Week: Awards Tour

I’m walking out the door in 30 minutes to go watch Liverpool. Today, you’re gonna get what you’re gonna get. So let’s get to getting.

The only reason you’re getting anything, is because one of you (who can remain nameless) last week sponsored me for 8 bucks. I’ll let this person have their anonymity because they might get doxxed and swatted for encouraging my spewing. But I do appreciate it. And am sort of rewarding it.

Good government is good business

This is a smart, pithy, concise thought I keep having. Which probably means I stole it from someone. But it’s true. Back in the day, (my birth to like 2016 or so) you’d hear folks say, “we need someone who will run the government like it’s a business.” If you’re too young to remember it, it was generally folks on the right saying this. Centrist right, maybe.

Sure. There’s merit it. Sorta. There’s lots of things that governments shouldn’t be doing for profit. I don’t want to have to tap my debit card with Ladder Company 12’s tablet to get them to put out my burning house.

But there’s also plenty of times when a government spending money does save people money.

I think way too much about this program in Colorado back in that day.

I know it’s trendy to look at any government expenditure as frivolous. If it doesn't go to you. I also think way too much about this unsung, underappreciated Michael Lewis book from 2018: The Fifth Risk. The Amazon synopsis at that link is:

"The election happened," remembers Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, then deputy secretary of the Department of Energy. "And then there was radio silence." Across all departments, similar stories were playing out: Trump appointees were few and far between; those that did show up were shockingly uninformed about the functions of their new workplace. Some even threw away the briefing books that had been prepared for them.

Michael Lewis’s brilliant narrative takes us into the engine rooms of a government under attack by its own leaders. In Agriculture the funding of vital programs like food stamps and school lunches is being slashed. The Commerce Department may not have enough staff to conduct the 2020 Census properly. Over at Energy, where international nuclear risk is managed, it’s not clear there will be enough inspectors to track and locate black market uranium before terrorists do.

Willful ignorance plays a role in these looming disasters. If your ambition is to maximize short-term gains without regard to the long-term cost, you are better off not knowing those costs. If you want to preserve your personal immunity to the hard problems, it’s better never to really understand those problems. There is upside to ignorance, and downside to knowledge. Knowledge makes life messier. It makes it a bit more difficult for a person who wishes to shrink the world to a worldview.

If there are dangerous fools in this book, there are also heroes, unsung, of course. They are the linchpins of the system―those public servants whose knowledge, dedication, and proactivity keep the machinery running. Michael Lewis finds them, and he asks them what keeps them up at night.

Of all the horror books I’ve read, this is the last one I wanted to need a sequel.

Oldest unread tab I’ve got open

This actually sat in my inbox for a week before I finally read it. I’m about 90 percent on it.

Throw Biden under the bus

OK, you didn’t come here for a guy that graduated with a 2.1 GPA for his Poli Sci degree to Poli Sci you. Probably.

To the football.

A fun part of this time of year is you can get a run of matches like Liverpool are getting. Four matches in four different competitions.

Carabao Cup

Yesterday, Newcastle followed up their 2-0 first leg victory over Arsenal with *checks notes* another 2-0 win over Arsenal.

The Magpies are on to the Carabao Cup Final which takes place Sunday, March 16 at Wembley. You know … the place I saw Good Government is Good Business open for Industrial Shithouse.

Newcastle’s opponent will be determined this afternoon, as Liverpool face Spurs at Anfield. Spurs find themselves up 1-0 after the first leg in London. Hope for the best here … which is not drinking a Carabao.

FA Cup

Fourth round action for the FA Cup starts tomorrow.

Friday

3:00 PM EST

Man U - Leicester City

and … you know what? I’m out of time and … you know what else? I’m going to pop another edition out tomorrow … the Fourth Round of the FA Cup needs it. Cause it’s just the best.

Take care of yourself, and each other.

-Colby

dystopian art work about the end of the world but also soccerballs