Archive for the ‘Mathew Tombers’ Category
October 13, 2015
It is 7:30 PM and it is dark already. I’m headed north on the 7:15 Amtrak out of Penn towards home after two weeks of wandering. Baltimore followed by Indianapolis followed by Minneapolis and now home. I made a stop in New York and listened as Howard Bloom recorded his podcast, “Howard Bloom Saves the Universe.” Look him up in your iTunes store. He’s very good, very funny and very wise.
Having not had very much to eat today, as in almost nothing, I stopped and got some California Roll from Penn Sushi and ate it while waiting for the train to start its journey north, which it has. I would love to be able to watch the river but it’s too dark, the river is hidden.
Minneapolis is a lovely town. There are an infinite number of things to do in the city of my birth. Often I have described my youth as being what it must have been like to grow up in one of the great provincial capitals of Europe. It has the Minnesota Orchestra, back to making music after a crippling strike. The Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, the Walker, the Guthrie, an amazing theatre scene. One Uber driver said to me that in Minneapolis/St. Paul you found a college on almost every corner. Which is almost true.
The city is freshly spruced. Every building looked like it had just been splashed with a fresh coat of paint. Everything was sparkling clean and looked like the glistening city of the future. Unemployment is low and the city is prospering.
But I sampled none of the intellectual delights of my hometown. I spent all my time visiting with people, my friends and family, people that have been important to me over the years.
When I taught high school there I became close to one of the families involved with the school, the Elsens. I spent an afternoon with them at a restaurant. Don is 88 and his force of nature wife, Betty, has been dead now almost ten years. Julie was there as was her cousin Brenda. After Don and Julie left, Brenda stayed to chat with me. She wanted to let me know that I was the only teacher she had in her life she felt “saw” her. I was humbled.
There were long mornings of coffee with my brother and sister-in-law, Deb, and a long and lovely lunch with my ex sister-in-law, Sally, with whom I laughed and cried.
I have deep roots in Minneapolis though one morning, driving to some get together, I also realized that the old phrase, “ You can’t go home again,” is true. I have roots but I no longer belong there.
All was familiar but I am no longer a citizen of that place; I am a citizen, for now, of Columbia County, where I have lived for, for me, a long time. And now I am on the train, headed back to the little cottage by the creek, looking forward to being in that space, surrounded by my things, to be able in the morning to sit on the deck while having coffee and to think about the future and not the past.
Tags:Amtrak, Brenda Elsen, Columbia County, Deb Tombers, Howard Bloom, Howard Bloom Saves the Universe, Joe Tombers, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, Minnesota Orchestra, Penn Station, Penn Sushi, Sally Tombers, The Guthrie, Uber, Walker
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October 8, 2015
Speaker of the House. Kunduz. Doctors Without Borders. Russia. Iran. Obama. Putin. Rupert Murdoch and “real blackness.” Paul Prudhomme. Spencer Stone. Sepp Blatter. Svetlana Alexievich.
Letter From New York originates in Minneapolis today, where the sun burst through the sky and it was charming this morning, warm after a light rain last night. But, alas, now the sun has slipped behind dark clouds and rain is threatening.
Tonight I will be having dinner with Jean Cronin Olson, who once, very long ago was a student of mine and in the intervening years, for the most part, we have kept in touch and often when I am in Minneapolis we gather for coffee and a long chat. Tonight it’s dinner at her home with her husband Jon and whatever of her four children will be about.
The idea that my students have adult children is very sobering to me.
Sobering to the Republican Party was the unexpected announcement that Kevin McCarthy, widely thought to be the man who would replace John Boehner as Speaker of the House, was withdrawing his name from consideration. Apparently, he, like Boehner, doesn’t want to content with the forty or so hard to the right, Tea Party Republicans who think they should be running the show.
By all accounts, it’s all rather mad and according to the Washington Post, very much like Neflix’s political drama, “House of Cards.” Now who will be playing Francis Underwood in this real life drama?
President Obama phoned Dr. Joanne Liu, the head of Doctors Without Borders and offered an apology for the bombing of their hospital in Kunduz. At least thirty-three workers are dead. She has acknowledged she “received” the apology but there is no indication that she has accepted it. She wants an independent investigation of the incident.
