It seems to me that a Navy Captain is a grilled old fart, cunning in a feral sort of way, salty, worldly-wise. Admirals? Forget, it. Ancient history, Man.

When I got to be one- the crusty old Captain, that is- I noticed that some of them were getting younger, even looking a bit damp behind the ears. Then I looked around and noticed the Admirals were looking positively youthful .

I was thinking about that at the Caucus Club yesterday, waiting for the chop salad and the tournedos of beef. The plush eatery is over on 13 th Street near Pennsylvania Avenue . It has no connection whatsoever with illegal lobbying, like the place we used to go to. The Caucus Club is strictly on the up-and-up.

I think. The food is good, anyway, and the Congressman we were there to talk to was a dynamic young man who reminded me a little of a puppy. Go figure.

It had already been a hospitality day, starting with the Executive Branch over at the Willard Intercontinental. I like the grand old hotel, and arrived at seven-thirty sharp to get my nametag and start eating pastries. One of the industry associations had presumed on the Department of Homeland Security to nominate a panel to talk about wireless communications and public safety.

I saw the guy from Lockheed-Martin who is on the Golf and Greens Committee at the Club. We talked earnestly about the disease that devastated the fairways on our second 27-hole course, the one out in Fairfax County . The whole thing was a shame. Management just hadn’t got on top of the problem. You need to be pro-active to stop mold and rot.

I have no idea what his company is trying to sell, but I was pretty comfortable about the approach to the grass blight. The wireless thing is going to be a huge market, if either the Department or Industry can navigate the policy and legal shoals to get to a conclusion. Wireless is the way to go, clearly, and we have shot at significant market share in the digital world. What is out there now is still based on those crappy one-channel radios all the police wear on their belts.

That was one of the things the panel talked about, and the revelation was better than the maple-walnut swirl coffee cake the staff kept bringing to the buffet table in the back of the gilded conference room. When I was drifting with the scratchy sound system, I followed the ornamental plaster filigrees around the room. The chandeliers had dangly crystal things on them. I gazed up, were originally plumbed for gas, and there were little ornamental keys on the stems, where the flow to the burners in the globes could be turned off.

I wondered how much hot air had been processed in this glittering room, just off the hotel’s Grand Hall. It was designed as a lesser quotation on the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles , and no less a figure than Samuel Clemens commented favorably about its elegance.

Oh, you thought I forgot about the revelation. Here it is, just as I wrote it down:

Fire-fighters practice what they are doing, because they are not always at fires, and they use the time waiting to respond to disaster for training. Cops are different. They have guns and there is never a moment, from start of shift to end of watch, that some human isn’t conniving to commit a crime. Consequently, they do not practice anything. They just work.

The upshot of the revelation is that when stressed, the cops fall back on what they know. In the context of this breakfast, what they know is the crappy radios. It is a cultural thing, and that is why fire-fighters are more open to suggestions.

They also are not absently touching the firearm on their belts.

I made a note to attack that problem when I got back to my desk, but en route I got a call on my cell phone advising that the Congressman who now held Lyndon Johnson’s seat, the one that runs south to the Gulf from Austin , was going to talk to another Industry group to which the company belongs.

It wasn’t on my calendar, but there is so much that isn’t. I walked up Pennsylvania Avenue . There is some convention in town, and the streets were packed with gawkers. There were so many people that it felt almost like a real city like New York .

I walked past the restaurant that Jack Abramson used to own. He is the one-time, big-time lobbyist who got Tom Delay, the House Majority Leader in such trouble. The Republican majority seems to be growing anxious about next year’s elections and the public’s increasing disapproval of Congress. This is not what they envisioned last year, returning to town as a one-party government with a big agenda.

I’m for good government, myself, but you have to go with what you have, and they are still the people in charge.

The Congressman was a little late, or better put, the rest of us were early. We drank iced tea and waited patiently. That is what you do. When he arrived, he worked the room eagerly. I was amazed by how young he looked.

They are always so energetic when they are new in town. This one was elected in 2004, and he is a sub-committee chairman already. Two years ago he was a regional official in the Justice Department, responsible for crimes in the Southwest and border security. His assignment on the sub-committee is to investigate things, and he was eager to do so.

When I got my thirty seconds to talk to him, I asked him about the border, and what he planned to do to improve security.

We want to sell the government some efficient high-tech sensors and networks. The congressman looked at me intently. �We are not going to build a Berlin Wall across the Southwest,� he said. �I intend to introduce a Bill that will establish an citizen auxiliary to the Border Patrol to increase the human presence on the border, and help apprehend and detain illegals. No more Catch and Release.�

I recognize campaign sound-bites when I hear them. I smiled back, and realized I had to agree with him on that. What is the point of arresting someone as an illegal alien, and letting them go with a summons to appear in court? They just disappear and don’t show up when commanded.

On the other hand, I am in the business of selling technology, and there is no money in auxiliary border officials. I understand they are not going to be armed though, so maybe there will be money in training or something while they are waiting around for disaster.

I don’t know. There has got to be an angle to work in here, somewhere.

Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com

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