It is November 21st.
Three days after my birthday, a time of extraordinary celebration. Starting on the night of the 17th, I had dinner with my friends Annette & David Fox. Leaving them, I connected with my friend Robert Murray and I kept him company while he ate at Thai Market. Feeling frisky, we followed that by a stopover at Buceo, a Wine Bar on 95th Street. Things got a little hazy about then.
And that was okay.
The following day, I took the train north and met my friend Larry Divney and his friend, Mark, at Ca’Mea for a birthday lunch. Then dinner with Lionel and Pierre.
Saturday, I spent the day doing my best to respond personally to everyone who had wished me “Happy Birthday” on Facebook or in emails. I am still doing that.
It was great. It was wonderful. It was a great and lovely distraction in this most confusing time.
Donald Trump, billionaire reality TV star, is the President Elect.
My friend, Pierre, husband to Lionel White, more than best friend said it was [and he is right] that it’s a little bit like we’re Italy and we have elected Silvio Berlusconi as President.
For days, I have done my best to adjust to this.
Over the weekend, for my birthday celebrations, people entered the evening doing their best not to talk politics but that lasted maybe five minutes. How can you not talk politics at this moment? Once people realized they were in a “safe” place there were revelatory expressions of emotions…
In whatever way you want to think about it, there has been a major shift in American politics. What I saw this weekend was a beginning of a counter-revolution, a sudden and decisive movement by the left to become a “loyal opposition.”
For years, they/we have felt we had the moral high ground and that was just whisked away from us. So who are we?
We are faced with the rightfully disenfranchised who voted to place Trump in office. [Let us make note that he did not win the POPULAR vote.] He won the Electoral College vote, an arcane system I haven’t really thought about since I studied it in high school civics and so I need to understand it better as TWICE in this short century, a President has been elected who won the popular vote but did not win the Electoral College.
As I said, I need to study this but it seems the Electoral College was weighted to help slave states be reasonably represented. So much to relearn… Or learn for the first time!
We are entering a decisive time and, I think, everyone call feel it. Politics in this country will never be the same.
Nor should it. A registered Independent, I am resolutely Liberal and now I have found I must actively fight for the liberal ideals in which I believe.
Join me on the barricades!
Letter From Claverack 03.05.2017 From a very worried place…
March 6, 2017It is a very chill night, here at the cottage. Jazz is playing softly. It came to me tonight, that Alexa has been learning about my jazz likes and so when I say “Alexa, play jazz…” Well, it seems she’s learning my favorites. I am interfacing with artificial intelligence.
Tonight, I am spending it with me. And I feel like I’m good company tonight.
It is good to hygge at the cottage tonight.
The noise in my world is incredible right now. My closest friends on Facebook send numerous posts every day, every hour about our political situation. Dinner last night was non-stop. At today’s brunch at the Dot, his name wafted through the air. My client is the Miller Center for the Presidency.
Donald Trump owns the conversation, ladies and gentlemen, in my head anyway.
His ratings are through the roof!
And that’s what he likes.
For twenty minutes, I have been sitting here working to find an un-trite way of saying: I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime.
This is a global phenomenon, our President Trump. He’s a global big deal and I can’t believe what’s happening. Come on, whatever side of the aisle you’re on, this is not a normal presidency.
Just isn’t.
Every tweet generates frenzy.
And the Russians are coming…
Every time I turn around, there are the Russians. Did anyone in the Trump camp NOT talk to the Russians? Enquiring minds want to know.
Everyday there is a Trump story that carries the news beast through another day. On good account, I have it that people in the news business are run ragged these days.
Let’s face it: we have a ratings obsessed President.
And his ratings are HUGE. Which is what he likes.
It’s just not like anything I have ever, ever seen.
It’s not like anything any of us have seen. If anyone has, let me know, please.
The weekend has been consumed by parsing Mr. Trump’s tweeting that the Obama Administration ordered wiretapping of his phones during the last days before the elections.
Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has said she’s “seen no evidence” and that we need to deal with evidence, not statements. Bravo.
Senator Richard Burr, also a Republican, and Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said they would follow where the evidence leads in the Russian investigation. Kudos to you, too.
Senator Rubio posits the President may have information the rest of us don’t.
And, I think, if he does, he should reveal it.
Right now, as I’ve said, one of my clients is the Miller Center for the Presidency at the University of Virginia. Because of my work with them, I find myself thinking about the presidency and our president a lot. A lot.
At church today, I heard very little of Mother Eileen’s sermon because my mind was racing on what I should say in a report to them I need to submit this week.
While I am very hygge in my cottage, I am more than a little unnerved by what is going on in Washington. And that is seeping deeper into my life, the concern I have for the fabric of the country in which I grew up and in which I live.
Oh, yes, I know we will get through this. And I want to be sure we get through this in as healthy a way as possible.
I am one little man, sitting in a cottage on the Claverack Creek in upstate New York. And I, one little man, can do things to influence how all this plays out. God help me, I am politically active. I called my Congressman’s office from Saba to articulate my concerns.
It is time for participatory democracy, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican. Which means dialogue.
And right now, we aren’t dialoguing.
We’re living in an either/or world and that’s not healthy.
We need to pay attention.
Really, we do.
Tags:Alexa, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, DC, democracy, Democrat, Donald Trump, Facebook, Hygge, Jazz, Marco Rubio, Miller Center, President Trump, Putin, Republican, Russia, The Russians, Tweets from Trump, Washington
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