It is a bit hazy as I rumble south, down the river, toward the city. I am having dinner tonight with my good friends Annette and David Fox. About once a quarter, we get together, order Indian from Indus Valley near their West End Avenue apartment and visit, over wine and an Indian dinner.
All day my mind has wandered back to the Egypt Air flight that crashed on its way from Paris to Cairo, in the Mediterranean off Crete. My phone screen was clustered with updates when I awoke this morning.
It is appearing that the plane’s crash is likely the result of terrorism though nothing can be known until the plane’s debris is studied. Why did it make wild turns just before it disappeared? What must have the passengers been experiencing? I shudder to think. It’s one thing to be there one moment and another not but what must have been in their minds as the plane made a 360 degree rotation?
Chaos erupted on the floor of the House today over a bill that would have denied contracts to Federal contractors if they discriminated against LGBT individuals. It was lost by one vote and reporters heard jeers and shouts from the House floor. Championed by Representative Sean Maloney, Democrat of New York in a district just south of me. Moments before the vote, the measure had 217 votes and House Leader McCarthy twisted Republican arms to change their vote as the presiding officer kept the vote open longer than is normal.
Ah, politics… All the remaining candidates, Trump, Sanders and Clinton hurled invectives and innuendoes today, as they do every day.
To put it kindly, Megyn Kelly and Donald Trump have been “at odds.” They had a sit down at Trump Tower and then another on Megyn Kelly’s premiere of her new interview show as she pursues becoming the next Barbara Walters. It was roundly panned and accusations flew that she played easy with her former adversary.
A week ago the legendary CBS reporter, Morley Safer, retired. A long planned special tribute to him aired on “Sixty Minutes” this past Sunday. Today, he died. He covered the world, from war to art, with panache and precision, exuding a style that is hard to find, particularly now.
The wonderful Hubble Telescope, hovering in space for twenty-five years now, has sent home spectacular views of Mars which is swinging in and will be as close as it gets to earth on Sunday, May 22nd. From these photos we have learned there were mega-tsunamis on Mars in the long ago. With luck, it will continue working at least until 2020 or, perhaps, a little longer.
This week, a Chibok girl, kidnapped two years ago by Boko Haram in Nigeria was freed. Today, another girl has been rescued, two out of two hundred. The first one has met with the Nigerian President but it may be hard for any rescued girls to be reintegrated. The first girl has a Boko Haram “husband” apparently.
In Venezuela, Maduro is cracking down as his regime seems to be cracking up. Tear gas was fired on a crowd of thousands who were demanding his recall. Chants of “food, food, food” are being heard in the streets of many cities. Hospitals are often without power or medicine. Patients are reported to lie in pools of blood.
Even his fellow leftists are beginning to think him crazy. One called Maduro “crazy like a goat.” But maybe that’s a compliment?
The train arrived in New York and then I was off to dinner and sleep. Now it is a beautiful Friday morning in the city, sunlight streaming through the blinds and shortly I’m off to Baltimore to visit friends.
Yesterday’s drumbeat continues today. Debris has been found from the Egypt Air flight. Accepting the inevitable, the Republicans are rallying behind Trump and it will make an interesting fall campaign as Trump and Clinton seemed to be disliked in comparable numbers, meaning no one likes either of them much.
Oklahoma has passed a bill making it a felony to perform an abortion thereby making it virtually impossible to get an abortion in the state.
Israel’s Defense Minister has resigned, accusing Netanyahu of “extremism.” And if he continues on the current path, Netanyahu’s government will become the most right wing in Israel’s history.
Now, as it is nearing noon, I need to prepare to leave, with another coffee in my future and some work for WGXC.
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From Claverack 03/02/2017 From Saba to a Trump Speech…
March 3, 2017It has been about ten days since I’ve written; I just went back and looked. Last time, I was on Saba, writing when I wasn’t able to sleep. Tonight, I am back at my dining room table, floodlights on, looking out over the creek, having just returned from Coyote Flaco with Pierre, sharing chicken fajitas.
When I reached the cottage this afternoon, I felt I’d been away for a week, at least. Monday morning, I went down to DC for some meetings for the Miller Center on the Presidency and then to New York last night to have a wonderful dinner with my friends, David and Annette Fox. It’s a quarterly event; we gather at their marvelous UWS apartment, order Indian and catch up on our lives.
It is very hygge. As was the dinner party I gave last Friday night for Fayal Greene, her husband, David, Ginna and Don Moore, Lionel and Pierre. Leek soup, sautéed scallops in a brown butter sauce, and carrots in a lemony oil garlic sauce, with a baked polenta to die for, followed by a flourless chocolate cake provided by Ginna and Don, via David the baker.
It was an extraordinary evening.
And I, at least, need evenings like this to keep me sane in these extraordinary times.
On Tuesday evening, in Washington, after an early dinner with my friends Matthew and Anne, which followed drinks with my ex-partner and his now fiancé, I watched the address to Congress by our President, Donald Trump.
To the great relief of almost the entire world, he did not go off the rails and sounded presidential. It was, Tuesday night, all about the delivery. Wednesday morning people started to parse what he said. Even the conservative writers that I read, and I do read some, found a lot of flaws with the speech.
Short on specifics.
Fact checkers found a lot of fault, pointing out Trump claimed as victories some things which had been in play for a year at some corporations. Ford isn’t keeping production in the US because of Trump; they are pulling back on their Mexican plans because those plants would have built small cars and people aren’t buying them. They’re buying gas guzzlers because gas is cheapish again.
When talking with David and Annette, I said that if Trump had not held it together last night, his presidency would have begun to unravel. He would actually be President but, in reality, his claim to power would have begun collapsing. Lots of people on his side of the aisle are slightly unhinged by his behavior. McCain and Graham are frankly, I think, apoplectic.
And he held it together and while he should have been able to take a victory lap, Wednesday morning brought the revelation that Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had said in confirmation meetings he had not met with any Russians in the run-up to the election, actually had two meetings with the Russian Ambassador, one in his office on Capitol Hill.
Republicans are excusing while Democrats and some Republicans are accusing.
This is a wild ride and I’ve never seen anything like it.
Sessions has since recused himself from all investigations regarding anything Russian but there are those on both sides of the aisle who smell blood in the water.
While we were having political meltdowns, Amazon’s vaulted cloud computing world went offline yesterday for 4 hours and 17 minutes because of a typo in a command. OOPS.
It’s a little scary. 150,000 websites were affected. Amazon is the king of cloud storage and that’s a big oops for the King. I would not have wanted to be the head of that division yesterday.
And, before Tuesday’s Trump speech, we had the foll der wall of the biggest Oscar mistake in history. First “La La Land” was announced as Best Picture but it really was “Moonlight.” Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were humiliated and PwC, the accountants, were more than humiliated. They handed out a wrong envelope.
OOPS.
When it happened, I was safely in the arms of Morpheus, having strange dreams of Mike Bloomberg dating the pastor of my church, Mother Eileen.
Snap Inc. had a very successful opening on the market today; it was the biggest initial offering since Facebook and they have a rocky road to travel and they are a force to be reckoned with and it will be wonderful to see how it plays out. The next Facebook? Or the next troubled tech company, which is where Twitter is today.
It’s time for me to say goodnight.
By hygge. Regardless of your political persuasion, it will help us all get through.
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