A Voter’s Best Friend

In all that has been 2020, there was nice bit of comic relief during the end of the presidential campaign. In what I thought was a Saturday Night Live digital short, a series of black-and-white images of past presidents (and former VP Biden) with their dogs proceeded across the screen, with a final image of President Trump noticeably without a canine companion. The message: you can’t elect a president who doesn’t have a dog. It turns out that this gem was actually produced by a group called “Dog Lovers for Joe.” And while the impact upon the electorate was no doubt minimal, there was a significant upside compared to other efforts: it didn’t cost much to put together.

Now there’s no separating money from politics. But I am concerned that we are now at a point where people are spending mind-numbing sums to achieve nothing. For this particular election cycle, running for the US Senate has been a center of negative return on investment. Let’s look at a few particularly egregious examples:

• Amy McGrath raised some $84 million to lose to Mitch McConnell by nearly 20 points. For a few grand she could have printed posters at Kinko’s, done just as well, and used the rest to send every American household a bottle of Kentucky bourbon.
• In Iowa, Theresa Greenfield raised $50 million to lose by a relatively modest 6 points to Joni Ernst. Still, do you need that much to lose outside of a pollster’s margin of error?
• Sara Gideon raised $70 million to lose to Susan Collins by 9%. Outside of a whopping spending spree at L.L. Bean, I’m not sure how you spend that much money in Maine.
• And then there is Jamie Harrison’s $100 million blow out for a 10 point loss to Lindsey Graham. At $91 a head, he could have bought nearly a year of Netflix for each of his 1.1 million voters and saved South Carolina a lot of agitation.

This, and it’s hard to fathom, was all chump change compared to this cycle’s pint-sized king of failure, Mike Bloomberg. What he lacked in charisma, voter connection, or political ability he made up for in profligate spending. Going for the highest office in the land cost him around $1 billion (yes, a big old “B”). Throw in the $100 million he tossed around in Florida to defeat Trump and it comes up to the GDP of a fair chunk of the Caribbean. Put in a more tangible way, a squadron of F-35 fighters runs about $1.2 billion. Tax, title, and guided missiles are extra, but in this league you could shake out the spare change in the couch cushions and make up the difference.

And while I make fun of these spectacular, Democratic Party, failures, it raises a serious question: how can smart people who presumably understand how to spend money wisely can be so very, very bad at their political jobs. Some of it lies in the ego of any ambitious politician in thinking that they, and only they, can slay incumbent giants. Some goes to sloppy polling that gives candidates a false sense of having a chance. And sure, TV advertising is expensive, except in markets like Iowa, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Maine. But I fear, and really mean fear, that a political-industrial complex of advisers, consultants, election law experts, and production specialists has made the whole process about them, not the candidates. This election Pentagon has an expense for everything, a cut to take on top of that expense, and multiples to prove a point.

And now there is the matter of two run-off elections in Georgia to control the US Senate. I’m guessing each of the four candidates will spend $100 million each as a base price, not the ceiling. Perhaps the future holds that some people will resist the temptation to run merely because they can throw money around, chances be damned. Perhaps not. But one thing is true: this whole process has gone to the dogs.

© 2020 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.

Put A Stamp On It

 

Utterly reckless.

Completely stupid.

What were you thinking?

Suffice it to say there were even more comments whose language would not be appropriate in this family forum. And these were from my friends.

You would think I was advocating a Bangkok brothel tour without condoms. And while I did touch something young, sleek, and thin, I feel the risk was highly overrated. Last week I put my absentee ballot in the mail.

Much has been said about mail-in balloting, and most of it poorly informed. My local congressional primary was the subject of intense scrutiny, sometimes making national news. It even got a quick mention during the first presidential debate, if you were able to hear above the din of either candidate. Some of the envelopes for returning absentee ballots were business reply mail which, as it turns out, doesn’t get postmarked. This wouldn’t be a problem if one of the key factors was making sure the envelope was postmarked by Election Day. Litigation ensued and a wise judge allowed the ballots to be counted as long as they were in by the final prescribed day after the primary.

