Archive for the ‘Television’ Category
September 3, 2016
As I was sitting on the deck, there came a slight chill in the air, a harbinger of times to come. It is still a luxurious green outside the window but it was getting just a little chill and so I returned to the dining room table to write this.
It occurred to me that working on these letters has contributed to my happiness over the years, particularly since I began to have more time at the cottage, a chance to collect my thoughts and ruminate upon the world in which we live.
It has been a good day. Waking early, I journaled for a bit, read the daily summary of the news in the NY Times, drank coffee and then went down to the eye doctor. I have an aggressive cataract in my right eye that must be dealt with. Cold comfort that they tell me it is not age related. The surgery needs to be done. I am nervous and it is now scheduled for November 9th. It has been a hindrance of late so I am glad it will be handled.
From there I treated myself to lunch at Ca’Mea while reading “The Romanovs,” a NY Times best seller about the dynasty that ruled Russia for 300 plus years and came to a sad end in a room in the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg in 1918, the last Tsar and his family and their retainers shot to death.
While I knew something of the end of the Romanov Era as I had studied Tolstoy, Chekov and others of that “Silver Age” I have known very little of the earlier Romanovs. They had some particularly gruesome ways of killing their rivals.
Returning home, I napped a bit and then went out to the deck to do some prep work for my class. I am now very much looking forward to it.
Touching in on the news of the day, I can only find myself smiling over the absurdity of it all. One of Hillary Clinton’s laptops, chock-a-block with emails was lost in the US Mail. I roll my eyes.
In what should come as NO surprise, Hispanics really, really don’t like Donald Trump according to America’s Voice’s poll, a pro-immigration group that did a large poll among Hispanics. He is doing dramatically worse than Mitt Romney. Hispanic Republicans are deserting Trump, particularly after his immigration speech in Arizona.
Brazil has ousted its President. Dilma Rousseff is gone and “Brazil has turned a page,” according to its new President. For the Brazilian people, let us hope so.
Long ago, I was getting on a flight in Atlanta, going God knows where but Mother Theresa and some of her nuns were getting on the flight with me. I saw her walk by, followed by her coterie. It was before I went to India.
She is about to be a saint though when I was in India there were many who found her less than saintly. I have a friend in India, a Beverly Hills Jew who is now a sadhu, who worked with the Gandhi’s when they were in power. He railed against Mother Theresa, claiming she was the ultimate “fixer” in Calcutta, now Kolkata. He despised her and there are those in India who are devoting their lives to dispelling what they call the myth of Mother Theresa. I don’t know the truth.
It is dark now. The floodlights have been turned on so I can see the creek. I have lights on the front of the house, year round that I often light. My former neighbor, Karen Fonda, once called me to tell me how happy seeing the lights made her. When I turn them on, I think of her. She is now in assisted living, sinking into the hell that is Alzheimer’s.
Hurricane Hermine is moving out of Florida and into the Carolinas. Yesterday, I phoned my sister who lives in Florida to see how she was doing. Okay, a few power outages but generally well. While New York City was having rain today, my part of the Hudson Valley was sunny and cheerful.
Roger Ailes, recently ousted as Tsar of Fox News, is now advising Donald Trump. No one seems to be paying much attention to this. Ailes has been accused by many women of having made inappropriate sexual suggestions to them. He was finally toppled when Megyn Kelly, not well liked by Trump, but a Fox News star, met with the legal team investigating Ailes and corroborated the stories.
No one seems to care.
Well, I think it’s a wise move on Trump’s part as Ailes created the wild conservative movement we now have in America. But unwise in that Ailes is discredited by many at this moment. Interesting to see how this serpentine relationship works itself out.
Tags:Brazil, Calcutta, Claverack, Delhi, Dilma Rousseff, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Hurricane Hermine, Kolkata, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Megyn Kelly, Mother Theresa, New York, Pope Francis, Roger Ailes, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Politics, Pope Francis, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
August 26, 2016
It has been a grey and gloomy day in Claverack, always threatening to rain but not managing it. Tomorrow is also supposed to be this way though with more chance of rain. I was out for a couple of meetings and errands and have been home since then working on a few projects, mostly getting ready to teach Public Speaking in the Fall at Columbia Greene Community College.
