Claverack Cottage. San Bernardino shootings. Domestic terrorism. Nick Stuart. Newtown. Milwaukee. Milwaukee 53208. Stephen Ambrose. IS. Radical Islam. World War II.
It is six o’clock. The world beyond the cottage is dark after a day of grey and drizzle. I went out only to do a few errands and spent most of the day at home, working on paperwork, prepping some things for my class in January, following up on some things. It felt positive, moving through the endless amount of “paperwork” a life in the 21st century demands, even when most of it is digital.
The world has ticked on since I last wrote two days ago. There was another shooting, in San Bernardino. I thought about writing something on the train coming up from the city but I felt a bit punched in the gut by it all.
They are now working to determine if this was an act of domestic terrorism. It might well have been.
My friend, Nick Stuart, and I met for a martini last night before my train. He arrived ebullient. Just before he came to meet me, it was announced “Newtown,” a film he is Executive Producer of ,was accepted into Sundance. Today he found out he is about to be a grandfather; his oldest daughter Rihannon is going to be having a baby in June. We’ll celebrate more on Tuesday and Wednesday, both days I will be seeing him.
Some had told him that “Newtown” was an old subject and its time had past but given what has been happening it is more relevant than ever. Today I read that there is a mass shooting of some kind on an average of once a day.
So “good on you” Nick, as my Aussie friends would say for having preserved with this project.
Another one, on mass incarceration, which is nearing completion has been requested by the White House for a screening. Who knew that Milwaukee had the highest number of prisoners per capita than any other city in America? It is titled “Milwaukee 53208.”
The room is filled with the sounds of the ticking of a small grandfather’s clock. It has been part of the background sound of my life since I was born. It was on a shelf in the hall just beneath the stairs that went up to my bedroom. Lately, I have been calling it the “heart of the house.”
It makes me feel like I am living in a soft womb of a house, comforted by the sound of a heartbeat. It is part of what makes the cottage special.
I’m also doing laundry, a grounding task if ever there was one.
I’m reading Stephen Ambrose’s history of World War II. It’s a bit drier than I expected but gives a look into the horrors of that war. As awful as it was, it reminded me that America and Canada were probably the only combatant countries that were not ravaged on the home front by the war.
It also has taught me how much the world and our country were changed by that conflict.
I am wondering how our world will be changed by the current conflict in which we find ourselves?
Perhaps I am being a historical romantic but it feels as if we are living through another tipping point in history as we struggle with IS and radical Islam.
If the couple in San Bernardino were, indeed, domestic terrorists we face ongoing “Paris style” attacks and it will be a struggle to avoid mistakes of the past such as the encampment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From New York 12 08 15 Parsing The Donald and other things…
December 8, 2015Big Daddy’s Diner. Manhattan. White Wine Problems. Tibor Rubin. Medal of Honor. George W Bush. Jan Hummel. Donald Trump. The Donald. Michelle Fiore. Nevada Assemblywoman. Venezuela. Maduro. Chavez. U2. Angels of Death. Paris. Bataclan. Stephen Ambrose. New History of World War II. Kindle.
As I am sitting down to write tonight, I am in a booth at Big Daddy’s Diner on 91st and Broadway in Manhattan. Why? Remy, who cleans the apartment in New York, is cleaning and I made an escape. I went to Starbucks where, not surprisingly, there wasn’t a single seat so I came to Big Daddy’s thinking I could use their WiFi. It’s not working so I am perusing the Internet with my phone connection and I am running out of juice on that.
Ah well, these are very much first world problems. One of my friends calls them “white wine problems.”
It’s been a funny day, here in the city. It was grey this morning and while chill, it was above normal in temperature. As it has been for the last six weeks or something.
It seems the human race is experiencing a new neurosis: fear of climate change. There was something about it in the New York Times. If there is something to worry about the human race will turn it into a neurosis.
It is something to be concerned about but I’m not sure that being neurotic is going to help.
In the LA Times there was a heart warming story of Tibor Rubin, who passed away recently. A Hungarian Jewish survivor of the Holocaust he swore that he would join the US Army if he ever made it to America. In 1948, he did. He joined the Army and was sent to Korea where he served with distinction, no, more than distinction. He held off the Chinese for 24 hours by himself and did more.
Three times his fellow soldiers pushed for him to receive the Medal of Honor. Three times an anti-Semitic officer prevented it from moving forward. His fellow soldiers testified that their commanding officer sent Tibor on the most dangerous assignments because he wanted to kill the Jewish soldier.
He finally received the Medal of Honor in 2005, from President George W. Bush. He never spoke badly of the Army or of that officer who tried to get him killed. He remained grateful until the day he died.
My favorite Conservative, Jan Hummel, wrote an email to me that said: He’s an idiot. If there was more it didn’t get through so I emailed back: who’s the idiot?
Donald Trump. Yes, The Donald IS an idiot but he is a popular idiot and that’s frightening.
He has proposed banning the entry of ALL Muslims to the US. Everyone is outraged. Except, perhaps, Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, who takes an even more aggressive stance. She announced she was about to get on a plane to Paris and shoot them herself.
Then she qualified. She would only get on a plane to shoot Syrian terrorists. I’m not sure how she would tell which was which.
Yes, she is Republican.
In Venezuela, President Maduro has been roundly defeated in legislative elections. The opposition has swept to power in the legislature though it is still stuck with Maduro as President, which might limit their effectiveness BUT it is a huge sea change in that country. It is a repudiation of Chavez and his socialist movement.
Interestingly, Maduro has had the television stations playing old Chavez speeches and sports events rather than covering the elections but the people know and have been celebrating in the streets.
Paris, battered on many levels since the November 13th attacks, has seen Angels of Death return with U2 for a concert. Angels of Death were performing at the Bataclan Theater where most of the deaths occurred. U2 had a concert scheduled for the following night, which it postponed.
It is dark here in New York and soon I will return to the apartment and read a book. Last night I finished Stephen Ambrose’s “New History of World War II.” I have many books on my Kindle. I will choose from one of them.
Tags:Angels of Death, Bataclan, Big Daddy's Diner, Donald Trump, George W. Bush, Jan Hummel, Manhattan, Medal of Honor, Michelle Fiore, Stephen Ambrose, The Donald, Tibor Rubin, U2
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