Of Cabbages and Kings

Here is a story that makes you cringe and wonder why highly-paid and high-placed executives just can’t get it together.

Andrew Rawnsley of The Observer, London’s weekly newspaper, came to Washington, D.C., with Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Rawnsley writes about the care the English took to select a gift for President Barack Obama, a pen holder.

“The pen-holder was carved from the timbers of HMS Gannet, built 130 years ago. Wood from its sister vessel, HMS Resolute, was used to make the desk in the Oval Office.”

Here’s the shuddering part of the story.The Puerto Rico-Venezuela game had the tension of a World Cup match. “In return for that historically resonant and tastefully symbolic token, the Americans presented the prime minister with what smelt like a panic buy, a DVD collection of 25 American movies. Amazon will sell you a box set of 100 Hollywood classics for $17.99.”

This makes you wonder who is in the office of the White House Chief of Protocol. Or was the State Department consulted?

Some 30 years ago, Prince Charles and Princess Diana visited the Washington, D.C., of President Ronald Reagan. The royal visit caused Washington’s socialites to scrap for invitations to the intimate White House party for Charles and Diana, who was at the peak of her glamor. John Travolta memorably danced with Diana.

When Prince Charles paid a visit to the Oval Office. President Reagan offered refreshment to the royal visitor. The prince was brought a tea cup of hot water and a tea bag.

That culturally illiterate gesture prompted The Washington Post to publish an article on where one could procure a correctly brewed pot of tea within a mile’s radius of the White House.

Jim HIghtower is a throw-back. He’s a Texas populist. There was a time, before Texas got rich, that the Southern – and Texas politics in particular – was all about the little guy. Why? Because there were a lot of little guys. Then affluence, via oil and some other things, visited the South. And Lyndon Johnson’s Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave Republicans an opening to create a Southern Strategy based on race.

Hightower spoke last Friday night as a benefit for KMUN. The man is very funny, in a way that exceedingly few political observers are. The late Molly Ivins had the same talent. And as Hightower told the Astoria audience, he and Ivins lived on the same street in Austin.

Sunday afternoon’s World Baseball Classic game between Cuba and Japan was heaven. Both team rosters were full of players the American audience has never seen. Cuba’s starting pitcher Aroldis Chapman is 21, 6-foot-3 and 185 pounds. He could be a major leaguer tomorrow if U.S.-Cuba trade opened up. An ESPN reporter interviewed the Cuban team’s physician, who is Fidel Castro’s son. When asked how looser trade relations, which President Obama is considering, would affect Cuban baseball, the physician said that the focus of Cuban players would not change. That sounds like denial.

When the Netherlands team defeated the Dominican Republic team twice, some of its players had to call home for more time off from their day jobs. The Wall Street Journal pointed out that the payroll of the Dutch team was $400,000. ESPN noted that per capita television viewership of baseball in the Netherlands is the highest in the world.

The casual observer could have confused Monday night’s match-up between Puerto Rico and Venezuela with the seventh game of a World Series. One ESPN commentator said it had the international tension of a World Cup match. These games are fun to watch because it’s great baseball and because they are played with an intensity one seldom sees in the American major leagues.

– S.A.F.