The Liberating Power of YouTube

Take that, David Ricardo!

My sainted late father once summed up my manual labor ineptitude with the statement that “you don’t know the business end of a screwdriver”, and he was not far from the truth. I am not a man with great skill in virtually anything requiring mechanical acumen, and I have great reverence for those who do. I’ve simply never wanted to BE one of them, and so I’ve devoted a miniscule part of my life to improvement.

The same wag who hung the screwdriver comment on me (James A. McGrath 1931-2024), when once questioned by his spouse and my mother on why he was not going to fix the drain in the kitchen sink, was (over)heard to say “when my plumber sells wire, I’ll start plumbing”, which is among the all-time great things I ever heard my father say. I repeat it to this day, substituting in “naval advocacy” for “sells wire” when I am asked to perform some feat of mechanical skill around the house, but to a far less appreciative audience than I was for the comment.

I have had great triumphs in the field of do-it-yourselfism, let there be no mistake. If you run into my ex-wife, you might ask her about the dimmer switch I installed, and the campaign for the Presidential Medal of Freedom that task put me in the running for. I also once replaced the headlight bulb in my car. But by and large, I’ve spent my life having other people with greater skill than I take care of tasks for which they are better equipped, whilst I concentrate on those (few, insignificant, unimportant things) that I do well. For this great insight into the Theory of Comparative Advantage, we are all indebted to a man worthy of adulation, David Ricardo.

The Right Honorable David Ricardo

All of that said, I am occasionally driven to test my skill against some (routine, simple, commonplace) repair or upgrade, and this week I turned to the replacement of a watchband. It has been my habit to bring watches in need of a band (and battery) replacement to the local jeweler (Shearer the Jeweler), but my man Shearer decided to retire and sold the business to a new jeweler with whom I have not made an acquaintance. I enjoyed my every-so-often visit with him (Steve Shearer), in which we caught up on each other’s lives and chatted about local gossip. Then I’d hand him a watch or two and ask him to replace the battery and or a band—which I would have picked out from a nice turntable mounted selection close-by. I’d get a call a few days later, go in and chat, and pick up my watches. That’s how comparative advantage works.

Steve Shearer, former Easton jewelry titan

As I said, though, I have not wandered into the replacement store, mostly out of skewed loyalty to my friend Steve. I don’t even know if they have replacement bands. So this week while in California, my watchband finally gave up the ghost, and I figured that during my weekend errands, I’d poke my head into the jeweler’s shop and see if my crisis can be solved.

And then I got to thinking….

What is so damn hard about replacing watch bands? I mean, you can walk into Target and there is a giant selection of them without a jeweler on staff to replace them, so there must be some way a mere mortal can perform this function. And dammit, I’m no mere mortal! So I got up on my hind legs and decided to see if I was right about this. To YouTube I went.

I don’t think there are many do-it-yourself projects that don’t have coverage on YouTube. I’ve used it to prep for the aforementioned headlight repair, to review how to set one of my (complicated, multi-buttoned, battery-operated) watches that was not self-evident, and several other little jobs. Of course there are gazillion cooking videos, which are for me, the height of “do-it-yourself” projects. I entered “watchband replacement” into the search function and voila, this nice gentleman appeared.

What fresh madness is this? The video is 3 minutes and 39 seconds long? Are you telling me a private citizen can perform this mechanical miracle? So I watched. Who knew there was a special tool available to help with the job? I didn’t. My goodness, but this looks easy.

I watched the video and decided that this was something I could do. Then I went to Amazon and ordered a watchband and a little set of watchband replacement tools. A total of $45, more expensive than I remember the process of paying Shearer to do, but once I have the tool and the knowledge, the money I will save across my vast anticipated lifetime will make it all worthwhile (although undercutting The Rt. Hon Mr. Ricardo’s theory of specialization). Lord Bezos assures me that the band and the tools will be delivered Wednesday of this week, and so I will give this repair my level best.

Not content with the self-satisfaction of my great almost achievement, I shared with the Kitten this morning that I had undertaken this great burden, thinking she would (of course) shower me with praise for my self-sufficiency and cleverness. “Yeah, that’s easy. I’ve changed a lot of bands. I’ve got the tool here somewhere” was her response. I probably could have guessed.

Signs of Spring

Although mid-Atlantic April weather continues to underwhelm, there are wondrous signs of spring popping out all over. The farmer has yet to turn over and plant in our fields, so we’ve still got the cover crop and wildflowers to look at. We get an unbelievably colorful carpet of these little yellow weed/wildflowers each year, and they’ve begun to pop up. The Kitten says the farmer’s coming this week to turn the fields, so we won’t get to enjoy them for that long.

Putting aside the influence of the Almighty in the appearance of yellow wildflowers in the field, the rest of the awesome beauty of this farm in springtime is largely due to Catherine’s hard work and good judgment. She is the Peony Queen, and we have a number of beds of them around the house. I didn’t know what a peony was before I signed on to this ranch nearing 17 years ago, but I’ve come to love their appearance each year. Below is a shot of some in front of our bedroom window, getting ready to explode in splendor. We had one brilliant pink peony already bloom, but she was an early riser.

The daffodils have already made their appearance and are beginning to fade. A week or so ago, Catherine sent me the photo below, in which daffodils originally planted by her great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, and herself are featured. She comes by her expertise honestly.

The Beginning or The End?

Like only a policy-obsessed, national security wonk, yearning for the old days of conservatism kind of person can do, I watched the goings-on at the Capitol this weekend with rapt attention, as the House of Representatives voted on five separate measures that speak to where this country is going and who it thinks it is—voiced through its foreign policy. The Washington Post has a nice look at what the five bills were and how every Member voted. Reading it is instructive. The five measures were (cut and pasted from the summary just cited):

• Various sanctions, including a TikTok ban. This bill is full of Republican priorities, including banning TikTok and seizing Russian assets.

• Supporting allies in the Indo-Pacific. This bill would provide $8.1 billion for the Indo-Pacific region to deter China.

• About $60 billion in Ukraine aid. This bill provides $60 billion for Ukraine. Most of the money goes to U.S. weapons manufacturers to build back depleted U.S. weapons supplies, and about 20 percent of that goes directly to the country in the form of a loan. The president can cancel Ukraine’s debt, however, after Nov. 15.

• Weapons for Israel and humanitarian aid for Gaza. This bill provides $17 billion in weapons for Israel and around $9 billion of humanitarian assistance for Gaza and elsewhere.

• Border security measures. This bill of Republican priorities for the U.S.-Mexico border requires a two-thirds vote to pass, unlike the other bills, which require a simple majority.

Were I a House Member, I would have voted Yes for all five, as 101 Members across both parties did (including 5 Democrats). Four of the five bills passed with large majorities, with one (the border bill) passing along party lines. None of this would be newsworthy but for the outcome of the bill authorizing $60B in Ukraine war aid, the majority (large) including a slight minority of GOP Members present (101 GOP voted for, 112 against).

Support for Ukraine’s war effort has become a MAGA litmus test, as the former President’s first impeachment trial flowed from his attempt to shake down Ukraine’s leader for some dirt on the Biden Family. Pay no attention that Ukrainians are dying in droves while killing Russians, or that Ukraine has done great damage to Russia’s ability to harass our interests and allies in Europe. No…Ukraine is the enemy because it embarrassed the Orange Duce, and it must be punished. That doing so works to the benefit of Dear Leader Putin in Russia is an added benefit to the NatPops. The New York Post has it about right this morning.

MAGA nation trots out its various Baghdad Bobs to try and convince us of the REAL reasons not to support Ukraine (1. Ukraine = Nazis 2. Ukraine = corruption. 3. Really sincere humanitarian concern for people dying. No really. They really mean it. 4. The border), but this all comes back to Donald Trump and their Manchurian Candidate-like ability to respond their great Brainwasher.

There has been a lot of commentary in the past two days about the Speaker of the House’s courage in going forward with this bill and how the “Reagan” wing of the GOP prevailed across the board here. The thing is though, one of three things is true about yesterday. The first is, that it represented the high water mark of MAGA and that the Republican Party is beginning to be something other than a personality cult. The second thing is, that what we saw yesterday was the death rattle of Reaganism, that the forces of darkness will take the Speaker down and drag the party further into the MAGA fever swamp. Or—yesterday might not be very indicative of anything, and the GOP will continue to muddle along, occasionally capable of doing something worthwhile and important, but mostly just acting as a collective choir for the most divisive figure in American politics since Aaron Burr. Only time will tell.

Finally, A Little Video of Me (Navy Stuff)

I recently appeared as a panelist at the Navy League’s Sea Air Space Symposium, and the topic of the panel was “Modern Shipboard Defense”, something of which I am not entirely unfamiliar. I used the panel as an opportunity to get a few things off my chest, so if you’ve got an hour, it is worth the watch.