Archive for the ‘Mat Tombers’ Category
March 3, 2017
It has been about ten days since I’ve written; I just went back and looked. Last time, I was on Saba, writing when I wasn’t able to sleep. Tonight, I am back at my dining room table, floodlights on, looking out over the creek, having just returned from Coyote Flaco with Pierre, sharing chicken fajitas.
When I reached the cottage this afternoon, I felt I’d been away for a week, at least. Monday morning, I went down to DC for some meetings for the Miller Center on the Presidency and then to New York last night to have a wonderful dinner with my friends, David and Annette Fox. It’s a quarterly event; we gather at their marvelous UWS apartment, order Indian and catch up on our lives.
It is very hygge. As was the dinner party I gave last Friday night for Fayal Greene, her husband, David, Ginna and Don Moore, Lionel and Pierre. Leek soup, sautéed scallops in a brown butter sauce, and carrots in a lemony oil garlic sauce, with a baked polenta to die for, followed by a flourless chocolate cake provided by Ginna and Don, via David the baker.
It was an extraordinary evening.
And I, at least, need evenings like this to keep me sane in these extraordinary times.
On Tuesday evening, in Washington, after an early dinner with my friends Matthew and Anne, which followed drinks with my ex-partner and his now fiancé, I watched the address to Congress by our President, Donald Trump.
To the great relief of almost the entire world, he did not go off the rails and sounded presidential. It was, Tuesday night, all about the delivery. Wednesday morning people started to parse what he said. Even the conservative writers that I read, and I do read some, found a lot of flaws with the speech.
Short on specifics.
Fact checkers found a lot of fault, pointing out Trump claimed as victories some things which had been in play for a year at some corporations. Ford isn’t keeping production in the US because of Trump; they are pulling back on their Mexican plans because those plants would have built small cars and people aren’t buying them. They’re buying gas guzzlers because gas is cheapish again.
When talking with David and Annette, I said that if Trump had not held it together last night, his presidency would have begun to unravel. He would actually be President but, in reality, his claim to power would have begun collapsing. Lots of people on his side of the aisle are slightly unhinged by his behavior. McCain and Graham are frankly, I think, apoplectic.
And he held it together and while he should have been able to take a victory lap, Wednesday morning brought the revelation that Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had said in confirmation meetings he had not met with any Russians in the run-up to the election, actually had two meetings with the Russian Ambassador, one in his office on Capitol Hill.
Republicans are excusing while Democrats and some Republicans are accusing.
This is a wild ride and I’ve never seen anything like it.
Sessions has since recused himself from all investigations regarding anything Russian but there are those on both sides of the aisle who smell blood in the water.
While we were having political meltdowns, Amazon’s vaulted cloud computing world went offline yesterday for 4 hours and 17 minutes because of a typo in a command. OOPS.
It’s a little scary. 150,000 websites were affected. Amazon is the king of cloud storage and that’s a big oops for the King. I would not have wanted to be the head of that division yesterday.
And, before Tuesday’s Trump speech, we had the foll der wall of the biggest Oscar mistake in history. First “La La Land” was announced as Best Picture but it really was “Moonlight.” Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were humiliated and PwC, the accountants, were more than humiliated. They handed out a wrong envelope.
OOPS.
When it happened, I was safely in the arms of Morpheus, having strange dreams of Mike Bloomberg dating the pastor of my church, Mother Eileen.
Snap Inc. had a very successful opening on the market today; it was the biggest initial offering since Facebook and they have a rocky road to travel and they are a force to be reckoned with and it will be wonderful to see how it plays out. The next Facebook? Or the next troubled tech company, which is where Twitter is today.
It’s time for me to say goodnight.
By hygge. Regardless of your political persuasion, it will help us all get through.
Tags:Apple, celebrities, Christian, computers, Current Events, General, Google, GOP, Home, Hubble Telescope, Iraq, Islam, Istanbul, life, Mars, Media, NASA, Netflix, newspapers, Politics, reconciliation, Soho, Star Wars, technology, Terrorism, Texas, Wireless, Yahoo
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February 20, 2017
My day began at 4:00 AM EST, 5:00 AM AST [Atlantic Standard Time] on the sun blessed isle of Saba where I woke, finished packing, drank some coffee and was picked up by my friends on the island and went to the airport to begin an epic journey back to Claverack. Cars, planes, automobiles and trains. Had them all covered today.
Flying to St. Martin, I went on to New York and from New York went by train to Hudson, got to my car and came home.
Earlier this week, I was wide awake in the early hours of the day and now I am awake in the late hours of the night and so, instead of staring at the ceiling, decided to open the laptop and do a letter…
When I came into the drive, I realized how hard this winter has been on the gravel drive and I have some work to do in the spring to redistribute the gravel pushed aside by the snow plow.
It did feel wonderful to pull into the drive and see the little cottage, all snug and waiting. Coming in, I turned up the heat a bit, made myself a martini and started to unpack. Some things I shipped home from Miami as they would have been burdensome to carry out to Saba and back. One of them was a winter coat, keeping with me only a lighter one. A wise choice as when I stepped off the plane in New York it was almost balmy. It was so warm; I almost didn’t need my fleece pullover.
