Archive for the ‘Hudson New York’ Category
October 18, 2016
The day is diminishing; the sunset flickers through the turning leaves, a panorama of burnished gold in the west. Classical music plays in the background and a soft wind is blowing through this, the last great weather day we will probably have until spring unfolds over Claverack Creek. It was 86 degrees today with a cloudless sky and a fall wind in a warm day.
Once I recall a day like this when I was very young. It is the kind of day that holds intimations of immortality. Tonight’s sunset reminds me of the brilliant ones I witnessed on trips to Santorini, up at Franco’s Bar, poised over the caldera, thinking that in the sunset I understood the hold Greek myth has had over us for twenty-five centuries or more.
Once, at Franco’s, I wrote a poem on that and now have no idea where it is. But I remember the moment, sitting there, pen scratching in my notebook as the golden sun turned the waters in the caldera its ripe color.
We are in the cusp of fall and summer has reached out to hold us one day more in its warm embrace, harkening us to remember its feel so we will wait, patiently, for its return in another new year.
2017
Who would have thought? Certainly in my youth I never thought that year would see me inhabit it. Yet chances are I’ll be here when it comes marching in or crawling in or bursting upon us.
Soon there will be an election and someone new will move into the White House. If it is Hillary, she’ll have been there but in a very different role now than then. If it is Donald Trump, it will, perchance, signal a new and different age in our political history.
Time will tell. Tomorrow is the next debate and I will watch, though not waiting breathlessly for it. But I will watch. It is “must see” TV for me this season.
The tree tops are swaying in the wind; the burnished gold has become the color of smoky topaz. Twilight is descending.
Iraqi troops are marching toward Mosul, meeting, as expected, fierce resistance from IS. Some Iraqis, in a scene that reminded me of tales of our Civil War, went onto a mountain side to watch the battle unfold beneath them.
IS intends to hold Mosul at any cost and if it loses it, to make it a humanitarian disaster. The word that crosses my mind as I type is “barbarian.”
Iraqis remaining in the city have become bolder in their resistance of late to IS, supplying Iraq with vital information. IS is killing anyone found attempting to leave the city.
When I was with the Internet start-up, Sabela Media, Yahoo was the industry behemoth.
Its revenue declined again this quarter and Verizon is asking for a reduction in price to buy it because of the hacking scandal.
Because they were known as bullies in the early years, I have always found it hard to be empathic though it is sorry to see a once great company slowly self-immolate. And from people I know who are dealing with them currently, some within Yahoo just can’t accept what is happening now. Ostriches with their heads in the sand…
Dark has descended and I am sitting at the table on the deck, with candlelight for illumination, listening to the classical music but also listening to the sounds of woodland creatures making their noises.
It is very special tonight. The world is swinging in its orbit, momentous things are happening and as they are happening, there are the sounds of birds in the night, classical music and, because of them, a murmur of hope for the future.
Tags:Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Donald Trump, Franco's Bar, Google, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, IS, Islamic State, life, Mosul, Sabela Media, Santorini, The Donald, Yahoo
Posted in 2016 Election, Airstrikes, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, IS, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
October 16, 2016
It is a beautiful afternoon in October in Claverack. The leaves that fill my vision as I sit here on the deck are golden and some fallen ones float regally down the creek toward the pond.
It was a day when I had an enormously difficult time waking up; every time the alarm went off, I hit the snooze button. Finally, I staggered out of bed and into the day. Slightly ambivalent about going to church, I reminded myself of the bag of groceries I had purchased for the Food Pantry at the Church and so I made my way there, a little late but still there.
From church, I made my way to the Dot for Eggs Benedict on potato latkes. And then home to wait for my friend Larry to arrive, bringing me some wood from his farm for my winter woodstove fires.
He and I sat on the deck after it was stacked, and admired the beauty of the place, enjoying the moment while listening to jazz. He has now left and I am here, at the end of the afternoon, still listening to jazz and enjoying the beauty of the spot, the moment, and basking in the long friendship Larry and I have enjoyed, stretching back now more than thirty years.
It is always easy here to slip into an avoidance of the world. This is a place of tranquility.
