The SOTU Show Has Been Cancelled

So, apparently this year’s State of the Union show is the latest casualty of the government shutdown, proving that old adage that behind every dark cloud there’s a silver lining. Don’t get me wrong, the fact that our government has been partially shutdown now for over three weeks remains a colossal failure of our democracy, and an embarrassment to anyone who claims devotion to self-government. Nevertheless, the cancellation of this year’s SOTU is a giant step forward for the country. Let me count the ways...

When this nation broke free from the British monarchy, it threw off the presumptions of authoritarianism along with it. The Founding Fathers, with the exception of John Adams and the now universally lionized Alexander Hamilton, constructed a form of government that divided power three ways with the intention that anyone’s attempt to seize and concentrate power would be met with institutional and constitutional opposition. Stalwarts of liberty like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison--Virginians-- were contemptuous of anything that smacked of monarchy and resisted mightily the concept of titles and both would have been appalled at what the modern imperial presidency has become. When George Washington chose retirement over the continuance of his power, he set the gold standard of presidential leadership consistent with liberty.

Ever since FDR chose his continued power over retirement, the Presidency has been exalted over the other branches of government. Calvin Coolidge wouldn’t recognize the office were he alive to witness the ridiculous pomp and partisan caterwauling that define the modern SOTU spectacle. 

For the first 137 years of this Republic, the speech was written by the President and sent to Congress to be read aloud. Leave it to this nation’s first truly progressive and authoritarian president...Woodrow Wilson--alas, also a Virginian-- to muck it all up. Wilson was of the belief that he knew best what the country needed and felt unduly constrained in his intention to transform it in his progressive vision by the notorious straight jacket known as our pesky constitution. Endowed with an exalted view of his powers of persuasion, Wilson thought it would be a grand idea to give the speech himself, thinking that the power of his presence might be enough to sway opinion. Thus was born the modern SOTU speech, which has devolved into an embarrassing partisan pep rally. Democrats sit on one side, Republicans on the other. The Vice President and the Speaker of the House sit behind the podium looking like two dour bookends, framing the President as he gives his platitudinous address, roused from their stupor every two minutes by undeserved standing ovations. Tight shots of congressional leaders looking grave and concerned fill our television screens making all of us wonder how any of these lightweights ever were elevated to such lofty heights. Ordinary citizens sit next to the First Lady up in the gallery, serving as props for some point the President wishes to make. Each bland resuscitation of political talking points is met with thunderous applause by the President’s party as if he had just revealed the secret to immortality. 

So, Nancy Pelosi’s decision to cancel the 2019 edition of this debacle will go down as her second greatest contribution to American Democracy, just below her eventual decision, at age 100, to finally retire. Let Mr. Trump write his speech, hire James Earl Jones to read it, and broadcast it over the radio. Not having to watch 535 preening politicians jockeying for face time will probably add a half a point to the country’s GDP!

Beach Week 2019

2019 is the year of the Dunnevant family Beach Week vacation. It’s a biennial event. Nineteen people, renting an 8 bedroom, 8 full bath house somewhere on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, is not for sissies. Finding a house which is large enough, close enough to the beach, suitably endowed with a proper kitchen, a pool and hot tub, a massive enough living area to accommodate 19 people for a sit down dinner, one that doesn’t cost a small fortune, and one which is available during the one week that 19 people can all agree on is no small task. So, to that end, the search begins the first week of January and is greatly assisted by my wife and her dazzling array of Google docs, spreadsheets and organizational life hacks.

The first family email went out a few days ago with the aforementioned Google doc attached. It has prompted a flurry of responses. Already, huge obstacles have appeared, not the least of which is something called the...Great Beach Refurbishing Project of ‘19...whereby, the storm ravaged beach between milepost 11 and 21 will endure a re-sanding project over a 5 month period which happens to include the entire summer. The department, bureau, or agency in charge of this project has declined to provide any information on when exactly it will begin or specifically where it will begin. So, if you rent a house anywhere between milepost 11 and 21, you run an incalculable risk that during your chosen week the beach in front of your house might be closed, or worse...inhabited by scores of illegal immigrants doing the dirty, hard jobs that Americans just won’t do, right at your doorstep! The burning question now is...do we roll the dice and take a chance on renting a house in this trouble zone?? What are the odds that our vacation will be ruined? 

To establish those odds...if I understand how Vegas works...you first have to calculate the amount of beach mileage affected, and then divide that by the number of days in the five month window. Then, since the work is being done by an agency of government, you have to factor in delays, impact studies, public hearings, work stoppages because somebody saw an endangered species crawl into the dunes somewhere, grandstanding press conferences by local politicians trying to either claim credit for the work or blame somebody else for the debacle that it has become, and finally... the potential of a government shutdown. What is a vacation planning family of 19 to do?

Despite all of these obstacles...we will figure it out. That’s just what we do. We air all of our concerns, we balance competing preferences, we all make the required concessions and compromises necessary to accommodate what is best for the majority of us, consistent with our objective of a happy and fun family vacation.

If the Dunnevant family, a tribe known far and wide for our raging opinions and contentiousness, can figure this out...how come the people in Washington DC cant?

Winter in RVA

This is essentially every snowstorm forecast for the City of Richmond over the last 2000 years. There’s this thing called the rain/snow line and it lives here in the winter. Therefore, depending on where it decides to sit can be the difference between making our local weather folks look like geniuses or making them look like clueless buffoons. It’s also why the best weather people in RVA are the ones with the most humility and good humor...in other words, Andrew Freiden...in a rout.

I live where the little white dot is on the map. Which means, while I might only have 2 inches of slush on my deck at the moment with sleet and rain falling, I can get in my car and drive 4 miles up to the Rockville exit on 64 and watch 6-10 inches of snow falling. Or maybe, by 4 o’clock this afternoon this fickle R/S line will have changed its mind and drifted south. 

Godspeed, Andrew. You have the toughest meteorologist gig in the country.

My Son-in-Law and the Government Shutdown

This Saturday morning finds us preparing for the second big snow storm of the season here in Short Pump. Back in early December we were visited by 13 inches of the stuff. Today, our crack team of local meteorologists have gone out on a limb to predict the possible damage with their usual confident precision...2-10 inches. While we wait, Pam and I will be working at my church’s thrift store this afternoon.

Meanwhile, my daughter and her husband are busy enduring the government shutdown, which has deprived them of my son in law’s income since he is a park ranger at Congeree National Park, and as such, an employee of the Department of the Interior and furloughed for three weeks now. I inquired of them last night how they were doing, and my daughter’s response was so typical of my oldest child. She calmly assured me that so far they have been able to get by due to extreme frugality and putting off necessary car repairs, etc. She considers themselves fortunate since they have the benefit of her income and a savings account to fall back upon if it drags on into February. She pointed out to me that they know others who are far worse off because of the shutdown. Her biggest concern was the impact this all was having on her husband, who absolutely loves his job and feels very disrespected at the suggestion that he is non-essential. Who wouldn’t be? His concern is for the health of the park and the visitors that he cannot serve while sitting at home waiting for Washington to come to its senses. While he ponders getting a side hustle as an UBER driver, the incompetent boobs in DC stage photo op news conferences to revel in their pettiness. The fact that Congress voted to guarantee all furloughed workers back pay once this is all over, while reassuring, only underlines their incompetence since it essentially is saying that the federal government is fully on board for paying 800,000 employees to stay at home and do nothing. Brilliant. All of this over 230 feet of wall on a 1900 hundred mile border. All of this over a 6 billion dollar appropriation out of a 4.4 Trillion dollar budget.

I’ve heard all the arguments on both sides of this issue, both the sane and the insane ones. None of them on either side are convincing. This conflict is about politics and politics only. It’s posturing. It’s gamesmanship. It’s each side trying to win an unwinnable argument. Trump cares very little about the border, he cares much more about appearing to keep a campaign promise and owning the libs. The Democrats sense a winning hand and have dug in their heels due more to a visceral hatred of this President than any real concern about border security. Meanwhile, 800,000 puppets sit at home trying to figure out how they are going to pay the rent and put groceries on the table.

Who is at fault? Well, if the President’s actual words can be trusted...eye-roll...then he is. He is on record as being proud of his position and has vowed to keep the government shut down indefinitely. He seems intent on declaring a national emergency and building the wall without approval or the required appropriations. If he does many on the right will cheer. But for those of you who cheer the loudest, I wonder how you will feel when some future Democratic president decides to declare a national emergency with regards to say...gun violence? Live by national emergencies, die by national emergencies.

Friday Stress

As we all know, Friday’s can be the most stressful day of the week. Deadlines often fall on Friday. Important meetings fall on this day for some reason. Many of the worst sell-offs in stock market history have occurred on Fridays. To that end, as a public service, I have gone to my friends at The Far Side for some handy tips for dealing with the added stress associated with this final day of the work week...

As usual, they never disappoint.

An Old Man Pet Peeve

It has been quite some time since I have written a blog about a pet peeve. Now that we find ourselves firmly in the dreadful grasp of winter, I figure that now is as good a time as any. This particular pet peeve runs the risk of making me sound like an old man screaming at the clouds, but, when has that ever stopped me in the past?

Here’s the thing...when I hear people arguing about politics, especially the roll of government, tax policy etc..I get the distinct impression that most people who argue such things on the internet, and doubly especially—younger people, have come by their opinions solely by parroting their favorite pundits, or their ability to perform Google searches faster than their competition. Their thoughts always seem to boil down to cut and paste hot takes from someone on National Review, The Daily Kos or Vox. Honestly, if I came of age in the internet era, perhaps I would do the exact same thing. But, I didn’t. I attended college during the heyday of libraries and the dreaded card catalogue, where finding a hot take took you all night. As a consequence, if I wanted to figure out what I believed about such weighty matters as economics or political theory, I was reduced to reading source material...and believe me, source material on these topics is dreadfully dull reading. For example...

During my four years at the University of Richmond I read the following works about economics and politics:

Das Kapital

The Wealth of Nations

The Road to Serfdom

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

The Federalist Papers

Capitalism and Freedom

The Gulag Archipelago

The Communist Manefesto

Witness

The Prince

Leviathan 

Back then I must admit that I didn’t fully understand every word I read, but I picked up enough to develope a world view on matters of geo-politics and economics. When Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged was all the rage, I picked up a paperback copy and labored through the thing. Although there were parts of it that I liked, I quickly rejected her ideas because I didn’t believe them to be consistent with my Christian faith, and that was that. Over the years, some of my views from all this reading have changed, modified by changes in the world. But, the point is, before I could have enough confidence to develope a reliable opinion, I felt the need to at least attempt to understand the source material upon which all the debating was about...not someone’s review or critique of the material, but the material itself. Maybe I’m wrong, but my trick knee tells me that the most self assured keyboard warriors on these topics haven’t spent ten minutes in any of these books and never will. Their views on politics and economics are forged on websites that reinforce what they already think about such matters. This parroting of hot takes is a bipartisan practice. People today tend to form their opinions about politics base upon how they feel about what makes sense to them, then find pundits and websites which agree with them and presto...instant infallibility.

I am an unrepentant reader. I will forever be a consumer of ideas. They fascinate me. It makes no particular difference to me whether or not I agree with an idea, I just want to know about it. When my daughter came back from three months of teaching in China a few years back, as a joke she brought me a little red book of the sayings of Mao, the butcher of Communist China...tiny little thing about the size of a pocket New Testament, which she said were on sale practically everywhere in Beijing. Guess what? I read it! Total authoritarian bullshit...but I couldn’t resist.

I’m not saying that people who have never read any of these books don’t have honest and heartfelt opinions on these things, and I’m not naive enough to think that very many people care at all about what John Maynard Keynes had to say about macroeconomics, or what exactly Frederick Hayek’s fears were about the power of the state. But I sure would feel better if more people would take the time to avail themselves of something more substantial than a Google search of hot takes before deciding what they think about our complicated world.

The Promise of New

A couple of days have gone by now since I sat in a folding chair on the aisle at Hope Church and heard David Dwight deliver a message entitled The Promise of New. I’ve wanted to write about it but haven’t known where to start. I’ve listened to a recording of it on the church website twice, taking notes, each time...not wanting to miss anything. As the son of a minister and someone who because of this accident of birth has been in church since he was born, I sometimes feel as if I have heard every sermon topic at least a dozen times. I’ve listened to all types of preachers, heard every style imaginable. Some have been inspiring, others not so much. Some have insulted my intelligence with moronic formulations and non-sequiturs. Others have sounded like scolds who could hardly stand to look at the horrible sinners before them. Still others gave off the clear impression that they had figured it all out, every anguishing cruelty of life, every cosmic contradiction, every confusing disappointment was simply a matter of too little faith which could be remedied with simplistic sloganeering. 

But the message I heard Sunday was perhaps the best thirty minutes I have spent inside a church in a very long time. What follows is an attempt to explain why nearly three days later it still dominates my thoughts. I doubt very much that I will do the thing justice, but I must make the attempt, if for no other reason than to provide myself with a reasonable record for future reference.

It may seem odd that after such a glowing introduction I should begin with a criticism...but I do have one nit to pick. David began with a request for a show of hands...How many of you have made Resolutions? When he got very few responses, he changed his question to...How many of you have set goals? Then he laughed and made a suggestion that there was little difference between the two. WRONG. In fact, there is a world of difference between a resolution and a goal...goals being things that are quantifiable, while resolutions are nothing more that worthless, airy abstractions. I resolve to lose weight, is a resolution. I intend to lose ten pounds by June 30, is a goal. Goals are actionable and failure to reach them represent a glaring failure of discipline. Resolutions are wishes, and nobody cares! But, enough of quibbling. 

David then proceeded to a verse of Scripture from Matthew where Jesus prefaces a remark about the future with the throwaway line...At the renewal of all things. He then went to great length to explain the import of the idea that Jesus intends to ultimately make all things new and what that concept actually means for us in the here and now. The first part of this making things new business is the redemptive power of Christ to transform the human heart, the evidence for which is all around us in the personal testimony of millions. If we accept this power as true, it gives us every reason to live a life full of hope rather than despair and gloom. Here’s where his words got very personal for me. When he points out how we have every reason for optimism over despair, and hope over gloom, he is essentially calling into question my default point of view about life. I must here confess to being a natural cynic. I have spent a lot of time throughout my life assuming the worst out of most people, especially people who hold great power or wealth. My reasoning is based on the quantitatively sound principle that no one has ever gone broke undervaluing the corruption and duplicity of the human heart. But as practical as this clear-eyed view of human beings might be, it is a terrible way to...live. To buttress his point, he put a quote up on the screen by someone named Eugene Patterson, a man who he often quotes, and after Sunday...someone I have determined to get to know...

It is far easier to languish in despair than to live in hope. For when we live in despair we don’t have to do anything or risk anything. We can live lazily and shiftlessly with an untarnished reputation for practicality. It is fashionable to espouse the latest cynicism. If we live in hope, we go against the stream. All acts of hope expose themselves to ridicule because they seem impractical, failing to conform to visible reality...Hope commits us to actions that connect us with God’s promises.”

I could have gone all year without hearing this. This Patterson guy was essentially talking to me, calling me out.

Then, as he always seems to do, David boiled the truth of the matter down to an illustration that I could grasp. After asking the rhetorical question, When you read the news today, do you find reasons for gloom?...to which this packed house of wealthy Presbyterians merely nodded. (It occurred to me that if I had been in a Pentecostal church, this hanging curveball would have been greeted with shouts and hand clapping...in a black church, the crowd would have wailed, Lawd, YES!!! In unison.) He then continued by pointing out that embracing hope did not mean becoming pollyanish simpletons and ignoring the messes of the world. But, it did mean not being overcome by the mess. He put it this way:

I have found in my life that gloom and discouragement grow all by themselves just like weeds in my lawn. I don’t have to do a thing to make weeds grow. They just do it all on their own. But, Ive been told that if you really want to get rid of weeds in your yard, you shouldn’t waste all your energy on the weeds. Rather, you should concentrate on growing the large yard full of green grass. When you do so, eventually the healthy green grass will overwhelm the weeds to the point where you hardly notice them anymore. In other words...don’t live in the weeds, don’t live in despair and gloom, rather cultivate hope.

He began to wrap up with the observation that a good indicator of whether or not your life is guided by hope rather than despair is how you would answer this question...What are you excited about? It’s a hopeful question since it suggests the expectation of something wonderful in the future. I have asked myself this question for the past couple of days and have decided to do a better job of pursuing the answers.

David then closed with a discussion of how to fight the inevitable post Christmas letdown by quoting a poem from a black pastor from the 1960’s who I had never heard of, Howard Thurmond...paying especially close attention to the very last line...

When the song of the angels is stilled

When the star in the sky is gone

When the kings and princes are home

When the shepherds are back with their flocks...

The work of Christmas begins

To find the lost

To heal the broken

To feed the hungry

To release the prisoner

To rebuild the nations

To bring peace to the nations

To make music in our hearts

Reading back over this, I see what a woeful job I’ve done of recreating the power of the moment. David did it so much better. I can only hope that the truth of the moment remains and that maybe, just maybe, someone reading this might be encouraged to try to cultivate a little more hope in 2019.