Posts Tagged ‘Jeb Bush’

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Letter From Claverack, NY August 4th, 2016 Have we learned so little?

August 5, 2016

It is a little after 8 pm and the sun is setting in the Hudson Valley.  I have been a “prisoner” of my cottage for the last few hours as I have had my deck re-stained and I was not to go out and touch it until about now.

The trees over the creek are verdant green and the water in the creek is crystal clear. It has been a good day, in all sorts of ways.  I woke up happy and I enjoy that kind of moment. 

A couple of nights ago I was in distress, my lungs were congested and I was having a bit of trouble breathing.  Stumbling through the medicine chest, I found and took a Mucinex and woke up the next morning with the congestion at bay, breathing again.

There is nothing like being able to breathe.

And it is hard to breathe in this current political season. 

I have never in my adult life lived through such as season as this.

Anyone who reads me must understand how deeply disturbed I am that Trump is the Republican nominee for President.  And the more he prances across the stage, the more concerned I am. 

The New York Times did a video piece about the hatred they had witnessed while following Trump’s campaign.  It was disturbing.  You can view it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/04/us/politics/donald-trump-supporters.html?emc=eta1&_r=0

I am at my dining room table and the sun has set and night has fallen.   I am wrapped in the coziness of the cottage and am so grateful I am here.

Were I someplace else the craziness of our time might well make me mad but I can retreat for moments into the woods and believe, for a second, no harm could possibly come.

Like most of you I cannot believe the season in which we find ourselves. 

This is not what I expected out of the 2016 political season.  A friend of mine and I waged a friendly bet some months ago.  He believed the Republican candidate would be Rubio; I went with Bush. 

Both wrong.  It’s Trump, who has solidified the anger of disenfranchised white Americans, who have reason to be angry.  The world is passing them by…

But really?  All this hate?  It is a return to the realities of 19th and early 20th Century America where hatred moved from Germans, Italians, Poles, Irish, Jews…

A friend of mine who is Jewish remembers his grandmother in the early 20th Century hiding from mobs running through Lower Manhattan, screaming “Kill the Jews!”

We are on the verge of some of us screaming, “Kill the Muslims!”

Have we learned so little?

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Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Income Inequality, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Letter From New York 11 22 2015 The world goes its crazy ways…

November 23, 2015

Anniversary of Kennedy’s death. Lionel White. Pierre Font. Brussels. Paris. National Registry for Muslims. Donald Trump.  Marco Rubio.  Jeff Cole. George Stephanopoulos. Jeb Bush. Ebola. Liberia. Earthquake in Afghanistan.

It is the 22nd of November and for some reason I remembered that today is the 52nd anniversary of the death of John F. Kennedy.  When I was reading the Times this morning with my first cup of coffee, it struck me.

I was in middle school and the principal came in and whispered to the teacher, who told us and we were all sent home from our Catholic School and began a mourning that I am not sure we are over.

It was a grayish day today and on the chill side but tonight there was the most spectacular sunset I have ever seen in my time here.  The sky was a lush red that filled the horizon.  I attempted a photo but it didn’t do the colors justice.IMG_1062

Also, the deer have returned.  There was a family of them scattered on the road, on my property and across the street at Lionel and Pierre’s home.  Standing proudly in Lionel’s yard was a young buck, watching as his family crossed the road in front of my very slowly moving car.

While I listen to jazz and wait for Lionel to arrive for Thanksgiving week festivities, the world itself goes on its crazy way.

Brussels seems to be in a virtual lockdown and a series of raids have been held during the course of the evening.  The city is on the highest level of alert, the Metro will not run tomorrow and schools are closed.  People are being advised to stay home and inside.

In Paris, they are searching for a third suspect and some are saying many “red flags” for the attacks were missed.

The world has changed, again, since the Paris attacks.  Trump is talking a “national registry” for Muslims.  He also claims that on 9/11 “thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey cheered as the Towers fell.  He claims to have seen it himself, on television.  Really?  George Stephanopoulos reminded him that the police say it didn’t happen.  But it did, George, but it did.