Beyond here – and sometimes I do not want to move beyond here – the world is a mess.
Aleppo is being pulverized and no one seems to know how to stop it. Assad and Putin seem to have no respect or care for the citizens trapped there. It is a strategic notch they need in their belts and so the dying continues. Reports indicate Aleppo looks like Berlin in 1945, a decimated city.
Donald Trump has once more been skewered on Saturday Night Live, not that Hillary got off easily. He has denounced the performance in his famous tweets.
He has increasingly been declaring that the election process is rigged. Some observers think that if he loses he is doing his best to delegitimize a Clinton Presidency.
It is rumored that the CIA is preparing a major cyberattack against Russia for its alleged attacks on American institutions, including the Democratic Party. This is a new kind of warfare.
And in thinking of a new world, a friend told me that every year from now on, 3% of jobs will be lost to robots. I think I’m glad I am at the place in life I am. It will be interesting to see how all of this shakes out.
Soon, I will let you know how my experience with Cozmo goes. It should arrive this week.
It is supposed to learn from me how to react to me. A robot pet of sorts, I guess, and I couldn’t resist experimenting with it.
Cozmo is my birthday present to myself.
Tags:Alec Baldwin, Aleppo, Berlin, CIA, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Cozmo, Donald Trump, Eggs Benedict, Hillary Clinton, Larry Divney, Red Dot, Robots, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Syria, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
October 11, 2016
Well, it’s Monday evening and nearly twenty-four hours has passed since the debate. It was as close to X rated as any debate in the history of the Presidential Elections, what with Hillary bringing up Trump’s vile language in his 2005 tape and Trump bringing up Bill Clinton’s well-documented infidelities.
Oh my! Personally, I thought Trump looked terrible. And that sniffling…
The NY Times [and my conservative readers will not like this] said that there was only one adult on the stage and it wasn’t Donald Trump. I agree.
Trump had a little get together before the debate with four women who accuse Bill Clinton of sexual assault. Look, Bill was a philanderer. We all know that now thanks to Monica Lewinsky. We know Hillary was brutal in her defense of her husband.
AND Hillary is running for President. Not Bill. Bill Clinton was JFK without a compliant press.
It was down and dirty, Trump dominating the stage, sniffling all the time, while Hillary [IMHO] was doing her best to both go there and not go there. Trump’s tape was the elephant in the room.
It’s getting near the end of the day, thank God. There’s not much more of this I can stand.
However, there was one bright spot in the debate. His name was Ken Bone and he asked a question, wearing a bright red sweater and looking like the guy next door that we really like.
He asked about what the candidates would do to both protect legacy power and create environmentally safe sources going forward. He was respectful, he was clear, he was concise and because he looked like the neighbor you wanted to live next door to you, the Internet went wild. He was everywhere.
And that red sweater he was wearing? There are now all kind of Internet leads that will help you buy that sweater.
He was sweet and real in a moment that felt neither real nor sweet in any other way.
Bravo, Mr. Bone.
But in the meantime, Paul Ryan has said he will no longer defend Trump and will concentrate on keeping the down ticket seats safe. It is one of the rare things Paul Ryan has done with which I agree.
It is pitch black outside and the control to turn on the floodlights is broken, soon to be repaired.
This is the night I turned on the heat, the temperature will fall near to freezing this evening. Soon, I may light a fire in the Franklin Stove and watch some video.
The new season of Poldark has started on PBS and I am catching up.
In the meantime, medics are asking to be let into Aleppo as there is no longer an infrastructure to help the wounded. When last I wrote, two of the four working hospitals had been destroyed. Who knows if the other two are still functioning.
The pound has fallen against the dollar due to Brexit. It was $1.57 to a pound. Now it is $1.23 to a pound. Mayhap I shall plan a trip to Britain.
Nigel Lafarge who helped organize the successful campaign for Brexit, praised Donald Trump for acting like a silverback gorilla in the debate last night.
Please! Really? Nigel, you lied through it all and once you’d won, you stepped down to avoid the consequences of your actions.