Russia has been firing missiles from ships in the Caspian Sea at targets in Syria. Four of them fell short and landed in rural Iran. I wonder what the Ayatollah thinks about that?
Putin turned 63 and celebrated with a lot of hockey themed events. He and his staff played against a team of professional Russian players. Not so shockingly in today’s Russia, Putin’s team won! Imagine that! And Putin got a gold medal for the most successful shots. Amazing! Is there nothing this man can’t do brilliantly?
He is, in fact, if not in title, Tsar Vladimir of Russia. But let us not forget the brutal end of the last real Tsar. Nicholas II and his family ended in front of a firing squad.
Rupert Murdoch is one of the “Tsars” of global media. He has become infatuated with Ben Carson and tweeted that he wondered what it would be like to have a “real” black President. Rupert has since apologized. As he should.
In the 1990’s the great television gathering called NATPE [National Association of Television Programming Executives] met one year in Las Vegas and the following year in New Orleans. On one of the New Orleans’ excursions I met Paul Prudhomme, the Cajun chef, who passed away today after at short illness at 75. He shot around his restaurant on an electric scooter. He was near his heaviest at the time, weighing well over 550 pounds. It was a good meal.
Spencer Stone, who helped stop a massacre on a French train a few weeks ago, was stabbed in Sacramento early this morning after leaving a nightclub. Seriously wounded, he is expected to survive.
Sepp Blatter, President of FIFA, has been suspended. So have a few other senior officials. One wonders who is running the place though one has wondered that even when they were there.
And finally, Svetlana Alexeivich, a writer from Belarus, has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. She tells history through the voices of people who lived it. Hats off.
Soon it is time for me to go and get ready for dinner. May yours be good.
Tags:"Real blackness", Doctors Without Borders, Iran, Joanne Liu, John Boehner, Kevin McCarthy, Kunduz, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Minneapolis, Obama, Putin, Rupert Murdoch, Russia, Sepp Blatter, Speaker of the House, Spencer Stone, Svetlana Alexievich, Tea Party
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October 6, 2015
I am sitting at Gate A6 at Indianapolis’ airport, waiting for a flight to Minneapolis. And I am in a somber mood.
The annual Lilly Website Consultation was here and this was the fourth time I have attended. It’s a small conference, held by the Lilly Endowment for their grantees, to help them keep up with the latest technological trends.
It was a good conference and I was delighted to be there. It gave me time to be with my client/friend, Nick Stuart, and to catch up with many people I have met here over the last four years.
That’s not what has me feeling somber.
When I woke this morning, I, as I always do, had a morning cup of coffee while perusing the news on both the NY Times app and the BBC app. On the BBC app was a story about an eleven year old killing an eight year old.
It was too early in the morning for me to read it.
When I went down to breakfast, people were talking about it and so I looked at it.
It was too true. In Tennessee, an eleven-year-old boy shot to death an eight-year-old neighbor girl because she wouldn’t show him her puppies. Previously, he had been accused of bullying her.
A young life ended. Another young life probably ruined forever. The young girl’s friend, who witnessed the shooting, may well be traumatized forever.
As were waiting at the airport for our flights, Nick and I had a glass of wine. His flight was earlier and he left and I stayed to settle up. Our waitress was leaving work early to attend the wake of her best friend’s mother, murdered by her boyfriend.
On the heels of the Roseburg shootings, all of this seemed too much for me and I grew somber and depressed.
In the years post 2001, 311 people have been killed by terrorist attacks. North of 350,000 have been killed in gun violence in this country.
It makes me somber. It depresses me. I feel at sea in my own country.
How has it come to this? How?
Tags:gun violence, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Roseburg shootings, Tennessee shootings
Posted in Gun Violence, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Social Commentary | 2 Comments »
October 4, 2015
Flooding in Cannes. MIPCOM. SNL. Doctors Without Borders. Indianapolis. Making Christianity relevant. Lilly Endowment.
