Posts Tagged ‘Obama’
May 23, 2016
It is Monday morning and I am riding an overcrowded train from Baltimore to New York after spending the weekend there visiting friends. At one point I thought I might end up sitting on the floor but found a seat at the very front of the train.
Outside ruined building pass; we are somewhere just north of Philadelphia. Exotic graffiti adorns them while the sun blasts down. Beyond the ruins lie bedraggled row houses that probably will someday be gentrified. What contrasts we have in this country.
Baltimore is in a resurgence, at least near the water, where my friends live. We dined on Saturday night at Peter’s Inn, a wonderfully, quirky little row house restaurant, rough around the edges with handwritten menus, food arriving in the order that the chef has prepared it which is not necessarily the way you ordered it. Good chill martinis and a nice little wine list, friendly people and that wonderful thing called “atmosphere” that has not been scrupulously concocted but which emerges from the quirkiness of the place and people.
It was a time of sitting around and visiting with Lionel and Pierre and my friend Allen Skarsgard, with whom I had some long philosophical conversations over the weekend. We had known each other in the long ago and faraway, reconnecting just enough that we can mark the present without dwelling in our past.
There was, of course, talk of the brutal politics of this election cycle. I don’t remember a question that was asked on MSNBC on Sunday morning but recall the response: it’s 2016, ANYTHING can happen.
So it seems.
As it seems all over the world. A far right candidate is deadlocked with his rival in Austria. If Herbert Norber of the right wins, it will be the first time a far right candidate will have won a European election since the end of Fascism, a warning shot across the bow of the world.
Troubling for Hillary are national polls, of which we have several a day it seems, that have her potentially losing to Trump. They have Bernie beating Trump by 10.8 points.
Predictions are that a “Brexit” from the European Union will spark a year long recession. The drive for a British exit from the European Union is, at least partially, being driven by anti-immigration and nationalistic feelings in the country.
Is this a bit like what the 1930’s felt like?
In the meantime, Emma Watson of “Harry Potter” fame and fortune is playing Belle in a live action version of “Beauty and the Beast.” Somehow that seems comforting to me this morning.
In Syria, IS has claimed the responsibility for killing scores in that poor, broken country in areas considered Assad strongholds. A suicide bomber killed many Army recruits in Aden, Yemen.
And a drone strike killed the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mansour, who opposed peace talks. His death was confirmed by Obama, who will be the first sitting President to visit Hiroshima, struck by the US with an atomic bomb in !945, a move which forced the Japanese to move to surrender. He has been in Viet Nam, where he lifted a fifty year old arms embargo, a move to help counter the rise of China in the South China Sea.
Moves and counter moves, the world is in play. It always has been. It just took longer in other times for the moves to be made and to feel their repercussions. Now it’s almost instantaneous.
Tags:Allen Skarsgard, Austrian Election, Baltimore, Bernie Sanders, Brexit, China, Donald Trump, Herbert Norber, Hillary Clinton, Hiroshima, Lionel White, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mullah Mansour, Obama, Peter's Inn, Pierre Font, Russia, Syria, The Donald, Viet Nam, Yemen
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Elections, Entertainment, European Refugee Crisis, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Political Commentary, Politics, Sanders, Social Commentary, Syria, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
May 16, 2016
This is one of the most enjoyable moments I have in a week, sitting at the dining room table, jazz playing in the background, the sun setting, looking across the deck to the wild woods across the creek, pulling together my thoughts as the sun slowly sets.
This morning I re-read my last online post [www.mathewtombers.com]. In the last part I wrote about Islam and the West having to come to terms with each other and as I read it I thought: whoa, Islam must come to peace with itself. IS is mostly killing other Muslims. Those numbers dwarf the numbers they have killed in Paris and Brussels and New York and London. They die by the hundreds and thousands in Iraq and Syria alone. Not to mention Yemen, which seems to be to Sunni and Shia what Spain was to Fascists and Republicans in the 1930’s.
We note with great care and deep exegesis the murders in the West and the daily drumbeat of death in Baghdad, Aleppo and Yemen is a footnote. Muslims are mostly slaughtering other Muslims.
Not unlike the way Christians slaughtered other Christians in the 15th, 16th and 17th Centuries. We had the Thirty Year War, which started as a religious war and became so much more. The Muslims seem to be having their Thirty Year War and it is much scarier because technology is so much more advanced.
And while they fight amongst themselves, some of them rage against the West, those who are Fundamentalist Muslims. They see us as abominations.
One late night here at the cottage I wondered if I was living a bit like a Roman in the 2nd or 3rd Century CE, knowing the darkness was coming and unable to prevent it so enjoying the present as much as possible.
That’s a bit melodramatic I suppose. Events are still playing out. Outcomes can be changed.
The forces at work in our lives are terrifying. We have a saber rattling Putin, who denies everything negative, and a major religion that is going through an existential crisis, manyßåå of them thinking nothing of killing as a policy.
In college, I took an Honors course on Medieval Islamic Civilization and they were civilized. Something has gone very wrong there and, hopefully, for all of us, they will sort it out.
In the meantime, the rest of the world keeps moving.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month.
Not being mentally healthy is a debilitating stigma many carry. As someone who has been in therapy since he was sixteen, I empathize. It is not, in many places, åstill, now, acceptable to talk about.
And it saved my life. And in the years between then and now, many members of my family have taken me aside to thank me for having broken the dam. I was the first and I was pretty loud about it too. Everyone knew. Everyone rolled their eyes at me, then they began quietly to look for their own therapists.
We are still dealing with racial issues and we are still dealing with mental stigmas. So good there is a Mental Health Awareness Month. We need all the mental health we can get.
Our politics continue to look like a sideshow. Friends who live in Japan, Australia, Europe ask me what is going on? I don’t know. Does anyone? There has been nothing like this in my lifetime and it is a bit scary.
I have been reading articles about the raucous Nevada Democratic Convention and I haven’t parsed the events quite but there was a showdown between the Bernie supporters and the Hillary supporters. Hillary won but her supporters are worried about a similar scene playing out at the national convention.
It has grown dark now. The sun has set. While it is mid-May, the temperature is going down to 34 tonight so we are not actually in real Spring yet. I had to turn up the heat tonight. I might yet light a fire.
The jazz lures me to a quiet place of introspection.
Tags:Bernie Sanders, Claverack, Donald Trump, Fundamentalist Muslims, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, IS, Isis, Jazz, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mental Health Awareness Month, New York, Obama, Putin, Red Dot, Russia, Syria, The Donald, Thirty Years War
Posted in 2016 Election, Brussels terror attack, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Iran, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Paris Attacks, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Taliban, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
May 7, 2016
The town of Fort McMurray, in the heart of Canada’s oil patch, is burning to the ground as I write. 88,000 people are being evacuated. One who has remained to assist in fueling emergency workers described the city, according to Vice, as a “f**king ghost town.” Reports are calling the situation barely managed chaos. Convoys are transporting people out of town and 8,000 have been airlifted out.
The Prime Minister of Turkey has resigned after a fight with President Erdogan. As I understand it, in Turkey it’s the PM who is supposed to have the power while the President does the meeting and the greeting. Erdogan doesn’t see it that way and has been keeping hold on the reins of power. This resignation makes it easier for Erdogan to consolidate power. Turkey is troubled, fighting a Kurdish insurgency, IS, wrestling with refugees and a population that is growing antagonistic to Erdogan.
I still would like to go back to the “Turquoise Coast” of that country, sun dappled and bucolic.
Not bucolic is the state of American politics. Trump continues to rise and has no opposition on his march to the nomination. Cruz and Kasich are gone. The Presidents Bush, number 41 and 43, have signaled they will not endorse him. Paul Ryan is “not ready” at this time to endorse Trump. The Trump campaign approached over a hundred Republican politicos to say something good about Trump. Only twenty responded; the others were “too busy.”
As I gave my last lecture, the students were commenting on how exhausted they were of the political season and the near certainty that Trump will be the Republican nominee has only heightened their distaste for politics; all suspect an ugly, brutal slugfest between the two candidates, neither of whom they admire, assuming Hillary is nominated, as it looks she will. The aspirational nature of politics has slipped away from us.
And before it is done, something like $4 billion will be spent on this election, twice what was spent in 2012.
President Obama implored reporters to focus on issues and not “the spectacle and circus” that has marked coverage so far of the 2016 Presidential race. After all, being President of the United States is “not a reality show.” Amen…
A Fort Valley State University student, in central Georgia, was stabbed to death as he came to aid three women who were being harassed and groped near the school cafeteria. Rest in peace, Donnell Phelps, all of nineteen.
Two are dead and two are wounded in shootings is suburban Maryland, three at Montgomery Mall, where I have shopped and one at a grocery store nine miles away. One man is believed responsible. If it is the man police suspect, he killed his wife last night when she was at school, picking up their children. He was under court order to stay away from her.
It is a grey afternoon as I write this, in a stretch of chill, grey days and news like the above deepens the pall of the day.
If you are feeling grey because “Downton Abbey” has slipped into the past, its creator, Julian Fellowes, took Trollope’s novel, “Doctor Thorne” and brought it to life. Amazon has purchased it and will stream it beginning May 20. Fill a hole in your viewing heart.
In my heart, I want a new iPhone and I am probably going to wait until the fall when Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, tells us that the iPhone 7 will give us features we can’t live without. What they are, I don’t know. I am writing this on a train going north and can’t stream on Amtrak’s wifi.
Speaking of Amtrak, I booked a trip from New York to Minneapolis on the train for July 20th to visit my brother and his family. I am taking a train to DC, the Capital Limited out of there to Chicago and the Empire Builder from Chicago to Minneapolis. I hope it will be good fun.
Fun seems to be what we need these days. Our politics are not fun. The constant barrage of shootings is not fun, not remotely. The economy, while growing, isn’t growing fast enough which is not fun.
What will be fun is that Lionel and Pierre are going to be at their home across the street from me this weekend and I will get to see them.
Tags:Amtrak, Anthony Trollope, Claverack, Cruz, Doctor Thorne, Donald Trump, Donnell Phellps, Downton Abbey, Erdogan, Fort McMurray, George HW Bush, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, iPhone7, Julian Fellowes, Kasisch, Lionel White, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Obama, Pierre Font, Tim Cook, Turkey, Vice
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
May 2, 2016
Five years ago Osama Bin Laden, a rich kid who definitely went bad, was killed in his hiding place in Pakistan, apparently with a stash of video porn. Born privileged, he rejected privilege and embraced fundamental Islam and wreaked havoc on the world, partly supported by his personal wealth as a scion of a family that had made a huge fortune in construction in the great oil years in Saudi Arabia. It was said he only wore a shirt once and then discarded it.
Fast forward and Al Qaeda is in decline while its successor, IS, is on the rise. Or is it? Its territory has shrunk this year and there is a full on assault about to happen on Mosul, one of the chief cities it has conquered.
However, they are not a country per se and attack places like Brussels and Paris as terrifying terrorists. The world is a crazy place, isn’t it? Full of anger, full of hate, full of vitriol and absolutism. I certainly hope we survive this as well as we survived the vitriol and absolutism of Nazism. That thought gives me hope.
On Tuesday, Indiana votes. It looks like it is going to be another Trump victory. Some polls have hime with a 15% lead. Others have him with a smaller lead but in all polls he has a lead. It may be a “make it or break it moment” for Ted Cruz.
And as so much of the 2016 campaign has been, this is a fraught moment. Cruz fights for his political life and Trump sails on, turning every disadvantage into an advantage. It has been mind boggling to watch and frightening to contemplate.
This is where we are in politics. And it is Ted Cruz who helped set the stage for the current scene.
Last night was the White House Correspondents Dinner and while I didn’t watch it in real time, the video clips have been good and demonstrated that Obama has a ready wit [I am sure helped by good writers]. People I know found it great fun and I will look at clips tonight, once I have finished this missive.
The days are growing longer. It is nearly eight and there is still light and I am looking at the creek in twilight but not darkness. I love this time of year as the world moves towards the longest day of the year.
It is a moment of happiness.
It has been a sweet day. There was a good dinner party last night. My guests were Larry and Alicia. A while ago had been his birthday and last night we celebrated it. Today Larry and Alicia invited me to join them at Ca’Mea for lunch after church, which I did and which was great fun.
I am sitting at my dining room table and am looking out over the creek and am so grateful for this place and this time.
May you be happy in your place and time.
Tags:Al Qaeda, Alicia Vergara, Carl Black, Claverack, Donald Trump, Hudson, Indiana Primary, Iran, Iraq, IS, Isis, Larry Divney, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Obama, Red Dot, Ted Cruz, The Donald, White House Correspondents Dinner
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Claverack, Columbia County, Entertainment, Gay, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
April 30, 2016
The day began with a conversation over coffee with my friend Robert Murray about Wednesday’s remarks by former Speaker of the House, John Boehner, that Ted Cruz was “Lucifer in the flesh” and that he “was the most miserable son of a bitch” that Boehner had ever worked with.
Ouch! Gloves off, totally off.
Boehner, apparently, has never forgiven Cruz for his part in the 2013 government shutdown.
We discussed how stunning it was that such a prominent Republican has said such harsh words about a front runner for the Presidential nomination of their own party.
It is probable that Trump will be the Republican Presidential nominee and Boehner said that he would vote for him, if he was, which is far short of an enthusiastic endorsement.
Is there anyone we are enthusiastic about in this election? I don’t think so.
At the Republican Convention in California, there was a tense stand-off between Trump protesters and police as hundreds stormed the convention in protest of Trump. Railing at the man doesn’t some to be doing much good. He is the juggernaut the Republicans did not expect.
To my surprise, though it shouldn’t be, 75 years ago “Citizen Kane” premiered and changed movies forever. Lili St. Cyr, last of the great strippers, who I knew in Los Angeles, briefly had an affair with him while he was making the movie. Filmmaker after filmmaker has given him homage in their own films and his legend will live on.
Obama is seeking to shore up his legacy, if not his legend, with interviews about his years as President. I suspect, though I know many will not agree with me, that history will be kinder to him than his contemporaries.
Prince, recently dead, had a bad hip and being a Jehovah’s Witness, was not going to have a replacement. He had been given pain pills to help and it may be that they played a part in his demise. Police have obtained a search warrant for his home and have raided a Walgreen’s Pharmacy where Prince had his prescriptions filled. Results from his autopsy will be available in a month or so. As he died without a will, it will be an epic battle, probably, over his estate, including all the songs he never released.
In Syria, the fragile truce has frayed and Aleppo has returned to full scale war. A hospital was bombed and the fatalities rise. Secretary Kerry has been on the phone with Lavrov of Russia, working to get some sort of end to the tragedy.
It is being wondered if Syria’s President Assad has been dealing with IS, buying its oil. Which would certainly give another wicked twist to the tragedy in Syria.
The Romans, in their day, ruled Syria and Spain and today, in Seville, in Spain, a group of workers repairing water pipes found 19 amphora or jars filled with Roman coins from the time of Constantine — the Emperor who embraced Christianity. The find is worth millions of Euros.
While all these things go on, I am now back at the cottage, There is a fall like chill in the air so I have lit a fire in the Franklin Stove and cranked up some jazz from Amazon Prime Music. It is cozy and comfortable, a contented Friday evening.
The creek at twilight tonight…
Tags:Citizen Kane, Claverack, Constantine the Emperor, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, IS, Isis, John Boehner, John Kerry, Lilli St. Cyr, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Obama, Orson Welles, Prince, Robert Murray, Roman Empire, Syria, Ted Cruz
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Claverack, Columbia County, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Politics, Syria, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
April 28, 2016
Twilight has passed and I am curled up with the laptop and a martini, allowing the day to begin to slip away. It was not a bad day at all; quite the contrary. My rambunctious students were less so today after I told them that if they were rambunctious today, I was going to ask them to leave. They knew when they had arrived they had gone a little over the top on Monday and were quite subdued as they arrived, giving me looks to see how annoyed I might be with them.
It was actually a bit amusing.
After office hours, I went to the gym and then to an early dinner at Coyote Flaco, a small Mexican restaurant not far from the cottage. At home, there were lots of things to gather as I am going down to New York City tomorrow for an Odyssey meeting and a dinner at which Odyssey has purchased a table, all in support of a film they have made on “moral injury.”
It is beginning to shape up that I am going for at least a couple of weeks to help my friends who own the Edgartown Bookstore on Martha’s Vineyard. Might be two weeks or a month but will be good for me to do that and I think they need the help in the time before college students start showing up looking for summer jobs so it looks like just before Memorial Day to sometime in June, with a trip down to New York to see my brother and sister-in-law when they are there to celebrate their wedding anniversary in between, I will be on the Vineyard, the place my friend Jeffrey calls “the land of off.”
It was a good day yesterday for Donald Trump, who swept all five races and for Hillary, who triumphed in four of the five.
The Donald said that Hillary was playing “the woman card” and that if she weren’t a woman she wouldn’t be getting five percent of the vote. Like Hillary or not, she does have some pretty good credentials.
The Donald outlined his foreign policy directions today, carrying forward his America First! theme into foreign policy. He criticized Obama for not standing with our allies and then went on to diss them himself. Some thought it rambling and incoherent, others thought it a great step to the middle. What I heard of it sounded like a big muddle.
Ted Cruz has chosen Carly Fiorina as his running mate. Wait, don’t you have to be nominated before you announce your running mate? Or is that just old politics? Regardless, it is not a pretty thought from where I sit. Cruz is as concerning to me as Trump.
It was not a good day for Dennis Hastert, former Speaker of the House, who was sentenced to fifteen months in prison for a bank crime, committed while he was paying off a young man he had sexually abused. Apparently there were five of them who Hastert abused, all distraught, now middle-aged men, with one of them dead. The man he was paying off has now sued for the remainder of the money.
The Saudis, in an overdue awakening, are working to get beyond oil and to diversify so that when, someday, the oil runs out — and it will — they won’t drift back into a medieval state. It will be a hard road to success. The Saudi kingdom is not as open or as business friendly as the United Arab Emirates, who saw the future long ago.
Elon Musk wants to land an unmanned craft on Mars as early as 2018 and I say: go for it!
Salah Abdeslam, the surviving member of the team that perpetrated the Paris attacks last year, is back in Paris. His lawyers have described him as a “little jerk” who is “falling apart” in jail and is ready to cooperate.
The evening is fading. My martini is gone and I am ready for sleep, grateful for the day and the day that is, I hope, coming. Life is an interesting mystery.
Tags:Claverack, Coyote Flaco, Elon Musk, Hudson, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Obama, Salah Abdeslam
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
April 23, 2016
On Thursday, I was sitting at Molly Wee, an Irish Pub a block from Penn Station, having lunch with Mark Sklawer, a filmmaker who is working on a film about the music period in the life of Howard Bloom, who is a client of mine. As we talked, my phone buzzed in my pocket and I took it out to see what was going on.
Both the AP and BBC were sending alerts that Prince had died. It was shocking as Prince wasn’t ill as far as I knew and still relatively young at 57, younger than me. We are both natives of Minneapolis though I had left about the time he was beginning his ascent.
What struck the three of us was that the news hit us as we were talking about Howard, who had been Prince’s PR guru at the time of “Purple Rain.” It was, in fact, Howard who persuaded Warner Bros. to release the film. After a screening, studio executives were terrified of what they had on their hands and some wanted to kill the film.
It was Howard that convinced them that the film was brilliant and would be a hit. And he was right.
The papers on Thursday were filled with paeans to the musical legend, as well they should have been. He helped turn many a corner and, through it all, remained close to Minneapolis, his place of origin. He died at his estate in Chanhassen, MN, a suburb of Minneapolis.
RIP.
It is spring like and the last two days have been singularly beautiful though rain fell Friday evening, the day the Hubble turned 26 years old, sending back glorious pictures of deep space.
Friday, in honor of Earth Day, was a day to go without a car in New York City. It did seem traffic was lighter. I used subways to get about.
The weekend will be full of chores, which I will have to accomplish on my own. “Young Nick,” the young man who helps out every weekend, left today for a week’s vacation. He’ll be back a week from Saturday. After all the years of Saturdays when he has helped me, Saturday doesn’t feel like Saturday without a bit of “Nick time.”
Last Wednesday, in my class, students were talking about cyber bullying and how it leads to suicide. Today, it has been reported that suicide has increased in this country by 24% since 1999. I am sure someone will do a correlation between the rise in suicides and the rise of Social Media.
Barak and Michelle Obama attended on Friday a dinner at Kensington Palace hosted by Princes William and Harry after he had lunched with the Queen, who is celebrating her 90th birthday. She has reigned longer than any other British monarch and is the oldest monarch in history. Good on her!
In popular news, “Live with Kelly and Michael” has been in turmoil. Kelly was informed this past week that Michael Strahan, her co-host, is leaving the show to become a full time co-host on “Good Morning, America.” Feeling blindsided and hurt, Kelly did not appear on Wednesday. She is supposed to be off for a few days to celebrate her 20th wedding anniversary to soap star Mark Consuelos.
However, she has now announced she will return on Tuesday as scheduled and it will be interesting to see how they interact.
Today is a brilliant day, sun out but with a chill wind. Following my Saturday round of the Farmer’s Market, I went to The Red Dot for brunch, where I worked on the final exam for my class, “Media & Society” after finishing my food.
It is a good day; off tonight to dinner with some people I haven’t yet met but with whom I am working on a project for the community radio station, WGXC.
While I write this, the world is still absorbing the death of Prince, that North Korea has apparently fired a ballistic missile from a submarine, that 8 relatives were killed execution style in Ohio, including a woman lying next to a four day old baby and markingß today, the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death at the age of 52.
He wrote 37 plays that will live on and on and on… He wrote about life and no one will tire of that…
Tags:Chanhassen, Claverack, Earth Day, Howard Bloom, Hubble, Hudson, Live with Michael & Kelly, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Minneapolis, North Korea, Obama, Prince, Princes William & Harry, Purple Rain, Queen Elizabeth II, Suicide, The Red Dot, William Shakespeare
Posted in Columbia County, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Music, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Television, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
April 8, 2016
It’s quiet in the cottage; I haven’t decided on what music I might want to hear. For right now, the silence is good.
The snow is almost gone, what was left was melted by yesterday’s sun and today’s rain. When I woke this morning, I was in an awfully good mood for no good reason. Later in the day, with torrential rain falling, I was not in so good a mood. I followed the day into darkness and had to work to be out of it.
Last night I went to The Dot for an original one act play by a local writer. Actually, it is a three act play being played out over three weeks. So last night was really Act One. I’ll be back for Act II next week. And Act III the week after that…
It is a night when it is good to be cozied in the cottage. It is chilling outside though the day was warm, if wet.
While running my errands today, I heard Hillary Clinton talking and she sounded hoarse and exhausted. I felt sorry for her. Bernie Sanders is sounding chipper and he should be — he has won all of the last six contests. Now the focus is on New York State where Hillary and Bernie seem running neck and neck.
It may be a pivot point in the Democratic run for the Presidential nomination. We’ll see.
Ted Cruz is not doing so well here; it appears all New Yorkers, upstate and down, are having more than a little trouble forgiving him his “New York values” statement about Trump. From what I have been reading, his New York stumping is not doing well.
67% of Americans don’t like Donald Trump but that might now be enough to stop him from getting the nomination. Cruz desperately wants Kasich to drop out, something he seems to have no intention of doing. In a brokered convention, he might have a shot.
It is the wildest year in politics I have seen in my lifetime and I am watching it all play out. As a registered independent, I cannot vote in the Primary. I will follow the results avidly.
In the meantime, IS, driven out of Palmyra where they made ruins of the ruins, have kidnapped something like 300 in a suburb of Damascus, factory workers who have now entered a nightmare.
We have the Panama Papers. David Cameron, Prime Minister of the UK, has benefitted from an offshore company set up by him late father but it all seems inconsequential.
Many of Putin’s friends have been named. Putin says this is all a Western conspiracy to weaken Russia. He has not been named and he points that out. What the West is trying for is “guilt by association.” I wonder what future weeks will bring?
It is getting later and there is still no music in the cottage. I am ending for today.
Today reminded me of the wild ride of emotions we all live through on a given day.
Good night.
Tags:Claverack, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, IS, Isis, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Obama, Putin, Red Dot
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, depression, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
March 25, 2016
Darkness has descended on the Hudson Valley; it is pitch black outside though I am heartened everyday by the weather person’s announcement we had three or so more minutes of daylight today than yesterday.
I’ve adjusted the timers on lights to accommodate the increasing daylight. I rejoice as I am sure everyone does.
My dining room table is scattered with recipes from which I will choose the ones being made for Easter. I am getting it organized. I bought upgraded plastic silverware for Sunday. Since I am doing this, I want it to be a little special — or a lot special.
In the morning I will winnow down the recipes and head out to do my shopping. My friend Robert has given me eight dozen eggs from the chickens who live at his house down in Rhinebeck. I had some for lunch. There is nothing like farm fresh eggs!
While I am typing this, Christ Church is celebrating Maundy Thursday and I wasn’t feeling very churchy tonight so I didn’t go.
Probably feeling more churchy than I do, or at least one would hope so, is Radovan Karadzic, the former Serb leader who was convicted today of genocide during the horrific Serbian conflict twenty-one years ago. Eight thousand Muslim men and boys were slaughtered in a town called Srebrenica. Justice finally has been done though it will not bring back those men and boys whose only crime was that they were born Muslim.
At the time, when it was revealed, I felt horror and I feel it today. There was a time when such things happened to Christians; indeed, they are happening today to Christians at the hands of IS. It is things like Srebrenica that make IS feel justified.
It’s been a happy day for me, feeling far from all the world’s troubles, tooling around Columbia County, collecting mail, a couple of meetings with organizations I am volunteering with, a haircut, bumping into people on the street and having a good conversation with them.
While I was doing those fun things, the police in Paris foiled an alleged terror attack in advanced stages. Obama apologized in Argentina for some of our policies and actions during their long and very dirty internal war. I suspect we turned too blind an eye to some things.
Belgium and Europe in general are struggling to balance freedom and safety in the fight against terrorist attacks.
In America, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are exploiting our fears in their campaigns; loudly criticized and, I think, rightly so, by Obama. And I think by Hillary and Bernie, too.
Syrian troops loyal to Assad are in the suburbs of Palmyra in the early stages of reclaiming the city from IS, which has this year lost 21% of the territory it controlled. The monuments destroyed are gone and it will be good if the city can be liberated. It has suffered terribly.
At the same time, Iraqi troops are advancing into Mosul, using lessons from the recapture of Ramadi to help them win back this important Iraqi city. Many of the historical treasures there are gone also, never to be seen again.
I do not live in their mindset and cannot come close to comprehending why it was necessary for them to destroy the heritage of the planet. But they did. It ranks up there with the killings at Srebrenica. Maybe it doesn’t. At Srebrenica those were living beings that were destroyed. At Palmyra and Mosul, it was the artifacts of the past that helped create the world in which we now live.
There are echoes of that world here in the cottage. I have treasured artifacts from the past and things that echo them. Someday, when I am gone, all this will be scattered, some thrown away but in the time they have had with me I have been grateful for their presence.
There is a small collection of masks, a recreation of a bust of Athena from Greece, a painting from India that evokes Alexander, a Renoir re-strike, a wonderful painting from a Provincetown gallery of Alexander.
We need the past to build the future, to connect ourselves from where we were to where we are going.
Tags:Alexander the Great, Assad, Christ Church, Christ Church Episcopal, Claverack, Columbia County, Donald Trump, Easter, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Iraq, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mosul, Obama, Palmyra, Radovan Karadzic, Srebrenica, Syria, Ted Cruz, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Brussels terror attack, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, Elections, Entertainment, European Refugee Crisis, Hudson New York, IS, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Syria, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
March 21, 2016
It is quiet in the cottage; I am savoring the silence.
Today is Palm Sunday, a service I have not attended for a bucket of years. Doing so today, I read a small part in the Easter gospel. It was all faintly reminiscent of my Catholic childhood. The priest, however, was a woman.
After the service, Sally Brodsky and I did a tour of the kitchen and made a pact to touch base on Wednesday as to what we might need for Easter Sunday brunch. I am currently awash in recipes and will have to sort out which ones I will use before Thursday’s shopping.
Following church, I made a trip to Lowe’s for wall plates for the electric switches in my bathroom, freshly repainted by young Nick and his crew. The dark blue and white wallpaper is gone and a fresh coat of green and white glistens in the bathroom. The old vanity is gone and I am searching for a mirror that will fit beneath the new light fixture.
All pleasant diversions from the world with its rat a tat of news, a mixed bag this weekend.
Obama is in Cuba, hoping to nudge that country into being a bit more liberal. His critics say he should have waited until some liberalizations had made their way into Cuban life. As President, you almost never win; your foes will pounce on every move. Certainly that has been true of this president.
Starwood Hotels have entered into an agreement to take over three legacy properties in Havana and modernize them. The deal was made even as a Chinese Insurance Group is bidding to take them over.
Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, has reaffirmed that Merrick Garland will not get a vote on his nomination for the Supreme Court. Senator Mark Kirk, a Republican from Illinois, has said that the Republican Senate should “man up” and give Mr. Garland a vote up or down.
Some Senators are beginning to break with McConnell over the vote, especially in contested states. They’re getting heat from their constituents. In this most unpredictable of years. it will, of course, be interesting to see what transpires.
Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are leading their party’s races to the nomination. Trouble is, no one much likes them. Hillary has a particular problem with white men in 2016, a group more sympathetic to her in 2008.
Fox News, to me almost a mouthpiece for the Republican agenda, has declared that Trump has an unhealthy fixation on their popular anchor, Megyn Kelly. They have defended her loudly and often from Mr. Trump’s “comments.”
Breitbart, a very conservative news source, seems to have thrown Michelle Fields, their reporter, under the bus after she alleged that she had been pushed and shoved by Trump staffer Corey Lewandowski. At first they supported her and then they didn’t and now she has resigned as have at least two other Breitbart staffers.
It makes me think more of Fox. Not much more but more…
President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil is in increasing amounts of hot water over the scandals racking the nationally owned oil company, Petrobras. There is talk of impeachment. Former President Lula has been welcomed into her cabinet, making it harder to for prosecutors to touch him. An attempt is being made to stop the appointment as a move to “pervert” justice.
Protests in the streets, nearly a million people marching. Rousseff is dealing with some tough issues: the Petrobras scandal, zika virus, a severe recession and upcoming Olympic games that may not be ready and, if they are, might take place in unprecedented conditions — some of the aquatic events are to be held in waters claimed to be dangerously polluted.
Ian Duncan Smith, not a household name in the US, but an important politician in the UK, has resigned from Cameron’s cabinet after declaring the Tory budget deeply unfair to the working poor. Some have said the Tories are now engaged in “civil war.” Not what they need as they are approaching a vote on whether Britain should exit the EU, “Brexit” for short.
It is still quiet at the cottage. I am going to wrap up now, contemplating that the market for legal marijuana will be 23 billion dollars within four years.
Tags:Brazil, Breitbart, Brexit, Claverack, David Cameron, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Ian Duncan Smith, Legal marijuana, Lowes, Lula, Mark Kirk, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Megyn Kelly, Michelle Fields, Mitch McConnel, Obama, Petrobas, Rousseff, Sally Brodsky, Starwood Hotels, Zika
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From New York 05 23 2016 Letter From New York Thoughts from the train north from Baltimore…
May 23, 2016It is Monday morning and I am riding an overcrowded train from Baltimore to New York after spending the weekend there visiting friends. At one point I thought I might end up sitting on the floor but found a seat at the very front of the train.
Outside ruined building pass; we are somewhere just north of Philadelphia. Exotic graffiti adorns them while the sun blasts down. Beyond the ruins lie bedraggled row houses that probably will someday be gentrified. What contrasts we have in this country.
Baltimore is in a resurgence, at least near the water, where my friends live. We dined on Saturday night at Peter’s Inn, a wonderfully, quirky little row house restaurant, rough around the edges with handwritten menus, food arriving in the order that the chef has prepared it which is not necessarily the way you ordered it. Good chill martinis and a nice little wine list, friendly people and that wonderful thing called “atmosphere” that has not been scrupulously concocted but which emerges from the quirkiness of the place and people.
It was a time of sitting around and visiting with Lionel and Pierre and my friend Allen Skarsgard, with whom I had some long philosophical conversations over the weekend. We had known each other in the long ago and faraway, reconnecting just enough that we can mark the present without dwelling in our past.
There was, of course, talk of the brutal politics of this election cycle. I don’t remember a question that was asked on MSNBC on Sunday morning but recall the response: it’s 2016, ANYTHING can happen.
So it seems.
As it seems all over the world. A far right candidate is deadlocked with his rival in Austria. If Herbert Norber of the right wins, it will be the first time a far right candidate will have won a European election since the end of Fascism, a warning shot across the bow of the world.
Troubling for Hillary are national polls, of which we have several a day it seems, that have her potentially losing to Trump. They have Bernie beating Trump by 10.8 points.
Predictions are that a “Brexit” from the European Union will spark a year long recession. The drive for a British exit from the European Union is, at least partially, being driven by anti-immigration and nationalistic feelings in the country.
Is this a bit like what the 1930’s felt like?
In the meantime, Emma Watson of “Harry Potter” fame and fortune is playing Belle in a live action version of “Beauty and the Beast.” Somehow that seems comforting to me this morning.
In Syria, IS has claimed the responsibility for killing scores in that poor, broken country in areas considered Assad strongholds. A suicide bomber killed many Army recruits in Aden, Yemen.
And a drone strike killed the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mansour, who opposed peace talks. His death was confirmed by Obama, who will be the first sitting President to visit Hiroshima, struck by the US with an atomic bomb in !945, a move which forced the Japanese to move to surrender. He has been in Viet Nam, where he lifted a fifty year old arms embargo, a move to help counter the rise of China in the South China Sea.
Moves and counter moves, the world is in play. It always has been. It just took longer in other times for the moves to be made and to feel their repercussions. Now it’s almost instantaneous.
Tags:Allen Skarsgard, Austrian Election, Baltimore, Bernie Sanders, Brexit, China, Donald Trump, Herbert Norber, Hillary Clinton, Hiroshima, Lionel White, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mullah Mansour, Obama, Peter's Inn, Pierre Font, Russia, Syria, The Donald, Viet Nam, Yemen
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Elections, Entertainment, European Refugee Crisis, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Political Commentary, Politics, Sanders, Social Commentary, Syria, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »