The Vagaries of Nature

Paradise, Fort Myers Beach

I’m in “The Free State of Florida”, close to the gulf beach. A friend who convinced me to play baseball again after 25 years has been coming here in October and January for many years, to play in baseball tournaments, first 35 and older, now 45 and older. After playing with him on our local team in Minnesota all summer, I agreed to come here to play with his tournament team.

Not really thinking clearly about it, after hurricane Milton blasted through here three weeks ago, I was like, wft am I going to Florida during hurricane season for? But now that I am here playing baseball, it is an effective distraction from the election.

mostly empty beaches, messy, churned up water and half the beach front lots empty, half of the other lot buildings gutted

The damage here is extensive. Much of the city of Ft Myers shows little damage, but the closer you get to the beach the more damage you see. A lot of the infrastructure is not repaired or replaced, from the much worse Hurricane Ian two years ago.

It is code in “The Free State of Florida” that if your house is damaged more than 50% of the value, and it is not up to code, it has to be torn down and rebuilt to code. The code mainly requires, wherever a building might be flooded by storm surge, there can be no living area on the main floor, it can only be a parking area. Hence, the structure has to be built on stilts or with a concrete foundation extending above-ground eight feet. There are a lot of modest houses and restaurants that are gutted and have been so for awhile. Even a modest house, the homeowner might not be able to afford to rebuild, insurance is insufficient, but no one wants to buy a small lot for a $million and then have to build a modest house. There are only a fraction of the restaurants there used to be, I’m told.

This is not the vacation draw it once was.

a common site, residential and commercial

Stilts though can’t protect a house from the swarm of tornado’s caused by Milton.

It is civilization fighting against the vagaries of nature. Nature always wins on a long enough timeline. Much of the Midwest is disparaged for this, but I’ve been struck by how flat this region is. The same white/gray sugar sand on the beaches can be found 20 miles inland. That suggests coastal flooding a lot more extensive than what we have seen in the modern era. Climate change may be a thing, but the managerial State is not able to fix that, it really seems increasingly to make life much more difficult, complicated and expensive, on top of the challenge of nature. If regular folk cannot afford to rebuild here, what about Appalachia, Lahiana, Paradise Cali, etc wherever there are “natural” disasters? This is like a nationwide act of attrition, Insurance and the largess of the federal government covering less and less, as insurance and the cost of building becomes more expensive, more and more people ruined financially by natural disasters.

after Ian in 2022, many of these lots remain empty, many a building still standing but gutted.

Not even the rich can afford to rebuild, it seems. A lot of the working and middle class get pushed further inland, forced into apartment living. I’ve seen many houses further inland, people are living in, that would be condemned in liberal Minnesota, so maybe the managerial State here is not quite as thorough as a hurricane.

Don’t mistake me, Desantis is my favorite Governor, I appreciate him as a State’s bulwark against federal over-reach. Just saying, even under this conservative administration, I see the corrosive social and economic effect of too much government.

Speaking of the nation-wide managerial, technocratic State and the election, I’m increasingly sounding a positive note; though I have flirted with pessimism, like a lot of my favorite substackers. Some of the lots burned in Minneapolis, “fiery but peaceful” riots of 2022 remain empty, many small businesses and business persons ruined. People sometimes act like hurricanes (including government.)

But more and more I want to think, four years of Trump, eight years of JD Vance, retire the Clinton, Obama, Biden neoliberal coalition. With a Trump Administration not descending into fascism, rather expanding freedoms, we could change the deficit from negative 2tril to positive 2tril merely by cutting the federal government in half, start drawing down the debt, head in the opposite direction as the rest of the West and most advanced nations really. A lot of those white girls who fell for the screeching madness of Michelle Obama, MSNBC and The View etc would come “home”, be released from the captivity of their feminist indoctrination. RFKjr can spend the rest of his days leading America to physical and mental health again. The Spenglerian Second Religiosity could be more widespread, genuine and deeper. Neocons will be relegated to janitorial work for minimum wage, in what remains of official Washington. The fighting age 10mil man mercenary army that crossed the border 2021-24 will be sent back to wreak havoc wherever they came from.

It is easier to think that way I guess, playing baseball under the Florida sun while the weather where I come from descends into winter, hanging out on the beach, eating fresh seafood.

This is where I played catcher yesterday

Maybe part of the solution is, contra-managerial, let people start living something like this again? Joyful, easier to rebuild and less the cost?