Not much more than an hour ago, I arrived in Indianapolis for the Lilly Website Consultation. It is designed to help various Lilly Grantees to be more aware of trends happening out there on the wild internet, in an effort them to help him use technology to spread the Christian word.
My client, Odyssey, is one of the grant recipients and so they have asked me to be here along with their CEO, Nick Stuart, who over the last seven years has become a best friend.
There is not much time in the schedule to do much so I am working to get out a brief letter before I need to go to the first of the conference events.
There has been massive flooding in south of France; two months worth of rain fell in a single night. Sixteen people perished and the beautiful city on the sea is a mess. It is also the opening of MIPCOM, the huge fall television market. Opening ceremonies have been cancelled, not out of respect for the dead but because it is logistically impossible.
Saturday Night Live had its 41st season opener last night with Miley Cyrus and Hillary Clinton. Didn’t see it but the reviews were pretty good.
It was damp and chill when I left New York City this morning. Here in Indianapolis, the sun is bright and cheery and the war in Syria seems a long way away, which it is physically but it shouldn’t be emotionally distant. I stop, quickly, and say a prayer for everyone in Syria.
Russian airstrikes are increasing in intensity and in the amount of chaos they are sowing in that ravaged country.
In Kunduz, Afghanistan, Doctors Without Borders, are removing themselves after 19 people were killed in an airstrike at their hospital in the town.
And so it goes…
I’m off to the first conference event, this has been fast and short.
Have good Sunday afternoons and evenings.
Tags:Christianity, Doctors Without Borders, Flooding in Cannes, Hillary Clinton, Kunduz, Lilly Endowment, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Miley Cyrus, MIPCOM, Odyssey, SNL
Posted in Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Russia, Social Commentary, Syria | Leave a Comment »
October 2, 2015
Chill and damp in Baltimore. Oregon shooting. Papal denial. Syrian airstrikes. Allies demand of Russia. Amazon bans rivals. Weak jobs. Market panic?
It is chill and damp here in Baltimore, where I am today to celebrate Lionel’s birthday. It is grey and gloomy, a perfect background for a day which is filled with mourning.
Yesterday, as we all must know by now, a young man, 26, killed nine and wounded 20 before being killed by police. He targeted a Community College in Umpqua, Oregon. Authorities are trying to discern what, if any, connection he might have had to this particular school.
President Obama made a live appearance and was as angry as most had seen him, frustrated by the number of times in his Presidency he has gone on air to offer condolences after a mass shooting. He warned that his comments would be described as “politicizing” the situation but that this was a situation that should be politicized. It has become routine, said the President, and it has. We have become inured to the tragedies that unfold before us when crazed gunmen slaughter men, women and children.
This young man engaged with others on social media about his intentions. Disgustingly, some respondents encouraged him and gave him tips. No one alerted authorities. Hearing this I was not surprised; my lack of surprise horrified me. I felt thoroughly ashamed of my fellowmen. Who would encourage murder? Are they not culpable?
The young man asked victims if they were Christians. If they said yes, he shot them in the head.
Another young man, a former soldier, Chris Mintz, launched himself at the shooter and was shot seven times.
As I write this, Mike Huckabee is on CNN talking about this tragedy. He has often said that more guns are needed to protect us rather than less. The network’s anchors are giving him a challenging time about his positions.
The Vatican is attempting to push back at the controversy that has bubbled up about Francis’ meeting with Kym Davis, the Kentucky County Clerk who opposes gay marriage. The meeting tarnished the glow among liberals from the Pope’s trip to America. It had been described as a private meeting between the two, with the Pope giving her support and a rosary.
Now the Vatican is saying it was not a private meeting but she was part of a group.
Conservatives, including Huckabee, just now, deny the denial.
Both the U.S. led coalition and Russia are leading airstrikes in Syria. All of the U.S. Coalition’s strikes have been against IS. Russia has been targeting both anti-Assad groups and IS. They are using “dumb” bombs, which will cause indiscriminate damage.
Western nations are demanding that Russia only target IS. My sense is that Russia is shrugging its shoulders and is calling all rebel forces, terrorists.
Friction, of course, exists between Russia, and every one else fighting IS. It’s very messy.
Paris meetings today that were to focus on Ukraine probably will now shift to Syria.
Amazon has its own OTT devices and in a push to get them sold, it has pulled other OTT makers like Roku from its shelves. It will be interesting to see what this will do. Their Fire devices have not been particularly successful in the marketplace.
There was a weak jobs report today with only 141,000 jobs added this past month. It has sent the markets into a wobbly day. Credit Suisse is wondering if the markets are panicking.
They are certainly down.
However, despite the national mourning and the bad economic news I am feeling centered and upbeat today while acknowledging tragedy and grief. I’m off to have my iPhone screen repaired; I shattered it yesterday. Then I am going to see if I can have my haircut.
Tags:Amazon, Amazon bans rivals, Amazon Fire, Assad, Baltimore, Chris Mintz, Credit Suisse, iPhone, Kym Davis, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mike Huckabee, Obama, Oregon Shooting, Papal denial, Pope Francis, Putin, Roku, Russia, Social Media, Syria, Syrian Airstrikes, Umpqua, Vatican
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October 1, 2015
Russia. Putin. Kerry. Lavrov. IS. Syria. Joaquin. Nefertiti. Bernie Sanders. Hillary Clinton. Joe Biden. Abraham Lincoln’s ghost.
There are so many things to think about today as the Acela glides south toward Washington, D.C. I am headed down there for a couple of “get togethers,” not really meetings.
My former partner and I are having lunch; he recently found something emotionally important to me in a drawer and is returning it to me and then I am having drinks with my dear, good friend, Rita Mullin, who recently left Discovery and is contemplating her future.
While I am contemplating a pleasant day, the world stage is filled with players doing unpleasant things.
Russia has built up its military presence in Syria and launched airstrikes. Surprising to some but not to me, they didn’t bomb IS but anti-Assad troops, some of them trained by the U.S. As early as today, Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Lavrov, will meet to discuss ways of avoiding unanticipated “encounters.”
In other words, the whole Syrian situation has become more chaotic. Putin has one military base outside of Russia. It’s in Syria and he is not going to let it go while he works to ensure he is perceived as a player on the stage of world events.
I’m afraid many more may die to help him perceive himself in that role.
Hurricane Joaquin is battering the Bahamas and is headed north, skipping Florida and probably coming ashore in the Carolinas, then working its way north. New York City is in, as the Times said, “the cone of uncertainty.” I will say a prayer Joaquin does not disrupt my Sunday flight to Indianapolis.
As I have mentioned before, I dreamed in my childhood of being an Egyptologist. That world is all atwitter, as I have also mentioned before, that there is a room behind the burial chamber of King Tutankhamen, which may well be the burial place of Nefertiti. If it is true, the place may no longer be known at King Tut’s but as Queen Nefertiti’s.
She was a more important figure than Tutankhamen, who died at 17. She co-ruled with her husband and then, suddenly, disappeared from the historical scene. Her bust sits in a room of its own in a museum in Berlin, regal and enchanting, alluring and mystifying.
While Nefertiti has enchanted across the millennia, in the moment we seem to be enchanted with “outsiders” in our political process. On the Republican side, the frontrunners are Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina, none of whom have held political office.
Bernie Sanders is beginning to clip at the heels of Hillary Clinton. In the last fund raising period Sanders raised $24 million to Hillary’s $28 million. Complicating Hillary’s situation is the specter that Biden will throw his hat in the ring. Her camp is suddenly taking the possibility seriously and is working to outflank him.
Recent polls indicate he would be the most popular candidate of either the Democrats or Republicans.
Speaking of specters, my friend Joshua Warren, has released a photo that was shot during the renovation of the White House under President Truman, which shows a figure that cannot be explained. He is sure that it is the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. You can find out more, here: http://freecharm.com/WhiteHouseGhostPhoto.html
We are soon arriving in Baltimore, my ultimate destination today. Tomorrow evening we will be celebrating my Australian “brother’s” birthday at his favorite restaurant in Baltimore, where he now lives. Streaks of rain have begun to touch the windows of the train; all around me the early morning travelers seem to be largely napping, catching a few winks before arriving in DC.
The day is grey but I’m not in a grey mood. I hope you’re not either.
Tags:Abraham Lincoln's Ghost, Ben Carson, Bernie Sanders, Carly Fiorina, Donald Trump, Harry Truman, Hillary Clinton, IS, Joaquin, Kerry, Lavrov, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Nefertiti, Putin, Russia, Syria
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September 28, 2015
Super Moon. Putin and Obama at the UN. Water flowing on Mars. An independent Catalonia? Taliban rising, again. Living on $17 a day. More on Volkswagen.
Last night, when the eclipse came at 10:47, I was already deeply in the arms of Morpheus. I had thought I might be able to make it but I was asleep before ten, drifting off, like many other days, reading a book.
Now I am on my way into New York City to have dinner with my godson, after a meeting this morning in Hudson. The day, which I thought was going to be sunny, has turned gray and mournful. The Hudson River looks like a sheet of beaten silver. Leaves are beginning to turn though I suspect it may not be a too colorful fall; the leaves that have turned haven’t much color and look as if they had just surrendered to winter, without a final burst of brilliance.
Both Putin and Obama spoke today at the UN. Even though he is meeting Putin today, Obama questioned Russian motives while leaving the door open for a constructive working relationship. That feels a little hard to imagine, a day after Russia, Syria, Iraq and Syria made an agreement to collaborate with each other on IS, without alerting or consulting the U.S.
But who knows what will happen behind closed doors with the two of them?
NASA now says that water flows intermittently on Mars. While it may be briny, it does flow at times which opens the doors wider for life on the Red Planet at some point in its past or present. Wouldn’t that be amazing? [And you’re correct, I am eagerly awaiting the Matt Damon starrer, “The Martian.”]
While I was wrapped in the arms of Morpheus, worshipping the god Somnus, the Taliban seized most of the city of Kunduz in Afghanistan, giving them a prize they have long desired. Afghan Security Forces and UN Personnel fled to safety as defenses collapsed.
It is the first time in fourteen years that the Taliban have managed to swarm into a city rather than attack with isolated bombings and individual acts.
Far to the west, in Spain, the Catalonian region held elections yesterday. A year ago, the region held a referendum on independence from Spain and those who wanted to leave outvoted those who wanted to stay. Madrid declared it unconstitutional and Catalonia remains part of Spain.
In yesterday’s elections, secessionists won a majority of seats but conventional wisdom seems to be thinking that Catalonia doesn’t really want independence but it wants a better deal from the Central government. This election helps strengthen their hand.
17 Florida legislators, mostly Democrats, are going to live on $17.00 a day for a week in a gesture to support a law to raise the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour. They figure that $17.00 is what a minimum wage worker has left over to live on when all the basics are paid.
We all know that Volkswagen had some really good code writers for the software they used in their diesel cars. It fooled testers into believing the cars weren’t emitting pollution when they were. Now the former head, who stepped down after the scandal broke, is now being investigated for fraud. Martin Winterkorn intimated he knew nothing but the German authorities aren’t so sure.
VW has lost a third of it market capitalization since the crisis exploded and the 78-year-old company is facing its biggest challenge.
More dull economic news from China resulted in more losses for the markets today. No denying it’s a global economy.
Nor can I deny that the sun has come out as I am passing the slowly rising new Tappan Zee Bridge. It burst through clouds and now glimmers off the silver water.
The train is well over an hour late and the conductors are being bombarded by questions as to when we’ll get to New York. One poor man is attempting to catch a plane out of Kennedy. He might JUST make it.
I will make my dinner with my godson and for that, I’m grateful.
Tags:"The Martian", Catalonia, China, Florida Legislators, Hudson River, Iran, Iraq, Kunduz, Legislators living on $17 a day, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matt Damon, New York City, Obama, Putin, Russia, Spain, Supermoon, Syria, Taliban, Tappan Zee Bridge, Volkswagen, VW
Posted in Afghanistan, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Social Commentary, Taliban | Leave a Comment »
September 28, 2015
The Pope is preached brotherly love in Philadelphia. Putin and Obama will meet. The GOP is in disarray. Watching the Super Moon. Finishing the Tennessee Williams Festival. Death visits while on the Haj. Iraq, Russia, Syria and Iran are all playing footsie with one another.
