Happy New Year
December, 2025
Letter from the Vineyard
December 31, 2025
December is slipping away, the year nearly done. Days will get longer now. The light will come, literally.
Christmas was to have been spent in New Mexico but the morning I was to leave, I got up; my back did not. I spent days managing an episode of sciatica, a word I remember hearing in my childhood, something old people dealt with. Well, I am old now; it’s something I’ve navigated a couple of times, first in the summer of 2018 when I woke up, got in the shower, experienced a kind of pain I’ve never know before. Pretty quiet until now, when it erupted and I cancelled Christmas for myself.
While I rested, the Kennedy Center was renamed the Trump – Kennedy Center, something I find offensive but not surprising. There will also be a Trump class of new warships for the Navy. The memes are amazing, several of gold plated warships caused me to guffaw, one named S.S. Bonespurs, which felt a shade dangerous with my back.
Mr. Trump also hosted the Kennedy Honors, which were the lowest rated in their history. Excuse my schadenfreude.
The Supreme Court showed a moment of spine and prevented deployment of troops in Chicago. The Supreme Court has been unprecedented in allowing presidential power to expand. FDR attempted something of the same but didn’t get as far as President Trump. Abraham Lincoln was a master.
Jeffrey Epstein does not go away. Trump said he had never been on Epstein’s plane though flight records indicate he was, more than a half dozen times, a plane known to some as “The Lolita Express.” Five million more pages to come…
Marjorie Taylor Greene was screamed at by Trump about her activism to release the files. Why, she asked. It’s going to hurt my friends, said the president, allegedly.
On Christmas Day, the U.S., in coordination with Nigeria, did precision bombing against IS enclaves in northern provinces, suspected of attacking Christians. The Nigerian government disputes Christians were uniquely targeted, saying IS doesn’t discriminate, attacking both Muslims and Christians.
Israel ranks last among countries in the Anholt Nation Brands Index [who knew there was such a thing?] Surprised?
Gaza is a festering wound. One day, I happened upon pictures of children in the West Bank, looking like Holocaust survivors.
In response, I gave to World Central Kitchen, Jose Andres’ organization for Gaza relief.
Famine is hovering over Palestine, Haiti, Sudan, South Sudan, Mali and Yemen, at least. As the year ends, think of the starving and, if you can, help out.
One of the wars Trump “ended” was between Cambodia and Thailand except it didn’t stay ended. There’ve been weeks of deadly clashes and bombings. On Sunday, the 28th, another ceasefire was declared.
While it can seem the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are riding freely across the globe, there are signs of hope. Nicholas Kristoff has an opinion piece in the December 28th edition of the New York Times in which he tries to cheer us up. I recommend reading it here.
During the days of being home there was time to ponder.
Politically, I think of myself as a centrist, modestly progressive, concerned about civil rights, grateful to have grown up in the America I did, flawed as it was, it did seem we were mostly all working toward a common, greater good.
Sorry to say, not so sure right now. However, as friends tip more to despair than hope, I find my hope rising again.
Trump is not invincible. The rise of fascism is not inevitable. It will take work and we’re capable of it. We need to believe in ourselves. I continue to take hope and find hope in the good things I see happening.
My best high school friend, Tom, works three days a week at a food bank, stretched to the max by need. This island came together to help our food bank weather the suspension of SNAP.
People go to the streets, make silly, wonderful signs, letters are written, petitions are signed, blogs are written. Write a letter, sign a petition. Partake in a march.
Now in Summerfield, FL to spend New Year’s with my sister, a newer tradition of ours. Off to see other friends in Florida and on the 10th, will set sail on a Virgin Voyages cruise, 7 days of drifting through the Caribbean, traveling with my longtime friend, Tory, who has also booked a cabin.
Let me leave you with my favorite picture of the year, Edgartown Books in her Christmas finery. I think it sings of hope.
Happy New Year! Let us go forth bravely in these troubled times.
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From New York August 19, 2014
August 19, 2014Or, as it seems to me…
The sun continues to play hide and seek and it is still unseasonably cool in the Northeast; which makes for beautiful weather. I have called these days “Goldilocks” days, not too warm, not too cool, just right. And today is one of those “Goldilocks” days. Clear, sharp shadows splatter the gravel circle in front of the cottage. It is only in the low 60’s with promises of greater warmth for the day.
I am sipping that incredibly important first coffee of the day after having just perused the headlines of the New York Times on my iPhone. This is the last of the five consecutive days I have spent at the cottage, lost in the thrall of these “Goldilocks” days, able to feel detached from the world while surrounded by green comfort of the countryside. While I have been here, events move on and I have viewed them dispassionately for the most part.
Yet, even cosseted in the country, I am not able to ignore events here and abroad. They feel further away but that is emotional distance not real distance – real distance has been compressed to jet flight hours. Yesterday a woman on her way to treatment for cancer fell sick in Dubai from what might have been Ebola. The total death toll from that disease is now above 1200 and mounting with the day. Those who have sickened but lived to tell the tale are treated with suspicion and fear when they return to their villages.
The fragile Gaza ceasefire seems to have been broken by rocket attacks on southern Israeli towns. While the tension continues there, anti-semitism is rising in parts of Europe. In France, Jews are leaving for other countries, many for Israel. In Germany, similar things are happening. Since the war, a place where Jews have lived, for the most part in peace, there is a sense of shadows falling upon a population that once felt safe. Hungary has been turning anti-semitic for some time now. Generally tolerant Italy has seen businesses and synagogues defaced. There are anti-semitic gatherings in the Netherlands. Britain is on its way to recording its worst year of anti-semitic incidents in years. Jews were blamed in Spain for the defeat of Soccer teams. A Belgian doctor refused to treat a Jew for a broken rib.
Ancient hatreds rise to the surface, it seems, when events scratch away choreographed civility. And it is shame that civility is choreographed. Why can’t it be a part of the civil fabric? Because we have not learned that the “outsider” is not the cause of our troubles?
In Ferguson, MO the National Guard was called out to maintain order. 31 were arrested; unrest continues, fueled by an apparently small number of agitators and outside disruptors. The wounds of racism have not healed in Ferguson; apparently they were only papered over. Michael Brown’s death ripped that away and fury erupted. And it is likely that racism’s wounds still remain to be healed in much of this country. We’ve come a long way but not as far as we could or should. If we had, Ferguson might not have happened.
Tags:anti-semitism, Ebola, Ferguson, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Mathew Tombers, Michael Brown
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