It is dark earlier now. It is not yet 7:15 and the light is leaving quickly. Behind me is the thrum of the dishwasher; otherwise there is silence. I told a friend I woke up happy, which I did.
As I lived my quiet day, rescuers in Italy searched the ruins left by a lethal earthquake, looking for survivors as the clock ticks the chances away. Aftershocks rattled them as they searched. At least 250 are dead and another 350+ injured. A Polish immigrant living in the town of Amatrice, said she will remember until she dies “the evil murmur of moving walls.”
Those who have debilitating allergies often carry EpiPens with them, a now common safety device. Mylan, the company that makes them, has raised the price dramatically as a generic alternative will become available in the not too distant future. Apparently, this is not unusual for drug companies to wring the last round of profits from a medicine in the months before a generic alternative becomes available.
It happened to me, a few years ago. Something I was taking suddenly skyrocketed in price and I had to switch to an alternative.
Nine years ago, an EpiPen cost $47, today, $284. No wonder there is an outcry. And the EpiPen, it seems, was developed by the US Department of Defense as something for soldiers in the field to use for nerve gas and then it was discovered it worked on allergies.
Congress is talking an investigation. I have friends who carry them. In the meantime, people who need them maybe are being out priced from having them.
I love nights like this. Outside the floodlights illuminate the creek. Beatrice, my ever growing banana plant, continues her climb to the ceiling. And I enjoy the tranquility of the cottage.
The Chairman of Vice Media, Shane Smith, who runs the digital behemoth that has attracted investment from Disney and Fox, says that a “digital media crisis is coming.” Yes, it is. It has been for twenty years now, growing slowly until it now has become the crisis no one can avoid. When I was, long ago and far away, working in the cable business no one in broadcasting thought of us as a menace, until we were. So with digital… It was not a menace, until it was… The crisis is here and has been from almost the moment it began but media has been an ostrich in the sand.
The political campaigns go on. I don’t pay much attention right now. Trump has accused Hillary of being a bigot. She’s done the same to him. The beat goes on. It will until it is over.
Nigel Farage, once head of UKIP and a leader in BREXIT, campaigned today with Trump, basically endorsing him for President. I am not sure that is going to mean much to Trump’s core constituency… Or maybe it will mean a lot to that constituency.
As I have been writing this, an email came in. Vidya, wife of my friend Tim Sparke, let me know he passed away yesterday afternoon. He waged a remarkable war for years against brain tumors and is now gone.
Hats off, Tim. You worked to stay for your children and your wife and you went on longer than any of us would have dreamt that you could. You would not give up. I was changed by knowing you. When I was remarkably low eleven years ago you did your best to raise my spirits and cause me to laugh.
You were a generous spirit. Since you have been sick and I have been going to church, I have been lighting a candle for you and I will again this weekend, to celebrate the wonderful moments we had together, the generosity you gave me and the spirit you were in this world.
Tags:Amatrice, Claverack, Disney, Donald Trump, EpiPen, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Italian Earthquake, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mylan, Nigel Farage, Shane Smith, The Donald, Tim Sparke, UKIP, Vice Media
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
August 21, 2016
It is not all that late on a Saturday evening, about 6:45 EDT as I start putting my fingers to the keyboard. When I woke this morning, the sight outside my windows was a patchwork of hues of green, mixed with sunlight, all of it changing with the soft wind blowing this morning. When I touched base with myself as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes I was happy. As I am most days…
The creek is low; we’ve not had enough rain but it still flows. The trees are exquisite in their leafy greenness but just across the creek the tree that has always been the first harbinger of fall has begun its turn.
In a very few weeks that tree will be joined by the others and we will be in the riot of Hudson Valley colors that come with September and October.
The world has not blown itself off its axis today, for which I am grateful.
A devotee of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!” I heard the current head of FEMA talk about how they prepare for asteroid strikes and other disasters we don’t generally think of…
And it also made me smile, as it often does, which is why I do my best not to miss it on Saturday mornings. It takes the realities of the news and makes light of them, which we often need to do.
Today, the NY Times had a long article about the complicated finances of Donald Trump and another about the complicated relationship that Hillary Clinton has with the Clinton Foundation. And if there have ever been two more complicated candidates for President, I would like to know. Can’t think of any… Though I am sure there may have been. It just maybe my knowledge of history is not as sharp as it should be.
Anti-Trump activists put up eight statues of Trump, naked. It was called: The Emperor Has No Balls. Which the statue didn’t and had a very small penis as well. The one in Central Park was taken down almost immediately with a very tongue in cheek statement from the Parks Department.
The last time I wrote, I included a picture of a five-year-old child, Omran Daqneesh, who has become the symbol of what has been happening in Aleppo. His brother died today. And I need to keep thinking of what I can do to help.
In the soft and safe place of my cottage, I am hurting at the hurt in the world. I am sure half the civilized world that saw the picture of Omran wanted to rescue him from the world in which he lived. I did.
And we can’t. Though I have to think about the work I can do to help the world in which Omran lives.
Tags:Aleppo, Claverack, Donald Trump, FEMA, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Hudson Valley, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Obama, Omran Daqneesh, The Donald, The Emperor has no balls, Wait, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me!
Posted in 2016 Election, 9/11, Columbia County, European Refugee Crisis, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, IS, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Syria, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
August 19, 2016
I am cozied in the cottage, the Smooth Jazz station playing on Amazon Prime Music, having returned only two hours ago from two days in the city.
Yesterday, I was in the city to have lunch with my friend David Arcara, a quarterly event for many years now; our conversations are wide ranging, deep, emotional and to the core of what is happening in our lives. Yesterday’s underscored my appreciation for them.
There were drinks last night with Nick Stuart of Odyssey and Greg Nelson, formerly of Odyssey, who has returned from some weeks in Peru and that, too, was good. It gave me a chance to catch up with Greg, whom I have not seen for some months and, of course, to spend some time with Nick, my great friend.
When I woke this morning, I made my morning coffee at the apartment on the Upper West Side, and while sipping it, pursued the news of the day. I read the NY Times and scrolled through the BBC News.
There I found a haunting image of a five-year-old Syrian boy in Aleppo, an image that has now gone viral. Frightened and alone, covered in blood and dust, he sat on an orange seat in the back of an ambulance. You may have seen the picture already. If not, here it is:
It shattered my morning. I sat staring at this image for many, many minutes and my heart screamed to the universe. It became hard to move on, to not want to go and do SOMETHING to stop the madness. It reminded me of pictures I had seen taken during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930’s; comparisons between that conflict and this will be made.
Later, I went to have lunch at the Ace Hotel with my friend David McKillop; we talked of new, upcoming adventures for him. We talked of the: what WERE they thinking? moment of Ryan Lochte and the other swimmers claiming to have been robbed when in reality they were a bit drunk and screwed up. What were they thinking?
And, unfortunately, this is what will follow them for the rest of their lives, this moment of dishonesty.
And then, there was the moment of what was President Obama thinking when he said that the $400,000,000 turned over to the Iranians wasn’t “ransom” but a previously scheduled release of funds. Today it was revealed that the US wouldn’t let the plane with the cash take off until prisoners were released. Dancing with the truth?
The Syrian boy’s picture has colored my whole day. I have thought about what can I do to stop this debacle the world has created, so complicated, so odorous, so lacking in humanity, so not a moment of “our better angels.”
When I wake up in the morning, I do my best to have a moment of gratitude. I am not living in Aleppo. Today that came home so much because of the photo of the five-year-old. It is a picture that has come to represent the Syrian crisis as much as the photo of the three-year-old dead child washed up on the coast of Greece did to galvanize the world about the refugee crisis, much of it a result of the Syrian war.
Closer to home, the Blue Cut Fire in California has consumed 31,000 acres and it still rages.
In Louisiana floods have consumed 40,000 homes and at least thirteen lives. A preacher man who “testified” that natural disasters were God’s way of punishing us for same sex marriage was forced to flee his home in a canoe.
I have been so lucky to have been born when and where I was. Our world is changing. It is becoming global and integrated and reactionary and frightened and fundamentalism is having a heyday. But we still care…
The answers aren’t in front of me right now. But seeing that little boy in Aleppo makes me realize I must do better. That we all have to do better.
Tags:9/11, Aleppo, Amtrak, Blue Cut Fire, Boy in Aleppo, Claverack, Greg Nelson, Hudson, Hudson River, IS, Louisiana Floods, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Nick Stuart, Obama, Odyssey, Putin, Ryan Lochte, Syria, Syrian Boy, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, Elections, Hillary Clinton, IS, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Syria, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
August 12, 2016
The air is hot and heavy, damp and uncomfortable. I watch my creek from the comfort of the cottage; it is southern in its weather oppression and is the definition for languid summer days, of which I have had my share this week. Outside it is now grey and thunder rolls in the distance.
