Letter from the Vineyard

Letter from Claverack 04 19 2017 A painful evening…

April 20, 2017

Outside, it is grey, drear, damp and dank. Twilight is beginning to gather around the cottage; I have made myself a martini and am looking out at the still bare trees, thinking that tonight, I am screaming for real spring, real green, and real warmth.

Tonight, I did something that is going to make one of my friends very angry with me and it was something I had to do. He sent me some suicidal texts and I couldn’t ignore them. Since he had stopped communicating, I called the police and asked for a welfare check. It will not endear me to him and I would not have slept tonight if I had not.

So bloody strange is life. It would be great to say this was a night full of hygge. It’s not; it will be a night of doing hygge sorts of things to get back to a hygge state.

Jazz is playing.

This morning I did my radio program and it went tolerably well, now three weeks in, I am beginning to get the hang of it.

Tomorrow, I am going into the city only to turn around and come back because tomorrow we are having a birthday party on the train for four of our Regulars, one of whom is making a birthday with a zero.

It will be fun; I will be playing bartender and am concocting a drink to celebrate the coming of summer – a “summertini.”

And, truthfully, I am looking forward to something fun after this afternoon.

Not probably having fun is Bill O’Reilly, who got booted this afternoon from Fox News, where he has been the cock of the walk for ever so long. Truthfully, I was a little surprised it happened. The allegations of sexual harassment had reached a fever pitch and name advertisers were leaving in the dozens but his ratings remained high.

It seemed to me they would send him off for a while, like Brian Williams, to do penance and then bring him back after a cooling off period. But no. Walking papers.

My suspicion: James and Lachlan Murdoch apparently had had enough, convincing their father time was nigh after $13,000,000 in settlements by Fox News over 15 years for allegations of sexual misconduct by O’Reilly, with more coming in on a regular basis, including one by an African-American staffer that he referred to her as “hot chocolate.”

Don’t cry for his next meal. He will, I’m sure, walk away with millions.

Fox News will suffer. He was their highest rated star, making millions and millions for them.

Chief beneficiary: the bow tied Tucker Carlson who will be getting his slot. Wouldn’t want that pressure.

Jon Ossoff, a young, charismatic candidate in a special election in Georgia, failed to get the more than fifty percent he needed to win outright so there will be a run-off election in June but he came damn close. It will be a fight to the finish. The seat has been safely Republican for years and now an energized number of Democratic Georgians have put it in play.

Aaron Hernandez, once a rising star with the New England Patriots, was found dead in his cell in the prison where he was serving a life sentence for murder and everyone is asking how such a promising life went so far askew?

Venezuela is about, it seems, to explode. Hundreds of thousands have been marching in the streets against Maduro, who succeeded Chavez when he died. The country is in economic tatters and Maduro doesn’t seem to be able to fix it so he is blaming everyone and is threatening to bolster the militia he controls from tens of thousands to a half million.

This is an elected official on his way to dictatorship. Which is what we must be aware of these days. Look at Erdogan in Turkey; elected and moving toward dictatorial powers. Same in a dozen countries in Africa.

And I am looking at the pearl grey twilight of Claverack and am about to go on to some amusement as I need amusement while I wait to hear if my friend is okay.

Tags: Bill O'Reilly, Brian Williams, Fox News, James Murdoch, Jazz, Lachlan Murdoch, Martini, Rupert Murdoch, summertini, WGXC
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Letter from the Train, returning… Passover arrives and Tillerson departs…

April 10, 2017

The train is rumbling north from Baltimore to New York City where I change trains to Hudson, arriving there around 3:30 this afternoon. It is a sunny day and the fleece pullover and winter jacket needed on the way down are unnecessary on the way home.

As I travel north, I have trimmed down the email inbox, sent some electronic Passover cards and started reading how to make large quantities of scrambled eggs as this coming Sunday is Easter Sunday and I am in charge of preparing the Easter Brunch that follows the 10:30 service.

It’s my hope that Mother Eileen’s clipboard filled with some people to help me. If not…

The weekend visit with Lionel and Pierre and Marcel, the poodle, was wonderful, overflowing with good food at various venues: Modern Cook Shop, Peter’s Inn, Red Star, Rusty Scupper, Nanimi, Petit Louis.

On “The Avenue” [36^th Street] I shopped the antique stores and found some Christmas presents, tucked in my luggage; that it is expandable saved me from buying another piece. At BJ’s with Pierre, I stocked up on Excedrin, Prilosec and more.

Long train rides give one a time to think and I enjoy them for that, for being able to see the countryside glide by without the responsibility of driving.

Pierre sings in the choir at the Church of the Advent in Baltimore. While Lionel and I were preparing to go to hear him at church, the television flashed pictures and video of the Palm Sunday explosions in Egypt, targeting Coptic Christians, who represent about ten percent of that country’s population. Last word I heard, forty-seven have died and scores are injured. At Christ Church this week, I will light a candle for them.

In response to the bombings, responsibility for which was claimed by IS, Egypt has declared a three-month state of emergency.

Rex Tillerson, our low-profile Secretary of State, heads to Moscow for meetings, either strengthened or weakened [depending on your view] by the US bombing of the airfield in Syria where chemical attacks against a rebel city were initiated. Tillerson called the Russians incompetent for allowing Assad to keep chemical weapons.

Putin is thinking of revoking the award he gave to Tillerson.

This should be an interesting week for watching Syrian affairs. How are they all going to react? Niki Hailey is talking regime change; Tillerson is not. Trump is unpredictable and Putin a risk taker; Assad seemingly a wily survivor who managed to turn peaceful protests into a civil war no one seems capable of winning or willing to negotiate an end.

Syria is bringing five questions about the situation to the head, outlined in an article in Bloomberg, available here.

We have ships moving toward the Korean peninsula, possibly to be in place in case there is a decision to attack North Korea and its pudgy, vindictive, unpredictable little dictator, Kim Jong Un.

President Xi of China and Trump managed to get through their summit without damaging each other and we will await to see what China will do vis-à-vis North Korea.

In 2013, Democrats used the “nuclear option” and McConnell said they would live to regret it, which they did last week when Gorsuch was successfully nominated to the Supreme Court and sworn in this morning.

Marine Le Pen, the far-right French candidate for president, has declared that France was NOT responsible for the deportation of Jews during WWII, a statement that has created, as one might imagine, more than a soupcon of controversy.

New York is the first state offering free four-year public college to its students in families with incomes under $100,000, a move to help residents avoid crushing college loans and to help the state have a work force ready for the future.

May it work.

For all my friends celebrating Passover tonight, Chaq Kasher veSameach! [Happy Passover!]

Tags: Amtrak, Baltimore, BJ's, Bloomberg, Chaq Kasher veSameach, Christ Church of Hudson, Church of the Advent, Coptic Christians, Kim Jung-un, Lionel White, Mother Eileen, Nanimi, Niki Hailey, North Korea, nuclear option, Passover, Peter's Inn, Petit Louis, President Xi, Red Star, Rex Tillerson, Rusty Scupper, The Avenue
Posted in 2016 Election, Airstrikes, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, European Refugee Crisis, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, Iran, IS, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Trump, Uncategorized, World War II | Leave a Comment »

Letter From the Train 04 06 2017 Thoughts through mist and fog…

April 6, 2017

It is dusty grey; mist and fog lay lightly on the Hudson River as I head south toward New York City and then on to Baltimore to visit Lionel and Pierre. It will be a long weekend; I return on Monday.

It had been my intent to drive but when I woke this morning to predictions of thunderstorms and tornadoes along my route, I opted for the train.

Last night, I sat down to begin a letter and could not find words. Ennui swept over me and I wandered off to bed, watched an episode of “Grace and Frankie” and fell asleep, waking early to prepare to leave.

Yesterday was my first day as host of the Wednesday version of WGXC’s “Morning Show,” from 9 AM to 11 AM. The night before, I had a night full of crazy dreams in which I got to the studio on Wednesday morning only to find they had changed all the controls and I had no idea on how to work them. In another dream, I decided to sleep at the station the night before to make sure that I didn’t miss the program but did anyway.

No psychiatrist is needed to interpret these dreams.

And the program went well; there was much praise from friends and colleagues and I relaxed, thinking I can manage this. It was fun and for my first guest, I had Alana Hauptman, who owns my beloved “Red Dot.”

Probably no one remembers Texas Guinan anymore; she ran the biggest, best, brassiest, funniest, speakeasy in New York during Prohibition. She was loved and admired and imitated. She was known for her big heart and saucy character. Alana is all of that and is the Texas Guinan of Hudson. The Red Dot has stood for nineteen years and been an anchor to the town and certainly my world.

There is a slew of people lined up to be guests on the show including the folks who run Bridge Street Theater in Catskill, world premiering a new play shortly and Jeff Cole, who is the CEO of the Center for the Digital Future at USC’s Annenberg School of Communication as well as Howard Bloom, who is a multi-published author and once press agent to every major rock group in the 1970’s and ‘80’s. And Fayal Greene, who has lived in Hudson for a long time, civically active, and is leaving at the end of the month for Maine, where she and her husband will live in a retirement community near their summer home and many relatives.

The farewell party will, of course, be at the Red Dot.

All of this is very hygge.

And I roll around in the hygge-ness of my life as outside my bubble I am often stupefied by my world.

Politics has never been this raucous in my lifetime and perhaps not this much since the founding of the Republic, which, I understand, was a very raucous time.

As I was getting ready to board the train, Representative Devin Nunes, Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, has now recused himself from the Russian investigation over ethics concerns.

In Syria, eighty plus people, including children, died in an apparent gas attack. Trump says the incident crossed “a lot of lines for him.” Tillerson has said that it was undoubtedly Assad’s regime. Assad is saying bombs ignited a store of gas weapons in the attacked town. Russia is demanding the US lay out its cards on how to solve the Syrian problem.

This all sounds like a lot like another replay of the last few years, with some new players and no new results. In the meantime, Syrians continue to suffer; something like five million of them are refugees, many living in squalor with their only drinking water coming from septic tanks causing typhoid and a further circling down into this hell that has been created.

A radio report from a Syrian refugee camp yesterday may have been the cause of last night’s ennui.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is meeting with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago today and tomorrow. It is a high stakes meeting reports say. Wide chasms exist in trade with Trump the candidate picking on China through most of the campaign and the Chinese, unlike some Americans, have long memories and play a long game.

If this turns out to be the pivot point for the United States, future historians might look at our tendency to be focused on short term goals as a factor in creating this pivot.

And in this miasma of non-hygge news, is a report that Jeff Bezos, second richest man on the planet, is selling a billion dollars of Amazon stock a year to finance Blue Origin, his space venture. That makes me smile. Money at work on building the future.

Tags: Alana Hauptman, Amazon, Amtrak, Assad, Blue Origin, Bridge Street Theater, Center for the Digital Future, Fayal Green, Grace and Frankie, Hudson, Jeff Bezos, Jeff Cole, Red Dot, Russia, Syria, Syrian gas attack, Texas Guinan, Trump, WGXC, Xi Jinping
Posted in 2016 Election, Airstrikes, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Homelessness, Hudson New York, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Russia, Social Commentary, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Letter From Claverack 04 04 2017 Musings from yesterday…

April 4, 2017

It is dusk on the day that seemed to say: Spring is here, for real. Walking around today as I did errands, I was jacketless and soon, I thought, I will be wearing shorts. All day today, I felt a letter happening in me.

It is an interesting time for me. My work for the Miller Center for the Presidency is on pause while they work out budgets for the coming year. It maybe I will be part of it and it may be that I will not. To be decided.

The guest bathroom is being repainted and today I went and picked up the new medicine chest and lighting at Lowe’s. The inside of the car was vacuumed and the winter’s gunk washed mostly away. It needs a good detailing which will happen soon now that I have found a place in Greenport.

This time of day is brilliant. Outside it is pearl grey, inside jazz plays and a martini is sipped. The creek floodlights are on and it is all good and hygge.

Just finished watching my friend Medora Heilbron’s vlog about matzo place cards for Passover! It was a treat, watch here.

All this is very comforting on a day when the Los Angeles Times published a scathing review of the first days of Trump’s presidency. You can read it here. It is the kind of editorial about a President that hasn’t been seen since the 1970’s. Yes, since Nixon.

At 4:31 AM our President tweeted about whether Hillary had apologized for having been giving questions prior to one of the town halls. Yes, that was wrong. It’s over, Mr. Trump. You are now the President. You won. Move on, please. Please.

Are you capable of moving on?

Not moving on will be the people killed in a Metro explosion in St. Petersburg, Russia. A bomb went off on a train, killing, at last count, eleven, and injuring dozens. St. Petersburg is on my bucket list. Over the years, I’ve read a lot about the city and feel a connection to it. I will hold a thought and prayer in my heart for them tonight.

And for all the people who are facing starvation in Yemen and South Sudan and…

For all of them, I lit candles this week at church. As well as young Nick, who continues struggling.

The web of Trump’s Russian connections keeps getting murkier with Erik Prince, a Trump supporter and founder of the infamous Blackwater Group, apparently having a meeting in January, days before the inauguration, with Russian contacts in the Seychelles. Now this was reported by the Washington Post, a liberal newspaper but a credible one.

Along with every thinking person, I am finding this fascinating. What is going on rivals, or equals, the Nixon years. And Nixon was six years into his presidency when Watergate bit him in the you know where.

We’re not much more than seventy days into this presidency and the storm is not going to abate.

John McCain, whom I did not vote for nor would have considered voting for considering his choice for Vice President, but for whom I have respect, has been saying things like this is the most concerned he’s ever been about the state of our democracy.

And I agree. With Nixon, one had a sense the system was working. Right now, I am not sure the system is working. And that scares the hell out of me.

Tags: Blackwater Group, Donald Trump, Erik Prince, Greenport, Hillary Clinton, Hygge, John McCain, Los Angeles Time editorial, Medora Heilbron, Miller Center, Nick Dier, Nixon, Seychelles, South Sudan, St. Petersburg, technology, theaters, Trump, Watergate, Yemen
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Letter From Claverack, written on 3/29/17 Some things are harder than others…

March 30, 2017

There is sometimes nothing in the world quite like a vodka soaked olive and so when I made myself a martini tonight, I used olives instead of the traditional lemon twist.

To be truthful, I wasn’t sure I was going to put my fingers to the keyboard tonight. It’s been a cranky day; out early in a chill drizzle doing unpleasant errands, I got home around ten this morning and determined I was not leaving the comfort of the cottage. The fourth straight day of cold grey drizzle had me crying for mercy.

It’s been an emotional couple of days. First, most importantly, young Nick, who helps me is going through a rough patch again and that weighs heavily on me. Which is why I was up early today, to give him support in a rough moment.

As some of you know, I was one of the founders of Blue DOT Indivisible Hudson, a group intended to be politically active in this most distressing of political times. On Monday evening, using a word much used in Washington these days, I “recused” myself from anything more to do with Blue DOT and that was hard, even harder than I had expected it to be.

It was difficult to discover that there was no room for me there and seeing no way there would be, I bowed out. Of the original five, two of us are now gone, one wavering. To say I wish them well is an understatement. And I had to leave.

There are other things I can do, have been doing and will continue to do.

Thus, it has been an emotionally charged couple of days.

That all said, I am at the cottage, the day is closing, jazz is playing, it warm and hygge in the cottage. Saturday will see another dinner party here and I am snuggling into figuring it out.

There were two good calls for the Miller Center for the Presidency today, both exciting in their own way.

The creek is very high because of the rain and it flows swiftly toward the pond now, abandoning for a moment its usual gentle course.

And like the creek today, nothing is gentle.

The Senate Intel Committee is about to launch hearings and is promising to be more aggressive than the House Intel Committee, led by Devin Nunes, who has found himself with his underwear wrapped in knots.

He has muddied the waters with his meeting with some source on the White House grounds that informed him that Trump and his team may have been incidentally listened in on by government agencies. Which lead to Trump feeling “somewhat vindicated” about his, to date, unproven charge that Obama ordered “wiretapping” on Trump Tower.

Truthfully, I have trouble unwinding what the hell is going on. And I’m not the only one.

So, the ball has been moved to the Senate where both the Republican and Democratic leaders of the committee want to know what went on. Those Senators, Republican and Democratic, are talking about this as the biggest thing since Watergate.

And while all of this is going on, the world is facing the greatest humanitarian crisis since the end of World War II.

Millions are starving and we are not paying attention because, basically, we don’t know. The Trump Show is consuming the headlines. South Sudan is a catastrophe. Syria is a catastrophe. Yemen is more than a catastrophe.

Should I, a man who has no real obligations, go to one of those desperate places and offer help? I am thinking about it.

Tags: Blue DOT Indivisible Hudson, Devin Nunes, House Intel Committee, Hygge, Martini, Senate Intel Committee, South Sudan, Syria, Trump, Watergate, White House, Wiretapping Trump Tower, Yemen
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Claverack, Columbia County, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Letter From Claverack via the train… March 27, 2017 The future we can almost touch…

March 28, 2017

It is nearing sunset; I am riding north after a day in the city, on the 5:47 out of New York Penn. Todd, one of our most venerable conductors, is conducting a game of trivia in which all of us who ride in the café car are participating. It is lovingly raucous. Some are answering the question before Todd finishes asking the question.

The commute, I don’t miss. The people I do. There is a mixture tonight of old regulars and new regulars. Annette, of Rhinebeck, is screaming answers and folks are singing the songs which are the answers to some of the questions. It is a moment wrapped in warmth.

The sun slips beneath the Catskills in a glow of burnt orange. With Trivia Time now over, we have slipped back to reading, working, with more than a few yawns stretching faces wide.

As in every day there seems to be a necessary amount of political conversations. Our google groups email list for the Empire Regulars, got slightly sidetracked into politics today until Maria, our estimable moderator, stepped in and held up the stop sign. As always, when Maria decrees, the Regulars accede.

While I am far from politically indifferent, the cascade of commentary is wearing. This is going to be a long, long haul and we must husband our strength over time and be laser focused.

Just before I boarded the train, Andrew Mer, a fellow consultant and I had a brief meeting while we discussed the Miller Center a bit and some other things. He said something I thought wise. Trump’s election has laid bare the fissures in our society we have papered over.

And Mr. Trump is helping underscore the fissures.

The attempt to repeal and replace has gone down in flames and there is even a tentative reaching out to Democrats to see what actually be done as the Freedom Caucus is intransient.

California farmers, enthusiastic supporters of Trump, are nonplussed at his immigration intentions. One said: I thought Trump was kidding. He is now anxious because his farm in California runs because of illegal immigrants.

The agony of Rockford, Illinois and other rust belt cities is now at the surface and the failure to deal with that, under both Democrats and Republicans, is a national shame, building for generations. We did not retrain people for other jobs to replace the ones not returning.

And the jobs are not returning until we look at and adapt to the revolution technology is shoving down our throats and figure out what else we can do.

The industrial revolution is coming to an end; whatever history calls this one, we need to find a new way.

The coal jobs in West Virginia probably aren’t coming back. Machines are mining what men once did. Driverless cars will toss aside the long-distance drivers, once a way to climb an economic rung. Not today, not tomorrow but someday, in a future we can almost touch, those jobs will disappear and we are not moving to educate all those people for something different.

The Trump Revolution is not dissimilar to what happened as the Industrial Revolution began the change. People rioted. Today they voted. If we don’t address the systemic issues, the next step will be riots.

The hopeful part is we somehow weathered the arrival of the Industrial Revolution and accomplished incredible things. In the last hundred years, for those in the west, our life spans have doubled, we are more educated, our lives are quite fantastic compared to that of our grandparents. There are friends of mine who are alive because of what has been achieved.

And we need to focus on the fact we are in a revolutionary period. Trump isn’t looking there nor was Hillary Clinton. Our politicians on both sides are facing the past, not the future.

The brilliance of Kennedy was he painted a picture of what could be, not what was.

We have raised the lid on the septic tank and need to clean it now.

What we are achieving technologically in this time has the promise of catapulting us to another level and very few seem to realize it and fewer still imagine how to use it for the common good.

Tags: Andrew Mer, Catskills, Donald Trump, Driverless cars, Industrial Revolution, JFK, John Kennedy, Miller Center, Paul Ryan, Repeal and Replace, Rhinebeck, technology, West Virginia
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hudson New York, Income Inequality, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Letter From Claverack 03 20 2017 First day of spring and an amazing political day…

March 21, 2017

It’s evening, dark has descended upon the countryside on this, the first day of spring, which was fairly spring like here in Columbia County, with the temperatures scraping fifty degrees.

As I drove around, folks were out, working on repairing their mailboxes on the side of the roads, knocked over by the snow plows. Since there is no mail delivery on Patroon Street, that was not my worry.

It was a good day. Woke early, read news and emails, showered, had a conference call about a PBS project I’m working on and then went down to the radio station for a meeting. From there, I went down to the little café across from the train station and had a bowl of amazing New England Clam Chowder.

Followed by more errands, a visit with my friend Debbie, who is recovering from surgery, and at the end of the day, I was in Hudson and went to the Red Dot for a creamy tomato soup with crab [OMG!] followed by a chicken breast sautéed to perfection, then home, putting away all the things I’d purchased, mostly cleaning supplies that had gone low.

Now I am here, at the laptop, jazz plays on Echo, and I am delightfully cozy in the cottage. Hygge.

It’s what’s needed. Sitting with Patrick O’Connor at the Red Dot, I told him I often look at the Food Section of the New York Times before I review the news. Before plunging into the reality of the world, I feel a need for something comforting, like a new recipe.

And, today, the first day of spring, you needed a good recipe to ease you into a day that has been – interesting, to say the least.

At ten o’clock, as I was having my conference call with WTTW, the PBS affiliate in Chicago, James Comey, head of the FBI, began giving testimony in front of House Intelligence Committee. While I was having a conference call with WTTW in Chicago, myself in New York and my producer in New Delhi, my text message screen was alight with people asking me if I was watching?

No, I was on a conference call. And when I finished, I had meetings to go to. And my email was full of news updates through the day while I was running errands.

Comey acknowledged that the FBI was investigating links between Trump’s campaign and Russia. There is no information they have that corroborates President Trump’s tweets that the Obama administration “wiretapped” Trump Tower. Nor does the Justice Department.

While all this was going on, @POTUS, the official Twitter account of the President, was putting a good spin on the testimony.

You know, I’ve seen an awful lot in my life and I’ve never seen anything like this. Well, maybe Watergate.

And then there’s Uber, an app driven ride service I have frequently used, until recently. After only seven months, its president quit as the company’s values were inconsistent with his own. OUCH!

Uber is under great duress as it faces sexual harassment suits and a slew of other ugly issues. I’m using Lyft now; most of their drivers also drive for Uber and prefer Lyft calls.

Riding in an Uber is painful as most of their drivers just complain about how awful they are while Lyft drivers mostly say how good the company is. Lyft uber alles!

Norway is the happiest country in the world. What do we have to learn from them? Or is just about North Sea oil? No, that’s facetious. The Scandinavians work at being happy, they work at social harmony. Norway may be happiest and it’s closely followed by Demark and Sweden.

The U.S. has slipped to 14^th and I’ll be interested to see where we are next year.

Ladies and gentleman, this is a remarkable time in our democracy. Pay attention. Don’t be partisan. Just pay attention.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Letter From Claverack 03 15 2017 How is this all possible?

March 15, 2017

It is Wednesday, March 15^th, 2017 [just so we are settled in time] and I am here at my dining room table with swing jazz playing in the background. A little while ago I attempted to turn on the floodlights on the creek and I think they work but are too buried in snow to show.

This is as much snow as I have ever experienced in my years at the cottage, equal to a nor’easter probably ten years ago. I have not attempted to leave the cottage and am INFI

This is as much snow as I have ever experienced in my years at the cottage, equal to a nor’easter probably ten years ago. I have not attempted to leave the cottage and am INFINITELY grateful we haven’t had a power outage.

While I was in Miami and Saba, all around me 200,000 people were without power for three or four or more days.

Yesterday, the snow plow man came and did my driveway. I am hoping he comes back as there was another seven inches after he was here.

It was pleasant, in a way, to be stranded. Choices are very limited when you can’t go anywhere. Today, some wonderful young men came and dug out me out and I’m now able to leave. There is a meeting in New York I’ve asked to reschedule as it feels like really big work to get to the city tomorrow.

Today, I worked on some things for my client the Miller Center and have more things to work on tomorrow and all of it was done while listening to swing jazz and drinking really good coffee.

Beatrice, my banana plant, which has grown from an infant to a really big plant, is suffering water distress and I can’t figure out whether I’m giving her not enough water or too much.

Yesterday, I avoided the news of the day. Watching the snow fall was amusement enough.

But, as I was going through my emails, I saw the Trumponmics Daily email from Fortune magazine, not, I think, a profoundly liberal magazine. It eviscerated the Ryancare replacement for Obamacare.

Today, I called Representative Faso’s office and let them know if he voted for this bill as it is currently written, I will absolutely not vote for him in 2018.

It will particularly hit hard seniors, of which I am one [ouch, how did this happen?]. It will be good for, according to Fortune, insurance executives and the wealthy. Do the wealthy really need this? No, I don’t think so.

It will save money but at what cost? It seems to be bad for those who can least afford it and good for those who can most afford it.

And then, it seems we are living in a world of alternative facts. Mostly, I am bemused about this. And I am also very disturbed by this. It is too much; I need to not be consumed by what is happening. So I do my best to take it in bits and pieces.

Alan Murray, who is CEO of Fortune and Chief Content Officer of Time, Inc. has a daily blog he writes which is worth reading. Google it and you will find it. A very good read.

And today, like most days since the inauguration, is another day of news delights.

A judge in Hawaii has ruled against the newest version of Trump’s travel ban.

And the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Republican Representative David Nunes of California, has come out saying there’s no evidence of wiretapping of Trump Tower.

Ouch.

GOP Senators are offering changes to the American Health Care Act, which is to replace “Obamacare.” The pushback on “Ryancare” is getting stronger.

These are extraordinary times.

May we all figure them out.

NTELY grateful we haven’t had a power outage.

While I was in Miami and Saba, all around me 200,000 people were without power for three or four or more days.

Yesterday, the snow plow man came and did my driveway. I am hoping he comes back as there was another seven inches after he was here.

Today, I worked on some things for my client the Miller Center and have more things to work on tomorrow and all of it was done while listening to swing jazz and drinking really good coffee.

Beatrice, my banana plant, which has grown from an infant to a really big plant, is suffering water distress and I can’t figure out whether I’m not giving her not enough water or too much.