It is delightfully quiet as I sit on the deck, the fierce heat of the day receding and all the noise of the city left behind. About four o’clock, I returned to Columbia County from four days in the city, a delightful time, packed with adventures and sights and people. And I was glad to return to the quiet of the cottage and knit it all together.
The occasion of my trip was that it was my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding anniversary. They were married in New York four years ago and return every year to celebrate. Last year, I was absent, selling books in Edgartown, on Martha’s Vineyard.
This year, I was present. On Wednesday, they went for a private celebration of their anniversary while I had dinner with my wonderful godson, Paul Geffre. We had a wonderful dinner and then went to the Parker Meridien for after dinner drinks with Joe and Deb, who had not met him.
Joe, Deb and I went, over the days of the visit, to the Intrepid, Ellis Island, the site of the deadly Triangle fire, to “Spamilton,” which Deb and I enjoyed more than Joe as we got the Broadway references.
As I type, the Tonys are being broadcast and I am not watching. It seems more important to gather myself together after these hectic days, wonderful, full of visiting and fun and feasting and I’m sure my waist has expanded and I must handle that.
Today, after Joe and Deb had left for the airport, I brunched with old friends from California, one of whom has residences in both places and Meryl and Ray, who were in for a visit and work for Meryl.
Before I met them, I had a quick coffee with my bestest friend, Nick Stuart [Lionel, you are more than friend; we are family of choice], and we spoke of things and we talked about how I have been working on living in an “attitude of gratitude,” appreciating the good things in life and not yearning after what I don’t have and celebrating what I have, which is quite, quite wonderful.
Deb and Joe gave me a wonderful book about hygge and I laughed at getting it because I have been writing about hygge ever since I heard about it and, gosh, don’t we need it now.
At this moment, I am having a very hygge moment. Sitting on my deck, the creek is calm, birds are chirping. My neighbor’s dogs are romping some distance away. Far away there is a sound of a truck traversing the road a third of a mile away and I am not caught in the cacophony of New York, which is wonderful and now wearying for me.
When I was moving to DC, I lived for a time in an apartment in Georgetown, across from Dumbarton Oaks, and thought: wow, Mathew is getting to live in some of the great cities of the world. That has continued. And now, in the third act of this life, I am always glad to return to the quiet and the hygge of the cottage.
At dinners and brunches, we all discussed the political madness of our time, which is, at least to me, the most serious since Watergate, and all wonder how we got here and where will we go. The Democrats are in disarray; the Republicans fleeing or feeding the strangeness that is Trump [the kindest way I can describe this presidency].
The Clinton impeachment was a distraction, a hounding of a serial sexual player who didn’t want to admit in public what we all knew.
This is not a distraction. It is serious. This is Watergate level.
Theresa May in the UK, having lost [and it is almost impossible to believe she did] her gamble to get a greater majority to support her Brexit negotiations, was described tonight in some UK papers as “dead woman walking.”
Macron, in France, has seized the government in a way no one has since De Gaulle [I think] and we have a new day there. Angela Merkel looks to be re-elected in Germany. The political scene is exciting, if more than a bit scary.
It is a little past seven at the cottage; the weekend is winding down, “Swing Jazz” is the Amazon music station playing. Marcel, Lionel and Pierre’s poodle, is situated comfortably on the couch, looking at the door to see when they will return, which will be in a few days. The flood lights illuminate the creek and I am at the freshly polished dining room table, writing.
It’s the end of a good weekend, mostly very “hygge.” [Pronounced hoo-ga, it’s Danish for living a cozy life.] And it’s been a cozy weekend. Young Nick has returned from his walkabout and came over Friday afternoon and helped me prepare for what turned out to be a most excellent dinner party.
Saturday was cleaning up and being domestic, a solo lunch at the Dot, dinner with Lionel and Pierre at their house, home to sleep.
But all the hygge in my life has been overshadowed and squeezed by the events in the world around me. President Trump has been issuing Executive Orders to his heart’s content. They feel a bit like Imperial Edicts. Do this. Ban that. It’s been stunning. And equally stunning is the response of the American public.
When he banned individuals from seven countries, all primarily Muslim, from entering the United States, hordes of lawyers went to airports and became filing appeals, sitting on the floor in the terminals, laptops plugged into whatever outlet could be found.
It made me proud.
