Black Face

February 12, 2019

During the mid 1970’s, my wife and I both attended the University of Virginia. I attended the Darden School of Business, and she is a double ‘hoo, being both an undergraduate and graduate of the Education School. It was a decade before the Governor and and Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia went black face. I am not a Virginian, I cannot speak for Virginia, and I am not an apologist for Virginia’s history, but that is not the Virginia we experienced.

Being married and transplanted Yankees, we were removed from any student hijinks that may or may not have been occurring on frat row. I know there were stories about excessive drinking and partying, but that was all I was aware of. It sounded pretty normal. We interacted with professors, students, landlords, fellow workers, and neighbors, and never saw any overt signs of discrimination or inappropriate behavior. Charlottesville was more socially-stratified than what we were familiar with, coming from a solid, middle class community in the northeast. There was a clear divide between rich, poor, and students, but this seemed to be a legacy issue that needed to be remedied with progressive economic policies. Jefferson’s University was dealing with affirmative action issues as was almost every school in the country. I was at Harvard in the late Sixties when black enrollment increased dramatically from 3% to approximately 9%. UVA had its own issues.

My only exposure to the old South was through Beau, a fellow waiter at the restaurant we worked in to make ends meet. Beau was old enough to have lived through a time when the public schools in Charlottesville were segregated. This was an eye opener because segregation was an historic artifact we studied and not personally experienced. I do remember Boston’s attempts to integrate its public schools, Louise Day Hicks, and all of the hate and racial animosity that was generated. For a Northerner, de facto segregation was easier to deal with and overlook than real segregation.

I realize our experience was not the experiences that many African-Americans have experienced in Virginia and other places, but I am not qualified to speak to their life experiences. I can only try to describe what we saw and experienced. Clearly, there was unseemly behavior going on, but, from our vantage point, it was not apparent. I am not going to render an opinion on what Ralph Northam should do. All I am saying is that was not the Virginia we knew a decade earlier.

Spinning Studios

February 11, 2019

Spinning Studios

I recently had the opportunity to take a spinning class in NYC at Cyc Fitness, which is one of the many spinning boutique chains that have popped up over the last few years. SoulCycle and Flywheel are probably better known. I am struck by how much they cost, $25-35 per 45 minute session, and by how little you get. They do offer complimentary clip-in shoes, but I have a “bowling alley” phobia with wearing someone else’s shoes. You do get a towel.

The doors opened only five minutes before class started. If it was your first time or you needed any help getting your bike adjusted, you were out of luck. I tried to get in early, and was almost arrested. If you needed a good five to ten minute warm up, which is recommended, you were once again out of luck. We were jumping and climbing as soon as we started. The average age of the spinners was about 25 so it probably was not an issue, but it was jarring on this older and reasonably well-conditioned heart. As it turned out, I had the only aging heart in the class. Fortunately, I have my CPR certification, which I cannot knowingly say about my instructor.

The lights are not just turned down, they are turned off. If you are trying to monitor your heart rate or just want to know what time it is, bring a flashlight. Speaking of heart rate, it is hard to distinguish between your heart beat and the beat of the throbbing music crashing against your rib cage.

My biggest complaint is the their desire to do weight training on the bike. I know we are all busy and adept at multi-tasking, but I was taught that weight training should be done in the weight room. It actually provides very little weight training, could be dangerous, and interrupts a perfectly good workout. SoulCycle is well known for its little dumbbells.

One nice thing is that you don’t have to worry about being called out by name. There is no attempt or apparent desire to know anyone’s name.

The reality is that some of these studios, not all, are geared more to entertainment than instruction. The workouts are cleverly coordinated with the light show. The instructors are appropriately enthusiastic, but you receive very little instruction or information. If you want to know what the class’s objectives are, how to judge your heart rate, or monitor your perceived exertion, you would be better doing your own research on the internet before arrival. When it comes time to stretch, stretch fast. Right on cue, the music stops, the lights come on, and the cleaning crew comes in. Don’t linger too long. You may wind up in the trash. Clean up facilities are minimal because space is expensive. It is not a problem unless you sweat.

I am heading back to NYC this weekend, and have signed up for my first Flywheel class. The first one is free. I will be on the torque board. I look at it as part of my education as a Certified Spinning Instructor. Pray for me.

My Cypress Point Story

February 9, 2019

As I sit here in the depths of a New England winter, dreaming about the upcoming golf season, and watching the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on television, I am inspired to put into writing a story I have told a thousand times before. This is the remarkable story of how I got to play Cypress Point.

In the year 2000, for my fiftieth birthday, I decided to treat myself, my wife, and daughter to a bucket list trip to Pebble Beach. Pebble Beach is a perennial Golf Digest top ten golf course. In the spirit of full disclosure, I am currently a Golf Digest panelist. It is the Holy Grail for almost every serious golfer. The big decision is always what other courses will you play while you are visiting Mecca. In addition to Pebble, I had decided on Poppy Hills, Spyglass, and the Links at Spanish Bay, not a bad rotation. Spyglass is in Golf Digest’s top 50.

Before heading out, I did what every self-respecting golfer would do. I tried to exert what little influence I had to see if I could get us on Cypress Point (#3.) I contacted colleagues on the west coast. I brow beat my club professional, but all to no avail. Nobody gets on Cypress Point, no way, no how. There are very few members scattered all over the country, and they like it like that. Who could blame them? Cypress Point would have to wait for another day.

After checking into the Inn at Spanish Bay with a room overlooking the bagpiper, our first round was at Poppy Hills. I would like to say that I have vivid memories of Poppy Hills because I don’t, but I do remember it was not hateful.

Next up was Pebble Beach. I was really nervous that the course would not meet my expectations. The last time I had that feeling was my visit to the Grand Canyon. Needless to say, I was blown away by both experiences. It is hard to describe the beauty of the golf course juxtaposed to the Pacific Ocean. It is one of the few times when you would not be upset to take six hours to play a round of golf, and pay an obscene amount of money for the privilege.

The three of us were paired with the Travel Editor from Senior Golf magazine. Who knew there was such a thing! We had a delightful round until it came time to play our third shots into the iconic, par 5, 18th hole. As we were preparing to hit, a very large group of Japanese tourists decided to walk from the lodge to the beach, and in front of the 18th green. Three of them actually lingered on the green. Two of them reclined and posed on the green while the third took photos. You can’t make this stuff up. Visitors were howling with laughter from the porch of the Pebble Beach Lodge. We made a group decision, said what the heck, and hit anyway. In my case, the odds of hitting the green were slim to none anyway. No one got hurt, and we all had a good story to tell. As an aside, several months later, I spotted a copy of Senior Golf magazine at a newsstand, and, sure enough, our experience was immortalized.

On day three, we were scheduled to play Spyglass. Despite the overcast skies and threatening rain, we got to the range early to warm up. I was striping the ball pretty good for me, but my daughter was killing it. She had qualified for the 1999 US Girls Junior. She was on a state championship team in Florida, and would go on to Captain the Harvard Women’s golf team, win numerous club championships, and qualify for five US Women’s Mid-Am Championships. The reason I point this out, in addition to being a proud parent, is that I was well aware this was not about me.

Anyway, as I was grinding away, two elderly gentlemen came along, and one started hitting balls next to me. The one not hitting starts asking me questions. “Who holds the PGA Tour 72 hole scoring record,” he asks. I thought about, but I really did not have a good guess. “Well,” he said, “it’s Mike Souchak, and that is him hitting balls next to you.” For the record, in his first win at the 1955 Texas Open, Mike Souchak shot a 257, a record that stood until 2001. I was certainly old enough to know who Mike Souchak was, probably having seen him on Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf. My wife and daughter had no idea who he was. After the introductions and my effusiveness, the first gentleman asked me where we were playing the next day, and I said the Links at Spanish Bay. He responded with “Why?” He and Mike agreed they did not like the course. Then he asked, and I kid you not, “Have you ever heard of Cypress Point?” Thinking quickly, I stammered “Yes.” “How would you like to be my guests at Cypress Point tomorrow?” “I will leave a message at your hotel room regarding all the details.” We played our round at Spyglass, a magnificent golf course, with visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads. What just happened? Did it happen? We got back to our room at Spanish Bay, and, sure enough, there was a message regarding starting time, caddies, dress code, etc. Wow!

We got to Cypress Point nice and early, but he was already there practicing his putting with two caddies milling around. As it turned out, both caddies were accomplished amateur golfers, maybe not on the order of Ken Venturi and Harvey Ward, but plenty good enough for us. All of a sudden, we are on the first hole getting ready to tee off. The morning fog had not quite burned off so the effect was stunning. There is a small hedge just off the first tee that looks like the Green Monster in Fenway Park as you get ready for your first swing of the day.

Our host was a gentleman by the name of Gary Laughlin. He came from the Texas oil-drilling business. He was a former Navy pilot. Because there were so few members in the local area to play with, he was happy to have us as our guests. David Feherty described him as “a gnarly Hogan crony and longtime Cypress member.”

After a few shots, the caddies had our games sized up pretty well, and realized that there was one player in the group. As a result, I never saw my caddie again as the two caddies and my daughter would triangulate over every shot. The only help I got from my caddie was “hit this.” As we moved along, the anticipation was building the closer we got to sixteen, the famous par three over the Pacific. What nobody told me and I should have known was how beautiful the par three fifteenth was. Regardless, I washed my ball in the Pacific on sixteen. “Is anyone here a marine biologist?

We finished, and it was time to go, or so I thought. “Why don’t you come to my house for lunch,” Gary asked. “Follow me.” So we followed him around 17 Mile Drive until a set of wrought iron gates opened magically to our left. We went in, and were immediately greeted by his housekeeper, who brought us out a wonderful plate of good stuff to eat. In the mean time, I was looking at some of the framed letters he had on the wall addressed to his wife, Sandy. One said something like “Congratulations on winning the Club Championship again, Jack.” Another letter with a similar message was signed “George.” That was Jack Nicklaus and George Bush respectively. Eventually, his wife joined us. She was former tennis player from Rollins College in Winter Park, FL where we were coincidentally living at the time. It was all just too perfect. When we got home, as a thank you, we sent them a framed picture of the Rollins College chapel.

So now you have read my Cypress Point story. It is no longer on my bucket list, having been replaced by Pine Valley. My daughter had an opportunity to revisit the course with her college golf team, and Gary came out to watch. I still have his e-mail address, and occasionally send him a brief message. I believe he is about 94 years of age, almost the exact same age as my mother, who recently passed away. My latest message to him has not received a reply.

And happy birthday to my wife, who buried her tee shot into the hedge on the first hole, but never complained as usual.

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/the-incredibly-unlikely-story-of-how-one-golfer-got-onto-ultra-private-cypress-point

Capitalism vs. Socialism

February 8, 2019

I get a little frustrated with the President’s and his fellow supporters’ efforts to portray any remedies to income inequality as socialism. It is disingenuous, and plays on our general ignorance as to what socialism actually is. I think many people hear socialism, and think communism. Here is the dictionary definition. “Socialism is a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.” This is not what anyone is talking about. The gist of the “socialist” argument is that capitalism every once in a while needs a referee to get it right. Is social security socialism? It provides a social good, but at one time it was considered socialism. The same can be said for Medicare and Medicaid. The entire social safety net could be considered socialism, but is this a bad thing?

The real argument should not be over socialism versus communism versus capitalism, or any other “-ism.” What we should be discussing is what is best for the country and the economy. Are higher taxes on the wealthy socialism or just good public policy? Is free college tuition a takeover over the education system, or a good investment in the future? Is the Green New Deal government overreach, or a badly needed public/private partnership to combat global warming and climate change? Let’s have reasonable and fact-based discussions without demagoguery and name-calling.

The KonMari Method

February 5, 2019

     As a fellow anal compulsive, I have been fascinated by all of the attention being given to Marie Kondo and her systems for organizing one’s life called the KonMari Method.  It consists of gathering together all of one’s belongings, one category at a time, and then keeping only those things that “spark joy.”  Kondo says that her method is partly inspired by the Shinto religion.  Cleaning and organizing things properly can be a spiritual practice in Shintoism, which is concerned with the energy or divine spirit of things, and the right way to live.  “Treasuring what you have; treating the objects you own as not disposable, but valuable, no matter their actual monetary worth; and creating displays so you can value each individual object are all essentially Shinto ways of living.” 

    I think the voters should take the same approach to today’s politicians.  We need to ask ourselves which politicians “spark joy” in our lives?  Which politicians do we treasure as a national asset?  Which politicians set an example of the “right way to live?”  Based on the KonMari Method, Donald Trump has to go.  We have to clean him out of our “house” so we can spend more time with the people we consider more valuable.  Nancy Pelosi is doing what she can to clean him out of her House.  Donald Trump casts a pall over everything.  Maybe things will not be so bad once you get him out of the way.  Unfortunately, once he is gone, there will be a lot more clean up that we will all have to do.  

Golf in the Kingdom (with apologies to Michael Murphy)

February 2, 2019

Now I am really mad. Just when I thought it could not get any worse, Trump has figured a way to invade one of my last places of peace and sanity, the golf course. Is nothing sacred? Apparently not.

First, we have the ongoing scandal of Trump and the Trump sons being outed for hiring undocumented workers at their golf courses. Trump managers have been looking the other way for years when it came to vetting employees. Even worse, they have aided and abetted them in getting phony social security cards, green cards, and other forms of documentation. These people washed his clothes and cleaned his golden toilets. This was done in full view of the Trump family. When they were busted (the Trump’s that is and not the employees,) they did what they are good at. They feigned total ignorance of what their managers were doing, and then fired the minimum wage/ no benefits workers, who made running their golf clubs viable and profitable. “We are shocked, shocked that this has been going on,” they said. Now they are going to use E-Verify to do background checks on potential employees. There was a time when this sort of behavior was a disqualifier for public office. Remember Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood? Bill Clinton had to withdraw their nominations for Attorney General and Federal Judge respectively because they employed undocumented workers. Now we have a president who runs a major part of his company on undocumented workers. It looks like we have come a long way in tolerating these sorts of abuses? Maybe it is a sign of progress?

Now, if that is not bad enough, the European Tour has created a tempest in a genie’s bottle by conducting a tour event in Saudi Arabia. I guess the tour, like Donald Trump, did a quick financial calculation on the back of a scorecard, and decided the money was too good to pass up. As one golf writer says, “Golf is often on the wrong side of history, and many of the world’s best players patronizing the first ever event in Saudi Arabia this week is the latest blunder.” Who cares about Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post journalist, who was blatantly murdered by Mohammed Bin Sulman’s henchmen? Apparently, the only people who do not believe the US intelligence community’s assessments on the matter are Donald Trump, the sponsors of the tournament, and the tour players who have decided to participate. Their rationale is that they are spreading the game while Saudi Arabia spreads terror and repression.

Brandel Chamblee of The Golf Channel lambasted the tour, and immediately got blow back from golfers and some members of the golf media, who would rather play a round with the Teflon Don than stand for something. Where is the Tommy Smith, John Carlos, Colin Kaepernick, or Muhammad Ali of the PGA Tour? I hate to say it, but the PGA Tour is a traveling troupe of privileged white men (Tiger did sit this one out without saying a word,) who have a sense of entitlement and no sense of responsibility to the world at large. They do a great job raising money for charity, but I am certain their charities would be okay with not accepting blood money.

I will keep playing golf because I love the game, but I will not watch anything from Saudi Arabia. Unlike the PGA Tour, I will never step foot on a Trump golf course. Fortunately, I got to play Turnberry before it became Trumpberry. One of Trump’s courses, Trump International, is visible from a local prison. How appropriate?

Infrastructure II

January 30, 2019

I was heartened last night by Eric Lesser’s presentation and Q&A to the World Affairs Council of Western Massachusetts. To briefly summarize his thoughts, it is all about jobs, jobs, jobs. I would characterize him as a practical Progressive. Western Massachusetts is not Boston so we need to build better mousetraps to attract jobs, workers, and young people to the area. We need to lead with our strengths. The focal point of his efforts is East-West high speed train service to Boston.

The Pioneer Valley, like most of the United States, lags most of the developed world in fast and reliable train service. He cited data from China and its national railroad initiative that stunned the group. Many of the knowledge workers who live in the Boston area do not need to be there to do their jobs effectively, yet they fight horrendous traffic every day for the privilege of living in one of the most expensive areas in the country. Eric wants to bring them here where it is less expensive to live, and the quality of life is better with targeted incentives. When they need to go to Boston, they could hop on the high speed train in our new Union Station, get some work done, and find themselves in South Station quickly and easily.

10% of all housing in western Massachusetts is vacant. Four out of the five poorest counties in Massachusetts are in western Massachusetts. We are not Boston. We are Michigan. This is not a pet project. It is a project that will benefit all of Massachusetts by creating 10,000 jobs initially, and generating many more thousands of jobs over the long run. Eric Lesser is slowly eliminating all of the institutional impediments to getting this started. We need to start this infrastructure project now so that when the Federal government is ready with its national infrastructure program, we are shovel ready.

Lack of Intelligence

January 29, 2019

The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence called the leaders of intelligence community to testify today. The heads of ODNI, FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, and NGA were all there. What the they testified to should concern all Americans.

They once again affirmed that the Russians meddled in the 2016 presidential election. More about this will certainly come out in the Mueller report. The Commander in Chief has been adamant in denying Russian interference, and has not done anything to prevent more interference in the future.

They once again affirmed that Mohammad Bin Salman ordered the execution of Washington Post report Jamal Khashoggi. The official government response has been to cast doubt on the investigation and/or to blame lower level operatives.

They affirmed that, despite the claims of Donald Trump, ISIS has not been defeated, and that there are thousands of fighters just waiting for an opportunity. Trump wants to pull all troops out of Syria, which led to the resignation of Secretary of Defense, James Mattis. This was the first time in history that a Defense Secretary resigned in protest.

The intelligence community recommended that Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, not receive a security clearance because of his lack of candor when it came to disclosing his meetings with Russians, and his attempts to open secretive back channels to the Kremlin. The White House and Donald Trump granted security clearance anyway.

The President proudly proclaimed after his first summit meeting with Kim Jong-un that the nuclear threat from North Korea had been eliminated. The experts testified that, not only had it not been eliminated, but that it may well have increased. They said that North Korea has no intention of eliminating its nuclear weapons. Even with that, Donald Trump is willing to have a second summit meeting with the North Korean leader.

The President of the United States has an incredible array of professional assets at his disposal, but he demonstrates time and time again that he acts with an incredible lack of intelligence.