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Letter from the Vineyard Late July 2026

July 30, 2026

Woe to the grandchildren…

It’s been a while, folks. I know.

Tempus fugit, you know. 

There has been a clatter of demands on me which have kept me from putting fingers to the keyboard for this particular task.  Busy getting the store ready for “the season,” a spot of computer trouble, toss in a storm of bookstore issues, mix it up with an allergic reaction to a new medication which had me overnight in the emergency room, pumped full of Benadryl, in whose haze I lingered for days. Well, it’s been a time.

So, here I am, crashing into the reality “the season” is actually beginning to wind down even though August, our biggest month, is about to unfold, only a few weeks until Labor Day, a summer which has zoomed by though not on Zoom. Lived in real life, real time.  June seemed to last about a day.

There are those who say there have never been more people on island and those who say visitors are down, worried about the ticks, inflation, the economy, what new horror might come out of Washington.

Whatever the truth is, the bookstore, knock on wood, thank God, is doing okay.

The island has had a beautiful summer, causing “old timers” to remark it has been like it used to be, temperate, a place where air conditioning was not needed. There has been a plethora of sun kissed mornings, glorious sunsets, laughter in the streets, the sound of Vineyard Voices, an all-male acapella group, singing in the park next to the bookstore. Idyllic.

In the “real” world back on the mainland…

We have a president who said he’d bring down inflation but has only fueled it.  He said he’d keep us out of foreign wars.  Not happened.

Washington has decided to cut subsidies for Medicare drug coverage, raising prices for seniors.

It seems even die-hard Trump supporters are becoming disenchanted. Can you blame them?

I am Trumped out. He sucked the life out of the 250th anniversary of this county.  The UFC bloodying the lawn at the White House, not far from the ruins of the East Wing? This celebrated America?

The Reflecting Pool repair was a complete disaster; American Flag Blue began to peel days after completion; the water turned algae green in days, the project a triumph of incompetence.

Since February, we’ve been locked in fighting Iran. There’s been no regime change. No complete destruction of Iran’s nuclear program. Now the Houthis are weighing in with a Saudi blockade of the Gulf of Aden.  Saudi Arabia and the U.S. coordinated a strike against them, raising the stakes the war will widen. Ukraine blew up an Iranian ship in the Caspian Sea. War heat rising.

Bush started the endless wars that have consumed us since.  Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran.  We have flexed our muscle over and over to no avail.  Twenty-five years of war and what do we really have to show for it?  Not much. National treasure poured down the drain. Wars fought with muddied goals, lacking exit plans.

Trump has ordered military action in how many countries? 8?

Pete Hegseth slobbers misogyny and racism, blocking the advancement of men of color, of women, based on race and sex.  He wraps himself in a Christian blanket. Is this all really Christian? Not to me.

Now he wants a testosterone test for soldiers over 30.  Makes me suspect he’s doing testosterone himself, making him pretty angry, which he is, all the time.

Donald Trump spends his nights ranting on Truth Social, many posts incomprehensible, spewing invective, hate, lies. His grasp of facts is just that: a grasp. But then this is not a president whose ever has had a close relationship with truth.

We need to hold this administration to the hot irons of an age which had more respect for the laws of this land, for the expectations of the behavior of a president.

No president has created more wealth in his presidency as Trump.

Trump has grifted his way through life. “The Apprentice,” solidified his reputation as a canny business man while probably saving him from bankruptcy.

Estimates of his financial gain for his first year in office this time come in at about $2.2 billion. It seems to be grating to some of his constituency, those who voted for him, now finding themselves counting pennies, squeezed by inflation.  It raises eyebrows.  As it should.

We are tainted with the smell of corruption, seen as a capricious country, led by a capricious man who does not understand nor respect the underpinning of the institutions which have sustained this country.

If it can be done, it will take years to undo this mess.  Or Trump may have tipped the balance, beginning the long slide of the American Empire. Woe to the grandchildren.

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Letter from the Vineyard, April 2026

April 28, 2026

Cloudy future?

It’s a Wednesday evening as I begin this, the 15th, the day taxes are due.  I am on extension, for the first time in several years.  This winter defeated me, a fractured ankle, snowed in without power, then layering in the demands of buying for the summer… Just couldn’t happen.

