Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.

Saigon falls again

Saigon falls again, but it has changed its name to Kabul.

You can bet on one thing. If you ask any one of the scores of millions of chthonic Republicans, of whom there are legion, they will tell you the following.

One, never trust the Taliban and two, it would not take the scraggly cootie-infested beards six months or six weeks or six days, what about six hours?, to overrun Afghanistan. The Rethuglicans who live under the earth will tell you that! Mucker Carlson, his mouth filled with grubs, will tell you that.

And that women and girls will take it in the neck and every other part of the anatomy.

I am a big Joe and Kamala fan, but who is advising them, Secretaries Winkin, Blinken and Nod?

We have, what, 28,000 troops in Korea, some 70 years after the war’s end? Oh, sorry, it was never declared a war, but will forever be dubbed a “conflict”, but we cannot leave 2500 in Afghanistan to give the country a modicum of stability? There have been no casualties there since February 2020 and we have kept the Mangies at bay.

Now, well now, did you note the photo of one of them raising his rifle to strike a woman who dared to stand in line with her family trying to leave the country?What temerity! Back to the cave, Hussy!

Now Americans have been warned to stay away from the airport. The Pentagon insists the airport is secured. Really? What about getting to the airport? Uber, anyone? Do we tip the driver? Will he be blown up by an I.E.D. ? Or beheaded, perhaps.

As we come up on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 — can you believe it? — let us not forget that 15 of the 17 hijackers were Saudis, pals of Master Saw Bones, Crown Prince MSB, and did we go to war with Saudi Arabia? Or did not the twice-lost Schlumpf visit that land as one of his first official acts?

Irony, thy name is DJT, which sounds awfully close to DDT, the now banned herbicide. If we ever get around to convicting the former — I know, fat chance, less fat than the Duffer — perhaps he will be banned as well. Hope springs infernal.

I am reading “On This Earth, We Are Briefly Gorgeous” by Ocean Vuong, who came here as a child with his Vietnamese parents fleeing that first Saigon.

He recalls his mother, hearing her first Fourth of July, being terrified at the “mortars” coming. She is being taken back to Vietnam. A riveting scene.

Out of great suffering sometimes comes great art. This time I would give up whatever great art comes out of the Afghan experience, if I could eliminate the great suffering. Ars longa; Dolor longer.

May there not be a third Saigon. Peace and Blessings on us all.

Lonnie Carter is a writer who lives in Falls Village. Email him at lonniety@comcast.net., or go to his website at www.lonniecarter.com.  

The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Lakeville Journal and The Journal does not support or oppose candidates for public office.

Latest News

Cornwall Historical Society celebrates Connecticut’s Black patriots

On Saturday, Oct. 24, at the Cornwall Historical Society, author and genealogist John Mills will breathe new life into the stories of some of Connecticut’s more underappreciated patriots. The reason these heroes were forgotten? They were Black.

At a time when white colonists were fighting for their own liberty and political independence, many Black men who fought alongside them remained enslaved. Some risked their lives only to return to bondage. Though enslaved people were promised freedom from both sides of the Revolutionary War in exchange for their service, Great Britain, too, was still deeply dependent on slavery. For Black people in America, the war presented both extraordinary risks and uncertain paths to the freedom that white colonists were demanding for themselves.

Keep ReadingShow less

A sanctuary for second chances

A sanctuary for second chances

Stephanie Saetta runs Charlie Chicken Bones, a sanctuary in Salisbury.

Madi Long
You only get one or two of these soul connection dogs, so I do this in his honor.
— Stephanie Saetta

Stephanie Saetta has spent much of her life caring for others. A physician at White Plains Hospital, she has another calling at home in Salisbury — one that has four legs and a wagging tail. She runs Charlie Chicken Bone Sanctuary, a nonprofit dog rescue that brings dogs from overcrowded pounds and the streets of Texas to foster homes in northwestern Connecticut, where they can begin again.

The sanctuary is named for Charlie, the dog who taught her how special a bond between a person and rescue animal can be.

Keep ReadingShow less
Big ideas come to Lenox for inaugural field festival

Hunter Runnette, founder and board chair of field, has spent years fostering arts and cultural programming in the Berkshires.

Provided

What do joy, gardening, artificial intelligence, the American experiment and the creative process have in common? Quite a lot, as it turns out, at least when some of the world’s most compelling thinkers get together to talk about them.

From Friday, Oct. 23, through Sunday, Oct. 25, Lenox, Massachusetts, will host the inaugural field festival, a three-day gathering of writers, artists, scholars and cultural figures at Shakespeare & Company. Billed as a festival of ideas, entertainment, learning and discovery, field brings together an impressive roster of voices to explore everything from the deeply personal to the profoundly political.

Keep ReadingShow less
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

The Pink House AM is serving up community

Mare Rubin and Maggie Levine of the Pink House AM.

Madi Long

It all started with a yoga class. Mare Rubin was working on her second act after leaving the Upper West Side, where she’d raised a family and worked in corporate marketing. Newly empty nesters, she and her husband decided to move to the wilds of northwestern Connecticut, where they had spent 15 years as weekenders, to see what life in the woods had in store for them.

Rubin started teaching yoga classes at the Union in West Cornwall, a space designated by the town of Cornwall as a community hub with couches, Wi-Fi, occasional events and a growing yoga class schedule. She was adjusting well but missed one important thing about city life: a casual coffee shop.

Keep ReadingShow less
Sons of Astro are musicians, friends and bandmates — in that order

The Sons of Astro will be at the Common Pub in Housatonic on Oct. 24 and the 2nd Home Lounge in Winsted on Nov. 14.

Provided

No matter where they are in the world, musicians seem to find other musicians. There’s a shared language, a shared experience of being on stage and performing, and a shared enthusiasm for making those melodies by themselves or together. Such is the case with Norfolk and Brooklyn-based cosmic Americana band Sons of Astro.

That magnetic musicians’ bond drew Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mike Cobb into the orbit of singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Matt Statler. The two neighbors took to each other right away and were soon playing open mics together. As an ethics professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Statler made the case that if he sat in for Cobb’s set and Cobb sat in for Statler’s, they could play together and double their stage time. Clearly, these men wanted to make as much music as possible. That became a little harder when Cobb and his family moved up to Norfolk, Connecticut.

Keep ReadingShow less
One more weekend to get inside the art at ArtEast

The participating artists in this year’s ArtEast open studios.

Provided

ArtEast’s annual October Open Studio Tour is already underway, but there’s still one more weekend to step inside the creative worlds of artists working throughout eastern Dutchess County. On Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 24 and 25, artists will once again open their studio doors, inviting visitors to see where the work happens, meet the people who make it and perhaps discover something worth taking home.

Now in its 21st year, the ArtEast October Open Studio Tour offers a self-guided journey with participating studios in Holmes, LaGrangeville, Hopewell Junction, Pawling, Patterson, Poughquag and Wingdale. Visitors can explore painting, photography, sculpture, mixed media and other artistic practices, and get some leaf-peeping in at the same time.

Keep ReadingShow less
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.