Posts Tagged ‘Mat Tombers’

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Letter From New York 06 18 15 From Waterloo to refugees to Laudato si…

June 18, 2015

Sitting at the dining room table at my cottage, I am looking out toward the creek, seeing a grey and moody day outside. It is almost chill and I’m wearing a fleece jacket to ward off the cool. I am in a slightly cranky mood from both the grey and that I am being told I must have flood insurance by the company which just bought my mortgage from the last owners of it who had bought it from someone else. In the fourteen and a half years I have been here, I have never had to have flood insurance before.

Part of me shrugs and goes: just one more thing to deal with and I will. My neighbors to the south of me have had some flooding issues but I am much, much higher than they are. We’ll see. But while I fight it, I guess I am going to have to get it and figure it out from there.

In the meantime, the British Royals have had a busy week. First there was the 800th Anniversary of the Magna Carta and then it’s been Ascot this week and then today we have the 200th Anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo in which Wellington defeated Napoleon once and for all. It was a ghastly, bloody battle in which a full quarter of the combatants were killed.

Many wrote accounts of the battle after it was over. The victors hardly felt jubilant in the wake of the destruction. But it did change history. Since then, the British and French have been allies, not enemies and have not fought each other. Napoleon was ushered into exile and his dreams of European hegemony faded. It ushered in the British Century and the great days of the British Empire.

Today there was a service at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London to mark the Anniversary, attended by Prime Minister David Cameron and the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall.

In South Carolina, there is mourning for nine individuals killed at a historic black church in Charleston by a young white man. The suspect, Dylann Roof, has been apprehended in Shelby, North Carolina. It is being labeled a hate crime. It is alleged that Roof entered the church during its Wednesday night Bible Study, stayed for an hour and then began shooting.

Obama expressed sadness and outrage and called for a national reckoning on guns, not that I think that will happen. One of the people killed was the Pastor; Obama knew him.

Laudato Si, Praise be to You, the Pope’s Encyclical, a letter of teaching, was published today and challenged the world to clean up its filth. Controversial even before its official release due to a leak, it is stirring up conversation about man’s relationship with the planet. Conservatives are not happy about it and some have been basically telling the Pope to mind his own business. But he considers this his business and he is going to have his word heard. Addressed not just to Catholics but also to every living human on the planet, Francis took a bold step that will probably only make him more popular to most while infuriating those who disagree with the stances he has taken.

It is the beginning of the Holy Month of Ramadan, a time of fasting, praying and spiritual rejuvenation for Muslims.   It moves with the lunar calendar.

Today there are more displaced people than ever in the world, over sixty million. Over 11 million are from Syria alone, some outside the country and some within the country. If all of them were in the same country together, it would be the 24th largest country in the world.

Lester Holt is now the permanent anchor of the Nightly News on NBC, the first African American to hold such a post. Brian Williams is not coming back to the chair he vacated when suspended in February, at least not for a while. He is going to ratings challenged MSNBC to deliver breaking news. It’s a lot like being tossed out of the Major Leagues in baseball and sent back down to the Minors.

And, apparently, he is getting a lot less money.

Outside, it is still grey, moody and gloomy. I am playing jazz on Pandora to lighten my mood. Soon, my friend Susan will be here and we’re going to Local 111 over in Philmont for dinner and a catch-up.

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Posted in Ascot, Brain Williams, Duchess of Cornwall, Dylann Roof, Flood Insurance, Laudato si, Lester Holt, Magna Carta, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Napoleon, Obama, Pope Francis, Prince of Wales, Ramadan, Social Commnentary, St. Paul's Cathedral, Waterloo Anniversary, Wellington | 1 Comment »

Letter From New York 06 17 15 On the meaning of unlimited and other things…

June 18, 2015

It is a sunny Wednesday afternoon, with just a bit of haze, as I ride the train toward Hudson, to spend a few days at the house. I’ve been moving from meeting to meeting to meeting the last couple of weeks and I have a ton of follow-up work to do and I thought, why not do it on the deck at the cottage rather than office in New York City? So I am off for four days to organize my life and enjoy the view from my deck.

It’s been a pleasant day, a couple of meetings and a phone call and then off to Penn Station to catch the 2:20. I’ll get home, change clothes, refresh a bit and then head down to the Red Dot for dinner with my friend, David, who is spending part of every week in the Berkshires helping his ex-wife deal with her husband’s terminal stage Alzheimer’s. He likes to take a mid-week break and come down to Hudson for dinner. It’ll be nice to join him and catch up, not having seen him for a few weeks.

At Penn Station, I dropped a worn slipper at Drago’s Shoe Repair for a stitch job. It is going to cost twenty-five bucks, which is about twice what the slippers cost but they’re my favorite pair. It is interesting what we do for things we have come to love.

Last fall, I spent the money to have a desk made by my grandfather repaired. It just seemed so wrong to let it go. My home is filled with things with meaning and I like to say that everything I own, pretty much, has a story. There are three wooden plaques I purchased as a young teenager in the market in San Pedro Sula, Honduras and a settee that my mother napped on as a little girl.

Speaking of things we treasure, it was 130 years ago today that the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York harbor, carried on a ship into New York in 300 pieces. Once assembled, it has become a national treasure and a forceful symbol of all that America hopes to be.

In an unexpected happy ending to a story that hit the press last week, Disney has decided not to terminate 35 employees whose last task for the company was to train their replacements, lower cost overseas employees provided by an outsourcing company. If they didn’t, they would not receive severance.

Mickey Mouse was making out like Simon Legree.

Word leaked out. An investigation was announced. The layoffs were rescinded. No one at Disney nor the outsourcing company is returning calls. The employees are told to act as if nothing had happened. Until further notice.

That sounds a little ominous: until further notice. Until the hoo hah has settled down?

I wish this were a happy story but it’s not. European leaders seem to be battening down the hatches and preparing for the “Grexit,” Greece departing from the Euro Zone. There is a meeting tomorrow but it is doubtful an agreement will be reached. As Bette Davis said as Margo Channing in “All About Eve, ” “Buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.” I am not sanguine about it though there is nothing I can really do. It feels a bit like a crisis that didn’t need to be, to me, at least.

As all of us know by now, I suppose, Donald Trump has jumped into the race for the Republican Presidential nomination saying he will restore “America’s Brand.” Jon Stewart is delighted. This, he says, will make his last six weeks his best six weeks.

Trump will provide many a comic with interesting fodder though Stewart will be the sharpest critic of them all, I suspect.

At some point I signed up for AT&T Wireless. Part of the reason was the promise of unlimited data. Then in 2011, AT&T began to throttle that data after a certain point of consumption. I was one of millions of unhappy customers though not so unhappy I changed companies. But it rankled. Today the FCC fined AT&T $100,000,000 for having “unlimited” that was not “unlimited.” I smiled.

I’ll be signing off for today. We’re on the last leg into Hudson. The Catskills are covered in a blue grey haze while the river resembles burnished silver. It’s been a lovely ride home.

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Letter From New York 06 16 15 Vladimir the Saint and Vladimir the President…

June 16, 2015

Just moments ago, the sun broke through the cloud cover that has weighted the city down all day. According to the weather reports, we were to be having thunderstorms about now but, nay, nay, we have sun. But will it last? I hope so. It’s been a grey week that hasn’t done much for building happy spirits among New Yorkers.

I started the day with a delightful breakfast with a young entrepreneur I met a few years ago at a Producer’s Guild event. He has started a company called Kite, which connects large corporations with start-ups that can help solve their marketing problems. Fascinating.

Then I came to the office and worked on a whole variety of things, before sitting down to think about today’s Letter. Before I started work, though, I happened on a VICE News short documentary featuring Simon Ostrovsky, one of their correspondents who was kidnapped, detained and released by pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine. While in custody, he was beaten and accused of being a spy. There was an international outcry at his disappearance and three days after he had been pulled from his car, he was released, without explanation. He still continues to cover the Ukrainian conflict.

Today’s piece showed him following a Russian soldier through social media, making a very good case that the Russian soldier had been in eastern Ukraine. He posted selfies from a variety of places that could be identified in Ukraine. Russian soldiers seem to have a penchant for posting selfies on VK, the Russian Facebook.

Yet, according to Putin, there are no Russian soldiers in Ukraine, not now or ever.

The young soldier denied that he was there when contacted on the phone by Simon though the pictures were pretty convincing.

We all live in a world of lies and illusions though it seems they are a little deeper when we are around Vladimir Putin.

A very tall statue of St. Vladimir, the patron saint of Russia, is being put up in Moscow and it has the anti-Putin forces striving to get it stopped. History has taught us that is not likely to happen. He will be very tall and will be set on the tallest hill in Moscow, looking down on the city. Vladimir the Saint was a Russian warlord who converted to Christianity and then told everyone he ruled that they were going to convert, too. Or else, I suspect.

The Russian Orthodox Church has a very cozy relationship with the Kremlin. Vladimir Putin, who was once a Communist and therefore, theoretically, should not have believed in God, has found a relationship with the Church a very convenient thing. They are strong supporters of his conservative views on things like homosexuality. And Putin has seen to it that there are now “anti-blasphemy” laws on the books that squelch any critics of Russian Orthodoxy.

Ah, how often in history have churches served politics and politics, churches.

Interestingly, St. Vladimir hailed from what is now Ukraine. Perhaps a connection to Russia that Putin is underscoring?

It is the 1000th anniversary of Vladimir’s death and the living Vladimir is going to squeeze every ounce out of it that he can for his own political purposes.

No one has said that Vladimir Putin is stupid. He is frightening but not stupid. He is now replacing older nukes with newer, smarter nukes that can elude anti-missile systems. Do I hear the drumbeat of an arms race?

I hope not but fear so. In a brighter note,

Pope Francis, the rock star Pope is apparently coming out in an upcoming encyclical as against climate change deniers. Parts of it have been leaked as the Vatican reminds all that it is a work in progress. But if what is leaked is true, Pope Francis comes down hard on the side of climate change being created by human actions.

You go, Francis!

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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 14 15 Celebrations of democracy on two sides of the Atlantic….

June 14, 2015

Today is June 14th, Flag Day, a holiday I must say I never paid much attention to before moving to Columbia County. On June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress passed a flag resolution. It stated: Resolved, That the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation.

In 1949, Congress made it official.

Hudson, the County Seat for Columbia County, takes Flag Day VERY seriously; the day outstrips the 4th of July in celebrations. The parade is bigger than the 4th’s and Flag Day fireworks are much more spectacular than those on the 4th.

Apparently, it started with The Elks. They made it mandatory to celebrate Flag Day for their members in 1908 and the Hudson Elks started marching down the main drag, Warren Street, along with the high school marching band and a few others.

It is interesting to note that when Congress made the day official in 1949, Harry Truman was President, and he was an Elk.

In 1996, the Hudson Elks opened the parade to the whole county and it has soared since then.

Every year I go to the Red Dot, have my brunch, and watch from outside the restaurant as every fire truck in the County seems to wheel down the street. Most years, the Caballeros, from New Jersey, musically march down Warren Street in white and black with red scarves and sombreros.   They’re an annual hit. Alana, the Red Dot’s proprietress, hails from the same Jersey city they do and she relishes their presence. She followed them down the street yesterday, blessing them with the soap bubble gun she had me go out and buy for her.

Children dance and cheer and wave flags their parents have bought them from vendors plying Warren Street. It was a picture postcard perfect day yesterday and it was a picture postcard event. Hudson is a town of about 8,000 and 10 to 12 thousand jam into the city for the parade and the evening’s fireworks.

I was not in town for the fireworks, having invited friends for a barbecue last night.

Today is a lazy afternoon of finishing putting the house back in order. Right now, I am seated on the deck, staring down onto the creek, gently flowing down into the pond. The overhanging trees are reflected off the mirror like water, so that all in front of me is a riot of green. Birds are chirping on the other side of the creek and overhead is the muted roar of a plane flying south from the little Columbia County Airport due north of me. All is peaceful in my little world. When I have finished this, I will start “Scoop” by Evelyn Waugh, recommended to me by my friend, Nick Stuart.

It is a lovely afternoon in Columbia County, sitting on the deck, sipping water and tapping on my laptop.

The world, of course, is not peaceful but it feels so far away when I am here.

While Columbia County has been celebrating Flag Day with a weekend of festivities, Britain has been celebrating that tomorrow is the official 800th Anniversary of The Magna Carta, the document that established the King was not above the law but subject to it. It is the foundation upon which democracy has risen.

King John signed it at Runnymede and tomorrow the Queen will be there, hosting a celebration, which will include thousands of people. There have been jousting matches and re-enactments of carrying the document down the Thames to London by barge, 800 years ago.

A thirteen-foot tall statue of Queen Elizabeth II was unveiled yesterday at Runnymede to mark the occasion.

While Britain is in the throes of its Magna Carta celebration, Talha Asmal, a young British citizen from Dewsbury, blew himself up in Iraq, becoming the youngest known British suicide bomber. He was just seventeen. He had run away and joined IS in March.

Sudan’s President, Bashir, was in South Africa for a meeting of the African Union. South Africa ordered him not to leave the country because he is wanted on charges of genocide at Darfur. However, as I write, it appears he may have slipped out of South Africa and is on his way back to Khartoum.

IS has created “flirt squads” to unmask gay men so they can throw them from rooftops.

Once I flirted with the idea of going to the Middle East, it seemed exotic and wonderful. Now I am afraid of thinking about going there.

I will treasure my afternoon, on the creek, listening to the sounds of my woods and watching the mirror like creek reflect the trees.

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Letter From New York 06 12 15 Of the price of eggs and things…

June 12, 2015

It’s a lovely day in New York, warm but not too muggy. I’ve enjoyed being outside today though as I was sitting at lunch my phone dinged with a message from The Weather Channel that there were tornado warnings until 11:00 tonight. That didn’t seem too nice.

Because I wasn’t feeling well last night, I went back to the apartment and curled into bed with a good book and after fending off sleep for some time, slipped away into the arms of Morpheus, waking to a fresh day.

It’s been pleasant, a couple of short conference calls and a quick lunch at The Greek Corner, a very basic coffee shop on 28th and Broadway that I have begun to habituate, enough that the young Spanish waitress there knows me and that I like Diet Coke with my lunch. It’s comforting to go into places where they know you.

What is not comforting is that at a meeting in Bratislava, EU Ministers have actually discussed the possibility that Greece will default, formally. It still seems that no one wants that to happen but the brinksmanship continues. Tsipras speaks confidently about an agreement being reached on June 18, the next meeting of the Euro Zone creditors with Greece, while others scratch their heads and wonder: what is Tsipras thinking?

Markets have been wobbly because of all of this. It’s not a comfortable place.

But comforting for those who aren’t keen on human interaction is the news that RealDoll is working with robotics experts to make a sex doll that moves and chats. The prototype is named “Harmony.” Let’s hope she doesn’t get the hots for the Dyson in the closet.

Do you tweet? Lots of us do. The CEO of that company, Dick Costolo, resigned yesterday, rewarding the company with a brief uptick in its stock price at the joyous [to investors] news of his departure. Not well liked, he oversaw a company whose share price has fallen by 50% and seen a number of high profile departures, including Vivian Schiller, formerly of The NY Times, NBCUniversal and NPR.

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome [MERS] has taken hold in South Korea. One man contracted it in the Middle East and now nearly 4000 are in quarantine. The cities have become ghost towns while everyone hides until the outbreak is contained. Officials are encouraging people to continue their normal lives. They’re not listening.

David Rockefeller, grandson of John D. Rockefeller, of Standard Oil fame, turns 100 today and has had six heart transplants. To celebrate his birthday, he is giving away $2,000,000 worth of coastal land in Maine to the non-profit Land and Garden Preserve. He has been going to that part of Maine, near Seal Harbor, since he was three months old. He was born on the site of today’s MoMa, once the location of the family residence, largest in the city of New York. His mother, Abby, helped create that institution and so MoMa threw a grand party for him. According to Forbes, he is the oldest billionaire in the world.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the randy French politician, has been acquitted of the charge of pimping. He attended sex parties around the world, he admitted. It gave him recreational release while he was helping the world through its global financial crisis. But he didn’t pimp. The jury believed him. Free to go but probably he won’t be running for office again.

Wholesale prices will be up this month, partially because the price of eggs will be at its highest level ever. Avian influenza wiped out millions of birds. Oil is up too, again, though still below its record levels of a year ago.

And in sad news, the Iowa Straw Poll, conducted every year since 1979, has been called off this year. Too many candidates decided it wasn’t worth it. Another tradition gone away.

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Letter From New York 06 11 15 Past wrongs righted and other things…

June 11, 2015

Outside it is warm and a bit humid and the sun shines down on Manhattan. According to weather reports we were to have bad thunderstorms right now but they haven’t evidenced themselves. This may be the second time this week that we have missed the thunderstorm bullet.

I woke up this morning with a very unhappy stomach. Something I had eaten definitely had not agreed with me. So I spent the morning in the apartment, reading a book and staying close to home. Not sure that I would make a 1:00 meeting that I didn’t want to delay, I fretted through the morning but began to feel better around 11 and managed to get to it.

Having had nothing to eat today, I am rather famished but am holding off on eating anything until later. Everything felt fine except my stomach, which was growling back at me for whatever I had done.

Reading one of Lindsay Davis’ Roman mystery novels kept me distracted. I love her way of bringing ancient Rome to life and the feeling she gives of being there.

Having left my laptop at the office, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do except answer a few emails from my iPhone.

Christopher Lee, a great British actor, famous for his villainous roles, including Dracula and Fu Manchu but also as evil wizard Saruman in “Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” died in London a few days ago. He was also Count Dooku in two of the “Star Wars” prequels. He was one of Hollywood’s go-to bad guys.

Perhaps because I have been thinking about mortality I read an article in the New York Times Magazine about British writer Jenny Diski’s work as she approaches the end of her life from lung cancer. She writes and lives with a wry wit, and is carrying that through to the end. I am going to now look for some of her work. The Times called her one of the most brilliant essayists alive; fame, though, has eluded her.

As a young child I was fascinated by Greek myths and ancient Egyptian history. I told people that I wanted to be an archeologist when I grew up. While I have made several trips to Greece, I have never been to Egypt. The Egyptian Tourist Industry, slowly reviving from the violence of the last few years, suffered new blows this week. There have been two attacks on tourist areas, one at Luxor and one at Giza. Doesn’t look like I will be going this year.

Twenty-one years ago, I chaired a Committee for the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. We produced the Superhighway Summit with a keynote by Vice President Gore. One of the panelists that day was Rupert Murdoch. He ran Fox then and he does today, though this was the day it was announced he would step down to be succeeded by his son, James. Eras end.

In the “crime doesn’t pay” category the winner today is Zhou Yongkang, China’s former security chief. He’s been sentenced to life in prison for having taken bribes, the latest Communist official to fall to the corruption crackdown in that country.

In the “not good to be naughty” category, four Western tourists have been arrested in Malaysia for taking nude shots of themselves on Mt. Kinabalu shortly before a major earthquake that killed sixteen. They are being blamed for causing it, as Kinabalu is sacred to many tribes. Six others are being sought as they, too, apparently exposed themselves on the mountain and helped the quake come along.

Making up for past wrongs, Spain past a law allowing Sephardic Jews to apply for citizenship, five centuries after they were expelled from the country by Ferdinand and Isabella, the monarchs who gave Christopher Columbus his funding. They ordered Muslims and Jews to convert or leave. Many left. Those who choose to apply do not have to give up citizenship of their current country.

The light is still a soft gold and it looks like thunderstorms will not pelt us today. I am off to a Producer’s Guild meeting and then, if my stomach feels sufficiently sorted, off for some food.

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Letter From New York 06 10 15 Wow! Wow! Wow!

June 10, 2015

Today’s Letter will likely be pretty short. The time I allot in my day to write the Letter was taken up today by a task I have been attempting to avoid.

My friend, Tim Sparke, has been fighting brain cancer for two or three years now and is slowly losing the battle. He has outlived the doctors’ predictions by so much they have begun to call him their cockroach, impossible to kill. But the reality is that the horizon is very finite for Tim.

Some weeks ago, he asked me to write a piece about our friendship for a book he is compiling for his children, so they will have some sense of him when he is gone. I have dawdled on doing it because I have not wanted to really contemplate the world without Tim.

We’ve been friends for twenty years and have kept close though he and his family live in England and I am in America. His children are very young, six and eight, and their memories of him will fade. He wants them to have a sense of him as a man through the eyes of us who have known him.

It was a sad task but I have done it. I will let it sit overnight and then will edit in the morning and send it off.

It is also possible that I have hesitated writing because it brings me close to my own sense of mortality, a thing which has been growing over the last few years as I and my friends have been crossing into the third acts of our lives. Sobering thoughts, all of that…

The sun is shining today in New York, which made it easier. The grey days of the last week would have made the writing more melancholy than it was.

A year ago today, Mosul fell to IS and they are flying their blacks flags everywhere in that city today, even as they dig in for the inevitable counter-attack to wrest the city back from them. Obama has ordered 450 more advisors to Iraq to train the troops and put some metal in their backs.

War happens and life happens and cancer happens and we plow on, going through the complex motions that constitute life. What a mystery it all is.

Tim fights for his life, about to undergo a new treatment they think will give him three more months while IS occupies a swath of the world, lording over the inhabitants, making their lives mostly miserable while I sit in a sun blessed room in New York and type away.

Wow! Wow! Wow! were the words of Steve Jobs as he lay dying. Wow is right.

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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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Letter From New York 06 07 15

June 8, 2015

The 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!

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