Posts Tagged ‘IS’
October 18, 2016
The day is diminishing; the sunset flickers through the turning leaves, a panorama of burnished gold in the west. Classical music plays in the background and a soft wind is blowing through this, the last great weather day we will probably have until spring unfolds over Claverack Creek. It was 86 degrees today with a cloudless sky and a fall wind in a warm day.
Once I recall a day like this when I was very young. It is the kind of day that holds intimations of immortality. Tonight’s sunset reminds me of the brilliant ones I witnessed on trips to Santorini, up at Franco’s Bar, poised over the caldera, thinking that in the sunset I understood the hold Greek myth has had over us for twenty-five centuries or more.
Once, at Franco’s, I wrote a poem on that and now have no idea where it is. But I remember the moment, sitting there, pen scratching in my notebook as the golden sun turned the waters in the caldera its ripe color.
We are in the cusp of fall and summer has reached out to hold us one day more in its warm embrace, harkening us to remember its feel so we will wait, patiently, for its return in another new year.
2017
Who would have thought? Certainly in my youth I never thought that year would see me inhabit it. Yet chances are I’ll be here when it comes marching in or crawling in or bursting upon us.
Soon there will be an election and someone new will move into the White House. If it is Hillary, she’ll have been there but in a very different role now than then. If it is Donald Trump, it will, perchance, signal a new and different age in our political history.
Time will tell. Tomorrow is the next debate and I will watch, though not waiting breathlessly for it. But I will watch. It is “must see” TV for me this season.
The tree tops are swaying in the wind; the burnished gold has become the color of smoky topaz. Twilight is descending.
Iraqi troops are marching toward Mosul, meeting, as expected, fierce resistance from IS. Some Iraqis, in a scene that reminded me of tales of our Civil War, went onto a mountain side to watch the battle unfold beneath them.
IS intends to hold Mosul at any cost and if it loses it, to make it a humanitarian disaster. The word that crosses my mind as I type is “barbarian.”
Iraqis remaining in the city have become bolder in their resistance of late to IS, supplying Iraq with vital information. IS is killing anyone found attempting to leave the city.
When I was with the Internet start-up, Sabela Media, Yahoo was the industry behemoth.
Its revenue declined again this quarter and Verizon is asking for a reduction in price to buy it because of the hacking scandal.
Because they were known as bullies in the early years, I have always found it hard to be empathic though it is sorry to see a once great company slowly self-immolate. And from people I know who are dealing with them currently, some within Yahoo just can’t accept what is happening now. Ostriches with their heads in the sand…
Dark has descended and I am sitting at the table on the deck, with candlelight for illumination, listening to the classical music but also listening to the sounds of woodland creatures making their noises.
It is very special tonight. The world is swinging in its orbit, momentous things are happening and as they are happening, there are the sounds of birds in the night, classical music and, because of them, a murmur of hope for the future.
Tags:Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Donald Trump, Franco's Bar, Google, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, IS, Islamic State, life, Mosul, Sabela Media, Santorini, The Donald, Yahoo
Posted in 2016 Election, Airstrikes, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, IS, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
September 27, 2016
Twilight is beginning to settle on the Hudson Valley, outside a silvery light surrounds the trees outside my window. The trees remain mostly green, some falling, still green. Over the weekend I listened to a report on NPR informing us that the turning of the leaves has been delayed by two weeks due to the long, hot, dry summer. It’s fine with me; I am enjoying the illusion it is still more summery than it is.
Yesterday, I had a fire in my Franklin stove to take the edge off the chill in the cottage as I couldn’t bear the thought of turning on the heat.
Today has been a magical fall day, warm but not too warm, sunny and joyous.
It is Tuesday and therefore I taught my Public Communications class. One of the questions I asked was, of course, who watched the Debate yesterday as it is an example of public communication with the highest of all possible stakes. Of the twenty-one people in my class, five had watched the debate.
With the exception of one, they were millennials. All of them found both candidates unacceptable. And that surprised me. Both Clinton and Trump failed to resonate with these five. To them, Trump was a buffoon and Clinton was insincere. They did not indicate to me which way they will vote, if they vote at all.
Last semester my students were exhausted by the campaign and turned off by it by the length and acrimoniousness of it. And that was true today; my students, almost all of them of voting age, are bored to death with this election campaign, feeling no one is reaching out to them.
That is worrisome.
Personally, I really liked Hillary and thought she did a very decent job. Trump started strong and then seemed to slide into exhaustion, an individual worn down and beyond really, really caring.
He did not shoot himself in the foot in the way I hoped but something was definitely off in the last part of the debate. It seemed the helium had escaped from his balloon.
Howard Dean, once himself a potential Presidential candidate, tweeted about Trump’s sniffles during the debate, wondering if he might have used cocaine before going on. I don’t remember sniffles but it has been retweeted across the blogosphere. Trump said this morning there were no sniffles.
Chill Jazz plays in the background. The silver light seems suspended over the creek, caught in a magic moment that promises it will eternally be this way…
Of course it won’t be. Twilight will become dusk and dusk will become night.
Some weeks ago I wrote a letter that featured a photo of a little boy in Aleppo, in the back of an ambulance, traumatized, a face that haunts me tonight as the Syrian forces of Assad coupled with their Russian allies, are bombing the daylights out of Aleppo with bunker busting bombs.
All day, I have wondered if that little boy, who captured the world’s attention, is still alive? Has he survived this new level of brutality? The violence has become unimaginable and I feel broken for not knowing how to alleviate it.
This week I am dog sitting Marcel, the poodle of my friend Lionel, who owns the house across the street from me, my great friend I gained in the wondrous startup that was Sabela Media in the late 90’s.
He has been a magical friend to me and we have shared every Thanksgiving together since then, save two.
Marcel and I went on our afternoon walk together. He brings me to their house and cannot understand why he cannot go home.
He enjoys me and he wants to be at home. He is about to be sixteen and he soldiers on and I am impressed with his determination.
It is a time to be determined. There are those who feel the future of the American experiment is on the line. They may well be right.
What has happened in America in the last two and a half centuries has been amazing. We have been blessed to be part of one of the most glorious experiments democracy has ever had. We have been flawed and we have persevered.
Today I was reading all kinds of documents from Columbia Greene Community College about campus policy and I thought: we are just working to do it right.
That is the thread that has kept us going. We are just working to do it right. And I applaud American democracy, for it all its flaws, for trying to do it right.
Tags:Aleppo, American Experiment, Claverack, Columbia County, Columbia Greene Community College, Donald Trump, Hilary Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, Hudson, IS, Lionel White, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Obama, Putin, Russia, Syria, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Politics, Russia, Social Commentary, Space Exploration, Syria, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
September 14, 2016
It is a pleasant night in Claverack, after a pleasant day in general. The weather was gorgeous, hot for just a moment, but mostly it hovered in the 70’s. I spent the latter part of the afternoon on the deck, a good book in hand, while also doing a bit of work, making a few phone calls.
This evening I went to the little Mexican restaurant down the road, Coyote Flaco, with my friend Patrick O’Connor, who bumped into some people he had not seen for a long time. We shared a shrimp appetizer and chicken fajitas and left happy.
The lights are on the creek as it flows softly toward the south. The first serious leaves have begun to fall; my drive is strewn with them and it is fine. I do not need to cling to the summer that has passed. It has been lived fully and well. As I hope will be the fall that is unfolding.
As I do most days, I spoke with my brother and he asked me if I had a take on the day’s news regarding Hillary and I had to say no. I had looked in the morning but not since. In the morning, her campaign announced she thought her pneumonia “no big deal” and so held back saying anything about it.
I was infuriated with her. How many times has she felt something was “no big deal,” only to have it turn around and bite her in the ass? How many times does this woman need to have a lesson learned?
Aye, Chihuahua!
Trump is fending off assaults on his Foundation which may – or may not – have given money to various charities. Some who said they didn’t get gifts found that they did and some just didn’t get them.
And then there is the gift of $25,000 to Pam Bondi, Attorney General for Florida, which might have swayed her to not investigate Trump University. Six months after she dropped her investigation, he hosted a $3,000 a plate fundraiser for her at Mar-a-Lago, his great Florida estate, country club.
Aye, Chihuahua!
To my amazement, Barak Obama’s approval rating is the highest it has been for years. It has always been my thought he will be remembered by history with more kindness than by his contemporaries. In my lifetime, I have known no President who has elicited such visceral hatred from so many people. Maybe I missed something along the way but what this man has endured is remarkable. And I give him high marks for trying, very hard, to be the best President he can be.
Matt Bevin, Governor of Kentucky, used violent metaphors to describe a Clinton Presidency, evoking images of blood on the ground.
My fear is that we are returning to the politics of the 19th Century when Andrew Jackson created the “Trails of Tears” as scores of thousands of Native Americans died by his direction. We, as a nation, do not have a good track record of dealing with those who are not “us” as “us” is defined at any exact moment.
I was raised Catholic in Minnesota. My 8th grade teacher, Sister Anne, told us that we would be persecuted because we were Catholics. At that moment in my life, it seemed nonsensical. No one was persecuting me because I was Catholic. I mean, really…
When I was in college, helping my friend Bill paint his garage, he told me that when he was growing up in Arkansas he would not have been allowed to know me because I was Catholic. Looking at him with incredulity from my ladder next to his, I realized there were places in my life that I did not know where my Catholicism was a liability.
Now I understand more as I see Christians slaughtered on the beaches of Libya and Christians in Iraq slaughtered. We live in world of intolerance that I did not expect or accept as a child. When I was in 8th grade and heard Sister Anne, I thought the world had moved beyond that.
It has not. No, not in any way. Shame on us.
Tags:Andrew Jackson, Barak Obama, Bill Epperson, Claverack, Coyote Flaco, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Obama, Pam Bondi, Patrick O'Connor, Red Dot, Syria, The Donald, Trail of Tears
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Gun Violence, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, IS, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Obama, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
August 30, 2016
The train moves south along a placid Hudson River. I am only forty minutes out of New York and as we pull into Croton Harmon, sailboats dot the river and bob lightly at anchor. I am in town for two days to see friends, shoot a pilot with Howard Bloom and then to head home. I am feeling very mellow this morning.
Relieved I know what I am going to do my first day of class, I am now plotting out the rest of the semester.
It’s been a few days since I’ve written, days that seemed more hectic than I would have expected, with more to do and with unexpected delights.
Claire and Leonard, who almost always sit in front of me in church, offered for me to come by and take vegetables and flowers from their garden. They are off for two weeks in Greece. I went over on Friday and harvested from their garden beans and squash, flowers and potatoes, luscious tomatoes, garlic and fresh rosemary. As we gathered, a light rain fell and it seemed right to be in the garden just then. For a moment I was much in touch with my body and nature. A monarch butterfly floated by and rested on a flower near where we stood. How rarely I see them so closely.
Lionel and Pierre came for the weekend which meant long, delightful dinners with a finish of cleansing vodka and a good “chin wag.” It feels peaceful in my world.
The rest of the world, not so much. IS has killed fifty plus in Yemen, a country that has seen 10,000 die in its civil war, according to the UN, a number higher than previously thought. A suicide bomber struck the Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan. 6500, sixty-five hundred, migrants have been rescued from the sea near Libya, including a pair of newborn twins. The number staggers my mind.
Venice, it appears, is being destroyed by tourism. In 65 years, the population has dwindled by two thirds and landmarks are lost to hotels. The UN may take away its status as a world heritage site.
Gene Wilder, star of one of my favorite films, “Young Frankenstein,” passed away yesterday, of complications from Alzheimer’s. It saddens me to think of his brilliance falling away, victim to the disease. Who can forget him in “The Producers?” That generation is leaving us.
Today in politics, John McCain, Marco Rubio, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz must win primaries if they are to stand in the fall for election. At this moment, while the voting goes on, all three are expected to win.
On the way to the train station, I listened to “Democracy Now” with Amy Goodman as she and others did an exegesis of the EpiPen scandal. If you somehow have missed it, EpiPen, a life saving device and drug for those with allergies, has seen its price increase 400% over the last nine years. There is a public hue and cry about the issue. One of the women on “Democracy Now” has seen her insurance co-pay for EpiPens swell from $50.00 to $300.00, a price she cannot afford.
There is going to be, I’m sure, a Congressional investigation. The woman who runs Mylan, the drug company selling EpiPen, is the daughter of a Senator from West Virginia. She is fighting the demonization of her on social media.
The train is sliding into New York, we have entered the tunnels and will soon be in Penn Station, a place called by New York’s Governor Cuomo, one of the seven levels of hell in Dante’s “Inferno.”
As I exited this “hell,” a lovely middle aged woman stood between Track’s Restaurant and McDonald’s, playing lovely classical music. I stopped and gave her a dollar for the smile she had given me as I entered the subway.
Tags:Amtrak, Amy Goodman, Andrew Cuomo, Claverack, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democracy Now, EpiPen, Gene Wilder, Hudson, IS, John McCain, Marco Rubio, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mylan, New York, Penn Station, Tracks Restaurant, Venice
Posted in 2016 Election, Entertainment, Howard Bloom, Hudson New York, IS, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Syria, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
August 24, 2016
It is later in the evening than I normally write; I did a roundtrip to the city today. There were a couple of meetings and then I turned around and returned to the cottage. It is dark. I have turned on the floodlights so I can see the creek glitter with their light. The trees are silhouetted by the light, green and verdant. Nights like this are ones I love, with the floodlights giving an eerie beauty to what I see in the day.
Earlier today I had a long and good conversation with Sarah, who is my oldest friend. We have known each other since we were three and except for one brief period have been a close part of each other’s lives. She is one of the most loving and caring women I have known in my life and has always been that way.
In 7th grade, when Sister Jeron knocked me on the back of the head with a Gregorian Hymnal, humiliating me in front of our class, Sarah turned up that evening with one of her brothers and we went sledding down the hill by our house. She knew I was hurting and came to help take the hurt away. I remember that night as if it were yesterday.
Since I last wrote not much has changed in the world. Aleppo is still a horror show. Omran, the child in the photo, still haunts my dreams.
There are bombings hither and thither. A Turkish wedding was destroyed by a suicide bomber who may have been no more than fourteen. It was not the only bombing but it seems the most tragic with a child being used as a weapon.
Trump is attempting to moderate his tone and I hope it is too late. Hillary is caught in the crossfire of the Foundation and her emails, which probably will never go away. Even if she wins the Presidency, the Republicans will be chasing those emails and Benghazi into the next century.
The state of our politics this year is deplorable. While discouraged, I remain hopeful that some good will come from all of this. It must.
Out there in the wide world, North Korea has fired a missile from a submarine toward Japan. Provocative as ever, the chubby little dictator is testing the limits of what he can get away with.
Remember the Boko Haram? One of their leaders may have been badly wounded in a Nigerian airstrike. I hope so.
The Iraqis are intent on reclaiming Mosul. More than a million people will be displaced if they do it, according to estimates. More refugees in this horrific war that never ends…
The Brits voted for Brexit and Brexiting are a large number of corporations who are moving their money out of Britain. Not good for Britain who is going to have to do a lot of juggling with this Brexit thing…
It is late. I am distracted.
Long ago and far away, I was friends with the Elsen family. Don Elsen, patriarch of the clan, passed away today. He was 90, lived a good long life. I saw him a year ago. Unable to walk, he managed the world with a motorized wheel chair, mentally sharp as ever.
They were descendants of Germans and when I was with them, they could be screaming at each other and then burst into laughter and hug and hold each other. It was amazing. They were all full of love and Don was one of the most generous souls I have known in this life.
God rest. Keep safe. Be reunited in heaven with your beloved wife, Betty. Your son, Jeffrey, and your brothers who went before you.
May I have such a homecoming someday.
Tags:Aleppo, Benghazi, Boko Haram, Brexit, Claverack, Don Elsen, Donald Trump, Elsen, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Iragis, Iraq, IS, Isis, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mosul, Nigeria, Obama, Omran, Politics, Russia, Sarah Malone, Sister Jeron, Syria, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, 9/11, Afghanistan, Boko Haram, Claverack, Columbia County, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Homelessness, Hudson New York, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Syria, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Taliban, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
August 21, 2016
It is not all that late on a Saturday evening, about 6:45 EDT as I start putting my fingers to the keyboard. When I woke this morning, the sight outside my windows was a patchwork of hues of green, mixed with sunlight, all of it changing with the soft wind blowing this morning. When I touched base with myself as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes I was happy. As I am most days…
The creek is low; we’ve not had enough rain but it still flows. The trees are exquisite in their leafy greenness but just across the creek the tree that has always been the first harbinger of fall has begun its turn.
In a very few weeks that tree will be joined by the others and we will be in the riot of Hudson Valley colors that come with September and October.
The world has not blown itself off its axis today, for which I am grateful.
A devotee of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!” I heard the current head of FEMA talk about how they prepare for asteroid strikes and other disasters we don’t generally think of…
And it also made me smile, as it often does, which is why I do my best not to miss it on Saturday mornings. It takes the realities of the news and makes light of them, which we often need to do.
Today, the NY Times had a long article about the complicated finances of Donald Trump and another about the complicated relationship that Hillary Clinton has with the Clinton Foundation. And if there have ever been two more complicated candidates for President, I would like to know. Can’t think of any… Though I am sure there may have been. It just maybe my knowledge of history is not as sharp as it should be.
Anti-Trump activists put up eight statues of Trump, naked. It was called: The Emperor Has No Balls. Which the statue didn’t and had a very small penis as well. The one in Central Park was taken down almost immediately with a very tongue in cheek statement from the Parks Department.
The last time I wrote, I included a picture of a five-year-old child, Omran Daqneesh, who has become the symbol of what has been happening in Aleppo. His brother died today. And I need to keep thinking of what I can do to help.
In the soft and safe place of my cottage, I am hurting at the hurt in the world. I am sure half the civilized world that saw the picture of Omran wanted to rescue him from the world in which he lived. I did.
And we can’t. Though I have to think about the work I can do to help the world in which Omran lives.
Tags:Aleppo, Claverack, Donald Trump, FEMA, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Hudson Valley, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Obama, Omran Daqneesh, The Donald, The Emperor has no balls, Wait, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me!
Posted in 2016 Election, 9/11, Columbia County, European Refugee Crisis, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, IS, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Syria, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
August 19, 2016
I am cozied in the cottage, the Smooth Jazz station playing on Amazon Prime Music, having returned only two hours ago from two days in the city.
Yesterday, I was in the city to have lunch with my friend David Arcara, a quarterly event for many years now; our conversations are wide ranging, deep, emotional and to the core of what is happening in our lives. Yesterday’s underscored my appreciation for them.
There were drinks last night with Nick Stuart of Odyssey and Greg Nelson, formerly of Odyssey, who has returned from some weeks in Peru and that, too, was good. It gave me a chance to catch up with Greg, whom I have not seen for some months and, of course, to spend some time with Nick, my great friend.
When I woke this morning, I made my morning coffee at the apartment on the Upper West Side, and while sipping it, pursued the news of the day. I read the NY Times and scrolled through the BBC News.
There I found a haunting image of a five-year-old Syrian boy in Aleppo, an image that has now gone viral. Frightened and alone, covered in blood and dust, he sat on an orange seat in the back of an ambulance. You may have seen the picture already. If not, here it is:
It shattered my morning. I sat staring at this image for many, many minutes and my heart screamed to the universe. It became hard to move on, to not want to go and do SOMETHING to stop the madness. It reminded me of pictures I had seen taken during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930’s; comparisons between that conflict and this will be made.
Later, I went to have lunch at the Ace Hotel with my friend David McKillop; we talked of new, upcoming adventures for him. We talked of the: what WERE they thinking? moment of Ryan Lochte and the other swimmers claiming to have been robbed when in reality they were a bit drunk and screwed up. What were they thinking?
And, unfortunately, this is what will follow them for the rest of their lives, this moment of dishonesty.
And then, there was the moment of what was President Obama thinking when he said that the $400,000,000 turned over to the Iranians wasn’t “ransom” but a previously scheduled release of funds. Today it was revealed that the US wouldn’t let the plane with the cash take off until prisoners were released. Dancing with the truth?
The Syrian boy’s picture has colored my whole day. I have thought about what can I do to stop this debacle the world has created, so complicated, so odorous, so lacking in humanity, so not a moment of “our better angels.”
When I wake up in the morning, I do my best to have a moment of gratitude. I am not living in Aleppo. Today that came home so much because of the photo of the five-year-old. It is a picture that has come to represent the Syrian crisis as much as the photo of the three-year-old dead child washed up on the coast of Greece did to galvanize the world about the refugee crisis, much of it a result of the Syrian war.
Closer to home, the Blue Cut Fire in California has consumed 31,000 acres and it still rages.
In Louisiana floods have consumed 40,000 homes and at least thirteen lives. A preacher man who “testified” that natural disasters were God’s way of punishing us for same sex marriage was forced to flee his home in a canoe.
I have been so lucky to have been born when and where I was. Our world is changing. It is becoming global and integrated and reactionary and frightened and fundamentalism is having a heyday. But we still care…
The answers aren’t in front of me right now. But seeing that little boy in Aleppo makes me realize I must do better. That we all have to do better.
Tags:9/11, Aleppo, Amtrak, Blue Cut Fire, Boy in Aleppo, Claverack, Greg Nelson, Hudson, Hudson River, IS, Louisiana Floods, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Nick Stuart, Obama, Odyssey, Putin, Ryan Lochte, Syria, Syrian Boy, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, Elections, Hillary Clinton, IS, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Syria, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
August 12, 2016
The air is hot and heavy, damp and uncomfortable. I watch my creek from the comfort of the cottage; it is southern in its weather oppression and is the definition for languid summer days, of which I have had my share this week. Outside it is now grey and thunder rolls in the distance.
Finishing “The Hotel on Place Vendome,” I am now deeply into a history of the 304 year long reign of the Romanovs, from Michael to Nicholas II, who died with his family in front of a firing squad in 1918 in the Ipatiev House in Yektaringburg. The founder of his dynasty was called to the throne from the Ipatiev Monastery.
I napped this afternoon and have now a slew of errands to do come morning. My printer has died, a new one is needed. Groceries must be shopped for as friends come for dinner tomorrow night, the invitation offered in an effort to bring me out of the summer stupor.
Walking on Cape Cod last weekend, I did not wear the right shoes and have fierce blisters on my heels I am working to heal. Tuesday morning, I could barely walk and have been wearing flip flops all week.
Flip flops, books, a couple of good martinis, not a bad way to spend a summer week.
Trump claimed Obama and Hillary Clinton founded ISIS, now he says it was sarcasm but the reality is that Mr. Trump is on the verge of becoming a parody of himself. It makes me feel hopeful but it is 2016 and anything can yet happen.
The US claims the Head of IS in Afghanistan has been killed and the amount of territory controlled by them in Syria and Iraq is diminishing. Syria is still a hell hole and when I was complaining to myself about my blisters, I stopped myself: I could be in Syria. You have only very first world problems, Mathew.
Digital Media is being subsumed by old media. Companies like Disney and Turner and Hearst are putting hundreds of millions, even billions, into new media companies. As one declines and the other ascends, the ascendants will be owned by the decliners. Old media is putting its fortunes to work. Good moves.
Netflix, definitely a new media company, aired a documentary, “Making a Murderer.” One of the results was that today one of the accused has been ordered freed from prison, largely due to the incompetent actions of his defense attorney. Brendan Dasey has been ordered released in ninety days.
Media attention does bring action.
In a new and heartbreaking report, the CDC has released data about LGB students, indicating they are more likely to be bullied and more likely to consider and attempt suicide than their straight peers.
It is 2016 and still this happens. I was so lucky when I was their age. I wasn’t bullied in high school and I still marvel at that. I considered suicide but that had much more to do with my complicated family life than my sexuality.
A good article about the situation can be found here:
http://www.bustle.com/articles/178365-gay-high-schoolers-experience-rape-bullying-suicide-at-much-higher-rates-heartbreaking-cdc-report-finds
As I sit here, looking out at my creek, I celebrate how lucky I was, particularly in high school but also in college. This is a global problem, not just an American problem.
How lucky was I? I have gotten through life mostly not harassed by my sexuality. Only two times do I remember anything. Once early on in Minneapolis, a casual and not harsh moment, and once here in Hudson, when two teenagers called my ex-partner and I “fags.” Now, same sex couples walk down the street in Hudson and no one bothers them. Twice in a lifetime… How lucky am I?
It’s time to wind down and I want to introduce you to Beatrice, my banana plant. Beatrice came into my life when I briefly dated Raj, a psychotherapist of Indian extraction by way of Trinidad, who insisted I buy a banana plant. I did and now Beatrice has become huge and may one day well take over my home.
Meet Beatrice:
Tags:Cape Cod, CDC, Claverack, Digital media, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Hotel on Place Vendome, Hudson, Ipatiev, IS, Isis, LGBT, Making a Murderer, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Netflix, New York, Obama, Romanovs, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, 9/11, Claverack, Columbia County, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, IS, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Syria, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
August 3, 2016
The Hudson River flows south as I move north, the west bank is a wall of green and great, grey billowy clouds hover over the river with the sun now cutting between them to bathe me in light. I am returning from a day in the city, a meeting with a client followed by a long lunch with my friend Nick. An afternoon appointment cancelled and so I changed to an earlier train.
I haven’t written much lately. Frankly, there has been so much to say about so many things I haven’t known where to begin or where to end. There was the Democratic Convention last week. I watched the finish of it the night I returned to the cottage after my Minnesota sojourn.
Hillary, who needed to be at her best, was at her best. The Democrats were shadowed then and are today, by the hacking of the DNC’s emails, which were released by Wikileaks to the press. Julian Assange, who is the head of Wikileaks, even while sequestered behind the walls of the Bolivian Embassy in London, timed it to do the most damage he could to Hillary, whom he reputedly despises.
Today, Amy Dacey, CEO of the DNC and two other officials resigned after the leaks demonstrated their bias to Clinton over Sanders.
Donna Brazile has replaced the much reviled Debbie Wassermann Schultz, former Chairperson. Brazile is well liked and had been suggested by the Sanders camp as a possible replacement for Wassermann Schultz.
And we are all waiting to find out if the Russians were the ones who hacked the DNC as digital evidence seems to suggest which, of course, has led people to ask if Putin is working to influence our elections?
According to one poll, 50% of Americans think he is. Would he try? I am convinced there is very little he wouldn’t try.
Trump out trumps himself everyday as far as I can tell. I am seated next to a friend of mine on the train who has confessed he has had panic attacks at the thought of a Trump Presidency. He is not much given to panic attacks that I recall.
And Trump seems to find a new way to disturb me every day but nothing he does seem to sway his die hard supporters.
Jacques Hamel, the 86 year old French priest, who had his throat slit while saying Mass, was buried today. He was killed by two teenage jihadists. In honor to him, thousands of Muslims attended Mass on Sunday and appeared today at his funeral.
The Rio Olympics open this Friday and I am largely unenthusiastic. The sports I am most interested in are aquatic and the reports of the condition of the water makes me cringe for the athletes who must compete. I am not sure the pool water is safe and the open waters seem to be filled with human refuse and garbage.
I thought I was alone until my friend, Nick, echoed my thoughts.
The Syrian government and the Rebel forces are accusing each other of gas attacks. It seems someone used gas in Syria. We have forgotten the lessons of other wars or perhaps whomever did it felt justified because Saddam Hussein used it effectively against some of his citizens before he lost his place.
A friend of mine asked me a couple of weeks ago how we could still call Turkey a democracy? Magical thinking…
As we move north up the Hudson, the heavy clouds have dispersed and the sun rules the river, silver light glinting off of silver water, reflecting against banks of green rising from river’s edge.
I tried to find something funny to end today’s post. I googled “funny thing that happened today” and “laughable thing that happened today.” It doesn’t seem anything “funny” or “laughable” happened today, according to Google’s current algorithms.
But I did find this: on August 2nd, 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the beginning of all that has not yet ended.
Tags:Amtrak, Amy Dacey, Bernie Sanders, Claverack, DNC Hacking, Donald Trump, Donna Brazile, Hillary Clinton, Hudson River, IS, Jacques Hamel, Julian Assange, Mat Tombers, New York, Obama, Putin, Rio Olympics, Russia, Saddam Hussein, Syria, The Donald, Wikileaks
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Syria, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
July 22, 2016
It is early on a Friday evening in Bloomington, MN. The heat index is somewhere around 103 degrees. There is an excessive heat warning tonight and I am inside my brother’s lovely home, looking out at beautiful flowers and great green trees.
After my last posting, one of my readers, Bruce Thiesen, suggested I get to Minnesota and “reset.” And I think I have.
As I am sitting here I am watching the news regarding the terrible events that have happened in Munich. A few days ago it would have driven me to despair. Today, I grieve and yet I do not despair.
I feel refreshed and, suddenly, strangely, hopeful.
Last night, The Donald, painted a picture of a dark America, an America, quite frankly, that is far darker than I see, even in my darkest moments. We have a disturbingly large number of incidents of police acting irresponsibly and we have had a tragic reaction against police in Dallas and Baton Rouge.
And the reality is that crime is down in this country. We are safer than we have been in a long time, despite the terrible moments we have seen lately. And I, and you, need to remember that.
We have issues that need to be addressed. The aggrieved who are flocking to Trump have legitimate complaints. This complicated world has created issues we are just beginning to address. And I hope that we do address them.
But at this moment I reject the dark world that Trump espoused last night. As troubled as we are, it is better than he presents it.
What troubles me is that he presents himself as the strongman savior which is new to American politics but not new to the historical reality of politics. Let us remember Mussolini and Hitler.
This is a new moment in American politics. And it is concerning to me. And yet I am not as disturbed as I was a few days ago.
The German shooter may or may not have been Islamic or may or may not have been Rightist. We are all waiting to find out exactly what happened there.
Whatever happened, I will say a prayer for all of them, the wounded and the dead. I bow my head. But I will not bow my head and submit to the terror that is being sold to us.
And as horrible as it has been it has not been as horrible as it has been. We are a less violent country than we were despite the high profile incidents we have which are deplorable.
Sitting in my brother’s kitchen, I am, suddenly, thankfully, hopeful. Thank you, Bruce, for asking me to “reset.” I needed to…
Tags:Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Munich Shootings, Putin, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Entertainment, European Refugee Crisis, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Obama, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From Claverack 10 18 2016 On the cusp…
October 18, 2016The day is diminishing; the sunset flickers through the turning leaves, a panorama of burnished gold in the west. Classical music plays in the background and a soft wind is blowing through this, the last great weather day we will probably have until spring unfolds over Claverack Creek. It was 86 degrees today with a cloudless sky and a fall wind in a warm day.
Once I recall a day like this when I was very young. It is the kind of day that holds intimations of immortality. Tonight’s sunset reminds me of the brilliant ones I witnessed on trips to Santorini, up at Franco’s Bar, poised over the caldera, thinking that in the sunset I understood the hold Greek myth has had over us for twenty-five centuries or more.
Once, at Franco’s, I wrote a poem on that and now have no idea where it is. But I remember the moment, sitting there, pen scratching in my notebook as the golden sun turned the waters in the caldera its ripe color.
We are in the cusp of fall and summer has reached out to hold us one day more in its warm embrace, harkening us to remember its feel so we will wait, patiently, for its return in another new year.
2017
Who would have thought? Certainly in my youth I never thought that year would see me inhabit it. Yet chances are I’ll be here when it comes marching in or crawling in or bursting upon us.
Soon there will be an election and someone new will move into the White House. If it is Hillary, she’ll have been there but in a very different role now than then. If it is Donald Trump, it will, perchance, signal a new and different age in our political history.
Time will tell. Tomorrow is the next debate and I will watch, though not waiting breathlessly for it. But I will watch. It is “must see” TV for me this season.
The tree tops are swaying in the wind; the burnished gold has become the color of smoky topaz. Twilight is descending.
Iraqi troops are marching toward Mosul, meeting, as expected, fierce resistance from IS. Some Iraqis, in a scene that reminded me of tales of our Civil War, went onto a mountain side to watch the battle unfold beneath them.
IS intends to hold Mosul at any cost and if it loses it, to make it a humanitarian disaster. The word that crosses my mind as I type is “barbarian.”
Iraqis remaining in the city have become bolder in their resistance of late to IS, supplying Iraq with vital information. IS is killing anyone found attempting to leave the city.
When I was with the Internet start-up, Sabela Media, Yahoo was the industry behemoth.
Its revenue declined again this quarter and Verizon is asking for a reduction in price to buy it because of the hacking scandal.
Because they were known as bullies in the early years, I have always found it hard to be empathic though it is sorry to see a once great company slowly self-immolate. And from people I know who are dealing with them currently, some within Yahoo just can’t accept what is happening now. Ostriches with their heads in the sand…
Dark has descended and I am sitting at the table on the deck, with candlelight for illumination, listening to the classical music but also listening to the sounds of woodland creatures making their noises.
It is very special tonight. The world is swinging in its orbit, momentous things are happening and as they are happening, there are the sounds of birds in the night, classical music and, because of them, a murmur of hope for the future.
Tags:Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Donald Trump, Franco's Bar, Google, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, IS, Islamic State, life, Mosul, Sabela Media, Santorini, The Donald, Yahoo
Posted in 2016 Election, Airstrikes, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, IS, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »