Naval Blockade

What’s amazing about the case of Chief Petty Officer Gallagher is how much it resembles bureaucratic entitlement in Washington DC. Trump gives an order and everyone affected by it finds ways to obfuscate and ignore it. From the ambassador in Ukraine to the intelligence community, to the Justice Department and FBI and now the military, the administrators are in open rebellion. Whether they are right on the substance of the disagreement is beside the point.

Does the president set policy or doesn’t he?

If you’re a little unfamiliar with the story of the decorated SEAL Eddie Gallagher, here is the short version. The Navy held a court-martial hearing for the commander accused of killing an ISIS fighter that was wounded. The medic that accused Gallagher changed his story on the witness stand, saying instead he (the medic) actually killed the ISIS fighter. That’s a strange enough development, but Gallagher was convicted of posing with a dead terrorist like a kid at the zoo. That seems like writing a citation for jay-walking because you couldn’t prove he robbed the liquor store. It’s nothing, a joke. 

  

President Trump gave him a pardon. But it was only a pardon for the crime of posing with a dead ISIS fighter. But overriding the Secretary of the Navy (Richard Spencer) and letting Gallagher keep his trident, the president gave the brass a middle finger. Maybe they deserved it, or maybe Trump was flexing his muscle a bit and letting the Pentagon know that they work for him. If you go constantly usurp the leaders that work for you it will create a backlash at some point, even if the president is within his rights to do it.

The public rarely hears cases like this. Most military courts stay behind the scenes and out public view. That’s best for everyone. When civilians hear about some of the grizzlier crimes they get put off. They can’t imagine how anyone could be so ruthless and cruel. But war does this to people and I prefer not to hear about every killing. If we’re talking about a Mai Li type massacre where civilians are rounded up and shot or raped and mutilated then everyone should know.

But this stuff with Gallagher seems minor, and considering he was acquitted of the murder charge anyway it seems even less important. It became important when Trump ordered the Navy to give Gallagher back his trident and end the ongoing investigation.

After the disastrous trial the prosecution leaked video to the New York Times showing interviews with the men from Gallagher’s platoon. It’s such a smarmy DC thing to leak classified information. I wonder if Americans even realize it is a crime.

 In the interviews Gallagher is called “toxic” and “evil” by SEALs under his command. They accuse him of being willing to kill anything that moves. Some of their complaints are just about his nasty language, “burkas were flying” and so forth.

Maybe he was a ‘toxic’ leader and prone to bloodthirsty language. If you’ve been around soldiers or sailors this is basically on brand for all of us, we’ve got a dark sense of humor. One recurring theme from most veterans of war is the callousness toward death and destruction. Teddy Roosevelt even wrote to his friend (Henry Cabot Lodge) about his ride up San Juan hill in Cuba “I killed a Spaniard with my own hand—like a jackrabbit”. Clearly loving battle a friend who fought with him during his Rough Rider days described him as “reveling in victory and gore”. That fighting men might actually get charged up by battle shouldn’t be surprising.

So how much of this is language and how much is real psychotic behavior? 

One aspect of this whole thing does make me cringe a bit. Why did a significant chunk of the men under his authority so despise him? I doubt if this is normal in the SEALs. These men have to be close and trust each other in the most dangerous situations; their lives literally depend on it. They accuse him of murder though, not a minor thing. 

It feels to me like there is a lot more to this story so I’ll reserve judgement on Eddie Gallagher for now. Whether Trump should have inserted himself into an internal matter is beside the point. When military leaders don’t fall in line they can be removed for even trivial things. President Obama removed General McChrystal from Afghanistan after a story about him calling the vice president “Joe Bite-Me”. I don’t think Obama really wanted to do it, but he would've looked weak otherwise. Silly nicknames mean disloyalty and as soon as the public hears it the command structure falls apart.

So far this insubordination against President Trump includes ‘appointed’ officials at Justice, State, Defense, the FBI and multiple intelligence agencies. The key word there is appointed. We expect elected officials (Congress, Senate) to stop the president’s agenda, not bureaucrats.

