Posts Tagged ‘technology’
August 2, 2017
The last several days, my deck has been my living room, my office and my dining room. It’s here I have spent the daylight hours. As I type now, a storm threatens with distant thunderclaps.
The water in the creek is so clear I can see stones that line its bottom. The day is cooling as I sit here; having been warm and humid.
On August 8th, I am departing Hudson and journeying by train to Minneapolis for a reunion of old friends. Whenever I tell people I am making a trip by train they ask me if I am afraid to fly? No, says the man who, for a time in his life, flew at least a hundred thousand miles a year.
Trains are interesting because there is a sense of a journey when taking them. It’s not a magic carpet ride from place to place [though these days rarely is flying a magic carpet ride]. It is a journey, as you pass places and towns, sit for meals, read, look up and see surprising things and meet surprising people. You have an incredible sense of going from place to place and I love it.
It will give me a chance to think, contemplate, speculate, dream, postulate and hopefully not pontificate.
And then, when I am ready, I will fly home from Minneapolis. My trip is a bit open ended, a reflection of the joys of my life right now.
While the water in the creek is clear, so very little else is clear.We have lived through the extraordinary and extraordinarily short tenure of the foul-mouthed Anthony Scaramucci as White House Communications Director. In that brief time, he missed the birth of his son and was served with divorce papers by his wife.
He texted his congratulations to her on the birth of their son. Might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back…
Seth Rich was a young man working for the DNC. He was murdered. Fox News suggested he was murdered because he had leaked emails from the DNC. A lawsuit has been filed by a Fox contributor that claims Fox colluded with the White House on the story that Mr. Rich was the leaker when he was not.
How convoluted this all is.
Politics has always been a dirty business and it seems dirtier than ever right now. Or, at least in my memory.
As “any father would,” Donald Trump helped craft the statement Donald Trump, Jr. made about his meeting with some Russians, who promised him dirt on Hillary. That’s the story from the White House. Other, less kind versions, have him dictating the statement his son gave.
It’s another JDLR – just doesn’t look right.
After six months, I am worn out.
Really, I am. Every day when I wake up, I wonder what new roil I am going to encounter in the news. There is no shortage of them.
General John Kelly has been named Chief of Staff at the White House. Is there a more painful job in the world right now? I mean, really!? Kelly kicked Scaramucci’s butt out which shows he is exercising control and has demanded the President pay attention.
Good luck with that. Trump’s tweets early this morning goaded his new Chief of Staff about not promoting the stock market heights it has achieved may indicate his attention span lasted the night. It’s not your Chief of Staff’s job, Mr. Trump, to spend his second day in his job telling people how great the market under you is. That, arguably, is for your Communications Director.
Oh, yes, you don’t have one right now, do you, Mr. Trump?
And, as several friends remind me, we will survive Trump.
Thank goodness. At times, I think of the Roman Empire which survived a hundred bad Emperors, carried along by the bureaucracy that supported it. As we will be, by the bureaucracy we have built but we may have lost the dream, I’m afraid.
John F. Kennedy was one of our most flawed presidents and yet he inspired us.
And, while there have been monsters enough in human history, we now have ones with nuclear weapons, like the North Korean dictator who is testing ICMB’s, an acronym whose meaning had almost slipped from my mind since the Cold War.
Yikes!
Every Sunday since January 20th, I have lit a candle for us, the people of the United States, as well as all the other people out there who are living on this crazy planet. And for solutions to the craziness…
Tags:Chief of Staff Kelly, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Fox News, General Kelly, Hudson NY, ICBM, JDLR, John Kelly, Minneapolis, North Korea missiles, Roman Empire, Scaramucci, Seth Rich, technology
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
July 28, 2017
A gray, foggy morning yielded to a fairly sunny, rather cool afternoon; whenever the sun slipped behind a cloud I was tempted to come into the house from my perch on the deck while the cleaning crew spiffed the house.
Now, with cottage clean, I am sitting at the dining room table, sliders open to the deck. Birds are singing and music from the 1940’s is playing on my Echo.
Returning from the Vineyard Tuesday, I made myself a martini, wrote a poem, and found myself purchasing Christmas presents from a site that emails regularly, from which I buy irregularly and, yesterday, had some things I wanted. Saying there were only four available, I pounced. I think they were being clever as the number available never went below four.
Insane for Christmas shopping in July? No. It saves so much stress come November. In January, I saw something I thought would be perfect for my friends, Nick and Lisa, and thought: if not now, when? And, you know, I have been back to that store several times and not seen the item again.
All this, the creek and future Christmas shopping, visiting my friends on Martha’s Vineyard, is very hygge. And I need all the hygge I can get.
Monday or Tuesday I received a scree from a relative who supports Trump that was filled with things that made me flinch, a repudiation of most of the things I think are advancements. Should we go back to the days of a segregated America?
And while I look out at my sun kissed creek, I read that Ventura County, just north of Los Angeles, has published a 252-page pamphlet on how to deal with a North Korean nuclear attack. That was something I needed to read a couple of times. Hawaii is also preparing for such an event and I am holding my head to keep it from exploding.
Somewhere along the line in my now longish life, I read that one of the contributing factors in the fall of Rome was lead poisoning. Romans lined their wine amphorae with lead which leached into the wine they drank and we all know lead poisoning isn’t good.
Sperm count has dropped by 50% in the western world in the last forty years. Gives me pause to wonder what historians will say about the cause. Pesticide poisoning? Another reason?
President Trump addressed the Boy Scout Jamboree this week. What you thought of his speech probably depends on which side of the political spectrum you are on.
Speaking of our President, his relentless attacks on Attorney General Sessions seem to have many Republicans up in arms, particularly in the Senate where Sessions was a member for a lot of years and it’s a tight club.
Republican Senator John McCain, with whom I have often not agreed [particularly in his choice of Sarah Palin as his VP choice], made a speech for bipartisanship after returning from surgery for a brain tumor. If you want to both hear and read what he said, click here. It reminded me of the times I have liked him.
Our president is not going to allow transgender individuals to serve in the Armed Forces. It’s not necessary for me to elucidate the storm that has created, not the least of which happened in the Pentagon, caught off guard by a Twitter announcement of a policy change.
The president made mention of medical costs for transgendered individuals which turns out to be less than what the Army spends on Viagra each year.
The cynic in me feels it was announced to please his base and divert attention from all the White House chaos.
Hello, Anthony Scaramucci!
The world in which I live seems so mad on so many levels that I am grateful I have the ability to sit here and look out at my canopy of green, look down into my creek and see the bottom of it through the clear, clear water, that I can listen to music and celebrate it, that I have had the chance to stare out at Edgartown harbor thanks to the kindness of my friends who invite me to visit them, that, even though I think the world right now more mad than it has been since my adolescence, I have places and moments of refuge.
Tags:Anthony Scaramucci, Brad Pitt, Christmas in July, Claverack, Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Donald Trump, Echo, Edgartown, Fall of Rome, General, Jeff Sessions, John McCain, Martha's Vineyard, North Korea bombing, Obamacare, Sperm Count, technology, Transgender military ban, Trumpcare, Ventura County
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Gay, Gay Liberation, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Hygge, Life, Literature, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
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.
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:Alex Jones, Bleeding Face Lift, Bobby Flay, Ca'Mea, Donald Trump, Fish & Game, G 20, Grazin, Grilling, Hudson NY, Mars, Media, Megyn Kelly, Mike Brzezinki, NASA, Paul Ryan, Politics, Putin, Red Dot, Swood Kitchen Bar, technology, Twitter, Vico, Zagat
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 »
June 1, 2017
Thunderstorms pummeled the Hudson Valley last night. This morning is as sweet a morning as one might wish.
The sky is a color of blue for which I cannot find a word; sweet, clear, refreshed from the rain. The sharp green of the trees outside my window almost glow in the sunlight cascading down in an almost magic morning. It is not hard to imagine that across the creek woodland nymphs are gambling in delight.
A big mug of strong coffee is at my side and jazz is playing, upbeat and uplifting.
A letter has been fermenting in my mind the last few days, ever since a couple of my friends who are supporters of Donald Trump questioned me on why he has had such a vitriolic reception as President?
I found myself surprised by the question.
It surprised me they did not understand; didn’t see what I see and I need to remember we are all individuals who are interpreting current events in different ways.
We have a President who didn’t win the majority vote and is still the President of the country, an event that has happened twice in this century, brief as it has been, and that has made a lot of people angry, uncomfortable and questioning our Founding Fathers’ wisdom in setting up the Electoral College.
We have a President that doesn’t seem to know the truth. We like our Presidents to at least sound like they’re telling the truth.
We don’t like them saying things that are verifiably not true, things that are conflations of their own imaginations. People notice things like that. It does not breed respect.
