Tag: mailvox

JS observes that the BBC is attempting to completely eradicate the real history of British invasions. At this rate, it won’t be long before they’re not only denying Bede, but trying to write Caesar’s Commentaries out of the historical record as well.

After watching the first Voxiversity episode (well done, btw), by chance I watched a series of BBC documentaries on “Arthurian Britain” which argued the opposite occurred in Britain: that there were no invasions, that the native British gradually accepted the multicultural influences of continental culture with no disruption to daily life and they all lived happily ever after.

King Arthur’s Britain  (Roman Britain Documentary)

• Part 1 of 3
• Part 2 of 3
• Part 3 of 3

I say “argued”, in fact the series is a transparent exercise in persuasive rhetoric verging at times on outright propaganda. I have been an amateur student of the period for many years and my own conclusion is that there is not enough available evidence to ever come to any conclusions. The best it can do is inspire fiction.

The well-spoken, avuncular presenter starts with a fully constructed straw-man; that current history insists Britain collapsed into the Dark Ages in 410 AD when the Roman legions left. Overnight, people fled the towns and returned to subsistence farming, forgot how to read and write while woodlands reclaimed the land. He then goes on to “prove” that this didn’t happen and that it was merely the interpretation of Victorian imperialists who saw themselves as Rome reborn and wanted to emphasise the dangers of removing imperial power.

Over the three episodes, various experts deconstruct and reinterpret the scant, available evidence to show that there was no Anglo-Saxon invasion and no population replacement. Genetic evidence showing that the indigenous people were driven west into Wales while continental people settled in the east was dismissed out of hand because one other study showed something different and the presenter himself didn’t believe it.

I’m no rhetorician but even I recognised the fallacious language used throughout e.g. “There is no evidence, but this is what must have happened,’ when it supported his thesis, “There is no evidence so it must be wrong,” when it didn’t as he insisted throughout that he was telling you the “real” story etc.

Bede’s “The Ecclesiastical History of the English People” was dismissed as a complete fiction by a young, female expert who concluded that there were never any Anglo-Saxons in Britain, consequently there never were any English and that Bede made the whole thing up and reinvented history.

The projection was palpable. The fact that they were arguing their central thesis, that everything we believe is wrong because previous generations interpreted the evidence to support their political biases, by overtly manipulating the evidence to support their own political bias seems to sail right over their heads. They state that there never was a pure British race (which the presenter paradoxically argues in support of half the time) and you can guess the final conclusion, can’t you?

“The real people of Britain AD did not only survive an influx of foreign influences but actually flourished because of it.”

Diversity is our strength!

It descends into farce at the end as former socialist politician, Robin Cook explains that Chicken Tikka Masala is the English national dish as it represents the rich, diverse people that the English have always been. Literally saying at one point, “… what makes Britain great, makes Britain strong is not purity, it is our diversity…” 

I understand you might not have time to watch the series but I think it could make an interesting “compare and contrast” exercise for the Voxiversity viewership.

BD reflects upon his professional observations concerning recent events.

I was a cop and investigator for around twenty years. Law enforcement goes back in my family for generations and one of my sons is a cop. I understand law and criminal justice better than most.

My grandfather told me three things that stuck with me. First, treat everyone with respect. He said, “You might be the only guy who calls the wino in the gutter, ‘Sir’ and mean it. You’ll be the only man to show him respect all day.” I’ll get to why that’s important in a second. Second, he said, “Walk your beat. Get to know the people. Know where the mean dogs are and where somebody has a clothesline in their back yard.” That advice served me very well over the years. Almost as much as the first thing. The third big thing he said was, “Be honest. Always tell the truth. Always keep a promise. Even little ones, if you tell a guy he can smoke a cigarette while you’re driving him to jail, give him a cigarette.” I don’t smoke but I always kept a pack and lighter in my car.

Showing respect is vital. People notice if you’re a dick. They’ll trust you more and respect you more if you treat them decently. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve arrested have come up spontaneously to apologize later for being stupid and making me use force and arrest them. I got pictures of their kids in my wallet almost twenty years after I’ve quit being a cop.