As I rode in the taxi to Penn Station for the train part of the trip, we were held up by road work and I contemplated the extraordinary world in which we live.
My friend, Jan, was afraid I would spend the next four years overflowing with anger at Trump. I’m not. I don’t have the energy for that. Often I am bemused, disgusted, concerned, frightened, surprised, shocked. But not angry. Not yet.
As I was driving in from JFK, I was thinking about his comment in speech yesterday about what happened in Sweden last night. Nothing happened in Sweden last night. Our President baffled an entire nation, wondering if there was something he knew they didn’t. He didn’t. It seems he conflated a Tucker Carlson interview into something that wasn’t – or something like that.
The Swedish Government asked for a clarification and President Trump tweeted that he was referring to a Fox News report about Swedes and immigration and rising crime. But he did say “last night.”
The Swedes are wondering if his tweet was the official response they requested. The State Department hasn’t gotten back to them.
And I wrote about Shep Smith in my last letter, the Fox News anchor of “The Majority Report” taking on the untruthfulness of President Trump. The very thought of anyone at Fox News taking on Donald Trump brings a smile to my face. How could it not?
Alas for them, he has also labelled them as “fake news.” Or maybe it is alas for him? Fox News is the media organ of choice for his base and if they are questioning him…
So, no, I am not angry. Yet. And I am an activist. Our little group, Blue DOT Hudson Indivisible is now up to about two hundred members and growing. We’re demanding accountability from our Representative in Congress, John Faso, and our Senators, Kristin Gillibrand and Charles Schumer. Faso is Republican and Gillibrand and Schumer are Democrats. No one is off the hook here.
It is interesting that historians are listing Obama as the 12th best President in our history. If you’re interested in the list, look here.
Tomorrow, after all, is President’s Day.
There will be a march in DC to say “Not My President,” to let Donald know where he stands with some people.
In New York today, music mogul Russell Simons, once a longtime Trump friend, organized an “I am a Muslim, too” gathering to protest Trump’s positions on his Muslim brothers.
Friends of mine were there. If I had been in the city, I might have been though my discomfort with crowds has grown as I have grown older.
And I am glad I have grown older. It gives me some good perspective. It helps me realize that while I have no children, I do have a responsibility to the next generations. And it is interesting to accept that I have that responsibility.
Tags:Claverack Cottage, Donald Trump, Fox News, I am Muslim too, JFK, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, New York, Not My President March, Obama, Penn Station, Politics, Russell Simons, Saba, St. Martin, Sweden, The Donald, Times Square
Posted in Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
February 18, 2017
It is still pitch dark outside; a few buildings are illuminated at the foot of Mt. Scenery. From my balcony, a cock crows in the distance, harbinger of the coming dawn.
For reasons unknown, I woke an hour ago and discovered Morpheus had fled and I was now a participant in the day, whether I wanted or not.
It’s fine. If I am tired later there is nothing keeping me from napping. It is my last day on Saba before I return home to the cottage. This a rock of an island and doesn’t sport the voluptuous beaches of other Caribbean islands and I have grown, in a few days, quite fond of the place and hope I get to return this side of paradise.
Yesterday afternoon, I almost felt I lived here. Donna, the taxi driver, took me on a tour of the island and then left me in Windward Side to do some shopping. By the end of the tour, Donna felt like my new best friend.
As I strolled around, Hemmie, who owns the hotel where I am staying drove by and gaily waved at me as did several people I had seen in restaurants. Recognition deserves friendliness here.
It is almost but not quite chill this morning.
It is also probably chill in quite a few places back in America, where everyone, it seems, is talking about President Trump’s Press Conference. One of the best takes on it is from Shep Smith on Fox News. If interested, you can find it here.
Because I am on a spec of an island in the Caribbean with not much to do but enough that I’m not following every step of President Trump’s progress – or lack thereof, I saw only bits and pieces, most of them disturbing.
In the pre-dawn darkness, with cocks crowing the coming dawn, seated on my bed, I am thinking that I am living the Chinese curse: may you live in interesting times. For these are “interesting” times.
In the White House sits a man who seems disconnected from reality, incapable of telling the absolute truth, also incapable of spinning a good untruth. The Russian questions aren’t going away until they’re answered and calling them “fake news” is only going to make more of us want to know what the “real news” is about what was going on while Trump’s folks were apparently cozying up to Russian officials.
It is disturbing to watch.
Mr. Trump proclaimed his administration is acting like “a finely oiled machine.” Oh, please, Mr. Trump…
Ah, but here I am on the island of Saba, part of the Netherlands, which is having its own struggle with the “alt right” movement. And that seems far away to the inhabitants of this little island which seems to want nothing more than to live in harmony with each other as best they can.
There was a murder here back in 1989 and not another one until 2015, which happened at the medical school that’s here, educating men and women who want to be doctors and who couldn’t find slots in the States.
