Archive for the ‘IS’ Category
July 1, 2016
It is a bucolic time of day on Martha’s Vineyard; the sun is beginning to set. A sailboat has gone by, heading to the north. Its sail is designed like a huge American flag while moving to the south is the Edgartown Water Taxi, ferrying people to their docks. The light is a marvelous gold and the water is steel blue. Jeffrey’s sailboat rides at anchor directly in front of me, looking stately. The scene is peaceful, other worldly, of another dimension than the rest of the world.
The rest of the world is not peaceful.
Britain is in spasms. Boris Johnson, former Mayor of London, a prime supporter of Brexit, poised and desiring to be the next Prime Minister, found himself outflanked by the man who was to have been his campaign manager, Michael Gove. Long saying he was not aspiring to higher office, he released a statement hours before Boris was to make his speech announcing that he was seeking to be Prime Minister saying that he could not support the former Mayor of London and that he was running for the position himself.
As Boris’ father said, “Et tu, Brute?” It was an act worthy of Shakespeare. Boris then announced he was not seeking to be PM.
A nasty race is ahead for the Tories with Boris gone and characters worthy of “House of Cards” rend against each other.
The Labour Party is also rent. Their leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has been given a “no confidence” vote by his party and it seems every politician in Britain is urging him to depart but he clings to his position with a kind of astounding ferocity surprising in so absolutely colorless a man.
Turkey says that the bombers in the terrible attack at Istanbul’s International Airport were all from the former USSR and were directed by IS out of Raqqa in Syria, their erstwhile capital. One of the victims was a father attempting to prevent his son from joining IS.
Tomorrow is July 1st. A hundred years ago marked the beginning of the Battle of the Somme in WWI. In the eighteen months it raged, there were a million casualties. Today Prince William, Prince Harry and Princess Kate were there to honor the dead, to let the world know they were not forgotten. In the first day of fighting, nearly 60,000 were wounded and a third of those died. During those awful eighteen months “the flower” of English youth died in one of the bloodiest, if not the bloodiest, battle in all of history.
The Taliban killed 33 Afghan police recruits today, a number that is dwarfed by that of the Battle of the Somme, but like the English, French, South Africans who died in France in 1916, those 33 had families, wives and children perhaps, lives that will never be found again.
Hopefully found again will be a commerative coin given by President Obama to the country’s oldest Park Ranger, 94 year old Betty Reid Soskin, who was attacked last night in her apartment by a young man who punched her and robbed her. She wants the world to understand she is not a victim but a survivor. 94!
I am winding down now as the harbor slips into a soft silver lavender light. Faraway, a dog barks, a soft breeze is blowing off the harbor. I am far away from all the madness. A week from tomorrow I leave to return to my cottage, itself a haven from the madness.
Tags:Betty Reid Soskin, Boris Johnson, Brexit, Claverack, IS, Isis, Jeremy Corbyn, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Michael Gove, Obama, Syria, Turkey bombings, USSR
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Brexit, Claverack, Daesh, Elections, IS, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mideast, Obama, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Syria, Taliban, Uncategorized, World War I commentary | Leave a Comment »
June 23, 2016
It is peaceful here in Edgartown, sitting watch a sailboat motor past my window. The harbor has been filling up with more boats each week that I have been here. The moorings are filling up with boats of all kinds, small and large. Far away, just outside the harbor sits a huge motor yacht. I think it’s been here every year I have.
Tomorrow, by this time, we should know if Britain has decided to “Brexit” or not and on Friday we will see how the markets respond. It will be, I am told in newspaper reports, a slow unwinding that will take at least two years. On the way home from the bookstore, I heard a report that those in Britain who would support Trump are those who support “Brexit.” They are older, rural, and less educated. The young in Britain support remaining but have a shabby record of voting.
It is too close to call.
Jo Cox, the British MP, murdered by a man shouting “Britain first!” as he killed her while she was campaigning against “Brexit” would have turned 42 today.
Right now, led by Representative John Lewis, Democrats are staging a Congressional “sit in” to push Republicans to do something about gun control after four separate bills on the subject failed to pass, blocked by Republicans. John Lewis is an older African American who cut his chops in the civil rights era and is taking what he learned there to literally the floor of Congress. Representative Joe Kennedy, a scion of that famous clan, is also on the floor with him. As is the New York Congressman just to the south of me, Sean Maloney, an openly gay man who lives with his husband and children in Rhinebeck.
