Posts Tagged ‘Politics’

« Older Entries

Letter from the Vineyard

December 31, 2025

Happy New Year

December, 2025

Letter from the Vineyard

December 31, 2025

December is slipping away, the year nearly done. Days will get longer now. The light will come, literally.

Christmas was to have been spent in New Mexico but the morning I was to leave, I got up; my back did not.  I spent days managing an episode of sciatica, a word I remember hearing in my childhood, something old people dealt with.  Well, I am old now; it’s something I’ve navigated a couple of times, first in the summer of 2018 when I woke up, got in the shower, experienced a kind of pain I’ve never know before. Pretty quiet until now, when it erupted and I cancelled Christmas for myself.

While I rested, the Kennedy Center was renamed the Trump – Kennedy Center, something I find offensive but not surprising. There will also be a Trump class of new warships for the Navy. The memes are amazing, several of gold plated warships caused me to guffaw, one named S.S. Bonespurs, which felt a shade dangerous with my back.

Mr. Trump also hosted the Kennedy Honors, which were the lowest rated in their history. Excuse my schadenfreude.

The Supreme Court showed a moment of spine and prevented deployment of troops in Chicago. The Supreme Court has been unprecedented in allowing presidential power to expand. FDR attempted something of the same but didn’t get as far as President Trump. Abraham Lincoln was a master.

Jeffrey Epstein does not go away.  Trump said he had never been on Epstein’s plane though flight records indicate he was, more than a half dozen times, a plane known to some as “The Lolita Express.” Five million more pages to come…

Marjorie Taylor Greene was screamed at by Trump about her activism to release the files.  Why, she asked.  It’s going to hurt my friends, said the president, allegedly.

On Christmas Day, the U.S., in coordination with Nigeria, did precision bombing against IS enclaves in northern provinces, suspected of attacking Christians. The Nigerian government disputes Christians were uniquely targeted, saying IS doesn’t discriminate, attacking both Muslims and Christians.

Israel ranks last among countries in the Anholt Nation Brands Index [who knew there was such a thing?] Surprised?

Gaza is a festering wound. One day, I happened upon pictures of children in the West Bank, looking like Holocaust survivors.

In response, I gave to World Central Kitchen, Jose Andres’ organization for Gaza relief.

Famine is hovering over Palestine, Haiti, Sudan, South Sudan, Mali and Yemen, at least. As the year ends, think of the starving and, if you can, help out.

One of the wars Trump “ended” was between Cambodia and Thailand except it didn’t stay ended.  There’ve been weeks of deadly clashes and bombings.  On Sunday, the 28th, another ceasefire was declared.

While it can seem the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are riding freely across the globe, there are signs of hope.  Nicholas Kristoff has an opinion piece in the December 28th edition of the New York Times in which he tries to cheer us up.  I recommend reading it here.

During the days of being home there was time to ponder.

Politically, I think of myself as a centrist, modestly progressive, concerned about civil rights, grateful to have grown up in the America I did, flawed as it was, it did seem we were mostly all working toward a common, greater good.

Sorry to say, not so sure right now.  However, as friends tip more to despair than hope, I find my hope rising again.

Trump is not invincible.  The rise of fascism is not inevitable.  It will take work and we’re capable of it.  We need to believe in ourselves. I continue to take hope and find hope in the good things I see happening. 

My best high school friend, Tom, works three days a week at a food bank, stretched to the max by need.  This island came together to help our food bank weather the suspension of SNAP.

People go to the streets, make silly, wonderful signs, letters are written, petitions are signed, blogs are written. Write a letter, sign a petition. Partake in a march.

Now in Summerfield, FL to spend New Year’s with my sister, a newer tradition of ours.  Off to see other friends in Florida and on the 10th, will set sail on a Virgin Voyages cruise, 7 days of drifting through the Caribbean, traveling with my longtime friend, Tory, who has also booked a cabin.

Let me leave you with my favorite picture of the year, Edgartown Books in her Christmas finery. I think it sings of hope.

Happy New Year! Let us go forth bravely in these troubled times.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Letter from the Vineyard

December 2, 2025

December 1st, 2025

A Sea Change Coming?

November has come and gone.

My birthday, November 18th, was sun washed, wind less harsh, a perfect day to march into another new year in my life, spent acknowledging the myriad of birthday good wishes, a feast of goodwill kept me smiling the whole day long.

And now Thanksgiving 2025 is in our collective rear view mirror. May yours have been as grand as mine.  I returned to Columbia County in New York for a gathering of the old Thanksgiving gang. Lionel outdid himself.

