As I was sitting at a Producer’s Guild event last night about Multi Channel Networks, I was also texting back and forth with my friend Lionel, who has moved recently to Baltimore where, last night, the city was rocked by violence. One person was critically injured, 235 were arrested and the National Guard was called in to help restore order. AOL, where Lionel works, closed for the day and offered hotels to employees who worked in areas where rioting was occurring. At ten last night, Lionel could hear gunshots from his apartment.
Today, President Obama made an impassioned plea for “soul searching” as another city was rocked by violence over the death of a young black man at the hands of police.
Down the road in Washington, DC, the Supreme Court heard the oral arguments on gay marriage. From what I can gather from reading reports, there was no clear indication from the Justice’s questions as to which way the Court will rule in June. Both sides left cautiously optimistic.
In the turbulent world beyond the US, events keep happening that make it easy to be uneasy.
Iran has seized a Marshall Islands flagged cargo vessel, the Maersk Tigris, operated for the Danish Maersk Line. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, which forced the Tigris deeper into Iran’s territorial waters, claims the move was over legality and not for military reasons. The US has sent the Farragut to observe. No Americans were aboard.
Indonesia executed eight foreigners convicted of drug smuggling, today. They died at the hands of a firing squad. A ninth, a Filipino woman, was spared at the 11th hour. Australia, whose citizens were among those executed, may withdraw their Ambassador to Indonesia in protest.
Prime Minister Abe of Japan is in Washington to help sew up the Trans Pacific Partnership, which includes the US, Japan and 10 other Pacific Rim nations, including our old nemesis, Vietnam. Abe and Obama are also talking strengthening their mutual defense commitments as Obama is accusing China of using its “muscle” on its neighbors.
Tonight there will be a State Dinner for the Prime Minister and his wife.
Tsipras, Prime Minister of Greece, has pushed his Finance Minister into the sidelines as a conciliatory gesture to the Euro Group with whom Greece is negotiating. Mr. Varoufakis is known for his volubility and his strident stands. He has been replaced by Euclid Tsakalotos, an Oxford educated gentleman who is 180 degrees different from Varoufakis.
In Yemen, the number of displaced has grown to 300,000. Saudi warplanes bombed the airport at Sana’a to prevent an Iranian plane from landing.
The number affected by the earthquake is rising. Over 4600 are confirmed dead and the Prime Minister has said that the toll may rise above 10,000.
In the affected area of Nepal live 8,000,000 people. One million of them are children. Nowhere are supplies adequate and people are living in makeshift tents as rain continues to pour down on them. Hospitals are overflowing and lacking supplies. The country’s economy was fragile before the quake and seems ravaged now.
In Rome, Pope Francis’ Pontifical Academy of Science has convened a conference on climate change. In June, Francis will issue an encyclical on climate change that Ban Ki-moon of the UN says will come at a critical time. In September, Francis will address Congress during his visit to the US.
Francis is not the first Pope to take on climate change but he may be the most effective. His is a powerful presence.
Several American conservative groups, including one funded by the Koch brothers, attended the conference in order to refute its findings, not wanting the Pope and the Church to listen only to climate change alarmists.
In a sweet note, Prince William and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, sent out pastries and coffee to the scores who are camped out in front of the hospital waiting for the Duchess to give birth to their second child.
The day here in New York is winding down. I am going to a screening of the new version of “Far From The Madding Crowd” tonight and will be looking for a nibble on my way there.
It is relatively quiet in Baltimore, according to my last text from Lionel. Supermarkets are closing at six and most restaurants and bars are not opening, battening down the hatches for another night.
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From New York 04 29 15 Another anniversary in 2015…
April 29, 2015It is nearly impossible for me to believe that we have reached the end of April. Today has been a glorious day in New York City, probably the finest day of the year. Warm with a gentle breeze flowing, signs of flowers blooming, I passed tulips and pansies on my way to the subway this morning, all bringing a smile.
South of here, in Baltimore, the city is quiet but very tense. Offices and restaurants that have been closed are reopening. In a first for Major League Baseball, a game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Chicago White Sox was played in an empty stadium, it being considered too dangerous to bring people together in a public venue.
Schools reopened and protests continued, peacefully. The Maryland Governor is hoping that the peaceful night that preceded a peaceful day marks a turning point in the city. It is a city of fragile calm, a place that is delicately balanced between peace and violence.
In Washington, Prime Minister Abe of Japan, made a speech to Congress, acknowledging Japanese responsibility in WWII and making his case for a strengthened, resurgent Japan as a counterweight to China. He also made his case for the Trans Pacific Partnership.
Kim Jong-un, the pudgy little North Korean dictator, is reported as having killed 15 senior officials since the beginning of the year – that’s at the rate of about one per week. It may be true. It might not be true. It’s hard to know with North Korea but we do know little Kim Jong-un has a very itchy trigger finger.
Far away in Nepal, itself very, very fragile after the earthquake that has destroyed much of the Kathmandu Valley, there was a moment of hope today when a man trapped for 82 hours in the rubble was rescued. But hope is wearing thin and survivors clashed with soldiers as supplies continue to have difficulty reaching outlying villages that have been devastated. The death toll continues climbing and is now officially over 5200.
In Saudi Arabia, King Salman has re-ordered the succession and named as Crown Prince a member of the third generation, a grandson of the founder, King Abdullah. Prince Mohammed is said to be very pro-Western and very much against Al-Qaida [they attempted to assassinate him a few years ago],
In Nigeria, 300 women and girls have been rescued from the Boko Haram. They are traumatized and some have no home to return to as their villages have been razed in the fighting between the government and Boko Haram. They are described as needing psychological care and physical support.
While the group was being rescued, Boko Haram seized a town in what has become a back and forth battle between Nigeria and its allies and the Boko Haram, who are determined not to pushed off the stage.
I said in one letter that 2015 was a big year for anniversaries and another one is upon us. Forty years ago tomorrow Saigon fell and we ended our involvement in Vietnam.
As a young boy, I remember some older boys talking about our sending troops to Vietnam. I’m not sure why I remember it. Perhaps it seemed like a great cloud passed over me. For some reason, I remember exactly where I was standing when that conversation happened. I think some of those boys grew up, got drafted and went to Vietnam.
And now it is forty years after those horrific shots of helicopters departing the rooftop of the American Embassy in Saigon, with thousands screaming for rescue as they lifted away for the last time, forty years since we lost that war.
Last year, I went to a conference on “moral injury” and spoke with a man who had been to Vietnam, returned and lived what he thought was a normal life until one day, not long before I met him, it all cracked open and he came to wrestle with the demons that had stayed with him all those years from caring for wounded soldiers in the jungles of Vietnam.
We all carry our wounds. It is part of living, unfortunately. But so are the joys that come along, unexpectedly, like the tulips and pansies I passed this morning, lovingly planted on 93rd Street.
Tags:Abe, Baltimore riots, Boko Haram, Fall of Saigon, Kim Jong - Un, King Salman, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, New York City, Nigeria, North Korea, Prince Mohammed, Saigon, Saudi Arabia, Trans Pacific Partnership, Vietnam
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