All of these are things I was thinking about while I was crawling down US-6 from Provincetown, working my way slowly to get home. I left before 10:30, thinking I would miss the traffic. I was wrong.
It gave me much time to think. I had had a more than pleasant five days in Provincetown with my friends Dawn McCall and Gail Williams. I attended four performances at the Tennessee Williams Festival in Provincetown, all of them thought provoking.
Last night, Dawn and Gail invited my friends Nick and Lisa to dinner and we had a wonderful time. We started with martinis and made our way through an extraordinary dinner of steak and grilled vegetables. Dawn works the grill better than anyone I know.
On the way home, I listened to a variety of NPR radio stations, a mélange of music and news.
Pope Francis did preach brotherly love in Philadelphia and met with survivors of sexual abuse. He has, as I write this, departed Philadelphia and is headed back to Rome. I am sure he will be sleeping soundly on the flight; it has been a busy ten days between Cuba and the U.S.
With Boehner leaving Congress it will be fascinating to see what will happen next with the Republicans. It seems John Boehner had had enough of his fractious colleagues and just decided to pack his toys and go home. It probably means there will not be a government shutdown this go round but who knows what mayhem will come next?
Iran is demanding an apology from Saudi Arabia over the deaths at this year’s Haj. I doubt that will happen but it does point out how dangerous and volatile the Haj has become in recent years. It’s the equivalent of a rather large city on the move, all at one time.
Syria, Iraq, Iran and Russia have come to an agreement to work together to defeat IS. Russia is out there, working to claim its place in this mess. They support Assad. I’m not sure whom the other players actually support but it now seems like they have aligned themselves with Russia, and Assad.
Tomorrow, Putin and Obama will meet. Neither of them claims to have requested the meeting but they will meet. It, hopefully, will be a good thing.
Returning home tonight, I was peckish and went down to the Dot for a bite. David Drake is the bartender on Sundays and Mondays. When not bartending, he paints. I have two of his paintings in my home. I love them.
As I was driving home, I saw the full moon, huge, low in the sky. I probably will not be able to see it when it turns blood red and there is an eclipse of it. I am home and when the eclipse happens, the small forest of trees that surrounds my home will hide the moon. But the moon was huge tonight.
As I sit here writing, the heat is now on, the first time this year. When I entered the house after my return from Provincetown, it was cool to the point of uncomfortable.
Tomorrow will be another day. I think. There are those who claim that tonight’s Super Moon, the fourth in a succession of them, is a harbinger of the end of the world.
I don’t think so.
Tags:David Drake, Dawn McCall, Death on the Haj, Gail Williams, Haj, John Boehner, Lisa Caltaldo, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Nick Stuart, NPR, Obama, Pope Francis, Pope in Philadelphia, Provincetown, Putin, Raul Castro, Supermoon, Tennessee Williams Festival
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September 25, 2015
Xi Jinping. Syria. Refugee crises. Pope Francis. Stampede at the Haj. Jeremy Corbin. Greece. John Boehner. And so on…
The world continues to rattle along, mostly badly if you read the headlines. I haven’t for a couple of days, while whiling away my time here in Provincetown. At this moment, I am sitting in the kitchen of my friends Dawn and Gail’s incredible home, sipping coffee and thinking how lucky I am to be alive and in this place today.
It’s the weekend of the Tennessee Williams Theater Festival in Provincetown. Dawn and I went to “The Parade” yesterday, a little known Williams’ play, featuring his emotional hallmarks. Everyone in the play is slightly or greatly tortured. Set on sand dunes, it was performed on a platform on real sand dunes, as the tide was slowly rising. I was facing west, the sun slowly descending in the pallid blue afternoon sky.
It was a near perfect experience. Sitting with a friend, watching performers, outside, with a light wind blowing off the sea.
Later we chased the most beautiful sunset and I stood at water’s edge to take a photo.
