The Stone Brewing Boondoggle

One of my all time favorite Millenials posted an article on Facebook the other day concerning a City Hall fight brought on by the Stone Brewing riverfront property deal. Because he is a Millenial, I assumed he did so to protest the worthlessness of petty politicians standing in the way of progress. I assumed that like most Millenials, he thought that nothing could possibly be cooler than having yet another micro-brewer in town. When I asked him his actual opinions on the issue, I discovered the truth in the old admonition that assuming often makes asses out of you and me. My favorite Millenial was very much against the notion that local governments should get involved in picking winners and losers in business. He sent me to a Wall Street Journal article which essentially made the following point.

Imagine that you are an aspiring entrepreneur in Richmond 25 years ago who decides to refurbish a dilapidated old warehouse building downtown and turn it into a restaurant. You do so at great expense and considerable risk, since no one is sure whether an upscale restaurant will survive in such a parking challenged location. Despite considerable headwinds, your dream becomes a thriving reality. Twenty five years on, your enterprise is a profitable business which pays lots of taxes to the city treasury while employing 140 people. You are a vibrant, responsible corporate citizen who contributes much to the city.

Then one day, you discover that your city council has entered into an agreement with a California company to build not only a brewery but also a giant restaurant who will be in direct competition with you. The deal hammered out offers them not only massive tax relief, but also includes building said restaurant with public money, out of the taxes that your twenty five year old enterprise has faithfully paid. Not only that, your shiny new competitor is given a sweetheart twenty five year lease. The best part is that if this new enterprise fails, your future tax payments will be required to bail the city out of the deal. 

The owner of the Tobacco Company Resturant might reasonably ask why his city council is getting in the upscale restaurant business. He might also wonder where all of this tax relief and free construction money was twenty five years ago when he was building HIS building. The fact that my favorite Millenial understands the innate unfairness of such an arrangement renews my confidence in his generation. Maybe it will be the Millenials who will apply some hard-headed rationalism to government boondoggles like the Stone Brewing deal and ask the question, is this really what the people's representatives should be doing?

It's Home Improvement Time!!

March. I feel better just typing that. If it’s March, then there’s hope. In February, you’re screwed from beginning to end. It’s all winter, all the time. With March, there’s the hint of spring, the suggestion of warmth, the promise of a thaw.

For us this means doing something about the landscaping in our yard. When you spend the last seven years of your life putting your children through private, out of state colleges, there isn’t much money left over for home improvement projects. So when hurricane Isabelle came through and laid waste to the shrubbery several years ago, I was forced to tear the rest of it out and place “new landscaping” on the  “things to do when we’re no longer poor” list. Our post-modern minimalist look has worn thin on Pam who insists on nothing less than a full-blown landscaping make-over. This means venturing into our back yard, or as it has come to be known…the swamp that time forgot.

To that end, I began contacting landscaping contractors in the area a while back and finally settled on one who was young, credentialed, and didn’t reek of fertilizer. He came over and inspected the grounds, jotting notes into his tablet computer as we walked. When he sent us his proposal a week later, it came complete with drawings, a written description, and a five figure price tag. On the bright side, the cost was less than one semester’s tuition at Belmont, so I’ve got that going for me. Everything must be placed in perspective in life. After all, it’s only money, then you die.

So, I’m already over the cost. I’ve moved on to visualizing myself back there grilling steaks on my new stone patio, watching Lucy running across the new turf grass, frolicking amongst the shrub-lined fence, all splashed in sunshine thanks to the removal of several light blocking trees. Lucy will be over her digging fetish since she will no longer be a puppy (…that’s my story and I’m sticking to it). It will be like Eden before the fall. Well, except we will be fully clothed…for the most part.

Once the landscaping project is finished, I’m told that there will be painting projects and interior design schemes to launch. Before this year is done, I will be recalling the years of writing obscene tuition checks as the good old days.

Success or Failure?

“I think I fear success more than failure,” he said absently, sitting at a conference table with his business partner.

“What?” his business partner asked, looking up from a pile of bills spread out in front of him. “What’s so scary about success?”

“Success can change a person, totally change their life.”

“That’s right, Einstein. Success can transform a starving, hopeless and disgusting business failure into a rich, well-fed entrepreneur practically overnight. Man, you beat everything…worrying about impending success while everyone else, including me is busy worrying about bankruptcy.”

“No, I’m serious. Have you ever thought about what you would do if you won the lottery, say 20 million or so?”

“The first thing I would do is buy you out so I wouldn’t have to have these idiotic conversations.”

“I mean after you paid your house off, cleared up the business debt, then maybe bought a vacation home somewhere, couple of new cars, new golf clubs and all, you would still have millions left over.”

