Oh. Wow.

I'm going to give a quote, and I want you to picture Trump saying it -

“I wanted to take it—and you know we are modest—we really have it. There are only a very few small places left there. Now the others say: ‘Why don’t you make faster progress?’ Because I don’t want to create a second Verdun … but prefer to do the job with small shock troop units.…”

If, like me, that was very easily done... 

Then you will understand how disturbing it is that, yes. That was a quote from Hitler.

I try not to do the Hitler comparison often. People have done it for so long, with varying degrees of accuracy, that it's almost lost all meaning. Or rather, people use it to say that their opponents are horrible and evil, and only a few seem to have studied Hitler enough to make a real comparison. 

Its just that this particular quote jumped out at me. 

Anyways, I'm back to reading Enemy at the Gates. 

I don't remember how much I wrote about it before. I have thoughts. But... I don't want to go into too much detail on that just yet. The short version is this - 

I have heard that the Eastern front of World War II was very different from the Western. (also that Russians feel their very painful sacrifices and contributions get overlooked by the West.) 

I have read various books on the Western front, though it's been years and I'm not sure how well I remember them. A Time for Trumpets, The Battle of the Bulge, A Bridge Too Far. More I don't really recall the name of I'm sure, some less about battles than other things. 

I am not sure how much of the differences I'm noting are because of that (German Nazis disliked Slavic people and treated them very differently from 'the West'. At least, I think that's one reason for some of the casual German brutality mentioned here. Idk, war hardens people and the Germans might have done similar things to the French or other Anglo-Saxons. I think Anglo-Saxons was the term they used for their murderous BS? I'm not really up on the terrible labels they used to decide who was 'pure' and 'good' and who was not.) 

Anyways, I don't know how much is the difference between the Eastern and Western fronts and how much is the author and the sources available to him. 

It feels very, very different. I think I'd like to finish reading the book before going into any real detail though. (Political commissars, btw? Smh) 

Crazy App Idea

I've had some an again, off again idea for an app.

Basically, I think people want to engage different viewpoints on the issues they care about. Like, we've all sort of learned not to on Facebook (to keep the peace with friends and family, and some people just cut others out to have that peace)... But then it tends to be a bunch of people sharing memes more as some sort of performative in group thing with people who already agree (or just gets ignored with an eye roll by those that don't and haven't cut you out yet).

And Twitter tends to be a place where people do this more often. Perhaps because we're more likely to engage with strangers there, Idk. It's still kind of lacking in some ways. 

I did try that Brigade app a few years back, but the UI and engagement was kind of awkward (iirc, it's been a while) and I think it's shut down.

So. App idea. 

Title - Flame Wars.

You go into it absolutely expecting to argue and debate with people you disagree on. 

Threads are tagged with the topic. You can start a new one or add on to an existing one. 

Everyone goes through a quick little class upon signing up. It covers same basic flaws in arguments (like strawmen and ad hominem attacks).

There are referees. Not to fact check per se (though there should be a place to link supporting articles for your position, and maybe a score for how reputable the source is. Idk).

The referees flag arguments that have fallacies or are lacking in logic. Like, Personal attacks such as 'you're stupid'?

Flagged, because they have absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand. (also it's rude and intimidates people and pushes people to keep their mouths shut, but also because personal attacks are irrelevant. Creating a place where people can debate the issues means keeping the focus on said issues.) 

GameStop

Another Twitter thread discussing what's going on here.

Would you be surprised if I said that (yet again) it reminds me of game theory?

More specifically, the ultimatum game. Basically, if people think an offer is unfair they will often reject it, even when they lose out in the process.

The GameStop people - and the ones cheering them on - aren't out there trying to make millions (though some might, and some late comers might lose big. It's gotten enough hype that some people will join for a variety of reasons. Some better thought out than others).

Anyways, they didn't do it to make money. Heck, I bet when this started many of them expected to lose. They spent some of their hobby money to buy stock at a higher price than they probably thought it was worth (even if they thought it was worth more than the hedge fund was betting on), and they did it because they thought what was going on wasn't fair.

You could say it was spite. There is definitely a lot of spite in the opinions I'm seeing. There's still resentment, after all... 

Resentment that in 2008 big investors were 'too big to fail' and got bailed out, while plenty of ordinary people lost their homes.

Resentment of a system where a Senator made bank off information that meant the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans, and never publicly pushed back when the government downplayed the threat. 

Resentment of a system where the rich get richer (even during a pandemic!!!) while the poor get poorer. And the rich get bailed out, trades get stopped when their money is at risk... But the rest of us are at the mercy of vagaries of fate.

As one meme I've seen quotes - it's socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.

And I'm sure the well-to-do have their justifications (and self deceptions), but the other thing it reminds me of is this.

When I was in Afghanistan. Well. 

Helmand province is a dry place, and water is precious. Access to it - the ability to grow your crops, and feed your livestock - can be life or death.

And part of the reason coming to some sort of agreement on water usage for the Helmand River is that we can all see the potential risks if there isn't one.

If the people upstream use water carelessly, then the downstream people won't have enough (and Iran is at the end, so there's even the potential for international disputes).

And people don't generally just roll over and die when their lives and livelihoods are on the line. 

They need to feel as though they can get what they need through the system, or some percentage are going to say 'fuck the system. It's rigged against me anyway. It doesn't matter how hard I try, how hard I work.'

Not too different from 'eat the rich', a sentiment that keeps cropping up for some reason. (Can't imagine why 🙄) 

Which is pretty much why I go off on 'foolish' and 'short-sighted' people in positions of power. 

Because using your power to create systems that are more just and fair isn't just some moral obligation that someone should do out of the goodness of their heart. 

Its because if you don't, your pretty much setting yourself up for stuff exactly like this GameStop trading kerfuffle. 

Game Stop

I'm not confident I know enough about what happened with the Game Stop stock prices, but here's one person's take on it.

I'm sharing because there are definitely people who manipulate the stock market (to their benefit, and sometimes not to the benefit of the average American at all. Futures and shorts can get kind of crazy, tbh. Though I hear most funds are.. Hmmm. Mutual funds where professional managers are managing other people's money. Which kind of makes sense, in that people prefer experts to make complicated decisions about investments, but also means that a lot of the market is decided by a few. And with algorithms and machine trading, it's not even necessarily decided on by an actual person. This is not saying it's good or bad, and is by no means an in depth analysis, but the whole thing smells a bit off tbh.)

Oh, and sharing because it gives a sense of how complicated these are. I somewhat understand the purpose of futures and shorting. Futures can help businesses deal with unpredictability, shorts can help keep prices honest (if you think there's a bubble, short the stock). Again, by no means an expert analysis on my part.

Anyways, schemes that take advantage of these in order to get a lot of money seem to be missing the spirit of the system in order to exploit loopholes for selfish purposes. 

Which might have been the point the redditors were making. 

Follow On

This is part of the thing about democracy, and the social contract - its a way of directing the energy for change, not by damming it, but through a system (elections, legislation, etc) that sort of smooths out the waves. It does slow it down some. It takes time to persuade people, and get the votes, and pass the legislation...and it's done out in the open, so people have time to adjust and adapt... So it doesn't (often) burst out in a flood.

This is also why the current situation is dmso dangerous. A coup attempt, a party that enables rather than condemns. They're trying to build a dam and force the flow to go in the direction they want, and don't seem to concerned with the rather predictable consequences of doing so.

'Conservative', at least according to the principles Russell Kirk laid out, recognized that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled.

It wasn't about stopping change, or trying to reverse it. It was about trying to reconcile it with custom, convention, and continuity.

That's why I've been saying that the modern Republican Party isn't conservative. 

Its not trying to reconcile change with our customs and conventions. It's trying to make changes that will allow them to dam the force Samuel Taylor Coleridge called Progression.

Ie. Radical Reactionaries rather than true conservativism. 

Creativity

Trying to put into words a concept I was thinking about.

Indie films became a thing, I don't really know when...but it's a chance to tell stories in a way that is increasingly difficult in Hollywood. Yet I remember someone saying that that's kind of how Hollywood itself got started. As a place to exercise creativity in a way that had been unable to be done before. 

And like, people are creative. We like telling stories, making new things. Or even just putting a new and interesting take on an old one. 

Its sort of like... A river. A force. You can redirect it, a bit.But if you try damming it, the pressure builds until it is released (in some new and different way). So as Hollywood codifies stories, and insists on formulas that they say will work (for their mega blockbusters), it can also create a dam. Only certain ideas get the green light for production. Get the resources to be made into reality.

So people find another way.

The interesting thing about fanfic, and YouTube, is that although there's a lot of crap (which gives you an appreciation for how hard it is, and also gives a lot of people the chance to learn and develop and grow. Sure, it's kind of annoying that people don't know the difference between 'faze' and 'phase', or 'loose' and 'lose', or stop writing before finishing the story.. But then you come across something that's just inspiring for the way they take an idea and run with it).

And, like, this holds true for more than just stories and movies. The powers that be can seem stifling (and sometimes are... But I don't want to get distracted with a discussion of outside-the-box thinking, or how sometimes it's useful to know the box. At least you don't have to reinvent everything we've learned from experience... You just also have to remember your own unique bits, and add to that or build off it).

Like... Part of the reason we have change is that people on top - in order to try to secure their position - sometimes create dams instead of working with that energy.

And so the pressure builds, and finds new ways to flow.

This is, I think, the frustrating part about those powers-that-be. Damming the flood is not sustainable. We know that, we may not know how or when the dam will burst,especially if they keep shoring it up. But it won't last. It can't.

And it would be better by far, for everyone involved (since having your dam burst can cause a lot of damage) to do better. To learn how to work with that flow, and direct it. 

Reading Update

Now that I don't feel the pressing need to doomscroll, I was looking for alternatives. I occasionally get in the mood for something other than fiction, but wasn't yet ready to dive into my massive pile of computer science books. So I reviewed some of the other books on my 'to read' list and settled on Enemy at the Gates, about the World War II battle for Stalingrad.

Its been interesting for a variety of reasons, some of it having to do with where we are now and how different it was then. Some of it because so far it really does illustrate that sometimes the winner is the side that makes the fewest mistakes. There is an abundance of poor decision making all around (is this battle an example of mission creep on both sides? Hitler wasn't even going to bother with the city, but changed his mind. Stalin wasn't even going to defend it, but changed his mind. I'm sure that's a very superficial take on it, but interesting from the support it gives for the vagaries of war. That is, war can be surprisingly unpredictable and a bit of a gamble. This is part of why I think the Boogaloo Boys are so foolish. Unless you've got a solid reason for thinking you'll win, 'solid' meaning more than your misguided belief in your own superiority and the weakness of your likely enemy, then you probably have no idea what horrors you'd be unleashing. Civil wars, especially, can be very nasty and I am fairly confident that anyone starting one will lose people they care about. It's not something you should do lightly.)

Anyways, I found a couple of minor points interesting. One is that Khruschev is there. I know about him from his later role leading the Soviet Union, do when his name came up I had to stop and confirm that it really was him. It doesn't sound like he had a major role, but I'm certain his entire experience in the war influenced how he led later on.

The other interesting point was when it mentioned Hitler's other forces (they were trying to get control of the oil in the Caucasian Mountains, further south) and Grozny came up.

I mostly remember Grozny from the Battle of Grozny, and a rather interesting discussion on urban warfare. I've occasionally perked my ear at later mentions. No serious study, but it seems Putin found a local ally able to lock down Chechnyan resistance. The thing is, in all the various references I've heard (to Chechnya and Grozny) I don't recall anyone mentioning oil.

Which seems odd, since that was probably one of the underlying causes for the history I just mentioned. Not that it wouldn't have happened anyway, I suppose. (Not an expert, but Russia does not like ceding independence.)

Very strange to think about all of that. Not just WWIi, but the Cold War, Chechnya... And where we are now. 

Come to think of it, all of this is probably even more familiar to our overly aged political leadership. Not to say that age would keep them from doing their job, but the Battle of Grozny was in 1996. It's been over 20 years, almost 25 years. The Cold War was even longer. And while you have to understand history to understand how we got to the where we're at today, I have doubts about how clearly the people shaped by that era can see our current one. 

An Example

Since it was relevant to my last post.

Brain Drain

Saw this on fb, about people buying 'dollar homes' in Italy.

Its interesting because a) of course the 'brain drain' issue where rural areas lose young people to urban areas is not just a US thing and b) how much of that would change if we invested in high speed internet access as a public good? Ie how many people would choose to stay in some of these more rural areas if they could easily work from home? 

Social Dilemmas, Public Policy, and More

 An old ex-boyfriend once expressed the belief that climate change wouldn't be a problem -

Because we would come up with some sort of invention, or new technology, that would deal with it.

In thinking about this, what I wish I'd pointed out (well over a decade ago) is this:

That invention or new technology doesn't happen by magic. 

Someone had to invest in the idea. Someone had to have the idea in the first place. An idea that probably required some STEM knowledge, which means it requires an education. Probably a lot of people with a great deal of different learning paths. These people had to have the skills, the idea, the resources... and some way of putting them in touch with the various elements needed. That is, the person with the idea has to meet or somehow know the person with the resources, and persuade them that the idea is worth investing in. 

Systemic thinking. It's honestly not too different from the military. Or rather, let me put it another way.

As a platoon leader, the divide between what I do and what my platoon sergeant does is a flexible (based on people and experience) but the divide goes something like this: 

The officer does all the prep and planning for the future, the NCO/PSG handles actually getting it done.  

I might be coming up with the training plan to make sure our people are certified in the future, while the platoon sergeant might make sure that the training is happening today. 

I might say "this tent needs to be put up", and the platoon sergeant figures out the how and gets it done.

I would have to put in the ammo request for our weapons qualification training next month. My platoon sergeant might assign a few people to go pick up the ammo.

Hmmm. That sounded clearer in my head. 

As an officer, I'm concerned with making sure my people have the resources to do the job. Making sure they have the training, the supplies, the time, the people. 

My platoon sergeant actually gets the job done.

There's definitely overlap, of course. A platoon sergeant might 'suggest' a new lieutenant remember to make that ammo request. An experienced platoon leader might give a little more direction on the how, but it's useful to remember the separation. 

The Army says leaders "provide purpose and direction", which isn't a bad way of looking at it. They also say it's an art and a science... which is also true. There's so many books on leadership that, well, I can't possibly hope to cover everything. 

"Purpose and direction" is a good start, but evaluating your course of action and adjusting it as needed is also part of it. 

Or rather, you have to have good execution skills in order to go in the right direction and there's a world of difference between planning something on paper and executing it in the real world. (This is another thing I value about my military experience and subsequent jobs.)

There's a very good reason why the military operates on the KISS principle - the more complicated the plan, the more likely something will go wrong that will ruin it completely. Do some fancy maneuver that requires multiple forces arriving at a specific time and place? Good luck when one element has a vehicle break down, and another takes a wrong turn.

But lets take this back to new technology, and the resources required to develop it. I've talked before about game theory - the prisoner's dilemma and the tragedy of the commons - but it's been a while so I'll do a quick refresher.

The gist of it is that we all benefit if we cooperate on something, but the incentives for us as individuals is NOT to cooperate.

In the prisoner's dilemma, two people committed a crime together and were arrested. If they both refuse to talk, they will probably get a lighter sentence because there isn't as much evidence. If both confess, they both will get a harsher sentence. But if one confesses while the other stays quiet, then the one who confesses will get the lightest sentence of all (for cooperating with the police) while the one who stays quiet will get the harshest. 

The tragedy of the commons has a similar dynamic - a village has a common area for letting their herds graze. If there are too many animals in the commons, they will overgraze and the commons won't be available any more. The village has an incentive to cooperate and limit how many animals are allowed in the commons.

