Bye-Bye, Byrdie

(Senator Robert Byrd, D-WV, tunes his fiddle. Photo courtesy of Eem in Cambridge, MA).

We have been down the rapids on a variety of issues together over the last fourteen years. We have wandered through history, taken adventures in urban and country living, traveled across oceans and marveled at the diversity of this amazing world.

One of the first Daily Stories was about a trip via government helicopter to visit the Naval Security Group installation at Sugar Grove in the foothills of the West Virginia mountains. I still have the ballcap from the trip, which was part of a fact-finding mission for the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Computers and Intelligence. That was a mouthful, even back in the day- “ASD-C3I” was the more convenient means to describe the office, then occupied by The Honorable Art Money.

That was his real name. No kidding.

I was doing some sort of budget stuff at the time and there had been appropriations language inserted into the Senate bill that directed SecDef to go out and see how splendid a place Sugar Grove was. The author of the directive was, of course, Senator Robert Byrd, a colorful rascal who played the Senate like his bluegrass violin.

Nobody in the party wanted to go, much less spend money we had not programmed on things we relly didn’t need. But the law of the land said we had to go and look interested or suffer the wrath of the Legislative Branch. There used to be a saying on the Hill that there were three political parties in town: Republicans, Democrats and Appropriators.

Senator Byrd’s accomplishments for his state were the stuff of legend. He was many things during his more than a half century in the Senate: briefly a Klan member, speechmaker, country fiddle player, lecturer and author. But it is his role as an appropriator that leaves his name emblazoned across West Virginia: on highways, schools, even the world’s largest radio telescope. It is located in the National Radio Quiet Area, another of Senator Byrd’s legacies, turning the lack of development into a plus for his state.

The Quiet Zone was the reason we were visiting. The Senator wanted us to know of all the good things we could fund if we knew what was good for us. Over his career, he steered $3.3 billion dollars worth of earmarks to West Virginia. My little story about it now seems quaint. We don’t even think about it. The President just requested a little more than that for an oversight in not programming for shelter for the hundreds of thousands of “aspiring workers” who are flooding across the southern border.

That is what we are supposed to call them, right? The throng is also described as “children,” which is to say a lot of them are pretty hard-case teenagers who may- or may not- have some skills we emphatically don’t need.

Back in those days, I was all about trying to explain “how things work in Washington,” but I have got past that. After working in this town since the mid-eighties, I thought I had pretty much seen it all. Actually, I had seen exactly nothing.

That is why the stories are getting increasingly hard to write. I mean, the illegal aliens are just today’s thing. The litany is getting so long that I had to diagram them all. I stopped at around thirty things that would have had assorted Federal troops on my front porch had I attempted any of them. Some now have multiple mini-scandals contained inside them, so I had to add sub-bullets to the larger list. Some are just wrong-headed, like militarizing local law enforcement and then handing them the no-knock midnight raids of the War on Drugs. Some are much worse than that.

A lot worse.

The IRS matter may be the one that I find the most troubling, since it is the Federal Agency that can actually ruin your life, garnish your paycheck or commandeer your bank account without recourse. The government that I was part of was composed of people who basically were trying to do the right thing. I do not get that feeling these days.

Even Bobby Byrd played by the rules, arcane though they were. The Senator used to carry a copy of the Constitution around with him to brandish in support of whatever he happened to be doing that day on the Hill. I found him to be an admirable old fossil that connected us to the long and storied history of the Senate he so loved.

Now, I can only surmise that the logical executive branch response to legitimate inquiry from the legislative branch is to promptly destroy evidence of misconduct. That used to be called “obstruction of justice” and it used to be a crime.

Now it appears to be standard operating procedure. It is not just at the IRS- there is a similar case at EPA that is nearly as brazen.

In fact, the culture of corruption is so pervasive, the lawless conduct so bold, that I am not confident we can go back to anything that looks like a functioning government based on law, nor regulation by fiat. How would we even begin? There is way too much toothpaste squeezed out of the tube to hope to cram it back in.

I have absolutely no idea how we get out of this one, and that is why it is increasingly difficult to even confront the myriad of problems in the morning. It is starting to make me feel physically ill. I miss Senator Byrd’s Washington.

