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Letter From New York 02 11 15 A bit of chaos here and there…

February 11, 2015

As I ride south into the city, the Hudson River to my right is ice bound, with bright light glittering off the frozen surface of the river. The journey into the city was precipitated by a couple of meetings, one of which has already been cancelled while I was boarding the train. My friend Rita’s plane from DC was cancelled and she is rushing to the train station to get the next train.

After many bad experiences, I am skeptical about the wisdom of doing anything but training between Washington and New York.

My train is bumping along as it works its way to New York. It arrived late in Hudson because of equipment trouble but only by thirty minutes. The equipment is suffering from the cold and hence the ride is rockier than usual. I can feel it in my back.

The world of television has been rocked in the last twenty-four hours.

Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show for the last fifteen years, announced yesterday that he would be departing the program this year, as early as July or as late as December, but he is leaving.

It is a double blow for Comedy Central, which also lost Stephen Colbert this year to CBS where he is taking over late night duties for David Letterman. The network has indicated The Daily Show will continue and there is scrambling to find a replacement for him.

Scrambling is also going on over at NBC. Steven Burke, CEO of NBCUniversal, paid a visit to Brian Williams yesterday and informed him that he was going to be suspended without pay for the next six months. It may be the beginning of the end of Williams’ career. Twitter has tweets that NBC is now looking into his expense reports and investigating the veracity of other stories that Mr. Williams has told about his in-field experiences.

As I write this, the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France are huddling in Minsk, Belarus, in an effort to find some political solution to the Ukrainian crisis. There are rumors of some progress, but sides still seem far apart. More than 5,300 have lost their lives. Somewhere between 1.2 million and 1.5 million have been made refugees.

The Russian Foreign Minister, Lavrov, has commented that there has been “noticeable progress.” Interpretation: Russia is getting closer to what it wants, I guess. Ms. Merkel of Germany holds out slim hope but will continue to walk the diplomatic path in honor of the civilians who have died.

Hundreds of refugees from Africa are believed to have died in an attempt to reach Italy, joining the thousands who have already drowned in the last years, trying to cross the Mediterranean, hoping to find a better life in Europe.

Three Muslim adult students were gunned down in Chapel Hill, SC. It may have been a hate crime or it may have been a parking dispute. Either way, a tragedy.

Obama has asked for war authorization against ISIS. He used interesting phrasing, with the plan barring “enduring offensive combat operations.” It is to last three years. Speaker Boehner quickly criticized the plan and indicated there would be Congressional changes.

A little over three years ago, the cruise liner Costa Concordia ran aground off an Italian island and 32 people lost their lives. Today, just moments ago, its Captain, Francesco Schettino, was found guilty of manslaughter. He faces 26 years in prison. He was also accused, and found guilty of, abandoning his passengers to save himself.

It was said that when the Costa Concordia hit the rocks, there was chaos. In Alabama today there is a bit of judicial chaos. The Supreme Court refused to put a stay on gay marriage in Alabama and that should have been the end of it. But gay couples can only get married in parts of Alabama today as some judges refuse to carry out ceremonies. An Alabama female minister was arrested on disorderly conduct charges after offering to conduct a same sex wedding. She is in jail.

Alabama has a long history of fighting orders from the Federal Courts. It will be interesting to watch how all this plays out.

Far enough south now, the Hudson River flows freely at the center. The train is approaching New York City. The equipment, however, has not thawed out and I will be glad to end the bumpy ride.

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Letter From New York 02 09 15 In the midst of an absurd winter…

February 9, 2015

For the last eighteen hours it has been snowing steadily here in Claverack; about ten inches in on the ground and it’s supposed to continue snowing until morning. The snowplow was just here to plow the drive and got stuck backing down the drive. Another truck had to come and pull him out. It was interesting to watch. I went out and asked the driver of the stuck truck if he wanted to come in and wait inside but he demurred and shortly after his boss arrived and they managed the situation.

Two and a half feet of snow are piled on the deck; icicles ring the house and the snow keeps falling. It’s very much winter in the Northeast. Boston is buried in snow again and has run out of room to put the newest snowfall. Some in Boston are calling this winter “absurd.”

From pictures I have seen today from Alabama, it is not very wintry there. Gay couples in shirtsleeves showed up this morning to get married. In some counties they could and in some counties they couldn’t and in some counties nobody could get married, gay or straight.

The Alabama Supreme Court Justice, Roy Moore, declared that Probate Judges, who issue marriage licenses, didn’t have to obey a Federal Court order that they had to start marrying gays. Understandably, some confusion ensued. The Supreme Court of the United States refused a request by the Attorney General of Alabama to stay gay marriage in that state until the Supreme Court rules upon the matter later this spring.

So, some gay men and women got married in Alabama today, the 37th state to now acknowledge gay marriage. At least in some places.

The Ukraine crisis stutters along. More consultations will take place, ministers will meet, Heads of State will confer but, as the Washington Post, opined today we don’t have a long-term strategy towards Ukraine. Putin seems to have one. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and other foreign ministers were at the annual Munich Security Conference on Saturday. Lavrov continued the Russian hard line while also apparently insinuating that the re-unification of Germany might not have been legal. Normally a staid affair, it was anything but this year.

In Marseilles, gunfire erupted between drug related gangs, with the city’s police chief momentarily pinned down by the violence. The French Prime Minister was just arriving in the city to boast how crime was on the decline in Marseilles, a big center for drug trafficking from Morocco.

In what was disturbing news today, even a bit creepy, is that apparently your Smart TV, if equipped with voice recognition software, might just be spying on you. That fight with your significant other might be being piped over to the servers of the set’s builders. And it has been sometimes been happening even when the feature has been turned off. I think that unseemly. I wonder if Amazon’s Alexa does that? I will have to be careful of what I say when I am over at my neighbor’s.

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Letter From New York 02 08 15 As the snow falls…

February 8, 2015

About fifteen hours later than was predicted, snow has begun to fall in Claverack. We are supposed to get another eighteen inches tonight if the forecast actually holds. It will be interesting to wake up in the morning and see what we actually have gotten. I am supposed to go into the city tomorrow but have a feeling I may have to cancel my meetings and reschedule them.

Freshly back from the Red Dot, my favorite local place, I am sitting at my desk, looking out at the small snowflakes which are falling, growing slowly in their intensity and size. It’s been another one of those grey and gloomy days and I went down to the Red Dot for both a bite to eat and a bit of company. Living alone sometimes leads to a bit of isolation, which I do my best to counter with forays into the world.

Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany and the de facto leader of the EU, is facing her biggest challenges right now. Desperately, Europe is attempting to defuse the growing crisis in the Ukraine and the leaders of Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine are meeting tomorrow in Minsk to see if they can avert a spiral into chaos. Meanwhile, she is also attempting to manage Greece’s rebellion against austerity. The former chairman of the Fed, Alan Greenspan, has predicted that Greece will leave the Eurozone and that the Eurozone itself is doomed unless there is greater political connectivity – in effect, a United States of Europe. That’s grim.

Brian Williams’ problems continue to grow. More and more folks are calling for him to resign and it seems that he will be irrevocably damaged even if he keeps his job, which is becoming more doubtful by the day.

Out in the Mideast, Jordanian planes continue to pound ISIS. Jordan is claiming it has destroyed 20% of ISIS’s military capacity. The immolation of the Jordanian pilot, Moaz Al-Kasasbeh, has apparently united the Arab coalition against ISIS, which is the opposite of what they expected. The globe is uniting in their condemnation of ISIS in a way they haven’t before.

In Australia, Prime Minister Tony Abbott is facing a crisis and may well lose his leadership position in his party, echoing what happened to his predecessors. Internecine warfare seems to becoming the norm in Australian politics, regardless of party.

Iran is indicating this is the best opportunity there will ever be for a nuclear agreement. President Rouhani of Iran, a moderate, is walking a fine line against the religious leaders of Iran while our Congress is talking about more sanctions, which could scuttle the talks. President Obama has said that he will veto such sanctions but everyone is walking a tightrope right now. Rouhani’s Foreign Minister, Zarif, was criticized for taking a walk with Secretary of State John Kerry. Rouhani struck back at the critics but he is playing a very limited game of cards. He is not the final say in Iran. Khamenei, the religious leader, has the final say.

