Posts Tagged ‘Claverack’
August 10, 2016
In my driveway there is a floodlight with a dusk until dawn timer. It was so gloomy this morning, “dawn” did not arrive until about 9:30. As bright and beautiful as the days were before, today has been singularly dark, a day when one wants to slip quietly into a corner and delve deep into a mystery.
I didn’t do that all day but some of the day, reading “The Hotel on Place Vendome,” a study of the Ritz Hotel before, during and after WWII. Good reading, not quite a mystery, not quite a page turner but a sound non-fiction account of the place that was at the center of Parisian life in those tumultuous years.
Of course, “Papa” Hemingway appears and his appearances further tatter the legend he built around himself even as his writing powers were beginning to fade, worn down by drinking and partying.
Reichsmarshall Hermann Goring was a morphine addict and spent at least part of the war soaking in the large bathtubs at the Ritz, attempting to wean himself off the drug.
Something like 80,000 children fathered by Germans were born in France during the war years.
It is a time we have not known. Somewhere today, I was reading an article online and the author was saying the last 70 years had been a dream. We had gone to peace and are now awaking into another era, not so peaceful. Yes, perhaps, but we did “duck and cover” as children and during the Cuban missile crisis my very young mind was convinced that we would all be evaporated.
It is not a peaceful world but never has it been very peaceful. I am peaceful this very moment, wrapped in a cloudy, gloomy day with verdant trees outside my windows, skies heavy with promises of rain, snug inside my cottage, the only sound the humming of the refrigerator.
The thunder of the campaign trail has been held at bay for the most part by my simply choosing not to delve much into it. Trump said something about “Second Amendment” folks should do something about Hillary and Democrats are charging that he was inciting violence against her. Of course he wasn’t, he said.
And Hillary has her blind spots, this week they’ve been showing up in relations between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department.
Though the report I was reading was released by a conservative group so I will add my grain of salt to what I was reading. Just as I put a bit of salt into my reading of the Democratic reaction to Trump’s latest. Don’t get me wrong, I won’t vote for the man. He’s crackers…
The number of ill considered things the man has said has slowly become numbing, no longer outraging me. It is just one unbelievable thing after another and, as far as I can tell, Trump’s not enjoying it much himself.
And he is embattled by his fellow Republicans. Susan Collins, Senator from Maine, has disavowed Trump. She’ll vote Libertarian or write in someone. She won’t support him or Hillary but go her own way. She is not alone. A dismaying number of Republicans are following her.
Whereas Clinton… I think she — and he — live for this kind of season, coming alive in amazing ways. Though Bill looks frail these days, a shadow of the man.
The Department of Justice released its report about the Police Department in Baltimore. “Scathing but not surprising” was one headline. In Ferguson, MO the wheels of justice are turning very slowly there, two years after Michael Brown died. Change is slow in coming, disheartening to many but the wheels are turning, I hope.
Like many, I have received two phone calls telling me the IRS is about to start a lawsuit against me. It’s a scam and it makes me crazy and people are being sucked in. One man paid the scammers $500,000 before he got wise. So ugly…
And while it is not beautiful outside, it is not ugly in my corner of the world.
Tags:Baltimore protests, Claverack, Clinton Foundation, Donald Trump, Feguson, Hemingway, Hermann Goring, Hillary Clinton, Hitler, Hudson, Hudson River, IRS Scam, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Obama, Susan Collins, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
August 8, 2016
It is a little after four in the afternoon of a perfect summer day in Claverack. It is warm but not hot; humidity is low. The creek is still and mirrors back the trees that line its bank. There is the occasional thrumming of a bird’s cry. A very soft wind blows my hair.
At 3:30 this morning the alarm went off and I woke, actually rather gracefully, stretched and began the day. The weekend had been spent with my friends Nick and Lisa, at their new house in Harwich Port on Cape Cod, about a mile or so from where Lisa’s parents had had a home, a place where she grew up and not too unlike the English fishing village where Nick had grown up before going off to Boarding School.