Problem solved, right? Wrong.

Turns out the biggest problem with ballots that were disqualified was that the voters did not sign the internal return envelope. That’s right, people couldn’t follow directions.

There was universal hemming and hawing, but nobody should have been surprised. The areas from where the challenger was strongest had a younger demographic, a group that may never have mailed a bill payment in their life. They wouldn’t know to read the instructions because they are so used to swiping and tapping. The incumbent’s base skewed older and probably to this day writes their account numbers on their checks before carefully sealing the payment envelope and gently placing it in the mailbox. Even if all the challenger’s votes had counted, it probably would not have been enough, but it’s a lesson I’m not sure the rest of the nation fully understands.

So was I scared of COVID at my polling place? Hardly. I may very well be out of town on Election Day and am scrupulous about keeping a perfect voting record. The top line is no contest in New York, but there is a very competitive local assembly race that could be decided by just a few votes. Plus who am I to pass on an opportunity to avoid having the government waste my time?

New York only recently discarded its Eisenhower-era pull lever voting machines with bubble scanners. The problem isn’t the new technology but the fact the poll workers probably voted in an Eisenhower election. So when the scanners go down, there isn’t a lot of expertise to fix the problem. It wouldn’t be so bad because any 12 year-old could reboot the system in a couple of minutes, but since 12 year-olds can’t vote, there aren’t many around to help. What should be a quick exercise goes on for hours.

So I began my absentee journey online, in a fit of surprisingly easy clicks that let me apply for a ballot. A few days later the paper arrived and I filled it in and made sure I signed the internal envelope. The one with the big, bold box on it that says “You must sign here.” The one that is easy to read and follow its directions. I could follow all the steps of my ballot’s journey on the Board of Elections’ website, from application, to ballot mailing, to when the Post Office got my returned ballot, to when the Board of Elections received it. There was more detail than an Amazon delivery, which could be an interesting idea for next year—order your overpriced, organic apples from Whole Foods and Jeff Bezos will deliver your absentee ballot as well.

There was one, old-fashion thing I did before putting my ballot in the mail. Pulling out my hyper-accurate kitchen scale, I weighed the envelope. The reading came in at exactly one ounce, only one stamp needed. But then I thought long and hard, and put on a second stamp in case something was slightly off and it all went wrong. What in the world would my friends say then?

© 2020 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.

The Covid-in-Chief

 

“America—The Reality Show” got off to a terrific start last week. In Florida, video showed a bearded man, shirtless and holding a beer in the midday sun, getting tackled to the ground by a police officer. The TV networks, bereft of original programming, broadcast two men in their ‘70’s yelling at each other, leading to the instantly meme-worthy outcry, “Would you shut up, man!” None of this would be of any interest if the characters weren’t so important. The first was a former Trump campaign manager who, in all seriousness, is now receiving some much-needed professional therapy. The latter were not Statler and Waldorf from the Muppet show but the President of the United States and the former Vice President of the United States in a campaign debate. Only the wildest of creative writers could wish for an even more improbable way to top all of this: the President caught the Covid bug. But like many things, be careful what you wish for because it might come true.

For some, Trump’s Covid proved how wildly reckless he has been at protecting his mask-less health. Others will see it as vindication as to how random the virus can be contracted, given that it took some six months for him to get sick under the “reckless” circumstances. Employing unintentional humor, left-leaning conspiracists put forth that the whole thing was a hoax so that the President would get…sympathy (a word heretofore unassociated with this administration). Take your pick.

Being President, and especially campaigning for the job, is an exhausting endeavor. You crisscross the country, seemingly fitting 30 hours into a 24 hour day. You are traveling in planes whose air is, literally, desert dry. You swing from the frozen tundra of Wisconsin to the heat of Florida in a single day, day after day. Four years ago Hilary Clinton was felled by a few fainting spells and candidate Trump suffered from what was obviously a head cold during one debate, sniffling through his answers. The Clinton camp put forth that their woman suffered from “dehydration” while the media immediately accused Trump of having a raging cocaine habit. All I know is that if a presidential candidate doesn’t get sick along the way I would be suspicious. Are they even trying?