It is Columbus Day. In many places it is becoming Indigenous Peoples Day. We are beginning to make mea culpa over the damage we had done to the people who lived here when we arrived.
We destroyed them, all in the name of progress. It makes me wonder what the world would be like if we had incorporated their beliefs into the way we developed our New World?
Tags:Aleppo, Bill Clinton, Brexit, Columbus Day, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Indigenous Peoples Day, Ken Bone, Monica Lewinsky, Nigel LaFarge, Paul Ryan, Poldark, Pound, Presidential Elections, Trump Sex Video Tape
Posted in 2016 Election, Brexit, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
October 8, 2016
My morning yesterday began with me flipping my laptop open and sitting down to write as a soft fog floated above the creek with sunlight glistening down through the leaves in the midst of changing color.
Just as I sat down to write, a mug of strong coffee at my side, the mother of a friend phoned and let me know her son was in the hospital and had been asking for me. So I came and sat in his dim room, spelling his mother while she went home to shower and change into fresh clothes.
At two I had a conference call and then I made dinner for Lionel and his family.
The day unrolled in an unexpected way but that is life, unexpected. It also made me think about how we have, in addition to our real families, families of choice.
My life, thankfully, is full of them. Blessedly. And for that I am grateful.
Since I have moved to Hudson, my friend’s family has been that way to me and I went to the hospital to perform the responsibilities of having made a choice. Choices do come with responsibilities.
Out in the wide world, the cold open for last week’s Saturday Night Live was a send-up of the Trump/Clinton debate with Alec Baldwin doing a magnificent satire of Donald Trump. It aired the night before the tax revelations. Pundits wondered which was worse for him, the tax revelations or Alec Baldwin. The video has gone viral. If you haven’t seen it, look for it at the end of the post.
Thursday night, Lionel and I went to Coyote Flaco for dinner. As usual, we sat at the bar. Seated to my left was Tim and, as happens sometimes, we got talking. After I had introduced myself, I introduced Lionel, joking he sounded funny because he was from Australia.
Tim, the man to my left, said, oh, I’ve never been there but am thinking of moving there if Hillary is elected. Lionel retorted he was thinking of returning if Trump was elected.
It didn’t get ugly. Tim said he couldn’t vote for her because she had done nothing but be in government service. Not exactly true but close enough.
Asking him if he knew who FDR was, he said no. So I said Franklin Delano Roosevelt and he said he didn’t know him because he was just little when he was in office. He asked me if I’d been alive when he was in office and I said he’d died before I was born.
The poor man didn’t really know. And, by the way, Tim is younger than I am.
After we left, I thought about it and realized most Presidents we have had have spent much of their lives in public service. Let’s see…
FDR did spend most of his life in public service, seeing us through the Great Depression and WWII. He was followed by Harry Truman who had worked in the private sector for a while but spent the majority of his career in public service, followed by Dwight Eisenhower who certainly spent his whole life in public service, followed by John Kennedy, who had done the same.
Lyndon B. Johnson owned some businesses but mostly was in public service his whole life, followed by Richard Nixon who, too, had spent most of his life in public service, followed by Gerald Ford, lots of public service there, followed by Jimmy Carter, who was a peanut farmer before his Presidency but he, too, gave a great deal of his life to public service. Then came Ronald Reagan, who had made his living as an actor before he went into public service.
He was followed by Bush 1, who had spent much of his life in public service, followed by Clinton, who had done the same. W had been in the private sector but then went on to be Governor and then President. Obama has spent much of his life in public service.
Being in public service has become pejorative in this election and I am not sure why.
Then, yesterday, all Billy Bob broke out over a 2005 video of Trump saying all kinds of things I can’t and won’t repeat. If you are interested, you can find them.
Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House, was “sickened” by them and disinvited Trump to a Republican gathering in his home state of Wisconsin.
A few Republican politicians have withdrawn their endorsements and it is rumored some Republican leaders are quietly gathering to see what is to be done about Trump.