Which makes me wonder, as it does all the time, why our tax system is so convoluted? Don’t the Brits fill in a postcard? Something like that.  Our system seems Byzantine, shaped, as I recall, by lobbying activities of companies like H&R Block, who make their living out of our complicated tax code.

While I am coping with the tax code, we are dealing with our president having sent out an AI generated image of himself as Christ, healing someone who looks rather like Jon Stewart – someone I am not sure he would like to heal. According to Trump, he thought it made him look like a doctor. Please? And, no, Mr. Vance, I don’t think Trump thought it was a joke.

It was taken down when the backlash started, replaced by another image of him with Jesus. Really? Trump isn’t a great example of Christian values. [I know there are many who’d disagree with me. It’s okay.]

The two of them, Trump and Vance, have attacked Pope Leo XIV because he has had the temerity to criticize the war with Iran and the administration’s immigration policies. “Unacceptable” is a word used by the Pontiff. Good on you, Leo! 

Trump responded by calling the pope “weak on crime” and accused him of catering to the radical left. 

Vance told the pope he should stick to matters of morality.  Well, that’s what I think Leo was doing, sticking to matters of morality. Evidently, our president and vice president and the pope have differing ideas on morality. In this one, I’m with Leo.

I have been deliciously happy for the last couple of weeks.  It feels I’ve been living in the moment, tasting the wonder of simple things, eggs for breakfast, the lightening of the weather, having the door of the store open all day, lighthearted conversations with customers, the softness of falling asleep under warm blankets as the day cooled.

There are moments when guilt seeps in around the edges of my happiness [I was, after all, raised Roman Catholic]; this is not a happy planet, though its beauty was vividly exhibited by the Artemis II astronauts, who sent us photos of the inestimable gorgeousness of our planet, beyond the notion of borders.  We are a small planet in the universe, inhabited by small-minded people. 

The United States is currently run by men like Trump and Hegseth, more morally aligned with the ethos of Roman rulers than contemporary ones. Might makes right.  Isn’t that how Crassus, one of original Triumvirs, richest man in Rome, came to his end? Thinking Rome invincible, wanting glory, ended by being destroyed by the Parthians.

Do not get me started about the Ayatollahs of Iran. Or Bibi! Putin. All are men who favor war over peace.

Orban accepted defeat, surprising me. Personally, I thought he’d do a Trump.

Little can be believed, actually, from the mouth of our president as his habit for mendacity has been long established. [Some will hate me for that remark but, I fear, its truth is pretty inconvertible.]

Is there a ceasefire with Iran? I am constantly confused. [See above statement.] I am now confused by almost everything happening in Iran. Another aircraft carrier has arrived. More pressure. Where will this lead? I don’t know and am afraid.

A ceasefire has been declared in Lebanon; I am grateful. Then extended. I am more grateful.

Birthright citizenship is being attacked by this administration.  The current Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, was born in this country before his parents were citizens which puts him in the category of being a birthright citizen. Does anyone else see the irony in this? Or maybe the stupidity? Duplicity?

It makes me wonder about my own ancestry. My parents might have been birthright citizens. They were born here of immigrant parents though I have no concrete proof my grandparents were citizens. Really, on what slippery ground does this put many of us?

We have so often, in so many different times, forgotten we are almost all of us, descendants of immigrants.  Recently, a friend told me his father, a child immigrant, holding a lofty position in his community, never actually became a citizen. His father was illegal, very successful, but never left the country because he didn’t have the paperwork.

I wish I had sent this before the White House Correspondents Dinner – then I wouldn’t have to address that piece of mayhem but – I didn’t, so here I am.  Scandalous security? Probably. And no this isn’t another reason to build the ballroom.  It is a reason to get a grip on guns.

God alone knows with the conspiracy theorists are saying; I am doing my best to avoid all that after reading one post.

Donald Trump and his minions are tatting the fabric of America with no real understanding of what that fabric really is, awash in America the Mighty, which gives us, they think, the right to do what we want. 

George Washington would be appalled, I suspect.

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Letter from the Vineyard, March 2026

March 24, 2026

A Letter from the Vineyard, written in segments, during March 2026

Alas, Babylon…

It’s a Saturday night, as I begin to write this.  It’s the night we “spring forward,” an exercise always leaves me feeling off, always makes me wonder why I am doing it? Why is the country doing it? British Columbia, apparently, has said: this is it, no more, after this.

It leaves me feeling tired for some reason, more tired than had I jumped time zones.

____________________________________________________________________________________

We are a little more than a year into the presidency of Mr. Trump; I am exhausted. I woke on the last Saturday of February to find we’re bombing Iran. 

The articulated reasons are inchoate and constantly evolving.  The notion of boots on the ground is terrifying.  Have we learned nothing in my lifetime? Apparently not. But probably Bibi is happy. The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is cheering us on!

Kristi Noem has been fired. Hooray! Markwayne Mullin as a substitute? Not encouraging. Will probably play the game smarter than Kristi [not hard to do] and a Trump loyalist. In the NY Times, the amazing Frank Bruni wrote about how we are being governed by incompetents.  If you have a subscription, here’s the article.

The chaos exhausts me.

Really exhausts me.  As it does like-minded customers in my store, fellow parishioners at St. Andrew’s, everyone I know who isn’t a die-hard supporter of Trump and his minions.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Now it’s a Monday; I spent a pleasant day in the bookstore, researching upcoming books and making sure we had the ones I wanted on order – so many books released in a week! The sun was out; it felt springlike and downtown Edgartown was deserted.  I think everyone was in their yard cleaning up debris from the storm.

The storm, worst since ’78 said everyone.  1978 was brutal in Minnesota too, the year I fled to California, a decision made on a night when it was 73 degrees below zero wind chill factor. It led to this crazy, wonderful life I’m leading.

Reality is a hard pill to swallow.  Especially now, in this dystopian [to me] Trump era when I read accounts of people in this administration talk about what they’re doing.  My head explodes.

Pete Hegseth sounds like he is on SNL, except, god help us all, he isn’t.  He is really in charge of the Department of Defense. No, wait!  The Department of War, which is what he just started, at the bidding of our president, Trump. Undeclared by Congress, by the way.  Democratic and Republican presidents have for the last how many decades found ways to bypass Congress in military adventures?

Donald Trump, having kicked the hornet’s nest, has no idea what he has unleashed.  He is remaking the world; I wonder will we like the new model? 

The Iranian people who rioted against the theocracy just months ago are too busy dodging bombs to rise up again while at the same time they are likely turning against Trump – and all of us. 

My friends Misha and Quadri were stranded in Dubai, changing planes when this fresh hell manifested itself, spent harrowing days without any help from the US government. Back in the Obama years, a friend of mine worked at State, was in charge of making sure Americans were helped in situations like this.  No more, apparently.

On March 14th Trump said we might bomb Kharg Island again, “just for fun.”  WTF. An American president talking about bombing – just for fun? I am profoundly disturbed. Just for fun? From an American president?

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation [didn’t know about it either] has reported troops are being told by some commanders the Iran War is divinely ordained, the trigger for Armageddon as foretold in the Book of Revelation.

The Secretary for War also has also draped his Pentagon in Christian symbolism while declaring we would “give no quarter” which, to some legal heads, is a war crime.

My friend Carolyn pointed out this was fodder for satire in the ‘60’s. But now, 60 years later, satire it’s not.

Trump’s approval rating is falling around affordability issues, not his lack of moral fiber.  If I am reading the polls correctly, three quarters of the country disapproves of his actions against Iran. But we are more concerned about prices than the deaths happening because of this fiasco. 175 children because of outdated intelligence among them.

Mr. Trump called NATO members “cowards” for not sending help.  Well, Mr. Trump, you have eviscerated them during both your terms.  Any wonder they’re not joining? You didn’t even bother telling them before you started bombing.  You are successfully breaking down the hegemony which has sustained us through my lifetime.

Robert Mueller is dead, a stoic civil servant if ever there was one. Mueller had investigated Trump.  On hearing of his death, Mr. Trump said something like, good, I’m glad.  Not surprising from Trump but really? You’re the president.  A little decorum? Not going to happen.

Yesterday armed ICE agents arrived at some airports. What can go wrong?

I am hoping we make it out of this life without Trump starting a nuclear war. Seriously, it wakes me up sometimes.

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Letter From Claverack 11 25 2016 Thankfulness after Thanksgiving…

November 25, 2016

Outside the window, it is grey, darkish and chill.  Judy Collins is playing on my Echo [Alexa!  Play Judy Collins!  And she does.]. It is the day after Thanksgiving, the kind of day to curl up with a good book, a blanket and a fire, which I will do after finishing this missive.

My friend, Sarah, sent me something she had received from one of her dearest friends, who now lives in a Buddhist monastery.  “May you enjoy a peaceful day of gratitude for everything that is good and right in the world.”

A great thought for the day after Thanksgiving.  There is, after all, much that is not right in the world.

The list of things wrong in this world is endless.

And so, too, is the list of all the things right in the world.  When I wake in the morning, I do my best to take a moment to be grateful that I have awakened, that I live, that I am surrounded these days by the soft winter beauty that is my little patch of earth.

Yesterday, Lionel, Pierre, their dog, Marcel, and I wandered up the road to Larry and Alicia’s home, with a view down to the Hudson River.  We ate, drank, were merry, and grateful and then gathered around the baby grand piano and Lionel “bashed” out tunes to which all but me sang along.  I cannot carry a tune; sitting instead on the sofa, I listened with joy.

We stayed last night at the Keene Farm, Larry and Alicia’s guest house, a wonderful, smaller house than their home at Mill Brook Farm, which is the main residence. That is a house with its foundations in the Dutch settlers in the 1600’s, added onto in the 18th Century, restored in the 20th, added onto again in the 21st.  As we left there today, I was thinking I have what I have and I am happy with what I have, content in this third act time.

One of the things I have in this world are wonderful friends.

On Holidays, I have a tradition of texting everyone I have texted in the last year with a “Happy Thanksgiving” or a “Merry Christmas” or “Happy New Year.”  Yesterday, my friend Jeffrey texted back he was grateful I was in his life and tears sprung to my eyes.  We’ve known each other a long time; been a constant in each other’s lives.  It felt so good to know.

Kevin, my nephew, texted me that he loved me as did my godson.  Smiles played on my lips.  Two such wonderful men; so lucky to have them in my life.

After last night’s feast, we brunched today at the Keene Farm; Lionel and I cooked while Pierre walked, Marcel sniffing around, enjoying the wonders of a new place.

The world is scary.  Terrible things are happening and I know that.  I am sourly aware that a bomb exploded yesterday in Baghdad, killing Iranian pilgrims.  In Iran, a train derailment took 43 lives.  Refugees are pawns in the political war of wills between the EU and Turkey.

And outside my window, the Claverack Creek slowly makes it way to the pond at the edge of Jim Ivory’s land, full this year of geese, after their absence for nearly five years. It feels a little order has returned to the universe.

Yesterday, a bald eagle swooped up the creek and took momentary residence on a tree limb across from my window.  Then he spread his wings wide and soared up creek, to the north, seeking I know not what.

The bald eagle, symbol of the American Republic, a troubled Republic we all know, yet I quote my great friend Jan Hummel:  we will survive this.  We survived Warren G. Harding, after all, and Grover Cleveland, who was a scoundrel of the worst sort.

Google it…

Dried, dead leaves scatter my deck, an Adirondack chair sits looking lonely over the creek, the dull grey of the skies has continued now for two days.  Now I am listening to Joan Baez, thinking back, gratefully, to those days in my youth when I first heard Judy Collins and Joan Baez.

We are all tender right now.  Being grateful for the good things in our lives will help us heal, I think.

 

 

 

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Letter From New York 05 01 2016 From Church to Bin Laden…

May 2, 2016

Five years ago Osama Bin Laden, a rich kid who definitely went bad, was killed in his hiding place in Pakistan, apparently with a stash of video porn.  Born privileged, he rejected privilege and embraced fundamental Islam and wreaked havoc on the world, partly supported by his personal wealth as a scion of a family that had made a huge fortune in construction in the great oil years in Saudi Arabia.  It was said he only wore a shirt once and then discarded it.

Fast forward and Al Qaeda is in decline while its successor, IS, is on the rise.  Or is it?   Its territory has shrunk this year and there is a full on assault about to happen on Mosul, one of the chief cities it has conquered.

However, they are not a country per se and attack places like Brussels and Paris as terrifying terrorists.  The world is a crazy place, isn’t it?  Full of anger, full of hate, full of vitriol and absolutism.  I certainly hope we survive this as well as we survived the vitriol and absolutism of Nazism.  That thought gives me hope.

On Tuesday, Indiana votes.  It looks like it is going to be another Trump victory.  Some polls have hime with a 15% lead. Others have him with a smaller lead but in all polls he has a lead.  It may be a “make it or break it moment” for Ted Cruz.

And as so much of the 2016 campaign has been, this is a fraught moment.  Cruz fights for his political life and Trump sails on, turning every disadvantage into an advantage.  It has been mind boggling to watch and frightening to contemplate. 

This is where we are in politics.  And it is Ted Cruz who helped set the stage for the current scene.

Last night was the White House Correspondents Dinner and while I didn’t watch it in real time, the video clips have been good and demonstrated that Obama has a ready wit [I am sure helped by good writers].  People I know found it great fun and I will look at clips tonight, once I have finished this missive.

The days are growing longer.  It is nearly eight and there is still light and I am looking at the creek in twilight but not darkness.  I love this time of year as the world moves towards the longest day of the year. 

It is a moment of happiness.

It has been a sweet day.  There was a good dinner party last night.  My guests were Larry and Alicia.  A while ago had been his birthday and last night we celebrated it.  Today Larry and Alicia invited me to join them at Ca’Mea for lunch after church, which I did and which was great fun.

I am sitting at my dining room table and am looking out over the creek and am so grateful for this place and this time.

May you be happy in your place and time.

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Letter From New York 03 18 2016 Thoughts while riding north…

March 19, 2016

A brilliant sun is beginning to set over the Catskills as I ride north on the train.  There is a great swath of sunlit river streaming straight toward the train as we crawl north.

There might be snow this weekend; a nor’easter may be storming our way though the forecast for Claverack doesn’t seem to indicate snow.  It will be what it will be…

I am headed down to the city on Monday so I can sit in on the taping of Howard Bloom’s podcast, “Howard Bloom Saves The Universe.”  [Available on iTunes.] Then a couple of meetings on Tuesday, a lunch on Wednesday and then I’ll race back to the country.

Easter Sunday is in front of me and I’m doing the brunch after Mass.  I am beginning to think the General in me will need to come out.  With moderation, of course…

While I have been doing my meetings in New York, the Belgian police have been conducting raids, which netted one of the prime suspects in last fall’s Paris attacks, Salah Abdesalam.  It may be an intelligence coup.  Other suspects also have been detained, some for helping him.

The EU has struck a deal with Turkey to return refugees to them while Greece, a bankrupt country, is on the verge of being a refugee prison.  Would this be or not be a good time for an American to go to Greece?  I love the country and would like to visit.

The Hudson is now steel grey and there is pink in the sunset.  “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.”  Pink?  Probably good…

Mitt Romney has said he is supporting Ted Cruz.  Has it come to this?

Merrick Garland made some rounds on the Hill today while the Republicans say, with absolutism, they will not consider him.  Ah, love gridlock…  So now that Congress in in recess the fight is going to the home front.

It’s my understanding Georgia has passed a religious freedom bill, which is interpreted by many to be anti-gay.

The NFL as in the National Football League, has said that this might impact their plans to have the Superbowl in Georgia.  Unintended consequences…

The markets have finally caught up with where they were at the end of last year but more to be thought of about where the markets are.  Are things good again or not?  The reports in the press seem divided.

Dark has descended on the trip.  We are now headed toward Hudson.  The  evening progresses.  When I am off the train, I’ll head to the Red Dot for a bite to eat and then home. 

My bathroom is being repainted and from the pictures I’ve seen looks quite wonderful.  Tomorrow I am meeting young Nick to pick up a new sink and faucet while at the same time picking out new appliances for the kitchen.

Now that I am living more at the cottage than anywhere else I would like it to be more me than it is now.

It is what we all want, our homes to represent ourselves.

Home is something I have thought about all my life, a looking for home.  The cottage is the most I have ever felt at home and I am so grateful I have found that place.

The world will roar and the political battles will be fought and at the end, I will be at home, in the cottage, looking over the creek while the world plays itself out.

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Letter From New York 01 27 16 Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando and Michael Jackson all get in a car…

January 27, 2016

As I type, the train is sliding south towards New York City.  To my right, the sun is setting and the fading glints of golden sun are reflecting off the ice floes in the Hudson.

Friends warned me yesterday when they heard I was coming in to bring my boots.  The city is warming up and the snow is melting, creating rivers at the intersections.

There are a couple of meetings and then I get to see Kevin, my nephew, and to give him his wedding anniversary present to carry back to Washington, DC, where he and Michelle live.

Ammon Bundy, of the Oregon Stand-Off fame has been captured while one of his top lieutenants and frequent spokesperson for the group, was shot down after, reportedly, charging at the police.  According to reports, the dead rancher, LaVoy Finicum, had vowed to die before he went to jail.

About eight occupiers are still within the Refuge and are managing a live YouTube stream from there.  One faced the camera and said, “They’re coming to kill us.”  The FBI has been taking a patient stance on this one, letting time play out.

Playing up, or perhaps acting out, is Donald Trump who won’t appear on the Fox Republican Debate because Megyn Kelly is one of the moderators.  He used the word “bimbo” in relation to her in a tweet.  The tweet went : “I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct. Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter!”

What would a day right now be without another piece of mind from The Donald?

Perusing the entertainment news this evening, I fell upon a story of a new film, based on a Vanity Fair story, that has Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando all jumping into a car together to reach New York after 9/11.  The movie that will star Stockard Channing as Elizabeth Taylor and Joseph Fiennes as Michael Jackson.  Brian Cox is Marlon.  Wait, Joseph Fiennes is a white actor best known for “Shakespeare in Love.”  Ahhhhhh, what are they thinking?  We’ll find out someday.

But what a concept, Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando and Michael Jackson in a car crossing America, together!  Sounds like an absurdist play… I think.

The Iranian President is visiting Italy.  A museum there covered its statues of naked men and women to be sure he wasn’t offended. When Italian journalists questioned this, no one has taken responsibility.  It happened but no one seems to have ordered it.  President Rouhani didn’t ask for it.  The Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, didn’t suggest it.  The head of the museum is shrugging his shoulders.

Do you remember the DeLorean?  It is making a comeback!  A company has been formed and will make about four a month, to be sold for about $100,000 a piece.   It’s the car Marty McFly and Doc Brown flew into the future with in the “Back to the Future” series of films.

The Fed has hinted today that it is possibly still on track for a March rate hike which caused another day of market swoons.  But not for Facebook, it soared on rising revenue! But Apple, darling Apple, fell after reporting its best quarter ever but folks are worried it doesn’t have much up its sleeve for the future.

After the Nazis occupied Denmark and began ordering Jews to wear a yellow star, the Danish King started doing the same in an act of solidarity with his Jewish subjects.  Today Danish lawmakers passed a law that allows Denmark to seize the valuables of refugees seeking asylum there. 

It doesn’t seem a very Danish thing to do and underscores how frightened Europe is about the influx of immigrants.  The Danes are going to make the immigrants live in specific areas or camps which is going to increase their isolation and their dependance on the Danish government.

The US, historically, simply lets immigrants in and lets them go about their business, making us incredibly diverse and relatively peaceful in our diversity.  Europe doesn’t seem to be following our example — we haven’t done it perfectly but over time we have gotten more right than wrong.

The golden tinged sun has set; it is dark, the city approaches…

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Letter From New York 10 28 15 Cheery in the middle of swampy mess…

October 28, 2015

South Sudan. Dinka. Nuer.Cannibalism. Zanzibar. Boko Haram. Obama. Cameroon.  IS.  Caucasus. Iran. Syria. Russia. US. Turkey. Putin.

Outside the day is grey, gloomy, down right dark and definitely chill. My own spirits are quite the opposite. Despite the exterior my interior is quite bright, for no particular reason but I am delighted and grateful for the quiet joy of this dark day. I’m at my friend Todd’s office, doing some work for him and some for myself.

I had a couple of personal errands to do this morning and then I arrived here, an island of warmth and cheer on a dark and rainy day.

Reading about the conflict in South Sudan trumped my cheeriness. There has been violence ranging there for months and the two sides have been brutal. There are tales of the Dinka killing Nuer ruthlessly; sometimes making them jump into bonfires and then forcing people to eat the burnt flesh. There have been rapes, pillaging, burning of churches, all the things that happen when men get fire in their killing bellies.

Further south elections in Zanzibar may explode into violence and across the continent Nigeria has freed approximately 300 women from the Boko Haram.

Obama has sent three hundred soldiers to Cameroon to train soldiers. Africa and the Middle East are riven with Islamic terrorists. Some, like Boko Haram, have sworn allegiance to IS. And everywhere I look it seems we have a muddied response to it.

Iran has now joined the Syrian conversation at the same table with the US, Syria, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, its longtime regional rival. Iranian troops are on the ground in Syria. The Russians are there. The Turks seem to be chasing the Kurds there more than IS. It is a political, ideological swamp and in that swamp millions are displaced and dying.

Putin, who is playing around in Syria, has his own IS problem. There is a ragtag group of rebels in Russia who have declared the Caucasus Emirate and sworn allegiance to IS. Muslim Russians are being recruited by IS, going to fight and are returning. Mostly they are locked up or under police surveillance but the social unrest and economic hardships in that part of Putin’s Empire is making it easier for IS to recruit.

It is a cycle that may be coming around to bite Putin in the back. It’s why he says he is in Syria. Now some of the 7,000 Russians and former citizens of the Soviet Union who are there are trying to slip back into Russia to wreck havoc in retaliation.

Thinking I would get some relief by seeing what was happening in the world of entertainment, I quickly backed off when I kept finding stories about the ubiquitous Kardashians.

Goodness, looking at the world’s stories has tempered the day’s good natured-ness. I will have to get it back.

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Letter From New York 10 08 15 From Minneapolis…

October 8, 2015

Speaker of the House. Kunduz. Doctors Without Borders. Russia. Iran. Obama. Putin. Rupert Murdoch and “real blackness.” Paul Prudhomme. Spencer Stone. Sepp Blatter. Svetlana Alexievich.

Letter From New York originates in Minneapolis today, where the sun burst through the sky and it was charming this morning, warm after a light rain last night. But, alas, now the sun has slipped behind dark clouds and rain is threatening.

Tonight I will be having dinner with Jean Cronin Olson, who once, very long ago was a student of mine and in the intervening years, for the most part, we have kept in touch and often when I am in Minneapolis we gather for coffee and a long chat. Tonight it’s dinner at her home with her husband Jon and whatever of her four children will be about.

The idea that my students have adult children is very sobering to me.

Sobering to the Republican Party was the unexpected announcement that Kevin McCarthy, widely thought to be the man who would replace John Boehner as Speaker of the House, was withdrawing his name from consideration. Apparently, he, like Boehner, doesn’t want to content with the forty or so hard to the right, Tea Party Republicans who think they should be running the show.

By all accounts, it’s all rather mad and according to the Washington Post, very much like Neflix’s political drama, “House of Cards.” Now who will be playing Francis Underwood in this real life drama?

President Obama phoned Dr. Joanne Liu, the head of Doctors Without Borders and offered an apology for the bombing of their hospital in Kunduz. At least thirty-three workers are dead. She has acknowledged she “received” the apology but there is no indication that she has accepted it. She wants an independent investigation of the incident.

Russia has been firing missiles from ships in the Caspian Sea at targets in Syria. Four of them fell short and landed in rural Iran. I wonder what the Ayatollah thinks about that?

Putin turned 63 and celebrated with a lot of hockey themed events. He and his staff played against a team of professional Russian players. Not so shockingly in today’s Russia, Putin’s team won! Imagine that! And Putin got a gold medal for the most successful shots. Amazing! Is there nothing this man can’t do brilliantly?

He is, in fact, if not in title, Tsar Vladimir of Russia. But let us not forget the brutal end of the last real Tsar. Nicholas II and his family ended in front of a firing squad.

Rupert Murdoch is one of the “Tsars” of global media. He has become infatuated with Ben Carson and tweeted that he wondered what it would be like to have a “real” black President. Rupert has since apologized. As he should.

In the 1990’s the great television gathering called NATPE [National Association of Television Programming Executives] met one year in Las Vegas and the following year in New Orleans. On one of the New Orleans’ excursions I met Paul Prudhomme, the Cajun chef, who passed away today after at short illness at 75. He shot around his restaurant on an electric scooter. He was near his heaviest at the time, weighing well over 550 pounds. It was a good meal.

Spencer Stone, who helped stop a massacre on a French train a few weeks ago, was stabbed in Sacramento early this morning after leaving a nightclub. Seriously wounded, he is expected to survive.

Sepp Blatter, President of FIFA, has been suspended. So have a few other senior officials. One wonders who is running the place though one has wondered that even when they were there.

And finally, Svetlana Alexeivich, a writer from Belarus, has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. She tells history through the voices of people who lived it. Hats off.

Soon it is time for me to go and get ready for dinner. May yours be good.

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Posted in Iran, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, missiles from Caspian Sea, Social Commentary, Syria | Leave a Comment »

Letter From New York 09 28 15 Dealing with Putin, Obama, VW, NASA and IS

September 28, 2015

Super Moon. Putin and Obama at the UN. Water flowing on Mars. An independent Catalonia? Taliban rising, again. Living on $17 a day. More on Volkswagen.

Last night, when the eclipse came at 10:47, I was already deeply in the arms of Morpheus. I had thought I might be able to make it but I was asleep before ten, drifting off, like many other days, reading a book.

Now I am on my way into New York City to have dinner with my godson, after a meeting this morning in Hudson. The day, which I thought was going to be sunny, has turned gray and mournful. The Hudson River looks like a sheet of beaten silver. Leaves are beginning to turn though I suspect it may not be a too colorful fall; the leaves that have turned haven’t much color and look as if they had just surrendered to winter, without a final burst of brilliance.

Both Putin and Obama spoke today at the UN. Even though he is meeting Putin today, Obama questioned Russian motives while leaving the door open for a constructive working relationship. That feels a little hard to imagine, a day after Russia, Syria, Iraq and Syria made an agreement to collaborate with each other on IS, without alerting or consulting the U.S.

But who knows what will happen behind closed doors with the two of them?

NASA now says that water flows intermittently on Mars. While it may be briny, it does flow at times which opens the doors wider for life on the Red Planet at some point in its past or present. Wouldn’t that be amazing? [And you’re correct, I am eagerly awaiting the Matt Damon starrer, “The Martian.”]

While I was wrapped in the arms of Morpheus, worshipping the god Somnus, the Taliban seized most of the city of Kunduz in Afghanistan, giving them a prize they have long desired. Afghan Security Forces and UN Personnel fled to safety as defenses collapsed.

It is the first time in fourteen years that the Taliban have managed to swarm into a city rather than attack with isolated bombings and individual acts.

Far to the west, in Spain, the Catalonian region held elections yesterday. A year ago, the region held a referendum on independence from Spain and those who wanted to leave outvoted those who wanted to stay. Madrid declared it unconstitutional and Catalonia remains part of Spain.

In yesterday’s elections, secessionists won a majority of seats but conventional wisdom seems to be thinking that Catalonia doesn’t really want independence but it wants a better deal from the Central government. This election helps strengthen their hand.

17 Florida legislators, mostly Democrats, are going to live on $17.00 a day for a week in a gesture to support a law to raise the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour. They figure that $17.00 is what a minimum wage worker has left over to live on when all the basics are paid.

We all know that Volkswagen had some really good code writers for the software they used in their diesel cars. It fooled testers into believing the cars weren’t emitting pollution when they were.   Now the former head, who stepped down after the scandal broke, is now being investigated for fraud. Martin Winterkorn intimated he knew nothing but the German authorities aren’t so sure.

VW has lost a third of it market capitalization since the crisis exploded and the 78-year-old company is facing its biggest challenge.

More dull economic news from China resulted in more losses for the markets today. No denying it’s a global economy.

Nor can I deny that the sun has come out as I am passing the slowly rising new Tappan Zee Bridge. It burst through clouds and now glimmers off the silver water.

The train is well over an hour late and the conductors are being bombarded by questions as to when we’ll get to New York. One poor man is attempting to catch a plane out of Kennedy. He might JUST make it.

I will make my dinner with my godson and for that, I’m grateful.

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Posted in Afghanistan, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Social Commentary, Taliban | Leave a Comment »

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