Getting to know your neighborhood is equally important. Once they get to know you they’ll stop to talk. Kids will want you to kick a ball around or shoot hoops for a minute. People will try and give you all the food and coffee you can hold. I know it goes against the rules of gratuities but don’t refuse coffee (use your judgement on food). Some places it’s an insult and nobody’s trying to bribe you with a cup of coffee. If somebody sells food then that’s different but don’t say no to grandma’s frybread or biscuits.

Be honest, always keep your word. You can use a little deception if you’re trying to get a guy out from under a car, “We’re sending in the dog!” (you don’t have a dog but the drunk has forgotten that). That kind of thing nobody resents later. But if someone asks you something be honest. Saying, “I can’t tell you that either way,” is being honest.

The reason I’m writing this is because I read about these places like Miami and don’t recognize what I used to do. My son works in a small county and the rot hasn’t reached here but when he worked for the state he quit because the prosecutor would simply let the guys he caught go. Or give them a deferred sentence for ‘drug treatment’. Virtually ninety percent of who you actually arrest has some drugs or alcohol problem. It’s why most thieves steal to support their habit or buy smokes or get gas money. Illegals just got deported regardless of the crime.

So he went back to the county and does honest cop work where the prosecutor gives jail time to felons instead of getting them off the books as fast as they can.

My son in law is thinking of becoming a cop. He would be a good one, he’s kind, honest and has integrity. He has the physical and mental abilities as well but they are not as important as character. You cannot teach those things in any classroom. That piece of shit that ran and hid from the gunfire makes me sick. If you’re not brave enough to run towards gunfire find something else to do. If you do the job right it can be as satisfying as any job in the world. But if you’re a corrupt piece of crap covering up crime, you’re a criminal with a badge.

I don’t know what’s going to happen to law enforcement in general but when or if we split into different nations, Calexit, Dixie States, Texas whatever, I predict we’ll see different kinds of cops on each side.  The communities will pick the kinds of police they want.

At Brainstorm last night, one of the subjects we discussed was the common practice of management from below and how some of its effects can be downright devastating on a business. In fact, several of the biggest failures I have ever witnessed were the direct result of subordinates knowingly hiding information from their superiors. It was a spirited discussion, as more than a few people copped to regularly utilizing the practice, and one participant emailed a few of his subsequent thoughts:

I wanted to share some thoughts from last night’s Brainstorm on “Managing from Below”.  No real solutions; just some experiences from work.

My experience with “management from below” comes as part of mentoring junior officers and enlisted on the larger concept of Leadership.  I’m currently group lead for [single-digit] people, all junior to me in rank.  We have about [double-digit] projects or tasks ongoing at any one time.  My peer and I dole out tasks to the group members and pick the critical ones to keep for ourselves.  These projects usually are interrelated or are builders – one relying on another.  We layout processes for completion where needed and lay down internal timelines to meet external requirements. Pretty standard.

For the more junior of the staff, the challenge is how to balance responsibility for their project with how much decision authority do they have, or as my guys would say, flexibility in solution.  In most cases, before they start the work, we’ve talked about what output is needed, the deadlines to hit, external groups who require coordination along the way, possible roadblocks, and how to get past them. Guidance I give is (1) I want the output we agreed upon, (2) I want to meet the time line we agreed to follow, (3) I want to know if there are internal or external factors or “bad actors” the staffer can’t sort out, and (4) I want periodic status updates.  Outside these parameters, unless it’s illegal, immoral, or unethical, find me a solution and get the output to me on time.

The threat for the junior staff is that they don’t want to be seen as someone who needs hand-holding or someone who can’t do their job, so they struggle with things longer than they should, trying to find the solution on their own and avoiding help.  Just as you pointed out last night, they start dissembling and getting vague with status.  The problem is they now unknowingly (or knowingly) violate Rule 3 above.  We call that “Blindsiding Your Boss”, and its a no-no.

