Dr. Walmart?

Fairly recently on this blog we looked at some topics that dealt with Distributist Economics.  Looming large in that discussion was the economic role of outfits like WalMart, which are sort of the antithesis of the Distributist concept at least on the retail end.

Well, this past week we heard on the news that Walmart is considering adding physicians in its lineup, adding to the Opthomologist it already fields.

Folks who worry about economic trends may want to consider what this means. Walmart already pretty much dominates the retail field in North American in many areas, and has expanded into about every niche it can, or maybe not.  By going from retail goods, into health care, it threatens to really impact this area of the service economy.

Well, what of this?  Is this good, or bad?  There's interesting elements to both sides here.

Traditionally health care has been incredibly individual in nature, although that started to die for various reasons about a a decade ago.  That is, the traditional nature of health care is that people had individual doctors, who had individual practices.  

We've blogged on this before, when we discussed health insurance here, a hot topic the past few years. What we'd note again is that up until World War Two, most Americans didn't have health insurance, although some who worked for large industrial concerns worked for employers who had "company doctors", that is full time physicians employed by those companies (now also a thing of the past). The Second World War brought in health insurance in a big way, as when the Federal Government froze wages, it didn't think to freeze benefits. So, employers started competing for workers, in a tight labor market, with offers of additional benefits.  Health insurance, which existed but which was not hugely widespread, really took off.  That gave us the system we have had basically since, in which quite a few people have health insurance, some don't, etc.  In the 1960s the Great Society programs modified that further by extending health insurance at the Federal level for the very poor, and then Richard Nixon extended it to the elderly.

Health care remained very individual, but starting in the 1980s and 1990s, insurance companies started boosting Health Maintenance Organizations, ie., practices with an established relationship with them, in order to control costs. About the same time, doctors themselves, finding their practices more expensive to merely operate, due to advances in medicine, increasingly came to associate themselves in group practices, which are nearly quasi hospitals and clinics. So consolidation has been definitely occurring.  Prices have also been climbing.  And as a result of the latter, a renewed emphasis on national health care came about, as people began to loose their health insurance as companies, which had gotten the whole thing rolling in the 1940s, found that they could no longer afford it in the 2000s.

Now we have Walmart threatening to enter the field. What would that do?

Well, one thing it would probably do is drive prices down.  Walmart doesn't enter anything that it can't compete at, and we can be assured that they'll undercut everyone else.  It'll be less personal, probably, but also a lot cheaper, I suspect.  They must also have studied the Affordable Health Care Act and they must feel that they can operate cheaply and efficiently within it.

In my prior post, I pretty clearly took a shot at Walmart.  When I heard this news, I was tempted to as well. But maybe this is a not so fast sort of thing.  Professionals are going to just hate this trend, and my suspicion is that if it works it won't stop with doctors, but on the other had as prices have climbed and climbed, perhaps this was inevitable and even corrective.

Looking at labor past. A photo for my friend Couvi.

A photo which reminded me of my friend Couvi, on the weekend we celebrate the fruits of labor and working men, including our own past labor.

Caption reads:

Herschel Bonham, Route A, Box 118, an 11-year-old boy cultivating peas. He belongs to a cotton club in school. Father says he can pick 200 pounds of cotton a day. Location: Lawton, Oklahoma

Sunday, August 30, 1914. The Imperial Russian Army destroyed at Tannenberg.

The German Army wiped out Imperial Russian forces at Tannenberg, taking 92,000 prisoners and inflicting 78,000 casualties.  10,000 Russian soldiers escaped.  The Germans took 12,000 casualties.

Russian commander Alexander Samsonov is believed to have committed suicide after walking into nearby woods. German troops found hsi body a year later.

The Russian chances of ending the war before the winter of 1914 were over, and the German gamble of taking on the Imperial Russian Army early on had paid off.

20,000 Austro Hungarians were taken prisoner by the Russians at Gnila Lipa.

French forces withdrew at Saint Quentin, but in an orderly fashion.

New Zealand invaded and took German Samoa.

Emiliano Zapata agreed to support the government of Venustiano Carranza.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 29, 1914. Marching.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Austro Hungarian Army, Battle of Gnila Lipa, Battle of St. Quentin Canal, Battle of Tannenberg, First Battle of Garua, German Army, Imperial Russian Army, panoramic, Personalities, World War One

The Best Posts of the Week for the Week of August 24, 2014

Standards of Dress. The police. A semi topical post

The Theodore Roosevelts

10610586_10152219321546879_5172222764660045729_n.jpg (JPEG Image, 764 × 960 pixels) - Scaled (91%)

Theodore Roosevelt, and Theodore Roosevelt, riding.

Insignia identification?

Does anyone here recognize this British insignia?  On British desert disruptive pattern smock, Jax's, Ft. Collins.

Whose weird scheduling idea was that?

The State Bar Convention in Wyoming is always in September.  It's a week long event.

September is also the month that all the hunting seasons start, as the weather turns cool. And after the blistering month (most years) of August, it's the first nice cool weather in awhile.  It's also the last chance for many rational fishermen (as opposed to the wet suit wearing denizens of Colorado) to get in some fishing before winter sets in.