When I throw my feet to the ground in the morning, defying gravity one more time, there is always wonder, this old, Martha’s Vineyard, a bookstore. During the winter when the crowds are gone, I sometimes feel like that old man sitting on the porch of the general store, a century ago, next to the barrel of apples, people stopping to chat. But my apples are books and I am behind the counter.

My oldest friend, Sarah, fast friends by five when we marched off to kindergarten together, still intwined in each other’s lives, about to Christmas together, phones me regularly.

While neither of our lives are perfect, they are blessed, filled with good things, love, the safety of a home, food on the table, books to read, video to watch, health challenges met.

Neither of us watch the news anymore; it’s just too painful.

In the morning, I scan the papers, read “The Morning” from the NY Times, now helmed by Sam Sifton, his elegant turn of phrase applied to the news of the day.  While missing his food columns, I appreciate his intelligence applied to global events.

What is inescapable is there is so much anguish in this world. Gaza, Sudan, Venezuela, perhaps soon to be invaded by us, the food crisis in this country, highlighted by the government shutdown, Ukraine, Jamaica, the U.S. health care crisis, ICE raids, the list goes on and on…

Where do I turn my attention?

On this island, fixed in the minds of many for wealth and privilege, one in four rely on SNAP to make ends meet. There is a homeless crisis here, a housing crisis. What’s a middle income family to do when the entry price for a home is a million dollars? Doctors cannot afford to live here.

During the government shutdown Trump went to the Supreme Court to prevent reserves from funding SNAP. At the same time, he gave a Gatsby themed party at Mar-a-Lago.

Rather like a fete at Versailles before the Bastille was stormed?

After my last letter, one of the responses I received told me to let it go: Trump won by a landslide.

No, I will not let it go. An electoral victory does not justify bad governance nor condone cruelty.  Masked ICE officers?  My mind boggles.  Citizens and legal residents abused. Appalling. 

Trump’s adventures against “cartels” make some Republicans uncomfortable about his path to justifying them, not to mention the military buildup in the region, the possibility he will order boots on the ground in Venezuela.

Secretary of War Hegseth allegedly told those conducting the first “cartel” raid to kill them all. There was a circling back; the survivors did not survive.

Jeffrey Epstein, he of heinous acts and suspicious death, obsesses us.

Trump could not rally his troops to stop the release of the files, so did a turnabout, encouraged the vote to release.  He could have done it at any time.

With so many investigations in progress around Epstein, the heart of the papers will probably not see the light of day in our lifetime.

Trump could not force an end to the filibuster; even this Republican Senate was not that stupid.

While courts are fighting over the Texas redistricting, some states are not buckling to his redistricting demands.

The president’s chummy Oval Office meeting with New York’s Mayor Elect Mamdani has the MAGA world’s head spinning. Mine, too.

There is a peace proposal floating for Ukraine which seemed to read like Putin’s wish list, may have been identified as such by Secretary of State Rubio. Since then, the Administration’s media spin on Ukraine has been mind-boggling. Who’s on first? Europe scrambles to keep up.

Marjorie Taylor Greene has resigned [after a series of moves which made her seem, what? almost centrist? sane?]. The death threats may have been too much.

The death threats come quickly for anyone challenging the MAGA way.

Her resignation, via viral video, was an indictment of Trump.

Judge Currie ruled Lindsey Halligan unlawfully appointed to prosecute James Comey and Letitia James; therefore, her indictments are invalid.  Judge Currie joins other federal judges who have questioned the Administration’s appointment of loyalists.

Is Trump’s apparent invulnerability cracking? I hope so.

Photo courtesy of Paul Doherty, Martha’s Vineyard

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Letter from the Vineyard

October 30, 2025

October, 2025

Letter from the Vineyard, October 2025

On October 18th, across the country, millions moved onto the streets for a “No Kings” demonstration or, as some Republicans categorized it, a “Hate America,” rally.

Looking at all the reports, it seemed anything but a “Hate America” rally; rather an unabashed love fest for this country and what it stands for, for the things which have made us wonderfully unique.

No mistake, we are at a pivotal point. We have been before.  Pick up Jill Lepore’s “These Truths,” a history of the United States; there have been times we have been at the brink and have come back, better.

There is never a guarantee.  The Athenians lost democracy, the Romans their Republic. But nothing is inevitable and, for the first time since we entered this Project 2025 bad dream, I felt hope.

The protests were delightful, mocking; nothing a movement like Trump’s detests more than being mocked. 

Much of what outrages us is not just Trump; it is the people around Trump.  He’s not smart enough to be pulling all this off.

He is being used by men who understand he has captured the imagination of the disaffected in this country, men like Stephen Miller who is driving immigration policy, like Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, main architect of Project 2025, who, for whatever reasons, seems to have devoted his adult life to creating an executive that surpasses all other parts of the government.

It’s been played before in this country.  We may be besotted by the streaming series “The Gilded Age,” but then there were men trying to do what these men are attempting to do today, create an oligarchy.

They think, because they are rich, they are better, smarter.

I think these men have done amazing things. It does not give them the right to rule.

Musk is marching toward being the world’s first trillionaire, has just launched Grokipedia, an alternative to Wikipedia, which depends entirely upon Grok, Musk’s AI creation for its information. Grok seems to share the biases of Mr. Musk himself. What could go wrong?

The would be oligarchs love the administration of Donald Trump because it is making it easy for them to shape the world to their wants. Stephen Miller wants a white world. Russell Vought apparently wants an Il Duce; one he can control. He seems to be getting it.

We’re in a government shutdown. Kristi Noem, head of Homeland Security, created a video blaming the Democrats for the shutdown.  Well, there just went another norm. 

The stress is beginning to show.  Flights were halted into LAX because of a shortage of air traffic controllers.

And the norms broken keep getting bigger.

We woke up, discovered the East Wing of the White House was no more. How was this possible? How did a part of the White House get destroyed without some oversight, some deep dive into its historical importance, a look at alternatives?

It is true the White House complex needs a space to entertain; tenting is not an ideal solution but was it necessary to destroy one wing of the White House to provide it? 

The SNAP program is running out of money.  The Trump Administration won’t use billions in reserve to support it.

“The Great Big Beautiful Bill” is setting the groundwork for the United States to carry a debt ratio similar to Italy and Greece, countries whose financial crises almost brought down the European Union.  And who thought this was a good idea? Under a Republican president?  Under a Republican Congress? This is happening?

It is.

Speaker Johnson won’t seat a Democratic Congressperson from Arizona, nor will he call Congress back into session.  The administration apparently doesn’t want him to as it gives them some opportunities to consolidate power into the Executive Branch though it’s not Trump thinking this up.  Russell Vought, is that you, calling the shots?

Trump jokes about a third term. Steve Bannon says there is “a plan.” It’s not constitutionally possible but when has the impossible tempered this administration?

We have gone beyond norm breaking, entering uncharted territory.

So, let us go back to where I started:  the protests, the lovely, crazy, wonderful, “No Kings” protests. Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan wrote in “Why Civil Resistance Works” that if 3.5% of a population of a country’s population takes to the streets, political change becomes likely; not guaranteed, but history suggests it will. 

It’s estimated there were 7 million in the streets, that’s 2%.  Next time I will shut the shop and take to the streets. Let’s get out there, change the world.

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Letter from the Vineyard, September 2025

September 23, 2025

Letter from the Vineyard, September 2025

Photo courtesy of Paul Doherty

It is hard for me to believe fall has come, the summer of 2025 in my rear view mirror, the Vineyard’s 2025 “season” now the past, the 50th Anniversary of the release of JAWS over, the 4th of July weekend gone in a nanosecond.  It all felt like it lasted three days.

Also in the rearview mirror is the 24th anniversary of 9/11, a day of reflection and memories that cannot be batted away, ever.  I’ve learned to gentle myself on the anniversary; I always feel raw, a shade wounded. I should feel that way, I think.   

While the “season” was racing on, Stephen Colbert was cancelled, seen by some as a sop to the Trump administration who did not like his constant criticism of the president as Paramount sought a merger with Skydance, a company owned by the son of Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest men, a Trump supporter.

On September 10th, Charlie Kirk, a charismatic 31 year old right wing activist and intimate of the president was assassinated in Utah, allegedly by a 22 year old who had recently become more political active.

Charlie Kirk was mostly, for me, in the background of MAGA natter, whose views were distasteful to me, as he appears to have been homophobic, transphobic, bigoted towards blacks and Jews.

If you want to know what some of those views are you can read about them here, in a Vanity Fair article, which I think may actually have softened them.

Charlie Kirk’s death appears to have given permission to the president to clamp down further on free speech using the levers of government power. “Antifa” has been declared a terrorist organization though it is amoeba like and defies characterization.  I believe in Trump’s mind anyone who disagrees with him is Antifa.

Jimmy Kimmel was paused, post an erroneous remark about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. He returns tonight, though not carried by two large station groups, Nexstar and Sinclair. Sinclair is overtly conservative while Nexstar’s decision seems to be casting it in that light, also.

Charlie Kirk’s assassination is a new low in the political discourse of the country, having followed the assassination this summer of a Minnesota State Legislator and her husband, liberals, whose passing did not make as much noise as Charlie Kirk’s.

What is disturbing to me is the use of this administration of the levers of power to silence voices not agreeing with their point of view.  A prosecutor resigned under Trumpian pressure because he could not find evidence that either Letitia James or James Comey had committed crimes.  Trump wants them prosecuted.

Charlie Kirk’s assassination was evil.  The death of Representative Melissa Hortman of the Minnesota State Legislature and her husband was evil.  The assassination attempt against Donald Trump on the campaign trail was evil. Shooting Gabby Giffords was evil. The constant incidences of school shootings are evil.

Evil needs to be met.  It needs to be faced with the work of healing. Actions to address causes. “Thoughts and prayers” haven’t worked

The unfortunate reality is we’re being led by a president who admitted on Fox News he doesn’t care about bringing the country together.

Trump uses lawsuits to fight things he doesn’t like, suing Rupert Murdoch and The Wall Street Journal for linking him to the notorious Jeffrey Epstein.

He sued the New York Times and Penguin Random House for uncomplimentary reporting in a book written by Times correspondents questioning his business acumen [“Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success”]. It has been thrown out but can be refiled.

Mr. Trump seethes when criticized, preens when feted, as the British government did this week in collaboration with the British monarchy, throwing a party for the ages for our sitting president.  The world has learned pomp, circumstance and flattery may get his attention.

For how long? 

There are so many awful things happening, all at once. Children are dying in war torn Gaza, starving to death.  The U.N. has accused Isreal of genocide, which it denies. For Israel to even be accused of genocide defies imagination; it is a country born from genocide.

159 countries have recognized Palestine as a state, pressuring Israel, which is defiant. The pictures of starving Palestinian children are too much.

They’re starving in Sudan, South Sudan, Haiti, Yemen, Myanmar, Syria and more, acerbated by the loss of funds for U.S.A.I.D. That’s created an opening for China, particularly in Africa, to spread its wings of influence.

The thing most troubling me is I don’t know what to do. It saddens me there is a paucity of great voices decrying these injustices, giving leadership.

People I know no longer post on social media for fear of persecution.  The very writing of this letter may cause me future trouble.

I’m appalled by this.

It is not new to America though it is, in my opinion, worse than any time in my life.

Courage is what we must aspire to in these days when assaults on our republic are rampant. 

On his podcast Verdict with Ted Cruz, the senator likened FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s threats to a “mafioso” shakedown. It is earth shattering to find myself agreeing with Ted Cruz.  It is like a “mafioso” shakedown.

That is how this administration is playing its game.

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Letter from the Vineyard 11.02.24

November 3, 2024

It has been an age since a “letter;” I stopped when it became apparent Trump would be the Republican nominee; to comment on the world meant mentioning him – I couldn’t, toxic to me.

And Biden was failing, faltering, laying open a path to put Trump in the White House. 

Then Biden withdrew, Harris pulled the Democratic Party together in a New York minute; as Sherlock would say, the game was afoot.

My family was Republican, I was Republican, left in the Reagan years, when the seeds of today’s Republican party were sown, the beginning of an unholy, to me, alliance between the GOP and the Christian Right, about votes for the GOP, about abortion for the Christian Right.

For decades it’s gone on, paying off for the Christian Right, thanks to the current Supreme Court.

Two years ago, I registered as a Republican, even if the Republican Party as I knew it no longer existed. Registered, I can fight for it, in small ways.

This is from The Atlantic magazine’s endorsement of Kamala Harris, only its fourth in a history predating Lincoln, who it also endorsed.

“If you’re a conservative who can’t abide Harris’s tax and immigration policies, but who is also offended by the rottenness of the Republican Party, only Trump’s final defeat will allow your party to return to health … We believe that American politics are healthiest when vibrant conservative and liberal parties fight it out on matters of policy.”

This is a fight for country and party.  Trump is not a Republican, having perverted the Republican Party to serve his narcistic needs.

His claim to fame is he is a successful businessman, telling folks he got a small loan from his dad to get started.  Not true.  His father bailed him out over and over.   Read “Lucky Loser,” they have the receipts. 

“The Apprentice” saved him; in need of cash flow, he got it from posing as a successful businessman, over $400 million in desperately needed dollars.  While the show was running he went through two bankruptcies, out of, what, six? Eight?

John Miller, head of marketing for NBC at the time, is on an apology tour for his role in convincing people Trump was a successful businessman.

Does no one see he is deteriorating in front of us, under the glare of klieg lights? Dancing when people have collapsed at one of his rallies, discussing Arnold Palmer’s genitals? Suggesting guns be aimed at Liz Cheney?

The media, which Trump hates, does not hold him accountable as they did Biden. 

What is any Christian thinking, voting for him, a man who has cheated almost everyone who has ever worked for him, refusing to pay what they are owed, who’s cheated on his wives, who’s been ordered to pay compensation to a woman he assaulted?  The judge called it rape.

Roy Cohn, who did Joe McCarthy’s dirty work, denied he was gay even as he died of AIDS, trained Trump to attack, attack, deny, deny.  Cohn was one of the most execrable characters of the 20th century.

Trump is being supported by lots of billionaires, including Elon Musk, who has got to be the most brilliant, looniest character ever. And who seems to have been chatting with Putin regularly.

Trump is offering to help shelter billionaire’s wealth.

We have the greatest income gap since the Gilded Age, when the country tottered between revolution and reform. Teddy Roosevelt’s reforms saved us from oligarchy.

Trump will advance oligarchy. 

The Romans built their empire on the backs of slaves.  The United States has a dirty secret, it’s built on the backs of immigrants.  Our immigration policy has been flawed since there was immigration policy. 

Trump rallied the troops to block immigration reform in Congress because he wanted to campaign on the issue, a plan crafted by Republicans. Biden had caved.

Unless you’re Native American, you’re an immigrant or descended from one. 

But German, Swedish, Italian, Polish immigrants were white.  Many new arrivals have different skin colors, not okay.  We have not resolved our racist past.

Trump promises mass deportations.

Be prepared to pay higher prices on everything.  Milk will skyrocket without immigrants to work the fields.  Farmers will lose their livelihood.

His tariffs?  Inflation will skyrocket because we’ve outsourced nearly everything.

Is he a fascist? Yes. Is he Hitler like? No, more like Mussolini. But behind him, are people not too morally far from Hitler’s men.  Project 2025.

Those folks are ideological descendants of people who have wanted America fascist for over a century, have worked at it, now within a vote of getting it. 

John Kelly, retired general, Trump’s longest serving Chief of Staff, denounced him as fascist.

Other Republicans repudiate Trump.  Pence has, Liz Cheney, her father, former VP Dick Cheney has, Shawn Reilly, Mayor of Waukesha, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Stephanie Grisham, Jimmy McCain, son of John, seventeen members of the Ronald Reagan’s staff, saying Reagan would support Harris, former Senator Jeff Flake; they number in the hundreds.

Especially since his Madison Square Garden rally turned into a racist debacle.

Evil is afoot.  Stop it.  Kamala may not be your ideal candidate though she has hope, is competent, can complete a sentence. Or withhold your vote from Trump. Write yourself in.

Dorothy Thompson, a pioneering journalist, exiled from Germany by the Nazis, wrote:

“No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument – the Incorporated National Will. … When our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American. And nobody will ever say “Heil” to him, nor will they call him “Führer” or “Duce.” But they will greet him with one great big, universal, democratic, sheeplike bleat of “O.K., Chief! Fix it like you wanna, Chief! Oh Kaaaay!”*

I hear the bleating in the streets.

Time for it to stop.

*New York Herald column, February 12, 1937

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Letter From Claverack 09 12 2017 Memories, hard and bittersweet…

September 12, 2017

IMG_2177

Living disjointedly in time, apparently, I woke up thinking yesterday was September 10th and, as I read the morning paper, realized I was out of step with time.  Yesterday was the sixteenth anniversary of 9/11 and I had a deep heaviness fall on me as I listened to a young woman on NPR who had been born after that day and for whom it is an event heard about in history classes, not something she can return to in her mind as so many of us can, particularly if you were in New York City, Washington, or Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

It’s not often I go there in my mind and today, for the first time, I haven’t felt an emotional ouch of the kind I have every other year.  Much of that is that I am monitoring Irma as friends and family are enduring her as she moves up the peninsula.  My sister and brother-in-law are without power but seem okay while I have friends not yet heard from in Jacksonville which is suffering “historic” flooding.

Yesterday was not dissimilar to that day sixteen years ago; bright sun, hardly a cloud in the sky, warm, waking on a day that seemed God had made to put smiles on our faces.

So, it is I ended my day with a moment of silence, thinking on the thousands that died that day and all the many, many thousands more that have died since in the ripple of effects of 9/11.

For perhaps the eighth or ninth time, I re-read the last few pages of “Call Me by Your Name,” a novel by Andre Aciman, a brilliant and, for me, painful read.  It is the story of seventeen-year-old Elio, son of a professor, living on the Italian Riviera who has an affair with Oliver, a twenty-five-year-old graduate assistant to his father.

Andre Aciman’s writing is so exquisite it is hard for anyone who works with words to read because that kind of beauty is so hard to achieve and I know I will never achieve that kind of beauty in my own work.

It was also hard for me to read because during my 17th year I had my own Oliver, though we never consummated our affair.  On a sunny, spectacular Minnesota fall day I walked into my first Spanish class of my freshman year and there was Marvin, my T.A., a man slightly taller than I, exotically handsome.  He looked Latin, as if he walked out of Andean village.

He was from Queens, who had been in the Peace Corps in Chile.  As I came into the room, he greeted me with “Hola, rubio!” “Blonde one” and that is what he called me during the year.  And I am not sure how it was I became friends with Marvin but I did as well as his two closest friends, Maryam and Caroline.

We had dinner together at the old Nankin restaurant in downtown Minneapolis, a palace of Chinese deco and good food.  Marvin and I talked through the night on many nights, wrapping each other in words when we probably wanted to wrap our arms around each other.  Maryam lived in Mexico when she was not in school and was addicted to Coca-Cola and we made a hysterical search for a real coke one winter night, tearing around in my Acapulco Blue Mustang.  Place after place served Pepsi and that was no alternative for a Maryam in need of a fix.

Early on, Caroline and I sat drinking coffee in Coffman Union and she suddenly looked at me and said:  why am I telling all of this to a seventeen-year old?  But we told most things to each other and I loved them all and Marvin most of all.

Not seducing me was his way of loving me.  And I remember the last summer, drinking Cuba Libres and hearing how he was not coming back to work on his Doctorate but leaving for New York to become a rent boy, which shocked the other three of us.

He left one day, leaving me with a sadness that still can be called up in my heart.  Caroline went on to more grad school; Maryam back to Mexico and that magical year slipped into the wake of my days, coming back to bittersweet life as I read the story of Elio and Oliver, remembering a time when I had an Oliver.

 

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in 9/11, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, depression, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Hudson Pride, Iran, IS, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Social Commnentary, Taliban, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Letter From Claverack Friday, September 1, 2017 From the safety of the cottage, tears…

September 3, 2017

Earlier today, I went to pick up the mail at the Post Office and as I was about to turn off the car, an interview started on NPR with Andrew White who, along with hundreds of other volunteer Texans, formed what is known as the “Texas Navy” and went out into the flooded streets of Houston.  With a sixteen-foot boat and a twenty-horsepower motor and the help of friends, he rescued at least a hundred people, including a man with cerebral palsy and a man who was being treated for cancer and was having a bad reaction to his treatment and needed to get to his hospital.  They got him within two blocks of where he needed to go; later the water in the neighborhood of the man with cerebral palsy rose another five feet after the rescue.

Sitting there, tears began flowing down my cheeks.  Andrew White’s story was replicated by others all over Harris County which holds the city of Houston, citizen volunteers taking care of other citizens in need.  It was the story of what is so often wonderful about this country.

Writing about it causing tears to build in my eyes and I am sniffling.

These are the stories, replicated in all kinds of tragedies around this country, that are the reasons we are great.  Oh, we’re miserable S.O.B.’s sometimes but when it comes to disaster, we rise to the challenge in an incredible way and that makes me proud.

From Louisiana came the “Cajun Navy” that formed after Katrina, men and women who knew firsthand what was happening on the ground in Texas and they brought in their bayou boats and lent a hand, calling it “paying it forward.”  Just as Texans had come to help them in Katrina.

Houston is home to thousands of refugees from Katrina, people who have found it hard to believe they are living through this twice in their lives.

J.J. Watt of the Houston Texans has raised over $12 million between practices for the coming season, coming off the field to work the phones.

Watt’s hometown is Pewaukee, WI and semis are traveling from there loaded with food and water and supplies.  He started out with a goal of raising $200,000 and he just kept on going.  Texas billionaire, Michael Dell, has pledged $36 million.

A group of “monster trucks,” organized by a group called Rednecks with Paychecks, is roaming the area, rescuing people and vehicles.

440,000 people have registered for aid from FEMA, as the Mayor of Houston is appealing for an “army” of FEMA officials to help with the claims.

The area that was water covered was larger than the state of Rhode Island.  As the water recedes, it leaves behind contaminated water unfit for human consumption, filled with pathogens.  Shelters, sometimes islands in a sea of water, are running low or out of food and water.

The damaged Arkema chemical plant can no longer cool the dangerous materials stored there and authorities have evacuated everyone within a mile and a half of the facility.  There have been “pops” and plumes of smoke from the plant with no one knowing whether that’s all there is going to be or if it is just the beginning.  “Brock” Long, head of FEMA, called the situation there incredibly dangerous.

Bowling alleys are filled with people; Walmart parking lots have been helipads.

And what is amazing and so wonderful and so DAMN great, is that so much of what is happening is unorganized.  It is just people getting out to help other people.  One man observed that no one was really organizing anything.  People seemed to have an instinct for what needed to be done.

Like the “Texas Navy” and Andrew White, who it turns out is the son of a former Texas governor who passed away last month, and the people in the “Cajun Navy.”

People helping other people in a way that moves me to tears, far away, in the soft safety of my cottage.

Tags:, , , , , , , , ,
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Entertainment, Flood Insurance, Greene County New York, Homelessness, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Letter From Claverack 08 08 2017 Thoughts from a moving train…

August 9, 2017

IMG_2180

As I begin this, I am rolling through the lush green country of eastern Virginia; we will cross shortly into West Virginia and then begin moving leisurely north through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and then to Chicago for I am on Train #29, the Capitol Limited from Washington, DC to Chicago.

The sun is still high in the west, the side of the train on which I am riding, ensconced in a bedroom compartment, about the size of my bathroom at the cottage; very amenities complete.  Dinner is at 6:45 and I am eager to find out who my dining companions will be.  Everyone in the past has been a memorable character and I see no reason why this time should be different.

For reasons that have eluded me, yesterday and today, I have been on the cranky side.  Yesterday was full of errands to be done before I left and every one of them took more time than allotted.  Racing up to Albany, I made a doctor’s appointment exactly on time when I was sure I was going to be late.  There was a delicious moment when I felt I had caught up with my day.

Then I was told I had arrived forty-five minutes too early.  Stunned, I decided to go get a cup of coffee as I had yet to have any.  Returning, there were different receptionists who chided me for being late.  Disbelieving of me telling them I had been on time, I finally convinced them.  The first receptionist had apparently misread the calendar.  Discovering they were all upset because I was to have tests I had not been told I was going to have, I did something very uncharacteristic of me:  I was not a good boy.

Taking the forms, I put them down on the counter and said I was upset and would call them when I returned from my trip.

Today was much better and still, though, a little on the cranky side until I rode out to the train with a woman from Greenville, SC.  She wanted to see a picture of my creek and when I showed it to her, she said:  you’re blessed.

And I am.  How quickly we get caught up in the shoelaces of our lives and forget the bigger picture.  Taking a very deep breath, I have now settled into my compartment and am enjoying the view out my window: trees in the full flush of green, a river and a bridge crossing it with the sound of clacking train wheels.  It is a good moment.

Not so good is the news flash that North Korea, with its pudgy, petulant and unpredictable little dictator has probably miniaturized nuclear warheads to go on top of those ICBMS he has been testing.

Our president has warned him in no uncertain terms that if he uses them he will “face fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

So, we have an unpredictable barely man dictator with nuclear weapons facing an unpredictable aging man boy petulant president who has the nuclear codes to the biggest arsenal on earth.  Could this end badly?

Unfortunately, yes.

If it does, I want to be home. At the cottage, with jazz playing and a good martini in front of me because I will absolutely need it.

There are two very huge egos at play here and no one knows how the China card will play.  Probably, hopefully, pray God it is, this will all be okay.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, even more than my parents did, I knew, as a child, we were in a dangerous place.  We are again and don’t have a John Kennedy and his team,  for all his crazy faults, to pull us out.

We have Donald Trump, with all his crazy faults and few strengths I can find, and a team that seems more like The Three Stooges.

 

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hollywood, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, North Korea, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Letter From Claverack 08 06 2017 Thoughts from Sunday…

August 8, 2017

IMG_2062

It is a quiet night; the creek is crystal clear and a squirrel has just paraded down the deck, padding along, obviously unafraid of me.

This morning I did coffee hour at church, bringing, as I frequently do, too much food though everyone was appreciative and there should be almost enough for coffee hour next week, when I am in Minneapolis.

Returning home, I put the extra food I had in the refrigerator and then returned to have a late lunch with my friends, Larry and Alicia.  Arriving early, I wrote a poem while waiting.

 

Sun and shadow dapple road,

curving toward town where

friends await.

 

A different life now,

slow, time for noticing

the dappled road;

 

for clasping close

all kind of friends.

To stretch my brain a bit, I am working to write a poem a day.  Most days I do, not always, but most days.

Looking up, there is a canopy of green above me and nature is humming around me.  It’s amazing that in the peace of my deck there is so much noise.  Insects and birds, soft sound of water, far off the sound of trucks now and again, traversing the highway almost half a mile away.

It’s been a day when I have not listened to news or read anything until just a bit ago.  There is, you know, only so much one can take.

It is interesting that Vice President Pence is going to great lengths to deny he is making “campaign style” visits to places.  Governor Kasich is, I think.  However, it is not possible to deny that even at this early stage Republicans are beginning to look to take the place of The Donald on the stage he now holds.

The Donald is in New Jersey at one of his golf clubs in a retreat from the White House will three million dollars plus in renovations are being made.  It was just last week that President Trump is reputed to have said the place was “a dump.”

Really, I hope not too much gold is being added.

Venezuela is tottering toward dictatorship and economic collapse which will not be good for gas prices, I keep reading.

Tuesday, I am heading to Minnesota where, to my dismay, a mosque was bombed in Bloomington, the suburb in which my brother lives.  That was not “Minnesota nice.”

The world is a very strange place.  I mean really, really, strange and, you know, this has gone on forever but it just seems like somehow we should have moved beyond  so many of these things and, hopefully, we will in generations to come.

It is there I must place hope.

In this time of my life, I am being as active as I can and, at the same time, treasuring more than I ever have the wonders of my life:  an interesting life now and in my past, a creek that flows quietly by a home I think I imagined once and made reality, good friends, good dinners, times of good conversation, some travel for good reasons, a sense I have been luckier than most in keeping alive friendships from my past and carrying than into my present.

There is a tree along the creek that is always the first harbinger of fall and it is beginning to tell me fall is coming.

I’m not ready for it.  Though I will accept it as one must.

 

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Letter from Claverack June 30th, 2017 Beginning the weekend of the 4th…

July 1, 2017

At some point, I decided this was the year I was going to get over my fear of grilling.  Last night, I grilled a steak using a Bobby Flay recipe.  And asparagus on the grill: c’est magnifique!  Put the spears in a plastic bag with olive oil, salt, pepper, a couple other spices and grilled them for three minutes on high.  I’m hooked.

IMG_2050

So today I went to the market and got boneless pork chops and was going to broil them about half an hour ago but thunder rattled the house and rain fell from the skies.  My mouth turned down.  However, the sun has returned and I am going to try it, pork chops on the grill.

It is Friday, June 30th, as I write, the beginning of the long 4th of July weekend.  As I ran an errand near the train station, I saw visitors piling off the train, bags in hand, being greeted by friends, relatives, lovers and others.  Zagat, today, sent an email which had an article about 8 reasons to take the drive to Hudson; all of them being restaurants.

You can read the article here.

As someone who is here most of the time now, I took a bit of umbrage with the list.  It included Grazin’, a diner restaurant with local beef and I will need to give it another try because when I was there, it wasn’t good and the wine was south of awful.

It included Fish & Game, which is, I’ve heard, a good restaurant and I haven’t been there because it opened with an attitude.  I’ve been around the carousel too many times to need attitude.  [Hey, once I had “my table” at Ma Maison in Los Angeles, which was cool while it lasted.]

It included, deservedly, Swoon Kitchen Bar.  I don’t go there often; my ex left me for one of the waiters there; that has weighed on me ever since but it is great.

It did not include, and I think it should have, my beloved Red Dot, which is one of the hubs of Hudson nor did it include Ca’Mea, which I think should have gotten a mention nor Vico, which has upped its game lately.

We are a food town.

And now, in a break in the rain, I did grill but not the pork chops I bought as most of the recipes for grilling told me I should brine the chops and that takes some time so I grilled some sausage and finished my asparagus.  Oh, so good.

Beyond my little world, it has been a bit mad.

Our President has created a twitter storm over his tweets about Mika Brzezinski’s “bleeding face lift.”

Even Paul Ryan found it too much.

Several news sources, including conservative ones, thought maybe he should have been in a meeting rather than tweeting.  But no, President Trump was tweeting and creating a painful moment for his party.

And, today, NASA had to issue a statement it was not operating a slave state on Mars; it was NOT sending children there to be body parts for future colonists, a claim made by a guest on “The Alex Jones Show,” which airs on 118 radio stations.  Alex Jones is most famous for claiming that the Sandy Hook massacre was staged and was interviewed by Megyn Kelly on her new NBC show, which isn’t doing so well.

As I sit here in my very hygge cottage, I am astounded by what is going on out there.  We have a President who seems devoted to Twitter attacks more than he is about governing and who, according to a variety of reports, starts his day at 6:30 AM speaking to lawyers about that pesky Russian matter.

And he is going to meet with Putin at the G 20 Conference and has been asking his advisors what he can offer Vladimir Putin.  What?

There are times I feel I am living in an alternative universe.  And I know I am not the only one.

So, doesn’t it make sense I want to conquer my fear of grilling?  That’s concrete in a world that seems spinning out of control.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, Hygge, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

« Older Entries