5 Things on a Friday: Follow the Money

This is kind of a last-minute effort.  Happy Friday!

This feels like it's been a long week, no?

5 Things on a Friday: You Really Should Be Following Me on Twitter

Facebook instituted a new News Feed algorithm recently, and I hate it.  Ostensibly intended to cut down on the site’s 3rd party media manipulation and endless political arguments, what’s happened instead is that I’m now seeing the same posts over and over again.  Stuff that I would have glossed over in months past is now literally inescapable.  If anything, I’ve actually muted more people in the last month than I had in the previous twelve.

Usually just for 30 days, mind you.  I use the “Take a break from this poster” option because I still like my friends.  I just don’t need to read their political thoughts on repeat.  

Meanwhile, the algorithm’s effect on me has been to cut this blog’s traffic in half.

5 Things on a Friday: What Is Clutch?

That’s the age-old question, right?

The excitement is real. #GoArmy #BEATairforce pic.twitter.com/Rx8erD6rjr

— Army WP Football (@ArmyWP_Football) October 30, 2017

Let’s get it on!

5 Things on a Friday: I Already Miss Joe Girardi

Happy Friday, folks.  It’s gonna be a quick one today.

5 Things on a Friday: Army-Navy is Back!

It’s a lot of military-related stuff this week, not so much because of the Army-Navy game but because that’s what’s going on in America.  Or maybe I’m just more tuned into the military stuff because of the game.  Regardless, these are the things to which I want people to pay attention.

Happy Friday, folks.  Let’s get after it.

Mind-Bending Pics of the Day

Бц на белой площади #рооссия #roof #rooftop #model #moscow #selfie #city #urban #dance #gymnastics #gymnast

A photo posted by Angela Nikolau (@angela_nikolau) on Oct 25, 2015 at 4:04am PDT

Source: Meet The Daredevil Russian Girl Whose Risky Selfie Game Is On Point!

5 Things on a Friday: Mad Science is Back!

Crazy week.  The world recoiled in horror, and then the Internet tore itself apart.  I lost my patience pretty quickly, and honestly, if it weren’t for my responsibilities as Information Systems Officer for my class from West Point, I probably would have deactivated my Facebook account.  I can handle the lunatic ramblings of the Twitteratti because for the most part I don’t know those people.  Who cares what a bunch of sports writers and comic book artists and writers think about the news of the day?  No one, really, and that’s fine.  However, I do know the folks on Facebook, and as a result their “arguments” get to me.  Because no one ever learns anything, and also because…  

Who wants to watch their friends argue?

I certainly don’t.

Now, you may say that keeping a column like this is exactly like posting an argument on Facebook, and maybe it is.  The difference, at least in my mind, is that this site is mine, that folks who come here have done so voluntarily to hear what I think.  I’m not twisting anybody’s arm, and--truly--my feelings aren’t hurt if you like me but not my writing.  In the same way that we can be friends but don’t have to work out together in the weight room, we can also be friends, and you can ignore my blog.  It’s okay.  I get that it can be political.  For what it’s worth, I’ve been trying to do less politics of late, but readership has gone down as a result.  So I’m going to need to find a balance in there somewhere--hopefully without coming off too hypocritical.

5 Things on a Friday: Rise of the "Know Nothings"

It’s been a tough week.  It’s been both busy and confusing, with near-constant frustration and substantial positive reinforcement coming in a constant stream from unexpected angles.  I don’t want to get into the details, but the level of cognitive dissonance in my life is at times deafening.  I hardly know what to think.  It’s hard at times just to parse all the mixed messages.

As we were headed to the gym on Tuesday night, Hannah asked me what was going on.  She’s a perceptive twelve-year-old and a straight-A student.  I told her that I was frustrated, that it seems like people--even people whom I respect a great deal--have shown themselves to be fundamentally self-interested, and that their willingness to tie themselves into knots intellectually in order to believe what’s in their own basic self-interest has been both overwhelming and disheartening.  I tried to explain to her that we have a higher calling, that the fact that she IS a straight-A student and has every advantage gives her a responsibility going forward.  She was not put on this Earth just to be a mother and a veterinarian, if that’s the path that she chooses.  Self-interest and the interests of her family will always be important, yes, but those things will never be as important as her responsibility to society, to her community as a whole.  There is such a thing as service, and though it’s up to each of us to define our own service for ourselves, service just to oneself and one’s family doesn’t actually get us anywhere.  Service to one’s self and family is a truly minimal kind of social responsibility.

Hannah gets it, I think, but I don’t know who else does.  I don’t know who else is teaching this lesson to their kids.

As a society, we’ve made greed a virtue.  College kids look at a film like The Wolf of Wall Street and they see a role model, not a cautionary tale.  We’re all going to be stuck with the consequences of this in time.  These consequences might take a while manifest, but their manifestation will be a real thing.  We will all notice.  We will all live with the consequences.

How much any of this influences my own cognitive dissonance is an open question.  It feels like I’m a hero when people need a hero, and I’m a goat when they need someone to blame or have another hero picked out already.  Meanwhile, I’m always me; I’m the same guy.  I do what I do, and it’s flattering when people notice, and it’s frustrating when they cut me off before giving me so much as a chance to show my strengths.  This is true for everyone, I’m sure, but it’s been really, repeatedly unmistakable these past weeks for me.  As my father used to say, “What you see depends on where you sit.”  It’s weird, though, to be the object of that saying, to have people project whatever they need onto me.

At the end of the day, I have a beautiful wife, two great kids, and a house that I can afford.  I don’t exactly need other people’s approval.  Still, the mixed messages are hard to hear in rapid succession, and at times that makes my personal reality a bit unpredictable.

5 Things on a Friday: Christmas is Coming!

Keeping it short this week.  Here's hoping your Thanksgiving kicked ass.

1-hr, 25-min: 1st flip. #turkeyprep #Thanksgiving2015 pic.twitter.com/07VuDIqpnK

— Dan Head (@Dan_T_Head) November 26, 2015

5 Things on a Friday: Hoping for an Opportunity

My first draft of got a little jingoistic this week.  Perhaps that's inevitable in the wake of the Paris attacks and the other, also very considerable attacks that hit Beirut and that Russian plane in Egypt.  I find myself uncomfortable calling for a war in which I am extremely unlikely to fight--although, who knows, right?--but it feels like we may yet have an opportunity here.  This might be one of those moments in which we can achieve regional consensus and act, even if that consensus is short-lived and entirely self-serving on all sides.

Consider: Russia, Britain, and the U.S. were not all fast friends in the late 1930s and early 40s.  In fact, the allies invaded Russia in 1917 to try to oust the Communists.  The smarter half of the American public was keenly aware of the British interest in maintaining its colonial presence in North Africa and elsewhere--and distinctly un-interested in the ramifications this held for our collective strategy.  These differences were real.  It’s hard to say what would have happened had Japan not blundered its way into attacking Pearl Harbor in 1941.  However, the resulting three-way alliance fought a relatively unified and collective war that defeated its enemies and set the course for the modern world.

5 Things on a Friday: Ultron & Other Death Machines

I’m still digesting Avengers: Age of Ultron.  I suppose it says something about the movie that it’s nearly a week later, and I’m still thinking about it, still trying to decide what it was trying to say.  It didn’t feel like it was all that deep at the time, but there was a lot there, and it’s one of those things where I find that I’m still processing it all.

Truth is, I can’t wait to see this movie again.

Warning: This post may contain spoilers.  If you haven’t seen the movie, you might want to come back later.

5 Things on a Friday: You Can Transplant My Head, but Can You Clone My Body?

This was a crazy week for news, but I'm super-glad that it's Friday.  If our weather guy is correct, this is the very last super-cold day we'll have this winter.  Daylight Savings Time begins this weekend, and with that will come a change to North America's weather patterns--finally.

***

1. Human head transplant just two years away, surgeon claims (CNet)

It seems like the stuff of science-fiction (and it has been), but it's not, perhaps, as impossible as it sounds. Take, for instance, the work of Russian transplant pioneer Vladimir Demikhov, who in the 1950s successfully transplanted dogs' heads onto the bodies of other dogs, creating living two-headed dogs (the linked video contains content that may be disturbing for some viewers). Or Doctor Robert White, who transplanted the head of one monkey on to the body of another in 1970 (the same warning applies)…

If the procedure [is] successful… the patient would possibly be able to walk again within a year -- with physiotherapy to help. However, the technique has yet to be tested…

5 Things on a Friday: Death of the Interview

Wow, what a crazy week!  Holy cow!!!

Let’s start with The Interview.  I was really looking forward to seeing it; Sally and I even talked about going Friday on our date night.  Bu that ain’t gonna happen, it seems.

Saturday News & Notes: #ARMYNAVY

I'm gonna swim, hit the gym, and then start getting ready to have some friends over this afternoon.  Only one thing matters today, and that's beating Navy!

#USArmy @WestPoint_USMA @navalacadamey teams prepare for #ArmyNavy football rivalry http://t.co/9JocxcQbAC pic.twitter.com/NksWCepHiG
— U.S. Army (@USArmy) December 13, 2014

5 Things on a Friday: It's All About Taylor!

There was lots of news this week, but I made a conscious decision to try to keep this list light.  I’d never consider the casting announcement of a new James Bond movie news, for example, but it’s either that or talk about something serious, and who wants to be serious on a Friday?

5 Things on a Friday: The Curious Case of Kim Jong-Un

I feel like I’ve been waiting all week for the coming weekend, and it’s made the week drag badly.  We have a lot going on this weekend.  Sally and the kids and I are going up to West Point for the game against Rice, and after that, it’s a three-day weekend.

#RICEvsARMY

But we still have to get through Friday.

Five Things on a Friday: Scoping Out the New TV Season

Glory hallelujah, it's finally Friday!  Looks like it's gonna be a good one, too.  My New York Giants laid 45 on Washington last night, this weekend is my daughter's birthday, and if the Football Gods are good, Army might even win one this weekend.

It’s also finally fall, which means we've got a ton of new TV out there.  I haven’t seen it all, but I’ve liked what little I’ve seen so far.

Let's get to it.

***

1.  Gotham

Fox’s new non-Batman show Gotham has gotten much better reviews than I’d expected.  I’d not have through taking Batman out of a show about Batman would be a good idea, but I enjoyed the series premier and have every intention of watching next week’s episode.  

Saturday Morning Reading Room: The Jobs Report

Saturday mornings are my favorite time of the week.  I get up early and have the whole house to myself.

Here's what's caught my eye:

217,000 Jobs Added, Nudging Payrolls to Levels Before the Crisis (NY Times)
"Em­ploy­ers hired 217,000 work­ers in May, the La­bor De­part­ment re­port­ed on Fri­day, enough to fi­nal­ly lift to­tal pay­rolls above where they were be­fore the fi­nan­cial col­lapse near­ly six years ago...  

For the fourth con­sec­u­tive month... em­ploy­ers added more than 200,000 po­si­tions, the first time that has hap­pened in 14 years."

Five Things on a Friday: The new Eastern Alliance

Yes, that title is a very obscure reference to the original Battlestar Galactica.  If you caught the reference before I called it out, please let me know.  Sometimes I think I'm the only one who thinks about this stuff.

1.  China and Russia sign huge gas supply deal, pricing unclear

“China and Russia signed a long-awaited, $400-billion gas supply deal on Wednesday, securing the world's top energy user a major new source of cleaner fuel and opening a new market for Moscow as Europeans look elsewhere for their energy…

The deal is a political triumph for Putin, who is courting new partners in Asia as customers in Europe attempt to reduce their reliance on Russian gas to bolster their bargaining positions with Moscow after its seizure of Crimea from Ukraine.”

Saturday News: Star Wars, a Training Update, and Other Stuff

Not a lot going on today, but there were a few things that caught my eye.

Lucasfilm Clarifies Future of STAR WARS Expanded Universe, Announces New Prose Novels (Newsrama)
They're going to shit-can it.  From Lucasfilm's press release:
"In order to give maximum creative freedom to the filmmakers and also preserve an element of surprise and discovery for the audience, Star Wars Episodes VII-IX will not tell the same story told in the post-Return of the Jedi Expanded Universe."