What to Do?

Another Difficult Conversation 

After the Memorial Day barbecue, the conversation got around to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There were eight of us in the conversation, two Jews and six Catholics – all non-religious, and all independent thinkers.

Not surprisingly, the range of opinions on the current conflict was wide. But the strongest supporters of Israel’s response to the Hamas attack came from two of the ex-Catholics.

The Jewish interlocutors were supportive of Israel’s right to exist, but critical of Netanyahu’s policies, and in particular of the encroachment of Israeli compounds in the West Bank.

One told an interesting story of a conversation she had with a small group of Jewish and Muslim women about this conflict. She said that when she articulated her views, the Muslim women were stunned. They said they had never encountered a Jewish person speaking critically of Israel.

Of my Jewish-American friends and colleagues, I can think of only one that supports Israel unequivocally. The rest have more complicated views.

Later that night, I came across this piece in Taki’s Magazine that gave some added detail and dimension to the conundrum of What to Do.

“The World Has Gone Bonkers!”

I was in Albany recently for a family wedding.

I’d never been to Albany before. It is a small city with a population of about 100,000. The city center is comprised mostly of stately 19th century buildings, a sprinkling of interesting mid-20th century buildings, and a handful of ugly edifices built in the 1970s and 1980s.

Judging strictly by its architecture, Albany is a charming, city – on par with Baltimore or Philadelphia. It’s more important than Baltimore or Philadelphia, though, since it’s the capital of New York, the second-largest state in the country.

Albany also has been one of the five most-locked-down states since the outbreak of the Coronavirus Hysteria.

Strolling through the center of the city, you can’t help but notice that the place is basically vacant. It has the ambiance of a post-Apocalyptic ghost town.

The Capitol Building, a magnificent structure of various architectural styles, is closed to the public. Wire fencing prohibits you from even getting near it. You wonder why, since there have been no attacks on this building. In fact, the closest thing to political action I saw while there was a man in a uniform standing in front of the fencing, surrounded by American flags, talking quietly about his service in Iraq to what looked to be a homeless person.

The streets are empty. Almost every office building is closed and shuttered. The two coffee shops within walking distance of our hotel are each staffed by a single person, serving only take-out. You can buy a toasted bagel and a coffee, but you can’t use their bathrooms. (“We regret that, due to the pandemic, our bathrooms are not available to our customers.”)

At least 90% of the local shops and stores are also closed, because their business has disappeared. Their business is gone because the Albany legislature is not in session. Legislators aren’t in their offices. Neither are the legions of lawyers and lobbyists and assistants that support them.

I was talking to my brother-in-law as we walked from our hotel to meet the rest of the family a few blocks away.

“This is weird.” he said.

I agreed. “It’s a city where most people are employed but few are working,” I said.

“And the rest are unemployed but receiving government support,” he said, laughing.

“It’s like the city is on an extended federally funded holiday,” I said. “And nobody is complaining, because the checks are coming in.”

We talked about other craziness going on:

* All across America, small businesses are having trouble finding employees. Yet unemployment is up. (The US currently has 7.4 million job openings and 9.8 million unemployed. The most obvious explanation: the multitrillion-dollar “COVID” bailout started by Trump and tripled by Biden.)

* Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency produced as a joke, became worth billions when Elon Musk recommended it. Then it plunged nearly 30% after Musk called it a “hustle” during his guest appearance on Saturday Night Live.

* Meanwhile, the AMA announced that they are eschewing their longstanding position of individual achievement and meritocracy in favor of a new mission that is based on critical race theory.

The wedding took place in a vineyard about 20 minutes out of town. It was generally wonderful, despite a few disturbing conversations.

One young woman told me she wants to empower women by encouraging them to start making money, like she did. And how did she make her money? She made some by working for a high-tech development business, but most by investing in cryptocurrencies. So what, exactly, is she going to be encouraging them to do?

Another guest told me that the business he’s been running at a total loss of $3 million over the last seven years has a marketable value of “at least $140 million.” I wondered how he came to that conclusion. “It’s not the business,” he explained. “It’s the brand.”

When I relayed these conversations to my brother-in-law, he shrugged. “The world has gone bonkers,” he said. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

Corporate Labels

Remember the map of “The Biggest Government Employers in Each State” that I reproduced here on the blog a few weeks ago?

After looking at it, CF wrote in with some thought-provoking observations…

Very interesting to see Walmart as such a prominent employer in the country, a company much maligned and labeled as a perfect example of Greedy Corporate Capitalism.

I don’t have a precise definition of what an accusation like that means, but one of the things a company does that is noble, if just a result of the mechanisms of Capitalism, is they hire people.

We can see from this map that Walmart hires a lot of PEOPLE.

Although by contrast to the bad rep Walmart gets, Apple and Facebook are often credited with being GOOD/WOKE corporations.

Here is an interesting fact: The average profit per employee at Apple is $403,328 and the average profit per employee at Facebook is $411,308. In comparison, the average profit per employee at Walmart is $6,910.

Something to think about.

My introduction to Stoicism began many years ago and without knowledge of what I was doing.

It happened after I got married… I noticed that I was getting upset when, after we’d agreed to do something together, K would change her mind at the last minute. Since these agreements were about trivial things (like going to a movie or the zoo), she didn’t feel obliged to stick to them. I, on the other hand, would become furious.

I have never won an argument with K. And I have always regretted any complaint I voiced against her. Thus, these silent rages I would get myself into each time she changed her mind were doing nothing but eating me up.

One day – and I don’t know what provoked it – I woke up with a solution. From then on, every time we agreed to do something, I would take a few moments to vividly imagine K cancelling at the last minute and then vividly imagine me feeling okay about it. Sometimes I even went so far as to imagine something else, something fun, that I’d do instead.

It worked like a charm. And it’s been working perfectly ever since.

At the time, I thought of it merely as a personal strategy to manage my marriage. Since then, I see it in larger terms: about accepting the universe for what it is and not trying to force my will upon it.

All of which brings me to thoughts I had while recently re-reading Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations…

So, What Were You Expecting?

Meditations on Reality, Personal Relationships, and Social Ills

“The vast majority of our mental, emotional, and spiritual suffering,” says Maria Popova, the brain behind BrainPickings, “comes from the violent collision between our expectations and reality.” And since it’s only rarely possible to bend reality to our will, the intelligent course of action is “to calibrate our expectations to reality.”

In simpler terms: Don’t make yourself miserable being angry about events and outcomes that are beyond your control.

This is a basic tenet of Stoicism, and it is not a difficult concept to understand. Most people understand it when it comes to events and outcomes such as flat tires and cancelled birthday parties. But few apply it to more important aspects of life – including, most notably, relationships with friends, family, and colleagues.

Meditations is a collection of writings by Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome from AD 161 to 180. It’s kind of a self-help journal written from a Stoic’s perspective – a series of notes that Aurelius almost certainly never meant to be published.

And it’s jam-packed with solid advice and Stoic wisdom.

For example, on the issue of people that act in ways you find hurtful or offensive, Aurelius has this to say:

Whenever a person’s lack of shame offends you, you should immediately ask yourself, “Is it possible for there to be no shameless people in the world?”

[Since it isn’t], you should stop demanding the impossible….

Keep the same thought available for when you’re faced with [other sorts of] devious and untrustworthy people, and people who are flawed in any way.

The moment you remind yourself that it’s impossible for such people not to exist, you’ll be kinder to each and every one of them.

Thus too… we human beings can deal with any given offense – gentleness, for instance, to counter discourteous people…

A three-step method for dealing with disappointing behavior:

1. 1. Don’t be upset. Nothing happens that isn’t in accord with universal nature. Before long you won’t exist at all.

1. 2. Always define or describe to yourself every impression that occurs to your mind, so that you can clearly see what the thing is like in its entirety, stripped to its essence. Nothing is more conducive to objectivity than the ability methodically and honestly to test everything that you come across in life.

1. 3. Focus on the matter at hand. See it for what it is. And then take the action that seems to you to be the most just. But do it with kindness and modesty, and without dissembling.

Further Thoughts on Accepting Reality vs. Unrealistic Expectations

There is more to Stoicism than the idea that we should see the world for what it is and not impose unrealistic expectations on it. But I find it interesting that it has not only made an important contribution to the modern philosophy of living well, it can be found in Zen Buddhism and Cognitive Therapy. They all recognize the common-sense truth that wisdom begins by accepting the world as it is, not how you’d like it to be.

That goes double for personal relationships. I not only believe, I know that the only way to maintain relationships and be happy in them is to expect that the person you married or befriended or to whom you are related will always be exactly the person he/she was when you first met.

Once a person is formed, and that usually happens in their late teens or early 20s, he/she is formed for good. People rarely change. And when they do, it’s almost always for the better. So, if you are happy with the imperfect mix of a person when you first meet him/her, expect he/she won’t ever change and you will never be disappointed.

And that leads me to this thought (which is inchoate): All social, business, and government programs whose aim is to improve adult behavior is doomed to failure. Think about the failure rate of addiction programs. Or the shockingly bad results of public education. Or the near impossibility of trying to improve business performance by “motivating” employees to work harder and smarter.

Despite decades of retrogressive results, we continue to believe that the problems with these failed programs is not that they are fundamentally wrong-headed, but that we haven’t spent more money on them.

You can’t fix a problem by spending more on a solution that doesn’t work. What if, instead, we accepted the reality of the problem – that it cannot be fixed by changing the behavior of the people involved?

What if, instead of continuing to unrealistically believe we can “help” addicts get clean, we accept the fact that more than 90% of them never will? And that those that do will do so on their own? What if we went a little deeper and asked, “What is the social problem with addiction anyway? What social problems do addicts cause?”

It’s not difficult to identify those problems. There are three of them: crime, homelessness, and infectious diseases. All three could easily be solved by providing large, clean facilities where addicts can get their drugs in a sanitary way when they want them, along with a bed and food.

That would actually work, and probably for 20% of what we spend now. But it’s not going to happen, because drug rehab – including hospitalization and incarceration – is a multibillion-dollar business with strong support among the politicians that win their posts by promising to spend more money on the same failed programs.

Life at Rancho Santana

More than 20 years ago, my partners and I bought a cattle ranch on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua. After making every imaginable development mistake in the book, we gradually built it into a world-class resort.

Here’s a brief glimpse into life at the ranch today…

And to get an idea of what’s currently available for sale at the ranch, click here.

 Stranger Arrives; Cigar Club Jeopardized

 “All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.” – Ellen Glasgow

I heard about Mr. R first from my real estate brokers. “He’s bought up the entire block behind your little Cigar Club,” they told me.

“Cripes,” I thought. “Just what I need. Gentrification has come to our quiet little Haitian neighborhood.”

I bought this warehouse in 2013 because it was cheap. A few years later, I converted it into a private Cigar Club – for me and my friends. We weren’t exactly welcomed into the neighborhood, but we weren’t shunned either. I came to enjoy the area as it was. And now it was going to be surrounded by big apartment buildings and hipsters.

I asked my brokers to buy whatever they could that was north of me. “It’s too late,” they said. “He’s bought all those units too.”

The next day, Gio told me that we had a call from Mr. R. “He wants to talk to you,” she said.

“I’ll bet he does,” I thought.

We met at the Cigar Club. He was shorter and a bit older than I imagined he’d be. He looked a bit like Jimmy Buffett with his hair slicked back. He wore khaki shorts and Gucci loafers.

We talked for an hour. He confirmed that he had, indeed, brought up all the land behind and to the north of me. (The property to the south was already permitted for 60 townhouses.) And he confirmed that my worst fear – that I’d be surrounded by 5-story apartment buildings occupied by young hipsters – was also true.

I told Mr. R that I was impressed that he was able to buy up so many properties in the neighborhood so discretely, without setting off a bidding war.

“We took very good care of them,” he said (referring to the Haitian homeowners).

Then we got down to talking about what we both knew was the only thing on the agenda: Was I going to sell my property to him?

“Had you asked me a week ago, I would have given you an immediate no,” I said. “But since then, I’ve been thinking about what it will be like to have the Cigar Club here, surrounded by your buildings.”

I asked him if he’d be open to selling me a 4,000- to 6,000-square-foot chunk of his complex that I could use for the Club.

“The project is for rentals,” he said. “But I’m sure there’s something we could do – even as much as a 99-year lease.”

We chatted a bit more about this and that. I told him I’d give him an answer in a week or two.

I didn’t know what to do. I considered the pros and cons of selling:

The Pros 

* I’d realize a good profit on my building. Probably about 400% in a little more than 8 years.

* I could reestablish the Cigar Club in a newer building.

The Cons 

* I’d have to close the Club for a year or two until the new building was finished.

* I’d be destroying an environment that I loved and that was much appreciated by my guests. (On the other hand… half of that environment was going to be destroyed anyway.)

It was one of those quandaries that does not have a clear answer. And extending or dissecting the pros and cons wasn’t going to make the decision any easier.

What to do?

I have this thing I do when I’m undecided about something and when a pro/con list doesn’t help. I ask someone else for their opinion. I listen to what they say and pay attention to how it makes me feel. If it makes me feel uneasy, I don’t do it. If I feel good about it, I do it.

It so happened that later that night we had our first in-person book club meeting since the COVID craziness began. We had pizza and wine and talked about Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. (I wrote about that book discussion here.) [LINK 5/21]

After the discussion, it’s our custom to break out the cigars and cognac and have a conversation about anything else that anyone wants to talk about.

This, I thought, would be a perfect opportunity to lay my Cigar Club quandary on them.

And so, I did.

I explained my concerns. I gave them my pros and cons. And then I asked for their opinions.

Their response was immediate and unanimous. “Nah, don’t sell it,” they said. “We like the Cigar Club just the way it is!”

How did that make me feel? It made me happy. So I know what to do. I’m going to get in touch with Mr. R and let him know that I’ve decided not to sell.

And if he asks why, I’ll be able to tell him, “My book club decided. They said they want to keep it just as it is.”

Paradise Palms, my botanical garden in Delray Beach, must be home to a thousand iguanas. They are not particularly good-looking creatures. Some can be downright weird. And big. They can grow to four feet.

But they pose no immediate danger to small dogs and toddlers, as the alligators do. We hunt and kill the alligators, but since iguanas are herbivores, we let them do their thing.

Iguanas are one of many invasive species that are multiplying exponentially here in my home state of Florida. We also have exploding populations of pythons, cane toads, lionfish, and giant African land snails – to name just a few!

Should we, as suggested by a recent article in National Geographic, fight back in what it calls “an extremely Florida war”? Or should we shrug it off? (As JS says, “Hey! If you live in a jungle, you have to expect this sort of thing!”)

Have you heard of the Stella Awards? 

I hadn’t… until one of my high school buddies clued me in. They are named in honor of Stella Liebeck, the 79-year-old woman that sued McDonald’s after she spilled hot coffee on herself and suffered third-degree burns. Apparently, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving. Amazingly, she won her case.

These are the top 5 Stella Award winners for 2020:

5th PLACE – Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, PA, was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the door to open. Worse, he couldn’t re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when he pulled it shut. Forced to sit for eight, count ‘em, EIGHT days and survive on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner’s insurance company, claiming undue mental anguish. The jury found in his favor, ordering the insurance company to pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish.

4th PLACE – Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, AR, was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his neighbor’s beagle – even though the dog was on a chain in its owner’s fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the dog might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot it with a pellet gun.

3rd PLACE – Amber Carson, of Lancaster, PA, because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.

2nd PLACE – Kara Walton, of Claymont, DE, sued the owner of a nightclub in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the nightclub had to pay her $12,000… oh, yeah, plus dental expenses.

1st PLACE – This year’s runaway Stella Award winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City, OK. On her way home after purchasing a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and left the driver’s seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed, and overturned. Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner’s manual that she couldn’t leave the driver’s seat while the cruise control was set. The Oklahoma jury awarded her $1,750,000.  PLUS a new motor home. (Winnebago actually changed the wording in its manuals as a result of this suit.)

Damned If I Do, Damned If I Don’t 

“Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.” – Pope John Paul II

My reverence for personal freedom above almost every other social value prompts me to be suspicious of any law or regulation that limits individual liberty.

Thus, I much prefer Florida’s response to the COVID epidemic over New York’s. (And in terms of keeping COVID-caused deaths to a minimum, as I’ve pointed out several times, Florida has done as well as, or better than, the states that imposed Draconian measures.)

Likewise, I don’t like the idea of vaccine passports.

But sometimes, in our daily lives, we make decisions that do not entirely correspond to our grandest ideas and intellectual orientations. I’m not talking about hypocrisy (although a good topic) but compromise.

Here’s the dilemma:

For a year now, the monthly meetings of my book club (The Mules) have been conducted via Zoom.

It’s been an okay experience. But we would all prefer to get back to having the meetings at my Cigar Club, where I served food and drink and where, after the meeting, some could linger for a smoke.

I am happy to get back to hosting the meetings. But today, I received a note from our unofficial president suggesting that I should make the in-person meetings at the Cigar Club open only to members that have been vaccinated.

Hmm…

We are about 15 people, of which 9 are my age (70s), a few are in their 60s, and a few are younger. About half of the old guys have “comorbidity” issues – and they are all about taking every possible precaution. So if I don’t impose a vaccination requirement, they won’t feel comfortable if they decide to come.

Meanwhile, two of the younger guys are anti-vaxxers. So if I do impose a vaccination requirement, they won’t be able to come and will have to decide whether or not to attend on Zoom.

What should I do?

And who am I to force them to make these “choices”?