The “Boundaries” Trap

This is the first of several posts examining how the fixation on “boundaries” can sometimes undermine the very relationships they're supposed to protect.  Next week, I'll explore how to recognize that pattern in ourselves—and what we can do to repair the damage.

There’s a curious phenomenon on social media: self-help gurus, often filming themselves from the driver’s seat of their cars, delivering long-winded recitations of platitudes such as “You are enough,” “Protect your peace,” and “You don’t owe anyone an explanation.”  Particularly popular are their enthusiastic endorsements of something called “setting boundaries.”

Now, boundaries are not inherently a bad thing.  There are circumstances in which they are necessary, especially when dealing with people who are abusive, manipulative, or unwilling to respect reasonable limits.  Nobody should feel obligated to tolerate mistreatment simply to preserve a relationship.  In fact, a close associate recently had to establish boundaries to stop a relative from taking financial advantage of him.  But he didn't end the relationship.  He simply drew a line in the sand and made it clear that the gravy train had reached its final stop.

But somewhere along the way, the concept of boundaries has been distorted into something quite different: a convenient justification for avoiding difficult conversations, dismissing other people’s feelings, and escaping accountability for one’s own behavior.  Under the guise of “boundaries,” many unintentionally self-sabotage their relationships with others.  Although I wasn’t self-aware enough to refer to this behavior as “self-sabotage,” and I didn’t have a cadre of social-media influencers to chant “defend your boundaries,” I was definitely prone to this kind of behavior during my early twenties.  And it led me to make some pretty costly decisions.

Of course, one can also view these social media posts as self-serving.  The more people become isolated, the more time they may spend endlessly scrolling Instagram and other platforms, liking these posts, dropping comments filled with similar platitudes, justifying their own behavior and reinforcing one another’s grievances.  All of this generates engagement, which can translate into money for the content creator.  It’s a potentially profitable cycle for the influencer, but a sad spiral for vulnerable viewers.

And the advice itself is frequently presented without context or nuance.  A disagreement becomes a violation of boundaries.  A request for an explanation becomes an unreasonable demand.  An uncomfortable conversation becomes a threat to one’s peace.  Rather than encouraging people to develop the emotional maturity necessary to navigate complicated relationships, these messages can encourage them to retreat from those relationships altogether.

Here's a hint: A camera, a collection of reassuring platitudes, and thousands of followers do not make someone a qualified mental health professional.  And the number of likes a video receives tells you nothing about the quality of its advice.

When someone says, “I’m setting a boundary,” what they sometimes really mean is, “I don’t know how to have this conversation.”  Or, less charitably, “I don’t want to be held accountable for my behavior.”

There is an important distinction between telling someone, “I won’t accept being treated this way,” and simply refusing to discuss how one’s own actions have affected another person.  The former establishes a reasonable limit.  The latter may be nothing more than avoidance dressed up in the language of emotional health.

The boundaries excuse can also be used to ignore another person’s legitimate emotional needs altogether.  A partner, friend, or family member may be expected to provide attention, loyalty, reassurance, practical help, or emotional support, while being told that their own needs are intrusive, demanding, or disrespectful of someone else’s “peace.”  In that arrangement, one person’s feelings and preferences are treated as important, while the other person is expected to remain endlessly and unquestionably accommodating—with even constructive criticism interpreted as threatening.

That is not a mutual relationship.  It is a one-way relationship in which one party receives understanding, patience, and support while refusing to offer the same in return.  Over time, the other person may be reduced to a source of comfort, validation, companionship, or assistance—essentially used or exploited under the cover of therapeutic language.  Calling this dynamic a boundary does not make it fair, healthy, or reciprocal.

And when that avoidance is repeatedly validated by self-appointed social media authorities, it can become a pattern.  Instead of learning how to communicate, apologize, compromise, or resolve disagreements, people become increasingly convinced that every difficult relationship is evidence of someone else’s toxicity.

Eventually, they may find themselves increasingly isolated, unable to maintain stable romantic relationships or enduring friendships outside their immediate families.  And even those family relationships may survive less because they are healthy than because the bonds of kinship are obligatory and difficult to sever.

The irony is that the very advice intended to promote emotional well-being can, when taken to extremes, undermine the skills necessary to achieve it.  Healthy relationships require more than self-respect.  They require mutual empathy, honesty, reciprocity, and the willingness to have conversations we’d sometimes rather avoid. They also require recognizing that other people have needs that matter, even when meeting those needs is inconvenient.

Boundaries can protect relationships.  But when they become substitutes for communication, reciprocity, and accountability, they can also destroy them.

