Posts Tagged ‘Trump’
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 »
May 4, 2017
Well, the time is nigh. Today Republicans voted, successfully, on “Repeal and Replace,” hoping to end the Affordable Care Act with their own American Health Care Act. “Obamacare,” long despised by Republicans, may be gone and they will have had their way and many of them will be holding their breath that it does not go badly wrong because if it does, the piper will need to be paid.
We will find out if, as President Trump says, pre-existing conditions will be covered or as Democrats are saying, they will not. If they are covered, it does seem coverage will be much more expensive.
Not a fan of Jimmy Kimmel, I was profoundly moved by his discussion of his newborn son’s heart surgery. If you haven’t seen it, you need to watch it. It is from the heart. [Yes, pun intended.] Please look here.
As I ponder this, I am, not surprisingly, listening to jazz, being all hygge at the cottage, sitting in my favorite corner on the couch, starting preparations for a Friday night dinner party. Have I mentioned I tend to look at the Food Section of the New York Times before I read the news? First thing, comfort and coffee, and then I hit the hard stuff.
Yesterday marked the month anniversary of my once a week radio program. My first guest was Jeff Cole, CEO of the Center for the Digital Future at the Annenberg School of Communications, part of USC. We talked futures. How we are changing and being changed by technology.
His great concern, and I share it, is how we will, as individuals and society, adapt to the coming advent of AI, artificial intelligence, which is already shaping our lives. Last night, as I was heading to bed, I paused and asked Alexa to set two alarms for me and they went off flawlessly, a soft chirping sound in the dark which could be eliminated by a command: Alexa! Snooze! And she snoozes.
I am experimenting with Siri, changing her responses from American English to British English. All fun and games until we get to the moment when the machines decide we are superfluous. Think the Terminator movies or the Hyperion novels which, to me, are more likely than the Terminator scenario. [In some respects, particularly Book One.]
Since I was very young, I’ve been a space enthusiast. Stephen Hawking, the phenomenon of a physicist, has warned us we have about a hundred years to get off the planet.
We could do it if we put all our energies to it but I don’t think jihadists are going to put down their guns to get us into space.
Outside, there are soft sounds and the trees are blooming. In the morning when I wake, I thank God that I get to look out at the creek and am here, in Claverack, a place that centers my soul as no other place ever has. When I look out, I am sometimes nostalgic for the time fifteen years ago when the geese formed a flotilla on my waters. They are mostly gone now.
It sometimes reminds me of an episode of “Star Trek: Next Generation” in which Jean Luc’s brain is infused with the memories of a dead civilization and one of the signs of their passing was the drying up of a creek. Occasionally, I stand on the deck and think: if the creek is gone, so are we.
However, today the creek still flows.
Generally, I am not fond of George Will, the conservative writer. Today, I read an article of his that encapsulates my ongoing sense of unreality. Read it here.
Encased in the safety of the cottage, I am doing my best to live in hope because we must live in hope. Hope is what has driven the race forward; it is what has brought millions of immigrants to our shore, who have shaped the country in which we live. My great-grandparents, on my father’s side, were among them as were my grandparents on my mother’s side. They came to the United States, buoyed by a sense of chance, of opportunity.
It’s hard for me to think that could change.
Tags:ACA, Affordable Care Act, Alexa, Annenberg School of Communications, Artificial Intelligence, Center for the Digital Future, Echo, General, Jeff Cole, Jimmy Kimmel, Obamacare, President Trump, Stephen Hawking, technology, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
May 1, 2017
It is a Sunday evening at the cottage. Jazz is playing, the lights splash the creek. I have made myself a martini. It was a typical Sunday, up early, read the NY Times and a few articles from the WSJ online before the shower and then off to church, where I did the readings and then coffee hour, errands before settling at the Dot for a long and lazy brunch, reading more off my phone and chatting with a few people, home to the cottage, put away laundry, got the trash together and sat down to write.
Very hygge.
Because I need the steady rhythm of familiar things in this Age of Trump.
His aides were caught off guard when he extended an invitation to President Duterte of the Philippines to come visit him during a Saturday call. If you haven’t been following it, President Duterte has been accused of extra-judicial killings in that country’s current “drug war.” Now those surprised aides are preparing for an avalanche of criticism as it’s hard to find a world leader disliked as much as Duterte by pretty much everyone.
Then, after unleashing a problem for everyone around him, Mr. Trump jetted off to Harrisburg, PA for a campaign style rally to “record breaking crowds,” where he railed to his supporters about the media which was, at the same time, roasting him in DC, even if he was not there. In two events, the official White House Correspondents’ Dinner and the Samantha Bee hosted “Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner” withered the sitting President, the first to have missed this event since 1981, when Ronald Reagan was recuperating from an assassin’s attack.
I wake up in the morning and find I am in a state of continuing bemusement in what is going on in Washington. It is reality television, which is what we should have expected when we elected a reality television star to the Presidency. With Reagan, we had an actor who knew how to deliver his lines. There aren’t really “lines” in reality television. There is direction but no script. We have a President who is making up his script as he goes along, knowing he knows better than everyone else. Even if he doesn’t.
The WSJ, a deeply conservative publication, to which I now subscribe, seems to be wanting to support him and just can’t find a way not to point out that it’s all a little…off.
And it is more than a little off.
Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff, said the White House was looking at ways of changing the libel laws to make it easier to for Trump to sue media organizations who criticize him. Imagine how the Democrats responded to that, not to mention many Republicans? Not pretty. Do we not remember the First Amendment? Or is Trump being inspired by Erdogan of Turkey who has been arresting thousands of people he suspects of being disloyal while cracking down on the press? Cracking down makes it sound nice. He is dismantling any vocal opposition to him.
One thing we should note is that the economy grew at the slowest rate in three years in the first quarter of Trump. Maybe it’s a holdover from Obama or maybe it’s the fear of Trump.
We are in a political Wild West except in this Wild West we have nuclear weapons.
It’s a dark time in American democracy and we need to remember, in this “of the moment” world in which we live, this has not been the only dark time in American democracy. We had the Civil War, dark time. We survived Andrew Jackson, a really, really not nice President [who, by the way, our current President seems to identify with].
We will, God willing, live through this.
In the meantime, I will play jazz. I will drink martinis. I will write and I will hope, because without hope we have nothing.
Tags:Andrew Jackson, Christ Church Episcopal, Civil War, Donald Trump, Duterte, Erdogan, Harrisburg, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Mother Eileen, Not The White House Correspondents Dinner, NY Times, Reince Priebus, Ronald Reagan, Samantha Bee, Trump, Washington, White House Correspondents Dinner, Will Ferrell, WSJ
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
April 6, 2017
It is dusty grey; mist and fog lay lightly on the Hudson River as I head south toward New York City and then on to Baltimore to visit Lionel and Pierre. It will be a long weekend; I return on Monday.
It had been my intent to drive but when I woke this morning to predictions of thunderstorms and tornadoes along my route, I opted for the train.
Last night, I sat down to begin a letter and could not find words. Ennui swept over me and I wandered off to bed, watched an episode of “Grace and Frankie” and fell asleep, waking early to prepare to leave.
Yesterday was my first day as host of the Wednesday version of WGXC’s “Morning Show,” from 9 AM to 11 AM. The night before, I had a night full of crazy dreams in which I got to the studio on Wednesday morning only to find they had changed all the controls and I had no idea on how to work them. In another dream, I decided to sleep at the station the night before to make sure that I didn’t miss the program but did anyway.
No psychiatrist is needed to interpret these dreams.
And the program went well; there was much praise from friends and colleagues and I relaxed, thinking I can manage this. It was fun and for my first guest, I had Alana Hauptman, who owns my beloved “Red Dot.”
Probably no one remembers Texas Guinan anymore; she ran the biggest, best, brassiest, funniest, speakeasy in New York during Prohibition. She was loved and admired and imitated. She was known for her big heart and saucy character. Alana is all of that and is the Texas Guinan of Hudson. The Red Dot has stood for nineteen years and been an anchor to the town and certainly my world.
There is a slew of people lined up to be guests on the show including the folks who run Bridge Street Theater in Catskill, world premiering a new play shortly and Jeff Cole, who is the CEO of the Center for the Digital Future at USC’s Annenberg School of Communication as well as Howard Bloom, who is a multi-published author and once press agent to every major rock group in the 1970’s and ‘80’s. And Fayal Greene, who has lived in Hudson for a long time, civically active, and is leaving at the end of the month for Maine, where she and her husband will live in a retirement community near their summer home and many relatives.
The farewell party will, of course, be at the Red Dot.
All of this is very hygge.
And I roll around in the hygge-ness of my life as outside my bubble I am often stupefied by my world.
