“Britain is losing its culture”, cried no less than a few provocateurs. A necessarily open-ended statement, it leaves much to the individual imagination. I pondered this on the verge of Brexit- Britain leaving the European Union and going its own way, turning its collective psyche back to the 1970s, or earlier. Is it regret for relinquishing imperial units (miles, feet, pints and pounds), or the pre-decimal monetary units of shilling and pence? Is it the loss of pub culture that is being mourned? That’s a loaded theme: you could point to gentrification and rising rents, workaholism cutting into pub time, the prevalence of Continental wines, or abstemious immigrants moving into traditionally working class neighborhoods. Does one, rather, miss national solidarity and the stiff upper lip of surviving Nazi bombers during the Second World War?
During that trying time, Westminster and Saint Paul’s Cathedral stood as defiant symbols of national resolve. Even as surrounding central London was bombed flat, these national symbols had to be defended, at any cost. During air raids, Architecture students manned bucket brigades in the highest crevices of Saint Paul’s to preemptively extinguish incendiary flares dropped from the sky. One large bomb did drop into the Cathedral’s nave: miraculously, it was a dud.
This week in France, sorrow and resolve, not apathy, came out of the conflagration at the 850-year old Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. In a secularizing Europe, Notre Dame held firm as a national symbol. The heart of France, as described by some journalists, in a nation that has long celebrated a hard separation of Church and State. Dominique Venner, then a 78-year old historian and reactionary, took his own life at the altar of Notre Dame in 2013, in a protest against same-sex marriage and other cultural changes. Notre Dame was front-and-center in the 1944 liberation of Paris from Nazi occupation. Notre Dame was present, and suffered some damage, in the 1790’s French Revolution. The damage from this week’s fire is still being totalized, but it includes the central spire and several rose windows dating to the 13th century. In America, Notre Dame Cathedral features prominently in Western Heritage and History courses- especially in Catholic school. Paris, namely its most famous Cathedral, is a must-see on most every college graduate’s list.
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
Sunday, March 31, 2019
End of Month Report
March marks my third month on Guam. I've now figured out what I like on this island: the swimming, the sunsets, the community-oriented local culture. I've rented a car during my stay, but I'm ready to try transit: the Navy has now started (or restarted?) a shuttle service between the piers and its hospital, located near the island's capital. It operates with precision, and on a schedule; compared to the "island time" casualness of the existing, barebones, local bus service.
Shoutout to the end of USNS Supply's 25th anniversary month. Commissioned in 1994 as "AOE 6", she was the lead ship of the last class of supply ships to sail with uniformed Navy sailors. She was ordered by the government during the Reagan administration, when funding for new Navy ships was ample. This class of ship was intended to replace the four original AOE 'fast combat support ships', whose propulsion plants were built during WWII for battleship use, and which were commissioned in the 1960s to support a nuclear navy. All later-built classes of supply ships (the T-AKE and T-AO ships) would sail with civilian mariners. USS Supply, as she was known at the time, transferred to Military Sealift Command's civilian mariners in 2001, and by 2005, all underway replenishment ships were operated by civilians.
Shoutout to the end of USNS Supply's 25th anniversary month. Commissioned in 1994 as "AOE 6", she was the lead ship of the last class of supply ships to sail with uniformed Navy sailors. She was ordered by the government during the Reagan administration, when funding for new Navy ships was ample. This class of ship was intended to replace the four original AOE 'fast combat support ships', whose propulsion plants were built during WWII for battleship use, and which were commissioned in the 1960s to support a nuclear navy. All later-built classes of supply ships (the T-AKE and T-AO ships) would sail with civilian mariners. USS Supply, as she was known at the time, transferred to Military Sealift Command's civilian mariners in 2001, and by 2005, all underway replenishment ships were operated by civilians.
Monday, March 11, 2019
Double the Competition: Young Women and the Prep School
In honor of this past week's International Womens' Day:
In the 1980's, prep school enrollment was in decline: Generation X was simply smaller than the previous generation of boarding school students. Perhaps as individualists, they were more interested in MTV than structured, supervised life in the dormitory. At some campuses, the social fabric unraveled with problems like binge drinking and even drug scandals; hurting institutions' pristine, long-cultivated reputations. At the time, some boarding schools were co-ed, but many were either boys' or girls' schools. The boys' schools were renowned for producing America's leaders; the girls' schools most often known as finishing institutions for debutantes.
Few boarding schools have endowments like the two Phillips academies; so declining enrollment- and declining tuition income- posed an existential threat to the survival of fabled institutions. They needed more students. They were "seeking all kinds of kids". These included "Non-traditional" students like first generation preppies, those who attended public grade school, minorities, day students; but most importantly, young women.
The Hill School, located outside of Philadelphia, PA, was one such school that faced enrollment challenges. The quality of the learning environment was great as ever, but simply the quantity of students fell short. The school's reputation was such that daughters of alumni expressed interest in attending; enough so that the Hill School's future was guaranteed when the boarding school went co-ed in the 1990's. That was not the end: going co-ed, there came to be double the competition, in admissions, in awards, and so forth. The student environment drew foreign exchange students from Europe and Asia, who wanted to be part of the reinvigorated boarding school environment. Admissions is selective today.
Once the gender barrier had been removed from the general psyche of prep schools, the weaker boarding schools closed: they fell behind what public schools in exclusive zip codes could offer. You could call this efficiencies in the educational marketplace, when students and their parents now had twice the choices of boarding schools. In no small part, it was young women, and their aspirations, who saved prep school culture from the dustbin of American history.
In the 1980's, prep school enrollment was in decline: Generation X was simply smaller than the previous generation of boarding school students. Perhaps as individualists, they were more interested in MTV than structured, supervised life in the dormitory. At some campuses, the social fabric unraveled with problems like binge drinking and even drug scandals; hurting institutions' pristine, long-cultivated reputations. At the time, some boarding schools were co-ed, but many were either boys' or girls' schools. The boys' schools were renowned for producing America's leaders; the girls' schools most often known as finishing institutions for debutantes.
Few boarding schools have endowments like the two Phillips academies; so declining enrollment- and declining tuition income- posed an existential threat to the survival of fabled institutions. They needed more students. They were "seeking all kinds of kids". These included "Non-traditional" students like first generation preppies, those who attended public grade school, minorities, day students; but most importantly, young women.
The Hill School, located outside of Philadelphia, PA, was one such school that faced enrollment challenges. The quality of the learning environment was great as ever, but simply the quantity of students fell short. The school's reputation was such that daughters of alumni expressed interest in attending; enough so that the Hill School's future was guaranteed when the boarding school went co-ed in the 1990's. That was not the end: going co-ed, there came to be double the competition, in admissions, in awards, and so forth. The student environment drew foreign exchange students from Europe and Asia, who wanted to be part of the reinvigorated boarding school environment. Admissions is selective today.
Once the gender barrier had been removed from the general psyche of prep schools, the weaker boarding schools closed: they fell behind what public schools in exclusive zip codes could offer. You could call this efficiencies in the educational marketplace, when students and their parents now had twice the choices of boarding schools. In no small part, it was young women, and their aspirations, who saved prep school culture from the dustbin of American history.
Thursday, February 21, 2019
Island Time
I’ve been to the American outpost of Guam before, in 2012 and 2016. Always by ship, never by airplane. Closer to Japan than the mainland USA, it’s where America’s day begins, on the oriental side of the International Date Line. To note, it’s 17-18 hours ahead of Los Angeles, and about a full day ahead of Hawaii. Those were brief visits in the past, but my current work assignment carries the distinction of being homeported in Guam. While I feel pressured by East Coast influences, to get back to mainland USA as soon as possible; the expat population couldn’t ask for a better paradise in Guam. There is enough tropical sunset for everyone, rich or poor. It’s endless summer; full length pants are only worn to church. So I’m digesting these opinions the same way I’ve analyzed expat life elsewhere, from Subic Bay in the Philippines, to Dubai and the Francophone nation of Djibouti. Hafa Asia, greetings.
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
Governor Northam: Wolf in Doctor's Clothes
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On the heels of Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation, another 1980's yearbook claims its prey. Ralph Northam, one week ago the quiet Virginia Governor, made an embarrassing, shameful splash onto the national stage. We wonder why Ed Gillespie, the Republican who lost to Ralph Northam in 2017, didn't find that yearbook. Simply put by another campaign manager:"opposition research 101". To further this point, Mr. Gillespie spent part of his working career as a political operative. I also wonder why no Eastern Virginia Medical School alumnus broke the Code of Silence, and independently brought forth the revelation during the 2017 campaign.
Gauging the public outrage over the EVMS Blackface-Klansman photo, Black Virginians were the most outraged. Institutional racism died slowly, with Dixiecrats holding control of the Virginia legislature into the 1990's. That nightmare, fueled by the current President's "good people on both sides" comment, flared up recently in Charlottesville. In 2017, Northam claimed moral high ground in a brutal, race-baiting campaign season: a law-and-order Gillespie ad focused on real crimes committed in the Washington, DC area by the MS-13 gang, but was taken by some as a loud dog whistle on immigration. A Latino Victory Fund ad in response, run on behalf of Northam, portrayed a Gillespie supporter in a pickup truck, waiving the Confederate flag. He proceeded to mow down minority children. The Washington Post condemned this ad, which was pulled after an ISIS-inspired Uzbek man plowed through, and killed eight New Yorkers with a rented truck on Halloween.
In 2006, former Senator George Allen narrowly lost reelection after using a questionable term, "macaca", to describe an Indian-American. It was caught on camera, and soon there were allegations from high school classmates of "N-words and nooses". As this concerned merely the "coalition of the ascendant", the total shift in support amounted to a few critical percentage points. Black-White relations, however, have permeated Virginia politics for 400 years. Many white moderates, the target audience for expensive, televised campaign ads, now felt duped by Northam's hypocritical (self projecting?) campaign on racial issues. A photo shouts a thousand words. In this context, despite his perceived dog-whistle on immigration, Gillespie was the better man. This was buttressed by his commitment to criminal justice reform, an aspect of Virginia policy which has roots dating to the Dixiecrat era.
White liberals (the latte set) were more likely to consider the pros-and-cons of keeping Ralph Northam in office, as a so-called "progressive leader". That is the art of marketing at work, if you can virtue-signal your way into office, with pink hats and appearances with minority community leaders. In contrast to previous liberal governor Terry McAuliffe's frequent impasse with the GOP-controlled legislature, Ralph Northam is one of the "good old boys" who works with Republicans.
Ralph Northam's views on social issues is within line of the mainstream medical community. Here is my take. On guns: Did you hear the recent story about the four-year-old who got hold of, and shot a loaded handgun? On the prosecution of abortion doctors as a slippery slope: Read Miller's 'King of Hearts' and see how allegations of murder followed high-risk heart surgery, including future Governor Doug Wilder's civil suit following a 1968 heart transplant in Virginia. On capital punishment: Even I felt bad that Tojo was hung for his war crimes in WWII, after American doctors worked hard to save him after a suicide attempt. On expansion of healthcare access: Why are politicians interfering with my ability to provide better care?
While conservatives joined the cries to unseat Governor Northam, the reality is nuanced for Virginia Republicans. With racial provocateur Corey Stewart retiring from politics this year, the local GOP now has the ability to regain status in minority communities. Behind closed doors, Ralph Northam is a "good old boy", a Virginia Military Institute alumnus connected to bipartisan power-brokering in Virginia. His would-be replacement, Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, is an African-American progressive who would put the brakes on Republican plans for new pipelines; and expose the tight, bipartisan connections between state-regulated utility Dominion Energy and the legislature. This year, all seats are up for election in the evenly-divided legislature (51/49 and 21/19, GOP in narrow control). There are many competitive districts, where minority turnout counts. A damaged governor who can't make appearances with the Black community will only help Republicans hold the legislature.
On the heels of Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation, another 1980's yearbook claims its prey. Ralph Northam, one week ago the quiet Virginia Governor, made an embarrassing, shameful splash onto the national stage. We wonder why Ed Gillespie, the Republican who lost to Ralph Northam in 2017, didn't find that yearbook. Simply put by another campaign manager:"opposition research 101". To further this point, Mr. Gillespie spent part of his working career as a political operative. I also wonder why no Eastern Virginia Medical School alumnus broke the Code of Silence, and independently brought forth the revelation during the 2017 campaign.
Gauging the public outrage over the EVMS Blackface-Klansman photo, Black Virginians were the most outraged. Institutional racism died slowly, with Dixiecrats holding control of the Virginia legislature into the 1990's. That nightmare, fueled by the current President's "good people on both sides" comment, flared up recently in Charlottesville. In 2017, Northam claimed moral high ground in a brutal, race-baiting campaign season: a law-and-order Gillespie ad focused on real crimes committed in the Washington, DC area by the MS-13 gang, but was taken by some as a loud dog whistle on immigration. A Latino Victory Fund ad in response, run on behalf of Northam, portrayed a Gillespie supporter in a pickup truck, waiving the Confederate flag. He proceeded to mow down minority children. The Washington Post condemned this ad, which was pulled after an ISIS-inspired Uzbek man plowed through, and killed eight New Yorkers with a rented truck on Halloween.
In 2006, former Senator George Allen narrowly lost reelection after using a questionable term, "macaca", to describe an Indian-American. It was caught on camera, and soon there were allegations from high school classmates of "N-words and nooses". As this concerned merely the "coalition of the ascendant", the total shift in support amounted to a few critical percentage points. Black-White relations, however, have permeated Virginia politics for 400 years. Many white moderates, the target audience for expensive, televised campaign ads, now felt duped by Northam's hypocritical (self projecting?) campaign on racial issues. A photo shouts a thousand words. In this context, despite his perceived dog-whistle on immigration, Gillespie was the better man. This was buttressed by his commitment to criminal justice reform, an aspect of Virginia policy which has roots dating to the Dixiecrat era.
White liberals (the latte set) were more likely to consider the pros-and-cons of keeping Ralph Northam in office, as a so-called "progressive leader". That is the art of marketing at work, if you can virtue-signal your way into office, with pink hats and appearances with minority community leaders. In contrast to previous liberal governor Terry McAuliffe's frequent impasse with the GOP-controlled legislature, Ralph Northam is one of the "good old boys" who works with Republicans.
Ralph Northam's views on social issues is within line of the mainstream medical community. Here is my take. On guns: Did you hear the recent story about the four-year-old who got hold of, and shot a loaded handgun? On the prosecution of abortion doctors as a slippery slope: Read Miller's 'King of Hearts' and see how allegations of murder followed high-risk heart surgery, including future Governor Doug Wilder's civil suit following a 1968 heart transplant in Virginia. On capital punishment: Even I felt bad that Tojo was hung for his war crimes in WWII, after American doctors worked hard to save him after a suicide attempt. On expansion of healthcare access: Why are politicians interfering with my ability to provide better care?
While conservatives joined the cries to unseat Governor Northam, the reality is nuanced for Virginia Republicans. With racial provocateur Corey Stewart retiring from politics this year, the local GOP now has the ability to regain status in minority communities. Behind closed doors, Ralph Northam is a "good old boy", a Virginia Military Institute alumnus connected to bipartisan power-brokering in Virginia. His would-be replacement, Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, is an African-American progressive who would put the brakes on Republican plans for new pipelines; and expose the tight, bipartisan connections between state-regulated utility Dominion Energy and the legislature. This year, all seats are up for election in the evenly-divided legislature (51/49 and 21/19, GOP in narrow control). There are many competitive districts, where minority turnout counts. A damaged governor who can't make appearances with the Black community will only help Republicans hold the legislature.
Thursday, January 24, 2019
A Decade Ago: Sullenberger Sets the Flying Standard
In January 2009, America was still embroiled in the Global Financial Crisis and Great Recession. Even in Washington DC, the effects were felt through fiscal austerity, especially at the local level in repose to falling property tax revenue; and through downsizing at Fannie Mae. I had become accustomed to the radio being bearer of bad news. But on the afternoon of January 15, 2009, the radio reported a strangest thing- an airplane landed in the middle of New York City's Hudson River with no loss of life.
I first heard this as I rode our school's shuttle bus to the train station. Back then, cellphones didn't have internet, so I learned more on the TV when I got home. While some passengers of US Airways Flight 1549 immersed in the icy water, many of the passengers and crew transferred from the wing of the downed aircraft to rescuing ferryboats, as if walking down a pier.
US Airways Flight 1549 was captained by US Air Force Veteran Chesley Sullenberger, then 57 and approaching the pilots' retirement age of 60-65. After spectacular performance in the Hudson River landing, his memoir, "Highest Duty", came out in 2010. It quietly demonstrated a middle-class guy trying to do better for his family. He had a real estate investment; and was paying the expenses after the commercial tenant had moved out. He worked in commercial aviation, a field where downward wage pressures are prevailing; and corporate restructuring, mergers and acquisition threaten the earned status of seniority and experience.
Less than a month later, and also in New York State, Colgan Air 3407 crashed outside of Buffalo. Colgan Air was a regional carrier, the kind where new pilots, fresh from school, start their careers at working-class wages. This accident uncovered ongoing pilot fatigue, and shortcomings in training and performance assessments. Compared to 'legacy carriers' like US Airways, regional airlines complied with federal regulations but did not embrace a safety culture. As Sullenberger's performance shows, experience and buy-in to excellence matters, when critical skills are put to a real-life test.
Since February 2009, though, American commercial passenger aviation has had a spotless safety record. A decade later, US Airways and Colgan are no more.
I first heard this as I rode our school's shuttle bus to the train station. Back then, cellphones didn't have internet, so I learned more on the TV when I got home. While some passengers of US Airways Flight 1549 immersed in the icy water, many of the passengers and crew transferred from the wing of the downed aircraft to rescuing ferryboats, as if walking down a pier.
US Airways Flight 1549 was captained by US Air Force Veteran Chesley Sullenberger, then 57 and approaching the pilots' retirement age of 60-65. After spectacular performance in the Hudson River landing, his memoir, "Highest Duty", came out in 2010. It quietly demonstrated a middle-class guy trying to do better for his family. He had a real estate investment; and was paying the expenses after the commercial tenant had moved out. He worked in commercial aviation, a field where downward wage pressures are prevailing; and corporate restructuring, mergers and acquisition threaten the earned status of seniority and experience.
Less than a month later, and also in New York State, Colgan Air 3407 crashed outside of Buffalo. Colgan Air was a regional carrier, the kind where new pilots, fresh from school, start their careers at working-class wages. This accident uncovered ongoing pilot fatigue, and shortcomings in training and performance assessments. Compared to 'legacy carriers' like US Airways, regional airlines complied with federal regulations but did not embrace a safety culture. As Sullenberger's performance shows, experience and buy-in to excellence matters, when critical skills are put to a real-life test.
Since February 2009, though, American commercial passenger aviation has had a spotless safety record. A decade later, US Airways and Colgan are no more.
Monday, January 7, 2019
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.
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.
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