A solution that worked for me is the 15-minute stand-up.  A weekly meeting where each team member has about 90 seconds to give hard facts on project status and a meets/does not meet status for the project time line.  Invariably, the people who are having problems with Rule 3 go soft on data.  The “softy” gets pulled aside after the stand-up to get some private questions and sort what the real issues are.  Rule 3 compliers fess up and tell the boss what’s up.  At this point, one or more other staff usually volunteer to help and its tabled.  We finish the 15-minute meeting and go into a huddle to discuss how to resolve the road block.

The staffer who needs help either gets a support intervention to solve an external threat by me or my peer, or a leg up from another junior staffer.  The staffer in the bind still leads the project unless they
ID themselves as unable.  We’ll juggle the projects a bit in most cases and figure out how to get the staffer spun up through another task or project.

This method seems to work in most cases.  Most staffers who see roadblocks or issues now don’t wait for Monday to let my peer and me know about issues they can’t solve.  Often a short huddle gives them a couple fresh ideas and they go back at it.  Sometimes we have to do more to sort the issue, but we aren’t surprised by it before it is too late to recover.  We call this “managing the boss” and its really about keeping the boss informed so the project can succeed, but it’s not what you were talking about last night.  What you were talking about is “assuming responsibility you don’t have”.

My concern with some of the folks in Brainstorm is that as subject matter experts, we get to thinking we *know* the real solution.  Why can’t management see it?  Why can’t the boss understand it?  This is usually due to the subject matter expert having a very narrow view of the problem.  This then devolves into taking actions without talking to management and leadership, due to either fear or pride.  Problem is if the SME has no clue as to the larger organizational challenges or direction they can tank the larger projects.  People get used to your version of “managing the boss”, thinking they are saving the company when they do it or it became a self-preservation tool, and they stick with it when they go elsewhere in many instances.  It’s hard to break someone out of this once they fall into this habit.

Megamerc relates the difference between the message of the Gospel and the message preached by the converged Churchians:

There was an Englishman called Arthur Oakman who joined a certain church here in the United States. He became a minister and one of the leaders of that church, and in 1966 he preached a sermon to a large group of his fellow ministers. Below is a quote from the transcript of it that reminded me of your take on several things, including race and the idea that Satan rules the world.

Here is the quote:

Some of the difficulty with our talk about race today. You don’t just tell people they’re brothers when they’re not. God isn’t the Father of all men, He’s the Creator of all men. He loves all men, it is true. But He only becomes their Father when they are obedient to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it’s only in Christ that there is no Jew nor Gentile, there’s no bond nor free. And in Christ, even in sex, there is no male nor female. And all the distinctions between all the races of the world are banished in Christ, but gentlemen, the world isn’t in Christ. That’s the difficulty. To impose by force an ideal situation on people is utterly impossible, hence we must preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in every place, that His Spirit might motivate men so that they may come to know Him.
 – Arthur Oakman

Oakman died in 1975, and barely nine years later the church, that in many ways he helped lead, began to ordain women to their priesthood. There was a huge falling out because of the decision, many people left immediately, and ever since that church has gradually lost more and more of its membership. They watered down their fundamental teachings, embraced diversity and social justice, adopted churchian teachings, and are for the most part morally bankrupt, not to mention nearly financially bankrupt.

If I was more economically savvy and had greater familiarity with their financial state, I would make a guess on the exact time of their eventual collapse. But even without that knowledge and expertise, it’s only been 34 years since the initial influx of female clergy and they’re more or less dead already.

Christian civilization is a battle that must be fought and refought by each and every generation if it is to survive. The two generations before us lost. Let us do better. Deus vult!

But win or lose, do not despair. Remember, where there are two, there are always three.

DL writes concerning his perspective on the battle between Churchianity and the Christian Alt-Right:

After reading your recent posts responding to Churchian attacks on the 16 points and your post addressing an accusation that the Alt-Right is anti-Christian, I felt obligated to explain what the Alt-Right has done for me in a little over a year.

Here is what the philosophy of the Alt-Right as it is laid out in those 16 points has done for that wretched little creature:

1. It has made me pro-Christian.

A broken and humiliated atheist has lost all purpose and sometimes the will to live. When I found myself in that situation the Alt-Right presented me with what so many churches cannot: practical reasons to support orthodox Christianity. It reminded me of everything that Western Civilization has accomplished and that contributing to it is something I can be proud of. It has shown me sufficient evidence to convince me that the two are linked. I never intentionally acted to undermine Christianity, but I did so by foolishly endorsing ideas that undermine Western Civilization.

2. It replaced a philosophy of hedonism.

It’s easy to be a hedonist when you are successful. What I didn’t realize is that my success was not a result of my natural abilities alone but the combination of those abilities with the virtues that were instilled in me while I was raised in a Christian household. Once I abandoned those virtues my natural abilities could not slow down my descent into substance abuse, bankruptcy, and nihilism. The philosophy of the Alt-Right has provided me with a framework to find my way back onto the path of a good man.

3. It taught me that I know nothing.

I have opened my mind to the possibility that there could be a God. I always claimed that was the case but it was a lie. I listen when people pray for me now. I no longer recoil when I hear or read scripture. The neologisms you created regarding science were unpalatable at first but just thinking about the meaning behind them made me realize I had stopped searching for the truth on my own and simply accepted whatever the consensus was.

The alt-Right isn’t anti-Christian. In just over a year the Alt-Right has done what 20 years in church could not: exposed me as a fool, forced me to accept it, and taught me how to change.

He is correct. The Alt-Right is not anti-Christian. How can it be, when it is the foremost philosophical defense of Western civilization? It is said that the value of something can be determined by its fruits. What, pray tell, are the fruits of Churchianity?

Just to be clear, I’m most definitely NOT singling out L’Aristokrato here. He is very, very far from the only person to blithely suggest going out and hiring other artists for our various comics, he just happens to be the individual to whom I responded on the subject. This is actually an important lesson in entrepreneurship concerning a very common misapprehension, so there is no need to get defensive or argumentative, just pay attention and think through what I’m telling everyone. My original response is in italics.

More importantly, however, I believe you need to look into getting at least one, or two high level artists as part of your crew.

Your beliefs are absolutely wrong and indicate a complete lack of business experience. No one ever successfully disrupts a market from above. As a matter of fact, there is a new company that is going about it your way. Top artists, paying them all top page rates. I will bet they’re gone within 18 months of their first publication. Sure, you get more attention. Lots of critical praise. But it only lets you hit a double instead of a single, and you need to hit a home run just to stay afloat.

I’m not sure why you’ve taken my comment so personally as to feel the need to add a baseless jab at me, instead of simply pointing out why you think I’m wrong. Though your observation is amusing, considering both that you know nothing about me, and that I’ve created and owned several successful businesses for sixteen years. More to the point though, it’s true, I don’t know much about “disrupting a market”; That’s not an angle I’ve ever tried, or had to try, given the areas I work with, so it’s entirely likely my observation is incorrect.

However, I didn’t take it personally. He just said something very, very stupid that I have heard dozens of people say since October. It is irritating and unasked-for advice, and it is frequently offered in a smug, knowing tone: “You know what you need to do…” No, I don’t fucking need to do that. To the contrary, following that idiotic advice would be fatal.

I have seen more than a few people, including my father, try to start a new business aimed at the high end of the market. Every single one of them failed. Not most of them, ALL of them. Every single one.

Now, L’Aristokrato may never have disrupted a market personally, but he has certainly seen new companies enter new markets throughout his life. When Honda entered the US car market, did they aim at the high end or the low end? How about Kia? When Diamond entered the video card market, did they come in as a low-cost provider or a high-end one? This is basic Business 102 stuff.

If you want to succeed in entering an existing market, the first and foremost objective has to be staying alive to play in the next round. And your ability to stay alive depends upon your resources. Sure, Mercedes can enter at the high end. So can Samsung. But a startup? No. See, we could have spent all the money from the Alt-Hero kickstarter on a single, beautiful, gold-plated 24-page issue using the most expensive artists we could hire. It would have been talked about and critically praised… and we would have gone out of business almost immediately.

Do you know how many pages of top-quality illustration $250,000 buys? 200 pages. And that’s without script, without color, without lettering, without print charges and without shipping. We are committed to producing 576 pages (990 with Will Caligan’s comics), and we have already finished the illustrations for about 80 of them.

Do. The. Math.

Look, I’m not at all sensitive about this and I’m not trying to be harsh. The problem is that this advice is not merely ill-considered and ignorant, it is downright lethal. If we were clueless enough to follow it, we would almost certainly fail. Unlike most people, I’ve actually seen this approach play out up close and personal. My father briefly published a magazine called People & Politics in the 1980s. He spent lavishly on it. It was beautiful, it was the highest-quality political journalism anyone had ever seen at the time, it featured in-depth interviews with every major political player from both parties, and it was universally praised for its ruthlessly even-handed approach. It even sold well, remarkably well for a brand new local magazine.

But it didn’t sell enough to break even. Not even close. I don’t think it even lasted a year.

And then, I saw one low-end Taiwanese company after another enter the graphics board business. None of their products were even close to as good as my father’s cards. We kept retreating to the high end, from 1024 to 1280 to 1600 resolution. And our market share kept shrinking, until in desperation they tried to make a move into the chip market before the boards were replaced entirely by GPUs on the motherboard. It failed, for reasons that I’ve mentioned before. That company, once an $80 million company, has been dead for 20 years. That is why I know all about how markets are, and are not, successfully disrupted.

So we’re not trying to compete with Marvel, DC, Image, and everyone else on the art. We don’t have the resources for that yet. Sure, we want the art to be as good as we can make it, and that’s why I’ve hired a number of industry vets like Chuck, Frank, and others whose names you would recognize. But we’re not going to compete on the art, we’re going to compete on a) the characters, b) the storytelling, c) the worldbuilding, d) the price, and, e) discount and availability.

And, of course, we’re not going to shove the latest SJW Narrative in your face, unlike Batgirl, Superman, Thor, and whatever other comics have been converged lately. Will we succeed? Only time will tell. But if you want to give me advice, please have the courtesy to know what you are talking about, understand what the logical consequences are, and at the very least, be sure that your numbers add up.

In answer to some related questions from Scotty:

Why handicap a book with less appeal? Isn’t this part of the problem with SJW comics? Why not give it every strength and every advantage to increase success? You want to compete with Batman and Spider-man, right?

1. Cost vs expected sales.
2. No, that’s a totally different issue.
3. Because maximizing strengths and advantages means maximizing cost and maximizing risk. That is not how to maximize one’s chance of success.
4. Hell no! We absolutely don’t want to compete with Batman and Spider-man yet. We know we can’t. We want to compete with the comics that are in the #200 range, not the top 10.

A reader has pulled his son out of Scouting:

My son has been in Cub Scouts the past two years, and I had already made the decision to take him out of the program due to questionable decisions that the national leadership had made. On Saturday, I saw something that made me very glad for that, and worried for one of the other troops in the state.

Last Saturday, there was a march to the state capitol along with a rally afterwards. Lots of troops and dens were there, but a couple of guys with one of the troops were getting selfies with the capitol building in the background…and were holding a United Federation of Planets flag.

Conclusion: If you have a kid in any sort of program, BE INVOLVED so that you can see what’s going on with your own eyes, and act as appropriate.

Scouts and Star Trek… really not a good combination.

What is this, take #6 on the Nunes Memo?

I’m working in DC, and the tiny pieces of the Swamp I get to see are concerned, as are the residents who work here.  The Media is in full “shovel mode”.  As an example, WTOP radio (which is owned by Hubbard Broadcasting of KSTP fame) on a daily basis has WaPo, USA Today, NBC/ABC/CBS, etc reporters as guests feverishly pushing the Narrative.  The current drill is that Page wasn’t the original target of the Russia investigation, so the Nunes Memo mox nix.  The comedy writes itself.

Yeah, that’s not going to work either. They might as well try just shrieking, “Stop looking at the man behind the curtain!” It’s kind of funny that they haven’t figured out yet that the public now notices a) when they are all singing the same tune and b) collectively change that tune as adroitly and as mindlessly as a school of fish.