Trump is stumping. He speechified and NPR annotated. Here is the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/us/politics/donald-trump-speech-highlights.html?_r=0
Worth reading…
Mr. Trump owns a golf course in Scotland. Locals have raised a Mexican flag in view of the course to articulate their displeasure with the man. He promised 6,000 jobs. He created 150.
Since last writing, Trump has said, “You’re fired!” to Corey Lewandowski who had been his campaign manager. Apparently, Trump’s family pressured him into it.
In Pakistan, the Taliban has claimed responsibility for the assassination of Amjad Sabri, a Sufi Muslim singer, shot while heading to a performance, shortly after leaving home. The Pakistanis are outraged. The Taliban claimed his form of singing mystical Islamic poetry was “blasphemous.” Most thought it beautiful.
There are at least hundreds of thousands in the Federal Prison System. Inmate No. 47991-424 is Dennis Hastert, once Speaker of the House, now imprisoned because he lied about bank transfers that were being paid to cover up he had sexually abused a boy when he was a wrestling coach.
In disturbing news, it appears the Pentagon is not letting people know if Americans are being wounded or killed in Iraq and Syria as it would “not be helpful.” By the time the Mideast fiasco is finished we will have wasted five trillion dollars. Five trillion dollars…
There is a lavender light over the harbor, the water is peaceful. I am writing while watching the news with my friend Jeffrey as I slip into another almost bucolic evening in the Vineyard. Here it is peaceful, far from the madding world.
Tags:Amjad Sabri, Brexit, Britain, Corey Lewandowski, Dennis Hastert, Donald Trump, Edgartown, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, IS, Jo Cox, John Lewis, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Pakistan, Pentagon, Syria, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Civil Rights, Education, Elections, Gay, Gay Liberation, Gun Violence, IS, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Syria, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
June 18, 2016
It has been five days since I’ve written a “Letter.” I’ve done some other writing but nothing that faced the world in which we live. The death of Jo Cox, a Member of Britain’s Parliament, murdered in her district affected me deeply, a tearing of the barely forming Orlando scar off my physic skin.
Her name was vaguely familiar. The man who has been arrested for her murder apparently shouted “Britain first!” repeatedly as he shot and stabbed her. She was campaigning against “Brexit,” the vote for which will happen next week.
When arraigned, John Mair, the alleged killer, gave his name as “Death to traitors, freedom for Britain.”
A man described as gentle by his neighbors, he suffered mental health issues, assuaging them with volunteer work. He also was in some way affiliated with a neo-Nazi group out of America.
Jo Cox’s death affected me because…
Because it was one more example of the politics of hate in which we are all mired, because it happened in Britain where political verbal vitriol has been honed to a fine edge but where rarely are political differences manifested in physical actions. Perhaps over football but not politics.
And that is probably an Anglophile’s rose colored glasses view of British politics but it does seem rarer there that they have such events as Orlando, much rarer.
In the days following Orlando, a California pastor preached that all LGBTQ folks should meet the same end as the Orlando victims. We should all be killed off. It is not the first time in my life I have heard people call for the slaughter of the LGBTQ community but it seemed more painful this time. We have come so far from when I was a boy.
On Thursday, in a conversation with my friends, Medora and Meryl, I told them that it was on how far we have come that I had to choose to focus or my sadness would be unbearable. It had seemed an impossibility that in my lifetime gay individuals could exercise the right to wed. And now we can.
I did not think in my lifetime I could speak openly of my feelings to friends who were not of my own community.
Yet these things have happened. In my little world of Columbia County, New York I have seen the changes over the fifteen years I have been there, the opening of the community and the general acceptance by “locals” to outsiders and to outsiders were “different.”
We think the world is changing and changing for the better and then there is an Orlando, ripping at the sense of safety creeping into the world. And then come the stories of people who remain fearful, even in New York, because a show of same sex affection could mean violence.
Only since Orlando have I come to know that the LGBTQ community is, far and away, the group that is most likely to experience hate crimes.
There seems to be some movement about more control over assault rifles. One small step, one hopes. I had thought there would have been movement on that after the slaughter of the innocents in Newtown. There wasn’t but now there might be.
Young Christina Grimmie, a “The Voice” alum who was shot to death last Friday by a deranged fan who then killed himself, was buried yesterday. She, too, was killed in Orlando.
Disney there has been putting out signs to warn tourists about crocodiles and snakes after a two year old was hauled off and killed by a crocodile last week, an adorable young boy.
In Nigeria, eighteen have been killed by Boko Haram.
