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Playing Oberursel Engine Running | The Vintage Aviator

Playing Oberursel Engine Running | The Vintage Aviator

Fancy?

Every summer there's some song that hits and becomes the big song of the summer. This summer it seems to be "Iggy" Azalea's "Fancy".

I only note this due to the odd use of terms and the way their conceived of. This is a hip hop song, I guess, and that's not a genera that I've ever liked, save for a couple of odd instances.  I don't like this song, and I wouldn't under probably under any circumstances. But Fancy?

Notable in the work are the following lyrics:  "Let's get drunk on the mini bar."

That's not fancy.  That's trashy. There is a difference

The Big Picture: Oklahoma City National Memorial.

Oklahoma City National Museum and Memorial.

Casper, WY -- Author Patrick Holscher | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Casper, WY -- Author Patrick Holscher | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

C-Span: Cities Tour. Casper Wyoming

Things I've learned from being an author

As some might know, a while back a book of mine was published.  Just a minor work, but nonetheless.  I'm trying to finish another, but work has been setting me back.

My book.

Having had a book published has taught me a few things, some of which reinforced what I already knew, and other things which I did not.  Here's a few observations.

Writing is hard work.

I write all the time.  I'm nearly compulsive at it.  From time to time people will ask me, for example, how much time I spend writing these blog entries.  Next to none is the answer.  I'm an extremely rapid typist and generally know what I'm going to say before I say it, so it doesn't take much time at all.  Most of these entries are written early in the morning after I've had breakfast and before I go to work, which itself is pretty darned early as a rule.

At work, as I'm a trial lawyer, I write a lot as well.  I have a lot of days where I basically write all day long until I get home from work.  

But, what surprised me, is that writing a book, on your own time, takes piles of discipline.  And it's often the case that after a full day at work, I can hardly sit down in the evening and write a sentence.

I'm an extremely shy person.

People who've known me since I was a kid know this.  I'm an introvert and I'm shy.  And by that I mean I'm genuinely shy.

What people often fail to appreciate about shy people is that almost all of them can, and do, check their shyness at their occupational door and proceed through their tasks unhindered.  That's why there are a lot of people in public roles who are rip snorting shy, but that's generally unknown. There are shy actors, shy musicians, shy public persons.  Actor James Garvin, for example, who recently died was quite shy.

In my case, I meet with a lot of people in an average week and I'm told that I seem really interactive and talkative with my clients.  I don't observe that to be the case myself, but I suspect that's true.  My father was a very shy man but he interacted with people all the time, and I can vividly recall him doing that, which he did on a daily basis.

Where it catches up with you, basically, is on your off time.  That's where the shyness comes back in.  And I've learned that here as I'm not only shy, I'm pretty modest.

A modest person shouldn't really claim to be modest, but if its a genuine attribute, you might be modest and be aware of it.   I have a relatively good idea of what I've done and accomplished, but I don't really say a whole lot about it, that's the combination of shyness and modesty.  Years ago, for example, I was in the start of a trial and an opposing lawyer, who had studied up on me, asked me if I was part of a group that had tried a certain number of cases.  I'm not.  "How many cases have you tried?" was her then question.  "I don't know" was the answer.  I really don't.  I could figure it out, and have from time to time, and its a large number.  But I don't keep a running tab, to paint on the side of my fuselage like I'm a P-51 Mustang pilot in World War Two or something.  That lawyer was amazed.  She later noted "You try everything".  I don't, but I have tried a lot of cases to juries and interact with them pretty well, but don't talk that up.  The point being, that you can know what you've done without talking it up much.

But I didn't think that most folks I know would realize I'd written a book, but they figured it out pretty quickly.  And so I'm asked a lot about it, and it always embarrasses me. Some tease me in a good natured way.  I have a hard time talking to anyone about it.

I have also found that I have a very hard time being in a public setting regarding my work.  That's odd, but true.  As an author you have to do that, which I didn't really realize, and its an odd experience for me.  It's one thing to be in a courtroom on another's cause, it's another thing to be signing your own works or talking about them.

Today In Wyoming's History: On C-Span Today

Today In Wyoming's History: On C-Span Today: I'll be on C-Span today, at 10:00 MST (along with a lot of other people), in their Casper Weekend.  Not that this is significant in anyway.  Just noting it.

This is in the context of local history, and I'm only one of several people. 

A second look at one of this season's bad political ideas. "Taking back" the Federal land

Recently I posted here an item noting Tom Lubnau's op ed in the Tribune on the bad idea of "taking back" the Federal lands.  Let's take a little closer look at it, as it reveals how little this is actually thought out.

 Mixed private and public land in Natrona County, Wyoming.

Now, this idea is currently popular with that section of the GOP that's in the "tea party" end of things locally, but that doesn't make it unique to them. A couple of decades ago it was circulated in the "Sagebrush Rebellion", so it's a species of perennial bad idea, now matter what a person's political stripes may be.

Okay, let's start with the basic premise.

!.  We're going to "take them back".

Well, you can't take back, what you didn't own.  That'd be something like theft, and the state never owned the lands.

This part of this debate, to the extent that there is one, is one of those odd deals that gets tied up in myth.  A lot of people in the "take back" end of this have a zealous belief that there was a duty on the part of the Federal government to give the land to a new state. There never was such a duty, the fact of the matter is that the Federal government never gave any new states all of the land within a state upon becoming a state.  The Federal government always "reserved" some  of the land for itself, depending upon what it through it needed for its own purposes.  The reason that most of the land was conveyed to the states prior to the Civil War was that most Americans were farmers and it was a good way for the states to encourage farming.  During the Civil War the Federal government, however, entered that scene itself, as in the arid Western regions the inducement of cheap land was no longer significant enough to draw homesteaders in, hence the "Homestead Act", which provided direct inducements to emigration.

If you really want to look at the legal theory of it, as opposed to the mythical version that some letter writer in the Tribune has today, this is it.

The Federal Government adopted the Crown's view that all land in North American belonged to the native inhabitants under what was called "Aboriginal Title".  Tribes were, and still are, regarded as sovereigns. As they were a sovereign of superior nature to a state, whose sovereignty devolved from the greater sovereigns, only the greater sovereign, the United States, could legally deal with an Indian Tribe.  And therefore only Congress cold extinguish ore acquire Aboriginal Title, by Congressional fiat, war, treaty or purchase. The U.S. Supreme Court, in fact, struck down the State of Georgia's attempt to acquire Indian lands by treaty directly.  Only true sovereigns may deal with one another.

Therefore, once that was done, the United States acquired title to the land.  Not the states. Anything a state acquired was a grant from the soverign, and the sovereign had no duty to convey land to any state.

So, sorry "take backers", the Federal government has absolutely no legal duty to give Wyoming any lands, and an acquisition of Federal lands wouldn't be taking it back, it be acquiring something new entirely.

