Showing posts with label Belgium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Belgium. Show all posts

Sunday, March 3, 2024

Friday, March 3, 1944. The death of Teresa Gullace and of hope for Poland.

Teresa Gullace, seven months pregnant, was killed by a German soldier when she attempted to pass a sandwich to her husband, who was detained by the Germans in Rome.  She was part of a group of women that had gathered to protest the Germans holding their husbands.

The scene was later depicted in Rosellini's 1945 Rome open city, one of three great films by the director set during World War Two and filmed immediately after, and which used amateur actors to a large degree.

The U.S. Army Air Force hit the Roman rail facilities at the Tiburtino, Littorio and Ostiense marshalling yards.  There were 400 civilian casualties.

Over 500 railroad passengers died of carbon monoxide poisoning during a protracted stall in a tunnel at Balvano, Italy.  It's one of the worst rail disasters of all time.

Stalin shut the door on further negotiations on the Polish border.

The Soviet Union created the Medal of Ushakov and the Medal of Nakhimov, both of which were awarded to sailors.  Interestingly, they were both named after Imperial Russian officers.

Japanese troops on Los Negros launched a night attack, which was repulsed by US cavalrymen.

The 3d Infantry Division repulsed a German attack on the Anzio beachhead at Ponte Rotto.  It would be the last German offensive action at Anzio.

Paul-Émile Janson, a Belgian Prime Minister just before World War Two, died at Buchewald at age 71.

Tuesday, November 21, 2023

Sunday, November 21, 1943. Tarawa D+1.

D+1 of the Invasion of Tarawa.  Additional Marines were landed, as is typical for such operations.  Troops were also landed on Bairki.

Reporter Robert Sherrod, embedded with the Marines, reported in his notes:

0530: The coral flats in front of us present a sad sight at low tide. A half dozen Marines lie exposed, now that the water has receded. They are hunched over, rifles in hand, just as they fell. They are already one-quarter covered by sand that the high tide left. Further out on the flats and to the left I can see at least fifty other bodies. I had thought yesterday, however, that low tide would reveal many more than that. The smell of death, that sweetly sick odor of decaying human flesh, is already oppressive.

Now that it is light, the wounded go walking by, on the beach. Some are supported by corpsmen; others, like this one coming now, walk alone, limping badly, their faces contorted with pain. Some have bloodless faces, some bloody faces, others only pieces of faces. Two corpsmen pass, carrying a Marine on a stretcher who is lying face down. He has a great hole in his side, another smaller hole in his shoulder. This scene, set against the background of the dead on the coral flats, is horrible. It is war. I wish it could be seen by the silken-voiced, radio-announcing pollyannas back home who, by their very inflections, nightly lull the people into a false sense of all-is-well.

0600: One of the fresh battalions is coming in. Its Higgins boats are being hit before they pass the old hulk of a freighter seven hundred yards from shore. One boat blows up, then another. The survivors start swimming for shore, but machine-gun bullets dot the water all around them. Back of us the Marines have started an offensive to clean out the jap machine guns which are now firing at our men in the water.They evidently do not have much success, because there is no diminution of the fire that rips into the two dozen or more Higgins boats.

The ratatatatatat of the machine guns increases, and the high pi-i-ing of the jap sniper bullet sings overhead incessantly. The Japs still have some mortars, too, and at least one 40 or 77-mm. gun. Our destroyers begin booming their five-inch shells on the Jap positions near the end of the airfield back of us.

Some of the fresh troops get within two hundred yards of shore, while others from later waves are unloading further out. One man falls, writhing in the water. He is the first man I have seen actually hit, though many thousands of bullets cut into the water. Now some reach the shore, maybe only a dozen at first. They are calm, even disdainful of death. Having come this far, slowly, through the water, they show no disposition to hurry. They collect in pairs and walk up the beach, with snipers still shooting at them.

Now one of our mortars discovers one of the machine guns that has been shooting at the Marines. It is not back of us, but is a couple of hundred yards west, out in one of the wooden privies the dysentery-fearing japs built out over the water. The mortar gets the range, smashes the privy, and there is no more firing from there.

But the machine guns continue to tear into the oncoming Marines. Within five minutes I see six men killed. But the others keep coming. One rifleman walks slowly ashore, his left arm a bloody mess from the shoulder down. The casualties become heavier. Within a few minutes more I can count at last a hundred Marines lying on the flats.

0730: The Marines continue unloading from the Higgins boats, but fewer of them are making the shore now. Many lie down-behind the pyramidal concrete barriers the Japs had erected to stop tanks. Others make it as far as the disabled tanks and amphtracks, then lie behind them to size up the chances of making the last hundred yards to shore. There are at least two hundred bodies which do not move at all on the dry flats, or in the shallow water partially covering them. This is worse, far worse than it was yesterday...

From Liveblogging World War Two. 

Among the casualties that day which Sherrod wrote about was 1st. Lt William D. Hawkins:

Hawkins had told me aboard the ship that he would put his platoon of men up against any company of soldiers on earth and guarantee to win. He was slightly wounded by shrapnel as he came ashore in the first wave, but the furthest thing from his mind was to be evacuated. He led his platoon into the forest of coconut palms. During a day and a half he personally cleaned out six Jap machine gun nests, sometimes standing on top of a track and firing point blank at four or five men who fired back at him from behind blockhouses. Lieutenant Hawkins was wounded a second time, but he still refused to retire. To say that his conduct was worthy of the highest traditions of the Marine Corps is like saying the Empire State Building is moderately high.

Hawkins would die that day.

FIRST LIEUTENANT WILLIAM D. HAWKINS

UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS RESERVE

for service as set forth in the following

CITATION:

For valorous and gallant conduct above and beyond the call of duty as Commanding Officer of a Scout Sniper Platoon attached to the Second Marines, Second Marine Division, in action against Japanese-held Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands, November 20 and 21, 1943. The first to disembark from the jeep lighter, First lieutenant Hawkins unhesitatingly moved forward under heavy enemy fire at the end of the Betio pier, neutralizing emplacements in coverage of troops assaulting the main breach positions. Fearlessly leading his men on to join the forces fighting desperately to gain a beachhead, he repeatedly risked his life throughout the day and night to direct and lead attacks on pill boxes and installations with grenades and demolition. At dawn on the following day, First Lieutenant Hawkins returned to the dangerous mission of clearing the limited beachhead of Japanese resistance, personally initiating an assault on a hostile fortified by five enemy machine guns and, crawling forward in the face of withering fire, boldly fired point-blank into the loopholes and completed the destruction with grenades. Refusing to withdraw after being seriously wounded in the chest during this skirmish, First Lieutenant Hawkins steadfastly carried the fight to the enemy, destroying three more pill boxes before he was caught in a burst of Japanese shell fire and mortally wounded. His relentless fighting spirit in the face of formidable opposition and his exceptionally daring tactics were an inspiration to his comrades during the most crucial phase of the battle and reflect the highest credit upon the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

/S/ FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

Hawkins was an engineer who had a very rough start in his short life, being severely injured as a baby and his father having died when he was eight.  He nonetheless graduated from high school at age 16, and as noted had gone on to university.

Commentator Drew Pearson broke the story on his radio show of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower reprimanding George S. Patton for a slapping incident, which within Army circles was now old news.

 Wharf on Butaritari Island, Makin, November 21, 1943.

U.S. infantry advanced on Butaritari on Makin.

The following is undoubtedly copyrighted, but I'm posting it here in the fair comment category to show how "rah rah" and frankly stupid American superhero cartoons of this era could be and often were. This was a Superman strip from this date:

In the context of what was going on that day, that was unbelievably dumb.

U.S. Navy air installation on Funafuti (Tuvalu) commenced operations.

Prime Minister Churchill to President Roosevelt 1

secret

[ Cairo ] 21 November 1943.2

Former Naval Person to President Roosevelt personal and most secret. No. 506.

1. My arrival in Egypt is bound to be known as I shall pass through to see Catroux and others: moreover British Parliament meets on 23rd and my absence must be explained. Unless I hear from you to the contrary I shall allow it to be stated on 22nd that I am in Cairo.

2. This publicity will be unsupported cover for your movement which I think should not be announced for a few days.

3. You will be receiving a telegram about military precautions, which are excellent.

From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—November 21, 1943: German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is placed in command of Atlantic Wall defenses in France to defend against an Allied invasion.

Sunday, September 3, 2023

Friday, September 3, 1943. Italy surrenders and is invaded.

British troops boarding ships on September 2 for the landings the following day.  This soldier is carrying a Thompson submachinegun, but he foregrip is removed, which would make it nearly impossible to actually use.

The British 8th Army's 8th Corps, comprised of British and Canadian troops, crossed the Messina Strait and landed on mainland Italy.  They met with no resistance.


Additional landings were planned for Salerno for September 9.

The Italian government met with Allied representatives at Cassiblile in Sicily to sign a surrender instrument with the Allied powers.

The instrument of surrender stated:

FAIRFIELD CAMP

SICILY

September 3,1943

The following conditions of an Armistice are presented by

General Dwight D. Eisenhower,

Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces, acting by authority of the Governments of the United States and Great Britain and in the interest of the United Nations, and are accepted by

Marshal Pietro Badoglio

Head of the Italian Government


1.  Immediate cessation of all hostile activity by the Italian armed forces.

2.  Italy will use its best endeavors to deny, to the Germans, facilities that might be used against the United Nations.

3. All prisoners or internees of the United Nations to be immediately turned over to the Allied Commander in Chief, and none of these may now or at any time be evacuated to Germany.

4. Immediate transfer of the Italian Fleet and Italian aircraft to such points as may be designated by the Allied Commander in Chief, with details of disarmament to be prescribed by him.

5 Italian merchant shipping may be requisitioned by the Allied Commander in Chief to meet the needs of his military-naval program. 

6. Immediate surrender of Corsica and of all Italian territory, both islands and mainland, to the Allies, for such use as operational bases and other purposes as the Allies may see fit. 

7. Immediate guarantee of the free use by the Allies of all airfields and naval ports in Italian territory, regardless of the rate of evacuation of the Italian territory by the German forces. These ports and fields to be protected by Italian armed forces until this function is taken over by the Allies. 

8. Immediate withdrawal to Italy of Italian armed forces from all participation in the current war from whatever areas in which they may be now engaged. 

9  Guarantee by the Italian Government that if necessary it will employ all its available armed forces to insure prompt and exact compliance with all the provisions of this armistice. 

10. The Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces reserves to himself the right to take any measure which in his opinion may be necessary for the protection of the interests of the Allied Forces for the prosecution of the war, and the Italian Government binds itself to take such administrative or other action as the Commander in Chief may require, and in particular the Commander in Chief will establish Allied Military Government over such parts of Italian territory as he may deem necessary in the military interests of the Allied Nations. 

11. The Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces will have a full right to impose measures of disarmament, demobilization, and demilitarization. 

12. Other conditions of a political, economic and financial nature with which Italy will be bound to comply will be transmitted at a later date. 

The conditions of the present Armistice will not be made public without prior approval of the Allied Commander in Chief. The English will be considered the official text. 

MARSHAL PIETRO BADOGLIO

Head of Italian Government 

By:

GUISEPPE CASTEI.LANO 

Brigadier General, attached to The Italian High Command 

Present: 

Rt. Hon. Harold Macmillan

British Resident Minister, A.F.H.Q. 


Robert Murphy

Personal Representative of the

President of the United States


Royer Dick

Commodore, R.N.

Chief of Staff to the C. in C. Med.


DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

General, U.S. Army,

Commander in Chief, Allied Forces

By:


WALTER B. SMITH

Major General, U.S. Army,

Chief of Staff


Lowell W. Rooks

Major General, U.S. Army

Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3

A.F.H.Q.


Franco Montanari

Official Italian Interpreter


Brigadier Kenneth Strong

Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3

A.F.H.Q.

The SS began raids in Belgium to gather Jews in that country.

Tuesday, June 6, 2023

Wednesday, June 6, 1923. Defeat, no, explosion.

The Red Army defeated the Whites at Okhotsk in the last major battle of the Russian Civil War, although at least one more engagement would occur.  The results, at this point, were a foregone conclusion.

France and Belgium released a joint statement refusing to consider the new reparations proposal of Weimar as long as passive resistance to occupation was ongoing in the Ruhr.

The Army's TC-1 hydrogen filled dirigible was destroyed in a storm when winds blew it into a steel mooring tower.

Wednesday, April 19, 2023

Monday, April 19, 1943. The end of the Warsaw Ghetto commences, SMERSH founded.

The final phase of the destruction and reoccupation of the Warsaw Ghetto commenced under SS Polizeifuhrer Jürgen Stroop.

Stroop was an unrepentant Nazi and was sentenced to death in a post-war war crimes trial in 1947, and then handed over to Poland, which also convicted him.  He was executed in Poland in 1952.

233 Belgian Jews bound for Auschwitz escaped when a raid by three members of the Belgian resistance attacked the train.  118 were able to ultimately escape.

Fourteen members of the White Rose resistance group are found guilty of crimes against the German state and executed.

The General Directorate of Counterintelligence ("SMERSH" СМЕРШ) of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR came into existence, but secretly, and maybe actually earlier. It was a counterintelligence directorate.  Like most Soviet intelligence and counterintelligence agencies, it was sinister and scary by its nature, and average citizens of the USSR had reason to fear it, a fact that was compounded by circumstances inside contested and occupied regions of the Soviet Union which caused average Soviet citizens to collaborate with the Germans in large and small ways.

The British government removed the restriction on ringing church bells that had been put in effect when the UK was under threat of invasion.  The move marked the passing of that phase of the war.

RCAF P-40 being recovered at  Fort Greeley Kodiak Island, Alaska, on this day.  It had overshot the runway.

Saturday, January 28, 2023

Sunday, January 28, 1923. Gand est Français?

100,000 Francophone Belgians protested the imposition of Flemish at Ghent University, changing "Gand est Français".

The Belgian Chamber of Deputies had imposed Flemish, and prohibited French, by law.

Flemish is, of course, a Dutch dialect spoken in Belgium, one of Belgium's three languages, the third being German, which is spoken in a small area of the country.  Territorially, about half of Belgium speaks Flemish as their primary language.  Ghent, in northern Belgium, is in fact in the Flemish region of the country.

Flag of Flanders.

The Belgians who speak Flemish are also called the Flemis, and make up about 60% of the Belgian population, all concentrated in the north. Flanders is the Flemish region.   The French speaking area is part of Wallonia, a region which includes parts of France.

Flag of Wallonia.

New Zealand cricketer and later Wellington lawyer, Alfred Holdship, died at age 55

Friday, January 20, 2023

Saturday, January 20 1973. Second Nixon Inauguration.


President Nixon was inaugurated for the second time.

Amilcar Cabral, leader of the Guinea independence movement, was assassinated.

The Soviets revealed the existence of its education tax on emigrants, which taxed exodus, based on the theory that the state had educated them and it was recouping its loss.

Mathilde Marie Christine Ghislaine d'Udekem d'Acoz, Queen Consort of Belgium, was born.

Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Thursday, January 11, 1923. The French and Belgians Occupy the Ruhr

In one of the most condemned moves of 20th Century history, French and Belgium troops (the Belgians are often forgotten as having a role in this) started their occupation of the Ruhr by crossing into Essen into 0445.

French troops in Dortmund.

100,000 French soldiers were in the Ruhr by the end of the week.

Forgotten in this is that the French were a far more stable political entity at the time than the Germans, and the Germans had breached the Versailles Treaty.  If the French had shown similar backbone in 1936, they would have stopped Hitler cold, caused him to lose the chancellorship, and he'd have been luck to have not ended up in the ground that year.

The Germans get a lot of sympathy here they really don't deserve.

Hitler did use the occasion to attack, in a speech, the German republican government.

Secy. of Labor Davis delivering the opening address at first meeting of the Nat'l Industrial Women's Conference, Jan. 11, 1923, at the Nat'l Museum.

Greek King Constantine 1 died in Italy in exile at age 54.  He reigned, and abdicated, twice, losing his second regnum due to the war with Turkey.

Very oddly, his successor, two intervening kings in between, Constantine II died yesterday at age 82 in Athens.  He was Greek's last king.

Monday, January 9, 2023

Tuesday, January 9, 1923. Belgium and France take a hard line.

The Allied Reparation Commission found Germany in willful default on its coal delivery requires pursuant to the Versailles Treaty, thus setting the stage for the French occupation.  On the same day, France and Belgium's commissioners voted to occupy the Ruhr. The United Kingdom opposed the measure.  The U.S. had already bowed out.

The Ruhr is an industrial region of Germany and was traditionally a coal mining region, drawing quite a few ethnic Poles at one time due to their experience in coal mining.  Locally, quite a few of those from the region refer to it as "Pott", which is a derivate of "Pütt", a derivative of "pit", or mine.  By 1925, the Ruhrgebiet had around 3,800,000 inhabitants including Eastern Europe immigrants, but also including immigrants from France, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.  Today the region is part of North Rhine-Westphalia, a British creation during the post World War Two British occupation, which merged the Rhineland with Westphalia.  Oddly, it's been preserved since that time, although at least some distantly descended Westphalians might wonder why.

A U.S. Federal board charged with studying vocational education found that 1,700,000 children dropped out of school prior to the 8th grade, and thereby impairing their occupational opportunities.

The Gorakhpus Sessions Court in Indian returned verdicts on a February 5, 1922, burning of a police station that resulted in 22 police deaths. Forty-seven people were acquitted, 107 were found guilty of various charges, with nineteen being sentenced to death and fourteen to life imprisonment.

Friday, November 11, 2022

Saturday, November 11, 1922. Four years after the war.


 It was Armistace Day, 1922, but Judge went to the stands with a Thanksgiving themed cover.


And The Saturday Evening Post depicted a woman dressed for cold weather.

President Harding paid his respects to the Veterans of the Great War, and in particular its dead.






The National Women's Party was holding its conference.




A magnitude 8.5 earthquake struck Chile, killing 1,000 or so people.

The Unknown Soldier of Belgium was interred at the base of the Congress Column in Brussels.

Wednesday, November 9, 2022

November 9, 1922. Hedging bets

The French Chamber of Deputies approved Raymond Poincare's policy of France abstaining on paying its war debts unit it had received reparations due from Germany.


Former White Russian General Viktor Pokrovsky, age 33, died while resisting arreste by Belgian authorities. They were conducting a murder investigation.

Friday, May 27, 2022

Wednesday, May 27, 1942. Dorie Miller receives the Navy Cross. Reinhard Heydrich attacked.


Dores "Dorie" Miller became the first African American to receive the Navy Cross, which he received for manning 

For distinguished devotion to duty, extraordinary courage and disregard for his own personal safety during the attack on the Fleet in Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. While at the side of his Captain on the bridge, Miller, despite enemy strafing and bombing and in the face of a serious fire, assisted in moving his Captain, who had been mortally wounded, to a place of greater safety, and later manned and operated a machine gun directed at enemy Japanese attacking aircraft until ordered to leave the bridge.

Miller grew up on his parent's farm in Texas and had joined the Navy at age 20 in 1939. He would not survive the war, being killed when a ship he was later assigned to was hit by a torpedo in 1943, setting off the ship's munition's stores.

His curious legal name was the result of a midwife being convinced he'd be born a girl, although even at that the family decision to stick with the name is odd.  It didn't fit him at all, as Miller grew to be a giant of a man.  His nickname is a matter of dispute, and may not have actually come about at all until press reports misstated his name, although there are other explanations for the name.

Reinhard Heydrich, one of the architects of the "Final Solution", was badly wounded in an assassination exercise by Czech operatives in an SOE planned operation.  He'd die on June 4.  Heydrich was drenched in evil, but the assassination did not in any way stop the Holocaust, and it resulted in massive German reprisals.

Heydrich vehicle following the attack.

Jews in Belgium were ordered to wear the yellow Star of David.

As with almost any day in this period, the Battle of the Atlantic raged, with submarines taking their toll.

Saturday, January 1, 2022

Sunday, January 1, 1922. Happy New Year?

Effectively the first shots of the Irish Civil War, sniping breaks out in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Belgium instituted bilingualism, making French and Flemish both official languages.

Monday, December 20, 2021

Saturday December 20, 1941. First combat mission of the Flying Tigers, German winter clothing drive


On this day in 1941, the American Volunteer Group, the "Flying Tigers", flew their first combat mission.

This really surprised me as I thought the band of aviation soldiers of fortune had been in China in combat prior to December 7.  Obviously not so.  I also thought it was immediately folded into the United States Army Air Corps with the arrival of the war.  Also, not so. That would wait until July, 1942.

This I ran into first here:  

Today in World War II History—December 20, 1941

More can be read about this mission here:

20 December 1941

As also listed there, the Japanese landed on Mindanao, Borneo, Celebes and the Moluccas.

And they sunk a freighter off of Cape Mendocino, California, a frightening thing for coast residents.  It was, of course, a submarine attack.

Ernest King was appointed CiC of the US Navy.

Lindbergh wrote Hap Arnold and volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army.

Goebbels commenced a winter clothing drive for German troops, an effort which was disguised as a patriotic home front type of thing, but which likely fooled few.

The Belgian government in exile declared war on Japan.

And another letter home.

Sunday, July 25, 2021

Monday July 25, 1921. Ignoring the vote and things not being what they seem.

On this day, a century ago, the Belgium-Luxembourg Economic Union's treaty was signed in spite of national opposition to it, which was expressed in the form of a "no" vote during a referendum on the topic.

I suppose the fact that the people didn't want it, and they got it anyway, is a lesson in more than one way.

The treaty united the economies of the two countries.

Princess Fatima of Afghanistan secured an audience with President Harding through the offices, oddly enough, of notorious imposter Stanley Clifford Weyman.

The princess, her family, and Weyman, in Naval uniform, with another imposter, in top hat, we discussed recently.

Well, in actuality nobody was who they seemed to have been, except President Harding.  And as we've discussed before, even Harding wasn't completely who he seemed to be in some ways.

Anyhow, Fatima wasn't really a princess.  In spite of her best efforts to secure an audience with Harding, she hadn't received one, which is no surprise as Afghanistan, at that time, was far from an American concern. The distant country had just received its independence and was of very little interest to the distant United States.

Fatima wanted, apparently, to be a princess  and secure positions for her three sons.  Weyman took note and posted as a Naval officer and actually secured an audience for her.  Be that as it may, it didn't achieve anything for her or anyone in this photo, except perhaps for Weyman who secured some notoriety.

Weyman went on to sting of later such false flag type of acts before being shot to death attempting to stop a robbery in 1960.  The police detective at the time noted that he knew Weyman's history, but what he actually did in his final act was brave.

Of note, one of the things that the New York Times reported on, regarding the would be Princess Fatima, is that she had a diamond stud in her nose, which was regarded as very exotic at the time.

Sunday, May 23, 2021

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part 15. Rising posts, Billie Eilish Interests, "Romeo and Juliet", Bill and Melinda, Kardashian statutes, Rest Stops, Not taking a bath, and big cats.


I wonder what it was?

This trailing post series sometimes makes it up to the top post for the past week, but the last one did in less than six hours.  Here it is:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgist Part 14. The Industrial Revolution and Child Care and other musings.

I wonder what shot it up so fast?  The title issue was the Biden economic infrastructure proposal and its items on child care, but way down in the text Billie Eilish being on the cover of British Vogue was discussed.

It had to be one or the other, the two being oddly related in a way.

Eilish commentary

One thing I didn't note in depth is that Eilish apparently made the following comments:

One message she is sending is that there's a lot of "sexual misconduct" in the entertainment industry. This isn't news, but at least she's saying something.  Her comment to British Vogue basically read as an entitlement of sexual immorality, which would actually be a species of real progress coming from that quarter.  Perhaps its not entirely surprising, however, given that her generation has pretty much had it with things Boomer, of which the Sexual Revolution is part.

She noted it that this problem include the abuse of boys.  Something rarely noted.

"Romeo and Juliet"

A post that predictably shot right up was the recent one on the 2022 Wyoming Congressional election.  In that series I track what's going on, but a post regarding what occurred in Florida in 1983 is what shot it to the top, where it remains.

People who are interested in the story can read it there, but what it entails is far right, pro Trump, anti Cheney, very loud Laramie County state Senator Anthony Bouchard having been in a sexual relationship with a 14 year old when he was an 18 year old.  As the story involves sex, and a scandal, and  sex scandal, and tragedy, it predicable went right to the top.

There are a lot of peculiar angles to this, to say the least.  Anyhow, I got around to finally watching the video that Bouchard released on this and I have to say that I'm singularly unimpressed.  Indeed, the opposite is true.  

For starters, Bouchard captions the video as "taking on" the "fake news media". There's nothing fake about this story, however.  He did exactly what he's accused of.  He doesn't really even come out acknowledging that there's something wrong about an 18 year old screwing a 14 year old, at least not in the four minutes of it I watched.  I didn't watch the rest.  He does give himself, and his late wife, credit for not aborting the baby, and I'd give them credit for that too, however.

Anyhow, somehow we've gone from a situation in which people generally acknowledge their faults fairly seriously, even if only when caught, to sort of bypassing them and blaming them on the media. The media isn't prefect and I think its biased, but Bouchard, in getting ahead of this story, didn't really get ahead of it.

Quite a few people are making comparison to the news stories about Matt Gaetz who came out with the absurd line that he always treated his trysts well.  I don't know if the allegations about him and minors are true, but it used to be the case that, as the conservative party, the Republicans stood for morality.  Clearly that's a mixed bag now, which I suppose is proof we've sunk so low in the Sexual Revolution that there isn't any.

Or maybe it tells us something about current populist politics.

Screen Free Week

This just happened recently.

I had to learn about it from a cartoon, which I had to learn on line, as my local newspaper doesn't publish a Monday print edition, only an electronic one.

Of course, I didn't observe it, but then I really couldn't.  So much of what I do is on line anymore, even though I really wish it wasn't.

Bill and Melinda Gates

They announced their divorce on Twitter.

I don't know anything about them, but it's a real surprise.  She's a Catholic.  He's not, I believe, but had supported her and participated in their parish.

No details were provided at first, and of course we aren't entitled to any.  It's disappointing no matter what you view on them is really.  Indeed, given their vast wealth and respective ages, I thought at first that it really doesn't make any sense at all. If they weren't getting along, was my thought, they probably should just have separated.

Well it turns out that Gates too has a bit of a roving eye.  Sheesh.

Statuesque

The statuesque Kim Kardashian, the most famous member of the most famous Armenian American family, famous for being famous, is in a bit of hot water for importing a Roman statute.

It may be just me, but I think there's something deep inside the half Armenian members of this family that's harkening them back to the old country and old ways of life.

False Positive

Demographers are noting that the US birth rate is below replacement level, a good thing, but the US is hardly at the point where its population is falling, which would also be a good thing, due to a massive unsustainable immigration rate.

Reporting on this topic is always bizarre.  There's only so much room before a population negatively impacts the environment and itself.  And the concept of a "demographic winter" in which there aren't enough youngsters to support a benighted retired population is completely false, being based on a completely static technological situation which in reality has never existed.  Indeed, it's pretty clear that our technology has advanced to the point its putting people out of work.

Riding the elephant to death

Donald Trump has launched a website entitled From the Desk of Donald J. Trump.

Nobody seems to be paying that much attention to it, however.  Frankly, the fact that it doesn't burst out onto Twitter, where he's banned, means you have to take the effort to subscribe to it, which only the really convinced are going to to.

Belgium Advances

A Belgian farmer found a border marker between his country and France annoying so he moved it.

He's been asked to move it back.

Bathing less often

The New York Times reports that people bathed less during the Coronavirus lockdowns and quite a few of them do not plan to return to more frequent bathing.

Folks actually probably don't need to bathe as often as they do, which has been known for a long time.  But we've already crossed the bar on slovenliness in the US so this probably isn't a good thing.

The Eyes Of Texas

At some point, people are getting upset as its fun to have righteous anger over something, as long as it isn't something that doesn't really matter. The Eyes of Texas flap is just one such example.

Tensions boil at UT-Austin over "The Eyes of Texas", where students are refusing to work and a man with a gun crashed a virtual event
A student group was hosting an event with a UT-Austin professor about the song when a man entered the online Zoom call with his face covered, holding what appeared to be a large gun.

Meanwhile, real problems go unaddressed. . . 

Temporary Relief

Reopening of the Rest Stops

 

Governor Gordon Authorizes Funding to Temporarily Reopen 9 Rest Areas for the Summer Travel Season

 

CHEYENNE, Wyo. –  Governor Mark Gordon has directed the Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) and Wyoming Office of Tourism (WOT) to partner to temporarily reopen and operate nine previously closed rest areas for at least the duration of the 2021 tourist season.

“With the summer season just around the corner, I’m glad we will be able to reopen these facilities to travelers,” Governor Gordon said. “We are glad to have this chance to find a temporary solution.”

WYDOT and WOT along with the Governor's office will work together to secure a temporary federal funding source to allow the nine rest areas throughout the state to reopen. 

"WYDOT is extremely grateful to Governor Gordon and Director Shober for identifying new federal funds to temporarily reopen our rest areas for the tourist season," said WYDOT Director K. Luke Reiner. 

Officials closed the rest areas in June 2020 as a cost-savings measure due to budgetary shortfalls. 

 The nine rest areas include:

  • Lusk on US 18
  • Guernsey on US 26
  • Greybull on US 16
  • Moorcroft on I-90
  • Star Valley on US 89
  • Sundance on I-25
  • Upton on US 16
  • Orin Jct on I-25
  • Chugwater on I-25

“Each of these nine rest areas are a valuable tourism tool, said Diane Shober, executive director of the Wyoming Office of Tourism. “Certainly, a clean facility is important to the visitor experience, but it is also a powerful marketing platform to distribute travel guides and other trip-planning resources. As travelers are stretching their legs, they are also gathering information on local events, attractions, restaurants, campgrounds and lodging, which all can lead to extended stays and increase visitor spending.”

The rest areas should reopen ahead of Memorial Day weekend.

-END-

Oh think goodness.

"It takes a big cat to eat a ton of tuna"

So went an old answer to the question "what do you know".  It doesn't seem to be around any more, but there was news about a really big cat.

Newly Identified Species of Saber-Toothed Cat Was So Big It Hunted Rhinos in America

On big cats, a tiger being kept by a felon escaped its house in Houston.  The large cat was captured and is safe, but this is the second tiger in Houston story in recent years.

What the heck?  Is Petco just out of cats in Texas?

Virtue Signaling 

NBC has cancelled broadcasting of the Golden Globes for lack of diversity.

Nobody really pays any attention to these awards anymore, but this entire flap is really virtue signaling in the extreme. An industry which closed a blind eye to sexual misconduct for years is now missed at the Hollywood foreign press, which gives the Golden Globes.  M'eh.

What might be noted, in terms of diversity, is that India has the largest film industry in the world, not the US.  And our neighbor to the south, Mexico, has had an excellent and vibrant film industry for decades.

I'm sure the Screen Actors Guild will be pointing all this out really soon, of course, even if that diminishes its perceived importance.

Bouncing

Ocasio-Cortez on Taylor Greene: 'These are the kinds of people that I threw out of bars all the time'

Greene ought to be bounced from Congress, but that's not going to happen.

I'll be clear that she's not the only detestable Congressman by any means, and neither party has a lock hold on detestable political figures.  But its pretty clear at this point that Greene is a type of live action troll.  Like Internet trolls, she runs around saying stupid stuff and doing stupid things as it gets her attention.

Don't feed the trolls.

Speaking of stupidity, here's another Greene headline:

Marjorie Taylor Green compares mask mandate to the holocaust.

Congress has the ability to refuse to seat somebody, or to boot them out if they're really over the top. Greene should be sent packing.

Yikes

Freshly Made Plutonium From Outer Space Found On Ocean Floor

Saturday, May 15, 2021

May 15, 1941. The Belgian Counsel General (presumably in Jerusalem) and others gathering for the King of Belgium's birthday, surely. . .

this was the last time in human history, i.e., the 1940s, when people could gather in these costumes ant not feel patently ridiculous.

I exempt, for this question, the couple of religious depicted in the photo.

Monday, May 10, 2021

May 10, 1941. Hess jumps, the Luftwaffe quits, Belgian workers walk.

Hess's wrecked Bf110.

On this day in 1941 Rudolph Hess, operating on his own initiative, took a German aircraft and flew himself to the UK with the expressed intent to broker a peace between Germany and the British Empire.

It's easy to sum up Hess as delusional, which he was.  He was peculiar in other ways, however, which is saying something as the Nazi leadership was overall peculiar.  He'd spent his youth in Egypt, where he was born of German parents, where he acquired an intense racism against non Europeans, rather than being broadened in his views as a person would suspect.  He also, from that experience, came to admire the British.  He'd served in World War One and emerged into an economy in which his family's business interests, of which it had been intended he'd be part of, had been badly damaged by the war, and in particular by the British seizing German interest in Egypt.  He was a very early member of the Nazi Party.  He became the Deputy Fuhrer of the party, an extremely high position in the German Nazi regime.  Following the start of the war his antisemitism grew.

On this day in 1941 he flew a Bf110 to Scotland in the belief that he could establish contacts with friendly British interest and negotiate a peace with the UK. Based on the statement he intended to deliver at the Nuremburg Trial and again attempted to issue in written form in 1986, he actually believed that he'd be able to negotiate a peace and bring the UK into the war against the Soviet Union, something that was then on the near horizon in German planning.

Hess used a Bf110 for his mission, which was a substantial aircraft.  He ran out of fuel near his target, a British estate that he mistakenly believed would house a sympathetic family, and bailed out, breaking his ankle and resulting in his capture by a Scottish farmer.  He was placed in the Tower of London where he spent the rest of the war.  The mission was hugely embarrassing to the Germans as Hess was a significant figure in the Nazi Party, and it was somewhat embarrassing to the British at it was both a reminder of there having been some significant members of British aristocracy who had sympathized with the Nazis before the war and because such a substantially sized aircraft had penetrated over Scotland without detection.

Following the war he was a defendant at the Nuremburg trials.  Being convicted, he spent the rest of his life a prisoner at Spandau Prison in Berlin where he remained an unrepentant Nazi, and he remained a prisoner far longer than any other figure sentenced to prison.  As he had very little in the way of a role after the war started, and served so many more years than any other German prisoner, there were fairly serious efforts to secure his release in later years, which tended to discount that his views had not changed at all.  Neither had the Soviets, however, who vetoed any release as they firmly believed that he was aware of plans to invade the Soviet Union and, therefore, could have warned the British who would have warned them.  At least according to one story, on a single occasion when the Soviets failed to veto his release, the British did.  The prison was torn down following his death in order to avoid having it turned into a Nazi shrine. His grave did become one, however, so in 2011 the Lutheran church on whose grounds it was located had the remains removed and the tombstone destroyed.

On the same day that Hess flew to Scotland, the Luftwaffe bombed London again.  You can read of both events here:

Today in World War II History—May 10, 1941

Huge raid on London

The London raid was the Luftwaffe's last largescale aircraft bombing raid on the city of the war.  The Blitz was winding down and in fact the nighttime raid, which also covered the following morning, ended the campaign.  German air raids over the UK would continue to the end of the war in a lesser capacity, but the largescale nighttime raids that had commenced after the German failure to win an aerial victory ended.  The Germans lost the Battle of Britain and they'd lost the Blitz.  They were not going to knock the UK out of the war through the air, and they gave up trying.  Of course, they also had limited air assets and began to rededicate them to the planned campaign against the Soviets Union.  Indeed, the termination of the campaign supported the British suspicion that the Soviet Union was next, something the British would attempt to warn the Soviets of.

While Hess went on his delusional mission, Belgian workers went out on strike.  The strike was remarkable not only for the fact it occurred in occupied country, but that even the Belgian Communist Party supported it. At the time, the Communists everywhere were generally somewhat pro Nazi or at least not anti Nazi due to the non aggression pact that had been entered into between the Soviet Union and Germany still being in effect.

The strike lasted eight days and ended when the Germans agreed to a wage raise.

Monday, March 8, 2021

March 8, 1921. The Occupation of the Ruhr Commences.

French, Belgian and British troops occupied Düsseldorf, Duisburg, and Ruhrort due to German reparation payment failures.  The U.S., meanwhile, announced that it would continue to occupy the Rhineland.


It's well know that the French "occupied the Ruhr" in 1923, but it rarely seems to be  understood that this started as an overall Allied action in 1921.  The initiation of the occupation was limited, but none the less the event didn't start in 1923, but 1921.

Friday, May 8, 2020

May 8, 1945. Victory In Europe. Seventy Five Years Ago Today.

The mission of this Allied force was fulfilled at 0241, local time, May 7th, 1945.
Dwight Eisenhower.

The official surrender, however, came today.



Today In Wyoming's History: May 8:

May 8


1945    The German surrender becomes official.  President Harry S. Truman announced in a radio address that World War II had ended in Europe.  End of the Prague uprising.  Hundreds of Algerian civilians are killed by French Army soldiers in the Sétif massacre, ushering in what would ultimately become the French Algerian War.  In day two of rioting, 10,000 servicemen in Halifax Nova Scotia loot and vandalize downtown Halifax during VE-Day celebrations.