Heart of the Hurricane

 

Here on the southwest Gulf coast of Florida, the weather over the past few weeks has been a tourism board’s paradise—clear sunshine, low humidity, and highs just touching the low 80’s, with a few nights calling for a light sweater. It’s these conditions that gets the beachfront Ritz-Carlton in Naples $1,600 a night for a regular room. Suites are priced in terms of nation’s GDP. Except right now nobody is staying at the Ritz. As some $50 million dollars of renovations were coming to an end this summer, Hurricane Ian blew through and the storm surge wiped out the entire first floor of all the buildings in the resort.

Hurricanes bring out the best and worst in governors and presidents. There is a quickly scheduled presidential meeting a few days after landfall, at which time the president notes the abundance of mud and destruction. The governor then thanks the president for coming down and looks forward to working with FEMA. Manipulating the imagery of the occasion is often mistaken for effectiveness in the actual rescue and cleanup efforts. Sensing a zero-sum game, the press takes sides on who did what well, and who is to blame for every problem.

For Florida, the protagonists—tottering Joe and Governor Ron—played nicely for the cameras. While the property damage was estimated to be $40-$60 billion, the relatively small number of deaths and speedy restoration of electricity gave everyone the impression that this calamity was not going to be calamitous (that is, unless if you had your house washed away). But in these cantankerous national times, it made for a feel-better, if not feel-good moment, and Joe didn’t go wandering around the podium looking for a hand to shake. So the administration didn’t screw this one up.

If only.

For as soon as Air Force One had returned from Florida, media reports started to take sides on what the Vice President had said. Did she really proclaim that FEMA aid should be distributed first on the basis of…race? There was scattered intelligence—video clips, a history of supplicant wokeness, and a Democratic Party desperate to portray all Republicans as racists. It was up to me as Capt. Willard to sail down the river and find my Apocalypse Now Kurtz of truth. I would be going into the heart of darkness not knowing what to expect, and after this mission I wouldn’t want another.

The setting was not some remote jungle but the pleasantly temperature-controlled Democratic National Committee Women's Leadership Forum. The outside observer might think this kind of meeting brings together great-thinking minds to address their party’s challenges. The reality is that this brings together those whose thinking is predicated on how much of their substantial checkbook they can fork over. It’s the kind of people who would usually be spending this time at the beachfront Ritz. In the suites.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas moderated the session, and somehow created a minute and 45 seconds’ worth of verbal diarrhea off a single 5X7 index card. The rambling briefly started about relief efforts in Florida, but then quickly migrated to something about climate legislation and then more about the climate crisis. And yet there was still time for all to embrace enlightenment with the Great Woman taking the mic. Seasoned politicians use such wayward questioning by graciously thanking the moderator and then saying exactly what they want, usually scripted by their bevy of political consultants.

Yet hope quickly faded when Kamala Harris invoked the nauseating business-speak, “There is a lot to unpack here.” It should have signaled for everyone to pack their bags and leave, but the audience wanted their considerable money’s worth. For the next five minutes and six seconds there was a string of seemingly unconnected ramblings, in no particular order, that included: her starting an office for environmental justice while she was the San Francisco DA; promoting the $300 billion in green spending for environmental improvement; America’s need to lead the fight on climate change; how Caribbean nations were getting washed away because of climate change and this was destroying their tourism industry (not that cutting off the American tourists because of absurd Covid travel restrictions helped any).

Mixed into this was the “controversial” part—a weird hand demonstration about equity and equality. If the equity hand went up, the equality hand went down. If the equality hand went up, the equity hand went down, like some bizarre elevator dance. They eventually met at the middle after invoking how natural disasters disproportionately hurt the most vulnerable and poor, and that this is where our funding should go. Was she sending some leftist message? It’s hard to say because I’m not sure she had any idea what she was saying. It certainly wasn’t about Hurricane Ian, as I timed her glancing remarks sending her sympathies to families in Florida and Puerto Rico (where another hurricane had hit before) at…11 seconds.

Should we even care about what was said? Probably not. But that isn’t my problem, it’s the Democrats’. For the next 20 minutes there was more drivel on assault weapons (upon which Harris improbably opined that she was a second amendment believer, in general) and abortion rights. With the refrain of “39 days” until the election popping up every few minutes, the Democrats in that audience believed climate, guns, and abortion are their keys to mid-term victory. But in the real world, the one where the workers of the beachfront Ritz are wondering what is going to happen to their jobs, the issues are inflation, gas prices, and crime on the streets. With that kind of disconnection from reality, all I know is that on November 9^th the Democratic National Committee Women's Leadership Forum is going to look around at their party’s carnage and mutter, “The horror. The horror.”

© 2022 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.

Dieu et Mon Droit

 

On a wall of my mother’s apartment hangs an off-white frame holding a slightly larger-than-normal certificate. Like millions of similar documents, some of the wording is printed, and underlined spaces are filled in with neat calligraphy. It isn’t until you start reading the text that you realize this isn’t your average award. The printed text starts, “Our good friend…” with the name “Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States” filled in. Some more text prattles on about diplomatic relations and responsibilities, and my father’s name gets inked in at some point. Dated in 1959, The Crown has accepted the credentials of a young Vice Consul to serve in Aden, representing America in a sandy part of England’s fast-diminishing empire.

As befits any good English drama, the best part is left to the end. An oversized signature at the bottom reads “Elizabeth R,” with the curl of the final letter extending several inches. While no red ribbon or wax seal finalizes the document like the Magna Carta, it still makes a stunning visual. My family never had the gumption to give it the “real signature” test, you know the one where you wet your finger and just ever-so-slightly go over the tiniest part of the writing to see if the ink bleeds. But if I had to guess, given the time, the way the world worked then, and a slight fade to the ink, I think it’s the real deal.

This is merely one of millions of such connections between Queen Elizabeth II and the rest of the world. With her death yesterday, there will be no more signatures, flowers to receive from curtsying children, or handshakes to new Prime Ministers. The physical manifestation is gone; what then the legacy?

All eyes are now on her first son, King Charles III. The overall opinion is, like English weather, overcast and slightly misty. It seems that given his druthers, he would turn Buckingham palace into a giant wind farm and organic flower nursery. To use the business parlance, he has had the longest runway to prepare for the job, so perhaps he has taken to heart some of the lessons about sacrifice and service, lessons notably absent from his marriages. It’s tough to rally behind a man who dumped his vivacious, stunningly beautiful, and immensely popular first wife for a mistress (who was cheating on her own husband) whose every dour smile was an advertisement for bad British dentistry.

While The Queen may not have done the best job with heir number one, she certainly made sure that heir number two wouldn’t make the same mistakes. As the story goes, William had regular tea time with Granny while he was in secondary school at Eton—a few minutes’ drive when Her Majesty spent the weekend at Windsor Castle. I’m sure there was a little trepidation as William picked commoner Kate for his bride, but she had a few more years in the real world to combat the late Diana’s naivety. When you add a practiced smile that showed off the finest of British dentistry and a brood of three adorable children, the “Firm’s” future looks bright.

But what of the legacy for me?

A few years after graduating college (with a degree distinctly signed in autopen), I was traveling in England and eventually met up with a fraternity brother for a weekend in London. Walking along Whitehall, we were stopped by barricades in front of the large, vaulted gate that leads to the Horse Guards Parade Grounds. Crowds had assembled, and we thought that maybe there was some ceremonial parade about to take place; if we were in luck, there would be a bonus of fully polished pomp and circumstance. To our left applause broke out as three Rolls Royce custom limousines slowly approached. One limo’s oversized glass windows gave us a clear view of a small woman sitting with complete poise and gazing pleasantly, but impassively, to those surrounding her. It was, of course, Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.

It may have been sheer happenstance, but it was about as perfect a moment as possible. While merely a microscopic legacy, those few seconds personified a near-flawlessly executed seven-decade reign dedicated to serving her people and country.

Thank you, ma’am. God save The King.

© 2022 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved

Giving Back

 

So everyone knows, I’ve briefed my lawyers, given my wife the extra set of car keys, and made sure my dress shirts are crisply ironed. You see, one wants to have your affairs in order before the FBI starts knocking down your front door. As the world will soon find out, I have in my possession three (3) Sharpie markers that were once Federal government property. As these markers were given to me by the White House Communications Office, which is run by the military, there could be added charges of, literally, stealing classified ink.

I’m not sure what the statute of limitations is for possession of unreturned disposable writing instruments (and for the record, they aren’t even the Sharpie brand, but just generics as Uncle Sam is too cheap to spring for the good stuff). Maybe I can cop a plea for time served—I did live in New York City during Covid lockdowns. FBI Director Chris Wray was two years behind me at elementary school, so perhaps he could put in a good word at my sentencing. Of course it could be worse, as President Trump found out yesterday. I could have forgotten to give back some obscure document to the National Archives.

Yes, the National Archives is now sending the FBI around to raid homes. You would forgive the public for thinking that President Trump had swiped the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence on his way out of Washington. That would give Nicholas Cage his only way to produce National Treasure 4¸along with free footage to use from CNN’s salivating coverage of Hollywood fiction turned reality. As it turns out, one of the egregious mistakes President Trump made was to keep the letter President Obama left for him on inauguration day; our republic is now safe and secure that this correspondence is out any Florida file cabinets

If the previous few paragraphs seem silly, they are. But it is the only balm to soothe the pain of how our national law enforcement has devolved into Keystone cops pursing petty agendas that would make the late J. Edgar Hoover, the 20^th century’s master abuser of power, blush with envy.

With screaming headlines of classified and top-secret materials potentially at stake, you would think that President Trump had the list of every CIA foreign operative lying around the Mar-a-Lago swimming pool, pages upon pages of paper blowing into the Florida breeze and betraying our top spies. The reality is that almost everything in Washington gets some kind of designation. How else, then, could the official bureaucracy function? If some Deputy Secretary from the Department of Labor goes to visit a widget factory in Kenosha, Wisconsin, it barely stirs the dust on Pennsylvania Avenue. But slap a classified sticker on the itinerary and send it to the White House as an FYI, a low-level scheduling functionary becomes the next James Bond.

The irony is that the “old guard” Republicans, the Lincoln Project warriors, have unleashed the very forces they say drove them against Donald Trump—rashness, abuse of power, and gross negligence of duty. They just never expected it from the Democrats. But when the Republicans win the House and possibly the Senate this fall, Trump-like vengeance will reign down from Capitol Hill next year. These Republican leaders now realize that the Democrats are in it to destroy, and this time the Republicans are going to go all-in for revenge knowing that Joe Biden is barely lucid, much less able to counter-punch.

50 years ago, bungling burglars began a series of events that brought down the Nixon White House. From the ensuing hearings and legislative change, we, as a nation, clarified how the executive, and the executive branch, could use governmental power. Besides preventing the FBI and CIA collaborating, which proved catastrophic leading up to 9/11, it also set up the record-keeping requirements that led to yesterday’s raid.

This could, and should, be our Watergate moment for the FBI and Department of Justice. It’s a fetid mess, but cleaning it up will help restore faith in our national law enforcement. I wish I could see it all as a free man, but jotting down some notes with my scofflaw marker I realized the notepad came from one of the official trips on which I worked.

See you in 20-to-life.

 

© 2022 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.

The Starting Nine

 

Last week marked the 80^th anniversary of the Doolittle raids over Tokyo. While more of a psychological victory than military turning point, the heroes of that campaign are now gone. A mere 20 years before that another battle was fought, one with consequences still felt today. Yes 2022 marks a century since the Supreme Court granted baseball certain immunities from anti-trust restrictions.

At the time the justices provided a narrow, if not nuanced, view of how they carved out this great legal exception. Their reasoning included, in part, “The business is giving exhibitions of baseball, which are purely state affairs. It is true that, in order to attain for these exhibitions the great popularity that they have achieved, competitions must be arranged between clubs from different cities and states. But the fact that, in order to give the exhibitions, the Leagues must induce free persons to cross state lines and must arrange and pay for their doing so is not enough to change the character of the business.” Jurisprudence may dictate that free persons were not adversely affected by all of this. However, I’m sure the court might look at this differently if they, like me, had to shell out the not-so-free 140 bucks for a season of games on MLB.com.

With Easter and The Masters comfortably behind us, many, especially Knicks fans, now look forward to the daily ritual of following baseball. The beginning of the season brings hope (everyone, even the Mets, are in first place for one day!) and naysayers—the game takes too long, the universal designated hitter weakens the game, etc. But the New York Times managed, and who knew they could, to go completely overboard by publishing an opinion piece entitled “Baseball is dying. The government should take it over.”

Laying out any number of reasons why baseball is now culturally irrelevant, the author suggested a federal buyout and takeover of the game. Social equity would be achieved by lowering the highest salaries and, of course, raising the lowest salaries. Various parts of management would become elected officials. Baseball would become what so much of the classical arts world now is—just a government-subsidized exhibition.

I guess the whole thing was supposed to be funny. Had it at least been snarky I would have known to laugh a little, even admire the attempt at humor. But when the logic of it all maps directly AOC's socialist platform, it becomes a creepy way to envision the future, especially with a stated end goal of “A strict salary cap could be imposed to help ensure competitive parity between teams.” Maybe it was supposed to be funny after all—ask the Knicks, Jets, and Giants how much parity there has been with their strict salary caps.

Yet on opening day, with my Amex angry over its latest assault, and against a blur of new and incomprehensible statistics ("expected batting average from the exit velocity and angle of the ball off the bat" anyone?), I turned on the TV, booted up the MLB app, and watched the hated Red Sox play at Yankee Stadium (unless, of course, my boss is reading this—in which case I was hard at work). It was a very capitalistic exhibition—the very rich watching millionaires play in a billionaire’s palace. Befitting the usual manner of both teams, the game crawled through four hours and even extra innings. But in the bottom of the 11^th the Yanks won on a walk-off single driving in a runner from second. Sure that runner was there because of a change in the rules “to speed up the game,” but euphoria erupted nonetheless. And that anti-trust exempted $140 I had to spend? Worth every penny.

 

© 2022 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.

Untested

The last panning shot of “Raiders of the Last Ark” shows the wooden box containing the lost ark of the covenant slowly making its way across seemingly endless rows and shelves of identical boxes. With the voiceover assuring us that the ark is very safe, the implication is that this divine source of power was secure from anybody finding it amongst the enormity of the warehouse. Given that it was a government operation, it could have just as easily been lost through bad paperwork and other ineptitude even the Nazis couldn’t break through. In the real America of today, there’s an example of government ineptitude not seen since the customer panning of New Coke. Somewhere across this country sit over 220 million rapid Covid tests gracefully gathering dust, no doubt safe in unimaginably large warehouses.

Covid testing has been a hot topic this week, and for all the wrong reasons. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff all tested positive despite their double-vaxxed, boosted status. White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki tested positive just before this week’s Presidential European visit. This marks the second time she’s tested positive before a foreign trip, which may reflect a) defective testing, b) yet more confirming evidence that the Covid vaccine has very little ability to stop the spread of Covid, or c) she has found the perfect out from following around an incoherent old man and trying to make sense of what he says for the benefit of the rest of the world. I don’t know the woman personally, but I would bank on d) all of the above.

But of course you are still trying to figure out why there are 220 million rapid Covid tests sitting around. In the New Coke of pandemic ideas, the administration this year happily purchased some 500 million Covid rapid tests to distribute for free to every American by having them order them online and delivered to their doorstep by the Post Office. Much like New Coke, there was a flurry of initial activity followed by dismissal of the entire idea. In other words, America gave a failing grade to the great test plan. And it’s the focus on testing that says everything about desperation of this administration.

In general, Democrats hate testing. It doesn’t follow their narrative of everyone getting a participation trophy. It divides people up into categories that show different levels of ability and aptitude, the top layers of which generally don’t need the government handouts that Democrats espouse. But a “free” medical test shows both caring and action, even if it doesn’t accomplish anything. And even better, now new CDC guidelines make the testing and its results irrelevant to designations of chronic concern. A few weeks ago the CDC changed the criteria from focusing on positive test results to hospital capacity. Overnight, 90% of America went from living in an area suffering from a pandemic to 90% of America living in an area where nary a mask was needed. To say the least, it’s a test that nearly everyone can pass.

Fortunately for the Administration, there’s hope. Buried behind news of inflation, record-high gas prices, and that pesky war in Ukraine, the desperate strain of BA.2 bubbles up. No, BA.2 isn’t British Airways flight 002, non-stop service from New York JFK to London Heathrow, but the latest Covid strain. Actually it’s a variant of the Omicron variant— the journeyman minor league infielder of viruses. And given the utter failure of the administration to address inflation, record-high gas prices, and that pesky war in Ukraine, it gives Joe and his crew something they can’t screw up—always suggesting more Covid testing. Like baseball’s spring training, it’s ever hopeful but has nothing to do with the reality of the regular season. Besides, we need the warehouse space back; the modern-day Indiana Jones of technology, Jeff Bezos, needs to get our Prime deliveries to us with something more useful than Covid tests.

© 2022 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.

The Last Boy Of Summer

 

While rock ‘n roll has an endless supply of ballads about lost love, “The Boys of Summer” still stands out decades after its release. The tale is one of a young man reflecting on a former girlfriend. She has moved on to a series of summertime flings with those eponymous boys. The question for him is, does he wait out the long game and try again with her? But a verse warns, “Don't look back, you can never look back.” The meaning is clear—move on with your life.

I sympathize. It’s how I feel about New York City.

A friend compared my (and my wife’s) leaving New York City on par with moving the Empire State Building out of town. While amusingly dramatic, there was always an assumption that I would live in the city. Out-of-town friends simply dropped me a line when they were visiting to iron out the details, not wonder if I were around. There’s a couple that lives two blocks from us, each of them lifelong New Yorkers and now parents to an adorable toddler. We see each other so often that our respective doormen don’t even bother to call and announce us when we visit. The couple joked that since we were leaving, they had no reason to stay in town. The punch line is that they are closing on a house in Connecticut in two weeks.

My fervent wish is to declare that leaving New York is the toughest thing I have ever done. The fact that it isn’t is what hurts the most. Even worse, none of our friends in town seemed to try to talk us out of it. They’ve been beaten down into envy for those fleeing.

The story of New York’s urban decay starts in the late ‘60s and explodes after the ’77 blackout. And while the ‘80s Wall Street boom brought in plenty of money, crack, crime, and the lack of any governmental action drove the city to the brink of destruction. Not until Rudy Giuliani took over in ’94 was there even hope. That’s a span of 17 years, which means things might be looking up in 2039 when I will be a spry 75.

At the end of the day, New York just isn’t New York anymore. Sure, there’s the old joke that New York would be great if they ever finished building it; and sure, change is a constant in the city. The city needs new blood, new ideas, and new buildings, otherwise the city just languishes. It’s what has made it the magnet for people around the world to come and try to make their mark. Learning to navigate the chaos and confusion is what makes living in the city so great.

But now the city is just a static, immovable object. A crime-ridden, public urinal of concrete immovable object. This manifests itself across the street, as a block-long parcel, owned by one of the city’s smartest and most respected developers, lies fallow—a mix of demolition and empty walkups caught up in the stifling bureaucracy of tax incentives, building codes, and zoning regulations. Eight blocks south another demolished block-long lot, owned by the same developer, sits in its own purgatory. This has been going on for nearly four years. When you are worried about trying to make money building apartments on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, you worry about the whole city.

Of course with new state and city leadership should come hope. But in this case hope is not a strategy. The governor continues to pound away at businesses with yet more Covid restrictions, while the city, breathing freer from the wrath of De Blasio, is pummeled by the same imperial attitude from its new Mayor. The fact the two have pledged to work together is a warning akin to firing flares from the Titanic. Their view is to repeat the doomed policy of government being the solution. Government “letting” businesses be open at their whim and fancy, and under the most onerous of regulations.

Try going to a Broadway show. No really, try. You can’t because a cast member tested positive for Covid and they shut whole the production down. Of course you could try the one or two open shows, that is if you have been vaccinated, can prove it, and then wear a mask. This soul-crushing plan for economic revival didn’t work before, yet somehow these so-called leaders think it will magically work now. If you want outdoor entertainment, the hookers, shakedown artist cartoon characters, and drug dealers have returned in full force to Times Square. 2039 might be a generous target for a recovery.

Last Thursday our flight taxied onto LaGuardia’s runway 13, engines revving to full power and lifting us into the late afternoon sky. The flight path takes you over Citi Field, just slightly higher than a Mets popup. After a sharp turn south, you can crane your neck back and see the skyscrapers of Manhattan. Except I couldn’t look back. I could never look back. I let go of that love, looking to move on with my life.

 

© 2022 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.