Merry Christmas

In a cheap hotel in Marion, Kansas, future news anchor Jim Lehrer's mother gave her sons a few words on Christmas Day, 1946: "I know this is awfully rough on you boys. None of our Christmases have ever been like this. Remember the others and try to forget this one. We're going to be alright. At least we're all together. That's more than a lot of families have". 

In the aftermath of World War Two, Europe and Asia laid in ruins, and millions of Americans were dislocated from their hometowns on account of military service and war work. Gifts and feasts were simpler- sugar was still rationed, and toy makers on a wartime footing.

But out of this war period came great Christmas music, including Bing Crosby's "White Christmas", and Judy Garland's "Have Yourself a Merry Christmas". In lieu of many toys, savings bonds were given as presents: this new tradition continued until bonds went electronic in the last decade. 

In this present year, things have been stripped to basics for the Christmas season: few parties, less travel. I must say this is a good thing, as many stores, including groceries, have chosen to close for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.   Certainly a Merry Christmas for many workers, in spite of the year's challenge. I say this as someone who has worked in 24/7 environment at sea.

References:

We Were Dreamers, book by James Lehrer

Christmas in World War II - The Home Front (sarahsundin.com)

Still No Digital Office?

At the end of an intense had school semester, I tackled the piles of paper on my bookshelf, organizing them into a filing cabinet at home. Anachronistic? You bet. What is the hang-up from embracing full digitalization? 

Security- Those working for the government and in the defense sector find their selection of available collaboration tools to be limited. Marking up PDFs can be done, but third party applications like Slack are not used. 

Portability- Paper is more versatile when a file cannot be transmitted readily due to security concerns. It feels easier to work on a sheet of paper during a 5-10 minute interlude than it is to fire up the work computer. Also, wireless internet service - through WiFi or cellular - is still spotty in many places. 

 Kinematics- It still remains challenging to compare documents between two screens. Perhaps working with one vertical screen and one tablet is the best digital option. In the meanwhile, I continue to use a printout while scanning the computer screen for revisions. 

Cost of omission - I must say that the legal profession has mastered digitalization. For them, the slightest change in wording can tip a costly dispute. Eye fatigue remains a real issue with computer screens, but developments like the eye-friendly Kindle hold promise. 

Cost of software- Adobe democratized the PDF format, but as a business, retained certain controls. Their official, $60 per year software is the only tool that works across all update versions and computers. For information transfer, different databases require plain text, comma separated values, and so forth. Sometimes it’s easier to complete on paper and send it in. 

Incumbency- In my undergraduate studies, correspondence courses completed at sea were for the large part completed in pencil and paper, whether it was writing out nautical “rules of the road” verbatim or performing drawings of engine room equipment. This was meant to prevent cheating, and to eliminate the need for laptops in harsh shipboard environments. Autocad - design drawing software - was relegated to a drafting class instead of being integrated into the curriculum. In the workplace, I sketch on paper and use sticky notes- it’s hard to break old and effective habits. 

Nuances of Law and Order

This year, urban protests and general unrest in society created a mixed reaction in the electorate. In some parts of the country, Trump’s rhetoric of liberal politicians “destroying the suburbs” fell on deaf ears. Elsewhere, it was a resounding success. I have a theory why: as we near the middle of the Suburban Century (summed up by Mark Clapson in 1992), what happens in the inner-city does not physically or vicariously affect the lives of citizens in diverse, self-contained and far-flung suburbs.

Virginia Beach, VA

The Virginia Beach Oceanfront serves as the quintessential, walkable downtown for a military-heavy suburb. This spring and summer, tensions were high as protestors called attention to longstanding law-and-order policing on the beach. Over the Labor Day weekend, local group BLM 757 held its “Shut Down the Oceanfront 3.0” protest. True to form, the police gave citations to protestors who drifted from the sidewalk into the street. As a result of afternoon and night-time activity, families chose alternative locations for rest and relaxation; combined with COVID, this proved harmful to the ecosystem of local beachfront businesses.

At election time, Virginia Beach voted for Joe Biden and Representative Elaine Luria, a Democrat. On the same ticket, incumbent mayor Bobby Dyer, a Republican, was re-elected with 57% of the vote; and “RK” Kowalewitch, a conservative whose campaign signs read: “Law and Order”, won another 5% of the electorate.     

 

Suburban Richmond, VA

The Virginia State Capitol and Supreme Court building in Richmond were targeted by protestors as symbols of conservative political leadership. With much of downtown boarded up, the city provided a backdrop for political advertising. The jarring images did not ‘tip the needle’ in nearby Henrico and Chesterfield counties, who chose Biden and Representative Abigail Spanberger (D) by large margins. Both counties are home to a mix of employment options; heavy industry, light industry, service and some professional work. Freeways criss-cross these suburbs, linking towards northern and southern markets, and the international airport and deep-sea port of Hampton roads. Richmond, home to state government, several universities, and museums, is somewhat irrelevant to new suburbanites. Overall, there was no partisan change in Virginia’s congressional representation this year.    

 

Suburban Atlanta, GA

The land that served as a springboard for one-time House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and other conservative Republicans, helped to tip Georgia for Joe Biden. For 20 years, the Greater Atlanta area has been the nexus of a New Great Migration of African-Americans from the North to the South; the impact in politics, seen by the flipping of congressional seats, is very recent. Atlanta is a city of the New South; sprawling development centers on its record-breaking international airport and its freeways. The firewall between city and suburbs may be crumbling: while decades ago, suburban Gwinnett County blocked subway construction, a referendum for a transit tax may have passed, pending recount.

 

Los Angeles, CA

California is no friend of Donald Trump. But recent years of excessive solicitude given to drug pushers, car thieves and vandals struck a nerve in working and middle-class communities across racial lines. Since the Rodney King riots of 1992, Asian-American small business owners have been concerned about inadequate police protection offered to their communities. Legislation to “defund the police” dug up old pain. Voters in the state narrowly reaffirmed limits on affirmative action in the state, which were first put into effect in 1996; and sent new Republican representatives to Congress.  

 

Long Island, NY

During the George W. Bush years, as war deaths mounted, these traditionalist, conservative-of-the-gut counties questioned its allegiance to the GOP. But this year, as in 2016, their hometown son, Donald J. Trump of Queens, NY, did not produce the electoral revulsion seen in other suburbs of similar educational and demographic profiles.

While it appears that North Shore Rep. Tom Suozzi (D) will retain his long-time seat, his Republican opponent led in early counting. On the blue-collared South Shore, Andrew Garbarino (R) is expected to succeed retiring Rep. Peter King. Lee Zeldin (R) holds his seat in affluent Suffolk County. Nichole Malliotakis (R) has unseated Max Rose (D) in representing Staten Island and part of Brooklyn. These latter three seats were considered toss-ups going into the election. The Long Island suburbs are home to well-paid public servants and tradespeople of a vibrant New York City; COVID shutdowns and Bill de Blasio’s social permissiveness cast a malaise across white-ethnic New York. Upward mobility of strivers, from immigrant grandparents to civil service to Wall Street, created an unwavering patriotism and belief in the institutions of America. This legacy was challenged in 2020 by politicians on the left, who maintain that this upward mobility was not fueled by grit, but by systemic racism and unchecked privilege.     

The Real Problem with Warrior Culture: a Cult of the Self

 In certain parts of the commentariat, it is now common to criticize the large presence of recently-returned veterans in the police force, which stands at 1-in-5. Supposedly, they bring home the rules of war: to occupy and to conquer. I do not see veterans in the police force as a problem in itself, since citizen-soldiers have routinely joined the blue line for generations. Where I see room for concern is in how the professional soldier-turned-policeman divorces themselves from life in the civilian world.

During the Cold War, military service- as a servicemember or family member- was a shared experience in every tier of society. The average enlistment was 2-3 years. A soldier would return to his community ties, and find employment with honor established through performing his national duty.  

Today, because of advanced military training requirements, a single enlistment lasts 4-6 years. The world moves faster, the average citizen more mobile, and social media divides geographic communities into tribes. The soldier, especially the combat vet who served multiple enlistments, becomes part of the Warrior Community, mentally separate from the civilian world. This identity applies whether on active duty, on disability pension, in the national security sector or local police. This virtual community has its memes, jokes, common understanding, and values. In contrast to warrior classes of past societies, the American warrior is somewhat detached from the real-politics of institutional power, a holdover from the age of the citizen-soldier.

There are veterans who eagerly reintegrate into civilian society. This has been a national priority since the demobilization after WWII. As a result of GI Bills in 1944 and 2005, the veteran today brings resources to the economy that few younger adults have. Their college education is paid in full, and they have access to good mortgages and business loans. Meanwhile, America's general workforce readiness is in decline: fewer citizens are ready, willing and able to perform in the workplace. Veterans today are hired for the right reasons: proven reliability, hardworking, fit, and with transferable skills. 

The Warrior Community is then one  for a sense of belonging. In previous conflicts, a two-week ocean voyage demarcated the return from the warzone to the homefront. Dislocation was first observed in Vietnam veterans, the first to return home alone on airplanes. Today, the distance is even shorter, as a veteran at home can Skype his friend on the frontlines; and he himself could be recalled to the war zone on 48-hour notice, as a contractor, expeditionary civilian, or reservist. While these post-deployment opportunities are often financially rewarding, the mostly invisible war comes home to the kitchen table. 

Beyond this reality is self-identification. I have curated small libraries onboard warships. Beside the yellowing dime novels were leadership titles with troubling themes.  

-There is the identity of the sheep-dog, protecting sheep (regular people) from wolves (terrorists abroad, street thugs at home). 

-Belonging to a "tribe" is characterized as a binary, all-or-nothing subscription: an 80% ally is nonetheless a traitor to the cause. 

-You are either a superstar or a mediocre failure. 

-One must have a brand of the self. 

- Glorification of lone Special Operations Forces

-"Agile Project Management", with a focus on small, high-performing teams, is taught in STEM colleges. 

Even the Army put out a short-lived campaign advertising "An Army of One", forgetting that only large-scale teamwork liberated Europe and Asia from tyranny. 

In reality, each person works within a larger system of society, and within which is an amalgamation of overlapping communities, tensions and motivators. The Warrior Community operates in a vacuumed ideal. Military housing today reflects the perfect but fictional Mayberry of yesteryear; and beliefs in spartan autonomy can only be practiced in unspoiled wilderness areas. The culture of the warrior must evolve away from the cult of the individual, but reflect the individual as part of the team as part of the whole.

How does this work into present day policing controversies? Many of the shocking misuses of authority, against suspects and innocents, were caused by individuals insulated from wider community interests. Neither were they team players within the police force, who would heed peer advice. As much as it is important for police departments to use community-based policing to integrate with the communities they serve; it is important for individual officers to truly join the community, whether they gained life experience in Baghdad or in Boston.   

     

A Brief History of the Payphone: 1984 to Today

 

This story begins in 1984, around the time of Bell Telephone’s breakup. That year was when the FCC deregulated interstate payphone service, although some states like Illinois and New York maintained strict regulations and taxes for local calls. During this decade and the 1990’s, a multitude of business owners, including shops and restaurant owners, installed payphones as a profit-generating mechanism (NY Times). The most enduring payphone of this deregulated era is the Protel 7000, last revised in 2002, and which can be found as “new unused stock” on two specialty websites. It turned out to be a reliable and easy-to-repair design. The model incorporated integrated circuits, and originally sold for $1,600 or so per unit; today the price is $300 per unit.

According to Pew Research, cell phone adaption in the US has increased from 60% to 95% from 2004 to present times. A decline in the number of payphones was first recorded in 2002, and over the past 3 years, the FCC has also noted that payphone revenue has decreased from 300 million to 250 million. The declining cost of long-distance calling meant that organizations such as hospitals and airports have set up no-cost phones. Without a coin mechanism, these are easier to maintain and replace.

Payphones continue to have a use where cell phones are prohibited, expensive or useless. Prisons, rural areas, courthouses, immigrant communities (who use low-rate phone cards to dial their home countries) are among current users. The last installation I have been able to find was in a North Carolina courthouse in 2014, where a new cell phone prohibition was put into place. Other devices have been labelled as “public interest payphones”, such as in New Jersey, where the state’s transit authority subsidizes payphones at transit centers.

Payphones may survive indefinitely in public buildings, at least while spare parts are still available. Under the PBX system, where a large number of office or hotel room phones route to a few outgoing lines (“Please dial your party’s extension”…”All lines are busy, please try again later”), there is no monthly cost to maintain a payphone. On the street, a payphone requires and individual line, which ups the margin of sustainability to three calls per day.

As of 2018, New York City possessed one-fifth of the United States’ 100,000 payphones. By a single action of the metropolis’ City Council, there are perhaps only 85,000 payphones left in the US. New York City has converted most payphones to free Wi-Fi, information kiosk, and telephone service under the name “City Link”. The most frequent call is made to the state’s EBT benefits hotline. This single-franchise system is subsidized by advertising revenue from CBS Outdoors, which had supported the city’s payphone network long after it had been dismantled in other cities. (NY Times).  New York City’s independent payphone operators, who emerged after major provider Verizon left the payphone business in 2011, were put out of work: “I guess I can become a taxi driver, later”, John Porter quipped. In other locales, the rules are more laissez-faire, and providers are free to enter and leave the trade. A private initiative, “Futel”, aimed at preserving payphones in the name of personal privacy and anonymity, has begun in Portland Oregon.

In theory, the payphone is an essential public service during a prolonged blackout. This was proven to be a benefit after Hurricane Sandy hit New York City in 2012. In practice, an average citizen without electricity could charge their cellphone using a car’s power port. With declining availability and reliability of the payphone network, citizens switched to using cell phones, a phenomenon recorded as early as 2003.  

I was last a regular payphone user in 2007, when my parents gave me my first cell phone. I last used a payphone in 2016, when my Apple iPhone had failed, leaving me stranded at an exurban trailer park after Sunday mass (I used Uber to get there, and needed a taxi to get back to the ship). What prompted my newfound interest in the old technology? I had a payphone in basement storage, which I had to move by June 1. I had purchased it on a whim two years earlier, fearing that it was the last chance to buy such a device. Weighing 50 pounds, I refused to store it on the second floor, so mounting it outside was the only sensible option. Intrinsically, it is an electronic device operating outside. Parts break, like the solenoid that I had to replace after two years in storage. There is a real possibility that I will lose the time and focus to service the device.

As a marine engineer, working with digital devices was a weak spot in my education and work. I had always deferred that work to shipboard electronics technicians, who were often retired from the US Navy. As a payphone owner, I had to run through troubleshooting procedures myself. 1990’s style programming, still used onboard many ships, was demystified enough for me.

When talking to the landline phone company, I was offered the “lowest business rate”, as required under state law; a savings of approximately $20 per month for a landline. The phone company (“incumbent local carrier”) also provided free use of the payphone booth, and additional assistance in repairing the line at no cost. As a selling point, I was offered a monthly contract, so I could pull this experiment at any time.

I got my hands wet in regulatory compliance. Reading the Code of Virginia and visiting the State Corporation Commission website, I paid my $4 payphone tax, and insert a “booth card” with the statutory language. More or less, I also gained experience in talking with the curious public.

While servicing my payphone, I had my first encounter with a Karen, or a neighbor who regularly calls law enforcement over quality-of-life issues. A concerned citizen had called the police about “someone messing with the payphone”. I had the proper keys, no big deal. The police officer, slightly younger than me, was impressed that somebody was practicing “a lost art”, an archaic trade that I recently learned.

 

References

Video Documentaries:

Dead Ringer, 2016. 

The Pay Phone Repairmen of New York City, Mashable, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH-FqLdqWLo

Hang Up, Hugo Massa, 2014.

https://vimeo.com/95554820

Articles:

A Payphone Can Be Yours and the Toll is Negotiable, NY Times, 1/18/1986

There are still 100,000 Pay Phones in America, CNN Business, 3/19/2018

https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/19/news/companies/pay-phones/index.html

What are those tall kiosks that have replaced payphones in New York?, NY Times, 1/11/2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/nyregion/what-are-those-tall-kiosks-that-have-replaced-pay-phones-in-new-york.html

On the Reasonable Use of Force

 

Duty to Retreat

In contrast to the Wild West, crowded East Coast cities discouraged the possession and use of weapons in self-defense, especially among the often-immigrant proletariat. In the book “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”, set in 1910’s New York, a father who shoots a child predator is congratulated by his neighbors and the responding police officer, but was ultimately fined for having an unregistered handgun.

The Baltimore Catechism notably favored state power in the form of just war and capital punishment, over the individual action of self-defense. This statist logic was followed by Congress through the 1990’s, when a decade-long Assault Weapon ban and effective death penalty statues were both put into law to combat crime. On taking a life in self-defense, the Baltimore Catechism (1891) stated: “When we are unjustly attacked and have no other means of saving our own lives”.

 

Castle Doctrine

In the midst of late-1960’s protests, Law-and-Order politicians told anxious voters that “your home is your castle”. Rising crime rates, overtaxed police, and inner-city blight made it more plausible than ever that citizens would need to exercise lethal force to protect their homes and businesses.

Bernie Goetz had had enough in 1984 when he was robbed in a New York City subway car. He fired off his handgun, injuring the four muggers. A New York jury affirmed Bernie Goetz’s right to self-defense, and he was only charged with illegal handgun possession. He earned the title of “Subway Vigilante”. Gary Fadden of Virginia, meanwhile, had the run-through by a prosecutor. Chased down on the country road by two armed drunks, he keyed into his workplace for refuge. Instead, the armed drunks had barged through the gate, and Fadden was forced to take a last stand. As part of his job with the firearm manufacturer, he had a machine gun in his possession, and fired it. “F--- you and your high-powered weapon”, one assailant shouted. Empty bullet casings were found near the assailant’s seat. Fadden was cornered in his workplace. Even so, the prosecutor chose to take Gary Fadden to court. The jury sided with Fadden; this was a clear-cut case of self-defense. While vindicated, Fadden was left with over $30,000 in court costs and legal fees; and ultimately lost his job.

 

Stand-Your-Ground

On the eve of passing its stand-your-ground law, Georgia had to reckon with a ghost in its closet. Lena Baker, a Black woman, was sent to the electric chair in 1945 for using deadly force against a White attacker, who happened to be her employer as a maid. She was posthumously pardoned in 2005, and Georgia’s stand-your-ground law took effect in 2006. Then as now, the benefits of stand-your-ground laws are seen as subject to the whims and prejudices of the jury.

 

What was Kyle Rittenhouse thinking?

Kyle Rittenhouse, age 17, the alleged shooter in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was neither owner, employee, neighbor, nor a duly registered security guard protecting an auto dealership across state lines from his Illinois home. Teen access to firearms has been a contentious issue this past decade. Most recently, the Virginia legislature affirmed the right of a 14-year old to use a firearm in home defense. (The premise of the new law is that firearms must now be secured from children under 14).

 Most likely, Rittenhouse was a teenager caught in the tenor of the times. In 1976, 17-year old Joseph Rakes jabbed a man with the American flag in protest of Boston school integration. He was later convicted of assault. Rittenhouse, of course, carried a deadly weapon. A Wisconsin jury will decide if the state should lock him up and throw away the key.

Coronavirus: A Public Act of Faith

Reason and Logic are two tools of a mature society. Sometimes, one exceeds the other in a given moment of time. Due to COVID-19’s diminutive size, use of fabric to prevent transmission was once considered to be “catching a fly with a barbed-wire fence”. This logic is often used by anti-mask individuals. Even if this analogy remains true, epidemiological evidence has shown that wearing a face covering greatly reduces the rate of transmission. The two people I know who recovered from COVID-19 had contracted the virus at Texas bars. These venues are characterized by casual contact, loosened inhibitions, and no face masks. On the larger scale, one could compare Black Lives Matter protests against a biker rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. Both types of events consisted of large, working-class crowds who had a significant risk of workplace exposure to the virus. Despite public concerns, the former events did not create a statistical spike in COVID-19 cases- mask-wearing was prevalent. The latter became a super-spreading event- mask-wearing was rare.  It is a reasonable assumption that mask-wearing helps prevent the transmission of coronavirus.

Faith in God, humanity, and so forth, has given way to great cynicism. In the late Middle Ages, farmers in Europe rotated their crops and used fertilizer for at least three centuries before a scientific explanation of soil nutrition was given. Good results meant that the practice spread beyond a renegade farmer’s field. And as those farmers rotated their crops, so let us have faith in masking up.

The Mathews Men Today

 

East of Gloucester, Virginia, I followed the road less traveled into Mathews County. It is a rural area along the lower Chesapeake Bay, and whose settlement by the English dates to the early 1600s. The Methodists still employ a travelling minister, preaching at small, white-walled clapboard churches at the crossroads. The Baptists also have a presence in this area. Post offices are located at each hamlet, measuring no more than 200 square feet apiece. The average home is an early 20^th century sturdy-sized residence on a small farming plot. Manors are titled in the English style, with names like “House of Payne” and “Moon Pi”.  Washingtonians vacation here, drawn by the quaintness of a timeless county. I bought a cantaloupe (“Local ‘Lopes”) sold on honor from the back of a pickup truck parked in Mathew’s town square.

What drew me here was a phenomenal story of the Mathews Men, or local watermen who served their country as merchant mariners in World War Two. Over the course of history, necessity drove man to sea. As agriculture was commoditized in the early 20^th century, and with a rural depression beginning in 1920, seafaring was a path to economic security for men who were adept at sailing boats on the Chesapeake Bay; and whose wives had the strength and fortitude to lead the family and manage the farm during their husbands’ long absence at sea.

World War Two heralded the end of an era in the maritime culture in Coastal Virginia, and the beginning of the new. During the War, inland shipping, already on a decline during the Great Depression, was supplanted by improved highways and construction of the Big Inch oil pipeline from Texas oil fields to New Jersey refineries. While some fishing boats continue to ply from the peninsula, fortunate proximity provided another lucrative line of work. In 1952, the Coleman Bridge opened, connecting the backwater of Mathews County to job opportunities at the shipyards in Newport News, the Fort Eustis Army Base, and the Langley Air Force Base. Mobility was further enhanced with the opening of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel in 1957, allowing highway access to commercial heart of Norfolk, Virginia. Electricity and indoor plumbing had arrived shortly before this fortuitous decade.

Even with these improvements, the disjointed, unsigned roads would have intimidated outsiders until the arrival of GPS navigation. It was on one detour that I came across the cemetery in Onemo, where the extended Hudgins family is buried. The hamlet bearing this family’s name is several miles north. On several tombstones of master mariners were etchings of the fishing boats they had owned and operated. Buried here were souls “known only to God”, presumably lost mariners recovered from the Chesapeake Bay. Confederate flags marked the tombs of Civil War veterans- the war had taken an awful toll on young men, leaving a number of women of the generation unmarried. Even so, the Hudgins were known for their racial tolerance: seafaring was a multicultural pursuit even in those days.  

The hands-on seafaring experience that honed the Mathews Men has been superseded by increased technical sophistication and academic rigor. While the sons and daughters of Mathews continue to sail as deckhands and oilers onboard oceangoing ships, the town no longer raises ship’s captains in the way that New England towns still do. In the 1960’s, building on the work of existing deep-sea maritime academies, the Great Lakes Maritime Academy and the maritime program at Texas A&M in Galveston opened to serve the focused educational needs of inland and near-coastal mariners. Although the “Mid Atlantic Maritime Academy”, a trade school in Norfolk, Virginia, serves Navy and Coast Guard sailors transitioning into the civilian maritime sector, there is no collegiate- accredited maritime program in Virginia, or any Atlantic state south of New York. Mathews, Gloucester, and the surrounding region possess a maritime heritage predating the American Revolution. This is something worth preserving.

 Read: The Mathews Men, William Geroux, 2016. 

Dedicated to Trenton Lloyd-Rees, Maine Maritime Academy, Class of 2019.

Flash: That Time a Kennedy Lost

 

“Kennedy Loses”, a “Massachusetts First”, announces The Hill. That Kennedy is Joseph Patrick Kennedy III, grandson of Senator and US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who lost a Senate primary in Massachusetts this past week. “This isn’t a time for waiting, for sitting on the sidelines,” the now 39-year old congressman announced as he entered the race against incumbent Senator Ed Markey.

By running this race, Joe Kennedy was thought to be tacking one step ahead of 46-year old Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, a potential primary contestant for a future vacant Senate seat, who has a national profile. Joe Kennedy wagered his congressional seat, making this contest an all-or-nothing stake.  He started with a significant lead in polling, which recently had flipped for the incumbent. Kennedy’s strengths were said to be in working-class and minority communities, yet ultimately he lost in other traditionally working-class areas like seaside Gloucester.

Characteristic confidence and charisma did not save Joe Kennedy. Ed Markey, 74, outmaneuvered the red-headed youngster on the issue of youth. He obtained endorsements from progressive environmental groups, and ultimately claimed college towns like Cambridge, Amherst, and Dartmouth; in addition to Boston.  

In New England, there is a certain respect for established systems and patience, and waiting one’s turn. While the 1773 Tea Party took place in Boston, the modern-day fighting words of “Defeat, Retire, Kick Out” are not used in Massachusetts. In contrast to the West and New South, non-compete clauses are still enforced in the state, preventing the type of start-up culture seen in California. In a political machine, it is expected that participants start young, and wait their turn before advancing; in exchange for the benefits of incumbency. Instead of congratulating Kennedy for “sticking it to the man” and holding the veteran politician accountable, one commenter stated that Kennedy “put his personal ambition above the welfare of the country and waged a pointless and divisive campaign that diverted money and attention from places where both were needed”.

Ed Markey, who had served in Congress since the 1970’s, won election to the Senate in 2013 to fill John Kerry’s seat, as the latter became Secretary of State. (Joe Kennedy was born in 1980, and entered Congress in 2012). Markey entered Congress at a time when the average age in the body was decreasing. This anomaly occurred from 1960 to 1980; meaning that later Boomers and Gen X’ers did not continue the trend of youthful participation in politics. It is possible for Joe Kennedy to fail upwards, as there will be state races to compete for in 2022. Notable, no close Kennedy family has run for governor.

It’s a Sid Davis Production

In the middle decades of the 20^th century, Sid Davis was a prolific director of educational films seen on projectors in school classrooms across America. The nationwide impact of his short films was recognized by the New York Times, where after his lung cancer death at age 90, he received a page-long obituary in 2006. This film empire was all achieved on a low production budget, where economies included using a single vehicle as a prop. Sunny, new and well-maintained schools and parks served as the background, adding a priceless air of real-life to dramatic stories.

Various Southern California School and Police districts sponsored Sid Davis’ work, including Inglewood, Santa Monica, and Los Angeles County. The orderly suburban paradise, with its authority figures of parents, teachers, and police officers; was often held in contrast to Los Angeles’ skid row, which contained drunkards, pool halls, prostitution and nightlife. This dichotomy served as a backdrop for the dire consequences of straying from social conformity, which to its furthest ends included manslaughter and unmarried teen pregnancy. “You had an anchor in a social institution, now you feel adrift”, Sid Davis remarks about a high school dropout.

Despite his stiff morality, Sid Davis makes no appeals to religious authorities: his films are presented for a secular audience. His prime filmmaking years coincided with the Kennedy presidency, and the famous 1962 Supreme Court case on school prayer (Engel vs Vitale). Sid Davis’ films feature a racially diverse cast, first in the pool halls of Los Angeles, then later in integrated suburban settings.

Sid Davis films are a product of their times. For example, a teenage drunk driver is let off with merely a warning and phone call to his parents. Sid Davis’ most infamous short would be 1961’s “Boys Beware”, warning boys about the dangers of pedophiles, who were labelled exclusively as “homosexuals”. The corresponding film “Girls Beware” warned about casual sex, and received better reception among present-day audiences. Other films contained the results of cutting-edge research on the adolescent mind: One short, “Age 13”, features a low-income Hispanic teenager as it sensitively addresses the adolescent grieving process.

Sid Davis’ films present a top-down, “Do as I say, not as I do”, “Father knows best” attitude consistent with the era.  A 1970 film, “Keep Off the Grass”, presents a father, holding a cigarette and a cocktail, chastising his son for marijuana use. Sid Davis explains the difference: the casual drinker is unwinding after a productive day, and the marijuana user seeks to detach from any responsibility. Public Service Announcements and social guidance films for youth today tend to focus on the effects of peer pressure, instead of the expectations of authority figures.

Watch: 

The Bottle and The Throttle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyMRxHDT4x8  

The Dropout (1962): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GBx3RKi3j4

Sid Davis’ Obituary: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/09/obituaries/09davis.html

Coronavirus: Americans’ Independent Streak Began in WWII

One New York Times commentator suggested that anti-mask advocates would’ve spent World War Two shining their headlight beams into the sky to liberate America from civil defense blackouts. They practically did. Through the middle of 1942, bright beachfront lights illuminated silhouettes of American coastal Merchant ships. The leisure economy was back, fueled by war exports to Europe and Nationalist China, and resort owners were loath to give it up. Americans were offended by the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, but were not yet in the mood for national sacrifice.

 Sheer losses of merchant ships along the East Coast changed the tune. Attacks by Nazi U-Boats began in 1941 before the US entered the War, and peaked in early 1942. Referencing the sinking of dozens of unarmed coastwise tankers, a poster proclaimed to motorists: “Think- Sailors have died to give you this ride”.

Despite the grim loss of life, rationing of coffee, alarm clocks, and sliced bread was lifted quickly upon popular demand. As pointed out by Kelly Cantrell in a dissertation, magazines during the War listed recipes with unrationed substitutes, such as corn syrup for sugar; but also featured lavish recipes- which were practically illegal on the basis of strict ration points. To produce a traditional Christmas feast, it was necessary to pool with another family, stockpile canned goods (against government policy), or purchase on the black market.

In contrast to Britons’ stiff upper lips in the face of Blitzkrieg bombings, Americans have a long tradition of flouting the rules, and it was certainly not limited to members of one political ideology.   

Cancelled: School Resource Officers?

The School Resource Officer is the latest victim of #cancel_culture. Our schools are over-policed, they say. I beg to differ. Somewhere in America today, a young man is hatching a plan to kill people in a public place. That’s not me talking; it’s the gruesome statistic that these attacks are premeditated and predictable.

How quickly have we forgotten the televised body counts of school children? Between Columbine (1999) and Newtown (2012), many across the political spectrum hoped to wish the problem of school violence away. Not worth the cost, metal detectors criminalize inner-city youth, they said. Unfortunately that is not a responsible option today.  America has not put a high value on the development of youth. As far as school lunches are concerned, ketchup is a vegetable. Schools are often underfunded, or in large cities, the school funds misappropriated. Lapsing on recent school security advances would be par for the course.

The Director of National Intelligence has identified school violence as a significant national security threat, and it would be fitting for the Department of Homeland Security to devote some attention towards improving school security, as they have for airports and seaports. So far, however, these efforts have been led by individual states. In recent years, states like Maryland and Virginia have raised the school leaving age from sixteen to eighteen, seeking to leave no child behind from getting a high school diploma. Recognizing the risk of keeping unmotivated, and possibly troubled, teenagers in school, clear mitigation efforts were made. These include an increase of information sharing between government agencies, and to separate known dangerous juveniles from the general school population. Outcomes include hard measures like hiring school resource officers, and soft measures like training for teachers and the school community to take threats seriously, encouraging dialogue between students and authority figures, and acting on early indicators such as a disciplinary record of assault.

The School Resource Officer is partly a counselor and partly a police officer. They give a guiding hand to the wayward, and observe for inside threats (a cop can tell who is concealing a knife or handgun in his pants by observing his gait). In rare cases, they are the first responder to an emergency. This is why you can’t swap them one-for-one with a social worker. When an attack is successfully counteracted, it doesn’t stay in the news for long, and it’s nothing to celebrate. Only in America would a kid with a mission of menace reach the final line of defense. So to the school boards seeking to abolish the role of School Resource Officer, what do you think you are doing? While we can hope for a better day of peace and respect of others, the present conditions must be addressed today.

That Revolution Talk

This year, Virginia joined a list of states whose rural leaders are talking of divorcing from their big-city counterparts. This talk of breakaway rests on perceived lack of political representation in state government, and different cultural values from the big cities. Upstate New Yorkers want to do away with New York City. Eastern parts of Washington and Oregon seek to break away from cosmopolitan and left-leaning Seattle and Portland.

More serious and detailed secession plans include an economic strategy. Some rural and libertarian-leaning Californians talk about splitting their state in two: under most proposals, Southern California would claim prosperous Silicon Valley, just south of the northerly city of San Francisco.

In Virginia’s most radical proposal, dubbed "Vexit", Arlington County and its 235,000 urbanized residents would return to neighboring District of Columbia, as it was between 1800 and 1846. Arlington residents made it clear that they did not want to join DC, giving their own stereotyped gripes of big-city problems. A trimmed Virginia would keep neighboring Fairfax County- which has more registered Democrats than Arlington- not for political reasons, but for economic reasons. Fairfax is home to Fortune 500 companies; and Dulles Airport, Virginia’s global hub with non-stop flights to Tel Aviv and Hong Kong. Without Fairfax, some commentators claimed that Virginia would become another rural, poor, Southern state.

A smaller proposal would shift several border counties across the line into West Virginia. When the mountainous state was created during the Civil War, border counties were invited to join West Virginia by referendum, and according to its governor, the invitation is still open.

Virginia’s secession talk has more gravitas in conversation than elsewhere, for the state has already split four times, and rejoined twice:

1792- Kentucky split from Virginia

1800- Alexandria, Virginia annexed to Washington, DC

1846- Alexandria returned to Virginia

1861- Virginia leaves the US for the Confederacy

            1863- West Virginia split off as a Union state

            1870- Virginia rejoins the US  

What propelled the secession talk in Virginia? Democrats introduced and voted on an “assault weapon” ban. It passed the House of Delegates, but failed by several votes in the State Senate. Apparently, this was too close of a call for gun-toting patriots. 

Virginia Gun Enthusiasts Create Better Democracy (and not from the cartridge box)?

Prolonged Debate on Gun Control Bills led to resurrection of Fair Redistricting Amendment. Here’s how it played out.

Gun Control Lobby cost Virginia low-wage workers income increase in ’21 and ‘22

Flush with Mike Bloomberg cash, Democratic leadership made gun control bills the number-one priority for the January & February legislative session. They did not anticipate pushback from citizens, local jurisdictions and especially the Virginia Senate, which required rewriting and reconciling bills.   Debate on an increased minimum wage fell off the schedule of the two- month legislative session. Two points apply here:

No minimum wage bill would have passed this year, without exceptional intervention by the Virginia Senate.

Had the minimum wage bill been discussed as a priority in January, before the COVID crisis, the timeline of wage increases would have started in July 2020 instead of 2021.

What was the exceptional intervention? In exchange for Virginia Senate extending the legislative session to allow a vote on the minimum wage increase, the House of Delegates would allow a vote on the Fair Redistricting Amendment.

Fair Redistricting Amendment

It is not easy to add an Amendment to the Virginia Constitution, and it almost died this year. Last year, in the uncertainty of upcoming elections, both parties favored a Fair Redistricting Amendment, the first east of the Mississippi River. It had to be reapproved this year, and the Virginia Senate was favorable.

The 21-19 split of the Virginia Senate, currently favoring Democrats, requires collegial relations between the two parties. Embracing the Fair Redistricting Amendment diffuses tension: The foremost prize of partisan redistricting creates an incentive for the nominally-minority party to take advantage of another member’s short absence- which did happened back in 2014. These absences from the legislative session may include sick days, important meetings for their small business, family weddings and hunting trips.

Democrats in the House of Delegates, who have a stronger majority, are legislating like there is no tomorrow- they even acknowledge the likelihood of a voter backlash in 2021. Republicans and a handful of Democratic legislators, held to their campaign promises, narrowly passed the bill through the House of Delegates this year. It would have been tabled without debate, had it not been resurrected as a bargaining chip.   

The Democratic Party of Virginia has since come out against the Amendment on vague civil rights grounds- the Black Caucus would prefer Democrats- instead of a bipartisan committee and Virginia Supreme Court- to control redistricting- even though it is likely to pass voter approval in November. Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican in a heavily-Democratic state, has been looking to the Virginia fair redistricting developments as a model for his own state.

Private Sales without Background Check to become a Felony, Gift Transfers Unaffected

Virginia is a very economically diverse jurisdiction, and this bill did not sit well with rural and small-town voters, who made their voices heard in the mid-year municipal elections. With the average gun pricing between $500 and $1000, this new law to regulate private sales has hit at the heart of arguments over economic injustice. While the average resident of Fairfax County can afford to give guns as gifts, a gun purchase represents two weeks of income in a rural country.

The background checks are available from any licensed gun dealer for $15.00, or at a gun show for $2.00. Nevertheless, it will likely be challenged in court under equal protection claims.

Minimum Wage to eventually increase to $12 per hour, will lock in wage gains from tight labor market.

The minimum wage in Virginia is currently $7.25 per hour. Unskilled labor in low-cost parts of Virginia currently demands $10.00 or more per hour, so effects of stepped increases will not be seen until 2023. The House of Delegates sought to double the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour, a proposal rebuked by the Virginia Senate and Democratic Governor.

State Capitals and Railroads: A Historical Symbiosis

Where’s your state capital? If on the East Coast, look for the train station. Railroads and majestic state capitals were built in tandem. As reliable streetcars were not available until the 1890’s, state capitals had to be located near downtown hotel and restaurant districts, and to mainline railroads reaching across their respective states.   

Washington, DC’s Union Station was built in 1906 six blocks north from the US Capitol. Most of DC’s municipal offices are located six blocks west in Judiciary Square. Simultaneous projects included a tunnel for trains to pass underneath- instead of across- Capitol Hill, a streetcar terminal for service to the old downtown, and construction of the restricted-access US Senate subway.

Legislators and staff in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Richmond, Virginia also walk six blocks to their respective state capitals. 

Even though all parts of the state can be reached in a day’s ride on horseback, Providence, Rhode Island’s train station is located at the back door of the state capital.

The capital in Trenton, New Jersey is a half-mile from the train station, which serves high-speed electric trains between Washington, DC and New York City via Philadelphia.

Although the station is located on the “wrong” side of the navigable Hudson River, train service operates frequently on the Empire Corridor between Buffalo; Albany, New York; and New York City.

The very historic state house in Annapolis, Maryland, dating to 1772, used to be located at the terminal of a rapid commuter rail line to much-larger Baltimore; but was stranded after the railroad was abandoned in the 1950s. Light rail service was restored over a portion of the corridor in 1992, but ends some 15 miles from Annapolis.

Then-Senator Joe Biden commuted from Wilmington, Delaware to the US Capitol by Amtrak; but passenger trains have not served his peninsular state capital of Dover, Delaware in decades.

Augusta, Maine sadly lost their train service, which used to run in front of the state house promenade. A similar fate befell Concord, New Hampshire, where buses have replaced trains since 1967. Nevertheless, there’s always talk of restoring commuter rail service to Boston.

Montpellier, Vermont still has Amtrak service; although the hilly topography put the station a mile from town.

Springfield, Massachusetts and Hartford, Connecticut are served by Amtrak Northeast Corridor’s “Inland Route”, as well as respective state commuter rails.

Although few trains operate here today, Raleigh, North Carolina’s capital is also within walking distance of the rail line.

West Virginia is a young state, born during the Civil War. Three passenger trains a week serve Charleston, West Virginia on Amtrak’s sleepy and mountainous Cardinal Line between Chicago and Washington, DC.

Medgar Evers' 30-Year Trial

If a defendant is wrongfully acquitted, he is still a free man. This is a pillar of the American judicial system, even when it opposes other ideals like equality and justice. Such values were tested during the trial of Byron De La Beckwith, who murdered civil rights activist Medgar Evers on June 12th, 1963.

Beckwith was brought to justice shortly after the killing. Due to the continued presence of Jim Crow racism, this case was designed to fail. In 1964, during the first trial against Beckwith, the local prosecutor pursued the death penalty, instead of a more probable term sentence. In the Deep South, it was not until the 1990s that white men were executed for killing black men. Predictably, the first trial deadlocked into a mistrial, and so did the second. 26 years elapsed between a second mistrial in 1964, and a third trial in 1990, in which Beckwith, then 73, was sentenced to life in prison. Was this a victor’s justice?

Contemporary writing suggested that Beckwith would walk as a free man on appeal. Beckwith believed that his right to a speedy trial had been violated, twice; and that he was facing double jeopardy.

Beckwith held that the 26 years between the second mistrial and arrest for a third trial was excessive; and that the 1,100 days between the 1990 arrest and his final trial was likewise excessive.

The State had to find that a Nolo Prosequi (Decline to Prosecute) issued in 1969 was not an acquittal; nor was it permanently binding, provided that in the State of Mississippi there is no statute of limitations for murder.

To the credit of the Mississippi Supreme Court in the appeal process, they were able to disregard the fact that Beckwith still held white supremacist views, and ignore the weight of social and political implications during the third trial and appeal in the early 1990’s.

By this time, the South had entered the “tough on crime” era. Racial favoritism gave way to a firm but outwardly fair hand. Any leeway given to Beckwith could be used by a future defendant brought to justice in a “cold case”. Beckwith, in poor health, spent the last seven years of his life in prison. His futile appeal, Beckwith vs. State of Mississippi, is often cited today in Fifth and Sixth amendment cases.

In 2009, a naval supply ship, USNS Medgar Evers (T-AKE 13), was named by then-Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus. A social progressive, he was sitting governor of Mississippi at the beginning of Beckwith’s third trial.

Good Intentions versus Bad Actors

My eyes were fixated on the Crew Dragon spacecraft this weekend. This launch was the epitome of the prowess of scientists and industry. A successful space program is the sign of a healthy nation. The war in Iraq had derailed George W. Bush's early presidential ambitions for spaceflight, but not before NASA funded summer camps for youths like myself. So nothing said it better that we were a nation at peace again.

This weekend certainly had the flavor of turbulent 1968-1969. Had I posted this sooner, I would've spoken too soon. Many of the recent protests over Floyd George's death have been orderly, especially during the sunlight hours. Others have been disorderly, characterized by arrests and the use of tear gas, but nothing beyond the pale. However, during the cover of night, there has been arson and looting of boutique shops and liquor stores. Peaceful protest is a keystone of democracy. Rioting has an ugly history of suppressing the rights and security of marginalized groups, the destruction of Tulsa's Black Wall Street at the hands of white supremacists being one of many examples.

This last point is salient, because this week has seen many privileged individuals joining in the destruction of other peoples' property. These rioters truly believe they are advancing the goals of social justice, as they destroy minority-operated businesses. If history is any lesson, neighborhoods damaged in three hours by the bricks and gasoline of "social justice warriors" will stagnate for three decades. It is the underprivileged residents who will live among the burned-out buildings and lack of amenities. This was the case of Washington, DC in the aftermath of the 1968 riots.

Elected officials and community leaders, in both parties, are abdicating the responsibility to mediate in civil unrest, which requires both understanding the concern at hand, while demanding the rule of law and order. This was shown by Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan's successful handling of Baltimore's Freddie Gray riots in 2015. Minnesota, the generally harmonious Scandinavia of America, was ill-prepared to deal with urban riots, and the genie left the bottle.

Among intellectuals, moral relativism has taken precedence over absolute rights. "Arson does not cancel out a murder", or "this is justified", they say. When this thinking enters political philosophy, inaction prevails. Learned politicians vacillate over 'systemic injustice' and 'inclusiveness', instead of  building practical affirmative action plans that would get immediate results.  This weekend, looting was not confined to inner-city areas, but spread to affluent, educated suburbs like Bethesda, MD.

Two West Coast Presidents

Did you know that just two of America’s 45 Presidents were born west of the Great Plains? Their names are Richard Nixon, born in 1913 in Yorba Linda, California; and Barack Obama, born in 1961 in Hawaii.

This trivia is less surprising if you remember that every President, except Obama, was born in 1946 or earlier.  In the summer of 1946, when Bill Clinton, Bush Jr., and Trump were born; Southern California still hummed on 50 hertz power instead of 60, television was a scientific experiment, transcontinental phone calls were expensive, and air travel in propeller aircraft was reserved for adventurous members of the 1%. The mean center of US population was at the Illinois-Indiana border; today it sits 350 miles southwest in Hartville, Missouri. As a foregone conclusion, a septuagenarian cut from this long-bygone era will be elected this November. The 2024 race will certainly represent "passing the torch" to a new generation.  

The Classroom and Coronavirus

In privileged quarters, students of elite colleges are asking for a “universal pass” on this semester’s courses. These colleges have returned the favor with Pass/Fail grading. (Anemona Hartocollis, NY Times, 3/28/20). Who are they to speak? Meanwhile, in the K-12 environment, contingency plans “tore off the bandage”, revealing deep discrepancies in our first-world society.

Internet access- Many families with broadband internet access face strict bandwidth limitations, which prevent full utilization of online meetings and classwork. Many rural households rely on dial-up internet, running over phone lines placed during the 1930’s Rural Electrification Act.

Technology- Among the working class, cell phones serve as the family’s primary link to the internet. Household surveys focus on whether or not a family has a home computer, etc. It does not consider if each member of the family- adults and school-age children- has a way to work online.   

Childcare arrangements- Among working-class and poor families, we might as well be back to the Upton Sinclair’s Chicago stockyards. Because of smaller and atomized families in a more mobile America, teachers have found that older children are taking care of younger siblings. In other cases, small children follow their mothers to attend chores outside the home. In certain quarters, teachers and the school system have been equated to child care providers; Kamala Harris was of this opinion.

Economic strategy for adverse time- This comes up in crisis management training for EMTs and fire squads: keep track of your receipts so the governor can hand FEMA the bill. Yet prior to this outbreak, the US had no clear strategy to handle the personal and small-business economic fallout of contagion. We are highly leveraged as a society, and run on thin margins as household budgeters, landlords, and business owners. Our savings rate is much lower than in Asia. Over the next year, displacement and eviction, as well as household consolidation into shared quarters, pose a risk of disruption to student’s learning.

Control of contagious diseases- Special protections for service workers, such as Plexiglas shields, were introduced too late. Outside of the medical field, transportation workers, police, and cashiers have been punished hard by the virus, with many untimely deaths. COVID joins a handful of other maladies whose patients receive care at government expense. Each of these diseases has a chapter in American history: Polio, leprosy, kidney failure (ESRF) and, until 1981, shipboard medicine.  

Coronavirus: Price Gouging Works for Me, but…

Panic-buying emptied the shelves of rice, canned goods, bleach, toilet paper and paper towels at the base commissary. Even the much-neglected Underwood potted meat was sold out. This was not a surprise, as every military family is required to have a nucleus of survivalist / prepper mentality (Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape is the name of the mandatory course).

But the grocery stores, convenience stores, and pharmacies in town were also laid bare. I thought of one place that hoarders may have passed over: the windowless urban corner store. Tiny and dim, small selection, but carrying all essentials. Including toilet paper and paper towels. They had a different supplier, perhaps the back of a family minivan or pickup truck: The brand names on the shelves were from Maryland and New York, not Lower Virginia. Or perhaps, living paycheck-to-supplement check, the neighbors couldn’t afford to hoard like the city gentry and suburbanites. More likely, the shopkeeper controlled demand by raising prices. Any big store or chain which took that libertarian step would’ve been pilloried by the press, excoriated on social media, and investigated by the attorney general. The corner store was small fry, probably selling 12 rolls of paper per day.

In the end, nobody ran out of toilet paper. Most consumers were able to procure their paper products through traditional means, as supplies were available, and at a fair price. Voluntary rationing and redistributing toilet paper from offices and schools to retail stores helped close the gap. As I only shopped once every other week, there was a snowball’s chance in hell that products would be on the shelf during the two hours a month I was in the grocery store. Paying a bit more for toilet paper saved me from making a special trip to the office, where that commodity is kept unused by the crate-load.

Then and Now: World War Two and Coronavirus

Make Do Without

A month ago, it was easy to be a consumer. Today, with restrictions on in-person shopping, and necessary slowdowns in e-commerce warehouses, one reconsiders their purchase before hitting “click to buy”. Is this essential? Do I put someone at risk? Is there someone who need this more than I do?”

In the first week of social distancing orders, canned goods disappeared from shelves; even the potted meat and Vienna Sausages. Later supply disruptions were seen in milk, egg, and meat shelves; these are more labor-intensive to produce. Many grocery stores rationed their in-demand goods: one carton of eggs, two pounds of meat, at the military commissary. No coupon books or point tokens required, but cashiers were counting. Spoiled with a plethora of authentic restaurants, some New Yorkers are struggling to adapt to a new reality of cooking at home. “What if I can’t find (x) ingredient?” Just make do without.  

Neighbors Helping Neighbors

COVID-19 forced a reassessment of what talents and treasures are important. With stay-at-home orders, a health crisis has become a nascent economic crisis. As governments work out stimulus plans, members of the community are emerging with a spirit of volunteerism. These range from dispersing essential information on neighborhood forums, assisting with grocery shopping, and donating facemasks and sanitary supplies.   

Take Care of Yourself

The Bethesda Chevy Chase Rescue Squad was founded 83 years ago in 1937, but is celebrating its 80^th Anniversary this year. They humbly refuse to take credit for the wartime years, when the squad was disbanded on account of manpower shortages. Community health leaders provided training and information on self-care for minor health issues. For the first time on a nationwide basis, industrial and personal safety were emphasized. “Tojo like careless worker”, read a poster showing an ambulance in front of a nighttime factory.  With so many doctors deployed overseas, an ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure. Recently, Baltimore’s mayor, and a Philadelphia surgeon, expressed concern than victims of violent trauma were taking critical care beds away from COVID-19 patients. In normal times, the medical community advised citizens to “call 911 if in doubt”; today, the prevailing advice is to first speak with a doctor over the phone before coming to the hospital.  

Adapt, Improvise, Overcome

Many Americans of the silent generation (born in the 1930s and early ‘40’s) fondly remember their wartime childhoods. While relatives were occasionally killed in action, Americans made sure that children were not left behind. For the first time, quality daycares were established for working mothers. Overseas, childhood was more traumatic in the midst of air raids, interrupted schooling, rural relocation, and genocide. Today, with schools closed, it appears that our situation is more similar to wartime London. Parents, teachers and childhood professionals are adapting with various efforts. A set of “best practices” may emerge soon.

Remember those on the front lines

This current battle is being fought with ventilators, hand sanitizer. But like any war, morale and public civility must be maintained. Moments of appreciation count. Medical professionals are giving their all. Delivery drivers and grocery clerks are busier than ever. New York Police Department and transit workers are falling ill in the line of duty. Medical colleges are graduating early.

Vacation at Home

During WWII, it was assumed that tourism took gasoline, train seats, electricity, and manpower away from the war effort. Florida, even then a vacation destination, had to be careful in advertising tourism in light of the wartime sacrifice. Instead, the Office of Defense Transportation put out a poster reading: “Me travel? Not this summer.” Today, excessive travel is seen as insensitive to the times, and a proven vector for virus transmission. A spring break airplane from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico was singled out as an example. (When did college kids begin chartering airplanes?) In hard-hit touristic counties of the Northeast and Mountain West, local sheriffs are pulling over and questioning motorists with out-of-state license plates.

Food is a Weapon

The farming and food packaging industries were coordinated to either provide a growing percentage of foodstuffs to cafeterias and restaurants in industrial packaging (Sysco and US Foods), and a slightly shrinking percentage as consumer groceries to wholesalers and supermarkets. In the face of COVID-19, inefficiencies in the marketplace led to empty grocery shelves, and the industrial consumers refusing to purchase farmers’ crops, milk, and livestock. Understandably, it is difficult for food producers like Kraft, Nestle and Nabisco to retool towards consumer packaging on a dime; regrettably, restaurant providers like Sysco and US Foods have not asked groceries, governments, and families to consider purchasing industrial-sized packages, and avoid food waste. I have long wondered why major grocery chains have not attempted to break into the foodservice business, or why Sysco and US Foods have not attempted to open wholesale clubs.    

Fresh milk is being dumped into lagoons, crops being plowed over. As much as farmers dislike this waste, they cannot subsidize the transportation costs of unsold goods. The food situation is akin to the Great Depression, when there was no central coordination to bring food from farms to the urban poor. The US Department of Agriculture rectified this waste in the 1940’s; with the abundance of industrial farming, these efforts slipped in the 1950’s; but were restored with the Food Surplus Program in the 1960’s.

Queen Elizabeth II Speaks

During WWII, a young Princess Elizabeth II worked as a military truck driver and mechanic. The Queen of England, now 93, made a rare public address on Britain’s resolve to overcome the coronavirus.   

Flash: COVID Quacks, Madoff Pays Out More

A Stitch in Time for Some Madoff Victims
 
 The Department of Justice announced that on April 20, the Madoff Victim Fund (MVF) began its fifth distribution of approximately $378.5 million in funds forfeited to the U.S. Government in connection with Bernie Madoff's investment fraud scheme, bringing the total distributed to over $2.7 billion to nearly 38,000 victims worldwide. Bernie Madoff has currently served 10 years of a 150-year sentence related to his Ponzi scheme.


 Worse than Eating Tide Pods

The United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida has entered a temporary injunction halting the sale of an unapproved, unproven, and potentially dangerous coronavirus (COVID-19) treatment product, the Department of Justice announced today.

The Department of Justice alleges that the defendants, Genesis and its principals sell and distribute a product called Miracle Mineral Solution, also referred to as MMS.  Genesis sells MMS through its websites claiming that it will cure, mitigate, treat, or prevent Coronavirus, which includes COVID-19, as well as other diseases including Alzheimer’s, autism, brain cancer, HIV/AIDS, and multiple sclerosis, among others.  MMS is a chemical product which, when combined with the included activator, creates a powerful bleach product that the defendants market for oral ingestion.  The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has previously issued public warnings to consumers that MMS can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and symptoms of severe dehydration.  The Justice Department sought preliminary relief from the court.

“The Department of Justice will take swift action to protect consumers from illegal and potentially harmful products being offered to treat COVID-19,” said Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt.


Links
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-additional-distribution-more-378-million-victims-madoff-ponzi

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-seeks-end-illegal-online-sale-industrial-bleach-marketed-miracle-treatment

Amateur Hour- Voting During Coronavirus

Wisconsin’s presidential primary elections- and a state supreme court justice race- were held on Tuesday April 7^th in the midst of stay-at-home orders. These are the first statewide races in the US since primaries in Florida, Arizona and Illinois on March 17^th. Some commentators have related local COVID-19 outbreaks to in-person voting during the March 17^th primaries, but the medical community has not agreed with this hypothesis.  

In Wisconsin, many citizens relied on in-person voting, and waited with face masks in social-distanced lines. For health reasons, most poll workers – predominately elderly volunteers- stayed home, closing most polling places in Milwaukee and Green Bay. Long lines were observed in these cities, perhaps because many absentee ballots were not mailed to voters on time. Absentee voters had to find a witness to sign their ballot and envelope, and some citizens were reluctant to come out of self-isolation to meet this requirement. Results will be tabulated after April 13^th, which will reveal voter participation and turnout rates by city and county. There is a good chance that the media will declare this fairly low-stakes vote a spoiled election. These kinks- make that structural flaws- need to be addressed well ahead of the November elections, and preferably before the April 7^th results are finalized. Don’t take Wisconsin to the whipping post over this; the state is only a messenger of situations across the country, yet to come.

My city, Norfolk, Virginia, will be holding local elections on May 5^th. The Office of Elections recommends that citizens apply for an absentee ballot. The approved steps for requesting an absentee ballot in light of COVID-19 is a workaround, using the existing vote-by-mail request. Social-distancing absentee voters will swear or affirm, under felony penalty for making willfully false material statements, that “I have a reason or condition that prevents me from going to the polls on Election Day”, that condition being “my disability or illness”. If this doesn’t count as voter discouragement, tell me.  Because of how state laws on absentee voting are written, the use of workarounds like this will be common across the country.  

Guam Hands: Coronavirus

As high value assets with geopolitical importance, Aircraft Carriers and Ballistic Missile Submarines mythically have a “direct line to the President”. An enemy had incapacitated the nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Roosevelt; not the Iranian Navy, who practice sinking American warships on simulator; nor was it an explosive garbage skiff, the kind which sent USS Cole home early from deployment. The enemy is coronavirus, waging its war on the crew of USS Roosevelt.

As crewmembers fell ill, with cases outnumbering the capacity of the shipboard medical team, the Commanding Officer of the carrier would’ve sent Navy Pinnacle messages through classified lines, notifying the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of Defense. Decision was made to bring the ailing ship into Guam to isolate the ill and provide the remaining sailors some needed social distancing.    

Loose lips sank ships in World War Two, but “Loose Tweets Sink Fleets” in the 21^st century. At sea, it is possible to secure non-essential communications in a maneuver dubbed “River City”. Loose messages sent by email or by satellite phone are held in queue. Meanwhile, the CTs (cryptologic technicians) can sniff out any renegade short-wave radio sets. But once the ship is in sight of land, personal cellphones fly out of pockets and into texting hands. Relatively speaking, it is better for an experienced Captain’s letter to leak to the press, than for a hundred crewmembers’ social media posts to become news of the day. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t”.

“Restriction of Movement”, the military term for coronavirus self-isolation, is a major undertaking on Guam. On a normal day, housing costs for sailors and airmen “living on the economy”- off the base- is overpriced. A single off-base event like Chief’s Gala or Navy Birthday Ball can sell out every mid-price hotel on Guam. To house thousands of sailors under restriction of movement, empty tourist hotels are being requisitioned for self-quarantine.

The infected sailors will lean heavily on the benefits of youth. Of greater concern is that a number of highly-skilled chiefs and officers are in their 40’s and 50’s; as leaders, maintainers and reactor operators, their skills are still needed onboard this ship. Healthcare facilities are limited in Guam. There is a sizeable Naval Hospital, which serves active duty and retirees. Many Guam residents travel three hours by plane to Manila, Philippines for specialized medical care; likewise Filipino veterans of the US Armed Forces are entitled to care on Guam. International travel has been curtailed: three Manila flights per day has turned into three flights per week.

Once the fog of war clears, the military or Congress owes Captain Crozier, USS Roosevelt’s relieved commanding officer, a hearing into how the regular lines of communication broke down. Shortcomings in operational security occur at the highest levels, to include then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who had some trouble with sensitive government emails on a personal computer. Assuming no prejudice is held, Captain Crozier’s future remains bright.

Command of an aircraft carrier is one of the highest accomplishments among US Navy officers. One must be a smart and tactical aviator, a competent ship’s skipper, and a trusted military leader. In general terms, an American aircraft carrier can be described as a city squeezed between a nuclear power plant and international airport, with the perimeter of a warship. This is a unique responsibility. Today, with the assistance of civilian mariners, commanding officers of hospital ships and submarine tenders do not cross-train as surface ship operators, which can take a decade in ascending billets; after accomplishing mastery in their primary warfare community. These traditionally were officer-of-the-deck, executive officer, and commanding officer of a large auxiliary ship. Aircraft carriers stand alone in years of a specialized preparation track.

(Between assignments supporting aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush, and the Guam-based submarine tenders, this developing story is of interest to me.)

Beggars in the Kingdom

“I was born poor, I lived poor, I will die poor”, wrote Pope Pius X in 1914. This was a man who donned the Papal Tiara, rode atop a Sedia, and wore full regalia at the altar. As the Vicar of Christ, he owned none of these emblems, and had no blood heirs to this inheritance.

“The poor will always be with you”, taught Jesus Christ in the lesson of the widow’s mite. In this lesson, Jesus (see Mark 14:7 or Matthew 26:11) demonstrates that we should give our best to higher purposes, even as we rightly turn our hearts to charity. Critics of church wealth forget humble Jesus’ admonishment against his disciples, who instinctively criticized the woman from Bethany who anointed Jesus with precious perfume. This instinct towards modesty in faith is natural, and is ingrained in Buddhist and Hindu teachings, and within my own family. Critics of the Tridentine Rite conjure up imagery of medieval times. They bring up the chasm between wealthy church and insular clergy; against poor, illiterate peasants separated by an altar rail; and whose attention is garnished with bells, gold chalices and royal vestments. They contrast the stone facades of Vatican City to poverty in Africa, wondering how wealth can be transferred. To these critics, church finery represent the trappings of royalty; instead of a sense of transcendence and permanence.  I deject, the Church is:

Patron of artistry and craftsmanship- gifts to the Church are made by artists sponsored by wealthy patrons, or even the joint contribution of parishioners.

Protector of heritage- monasteries maintained ancient libraries through the Dark Ages.

A commonwealth- In contrast to the jewels of private citizens, church splendor- beautiful objects- can be shared by parishioners. Furthermore, precious metals such as gold and silver historically served as an emblem of sovereign strength without the need for bloodshed. Look at Switzerland’s enviable position as an example.

One to draw attention to the altar and the priest. Pope Benedict XVI’s vestments (and Pope Francis’ simple garb) draws the attention of media and its millions of viewers. This coverage might otherwise be given to the Queen of England.

Can the Church do better to help the less fortunate? It is true that the Vatican Bank has large investments in London real estate and Beretta firearms. To help further the Church’s recent push towards environmental justice, I would suggest that the Vatican expanding its holdings to include acres of threatened, unique forest preserves in places like the Amazon and Southeast Asia.

New Smartphone Features I’d like to See

Lie Detector

Imagine how many lies and mistruths tell their parents over a smart. Polygraph and chest leads are optional, since this function will use GPS data and tone-of-voice analysis

Tactical Grenade

We already know that lithium batteries explode at the wrong time, in the wrong place. We’re just making it predictable.

Mood Ring

Consumer Therapy has been the American cure-all since World War Two. Get ads that relate to, and “fix”, how you are feeling.

Hormone Sensor

Picks out the meal that matches your feelings: pickle and ice cream; or bison and elk meat, this app knows it all.

Driving Mode

Because clicking seven times to get to the GPS map just isn’t safe

Hot Pack Mode

Boiling water and rubber pouches are so last century. Apply phone directly to aching body part. Notice hoe warm your phone gets in the car already.

Ship Mode

Equal representation of those who travel by a ship at sea instead of an airplane. Detects chokepoints like Gibraltar or the Strait of Hormuz that might have cell service.