Letter from the Vineyard

As I move north toward Hudson, the sun glitters sharply off the Hudson River, the ice floes seem more diminished and it was nearly sixty degrees in New York City today. On a day that was supposed to be cloudy, the sun has been present in all its yellow glory.

On my way home after several meetings, I will be meeting friends at the Red Dot for dinner tonight and then home to sleep and to work from the cottage tomorrow.

In Ferguson, Missouri, the Chief of Police, Thomas Jackson, has stepped down, following the City Manager yesterday and a judge earlier this week. All of this, of course, is fall out from the report issued by the Justice Department that was harshly critical of the practices of the City of Ferguson, accusing the town of systemic bias against African-Americans.

As I left the Acela Lounge, a report was airing on CNN regarding the apology of a University of Oklahoma student identified as one of the leaders of a fraternity’s racist chant.

In Atlanta, an unarmed black man was killed today, the third unarmed black man to have been killed by officers since Friday. Naked and acting deranged, he was shot by a police officer.

In a story that will keep on giving, Hillary Clinton declared that she used one email for “convenience” and that perhaps that wasn’t such a good idea. No, Hillary, it was not a good idea. As she marches toward the declaration of a run for the Presidency, it seems her opponents are not other members of the party but the media. Her relationship with the media has long been tumultuous and it looks as if it will stay that way.

Moving further north, the ice floes have thickened but it looks like the ice pack of two days ago is beginning to break.

While we hear frequently about the number of foreigners slipping away from their home country to fight with IS, we don’t hear much about Americans who are flying to Iraq to fight IS. Apparently there are a few, mostly veterans who have become dissatisfied with life at home. The US government is actively discouraging this and pushing anti-IS troops in Iraq to keep them away from the front lines. Some have gone across to Syria and join groups there after their battle hopes have been frustrated. Officially, the Pesh Merga says that there are no Americans fighting with them at this point. At one point, they said there were about a hundred.

On the BBC app this morning, I read a heartbreaking story out of China. Apparently there are 20,000 children who are abducted every year in China and then sold online to individuals desperate for a child. It may be that there are as many as 200,000 abducted every year. The man profiled today had his five year old son abducted and has spent years looking for him to no avail. It did not sound as if stopping this was a priority for the authorities.

In Nigeria, approximately 150 children five to seven years of age have been rescued from Boko Haram. They do not remember who they are or where they came from, recalling nothing of the lives they lived before their kidnapping, making it difficult to return them to their families.

The Iraqis are making steady progress in Tikrit while IS set off 21 car bombs in Ramadi, just to remind people of their abilities. Because defenses have been strengthened around Ramadi, the car bombs mostly exploded before they reached their targets.

A member of a Russian Human Rights group has said that one of the suspects in the death of Boris Nemtsov, the anti-Putin activist, probably gave his confession after torture. The activist is facing jail for having spoken out. Ah, the beauty of democracy in Russia.

New York City announced this morning that it will continue its ban on ferrets while in Italy, a young woman is devoting her life to rescuing pigs. She claims, and I have heard from others, that pigs are smarter than cats or dogs.

The train is rolling slowly north and soon I will be back in Hudson and on my way to the Red Dot.