Belgians have arrested twelve in “terror raids” and Iraqi forces say they have retaken most of Fallujah.
Where have all the flowers gone?
To graveyards, every one…
I am sad but am choosing, must choose, not to feel hopeless and powerless. It is beautiful outside, another in a day of beautiful days on Martha’s Vineyard. The world is better than it has been, in many ways. And I must remind myself of that.
Tags:Boko Haram, Brexit, Claverack, Columbia County, Donald Trump, Fallujah, Hudson, IS, Isis, Jo Cox, John Mair, LGBT, LGBTQ, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Nigeria, Obama, Orlando, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Columbia County, Daesh, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Gun Violence, Hudson New York, IS, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Nigeria, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
June 14, 2016
Yesterday, as I suspect most people did, I woke to the horror of the Orlando massacre. Rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I kept wondering if I was actually reading what I was reading.
Of course I was.
Not long ago I emailed a friend, now living in Florida, that I felt furious and, at the same time, numbed. I am angry and do not know a single thing I can do that will actually help affect any kind of real change. A New Yorker, both my Senators support more stringent laws regarding guns. It will do no good to write them. Obama sits on my side of the issue.
And any letter I write to a Republican, I fear, will lend no weight. I have tried. Somehow I end up on their mailing lists, thanking me for being a supporter. When Bush was President, I wrote a letter demanding he not invade Iraq. For years, I received Christmas cards and photos of W. and Laura, thanking me for my loyalty to them.
Same with my local Congressman…
They are not listening.
It is twilight here on Martha’s Vineyard. A few boats skiff across the harbor. From where I sit, I can see the Edgartown lighthouse. I am sipping a glass of wine, lost in the quiet and the beauty, furious and numb.
As I was not needed at Edgartown Books, I headed out in my car today, turning left at the end of the driveway and letting fate take me where it will. For awhile, as I drove, I listened to NPR programs doing an exegesis of yesterday’s tragedy, the worst mass shooting in the country.
As he holed up with terrified people, Omar Mateen, the shooter, called 911 to let them know he was doing this because he was pledging allegiance to IS, calling the Boston bombers from its Marathon his “brothers.”
As I listened, the portrait of Omar Mateen was beginning to reveal itself to those who were attempting to figure out what had happened. He was American born, apparently radicalized via the Internet, probably bi-polar, an abusive husband, worked for a security firm, had been interviewed at least twice by the FBI because of statements he made or actions performed.
He bought his guns legally. He bought his guns legally, after all that. He killed 49 people and died himself. 53 others are wounded.
He was offended by seeing two men kiss. But his parents didn’t think he was unhinged.
Trump tweeted in peacock pride about being right about Muslims except Omar Mateen was born in America of Afghan parents. He was a US citizen by birth, no act would keep him out. He didn’t come here perverted. He was born here and was perverted by God knows exactly what…
He attacked a gay nightclub, Pulse. It is Gay Pride Month. It is also Immigration Month. It was Latin night at Pulse. Kill two birds with one stone? Hate amplified?
As I drove the island today, I felt lonely, in the way I felt lonely when I was young and watched as Viet Nam unfolded before me and about which I felt powerless until I played hooky from school and joined a march against the war.
We have no marches these days. We don’t gather together to scream against the violence. Perhaps that is why I felt lonely today; I have comrades but we do not come together, we do not march together, we do not sing songs of protest together against the outrageousness of the time in which we live.
Sitting here, watching the pink tinged sky while a small boat motors across the harbor, I am still numb and I am still furious. What do I do with this?
And in the back of my head, all day has been the thought: where have all the flowers gone?
Tags:Boston Marathon Bombing, Donald Trump, Edgartown, Gay, Gay Pride, Hudson, Immigration Month, Iraq, IS, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Obama, Omar Mateen, Pulse, The Donald, Where have all the flowers gone?
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Daesh, depression, Gay, Gay Liberation, IS, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Obama, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
June 4, 2016
The sun is laughing down Main Street in Edgartown, with cars slowly moving down the street, toward the water but without the congestion that is coming toward the end of the month when “the season” really gets going. Across the street, Sundog, selling clothes, is as empty as we are.
A few people have wandered into the store and have wandered out, rarely with a book in hand. A lovely mother and daughter came in, the mother buying her daughter a copy of “A Man Named Ove,” by Fredrik Backman, a book she insisted her daughter read before they left the island next week.
