Posts Tagged ‘Yemen’
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 »
May 23, 2016
It is Monday morning and I am riding an overcrowded train from Baltimore to New York after spending the weekend there visiting friends. At one point I thought I might end up sitting on the floor but found a seat at the very front of the train.
Outside ruined building pass; we are somewhere just north of Philadelphia. Exotic graffiti adorns them while the sun blasts down. Beyond the ruins lie bedraggled row houses that probably will someday be gentrified. What contrasts we have in this country.
Baltimore is in a resurgence, at least near the water, where my friends live. We dined on Saturday night at Peter’s Inn, a wonderfully, quirky little row house restaurant, rough around the edges with handwritten menus, food arriving in the order that the chef has prepared it which is not necessarily the way you ordered it. Good chill martinis and a nice little wine list, friendly people and that wonderful thing called “atmosphere” that has not been scrupulously concocted but which emerges from the quirkiness of the place and people.
It was a time of sitting around and visiting with Lionel and Pierre and my friend Allen Skarsgard, with whom I had some long philosophical conversations over the weekend. We had known each other in the long ago and faraway, reconnecting just enough that we can mark the present without dwelling in our past.
There was, of course, talk of the brutal politics of this election cycle. I don’t remember a question that was asked on MSNBC on Sunday morning but recall the response: it’s 2016, ANYTHING can happen.
So it seems.
As it seems all over the world. A far right candidate is deadlocked with his rival in Austria. If Herbert Norber of the right wins, it will be the first time a far right candidate will have won a European election since the end of Fascism, a warning shot across the bow of the world.
Troubling for Hillary are national polls, of which we have several a day it seems, that have her potentially losing to Trump. They have Bernie beating Trump by 10.8 points.
Predictions are that a “Brexit” from the European Union will spark a year long recession. The drive for a British exit from the European Union is, at least partially, being driven by anti-immigration and nationalistic feelings in the country.
Is this a bit like what the 1930’s felt like?
In the meantime, Emma Watson of “Harry Potter” fame and fortune is playing Belle in a live action version of “Beauty and the Beast.” Somehow that seems comforting to me this morning.
In Syria, IS has claimed the responsibility for killing scores in that poor, broken country in areas considered Assad strongholds. A suicide bomber killed many Army recruits in Aden, Yemen.
And a drone strike killed the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mansour, who opposed peace talks. His death was confirmed by Obama, who will be the first sitting President to visit Hiroshima, struck by the US with an atomic bomb in !945, a move which forced the Japanese to move to surrender. He has been in Viet Nam, where he lifted a fifty year old arms embargo, a move to help counter the rise of China in the South China Sea.
Moves and counter moves, the world is in play. It always has been. It just took longer in other times for the moves to be made and to feel their repercussions. Now it’s almost instantaneous.
Tags:Allen Skarsgard, Austrian Election, Baltimore, Bernie Sanders, Brexit, China, Donald Trump, Herbert Norber, Hillary Clinton, Hiroshima, Lionel White, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mullah Mansour, Obama, Peter's Inn, Pierre Font, Russia, Syria, The Donald, Viet Nam, Yemen
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Elections, Entertainment, European Refugee Crisis, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Nazis, Political Commentary, Politics, Sanders, Social Commentary, Syria, Syrian Refugee Crisis, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
September 13, 2015
The sun is setting here in Claverack. It has been a grey day, mostly, with bits of rain here and there. It’s been warm but not hot. The high was at most mid-70’s today. Soon it will be cool and I’ll be lighting fires in the Franklin stove.
As has been the case of late, I had a hard time waking this morning and hit the snooze alarm an annoying number of times but, as it was my personal commitment to go to church today, I pulled myself eventually out of bed and prepped myself and got off to church.
For some reason, I found myself thinking about my Catholic childhood, all of us forced to attend Sunday Mass with our classes, filling the 9:00 service with all our bodies, a Mass generally avoided by any thinking adult. Who would want to go to church with hundreds of school children?
Sister Ann, my 8th grade teacher, announced one day that we would be persecuted because we were Catholics. I remember thinking how strange that sounded. Certainly I didn’t think of myself as being persecuted. I lived in a nice house, in a nice neighborhood and it didn’t seem to me that anyone was persecuting me for being Catholic.
I was born a couple of generations after that had happened.
It came to mind today because Mother Eileen, interim Pastor at Christ Church Episcopal, where I now attend service, talked today in her sermon about those who are suffering around the world because they are Christians.
And, while I am not in those countries, it is real that Christians in Iraq, Syria, and other places are being targeted. There is IS with its rigid and antediluvian interpretation of Islam and there is persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt. Muslim/Christian tensions inflame the African continent.
I thought we were beyond those times but we’re not, not at all.
As I drove to church, I was listening to a program on New England Public Radio that was devastatingly funny in its oral portraits of what Republican candidates are saying regarding constitutionality. It was almost hysterical, except these people are serious. The constitution should be enforced when combating Muslims but shouldn’t be enforced when Kim Davis refuses to uphold the law of the land. The hypocrisy was astounding.
Post church, I went for a drive while I listened to “Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me!,” my favorite NPR program and then I went to the Red Dot and perused a new cookbook I had purchased the other day, realizing that we are slipping into fall and it was time to think about Holiday meals.
While the day was supposed to be cursed with thunderstorms, there were none. A bit of light rain has fallen but nothing more.
It is seven in the evening. The light has almost completely left the sky. The light on the fountain has automatically turned on.
The house is quiet. My world is quiet though I know that far away from me the world is not quiet.
The Saudis are bombing Yemen, inflicting terrible pain upon the civilians. People in the lands controlled by IS are cowering in their homes. The markets of Baghdad are not safe.
All of this seems far away. Today, though, Al Qaeda called for individuals to launch attacks in America. Europe is in turmoil over the refugee situation. 14,000 refugees arrived in Germany today. Austria and Hungary have closed their borders.
They are being overwhelmed.
People are lamenting the refugee situation without looking at the wars that are causing the situation.
These are desperate times. I am not sure what to do except to donate to charities who are attempting to help the massive flow of people, desperate to escape their desperate lives, wanting to flee to someplace where they might not be randomly killed or starved for lack of resources.
I have no answers and am not sure I have the questions. I only know we are in a time of travail.
Tags:Catholic, Christ Church Episcopal Hudson, Claverack, German Refugee Crisis, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mother Eileen, Refugees, Saudis, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me!, Yemen
Posted in Boko Haram, Columbia County, European Refugee Crisis, Mat Tombers, Mathew, Mathew Tombers, Social Commentary | 3 Comments »
July 28, 2015
It feels a little later than it is; the sun is shaded by clouds and I’m sitting in a darkish office in Chelsea, doing some work and getting ready to meet a friend for dinner.
It was a magic morning coming into New York today. Fog clouded the road from Claverack into Hudson, a wisp at every turn. As the train moved south, the fog followed; sometimes it was so thick it was impossible to see the river. Flotillas of pleasure boats floated on the river, shrouded by the fog.
The city was warm today and I lunched at the Bryant Park Café, outside, with Neva Rae Fox who works for the Episcopal Church here in New York in the Communications Department. Over the years I was working with Odyssey we became friendly and I haven’t her seen for a while.
We talked of their recent conference in Salt Lake City and the vigil that was held to honor victims of gun violence. It is one of the things they will be focusing on, that as well as racial reconciliation.
It seems strange to be back in the city after a week in the country. When I have been away from New York City for a week, I always have a little trouble re-inserting myself into the bustle and the crowds and sirens. So it was today. I gingerly left Penn Station and threaded my way through the rush hour crowds and felt I had reached an oasis of civility when I got to the office.
It is a languid time and a contemplative time, with my mind juggling all the opportunities for my future. Stay here? Live up in the country? I am allowing it to flow through me, as I know the answer will reveal itself. A friend advised me, should I go to the cottage full time, to give myself time to grieve for the life I was leaving behind. Thinking about it, I realized I would mostly grieve for the friends I wouldn’t see as often.
My “grief” is a very first world problem. The families and friends of 25 killed by a suicide bomber in Nigeria are experiencing deep grief, the kind that time softens but does not really “heal.” A fire in a furniture factory in Cairo also killed 25. Grief walks there, too.
In Yemen, a five-day humanitarian truce appears to be crumbling. At least 6.5 million people are on the edge of starvation and some are calling the Saudi Arabians “war criminals” for preventing supplies from reaching the populace. 21 million Yemenis, 80% of the population, is in need of assistance.
I am sure that grief is walking there, too. The Saudis have been relentless in their bombing. The lack of food is also partially because there is no infrastructure to disperse the goods, roads having been destroyed by bombing and no fuel delivered for vehicles.
Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, son of Col. Gaddafi, once ruler of Libya, was sentenced to death by shooting in a court in Tripoli. He was not there; he is being held in a prison in Zintan, a hundred miles away. The Zintan group hates the Tripoli group so much they probably won’t turn him over. It’s not that they love the son; they despise him. Famous for lecturing people and pointing his finger at his audiences, the Zintan group chopped off the offending finger when they captured him.
One of Trump’s lieutenants stepped in it. He said there was no such thing as raping your spouse. In fact, it is a crime in all fifty states. Michael Cohen has apologized. The topic came up because of a comment by ex-wife Ivana Trump some twenty years ago, one she has backed away from. In their bitterly contested divorce, she allegedly accused him of the act. Today she says the accusation is “without merit.” She and The Donald are “the best of friends.”
Mr. Cohen had some other choice words for the reporter who published the story in the Daily Beast. He used several Anglo Saxon expletives.
The Donald is still leading in the polls and it looks like he will be in the first Republican debate. Not that will be something to watch.
Also worth watching is the clock. I’m getting close to the time when I need to be heading for the restaurant to meet my friend Mitch and get his take on his newly married life.
Tags:Bryant Park Cafe, Cairo Factory Fire, Claverack, Daily Beast, Donald Trump, Episcopal Conference, Gaddafi sentencing, Hudson, Ivana Trump, Marital Rape, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Micheal Cohen, Mitch Saloway, Neva Rae Fox, New York, Nigerian Suicide Bombing, Penn Station, Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, Saudi Arabia, Tripoli, Yemen, Zintan
Posted in AT&T, Elections, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Nigeria, Political Commentary, Social Commentary | Leave a Comment »
May 15, 2015
There was no Letter from New York yesterday; the day was simply too full for me to pound one out. From fairly early in the morning until deep into the evening, I was scurrying from one end of Manhattan to another. There was a breakfast, a lunch, a wine meeting, a couple of conference calls and everything else in between.
Today is a sunny afternoon on a spring like day in New York City and in a couple of hours I’ll begin to make my way to Penn Station to head up to the cottage for a weekend retreat. I’m looking forward to a weekend of catching up. I’ve spent the day plowing through all manner of emails but don’t feel like I’ve managed anything too productive.
B.B. King died today, the man who brought blues into the mainstream, the man whose name emblazons a club here in New York, an 89 year old living legend is now gone. Fans went to his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame to lay flowers but most were washed away by the rain sweeping through Los Angeles, a welcome wetness though according to meteorologists not enough to break the drought.
The Iraqi city of Ramadi seems to have been mostly overrun by the IS forces. Suicide bombers killed ten police officers. Washington calls the situation “fluid.” It’s been a back and forth battle for weeks and this is probably one more of those. In the meantime, nearly 150,000 people have fled the city, mostly to Baghdad. Ramadi lies in the center of the area where many Sunni Muslims live.
To the east of Ramadi, in Syria, IS is advancing on the area where lie the ruins of the ancient city of Palmyra, a city that was at the crossroads of the Greeks, Romans and the Persians. The ruins there are probably the best set of extant classical ruins in the world today. IS is not directly targeting the ruins but if the area falls under their control it is feared they will have more opportunities to film themselves destroying ancient artifacts, as they did in Nineveh.
We are now halfway through the five day truce that was to allow for the dispensing of emergency aid in Yemen and it is looking as if there will not be enough time to get all the emergency aid needed, dispersed.
On Tuesday of this week, a U.S. helicopter on an aid mission in Nepal went missing. It has been found on a mountainside at 11,200 feet. It does not appear that there are survivors.
In the U.K. David Cameron met with Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the SNP [Scottish National Party]. He will consider more powers for Scotland but won’t think about another referendum on independence, thank you very much.
Prime Minister Xavier Bettel of Luxembourg has married Gauthier Desteney, his long time partner. He is the first EU Prime Minister to have married his gay partner. The first European Prime Minister to do so was Johanna Sigurdardottir, Premier of Iceland, back in 2010. Luxembourg legalized gay marriage in January.
Having met with Putin at Sochi, Kerry jetted back to D.C. for meetings with Arabic leaders and he is now heading to China, where he will arrive tomorrow. He and his Chinese counterparts will be hammering out details of the Chinese leader’s visit to Washington in September.
They will also be working to defuse the situation in the South China Sea. Like good little beavers, the Chinese are building up some small islands into bigger islands. On one of them, it is constructing a runway that could land even the largest planes. It is a source of tension, particularly with Japan and the Philippines. Both sides are eager to defuse the situation but this seems to be a must do project for Mr. Xi and not something he can gracefully back away from. Tensions will mount.
Boko Haram in Nigeria has been in retreat the last few weeks but now is in a counteroffensive and has retaken a key village. They just won’t go away.
In Pakistan, the military has begun an attack on the Taliban in the Shawal Valley while the President of that country has issued a rare public rebuke of the Taliban, calling them “terrorists.” Imagine that. But it is evidence of new toughness toward the group.
And in an ending note, the jury has returned a judgment on young Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in Boston for the Marathon bombings. He has been sentenced to die.
I have never felt the death penalty accomplished anything.
It is closing in on four o’clock. I am going to post this and then probably gather my things and head toward the train station, rolling north to sit tomorrow on my deck and admire the new grill I will be acquiring.
Tags:B.B. King, Boston bombings, Claverack, David Cameron, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Gay Wedding, Hollywood Walk of Fame, IS, John Kerry, Letter From New York, Luxembourg, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Missing helicopter, Nepal, Nicola Sturgeon, Palmyra, Putin, Ramadi, SNP, Sochi, South China Sea, Sunni Muslims, Xavier Bettel, Xi, Yemen
Posted in Mat, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Social Commentary | Leave a Comment »
May 12, 2015
Once again, when I went to sleep last night, I expected rain today. When I woke it was cloudy but rain was not in the forecast. It’s sunny and warm and summery in the city. I am working from the office of Broderville Pictures, founded by my friend Todd and I’m doing some work for him.
Another friend is helping organize a documentary film festival in China in December and I’ve recommended a few people to him and will see if I can come up with others.
It’s been an interesting week. I’ve been networking with lots of friends and catching up with people. It’s been good. I had lunch yesterday with Ty West, who is producing “Charlie Rose: The Week” for PBS. He is a good friend; another one I met on the train between New York and Hudson.
Today I had my eyes examined and am just beginning to see again after having had my eyes dilated. My eyes have changed a fair amount in the last two years. My left eye is weaker. My right eye is stronger and now I need to go through the painful [for me] process of choosing new glasses.
I am lucky. I live in a world of choices. Too many people must feel like they have no choices when they are living in places like Yemen and Nepal.
Beleaguered Nepal suffered another massive earthquake, killing more, shaking down more buildings, and frightening the population even more. An American helicopter, involved in aid work, seems to have gone down there. The newest quake will make it even more difficult to get the aid to remote villages. Some roads that had been cleared are now filled again with rubble.
Today a ceasefire is to begin in Yemen. In the hours leading up to the ceasefire, the Saudi led coalition bombed Sana’a relentlessly. An Iranian cargo ship is headed there, convoyed by Iranian naval vessels. The UN is suggesting they deliver the aid to a distribution center in Djibouti, an African nation directly across from Yemen. The Iranian convey has everyone nervous. The Saudis are supporting the Sunni side and the Iranians the Shia side. The new UN envoy to Yemen is saying that fighting will solve nothing but that’s what they seem intent upon doing.
No longer having any choices whatever is Ananta Bijoy Das, a secular blogger in Pakistan who was hacked to death on his way to his day job at a bank in Sylhet, in the northeastern part of Bangladesh. He is the third secular blogger hacked to death in that country.
Tomorrow is the day when John Kerry is supposed to meet with Putin at the Black Sea resort of Sochi, site of the last Winter Olympics. Putin is supposed to be there; that’s why Kerry is en-route but today the Russians said Putin was yet to be confirmed. Last time Kerry saw him, Putin was three hours late for the meeting.
For the last five years the El Nino effect has been quiet. Now it is rearing its head again with unpredictable results. British forecasters are suggesting it might mean record snow next year in the UK, Australians are saying there might be severe drought in northern Australia. It could mean heavy rains on the US West Coast and its Gulf Coast but may be not enough or soon enough to ease the drought in California. The Australians think it is going to be severe and meteorologists in Canada and the US are suspecting it will be moderate. Wait and see. Weak or strong, it’s coming.
My friend, Lionel, just move to Baltimore to be Vice President of Ad Technology for AOL. Today I woke to the news that AOL had been purchased for $4.4 billion by Verizon, mostly for their ad technology. One business pundit said something like that was pocket change for Verizon and another said it was another bad move by Verizon in the Internet space while others thought it was a very smart move. Time will tell, as they always say.
In the long ago and far away days when I was working in Los Angeles for an Internet start-up, one of my very good friends was dating Sandra Lee, the TV food star. Later I was best man in his wedding to another woman but during their tenure, I met Sandra a few times. She is now living with Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York. Today she announced she had breast cancer. I wish her well.
The day is beginning to come to a close. I am going up to the Café du Soleil tonight for a bite and then home to read a book.
Tags:AOL, AOL Verizon Deal, Cafe du Soleil, Charlie Rose: The Week, El Nino, Iran, Iran Cargo Ship, John Kerry, Lionel White, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Nepal, Nepal earthquake, Putin, Sana'a, Sandra Lee, Saudi Arabia, Shia, Sunni, Tim Armstrong, Ty West, Verizon, Yemen
Posted in Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Social Commentary | 2 Comments »
May 11, 2015
Today dawned gloriously, bright shiny sunlight came barreling down from the east, casting a disc of yellow/white onto the creek, glinting up at me as I stood on the deck for a moment before heading for the city.
The Hudson looked peaceful as I rolled south on the train, giving no evidence that there had been a fire at Indian Point, the nuclear reactor forty miles north of midtown Manhattan or that oil from there had seeped into the river, causing environmental concerns. Governor Cuomo was there over the weekend, being briefed on the happenings. It makes him and many others nervous about a nuclear plant that close to the city.
Anything nuclear makes me nervous.
For those who have a fond spot for Britain, it may be time to be nervous. While last week’s election has saved the political career of David Cameron it might just herald the beginning of the end for “Great Britain.” The SNP [Scottish National Party] won 56 of 59 seats that Scotland has in Britain’s Parliament. They also are very much in favor of holding another vote about Scotland going its own way from the rest of the United Kingdom [England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland]. Just doesn’t seem right but it could happen.
What does seem right is the idea of a truce in Yemen that is supposed to start tomorrow to allow aid to reach the Yemenis. Fuel resources are almost exhausted and food is scarce. Days ago it was estimated that 80% of Yemenis were going hungry. It’s only become worse since then.
As the time for the truce draws near, the Saudis are deploying a strike force near the Yemen/Saudi border. Trucks carrying tanks have been traveling through the night to take positions. The Houthis say they will honor the truce as long as the Saudis do but if there are infractions they will immediately respond.
One UN official felt five days would not be enough time to get aid to the Yemenis but it is all they have, if they manage to hold the truce for that amount of time.
Secretary of State John Kerry is off to Sochi, Russia to meet with Vladimir Putin to discuss Syria, Ukraine and Iran. I wonder what that conversation is going to be like?
In more Washington news, writer Seymour Hersh has written a piece for the London Review of Books claiming that the story of Osama Bin Laden’s death was a lot of bunk and the truth is quite different. Seems he thinks that it was an American/Pakistani conspiracy and that OBL was actually a Pakistani prisoner at the time of the raid and the raid was a cover-up for Pakistan’s involvement.
Pretty far fetched and, like most conspiracy theories, pretty hard to prove.
From The Moscow Times, an English language newspaper in Russia not known for partisanship to Putin, claims that Russian soldiers have, in small numbers, quit the army after being forced to serve in Ukraine.
According to Vladimir Putin, no Russian soldiers are in Ukraine, only volunteers.
While the migrant focus has been on the thousands attempting to cross from Libya to Italy, another migrant drama has been playing out. Muslim Rohingya from Myanmar and Bangladeshi immigrants have been rescued at sea attempting to reach Malaysia since Thailand has been cracking down on human trafficking. The Rohingya are not allowed citizenship in Myanmar and as Muslims are a minority in that mostly Buddhist country and have been singled out for ethnic violence. Because of the Thai crackdown, aid workers are concerned that many have been abandoned at sea by their smugglers.
George Zimmerman, he of the Trayvon Martin case in Florida, is back in the news today, having been himself slightly wounded in a road rage incident.
And Tom Brady, Quarterback of the Patriots, has been suspended by the NFL for four games while the Patriots were fined a million dollars and two draft picks in coming years. Seems a slight slap on the wrist though it is almost assured that Brady will appeal his suspension. Ah, Deflategate!
Prince Harry, now fifth in line for the British throne after the birth of his niece, Charlotte, is in New Zealand, learning about the aftereffects of the 2011 earthquake in Christchurch. By all accounts he is charming the New Zealanders to no end.
And that brings me to the end of today’s Letter From New York. I am about to do a conference call and then see about some dinner. That sounds charming.
Tags:Andrew Cuomo, Bangladesh, Britain, Christchurch, Cuomo, David Cameron, Deflategate, George Zimmerman, Great Britain, Houthis, Indian Point, John Kerry, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Moscow Times, Myanmar, Osama Bin Laden, Pakistan, Patriots, Prince Harry, Princess Charlotte, Rohingya, Saudi Arabia, Scottish National Party, Seymour Hersh, SNP, Sochi, Tom Brady, Trayvon Martin, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Yemen, Yemen Truce
Posted in Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, social, Social Commentary | Leave a Comment »
May 10, 2015
Today is the 10th of May. It’s Mother’s Day. My mother is long gone though I still am surprised that there are moments when I think: I need to call Mom and tell her this. So does my brother once in awhile.
So Happy Mother’s Day to all and sundry; when I was having my haircut today the woman cutting my hair asked me what I was doing for Mother’s Day and I had to tell her nothing. My mother has now been dead for twenty years. It seems impossible but it’s true. The last time I saw her she thought I was her brother Ted. It broke my heart.
And those are the things we have to face with aging parents and to worry about for ourselves as we age. I do, for myself. On Sundays I read the Wedding section of The New York Times and the Obituaries. Today there were a few people near my age who had died and it struck me how fragile our time on life earth is and how fleeting.
But these are existential questions and probably first world problems.
In Yemen, they are hoping that the conversation about a ceasefire will become reality. It will help get supplies to folks who are on the edge of starving. That’s a real world problem.
Apparently, there is an attempt being made to get a five-day truce to start on Tuesday to allow for the delivery of humanitarian supplies. There is also going to be a meeting between Arab leaders and Obama at Camp David this week though today King Salman of Saudi Arabia announced he would not be attending. Instead he is sending his Crown Prince and his Deputy Crown Prince in a gesture intended to communicate his displeasure with the US and its effort to reach a nuclear deal with Iran.
In Liberia today the churches celebrated that the country now seems free from Ebola. That’s a real world celebration.
In devastated Nepal, efforts are being made to provide sanitation for all of those who have lost their homes in an effort to prevent cholera and other diseases in advance of the coming Monsoon season. It is critical for the country that has in the past few years made major progress in creating better sanitation; much of that has been reversed by the earthquake. That is a very real problem. And it’s not a first world problem.
In our first world set of problems, security has been increased at US bases in this country because of a heightened concern over ISIS attacks in the homeland.
“Homeland” is a word I don’t remember being used for this country before 9/11, before there was a Department of Homeland Security. It is vaguely unsettling to me – like the Nazis who called Germany “The Fatherland.” It evokes a sense of siege, which I suppose we are in, in a way.
ISIS is a very real world problem all over the world.
Raul Castro met with Pope Francis. He is now thinking about going back to church. That’s a “Saul on the road to Damascus” moment if there ever was one.
Two days of mourning have been declared in Macedonia for the death of eight police officers that were killed in a raid against a terrorist organization, which seemed to have been made of ethnic Albanians. In the story, there are threads of organized crime, heroin and the continued instability of countries that once made up Yugoslavia.
Speaking of a Yugoslavian kind of situation, the hegemony of the television networks is really beginning to splinter this year as we go into the “upfronts,” that moment in the year when television networks get as much as 75% of their inventory purchased by advertisers.
Television ratings, overall, are down 9% from last year to this. Digital is getting more dollars and networks are facing a moribund upfront. It will still be huge but probably flat or down. It is an amazing thing to watch.
What is also amazing to watch is the sunset happening outside. Today was supposed to be a day of thunderstorms but instead there were crisp blue skies and the warmest day of the year. Clouds are beginning to form and we’ll probably have rain tomorrow but today was spectacular.
Tags:Cholera, Ebola, Homeland, Isis, King Salman, Liberia, Macedonia, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mother's Day, Nepal, Pope Francis, Raul Castro, Saudi Arabia, Saul on the road to Tarsus, Upfront, Yemen, Yemeni Truce, Yugoslavia
Posted in Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Social Commentary | Leave a Comment »
May 9, 2015
It is Saturday morning and I am preparing to drive from Baltimore with Lionel and Pierre to Frenchtown, New Jersey, where James Green, our mutual friend, is having his annual Cinco de Mayo party, which happens to be his birthday. Then we are going to drive to Claverack where L&P will spend the night before returning to Baltimore.
Yesterday was many things. It was a slightly off day for me. I slammed my finger in a door, which didn’t feel so good. And, in a combination of a bit of bad luck and a bit of bad planning, I missed my train from Baltimore to DC by three minutes.
I determined that I could either beat myself up or I could go with the flow as much as possible and I chose the later after a long conversation on Thursday evening with Lance McPherson, a friend, about the value of not beating oneself up.
I had good meetings in DC and found my way back to Baltimore and then on to a lovely dinner at Ouzo Bay, a restaurant in Harbor East.
Yesterday, if you missed it, was the 70th Anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Seventy years ago the Germans surrendered and the fighting ceased.
Russia did it up big, having the largest end of war anniversary celebration in history. Thousands of troops marched. Planes screamed through the skies overhead and new armor was displayed, demonstrating how much the Russians have built up their arsenal in the last few years.
Most European leaders attended festivities in their own countries and so avoided having to attend to Moscow’s celebration. There is that pesky matter of Ukraine. The biggest guest in Moscow was the Premier of China.
There were events at Gdansk, formerly Danzig, which is war the war actually started.
Yesterday, too, it became absolutely clear that David Cameron had won an unexpected win and a big win at that to return as Prime Minister of the UK with a majority in Parliament. He will not have to look to the Liberal Democrats for help, not that they could be much help as they were trounced and lost most of their seats, resulting in Nick Clegg, their leader, stepping down. Ed Miliband, who was leading the Labour Party, also resigned because of their defeat.
Pollsters had predicted a breathtakingly close race and it wasn’t. Their reputation is tarnished right now.
Not stepping down is Nicola Sturgeon, who leads the Scottish National Party, which won almost all the Scottish seats in Parliament.
UKIP, the far right British party, did not do very well either.
However, all of this leads Cameron into very stormy political weather. He has promised a referendum on Britain’s place in the European Union and Nicola Sturgeon is agitating for another vote on Scottish independence. It will be an interesting tightrope for Mr. Cameron.
Nepal is still shattered but foreign journalists and helpers are leaving. The death toll has climbed above 7,000. The UN called for $435 million dollars in aid for the country but so far only about $23 million has been forthcoming. Hundreds of bodies still lie beneath the ruins and aid is still slow in reaching the remotest parts of the country. In a few weeks the Monsoon season will arrive.
In discomforting news, North Korea claims it has successfully test fired a ballistic missile from a submarine thus increasing the range of their nuclear weapons. Another worry for the world.
Liberia, once one of the centers of the Ebola outbreak, has been declared Ebola free now that no new cases have been discovered for six weeks.
In poor Yemen, the Houthis are claiming that Saudis have launched over a hundred raids on the country in the last day. Supplies still float at sea and people are beginning to starve. There is some talk of a truce but no real movement.
At home in America, tornadoes have ravaged Oklahoma with more storms predicted. Golf ball sized hail fell in Norman, OK.
Republican Presidential hopefuls are gathering in South Carolina to line up support at a gathering there. But apparently Jeb Bush won’t be there nor will Chris Christie or Rand Paul.
I will not be in South Carolina. I am leaving now for Frenchtown and then home.
Tags:70th Anniversary, Chris Christie, David Cameron, Ebola, Ed Miliband, Frenchtown, Houthis, Jeb Bush, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Nick Clegg, North Korea, Oklahoma tornadoes, Rand Paul, Saudis, South Carolina, World War II, Yemen
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Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From Claverack 04 04 2017 Musings from yesterday…
April 4, 2017It 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 »