Ah, what a world in which we live, full of discord and violence, while at the same time, so full of beauty. My deer are crossing the yard as the snow falls around them, moving slowly off to the west, beautiful in their passage and innocent in their lives. Jazz still plays on Pandora and soon I will leave to watch the Grammies with friends.

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Letter From New York 02 07 15 Before the storm…

February 7, 2015

Soft jazz has been playing in the background almost all day. It is still chill out and we’re facing another winter storm, promising another foot of snow and brutal cold. Feeling a bit of cabin fever, I went out for a walk around my circle and then went and put in a few groceries in case the storm is even worse than they are predicting.

Grey and rather depressing, I found the music helped alleviate my mood, which was also brightened by a spontaneous text message from my godson, telling me he was thinking of me and that he loved me. It made the grey day bright and cheery inside me.

Sitting here with a fresh cup of tea, I have been reading the day’s news. My usual routine was broken this morning and I didn’t have a chance to read the NY Times as young Nick was coming to help me much earlier today than he normally arrives on Saturday. We piled in a stock of wood in case the electricity goes so I can heat the house with the Franklin stove, made our weekly trip down to the Transfer Station [aka “the dump”] and cleaned up all the marks we had left hauling in the wood.

While I slept last night, suicide bombers blew themselves up in Baghdad, taking at least 40 others with them and injuring dozens more. ISIS claimed responsibility for one of them, near a packed restaurant, while the others have not been claimed by any group. It is another case of Sunni against Shia.

Jordan has escalated its attacks on ISIS and is striking them both in Syria and in Iraq. One Jordanian official says they will continue until ISIS is destroyed. The UAE, which had suspended its bombings after the capture of the now dead Jordanian pilot, has now rejoined the fight and is basing a squadron of F-16’s in Jordan.

Meanwhile, in Mosul, one of its two stronghold cities, messages are being blared from the city’s mosques that any family with more than one son should give one up to become a jihadi. Apparently, an underground has formed in Mosul and is attacking ISIS. Interesting.

In Africa, the Boko Haram are also trying to carve out an Islamic State, and are being challenged by troops from the African Union. Nigeria has been mostly unsuccessful in combating them but its neighboring states are committing troops to the effort. They have had better luck.

Ukraine festers, despite the efforts of Merkel and Hollande. Europe is dividing over what to do next and it may well be that Europe is now “too civilized” to do too much. They are also heavily dependent on Russian energy supplies and there is still some winter left to this year and more winters to face. Some are calling for the US to make more natural gas available to Europe so that the EU will feel, perhaps, a little more able to stand up to Russia.

The UK newspaper, The Telegraph, had an article today that questioned whether Putin was strategic, cunning or just plain mad. It is a question worthy of asking. His actions seem to defy logic, which is another reason it is hard to deal with him.

Feeling he has become the news rather than just reporting on it, Brian Williams will not be appearing on The Nightly News for at least the next few days. The storm around him has been getting bigger, even since yesterday. There are unconfirmed rumors that Tom Brokaw is badgering for his dismissal amid other reports that Brokaw has known for years that the story Williams was telling was untrue but that he had done nothing. It is also being reported that some time ago, NBC News told Williams to quit telling the story. He didn’t and now he is in the cross hairs of news organizations all over the world. Ouch.

The days are growing longer. Even a couple of weeks ago, it would be almost dark by now, as I sit finishing my blog for the day. It causes a smile.

Now I’m off to prepare to go to a friend’s for dinner, a good night, hopefully, before the storm begins.

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Letter From New York 02 06 15 Strange Patterns…

February 6, 2015

It is that time of day when the golden light of the setting sun flashes across the mounds of snow lining my drive. It looks inviting but the temperature is very low, with a wind chill pushing it down even further. It was a day to be huddled inside. Even with the heat up and a sweater and a fleece jacket on, there is a chilly feeling to the cottage. When I finish writing, I am going to build a fire and begin prepping dinner.

As I usually do before sitting down to write, I scan the trending stories on Google News, trying to catch up with all that is happening out there in the world, far from the tranquil spot where I sit.

By now, Chancellor Merkel of Germany and President Hollande of France must be on their way home from Moscow, where they were to meet with Putin today. Meanwhile, while they were in Moscow, a truce was called and buses were sent to evacuate more people from the contested zone. As of now, 1.2 million have fled the fighting in Ukraine, helping to add to the global refugee crisis. It has been reported that there are more refugees now than at any time since the end of World War II.

NBC has launched an internal investigation of Brian Williams, the face of NBC News, now accused of inflating events in Iraq in 2003. It is also now being claimed he may have also “misremembered” things that happened to him during Hurricane Katrina. His scandal is growing and there are even a few of his peers who are suggesting he had best resign.

ISIS has issued a report that the Jordanian bombing of Raqqa killed an American hostage, a young woman by the name of Kayla Mueller. She was working with Syrian refugees when she was kidnapped. Other than the statement, there has been no verification. It maybe that the Jordanian attack gave ISIS cover to announce the death of Ms. Mueller. The beheading or immolation of a female hostage could have been a nightmare for ISIS. They are doing these terrible things to garner attention but they have a sometimes canny sense of what they can or cannot do.

Though they seem to have gone too far with the immolation of the Jordanian pilot. The backlash they are receiving is louder and more strident than anything before and they have now an entire Islamic nation enraged.

Enraged at Obama is what the Christian right is today after his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. He reminded the audience that Christians, too, have had blood on their hands over the course of history. He mentioned the Crusades, the Inquisition and Jim Crow. And the response from the right was thunderous. But Obama has no more campaigns to run and is saying what he thinks. While he was correct, it is not actually current. Christianity hasn’t been fighting crusades for a long time and the horrific behavior of the Colonial era is sliding into the past as Christians are now emerging as the most persecuted group in the world. They have moved from the persecutors to the persecuted in a few generations.

But the ones who are suffering the most, I suspect, are Muslims. The rift between Sunni and Shia is enormous and is used to justify a lot of suicide bombings.

One of the questions that often asked is why is religion so often the cause for violence and not for healing?

I don’t have an answer. I do know that historically religion has been at the center of most of human conflict. My God doesn’t like your God so I am going to kill you. It’s a strange pattern. Jesus wouldn’t have agreed but over the centuries lots and lots and lots of human beings have lost their lives to other human beings with a different interpretation of Jesus.

A similar thing seems to be going on within Islam.

Ah, the sun has almost set. There is a pink glow to the west. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Let us hope that the pink glow presages a good day tomorrow.

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Letter From New York 01 05 15 Pays to be honest…

February 5, 2015

There is a soft, golden light piercing through the trees as the sun begins to set in the west. After several dark days, the sun was out in all its winter brilliance today. As I sit down to write, the temperature is going down with the sun and tonight will be the coldest one of the winter so far. Predictions, without wind chill, are for minus seven. It will be another night of letting the cold-water faucet in the kitchen drip through the night to avoid a freezing of the pipes.

It’s been a busy day, mostly inside busy with emails and conference calls, a few errands that were run and now my time to write. In the world of good intentions, I intended to bundle up and go for a walk but seemed to run out of time to fit that in before leaving for a dinner tonight with friends at Coyote Flaco, a little Mexican restaurant up the road. It is owned by an Ecuadorian and is staffed by folks from Guatemala. The food is good.

As the sun sets, so does the career of Amy Pascal, Co-Chairman of Sony Pictures. She is departing her job but as these things happen in Hollywood, she will have a production deal at her old company, a soft landing after all the leaked emails damaged her reputation in the Sony hacking event of last fall.

Perusing stories online today, I found one from the Telegraph in the UK positing that Europe is “too civilized” to take on Putin. There are more high-level meetings happening in Kiev. Angela Merkel of Germany and Hollande of France were in Kiev today and are flying on to Moscow tomorrow to have a sit down with Putin, who will probably nod as he listens but will go on doing what he wants.

The Russian voters are standing with him; they have a history of standing by their besieged leaders and they are used to suffering after centuries of it under the Tsars and the Communists. Even though they are buckling from the collapse in oil prices and the effects of Western sanctions, the majority of Russians are standing by their man. And he seems quite determined to either take part of Ukraine or have part of it as a vassal state.

Dreams of empire dance in Putin’s head. NATO is putting rapid response forces in a number of former Communist countries that feel threatened by Russia’s aggression, reassuring countries like Moldova that they chose the right side at the end of the Cold War.

In the hot war world, Jordan launched an air assault on the city of Raqqa and other ISIS targets today in retaliation for the gruesome murder of their pilot in January. They promise more. ISIS apparently was thinking that the death of Moaz al-Kasaesbeh would turn Jordan from continuing on with US led coalition bombing them.

They were wrong.

Preaching peace, the President and the Dalai Lama were both at the National Prayer Breakfast in DC but they were not “together.” Acknowledging the Dalai Lama though, Obama irked the Chinese.

That other great proponent of all things peaceful, Pope Francis, will become the first Pope to address Congress this fall when he visits the United States.

In the category of it pays to be honest, Brian Williams, NBC News Anchor, apparently had told the world he had been on a helicopter that was hit during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He was corrected by the crew of the stricken helicopter; the newsman had not been onboard. Apologizing for his “confusion” Williams has damaged his credibility and has been made fun of by jokesters who have shown him broadcasting from the moon.

One man who was aboard the group of helicopters with Williams just shrugged his shoulders and said, “Whatever.”

The light has faded and I am leaving soon to go to Coyote Flaco and have something different than my usual chicken fajitas. I am going to do some culinary exploring.

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Letter From New York 02 04 15 Far from a troubled world…

February 4, 2015

Returning to Claverack last night, I found my drive bordered with small mountains of snow from the plowman. Waking this morning, I saw that for the first time in all the years I have been here, the creek has frozen over. It was a brisk three degrees this morning when I got up to make the morning coffee. The cold seemed to permeate the walls.

When I was pulling into the drive after a foray to the store for food and a fresh ink cartridge for my printer I had to wait at the base of the drive for the daily deer migration. Checking the car clock, I saw it was four o’clock. I’ve been wondering why at four, almost precisely, they cross my property?

The world outside my window seems, once again, almost a black and white photo, as the sun is setting. The moon is full and last night cast magical sparkles on the snow driving home.

When I had my morning coffee, I checked in on the New York Times, catching up with the world.

Last night, tragically, an SUV got stuck in a railroad crossing, and was hit by a northbound train. It exploded and the driver, a young Jewish woman and mother of three, was killed along with five of the train’s passengers, including the curator of European painting at the Metropolitan Museum.   It was the worst accident ever on Metro North Rail, plagued in the last two years by a series of accidents.

The accident happened while I was riding an Amtrak train, heading home. One of our fellow passengers got a news alert and looked it up online. The photos were gruesome. It seemed surprising the loss of life was not worse.

King Abdullah II of Jordan was in Washington, DC for a visit with Obama when it was announced yesterday that Moaz al-Kasasbeh, a Jordanian pilot captured by ISIS, had been burnt alive. He headed back home immediately. While he was still in the air, two prisoners convicted of terrorism were executed, just as he had promised. When the King landed, he was meet by an unexpectedly warm welcome.

Promising a strong response to ISIS, Abdullah huddled with his security chiefs today, seeking a strategy for revenge.

Around the Arab world, there has been a wave of revulsion for this death. There was a surprising chorus of agreement from Muslims: this was a step too far. Only Allah can burn a man, in hell.

Saudi Prince Alwaleed, a billionaire investor, dumped most of his holdings in Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, parent of Fox News. He was also named today by convicted terrorist Moussaoui as one of the early funders of Al Qaeda. The naming of several prominent Saudi princes as funders of terror comes at a delicate time for the US, as one King has just died and another King has just taken the throne. It stirs a pot that has been simmering since 9/11 when it was learned that most of the terrorists on the planes were of Saudi origin.

Moussaoui has also had his mental competence challenged.

In the worlds of arts and letters, two things have happened.

Harper Lee, of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD fame, will be coming out with another book, TO SET A WATCHMAN, a sequel to MOCKINGBIRD. Her attorney recently uncovered the manuscript, long thought lost. It will be released this summer, with a printing of two million copies.

Marina Picasso, granddaughter of Pablo, the great painter who was not a great grandfather according to her, intends to sell some of the many paintings she controls, potentially throwing into disarray the market for Picassos. She will use the proceeds to fund her charitable endeavors.

The sky has turned pearl grey and lights are flickering on in my little circle of the world. Tonight, after finishing this, I will head to the kitchen to prepare a meal for friends, a salted roasted chicken with baby new potatoes. I will lose myself in the simple pleasures of preparing a meal, taking myself far from the troubled world in which we live.

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Letter From New York 02 03 15 A Step Too Far…

February 3, 2015

The day didn’t start quietly; I was awakened by the sounds of trucks scraping the street outside the apartment in New York. It was a struggle to wake, having been in a long, convoluted dream about explaining some technology to a friend.

Running late for an early lunch date with a friend, I hailed a taxi on West End Avenue and headed for Le Bonne Soupe in Midtown. The driver was a cheery fellow and we chatted as we headed south; he was from Lebanon and has lived in the US for twenty-six years. He left Lebanon in the late eighties due to the civil war between Christians and Muslims. As his taxi was decorated with a number of rosaries, I pegged him as Christian. He reminded me that I have made a decision to live in an attitude of gratitude these days.

My friend, Mary Dickey, and I were the first customers of the day at Le Bonne Soupe, settling in for some warm food on a cold day. While we were eating, my phone buzzed with the distinct sound it has when an alert is coming in from BBC News. Picking up the phone, I read that ISIS had apparently burnt alive their captured Jordanian pilot.

Muath al-Kaseasbeh is his name. I want to say his name. If the video is legitimate and every one of ISIS’s videos has been legitimate, the “Caliphate” has stooped to a new low in its cruelty and depravity.

Apparently they dragged him in their signature orange jail suits to a cage, doused him with gasoline, and set him afire with great panache.

The Jordanians believe he was killed on January 3rd, long before ISIS dangled him as a pawn in an effort to secure the release of a woman in Jordan who has been condemned to death for being part of a suicide bombing in Amman ten years ago. Her own suicide vest failed to explode.

While having been disgusted at the beheadings, something about this latest death has caused me to feel anger, to want to do something to punish ISIS, to wish we had a hundred thousand snipers to deploy on them.

This was a step too far.

It has hung over me all day, a weight I should feel, I think. We have been at war so long we have all become a bit distant from the brutal meaning of humans killing other human beings. War is a brutal, brutish thing and takes men to the heart of a dark spot in their beings. It is no wonder we have so many veterans who are suffering the aftereffects of their time in service in Iraq and Afghanistan and every other place we have been in war.

Steven Pinker wrote the best selling book The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. He posits that over history we have gotten gentler.

It is hard on a day like this to believe it.

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Letter From New York 02 02 15 Amidst the snow and cold…

February 2, 2015

Fleeing in front of Winter Storm Linus, I arrived in the city last night before the snow started. After a light dinner, I snuggled in and feel asleep reading, warm in the comfort of the little New York apartment where I stay when I am in town.

The Super Bowl, of course, was last night. I didn’t watch but do know the Patriots won in a heart stopping finish and Tom Brady has been declared by some to be the best Quarterback of all time.

Today I had a couple of meetings, one with Touchcast, which is a video technology that is REALLY cool, allowing you to interact with a video playing over the internet, on your desktop, tablet or phone. Way cool, the kind of cool that gets me incredibly geeky excited.

During the afternoon it snowed in New York but it stayed warm enough that everything is slush. Soon the temperatures will drop and all that slush will freeze. And so I expect that by time I finish dinner at some friends’ apartment, the sidewalks will be perilous. Hope I make it home without skidding too much.

Upstate they are buried in two feet of snow. It stops. It starts. It stops. It starts. Good thing I came to town yesterday.

Obama’s four TRILLION dollar budget was released today. It includes a couple of trillion dollars in new taxes, which isn’t going to happen with the Congress he is facing.

Sorry. I have trouble getting my mind around that number. FOUR TRILLION!

Over in the rebellious part of Ukraine, the military leader there is calling for 100,000 men to be called up to service. Some have pointed out there may not be 100,000 men in the rebel controlled region to be called up, so many have fled. And some are speculating that it is just a cover for more Russian “volunteers” to come into Ukraine, which, of course, Putin denies.

The stock market had a good day and that was good. Oil is rebounding a bit and there seems to be rejoicing about that. The dollar is stronger which is good for tourists but not so much for industry. Our exports cost more but a meal in Paris is less expensive.

My friend Arthur returned from his gastronomical pilgrimage to Paris conducted within days of the Charlie Hebdo massacre and saw little evidence in the streets of Paris of the terror attack. He had expected gendarmes on every corner but there weren’t. It felt mostly normal to him.

In Egypt, they are making a tradition of mass convictions of criminals, herding them off to be executed. Today it was 183 men found guilty. 188 had been charged. Two were acquitted. One was given ten years because he was a minor and another two were off the hook because they had died.

Amnesty International is outraged. The UN calls the mass convictions “unprecedented.” Thousands have been sentenced to death or life in prison since the overthrow of Morsi. I want to see the pyramids but don’t think this is the time to do it, for lots of reasons.

Sitting in the conference room of my friend Todd Broder’s company, the sky has turned dark and everywhere lights burn. Soon I will head out for dinner, braving the cold and snow, looking forward to a long and lazy evening with old friends and good food.

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Letter From New York 02 01 15 The Beat Goes On

February 1, 2015

In advance of Winter Storm Linus, I headed down to the city tonight as I have a couple of meetings tomorrow that I hope won’t be cancelled because of the weather. If they’re not, I want to be in place to have them.

Upstate, they are predicting nine to eighteen inches of snow and some bitter cold. In the city, it’s freezing rain and then some snow. Unpleasant but hopefully manageable.

Earlier today, I went to the Candlemas service at Christ Church Episcopal in Hudson, a lovely service that officially ended the Christmas season. It celebrates the presentation of the Baby Jesus at the Temple, as was required for all first born Jewish males.

On my way home I stopped at the Red Dot for an omelet while reading the NY Times on my iPhone.

The news of the day is grim, as seems to be usual, with some bright spots in the headlines.

The Egyptians released and then deported Peter Greste, an Australian who had been working for Al Jazeera and was arrested in December 2013, for allegedly supporting the recently deposed Muslim Brotherhood. He and two other Al Jazeera journalists were tried and sentenced to prison. An enormous international outcry ensued and the Egyptians have been looking for a way out ever since. A recently enacted law allows Egypt to deport convicted criminals who are not Egyptian citizens. Hence, Greste is on his way home today.

But the other two remain in prison. One has dual Egyptian/Canadian citizenship and may be allowed to renounce his Egyptian citizenship and then be deported to Canada. The other poor chap is only an Egyptian citizen and hence may spend the next years in jail.

That’s the pretty good news.

The really dark news is that Kenji Goto, a Japanese journalist kidnapped by ISIS, has apparently been beheaded in another gruesome killing. The fate of a downed Jordanian pilot who is being held by ISIS is unknown.

As I write this, the Super Bowl is about to start. I was going to watch but Linus intervened and I will keep up my record of not watching Super Bowls. My brother, an avid sports fan, surprised me by telling me he is NOT watching. He has not gotten over the Green Bay Packers loss to the Seahawks.

The tabloid press is all over the reports that Bruce Jenner, champion of the 1976 Olympics, is preparing to transition to being a woman on an E! Reality program. I have to respect his decision though some of it seems as if this is another Kardashian franchise and that feels a bit cheesy.

AMERICAN SNIPER continues to break Box Office Records while continuing to feed controversy. Michael Moore, the documentarian, has taken some swipes at the film apparently and apparently Sarah Palin was seen yesterday holding a sign that said: F**k you, Michael Moore.

Ah, Sarah, you are so classy.

California is working on legislation that will raise the legal age for smoking to twenty-one. Smoking is not what it used to be. A friend has an apartment in New York he can’t rent because the woman below is a heavy smoker. No one wants to live above her.

Long way from the days of Bogart and Bacall…

Just days shy of the three year anniversary of her mother’s death by drowning in a bathtub, Bobbi Kristina Brown, daughter of Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, was found unresponsive in a bathtub in her home by her husband. Tonight, she is in a medically induced coma.

Over in Minsk, parties were to have gathered to see if another truce could be patched together in Ukraine. Talks lasted four hours before they contentiously broke up, each party blaming the other. In the meantime, the dying continues.

In other words, the beat of life goes on. War continues to rage. ISIS continues to behead. Troubled young women get in trouble and the Super Bowl is being played. By my next posting, a winner will have been declared. New York is about to be iced in and I’m going to go to Thai Market for dinner.

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