Donna told me she’s never fearful about wandering around on the island and I haven’t locked my doors since I arrived. There is a lock; I just haven’t used it. I don’t feel the need.
And that’s very hygge.
Just as this moment is, sitting on my bed, typing away, feeling a little sleepy again and thinking that when I am finished, I’ll see if Morpheus will return to my side and give me an hour or two more rest.
Tags:Alt right, Donna the taxi driver on Saba, Fox News, Hemmie, May you live in interesting times, Morpheus, Netherlands, President Trump, Russia, Saba, Saba Medical School, Selera Dunia, Shep Smith, Windward Side
Posted in 2016 Election, Elections, Entertainment, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Russia, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
February 17, 2017
The North Star has been the guiding light for thousands of years for sailors and I have never seen it in more glory than I have here on Saba. The night I arrived, I asked Hemmie, who owns the hotel where I am staying, what that bright light in the sky was and he said to me, as if I were a little thick, that’s the North Star. It is the star that has guided sailors for millennia and I had never seen it as clearly as I have seen it here.
Saba is an island that is quiet, not much night life to offer, though at this moment I hear disco music from somewhere, floating up to me. A few dogs yelp. The darkness surrounds me and I cannot see out to the sea.
It is wonderfully mellow. Today I had a fair amount of work to do and I did it from the couch in my room where I could look out and see the Caribbean below me as I am high on the island.
How fortunate am I? Very. Another moment of seeing a place I never would have thought I’d see when I was a youngster and here I am. Glad to be here and hoping I might come back this side of paradise.
And while I have been busy sending emails, I have also been participating in island life – a meal at Island Flavors down in The Bottom, a town named, apparently, because it was the place goods came in and were lifted up to the rest of the island – it was the bottom of the ladder.
Even here, though, there is no respite from the news at home.
Trump held a news conference to announce his new nominee for the Secretary of Labor, which turned into a bit of a free for all. He declared he had inherited a “mess” from Obama though there aren’t statistics to support that. He also declared his administration was a “finely oiled machine.” I’m not sure anyone agrees with that, Republicans included.
Standing on the outside, looking at the news from both liberal and conservative points of view, it seems that the consensus is that we have an Administration that doesn’t have its act together. Really doesn’t have its act together…
We have the Michael Flynn imbroglio… It’s not going anywhere and, in fact, I think it’s going to get messier. The Administration’s Russian problem is not going away. In my humble opinion, it’s going to get worse.
Today, Trump’s press conference to announce Alex Acosta as his nominee for Secretary of Labor descended into chaos. The friends I am with on the island questioned the mental stability of President Trump who, according to them, declared how successful his first weeks in office have been.
Didn’t hear it and am not sure what he is referring to as I haven’t seen any successes.
And then I do think The Donald lives in his own reality. Not mine but he has his.
And that’s what frightens me.
Tags:Caribbean, Donald Trump, General, Michael Flynn, North Star, Obama, President Trump, Putin, Saba, technology, The Bottom, The Donald, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Gay Liberation, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Obama, Political Commentary, Politics, Russia, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
February 14, 2017
Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! While I don’t have a specific Valentine, I do have many people to whom I would like to send Valentine’s greetings. Consider them sent.
This is a day devoted to love.
Unless you live in Saudi Arabia where celebrating Valentine’s Day could get you into a whole lot of trouble.
When I was in grade school, we always sent everyone else in our class a Valentine’s Day card. Years ago, I stumbled upon a cache of them and smiled at our cursive, much struggled over. Now they don’t even teach cursive writing, which seems a shame. Handwritten letters are such a joy to receive in this day of electronic communication.
At this minute, I am sitting on the deck outside my room at Selera Dunia, the little hotel on Saba where I am ensconced for the next few days. It is owned by a Dutchman, Hemme, and his wife, and their raison d’être seems to be making me happy. YES! I’m all for that.
It is decorated lavishly with objects they have brought back from their sojourns abroad, mostly from Indonesia but beneath me, I’m told, is a treasure trove from their time in Africa to be utilized when they add the next few rooms.
I slept wonderfully last night, my doors unlocked. Crime has not crept onto Saba yet and may it long stay away.
Ah, but here I am, far away, in a crime free piece of Caribbean paradise while at home who knows what crimes are afoot?
Michael Flynn, the NSA Advisor to President Trump, has resigned after he seems to have had discussed our sanctions against Russia prior to the time when he should have and then misled Vice President Pence as to his actions.
MIC, a website devoted to news by millennials for millennials, wrote today that the crime, to them, in the Trump Administration seems not to be the crime itself but the crime of being caught. Is this what millennials are thinking about our government?
JFK was profoundly flawed in so many, many ways. At least his words lifted us to some better place and inspired us. Not so in these our Trumpian days when Stephen Miller, Senior Advisor to the President, declared there would be a time when the President’s word would be absolute.
Seth Meyer mocked him, saying it could only be more frightening if he had said it in German. And Stephen Miller is Jewish.
So, this is what millennials are seeing: a young man [he’s 31] saying the President’s word will be absolute. Do call me horrified. There are three branches of government [as Trump, to his annoyance, is finding out].
Mitch McConnell is saying it’s “highly likely” there will be an investigation of Michael Flynn’s actions. “Highly likely?” Mitch, oh Mitch, my low opinion of you sinks even lower. Had you said, “Absolutely,” I might have thought you were standing on the right side of history. And you’re not.
Thanks to Lindsey Graham and a few other Republican Senators who are working to see this is not brushed under the rug until we know the truth.
The Ethics Office has suggested it would be appropriate for Kellyanne Conway to be disciplined for her “go buy Ivanka’s stuff” moment from the White House Briefing Room. They felt it was tantamount to a TV commercial. Let’s see if it happens. Personally, think it should but…
If you are a millennial, you probably know PewDiePie, a Scandinavian YouTube star with millions and millions and millions of followers. He’s been the hottest thing on the net for a few years now, making 14.5 million dollars last year. He has deals with Disney and others and it’s all falling down today because he made some anti-Semitic jokes in his postings and Disney and YouTube are running in the other direction.
The sun is beginning to set; the mountain across from me is sun kissed at this moment, full of deep foliage and limitless green though now the island is beginning to move into its dry season. Water is scarce. My friends are taking what once was a pool and making it into a cistern for grey water to help with the plants.
Tonight, we are going down the hill to a BBQ joint in the little enclave that is their town. Hygge. More soon.
Tags:BBQ, cursive writing, Disney, Ethics Office, Ivanka's Stuff, JFK, Kellyanne Conway, Lindsey Graham, MIC, Michael Flynn, Mitch McConnell, PewDiePie, Saba, Saudi Arabia, Selera Dunia, Stephen Miller, The Donald, Trump, Trump Administration, Valentine's Day, White House Briefing Room, YouTube
Posted in 2016 Election, Columbia County, Entertainment, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Russia, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
February 12, 2017
Around me, I am listening to a mélange of English, Spanish, Italian, French and German.
I am not in Claverack, NY but on the veranda of my hotel in Miami Beach, a cloudy morning having given way to clear blue skies with a gentle breeze blowing off the beach a short block away, sipping my third very good cappuccino of the day.
Waking just after seven, I have spent most of my morning here. First, a light breakfast with my friend Nick Stuart, before he left for what is now a rainy New York, later, reading the New York Times on my new iPhone 7 Plus, much easier than on my old 5s.
Reading the news is a bemusing event these days. It may just be me but it seems the Administrative Branch of our government is in disarray while the Legislative Branch appears as if it’s a group of old white men braying their success at owning the joint with the Judicial Branch holding the center of sanity.
There is a young man named Stephen Miller who is a Trumpian True Believer, architect of the Travel Ban and, before this, on the staff of Senator Jeff Sessions. Previously known for his avalanches of ideological emails to fellow Congressional staffers, he is now close to and closely listened to by President Trump. He is 31 and shaping policy. We must watch him as he will be influential in the coming months, whatever your political persuasion.
Apparently, his secretive nature was part of the reason the Travel Ban wasn’t thoroughly vetted.
He made the rounds of the Sunday morning shows trumpeting the ways Trump will combat the unanimous decision of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to refuse to reinstate the ban.
When George Stephanopoulos asked him about the report that Michael Flynn discussed sanctions against Russia with that country’s ambassador before Flynn was sworn in as White House national security adviser, he had nothing to say, not having been given anything to say by the White House.
On NBC, Miller couldn’t comment on whether the President still had confidence in Flynn. He also continues to assert there was mass voter fraud, causing Trump to lose the popular vote. Saying so, doesn’t make it so, Mr. Miller. If it is true, please show some evidence. He states facts without proof, a great “gas lighting” technique.
Steve Bannon, Lord Vizier, is being scrutinized for a 2014 speech he gave at a Vatican Conference in which he referenced Julius Evola, darling of Italian Fascists. It also appears Bannon, who is Catholic, is shimmying up to a group of Vatican insiders who believe Pope Francis is destroying the Church.
Kellyanne Conway, Counselor to President Trump, was herself “counseled” per Press Secretary Spicer because she encouraged people to go out and buy “Ivanka’s stuff,” from the White House Briefing Room. That crosses an ethical line, most people agree. Perhaps not the President, who was unhappy with Spicer’s choice of the word “counselled.”
The Office of Government Ethics had its website melt down with complaints.
Ivanka has had her line dropped from Nordstrom’s because it was underperforming, which elicited a scolding tweet from the President, and then Nordstrom’s found its stock jumping 5%.
Apparently, Ivanka and Kellyanne have had words: Kellyanne, don’t mention me or my products on television!
Poor Spicer. He’s lost face with the President because Melissa McCarthy portrayed him on a SNL skit; the program is having its highest ratings in twenty years as a certain element in the country breathlessly waits for its next Trump skewer, though last night’s skit with Kellyanne Conway doing a “Fatal Attraction” on Jake Tapper caused me to grimace but SNL isn’t always known for its taste.