Finishing “The Hotel on Place Vendome,” I am now deeply into a history of the 304 year long reign of the Romanovs, from Michael to Nicholas II, who died with his family in front of a firing squad in 1918 in the Ipatiev House in Yektaringburg. The founder of his dynasty was called to the throne from the Ipatiev Monastery.
I napped this afternoon and have now a slew of errands to do come morning. My printer has died, a new one is needed. Groceries must be shopped for as friends come for dinner tomorrow night, the invitation offered in an effort to bring me out of the summer stupor.
Walking on Cape Cod last weekend, I did not wear the right shoes and have fierce blisters on my heels I am working to heal. Tuesday morning, I could barely walk and have been wearing flip flops all week.
Flip flops, books, a couple of good martinis, not a bad way to spend a summer week.
Trump claimed Obama and Hillary Clinton founded ISIS, now he says it was sarcasm but the reality is that Mr. Trump is on the verge of becoming a parody of himself. It makes me feel hopeful but it is 2016 and anything can yet happen.
The US claims the Head of IS in Afghanistan has been killed and the amount of territory controlled by them in Syria and Iraq is diminishing. Syria is still a hell hole and when I was complaining to myself about my blisters, I stopped myself: I could be in Syria. You have only very first world problems, Mathew.
Digital Media is being subsumed by old media. Companies like Disney and Turner and Hearst are putting hundreds of millions, even billions, into new media companies. As one declines and the other ascends, the ascendants will be owned by the decliners. Old media is putting its fortunes to work. Good moves.
Netflix, definitely a new media company, aired a documentary, “Making a Murderer.” One of the results was that today one of the accused has been ordered freed from prison, largely due to the incompetent actions of his defense attorney. Brendan Dasey has been ordered released in ninety days.
Media attention does bring action.
In a new and heartbreaking report, the CDC has released data about LGB students, indicating they are more likely to be bullied and more likely to consider and attempt suicide than their straight peers.
It is 2016 and still this happens. I was so lucky when I was their age. I wasn’t bullied in high school and I still marvel at that. I considered suicide but that had much more to do with my complicated family life than my sexuality.
A good article about the situation can be found here:
http://www.bustle.com/articles/178365-gay-high-schoolers-experience-rape-bullying-suicide-at-much-higher-rates-heartbreaking-cdc-report-finds
As I sit here, looking out at my creek, I celebrate how lucky I was, particularly in high school but also in college. This is a global problem, not just an American problem.
How lucky was I? I have gotten through life mostly not harassed by my sexuality. Only two times do I remember anything. Once early on in Minneapolis, a casual and not harsh moment, and once here in Hudson, when two teenagers called my ex-partner and I “fags.” Now, same sex couples walk down the street in Hudson and no one bothers them. Twice in a lifetime… How lucky am I?
It’s time to wind down and I want to introduce you to Beatrice, my banana plant. Beatrice came into my life when I briefly dated Raj, a psychotherapist of Indian extraction by way of Trinidad, who insisted I buy a banana plant. I did and now Beatrice has become huge and may one day well take over my home.
Meet Beatrice:
Tags:Cape Cod, CDC, Claverack, Digital media, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Hotel on Place Vendome, Hudson, Ipatiev, IS, Isis, LGBT, Making a Murderer, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Netflix, New York, Obama, Romanovs, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, 9/11, Claverack, Columbia County, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, IS, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Syria, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
August 10, 2016
In my driveway there is a floodlight with a dusk until dawn timer. It was so gloomy this morning, “dawn” did not arrive until about 9:30. As bright and beautiful as the days were before, today has been singularly dark, a day when one wants to slip quietly into a corner and delve deep into a mystery.
I didn’t do that all day but some of the day, reading “The Hotel on Place Vendome,” a study of the Ritz Hotel before, during and after WWII. Good reading, not quite a mystery, not quite a page turner but a sound non-fiction account of the place that was at the center of Parisian life in those tumultuous years.
Of course, “Papa” Hemingway appears and his appearances further tatter the legend he built around himself even as his writing powers were beginning to fade, worn down by drinking and partying.
