First of all, my apologies…
I thought the Bruce Jenner/Diane Sawyer interview was last night and it is tonight. I misread the paper yesterday. Sorry about that.
But it is tonight and the Kardashians are gathering to watch it together. He’s their stepfather. Bruce says that 2015 is going to be a wild ride. And I am sure that it already has been for him.
2015 is a big year for a lot of things.
Los Angeles has a large Armenian community and thousands of them marched today to remember the Armenian Genocide. The centenary of that gruesome event is happening today.
2015 is also the centenary, celebrated tomorrow, of Gallipoli. The Allies in World War I wanted to break the back of Turkish participation by capturing Istanbul. They landed at Gallipoli and remained there for months, unable to advance, starving, dying and suffering from dysentery. Something like 45,000 Allied troops died there as did 80 some thousand Turkish troops.
Charles, Prince of Wales, and his son, Prince Harry, are there to lead the British delegation to the remembrance. Australians and soldiers from New Zealand died in the thousands there too. It was the their military debut on the world stage and it is remembered every year there and on the centenary, the Prime Ministers of both countries have traveled to Gallipoli to be present for the ceremonies.
While that conflict has long been ended, the one in Yemen seems nowhere near ending. The Houthis have advanced and the Saudi led coalition has bombed back. 150,000 Yemenis have been displaced and the country is collapsing. Nearly everything they need has to be imported and right now almost nothing is coming in as cargo ships are detained in the waters off Yemen.
A number of Afghans and Pakistanis were arrested in Italy today, accused of planning to carry out Al Qaeda attacks, including one aimed at the Vatican.
In the United States there has been a huge buzz all day about the demise of the Time Warner Cable and Comcast merger. Called off today, it once looked like a sure thing. But since the deal was announced the media revolution that is occurring caused the spotlight to shift from cable homes reached to broadband houses served. If the deal had gone through, the combined companies would have owned, according to some estimates, as much as 57% of broadband service to US costumers.
That was too much for anyone.
Senator Al Franken of Minnesota was a lonely voice a year ago in disapproval of the deal. He is hardly alone now.
Feeling a bit isolated today is Ed Miliband, Labour’s candidate for Prime Minister of Britain. He set off a row by claiming in a speech that the migrant disaster in the Mediterranean could be traced back to a lack of planning after the fall of Gadhafi. The Tories declared he had reached a new low.
We’ll see. The elections are two weeks away. A new low could be just around the corner.
Not going to Poland are the Night Wolves, a Hell’s Angels sort of biking group in Russia that is very fond of Putin as Putin is fond of them. They planned to ride through Poland on their way to celebrate Soviet victories in World War II, 70 years ago this year. Nope, said the Poles. Russia is “indignant.”
Less indignant will be some parts of American society now that Abercrombie & Fitch is set to dial down the sexiness of their advertising. No more male shirtless models everywhere.
The NASDAQ had its highest intraday moment in history today, propelled by Google, Amazon and Microsoft, the tech triumvirate. They all soared on individual good news.
Good news here is that sun is out. I saw “Ex Machina” last night and it was good; not what I expected but good and disturbing at the end.
In about an hour I will head over to Penn Station to take the 5:47 train up to Hudson. Lionel and Pierre will be home this weekend to attend a birthday party and we’ll all go to the Dot tonight.
Should be a good weekend.
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From New York 06 07 15
June 8, 2015The sun is beginning to set in Baltimore; golden light is pouring into the apartment of my friends, where I am curled on the couch writing.
We are all just back from seeing “Spy” with Melissa McCarthy. Very funny, lots of action, and it makes me appreciate her talents even more.
It’s been a pleasant weekend, with a surfeit of food and I feel I must go on a week long fast to compensate.
As we were walking back from the movie, I realized that yesterday was June 6th, the 71st anniversary of D-Day. Somehow it didn’t register yesterday, despite seeing stories about the day. There was a wonderful picture of women pouring off boats on the Normandy beaches, nurses to care for the wounded. Also, there was an interesting story about Hitler’s reaction, which was one of glee, as he felt sure that his German troops would push back the Allies. It was, of course, the beginning of his end.
It is left to be seen if today’s vote in Turkey marks the beginning of the end for Erdogan, its President. He wanted to set in motion the transformation of Turkey from a Parliamentarian system to a Presidential system. His party, the AKP, did not get the mandate he was hoping for; in fact, it did not achieve a majority, which leaves the country in some uncharted territory. The Kurds have been ascendant and now have received enough votes to sit in Parliament. A coalition government might be hard to form. Stay tuned.
The G7, meeting in southern Germany, made an agenda item of the Greek crisis. Canada and the US urged European leaders to find a solution. The crisis hangs over the world’s economy and if a solution is not found will certainly rile markets. The Greeks have exasperated their lenders with rhetoric and brinkmanship and an unsatisfactory set of proposals. The EU has been intractable in its demands – at least it appears to the Greeks that way.
On this beautiful Baltimore day, the world keeps spinning, though being a weekend it seems a bit less frenetic.
The Italians are saying they won’t accept more refugees and the Royal Navy rescued another 1000 attempting to cross the Med. I am sure there is fighting in Ukraine but it didn’t make the headlines. The Iraqis are advancing and pushing back at IS after the fall of Ramadi.
Raif Badawi is a Saudi blogger who was convicted of defaming Islam and was sentenced to ten years in prison and a thousand lashes. The Saudi Supreme Court upheld the sentence and it is questionable he will survive the thousand lashes to serve the ten years. The world is outraged; the Saudis don’t care. King Salman can overturn the Supreme Court because, of course, he’s King. But will he?
People are beginning to parse the silence of Denny Hastert, former Speaker of the House. Indicted for lying to the FBI about his withdrawal of money from banks, it has been revealed that the money was hush money to someone named as “Individual A,” supposedly sexually abused by Hastert when he was a high school wrestling coach. A woman has since come forward saying the her now dead brother was abused for years by Hastert for years and that he didn’t come forward because he felt no one would believe him. He died of AIDS in 1995; Hastert attended the funeral.
Two men convicted of murder escaped from a maximum security prison in New York by digging out of their adjacent cells and crawling to freedom through the sewer system. There is now a $100,000 reward for their capture. They could be anywhere.
Uber, the car service has pulled out of East Hampton, causing a furor by its devotees. Local rules make it almost impossible for the independent owner operators to work there. Celebrities and other users are slamming the town with messages and emails complaining about it. They feel they have lost their designated driver.
That’s a very first world problem.
Have a good night!
Tags:"Spy", AKP, D-Day, Denny Hastert, East Hampton, Erdogan, G7, Greek Debt Crisis, Hitler, Iraq, IS, King Salman, Kurds, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Melissa McCarthy, New York escapees, Raif Badawi, Turkey, Uber, Ukraine
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