Government Shutdown Equals Failure

Let’s suppose your local power company tried to prove a point to your city council by shutting off electricity, plunging the town into darkness. Or the real life example of a Chicago Teachers Union which went on strike during the school year, and were rightly cricitized for the tactics they used.

Every time the US government heads into shutdown, it represents the failure of the US Congress, or the presidency, to fulfill basic responsibilities. Indeed, each family in America prepares and executes a budget, answering to the needs of its members. They may do it on spreadsheets, or may do so in the back of their mind. The members of Congress certainly do not resemble the role of benevolent fathers and mothers at this time.

My work life continues, business as usual, during the shutdown. The shutdown is limited in scope, even leaving my alma mater, the USMMA, unaffected. But there are inconveniences. Uncertainty among civil service in DC is likely putting a damper on the local small business economy, as previous shutdowns did. My correspondence with the US Coast Guard’s civilian-focused National Maritime Center is delayed. While of little consequence to me, it could mean lost job opportunities to other mariners, if they can’t get credentials issued on time.

So, please, Congress, do not let identity politics and rigid ideologies hurt constituents any longer. Voters, too, should remember in 2020.

George H.W. Bush flies high

Have moderate Republicans gone the way of dinosaurs? George Bush Senior, or “41”, will be commemorated this week; left, right and center. In 1980, he dismissed Movement Conservativism’s trickle-down ideology as “voodoo economics”. But he nevertheless became Reagan’s running mate. America was dumbfounded in 1988 when a conservative group ran Lee Atwater’s Willie Horton ads against Mike Dukakis, Massachusetts Democrat. Because Bush Sr. was above dog whistling. Instead of tailoring his message to win just 270 electoral votes (as it seems recent Republicans have done), Bush Sr. had broad appeal, winning a Presidential landslide of 40 states.

In some of these states, voters kept Republican presidential candidates on a three-decade dry spell, before voting Trump in 2016. Other states, from Vermont to Maryland; Washington to California; Illinois and New Jersey, flipped to Democrats in 1992, and stayed that way since. Bush Sr. Accomplished much in four years, working with a Democratic Congress. Today, President Trump views occasional cooperation with Pelosi as “winning”; Bush might’ve seen compromise as responsible governance. After leaving office, Bush Sr. even criticized the NRA when he perceived an anti-government shift after Waco.

Some Bush Sr. accomplishments are: Americans with Disabilities Act, Relatively peaceful liberation of Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia excepted. He laid the groundwork for NAFTA, and put David Souter and Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court. And his leadership of the First Gulf War was widely heralded.

A youthful Bill Clinton won the Presidency in 1992; and Presidental politics since then has been dominated by two families: Bush Jr. took office after Bill Clinton, whose wife Hillary would serve as Senator from New York, Secretary of State, and 2016 Presidential nominee.

A Naval Aviator of WWII, Bush Sr’s “wings” sail on, pinned under the superstructure of his namesake aircraft carrier. USS George H.W. Bush, CVN 77. I had the pleasure of deploying with the strike group on their most recent deployment, trading a million gallons of jet fuel for a box of delicious cookies baked with 100% nuclear energy. They’d come in a gift box, bearing a photo of none other than young Midshipman George H.W. Bush.

By the way, where’s Vice President Dan Quayle (1989-1993)?

Armistice Remembered

France does a good military parade, all the more poignant as the world commemorated Armistice Day at the end of World War One, the Great War. While the Western Front cut through trenches in France, the Eastern front was fluid, and quite deadly for military and civilians. As Americans we might have learned much about the Western Front, trench foot, and shellshock from books like "All Quiet on the Western Front". France victorious and Germany defeated. But the Eastern Front, whose stories were muted by the Iron Curtain, resulted in real geopolitical consequences.
 They include the collapse of Franz Joseph's Austro-Hungarian empire, Bolshevism in Russia, Turmoil in the Balkans, and the end of the Ottoman Empire. Washington, DC commemorated the Eastern Front in various ways, this past month. The Emperor Karl League of Prayer sponsored a Solemn Mass, followed by discussion on the exiled Austrian emperor's geopolitical worldview in 1918. A concert at the National Gallery of Art remembered the wartime struggles of Serbs and the genocide in Armenia.

And the military parade? While countries big and small, authoritarian and democratic, affluent and troubled, host annual military parades, such a tradition was never established in America. The Founding Father's resistance against large standing armies, and historically strong pacifist factions, certainly contribute to avoidance of outward military displays. Another aspect is practical for servicemembers, their families, and their units. Outside of training commands and small elite groups, drill and ceremony is an afterthought to the larger goal of operations, tactics, and military readiness. Servicemembers enjoy weekends and holidays when they can get them. Routine watchstanding and officer rotations make full weekends a well-earned and cherished rarity. Securing liberty for a mid-weekend parade is something NCOs and concerned officers would rather avoid. In contrast, Service Academies and ROTC units, located near population centers, are accustomed to marching drill. Shine those leathers again, and adjust your cover.

Seven Pound Anchor Babies

Our President is certainly redefining government and questioning the old traditions. The latest was his proposal to end birthright citizenship, which has been on the books since Reconstruction after the Civil War. The 14th amendment expanded the constitutional definition of citizenship to include all persons born on US soil and subject to federal jurisdiction. Free White Men, freed slaves, and children of immigrants were now citizens; Native Americans later gained right to citizenship
at a time when Eastern Europeans and Asians were generally excluded from immigrantion.

Congress rejects the idea: Birth tourism is a healthy industry, flourishing in places like California, Florida, and New York. Anchor babies are welcome, as long as their mothers are from families of means. Furthermore, birth certificate tend to be issued without asking the parents’ nationalities. I believe that anti-discrimination laws discourage hospital staff from asking excess questions. In the DC area, children of diplomats do obtain regular birth certificates, and thus can claim citizenship. Asides from one article, I have not heard any concern about diplomats taking more than their fair share.

Other issues: Ending birthright citizenship admits a certain defeat on law-and-order issues. Not long ago, a Mexican national, unlawfully present in the Texas, was executed for murder over the objection of the Mexican government. Would conservative really want to declare that children of illegal immigrant parents are not subject to US law, but entitled to reprieve at foreign consulates of Mexico and Ireland? Because even under the most zealous government, maternity wards won’t be booking outbound airfare for newborns. Mass deportation is unlikely. Some scholars look to early 20th century court precedent (conservative judicial activism- see previous blog post). But that was a different era, and not representative of a world where airplanes connect any two cities in less than 24 hours; of visa-free access and lower trade tariffs.

What Makes it a Trophy Building?

Like how up-marketed luxury apartments replaced comfortable dwellings, everybody advertises their office space as Class A today. No strict definition exists, but Class A denotes new or newly-renovated, spacious lobbies, the works. Owners, who own both upscale and modest office space, are allowed to have Class B space for rent. With it, they get to upsell the business owner’s pride: after all, a fancy office announces that you’ve made your corner-office fantasies come true.

Engineering and service firms, and credit unions, led by practical people, settle into Class B space such as aging suburban office parks. Intellectually honest leaders know that free snacks are more valuable to the employees than the goldfish pond in a Class A lobby.

Class C for “creative”. Not techie creatives, but artists and struggling non-profits. It is the low-rent and cramped spaces above downtown stores; or obsolete, like how 40 Wall Street and the Singer Buildings in New York were perceived. The Singer Building was demolished in 1968, and Donald Trump claimed to have bought 40 Wall Street for $1 million in the 1990’s.  

Above all this is the Trophy office. Not long ago, “Trophy” offices meant monumental architecture. The Sears Tower in Chicago, the Empire State Building in New York are two examples. Today, grade inflation creates a lot more Trophies. In downtown DC, an office building, designed in any other shape than a space-maximizing cube, is a Trophy Building with eye appeal. Several include the replacement Washington Post buildings, with windows reminiscent of newsprint leaves fluttering through the automated printing press; and City Center- it has a pedestrian alley and balconies.   

Another Trophy project in DC is a squat five-story building just north of the White House. During renovation, the owners downgraded from a marble siding to red limestone. How does it deserve the distinction of a Trophy? You see, Corporate America captured the AFL-CIO building, jackhammering to pieces any marble engraving that reeked of “solidarity” and “brotherhood”. The interior was gutted down to bare concrete: no Union Label stuck on a door or refrigerator would survive the purge. A building once owned, in practical terms, by representatives of working men and women, has now been cleansed and reoriented towards the full service of capitalism. Now that’s a Trophy.

A Walk Down Q Street

I have done all the touristic sites of Washington, DC manny times over, and trod the river trails. For something new, I checked out DC’s Mid City. An encompassing term for row-house and apartment neighborhoods with shared history: Built up from the Civil War to the 1920’s. Condemned as obsolete housing in the 1950’s. Sent into a downward spiral by 1968 riots and crack-related drug violence of the 1980’s. Rediscovered by creative class yuppies who fixed up homes, before full-scale gentrification by developers.

They were “Urban pioneers” discovering new neighborhoods. Wait: proud, longtime residents have always walked among us. No neighborhood was discovered.
Institutions like the Chinese takeout, has station, and laundromat linger on, surrounded by kitschy cafes and Whole Foods. Real estate appreciation greatly outpaces crime. Urban crime, the depraved violence and grand larceny that Wholesome Americans watch on 10pm news, still occurs. Eventually the crime rate will drop, and pickpockets replace gang members with assaulting fists.
New residents’ children do attend the local public school today, although Old Washington still dominates here.

The further east I walk, the more moderate the houses are. Opulence gives way to working people’s homes. Or what was housing for working people: a duplex in need of repairs inside and out, a tree growing in the brick grout, had an asking price of $700,000.

That was one block from North Capitol Street. You see the US Capitol in full view. Here, very recently, was an open-air drug market. That I am walking through for leisure says how times have changed. There is the Wendy’s. It’s always been there, attracts the working-class crowd. A new elevated bike trail takes me several blocks to Union Station. Now a bustling hub for rail passengers to  New York and the Northeast, it was gutted and repurposed in the disco era, before being restored.

The Soviets made public planning decisions based on science instead of the human element. One example was staggered work schedules in Moscow to eliminate the capitalist plague of rush hour. In America, public policy can be described as carrots and sticks- rewards and punishments that appeal to individual choice. Having people in the city and working in the transit-accessible suburbs (large employers, public and private) makes more efficient use of subway lines, currently packed in the peak direction.

I fly over Washington, about 7 minutes from farmland to the Reagan airport outside of downtown DC. Flying is a rare treat to avoid metropolitan traffic jams. What would it be like to have a 12-minute commute everyday? From DC’s Union Station to New Carrollton, the first suburban commuter rail station on the line? It makes living on Q street appealing to square people.

Weekend Rates

It’s noon on a Friday. From my experience  in Washington, DC, tough time to catch a taxi. It’s mosque time. I hadn’t thought much  about the religion and nationality of cabbies in the Middle East. Indians must work alongside the Pakistanis? According to my Uber estimate, just about every driver is a devout Pakistani. I think about taking an establishment taxi. These cabbies are very creative with the established rates, though. Pick up at hotel? Add $3. Weekend rate? Yes. Drop off at a hotel? They’ll tack it on. They’ve gotten angry because of the two upstart cab companies that associate with Uber. They demand gratuities in advance.

So rather than test my luck, I throw a bone to old reliable Uber, take a ride in a new car, and thank the gent for the ride.