The Battle of Bull Run -- 150 years later

As some of you might be aware this year marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War ("War of Northern Aggression" for my Southern friends). Today -- July 21st -- is the 150th anniversary of the first major land battle of the Civil War, the First Battle of Bull Run (or First Manassas is you're a Confederate). Since I live in Washington, DC and I am a huge Civil War-buff I would be extremely remiss if I did not at least make short note of it. Like most wars, people believed that the Civil War would end extremely quickly. The two armies would meet, one would prevail, and that would be that. (A high school history explained the early war strategies like this: North - invade Virginia, capture Richmond, hold a show trial for Davis and his cohorts, and then hang'em all. South - invade Maryland, capture Washington, hold a show trial for Lincoln, and then hang'em all.)

First Bull Run was a chaotic, amateurish affair fought by two armies that were untrained and unprepared for war. Meanwhile, civilians from Washington (including Senators and Congressmen) rode out to picnic and watch the grand victory of the Union over the Confederacy. The Union commander -- Irving McDowell -- actually had a good battle plan and almost beat the Confederates under Pierre Gustav Toutant Beauregard. However, the timely arrival of Confederate reinforcements (sent by train, a first in war!) turned the tide and lead to an ignominious rout of the Union forces. Union soldiers fled the battlefield, swamping the pleasure watchers, and ran nearly back to Washington. Confederate forces, exhausted and disorganized from the battle, did not follow the routed Union forces. It goes without saying that this was not how Lincoln wanted the war to begin. Causalities from the battle were light in comparison to what came later -- the North lost approximately 2,900 men (460 killed, 1,100 wounded, 1,300 captured or missing) and the South lost about 2,000 men (387 killed, 1,600 wounded). Compare that with the Battle of Antietem in September 1862 when almost 3,600 men were killed alone.

Beside being the first major land battle of the war, Bull Run is notable for several reasons. First, it (and the subsequent Battle of Shiloh in April 1862) shattered forever the belief that the would be over quickly and cheaply. Second, it revealed severe deficiencies in both armies. Lincoln dismissed McDowell and replaced him with George B. McClellan, a general who had already won a string of minor victories in Western Virginia. McClellan replaced incompetent commanders, reorganized the forces, and trained them. Ultimately McClellan failed on the battlefield, but his tenure as commander left the Union with an army -- the Army of the Potomac -- which defeated the best the South had.

One of the great things about the sesquicentennial is that several sites are running blogs that follow the war's progress. The New York Times, in particular, is following it on their "Disunion" blog, which so far has had some great posts. I would recommend reading today's, to get a fuller description of Bull Run.

I Have Returned

Like Douglas "America's Most Over-Rated General" MacArthur striding through the surf at Leyte Gulf to triumphantly return to the Philippines, I am back to blogging after a couple of weeks hiatus. For those who rely upon my wit at work to get through the day, my apologies. Otherwise look forward to several posts this week.

Shake Shack: New York Gets it Wrong. Again

I'm not sure why I should be surprised that New York City once again got something wrong. This is after all the city that had one of the largest Loyalist populations in the Revolutionary War (how'd that work out for ya?), gave us the financial crisis of 2008-2009, and more recently Anthony Weiner's, well, weiner (h/t JAG). So it should come as no surprise that Shake Shack is one more manifestation of how wrong New York City can be on issues of importance. Full disclosure before I get into my critique of Shake Shack: First, I love hamburgers, they are possibly the greatest food ever created. Second, I actually really like New York City, well Manhattan at least (too many unwashed Hipsters in the rest of the city).

So with that said, I was understandably excited when I heard that Shake Shack was opening in Washington. I had heard great things from my New York friends, who raved about it constantly. It was supposed to be the best thing at Citi Field (certainly better than the Mets' play). Last night I had a happy hour for a former work colleague at Public Bar and I decided that it being located directly next door, this would be a good opportunity to try it out. I proposed it to two of my room mates, both of whom readily agreed.

Here's my critique about Shake Shack: it's simply not that good. It's mediocre at best. The burger was OK -- the patties were thin (which I like) and seasoned well, but the sauce was nothing special. The milkshake was good, but it cost $5 and was tiny. For a dollar more, I could've had one twice the size from Thomas Sweets in Georgetown (not exactly known for its cheap ice cream). The fries were basically Ore Ida crinkle cut fries, you know the ones that your Mom used to make for you when she and your Dad were going out in the evening and she felt guilty for not cooking a real meal (OK -- maybe it's because you made her feel guilty, or I did at least...). Overall I'd give it a 5 out of 10.

But Shake Shack gets at something deeper. In a nutshell, Shake Shack is what's wrong with New York City. It's a mediocre establishment at best, but because it's from New York and because New Yorkers rave about it, we're all supposed to just accept it as the second coming. OH MY GOD! New York is SO amazing! It's the same attitude that Yankees' fans have: why would the other teams even compete against us? We're champions. We've won 27 World Series! Never mind that the Yankees were an awful team from 1981-1994 (conveniently the rebuilding started when Steinbrenner was banned from baseball). Never mind that they've been up and down since 2000 (Hey remember the greatest choke in SPORTS history in 2004? Oh you don't? I do.). Never mind that in recent years the Yankees are pretty much the only winning NYC team (Disclaimer: I am not bashing the Mets here, I actually like the Mets.).

But it's that New York smugness, that New York arrogance that allows them to get away with raving about a mediocre hamburger place or a mediocre team. Sorry, but not everything from New York is the GREATEST thing in the world. OH MY GOD! I LOVE living in Brooklyn, it's SO edgy! It's SO hip. I just feel like it's SO real. No, it's not. It's filled with a bunch of unwashed hipsters, who are most likely living off of a trust fund. At this point the only people who live in Brooklyn are the hipsters. Those "real" people that they wanted to be near have long since packed up and moved on. They can't afford the rent. But because it's in New York City, it must be the best!

My anger would be far more muted if New York could simply accept that they're a city like most others. Yes it's big, yes it falls into the category of "metropolis," but like any city it has it's good things and bad things. Not everything from New York is the GREATEST. Frankly though I think this is too much to ask. So next time I see a 9-year old boy wearing a "Got Rings?" t-shirt on the T in Boston, I'm going to throw my Shake Shack burger at him. I think he'll get the point then.

LAX v. Crew: A Tale of Two Prep Camps

Over the weekend, 3072 Q Street (also known as Tri Gab) spent Saturday afternoon boating on the Potomac. While we were anchored near the Key Bridge we got to talking about the difference between people who play lacrosse ("Lax") and those who row (Crew). Since all four of us attended either boarding school or private day school, we're uniquely positioned to make broad, sweeping generalizations about thousands of our contemporaries. (NB: None of us played lacrosse or rowed in high school with the exception of one or two seasons of JV lacrosse.) For those who attended private school or grew up in the north-east United States, lacrosse and crew are two of the most quintessential preppy sports. On the surface a non-biased observer would assume that the people who play the two sports are very similar. But, in fact, you would be wrong. The differences are subtle, but important. (This post addresses males who play the two sports, females are a different breed completely.)

Lacrosse: Your average LAX player is likely from an upper middle class family. His parents are probably professionals of some sort: lawyers, doctors, stockbrokers, etc. They're not rich in the strict sense of the word, but rather comfortable. They likely live in a leafy, traditional suburb such as Wellesley, MA, Darien, CT, or Maryland. An author on Slate once summed it up like this: "Lacrosse players hail from the privileged, largely white pockets of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. They unite and form tribes in Eastern prep schools, where they can be spotted driving SUVs with "LAX" stickers affixed to the rear windows. Many grow addicted to dipping Skoal and wearing soiled white caps with college logos on them. They gain entry into top colleges by virtue of their skills with the stick. They graduate, start careers in New York, marry trophy wives, and put lacrosse sticks in their kids' cribs." Lax players have a smugness that is aggressive and loud; it's in your face constantly. Think two guys in pinnies (well really, if you play lax when aren't you wearing a pinny?), wearing backwards dirty white college caps screaming "LAX, BRO" at the top of their lungs. It doesn't matter what sport you play, but it will never compare to lax. You simply don't get it, because you've never played lax. Lax, bro, is the ULTIMATE sport.

