The week before Thanksgiving in 2020, I came to headquarters to inquire about re-enlistment. Promotion seemed unlikely, so my plan was to re-enlist and return to DLI to study Chinese. Right after that, I was called to my company commander’s office. He yelled at me a bit over the emails and ordered me to go at once to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. I spent about three hours there, where I completed hundreds of questions meant to assess whether I had a long list of mental maladies, including autism, schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, and sociopathy.
At last, I was interviewed by an Army psychologist, who after hearing my story, seemed sympathetic. She asked for someone who could vouch for me, so I gave her the number of a close friend. Later, I would tell that friend ‘a psychologist will call; please tell her I’m not insane’. To put the psychologist’s mind at ease, I also told her I had guns and that they were stored off base. She thanked me for telling her that.
Not longer after, I got called into headquarters again and got not one, but two counselings. I suspected the purpose was my squad wanted to discredit me by implying I was a liar. I had previously tried to schedule an appointment with a psychologist and was told there were none available. My commander sending me there was the action meant to show that I was lying.
In the evening of the same day, I was yet again called into headquarters to be read another counseling. When the sergeant was about to read it, I noted that this was the third counseling that day. I’m pretty sure that was the first time such a thing has happened. It mentioned various infractions and threatened an other than honorable discharge. The discussion meandered as praise was mixed with criticism. My squad leader and three other sergeants were there. I sensed that the purpose of the meeting was to get me to recant what I said in the email, so I said, ‘I said a lot of awful things; I’m sorry’. The sergeant then dramatically ripped up the counseling he had just read to me. I left happy thinking that the incident was now closed. Alas, I was wrong.
I returned from Thanksgiving with my parents to be faced with the task of giving my squad leader the humiliating presentation he demanded. I decided to make a short slideshow about my time in Africa and hopefully use that as a way to pivot back to the topic he wanted. When it was time, I told him that I thought conversations are more interesting than lectures and began the slideshow. After a few pictures, he asked when the PowerPoint would start, and I said there wasn’t going to be one. He got mad and called me a liar, and when I started telling everyone present his sandbag story, he told me to shut up.
Much later, I realized that it was never about the paperwork, that was just a pretext. My squad wanted to lord over me and feel powerful, and the easiest way to feel powerful is to force someone to do something they don’t want to do. After survival needs are met, there are only four desires: stuff, status, attention, and power.
The platoon sergeant tried to calm things, and when I mentioned that he had threatened to demote me, his voice went up and octave and started shaking like a leaf. The colonel I emailed began his Army career as a private, and I suspect he quickly and correctly deduced who had threatened me with demotion and given him an earful. I was able to patch things up with that platoon sergeant, however. The Sergeant Harty t-shirt his wife made is one of my favorite Army souvenirs. So at least there’s that.
So my squad leader whined to the commander about me, and I got hit with a bar to re-enlistment. The next week, I was ordered to get another psychiatric evaluation. Evidently, I was such an interesting specimen they had a panel of psychologists waiting for me. This time, I brought my laptop and documents in an attempt to prove that I was not a liar, a moron, or a lunatic. They seemed sympathetic and were impressed by my achievements and track record. They did not recommend any action after the session. The only really unpleasant part was when they asked about my sex life. I didn’t think my sex life was that interesting, as they soon found out.
A week later, I had a fun experience as a role-player for an interrogation training event. My First Sergeant helped me get involved and I suspect he had hoped it would cheer me up and let me blow off some steam. That guy had a great understanding of me and was probably the most sympathetic soldier I ever met.
My ‘interrogation’ lasted about six hours over the course of two days. The first day, I tried to be as combative as possible. In war, second place is first coffin, so good training should be intense and thought-provoking. The best part was when they brought in a Arabic-speaking interrogator whose rapid-fire speech overwhelmed me. I did correctly determine she was of Iraqi heritage based on her accent. She said a few words with ‘ch’ sounds in them which is something only Iraqis do.
The next day, I was much calmer as I pretended they had provided me with a Koran. I spoke a bit about Islam and US history. I said that I was a Hafiz, that is, a person who has memorized the Koran and asked if people memorize books in the US. One interrogator quoted part of Hamlet’s soliloquy and when she got stuck, I supplied the words she forgot: the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Unfortunately, the soldier who wrote the scenario got mad at me for talking about Islam and Arabic. I didn’t see the point of requesting Arabic linguists if you didn’t want them to talk about such things. It was also sad to see that my interrogators seemed to know so little about the religion, language, history, and culture of the people we’ve been fighting my entire adult life. Nonetheless, my main interrogator thanked me for the unique experience and asked for my contact info.
Bureaucracy most values people that fit neatly in. I doubt I ever could have been a soldier, even with the best of intentions.
I considered it at one point in my life (very early on). But it turns out I don’t actually like being ordered around, so I decided it wasn’t the best fit.
Derp’s stories pretty much confirm that I made the right choice.
It was the job I liked the most and kept the longest. It was also the one that required the most effort. I really hoped that somehow, I could have made a career of it. Oh well. Sometimes, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
There are about 40 high schools and middle schools within a 50-mile radius of my apartment. Sooner or later, one of them is going to need a math teacher. In the meantime, I have my writing to work on. I need to write 9 more short stories to reach the Bradbury quota.
***
The best hygiene for beginning writers or intermediate writers is to write a hell of a lot of short stories. If you can write one short story a week—it doesn’t matter what the quality is to start, but at least you’re practicing, and at the end of the year you have 52 short stories, and I defy you to write 52 bad ones. Can’t be done. At the end of 30 weeks or 40 weeks or at the end of the year, all of a sudden a story will come that’s just wonderful.
***
https://lithub.com/ray-bradburys-greatest-writing-advice/
Many great writers were either soldiers or prisoners, and some were both. So I have that going for me.
I can bumblefuck my way through writing the story. My problem would be coming up with 52 stories worth telling.
This, I often think I have a story to tell, but as I start writing I realize no one’s gonna give a fuck so I stop, mix up an old fashioned and play backgammon instead.
Case in point… see above.
All of my stories start out “Well, when I was a kid…” My kids and grand kids roll their eyes and fish out their telephones and pretend that they have something more important going on.
I reverse the order. I make and old fashioned, then write a movie post. I thought it would last maybe 25 times. I’ve gone past 130 now. And all of them say BLUH BLUH BLARRRG like a 5 year old wrote them.
My daughter bought me a subscription to Storyworth (www.storyworth.com). Once a week they sent an email with a question or topic, like “What were your grandparents like?” or “Name a beautiful place that you’ve been”. You can write on the topic or a topic of your choosing. At the end of the year they bind them in a book. I followed most of the topics but sometimes I entered another story that I had written.
I thought it came out nice.
WordPress or something won’t let me cut/copy/paste for some reason.
Ex-wife is an english teacher (not a writer) and a friend of mine (not Mojo) is a writer (but not an english teacher)
Both are fans of “timed writing”. Take some arbitrary amount of time: 5 minutes, 10 minutes, w/e and have the students write. It can be the start of a story, it can be a grocery list, it can be a suicide note (joking!) but its just to get them comfortable with putting thoughts to paper.
I defy you to write 52 bad ones. Can’t be done.
Paging Stephen King, Stephen King to the white courtesy phone.
52 bad ones in a row? Name them. And I’m not a Stephen King fan. The Shawshank Redemption covers a multitude of sins.
I don’t know the order that he wrote them I just remember I read a couple of collections of his short stories and after reading one or two the rest were just redundant, were they bad? I guess that depends on if you read all the others. Like Lovecraft, I’m not going to say that any one particular story of his is bad, but no one needs 200 stories that are indiscernible from each other. After reading three or four King or Lovecraft stories it’s fair to say that they all from that point on suck, just because they are all mere rehashes of what you’ve already read.
“Oh fuck! That’s some weird shit!” or “Oh cool, The monster isn’t really dead” only works two, three times tops.
I know that somewhere circa ‘Gerald’s Game’ and getting hit by a car, he’s been very much miss in the hit or miss column. Mostly hit before then.
Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) is an annual event in November encouraging people to write, write, write a certain amount everyday without overthinking it.
It’s to accumulate writing “mileage” and get past mental blocks.
At the end of the month, you have a novel, no matter how shitty.
Afterwards you can leave it to wither on your hard drive, or rewrite it , or whatever. Point is, you did it!
https://nanowrimo.org/
Hence the reason I couldn’t work for most Japanese companies.
They have the expression “the nail that sticks up gets hammered down”.
OT he knew the Clintons.
https://www-cbsnews-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/colorado/news/denver-attorney-steven-bachar-dies-four-months-after-imprisonment-investor-theft
https://www-cbsnews-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/colorado/news/denver-attorney-steven-bachar-dies-four-months-after-imprisonment-investor-theft/?amp_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQGsAEggAID#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17114132192099&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbsnews.com%2Fcolorado%2Fnews%2Fdenver-attorney-steven-bachar-dies-four-months-after-imprisonment-investor-theft%2F
Sorry for the hideous link
“A licensed attorney and Denver-based entrepreneur with ties to a successful campaign for the U.S. presidency in the 1990s”
He who shall not be named?
I know, right?
I guess it is possible that Clinton associates drop like flies because they are all scoundrels rather than being offed because they have dirt on the Clintons.
I know, I know…embrace the power of ‘and’.
Next time, leave the slash on the end. Delete the ? and everything after it. That should work.
Related: watching Tokyo Vice and rolling my eyes as the main characters go from deep understanding to completely ignorant. Some of it is acting more as guide for the average American viewer but cmon. Did no one watch Back to the Future II?
That’s my issue with it. I’ve watched two episodes, but find the exposition he knows full well in real life breaks me out the story and reminds me I’m watching actors.
Those best intentions evaporate very quickly.
Great, now WB can fuck up anime more.
https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/warner-bros-discovery-anime-production-japan-1235949405/
Suicide Squad ISEKAI Has little appeal for me despite using mostly top voice talent with the obligatory new 18 year old female lead. They always try to debut them in some major way like this where they either skyrocket or disappear after one or two more series.
Saw an ad from WB for that – gonna be tedious.
“…my main interrogator thanked me for the unique experience and asked for my contact info.”
Is that when your sex life got more interesting?
No, that’s a few installments away.
Speaking of, how did it go with that internet flame from Jacksonville?
The Russian? I haven’t spoken to her for a while. Another one of my matches also turned out to be Russian and wants me to download Telegram, a Russian app. Seems fishy.
My blog has been getting several hundred hits a day from Hong Kong, which is also odd.
Inscrutable Chinese girlfriend is very clingy…
I’m not saying it’s a CCP set up but…
Yeah. And my online dating feed is full of Asian women with similar phrasing in their profiles. CCP honeytrap? Maybe. Probably just scammers and bots.
Scammers need to fuck, too.
Telegram is the preferred chat app of hardcore Wahabists and gay furries. You may have dodged a bullet there (or maybe not, I don’t judge.)
The leak under my bathroom sink turned out to be from a bottle of cleaner and not a pipe. I hardly used that bottle after buying it last week, and when I moved it just now, it was almost empty. A brown Army towel I use as a bathroom rug soaked it up. It is now, I presume, the cleanest object in my apartment.
I did that. I thought some water had soaked rolls of toilet paper so I let them dry out and used them. Turned out is was a leaking bottle of toilet bowl bleach.
😖
Leaking “bottle”?
Or just leaking?
I just have to.
“I don’t like the word ‘addict’ because it has terrible connotations,” Root says one day, as they are sunning themselves on the afterdeck. “Instead of slapping a label on you, the Germans would describe you as ‘Morphiumsüchtig.’ The verb suchen means to seek. So that might be translated, loosely, as ‘morphine seeky’ or even more loosely as ‘morphine seeking.’ I prefer ‘seeky’ because it means that you have an inclination to seek morphine.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Shaftoe says.
“Well, suppose you have a roof with a hole in it. That means it is a leaky roof. It’s leaky all the time–even if it’s not raining at the moment. But it’s only leaking when it happens to be raining. In the same way, morphine-seeky means that you always have this tendency to look for morphine, even if you are not looking for it at the moment. But I prefer both of them to ‘addict,’ because they are adjectives modifying Bobby Shaftoe instead of a noun that obliterates Bobby Shaftoe.”
Turned on its side.
It’s a totally different army than the one I was in.
Communications people tend to be brighter than average soldiers. As such they can be reasoned with and generally needed very little direction. Rarely did I ever have a problem with a technician other than being a little arrogant if they solved a problem before I knew about it. OTOH I was doing the same thing to my bosses.
While one can’t compare the era I was in to today’s army I’m glad I had the experience when I did.
Hey…This doesn’t have anything to do with that Social Distortion song from the 90’s…False advertising, man.
Because you don’t
Know us at all, we laugh when old people fall
But what would you expect with a conscience so small?
Heavy metal and mullets, it’s how we were raised
Maiden and Priest were the gods that we praised
‘Cause we like having fun at other people’s expense, and
Cutting people is just a minor offence then
It’s none of your concern
I guess I’ll never learn
I’m sick of being told to wait my turn
Same schtick
Not for nothin’, but MI guys (officers in general) always seemed to be the most fucked up weirdos. Could not play well with others. Limited contact with SIGINT guys, but I think that job must make you off-kilter, never knew one officer that wasn’t broke in some different way (preening arrogance mixed with social ineptitude).
***
Joseph John Rochefort (May 12, 1900[1] – July 20, 1976) was an American naval officer and cryptanalyst. He was a major figure in the United States Navy’s cryptographic and intelligence operations from 1925 to 1946, particularly in the Battle of Midway. His contributions and those of his team were pivotal to victory in the Pacific War.
…
Rochefort would often go for days without emerging from his bunker, where he and his staff spent 12 hours a day, or even longer, working to decode Japanese radio traffic. He often wore slippers and a bathrobe with his khaki uniform and sometimes went days without bathing.
…
When Nimitz recommended Rochefort for a Navy Distinguished Service Medal, the recommendation was rejected by King who unfairly considered Rochefort “one of the most unmilitary-looking officers he had ever encountered.”
…
On 6 January 2012, the CAPT Joseph J. Rochefort Building was dedicated at the NSA facility within a Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam Annex, Hawaii.
…
In 1985, Rochefort was posthumously awarded the Navy Distinguished Service Medal. In 1986, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2000, he was inducted into the National Security Agency, Central Security Service Hall of Fame.
***
Teamwork makes the dream work. No good deed goes unpunished.
Pretty sure that guy featured in Cryptonomicon.
I’ve had to reset my wifi gizmo 4 times in the past 2 hours. So tiresome. There have been times when it’s worked fine for hours at a stretch.
On an unrelated note, I’m impressed at Animal’s writing output and pace. His work ethic is admirable.
I haven’t monetized my YouTube channel, yet I got an ad just now while watching a video from it. Weird.
Just because its not monetized for you, doesn’t mean its not monetized for Google.
Consequences of poor intel.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/chinese-tanker-struck-by-houthi-missile/
“The Iran-backed Houthis fired upon and struck a Chinese vessel in the Red Sea on Saturday, marking the first time that the Houthis have targeted Chinese property. While vessels even distantly connected to the U.S. and Israel have found the area inhospitable in the extreme, it appeared that China, Iran, and the Houthis had an agreement of sorts. Whether Saturday’s strike was an intentional one or the result of old intel is unknown, as the Chinese vessel had only been obtained in February and may have been targeted because of its past affiliations rather than its current one.
Heather Mongilio reports for USNI News:
“The Houthis launched five anti-ship ballistic missiles at a Chinese-owned and operated oil tanker, U.S. Central Command announced on Saturday.
One of the missiles hit MV Huang Pu, which sails under a Panamanian flag of convenience, according to the Central Command release. The ship sent out a distress call, but it did not request assistance. The ship had minimal damage and extinguished a small onboard fire.
There were no casualties, according to the release.
The ship is owned by a Chinese company, according to the release. The Houthis previously said they would not attack any Chinese ships. It is possible it was a case of old information, as the South China Morning Post reported that the ship’s registered owner changed in February 2024.
The Houthis, whose spokespeople usually announce strikes on ships on social media site X, have not said anything about the attack on Huang Pu.
The People’s Republic of China government have not made any statements about the attack.” “
Oopsies.
Operation Red Sea II is going to get greenlit.
Read an article summarizing the new theory saying seemingly obvious thing in astrophysics – that dark energy and dark matter aren’t real, that physicists believed that there was twenty times more mass than ordinary matter you can observe. Instead, one can make the observed facts fit a theory that some supposed constants, such as the speed of light, are actually variables.
Shorter: dark matter and dark energy were so stupid an idea that only really smart people (who couldn’t say ‘I don’t know’) could believe it.
Sort of like a certain set if political theories.
The missing variable is the power of the First. It is denied by your seconding physicists.
99% of theories are wrong (that’s probably true of many of the papers I wrote). In some ways it’s like throwing stuff at a wall and seeing what sticks, where “stick” means it describes actual data well.
Some take longer to disprove, or to be superseded by a better one. Dark matter and energy were able to explain many things. Changing “constants” and “tired light” don’t seem any more elegant than new particles or a nonzero cosmological constant.
Sure, but the scientific community has a whole should have been a lot more skeptical of a theory that 95% of mass is invisible, also there isn’t any near us to find.
I feel very vindicated that it is starting to fall out of favor, because I never liked the theory.
Sgt Derpy’s theme song: https://youtu.be/FbQ4ZKI-hKM
Thought-provoking article of the day:
https://quillette.com/2024/03/22/why-do-men-dominate-chess/
Why Do Men Dominate Chess?”
because they’re autistic? Okay I’ll read it now.
“But other, equally informed, female players argue that it really does just come down to sexism. Their ranks include Hungary’s Judit Polgár, the highest-ranking women’s chess player in history (by far), who’s declared that “it’s just as possible for a woman to become the best as any guy. But there are so many difficulties and social boundaries for women generally in society. That is what blocks it.”
‘Equally informed’
“One 11-year-old girl reported that “the boys tend to put us down by saying things about our playing…well, if we think we’re hopeless, well, then we’ll start playing hopeless, so, [you have to] just ignore them and keep playing for the sake of it.”
It is incorrect to attribute this to sexism. Some boys (and I believe girls) do this to everyone… if women cannot handle that, it isn’t because there is something ‘wrong’ with men. IT may not be nice, but one needs to be able to endure such shit flinging.
I skipped around a bit but…
“A more promising explanation for male dominance in elite chess involves motivation. A large body of research strongly suggests that the sexes differ in their preferences for competition. As both Kasparov and Repková have intuited, men are simply more competitive—that is, they have a stronger motivation not just to compete, but to win, in formal physical and non-physical competitions of all kinds.”
Right. It comes down to sexual selection. Women don’t need to be the best to get picked(existing is usually sufficient), whereas men need to clearly show some aptitude.
“If your instinct tells you that males will be disproportionately drawn toward this kind of intense practice style than females, you’re correct. Studies show that boys and men are more likely to exhibit a “rigid persistence in an activity,” by which “the passion controls the individual” (“obsessive passion” in the literature). In anecdotal terms, we are talking here about the man who drops everything to become, say, a 16-hour-per-day videogamer, or a day-trader, or chess addict. Yes, some women take on these kinds of fixations. But men do it more often, and with greater intensity.”
Like I said, autism.
Pretty much. You don’t get to be a world champion at anything without autistic determination.
That Hungarian chick… wasn’t she raised to live, breathe, and see nothing but chess?
Yes, she was. And she still can’t beat most male chess players.
I’ve long noted that there are far more male geniuses, the truly obsessed ones, than female ones. That can be good or bad.
One thing I learned from the article was about variability, the fact that statistically there’s more variation among men in IQ, physical phenotype, etc than there is among females. So you get more male village idiots but also more male geniuses.
I think banning trans “women” from competing in women’s chess is the right thing to do, but on the other hand it would be an interesting psychology study to see if trans women lack the “killer instinct” that men tend to have.
More male geniuses. And more male morons.
Good morning Glibberati!
🌄🍖☕
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yP4qdefD2To
🎶🎶
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/baltimore-s-francis-scott-key-bridge-collapses-after-ship-collision-sending-vehicles-into-water/ar-BB1kxysd
Watch out for those bridges, also welcome to the new normal.
‘welcome to the new normal.’
How do you figure?
We’re in an extraordinarily stupid timeline. Think “Idiocracy”.
Eh, accidents happen. I’d be surprised if there were more now than in the past.
Time will tell…on an upcoming episode of Engineering Catastrophes.
Ill just leave this here.
Good morning, Sean and Lack!
I think I might be coming down with a cold.🤧😟 I hope it’s just early onset allergies.
Whoops. That’s a pretty major disaster.
Yeah, top story in my local news in SW OH. (Good morning, ES!)
Good morning!
Ship was Asian, from Singapore. Start the jokes now.
No idea on the captain or if it was human error or mechanical. It will be an expensive insurance payout that I highly doubt covers all the damage.
Ho Lee Fuk?
Man, them asian drivers right?
Morning.
I just want to go back to sleep… 😴
Good morning, U. There’s a lot to be said for that…but I still have to go in and approve this week’s payroll. 😒
My workday just started. Luckily it’s remote. So my recent dragging of myself out of bed isn’t as much of a problem
Whoever had Sean “Diddy” Combs aka “Diddy” aka “Untalented hack who’s somehow managed to stay somewhat relevent” goes on the lam from sex trafficking, rape, and drug and gunrunning on their 2024 prediction card: You win the jackpot.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/diddy-do-it-sean-combs-homes-la-miami-simultaneously-raided-homeland-security
Is this guy really a criminal mastermind on the level of El Chapo or is this all bullshit?
Keystone Cops
Either way I will continue to not give a shit.
DHS conducted the raid? Then he ain’t no Chapo.
Yeah, that was my question: WTF is DHS doing conducting raids for sex trafficking, etc.? Aren’t they supposed to be groping toddlers at airports? I thought we had plenty of doorkickers in other agencies for this kind of thing.
Mornin’ all.
While I hate to wish allergies on anyone, that may be better than a cold, GT. Good luck either way! At least the OTC meds are largely the same. “Symptomatic relief” — what a phrase ;-\
Thanks, Beau, and good morning!
I have to disagree. You can get over a cold but allergies keep coming back.
suh’ fam
whats goody
Hamantaschen with coffee are pretty goody.
Ive got the classic ice tea/lemonade “Arnold Palmer”
I suppose if I dump vodka in it then its a Jon Daly.
Not thse GF ones, sadly. My MIL has already announced that she needs to find a different dough recipe for next year.
These are like tasteless PopTart dough.
Glad I woke up 90 minutes early so someone could read some slides aloud.
/sarc