It’s a little late; the ballots have been printed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tBX5QDyFjw
Tags:Alec Baldwin, Barak Obama, Bill Clinton, Claverack, Clinton, Coyote Flaco, Dwight Eisenhower, Families of Choice, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George H W Bush, George W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Trump, Trump 2005 Video
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 4 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 »
October 1, 2016
Something like sixteen or seventeen years ago, my friends, Medora Heilbron and Meryl Marshall-Daniels, began having weekly phone calls to shore each other up as we were all in transition points in our careers.
That wonderful custom has continued to this day. Almost every week, except when one of us is traveling, we have had calls, sharing the highs and lows, the concerns, the fears, the triumphs of our personal and professional lives.
Today, we had one of those calls. When it was my turn to comment on my state of affairs, I burst out with, “I am verklempt!”
Yesterday evening, an email that should have come in on a project I am up for did not come as promised and, for reasons that are hard to explain, released what Winston Churchill called, “the black dog.” Discouragement and depression. I woke at three in the morning and read for three hours before falling back into a fitful sleep.
It has been amazing to me the number of times in the last couple of years that I have awakened with a sense of happiness. Today, it was all I could do to speak my usual morning affirmations.
After our phone call, always good for the spirits, I made a decision to do NOTHING today but work on my physic wounds and get back my equilibrium. Three loads of laundry and tearing recipes out of the newest issue of “Food & Wine” was as ambitious as I got.
The day matched my mood; grey, hostile, chill and rainy. Marcel, the dog I am caring for, and I curled up on the couch. He napped, I read.
Now that the day has slipped into evening, I have to say “the black dog” and I seem to be getting distance from each other. Largely because of the wonderful support group that is our weekly call. Together we have laughed and cried.
It wasn’t until late in the afternoon when my spirits were beginning to lift that I even looked at the news of the day. The sound of uplifting jazz plays in the background. Happier than I have been all day, I am sipping a martini and typing. Getting back to the happy Mat.
What did make me happy today was that Alabama’s Chief Justice, Roy Moore, was suspended for the rest of his term over his urging state officials to refuse to grant marriage licenses to same sex couples. Interestingly, this is not the first time he has been kicked out of being Chief Justice. Last time was his refusal to take down a statue of the Ten Commandments.
And I was both sad and happy that Rosetta, the first spacecraft to orbit a comet, did a belly flop onto the comet’s surface and went silent, leaving behind reams of data for scientists to parse. He/it/she was a plucky fellow. What do you call a spacecraft anyway?
Elon Musk wants to send people to Mars. He is thinking of a million or so colonists over the next fifty to a hundred years. He has envisioned a rocket to take them there. And they should be prepared to die, he said. It made me think of the first colonists who came from Europe to the Americas. They had a hard time too.
The thought excites me. More than likely, I will be gone by the time there is a first rocket to go but if I were here, I would volunteer. Wow, what an adventure…
The New World captured the imagination of the Old World and millions upon millions poured into North and South America, looking for better lives, something different.
My father’s family came from Germany. My mother’s from Sweden. We are a nation of immigrants and we always seem to forget that. I am not sure how we manage to forget that but we do.
Growing up Catholic in Minnesota was nothing like growing up Catholic somewhere else as I have learned in conversations with friends over the years. My good friend Bill told me once that he wouldn’t have been allowed to know me where he grew up in rural Missouri.
So I look forward to a time when we go out and populate the planets and then the stars. I think it’s in our blood to do that.
Tags:Alabama, Elon Musk, General, Jazz, Marcel, Mars, Mars colonization, Media, Medora Heilbron, Meryl Marshall-Daniels, Rosetta, Roy Moore, technology, The Black Dog, Verklempt, Winston Churchill
Posted in 2016 Election, 9/11, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
September 27, 2016
Twilight is beginning to settle on the Hudson Valley, outside a silvery light surrounds the trees outside my window. The trees remain mostly green, some falling, still green. Over the weekend I listened to a report on NPR informing us that the turning of the leaves has been delayed by two weeks due to the long, hot, dry summer. It’s fine with me; I am enjoying the illusion it is still more summery than it is.
Yesterday, I had a fire in my Franklin stove to take the edge off the chill in the cottage as I couldn’t bear the thought of turning on the heat.