Reichsmarshall Hermann Goring was a morphine addict and spent at least part of the war soaking in the large bathtubs at the Ritz, attempting to wean himself off the drug.
Something like 80,000 children fathered by Germans were born in France during the war years.
It is a time we have not known. Somewhere today, I was reading an article online and the author was saying the last 70 years had been a dream. We had gone to peace and are now awaking into another era, not so peaceful. Yes, perhaps, but we did “duck and cover” as children and during the Cuban missile crisis my very young mind was convinced that we would all be evaporated.
It is not a peaceful world but never has it been very peaceful. I am peaceful this very moment, wrapped in a cloudy, gloomy day with verdant trees outside my windows, skies heavy with promises of rain, snug inside my cottage, the only sound the humming of the refrigerator.
The thunder of the campaign trail has been held at bay for the most part by my simply choosing not to delve much into it. Trump said something about “Second Amendment” folks should do something about Hillary and Democrats are charging that he was inciting violence against her. Of course he wasn’t, he said.
And Hillary has her blind spots, this week they’ve been showing up in relations between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department.
Though the report I was reading was released by a conservative group so I will add my grain of salt to what I was reading. Just as I put a bit of salt into my reading of the Democratic reaction to Trump’s latest. Don’t get me wrong, I won’t vote for the man. He’s crackers…
The number of ill considered things the man has said has slowly become numbing, no longer outraging me. It is just one unbelievable thing after another and, as far as I can tell, Trump’s not enjoying it much himself.
And he is embattled by his fellow Republicans. Susan Collins, Senator from Maine, has disavowed Trump. She’ll vote Libertarian or write in someone. She won’t support him or Hillary but go her own way. She is not alone. A dismaying number of Republicans are following her.
Whereas Clinton… I think she — and he — live for this kind of season, coming alive in amazing ways. Though Bill looks frail these days, a shadow of the man.
The Department of Justice released its report about the Police Department in Baltimore. “Scathing but not surprising” was one headline. In Ferguson, MO the wheels of justice are turning very slowly there, two years after Michael Brown died. Change is slow in coming, disheartening to many but the wheels are turning, I hope.
Like many, I have received two phone calls telling me the IRS is about to start a lawsuit against me. It’s a scam and it makes me crazy and people are being sucked in. One man paid the scammers $500,000 before he got wise. So ugly…
And while it is not beautiful outside, it is not ugly in my corner of the world.
Tags:Baltimore protests, Claverack, Clinton Foundation, Donald Trump, Feguson, Hemingway, Hermann Goring, Hillary Clinton, Hitler, Hudson, Hudson River, IRS Scam, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Obama, Susan Collins, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
August 5, 2016
It is a little after 8 pm and the sun is setting in the Hudson Valley. I have been a “prisoner” of my cottage for the last few hours as I have had my deck re-stained and I was not to go out and touch it until about now.
The trees over the creek are verdant green and the water in the creek is crystal clear. It has been a good day, in all sorts of ways. I woke up happy and I enjoy that kind of moment.
A couple of nights ago I was in distress, my lungs were congested and I was having a bit of trouble breathing. Stumbling through the medicine chest, I found and took a Mucinex and woke up the next morning with the congestion at bay, breathing again.
There is nothing like being able to breathe.
And it is hard to breathe in this current political season.
I have never in my adult life lived through such as season as this.
Anyone who reads me must understand how deeply disturbed I am that Trump is the Republican nominee for President. And the more he prances across the stage, the more concerned I am.
The New York Times did a video piece about the hatred they had witnessed while following Trump’s campaign. It was disturbing. You can view it here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/04/us/politics/donald-trump-supporters.html?emc=eta1&_r=0
I am at my dining room table and the sun has set and night has fallen. I am wrapped in the coziness of the cottage and am so grateful I am here.
Were I someplace else the craziness of our time might well make me mad but I can retreat for moments into the woods and believe, for a second, no harm could possibly come.
Like most of you I cannot believe the season in which we find ourselves.
This is not what I expected out of the 2016 political season. A friend of mine and I waged a friendly bet some months ago. He believed the Republican candidate would be Rubio; I went with Bush.
