I think it is happening. After years and years of losing and coming back for the next whipping, it seems like the conservatives in the United States are waking up. Look at them: Look at the fighters: Recently, a moderately liberal friend reached out to me. He’s converted, in large part because of Trump and finally seeing liberal hysteria for what it is. He told me that more than a true belief in conservative ideas, he just hates the Left. Here’s what I told him: Strange times we live in. I’ve been saying that the Left has been at war with America for years, and now–when this idea seems to be going mainstream more than ever–I am actually more sure we will prevail than ever…why? Because we have truth, beauty, and justice on our side. And no matter how many times we hear up is down and wrong is right, Truth by its nature cannot be perverted permanently. And because of this… Trump is waking people up. Your instincts (destroy the Left) are understandable…but while we *should and must* destroy them, we must be sure to build up our own families, businesses, arts, religion, etc. After the conflagration (we are…Continue reading It’s happening…
Category: Leadership
The Successful Lieutenant Part Two: “Mission First”
Army Captain Christopher J. Courtney recently offered new lieutenants ten rules for success in his recent piece “The Successful Lieutenant.” This is the second part in my ten part series on his rules (here is the first). Put The Troops First. This rule is perhaps best summarized in a quotation from Field Marshal Sir William Slim. He was the commander of the British 14th Army in the Burma Campaign of World War II. I tell you as officers, that you will not eat, sleep, smoke, sit down, or lie down until your soldiers have had a chance to do these things. If you hold to this, they will follow you to the ends of the earth, if you do not, will break you in front of your regiments Quite simply, you put the needs of your troops ahead of your own with every chance you get. As a platoon leader, I had a simple rule in the field, no squad leader could eat until all of his soldiers had eaten, the platoon sergeant could not eat until all of the squad leaders had eaten, and I could not eat until the platoon sergeant had eaten. On the surface it appears a…Continue reading The Successful Lieutenant Part Two: “Mission First”
The Successful Lieutenant Part One: “Lead from the Front”
Army Captain Christopher J. Courtney offered new lieutenants ten rules for success in his recent piece “The Successful Lieutenant.” I am beginning a series on this article and will try to post my thoughts on each of Courtney’s ten rules. Here is the first: Lead From The Front. The privilege of leading U.S. Army soldiers is an honor you should not take lightly. Your first priority must be to become worthy of leading them. Lead by example every day and in everything you do, whether it is at physical training, on field exercises, or on the range. Face it, you will have to prove yourself every day as a lieutenant. Put yourself in their shoes and take a hard look at yourself. Would you follow a person with your standards? Would you follow a person with your level of tactical and technical expertise? Do not be a hypocrite. If you expect the soldiers to meet a certain standard, ensure you exceed it. Stay cool under pressure and be a calming presence in the platoon when things get stressful. Remember this when you arrive as a new platoon leader, you are like a transplanted organ. The body (platoon) either accepts or…Continue reading The Successful Lieutenant Part One: “Lead from the Front”
Skin in the game
My wife and I finally left the hospital with our baby after she spent 21 days in the special care unit. Twenty-one days of being poked and prodded. Twenty-one days of a feeding tube. Twenty-one days of being hooked up to loud, beeping machines. And 21 days not at home. Twenty-one days of tears leaving the hospital. Twenty-one days of uncertainty and fear. And then suddenly we got to take her home. And the 21 days doesn’t seem so bad anymore. Carrying our baby out of that hospital in a car seat was one of the best two or three moments of my life. I felt freer than I ever have in my life while also weighed down with the solemn burden of fatherhood. I know some people spend their whole life talking about the “good old days” and reminiscing about a time when they were younger, but not me. All I can think about is the here and now and the future! My little girl’s future. My daughter will, inshahallah, live until the year 2100. 2100. It’s only 2018. Eighty-two years ago it was 1936. World War II hadn’t even happened yet. Today’s day in age it can be tempting to…Continue reading Skin in the game
Dispatches from the most bike-friendly city in the U.S.
One: Some government unit changed half of the busy street outside my gym into a bike lane–blocked off with pylons so no car may use the lane. This took away parking on one side of the street. Just like that, parking grew much more difficult than it already was for the gymgoers. To accommodate the now-heavier traffic, the city decided to limit street parking on the other side of the street from 7-9 a.m. and 4-6 p.m. so rush hour traffic can use both lanes. Result? People are changing their behavior but not in the way city planners hoped. Instead of biking to the gym, people go less often and–when they do go–are much more inconvenienced. Sometimes I think twice about going to lift when it’s around rush hour; parking is uncertain and ridiculous. During a normal hourlong workout, hundreds and hundreds of cars pass by the gym–thousands, really. A dozen bikes pass by. I also rarely patronize other shops along bike routes in the city. There’s never parking, and you can’t help but ask yourself, how important is that cup of coffee?, when you have to park four city block away? Not very. Two: Cyclists–insisting they be allowed to…Continue reading Dispatches from the most bike-friendly city in the U.S.
People can be amazing; what are you building?
Spring is upon us in Minnesota, and we see five months’ worth of get-outside-and-make-it-happen bubble up on the first warm weekend of the year. For me this means more walks (although less intense than my winter walks), bike rides, dinner outside, sitting on the porch, sprints for weight loss and muscle growth, cabin time, grilling, and church softball league. Last night on a bike ride with my–now very pregnant and ever-more beautiful–wife, I saw this chalk drawing on the sidewalk about a mile from our house. I was so impressed that I walked back this morning to get a picture. It’s not so much that the chalk drawing impressed me–although it did. Nor was this the only chalk drawing we saw–it wasn’t. No, what really impressed me is the simple fact that someone spent hours creating this knowing it would not last. Not only that, but this person made this wonderful art that by now (probably) thousands of folks have encountered and enjoyed while gaining no notoriety from it! There is no monetary benefit. No gained fame. No acclaim. Just art. Are you the type to build the sand castle knowing it won’t survive the inevitable night’s tide? Think about that for a moment. Reflect on…Continue reading People can be amazing; what are you building?
“Ain’t it funny how a melody can bring back a memory”
One of the most pleasant sounds in the world to me is the sound of loose change being dropped into a change jar. Why? you ask. Am I that much of a modern-day, money-hungry Scrooge that I even like the sound of loose change, mere pennies and nickels, clinking together? No, no, although I do like money, this noise means much more to me than money. You see, growing up that noise meant the fun was about to start. How’s that? you wonder. When I heard that noise, it meant my dad had just arrived home from work. He’d hug and kiss us all, walk upstairs and–while changing into his fun clothes–he’d drop his day’s worth of loose change into his change jar. That sounds meant the fun was about to begin. He’d walk downstairs, and we’d hang out for a bit before dinner. After dinner, we’d go outside and have a catch or play hoops until bedtime. In the winter it meant basement sports or wrestling. These times–from 6:30 to 9 p.m.–were some of the best times of my life. Even though I would have played outside all day in the summer, playing and hanging with my dad was…Continue reading “Ain’t it funny how a melody can bring back a memory”
A worthwhile read on America’s opium crisis
***I drafted this post and let it sit for a few weeks. In the interim, a family friend traveled off to funerals for two brothers, both dead of overdoses within two weeks of each other. The boys’ parents are now childless.*** I am very interested in the opium crisis in America. Particularly, I am interested in the crisis’s effects on the American Way–our institutions and communities–felt most acutely in our nation’s small towns and suburban areas. My wife and I have both been touched by the crisis in the past few years as we’ve each had a twenty-something family friend overdose on heroin. Both of these young men had good parents, upper class upbringings. and intelligence. These kids had all the chances and love in the world going their way and still could not overcome their addictions. This has kept me thinking that opiate addiction must be intensely powerful. For this reason, my wife refuses painkillers, and I’ve adopted that position as my own. In my thoughts about the opium crisis, I wonder if it could be that–instead of addiction causing many of society’s problem–opiate addiction is the effect of more widespread problems? I’ve been thinking it’s probably no surprise that…Continue reading A worthwhile read on America’s opium crisis
No cowards here, just promises
This week, retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens advocated a Second Amendment repeal. And we, as Americans (both gun-owning and non-gun owning), must remember and cherish the moral underpinnings of our right to arms. I tire of Second Amendment advocates relying on hunting to provide the basis for our right. Hunting is a fun activity and provides a palatable, unobjectionable-at-a-dinner-party rationale for our right to arms, but it is entirely inadequate as a justification for private gun ownership. Our right to bear arms is a basic human right, not one granted to us by the Constitution. The Constitution, n its face, accepts this: the Second Amendment does not grant us the right to bear arms, instead the Second Amendment (as all of the Bill of Rights) mandates that the government not infringe on that right. The right predates and supersedes the Constitution, our government, politicians, etc. “[T]he right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” Jeffrey R. Snyder’s A Nation of Cowards (link to full text, apparently with author’s consent) provides a wonderful primer on these ideas. Below I provide some excerpts. Here is a link to a complete audio reading by one of…Continue reading No cowards here, just promises
Thoughts on tipping
Done right, tipping is an easy, stress-free way to enrich other peoples’ lives. Yet people fail to take the time and minimal effort to tip in the right way. Realizing that, here are a few (nine) of my thoughts on tipping: 1) Can’t afford a tip? Can’t afford the fun. If you can’t afford (or are sweating) dropping someone a fair tip, you probably shouldn’t be doing the activity requiring tipping. Spending $100 on a dinner and then feeling pain at the $20 (minimum) tip means you shouldn’t be spending $100 on a meal. 2) Tipping tells you a lot about a person. If you’re going to stiff someone on a tip because of what you’ve deemed to be poor service, you have a duty to tell them what they’ve done wrong to deserve such treatment. I have lost massive respect for people who justify their cheapness on allegedly bad service. “I’m not cheap,” they say, “that waiter just sucked.” That’s fine, and while a bad tip for bad service doesn’t necessarily mean someone is cheap, the two almost always seem to correlate. If you are actually going to leave someone a bad tip (defined as below 15% on a…Continue reading Thoughts on tipping