It is with unconscious competence I have chosen to be away now. Claverack was pummeled with 12 inches of snow with another twelve about to batter it. Hopefully, it will be over by the time I return.
Last night, I attended my friends’ party for the fifth anniversary of their art gallery, Williams – McCall, in South Beach. Their chef was last seen providing the food for the Patriots at the Super Bowl.
So right now, I am going to finish this, do a bit more culling of emails and then head to the beach for a bit of sunbathing. While I am not at home, this is traveling hygge.
Tags:9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Administrative Branch, celebrities, Claverack, Friends, General, George Stephanopoulos, Hygge, Islam, Ivanka Trump, Jeff Sessions, Judicial Branch, Julius Evola, Legislative Branch, Media, Miami Beach, Michael Flynn, NBC, Nordstom's, NSA, Party, Politics, Pope Francis, South Beach, Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, Travel Ban, Trump, Voter Fraud, Williams-McCall Gallery
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Columbia County, Entertainment, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
February 5, 2017
It is Saturday night at the cottage. “Swing Jazz” is playing on my Echo, the floodlights illuminate the creek and I am cozy in the cottage. A load of dishes is in the dishwasher and I have spent the day, partially working, running a few errands. Every week I try to buy some canned goods for the food pantry at the church and bring them in on Sunday. That was one of today’s errands.
When I finish this, I will rehearse the readings for tomorrow as I am lector at Christ Church tomorrow. It all feels very hygge. [Pronounced hoo-ga; the Danish word for living a cozy life.] It seems the best time of all to be hygge, what with everything that is happening around us in dizzying array.
Honestly, right now, I am not sure who’s on first. The refugee ban seems to have been lifted with the ban on immigrants from the seven predominantly Muslim countries. Or is it? I am doing my best to keep up and it’s hard. Really hard…
I think President Trump hung up on the Australian Prime Minister. Mine eyes dazzle.
And then President Trump told Putin that sanctions remain until he leaves Ukraine which is not what I think Putin was thinking would happen. Putin did a few “provocative” actions in Ukraine this past week [thing what you can do with artillery] that ended badly for him. The pro-Russian rebels were rebuffed by the Ukrainians. And The Donald rebuked him.
Or perhaps it was Steve Bannon, who appears to be becoming the Lord Chancellor to King Donald. Time Magazine has a frightening portrait of the man on its cover. It is feared this is the man who is pulling the strings. Look here.
Apparently, per reports, Kelly, the Secretary of Homeland Security, had to remind Steve Bannon, he only takes orders from the President when Bannon was bossing Kelly around.
Oh, just gosh…
Kellyanne Conway, the most skillful swinger of truths encountered this side of Paradise, is being skewered everywhere as she justified the travel ban by referring to the “Bowling Green Massacre.” Well, a couple of men were arrested in Bowling Green for attempting to aid and abet terrorists but there was no “Bowling Green Massacre.” She is saying she misspoke one word and is being eviscerated by “haters.”
Must say, mine eyes dazzle.
The king of Executive Orders, our Donald, is now issuing one that will roll back Dodd-Frank, the regulations that were to save us from another meltdown like 2008. Carpe diem!
While most of me is horrified by the political spectacle around me, there is another part that is amused. In a gallows humor sort of way, which is not a good way. Most of the American public is not amused. President Trump’s approval ratings aren’t good.
Well, who approves of chaos and confusion and flirting with unconstitutionality?
Ethicists are appalled at the flimsiness of Trump’s separation from his business interests.
And all of this is hurting his business interests and those of Ivanka. Nordstrom’s has dropped the Ivanka Trump line. In an earlier post, I mentioned I was at Lord & Taylor on 5th Avenue and there was no one in the Ivanka Trump section. Last time I was there, there was no Ivanka Trump section to be found. Poof! Gone.
And, frankly, I have grown a little fond of Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner. It is rumored they weighed in with The Donald and prevented him from signing an Executive Order that would have stripped the LGBTQ community of rights they had received under the Obama Administration.
On the other hand, it is, I’m sure, not making Steve Bannon happy. Nor is it making happy the evangelicals who supported Trump despite his raunchiness.
Me? A gay man. I’m pleased. Woo! Saved for another day.
Truly, I’m just a little bit scared. And a little bit amused. And a whole lot unhappy.
So, now it is time to return to hygge. I’ll make myself a martini and finish reading “The Romanovs,” a six hundred plus page book outlining the rise and fall of the world’s longest ruling dynasty. That’s a saga and it didn’t end well, as we all know.
May all this end well.
Tags:Australian Prime Minister, Bowling Street Massacre, Executive Orders, Hygge, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Jazz, Kelly, Kellyanne Conway, LGBTQ, Obama, President Trump, Putin, Steve Bannon, Time Magazine
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Gay, Gay Liberation, Great Recession, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
January 30, 2017
It is a little past seven at the cottage; the weekend is winding down, “Swing Jazz” is the Amazon music station playing. Marcel, Lionel and Pierre’s poodle, is situated comfortably on the couch, looking at the door to see when they will return, which will be in a few days. The flood lights illuminate the creek and I am at the freshly polished dining room table, writing.
It’s the end of a good weekend, mostly very “hygge.” [Pronounced hoo-ga, it’s Danish for living a cozy life.] And it’s been a cozy weekend. Young Nick has returned from his walkabout and came over Friday afternoon and helped me prepare for what turned out to be a most excellent dinner party.
Saturday was cleaning up and being domestic, a solo lunch at the Dot, dinner with Lionel and Pierre at their house, home to sleep.
But all the hygge in my life has been overshadowed and squeezed by the events in the world around me. President Trump has been issuing Executive Orders to his heart’s content. They feel a bit like Imperial Edicts. Do this. Ban that. It’s been stunning. And equally stunning is the response of the American public.
When he banned individuals from seven countries, all primarily Muslim, from entering the United States, hordes of lawyers went to airports and became filing appeals, sitting on the floor in the terminals, laptops plugged into whatever outlet could be found.
It made me proud.
At those same airports, crowds appeared. At JFK, several New York Congressmen were there, attempting to help. One quarantined gentleman was an Iraqi citizen who was on his way to the US because he had been an interpreter for our soldiers and his life was in danger. Thankfully, he was released.
People with green cards are in limbo, depending on the airport they flew into. Federal Judges are ordering limits on Trump’s ruling and some officials are ignoring them.
Excuse me, what? What?
Heads are spinning.
Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief political operative, has been given a seat on the National Security Council while the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs and the Director of National Intelligence have been demoted.
What? What?
In the morning now, I get up, make my coffee and call my Senators and my Representative in Congress and tomorrow I don’t know what issue to focus on. There are so many.
A relative sent me a clip of a State of the Union Address given by Bill Clinton, in which he talked about the dangers of illegal immigration. The headline before the clip was “The hypocrisy of liberals!”
Well, really, hypocrisy? Take a look at this article. Mike Pence opposed what Trump has done and now is praising it. Is that not hypocrisy? Political opportunism?
Immigration has been an issue ever since we stopped accepting just about everybody. Don’t know about you, but I’m here, an American citizen, because my great grandparents came over from Germany and settled in Minnesota. Back then, almost everyone was taken in. [Though my great grandparents arrived in First Class so they didn’t have to go through the indignities of Ellis Island.]
Then it changed and immigration has been an issue ever since. Okay, I get that. And what President Trump has done is unprecedented. His list of excluded countries does not include Saudi Arabia from which came many of the 9/11 hijackers. It does not exclude Pakistan, one of whose citizens was part of the Riverside massacre. It’s a bit bewildering. The banned countries have barely contributed to the numbers who have died from terrorist acts in the US.
And, amazingly, it appears the list was compiled during the Obama Administration but never activated. Boggles the mind.
Not even during Viet Nam was I this agitated. Agitated does not describe my mood when I am not working very hard at hygge.
In an article I scanned two days ago, it speculated that Trump may be to Millennials what Viet Nam was to my generation, a catalytic event.
You see, there is a movement to stop abortions. There is a generation of young women who have grown up believing they had the right of choice. Now some people want to take that it away from them. No, not happy. And abortions have been decreasing and in 2014 were the lowest since 1973.
There are young people who are in college whose friends are in limbo because they come from one of the banned countries and went home over winter break and may not be able to come back despite having valid visas.
And there are people like me, a Baby Boomer grown old, who is incensed in a way I have not been for god alone knows how many years. The protests will not stop. They will not go away. The country is fired up in a way that hasn’t been seen since Viet Nam.
Wow! The games have begun.
To be completely clear, I am one of the founders of Blue DOT [Democracy Opposing Trump] Hudson Indivisible. It is my time of being an activist. This Presidency must be opposed. It is divisive. It is immoral. It has in its first week demonstrated a willingness to flaunt conventional order.
Tomorrow I am calling the office of John McCain and Lindsey Graham who are opposing Trump to thank them for their efforts. We are all in for a rocky ride and maybe this was a good thing to happen.
The Left is galvanized the way the Right was when Obama was elected and already seems, and I hope it continues, to be more emphatic than the Tea Party movement.
The game is afoot…
Tags:Amanzon, Baby Boomers, Bill Clinton, Blue DOT Hudson, Hygee, immigration, Lionel White, Mike Pence, Muslim ban, Obama, Pierre Font, President Trump, Saudi Arabia, Steve Bannon, Tea Party, The game is afoot, Viet Nam, Young Nick
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Entertainment, Gay, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
January 15, 2017
It is early evening in Claverack; the lights have been turned on over the creek and I have asked Alexa to play the “Pop Classical” station so music is filling the cottage. It is an idyllic night after a very nice day.
Waking before the alarm this morning, I cleared my email inboxes, showered and gathered things together for the food pantry at the church. Post church, I went to the Red Dot and then to Ca’Mea to meet Larry and Alicia and it was a pleasant country afternoon.