It’s been interesting, watching people come and go, looking at books, some are wildly enthusiastic, some are just looking as they look languidly at titles, hoping something will spark their interest.
As I said to someone yesterday, I have a whole new respect for those who work in retail.
The morning was foggy, the afternoon sun blessed. Music from the 1960’s plays gently in the background, the soundtrack of my youth. It is easy here to put away the woes of the world and believe in the loveliness of life.
Unfortunately, the reality is quite different in the off island world.
Muhammed Ali is being mourned everywhere. A figure in my youth, I watched with fascination, not quite understanding his moves but also not being bothered by them. If he no longer wanted to Cassius Clay, then why not? There were days then I didn’t want to be Mathew Tombers.
Many of his moves outraged the world and shook people up. All for the ultimate good… Rest in peace, Muhammed Ali, rest in peace and may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
Bernie Sanders has announced he will contest the Democratic Convention, fighting down to the last moment.
In France, floods are beginning to recede but not until after claiming three more lives. My friends, Chuck and Lois, who have an apartment in Paris, are somewhere else with friends, waiting to get back to their place when the waters do recede. Guards are standing watch at Louvre and artwork has been moved to higher ground as a precaution. It has been nearly 34 years since this kind of flooding has been seen in the City of Lights.
It has been determined that Prince died from an accidental, self-administered dose of fentanyl, a pain killer 100 times more powerful than morphine and 50 times more powerful than heroin. One doctor described self-administration of fentanyl as playing with death; it is not to be used outside of hospitals.
The opiate crisis is enormous. Even here on bucolic Martha’s Vineyard, meetings are being held to combat the island’s heroin problem. Everywhere you turn right now, opiates are a critical problem. It may be that Prince’s death will be a catalyst for change.
It is the 27th Anniversary of the massacre in Tiananmen Square and tens of thousands have gathered in Hong Kong to commemorate the event, shunning the official memorial because it has become too “Chinese” oriented.
In the Mediterranean, with the beginning of warm weather, more migrants/refugees are risking the sea to reach Europe and what they hope will be a better life. It is believed a thousand have drowned in the past week alone. It will only grow worse.
Many are fleeing IS, which now finds itself fighting on four fronts in Syria and Iraq. The unofficial capital of IS is Raqqa and Syrian forces, under the cover of Russian airstrikes and with help from Hezbollah have reached the border of Raqqa province.
Attempting to follow who is fighting whom in that part of the world is not easy. IS is struggling for control of a town called Marea, which is controlled by the anti-Assad Nursa Front, which is associated with Al Qaeda. There is also heavy fighting around Aleppo, once Syria’s largest city and commercial center.
The sun is beginning to set in Edgartown. The streets are still quiet. Anita, who works in the shop, has gone home as we are completely quiet. Last night, after everyone had left and I was closing down, I had the most remarkable moment of peace, surrounded by books with the walls resonating with the laughter and voices of the people who had passed through yesterday, just looking for a good read.
Tags:A Man Called Ove, Al Qaeda, Aleppo, Bernie Sanders, Chuck and Lois Bachrach, Donald Trump, Edgartown, Fentanyl, Fredrik Backman, IS, Louvre, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Muhammed Ali, opiates, Paris Flooding, Prince, Tiananmen Square
Posted in 2016 Election, Airstrikes, Daesh, Elections, Entertainment, European Refugee Crisis, Hillary Clinton, IS, Life, Literature, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Music, Political Commentary, Russia, Social Comentary, Syria, Syrian Refugee Crisis, 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 »
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 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 »
March 25, 2016
Darkness has descended on the Hudson Valley; it is pitch black outside though I am heartened everyday by the weather person’s announcement we had three or so more minutes of daylight today than yesterday.
I’ve adjusted the timers on lights to accommodate the increasing daylight. I rejoice as I am sure everyone does.
My dining room table is scattered with recipes from which I will choose the ones being made for Easter. I am getting it organized. I bought upgraded plastic silverware for Sunday. Since I am doing this, I want it to be a little special — or a lot special.
In the morning I will winnow down the recipes and head out to do my shopping. My friend Robert has given me eight dozen eggs from the chickens who live at his house down in Rhinebeck. I had some for lunch. There is nothing like farm fresh eggs!
While I am typing this, Christ Church is celebrating Maundy Thursday and I wasn’t feeling very churchy tonight so I didn’t go.