His Inauguration speech depicted an America which inspired despair, not hope. His picks for almost every office inspires deep concern for many people. Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA? Rick Perry as Secretary of the Department of Energy, the department he couldn’t remember in a debate that he wanted eliminated. Sort of a come down from people like the Ph.D.’s who were running it before.
NOTHING this President has done is very Presidential.
In his European trip, he may have handed the mantle of the leader of the Free World to Angela Merkel.
He is picking a trade fight with Germany but not addressing the real issues and potentially hurting workers in the South, where German car companies have been manufacturing. People who elected him may be the victims of this fight.
If he repudiates the Paris Climate Accords, he will link us with Syria and Nicaragua as the only countries not agreeing and will be doing another thing that will cede leadership to China, which remains steadfast in its support. And is capitalizing on it. China’s Premier is in Europe right now, cozying up to Merkel.
If we are disrespectful, it is because this man has given us so little to respect – from my point of view and that is not the point of view of everyone. I acknowledge that.
My family was Republican. The first President I remember is Dwight Eisenhower. Wow. Dwight Eisenhower then. Donald Trump now. Is it any wonder I shiver at night?
Weeks ago, I texted one of the smartest people I know, an Independent, who has voted both for Republicans and Democrats, not married to a party. I asked him what he thought of Trump. There was no response, until this weekend.
He said: I used to think Trump was just a jackass but he seems to be a jackass and an idiot.
Our White House is occupied by someone who seems a jackass and an idiot who is being unfaithful to the people who elected him. Everything he has proposed is supportive of his class and destructive to the people who elected him.
He is bringing the Billionaire’s Boy’s Club to the White House. He’s not cleaning out the swamp. He’s enlarging it.
Bucking a long-standing tradition, he hasn’t, still, released his tax returns. His aides have “forgotten” meetings with Russian officials during the campaign. His sons have contradicted him in terms of his financial relations with Russia. There are all kinds of dangling Russian connections that are, at best, unseemly, and, at worst, criminal and maybe treasonous.
So, I shiver at night and tremble when he speaks.
This is all, of course, my humble opinion.
And thus, I do things that are very hygge to comfort my soul, make me feel at one with the universe, and give me a smile, such as enjoying and savoring the view out my window, like enjoying this cat on display on Main Street in Catskill, where I was doing some errands yesterday.
Or enjoying this reflection by Thomas Pesquet, a French astronaut, as he readies himself for his return to earth. See it here.
Tags:Angela Merkel, Billionaire's Boy's Club, Brad Pitt, Department of Energy, Donald Trump, Dwight Eisenhower, Electoral College, EPA, Hudson Valley, Hygge, life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matt Tombers, Paris Climate Accord, Rick Perry, Scott Pruitt, technology, the swamp, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
May 7, 2017
“It was a dark and stormy night,” is the much-parodied opening line of Bulwer-Lytton’s novel, “Paul Clifford.” But it was a dark and stormy night Friday night in Columbia County; wind whipped, too. Around 4 in the afternoon, the wind blew out the power as I was running errands to prep for a dinner party I was giving that evening.
Knowing that National Grid might not meet their expectation that power would return by 5:30, I made a quick detour and bought a dozen candles. It was a wise investment; power only returned at about four on Saturday. There were a half dozen of us, who dined, bathed by candlelight, looking our best. In her later years, Madame du Pompadour only allowed herself to be seen by candlelight. She was wise.
Martinis were ready in a pitcher and we toasted our decision not to cancel dinner. We managed to not discuss politics [an increasingly difficult thing to avoid]; we laughed and since there was no background music, it was the sound of our voices which danced through the night. It seemed as if we were in the first half of the 19th century or doing glamourous glamping in our own time.
We made the evening work. It was magic.
When I woke Saturday, a tree from the opposite bank had fallen into the creek and the morning air thrummed with the sounds of neighbors’ generators as there was no power. Out of habit, I asked Alexa for the weather and was met by stony silence. We were cut off. From each other.
Eventually, I did my morning errands. The Post Office lot was crowded with folks discussing what they had suffered during the night and driving into town, one home had lost five trees. Farther down, a great old pine had been uprooted, never to again be adorned by Christmas lights.
The Farmer’s Market was sparsely populated by vendors, most probably at home dealing with the storm’s effects. I realized there was little I could buy as it might all go bad before power returned. National Grid was estimating now that it would be about midnight on Saturday.
In an interesting way today, when I was at the Post Office, looking around at the klatches of men talking, and it was all men, I felt I was looking at a scene in “Midsomer Murders,” a British mystery series that started in 1997 and is still going. The village was gathering at the Post Office to talk about the storm.
It made me feel like I was a part of a community. A little like the community Jessica Fletcher had in “Murder, She Wrote.” Except we’re not in Maine and we don’t have as much death as Jessica encountered in her little town in Maine.
With my batteries now exhausted on all my toys, I ensconced myself at the far end of the bar at the Red Dot, close to an outlet, and charged my laptop and phone. And had superb Eggs Benedict on potato latkes with a side of American bacon. Totally, totally decadent. If in Hudson on a weekend day, indulge yourself. The Red Dot’s Mark makes the most succulent Eggs Benedict this side of paradise and, at this point in life, I have had a bunch. And when I am on the other side, I want to know I can order his up whenever I want. Please God.
Do you notice how I am avoiding anything substantive?
Sometimes you just have to do that. Give yourself a little breathing space in all the craziness.
Because it is crazy out there.
It is just unbelievable to me. Whenever I look at the news, I just go: WTF.
So, I have taken a moment to not worry. To celebrate my life and the joys I experience on a daily basis, knowing I must return to the dialogue soon.
Tags:Bulwer-Lytton, Claverack Creek, Claverack Post Office, Friends, General, Hygge, It was a dark and stormy night, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matt Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Party, Politics, Prayer, technology
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, Hygge, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
May 4, 2017
Well, the time is nigh. Today Republicans voted, successfully, on “Repeal and Replace,” hoping to end the Affordable Care Act with their own American Health Care Act. “Obamacare,” long despised by Republicans, may be gone and they will have had their way and many of them will be holding their breath that it does not go badly wrong because if it does, the piper will need to be paid.
We will find out if, as President Trump says, pre-existing conditions will be covered or as Democrats are saying, they will not. If they are covered, it does seem coverage will be much more expensive.
Not a fan of Jimmy Kimmel, I was profoundly moved by his discussion of his newborn son’s heart surgery. If you haven’t seen it, you need to watch it. It is from the heart. [Yes, pun intended.] Please look here.
As I ponder this, I am, not surprisingly, listening to jazz, being all hygge at the cottage, sitting in my favorite corner on the couch, starting preparations for a Friday night dinner party. Have I mentioned I tend to look at the Food Section of the New York Times before I read the news? First thing, comfort and coffee, and then I hit the hard stuff.
Yesterday marked the month anniversary of my once a week radio program. My first guest was Jeff Cole, CEO of the Center for the Digital Future at the Annenberg School of Communications, part of USC. We talked futures. How we are changing and being changed by technology.
His great concern, and I share it, is how we will, as individuals and society, adapt to the coming advent of AI, artificial intelligence, which is already shaping our lives. Last night, as I was heading to bed, I paused and asked Alexa to set two alarms for me and they went off flawlessly, a soft chirping sound in the dark which could be eliminated by a command: Alexa! Snooze! And she snoozes.
I am experimenting with Siri, changing her responses from American English to British English. All fun and games until we get to the moment when the machines decide we are superfluous. Think the Terminator movies or the Hyperion novels which, to me, are more likely than the Terminator scenario. [In some respects, particularly Book One.]
Since I was very young, I’ve been a space enthusiast. Stephen Hawking, the phenomenon of a physicist, has warned us we have about a hundred years to get off the planet.
We could do it if we put all our energies to it but I don’t think jihadists are going to put down their guns to get us into space.
Outside, there are soft sounds and the trees are blooming. In the morning when I wake, I thank God that I get to look out at the creek and am here, in Claverack, a place that centers my soul as no other place ever has. When I look out, I am sometimes nostalgic for the time fifteen years ago when the geese formed a flotilla on my waters. They are mostly gone now.
It sometimes reminds me of an episode of “Star Trek: Next Generation” in which Jean Luc’s brain is infused with the memories of a dead civilization and one of the signs of their passing was the drying up of a creek. Occasionally, I stand on the deck and think: if the creek is gone, so are we.
However, today the creek still flows.
Generally, I am not fond of George Will, the conservative writer. Today, I read an article of his that encapsulates my ongoing sense of unreality. Read it here.
Encased in the safety of the cottage, I am doing my best to live in hope because we must live in hope. Hope is what has driven the race forward; it is what has brought millions of immigrants to our shore, who have shaped the country in which we live. My great-grandparents, on my father’s side, were among them as were my grandparents on my mother’s side. They came to the United States, buoyed by a sense of chance, of opportunity.
It’s hard for me to think that could change.
Tags:ACA, Affordable Care Act, Alexa, Annenberg School of Communications, Artificial Intelligence, Center for the Digital Future, Echo, General, Jeff Cole, Jimmy Kimmel, Obamacare, President Trump, Stephen Hawking, technology, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
April 21, 2017
Apple blossoms dressed the trees in the orchards as I drove along 9H earlier today, the first, best sign of spring I’ve seen though, once having noticed them, I was aware that small buds of green were appearing on other trees. The ones outside my windows don’t seem to be sporting them and I’m sure they will come eventually, which is how this spring has seemed – eventually we will get there – just not yet.
It has been a quiet sort of day. Earlier I spent some time at OMI, an art center near me that I have known about but had not visited and that was my loss. The two-hundred-acre campus is dotted with sculptures, the main building with art exhibits. Today quite beautiful children were painting, running around in young life’s exuberance, bringing smiles to all the adults. I offered up a thought for good lives for them; the future does feel cloudy right now.
It’s not just that this is a gray day. Generally, I am an upbeat sort of person [or at least I think of myself as that] and today I’ve not been. The state of the world has been weighing on me, both close to home and far from here.
Close to home, I am burdened because a friend sent me suicidal texts and I was incredibly concerned and finally asked the police to do a “welfare check.” They did. He then texted me he wanted nothing more to do with me. Truthfully, I did the right thing and, at this moment, it hasn’t turned out well. For me and, I expect, not for him as he is in deep trouble and won’t admit it.
Candles to be lit; prayers to be said and to continue, as best we can.
Paris is continuing as best it can after a policeman was shot yesterday and two badly wounded by a terrorist who was killed as he was fleeing. IS claims responsibility and France is having elections on Sunday. The far-right candidate, Marie Le Pen, is threatening to remove France from the EU so that it can control its own borders.
She has a chance of winning.
The far right is making its might felt all over the place.
And that is so worrying to me.
For a brief, shining moment in my life it seemed we might actually be headed toward a global society and it has not happened. It was around the time the Berlin Wall went down, a moment I will forever remember. Driving down Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles, headed west, my bestest friend, Tory Abel, called me on my car phone and said: do you know what’s going on? As I was listening to classical music, I didn’t. The wall was falling.
There are all kinds of suppositions about why that magic moment did not result in a better world.
Right now, I am reading a book about “the weekend” in British homes in the 1930’s and one of the revelatory bits was about a British Lord who became a Muslim because he saw Islam as the bulwark against women getting the vote and having shorter skirts and working.
He would probably have a lot in common with IS.
Change is hard. And changing centuries of tradition is hard and people will fight it. IS is fighting it.
When all of this works itself out, I won’t be here. It will take more than a lifetime.
And that is history in the making. It takes lifetimes to work itself out.
If you are not aware of it, Chechnya is conducting a campaign against gays. It is putting us in camps, not unlike the Nazis; there are tales of torture and death. Can this be happening in the 21st Century? Apparently so. The reports are horrific.
The President of Chechnya has declared he will eliminate the gay community by the beginning of Ramadan on May 26th.
Putin has declared there is no evidence this is happening and that is Putin’s view of the world: no horrible thing is happening. There is no sarin gas is Syria, there is no campaign against gays in Chechnya, there is no fill in the blank.
Tags:Chechnya, Chechnya campaign against gays, Far right, Los Angeles, Marie Le Pen, Nazis, OMI, Paris, Putin, Syria, technology, Tory Abel
Posted in 2016 Election, Brexit, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, European Refugee Crisis, Gay, Gay Liberation, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, IS, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Paris Attacks, Paris Killings, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
April 4, 2017
It is dusk on the day that seemed to say: Spring is here, for real. Walking around today as I did errands, I was jacketless and soon, I thought, I will be wearing shorts. All day today, I felt a letter happening in me.
It is an interesting time for me. My work for the Miller Center for the Presidency is on pause while they work out budgets for the coming year. It maybe I will be part of it and it may be that I will not. To be decided.
The guest bathroom is being repainted and today I went and picked up the new medicine chest and lighting at Lowe’s. The inside of the car was vacuumed and the winter’s gunk washed mostly away. It needs a good detailing which will happen soon now that I have found a place in Greenport.
This time of day is brilliant. Outside it is pearl grey, inside jazz plays and a martini is sipped. The creek floodlights are on and it is all good and hygge.
Just finished watching my friend Medora Heilbron’s vlog about matzo place cards for Passover! It was a treat, watch here.
All this is very comforting on a day when the Los Angeles Times published a scathing review of the first days of Trump’s presidency. You can read it here. It is the kind of editorial about a President that hasn’t been seen since the 1970’s. Yes, since Nixon.
At 4:31 AM our President tweeted about whether Hillary had apologized for having been giving questions prior to one of the town halls. Yes, that was wrong. It’s over, Mr. Trump. You are now the President. You won. Move on, please. Please.
Are you capable of moving on?
Not moving on will be the people killed in a Metro explosion in St. Petersburg, Russia. A bomb went off on a train, killing, at last count, eleven, and injuring dozens. St. Petersburg is on my bucket list. Over the years, I’ve read a lot about the city and feel a connection to it. I will hold a thought and prayer in my heart for them tonight.
And for all the people who are facing starvation in Yemen and South Sudan and…
For all of them, I lit candles this week at church. As well as young Nick, who continues struggling.
The web of Trump’s Russian connections keeps getting murkier with Erik Prince, a Trump supporter and founder of the infamous Blackwater Group, apparently having a meeting in January, days before the inauguration, with Russian contacts in the Seychelles. Now this was reported by the Washington Post, a liberal newspaper but a credible one.
Along with every thinking person, I am finding this fascinating. What is going on rivals, or equals, the Nixon years. And Nixon was six years into his presidency when Watergate bit him in the you know where.
We’re not much more than seventy days into this presidency and the storm is not going to abate.
John McCain, whom I did not vote for nor would have considered voting for considering his choice for Vice President, but for whom I have respect, has been saying things like this is the most concerned he’s ever been about the state of our democracy.
And I agree. With Nixon, one had a sense the system was working. Right now, I am not sure the system is working. And that scares the hell out of me.
Tags:Blackwater Group, Donald Trump, Erik Prince, Greenport, Hillary Clinton, Hygge, John McCain, Los Angeles Time editorial, Medora Heilbron, Miller Center, Nick Dier, Nixon, Seychelles, South Sudan, St. Petersburg, technology, theaters, Trump, Watergate, Yemen
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
March 28, 2017
It is nearing sunset; I am riding north after a day in the city, on the 5:47 out of New York Penn. Todd, one of our most venerable conductors, is conducting a game of trivia in which all of us who ride in the café car are participating. It is lovingly raucous. Some are answering the question before Todd finishes asking the question.
The commute, I don’t miss. The people I do. There is a mixture tonight of old regulars and new regulars. Annette, of Rhinebeck, is screaming answers and folks are singing the songs which are the answers to some of the questions. It is a moment wrapped in warmth.
The sun slips beneath the Catskills in a glow of burnt orange. With Trivia Time now over, we have slipped back to reading, working, with more than a few yawns stretching faces wide.
As in every day there seems to be a necessary amount of political conversations. Our google groups email list for the Empire Regulars, got slightly sidetracked into politics today until Maria, our estimable moderator, stepped in and held up the stop sign. As always, when Maria decrees, the Regulars accede.
While I am far from politically indifferent, the cascade of commentary is wearing. This is going to be a long, long haul and we must husband our strength over time and be laser focused.
Just before I boarded the train, Andrew Mer, a fellow consultant and I had a brief meeting while we discussed the Miller Center a bit and some other things. He said something I thought wise. Trump’s election has laid bare the fissures in our society we have papered over.
And Mr. Trump is helping underscore the fissures.
The attempt to repeal and replace has gone down in flames and there is even a tentative reaching out to Democrats to see what actually be done as the Freedom Caucus is intransient.
California farmers, enthusiastic supporters of Trump, are nonplussed at his immigration intentions. One said: I thought Trump was kidding. He is now anxious because his farm in California runs because of illegal immigrants.
The agony of Rockford, Illinois and other rust belt cities is now at the surface and the failure to deal with that, under both Democrats and Republicans, is a national shame, building for generations. We did not retrain people for other jobs to replace the ones not returning.
And the jobs are not returning until we look at and adapt to the revolution technology is shoving down our throats and figure out what else we can do.
The industrial revolution is coming to an end; whatever history calls this one, we need to find a new way.
The coal jobs in West Virginia probably aren’t coming back. Machines are mining what men once did. Driverless cars will toss aside the long-distance drivers, once a way to climb an economic rung. Not today, not tomorrow but someday, in a future we can almost touch, those jobs will disappear and we are not moving to educate all those people for something different.
The Trump Revolution is not dissimilar to what happened as the Industrial Revolution began the change. People rioted. Today they voted. If we don’t address the systemic issues, the next step will be riots.
The hopeful part is we somehow weathered the arrival of the Industrial Revolution and accomplished incredible things. In the last hundred years, for those in the west, our life spans have doubled, we are more educated, our lives are quite fantastic compared to that of our grandparents. There are friends of mine who are alive because of what has been achieved.
And we need to focus on the fact we are in a revolutionary period. Trump isn’t looking there nor was Hillary Clinton. Our politicians on both sides are facing the past, not the future.
The brilliance of Kennedy was he painted a picture of what could be, not what was.
We have raised the lid on the septic tank and need to clean it now.
What we are achieving technologically in this time has the promise of catapulting us to another level and very few seem to realize it and fewer still imagine how to use it for the common good.
Tags:Andrew Mer, Catskills, Donald Trump, Driverless cars, Industrial Revolution, JFK, John Kennedy, Miller Center, Paul Ryan, Repeal and Replace, Rhinebeck, technology, West Virginia
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Hudson New York, Income Inequality, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
March 3, 2017
It has been about ten days since I’ve written; I just went back and looked. Last time, I was on Saba, writing when I wasn’t able to sleep. Tonight, I am back at my dining room table, floodlights on, looking out over the creek, having just returned from Coyote Flaco with Pierre, sharing chicken fajitas.
When I reached the cottage this afternoon, I felt I’d been away for a week, at least. Monday morning, I went down to DC for some meetings for the Miller Center on the Presidency and then to New York last night to have a wonderful dinner with my friends, David and Annette Fox. It’s a quarterly event; we gather at their marvelous UWS apartment, order Indian and catch up on our lives.
It is very hygge. As was the dinner party I gave last Friday night for Fayal Greene, her husband, David, Ginna and Don Moore, Lionel and Pierre. Leek soup, sautéed scallops in a brown butter sauce, and carrots in a lemony oil garlic sauce, with a baked polenta to die for, followed by a flourless chocolate cake provided by Ginna and Don, via David the baker.
It was an extraordinary evening.
And I, at least, need evenings like this to keep me sane in these extraordinary times.
On Tuesday evening, in Washington, after an early dinner with my friends Matthew and Anne, which followed drinks with my ex-partner and his now fiancé, I watched the address to Congress by our President, Donald Trump.
To the great relief of almost the entire world, he did not go off the rails and sounded presidential. It was, Tuesday night, all about the delivery. Wednesday morning people started to parse what he said. Even the conservative writers that I read, and I do read some, found a lot of flaws with the speech.
Short on specifics.
Fact checkers found a lot of fault, pointing out Trump claimed as victories some things which had been in play for a year at some corporations. Ford isn’t keeping production in the US because of Trump; they are pulling back on their Mexican plans because those plants would have built small cars and people aren’t buying them. They’re buying gas guzzlers because gas is cheapish again.
When talking with David and Annette, I said that if Trump had not held it together last night, his presidency would have begun to unravel. He would actually be President but, in reality, his claim to power would have begun collapsing. Lots of people on his side of the aisle are slightly unhinged by his behavior. McCain and Graham are frankly, I think, apoplectic.
And he held it together and while he should have been able to take a victory lap, Wednesday morning brought the revelation that Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had said in confirmation meetings he had not met with any Russians in the run-up to the election, actually had two meetings with the Russian Ambassador, one in his office on Capitol Hill.
Republicans are excusing while Democrats and some Republicans are accusing.
This is a wild ride and I’ve never seen anything like it.
Sessions has since recused himself from all investigations regarding anything Russian but there are those on both sides of the aisle who smell blood in the water.
While we were having political meltdowns, Amazon’s vaulted cloud computing world went offline yesterday for 4 hours and 17 minutes because of a typo in a command. OOPS.
It’s a little scary. 150,000 websites were affected. Amazon is the king of cloud storage and that’s a big oops for the King. I would not have wanted to be the head of that division yesterday.
And, before Tuesday’s Trump speech, we had the foll der wall of the biggest Oscar mistake in history. First “La La Land” was announced as Best Picture but it really was “Moonlight.” Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were humiliated and PwC, the accountants, were more than humiliated. They handed out a wrong envelope.
OOPS.
When it happened, I was safely in the arms of Morpheus, having strange dreams of Mike Bloomberg dating the pastor of my church, Mother Eileen.
Snap Inc. had a very successful opening on the market today; it was the biggest initial offering since Facebook and they have a rocky road to travel and they are a force to be reckoned with and it will be wonderful to see how it plays out. The next Facebook? Or the next troubled tech company, which is where Twitter is today.
It’s time for me to say goodnight.
By hygge. Regardless of your political persuasion, it will help us all get through.
Tags:Apple, celebrities, Christian, computers, Current Events, General, Google, GOP, Home, Hubble Telescope, Iraq, Islam, Istanbul, life, Mars, Media, NASA, Netflix, newspapers, Politics, reconciliation, Soho, Star Wars, technology, Terrorism, Texas, Wireless, Yahoo
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, depression, Education, Elections, Entertainment, European Refugee Crisis, Gay, Gay Liberation, Great Recession, Greek Debt Crisis, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Homelessness, Howard Bloom, Hudson New York, Income Inequality, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Space Exploration, St. Paul's Cathedral, Syria, Taliban, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter from Claverack 08 02 2017 Worn down but not out…
August 2, 2017The last several days, my deck has been my living room, my office and my dining room. It’s here I have spent the daylight hours. As I type now, a storm threatens with distant thunderclaps.
The water in the creek is so clear I can see stones that line its bottom. The day is cooling as I sit here; having been warm and humid.
On August 8th, I am departing Hudson and journeying by train to Minneapolis for a reunion of old friends. Whenever I tell people I am making a trip by train they ask me if I am afraid to fly? No, says the man who, for a time in his life, flew at least a hundred thousand miles a year.
Trains are interesting because there is a sense of a journey when taking them. It’s not a magic carpet ride from place to place [though these days rarely is flying a magic carpet ride]. It is a journey, as you pass places and towns, sit for meals, read, look up and see surprising things and meet surprising people. You have an incredible sense of going from place to place and I love it.
It will give me a chance to think, contemplate, speculate, dream, postulate and hopefully not pontificate.
And then, when I am ready, I will fly home from Minneapolis. My trip is a bit open ended, a reflection of the joys of my life right now.
While the water in the creek is clear, so very little else is clear.We have lived through the extraordinary and extraordinarily short tenure of the foul-mouthed Anthony Scaramucci as White House Communications Director. In that brief time, he missed the birth of his son and was served with divorce papers by his wife.
He texted his congratulations to her on the birth of their son. Might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back…
Seth Rich was a young man working for the DNC. He was murdered. Fox News suggested he was murdered because he had leaked emails from the DNC. A lawsuit has been filed by a Fox contributor that claims Fox colluded with the White House on the story that Mr. Rich was the leaker when he was not.
How convoluted this all is.
Politics has always been a dirty business and it seems dirtier than ever right now. Or, at least in my memory.
As “any father would,” Donald Trump helped craft the statement Donald Trump, Jr. made about his meeting with some Russians, who promised him dirt on Hillary. That’s the story from the White House. Other, less kind versions, have him dictating the statement his son gave.
It’s another JDLR – just doesn’t look right.
After six months, I am worn out.
Really, I am. Every day when I wake up, I wonder what new roil I am going to encounter in the news. There is no shortage of them.
General John Kelly has been named Chief of Staff at the White House. Is there a more painful job in the world right now? I mean, really!? Kelly kicked Scaramucci’s butt out which shows he is exercising control and has demanded the President pay attention.
Good luck with that. Trump’s tweets early this morning goaded his new Chief of Staff about not promoting the stock market heights it has achieved may indicate his attention span lasted the night. It’s not your Chief of Staff’s job, Mr. Trump, to spend his second day in his job telling people how great the market under you is. That, arguably, is for your Communications Director.
Oh, yes, you don’t have one right now, do you, Mr. Trump?
And, as several friends remind me, we will survive Trump.
Thank goodness. At times, I think of the Roman Empire which survived a hundred bad Emperors, carried along by the bureaucracy that supported it. As we will be, by the bureaucracy we have built but we may have lost the dream, I’m afraid.
John F. Kennedy was one of our most flawed presidents and yet he inspired us.
And, while there have been monsters enough in human history, we now have ones with nuclear weapons, like the North Korean dictator who is testing ICMB’s, an acronym whose meaning had almost slipped from my mind since the Cold War.
Yikes!
Every Sunday since January 20th, I have lit a candle for us, the people of the United States, as well as all the other people out there who are living on this crazy planet. And for solutions to the craziness…
Tags:Chief of Staff Kelly, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Fox News, General Kelly, Hudson NY, ICBM, JDLR, John Kelly, Minneapolis, North Korea missiles, Roman Empire, Scaramucci, Seth Rich, technology
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »