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Letter from the Vineyard

September 23, 2026

September, 2026

Letter from the Vineyard, September 2026

So much lost…

During a long, lovely lunch with Cynthia Hubbard, who’d been interim pastor at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, which I attend, we shared much, including our mutual disbelief 9/11 was a quarter of a century ago.  More than a generation has grown up since then, not alive at that moment, simply history to them.

I was living in New York, two blocks above the evacuation zone, on Spring Street in Soho. History was happening; I was witnessing it.  The history didn’t just happen that one day.  That day, the days that followed, then the weeks, months, years, now decades. 9/11 was a boulder hurled into the ocean of life.

I was a witness, will die a witness.

There are mental snapshots I have of what happened that day, the ones following. I will die with those pictures seared into my brain, of the best and worst of humanity.

The world gathered around us, embraced us, cherished us, grieved with us, shocked at what had happened.

We have squandered all that love thrown at us, down the drain in Afghanistan, Iraq, Abu Ghraib, African adventures, and now Iran.  We have squandered trillions of dollars.  We have squandered our country out of wealth and world position.  In twenty-five years, we have evolved to this: the MAGA era, defined by idiocy, cruelty, greed, attacking those who stood with us, fought with us in our foolish wars, have helped us, again and again and again.

Relationships are never perfect. Alliances are never perfect.  Our current government has chosen not to make relationships and alliances better but to break with those with whom it disagrees.  We chose in the post WWII years to help a world renew itself, a good thing and in doing so created an American era.  We chose to pay because we could. Because it was good for us.

Right now a kind of rage burns in me, a rage coming from having been there, seen the damage done by planes flying into those buildings, from having lived through those days and, now grown old, witnessed our wasting of good will, of endless war producing no good, of somehow allowing ourselves to sink into the slop of this current time, one more time engaging in an unnecessary war, which now seems to be spiraling, perhaps out of control.

So much has been unnecessary these last 25 years.

We have acted like an empire while hiding behind democratic ideals. We have done good; we have done evil. After the Spanish American War, we took the Philippines. When they wanted independence, we squashed it with despicable violence. [Thank you, Paul Dolman]

As a country we have never faced up to the responsibility of allowing slavery to exist in what became the United States, a tension which tears us asunder as some still treat people of color badly [hey, Secretary Hegseth!].

We are currently flirting with Fascism in a way we haven’t since the 1930’s.  I am working to get copies of “The Nerd Reich,” about Silicon Valley billionaires who think democracy inconvenient to their goals, so popular it is on backorder everywhere.

Racism is inherent in this administration, causing me to think of the cry for Aryan children in 1930’s Germany.

Trump has promised $5000 to every American if Republicans are reelected this fall.  I don’t think even in ancient Rome vote buying was this blatant.  Who is paying for this largesse for reelecting Republicans? J.D. Vance is pleading, begging for Americans to give them more time to rectify the problems. Rectify problems they have created, not Biden [as they constantly chant].

The people who elected Trump are now being hurt by him. Farmers, ranchers, long haul truckers, the working class who thought he heard them. The things he’s doing aren’t helping them but hurting them, hurting me, hurting you.

A judge has ruled Trump, and his administration, must give notice before they do anything structurally to the Kennedy Center. Mr. Trump is having a temper tantrum because his name is not on the building. It’s not pretty; people are catching on. 

The Kennedy Center is a treasure, created with priceless gifts from other countries, to honor a man, however flawed, who captured our imagination, lifted us to strive for something better.

Mr. Trump does not seem to want us to strive for something better. He does not call us to be something more. He calls us to be something less. We have elected him twice; it says much about our country.

Photo courtesy of Paul Doherty

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Letter from the Vineyard for August, 2026

September 2, 2026

Whither now?

It’s winding down, “The Season” of 2026.  People have left the Vineyard as school is starting in many places, a thought sacrilegious to me.  School is supposed to start the day AFTER Labor Day, not a day before. It seems obscene to my old fashioned sensibilities.  Children should savor the last days of August with relish rather than attendance.

