It is an excruciatingly beautiful day at the cottage, the sun is warm, a wind blows to temper it, the only sound is soft jazz in the other room. I have just finished a late lunch of eggs, sunny side up, steak and toast, eaten on the deck. The first leaves have begun to fall, scattered on the table top, reminding me of the fleetingness of time.
Soon we will be in another season, fall, which I love and loathe, as I always seem so alive in the fall and, at the same time, so painfully aware life is short and death is long. It’s been that way ever since I was a kid, walking down the leaf strewn streets of south Minneapolis, knowing winter was coming and being entranced by the magic in the air.
It is Labor Day, 2017.
“According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the holiday is ‘a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers.’ Labor Day is a ‘yearly national tribute’ to the “contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity and wellbeing of our country. Newsweek, 9/04/2017
And it is a holiday with a bloody history. “Labor” wasn’t always celebrated. Suggested reading: Walter Lord’s “The Good Years.”
The summer is unofficially ending when this day becomes part of history. When I was a kid, it meant school was starting the next day so this was a day I always endured fearfully. Today, I am not fearful about returning to school. There are other things…
Kim Jong-Un has me a little fearful as does having Trump be the president who is facing him. There was some analysis this morning that the timing of Kim’s tests of bombs and missiles has more to do with tweaking President Xi of China than with President Trump. The latest bomb test came just as Xi was greeting officials from the BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China. Took the wind out of Xi’s sails in terms of making news. Kim does these things lately just as Xi is set to make some news. Hey, I’m HERE, President Xi! Got it? I’m here and I’ve got some pretty big toys!
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has said North Korea “is begging for war.” President Trump is saying, “All options are on the table.” This might not end well.
Down in the Caribbean sits the Dutch island of Saba, part of the Leeward Islands, which I visited in February. Friends have retired there and are sitting directly in the path of Hurricane Irma, now a category 4 storm. An email today said they will be in the eye of the hurricane tomorrow and were busily preparing, friends helping friends prepare for what could be a very nasty ride. If you pray, think of them.
Michael Eros, son of my longtime friends, Mary Clare and Jim Eros, is returning to Houston today after the Burning Man Festival. He left Houston before Harvey hit and he will now find out what it has done to his city. He and friends built a giant figure which they burned, leaving behind the metal shell.
Harvey will likely be the most expensive storm in history; it is believed 180 billion dollars of damage has been done. Ted Cruz is having a hard time now explaining why he voted against Sandy help now that he is asking for Harvey help. The phrase, “people who live in glass houses,” comes to mind.
There are joyful things happening in the world. Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge are expecting their third child. Peggy Whitson has returned from the International Space Station, having notched more time in space than any other American. There will be another Indiana Jones film, without Shia LeBeouf’s character. A young girl in Harvey’s floodwaters got herself and her family rescued by asking Siri to call the Coast Guard, which rescued her as she was slipping into a sickle cell anemia crisis.
Bad things will happen. Good things will happen. All we need to do, to keep moving forward, is not to blow ourselves up. I’ll pray for that.
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From Claverack 09 15 2017 Thoughts from a train…
September 15, 2017It’s early on Friday morning and I am cruising down to the city today to have lunch with James Green, my former CEO from Sabela Media. It’s sale to 24/7 is what resulted in my moving to New York and ultimately in my being on this train, on my way to see him.
When I woke this morning, the cottage was being pelted by heavy rain and by the time I reached the train station the sun had broken through and there is the promise of a lovely day in front of me.
I will probably not linger in the city as I will be back again next Monday and Wednesday and today have a lot of cleaning up to do.
Cleaning up is what my friends on Saba are doing, my sister and brother-in-law in Florida, people in Georgia and South Caroline and the Keys and Cuba; everywhere touched by the wrath of Irma, following hard on the heels of Harvey, thinking of that just after texting my friend in Houston who missed Harvey and has now returned.
Figuring out what to do about the pudgy, pugnacious, paranoid, peculiar, peevish, perturbed, peculiar, pesky, piggish, perverse, pompous, potbellied, preposterous little dictator Kim Jong-Un in North Korea is becoming ever more problematic. While I slept, he shot another missile across Japan, after the U.N. passed more sanctions against him.
Distressing, horrible and disturbing is that another bomb went off in the London subway, eighteen have been injured. Thankfully none of them seriously. Something went wrong and it apparently didn’t fully detonate. Thank God.
Our Tweeter in Chief, lectured the Brits and used the incident to appeal for a broader travel ban and tighter internet controls. I didn’t see any condolences; might have missed them. I hope they were sent.
They weren’t sent after the earthquake in Mexico that killed a hundred; that has resulted in increasing the stress in our already stressed relations with that country. It’s a pretty deep and treacherous arroyo.
Out is space, the Cassini spacecraft has burned up in the rings of Saturn after discovering six new moons and many other discoveries, including subsurface oceans on Enceladus. Mysteries to be solved, discovered by a mission that some scientists have worked on for nearly three decades. At the end, they hugged, applauded and cried.
Earlier today I posted this quote on Facebook:
“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.”
― Edgar D. Mitchell about looking at the earth from the moon…
And that’s what I want to say to Kim Jong-Un and the rest of the politicians. Look at that you sons of bitches! Look at that!
Tags:Cassini, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Edgar Mithchell, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, James Green, Kim Jong - Un, London Tube bombing, Mexican Earthquake, Saba, Sabela Media
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