2.  So purchase then?

In fairness, nobody proposes this, but it's really remarkable and revealing that we don't.

So what the proposal is, is that we buy them, right?  After all, the same segments of the political demographic demanding that we "take them back" claims to be in favor of a "free market economy" (it isn't, but it claims that).

So, what we'd do is buy 47% of the State at the fair market value?  Um. . . well . . . no. We wan the Federal government to give the land to us.

Give?  What?  What are we, a bunch of freeloaders?

Well, in fact, yes we would be.  Wyoming already takes in more in Federal tax dollars than it pays out. And this would be the biggest freeloading proposal of them all.  Wyoming, with its handout, would be demanding a gift.  Pretty unseemly.

Moreover, if a person is really true to their freemarket convictions, why wouldn't they just propose, as horrible of idea as it is, that the public domain just be sold tot he highest bidder?  Wyoming could bid, then, on the lands it wanted, right?

Well, of course, it couldn't afford to buy anything, and the 47% of the land now owned by the Federal government would pass out of public hands into remote hands for the most part, a true disaster for the state.  But at least it would be an intellectually honest disaster.

3.  Our right?

Now, wait a minute, you may be thinking, we're just asking for what the Federal government gave the other states, darn it.  It's our right.  I've heard at least a couple of shades of this line of thought.

Well, not so fast.  It isn't true that the other states all got their Federal lands.  Nevada didn't. Arizona didn't.  Montana didn't. Colorado didn't. Alaska didn't.  Idaho didn't. New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, and so on. . well you get the point. The western states, save for those that came in early like California, did not.

Even the Eastern states really didn't.  There are a lot of "Federal Reservations" in the east, where the government kept what it thought it needed.  The only real exceptions to this story are Texas and Hawaii, which were sovereign nations that asked, in their sovereignty, to become states. But there's a lesson here (we'll look at below) of bitter unhappiness that should forewarn of not wanting to go this route anyhow.

4.  The Feds just got greedy, right?

Well, that's just because the Feds were a punch of party poopers after the Civil War, right?

This has been addressed a bit above, but no, it's because the Federal domain was open to every citizen for homesteading, and the the states were just peachy with that.  This had come about as the old system, with states selling off the public land, wasn't working for the arid West.

Beyond that, by the 1860s it was clear that the onset of the industrial revolution meant that the country needed to do something to encourage mining on the vast public tracts that were not attracting development, and that resulted in the Mining Law of 1872, which give the mineral industry, one of Wyoming's most favored industries in terms of public sympathy, the right to enter in and occupy lands in a manner that was superior to any other claim.  As I don't want this to turn into a treatise on the public lands, I'll stop there, but this is what established the system we basically have today.  And this was a system the state were perfectly fine with, and in Wyoming's case a private war was actually fought in the 1890s in an effort to preserve it.

Beyond that, in Wyoming's case, it's because we had such a small population we had to bribe the Federal government for statehood. We doubleed our voters by granting women the right to vote, and then we promised the Federal government we wouldn't ask for anything, small poulation state that we were. We even put it in our state constitution.

Oops.

5.  Our own self interest

Well, 1890 was a long time ago, and this would be in the best interest of the state today, right?  Let's ingore the history and grab what we can, and we'll all be better off.

Not hardly.

First of all, something Wyomingites fail to appreciate is that the Federal government actually manages the land much more lightly than the State.  A Wyomingite can pretty much go where he wants and do what he wants on the public lands, in spite of the oil wells, cattle and sheep.

Not so on State land. State land is specific for its leased use, and you really have fewer rights on the State land.  People simply ignore that, as they're unaware of that.  If the state acquired the land, the state would either have to take up ignoring that, or would make people mighty unhappy.

Assuming the state kept the land, which is a doubtful presumption.  The State of Wyoming already has a history of disposing of the land it has, often for values which seem doubtful at least from the outside.  With more land to dispose of, there's no reason to believe that market pressures, and the cost of now having to manage the land itself, wouldn't cause it to sell a lot of it off, maybe darned near all of it off.

And the primary beneficiaries of that would be out of state wealthy interests.  Some imagine a mythical world of renewed small homesteading. Well, that's not going to happen.  Millionaires from St. Louis would be more likely to acquire the land than the existent tenants or average Wyomingites.

And some imagine that if the Federal government could be cajoled, coaxed or sued into giving us the lands, it would be a boon to those sectors of the mineral industry that aren't doing as well as they once were, like the coal industry. Well, guess again. Inside the industry the Federal government isn't regarded as a particularly harsh landlord and frankly its easier to get along with than private landowners generally are.  Indeed, if the State sold the land industry would likely have to compete, in some instances, with environmental groups that would claim an equal right to bid on the land, something they've done before with oil and gas leases, if they could.

The net result, moreover, would be to make us a Western state like Texas, or Hawaii, where the native inhabitants look out on a state that they live in, but largely cannot access.  Texans might like to point towards their Western cowboy heritage, but there aren't many of them living it.  How could they? They have no right to go on the soil of most of Texas, most of which is privately held.  In Hawaii feelings are so bitter in some sectors that there's a nativist independence movement which would take the state and its lands back for the original inhabitants.

We should be thankful that the Federal domain is Federal.

Friday Farming: Farm cat

Mid Week At Work: Leaving Montana (from North Dakota) to pick hops in Oregon.

On Robin Williams

Richard Cory

By Edwin Arlington Robinson 

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him:

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;

But still he fluttered pulses when he said,

"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—

And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine, we thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head

The news today is full of stories and attributes on Robin Williams, who killed himself yesterday.  Apparently he was battling depression and had a history of addictions, which probably were part and parcel of each other.

The last time a celebrity was noted here upon that person's death, which is probably the only time a celebrity has been noted here due to death, was when Richard Seymour Hoffman died due to a drug overdose, and my entry at that time wasn't really sympathetic.  I tend not to credit too much the stories of pressure and angst associated with the performing arts, as I don't think they compare to those born by the unknown and average, who often have tremendous burdens.  In other words, I don't worry too much about the fame and its burdens that the famous have, as I don't think it's quite the same as being a blue collar worker in Detroit worrying about his job and his family.

But I do feel different about Williams, who seemed a fragile character in some ways, and a real one in other ways.

I wasn't an early fan of Williams, but I did start liking his work about the time he appeared in Good Morning Vietnam, and his performance in Good Will Hunting, ironically as a psychologist, was brilliant.  Perhaps that role, more than any other, showed his vulnerability and tapped into a completely non comedic serious role.  Unfortunately Williams could portray the deeply insightful but troubled psychologist in that movie, but apparently take no  comfort from it.

I don't know what it was that was so deeply troubling to Williams, and frankly for those very seriously disturbed, nobody really can.  But I note what was noted so long ago by the poem Richard Corey, set out above.  I don't want to be seen to be excusing his suicide, but it can be the case that a person who seemingly has everything, does not feel that way himself. And for those oppressed with the often heavy, but ordinary burdens of everyday life, things are often much better than they might appear.

Economic Ignorance and the American electorate

This is election season, and as a result, of course we see a wide set of topics discussed in the public sphere, with quite a few of those discussed badly.  Amongst these are economic topics.

Economics has been famously called the "dismal science" and not without good reason.  For one thing, economist themselves, including academics, have a real knack for doing to economics what some academic historians amazingly managed to do to history, which is to make it boring.  Economics differs from history, however, in that to some degree microeconomics is in fact boring to most people.

Macroeconomics isn't however, and people discuss it all the time without having any idea they're doing that.  Indeed, not only do they have no idea that they're doing that, but to an increasing degree even when people cite to economic terms they are utterly ignorant of the topic they're actually addressing.

That's downright dangerous, frankly.  People are always taking about income disparity, jobs, wages, prices and the like, and this sort of thing effects people daily.  All of that is an economic topic.

Additionally, in recent years, particularly since Barack Obama was elected, people have started to throw around common economic terms in a political context, often while not really grasping at all what they mean.  It taints the debate and really confuses it.

For example, it's been very common in some quarters to accuse President Obama of being a "Socialist".  He isn't, and he's not even ballpark close to being a Socialist.  On the other side of the coin, a lot of people are quick to brand themselves "Free Market Capitalist". They mostly aren't either, at least in a meaningful thoughtful sense.  From the outside, say Europe, where there are real Socialist, and even Communist and Autarkist, the use of the term "Free Market Economist" and "Socialist" in American political debates must seem bizarre in the extreme, as the average European would be completely unable to distinguish the difference between what the average Democrat and average Republican espouse, as they're really basically different versions of the same thing.

And what that thing is, is actually Corporate Capitalism, not Free Market Capitalism.  I'm not saying that this is good or bad, but I am saying that when people talk about the "glory of the American free market system", they don't really know what they are talking about.

What the US has, in economic terms, and what is generally the post 1990 case for most of the western world, is some version of the Corporate Capitalism, or what we'll just call Corporatism here for short.  I've dealt with this here before, but because I'm seeing the debate so skewed in recent weeks, it's worth dealing with again.

In a truly free market system, individuals, without the sponsorship or aid of the state, or its hindrance, compete with one another in the open market place. Think Adam Smith, basically. This is the system most Americans solidly believe they have, but we actually have a system that's nowhere near that. 

In Corporatism, the state takes a direct role in the economy by allowing the incorporation of what are actually partnerships.  Partnerships are, of course, when one or more person combine in a business.  Corporations are really the same thing. What makes corporations different, however, is that the state shields the individual members of the de facto partnership from liability and otherwise allows the corporate entity to act as if is a person.  Indeed, as lawyers know, a corporation is, and has always been, a person in the eyes of the  law. 

That legal fiction creates a huge economic advantage to corporation. And that's not the only one. A shareholder in Walmart, for example, bears no personal liability should Walmart commit a tort.  If Walmrat were a partnership in the classic sense, that wouldn't be true.  And if that were not true, the advantage of holding an interest in a remote company like Walmart, or Ford, or General Electric, would be enormously reduced, to say the least.

The fact that this system, i.e., corporations, exists, creates numerous advantages to corporations in a quasi free market economy, with one of those being that such economies tremendously favor economy of scale.  That is, such economies will necessarily favor the big over the small. Walmart over, for example, "Bob's Appliance Store".

Now, a person can argue this one way or another. Economist tend to argue that this is really a good thing, as the big entities create cheap goods, and that's good for the "consumer".  Critics, and they tend to be much less heard, would argue that those consumers are people, and those people now have a greatly reduced ability to compete in the local market, which is also true.  Honest proponents of Corporatism, and here they tend to be somewhat few, acknowledge that, but argue that's still a good thing as those people are now forced into sectors of the economy where their talents now serve a greater good for everyone, and its undoubtedly the case that the whole world is getting richer as a result.  Critics of that few will argue that those people only live so long, and it's not much of a consolation to Bob that he has to leave his appliance store in Laramie Wyoming to work at Amalgamated Amalgamated, Inc, in Denver.  

Still, as many honest critics of Corporatism as there are, there are more confused adherents to it who will proclaim themselves to be "strong advocates of the free market", but aren't.  People will argue on one hand they're in support of the system but on the other they complaint about its effects and advocate that the government do this or that, or simply blind their eyes and complaint about injustice when, if the result they complaint of is not just, it may be a byproduct of the system they advocate.

Part of the oddity of all of this is that it seems to be simply assumed that the only other economic system on earth is Socialism, which many Americans equate with Communism for some reason.  It's perfectly possible to be a democratic Socialist. Socialism is a system, as we explored earlier, which advocates that the government own the means of production.  So, instead of Amalgamated Amalgamated owning the Consolidated Amalgamated Works, the government does.   The government is then supposed to run CAW for the benefit of all, and be fair to the workers.

The problem with that idea is that it doesn't work for a plethora of reasons.  And the fact that it doesn't work is the reason why Socialism is dead as a doornail, remaining only in a very few localities.  When people accuse some American politician of being a Socialist, they don't have this system in mind at all.

Rather, what they have in mind is any action in which the government plays in the economy directly, or even obliquely.  That's not usually actually Socialism, however, but some sort of statism.  As the U.S. has had a managed economy to some extent ever since the 1930s, that isn't really a new development however, and both political parties have participated in that since that time.  

Additionally, where there are direct government roles in the economy, people actually tend to support it without realizing what it is. Again, I'm not arguing for or against this, but a person should be honest about it.  Most people like the government paving the roads.  Most people like the government running the airports.  These are species of Socialism.  There's no existential reason we need the FAA, for example, but most of us would not deregulate the skies, fire the air traffic controllers, and hope for the best.

Indeed, while people whine about it, the dirty little secret of Socialism is that there are limited areas in a Corporatist or Capitalist economy where a little bit of it always exists, and perhaps even more should exist.  North Dakota Mill, for example, is a North Dakota owed flour  mill that assures that North Dakota wheat continues to get processed in lean times.  Is this an economic evil?  Well, its been operating since 1922 and they seem to like it, probably for good reasons.  South Dakota Cement is a state owned cement plant. Is that because there are red hordes in Rapid City?  No, it just exists for the same reason that North Dakota Mills does.  Wyoming, which always claims that it wants to boost economic development outside of the oil and gas industry might take a page from that book and consider a state wool mill, really, to help boost the sheep industry.  If it makes a profit, why not?

And Wyoming has taken a page from that book in terms of Workers Compensation.  Workers Compensation in Wyoming is a state controlled and captive insurance system.  It was modeled on the German system that existed pre World War One, and is 100% government operated and controlled.  It is a Socialist system.  Is that because the Reds are in the State Capitol singing The Internationale?  No, it just recognized a need very early on, and has been operating for nearly a century now effectively.  There's no suggestion that we privatize it, even though most other states have a mixed state owned and controlled, private carrier, system.

Which suggest that in reality, people might actually go for practicality over economic theory, which brings me back to economic theory.  Everyone seems ignorant of the fact that there's other economic systems, and one significant modern system that just doesn't get looked at all, that being Distributism.

Distributism is an economic theory that advocates for "Subsidiarity", which is a confusing word based upon Catholic social teaching.  Basically, it means go small. Subsidiarity advocates the opposite of Socialism, in that it advocates that to the maximum extent possible, economic means should be vested at the lowest possible level, that being the family or the individual.

Wait just a freaking moment, you may be saying. That's what the Capitalist advocate!  Why just the other day I heard Politician Moe declare he was for motherhood, apple pie, the family farm, and the small businessman daggnabit!  Are you saying Moe isn't advocating that?

He probably isn't.  Moe probably says he's for all those things, and may believe that he is, but he probably also feels that it's consistent with his views is Amalgamated Consolidated Giant Big Box Inc. puts the bullet in Larry's Hardware, as that's just he way it is (and he's probably also okay with the FAA and State Highway Department too).  That's okay, but it means that he doesn't really grasp what he's saying.

The reason for that would be that if you were really a true Capitalist, you'd have to be a Distributist, not a Corporatist. The reason for that is simple, it's actually Distributism that advocates a free market, made up of competing people where possible, and competing companies where necessary, not Corporatism.

We don't have a Distributist economy in the US, we have a  Corporatist economy, and that isn't a truly free market economy.  If we had a true free market economy, it'd have to be Distributist.  In that economy, for example, Walmart wouldn't be state sponsored, and therefore it would be a partnership.  It'd probably be a small regional partnership.  You'd have to buy your stuff from a collection of local family owned stores that competed with each other.  Like it or not, and efficient or not, that's a free market economy, not the one we have.

Okay, what' the point of all of this? Well the point is several fold.

1. This is the election season, and a bunch of people are running around throwing words like "Socialist" and "Free Market" around, and its almost 100% inaccurate.  There are something less than 0% of politicians locally in most localities who are Socialist, and Socialist are so rare, that if they are Socialist, they'll actually claim to be Socialist.  And almost 100% of the people who claim to be "Capitalist" or in favor of the "Free Market' actually aren't. They're in favor of the post Reagan,. lightly managed, Corporatist economy.  

2.  Economic systems are economic systems, and when a person begins to get to be such an adherent to one that it passes from a philosophical belief into a quasi religious belief, a person ought to at least pause and ponder the nature of them.

3.  When a person mixes the words "Our Founding Fathers" and "Free Market", they're espousing a world view, not a historical view.  The founders had grown up in a mercantile system and were living in a system that is much, much, much, much closer to Distributism than what we have today.

4.  There are systems other that the Corporatist and Socialist ones, and perhaps that should be considered.  When people claim they're for "small business", the "family farm" and "entrepreneurs" they're suggesting a system that's more akin to Distributism than it is to Corporatism. If they mean that, they should ponder Distributist policies.  If they don't like Distributist philosophy, they ought to quit pretending that they do.

5.  Systems can be mixed, and that's not evil.  Everyone likes a little dose of Socialism, whether they'll admit it or not (if you don't, next time you are at the airport demand that the tower be privatized, and write your state about the horror of the socialist department of transportation).  We aren't mixing in any Distributism right now, but our rhetoric suggests that we'd like to.  Indeed, if we don't want to mix in a little Distributism, that would mean that we're 100% okay with state support of the economy, as that's what corporate laws provide for, and ought to admit it.

6.  Most people, or at least most politicians, are somewhat okay with "distribution of wealth", whether they'll admit it or not.  Any time there's a government body, the department of transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Fire Department, or whatever, occupying a role that could be contracted for instead, some wealth is being redistributed. And our corporate system is a massive redistribution of wealth from the small to the large.  It seems that most politicians are okay with that, but if they are, they ought to admit it.  If people actually aren't okay with it, they should ponder that, as most of these systems aren't written into stone are capable of being changed. Sometimes the change doesn't actually require all that much.

The Not So Great Gatsby

Okay, I'll admit that I haven't read the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, and have only seen the two movie variants of it, but having seen them both more than once, I don't get it.

This story is lame in the extreme.

Why do people like it.

It may be just me, but I strongly suspect that there's a class of literature that is preserved mostly because it was regarded as super interesting, or super avant garde, or something, at the time it was written, and otherwise has very little merit.  I'd put James Joyce in that category, frankly.  His work is still read as somebody way back in blushed when they read it, and that made his reputation.  Now he's foisted off on university students and the volumes keep selling for that reason.

Same thing with most Hemingway.  Oh, some of his works are good, but are badly written and boring.  Yes, I said that. Badly written and boring.  Using a complete economy of words is a writing attribute a lot of children have and doesn't make you a great writer.

J. D. Salinger is not that great either.  I'm pretty convinced his works live on simply because university literature professors convince thier charges that the work is good, because somebody told them that, so in turn those graduates enter high school English departments and foist Salinger off on young minds, who know better.

And so it is with The Great Gatsby.

This story is just stupid.  Suspension of reality aside, are we really to believe that Gatsby rises from a poor discharged officer to a super fantastically uber super duper humongously fantastically wealthy person in a few years simply through his own titanic (and illegal) activities just to impress Daisy Buchanan.  Oh come on.

And why would anyone with a brain be interested in Daisy Buchanan, at least as she's portrayed on film.  She's boring beyond belief. She's as dull as a toast sandwich made up of two slices of toast, with a piece of toast in between. Dull.

Perhaps, of course, she's not quite such a paler shade of dull in print.

The golfing lady is more interesting however.

And is a person whose grasp on morality is so poor that he helps set up his married cousin in a tryst with a man involved in criminal activity really that interesting as a protagonist?

I don't care what literature profs say about this one, this story is lame.

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Wyoming Super Moon

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Wyoming Super Moon

Credit where credit is due, good op eds from the Star Tribune

I've criticized the Casper Star Tribune here more than once, but I have to give it credit where its due (risky though that is, I'll probably be upset with its coverage in no time). Specifically, I'll applaud two op ed pieces that appeared in it over the weekend.

The first one is by former Wyoming Speaker of the House, Tom Lubnau.  Now, I'll confess I know Mr. Lubnau slightly, and have always found him a reasonable and intelligent man.  He had the great misfortune recently to be Speaker when the entire Cindy Hill drama played out, and no doubt that entire episode has fixed him in the minds of some of the state's voters, for good or ill.

Lubnau wrote on the one of the perennial bad ideas that surfaces in Wyoming and the West occasionally, which is the concept of "giving back" or "turning over" the Federal domain to the states.  It's come up recently in the context of at least one legislative and one gubernatorial candidate who are backing that concept. Frankly, I don't know if the gubernatorial candidate is serious, I suspect not, but the legislative candidate seems to be.  The interesting thing about this is that this comes in the context of races in the Republican primary, so it pits Republican against Republican.

Lubnau has done an excellent job in his article of pointing out that the concept that there's some historic claim by the state to the Federal domain is completely off base.  Indeed, he could go a lot further than he did.  He did reference the Homestead Acts, but he didn't detail how that act, administered by the Federal government, was a key part of the State's early history long after statehood, and none of Wyoming's early residents had any concept whatsoever that the Federal domain should be granted to the States.  He also didn't go into the fact that there was never, in any state, ever a concept that the Federal government had to grant the land to the states, and the government always kept land it was using (Federal Reservations).  Land was granted to the states to encourage their development in much the same fashion that the Federal government encouraged the development of the Western states through the Homestead Acts.

Beyond that, however, Lubnau did not go into the fact that the Federal domain is in large part what makes Wyoming what it is, and turning the land over to the State would inevitably, over time, lead to its transfer into private hands, probably at reduced rates, ultimately making this state another version of Texas. Everyone would loose out in the end, particularly the citizens of the state who like the outdoors and the remaining local ranchers who would ultimately see prices dictate the transfer or ranchlands to the rich.

The reason, I'd note, that some back this idea is the completely erroneous idea that the Federal government is keeping the lands from being used.  This is simply untrue.  One candidate, for example, declared that if the Federal lands became state lands, coal production would rise.  Oh no it wouldn't.  Coal consumption is controlled by external factors well outside of this state, and industry insiders who I've had the pleasure of talking to from time to time were predicting a dramatic, even industry ending, decline in coal usage as long ago as 15 years back.  Like it or not, it makes a lot more of a difference what power generators in California are using, or what port authorities in Bellingham Washington think, than who owns mineral lands in Wyoming.

Indeed, for those enthusiastic about mineral production being owned exclusively by the State, I"ve heard more than one farmer and rancher who would have allowed none whatsoever, as they rarely actually benefit from it unless they own.  So, once again, the State owning mineral production isn't going to be seen as a fantastic thing by everyone, in spite of what people may think. The production companies themselves will either yawn at the news, or regret it as they're already dealing with the Federal government in large scale already, and regular residents of the state would definitely regret it. Besides, the 350,000,000 Americans who don't live in Wyoming aren't going to agree to it.

Which brings me to another perennial bad idea that comes up every year during elections, but not addressed by the op eds.  The "taking on the Federal government" on this or that. Sure, sometimes we do need to do that as a state, but there's a foolish idea out there that suing the Federal government achieves much. Very rarely is this the case.  This is so apparent that I've sometimes wonder if one of our prior governors sued the Federal government for purely cynical reasons, as the success rate was so low. Sort of like a  Chihuahua that barks to convince the homeowners that it's protecting the front lawn.  Not much of a real effect, really.

The other op ed that I did read and enjoyed was Susan Stubson's article in the Trib.  I have to admit that I don't dislike Ms. Stubson's articles, but I usually don't enjoy them either.  I usually start them to see if I think they're worth reading and then go on to something else, which doesn't say anything about her writing so much as it says something about me, I suppose.

Anyhow, Stubson wrote on "Citizen malpractice", the use of that term probably reflecting  the fact that Stubson is a lawyer (and married to a lawyer)..  Her article was courageous, starting off early in the article with this:

Earlier this spring, I had a discussion with a teacher friend who told me that she and most of her friends opposed the $33 million school construction bond because it was generally a “waste” of their tax dollars. As a reminder, the failed bond would have paid for, among other things, academy equipment, safety improvements, and the construction of a new science and technology center. It was clear to me that this lady and her friends had zero command of the facts, nor did they evince any understanding of the impact of their yes/no vote. It was striking given that this comment came from the people that had the most to gain or lose by the outcome.

Stubson went on to criticize voters who voted in ignorance.  Good for her.

And there's a lot of that seemingly going on.  Right now around here I am routinely hearing a lot of people voice definite opinions about matters, when its clear that they've never thought them out.  It's not that I feel that these people should agree with me on everything (and sometimes I do agree with them, they just haven't thought things out).  Rather I'm amazed by the voters, and candidates, who express certain opinions when in some instances their own lives are directly contrary to the positions they're stating.  I've met, for example, died in the wool haters of government and taxes who are actually employed by the government and would lose their jobs if their own views were enacted. Do they know that?  If so, why don't they quit those jobs?  I've met people who love to do something that's totally tax supported, while hating the taxes that support them? Are they aware of that?  

In noting this, I'm not trying to tell people how to vote on anything, but much more than recent years people really seem fired up and are gravitating towards the margins in the election, without always really thinking things out. Ideas and concepts that are imported from other states, and have little application to our own, have also crept in, perhaps with the influx of workers from those states. That's fine and that's their right, but we've always been a unique state and perhaps its time to sit back and really consider that.  Ideas, concepts and strategies that apply elsewhere often have no application here, and what does work here works here, but might not work anywhere else.  It's good to be informed.

The Big Picture: Pendleton Round Up, 1911

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Riding Halls & Other Horse Related Buildings

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Riding Halls & Other Horse Related Buildings

WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: Wyoming Sheep Wagons

WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: Wyoming Sheep Wagons: This year marks the 130 th Anniversary of the construction of the first sheep wagon built by James Candlish.  Many have attributed the inv...

Front tire chains?

The November photo for this year's Wyoming History Calendar depicts a fire truck, circa 1910, that belonged to the town of Rawlins.  Its a winter photo, and the all four wheels of the truck are chained.

I can understand why the back tires were chained, by why the front?  For better steering?  It could not have been a four wheel drive.

U.S. Planes Start Airstrike on Iraq Militants - WSJ

U.S. Planes Start Airstrike on Iraq Militants - WSJ

USDA Blog » Smokey Bear, Iconic Symbol of Wildfire Prevention, Still Going Strong at 70

USDA Blog » Smokey Bear, Iconic Symbol of Wildfire Prevention, Still Going Strong at 70

Old Picture of the Day: Cowboy Week

Old Picture of the Day: Cowboy Week: We wrap up Cowboy Week with this picture of a cowboy and his horse. The picture was taken in 1939 near Spur, Texas. I hope you have e...

Friday Farming: When raising sheep was a defense industry.