“Yeah, I can definitely see how that would suck.”

“Then the trouble would start. Everyone you ever knew back in high school and college, all of your distant relatives would start hitting you up for money. If you turned them down they would end up hating you for it. Then, the do-gooders would come calling…the Red Cross, March of Dimes, the preacher, they would all come out of the woodwork and unless you gave them money, they would end up hating you too.”

“And then you would take comfort in that new car smell as you drive to your vacation home with your new golf clubs in the trunk. It’s like the circle of life. All of your old friends from the poor old days would get replaced with shiny new ones.”

“You know what the worst part about too much money, too fast?”

“Oh, I don’t know…if you spend it less than an hour after you get it you get cramps?”

“The worst part is that everything would be finished. You would be done. No more reason to care about things, nothing more to worry about, nothing to get you out of bed in the morning.”

“Dude, you are so weird.”

“Listen, right now the business is doing ok but we still struggle month to month, right?”

“Yes. Which is something that I’m counting on your 20 million dollar lottery windfall to fix.”

“No, don’t you see? We’re just like everyone else! We have common cause with our fellow man. We’re all in the same boat, we’re all struggling to make a go of it. If I win 20 million, I’m out of the club and I can never be like everyone else ever again.”

“That club you’re talking about? It’s called the sucker’s club and yes, 20 million gets you kicked out. But then you get kicked up into the millionaires club, which has way better food. That’s the American Dream my friend…the American Dream.”

“I guess so…”

“That’s right partner…the American Dream. So, get your upwardly mobile ass up and get me a Dr. Pepper out of the fridge while I figure out a way to balance our checkbook.”

He walked into the kitchen and brought a cold can back to the conference room. It made a sharp metallic sound as he sat it in the glass table top. He went to the window and stared down at the air conditioner unit with its big fan blades turning slowly. After a few minutes he walked back to his office.

“Maybe we should buy a lottery ticket,” he said as he disappeared down the hall.

Net Neutrality, My Son, and Me

I have a very smart son. He and I discuss things political on occasion and often we disagree. We recently had a long back and forth about the “net neutrality” issue. With yesterday’s vote, his side of the argument has prevailed, so I will have to take his word for it that this is a very good thing.

Like I said, he is very bright (he takes after his mother), and also very opinionated and argumentative (he takes after me). He paints the net neutrality business as narrow corporate interests vs. the greater public good and the interests of the little guy. He accuses NN’s opponents of appealing to the public’s distrust of government with overblown rhetoric about higher taxes and a government takeover of future content. The decision came down on a strict party line vote, which should come as a surprise to no one. Is there any other kind of vote anymore that isn’t straight party line, where Republicans are in the back pocket of business and Democrats always favoring anything that empowers the regulative state?

Anyway, now that the deal is done, I will have to take my son’s word for it that everything is going to be alright, that the heavy hand of government bureaucrats aren’t going to screw up the most vibrant, creative industry in the world. I’ll have to banish visions of DMV incompetence, Postal Service inefficiency, and IRS complexity from my mind. I will have to move on from my fear that this whole NN thing is nothing more than a government money grab.

My son knows much more about the internet and technology in general than I do, so perhaps I should give his views on this subject the benefit of the doubt. However, there is a very good reason why NN’s opponents appealed to the American distrust of government. There is an awful lot to distrust. When he complains that the current system leaves too many people at the mercy of too few giant monopolistic enterprises, I counter with the observation that I would rather be at the mercy of giant companies who are at least ultimately accountable to their share-holders, than to be at the mercy of some future Department of the Internet monolith who will be accountable to absolutely no one.

Five or ten years from now, thanks to this very internet miracle, my son’s views and my fears will be a matter of public record. We will both be able to look back on this blog and decide who was right and who was wrong. Somebody will owe somebody else a beer.

 

I sincerely hope I’m the one buying.

Trash Talk Time

As a graduate of and fan of Richmond Spiders athletics, I have had to swallow hard over the past few years watching the ascendency of VCU basketball and their talented coach Shaka Smart. My Facebook feed has been bombarded with the ubiquitous, “havoc!!!” refrain. I have had to sit back and listen to VCU fan brag about their team, even watch them go to the final four. It has been a miserable few years.

They are still a terrific team and Shaka Smart is still talented. But finally, I have been given reason to do what I do best…talk smack. Last night my Spiders completed a season sweep of the Rams in thrilling fashion with a double overtime victory. And while VCU may end up winning the Atlantic 10, we won the city, baby!