But for each individual villager, the calculation is different. If everyone else holds back on adding animals to the commons, they can probably sneak one more in and everything will be fine. One more won't destroy the common area, and they can get an extra animal out of it. If nobody else refrains, then the commons is going to be destroyed anyway. You might as well add an extra animal and get what you can while the getting is good.

Figuring out how to get people to cooperate when it's in our best collective interest is quite the trick. Privatization is sometimes a good answer (iirc, privatization helped England deal with their issue with the commons. When you control the area yourself, you'd be a fool to destroy your chance at long term sustenance and will probably limit the size of your livestock to what you can safely care for.) Some situations don't easily lend themselves to that, though. Which is where I really liked Elinor Ostrom's work. 

I mostly focus on the overall issue (public goods, importance of cooperation, etc) but it's important to look at some of the challenges to building cooperation.

Trust, for example. If you don't trust that anyone else will respect the agreement, then you're probably not going to cooperate. An enforcement mechanism (like government regulations, and fines for breaking them) can help build trust that people will actually cooperate, but it's not the only way.

There's a 'fear of being a sucker'. In the tragedy of the commons, if you decide to cooperate and limit how many animals you put in the commons and nobody else does - then not only do you lose the commons, you also lost the profit from the extra animal you might have snuck in. (Kickstarter allows people to be reimbursed if a project doesn't reach it's goal, and this allows people to donate without the fear of being a sucker. They either get the project they want, or they get their money back.)

There's also a problem with free loaders. If people decide that they would all benefit from some sort of public good and collectively donate to it... someone who doesn't donate to the project will still benefit from it. 

Think about public roads, for example. Unless it's a toll road anyone can drive on it, regardless of whether they pay their taxes or not.

That's what the common about new technology reminds me of. If you're not the one making it happen, you're essentially free loading off the work of the ones who do. 

If you want the result, you have to choose the actions that lead to that result. 

I will freely admit my attitude towards a lot of things changed once I started looking at public goods this way.

Education? You like having employees that know how to read and write, don't you? Ones that can do basic math? And depending on the business, you might like having them know more advanced skills, like how to program, or accounting, or how to track Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) like quality and productivity. Or the expense per labor hour.

You are benefiting from their education, and much of the burden of making sure we have a pool of people with the required skills is taken on by our public education system. (Privatization might be useful in some cases, but if the government is paying the private school to educate it's still bearing the cost. And private schools can generally pick and choose who they accept, which means they don't have to deal with the more challenging students. Unless you've got a way of making sure even the poorest, most challenging children have access to a private education you're still going to need public schools. And they should be top quality.)

Roads? Even if you're entirely on the cloud, you probably order physical items. Paper, desks, whatever. The ability to easily and quickly get goods from one part of the country to another is a tremendous boost to businesses. If they were all toll roads, that would be yet another expense a new business would have to account for before launching... and the profit probably wouldn't justify the expense to some of the more obscure and out of the way locations. (Consider what the government had to do to make sure telephone lines were run to rural areas. As for the internet - I had an aunt and uncle that used dial up for far longer than the rest of us, simply because the area they lived in didn't have any other options. They finally got something faster around a decade ago. And btw... how many businesses could be run in rural areas if they had better internet access?)

Would Amazon be able to sell as much, if all the roads to rural areas were allowed to fall apart? And they couldn't get their delivery trucks to smaller towns? Or even to large cities like El Paso, if they're too far from anywhere else?

Trust and cooperation - they don't all require government action, of course. But it's easier to convince people that they're not going to be suckers if a large and well known organization with the power to enforce agreements is involved.

And as for free riders? Some of those are people without the resources in the first place. Public roads, for example, are often used by people who are too poor to pay much in the way of taxes (though as I argued above, the business still benefits. Not just in terms of sales either, but in having employees who are able to get to work on time.) 

The real frustration for many are the free riders who actually do have the money. Namely all the corporations and wealthy people who scheme to get out of paying taxes. They benefit in thousands of ways, many hard to quantify, from a society that builds and maintains roads, provides education and healthcare... and they're trying to free load when they don't even need to.

It's not so much about wanting to take all their money. For me, at least. But my parents always tithed the church growing up, and I know Islam came to a similar view with the zakat... and even a similar percentage. 10%.

10% of your wealth should be given as a tithe, or zakat. I don't necessarily think it has to be to a church (especially since I think the ludicrously luxurious churches with pastors wearing luxury goods and driving luxury cars are probably not very close to God.) It doesn't even have to be to the charities I think worth giving to, but 10% is a value with a rather long history to it.

I've heard some people argue that they won't donate as much to non-profits because they expect the government to handle those issues now. Which, fine. Okay. Private donations have never really been enough to get the job done. (I hear the well off are donating around 1%? I came across an interesting article that said religious charities actually wanted the government to step in during the Great Depression, because the need was so far greater than they could serve... so okay, I don't really care if it's government, non-profit, or private so long as needs are being met without too much waste, fraud and abuse.)

But if that's the case, they really need to be paying their taxes.

Oh, and that whole bit about 'render Caesar what is Caesar's?' That should be above and on top of the 10% obligation. 

I'm not a fan of forcing people to give up their money, but I am quite well aware of the historical trends whenever there's too much inequality. Whenever the wealthy and powerful become free riders and forget their obligations to society. 

It isn't pretty.

But that wasn't the lesson I wanted to end on... so I'll go back to what started this all.

If you want nice things - if you want nice roads, or vaccines to a novel disease, or a pool of potential employees with the skills you need, or technology to help prevent climate change - then you have to put in the work to make it happen. 

Otherwise you're just lucky that other people did the work for you.

Update

It is... Refreshing to feel like I don't have to stay glued to the news.

It feels a little odd, which is just a reminder of how much we adjusted to the craziness of the last four years. 

I had been pushing off some personal decisions for the past year. Well, that's not quite true. I had thought I'd get into infosec/threat hunting, but I failed the polygraph and then there was a pandemic and now it's been a year.

So, no transition to infosec is lined up. I've had the chance to learn my current job, and there are things I like and things I'm not as fond of. I like learning, and solving puzzles/problems. I just got my AWS Cloud Practitioner certification yesterday, and they want me to start working on the next one (Solutions Architect). The cloud is kinda interesting, as are containers (another piece of technology I've worked with a little in the course of my duties).

Its... Not infosec. And it doesn't fit that burning need, which I'm not sure how to explain? That drive that has me posting about all sorts of public policies. Economics, health, justice... 

That desire to serve, and the frustration at how hard it can be to do just that. Or, well, to find a position that uses what I think are my talents to the best of my ability. (I would say I have been underutilized for quite a bit of my life. I can ignore that in the joy of learning new things, and no knowledge is ever truly wasted. They all give insight and perspective on my various views. But, well. Once the challenge of absorbing a ton of new info goes, it's harder to ignore that what I'm doing is not necessarily what I want to be doing. My current job has potential, mostly because there's still a TON I don't know, and it looks like there will always be new technologies and things to learn. But that just means I can probably ignore that sense of not being where I want to be.)

Is it worth it, to keep pushing on? Idk... It's frustrating. It always feels like a struggle, and it doesn't feel like I ever get noticed or get the support I need. I try to focus on the things I can control (ie me. Job hunting, networking, all those things you're supposed to do to get the jobs you want). Idk, those never quite seem to work out. I mean, I'm a bit of an odd duck and I don't actually know about many jobs for doing what I want to do. Maybe a think tank or a politicians staff or something? Except most of those jobs seem to go to highly connected Ivy League interns who can afford the low pay of a starter job. Idk, I could be wrong. That's just the impression I got back during one of my job hunting stints. 

Too bad I can't get paid well just to blog my various thoughts. 

Alas, I do have bills that actually need to get paid. And my job is interesting. On any given day I might be updating trying to figure out why we're seeing an error on a particular service (I'm trying not to go into too much detail because letting everyone know what systems you use is a gift to hackers), or figuring out how to update a job so that it runs correctly, or fix an issue with a container, or add an environment to a tool for putting in hot fixes, or figure out that another team needs to add a host to a file, or update their firewalls so we can connect.

Its a mishmash where we're kind of jacks of all trades (masters of none), and generally are the first to deal with a problem since we help identify where the problem is and can direct it to the right team to fix it.

I have spent quite a bit of my life lea how to be a master generalist, if that makes sense. You see... As a leader you don't have the time to master Every. Public. Policy. Topic. 

There is no way I could be an expert on infrastructure, economics, healthcare, logistics, education, the military, foreign policy, national security, information technology, etc. It's too much for any one person. 

But knowing enough to ask the right questions? To tell when your experts know what they're talking about? To know what sorts of experts you need to come up with a real solution to a problem?

That's part of why I write so much about groupthink, and organizational behavior and the like. I don't need to be an expert in everything, I want to know how to best use the experts around us. (being an officer in the Army was good practice for this, as my NCOs had a helluva lot more experience than I did as a brand new lieutenant.)

Anyways. There's still a ton to learn about tech, and it suits me better than some of the other jobs I've done. 

Maybe I can keep an eye out for an infosec position in my company. 

And on Accountability

Agree with Beau 100%. My desire to have Trump impeached has... Not waned, but the urgency is less now that he's out of office. (I do wonder about how easy that was after the failure on the 6th, but I won't complain.)

It may not be something that needs dealt with this week, but it would be a mistake to just ignore what happened and move on. 

The real question, I think, is can we do it in a way that leads to healing and unity? 

Threading the Needle

I feel like I'm waking up from a nightmare, and am still getting used to the idea that Trump is no longer president. 

I've been thinking a bit about where we go from here, or rather... more about how Biden needs to 'thread the needle'. This isn't to say I'm giving advice, in that obviously I've never won an election whereas he is President of the United States.

More importantly, it's impossible to keep everyone happy, so deciding who to offend and how badly is a judgment call I don't feel qualified to make.

Nevertheless, my blog, my thoughts.

I keep thinking of an analogy one of the senior officers gave when I was in the Army. For full context - we love making little anecdotes and analogies to illustrate a leadership principle, and this was one of them. He said that leadership was like making ice cream.

He was talking about the old fashioned way - where you put the cream, sugar, and other ingredients in the container inside a bucket of ice (salted, I think?) and turn a crank around and around until it turns into ice cream. The point is this:

You always have to keep turning the handle, always have to keep cranking. When you stop, the ice cream starts to melt.

Same thing with leadership. It's not a one and done deal. You don't do a good job once, and then stop. Some of that is because people forget (sort of a 'what have you done for me lately?' type of attitude), some of it is that people may not have paid attention until they have an issue they feel strongly about, so they will look for signs that you're willing to listen only when they need to say something.

So... 

Biden is in a tricky position politically, because there are people on the right who are ready to take issue at the slightest thing. And there are far too many people who believed the lies, and think he stole the election. That he lacks legitimacy. And, apparently, that he works for China and is coming for their guns.

There are also people on the left, though, who will be very upset if we don't hold Trump (and Republicans) accountable. Accountable for the insurrection, accountable for mishandling coronavirus, accountable for all the lies...

Plus there's a sense that their political desires have been blocked for years (especially with Mitch McConnell and Obama), and they want to take this chance to finally put in place the things they've been prevented from doing.

Go too far in placating the right, and the left will be furious. Go too far in pushing leftist goals, and the right will push back.

Perhaps more importantly, the right is splitting. There are die hard Trump supporters, and conservatives who are upset by Trump and looking for an alternative. 

If the rule of thumb for change management is that you have 20% who support you, 20% who oppose you, and 60% who are largely neutral... and with good leadership and change management, you can shift those numbers so that 40% support you, 40% are still neutral, and only 20% oppose you (or something like that)... this is a golden opportunity to do exactly that.

To prove that your ideas are good, to convince people to continue supporting you... and maybe, just maybe, Biden can avoid the typical midterm losses.

(This seems like a long shot in the political world, but I think it's the holy grail for both parties. It's part of why they're so foolish when they do take power, since it feels as though they think their amazing policies will persuade the public to continue supporting them. Why worry about becoming the minority again - which is so far inevitable in our history - if you can get a lock on power and become the primary party, permanently? This may have happened in Japan, but I don't think it's likely to happen in America btw. We don't feel comfortable when one party has too much control, hence sometimes deliberately splitting tickets so that the party that controls one branch doesn't control another.)

Change management is always tricky, of course. It requires having a clear idea of where you want to go and how you're going to get there, as well as good personnel management and building a good team with the power and resources to get it done.

It relies on a certain amount of trust - political capital, if you will. And the current situation means Biden doesn't have that much political capital. At least, not among the general population. He's been in politics long enough I'm sure he has quite a bit among the powers that be.

So... crank the handle on the ice cream maker, get some easy wins with low-hanging fruit, build support for the policies that are going to be a more difficult fight... and try your best to make sure those policies will actually be effective, and do what you want.

I think about this in terms of Obama's push for healthcare. There's this big idea that a President has to accomplish a lot of his (or her, someday) agenda within the first 100 days. There's also the belief that if you can get something, anything, implemented that it's a lot harder to roll back.

Like with healthcare, that once you got something in place (even if it's badly done), you can work to improve it.

But...

An anecdote I know, but a liberal friend of mine got very upset with Obama's healthcare plan because it hurt her. I can't remember if it was too expensive, or what, but it definitely didn't do what she wanted. I know a lot of medical people said it was so complex that they had no idea what the result was going to be, whether it was going to help or hurt.

I'm not sure that was the best use of his political capital, and pushing for it definitely hastened some of the counterreaction and pushback.

And yet... We did discuss healthcare to a far greater degree then we had before. (I know Hillary Clinton worked on a plan back during her husband's term, and I don't know if it was because I was younger and hadn't been paying attention or not, but it hadn't seemed quite as essential back then as it does now. Maybe it's all the stories I've heard since, of people unable to afford insulin. Dying because they can't get the medical treatment they need. The medical debt and bankruptcy. Perhaps pushing the idea was a bad idea back then, or perhaps it opened the doors to discussions that have built more and more support for the idea that we really do need medicare for all.)

Quick side note - I do think of healthcare as a national security issue. I have heard of militaries in other countries where the HIV rate meant their combat readiness wasn't actually what it appeared to be on paper. I know the military has been concerned that too many potential recruits are overweight and out of shape. It's not just about what's best for our citizens, it's not just that businesses shouldn't be responsible for healthcare, and it's not just that our current system wastes resources, is inefficient, and has an impersonal market-based version of 'death panels' where people die because they can't afford treatment. It's also because we, as a nation, are weaker when our people don't have access to the best healthcare possible.

So anyways. Democrats control the presidency, the House, and the Senate. They have a chance to implement their dream policies, but they have to be smart about what they implement and how, and they'd better make sure whatever they do convinces the neutral majority that their policies really do work. Otherwise they'll probably be the (maybe inevitable?) loss in the next midterms, and it'll be a while before they get another opportunity like this.

Food for Thought

An economist on raising the minimum wage. 

The Thin Blue Line

This is the type of systemic problem I see.

I understand 'the thin blue line', camaraderie, and taking care of each other. I grew up respecting police officers, and am still kind of uncomfortable criticizing them as a whole. It's a tough job, and they deal with a lot of craziness. 

But taking care of each other needs to include calling each other out when they cross a line. I don't actually care if it's public or private (though public may help restore trust with the lical community, I've always believed in the 'praise in public, discipline in private' leadership style. Deciding what you owe to the local community and what you owe your subordinates is too situation dependent to give a simple rule for. Given the poor relationship with the black community, though, I also understand why they want public accountability.)

Public or private, it still needs done. 

That's not just about masks, or racist policing. It includes drunk driving and domestic violence (which are also things cops will overlook in another cop).

Like okay, fine. You don't want to give a fellow cop a ticket for driving drunk? Then you, and/or your colleagues, and/or your boss need to step up and make sure he doesn't put the people you are supposed to be protecting at risk. Are you taking his (or her, but I'll use male pronouns to keep it simple) keys when he's out getting wasted? Calling him a Lyft or Uber? Telling him to get professional help and removing any roadblocks that prevent him from doing so?

Because if you know there's a problem, you choose not to enforce the laws meant to deal with that problem, and you choose not to do a damn thing further to address the problem -

Then you don't deserve to be in law enforcement. 

And from what I've seen - from stories like the one that started this, or accounts like the one NPR shared, they're more concerned with protecting and covering for each other than doing their job. 

QAnon, Followership, Etc.

A good thread addressing any QAnon who are doubting the path they're on.

Dealing with the many Americans who have gone down this path will be a challenge. From research I've seen, when dealing with the cognitive dissonance of a wrong prediction, many find some way to double down. (I wonder if it's some percentage, and if others quietly fade. My brother introduced me to a snowball compaction analogy that makes far too much sense. Some slough others get compressed further)

Anyways. I shared the link for this tweet in particular -

"I don't need you or want you to leave QAnon and become a follower of me. If you did then that's great but it's not the point. The point is that you're hurting yourself, and your family and friends by believing in this stuff and the hurt won't stop till you quit."

Yeah, I'm not so keen on having followers. Err, that's not quite right? I'd like to have people who respect my opinion and appreciate my input, but followers? Like what Trump has? People who turn off their brains, hang on my every word, and put gigantic flags on their trucks? 

Yeah, no. You'd have built me up to something I'm not, and put me on a pedestal. It's a standard impossible to meet. 

But trying to get people to stop sabotaging themselves? Trying to find a way to build a nation where everyone's basic rights are protected, without a paternalistic and overly powerful federal government (but one just powerful enough to get done what needs to be done)? 

I can talk all day about that stuff. And I hope my ideas spark something people can build off. 

Not agreement. Or followership. More like improv. 

An Article Discussing Russia

This was an interesting read.

I was going to say that I didn't know what I thought about it yet, or that I wanted to sit on it for a bit, but I realized that a better description is this:

Its an interesting data point, and I will keep an eye out for other data points on this topic. See if they corroborate or contradict. 

I'm only peripherally aware of some of the topics mentioned, thought I can conf the weird possible microwave attacks - and how concerning it is that they (likely Russia, but attribution is hard) felt bold enough to attack our people. And on American soil (iirc) too. 

Update

Trump is definitely plotting something, and with Biden's inauguration coming up he'll have to act soon. It's just a question of when and how.

I say this mostly because reports of who is meeting with him indicate he's meeting with people who will tell him what he wants to hear and encourage his worst tendencies.

Also, there's an independent journalist I used to follow in Iraq, I saw him on Twitter and checked in, but he's gone full bore on the 'ChiCom' BS. It's a damn shame, but so much is these days.

Anyways, apparently he was meeting this morning with Bannon, and I'm fairly sure it wasn't to discuss what to do after Biden takes over.

This Twitter thread was interesting, mostly because it highlights how challenging the political environment is.

Someone on the right was talking about 'red lines' that would convince a lot of people that they need to take up arms against our government. Arresting Trump was one (which is extremely frustrating since I think he needs to be held responsible), as was going after guns.

This isn't to say we need to respect those red lines as a) a lot of other people would be very unhappy if we let fear dictate our response - see all the comments about not negotiating with terrorists and b) if something needs to be done, it needs to be done. Figure out how to do it with the least negative consequences, but don't dither or ignore the issue and hope it goes away.

It means Biden has to really thread the needle, on top of dealing with the pandemic and economic problems caused thereby.

In thinking about it myself, I realized that I'm really lacking in information. Oh, there are surveys of how many Republicans believe Trump's (non-stop) lies, but there's a couple of problems with using that info.

First, conservatives disgusted by what the party has become are calling themselves 'Independent', or actively looking for a new political home. My (very rough) heuristic used to be that about a third of Americans (and I'm not sure if this is actual registered votes, or all legal adults) are Republican, and another third Democrat. Hence how they generally balance each other out. The remaining third lean one war or another, or are the somewhat cliché 'socially liberal but fiscally conservative'. (Fair warning, this might all shift as yet another generation grows up and starts flexing their political muscles). Anyways, that remaining third is where the swing vote normally lies. Even if many lean right or lean left, they pick and choose based on the perceived needs of the time.

Updated to say: it's probably more like 40-40-20 considering Trump's approval ratings. But that probably includes the learners, and current events are splitting the right. Now you've got Trumpers and the ones who are still conservative and realize that Trump isn't. And that he's undermining everything they're trying to conserve.

So a survey of 'Republicans' might actually be smaller than the usual third.

The second issue is this. I'm not all that concerned with the people who are disgruntled, but don't plan to do anything illegal about it. Hell, Democrats have people who thought the 2000 election was stolen, and 2016. They didn't threaten to take up arms against the US government because of it. 

So the real question is, if a 'redline' is crossed how many people will that be? (probably less than the red liners hope and more than the government wants, but that's not really very useful for predicting the future).

In that sense, that only around 20-30K came to the 'Stop the Steal' protest last week is encouraging. Also, some of the videos show that many of the people there really were just protesting like we always do.

Now, not everyone can get to DC on the middle of the work week so make of that what you will.

Since we're stuck living through the next week anyway, I'll definitely pay attention to how many get involved with whatever it is that Trump tries to pull. (I'm pretty sure it'll fail, but it could get ugly. The only thing I'd truly be concerned about is if there were signs Trump was inviting the Russians or another nation-state in. It seems highly unlikely, but in the best analyst tradition that's the 'most dangerous course of action')

Whatever happens will give some sense of just how narrow the eye of the needle is. 

Mr. Rogers

A beautiful thread on Mr. Rogers. 

International Threats

From this article:

"The DEA had a theory: the upper echelons of global money laundering, terrorism, drug-trafficking and organized crime all bleed together." 

Political Musings Related to the 2nd Amendment

Just saw someone on fb share some post claiming Biden was going after a group that supports the 2nd amendment...

Went back to Twitter, where Boebert may have brought a gun to the building?

Not sure if that's true, haven't verified it. It does appear that a number of Republicans are being real assholes and refusing to walk through the metal detector.

Now, all of that might just be... Idk. Them being dicks, because that's apparently what the Republican Party is about these days. But after 4 years of crap I can come up with sinister explanations with the best of them. Like 'they want to provoke a 2nd Amendment issue in order to distract from the impeachment, regain control of the narrative, and bolster the fears of the Trump supporters that liberals really are out for their guns.'

God, I can't wait until we never have to deal with Trump again. (I decided not to say until Biden's been inaugurated because as one person said' this may be the end of the beginning'. I'm beginning to realize how much work is in front of us, and we'll have to pace ourselves and prepare for the long haul.)

Also, btw, I would be very, very careful about policies related to the 2nd Amendment right now. 

Accountability, Biases, Niceness and Corruption

This column got me thinking about... Camaraderie? That's probably not the right word but bear with me.

My thoughts were sparked by this paragraph -

When I still lived in Moscow, journalists who had access to the Kremlin often chided me for taking Putin and his goons too seriously. They didn’t exactly deny that he could have people killed and probably did, or that he was building a dictatorship. They just thought I was making too much of it. It took me a long time to understand that this wasn’t because these men knew more than I did, or even thought they knew more. It was precisely because they shared a world with Putin and his men and saw them as normal, as part of their community. We do not fear those whom we see as being like us; we fear the other.

Normalization. 

We've been hearing that a lot these last four years and I think there's something to it. But I wonder if there's also more going on. Something that explains why there seems so little accountability,why we talk of a 'swamp' in Washington. And perhaps, also, why so many of us feel like our politicians, media, and alleged leaders have been such failures.

I mentioned coming up with my own explanation for why we consider politicians corrupt, and how they might miss the signs of it happening. A lot of it was captured in some ethics training we had at our old job, which illustrates that this isn't just about politics, or DC.

Think about any place you visit regularly. A coffee shop, a restaurant, a store... 

The first time you're there you're just another customer. Probably the second or third. But as you continue to go, and if you consistently go when the same people are working, you start building a relationship with them. They smile in recognition. Know what you're going to order. Maybe you chit chat while they ring up your purchase.

In business and politics it might cross certain lines - a vendor or lobbyist. Most of it isn't too bad, and of course the lobbyist or sales rep wants to be personable and likeable. Humans are very social, after all. (And we are more easily influenced by people we like. Hence why pharmaceutical sales reps are so scary.)

You might think it's all on the up and up, and that you're clearly keeping your work relationship and personal relationship separate. 

Those tickets to a baseball game are just between friends, right? They knew you were a fan and hooked you up. You wouldn't favor them for a contract over it or change your vote, honest!

Except a) it sure doesn't look like that from the outside, and other contractors or lobbyists may (rightfully) be upset about it and b) you probably are more influenced by it than you think.

There are lots of studies regarding the latter (again, look at pharmaceutical sales and the medicines doctors prescribe). Sometimes the firm insistence that you're not biased (honest! I swear!) is actually a sign that you are. Like an unwillingness to recuse yourself from a conflict of interest. (if you're not biased what's the problem with letting someone else make the call? Sounds like you want it to go a certain way, and why is that?)

On a less dramatic level, I also see it with the coworkers who are 'nice'. Or rather, they aren't actually very good at their job but everyone likes them and nobody wants to see bad things happen to them.

Now, despite the pressure businesses have to remain competitive, stay lean, and be productive there's also a negative impact on your people when you fire someone. (there's a lot of business research into the effects of downsizing, FYI). I also think there's a limit to how lean you can go before other negatives appear - like our supply chain not having resilience when dealing with a pandemic, it suppliers trying to cut corners and hurting quality, but I suppose what really would make me heretical in the business world is that I think businesses can be a lot like WoW (World of Warcraft - an MMORPG or massively multi-player online role playing game) guilds.

A friend of mine used to run a guild for Wow, and she commented that some guilds were all about quests and leveling up, while others were more about relaxing and having fun with your friends. You try to find the guilds that suit the way you want to play the game.

Which is a fancy way of saying that if you're making enough money to be profitable and want to keep a 'nice' employee around even if they aren't quite good at their job, well. That's up to you.

But my first post-college job was in the military, and no matter how nice you are I don't want to deal with the potentially deadly consequences of someone who can't do their job right.

Nothing personal, don't hate them or anything, but we can't afford that. 

And if you let too many people like that stay, if you never fire for incompetence, your business can start building up dead weight and stop being competitive (which in the long run hurts everyone. You might have had some comfortable years together, but then everyone would be out of a job).

So the only reason to take 'likeability' into consideration is the absence of it. That is, I kind of agree with the 'no asshole rule', people like that will generally do more harm to your company than good. But once you've cleared that bar, the only thing that should matter is your competence.

But 'should' isn't how people work, and I've definitely seen nice but not-so-competent people in a variety of positions. 

We don't like seeing bad things happen to people we know. Even when everyone knows someone is a poor performer, people don't like seeing them fired. And downsizing a good employee? It's a reminder that it could happen to anyone, and that your employee doesn't really have any loyalty or care for you.

This is the reality that the vast majority of us live with. It's different for the rich and powerful, though. They soften everything. Your business might decide that the pandemic means you have to downsize by 20%, and you're gone.

But the CEO still gets a couple million on their way out the door.

And members of Congress stall, and argue for leniency, and don't want to see impeachment or censure or the removal of the seditious among them. Perhaps for political reasons, maybe even mostly so. But I'm sure some of that is also because these people are people they know.

And they're more concerned with taking care of those they know than with their duties and onligations to the people they're supposed to work for. 

Healing and Accountability

With all the people wondering 'what next', I thought this was a timely moment to bring up Rabbi Ruttenberg's Twitter thread on forgiveness.

While I am concerned about the (almost inevitable) overreaction, especially since I remember how de-baathification in Iraq worked (or failed to), those are things to consider after the following questions have been answered - 

“you, person who perpetrated harm, what are you doing to own your harm publicly, to understand why you did it and do the work (therapy, education, prayer, rehab, so many other things) to be a different person tomorrow, to make amends to the fullest extent possible, to accept the full consequences of your actions, to apologize... "

If Republicans want to move on, first I would like to see them publicly refute Trump's allegations of voter fraud and acknowledge that Biden is the President-Elect. 

There's probably other things I could list if I thought about it, but this is the absolute bare minimum. If they are not willing to do that, as a party, then I don't see how we could possibly move on,much less heal.

There's more I might write about reconciliation and healing (more from my Catholic background), but this is enough for now. 

Untitled.

A well written call from a Christian perspective, and one I wish I saw more often. 

Posting For Later Contemplation

This article is wrong, but an interesting wrong. 

I haven't sorted out the details of what made me say that, and perhaps it's more (I disagree with the categorization, but there's some truth to the differences it's noting, and I'll want think about it).

But it's late, and I can't finish the article tonight.

Speaking Your Truth, and Love

I really needed to hear Arnold Schwarzenegger's message today. I can't even begin to describe how his message - particularly his message of hope, that the lies will not stand and that we will shine again - made me feel.

I think we're all tired of saying that 'we live in unprecedented times'. As someone joked online, I would like to live in precedented times again. Do we really need to deal with a once-in-a-century pandemic, a coup attempt, and all this other madness all at the same time?

Hmmm. I was going to write about something else, but before doing so I suppose that's a good lead to another thing I was mulling over. In 1 Kings 19:11-12, when Elijah met God - 

 He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; 12 and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.

He was not in the wind, nor fire. God was there in the silence.

When we are able to take time, to listen to our inner voice... the inner silence... often we hear Him (or our higher self, or whatever term you prefer) there. 

It's part of why our busy modern lives are so tragic. We're so busy waking up, getting breakfast, going to work, coming home, making dinner, maybe relaxing to surf the net or read a book or watch TV, and so we never hear that inner silence. 

Sometimes what it tells us is difficult. We have a moment of contemplation, and we realize we're not happy with something. That our job isn't fulfilling, our relationships make us unhappy... whatever it is, when we notice and realize it we're often driven to change. To take a risk. Maybe go back to school, or break up with someone. Or maybe we realize that we have to speak up, tell our truth. 

Which does bring me back to my original theme.

Yesterday I talked about how people react when they're told something they didn't want to hear, and the choices we have on how to deal with it.

Sometimes love means telling those difficult truths, and when someone does that we should honor them for doing so. It takes courage to do that, and trust. Trust that the person you're speaking to won't react badly. If it's speaking 'truth to power', it's trust that the one in power won't blame the messenger and punish them. (Hence our whistleblower laws. Also why you should be concerned if your direct reports don't come to you with complaints. Sure, you might be the most awesome manager ever... but it's far more likely that you've given them reason not to trust you, and they're afraid.) 

You have to make space for them to come forward. Sure, some people will speak regardless. Many won't, though.

This is, in many ways, the exact same thing going on when I talk about the 5 Why's, and root cause analysis. Or hospitals creating a 'no blame' environment where they can look systematically at what caused a mistake and think of better solutions. (Like color coding medicine, or making the pills different sizes. Then it's significantly harder to get them mixed up and give the wrong one.)

Now, people are not people. They're imperfect, not always in tune with that inner silence, not always aware that something is bugging them... so sometimes it comes out in ways that are... not as productive as others. A lot of what I try to do is help say things in a way that lowers defenses. "You failed, but you are not a failure. You are still a worthwhile and precious human being who deserves to succeed." (I am by no means saying I am perfect at this, by the way. Or always live up to my goals.)

It allows you to give feedback and criticism, allows you to help raise a mirror to someone. Something that we seem to simultaneously long for and fear, all together. We all know we aren't actually perfect, of course. Most of us. But being told we screwed up is scary, and we don't generally like hearing it. Finding someone who you trust, who you know still loves and supports you and who will always give you the straight truth? 

Those are a treasure.

It's also part of why 'yes-men' and the enablers that seem to latch on to the rich and powerful are not expressions of love, something the people they center on seem to sense. 

The message I want to get across best is pretty much this. "I want you to succeed, I want you to become the best person you can possibly be. And I will give you my honest feedback in order to help you do so."

Mostly. Timing matters, and people generally don't listen to unasked for advice. Then it's more about whether I need to say something to stay true to myself, or whether I can hold my tongue unless asked. (This is not applicable to online interactions, most of which are with people we have little or no relationships with.)

On Removing Trump

I've heard people arguing that impeaching Trump will instigate further violence.

I suppose I could make the argument for why we have to do it, regardless. Instead I'll throw something else out. 

Trump got banned from Twitter because he's already planning to try again. I don't know why he is going so far, but he truly seems to be acting as though it's the end of the world if he leaves power. 

What does that mean? Well, all the social media shutdowns makes it a lot harder to the massive callout for support the way we saw for the 6th (seriously, why was everyone so unprepared) but we're probably going to have further violence regardless. Maybe targeting the inauguration, maybe state capitals, I don't know. Hopefully the FBI is on it, and to a better degree than they were for the 6th.

But anyways, here's the thing - you're letting them set the pace.

If there's going to be a reaction, you might as well make sure it happens on your terms. 

Impeach the POS and get him out of there. 

They'll have less time to plot, less time to coordinate, and are less likely to come up with something even nastier. 

US History

It's stuff like this that also makes the way we teach US history sus. 

Covid Side Thought

For hospitalizations, since overall capacity affects care (and covid can be misdiagnosed) I wish the hospitalization data showed total beds available (not sure if that's beds that have staffing on hand to support, so there may also be other metrics) - total available, ave use, current use, and how many beds are covid. (as raw numbers and percentages). 

I saw something like that on NPR, but it didn't appear to be a regularly updated repor and was primarily focused on how many beds were covid. 

Which, okay. Large numbers of covid cases do strain hospitals even if they have beds available. Iirc the NPR article listed what percentage of covid cases indicated strain and offered a color coded map based off of that. 

It's just that I came to realize it wasn't very useful to me. 

If a community has multiple hospitals and decides to let one focus on covid while the others don't, and if that hospital serves more than just the county (the data was at the county level) I wasn't sure it was the best indicator. One county might have 15% covid cases and be colored as stressed, but it still was at 67% overall bed use. 

Plus hospitals will convert wards and cram beds into wherever they can when needed. They really do try their hardest to take care of patients, and that means there's some amount of slack (though needing to go so far is definitely a sign of a stressed system, even if they do find a way).

I thought total bed usage could point out where someone is under reporting covid (people still get sick, so probably more cases of pneumonia, regular flu, etc. If the covid percentage was low but overall bed usage high - like some hospitals that weren't color coded as stressed because they didn't have a lot of covid cases, but had 98% of their beds in use - far more than the norm), but with all of the above it's definitely not easy. 

I eventually decided I didn't have the knowledge or the raw data to do that sort of analysis. 

1984

Wow, Isaac Asimov's review of 1984 is a trip. 

Current Events, and I Can't Think of a Good Title

 I am not sure where to start. I had two or three major ideas for posts yesterday, but a) I've slept since then and b) they don't seem as high a priority as the current situation. (I'm sure the general themes will come up again later, and if it's convenient I may write something then.)

As for the current situation... there's so many different threads to follow. There's Twitter banning Trump (and almost all the other social media sites doing the same.) It's made social media a little surreal right now. We're still dealing with the aftermath of Wednesday, and Trump and his allies are already sending messages that they're going to try again some time before Biden's inauguration. There's the various reactions of my own personal network. My friends and family.

Oh! And I wanted to post something about how and why so many of us learned to distrust the MSM! 

That does seem to be one of the underlying factors. ('5 Why' analysis, right? People wouldn't be listening to these inaccurate sources if they hadn't decided not to trust the MSM and start 'doing their own research'. Which is a whole other topic.)

But I think I want to start with something I brought up yesterday. The differing opinions on the following statements:

Discrimination against whites is as big a problem today as discrimination against blacks and other minorities.

Things have changed so much that I often feel like a stranger in my own country

Immigrants get more than their fair share of government resources

People on welfare often have it better than those who work for a living

Speaking English is “essential for being a true American,” 

African-Americans “need to stop using racism as an excuse.”

Like I said yesterday, I disagree with pretty much every single one of these. I don't think that laying out all the reasons why, all the facts and statistics, will help though. Because this is more about emotion than it is about facts.

It's fear, and anger. It's not just the obvious ones either (fear of being discriminated against, anger at the group they think is causing so much pressure to change.) There's also fear of losing 'the Protestant work ethic'. Fear - and as I type this it becomes more clear. I can even hear my more conservative relatives complaining about policies that discourage personal responsibility - fear of losing a way of life.

And anger at all the various forces pressuring them to change. This doesn't mean there's not a hefty dose of racism involved. 

It's more like this, though.

Imagine you're the wife in a relationship, and your husband (or wife) has a tendency to eat a bowl of cereal in the night, and leave the dishes out on the table. Every morning you wake up to find a bowl sitting there with dried out cereal stuck to the sides.

It's a minor thing. Not worth raising a fuss over. So you say nothing, try to get past it. It'd sound ridiculous to fight over a dirty dish, right?

It starts as a tiny irritation, but every day it builds. So one day you decide to say something.

Now, this is your truth. It's not a happy truth, and it's not a truth that your spouse will probably like hearing. But you've already tried ignoring it, already told yourself that it's no big deal... and it's not going away. When you finally decide to speak, one of two things is likely to happen. (Okay, there's probably more... but I'm keeping it simple.)

She or he (I'm going to use 'he' so I don't have to keep typing that) may feel a little upset, but also take your concern seriously and promise... not that he would always wash the bowl. Maybe that he'd rinse it out,  or leave it to soak, or whatever. 

That sort of negotiation is highly dependent on the people involved and not something you can say should be resolved any particular way. The important part was that you spoke up about something that bothered you, they heard it and responded with their own truth, and you try to work out a solution you can live with.  (He might say 'I'm sorry, I'm forgetful. I can't guarantee I'll remember. But every time I forget just remind me that I forgot and I'll do X.) 

It's not about one person or another getting their way, it's about respecting each other's wants and needs and trying to find a way to meet it without compromising your own. 

Alternatively -

He gets upset that she's angry with him, gets defensive, goes on the attack with something completely unrelated to the dirty dishes, and stubbornly refuses to do One. Thing. Different.

You see the problem here? Now it's no longer about the dishes. Now it's about control, and shame on you for trying to control him. That's just the way he is, and if you love him you'll have to accept that. 

Get over it.

Let it go.

Don't attack me. Don't make me try to change. Don't make me respect your wants and needs, or listen to you, or try to make you happy.

(That's not actually being said ofc, and is probably not even a conscious thought. But I hope you can see why it might be subtext.)

Okay, so what was the point of all that?

It's just something I noticed with all the BLM protests. They expressed a concern. They had a grievance. They spoke their truth. 

And there are some police departments who have taken those concerns seriously, and tried to address them. I have come across an article or two talking about one particular police chief's efforts to combat racism in the force. Another discussing how body cameras have actually helped them police more effectively. It allowed them to show the family of the deceased what really happened, answered their questions, and proved that the police were acting in the line of duty.

Unfortunately, such responses have been few and far between. 

The vast majority of them, like the second cereal scenario, got defensive and angry. Started talking about how 'Blue Lives Matter', and that we need to support the police. Angrily blamed the black communities for all the divisiveness.

Don't make them try to change. Don't make us listen to black people. Why, if we do that we'll have anarchy in the streets!

And ofc the police are angry, and in some places even stopped doing their jobs, and crime went up. That's what you get when you act so unreasonable. 

Now it's not about black lives, now it's about control. It's about reasserting the current state of affairs, and suppressing any attempt to make it different.

I don't really know the ins and outs of every single time a black man or woman died in the last decade. I don't know all the evidence, I don't feel comfortable judging the use of force. 

But I can and do judge the police for refusing to take these concerns seriously. "Liberty and justice for all" was in the Pledge of Allegiance. I have been dismayed to discover that far too many Americans don't actually support it.

Updated to add: The family argument was just over some dirty dishes. BLM is about black people dying. But God forbid someone take a knee to peacefully protest. 

Well, That's Something to Ruminate On

This article lays out one of the clearest arguments I've seen for how support for Trump is associated with white supremacy. Honestly I've heard the charges of racism and white supremacy, and while I kind of understood them (Trump's role in the birther conspiracy, and the innocent black men wrongfully imprisoned... Was that for the attack on a jogger in a park?) some of it did seem like accusations thrown out because it allowed you to dismiss the opinions of everyone on the other side. Sort of the liberal equivalent of 'communist'.

But I already discussed how policy positions changed when people grew aware of our growing diversity (what I considered unconscious bias, as nobody I know would consciously do that), so I want to think a bit more about the other study mentioned -

The single survey item with the highest average correlation with antidemocratic sentiments is not a measure of attitudes toward Trump, but an item inviting respondents to agree that “discrimination against whites is as big a problem today as discrimination against blacks and other minorities.” Not far behind are items positing that “things have changed so much that I often feel like a stranger in my own country,” that immigrants get more than their fair share of government resources, that people on welfare often have it better than those who work for a living, that speaking English is “essential for being a true American,” and that African-Americans “need to stop using racism as an excuse.”

I disagree with pretty much every one of those statements, but I have heard them. Particularly the language one (funny how our Founding Fathers deliberately didn't make English the national language. And it wasn't uncommon for a particular town to only speak Polish or German or somesuch. I drove through a town in Indiana I think? It had a strong Swiss feel iirc. Might have been Vevay, but the map doesn't look right. Idk, I've driven through quite a bit of the rural Midwest at one point or another).

God, racism is so stupid. And makes people do evil things. 

God, People in DC are Deluded

Or in denial. Or wishful thinking.

I was trying to think about how to make my point and a) haven't yet and b) am on the phone, which is never the greatest for this.

But I still am furious about what happened yesterday. It's not, like, ready to go out and punch things anger. But, like... Idk. A core of burning fury that hasn't really died down. I still think he needs to go. Impeachment or the 25th Amendment, I don't care. He's proven over and over again a number of things. That no matter how many times he gets pressured into giving a speech that sounds 'normal', he never means it and always reneges. Sometimes the very same day.

That he repeatedly does things 'normal' people don't. Like the bold faced lying. If you expect him to act like most people, you will be disappointed (like Susan Collins thinking impeachment would chasten him).

The dude is never chastened. He might lick his wounds a bit, but then he doubles down and comes out swinging. We've had four years of this, it should be expected by now. 

But the stuff I was mulling over... 

Well.  I remember I was a young lieutenant, in charge of my very first platoon. And one of my NCOs was... Uh. Maybe kinda hazing the newbie butterbar? It's been almost twenty years, so I forgot the details. Some of it was typical goofy stuff like taking your cap if it was, left unattended. (this was before the beret) and turning your rank sideways. And like, initially it's not a big deal. I can take a joke, no harm done, sure.

Eventually I decided I needed to address it, though. And pulled him into my office to politely yet firmly tell him to knock it off. That it didn't matter that I was new, I was his platoon leader. 

And he was almost, like... Proud of me for calling him on his BS. Said a lot of junior officers never did. 

What I took from that is that some people really won't respect you until you pull them up short. 

But... Not everyone. I would even say most don't think like that. It's just that a good leader adjusts their leadership style to the people you're dealing with, and it's important to know who is which.

Like with micromanaging. Some people may be new, and/or insecure, and they'll want you to be around and easily available. Others (often the ones with more experience) may resent you if you hover too closely. It seems like you don't trust them to do their job. You're micromanaging, and if you're spending that much time watching them do their job then who is doing yours? (I might expand on what 'your job' entails. Some other time).

Anyways. Sometimes tit for tat works, and you can deescalate things by giving a little. The other side may not want a confrontation in the first place, and is happy to have an out. 

Other times? You need to stand fast and firm, be quite clear about where the line is drawn, and prove you're willing to bring the hammer of God down if they cross it. (One of my undergrad classes raised the question of whether Saddam would have invaded Kuwait if we'd sent a clear signal that we weren't okay with it).

Trump, in case you haven't been paying attention, is much more the latter. Any hint of weakness, any waffling, is a sign of encouragement. It means he can continue to get away with shit. (Would Senator Collins care to comment?)

The frustrating part of the last four years has been watching, over and over and over again, as our leadership and institutions utterly fail to do so. 

Impeachment? You all know what happened there.

As I've said before. He is angry, petty, and vindictive. He needs to be removed from office before he can do further damage. 

I know there are only a couple of weeks left in his term, but he has repeatedly shown that he won't stop unless someone makes him. And I've seen no sign of anyone honestly doing that. 

Fuck the POS in the White House

Today is a cussing day. No attempt at self-censoring or toning it down (really, overusing cuss words takes away the impact, so I sort of thing of it like a scale. crap < s*** < f*** < shit < fuck. Maybe not entirely in that order, but if I'm dropping f-bombs it's an indicator).

I've spent most of the day furiously checking the news, and talking on social media. I didn't exactly have anything unique to add here (furious anger, shock even though this was rather predictable. I mean, even when you can see something coming the reality of it has an impact.)

I, like most Americans, want to know what the fallout will be. I'm hoping for impeachment or the 25th. Even if Trump only has two weeks left, he has proven he is willing to do a lot of damage... And I don't want to give him the chance to do more. 

Anyways, I decided to post here because of this Twitter thread.

I don't know if it's true. I found the video of police letting the protestors in very concerning. I have noted, like many, the difference in responses to the BLM protestors and this. 

I have heard reports of zip ties and the intent to take hostages and perhaps even do show trials (like those goons planned to do with the Michigan governor).

I have also heard that VP Pence ordered out the DC National Guard (not Trump).

It has been a crazy day, and it's hard to tell how reliable any of that is. Regardless, we have a fucking piece of shit in the White House who has proven all over again why he doesn't deserve to be President. 

If that tweet has any truth to it, if there was coordination between some of the protestors, the capital police, the Dept of Defense and Trump, then it needs to be thoroughly investigated. And people need to face justice for it. 

Trump Criminal Connections?

I don't generally talk about my general suspicions, because without solid evidence it's not much different from Trump's claims of election fraud.

Still, reporting like this fits with the various patterns of behavior I've noticed.

Kind of makes me think someone should have 'taken one for the team', a long, long, time ago. Maybe we could have avoided over 350,000 dead then. And worries about an honest to God coup attempt. 

But that's water under the bridge, as they say. Something to consider if we're ever in this (hopefully unlikely) situation again, and the kind of thing to consider when trying to put better guard rails in place, but other than that not particularly helpful or useful right now. 

Though it does lend weight to my suspicion that international organized crime is a growing problem, and one that will require a firm commitment and a lot of work (and sound strategies) to address. 

Criminal

There's no other word for it. Unless you want to go with 'impeachable'. Again

Republicans need to step up. 

Oh, Wow

This little tumblr fic... I want to sit with it a bit, I think.