At those same airports, crowds appeared. At JFK, several New York Congressmen were there, attempting to help. One quarantined gentleman was an Iraqi citizen who was on his way to the US because he had been an interpreter for our soldiers and his life was in danger. Thankfully, he was released.
People with green cards are in limbo, depending on the airport they flew into. Federal Judges are ordering limits on Trump’s ruling and some officials are ignoring them.
Excuse me, what? What?
Heads are spinning.
Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief political operative, has been given a seat on the National Security Council while the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs and the Director of National Intelligence have been demoted.
What? What?
In the morning now, I get up, make my coffee and call my Senators and my Representative in Congress and tomorrow I don’t know what issue to focus on. There are so many.
A relative sent me a clip of a State of the Union Address given by Bill Clinton, in which he talked about the dangers of illegal immigration. The headline before the clip was “The hypocrisy of liberals!”
Well, really, hypocrisy? Take a look at this article. Mike Pence opposed what Trump has done and now is praising it. Is that not hypocrisy? Political opportunism?
Immigration has been an issue ever since we stopped accepting just about everybody. Don’t know about you, but I’m here, an American citizen, because my great grandparents came over from Germany and settled in Minnesota. Back then, almost everyone was taken in. [Though my great grandparents arrived in First Class so they didn’t have to go through the indignities of Ellis Island.]
Then it changed and immigration has been an issue ever since. Okay, I get that. And what President Trump has done is unprecedented. His list of excluded countries does not include Saudi Arabia from which came many of the 9/11 hijackers. It does not exclude Pakistan, one of whose citizens was part of the Riverside massacre. It’s a bit bewildering. The banned countries have barely contributed to the numbers who have died from terrorist acts in the US.
And, amazingly, it appears the list was compiled during the Obama Administration but never activated. Boggles the mind.
Not even during Viet Nam was I this agitated. Agitated does not describe my mood when I am not working very hard at hygge.
In an article I scanned two days ago, it speculated that Trump may be to Millennials what Viet Nam was to my generation, a catalytic event.
You see, there is a movement to stop abortions. There is a generation of young women who have grown up believing they had the right of choice. Now some people want to take that it away from them. No, not happy. And abortions have been decreasing and in 2014 were the lowest since 1973.
There are young people who are in college whose friends are in limbo because they come from one of the banned countries and went home over winter break and may not be able to come back despite having valid visas.
And there are people like me, a Baby Boomer grown old, who is incensed in a way I have not been for god alone knows how many years. The protests will not stop. They will not go away. The country is fired up in a way that hasn’t been seen since Viet Nam.
Wow! The games have begun.
To be completely clear, I am one of the founders of Blue DOT [Democracy Opposing Trump] Hudson Indivisible. It is my time of being an activist. This Presidency must be opposed. It is divisive. It is immoral. It has in its first week demonstrated a willingness to flaunt conventional order.
Tomorrow I am calling the office of John McCain and Lindsey Graham who are opposing Trump to thank them for their efforts. We are all in for a rocky ride and maybe this was a good thing to happen.
The Left is galvanized the way the Right was when Obama was elected and already seems, and I hope it continues, to be more emphatic than the Tea Party movement.
Well, it’s Monday evening and nearly twenty-four hours has passed since the debate. It was as close to X rated as any debate in the history of the Presidential Elections, what with Hillary bringing up Trump’s vile language in his 2005 tape and Trump bringing up Bill Clinton’s well-documented infidelities.
Oh my! Personally, I thought Trump looked terrible. And that sniffling…
The NY Times [and my conservative readers will not like this] said that there was only one adult on the stage and it wasn’t Donald Trump. I agree.
Trump had a little get together before the debate with four women who accuse Bill Clinton of sexual assault. Look, Bill was a philanderer. We all know that now thanks to Monica Lewinsky. We know Hillary was brutal in her defense of her husband.
AND Hillary is running for President. Not Bill. Bill Clinton was JFK without a compliant press.
It was down and dirty, Trump dominating the stage, sniffling all the time, while Hillary [IMHO] was doing her best to both go there and not go there. Trump’s tape was the elephant in the room.
It’s getting near the end of the day, thank God. There’s not much more of this I can stand.
However, there was one bright spot in the debate. His name was Ken Bone and he asked a question, wearing a bright red sweater and looking like the guy next door that we really like.