So, this morning I get to the my empty office, and after clearing a path from the parking lot to the front door, I had some time on my hands…never a good thing when flush with the thrill of victory. My buddy and business partner, Doug Greenwood has become a huge band-wagon jumping Ram fan over the past few years, a season ticket holding carpet bagger of sorts. I have had to endure an endless stream of Ram-bragging from him for quite a while now. Well…I just couldn’t help myself…

The Oscar's Show

Ok, here's how I do the Oscar's thing. I walk through the den from time to time while the red carpet show is on and ask Pam how it's going. She gives me the highlights. Then I come downstairs on my way to the fridge for a snack later and sometimes stop for a few minutes to watch an acceptance speech. Then, the next morning I read all about it on the Internet, watching selected clips of highlights if I find myself interested.

I'm not anti-Hollywood. I enjoy good movies, always have. This year, Pam and I saw four of the best picture nominees and will probably catch a couple more of them soon. But a team of black ops interrogators from Guantanamo Bay couldn't force me to watch the Academy Awards show. Three and a half hours of self-congratulatory claptrap and left wing advocacy is as close to hell as Earth gets.

However, watching the highlights, I did learn a few things...

1. Lady Gaga can actually sing. Who knew? 

2. To judge from their responses to Patricia Arquette's speech, J-Lo and Merrill Streep are apparently vastly underpaid.

3. Neil Patrick Harris has been spending some time at the gym, and isn't at all concerned with preserving his dignity.

4. In order for a movie to win an award at the Oscars, it's essential that nobody has actually bought a ticket to see it.

5. An essential part of every acceptance speech is the obligatory pitch for a cause, to include, but not be limited to...equal pay for women, immigration, the environment, racial injustice, and gay rights.

But what I really learned from this year's festivities is what I already knew. When presented with films about such weighty matters as, A. The war in Iraq and America's deadliest warrior, B. The brave Enigma code breaker, C. A Martin Luther King biopic, and D. The story of famed physicist and thinker Stephen Hawking...the Academy gives the award to a movie about...Hollywood.

They just can't help themselves.

Does Obama Love America?

Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City, made headlines recently by questioning whether or not President Obama loves America. The mayor's question has hung in the air like three day old fish, stinking up our political discourse from the salons of Manhattan to the dinner parties in Georgetown. I'm sure the Sunday shows will talk about little else. What to think...

It is generally bad form to cast about impugning the patriotic commitments of politicians. For one thing, patriotism is so difficult to define. Love of country is hard to quantify. For instance, I certainly love America, but I don't love everything about it. I hate the political dysfunction that has produced 18 trillion dollars in debt. I hate the career political class from both parties who have, House-of-Cards-style, made a mockery of the democratic process. So my love is selective. I'm generally suspicious of those who claim to love their country "right or wrong," in much the same way as I am suspicious of a parent who loves their kids so much that it renders them blind to their faults. There is such a thing as loving something too much, after all.

But, generally speaking, my default emotion towards my country is something close to love. In the President's case, as with most Progressives, it seems more complicated. He is a product of a political philosophy which views America, from its founding, as a deeply flawed place. Progressives have always viewed America's successes with suspicion. The Declaration of Independance? Just a document designed to preserve white privilege. The Constitution? Simply a straight jacket designed to encumber the power and benevolence of the central government. The industrial Revolution? Ill-gotten gains accrued on the backs of slave labor. In the Progressive view of history, America isn't a shining city on a hill or even a beacon for freedom for the oppressed, but rather a racist, misogynistic, greedy collection of rubes and hicks who need to be controlled by the enlightened from each coast. America is something which needs to be constantly and continually radically transformed from something base to something better, and the only people capable of this redemption all happen to be...Progressive.

So, when the President tells us to get off of our moral high horse over ISIS because of Jim Crow laws from fifty years ago, it feeds into the suspicion that he is much more comfortable criticizing our sins than he is criticizing the sins of our enemies. He is the only President in my lifetime who's rhetoric always seems to soar highest when he is taking us to task for our national sins.

Still, I have no doubt that the President loves America. I am equally confident that President Obama knew that George Bush also loved America in 2008 when he accused him of being "unpatriotic" for piling up 4 trillion dollars onto the national debt. It was a Presidential campaign and people get riled up and say things that they wish they could take back. Mayor Giuliani was wrong for making such an accusation about a sitting President.

While I love America for what it is and has been, a force for good in the world, an intrinsic love...the President loves America for what it has the potential to become if it adopts his policies. Perhaps that is a different kind of love, but it is love nonetheless. America's past and present sins do nothing to alter my love of country, primarily because I know that every nation in the history of mankind has closets filled with skeletons. But simple love of country does not blind me to criticism of it or a desire to fix what ails her. In this way, I suppose, the President and I agree.