This Old Airport's Got Me Down: The End of Gracious Air Travel

This old airport's got me down,

It's no earthy use to me.

Gordon Lightfoot

As a young Alaska lawyer, I traveled almost a million miles in airplanes. I flew more than three quarter of a million miles in airline jets, mostly Delta, Alaska Airlines, and Markair. I flew another quarter of a million miles over bush Alaska in a variety of small planes: Lockheed Electras, DeHavilland Beavers, and Cessna 185 Skywagons--the pickup trucks of the sky.

There was nothing glamorous about flying in small airplanes over the Alaska bush. I threw up once flying over Chickaloon Pass in a Cessna 152. 

And a young pilot scared me out of my wits flying out of Ketchikan in a DeHavilland Otter on a foggy afternoon--the plane loaded with ice cream and chainsaws for a logging camp. He had forgotten to secure a cargo door as we lifted off, which swung open and banged against the fusilage. Unperturbed, he landed in the water and walked out on a float to give the door a good slam.

In those days, flying commercial was altogether different from flying in the bush. The airlines served hot meals on some flights, and most passengers were fully clothed. I always wore a coat and tie when I flew. And there was a graciousness about commercial air travel  then that's missing now.

I recall flying down the Yukon Valley in a chartered DeHavilland Beaver on a snowy winter night hoping to catch a commercial flight from the Inuit village of Bethel into Anchorage. I was wearing a grey pinstriped suit and tie under a cashmere overcoat. The pilot was bundled up in a khaki-covered Carhartt survival suit and wearing a holstered Ruger .44 magnum revolver.

My pilot looked me over before boarding and laughed out loud at my attire, "One of us isn't dressed appropriately," he joked.

For some reason not explained, we took off late from the Yupik village of St. Mary, where I had attended a school board meeting.

 

It was clear I wouldn't arrive in Bethel in time to board my commercial flight home to Anchorage. This was a serious problem for me because there were no overnight accommodations for Koss'aq  (white) travelers. 

About 50 miles out from the Bethel airport, my pistol-toting pilot radiod the control tower and asked for the Alaska Airlines jet, a Boeing 737, to wait for me. I  recall a radio response but it wasn't clear to me whether my pilot's request was granted.

We landed in a snow flurry, and two Anchorage Airlines employees sprinted out of the terminal building to grab my luggage and hurry me through the metal detector. Both were young women--one Yupik and one white--and both were coatless on this frigid Alaska night.

I looked down the runway and saw an Alaska Airlines jet parked on the tarmac, the tail painted with  the iconic image of an Eskimo. The rear passenger door was open. They waited for me!

As I scrambled up the steps, I saw a young flight attendent standing in the doorway, her profile backlit by the inteior lights, reminding me of Our Lady of Guadalupe. She was hugging herself against the cold.

I will be forever grateful to the Bethel Airport aircraft controller and the Alaska Airlines pilot who delayed a scheduled flight for me on that long ago winter night. I often think of that night when I fly commercial these days, squeezed into an economy seat, issued a bag of peanuts, and placed next to an obese fellow traveler wearing pajamas and eating a carry-on pizza.

A memory of gracious air travel

 

Last Weekend's No Kings Rally: A Flyover Country Perspective

 No Kings rallies were staged nationwide last weekend, drawing several million protesters. Anti-Trump protesters said the exercise was a huge success, setting the stage for political action that would topple Donald Trump and his administration.

Trump supporters dismissed the No Kings protests as a political nothing burger attended mainly by white retirees who should have spent the weekend with their grandchildren.

Here's my take on the No Kings assemblies: 

First, "No Kings" is a poor slogan for a call to arms against the Trump administration. As several critics have noted, Donald Trump won the presidential election with 77 million votes and a solid majority of electoral votes. How can those election results be squared with the charge that Trump has undermined democracy?

Trump's critics charge him with acting regally and unconstitutionally--particularly concerning his efforts to deport illegal aliens. Yet virtually every one of Trump's policy actions has been challenged in the courts.

Trump has won some court battles and lost others, but the fact that our system of government permits judges to annul Trump's executive actions belies the charge that he is behaving like a monarch.  To my knowledge, his administration has defied a court order.

Second, the leftist media has framed the No Kings rallies as grassroots protests with broad support across all racial and economic sectors. However, photographs of protesters show them to be mostly retirement-age white people. And these events were funded by foundations and organizations linked to left-leaning billionaires. The Durden Dispatch reported that ultrawealthy benefactors donated almost a third of a billion dollars to help underwrite the No Kings events and that George Soros's ancient fingerprints were all over the project.

Finally, the protesters' utter lack of seriousness undermines any argument that a cross-cultural rebellion is brewing against President Trump. Videos of protests in cities across the United States showed attendees dressed in inflatable costumes. Indeed, people who identified with the "furry" movement showed up at No Kings events dressed like animals.

I happen to be reading the first volume of Rick Atkinson's masterful history of the Revolutionary War, and I am struck by the contrast between the no-king Americans of 1776 and last week's decidedly unserious protesters. The Americans who fought King George's armies risked being blown to pieces by British muskets and artillery or freezing to death crossing the Delaware River in December. 

I don't think the people who wore chipmunk costumes to last week's "No Kings" rallies have the moxie to do anything courageous to oppose the Trump administration--other than perhaps sending a small, tax-deductible donation to National Public Radio.

Barack Obama's Ugly Presidential Library and a Classically Beautiful 19th Century Synagogue in Flyover Country

 I spent No Kings Day in a deer blind in North Louisiana, so I missed the opportunity to spend the day with a bunch of overweight, dyspeptic baby boomers. 

However, it was a glorious autumn day, and I was grateful to spend it in the woods, even though I missed an easy shot at a fat deer. I consoled myself that evening with a plate of enchiladas and a frozen margarita in the Gonzalez Restaurant in the little town of Homer, where the dress code permits men, women, and children to dine wearing camouflage and international orange hunting vests.

Usually, I drive home through small Louisiana towns, which collectively have assembled the longest speed trap in North America. All my hunting buddies have gotten at least one speeding ticket on the treacherous route between Arcadia and Alexandria. I am proud to say that I've only been ticketed once--in the despondently named village of Dry Prong. The local cop assured me my offense would not be reported to my insurance company, and he kept his word.

Yesterday, however, I chose to return home through Mississippi. I drove east on Interstate 20 until I crossed the Mississippi River bridge in Vicksburg and then traveled south down Highway 61, following the river's course.

South of Vicksburg, I drove through Port Gibson, where a Yankee army had passed in 1863 on its way to breaking the Confederate blockade of the Mississippi River. General Grant was struck by Port Gibson's beauty, declaring the town "too beautiful to burn." 

Indeed, Port Gibson is a lovely Southern town graced by antebellum and post-Civil War homes in a variety of architectural styles: Greek Revival, Federal, Victorian, Queen Ann, and Italianate Revival.

Presbyterian church steeple

I've driven through Port Gibson many times, and my favorite building is the Jewish synagogue, built in 1891-1892 and now closed. As its historical marker attests, the building blends Moorish, Byzantine, and Romanesque Revival architectural styles and is topped by a Russian dome.

Temple Gemiluth Chassed

Coastal elitists deceive themselves into believing that the vast stretch of America between New York and Los Angeles is a cultural desert, which they derisively dismiss as Flyover Country. Port Gibson attests to how wrong they are.

Port Gibson's architecture is eclectic, but there is grace and beauty in almost all its historic homes, churches, and businesses. The people who built these structures had a refined aesthetic sensibility--an appreciation for visual appeal in the structures they designed and built.

Contrast the nineteenth and early twentieth-century architecture of small-town America with the ugliness of today's suburban malls and tract homes. We have created a drab and monotonous environment for ourselves, which James Howard Kunstler accurately described as "the geography of nowhere."

However, it is our society's public architecture that is most offensive. We see it on display in courthouses, city halls, and university buildings. Some of it has been pugnaciously labeled as brutalist--and brutal it indeed is. 

This brings me to Barack Obama's presidential library, which is currently under construction in Chicago. This monstrosity is an insult to the eye, the landscape, and the human spirit.

Barack Obama has often been described as brilliant and almost supernaturally empathetic. Yet how intelligent and sensitive can a guy be who allows his architects and sycophantic donors to talk him into approving a presidential library so ghastly, so inhumane, and so goddamn ugly?

Maybe Barack doesn't care what his presidential library looks like. After all, he owns four homes. If he gets sick of looking at his library in Chicago, he can always fly to his digs on Martha's Vineyard or Hawaii. 

Is Barack mooning the American people?

People with Rigid Political Views Should Read More Widely

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

Thomas Jefferson 

America is more divided than at any time since the Civil War. The country is split into two hostile camps. The MAGA crowd is mostly addicted to Fox News. The Trump haters get their news from the legacy media: The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and other progressive news sources.

I advise Trump's supporters to read the New York Times, which occasionally takes a breather from Trump bashing and objectively reports on current events. They might even tune in to The View. The View ladies will not convert anyone from MAGA Land to their political philosophy, but it's always edifying to get a glimpse of an alien culture.

Trump haters should also read more widely. In addition to the New York Times, they should peruse the New York Post. If they subscribe to the Washington Post, they should also read the Washington Examiner.

And everyone--left-wing or right-wing, MAGA ideologues and leftist Never-Trumpers--should stop reading The Guardian, which is a rabidly anti-Trump screed sheet. In a recent funding appeal, The Guardian proclaimed: "We're funded by readers, not billionaires--which means we can publish factual journalism with no outside influence."

In fact, as Andy Gorel wrote, citing Wikipedia:

The Guardian is owned by The Guardian Media Group (GMG), which is “wholly owned by the Scott Trust Limited, which exists to secure the financial and editorial independence of The Guardian in perpetuity. The Group's annual report (for the year ending 2 April 2023) indicated that the Scott Trust Endowment Fund was valued at £1.24 billion.”

While there may be a degree of separation, this means The Guardian is backed by a $1.56 billion endowment.

Readers can read The Guardian online, which is posted without a pay wall, making it readily accessible for free. If you read the publication's content for just a few days, you will understand how biased it is against President Trump. 

My advice: skip The Guardian and look for fairer critical coverage of the Trump administration.

Finally, I advise everyone to read two premier bloggers: James Howard Kunstler and Matt Taibbi. Both have stellar journalism credentials, and both think outside the box. 

Image credit: Your Dictionary

 

Alligators in October: Can You Say Brumation?

 I wasn't thinking about alligators when my wife and I purchased a home on Lake Mary in southern Mississippi two years ago.  

If alligators lived in my new neighborhood, I assumed they would hang out in nearby Lake Foster, a lake ringed by cypress swamps and aquatic plants. My property was clear of marshland, presumably no habitat for an alligator.

Anyway, wasn't Wilkinson County, Mississippi too far north for alligators? After all, it can become bitterly cold on Lake Mary Road in winter--surely too frigid for cold-blooded creatures to survive.

Therefore, I was surprised when I saw a six-foot alligator sunning on my dock the summer after I settled into my Lake Mary home. I assumed it was an anomaly. Alligator hunters bagged him during the first weekend of Mississippi's alligator hunting season, and my lakefront home was rendered alligator-free.

Or so I thought. A few days ago, my five-year-old grandson reported seeing gators hanging around our neighbor's pier. Mom investigated and discovered six small alligators and one larger one lounging in the shallows.

Were the little ones siblings? Was the large one their mama? Do female alligators have maternal instincts like feral hogs, which will kill you if you mess with their piglets?

Anyway, it's mid-October. Why weren't those alligators hibernating?

I did a little Google research and learned that alligators don't hibernate. Rather, they bruminate, which means their metabolism slows in the colder months, they become lethargic, and stop eating.

These alligators are just another bit of evidence that Lake Mary, Mississippi, is unlike the idyllic Golden Pond of New England, where Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn spent their peaceful summers, troubled only by infrequent visits from Jane.

We've got feral hogs, venomous snakes and spiders, and Asian carp that leap from the water and occasionally injure boaters. We are visited by annual spring floods. Deer run across Highway 24 at night and collide with passing cars. And we've got alligators--at least seven.

Perhaps that is just as well. After all, it's a dangerous world.  We need to look up from our cellphones from time to time and scout about for hidden dangers.

On Golden Pond: At least we don't have alligators.

What goes around, comes around: Letitia James indicted for mortgage fraud

As a young man,  I practiced civil law in Anchorage, Alaska. Anchorage was a city of 200,000 when I lived there, and the town supported about a thousand lawyers--one lawyer for every 200 residents.

Indeed, the Anchorage bar was small enough that I knew most of the attorneys and their reputations for honesty, probity, and fair dealing. In those days, most Alaska lawyers were honorable, and I often settled commercial disputes with a phone call or a handshake.

However, I occasionally got burned by a shady legal practitioner through some sort of dirty trick. These betrayals of ethical norms always stung me deeply, but my law partners always reassured me with this oft-repeated observation: "What goes around comes around." 

In other words, unethical lawyers nearly always get caught out. Eventually, most of the scoundrels who abused the legal system to bamboozle my clients came to grief--bankruptcy, disbarment, legal malpractice lawsuits, or an embarrassing public scandal of some kind.

Letitia James is about to learn the meaning of what goes around comes around. She campaigned for the office of New York Attorney General by promising to investigate Donald Trump, whom she described as an "illegitimate president." She kept that promise.

James's office cobbled together a sweeping fraud claim against Trump, accusing him of including false information on a loan application. She won an enormous judgment in an arguably biased New York courtroom.

Now, AG James has been indicted for making a fraudulent claim on a loan application--the very thing she accused Trump of. 

Her supporters claim that James's indictment is an act of revenge on Trump's part, but I disagree. As James herself said, "No one is above the law."

In other words, what goes around comes around.

What goes around comes around.