On Anne: A Personal Reflection on Relationships

It was Saturday morning in Houston, maybe 6 AM. The phone rang. I heard a familiar voice on the other end: it was Anne, calling from Orlando. I don't think I had ever gotten a call from Anne before: maybe I had written my phone number down in past letters, hoping she would call. Maybe she had found me in the white pages. I had been completely in love with Anne and still was. If she had asked me to stay in Orlando for the benefit of our relationship, I would never have left. I had struggled to find a job after I left the Navy, finally getting a programmer/analyst trainee position in San Antonio. (I have 2 math degrees, and the insurance company had a hard time developing APL programmers. APL is a heavily mathematically notated interpretive language developed by IBM, particularly useful for rapid prototyping development. APL was popular with applied statisticians, including the property casualty actuaries of the insurance company.) I had left the insurance company largely due to internal politics; I had learned APL on my own, but they eventually filled my supervisor's position on the actuary team from their IT department; the person they chose had helped install APL on the company's computers but couldn't write a line of code himself. He himself didn't have a college degree and felt threatened by this young kid with 2 degrees--whose future ran through his position, and he wasn't going anywhere. So I basically found a computer timesharing APL gig in Houston, paying about 50% more.

Anne sounded a little strange; I remember thinking to myself, "Is she drunk?" She was imploring me to come to Orlando for Joe and Lynn's upcoming wedding I must have written to her about, promising to host me for my stay. I'm still groggy from sleep and warily noted it would be expensive to book a round-trip for the weekend just to attend the wedding. And then she said, "Ron, if you come, I'll kiss you." Well, that was unexpected. In a nutshell, that was pure Anne. She knew me perhaps better than anyone I've ever met except for family. She knew exactly what button to push. Sold. In a heartbeat.

I had met Anne while working at the Staff Judge Advocate's office on temporary assignment until (honorably) discharged after things didn't work out in the Navy Nuclear Power school where I was a math instructor for the enlisted program. The incident I remember most vividly at the time was that I had developed a serious ear infection in the Orlando humidity which affected my balance, almost blacking out and feeling dizzy. I went to the clinic and got prescribed meds; the medic told me to tell my supervisor to put me on light desk duty. When I returned, WG scoffed at what the medic said, telling me I had to study for program certification requirements. He clearly thought I was making up some story to avoid compliance training and he was having none of it. He told me the only excuse he would accept was a bed chit (i.e., a 24-hour medically excused leave). He mocked me in a baby voice, suggesting maybe he should pull one of his instructors in class to drive me to the clinic so  I wouldn't get into a car accident on the way back to the clinic. You cannot tell a superior officer, "Fuck you, asshole." At that point, I was willing to accept the risk of driving into a tree to get away from this jerk. I get back to the clinic, and the medic initially refuses: "We don't issue bed chits for this condition. Didn't you tell him like I told you to assign you to light desk duty?" I repeated WG's response and encouraged him to contact my manager directly. Finally, he issued the bed chit, and I handed in the bed chit to a fuming WG, but he had no choice.

WG had a chip on his shoulder from the first day I had reported to duty. Every new instructor had to go through a certification process (culminating in a certification lecture before the CEO of the school; this included having to pass certain exams, like reactor principles, with high marks without the benefit of lectures. And there was no such thing like partial credit. If there were 16 components, you had to identify all and only those 16 components, using the official names, no paraphrase. And our relevant notes had to be stamped "classified" and we couldn't take them home. (There were no bachelor quarters (apartments) on base. So I quickly had to get a Florida drivers license (I didn't have one from Texas, long story but basically my Dad couldn't afford to have me on his insurance, so I never got a license in high school or my first 2 colleges) and buy a used car.

So WG had gotten read the riot act from the CEO over the last few prior certified lectures, including my new best friend Joe. He was in the middle of redesigning his training program when I arrived, and just about the first words out of his mouth were "I'm not going to get my ass chewed out over you."

Now just some context here: I had joined the program during the Rickover years. (Rickover was the "father of the Nuclear Navy".) Rickover made a talking point in going to Capitol Hill that he had personally interviewed all of the officers in the Nuclear Navy. (Yes, I had my own Rickover interview which I've discussed in my political blog. He did not like my appearance at the interview.) There was no reason the NPS couldn't be staffed by contractors, but Rickover wanted direct control over everyone in the program. We were signed into single (nonrenewable) 4-year commitments and weren't "regular Navy".

I think there were maybe 150 instructors over all areas at NPS, all but maybe about 10 of them male and/or unmarried. The dating pool was rather slim; the Officer's Club was mostly dominated by retirees. I hoped maybe I could meet some single nurses like my sister was (she eventually joined the Air Force). I think there were 4 women in my section: two of them were dating other instructors (like my friends Bill and Sally), one was rumored to be gay, and Lynn was married. I had an immediate crush on Lynn; she was sweet, pretty, outgoing, friendly and she had these adorable dark curls. (I myself have natural light brown curls, though longer curls than Lynn had.) Joe was near me when I initially met Lynn and could tell I was smitten. "Down, boy. She's married." So weeks later, she shows up to work with straight black hair, and I protested, "Lynn, what happened to your cute curls?" Joe interjects, "Lynn, don't listen to Ron. Your hair is perfect as it is." Lynn is absolutely thrilled by the attention. I later confronted Joe, "Why the hell are you scoring points at my expense? You're the one who told me she was married." Joe said, "You never know what might happen. She could get divorced." So that's the irony of Joe and Lynn's wedding I discuss at the beginning of this essay.

Lynn was a devout Jew, active at her temple. She was married to a conservative Jew, who I think I met once at a group mixer. Now some brief context: Navy uniforms are not exactly flattering to one's figure. Women tended to wear largely shapeless blouses. I had the feeling Lynn had a figure because every once in a while I would see her roll her shoulders as if her bra was killing her, but it had nothing to do with my attraction. So it wasn't until this mixer; she was playing pool and wearing a plunging halter top, bending over the table, showing off maybe a foot or more of deep cleavage. I thought to myself, "Where in the world did those come from?" No doubt she needed some sort of industrial-strength bra to conceal them behind a military uniform.  Still, there were signs that Lynn's marriage was in trouble. One rumor had it that Lynn's husband once locked her out of their house. So the story goes (after I left Orlando), Lynn divorced and dated several of our friends, including Joe. Not that I resented Joe's successful courtship, but I sometimes wonder if Lynn would have gone out with me and if the relationship would have gone anywhere. My folks would have been unhappy, wanting me to marry a nice Catholic girl, but I was attracted to Lynn for who she was, and her temple was part of her life: I respect her religious convictions. I had continued in contact with them after the wedding, although I've never seen them in person since. It was mostly an annual exchange of holiday cards, mostly from Lynn. They had two daughters. And then one year I noticed Joe's name wasn't on the return label. No explanation. I think I jotted a reply but never got a response. The cards stopped coming, although it's possible my many moves since then were a factor. I recently friended Bill on Facebook, got in trouble for asking him about Sally (I had seen a woman who wasn't blond, his wife), and Bill confirmed the sad news that Joe and Lynn had divorced

Joe and I were immediate best friends as soon as I arrived in Orlando. I think in part Joe saw himself as my mentor and probably was my ride to and from work until I got my car. There are some things I won't write about because of our friendship, but women (before Lynn) were a factor. Joe had a poor self-image over his looks and his lack of appeal to women, being, in his words, short, bald, and ugly. Being without women was not an option, and he was willing to do whatever it took, including paying for companionship. I didn't have direct knowledge of this, but he once called me to complain that his companion had arrived at 2 PM on Sunday afternoon, long after his understanding of when they would meet. I found the whole thing funny and cautioned Joe, "You don't want to go to the Navy clinic with an STD, Joe! Take care of yourself."

I'll never forget going out to dinner with him one night (he was driving), and then after dinner, he announced we were going to a strip club. Now I'm a good Catholic boy, and strip clubs and hookers weren't an option. So I protested; I didn't mind so much his going, but please take me home. He put his foot down; I need to come with him, or he'll dump me in the middle of Orlando, and I can find my way home. So that's the story of how I ended up at my first (not last) strip club, although I've never gone on my own.

So how did I meet Anne? At some point NPS decided that I wasn't going to work out in their plans and gave me an offer I couldn't refuse: an honorable discharge. It would take time to execute the discharge, but I was immediately gone from the command. I was assigned to the Staff Judge Advocate's office (i.e., the chief lawyer on base).

For the most part, I was assigned paperwork. A good example that immediately comes to mind was having effectively to depose somebody whose driver's mirror had been sideswiped by a Navy vehicle. So he (understandably) was pissed off as I continued the long protocol of questions and started screaming that I was a goddamn bureaucrat. Maybe so, but if he wanted compensation for his damages, he needed to cooperate.

I didn't have much face time with the Staff Judge Advocate himself. I do know he asked to see my final fitness report (job evaluation). He reviewed it and said (paraphrased), "If I were you, I would fight it. It's not going to get you back into the Navy, but they violated fitness report guidelines. They are supposed to be specific and objective (time, dates, details), and this is all a subjective rant." I did up appealing the report and lost the decision by 1 vote, the majority simply dodging the indisputable grounds for the appeal, saying the supervisor was entitled to his opinions. I was not demanding a favorable review, just one consistent with policy.

I recall the head yeoman (enlisted administrator), a guy who liked me and as I recall constantly trying to get me to buy an RV, seeing it as a sure-fire way of getting laid.

And then I met Anne, one of his newer junior assistants. It was like my entire life changed at that moment we first met. We immediately connected. She was smart, beautiful, and funny, and we instantly liked each other. (For me, it was real love at first sight. It's hard to describe because I had never have never felt that way before or since with anyone; yes, I had dated before, had my own share of crushes, etc. But when we met, it's like two pieces of a puzzle fit exactly.) Within 5 minutes of our first conversation, it was as if we had known each other all our lives. Conversation was natural and unforced. She knew exactly how to talk to me, unlike any other person I've ever met. She was like a Ron-whisperer. I remember once asking her what she liked about me: "You're hilarious."

This does not mean that she was willing to agree with me or my Catholic upbringing. We had differences of opinions on some things, but it didn't affect our relationship. For example, when she was caught up on office paperwork, she started working on her West Coast boyfriend's civil service paperwork. Her boyfriend was some married guy with a family. Having an affair with a married man was so far removed from my Catholic values that it amazed me that she would ever let herself into this situation. I clearly had a vested interest; I wanted to go out with Anne literally the first time we met. But really, she deserved to be someone's first priority in life, not the other woman who will never come first over someone else's family. I wanted her to be happy and fulfilled in life, even if I weren't the person to be in that capacity. Anne knew I wanted desperately to date her, and I think she was flattered and attracted to me, too. But she wasn't one who would cheat on her boyfriend, and I could respect that (I just wish I were the one she was committed to). She didn't have to befriend me; she could have played it strictly by the book: "Ensign Guillemette, is there something I could help you with?" And, of course, the military doesn't encourage fraternization, e.g., an officer dating a female yeoman. (My RN sister did date and marry an enlisted man working at the same hospital; she ended up leaving the Air Force after she became pregnant with their first child, I believe.) But she didn't use rank as an excuse. She just was committed to this unfortunate relationship.

Anne never abused my obvious feelings for her, and I would have done almost anything for her, buy her stuff, do favors, etc. I remember that she had a fellow female colleague who often stopped by. It was obvious she realized I was deeply in love with Anne. She tried to get me to do tricks at Anne's direction, e.g., "Tell him to go out and buy us some ice cream cones." But Anne brushed it off. (I would have done it in a heartbeat.) Oddly enough, she did ask me to drive her friend around one day; apparently she had lost her beanie on the way to work. (We didn't find it.) I don't know how we got on the topic of homosexuals one day. (It may have been I had to do officer of the day stuff. At the time, homosexual activity was grounds for discharge; some enlisted loathed life at sea and wanted a way out of the Navy. So they (even straight guys) would intentionally get caught engaging in gay sex acts. So I think they housed these guys in one of the barracks for outprocessing. I remember walking into a barracks on patrol and was immediately engulfed with the overwhelming stench of vomit; I almost gagged and had to walk out. So Anne one day mentioned something about lesbians; I denied knowing any (other than the rumor I mentioned about one of my fellow instructors). Anne laughed at me, saying "Yes, you do" and mentioned "beanie girl".

I just loved being around Anne and was afraid of missing any conversation in my absence. I loved her smile, her laugh, her sense of humor. I did discover at least one personal insecurity she had--her height, which I found cute and endearing, although I never teased her about it (part of it had to do with my own issues back in middle school/junior high, which I'll discuss later). To give some context, I myself am just shy of 5'9", slightly shorter than average by maybe an inch; I'm taller than most women, although I don't feel particularly tall around average-height (5'4.5") women wearing a decent pair of heels. I felt blessed to get that tall given both of my parents were/are 3 to 4 inches shorter than average.

Now most of the time Anne was sitting, working on paperwork, so I never really noticed her stature. I did have the feeling she was petite given her torso and small hands. One day we're walking down the hallway together, and she complained about being short; I looked down and said, "What are you talking about?" I mean, I was taller, but maybe one reason I hadn't noticed is that one of my own siblings is only 4'10". It suddenly occurred to me Anne was only reaching my shoulders, so I was a full head taller. Now standards have somewhat changed over the years, but I think at the time women recruits had to be 4'10" or above and heels were limited to maybe 1.5". Now Anne's height had zero to do with why I was attracted to her as a woman. I don't necessarily have a physical preference for short women, but it happened to be my last major crush back at the University of Texas had also been petite. In both cases it had to do more with interpersonal connection and attraction developed as a natural consequence to that. Plus, most of the women in my own family were short-to-average height, so Anne seemed "normal" to me.

Anne seemed to be so self-confident that it surprised me to hear she had this insecurity. And I almost had forgotten about it until she made a passing reference in a letter to her 8-year-old sister outgrowing her. (That's pretty tall for an 8-year-old, assuming Anne was 5 ft.: a tall stepfather? I didn't know the specifics, including Anne's own height or her sister's; maybe the difference was only a half-inch or so.) It reminds me of scenes from two movies around 1979. In "Old Boyfriends", 5'4" Talia Shire was reconnecting with an old boyfriend played by 6'2" Richard Jordan, a full head taller. I think the context was he had had a daughter (played by his real daughter Nina, then about 14) over the prior 10 years. In the scene where the daughter first meets Talia's character, they're washing dishes. They look about the same height, but Talia is closer to the camera and seems a little taller. In the next scene, a barefoot Nina in PJ's seeks to bond with Talia, seated in the living room, by asking her to arrange her own hair in the same style. As Talia rises to her feet to face Nina, Nina compares height (to be honest, I think Nina looks a little taller) and asks Talia how tall she is. "Your height." Now I think it's cute that Talia is insecure about her height and is lying about it. Nina points out that Talia is wearing boots and challenges her to take them off. Talia complies and struggles to her feet, standing as tall as she can. "See? Your height." It's funny because Nina can clearly see over Talia's head and Talia's eyes are maybe level with Nina's throat. I think I saw somewhere that Nina is 5'9". (At the time of this post, a relevant clip is available here.)

Probably a closer analogy is a 4'11" Charlene Tilton hitchhiker movie. She's playing a teenage big sister, and she's got a 7-year younger "little" sister, maybe around 12-13. Now I don't think they show the sisters next to each other but the younger sister (not that tall, maybe about 5'4") towers over Charlene; in one scene Charlene is looking straight up at her. A relevant clip is available here.

So flash forward to my trip to Orlando. Somehow Anne and friends are renting this large house, and I have no idea how they are swinging the rent. This is the first time I've actually seen her out of uniform, and she is absolutely gorgeous, cute figure; she didn't have Lynn-like curves but definitely very feminine. My body ached to be with her. I am almost welcomed to the wedding like a returning hero. Anne agrees to go to the wedding with me but refuses to go to the reception. I have no idea what that's about. I have pictures taken by others, with or without Anne, which I won't republish here out of respect to her privacy. I think she would have cheered me if I didn't go to Sunday obligation mass, but she let me borrow her car. The rest of stay is a blur; I had to catch a flight the next day.

And yes, she kept her word driving me to the airport. We shared a long, magical kiss before I had to leave for the gates. Kissing a woman you truly, completely, unconditionally love for the first time is literally the best experience of my life. After we finished, my lips were still tingling for 20 minutes afterwards. I really didn't want to leave her again. I would have done anything to be in her life. But it had to be her choice. I looked back 2 or 3 times after walking to the gates. She finally disappeared. I never saw her again.

I kept in touch. At some point, I learned that she finally broke things off with that jerk on the West Coast. Is this my long-awaited opportunity? Nope. By the end of her enlistment, Anne had hooked up with some guy, I think a Navy NCO, who left to return to his family farm in South Carolina. One day I got a wedding invitation--postmarked days after the event. I guess maybe she was worried about my reaction to the news, but in fact if I was to have Anne in my life, it had to be her own choice. My one priority was her happiness, even if she chose somebody else. Oh, it broke my heart and hurt beyond what words can express. But I was blessed to have Anne in my life and think I'm a better person for having known and loved her.

I didn't hear from her much after her wedding. I don't think her husband would care for her contacting friends before their life together, and I accept that. I do think she had a baby boy with him, and the last I ever heard from her was that she had had a hysterectomy. I don't think we ever discussed it, but I had dreamed for years about having children with Anne. So that dream died with the news, but I know if somehow Anne reappeared in my life tomorrow, that love is still there. Not at the expense of her husband and son: I wish them all the best and God's blessings.

Some follow-up comments about physical attributes and the like: now I'm just one man and don't claim to represent all or even most other men. But I know a lot of women are insecure about their looks: maybe if they got a facelift, a boob job, liposuction, etc., they would get more attention from men.Now, at maybe this reflects my own experience with obesity, not being healthy is not an attractive quality. But there are things beyond one's control, like one's height, genetic tendencies to baldness, etc. Anne's height to some extent could be mitigated, say, with a good pair of heels. But to a certain extent, people's acceptance of themselves is attractive. Good people won't mock things about other factors beyond one's control. I don't know why you would consider the cruel comments of people whose opinions aren't respectful. Knowing Anne's insecurity about her height, I would never in a million years compare her legs to attractive long legs of tall women.

Take the question of boobs, an attractive characteristic to most men (to some extent, me included). Suppose a woman had average B-cup breasts. Now D-cup breasts may be a fun accessory (I wouldn't know from personal experience). But I can tell you what would have made Anne's breasts sexy wouldn't have been their size or shape, but the fact they were hers.

There are some weird fetishes out there, and I don't think it's necessary to discuss the full gamut. But to give an example some short guys fantasize about height, and would leave one tall woman for a women just one inch taller. I'm like, "Dude! You're 5'6". You're shorter than the average woman in heels. If you're turned on by taller women, a woman 5'6.5" would look down on you. You don't need a 6'4" woman who has to bend down to give you a goodnight kiss." Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with a short guy and very tall woman dating if there's chemistry like I had with Anne. It may well be that a 6'4" woman has a physical preference for short guys like some tall guys have a thing for short girls.

There was a time in undergraduate school (OLL) where, in a school two-thirds of which were coed, I refrained from dating, because it is fair to ask out a girl over another because of something superficial like looks? (Yeah, like I was God's gift to women!)

But looks are often very subjective. Let me give an example from my past. My younger sister (the now RN) had some local friends who attended TWU with her. One of them was a redheaded Air Force brat like us (the brat part, not the hair). I found her attractive and tried to ask her out. She turned me down, in a relationship with some guy from Rice University. She some time later signaled through my sister she had reconsidered and encouraged me to try again. This time I took her out to dinner. But I lived near San Antonio at the time and Denton (or Houston for nursing practice stuff) was a few hundred miles away, so mostly I would have to wait on school breaks to see her again. At some point, she and my sister had a falling out (my sister doesn't recall the specifics anymore), and I was furious she had hurt my little sister's feelings. I remember repeatedly avoiding her when they graduated from Denton.

Anyway, in the interim, my Dad had found out that I had dated V. He talks to me, essentially saying V is a very plain-looking girl and I could do better. Let's just say I didn't agree with things my Dad said at times, and that pissed me off. I just didn't want to get into an argument with him. I didn't ask for his opinion before I dated V, and I certainly didn't want to hear his opinion.

Now let me briefly discuss the height issue. I had figured out having short parents, chances are that I would never be tall. And you tend to see height as a positive trait. You grow up respecting adults (tall people). You know girls have a thing for "tall, dark, and handsome".You see a tall man and a short man together, and there's a clear society preference for taller people, a symbol of authority, prosperity, etc. It's not generally a good thing when relatives ask an adult to go back-to-back with a fifth-grader. There's no upside because obviously you should be taller than a fifth-grader. I remember reading about how one tall woman had been taller than her own kindergarten teacher (while she was in kindergarten, never mind 18 inches taller as an adult); another mentioned how her 5'6" mother was looking up at her at 8-years-old.

I was already months younger than most people my age. This was an artifact of Massachusetts law at the time which allowed me to enroll on a calendar year basis because my birthday is Dec. 30.

I don't recall when I exactly noticed, maybe it was around fifth grade, that girls were starting to go into puberty and starting to grow to their adult height. It wasn't just that but some were passing my own adult parents in stature. My closest friend in third grade in Florida was DJ, taller than me but not remarkably so. Then my Dad had gone down to his next duty assignment in SC (we were returning from France) and reunited with the J family located elsewhere in SC. He came back mentioning the two daughters, including DJ now in sixth grade, were already at least 2 inches taller than he is (and 6 inches taller than Mom). In the meanwhile, it wouldn't be until seventh grade when I finally hit 5 feet even. It seemed that DJ, now a full head taller, was a grown woman while I was still a little boy. I really didn't want people pointing out our height difference and saying I was the size of a fourth grader or worse.

But the worst incident was during sixth grade recess when I overheard the tallest person in class, a girl, discuss height. I think my tall female science teacher said she was 5'9". My classmate argued, "No, you have to be at least 5'10" because I'm 5'9" and you're taller than me." It was clear to me my classmate was taller, because my teacher was in heels and my classmate was at least eye level, despite slouching and in flats. At that moment my classmate caught me eavesdropping, looked down at me and snapped, "What are you looking at, shortie?" The dreaded "S" word; all my height insecurities were playing out in real life. My teacher was horrified over what happened and tried to comfort me.

I finally reached 5 ft. in seventh grade, the same height as my social studies teacher, who was probably the shortest female in class. I can still remember my 5'7" friend Kathy looking down over the teacher's head at her grade book. For some odd reason, teacher never wore heels, and the rumor was her husband was only 5'3". I was relieved at finally looking an adult straight in the eye--and then found myself looking up at her during the handout of final report cards. Had I shrunk? Nope; teacher decided to wear heels that day.

My Dad was assigned to Southeast Asia while I attended eighth grade in Kansas with my family and others in similar circumstances. To my relief, puberty had kicked in and I quickly zoomed past my Mom and most girls/women. By the time Dad came back after his year of duty, I found myself actually looking down into his eyes.  I had tried out for the boys basketball team and made it all the way to the final cut. I was easily one of the best shooters on the team and couldn't understand why the coach choose uncoordinated guys over me. Their only advantage over me: height. As they say, you can't coach height.

I wouldn't say the insecurities ever went completely away. There are a lot of 5'10" and above women in Texas, where I spent my high school and college years. (I once remember standing behind 4 of them in line at the DMV.)  There were lots of reminders that I wasn't tall. I remember rushing out of the boys' locker room just as junior high girls were heading to the basketball court. The shorter girl looked me in the eye and said, "Watch where you're going, shortie!" I felt like arguing we're the same height, but being as tall as a junior high girl is not something to brag out, and in any event her friend was at least a couple of inches taller. It was a weird school; the junior high girls team had at least 3 or 4 girls as tall as 5'10", towering over their basketball coach, my own gym teacher at 5'6". (My own RN sister had attended the same junior high, a few hundred yards down the road. I remember having to accompany Mom once to the school, and we must have passed at least 3 or 4 girls taller than me in the halls and towering over my petite Mom.)

Then I was teaching Sunday school to my second sister's sixth grade class. After class I spent most of the time bent down talking to smaller students or work on their desks. One female student was standing next to me; I remember being disoriented as I rose to my full height--and she was looking at me straight in the eye. I couldn't understand what she was trying to say to me, when I suddenly realized she was comparing our heights. I had no doubt if we ever met again, I would be looking up at her. In the meanwhile, my Dad had come to pick my sister and me up for the ride home, standing next to her, and she was easily at least 2.5" taller.

But probably the most humiliating experience was this sixth-grade girl on our street, next to her Dad, the tallest person in the neighborhood. Mostly to get a bus seat I normally cut across to another stop, but she towered over everybody at our bus stop and looked half a head taller than a 5'8" high school running back friend. So I'm cutting across lawns on the way home and hers is the last onto my home street. I see a lanky girl playing in her bare feet in the street. As I step on her driveway, she notices and runs up to me blocking my path. So I'm standing, in my shoes, actually up an incline of the driveway in front of me and she is towering over me, staring down contemptuously at me, and I'm staring up. I can barely see over her shoulder. She didn't have to say the "S" word. From what I heard, she claimed to be 5'11", but there were rumors she was 6'2".

Now I had seen a few 6' girls in high school, but it wasn't until college I saw girls considerably taller than that. I saw at least 2 in the range of 6'5" at OLL; I knew that because I saw one who topped a 6'4" limit poster for graduation gear at the bookstore. Well. plus I have a 6'4.5" brother-in-law who has hugged me on occasion, and I'm like eye-level to his upper chest.

Probably the most embarrassing incident occurred as I headed for the campus dining room. Some context: OLL has a teacher education program (I initially seriously considered becoming a high school math teacher) and operated a K-8 school on campus. I occasionally saw students and/or parents in the main building. So one day I saw (presumably) a big sister and little brother in school uniforms descending the staircase near the dining room. What caught my attention was how unusually short the boy was, maybe up to his sister's waist. He noticed me, pointed and whispered something to his sister. I turned my attention to the dining room door when all of a sudden something or rather someone blocked my path. It was surreal. I was looking straight at--a schoolgirl's blouse. I had to crane my head back--and saw a smirking baby-faced girl's head looking straight down at me. This didn't make sense--was she wearing platform shoes or high heels? Nope. A large pair of standard saddle-oxfords. Now I had two coed friends who were 6 ft. tall--I had to look up, but I was eye-level with their (say) their chin, not their chest; she was several inches taller. Being so much shorter than a middle school girl made it seem like I was an insecure sixth-grader again, a little boy not a man. So it wasn't a case that the boy was so short, but his big sister was so tall.

The tallest was probably a 7-footer I saw at a Milwaukee grocery store; the grocery clerk barely reached her chest.

I'm not particularly attracted to taller women; it's not so much I feel self-conscious over a height difference any more than over my height advantage over Anne. I just haven't met that many except in passing, and a number of them don't like the attention caused by dating a shorter guy and/or have a preference for taller men. Probably the most aggressive was this 6-foot blonde who sat next to me during my graduate macroeconomics course. We were sitting at the front of the class; I don't recall any small talk (no pun intended). She had average looks and almost a linebacker frame (vs feminine curves). So anyway, in the middle of class, all of a sudden I feel this bare foot digging up my pant leg and stroking my shin. That was my first experience with footsie, and I was mortified that my professor might catch us and draw attention to it. She eventually stopped. I think maybe if she had tried to converse with me, things might have turned out different.

I did date one girl, KA, who was 2 inches taller. Not a student but she became a Catholic Newman regular like me, living near campus. (There was a Catholic Newman center across the right boundary of campus, staffed by Dominicans. For me, it was a refuge from school stress; masses actually were held at a chapel on campus. I was basically just lying around one day resting when KA approached me.) Apparently I had gotten her attention because unlike most men, I wore suits to Sunday mass. She was a part-time model and noticed those sorts of things. It was like a cry for attention; she said I probably hadn't noticed her (true--I hadn't seen her at Mass or the coffee social, but she never approached me; I don't go to church to check out the babes), because she was "freakishly tall" (nope). The whole time we're talking she's flexing her legs back and forth, mentioning her nickname is "Miss Legs"; she's wearing "hot pants" jeans cut to level with the crotch. It wasn't so much physical attraction or lust, but I thought she was really pretty and she seemed attracted to me.

I remember once telling her how nice she looked in a certain white dress. The next time I saw her, she wore said dress. It was clear to me my compliment had influenced her wardrobe; I remember thinking, "Cool! This is like having a real-life 6-foot Barbie." Well, 1.5 inches shy, 6 foot in heels. She came from a tall family; her mom was my height, and she had a 6'4" teenage brother. (I never met her dad, in prison for whatever reason.)

I'm not going into the history of the relationship here but probably the point things went south for me was one Saturday when I took her to the museum, something I knew she liked to do. Later on, I got to a (rare for me) Astros game. I come back to literally 20 messages on my answering machine, her demanding to know where I was. I go to Mass the next day and there was a usual coffee/doughnut social. She made a beeline to me and demanded to know where I was. What the hell is going on? "Why didn't you ask me [to go to the game]?" "I didn't think you liked baseball." "I don't." "What's the problem then?" "You did something nice for me; I wanted to do something nice for you." Lady, this isn't a negotiation; I went to the museum because I wanted to spend time with you, not to do you a favor.

She now does one of the weirdest swerves ever in the history of relationships. "Well, my boyfriend and I drove past the Astrodome yesterday and wondered why there were so many cars in the parking lot." Oh, now she's inventing a boyfriend to get me jealous. A particularly stupid son of a bitch who doesn't know why there might be a full parking lot in the middle of baseball season.

So that was the beginning of the end. I'm calling her; she's not calling me. It became like a game of 20 questions with one-word answers; she's not even trying to carry the conversation. So finally one time I say, "Kathryn, it sounds like you don't want to talk to me; I'm not trying to harass you." "I'm a big girl; if I didn't want you to call me, I would tell you." [Oh my God. I didn't call her up looking for a fight.] "Kathryn, I'm making the decision right now. I won't be calling you again."

She didn't take our breakup well. I ended up getting a multi-page, single-spaced, typewritten letter on Merrill Lynch letterhead. I never got past the first paragraph where she called me the spawn of Satan. I eventually dropped my Catholic Newman connection, probably by the time I started my dissertation. She had been engaging in all sorts of passive-aggressive nonsense; I had initially joined Newman to get away from the stresses of academia. Instead, it was becoming a stress for me. Screw that.

The only positive note during the relationship is that she never referenced my height or being taller while we were dating. (Maybe she did in that letter.) She did start wearing heels at  church after the breakup. I remember once approaching her at the coffee/doughnut social after mass, and the two people,  over 6 feet tall,  ignored me. I felt like a little boy looking up at grownups.

So I've never had a successful relationship, before or since, but you know, sometimes not getting into the wrong relationship is a step forward. Will I ever meet another Anne? I'm an optimist.

Emails Can Ruin Your Career

Emails are enormously useful tools in the IT profession. They can provide statuses to management, facilitate meetings and coordination in a complex project, augment knowledge transfer, or provide alerts on failed computer application processes (among other legitimate purposes). But there is also a dark side: for example, emails can be forwarded without your knowledge or consent, other people may take something out of context or read something unintended in what you say (or don't say). Readers of your emails may not recognize your mannerisms, capture your sense of humor or process your nonverbal cues. I learned a related lesson during my salad days at OLL; I was giving an oral presentation on abortion, and my professor remarked that I sounded so much more reasonable in person vs. my more strident writings. I really don't think my message was so different in content than in style.

You have little control over how your email is perceived. For example, in my last job, I occasionally wrote up documentation on certain things. One of the people in a similar position on my distro was hired about a month after me and had a very defensive attitude. In one email I discussed how to access a certain application password repository; he sent a flaming response that he knew about the repository on his second day on the job. He saw the email as implying that he was incompetent. The reason I had included him on the distro was because I had asked him to fix a certain file transfer issue, which required knowledge of a certain schema password (stored in the repository); also if there were any manual changes to a relevant password, the repository needed to be updated. My colleague had called me up specifically to get the schema password (several weeks after he "knew" about the password repository). I had already memorized some of the passwords for various common tasks but was assigned certain tasks which required checking the repository. There was no local relevant document.

Documentation is something I had focused on since my early days as a programmer/analyst; I had to patch buggy, cryptic APL code; now I happened to be very good (better than anyone I knew) at reading other people's code, but I never wanted to be typecast as a maintenance programmer. Other APL gurus (APL is an interpretive computer language developed by IBM to facilitate things like rapid application prototyping) prided themselves in writing code as concisely as possible (and comments added to the overhead/size of a program without adding any functionality). I remember in one case a manager proudly gifted me with application documentation literally yellowed with age; the old system had been transformed beyond recognition since then. I felt the only way I could advance in my career is to provide a better context for new maintenance programmers. This is one of the key reasons I was motivated to research documentation for my dissertation and post-graduate research.

It's very possible that the one-on-one training my work colleague had received was different than I got; I certainly did not deal with the password repository on a daily basis. So I wanted to write up the process to avoid reinventing the wheel weeks from now. I did recall having to tell the guy a password over the phone, so I did include him on the distro, but I had included other newbies and my boss on the distro. What I did not expect was a hostile reaction; this guy exploded, interpreting my email as a judgment of his performance, that I was somehow calling him incompetent by sending the email; if he had wanted my documentation, he would have asked for it. I pointed out that if he didn't want my email, he could simply delete it. He was indignant that he should have to delete unsolicited emails, and he certainly didn't need my advice on deleting emails. (No others on the distro responded in a similar fashion.)

I'm not saying that I don't have room for improvement in my own emails; I've had several complaints over the years for long vs. succinct emails. In many cases, length is an artifact of discussing complex issues. In other cases, I didn't know what the target audience knew/didn't know, so I wanted to provide a comprehensive context. But if you use cellphones to read my email messages, it's easy to see how recipients get frustrated. Just to give a sample: one of my frequent tasks was to transfer certain files to other (distant) computer servers. Quite often, colleagues at other locations would complain the files never got there, but I usually could prove the other site got the file through an application notification from the target server. So normally I waited for the notification from the target server before sending a fulfillment confirmation to the original requester, copying the notification in the body. (That still didn't stop the requester from disputing receipt, and in one case, I remember a local colleague being confused and mistaken over the direction of the transfer from the notification.) But I soon started seeing others emulate my file transfer emails. Technically I didn't have to quote from the notification, but to provide some context, application functionality did not flag if you tried to transfer a nonexistent file. I knew people who reported back they had transferred requested files they didn't originally have. Was the additional notification extract necessary? Perhaps not. There were some nuances where they may have received the file but didn't know it. The notification gave them a specific GMT time stamp as to when the file was received.

But in response to the lengthy email issue, I've learned to focus more on attachments to less detailed emails.

I'm going to give one horror story from my past where an email led to my termination. It wasn't that the email was "wrong", but a prime contractor supervisor of system administrators took exception to it and filed a grievance with her management. I was affiliates with the subcontract. My company provided resources, like database administrators and Unix system administrators, to the prime contractor of the government client (in this case, NASA-GSFC). I and the Unix administrator in question reported to different prime contractor points of contact/supervisors.

Here is the context: one of the databases dealt with base security. If and when we did (typically Thursday evening) maintenance on related servers, we had to plan for it in advance, including making hard copies available to security personnel at base entrances. We usually discussed maintenance tasks at Monday afternoon sessions with application specialists along with us infrastructure specialists.

The security database was a special case because it deployed a "Data Guard" format of server redundancy (Oracle provides the technology "free" under the standard enterprise license; this is different than RAC, a technical solution which allows multiple servers to access a common database. DG basically duplicates the server and its attached database. In either case, if the or one of the servers goes down, you have the technology to switch users to another functioning server/database/clone.) It never made sense for me how NASA had implemented DG because the failover server was literally deployed in the same rack as the primary server; usually you want to mitigate geographic risk, e.g., flooding in the server room.

I had fixed a number of DG configuration and failover script issues. But one of the things you want to ensure is that the primary and failover server have the same version/patch base, including the operating system; differences would violate Oracle Technical Support guidelines. I'm fairly sure that my Unix admin counterpart knew this issue. (He was not the sharpest guy on staff; I overheard him call his wife for technical advice on his work tasks.)  I'm not sure that the system admin supervisor he reported to was all that technical herself; she never discussed the database servers with me. The story was one of the leads on the prime account had worked with her in the past and recruited her into the position. She had not made a good impression on me fairly early, calling one of our application colleagues a "bitch". I never heard her discuss technology per se; she seemed to be more focused on office politics (which should have been a warning to me).

So one Monday staff meeting, she announced  that we needed to do Unix security patching on the DG servers, tentatively a week from Thursday. Again, you might think she would have discussed my database servers with me first, but she didn't. So the next Monday she wasn't there. Think that my Unix admin colleague would bring up working on my servers? No. So I bring it up. Keep in mind that we need to describe the length of the maintenance period, and my Unix colleague doesn't say anything over, say, a typical 3- or 4-hour period. And I'm literally doing the supervisor's work over the next couple of days, getting the sign offs from the relevant servers, arranging for hard copies with the security guards, etc. I write up what needs to happen on my servers for Thursday.

I'm not sure if she returned Tuesday or Wednesday. But I think Wednesday the Unix admin started saying that he only had time to do one of the servers; now at the risk of oversimplification, it was like a McDonald's worker claiming he couldn't start grilling a second hamburger until the first hamburger was assembled and delivered to the customer. It was preposterous; he had walked me through the process, and there were periods you had to wait several minutes for the process was complete; he could easily start the next server's patch while waiting for the first server to finish. But he wasn't "comfortable" with working on the 2 servers concurrently, which was a personal preference, not a logical or physical one. I immediately launch complaints with his and my supervisors. No response.

The system administrator manager sends out an email at 2 PM on Thursday, literally 2 hours before the maintenance period, canceling the maintenance period, citing that her Unix admin needed more than the allocated time period to complete the patching. My prime supervisor told me to stand down, let it go. But I was not happy; first of all, there was no legitimate concern because the patching could be done concurrently. Plus all the work I had done getting everything set up for maintenance had gone down the drain.

So I wrote a tough but fair email pointing out:

• why didn't you know that my servers needed to be patched concurrently when you brought patching up a week ago Monday?
• why didn't you discuss patching on my database servers first with me?
• if you needed more time to patch both servers, why didn't you request more time from the get-go? Why didn't your Unix admin, who was at the meeting, raise the issue this past Monday?
• how is it you waited until 2 hours before the maintenance period to announce your decision? (There was a nuance because I had to book a later start to accommodate the maintenance period, and this meant that I could only book 5 vs. 8 hours for the day, which caused an issue with my subcontractor boss.)

No doubt this supervisor took exception to the implied notion of her incompetence in handling the situation and filed a grievance against me. The prime contractor manager contacted the sub-prime, said that they would no longer approve my time sheets, and demanded my immediate replacement. I was told by my company if they couldn't place me on another project (they had no open DBA slots), I would be administratively discharged.

Do I regret it? Yes and no. As a subcontractor on the account, I was in a vulnerable position. I should have realized that she would escalate the situation politically, and my project supervisor wasn't in a position to defend me (and had warned me to stand down). Besides, her own last-minute cancellation caused her a credibility issue, and I was not to blame for the fiasco. Finding another job is always a hassle. On the other side, I had run out of things to fix, the job was boring and lacked challenge, and other Oracle work was under different NASA contractors.

Obviously the email got to her. Was it worth it? No. She probably had already realized the points I was making. I would have been better served by quietly finding another job and leaving under my own terms.  

Pope Francis' Attack on Libertarians

As a Catholic libertarian I have been critical of Pope Francis' insertion into American politics (see here), his mixed-message leadership on homosexuality and divorce (here), his undue reliance on symbolic actions and playing for favorable press (here),  his attacks on more traditional Catholics, his administrative decisions, and abuse of authority (here and here), his "progressive" political views (here); I've written a more comprehensive critique (here), but I was even more troubled by his anti-market standpoint and his straw man attacks on social darwinism, a deliberate smear of Herbert Spencer, in his exhortation (here).

I admit being a Catholic libertarian seems paradoxical; perhaps even more so is the fact that I am a traditional, conservative Catholic, one who had strongly considered the priesthood as a vocation. In fact, I am nostalgic for the rich liturgy of the Latin Mass (I was an altar boy during the transition of the Mass. I can still remember Mom packing me breakfast when I went to Catholic primary school in Florida where my Dad was working at a local Air Force base; Mass was at the beginning of the school day, and there was a mandatory fasting requirement).

But isn't the Church hierarchical, authoritarian, elitist structure the antithesis of what a pro-liberty conservative is all about? Let me point out that, unlike the State, Church membership and attendance are voluntary in nature. I remain morally responsible for my own actions; I do listen to what the Church teaches on faith and morals, but I have free will and act in accordance with my conscience. Am I frustrated by bureaucratic inertia and incompetence in the hierarchy? Of course. The sex abuse scandals were/are inexcusable. And one of the criticisms I have about the Church post-Vatican II is that it has not been resilient against a sexually permissive, hedonistic culture and seems to be overly accommodating to remain "relevant" to young people.

As I have written in my signature blog, I initially entered college at 16 with the idea of becoming a priest, not a diocesan one like my favorite maternal uncle; I also had the notion of being an educator, in particular a high school math teacher, so I considered a teaching order like the Jesuits or the Oblates (a couple of Oblate priests were teaching in the philosophy department). I did get interviewed by a Jesuit, but I don't recall any follow-up from them. (Keep in mind Pope Francis, a Jesuit, used to teach high school chemistry.) But I had become disenchanted by the post-Vatican II Church which seemed to be obsessed with becoming relevant (gone were the universal Latin Mass and elaborate rituals, the more stringent dietary practices (fasting before Mass, fish on Fridays, etc.); in its place, a more socially conscious mission, a more relevant, inclusive liturgy, etc.)

Ironically my very politically conservative (anti-Communist) uncle thought the liturgical reforms were a good thing, and he didn't like the financial drain of parochial schools. Although like most of his third-generation Franco-Americans, he was bilingual (and was fully fluent in Latin: I think his seminary lectures and exams were in Latin; he holds a licentiate which is analogous to a Master's degree in theology), he didn't want to be typecast and assigned to a dying French parish in the Fall River diocese. He didn't have any interest in advancing in the church hierarchy. He never wanted to go beyond his vocation as a pastor and for the bishop to decentralize authority in accordance with the principle of Subsidiarity. A masterful administrator, he quickly rebuilt crumbling infrastructure in his pastoral assignments. But he had no interest in our ancestral homeland of Quebec and its native separatist movement. He was part of the melting pot; I and my brothers were part of the Roots generation (in fact, I had a mandatory lecture to attend my first semester at OLL, by then unknown author Alex Haley); my uncle curtly told me if I was interested in Quebec, I should move there. (There is an interesting anecdote; at some time, a genealogy had been done tracing my mother's family over the last few centuries from Canada to Normandy which my uncle kept in a lock box in the rectory. Someone subsequently robbed the rectory and took the lock box. The lock box was never recovered, but my uncle never lost sleep over it. I can only imagine what the thief thought when he realized what he had had sentimental value only to my family.)

My uncle was/is a role model of sorts; he holds strong views, but he is satisfied with making his point and moving on. He doesn't like to repeat himself. He has remarkable self-control and people skills  He has a very distinctive way of saying Mass; he slowly enunciates every syllable during the consecration. His homilies are articulate and based fully on the context of the day's readings. (This is in stark contrast to other homilies I've gone through, probably crowned in past post fragments by a UT campus mass where the priest actually build a homily/sermon over Olivia Newton-John's "Have You Never Been Mellow".) My uncle seems to be the exception, not the rule. I think when I started attending the Newman Association at UH in the early 80's, whatever attraction I had for a Church vocation had withered away. A couple of incidents stand out: (1) I noticed one Sunday that someone had scribbled out in ink "sexist" references in the Nicene Creed (e.g., "for us MEN and our salvation"). This was in a Church that venerates Mary, Jesus' mother, above all other saints, and has enumerated several women as saints during the history of the Church; (2) we normally assigned one man and one woman readers for the readings before the Gospel. One Sunday I was contacted to replace a reader literally in the last 5 minutes before Mass. It turns out to have been the female reader who was a no-show. All hell broke loose after Mass as the feminists fumed over 2 male readers. (Let me also point out we had similarly had 2 female readers on other occasions.) The poor coordinator had been stuck with trying to find a substitute at the last minute; I had not sought the gig; I agreed to do it as an act of service. I was privately fuming over these hypocritical "Christians" putting their political ideology over Christianity.

Am I putting my own ideology over the Church? No, I don't think so. As Thomas Aquinas says:

Now human law is framed for a number of human beings, the majority of whom are not perfect in virtue. Wherefore human laws do not forbid all vices, from which the virtuous abstain, but only the more grievous vices, from which it is possible for the majority to abstain; and chiefly those that are to the hurt of others, without the prohibition of which human society could not be maintained: thus human law prohibits murder, theft and such like. (ST II-I Q. 96)

Jesus focused on personal, not collective salvation. He goes out of the way to distinguish the earthly and heavenly kingdom; multiple passages stress His mandate was heavenly, not earthly (e.g., Satan offered him earthly power; the people wanted to make Him king). He refuses to intervene in a dispute of brothers over inheritance. Nor can His mission be simply reduced to class-based; He does not condemn wealth, just an obsession with it. He has wealthy benefactors; He alludes to the harsh judgments of others accusing Him of associating with tax collectors, calling Him a glutton and drunkard, a hypocrite who changes the Scripture (e.g., work on the Sabbath) to suit His own purposes). The parable of the 3 servants also is relevant; notice that Jesus doesn't focus on unequal distribution of investments or outcomes by the servants or the disparity in wealth among master and servants; in fact, he redistributes the investment of the servant who buried his. Now I'm not going to go into a theological discussion of the parable here, of what we do with the gift of life God has given us. But clearly we are expected to make industrious use of what we are given. Jesus doesn't simply praise the servant who earned the most but He condemns the one who has yielded nothing. I go further than many who interpret this parable: I see good in the production of goods and services that are more affordable to the poor, i.e., improving their standard of living. No, Jesus is not simply a humanitarian; He rebukes Judas, who argues that the woman anointing Him with expensive oil should have instead given the money exchanged for the oil to the poor. (I have written a companion piece here on whether Jesus was a "progressive".)

I became increasingly alienated by a Church which seemed to confound faith with a sociopolitical agenda. In one case I've cited in other blog posts, I was attending Catholic school in my grandfather/uncle's home parish, and the class had "adopted" a black family in DC; we would help out on groceries, clothes, etc., but the item that sticks out most is the wish list included the father's brand of cigarettes: were we really supposed to aid and abet a man's self-destructive habits? I also had a sense that what we were doing was morally hazardous and counterproductive. It's one thing to help someone who is in a temporary bind, to invest in a fishing pole, so he can catch his dinner; it's another thing to foster a dependency on the State or charity, which I find morally corrosive.

So what has Pope Francis said or written that has resulted in a backlash by the libertarian community, including myself?

Finally, I cannot but speak of the serious risks associated with the invasion, at high levels of culture and education in both universities and in schools, of positions of libertarian individualism. A common feature of this fallacious paradigm is that it minimizes the common good, that is, “living well”, a “good life” in the community framework, and exalts the selfish ideal that deceptively proposes a “beautiful life”. If individualism affirms that it is only the individual who gives value to things and interpersonal relationships, and so it is only the individual who decides what is good and what is bad, then libertarianism, today in fashion, preaches that to establish freedom and individual responsibility, it is necessary to resort to the idea of “self-causation”. Thus libertarian individualism denies the validity of the common good because on the one hand it supposes that the very idea of “common” implies the constriction of at least some individuals, and the other that the notion of “good” deprives freedom of its essence.

The radicalization of individualism in libertarian and therefore anti-social terms leads to the conclusion that everyone has the “right” to expand as far as his power allows, even at the expense of the exclusion and marginalization of the most vulnerable majority. Bonds would have to be cut inasmuch as they would limit freedom. By mistakenly matching the concept of “bond” to that of “constraint”, one ends up confusing what may condition freedom – the constraints – with the essence of created freedom, that is, bonds or relations, family and interpersonal, with the excluded and marginalized, with the common good, and finally with God.

Pope Francis has created a bogeyman that doesn't exist. I can honestly say that during my four degree programs and subsequent 5 years as a full-time professor , I never knowingly met a libertarian professor or even read texts like Bastiat's "The Law" or Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" in course work (I do recall passing references to minarchism in a social philosophy course, but assigned class readings mostly focused on things like the works of Marx and Engels). I can maybe count on one hand the academic programs I would classify as free market (e.g., George Mason, Texas Tech, etc.), and I suspect that those campuses are dominated by "progressives" as well. The Austrian School of Economics is largely out of the mainstream. Most of my self-education on classical liberalism, exposure to Ayn Rand's novels, blogs at Cafe Hayek, etc., has occurred over the past 15 years or so. I was always a fiscal conservative and a believer in the principle of Subsidiarity with a skepticism to Big Government. This skepticism did not develop from my professors' political agenda; in fact, I rarely discussed my political views with my colleagues who mostly were "progressive", even in business schools.

One small example: I remember being shell-shocked over the big chunk of state income tax being taken out of my paycheck at UWM. (I had been working in Texas, which had no state income tax.) So I had mentioned it in passing at a business school cocktail party, and the well-to-do woman I was speaking to looked astonished, saying, "Well, where do you think we get all the money for our fabulous state parks?" (on a side note: I never visited one of those expensive parks I was paying for during my 3 years in Wisconsin). I had a tenured feminist professor next door who was obsessed with compensation and was paranoid over what I was making; I never discuss compensation, but she was accusing me of a "cover-up" (and eventually told me she found out because of open records laws and must have satisfied herself she was making more than me); she also took up the cause of getting more equitable pay for administration secretaries. These examples are anecdotal in nature, but I had opinions about curricula departing from Western Civilization and focusing on "diversity" courses and related progressive claptrap. I always felt that it would be politically suicidal to offer opinions departing from mainstream progressivism. It's not just secular universities; pro-abort politicians like Cuomo and Obama have given commencement addresses at the most prominent Catholic university in the US, Notre Dame. The incidents of variances with orthodox Catholicism are so prevalent at Catholic universities, there was this recent satirical post on Facebook:


Although I haven't been in academia for several years, I see the few classical liberal professors like Don Boudreaux constantly being attacked, e.g., for arguing against minimum wage hikes, something that even passes in red states. So I first challenge the Pope to demonstrate where this insidious foothold in academia he's referring to. We just came from a 2016  Presidential campaign with two of the most widely disliked candidates in recent American history, and the LP candidate (who I voted for) got 3% of the national vote. Not one federal legislator is LP, and the number of pro-liberty legislators in Congress I can count on one hand. So, as Bill Clinton might say, this view of a creeping libertarianism in academia is the biggest fairy tale I've ever heard. Pope Francis has decided to create a disingenuous straw man. There are plenty of signs the opposite is true: polls show that millennials are far more favorably inclined to socialism and socialist politicians than older Americans. In fact, socialist Bernie Sanders mounted a strong campaign that nearly upset Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination last year, heavily backed by young voters. Where has Pope Francis been on this ideological creep, despite the Church's unambiguous rejection of this economic doctrine?

For all three popes who have come into contact with modern Socialism, Pius IX, Leo XIII, and Pius X, have formally condemned it, both as a general doctrine and with regard to specific points. 

Not to mention the modern tragedy of Venezuela, where state-operated hospital lack basic resources and medicines and where hungry people are killing dogs, cats, pigeons, even flamingos for food.

In the US, we have record numbers of people on the SNAP (food stamp) program; some 70% of the federal budget is spent on entitlement programs like Medicaid and senior citizen benefits. Almost half of lower-income Americans pay no federal income tax. Even poorer households generally have access to refrigerators, plumbing, electricity, cell phones and televisions.

Yet Pope Francis sees this insidious creep of "selfishness". He seems to parody here the beliefs of some libertarians, Ayn Rand, in particular, who disliked the vulgar popular characterization of the concept and wanted to establish the construct as a virtue. Take, for instance, of airline instructions for parents to first protect themselves (e.g., with oxygen masks), so they are then able to care for their small children; who is going to look after small children if the parents are unconscious or dead and there needs to be an evacuation?

The Great Commandment includes to love others as yourself: not more than yourself but as equals as children of God. If you don't even love yourself, in what way can you love others? You recognize that others have the same unalienable rights as yourself, i.e., life, liberty and property. One can choose a livelihood for which your talents, experience and effort are best rewarded; this is not merely self-serving, but a fair exchange which reflects the net value you provide for his enterprise. The market provides competition because others have an interest in arbitrage up to the market value for one's contribution to the enterprise (not to mention creating one's own enterprise). No doubt I could make a living as a restaurant employee (my first college work-study job included washing dishes and mopping floors) or driving a taxi (I've driven cars for decades with hardly any accidents or tickets), but I have specialized knowledge and skills (e.g, computer programming and administration). Yes, perhaps I could mow my own lawn or change my car's oil, but others may do the same faster, cheaper and better than the allocation of my own time and effort.

There is nothing antagonistic to a Christian perspective from the free market. I would submit that the market exists for the benefit of the consumer. The consumer benefits from competition--lower prices, greater selection, innovation, etc. Restrictions on supply (e.g., product regulations, price caps, quotas, origin, discriminatory taxes, etc.) inflate prices with a disparate impact on the lower income, i.e., a decreased standard of living. The fact that the Invisible Hand provides a greater prosperity for all acting in their own economic interests in a nation of 320M people than a remote centralized elite without a full knowledge of prices and dynamic resource allocation is hardly a divorce from the common good. Furthermore, selfishness is intrinsic to any form of government, with its own self-serving bureaucracy, with corrupting power and economic interests.

But more to the point, the Pope is stereotyping libertarians; I will let Randians or objectivists speak for themselves. From a piece entitled "Pope Francis Attacks Objectivism in All but Name":

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy offers this definition: “Libertarianism is a political philosophy that affirms the rights of individuals to liberty, to acquire, keep, and exchange their holdings, and considers the protection of individual rights the primary role for the state.”

Libertarianism is a political position. It does not assert or entail the idea that the libertarian, to be free, must be independent of God. It does not assert that “only the individual gives value to things.” If you are a libertarian, you may believe in God, live in a commune, work for the common good. Yet, Pope Francis attacks libertarianism on those grounds. He does not mention “the rights of individuals to liberty, to acquire, keep, and exchange their holdings…” or the primary role of the state being “the protection of individual rights…”

Ayn Rand was bitterly, resolutely, opposed to an advocacy of libertarianism that cut loose from the foundation of Objectivism, hoping to soar higher with an appeal to individual liberty unburdened by premises about reason (versus faith), selfishness (versus altruism), and individualism (versus collectivism). She argued that without defending those foundational arguments for liberty, Mill, Adam Smith, and every other libertarian had fallen before the claims of altruism, sacrifice, community, the public interest, the common good, brotherhood...

The great Walter Block notes:

A word about the baleful Randian influence on libertarianism. Many present libertarians, of my generation, came into this philosophy through the writings of this author (for the generation after that, in my assessment, it was due to Ron Paul.) That is good. The more libertarians the better. However, Miss Rand rejected religion, entirely, all of it, as “irrational.” What is bad is that many older libertarians are infected with this intellectual virus. Many, then, would not be as kind in their assessment of the Catholic church as I have been. Although I too came into the movement under her influence, I have managed to jettison this baleful influence of hers.

One of my persistent criticisms of Pope Francis has been his lack of due diligence in analyzing libertarianism, which I would find offensive in any fellow academic. To this day I remember being rebuked by my philosophy professors on two early occasions: (1) undue reliance on secondary vs. primary sources; (2) "don't make Donceel look like an idiot".  So I have to admit here that Pope Francis' scholarship on this point has been frankly lazy ass. (A recent Facebook commenter pointed out that Pope Benedict and predecessors have hardly been pro-market, which is true, but it's the distinctive nature and extent of Francis' discussion.) I have meticulously credited others in published research: I recall in one case the editor came back to me saying he would publish my paper, but only if I reduced the number of references from almost 500 to half. I had a sense of guilt in terms of deciding who to drop, but you do what you need to do to get published. There is no comparable scholarship in what the Pope wrote above; if he had handed that in to me as one of my students, I would have given him a failing grade. He has provided no meticulously defined context of this alleged libertarian creep in academia, and he's really talking about a minority perspective within the libertarian movement, one which he caricatures vs. responding  to in a Thomistic fashion on its merits.

I and others will find inspiration for a proto-libertarian perspective in the writings of Thomas Aquinas (as mentioned above) and the Spanish scholastics, as Murray Rothbard and others have discussed. My post is not comprehensive in scope, and I'll summarize a selective reading list of others who have commented on the Pope's critique (in addition to those cited above), including prominent Catholic libertarians like Jeffrey Tucker, Tom Woods, Thomas DiLorenzo, and others. (This list is not exhaustive; do your own due diligence, but it is a reasonable sample.)

• Breitbart.com, "Pope Francis Warns Against ‘Invasion’ of Libertarianism". The piece that ignited the firestorm.
• Sarah Scherer, "A Catholic Libertarian’s Epic Response to the Pope’s Comments on Libertarianism". Scherer takes issue with Francis' caricature of Randian constructs.
• Jeffrey Tucker, "Pope Francis Has Forgotten the Church’s Own Grand Libertarian Legacy". Tucker points out the Church's liberal history, including its stand against slavery and state-based discrimination, the stand against socialism et al.
• Tom Woods, "The Pope and Libertarians: My Response". Woods, a Catholic convert, has written a well-known book on the free market and the Church; he has a daily podcast with multiple episodes on Pope Francis (listed here). He basically refutes Francis' anti-libertarian cliches.  [I had a falling out with Woods, who loves Ron Paul, on Facebook; Woods marked Paul's birthday with a snide attack on Mitt Romney, which I found uncivil and unnecessary.]
• Andrew Napolitano, "Pope Francis Doesn't Understand Economics: Judge Andrew Napolitano". Technically speaking, not on the current kerfuffle but underscores the freedom, free choice of Jesus' teachings.
• Thomas DiLorenzo, "The Fascist Pope". Yup. One of my favorite economists (on my flagship blogroll) points out that Francis is an apologist for the State, which has often used the concept of the common good to subjugate individual rights, including Hitler and Mussolini.
• The Libertarian Catholic. "What Pope Francis Gets Horribly Wrong About Libertarianism".