All of which makes a person wonder who ever thought of scheduling the bar convention in September?  It must have been a person so dull and indoorsy that the thought of hanging around breathing in recycled air and drinking mass produced coffee sounded attractive..

And why do they keep on holding it in September?  I can't think of a rational reason to do it? Why not January when there's nothing going on and its really cold outside, or maybe August when its really hot and recycled air conditioning might not seem so bad.

Oh well.  September it is, as the traditional provides for it.  And, by tradition, and because I have other things to do, I shall not be there.

Business travel and communications

Commercial jet engine as viewed from my plane seat on flight from Oklahoma City to Houston.

I travel a fair amount in the context of work. 

So much so, according to my wife, I'm no fun to travel with for short personal travel, as I get tired of traveling all the time so that a hop to Denver, let's say, isn't that much of an adventure as it is something that's a bit routine.  It's an occupational hazard or feature of the type of law I do.

Convair at the Natrona County International Airport outside of Casper Wyoming, in the early 1950s.

But I'm sure that wasn't always the case.

In the context of this blog, travel and things we do while on business travel have struck me in a couple of ways recently, both of which I've noted about and blogged about here recently on individual threads, but which might make for some interesting discussion once again.

  U.S. version of British "Is this trip necessary" poster from World War Two, urging private citizens not to travel, if at all possible.  Trains were the planes of the day, and business commuters might recall small hop flights when looking at this poster

This blog, as the very few people who read it know, is theoretically a research vehicle for a book (or books really) and explores changes over time, to help me more accurately understand and convey the conditions of the past. And on the topics travel bring up, the changes are truly very vast, in a relatively short period of time.  Indeed, as will be noted below, some of the changes have been very pronounced even during my working life.

One of these topics is how routine long travel is now for quite a few occupations.  Recently, for example, I traveled from my home to Oklahoma City, worked a day there, and flew that afternoon to Houston, and then flew back.  This past week I was in Cheyenne for two days and then on to Denver.  While in Denver, I worked on a project that saw other people come in from Wyoming, one person come in from Lincoln Nebraska, and yet another come in from Newark, New Jersey.  Not particularly remarkable, but at one time not all that long ago this would have been frankly impossible.

It certainly would have been impossible during the 20th Century era when railroad transportation was the traveling norm, which was the case up into the 1950s.  Air travel appeared as early as the 1920s in some locations, but it was extremely expensive and most people didn't travel that way until much later.  Even in the 1950s air travel remained somewhat expensive and a bit of an event, with air travelers usually dressing for the occasion.

I don't even know if it would have been possible to go from Casper Wyoming to Oklahoma City in a day in the era of rail transportation.  I'm sure it would have been possible to go from Oklahoma City to Houston in a day, but the entire thing would have probably taken at least a week, overall.  Chances are that it just wouldn't have occurred in this context.  People did travel for business, of course, but in litigation it wasn't common to travel that far.  Most lawyers probably only traveled to neighboring states as a rule, and that only occasionally, depending upon where they lived.  I wouldn't be too surprised, for example, to find a Wyoming lawyer in 1914 traveling to Denver by train, and it wouldn't surprise me if a lawyer in New York City traveled to New Jersey or other local east coast locations frequently.  But a lawyer in Casper would have only traveled to Houston very rarely in this context, if ever.

 Train outside of Chicago.

Even in the early airline era this would have been somewhat unlikely.  I'm sure a person could have gone from Casper to Oklahoma City in a day by air post 1945, but it would have shot most of the day (which it does, as a practical matter, anyway).  And it no doubt was also possible to go the much shorter distance of Oklahoma City to Houston in a day, although it would have taken a lot longer than it does now.  That might have shot the whole day there too.  And getting back from Houston would be a long series of flights.  So, it could have been done, no doubt, but my three day example would, more likely, have been a four or five day example, and also less likely to have occurred.

 Houston, 1949.  I wonder how many of these tall buildings are still standing?

Commercial airliners in Casper Wyoming in the early 1950s, one taking off while another sits on the tarmac.

This week, as already noted, I've made the much shorter trip, by pickup truck (we don't own a true "car", just trucks, assuming a Suburban is a truck), from Casper to Cheyenne.  In Cheyenne I stayed overnight, as I had additional work the next day, and then I drove to Denver, where I again stayed the night.  Not particularly remarkable, and a trip which a person could easily make by automobile at any time since 1930 or so.  And by the 1930s that was pretty common within the state or to a nearby area, like Denver.  I've heard other lawyers speak of travel in that era many times, although one thing to note is that doing it in the winter would have been dicey, and unlike now local people generally traveling that sort of distance would have done it with a sedan, rather than with a pickup truck or 4x4, as is so common here now.

 Denver Colorado, 1898.  This photograph was taken somewhere int eh Capitol Hill District, based upon the few buildings I recognize in the photograph.  The rail line would be in this view, but it is not visible in this photograph.

But what has struck me this trip is the degree to which, even in my own lifetime, I no longer really ever leave the office, even when I'm on the road.

Office of the 1940s, note the lack of any office machinery, other than a telephone, on the desk. No computer, no Dictaphone, no typewriter.  While a Dictaphone wouldn't have been surprising, any other office machinery would have been, which says something not only about the lack of it, but the reliance upon secretaries to process any work at the time.

When I first started practicing law nobody had portable laptop computers and there were few easily transportable cell phones.  Basically, when we were out of the office, we were out of the office.  The only chance of finding out if we had messages was to call back to the office and have somebody read the pink "message" slips we received if we missed a call.

Now, that's all a thing of the very remote past.  On Monday, when I traveled down for a hearing, I had, as always, my Iphone, and I checked and replied to email on it.  That evening I plugged in my computer and worked on work stuff that I emailed off all evening.  The next day I checked my voice mail messages, sent instructions regarding the same, and went on to my next hearing.  When I arrived in Denver, I once again plugged in my computer and picked up and responded to my email, which I did again the following early morning (I woke up about 4:00 am conscious of the fact that I'd failed to reply to an email I'd received the day prior).  During all of this, from time to time, I spoke by cell phone to my office or other lawyers concerning various pending matters.

 Typical hotel scene for me.  Briefcase, book (Street Without Joy), and laptop computer.

At one time, therefore, this trip, which still would have occurred, would be a series of solitary events, mostly uninterrupted, and un-informed, by what was going on elsewhere. The actual amount of work accomplished would have been considerably less than it is now, but on the other hand the hours would have been considerably shorter as well.  The work at night would have not gone on into the evening, and the work during the day would not have commenced at 4:00.

Another thing worth noting, perhaps, is the extent to which some of us hole up in our hotel rooms on business travel.  I guess this hasn't always been the case.

A friend of mine, based upon an observation of mine that hotel rooms in the historic Plains Hotel in Cheyenne are really small, noted that in old hotels the rooms are small but the lobbies were big.  This is, I would note, very much the case, at least as to the vintage hotels I've stayed in here and there.  I frankly don't chose old hotels as a rule, as my luck is really mixed with them, but over time I've stayed, for example, in The Plains, Oklahoma City's Skirven, Tulsa's Ambassador and others.  The Ambassador in Tulsa is the nicest hotel I've ever been in, by far, and I always stay there when I'm in Tulsa.  It's a bit unusual, however, in that the rooms are a decent size, which is not the case for most vintage hotels.

Anyhow, as my friend observed, nobody hung out in their rooms. Why would have they, really, as there were no televisions, no Internet, no radios even if early enough?  You could sit in your room and read, but then you could also go down, get a table in the bar, and do that perhaps.  It hadn't occurred to me, but it makes sense.  Indeed since then I've noticed that every single vintage hotel I've been in has a huge, fairly ornate, lobby.  The Plains does, the Skirven does, the Oxford in Denver (which has little tiny rooms if the one I had is any indication), the Ambassador does, and even the Calvert in Lewistown Montana does, although it was converted from a public girl's school dormitory (distances were too great for parents to bring their girls into school for much of the year at the time it was built).

 

Lobby of the Plains Hotel in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  The vintage hotel has been restored in recent years.

Now hotel rooms are bigger and in some instances quite large.  There's usually a table to work in. The hotel I stayed in near the Denver airport (prices downtown were insane) was equipped with two televisions.  Why, exactly, a room that small needs two televisions isn't clear to me, but at the hotel I was staying at the bedroom, or area with a bed, was slightly separated from the entry way, where a work desk was located.  The second television was in the bedroom.  I've never had a television in a bedroom, save for the one room apartments I had when I was a college student, and I don't want one in my bedroom now.

I hardly actually ever actually watch the television in a hotel room, I'll note, and didn't here other than to flip through the channels.  I'll often do that, which is probably a hold over from my younger years in which hotels were the only places I was ever at where there were the "premium" channels like HBO.  Now, with basic cable, you get a lot more channels that you are ever inclined to view, or at least that's the case for me.  My basic cable comes with channels like the Bolivian Grade School Soccer League Channel, or whatever, and I have a hard time believing that anyone views them, but there they are.

The hotel I was at was part of the Hilton chain and when I noted what movie options were available there was a section, as there always is in a Hilton, for movies a person would be ashamed to watch at home. Weird.  I read somewhere once that one of the hotel chains (not sure which one) was the largest distributor of that kind of junk on Earth, which may or may not be true, but that is a truly odd thing about some business hotels.  These sorts of hotels cater to businessmen, and it's odd to think that a certain section of that clientele uses their trips to view such material.  Hopefully they aren't charging it to their clients.  On the other hand, the odd channels I like to watch with old movies and the like are never offered, so as always, I turned it off and picked up a copy of the book I'm reading, "Street Without Joy".  Had I stayed in old hotels, back in the day, I'd no doubt have stayed in my room with a book.  Pretty much like I do now, except when I'm working, which is often. 

Indeed, I have traditionally done an enormous amount of reading while traveling and still do on airplanes.  The invasion of work into evening hotel time has cut down on my reading in hotels somewhat, however.

Is this an improvement, or not, or neither, over prior conditions?  I can't really say, but I will note that even now I always worry about things while I'm on the road.  I worry about the calls I miss,, the mail, the whole nine yards.  I zealously check these things, so that I'm not worried as much.  Looking back I worried about them when I couldn't check, so maybe this is a personal improvement.  But also, it means that a person is more isolated in travel, and working more when they travel, which probably inspires my wife's observations that I'm not fun to travel with on short trips, as I travel so much.  Indeed, I'd note, if a short trip is a day trip for personal reasons, I'll go ahead and use my computer and cell phone to keep up with work, which probably isn't a good thing.

Case Illustrates Importance of Detailed Lease Provisions in Case of Drought | Texas Agriculture Law

Case Illustrates Importance of Detailed Lease Provisions in Case of Drought | Texas Agriculture Law

Saturday, August 29, 1914. Marching.

Portia Willis, suffragist, pacifist, lecturer, activist, and, oddly, a supporter of US aviators during World War One, at, naturally, the peace parade.

A peace parade was held in New York City demonstrating the naïve American belief, still present to this very day, that demonstrating in the US while it is at peace somehow has an impact somewhere else on other countries fighting.

Elsewhere, more productive, and less noticed, things were occuring.

Belgian nuns ministering to wounded German soldiers.

Taking the parabellum approach, a review of U.S troops took place at Geartheart, Oregon.

The Russian Second Army was caught and surrounded by German forces in open fields near Frogenau, where they were mowed down by the Germans.

Russian troops killed over 60 ethnic Germans in Abschwangen, East Prussia.

A French attack at Saint-Quentin cost 10,000 casualties in an unsuccessful effort which proved costly partially due to a captured French officer having alerted the Germans to the pending attack. The Germans took 7,000 casualties.

The Austro Hungarian Army formed new defensive lines at the Grila River in Ukraine against the Imperial Russian Army.

The British Royal West African Frontier Force engaged the Germans In the First Battle of Garua near the port city of Garoua, German Cameroon.

Last edition:

Friday, August 28, 1914. Battle of Heligoland Bight

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Battle of Heligoland Bight, Battle of Tannenberg, Catholic, Christianity, German Kriegsmarine, Imperial Russian Army, North Sea, Personalities, Royal Navy, World War One

Friday Farming: A bull

Standards of Dress. The police. A semi topical post

 

 Chicago Mounted Police, 1907.

I've done threads on standards of dress from time to time, as part of the general them of this page of tracking changes in the last century.  Probably the most specific one I did was on clerical dress, with most being of a more general nature. This is one of the specific ones, police dress.

I had intended to do one on service dress, but it's not really possible as that would include military uniforms which need their own category.  Indeed, that's several threads as the dress of the various services depart from each other, so we'll take up police dress by itself.  We intended to do this for some time now, but this is oddly topical due to the riots going on in Ferguson Missouri, which is reported on the news as being a "town", which it is, but it's a town that's a suburb of St. Louis.

Now, I'm not really going to comment on the Ferguson riots, and couldn't if I wished to as its one of those stories I haven't follows.  Wyoming is a long ways from there, and the news coming out of there is very foreign to us here in many ways. But it does tap into the topic here, and in a way to this topic nationwide, as apparently one of the things that happened in Ferguson is that the police came into the the distressed area with military equipment, and a military appearance, which relfects a nationwide trend that deserves some attention.

So, police uniforms.

I don't know when the first police adopted uniforms actually, but it's much more recent in general than people would suppose.  Indeed, police themselves are a more recent phenomenon that people suppose, and generally if we go back much past the mid 19th Century we tend to find that most policing was done by sheriffs, who have a different relationship to the sovereign than the police do.  Sheriff's are commissioned in a specific manner that really attaches them to the courts, or did, and sheriffs have not uniformly had uniforms at all, up until quite recently.  Policemen, on the overhand, tend to be a uniformed body and they're generally the law enforcement arm of municipal corporations.

American policemen have, traditionally, been dressed in blue uniforms.  The reason is that when New York City, which had one of the earliest and largest police forces in the United States, went to uniform its officers for the first time it relied upon the experiences of its members, who were largely Civil War veterans.

 

 Classic scene of urban policy.  New York mounted policemen, 1905.

New York had a large police force (and still does).  In the 1860s and 70s, a very large number of those men had served in the Union Army during the Civil War, and the police uniform they adopted strongly resembled the last uniform they'd worn.  Indeed, not only did they rely upon the Army's uniform for inspiration, but they relied upon the Army for inspiration for almost everything at that time.  Tack for horses and firearms were also military inspired.  In terms of uniforms, that put New York's police force in blue wool trousers and frock coats, just as the Army's more formal uniform of the same period featured both as well.

Other police forces followed suit, and the blue wool frock coat and blue trousers became the American standard for police forces.  It's important to note that this was and is the American standard.  Other countries which began to uniform police had their own traditions and they tended not to follow the American tradition in regards to police dress.

 

 Typical early 20th Century police uniforms.  For the most part, these officers are dressed in blue wool, although they're wearing a type of coat referred to as a "sack" coat.  The sack coat was also an Army item originally, adopted by the U.S. Army during the Civil War to supplant the frock coat in field conditions, where the sack coat was more practical.  These men also wear a military inspired cap, reflecting the kepi style adopted by the Army in the later period of the 19th Century.  Some urban police forces adopted helmets in this same period, following the U. S. Army which adopted a Prussian style helmet for dress purposes in the 1870s.

While never identical to the uniform worn by the U.S. Army, in the late 19th Century and the early 20th Century, basic items very much followed the Army's patterns. Frock coats and sack coats were uniform standards.  Officers hardly ever appeared without a coat.  For caps, some police forces adopted the Prussian style helmet adopted by the Army in the 1870s, and others wore the late pattern Army kepi in to the early 20th Century.  At the same time, however, police uniforms featured distinctive features identifying the wear as a policeman and not a soldier. Early on, they never featured rank insignia of any kind, unlike the Army's uniforms. And they fairly uniformly featured a large badge identifying the policeman as an officer of the law.

 

New York mounted police in action, anarchist riot, 1908.

That set the standard of American police uniforms for decades, and it was an American pattern.  North of the border the national police, the NWMP which was formed in the 19th Century, based their uniform coloration on that of the early 19th Century British Army.  I.e, red.  South of the border the various Mexican police had their own colors and styles.  In the United Kingdom, when police came to be formed, they also wore blue, but in other locations styles were different, such as in Germany where policemen came to wear green.

 Washington D. C. mounted police, 1925.

In the early 20th Century the police, like the Army, wore coats that buttoned to the collar, and by the early 20th Century most police forces had adopted the Army's wheelhouse cap in blue as a police cap.  Helmets were abandoned.  Still, the large badges remained evident and by that time had come to be the identifier for individual policemen, with the policeman receiving a numbered badge as a rule.

 

Washington D. C. motorcycle policeman, 1932.

In the 1930s, when the Army went to an opened collared coat, with shirt in tie, in one of he worst field uniforms ever thought of for Army field service, police forces generally followed suit.  Most policemen then wore, on a daily basis, a wool coat with an open collar as well as a blue shirt with a blue tie.

Classic police officer uniform, captain of Washington D. C. police in 1930s, in a uniform typical for police from the 1930s through the 1970s in many locations.

Following World War Two the police uniform remained largely unchanged for decades.  One small change was that as most policemen came to be patrol officers, in cars, most forces abandoned the wool opened collared coat for regular officers and they normally wore, in warm weather, simply blue shirt and blue tie.  This was common by the 1950s.  In colder weather they almost all had jackets based on Air Force flight jackets, generally in blue, although some police force's, such as New York's, issued a leather flight jacket for cold weather use.  Here again, I suppose, they were following a trend first developed by the miltiary, although leather jackets came into common civilian use during the 1920s as well.

 Sheriff Of McAlester Oklahoma, 1930s. This sheriff is attired in a fashion typical of this and prior eras.  I.e., no uniform at all.

One thing I haven't noted, in all of this, is the uniform of other U.S. police forces, the most common of which are sheriff's departments.  For much of their history, U.S. sheriff's departments basically didn't have a uniform.  Sheriff's and their deputies were simply armed and carried a badge.  That's about it.  Starting about the turn of the century however, some sheriff's started wearing uniforms closely based on military uniforms, including their coloring.  It wasn't universal, however, and by mid 20th Century you'd often find the actual Sheriff simply wearing a coat and tie.  Deputies started to be issued uniform shirts, and sometimes uniforms, in this time frame, alhtough exactly when I'm not sure.  Post World War Two khaki became the common color for Sheriffs, with most Sheriff's departments adopting a khaki uniform shirt closely based on the World War Two officers khaki shirt.  Flight jacket type jackets also started to come in about this time.

Federal law enforcement officers, on the other hand, have mostly lacked a uniform for most of their history, although their history is fairly short.  There were Federal Marshall in the 19th Century, but their only identifier was a badge.  The FBI of mid 20th Century fame, and even up today for hte most part, dressed in business attire.  In the 1920s and 30s the use of "boaters" for hats was so common amongst FBI agents that the joke was that this was part of their uniform.  In recent years, however, this has changed so that Federal law enforcement officers do have a uniform in some instances, more of which will be mentioned in a moment.  In terms of daily wear, the Federal law enforcement officers most likely to wear a uniform are border agents and officers of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, both of which wear what we might regards as rural styles, the former somewhat recalling a sheriff's office and the latter one of a type that's common with a game and fish agency.

On game and fish agencies, these officers likewise didn't often have uniforms early on and it seems today there is a fair amount of variety in them.  The Wyoming Game & Fish at some point in the 20th Century adopted a uniform that was to make their officers visible in the game fields, the same being a red shirt in the era when read, rather than blaze orange, was the required color for big game hunters.  Other than that, Wyoming's game wardens simply wore blue jeans and a cowboy hat, both of which were official proscribed for them.

Well, what about now? This is a bland story, right?

Well, to some extent, this has been in the news recently, and the reason for that has to do with the appearance, in part, of the police.

How exactly it happened I can't say, but starting off about some ten or fifteen years ago, police departments started to acquire a lot of military equipment, and when they did, they also acquired a military look.  It really started some time prior to that, when they started to form "special", ie., SWAT, teams of special response groups, for particularly dicey scenarios, but its really gone from there.

These units within police forces, which in some cases seem to constitute entire police forces, bring a very military, i.e., combat troop, appearance to a lot of police forces, and that's not a good thing.

Policemen, like lawyers, or doctors, or teachers, are one of those occupations where people have a certain expectation of appearance, and in turn react accordingly.  If they look professional, but separate, but also part of us, as the classic "Adam 12" type policeman did, they receive a certain response.  On the other hand, soldiers are also a profession where people have a certain expectation of appearance and react accordingly.  If policemen look like combat troops, it's hard not to imagine them that way, and for most people, that creates a certain atmosphere of fear.

On military trends, police forces have gone from having no rank insignia to having the full military range of it, which also strikes me as odd.  Some big city police chiefs now wear the same insignia that Generals in the Army do; four stars. That's a bit much.  At one time, the police chief tended to wear suit and tie, which really sends a better message.

On the flip side of this, I'd note, some police forces have also become very casual in their daily appearance, which also isn't a good thing, in my view.  I've seen polo shirts introduced into policing, which I'm not sure what I think of.  If I were a policeman, I'd probably like it, so I guess I'm not complaining about it.  The Wyoming Game & Fish recently introduced polo shirts, I've noted, for some of its personnel, although I'm not sure if wardens are amongst them or not.  And I've seen blue polos in use for other law enforcement officers.

One thing along these lines I don't like is the adoption of baseball caps, but that seems to be something that is just so pervasive as to be inevitable.  They don't look professional for policeman, although I have less of a problem with them for game wardens and similar officers.

At any rate, while this would seem to be a minor matter, it really isn't for those enforcing the law, and those whose communities are being policed. The militarization of police seems to have gone too far, for example, and perhaps the trend towards casual has a bit as well.

Guernsey Chukars | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Guernsey Chukars | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Friday, August 28, 1914. Battle of Heligoland Bight

The Battle of Heligoland Bight, the first naval battle between the British and German navies, took place in the North Sea.  The Germans lost the light cruisers SMS Mainz, Cöln and Ariadne, and the destroyer SMS V187 along with 1,200 casualties.  Included amongst the lost was Rear Admiral Leberecht Maass.

British sailors watching the Mainz burn.

The British lost no ships.

Shortages in food and ammunition caused a Russian withdrawal to commences at Tannenberg.

The funeral mass for Pope Pius X was held at the Sistine Chapel.

Last edition:

Thursday, August 27, 1914. Russians advance, and start to crumble.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Battle of Tannenberg, Belgian Army, British Army, Great Retreat, Imperial Russian Army

Thursday, August 27, 1914. Russians advance, and start to crumble.

The Russians advanced, but reconnaissance failures prevented General Alexander Samsonov from becoming knowing that his flanks were breaking down.

An oddity, too, given the heavy prevalence of Russian cavalry.

The 2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers of the British Expeditionary Force held up the Germans for fourteen hours,  allowing the rest of the BEF to retreat. They would ultimately be forced to surrender.

The Belgian army ordered its troops to Péronne in France.

Last edition:

Wednesday, August 26, 1914. Tannenberg begins.

Labels: Alsace-Lorraine, Battle of Galicia, Battle of Lorraine, Batttle of Tannenberg, British Army, Eastern Front, French Army, German Army, Great Retreat, Imperial Russian Army, Prussia, World War One

Mid Week At Work: Railroad Engineer

Wednesday, August 26, 1914. Tannenberg begins.

The epic Battle of Tannenberg began on the Eastern Front.

Up until it, the Imperial Russian Army had been doing well.  That was soon to change.

The Russians halted the Austro Hungarian army at Komarów

The French Army of Alsace was recalled and disbanded, ended their successful defense at Mulhouse.  The Battle of Lorraine also ended in a French victory, although an extremely costly one.

British and French forces retreated from Le Cateau to Saint Quentin.

The French Second Army prevented the Germans from advancing past Charmes.

The Germans bombed Antwerp by Zeppelin.

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Tuesday, August 25, 1914. German murders in Belgium.

Labels: 1910, 1910s, 1911, 1914, Austro Hungarian Army, Belgium, Canadian Arctic Expedition, Emiliano Zapata, German Army, Imperial Russian Army, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Plan of Ayala, World War One

Johnny Cash Has Been Everywhere (Man)! - Music Hack Day London 2012 - Iain Mullan

Johnny Cash Has Been Everywhere (Man)! - Music Hack Day London 2012 - Iain Mullan

Because some links are too odd not to share.

Tuesday, August 25, 1914. German murders in Belgium.

The German Army sacked Leuven, Belgium.  248 civilians were killed and the entire population of the city of 10,000 expelled.  156 civilians were killed in Aarschot, 211 in Andenne, 383 in Tamines, and 674 in Dinant.

300,000 Medieval texts were lost at the Catholic University of Leuven in a fire set by the Germans.

German barbarities did not start in 1939, they started in 1914.

German actions against Belgium's civilian population would not be forgotten during the war, and would be used against it.

The Austro Hungarian Army prevailed at  Kraśnik,

Pyotr Nesterov rammed his Morane-Saulnier Type G into an Austrian Albatros BII, killing all involved, but making him the first aviator to down another aircraft in combat.

British and French forces took Togoland.

Japan declared war against Austro Hungaria.

Emiliano Zapata agreed to accept the Constitutionalist government on the condition that it accept the Plan of Ayala, which had been drafted in 1911, and which had objected to Modero.  The Plan stated:

Liberating Plan of the sons of the State of Morelos, affiliated with the Insurgent Army that defends the fulfillment of the Plan of San Luis, with the reforms which it has believed proper to add in benefit of the Mexican Fatherland.

We who undersign, constituted in a revolutionary junta to sustain and carry out the promises which the revolution of November 20, 1910, just past, made to the country, declare solemnly before the face of the civilized world which judges us and before the nation to which we belong and which we call [sic, love], propositions which we have formulated to end the tyranny which oppresses us and redeem the fatherland from the dictatorships which are imposed on us, which [propositions] are determined in the following plan:

1. Taking into consideration that the Mexican people led by Don Francisco I. Madero went to shed their blood to reconquer liberties and recover their rights which had been trampled on, and for a man to take possession of power, violating the sacred principles which he took an oath to defend under the slogan “Effective Suffrage and No Reelection,” outraging thus the faith, the cause, the justice, and the liberties of the people: taking into consideration that that man to whom we refer is Don Francisco I. Madero, the same who initiated the above-cited revolution, who imposed his will and influence as a governing norm on the Provisional Government of the ex-President of the Republic Attorney Francisco L. de Barra [sic], causing with this deed repeated shedding of blood and multiple misfortunes for the fatherland in a manner deceitful and ridiculous, having no intentions other than satisfying his personal ambitions, his boundless instincts as a tyrant, and his profound disrespect for the fulfillment of the preexisting laws emanating from the immortal code of ’57 [Constitution of 1857], written with the revolutionary blood of Ayutla;

Taking into account that the so-called Chief of the Liberating Revolution of Mexico, Don Francisco I. Madero, through lack of integrity and the highest weakness, did not carry to a happy end the revolution which gloriously he initiated with the help of God and the people, since he left standing most of the governing powers and corrupted elements of oppression of the dictatorial government of Porfirio Díaz, which are not nor can in any way be the representation of National Sovereignty, and which, for being most bitter adversaries of ours and of the principles which even now we defend, are provoking the discomfort of the country and opening new wounds in the bosom of the fatherland, to give it its own blood to drink; taking also into account that the aforementioned Sr. Francisco I. Madero, present President of the Republic, tries to avoid the fulfillment of the promises which he made to the Nation in the Plan of San Luis Potosí, being [sic, restricting] the above-cited promises to the agreements of Ciudad Juárez, by means of false promises and numerous intrigues against the Nation nullifying, pursuing, jailing, or killing revolutionary elements who helped him to occupy the high post of President of the Republic;

Taking into consideration that the so-often-repeated Francisco I. Madero has tried with the brute force of bayonets to shut up and to drown in blood the pueblos who ask, solicit, or demand from him the fulfillment of the promises of the revolution, calling them bandits and rebels, condemning them to a war of extermination without conceding or granting a single one of the guarantees which reason, justice, and the law prescribe; taking equally into consideration that the President of the Republic Francisco I. Madero has made of Effective Suffrage a bloody trick on the people, already against the will of the same people imposing Attorney José M. Pino Suáez in the Vice-Presidency of the Republic, or [imposing as] Governors of the States [men] designated by him, like the so-called General Ambrosio Figueroa, scourge and tyrant of the people of Morelos, or entering into chains and follow the pattern of a new dictatorship more shameful and more terrible than that of Porfirio Díaz, for it has been clear and patent that he has outraged the sovereignty of the States, trampling on the laws without any respect  for lives or interests, as has happened in the State of Morelos, and others, leading them to the most horrendous anarchy which contemporary history registers.

For these considerations we declare the aforementioned Francisco I. Madero inept at realizing the promises of the revolution of which he was the author, because he has betrayed the principles with which he tricked the will of the people and was able to get into power: incapable of governing, because he has no respect for the law and justice of the pueblos, and a traitor to the fatherland, because he is humiliating in blood and fire, Mexicans who want liberties, so as to please the científicos, landlords, and bosses who enslave us, and from today on we begin to continue the revolution begun by him, until we achieve the overthrow of the dictatorial powers which exist.

2. Recognition is withdrawn from S. Francisco I. Madero as Chief of the Revolution and as President of the Republic, for the reasons which before were expressed, it being attempted to overthrow this official.

3. Recognized as Chief of the Liberating Revolution is the illustrious General Pascual Orozco, the second of the Leader Don Francisco I. Madero, and in case he does not accept this delicate post, recognition as Chief of the Revolution will go to General Don Emiliano Zapata.

4. The Revolutionary Junta of the State of Morelos manifests to the Nation under formal oath: that it makes its own the plan of San Luis Potosí, with the additions which are expressed below in benefit of the oppressed pueblos, and it will make itself the defender of the principles it defends until victory or death.

5. The Revolutionary Junta of the State of Morelos will admit no transactions or compromises until it achieves the overthrow of the dictatorial elements of Porfirio Díaz and Francisco I. Madero, for the nation is tired of false men and traitors who make promises like liberators and who on arriving in power forget them and constitute themselves tyrants.

6. As an additional part of the plan, we invoke, we give notice: that [regarding] the fields, timber, and water which the landlords, científicos, or bosses have usurped, the pueblos or citizens who have the titles corresponding to those properties will immediately enter into possession of that real estate of which they have been despoiled by the bad faith of our oppressors, maintain at any cost with arms in hand the mentioned possession; and the usurpers who consider themselves with a right to them [those properties] will deduce it before the special tribunals which will be established on the triumph of the revolution.

7. In virtue of the fact that the immense majority of Mexican pueblos and citizens are owners of no more than the land they walk on, suffering the horrors of poverty without being able to improve their social condition in any way or to dedicate themselves to Industry or Agriculture, because lands, timber, and water are monopolized in a few hands, for this cause there will be expropriated the third part of those monopolies from the powerful proprietors of them, with prior indemnization, in order that the pueblos and citizens of Mexico may obtain ejidos, colonies, and foundations for pueblos, or fields for sowing or laboring, and the Mexicans’ lack of prosperity and well-being may improve in all and for all.

8. The landlords, científicos, or bosses who oppose the present plan directly or indirectly, their goods will be nationalized and the two-third parts which [otherwise would] belong to them will go for indemnizations of war, pensions for widows and orphans of the victims who succumb in the struggle for the present plan.

9. In order to execute the procedures regarding the properties aforementioned, the laws of disamortization and nationalization will be applied as they fit, for serving us as norm and example can be those laws put in force by the immortal Juárez on ecclesiastical properties, which punished the despots and conservatives who in every time have tried to impose on us the ignominious yoke of oppression and backwardness.

10. The insurgent military chiefs of the Republic who rose up with arms in hand at the voice of Don Francisco I. Madero to defend the plan of San Luis Potosí, and who oppose with armed force the present plan, will be judged traitors to the cause which they defended and to the fatherland, since at present many of them, to humor the tyrants, for a fistful of coins, or for bribes or connivance, are shedding the blood of their brothers who claim the fulfillment of the promises which Don Francisco I. Madero made to the nation.

11. The expenses of war will be taken in conformity with Article 11 of the Plan of San Luis Potosí, and all procedures employed in the revolution we undertake will be in conformity with the same instructions, which the said plan determines.

12. Once triumphant the revolution which we carry into the path of reality, a Junta of the principal revolutionary chiefs from the different States will name or designate an interim President of the Republic, who will convoke elections for the organization of the federal powers.

13. The principal revolutionary chiefs of each State will designate in Junta the Governor of the State to which they belong, and this appointed official will convoke elections for the due organization of the public powers, the object being to avoid compulsory appointments which work the misfortune of the pueblos, like the so-well-known appointment of Ambrosio Figueroa in the State of Morelos and others who drive us to the precipice of bloody conflicts sustained by the caprice of the dictator Madero and the circle of científicos and landlords who have influenced him.

14. If President Madero and other dictatorial elements of the present and former regime want to avoid the immense misfortunes which afflict the fatherland, and [if they] possess true sentiments of love for it, let them make immediate renunciation of the posts they occupy and with that they will with something staunch the grave wounds which they have opened in the bosom of the fatherland, since, if they do not do so, on their heads will fall the blood and the anathema of our brothers.

15. Mexicans: consider that the cunning and bad faith of one man is shedding blood in a scandalous manner, because he is incapable of governing; consider that his system of government is choking the fatherland and trampling with the brute force of bayonets on our institutions; and thus, as we raised up our weapons to elevate him to power, we again raise them up against him for defaulting on his promises to the Mexican people and for having betrayed the revolution initiated by him, we are not personalists, we are partisans of principles and not of men!

Mexican People, support this plan with arms in hand and you will make the prosperity and well-being of the fatherland.

Ayala, November 25, 1911

Liberty, Justice and Law

Signed, General in Chief Emiliano Zapata; Generals Eufemio Zapata, Francisco Mendoza, Jesús Morales, Jesús Navarro, Otilio E. Montaño, José Trinidad Ruiz, Próculo Capistrán; Colonels…; Captains… [This] is a true copy taken from the original. Camp in the Mountains of Puebla, December 11, 1911. Signed General in Chief Emiliano Zapata.

The Canadian Arctic Expedition rescue ship Bear was stopped by sea ice 20 miles from Wrangel Island and had to turn around and return to Nome for more coal.

Last edition:

Monday, August 24, 1914. The Great Retreat and Winnie The Pooh.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Animals, Battle of Lorraine, Bears, British Army, Canadian Army, cavalry, French Army, Great Retreat, World War One