Keep Bringing the Juice Boxes

Sadly the book, “A Seat at the Table”, by Mark Swartz,  is the worst book I’ve read in a long time.  Heralded by the Chief Software Officer of the United States Air Force, Nicolas M. Chaillan, as a must read, I believe we are being led down the primrose path by the likes of personalities such as Swartz and Chalillan.  The buzz word in software is DevOps and whether or not we believe software is key to every business, and the business of most businesses, the tenants of DevOps are not new to the real business of innovation.  Recast as some sort of new  knowledge, when it comes to rapid development of anything, look through history at the companies who have found rapid ways to develop new things and get them to the marketplace, and the exact same rules will apply.  Nothing new here.  Even when applied to software.  What is new is the idea that the Chief Information Officer at a company should be in charge of it.  The danger, as I see it, is not with how the next Uber or Airbnb will get their app to market. The danger is that some companies are not strictly software development houses, They also do other things, like build cars, planes, and rockets.  Coming from a military background I’ll rephrase that as tanks, planes, rockets, and satellites.   Yes, the software development involved with these systems is extensive, 35 million lines of code and counting on programs such as the F-35 (including ground support systems), but so too must these companies also build the hardware that works, physically, and the hardware that supports and runs the software at the interface between the physical world and the digital logic inside..   The world does not consist strictly inside your desktop, laptop, and iPhone.  At least not yet.  The world is still a physical place.  And thus we must still interact with it in physical ways. Engineers build these physical systems.  Deeper still, is the need for these software driven physical systems to be secure.  This does not happen on the software side alone. Thus even if the CIO understands not only IT but software as well, they will not understand the other product development in other engineering disciplines.  They still are in a heavily supporting role.   

In the old days a company consisted of the CEO, COO, and CFO.  Typically, before the days where everybody wanted an MBA, engineering companies would advance, not necessarily the best engineers, but the good engineers who could communicate with the outside world.  Those smart folk would rise to the top and it was hard to compete with them because of their deep knowledge of what the company was actually in the business of producing. As the information age blossomed, companies began creating positions like the Chief Information Officer or CIO to run their Information Technology enterprise.  So let me just ask a question, who do the software developers work for?  Do they work for the CIO or do they work for the CEO?  In an information company, where software applications, games, webpages, shrink wrapped software are the products, do the software developers work for the CIO?  In a hardware company where the product is the next business jet, do the software developers work for the CIO?  The answer is no.  The fallacy here is that the CIO needs  a seat at the table.  The misunderstanding here is that the CIO drives the DevOps cycle.   What’s happening here is because of the surge in software development in every company, the CEOs and COOs understand less about the technology.  That is why if you put a software engineer in charge, like Elon Musk at Tesla, he is smart enough to speak all of the languages he needs to speak  in order to run the company.  The CIO can play his supporting role to keep the networks up so that everyone can do their job. The software engineers do not work for the CIO at Tesla, or SpaceX for that matter.

Hopefully you understand where I am going with this.  I like CIOs, don’t get me wrong, but giving them a seat at the table to drive DevOps when the software developers don’t work for the CIO is a dumb idea.  And it would be an even dumber idea to put them in charge of software development thus splinting the development of an integrated engineering solution.  Software might be the cool magic in any given hardware, who doesn’t love the artificial intelligence of a self driving car?  But the car can only drive because it has cameras that can see, radars that can feel, tires that can turn, and brakes that can stop the car. This is a fully integrated engineering hodgepodge of technology that must remain on the engineering side of the house under the CEO.  The CIO has other things to worry about, like making sure the engineers can communicate with one another and save data.  Driving DevOps is for engineering management and whereas it may have arrived for commercial companies it is still not ready for prime-time in the military...nor should it ever be.

The United States Air Force, as the foremost technology service,  has been enamored with this book and with other fantasies about Silicon Valley.  Thus the Air Force appointed a Chief Software Officer to drive software development into a DevOps future.  Yes Chalian has started a few software companies.  He has not, however, built a F-16, a B-2, or a MilStar Satellite.  Yes all companies can do better with their software development cycles, but  they still must build hardware.  They must build an integrated solution.  They still must test hardware and they still must secure everything from attack.   DevOps is antithetical to building defense systems that must work in a life and death situation while also under attack from both within (cyber) and from without (physical).  In this still highly relevant paradigm the CIO is still in a supporting role and should still just keep bringing the juice boxes.

Trust is Life or Death

How do you link terrorism, Adolf Hitler, sexual predation, murder, ponzi schemes, and the Black Lives Matter movement under one cover?  Ask Malcolm Gladwell to write a book….  And he has.  His latest is called “Talking to Strangers” and he has created yet another phrase for our culture and times, Much like he has with “The Tipping Point” and “Blink”.  The phrase, “Talking to Strangers'” will forever mean, don’t forget, when you are out there in the world interacting with people, you don’t really know what is in the mind of the person you’ve never met standing in line in at the checkout counter, even though you’ve seen them many times.  This is not to infer something nefarious is going on. It is to explain that although it is our human nature to give fellow humans the benefit of the doubt, and to trust them, we never know  how a person’s personality and what they are thinking, presents itself outwardly in a manner for us to infer anything about them.  The phrase, you can’t judge a book by it’s cover, was never meant to be about books. Thus, Gladwell has usurped the idea, and given it a new name.

Talking to Strangers is how Gladwell has recast the old line but given us a much deeper understanding of how? And why? It’s a thing.  This is not the simple classic admonishment that has become an internet meme or YouTube video where we are reminded not to get angry in the checkout line because the person in front of us might have experienced a death in the family, or diagnosis with the “C” word.   Rather, Gladwell presents the evidence from all these unrelated examples, that even with our very best intentions to read people correctly,  we always get it wrong…

Ironically, I write this review as the novel Corona virus, Covid-19, has begun amping up it’s chilling effect on the population here in the United States. Strangely, three things occur to me.  One, the “C” word, now apparently stands for “COVID-19”.  Two, just like not being able to judge a book by it’s cover, we really don’t know who is the carrier of the virus.  And three, social distancing tells us to keep six feet away from everyone, including in the supermarket checkout line.  Perhaps we will have to wait a few months before we get back to talking to strangers in line at the grocery store. But I digress...

As always, Gladwell did a lot of research to come up with this book. Most of the stories he relates to us are familiar topics in the news and the ones he connects with his ideas about not judging a book by its cover are well known to us.  How Chamberlain totally misread Hitler during his meeting with him prior to WWII, How Bernie Madoff with his ponzi scheme, pulled the wool over the eyes of Wall Street.  How Gerry Sandusky could have had a charity to help young boys and abuse them at the same time, under the watchful eyes of the most famous football coach in the world? How was a doctor able to sexually  abuse so many women on the US Gymnastics Team, sometimes with their parents in the same room?  And on and on...

The answer, in a nutshell, is that we are a trusting race of humans.  We evolved to trust because we have to live by trust and  trust our other fellow humans to live by us and trust us as well.  Maybe it’s to live in society together, but we’ve been evolving long before societies, so it must be something deeper.  But with regard to society, here is my own analogy from something I like to do, drive cars. In order for the rules of the road (society) to work, and not have mass chaos on our highways, we trust other drivers to follow the rules.  It’s funny that we can be so trusting  but yet we yell and scream at the a-hole who will not yield, or the maniac who passes us on the right.  After all, anyone going slower than us is an a-hole and anyone going faster than us is a maniac.  The dichotomy of thought is a classic human inconsistency.  We trust those a-holes and maniacs with our lives, and to stay in their lane,  as we wind down a two lane back road with a painted line in between us and a closing velocity of 140 miles per hour.  Since we are so trusting, perhaps we should be willing to believe the guy with the concealed carry permit is as reliable as his cousin on the highway.  This is a very pro-gun argument, and many of my friends would agree.  They are to be trusted.  But Gladwell’s argument, that we can’t judge a book by it’s cover, suggests we shouldn’t, or can’t always trust the smile on their face.  Yet the list of reasons to trust people in society goes on and on... otherwise we would all live in a cabin in the woods and write manifestos (I’m referring to unabomber Ted Kaczynski not HDT).

Here are the use cases Gladwell writes about:

Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain.  Chamberlain traveled to Germany multiple times  to meet with Hitler so he could report back to the world that he trusted Hitler because he told him his objectives were not world domination as they shook hands and he looked into his eyes. History was not kind to Chamberlain given how badly he misread der Fuehrer's face, despite the fact that he had written an entire book on the subject.  Did anyone actually read, “Mein Kampf”?

Amanda Knox and the Italian policia:  The Italian authorities and most of the world did not believe a  girl buying red underwear the day after her roommate’s brutal murder could have been anything but the perpetrator of a  violent sexual escapade gone bad.  When in fact, Knox is so ridiculously innocent, as to resemble any one of our shy, awkward daughters.  The missing detail, was of course, the fact that she was locked out of her apartment and literally had no underwear. She was seen by the Italian press, buying underwear the next day.  Who would do that after murdering their roommate? How about someone who didn’t murder their roommate. And the scandalous innuendo went viral from there....

Bernie Madoff fleeces all of  Wall Street given he had absolutely nothing to show for any investment he ever made?  How is that possible?  One man saw through the impossibility of it all...but no one would listen to him.  Madoff was too important of a figure.

In the Gerry Sandusky case, for decades, many looked away from the smoke, when there was not only smoke, but a fire.  Not just a campfire, but a three alarm conflagration and a towering inferno of abuse.

Gladwell’s point, in all these cases, has been those closest to the issues, those who could have seen the signs and understood what was really going on, have been unable to effectively communicate because they have been talking to strangers, literally.  Like a pig looking at a wristwatch.  No matter how much talking you do, if you haven’t a clue as to the premise, the context, and the language being spoken, you will miss the mark.

I’m reminded of my own “Talking to Strangers” experience from when I was in the Air Force many moons ago.  At that time the Wing Commander put me in charge of  an explosive safety mishap investigation.  The mishap involved the inadvertent firing of an explosive squib.  The squib is the first in a series  of explosive events that will  lead to the firing of the rockets in the ejection of a seat on the B-52H bomber.  It seems a maintenance technician pulled the ejection handle while on a Red Ball, an emergency maintenance response to an aircraft just before take off.  The maintainers blamed the mishap on the aircrew and the aircrew blamed it on the maintainers. Clearly, the maintainer pulled the handle, he was at fault. But if we let it go there, we would not understand what Gladwell is talking about.   After careful investigation I uncovered the following facts.  The aircrew refused to take the aircraft because the ejection seat handle appeared loose and it would wobble from side to side. Per the technical order (T.O.) the handle should not wobble. The maintainer insisted that the aircraft was safe for a one-time-flight and that the ejection handle, despite the slight wobble, would function if it became necessary to eject. Back and forth the maintainer and the aircrew went debating whether or not the seat would work.  The aircrew wanted to reject the sortie and the maintainers wanted them to fly the jet.  During the investigation, as I looked at the handle, and the disassembled unit, on the maintenance bench, there was no doubt the handle would work.  There was also no doubt there was a wobble. But during the incident the debate went on and on until the point that the maintainer was so frustrated with the aircrew, and their inability to trust his judgement, that  he said, “Look, it works!”, and he pulled the ejection handle.  The fact that the handle would work is so intuitively obvious to the most casually observing flatworm, it's so easy to see how the frustration would build.  This wasn’t a question of some arcane and mysterious black box, and there are many of those, for which the aircrew has to put their faith (and life)  in the hands of the  maintainers...this happens everyday. This is a very basic mechanical operation...the handle moves up and down...it’s an on or off proposition.  This came down to attitude, respect, and the ability to communicate, whilst engines running, and trying to move fast, in the heat of an aircraft launch.     Fortunately, the squib only sets off the first event in the chain of explosive event’s leading to the seat being rocketed out of the top of the aircraft. The seat has final safety pins that are only removed at the very end of the runway just prior to takeoff roll. Had those pins also been removed,  undoubtedly, both the maintainer and aircrew member would have been killed.  They would not have just been just injured.  They would have both been ejected violently through the roof of the B-52, traveling up on a rocket sled several hundred feet into the air, to be smashed by the seat leaving the aircraft, and then smashed by their subsequent fall to the ground…It would have been ghastly.

But it was the frustration of the back and forth, the lack of trust on both sides, the inability to see what the other one was saying, their inability to communicate, that neither party could be completely absolved, or completely blamed.  Gladwell would say, they were not talking to one another, despite all the training, they were effectively talking to strangers. Mishaps happen this way…in this case, the Chief of Flying Safety, a B-52 pilot himself, believed my investigation and called in every aircrew member from the wing to describe what caused this lack of trust and what we should do to enhance respect and grow closer as a flying wing.   We could not have tolerated the more ghastly mishap had it occurred.  On the flight-line, it’s one family...yet  there is always a tension between ops and maintenance, I could go on and on but I will not. Communication and understanding is key,  trust is life or death.

What Took So Long?

I have a pretty straight forward way in which I review books I have read. First, I read the book...I never read the introduction until the end.  Then I do a little research, think about the topic, and I always read some of the book reviews, including the 1-star reviews.  I want to know who's pissed.  Then I think about the book and everything I have learned.  When I am satisfied I have something cogent to say, I write something down.  Typically I can't move on to my next read without putting the current read to bed in this tried and true fashion.  I've currently just finished a book and have begun the next step.  I had to laugh out loud as I was reading one of the reviews of Jim Baggott's "Quantum Space: Loop Quantum Gravity and the Search for the Structure of Space, Time, and the Universe".  The book I just finished.  I came across this gem of a comment in one of the reviews on Amazon. The reader GEBUHER said, "If I do not understand after three readings, the only possibility is to read for the fourth time". Whereas I am not inclined to give Baggott 5-Stars for this book as GEBUHRER has done, I'll confess, I also did not follow his rule of thumb.  One reading was quite enough for me.

But he nailed it...seriously, four readings?  Or maybe he is just talking about a paragraph or a particular concept.  Here's the rub, Baggott is suppose to be writing popular science....something accessible to the populous.  He has failed.  He is thrashing through what he has read regarding Loop Quantum Gravity and Cosmology LQG and LQC respectively.  He still does not understand it sufficiently to bring his talents to the fore. The ability to make it accessible to idiots like me.  The best chapter of the book is the epilogue where the subjects of his book, Lee Smolin and Carlos Rovelli are being interviewed and talk about the subject in their own words.  But still...this is a review of Baggott's book, so here are some thoughts.

He does bring the relationship of Smolin and Rovelli to life.  It is certainly clear, that without those two, we would not have LQG or LQC any time soon.  But would we not?  The other competing theory is so wrong shouldn't it just be a matter of time. During the time period he is discussing, this particular subject was monopolized by Edward Witten and his merry band of string theory theorists...  Any one who was keeping up with physics during this period of time couldn't believe in string theory, let alone understand it.    Only those who could do the math, could begin believe in it...and let's be clear.  Even if you could do the math, and you believed in string theory, you had to be a moron of the highest order, or high on drugs.  This is the major difference between mathematicians and engineers.  It is the difference between theory and practical applications.  Any theory, in which, one must believe in the possibility of 11 dimensions, has to be one of two things, on drugs, or high, I've just recently eliminated the possibility that you are a moron.  I guess the forth possibility is that they are stone cold f-nuts wrong.  And yes, spoiler alert, this book basically says string theory is wrong.  But so to, did Peter Woit in his book, in 2006.  I'll repeat that, 2006. Why has it taken so long to really get the word out?  Anyone thinking about string theory right now?  Don't do it.  It's a bad investment.  Let's stop saying it.

Truth is, LQG, mathematically speaking, is far easier to understand then any string theory with it's 11 dimensional space ever could be.  Calabi–Yau manifold anyone?  I don't think so.  Baggott has written the history now, to give credit to Smolin and Rovelli.  Now we need someone to make it accessible to the people.  No need to give a synopsis here...but I will because I'm trying to review his book.  But how ironic.  I want to give him 5-Stars for the future and for getting the word out...but I can't because it's a mediocre book at best. 

Baggott reviews some basic physics, gravity, and then quantum mechanics before diving into the subject.  In fairness, he says up front, you can skip the first three chapters, but he hopes you don't.  I wish I did.  Nothing in there really lays the ground work for the meat and potatoes of the narrative.  Nothing that any one of the books written on theoretical physics hasn't plowed ahead of time.  Everyone want's to write physics in their own words...but all of them are the same.  Einstein,  Einstein,  Einstein, Bohr, oh shit,  Stephen Hawking,..ugh.  We've heard all the fucking stories...get to the point...

Here's the point. One,  at the smallest possible scale there is this thing call the Plank Length....1.616255 ×10−35 m...  Don't even try to imagine how small that is...I mean seriously, don't even try.  Two, gravity, is not a force, it is an emergent phenomena resultant from this thing called quantum foam, which is essentially volume based on a gravitational field (not particles) united by a spin network (Look up Roger Penrose).  Boom.  That's it.  We have a fabric, of space, comprised of Plank length volumes, forever and all around us, that become the foundation for everything...that's where gravity comes from and that's kinda what Einstein said.  Mathematically it is a sound theory.  It conforms to both general and special relativity...should we need anything else.  And  since we can not empirically detect the quanta of the gravitational field at Plank scale without a sensor the size of Jupiter, it will be awhile before we can prove it in the lab.  Oh, there is one bugaboo...whereas it explains time, it doesn't give time equal footing in the relativity space.  Time does pass by.  In case someone was wondering if time really exists.  It does, and both LQG and LQC says it does and it passes by.  Unlike other crack pots who talk about time going backwards and the possibility of infinite universes...yes Virginia, there is no Santa Claus.  The physical world around us, actually makes a bit of intuitive sense, even at the quantum level.  

Lest I throw Baggott completely under the bus, he is a good writer.  He keeps it going and has been around the scene long enough to throw in all the right physicists, Susskind, Dyson, and Heisenberg.  But then he throws in Descartes a philosopher, Picasso an artist, McLuhan a journalist, and Claude Shannon, an  information theorist, in the same cover.  So clearly, he is a smart writer.

So here we are, a mediocre book by Baggott that should have been written ten years ago.  I'll start with 5 Stars for the future of Loop Quantum Gravity.   Deduct 1 star because if you are gonna review theoretical physics, review theoretical physics.  It was half-assed attempt at best.   Deduct 1 star because it's still not accessible to the masses. Three stars for a book with a cool cover but I wouldn't read it a second time.  And what the hell took so long?

Letter to the Editor at AFM

I woke up and started to read the Jan/Feb edition of AF Magazine.  Didn't get beyond the "Editoral" page where the Editor in Chief wrote about the new Space Force.  I immediately wrote the magazine...

First, here is the essay in AFM by the Editor-in-Chief, Tobias Naegele, that I freaked out about...

https://www.airforcemag.com/article/editorial-launching-the-space-force/

Here is my letter...as I doubt they will publish it...

Editors,

I guess it's hard for the editorial staff at Air Force Magazine to push back on the Editor in Chief when he want's to write an editorial...

What a disservice to the Air Force and now the new Space Force on what should be a profoundly important event...and a nice cover "Space Force Rising".    Tobias Naegele had to write something, I guess, or as the adage goes, "open your mouth and remove all doubt".  Naegele has removed all doubt.  His editorial in the Jan/Feb edition, "Launching the Space Force", fails to do so.

He is worried about tribaism...

He is worried about intoxicating power...

He is worried about what we will call them...

He is worried about the uniform...

He want's the NRO budget...

What a full and deep misunderstanding of the mission and purpose of a space force, it's relationship to the USAF, and the real meaning behind this historic occasion.  He also doesn't understand the cultures of which he is trying to speak. As editor in chief of the premier service periodical, Mr. Naegele should be talking about the mission...or at least demonstrate he knows something about the mission... before he tries to talk culture.

The Air Force get's continuously beat up for stealing dollars from space programs to build fighters and bombers, yet we are still the dominant space force in the world.  Without the Air Force the United States  wouldn't be the preeminent superpower in space....And oh by the way we still happen to have the greatest air force in the world.  The USAF should be proud of space and take credit for space.  Now more than ever.  The USAF's only failing is to not take sufficient credit for what airmen have done.  Incidentally the same if true for BMC2, ISR, Strategic Nuclear Forces, and our burgeoning unmanned fleet of aircraft...all unrivaled.  Cyber, not so much.  Although at one point they tried.  The USAF doesn't get the credit they deserve for any of these world altering capabilities and in particular space.

The NRO is a boutique compared  with the USAF's space forces. And if you don't think the USAF is eyeball deep in the NRO, you don't know that's going on in the NRO.

I would have rather Naegele called out this historic occasion.  Give airmen the credit for all of their successes in and thru space thus giving our great country complete mastery of the ultimate high ground as we step off into this final frontier with new found independence. Instead we are treated to issues so superfluous and demeaning to the professionals in the Air Force as to make me question my membership in the AFA.

Mr. Naegele, going forward, please focus on the mission and the real challenges we face.  Not the superfluous. The threat is external.  That is where you've failed the publication and our Country.  To win we must build the space force doctrine, push the technology, know our adversaries, continue to organize, train,and equip and present space forces to the combatant commanders. The rest will sort itself out...as it has for decades, one soldier, sailor, airman, marine, and now spaceman, at a time...

Logotherapy and Curly's One Thing

The book I just read has been translated into twenty-four languages.  Twelve million copies are in print.  And as of this morning there are over 7500 reviews on Amazon.  Is there anything more I can add to the world wide commentary on Viktor Frankl’s classic, “Man’s Search for Meaning”?  Probably not, but regardless, my intent today is to write a review in the midst of these numerous threads of thought that might perhaps edge in on something different. That said, let’s begin...

Frankl’s great book is a revelation to me in that I definitely believe, some 70 years later, his theories still have the power to transform the treatment of mental health patients. Frankl’s hard won Logotherapy, the approach he developed in the 30's and 40's, still has legs.  In particular, his belief that those with anxiety and depression can find relief by simply discovering some meaning in their lives.  Interestingly, and anecdotally, this can happen with just some basic observation and a few strategically placed words that can shift a patient's perspective directly into recovery mode.  Easier, perhaps, said than done.  In the movie "City Slickers", with Billy Crystal and Jack Palance, the role of Curly being played by Palance (who incidentally won an Oscar for his role) tried to get Mitch (Billy Crystal's character) to find the meaning in his life.  If we are not careful, we might fall into the easy trap. Curly's famous line in the movie about finding the "One Thing", seems to ring true in a book entitled "Man's Search for Meaning".  This is about the farthest from Frankl's philosophy as it can get…No offense Curly.  Yet the search may be easier than we think, just not in Curly's way, if we can lower some of our natural defenses.

Can it work?  Will it work?  Let's find out… But first, let’s understand it…and give it a try later on as I wrap up this discussion.

Imagine first, what everyone must know about the Holocaust.  Whether you’ve read about it in “The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)”, or you’ve been exposed to Concentration Camps through documentaries or movies, or perhaps you’ve visited the Holocaust museum in Washington DC, or physically been to one of the dark places,  like  Auschwitz, preserved in Europe to remember these dark times.  The first part of Frankl’s book, entitled, “Experiences in a Concentration Camp” is exactly what Frankl says. This part contains his first hand experience in German death camps.  Altogether he was in four different camps and somehow survived to write about it. It’s worth noting, as he certainly does, that blind luck had more to do with his survival more than his metal attitude. If you can imagine, one in 29, souls survived those camps.  That's Frankl's number, I didn't check actual statistics.  One does not give positive attitude any credit under those deathly odds.  And he does not credit his attitude though some have claimed with a certain insensitivity, that he has.  He is not casting undue blame on the millions who perished for being responsible for their own demise.  This is an unfair and insensitive characterization of what Frankl is telling us.  That he survived to tell his story has less to do about his actual survival and more to do about his unique observational platform.  Prior to his internment in the concentration camps he was already a psychiatrist of note.  During his informative years in Austria, over a four-year period, he interviewed more than 12,000 patients--most following their attempt at suicide.  This is the 1930’s and the fact that Frankl talked with so many patients with depression and suicidal tendencies is quite incredible.  How many therapists today have had that sort of clinical experience?  We send our family’, or perhaps go ourselves, to therapists and doctors who prescribe medications based on a textbook diagnosis. This is a sad state of affairs but that discussion is for another day.

Fast forward into Auschwitz.  If you can imagine a doctor of note with such a storehouse of human knowledge pertaining to mental health conditions as he is personally walking within the gray huts, snow, mud, and fence line of a death camp. Where everybody, including him, have been stripped of anything remotely human, as they are freezing, starving, and waiting to die, but taking mental notes of the human behavior occurring under such extreme and dire circumstances.  The fact that he was the observer is like having the prescience to send a great poet such as Whitman or Wadsworth to view the great plateau of Olympus Mons.  This is like sending a great engineer such as Tesla or Edison to examine technology on an alien world, or like sending Stephen Hawking to an event horizon to study Black Holes.   If we are not careful, we might ascribe even greater meaning to Frankl’s survival than permitted by the math alone.  Why he, among millions of others, with his observational abilities, as opposed to someone less learned in the human condition, survived?  Arguably one of the greatest emerging minds in psychology sent to a Concentration Camp.  Think about it for a second, Frankl was living and working in Vienna, Austria, as was Sigmund Freud, et al.  Vienna in the 1920s was to psychology what Paris was to the art world in the same decades. As an eminent medical scholar, he had the ability to leave Austria when it was clear the war was coming.  He chose to stay and serve his patients.  And here he was present to observe  and miraculously actually did survive on the slimmest of margins.  And not only did he survive he has given us his story.  The world is a richer place for his observations and his new insight into psychology.

Let’s start with the word Logos.  Frankl says “logos” in Latin means, "meaning".  Hence, he named his therapy, Logotherapy.  I can’t find a Latin or Greek translation that actually defines logos this way which is rather odd.  Most definitions I can find seem to relate the word "logo" to mean logic or rhetoric.   Assuming he was better in Latin and Greek than Google or Wikipedia as they currently exist, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt principally because the word “Logo” obviously must come from the same root word and it doesn’t take a huge leap to ascribe meaning to a logo...any logo...even in modern times, right?  Who doesn’t derive some meaning from their favorite sports team logo, or their family coat-of-arms, or that of the great seal of the United States?  I think, just as Frankl says, Logos means, literally, meaning.  When Christians speak of Logos, they are of course, referring to Jesus by one of His many names.  Thus again, Logos is meaning, if Jesus is your reason, or meaning, for living.  That makes profound sense.  Yet, that is not what Frankl is after.

Frankl was not observing whether or not prisoners who were at the brink of being sent to their death on a minute by minute basis believed in God.  Frankl was looking into what inner force created something more.  I'm reminded of a Far Side Cartoon.  It depicts the fires of Hell with one character pushing a wheel barrow with a heavy load through this environment. He is whistling, he is obviously happy and oblivious to the dire circumstances surrounding him.  Two devils, obviously the guards, are standing to the side.  One is commenting to the other that, "You know, we are just not reaching that guy."

Where does this inner force originate?  Again, I must reiterate, there is nothing in a person's character or attitude that would make him more likely to survive.  His odds are the same because life and death was arbitrary in the death camps.    Frankl's interest lay more in from where this attitude might emerge.  Not whether or not it would save someone from the gas chamber.

True enough one can search for the meaning in life as many have.  Cosmologist and philosophers a plenty have dedicated their lives to the study of life’s meaning…that's what they do.  Each one of us has our own world view and set of beliefs be they spiritual or other.  From this we might entertain our own meaning of life or what life means to us. Many try to impose their own meaning upon us.  But this is not the meaning Frankl is after nor what he describes in his book.  Lest we fall into that trap.  If we don’t believe in God, for instance, perhaps our life has no meaning. Thus, we must define meaning based on something different.  Perhaps "Christmas means a little bit more" as Dr. Seuss has pointed out when the Grinch's heart expands 10 times.  But even then, we will fall well short of what Frankl was driving towards with his Logotherapy.

I think if we stick to western definitions, we will continuously be spinning our wheels with regard to a search for meaning. Sure, we can find it…and will find it in many places.  But I find it odd that there is never any mention of eastern philosophies in this book.  Perhaps Frankl was more studied on eastern philosophy and wrote about it elsewhere.  The attribute of meaning that cannot manifest itself in a more western definition is that attribute that has no external origin.  That attribute that cannot be attributed to anything tangible.  I don't want to get rolled up in the cyclical philosophical arguments here…many have.  Not the least of which is the existence of God as a foundation for meaning.  But hear in lies the rub.  Where was God in those concentration camps?  Frankl avoids that search.  It's a fruitless endeavor and ends in either proving the absence of God or, as in the case of Harold Kushner in his best-selling, "When Bad Things Happen to Good People", we end up with some form of a lessor, or less than all powerful God.  We can avoid those traps by examining where Frankl takes us and to a larger extent where reliance on eastern philosophy can take us.  Logotherapy easily coexists with or without a Christian Monotheistic Omega. Yet there still exists a profound source, or origin, of meaning...this meaning...Frankl's meaning, as well as others.

In "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", Robert Pirsig examines the source of this meaning as quality in our lives.  It too can be derived from externally, or from a source of higher meaning and its decomposition done with hierarchical  building blocks from which meaning can be traced, a very western activity given to us by Aristotle.  But that is not it's only source.  When you strip away all this decomposition of reality, and you are left with only the constructs of language and rhetoric, you are left with nothing but instinct.  You can't reason your way to quality or more importunately, do the right thing for the right reason, if you've left reason.  Without this form of thought we are lost. Faith must fill the gap, as Francis Schaeffer tells us in his monumental work, "Escape from Reason" which laid the foundations for new age, evangelical, Christianity.  Without something to hold onto we a lost.  Yet animals don't seem lost.  And animals know the difference between right and wrong.  They also get anxious and they also get depressed.  They certainly suffer PTSD and any number of other mental illnesses.  Yet they have no foundation of higher meaning or a rhetoric behind it to hitch their lives and their animal mental sanity. 

A dog, however, wags their tail.  When my dog wags her tail, she is not wagging based on her knowledge of her eternal salvation through the love of her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But yet her life still has meaning.  The happiness in her heart is arguably tied directly to the prospect of the next morsel of food to fill her doggo tummy but yet she also seems very happy just to be with me.  Just to be close to me.  Man's best friend.  This is the quality that Frankl is driving towards.  This is the quality that Pirsig is driving towards.  What is the attribute of the moment of living that creates quality in our lives?  That is the moment of life that gives us meaning.  And that moment, that crystal clear vision of meaning, is the essence of hope that can carry us through bad times…the worst of times.  The question remains, can we find it when we need it?  And that is what Logotherapy, more than anything else, is about.

It is not about the past, in the words of the Indigo Girls, "Galileo's head was on the block, the crime was looking up the truth, as the bombshells of our daily fears explode, we try to trace them too our roots".  That is the essence of Freudian psycho-analysis…which Frankl attempts to move away from.  But yet the meaning of life the Girls grasped for was nevertheless at their fingertips.  "We look to the children, we go to the Bible, we go through the work out, we read up on revival" has us in the moment, which they also clearly reject as their source of happiness.  And instead, just want to be happy, being happy…"The less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine", So they are rejecting one source of meaning and ignoring the source of meaning right in front of them...not the best philosophy but a great song none-the-less.

But I promised at the beginning of this for a practical example so let's give it a try.  So how can you find meaning at this very moment?  Not just any meaning, but meaning on such a deep level as to carry you through whatever disaster you might be facing in your own life.  This is Frankl's fundamental philosophy and contribution to therapy.  And it was, and still is, a game changer. It's is Curly's "One Thing" but as it turns out that one thing can change from moment to moment.

Happiness can be derived from the one thing that gives your life meaning at this very instant.  Logotheraphy is not about finding the meaning for your life in general but rather finding meaning as you live today.  So many searches for the general meaning of life can ask a question that has forever been too profound to answer.  The less profound answer is never-the-less no less profound.  Maybe more so.  Because it is the moment to moment solution that is the essence of what makes every life valuable.  Every life, not just human life.  It is why there is such thing as quality of life for a quadriplegic, or a patient in Hospice, or the life of a three-legged dog.  What possible meaning does any of this life make for itself if not but in the very moments of living?  Meaning is not the salvation of ones soul in the afterlife.  That may be important for other reasons.  Meaning, more so, is drawn from what you are doing at this very moment.  The sanctity of life is drawn moment to moment...not in the past and not in the future.

So let's try.  Stop what you are doing.  Look out the window.  Ask yourself one question?  Not why am I here but rather why am I looking out this window?  Look for something as simple as a cat crossing the street or a squirrel eating a nut on a tree branch.  If you don't see anything, look a little closer.  Try to focus. Try to quiet the noise from all sides.  Too much sound, too much light, too many distractions from TikTok or Tumbler.  If you must, look down at your window sill.  You need not capture any ants to hold under a tumbler on your window sill as Henry David Thoreau had done, just find the life as if exists around you at this very moment.  Your life's meaning then, at this very moment, is as an observer…your meaning is simply to observe.  If you think that's too simple, I dare you to try it…let me know what you discover.  Then do it again.  Then do it again.  And you are on your way to understanding Logotherapy...and Man's Search for Meaning...

The Case of Eddie Gallagher

War is hell.  When we send young men and women into conflict...and worse...when we send them to war and keep them there in far away locations that cannot be defined as Mayberry R.F.D. it is inevitable that problems of good order and discipline  arise.  Long ago, after many wars fought, a judicial system, independent of our criminal justice system emerged.   If you leave your civilian job without telling your boss, it’s not a criminal offense.  You may get fired but you don’t go to jail.  It’s not the same when asking soldiers to face gunfire in combat.  They cannot leave their post...to do so is of a particularly heinous dereliction of duty.  One that puts their comrades at greater risk and in a larger sense, one that places the mission and the ultimate security of the country at greater risk.  To be absent without leave (AWOL) is a military crime with military punishment.

Killing someone is also a crime.  Killing someone in combat is not. Beyond our Unified Code of Military Justice, or UCMJ, there are international laws that govern conflict.  They are called appropriately enough, the Laws of Armed Conflict or LOAC.  They are governed by both convention and treaty.  Both the UCMJ and the LOAC strive to make human that which is very much not human.  The execution of violence in pursuit of peace and stability along with our National Security...for the sake of each and everyone one of us...becomes the duty of our military.

When we are asking our human soldiers to do something that is not human, take life, how can we sit in judgement if they make mistakes?  One might judge the very act of war to be the greater sin.  Any further judgement either ethically or morally between those lanes in the road invariably must become quibbling.  Yet we have defined those lanes and hope we don’t get into these arguments that are very cloudy and very grey in color.

Enter Eddie Gallagher...a soldier (more correctly a sailor and Navy SEAL) culled from the very top of the cream of the crop.  We train the very elite to be very elite killers.  They must take life efficiently and effectively.  They must train but they also must teach.  And as they rise in rank they must lead those in their footsteps to become the very same elite killers.  For the vast majority of Americans we never consider this career path, let alone, think about what the Navy SEAL’s (or Rangers or bomber pilots) do on a daily basis.  The closest we come will be the Hollywood version, or perhaps, if we read books, a few here which I recommend.  “Heart of Darkness”, by Joseph Conrad, is my suggested reading on this topic, followed closely by “The Passion of Command”, by B. P. McCoy (if you can find it). And if you really want to go deep into why we are here in the first place, “War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning”, by Chris Hedges. War sucks, but we must prepare for war because our planet is not a peaceful place.  Eddie Gallagher is one of our front line defenders and crucial to our preparation.  And I’m glad he exists, as I do our other special forces and sailors and marines and of course our airmen who must also take life albeit from a far greater distance. Distance makes it no less solemn and somber and of course mistakes are made.

The book on Eddie Gallagher was written long ago.  We know that he and those like him (and her), exist.  We created them.  Gallagher’s actions for most of his career can be characterized as  heroic and on the right side of the line...he has defended our country with honor.  His family should be proud.  The country should be proud. Yet he strayed off the path.  For whatever reason.  Perhaps he is a psychopath?  But more likely, he has a psychological switch, or personality that allows him to rationalize and compartmentalize things that are very traumatic. Without that switch in the human brain, most of us would be insane. Particularly in those we've asked to take human life repeatedly.  The human mind works in mysterious ways.   

Thus I don't believe Eddie Gallagher belongs in prison...even though he strayed into the darkness of the human soul and ended up, for me and my reading of the facts,  on the wrong side of the line.  He will refute those facts and claim he never crossed the line...but no matter. The line is there but it has many shades of  grey... and it is also wide.  And he was far enough into the dark grey that his actions caused the unprecedented action of a few of his comrades to speak up. Not one or two, but as many as twelve.  This is not a single whistle blower...something clearly happened outside the normal chaos of war. Those brave SEALs who choose to speak out will also pay a price...but that's a different story. Once the offense was highlighted everything turns to shit.  At that point the case gets forever tormented as the bureaucracy, not necessarily a corrupt bureaucracy, but certainly a flawed one, and that monster takes over the case.

I don’t like Eddie Gallagher.  I don’t like his smirk.  I don’t like his wife pretending he’s a noble human being for killing the teenage prisoner of war.   I no longer want him wearing the uniform he has clearly stained with this murder.  I wouldn’t want to have a beer with him.  His actions cannot be justified.  However, he can be forgiven.  And his service can still be honored.  Trump, however, is not forgiving him for his crime.  He is exonerating him from doing wrong.

Those who support him are trying to justify what he did, essentially saying he did no wrong.  Instead of saying you did a bad thing but it’s excused, don’t do it again, and then by honoring his past service and moving forward.  What’s going on is the politicization of a populist point of view that doesn’t look upon war as evil, but rather the evil of an adversary.  They are all evil and deserve to die. I don't want to be a hypocrite here...I certainly am guilty of dehumanizing ISIS.  They are scum bags and their ideology is pure evil.  And as such, when we blindly view the adversary as evil in this way, and without considering the lanes in the road, the cause becomes less justifiable.  When we can’t identify cause and why we are there we lose track of what is and what is not evil.  When the cause is evil the adversary is less human.  And the dehumanization of the adversary leads to torture, then the taking of trophies in combat, then the killing of non-combatants who are associated (or greater collateral damage), women and children, and then the extermination of races, and then every other atrocity of war one can think of…  It’s not that slippery of a slope because fortunately we do have precedent and  guidelines within UCMJ, and LOAC.  These are training classes either Gallagher either skipped, or stopped going to later in his career.

Eddie can go free.  He can continue to call himself a SEAL. He can be forgiven for his lack of judgement.  His killing, while not justified in and of itself, can be considered collateral damage from the stand-point of proximity.  Just as the strategic fire-bombing of Dresden in World War II, was justified at the level of less than the greater evil and horrors that were going on by that adversary.  Two books to consider reading to go deeper into the human heart would include, Kurt Vonnegut’s, “Slaughterhouse 5” about the firebombing of Dresden, and “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Vicktor Frankl, if you want to know about the horrors inside a German concentration camp, and why certain actions, though appalling on their scale, can be justified in war.  When it is not justified it is a war crime.  And those can certainly be put on trial...and have been...

What Trump is saying, what he believes, is the killing of the prisoner of war is OK.  The UCMJ and LOAC don’t apply.  Trump is not only above our laws he is above all laws.  This get’s back to his ability to shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and be exonerated by his supporters.  It’s somewhat sickening because it appears to be true.  Only one who is above the law themselves can absolve others in a similar fashion. He appears to take demented pleasure in this type of power.  This is a very slippery slope indeed and it is also very sickening...

Paradise by the Dashboard Light

I've been accused of being a bleeding-heart left-wing whack job and those criticisms have ranged from socialist all the way up to RINO… Which is weird, because I am a conservative. But it's clear that I'm in the middle. Clowns to the left of me Jokers to the right. Here I am Stuck in the middle with you. (BTW Joker was the 2nd best movie I've seen this year).

So I asked myself…if I’m in the middle, why do I feel the same way as the Democratic House of Representatives feels. If I truly believe I am in the middle, shouldn't I have at least 50% love for Donald J Trump?

So I started to think about it...and as I started to think a transformation began. And the more I thought about it, the more I liked him. And I said to myself, "Let me sleep on it Baby, baby let me sleep on it Let me sleep on it I'll give you my answer in the morning." And in the morning I came to an answer. And the answer is sure I do. I love Donald J Trump. I love him as I love all of humanity. He has the worst job in the Country. I have great sympathy for anyone who wakes up in the White House and goes to work in the Oval Office. What a shitty job that must be. Meanwhile, I have the best job in the Country. I would never trade places with him or any other President. Not that anyone is asking me to.

But how do I, as a RINO, convince everyone else that they should reconsider their vote.  As I watch the impeachment procession currently going on in our great House of Representative, and Republican after Republican rises to provide their vote of support for Donald J Trump, I keep saying to myself, I must walk a mile in their shoes.  I must see what they see.  Politics aside, they either see good in Donald J. Trump or they are lying through their teeth.  I know what my liberal friends will tell me…  But it's so antithetical to what I  was seeing that I was compelled to put on my MAGA Hat and say, I support Donald J. Trump and reject the democratic attempt to over throw the wishes of 63 million Americans.  I will walk a mile in their shoes.

So what is it that they see?  Why do they see Paradise by the Dashboard Light?

So let's start at the beginning.  The ride down the escalator….  Yes, the arrival of the great disruptor.  I supported a businessman for president.  When the great Texan Ross Perot made his bid, I was behind him all the way.  Then he dropped out…then he came back…ugh…why did he do that?  Regardless, I can support a businessman.  If Bloomberg makes it through, he might very well get my vote.   I hate lawyers, first, "Let's kill all the lawyers".  I didn't say that…William Shakespeare did, it's not an original thought.  But I like Bloomberg, not because he's a democrat, but a businessman.  I speak business.  Our capitalist society runs on business, not just Duncan Donuts.  But I digress.

When I first heard Trump was running for President my gut instinct was, awesome…that will shake Washington up.  I'm a maverick…I always have been a maverick. That's why I liked John McCain…he was a maverick.  I'll hit the brakes; he'll fly right by...for you Maverick fans.  But  why McCain chooses a numskull as his running mate, the world will never know?  Yet I voted for McCain…yes, my liberal friends, I didn't vote for Obama, at least not round one.

Although, oddly, I rejoiced in his election…which I found somewhat peculiar to my emotions that day.  But I was swept up in the emotion of his electoral first.  Who wasn't?  His win was glorious by any standard or precedent.  I wished him, and our Country well.

So I liked what Trump represented, I still do.  He is the outsider, the disruptor, the drainer of the swamp.  I still love the idea of that…I'm still a maverick.  I haven't changed.  I still want a maverick in Washington.   But then I started to learn about the Donald.  That he doesn't read books, that he keeps a copy of Mein Kampf (or is it Hitler's speeches) near his bed, that he didn't actually write his book, "The Art of the Deal", that he wouldn't be revealing his tax returns to the public.  I don't give a shit how much money you made, or didn't make, if you are the President, somebody gets to see your tax returns.  Not me…I'm not gonna read them, as I don't care if he picked 4 deductions, or 2 deduction, it's not for me to judge another's income or personal financial affairs.  But why keep them secret?  You can see mine…

So, what are some more things I love about Donald J. Trump.  He's brash, I love that.  He's bold, I love that too.  Be bold, gusting to arrogant.  That's a motto I can live with.  Locker room talk.  If someone had a recorder on me, every time I said, shit, fuck or piss, in the office, my mother would be ashamed.  If also, one might be advised to know, the number of times I've looked upon a pretty girl, to paraphrase from Jimmy Carter during his interview with Playboy magazine in 1976, "…and lusted in my heart".   That is not a crime against the Country, nor should Donald J. Trump's locker room talk, necessarily be regarded as a crime against women.  His mocking of Serge Kovaleski was certainly a personal attack on Kovaleski, but in general he was demonstrating his disdain for the politically incorrect.  I love the politically incorrect and if you want to listen to me talking about the politically incorrect, and saying politically incorrect things, for which my daughter continuously corrects me on, I want to run and hide from this current generation of snow flakes, and millennial's who want their safe zone.  Fuck that, grow a spine. I'll bend over backward to help the disabled…there but for the grace of God, go I.  These days I push my mom around in a wheel chair, and change her diaper, and as her Parkinson's reaches stage 5, stay with her throughout the night, and move her, every few hours, so she doesn't develop bedsores.

All that caring for people doesn't mean I didn't laugh my ass off during the "R" rated movie, "The Hangover".  Should I quote the too numerous to count politically incorrect lines from that movie, with our "A" list sweetheart Bradley Cooper and the great Zach Galifianakis, uttering them non-stop.  "Calling Doctor F_got", I can't even type it…but I'm laughing inside.  If you can't laugh during that movie, you can't laugh. "Take me to the candy shop…" it goes on and on…

I love Trump's approach to Foreign policy, America is Great!  Fuck you China.  Not diplomatic, very dangerous, but I love the approach.  But let's return and work out the trade deal…  Same thing with North Korea…except now we are waiting on our Christmas present.  But I'm with Trump on this one…Fuck you dear leader, try it and you'll be sorry…  Let me reemphasize that…"FUCK YOU DEAR LEADER, WE WILL RETURN YOUR CHRISTMAS GIFT IN KIND!"  I'm sorry to the snowflakes whose sensitive ears I may have offended...

I fear the witch hunt.  We've got a history of looking for witches, Senator McCarthy springs to mind.  We can't willy-nilly try to overturn the will of the people.  But as I look at my colleagues on the far-left, who have been trying to overturn the election since the beginning, and I look to my colleagues on the left, who see something has changed. And I look to those on the right, who just wanted to drain the swap. Someone has to be right.  Someone has to be wrong.  Thus someone is lying.

But here I am, walking a mile in your shoes.  I love Donald J. Trump.  I didn't vote for him…but those of you who have followed my previous posts, it was either voting for the possibility of a Tyrant (Donald J. Trump), I assessed to be at 5%, since we've seen a few tyrants rise in the past 100 years, or the rise of the Anti-Christ (Hillary R Clinton) which I assessed to be 1/2000, just guessing since we have only seen a single Christ rise in 2000 years….the probability of that happening, despite what the Republican Hillary haters and conspiracy theorist, may believe, is 0.05 %, just to do the math.  But I have given him the benefit of the doubt, since day one.  I've looked at the good of disruption.  I've looked at the Maverick in the room trying to gain the upper hand during negotiations.  Climate accord, who needs it?   NATO, yeah, pay your fair share!  Jobs...up, Wall...up, Economy...up.  Seems like we are making-out in the front seat, doesn't it?  But at what cost...?

So here we are…  I've said previously it's time to impeach. And now The House has just voted.  He's Impeached.  Will that hold in the Senate.  Odds are no.  But now I've walked a mile in your shoes…it hasn't changed my perspective.  Not because I don't understand what he brings, but because he's demonstrated he is far closer to the tyrant that I've feared could become Our President despite making me feel good when I say, "Fuck", at the office and "Merry Christmas" on the street.

Who knows what will happen in the Senate.  Regardless, he is still our POTUS and CINC until such a time as he is not.

Let's not let these proceedings tear the Country apart.  If the Senate says No, we still have November...