He asked about what the candidates would do to both protect legacy power and create environmentally safe sources going forward. He was respectful, he was clear, he was concise and because he looked like the neighbor you wanted to live next door to you, the Internet went wild. He was everywhere.
And that red sweater he was wearing? There are now all kind of Internet leads that will help you buy that sweater.
He was sweet and real in a moment that felt neither real nor sweet in any other way.
Bravo, Mr. Bone.
But in the meantime, Paul Ryan has said he will no longer defend Trump and will concentrate on keeping the down ticket seats safe. It is one of the rare things Paul Ryan has done with which I agree.
It is pitch black outside and the control to turn on the floodlights is broken, soon to be repaired.
This is the night I turned on the heat, the temperature will fall near to freezing this evening. Soon, I may light a fire in the Franklin Stove and watch some video.
The new season of Poldark has started on PBS and I am catching up.
In the meantime, medics are asking to be let into Aleppo as there is no longer an infrastructure to help the wounded. When last I wrote, two of the four working hospitals had been destroyed. Who knows if the other two are still functioning.
The pound has fallen against the dollar due to Brexit. It was $1.57 to a pound. Now it is $1.23 to a pound. Mayhap I shall plan a trip to Britain.
Nigel Lafarge who helped organize the successful campaign for Brexit, praised Donald Trump for acting like a silverback gorilla in the debate last night.
Please! Really? Nigel, you lied through it all and once you’d won, you stepped down to avoid the consequences of your actions.
It is Columbus Day. In many places it is becoming Indigenous Peoples Day. We are beginning to make mea culpa over the damage we had done to the people who lived here when we arrived.
We destroyed them, all in the name of progress. It makes me wonder what the world would be like if we had incorporated their beliefs into the way we developed our New World?
My morning yesterday began with me flipping my laptop open and sitting down to write as a soft fog floated above the creek with sunlight glistening down through the leaves in the midst of changing color.
Just as I sat down to write, a mug of strong coffee at my side, the mother of a friend phoned and let me know her son was in the hospital and had been asking for me. So I came and sat in his dim room, spelling his mother while she went home to shower and change into fresh clothes.
At two I had a conference call and then I made dinner for Lionel and his family.
The day unrolled in an unexpected way but that is life, unexpected. It also made me think about how we have, in addition to our real families, families of choice.
My life, thankfully, is full of them. Blessedly. And for that I am grateful.
Since I have moved to Hudson, my friend’s family has been that way to me and I went to the hospital to perform the responsibilities of having made a choice. Choices do come with responsibilities.
Out in the wide world, the cold open for last week’s Saturday Night Live was a send-up of the Trump/Clinton debate with Alec Baldwin doing a magnificent satire of Donald Trump. It aired the night before the tax revelations. Pundits wondered which was worse for him, the tax revelations or Alec Baldwin. The video has gone viral. If you haven’t seen it, look for it at the end of the post.
Thursday night, Lionel and I went to Coyote Flaco for dinner. As usual, we sat at the bar. Seated to my left was Tim and, as happens sometimes, we got talking. After I had introduced myself, I introduced Lionel, joking he sounded funny because he was from Australia.
Tim, the man to my left, said, oh, I’ve never been there but am thinking of moving there if Hillary is elected. Lionel retorted he was thinking of returning if Trump was elected.
It didn’t get ugly. Tim said he couldn’t vote for her because she had done nothing but be in government service. Not exactly true but close enough.
Asking him if he knew who FDR was, he said no. So I said Franklin Delano Roosevelt and he said he didn’t know him because he was just little when he was in office. He asked me if I’d been alive when he was in office and I said he’d died before I was born.
The poor man didn’t really know. And, by the way, Tim is younger than I am.
After we left, I thought about it and realized most Presidents we have had have spent much of their lives in public service. Let’s see…
FDR did spend most of his life in public service, seeing us through the Great Depression and WWII. He was followed by Harry Truman who had worked in the private sector for a while but spent the majority of his career in public service, followed by Dwight Eisenhower who certainly spent his whole life in public service, followed by John Kennedy, who had done the same.
Lyndon B. Johnson owned some businesses but mostly was in public service his whole life, followed by Richard Nixon who, too, had spent most of his life in public service, followed by Gerald Ford, lots of public service there, followed by Jimmy Carter, who was a peanut farmer before his Presidency but he, too, gave a great deal of his life to public service. Then came Ronald Reagan, who had made his living as an actor before he went into public service.
He was followed by Bush 1, who had spent much of his life in public service, followed by Clinton, who had done the same. W had been in the private sector but then went on to be Governor and then President. Obama has spent much of his life in public service.
Being in public service has become pejorative in this election and I am not sure why.
Then, yesterday, all Billy Bob broke out over a 2005 video of Trump saying all kinds of things I can’t and won’t repeat. If you are interested, you can find them.
Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House, was “sickened” by them and disinvited Trump to a Republican gathering in his home state of Wisconsin.
A few Republican politicians have withdrawn their endorsements and it is rumored some Republican leaders are quietly gathering to see what is to be done about Trump.
It’s a little late; the ballots have been printed.
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.
Well, I was smart enough today to not look at the market as it was another BAD day as China’s market shudders riled every other market in the world.While they were plunging, I had a pleasant day.
Answered emails, ran errands and wrote out the first draft of my syllabus for my class that starts on the 20th.It was actually kind of fun, if headache inducing.
Now it is evening and I have turned on the lights outside, classic jazz is playing and I think I will light a fire as it is going to be chill again tonight.
My Christmas tree is still up and I am not taking it down until Sunday.Having been gone for two weeks, I feel I deserve a little more time with it.It is a white artificial tree and I think this is its last year.But it has been a beautiful, for me, tree.
Jamison Teale, the Senior Warden at Christ Church [where I attend services] and his longtime companion, James, were married on New Year’s Day by Hudson’s first woman mayor in her first official function.They are coming for dinner on Saturday with the church’s Musical Director, Tom Martin, father to Mayor Tiffany Martin Hamilton of Hudson.
One of my errands today was to find them a small wedding present.
While James and Jamison married easily here in New York, the Chief Justice of Alabama’s Supreme Court, Roy Moore, has ordered that state’s probate judges notissue marriage licenses to gay couples.Federal authorities immediately ordered them to do so.Some have thrown up their arms and aren’t giving marriage licenses to anyone.
Ah, Justice Moore, this has been decided.No back pedaling allowed I think.
One probate judge, Tommy Ragland, summed it up best, saying, “We have a Chief Justice who is confused.”
One of the other errands I did today was to look for a clock radio to replace my ancient one that no longer works.You know, they are rather hard to find.Not nonexistent but hard to find.I am going online to see what I can find there.
My toaster also broke and I looked at those too and thought they all looked shoddy.More investigation needed.
It is the anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo massacre.Let there be a moment of silence.
The French police killed a man brandishing a meat cleaver today, who was screaming “Allahu Akbar [God is Greatest].”He was wearing a fake suicide vest.That confuses me.Why bother?
Oklahoma had a swarm of 70 earthquakes yesterday.In 2013 they had a couple of hundred.In 2014 they had over 5,000.That is an exponential increase.2015 statistics are currently being gathered.There is a suspect:fracking.
Earlier this week Netflix was available in 60 countries.Today it is in 190 countries.130 countries “turned on” Netflix while its President and CEO was giving a speech at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
I’ve attended a couple and they are always mind boggling.This year is not quite so much according to pundits but still generating lots of wow.
Politics continues.Bill Clinton is stumping for Hillary in Iowa.Lots of people I know would like him back but since he can’t….
Cruz is cruising in Iowa which frightens the bejesus out of me.
California is pummeled by storms and that worries me about friends there though I hope it is helping the drought.
In Burns, Oregon the unlawful occupation of a wildlife center continues.On social media people have been asking what would be happening if the occupiers were black or Muslim instead of gun totting white guys who are outraged over Federal land policy?
There are no easy answers to anything.Kerry says that the Saudi Arabia/Iran feud will not slow down the Syrian peace process but how can it not?I mean, how can it not?
I am taking solace in the cottage and in my hope that our better angels will prevail.
Boxing Day.Shepherdstown, WV, Olde Hudson Cheese.Dena Moran. Sarah Malone.Kevin Malone. Michelle Melton. Jim Malone. Syria. Mosque fire in Texas. Corsican fire.Australian fires. NY Times Virtual Reality. World Food Program. Hope, AK.Bill Clinton.Hillary Clinton.
Outside it is as grey, as it has been for the last few days. It is warm, too, near 50 degrees in Shepherdstown, WV.It will be grey all day with rain probable in the evening.
It is the 26th of December, Boxing Day in those countries once affiliated with the British Empire.Boxing Day derived its name from two traditions.One is that for servants it was the day they had off to celebrate Christmas after devoting the actual day to waiting on their “betters.”The other reason was that on the 26th of December, children would roam the streets of England collecting alms for the poor in boxes.
Often in the past I’ve had a “Boxing Day” party.When Dena Moran, proprietor of Olde Hudson Cheese in Hudson heard I was gone between Christmas and New Year’s, she frowned and said, “What, no Boxing Day party?”
But I am gone, sitting at the dining room table of my friends’ home in Shepherdstown, sipping coffee the morning after a lovely Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
My oldest friend, Sarah McCormick Malone, her husband Jim, their son Kevin and his wife Michelle, and I gathered around the dining table and have feasted.We have sipped wine and consumed appetizers and desserts and wonderful mains, crab cakes and duck.
We spent two hours opening presents around a small tree we purchased on Christmas Eve to ensure that there was Christmas spirit in the house.
Now, on Boxing Day morning we are all gathered in the kitchen, preparing for French toast and more feasting and a concert tonight.
While I’ve been coddled in the warmth of my friends and the coziness of this home, the world has been relatively quiet as I looked at the news this morning.
In Corsica and in Texas, mosques were burned on Christmas Day as antipathy against Islam grows in the West.In Hope, AK the childhood home of Bill Clinton burned in a case of suspected arson.Was he the target of the anger or his spouse, Hillary, who is leading the Democratic field for the Presidential nomination?
Disastrous fires burned over a hundred homes outside of Melbourne, Australia while tornadoes and flooding ravaged northern Alabama.
While we feasted, celebrated, opened presents, and enjoyed the coziness of this house, the war waged on in Syria with a rebel leader killed on Saturday.He was anti-Assad and his death will have ramifications in the confusing cauldron of that country.
As we were prepping our Christmas duck last night, Kevin shared a VR NY Times video about refugees, taking us as visually close as we could to the lives of three young refugees, one from Ukraine, one from Syria and one from South Sudan, two boys and one girl.It was stunning and affecting and each of us experienced it felt closer to their experiences than we would have simply by reading articles.
The Ukrainian boy fled with his family as rebels advanced.When they returned, his grandfather’s body had been in the garden all winter, the school destroyed and most homes damaged.The Syrian girl lives in a refugee camp and gets up at 4 AM to work in the fields.In Syria they had toys, now they only have each other.The Sudanese boy fled with his grandmother into the swamps.His father was killed, his mother has disappeared.They fend as best they can.
VR Video made this painfully real.
When I begin teaching in January and someone asks me what to look at in media, I would suggest looking at Virtual Reality as a career opportunity.It is changing our media experiences.
We spent time after opening presents to discuss what charity we might want to support this year.High of the list was World Food Program which supports the feeding of refugees.I tended toward that organization after seeing the plight of the three children.
We have more refugees since any time since the end of World War II.
It is a great deal to think about as I wander through another day, in a warm house, surrounded by warm friends, knowing that my friends and family are safe but from all but the most normal of hazards, living without, for the most part, any fear of suicide bombers, starvation and having to live with idea of fleeing at a moment’s notice from their homes and towns.
It is the Thursday before the Memorial Holiday weekend and people are fleeing the city; driving through the park was the easiest I’ve ever experienced when I was taking a cab back after a morning appointment on the East Side. It is also another grey day in New York, one in a series though the forecast for the weekend is supposed to be better than what we’ve had.
The media news of the day has been a full blast of coverage of the final show for David Letterman, who for thirty-three years has worked the late night hours, longer than anyone else. The New York Post had a columnist who did an exegesis of Letterman’s career, feeling he had gone from unique to mundane but the majority of reports were glowing and regretful that he was leaving the scene. He bowed out with grace and humor, didn’t shed a tear though those in audience did. Bon Voyage!
Also trumpeted across the headlines today was that Palmyra in Syria has fallen to IS and now IS is in control of 50% of Syria. Palmyra has given it control of a hub of roads that are major Syrian connectors as well as major gas wells. Fears have grown that the magnificent ruins on the outskirts of the city will be ravaged by IS militants. In the meantime, the city’s residents are cowering in fear of their lives. A house–to-house search has been going on as IS looks for Syrian soldiers. 17 have been reported killed, some by beheading, because they were associated with the government.
Adding a new wrinkle to the already messy situation in the Middle East is that Putin is putting his finger in the puddle now. Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Abidi is in Moscow and Putin is making him feel very welcome. The Russians are talking about expanded trade and delivery of military weapons to the Iraqi armed forces. The Russians have also been cozying up to Iran, which has been helping Iraq. An interesting mix is developing here and it can’t be making Washington happy. One gets the feeling that maybe we’re being outflanked.
As I’ve mentioned before, the Chinese are taking some tiny spits of land in the South China Sea and artificially making them much larger. One of them will have an airstrip big enough to take very big planes. These islands are being used by the Chinese to expand their territorial claims. To refute those claims the U.S. has been sending planes through what we consider international airspace and which the Chinese now consider their airspace. The tension is rising over what effectively amounts to a stationary aircraft carrier in the South China Sea.
In Baltimore, six officers have been indicted in the Freddie Gray death that incited days of violence.
Santa Barbara is cleaning up its oil spill, not the worst they’ve had but bad enough.
And the state in which Santa Barbara resides, California, is learning to sip water rather than guzzle it. Though there are those who are fragrantly keeping their lawns green and their pools filled. It is a stark picture of the economic divide.
The President of the Boy Scouts of America, Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense under Bill Clinton, announced that he would not revoke the charters of groups that allowed gay councilors.
Ireland is voting tomorrow on whether or not to allow gay marriage. It is looking as if it will pass as polls indicate as many as 70% are in favor of it. Flights from America to Ireland are fully booked as Irish citizens are returning for the historic vote. Trains and ferries are being organized to take the Irish from the UK home for the vote.
Too bad Americans don’t take voting that seriously.
I must seriously end this, as shortly I will have to go meet my friend Paul Krich to have dinner in celebration of his birthday this week.
As I trained into the city today from Claverack, the east bank of the Hudson River was shrouded in a fog, hiding the foliage on the far bank of the river, casting a ghostly pall across the landscape. It felt like the first shot in a Gothic romance set in the Victorian Age.
Closer into the city, the fog dissipated but New York has been grey all day, a heaviness that seems to have affected the citizens. Smiles have been hard to find today. One crossed my mouth as I passed through Penn Station this morning on my way to the subway.
I have almost gotten to the point where the soldiers blend into the background and are simply a part of the scenery. Today one soldier was tapping his foot to the rhythm of the music being played by a busker a hundred feet away. I smiled.
While on the train and the subway, I scanned the headlines of the day.
Blazoned across all the news outlets was the story of the fall of Ramadi, capital of Anbar province, hard fought for by American soldiers twelve years ago, now in the hands of IS. Iraqi soldiers were reported fleeing as fast they could. 25000 civilians fled the city, seeking safety in the capital. Reports have indicated at least some have been turned away from Baghdad.
It is also grimly reported that IS has slaughtered at least 500 as they overran the city, specifically seeking any soldiers or policemen.
In Waco, Texas there have been at least 192 arrests of bikers after a fistfight got out of control in front of a Twin Peaks restaurant, ending with nine bikers dead and eighteen others wounded. There are rumors that bikers from around the country are riding toward Waco, an image that calls up scenes from Mad Max, the older one, as I haven’t seen the new one yet. Police have cordoned off exits around the area and have said they’re ready.
At least five different motorcycle gangs were involved, including the Cossacks and the Bandidos.
Speaking of Twin Peaks, do any of you remember that quirky, creepy television show “Twin Peaks” from twenty-five years ago? It’s coming back. David Lynch will return to direct. Kyle McLachlan will be back to play his character, Special Agent Dale Cooper. Showtime has committed to a new series, picking up the crazy thread of a show that had everyone confused most of the time, while contributing regularly to nightmares. Will the “Log Lady” return?
The southern boundaries of Europe have seen increasing migrations of people desperate to depart Africa, much of the traffic coming from Libya and organized by criminal gangs involved in human trafficking. The EU has proposed launching a naval campaign to destroy their boats, thus disrupting their business. It awaits UN approval.
It appears the smugglers are being allowed by IS to operate out of the part of Libya they control in exchange for half their profits.
Macedonia’s crisis continues. The opposition is demanding the departure of Prime Minister Gruevski and he has been saying: no way, Jose! The opposition has rallies. Gruevski gets out his followers. Violence is in the air. Gruevski is saying this is all the result of foreigners.
That sounds familiar.
What is unfamiliar is that President Maduro of Venezuela may face real opposition in the next elections. Sentiment is growing against him. Polls indicate that if elections were held today, he would be out on the street.
In less dramatic news today, the President of the United States got his own twitter account. @Potus. There was some kidding back and forth between Obama and Bill Clinton [@billclinton]. Apparently the twitter handle will go to the next occupier of the Oval Office.
Also, little Elian Gonzalez, who was found floating off Florida in 1999 by some fishermen is now grown up. His mother died attempting to get the two of them from Cuba to America. His arrival caused a tug of war between those who wanted him to stay and those who thought he should be returned to his father. In a dramatic moment, armed men stormed the house where he was staying with one of the rescuing fishermen and forcibly removed him so as to return him to Cuba.
He now would like to return to America to express his love for this country, he has said in an exclusive ABC interview.
Speaking of ABC, George Stephanopoulos has found himself in some uncomfortably hot water. Apparently he has given $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation without telling his bosses at ABC. They consider it an honest mistake. Republicans are, not unexpectedly, calling for some version of his scalp.
Today has been full of events, some just interesting, some like Ramadi, tragic, and it would be possible to continue longer but it’s time to wrap up.
I’m off to seek some sustenance at the end of the day and see if I can shake the weight of this grey day.
It is a chillish, greyish, rainyish day in New York City. I am delighted I remembered to bring an umbrella into the city today when I left the cottage. It was drizzling as I left for the train and when I got off in New York, it was pelting down. Good thing I had only a short walk to my meeting from Penn Station.
Now I am at a Pain Quotidian having just spent some time with an old friend of mine, Fred Silverman. He’s in the process of selling his tech company and we talked about all things digital.
An old school journalist and filmmaker, he is troubled by the lack of fact checking in today’s digital sites, a thing which concerns me too. It also troubles him that many sites are paying low wages to their young workers, building very profitable businesses on the back of low wages.
It was an interesting talk; heightening the concerns I have about both journalism and the American work scene. All of it will work out, I’m sure, though probably not in my lifetime. There are probably some bumpy years ahead.
Fred is very attuned to the number of college students who are coming out of college saddled with heavy loans and without great job prospects. He has children in college and employs some shortly out of college.
It was, in fact, a subject that was covered in an interview with Martin O’Malley, a former governor of Maryland, who will probably challenge Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Presidential nomination. He was on NPR this morning, talking about how students were coming out of college with loans that have interest rates of 7% when interest rates in general are at historic lows.
He gave careful, thoughtful answers to the questions asked him. I was impressed. I doubt he has a snowball’s chance in that warmer climate to get the nomination but I think it will be good his voice will be heard.
Jeb Bush is flying off to Europe right now in advance of his expected announcement about seeking the Republican nomination for President. He has a slight lead in polls but is no means in the position that Hillary has with the Democrats.
While Jeb jets, Hillary and Bill are facing the publication of a book called “Clinton Cash” on May 5 that tears them for their mixing of politics and philanthropy. The author is Peter Schweizer, a voluable conservative but the liberal press seems to think the book could be trouble.
The EU is scrambling to meet the needs of the immigrant crisis in the Mediterranean. Before this, it has been mostly left to Italy but the loss of 700 in the last week has stirred a regional response.
Another region that has heightened tensions is the area around Yemen. The US is sending warships there right now to intercept Iranian vessels potentially carrying arms to the Houthis. It could be a powder keg.
Ethiopia has declared three days of mourning for its citizens slaughtered by IS in Libya.
Six Minnesotans have been detained by authorities who believe they were attempting to join IS.
The US has started training the troops of Ukraine to bolster them in their fight against the rebels even while the ceasefire is marginally working.
Kim Jong-un of North Korea, the young and pudgy dictator of that country, claims to have climbed the nation’s tallest peak. Since the photographs of him at the top show him wearing pristine leather shoes and a slight overcoat, skepticism abounds over the validity of the claim.
In the British election, currently coming down to the wire, Nicola Sturgeon, Head of the SNP [Scotland’s National Party] has been indicating that if they are part of the coalition that governs with the Labour Party, they’ll be the ones calling the shots at Westminster. Ed Miliband, of Labour, disagrees.
Today stocks are higher on the news that China is stimulating its economy while the Euro is under pressure because of, what else, worries about Greek debt.
The Hubble Telescope is 25 years old and has provided us with some glorious pictures of the universe.
The rain seems to have departed and now it is time for me to depart from Pain Quotidian; the dinner crowd is arriving.
RT @AdamKinzinger: This is the darkest, most insane video yet. I cannot imagine any other president saying Americans, not RUSSIA, is our en… 3 days ago
RT @AmoneyResists: .@RepRaskin continues to be a force on the House floor even as he battles cancer. This man embodies everything that mak… 2 weeks ago
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From Claverack 06 11 2017 Returning to hygge…
June 12, 2017It is delightfully quiet as I sit on the deck, the fierce heat of the day receding and all the noise of the city left behind. About four o’clock, I returned to Columbia County from four days in the city, a delightful time, packed with adventures and sights and people. And I was glad to return to the quiet of the cottage and knit it all together.
The occasion of my trip was that it was my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding anniversary. They were married in New York four years ago and return every year to celebrate. Last year, I was absent, selling books in Edgartown, on Martha’s Vineyard.
This year, I was present. On Wednesday, they went for a private celebration of their anniversary while I had dinner with my wonderful godson, Paul Geffre. We had a wonderful dinner and then went to the Parker Meridien for after dinner drinks with Joe and Deb, who had not met him.
Joe, Deb and I went, over the days of the visit, to the Intrepid, Ellis Island, the site of the deadly Triangle fire, to “Spamilton,” which Deb and I enjoyed more than Joe as we got the Broadway references.
As I type, the Tonys are being broadcast and I am not watching. It seems more important to gather myself together after these hectic days, wonderful, full of visiting and fun and feasting and I’m sure my waist has expanded and I must handle that.
Today, after Joe and Deb had left for the airport, I brunched with old friends from California, one of whom has residences in both places and Meryl and Ray, who were in for a visit and work for Meryl.
Before I met them, I had a quick coffee with my bestest friend, Nick Stuart [Lionel, you are more than friend; we are family of choice], and we spoke of things and we talked about how I have been working on living in an “attitude of gratitude,” appreciating the good things in life and not yearning after what I don’t have and celebrating what I have, which is quite, quite wonderful.
Deb and Joe gave me a wonderful book about hygge and I laughed at getting it because I have been writing about hygge ever since I heard about it and, gosh, don’t we need it now.
At this moment, I am having a very hygge moment. Sitting on my deck, the creek is calm, birds are chirping. My neighbor’s dogs are romping some distance away. Far away there is a sound of a truck traversing the road a third of a mile away and I am not caught in the cacophony of New York, which is wonderful and now wearying for me.
When I was moving to DC, I lived for a time in an apartment in Georgetown, across from Dumbarton Oaks, and thought: wow, Mathew is getting to live in some of the great cities of the world. That has continued. And now, in the third act of this life, I am always glad to return to the quiet and the hygge of the cottage.
At dinners and brunches, we all discussed the political madness of our time, which is, at least to me, the most serious since Watergate, and all wonder how we got here and where will we go. The Democrats are in disarray; the Republicans fleeing or feeding the strangeness that is Trump [the kindest way I can describe this presidency].
The Clinton impeachment was a distraction, a hounding of a serial sexual player who didn’t want to admit in public what we all knew.
This is not a distraction. It is serious. This is Watergate level.
Theresa May in the UK, having lost [and it is almost impossible to believe she did] her gamble to get a greater majority to support her Brexit negotiations, was described tonight in some UK papers as “dead woman walking.”
Macron, in France, has seized the government in a way no one has since De Gaulle [I think] and we have a new day there. Angela Merkel looks to be re-elected in Germany. The political scene is exciting, if more than a bit scary.
Tags:Bill Clinton, Columbia County, Deb Tombers, Edgartown, Ellis Island, Hudson New York, Hudson River, Hygge, Intrepid, Joe Tombers, Macron, Martha's Vineyard, Meryl Marshall-Daniels, New York City, Paul Geffre, Spamilton, The Tonys, Theresa May, Triangle Fire, Trump
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