{"id":4427,"date":"2026-11-02T14:13:21","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T14:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/?p=4427"},"modified":"2026-11-02T14:13:21","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T14:13:21","slug":"2-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/2026\/11\/02\/2-3\/","title":{"rendered":"2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This flashback is kinda relevant;  same day of the week, even, I think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nov. 2, 2015, midnight<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">*It\u2019s the first Monday of the month. Please rank the level of sucktitude on a scale of 1 to 100, then describe your plans for the day.*<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The answer, of course, is eight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Why so low?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>THE ROYALS WON THE WORLD SERIES<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What&#8217;s making my life at miserable at work isn&#8217;t here.  So, there&#8217;s that.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I am very tired, as that game didn&#8217;t finish until almost 2am.  <em>yawn<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Am I surprised by all this?  Certainly.  I didn&#8217;t think it was possible, in this world of uncapped salaries, for <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">a small-market team like Kansas City to put together a competetitive team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Would the story have been different if they&#8217;d been playing in the AL East?  Maybe.  It&#8217;s very difficult to compete with NYC, Boston money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Otherwise, I don&#8217;t have a lot to say today.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;m refamiliarizing myself with &#8220;The FAR (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Federal_Acquisition_Regulation) even though it seems as none of the higher-ups give a fuck about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;m going to do <em>what&#8217;s right<\/em>, not what&#8217;s expident.  If you want to fire me because of that, please bring it.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;m sure some folks in the trial law field will enjoy having me as a client\u2026..<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>sigh<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So there&#8217;s that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Heh.  This kind of encapsulates a couple of different things that led me to the attitude I had in yesterday&#8217;s entry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Che&#8217;s Neighbor Willis isn&#8217;t the sort of optimism I&#8217;m aiming for, either.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Weekend Update: Michael Che&amp;apos;s Neighbor Willie on the 2024 Election Outcome - SNL\" width=\"580\" height=\"326\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/032KtTsETzI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Willie is a good representation of exactly what people think actually happened, and that that fictionalized past is going to return.<br><br>Regardless of what your history teacher might be pumping out, things weren&#8217;t that bad in the US.<br>Nobody is trying to create or recreate that fictionalized dystopia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Where did those bad things happen?  In Socialist countries.  No, I&#8217;m nto talking about Denmark.  I&#8217;m talking about East Germany.  I&#8217;m talking about Czechoslovakia.  I&#8217;m talking about Peronist Argentina.  I&#8217;m talking about Allende&#8217;s Chile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, again, there&#8217;s clarity for me.  You&#8217;re going to do what you do.  I&#8217;m just not going to interact with you if you&#8217;re cheerleading things I view as negative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Is it a bit hypocritical for me to focus so much on things like 20th century Communism similar to the way &#8220;The Left&#8221; focus on things like Colonialism?  You could make that argument, certainly.  But it&#8217;s still pretty fresh in my mind.  I saw the glorious effects of Socialism first-hand in 1993.  You noticed when you were crossing from Austria into Hungary.  You saw the overall grubbiness of Eastern Europe after The Wall came down.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That stuff is still fresh.  So, too, are relics from the Party of Slavery\/The Klan\/Segregation\/The Palmer Raids\/Forced Steriliation\/Massive Resistance\/Lee-Jackson-King Day.  Socialism&#8217;s real legacy isn&#8217;t ancient history, even if it wasn&#8217;t taught in government schools.  It&#8217;s a bit like how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefp.com\/p\/isis-mosul-omar-mohammed-nazi-holocaust-poland?utm_campaign=post&amp;utm_medium=web\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Holocaust wasn&#8217;t taught to this Tajik in his Soviet Schools<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I really ought to wrap this up.  Time to recycle the prompt&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Please rank the level of sucktitude on a scale of 1 to 100, then describe your plans for the day.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Um.  Probably at about a 20 on the sucktitude meter.  I&#8217;m honestly not feeling great today.  I really need to do a better job of gauging what I&#8217;m capable of.  That said, it&#8217;s still amazement at how much better I feel now than I would have just a few years ago.  I would have been completely useless, and scared to death about embarassing myself.  Not going to go too deeply into detail;  that&#8217;s for later, but I don&#8217;t know if I could have done what I did just three years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As for today, I really don&#8217;t know, yet.  I have a thumbnail sketch, but circumstances will dictate.  And I&#8217;ll probably be able to deal with those circumstances.  I don&#8217;t really have firm plans or a fixed schedule.  That&#8217;s okay;  <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">I&#8217;m<\/span> <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">retired<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This flashback is kinda relevant; same day of the week, even, I think. Nov. 2, 2015, midnight *It\u2019s the first Monday of the month. Please rank the level of sucktitude on a scale of 1 to 100, then describe your plans for the day.* The answer, of course, is eight. Why so low? I am [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-journal-writers-month"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4427"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7337,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4427\/revisions\/7337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/control-h.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}