Old Picture of the Day: Group of Cowboys

Old Picture of the Day: Group of Cowboys: Today's picture shows a group of 17 cowboys. The vests, bandanas, boots and cowboy hats are reminiscent of our classic images of cowb...

Old Picture of the Day: Branding Cattle

Old Picture of the Day: Branding Cattle: I really like this picture from 1905. It shows cowboys out on the range branding cattle. You can see the herd in the background, along...

Lex Anteinternet: Weather reports

I was reminded of this post yesterday while waiting in line at Sonic.  Yes, it's true. Anyhow, the old post:

Lex Anteinternet: Weather reports: Today is the anniversary of the horrible blizzard of 1888 , which holds status as the worst storm to have ever hit the northern plains.  Th...

 The reason I recalled it is that the Sonic has a television in the lobby, or whatever it is, and was running the Weather Channel, which was full of reports about the two hurricanes that will soon hit Hawaii.  For whatever reason, it hit me what events like that must have been like prior to any weather reporting.  What was it like for ships at sea, for example?  Any long serving sailor must have experienced the arrival of storms, announced only by what the crews could read on the horizon.  It must have truly been horrifying.

Mid Week At Work: Lex Anteinternet: The Family Business

Rather than a new post today, I'm just linking in an item I posted yesterday, given as it's topical for this reoccurring item here.



Lex Anteinternet: The Family Business: As long time viewers of this blog know (okay, that's darned few people) this blog serves a lot purposes, while theoretically being fo...

The Family Business

As long time viewers of this blog know (okay, that's darned few people) this blog serves a lot purposes, while theoretically being focused on certain things that I research in a historical context.  That's part of what I'm doing today.

I'm curious how many people who might stop in here occupy the same occupation as one of their parents, or grandparents. That is, how many of you followed a parent into a line of work, or perhaps ended up in that same line of work. And I'll extend that out to grandparents as well.

In posting this I'll note that very few of the people I know, outside of agriculture, have entered the same occupation as their parents. Very few.  The exception to the rule is found in agriculture, where its very common.  But otherwise, it doesn't seem to be.  I know a few lawyers who had a parent who was a lawyer, but most of the lawyers I know who have adult children did not have those children enter their occupation.  I can think, however, of a few.  In medicine, I can think of a few physicians who had a parent who was a physician, but just a few.  I can think of two dentists whose parents were dentist.

Anyhow, if you entered the same field as one of your parents, or grandparents, let us know and tell us a little bit about that.

Old Picture of the Day: Cowboys on the Range

Old Picture of the Day: Cowboys on the Range: This is a great picture showing cowboys out on the range. The picture is from 1905. The cowboys have a herd of mustangs they are tendin...

Old Picture of the Day: Cowboy Camp

Old Picture of the Day: Cowboy Camp: Today's picture shows an authentic Cowboy Camp from the late 1800's. I love the picture of the men having breakfast and coffee...

Old Picture of the Day: Old Cowboy

Old Picture of the Day: Old Cowboy: Welcome to Cowboy Week here at OPOD. It has been some time since we looked at cowboys, so I figured, why not. Also, I went last night ...

The Labor Day Parade

The Big Picture: The Failed Ziegler Expedition to the North Pole, 1905

Watch out for the Bull: Everybody Oughta Own a Jeep Sometime During Their Life

Watch out for the Bull: Everybody Oughta Own a Jeep Sometime During Their Life

Tombstone

Tombstone 

1993

This movie is another cinematic portrayal of the "Gunfight at the OK Corral", but its nearly unique in the degree to which it focused on authenticity.  The makers of this movie so closely studied the clothing of the frontier southwest that when the movie came out it was criticized as inaccurate as it was so accurate.  Simply put, the period clothing in the region was very distinct and that was reflected in the film, to the shock of viewers who weren't used to seeing the distinctive look of the region.

The movie is other was a dramatized, but not bad, telling of a familiar tale.  Much more accurate than most of the films in this genera, it's really the material details that make this movie worth seeing. 

Movies In History: Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan

This film did to war movies what Lonesome Dove did to Westerns, it revolutionized them to such an extent that everything that came after had to meet its standard.

Set during Operation Overlord during World War Two, this film, featuring a fictionalized story based on an American Ranger unit, went to great lengths to get material details  right and mostly did.  Almost every item of equipment in the film is correct, something highly unusual for most war movies filmed before it.  This is so much the case that watching films made prior to it almost invariably bring out a bit of realization of that fact, even where they are really good, simply due to Saving Private Ryan's precision.  Details are so precise that the Rangers are shown, accurately, wearing some items of clothing that were unique to them alone.  The paratroopers are likewise correctly attired, as are regular U.S. infantrymen.

Still, as accurate as the film is, it amazingly isn't quite perfect in these regards.  The movie messes up significantly in material details in the case of the sniper character, who is shown having two scopes, which would not have been the case, and perhaps in that one them appears to be a large Unertl scope, which was an item used by the Marines but not the Army.  Scopes affixed to M1903A5 sniper rifles sued by the U.S. Army were generally Lyman Alaskans, which one of the scopes in the film does appear to be.  That particular scope featured a small diameter barrel and is correspondingly something that looks odd to the modern eye, which may explain the incorporation of a Unertl scope in the film, given their giant size.  Swapping out scopes, however, which is referenced in the film, would not have occurred.

Additionally the film makes a goof typical to films in that the sniper keeps shooting even when the five shot magazine capacity of his rifle is exhausted.

On material details the film also departs from being fully correct, as good of film as it is, in that two weapons in use in the Ranger squad unit are inappropriate for their use.   The senior NCO of the unit carriers an M1 Carbine, but M1 Carbines were not used by enlisted Rangers or infantrymen during World War Two, or at least weren't supposed to be.  That would be an appropriate weapon for the Tom Hanks character, who is a captain, but he carriers a Thompson submachinegun, which is also outside the TO&E.  Having said that, submachineguns did show up in sues that they were not supposed to official have, so that use may not be that unrealistic, which is likewise the case for one that is shown being used by an airborne officer.

Still, this movie is so well done that every war film since it has had to meet its standards or appear to be a failure, and even those filmed prior to it are hard to watch without being aware of how they fail to measure up.  The slight departures noted here are so slight that even mentioning them tends to overemphasize them.

In terms of historical details, the movie scores very high marks.  Operational details are generally correct, and only minor ones (such as a very early criticism of Montgomery before any U.S. officer would have been likely to have done that), show up.

An excellent film. And the one that basically sets the bar for films of this type.

Movies In History: Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

Oh Brother!  Where Art Thou?

This is, simply a great film.

Set in the 1930s, it really successfully captures the feel of the rural American South at this time, and does a super job of capturing the feel of small towns, farms, and Southern politics.  Clothing details are well done as well.  Minor details, such as references to the Tennessee Valley Authority, or a farmer cultivating a field of tobacco with a mule drawn implement, nicely place the film in context.   Even the title is a shout out to the era, recalling the name of a fictional book which a fictional movie director is getting set to film in 1941's Sullivan's Travels.

Movies In History: Lonesome Dove

Lonesome Dove

This television mini series, based on the Larry McMurtry novel, which itself was closely based on actual events of frontier era cattleman, set a new standard for clothing accuracy. And as the novel was itself closely based on actual persons and their history, the details in general are remarkably accurate.  Indeed, this movie is to Westerns what Band of Brothers is to war movies, in that it set the bar so high, that nothing that's come after it has been the same compared to those films which came before it.

Based closely on actual early cattle drives out of Texas going north, this gritty film has almost all, if not all, of the material details right, which almost no film prior to it did.  Indeed, this is so much the case that I've actually heard it criticized by the otherwise knowledgeable on some of what it portrays as it stands in such stark contrast to earlier films.  No cattle drive film compares to it.

Even wise, it's pretty good as well, showing the slow nature and remoteness of early drives.

If a person was to criticize it, what could be looked at is that like all McMurtry works, it's somewhat more focused on the unseemly side of things than it needs to be, which is McMurtry's hallmark in some ways.  Having said that, McMurtray isn't afraid to show various peoples and groups in a pretty unvarnished light, which many portrayals are not willing to do.

And the economic nature of the drive, without which it wouldn't make any sense, is largely omitted, a fault common to many western  movies.

Having said that, this film sets the bar for westerns.

Movies In History: The Godfather, Part II

The Godfather, Part II

This movie gets on the list not for its portrayal of the Mafia, but for its portrayal of urban New York City in the early 20th Century.  Very well done.

I don't really know enough about the Mafia to really comment on how accurate in general this movie, or the first movie, may be in regard to it, but from what I understand, they are fairly close to accurate in their portrayals and the various crime families are in fact closely based on real ones.  The novel, which is a very good one, no doubt is as well.  This movie really excels in its portrayal of early 20th Century New York Italian ghettos, and it does a nice job with Cuba on the end of revolution in the 1950s as well.

Movies In History: True Grit

True Grit (the Coen Brothers version)

I like the John Wayne version of this movie, but I love the Coen brothers version.

This film is dialog-centric, like most Coen Brothers films are, but in this case the dialog serves to really illustrate something view films do. . .how things sounded like, not just how they looked.  In these regards, this film is superb.

The film is also is excellent in its material details, which most Westerns are not. The clothing is correct, as are the firearms.  The sense of space involved in an expedition of this type is excellently done, and comes across much better in this film than in the early John Wayne version.  That the expedition is basically alone in a wilderness is really conveyed.

The film's ending, true to the novel, is also historically correct, as not a lot of time passes in an historical context, but in a human context, as the film notes, "Twenty five years is a long time."  The changes in the west in the brief ending, and those things that had not changed, are subtly brought out.

It's an excellent movie, and a unique one given the emphasis on the dialog, a detail that it shares with the novel upon which it is based.  An excellent film and one of the best Westerns ever made.

The ABA pivotal scenes (from a lawyer's prospective) on this film.

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Horsemen In No Man's Land

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Horsemen In No Man's Land

Movies In History: Valkyrie

Valkyrie

Tom Cruise was criticized for starring and backing this project, which depicts the July 20 Assassination attempt on  Adolph Hitler but the film is excellent.  It includes the most accurate depiction of an fighter strafing run right at the start of the film, which is so well done that it's incredibly scary to watch in a movie theater.

The film gets the tone of the assassination attempt, including its internal divisions, down about as well as a film of this length could.  Suffice it to say, the actual plot was somewhat more complicated, or actually a great deal more complicated, but there's only so much that can be done on film, and even today people debate who all may have been involved in the plot, knew about it, or had a role of some kind. 

In terms of material details, this movie was quite good.  The equipment and the uniforms are all correct for the period shown, with the movie makers having gone to the extent of showing the qualitative differences in various German uniforms and the tailored nature of officers uniform.

A very fine effort, well worth seeing, and historically correct within the confines of the movie's length.

Movies In History: Paper Moon

Paper Moon

This 1973 film came about some decades prior to Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? but it also really has the feel of the Depression right, in this case in the Missouri Kansas border region.  The film surrounds the story of a con artist who arrives in the story just in time for the funeral of a woman with whom, the film strongly suggests, he has, unbeknownst to him, had a child.  The association with the deceased mother, we understand, was illicit in nature, and he never acknowledges at any point in the film that he's the child's father.  He does accept, however, a charge to take the child to an aunt.  From there, a series of adventures ensues.

The gritty nature of the film, filmed entirely in black and white, and the desperation of the protagonist, even though it's a comedy, really come through.  The lack of, or failure of, the social structure also shines through, with it not seeming all that odd, by the end of the film, that a little girl has been essentially been adopted, outside the law, by a man who was in the end a kindhearted stranger, or who may be that.

Filmed in black and white, as noted, even though well within the color film era, the cinematography and the excellent cast give it the right feel.

The protagonists are portrayed by actual father and child Ryan and Tatum O'Neal.  This is Ryan O'Neal's best film, to the extent I've seen his films, and he acts in it quite well.  Tatum O'Neal was brilliant in the film.

In terms of material details, the film is excellent, with the portrayal of Dust Bowl Kansas significantly added to by the use of black and white cinematography.

Movies In History: The Missouri Breaks.

The Missouri Breaks 

This movie is regarded as sort of an "anti Western", which seems to be how most movies that don't fit into the 1950s formula of a Western are regarded. But its a nice treatment of the northern Plains in the late 19th Century.  The Marlon Brando bounty hunter character is really an oddly played character, and I'd exempt that portrayal out of this entry, but the other characters are well played.

Some odd details are actually done correctly in the film which rarely are.  The treatment of a small homestead is correct in appearance and in its small nature, which seems to be rarely done in films. And the clothing is correct, which is somewhat unusual for a film made prior to Lonesome Dove.

Durango

Durango

This film, set just before World War Two, takes place in rural Ireland and involves a cattle drive from one town to another, with the cattle to be sold at a public square in front of the Durango pub, named after the southwest Colorado town.

Based on a novel by the same name (also excellent), the film portrays Ireland right before it really began to change post war, when the Ireland of our classic imaginations still existed.  Well attuned to Irish life, and from an Irish novel, it's very well done and gives us a look at Ireland in history in a way that no other film does to the same extent, although The Quiet Man is in some ways somewhat comparable.  This film is better.

Like The Quiet Man, but only more effectively, this film incorporates a lot of details of Irish rural life into the film in an effective way.   With the novel having been authored by Irish author John B. Keane, it is perhaps not too surprising that this film would do an overall much better, and subtler, job of incorporating such details.

Included in the historical and material details which are worked effectively into the film, the mixed feelings about the United Kingdom and World War Two are portrayed in the film.  As was intended to be done in The Quiet Man, but which was dropped as that fairly long film was dropped, this film includes a subplot involving the Irish Republican Army (which is also in the book), but which is done in a comedic fashion.  The very local nature of the Irish cattle industry is portrayed in the movie very well, as well as the only partially mechanized nature of the country at that time.

It's a Hallmark film, but it portrays the era and the culture very well.

Anatomy of a Murder

Anatomy of a Murder

I'm not a big fan of legal dramas, in part because they tend to be highly inaccurate. But this film, based on a novel written by a judge, is an exception.  Excellently acted, the minute details that show the author had real familiarity with the law really push it over the top for me.  Amongst these details, showing how well the author knew the law, is that the client stiffs the lawyer on his bill in the end.  Only a real lawyer would have included that.

The film portrays the defense of an accused murderer, based on a psychological defense, by a solo practitioner. Excellently acted, with great courtroom scenes that are pretty realistic, and not absurd.

The ABA "pivotol scenes" commentary on this film.

Movies In History: The Culpepper Cattle Company.

The Culpepper Cattle Company 

This Western, which is in someways the antithesis of the classic The Cowboys, is also an "anti-Western" according to reviewers, but probably only because they don't really understand the nature of the late 19th Century West all that well.  Like The Cowboys, it deals with a 19th Century cattle drive, this one starting out in Texas rather than Montana, and it involves a young protagonist.

Filmed in the 1972, this Western has its problems, but in some ways it's really accurate.  It's one of the very few Westerns in which the cattle owner is really concerned about the economic bottom line, making it a very rare Western in which the cattle industry is actually shown as an industry.  The film also gets pretty good marks for getting details of dress partially correct, and for showing the pretty gritty nature of the subjects of the film fairly accurately, if in a somewhat exaggerated fashion.  "The Cowboys" (which I like), or "Red River" (which I also like), it is not.

Some Gave All: Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, Oklahoma...

Some Gave All: Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, Oklahoma...: These photos are of the city block that is now a memorial to those who lost their lives in the tragic and senseless bombing of the Murrah...

12 movies with pivotal lessons featuring lawyers

12 movies with pivotal lessons featuring lawyers

War and Commentary on War

Recently, Israel has sent troops into Gaza.  And Israel has been using heavy weapons as part of that. When heavy weapons are used in urban areas, civilian deaths result.  That's been sparking tons of criticism on Israel, but seemingly missed on that is that the Israeli action was prompted by the Hamas use of heavy weapons, in the form of rockets, on Israeli civilian targets.

I don't post here to be an apologist for Israel.  I've never been that.  But I am amazed by the degree of self righteousness that people in North American and Europe have exhibited over this event.  Frankly,. the Palestinian voters who voted Hamas into office in the Palestinian Authority, and who support it now, might has well have pulled the lanyard on Israeli artillery.

For the simple reason that we do not wish to believe that its true, people in the western world simply refuse to believe that in their heart of hearts, members of Hamas are not liberal democrats.  They are not.  They adhere to a version of the world that is similar, if not identical, to that shared by ISIL, which is now operating to destroy Christianity in Iraq in the name of a Sunni Caliphate.  Hamas, which is backed by Iran, wouldn't argue for a Sunni Caliphate, but it does imagine a Middle East that's a theocracy. That vision doesn't allow for a Jewish state in its midst.  If it could effect its goals, which thankfully it cannot, things would be grim for the Jewish residents of Israel indeed.

If Hamas cannot bring about its goals, it can and does kill, and has been.  And at some point, if you shell a country with an Army, that country is going to react.  And if you hide your own guerrilla bands in a city, that city is going to be a target.

None of this excuses the indiscriminate use of force, nor does it even perhaps justify force.  But it doesn't justify the excusing of a basic set of facts either, those being that to date there has not been a single Arabic nation on earth, save for the problematic example of Lebanon (formed as Christian state carved out from Syria originally) that has demonstrated the ability to function as a secular democracy.  Twice in recent years, the Palestinian Authority being one example, and Egypt being another, chances for democracy have shown a high percentage of the population willing to throw in with theocratic parties that are troubling in nature.  People a re instinctively democratic, and certainly the examples we've seen globally show that the fostering of democracy can take decades to be successful.  There's nothing to suggest that the neighbors of such states will be willing to chalk up violent attacks against them to political infancy and just sit it out.

I frankly don't know what the solution to this problem is here.  Gaza is clearly untenable as a political entity.  It's an isolated city that's hopeless in its isolation.  It can't be part of Israel as that would not work.  Egypt wants nothing to do with it.  Rationality would argue for buying out the residents and urging  them to move elsewhere where things were better, which would be nearly anywhere, but long history has demonstrated that the Arab states are pretty intolerant toward taking in refugee populations.  This is no wonder, given that almost every single Arab nation is ruled in a fashion that's simply a house of cards.  So, for example, it makes more sense for Dubai or Saudi Arabia to bring in huge numbers of Filipinos, from their prospective, than it would to offer and encourage a funded new home for their fellow Arabs, who wouldn't take them up on that offer anyhow.  But rocketing Israel isn't going to get them what they want either, which largely would seem to be Hamas' goal that Israel simply not be.

Additionally, there's more than a little irony, albeit one that apparently isn't very much appreciated, by populations in the western world lecturing Israel, when Israel remains quite aware that it came into existence as the greater European culture participated in a pretty dedicated effort to wipe the Jewish culture in the 1930s and 1940s.  It'd be hard, from the prospective of people who have experienced that well within historical memory, to feel that they shouldn't act to defend themselves, and that others will not act to aid them. Again, I"m not an apologist for Israel, but to a certain degree it's hard not to feel that in recent decades proclivities that had seemingly died in 1945 have creeped back in a tad, and even if they haven't, it'd be hard for Israelis not to wonder if they have.

Finally, I have to wonder why it is that one population of suffering Arabs, whom I fully concede are suffering, and many of whom are completely innocent of anything, receive the attention they deserve, while another, differing mainly in their traditional stability and Faith, are ignored. 

Friday Farming: Ranch, Mesa Arizona 1908

The Big Speech: Trees

1918. Poet Joyce Kilmer, U.S. Army sergeant, killed in France.

TREES

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree .

MId Week At Work: Elevator Operator

At one time nearly every elevator had an operator.  Now elevator operators are rare, and where they exist are sort of a luxury throwback to a once common occupation.  They had operators, as they were not simple to operate at first, and then later required some operation in any event.

One of the great dramatic comedies of the 1960s (really reflecting the post World War Two, mid 60s United States) featured Shirley McClain in the role of an elevator girl, that being The Apartment.