Posts Tagged ‘Tikrit’

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Letter From New York 10 15 15 From the Kardashians to real issues…

October 15, 2015

Columbia County. P.D. James. Obama. Afghanistan. Alexander the Great. Pluto. Tom Swift. Tom Swift and His Atomic Blaster. Hardy Boys. Lamar Odom. Khloe Kardashian. The Kardashians. Love Ranch. Star Trek. Hillary Clinton.   Democratic debate. UN Security Council.

The sun setting in the west is crowning the trees on the far bank of the creek with a golden glow; the mirror still creek is golden, too, with the same light. It was a brilliant fall day in Columbia County, the air crisp and bright with a sky of soft blue across which scudded a few billowy clouds.

While observing this sun kissed fall chill day, I struggled with faulty Internet access, a recalcitrant printer and a scrum of personal paperwork that worked my nerves. In frustration, I left and went for lunch at Relish, running into Jeremiah Rusconi, between house restoration errands as he labors on a huge project across the river, in Athens.

Returning home, my stomach went tetchy and I decided it best to stay close to home, spending the afternoon continuing with the paper scrum.

Now as the day ends, I began to feel reflective, attempting to light a fire [not going well] in the Franklin stove while listening to music from the 1940’s and early ‘50’s.

In the future, I see a continuation of my reading of a P.D. James mystery while eschewing food for the rest of the evening.

Evenings like these are pleasing to me, giving me time to think, sort the world, at least in my own mind, and to enjoy the particular solitary life I lead.

While I was driving into town for lunch, I heard the confirmation of what was expected this morning – Obama will keep troops in Afghanistan for at least another year. Alexander the Great, the British, the Russians, all came to a nasty place in Afghanistan and I hope we don’t either.

While things on this planet are fairly grim, scientists are excited by the unexpected variety Pluto has to offer. It has an atmosphere. It has mountains. It is not what we expected. Information from the planetary flyby continues to come in and each new drip of information is a bit stunning. That excites me.

I was always a science fiction fan. Instead of the Hardy Boys, I read Tom Swift. One of my favorites was “Tom Swift and His Atomic Blaster.” A devotee of “Star Trek,” I hope we will continue our exploration of space. It does feel like the next frontier.

Also, while I was driving there was a radio report on Lamar Odom’s condition. The basketball and reality television star, not quite divorced from Khloe Kardashian, apparently ingested alcohol, cocaine and herbal sexual stimulants during a stay at a legal brothel, Love Ranch, in Nevada. He paid $75,000 for his stay and may also pay with his life.

Khloe is with him. He has been intubated. Not a good sign…

I have never understood the titanic appeal of the Kardashians. Boggles my mind.

While I didn’t watch the Democratic Debate on CNN, Hillary apparently, according to the pundits, is the winner while Bernie Sanders scored some points.

The United Nations has five new members on the Security Council, its most important body. They include Japan, Uruguay, Ukraine, Egypt and Senegal. It will be very interesting to watch. Ukraine is not exactly friendly with Russia, a permanent member of the Council and Egypt, usually a U.S. ally, has been playing footsie with the Russians.

We all thought this was going to be simpler when the Iron Curtain fell. Wrong.

For me, the sun has set and the golden light on the trees outside my window is from the spotlights I have installed. The mournful sound of jazz comes out of Pandora and my fire has almost come to fruition.

Tomorrow, I will continue the scrum with paperwork. But that is tomorrow.

Enjoy tonight.

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Letter From New York 04 17 15 Clouds billowing, going north…

April 17, 2015

Stepping out of the apartment this morning, I encountered a world that was grey and filled with the promise of rain. Luckily, I had found an umbrella squirreled away so I faced the world with some verve, with a bit of jauntiness to my step.

It was cool but not chill, feeling a bit more like a fall day than one in spring but not unpleasant. Walking over to Amsterdam, I picked up my favorite pair of shoes from the cobbler and headed down to my friend Todd’s office.

He and my godson, Paul, are friends and the three of us went to lunch with another one of their mutual friends, Nick. It was good to see Paul again, for another farewell before his Sunday return to Los Angeles.

I had a couple of conference calls and then headed for the train, crowded with folks heading north for the weekend, now that the weather is better.   The sun came out, teasing us with hope for a fair weekend.

As the train travels north, I am perusing the news of the world, a rather grim pursuit, I’m afraid.

The market plunged today by 280 points. Greece’s woes are rearing their ugly heads again, rattling markets. China is working to temper its runaway stock market. Adding to the concerns, Bloomberg Financial Terminals went offline for two hours, causing the British government to delay a sale of bonds for a week because the terminals are so central to trading.

Not that I am sure I object, the Time-Warner/Comcast deal seems to have run into some serious obstacles. Certain sectors are giddy with relief; I am sure that M&A lawyers are in a funk.

Al Qaida is tightening its noose in Yemen with 150,000 now displaced.

Iran, as I recall no great fan of the UN, is appealing to that body to do something about the Saudi bombings in Yemen.

In Iraq, things happened: a car bomb went off outside the US Consulate in the Kurdish capital and Saddam Hussein’s #2, on the run for all these past twelve years, was killed today while forty more were killed in bombings in Baghdad. Despite the loss of Tikrit, IS continues to control much of northern Iraq and part of Syria.

China, flexing its muscles to the dismay of its neighbors, is building some artificial islands in the South China Sea. On them it is building a significant airfield. The Spratlys are also claimed in whole or part by Viet Nam, Malaysia and the Philippines. China seems to be operating on the “possession is 9/10ths of the law” rule.

The British elections are hotting up, with no clear leader right now. Labour has declared the Tories “in a panic.” However, the Tories are feeling a bit bolstered by some good economic news. May 7th is the election.

Anti-immigrant attacks have now spread to Johannesburg in South Africa, drawing rebukes from both within the country and without.

Two weeks after a “framework” for a deal with Iran was announced, the gaps between the two sides seemed to be widening instead of narrowing. Obama will sign a bill that would allow the Senate to reject the treaty if more than 2/3rds disapprove, another wrinkle in the process.

There was a moving ecumenical service in Cologne’s Cathedral today for the 150 victims of the Germanwings crash. 500 relatives attended. The city stopped to mourn.

And as has been for days, there is a war of words going on over whether the Turks committed genocide on the Armenians a hundred years ago. Some in Congress want to officially call it that but doing so is complicated by Turkey’s role in the current fighting going on in the Mideast. The Turks have hardened their stance in recent years about the events of a century ago, defiantly denying that there were any acts of genocide committed.

The sun is setting through billowing grey clouds over the Hudson River as I move north. Everyone is working or sleeping, winding down from the week. At the end of my trip is a dinner with friends at the Red Dot and then home to my own bed and a weekend full of activities.

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Letter From New York 04 08 15 From the heat of Delhi to wearing a winter coat…

April 8, 2015

Outside, it is still grey and chill; I have taken to wearing my winter jacket again, worse luck. It’s also been raining today with my mantra being: April showers bring Mayflowers.

Though, for all the grey, it’s been a very pleasant day. I am not quite so time zone loopy as I was yesterday or the day before. I am a little more centered and not quite so forgetful. I feel good and am looking forward to dinner tonight at the Red Dot, with a group of friends, for whom I have souvenirs of India.

I still almost expect to look out my window and see the vivid amber colors of Jaipur or the greens of Delhi but, instead, am greeted by the muted colors of the Northeast, struggling to come alive in the early days of spring.

There is a glorious freshness to the air I breathe here, clean and sweet with the smell of damp earth. The air in Delhi always has an acrid undertow, not so pungent as my first trips but still residing.

Out in the wide world, from which I feel sheltered here at the cottage, the news is much about the guilty verdicts given to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for his role in the Boston bombings of over two years ago. Certainly not unexpected given that his defense admitted guilt in their opening statements; it has, for some, brought some closure, some finality, to the wounds, physical and emotional, that were inflicted that day. Now we will see if he is sentenced to death or if his defense team can save his life.

One of the necessities of life is coffee, so I ran down into Hudson to get some good espresso roast from Olde Hudson. As I went, the radio played an interview with Ernest Moniz, the Secretary of Energy, who ended up playing a big role in the Iranian Nuclear talks. I couldn’t tell from the interview if he was defending the outlined deal or simply reporting on his role. He seemed guileless in the little bit I heard him, very much the scientist and not very much the diplomat.

Last night, as I devoured my fajitas at Coyote Flaco, I saw the video of the South Carolinian shot in the back by a police officer, not quite able to assimilate what I was seeing. The officer has been dismissed and is charged with murder as a result of the video. And tension runs high.

Rand Paul is finishing his first full day of campaigning for President, promising “shocking” revelations about the Clinton Foundation [and Hillary]. In the meantime, it seems many people are looking at him and his candidacy and asking: is this for real?

Certainly for real is the chaos in Yemen. Doctors Without Borders announced that a ship had arrived in Aden with 2.5 tons of medical supplies though no one was sure how they would be unloaded given the situation there. Iran has sent two naval vessels toward Yemen while the Saudis continue bombing. The US is underscoring its support for Saudi Arabia. 100,000 people have fled their homes, seeking refuge from the fighting.

A Pakistani plane has arrived in New Delhi, carrying refugees from Yemen, a gesture that will help the usually frayed relations between those two countries.

The Iraqis are hoping to build on the victory at Tikrit by advancing into Anbar province, the Sunni heartland now mostly under the control of IS. At least that’s what the Anbar province regional council has said. Seems to be a bit of a surprise to the central government.

What is also a surprise but not in debate, is that IS has released more Yazidis. What is unclear is why they’re doing this.

Fighting for cyber security, the US is attempting to deflect attacks on White House and State Department computers, which seem to be coming from Russia. The Russians deny this.

In the UK, the election is “hotting up” as the May election draws closer, with Scotland appearing, quite extraordinarily, to end up playing a pivotal role in what shape the new UK government takes.

I do know the shape of my evening. That dinner out with friends and then gathering together the things that need to go with me to the city in the morning, an early rise and off on the 7:20 train in the morning for a 10:30 meeting.

It feels good to have my body and my mind in the same time zone, almost.

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Letter From New York 04 04 15 A Delhi afternoon, thinking and writing…

April 4, 2015

It is early in the day for me to be writing but a hole just opened in my schedule so I decided to make use of it and write my blog for the day. My friend Raja was to have come and picked me up and we were to have gone to his wife’s shop. Unfortunately, he was at a shoot late into the night and then up early again working so he cancelled for the afternoon.

It is a greyish day in Delhi and on the cool side as it rained all night while I slept.

My day started with a late breakfast with Kiran Karnik, who was GM of Discovery India when I was here in the 1990’s. He is a small, thin man, very gentle and razor sharp. He is currently doing many things. One of them is being on the Board of the Reserve Bank of India as well as being President of the India Habitat Center, where I am staying.

Service in the restaurant this morning was impeccable, he said smiling.

Sanjay was at the breakfast, too. We were nostalgic for the days when we were launching Discovery India, laughing at some of our adventures. Talk then moved to politics, both here and in the States. Both Sanjay and Kiran are concerned that parts of the fabric of Indian society are becoming worn in the rush toward modernization. Within twenty-five years India will be one of the world’s top four economies and that change will be wrenching, just as it has been in China.

Prime Minister Modi seems to be enormously popular and is, from all accounts, charismatic. “Conventional wisdom” is that he should be Prime Minister and have all his ministers from the Congress Party, his opponents, because they have experience in government. The BJP, which is Modi’s party, has not governed all that often in India and hasn’t had a lot of national experience.

Some large announcement is coming shortly about interest rates though Kiran gave no hint as to what it will be. He did say they [the Reserve Bank] were closely watching the situation in Yemen for what affect it might have on oil prices along with the “rain issue.” This last season was exceptionally rainy, having a negative effect on food production. Every little thing becomes a factor that needs weighing.

It was interesting to hear Kiran’s perspective on the Yemeni situation. He pointed out that this is the first time in memory that Saudi Arabia has used its military in this way. Thinking about, I had to agree.

They intervened in Bahrain but that was minor compared to this.

We all agreed that the world situation is remarkable and deeply fraught. The Kenyan massacre of Christians at Garissa only underscores the situation.

Pope Francis spoke out about it at Holy Friday services in Rome. Christians are being killed for their beliefs in Africa and in the Middle East. Shabab is promising more Kenyan attacks.

In the Middle East, Tikrit has been freed from IS though the once bustling city, hometown of Saddam Hussein, now lies in ruins. The Iraqi Prime Minister, Haider al-Abidi, has ordered looters arrested.

As we pass through the Easter weekend, which culminates on Sunday with the celebration of Christ’s resurrection, the world is parsing all the reports on the Iranian Nuclear Deal, attempting to see if there are true threads of hope or mere obfuscation.

Pakistan is walking a tightrope between Iran, with which it shares a border, and Saudi Arabia, which has been a staunch Pakistani ally. Saudi Arabia wants Pakistan’s help in Yemen and Iran is doing its best to make sure that doesn’t happen. So far Pakistan has managed to stay upright on the tightrope but it is going to take some deft diplomacy to continue that if the Yemeni situation continues.

Easter, when I was young, was always a time for new clothes and long hours in our Catholic church. Some of it I remember fondly. Some of it not so much. One year it was unseasonably warm and Visitation Church grew so hot students at Good Friday services were fainting by the dozen.

Those seemed like simpler times. Perhaps that is nostalgia. “The Go-Between” is a novel by L.P. Hartley, adapted for the screen by Harold Pinter. Both book and film begin with the haunting line, “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

I do not think I would want to go back to the days of my youth. There were too many things that were wrong there but sometimes I am nostalgic for the simplicity that seemed to live there.

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Letter From New York 03 26 15 Second Day in India, at Humayun’s Tomb

March 26, 2015

It is said that only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun. I must either be a mad dog or an Englishman as I was out in the noonday sun in Delhi. It was a lazy morning and I slept in later than I intended; I couldn’t seem to roust myself from sleep. After a leisurely cup of coffee and some email work, my friend, Raja, sent his driver Emmanuel for me to take me out sightseeing.

Emmanuel doesn’t have much English. An Indian native, he is a 7th Day Adventist. He did understand Qutub Minar and we drove there through the noonday traffic. Once I had purchased my ticket, I was approached by a guide who would take me through the site; the cost was 300 Rupees, about $5. I thought: why not.? His name was, I think, Parbal.

Qutub Minar is the site of Delhi’s oldest mosque. Qutub Minar is the minaret built to call the faithful to prayer. It is a magnificent edifice and a World Heritage Site. Built of red sandstone and marble, it towers to 73 meters. Its construction started in the late 12th century and was finished in the mid 14th century. The entire complex was amazing and Parbal took me through it, step by step for about 90 minutes.

There is an iron pillar in the midst of the complex. It predates the Qutub Minar and it was said that if you held your arms around it backwards, your wish would be granted. It is now fenced off. I was annoyed. I have a couple of wishes I’d like granted.

From there, I went to Humayun’s Tomb. Humayun was a 16th Century Mughal Emperor who inherited a kingdom, lost it and then got it back with help from the Persians. While not a good military strategist, he was a very good man, which earned him the title of “Perfect Man” among the Mughals.

He had several rascally brothers who kept betraying him and he kept forgiving them, several times over in the course of his lifetime. By the end of his life, he had recovered his empire and expanded it. His son was Akbar the Great.

It was the first garden tomb in India, surrounded as it is by acres of gardens, threaded through with narrow water channels and dotted here and there with fountains. It was designated a World Heritage Site in 1993 and has since then undergone much restoration. It was the inspiration for the Taj Mahal.

I visited it twenty years ago and attest that it is definitely in better shape than it was then.

As Emmanuel drove me through the streets of Delhi, I realized another change in the city. There are fewer homeless crowding the boulevards. Twenty years ago when you left the manicured gardens of the Oberoi Hotel, you were immediately thrust onto a boulevard crowded with rough tents and hundreds of people living there. Not so today.

Stopping for a bite to eat in a little brasserie, I watched a bit of the big Cricket match, not that I could make much sense of it. Everyone else was enraptured by the proceedings, not caring about anything else.

But while I was sleeping and touring, the world kept ticking on.

The Sunni Saudis are bombing the Shia rebels in Yemen and have amassed 150,000 troops to be used if they need them. The paper left at my door here at the India International Center, had a front-page report about the Yemeni President fleeing his home.

In a confusing and disturbing report, it appears one pilot was locked out of the cockpit at the time of the Germanwings crash in the Alps. The voice recorder reveals the pilot knocking on the door lightly and then pounding on it and then trying to break it down.

The military is going to charge Bowe Bergdahl with desertion, bringing, once again, into question the prisoner exchange that secured his release.

The US has now been asked by Iraq to send airstrikes in support of the effort to liberate Tikrit, where the offensive has stalled. It started doing so while I was asleep last night.

In Mosul, continuing their winning ways, IS stoned to death a couple in their 20’s for adultery and beheaded three young men because they were nephews of an opponent. Residents of Mosul are urging the Iraqi government to rescue them.

The sun is beginning to set outside the window of my room. A soft light is signaling the beginning of the end of the day. In awhile, my friend Raja will come and we will go off to dinner.

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Letter From New York 03 24 15 Arrived in New Delhi…

March 24, 2015

It is 5:30 here in Delhi; the sun is beginning to set, as my usual world is just getting ready to go to work. I arrived safely after a good flight and a few hours sleep on the plane but was very tired after checking in at the India International Center where I am staying for a few days. I laid down for an hour’s nap but hit the snooze alarm enough that it was two hours before I got back into the world.

It was reported that short naps could improve memory five fold. I hope that is true; I was feeling pretty foggy by the time I laid down.

While I haven’t seen much yet of Delhi, I have seen enough to know that it has changed since I was here ten years ago and is vastly different from when I was here twenty-one years ago.

When I arrived at Delhi International Airport in 1995, I realized I had stepped into a movie I had never seen before. It was wildly chaotic. It was the middle of the night and, despite that, the airport was swarming with people, all yelling and screaming. The airport buildings themselves were tired and not very clean, barren, looking like something out of a 1940’s Humphrey Bogart movie, possibly co-starring Ingrid Bergman.

Today, I arrived at an airport that looked pretty much like any other major airport in the world, being swept by moving sidewalks along the way to immigration and customs. It wasn’t this way even ten years ago.

I was genuinely amazed.

My friend Sanjay sent a driver to pick me up and bring me to my hotel and we wove through the streets of Delhi where the roads have radically improved though, while lanes are clearly marked, the drivers seem to not to notice. It takes nerves of steel to drive in Delhi. I said so to Joginder, the man who picked me up. He smiled tightly.

It was not long before the beggars started coming up to the car and asking for money, always a moment of existential crisis for me, though at this point I had no rupees to give them.   On the drive to the hotel there were fewer beggars than I remember from before when they assaulted one at every turn.

Tomorrow I will be doing some sightseeing. I would like to return to walk around Connaught Place, where I have not been for twenty years and see the changes there.

Here to talk about media as having the ability to empower individuals, the Supreme Court has announced a major court case regarding freedom of speech on the Internet. Section 66A of the Technology Act has been declared unconstitutional, claiming it infringed on free speech. It allowed authorities to make arrests based on their interpretation of social media postings.

While I was safely winging my way to Delhi, an Airbus crashed in the Alps. No one is expected to survive. It was on its way to Germany from Barcelona. I give those passengers and crew a moment of silence.

Long absent from the offensive on Tikrit in Iraq has been air support from the US led coalition. Apparently now there are at least surveillance flights happening, giving direction to troops on the ground. Air strikes may soon follow.

In Mosul, IS is dissembling the city’s cement factories and moving them deeper into their territory as the push by Iraq to take Tikrit seems on the verge of success.

Israel has been accused by some in the US of spying on the Iran Nuclear negotiations and then giving that information to US Congressmen in hopes of undermining the negotiations. Israel denies it. If true, it marks a new low in the relationship with Israel.

Now we know Israel spies on us and we spy on Israel. We spy on everyone. We hacked Angela Merkel’s mobile phone. What makes this a bit different in the eyes of some is that Israel may have shared the information with lawmakers.

What did Rodney King say after the LA Riots: can’t we all get along?

The light is fading in New Delhi and I have work to do on my speech while I have hopefully improved my memory by my nap.

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Letter From New York 03 15 15 Great Operas in the Future…

March 15, 2015

As I do on many Sunday mornings, I went down to Christ Church Episcopal for Sunday Services. I started a tradition a few weeks ago, lighting a candle for myself and one for my friend Tim and his wife, Vidya. Tim, who lives in London, has multiple tumors in his brain and the prognosis is not good. I am scheduled to see them on my layover in London on my way to India. We hope to have lunch and spend a few hours together before I fly off to Delhi.

After church, I ran out to Staples to get a plastic container for this year’s tax receipts and an additional international adapter for electricity. With all the devices one carries, one adapter is no longer enough.

After Staples, I went back into Hudson for Eggs Benedict on potato latkes while perusing my phone for the latest stories of the day.

The advance in Tikrit continues. Iraqi forces have chosen to pause while they work out a coordinated plan on how to deal with the snipers and booby-trapped roads. Commentators on NPR today all agreed that the loss of Tikrit would be a psychological blow to IS.

There were also more stories of young Brits and Americans who have chosen to go fight against IS.

Plus there is a story of Turkey turning back three young Brits on their way to join IS, who are now back in London and in jail.

The guessing game continues in Moscow as to where is Vladimir Putin. Likeliest explanation is that he has been felled by the flu. Least likely is that he is dead or that a secret coup has been staged.

It is no secret that Venuatu has been devastated by Cyclone Pam with no one really knowing the extent of the destruction because many of the nation’s islands have had communication cut off. Aid has begun to arrive but caregivers are estimating much, much more will be needed to get the country on its feet again.

20-year-old Jeffrey Williams has been arrested in the shooting of two police officers in Ferguson, MO. He claims he was firing at someone else. In jail, he’s been held on an all cash $300,000 bail.

Robert Durst is the scion of a wealthy real estate family in New York, owning something like twenty skyscrapers in Manhattan. He admitted that he killed his neighbor and chopped him up and scattered his remains in Galveston Bay. He claimed self-defense and the jury bought it.

He is also suspected in the disappearance of his wife and in the murder of one of his closest confidants. You would think a man with this much baggage would keep a low profile but he allowed himself to be the subject of a six part docu-series on HBO called “The Jinx.” It may well have jinxed Mr. Durst. In it, there is potential new evidence regarding the death of Susan Berman, his confidante, killed just before she was to be interviewed about the disappearance of Durst’s wife.

Will make a great opera one day.

Another great opera will be one day made about the saga of Bill and Hillary Clinton. House Republicans are going to ask her to appear before them about Benghazi. Again. They are also continuing to scrutinize her use of a personal email while at the State Department.

And thinking of the State Department, I have to remember to register my trip with the American Embassy in Delhi.

Next thing on my deck is to call my oldest friend in the world – we’ve known each other since we were three – and chat with her before I leave for India.

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Letter From New York 03 14 15 In celebration of PI Day

March 14, 2015

Having successfully survived Friday the 13th, I awoke to a dark, drear, drizzly world. At least it is relatively warm. As I write this, I am doing the mundane things of life, doing a load of wash after finishing picking up around the house today. This week a desk made by my grandfather, a master furniture maker, was returned to me after being away some months having all its joints worked on. Old age had made it more than a bit wobbly; now it’s back, sturdy as ever.

For those of us who are not nerds, let me tell you that today is PI Day. PI is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. Its first five digits are 31415, an event that will not happen for another century. 3/14 is also the anniversary of Einstein’s birth and therefore a cause of celebration of all things math related. I would have been in blissful ignorance of this if not for one of my train companions yesterday, who is a computer geek nerd wonderful chap, explaining it all to me in some detail.

So tonight, when I make a martini, I will lift my glass to PI Day. And Einstein.

There is no celebration happening today in the South Pacific as Cyclone Pam has left a trail of destruction as it passed through the island nation of Vanuatu. Winds up to 170 mph roared through accompanied by torrential rains. The full damage will not be known for days as communications have been severely crippled in the wake of the storm.

Cyclone Pam may be one of the worst storms to have ever passed through the region.

In Israel, Netanyahu is also facing a storm. His polling numbers are flagging and he is blaming a worldwide global conspiracy of the left for his slippage. While we are celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, the Israelis will be voting and the world will be watching.

Some within Likud, Netanyahu’s party, are saying that if they fail in Tuesday’s election, Netanyahu may lose his position as head of the party. The stakes are high for “Bibi.”

Stakes are high, too, in Iraq. There some government officials are saying Tikrit may be liberated within the next three days, a week at the most, despite booby-trapped roads and fierce resistance. It will be a psychological blow for IS to lose Tikrit, hometown of Saddam Hussein. IS is still holding on to a cluster of palaces built for the former dictator.

In Rome, Pope Francis has said he does not think his papacy will be a long one. Pope Benedict XVI may have started a precedent of retiring popes. Personally, I hope he doesn’t go too soon.   He also has said that he misses being able to go to a pizzeria and getting a slice. He’s too famous now.

Also famous is Vladimir Putin, who still has not been seen in Moscow. Rumors are flying rampantly around the Russian capital. The most logical one is that he has been felled by a virulent flu that has broken the back of the capital. It is also rumored that he has been in Switzerland for the birth of a child by his mistress. It has also been whispered that he’s dead or a captive in the Kremlin of the far right. [It’s hard for me to think of anyone more right than Putin.] But rumors are all that the city has. He’s just not been seen. Tomorrow he is supposed to travel so if he doesn’t the rumor mill will probably explode.

Also exploding, but in a good way, is the live action version of “Cinderella” that opened last night, zooming its way toward a magical $70,000,000 weekend. Starring Lily James, Downton Abbey’s Lady Rose, and Cate Blanchett as the evil stepmother with Helena Bonham Carter as the Fairy Godmother it has rocked past the competition and garnered brilliant reviews.

Hoping to garner brilliant reviews for the dinner I am preparing for four neighbors tonight, I must head off to the store to pick up a couple of ingredients I forgot when I did the morning shopping.

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Letter From New York 03 11 15 As the sun glints down…

March 11, 2015

As I move north toward Hudson, the sun glitters sharply off the Hudson River, the ice floes seem more diminished and it was nearly sixty degrees in New York City today. On a day that was supposed to be cloudy, the sun has been present in all its yellow glory.

On my way home after several meetings, I will be meeting friends at the Red Dot for dinner tonight and then home to sleep and to work from the cottage tomorrow.

In Ferguson, Missouri, the Chief of Police, Thomas Jackson, has stepped down, following the City Manager yesterday and a judge earlier this week. All of this, of course, is fall out from the report issued by the Justice Department that was harshly critical of the practices of the City of Ferguson, accusing the town of systemic bias against African-Americans.

As I left the Acela Lounge, a report was airing on CNN regarding the apology of a University of Oklahoma student identified as one of the leaders of a fraternity’s racist chant.

In Atlanta, an unarmed black man was killed today, the third unarmed black man to have been killed by officers since Friday. Naked and acting deranged, he was shot by a police officer.

In a story that will keep on giving, Hillary Clinton declared that she used one email for “convenience” and that perhaps that wasn’t such a good idea. No, Hillary, it was not a good idea. As she marches toward the declaration of a run for the Presidency, it seems her opponents are not other members of the party but the media. Her relationship with the media has long been tumultuous and it looks as if it will stay that way.

Moving further north, the ice floes have thickened but it looks like the ice pack of two days ago is beginning to break.

While we hear frequently about the number of foreigners slipping away from their home country to fight with IS, we don’t hear much about Americans who are flying to Iraq to fight IS. Apparently there are a few, mostly veterans who have become dissatisfied with life at home. The US government is actively discouraging this and pushing anti-IS troops in Iraq to keep them away from the front lines. Some have gone across to Syria and join groups there after their battle hopes have been frustrated. Officially, the Pesh Merga says that there are no Americans fighting with them at this point. At one point, they said there were about a hundred.

On the BBC app this morning, I read a heartbreaking story out of China. Apparently there are 20,000 children who are abducted every year in China and then sold online to individuals desperate for a child. It may be that there are as many as 200,000 abducted every year. The man profiled today had his five year old son abducted and has spent years looking for him to no avail. It did not sound as if stopping this was a priority for the authorities.

In Nigeria, approximately 150 children five to seven years of age have been rescued from Boko Haram. They do not remember who they are or where they came from, recalling nothing of the lives they lived before their kidnapping, making it difficult to return them to their families.

The Iraqis are making steady progress in Tikrit while IS set off 21 car bombs in Ramadi, just to remind people of their abilities. Because defenses have been strengthened around Ramadi, the car bombs mostly exploded before they reached their targets.

A member of a Russian Human Rights group has said that one of the suspects in the death of Boris Nemtsov, the anti-Putin activist, probably gave his confession after torture. The activist is facing jail for having spoken out. Ah, the beauty of democracy in Russia.

New York City announced this morning that it will continue its ban on ferrets while in Italy, a young woman is devoting her life to rescuing pigs. She claims, and I have heard from others, that pigs are smarter than cats or dogs.

The train is rolling slowly north and soon I will be back in Hudson and on my way to the Red Dot.

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Letter From New York 03 09 15 Not at all, all bad…

March 9, 2015

The Weather Channel app indicated today was going to be warm but rather cloudy. Instead, the sky is blue and the sun has beamed down happily all day, warming my part of the world to a stunning 48 degrees; I even wandered a bit with only a fleece jacket on for a while.

The trees are casting sharp shadows and there is the sound of water dripping as icicles melt. Perhaps we are on our way to spring at last!

Tonight I am trying my hand at Shrimp Scampi accompanied by a white Cote de Rhone. My friends Lionel and Pierre are coming and I am savoring what time I have with them as soon they are off to Baltimore, where Lionel has a new job.

The news of the day is not all bad. Strange in places but not all bad.

Forty-seven Senate Republicans have sent a letter to the leaders of Iran warning them that a deal with Obama might not last beyond his administration. Something like this is unprecedented, I suspect. It feels wrong to me. Not surprisingly, the White House is furious.

IS continues to feel pressure. The Iraqi forces continue to put pressure on them in their drive to retake Tikrit. The US led coalition has bombed their oil fields, which once got them somewhere between $850,000 and $1,500,000 a day. Between the raids and the oil glut, oil is no longer their biggest source of income.

Divisions seem to be rising, with Syrian and Iraqi fighters resenting the privileges given to foreign troops in the form of better pay and postings. A resistance movement seems to be forming; several militants were gunned down in a drive-by shooting recently.

Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, has admitted in a documentary that he cooked up the plan to retake Crimea long before he originally said. The trailer, with this piece in it, was shown on Russian television last night. No date for the actual documentary screening has been set. It is called “The Path to the Motherland.” Well, we suspected, now we know.

While the world’s archeologists are attempting to save Syrian and Iraqi artifacts and ruins, the Vatican is attempting to get back a letter written and signed by Michelangelo. It was stolen back in 1997; a ransom request was received today. The common thinking is that this was an inside job.

And in Israel, three men found a trove of Hellenic coins and jewelry while spelunking and have turned the treasure over to Israeli authorities.

Today, speaking of treasures, the Apple Watch was unveiled. It starts at $349 and goes all the way up to about $17,000. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, promises it will be like a friend on your wrist, a coach. I am going to be interested to see if it catches on. The report I read indicates it is not as user friendly as the iPhone.

And in another bright moment for Apple, HBO Now, HBO’s OTT offering, will be exclusively available on Apple devices for the first three months.

What also was shown today is a new MacBook, which is light and wonderful and gold and almost stole the show.

What is not stealing the show, is Hillary Clinton’s email fiasco, which continues to brew and boil and bubble. Politico speculates that she will address it at a press conference scheduled for sometime in the next few days.

In 2006, Helen Mirren won an Oscar for her performance as Queen Elizabeth II in the film, “The Queen.” She is back as Elizabeth II in a Broadway play entitled, “The Audience.” Though my Bachelor’s and Master’s are in Theater, I rarely attend. However, this is one play I intend to see, once I have returned from India.

Ah, the day has reached that state when all seems cast in shades of brown. I must go set the table and prepare for dinner. A martini awaits.

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