There is a difference between protecting your peace and refusing to make peace.

Five Days in Ireland - a Belated Travelogue

Recently, I began writing my annual “year in review” post, which is going to have a rather different tone from previous posts owing to an unpleasant personal event that took place over the past year. As I was writing, however, I realized I never posted about the trip to Ireland that Daniel and I undertook in late March and early April. This presented a challenge, as the memories of the trip are now more than six months old. Then I remembered that I had composed an email for close friends and family as the trip progressed. I’ve adapted that account for the bulk of this post, along with a link to the video from our trip.

As with Cancún in February, we selected Dublin because it’s reachable from Cleveland via a nonstop flight. I was able to score a great deal on Business Class tickets on Aer Lingus. The only issue was that we had to walk between various security checkpoints at Cleveland Hopkins Airport because our TSA PreCheck passes weren’t accepted. Fortunately, CLE doesn't have the hours-long TSA lines you've seen on the news at larger airports. We had enough time to relax in the United Club lounge, thanks to its partnership with Aer Lingus.

The plane itself was an Airbus A321neoLR. Our seats reclined fully flat and even had a massage option, a retractable table, and plenty of storage space. Very welcome amenities for an overnight flight, although I was so excited about the trip that I slept little. The flight included a hot meal not long after takeoff and breakfast just before landing, but I’d be lying if I told you I remembered what we ate.

Our flight landed early Saturday morning, and despite the long lines at immigration, we were through quickly enough that we left the airport around the time our flight was originally scheduled to land. We took the Dublin Express to the city center and walked to our hotel to drop off our luggage. We stayed at the Holiday Inn on O’Connell Street. Even though we weren't checking in until that afternoon, the staff invited us to take advantage of the breakfast buffet. But we were still sated from the food on our flight, so we just grabbed some coffee to go.

From there, we walked around the area, taking in the sights and acquainting ourselves with the layout of the city. Two highlights were St. Stephen’s Green and Merrion Square, with its famous statue of Oscar Wilde. By the time we returned to the hotel to check in and head to our room, we were exhausted, so we took a brief nap.

No account of a trip to Ireland would be complete without discussing one of its most distinctive exports: Guinness stout. We both enjoyed our share (especially Daniel), but I found myself preferring Orchard Thieves cider. We visited so many pubs that I can't recall them all, but Pennylane became our semi-regular evening haunt—we went there at least three times.

Sunday started off poorly. We had planned to visit the Guinness brewery, but when we arrived, we learned that tours were already sold out for the day. We had taken the tram there, but on the return trip it became so crowded that we decided to get off and walk. Now I know what it feels like to be packed in like sardines.

We did some free associating on Sunday, going wherever our whims took us. By evening, we were tired of walking, so we stopped at a local cinema and saw Project Hail Mary. Jet lag must have caught up with us because we both dozed off at the beginning of the film. We awakened after a while, however, and the plot held our attention once things got going.

The movie, in which Ryan Gosling plays the sole survivor of an interstellar crew assigned to investigate a threat to Earth, finds his character encountering a counterpart from a world in the Eridani star system—also the sole survivor of a similar mission. Despite belonging to vastly different species—the counterpart comes from a race of living rocks—a strong friendship develops, with each character risking his life to help the other. A heartwarming story, and one sorely needed in our times. I must give a shout-out to Ryan Gosling, whose performance is the emotional center of the film.

Monday was a fully planned-out day. We took the train to Belfast to visit Titanic Belfast, about a two-hour ride during which we spoke with an older Irish gentleman. Since we were crossing into Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, we brought our passports, but we didn't need them.

Today, Belfast is known to many foreigners for two things: “the Troubles”—the religious, ethnic, and nationalist conflict that lasted roughly 30 years beginning in the late 1960s—and as the city where the White Star Line's great ships were built, most (in)famously Titanic. Once in Belfast, we took the Glider bus to the Titanic Quarter, where you can stand on the slipway down which Titanic entered the water for the first time.

King of the World

Belfast is the furthest north Danny and I have ever been, and the weather proved it. Yet there were people jogging in shorts, and on the train back to Dublin, we saw young people playing soccer in shorts and light shirts.

We slept in Tuesday. Instead of the hotel's buffet breakfast, we went to Flanagan's, a nearby restaurant, for a proper full Irish breakfast. That was enough to hold us until dinner.

Tuesday was also the day of our rescheduled tour of the Guinness brewery. Unfortunately, whilst waiting for the tram, our heads were anointed by a bird flying overhead. For future reference, always wear a hat while outside in Ireland, regardless of the weather.

Despite the incident, we made it to Guinness at the appointed hour and learned about the exacting process by which the legendary stout is made. Then we enjoyed some of the beverage at the top-floor bar. My enjoyment was tempered by the cold I'd felt coming on over the previous few hours. I seldom get sick, but when I do, it nearly always coincides with travel. To make matters worse, I learned that the “Cicada” strain of COVID was making its way through Ireland.

After we returned from Guinness, I bought some medication, and we continued our day, including dinner, where I had fish and chips and Danny had pork belly—which tasted like chicharrón.

Neither of us slept well Tuesday night—a combination of not feeling well and the usual trip anxiety. But we managed to make it to the airport on time.

Dublin Airport is run like a well-oiled machine. It's one of the few airports with a U.S. customs preclearance facility, so the process is completed in Ireland. When we arrived in Cleveland, we simply walked off the plane, collected our luggage, and went home.

We spent some of our remaining euros at the duty-free shop, scoring some good deals on Irish whiskey and other sundries. I watched a hilarious British film on the flight back: Fackham Hall. We were safely home by 8:00 p.m. local time.

I'm aware of Ireland's history, particularly with regard to Northern Ireland. But I'm also cognizant that Ireland never had an empire, nor did it ever have designs on creating one, unlike Rome, Britain, Russia, or—arguably—the United States. Consequently, there's next to no hostility directed toward Ireland from other nations or peoples.

What struck me as we walked the streets of Dublin and Belfast was that the people seemed generally content and genuinely happy to see us. Not the professional “happy” required in the service industries, but a welcoming spirit that seemed to come from within.

And I also noticed that when people realized we were from the United States—which is easy to determine by listening to me, but not so much Daniel, with his distinctly Puerto Rican accent—we sometimes received a look that suggested sympathy, almost pity, as if they were thinking, “Ah, the U.S. What a nice place that used to be.”

 

Which Musical Repeats are Genuinely “Musical?”

One of the most familiar indications in musical notation is the repeat sign:

When the sign appears, the performer(s) may play the section in question again.  Sometimes, as in the opening movement of Beethoven’s ‘Pathétique’ Sonata in C minor, Op. 13, there is some controversy as to whether the performer should return all the way to the introduction, marked Grave, or to the beginning of the main movement, marked Allegro di molto e con brio.  There is a similar controversy in the opening movement of Chopin’s Sonata in B-flat minor, Op. 35.  I’ll return to these specific examples later.

Unpopular opinion: I believe slavish adherence to musical repeats often betrays a lack of musical imagination—and, sometimes, laziness on the part of the interpreter.  After all, if a performer, particularly an instrumentalist, takes all the repeats, he can essentially master less material because much of what he learns will be repeated: learn it once, play it twice.

This is not to say that one should never take repeats.  Several questions come into play. How long is the work, and how does it fit within the entire program?  What about the balance between movements? Does the repeat involve first and second endings which are substantially different?  Does it include unique material that would otherwise not be heard?  

Then there is the question of how the repeated material is played.  This is where a performer’s imagination comes into play.  Is it simply a carbon copy of the first traversal—the same tempos, rubato, voicing, dynamics?  Or should some variety be introduced the second time around?  With certain composers, particularly Baroque composers like Scarlatti, there's also the question of introducing embellishments in repeated passages.  You can bet that if I hear a recording exemplifying the former approach, I won’t listen to it more than a few times.

I’ve admired Schubert’s “Great” C major Symphony since I was 13 years old, and I looked forward to hearing the work under music director Franz Welser-Möst in 2020—a performance that was canceled because of COVID.  The orchestra recorded it instead and, while the result was technically immaculate, with sensible tempos and phrasing, Welser-Möst’s literalist approach to the repeats ultimately drained the life from the music.  Hearing the work in concert once COVID restrictions were lifted proved no more satisfying.

On the other hand, the same composer’s B-flat major Piano Sonata, D. 960, includes a repeat in the opening movement that contains a dramatic nine-bar passage heard nowhere else in the movement.  If the repeat is omitted, that outburst disappears with it, fundamentally altering the movement’s character and, to my ears, overly taming the music.

Thus it seems to me that the repeat here is not optional.  But there are well-known pianists who have disagreed with me.

At the other end of the spectrum is the repeat in the March to the Scaffold movement from Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique. This is a programmatic work depicting an illusory event—the condemned man being led to the guillotine for his execution. The repeat is placed just at the point where the condemned man has reached the guillotine. What happened? Why is he going back to his prison cell? Did he forget his final cigarette, or did the guard forget the blindfold? Narratively, structurally, and musically, it makes no sense and, in my strong opinion, should not be observed.

The piano sonatas mentioned at the beginning of this article illustrate why I believe cut-and-dried rules can drain the life from artistic pursuits. 

In the opening movement of Beethoven’s ‘Pathétique’ Sonata, I feel it is best to observe the exposition repeat but return only to the beginning of the main Allegro di molto e con brio, rather than to the opening Grave.

Observing the repeat in the first movement of Chopin’s B-flat minor Sonata presents a double entanglement. First, there is the question of whether to return to the slow introduction or to the beginning of the movement proper.  But either way, I believe observing the repeat weakens the movement for two reasons.

First, there is the notoriously awkward modulation at the repeat—one that Harold C. Schonberg singled out for particular criticism, and which strikes me as a real aberration in Chopin’s compositional style.  Second, the repeat throws the movement’s proportions off kilter.  The climax, where the primary theme and the short motif from the Grave introduction battle with each other, is both the emotional and temporal core of the movement.  Repeating the exposition shifts that balance and delays the music’s arrival at its natural center of gravity.

For those reasons, I find the movement considerably more convincing when the repeat is omitted altogether.

Then there is the question of internal continuity.  For example, Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13, have repeats for the A and B sections for most of the variations.  It seems to me that logically the repeats must be treated consistently to maintain the continuity of this, one of  Schumann’s most structurally formal piano works.

So which repeats are genuinely “musical?”  Those that serve the architecture, drama, and expressive trajectory of the music.  A repeat sign is an instruction deserving serious consideration, not a substitute for musical judgment.  Sometimes taking the repeat makes the piece whole; sometimes omitting it does.  And sometimes, as Beethoven demonstrates, the most musical answer lies somewhere in between.

And there is one final question: did the composer ever express an opinion about observing a repeat in actual performance, apart from the indication in the score?  On that point, I’m thinking of Antonín Dvořák, who wrote in a copy of the score of his Sixth Symphony—an underrated work, in my opinion—“once and for all, without the repetition” regarding the first movement exposition.

In the final analysis, performing musicians are interpreters, not automatons.  Slavish adherence to a printed score must never be allowed to defeat the role of educated and informed judgement.

In Defense of Pope Leo XIV

About 4,000 years ago, a man named Abraham heard a voice in his head instructing him to take his son, Isaac, to the top of a mountain and kill him as a sacrifice.  During the three-day journey, Abraham never thought to question whether anyone else had heard the voice.  Abraham misled Isaac, telling his son that a “lamb” would be waiting at the sacrifice point—all the while knowing that Isaac himself was the intended sacrifice.  It wasn’t until Abraham had tied his son down and was about to kill him that an angel intervened ordering Abraham to stop.  “Just kidding!”

If it became known today that a man was intending to murder his son because a voice in his head told him to, that man would quite properly be subjected to an emergency psychiatric evaluation, and family services would take steps to protect his son.  But because monotheists equate that voice with a deity, Abraham is looked upon as a hero by their flock.

Let’s fast-forward to the 18^th Century.

“I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.

“But, lest it should be supposed that I believe many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them.

“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of.  My own mind is my own church.

“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

“I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine.  But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself.  Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.”

—Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, Part I (1794)

For such apostasy, Theodore Roosevelt condemned the Founding Father as a “filthy little atheist.”  It was doubly unfair.  Paine wasn’t an atheist; he was quite explicitly a deist.  Deism is the belief that a creator or higher power exists but does not intervene supernaturally in the universe or reveal itself through organized religion or sacred texts.  The Age of Reason begins with Paine affirming his belief in one God and his hope for happiness beyond this life.  What he rejected was revealed religion, institutional religious authority, and the divine origin claimed for scripture.

So Roosevelt managed to pack quite a lot of disdain—and theological inaccuracy—into three words.

I would not describe myself as an atheist.  My own religious beliefs hover somewhere between deism and agnosticism.  Why do they hover instead of remaining static?  In my 59 years I’ve learned that absolutism usually amounts to a dead end.  But I do accept the science that estimates the observable universe’s age at 13.8 billion years and its size at roughly 93 billion light-years across.  Any entity that could create something so massive and complex could not be adequately explained by sheep herders thousands of years ago.

Further, biblical scholars will tell you that many of the stories that constitute the Holy Bible were passed down orally from generation to generation before being written down.  The notion that the Bible was, in the words of Carl Sagan, “dictated by the creator of the universe to an unerring stenographer, and so therefore it’s not metaphor or allegory,” as espoused by biblical literalists, is sheer folly that has been rejected by Roman Catholicism, Reform Judaism, and most mainstream Protestant denominations.

Whatever one thinks of the Catholic Church—and of the many scandals that have rocked the Church over the centuries, from the controversy surrounding Pope Pius XII’s questionable non-stance during the Holocaust to the more recent child sexual-abuse scandals—at least the Church has standardized requirements for its clergy.  (One must point out that other religious sects have their own issues with child sexual abuse, including child marriage.)  Before a Catholic priest can take charge of even the smallest parish, he must undergo years of education and formation, including extensive study of philosophy and theology.  In other words, he is expected to understand the historical, theological, and literary context behind what he reads in the Bible.

Let me be clear that I profoundly disagree with many aspects of Catholic doctrine, particularly when it comes to homosexuality and the right of women to control their bodies and become fully participating members of society.  But Pope Leo XIV—the first U.S.-born pope, who began life in Chicago as Robert Francis Prevost—should be lauded for standing up to the toxicity of the Trump administration’s policies, particularly with regard to immigration, criminal justice, access to health care, climate change, and war and peace.

It is a bitter irony that some American Catholics are now posting anti-Leo memes and declaring “not my Pope.”  For the Holy Father’s statements on immigrants, the poor, and the marginalized closely reflect the teachings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth himself. WWJD indeed.

Compare this with many Pentecostal sects. I personally know of a man who was a policeman, retired due to medical issues, then decided to start his own church.  His qualification?  He “felt a calling.”  No theological degree.  No seminary training.  He simply believed God wanted him to preach.  What did he do as he led his little congregation?  He bullied the congregants and ranted on social media, particularly on the subject of homosexuality.  Not that he, or his son, who is similarly homophobic, had spotless sexual histories themselves.  But his toxicity was enough to harm other people, including his own grandson, who was struggling with his sexual orientation.

While I am not an atheist, neither could I be considered a Christian in the traditional sense. I do believe there is ample historical evidence that Jesus of Nazareth (or someone very much like him) existed around 2,000 years ago; that he was a Jew who preached a philosophy emphasizing tolerance, forgiveness, and reconciliation; and that he was crucified by the Roman authorities.  I don’t believe, however, that he was the product of a virgin birth, that he was a child of God any more than any of us are, that he was resurrected after his death, or that wine and bread magically become his blood and body once blessed.  That’s mystical nonsense to me.  Sorry, not sorry.

Thus, my ideas about Jesus of Nazareth and Christianity in general have much in common with those of Thomas Jefferson, a deist like Paine, who had little patience for the supernatural elements of the Gospels and famously took a razor blade to them, creating his own version that preserved the teachings of Jesus he considered valuable.

I favor freedom of religion as espoused by the Founders of this country, particularly Paine and Jefferson. You are free to worship as you want, but you have no right to impose your religious beliefs upon others, either through civil law or through private coercion. That goes equally for all faiths, from Judaism to Christianity to Islam to Hinduism.

I hold firm to my belief that organized religion, as opposed to spirituality, is the greatest tragedy to befall the human race.  History is proof of that.

Four Days in Maine

For the last few years, Daniel and I have been traveling to distant destinations—from Spain to Mexico to the western United States. This summer, we opted for something closer to home: Maine. Specifically, Southport, on the coast near Boothbay Harbor. I lived in Massachusetts for nine years but made it to Maine only a few times for day trips. Daniel has been fond of New England since our first trip to Provincetown in 2007. An additional advantage of this trip was being able to stay with my sister and her husband at a cottage owned by his family.  The cottage is a rustic but comfortable affair, blessedly lacking Wi-Fi but equipped with such decidedly off-grid amenities as a wind-up Victrola and a selection of 78 rpm records. The cottage sits directly on the shore, with a dock extending into the water.

View from the back porch

My sister with Daniel

Southport is a very small community with little in the way of shops or restaurants. An abundant selection of both can be found in adjoining Boothbay Harbor, which boasts an astonishing variety of amenities considering its off-season population of just over 2,000: numerous restaurants, art galleries, stores, and even an opera house. Of course, like any location where “summer” is a verb, the population balloons during the warmer months.

Two views of Boothbay Harbor

When one thinks of the culinary delights of coastal New England, one’s taste buds naturally gravitate toward lobster, oysters, and other sea-borne delights. I satisfied my craving for those at Boothbay Lobster Wharf. We also made several visits to Downeast Ice Cream Factory, which has at least two locations. The selection is generous, and I found the Coconut Almond Chocolate Chip and Caramel Apple particularly appealing. While the prices were high, as one would expect in a tourist town, the servings were equally generous—a single scoop was really closer to three scoops in volume.

About to enjoy lobster

Shellfish doesn't agree with Daniel, so the hat sufficed.

Shopping in downtown Boothbay Harbor is mostly devoted to tourist-oriented stores selling T-shirts and locally branded merchandise—the kind of items that remind one, or prove to others, that one was here. However, one store also had a selection of old LPs, and I bought three, including one featuring Dolly Parton, who had passed away the day before. There are also a number of art galleries, but our walls are fully occupied, so we didn’t even enter them. Leaving downtown and its expensive retail rents behind, we found several thrift and antique stores. One was next to the nearby Railway Village Museum, where I found some very nice dessert dishware.

As noted above, the year-round population of Boothbay Harbor is small, and many residents are retirees or otherwise affluent. Consequently, many of those working in restaurants and other businesses during the summer are not native Mainers. We encountered a good many Romanian university students filling seasonal jobs with the help of J-1 visas. I hope the Trump administration doesn’t get wind of this, because ending the program could cripple small summer towns in New England and elsewhere. Then again, Trump is fond of Eastern Europeans so long as they’re female and easy.

As our trip was brief, we left the Southport/Boothbay area only once, to visit Pemaquid Point Lighthouse Park. The lighthouse itself is the one featured on Maine’s 2003 State Quarter. It is owned by the U.S. Coast Guard and open to visitors. The rest of the park is owned by the Town of Bristol and includes a fishermen’s museum, art gallery, and gift shop. We visited all of these, and climbing to the top of the lighthouse tower was one of the highlights of our trip. Having worked up an appetite, we afterward made our way to Moody’s Diner in Waldoboro.

We made the journey to Maine and back by car, mostly on Interstates 90, 95, and 495 until we passed Portland. From there, it was good old Route 1 most of the way to the swing-bridge that leads into Southport.

By the time Daniel and I arrived home, we had already resolved to return to Maine one day. Given how dog-friendly the state—and particularly Boothbay Harbor—is, we'll most likely bring Brownie along next time.

 

FDR and his Admirals

 

Franklin Roosevelt was fond of using the quote above, not from false modesty but because his ego was secure enough that he could acknowledge his own blind spots. He actively sought out people who could illuminate them, despising "yes men" who would later write "kiss ass and tell" memoirs.

This stands in marked contrast to the Trump administration. Donald Trump's ego is similarly outsized but underneath lies deep insecurity. Could anyone imagine FDR, if such technology existed in the 1940s, having 3am social media meltdowns?

I won’t review Trump’s first term, from the corruption to his mishandling of the emerging COVID pandemic. His tampering with the military during his second term has led to disastrous results throughout the services. Under the “leadership” of Secretary of Defense/War “Whiskey” Pete Hegseth, Judge Advocates General have been dismissed. An active-duty service member tells me many enlisted find this alarming—JAGs interpret the law and advise on whether questionable orders may be illegal. Hegseth gutted upper ranks, whining they were "DEI," replacing competent officers with toadies or leaving posts vacant.

There is a direct line between that and the disaster unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz, particularly aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln: troops unfed, ships falling out of repair, care packages undelivered. More on that shortly. First, some history.

Roosevelt's Team

FDR assembled an unusually strong—and occasionally combustible—group of admirals during World War II. What made them remarkable wasn't uniformity of thought, but competence and shared purpose. That makes the quote above rather apt.

Ernest King became Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet after Pearl Harbor, then Chief of Naval Operations in March 1942. Brilliant, aggressive, and notoriously difficult—there was a wartime joke, attributed to his daughter, that he was "the most even-tempered person in the Navy: he is always in a rage."

Strategically, King ensured the Pacific didn't become a secondary theater. He accepted Roosevelt’s "Germany First" directive but constantly fought for resources to attack Japan simultaneously. Guadalcanal and the Solomon Islands campaign owed much to his determination.

His relationship with Roosevelt was fascinating. FDR understood naval affairs unusually well for a president—he had been Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Woodrow Wilson—and consequently interacted with senior naval officers with considerable confidence. King was one of the relatively few people formidable enough to push back.

Then there was William D. Leahy, probably the admiral closest personally to Roosevelt.

Leahy had already been Chief of Naval Operations before the war and later became Roosevelt's Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief. Leahy's personality was almost the inverse of King's. He was restrained, politically sophisticated and trusted deeply by Roosevelt. As Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief, he functioned like today's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, sitting beside FDR at wartime conferences, mediating between the president and military chiefs. While King ran the Navy, Leahy helped Roosevelt manage the entire war effort.

The great operational commander in the Pacific was, of course, Chester W. Nimitz.

After Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt selected Nimitz to command the Pacific Fleet on the recommendation of Navy Secretary Frank Knox. It was one of the most consequential personnel decisions of the war. Nimitz possessed what King lacked: exceptional skill at managing talented people with incompatible personalities.

Within six months, Nimitz presided over Midway. More importantly, he created an environment where commanders could recover from mistakes—crucial in a war where decisions were made with incomplete intelligence thousands of miles from Washington.

Two of Nimitz's most important subordinates illustrate this.

Admirals Halsey and Spruance.

The Commanders

William Halsey Jr. was the aggressive fighter. "Bull" Halsey became enormously popular with sailors and the public—the commander you wanted when audacity mattered. But his aggressiveness sometimes outran his judgment. His decisions during Leyte Gulf remain controversial, particularly chasing the Japanese carrier force north while leaving Leyte's approaches exposed.

His counterpart was Raymond A. Spruance.

Spruance was cerebral, quiet, and methodical. He commanded the carrier force at Midway despite not being an aviator, making extraordinarily disciplined decisions under pressure. Later he led the Fifth Fleet during major Central Pacific operations, including the Marianas.

One of the Navy's cleverest organizational arrangements was that Halsey's Third Fleet and Spruance's Fifth Fleet were essentially the same fleet.

When Halsey commanded, it was Third Fleet; when Spruance took over, it became Fifth Fleet. Their staffs rotated, allowing one team to plan while the other executed. The system exploited their different strengths: Halsey supplied aggression and morale; Spruance supplied analytical precision.

Richmond K. Turner, less famous than Nimitz or Halsey, was indispensable—one of America's foremost amphibious-warfare commanders, perfecting the extraordinarily complex business of moving tens of thousands of troops, landing craft, naval gunfire, and aircraft onto hostile islands on precise timetables.

Thomas C. Kinkaid's Seventh Fleet operated closely with Douglas MacArthur in the Southwest Pacific, requiring considerable diplomatic skill given the tensions between MacArthur's headquarters and the Navy.

The Synthesis

The remarkable thing about Roosevelt's senior naval leadership, then, is how complementary it became:

• Roosevelt chose people and arbitrated strategy.
• Leahy coordinated military leadership around the president.
• King drove naval strategy and demanded resources.
• Nimitz managed the Pacific war and its commanders.
• Spruance provided calculated operational judgment.
• Halsey supplied aggressive offensive leadership.
• Turner mastered amphibious warfare.
• Kinkaid made naval power work inside MacArthur's command structure.

They weren't a harmonious family. King could be spectacularly abrasive; MacArthur and the Navy had serious strategic disagreements; senior commanders occasionally thought counterparts were making dreadful decisions.

But Roosevelt didn't need harmony. He needed competence.

Which brings us back to that FDR quote. He wasn't claiming to be the smartest man in the room. One of his genuine talents was arranging matters so that extremely smart—and very different—people were in the room with him.

Logistics Then and Now

Then there is the question of Naval logistics – the most important of which is feeding sailors. Wars are not fought on empty stomachs. That was true in 1942 and it’s true in 2026.  

Logistical failure is what is impacting ships in the Strait of Hormuz today.

What passes for a meal on the USS Abraham Lincoln

The situation on the USS Abraham Lincoln is the most visible example—a massive aircraft carrier with 5,000 crew. But this is theater-wide, not a carrier problem.

Iranian attacks damaged U.S. Gulf logistics nodes, most importantly Navy facilities in Bahrain. Bahrain had been the regional hub for food, spare parts, personnel, mail, and supplies. The Navy has shifted much support to Diego Garcia—roughly 2,200 miles from the Gulf of Oman.

This creates cascading problems. A warship doesn't simply "get supplies from America." Fuel, ammunition, food, parts, and consumables move through ports, warehouses, airfields, and replenishment ships. If nearby hubs are damaged, supply ships must travel farther to load and return. That means fewer replenishment cycles, longer delays, more fuel consumed moving supplies, and greater strain on finite logistics ships. Damage to other Gulf facilities compounds this.

Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz remains dangerous; commercial traffic has fallen sharply—hence high gas prices at home. Moving matériel through what should be one of the world's busiest maritime corridors grows harder.

So the problem can be summarized:

The U.S. still has enormously capable warships in the region, but Iran has attacked the infrastructure sustaining them. The farther the Navy must reach for supplies, the fewer it can deliver. The Lincoln's shortages are one symptom of a larger problem affecting destroyers, support ships, and other forces throughout the theater.

Of course, none of this would be an issue had not Trump decided to attack Iran, which has neither resolved the nuclear issue nor brought about more reasonable leadership in that country.  

WWII Logistics: The Ice Cream Barge

Combat power isn't merely ships and aircraft—it's the ability to keep feeding, fueling, arming, repairing, and crewing them indefinitely. Iran has attacked precisely that connective tissue.

Roosevelt's Navy understood logistics included morale. In the Pacific, sailors spent weeks in oppressive heat, thousands of miles from home, doing exhausting, dangerous work. Something as mundane as cold ice cream carried disproportionate psychological value.

The Navy installed ice-cream-making equipment aboard larger ships. In 1945 it commissioned a refrigerated concrete barge—popularly the "ice cream barge"—capable of producing substantial quantities for distribution to smaller ships and shore installations.

A correction to the mythology: accounts sometimes suggest an armada of dedicated ice-cream ships. The famous vessel was essentially a refrigerated storage/production barge, part of a much larger mobile logistics system. But yes, the United States devoted shipping capacity, machinery, refrigeration, and scarce ingredients to getting ice cream to Pacific sailors. This tidbit of information is one of many reasons why I’m infuriated by armchair warriors on social media complaining that today’s military is going "soft."

The Americans gradually created what amounted to a movable industrial civilization at sea. Fleet oilers brought fuel. Ammunition ships brought shells and bombs. Repair ships and floating dry docks performed substantial repairs without sending vessels back to Pearl Harbor or the mainland. Hospital ships provided medical care. Refrigerated ships brought fresh food. Tenders supported submarines and destroyers. Replacement aircraft, engines, crews, and spare parts flowed westward continuously.

By 1944–45, the Fast Carrier Task Force could remain at sea extraordinarily long periods because logistics vessels came to it, rather than forcing the combat fleet to return to port.

This was an enormous asymmetry between the United States and Japan. Japan built superb ships and aircraft, produced extraordinarily capable sailors and aviators. What it increasingly could not do was maintain the logistical machine required for sustained operations thousands of miles from home.

The United States could.

And it could do it on an almost absurd scale: Here are your bombs. Here are your 16-inch shells. Here's several million gallons of fuel. Here are replacement aircraft and engines. Here's mail from home.

Oh—and we brought ice cream.

That's not frivolous logistics. That's mastery of logistics.

The Right Person

But on a higher level, it goes back to FDR’s ability to put the right person in the right job.  It wasn’t limited to his beloved Navy. 

Consider the first White House conference that a little-known Colonel named George Marshall attended in November, 1938. 

Roosevelt was advocating an enormous aircraft-production program. The other senior officials were generally agreeable. Roosevelt eventually turned to the relatively junior Marshall and asked, “Don’t you think so, George?”

Marshall replied: “I’m sorry, Mr. President, but I don’t agree with you at all” and provided a cogent explanation as to why FDR’s idea was not practical.

The room went cold. Marshall later recalled that other participants essentially said goodbye afterward, assuming he had wrecked his Washington career. He hadn't.

A few months later, Roosevelt selected Marshall as Army Chief of Staff, passing over dozens of more senior officers. When Roosevelt told him, Marshall warned: "I have the habit of saying exactly what I think, and that can be unpleasing. Is that all right?"

Roosevelt said yes. Marshall pressed him—essentially saying, You say that now, but I really am going to tell you things you don't want to hear. Roosevelt replied, “I know.”

That's a revealing bit of both sides of leadership. Marshall understood his responsibility wasn't telling the commander in chief what he wanted to hear. Roosevelt understood that an adviser who occasionally irritated him was considerably more valuable than one who reliably agreed.

As for Roosevelt's aircraft production idea: FDR was correct, but premature. After Pearl Harbor, he revived it in his 1942 State of the Union address, calling for quotas so high most thought them unreachable. (After a rough start, the goals were exceeded.) Air power, which Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt had dismissed during World War I, was now crucial to victory—Roosevelt understood that aviation advances had radically changed the situation.

Not that FDR always picked right. His 1938 appointment of Joseph P. Kennedy as Ambassador to the United Kingdom stands as one of history's worst presidential appointments—until Donald Trump took office and appointed the likes of "Whiskey" Pete.