Today has been a magical fall day, warm but not too warm, sunny and joyous.
It is Tuesday and therefore I taught my Public Communications class. One of the questions I asked was, of course, who watched the Debate yesterday as it is an example of public communication with the highest of all possible stakes. Of the twenty-one people in my class, five had watched the debate.
With the exception of one, they were millennials. All of them found both candidates unacceptable. And that surprised me. Both Clinton and Trump failed to resonate with these five. To them, Trump was a buffoon and Clinton was insincere. They did not indicate to me which way they will vote, if they vote at all.
Last semester my students were exhausted by the campaign and turned off by it by the length and acrimoniousness of it. And that was true today; my students, almost all of them of voting age, are bored to death with this election campaign, feeling no one is reaching out to them.
That is worrisome.
Personally, I really liked Hillary and thought she did a very decent job. Trump started strong and then seemed to slide into exhaustion, an individual worn down and beyond really, really caring.
He did not shoot himself in the foot in the way I hoped but something was definitely off in the last part of the debate. It seemed the helium had escaped from his balloon.
Howard Dean, once himself a potential Presidential candidate, tweeted about Trump’s sniffles during the debate, wondering if he might have used cocaine before going on. I don’t remember sniffles but it has been retweeted across the blogosphere. Trump said this morning there were no sniffles.
Chill Jazz plays in the background. The silver light seems suspended over the creek, caught in a magic moment that promises it will eternally be this way…
Of course it won’t be. Twilight will become dusk and dusk will become night.
Some weeks ago I wrote a letter that featured a photo of a little boy in Aleppo, in the back of an ambulance, traumatized, a face that haunts me tonight as the Syrian forces of Assad coupled with their Russian allies, are bombing the daylights out of Aleppo with bunker busting bombs.
All day, I have wondered if that little boy, who captured the world’s attention, is still alive? Has he survived this new level of brutality? The violence has become unimaginable and I feel broken for not knowing how to alleviate it.
This week I am dog sitting Marcel, the poodle of my friend Lionel, who owns the house across the street from me, my great friend I gained in the wondrous startup that was Sabela Media in the late 90’s.
He has been a magical friend to me and we have shared every Thanksgiving together since then, save two.
Marcel and I went on our afternoon walk together. He brings me to their house and cannot understand why he cannot go home.
He enjoys me and he wants to be at home. He is about to be sixteen and he soldiers on and I am impressed with his determination.
It is a time to be determined. There are those who feel the future of the American experiment is on the line. They may well be right.
What has happened in America in the last two and a half centuries has been amazing. We have been blessed to be part of one of the most glorious experiments democracy has ever had. We have been flawed and we have persevered.
Today I was reading all kinds of documents from Columbia Greene Community College about campus policy and I thought: we are just working to do it right.
That is the thread that has kept us going. We are just working to do it right. And I applaud American democracy, for it all its flaws, for trying to do it right.
Tags:Aleppo, American Experiment, Claverack, Columbia County, Columbia Greene Community College, Donald Trump, Hilary Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, Hudson, IS, Lionel White, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Obama, Putin, Russia, Syria, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Politics, Russia, Social Commentary, Space Exploration, Syria, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
September 26, 2016
In my last letter I wrote: Two of the most deeply disliked individuals in America are running for President. There is no joy in Mudville.
It was the only reference in my letter that I could find in re-reading it twice to Hillary Clinton.
Some of my readers took umbrage with me as they were disappointed in my characterization of Hillary Clinton. To say the least, I was surprised.
It seemed to me a factual statement, not a judgement. Tonight, at a party, I mentioned this to Tiffany Martin Hamilton, the first Democratic woman to be Mayor of Hudson. She too was surprised it would bring umbrage.
I am voting for Hillary Clinton for President. She is the most qualified person to be President. By the time this over, I will probably have given Hillary Clinton’s campaign more money than I have for any other candidate in my life because the idea of a Trump Presidency scares the hell out of me.
That does not change the fact that one of the challenges of this campaign is that a significant number of Americans dislike her; it is one of the challenges for those of us who support her to help her overcome.
One of my smartest friends, sighed one day to me: there is no situation the Clintons can’t make worse. [He was and is a Clinton supporter.] And it has been demonstrated time and again. I confess that the handling of her pneumonia drove me to distraction.
The reality is that those of us who support her must help address the concerns over her apparent lack of transparency and encourage her campaign to do better. It is infuriating to me because she is so qualified and has managed to garner a visceral dislike that is beyond reason.
One of my closest friends, a very liberal Democrat, will not vote for her. He lives in New York and, if he lived in a swing state, would vote for her. But because he lives in New York, a state he doesn’t consider a swing state, he will vote Libertarian because he has a visceral dislike of Hillary Clinton.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the problems we must honestly face to help Hillary Clinton become the next President.
This race should not even be close. But it is because for two decades the Republican Party has demonized both Bill and Hillary Clinton and have waged an effective campaign to discredit them. And they have not always helped themselves.
It is so frustrating to me.
At the Hudson Bed Races on Saturday [more about that in my next column], three acquaintances of mine are making active plans to leave the country if Trump wins.
These are people who are taking concrete steps to leave, putting together an action plan and putting in place the steps in that action plan to make it happen.
It makes me crazy that anyone would be thinking this way over a Presidential election but we are. It feels like we have reached a desperate moment in America’s history.
A few minutes ago I watched a video of college students being asked fundamental questions of American history which most of them couldn’t. They could answer all the questions about popular culture. It is a sad fact that has been realized in a number of different studies of college students and by my own experience in teaching.
This may be the closest to a rant I will do.
Please understand I am frustrated and I am frightened. A Trump Presidency will be a catastrophe for this country. The Republican Party I grew up with and respected is unrecognizable and has lost all the respect I had for it once it made Trump its candidate.
We are at once of the most critical moments in our Democracy and there are those who say the future of our Democracy may be decided by this election.
Tags:Claverack, Donald Trump, Hilary Clinton's pneumonia, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Hudson Bed Races, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Republican Party, The Donald, Tiffany Martin Hamilton, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
September 24, 2016
It has been days since I have written a letter. Partially it is because I have been socially busy when I am usually not. Lionel and Pierre are here. Yesterday his sister and brother-in-law and their son Harry arrived from Australia. Tomorrow they are leaving for a cruise in the Caribbean. While they’re gone, I will be caretaker for Marcel for most of the time, a task I will both enjoy and of which I am afraid. In less than a month, Marcel will be 16 years old. He is a little old man who soldiers on with bravado.
Fall has officially arrived and leaves are beginning to flutter down upon the cottage. Every few minutes an acorn falls on the roof. While still warmish in the days, it cools significantly at night. A cold front is arriving, the weatherman says.
It has been a hectic day, starting early with documents to review, followed by a string of conference calls and then more documents to review. When I went online to post something for my class, I discovered that Blackboard is offline, as it is every Friday at this time, for maintenance. It will have to wait until morning.
Social busyness was the cover for my not wanting to write, to not think about the world. I read the New York Times Briefing every day and have found discouragement in its contents.
More people have been shot. A white female officer in Tulsa has been charged with manslaughter in the case there. In Charlotte, North Carolina, the town that prided itself as being the epitome of the “New South,” is still parsing the death of a black man there while protests have grown violent, leaving one more dead.
At times, frankly, it makes me want to crawl into bed with a chill bottle of vodka and a straw. More and more people are telling me they are tuning out the acrid political scene of this year. They have determined which way they are going to vote and have no need to be brutalized anymore.
The first of the debates are upon us and I may steel myself to watch it. I just don’t know how long I will last.
Two of the most deeply disliked individuals in America are running for President. There is no joy in Mudville.
Palmer Luckey is one of the founders of Oculus, the VR hardware company scooped up by Facebook a bit ago. He is funding an anti-Clinton, pro-Trump group and a small group of developers are now dropping their support for Oculus because of his politics. It’s far from a boycott but is unusual and probably unprecedented in the gaming world.
Once nominated for President, candidates get Secret Service protection. The Secret Service reimburses campaigns for the agents’ travel. In Trump’s case, it goes to TAG Air, a company he owns. It has received $1.6 million so far. I get it… Sort of… Kind of…
Looking for things to distract me from drownings of refugees, our sordid political landscape, I turned tonight to Entertainment News, which is what feeds the American mind most of the time.
“Magnificent Seven” reigns at the box office, headlined by Denzel Washington.
The more than decade long spectacle that has been “Brangelina” is coming to an end as Angelina Jolie has filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. It was a good show, classier than most, most of the time.
The Emmys have come and gone. All reports [I didn’t watch] was that it was a good show. Jimmy Kimmel was highly praised for his hosting but the back slapping industry love fest plummeted 22% from last year in ratings.
And Jim Parsons, of “Big Bang Theory” is now TV’s highest paid actor, with $25,000,000 coming in for the next, and possibly last, season of the show.
Oh, and Bruce Springsteen called Trump a “moron.”
Tags:Angelina Jolie, Big Bang Theory, Blackboard, Brad Pitt, Brangelina, Bruce Springsteen, Charlotte shooting, Claverack, Debates, Denzel Washington, Donald Trump, Emmys, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Jim Parsons, Jimmy Kimmel, Magnifcent Seven, Marcel, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Obama, Ocuus, Palmer Luckey, Secret Service, The Donald, Tulsa shooting
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, European Refugee Crisis, Gun Violence, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commnentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
September 15, 2016
It is stunning today as I am riding south to the city. It is a perfect September day, low humidity, temperature in the 70’s, sunny with glints of silver reflecting off the water of the Hudson while low puffy clouds rest behind the Catskills.
Tonight I am on my way to the city [New York] to have dinner with my friend Ann Frisbee Namye, with whom I worked thirty years ago at A&E and who I have not seen for twenty years. She connected with me through LinkedIn and we set a dinner date while on a business trip to New York. I’m excited.
To be truthful, I haven’t let much noise in over the week. The days have been too special for that. I woke up happy this morning and didn’t disturb that happiness with a burst of news. Besides, I had a lot of organizing to do as I was teaching this morning and had lots of handouts for my students.
So I checked into the news once I boarded the train. Panic at the poll numbers is upon us. Trump is closing on Hillary and fright walks the land and one Democratic friend of mine may actually have another panic attack over this.
It is my choice not to panic and to read the article that tells me that the polls are meaningless at this moment.
Though the thought of Trump as President is scary. His Presidency would be one long fright night, I fear.
He released a letter from his doctor of thirty years after a physical on Friday, stating he was in good health. He was the same doctor who earlier wrote a letter in five minutes stating how healthy Trump was.
When I was in college, many friends made extra money by driving cabs. Now they’d be driving for Uber. And those opportunities may go away if Google and Uber and Lyft and the car companies get their way.
Uber has launched a pilot program in Pittsburgh with driverless cars. They have a back-up human for now but eventually the back-ups will go and then some day there will be no taxi or Uber or Lyft drivers for that matter. Gone the way of the Dodo…
In yet another gun tragedy, police in Columbus, Ohio shot to death a 13-year-old black robbery suspect. He apparently pulled from his belt a BB gun that looks almost exactly like standard issue weaponry for the Columbus police. What adult would allow a child to have such a weapon, such a thing?
Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said, “A 13-year-old is dead in the city of Columbus because of our obsession with guns.”
And in a stunning additional gun tragedy, a 77-year-old resident of a Senior Home shot two other residents and a staff member, fled the scene on a bicycle and then killed himself as officers approached. Apparently, he was upset about poker games.
Jackson Grubb, a nine-year-old from West Virginia, took his life on Saturday because he was being bullied. I feel like crying.
Today in class the subject of the exploding Samsung Note 7 came up and one of my students almost exploded out of her seat. It was the first she had heard of it. Another Note 7 blew up as owners are not listening to the recall requests.
If you have a Note 7, go to the phone store and get it replaced. Please. I saw what one did to a jeep the other day online and it was horrific. This was not a small explosion. It looked like the vehicle had been car bombed.
Filipino President Duterte, who apparently called President Obama a “son of a whore” is now being accused of ordering extrajudicial killings while he was Mayor of Davao City. The Senate of that country is investigating.
And now I am caught up with the dreck that is happening out there beyond my world and have inoculated you with it – not in the sense of giving you a vaccine but in planting thoughts.
Today in class I was talking about persuasive speaking and one of the points I made was that a persuasive speaker inoculated their audience by planting ideas that would lead to change.
Perhaps some of these facts will inoculate you to work for change. Fewer guns, a way to end bullying, more sensible politics…
And I woke up happy and I plan to go to bed happy.
Tags:Andrew Ginther, Ann Frisbee Nayme, Columbus Shooting, Donald Trump, Driverless cars, Duterte, Google, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Hudson River, Jackson Grubb, Lyft, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Obama, Pitssburgh, Samsung Note 7, Senior Home Shooting, The Donald, Uber
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Columbia Greene Community College, depression, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Gun Violence, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From Claverack 10 18 2016 On the cusp…
October 18, 2016The day is diminishing; the sunset flickers through the turning leaves, a panorama of burnished gold in the west. Classical music plays in the background and a soft wind is blowing through this, the last great weather day we will probably have until spring unfolds over Claverack Creek. It was 86 degrees today with a cloudless sky and a fall wind in a warm day.
Once I recall a day like this when I was very young. It is the kind of day that holds intimations of immortality. Tonight’s sunset reminds me of the brilliant ones I witnessed on trips to Santorini, up at Franco’s Bar, poised over the caldera, thinking that in the sunset I understood the hold Greek myth has had over us for twenty-five centuries or more.
Once, at Franco’s, I wrote a poem on that and now have no idea where it is. But I remember the moment, sitting there, pen scratching in my notebook as the golden sun turned the waters in the caldera its ripe color.
We are in the cusp of fall and summer has reached out to hold us one day more in its warm embrace, harkening us to remember its feel so we will wait, patiently, for its return in another new year.
2017
Who would have thought? Certainly in my youth I never thought that year would see me inhabit it. Yet chances are I’ll be here when it comes marching in or crawling in or bursting upon us.
Soon there will be an election and someone new will move into the White House. If it is Hillary, she’ll have been there but in a very different role now than then. If it is Donald Trump, it will, perchance, signal a new and different age in our political history.
Time will tell. Tomorrow is the next debate and I will watch, though not waiting breathlessly for it. But I will watch. It is “must see” TV for me this season.
The tree tops are swaying in the wind; the burnished gold has become the color of smoky topaz. Twilight is descending.
Iraqi troops are marching toward Mosul, meeting, as expected, fierce resistance from IS. Some Iraqis, in a scene that reminded me of tales of our Civil War, went onto a mountain side to watch the battle unfold beneath them.
IS intends to hold Mosul at any cost and if it loses it, to make it a humanitarian disaster. The word that crosses my mind as I type is “barbarian.”
Iraqis remaining in the city have become bolder in their resistance of late to IS, supplying Iraq with vital information. IS is killing anyone found attempting to leave the city.
When I was with the Internet start-up, Sabela Media, Yahoo was the industry behemoth.
Its revenue declined again this quarter and Verizon is asking for a reduction in price to buy it because of the hacking scandal.
Because they were known as bullies in the early years, I have always found it hard to be empathic though it is sorry to see a once great company slowly self-immolate. And from people I know who are dealing with them currently, some within Yahoo just can’t accept what is happening now. Ostriches with their heads in the sand…
Dark has descended and I am sitting at the table on the deck, with candlelight for illumination, listening to the classical music but also listening to the sounds of woodland creatures making their noises.
It is very special tonight. The world is swinging in its orbit, momentous things are happening and as they are happening, there are the sounds of birds in the night, classical music and, because of them, a murmur of hope for the future.
Tags:Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Donald Trump, Franco's Bar, Google, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, IS, Islamic State, life, Mosul, Sabela Media, Santorini, The Donald, Yahoo
Posted in 2016 Election, Airstrikes, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, IS, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »