Posts Tagged ‘Donald Trump’
July 28, 2017
A gray, foggy morning yielded to a fairly sunny, rather cool afternoon; whenever the sun slipped behind a cloud I was tempted to come into the house from my perch on the deck while the cleaning crew spiffed the house.
Now, with cottage clean, I am sitting at the dining room table, sliders open to the deck. Birds are singing and music from the 1940’s is playing on my Echo.
Returning from the Vineyard Tuesday, I made myself a martini, wrote a poem, and found myself purchasing Christmas presents from a site that emails regularly, from which I buy irregularly and, yesterday, had some things I wanted. Saying there were only four available, I pounced. I think they were being clever as the number available never went below four.
Insane for Christmas shopping in July? No. It saves so much stress come November. In January, I saw something I thought would be perfect for my friends, Nick and Lisa, and thought: if not now, when? And, you know, I have been back to that store several times and not seen the item again.
All this, the creek and future Christmas shopping, visiting my friends on Martha’s Vineyard, is very hygge. And I need all the hygge I can get.
Monday or Tuesday I received a scree from a relative who supports Trump that was filled with things that made me flinch, a repudiation of most of the things I think are advancements. Should we go back to the days of a segregated America?
And while I look out at my sun kissed creek, I read that Ventura County, just north of Los Angeles, has published a 252-page pamphlet on how to deal with a North Korean nuclear attack. That was something I needed to read a couple of times. Hawaii is also preparing for such an event and I am holding my head to keep it from exploding.
Somewhere along the line in my now longish life, I read that one of the contributing factors in the fall of Rome was lead poisoning. Romans lined their wine amphorae with lead which leached into the wine they drank and we all know lead poisoning isn’t good.
Sperm count has dropped by 50% in the western world in the last forty years. Gives me pause to wonder what historians will say about the cause. Pesticide poisoning? Another reason?
President Trump addressed the Boy Scout Jamboree this week. What you thought of his speech probably depends on which side of the political spectrum you are on.
Speaking of our President, his relentless attacks on Attorney General Sessions seem to have many Republicans up in arms, particularly in the Senate where Sessions was a member for a lot of years and it’s a tight club.
Republican Senator John McCain, with whom I have often not agreed [particularly in his choice of Sarah Palin as his VP choice], made a speech for bipartisanship after returning from surgery for a brain tumor. If you want to both hear and read what he said, click here. It reminded me of the times I have liked him.
Our president is not going to allow transgender individuals to serve in the Armed Forces. It’s not necessary for me to elucidate the storm that has created, not the least of which happened in the Pentagon, caught off guard by a Twitter announcement of a policy change.
The president made mention of medical costs for transgendered individuals which turns out to be less than what the Army spends on Viagra each year.
The cynic in me feels it was announced to please his base and divert attention from all the White House chaos.
Hello, Anthony Scaramucci!
The world in which I live seems so mad on so many levels that I am grateful I have the ability to sit here and look out at my canopy of green, look down into my creek and see the bottom of it through the clear, clear water, that I can listen to music and celebrate it, that I have had the chance to stare out at Edgartown harbor thanks to the kindness of my friends who invite me to visit them, that, even though I think the world right now more mad than it has been since my adolescence, I have places and moments of refuge.
Tags:Anthony Scaramucci, Brad Pitt, Christmas in July, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Donald Trump, Echo, Edgartown, Fall of Rome, General, Jeff Sessions, John McCain, Martha's Vineyard, North Korea bombing, Obamacare, Sperm Count, technology, Transgender military ban, Trumpcare, Ventura County
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Hygge, Life, Literature, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
July 20, 2017
Edgartown harbor shimmers below me; boats bob at anchor on a quiet, very warm afternoon on Martha’s Vineyard – the warmest day I have experienced in the half dozen or so summers I have visited the island. Seated in the shade, with a soft wind blowing off the water, it is tolerable though earlier today most people seemed intent on finding air conditioning, crowding cool restaurants and shops.
Last year I was here to help with my friends’ bookstore, Edgartown Books. This year, I am here for just a week, to relax, read, relax some more, eat, perhaps sail a bit with my friends, eat, relax, sip a martini, read, a wonderful and undemanding rhythm; my friend Jeffrey calls it “the land of off.”
Reading was too wearying for me and I went to my room and promptly napped, waking just in time for a conference call.
Sadie, one of the two Bernese mountain dogs who live here, is recovering from back surgery, making slow and steady improvement from a bad fall some months ago. Every day, she has water therapy in the pool.
Far above me, a bi-plane circles, taking sightseers on an aerial tour of the island. It is soft, bucolic and very, very far from the madding crowd.
Which is why it is very nice, in these strange times, to be in “the land of off.” The amount of news consumed is less. Last year, the kitchen television played CNN. This year, old movies run constantly. In the background of my morning coffee, “The Great Race” played, starring Natalie Wood and Tony Curtis.
Finishing a trifle of a murder mystery by a woman who seems to knock off a book a month, I felt content with little demanded of me.
An exegesis of political affairs is a shade depressing, to make mild of a situation now more astounding by the day.
Donald Trump, Jr. is being described as a “good boy,” a “nice young man” though he is scraping forty and has five children. It is a time honored American defense used by the Kennedys when Teddy drove off a bridge not far from where I sit and a young woman died, Mary Jo Kopechne, lest we forget her name. It is a time-honored defense for American men though not for women. Ponder that.
Railing to the New York Times, Donald Trump, has declared he would never have offered Jeff Sessions the job of Attorney General if he had known he would recuse himself from the Russian investigation. Sessions has said, post Trump’s remarks, he’ll stay as long as “it’s appropriate.” Geez, I don’t know if I would stay when I knew I wasn’t wanted, especially so publicly unwanted.
Today, at noon, Trump celebrated the six-month mark in office. You make your own decision on how well he has done. We are one eighth of the way through his Presidency.
In Palos Verde, CA, forty-one-year old Chester Bennington, lead singer of the group Linkin Park, was found dead, an apparent suicide, succumbing to the demons he was open about but could not, it seems, master. Rest in peace.
Twenty-two years ago, I was in Australia when OJ Simpson was acquitted of murdering his wife Nicole and her friend, Ron Goldman. Today he was granted parole from a prison sentence resulting from an armed robbery. He should be released in October.
Seeking comfort, I watch the newest season of “Midsomer Mysteries” and anticipate the return of “The Last Tycoon,” starring Matt Bomer and Kelsey Grammer, about a movie studio in the 1930’s, based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s last, unfinished novel.
It seems no wonder to me, we are immersing ourselves in some of the best television in history; we need escape, diversion and pleasure from a world that is more than untidy.
So, I sit, on my friends’ deck, watching boats bob at anchor or scud across the bay, with birds chirping while Sadie is ministered to, the future feels far, far away and the present oh so pleasant.
Tags:Chester Bennington, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Edgartown, Edgartown Books, Jeff Sessions, Kelsey Grammer, Linkin Park, Mary Jo Kopechne, Matt Bomer, Natalie Wood, Nicole Brown, OJ Simpson, Ron Goldman, Russians, Teddy Kennedy, the land of off, The Last Tycoon, Tony Curtis
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Entertainment, Hollywood, Hygge, Literature, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Russia, Social Commnentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
July 1, 2017
At some point, I decided this was the year I was going to get over my fear of grilling. Last night, I grilled a steak using a Bobby Flay recipe. And asparagus on the grill: c’est magnifique! Put the spears in a plastic bag with olive oil, salt, pepper, a couple other spices and grilled them for three minutes on high. I’m hooked.
So today I went to the market and got boneless pork chops and was going to broil them about half an hour ago but thunder rattled the house and rain fell from the skies. My mouth turned down. However, the sun has returned and I am going to try it, pork chops on the grill.
It is Friday, June 30th, as I write, the beginning of the long 4th of July weekend. As I ran an errand near the train station, I saw visitors piling off the train, bags in hand, being greeted by friends, relatives, lovers and others. Zagat, today, sent an email which had an article about 8 reasons to take the drive to Hudson; all of them being restaurants.
You can read the article here.
As someone who is here most of the time now, I took a bit of umbrage with the list. It included Grazin’, a diner restaurant with local beef and I will need to give it another try because when I was there, it wasn’t good and the wine was south of awful.
It included Fish & Game, which is, I’ve heard, a good restaurant and I haven’t been there because it opened with an attitude. I’ve been around the carousel too many times to need attitude. [Hey, once I had “my table” at Ma Maison in Los Angeles, which was cool while it lasted.]
It included, deservedly, Swoon Kitchen Bar. I don’t go there often; my ex left me for one of the waiters there; that has weighed on me ever since but it is great.
It did not include, and I think it should have, my beloved Red Dot, which is one of the hubs of Hudson nor did it include Ca’Mea, which I think should have gotten a mention nor Vico, which has upped its game lately.
We are a food town.
And now, in a break in the rain, I did grill but not the pork chops I bought as most of the recipes for grilling told me I should brine the chops and that takes some time so I grilled some sausage and finished my asparagus. Oh, so good.
Beyond my little world, it has been a bit mad.
Our President has created a twitter storm over his tweets about Mika Brzezinski’s “bleeding face lift.”
Even Paul Ryan found it too much.
Several news sources, including conservative ones, thought maybe he should have been in a meeting rather than tweeting. But no, President Trump was tweeting and creating a painful moment for his party.
And, today, NASA had to issue a statement it was not operating a slave state on Mars; it was NOT sending children there to be body parts for future colonists, a claim made by a guest on “The Alex Jones Show,” which airs on 118 radio stations. Alex Jones is most famous for claiming that the Sandy Hook massacre was staged and was interviewed by Megyn Kelly on her new NBC show, which isn’t doing so well.
As I sit here in my very hygge cottage, I am astounded by what is going on out there. We have a President who seems devoted to Twitter attacks more than he is about governing and who, according to a variety of reports, starts his day at 6:30 AM speaking to lawyers about that pesky Russian matter.
And he is going to meet with Putin at the G 20 Conference and has been asking his advisors what he can offer Vladimir Putin. What?
There are times I feel I am living in an alternative universe. And I know I am not the only one.
So, doesn’t it make sense I want to conquer my fear of grilling? That’s concrete in a world that seems spinning out of control.
Tags:Alex Jones, Bleeding Face Lift, Bobby Flay, Ca'Mea, Donald Trump, Fish & Game, G 20, Grazin, Grilling, Hudson NY, Mars, Media, Megyn Kelly, Mike Brzezinki, NASA, Paul Ryan, Politics, Putin, Red Dot, Swood Kitchen Bar, technology, Twitter, Vico, Zagat
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, Hygge, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
June 1, 2017
Thunderstorms pummeled the Hudson Valley last night. This morning is as sweet a morning as one might wish.
The sky is a color of blue for which I cannot find a word; sweet, clear, refreshed from the rain. The sharp green of the trees outside my window almost glow in the sunlight cascading down in an almost magic morning. It is not hard to imagine that across the creek woodland nymphs are gambling in delight.
A big mug of strong coffee is at my side and jazz is playing, upbeat and uplifting.
A letter has been fermenting in my mind the last few days, ever since a couple of my friends who are supporters of Donald Trump questioned me on why he has had such a vitriolic reception as President?
I found myself surprised by the question.
It surprised me they did not understand; didn’t see what I see and I need to remember we are all individuals who are interpreting current events in different ways.
We have a President who didn’t win the majority vote and is still the President of the country, an event that has happened twice in this century, brief as it has been, and that has made a lot of people angry, uncomfortable and questioning our Founding Fathers’ wisdom in setting up the Electoral College.
We have a President that doesn’t seem to know the truth. We like our Presidents to at least sound like they’re telling the truth.
We don’t like them saying things that are verifiably not true, things that are conflations of their own imaginations. People notice things like that. It does not breed respect.
His Inauguration speech depicted an America which inspired despair, not hope. His picks for almost every office inspires deep concern for many people. Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA? Rick Perry as Secretary of the Department of Energy, the department he couldn’t remember in a debate that he wanted eliminated. Sort of a come down from people like the Ph.D.’s who were running it before.
NOTHING this President has done is very Presidential.
In his European trip, he may have handed the mantle of the leader of the Free World to Angela Merkel.
He is picking a trade fight with Germany but not addressing the real issues and potentially hurting workers in the South, where German car companies have been manufacturing. People who elected him may be the victims of this fight.
If he repudiates the Paris Climate Accords, he will link us with Syria and Nicaragua as the only countries not agreeing and will be doing another thing that will cede leadership to China, which remains steadfast in its support. And is capitalizing on it. China’s Premier is in Europe right now, cozying up to Merkel.
If we are disrespectful, it is because this man has given us so little to respect – from my point of view and that is not the point of view of everyone. I acknowledge that.
My family was Republican. The first President I remember is Dwight Eisenhower. Wow. Dwight Eisenhower then. Donald Trump now. Is it any wonder I shiver at night?
Weeks ago, I texted one of the smartest people I know, an Independent, who has voted both for Republicans and Democrats, not married to a party. I asked him what he thought of Trump. There was no response, until this weekend.
He said: I used to think Trump was just a jackass but he seems to be a jackass and an idiot.
Our White House is occupied by someone who seems a jackass and an idiot who is being unfaithful to the people who elected him. Everything he has proposed is supportive of his class and destructive to the people who elected him.
He is bringing the Billionaire’s Boy’s Club to the White House. He’s not cleaning out the swamp. He’s enlarging it.
Bucking a long-standing tradition, he hasn’t, still, released his tax returns. His aides have “forgotten” meetings with Russian officials during the campaign. His sons have contradicted him in terms of his financial relations with Russia. There are all kinds of dangling Russian connections that are, at best, unseemly, and, at worst, criminal and maybe treasonous.
So, I shiver at night and tremble when he speaks.
This is all, of course, my humble opinion.
And thus, I do things that are very hygge to comfort my soul, make me feel at one with the universe, and give me a smile, such as enjoying and savoring the view out my window, like enjoying this cat on display on Main Street in Catskill, where I was doing some errands yesterday.
Or enjoying this reflection by Thomas Pesquet, a French astronaut, as he readies himself for his return to earth. See it here.
Tags:Angela Merkel, Billionaire's Boy's Club, Brad Pitt, Department of Energy, Donald Trump, Dwight Eisenhower, Electoral College, EPA, Hudson Valley, Hygge, life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matt Tombers, Paris Climate Accord, Rick Perry, Scott Pruitt, technology, the swamp, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
May 25, 2017
This morning one of my guests on the radio show was Tadd Mann, who is an astrologer and, in these parts, is THE astrologer.
He has been a guest at the cottage several times, including the last beautiful night of last year; the next day the damp and dark fell upon us but that night was a moment out of eternity.
He told me that among his skills are those of feng shui, the Chinese art of placement, and that he had just returned from advising some people on the best places to build on their new property.
His belief is that the cottage is so coddled in peace because of its feng shui; whether consciously or not the house was built in the perfect spot on the land, the creek flows correctly, all is good by the rules of the art.
Every time I walk in the door, I feel the pressure in my body fall. And I need the cottage’s coddling sorely these days.
It feels like I am living in the time of King Richard, off to the Crusades, and Prince John is the keeper of the kingdom. Prince John, with the Sheriff of Nottingham, is raping the land [and the maidens] while the King is away.
Trump is Prince John and someone is the Sheriff [there are many candidates for that role in this administration].
It feels we are living through an interregnum. The real king will return someday.
And I am feeling much of this because Trump’s budget has been revealed and it seemed to be a steal from the poor and give to the rich kind of budget. It is an outrageous plan for America and avoids so much we need to be worried about and hurts, deeply, many of the people who voted for him.
It is outrageous.
The policies being put forward by this administration are mind boggling. Seriously mind boggling.
Everything needs to be fixed and it doesn’t need to be destroyed. The ACA was flawed. So, fix it. Medicare was flawed and people worked to fix it. There isn’t anything that can’t be improved and throwing something away isn’t always the best way of fixing.
The CBO analysis of the Republican AHCA has come out, revealed to be more harmful than the first version.
May the Senate stand strong. On Health Care. On this cockamamie budget.
If you have been reading me, you know I take breaks from all of this because I can’t take it. Last week one day, I went through the wormhole and surfaced hours later, dazed, and feeling like I needed a good, long, hot shower with copious amounts of soap.
The New York Post, the mouthpiece for Rupert Murdoch, is reporting that our Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, did not reveal meetings with Russians in forms he filled out. Nor did Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, reveal meetings with Russians he had had when he applied for security clearance.
Sessions says he didn’t think he needed to because he met them as part of his Senatorial responsibilities. Gosh.
The liberal press will be all over this. What I find interesting is that the Post is all over this. The New York Post. The effing NY Post, the most conservative paper in New York, generally the excuser of all Republican foibles. Is this the work of James and Lachlan, not fans of Trump? Or is it that Rupert smells blood in the water and wants to be on the right side of the story?
All of this, and I mean all of this, is so extraordinary it boggles the mind. Apparently my word for the day.
Which is why I am so glad I can return to my cottage, feng shui perfect, listen to jazz, have a martini or two, and center myself in the earth and realize that there are some things I can do and many things I cannot.
It is my obligation to be aware and to comment.
And it is my obligation to myself to center myself in the universe to survive all this, all of which feels like some dystopian novel I am living through and it is not a novel: it is reality.
So, go be good to yourselves and don’t forget we need to get beyond the interregnum. The King will return.
Tags:AHCA, Astrology, CBO, Donald Trump, Feng Shui, James Murdoch, King Richard, Lachlan Murdoch, NY Post, Prince John, Rupert Murdoch, Sheriff of Nottingham, Tadd Mann, Trump's Budget, Winston Churchill
Posted in 2016 Election, Columbia County, Comey, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, Hygge, Income Inequality, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commnentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized, World War II | Leave a Comment »
May 1, 2017
It is a Sunday evening at the cottage. Jazz is playing, the lights splash the creek. I have made myself a martini. It was a typical Sunday, up early, read the NY Times and a few articles from the WSJ online before the shower and then off to church, where I did the readings and then coffee hour, errands before settling at the Dot for a long and lazy brunch, reading more off my phone and chatting with a few people, home to the cottage, put away laundry, got the trash together and sat down to write.
Very hygge.
Because I need the steady rhythm of familiar things in this Age of Trump.
His aides were caught off guard when he extended an invitation to President Duterte of the Philippines to come visit him during a Saturday call. If you haven’t been following it, President Duterte has been accused of extra-judicial killings in that country’s current “drug war.” Now those surprised aides are preparing for an avalanche of criticism as it’s hard to find a world leader disliked as much as Duterte by pretty much everyone.
Then, after unleashing a problem for everyone around him, Mr. Trump jetted off to Harrisburg, PA for a campaign style rally to “record breaking crowds,” where he railed to his supporters about the media which was, at the same time, roasting him in DC, even if he was not there. In two events, the official White House Correspondents’ Dinner and the Samantha Bee hosted “Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner” withered the sitting President, the first to have missed this event since 1981, when Ronald Reagan was recuperating from an assassin’s attack.
I wake up in the morning and find I am in a state of continuing bemusement in what is going on in Washington. It is reality television, which is what we should have expected when we elected a reality television star to the Presidency. With Reagan, we had an actor who knew how to deliver his lines. There aren’t really “lines” in reality television. There is direction but no script. We have a President who is making up his script as he goes along, knowing he knows better than everyone else. Even if he doesn’t.
The WSJ, a deeply conservative publication, to which I now subscribe, seems to be wanting to support him and just can’t find a way not to point out that it’s all a little…off.
And it is more than a little off.
Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff, said the White House was looking at ways of changing the libel laws to make it easier to for Trump to sue media organizations who criticize him. Imagine how the Democrats responded to that, not to mention many Republicans? Not pretty. Do we not remember the First Amendment? Or is Trump being inspired by Erdogan of Turkey who has been arresting thousands of people he suspects of being disloyal while cracking down on the press? Cracking down makes it sound nice. He is dismantling any vocal opposition to him.
One thing we should note is that the economy grew at the slowest rate in three years in the first quarter of Trump. Maybe it’s a holdover from Obama or maybe it’s the fear of Trump.
We are in a political Wild West except in this Wild West we have nuclear weapons.
It’s a dark time in American democracy and we need to remember, in this “of the moment” world in which we live, this has not been the only dark time in American democracy. We had the Civil War, dark time. We survived Andrew Jackson, a really, really not nice President [who, by the way, our current President seems to identify with].
We will, God willing, live through this.
In the meantime, I will play jazz. I will drink martinis. I will write and I will hope, because without hope we have nothing.
Tags:Andrew Jackson, Christ Church Episcopal, Civil War, Donald Trump, Duterte, Erdogan, Harrisburg, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Mother Eileen, Not The White House Correspondents Dinner, NY Times, Reince Priebus, Ronald Reagan, Samantha Bee, Trump, Washington, White House Correspondents Dinner, Will Ferrell, WSJ
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
April 27, 2017
It’s been a busy day. At 5:30 the alarms starting going off as today is Wednesday, the day I do my morning show on WGXC and I need the time to be good when I go on air. Once I was a morning person, when I lived in LA and worked for New York based companies and had to be up to catch New Yorkers.
Mornings were always best because after lunch, particularly in the early 1980’s, was not a good time. The three martini lunch was slowly fading but not yet gone. It was an early lesson in my career.
So, for most of the time I lived in LA, I was up about the time dawn was cracking so I could catch people before I lost them. It won me many friends and a few who wished I would sleep longer so that I wasn’t around to harass them.
The memories I have of that time are quite fond.
Knowing myself, I am up early on the day I do my show so that I am fully functioning by the time I reach the station around 8, letting myself in, sipping coffee and getting organized. I want to be at my best.
Today, I was pretty good, if I say so myself. The first interview was with Brenda Adams, Executive Director for Columbia County Habitat for Humanity and the President of their board, Peter Cervi. It went well. They are having an event which they were there to publicize and I also wanted people to know about all the other good things they are doing, including helping people remain in their homes as opposed to having to go to a nursing home.
That was followed by an interview with an environmental journalist, Susan Zakin, which was good and funny and fun. She is appalled by what Trump is doing.
Which brings us to our unpredictable President, Donald Trump. It is dizzying to me and disturbing to me as I can’t seem to find a coherence to what is going on though I am not sure why I am surprised by that. He hasn’t been, to me, coherent from the beginning.
And now he is President.
He, the President, announced today a reform to the tax code. Details to follow. No one I’ve read today seems to “grok” it.
He signed an Executive Order today that potentially takes away protection from something like 24 national monuments. Why?
Trump summoned the whole Senate to the White House to brief them on North Korea. No real reports on what was revealed though some Senators said they came out of the meeting “sobered.” Though it seems diplomacy is being chosen rather military action.
A long time ago, there was a remake of “On the Beach,” a story of nuclear destruction. In the remake, the President of the United States ordered a nuclear strike on China and it resulted in the end of human life on earth.
That haunts me right now.
North Korea is playing with fire and we’re playing with North Korean fire. It worries me how this will turn out.
Look, I am in the last act of my life and if the world blows up, I’ve had the best of it. And I think about the children who were playing at OMI, an art center, I visited last week. There was such delightful young life in that room.
I think that should be protected.
Look, ladies and gentleman, the Roman Empire went through a number of really bad Emperors so I am hoping we can get through a really bad President.
Less than a hundred days out, I think he is a bad President, dangerous, more so than “W” who I thought was a bad President and dangerous. He gave us the morass of the Middle East.
And now it is later at night, the lights are on the creek, Nina Simone is playing on Echo and I am moving toward bed in my freshly cleaned home.
The lights are on and I am looking at the creek, flowing on, hopefully forever.
Earlier, as I was settling in, I looked out my window and saw my hedgehog sniffling around the house, looking for food. And its presence gave me hope.
The world is changing and the hedgehogs remain, constant against change. A part of life…
Tags:Brenda Adams, Claverack, Claverack Creek, Columbia County Habitat for Humanity, Donald Trump, LA, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matt Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Nina Simone, North Korea, OMI, ON THE BEACH, Peter Cervi, Susan Zakin, Tax Reform, WGXC
Posted in 2016 Election, Airstrikes, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Music, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
April 4, 2017
It is dusk on the day that seemed to say: Spring is here, for real. Walking around today as I did errands, I was jacketless and soon, I thought, I will be wearing shorts. All day today, I felt a letter happening in me.
It is an interesting time for me. My work for the Miller Center for the Presidency is on pause while they work out budgets for the coming year. It maybe I will be part of it and it may be that I will not. To be decided.
The guest bathroom is being repainted and today I went and picked up the new medicine chest and lighting at Lowe’s. The inside of the car was vacuumed and the winter’s gunk washed mostly away. It needs a good detailing which will happen soon now that I have found a place in Greenport.
This time of day is brilliant. Outside it is pearl grey, inside jazz plays and a martini is sipped. The creek floodlights are on and it is all good and hygge.
Just finished watching my friend Medora Heilbron’s vlog about matzo place cards for Passover! It was a treat, watch here.
All this is very comforting on a day when the Los Angeles Times published a scathing review of the first days of Trump’s presidency. You can read it here. It is the kind of editorial about a President that hasn’t been seen since the 1970’s. Yes, since Nixon.
At 4:31 AM our President tweeted about whether Hillary had apologized for having been giving questions prior to one of the town halls. Yes, that was wrong. It’s over, Mr. Trump. You are now the President. You won. Move on, please. Please.
Are you capable of moving on?
Not moving on will be the people killed in a Metro explosion in St. Petersburg, Russia. A bomb went off on a train, killing, at last count, eleven, and injuring dozens. St. Petersburg is on my bucket list. Over the years, I’ve read a lot about the city and feel a connection to it. I will hold a thought and prayer in my heart for them tonight.
And for all the people who are facing starvation in Yemen and South Sudan and…
For all of them, I lit candles this week at church. As well as young Nick, who continues struggling.
The web of Trump’s Russian connections keeps getting murkier with Erik Prince, a Trump supporter and founder of the infamous Blackwater Group, apparently having a meeting in January, days before the inauguration, with Russian contacts in the Seychelles. Now this was reported by the Washington Post, a liberal newspaper but a credible one.
Along with every thinking person, I am finding this fascinating. What is going on rivals, or equals, the Nixon years. And Nixon was six years into his presidency when Watergate bit him in the you know where.
We’re not much more than seventy days into this presidency and the storm is not going to abate.
John McCain, whom I did not vote for nor would have considered voting for considering his choice for Vice President, but for whom I have respect, has been saying things like this is the most concerned he’s ever been about the state of our democracy.
And I agree. With Nixon, one had a sense the system was working. Right now, I am not sure the system is working. And that scares the hell out of me.
Tags:Blackwater Group, Donald Trump, Erik Prince, Greenport, Hillary Clinton, Hygge, John McCain, Los Angeles Time editorial, Medora Heilbron, Miller Center, Nick Dier, Nixon, Seychelles, South Sudan, St. Petersburg, technology, theaters, Trump, Watergate, Yemen
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
March 28, 2017
It is nearing sunset; I am riding north after a day in the city, on the 5:47 out of New York Penn. Todd, one of our most venerable conductors, is conducting a game of trivia in which all of us who ride in the café car are participating. It is lovingly raucous. Some are answering the question before Todd finishes asking the question.
The commute, I don’t miss. The people I do. There is a mixture tonight of old regulars and new regulars. Annette, of Rhinebeck, is screaming answers and folks are singing the songs which are the answers to some of the questions. It is a moment wrapped in warmth.
The sun slips beneath the Catskills in a glow of burnt orange. With Trivia Time now over, we have slipped back to reading, working, with more than a few yawns stretching faces wide.
As in every day there seems to be a necessary amount of political conversations. Our google groups email list for the Empire Regulars, got slightly sidetracked into politics today until Maria, our estimable moderator, stepped in and held up the stop sign. As always, when Maria decrees, the Regulars accede.
While I am far from politically indifferent, the cascade of commentary is wearing. This is going to be a long, long haul and we must husband our strength over time and be laser focused.
Just before I boarded the train, Andrew Mer, a fellow consultant and I had a brief meeting while we discussed the Miller Center a bit and some other things. He said something I thought wise. Trump’s election has laid bare the fissures in our society we have papered over.
And Mr. Trump is helping underscore the fissures.
The attempt to repeal and replace has gone down in flames and there is even a tentative reaching out to Democrats to see what actually be done as the Freedom Caucus is intransient.
California farmers, enthusiastic supporters of Trump, are nonplussed at his immigration intentions. One said: I thought Trump was kidding. He is now anxious because his farm in California runs because of illegal immigrants.
The agony of Rockford, Illinois and other rust belt cities is now at the surface and the failure to deal with that, under both Democrats and Republicans, is a national shame, building for generations. We did not retrain people for other jobs to replace the ones not returning.
And the jobs are not returning until we look at and adapt to the revolution technology is shoving down our throats and figure out what else we can do.
The industrial revolution is coming to an end; whatever history calls this one, we need to find a new way.
The coal jobs in West Virginia probably aren’t coming back. Machines are mining what men once did. Driverless cars will toss aside the long-distance drivers, once a way to climb an economic rung. Not today, not tomorrow but someday, in a future we can almost touch, those jobs will disappear and we are not moving to educate all those people for something different.
The Trump Revolution is not dissimilar to what happened as the Industrial Revolution began the change. People rioted. Today they voted. If we don’t address the systemic issues, the next step will be riots.
The hopeful part is we somehow weathered the arrival of the Industrial Revolution and accomplished incredible things. In the last hundred years, for those in the west, our life spans have doubled, we are more educated, our lives are quite fantastic compared to that of our grandparents. There are friends of mine who are alive because of what has been achieved.
And we need to focus on the fact we are in a revolutionary period. Trump isn’t looking there nor was Hillary Clinton. Our politicians on both sides are facing the past, not the future.
The brilliance of Kennedy was he painted a picture of what could be, not what was.
We have raised the lid on the septic tank and need to clean it now.
What we are achieving technologically in this time has the promise of catapulting us to another level and very few seem to realize it and fewer still imagine how to use it for the common good.
Tags:Andrew Mer, Catskills, Donald Trump, Driverless cars, Industrial Revolution, JFK, John Kennedy, Miller Center, Paul Ryan, Repeal and Replace, Rhinebeck, technology, West Virginia
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hudson New York, Income Inequality, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
March 8, 2017
Written yesterday, having fallen into the arms of Morpheus before I could post or email…
This has been a very hygge kind of day. There is a document I need to deliver to the Miller Center and I have been cozied up in the cottage all day working on it. Outside, it has been drear, chill and damp. Inside, it’s been warm and comfortable.
Waking, I started a fire in the Franklin Stove to help take the chill off the cottage.
Yesterday, I had started working on a document I owe the Miller Center on the Presidency and today I worked to complete the first draft so I could hone it tomorrow and send it off to them.
Since 7:00 this morning, I have been working. First, I curled up in bed and handled the voluminous number of emails I receive. Then I made coffee in my Clever Coffee Dripper, a new investment on my search for a great cup of morning coffee. [Not bad…]
Since 9 this morning, I have been huddled over my laptop, working, sorting through a variety of documents, making sense of thoughts I’ve had. It’s been good, exhausting but good.
It’s lovely to stretch my mind and this has been one of the greatest stretches of my recent time, putting together media recommendations for the Miller Center for the Presidency at this exact moment in time.
Wow! Juicy good.
Every morning I wake up and wonder what has happened while I’m asleep. While it makes some of my friends crazy angry, I can’t do that. It’s more like: Wow! At least to me.
There is a new Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare and in reading articles right now, it seems DOA. Conservative Republicans hate it; Democrats despise it and to some it doesn’t make much sense. The games have begun and we’re off to the races.
Yikes. It’s a mess.
As is the claim by President Trump that former President Obama ordered wiretaps on Trump Tower. The President has offered no back-up to his claim and has, per Sean Spicer, no regrets about his tweets.
Oh, dear.
Some of my friends wake up apoplectic about all of this. I don’t. History is playing out and I am very curious about history will play out. It is incredible what is happening.
While the Trump allegations are playing out, Wikileaks has dumped a huge amount of information which lets us know that the CIA has been monitoring us through our Smart TVs, our phones and our cars.
We can’t blame this on Trump. This has been going on before him. Call me shocked. What’s been going on? Glad I don’t have a Smart TV but I do have a Smart Phone. Wonder what they know about me?
This feels very “1984,” a book by George Orwell that became very popular after the Trump election. All of this, though, started before that.
I, Joe Average Citizen, and I am a Joe Average Citizen, seem to have discovered my government is routinely spying on me and I am perturbed by that.
Really perturbed…
What world am I living in? Has the CIA become the Stasi? I am immensely confused by the world I am living in as it is not the world I expected.
Call me naïve. Call me stupid. The CIA is watching our Smart TV’s? My Smart Phone?
Wowza, that scary sci-fi future is here.
And so I am at home, doing my best to assimilate all this and also doing my best to be very hygge. And it has been a hygge kind of day.
Great jazz. Working on a project for which I have passion, fire in the Franklin Stove, watching the gray day slip by. That has been hygge. We need it, I suspect, in a world that seems to have gone mad around me.
Electing Hillary Clinton would have carried us safely down the stream for a while. Donald Trump is forcing us to confront our democracy.
Oh, dear.
Tags:1984, CIA, Clever Coffee Dripper, Donald Trump, Franklin Stove, George Orwell, Hillary Clinton, Hygge, Jazz, Joe Average Citizen, Miller Center for the Presidency, Morpheus, NSA, Obamacare, Trump, Trump Tower Wiretaps, Wikileaks
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter from Claverack 07 28 2017 Needing places and moments of refuge…
July 28, 2017A gray, foggy morning yielded to a fairly sunny, rather cool afternoon; whenever the sun slipped behind a cloud I was tempted to come into the house from my perch on the deck while the cleaning crew spiffed the house.
Now, with cottage clean, I am sitting at the dining room table, sliders open to the deck. Birds are singing and music from the 1940’s is playing on my Echo.
Returning from the Vineyard Tuesday, I made myself a martini, wrote a poem, and found myself purchasing Christmas presents from a site that emails regularly, from which I buy irregularly and, yesterday, had some things I wanted. Saying there were only four available, I pounced. I think they were being clever as the number available never went below four.
Insane for Christmas shopping in July? No. It saves so much stress come November. In January, I saw something I thought would be perfect for my friends, Nick and Lisa, and thought: if not now, when? And, you know, I have been back to that store several times and not seen the item again.
All this, the creek and future Christmas shopping, visiting my friends on Martha’s Vineyard, is very hygge. And I need all the hygge I can get.
Monday or Tuesday I received a scree from a relative who supports Trump that was filled with things that made me flinch, a repudiation of most of the things I think are advancements. Should we go back to the days of a segregated America?
And while I look out at my sun kissed creek, I read that Ventura County, just north of Los Angeles, has published a 252-page pamphlet on how to deal with a North Korean nuclear attack. That was something I needed to read a couple of times. Hawaii is also preparing for such an event and I am holding my head to keep it from exploding.
Somewhere along the line in my now longish life, I read that one of the contributing factors in the fall of Rome was lead poisoning. Romans lined their wine amphorae with lead which leached into the wine they drank and we all know lead poisoning isn’t good.
Sperm count has dropped by 50% in the western world in the last forty years. Gives me pause to wonder what historians will say about the cause. Pesticide poisoning? Another reason?
President Trump addressed the Boy Scout Jamboree this week. What you thought of his speech probably depends on which side of the political spectrum you are on.
Speaking of our President, his relentless attacks on Attorney General Sessions seem to have many Republicans up in arms, particularly in the Senate where Sessions was a member for a lot of years and it’s a tight club.
Republican Senator John McCain, with whom I have often not agreed [particularly in his choice of Sarah Palin as his VP choice], made a speech for bipartisanship after returning from surgery for a brain tumor. If you want to both hear and read what he said, click here. It reminded me of the times I have liked him.
Our president is not going to allow transgender individuals to serve in the Armed Forces. It’s not necessary for me to elucidate the storm that has created, not the least of which happened in the Pentagon, caught off guard by a Twitter announcement of a policy change.
The president made mention of medical costs for transgendered individuals which turns out to be less than what the Army spends on Viagra each year.
The cynic in me feels it was announced to please his base and divert attention from all the White House chaos.
Hello, Anthony Scaramucci!
The world in which I live seems so mad on so many levels that I am grateful I have the ability to sit here and look out at my canopy of green, look down into my creek and see the bottom of it through the clear, clear water, that I can listen to music and celebrate it, that I have had the chance to stare out at Edgartown harbor thanks to the kindness of my friends who invite me to visit them, that, even though I think the world right now more mad than it has been since my adolescence, I have places and moments of refuge.
Tags:Anthony Scaramucci, Brad Pitt, Christmas in July, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Donald Trump, Echo, Edgartown, Fall of Rome, General, Jeff Sessions, John McCain, Martha's Vineyard, North Korea bombing, Obamacare, Sperm Count, technology, Transgender military ban, Trumpcare, Ventura County
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Hygge, Life, Literature, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »