Posts Tagged ‘Trump’
September 25, 2017
While it is now officially fall, the weather is summer-ish, scraping at ninety degrees today. The train is rumbling into the city where I will be attending a talk today by my friend Jeff Cole of the Center for the Digital Future on “Driverless Cars and the Battle for the Living Room.” I’m eager to see how those two very disparate topics get pulled together – or not.
Yesterday, I returned to the cottage from Provincetown where I had been visiting friends and attending the Tennessee Williams Festival, now in its twelfth year. Mixing Shakespeare with Williams this year, I saw five plays, the most laudable being “Gnadiges Fraulein,” an absurdist Williams from the tail end of his career in which some see an allegory for that career.
The Festival was marred by weather from the last of Jose for the first three days; yesterday was magnificent. Leaving after Shakespeare’s “Antony & Cleopatra,” I drove home, listening to the omnipresent exegesis of President Trump’s Friday comments on kneeling during the national anthem and Sunday’s reaction by athletes and owners of teams.
Trump had said that owners and coaches should get “the son of a bitch” players who kneeled during the national anthem off the field, suspending or firing them.
Owners and athletes defied the President. Even Tom Brady locked arms with his teammates. The Steelers stayed in the locker room until after the anthem had been played. All but two of the NFL’s owners and CEO’s issued statements calling for unity.
Some fans booed. Most didn’t walk out.
Trump praised those who booed.
Such is life in today’s America.
And I’m on the side of the players and the owners in this kerfuffle. The right to protest is as American as apple pie.
My weariness is growing daily with this President’s ability to be divisive.
Defying top aides, he has escalated the war of words with North Korea to the point that as I am writing this, the foreign minister for the pudgy, pugnacious little man who is the ruler of that country has said that Trump has declared war and they have the right to shoot down American planes.
This will not end well, I fear.
In Germany, Angela Merkel is on her way to a fourth term though diminished. The far right AfD has won a troubling 13% of the vote and will have a place in the German parliament, a feat that no other far right German movement has managed in decades.
It is representative of the fear that threads its way through our societal fibers, in Germany and here at home, in France and the Netherlands. The world is changing and change often results in fear and the world is changing so quickly right now.
Abe in Japan has called a snap election, riding high on North Korean nuclear fears.
The Senate is desperately working to pass another bill to repeal Obamacare but with McCain, Rand Paul and probably Collins and possibly Murkowski against it, tough sledding is a generous description of what is facing McConnell.
Trump is saying today that Congress doesn’t have “the guts” to repeal Obamacare and I’m hoping he’s right as this version seems to be the most mean-spirited of all the versions proposed so far.
I’m off soon to the presentation. I’ll let you know how driverless cars and the battle for the living room fit together!
Have a good day!
Tags:Abe, AfD, Angela Merkel, Antony and Cleopatra, Brad Pitt, Center for the Digital Future, Jeff Cole, McCain, McConnell, NFL, North Korea, Obamacare, Tennessee Williams Festival, Tom Brady, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, European Refugee Crisis, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Hygge, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, North Korea, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
September 6, 2017
Today, earlier, as I sat sipping morning coffee, two huge geese came crashing through a tree fallen across the creek, landing hard, splashing as they hit creek water. It was startling. Geese, once so abundant on my creek, have been rare these last few years. Mature birds these, I wondered if they were from one of the many families of geese I have seen growing up while I have resided at the cottage, come home to roost for a moment. Sailing majestically up and down for a time, they departed and I’ve not seen them again.
Irma has become a Category 5 Hurricane and will reach Saba tonight, the Caribbean island I visited earlier this year. Two friends from my Los Angeles days have retired there and will be facing her fury as I write this. For a while, I got lost on Facebook to see if they had posted anything new but they hadn’t. It’s now that time when you get on your knees and pray, which I will tonight and have not done since my very Catholic days and that was a long while ago. And I am worried for them because Irma is as fiercer than Harvey.
Hopefully, I will know tomorrow more than I know tonight. Tonight, they are battening down the hatches and waiting, hoping, maybe praying though I don’t think either of them are religious. There have been posts from people I met there. They will be in my prayers, too.
Tonight, across the country, “Dreamers” are praying because Jeff Sessions announced the end of Obama’s DACA order and Congress has six months to fix it or all those “dreamers” will begin to be deported.
Color me cynical. How cruel can this Administration be? Trump is playing to his base but not to the interests of the country. Color me angry and not surprised. So little surprises me anymore. And there are all kinds of folks who think this is just wonderful.
And that scares me and makes me hopeful because all the rage in America is boiling to surface and maybe we will finally deal with it. It would be good if we did because we are in a very delicate place.
Back in the day, long, long ago, I was in Canada to be in my roommate’s wedding to a Canadian woman and, as I was preparing to leave, a group of my Canadian friends did an “intervention.” They did not want me to leave. Viet Nam was in play. They wanted me to stay, become a Canadian.
I didn’t. Because I was an American. It was a very profound moment in my life, making the decision to return. Those were people I loved, who loved me and I might have been happy there – a completely different life but not unhappy.
But I am an American and so I returned, got lucky, didn’t go to Viet Nam, didn’t serve in the military and made my life here.
But here is not the here I know. This here seems very strange to me, like the clock has been turned back and I don’t get it. Something is afoot and we need to fix it, once and for all. Maybe electing Trump will be the catalyst to fixing the festering wound that has damaged our national soul.
Tags:DACA, Dreamers, Hurricane Irma, Jeff Sessions, Saba, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Columbia County, Earthquakes, Hollywood, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Music, Political, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
August 29, 2017
There are days we take to catch up and today was one of them for me. Once it had warmed enough [and yes, we are reaching that part of the year], I went out to the deck and set up shop, sipping my morning coffee while Amazon’s “Sarah Vaughn Station” played [and plays] in the background.
A backlog of work got done today; some of it in preparation for “Prison Alley Tales” which will broadcast live from the Red Dot Restaurant and Bar on Warren Street in Hudson at 7:00 PM tonight. If you’re in the listening area, that’s 90.7 on your FM dial and, if you’re not, it’s available at www.wgxc.org/listen.
It’s the umbrella title for a collection of stories, recollections, monologues and performance pieces from the WGXC Diamond Street Radio Players, an ad hoc group of local artists and performers. It appears to be shaping up as a fun night and I’m really glad; I like fun nights.
The day resulted in my recycling about three pounds of paper that had piled on my desk and now, at the end of the day, I am on deck, working on one of my “letters.”
It has been a day of calm and music and fun work.
Every hour or so, I checked on Houston and it’s not good. At last count, 2,000 rescues had been performed and another 185 were waiting to be performed. Ten are dead which seems a blessing after Katrina and its hundreds.
My friend, Janice McDonald, is in Houston, reporting on it. Look her up on Facebook for her first-hand reports.
There is some irony here. Texas is experiencing one of the most horrific of natural events and its Federal legislators voted against help to Hurricane Sandy victims. Let us hope that legislators in areas affected by Hurricane Sandy aren’t as mean spirited when Texas asks for help, as it will.
It will be years before this is undone.
Mark me in the column of glad I have a hybrid car as Hurricane Harvey may cause gas prices to rise by a dollar or more as 15% of the refinery resources in the country are being pummeled by this storm.
Also, mark me glad I quit smoking. The price of cigarettes in New York City are now at $13.00 a pack, highest in the nation. I feel better and I’m not as cash strapped as I would be if I were smoking. It’s now been at least 15 years and only once in a great while do I feel the pull to a smoke; usually in a bar, martini in hand while having some deeply intellectual conversation that probably won’t be remembered in the morning.
That was another day. Not today.
Today the creek is astoundingly clear; water rippling in the soft wind that has arrived.
While I was sitting on the deck, in the quiet of my life, the pudgy little dictator in North Korea sent a missile flying over Japan which is just inflaming those regional tensions.
Oh, yikes. He needs a lot of attention that boy.
As does our President. And that is part of what makes me creepily uncomfortable with him – the amount of attention he needs. And demands. And gets.
The Washington Post is reporting that while seeking the presidency, Mr. Trump was also seeking a deal in Russia to build a Trump Tower there. Felix Sater, a Trump associate, was running around bragging the deal would get The Donald elected. This one hasn’t/can’t be completely parsed out yet but the Russia thing is not going away and I wonder what is happening in Robert Mueller’s office at this very minute.
As I go to bed tonight, I will pray for Houston and be grateful I have not had to experience anything like what they are going through. My whole life, for the most part, has been lucky. I’ve not had any Sandy’s or Harvey’s in my life. Irene went through here a few years ago and spared me; around me there was catastrophe but in my sweet spot of the earth, not much.
Let’s think of Houston. Pray for them.
Tags:Claverack Cottage, Claverack Creek, Felix Sater, Houston, Janice McDonald, Kim Jong - Un, Prison Alley Tales, Robert Mueller, Trump, WGXC
Posted in Claverack, Columbia County, Entertainment, gas prices, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, Hygge, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
July 15, 2017
It is closing on 6:00 on the 15th of July, 2017 and I am riding north on the auto train from Sanford, Florida to Lorton, Virginia. Pierre Font, married to my friend Lionel, and I are bringing his parents’ car from Miami to Columbia County, which is where they will be living while they sort out their lives.
There are no stops. Well, except for the one where one of the engines lost power but they managed to fix it and we are going again. It is a bit like being on a cruise, having a day at sea.
Forty years ago, in Tehran, Maryam Mirzakhani, was born. She is the only woman to have won the Field Award in mathematics, the equivalent of a Nobel Prize. And today, she passed away, a victim of breast cancer, a brilliant mind gone quiet. She has been a Professor at Stanford University since 2008. RIP. It is hard to lose such a brilliant mind. By the way, she was Muslim.
Yesterday, one of my relatives sent me an email warning me about a young Muslim politician in Michigan. It was, to me, both xenophobic and un-American, and I angrily deleted it. We were being warned he might one day become President of the United States. Today, I wanted to retrieve it but couldn’t seem to find it. My relative’s unhappiness with the man was simply based on the fact he was Muslim.
One of the finest people I have known in my life was Omar Ahmad, a Muslim, who when he died prematurely from a heart attack a few years ago, was Mayor of San Carlos, CA.
There was a moment when I wanted to respond. I didn’t because it would have no effect on him as nothing I say would change his mind. This is who he is, xenophobic and un-American and he has been that way since I have known him.
Yet, I feel guilty at not having responded.
Such is life in 21st Century America.
The election of Trump to the Presidency has given lots of people more freedom to express xenophobia and racism and all the ugly things we haven’t dealt with in America. And all the things that more and more of the world is having to deal with as huge populations move around the globe.
France was welcoming to Josephine Baker in the 1920’s; it could afford to be. It looked down on the United States and its racial policies. But would a Josephine Baker from a Muslim country today still find the embrace she did? I’m not sure.
It is one thing to be a rarity in the 1920’s and another to be part of an encroaching potential majority in the 2010’s.
I am saddened and worn by all these things and grateful I will be gone before all this plays out.
It is possible for me to look back and think, gratefully, on what a life I have had. It is my hope that the people who are younger than me will also have a wonderful life and that a solution will be found to all of this because if we do not find a way to embrace each other, it is not going to be pretty.
Tags:Auto Train, Field Award, France, Josephine Baker, life, Lorton VA, Maryam Mirzakhani, Omar Ahmad, Pierre Font, Sanford FL, Stanford University, Tehran, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, depression, Elections, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Hygge, Iran, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
July 8, 2017
As I begin writing, it is twilight at the cottage. The day began damp and grey, changing mid-day to blue and lovely. Sitting on the deck, the torches burn to ward off mosquitoes and to give a sense of atmosphere. It is lovely.
Of course, as soon as I typed those words, I felt the first of the raindrops and had to scutter back into the cottage.
Out there in the world, momentous things have been happening. Trump and Putin met for the first time. Trump: It’s an honor. Putin: ?
It’s certain we will be hearing the parsing of the meeting for days to come. They talked election tampering. Putin: we didn’t. Trump: okay. [At least according to some early reports.] No agreement on Crimea. Not expected.
We are to agree on a ceasefire in southwest Syria. Good for everyone if it holds.
In Washington, Mitch McConnell faces the daunting task of passing the Republican version of healthcare legislation. It seems to be the single most unpopular piece of legislation of the last thirty years.
Over the weekend, I listened to some interviews with people from around the country who were absolutely opposed to Obamacare and absolutely loved the ACA, not realizing they are one and the same. It left me shaking my head in amazement and then, why should I be amazed? We, on both sides of the fence, don’t always analyze and we just react, ideologically, and that seems to be on the increase.
In a bright moment in the world, Malala Yousafzai, a young woman targeted by terrorists, terribly wounded, and who miraculously clawed her way back, graduated from high school today. She is also a Nobel Peace laureate. She celebrated graduation by tweeting her first tweet.
Amazing human being…
Closer to home, Etsy has cut its workforce by 15% and I wonder how that is going to affect the offices on Columbia Street in Hudson. While that is happening, the stock has been upgraded to a buy by some brokers.
It’s interesting to me to walk down Warren Street and see all the businesses that are there that weren’t when I came and to see the ones that are still here, still pulling along. One of my favorites is Carousel, next to the CVS on Warren. One of my friends collects mid-century hammered aluminum pieces and I go in there and sometimes find things for her.
The Red Dot has been here since I arrived and I remember the transition of Brandow’s to Swoon Kitchen Bar. Seems Ca’Mea has always been there since I arrived, though I am not sure about that. That’s a little foggy.
It’s been interesting to watch all of this. The cottage has been my home longer than any place I have lived, including the home I grew up in. That’s sobering. That’s rooting. I like the sense of roots I have created here.
Yesterday, I had my car serviced at Kinderhook Toyota and ran into someone I knew. At the Red Dot, I am always running into people I know. Same for Ca’Mea. It’s wonderful to go into places and be known or to know people there.
The places I’ve lived are many: Minneapolis, Toronto, Carbondale, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Eugene, OR, New York City and now Claverack. The places I have visited seem innumerable. They’re not but…
Of all those places, including my hometown of Minneapolis, the only place that has felt like home is here.
And I am enormously grateful for that. It is sweet and satisfying and that is how, I think, it should be as I enter this third act of my life.
Tags:ACA, Ca'Mea, Carbondale, Claverack, Claverack Creek, Eugene Or, Hudson NY, Kinderhook Toyota, Los Angeles, Malala Yousafzai, Minneapolis, New York City, Nobel Peace Laureate, Obamacare, Putin, Red Dot, San Francisco, Toronto, Trump, Warren Street
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Entertainment, Hudson New York, Hygge, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Syria, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
June 12, 2017
It is delightfully quiet as I sit on the deck, the fierce heat of the day receding and all the noise of the city left behind. About four o’clock, I returned to Columbia County from four days in the city, a delightful time, packed with adventures and sights and people. And I was glad to return to the quiet of the cottage and knit it all together.
The occasion of my trip was that it was my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding anniversary. They were married in New York four years ago and return every year to celebrate. Last year, I was absent, selling books in Edgartown, on Martha’s Vineyard.
This year, I was present. On Wednesday, they went for a private celebration of their anniversary while I had dinner with my wonderful godson, Paul Geffre. We had a wonderful dinner and then went to the Parker Meridien for after dinner drinks with Joe and Deb, who had not met him.
Joe, Deb and I went, over the days of the visit, to the Intrepid, Ellis Island, the site of the deadly Triangle fire, to “Spamilton,” which Deb and I enjoyed more than Joe as we got the Broadway references.
As I type, the Tonys are being broadcast and I am not watching. It seems more important to gather myself together after these hectic days, wonderful, full of visiting and fun and feasting and I’m sure my waist has expanded and I must handle that.
Today, after Joe and Deb had left for the airport, I brunched with old friends from California, one of whom has residences in both places and Meryl and Ray, who were in for a visit and work for Meryl.
Before I met them, I had a quick coffee with my bestest friend, Nick Stuart [Lionel, you are more than friend; we are family of choice], and we spoke of things and we talked about how I have been working on living in an “attitude of gratitude,” appreciating the good things in life and not yearning after what I don’t have and celebrating what I have, which is quite, quite wonderful.
Deb and Joe gave me a wonderful book about hygge and I laughed at getting it because I have been writing about hygge ever since I heard about it and, gosh, don’t we need it now.
At this moment, I am having a very hygge moment. Sitting on my deck, the creek is calm, birds are chirping. My neighbor’s dogs are romping some distance away. Far away there is a sound of a truck traversing the road a third of a mile away and I am not caught in the cacophony of New York, which is wonderful and now wearying for me.
When I was moving to DC, I lived for a time in an apartment in Georgetown, across from Dumbarton Oaks, and thought: wow, Mathew is getting to live in some of the great cities of the world. That has continued. And now, in the third act of this life, I am always glad to return to the quiet and the hygge of the cottage.
At dinners and brunches, we all discussed the political madness of our time, which is, at least to me, the most serious since Watergate, and all wonder how we got here and where will we go. The Democrats are in disarray; the Republicans fleeing or feeding the strangeness that is Trump [the kindest way I can describe this presidency].
The Clinton impeachment was a distraction, a hounding of a serial sexual player who didn’t want to admit in public what we all knew.
This is not a distraction. It is serious. This is Watergate level.
Theresa May in the UK, having lost [and it is almost impossible to believe she did] her gamble to get a greater majority to support her Brexit negotiations, was described tonight in some UK papers as “dead woman walking.”
Macron, in France, has seized the government in a way no one has since De Gaulle [I think] and we have a new day there. Angela Merkel looks to be re-elected in Germany. The political scene is exciting, if more than a bit scary.
Tags:Bill Clinton, Columbia County, Deb Tombers, Edgartown, Ellis Island, Hudson New York, Hudson River, Hygge, Intrepid, Joe Tombers, Macron, Martha's Vineyard, Meryl Marshall-Daniels, New York City, Paul Geffre, Spamilton, The Tonys, Theresa May, Triangle Fire, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Brexit, Claverack, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, Hygge, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
June 5, 2017
The pearl grey of twilight is settling on the Hudson Valley and I’m playing the Joan Baez station from Amazon Prime Music in the background, wrapped in the warmth of a fleece pullover as the day has been infused with a chill closer to October than June.
We have had 4.5 inches more rain than normal this year. Last year was a drought; this year a flood. Saturday started with rain and then became a brilliant early spring day – except it’s not quite early spring anymore.
At the Farmer’s Market, I picked up fair trade coffee and some incredible chevre from an amazing artisanal cheese maker that I discovered at the winter market. In a way, I feel disloyal to the other cheese purveyors I frequent and her cheeses are over the top wonderful. She is in the market, center aisle, on the east end. Goats and Gourmets.
And all this is very hygge. And oh, my god! Do I need hygge right now!
Donald Trump has removed us from the Paris Climate Accords. It was not unexpected and it is disappointing. As I watch, from my point of view, I am witnessing the President of this country diminish us with every move he makes.
It is something that saddens me every day and I know I must live with this for the rest of his term, be it four or eight years. All this impeachment talk is not very real as it is hard, as it should be, to impeach a president. It’s my hope that we will have only one term of this man and that the country will elect someone in 2020 who will deal with the very real problems we face.
Trump trumpeted he would spend money to restore the infrastructure of this country which is in desperate need of restoration. His plan for that seems, to me, a little incoherent.
As is my custom, from my Catholic childhood, I light candles at church on Sunday when I come back from communion. One candle is for me. Call me selfish but one candle is just for me. Another is for the people I know who are having health issues. It includes the daughter of my friend Clark Bunting, whose daughter suffered a traumatic brain injury and the son of a former boyfriend who has a son who also suffers from that and seems to be doing well as well as all the others I know who are dealing with health issues.
And I light a candle for Donald Trump and the world in which we are living, praying we will get through this.
Then I light a candle for all the things I said I would light a candle about and have forgotten.
It is very comforting for me to do this.
One of the reasons I attend Christ Church is that I am getting older and at some point, in this getting older process, I won’t be here and I would like a community of people to mourn me. Christ Church will. In the last few years, I have become an integral part of that community. My coffee hours after the 10:30 service are legendary as are the Easter brunches I have organized the last two years.
And I would like there to be a great good party on the deck of the cottage or, if that’s not possible, at the Red Dot. I’m part of that community also.
It’s my hope it will be some long time before there will need to be a celebration but I am laying the ground work for that. That, too, is hygge for me.
Sitting here in the cottage, I am grateful and that is so comforting, to be grateful.
Tags:Christ Church Episcopal, General, Home, Hudson Farmer's Market, Hudson New York, Hygge, Media, Paris Climate Accord, Politics, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, Hygge, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Paris Climate Accords, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
June 1, 2017
Thunderstorms pummeled the Hudson Valley last night. This morning is as sweet a morning as one might wish.
The sky is a color of blue for which I cannot find a word; sweet, clear, refreshed from the rain. The sharp green of the trees outside my window almost glow in the sunlight cascading down in an almost magic morning. It is not hard to imagine that across the creek woodland nymphs are gambling in delight.
A big mug of strong coffee is at my side and jazz is playing, upbeat and uplifting.
A letter has been fermenting in my mind the last few days, ever since a couple of my friends who are supporters of Donald Trump questioned me on why he has had such a vitriolic reception as President?
I found myself surprised by the question.
It surprised me they did not understand; didn’t see what I see and I need to remember we are all individuals who are interpreting current events in different ways.
We have a President who didn’t win the majority vote and is still the President of the country, an event that has happened twice in this century, brief as it has been, and that has made a lot of people angry, uncomfortable and questioning our Founding Fathers’ wisdom in setting up the Electoral College.
We have a President that doesn’t seem to know the truth. We like our Presidents to at least sound like they’re telling the truth.
We don’t like them saying things that are verifiably not true, things that are conflations of their own imaginations. People notice things like that. It does not breed respect.
His Inauguration speech depicted an America which inspired despair, not hope. His picks for almost every office inspires deep concern for many people. Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA? Rick Perry as Secretary of the Department of Energy, the department he couldn’t remember in a debate that he wanted eliminated. Sort of a come down from people like the Ph.D.’s who were running it before.
NOTHING this President has done is very Presidential.
In his European trip, he may have handed the mantle of the leader of the Free World to Angela Merkel.
He is picking a trade fight with Germany but not addressing the real issues and potentially hurting workers in the South, where German car companies have been manufacturing. People who elected him may be the victims of this fight.
If he repudiates the Paris Climate Accords, he will link us with Syria and Nicaragua as the only countries not agreeing and will be doing another thing that will cede leadership to China, which remains steadfast in its support. And is capitalizing on it. China’s Premier is in Europe right now, cozying up to Merkel.
If we are disrespectful, it is because this man has given us so little to respect – from my point of view and that is not the point of view of everyone. I acknowledge that.
My family was Republican. The first President I remember is Dwight Eisenhower. Wow. Dwight Eisenhower then. Donald Trump now. Is it any wonder I shiver at night?
Weeks ago, I texted one of the smartest people I know, an Independent, who has voted both for Republicans and Democrats, not married to a party. I asked him what he thought of Trump. There was no response, until this weekend.
He said: I used to think Trump was just a jackass but he seems to be a jackass and an idiot.
Our White House is occupied by someone who seems a jackass and an idiot who is being unfaithful to the people who elected him. Everything he has proposed is supportive of his class and destructive to the people who elected him.
He is bringing the Billionaire’s Boy’s Club to the White House. He’s not cleaning out the swamp. He’s enlarging it.
Bucking a long-standing tradition, he hasn’t, still, released his tax returns. His aides have “forgotten” meetings with Russian officials during the campaign. His sons have contradicted him in terms of his financial relations with Russia. There are all kinds of dangling Russian connections that are, at best, unseemly, and, at worst, criminal and maybe treasonous.
So, I shiver at night and tremble when he speaks.
This is all, of course, my humble opinion.
And thus, I do things that are very hygge to comfort my soul, make me feel at one with the universe, and give me a smile, such as enjoying and savoring the view out my window, like enjoying this cat on display on Main Street in Catskill, where I was doing some errands yesterday.
Or enjoying this reflection by Thomas Pesquet, a French astronaut, as he readies himself for his return to earth. See it here.
Tags:Angela Merkel, Billionaire's Boy's Club, Brad Pitt, Department of Energy, Donald Trump, Dwight Eisenhower, Electoral College, EPA, Hudson Valley, Hygge, life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matt Tombers, Paris Climate Accord, Rick Perry, Scott Pruitt, technology, the swamp, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
May 16, 2017
As I ride south on the train, white caps lap at the island which hold the ruins of Bannerman’s Castle, a building designed in the 19th Century to look like a medieval European fortress, purposed for holding ammunition and which began its slide to ruin when the ammunition blew the building up.
It’s one of the sites on the journey down into the city, where I am going today for a doctor’s appointment, a lunch and afternoon drinks with my friend, Ann Frisbee Naymie, in from Vancouver, British Columbia. Back in the day, we worked together at A&E in Los Angeles before life took her north of the border.
Across from me now is the citadel of West Point, the redoubt of American military might. The Catskills are covered in the verdant green of spring and the sun is attempting to break through the clouds which have hovered over us for several days now.
Riding in the café car on a train that has no café, people sit at the tables working; Stephen sleeps and there is a quiet. Most of us in here know each other: we are Empire Regulars, folks who ride this line enough that we are on the email list which informs us of all train developments. It’s been busy this past week as Amtrak is planning repair work on several tunnels in Penn, which may result in some trains going in and out of Grand Central. Whatever happens, it will be messy.
Messy, too, is the life politic. Some Republican Senators seem to be backing away from Mr. Trump, alarmed by his “inconsistencies,” a few shocked by his weekend threats to fired FBI Director Comey that he should hope there were no “tapes” of their conversations.
Republicans still support him though his overall ratings remain low, 39% in a WSJ/NBC poll, not low enough for mass defection but low enough for wariness.
A friend in California, a Trump supporter, is convinced Trump has a plan. This presidency seems improvisational and some improvisations go well and others…
If we didn’t know the definition of ransomware before the weekend, we are likely to know it now as hundreds of thousands of computers around the world have been infected with the “Wanna Cry” virus, locking them down until a ransom in bitcoin has been paid or a workaround is found. China is a mess today because of it; their use of pirated software making them especially vulnerable. Britain’s National Health took a blow as did the German national rail company.
That pudgy, pouty, unpredictable little man who is North Korea’s dictator, fired a rocket into the Sea of Japan, ending in the water not terribly far from Vladivostok. I doubt Tsar Vladimir is amused. But who knows? It may serve his purpose to look away.
And President Xi of China is finding that North Korea is more of a headache than he’d like these days, as he announces a new “Silk Road” to knit together some 60 countries with hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure investments.
We are gliding through the stretch of towns that line the Hudson, bedroom communities, passing by Metro North stations, all of it testifying to the hum and thrum of New York City, not far away now.
Tags:Claverack, Claverack Creek, Comey, Hudson River, North Korea, President Xi, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Comey, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Political, Political Commentary, Putin, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
May 12, 2017
On Monday, I had a conversation with a friend; she stated she felt she was living with constant stress due to the political landscape in Washington. Then I had virtually the same conversation on Tuesday with another friend, followed by one on Wednesday and then again yesterday, which resulted in my friend bursting into tears.
Lest you think these are bitter liberals, two of the four are folks who consider themselves moderate Republicans.
And then there were two bright young men I met at the studio who are going to launch a conservative talk show on the station and they are full of fervor and believe that Donald Trump is the best thing that could have happened to America.
And these conversations put the spotlight on the vast political chasm that is dividing the country today.
For those of a certain mindset, liberals and moderate Republicans, the constant torment of political news is causing them to feel they are living under a dome of stress on top of the stress of ordinary life.
Many Democrats and Progressives live in outrage. My moderate Republican friends feel the party they knew has been snatched from them, finally, irrevocably.
Nearly everyone is taking, or talking about taking, a break from news, which I did, certainly, and chronicled in my last letter.
One thing I am doing is reveling as much as I can in the beauty around me and I am so fortunate to live in this beautiful spot. Just now, outside my window, a blue jay landed and we shared a look before he winged away.
If I were not in this place, called “your Walden Pond” by a friend, I might be going quite mad.
Parsing the day’s news is daunting.
Comey’s firing has the world all a frazzle. Keeping a promise to a very Republican friend, I do my best to look not just at the New York Times. So, after the sacking of the FBI Director, I checked on reactions from all sides of the spectrum. Some, both conservative and liberal, felt the guy had to go. Most had a sense of dis-ease at the timing, days after Comey had asked for more resources for the investigation into Russian collusion during the campaign with Trump’s campaign.
Some likened it to the “Saturday Night Massacre” during Nixon’s Watergate debacle though I don’t think we’ve quite hit that yet. And I have this gnawing sense we might get there.
Back in my Santa Monica days, my neighbor and friend, Susan Ottalini, was an editor for CBS News and had started her career as a journalist in small town California. She would ride on patrol with the police and sometimes they would pull someone over because it “JDLR,” just doesn’t look right.
Comey’s firing looks to me to be a “JDLR.”
Along with Trump’s tweets today, seeming to threaten Comey about not leaking to the press.
The day after Comey’s firing, President Trump met with Russia’s Foreign Minister, Lavrov and the Russian Ambassador. No U.S. photographers were allowed to capture Trump and Lavrov, only Lavrov’s personal photographer had access.
“JDLR” on a couple of counts.
The Alt Left and Alt Right are awash with conspiracy rumors.
And the hysteria requires me to concentrate on things like: how the sun falls between the trees when I am sitting at my desk in the afternoon, how the wind moves the branches of blooming trees, how my kitchen smells after I have made something really good…
My music choices are mostly upbeat swing jazz; it lifts my mood in the morning though earlier today I listened to folk from the 1960’s and it reminded me of those dark times, Viet Nam sliding into Nixon, Watergate, democracy lurching and then righting itself.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blessed:
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Alexander Pope, Essay on Man
Once, long ago, when I was living in Santa Monica, one of my neighbors was Susan Ottalini, an editor for CBS News, who started her career as a police reporter in a smallish California town. Sometimes she rode along with officers as they were patrolling
As I start this blog, it is the evening of May 10th, the evening after President Trump fired James Comey, Director of the FBI, who found out he was fired from newscasts. And the world is quite aflutter about it.
The White House seemed unprepared for the backlash which
Tags:"Just Doesn't Look Right", Alexander Pope, Alt Left, Alt right, Comey, Democrats, General, Hope springs eternal in the human breast, JDLR, Republicans, Santa Monica, Saturday Night Massacre, Susan Ottalini, Trump, Walden Pond
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Comey, Elections, Entertainment, Hudson New York, Hygge, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Russia, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From Claverack 09 25 2017 Fear, fear mongering, theater and more…
September 25, 2017While it is now officially fall, the weather is summer-ish, scraping at ninety degrees today. The train is rumbling into the city where I will be attending a talk today by my friend Jeff Cole of the Center for the Digital Future on “Driverless Cars and the Battle for the Living Room.” I’m eager to see how those two very disparate topics get pulled together – or not.
Yesterday, I returned to the cottage from Provincetown where I had been visiting friends and attending the Tennessee Williams Festival, now in its twelfth year. Mixing Shakespeare with Williams this year, I saw five plays, the most laudable being “Gnadiges Fraulein,” an absurdist Williams from the tail end of his career in which some see an allegory for that career.
The Festival was marred by weather from the last of Jose for the first three days; yesterday was magnificent. Leaving after Shakespeare’s “Antony & Cleopatra,” I drove home, listening to the omnipresent exegesis of President Trump’s Friday comments on kneeling during the national anthem and Sunday’s reaction by athletes and owners of teams.
Trump had said that owners and coaches should get “the son of a bitch” players who kneeled during the national anthem off the field, suspending or firing them.
Owners and athletes defied the President. Even Tom Brady locked arms with his teammates. The Steelers stayed in the locker room until after the anthem had been played. All but two of the NFL’s owners and CEO’s issued statements calling for unity.
Some fans booed. Most didn’t walk out.
Trump praised those who booed.
Such is life in today’s America.
And I’m on the side of the players and the owners in this kerfuffle. The right to protest is as American as apple pie.
My weariness is growing daily with this President’s ability to be divisive.
Defying top aides, he has escalated the war of words with North Korea to the point that as I am writing this, the foreign minister for the pudgy, pugnacious little man who is the ruler of that country has said that Trump has declared war and they have the right to shoot down American planes.
This will not end well, I fear.
In Germany, Angela Merkel is on her way to a fourth term though diminished. The far right AfD has won a troubling 13% of the vote and will have a place in the German parliament, a feat that no other far right German movement has managed in decades.
It is representative of the fear that threads its way through our societal fibers, in Germany and here at home, in France and the Netherlands. The world is changing and change often results in fear and the world is changing so quickly right now.
Abe in Japan has called a snap election, riding high on North Korean nuclear fears.
The Senate is desperately working to pass another bill to repeal Obamacare but with McCain, Rand Paul and probably Collins and possibly Murkowski against it, tough sledding is a generous description of what is facing McConnell.
Trump is saying today that Congress doesn’t have “the guts” to repeal Obamacare and I’m hoping he’s right as this version seems to be the most mean-spirited of all the versions proposed so far.
I’m off soon to the presentation. I’ll let you know how driverless cars and the battle for the living room fit together!
Have a good day!
Tags:Abe, AfD, Angela Merkel, Antony and Cleopatra, Brad Pitt, Center for the Digital Future, Jeff Cole, McCain, McConnell, NFL, North Korea, Obamacare, Tennessee Williams Festival, Tom Brady, Trump
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