Middle Ages

Wilma is the name, the last one in the Alphabet. This ties a record for storm formation, and there is more than a month of Hurricane Season to go.

I am not concerned that we will run out of names. They are, after all, almost limitless. The Weathermiesters have a plan; they are going to go to Greek letters if we have run out of the English ones, and there is Sumerian or Sanskrit beyond that.

I am mindful that we are only tying a record so far. Things were bad seventy years ago as well, and this might just be another of Mother Earth’s long cycles that our species is too short-lived to understand.

I know that feeling this morning. I am starting the week with a creak in the bones. The knee is the same, a constant dull ache. But I am getting used to it now. At some point I will have to have the joint replaced. In the meantime, I thank goodness that it is just arthritis and not some internal malady.

Aging is an interesting process.

I would call myself “middle aged,” but that, of course, is preposterous. Middle aged would be in your late thirties, if the actuarial tables are to be believed, and if I was in Russia , I would be an old man now.

Or Iraq , I suppose. They banned private automobiles during the elections on the Constitution, and it seems to have worked. No cars, no car bombers.

There was reportedly a 60% turn-out by the electorate, and that would be an extraordinary rate in America . It appears the Constitution is headed for victory, flawed document that it is, and our urgency to make the nascent democracy flourish according to the timetable of the American political cycle might even work.

They say the document will have to be changed, soon, and I thought the point of a Constitution was that it was supposed to be immutable. But the fact that voters in Diyala and Nineveh provinces, both with large Sunni populations, have apparently voted “yes” is enough to give one hope. And make a foreign insurgent take a look at his cause.

If the constitution really has been passed, it is probably a result of arm-twisting at the last minute to make Shiite and Kurdish leaders support inclusive amendments. It doesn’t make my joints feel any better, but it may point towards a favorable outcome in a desperate struggle.

On the other hand, I discovered that I could down-load the entire map of the 1918 flu virus on the web, including those dangerous bits that could change a normal virus into something truly horrific. Of course, anyone who released such an awful thing would likely die themselves. But the concept of a suicide bio-chemist is not beyond the realm of speculation.

I thought of a bandolier of test-tubes on a determined young person and shuddered. There are so many things to be concerned about.

I had the choice of one last discretionary article to read before the morning shower, and the beginning of the business day. I could have read about the CSX rail corporation’s suit in Federal Court to permit them to continue routing tankers full of chlorine over the 2 nd Street Tunnel, the one that goes under the Capitol grounds.

Blowing one of them up would cast a green toxic cloud over the center of government, and kill tens of thousands. The tankers are not bound for Washington, just passing through, but it would cost money for the rail company to route them elsewhere. So on they come.

I take the 12 th Street tunnel myself, but it would still make for a really bad commute.

I decided not to finish reading that one. Too depressing. Instead , I opened a last e-mail I had been saving to savor. It was from a classmate from the War College who had traveled to the Society Islands and stayed in a hut constructed over the pale waters of a tranquil lagoon.

There was a wonderful picture attached, and the palms and white sand and endless blue of the sky over pale blue water made me sink into a  Monday reverie.

I think I could live in one of those bungalows, listening to the gentle lapping of the water against the pillars. It is a perfect place for honeymooners, and my friend noted that the place was full of them. They seemed impossibly young for such a serious undertaking. Late twenties and early thirties seemed to be the median age of the lovers.

I think back to where I was, not quite twenty years ago. Still newly married then, so I would have had a brave thirty-something face on with a brave brown moustache, just getting about the business of creating a family and a career.

I thought back. By the time I was 36, I was a fresh-caught Lieutenant Commander, almost senior enough to be trusted with walking across the street by myself. The marriage would have settled into something regular, if a bit frantic; the older boy would have been out of diapers and the younger boy would have been close; my career would have been near all-consuming, trying to figure it out.

It would be close to the day I was expelled from Paradise , in more ways than one. We were still in  Hawaii then, with its gentle breeze, though our time was growing short. It was a wonderful place, a little down-at-the-heels in our part of Oahu, away from the tourists, but comfortably so.

That would have been me at 36, which by any definition is at least nearing middle age.

I turned off the computer and sighed. It was years before I was entrusted with anything really significant, and when I was, I felt experiences had made me ready. But there are so many shortcuts.

If I had just come to Washington at the start , it might have been a different story. DC is a place where it far more important to know someone than it is to know what you are doing. Maybe that depends on the premium that the grown-ups put on loyalty, rather than experience.

I don’t mean to be critical, I really don’t. I am just a middle-aged guy commuting to a job downtown. But it seems that the people that are being put in place to deal with some really serious issues are being selected for something other than professional expertise.

I’m not talking about the Supreme Court, necessarily. The one that got to me last week was in the Executive branch. I realized that if I was a bright young lawyer, I might have been appointed the new Commissioner of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a grizzled old law enforcement outfit with hundreds of years of tradition.

I don’t imagine it hurt that the bright young lawyer is married to the Chief of Staff of the Department of Homeland Security, which is where Immigration and Customs Enforcement is located. 

Julie Myers is the new Commissioner, and she does happen to be married to the Chief of Staff. I’m sure she was the best qualified. But I don’t even have to tell you how old she is, do I?

After all, by some definitions, she might actually be pushing middle age.

Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com

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