The Washington Post did an evaluation of the top Republican candidates and estimated that the nominee is likely going to be Marco Rubio, which my friend Jeff Cole suggested when we had lunch six weeks ago.

Jeb Bush comes in at number 5.  Number two is Donald Trump.  Is this really happening?  I have stopped laughing because The Donald might just pull it off and that is a really scary thought.

The Paris attacks have changed the tone of our electoral campaign and will continue to influence it as we progress toward this, to me, most bizarre of electoral cycles.

Sadly, Ebola has re-emerged in Liberia and 153 people are being watched to see how it develops in them.

There has been a 5.9 magnitude earthquake in Northeast Afghanistan, bringing even more misery to that land of misery.

Thankfully, the jazz is soothing and the fire cheery.  So I end the day, curled up in the comforts of the cottage, Tempting as it might be, I am not yet retreating into blocking out the news of the day.

When I was younger, globe trotting, I felt like a citizen of the world.  I still feel that way.

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Posted in 2016 Election, 9/11, Columbia County, Earthquakes, Elections, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Letter From New York 11 10 15 He’s back…

November 10, 2015

Mary Dickey.  Failed Computer.  Apple Store.  Tek Serve. 240th anniversary of the Marines. Russian Doping.  George W Bush.  George H.W. Bush.  Dick Cheney.  Donald Rumsfeld. Syria. Assad. Aleppo.

It is late in the afternoon and I’m in the city, where it has been raining or drizzling all this grey day.

If you, like my friend Mary Dickey, have noticed I have not been posting, it is because on Friday of last week, I dumped a glass of water onto my laptop.  It didn’t recover.  I let it dry from Friday until Monday morning.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.

Yesterday was a very full day so I determined I would use today, which was relatively unscheduled, to deal with this.  Since it didn’t return to life this morning, I went to my breakfast with old friend David McKillop and went from him to the Apple Store in Grand Central Station, where a very nice young lady named Karen sold me a new MacAir. Then young Jason and I attempted to port over the data on my back-up drive.

In what was a nightmare moment, Jason and I realized, after much effort, that it, too, was dead and none of those king’s men could put that Humpty back together again.

They sent me from the Apple Store to Tek Serve where a very nice young ex-Marine helped me get the data off the failed drive and onto another drive, from which I could extract the data I needed.

That he was an ex-Marine was found out when I asked him how his day was.  He told me that he was an ex-Marine and that today is the 240th anniversary of the Marines and when he was off work, he and a few buddies were going to celebrate.

Leaving there, I sat down and extracted the data I needed from the restored back-up drive, sorted through all the 1300 emails that downloaded from the server and then determined I would write a letter, to let those who have been wondering about my absence, know my trials and travails.

Being without a laptop has not been totally a curse.  I have done a good amount of reading since Friday.  i think I have gone through at least two books.

But it does feel good to be re-connected with the outside world via laptop.

It has come to my attention from reading off my phone that the Russians have been accused of condoning and perhaps encouraging their athletes to dope.  Imagine my surprise when I read that!  Just as shocked as Claude Rains was in “Casablanca” that there was gambling in Rick’s Cafe.

There is a FOURTH GOP debate tonight and we’re still a year away from the election.  Jeb is in a tough place and needs to break through tonight, say the pundits, or he’ll be in much more trouble than he is.

“Pappy” Bush, George H.W. Bush, the 41st President of the United States and father of George W. Bush, our 43rd President, has just published a book that is more than a bit cutting about Cheney and Rumsfeld. I’m not surprised but when asked about his father’s comments, “W” expressed surprise.

What did the Bushes talk about on Thanksgiving?  Certainly not about the country they were running.

The University of Missouri has lost it’s two top officials in a protest on the handling of race relations.

Today is also Diwali, the Festival of Lights in India.  Twenty years ago I was in New Delhi, celebrating the festival by riding an elephant down the streets and watching a barrage of fireworks from every side.  It was a surreal but exciting experience.  I went back to my hotel with a swirl of light rotating in my eyes.

During that time, Discovery Channel, for whom I was working, officially launched in India with a party at the American Embassy.  There were fireworks then, too.  An Embassy official, looking much like he could be a character in some Graham Greene novel, sidled up to me and confided there hadn’t been fireworks since Jackie. Kennedy.

The night I left India for the first time, the Minister for Human Resources, with whom I had visited, was arrested for appropriating 16 million dollars to his personal use.

There is still a refugee crisis and Germany is beginning to have its patience exhausted.  The fighting continues in Syria with the Assad government claiming to have lifted the two year long siege of Aleppo.

In other words, while I have been feeling almost lost without my MacAir anchor, the world has continued on.

But now I’m back!

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Letter From New York 10 30 15 Thoughts riding north through the autumn colors…

October 30, 2015

Autumn. Hudson River Valley. Obama. Syria. John Kerry. Saudi Arabia. Douma. European Refugee Crisis. Halloween. Marco Rubio. GOP Debate. Donald Trump. Jeb Bush. Ben Carson. The Donald. One child policy. China. Alexander the Great. Gordian knot.

The autumn colors on the trees may have just past their peak but they are still wonderful as I ride north on Amtrak. The west bank of the Hudson is awash with shades of orange, red and some green. I am heading home for the weekend, having been in the city a bit longer this week than I had planned.

As I waited for the train to exit the tunnels so that I might have Internet again, my phone buzzed twice. First it was AP and then it was the BBC, letting me know that President Obama is sending fifty special operations troops to Syria to assist the rebels we support.

While he was announcing this, Secretary of State Kerry is in Vienna, dealing with the countries that have a stake in Syria, though Syria is not, apparently, there itself. The eyes of the world are on how Saudi Arabia and Iran will react to being the same room together. They are positioned so that they don’t have to look into each other’s eyes.

Meanwhile, on the ground in Syria, at least 40 have died in Douma, a town ten miles north of Damascus, with another hundred wounded. So far a quarter of a million people have died and ten million have fled their homes.

The resulting refugee crisis means that millions of Syrians are living in camps or attempting to go west, sometimes dying in the effort. 570,000 individuals have transited through Greece this year, making the crossing from Turkey in small boats or rubber dinghies. Yesterday 22 more died and 144 were rescued.

It is all far from here as I move north, along the Hudson River, absorbing fall colors and contemplating a quiet weekend at the cottage.

It is Halloween this weekend and I’m not sure I am going to do anything. Generally, I have gone down to the Red Dot for their annual party. Last year I dressed as a Roman Emperor. This year, I am not feeling quite so festive. I was thinking more of a martini and a movie at home.

Since last I wrote, there has been another Republican Debate. Not well wired in the city, where I was, I have had to get a feel from it from written articles. General consensus, Marco Rubio won and CNBC, the platform for the debate, lost. The debaters turned the table on the moderators, putting them in their place. Trump wasn’t as Trumpish and Jeb Bush was still Jeb Bush.

Trump is genuinely surprised to find himself trailing Ben Carson in Iowa. Perhaps the Donald will learn a bit of humility.

China has revoked the “one child” only policy though most are indicating they won’t have more than one child. It’s too expensive in time and money now. More and more couples are choosing to remain childless. China will begin to look like Japan, with an aging population. Hard to fathom…

As I finish writing my letters, I find myself pondering the state of the world, working to grasp it. I don’t always get it, usually not at all. The complexity of the politics in the Middle East are so knotted that it is probable that they may never get undone. It will take an Alexander the Great to undo this Gordian knot. He didn’t undo it; he cut through it with his sword.

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Posted in European Refugee Crisis, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Social Commentary | 1 Comment »

Letter From New York 10 23 15 From looking Presidential to Hurricane Patricia

October 23, 2015

Shakespeare. Relish. Benghazi. Hillary Clinton. Rep. Jim Jordan. Trey Gowdy. Fox News. Jeb Bush. Donald Trump. Ben Carson. Iowa. Politics. Paul Ryan. Tea Party Republicans. Obamacare. Assault with a carrot. AIDS. Turing Pharmaceuticals. Imprimis Pharmaceuticals. China rate cut. Pakistan bombing. Kurd hostages. Nigerian mosque killings. Hurricane Patricia. The Red Dot. Lionel White.

Outside it is a brilliant, perfect fall day, demanding a warm jacket but not necessarily needing to be zipped, a clear blue sky filled with sunlight that ricochets off the golden leaves. Turning a corner this morning near a pond, my breath was taken away by beauty; sun glinting off water and multi-colored leaves, all ablaze.

My friend Lionel is up from Baltimore, tending to his house across the street from mine. We had lunch together at Relish before doing errands after having lazy coffee moments this morning while he helped get my printer back online.

I have been having a time with my electronics this past week. Ah well, everything now seems back in working shape. As Shakespeare said: alls well that ends well.

Not perhaps ending well for the Republicans, probably much to their chagrin, was the eleven-hour grilling of Hillary Clinton on Benghazi. Today’s reports have been mostly favorable to the former Secretary of State and not very kind to the Republicans on the Committee.

It never looks very good when angry white men spend eleven hours yelling at a woman, and one who maintains composure when they do not. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio looked particularly bad, followed close behind by the Chairman, Trey Gowdy. One source said all that happened was that for eleven hours Hillary Clinton managed to look presidential while the Republicans didn’t even look Congressional.

And even Fox News had to acknowledge she did a pretty good job, which must mean she must have been spectacular.

In other political news, Jeb Bush is cutting his campaign spending and concentrating on early voting states. In Iowa, Ben Carson is leading Donald Trump, partly because he is evangelical and Trump is not.

With two more Republican groups signaling their support, Paul Ryan has agreed to run to serve as the next Speaker of the House but that doesn’t mean he is making Tea Party Republicans happy. He isn’t meeting their demands. One of which, according to The NY Times, translates, once stripped of arcane language, to: shut down the government.

Ah, Washington! That’s the place where Congress just voted to gut Obamacare, a move that will likely stall in the Senate.

A 14-year-old Virginia schoolgirl is facing assault and battery charges for throwing and hitting in the forehead her teacher, with a carrot. It is the center of much back and forth on the Internet.

AIDS is a devastating disease. Many of us lost friends and relatives to it in the 1980’s and 90’s. Then came drugs that did not cure but did extend lives and allowed people to live productive lives. It has become a disease that is not curable but is treatable.

Turing Pharmaceuticals sells one of those drugs, Daraprim. Recently, it jacked the price from less than $14.00 a pill to $750.00 a pill. A San Diego firm is going to offer an alternative to Daraprim for $1.00 a pill. You go, Imprimis!

The stock market soared today as China unexpectedly cut interest rates again, the sixth time in less than a year. The European Central Bank is thinking about another cut and The Fed probably won’t raise interest rates until early 2016.

Lest we forget, fighting continues all over the Mideast. An American soldier died in a raid to rescue Kurdish hostages in Iraq. Syria is still fighting. 22 Shiites died in Pakistan in a bombing while over in Nigeria, 42 were killed at mosques by suicide bombers.

The biggest hurricane ever, Hurricane Patricia, is about to hit western Mexico, right around the resort city of Puerto Vallarta. Tens of thousands are being evacuated. Its effects will be felt all the way into Texas, where flooding is expected.

The sun is setting and I am shortly off to The Red Dot for dinner with Lionel, where we expect to meet some friends. There is a pink tinge to the sky so that harbors well for tomorrow’s weather. “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight…”

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Letter From New York 10 19 15 Refugees, Politics and Canadian politics

October 19, 2015

Canadian voting. Stephen Harper. Justin Trudeau. Liberal Democrat. Pierre Elliot Trudeau. George W. Bush. Jeb Bush. Donald Trump. Benghazi Committee. Trey Gowdy. Kevin McCarthy. Hillary Clinton. Howard Bloom Saves the Universe. Domestic abuse. Joe Biden.

The drive at the cottage is scattered with leaves, even though it was thoroughly cleaned forty-eight hours ago. THE BATTLE OF THE LEAVES has begun. Sweeping out the drive today, I left them all behind and road the rails down to the city.

It was the first really chill day of the season; it was only 21 degrees when I checked the weather app this morning. I came into the city not sure whether I would stay in the city tonight or not but now think I will.

I have to be back tomorrow evening and am not feeling like a round trip.

Stupidly, I locked myself out of my own home today. In changing jackets, I took the keys out of the one I decided not to wear and failed to put them in the pocket of the jacket I decided to wear and left them on the table by the door.

While I am typing this, Canadians are voting for Members of Parliament and the results will determine whether Stephen Harper will continue to lead Canada or whether the baton will pass to Justin Trudeau, son of the late Prime Minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, who headed Canada for a very long time.

Harper is a Conservative and Trudeau is a Liberal Democrat. The collapse of oil prices have stressed the Canadian economy and recent polls have the two running neck and neck.

I’m very fond of Canada after having spent a fair amount of time there in my college years and have watched Canadian politics with some interest. Wonder what tomorrow will bring?

The Canadian election season has gone on for an enormously long time, for Canadians. It began on August 4th.

Tomorrow will see many refugees continue their struggle to reach Western Europe. Cold weather is setting in and many of them were walking through cold rain today.

While the refugees strive to get across Europe, and Canadians decide their future, Jeb and the Donald are sniping about each other. Donald is declaring Bush was responsible for 9/11; Jeb is denying it, saying his brother kept us safe.

Some journalists are asking Jeb exactly what he means by safe? While there were no more 9/11 attacks, W. did invade Iraq and ignored Afghanistan. We have a broken Iraq and Afghanistan lingers. IS rose from the ashes of Iraq. Syria broke apart. Thousands of American soldiers have died and thousands more have been badly scarred.

I have no confidence that Trump can do the job of President but his lack of self- control has asked questions that might need to be asked of a Bush who has indicated he would bring back much of his brother’s team as advisers.

Hillary did well in the debate, according to almost everyone. But her numbers remain flat.

Republican Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina runs the Committee that is investigating Benghazi and is having trouble keeping his colleagues in line.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who has dropped out of the race to be Speaker of the House, opened his mouth and inserted his foot, giving the impression that the Committee was politically motivated.

As has Representative Richard Hanna of New York also indicated on a talk show recently.

Oh my!

Some key Democrats are suggesting it is not a good idea for Biden to enter the race; he keeps us guessing. Though rumors are swirling tonight he will run and soon.

While writing this I have been at a taping of the podcast, “Howard Bloom Saves the Universe,” where there has been a fascinating conversation about the nature of domestic abuse. Powerful.

Get it next week on iTunes.

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Letter From Claverack 08 11 15 Through torrential rains to safety…

August 11, 2015

Outside my window, it is grey and daunting. I am sitting at my desk, looking out at my drive that, not so long ago, was a lake. When I woke up this morning on Martha’s Vineyard, it was raining but not hard. Jeffrey, Joyce and I went to Behind The Bookstore and I had breakfast and then Jeffrey dropped me at the ferry to Woods Hole. Still not raining badly but by the time I reached my car, I was drenched. So I pulled a dry shirt from my suitcase and changed into it before I left the parking lot.

It was a fairly quick trip home, though I had to pull over a couple of times to answer texts. When I got close to Hudson, I needed to deal with a wire transfer that hadn’t gone through and while I was doing that, the heavens opened and torrential rains came down, the kind of rain Noah must have known.

When I reached the cottage, I left my luggage in the car and made a mad dash for the door. It was may have been only ten feet but by the time I opened the door I was drenched and had to get into dry clothes for the second time today. Not long ago, the rain stopped and I was able to retrieve my luggage without drowning. The lake in my drive has receded and I think I am safe for the night. The creek is a muddy ochre color and high.

So now I sit at my desk and write tonight’s blog. It is a great desk, found in an antique store not far up from the road that is no longer there. Stenciled on the back of it is that it’s for First Class on a White Star ship. White Star was the company that owned Titanic. Obviously the desk is not from Titanic but from some cousin ship of hers. When I saw that, I knew I had to have the desk and so I have the desk. It is where I do most of my work at the cottage.

Jazz plays in the background. While driving, I found there were few radio stations in eastern Massachusetts that my radio could receive so I put in a CD of baroque music and listened to that.

Before I left Martha’s Vineyard, I did a perusal of the news and noticed that the debates left Donald Trump where he had been at 24% while Jeb Bush declined from 17% to 12%. My goodness, where is all this going?

While amazed, I am amused.

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Letter From New York 06 28 15 Thoughts on a rainy Pride Day…

June 28, 2015

It has been unremittingly; resolutely grey for the last two days, creating another set of grey days in a summer of grey days. It is so chill; I have actually turned up the heat in my bedroom to warm the room where I am writing. I’m wearing a sweatshirt and it is about to be July! After the long, hard winter it is as if the world is not willing to give us summer. It has been grey and wet more than it has not.

I am at my desk at the cottage, looking out at the verdant green that are my God’s two acres. I just wish it wasn’t this chilly.

Down in New York, it is Pride Weekend and the parade is being rained upon. I’m not there but texts from friends have informed me of the weather conditions. It’s a joyous weekend for gays in this country. The Supreme Court has ruled that marriage is a constitutional right for all.

As I have said, I didn’t think this would happen in my lifetime but it has. And I’m grateful for all the people for whom this will mean so much. I never really understood what it meant to be married until two men that I knew, Gary and Angel, got wed and I understood, for the first time, on a visceral level, what it meant to celebrate your relationship in front of other people. Their love, as I said at the time, was incandescent.

On this grey afternoon, I am thinking about marriage and I am thinking about race relations. The murder of the Charleston Nine has caused a reaction in the South I didn’t expect. Alabama has taken down the Confederate Flag and uprooted the flagpole. Time to move on.

The South, which is becoming a haven for so many international businesses, cannot afford to focus on the past but must look to the future. Which is why, in Alabama, they took down the flag of the rebellious South, even though that was the place Jefferson Davis was sworn in as President of the Confederacy.

All the Republican candidates have, I think, denounced the Supreme Court’s decision about marriage. Jeb Bush has been moderate in his comments, as has Marco Rubio. Huckabee has been vitriolic. As have most of them.

Sorry, friends, I think the field of Republican candidates, are an embarrassment. I was raised Republican. Who are these boobs? Narrow minded souls who might win the nomination but I doubt could win the election. And for that, I’m relieved, as I think it would be a catastrophe for the country to have all three parts of the government controlled by Republicans. They’re not intelligent enough.

I am on my soapbox as I am so disturbed by this field of Republican candidates.

Outside, the rain has relented. It will return during the night, I’m sure. Flash flood warnings are in place until 9:00 AM tomorrow morning.

In the background, jazz is playing and I am feeling warm now that I have turned on the heat. Thank goodness. I have been chilled all day.

The world is wobbling on. Greece is a mess and I think we have a not pretty outcome happening there. Hopefully, world markets have factored in the Greek drama so that no matter what happens it won’t shock the markets the way it would have a few years ago.

In Tunisia, a shooter killed something like 39 tourists. He was targeting them. There was an attack in France on an American owned plant that left one person beheaded. A Saudi born suicide bomber killed dozens at a Mosque in Kuwait. Sitting here, surrounded by my trees and the quiet of my world, it is so hard to understand the need to kill. But it is a need for those who do. The Tunisian terrorist was 23 and was dead before he left the beach but behind him were the dead.

Why this hate? Why?

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Letter From New York 06 15 15 From manhunts to the Magna Carta

June 15, 2015

When I woke this morning, rain was pelting down on the roof and the world was infused with dark grey. The creek, so clear yesterday, was now brown from the rain that had roared down during the night. It was the kind of day when one’s immediate reaction is to go back to bed, pull the covers over your head and work to get back to that interesting dream you’d been having when the alarm went off.

But I didn’t. Going out to the kitchen, I turned on the coffee pot and began to plan my day. Yesterday, there were several errands I needed to get done but didn’t so I determined to use the morning to accomplish them and then head back to the city in the afternoon.

Scheduled for the 1:30, I finally got out of Hudson at 2:30 and then lost most of another hour due to the fact we were now behind a slow moving local Metro North Train. It was fine. Before leaving, I went to Relish, across from the station and had lunch and then on the train, caught up with some reading I needed to do.

The city is as grey as the country, with rain forecast again for tomorrow. Unusually, I am going back to the country on Wednesday. I feel like I need some cottage time and have some work to catch up on that doesn’t require me to be in the city so I am going to do it from the cottage.

Today is the official 800th Anniversary of the Magna Carta and Britain’s Royals were out in force to celebrate. David Cameron, the Prime Minister was there, extolling the virtues of the document. A few years ago on a late night talk show, Cameron couldn’t remember that Magna Carta is Latin for “Great Charter.” That didn’t stop him today for speaking of its long-term effects.

What I hadn’t known until today was that the Magna Carta lasted only a few months. As soon as King John has put his great seal to the document [he never really signed it], the King sent messengers to Rome asking the Pope to nullify the agreement. In September 1215, the Pope did just that. But like all great ideas, this one couldn’t be killed and it kept returning, becoming an inspiration for democratic leaders around the world.

The International Criminal Court is disappointed that South Africa did not follow through on a South African judge’s ruling that President Bashir of Sudan be detained in that country for possible transference to international authorities regarding accusations of genocide against Bashir. It seems that the South African authorities kept their eyes closed until Bashir’s plane was out of South African airspace.   A probe will be held but it won’t help the ICC from capturing the man.

Nasir al-Wuhayshi, a top Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula leader, has apparently been killed in a drone attack. Also, over the weekend, there were airstrikes in Libya with the purpose of taking out Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a notorious Al Qaeda operative who has escaped death several times. He is known as “The Uncatchable” for his ability to escape. In the early days of his career, when he was a cigarette smuggler, he was known as “The Marlboro Man.” The US is going to be very careful in announcing that he is gone. They’ve been stung several times before when he has been declared dead and then showed up alive.

Still alive and still on the run, are the two escapees from Clinton Prison in upstate New York. The search is now entering its tenth day. Joyce Mitchell, who worked in the prison’s tailor shop, has been arraigned for helping them. Supposedly, she sneaked them tools and was going to drive them away the night of her escape. Part of their plot was that they were going to be picked up and then would go to Joyce’s home, kill her husband and then all of them would go on the run. Joyce had a panic attack and went to the hospital for treatment instead. She has apparently said she couldn’t go through with it because she loved her husband.

Fact is stranger than fiction.

Not fictional is that the Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis, John C. Nienstedt, and an auxiliary bishop, Lee A. Piche, resigned today following charges that the Archdiocese didn’t do enough to prevent child molestation, particularly in the case of a now de-frocked priest who is serving time for molesting two boys.

I grew up a Catholic in that diocese and many of my friends who still live there are Catholic. The really liberal ones despise Nienstedt and I am sure are rejoicing his departure.

To no one’s surprise, Jeb Bush announced his run for the Republican Presidential nomination. His logo has his name “Jeb” but no mention of “Bush” as he works to distance himself from his brother.

More to come… It’s been a busy day and shortly I will be off to say hello to a friend who is just back from two weeks in Greece.

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Letter From New York 06 09 15 From gloomy days to bright news…

June 9, 2015

Yesterday, I spent the day in meetings and in transit. On the train coming back to New York, my laptop was low on battery power and the outlet seemed a bridge too far as I was in an aisle seat on a train going north and the outlet was near the window, occupied by chargers owned by the young lady sitting next to me. So I settled in and napped and read a book. She got off the train at Metro Park and I powered up as much as I could in the short time between there and New York City.

The result: no letter yesterday.

Today is another grey and gloomy day in New York, as it was mostly grey and gloomy in Baltimore over the weekend, as it has seemed mostly grey and gloomy for the last month or so, which, according to reports, was the wettest May in years, hence the grey and gloomy.

In a bit, I’m off to have lunch with my sister-in-law’s sister and her husband, who are in New York. Cliff and Barb are lovely people and we attempt a lunch or dinner whenever they are in New York.

Mostly, I am in a good mood this morning though I wonder what my mood would be like if I was Albert Woodfox, a Louisiana man who has spent forty-three years in solitary confinement. He has been ordered released though Louisiana says they are going to fight it. He was accused of killing a prison guard in a riot. Twice tried, and twice the verdict was overturned.

I think of myself as reasonably self-reliant but forty-three years alone would cause me to go over the edge, I suspect. Louisiana has temporarily blocked his release though hope remains.

In other prison news, the search is on for two killers who escaped from Clinton in upstate New York. They used power tools to escape – and one wonders how they got power tools – cutting through steel, down six floors, through a steam pipe, out the steam pipe and through a manhole. Authorities are guessing they had inside help. They are questioning a female prison employee but have not charged her with anything.

They could, at this point, be anywhere and the search has expanded across all of North America. I am sure they are looking for a new life though it is going to be hard to find when everyone is looking for you.

As Caitlin Jenner starts her new life, some things are still following her from her old life. When still Bruce Jenner, she was involved in a car crash in Malibu that resulted in a fatality. The dead women’s stepchildren have filed a lawsuit, as has the woman who owned the third car involved in the pile-up. At this point, it is not expected that Jenner will be charged.

There was an extensive article today from the BBC outlining life in Mosul under IS. It does not sound pretty. Woman must go out in black from top to bottom and their faces must be covered. If a man is convicted of adultery, he is thrown from the roof of a tall building; a woman is stoned. Thievery is punished with the removal of a hand. Minorities are being persecuted and thus areas of Mosul once occupied by them stand empty as minorities have fled for the most part. You will probably be flogged if you are caught smoking a cigarette. People seem to be living in terror and stay shut up in their houses.

As we all know, it is the summer of Presidential candidates. Rick Santorum is stumping through Iowa and an astounding four people showed up at an event. There were more reporters than voters. Rick brushed it off and said it was all part of “the plan.” Jeb Bush will likely announce his candidacy next Monday. Probably about time – he has begun to get questions about acting like a candidate without actually having declared his candidacy.

Dennis Hastert, former Speaker of the House, declared his innocence today of lying to Federal investigators about movements of money, allegedly made to “Individual A” as a result of “past misconduct” on Hastert’s part. He’s been accused of sexual abuse to male minors during his time as a wrestling coach in Illinois but that’s not what he’s been indicted for; that’s for lying about the money movements.

The Fifth Circuit Court, highly conservative, upheld the toughest provisions in Texas’ Abortion Laws, which might result in 13 of 21 clinics closing in that state.

102-year-old Ingeborg Syllm-Rapoport, was denied the right to defend her doctoral thesis in 1938 because she was part Jewish. Today, the University of Hamburg awarded her a Doctorate after her successful oral defense. According to the University, she was “brilliant” and not just for her age.

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