Went to have a bite to eat with the governor and 2000 of his closest friends. Mark Warner has aspirations. Perhaps president. The weather was a sticky 92. The crowd was good ole Virginia Democrats who would be Republicans if we were in New York. But the BBQ was pretty good and its always interesting to see who shows up at the farm. Leslie was with us and Warner chatted with her about the New Orleans mess.



Virginia is a state of contradictions. “Home of the Presidents”, it played a major role in the revolutionary war. It was the capital of the Confederacy. It is geographically at the center of the East Coast. As a state of mind it is stuck in the past, but no more than many European states. Virginia while playing a role in the great war against England had many reasons to not break from the Empire. There were more landed gentry here than perhaps any other state. The tradition of gifting wealth by virtue of position was the tool of the powerful to retain loyalty and encourage growth….the Roman strategy from 2500 years ago.

There is a problem with this method. Much the same way that certain social programs are now faced with the consequences of a good idea in need of re-invention, Virginia lives with a deep inner soul of entitlement of the wealthy. Consider the family that had been gifted 10,000 acres 300 hundred years ago. Why would they support a new government which replaced rule by title with rule by law. They placed all their assets at risk. They would need to fight to hold what they thought was theirs.

This past week a capital murder trail was held in Virginia. The state arrested an attorney for shooting and killing, in broad day light, a neighbor. The motive for the shooting was the concern the shooter had about the farmer he had killed. The farmer, he claimed had threatened him with a 3 foot stick and so he protected himself by killing the farmer with a gun. As it turns out the two individuals knew each other and had been feuding over the consequences of an ancient English law that allowed land owners to access their neighbors for improvements made on their property. The law allowed an owner to build a fence on his property and then send a bill for 50% of the construction to the owner of the adjoining property. The law provided an owner with a legal rule to protect his assets and cause others to absorb the cost. Is this one of the vestiges left over from ole England…..the wealthy trying to protect their property. In this case the result was the death of a man and the excuse was self defense. But if the law had not been on the books and had been removed in 1776, the death may have been avoided.


A well time for another mug of ale.

We had a dinner party last night. Holli, Russ, Richard W, Leslie, and Ursula. Roast leg of lamb, taboule, some greens with eastern herbs and lots of wine. The evenings here are end of the summer humid and sticky, so we eat in the dining room and keep the lights on the barrel vault low. Play Edith (Voice of the Sparrow) Piaf. Richard and Ursula back to pack up their things and then back to Montreal.

All of us gather around to listen to my son’s most current blog from Yaroslavl. It appears that his habit is now to sit at the internet café near the Volga (the café was a library for the blind under communism), and record his day as a student. His simple, short essays are wonderful to read. Ben has a natural talent for writing and because he has a love of history his reports include observations that touch the inner soul of the Russian in transition….some dark, some not pretty, and much of it heavily colored by the post -Stalinist pensioners who firmly believe that capitalism was another blow to a country still trying to re-establish itself after the fall of the Romanoff’s.

Russia, like so much of the many countries in near by Europe struggles with the effects of its past. Not just the past of post WWII but the past of the last 1000 years. Russia, settled by Slavic tribes, ultimately followed other countries through the turbulence of war, family feuds, and the church, all trying to establish order and control over their world.

I am unsure why Russia’s past appears to be less complex (not less cruel) when compared to the intricate web of activity that defines the history of England, France and Spain. Perhaps it is the fact that travel for nobility and the church was not nearly as difficult in Western Europe as it was in the cold northern climate of Russia. Consider that Moscow and St Petersburg are both located on the same longitude (or is it latitude) as southern Alaska. Not only were the distances much greater but you could perish in the winter if you planned your trip wrong. Not the case shuttling between London and Paris. No wonder the Plantagenet family spilled their seed over much of Europe.

I have attached a photograph taken at our dinner party last night. The shot is of Judy and Leslie. The time is about 12 midnight and from the look on their faces they have had their fill of lamb and wine. Leslie is a refugee from New Orleans, still under water from Katrina (wasn’t Katrina a Tsarina). Leslie is a law student at Tulane or should I say was a law student at Tulane, now a U of Richmond L1. I find it ironic that Ben is living as an expatriate in Russia and his girl friend is an American refuge from Louisiana. A sign of things to come for the West perhaps.

I am not a computer kind of guy. I am habitually curious. So, at the urging of my Russian speaking, history reading son ,who is now studying in Yaroslavl, Russia I am experimenting with this new tool of the renaissance man.

Picture of my son

Today is a holiday, Labor Day to be precise. We have had a stressful week along with many of our fellow Americans. The hurricane, the war, my business, and my son who is now visiting a land that I know little about. All of this has contributed to the complex web of the life of a middle aged, overly worked, adolescent - married with children, home, and aging parents.

Not that I am complaining. I have had all the benefits of a middle class life style and value system. Good university, great kids, nice house, excellent marriage, no dog. (I love dogs but I really love the concept of dogs not the care). It’s just that when I look around I find that everything is happening too fast. My emotions do not have time to enjoy the experience. Its like going out to dinner at a very nice restaurant, the kind the does “great menu”. You know like an appetizer of “crispy sweetbreads served over rounds of herb infused toast with a fruit and hot pepper reduction". Sounds delectable but the experience of dining on this dish is almost a let down after comparing it to the mental picture from the menu. Life is frequently about unfulfilled expectations. The Zen people refer to the cure as learning to be “mindful” meaning aware of the moment. But I need to think about this. They say that you can learn this skill by disciplining your day-to-day life over many years. Then if you are lucky you will be able to truly experience the taste of the food…..YAAAA……I just tried to post this message. I followed the rather arcane process which is happily and graphically displayed on the How to Post….and its gone……my spontaneous thoughts, my reasonable attack on this new technology…all gone…

If you are reading this message then you are clearly more technically savvy than I am and perhaps you and I need to get a life…but if you are seeking other meanderers of the mind, explorers of the electronic synapses….talk or rather blog away.