When administrators start to run their departments like little fiefdoms the country is in trouble. A house cleaning is in order.

Christmas Day-Off

I’ve been furiously avoiding the writing assignment for today. 

Not because I don’t like the topic or because I didn’t do any research, but because I don’t have a topic. The day is mostly wasted due my dentist appointment early this morning where I promptly came right back here to read news and check email. Then I ambled over to the couch to read a little more of the novel I’m plugging away at. After an hour or so I decided to get some coffee at a Great coffee house called Double Shot where I read a few more chapters of the book, not because of some need to finish but because of sheer boredom and a lack of a better idea. My brother and his family are still in town because of Christmas so I popped in for while over at my mom’s where they are staying. Then back here to get a little dinner and read some news hoping for spark of imagination or interest. So far nothing, but I’m writing anyway.

I did another scripture commentary yesterday morning, Christmas day. I’m going through the book of Acts chapter by chapter and doing some reflecting on the reading. I said “commentary” but on second look, that sounds a little more intellectual than what I’m going for. I try to do a chapter from anywhere in the Bible once a week. I don’t put them on my website because the pieces are a little too sloppy for the blog. And this is with the full knowledge that blog pages have pretty low standards. 

But by writing them and dumping them into a file folder I don’t have to edit them for clarity or grammatical errors. I don’t have to check for historical accuracy either which is the big one with the Bible.

It’s much more important for the Old Testament because sorting out prophets and messages is tricky without looking them up. Mixing up the Zachariahs from the Zephaniahs might get me laughed out of polite society. Most books contain the same general premise, God’s people forget their covenant and need a prophet. As a story arc it’s all too common, rejection of the old law, problems with war or famine or disease, and finally repentance. But without the repetition and enduring love we wouldn’t get the New Testament, or the Savior, or the accessibility to God and eternal hope through salvation.

   

 For now my reflections are just personal letters. That may change in the future. I need more material and the Bible is an endless supply to me.

What’s strange for me is that work begets work. I’m more efficient when my schedule is full. When I’ve got a whole day with nothing to do, I do nothing. Something tells me this is normal for a lot of us. We complain that we just don’t have time to for home projects and learning. But with a whole day and nothing planned we flip through mystery books and sip coffee. After that we saunter to the kitchen (or waddle) and paw through the fridge looking for peanut butter cups and egg nog. Is it just me? I doubt it. With a full work schedule though I seem to squeeze a lot in, I need structure and deadlines. Or maybe I just shouldn’t feel bad about spending a day relaxing, snacking, napping and reading.

Living With Yourself: Review

I finally finished Paul Rudd’s Living With Yourself on Netflix. It’s only 10 or so episodes that I started right when it came out, I’m not much of a binge watcher though. I got hung up a month or so ago and sort of forgot about it. The Crown came out for season 3 so my TV priorities shifted. Since I'm caught up on the House of Windsor it's back to business. 

Living With Yourself makes assumptions about humans that ring true, we want shortcuts to happiness and our humanity is tied to our unique experiences, good and bad. 

Here is the story in a nutshell. It’s a spoiler alert because I can’t explain the show without giving some of it away. Stop reading here if you plan to watch it. Miles is an ad executive who is in a creative rut. His relationship with his wife Kate (Aisling Bea) is shaky at best; they’re trying to get pregnant but Miles can’t be bothered to show up at the fertility clinic. He is selfish and bored with life until a coworker recommends a spa treatment to revitalize his situation. The spa turns out to be a cloning racket where the ‘scientists’ create the improved clone with less fat and better habits. The host is killed, or supposed to be. It doesn’t take with Miles because of a screw up. He wakes up in a plastic sack buried under ground and scrambles to tear out.

That opening sets the tone for the eerie story that follows. Some of the scene music is creepy and foreboding with some lighter moments sprinkled here and there. It feels a bit horror movie-ish at times. Not because of violence but because of the unknown quality. Having a clone around and trying to keep it a secret presents some frightening scenarios.   

The rest of the series tries to answer the question of ‘how will this arrangement work?’ Can the two men coexist? Will clone Miles murder Miles? Will Miles murder his clone? Will the clone ruin everything by not playing his part?

 Another trick the writers have introduced is to show the same scene from both Miles point of view and the clone’s.  This prevents us from favoring one over the other and works to show distinctions when they’re important. This isn’t an evil twin story despite their predicament. We see one side and then the other.

Are the writers telling us that we behave differently when motivations are different? I don’t want to give too much away, but their approaches to life, as well as attitudes toward Kate are rooted in their histories. The Miles clone has the same memories as Miles but only as images or files that were transferred from another source. Miles carries the pain and emotional attachment to his wife the human way, through his experience. Their connection is physical and emotional and not easily replaced despite their current marital problems.

Miles is not a great guy. He is selfish, he lies to his wife and coworkers and scams local farmers. He is mopey and miserable at home and despite his wife’s request that he go to the fertility clinic, he ignores her. The Miles clone is a better version of himself, friendlier to guests and more attentive to Kate. Miles gets jealous and tries to reclaim some energy and initiative after a while. 

  

I like the simple plot so far. Guy gets mixed up in a cloning accident and has to figure out how to manage him, his clone and his relationship with his wife, which is rocky. Rudd doesn’t oversell any of the parts, he plays both characters straight. There is a running gag about Tom Brady at the cloning clinic that's pretty funny. 

I think there are two lessons from this show. First, no amount of shortcuts will ever lead to happiness and fulfillment. Second, humans are more than just bone structure and DNA with memories. Clones might be copies, but like a copy they are more of a picture than an exact replica. Cloning is really just a fun story telling device. Michael Keaton’s Multiplicity used it as well but played the object lesson (that shortcuts don’t exist) for laughs. ‘Living’ and Multiplicity both begin from the same point, stressed out people do dumb things.  Only Living With Yourself investigates the second lesson, that humans are flawed creatures but completely unique in experience.

6 - 12 Type Thinking

I saw something on Reddit that I thought seemed like great advice. I forgot to save the page and I didn’t know how to look for it so I’ll have to go from memory. In essence it showed how 9am to 5pm constitute work hours, but getting ahead requires putting in extra time. The 6pm to 12am window is for exploring additional paths, hobbies, making additional money and exercise. Obviously the frame of time is different for everyone. Some work early morning hours and others work long shifts 10 or 12 hours at a time.

The point is that to learn a new trade, talent or skill, one needs to put in extra work. It doesn’t have to mean killing yourself until you fall asleep from exhaustion.

Reddit commenters blistered it with negative feedback and outright hostility. What’s the alternative to improving your own lot, waiting for someone to give it to you? Stealing from the rich? The meme was nothing more than “Make the best use of your time and become a better you”. Hardly controversial stuff, but then people read meaning into quotes based on their biases. We all do this sometimes. 

  

 It sounded like advice from an individual who achieved success by using time wisely. Or, maybe they learned a new language, enough to get a job where knowledge of the language made the difference between working and not working. Maybe they taught themselves to code and wrote a program they later sold. I know internet communities aren’t real life; a handful of trolls can have an outsized impact. Still, if the reaction to studying hard and striving gets such nasty blowback what is being taught about self-improvement?

I did a quick google search for “self-improvement tips” to get a sense of the blogosphere’s advice, ideas. A lot of similar items pop up, “learn a new skill”, “develop good habits”, “have a plan”, “reflect”, “make time to relax”. Basically what I thought I’d find but with a few variations. When I googled “Is self-improvement bad?” I saw a better idea of what some might be thinking. 

“Essentially, the self-improvement culture invalidates your negative emotions. It sends a message of toxic positivity that prevents you from acquiring the skills you need to deal with the “real world.”

I don’t agree that the self-improvement culture is as rigid as this author thinks. Or maybe we are defining two different things. In the movie American Beauty Annette Bening plays a cold, sexless real estate agent trying in vain to get meaning from her career, extramarital affair. She is clearly unhappy but keeps on repeating silly positivity mantras. To me that sounds like toxic positivity, assuming that's even a real thing. It's not what I'm describing.

A lot of this seems too competitive to some, like the purpose of self-improvement is to ‘get ahead’ and ‘win’. Either that, or it sounds judgmental, like if you aren’t at the gym for an hour and reading Tolstoy in Russian then you aren’t trying. Maybe that's where the Reddit mob was coming from.

 I find it encouraging every time some 'average joe' makes one small, steady change in their life that causes other changes. Some lose weight and transform their diet completely. Others begin crafty projects that earn extra money and sometimes even become the primary source of income. By taking the notion of working after hours seriously, they’ve transformed their life.

 Think Dale Carnegie not Tony Robbins. We don’t need to break down every psychological component of ourselves to make steady changes to lifestyle or learn a skill. How many people got a real estate license just studying after hours or became a certified trainer at their gym? It doesn’t need to be competitive, it just needs a starting point.  

  

I don’t see another option for most of us. We survive in a vibrant economy that’s constantly churning out new ways to make money and disrupt old ones. Free market capitalism always contained some elements of disruption, but technology kicked it into hyperdrive. What’s tough to accept is that many jobs that had been staples of employment, factory labor, switchboard operator, semi-truck driver either disappeared or just got harder to come by. But with all the turnover and unease about the future, it’s never been easier to do something else, or spend time learning to do something else.

I get that people want to go to work, drop the kids off at basketball practice, make some dinner and watch Netflix before dozing off. But the idea of self-improvement from 6 to 12 isn’t meant to be literal. It’s a goal to use the free hours wisely. For a lot of us facing the real possibility that our job might disappear, it’s insurance.  It’s scary to see the industry you work in losing ground every day, but fortunately the barriers to learn, train, buy and sell are much lower.

A lot of us just entering the work force will have multiple jobs before we retire. Self-improvement means always being ready to acquire new talents, skills and trades.

Cubs update

Offseason baseball.

So the Cubbies are done with Addison Russell as of today. It's been a few months since they played so the name isn't exactly top of mind. He was the shortstop during the World Series run and on the roster for the last 2. An amazing talent whose production slipped a little last year, he still held the day to day starting position. Most fans know about the domestic abuse charge against him. He missed 40 games at the start of the last season for 'incidents'. Fans usually get off the band wagon when they hear about violence against women or children. I'm one of them. Everyone deserves a second chance though and he didn't make excuses or blame anyone, that I saw at least. 

Everyone's team needs pitching because arms wear out, players slump and need surgery. Guys that dominate one season can slump for the next two, that's baseball. The Cubs are no different in that way, always looking for arms. I saw an item that I sincerely hope is in the works. The front office showed some interest in left-hander Madison Bumgarner from the Giants. He's only 30 and still has a lot of upside. I still remember his shut down performance against the Royals in the 2014 World Series. He pitched 3 games and managed a 1.03 ERA, ridiculous! I get that it was a few years ago, but the last couple of years he's had injuries, broken hand and a broken rib. The rib was from a dirt bike accident and the hand from a ball hit back to the mound in spring training. So just, you know, keep him off the bikes. Not much you can do about balls hit back at the mound.

I looked around for some tidbits and news on the North Siders, but it's a little early for baseball trades and roster additions. A lot of it is just filler and wouldn't make the wire during the season. For instance they hired an assistant coach. Big deal. I'm just depressed about the Bears and their lackluster performance this year. I thought they were better. They looked good Sunday again the Lions. Trubisky looked good with 3 touchdowns and almost 350 yards passing. More than any other player he needed a good game. Sadly it's too little, too late to get on a streak. Either the Packers or the Vikings would have to lose almost every game till the end of the season for a playoff shot; I don't see it happening.