Probably feeling more churchy than I do, or at least one would hope so, is Radovan Karadzic, the former Serb leader who was convicted today of genocide during the horrific Serbian conflict twenty-one years ago. Eight thousand Muslim men and boys were slaughtered in a town called Srebrenica. Justice finally has been done though it will not bring back those men and boys whose only crime was that they were born Muslim.
At the time, when it was revealed, I felt horror and I feel it today. There was a time when such things happened to Christians; indeed, they are happening today to Christians at the hands of IS. It is things like Srebrenica that make IS feel justified.
It’s been a happy day for me, feeling far from all the world’s troubles, tooling around Columbia County, collecting mail, a couple of meetings with organizations I am volunteering with, a haircut, bumping into people on the street and having a good conversation with them.
While I was doing those fun things, the police in Paris foiled an alleged terror attack in advanced stages. Obama apologized in Argentina for some of our policies and actions during their long and very dirty internal war. I suspect we turned too blind an eye to some things.
Belgium and Europe in general are struggling to balance freedom and safety in the fight against terrorist attacks.
In America, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are exploiting our fears in their campaigns; loudly criticized and, I think, rightly so, by Obama. And I think by Hillary and Bernie, too.
Syrian troops loyal to Assad are in the suburbs of Palmyra in the early stages of reclaiming the city from IS, which has this year lost 21% of the territory it controlled. The monuments destroyed are gone and it will be good if the city can be liberated. It has suffered terribly.
At the same time, Iraqi troops are advancing into Mosul, using lessons from the recapture of Ramadi to help them win back this important Iraqi city. Many of the historical treasures there are gone also, never to be seen again.
I do not live in their mindset and cannot come close to comprehending why it was necessary for them to destroy the heritage of the planet. But they did. It ranks up there with the killings at Srebrenica. Maybe it doesn’t. At Srebrenica those were living beings that were destroyed. At Palmyra and Mosul, it was the artifacts of the past that helped create the world in which we now live.
There are echoes of that world here in the cottage. I have treasured artifacts from the past and things that echo them. Someday, when I am gone, all this will be scattered, some thrown away but in the time they have had with me I have been grateful for their presence.
There is a small collection of masks, a recreation of a bust of Athena from Greece, a painting from India that evokes Alexander, a Renoir re-strike, a wonderful painting from a Provincetown gallery of Alexander.
We need the past to build the future, to connect ourselves from where we were to where we are going.
Tags:Alexander the Great, Assad, Christ Church, Christ Church Episcopal, Claverack, Columbia County, Donald Trump, Easter, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Iraq, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mosul, Obama, Palmyra, Radovan Karadzic, Srebrenica, Syria, Ted Cruz, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Brussels terror attack, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, Elections, Entertainment, European Refugee Crisis, Hudson New York, IS, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Syria, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
March 23, 2016
The sun is setting as I sit looking out at the creek, the vista in front of me full of greying light and the still barren branches of the trees clawing to the sky.
Mahler plays in the background. He seemed right for the moment, a day in which I have been enraged and sad, felt broken and hopeless, contemplative and escapist.
When the alarms went off this morning, the screen of my phone was cluttered with news pushes from the BBC and AP about the tragedy in Brussels. I rubbed my eyes and attempted to focus, not wanting to believe what I was reading. But it was there, a truth that had entered the world, unwanted but present, never to be put back in any bottle.
I hit the snooze alarm and closed my eyes, staying there until I had to break into the day. Playing commuter, I made a round trip to the city today for a meeting I felt I could not miss. If I missed my train, I might miss the meeting.
It seemed inconsequential when I really thought about it, a media meeting balanced against the carnage of Brussels, another IS attack on western civilization. However, our worlds go on and we met and it was good and some business might develop from it and we never talked about Brussels.
We are becoming inured to the cadence of troubles that has burst upon the world. We are accepting all of this as the new normal, much as did the Russians did during the last fifty years of the Empire when anarchists struck again and again. You have to go on because what else does one do?
Perhaps we should take a break, think about what is happening, see what individually we might do to change the horrible road we’re on.
We don’t really know how to change the map, the road; we do our best, or our worst, and keep on going. We are, at this moment, caught up in the flow of history and we poor individuals don’t know how to do much to change it yet it is somehow, in democracies, in our hands.
Ted Cruz has apparently called for the patrolling and monitoring of American Muslim communities. I wanted to take my phone and throw it across the drive when I read that.
How do we make them our friends when we cast them all as enemies?
It is frightening and complex and every Muslim I know is as appalled by IS as I am. Monitor and patrol their communities? He is taking a page from the Trump playbook.
