Llewellyn King: The case for American knighthoods

I may have a faded English accent, but I am a true blue American, and I have been for five decades. I do not think that everything that comes across the Atlantic from Britain ought to be adopted here.

I do not believe that there is any virtue in driving on the other side of the road. And I do not believe that every British television program is unassailably wonderful.

While I think that the House of Commons is a fabulous entertainment, but it is not necessarily the best way to govern the United Kingdom, particularly in this time of nationalist stress. I have lived in London, but I do not yearn to take up residence there again.

However, there is one feature of British life that I think would benefit the United States substantially: the introduction of an honors system to reward exemplary people in our society.

What titles we have in the United States are clung to. Former senators still call themselves senator; governors, governor; and ambassadors, ambassador. A few Ph.D.s persist in calling themselves Dr., and most people would like to have a title other than Mr., or Ms. in front of their name. Even firmly republican countries in Europe, like France and Italy, have clung to their aristocratic titles.

Well, we do not want an aristocracy here, but it would be grand if we could single out contributions to our well-being with a nifty title. Various eminent Americans have been awarded honorary titles, but they can not use them. What is the point of a title, if you can not call a restaurant and say, “Sir John Doe, here. I would like a table by the window.”

Here are some exceptional people who I would make honorary knights or dames:

Arise, Sir Brian Lamb, creator of C-SPAN and a massive contributor to television and the understanding of American politics.

Arise, Sir David Bell, a dedicated general practitioner, who treats victims of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, in the northwest corner of New York state. Bell has tended indigent patients since the disease broke out in the village of Lyndonville, N.Y., in 1985.

Arise, Sir Joe Madison (The Black Eagle), activist and broadcaster, who has championed the cause of justice for African-Americans and has fought modern slavery in Africa.

Arise, Dame Marin Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony, who is a visionary conductor and a great contributor to the public good through her promotion of American music and classical music, her mentorship to young musicians, and her founding of OrchKids, a music education program for inner city Baltimore children.

Much of the British system of honorary titles should be left in Britain. Twice every year, on the Queen’s Birthday and at New Year, a list of new honorees is published, and long-serving but unrecognized civil servants and military personnel hope to be on the list. The types of honors include: Knights and Dames, The Order of the Bath, Order of St. Michel and St. George, Order of the Companions Honor, and Orders of the British Empire.

Just in case you are getting confused, these honors do not include the ancient titles of duke, marquess, earl or lord. But the monarch does mint a title now an again, like Her Highness Duchess of Cambridge, conferred on Prince William’s wife, Kate.

No, you have to keep the honorary title simple: knight or dame, awarded for exemplary achievement or service. On my honors list I would include distinguished people in the arts and sciences, educators, entrepreneurs and inventors, humanitarians, retired politicians (provided  that they promise not to run for office again). I think we should have Sir Bob Dole, Lady Olympia Snowe, and, if she were alive today, Lady Barbara Jordan.

On my watch list for recognition are Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, Wynton Marsalis and Dean Kamen. If you would want to recognize someone in journalism, Sir Llewellyn King has a nice ring.

Llewellyn King (lking@kingpublishing.com) is a long-time editor, writer, publisher and international business consult. He is also exeeutive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS.

Fast-food tips instead of raises?

I've noticed in the past few months that fast-food establishments that never used to now have tip jars out for their grossly underpaid workers  to help managements  continue to avoid paying these people a  fair wage. A lot of this cash -- small amounts per worker -- will not be reported as taxable income, perhaps hurting state and federal finances over time. But then,  many rich folks are better than the poor at avoiding  taxes, at least as a  percentage  of their income. Warren Buffett likes to note this, though I don't see him  making many many charitable contributions to the U.S. Treasury.

Investment income is far better protected from the tax man than is earned income.

-- Robert Whitcomb

The granny pod in the backyard

(Please comment via rwhitcomb51@gmail.com)

Real-estate trends say a lot about America’s wider economy and society — about citizens’ ambitions and insecurities and their evolving sense of place in our hurly-burly nation. So I read with great interest the Jan. 26 New York Times stories “The Gadfly of Greenwich Real Estate: Amid dozens of unsold mega-mansions, a real estate agent sees a glut of greed” and “Big Is Back (and Don’t Forget the Extras).”

The stories reminded me of how much more showy house ownership is now among the rich and near-rich than, say, 50 years ago. What mix of insecurity, exhibitionism, “irrational exuberance,” love of place, healthy confidence and speculation in all this? (Reminder: A real-estate boom caused the Crash of 2008.)

Billionaire Warren Buffett, by the way, lives in a modest house in Omaha.

But what really caught my eye was a Times story that ran back on May 1, 2012 headlined, “In the Backyard, Grandma’s New Apartment.” It’s about a mini-house called the MEDCottage — a prefab 12-by-24-foot, one-floor “bedroom-bathroom-kitchenette unit that can be set up as a free-standing structure.”

Given the aging of the population, we might be seeing far more of these dwellings than McMansions in the next couple of decades. They’re a fine idea, letting old people retain a sense of independence (albeit partly bogus) while not encumbering them with the duty of taking care of a “real” house.

But it’s doubtful that many residents of these tiny houses will build the powerful memories associated with childhood homes. For one thing, their ability to remember is fading.

Some of mine might be too, but my recollections of the house “I grew up in” on a hill near Massachusetts Bay remain powerful. The smell of the cedar closet, the dusty heat of the third floor in summer, the freezing drafts in the west-facing rooms in the winter, the troubling sound of glasses being clinked downstairs. My parents owned the house for about 20 years but because a young person’s sense of time passing is much slower than an adult’s — more of that below — it seems to me that I spent half my 66 years there. A childhood home has a powerful personality, creating a haunting and lifelong sense of place.

But now, jettisoning most of our stuff and moving into something like the MEDCottage has a growing attraction. I wonder if the buyers of our modest house would mind if we bought a corner of the (albeit small) backyard and put one of these tiny dwellings there to move into. We like the neighborhood.

***

The demonstrations in Ukraine against dictatorial and (with his family) kleptocratic President Viktor Yanukovych, pal and/or lackey of Russia’s quasi-fascist dictator Vladimir Putin, recall that given honest information, most people would choose to live in Western-style liberal democracies. While such potentates as Putin strive to ever expand their power and to quash their opposition, most Ukrainians look west for hope. The thuggery of a Putin or the Taliban can only suppress for a time people’s drive to live in the sort of society whose fullest expression is in nations dominated by Western ideals.

That’s because those ideals when implemented, however incompletely, address the deepest desires of people for dignity, for protection from arbitrary, larcenous and violent rule and for self- and civic improvement. The brute force of authoritarian regimes cannot work forever to block these desires.

Most Ukrainians want to be part of “Europe” (which really means Western and Central Europe) and not an autocratic empire — even one run by fellow Slavs.

***

We’ve had a tough winter in the Northeast so far this year. The jet stream has been screwed up, bringing us extended deep freezes, and Out West, including Alaska, record warmth.

When you’re a kid, snowstorm predictions bring joy; you don’t worry about going outside without a hat, nor about your dog not wearing a coat. (We thought that dogs were impervious to the extremes of nature.) But as you age, the inconveniences of snow and ice look more daunting; indeed, new snow can seem a layer of death. You feel the cold more and (rightly) anthropomorphize the dog’s feelings.

Still, as I wrote in my blog during last Saturday’s morning-long “January thaw,” how adults process time helps get them through winter. We know far better than the young how fast the seasons come and go. A happy reminder comes when you have the habit of walking the dog early in the morning and sometime in the middle of January you start to really notice it getting brighter earlier. Rejoice! Rejoice! However, with the caution and empathy of age, you make sure that you’re wearing a hat and the dog a coat.

Robert Whitcomb (rwhitcomb51@gmail.com and www.newenglanddiary.com) is a Providence-based writer and editor and a former editor of The Providence Journal's Commentary pages.