I know the old saw about eating the elephant. You just have to make it small pieces, and get started. Problem is, I do not get the sense that anyone is hungry for pachyderm at the moment.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Two Hours I Will Miss

(Argentinian players are scrumming or something in this action shot from ESPN).

Old Jim summed it up pretty eloquently last night at the bar as the mind-numbing match between two incredibly talented defensive teams from the Argentine and Holland battled to an inconclusive nil-nil tie in extended time.

Then they picked a couple guys and gave them shots at the goalie, and the South Americans appeared to have won something that had very little to do with the actual match.

“Weird,” I said. “That is two hours out of my life that I am going to miss.”

Jim growled and took a hit of Budweiser. “That game between Germany and Brazil made me think Americans might wind up liking this sport. There was action, and consequences, and real emotion.”

“And a boatload of scoring,” I said, taking a sip of whiskey. The situation was too dire for white wine.

“Precisely. The Germans played like they were in the NFL. This was a waste of space.”

I nodded and swirled my drink. “I don’t get the whole penalty kick thing. Why don’t they just start taking players off the field until you get down to the two goalkeepers duking it out, like the end of a hockey game with no one in net.”

“Beats me. Americans will never go for it.”

“I wish the sound wasn’t broken on the television,” said Jim. “It might make it easier to understand what the hell is going on.”

I cleared my throat, and tried my radio voice: “It was hardly surprising that it went to penalties. Argentina kept their nerve, The Netherlands didn’t and now the men in light blue and white progress to Sunday’s final in Rio against the Germans, a repeat of the 1990 decider when the then- West Germans were successful.”

“ So Lionel Messi gets the chance to assume the mantel of the world historic figures, his fellow Argentinian Diego Maradona and Brazil’s legendary Pele, and lead the South Americans to a world title,” he said, “You going to watch the final?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Is there a baseball game on? I would like to see something with scoring. I used to think baseball was sort of slow.”

“I don’t know if I will. But you have to admit that the World Cup is better than the circus here in Washington.”

“Or on the border,” I said. “Soccer will be the national sport sooner or later. It is just a matter of time.”

“The US team will probably get better when all those kids grow up, you know?”

“You might be onto something there,” snorted Jim and waggled his finger at Jasper to get another beer.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jauare303

Don’t Cry for Me (Argentina)

So the Germans shocked the Boys from Brazil yesterday afternoon. It was nothing short of astonishing. I had turned the match on at Big Pink, finishing off a decent swim under clear but hazy skies. Kulik the lifeguard was bummed- he had no way to watch the match, and once I left there was no one to supervise in the pool.

I got dressed to go over to Willow and walked around the corner of the living room to see the Germans were already up a goal, and my eyes widened as they knocked in another as I stood there. 2-nil (we are supposed to say “nil” right?) and the game had just started.

I didn’t want to miss any more of it than I had to, so I headed out, pausing only to yell the score across the pool.

Old Jim and New Steve were in position when I arrived, and NS kept an eye on Jaz, a remarkable young woman I did not recognize who was watching the match with rapt attention. She appeared to be a body-builder, and Steve was frankly enamored with her.

Then the Germans scored five more goals. I remember the Brazilian teams of yore, and I had never seen anything like it. Even the consolation goal for the home team late in the closing minutes didn’t alter the humiliation. I was wearing my Deutsch Fussball-Bund shirt (jersey? sweater?) and the white wine was crisp and delightful and the crowd fairly raucous for a Willow afternoon.

It was a marvelous afternoon, with plenty of speculation about things we known absolutely nothing about. Sammy the Tunisian bartender- it’s Ramadan, so he was feeling a little faint- was the local expert, towering over us at six foot four with jet black pomaded hair and a wolfish grin.

“Tomorrow we see Argentina go down,” he said. “It is the Netherlands all the way.”

Not having much of an opinion on the relative merits of either team, I looked it up when I got home and after pouring a generous nightcap. The skies had opened up and the thunder crashed. It was a great evening, all things considered. And looking at the side-by-side for the Archies (isn’t that what the Brits call them?) and the Dutch (which is what Jim calls them) it seems like a no-brainer.

Go Netherlands!

Screen Shot 2014-07-09 at 11.45.06 AM.png

(Graphic statistics courtesy FIFA).

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Deutschland Uber

Will Brazil go ugly early? Will they attempt to foul their way into the finals over the methodical Germans? Based on the ugly way they have advanced before their adulating fans, the answer is probably yet.

Will I go out to watch the game? Stay in? Why on earth do I care? Is it that German Fussball-Bund jersey I bought when my young associate had a crush on that star a few years ago that has migrated out of the closet and onto the bed that is accusing me?

German coach Joachim Loew views the semifinal match as pitting his team against 200 million Brazilians. He darkly intimates that without incredibly lax officiating, the team with the home pitch advantage would be completely out of players, not just their star Neymar. In a pre-emptive move, he insisted that Mexican referee Marco Rodriguez clamp down on the Brazilians to ensure they do not go “beyond what is acceptable.”

Loew clearly expects things to go ugly, and I have no idea what to expect. Will America actually really care about this bizarre sport?

Too many questions. The game starts at four. Time to start gearing up.

Deutschland uber alles.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Whiz Bang

It might have been the best weekend of the year- maybe one of the best 4th of July Weekends in a long time. The humidity was down, temperatures were mild, and I turned off the air conditioning at the farm and threw the windows open to the inviting sounds of the birds, occasional gunfire from neighboring farms and the dull roar of other tractors doing what I was- trimming up the property.

The tractor work was done on Saturday, and I was contemplating the new Husqvarna gas-powered weed eater. The owner’s manual said there was a real threat from debris being thrown up from the nylon filament and blinding the operator, which was nothing I had on the calendar. Problem was I couldn’t imagine where my safety goggles might be in the vast sprawl of boxes and furniture in the garage.

I thought continued vision was worth at least taking a tour of the prospective projects and see if anything was resting on top of the piles, and looked around. Sure enough, there was a motor cycle full-mask helmet from my brief infatuation with Harley Davidison motorcycles, and I grabbed it and tried to pull it on. My glasses snagged on the base of the helmet and dragged the little plastic wire guards off that protect the ears from chafing, one dropping into the darkness of the office side of the structure.

That wasn’t going to work, and having invented another project- i.e., fixing the stupid glasses- I did that while peering owlishly around the shelves- and saw the answer. Carl Simmons had given me one of his old flight helmets when we worked together in Navy legislative affairs, and it was the kind that George Lucas had taken as his model for the Start Wars costumes. It had a clear visor that pulls down, and was ideal for the task, particularly if I was going to be pulling negative g’s on the trimmer.

OK, OK, I looked like an Imperial Storm Trooper while I was whacking the weeds, but so what? Later, when I did the laundry, I just washed everything, to put it delicately, and enjoyed the cycle time on the dryer sitting out on the back deck au natural.

Anyway, I was thinking about Carl, and wondered how his family had done after he passed away, and my pal and former Congressional Den Mother Annie for whom we both worked, and who, like me, has a bolt hole. Hers is out in the Shenandoah Valley. She likes it out there and commented on my weed problems.

“Drastic action must be taken against the offending weeds coming up through the gravel! Pure white vinegar and lots of it – ATTACK! Pour the vinegar along fence lines and under the deck. Old fashioned watering can works great. I’ve got to buy several gallons of white vinegar and go to town around here.”

She send me a recipe for an organic weed killer a while back, but it seemed you could just pour the vinegar on the pesky things. I looked around the barn to see if there was a watering can, and of course there wasn’t, and then transiting the Great Room to get reinforcement coffee I looked up what she had sent me.

Here is what I found:

Whiz Bang Recipe
for the large and small noxious weeds.

Looking for an environmentally friendly recipe that will get the job done without having to mix big batches? Don’t want to send poisons down to the wells at the bottom of the road? Try this one:

“Vinegar has proven itself an effective weed killer. Like most commercial herbicides, it’s nonselective, not caring whether it kills weeds or your petunias. Unlike commercial weed killers, vinegar is eco-friendly and won’t harm people, pets or the environment. Vinegar’s only real drawback in certain cases is that it has no residual action, so new weeds soon arrive. Permanent removal is occasionally desirable for stubborn weeds in gravel drives and paths as well as cracks and crevices in walkways and sidewalks. Add common table salt to vinegar to destroy weeds for good in these trouble spots.”

Recipe:

Pour 1 gallon of white vinegar into a bucket. Everyday 5-percent household white vinegar is fine for this weed killer. You won’t need higher, more expensive concentrations such as 10 or 20 percent. It may take two or three days longer to kill the weeds with the lower concentration, but they will die.

Add 1 cup of table salt. Stir the solution with a long-handled spoon until all the salt dissolves completely.

Stir in 1 tablespoon of liquid dishwashing soap. This will act as a surfactant and make the vinegar and salt solution adhere to the weeds more efficiently. Blend thoroughly.

Funnel the weed killer into a plastic spray bottle.

Drench the weeds with the solution on a dry, sunny day. Coat all surfaces well with the spray. Any plants soaked with this solution will die within several days. They won’t be back and nothing else will ever grow there.

Funnel any leftover weed killer into an empty plastic container. Cap it tightly. Label it clearly and store in a cool, dark spot indefinitely.

I decided to try it- it is a sunny day. I read some of Annie’s other notes while I was waiting for nature to take its course. Uh Oh.

My eyes widened in horror as I read the words: “Oh, you’ll be needing chainsaw chaps. Yes, you will eventually be out there cutting down something. Get a Stihl brand. We don’t mess around in the country.”

I was trying to imagine the sort of rustic figure I was going to cut in chaps and a flight helmet. I guess it is a good thing the property is posted, you know?

(PGI Sawbuck 4 Ply Kevlar Chainsaw Chaps – Green. Photo PGI).

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocora.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Weeds

It is just about high summer at the farm, and the encroaching vegetation is peeping through the fences and the weeds are coming up in the gravel driveway and the white stone Zen garden in the front yard. Well, it had been a Zen garden. Now the white is getting mostly covered by ratty green.

I pulled some of the more objectionable ones yesterday- including a savage invasive vine that is armored with thorns and prickers and has no redeeming qualities whosoever. It had been left to itself for a couple seasons after I bought the place in ’08, and by the time I really noticed it, the thing threatened to devour the side of the house in an act of unbridled fertile malevolence.

It was prehistoric, almost fairy tale impenetrable stuff that would surround Sleeping Beauty’s abode.

The assault on the thing required gloves and industrial shears sufficient to cut padlocks. I learned several lessons on that one- and the snarl of angry thorns clutched at sleeves and dragged other savage

I saw that there was an evil tendril poking out from under the front deck, a survivor offshoot of the beast. I ripped it from the earth, which was nicely softened by the brisk rain that accompanied the stately procession of Hurricane Arthur off the coast. It only bit me a couple times as I slew it.

I plucked weeds until my arthritic knees couldn’t handle the stoop labor. I had not cut the fields for a couple weeks and the diversity of what grows out there is remarkable, and surprisingly tall. I decided on a two-phased assault: get the Tiger out and knock down the pastures and the front lawn, do what I could on the back of the house and reserve the trimming for Sunday.

Cruising around on the Tiger is a splendid way to spend the day. I remembered to wear my ear protection, but should have worn safety goggles. Another trip to Lowe’s Big Box, I thought, with an increasingly long list of things to buy.

It was a delightful day. I had a ballgame going and Roots radio on Satellite radio. I fired up the JG’s car to keep the fluids circulating and battery charged and unpacked the Husqvarna 224L 25cc Straight Shaft Trimmer.

I marveled at the number of ways I am discovering to damage either property or personnel. In fact, when I hung the Tiger up on an ornamental rock near the Zen garden I discovered I could actually get the front wheels to come off the ground and felt the center of gravity tilt ominously astern.

But it was all OK, nothing broken on man or machine.

Now for the adventure of the trimmer. My landscape guy managed to hurl rocks through the storm door not once, but twice, trying to get things all neat and tidy in front. I bet I can get in real trouble with the weed whacker. Wait a minute. Safety goggles. Are there some in the garage? Or it is off to Lowe’s before I even get started?

But hey, that is what afternoons in the country are all about, right?

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

After the Fireworks

 

Actually, all the fireworks were at the bountiful dinner table set up next to the garden and just up the slope from the range, and the new grapevines and the now-productive hives.

Natasha called just after I got tired of pulling weeds in the front yard. The rain from Hurricane Arthur had softened the soil and the invasive species were easy to lift out by their usually stubborn roots. I was making a list- charge batteries on the vehicles, run the Tiger over the pastures and front yard, fire up the whacker and go after some of the nooks and crannies around the house that are too tight to get the 61-inch cutting deck to address.

And the trip to Lowes for white pea-stone to refresh the zen patch in front and swap out the propane tank for the grill, assuming the mouse has moved out. Certainly the last time I fired it up should have served as an ultimatum of sorts.

And beyond all that was the looming specter of the mound of stuff in the garage. Better not to think of that. Too depressing, and on a day as magnificent as this- low seventies outside with equally low humidity. Perfect day for chores- completely unexpected since I thought I would be on the road to Michigan.

I came down south after a decent swim with no visible private detectives in attendance.

Natasha said that the food was coming out of the kitchen, and I washed up and drove over.

I was ushered in to get a plate- all local food, of course: the burgers were local beef, as were the brats. The bread was fresh out of the oven, and sliced in generous slabs. Sautéed onions and chopped leeks from the garden, as were the pole beans, green tomatoes and fried zucchini. The only thing not from the rich soil of this County was the cheese, and I think there is a vague plan to start on that, along with some amateur distilling and the chickens for next year.

We sat out, laughing and drinking as the shadows lengthened. I was impressed by what a little hard work can do in terms of producing a bounty from the ground on which we tread. When most of the food had been consumed by the five of us, Natasha brought out some oatmeal-honey cookies.

I am off baked goods, as a general rule, but she encouraged me to try one. “Is made with honey from our hives.”

“No kidding- you got honey out of them already? You have only had the hives going since last year!”

She nodded. “Is better than that. We harvested 65 pounds of honey this time.”
“That is as much as Princess Sasha weighs! That is amazing!”

Mattski smiled. “The mead will be ready to drink in the Spring. The first grapes should be ready the year after that, for sure in three years. This is coming along nicely.”

“You guys are unbelievable,” I said, munching the soft sweet texture of the cookie. “I don’t think I could have a bigger contrast between where I spend the week and when I come down here.”

“You should just move,” said Natasha. “We have just about all you require right here.”

I took a sip of my vodka and tonic. “I am going to have to get serious about distilling,” I said.

Princess Sasha was with her mom, engaged in a bit of business marking a cable run that had to be done in daylight, but they stopped by and there was a traffic jam in the lane leading up to the farm with the Ram1500, the Panzer and three other SUVs when they stopped by to make their respects to the day.

If Sasha was not going to be there to see them, there did not seem to be much point to setting off the fireworks, so I wandered home and watched a Capital Fourth on the television and sang along at the top of my lungs with the patriotic songs.

Hell of a Fourth of July, and not a single detective, private or public, in sight.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

The Private Dick

(The detective was driving a military-style vehicle like this Toyota FJ Cruiser off-road SUV. I didn’t pay much attention until I realized I was looking down the bore of a professional grade digital Single Lens Reflex camera with a telephoto lens and he started taking pictures of me. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?)

I am working on my little encounter manifestation of the surveillance state this morning. I still don’t know quite what to make of it.

The flexibility provided by lack of a full-time job has some upsides. It was around two, and still sunny. Hurricane Arthur was churning off the Outer Banks, and the storm bands would arrive presently, so I decided to get the exercise therapy out of the way while I could.

I went through the ritual gathering of materials- iPod, waterproof case, smart phone, towel and Ray Ban Wayfarers- and padded out to sign in with Kamil, the Polish Lifeguard.

There were three of us civilians on the pool deck- Filene and Rocco were dozing on the blue plastic lounge chairs, and I stacked my stuff on the table under the blue-and-white umbrella. I steeled myself to prepare for the shock of cool water.

I curled the toes of my left foot over the concrete rim of the pool deck and made the leap. It is sort of pathetic compared to what I could do, but I consider myself lucky to be able to do it at all.

The shock was electric as my skin registered the stark difference between the humid heat of the atmosphere and the placid blue water. I got my ear-buds screwed firmly into my head, noted the time on the clock on the wall and the air temperature- 94- and gradually acclimated to the temperature.

Kojo Nnamdi’s program was on the state of children’s literature and the necessity for diversity therein, and I resigned myself to being disinterested for the hour of motion. I made big strokes with both arms and a sort of bicycle peddling motion with the legs. This is possibly the most boring activity I can imagine, so I do slow circles in the water, timing each stroke to a view of the space between fence-poles on the enclosure and the decorative pink brick walls.

I had just passed a glimpse of Filene, and was sweeping my field of vision across the recumbent Rocco when I saw it.

A late-model gun-metal gray SUV (Toyota FJ cruiser?) with roof racks and a contrasting black top glided to a stop right next to the pool enclosure. The individual driving was male and was wearing a slouch hat. I sensed that he had facial hair but it was hard to discern around the large lens of his professional-grade Digital Single Lens Reflex camera.

He was pointing the damned thing at me!

I contemplated my options. The ladder to get out of the water was too far away to get to, and I can’t move that fast anyway these days. Submerge? He would have more oxygen than me by a lot. I sighed and kept paddling. He took several pictures of me, as I raised my right hand slightly above the water and extended the usual digit. He panned his the last shot over toward Kamil’s table by the gate, presumably to document the location where the photos were taken.

He then put the camera down where I couldn’t see it and drove away briskly. He apparently exited on the service drive in front of the building and then came back up Pershing, parallel to the parking lot. As he went around the bend, I saw that the vehicle had Virginia tags, but the letters or numbers were too far away to make out.

I could not get to my phone to use the camera, nor the apartment for my baseball bat. Damn.

Filene got up and walked to the edge of the pool, motioning me to approach her. I paddled over and removed my ear buds so I could hear.

“That was very weird,” she said. I nodded in response. “I thought he was taking pictures of me, and I hid behind my magazine.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I am pretty sure I know what this is about. The camera was pointed at me. I think it was a private dick trying to document the fact that I can swim. I guess that is supposed to undermine my contention that I can’t walk properly, and being on the eighth floor of an office building scares the shit out of me these days.”

“You still fighting about getting part of your pension back?”

I nodded. “Yeah. The family law thing is kind of a nasty industry.”

“Divorce is hard,” she said.

I nodded again. “And expensive. But on the whole, worth it.”

Filene gathered up her things to head back inside, the pool mood broken by the detective- or agent, or whoever the man had really been. I put my ear buds back in and listened to a librarian from Maryland talk about engaging reluctant readers.

A private frigging detective, I thought in wonder. What a waste money. Hell, if they want action shots, I can take them myself.

Then I stopped and considered other possibilities, A Private Dick is the most benign interpretation I can put on the disquieting event, considering the line of work I used to be in.

There are certainly worse ones. I realized that going forward, I need to put the ball-bat in the pool bag. Jeeze.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

After America

It is Independence Day tomorrow- we have a hurricane, first of the season, coming up the coast. Only the Outer Banks of North Carolina should get spanked, and we are hoping all we get is some rain, but preparations still have to be made.

That is what hung up the story yesterday- I had a buddy explain how I could get screen capture images off Google Maps, and I wasted an inordinate amount of time looking at all the houses in which Mom and Dad lived. The ones of Detroit were particularly poignant- both of those early houses are still there. One looks pretty good, the other seems to be teetering on the edge of becoming one of the hulks.

(Raven and Big Mama’s first house in Detroit. It is the place with the people on the front porch. Imagine screen grab from Google Maps).

Anyway, between that and some other stuff I didn’t get to anything with which I wanted to bother you. But in response to the story about Detroit’s beleaguered water works, and the fact that the UN Special Rapporteur felt the need to insert herself into the affairs of the city, I got a long and thoughtful note from my Coon Ass pal down in Metarie, Louisiana.

Considering the serial disasters that have befallen us- I think this morning it is the thousands of foreign children being dumped across our borders- the Union we celebrate tomorrow is looking a little ragged. I should not have been surprised that some people are thinking about what to do next.

Here is what Boats wrote:

“I’ve been fascinated by your descriptions of the rise and fall of Detroit. Now your description of Chicago makes me wonder if there is something “inorganic” about the cities of the upper Midwest.

New Orleans has survived a British invasion, a Yankee invasion and occupation, River floods, hurricanes (including Katrina) that some sincerely thought was the death throws of city. We survived the desegregation era, experienced white flight and are now experiencing white return.

We have serious violence issues as exhibited by last week’s shooting incident on Bourbon street, yet people stay, moreover more people are coming. Young educated people are joining the police force as fast as we can find funding for more police officers.

Despite the problems people are optimistic about New Orleans and the economic indicators show it. I think we escape the “Detroit factors” because of something “organic” about this city.

First, there is the unique New Orleans culture that seems to draw the new residents in and stamps the character of natives. Anyone born here and many who only have been here a few years evolve this attachment to the culture.

A displaced Orleanian can’t seem to find “decent food” anywhere else.

A displaced Orleanian is confused by the lack of “Frankish” expression in the language in the rest of the U.S.

The seasons elsewhere are quite confusing ( Pre-Mardi Grais / Post Mardi Grais) is so much easier to deal with.

But I think there is a geographical element at work too. Now that Metairie, Kenner, Algiers, Gretna, Harvey, and Westwego, the suburban towns and neighborhoods that share the physical isle of Orleans with New Orleans are filled in with people, surrounding water bodies and protected marshes force any one who wants to live farther out to go way out by our non-commuter culture standards.

We think that despite the constant threats to the existence of New Orleans (being below sea level in hurricane alley) the populace really believes that this is an eternal city. Once we were threatened by tropical epidemics, now that is no longer an issue. Everyone believes that somehow we will beat our geography, Holland did it, so can we, despite a much smaller population and tax base.

We look to Houston, our bankers, and home offices and we see the kind of sprawl and boom town type development that we see in the threatened cities of the Mid West such as Detroit, Garyville, East St. Louis, Chicago, maybe Cleveland. We see some similar demographics.

But when we visit Houston, we encounter that Texan “pride of place” that parallels in a very different way the Louisiana pride of place. It is shared across the entire demographic.

Talk to an Asian, African, or Hispanic American in Texas and you find that everyone’s primary personal identity is “TEXAN”, just as in Louisiana it is “COON ASS”.

We wonder if we have any cities in Greater Texas (that being Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas,) that have the vulnerabilities of Detroit?

Looking South, what’s your perspective on our cities? Looking West and East what about the areas coming into the Greater Texas orbit (Mississippi, Alabama, Western Tennessee, New Mexico)? Do you see any areas that might not be good candidates for admission into our “Greater Texas” concept (a confederacy within a fundamentally broken federal union that we pretty much ignore but stay in to avoid another war).

Greater Texas doesn’t have ambitions of taking over the United States. We don’t think the North East, or Left Coast populations could ever adapt. We are not a non-diverse culture, but we have several highly compatible “over cultures” that pretty much firmly reject the system imposed on America by the “Demicans” and the “Republicats.”

This culture is about building a bigger pie, not about re-dividing the existing one endlessly.

Parts of the Midwest and the Far West east of the Rockies could fit, but we don’t want to over extend our reach. Four states are already “in,” and we see eight as the maximum we can “admit”.

But maybe there are some areas within the “candidate states” that are not a good fit. As a keen urban observer, what do you make of Memphis, Oklahoma City, Jackson MS and Albuquerque NM? Could we be biting off more than we can chew?

Plus, there are practical issues. For example, how does a state get “Admitted?”

A Nullification act is one step, signing a multi-state compact on economic development is another, and the sheer weight of economic ties to Houston is a crucial test.

There is no formal published criteria, which keeps the Feds guessing, but we recognize our limits.

Do you see the immediate candidate state’s cities as showing any caution lights? Greater Texas has a simple goal: to prosper and defend ourselves regardless of what Washington does.

If the Union completely collapses we want to be ready to emerge unscathed and ready for a prosperous independence as a sane middle power. If the Union ever gets it head on straight, naturally that would actually work better for us.

But are not optimistic about this existing union. We want to be very careful about with whom who we plan our alternative future.”

I completely understand the frustration, but this is further down the road than I had ever seriously contemplated. Maybe it is because I am a creature of this city, and a junkie for its bizarre politics. But I wore the uniform of this nation proudly, and can’t imagine that there are those who are thinking about what comes next.

Honestly, I never thought I would see a state of affairs like this. And on the eve of the 4th of July, no less.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Not a Drop to Drink

I follow all the news about Detroit with a sort of grim fascination about what is next for the hapless city. An alert pal sent me a blub from the LA Times about the next disaster:

Detroit is violating the human rights of residents by cutting off their water service because they have not paid their bills…”When there is genuine inability to pay, human rights simply forbids disconnections,” said Catarina de Albuquerque, a Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation at the UN.

The city warned in March that it would being cutting off water service of up to 3000 customers each week because nearly half the accounts in Detroit were delinquent. And this month, the City Council approved an 8.7% water rate increase to help get the municipal utility on a stronger financial footing.

The water works were the gems of the big cities of the Midwest. The one in Chicago is as ornate as the one in Detroit, but even the water is becoming a casualty of the hollowing out of the poor city. Fewer people paying fewer bills causes the price to go up, and like the real estate taxes, it is a death spiral.

I always envied Chicago, as a Detroiter, as “the City that worked.” But of course, it doesn’t either, and for many of the same reasons. Mayor Emanuel is confronting all of the issues that drove down the Motor City and he is not doing a great deal better. The racial component cannot be underestimated.

(Detroit’s water intake on Lake St. Claire. Image courtesy of DetroitYes).

We were talking about it last night at Willow. Boomer the bartender is African-American, daughter of a police officer, and as she says, “we were always middle class.”

She works hard. She lives with her Dad, at his home thirty miles away from the bar, and she marveled at the change in the neighborhood. It had been a majority white population with a few black families. She said she looked around one day and noticed that all the houses had Hispanic extended families living in them.

That got us to talking about Detroit’s lack of affordable housing- the burgeoning African American workforce that came north to work in the Arsenal of Democracy had money, but Detroit had no homes for them to buy or rent, and the Red Lining practices of the loan industry was stacked against them as well.

Here is 1943: the war is in full roar. 50,000 African Americans and 300,000 whites (largely from Appalachia, a legacy of which are nicknames like “Ypsa-tucky” for Ypsylanti) have arrived to build bombers and ordnance.

The influx of new residents- of which my family was one a few years later- just about equals those who now remain in the former “Paris of the Midwest.”

Housing in Paradise Valley and Black Bottom, the two main African American neighborhoods, featured many homes without indoor plumbing at twice or triple the rates paid by white citizens. Efforts by Washington to establish new housing for the necessary new workers resulted in racial strife over the selection of the location for the Sojourner Truth housing development at the intersection of Nevada and Fenelon streets.

By the name, it was obvious what the nice people from Washington intended. The white neighborhood was having none of it. This was one of the signs of that time:

(Signs at the prosed site of the Sojournor Truth Housing Development at Nevada and Fenelon in central Detroit, 1943. Photo Detroit News).

At the Packard Plant not far away, three African American workers were selected to work on the line with the Hungarian, German and Polish skilled workers. 25,000 white workers walked off the job.

Later that June the temperatures rose and people began to spend time outdoors, a tradition in the urban areas of the Upper Midwest where the relief from the severe winters is palpable. One popular destination was Belle Isle, a Frederick Law Olmstead-designed park on an islet in the Detroit River. Words between ethnic groups were exchanged. Harsh words. Rumors of outrage swept across the communities- a black woman and child had been thrown in the river went one, and another claimed a white woman had been raped on the Belle Isle Bridge.

The situation escalated and lead to fighting. The riots lasted three days and ended after Mayor Jeffries (now remembered as the Jefferies Freeway across the same neighborhood) and Michigan Governor Harry Kelly asked President Roosevelt to intervene. Federal troops put down the disturbance after three days and 34 deaths. 17- mostly African American as best I can tell- were killed by the Police. Most of the rest of the killings were never solved.

Mom and Dad moved to 14897 Sussex St not far from there in 1950, moving to 14230 Kentucky St in 1952 after I arrived and they fled the city in 1954 as my brother and sister joined the family. “Block Busting” realtors moved African American families into white neighborhoods.

The result was “white flight” which rapidly changed the racial composition of large swathes of the city with great profit to the real estate and financial communities as they met pent up demand. Whites sold low and blacks bought- or rented- high and were often swindled in the process.

The city was starting to change rapidly. The Police knew it and tried to keep a lid on it. The succeeded, for the most part. At least they kept a lid on things until a blunt trauma occurred on a hot night in the late summer of 1967.

But we have talked about the raid on the Blind Pig on 12th Street before. Still, it was the night that the great city on the river began to writhe in mortal agony. And today? Water water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303