As I drove to the train this morning a commentator on “Democracy Now” which I do not often listen to, claimed that if there were a Brussels style attack in America just before the election we will be looking at a President Trump.
And I was afraid he might be right.
On my way out of town tonight, on the 4:40 heading north, I might have been imaging it but it seemed there were a lot more soldiers in Penn Station than there normally are. And I understood it.
Facebook notified me that Facebook friends of mine in Brussels were all safe, for which I was grateful.
I am frightened tonight. I am going into the city again tomorrow and that doesn’t frighten me. But the world in which we are living frightens me.
“The War on Terror” may not be the best option in dealing with this situation which is rapidly, I think, growing out of control.
We have failed to address systemic issues in the Mideast and are reaping the rewards. Just saying…
I am in the third act of my life. It is for my younger friends and relatives I am concerned.
It is for the world I was born into that I am concerned. It is slipping away from us. IS is taking our peace and our consumption habits seem about to take much else from us.
Scientists are saying global warming is worse than they thought.
No wonder I am playing Mahler tonight.
Tags:Brussels, Claverack, Climate Change, Democracy Now, Donald Trump, Facebook, Hudson, Imperial Russia, IS, Mahler, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Ted Cruz, The War on Terror
Posted in Brussels terror attack, Claverack, Columbia County, Hudson New York, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From New York, via the Vineyard 06 30 2016 Acts worthy of Shakespeare…
July 1, 2016It is a bucolic time of day on Martha’s Vineyard; the sun is beginning to set. A sailboat has gone by, heading to the north. Its sail is designed like a huge American flag while moving to the south is the Edgartown Water Taxi, ferrying people to their docks. The light is a marvelous gold and the water is steel blue. Jeffrey’s sailboat rides at anchor directly in front of me, looking stately. The scene is peaceful, other worldly, of another dimension than the rest of the world.
The rest of the world is not peaceful.
Britain is in spasms. Boris Johnson, former Mayor of London, a prime supporter of Brexit, poised and desiring to be the next Prime Minister, found himself outflanked by the man who was to have been his campaign manager, Michael Gove. Long saying he was not aspiring to higher office, he released a statement hours before Boris was to make his speech announcing that he was seeking to be Prime Minister saying that he could not support the former Mayor of London and that he was running for the position himself.
As Boris’ father said, “Et tu, Brute?” It was an act worthy of Shakespeare. Boris then announced he was not seeking to be PM.
A nasty race is ahead for the Tories with Boris gone and characters worthy of “House of Cards” rend against each other.
The Labour Party is also rent. Their leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has been given a “no confidence” vote by his party and it seems every politician in Britain is urging him to depart but he clings to his position with a kind of astounding ferocity surprising in so absolutely colorless a man.
Turkey says that the bombers in the terrible attack at Istanbul’s International Airport were all from the former USSR and were directed by IS out of Raqqa in Syria, their erstwhile capital. One of the victims was a father attempting to prevent his son from joining IS.
Tomorrow is July 1st. A hundred years ago marked the beginning of the Battle of the Somme in WWI. In the eighteen months it raged, there were a million casualties. Today Prince William, Prince Harry and Princess Kate were there to honor the dead, to let the world know they were not forgotten. In the first day of fighting, nearly 60,000 were wounded and a third of those died. During those awful eighteen months “the flower” of English youth died in one of the bloodiest, if not the bloodiest, battle in all of history.
The Taliban killed 33 Afghan police recruits today, a number that is dwarfed by that of the Battle of the Somme, but like the English, French, South Africans who died in France in 1916, those 33 had families, wives and children perhaps, lives that will never be found again.
Hopefully found again will be a commerative coin given by President Obama to the country’s oldest Park Ranger, 94 year old Betty Reid Soskin, who was attacked last night in her apartment by a young man who punched her and robbed her. She wants the world to understand she is not a victim but a survivor. 94!
I am winding down now as the harbor slips into a soft silver lavender light. Faraway, a dog barks, a soft breeze is blowing off the harbor. I am far away from all the madness. A week from tomorrow I leave to return to my cottage, itself a haven from the madness.
Tags:Betty Reid Soskin, Boris Johnson, Brexit, Claverack, IS, Isis, Jeremy Corbyn, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Michael Gove, Obama, Syria, Turkey bombings, USSR
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Brexit, Claverack, Daesh, Elections, IS, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mideast, Obama, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Syria, Taliban, Uncategorized, World War I commentary | Leave a Comment »