Posts Tagged ‘Claverack Cottage’
January 6, 2017
For several nights now, I have attempted to write a letter. A few sentences have dribbled out onto the digital page and then I abandon my effort, feeling unsatisfied, bereft of words. And hit delete.
When I spoke to my brother this morning, as we do most days, he, too, finds it difficult to think about, talk about or read about anything political. He, too, feels bereft of thought and words.
Here I am in my cottage, Christmas bunting still glistening in the lights of my trees, the playlist, “Classical for Deep Thought” playing on my Echo. And I am in deep thought.
A close relative of mine who voted for Trump has been forwarding me vicious articles on Hillary Clinton and the Obamas. Going online, I seek to find out if there is any truth to these awful stories. Most of it is balderdash concocted out of a single thread of reality. “Unproven” is what Snopes says.
There seems no point in letting my relative know that it mostly or all balderdash. They don’t want to know. This is their truth.
So, it is that for the last few nights, I have hidden out in the cottage where all things are good, listening to music, watching Netflix [just finished “Medici”]. I have been working on my consulting assignment for the Miller Center for the Presidency [oh, irony!] at the University of Virginia and diverting myself with helping some friends in California on the bible for a fictional series on which they are working. It allows me to live another life.
Glancing at the evening headlines, I winced. Republicans are working to defund Planned Parenthood. Trump rebuts our spy agencies and doesn’t quite accept that Russia hacked us. Certainly, not to help him.
And, oh my! Putin’s popularity among Republicans is rising! Why am I so not happy about that?
The Chinese are telling Trump to stop tweeting and that will probably only cause him to tweet more.
Trump has said that “torture works.” Now that he is President Elect, human rights groups around the world are fearful that his remarks will embolden leaders who find torture a very reasonable way of getting their way.
It is just a discouraging world.
Republicans have been determined to unravel Obamacare since it was initiated. They now will probably get their way. My concern is that I haven’t seen any credible alternatives from them and, whatever you think of the flawed system that is the Affordable Care Act [aka Obamacare], there are far fewer uninsured than there have been.
Which also doesn’t much change the reality that while we spend more per capita on health care we are in the middle of pack in terms of health care results.
Look, Donald Trump is the President Elect. I wish him well.
I am so concerned. This Presidency feels as if it is going to upend the order we have come to accept for at least the last eighty years. And that makes me concerned.
If it goes really bad, I hope my youthful activism will return and I will do my best to protest. And I didn’t think at my age I would be asked for my youthful activism to return but it just might have to!
We will all have to see. The roller coaster is leaving the station.
At least I have broken out of the paralysis of the last few days and written something.
We all care. God bless America. And God help us all.
Tags:Christmas, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Donald Trump, General, Hillary Clinton, Media, Obamacare, Politics, Presidency, Putin, Repbulcans, Snopes, The Donald, The Obamas, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
January 3, 2017
Not yet quite six o’clock in the evening, the sun is gone and floodlights are on the creek. Soft jazz is on the Echo and I am winding down from some writing I did today along with emails and a couple of loads of laundry. An ordinary day at the cottage, most of it cozied up with my laptop while watching Marcel, Lionel and Pierre’s sixteen-year old poodle sleep on the couch. I’m dog sitting again while they are off in Boston.
New Year’s was surprisingly good. My expectations were low and the reality great. There was a feast at my friend Matthew Morse’s house with thirteen people, followed by going down the road to friends of his who have restored as their home a 19th Century roadhouse. There is a balcony looking down into the tavern area and I was standing there looking down at a crowd that seemed like a hundred, sipping Moet Chandon as the New Year came in…
New Year’s Day was spent in recovery with a game of Clue over cocktails, followed by roast chicken. Not bad.
Every time I peek into the state of the world, I want to slam the door and run into my bedroom with a cold bottle of vodka and a straw.
It sometimes feels like I have stepped into a Jean Cocteau film.
Hours after I exchanged e-mails with a friend who lives in Istanbul, working for Sony Pictures, there was a nightclub slaughter. Responsibility for it has been claimed by IS.
In Baghdad, a suicide bomber killer a couple of dozen people. This Sunday, I will light a candle for them at church, the people of Baghdad and Istanbul. Turkey has been assaulted this month by a whole series of attacks. Baghdad has never not been assaulted since we invaded.
Trump tweeted something New Year’s Eve that has lots of people outraged. It seems impossible for me to follow his tweets though I have been told the cable news channels have been spending hours attempting to decipher them.
His press secretary has pleaded with people to stop mocking him. I don’t think that’s going to happen. Alec Baldwin has stepped into a brand-new career on SNL and we are going to be living with it for Trump’s entire term in office. He is just too juicy a target for satirists. I wish I were a comedy writer.
Trump’s team is saying we should be focusing more on punishing Hillary Clinton than being concerned about Russian hacking. Did I say something about being in a Cocteau film? [And if you don’t know who Jean Cocteau is, Google him…]
US officials are saying Russia’s “fingerprints” are all over the hacking and Trump is saying he has inside information on the hacking which he will reveal tomorrow or Wednesday. Personally, I can’t wait. But then I am still waiting for him to tell us how he will separate himself from his businesses. That may be more difficult than handling the Russian hacking.
Then, of course, since I last wrote Carrie Fisher, “Princess Leia” from “Star Wars” died after a heart attack on a flight back from London, only to be followed across the River Styx by her mother, the legendary Debbie Reynolds, the following day.
Eras seem ending all around me and I am not happy…
Tags:Alec Baldwin, Baghdad, Carrie Fisher, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Debbie Reynolds, Google, Istanbul, Jean Cocteau, Lionel White, Marcel, New Year's, Pierre Font, Princess Leia, Russia, Russian hacking, SNL, Sony Pictures, Star Wars, technology, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
December 11, 2016
Here I am at the cottage; the floodlights are lighting the creek and I have been putting together my Christmas presents so I can ship them out on Monday. My skills at wrapping are negligible and have been forever so the invention of gift bags has been a Godsend. Right now, I am at a dead stop as I have used up all the bags I purchased yesterday and still have presents to go. So, tomorrow morning I will be up and out early to get more.
It’s complicated this year as the people with whom I traditionally have shared Christmas are scattered and my living room is now littered with segregated piles. This gets shipped to New Mexico, this goes to Boston, this goes to New York, this goes to Minneapolis…
Monday morning, I need to show up when the UPS Store opens to get this all off and I will get it done.
And in the midst of all of that, I seem to have been abandoned by young Nick, who has been my partner in crime since he was fifteen. I am not sure what I have done but he has decided to jettison me from his life. Speculation is useless and I now need to accept he no longer finds me a person of consequence.
I am on my own. Today, I went out and started to make my Christmas come together. Not quite sure how it will all be but it will be.
Just as it will be that Donald Trump is going to be President of these United States.
When I am looking at the New York Times I find myself gravitating to the Food Section, obsessively saving recipes. My solace is in cooking these days, thinking of meals I will serve, planning table settings, decorating.
It is all diversion. We will see how all of this plays out. As I have said to many people: the next four years are going to be experiential. He will be a different kind of President.
We will see how that plays out.
And now it is Christmas and I am sitting listening to Christmas Carols and, I must admit, sipping what I think is a much-deserved martini.
As I sit here, I am looking around my little cottage and am so grateful I am here, able to look out at the creek, illuminated by floodlights, and to listen to Christmas Carols on my Echo, sit wrapped in the warmth of my home and know that I will be engaged over the next four years as part of the loyal opposition.
We’re in for a wild ride. The rollercoaster has left the station. Hang on and let’s see what happens…
Tags:Christmas, Claverack Cottage, Donald Trump, Loyal Oppositon, Martini, Nick Dier, UPS, `
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
October 18, 2016
The day is diminishing; the sunset flickers through the turning leaves, a panorama of burnished gold in the west. Classical music plays in the background and a soft wind is blowing through this, the last great weather day we will probably have until spring unfolds over Claverack Creek. It was 86 degrees today with a cloudless sky and a fall wind in a warm day.
Once I recall a day like this when I was very young. It is the kind of day that holds intimations of immortality. Tonight’s sunset reminds me of the brilliant ones I witnessed on trips to Santorini, up at Franco’s Bar, poised over the caldera, thinking that in the sunset I understood the hold Greek myth has had over us for twenty-five centuries or more.
Once, at Franco’s, I wrote a poem on that and now have no idea where it is. But I remember the moment, sitting there, pen scratching in my notebook as the golden sun turned the waters in the caldera its ripe color.
We are in the cusp of fall and summer has reached out to hold us one day more in its warm embrace, harkening us to remember its feel so we will wait, patiently, for its return in another new year.
2017
Who would have thought? Certainly in my youth I never thought that year would see me inhabit it. Yet chances are I’ll be here when it comes marching in or crawling in or bursting upon us.
Soon there will be an election and someone new will move into the White House. If it is Hillary, she’ll have been there but in a very different role now than then. If it is Donald Trump, it will, perchance, signal a new and different age in our political history.
Time will tell. Tomorrow is the next debate and I will watch, though not waiting breathlessly for it. But I will watch. It is “must see” TV for me this season.
The tree tops are swaying in the wind; the burnished gold has become the color of smoky topaz. Twilight is descending.
Iraqi troops are marching toward Mosul, meeting, as expected, fierce resistance from IS. Some Iraqis, in a scene that reminded me of tales of our Civil War, went onto a mountain side to watch the battle unfold beneath them.
IS intends to hold Mosul at any cost and if it loses it, to make it a humanitarian disaster. The word that crosses my mind as I type is “barbarian.”
Iraqis remaining in the city have become bolder in their resistance of late to IS, supplying Iraq with vital information. IS is killing anyone found attempting to leave the city.
When I was with the Internet start-up, Sabela Media, Yahoo was the industry behemoth.
Its revenue declined again this quarter and Verizon is asking for a reduction in price to buy it because of the hacking scandal.
Because they were known as bullies in the early years, I have always found it hard to be empathic though it is sorry to see a once great company slowly self-immolate. And from people I know who are dealing with them currently, some within Yahoo just can’t accept what is happening now. Ostriches with their heads in the sand…
Dark has descended and I am sitting at the table on the deck, with candlelight for illumination, listening to the classical music but also listening to the sounds of woodland creatures making their noises.
It is very special tonight. The world is swinging in its orbit, momentous things are happening and as they are happening, there are the sounds of birds in the night, classical music and, because of them, a murmur of hope for the future.
Tags:Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Donald Trump, Franco's Bar, Google, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, IS, Islamic State, life, Mosul, Sabela Media, Santorini, The Donald, Yahoo
Posted in 2016 Election, Airstrikes, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, IS, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
October 16, 2016
It is a beautiful afternoon in October in Claverack. The leaves that fill my vision as I sit here on the deck are golden and some fallen ones float regally down the creek toward the pond.
It was a day when I had an enormously difficult time waking up; every time the alarm went off, I hit the snooze button. Finally, I staggered out of bed and into the day. Slightly ambivalent about going to church, I reminded myself of the bag of groceries I had purchased for the Food Pantry at the Church and so I made my way there, a little late but still there.
From church, I made my way to the Dot for Eggs Benedict on potato latkes. And then home to wait for my friend Larry to arrive, bringing me some wood from his farm for my winter woodstove fires.
He and I sat on the deck after it was stacked, and admired the beauty of the place, enjoying the moment while listening to jazz. He has now left and I am here, at the end of the afternoon, still listening to jazz and enjoying the beauty of the spot, the moment, and basking in the long friendship Larry and I have enjoyed, stretching back now more than thirty years.
It is always easy here to slip into an avoidance of the world. This is a place of tranquility.
Beyond here – and sometimes I do not want to move beyond here – the world is a mess.
Aleppo is being pulverized and no one seems to know how to stop it. Assad and Putin seem to have no respect or care for the citizens trapped there. It is a strategic notch they need in their belts and so the dying continues. Reports indicate Aleppo looks like Berlin in 1945, a decimated city.
Donald Trump has once more been skewered on Saturday Night Live, not that Hillary got off easily. He has denounced the performance in his famous tweets.
He has increasingly been declaring that the election process is rigged. Some observers think that if he loses he is doing his best to delegitimize a Clinton Presidency.
It is rumored that the CIA is preparing a major cyberattack against Russia for its alleged attacks on American institutions, including the Democratic Party. This is a new kind of warfare.
And in thinking of a new world, a friend told me that every year from now on, 3% of jobs will be lost to robots. I think I’m glad I am at the place in life I am. It will be interesting to see how all of this shakes out.
Soon, I will let you know how my experience with Cozmo goes. It should arrive this week.
It is supposed to learn from me how to react to me. A robot pet of sorts, I guess, and I couldn’t resist experimenting with it.
Cozmo is my birthday present to myself.
Tags:Alec Baldwin, Aleppo, Berlin, CIA, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Cozmo, Donald Trump, Eggs Benedict, Hillary Clinton, Larry Divney, Red Dot, Robots, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Syria, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
September 30, 2016
As I have been sitting here, listening to “Smooth Jazz” twilight has become almost night. The last glimmerings of the silvery light are slipping away.
This week I have been dog sitting Marcel, Lionel and Pierre’s poodle, who will soon turn sixteen. Every night, he takes me for a walk. We leave my cottage and he marches me over to his house, across the street from mine and takes me for a tour of his yard. He goes to the front door and looks at me uncomprehendingly when I do not let him in.
He is reluctant to leave once he is on his home territory; actually, he fights me. He doesn’t want to come back to my house but eventually he realizes that he is not going home tonight and walks with me back to my place.
He is very smart, is little Mr. Marcel. And sweet. And I am enjoying his company right now though I realize my own time for pets is past. I still come and go too much to give any pet like Marcel a real home. And I am single. Were there a partner, it would be easier.
There are soft sounds from woodland creatures that filter into my time here at the laptop, soft sounds from the night outside.
It is, this moment, a soft and gentle world that seems unconnected with all that is happening beyond me. I feel, here, encapsulated, as if the outside world did not exist.
But it does.
The Syrians under Assad and their Russian allies have been brutally pulverizing Aleppo. It has only become worse since the last time I wrote. It is the kind of brutality we have not seen for a long time. And, as I said before, I wonder about the poor boy in the ambulance. Has he survived this assault? I wonder about that day and night. I am haunted by wanting to know.
Here, at home, there was a horrific crash of a New Jersey Transit Train at Hoboken. One person is dead. 100 are injured, some seriously. I texted my friend Mary Dickey to check on her. She had changed her plans today and did not take the train into New York City. Just as something had diverted her the morning of 9/11 or she would have been under the Towers when one of the planes hit.
Congress overturned Obama’s veto of a law that would allow 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia. Personally, I think it was a political move that will have unintended consequence. The Saudis are rethinking their alliance with us and it opens the door for a lot of problems we don’t want to have. Like everyone in Iraq suing us for our “meddling.”
Not quite knowing how to parse this but right now there are reports that Trump may have violated the embargo that was in place during the 1990’s with Cuba. If true, it will wound him with Cuban Americans in Florida, which is essential in his path to the Presidency.
Trump has had both a good year and a bad year. He is the Republican nominee for President, a reality no one thought possible six months ago. His net worth, according to Forbes, has dropped by $800 million this last year but it still leaves him with 3.7 billion dollars, according to the magazine. Forbes is generally thought of as a conservative publication.
Samsung, the company of exploding Galaxy Note 7s, has a new problem. Its washing machines are also exploding. So glad I did not choose to get a Samsung gas stove when I bought new appliances for my kitchen.
It’s a brand in trouble. Big trouble.
We were facing a government shutdown tomorrow but it has been avoided. The government is funded until December 9th, after the elections. Zika funding was approved to the tune of $1.1 billion.
It is a quiet evening here. I have looked into the world and now I am going to take myself to bed, watch a little video and go to sleep, happy. The way I woke this morning.
Tags:Assad, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Cuba, Forbes, General, Google, Hoboken Crash, Lionel White, Marcel, New Jersey Transit Train, Obama, Pierre Font, Putin, Russia, Samsung explosions, Samsung washing machines, Saudi Arabia, Syria, technology, Trump, Zika
Posted in 2016 Election, 9/11, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
December 3, 2015
Claverack Cottage. San Bernardino shootings. Domestic terrorism. Nick Stuart. Newtown. Milwaukee. Milwaukee 53208. Stephen Ambrose. IS. Radical Islam. World War II.
It is six o’clock. The world beyond the cottage is dark after a day of grey and drizzle. I went out only to do a few errands and spent most of the day at home, working on paperwork, prepping some things for my class in January, following up on some things. It felt positive, moving through the endless amount of “paperwork” a life in the 21st century demands, even when most of it is digital.
The world has ticked on since I last wrote two days ago. There was another shooting, in San Bernardino. I thought about writing something on the train coming up from the city but I felt a bit punched in the gut by it all.
They are now working to determine if this was an act of domestic terrorism. It might well have been.
My friend, Nick Stuart, and I met for a martini last night before my train. He arrived ebullient. Just before he came to meet me, it was announced “Newtown,” a film he is Executive Producer of ,was accepted into Sundance. Today he found out he is about to be a grandfather; his oldest daughter Rihannon is going to be having a baby in June. We’ll celebrate more on Tuesday and Wednesday, both days I will be seeing him.
Some had told him that “Newtown” was an old subject and its time had past but given what has been happening it is more relevant than ever. Today I read that there is a mass shooting of some kind on an average of once a day.
So “good on you” Nick, as my Aussie friends would say for having preserved with this project.
Another one, on mass incarceration, which is nearing completion has been requested by the White House for a screening. Who knew that Milwaukee had the highest number of prisoners per capita than any other city in America? It is titled “Milwaukee 53208.”
The room is filled with the sounds of the ticking of a small grandfather’s clock. It has been part of the background sound of my life since I was born. It was on a shelf in the hall just beneath the stairs that went up to my bedroom. Lately, I have been calling it the “heart of the house.”
It makes me feel like I am living in a soft womb of a house, comforted by the sound of a heartbeat. It is part of what makes the cottage special.
I’m also doing laundry, a grounding task if ever there was one.
I’m reading Stephen Ambrose’s history of World War II. It’s a bit drier than I expected but gives a look into the horrors of that war. As awful as it was, it reminded me that America and Canada were probably the only combatant countries that were not ravaged on the home front by the war.
It also has taught me how much the world and our country were changed by that conflict.
I am wondering how our world will be changed by the current conflict in which we find ourselves?
Perhaps I am being a historical romantic but it feels as if we are living through another tipping point in history as we struggle with IS and radical Islam.
If the couple in San Bernardino were, indeed, domestic terrorists we face ongoing “Paris style” attacks and it will be a struggle to avoid mistakes of the past such as the encampment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Tags:Claverack Cottage, Domestic terrorism, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Milwaukee, Milwaukee 53208, Newtown, Nick Stuart, Radical Islam, San Bernardino Shootings, Stephen Ambrose, World War II
Posted in Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mideast, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Uncategorized, World War II | Leave a Comment »
November 28, 2014
It is the day after Thanksgiving and the Hudson Valley is still covered in snow, still mostly pristine. In the background, Christmas carols are playing and I have just finished, with the help of Nick Dier, who helps me keep my life organized, trimming this year’s Christmas tree.
It has become an annual tradition that Thanksgiving weekend is the moment when Christmas is ushered into the consciousness of Claverack Cottage. The tree is up and trimmed, the crèche sits on top of the television cabinet, where it traditionally sits, the big red wreath hangs on the red door, hopefully welcoming all who come to the cottage.
It fills me with a childlike kind of joy to do it. It is happening: Christmas.
Tonight I will consult my list and begin to organize the presents I have not already bought – some have already arrived and are sitting silently awaiting Christmas Eve. Some I will put under the tree tomorrow as they are already wrapped. Thank you, Amazon.
It is a special time of year, this magic movement toward Christmas. It is a time of beautiful waiting in the Christian liturgical season. It is a time when many seem to be of better spirits than they are the other eleven months of the year. It is a time when the faces of children come alight in a special way.
And outside my windows, it looks a lot like Christmas – a perfect day for decorating a tree and for putting up the wreath. On the tree we put as many old ornaments as we could find buried in the boxes that held them. Some date back decades and were from my mother’s house. Others I have collected in my wanderings around the country; many had been forgotten and brought smiles of delight to my mouth when they were uncovered. Ah, yes, the red velvet heart that hung on my mother’s Christmas tree, sent to me one year by my sister along with other ornaments that mother had hung annually from her tree. Oh and the little cable car picked up on a trip to San Francisco and the little tin plane picked up…somewhere.
It was fun and fulfilling to re-discover so many treasures, all of this inspired by my friend Mary Dickey, who gave me an ornament for my birthday. In red glitter it proclaims: True merriment requires wine and extravagant amounts of tinsel.
So I have worked to put true merriment into my tree and will toast it tonight with a good glass of a favorite Sauvignon Blanc and more Christmas carols.
A favorite time of year has arrived. I am going to do all I can to savor it.
May you, too, have a chance to savor the season and wrap yourself in the warmth of Christmas.
Tags:Advent, Christmas, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Hudson Valley, Mathew Tombers, Nick Dier
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter from Claverack 01 05 2017 God help us all…
January 6, 2017For several nights now, I have attempted to write a letter. A few sentences have dribbled out onto the digital page and then I abandon my effort, feeling unsatisfied, bereft of words. And hit delete.
When I spoke to my brother this morning, as we do most days, he, too, finds it difficult to think about, talk about or read about anything political. He, too, feels bereft of thought and words.
Here I am in my cottage, Christmas bunting still glistening in the lights of my trees, the playlist, “Classical for Deep Thought” playing on my Echo. And I am in deep thought.
A close relative of mine who voted for Trump has been forwarding me vicious articles on Hillary Clinton and the Obamas. Going online, I seek to find out if there is any truth to these awful stories. Most of it is balderdash concocted out of a single thread of reality. “Unproven” is what Snopes says.
There seems no point in letting my relative know that it mostly or all balderdash. They don’t want to know. This is their truth.
So, it is that for the last few nights, I have hidden out in the cottage where all things are good, listening to music, watching Netflix [just finished “Medici”]. I have been working on my consulting assignment for the Miller Center for the Presidency [oh, irony!] at the University of Virginia and diverting myself with helping some friends in California on the bible for a fictional series on which they are working. It allows me to live another life.
Glancing at the evening headlines, I winced. Republicans are working to defund Planned Parenthood. Trump rebuts our spy agencies and doesn’t quite accept that Russia hacked us. Certainly, not to help him.
And, oh my! Putin’s popularity among Republicans is rising! Why am I so not happy about that?
The Chinese are telling Trump to stop tweeting and that will probably only cause him to tweet more.
Trump has said that “torture works.” Now that he is President Elect, human rights groups around the world are fearful that his remarks will embolden leaders who find torture a very reasonable way of getting their way.
It is just a discouraging world.
Republicans have been determined to unravel Obamacare since it was initiated. They now will probably get their way. My concern is that I haven’t seen any credible alternatives from them and, whatever you think of the flawed system that is the Affordable Care Act [aka Obamacare], there are far fewer uninsured than there have been.
Which also doesn’t much change the reality that while we spend more per capita on health care we are in the middle of pack in terms of health care results.
Look, Donald Trump is the President Elect. I wish him well.
I am so concerned. This Presidency feels as if it is going to upend the order we have come to accept for at least the last eighty years. And that makes me concerned.
If it goes really bad, I hope my youthful activism will return and I will do my best to protest. And I didn’t think at my age I would be asked for my youthful activism to return but it just might have to!
We will all have to see. The roller coaster is leaving the station.
At least I have broken out of the paralysis of the last few days and written something.
We all care. God bless America. And God help us all.
Tags:Christmas, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Donald Trump, General, Hillary Clinton, Media, Obamacare, Politics, Presidency, Putin, Repbulcans, Snopes, The Donald, The Obamas, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »