The legends Rex Carroll and Ken Tamplin have combined forces to give us “Where Do We Go From Here?”. This was quite a treat on a snowed-in weekend!
The boys in Messenger have released a new video for their song “Messenger at Arms,” from their 2020 album In To Win. It’s very metal!
The law requires the divestment “to end any ‘operational relationship’ between ByteDance and TikTok in the United States,” critics told the NYT. That could be a problem, since TikTok’s release makes it clear that ByteDance will maintain some control over the TikTok US app’s operations.
Is anyone truly concerned with the national security implications of TikTok surprised that ByteDance is, well, dancing around the particulars to maintain some form of access and control?
The Chinese Communist Party is not going to willingly give up access to American users or the influence it can exert on those users by way of controlling the algorithm of what they see.
If we were really serious about TikTok, we would have cut off its access entirely to the nation, but then the powers that be in this country haven’t been serious about national security in decades.
[Wave of the phin to Michael Tsai for linking to the Ars piece.]
Why streaming sucks for sports, reason #1,659:
To watch the Packers-Bears playoff game:
- Switch input to AppleTV
- AppleTV asleep, wake up, select viewer (me)
- Switch to Prime Video app
- Prime Video launches with useless graphic
- Select viewer (me)
- Select game
- Select how I want to watch game (Live)
If there was any sense in this world, and the game was on a normal television channel:
- Select channel
One thriller series from this century that I believe has been criminally underrated is W.E.B. Griffin’s Presidential Agent franchise. Weaving together the histories of military families from the Vietnam War up to the present day, the saga follows Charley Castillo, bastard child of a Texican born-and-bred Army helicopter pilot and a German heiress. We see Charley grow up in two worlds, and part of the ongoing arc is how he navigates the two.
We are immersed in a world of colorful characters, from the Russian SVR agents who would eventually join his family, to his Texican cousin, and his various Army commanders and mentors. Perhaps most famously, there is Charley’s abuela, and the influence Doña Alicia has on him, from the moment she meets him and throughout the rest of the series, is profound.
Griffin authored the first five books in the series solo, then collaborated with his son for the next three. At the conclusion of 2013’s Hazardous Duty, it looked like that was the end of the road for Charley and his merry band of fighters. Their arc battling contemporary terrorism, often emerging in unexpected forms, concluded and it appeared Castillo and company were, to a degree, riding off in to the sunset of retirement.
Griffin passed away in 2019, but the series was revived two years later, with the release of Rogue Asset, penned by the incredible writing duo of Brian Andrews and Jeffrey Wilson. Presidential Agent fans were delighted, and expectations arose this was setting the stage for a continuation of the series, with Charley taking on a more indirect role as he became mentor to Marine Raider Pick McCoy. But then all went quiet once again on the franchise front, as it appeared this foray didn’t get the head of steam everyone wanted.
Boy, is it a thundering locomotive now.
Next week sees the release of the 10th installment in the series, Direct Action, helmed by the remarkable Jack Stewart. Leaving from that foundation laid by Andrews & Wilson, Jack shovels so much coal in to the locomotive that it will have readers on the edge of the seat as they watch it power down the track. (I’m done with the train metaphor. Promise.)
Making the nearly incomprehensible decision to (minor spoiler) sideline the series’ protagonist very early on, Stewart gives us his take on Pick McCoy and the new crew, deftly weaving Pick’s past with his present just as Griffin did in the early days of Charley Castillo’s story. The tension ratchets quickly, from a shootout at the Alamo to intrigue in Vienna, the city of spies. Jack forces McCoy and company to a blistering pace as personalities come together to solve the mystery of the attacks, one of which Castillo attempted to stop, that threaten national security while also navigating the waters of personal entanglements.
Knowing what a fan I was of the original series from our commiseration about it, Jack was kind enough to let me read an early draft of Direct Action to get my input on it vis-a-vis Griffin’s works. I was thrilled to see that he nailed the character and plot components that made Griffin’s entries must-reads, and took it to the next level by deepening Pick’s involvement and development. Stewart delivers on the promises made by Rogue Asset, and I can only hope he gets to bring us more of Pick and Charley in the future.
If you loved Griffin’s original Presidential Agent books, this joins them as a must-read, and gets a coveted five (phive?) out of five phins.
This month, the United States Marine Corps celebrates its 250th year of existence, and they put out a special birthday message:
Happy birthday, Marines! Thank you all for your service and sacrifice. May our nation always be as faithful to you, as you have been to it.
It’s early yet in making my way through @MichaelFKane’s book After Moses Sanctum, but it’s going to be hard to beat this paragraph:
Great. Even more politicians. Like roaches on a space station, they were impossible to get rid of and far more numerous than allowed by health codes.
"The Left loves to tell us we have to listen to people's 'lived experiences' to understand and respect them. That's all well and good, but they also want to make those 'lived experiences' the basis for laws and often stripping people of their rights (including the right to free speech).
"But when those 'lived experiences' don't support the Left's narrative, they ignore them. Like this man, who grew up behind the Iron Curtain."
A few months ago, my good friend Ryan North started a new leadership podcast, Mind Spirit Strategy, and was kind enough to have me on as the first guest.
We discussed a common leadership failure, resistance to feedback.
My dad has always been something of a handyman, which he got from his dad. Over the years, he’d helped my uncle on his farm with so many little odds and ends that my uncle started calling him “Bob,” after Bob the Builder.
It’s still kinda funny to hear my uncle call him that, as if it’s his given name. 🤣