Gongol.com Archives: March 2021
March 14, 2021
"Ignoring [stupidity] won't make it go away"
Jim Golby offers sound advice to military leadership: "Leaders must be judicious on when to engage, but total silence isn't a good option, either -- even if it is tempting. After something like the Carlson segment, their soldiers will be talking about it and their formations may be divided. Ignoring that won't make it go away." Of course, there are options for talking about things without saying certain things (like a television host's name) out loud. When in doubt, the carefully-crafted subtweet can be even more effective than taking on a target directly. It takes more thought than addressing someone head-on, but the results can be devastating. Benjamin Franklin once wrote, "[I]f you would inform, a positive dogmatical Manner in advancing your Sentiments, may provoke Contradiction and prevent a candid Attention". Franklin knew that sometimes the best thing to do is to address a principle directly at a time when everyone knows exactly what hot topic you're talking about -- but without hovering around the topic itself. Sometimes, the bully must be punched right in the nose. But at other times, it can be enough -- especially for people who don't want to be dragged into the mud to wrestle with the pigs -- to say something that can't be mistaken for neutrality, without dignifying the name of the pig. And there are plenty of pigs begging to grapple: Sen. Ted Cruz wants military leaders to show up to take a beating for some tweets that were issued by those under their command. Cruz, lest we not forget, was the man who just a month ago threw his kids under the bus for his choice to go on a trip to Mexico. What kind of honor is found in that?
Beware apps masquerading as "American"
There remain certain "tells" in the English language that non-English speakers think we use but which we simply do not. One of those is to start a sentence with "Nice day," (inclusive of the comma), which just isn't how Americans use that phrase. Ever. And when it shows up in social-media ads promoting applications of dubious provenance, there's no reason to do anything but walk away.
...that changing the clocks twice a year is an exercise in futility imposed on the population at large by people who selfishly think that imposing a time change by government fiat is more important than just changing their own schedules voluntarily and leaving the rest of us alone.