The streets still swell but less than a couple of weeks ago. The store is busy but not quite as busy.

The summer weather has been sublime, like the “old days” say some who have summered on the Vineyard for years.

 Last weekend was dark, gloomy, rainy. Edgartown Books was bursting with people looking for activity books for children, something to read for themselves. A madcap, joyous weekend, people swarming, yelling to each other across the room, chaos, a kind of chaos causing me to smile from my place behind register #2, where I spend much of the summer, being the book monger of Edgartown, as my godson has named me.

It’s been busy, challenging, exhausting, rewarding.  And I’m still standing.

Surprising myself, I’ve found a can ingest bits of news from radio.  I can listen but not yet watch news.

We all rage about Trump though Trump is the front man for a group of really bad characters. Stephen Miller, an exorable chap, has claimed might makes right. That is not what America should be about according to everything I was taught.  Though that has been what America has been about for quite a while. Pete Hegseth [and his wife] are gutting the Pentagon of decency. Robert Kennedy, Jr., who probably lied to Congress, probably leading us into a vaccination debacle.

In the 21st century, we have, continuously, waged war, some call this period, the “Forever Wars.” We’ve gained nothing, spent trillions of dollars without anything to show for it.

The bond markets are rattled as our national deficit has gone over 40 trillion dollars. Much has been those wars. Iran is another instance.

Tax breaks to corporations and individuals have reduced the flow of cash into the treasury.

We are confronted with wealthy tech moguls who find democracy inconvenient to their goals. Hello, Peter Thiel!

Trump’s lusty vision of America has released from the bottle the pent up frustrations of some Americans who felt deprived, left behind, ignored in their needs. They were.  Shame on Democrats for not listening.

Farmers felt Trump listened. They’re paying the price now.

We’re in a trade war with Canada. Canada! Good for them for standing up to our bullies. Canada has been loyal to us through most of our troubles and our sad wars. Lake America? It’s Lake Ontario to me.

Trump is a capricious president with little understanding of the world. He thinks the lessons learned in real estate in New York, from the tutelage of Roy Cohn, are the rules of the world. They’re not. [If you don’t know about Cohn, read about him. It explains a lot of Trump’s behavior. “Scoundrel,” a biography of him is out soon.] They’re the rules of a demi-monde, New York.

ICE just approved a contract for electric gloves to give shocks.  Really, this is who we have become? ICE is arresting people who are legally in the United States so they can make their “quotas.”  Has ICE become the Black Shirts of our country?

Trump shuns South Korea because he is annoyed they didn’t support his Iranian war.  Instead, he embraces North Korea.

I am appalled, angry and so, so sad.

There has always been a segment of society who has wanted fascism, since the beginning of the Republic.  I’m not sure all signers of the Declaration of Independence were happy about it. 

I did a signing this week for a book, “Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times.” It’s a book about what you can do when you’re asking yourself what can you do.  I’m going to read it. Perhaps you should, too. The author, Skye Perryman, was inspiring in her interview with Jonathan Capehart, from PBS and MSNOW.

Corporations who leeched themselves to Trump are now courting Democrats. Polls are trending for Democrats.  Ron Lauder has not given any money to Republicans.

Trump and his minions want to interfere with vote by mail [though Trump votes by mail]; a way of disrupting the mid-terms.

Our president thinks an Executive Order the equivalent of an Imperial Degree. Trump, his administration, are pushing against the limits of the Constitution, supported by a Congressional majority.

Disruption is the game of this administration, the taking down of our norms.  Time for us to call them all to account.

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Letter from the Vineyard Late July 2026

July 30, 2026

Woe to the grandchildren…

It’s been a while, folks. I know.

Tempus fugit, you know. 

There has been a clatter of demands on me which have kept me from putting fingers to the keyboard for this particular task.  Busy getting the store ready for “the season,” a spot of computer trouble, toss in a storm of bookstore issues, mix it up with an allergic reaction to a new medication which had me overnight in the emergency room, pumped full of Benadryl, in whose haze I lingered for days. Well, it’s been a time.

So, here I am, crashing into the reality “the season” is actually beginning to wind down even though August, our biggest month, is about to unfold, only a few weeks until Labor Day, a summer which has zoomed by though not on Zoom. Lived in real life, real time.  June seemed to last about a day.

There are those who say there have never been more people on island and those who say visitors are down, worried about the ticks, inflation, the economy, what new horror might come out of Washington.

Whatever the truth is, the bookstore, knock on wood, thank God, is doing okay.

The island has had a beautiful summer, causing “old timers” to remark it has been like it used to be, temperate, a place where air conditioning was not needed. There has been a plethora of sun kissed mornings, glorious sunsets, laughter in the streets, the sound of Vineyard Voices, an all-male acapella group, singing in the park next to the bookstore. Idyllic.

In the “real” world back on the mainland…

We have a president who said he’d bring down inflation but has only fueled it.  He said he’d keep us out of foreign wars.  Not happened.

Washington has decided to cut subsidies for Medicare drug coverage, raising prices for seniors.

It seems even die-hard Trump supporters are becoming disenchanted. Can you blame them?

I am Trumped out. He sucked the life out of the 250th anniversary of this county.  The UFC bloodying the lawn at the White House, not far from the ruins of the East Wing? This celebrated America?

The Reflecting Pool repair was a complete disaster; American Flag Blue began to peel days after completion; the water turned algae green in days, the project a triumph of incompetence.

Since February, we’ve been locked in fighting Iran. There’s been no regime change. No complete destruction of Iran’s nuclear program. Now the Houthis are weighing in with a Saudi blockade of the Gulf of Aden.  Saudi Arabia and the U.S. coordinated a strike against them, raising the stakes the war will widen. Ukraine blew up an Iranian ship in the Caspian Sea. War heat rising.

Bush started the endless wars that have consumed us since.  Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran.  We have flexed our muscle over and over to no avail.  Twenty-five years of war and what do we really have to show for it?  Not much. National treasure poured down the drain. Wars fought with muddied goals, lacking exit plans.

Trump has ordered military action in how many countries? 8?

Pete Hegseth slobbers misogyny and racism, blocking the advancement of men of color, of women, based on race and sex.  He wraps himself in a Christian blanket. Is this all really Christian? Not to me.

Now he wants a testosterone test for soldiers over 30.  Makes me suspect he’s doing testosterone himself, making him pretty angry, which he is, all the time.

Donald Trump spends his nights ranting on Truth Social, many posts incomprehensible, spewing invective, hate, lies. His grasp of facts is just that: a grasp. But then this is not a president whose ever has had a close relationship with truth.

We need to hold this administration to the hot irons of an age which had more respect for the laws of this land, for the expectations of the behavior of a president.

No president has created more wealth in his presidency as Trump.

Trump has grifted his way through life. “The Apprentice,” solidified his reputation as a canny business man while probably saving him from bankruptcy.

Estimates of his financial gain for his first year in office this time come in at about $2.2 billion. It seems to be grating to some of his constituency, those who voted for him, now finding themselves counting pennies, squeezed by inflation.  It raises eyebrows.  As it should.

We are tainted with the smell of corruption, seen as a capricious country, led by a capricious man who does not understand nor respect the underpinning of the institutions which have sustained this country.

If it can be done, it will take years to undo this mess.  Or Trump may have tipped the balance, beginning the long slide of the American Empire. Woe to the grandchildren.

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Letter from the Vineyard, March 2026

March 24, 2026

A Letter from the Vineyard, written in segments, during March 2026

Alas, Babylon…

It’s a Saturday night, as I begin to write this.  It’s the night we “spring forward,” an exercise always leaves me feeling off, always makes me wonder why I am doing it? Why is the country doing it? British Columbia, apparently, has said: this is it, no more, after this.

It leaves me feeling tired for some reason, more tired than had I jumped time zones.

____________________________________________________________________________________

We are a little more than a year into the presidency of Mr. Trump; I am exhausted. I woke on the last Saturday of February to find we’re bombing Iran. 

The articulated reasons are inchoate and constantly evolving.  The notion of boots on the ground is terrifying.  Have we learned nothing in my lifetime? Apparently not. But probably Bibi is happy. The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is cheering us on!

Kristi Noem has been fired. Hooray! Markwayne Mullin as a substitute? Not encouraging. Will probably play the game smarter than Kristi [not hard to do] and a Trump loyalist. In the NY Times, the amazing Frank Bruni wrote about how we are being governed by incompetents.  If you have a subscription, here’s the article.

The chaos exhausts me.

Really exhausts me.  As it does like-minded customers in my store, fellow parishioners at St. Andrew’s, everyone I know who isn’t a die-hard supporter of Trump and his minions.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Now it’s a Monday; I spent a pleasant day in the bookstore, researching upcoming books and making sure we had the ones I wanted on order – so many books released in a week! The sun was out; it felt springlike and downtown Edgartown was deserted.  I think everyone was in their yard cleaning up debris from the storm.

The storm, worst since ’78 said everyone.  1978 was brutal in Minnesota too, the year I fled to California, a decision made on a night when it was 73 degrees below zero wind chill factor. It led to this crazy, wonderful life I’m leading.

Reality is a hard pill to swallow.  Especially now, in this dystopian [to me] Trump era when I read accounts of people in this administration talk about what they’re doing.  My head explodes.

Pete Hegseth sounds like he is on SNL, except, god help us all, he isn’t.  He is really in charge of the Department of Defense. No, wait!  The Department of War, which is what he just started, at the bidding of our president, Trump. Undeclared by Congress, by the way.  Democratic and Republican presidents have for the last how many decades found ways to bypass Congress in military adventures?

Donald Trump, having kicked the hornet’s nest, has no idea what he has unleashed.  He is remaking the world; I wonder will we like the new model? 

The Iranian people who rioted against the theocracy just months ago are too busy dodging bombs to rise up again while at the same time they are likely turning against Trump – and all of us. 

My friends Misha and Quadri were stranded in Dubai, changing planes when this fresh hell manifested itself, spent harrowing days without any help from the US government. Back in the Obama years, a friend of mine worked at State, was in charge of making sure Americans were helped in situations like this.  No more, apparently.

On March 14th Trump said we might bomb Kharg Island again, “just for fun.”  WTF. An American president talking about bombing – just for fun? I am profoundly disturbed. Just for fun? From an American president?

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation [didn’t know about it either] has reported troops are being told by some commanders the Iran War is divinely ordained, the trigger for Armageddon as foretold in the Book of Revelation.

The Secretary for War also has also draped his Pentagon in Christian symbolism while declaring we would “give no quarter” which, to some legal heads, is a war crime.

My friend Carolyn pointed out this was fodder for satire in the ‘60’s. But now, 60 years later, satire it’s not.

Trump’s approval rating is falling around affordability issues, not his lack of moral fiber.  If I am reading the polls correctly, three quarters of the country disapproves of his actions against Iran. But we are more concerned about prices than the deaths happening because of this fiasco. 175 children because of outdated intelligence among them.

Mr. Trump called NATO members “cowards” for not sending help.  Well, Mr. Trump, you have eviscerated them during both your terms.  Any wonder they’re not joining? You didn’t even bother telling them before you started bombing.  You are successfully breaking down the hegemony which has sustained us through my lifetime.

Robert Mueller is dead, a stoic civil servant if ever there was one. Mueller had investigated Trump.  On hearing of his death, Mr. Trump said something like, good, I’m glad.  Not surprising from Trump but really? You’re the president.  A little decorum? Not going to happen.

Yesterday armed ICE agents arrived at some airports. What can go wrong?

I am hoping we make it out of this life without Trump starting a nuclear war. Seriously, it wakes me up sometimes.

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Letter from the Vineyard

February 16, 2026

February, 2026

I’m home from a day at the bookstore, now reopened after being closed for four and half weeks while a new floor was installed and we did inventory.

Generally, I spend a few days crafting my “letter.” Not this one.  It’s poured out of me; I want to get it out before I hack at it again.

My return from vacation while the floor was installed corresponded with the most snow the Vineyard has seen in a dozen years.

The day the store reopened, walking to my car, I didn’t notice a patch of ice, fell, made a small fracture of my ankle.  Now I am in a boot, which makes navigating difficult.  This winter is more trying than any other I’ve had on the Vineyard.  I am working very hard not to be cranky.  It’s not easy.

So much is not easy these days.

There is so much to be angry about, dismayed about, and I effing don’t want this man and his MAGA movement to dominate my head space completely. Trump and his minions do so many things so despicable it is hard not to have one’s jaw constantly dropping.

While all of this is going on, relentlessly, from our president and the cast of despicable people with whom he has surrounded himself, I must seek out things to give me solace because in solace there will be found strength to go on resisting because we are moving into a time when we have to actively resist.

There is joy in my days in the bookstore, in the comings and goings of people, of the joy of watching them pick out books for themselves, often not what I would guess. There are moments of conversation, about the weather [for the island, pretty awful right now], politics [most of our customers are aligned with me, but not all], our Banned Books section, which is forever changing as there are so many banned books.

Hope I feel when young people come into the store and buy thoughtful, serious books that will demand something from them.

Gratitude when I wake in the morning and look out my windows, surrounded by nature, glad I am still walking the earth with a moment to feel grateful.  And that’s been harder to do wearing a boot on my left leg, using an umbrella as a cane to help me navigate the sheet of ice my driveway has become.

I am grateful for all of you who take the time to read my letters.

Yes, I am enraged right now.  The administration is working to obtain subpoenas to look at social media accounts to see who opposes ICE.  Well, yes, I oppose ICE in this manifestation, thuggish as it is, masked as it is.  Even the Brown Shirts back in the day didn’t wear masks.

So, if the administration gets its way, I will, perhaps, be targeted for opposing the behavior of ICE.  And that astounds me. That in this country this would be happening.  Goes way beyond Richard Nixon’s Enemies List.  Brings it down to all of us, at every level.

This morning, I was at St. Andrew’s, confirmed as a member of the Vestry, the Episcopal Version of the Parish Council, my second tour of duty as a Vestry member. As I stood on the altar, I thought doing this was an act of hope.

St. Andrew’s is a little church and it’s the church which took in the Venezuelans dropped on Martha’s Vineyard by the Governor of the great state of Florida from the great state of Texas.

In the day to day, we work to do good things.  We collect food and clothes to pass on. We helped start the first shelter for homeless on the island, along with two other churches, now grown into its own building.

Mainstream Christianity has been in decline but, unless I am misremembering the reports from Pew, the decline has plateaued, perhaps because of Covid, perhaps because churches are, in their essence, community in a time and world craving community.

To stand for good is an act of hope – and defiance – in a time when hope and defiance are now needed as much as ever.

An immigrant in Minneapolis posted a video on Tik Tok in praise of old white women in Minneapolis, who helped him feel safe.  Watch it here. It’s wonderful and some of those old white women are people with whom I went to grade school.  Take inspiration from them.

As, God knows, we need inspiration.

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Letter from the Vineyard

December 31, 2025

Happy New Year

December, 2025

Letter from the Vineyard

December 31, 2025

December is slipping away, the year nearly done. Days will get longer now. The light will come, literally.

Christmas was to have been spent in New Mexico but the morning I was to leave, I got up; my back did not.  I spent days managing an episode of sciatica, a word I remember hearing in my childhood, something old people dealt with.  Well, I am old now; it’s something I’ve navigated a couple of times, first in the summer of 2018 when I woke up, got in the shower, experienced a kind of pain I’ve never know before. Pretty quiet until now, when it erupted and I cancelled Christmas for myself.

While I rested, the Kennedy Center was renamed the Trump – Kennedy Center, something I find offensive but not surprising. There will also be a Trump class of new warships for the Navy. The memes are amazing, several of gold plated warships caused me to guffaw, one named S.S. Bonespurs, which felt a shade dangerous with my back.

Mr. Trump also hosted the Kennedy Honors, which were the lowest rated in their history. Excuse my schadenfreude.

The Supreme Court showed a moment of spine and prevented deployment of troops in Chicago. The Supreme Court has been unprecedented in allowing presidential power to expand. FDR attempted something of the same but didn’t get as far as President Trump. Abraham Lincoln was a master.

Jeffrey Epstein does not go away.  Trump said he had never been on Epstein’s plane though flight records indicate he was, more than a half dozen times, a plane known to some as “The Lolita Express.” Five million more pages to come…

Marjorie Taylor Greene was screamed at by Trump about her activism to release the files.  Why, she asked.  It’s going to hurt my friends, said the president, allegedly.

On Christmas Day, the U.S., in coordination with Nigeria, did precision bombing against IS enclaves in northern provinces, suspected of attacking Christians. The Nigerian government disputes Christians were uniquely targeted, saying IS doesn’t discriminate, attacking both Muslims and Christians.

Israel ranks last among countries in the Anholt Nation Brands Index [who knew there was such a thing?] Surprised?

Gaza is a festering wound. One day, I happened upon pictures of children in the West Bank, looking like Holocaust survivors.

In response, I gave to World Central Kitchen, Jose Andres’ organization for Gaza relief.

Famine is hovering over Palestine, Haiti, Sudan, South Sudan, Mali and Yemen, at least. As the year ends, think of the starving and, if you can, help out.

One of the wars Trump “ended” was between Cambodia and Thailand except it didn’t stay ended.  There’ve been weeks of deadly clashes and bombings.  On Sunday, the 28th, another ceasefire was declared.

While it can seem the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are riding freely across the globe, there are signs of hope.  Nicholas Kristoff has an opinion piece in the December 28th edition of the New York Times in which he tries to cheer us up.  I recommend reading it here.

During the days of being home there was time to ponder.

Politically, I think of myself as a centrist, modestly progressive, concerned about civil rights, grateful to have grown up in the America I did, flawed as it was, it did seem we were mostly all working toward a common, greater good.

Sorry to say, not so sure right now.  However, as friends tip more to despair than hope, I find my hope rising again.

Trump is not invincible.  The rise of fascism is not inevitable.  It will take work and we’re capable of it.  We need to believe in ourselves. I continue to take hope and find hope in the good things I see happening. 

My best high school friend, Tom, works three days a week at a food bank, stretched to the max by need.  This island came together to help our food bank weather the suspension of SNAP.

People go to the streets, make silly, wonderful signs, letters are written, petitions are signed, blogs are written. Write a letter, sign a petition. Partake in a march.

Now in Summerfield, FL to spend New Year’s with my sister, a newer tradition of ours.  Off to see other friends in Florida and on the 10th, will set sail on a Virgin Voyages cruise, 7 days of drifting through the Caribbean, traveling with my longtime friend, Tory, who has also booked a cabin.

Let me leave you with my favorite picture of the year, Edgartown Books in her Christmas finery. I think it sings of hope.

Happy New Year! Let us go forth bravely in these troubled times.

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Letter from the Vineyard

October 30, 2025

October, 2025

Letter from the Vineyard, October 2025

On October 18th, across the country, millions moved onto the streets for a “No Kings” demonstration or, as some Republicans categorized it, a “Hate America,” rally.

Looking at all the reports, it seemed anything but a “Hate America” rally; rather an unabashed love fest for this country and what it stands for, for the things which have made us wonderfully unique.

No mistake, we are at a pivotal point. We have been before.  Pick up Jill Lepore’s “These Truths,” a history of the United States; there have been times we have been at the brink and have come back, better.

There is never a guarantee.  The Athenians lost democracy, the Romans their Republic. But nothing is inevitable and, for the first time since we entered this Project 2025 bad dream, I felt hope.

The protests were delightful, mocking; nothing a movement like Trump’s detests more than being mocked. 

Much of what outrages us is not just Trump; it is the people around Trump.  He’s not smart enough to be pulling all this off.

He is being used by men who understand he has captured the imagination of the disaffected in this country, men like Stephen Miller who is driving immigration policy, like Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, main architect of Project 2025, who, for whatever reasons, seems to have devoted his adult life to creating an executive that surpasses all other parts of the government.

It’s been played before in this country.  We may be besotted by the streaming series “The Gilded Age,” but then there were men trying to do what these men are attempting to do today, create an oligarchy.

They think, because they are rich, they are better, smarter.

I think these men have done amazing things. It does not give them the right to rule.

Musk is marching toward being the world’s first trillionaire, has just launched Grokipedia, an alternative to Wikipedia, which depends entirely upon Grok, Musk’s AI creation for its information. Grok seems to share the biases of Mr. Musk himself. What could go wrong?

The would be oligarchs love the administration of Donald Trump because it is making it easy for them to shape the world to their wants. Stephen Miller wants a white world. Russell Vought apparently wants an Il Duce; one he can control. He seems to be getting it.

We’re in a government shutdown. Kristi Noem, head of Homeland Security, created a video blaming the Democrats for the shutdown.  Well, there just went another norm. 

The stress is beginning to show.  Flights were halted into LAX because of a shortage of air traffic controllers.

And the norms broken keep getting bigger.

We woke up, discovered the East Wing of the White House was no more. How was this possible? How did a part of the White House get destroyed without some oversight, some deep dive into its historical importance, a look at alternatives?

It is true the White House complex needs a space to entertain; tenting is not an ideal solution but was it necessary to destroy one wing of the White House to provide it? 

The SNAP program is running out of money.  The Trump Administration won’t use billions in reserve to support it.

“The Great Big Beautiful Bill” is setting the groundwork for the United States to carry a debt ratio similar to Italy and Greece, countries whose financial crises almost brought down the European Union.  And who thought this was a good idea? Under a Republican president?  Under a Republican Congress? This is happening?

It is.

Speaker Johnson won’t seat a Democratic Congressperson from Arizona, nor will he call Congress back into session.  The administration apparently doesn’t want him to as it gives them some opportunities to consolidate power into the Executive Branch though it’s not Trump thinking this up.  Russell Vought, is that you, calling the shots?

Trump jokes about a third term. Steve Bannon says there is “a plan.” It’s not constitutionally possible but when has the impossible tempered this administration?

We have gone beyond norm breaking, entering uncharted territory.

So, let us go back to where I started:  the protests, the lovely, crazy, wonderful, “No Kings” protests. Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan wrote in “Why Civil Resistance Works” that if 3.5% of a population of a country’s population takes to the streets, political change becomes likely; not guaranteed, but history suggests it will. 

It’s estimated there were 7 million in the streets, that’s 2%.  Next time I will shut the shop and take to the streets. Let’s get out there, change the world.

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Letter from the Vineyard 11.02.24

November 3, 2024

It has been an age since a “letter;” I stopped when it became apparent Trump would be the Republican nominee; to comment on the world meant mentioning him – I couldn’t, toxic to me.

And Biden was failing, faltering, laying open a path to put Trump in the White House. 

Then Biden withdrew, Harris pulled the Democratic Party together in a New York minute; as Sherlock would say, the game was afoot.

My family was Republican, I was Republican, left in the Reagan years, when the seeds of today’s Republican party were sown, the beginning of an unholy, to me, alliance between the GOP and the Christian Right, about votes for the GOP, about abortion for the Christian Right.

For decades it’s gone on, paying off for the Christian Right, thanks to the current Supreme Court.

Two years ago, I registered as a Republican, even if the Republican Party as I knew it no longer existed. Registered, I can fight for it, in small ways.

This is from The Atlantic magazine’s endorsement of Kamala Harris, only its fourth in a history predating Lincoln, who it also endorsed.

“If you’re a conservative who can’t abide Harris’s tax and immigration policies, but who is also offended by the rottenness of the Republican Party, only Trump’s final defeat will allow your party to return to health … We believe that American politics are healthiest when vibrant conservative and liberal parties fight it out on matters of policy.”

This is a fight for country and party.  Trump is not a Republican, having perverted the Republican Party to serve his narcistic needs.

His claim to fame is he is a successful businessman, telling folks he got a small loan from his dad to get started.  Not true.  His father bailed him out over and over.   Read “Lucky Loser,” they have the receipts. 

“The Apprentice” saved him; in need of cash flow, he got it from posing as a successful businessman, over $400 million in desperately needed dollars.  While the show was running he went through two bankruptcies, out of, what, six? Eight?

John Miller, head of marketing for NBC at the time, is on an apology tour for his role in convincing people Trump was a successful businessman.

Does no one see he is deteriorating in front of us, under the glare of klieg lights? Dancing when people have collapsed at one of his rallies, discussing Arnold Palmer’s genitals? Suggesting guns be aimed at Liz Cheney?

The media, which Trump hates, does not hold him accountable as they did Biden. 

What is any Christian thinking, voting for him, a man who has cheated almost everyone who has ever worked for him, refusing to pay what they are owed, who’s cheated on his wives, who’s been ordered to pay compensation to a woman he assaulted?  The judge called it rape.

Roy Cohn, who did Joe McCarthy’s dirty work, denied he was gay even as he died of AIDS, trained Trump to attack, attack, deny, deny.  Cohn was one of the most execrable characters of the 20th century.

Trump is being supported by lots of billionaires, including Elon Musk, who has got to be the most brilliant, looniest character ever. And who seems to have been chatting with Putin regularly.

Trump is offering to help shelter billionaire’s wealth.

We have the greatest income gap since the Gilded Age, when the country tottered between revolution and reform. Teddy Roosevelt’s reforms saved us from oligarchy.

Trump will advance oligarchy. 

The Romans built their empire on the backs of slaves.  The United States has a dirty secret, it’s built on the backs of immigrants.  Our immigration policy has been flawed since there was immigration policy. 

Trump rallied the troops to block immigration reform in Congress because he wanted to campaign on the issue, a plan crafted by Republicans. Biden had caved.

Unless you’re Native American, you’re an immigrant or descended from one. 

But German, Swedish, Italian, Polish immigrants were white.  Many new arrivals have different skin colors, not okay.  We have not resolved our racist past.

Trump promises mass deportations.

Be prepared to pay higher prices on everything.  Milk will skyrocket without immigrants to work the fields.  Farmers will lose their livelihood.

His tariffs?  Inflation will skyrocket because we’ve outsourced nearly everything.

Is he a fascist? Yes. Is he Hitler like? No, more like Mussolini. But behind him, are people not too morally far from Hitler’s men.  Project 2025.

Those folks are ideological descendants of people who have wanted America fascist for over a century, have worked at it, now within a vote of getting it. 

John Kelly, retired general, Trump’s longest serving Chief of Staff, denounced him as fascist.

Other Republicans repudiate Trump.  Pence has, Liz Cheney, her father, former VP Dick Cheney has, Shawn Reilly, Mayor of Waukesha, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Stephanie Grisham, Jimmy McCain, son of John, seventeen members of the Ronald Reagan’s staff, saying Reagan would support Harris, former Senator Jeff Flake; they number in the hundreds.

Especially since his Madison Square Garden rally turned into a racist debacle.

Evil is afoot.  Stop it.  Kamala may not be your ideal candidate though she has hope, is competent, can complete a sentence. Or withhold your vote from Trump. Write yourself in.

Dorothy Thompson, a pioneering journalist, exiled from Germany by the Nazis, wrote:

“No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument – the Incorporated National Will. … When our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American. And nobody will ever say “Heil” to him, nor will they call him “Führer” or “Duce.” But they will greet him with one great big, universal, democratic, sheeplike bleat of “O.K., Chief! Fix it like you wanna, Chief! Oh Kaaaay!”*

I hear the bleating in the streets.

Time for it to stop.

*New York Herald column, February 12, 1937

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Letter From Claverack 09 25 2017 Fear, fear mongering, theater and more…

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!

 

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Letter From Claverack 09 05 2017 On my knees, praying…

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.

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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.

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