Wednesday, October 29, 2014

1940 Dodge VC1 Reconnaissance | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

1940 Dodge VC1 Reconnaissance | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

National Cat Day



Today is National Cat Day.

Bias and Ignorance In The News Media


 Newspaper boy.

Newspaper reporters don't like it if you accuse them of being biased in reporting.  And, frankly, based on my limited experience with them, it certainly would not be true that they're universally biased, as some believe.  They have a pretty tough task really, which is to get a story out quickly, often on something they are really basically ignorant of, and based on extremely limited research. The better of them correct and adjust as they move along. Others don't bother.  Those inclinations are true of everyone, and I've likewise seen lawyers who go into a case with one set of views and keep it in spite of the evidence as it develops. So, a claim of global bias would not really be true.

 A WPA play, celebrating newspapers in some fashion.

But it is true that on some stories, historically, the news media has taken a position based on its views and stuck with it, issuing its stories accordingly.  The U.S. went through a horrible period of "yellow journalism" in the early 20th Century, which nationally saw its reflection in what amounted to campaigning for the Spanish American War, one of those contests we whipped ourselves into a frenzy about and got into without really thinking it through.  The newsmedia also did that a bit with the second Gulf War. When the conventional war yielded to a second guerrilla was, a lot of the same journals acted as if they'd always been against a war in Iraq in the first place.

Here locally, you can really see competing sides staking out their positions in regards to the Johnson County War, as the patrons of one side or another duked it out in the press.  Papers of that era, once again, often didn't try to make any bones that they were biased.

Even now, however, they can be, sometimes in subtle ways.  Other times, however, reporting is bad due to flat out ignorance, and occasionally in an inexcusable fashion.

I had the occasion recently to be involved in a long lasting legal matter in which I don't think the press was biased, but it never did quite get the story accurately.  Just ignorance at work, but that ignorance really basically played to the opposing side of the controversy.  The first reporter, however, was really a hard worker and worked to improve the reporting each time, and her stories became more and more accurate with each one, and more fair.  We did appreciate that.  When she was replaced with a second reporter, that new reporter seemed to put in minimum effort on things and the accuracy fell.  A third reporter, however, was once again a hard worker.

Still, of interest, one local journal ran the controversy as a big story several times. Another did only a little, and always in a much reduced manner.  Interesting.  Something about the story appealed to one journal, and not the other.

 Newspaper correspondents in the early wire days.

More recently a subtle bias has been in the Tribune in the regards to the story on the Court's recent decision on same gender marriage.  Now, the Tribune was frank on its view, and if I recall correctly it earlier had done an editorial on the topic urging the legislature to change the law to allow it. But of course the legislature did not, and it's probably safe to say that the majority of Wyomingites continue to hold their traditional view, which might be best described as "leave me alone, I'll leave you alone, but don't ask me to approve".  That's the traditional view in this state on quite a few things as the state has a strong libertarian streak.  The Tribune, on the other hand, has been mildly in favor of the law here being changed, although it isn't as if it's been a real cheerleader on the topic or anything.

Anyhow, as I guess I follow how the press follows things, it's been interesting to observe as on this topic the Press clearly has a view.  It shows in the terms they use, which again are to some degree probably just short hand. The term "marriage equality' shows up quite a bit in its recent reporting. And it shows in how they've continued to focus on the decision after it, having run two front page articles on the same gender couples that were the plaintiffs in the Federal suit.  It's interesting in that the general context of the articles has to do with Wyoming "achieving" "equality".  This really omits quite a bit of analysis, however, either intentionally or simply by omission.

Chief amongst the omission is the way that the story essentially has "Wyoming" doing something, when in fact the state hasn't.  The law remains the same, but rather the Court has ruled that where the law provides that a marriage is a civil contract between a man or a woman, it cannot be read that way any longer.  The omission here is most evident in those instances in which the press has declared Wyoming's "ban" on same gender marriages has been lifted.  In actuality, the state never had a ban on anything.  It simply defined a marriage as being male and female in nature, as was the universal understanding up until quite recently.

That's quite a press omission, really, as it isn't as the state has said "you shall not" so much as the Federal court has said "you will not longer apply the law as written".  I'm not arguing the case here, I'm just noting that the press's reporting here is actually off the mark.

And because this was a court decision, at a time in which a lot of lawyers still expect this to go to the U.S. Supreme Court (the Federal District of Peurto Rico just handed down a decision going the opposite way and really castigating other Federal courts for judicial legislation), the degree to which the current decision is really the final one is highly questionable. So the reporting here is a bit anemic universally. All the current Federal decisions may really serve to do is to tee the issue up for the U.S. Supreme Court and utterly nobody has any clue how that Court would rule.  Given the text of the Puerto Rico decision, the Supreme Court might actually have a very difficult time not overruling the existing Circuit Court decisions as if it did not do that, or massively and creatively limit their holding, they'll do a lot of damage in other areas.

The press has also pretty much ignored the implications for those who this puts into a moral box here, and those people do have legitimate concerns.  Last week the government of the City of Houston went after some ministers who had opposed changing the law there, and there's been examples in Canada and the U.S. having to resign their positions, and business people in California, where the law is considerably different than our own, getting into legal trouble.  The Tribune hasn't, so far, interviewed anyone who feels that the change in the reading of the law presents a societal or moral crisis, or that it isn't the basic equivalent of the progress of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Indeed, one thing that the Press has missed everywhere is that the history of court decision of this type long term is pretty much the opposite of what they tend to believe, with the big exception being the string of Civil Rights cases that came though during the 1950s to 1970s.  Those decisions were accepted by the country over time as a whole, but otherwise the record is considerably different.  The decisions do not tend to be final and the segment of the population that feels it lost feels that it was cheated at the ballot box. And the Courts generally tend to be surprisingly willing to reverse themselves decades later.

Court battles over Roe v. Wade are a good example, as the side that lost never accepted the loss, and over a long period of time it has been largely successful in reversing the court of public opinion.  The decision itself is now generally regarded as legally anemic by those who are willing to discuss it honestly, and there's general expectation that it will either be reversed or modified at some point in the future.  Court battles over gun control are the same way, with the losing side in the Holder decision generally acting as if the Court did not rule at all and refusing to accept it. So such views are common on the right and the left.  For that reason, those who are presently celebrating in various states are really celebrating based on a false premise, that being that everyone accepts a court ruling, and that the Supreme Court will not overrule the decisions, now or in the future.

None of which is to say that a newspaper wouldn't interview the plaintiffs and run stories on them. Any good paper would.  Its rather simply an observation on how the reporting takes a certain view, omits other views, and makes quite a set of assumptions that probably aren't supported by history or analysis.  And the approach tells a lot.  The Tribune ran two stories after the local Federal Court's decision portraying the plaintiffs in that action in a heroic light.  The Journal, on the other hand, featured one pro couple and one that was against redefining the definition on marriage, without really commenting on the issue one way or another itself.  A much different approach.

 Newspaper correspondents in the 1940s scrambling for Federal crop reports.

Sometimes, however, news reporting isn't only biased, its darned near dumb.  Here's a recent example:
Well, this is something.
Not deterred by a Catholic synod's recent watering down of his views on the gay community and divorce, Pope Francis on Monday continued to please those who most appreciate his frequent breaks from traditional Catholic teachings, telling the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that he agrees with, well...science.
 No, that isn't something. That's not even news.

The Big Bang theory was developed by a Jesuit Priest, Monseigneur Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître.  A competent reporter ought to know that not only is this not news, not surprising, its just a total non event.  The Catholics have always been on board with the Big Bang theory. They came up with it.  D'uh.  But at least one of the major networks made the same amazingly stupid comment on the nightly news.Indeed, just a little research (even hitting this august site) would have revealed the following:

Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître

Lemaître was a physicists who was the first person to propose an expansion of the universe, the first to propose the "Big Bang" and he was also the first person to what is now known as Hubble's Law. The brilliant physicists was also a Belgian Catholic priest.

Category:  Catholic Priest.  Physicist. Scientist.  Mathematician. 

For that matter, Catholics have always been on board with evolution too, and some have credited Catholic scientist who preceded Darwin as prior proponents of a version of the theory or laying the ground work for it, with Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck and Georges Mendel being noted as being in this category.  A competent reporter might not be expected to know that, but a minimum amount of research would have at least revealed that evolution and Catholicism are not antithetical.  That reporters aren't picking that shows that they deserve the dope slap.

It also reveals bias in the reporting, however.  This bias is of the type once noted by G. K. Chesterton, the famous English writer, who was a Catholic, when he was asked about evolution while on a tour of the United States, and he replied, in a cutting witty way, that the questioner has apparently confused him for an American Protestant rather than the European Catholic he was.  I do not say this to in anyway discredit American Protestants (or anyone else) but to note what was apparent to Chesterton, comments of that type assume that all Christian religions have the same view on these topics, when in fact Catholics don't hold as doctrine any "young earth" theory or strict creationism theory. That people do is fine, but making comments of this type is a little like Jimmy Carter's famous comment about the Israelis and Palestinians that their problems would go away if "they just acted like good Christians".  I.e, that isn't what they are.  He undoubtedly did know that.  Here, the press really is truly inexcusably ignorant.

News reporting on firearms topics also tends to be the same way.  Generally, press reporting shows a complete lack of understanding on anything in this area and almost all of the details concerning it are inaccurately reported.  Interestingly, I've found one instance of the same expert being cited for two fairly surprising countervailing positions, which he probably really did take, but it also shows, I suppose, that even when they go to clear up their ignorance, they can get sucked into further error.

Well, all in all I don't really mean to totally dump on the press here. As noted, they have to write quickly, which does mean writing in ignorance. And we have seen the massive decline in the reporting as a viable industry in the U.S. At one time many mid sized newspapers actually sent reporters overseas for important stories, and television stations did too.  Newspapers also had reporters that specialized in the news of certain types, rather than just business, sports and other news.  All that has been a victim of economics, and it seems unlikely the day will be reversed.  So, while we have a 24 hour news cycle, a lot of that news is inaccurate.

Corporate Seals


This is a large device for embossing corporate seals.

Corporate seals are still in use, although a lot of companies don't use them nearly to the extent that they once did, and they aren't usually the cast iron monsters they once were, such as this one.  I suppose, of course, that some companies are still using these old giant seals, but most use a seal that can fold up into a small, hand held, device.

Old style cast iron seals with a gavel.  These ones aren't quite as large.



Sunday, October 26, 2014

Old Picture of the Day: Hauling Firewood

Old Picture of the Day: Hauling Firewood: Today's picture shows a man gathering a wagonload of logs for firewood. I would imagine he has about a cord of wood, which would p...

Old Picture of the Day: Gathering Firewood

Old Picture of the Day: Gathering Firewood: Welcome to Firewood Week here at OPOD. The temperatures are starting to cool off and we are getting near the time we can start up the ...

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - World War One French Dragoon's Room Presevered

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - World War One French Dragoon's Room Presevered

Sunday Morning Scene: St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Casper Wyoming

Churches of the West: St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Casper Wyoming:

 
 St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Casper Wyoming, one of three large churches in Casper just off of the downtown area which were built right around World War One.

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Random Snippets: Close calls.

Note to self: Don't leave glasses of water on the computer desk while watching the San Francisco Giants stage a rally against the Kansas City Royals in the World Series. That was a close one.

Advertisments In History: Official Dodge Brothers Commercial ft. the 2015 Challenger | Ballroom


Another neat Dodge commercial. This one is probably accurate in the Dodge brothers' interests, although they weren't really accepted by Detroit society, as they were regarded as crude.

Advertisments in History: Official Dodge Brothers Commercial ft. the 2015 Charger and Challenger |...

Neat advertisement. . . . but in reality the Dodge brothers died in 1920 of the dread Spanish Flu.




Friday, October 24, 2014

Movies In History: Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Fury

From the shorter version of this review, at Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Fury

Fury. 2014, directed by David Ayer.

M'eh.

This movie is touring now and has been subject to a lot of anticipation by fans of history and war films. We'll admit here to being a fan of both, with the latter genera being a subset of the former.  It'll probably have quite a few fans, but for those who watch movies closely for detail with an eye towards actual events I suspect it will be a disappointment.  It was with us.

Character development in the film is very poor and U.S. troops are portrayed in a fashion that might be more accurate for the Soviet army of the same period.  The film takes the Gritty Old Guys mixed in with New Guy they don't want to know theme about five notches higher than the norm.  This theme is a stock item in just about every war movie made since 1950 and has been ramped up just about ever time it's been done since Fuller's The Steel Helmet.  Interestingly, its generally absent from films prior to that, and it seems that the entire plot device might have been lifted from S. L. A. Marshall's now discredited study of World War Two infantrymen.  According to later studies of World War Two combat troops, such as The Deadly Brotherhood, this portrayal is false in general, but this film takes this cliche as one of the essential plot devices of the entire film. It isn't as if anyone who hasn't watched a war film hasn't seen this done before, and done better (Big Red One, Platoon, Saving Private Ryan). For a cinematic portrayal of U.S. troops in action, Battleground or Band of Brothers would be a much better option.

In terms of combat scenes, the film would have actually made more sense if it depicted the Red Army in the closing days of the war, rather than the U.S. Army. There was, of course, fighting right up until the last day of the war, but if this film was taken to be accurate it would have us believe that the entire German military was fighting tooth and nail right to the bitter end, when in fact by the stage of the war portrayed the German forces were collapsing in the west with a large number of prisoners being taken. Dealing with floods of German troops attempting to surrender was a major movement and logistical problem for the western allies by that time of the war and the problem became so acute that some units simply took up waiving surrendering Germans towards their rear and German soldiers who were attempting to surrender by that point in the war might end up behind Allied lines for a day or more simply attempting to find a unit that would actually take their surrender.

This movie is yet another one that has built upon the recent trend of showing American soldiers killing POWs.  Studies on this topic show that that outright murder of German POWs was quite rare, although it was the case in any army that the first few minutes of a POW's capture was always very risky.  If a soldier lived through his attempt to surrender and made it for a few minutes, he generally would come out okay.  Wholesale killing of regular German POWs generally did not occur, although you can find the rare example of the contrary.  Refusing to take the surrender of SS troops did occur in some units post June 1944, but even that was pretty rare and tended to be concentrated in units which had direct experience with SS troops killing Allied POWs.  Just as an example of how rare this was, late war a U.S. unit overran an SS unit that had just massacred a group of Jewish prisoners it was moving from one location to another, by burning them alive in a barn, and even in that instance the U.S. troops didn't kill the SS troops, although they hotly debated doing so.

Where this cinematic myth really got launched is difficult to tell, but it is depicted in context in The Longest Day, although in that historically accurate version of Cornelius Ryan's book, its shown in the context of close combat with the U.S. soldier not knowing what the German soldier was attempting, and not understanding what he was saying.  This scene was almost identically taken for Saving Private Ryan, but converted in what is otherwise a very fine film into one in which U.S. Rangers purposely shoot German soldiers trying to surrender, after taunting them.  It's picked up again in Band of Brothers, but in that case the murder is suggested rather than depicted, and it is in fact based upon what was a real event in that instance, although an extraordinary event.  In Fury, however, its shown as routine and even in an unusually sadistic episode in one scene.  Almost no soldier in this movie, even those depicted as highly religious, object, which would be quite unlikely.  Of note, the murder suggested in Band of Brothers was controversial amongst members of that unit, all of whom were elite troops.

German troops in Fury are portrayed as stunningly well equipped and uniformed, when period photographs show a lot of them to pretty worn by that stage of the war. This film takes place over a few days starting in April 1945 (we don't know exactly when it ends, but it would be in April or May 1945).  By April 1945 the German army was using a mix of everything it had and exhibiting a decline in equipment quality in everything.  They were, of course, still quite capable of fighting well, but they were not the same in terms of equipment that they'd been even a few months prior.  Even Hitler Youth units are shown as well equipped and uniformed when period photos show them looking mostly like a bunch of ill equipped scared children.

On the depiction of children as combatants, the film is sympathetic for the most part to the plight of impressed German children, and it doesn't seek to be generally harsh toward them. One scene does depict German girls as being impressed into service, and I generally do not think that happened.  The Nazi regime never was able to accommodate itself to a really full mobilization of women, and indeed it generally viewed their place as being at home, with some exceptions, even late war.  Mobilized German women tended to work in select industries, or in work details, and I know of no instances of them being mobilized as combatants.

Scenes early in the film depicting an armored attack against German troops supported by anti tank guns were well well done. A scene depicting Sherman's in action against a Tiger tank is interesting, but probably overdone. Still, it is interesting.  The Tiger used in the film is the sole working example of that type of tank. The depiction of munitions bouncing off armor is scary and probably pretty realistic. Also realistic is the portray of a penetrating shot as fatal to a tank and its crew even without an explosion, which is rarely shown in regards to armor.

The film is extremely violent, as one would of course expect for a war film, as war is violent.  Nonetheless, without trying to spoil to much of it for folks who might be inclined to view it, at least to some degree, particularly in later stages of the film, a person has the strong sense that they were lifted wholly out of The Wild Bunch, but not in a way that's as novel as they were in that earlier film, and even parts of that film begin to strain a viewers suspension of reality.  Indeed, the film might be somewhat described as Peckinpahesque, except that Sam Peckinpah had a much more developed talent for being able to use violence as a vehicle to bring up troubling moral issues and contradictions in his characters, particularly those depicted in The Wild Bunch, which was specifically filmed to expose Peckinpah's feelings about the type of character that had only recently been portrayed when that film was made in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  In this film there seems to have been a similar attempt to portray some similar moral contradictions in regards to the crew, but it doesn't come off very well.  By the films end the director was resorting to the fairly free use of Biblical quotes to try to get this across.

I will note that the film did portray the subject of religion fairly frequently, and in a less cynical manner than had tended to be the case in films of the 60s and 70s.  This seems to be a bit of an evolving trend.  Shia LeBeouf's character; Boyd "Bible" Swan is probably the best acted character in the move and he is shown as devoutly observant in some unspecified Protestant denomination.  It's hard to imagine a similar portrayal, for example, in another "team" movie Kelly's Heroes and in the famed The Dirty Dozen the only religious character is a bad guy.  The main protagonist of the film, Norman Ellison, is a quietly observant Episcopalian who refuses to compromise his conscience.  Although its not apparent until the very end, even the not very likable Sgt Don Collier, played by Brad Pitt, has an extensive enough religious knowledge to be able to quote the Bible, showing the degree to which he's morally conflicted perhaps.
One minor, and it is minor, plus of the film is that its pretty decent in material details, which those with an eye for history always look for, and which has tended to be a high expectation for this moving going set since Saving Private Ryan really raised the bar in this area. The Shermans are real Shermans (although I don't know what model, there's at least two different models). The Tiger tank is a real Tiger tank. The Germans are armed correctly with the correct small arms as are the U.S. troops, although the use of a Stg44 as a captured tank small arm is unlikely.  Crew use of the M3 submachinegun, however, is absolutely correct.

And, and this is unusual, the use of horses by the Germans is very frequently shown and even shows up as a routine item in the dialog. Indeed, that part is quite surprising.  German officers are shown as mounted, correctly, in more than one scene. The large scale use of horses is noted in dialog including a query by one soldier about whether a lot of men or horses had been noted in a certain area, indicative of German activity.

Some small material details are intriguing but unexplained. Brad Pitt's character Sgt. Collier has an English last name but speaks perfect German with that never being explained. German speaking American solders were not uncommon at that time, but that's almost always because they had grown up in a German speaking family.  A little explanation on that  character trait would have been nice, even if only in terms of a vague suggestion as to the answer.  Sgt. Collier carries a double action revolver and wears three strap cavalry boots, sort of suggesting pre war service in the cavalry, which his character would have been old enough to easily have had.  Boots of that type were almost always associated with mounted service and continued to be manufactured until just after World War Two.  Photographs of tankers wearing them do exist, but such photographs are always associated with units which had at one time been horse cavalry.  To simply find a tanker wearing them, even a NCO, would have been unlikely otherwise.  Double action revolvers had remained common in U.S. Cavalry well into the war as they were thought safer for mounted men than the M1911 automatic pistol, although most cavalrymen carried the M1911.  Some tankers were issued double action revolvers early in the war, however.

Having said that, the movie is otherwise a disappointment and I'd skip it if I hadn't already seen it.

The "They Were" Farmers, Soliders or Lawyers threads now pages.

The "They Were" farmers, lawyers or soldiers posts, which were amongst the most read here, have been made into separate pages should anyone be looking for them.

They just grew too big for posts.  They'll still be updated as before.

Other threads on hunters, teachers, and clerics are still posts, for the time being.

Friday Farming: Sheep


Thursday, October 23, 2014

ATVs. Boo. Hiss.

I'm going to finally admit it, I'm sick of ATVs and I'm pretty darned sick of people who make excuses for using ATVs on wildlands.

 ATV tracks, off road, at over 8,000 feet in the Big Horns.

This frankly has more to do with my status of being a hunter, than anything else, and I'll admit that I'm somewhat hypocritical about this topic, for reasons that I'll mention below. But I really, truly, have had enough of them.

The reason I don't like ATVs is that I value wildlands.  I value them as a livestock owner, I value them as a hunter, I value them as a fisherman, and I just value them as somebody who loves nature.  ATVs are the antithesis of everything in nature.

Now, in terms of being hypocritical, I freely note here that I grew up with vehicles and have had 4x4 vehicles my entire life.

 
 My first car, before I was old enough to drive. A 1958 M38A1 Jeep.  I didn't put the big dent in the fender.

I grew up with vehicles and have always used vehicles to access nature. And as an owner of a large number of 4x4 vehicles over the years, I've never been without a vehicle that could take me way out back.  This admittedly is contrary to the natural state, and I've written about that here before.  One of the things that I think its most difficult for us, as modern people, to appreciate is the revolution in access to wildlands that automobiles brought about.   Not only was it revolutionary, but it frankly changed our relationship with it, making it impossible for many to appreciate the expanse, time and distance, and also making it so we tend to travel insulated from nature, rather than in it.

 
Me, in another context.  Nothing makes you appreciate the vastness of an area more than traveling it at, in essence, nature's pace.

But even with that, at least vehicles essentially basically stopped somewhere.  People drove distances, often distances that would have taken days to cover in prior eras, but they did get out and start walking (or riding on a horse/mule).  

ATVs have changed that.  

Now I constantly see people who have 3/4 ton or 1 ton trucks who are hauling them up to the back country. The ATVs have grown larger and now often take up the entire bed of the truck.  Once they get to the end of the road, they unload the ATV and then drive over the prairie, making little roads like the one depicted above on it. They basically never dismount.

I really question the effectiveness of this for hunting, as ATVs are noisy and a man on foot, or on horseback, can usually hear them miles and miles away.  I've taken game animals in areas where the ATV drivers had passed them by, the animals taking cover well before the ATV drove on by.  But that they have an impact on wildlands, making them less wild, cannot be denied.

That ATV owners know this is pretty plain. Almost every ATV owner I know, save for a few honest ones, who use them for hunting will claim "I only use them to haul things out."  Well, bull.  The "I only" claim is the classic claim made by people who know they are doing things wrong, and want to claim some legitimate reason to excuse it.  Like people who only claim to buy certain magazines for the articles, the overwhelming owners of ATVs in hunting and fishing country are using them for the very thing they claim they are not.

In recent years around here there's been an increasing number of areas where signs stating "No ATVs" have sprung up.  Quite a few of these are walk in access areas, and the ranchers don't want the ATVs in there wrecking the land and scaring cattle.  Indeed, around here, ATVs reached their zenith and began to decline in livestock work quite some time ago, and the most common use of ATVs I see now amongst ranchers is in the form of very small trucks that they use for fencing or to travel from one cow camp to another.  Herding cattle with them is mostly out now.

About the only use of ATVs I don't object to is that by people who just flat out like ATVs and drive them on back roads to drive them.  Most of those people are honest about that.  I see them on the roads in the summer, with an increasing number thankfully wearing helmets now.  But generally those people  aren't driving over grasslands with them or hoping sagebrush with them, and then later claiming that "I only" use them for this or that.  Indeed, if a person "is only" using an ATV to haul game out, it's a pretty expensive way to do that.  It'd be cheaper to hire a rancher to haul one out with a horse.  But the evidence is that the "only" class doesn't "only" do what they claim.

And I'd like to see the use of ATVs on the prairie and in the mountains go.  I know that I'll never live to see that, but I wish I would see that. At some point people who love the wildlands have to say enough is enough, and keep them out.  And, frankly, at some point as a people we have to admit that all humans have a natural inclination towards laziness and if we want to really live, we have to resist it.  Getting out and walking would be a good way to start.

Panic

I listen to Meet The Press and This Week via podcast.  That means I usually catch up with a couple of days after its aired.

Recently, it's been all about Ebola. Given that its Ebola coverage wall to wall, pretty much (ISIL manages to edge in too) I was stunned when Chris Todd, the new moderator, allowed that the press had been telling everyone not to panic, but now we have a US death. . .

Really, the press has been telling us not to panic?  I must have missed that due to all the panicking in the press.

In the real world, the chances of Ebola becoming a major non African disease, or even a pan African disease, are non existent.  It will not happen.  It has killed 4,000 people so far, mostly in Liberia, where conditions are ideal for it (although one sizable Liberian Goodyear company town manged to halt it there).  That's 4,000 out of a population of about 4,000,000.  In contrast, in 2011 the flu killed 53,826 ,granted out of a population of about 350,000,000.  Still that rates comparable.  Why aren't we panicking about the flu?

We do, of course, from time to time, but only when it looks like a flu like the 1918 Spanish Flu might be lurking about. But the regular old flu is quite the killer, and to Americans, a bigger danger than Ebola.

Postscript

To my huge surprise, the topic of Ebola has now entered this year's Wyoming's gubernatorial race. 

Back during the primary we saw three Republicans running, those being the sitting Governor; Matt Mead, the current controversial Superintendent of Education; Cindy Hill, and  Tea Party sometimes third party candidate Dr. Taylor Haynes.  Both Hill and Haynes were in the Tea Party camp, with Haynes expressing some radical ideas on public lands ownership.  Those ideas enjoyed some popularity amongst Tea Party elements in the GOP, but overall those views must have had little popularity with Wyoming Republicans as both Hill and Haynes did poorly in the primary.

During the election the Republicans agreed amongst themselves to support whoever won, but that quickly broke down with Hill, who flat out refused to support Mead.  Locally, one Tea Party candidate that lost wrote an op-ed in the Tribune blasting the voters as being misinformed, which didn't sit very well with the people who read it, based on the reactions.  Still, yesterday Haynes broke his pledge and announced that he's running as an independent.

His stated basis for running was to give the taxpayers options and also because he feels that the state's preparation for Ebola is poor.

I generally don't express political opinions here, but the Ebola topic being interjected into Wyoming's gubernatorial race is just silly.  Haynes is a physician as well, which to my mind means he must at least have doubts about his stated reason for running as being a valid one, or he's so focused on hypothetical medical emergencies that he's grossly overemphasizing them.  Ebola isn't an American health emergency and its certainly not a Wyoming one.  It doesn't do Dr. Haynes very much credit to base his stated reason for running on Ebola.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Wars and Rumors of War

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed.
Matthew 24:6

This is a new "trailing thread" on the topic of wars that are ongoing.  It's just informational, so to speak.

Quite frankly, in spite of what we might think, the world has an all time low inventory of war. War has gone from something of a near human norm to a freakish but still occurring exception.  Indeed, violence in the world is at an all time low. 

But, wars are still history, still interesting, and still important. So here we have a thread on a topic written by every commentator on the human condition, ever.



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For our opening entry:  October 18, 2014

1. The Kurds in Syria have introduced conscription of military aged men in their zone of control. The conscription is not limited to Kurds. This has sparked protest by human rights groups, but it shows the extent to which the Kurds now act as a sovereign more and more every day.

2. Fierce street by street fighting between ISIL and the Kurds continues in Kobane, on the Syrian Turkish border.  Analysts are surprised for some reason, counting ISIL's advanced weaponry (some courtesy of the United States, via capture from the pathetic Iraqi Army,), but that discounts the fact that having weponry is one thing, knowing how to use it quite another.  The Kurds have a long history of infantry and irregular combat experience, so they're inherited knowledge is pretty vast.

3. The Egyptian air force has hit Islamist targets outside of Benghazi in Libya, which is undergoing a battle pitting a former Libyan general against Islamist forces.  This reflects the Egyptian military's understanding that the best interest of that state are found in defeating these extremist groups, of which they have their own.

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October 22, 2014

Canada suffers the second home grown terrorist attack in a week. In the first attack, a convert to Islam drove his car into one in which Canadian soldiers were riding. Today, another convert to Islam killed a soldier standing guard at Canada's memorial to its unknown solders and then entered the parliament building, where he was killed by the Sergeant At Arms, Kevin Vickers, a distinguished retired member of the RCMP..