Nobody approached traveling across the world as full-contact competition more than Bush 41. His global itineraries pushed those half his age to exhaustion while he seemed to be wound up every morning, ready for more. This all caught up to him during one whirlwind tour of Asia while at a dinner in Japan. Something went gastrically wrong and the President dive bombed a perfectly accurate vomit stream into the Prime Minister’s lap. Clearly Bush 41 needed medical attention, and the protocols in place kicked in. Apologies were made, late-night comics got some free material, and somewhere I’m sure Vice President Quayle got a call that the boss was under the weather. What I don’t recall was seeing a single line of copy blaring “Governing Crisis,” “Continuity of Government,” “Fresh Upheaval,” “Transition of Power,” or “Greatest threat to Presidential health since the Reagan assassination attempt.” I didn’t see it back then because it wasn’t true, and it isn’t true now, despite each of these quotes appearing in just in one CNN article on Friday.

Make no mistake, the President’s Covid case is of great concern. His age and weight put him in higher-risk categories, and sending him to Walter Reed hospital was a prudent move. Yes, there has been confusion about how ill Trump was on Friday, but then again he ambled across the White House South Lawn in no more or less of hurry than his other helicopter trips. No bullets had rung out, no mob of Secret Service agents diving around, no blood on his shirt. Trump’s voice was hoarse, he was running a slight fever, and he was run down. Under any other imaginable circumstance a President running for reelection might simply need to get some more sleep and cancel an event or two. Given the President’s prognosis, this is probably what is going to end up happening, albeit with more swabbing than the deck of a Navy ship.

So with four Tuesdays left until the election, where does this all leave us? Those in the know have seen Biden move away from his Rose Garden (or really, basement-in-Delaware) strategy and visit some battleground states, events with scattered supporters and a few campaign signs taped up in the background. Why? The President and Vice President Pence were, up until the weekend, ramping up their travels, with multiple rallies across different states every day. These may not be the 15,000-person extravaganzas of old, but 5,000 people outside an airport hangar a couple of times a day starts to add up. With all the accompanying local media coverage for each visit, it’s a potent weapon that the Democrats underestimated four years ago.

And with some rest and an otherwise clean bill of health, how will the President emerge? Trailing in tight races, he could go all out. His campaign organization knows how to put together events in record time and with Hollywood production values. The spending spigot will open and ads will flow freely. His followers, having survived this scare, may see it as a second chance to pull out an election victory. A man facing the final act of his political life will be focused and reenergized for the last month of his last campaign.

Many in this country, even around the world, may have wished for the President to get a taste of his own Covid medicine. My advice would have been to be much more careful what they wished for. As Japanese Admiral Yamamoto so famously observed about America after Pearl Harbor, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

© 2020 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.

The 25% Solution

 

There’s an old ad that starts, “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.” It’s a parody on the endless stream of medical TV shows and has been the subject of any number of spoofs itself. Go to any restaurant and your waiter may be a struggling actor yearning for any role, even playing a doctor on TV. Here in New York City, it seems that this make believe is now reality. Beginning today the city’s eateries are allowed to have patrons eat indoors, but before anything may commence your server has to take your temperature and pronounce you fit enough to eat. Forget Obamacare—it seems M.D. now means marinara deliziosa.

Some 25,000 restaurants in the Big Apple, and over 300,000 of their employees, have been robbed clean by Gov. Cuomo, allowed only to provide takeout or delivery. Eventually restaurants in town could add sidewalk dining or sheds in the street. As a summertime diversion, it was all kind of fun—Mardi Gras comes to Manhattan. Nobody had a job, or if they did it was all “remote working at home,” and you could drink on the streets without much of a hassle from the cops. There was a vague Parisian café scene, well that is if the French liked traffic zooming by inches from your table and the leaking stench of garbage bags surrounding you.

Make no mistake, though, the party has been a Potemkin village. Where half a dozen waiters would roam inside in addition to a host and a bartender or two, now there was but one waiter and a manager, the latter doubling as busboy and drink maker. Doing the math, the luckiest of places might put out 25% of their chairs—chairs that had to be back inside by 11:00 PM. Not exactly a recipe for success in the city that never sleeps.

25% is also the percentage of seats that are now allowed for indoor dining. Beyond the expense of hospital-grade ventilation and other requirements more suited to a surgical suite, restaurants have to close indoor dining at midnight. If there seems to be no rhyme or reason to any of this, there isn’t. For months the city has been at an infection level that officials have considered safe for indoor dining. In fact the rest of the state has had indoor dining at 50% capacity, in some counties for months. It’s enough to drive a man to belly up to the bar and try ease this pain with a drink—except drinking inside bars will remain banned.

Why are the Governor and Mayor at war with the food industry? I have no idea. You wonder if this would be so very, very different if they were up for reelection in five weeks. They claim that unlike the rest of the state, the city’s restaurants pose a special health hazard. Pre-Covid, the greatest hazards have been slow service or the eventual, overpriced bill. But breathing is breathing, be it in Brooklyn or upstate Broome County. How one is worse than the other is a legal mystery, one soon to be unraveled. Lawsuits about this very point—how areas with the same infection rates can be treated so differently—have been filed and are making their way through the courts. It will be interesting to see how Cuomo’s lawyers will try to wriggle out of this logic, and if any judge will buy it.

Alas the battle may already be over. While the Mayor has offered outdoor dining as a year-round option, he also says that any enclosed outdoor tents can only have…25% capacity. While enjoying a beer and snack in winter’s cold is an après ski tradition in Park City, Utah, frozen alfresco dining off of Park Avenue isn’t likely to catch on. And with 90% of the city’s restaurant’s unable to make rent last month, 25% capacity, inside or out, is financial bleeding that any doctor—medical or financial—cannot fix. Even on TV.

© 2020 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.

The Instrument of Surrender

 

We like to say that we’ve visited historic places. Families still take pictures in front Rome’s Coliseum, albeit making Facebook their photo album. Civil War buffs take the hour-long trek across the battlefield of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where one marvels at both the abject destruction of life and the fact that anyone could survive. Dealey Plaza in Dallas is now less a roadway than death’s arrow marker or point of infinitesimal conspiracy, take your pick. There are thousands more locations across the planet where the course of history changed; some mark major events, many more just points of human progression. Few, however, mark a spot where both the world changed and such an event will never happen again. Such a spot exists, and I have been there. 75 years ago today, over the course of four minutes, that spot closed the door on one horrific chapter of human history and opened up the possibility to the end of humanity.

Today marks the 75^th anniversary of Japan’s unconditional surrender to the Allied forces. It’s the poor stepchild in WWII history—the bombing of Pearl Harbor, invasion of Normandy, and destruction of Hiroshima are commemorated annually by world leaders and the press. V-E and V-J days benefit from well-photographed celebrations in Times Square—who can’t like the exuberant images of chaos, confetti, and kissing. The contrast is even starker when you see the small plaque embedded in the deck of USS MISSOURI (in all-caps as a tip to my Navy friends), its few words marking the place where representatives of the Empire of Japan signed the instrument of surrender. And in the four minutes it took enemy and Allied representatives to exchange signatures, the last of all world wars, as we know them, ended.

Of course war didn’t go away, as USS MISSOURI and her fellow ships were soon part of hot proxy battles in the Cold War. These were real fights where real men and women, uniformed and civilian, fought and died, losing limbs and loved ones. It was, unfortunately, much of the same, just on a smaller scale.

But a world war as we know it is a thing of the past. WWII was really the only time in history where every country and every person on the planet was somehow involved. Governments needed to choose Axis or Allies and bear arms in support. Every man and woman was either fighting or somehow supporting the fight. The most distant hideaways were still under the watchful eyes of both sides, either or both ready to pounce on any traveler.

And while the conflagration took the greatest number of lives ever seen, we still recognize it as warfare we understand. Battlefields are preserved with stray armaments left strategically for tourists. Monuments in towns large and small stand to commemorate the dead, sometimes listing the fallen by name. Looking out from the bow of USS MISSOURI, where she is now moored in Pearl Harbor, and not even a long par-4 play away lies USS ARIZONA in her watery grave. Above her the famous white monument hovering just above the Hawaiian waters with each name of the dead sailors and marines carved into a marble wall. Such commemorations have been that way since the beginning of the US republic and for much of the rest of the world from the time of the written word.

Another world war will get no such remembrance. Another world war, where every nation chooses a side, when they put all of their military industry into combat, would look nothing like the usual run up of troops getting to the front. For the next world war would be nuclear aerial assault, with an initial wave of missiles taking an hour or so to start the conflict and whatever bombers that are left still flying following soon after to mop up what hadn’t been destroyed. Few would be remembered as there would be little left. Hundreds of millions of bodies would instantly evaporate; some might be far enough away from the blast zones to leave a shadow of their burned remains on the pavement where they stood. The battlefields would be where survivors remain; no memorials to the dead with record books gone and computers destroyed.

I offer neither disarmament nor first strike as solutions to our problems. But today would be a good time for all to reflect about what transpired during those few minutes in Tokyo Bay 75 years ago. Since that ink dried mankind has not tamed its bad natures. But maybe in a prayer for peace we can resolve never let our world get to that point of no return. Success would mean that those many veterans buried in our cemeteries did not die in vain.

© 2020 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.

Arnold R. Weber, 1929-2020

 

I’m not sure what was more startling, the fact I was up sometime before noon on a Sunday during college or that Northwestern’s 14^th president and his wife were strolling through the fraternity quad. As I was more focused on obtaining something greasy to sop up the previous evening’s alcohol, I gave the sighting no more thought until later that afternoon when someone came rushing into the TV room. “Guys,” he said, “Guys, we have got to go outside and clean up from last night’s party now. The Dean of Students just called me. President Weber walked by the house a little while ago and was pissed that the place was a mess.” With that we hurried out and beautified the landscape in record time.

There was, of course, a bigger lesson from this than a scare from the administration. First, as we’ve been told since kindergarten, clean up after yourselves. But more importantly, don’t give the authorities a reason to put you on their radar, especially for something as petty as plastic cups in the shrubs. Suffice it to say that going forward we assigned a more responsible crew for post-party clean up. It was also a classic Arnold Weber move. Don’t overreact to the minor problems, but make sure the message gets out there. Be fair but let everyone know where you stand. With Dr. Weber’s passing last week at age 90, it is a chance to reflect on how to run an organization.

In today’s world we look at leaders as our friends—whether it’s an association on Facebook or, increasingly at colleges, even taking a class taught by the President themselves. I could think of nothing more repugnant to Arnold Weber. Don’t get me wrong—he was, in our few interactions, perfectly sociable in a polite way, but tweedy and worried about your feelings he was not. There wasn’t a chip on his shoulder, but every time he opened his mouth, his highly intelligent voice boomed through a distinct Bronx, New York working middle-class background. His habit of chain smoking unfiltered Camels added even more gravel, and no less gravitas, to his tone.

But persona is no substitute for substance, and Dr. Weber showed real leadership on the toughest of issues. One such example is the tale of Barb Foley. The good Dr. Foley was, charitably, a character—one who was an actual card-carrying communist and not afraid to invoke class warfare at the slightest provocation of imperialist aggression. While I never took one of her classes, the collegiate gods had a good laugh when they assigned her to me as my freshman advisor. She walked through the ministrations of academic advice about my intended courses (Econ for a career on Wall Street for me, naturally) and even hosted an outing to a theater performance in downtown Chicago with her other advisees.

By following year Foley had jumped through the final hoop of academia’s obstacle course, recommendation for tenure, and had but Weber’s signature to seal a guaranteed lifetime of employment. But in an ironic twist, one of the great symbols of the anti-communist fight, the Nicaraguan contras, snatched paradise away. One of the group’s leaders was on campus and temptation was too great. Not satisfied to picket and pamphlet outside the lecture hall, Foley led a group into the room and splashed red paint on the speaker, symbolizing the blood of Nicaragua (of course!) while also proclaiming to the audience that “This man cannot be allowed to speak.” The continuing disruption and threats caused the speech to be canceled and the speaker hustled out by campus police for his own safety.

This was no he-said, she said incident. Foley proudly owned her actions and declared victory. That is until Dr. Weber just as decisively rejected the tenure recommendation, effectively firing her. Here was a university where free speech and thought, the exchange of ideas, was paramount and Foley would have none of it. Weber understood that allowing this to pass would undermine the entire concept of academic freedom. Appeals and litigation ensued, but Northwestern’s decision survived and its reputation remained intact. Comrade Barb exiled herself to the People’s Republic of New Jersey and continued the proletariat struggle at Rutgers. It may also have marked the last moment of sanity at this country’s elite institutions of higher learning. For any university president to take the same action today would be unthinkable; in fact they wouldn’t just give Foley tenure, they would name a teaching chair after her.

But behind the intellect and rock-solid principles was a biting humor to make his point. Early on in his time on campus he organized a few “meet the new President” session-really just a question and answer get together. The first one had, maybe, two participants, and Weber made it very clear that people would have to show up if they wanted these to continue. As a campus photographer I was assigned to cover the second event, and sure enough a larger group gathered at the student center. As time passed, one particularly irritated student started in on some of the renovations Weber had started. Railing against newly-installed rocks demarking walking paths, the student ended up red-faced, denouncing, in light of the expensive tuition, why Weber could be “planting all of these trees!” In classic Weber fashion he quietly ashed his cigarette before taking a few soothing puffs. Thus fortified, he looked the youth in the eye and sternly proclaimed, “I like trees.”

And there is was. Clearly this student never got a phone call about cleaning up the garbage. Trees weren’t some Sierra Club manifesto or green energy plan; he wanted the place to sparkle, academically and physically, and he sure as heck wasn’t going to let a few bucks get in his way. He sorted out the school’s finances by fundraising like nobody before him and judiciously cutting where he had to. By his retirement he definitely left the campus better than when he arrived.

And so I give thanks for having known Arnold Weber, albeit in only that slightest of ways. But looking back, seeing leadership with integrity, force of personality, and keen intellect matched with sharp wit was as important as any class I took. And whatever the afterlife holds, I know that for one person it will be filled with trees. Lots and lots on neatly planted trees.

© 2020 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.

It’s All Greek To Me

If you thought practicing the piano was just a nice way to pass the time, you would be wrong—it was more like a full-contact workout in an overheated gym. How would I possibly know this, as I can’t even bang out chopsticks, you ask? Early Saturday evenings, my junior year fraternity roommate Mike would come back drenched in sweat from a few hours of piano rehearsal. Aside from the annual mud football games, few guys came back to the house from any kind of workout looking as drained as he did. This weekly ritual culminated in a spring recital, and naturally I would be attending. What was truly impressive was that 20 or more of our brothers made the trek down to south campus and took in the performance, without even the promise of booze afterwards. I’d put good money that only a couple had ever heard of Debussy, or even had attended any kind of classical music performance, save a sibling’s end-of-school-year show. But that was the great thing about my fraternity—these were your friends and supporters, often times when you least expected it.

With colleges reopening this month there’s a new punching bag across campuses. Greek life has always had its doubters; some out of a false sense of intellectual superiority and others simply had no interest. The latter never bothered me—in fact I respected them for not caring about it. The former, however, always seemed to invoke the Groucho Marx line about not wanting to be in a club that would admit them. What they never got was that that Groucho was making fun of himself, not the institutions. Now the not-so-funny joke at colleges is the move to disband the Greek system by members of the Greek houses themselves.

This new pandemic of social crusading centers on the tenet that the Greek system is beholden to, and promoter of, inequality, elitism, and racism. The most vocal critics are students at such institutions such as Vanderbilt, Duke, Emory, and my alma mater, Northwestern. Of course, these students also claim that these very same institutions that they attend are also propagators of inequality, elitism, and racism. Oddly, they aren’t leaving campus in protest or calling for the closing of the schools, or at least not until they get their degrees. And I can personally attest that there was neither inequality nor elitism in my fraternity—all the booze was equally cheap and bad.

It’s the charge of racism that particularly rankles me. There was no sign over our door saying “Whites Only.” At any given time we would have had three or four black members, which as a percentage of the house almost perfectly matched the University’s minority percentages. We were probably slightly more progressive than some other houses, especially with a number of South Asian members. During rush week we would have daily meetings to evaluate pledge candidates. Unlike the movie Animal House, we didn’t set up an overhead projector to show face book photos and throw beer cans at the wall when we didn’t like somebody. Actually we tried that once and Hollywood makes it look much easier than it really is. But during these “hash” sessions, nobody, and I mean nobody, ever said, “We have a black guy, why do we need more?” or “Gee do you think it’s going to look bad if I say I just don’t like the guy and he happens to be Hispanic?” Minds met, bids were handed out, and pledges made. As Groucho also said, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

A final, and overarching, complaint from the disaffected is that there is no “meaning” to the Greek system. I have vague recollections of the meaning of the secret lessons from my initiation ceremony. You can look up the meaning of my fraternity’s crest in any standard reference book of heraldry. As with anything in life, meaning comes from what you put in, and it varied for each man. Some guys were active in the house all through college, living, breathing, and drinking it in for four years. As junior and senior years came, more distanced themselves, perhaps just paying dues and doing door duty for parties, but not so involved in the day-to-day. Some just faded away.

But there was real meaning in the day-to-day life. Our weekly chapter meetings were nominally to go over the house’s business, but more gossip sessions from the previous, pre-social media, weekend’s parties. Occasionally, however, the meetings turned ugly. The President storming out of the meeting and threatening to resign ugly. Calls for an active to leave the fraternity ugly, only for that active to defend himself in speech so eloquent that it ended in a cacophony of applause. Verbal knife fights that would have ended in blood with real weapons ugly. As unpleasant as these incidents were, I’ve applied what I learned in my personal and professional life time and time again. That’s what college should do for you, and my fraternity definitely did.

Which brings us to the question that Greek members who call for the elimination of the Greek system can’t seem to answer: Why did you want to join in the first place? It seems that these youths felt that their purpose in life was to change the Greek system into some functionary of social change and promoter of “social justice.” This isn’t just naïve but utterly stupid. These days there are a hundred campus organizations, with every flavor of disaffection, that are looking to change the world. The Greek system isn’t it. The virtue signaling of deactivating after failing to complete this mission simply completes this circle of self-absorption.

I won’t defend every Greek house in America. There are plenty of idiots to want to funnel booze into an 18 year-old’s throat or throw them out into the cold woods as pledge training and not expect bad things to happen. There’s no place for that, or if there is it’s probably jail. A friend of mine once recounted a hazing ritual, best not repeated here, whose purpose was to confirm that these fine young white men would not be aroused by black women. Obviously there’s no place for that either. And if there was a shortcoming in my house, it would have been the difficulty for those who were exploring their sexual identities. We all knew members who were gay, but it wasn’t as if they could bring a boyfriend to formal.

Yet there is still plenty of meaning for most of those who have gone through the Greek experience. About a dozen of us have gone on virtual reunions during this Covid time. Predictably, the years have added a few pounds or taken away some hair, but overall the crew is in great shape. The conversation revolves around the issues of 50-something men—how kids will adjust to college this year, golf, and hoping Northwestern’s football team will be at least average. But the jokes are just as cutting as they were three decades ago, and as my wife pointed out she hadn’t heard me laugh that hard in a long time. The camera also shows that our careers have been successful enough that we can afford better cocktails than the swill we had in the past. This brotherhood, in its own way, is Stellis Aequus Durando, “Equal to the Stars in Endurance.” I only wish Mike were alive today to give us all one more performance, even if it were just over a blurry Zoom video.

© 2020 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.