Both wrong. It’s Trump, who has solidified the anger of disenfranchised white Americans, who have reason to be angry. The world is passing them by…
But really? All this hate? It is a return to the realities of 19th and early 20th Century America where hatred moved from Germans, Italians, Poles, Irish, Jews…
A friend of mine who is Jewish remembers his grandmother in the early 20th Century hiding from mobs running through Lower Manhattan, screaming “Kill the Jews!”
We are on the verge of some of us screaming, “Kill the Muslims!”
Have we learned so little?
Tags:Claverack, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Muslims, Putin, Russia, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Income Inequality, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
July 22, 2016
It is early on a Friday evening in Bloomington, MN. The heat index is somewhere around 103 degrees. There is an excessive heat warning tonight and I am inside my brother’s lovely home, looking out at beautiful flowers and great green trees.
After my last posting, one of my readers, Bruce Thiesen, suggested I get to Minnesota and “reset.” And I think I have.
As I am sitting here I am watching the news regarding the terrible events that have happened in Munich. A few days ago it would have driven me to despair. Today, I grieve and yet I do not despair.
I feel refreshed and, suddenly, strangely, hopeful.
Last night, The Donald, painted a picture of a dark America, an America, quite frankly, that is far darker than I see, even in my darkest moments. We have a disturbingly large number of incidents of police acting irresponsibly and we have had a tragic reaction against police in Dallas and Baton Rouge.
And the reality is that crime is down in this country. We are safer than we have been in a long time, despite the terrible moments we have seen lately. And I, and you, need to remember that.
We have issues that need to be addressed. The aggrieved who are flocking to Trump have legitimate complaints. This complicated world has created issues we are just beginning to address. And I hope that we do address them.
But at this moment I reject the dark world that Trump espoused last night. As troubled as we are, it is better than he presents it.
What troubles me is that he presents himself as the strongman savior which is new to American politics but not new to the historical reality of politics. Let us remember Mussolini and Hitler.
This is a new moment in American politics. And it is concerning to me. And yet I am not as disturbed as I was a few days ago.
The German shooter may or may not have been Islamic or may or may not have been Rightist. We are all waiting to find out exactly what happened there.
Whatever happened, I will say a prayer for all of them, the wounded and the dead. I bow my head. But I will not bow my head and submit to the terror that is being sold to us.
And as horrible as it has been it has not been as horrible as it has been. We are a less violent country than we were despite the high profile incidents we have which are deplorable.
Sitting in my brother’s kitchen, I am, suddenly, thankfully, hopeful. Thank you, Bruce, for asking me to “reset.” I needed to…
Tags:Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Munich Shootings, Putin, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Entertainment, European Refugee Crisis, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Obama, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
July 4, 2016
It is a picture perfect 4th of July in picture perfect Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard. Happy 4th, everyone! I hope it is picture perfect wherever you are…
Yesterday, as I was shuttling back and forth from the bookstore, I kept thinking how carefully curated Edgartown is by the town fathers.
Joyce had a half price bookstand on the porch of the bookstore and they cited her for having that; it was too unseemly for the town. It now rests in a corner in the bookstore.
It feels like they all went to the Walt Disney School for Civic Perfection.
Visually stunning, the little town of Edgartown, is a haven for preppies. In town, we are awash in pastel and Lilly Pulitzer. I had forgotten that salmon was the color of choice for WASPS.
Oak Bluffs is much more diverse than Edgartown, and each part of the island has its own feel. Edgartown is prep, all the way. I think that Igor and Mischa, the two baristas at “Behind the Bookstore” are the two edgiest characters in town and loved by everyone. There is no doubt that “BTB” has the BEST coffee on the island.
There will be massive fireworks, I understand, though I am not sure I will be seeing much of them as I am closing the bookstore tonight, a role I frequently play. Last night we closed at ten and I didn’t get back until 11:30 and didn’t unwind enough to sleep until one. Ten percent of the day’s take was done in the last hour as folks wandered in after dinner to have books to read this beautiful 4th.
There is an interesting opinion piece in today’s NY Times about the Declaration of Independence being partly driven by a fear of Indians and slave revolts. You can find it at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/opinion/did-a-fear-of-slave-revolts-drive-american-independence.html?_r=0
It is fascinating, interesting, explanatory and gives me cause to think, which is good in an opinion piece, whether at the end you agree or not.
The British, in attempting to quell the rebellion, were agitating both American Indians and slaves.
Yesterday, Jeffrey, Joyce and Joyce’s niece, Julie, and her husband, Mark, along with Joyce’s sister, Elyse, went clamming and came home with 219 of them, near a house record. Before I leave for the store, there will be a feast of them and other things before Mark and Julie fly back to New York and I leave to deal with the madding crowds that will be roving Main Street after dinner.
And as we celebrate, I am also taking a minute to bow my head in memoriam for the 200 plus dead in the bombing of a marketplace in Baghdad as Ramadan nears its end. And for those who were killed in Holey’s Cafe in Dhaka by six armed men, in turn killed by security forces. At least several of the attackers came from elite families, without want and well-educated. Their families are left without explanations and with tremendous guilt at their sons’ actions.
The Paris attacks, 9/11, the Madrid train attack and all other killings on Western soil are terrible and damning and yet I keep being reminded by things like the marketplace bombing in Baghdad that IS is mostly killing other Muslims.
Now, as I sit on the veranda, overlooking Edgartown Harbor, that world of violence is far away. Boats motor or sail by with easy grace on still water, birds chirp, the sun shines, American flags wave in the light breeze. It is a day the town fathers of Edgartown could not have choreographed better. Uncle Walt would be proud…
Tags:4th of July, Baghdad, Dhaka shootings, Edgartown, Edgartown Books, Holey's Cafe, Iraq, IS, July 4th, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Ramadan, Walt Disney
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Daesh, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Syria, Television, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
July 3, 2016
It is not quite the magic hour but it is coming, soon. Jeffrey has just returned from a sail on his boat, Jinji.
We’re all gathered now on the veranda, looking out over the harbor. I’m off to the side, writing, while on the other side of the veranda are gathered Jeffrey and Joyce, her niece Julie and her husband, Mark, and Jim, who keeps his boat at their dock.
Their Bernese Mountain Dogs, are alternatively resting and playing. At the house next door, the owner has rented it to a large group of twenty somethings, who are having a lovely, loud time.
Here I am ensconced with my evening martini, looking over to Chappaquiddick, most famous, of course, for being the place that ended Teddy Kennedy’s hope for the White House and the life of Mary Jo Koepkne. One of the more popular books this year has been a book about that tragedy, claiming there was a third passenger. Sells like hot cakes.
When I arrived, the moorings in the harbor were mostly empty; now they are mostly filled. The sun is bright and the town has been filled with the young and old, mostly well to do or very rich. Cathy, who works at the bookstore, could not come in this evening. She also works for the Baroness de Rothschild, who could not live without her this evening.
Edgartown is the place where there is no end of pastel. Salmon colored pants could not be more in style. It is heaven for preppies. If one remembers Lisa Birnbach’s “The Preppy Handbook,” you know what I mean.
Of course, while this particularly well ordered world moves on, while the happy voices from next door punctuate the later afternoon, the world keeps moving on its very sad course.
In Dhaka, Bangladesh, IS sent in people to an upscale bakery, taking hostages, twenty of whom died, thirteen of whom were rescued, spreading their terror to more places, not that Bangladesh has been unfree of troubles. Several liberal writers have been hacked to death with machetes in the country in the last six months.
Elie Wiesel, holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate, died today at 87. He was a “messenger to mankind.” He would not, and for which we all should be grateful, let the past be passed.
He said, and may it not be forgotten, “Memory has become a sacred duty of all people of goodwill.” It especially resonates now as right wing movements rise in so many countries. He saw horror and his articulation of that horror made him into a spokesperson many. He took on President Clinton over what was happening in what had been Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
He was the voice against all genocide.
And now we have an Austria that has ordered a new election which will give the right wing another shot at power. Here in America, we have to listen to the xenophobic sputtering of The Donald.
It is frightening. Something like eight European countries have far right movements gaining ground.
It is because we are frightened, terrified of the sweeping changes moving around us, much of it coming from the witnessing of the refugee crisis out the Mideast.
And now I am going to sleep, relatively early for a Saturday night. Tomorrow I will work late at the bookstore, closing every night this week and then I leave, headed home for a week and then to Minneapolis to see my family.
The world is in a wretched place but we still have friends and family that we hold to deeply. In the end, no matter what, that is what will keep us going, wherever we are.
Tags:Bangladesh, Baroness de Rothschild, Bernese Mountain Dogs, Bill Clinton, Chappaquiddick, Claverack, Donald Trump, Elie Wiesel, Hillary Clinton, IS, Lisa Birnbach, Mary JoKoepkne, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Rwanda, Ted kennery, The Donald, The Preppy Handbook
Posted in 2016 Election, Elections, Entertainment, European Refugee Crisis, Hillary Clinton, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mideast, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From Claverack, New York 09 02 2016
September 3, 2016As I was sitting on the deck, there came a slight chill in the air, a harbinger of times to come. It is still a luxurious green outside the window but it was getting just a little chill and so I returned to the dining room table to write this.
It occurred to me that working on these letters has contributed to my happiness over the years, particularly since I began to have more time at the cottage, a chance to collect my thoughts and ruminate upon the world in which we live.
It has been a good day. Waking early, I journaled for a bit, read the daily summary of the news in the NY Times, drank coffee and then went down to the eye doctor. I have an aggressive cataract in my right eye that must be dealt with. Cold comfort that they tell me it is not age related. The surgery needs to be done. I am nervous and it is now scheduled for November 9th. It has been a hindrance of late so I am glad it will be handled.
From there I treated myself to lunch at Ca’Mea while reading “The Romanovs,” a NY Times best seller about the dynasty that ruled Russia for 300 plus years and came to a sad end in a room in the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg in 1918, the last Tsar and his family and their retainers shot to death.
While I knew something of the end of the Romanov Era as I had studied Tolstoy, Chekov and others of that “Silver Age” I have known very little of the earlier Romanovs. They had some particularly gruesome ways of killing their rivals.
Returning home, I napped a bit and then went out to the deck to do some prep work for my class. I am now very much looking forward to it.
Touching in on the news of the day, I can only find myself smiling over the absurdity of it all. One of Hillary Clinton’s laptops, chock-a-block with emails was lost in the US Mail. I roll my eyes.
In what should come as NO surprise, Hispanics really, really don’t like Donald Trump according to America’s Voice’s poll, a pro-immigration group that did a large poll among Hispanics. He is doing dramatically worse than Mitt Romney. Hispanic Republicans are deserting Trump, particularly after his immigration speech in Arizona.
Brazil has ousted its President. Dilma Rousseff is gone and “Brazil has turned a page,” according to its new President. For the Brazilian people, let us hope so.
Long ago, I was getting on a flight in Atlanta, going God knows where but Mother Theresa and some of her nuns were getting on the flight with me. I saw her walk by, followed by her coterie. It was before I went to India.
She is about to be a saint though when I was in India there were many who found her less than saintly. I have a friend in India, a Beverly Hills Jew who is now a sadhu, who worked with the Gandhi’s when they were in power. He railed against Mother Theresa, claiming she was the ultimate “fixer” in Calcutta, now Kolkata. He despised her and there are those in India who are devoting their lives to dispelling what they call the myth of Mother Theresa. I don’t know the truth.
It is dark now. The floodlights have been turned on so I can see the creek. I have lights on the front of the house, year round that I often light. My former neighbor, Karen Fonda, once called me to tell me how happy seeing the lights made her. When I turn them on, I think of her. She is now in assisted living, sinking into the hell that is Alzheimer’s.
Hurricane Hermine is moving out of Florida and into the Carolinas. Yesterday, I phoned my sister who lives in Florida to see how she was doing. Okay, a few power outages but generally well. While New York City was having rain today, my part of the Hudson Valley was sunny and cheerful.
Roger Ailes, recently ousted as Tsar of Fox News, is now advising Donald Trump. No one seems to be paying much attention to this. Ailes has been accused by many women of having made inappropriate sexual suggestions to them. He was finally toppled when Megyn Kelly, not well liked by Trump, but a Fox News star, met with the legal team investigating Ailes and corroborated the stories.
No one seems to care.
Well, I think it’s a wise move on Trump’s part as Ailes created the wild conservative movement we now have in America. But unwise in that Ailes is discredited by many at this moment. Interesting to see how this serpentine relationship works itself out.
Tags:Brazil, Calcutta, Claverack, Delhi, Dilma Rousseff, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Hurricane Hermine, Kolkata, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Megyn Kelly, Mother Theresa, New York, Pope Francis, Roger Ailes, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Politics, Pope Francis, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »