Posts

Last night I attended the 92nd Street Y’s talk between Senator McCain and “Face the Nation” commentator Bob Schieffer.  I happened to reserve a ticket for the front row, smack dab in the center.  Best seat in the house.  As a political junkie I had the same excitement as theatergoers for opening night of a Broadway play.  And it was a marvelous performance.  Not that I agreed with a good number of his points, but it was impressive to watch a senior senator work the crowd.  Despite a handful of snarky post-performance comments by a few audience members talking amongst themselves, he was very well received.  People spontaneously started clapping after a number of his comments and there was a sense that he was genuinely looking out for the common good.  He even got a hoo-rah from a Marine in the audience after wishing the Marine Corps a Happy Birthday.

The Senator was there to present his new book, 13 Soldiers: A Personal History of Americans at War, but after highlighting a few of his favorite stories from the book most of the time was spent fielding audience questions related to geopolitical and national issues.

Click here for a recording of Senator McCain’s 92Y talk.

Happy Veteran’s Day to all who served.

Read more


Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Read more

What makes a farm? Chickens, goats, cows, a garden, good soil, rolling acres are all accidental qualities of a farm. Ultimately though it’s about the people who form the community, and despite differences of ideology or perspective create a family of sorts based on shared geographical terrain.

On Saturday, my parents, cousins, grandfather, aunt, and neighbors gathered to begin cultivating the garden for next year. It involved cutting down brush, probing for the taproots of weeds that extended deep into the soil and resisted prying hands with the same lively stubbornness of mussels in the mud. These practical chores manifested our communal desire to respond in gratitude to Matt Gonsalves the man who tended the garden throughout the summer. Each of us benefited from the rich red tomatoes, explosively hot chilly peppers, leafy and luscious kale greens, peas, and beans.

The work party was an opportunity for all of us to come together and simply enjoy each other’s company whether it was listening in as my cousin–fresh off completing a half marathon in impressive time–broached the status of her Colombian-born boyfriend or watching as an intergenerational bond of camaraderie formed between my 90 year old grandfather and the 6th grade tennis dynamo going to the U.N. School in New York City. Those two made an effective pair trimming back forsythia branches and combing the apple trees for the finest apples. Two and a half hours outside of the frenetic pressure cooker that is Manhattan this garden proved a blessing enabling me to spend time with people who have known me longer than I can remember.

One criticism of the age in which we live is that despite our penchant for novel technology and our boasting of an interconnected world we can still find a way to be isolated creatures. Tuned in to the latest trends, but tuned out to the people who should be closest to us. Thankfully the antidote is not ridiculously difficult. It’s simply making the time–in this case two hours on a Saturday morning–to work together with the option of spending an equal amount of time feasting together on barbequed hot dogs, cheeseburgers, corn, as well as beer. The best place to build peace in the world is not always in the worst war-torn region, but the place that I call home.

Before_ToolShed-5640

Read more