Posts Tagged ‘The Donald’
May 23, 2016
It is Monday morning and I am riding an overcrowded train from Baltimore to New York after spending the weekend there visiting friends. At one point I thought I might end up sitting on the floor but found a seat at the very front of the train.
Outside ruined building pass; we are somewhere just north of Philadelphia. Exotic graffiti adorns them while the sun blasts down. Beyond the ruins lie bedraggled row houses that probably will someday be gentrified. What contrasts we have in this country.
Baltimore is in a resurgence, at least near the water, where my friends live. We dined on Saturday night at Peter’s Inn, a wonderfully, quirky little row house restaurant, rough around the edges with handwritten menus, food arriving in the order that the chef has prepared it which is not necessarily the way you ordered it. Good chill martinis and a nice little wine list, friendly people and that wonderful thing called “atmosphere” that has not been scrupulously concocted but which emerges from the quirkiness of the place and people.
It was a time of sitting around and visiting with Lionel and Pierre and my friend Allen Skarsgard, with whom I had some long philosophical conversations over the weekend. We had known each other in the long ago and faraway, reconnecting just enough that we can mark the present without dwelling in our past.
There was, of course, talk of the brutal politics of this election cycle. I don’t remember a question that was asked on MSNBC on Sunday morning but recall the response: it’s 2016, ANYTHING can happen.
So it seems.
As it seems all over the world. A far right candidate is deadlocked with his rival in Austria. If Herbert Norber of the right wins, it will be the first time a far right candidate will have won a European election since the end of Fascism, a warning shot across the bow of the world.
Troubling for Hillary are national polls, of which we have several a day it seems, that have her potentially losing to Trump. They have Bernie beating Trump by 10.8 points.
Predictions are that a “Brexit” from the European Union will spark a year long recession. The drive for a British exit from the European Union is, at least partially, being driven by anti-immigration and nationalistic feelings in the country.
Is this a bit like what the 1930’s felt like?
In the meantime, Emma Watson of “Harry Potter” fame and fortune is playing Belle in a live action version of “Beauty and the Beast.” Somehow that seems comforting to me this morning.
In Syria, IS has claimed the responsibility for killing scores in that poor, broken country in areas considered Assad strongholds. A suicide bomber killed many Army recruits in Aden, Yemen.
And a drone strike killed the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mansour, who opposed peace talks. His death was confirmed by Obama, who will be the first sitting President to visit Hiroshima, struck by the US with an atomic bomb in !945, a move which forced the Japanese to move to surrender. He has been in Viet Nam, where he lifted a fifty year old arms embargo, a move to help counter the rise of China in the South China Sea.
Moves and counter moves, the world is in play. It always has been. It just took longer in other times for the moves to be made and to feel their repercussions. Now it’s almost instantaneous.
Tags:Allen Skarsgard, Austrian Election, Baltimore, Bernie Sanders, Brexit, China, Donald Trump, Herbert Norber, Hillary Clinton, Hiroshima, Lionel White, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mullah Mansour, Obama, Peter's Inn, Pierre Font, Russia, Syria, The Donald, Viet Nam, Yemen
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Elections, Entertainment, European Refugee Crisis, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Political Commentary, Politics, Sanders, Social Commentary, Syria, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
May 20, 2016
It is a bit hazy as I rumble south, down the river, toward the city. I am having dinner tonight with my good friends Annette and David Fox. About once a quarter, we get together, order Indian from Indus Valley near their West End Avenue apartment and visit, over wine and an Indian dinner.
All day my mind has wandered back to the Egypt Air flight that crashed on its way from Paris to Cairo, in the Mediterranean off Crete. My phone screen was clustered with updates when I awoke this morning.
It is appearing that the plane’s crash is likely the result of terrorism though nothing can be known until the plane’s debris is studied. Why did it make wild turns just before it disappeared? What must have the passengers been experiencing? I shudder to think. It’s one thing to be there one moment and another not but what must have been in their minds as the plane made a 360 degree rotation?
Chaos erupted on the floor of the House today over a bill that would have denied contracts to Federal contractors if they discriminated against LGBT individuals. It was lost by one vote and reporters heard jeers and shouts from the House floor. Championed by Representative Sean Maloney, Democrat of New York in a district just south of me. Moments before the vote, the measure had 217 votes and House Leader McCarthy twisted Republican arms to change their vote as the presiding officer kept the vote open longer than is normal.
Ah, politics… All the remaining candidates, Trump, Sanders and Clinton hurled invectives and innuendoes today, as they do every day.
To put it kindly, Megyn Kelly and Donald Trump have been “at odds.” They had a sit down at Trump Tower and then another on Megyn Kelly’s premiere of her new interview show as she pursues becoming the next Barbara Walters. It was roundly panned and accusations flew that she played easy with her former adversary.
A week ago the legendary CBS reporter, Morley Safer, retired. A long planned special tribute to him aired on “Sixty Minutes” this past Sunday. Today, he died. He covered the world, from war to art, with panache and precision, exuding a style that is hard to find, particularly now.
The wonderful Hubble Telescope, hovering in space for twenty-five years now, has sent home spectacular views of Mars which is swinging in and will be as close as it gets to earth on Sunday, May 22nd. From these photos we have learned there were mega-tsunamis on Mars in the long ago. With luck, it will continue working at least until 2020 or, perhaps, a little longer.
This week, a Chibok girl, kidnapped two years ago by Boko Haram in Nigeria was freed. Today, another girl has been rescued, two out of two hundred. The first one has met with the Nigerian President but it may be hard for any rescued girls to be reintegrated. The first girl has a Boko Haram “husband” apparently.
In Venezuela, Maduro is cracking down as his regime seems to be cracking up. Tear gas was fired on a crowd of thousands who were demanding his recall. Chants of “food, food, food” are being heard in the streets of many cities. Hospitals are often without power or medicine. Patients are reported to lie in pools of blood.
Even his fellow leftists are beginning to think him crazy. One called Maduro “crazy like a goat.” But maybe that’s a compliment?
The train arrived in New York and then I was off to dinner and sleep. Now it is a beautiful Friday morning in the city, sunlight streaming through the blinds and shortly I’m off to Baltimore to visit friends.
Yesterday’s drumbeat continues today. Debris has been found from the Egypt Air flight. Accepting the inevitable, the Republicans are rallying behind Trump and it will make an interesting fall campaign as Trump and Clinton seemed to be disliked in comparable numbers, meaning no one likes either of them much.
Oklahoma has passed a bill making it a felony to perform an abortion thereby making it virtually impossible to get an abortion in the state.
Israel’s Defense Minister has resigned, accusing Netanyahu of “extremism.” And if he continues on the current path, Netanyahu’s government will become the most right wing in Israel’s history.
Now, as it is nearing noon, I need to prepare to leave, with another coffee in my future and some work for WGXC.
Tags:Annette and David Fox, Bernie Sanders, Boko Haram, Claverack, Donald Trump, Egypt Air Crash, Hillary Clinton, Hubble Telescope, Hudson, Maduro, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Megyn Kelly, Morley Safer, Netanyahu, Oklahoma Felony for abortion, Sean Maloney, The Donald, Venezuela
Posted in 2016 Election, Boko Haram, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Gay, Gay Liberation, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
May 16, 2016
This is one of the most enjoyable moments I have in a week, sitting at the dining room table, jazz playing in the background, the sun setting, looking across the deck to the wild woods across the creek, pulling together my thoughts as the sun slowly sets.
This morning I re-read my last online post [www.mathewtombers.com]. In the last part I wrote about Islam and the West having to come to terms with each other and as I read it I thought: whoa, Islam must come to peace with itself. IS is mostly killing other Muslims. Those numbers dwarf the numbers they have killed in Paris and Brussels and New York and London. They die by the hundreds and thousands in Iraq and Syria alone. Not to mention Yemen, which seems to be to Sunni and Shia what Spain was to Fascists and Republicans in the 1930’s.
We note with great care and deep exegesis the murders in the West and the daily drumbeat of death in Baghdad, Aleppo and Yemen is a footnote. Muslims are mostly slaughtering other Muslims.
Not unlike the way Christians slaughtered other Christians in the 15th, 16th and 17th Centuries. We had the Thirty Year War, which started as a religious war and became so much more. The Muslims seem to be having their Thirty Year War and it is much scarier because technology is so much more advanced.
And while they fight amongst themselves, some of them rage against the West, those who are Fundamentalist Muslims. They see us as abominations.
One late night here at the cottage I wondered if I was living a bit like a Roman in the 2nd or 3rd Century CE, knowing the darkness was coming and unable to prevent it so enjoying the present as much as possible.
That’s a bit melodramatic I suppose. Events are still playing out. Outcomes can be changed.
The forces at work in our lives are terrifying. We have a saber rattling Putin, who denies everything negative, and a major religion that is going through an existential crisis, manyßåå of them thinking nothing of killing as a policy.
In college, I took an Honors course on Medieval Islamic Civilization and they were civilized. Something has gone very wrong there and, hopefully, for all of us, they will sort it out.
In the meantime, the rest of the world keeps moving.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month.
Not being mentally healthy is a debilitating stigma many carry. As someone who has been in therapy since he was sixteen, I empathize. It is not, in many places, åstill, now, acceptable to talk about.
And it saved my life. And in the years between then and now, many members of my family have taken me aside to thank me for having broken the dam. I was the first and I was pretty loud about it too. Everyone knew. Everyone rolled their eyes at me, then they began quietly to look for their own therapists.
We are still dealing with racial issues and we are still dealing with mental stigmas. So good there is a Mental Health Awareness Month. We need all the mental health we can get.
Our politics continue to look like a sideshow. Friends who live in Japan, Australia, Europe ask me what is going on? I don’t know. Does anyone? There has been nothing like this in my lifetime and it is a bit scary.
I have been reading articles about the raucous Nevada Democratic Convention and I haven’t parsed the events quite but there was a showdown between the Bernie supporters and the Hillary supporters. Hillary won but her supporters are worried about a similar scene playing out at the national convention.
It has grown dark now. The sun has set. While it is mid-May, the temperature is going down to 34 tonight so we are not actually in real Spring yet. I had to turn up the heat tonight. I might yet light a fire.
The jazz lures me to a quiet place of introspection.
Tags:Bernie Sanders, Claverack, Donald Trump, Fundamentalist Muslims, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, IS, Isis, Jazz, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mental Health Awareness Month, New York, Obama, Putin, Red Dot, Russia, Syria, The Donald, Thirty Years War
Posted in 2016 Election, Brussels terror attack, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Iran, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Paris Attacks, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Taliban, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
May 14, 2016
It is Friday the 13th, a day feared by many as unlucky. It has neither been lucky or unlucky for me, so far…
The cottage is ripe with the good feelings from a lovely dinner party last night. There were six of us. We had appetizers, soup, salad, fish, lamb or pork or both, baby gold Yukon potatoes, sautéed carrots, green beans with butter and ice cream and berries for dessert. People arrived at seven and left after midnight. A good time was had by all.
I am now in my fourth load in the dishwasher. We had cocktails, champagne, white wine, red wine, cordials. It was a long, delightful evening of food and wonderful conversation. It was a moment of recognition of how lucky I am, to be in the cottage, to have friends, to be alive.
As I returned from the city on Tuesday, I got a text letting me know that Vinnie Kralyevich had died the night before. He was fifty-two, was on the treadmill, collapsed and could not be revived. He was someone I worked with a lot about nine years ago and I was staggered to learn he had passed. I am older and there was another moment that reminded me of my own mortality.
I am at an age when mortality is knocking at my door. The people who mentored me are growing older and are leaving the scene. I have younger friends who are cursed with terminal diseases and are leaving me.
For more than fifteen years my friends Medora Heilbron and Meryl Marshall-Daniels have had a weekly call to check in and support each other. It’s a phone support group. Medora ran development for USA Network when I was out pitching shows. Meryl got me involved with the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. I was on the Board of Governors when she was the Chair of the Academy. Medora reached me on 9/11 just before I lost phone service to check on how I was.
It is a deep and rich sharing, once a week, except when one of us is out of the country.
Medora shared today that Bruce Lansbury, brother to Angela, a producer of great renown and who gave Medora her best break in the business, was suffering from Alzheimers. Angela and Medora live in the same Los Angeles neighborhood, run into each other in markets but Medora had never introduced herself to Angela but, for some reason, she did this week at the Whole Foods in Brentwood. She was devastated by the news that Bruce was alive but gone.
It is what all of us fear. I do.
While I write this, on a day which has been dark and drear, a soft fog is descending around me, enveloping the creek, the end of a rainy, dismal day. And the view in front of me is a bit magical. One could imagine woodland nymphs dancing in the distance.
However, there are no woodland nymphs dancing tonight in American politics.
Trump has a butler who is now retired but still gives tours at his estate in Florida, Mar-a-Lago, built for Marjorie Merriweather Post, a cereal heiress whose daughter, Dina Merrill, was an accomplished actress.
He called Obama a “muzzie” who should be hung. The Trump campaign is working to distance itself from those comments. A “muzzie” is a Muslim, by the way.
I had a long chat with my client, Howard Bloom, who has just finished a new book, “The Mohammed Code.” It is an exegesis of the roots of fundamentalism in Islam. We have battered back and forth about the book because it exposes the roots of ISIS and I am hoping will reflect the differentiation between fundamentalist Muslims and the majority of Muslims who have renounced the ugly parts of their religion.
This is the great conversation of today. We must come to peace with Islam and they must come to peace with us. Not easy but must be done…
Tags:Angela Lansbury, Bruce Lansbury, Donald Trump, Friday the 13th, Howard Bloom, Mar-a-lago, Medora Heilbron, Meryl Marshall-Daniels, Muhammed Code, The Donald, Trump, Vinnie Kralyecih, Whole Foods
Posted in 2016 Election, 9/11, Claverack, Columbia County, Columbia Greene Community College, Daesh, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Obama, Political, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
May 2, 2016
Five years ago Osama Bin Laden, a rich kid who definitely went bad, was killed in his hiding place in Pakistan, apparently with a stash of video porn. Born privileged, he rejected privilege and embraced fundamental Islam and wreaked havoc on the world, partly supported by his personal wealth as a scion of a family that had made a huge fortune in construction in the great oil years in Saudi Arabia. It was said he only wore a shirt once and then discarded it.
Fast forward and Al Qaeda is in decline while its successor, IS, is on the rise. Or is it? Its territory has shrunk this year and there is a full on assault about to happen on Mosul, one of the chief cities it has conquered.
However, they are not a country per se and attack places like Brussels and Paris as terrifying terrorists. The world is a crazy place, isn’t it? Full of anger, full of hate, full of vitriol and absolutism. I certainly hope we survive this as well as we survived the vitriol and absolutism of Nazism. That thought gives me hope.
On Tuesday, Indiana votes. It looks like it is going to be another Trump victory. Some polls have hime with a 15% lead. Others have him with a smaller lead but in all polls he has a lead. It may be a “make it or break it moment” for Ted Cruz.
And as so much of the 2016 campaign has been, this is a fraught moment. Cruz fights for his political life and Trump sails on, turning every disadvantage into an advantage. It has been mind boggling to watch and frightening to contemplate.
This is where we are in politics. And it is Ted Cruz who helped set the stage for the current scene.
Last night was the White House Correspondents Dinner and while I didn’t watch it in real time, the video clips have been good and demonstrated that Obama has a ready wit [I am sure helped by good writers]. People I know found it great fun and I will look at clips tonight, once I have finished this missive.
The days are growing longer. It is nearly eight and there is still light and I am looking at the creek in twilight but not darkness. I love this time of year as the world moves towards the longest day of the year.
It is a moment of happiness.
It has been a sweet day. There was a good dinner party last night. My guests were Larry and Alicia. A while ago had been his birthday and last night we celebrated it. Today Larry and Alicia invited me to join them at Ca’Mea for lunch after church, which I did and which was great fun.
I am sitting at my dining room table and am looking out over the creek and am so grateful for this place and this time.
May you be happy in your place and time.
Tags:Al Qaeda, Alicia Vergara, Carl Black, Claverack, Donald Trump, Hudson, Indiana Primary, Iran, Iraq, IS, Isis, Larry Divney, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York, Obama, Red Dot, Ted Cruz, The Donald, White House Correspondents Dinner
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Claverack, Columbia County, Entertainment, Gay, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
March 25, 2016
Darkness has descended on the Hudson Valley; it is pitch black outside though I am heartened everyday by the weather person’s announcement we had three or so more minutes of daylight today than yesterday.
I’ve adjusted the timers on lights to accommodate the increasing daylight. I rejoice as I am sure everyone does.
My dining room table is scattered with recipes from which I will choose the ones being made for Easter. I am getting it organized. I bought upgraded plastic silverware for Sunday. Since I am doing this, I want it to be a little special — or a lot special.
In the morning I will winnow down the recipes and head out to do my shopping. My friend Robert has given me eight dozen eggs from the chickens who live at his house down in Rhinebeck. I had some for lunch. There is nothing like farm fresh eggs!
While I am typing this, Christ Church is celebrating Maundy Thursday and I wasn’t feeling very churchy tonight so I didn’t go.
Probably feeling more churchy than I do, or at least one would hope so, is Radovan Karadzic, the former Serb leader who was convicted today of genocide during the horrific Serbian conflict twenty-one years ago. Eight thousand Muslim men and boys were slaughtered in a town called Srebrenica. Justice finally has been done though it will not bring back those men and boys whose only crime was that they were born Muslim.
At the time, when it was revealed, I felt horror and I feel it today. There was a time when such things happened to Christians; indeed, they are happening today to Christians at the hands of IS. It is things like Srebrenica that make IS feel justified.
It’s been a happy day for me, feeling far from all the world’s troubles, tooling around Columbia County, collecting mail, a couple of meetings with organizations I am volunteering with, a haircut, bumping into people on the street and having a good conversation with them.
While I was doing those fun things, the police in Paris foiled an alleged terror attack in advanced stages. Obama apologized in Argentina for some of our policies and actions during their long and very dirty internal war. I suspect we turned too blind an eye to some things.
Belgium and Europe in general are struggling to balance freedom and safety in the fight against terrorist attacks.
In America, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are exploiting our fears in their campaigns; loudly criticized and, I think, rightly so, by Obama. And I think by Hillary and Bernie, too.
Syrian troops loyal to Assad are in the suburbs of Palmyra in the early stages of reclaiming the city from IS, which has this year lost 21% of the territory it controlled. The monuments destroyed are gone and it will be good if the city can be liberated. It has suffered terribly.
At the same time, Iraqi troops are advancing into Mosul, using lessons from the recapture of Ramadi to help them win back this important Iraqi city. Many of the historical treasures there are gone also, never to be seen again.
I do not live in their mindset and cannot come close to comprehending why it was necessary for them to destroy the heritage of the planet. But they did. It ranks up there with the killings at Srebrenica. Maybe it doesn’t. At Srebrenica those were living beings that were destroyed. At Palmyra and Mosul, it was the artifacts of the past that helped create the world in which we now live.
There are echoes of that world here in the cottage. I have treasured artifacts from the past and things that echo them. Someday, when I am gone, all this will be scattered, some thrown away but in the time they have had with me I have been grateful for their presence.
There is a small collection of masks, a recreation of a bust of Athena from Greece, a painting from India that evokes Alexander, a Renoir re-strike, a wonderful painting from a Provincetown gallery of Alexander.
We need the past to build the future, to connect ourselves from where we were to where we are going.
Tags:Alexander the Great, Assad, Christ Church, Christ Church Episcopal, Claverack, Columbia County, Donald Trump, Easter, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Iraq, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mosul, Obama, Palmyra, Radovan Karadzic, Srebrenica, Syria, Ted Cruz, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Brussels terror attack, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, Elections, Entertainment, European Refugee Crisis, Hudson New York, IS, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Syria, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
March 21, 2016
A young, good looking man fell into his fifteen minutes of fame last month when he had sex with a strange woman on the Ferris wheel in Las Vegas, one of the biggest in the world.
Phillip Panzica III had had a falling out with his fiancé, went partying, drinking and gambling and got into trouble 550 feet in the air. His fiancé bailed him out two days later and they kissed and made up.
Back in Dallas, they were carjacked. Phillip was fatally shot while his fiancé was told to get out of the car once they had taken her money. It’s a tragic ending to a story that had me smiling a bit when I read about the Ferris wheel. As a sex scandal, it seems pretty tame in this day and age.
Vadym Kholodenko, a 29 year old renowned pianist, Ukrainian by birth and now Texas based, went to pick up his two young daughters from his estranged wife only to find them dead and his wife covered in blood from what appear to have been, according to police, self inflicted knife wounds.
Both stories remind me of the uncivilized ways we can behave in civilized places, that there are moments when murderous madness descends and death ensues. Phillip looked a bit like one of my students and Vadym and his wife appeared in earlier pictures as a textbook happy couple.
It is a stark contrast to my place in the world. I am in the process of replacing items in my bathroom now that young Nick and his team have finished their work, making my bathroom all fresh again.
It was so lovely today I could wander about with just a sweater for most of the day.
My friend Patrick and I met at Kozel’s Restaurant here in Claverack and had lunch in a place that reminded me of nothing so much as the best restaurant in Bemidji, Minnesota when I was a youngster and we stayed part of the summer at a lake nearby.
He and I chattered about the lot of things, from The Donald to the joys of life in Columbia County, particularly on sunny, crisp days like today. It felt a carefree day as a meeting in the city was moved and I could spend the day here, doing errands, some cleaning and visiting with friends.
Moments ago, Lionel texted me “martini time” which he does most evening when he is about to make one for himself. I’m going to join him, finishing this while sipping one.
A very civilized ending to a day when events almost everywhere reminded me that we have evolved but still are sometimes victim to our murderous souls.
The former Vice President of Congo was convicted at the ICC in The Hague of war crimes; murder, rape and pillage. It apparently is a landmark case.
Also a landmark moment is that death in the US from heart attacks is falling, continuing a forty year trend. That’s good and the result of work on the betterment of man.
My father had a massive coronary two years before he died from a stroke. He was younger than I am now when he passed, a moment I noted when I reached the age he died. We tend now to be healthier and more sensitive to our bodies and we have decreased the amount of smoking.
My father could never quite quit smoking. After his heart attack he had packs of L&M’s stashed here and there, like an alcoholic has his bottles stashed. He rolled his own, telling us they were better for him. Nicotine addiction contributed to his heart attack and his death.
So long ago…
But not so long ago, Governor Rauner of Illinois, said he would support whoever the party nominates, which means he will support Trump if nominated. Some Republicans have begun to move away from being party liners, saying, ah, no, anyone but Trump.
Kasich, however, has not ignited the fires of any Republicans, including the establishment, who I rather thought would choose him over Cruz. But apparently not…
Pink clouds dance on the horizon; I expect then good weather. Good night and good evening…
Tags:Columbia County, Congo, Kasich, Kozel's Restaurant, L&M's, Phillip Panzica III, Rauner, Ted Cruz, The Donald, Vadym Kholodenko, War Crimes
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Obama, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
January 24, 2016
Winter Storm Jonas Columbia County JFK Airport The Red Dot Transform Films “Newtown” Nick Stuart The Donald Iowa Caucuses The Revenant Leonardo di Caprio Star Wars Jeff Bezos Blue Origins
The coastline of the United States has been brutalized by Winter Storm Jonas. I fled on Friday so that I could be at home when he/it hit. However, strangely enough, not a flake of snow has fallen in Columbia County. It has been cold with a bruising wind but nothing like the snow in the city.
JFK had 30 inches of snow on the runway with thousands of canceled flights. My friend Larry was stranded in the city on the way to spend her birthday with his wife in Mexico. My friend Jerry was on one of the last flights out before they shut the airport down.
And here we are, in great shape. It was my intention to go to the city tomorrow afternoon and I think I won’t, giving New York a few more days to clean itself up before I head in.
Down in Washington, DC my nephew Kevin is part of a group of volunteers who are shoveling the walks of the elderly and shut-ins. So like Kevin, which is one of the reasons I am so proud of him.
In one of the most tragic of storm related deaths, a good Samaritan pulled over to help a motorist who had slid off the road only to have the motorist shoot him to death.
Up early today, I prepped for class this week, went to church.
It is my habit these days to light candles at church for a variety of things — a friend in the UK who is fighting a brain tumor, another friend whose daughter is suffering from traumatic brain disorder, for myself, for the world in which live. Today there was only one match and so I managed to light only one candle for all those things.
I started lighting candles as thanks and hope when I was in my early teens after an incident in which I nearly drowned.
Following church, I was off to the Dot where I sat doing lesson plans until I either had to order or not. After Eggs Benedict on potato latkes, I headed home to do some more work.
One of the things I did was to log on to Twitter and follow #Transformfilmsinc.
Transform Films is premiering a film at Sundance this year, “Newtown.” It follows the ravaging of lives that has occurred since the mass shooting there a little over three years ago. Nick Stuart, my best friend, is Executive Producer.
As I type, they are screening.
As I grow older, I am aware how lucky I am and have been. I have had Death nip at my heels a couple of times and am still here to tell the tale. The loss of my friend Paul has been sobering and a reminder of my own mortality.
It is the course of life. None of us get out of here alive.
While I am here, I will continue to observe and to comment as best I can, savoring the ability to shape words to some meaning.
In the fireplace, a small fire is burning. The dishwasher is running. The flood lights illuminate the creek. I have missed Snowmaggedon.
To my political amazement, Trump has gained 15 points in the last two weeks in Iowa. The Donald is a juggernaut to be sure.
In film, everyone I know is talking up Leonardo di Caprio’s “The Revenant.” So much so I feel I must see it sooner than later. I am late to seeing “Star Wars.” I will, eventually but my passion for The Force has cooled.
Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, also has another company, Blue Origins. It successfully sent up a rocket and had it return to land upright, successfully, twice now. Pretty impressive, I think. One more step to realizing the reach out to space.
One of the things that has saddened me in my life was that having once reached the moon, we seemed to stop striving. Now it is Internet billionaires who are revitalizing the race to space. Good for them.
Tags:Blue Origins, Christ Church, Claverack, Columbia County, Iowa caucuses, Jeff Bezos, JFK Airport, Leonardo di Caprio, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Newtown, Nick Stuart, Red Dot, Star Wars, The Donald, The Revanant, Transform Films, Winter Storm Jonas
Posted in 2016 Election, Columbia County, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
January 14, 2016
The sun has set and I’m freshly home from a haircut which means I’m a little itchy around the neck. A fire burns in the stove and jazz plays in the background. Lights illuminate the creek and I have made myself a martini to sip while writing. I spent three hours today volunteering for Habitat for Humanity of Columbia County, helping clean up their database.
The stock market didn’t swoon again today, which is good news for almost everyone I know. It was up 1.41% after falling 2+% yesterday. I was at the gym yesterday on the treadmill, watching CNN. They were tracking the market by the minute, which was too depressing to watch while on the treadmill. So I watched an ancient Kay Francis film on TCM.
It was great to escape into a world where you knew it would all come out right in the end.
Which is what we don’t know about the life we’re living now. It could go in any direction and we have no way of knowing what that direction might be.
And that, my friends, is why I treasure evenings like this at the cottage. For a moment, the world seems on hold, even as I am assimilating events from the day.
In Jakarta, IS claims responsibility for multiple explosions in the capital. At least seven are dead and there is concern that Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim State, which has a secular government, is going to be under fresh attack after several years of calm.
In brighter news, at least three people can claim a piece of the $1.5 billion Powerball jackpot though others may surface.
And today the Oscar nominees were announced. “Revenant” with Leonardo di Caprio leads the pack with twelve nominations. Also up there is “Mad Max: Fury Road.” Not long ago an industry insider wondered why they were even mounting a campaign. Today provided the reason why.
Alan Rickman passed away today. He played Professor Snape in the Harry Potter films. I saw him live in a relatively obscure Ibsen play, “John Gabriel Borkman” at BAM five years ago and he was electrifying. His characters were mostly cold and sinister, very different from the man portrayed in the memorials today.
As I type there is another Republican debate beginning. Politics is becoming reality TV in more ways than just having The Donald dancing on the scene. Whose idea was it to have all these debates so far in advance of the election? I want it over already! Really! What did my students used to say? Gag me with a spoon?
There are two iconic television series I have never seen a complete episode of, much to the amazement of my friends. One of them is “Seinfeld” and the other is “Friends.” There will be a sort of reunion of the “Friends” cast in the February tribute to James Burrows who created the program. Matthew Perry may or may not be there as he will be in London for rehearsals of a play.
My martini is finished. The fire is playful. The jazz is beautiful. I am going to sign off and watch the newest episode of “Sherlock” and then head off to bed. Have to be up early in the morning for phone calls and meetings.
It’s been a lovely day. Hope yours was too.
Tags:Alan Rickman, BAM, Benedict Cumberbatch, Claverack, CNN, Friends, IS, Jakarta bombings, Kay Francis, Leonardo di Caprio, Mad Max, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Obama, Revenant, Seinfeld, Sherlock, Snape, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Columbia County, Hollywood, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
January 11, 2016
It is Sunday evening and I am at the dining room table, looking out at the creek, lit by the floodlights I have set up to illuminate the creek at night. Soft, classical jazz plays in the background.
For the most part, Christmas is behind me. The tree is down and headed for recycling now that most of the lights have burned out. I think I’ve had seven years from the tree so I can’t complain.
Though I realize as I look around I forgot a few things which I’ll have to take down over the coming week. There is still a wreath on my door and one hanging in the dining room. How I missed that I don’t know.
My heart is not into taking down Christmas. I tend to become a bit melancholy in the process and apologized to young Nick about my moodiness as he dismantled Christmas while I assiduously cleaned up after last night’s dinner party.
While I sit here writing, the world is gearing up for the Golden Globe Awards, which I won’t watch but is the official opening of awards’ season. I did my PGA voting as soon as it came in because I didn’t want to forget.
The question being asked in this awards’ season is whether “Revenant” will finally propel Leonardo DiCaprio towards an Oscar?
I don’t know nor do I much care, truth to be told.
Since 1992 I have been a member of the Television Academy and my membership is up for renewal and while I suspect I will renew I am not sure why. It feels much less relevant than it did when we were fighting to make cable an integral part of the Academy and then to make a place in the tent for “new media.”
I salute my friend Bob Levi, retired now from Turner, who with Jeff Cole and myself and a few others fought and fought hard to make a place in the Academy for those digital pioneers way back in 1999. Jeff and I were the Founding Governors for the Interactive Media Peer Group though I have discovered since then there are others who make that claim. Excuse me! I was there.
It’s Sunday night and most people are wondering what the market will do in the morning. Continue to swoon or make a comeback? Don’t know. I’ll check the futures in the morning.
Sean Penn did an interview with Mexican Drug Lord “El Chapo” at his HQ in the Mexican jungle. It appeared in Rolling Stone. Some laud it, some hate it but it is interesting reading. Celebrity triumphs in journalism in this case…
Ted Cruz was born in Canada of an American mother. Donald Trump is questioning whether is he meets the legal requirements to be President. Some time ago Ted Cruz renounced his Canadian citizenship but that hasn’t stopped Trump who is currently trailing him a bit in the polls in Iowa.
I think it will get worse between now and the caucuses in Iowa.
The world is an unbroken trails of woes right now – and I’m not talking about the Republicans.
Merkel’s generosity to refugees is under question after New Year’s attacks on women by men described as North African or Arabic.
We have people of white origin holding a bird preserve in Oregon demanding a rollback of Federal control of lands in the West.
North Korea may or may not have tested a hydrogen weapon but it did test an atomic something which is always worrisome.
And, you know, everything is worrisome. It always has been and will always be so and so tomorrow I will get up and live my life as best I can in this worrisome state.
Tags:Angela Merkel, Bob Levoi, Claverack, Donald Trump, Golden Globes, Jeff Cole, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mexico, New Media, North Korea Hydrogen Bomb, Obama, Oregon Standoff, PGA, Revenant, Rolling Stone, Sean Penn, Ted Cruz, Television Academy, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, China stock market rout, Elections, Entertainment, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Paris Killings, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From New York 05 23 2016 Letter From New York Thoughts from the train north from Baltimore…
May 23, 2016It is Monday morning and I am riding an overcrowded train from Baltimore to New York after spending the weekend there visiting friends. At one point I thought I might end up sitting on the floor but found a seat at the very front of the train.
Outside ruined building pass; we are somewhere just north of Philadelphia. Exotic graffiti adorns them while the sun blasts down. Beyond the ruins lie bedraggled row houses that probably will someday be gentrified. What contrasts we have in this country.
Baltimore is in a resurgence, at least near the water, where my friends live. We dined on Saturday night at Peter’s Inn, a wonderfully, quirky little row house restaurant, rough around the edges with handwritten menus, food arriving in the order that the chef has prepared it which is not necessarily the way you ordered it. Good chill martinis and a nice little wine list, friendly people and that wonderful thing called “atmosphere” that has not been scrupulously concocted but which emerges from the quirkiness of the place and people.
It was a time of sitting around and visiting with Lionel and Pierre and my friend Allen Skarsgard, with whom I had some long philosophical conversations over the weekend. We had known each other in the long ago and faraway, reconnecting just enough that we can mark the present without dwelling in our past.
There was, of course, talk of the brutal politics of this election cycle. I don’t remember a question that was asked on MSNBC on Sunday morning but recall the response: it’s 2016, ANYTHING can happen.
So it seems.
As it seems all over the world. A far right candidate is deadlocked with his rival in Austria. If Herbert Norber of the right wins, it will be the first time a far right candidate will have won a European election since the end of Fascism, a warning shot across the bow of the world.
Troubling for Hillary are national polls, of which we have several a day it seems, that have her potentially losing to Trump. They have Bernie beating Trump by 10.8 points.
Predictions are that a “Brexit” from the European Union will spark a year long recession. The drive for a British exit from the European Union is, at least partially, being driven by anti-immigration and nationalistic feelings in the country.
Is this a bit like what the 1930’s felt like?
In the meantime, Emma Watson of “Harry Potter” fame and fortune is playing Belle in a live action version of “Beauty and the Beast.” Somehow that seems comforting to me this morning.
In Syria, IS has claimed the responsibility for killing scores in that poor, broken country in areas considered Assad strongholds. A suicide bomber killed many Army recruits in Aden, Yemen.
And a drone strike killed the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mansour, who opposed peace talks. His death was confirmed by Obama, who will be the first sitting President to visit Hiroshima, struck by the US with an atomic bomb in !945, a move which forced the Japanese to move to surrender. He has been in Viet Nam, where he lifted a fifty year old arms embargo, a move to help counter the rise of China in the South China Sea.
Moves and counter moves, the world is in play. It always has been. It just took longer in other times for the moves to be made and to feel their repercussions. Now it’s almost instantaneous.
Tags:Allen Skarsgard, Austrian Election, Baltimore, Bernie Sanders, Brexit, China, Donald Trump, Herbert Norber, Hillary Clinton, Hiroshima, Lionel White, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mullah Mansour, Obama, Peter's Inn, Pierre Font, Russia, Syria, The Donald, Viet Nam, Yemen
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Elections, Entertainment, European Refugee Crisis, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Political Commentary, Politics, Sanders, Social Commentary, Syria, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »