Today is the 10th of May. It’s Mother’s Day. My mother is long gone though I still am surprised that there are moments when I think: I need to call Mom and tell her this. So does my brother once in awhile.
So Happy Mother’s Day to all and sundry; when I was having my haircut today the woman cutting my hair asked me what I was doing for Mother’s Day and I had to tell her nothing. My mother has now been dead for twenty years. It seems impossible but it’s true. The last time I saw her she thought I was her brother Ted. It broke my heart.
And those are the things we have to face with aging parents and to worry about for ourselves as we age. I do, for myself. On Sundays I read the Wedding section of The New York Times and the Obituaries. Today there were a few people near my age who had died and it struck me how fragile our time on life earth is and how fleeting.
But these are existential questions and probably first world problems.
In Yemen, they are hoping that the conversation about a ceasefire will become reality. It will help get supplies to folks who are on the edge of starving. That’s a real world problem.
Apparently, there is an attempt being made to get a five-day truce to start on Tuesday to allow for the delivery of humanitarian supplies. There is also going to be a meeting between Arab leaders and Obama at Camp David this week though today King Salman of Saudi Arabia announced he would not be attending. Instead he is sending his Crown Prince and his Deputy Crown Prince in a gesture intended to communicate his displeasure with the US and its effort to reach a nuclear deal with Iran.
In Liberia today the churches celebrated that the country now seems free from Ebola. That’s a real world celebration.
In devastated Nepal, efforts are being made to provide sanitation for all of those who have lost their homes in an effort to prevent cholera and other diseases in advance of the coming Monsoon season. It is critical for the country that has in the past few years made major progress in creating better sanitation; much of that has been reversed by the earthquake. That is a very real problem. And it’s not a first world problem.
In our first world set of problems, security has been increased at US bases in this country because of a heightened concern over ISIS attacks in the homeland.
“Homeland” is a word I don’t remember being used for this country before 9/11, before there was a Department of Homeland Security. It is vaguely unsettling to me – like the Nazis who called Germany “The Fatherland.” It evokes a sense of siege, which I suppose we are in, in a way.
ISIS is a very real world problem all over the world.
Raul Castro met with Pope Francis. He is now thinking about going back to church. That’s a “Saul on the road to Damascus” moment if there ever was one.
Two days of mourning have been declared in Macedonia for the death of eight police officers that were killed in a raid against a terrorist organization, which seemed to have been made of ethnic Albanians. In the story, there are threads of organized crime, heroin and the continued instability of countries that once made up Yugoslavia.
Speaking of a Yugoslavian kind of situation, the hegemony of the television networks is really beginning to splinter this year as we go into the “upfronts,” that moment in the year when television networks get as much as 75% of their inventory purchased by advertisers.
Television ratings, overall, are down 9% from last year to this. Digital is getting more dollars and networks are facing a moribund upfront. It will still be huge but probably flat or down. It is an amazing thing to watch.
What is also amazing to watch is the sunset happening outside. Today was supposed to be a day of thunderstorms but instead there were crisp blue skies and the warmest day of the year. Clouds are beginning to form and we’ll probably have rain tomorrow but today was spectacular.
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From New York 06 07 15
June 8, 2015The sun is beginning to set in Baltimore; golden light is pouring into the apartment of my friends, where I am curled on the couch writing.
We are all just back from seeing “Spy” with Melissa McCarthy. Very funny, lots of action, and it makes me appreciate her talents even more.
It’s been a pleasant weekend, with a surfeit of food and I feel I must go on a week long fast to compensate.
As we were walking back from the movie, I realized that yesterday was June 6th, the 71st anniversary of D-Day. Somehow it didn’t register yesterday, despite seeing stories about the day. There was a wonderful picture of women pouring off boats on the Normandy beaches, nurses to care for the wounded. Also, there was an interesting story about Hitler’s reaction, which was one of glee, as he felt sure that his German troops would push back the Allies. It was, of course, the beginning of his end.
It is left to be seen if today’s vote in Turkey marks the beginning of the end for Erdogan, its President. He wanted to set in motion the transformation of Turkey from a Parliamentarian system to a Presidential system. His party, the AKP, did not get the mandate he was hoping for; in fact, it did not achieve a majority, which leaves the country in some uncharted territory. The Kurds have been ascendant and now have received enough votes to sit in Parliament. A coalition government might be hard to form. Stay tuned.
The G7, meeting in southern Germany, made an agenda item of the Greek crisis. Canada and the US urged European leaders to find a solution. The crisis hangs over the world’s economy and if a solution is not found will certainly rile markets. The Greeks have exasperated their lenders with rhetoric and brinkmanship and an unsatisfactory set of proposals. The EU has been intractable in its demands – at least it appears to the Greeks that way.
On this beautiful Baltimore day, the world keeps spinning, though being a weekend it seems a bit less frenetic.
The Italians are saying they won’t accept more refugees and the Royal Navy rescued another 1000 attempting to cross the Med. I am sure there is fighting in Ukraine but it didn’t make the headlines. The Iraqis are advancing and pushing back at IS after the fall of Ramadi.
Raif Badawi is a Saudi blogger who was convicted of defaming Islam and was sentenced to ten years in prison and a thousand lashes. The Saudi Supreme Court upheld the sentence and it is questionable he will survive the thousand lashes to serve the ten years. The world is outraged; the Saudis don’t care. King Salman can overturn the Supreme Court because, of course, he’s King. But will he?
People are beginning to parse the silence of Denny Hastert, former Speaker of the House. Indicted for lying to the FBI about his withdrawal of money from banks, it has been revealed that the money was hush money to someone named as “Individual A,” supposedly sexually abused by Hastert when he was a high school wrestling coach. A woman has since come forward saying the her now dead brother was abused for years by Hastert for years and that he didn’t come forward because he felt no one would believe him. He died of AIDS in 1995; Hastert attended the funeral.
Two men convicted of murder escaped from a maximum security prison in New York by digging out of their adjacent cells and crawling to freedom through the sewer system. There is now a $100,000 reward for their capture. They could be anywhere.
Uber, the car service has pulled out of East Hampton, causing a furor by its devotees. Local rules make it almost impossible for the independent owner operators to work there. Celebrities and other users are slamming the town with messages and emails complaining about it. They feel they have lost their designated driver.
That’s a very first world problem.
Have a good night!
Tags:"Spy", AKP, D-Day, Denny Hastert, East Hampton, Erdogan, G7, Greek Debt Crisis, Hitler, Iraq, IS, King Salman, Kurds, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Melissa McCarthy, New York escapees, Raif Badawi, Turkey, Uber, Ukraine
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