Deep down every wokester is weak. Just as most bullies are. You criticize a woke person and you are called a racist, a bigot, or some sort of “phobe” or another. They expect you to cower in shame afterwards.
And if you don’t?
Like the dystopia described in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, the editing of books deemed offensive has begun. The endgame in Bradbury’s storyline was the banning of all books.
Last week the publisher of Roald Dahl, Puffin, announced it was editing some of his works–which include the classics Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and Matilda–to remove language they deem offensive. Augustus Gloop, the gluttonous German boy in the first book, will no longer be “fat,” he’ll be “enormous.” In Matilda, “mothers and fathers” become “parents.” The bald witches in The Witches will come with a disclaimer about baldness.
Next came the backlash.
But let’s talk about the author first.
Dahl, who died in 1990, had slight misanthropic and even more direct anti-Semitic sentiments. At the very least he was a beast of a person. Dahl’s marriage to Hollywood actress Patricia Neal–one of my late mother’s favorite performers by the way–was tumultuous. Neal suffered a stroke while pregnant, and as she recovered, she couldn’t remember the words of many things. Dahl, a serial adulterer throughout their marriage, refused to give his wife things she asked for, including food, until she used the correct word.
Neal’s nickname for her husband was “Roald the Rotten.”
Dahl’s publisher for much of his career was Alfred A. Knopf.
After asking Knopf that a person who was “competent and ravishing” should send him dozens of Dixon Ticonderoga pencils, Dahl was sent different ones, after his first request was laughed off. Dahl made more demands and then threatened to send his writings to a different publisher.
But instead, Knopf released the popular author. Employees of the publishing house cheered when they heard the news of Dahl’s dismissal. They fought back against a bully and won.
Salman Rushdie, who lost his sight in one eye after a recent attack, was one of the prominent writers who came to Dahl’s defense. “Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship,” Rushdie Tweeted. “Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed.”
Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship. Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed. https://t.co/sdjMfBr7WW
A few days later Puffin backed off. Oh, it will still publish the edited, make that censored, versions of Dahl’s books. But the original Dahl works will also be printed. Here’s my prediction: Woke Dahl, just like the New Coke debacle several decades ago, will go down as colossal failure. Vintage Dahl will win.
Heroes are hard to find in these complicated times. But the legacy of “Roald the Rotten” has been used to fight back against another bully, the woke movement, which deems itself morally correct and beyond reproach.
Of all the delights of this world man cares most for sexual intercourse. He will go any length for it-risk fortune, character, reputation, life itself.
Mark Twain
Something stuck me when I saw this piece on Twitchy:
Kaeley Triller’s been described as a “highly skilled female operative of the theocratic right” and considers herself an old-school AstroTERF. On Saturday she decided to share some of the matches a lesbian dating app found for her friend:
These are just a few of the “matches” on my friend’s lesbian dating app.
As you might guess there are plenty of people who insist that a woman like Kaeley is a bigot if she doesn’t consent to date and/or sleep with any of these people, but looking at this photo brings up an obvious question to me..
How many of the “transwomen” are as they would call it “transexclusionary” when it comes to dating?
I mean after all if these “transwoman” are in fact women as they maintain and are in fact lesbians as the also maintain then surely they would not exclude other “transwomen” from their dating pool would they. In fact if these woman are not rushing to choose other “transwomen” as both dates and sexual partners must we conclude that they are by their own standards bigots?
Now I don’t know the answer to my question and perhaps someone who has a greater knowledge of these dating apps and how they keep stats can figure it out. If they determine that the “transwomen” there are in fact happy to date other “transwoman” then I’ll gladly concede that my supposition is wrong.
But if in fact they are holding out for actual women then they become the ultimate confirmation of the Mark Twain quote above
GULF OF OMAN (Feb. 20, 2023) The guided-missile destroyer USS Paul Hamilton (DDG 60) approaches the dry cargo and ammunition ship USNS Alan Shepard (T-AKE 3) in the Gulf of Oman, Feb. 20, 2023. Paul Hamilton is deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations to help ensure maritime security and stability in the Middle East region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Elliot Schaudt)
Surface Warfare Officers (SWOs) have been a part of the Navy since…always. Our Navy started out on surface ships, and surface warfare continues to be important, no matter what an Aviator, Submariner or SEAL will tell you. Yet increasingly I have to wonder, does the Navy understand why it is so hard to keep SWOs? You would think with hundreds of years of history this would be obvious, but given its latest actions, I’m not so sure, because the US Navy is facing a SWO manpower crisis, and is dealing with it in ways that simply won’t work.
Let’s go back to my original rules for Navy manpower. When times are good and we have too many Naval Officers, the Navy does the following:
Kick people out for failing physical fitness tests, even if they are otherwise good Sailors
Make it hard to get waivers for things like antidepressants and other medical issues
Begin nicely asking older Naval Officers to retire to make space for younger officers
Lower the number of Officer Candidate School admissions
Reduce bonuses
Make life increasingly difficult, so that more people naturally quit
Conduct a Reduction In Force (RIF) and simply remove people
This is a pretty good strategy to reduce numbers, slowly ratcheting up the pressure to ensure we don’t have too many officers hanging around. Naturally, if we have too few officers, the Navy turns this around by:
Not kicking people out for physical fitness test failures
Waiving darn near everything, from age to non-violent felonies
Asking people to pretty-please stay around a few more years
Opening OCS and other admissions
Raising bonuses
Make life better for officers
Reduce opportunities to leave early
Op-Hold people
In the past, the Navy has done everything on the first list to bring down numbers. Now, they are doing…almost everything on the second list, but it’s not working, and it’s becoming glaringly obvious in the SWO community. If you listen to Admirals speak (and I don’t recommend that), you would think we’re doing OK on SWO retention. But a brief glance at the Health of the Force survey shows that disaster looms around the corner:
Future force structure increases outside the future year defense plan (FYDP) require DH billet increases, requiring increased retention. This compares unfavorably with a declining billet base across the FYDP as the Navy divests legacy platforms. Year groups 2015-18 require an average retention rate of at least 37.3%, exceeding the 10-year average. If fleet size projections remain accurate, Surface Warfare requires a retention rate of 44% in YGs 19-22 to meet future afloat DH requirements.
Health of the Force Survey
So we’re not making the retention rate we need now, and we have to increase this by 10 percentage points in the future, but retention is plummeting.
All the Manpower people in the Navy right now…
The Navy is already overlooking physical fitness failures, waiving medical conditions and opening up OCS admissions…which are now having a higher-than-expected failure rate. I would think most people would understand that lowering admission standards will likely lead to more failures in a difficult program, but apparently “most people” doesn’t include Navy HR.
So what to do next? Raise bonuses. And boy did they raise them.
NAVADMIN 045/23 discusses continuation bonuses for SWO Lieutenant Commanders (LCDRs). SWO leave after their first Navy tour at a fairly high rate, and it’s hard to persuade them to stay in long enough to promote to LCDR around their 8-9 year mark. So why not pay them $22K a year IF they stay in after promoting to LCDR? It’s certainly worth a shot.
NAVADMIN 046/23 establishes a payment schedule for SWO Department Head bonuses. If a SWO screens for Department Head and agrees to stay for two Department Head tours, they can get bonuses up to $105K in total over 6 years. Conveniently, that would put them right at the point of getting a continuation bonus as outlined previously.
Now, normally this would work. Throw enough money at people, and you can normally get them to stay. But it’s not going to do that, and the reason is hinted at in the Health of the Force Survey:
Improving retention requires a multi-pronged approach. First, community managers are allowing more individuals to lateral transfer and re-designate. This will divest end strength in year groups with smaller DH requirements, freeing inventory for future accessions. Second, several monetary and non-monetary efforts are underway to improve Surface Warfare retention. Surface Warfare Officers now have a career-long continuum of monetary incentives with the introduction of the SWO Senior Officer Retention Bonus (SWOSORB) in FY22. Third, the community offers improved education opportunities including: postgraduate education opportunities, tours with industry, and fleet-up options for increased geographic stability. Fourth, Surface Warfare recently modified the career path to incorporate multiple family planning opportunities for career-minded SWOs. Finally, SWO released the junior officer survey, senior officer survey, and junior officer exit survey to solicit retention feedback.
Health of the Force Survey
Two things stick out:
Family Planning opportunities? I thought Navy was all about killing babies, or at least circumventing existing laws to do so? Guess that’s not so popular when retention is on the line?
The Junior Officer Exit Survey results.
I’ve read the JO Exit Surveys. They’ve existed for years, and they say the same things over and over:
We don’t train people enough
The job is thankless and people treat JOs like dirt
JOs find Navy life is incompatible with having any outside life or family time
That’s every survey, ever. Pay doesn’t make the top three retention issues in almost any survey. In the past though, enough money would make people overlook how bad the job is. But when truck drivers make over $100K a year, or companies pay project managers $150K or more a year, that $105K spread out over 6 years starts to look really small. The Navy caps officer bonuses at $330K over a career. Civilian companies don’t. Pay isn’t going to fix this crisis.
The ONLY hope for retaining SWOs is to increase quality of life. This would mean closing the sea duty billet gap, addressing the shipyard maintenance problems, and make driving a warship fun again. These are all inside the Navy’s wheelhouse, but it seems increasingly incapable of taking these actions. I suspect that the top SWOs are looking down thinking “You young officers are pathetic, back in my day we worked 16 hour days on shore duty and we BEGGED FOR MORE!!!”
Given that pay won’t fix it, and Navy won’t address quality of life issues, I predict we get operational holds on people leaving in the next 6-12 months. I’d like to be wrong, and maybe next year you can repost this and laugh at me, but I have a bad feeling I’m right about this.
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. If you like this post, why not donate to DaTechGuy, or purchase one of the authors books?
Posted: February 25, 2023 by datechguy in Uncategorized
If you want to know the difference between the Trump years and the Biden years you can’t do better than this paragraph
As recently as Thursday of last week, FEMA again denied aid to East Palestine. The message was clear: help was not coming. But the following day, within a couple of hours of Donald Trump announcing he planned to visit the town, the Biden administration reversed course and announced it would send aid to East Palestine.
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