Politics has never been this raucous in my lifetime and perhaps not this much since the founding of the Republic, which, I understand, was a very raucous time.
As I was getting ready to board the train, Representative Devin Nunes, Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, has now recused himself from the Russian investigation over ethics concerns.
In Syria, eighty plus people, including children, died in an apparent gas attack. Trump says the incident crossed “a lot of lines for him.” Tillerson has said that it was undoubtedly Assad’s regime. Assad is saying bombs ignited a store of gas weapons in the attacked town. Russia is demanding the US lay out its cards on how to solve the Syrian problem.
This all sounds like a lot like another replay of the last few years, with some new players and no new results. In the meantime, Syrians continue to suffer; something like five million of them are refugees, many living in squalor with their only drinking water coming from septic tanks causing typhoid and a further circling down into this hell that has been created.
A radio report from a Syrian refugee camp yesterday may have been the cause of last night’s ennui.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is meeting with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago today and tomorrow. It is a high stakes meeting reports say. Wide chasms exist in trade with Trump the candidate picking on China through most of the campaign and the Chinese, unlike some Americans, have long memories and play a long game.
If this turns out to be the pivot point for the United States, future historians might look at our tendency to be focused on short term goals as a factor in creating this pivot.
And in this miasma of non-hygge news, is a report that Jeff Bezos, second richest man on the planet, is selling a billion dollars of Amazon stock a year to finance Blue Origin, his space venture. That makes me smile. Money at work on building the future.
Tags:Alana Hauptman, Amazon, Amtrak, Assad, Blue Origin, Bridge Street Theater, Center for the Digital Future, Fayal Green, Grace and Frankie, Hudson, Jeff Bezos, Jeff Cole, Red Dot, Russia, Syria, Syrian gas attack, Texas Guinan, Trump, WGXC, Xi Jinping
Posted in 2016 Election, Airstrikes, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Daesh, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Homelessness, Hudson New York, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Russia, Social Commentary, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
April 4, 2017
It is dusk on the day that seemed to say: Spring is here, for real. Walking around today as I did errands, I was jacketless and soon, I thought, I will be wearing shorts. All day today, I felt a letter happening in me.
It is an interesting time for me. My work for the Miller Center for the Presidency is on pause while they work out budgets for the coming year. It maybe I will be part of it and it may be that I will not. To be decided.
The guest bathroom is being repainted and today I went and picked up the new medicine chest and lighting at Lowe’s. The inside of the car was vacuumed and the winter’s gunk washed mostly away. It needs a good detailing which will happen soon now that I have found a place in Greenport.
This time of day is brilliant. Outside it is pearl grey, inside jazz plays and a martini is sipped. The creek floodlights are on and it is all good and hygge.
Just finished watching my friend Medora Heilbron’s vlog about matzo place cards for Passover! It was a treat, watch here.
All this is very comforting on a day when the Los Angeles Times published a scathing review of the first days of Trump’s presidency. You can read it here. It is the kind of editorial about a President that hasn’t been seen since the 1970’s. Yes, since Nixon.
At 4:31 AM our President tweeted about whether Hillary had apologized for having been giving questions prior to one of the town halls. Yes, that was wrong. It’s over, Mr. Trump. You are now the President. You won. Move on, please. Please.
Are you capable of moving on?
Not moving on will be the people killed in a Metro explosion in St. Petersburg, Russia. A bomb went off on a train, killing, at last count, eleven, and injuring dozens. St. Petersburg is on my bucket list. Over the years, I’ve read a lot about the city and feel a connection to it. I will hold a thought and prayer in my heart for them tonight.
And for all the people who are facing starvation in Yemen and South Sudan and…
For all of them, I lit candles this week at church. As well as young Nick, who continues struggling.
The web of Trump’s Russian connections keeps getting murkier with Erik Prince, a Trump supporter and founder of the infamous Blackwater Group, apparently having a meeting in January, days before the inauguration, with Russian contacts in the Seychelles. Now this was reported by the Washington Post, a liberal newspaper but a credible one.
Along with every thinking person, I am finding this fascinating. What is going on rivals, or equals, the Nixon years. And Nixon was six years into his presidency when Watergate bit him in the you know where.
We’re not much more than seventy days into this presidency and the storm is not going to abate.
John McCain, whom I did not vote for nor would have considered voting for considering his choice for Vice President, but for whom I have respect, has been saying things like this is the most concerned he’s ever been about the state of our democracy.
And I agree. With Nixon, one had a sense the system was working. Right now, I am not sure the system is working. And that scares the hell out of me.
Tags:Blackwater Group, Donald Trump, Erik Prince, Greenport, Hillary Clinton, Hygge, John McCain, Los Angeles Time editorial, Medora Heilbron, Miller Center, Nick Dier, Nixon, Seychelles, South Sudan, St. Petersburg, technology, theaters, Trump, Watergate, Yemen
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
March 30, 2017
There is sometimes nothing in the world quite like a vodka soaked olive and so when I made myself a martini tonight, I used olives instead of the traditional lemon twist.
To be truthful, I wasn’t sure I was going to put my fingers to the keyboard tonight. It’s been a cranky day; out early in a chill drizzle doing unpleasant errands, I got home around ten this morning and determined I was not leaving the comfort of the cottage. The fourth straight day of cold grey drizzle had me crying for mercy.
It’s been an emotional couple of days. First, most importantly, young Nick, who helps me is going through a rough patch again and that weighs heavily on me. Which is why I was up early today, to give him support in a rough moment.
As some of you know, I was one of the founders of Blue DOT Indivisible Hudson, a group intended to be politically active in this most distressing of political times. On Monday evening, using a word much used in Washington these days, I “recused” myself from anything more to do with Blue DOT and that was hard, even harder than I had expected it to be.
It was difficult to discover that there was no room for me there and seeing no way there would be, I bowed out. Of the original five, two of us are now gone, one wavering. To say I wish them well is an understatement. And I had to leave.
There are other things I can do, have been doing and will continue to do.
Thus, it has been an emotionally charged couple of days.
That all said, I am at the cottage, the day is closing, jazz is playing, it warm and hygge in the cottage. Saturday will see another dinner party here and I am snuggling into figuring it out.
There were two good calls for the Miller Center for the Presidency today, both exciting in their own way.
The creek is very high because of the rain and it flows swiftly toward the pond now, abandoning for a moment its usual gentle course.
And like the creek today, nothing is gentle.
The Senate Intel Committee is about to launch hearings and is promising to be more aggressive than the House Intel Committee, led by Devin Nunes, who has found himself with his underwear wrapped in knots.
He has muddied the waters with his meeting with some source on the White House grounds that informed him that Trump and his team may have been incidentally listened in on by government agencies. Which lead to Trump feeling “somewhat vindicated” about his, to date, unproven charge that Obama ordered “wiretapping” on Trump Tower.
Truthfully, I have trouble unwinding what the hell is going on. And I’m not the only one.
So, the ball has been moved to the Senate where both the Republican and Democratic leaders of the committee want to know what went on. Those Senators, Republican and Democratic, are talking about this as the biggest thing since Watergate.
And while all of this is going on, the world is facing the greatest humanitarian crisis since the end of World War II.
Millions are starving and we are not paying attention because, basically, we don’t know. The Trump Show is consuming the headlines. South Sudan is a catastrophe. Syria is a catastrophe. Yemen is more than a catastrophe.
Should I, a man who has no real obligations, go to one of those desperate places and offer help? I am thinking about it.
Tags:Blue DOT Indivisible Hudson, Devin Nunes, House Intel Committee, Hygge, Martini, Senate Intel Committee, South Sudan, Syria, Trump, Watergate, White House, Wiretapping Trump Tower, Yemen
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Claverack, Columbia County, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
March 8, 2017
Written yesterday, having fallen into the arms of Morpheus before I could post or email…
This has been a very hygge kind of day. There is a document I need to deliver to the Miller Center and I have been cozied up in the cottage all day working on it. Outside, it has been drear, chill and damp. Inside, it’s been warm and comfortable.
Waking, I started a fire in the Franklin Stove to help take the chill off the cottage.
Yesterday, I had started working on a document I owe the Miller Center on the Presidency and today I worked to complete the first draft so I could hone it tomorrow and send it off to them.
Since 7:00 this morning, I have been working. First, I curled up in bed and handled the voluminous number of emails I receive. Then I made coffee in my Clever Coffee Dripper, a new investment on my search for a great cup of morning coffee. [Not bad…]
Since 9 this morning, I have been huddled over my laptop, working, sorting through a variety of documents, making sense of thoughts I’ve had. It’s been good, exhausting but good.
It’s lovely to stretch my mind and this has been one of the greatest stretches of my recent time, putting together media recommendations for the Miller Center for the Presidency at this exact moment in time.
Wow! Juicy good.
Every morning I wake up and wonder what has happened while I’m asleep. While it makes some of my friends crazy angry, I can’t do that. It’s more like: Wow! At least to me.
There is a new Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare and in reading articles right now, it seems DOA. Conservative Republicans hate it; Democrats despise it and to some it doesn’t make much sense. The games have begun and we’re off to the races.
Yikes. It’s a mess.
As is the claim by President Trump that former President Obama ordered wiretaps on Trump Tower. The President has offered no back-up to his claim and has, per Sean Spicer, no regrets about his tweets.
Oh, dear.
Some of my friends wake up apoplectic about all of this. I don’t. History is playing out and I am very curious about history will play out. It is incredible what is happening.
While the Trump allegations are playing out, Wikileaks has dumped a huge amount of information which lets us know that the CIA has been monitoring us through our Smart TVs, our phones and our cars.
We can’t blame this on Trump. This has been going on before him. Call me shocked. What’s been going on? Glad I don’t have a Smart TV but I do have a Smart Phone. Wonder what they know about me?
This feels very “1984,” a book by George Orwell that became very popular after the Trump election. All of this, though, started before that.
I, Joe Average Citizen, and I am a Joe Average Citizen, seem to have discovered my government is routinely spying on me and I am perturbed by that.
Really perturbed…
What world am I living in? Has the CIA become the Stasi? I am immensely confused by the world I am living in as it is not the world I expected.
Call me naïve. Call me stupid. The CIA is watching our Smart TV’s? My Smart Phone?
Wowza, that scary sci-fi future is here.
And so I am at home, doing my best to assimilate all this and also doing my best to be very hygge. And it has been a hygge kind of day.
Great jazz. Working on a project for which I have passion, fire in the Franklin Stove, watching the gray day slip by. That has been hygge. We need it, I suspect, in a world that seems to have gone mad around me.
Electing Hillary Clinton would have carried us safely down the stream for a while. Donald Trump is forcing us to confront our democracy.
Oh, dear.
Tags:1984, CIA, Clever Coffee Dripper, Donald Trump, Franklin Stove, George Orwell, Hillary Clinton, Hygge, Jazz, Joe Average Citizen, Miller Center for the Presidency, Morpheus, NSA, Obamacare, Trump, Trump Tower Wiretaps, Wikileaks
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
February 17, 2017
The North Star has been the guiding light for thousands of years for sailors and I have never seen it in more glory than I have here on Saba. The night I arrived, I asked Hemmie, who owns the hotel where I am staying, what that bright light in the sky was and he said to me, as if I were a little thick, that’s the North Star. It is the star that has guided sailors for millennia and I had never seen it as clearly as I have seen it here.
Saba is an island that is quiet, not much night life to offer, though at this moment I hear disco music from somewhere, floating up to me. A few dogs yelp. The darkness surrounds me and I cannot see out to the sea.
It is wonderfully mellow. Today I had a fair amount of work to do and I did it from the couch in my room where I could look out and see the Caribbean below me as I am high on the island.
How fortunate am I? Very. Another moment of seeing a place I never would have thought I’d see when I was a youngster and here I am. Glad to be here and hoping I might come back this side of paradise.
And while I have been busy sending emails, I have also been participating in island life – a meal at Island Flavors down in The Bottom, a town named, apparently, because it was the place goods came in and were lifted up to the rest of the island – it was the bottom of the ladder.
Even here, though, there is no respite from the news at home.
Trump held a news conference to announce his new nominee for the Secretary of Labor, which turned into a bit of a free for all. He declared he had inherited a “mess” from Obama though there aren’t statistics to support that. He also declared his administration was a “finely oiled machine.” I’m not sure anyone agrees with that, Republicans included.
Standing on the outside, looking at the news from both liberal and conservative points of view, it seems that the consensus is that we have an Administration that doesn’t have its act together. Really doesn’t have its act together…
We have the Michael Flynn imbroglio… It’s not going anywhere and, in fact, I think it’s going to get messier. The Administration’s Russian problem is not going away. In my humble opinion, it’s going to get worse.
Today, Trump’s press conference to announce Alex Acosta as his nominee for Secretary of Labor descended into chaos. The friends I am with on the island questioned the mental stability of President Trump who, according to them, declared how successful his first weeks in office have been.
Didn’t hear it and am not sure what he is referring to as I haven’t seen any successes.
And then I do think The Donald lives in his own reality. Not mine but he has his.
And that’s what frightens me.
Tags:Caribbean, Donald Trump, General, Michael Flynn, North Star, Obama, President Trump, Putin, Saba, technology, The Bottom, The Donald, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Columbia County, Elections, Entertainment, Gay Liberation, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Obama, Political Commentary, Politics, Russia, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
February 14, 2017
Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! While I don’t have a specific Valentine, I do have many people to whom I would like to send Valentine’s greetings. Consider them sent.
This is a day devoted to love.
Unless you live in Saudi Arabia where celebrating Valentine’s Day could get you into a whole lot of trouble.
When I was in grade school, we always sent everyone else in our class a Valentine’s Day card. Years ago, I stumbled upon a cache of them and smiled at our cursive, much struggled over. Now they don’t even teach cursive writing, which seems a shame. Handwritten letters are such a joy to receive in this day of electronic communication.
At this minute, I am sitting on the deck outside my room at Selera Dunia, the little hotel on Saba where I am ensconced for the next few days. It is owned by a Dutchman, Hemme, and his wife, and their raison d’être seems to be making me happy. YES! I’m all for that.
It is decorated lavishly with objects they have brought back from their sojourns abroad, mostly from Indonesia but beneath me, I’m told, is a treasure trove from their time in Africa to be utilized when they add the next few rooms.
I slept wonderfully last night, my doors unlocked. Crime has not crept onto Saba yet and may it long stay away.
Ah, but here I am, far away, in a crime free piece of Caribbean paradise while at home who knows what crimes are afoot?
Michael Flynn, the NSA Advisor to President Trump, has resigned after he seems to have had discussed our sanctions against Russia prior to the time when he should have and then misled Vice President Pence as to his actions.
MIC, a website devoted to news by millennials for millennials, wrote today that the crime, to them, in the Trump Administration seems not to be the crime itself but the crime of being caught. Is this what millennials are thinking about our government?
JFK was profoundly flawed in so many, many ways. At least his words lifted us to some better place and inspired us. Not so in these our Trumpian days when Stephen Miller, Senior Advisor to the President, declared there would be a time when the President’s word would be absolute.
Seth Meyer mocked him, saying it could only be more frightening if he had said it in German. And Stephen Miller is Jewish.
So, this is what millennials are seeing: a young man [he’s 31] saying the President’s word will be absolute. Do call me horrified. There are three branches of government [as Trump, to his annoyance, is finding out].
Mitch McConnell is saying it’s “highly likely” there will be an investigation of Michael Flynn’s actions. “Highly likely?” Mitch, oh Mitch, my low opinion of you sinks even lower. Had you said, “Absolutely,” I might have thought you were standing on the right side of history. And you’re not.
Thanks to Lindsey Graham and a few other Republican Senators who are working to see this is not brushed under the rug until we know the truth.
The Ethics Office has suggested it would be appropriate for Kellyanne Conway to be disciplined for her “go buy Ivanka’s stuff” moment from the White House Briefing Room. They felt it was tantamount to a TV commercial. Let’s see if it happens. Personally, think it should but…
If you are a millennial, you probably know PewDiePie, a Scandinavian YouTube star with millions and millions and millions of followers. He’s been the hottest thing on the net for a few years now, making 14.5 million dollars last year. He has deals with Disney and others and it’s all falling down today because he made some anti-Semitic jokes in his postings and Disney and YouTube are running in the other direction.
The sun is beginning to set; the mountain across from me is sun kissed at this moment, full of deep foliage and limitless green though now the island is beginning to move into its dry season. Water is scarce. My friends are taking what once was a pool and making it into a cistern for grey water to help with the plants.
Tonight, we are going down the hill to a BBQ joint in the little enclave that is their town. Hygge. More soon.
Tags:BBQ, cursive writing, Disney, Ethics Office, Ivanka's Stuff, JFK, Kellyanne Conway, Lindsey Graham, MIC, Michael Flynn, Mitch McConnell, PewDiePie, Saba, Saudi Arabia, Selera Dunia, Stephen Miller, The Donald, Trump, Trump Administration, Valentine's Day, White House Briefing Room, YouTube
Posted in 2016 Election, Columbia County, Entertainment, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Russia, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From Claverack 05 15 2017 Messy in the life politic…
May 16, 2017As 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 »