It’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.
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From New York 11 10 15 He’s back…
November 10, 2015Mary Dickey. Failed Computer. Apple Store. Tek Serve. 240th anniversary of the Marines. Russian Doping. George W Bush. George H.W. Bush. Dick Cheney. Donald Rumsfeld. Syria. Assad. Aleppo.
It is late in the afternoon and I’m in the city, where it has been raining or drizzling all this grey day.
If you, like my friend Mary Dickey, have noticed I have not been posting, it is because on Friday of last week, I dumped a glass of water onto my laptop. It didn’t recover. I let it dry from Friday until Monday morning. Nothing. Nada. Zip.
Yesterday was a very full day so I determined I would use today, which was relatively unscheduled, to deal with this. Since it didn’t return to life this morning, I went to my breakfast with old friend David McKillop and went from him to the Apple Store in Grand Central Station, where a very nice young lady named Karen sold me a new MacAir. Then young Jason and I attempted to port over the data on my back-up drive.
In what was a nightmare moment, Jason and I realized, after much effort, that it, too, was dead and none of those king’s men could put that Humpty back together again.
They sent me from the Apple Store to Tek Serve where a very nice young ex-Marine helped me get the data off the failed drive and onto another drive, from which I could extract the data I needed.
That he was an ex-Marine was found out when I asked him how his day was. He told me that he was an ex-Marine and that today is the 240th anniversary of the Marines and when he was off work, he and a few buddies were going to celebrate.
Leaving there, I sat down and extracted the data I needed from the restored back-up drive, sorted through all the 1300 emails that downloaded from the server and then determined I would write a letter, to let those who have been wondering about my absence, know my trials and travails.
Being without a laptop has not been totally a curse. I have done a good amount of reading since Friday. i think I have gone through at least two books.
But it does feel good to be re-connected with the outside world via laptop.
It has come to my attention from reading off my phone that the Russians have been accused of condoning and perhaps encouraging their athletes to dope. Imagine my surprise when I read that! Just as shocked as Claude Rains was in “Casablanca” that there was gambling in Rick’s Cafe.
There is a FOURTH GOP debate tonight and we’re still a year away from the election. Jeb is in a tough place and needs to break through tonight, say the pundits, or he’ll be in much more trouble than he is.
“Pappy” Bush, George H.W. Bush, the 41st President of the United States and father of George W. Bush, our 43rd President, has just published a book that is more than a bit cutting about Cheney and Rumsfeld. I’m not surprised but when asked about his father’s comments, “W” expressed surprise.
What did the Bushes talk about on Thanksgiving? Certainly not about the country they were running.
The University of Missouri has lost it’s two top officials in a protest on the handling of race relations.
Today is also Diwali, the Festival of Lights in India. Twenty years ago I was in New Delhi, celebrating the festival by riding an elephant down the streets and watching a barrage of fireworks from every side. It was a surreal but exciting experience. I went back to my hotel with a swirl of light rotating in my eyes.
During that time, Discovery Channel, for whom I was working, officially launched in India with a party at the American Embassy. There were fireworks then, too. An Embassy official, looking much like he could be a character in some Graham Greene novel, sidled up to me and confided there hadn’t been fireworks since Jackie. Kennedy.
The night I left India for the first time, the Minister for Human Resources, with whom I had visited, was arrested for appropriating 16 million dollars to his personal use.
There is still a refugee crisis and Germany is beginning to have its patience exhausted. The fighting continues in Syria with the Assad government claiming to have lifted the two year long siege of Aleppo.
In other words, while I have been feeling almost lost without my MacAir anchor, the world has continued on.
But now I’m back!
Tags:240th Anniversary of the Marines, Aleppo, Apple Store, Assad, Dick Cheney. Syria, Donald Rumsfeld, Failed Computer, George H W Bush, George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, Mary Dickey, Russian Doping, TekServe
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