Against the backdrop of the pleasant country afternoon is a tension about the political scene.
One of my neighbors, who, when he met me was a bit uncomfortable with me and who has become a very good friend, asked me why the LGBTQ community was concerned about Trump. He voted for neither Hillary or The Donald, loathing them equally.
My response was that it wasn’t so much Trump’s views on gays but the views of the people who are around him. Mike Pence, Governor of Indiana until Friday, then Vice President of the United States, worked to enact strident laws that jeopardized the rights of gays in his state. Jeff Sessions, who is by all accounts is a gentleman of the first order in social situations, is homophobic, anti-immigration and anti some other important things.
My friend had no idea. And was concerned when he heard this.
Representative John Lewis of Georgia, a legendary figure in the Civil Rights movement, is not attending Trump’s inauguration because he does not feel Trump in a legitimate President. I find that unfortunate and counterproductive.
And I find unfortunate and counterproductive Donald Trump’s Twitter storm against Representative Lewis, demeaning his part in the Civil Rights movement. The man nearly lost his life on the bridge into Selma. To denigrate him as Trump has is unfortunate and not in keeping with someone who is about to enter the highest office in the land.
Stephen Colbert discussed “truthiness.” Donald Trump exercised a bit of it in his depiction of Representative Lewis’ district as crime ridden. In fact, he represents one of the most affluent areas of Atlanta.
There is a good part of me that is sitting back and watching what is happening unfold with a sense of wonder, a sense of OMG is this real? And it is…
Every time I turn around, I am astounded by our President Elect.
His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is going to be a Senior Advisor. Is there not something somewhere about nepotism? Ivanka may be the de facto First Lady as Melania seems to be content to remain in Trump Tower.
Who is this person?
Andy Borowitz, comedian and raconteur, described him as the “Kremlin Employee of the Month.”
The awful thing is that he MIGHT be.
The VERY unsubstantiated report about his actions with the Russians are, at one time, very amusing and incredibly disconcerting. It has spawned a cottage industry in defining “golden showers.”
Right now, I am sitting back and watching it unfold. Called me bemused, call me amused, call me frightened, call me whatever you like and I think we need to go back into the early 19th century to find anything similar.
Oh, wow!
And I will continue to watch with a carefully bemused eye that is also carefully turned on to what the new President might do as he needs, more than most Presidents, to be held accountable.
Please help with that. Please.
Tags:Alexa, Alicia Vergara, Andy Borowitz, Atlanta, Claverack, Donald Trump, Golden Showers, Hillary Clinton, Jared Kushner, Jeff Sessions, John Lewis, Kremlin Employee of the Month, Larry Divney, LGBT, LGBTQ, Mike Pence, Selma, Stephen Colbert, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Hudson New York, Income Inequality, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
January 11, 2017
It is latish, for me. The clock is moving toward 11 PM and, generally, by this time, I am in bed, reading, watching a video, falling asleep. But not tonight. I am just home from an evening with some friends. We watched a movie on DVD, while having dinner and then watched President Obama’s farewell speech.
There were six of us, I think. Some cried. As I watched, I hoped I was not watching the curtain fall on a period of our democracy. It’s my fear that I will not live long enough to see the other side of the journey we have chosen to take by electing Donald Trump our next President.
Obama extolled us to be activists and I am choosing to be. I am one of the organizers of a local group we are calling Blue DOT, Democracy Opposing Trump. How active we are will depend on his actions and the actions of the Republican Congress after they take office.
Obamacare is a flawed system and it is providing help to many who would not have it otherwise. I know a few, friends who in the years following the economic slump of 2008 and beyond who were hobbled by career misfortune and personal situations and they had no health insurance until Obamacare offered a window.
It’s flawed but it is something. We spend more on healthcare than anyone in the world and we rank something like 27 in the world for the success of our health care. In all the time the Republicans were attempting to repeal Obamacare there never was an alternative offered.
Driving home, the exegesis of Obama’s remarks was in full swing on NPR and I heard former Republican leader Eric Cantor say there was no point in offering an alternative to Obamacare though Mr. Cantor did attempt a modification of the ACA when he was in office and the Republicans shut him down for a minor change he wanted. They wanted nothing to do with ACA.
In the quiet of my home, the creek lit by my lights, thin sheets of ice on each its banks, I am afraid, fearing for the country I do love, for all its flaws.
If you get a chance, read Doug Blackmon’s “Slavery by Another Name.” It is painful reading and helps me understand what awful, evil things we have done to people of color in this country and while things are much better, they are not yet good and equal.
A quarter of the way through the book, I have paused because each page makes me feel pain and shame about things I never knew but should have known.
Doug won a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize for it. There was also an acclaimed PBS series based on the book.
We are moving into territory none of us could have imagined. There is an unverified report which was part of a briefing to both President Elect Trump and to President Obama, that the Russians have compromising information on Trump’s personal life and financial situation.