(Disclosure: I have several close friends from high school who played varsity lacrosse and my apologies to them. However, my school was not exactly a lax powerhouse. Our unbeaten record my junior year was shattered by a memorable game with Charlestown High, who ended up sending 3 of my classmates to the hospital. If you're confused about Charlestown, MA, watch The Town. No way for a small, liberal Boston day school to compete with that sort of aggression.)

Crew: In contrast to the LAX player, your typical rower is distinctly upper class. They hail from rich families (see the Winklevoss twins, Marc Zuckerberg's nemesis), who live in rich towns (i.e. Greenwich, CT). Their parents are at the top of whatever profession they belong to, most likely finance or business of some sort. Rowers start very early -- if you're not rowing freshmen year of high school, then you're not serious about the sport. Oh you say, you didn't have crew in high school and you want to start in college? Well I suppose, but frankly we're not sure you understand the difficulty of this sport or the discipline needed to compete. When a rower isn't in his rowing outfit, then he's likely well dressed which stands in marked contrast to the lax player who is always dressed to play a pick up game. Like lax players, rowers have a smugness about their sport, but it's far more subtle. It's reserved, it isn't the chest thumping triumphalism of lax. It's a more, self-assured belief that rowing sets them apart from the little people. It's an airiness born of significant privilege. Nothing can touch them. Oh you didn't row? Well that's ok, to quote Judge Smails, the world needs ditch diggers too.

Whitey Bulger, Part II

As a quick follow-up to my post yesterday on Whitey Bulger and the Bulger brothers more generally. The Boston Globe has an excellent editorial on what the arrest means to the larger city. If you're from Boston, I'd urge you to read it in full. The Globe urges Boston to move past the old racial and ethnic divisions, which they argue were plainly exposed by Whitey Bulger. This quote sums it up nicely:

Too many Bostonians of that era believed that their futures would never expand beyond the dimensions of their neighborhoods, that every block was a stake worth fighting for. A need to take care of one's own, and never to forget where you came from, became articles of faith in some neighborhoods. Politicians lived off them. And they were manipulated by Bulger and others, such as mob boss Gennaro Angiulo, to exploit the very people they were pretending to protect from rival gangs and outsiders.

The Globe closes with the following lines: "Hopefully, White Bulger will die in prison, far from a Boston that looks and feels nothing like the one he held hostage for so many decades. That will be Bulger's greatest punishment, and Boston's sweetest revenge."

Let's hope so.

Whitey Bulger, Boston, and the Irish

The FBI announced last night that after a sixteen year manhunt, they had finally captured notorious Boston mob boss, James "Whitey" Bulger. Bulger, who turned out to be an FBI informant, fled the city in 1995 prior to being indicted on Federal racketeering charges. Part of the irony of Bulger is while he ended up becoming the leader of Irish mob in Boston, his younger brother, William ("Billy"), became President of the Massachusetts State Senate and later of the University of Massachusetts system.

Whitey Bulger is a complex character who helps to expose a side of Boston that few people realize exist -- even many people who have lived in the city or near the city their whole lives are only vaguely aware of it. If people know it exists, it's because of movies such as The Departed or more recently The Town. (For my money though, the best film about crime in Boston is The Friends of Eddie Coyle staring Robert Mitchum.) The city of Boston is a very tribal -- for lack of a better word -- place. The Irish of Southie are different from the Irish of Dorchester or Roxbury. The Brahmins are a tribe unto themselves, nestled in their enclave of Beacon Hill and the Back Bay. The Italians huddle in the North End. Even within these tribes, there are distinctions. Lace curtain Irish are different from shanty Irish. (A favorite joke of mine: What's the difference between lace curtain Irish and shanty Irish? Lace curtain Irish take the dishes out of the sink before they piss in it.) Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. was one of the first to break into the closed world of Brahmin banking and finance in Boston, but he was never accepted by the social elite of Boston.

Boston was a closed society for much of its history controlled by a small Protestant elite. If you weren't part of the club, didn't have the right lineage, or attend the right schools, then tough luck to you. There is a famous piece of doggerel that sums up the elite quite nicely:

"And this is good old Boston,

The home of the bean and the cod,

Where the Lowells talk only to the Cabots,

And the Cabots talk only to God."

This idea died hard in Boston. A close friend's father was hired by a venerable old Boston law firm fresh out of Boston University Law in the 1970s. When he was offered the position, the partner told him that the only reason he had been hired is that the firm needed lawyers. Otherwise he would not have been offered the position, because he hadn't gone to Harvard.

This is the world that the Bulger brothers grew up in and in many ways it explains the choices they made. If you grew up poor and Irish you had four ways out: 1) the priesthood; 2) politics; 3) the police; and 4) crime. Billy obviously chose politics and Whitey, well he chose #4. After the fact, a lot of people went after Billy Bulger, alleging that he knew the whereabouts of his brother or that he helped protect him (he later admitted to receiving a phone call from his brother in 1995). The Bulgers became synonymous with attacking Boston's Irish political elite (Tip O'Neill, Bulger, the Kennedys, etc.) and the supposed corruption that went along with them (Howie Carr wouldn't have a career otherwise). The trouble is people prefer a conspiracy, they don't want to accept the easy answer: that two brothers who grew up poor in Southie, made two different choices in order to escape poverty. Billy Bulger was elected by the people of Southie on his merits, not because of his brother. He represented their interests and helped them. Whitey Bulger was protected, not by his politically powerful brother, but by the FBI.

However, at the end of the day it is the deadly, terrifying side to Bulger that should be focused on: he was wanted for 19 murders and he helped to facilitate the drug trade that tore inner city Boston apart in the 1980s. Many -- including his FBI handler (currently in prison) -- tried to down play Whitey's role in drugs, by saying he only demanded protection money from the drug dealers, he never dealt himself. No matter what the nature of Boston or the area that he grew up in, he broke the law. He deserves to spend the rest of his natural life in prison. He should have been put away a long time ago. This is what people need to focus on, not the choices that Billy Bulger made or what this says about politics in Massachusetts.

*As a general h/t to my home city, I would recommend that if you're interested in learning more about Whitey Bulger and his case, the Boston Globe published an excellent 5-part series in 1998. They have generously put it back up. You will learn about Whitey, Southie, and the FBI. But, perhaps most importantly, you'll discover that the Globe used to be a terrific newspaper. Trust me it's why the New York Times bought it for $1 billion in 1990.

Baby Fashion

The Wall Street Journal published an interesting piece over the weekend that discusses the trend of expensive fashion houses creating lines especially for babies and children. This includes such famous brands as Gucci, Fendi, and Versace to name a few. Predictably, the price tag matches their famous names.

Now before I get into my criticism, I will attach a very large caveat. As most people who know me know, I am something of a clothes horse and certainly not one who enjoys buying their clothes at Target or Walmart. I have a large collection of Brooks Brothers and JPress dress shirts, ties, sweaters, suits, etc. And this is not something that happened in my twenties -- this is something that I've cultivated over many years. Just ask my mother; there are many, many Easter photos of me and my brother (I know! Shocking!) dressed in neat, navy blue blazers, conservative ties, and grey trousers, running around looking for Easter eggs. My pre-school graduation photo is of me and my father dressed nearly identically: grey pants, red suspenders, blue dress shirt, and a paisley tie (it was 1986). It's cute; trust me. If I ever have children, then they'll likely be dressed as small preppies. It's inevitable.

Anyway with that said, here's my criticism. The truth is this is materialism run rampant. This is for parents who apparently feel that nothing is too good for little Madison or Tucker, so let's indulge them with pricey jeans at age 5 or a designer handbag at 3. It creates unrealistic expectations for these children, not to mention a raging sense of entitlement (as though that was not already being developed). If you're already wearing Gucci at the age of 3, then why not a Birkin bag at 14? Or 12? The author of the article seems to think that this is all good clean fun. I fail to see that. It strikes me more as a sad indictment on the rank materialism that has consumed America's upper class. Washington Post columnist, E.J. Dionne, recently wrote an op-ed that argued that former Rep. Anthony Weiner's scandal was part of the growing decadence of the American political class. Well, frankly, baby designer fashion is part of the growing decadence of broader American society.

Baby fashion is clearly only a very, very small piece of broader societal issues, but it does help illustrate it. Since 1970 the top 10% of wage earners in this country have seen real wage growth -- the majority of this concentrated at the very top (the top 0.1% saw their wages increase 385%). However, the bottom 90% have seen a slight decrease (1%). The United States is now more of an unequal society than either the UK or France -- both of which have traditional aristocracies or in the case of the UK, a hereditary monarchy. This is not a good thing. When that happens, you end up with high-end baby fashion. Enjoy the ride!

WASP Rot

For those of you who grew up in New England, this is an interesting op-ed comparing America's decline to the decline of the old WASP aristocracy. Henry Allen does a great job of comparing the United States' inability to come to grips with debt, wars, and deficits to that of a declining WASP family that feels the need to continue to keep up appearances. The best part is when he creates a fictional dialogue between a WASP couple; it's worth quoting at length:

Imagine a cocktail hour.

“I hate living like this,” says a wife — we’ll call her Martha. She rattles the ice in her glass.

“Do we have any choice?” asks her husband — we’ll call him George. “Do you really want to pull Ted out of Dartmouth? Do you want to move into an apartment?”

“I could get a job,” Martha says. “I could manage a bookstore, like when you met me. It’s odd — we were poorer then, but we seemed so much richer.”

“We didn’t have money, but we did have a future,” says George. “Freshen up that drink for you?”

The conversation usually goes this way: proposals for impossible cuts in spending are met by equally impossible refusals to make them. Slash Medicare? Stop saving oppressed foreigners from tyranny? Raise taxes? The rock and the hard place. It’s a question of standards.

“We have to face the facts,” says Martha.

“I’m so goddam sick of the facts,” says George.

“If your brother would come to his senses, we could sell Seely’s Cove,” Martha says, referring to a summer house with porches and a mossy roof and photo albums from the days when men wore neckties as they sailed.

“We have to sell it or put a new roof on it, but Buell is happy just to let it molder,” George says. “He says keeping it in the family is a matter of principle.”

“You could call Tom about getting another loan from the bank. “

“We’re at the point where we’re just using loans to pay off other loans.”

For me this is about right, but it also reminds me of Britain's decline in the post-World War II world. Britain clung to the last vestiges of Empire -- Malaya, Hong Kong, the African colonies -- because it gave it purposes. At the same time it moved ever closer to the United States, because it found further purpose in playing the junior partner to the U.S. This worked well for Britain for most of the Cold War. But inevitably it found that it had to trim defense spending, reduce the size of its armed forces, and slowly give up its colonies.

I am not suggesting that the United States will see the same end as the British Empire -- this country still has a stronger economy, stronger trade, and a larger population than the UK. But as Allen points out, we are facing decline and decay. And just as the old New England WASP families and Britain tried to postpone the inevitable by taking loans to pay loans, using those connections cultivated because of the right schools and clubs. Allen is correct, this is the United States. The sooner we recognize this fact, the better off we'll be. However, until then, we are simply sitting in a run-down living room with moldy oriental carpets, drinking scotch. As he says, shall I freshen your drink?

On Unemployment

Well I've reached that stage in unemployment (seven weeks or so), where I think it's a good idea to create my own blog. I've always resisted the idea of blogging, because it struck me as the ultimate in narcissism -- especially amongst people of my generation. However, upon reflection I feel like it could actually serve as a useful outlet for my energy as I continue my job search. At present my day consists of bothering people via Gchat, badgering employed friends to have lunch with me, reading various newspapers online, reading the occasional book, and a healthy regimen of Law & Order episodes. So with that said, I'll be posting fairly regularly over the next several weeks.