It has been another dark and sullen day and I am a little cranky about that. We went from shorts to sweatshirts in about 18 hours. It was cold and dank at the cottage when I woke this morning, slightly before the alarm was to go off. I went and got my coffee and curled back on the bed, wrapped in my favorite robe, and read the news.
My first reading of the day was an alert that had come in from the BBC about the torture of a 14 year old by IS and I winced when I saw it, the barbarity of it was incomprehensible. IS is forcing children as young as thirteen into service as soldiers. An entire generation is being perverted and the world will be paying the consequences for generations.
Ahmed, the boy, was caught on video by a man who has since deserted IS and Ahmed himself has escaped. But hundreds, thousands, remain and are being taught to be creatures of hate. My mind dazzles.
In the meantime, 41 have died in another IS suicide attack. What draws individuals to suicide attacks? I want to know. I really do.
While IS creates its havoc with suicide attacks, al-Abadi, Prime Minister of Iraq, is plotting on how they will take back Ramadi. The meeting is being held in Paris, far from the suicide bombers and the disintegration that is Iraq. The land has run red with blood and it is nowhere near a solution.
And that haunts me nearly every night though it does not infest my dreams. In my last, very colorful dream I was working with Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep on a film that neither of them should have been in at the age they were. It was very complicated and I woke up amused.
In my dreams, I would be in Greece, which is where my friend Winn is, sharing photographs of places that I haunted in other times of my life and I remember them fondly. He posted just an hour ago a photo of himself outside of Franco’s, a bar and club on Santorini, a place where I spent many an evening watching the sun set, understanding in those moments of glorious sun fall, why the Greek myths have been so powerful It brings a smile to my face and I am so glad that I have experienced it and am so glad that Winn is experiencing it.
The sun is setting here in New York but you can’t see it because the sun is hidden behind the drab grey clouds that have dominated that last 48 hours. It makes me want to be home, cuddled on my couch with a fire in the Franklin stove with a good British mystery on the television.
Bruce Jenner is making his first appearance as a woman on the cover of Vanity Fair and has chosen the name of Caitlin for himself as he moves from man to woman. What a journey that person must have had in his/her life. I’m not sure I would have had the courage to take it. I saw some photos online today. He/she does not look bad and I wish her/him well as she/he continues this process.
Life is a process. I’m going through my own process right now and sometimes I find it exhilarating and sometimes I find it exhausting. But it is a part of a journey and that is what life is all about: it is a journey, from the moment we are born until the moment that we die.
As the night goes into the grey, I will wrap up. I am going to meet my friend Robert and we’ll have a bite to eat and then I am headed home to the little apartment, where I will read a bit and then fall asleep, to wake in the morning to the next round of news.
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From New York 06 02 15 Muddling through…
June 2, 2015It’s been downright chill in New York City today and I wish I had worn a wool sweater instead of a cotton one. I am heading this evening up to Hudson; Alana, my friend who is the owner of my favorite bistro, The Red Dot, is having a special Japanese meal at the restaurant and asked me if I could be there for it. Hard to say no to such a good friend so I am up tonight and back tomorrow.
When I get to the cottage, I may have to turn on the heat, as it will be chiller there than it is in the city. If I weren’t coming back to the city in the morning, there’d be a Franklin stove fire in my future.
What is not in the future for Sepp Blatter, head of FIFA, is more time as head of FIFA. I subscribe to VICE News and its news of the resignation popped up on the upper right corner of my screen while I was on a conference call. The paper trail is moving closer to him in regards to the corruption scandal. His right hand man, Jerome Valcke, apparently was a recipient of a letter that links him to the alleged $10,000,000 bribe for the World Cup to be held in South Africa.
Bruce Jenner has now officially become Caitlyn Jenner, doing so with a splash in a Vanity Fair spread. She gained a million twitter followers more quickly than Obama did when he launched @potus. As someone who remembers her when she was Bruce and the triumphant Olympian, I can only imagine what a journey this has been for her. So public a life, so private a journey.
Last night on the Yangtze River, a river cruise ship named the Eastern Star or Oriental Star, depending on how you translate its Chinese name, was sailing through a storm when high winds struck and the ship capsized. So far, only fourteen people have been found alive of the 456 aboard. One survivor, a cruise director, floated fifty miles downriver before rescue.
There was no distress signal and the first realization of the disaster was when a few survivors reached shore and raised the cry.
Most of the passengers were elderly Chinese on holiday.
The Patriot Act, with some revisions, was resuscitated on the Hill today and will go to President Obama for his signature, which he has pledged to do. I have some mixed feelings about this. I have friends who rant that the Patriot Act has turned us into a police state while others are equally adamant that it is absolutely necessary for protection.
The process has elevated Rand Paul who worked against it and weakened Mitch McConnell, who thought it should be passed without revisions. Somewhere along the line he miscalculated the misgivings of his fellow Senators.
To me, whatever you think of Snowden, he revealed some unsavory aspects to our spying that have left, at least me, uncomfortable.
The situation in Syria is deteriorating. IS has begun to encroach upon Aleppo and non-IS affiliated rebels are accusing Assad of using his air force to support IS against them. Which in the convoluted realities of Syria today might actually be true.
A meeting of anti-IS countries concluded a meeting with Secretary of State Kerry attending by video link. Everyone agreed more needs to be done but didn’t seem to come up with any concrete steps beyond muddling along in the same way they currently are.
Which is what we’re doing, muddling along through one of the great crises of our time.
The EU seems to be muddling along through the Greek crisis, with more meetings scheduled for tomorrow. The EU financial ministers can’t seem to get their arms around the political realities on the ground in Greece. Greece is living through a Great Depression experience and is desperate, which is why Tsipras was so overwhelmingly elected. He promised to change that and Greece needs some positive changes.
In a startling rewrite to biology books, the endangered smalltooth sawfish, has found away to avoid extinction. They have now seemed to have mastered “virgin births.” Seen occasionally in animals in captivity, it is not entirely unknown but what happens to men when women can experience “virgin births?”
On the train going up north, it has been a frustrating ride. North of where we were, a Metro North train had become disabled and we waited thirty minutes for the track to be cleared. I will probably arrive in time for dessert. But so it goes when you travel the rails, in America.
Tags: Alana, Aleppo, Assad, Bruce Jenner, Caitlyn Jenner, Eastern Star, EU, Fifa, Greek Debt Crisis, Jerome Valcke, Kerry, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Metro North, Oriental Star, Patriot Act, Sepp Blatter, smalltooth sawfish, Syria, The Red Dot, VICE News, virgin births, World Cup South Africa, Yangtze River sinking
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