Tomorrow, Trump will hold a news conference. Unless he cancels it again. There will be a lot of questions, understandably. It is supposed to be about how he will separate himself from his business interests and it will be about his Russian connections.
Part of the unverified report states that there were ongoing conversations between the Trump campaign and Russia.
It is unverified and we need to know if it is true.
There is so much we need to know about Mr. Trump and his nominees for Cabinet positions. I don’t like Jeff Sessions and don’t want him as Attorney General but at least he is one of the few, if not the only Cabinet nominee, who filled out the required paperwork.
It’s my fear we are about to enter an age in which everyone in government feels they are above the law.
In his speech, Obama challenged us not to allow that to happen.
God help us everyone!
Tags:ACA, Blue Dot, Doug Blackmon, Eric Cantor, Jeff Sessions, Obama, Obamacare, Putin, Russia, Slavery by Another Name, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Elections, Entertainment, Great Recession, Hudson New York, Income Inequality, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From Claverack 03/02/2017 From Saba to a Trump Speech…
March 3, 2017It has been about ten days since I’ve written; I just went back and looked. Last time, I was on Saba, writing when I wasn’t able to sleep. Tonight, I am back at my dining room table, floodlights on, looking out over the creek, having just returned from Coyote Flaco with Pierre, sharing chicken fajitas.
When I reached the cottage this afternoon, I felt I’d been away for a week, at least. Monday morning, I went down to DC for some meetings for the Miller Center on the Presidency and then to New York last night to have a wonderful dinner with my friends, David and Annette Fox. It’s a quarterly event; we gather at their marvelous UWS apartment, order Indian and catch up on our lives.
It is very hygge. As was the dinner party I gave last Friday night for Fayal Greene, her husband, David, Ginna and Don Moore, Lionel and Pierre. Leek soup, sautéed scallops in a brown butter sauce, and carrots in a lemony oil garlic sauce, with a baked polenta to die for, followed by a flourless chocolate cake provided by Ginna and Don, via David the baker.
It was an extraordinary evening.
And I, at least, need evenings like this to keep me sane in these extraordinary times.
On Tuesday evening, in Washington, after an early dinner with my friends Matthew and Anne, which followed drinks with my ex-partner and his now fiancé, I watched the address to Congress by our President, Donald Trump.
To the great relief of almost the entire world, he did not go off the rails and sounded presidential. It was, Tuesday night, all about the delivery. Wednesday morning people started to parse what he said. Even the conservative writers that I read, and I do read some, found a lot of flaws with the speech.
Short on specifics.
Fact checkers found a lot of fault, pointing out Trump claimed as victories some things which had been in play for a year at some corporations. Ford isn’t keeping production in the US because of Trump; they are pulling back on their Mexican plans because those plants would have built small cars and people aren’t buying them. They’re buying gas guzzlers because gas is cheapish again.
When talking with David and Annette, I said that if Trump had not held it together last night, his presidency would have begun to unravel. He would actually be President but, in reality, his claim to power would have begun collapsing. Lots of people on his side of the aisle are slightly unhinged by his behavior. McCain and Graham are frankly, I think, apoplectic.
And he held it together and while he should have been able to take a victory lap, Wednesday morning brought the revelation that Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had said in confirmation meetings he had not met with any Russians in the run-up to the election, actually had two meetings with the Russian Ambassador, one in his office on Capitol Hill.
Republicans are excusing while Democrats and some Republicans are accusing.
This is a wild ride and I’ve never seen anything like it.
Sessions has since recused himself from all investigations regarding anything Russian but there are those on both sides of the aisle who smell blood in the water.
While we were having political meltdowns, Amazon’s vaulted cloud computing world went offline yesterday for 4 hours and 17 minutes because of a typo in a command. OOPS.
It’s a little scary. 150,000 websites were affected. Amazon is the king of cloud storage and that’s a big oops for the King. I would not have wanted to be the head of that division yesterday.
And, before Tuesday’s Trump speech, we had the foll der wall of the biggest Oscar mistake in history. First “La La Land” was announced as Best Picture but it really was “Moonlight.” Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were humiliated and PwC, the accountants, were more than humiliated. They handed out a wrong envelope.
OOPS.
When it happened, I was safely in the arms of Morpheus, having strange dreams of Mike Bloomberg dating the pastor of my church, Mother Eileen.
Snap Inc. had a very successful opening on the market today; it was the biggest initial offering since Facebook and they have a rocky road to travel and they are a force to be reckoned with and it will be wonderful to see how it plays out. The next Facebook? Or the next troubled tech company, which is where Twitter is today.
It’s time for me to say goodnight.
By hygge. Regardless of your political persuasion, it will help us all get through.
Tags:Apple, celebrities, Christian, computers, Current Events, General, Google, GOP, Home, Hubble Telescope, Iraq, Islam, Istanbul, life, Mars, Media, NASA, Netflix, newspapers, Politics, reconciliation, Soho, Star Wars, technology, Terrorism, Texas, Wireless, Yahoo
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