|
(Captain William Bainbridge)
It is a splendid day to be alive. I trust you are feeling frisky, like I am. The additional day-light must be at the root of it, all the flowering going on. The serious light green blossoms have emerged on the trees that rise just above the fourth floor of Big Pink- the ones that will be real strong leaves presently.
They say that in Spring a young person’s fancy turns from one thing to another, and it must be the passing of seasonal affective disorder. There is a fulsome feeling of optimism in the air, as irrational as that may be.
We are eighty days into the new Administration and things are so entertaining that I am nearly beside myself. It is clearly the end of many things, some good and some awful. I was going to bore you with matter of portent in the budget, and the future of great things, but the hell with it. Maybe tomorrow.
The commentators are being cute today. It is a day for it. They take the President’s fondness for basketball, and say that he is playing “zone defense.” By that, they appear to mean that they will defend the floor by area rather than issue.
Lesser people would cluster around the titanic issues like little kids playing soccer, all of them chasing the ball and no one positioning for the pass.
It is fascinating. Things like the War on Drugs, the one that could not be won, appears to have little white flags fluttering. Mr. Obama’s people have decided to stop imposing Federal law on the States, at least insofar as raiding medical marijuana houses goes, and in some other policy areas it appears that sanity is on the verge of breaking out.
It is curious in others. According to a rough count, nearly sixty people have been killed in eight specific acts of mass killings. There are many more, if one includes the ordinary crimes of passion, limited to a single victim. After a few predictable pious platitudes, there has been an eerie silence from the Administration on the matter. It appears a separate peace with the National Rifle Association has been agreed to, and that third rail will not be touched, at least for now.
In other areas, the White House appears to be serenely sailing the ship of state into the white water without a care. There is a trial balloon floating this morning that the Immigration System should be fixed, and predictably it will be simultaneous with the mending of the Economy and the health care system and the energy infrastructure.
It is very exciting. These were rapids that even the conservative Bush administration could not traverse. I often say “is this a great country, or what?” Usually it is with heavy irony, but this morning I have to say it in pure unabashed wonder.
Opponents of legislation intended to normalize the status of undocumented aliens have the look of a mullet, stunned in the back of the boar. How could this be contemplated with so many real citizens out of work? The saying goes that called an illegal alien an undocumented worker is the same as calling a drug dealer an unlicensed pharmacist.
But we appear to be well beyond that, on so many fronts.
I was whistling as I cooked my eggs.
Maybe it was the news from a world away. The American crew of an American merchant ship chased off the pirates. The story is a little unclear, but the four fierce Somalis are apparently in a lifeboat that is now out of gas.
The bad news is that they have a hostage, the ship’s Captain, one Richard Phillips, of Underhill, Vermont.
It is yet to be seen if this is another Great American of the caliber of Sully, Master Aviator of the Hudson, but I have my hopes and expectations.
A swift Navy ship is on scene: USS Bainbridge (DDG-96). This incarnation of William Bainbridge is an Arlie Burke-class destroyer. I steamed with her predecessor, one of the bold cruisers of the old nuclear navy, and a frequent escort to the aircraft carrier Enterprise, The Big E.
Bainbridge is a historic name, with roots as deep as all those ships that bore the name Enterprise.
In 1800, President Adams dispatched William Bainbridge, embarked in USS George Washington to carry the tribute that he elected to pay to the Dey of Algiers for immunity from Maghreb piracy. Upon his arrival in the harbor, Bainbridge made the tactical error of not anchoring out. He dropped the hook in the roadstead directly under the guns of the fort.
The Dey whooped in triumph. Bainbridge could not get away without being blown to smithereens. The Algerians demanded that Bainbridge provide transportation for the Dey’s Ambassador to the Sultan in Constantinople on pain of sinking.
With great reluctance, Captain Bainbridge called for the Algerian flag to be broken from George Washington’s masthead, and served as the delivery service for the Dey.
Bainbridge later lost the USS Philadelphia by grounding her off Tunis. He was a prisoner of war for a while after that, but subsequently had a splendid career. His Navy was a little more forgiving than mine, which would have written an unfavorable report on his fitness and dismissed him in disgrace.
I’m pretty sure that isn’t going to happen this time. It seems that today is going to be a splendid day.
Copyright 2009 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Close Window |
