barely managed chaos. Convoys are transporting people out of town and 8,000 have been airlifted out.
The Prime Minister of Turkey has resigned after a fight with President Erdogan. As I understand it, in Turkey it’s the PM who is supposed to have the power while the President does the meeting and the greeting. Erdogan doesn’t see it that way and has been keeping hold on the reins of power. This resignation makes it easier for Erdogan to consolidate power. Turkey is troubled, fighting a Kurdish insurgency, IS, wrestling with refugees and a population that is growing antagonistic to Erdogan.
I still would like to go back to the “Turquoise Coast” of that country, sun dappled and bucolic.
Not bucolic is the state of American politics. Trump continues to rise and has no opposition on his march to the nomination. Cruz and Kasich are gone. The Presidents Bush, number 41 and 43, have signaled they will not endorse him. Paul Ryan is “not ready” at this time to endorse Trump. The Trump campaign approached over a hundred Republican politicos to say something good about Trump. Only twenty responded; the others were “too busy.”
As I gave my last lecture, the students were commenting on how exhausted they were of the political season and the near certainty that Trump will be the Republican nominee has only heightened their distaste for politics; all suspect an ugly, brutal slugfest between the two candidates, neither of whom they admire, assuming Hillary is nominated, as it looks she will. The aspirational nature of politics has slipped away from us.
And before it is done, something like $4 billion will be spent on this election, twice what was spent in 2012.
President Obama implored reporters to focus on issues and not “the spectacle and circus” that has marked coverage so far of the 2016 Presidential race. After all, being President of the United States is “not a reality show.” Amen…
A Fort Valley State University student, in central Georgia, was stabbed to death as he came to aid three women who were being harassed and groped near the school cafeteria. Rest in peace, Donnell Phelps, all of nineteen.
Two are dead and two are wounded in shootings is suburban Maryland, three at Montgomery Mall, where I have shopped and one at a grocery store nine miles away. One man is believed responsible. If it is the man police suspect, he killed his wife last night when she was at school, picking up their children. He was under court order to stay away from her.
It is a grey afternoon as I write this, in a stretch of chill, grey days and news like the above deepens the pall of the day.
If you are feeling grey because “Downton Abbey” has slipped into the past, its creator, Julian Fellowes, took Trollope’s novel, “Doctor Thorne” and brought it to life. Amazon has purchased it and will stream it beginning May 20. Fill a hole in your viewing heart.
In my heart, I want a new iPhone and I am probably going to wait until the fall when Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, tells us that the iPhone 7 will give us features we can’t live without. What they are, I don’t know. I am writing this on a train going north and can’t stream on Amtrak’s wifi.
Speaking of Amtrak, I booked a trip from New York to Minneapolis on the train for July 20th to visit my brother and his family. I am taking a train to DC, the Capital Limited out of there to Chicago and the Empire Builder from Chicago to Minneapolis. I hope it will be good fun.
Fun seems to be what we need these days. Our politics are not fun. The constant barrage of shootings is not fun, not remotely. The economy, while growing, isn’t growing fast enough which is not fun.
What will be fun is that Lionel and Pierre are going to be at their home across the street from me this weekend and I will get to see them.
Tags:Amtrak, Anthony Trollope, Claverack, Cruz, Doctor Thorne, Donald Trump, Donnell Phellps, Downton Abbey, Erdogan, Fort McMurray, George HW Bush, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, iPhone7, Julian Fellowes, Kasisch, Lionel White, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Obama, Pierre Font, Tim Cook, Turkey, Vice
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, 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
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Homelessness, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Russia, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
April 30, 2016
The day began with a conversation over coffee with my friend Robert Murray about Wednesday’s remarks by former Speaker of the House, John Boehner, that Ted Cruz was “Lucifer in the flesh” and that he “was the most miserable son of a bitch” that Boehner had ever worked with.
Ouch! Gloves off, totally off.
Boehner, apparently, has never forgiven Cruz for his part in the 2013 government shutdown.
We discussed how stunning it was that such a prominent Republican has said such harsh words about a front runner for the Presidential nomination of their own party.
It is probable that Trump will be the Republican Presidential nominee and Boehner said that he would vote for him, if he was, which is far short of an enthusiastic endorsement.
Is there anyone we are enthusiastic about in this election? I don’t think so.
At the Republican Convention in California, there was a tense stand-off between Trump protesters and police as hundreds stormed the convention in protest of Trump. Railing at the man doesn’t some to be doing much good. He is the juggernaut the Republicans did not expect.
To my surprise, though it shouldn’t be, 75 years ago “Citizen Kane” premiered and changed movies forever. Lili St. Cyr, last of the great strippers, who I knew in Los Angeles, briefly had an affair with him while he was making the movie. Filmmaker after filmmaker has given him homage in their own films and his legend will live on.
Obama is seeking to shore up his legacy, if not his legend, with interviews about his years as President. I suspect, though I know many will not agree with me, that history will be kinder to him than his contemporaries.
Prince, recently dead, had a bad hip and being a Jehovah’s Witness, was not going to have a replacement. He had been given pain pills to help and it may be that they played a part in his demise. Police have obtained a search warrant for his home and have raided a Walgreen’s Pharmacy where Prince had his prescriptions filled. Results from his autopsy will be available in a month or so. As he died without a will, it will be an epic battle, probably, over his estate, including all the songs he never released.
In Syria, the fragile truce has frayed and Aleppo has returned to full scale war. A hospital was bombed and the fatalities rise. Secretary Kerry has been on the phone with Lavrov of Russia, working to get some sort of end to the tragedy.
It is being wondered if Syria’s President Assad has been dealing with IS, buying its oil. Which would certainly give another wicked twist to the tragedy in Syria.
The Romans, in their day, ruled Syria and Spain and today, in Seville, in Spain, a group of workers repairing water pipes found 19 amphora or jars filled with Roman coins from the time of Constantine — the Emperor who embraced Christianity. The find is worth millions of Euros.
While all these things go on, I am now back at the cottage, There is a fall like chill in the air so I have lit a fire in the Franklin Stove and cranked up some jazz from Amazon Prime Music. It is cozy and comfortable, a contented Friday evening.
The creek at twilight tonight…
Tags:Citizen Kane, Claverack, Constantine the Emperor, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, IS, Isis, John Boehner, John Kerry, Lilli St. Cyr, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Obama, Orson Welles, Prince, Robert Murray, Roman Empire, Syria, Ted Cruz
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Claverack, Columbia County, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Politics, Syria, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
April 28, 2016
Twilight has passed and I am curled up with the laptop and a martini, allowing the day to begin to slip away. It was not a bad day at all; quite the contrary. My rambunctious students were less so today after I told them that if they were rambunctious today, I was going to ask them to leave. They knew when they had arrived they had gone a little over the top on Monday and were quite subdued as they arrived, giving me looks to see how annoyed I might be with them.
It was actually a bit amusing.
After office hours, I went to the gym and then to an early dinner at Coyote Flaco, a small Mexican restaurant not far from the cottage. At home, there were lots of things to gather as I am going down to New York City tomorrow for an Odyssey meeting and a dinner at which Odyssey has purchased a table, all in support of a film they have made on “moral injury.”
It is beginning to shape up that I am going for at least a couple of weeks to help my friends who own the Edgartown Bookstore on Martha’s Vineyard. Might be two weeks or a month but will be good for me to do that and I think they need the help in the time before college students start showing up looking for summer jobs so it looks like just before Memorial Day to sometime in June, with a trip down to New York to see my brother and sister-in-law when they are there to celebrate their wedding anniversary in between, I will be on the Vineyard, the place my friend Jeffrey calls “the land of off.”
It was a good day yesterday for Donald Trump, who swept all five races and for Hillary, who triumphed in four of the five.
The Donald said that Hillary was playing “the woman card” and that if she weren’t a woman she wouldn’t be getting five percent of the vote. Like Hillary or not, she does have some pretty good credentials.
The Donald outlined his foreign policy directions today, carrying forward his America First! theme into foreign policy. He criticized Obama for not standing with our allies and then went on to diss them himself. Some thought it rambling and incoherent, others thought it a great step to the middle. What I heard of it sounded like a big muddle.
Ted Cruz has chosen Carly Fiorina as his running mate. Wait, don’t you have to be nominated before you announce your running mate? Or is that just old politics? Regardless, it is not a pretty thought from where I sit. Cruz is as concerning to me as Trump.
It was not a good day for Dennis Hastert, former Speaker of the House, who was sentenced to fifteen months in prison for a bank crime, committed while he was paying off a young man he had sexually abused. Apparently there were five of them who Hastert abused, all distraught, now middle-aged men, with one of them dead. The man he was paying off has now sued for the remainder of the money.
The Saudis, in an overdue awakening, are working to get beyond oil and to diversify so that when, someday, the oil runs out — and it will — they won’t drift back into a medieval state. It will be a hard road to success. The Saudi kingdom is not as open or as business friendly as the United Arab Emirates, who saw the future long ago.
Elon Musk wants to land an unmanned craft on Mars as early as 2018 and I say: go for it!
Salah Abdeslam, the surviving member of the team that perpetrated the Paris attacks last year, is back in Paris. His lawyers have described him as a “little jerk” who is “falling apart” in jail and is ready to cooperate.
The evening is fading. My martini is gone and I am ready for sleep, grateful for the day and the day that is, I hope, coming. Life is an interesting mystery.
Tags:Claverack, Coyote Flaco, Elon Musk, Hudson, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Obama, Salah Abdeslam
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
April 25, 2016
I’m not sure where the term “dog tired” came from but that’s what I am today, “dog tired.” When I woke it was a grey, chill day, unremittingly grey. At class I was struggling to get my rambunctious students to pay attention while I was helping them fill in the background of what they needed to know about media history.
Most of them are graduating in three weeks and there are only four more classes for them and you can sense them stampeding toward the doors.
Leaving them, I went down to Relish, the little cafe by the train station and had an egg white omelet, reading a mystery by Louise Penny while eating. Coming home, I did a conference call and then prepped for some interviews I am doing for our community radio station tomorrow.
The American Dance Institute has purchased a rundown lumberyard in Catskill and is converting it to performance spaces and living quarters for artists while they’re in residence. It’s an exciting project…
I am talking to Chris Bolan, their Community Relations Manager, tomorrow about the project.
So right now, I am listening to jazz, sipping a much needed martini and working on figuring out kitchen organization. I have more stuff than space. What goes? What stays and where does what stays, go?
One of the reasons I felt tired or maybe a bit depressed was that as I was walking toward my class, the phone pinged and the BBC reported a leading gay activist in Bangladesh had been hacked to death, not too long after a liberal blogger had been similarly dispensed. I felt sad, angry, helpless, wanting to do something to change the tide of hate sweeping the world and not knowing at all what to do about it.
The afternoon brought news that a Canadian in the Philippines has been killed by an Islamist militant group. His name was John Ridsdel, described as brilliant and compassionate; he was a 68 year old tourist from Calgary, Canada. Beheaded, of course, in keeping with tradition.
On the American political scene, Cruz and Kasich made a pact to stop Trump by Kasich withdrawing from Indiana in favor of Cruz and Cruz withdrawing from Oregon in favor of Kasich. After great fanfare this morning, it seems to have fallen apart by the afternoon.
It was not a good day for the New England Patriot’s Tom Brady as the courts upheld his suspension from the first four games of the season. Deflategate has not gone away; its repercussions are still being felt and Brady’s legacy is at stake. He could still appeal but his chances aren’t good. The NFL may well have won.
Hard for me to figure this out as I am not a football fan; never a big fan, I was totally lost to the sport when the concussion revelations began to happen.
It is a mellow night at the cottage. It is 7:30 and the sun has not yet gone away. There are buds on the trees and the rhododendron are starting their bloom. The jazz has energized me and I am happy now. Somehow, in writing this, I have shed this day. And I am grateful.
Thank you.
Tags:ADI/Lumberyard, American Dance Institute, Chris Bolan, Cruz, Dog tired, Gay Activist hacked to death in Bangladesh, John Ridsdel, Kasich, Louise Penny, New England Patriots, Relish, Tom Brady
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Greene County New York, Gun Violence, Hudson New York, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
April 23, 2016
On Thursday, I was sitting at Molly Wee, an Irish Pub a block from Penn Station, having lunch with Mark Sklawer, a filmmaker who is working on a film about the music period in the life of Howard Bloom, who is a client of mine. As we talked, my phone buzzed in my pocket and I took it out to see what was going on.
Both the AP and BBC were sending alerts that Prince had died. It was shocking as Prince wasn’t ill as far as I knew and still relatively young at 57, younger than me. We are both natives of Minneapolis though I had left about the time he was beginning his ascent.
What struck the three of us was that the news hit us as we were talking about Howard, who had been Prince’s PR guru at the time of “Purple Rain.” It was, in fact, Howard who persuaded Warner Bros. to release the film. After a screening, studio executives were terrified of what they had on their hands and some wanted to kill the film.
It was Howard that convinced them that the film was brilliant and would be a hit. And he was right.
The papers on Thursday were filled with paeans to the musical legend, as well they should have been. He helped turn many a corner and, through it all, remained close to Minneapolis, his place of origin. He died at his estate in Chanhassen, MN, a suburb of Minneapolis.
RIP.
It is spring like and the last two days have been singularly beautiful though rain fell Friday evening, the day the Hubble turned 26 years old, sending back glorious pictures of deep space.
Friday, in honor of Earth Day, was a day to go without a car in New York City. It did seem traffic was lighter. I used subways to get about.
The weekend will be full of chores, which I will have to accomplish on my own. “Young Nick,” the young man who helps out every weekend, left today for a week’s vacation. He’ll be back a week from Saturday. After all the years of Saturdays when he has helped me, Saturday doesn’t feel like Saturday without a bit of “Nick time.”
Last Wednesday, in my class, students were talking about cyber bullying and how it leads to suicide. Today, it has been reported that suicide has increased in this country by 24% since 1999. I am sure someone will do a correlation between the rise in suicides and the rise of Social Media.
Barak and Michelle Obama attended on Friday a dinner at Kensington Palace hosted by Princes William and Harry after he had lunched with the Queen, who is celebrating her 90th birthday. She has reigned longer than any other British monarch and is the oldest monarch in history. Good on her!
In popular news, “Live with Kelly and Michael” has been in turmoil. Kelly was informed this past week that Michael Strahan, her co-host, is leaving the show to become a full time co-host on “Good Morning, America.” Feeling blindsided and hurt, Kelly did not appear on Wednesday. She is supposed to be off for a few days to celebrate her 20th wedding anniversary to soap star Mark Consuelos.
However, she has now announced she will return on Tuesday as scheduled and it will be interesting to see how they interact.
Today is a brilliant day, sun out but with a chill wind. Following my Saturday round of the Farmer’s Market, I went to The Red Dot for brunch, where I worked on the final exam for my class, “Media & Society” after finishing my food.
It is a good day; off tonight to dinner with some people I haven’t yet met but with whom I am working on a project for the community radio station, WGXC.
While I write this, the world is still absorbing the death of Prince, that North Korea has apparently fired a ballistic missile from a submarine, that 8 relatives were killed execution style in Ohio, including a woman lying next to a four day old baby and markingß today, the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death at the age of 52.
He wrote 37 plays that will live on and on and on… He wrote about life and no one will tire of that…
Tags:Chanhassen, Claverack, Earth Day, Howard Bloom, Hubble, Hudson, Live with Michael & Kelly, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Minneapolis, North Korea, Obama, Prince, Princes William & Harry, Purple Rain, Queen Elizabeth II, Suicide, The Red Dot, William Shakespeare
Posted in Columbia County, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Music, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Television, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter from New York 05 26 2016 Thoughts while overlooking Edgartown Harbor…
May 27, 2016It is blissfully quiet this moment, except for the drone of the Harbor Patrol boat in Edgartown Harbor. I am sitting, at this minute, on the veranda of my friends’ home overlooking that harbor.
Yesterday, I arrived on Martha’s Vineyard. I am here for awhile, that while yet undetermined. My friends, Jeffrey and Joyce, own the Edgartown Bookstore. About six weeks ago, reading “All The Light We Cannot See,” a book I purchased last year at their bookstore, it occurred to me they might need some help at the beginning of the season. So I volunteered. And here I am.
Yesterday, I left the cottage and had a giddy thought. If I should decide not to teach in the fall, after the Vineyard, there is no place I have to be for the rest of my life. It was both liberating and frightening. I felt like my head was filled with helium. I have acknowledged, at last, I am adrift in the world and that the boundaries I am now setting are the ones of my own choosing and no one else’s.
I took a picture of the rhododendron as I left the house.
I
As I also took a picture of the creek before I left.
As I was sitting in my car on the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, Jeffrey texted me: don’t eat! They also own “Behind the Bookstore,” a restaurant that has a great reputation on the island. We were treated to a tasting course of everything on the dinner menu and dinner service begins tonight. It was all extraordinary, with the exception of the sweet pea gnocchi, which is still a work in progress.
The young chef is fresh out of Chez Panisse in Berkley, Alice Waters’ signature restaurant.
Tonight, after my first day in the bookstore, where I did my best to earn my keep, I am sipping a martini and looking at Edgartown harbor and thinking how fortunate I am to have this experience.
I am enjoying the moment.
Unbelievably but not perhaps unpredictably, Donald Trump has cinched the number of delegates he needs to be nominated. I am appalled and don’t want to think about it. So I am enjoying my view.
Let’s admit it. I am scared to death if he wins the election. Scarred to death. He has no credible credentials to be President of the United States. And I must decide if I will engage in this fall’s election to defeat him or stay on the sidelines and pray to all the gods in all the universes. I suspect I will do my best to defeat him.
But Hillary! As we were driving to “Behind The Bookstore” last night, Jeffrey said, and rightly, that there was no problem that the Clintons couldn’t make worse.
And it is so effing true. They stumble into things and don’t claim responsibility and just manage to make things worse and worse and worse. And the polls are showing that Hillary could lose to The Donald.
Oh my! Lions and tigers and bears… Oh my!
I am going to focus on the moment right now. I have to. I am sitting on a veranda on Martha’s Vineyard, looking out on Edgartown Harbor, calm and peaceful. The storm may be about to erupt on our heads but not tonight. I will savor tonight because not to do so would be foolish.
Tags:9/11, All the Light We Cannot See, Behind the Bookstore, Bernie Sanders, Claverack, Donald Trump, Edgartown, Edgartown Bookstore, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Obama, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Columbia County, Columbia Greene Community College, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Sanders, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »