Remembering the man who started the rush, as Florida's population passes New York's

We toured the Flagler Museum on Palm Beach the other day as a treat for visiting family. It was a treat for us, too.

The delight of the Flagler isn’t just in the exhibits but in the place itself, a magnificently restored, 75-room relic of the Gilded Age where a sea of gold leaf shimmers in the glow of chandelier crystals as numerous and luminous as Saturn’s moons.

Built just after the turn of the 20^th century, the building originally known as Whitehall was the winter home of Henry Flagler, who may have been America’s most brilliant inventor. He’s usually described as a railroad magnate and founding partner of Standard Oil, but he’s best remembered here as the man who invented Florida.

Of course, Florida had been around for a few million years before Flagler arrived, although much of it was under water most of that time. Eventually the waves receded enough to make way for the folks we called Indians, who were followed by the Spanish.

Then along came Andy Jackson, who single-handedly declared war on both in 1818. Jackson won, and Florida became American territory before graduating to statehood in 1845.

All the essential elements of America’s tropical paradise-to-be were in place—balmy breezes, unrationed sunshine, sugar-white sand—but the place itself was so remote and inaccessible that it might as well have been on the moon.

Flagler didn’t bring Florida closer to the rest of the country, he brought the country to Florida. He built a series of hotels along the Atlantic Ocean and then built a railroad that connected them to each other and to the rest of America.

Countless millions have followed Flagler’s path in the past century. He is celebrated as the father of pretty much every notable city on the state’s East Coast, including Palm Beach and Miami. It was fitting that our visit to Flagler’s home followed the news earlier in the week that Florida had officially passed New York as the nation’s third most populous state.

Like other ultra-wealthy overachievers, Flagler drew a few raspberries along with the cheers. Ida Tarbell, one of America’s original muckraking journalists, revealed that Standard Oil’s dominance resulted from secret deals that drove competitors out of business. The company came to define monopoly and was broken up by the federal government.

The rapid transformation of Florida from lush wetlands to posh resorts led by Flagler’s efforts also caused numerous problems, including long-term damage to the Everglades and other environmental fallout that continues to bedevil the state.

But there’s no question that Flagler was a man of extraordinary vision and equally extraordinary determination. He came to Florida in his 50s, an age when most men of that era were nearly done for, and lived to see his vision become reality.

He died after he slipped and tumbled down Whitehall’s marble staircase at age 83 in 1913. We stood at the foot of those stairs on our visit, marveling at the grand entry hall.

But we bypassed the stairs and took the elevator up to the second floor. I may have followed Flagler’s footsteps to Florida, but that’s as far as I was willing to go. 

Life on a cruise ship may not be a breeze for the crew but it's the destination that matters

Our determined guide, Daniel

I’ve read and edited plenty of stories about working conditions in the cruise industry.

A common theme is that the sea lanes provide cruise lines a detour around Western labor regulations, allowing the industry to extract maximum work for minimum pay and scant benefits. This is often cited as the reason so few Americans are employed on board.

I got a somewhat different perspective last week, however, when my wife and I took an impromptu cruise from South Florida to Mexico. It was our first cruise since our honeymoon trip to Bermuda 37 years ago, and it was so much fun that we’re ready to sail off again any time.

The crew contributed to our enjoyment in a big way, not only because we liked being served (who wouldn’t?) but because they were unfailingly friendly and professional even late into a very long and obviously hard day.

Raul from Peru, Tatiana from Ukraine, Eddie from the Philippines and so many others spoke enthusiastically about their jobs, and they were clearly thankful for the opportunity to see the world, meet interesting people and hone skills that would serve them well regardless of their next step.

I know that they’d be foolish to tell a stranger they hate their jobs, but I’ve interviewed enough people to know when someone’s giving me a perfunctory answer. This was the real deal.

All of them spoke English well, and some could probably teach it. We found Sonya from Serbia behind the counter of the on-board jewelry shop. She wouldn’t seem out of place in a similar role on Palm Beach, or Manhattan.

When we asked how she learned English so well, she credited her parents with forcing her to attend language classes as a child. “I hated it,” she said. “Now I thank them every day.

We heard many examples of such determination and sense of purpose. They served as a sharp and depressing contrast to the stories of young Americans who seem content to sleep on Mom and Dad’s sofa.

We encountered one of the most inspiring examples on shore at Costa Maya on the southern-most reach of Mexico’s eastern coast just north of Belize. The region forms Mexico’s newest state, carved from jungle less than 50 years ago. There’s still not much commerce there except pineapples and tourism.

The Mayan ruins are a big draw, and we got an excellent sense of them from our young guide, Daniel. He learned the history from his father, who is also a tour guide. Judging by the number of folks hawking sombreros from roadside huts, squiring tourists on an air-conditioned bus is not a bad job in those parts.

But Daniel told us he’d just graduated from the state university with a degree in architecture. His next goal is a master’s degree, and he hopes to earn one at an American university so he can see and learn more of the world beyond Costa Maya.

So he is applying for scholarships, although he knows he will have to work to pay the rest of his expenses. Even before tackling those hurdles, he was about to take an English proficiency exam to show that he could learn in an American classroom.

He was clearly nervous about his chances, but I assured him he’d do just fine. He seemed relieved when I explained that I don’t know much about anything else, but I do have some expertise in the English language. I gave him my email address and asked him to let me know how he makes out.

I was particularly struck by all this because of a recent story in the New York Times about America’s declining labor participation rate, a euphemism for more-or-less voluntary unemployment: Millions of prime-age men and women aren’t working because they don’t want to.

We’ve lost so many high-paying, skilled jobs in so many industries that many of these folks have no option except work that pays much less than they once earned, or think they’re worth. 

So instead of working they stay home and wait, but what are they waiting for?

Meanwhile, the ship we sailed on employed more than 1,100 crew members from 47 countries, probably for less money and more hours than jobs that so many Americans consider beneath them.

I wonder how long we can afford to think that way while the rest of the world steams ahead? 

I love to read a book that teaches me something. Luckily, that gives me plenty to choose from.

What’s on your night table? This question, a staple of author interviews, annoys me for three reasons.

The first two are admittedly small: I don’t read in bed, so there is no book anywhere near it. I also read mostly electronic books these days, because my Kindle’s willingness to adjust fonts and backlight is a blessing to old, tired eyes.

The third reason is much more personal: Nobody ever asks me.

There is, of course, a chance I’ll be forgiving when the New York Times finally calls for an interview. But realistically, it’s a tiny chance—so why wait to share my reading list?

Here are four of my recent favorites:

A History of the American People by Paul Johnson.

I can tell it’s long without looking at the number of pages because I keep reading and reading without budging the Kindle’s percent-read meter. That’s OK, because what I’m reading is wonderful. I’m familiar with Johnson from his Birth of the Modern and Modern Times, both brilliant illuminations of events and insights that shaped the world we know.  Now I’m learning more than I ever knew about how America the place became America the society and nation. Johnson shows the pilgrims, settlers and Founding Fathers as real people with real and sometimes terrible foibles, but he also shows why we should be deeply appreciative of their sacrifices and accomplishments. His perspective is particularly valuable because he’s British. His Oxford education barely skimmed the wayward colonies. We should be thankful for Johnson’s diligence in learning our history and for his generosity in sharing his lessons.

Death of the Liberal Class by Chris Hedges.

I like to read books by super-smart people without trying predetermine whether I agree with them. So I’ll happily read a British conservative like Johnson and an American progressive like Hedges—and I’m pleased to report that I learned a lot from both. Hedges is a former New York Times reporter who covered wars on various continents until he plummeted out of favor when he publicly predicted that the Iraq War would become an expensive and bottomless sinkhole. He turned out to be correct, but the effect on Americans seemed more depressing than infuriating. What happened to outrage? Hedges argues that it’s still with us, but it’s no longer channeled effectively thanks to the collapse of the long-time liberal coalition of journalists, educators, legal activists and others who could be sparked into action by calls to conscience. Most of these folks are too well-off, too self-absorbed or simply too cynical these days even to make much noise. I don’t share all of Hedges’ views, but I soaked up his detailed history of social movements that changed the country and his explanation of the political mechanisms that transformed once-radical ideas into bedrock institutions such as Social Security and the progressive income tax. My only qualm about the book: Hedges is pretty gloomy about the future. I wish I were smart enough to argue that he’s wrong.  

  

An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy by Robert Dallek.

I’m just the right age to be fascinated by President Kennedy, so I’ve read a good deal about his life and times. Most of it falls into one of two categories: blistering expose or hagiography. Dallek, a noted presidential historian, bridges the gap by showing that Kennedy was indeed a reckless playboy who exploited his father’s wealth, but he was also a sincere patriot who brought exceptional intelligence and skill to the Oval Office at a crucial time. He could be startlingly ruthless, but usually while aiming for good ends. What I learned and liked best about Kennedy was his uncanny ability to distill complex problems of international relations and economics to a few simple but sharp questions. It’s no coincidence that Kennedy seriously considered journalism as a career alternative to politics. It's hard to imagine he wouldn't have been brilliant at it.

The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Defender of the Realm by William Manchester and Paul Reid.

I’ve read just about everything by Manchester, including the first two volumes of his planned Churchill trilogy. I’ve also read just about everything by Paul Reid, which puts me in slightly more select company. Paul and I worked together as feature writers at the Palm Beach Post. He met Manchester when he wrote a story about the author’s reunion with some old Marine buddies. They struck up a friendship, which led to collaboration and eventually to Paul being chosen to complete the final Churchill book after Manchester’s death in 2004. It would be a daunting assignment for any writer, not only because Manchester was a master of words and detail but because the basic story of Churchill’s leadership during the Second World War is so well known. It took Paul eight years to get the job done, and he did it astoundingly well. I learned a great deal about Churchill, but I also got a real feel for what it was like to live through those most challenging times.

Every time I open my eyes, I'm reminded how lucky I am that I can still see what bothers me

Many Armenians accept blindness as inevitable.
The Armenian EyeCare Project is trying to change that.

I got my first pair of eyeglasses soon after starting school, when it became apparent that I couldn’t make out the letters on the blackboard.

My near-sightedness worsened as time went on, and eventually I needed glasses not only to see across a room but to walk across one. I took it in stride when I was young, and even when I was not so young.

I was happy as long as I could see. If glasses made me look serious and bookish—good! I thought they suited a journalist’s image just fine.

I took comfort in the assurance of every doctor I’d seen that my eyes were healthy. I didn’t need a doctor to tell me when that was no longer the case because I could see for myself.

I was helping our daughter move into her college dorm in the summer of 1999 when I looked up into the sunlight and saw what looked like black snow falling. In my native New Jersey, I’d have shrugged it off as soot from a factory. In Tampa, Florida, this was no shrugging matter.

I should have gone straight to a doctor, but I told myself the problem was eye strain. All through the four-hour drive home, I kept seeing lightning-like flashes in my left eye. I blamed the reflection of headlights in the side mirror, but the flashes continued when I got home.

The eye doctor who examined me the next day diagnosed a PVD (posterior vitreous detachment), a common event for the near-sighted in middle age. It means the squishy middle of the eye (the vitreous) has shrunk and pulled away from the retina. If the vitreous is a bit sticky, it pulls some fibers along with it. You’ll see a few sparks and some bits of debris floating through your field of vision.

It’s not a big deal, except when it is.

Usually, PVDs require no treatment but my sticky vitreous yanked hard enough to tear a tiny hole in the retina, the crucial light-sensitive layer at the back of the eye. The blood and tissue that spewed from the tear is what looked like black snow. Those lightning flashes were the retina’s way of shouting, “Ouch!”

Despite my delay, I reached a retina surgeon quickly enough to prevent further damage. He used a laser to stop the bleeding. It was a good rehearsal for both of us: six weeks later, the same thing happened to my right eye.

Left untreated, my retinas might have continued tearing and even detached. The consequences of such complications, including vision loss, can be permanent.

Trust me on this: If you see flashes and floaters, get examined right away.

The most serious consequence of my PVDs so far is a swirling profusion of permanent floaters in both eyes. The effect is a lot like looking at the world through a dirty fish tank.

In the long term, I’ll have to be alert for further retinal deterioration but for now I can still see and I can still read—although, large type helps because those damned floaters tend to settle in the curves and valleys of small letters until each sentence looks like one wriggling smudge.

These distractions are a small inconvenience but they’re a powerful reminder that I’m lucky to live in a place where laser-wielding retina surgeons are a cell-phone-call away. I often wonder how well I’d be able to see, or whether I could see at all, if I lived somewhere else.

I think of Armenia, for obvious reasons.

That poor and tiny country wobbled into independence in 1991 just a few years after a devastating earthquake, and it quickly plunged into war with neighboring Azerbaijan. Among the tragic consequences of both events was a spiraling increase in blindness, particularly among children.

Dr. Roger Ohanesian, a California ophthalmologist, responded by founding the nonprofit Armenian EyeCare Project (AECP) in 1992. The organization has been ferrying American eye doctors and surgeons to Armenia since then, reaching hundreds of thousands with its mobile hospital. 

Now the AECP is joining the Armenian government in building five regional eye-care clinics, and it's looking for support.

These clinics are a necessity because the situation remains dire. According to the AECP, “the accessibility and affordability of eye care in Armenia continues to be extremely limited and disproportionately affects the poor and those living in remote regions. Just four towns outside of Yerevan provide basic eye care and most surgery is available only in the capital.”

The cost and hardships mean that many go without vital care. I was stunned to learn from the AECP’s literature that cataracts are the country's leading cause of blindness, affecting nearly a third of all Armenians over 65.

Cataract surgery is common in America, but it’s available to only one in four Armenians who need it. As a result, “Armenians have learned to accept blindness as part of growing older . . .”

How sad is that? 

I get a hundred reminders of my good fortune each time I open my eyes. It's good to know someone is working to bring that same good fortune to people who so desperately need it.

Reasons to celebrate: Two stories about Armenians, and they both end happily

The original Men of Granite, the 1940 Granite City basketball team

I have a deal with my friend Stuart Alson, an independent movie distributor, producer and film-festival impresario: I write stories for his magazine, and he introduces me to interesting people in the film industry.

He’s always on high alert for Armenians, and that’s how I met Valerie McCaffrey—at least by telephone.

McCaffrey is well known as one of Hollywood’s top casting directors. She’s a bit less well known as an Armenian from Fresno, California, and our conversation convinced me that really needs to change.

The main topic of our chat was the film comedy Lost and Found in Armenia, which McCaffrey produced along with Maral Djerejian. It debuted in America last year but it’s about to get even wider international distribution through Stuart’s company.

I’d heard good things about the film, but my wife and I didn’t have a chance to see for ourselves until it popped up on Netflix recently. I recommend it highly by the only standard I ever apply to a comedy: I laughed.

Jamie Kennedy plays an American vacationer who drops in (quite literally) on an Armenian village. He is mistaken for a spy and interrogated in a language he can’t identify much less understand.

It’s a sure-fire setup, as the misunderstandings multiply. At its core, Lost and Found in Armenia is a simple fish out of water story, which is appropriate for a landlocked country. But nothing is quite so simple in Armenia.

Amid the humor, the audience gets a feel for the anxieties of a people whose history of turmoil and foreign conflict is contemporary as well as ancient. A scene later in the film makes it clear the villagers’ fears of incursion are not mere paranoia.

In all, Lost and Found in Armenia presents Armenians as real human beings in a real place, and it leaves the audience smiling. It’s a big plus for a country that gets little notice except in connection with controversy or tragedy.

McCaffrey had been to Armenia before but this extended stay made a deep impression. In village after village, families living in the humblest homes without so much as indoor plumbing insisted on sharing their bread, as well as their home-made vodka.

“We really should be more like these people,” she said. “They appreciate human life and relationships, and they love each other. I teared up at the end.”

Her next project isn’t an Armenian film, but it has some powerful Armenian elements.

Men of Granite tells the real-life story of a high school basketball team from Granite City, Illinois, a steel-mill town crowded with immigrants from Eastern Europe.

Just making the team was a triumph for these young men. Their parents may have been good enough to stoke furnaces, but no one believed kids with foreign-sounding names like Hagopian and Markarian could play such a fundamentally American game.

As it turned out, they played brilliantly: Granite City won the state championship. One of the players, Andy Phillip—of Hungarian descent—went on to become an NBA All Star.

The Armenian connection extends even deeper than several team members. The film is based on a book of the same name by retired Milwaukee Journal Sentinel sports writer Dan Manoyan, and the script is by Armand Kachigian.

They may not be marquee names yet, but the movie is set to star William Hurt as the coach, and Shirley MacLaine as the teacher who played an important part in the players’ lives.

I’m eager to see it, and to cheer for the kids from Granite City. I’m already cheering for Valerie (Boolootian) McCaffrey, who is helping Armenians tell the kind of stories we need to hear more often. 

Democracy in action: What happens when the press does its job but the voters don't do theirs?

Would you trust either of these guys?

Idealists see election coverage as a journalist’s highest calling, exposing fools and frauds while delivering vital information that allows the voters to make an intelligent choice.

Of course, that assumes there is an intelligent choice to be made and that voters will manage to figure it out.

I’m always mindful of the great journalist and skeptic H.L. Mencken’s observation about democracy: With more than 100 million Americans to choose from, some of whom were actually smart and capable, we ended up with Calvin Coolidge in the White House.

Still, I always thought covering elections diligently was at least worth a shot even if it was the sort of shot you have to bend over for.

Covering an election is an awful lot of work, even if you’re not on the campaign bus. Reporters and editors spend months tracking down candidates, tracking down rumors, tracking down photos, tracking down campaign reports.

There’s so much tracking involved that you could almost mistake the ballot for the FBI’s Most Wanted List. Occasionally, at least, there’s not much difference.

We’re in the final weeks of a gubernatorial campaign here in Florida where honesty is the big issue. Unfortunately for all of us, neither major candidate has the edge in that department.

The two big names are the current Republican governor, Rick Scott, and a former Republican governor, Charlie Crist, who was an Independent for a while and is now a Democrat.

After decades in Florida politics, Crist remains buoyant, energetic and charming. There has never been a hand within a hundred yards of him that he didn’t shake, and shake again.

As governor, he was conservative enough to be seriously considered as a vice presidential running mate by John McCain. When that didn’t work out, he was pragmatic enough to hug President Obama—quite literally. 

The photo helped get him flattened by a Tea Party steamroller named Marco Rubio when he decided to run for the Senate in 2010 instead of seeing reelection as governor.

The more consistently conservative Scott was elected governor that year. He looks like a corporate CEO, which is exactly what he was. Scott does not have Crist’s charisma but he does have more than $100 million. That helped him get elected but he never quite won the hearts of the state’s voters.

Scott’s approval rating has never topped 50 percent, which helped convince Democrats that a re-branded Crist could beat him. The polls all underscored that judgment until Crist won the Democratic nomination and the two faced each other head-on.

Since then, Scott and Crist haven’t so much been slugging it out as spitting on each other. It’s an effective way to make your opponent look slimy but it has some pretty obvious drawbacks.

Crist’s campaign reminds voters that Scott started and ran a health-care company that pleaded guilty to Medicare fraud on a scale so vast it was fined $1.7 billion. Scott, who wasn’t accused of a crime, said he would have stopped the scheme but he had no idea what was going on even though he was in charge.

Would you put that on your resume?

Scott’s campaign points out that as governor, Crist got mighty cozy with high-flying attorney Scott Rothstein, who is now serving a 50-year prison term for running a Ponzi scheme.

At one point, Rothstein paid $52,000 to put a candle on Crist’s birthday cake. In return, Crist let Rothstein help blow them all out, setting up another haunting photo op for the Scott campaign.

The bigger problem is that Crist appointed Rothstein to a panel that selected judges. Rothstein later boasted that his influence over Crist allowed him to buy a seat on the bench for his favored candidates.

That might not be true, but the slime ads for both sides are extremely effective. One major poll shows that four in 10 voters think both candidates are crooked, and voter disapproval of each one exceeds even that bleak assessment.

The result is a near dead heat between two candidates nobody much wants or trusts. What’s troubling is that none of the questions that seem to bother us now are new.

The press did its job in exploring and exposing these foibles and follies on both sides, but one of them will be elected governor regardless.

It's easy to blame the bozos who put them on the ballot except for that messy complication of democracy: The bozos are us.

Here's a radical idea for fighting terrorism: Stand up for freedom of speech. Or is that just too much to expect from our government?

Why did he apologize for telling the truth?

Vice President Joe Biden has apologized to Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for suggesting that Turkey helped encourage formation of the Islamic State terrorist network.

Biden created a fuss during a speech at Harvard University when he noted that the ranks of ISIS swelled as thousands of fighters crossed the border from Turkey to Syria. 

He said Erdogan conceded to him that this was a mistake and was now prepared to help America combat the ISIS offensive.

Biden's remarks drew swift condemnation from Erdogan, who not only denied conceding any such error but also denied the underlying facts.

As The Times put it, "Erdogan, despite widespread evidence to the contrary, denied that Turkey's long, porous border had enabled thousands of militants to cross onto the Syrian and Iraqi battlefields since the Syrian civil war began in 2011."

No one familiar with Erdogan's practice of inventing history and suppressing dissent would expect him to be deterred by the small matter of evidence to the contrary.

And no one familiar with America's mealy-mouthed policy toward Turkey would be surprised that Biden quickly backed down.

The Obama administration is trying very hard to persuade Erdogan to join the assault on ISIS (or ISIL or whatever they're calling themselves this week).

Instead, even as ISIS closes in on towns along the Turkish border, Turkey has ramped up attacks on journalists.

When the Times reported last month that Turkey continues to be fertile ground for ISIS recruitment, Erdogan's supporters took aim at the reporter. 

The Times noted that Ceylan Yeginsu, who is Turkish, received threats by email and social media. Two pro-government newspapers published front-page photographs of Yeginsu "and suggested she was a traitor and a foreign agent."

Erdogan's thugs showed disdain for America as well as for free speech when he met with Biden in New York on Sept. 25. Reporters from two Turkish newspapers that have been critical of Erdogan's government were evicted from the hotel and "manhandled" by Erdogan's bodyguards, according to Reporters Without Borders.

"Your existence is a crime," an Erdogan adviser told one of the reporters. 

Reporters Without Borders monitors media bullying around the world. It ranks Turkey a dismal 154th of 180 countries in its World Press Freedom Index.

Why would the vice president of the United States apologize for telling the truth about a regime with that sort of record?

Maybe we're just not the champions of freedom we used to be. Have we really become that scared, or that cynical?

I hate to think so, but I'm not so sure after looking at that index.

After all, we're only number 46.