Before setting off to retrieve our tickets and to attend the play, we watched Pope Francis speak to Congress. Speaking in halting English, sometimes a little hard to understand, Francis called out to all our better angels. At one moment, I felt tears form in my eyes. As they seem to be doing with John Boehner, Speaker of the House.
Just now, I received a flash alert from AP on my phone that he is stepping down at the end of October and not just as Speaker but also from the House itself.
While I slept the night before last over 700 people died in a stampede at the Haj, the holy journey every Muslim is extolled to take once in their lives. Nearly a thousand were injured. If I were Muslim, I am not sure I could be extolled to make the Haj. I don’t like big crowds. I don’t mean to be flip; this is a tragedy and I have said a prayer for those dead and injured.
Tsipras of Greece is pledging to enact the necessary reforms for Greece’s bailout quickly. He needs to move quickly on several fronts. Greece is the center of the refugee/migrant crisis as well as having huge financial issues.
As Pope Francis left Washington for New York, President Xi Jinping of China arrived. Obama is having a busy week with international leaders. It’s being said that China and America are going to strive for cooperation, especially over cyber affairs, after a period of tension over that and several other things.
Russia is settling into being a player in Syria and seems to be working on beefing up its communications with Iran on how to deal with that country.
Jeremy Corbin is the new head of Britain’s Labour Party. He is a staunch Republican and has an upcoming audience with the Queen. He has not decided whether he will kneel, as is traditional.
At his very moment, I am listening to Francis speak at the United Nations, speaking on the environment. He has given so much hope to so many and I am hoping that his words echo with life long after he is gone.
Tags:Greek Debt Crisis, Haj, Jeremy Corbin, John Boehner, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Obama, Pope Francis, Provincetown, Putin, refugee crisis, Russia, Syria, Tennessee Williams, The Parade, Tsipiras, Xi Jinping
Posted in European Refugee Crisis, Greek Debt Crisis, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Social Commentary, Syria | Leave a Comment »
September 22, 2015
As I am sitting in the Acela Club at Penn Station, I am watching CNN, which is covering the arrival of the Pope. He landed at Joint Base Andrews and at this moment is arriving at the Diplomatic Mission of the Vatican in Washington, DC, on Massachusetts Avenue.
When Francis touched down, President and Michelle Obama and Vice President Biden were present to greet him, an unprecedented honor. He is waving to the crowd as he slips into the residence for a night of rest.
Tonight is Yom Kippur, the holiest of nights to Jews, and Pope Francis does not want to detract from that. Tens of thousands have been mobilized to keep him safe. The Secret Service sent a man to Rome to watch how Francis interacts with crowds so they might anticipate what they needed to do.
While waiting for Francis to address a Joint Session of Congress [a first], we are, once again, facing a shutdown of the government. The Republicans want to defund Planned Parenthood and the Democrats are opposed to that. Somehow I fail to see why the Republicans are SO against Planned Parenthood.
My Republican respect keeps descending.
While all eyes are watching Francis and his movements, EU leaders have been meeting, working to decide how to handle the thousands of refugees and migrants. I found the information a little confused and oriented to dealing with the future rather than the present.
While the EU is determining what to do with the refugees there, Turkey and the US are working to figure out what Putin is up to in Syria. He intends to start bombing ASAP. They’re not sure who it is he will be bombing. Will it be IS as he says OR will it be the anti-Assad Syrian rebels who are also fighting IS? Turkey and the US fear it will be the latter as Putin and Assad have been playing footsie for decades.
I’m now on the train, heading north, on my right the Hudson River glides by with the setting sun glinting off its surface. It’s been mostly a grey day in New York but now the sun is bursting out from behind the clouds as it descends in the west.
All the way out west, in Burbank, CA, a 24 year-old man was taken into custody after he punched a 78 year-old in the face over Nutella Waffle Samples at a Costco. It seems like something that should be in “The Onion” and not real news. But it is real. The young man could face up to 11 years in prison.
There is a soft, golden glow in the west as we move north. The landscape is inescapably beautiful. I am closing down now for the night, wanting to enjoy the beauty around me before the sunset and we are gathered in the dark.
I am coming to the end of reading Steven Saylor’s Roman novels – at least all the ones he’s written so far. Another one is coming out in October. But they remind me that world has always been full of travail and that gives me hope that we will survive this time and find our own next future.
Tags:Assad, Biden, EU, European Refugee Crisis, GOP, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Michelle Obama, Obama, Planned Parenthood, Pope Francis, Putin, Steven Saylor, Syria, Turkey, Vatican, Yom Kippur
Posted in European Refugee Crisis, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Social Commentary | Leave a Comment »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From New York 10 08 15 From Minneapolis…
October 8, 2015Speaker of the House. Kunduz. Doctors Without Borders. Russia. Iran. Obama. Putin. Rupert Murdoch and “real blackness.” Paul Prudhomme. Spencer Stone. Sepp Blatter. Svetlana Alexievich.
Letter From New York originates in Minneapolis today, where the sun burst through the sky and it was charming this morning, warm after a light rain last night. But, alas, now the sun has slipped behind dark clouds and rain is threatening.
Tonight I will be having dinner with Jean Cronin Olson, who once, very long ago was a student of mine and in the intervening years, for the most part, we have kept in touch and often when I am in Minneapolis we gather for coffee and a long chat. Tonight it’s dinner at her home with her husband Jon and whatever of her four children will be about.
The idea that my students have adult children is very sobering to me.
Sobering to the Republican Party was the unexpected announcement that Kevin McCarthy, widely thought to be the man who would replace John Boehner as Speaker of the House, was withdrawing his name from consideration. Apparently, he, like Boehner, doesn’t want to content with the forty or so hard to the right, Tea Party Republicans who think they should be running the show.
By all accounts, it’s all rather mad and according to the Washington Post, very much like Neflix’s political drama, “House of Cards.” Now who will be playing Francis Underwood in this real life drama?
President Obama phoned Dr. Joanne Liu, the head of Doctors Without Borders and offered an apology for the bombing of their hospital in Kunduz. At least thirty-three workers are dead. She has acknowledged she “received” the apology but there is no indication that she has accepted it. She wants an independent investigation of the incident.
Russia has been firing missiles from ships in the Caspian Sea at targets in Syria. Four of them fell short and landed in rural Iran. I wonder what the Ayatollah thinks about that?
Putin turned 63 and celebrated with a lot of hockey themed events. He and his staff played against a team of professional Russian players. Not so shockingly in today’s Russia, Putin’s team won! Imagine that! And Putin got a gold medal for the most successful shots. Amazing! Is there nothing this man can’t do brilliantly?
He is, in fact, if not in title, Tsar Vladimir of Russia. But let us not forget the brutal end of the last real Tsar. Nicholas II and his family ended in front of a firing squad.
Rupert Murdoch is one of the “Tsars” of global media. He has become infatuated with Ben Carson and tweeted that he wondered what it would be like to have a “real” black President. Rupert has since apologized. As he should.
In the 1990’s the great television gathering called NATPE [National Association of Television Programming Executives] met one year in Las Vegas and the following year in New Orleans. On one of the New Orleans’ excursions I met Paul Prudhomme, the Cajun chef, who passed away today after at short illness at 75. He shot around his restaurant on an electric scooter. He was near his heaviest at the time, weighing well over 550 pounds. It was a good meal.
Spencer Stone, who helped stop a massacre on a French train a few weeks ago, was stabbed in Sacramento early this morning after leaving a nightclub. Seriously wounded, he is expected to survive.
Sepp Blatter, President of FIFA, has been suspended. So have a few other senior officials. One wonders who is running the place though one has wondered that even when they were there.
And finally, Svetlana Alexeivich, a writer from Belarus, has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. She tells history through the voices of people who lived it. Hats off.
Soon it is time for me to go and get ready for dinner. May yours be good.
Tags:"Real blackness", Doctors Without Borders, Iran, Joanne Liu, John Boehner, Kevin McCarthy, Kunduz, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Minneapolis, Obama, Putin, Rupert Murdoch, Russia, Sepp Blatter, Speaker of the House, Spencer Stone, Svetlana Alexievich, Tea Party
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