The Boko Haram, the Islamist terrorist group in Nigeria whose name means "Western education is forbidden" killed 2,000 villagers and displaced 30,000 in an assault on that that town. They also sent explosives into a target area strapped on the back of a girl believed to be about ten years old.
This is in the news, but not like Paris, no doubt because it's activities are principally in Africa, rather than somewhere else.
Just thought you'd want to know.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Today In Wyoming's History: Update: Today In Wyoming's History: January 14
Today In Wyoming's History: Update: Today In Wyoming's History: January 14: Today In Wyoming's History: January 14 : 2015: Governor Mead delivers his State of the State address to the Legislature .
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Protection is sometimes not needed until it is. A bill to protect the clergy
Yesterday I commented on one of Wyoming's, indeed the entire West's, perennial bad ideas, that being that the Federal government should give (not sell) its land holdings in the West to the state's where they're located. My suspicion is that this makes us look foolish in the extreme in the East, where the citizenry wishes that they had what we had, and also knows that they are included in the putative landowners whose property we seek to expropriate gratis from the Federal government.
Today, however, I'm commenting on something that goes the other way, that being a bill that's in the legislature which would protect a person from suit who will not preside over a same gender marriage. The Tribune editorialized in opposition to this bill the other day.
That editorial was extremely telling, really, as it shows the mindset of those who just don't grasp this issue. Starting off with the claim that there are no worries, as the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects anyone in that position, it then goes on to express the view that the bill is just sour grapes as a Federal judge forced this on the state, and that same gender unions are good for marriage overall. So, in one fell swoop the editorial actually states the fears that this bill seeks to address, those being that: 1) the Federal courts can make something that was never conceived of as being legal the law overnight, and 2) if you don't agree with this change you ought to, so you have no legitimate complaint anyhow.
Beyond that, this is the first inkling of a concern by those who backed this change (as the Tribune did) that its likely be extremely temporary. The elephant in the room on this issue is that that U.S. Supreme Court hasn't ruled on it yet, but is likely to do so in the next two terms, and when it does, it's probable that the ruling will either uphold prior state laws or the Court will hold that the entire issue doesn't belong in Federal court at all, and remand all of it to the states. In that case, the local ruling would basically evaporate overnight and it would become a state issue. Nobody really knows what the Wyoming Supreme Court would do with this issue, but its pretty certain that the legislature would not be in favor of any changes in the reading of the law.
So what about the first point in the editorial. Is the Tribune right?
Well, maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. We need to also keep in mind that there's a bill also pending in the legislature which would prohibit discrimination based upon a person's orientation. People everywhere in the US tend to already think that this is the law, and most people aren't in favor of any kind of real discrimination, but that actually isn't the law. Chances are that it will be, either legislatively our through court action in the foreseeable future.
For most people, that actually won't matter, but there are a collection of people for whom this creates a moral crisis. And its one that isn't often understood and is unfairly dismissed by those who don't look at it.
To start with, its very clearly a problem for ministers of most monotheistic religions that hold the long established theology of their faiths. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all regard the conduct that this surrounds as sinful, and none of them regard marriages between same gender couples as valid. Now, before somebody seeks to correct me, I do concede of course that there are present examples of individuals in Judaism and Christianity, including their ministers, who hold the opposite view, but they are all reformist in some manner. That is, in order to take that view, they have to qualify or reinterpret part of what was very long held doctrine.
Now this post isn't intended to be a theology treatise, which I'm not qualified to attempt to do in depth anyhow, but rather to note the next item, which is that Conservative and Orthodox Jewish Rabbis, Muslim mullahs, and ministers in the Catholic, Orthodox and some Protestant denominations hold the view that same gender unions cannot be regarded as marriages and that they cannot perform them. Indeed, they'd regard preforming them as an immoral act with enormous personal consequences.
Beyond that, members of these various faiths, at least in some cases, also hold the views that cooperating in such unions is itself a species of religious fraud, as it gives evidence that they, as loyal members of their faiths, disagree with the faith. Frankly, the average person in most faiths seems able to ignore big chunks of it if they're average members, but for those who are serious about their faiths, this can present a very real problem if they're asked to participate in some fashion, which can include everything from simply attending to being asked to provide some sort of service, like photographs or a cake.
Because so many people have very casual views about everything in this area, the fact that this can in fact create a moral crisis is lost to many people. Indeed, many people are pretty comfortable with a judge ordering a priest or rabbi to do something, as they feel "well, he doesn't have to believe. . but what's the harm. . .". And a larger group yet is very comfortable with the idea, for example, that a Jewish bakery can be ordered to provide a cake, as to not do so would be "mean", or that a Catholic flower shop can be ordered to provide flowers, as to not do so is hateful.
But if any of those individuals feel otherwise, and they stick to their guns, the full sanction of the law could impact them, as it already has in some states where the law has changed, in so far as laymen are concerned.
And, as touched on earlier, this is already a present problem, at least on a theoretical basis, for those who hold clerk positions. If a young Muslim woman is working in a county clerk's office and is asked to issue a marriage license, can she get canned if she refuses and it has to go to another clerk? What if a Greek Orthodox judge decides that he doesn't want to preside over civil unions in his courthouse? Is that the end for him?
It could be.
The Tribune, which has sued more than once when it feels its Constitutional rights are being trampled upon, feels that the 1st Amendment neatly solves all of this. The 1st Amendment states:
The First Amendment has been interpreted, of course, to allow "the free exercise" of any faith, and the Tribune's thought is that as this is the case, everyone is protected. And the Tribune might be 100% correct. Having said that, the states in fact do already restrict the free exercise of religion and always have. While I'm not advocating for a change in this particular aspect of state law (although that's coming about through court action anyhow) one such example is in that marriages are limited to one spouse a piece. What are sometimes referred to as "fundamentalist Mormons" believe that one man should be able to have multiple wives. Muslims believe that one man can have up to seven wives, although their faith doesn't mandate that they do so. Other examples could be found.
It's safe to say, in any event, that sooner or later some priest, rabbi or mullah would get sued for refusing to preside over a same gender union. And some flower shop, bakery, caterer, or banquet hall would as well. It'd be inevitable. Maybe the First Amendment would operate to protect them, it probably would, but to be concerned that it might not, or to feel that added protection might be in order, isn't unreasonable.
The truth of the matter is that Americans have sort of a dual religiosity and the United States is a fairly religious nation. But part of that is that there's sort of a widely held civil religion that's relativistic and which holds tolerance of everything and being nice to everyone as a primary virtue, without looking at any one topic too deeply. For the thousands, and maybe millions, who also take the tenants of their faiths seriously, however, there are lines they cannot cross. For most Americans, up until now, that's mattered little, although again there are tens of thousands and maybe millions who have actually do face trials of one kind or another of this type everyday, where things that they'd reject have crept into civil life over the decades. But what we've seen recently has come as a court made, in part, revolution and has placed these conflicts squarely in issue. The early history, indeed over half of our history, was marked by extremely deep religious bigotry in which certainly Catholicism and Judaism were deeply despised, and even Puritans could find themselves facing the death penalty for passing over a colonial boundary (giving us a rare early example of women being executed in what would become the United States). Without some protection for those who hold deeply held believes that do not square with civil trends, we face returning, to some degree, to that era in a more minor way, with the enforces of the civil religion oppressing the holders of other religious views.
Now, of course, the bill might not actually be effective. But some protection is at least worth affording.
Today, however, I'm commenting on something that goes the other way, that being a bill that's in the legislature which would protect a person from suit who will not preside over a same gender marriage. The Tribune editorialized in opposition to this bill the other day.
That editorial was extremely telling, really, as it shows the mindset of those who just don't grasp this issue. Starting off with the claim that there are no worries, as the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects anyone in that position, it then goes on to express the view that the bill is just sour grapes as a Federal judge forced this on the state, and that same gender unions are good for marriage overall. So, in one fell swoop the editorial actually states the fears that this bill seeks to address, those being that: 1) the Federal courts can make something that was never conceived of as being legal the law overnight, and 2) if you don't agree with this change you ought to, so you have no legitimate complaint anyhow.
Beyond that, this is the first inkling of a concern by those who backed this change (as the Tribune did) that its likely be extremely temporary. The elephant in the room on this issue is that that U.S. Supreme Court hasn't ruled on it yet, but is likely to do so in the next two terms, and when it does, it's probable that the ruling will either uphold prior state laws or the Court will hold that the entire issue doesn't belong in Federal court at all, and remand all of it to the states. In that case, the local ruling would basically evaporate overnight and it would become a state issue. Nobody really knows what the Wyoming Supreme Court would do with this issue, but its pretty certain that the legislature would not be in favor of any changes in the reading of the law.
So what about the first point in the editorial. Is the Tribune right?
Well, maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. We need to also keep in mind that there's a bill also pending in the legislature which would prohibit discrimination based upon a person's orientation. People everywhere in the US tend to already think that this is the law, and most people aren't in favor of any kind of real discrimination, but that actually isn't the law. Chances are that it will be, either legislatively our through court action in the foreseeable future.
For most people, that actually won't matter, but there are a collection of people for whom this creates a moral crisis. And its one that isn't often understood and is unfairly dismissed by those who don't look at it.
To start with, its very clearly a problem for ministers of most monotheistic religions that hold the long established theology of their faiths. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all regard the conduct that this surrounds as sinful, and none of them regard marriages between same gender couples as valid. Now, before somebody seeks to correct me, I do concede of course that there are present examples of individuals in Judaism and Christianity, including their ministers, who hold the opposite view, but they are all reformist in some manner. That is, in order to take that view, they have to qualify or reinterpret part of what was very long held doctrine.
Now this post isn't intended to be a theology treatise, which I'm not qualified to attempt to do in depth anyhow, but rather to note the next item, which is that Conservative and Orthodox Jewish Rabbis, Muslim mullahs, and ministers in the Catholic, Orthodox and some Protestant denominations hold the view that same gender unions cannot be regarded as marriages and that they cannot perform them. Indeed, they'd regard preforming them as an immoral act with enormous personal consequences.
Beyond that, members of these various faiths, at least in some cases, also hold the views that cooperating in such unions is itself a species of religious fraud, as it gives evidence that they, as loyal members of their faiths, disagree with the faith. Frankly, the average person in most faiths seems able to ignore big chunks of it if they're average members, but for those who are serious about their faiths, this can present a very real problem if they're asked to participate in some fashion, which can include everything from simply attending to being asked to provide some sort of service, like photographs or a cake.
Because so many people have very casual views about everything in this area, the fact that this can in fact create a moral crisis is lost to many people. Indeed, many people are pretty comfortable with a judge ordering a priest or rabbi to do something, as they feel "well, he doesn't have to believe. . but what's the harm. . .". And a larger group yet is very comfortable with the idea, for example, that a Jewish bakery can be ordered to provide a cake, as to not do so would be "mean", or that a Catholic flower shop can be ordered to provide flowers, as to not do so is hateful.
But if any of those individuals feel otherwise, and they stick to their guns, the full sanction of the law could impact them, as it already has in some states where the law has changed, in so far as laymen are concerned.
And, as touched on earlier, this is already a present problem, at least on a theoretical basis, for those who hold clerk positions. If a young Muslim woman is working in a county clerk's office and is asked to issue a marriage license, can she get canned if she refuses and it has to go to another clerk? What if a Greek Orthodox judge decides that he doesn't want to preside over civil unions in his courthouse? Is that the end for him?
It could be.
The Tribune, which has sued more than once when it feels its Constitutional rights are being trampled upon, feels that the 1st Amendment neatly solves all of this. The 1st Amendment states:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.All the 1st Amendment really says, of course, regarding religions is that no U.S. state was to go down the same road that England, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, or Denmark had, and make a certain religion the state religion. Indeed, of significance to this discussion, in each of those instances the establishment of a state religion came about when the state acted to overthrow the religions establishment of the country and get it to do something it wasn't going to do voluntarily, so in essence the state acted to tell the established church what to do.
The First Amendment has been interpreted, of course, to allow "the free exercise" of any faith, and the Tribune's thought is that as this is the case, everyone is protected. And the Tribune might be 100% correct. Having said that, the states in fact do already restrict the free exercise of religion and always have. While I'm not advocating for a change in this particular aspect of state law (although that's coming about through court action anyhow) one such example is in that marriages are limited to one spouse a piece. What are sometimes referred to as "fundamentalist Mormons" believe that one man should be able to have multiple wives. Muslims believe that one man can have up to seven wives, although their faith doesn't mandate that they do so. Other examples could be found.
It's safe to say, in any event, that sooner or later some priest, rabbi or mullah would get sued for refusing to preside over a same gender union. And some flower shop, bakery, caterer, or banquet hall would as well. It'd be inevitable. Maybe the First Amendment would operate to protect them, it probably would, but to be concerned that it might not, or to feel that added protection might be in order, isn't unreasonable.
The truth of the matter is that Americans have sort of a dual religiosity and the United States is a fairly religious nation. But part of that is that there's sort of a widely held civil religion that's relativistic and which holds tolerance of everything and being nice to everyone as a primary virtue, without looking at any one topic too deeply. For the thousands, and maybe millions, who also take the tenants of their faiths seriously, however, there are lines they cannot cross. For most Americans, up until now, that's mattered little, although again there are tens of thousands and maybe millions who have actually do face trials of one kind or another of this type everyday, where things that they'd reject have crept into civil life over the decades. But what we've seen recently has come as a court made, in part, revolution and has placed these conflicts squarely in issue. The early history, indeed over half of our history, was marked by extremely deep religious bigotry in which certainly Catholicism and Judaism were deeply despised, and even Puritans could find themselves facing the death penalty for passing over a colonial boundary (giving us a rare early example of women being executed in what would become the United States). Without some protection for those who hold deeply held believes that do not square with civil trends, we face returning, to some degree, to that era in a more minor way, with the enforces of the civil religion oppressing the holders of other religious views.
Now, of course, the bill might not actually be effective. But some protection is at least worth affording.
Today In Wyoming's History: January 13 Updated
Today In Wyoming's History: January 13: 2015 Legislature commences general session.
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Movies In History: Monuments Men
This has been an unusual year for me (by that meaning 2014 and 2015) as I've seen more movies than I usually do, including this one.
I should have added this one here some time ago, but I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't know that much about this particular unit or series of events, other than that there was an American unit, at least, that was dedicated to trying to preserve European cultural works. We have the book, but I haven't read it yet. I'll come back and update this after I do. Most of what I know about this unit is from reading an article on this topic in The New Republic. I read that article some time ago, and don't recall the details of it really well other than that I think I recall that at least some of the details of the film depart from the actual history of the unit. At least some of the story depicted in the film almost certainly departs from the actual history and was added for dramatic and storyline effect.
For the meantime, what I'll do is restrict my comments to just the material details of the film and not try to post on any larger historical items. I will note, of course, as is well known that the Germans looted vast amounts of European art, quite a bit of which is still missing (apparently one major item noted in the film is actually strongly suspected of being in certain private hands, which has yet to return it but which there is anticipation that they will at some point). Some is lost to history, no doubt, for all time, having been destroyed at one point or another during the war.
That the Germans went to such extent to loot art is truly amazing. The removal of significant artifacts by invading armies isn't a wholly new thing, but to engage in it to this extent is in the modern world. This reflected the sick and debased nature of the Nazi regime, which viewed itself as the pinnacle of everything, and therefore entitled to own everything. In reaction, the U.S. did form a unit of specialist who attempted to preserve and track down works of art. Whether that unit had an international composition, I don't know.
I also don't know if the unit was generally made up of middle aged men, as depicted in this film, but the use of middle aged men for various roles during World War Two actually was fairly common, contrary to the opposing supposition that's quite common. So, whether accurate to this endeavor or not, it's accurate to the war.
In material details, the uniforms and equipment are largely correct. About the only departure I could see was the odd use of British sidearms, which would have been very unlikely. Troops being equipped, in this unit, with M1 Carbines is correct for their use. Use of a captured German Kübelwagen is shown, which wouldn't have been surprising for a unit of this type. Other Allied vehicles depicted are correct. Amazingly, Red Army vehicles depicted are also correct, a pretty surprising thing for an American movie and demonstrative of the increased effort we've seen in recent years to be accurate in material details.
All in all the movie is worth seeing in part because it's a "small story", which World War Two offers quite a few of, but which have generally not been touched by film makers in the context of World War Two for quite some time. They're worth doing, and when done well, as this film is, they add to our overall understanding of the war.
Monday, January 12, 2015
LLB, LLM, JD, oh my!
The other day, I was reading the biography of a long practicing lawyer which noted that when he'd graduated from law school (from another state) in the early 1950s, he'd received a LLB degree, which is a Bachelor of Legal Letters, a now extinct degree. When the US uniformly went to JD's, i.e., Juris Doctorates, his school allowed that holders of LLBs could exchange them for JDs, which he did. I probably wouldn't have, but that's just me. Still, that there were other degrees, and now are not, is an interesting fact and it actually says something about the history of the practice of law, and maybe something about where we are today.
Law degrees, as a professional degree, date back to the 11th Century in Europe, which is stunningly early, and they were actually doctorate degrees at the time. This certainly doesn't mean that every practitioner of the law held one, but such degrees did exist. Indeed, as sort of an interesting and peculiar aside, you can find quite a few references in the lives of various Saints to their having studied or obtained a law degree. St. Francis de Sales provides such an example (and you can read about him here, in the They Were Lawyers page on this site).
We in the United States, save for Louisiana, use a Common Law system, so we're heirs to the 1292 decree of King Edward I that lawyers actually be trained for their professions, but that didn't mean that they had to be university trained by any means. Indeed, that gave rise to the "reading the law" system which predominated for most lawyers in the Common Law countries for eons. However, even as early as the 1700s in both England and the American Colonies there were those advocating for university education for lawyers, with such a significant figure as William Blackstone taking that position.
In both England, and the United States, the first law degrees were bachelor's, not doctorate, degrees, something that set us apart, for good or ill, from continental Europe. In England, the LLB became the common degree, while the first degree offered in the United States was the Bachelor of Law, which soon became a LLB, but without the training in classical liberal arts that the degree included in England.
J.Ds started to appear around the turn of the previous century, and they reflected the fact that law school had already become a post graduate degree. Therefore, people in the US graduating with LLBs already normally had one bachelor's degree, and it was felt that medical degrees, such as the MD and DDS degrees were sort of unfairly elevated by title, when all the post graduate degrees of that type were in fact doctorate degrees. And the fact that Germany at that time (but no longer) had a practice that required a doctorate in law influenced American academic thinking. However, not every school changed, and so it was still the case in the mid 20th Century that there were LLBs, LLMs, and JDs, all of which were basically more of lest the same, even if they bore "bachelors", "masters" and "doctorate" titles respectively.
Meanwhile, in England, things went the other direction and things evolved to where law was a bachelor's level course of study, but one of a more traditional nature mixed with other disciplines. A more academic degree than that in the US, it's none the less one that a person can simply go to university and major in. Canada and Australia, on the other hand, have followed the US post graduate model.
JDs became the US norm, indeed absolute, at some point in the late 1950s, as the bodies that concerned themselves with law, such as the ABA, pressed for that to be the universal degree. While already mentioned, there was a certain pitiful aspect to this in that the profession's bodies felt cheated that physicians had doctorates and lawyers didn't, which is a rather odd concern. At the same time, the same bodies pressed for the elimination of "reading the law" or admission to the bar by people without JDs, which of course raised their importance. At some point by the 1970s the old practice of allowing people to simply take the bar had died off, and in most, but not all states, a person is required to have a JD from an ABA approved law school before being admitted to the bar.
JDs became the US norm, indeed absolute, at some point in the late 1950s, as the bodies that concerned themselves with law, such as the ABA, pressed for that to be the universal degree. While already mentioned, there was a certain pitiful aspect to this in that the profession's bodies felt cheated that physicians had doctorates and lawyers didn't, which is a rather odd concern. At the same time, the same bodies pressed for the elimination of "reading the law" or admission to the bar by people without JDs, which of course raised their importance. At some point by the 1970s the old practice of allowing people to simply take the bar had died off, and in most, but not all states, a person is required to have a JD from an ABA approved law school before being admitted to the bar.
Ironically, perhaps, the US JD is the least difficult of any of these degrees to obtain, contrary to what American lawyers imagine. Indeed, law school has increasingly become a sort of trade school in the United States, but not in the other Common Law nations. Given the origin of the law as a "profession" in the Common Law, this is truly ironic, and probably not good. On the other hand, its no surprise that JDs are not as "broad" as English LLBs, as American law school students already have a BA or BS, and therefore (hopefully) obtained that broad education there. Indeed, looked at that way, American lawyers, by the time they graduate with their professional degrees, probably have a broader education than English lawyers do.
And they'll be a bit older as well, rather obviously, as they're in school longer than their English counterparts. Indeed, as I've often wondered how well suited any person is to find a career just out of law school, I've wondered how many English lawyers really knew that this was their career aim, accurately, when they started off and then later completed their degrees. It would seem to be the case that American lawyers, maybe, would have accessed their career goals somewhat more accurately by being older when they entered a post graduate program.
Or maybe not, based upon what little I've read about it, as it shows up in bar journals and legal websites, career questioning is pretty high in both the UK and the US in regards to the law, so perhaps being 22 instead of (presumably) 18 when a person enters law school isn't that big of difference, although it would be hard to see how it wouldn't be. Or perhaps that says something about a legal education in both countries. I'm not that familiar with it in other countries, but at least here in the US law schools have been criticized for being divorced from real practice to some degree, and therefore poorly preparing their charges for the practice. Of course, if they did focus on that more, and they are indeed working on it, they risk become more of a trade school than they already are, which would not seem to be a good thing.
Added into this odd mix the various bodies that so concerned themselves with raising the standards of practice have seemingly passed their prime and their relevance declines. The ABA still certified law schools, and is still a power, but not like it once was and membership is not nearly as universal as it once was. A quick look at the organization is telling, as its clearly a left coast liberal entity that many lawyers do not really subscribe to in terms of views and its taken up bothering itself with social concerns that lawyers are really no more qualified to spout off about than anyone else. JDs, that doctorate degree, became increasingly easy to get over the years and more lawyers were produced in recent years than there was work for. Bar exams, which didn't even exist in some state's mid 20th Century, are now universal but they've gone from featuring a nationwide Multistate exam combined with a state exam to, in at least ten or so states, including mine, to a "Universal Bar Exam" which removed examination on the state's own law completely. One state, Iowa, has returned to no bar exam for local law school graduates.
Not that much of this matters to the average person. In the end, people in the UK, US, Australia, Canada, etc., all have a common law system that works pretty much in the same way, and in all those locations practitioners schooled in that system have little concept of changing it to any other, which of course would seemingly raise the question of whether competing systems, and there are others, deliver justice more, or less, efficiently. Or maybe it does matter, or at least in the US perhaps it matters. With a general perception that the quality of a college education isn't what it once was, which may or may not be accurate, and law schools that are perceived as not being as rigorous as they once were, combined with a trend towards bar admission without even a state test being administered, the "doctorate" and "professional" quality claimed by lawyers will start to mean less than it currently does, and already doesn't mean what it once did.
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. Patrick's Presbyterian Church, Greeley Colorado
Churches of the West: St. Patrick's Presbyterian Church, Greeley Colorado...
This is St. Patrick's Presbyterian Church in downtown Greeley Colorado.
This is St. Patrick's Presbyterian Church in downtown Greeley Colorado.
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Europe 1 on Twitter: "À 87 ans, Uderzo reprend la plume pour #CharlieHebdo #JeSuisCharlie. Interview à 8h30 http://t.co/2HBhhbdqJr #E1matin http://t.co/8GwH9cPMaQ"
Europe 1 on Twitter: "À 87 ans, Uderzo reprend la plume pour #CharlieHebdo #JeSuisCharlie. Interview à 8h30 http://t.co/2HBhhbdqJr #E1matin http://t.co/8GwH9cPMaQ"
One of the cartoonist from the famed Asterix and Obelix cartoon has come out of retirement to pent a comment on the recent assassination of Charlie Henbo cartoonist.
This cartoon is largely unknown to Americans, but it's a very well known French cartoon set in ancient Gaul.
One of the cartoonist from the famed Asterix and Obelix cartoon has come out of retirement to pent a comment on the recent assassination of Charlie Henbo cartoonist.
This cartoon is largely unknown to Americans, but it's a very well known French cartoon set in ancient Gaul.
Friday, January 9, 2015
And in other odd news. . .
ISIL in Syria set up a police force to administer its view of Islamic religious laws.
Which includes not smoking. I don't know that this is actually a tenant of Islam. I'm ignorant on that, but at least the Turks are pretty strongly associated with tobacco, so it strikes me as odd.
And smoking is really popular in the region.
Well, in the last few days a deputy ISIL police commander was assassinated and his severed head left with a cigarette in his mouth. ISIL policemen are getting kidnapped.
I'm not sure what this means, and I don't condone killing or kidnapping anyone. But one recent interview I heard of the Sunni Awakening in Iraq noted that Al Queda banning cigarettes is one thing that really upset the locals. There's some sort of lesson in this, although I am not certain what it actually is.
Which includes not smoking. I don't know that this is actually a tenant of Islam. I'm ignorant on that, but at least the Turks are pretty strongly associated with tobacco, so it strikes me as odd.
And smoking is really popular in the region.
Well, in the last few days a deputy ISIL police commander was assassinated and his severed head left with a cigarette in his mouth. ISIL policemen are getting kidnapped.
I'm not sure what this means, and I don't condone killing or kidnapping anyone. But one recent interview I heard of the Sunni Awakening in Iraq noted that Al Queda banning cigarettes is one thing that really upset the locals. There's some sort of lesson in this, although I am not certain what it actually is.
Je ne suis pas Charlie
Earlier today, I posted about Islam and the problem it has in convincing people that its non violent. Indeed, it's an open question if the truly devoted in Islam can take that position without straying into heresy, or perhaps being regarded as heretical. I think they can, but then I'm not Moslem, which is the added problem addressed in my earlier post, ie., if the voices we mostly hear saying Islam isn't violent, aren't Moslem, that sends some sort of different message.
This came about, as noted, in part because of the assassinations at Charlie Hedbo by Islamic terrorists. But let's be clear, this taps into, a bit, my other message. And let's start off with a couple of basic propositions.
First of all, killing journalist isn't warfare. Its murder. Its murder in any religion, or if it isn't, it should be. And its murder for the non religions as well.
But, being the victim of murder, even if you are killed for your statements or beliefs, doesn't convert you into a hero.
And Charlie Hedbo's cartoons weren't heroic, they were vile.
They truly were insulting. They insulted Islam, and they insulted Christianity. Christians, of course, can't murder those they disagree with, and indeed to be insulted for your faith is regarded in Christian tenants as a symbol of your praiseworthiness. Christ promised his followers that they'd get exactly that sort of treatment.
But even if Christians are required to forgive their tormentors, and hopefully Moslems will somebody get around to that position, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't take note of the offense. Hedbo's cartoons were vulgar and insulting, and fit into a long French leftist tradition in that regards. They were not artful, sophisticated satire.
And for that reason, in part, I'm not joining the "Je suis Charlie" campaign. Indeed, Je ne suis pas Charlie.
On this front, I'll stick with an earlier identification offered by this symbol:
This came about, as noted, in part because of the assassinations at Charlie Hedbo by Islamic terrorists. But let's be clear, this taps into, a bit, my other message. And let's start off with a couple of basic propositions.
First of all, killing journalist isn't warfare. Its murder. Its murder in any religion, or if it isn't, it should be. And its murder for the non religions as well.
But, being the victim of murder, even if you are killed for your statements or beliefs, doesn't convert you into a hero.
And Charlie Hedbo's cartoons weren't heroic, they were vile.
They truly were insulting. They insulted Islam, and they insulted Christianity. Christians, of course, can't murder those they disagree with, and indeed to be insulted for your faith is regarded in Christian tenants as a symbol of your praiseworthiness. Christ promised his followers that they'd get exactly that sort of treatment.
But even if Christians are required to forgive their tormentors, and hopefully Moslems will somebody get around to that position, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't take note of the offense. Hedbo's cartoons were vulgar and insulting, and fit into a long French leftist tradition in that regards. They were not artful, sophisticated satire.
And for that reason, in part, I'm not joining the "Je suis Charlie" campaign. Indeed, Je ne suis pas Charlie.
On this front, I'll stick with an earlier identification offered by this symbol:
The Arabic equivalent of the letter "N", standing for Nazarene, or Christian, which has come to symbolize those Middle Easter Christians under assault by ISIL.
I'd offer that, like identifying with European Jews of the 1930s and 1940s, this serves a higher purpose, no matter what a person's belief, rather than associating cartoonists whose cartoons were insulting and vulgar, unless of course we make it clear that we're standing for Freedom of the Press everywhere. But aren't we really standing for more than that, and not only Freedom of Expression, but Freedom of Belief, for all? For everyone of every belief, including Moslems and to include the Moslem policeman killed by the Parisian terrorist? If we aren't, I suggest that we should be.
Islamic Violence, Islamic Silence and Western Relativism
This past week the world has been witness to another outrage committed by those who claim devotion to Islam. If this event were unique, a person could discount it as not really having a basis in Islam in some fashion, but as its far from unique, a person can't and shouldn't.
Over the past couple of years alone we've seen Moslems blow up a bomb during the Boston Marathon, kill French cartoonist and magazine staffers, murder a British soldier in his home country in the street, attack the Canadian parliament, and wage a war combined with barbarity in Iraq and Syria. Each time this occurs, people in the west, indeed people in much of the world, are told that we are not to assume that this means such actions accurately reflect any tenants of Islam. Indeed, a White House spokesman was quoted in The Weekly Standard as saying this past Thursday:
There are some individuals that are using a peaceful religion and grossly distorting it, and trying to use its tenets to inspire people around the globe to carry out acts of violence. And we have enjoyed significant success in enlisting leaders in the Muslim community, like I said, both in the United States and around the world to condemn that kind of messaging, to condemn those efforts to radicalize individuals, and to be clear about what the tenets of Islamactually [sic] are. And we’re going to redouble those efforts in the days and weeks ahead.
That's all well and good, but a statement by the U.S. Presidency to this effect has exactly zero effect as a statement on behalf of Islam, influencing Moslems, or really doing anything at all. Something like this would mean something if it came from a really influential Moslem cleric, but it does not, at least in so far as this statement is concerned. So, does this accurately reflect real Islam, or not, or can these acts be squared with Islam, or not?
Well, maybe they do not, maybe these people are nutty outliers (I suspect at least some of them clearly are, if not outright mentally disturbed) but unfortunately maybe they do, at least to some Moslems. Indeed, a recent poll of Saudis found that over 90% view ISIL's actions as consistent with Islamic tenants. Now, a person has to be careful about that, as consistent with, and mandated by, are two completely different things. Indeed, its completely possible for a person to abhor something in a faith, while being a loyal member of it, but while also regarding that thing as "consistent with" the faith. So, I don't take that to mean that Saudis all are supporting ISIL by any means.
But all of these things together, combined with a poll figure like that, should tell us something. And the general, or at least apparent, silence up until quite recently of Islamic leaders who count when these things occur means even more.
Generally, the people who are quick to assert that "Islam is a religion of peace" aren't Moslem, and in fact, Islam really isn't a religion of peace consistently in regards to non Moslems. The founding document of Islam, the Koran, isn't consistently peaceful by any means. Nor does it recognize a separation between religious and civil government. As Christians well know, Christ instructed his followers to "render until Caesar things which are Caesar's" but Mohamed, who of course rejected Christ's divinity (although in actuality may have been more of a Gnostic in reality, rather than as he was later remembered and quoted), left no such instruction. For that reason, early Islam featured a unified government for its adherents, and that government waged war against its neighbors.
This early history, and the foundation of the religion, is extremely important in this context. From the outside, when observed in a historical context, the origins of Islam can be and are debated, but a long held school of thought which still holds much historical weight would place very early Islam in the category of Gnosticism but advanced by a very charismatic leader. That early Islam probably didn't really hold all of the same tenants of the current one, but it did fight its neighbors, sometimes with Christian allies even in Mohammed's time (which again would tend to suggest that early on it was actually a species of Gnosticism, rather than a new religion). The Koran itself, to non Moslem students, seems to have been written in an evolutionary fashion, with earlier portions being less aggressive than later, perhaps reflecting the evolution in conditions on the ground that Mohamed and his followers were facing.
Of course, to almost all Moslems, and certainly to any adherent Moslem, this view is all wrong and they would argue that the Koran is the word of God, and that's the way it is. And for Moslems, therefore, the violent portions of the Koran cannot be ignored as Moslems have to deal with them in some fashion.
But they can be interpreted differently, and there are those who have argued that they should be. Particularly recently. Indeed, a major Egyptian figure is arguing that this be done right now, and there have been Moslem clerics also arguing the same, recently.
That modern conditions aren't exactly the same ones that Mohamed faced in his lifetime are pretty obvious, and that humans have largely evolved past the point where every national difference must be solved by violence or warfare, if that was ever really the case, are gone. Indeed, the world is becoming more peaceful, not less, so this violence stands out more and more as an aberration. But it doesn't seem to be an aberration in Islamic terms.
And it won't seem to be until that point at which most Moslems make it clear that they not only aren't resorting to the gun, but that they don't approve of it being done. And so far, that really hasn't been the case. Much like peaceful Communists, or the hard right, in the 1920s and 30s in Europe, people tend to wink or be silent in the face of violence committed by those they agree with on other issues, and that truly ended badly. The time has really come for Moslems in Europe and the United States to take a stand, one way or the other, and hopefully against violence. Not until they take that brave act will this trend abate. Of course, doing that is made doubly difficult now, as for anyone to do it in this climate they risk being branded a traitor or heretic by those who support a violent view, and beyond that there's no recognized central authority in Islam and hasn't been since the original Caliphate fell apart many centuries ago. Indeed, the only body really claiming the the title of central authority is ISIL, and even thought the overwhelming majority of Moslems don't recognize that claim, at the same time there's no other central authority and there doesn't appear to be any way for one to be recognized in the present age. And so, almost by its very nature, its really difficult for any Moslem leader to have a voice, unless he's very much in the global news, and that only tends to be nobody at all. So even when Moslem clerics do decry violence, and they sometimes do, it's almost never heard by anyone, even when they do occupy a position of respected authority.
That is particularly problematic, as with no central authority, there's no vehicle for reformation or interpretation that is really controlling. Indeed, the complete lack of a central authority really makes Islam unique, as almost every other faith has one. Even highly fractionated Christianity has that in that the various denominations do, and even though some would be reluctant to admit it, the ancient structure of the Catholic and Orthodox world is looked on for guidance by everyone.
So we face a crisis of collision of cultures in a way that we have not for some time, with an absolute need for a group now highly associated with violence to declare against it, with no easy way in which for them to accomplish that. But they really need to.
That is particularly problematic, as with no central authority, there's no vehicle for reformation or interpretation that is really controlling. Indeed, the complete lack of a central authority really makes Islam unique, as almost every other faith has one. Even highly fractionated Christianity has that in that the various denominations do, and even though some would be reluctant to admit it, the ancient structure of the Catholic and Orthodox world is looked on for guidance by everyone.
So we face a crisis of collision of cultures in a way that we have not for some time, with an absolute need for a group now highly associated with violence to declare against it, with no easy way in which for them to accomplish that. But they really need to.
Assuming we aren't too late now. We've been near a tipping point in Europe for awhile, and now that we've seen this in France, a nation that has a long and complicated, and not always peaceful history, with Islamic residents, things are going to get much worse in terms of the political climate in Europe, or at least they could. The time, therefore, for a large and effective Moslem declaration that this isn't what they support is here now. Assuming, of course, that they really truly do, as a group, abhor such actions. If they do, they should make that loudly plain now.
But at the same time, we should also take note, contrary to the claims of some, that the story of Islam in the West isn't really one solely of immigration, but also one of conversion. There's a lesson to be learned here as well. Islam is filling a void in the west left by something, and that something may be the demise of clear religious and philosophical sets of purposes.
What exactly has occurred here remains unclear, and is still an evolving story, but as late as World War Two it was still the case that a large majority of Europeans adhered to at least some world view based on Christianity or, if not, social justice in a concrete sense. Not all of the political movements were admirable by any means, but most people did have a sense of the greater and lesser, and the founding central focuses of those views was pretty concrete. This has tended towards collapse in recent years leading towards an increasing view of absolute relativism on everything. As a result, Europeans have been shocked with cultures that have not taken this path collide with them, as they increasingly are, and not just in regards to Islam, but also to Europe's giant eastern neighbor.
And relativism turns out not to be a satisfying philosophical concept for anyone. As the "everything is equal" and "all conduct is okay as long as it doesn't hurt anyone" ethos has crept in, human desire to find meaning in something, anything, other than money, has likewise increased. Ironically, at the same time, central institutions of all type have increasingly adopted relativism as their more or less official positions. As traditional European institutions or institutions that were traditionally strong in the west have weakened, many have been aimless and others have turned towards those institutions that have their base in distant lands, but which seem more absolute.
As official positions, relativistic institutions don't work, particularly on anything founded on a strong thesis. This doesn't mean that a person must agree with one particular thing or another, but it does mean that institutions shouldn't hide their basic concepts or dilute them to the point that they're nearly meaningless.
For when they do, there is always something left to fill that vacuum. And in an age when many of the Christian religions in Europe have diluted their faith to the point that it isn't very recognizable, and when many social and political institutions seem mainly focused on what the best way for an economy to make money is, those who are looking for something to give their lives meaning have to look pretty far. And for some of them, that will be Islam, as whether a person agrees with it or not, Islam seems to know what it believes. Countering a strong belief with the ethos of "it's nice to be nice to the nice and everyone is nice" isn't going to cut it with people who are searching. Indeed, it really doesn't cut it with anyone.
So we've reached this point. And its a bad one. Maybe its time for those who have a foundation in something to declare what it is, and for those who have a foundation in something that others feel licenses violence, when they feel otherwise, to state that.
Postscript
Of note here, and of interest, a fair number of newspapers in the Middle East have, in fact, run cartoons from their cartoonist decrying the terrorists' acts.
That's a brave thing to do, given where they are from, and its exactly the type of reaction from that quarter that's needed here.
Postscript II
And there was indeed a good turn out for the March in Paris, which did indeed include some significant Moslem figures, including clerics and King Abdullah of Jordan.
So, perhaps things have turned a corner.
Postscript III
For the first time, I've heard a really good explanation, but a noted religion writer, on the topic of this type of violence and Islam.
Of note, according to this author, who seemed very well informed indeed, such violence is in fact not sanctioned by Islam, even if Islam's history and texts have some violent aspects. A partial reason is that there's no authority that has authorized it, which can authorize it. Indeed, there would appear to be no authority which can in fact authorize it.
Additionally, it appears that the violence has in fact turned off a large segment of the Islamic population everywhere, to such an extent in fact that the religion is loosing a significant number of adherents in some areas, including Iran, where those abandoning the faith are either completely abandoning any faith, or are converting to Christianity.
Postscript
Of note here, and of interest, a fair number of newspapers in the Middle East have, in fact, run cartoons from their cartoonist decrying the terrorists' acts.
That's a brave thing to do, given where they are from, and its exactly the type of reaction from that quarter that's needed here.
Postscript II
And there was indeed a good turn out for the March in Paris, which did indeed include some significant Moslem figures, including clerics and King Abdullah of Jordan.
So, perhaps things have turned a corner.
Postscript III
For the first time, I've heard a really good explanation, but a noted religion writer, on the topic of this type of violence and Islam.
Of note, according to this author, who seemed very well informed indeed, such violence is in fact not sanctioned by Islam, even if Islam's history and texts have some violent aspects. A partial reason is that there's no authority that has authorized it, which can authorize it. Indeed, there would appear to be no authority which can in fact authorize it.
Additionally, it appears that the violence has in fact turned off a large segment of the Islamic population everywhere, to such an extent in fact that the religion is loosing a significant number of adherents in some areas, including Iran, where those abandoning the faith are either completely abandoning any faith, or are converting to Christianity.
Matters of preception. "Rancher"
This past Sunday, the local paper ran an article on Frank Robbins.
Robbins is a Thermopolis area landowner who ranches around that area. Often the articles about him repeat his often stated desire, at age 59, to protect his way of life from the Federal government. He's been involved in a variety of spats with the government since he showed up there.
Yes, I said showed up. Robbins bought three or so ranches in that area and combined them into one, after selling a ranch in Montana. He did that about a decade or more ago. And he came into Montana from Alabama.
In Alabama, apparently, he was in the lumber and flooring business, and did very well at it. So well that he amassed a fortune of this type, or so I've read, seeing as I only know about him what I've read.
Now, out of staters coming in to ranch isn't new, it's indeed the original story of ranching in the region. Homesteaders were not, after all, from here. But in terms of "way of life", do you have a good claim to that in an area you aren't native too, particularly as the modern story of ranching is that the vast amount of money required to buy a ranch now effectively means that locals, including many families and individuals with strong connections, are priced out of owning their own places. In a way, Robbins is preventing other people, purely accidentally, from engaging in their way of life, as we're from here and don't have that kind for fortune. Under those circumstances the "way of life" claims rings pretty hollow to natives.
Robbins is a Thermopolis area landowner who ranches around that area. Often the articles about him repeat his often stated desire, at age 59, to protect his way of life from the Federal government. He's been involved in a variety of spats with the government since he showed up there.
Yes, I said showed up. Robbins bought three or so ranches in that area and combined them into one, after selling a ranch in Montana. He did that about a decade or more ago. And he came into Montana from Alabama.
In Alabama, apparently, he was in the lumber and flooring business, and did very well at it. So well that he amassed a fortune of this type, or so I've read, seeing as I only know about him what I've read.
Now, out of staters coming in to ranch isn't new, it's indeed the original story of ranching in the region. Homesteaders were not, after all, from here. But in terms of "way of life", do you have a good claim to that in an area you aren't native too, particularly as the modern story of ranching is that the vast amount of money required to buy a ranch now effectively means that locals, including many families and individuals with strong connections, are priced out of owning their own places. In a way, Robbins is preventing other people, purely accidentally, from engaging in their way of life, as we're from here and don't have that kind for fortune. Under those circumstances the "way of life" claims rings pretty hollow to natives.
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: An Overview Of The Star Wagon Company
WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: An Overview Of The Star Wagon Company: Living in an age where visual arts have enjoyed so much progress can make it tempting to take the work of graphic design for granted. Mode...
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: The best-laid schemes o' mice an...
Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: The best-laid schemes o' mice an...: Lex Anteinternet: The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men: Lex Antein... : I've been bumping up this thread from time to time: ...And now, today I've read a prediction that the price may go under $20 bbl, which would be truly astounding with huge economic consequences in the region. That figure is truly hard to imagine.
Lex Anteinternet: The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men: Lex Antein...
Lex Anteinternet: The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men: Lex Antein...: I've been bumping up this thread from time to time: Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: $40/barrel? : A couple of we...And now the local price is $42/bbl.
We're clearly going to go below $40/bbl. Amazing.
Home - BLM GLO Records
Home - BLM GLO Records
Neat site with access, in a somewhat complicated fashion, to Department of the Interior records, including land patents.
Neat site with access, in a somewhat complicated fashion, to Department of the Interior records, including land patents.
Wyoming Railroad Map, 1915
The Wyoming State Library has published a series of historic maps of the state, including railroad maps. I'd been hoping to find one for 1915 (book research, which I've been turning to again, which probably makes this blog a bit more like it originally was, and a bit more dull for the few people who actually stop in here), and low and behold, they had one.
1915 Wyoming Railroad Map.
Interesting map, it shows some things that I'd wondered about.
It shows, for one thing, that Casper was served by the Burlington Northern, which I new, and the Chicago and North Western, which I sort of knew, but it was celled the Great North Western in its later years. It served Casper up until probably about 25 years ago or so. There's hardly any remnant of it here now, and its old rail line here was converted to a trail through the town. The old depot is a nice looking office building, but I don't know if that building dates back to 1915. I doubt it. I don't think that the Burlington Northern one isn't that old either.
A really interesting aspect of this is that it shows two parallel lines actually running from where the railroads met in Douglas. I knew that there were two depots in Douglas, and I knew there were remnants of the North West line east of town, but I didn't realize that the two lines actually ran astride each other, more or less (within a few miles of each other), from Douglas to Powder River, where they joined. The depot at Powder River is no longer there.
1915 Wyoming Railroad Map.
Interesting map, it shows some things that I'd wondered about.
It shows, for one thing, that Casper was served by the Burlington Northern, which I new, and the Chicago and North Western, which I sort of knew, but it was celled the Great North Western in its later years. It served Casper up until probably about 25 years ago or so. There's hardly any remnant of it here now, and its old rail line here was converted to a trail through the town. The old depot is a nice looking office building, but I don't know if that building dates back to 1915. I doubt it. I don't think that the Burlington Northern one isn't that old either.
Former Chicago and North Western depot in Casper.
Burlington Northern Depot in Casper.
A really interesting aspect of this is that it shows two parallel lines actually running from where the railroads met in Douglas. I knew that there were two depots in Douglas, and I knew there were remnants of the North West line east of town, but I didn't realize that the two lines actually ran astride each other, more or less (within a few miles of each other), from Douglas to Powder River, where they joined. The depot at Powder River is no longer there.
Former depot for one of the railroads in Douglas, now used as a railroad interpretive center.
The other depot in Douglas, now a restaurant called "The Depot".
After that, interestingly, the Chicago and North Western ran to Shoshoni, while the Burlington Northern did not. Now, a local short line runs to Shoshoni and links in somewhere with the BN, but I don't know where. Not in Powder River, that's for sure. The BN still runs north through the Wind River Canyon, however, taking a turn at Shoshoni, which did not at that time, still passing through Lysite as it then did. No rail line runs from Shoshoni to Riverton, and on to Hudson and Lander like this map shows. And as with one of the Douglas depots, the old Riverton line is now a restaurant, although I've apparently failed to photograph that one (note to self, I suppose). It's pretty amazing to think, really, that Fremont County's rail service has really declined pretty significantly in the past century, with Lander no longer being a terminus.
Rail facilties in Lysite, which are probably nearly as old as the map being discussed here.
Going the other way, the results are even more surprising. Orin Junction is still there, and is still a railroad junction, but just for the Burlington Northern. The railroad still runs east to Lusk, but that's a Burlington Northern line today, apparently running on the old path of the Chicago and North Western. Going south east, that line is still there up to Harville, but from the there what's indicated as a Colorado & "South 'N" line is now a Union Pacific line.
I honestly don't know, and really should, how far south that UP line runs, which shows that this is one of those areas of my state's history and present that I don't know that much about. It's funny how something like this can really surprise you, and make you realize that you don't know aas much as you think. I know that the BN runs as far south as Chugwater today, and further south than that, but I don't know if it runs into Cheyenne like it once did (or rather the Colorado did). The main line of the UP runs through southern Wyoming and there's a huge yard in Cheyenne, so presumably there's a junction there somewhere.
The former Union Pacific depot in Cheyenne, now, of course, a restaurant and a museum.
This map in fact answered a question for me which I had, which is that if you wanted to travel from Casper to Cheyenne on a timely basis, what route would the train take. Well, now I know. In 1915, you'd take either of the railroads serving Casper east to Orin Junction, and then take the BN south to Hartville. From there, you'd take the Colorado south to Cheyenne. From there, the extensive UP lines opened up the path west, south and east.
It's also interesting to see some lines that I knew once existed, but which are now defunct, shown here on the map. The Saratoga & Encampment, for example, is shown. I didn't know it was that told, but I should have. The Colorado & Eastern running from Laramie up to the Snowies is also shown. I knew that some railroad had done that, and that the lines are still there (a shortline serving skiers was attempted a few years ago, but no longer runs), but I didn't know what line that was.
Very interesting stuff.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Postscript
Out of curiosity, I took a look at the map for 1930, the last one they had up. The rail lines were the same in 1930 as they were in 1915.
That shouldn't, I suppose, surprise me really. For one thing, all the basic service lines appear to have been in by 1915 (or earlier, I'll have to see if there's an earlier rail map). And the last 1930 map was a "travel" map, not specifically a rail line map, like the 1915 one was, so perhaps it may have omitted any newer lines, although I doubt it. Of interest, that travel map for 1930 only showed rail lines, not roads, so the presumption was obvious that if you were going to be doing much traveling, it was going to be by rail.
Postscript II
Another thing that occurs to me from looking at this map is the extent of rail service, particularly passenger service, but all rail service in general, at a time when the state's population was less than half of what it present is. Very extensive. Quite a remarkable change, compared to now, when some of these lines and many of the smaller railroads no longer exist here at all.
Of course, that no doubt reflects the massive changes in transportation we've seen, the improvement of roads, and of course the huge improvement in automobiles over this period.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Postscript
Out of curiosity, I took a look at the map for 1930, the last one they had up. The rail lines were the same in 1930 as they were in 1915.
That shouldn't, I suppose, surprise me really. For one thing, all the basic service lines appear to have been in by 1915 (or earlier, I'll have to see if there's an earlier rail map). And the last 1930 map was a "travel" map, not specifically a rail line map, like the 1915 one was, so perhaps it may have omitted any newer lines, although I doubt it. Of interest, that travel map for 1930 only showed rail lines, not roads, so the presumption was obvious that if you were going to be doing much traveling, it was going to be by rail.
Postscript II
Another thing that occurs to me from looking at this map is the extent of rail service, particularly passenger service, but all rail service in general, at a time when the state's population was less than half of what it present is. Very extensive. Quite a remarkable change, compared to now, when some of these lines and many of the smaller railroads no longer exist here at all.
Of course, that no doubt reflects the massive changes in transportation we've seen, the improvement of roads, and of course the huge improvement in automobiles over this period.
Monday, January 5, 2015
Sunday, January 4, 2015
Movies In History: Unbroken
This has been an unusual year for me, movie wise, as I've actually been to three, at the theatre, within a year. I'll often go years without seeing one actually at the theater. It occurs to me that I still need to add one here that I have not, that being The Monuments Men.
Last night we saw Unbroken.
This film is making the rounds right now and has been well received. I can see why, the film is simply excellent. The story is now fairly familiar to everyone, it follows the story of Louis Silvie "Louie" Zamperini, who was a B-24 bombardier in the Pacific during World War Two and whom went down in the Pacific in the course of his service. The movie is about the ordeal that follows, both on the sea, and as a Prisoner of War.
I won't try to detail that here, but I will note instead that to the extent that I know that story (I have yet to read the book), the film follows it pretty closely and does a good job of it.
In terms of material and cultural details, the film also does a superb job. The CGI generated aircraft are done excellently, and appear very real indeed. The bombing run early in the film stands in my mind as the single most frightening example of that in film, because it appears so accurate in every fashion. The film'ss one material error that I caught appeared in regards to a Japanese Zero fighter plane, which is shown rolling over with its drop tank on, which is unlikely unless the tank stuck (which is a possibility). Otherwise, all the details, uniforms, etc., are absolutely correct.
In cultural details, the film actually diminishes slightly the extreme cruelty of the Japanese as guards and general and fairly significantly diminishes the actual cruelty of Japanese guard Mutsuhiro Watanabe, but the reason for that are probably justifiable as that would have caused that to be such a feature of the film as to be absolutely overwhelming.
All in all, this is an excellent film.
Last night we saw Unbroken.
This film is making the rounds right now and has been well received. I can see why, the film is simply excellent. The story is now fairly familiar to everyone, it follows the story of Louis Silvie "Louie" Zamperini, who was a B-24 bombardier in the Pacific during World War Two and whom went down in the Pacific in the course of his service. The movie is about the ordeal that follows, both on the sea, and as a Prisoner of War.
I won't try to detail that here, but I will note instead that to the extent that I know that story (I have yet to read the book), the film follows it pretty closely and does a good job of it.
In terms of material and cultural details, the film also does a superb job. The CGI generated aircraft are done excellently, and appear very real indeed. The bombing run early in the film stands in my mind as the single most frightening example of that in film, because it appears so accurate in every fashion. The film'ss one material error that I caught appeared in regards to a Japanese Zero fighter plane, which is shown rolling over with its drop tank on, which is unlikely unless the tank stuck (which is a possibility). Otherwise, all the details, uniforms, etc., are absolutely correct.
In cultural details, the film actually diminishes slightly the extreme cruelty of the Japanese as guards and general and fairly significantly diminishes the actual cruelty of Japanese guard Mutsuhiro Watanabe, but the reason for that are probably justifiable as that would have caused that to be such a feature of the film as to be absolutely overwhelming.
All in all, this is an excellent film.
Saturday, January 3, 2015
Friday, January 2, 2015
100 Years of Law
100 Years of Law
The ABA Journal looks back on 100 years of publication.
Quite a long time, a distinction it shares, although its a year younger, with The New Republic, which turned 100 last year.
The ABA Journal looks back on 100 years of publication.
Quite a long time, a distinction it shares, although its a year younger, with The New Republic, which turned 100 last year.
Old Picture of the Day: Prospectors
Old Picture of the Day: Prospectors: Today's picture shows a couple of prospectors with their donkeys all packed up, ready for the gold rush. The picture was taken in ...
New Year's Resolutions for Other People
Yeah, I know its rude. But if you are in the public eye, I guess you are open for public content. So here's some resolutions for folks who might miss these obvious ones.
So, here goes:
Congress. Let's just assume that your audience is intelligent and can follow an intelligent argument. I bet it can. And after assuming that, whether you are in the left or the right, conduct your public debates that way. If you can't do that, you ought to not be there.
Congressional Judiciary Committees: Avoid appointments to the bench from Harvard or Yale for the entire year. Not a single one. Don't we have enough of them already? There are lawyers from other places.
For that matter, how about not appointing any sitting or retired judges to appellate benches. Branch out. You'll be glad you did.
And put a retirement age on the Federal Bench. These are public jobs for the American public, not jobs for life for one single benighted generation. Appointments for life no longer make any sense.
Country Music. If you aren't actually from the country, please sit this one out or admit you are a "pop artist". It's different.
And cut out the sap, too, will you?
ISIL Open your minds up, at least a bit. And get a calendar and see what century this is.
Kim Jong-un. Kim, you are on your way to being remembered as a complete clown. You could be remembered as a hero. Take the bold move, open the borders, and announce that you intend to peacefully reunite North Korea with the South by letting the Republic of Korea take over.
You could go into comfortable retirement in Switzerland within a year, and be a hero for life. The way you are going, you are going to be remembered as one of the all time biggest doofuses ever.
People with the last name Bush or Clinton. Enough already, the country can function fine without you as President. Sit this one out, and the next several as well, and surprise people by not running for President.
Barack Obama. Go outside and see where you live. You are not a law school professor anymore. Yapping at people doesn't equate with action, and getting mad and assigning things to the class you can't deal with isn't going to work either. Quit studying Wilson. Study Roosevelt, Truman, Reagan, Bush I or Clinton and see how to get some things done.
New York: Hello New York and things New Yorkish. We still love you, but you aren't "Number One" anymore, and you haven't been for a really long time. Just because you pass a bill or collectively think something doesn't make it the up and coming thing, it probably is viewed by the rest of us as stale and a little moldy, which is how we also view New York. You are going to have to get over yourself. Your resolution is to have a little humility this year. Think of yourself as, oh. . . Labrador.
The People's Republic of China. You can only pretend to be a "people's republic" while ignoring democracy so long. Read the history of your own country, and realize that China's always only a second away from a revolution, and take the next step to open the politics of the country up. Your excuse for not doing so is long gone. And stop acting like a 19th Century colonial power too.
Pop-Tarts You know who you are, you collection of women famous only for being famous, or for your appearance alone. Stop acting like your for sale on the street and have a little big of dignity. Spend their year dressing modestly and really shock people. Read a book. Go outdoors with some outdoorsy close on. Just be something, for goodness sake.
Television. Hello television, you are stupid. Get an education and quit broadcasting crap.
This is particularly the case regarding anything billed "Entertainment", or that appears on "TLC". Enough already. But it applies to the rests of television as well. Time for some remedial classes.
So, here goes:
Congress. Let's just assume that your audience is intelligent and can follow an intelligent argument. I bet it can. And after assuming that, whether you are in the left or the right, conduct your public debates that way. If you can't do that, you ought to not be there.
Congressional Judiciary Committees: Avoid appointments to the bench from Harvard or Yale for the entire year. Not a single one. Don't we have enough of them already? There are lawyers from other places.
For that matter, how about not appointing any sitting or retired judges to appellate benches. Branch out. You'll be glad you did.
And put a retirement age on the Federal Bench. These are public jobs for the American public, not jobs for life for one single benighted generation. Appointments for life no longer make any sense.
Country Music. If you aren't actually from the country, please sit this one out or admit you are a "pop artist". It's different.
And cut out the sap, too, will you?
ISIL Open your minds up, at least a bit. And get a calendar and see what century this is.
Kim Jong-un. Kim, you are on your way to being remembered as a complete clown. You could be remembered as a hero. Take the bold move, open the borders, and announce that you intend to peacefully reunite North Korea with the South by letting the Republic of Korea take over.
You could go into comfortable retirement in Switzerland within a year, and be a hero for life. The way you are going, you are going to be remembered as one of the all time biggest doofuses ever.
People with the last name Bush or Clinton. Enough already, the country can function fine without you as President. Sit this one out, and the next several as well, and surprise people by not running for President.
Barack Obama. Go outside and see where you live. You are not a law school professor anymore. Yapping at people doesn't equate with action, and getting mad and assigning things to the class you can't deal with isn't going to work either. Quit studying Wilson. Study Roosevelt, Truman, Reagan, Bush I or Clinton and see how to get some things done.
New York: Hello New York and things New Yorkish. We still love you, but you aren't "Number One" anymore, and you haven't been for a really long time. Just because you pass a bill or collectively think something doesn't make it the up and coming thing, it probably is viewed by the rest of us as stale and a little moldy, which is how we also view New York. You are going to have to get over yourself. Your resolution is to have a little humility this year. Think of yourself as, oh. . . Labrador.
The People's Republic of China. You can only pretend to be a "people's republic" while ignoring democracy so long. Read the history of your own country, and realize that China's always only a second away from a revolution, and take the next step to open the politics of the country up. Your excuse for not doing so is long gone. And stop acting like a 19th Century colonial power too.
Pop-Tarts You know who you are, you collection of women famous only for being famous, or for your appearance alone. Stop acting like your for sale on the street and have a little big of dignity. Spend their year dressing modestly and really shock people. Read a book. Go outdoors with some outdoorsy close on. Just be something, for goodness sake.
Television. Hello television, you are stupid. Get an education and quit broadcasting crap.
This is particularly the case regarding anything billed "Entertainment", or that appears on "TLC". Enough already. But it applies to the rests of television as well. Time for some remedial classes.
Thursday, January 1, 2015
The Wyoming Tribune: January 1, 1915
ArchivalWare
And some grim news from the Wyoming Tribune.
I had yesterday's up, in 1914, for the Tribune, but seem to have wiped it out somehow. It had the interesting headline that the Japanese were not going to "invade" Europe, which strikes me as an odd concern for the era.
And some grim news from the Wyoming Tribune.
I had yesterday's up, in 1914, for the Tribune, but seem to have wiped it out somehow. It had the interesting headline that the Japanese were not going to "invade" Europe, which strikes me as an odd concern for the era.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Random Snippets: Western law schools
The University of Wyoming's College of Law was founded in 1920 with classes being held in the library.
Denver University's College of Law was founded in 1892.
Denver University's College of Law was founded in 1892.
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Today In Wyoming's History: December 29 Updated
Today In Wyoming's History: December 29:
2014 The Special Master issues his report on Tongue River allocations in Montana v. Wyoming. Wyoming newspapers report this as a victory for Wyoming, but Montana papers report that both states won some points in the decision, which now goes to the Supreme Court for approval or rejection.
2014 The Special Master issues his report on Tongue River allocations in Montana v. Wyoming. Wyoming newspapers report this as a victory for Wyoming, but Montana papers report that both states won some points in the decision, which now goes to the Supreme Court for approval or rejection.
Je Ne Regrette Rien et Je Me Souviens: Resolutions and Regrets
This time of year, I'll frequently hear "I don't do New Year's Resolutions". That's fine, and that's your business, but I do.
These two attitudes might best be summed up by the two French phrases, which sounds so much more poetic in French than in English, from two different sources.
The first phrase if from Édith Piaf's classic, and defiant, song by that title, which freely translates as "I don't regret anything". It starts out:
In contrast, there's the defiant motto of Quebec. "Je me souviens", or "I remember".
To remember, and to remember accurately, is to have regrets, at least some minor regrets. And to have regrets requires us to attempt to adjust to avoid creating new regrets if we can. As a learning intelligent being, we must face our regrets and act where we can. And those are resolutions.
Of course, some regrets are unaddressable. Things we regret from eons ago, or regrets about situations which are permanent. Those kind of regrets, we're told, can be disabling. There's no point in crying over spilled milk, we're told as children, and there certainly isn't any point in crying over milk that's spilled and then spoiled. But, as a person with a long memory, I'm sometimes conscious of those old regrets.
But I don't view that as a bad thing. We are a species which weighs and measures things, including mistakes, and mistakes that stick with us do so for a reason. We've no doubt always been that way, as in "I regret whacking that bison on the head. . . I shall not do so again."
And I do make resolutions. I'm a work in progress for sure, and I know that. As we all have a backdoor view of ourselves, which nobody else does, I"m sure that most people acknowledge that. Indeed, a person who thinks that they're near perfection is a pain, and laboring under an illusion. Few do that, however.
Which doesn't mean the content should not be. Some do better than others at their lives and some also are blessed with fortune, opportunity, or a personal makeup that allows for them to be contented. Indeed, I suspect all are.
Which is why regrets well chosen, and resolutions well made, are useful. And January 1 is as good of time to make those as any other, whether they be large, as some people's are, or small, as most of our resolutions really are.
So, Happy New Year!
These two attitudes might best be summed up by the two French phrases, which sounds so much more poetic in French than in English, from two different sources.
The first phrase if from Édith Piaf's classic, and defiant, song by that title, which freely translates as "I don't regret anything". It starts out:
Non... rien de rienThat translates as:
Non je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien... qu'on m'a fait
Ni le mal, tout ça m'est bien égale..
No, nothing at all,I can see why this defiant song was sung by defiant French Legionairres as they went into captivity following their failued uprising in Algiers.
No, I regret nothing
Not the good things. . . they did to me
Nor the bad. . .may it's all the same to me!
In contrast, there's the defiant motto of Quebec. "Je me souviens", or "I remember".
To remember, and to remember accurately, is to have regrets, at least some minor regrets. And to have regrets requires us to attempt to adjust to avoid creating new regrets if we can. As a learning intelligent being, we must face our regrets and act where we can. And those are resolutions.
Of course, some regrets are unaddressable. Things we regret from eons ago, or regrets about situations which are permanent. Those kind of regrets, we're told, can be disabling. There's no point in crying over spilled milk, we're told as children, and there certainly isn't any point in crying over milk that's spilled and then spoiled. But, as a person with a long memory, I'm sometimes conscious of those old regrets.
But I don't view that as a bad thing. We are a species which weighs and measures things, including mistakes, and mistakes that stick with us do so for a reason. We've no doubt always been that way, as in "I regret whacking that bison on the head. . . I shall not do so again."
And I do make resolutions. I'm a work in progress for sure, and I know that. As we all have a backdoor view of ourselves, which nobody else does, I"m sure that most people acknowledge that. Indeed, a person who thinks that they're near perfection is a pain, and laboring under an illusion. Few do that, however.
Which doesn't mean the content should not be. Some do better than others at their lives and some also are blessed with fortune, opportunity, or a personal makeup that allows for them to be contented. Indeed, I suspect all are.
Which is why regrets well chosen, and resolutions well made, are useful. And January 1 is as good of time to make those as any other, whether they be large, as some people's are, or small, as most of our resolutions really are.
So, Happy New Year!
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men: Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: $40/barrel?
I've been bumping up this thread from time to time:
I was amazed by the prediction, but in reading the article I found one of the knowledgeable folks in it noting that all the planning was done before the current crash in the price of oil. In other words, the planning basically was done with $100/bbl oil in mind, in perpetuity. Not oil that's dropping below half that price, and falling. Indeed, planning aside, this state now faces a decline in oil that represents about 50% of this value six months ago, and its still falling. Coal in the meantime has been steadily declining in production. Natural Gas prices collapsed some time ago. And actual demographic information is that the state lost about 1.5 times the number of people that the county plans stated would come into the county each year for 25 years. Wyoming's population slightly increased last year, but due to births by residents.
Now, I'm not getting after the planners nor the industry, but pointing out that all such planning has some inherent folly to it, as the assumptions that are made are frequently highly invalid. Looking at the basic industries of the state, all extractive save for tourism and agriculture, what we actually have is an economy based upon the production of three things, gas, coal, and oil, and all three are may be, or might not be, in some long term trouble Oil is the most stable, sort of, as the consumption of it will go on for some time, but even long term trends there are not comforting for those who would base an economy solely on it. The old habits of the country which saw fuel consumption dramatically rise every time the price at the pump went down are really over. People seem now fully committed to accepting rising CAFE standards and ever more fuel efficient cars, and turning away from petroleum entirely seems to be a widely shared goal. During this period, Saudi Arabia, whose economy entirely depends on the sale of petroleum, can afford to keep the price low and keep the money coming in, until it can hope to shift to something else in the future. They seem fully aware of that now and committed to that course.
The irony of that is that, but for the Saudi Arabian gambit, the oil economy did appear to have been fairly stable, which the planners no doubt noted, as consumption will go on, the cyclical nature of prices seemed over, and after the drilling was relatively complete, the infrastructure will of course remain and need to be serviced. But nobody planned on Saudi Arabia essentially knowing the same thing, and also knowing that it could drop the price and crowed the domestic industry out. That shows, I suppose, the inherent risks in any sort of long term planning. You can never really fully account for such things.
Gas, which did create a booming economy in some Wyoming counties, sort of endured a price crash awhile back which was more predictable, but also seemed to take people off guard. The reason for that is that the new gas pockets were, in some areas, easy to exploit, but once the infrastructure came on line, which was regional in extent, it put a lot of gas on the market. Gas used to be basically consumed here locally, as that's all the infrastructure that there was, and the thought, reasonable enough, was that once our gas was put into a national infrastructure, the price would rise. It did, but then all the regional gas including the Canadian price came into the system too, and then the price at the wellhead fell.
Coal's problems are much deeper, but without going into them, here we can say that everyone has been pretty good in deducing that and essentially planning for decline. That's a good thing in that while the decline is perhaps at least somewhat inevitable, it hasn't really caught anyone by surprise too much. It's a huge problem for State government, however, in that much of the state's revenue comes from coal.
At any rate, what that now means is that all the local planning may be really out the window. That would suggest, in my view, the planning was too early, and much too unimaginative in its nature. The risk now is that we'll go on for some time with plans that have every appearance of being obsolete, and that perhaps we ought to plan for a period of decline, or perhaps we should have been planning for that possibility all along. What if prices stay this low, or lower, for a decade? That's something we better start planning for. The industry itself likely is, as it's good at planning for such things as a rule, and has learned from the shocks of the past.
Also, while it places me in the camp that some regard as radical, in doing the planning, there's nothing wrong with trying to keep a lid on some aspects and byproducts of growth as well, which isn't the planning we've always been doing. We always seem to believe we can have everything we want, but we can't, or that everything is simply inevitable and capable only of some direction. By this point in time, we should be aware of that and strive to keep the things that make any one place nice in some ways and control things in a planning sense to our advantage, when we can, which in part might build in an element of delay that would allow for a cushion should plans go awry.. Nearly every place that people seek to escape in the US today got that way as the only plan was to encourage things to come in, or just assume that was inevitable, and they did, until people weren't happy about what had developed but could do nothing about it. Some forethought of that type should be made, even thought that means not building all those roads, etc., or at least not doing it right away We can afford to be smarter than we usually are when times are good and plan accordingly, and when things go badly, the motivation for effective planning usually goes out the window with the economy.
Of course, the folly of planning is that its very difficult to really make a rational plan of this type more than ten years out, if event that long. Early predictions for the state held that the population of the state would be double its current population early in the 20th Century, which obviously were incorrect, but which were built on the assumption that Wyoming's economy would mirror Pennsylvania's then industrial economy. A plan made 25 years ago would still be somewhat valid, if wisely done now, as not that much has changed in spite of the fact that we think it has. But would a plan drafted in 1925 have been valid for 1950? Probably not. Or a plan in 1950, in 1975? Planning is a must, but not accepting that generally most plans go out the window and planning itself is more valuable than the plan is something that should always be taken into account.
Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: $40/barrel?: A couple of weeks ago I posted this: Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: $40/barrel? : Lex Anteinternet: $40/barrel? : Driven by Sau...Related to this, in yesterday's Tribune there was an article about the county's plans for infrastructure, based upon the (frightening) estimate that the county will gain 30,000 residents over the next 25 years. Well, this brings to mind:
But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,Excerpt from Robert Burns, To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!
I was amazed by the prediction, but in reading the article I found one of the knowledgeable folks in it noting that all the planning was done before the current crash in the price of oil. In other words, the planning basically was done with $100/bbl oil in mind, in perpetuity. Not oil that's dropping below half that price, and falling. Indeed, planning aside, this state now faces a decline in oil that represents about 50% of this value six months ago, and its still falling. Coal in the meantime has been steadily declining in production. Natural Gas prices collapsed some time ago. And actual demographic information is that the state lost about 1.5 times the number of people that the county plans stated would come into the county each year for 25 years. Wyoming's population slightly increased last year, but due to births by residents.
Now, I'm not getting after the planners nor the industry, but pointing out that all such planning has some inherent folly to it, as the assumptions that are made are frequently highly invalid. Looking at the basic industries of the state, all extractive save for tourism and agriculture, what we actually have is an economy based upon the production of three things, gas, coal, and oil, and all three are may be, or might not be, in some long term trouble Oil is the most stable, sort of, as the consumption of it will go on for some time, but even long term trends there are not comforting for those who would base an economy solely on it. The old habits of the country which saw fuel consumption dramatically rise every time the price at the pump went down are really over. People seem now fully committed to accepting rising CAFE standards and ever more fuel efficient cars, and turning away from petroleum entirely seems to be a widely shared goal. During this period, Saudi Arabia, whose economy entirely depends on the sale of petroleum, can afford to keep the price low and keep the money coming in, until it can hope to shift to something else in the future. They seem fully aware of that now and committed to that course.
The irony of that is that, but for the Saudi Arabian gambit, the oil economy did appear to have been fairly stable, which the planners no doubt noted, as consumption will go on, the cyclical nature of prices seemed over, and after the drilling was relatively complete, the infrastructure will of course remain and need to be serviced. But nobody planned on Saudi Arabia essentially knowing the same thing, and also knowing that it could drop the price and crowed the domestic industry out. That shows, I suppose, the inherent risks in any sort of long term planning. You can never really fully account for such things.
Gas, which did create a booming economy in some Wyoming counties, sort of endured a price crash awhile back which was more predictable, but also seemed to take people off guard. The reason for that is that the new gas pockets were, in some areas, easy to exploit, but once the infrastructure came on line, which was regional in extent, it put a lot of gas on the market. Gas used to be basically consumed here locally, as that's all the infrastructure that there was, and the thought, reasonable enough, was that once our gas was put into a national infrastructure, the price would rise. It did, but then all the regional gas including the Canadian price came into the system too, and then the price at the wellhead fell.
Coal's problems are much deeper, but without going into them, here we can say that everyone has been pretty good in deducing that and essentially planning for decline. That's a good thing in that while the decline is perhaps at least somewhat inevitable, it hasn't really caught anyone by surprise too much. It's a huge problem for State government, however, in that much of the state's revenue comes from coal.
At any rate, what that now means is that all the local planning may be really out the window. That would suggest, in my view, the planning was too early, and much too unimaginative in its nature. The risk now is that we'll go on for some time with plans that have every appearance of being obsolete, and that perhaps we ought to plan for a period of decline, or perhaps we should have been planning for that possibility all along. What if prices stay this low, or lower, for a decade? That's something we better start planning for. The industry itself likely is, as it's good at planning for such things as a rule, and has learned from the shocks of the past.
Also, while it places me in the camp that some regard as radical, in doing the planning, there's nothing wrong with trying to keep a lid on some aspects and byproducts of growth as well, which isn't the planning we've always been doing. We always seem to believe we can have everything we want, but we can't, or that everything is simply inevitable and capable only of some direction. By this point in time, we should be aware of that and strive to keep the things that make any one place nice in some ways and control things in a planning sense to our advantage, when we can, which in part might build in an element of delay that would allow for a cushion should plans go awry.. Nearly every place that people seek to escape in the US today got that way as the only plan was to encourage things to come in, or just assume that was inevitable, and they did, until people weren't happy about what had developed but could do nothing about it. Some forethought of that type should be made, even thought that means not building all those roads, etc., or at least not doing it right away We can afford to be smarter than we usually are when times are good and plan accordingly, and when things go badly, the motivation for effective planning usually goes out the window with the economy.
Of course, the folly of planning is that its very difficult to really make a rational plan of this type more than ten years out, if event that long. Early predictions for the state held that the population of the state would be double its current population early in the 20th Century, which obviously were incorrect, but which were built on the assumption that Wyoming's economy would mirror Pennsylvania's then industrial economy. A plan made 25 years ago would still be somewhat valid, if wisely done now, as not that much has changed in spite of the fact that we think it has. But would a plan drafted in 1925 have been valid for 1950? Probably not. Or a plan in 1950, in 1975? Planning is a must, but not accepting that generally most plans go out the window and planning itself is more valuable than the plan is something that should always be taken into account.
Monday, December 29, 2014
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Movies in History: Stalingrad, Enemy At The Gates, and Stalingrad
By some accounts the battle of Stalingrad is the largest battle in human history, although that unfortunate status is not unchallenged, and therefore it isn't surprising that the battle would be the subject of a variety of films, not all of which I've seen by any means.
Stalingrad. 1993
The best of these movies is the 1993 German production, simply called Stalingrad. This film follows a squad of German soldiers who are of a specialist, stormtrooper, variety, joining them just as they receive a new officer to replace an officer with a severe head injury. He joins the squad in Italy just as they receive orders to ship out to the Russian front. From there, the squad is followed over a period of months as the situation in Stalingrad deteriorates.
This film is a surprising one in some ways as it is by far the best of the ones about this battle I've seen. A German film looking at the battle from a post war German prospective as a terrible German tragedy, the film doesn't shy away from depicting German actions as barbarous, although, as is typical for German films about World War Two, it concentrates that in a fashion limited to certain individuals and it distinguishes those individuals from average Germans, a distinction that is not fully warranted by any means. The Russians, in contrast, are generally portrayed sympathetically.
Combat scenes are highly realistic and this film scores very high in terms of material details, something that's somewhat surprising as this film predates Saving Private Ryan, but it compares favorably with it in these regards. Artillery and armor, as well as small arms, are accurate for the armies and period, something that is not often the case for pre Saving Private Ryan films. As in at least one other German work, German soldiers are depicted using Soviet small arms, which must be at least based on some element of truth as it seems to show up fairly frequently.
The story, I'll note, is really grim and depressing, which isn't surprising given its topic.
Enemy At The Gates
In start contrast with Stalingrad, Enemy At The Gates is flat out awful.
This is a British production that uses the title of a fairly well respected straight history on the battle which is now little read. That's all it shares, however, with the book. This film instead follows what is supposed to be a fictionalized story of real Soviet snipers who fought in the battle.
That's a bit of a problem in and of itself, as the Soviets fictionalized the stories of their own snipers during the war for propaganda purposes, so basing a fictionalized drama on them is basically basing a story on something that's somewhat fictionalized already. Indeed, at the time this movie was released it started a bit of a boom amongst history fans on the topic of Soviet snipers, which in turn gave rise to some re-analysis of the love story angle between the male and female snipers, showing the extent to which the story of the snipers in general was exaggerated, which isn't to say that the Soviets didn't use snipers a great deal.
The further "sniper duel" aspect this is real Hollywood schlock, even if this isn't a Hollywood film. The German sniper is even made to be an officer, who is a super sniper. Again, while the Germans used snipers, they were enlisted men.
Just about everything I can think of in regards to the story is bad, and makes this movie worth avoiding. What about the material details?
Well, the weapons are all correct, I'll give it that. And a scene that depicts a Luftwaffe bombing run is nicely done.
Stalingrad, 2013.
My suspicion is that there is more than one Russian movie about Stalingrad, but this is the only one I've seen. Indeed, it's only the second full length Russian movie I've ever seen in full. So, when I saw it the other day, I had somewhat high expectations for it.
Those expectations were somewhat let down, but perhaps I was expecting too much of the film.
This movie is centered around a drama involving the story of a 19 year old girl who is the sole remaining resident of a ruined apartment building in Stalingrad. Everyone she's known before the war in her apartment, including her family, has died in the battle and she won't leave. Early in the film the German occupied apartment changes hands and we're introduced to five Soviet fighting men who strive (with other Soviet soldiers at first) to retain possession of the building from the German forces that have been pushed out. As the movie progresses, all five of the Soviet fighters develop strong attachments to the girl.
That may seem odd, and odder yet the film actually commences in modern Japan, where an elderly Russian man is a on a crew seeking to rescue stranded German girls from the rubble of a building brought down by the recent tsunami. In this we learn that the Russian man has "five fathers", and as the story develops it becomes apparent that the five Russian fighting men, four soldiers and one sailor (the Soviets did use sailors as infantry on occasion, and the film is accurate in those regards) are his "fathers" (with one being his actual father).
Added into this mix, a subplot involves a German officer who pays his attention to a Russian woman, against her will, and then by force, with that subplot developing into a really odd love story.
None of this sounds, of course, like a war movie, but it is, and during the film the Russians fight desperately against the more numerous Germans. Early in the film the fighting is in fact spectacular, with some special effects that are truly dramatic.
As a story, this tale is oddly Russian. It's not a bad story, it's just sort of peculiar. The subplot is extremely odd from our prospective, as the concept of physical force giving rise to a love story would be regarded as repellent by nearly any modern western audience.
Departing from there, in terms of material details, the film isn't too bad, although it falls in this are somewhere between the best materially accurate films of the 1970s and Saving Private Ryan. All the weapons are correct or nearly so. This movie also includes an offhand example of German troops using Russian equipment, so that shows up again. An effort to make replica Panzerkampfwagen IVs isn't too bad, if not entirely successful. Use of the weapons, however, is highly exaggerated with some weapon performance being silly.
In regards to historical accuracy and portrayal of the armies, a much poorer job was done. On some things, the movie is surprisingly accurate. The barbarity of the Soviet army is accurately and surprisingly portrayed. In one scene, one of the "fathers" has a sailor shot simply because the sailor is indicating he's going to return to the rear. That is pretty accurate. In another, another "father" shoots the German officer's female love interest in the head, which again, is pretty indicative of how Soviet troops generally regarded things. On the other hand, the Soviet soldiers are impossibly capable. The Germans are portrayed with varying degrees of evil intent, which isn't surprising, but the tolerance shown by a senior officer for his junior's dalliance is way off the mark in the way portrayed, and would probably have resulted in the junior's court martial. Chances are the woman who that officer is interested in would have met with a bad end way before she did as well.
On a somewhat interesting note, the Russianess of the film is demonstrated not only in the story line, but in the way it is portrayed. Less blood and gore is shown than in American films, even though the film is very violent. In these regards, it is probably actually more accurate than American movies, which tend to be overboard in that aspect. However, almost all of the male female contact is merely suggested. There's some scenes in which this isn't entirely true, but only barely, and the film recalls American movies of the 50s and 60s in this fashion. A little more, but not a lot more, is shown than was shown, for example, in From Here To Eternity. This harkens back to Soviet production values, in which such portrayals just weren't done, but it also is refreshing in that it takes more skill to suggest something than to just exploit it.
Movies In History: The Cowboys
I love this film.
This 1972 John Wayne film is one of his absolute best, second only to The Searchers (a film I have not yet reviewed in this list). It's a classic drama, and touches on a Romantic part of our history in a way few other films do.
This running thread, of course deals with movies in history, not movies as great cinema, and so we'll only really look at this film in this context, and looking at it that way, the film does remarkably well, particularly for one filmed when it was.
Set in Montana in the late 1870s or 1880s (the film isn't really clear, other than that it is post Little Big Horn), the film surrounds a cattle drive east across Montana to Belle Fourhe, South Dakota. As rancher Wil Anderson's cow hands have all quit to participate in a gold rush on the Ruby River, he's forced to use actual boys.
The plot device actually only exaggerates a custom that existed at the time, and it is not hard to find examples of very young teenage cowboys participating in drives. Indeed, going to work and leaving home at that age was not uncommon at that time, and my own grandfather did so at age 13 in the early 1900s. Anderson's cowboys are, in some instances, very young in this film, but I've seen middle school aged cowboys not much older participate in drives in present times.
In terms of details, the film does a very good job, and the ranching details are mostly correct. A nice detail in the film depicts a large string of horses being gathered prior to the drives commencing, which is accurate for the era and even now. The firearms shown for the period are surprisingly correct in an era when they rarely were, and some older arms are shown in use, including one cap and ball Colt revolver. This is very unusual for a film of this period.
Of course, it isn't perfect. The clothing is generally correct for the boys, but not for the adults in all cases, as both Anderson and cook Nightlinger are shown wearing cotton jeans and otherwise being dressed in the fashion that Wayne had made popular for cowboy films of this era, but which did not depict dress of the period accurately. Therefore, the film has an interesting mix of correct and incorrect clothing.
All in all, however, this film deserves its place as a classic and does pretty well in terms of historical detail.
This 1972 John Wayne film is one of his absolute best, second only to The Searchers (a film I have not yet reviewed in this list). It's a classic drama, and touches on a Romantic part of our history in a way few other films do.
This running thread, of course deals with movies in history, not movies as great cinema, and so we'll only really look at this film in this context, and looking at it that way, the film does remarkably well, particularly for one filmed when it was.
Set in Montana in the late 1870s or 1880s (the film isn't really clear, other than that it is post Little Big Horn), the film surrounds a cattle drive east across Montana to Belle Fourhe, South Dakota. As rancher Wil Anderson's cow hands have all quit to participate in a gold rush on the Ruby River, he's forced to use actual boys.
The plot device actually only exaggerates a custom that existed at the time, and it is not hard to find examples of very young teenage cowboys participating in drives. Indeed, going to work and leaving home at that age was not uncommon at that time, and my own grandfather did so at age 13 in the early 1900s. Anderson's cowboys are, in some instances, very young in this film, but I've seen middle school aged cowboys not much older participate in drives in present times.
In terms of details, the film does a very good job, and the ranching details are mostly correct. A nice detail in the film depicts a large string of horses being gathered prior to the drives commencing, which is accurate for the era and even now. The firearms shown for the period are surprisingly correct in an era when they rarely were, and some older arms are shown in use, including one cap and ball Colt revolver. This is very unusual for a film of this period.
Of course, it isn't perfect. The clothing is generally correct for the boys, but not for the adults in all cases, as both Anderson and cook Nightlinger are shown wearing cotton jeans and otherwise being dressed in the fashion that Wayne had made popular for cowboy films of this era, but which did not depict dress of the period accurately. Therefore, the film has an interesting mix of correct and incorrect clothing.
All in all, however, this film deserves its place as a classic and does pretty well in terms of historical detail.
Lex Anteinternet: Movies getting it right in time and place
I just bumped this up, and noted my reason for doing so in the second postscript:
Are seeing movies part of your Christmas traditions?
Lex Anteinternet: Movies getting it right in time and place: Movies, for good or ill, shape our view of the past, so I thought it might be interesting to note those that seem to get a certain topic or...Which brings up this question.
Are seeing movies part of your Christmas traditions?
Movies getting it right in time and place
Movies, for good or ill, shape our view of the past, so I thought it might be interesting to note those that seem to get a certain topic or era just right. That is, in the historical and cultural context.
That's probably something that's not accomplished as much as it's accomplished. Films frankly tend to reflect the era that they're made in more than any other era, so "modern" views and even styles of dress and behavior are projected back as having existed on earlier ones. That is probably generally the rule, and up until recently, at least for the most part, movies made very little effort to actually get detailed material and cultural items correct. Generations, for example, of Western movie goers watched movies that almost universally failed in terms of correctness to material and cultural details, with rare exception.
Anyhow, given that, it might be interesting to note films here that get it right. They're not all great films, I'd note, but rather films whose portrayals of an era are well done.
Postscript
Over time, I decided to change this topic so that the films discussed, rather than be listed here, have been individually listed. Therefore, the list that once appeared here, no longer does. As the films were separated out, I generally just posted them to the last updated date, August 2, 2014, where they now appear.
Postscript II
It is, of course, Christmas Season and for some weird reason, that's associated with movies, both big screen, and on the small screen.
Even though I really hate to spend any free time I have indoors, I've caught a few films on the small screen over the holidays, and so I intend to note them in this context. Given the change in this thread over time, I thought I'd note that here, particularly as some of these films are old, not new, and otherwise my reasons for noting them might seem odd.
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