On the way over, I resolved to listen to no news and played CD’s, particularly enjoying one by Judy Collins. On one track there is a haunting lyric, “You thought you were the crown prince of all the wheels in Ivory Town…”
On my first day of class at the University of Minnesota, I went to my Freshman Spanish class. Marvin Reich was my TA for Spanish. The sun flowed into that room that day not unlike the way it is flowing over me tonight on the deck. At one point he looked at me. “Rubio! ¿Cómo te llamas?” Blonde one, what is your name?
I answered, “Mi nombre es Mateo.”
He asked me a couple of other simple questions and I answered him. Two years before I had been in Honduras and had done my best to speak. Marvin smiled at me.
As we left class, Marvin caught up with me and started asking me about myself. Two women arrived. They were Caroline Keith and Mahryam Daniels, both Grad TA’s in Spanish. I am not sure what happened that day but they became my friends.
There was Marvin, sometimes known as “Mo,” Caroline and Marhyam, whose father very successfully sold bathroom fixtures to contractors building all the homes that were booming up in the 1950’s and 1960’s in the Twin Cities.
All three of them were years older and yet I seemed always comfortable with them and they with me. They were the most important figures of my freshman year.
Once Caroline and I sat late into the night talking, she telling me her secrets. We all have them. She looked at me and said, “I can’t believe I am telling all of this shit to an 18 year old. But I never think of you as 18.”
It was Marvin who was our glue and at the end of my freshman year, he departed, to lead a life of adventure. I am sure he did. It’s always been my hope he found all the adventures he was looking for because even though I have looked for him, I have never found him.
He introduced me to Judy Collins, Laura Nyro, Linda Ronstadt, Joan Baez. We sat all night some nights in his apartment, talking, his small, golden dog curled at our feet, drinking coffee but really fueled by benzedrine.
It was a most amazing year and when Marvin left to find his adventures, we were all devastated and drifted apart, too shattered to cling together on life’s life raft. We pulled away from the Titanic in different boats to find our futures in other places.
And yet, I have spent this past weekend thinking of them and mourning them, all brought together by a Judy Collins lyric, which took me back, suddenly and unexpectedly, to a winter morn in Marvin’s apartment, he telling me “You must hear this…”
It has never left me. That moment has never left me. And I hope that wherever they are, they have found the lives they wanted. They were extraordinary people and I was extraordinarily blessed to have been grabbed by them and incorporated by them in their lives. For one special year…
Tags:Cape Code, Caroline Keith, Claverack, Harwich Port, Hudson, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Laura Nyro, Linda Ronstadt, Lisa Cataldo, Marhyan Daniels, Marvin Reich, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Nick Stuart
Posted in Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Music, Social Commentary, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
August 5, 2016
It is a little after 8 pm and the sun is setting in the Hudson Valley. I have been a “prisoner” of my cottage for the last few hours as I have had my deck re-stained and I was not to go out and touch it until about now.
The trees over the creek are verdant green and the water in the creek is crystal clear. It has been a good day, in all sorts of ways. I woke up happy and I enjoy that kind of moment.
A couple of nights ago I was in distress, my lungs were congested and I was having a bit of trouble breathing. Stumbling through the medicine chest, I found and took a Mucinex and woke up the next morning with the congestion at bay, breathing again.
There is nothing like being able to breathe.
And it is hard to breathe in this current political season.
I have never in my adult life lived through such as season as this.
Anyone who reads me must understand how deeply disturbed I am that Trump is the Republican nominee for President. And the more he prances across the stage, the more concerned I am.
The New York Times did a video piece about the hatred they had witnessed while following Trump’s campaign. It was disturbing. You can view it here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/04/us/politics/donald-trump-supporters.html?emc=eta1&_r=0
I am at my dining room table and the sun has set and night has fallen. I am wrapped in the coziness of the cottage and am so grateful I am here.
Were I someplace else the craziness of our time might well make me mad but I can retreat for moments into the woods and believe, for a second, no harm could possibly come.
Like most of you I cannot believe the season in which we find ourselves.
This is not what I expected out of the 2016 political season. A friend of mine and I waged a friendly bet some months ago. He believed the Republican candidate would be Rubio; I went with Bush.
Both wrong. It’s Trump, who has solidified the anger of disenfranchised white Americans, who have reason to be angry. The world is passing them by…
But really? All this hate? It is a return to the realities of 19th and early 20th Century America where hatred moved from Germans, Italians, Poles, Irish, Jews…
A friend of mine who is Jewish remembers his grandmother in the early 20th Century hiding from mobs running through Lower Manhattan, screaming “Kill the Jews!”
We are on the verge of some of us screaming, “Kill the Muslims!”
Have we learned so little?
Tags:Claverack, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Muslims, Putin, Russia, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Income Inequality, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
August 3, 2016
The Hudson River flows south as I move north, the west bank is a wall of green and great, grey billowy clouds hover over the river with the sun now cutting between them to bathe me in light. I am returning from a day in the city, a meeting with a client followed by a long lunch with my friend Nick. An afternoon appointment cancelled and so I changed to an earlier train.
I haven’t written much lately. Frankly, there has been so much to say about so many things I haven’t known where to begin or where to end. There was the Democratic Convention last week. I watched the finish of it the night I returned to the cottage after my Minnesota sojourn.
Hillary, who needed to be at her best, was at her best. The Democrats were shadowed then and are today, by the hacking of the DNC’s emails, which were released by Wikileaks to the press. Julian Assange, who is the head of Wikileaks, even while sequestered behind the walls of the Bolivian Embassy in London, timed it to do the most damage he could to Hillary, whom he reputedly despises.
Today, Amy Dacey, CEO of the DNC and two other officials resigned after the leaks demonstrated their bias to Clinton over Sanders.
Donna Brazile has replaced the much reviled Debbie Wassermann Schultz, former Chairperson. Brazile is well liked and had been suggested by the Sanders camp as a possible replacement for Wassermann Schultz.
And we are all waiting to find out if the Russians were the ones who hacked the DNC as digital evidence seems to suggest which, of course, has led people to ask if Putin is working to influence our elections?
According to one poll, 50% of Americans think he is. Would he try? I am convinced there is very little he wouldn’t try.
Trump out trumps himself everyday as far as I can tell. I am seated next to a friend of mine on the train who has confessed he has had panic attacks at the thought of a Trump Presidency. He is not much given to panic attacks that I recall.
And Trump seems to find a new way to disturb me every day but nothing he does seem to sway his die hard supporters.
Jacques Hamel, the 86 year old French priest, who had his throat slit while saying Mass, was buried today. He was killed by two teenage jihadists. In honor to him, thousands of Muslims attended Mass on Sunday and appeared today at his funeral.
The Rio Olympics open this Friday and I am largely unenthusiastic. The sports I am most interested in are aquatic and the reports of the condition of the water makes me cringe for the athletes who must compete. I am not sure the pool water is safe and the open waters seem to be filled with human refuse and garbage.
I thought I was alone until my friend, Nick, echoed my thoughts.
The Syrian government and the Rebel forces are accusing each other of gas attacks. It seems someone used gas in Syria. We have forgotten the lessons of other wars or perhaps whomever did it felt justified because Saddam Hussein used it effectively against some of his citizens before he lost his place.
A friend of mine asked me a couple of weeks ago how we could still call Turkey a democracy? Magical thinking…
As we move north up the Hudson, the heavy clouds have dispersed and the sun rules the river, silver light glinting off of silver water, reflecting against banks of green rising from river’s edge.
I tried to find something funny to end today’s post. I googled “funny thing that happened today” and “laughable thing that happened today.” It doesn’t seem anything “funny” or “laughable” happened today, according to Google’s current algorithms.
But I did find this: on August 2nd, 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the beginning of all that has not yet ended.
Tags:Amtrak, Amy Dacey, Bernie Sanders, Claverack, DNC Hacking, Donald Trump, Donna Brazile, Hillary Clinton, Hudson River, IS, Jacques Hamel, Julian Assange, Mat Tombers, New York, Obama, Putin, Rio Olympics, Russia, Saddam Hussein, Syria, The Donald, Wikileaks
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Syria, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
July 15, 2016
It is a warm, humid day as I trundle north on the train, back to Hudson. The Hudson River is dotted with boats and the spray of jet skis. A soft haze lays across the river, so it seems that what I see is in soft focus.
It’s not a bad day for soft focus.
I went into the city yesterday afternoon to have drinks with my friends Nick and David at Le Monde, a French Bistro near Columbia and then drifted from there to Cafe du Soleil, where I joined a party for Bastille Day put together by friends David and Bill. We were festive and the mood was buoyant and I was home and asleep by the time news was coming out of France that a young Tunisian Frenchman had driven a lorry into a crowd celebrating Frances’ National Holiday, plowing on for 1.2 miles before he was killed and after he had killed at least 84 and wounded 202 others.
As I look out of the window of the train, sold out, standing room only, I see the verdant green hills which line the western bank of the river, the beginnings of the Catskills, bucolic, peaceful, welcoming.
The dead in Nice, a pleasant city in the south of France, to the east of Cannes, on the Rivera, home of the airport that serves that golden stretch of land, setting for glittery events and the place of lovely villas climbing the hills to look down on the Mediterranean, include ten children. Fifty others from last night hang between life and death, as medical professionals do their best.
One woman talked for a long time to her dead child. The living and unwounded began to swarm toward the beaches, away from the lorry, in case it was loaded with explosives.
On Wednesday, July 13, in Syria, 58 people died, mostly civilians of war related wounds. Since the beginning of 2016 about 8,000 have died, since the beginning of the war over 440,000. 11.5% of Syria’s population has been killed or wounded.
On the same day in Iraq, 22 died by gunfire, bombs, rockets.
Looking out at the beautiful Hudson River, the Catskills on the other side, with gracious, magical homes occasionally dotting the landscape, it is easy to focus on the green moment and not the black news but today I cannot slip away, into the beauty.
It is all so senseless and all leaders seem to talk about the senselessness of it and do they find the senselessness of it enough of a unifying theme that they commit to actions that will stop it?
One of the books I am reading is “The Good Years” by Walter Lord, describing the years between 1900 and 1914, when World War I began. I am near the end of it, the war is beginning. Devastation was released upon the European continent over the tragic death of an Archduke and his wife, which gave “permission” for the Austro Hungarian Empire and the German Empire to act to achieve political goals they had long wanted and ended up destroying themselves.
Men in power are always playing “the great game,” and as the game is played, the innocent die.
The train is arriving in Hudson and I am winding down. I will say my prayers tonight for all the people who died today because they are pawns in “the great game” and see if I can find a way to work effectively for change.
In the time since I’ve arrived home, run some errands and prepare to go into town for a comedy show, the Turkish military, apparently fed up with Erdogan, is attempting a coup. Bridges across the Bosporus are closed, military aircraft are flying low over Istanbul and Ankara and gunshots have been reported.
“The Great Game” goes on.
Tags:Amtrak, Bastille Day, Bastille Day Killings in Nice, Cafe du Soleil, Claverack, Donald Trump, Hudson, Hudson River, Iraq, Istanbul, Le Monde, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Nice, Nice France, Syria, The Donald, The Great Game, Turkey, Turkish Coup
Posted in 2016 Election, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Russia, Social Commentary, Syria, Trump, Uncategorized, World War I commentary | Leave a Comment »
July 13, 2016
The leaves are being jostled by a light wind that tempers the warmth of the afternoon here at the cottage. The creek is reflecting back the images of the trees overhanging its banks. Occasionally, a trout will slide through the water. The only noise is the distant sound of a small plane heading toward the little airport north of me.
I have been ensconced here for several hours now, earlier sipping tea and now a Diet Coke. It is the perfect day for sitting on my deck, overlooking the creek, reading and thinking. It reminds me of a childhood sweet summer day back in Minnesota, when I was young and the days seemed to last forever. It is a day that is demanding very little from me and I am embracing the lack of demand.
The gentle wind and soft warmth cry out to be savored, embraced, enjoyed and I am opening my arms to them.
As I have sat here this morning, David Cameron has left 10 Downing Street, gone to Buckingham Palace, met the Queen and formerly resigned. Theresa May, who is promising a “bold, new” future for Britain, is the newest Prime Minister to serve Her Majesty, the thirteenth in a line that began with Winston Churchill.
Obama spoke in Dallas yesterday, yet again, after the tragic murders of human beings. He was eloquent and spoke of hope in the darkness and yet I heard tiredness and pain in the clips I have heard. He has had to do this so many times in his two terms; the most heartbreaking was after Newtown.
As I think of dark times, the sky has darkened over me, causing me to wonder if my part of the world will begin to weep?
A social media storm has broken out over former President George W. Bush’s behavior during a rendition of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” at the Dallas Memorial yesterday. Judge for yourself:
http://gawker.com/what-exactly-was-going-on-with-george-w-bush-at-the-me-1783551893
We all have different responses to grief…
I am getting older, as are all of us, and it seems to be weighing heavily on Japan’s Emperor. Akihito is 82 and reports are saying he feels his health is getting in the way of his duty and that he might abdicate soon in favor of the 56 year old Crown Prince Naruhito.
China is saber rattling about the South China Sea after the International Court in The Hague ruled that China had violated the rights of the Philippines there with its harassment of sailors and fishermen. China rejects the ruling. Several countries, including Viet Nam, have territorial claims to the energy rich South China Sea, all of which are rebuffed by the Chinese.
In other cheery international news, Russia and NATO are bumping heads again after NATO announced it is moving 4,000 troops into the Baltic to form a bulwark against the Russians. They form a security threat, says Russia, and both sides are getting more intractable, as the months go on since Russia reclaimed the Crimea.
Wouldn’t it be lovely if people said: we have a problem here. How can we solve it? Days like today bring out my childhood naïveté.
Trump is looking at candidates to be his Vice Presidential nominee and having them meet with his family. They include, Mike Pence, Governor of Indiana, Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House and Chris Christie, lame duck Governor of New Jersey.
Last night, three more men were shot, this time in Norfolk, Virginia. Two are improving, one remains critical. All were black.
A year ago, a white teenager named Zachary Hammond was killed by police bullets during a drug investigation. His parents are wondering why no one ever took up the cry about his death. I wonder too…
The Republican platform is devotedly anti-LGBTQ. A few efforts to change that have been beaten back. The GOP is going to be what the GOP has been the last few decades.
The day is swinging toward a close. I have run a few errands, brought in the garbage cans and am looking forward to continuing this place magical day into the evening.
Tags:Akihito, China, Claverack, Claverack Creek, Donald Trump, George W Bush Dance, Hillary Clinton, LGBTQ, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mike Pence, Naruhito, Newt Gingrich, Obama, Putin, South China Sea, The Donald, Zachary Hammond
Posted in 2016 Election, Brexit, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
July 11, 2016
I have moved from seaside to creekside. In front of me tonight is not Edgartown harbor but Claverack Creek, having returned home from Edgartown on Friday, just as Lionel and Pierre arrived to help me celebrate my return.
It has been nearly a week, perhaps more, since I have written. The events out in the world beyond my safety zone of Edgartown and Claverack, have left me…
You know, I am out of words for the events we’ve had. I don’t know what to say, not at all, not at all.
A black man dead in Baton Rouge, a black man dead in Falcon Heights, MN and five dead police officers in Dallas. As I sat down to write, my phone chirped to let me know that two bailiffs in Berrien County, Michigan were dead, along with the gunman. A deputy sheriff was in stable condition.
Eight Somali are dead from a suicide bomber.
My head and heart reel.
We all must realize we live in a time of madness or we live in ignorance of the world. But then, perhaps, it has always been a time of madness.
The pudgy little dictator who rules North Korea who has devised some interesting ways of ridding himself of people he doesn’t like, is having a temper tantrum because the US is putting in a missile shield in South Korea.
Now he is threatening that if it happens, he will reduce South Korea to a nuclear wasteland. If he does that, I doubt the radiation will stop at the border and he will find his “kingdom” littered with corpses, too.
Kim Jong Un is a bully with nuclear weapons and not much common sense. This isn’t good. And he has closed the only communication channel he has had ßwith the US.
David Cameron is resigning on Wednesday and Theresa May will become the next Prime Minister of Great Britain as they and the rest of us cope with Brexit. The opposition Labour Party is in chaos too and another woman may take over leadership of it. Jeremy Corbyn is seen as having done too little to help the UK stay in the EU and Angela Eagle is seen as being the person who will succeed him, once he realizes he is a morte canard, which he hasn’t yet.
The evening sun is glittering on the creek and I find myself looking at it, the way I looked at Edgartown harbor, as a reminder that despite what we do, the world has its places of beauty that help us compensate for the madness around us.
The US is boosting troops in Iraq as the march goes on to retake Mosul from IS. In South Sudan we are evacuating our people because war has renewed there.
The Japanese have been through their own moratorium and the result is there may be changes to their constitution which will allow Japan to build up its military. They are afraid of Chinese expansionism in the South China Sea, an area in which the Chinese feel like they are victims and not aggressors.
While all of this strum und drang is playing out on the world stage, out in outer space, a probe has arrived at Juno, a moon of Jupiter, one second late after a five year journey. And that blows my mind. It will explore Juno and Jupiter and may help us understand the beginnings of our solar system.
This wonder is happening while murder walks the land. How bizarre…
And I am thinking of going online and pre-ordering a Cozmo, a little robot that promises to be to robotics as the Commodore 64 was to computing — a break through. Cozmo promises to be a great robotic companion and you can program it from an app.
Yes, need to have one. I don’t have a pet anymore and am not thinking of getting one and Cozmo may just be the answer to a companion in my house on the creek where I sit and enjoy while the world seems too mad for words.
Tags:Angela Eagle, Baton Rouge, Berrien County, Claverack, Cozmo, David Cameron, Falcom Heights, Hudson, IS, Jeremy Corbyn, Juno Probe, Kim Jong - Un, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, North Korea, Obama, THAAD, Theresa May
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Entertainment, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
July 3, 2016
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.
Tags:Bangladesh, Baroness de Rothschild, Bernese Mountain Dogs, Bill Clinton, Chappaquiddick, Claverack, Donald Trump, Elie Wiesel, Hillary Clinton, IS, Lisa Birnbach, Mary JoKoepkne, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Rwanda, Ted kennery, The Donald, The Preppy Handbook
Posted in 2016 Election, Elections, Entertainment, European Refugee Crisis, Hillary Clinton, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mideast, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
July 1, 2016
It is a bucolic time of day on Martha’s Vineyard; the sun is beginning to set. A sailboat has gone by, heading to the north. Its sail is designed like a huge American flag while moving to the south is the Edgartown Water Taxi, ferrying people to their docks. The light is a marvelous gold and the water is steel blue. Jeffrey’s sailboat rides at anchor directly in front of me, looking stately. The scene is peaceful, other worldly, of another dimension than the rest of the world.
The rest of the world is not peaceful.
Britain is in spasms. Boris Johnson, former Mayor of London, a prime supporter of Brexit, poised and desiring to be the next Prime Minister, found himself outflanked by the man who was to have been his campaign manager, Michael Gove. Long saying he was not aspiring to higher office, he released a statement hours before Boris was to make his speech announcing that he was seeking to be Prime Minister saying that he could not support the former Mayor of London and that he was running for the position himself.
As Boris’ father said, “Et tu, Brute?” It was an act worthy of Shakespeare. Boris then announced he was not seeking to be PM.
A nasty race is ahead for the Tories with Boris gone and characters worthy of “House of Cards” rend against each other.
The Labour Party is also rent. Their leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has been given a “no confidence” vote by his party and it seems every politician in Britain is urging him to depart but he clings to his position with a kind of astounding ferocity surprising in so absolutely colorless a man.
Turkey says that the bombers in the terrible attack at Istanbul’s International Airport were all from the former USSR and were directed by IS out of Raqqa in Syria, their erstwhile capital. One of the victims was a father attempting to prevent his son from joining IS.
Tomorrow is July 1st. A hundred years ago marked the beginning of the Battle of the Somme in WWI. In the eighteen months it raged, there were a million casualties. Today Prince William, Prince Harry and Princess Kate were there to honor the dead, to let the world know they were not forgotten. In the first day of fighting, nearly 60,000 were wounded and a third of those died. During those awful eighteen months “the flower” of English youth died in one of the bloodiest, if not the bloodiest, battle in all of history.
The Taliban killed 33 Afghan police recruits today, a number that is dwarfed by that of the Battle of the Somme, but like the English, French, South Africans who died in France in 1916, those 33 had families, wives and children perhaps, lives that will never be found again.
Hopefully found again will be a commerative coin given by President Obama to the country’s oldest Park Ranger, 94 year old Betty Reid Soskin, who was attacked last night in her apartment by a young man who punched her and robbed her. She wants the world to understand she is not a victim but a survivor. 94!
I am winding down now as the harbor slips into a soft silver lavender light. Faraway, a dog barks, a soft breeze is blowing off the harbor. I am far away from all the madness. A week from tomorrow I leave to return to my cottage, itself a haven from the madness.
Tags:Betty Reid Soskin, Boris Johnson, Brexit, Claverack, IS, Isis, Jeremy Corbyn, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Michael Gove, Obama, Syria, Turkey bombings, USSR
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Brexit, Claverack, Daesh, Elections, IS, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mideast, Obama, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Syria, Taliban, Uncategorized, World War I commentary | Leave a Comment »
June 18, 2016
It has been five days since I’ve written a “Letter.” I’ve done some other writing but nothing that faced the world in which we live. The death of Jo Cox, a Member of Britain’s Parliament, murdered in her district affected me deeply, a tearing of the barely forming Orlando scar off my physic skin.
Her name was vaguely familiar. The man who has been arrested for her murder apparently shouted “Britain first!” repeatedly as he shot and stabbed her. She was campaigning against “Brexit,” the vote for which will happen next week.
When arraigned, John Mair, the alleged killer, gave his name as “Death to traitors, freedom for Britain.”
A man described as gentle by his neighbors, he suffered mental health issues, assuaging them with volunteer work. He also was in some way affiliated with a neo-Nazi group out of America.
Jo Cox’s death affected me because…
Because it was one more example of the politics of hate in which we are all mired, because it happened in Britain where political verbal vitriol has been honed to a fine edge but where rarely are political differences manifested in physical actions. Perhaps over football but not politics.
And that is probably an Anglophile’s rose colored glasses view of British politics but it does seem rarer there that they have such events as Orlando, much rarer.
In the days following Orlando, a California pastor preached that all LGBTQ folks should meet the same end as the Orlando victims. We should all be killed off. It is not the first time in my life I have heard people call for the slaughter of the LGBTQ community but it seemed more painful this time. We have come so far from when I was a boy.
On Thursday, in a conversation with my friends, Medora and Meryl, I told them that it was on how far we have come that I had to choose to focus or my sadness would be unbearable. It had seemed an impossibility that in my lifetime gay individuals could exercise the right to wed. And now we can.
I did not think in my lifetime I could speak openly of my feelings to friends who were not of my own community.
Yet these things have happened. In my little world of Columbia County, New York I have seen the changes over the fifteen years I have been there, the opening of the community and the general acceptance by “locals” to outsiders and to outsiders were “different.”
We think the world is changing and changing for the better and then there is an Orlando, ripping at the sense of safety creeping into the world. And then come the stories of people who remain fearful, even in New York, because a show of same sex affection could mean violence.
Only since Orlando have I come to know that the LGBTQ community is, far and away, the group that is most likely to experience hate crimes.
There seems to be some movement about more control over assault rifles. One small step, one hopes. I had thought there would have been movement on that after the slaughter of the innocents in Newtown. There wasn’t but now there might be.
Young Christina Grimmie, a “The Voice” alum who was shot to death last Friday by a deranged fan who then killed himself, was buried yesterday. She, too, was killed in Orlando.
Disney there has been putting out signs to warn tourists about crocodiles and snakes after a two year old was hauled off and killed by a crocodile last week, an adorable young boy.
In Nigeria, eighteen have been killed by Boko Haram.
Belgians have arrested twelve in “terror raids” and Iraqi forces say they have retaken most of Fallujah.
Where have all the flowers gone?
To graveyards, every one…
I am sad but am choosing, must choose, not to feel hopeless and powerless. It is beautiful outside, another in a day of beautiful days on Martha’s Vineyard. The world is better than it has been, in many ways. And I must remind myself of that.
Tags:Boko Haram, Brexit, Claverack, Columbia County, Donald Trump, Fallujah, Hudson, IS, Isis, Jo Cox, John Mair, LGBT, LGBTQ, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Nigeria, Obama, Orlando, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Columbia County, Daesh, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Gun Violence, Hudson New York, IS, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Nigeria, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From New York 08 10 2016 Gloomy but not ugly…
August 10, 2016In my driveway there is a floodlight with a dusk until dawn timer. It was so gloomy this morning, “dawn” did not arrive until about 9:30. As bright and beautiful as the days were before, today has been singularly dark, a day when one wants to slip quietly into a corner and delve deep into a mystery.
I didn’t do that all day but some of the day, reading “The Hotel on Place Vendome,” a study of the Ritz Hotel before, during and after WWII. Good reading, not quite a mystery, not quite a page turner but a sound non-fiction account of the place that was at the center of Parisian life in those tumultuous years.
Of course, “Papa” Hemingway appears and his appearances further tatter the legend he built around himself even as his writing powers were beginning to fade, worn down by drinking and partying.
Reichsmarshall Hermann Goring was a morphine addict and spent at least part of the war soaking in the large bathtubs at the Ritz, attempting to wean himself off the drug.
Something like 80,000 children fathered by Germans were born in France during the war years.
It is a time we have not known. Somewhere today, I was reading an article online and the author was saying the last 70 years had been a dream. We had gone to peace and are now awaking into another era, not so peaceful. Yes, perhaps, but we did “duck and cover” as children and during the Cuban missile crisis my very young mind was convinced that we would all be evaporated.
It is not a peaceful world but never has it been very peaceful. I am peaceful this very moment, wrapped in a cloudy, gloomy day with verdant trees outside my windows, skies heavy with promises of rain, snug inside my cottage, the only sound the humming of the refrigerator.
The thunder of the campaign trail has been held at bay for the most part by my simply choosing not to delve much into it. Trump said something about “Second Amendment” folks should do something about Hillary and Democrats are charging that he was inciting violence against her. Of course he wasn’t, he said.
And Hillary has her blind spots, this week they’ve been showing up in relations between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department.
Though the report I was reading was released by a conservative group so I will add my grain of salt to what I was reading. Just as I put a bit of salt into my reading of the Democratic reaction to Trump’s latest. Don’t get me wrong, I won’t vote for the man. He’s crackers…
The number of ill considered things the man has said has slowly become numbing, no longer outraging me. It is just one unbelievable thing after another and, as far as I can tell, Trump’s not enjoying it much himself.
And he is embattled by his fellow Republicans. Susan Collins, Senator from Maine, has disavowed Trump. She’ll vote Libertarian or write in someone. She won’t support him or Hillary but go her own way. She is not alone. A dismaying number of Republicans are following her.
Whereas Clinton… I think she — and he — live for this kind of season, coming alive in amazing ways. Though Bill looks frail these days, a shadow of the man.
The Department of Justice released its report about the Police Department in Baltimore. “Scathing but not surprising” was one headline. In Ferguson, MO the wheels of justice are turning very slowly there, two years after Michael Brown died. Change is slow in coming, disheartening to many but the wheels are turning, I hope.
Like many, I have received two phone calls telling me the IRS is about to start a lawsuit against me. It’s a scam and it makes me crazy and people are being sucked in. One man paid the scammers $500,000 before he got wise. So ugly…
And while it is not beautiful outside, it is not ugly in my corner of the world.
Tags:Baltimore protests, Claverack, Clinton Foundation, Donald Trump, Feguson, Hemingway, Hermann Goring, Hillary Clinton, Hitler, Hudson, Hudson River, IRS Scam, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Obama, Susan Collins, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »