Age and filing homestead claims

Offhand, does anyone know the youngest age a person could file a homestead claim, back in the day?

21?  18?

Eh? Oh Cyber Monday

I'd forgotten that Black Friday is followed by Cyber Monday.

As I don't pay much attention to such things, I'd sort of dimly recalled that there was a computer sales hootenanny, but I didn't remember when. I sort of thought it was Saturday.

It's today, Monday, as people return to work, and shop with their work computers. Seriously.  Makes sense, I guess.

So there you have it.  Thanksgiving, with Black Friday creeping into Thursday night of Thanksgiving.  Black Friday.  Then Small Business Saturday, followed by Cyber Monday.  Black Friday seems to have been a disappointment, I guess, and so there's big hopes pinned on Cyber Monday.  I guess it's the equivalent of what catalogs were, with much more ease of purchase, back when I was young.

Tuesday, November 30, 1915. Carranza on the International Bridge.

 

Venustiano Carranza met Col. Augustus P. Blocksom on the International Bridge between Matamoros and Brownsville. People were smiling, but all was not well.

Blocksom had been in the Army since 1877. He was a cavalryman and would rise to the rank of Maj. General during World War One, although he would serve in the Great War as a training officer, completing his service as the commander of the Army in the Pacific.  His career had been very distinguished.  He retired in 1918, and died in 1931 at age 76.

 Blocksom i n1918, with the stress of the war, even stateside, very clearly showing on him.

Woodrow Wilson created the Walnut Canyon National Monument near Flagstaff, Arizona.

And for the last day of November:

Interesting that Ross went with a sporting theme. The Canadian Army had adopted a variant of the Ross as a service rifle, where it really hadn't worked out due to being too finely machined to really function well in the dirty conditions of Northern France.  In some ways, that fact would lead to the Ross' demise.

Last edition:

Sunday, November 28, 1915. Going after Zapata.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Álvaro Obregón, Constitutionalist Army, Emiliano Zapata, Mexican Revolution, Mexico

Monday at the Bar: Courthouses of the West: Washakie County Courthouse, Worland Wyoming

Courthouses of the West: Washakie County Courthouse, Worland Wyoming:

 

This is the Washakie County Courthouse in Worland, Wyoming.  The Courthouse dates from the early 1950s (1954, I think).  It's a classically styled courthouse, with a single large courtroom.  I've tried one case in this courthouse, some years ago.

 Entrance to the adjoining jail, which is a substantial structure, mostly from the same era, itself.

  

A somewhat visually jarring feature of this courthouse is the small Chamber of Commerce building on the corner.  That structure oddly has the appearance of a 1950s vintage drive in restaurant, and its my suspicion that it was.  I wonder if it might have predated the building of the courthouse which, together with the jail, takes up the entire block.

 Large American Indian monument, carved from a substantial block of Douglas fir, on courthouse grounds.

Sunday Morning Scene: The Last General Absolution of the Munsters

The Last General Absolution of the Munsters

The famous painting by Fortunino Matania which commemorated the granting of general absolution on May 9, 1915, to the Muster Fusiliers by Father Francis Gleeson.  The Irish unit of the British Army would suffer devastating casualties on that day, having lost over 50% of is strength.

Sunday, November 28, 1915. Going after Zapata.

The Constitutionalist government in Mexico City announced a plan to bring about victory over Zapata.

Last edition:

Saturday, November 27, 1915. Casper's Fr. McGee passes.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Army, Art, Catholic, Death, Gallipoli, James Montgomery Flagg, Ku Klux Klan, Mexican Border War, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Personalities, religion, Second Battle of Nogales, Weather, World War One, Wyoming (Casper)

Bass Pro Shop to gobble Cabelas? I hope not

And following, not entirely appropriately, on this being National Small Business Saturday, there's news floating about that Bass Pro Shops may buy out its competitor Cabela'ss.

I really hope not.

Cabela's is an excellent store, and it's really a model of local enterprise. Based in the small town of Sidney Nebraska, it built a small local store into a giant via its catalog.  It isn't that its' cheaper than its competitors.  It often is not.  But it has a fanstastic assortment of items, and better yet, for somebody from this region, it's a regional store and has things that apply to this region.

I first went to the Sidney store so long ago that it was actually still in downtown Sidney, and not all that big. That store, in my view, had more charm than than the giant store by the Interstate Highway.  And I wasn't all that happy, even way back when, when the store began to build additional physical stores in other localities, although I've been to three of them (Billings, Denver and Rapid City).  I usually stop in the Denver store when I drive by it.

I've never been in a Bass Pro Shop but I have received their cataglogs from time to time, which has never inspired me to buy anything from one. They strike me as defined by their name, in some ways, that being "Bass".  There aren't any bass here and a store that defines bass as a significant game species is unlikely to interest me much.  If it had "trout", or even "salmon", in the name, it'd interest me a bit more.

But the big reason I hope that this doesn't go through is that this sort of conglomeration in these specialized industries, and in retail in general, just doesn't seem to have a good result.  At some point it's already the case that the big outfits crowd out the smaller ones.  From time to time, for example, its been rumored that a Cabelas would come in here, and people will sometimes pose it in "I wish a Cabela's would come in here".  I don't.  I like the Wyoming regional store, Rocky Mountain Discount Sports and I trust the people who work there.  I don't want to have to force them to compete with a Cabela's.  

Indeed, I wasn't super happy when Sportsman's Warehouse came in, but so far it hasn't been much of a threat, in so far as I can see, to the regional Rocky Mountain, even though its a multi state (and indeed multi national, as it's also in Canada) chain.  Quite a few people will go to Rocky Mountain over Sportsman's if they feel Rocky Mountain has an item.  And for that same reason I also worried when Dick's Sporting Goods came in, but again I've found Dick's to be pretty disappointing in the outdoor items department, save for kayaks, so my worry was perhaps misplaced.  Cabela's, on the other hand, might crush them all, assuming that Bass doesn't gobble Cabela's and then crush everyone.

Just recently a fellow opened a new, locally owned, sporting goods store catering to outdoorsmen, that being a store called Wagner's.  I hope it does well.  I've only been in it once, but it did have an assortment of interesting things and it went into the location of a small sporting goods store that had managed to hold on for decades.  I like the fact that an enterprising man can still open one and I hope the best for it.  By opening it, we sort of retain the historical norm here in that there's always been a local store catering to outdoorsmen (Dean's Sporting Goods, Timberline) and a somewhat larger semi chain store (Coast to Coast, Rocky Mountain).  They respond to us locals, stocking stuff that we use, and avoiding things we don't (bass lures, tree stands).  Cabela's had become a giant example of the regional store, and while it has been threatening to become much more than that, it's a great store.  I hope that Bass Pro Shops doesn't take over it.

Lex Anteinternet: Distributist of the world unite! National Small Business Saturday

This year, Small Business Saturday is November 28, today.

This is an event that's sponsored by American Express, hardly a small business, but still, it should draw our attention to small businessees, I hope.  Last year, I ran this post on the day: Lex Anteinternet: Distributist of the world unite! National Small Business Saturday

Distributist of the world unite! National Small Business Saturday.

Repeating what I wrote there would be, of course, pointless, so I'll forgo that. But I wonder, how many folks followed American Expresses' suggestion, because they made it, and what sort of impact that had. And if this is a growing movement at all.

And are you going to visit some small businesses this Holiday Season yourself?

Music, like tastes in other things, is truly individual.

The other day, President Obama bestowed a series of Presidential Medals of Freedom. The medal is supposed to honor the following: 

Section 1. Medal established

The Medal of Freedom is hereby reestablished as the Presidential Medal of Freedom, with accompanying ribbons and appurtenances. The Presidential Medal of Freedom, hereinafter referred to as the Medal, shall be in two degrees. 

Sec. 2. Award of the Medal.

(a) The Medal may be awarded by the President as provided in this order to any person who has made an especially meritorious contribution to (1), the security or national interests of the United States, or (2) world peace, or (3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.

(b) The President may select for award of the Medal any person nominated by the Board referred to in Section 3(a) of this Order, any person otherwise recommended to the President for award of the Medal, or any person selected by the President upon his own initiative.

(c) The principal announcement of awards of the Medal shall normally be made annually, on or about July 4 of each year; but such awards may be made at other times, as the President may deem appropriate.

(d) Subject to the provisions of this Order, the Medal may be awarded posthumously. 

Originally it was for the following.

By virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States and as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, it is hereby ordered as follows:

1. There is hereby established a medal to be known as the Medal of Freedom with accompanying ribbons and appurtenances for award to any person, not hereinafter specifically excluded, who, on or after December 7, 1941, has performed a meritorious act or service which has aided the United States in the prosecution of a war against an enemy or enemies and for which an award of another United States medal or decoration is considered inappropriate.
2. The Medal of Freedom may also be awarded to any person, not hereinafter specifically excluded, who, on or after December 7, 1941, has similarly aided any nation engaged with the United States in the prosecution of a war against a common enemy or enemies.
3. The Medal of Freedom shall not be awarded to a citizen of the United States for any act or service performed within the continental limits of the United States or to a member of the armed forces of the United States.
4. The Medal of Freedom and appurtenances thereto shall be of appropriate design, approved by the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, and the Secretary of the Navy, and may be awarded by the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, or the Secretary of the Navy, or by such officers as the said Secretaries may respectively designate. Awards shall be made under such regulations as the said Secretaries shall severally prescribe and such regulations shall, insofar as practicable, be of uniform application.
5. No more than one Medal of Freedom shall be awarded to any one person, but for a subsequent act or service justifying such an award a suitable device may be awarded to be worn with the medal.
6. The Medal of Freedom may be awarded posthumously.

I don't have a problem with the medal, which is basically a high civilian honorific, but I sometimes and a bit surprised by the winners, which is not to criticize them.

One winner this year was James Taylor.

Taylor is a musician I don't think much about, as he bores the stuffing out of me.  After he won, I was discussing him with my son, who knows a lot about music, and is a good musician himself, but he had  never heard of him.  Probably not something a younger generation follows much.  Indeed, he strikes me as part of the music scene of the 1970s, and that being the part that I myself prefer not to ponder.

So, I found him on you tube.

My gosh, the comments on his videos are just gushing.

One comment, and I can't find it now, was something like "How can anyone not love this music?"

Well, I don't. 

I can't stand Taylor's music. It's really dull in my view.  I frankly can't get through one of his songs if it comes on the radio, I just move on.

Am I right?  Probably not, as a lot of people do love him.  But I find his music insufferably dull.  When he was here in town a while back a lot of people I knew went to hear him, and they all commented on how great he was.  I didn't go. I"d have been napping and checking my watch.

Oh well, tastes in music, likely beauty, or even more so, truly are in the eye, or in this case the ear, of the listener.

Oh, why did he win?  Well, the President's statement provided:

 As a recording and touring artist, James Taylor has touched people with his warm baritone voice and distinctive style of guitar-playing for more than 40 years, while setting a precedent to which countless young musicians have aspired.  Over the course of his celebrated songwriting and performing career, Taylor has sold more than 100 million albums, earning gold, platinum and multi-platinum awards for classics ranging from Sweet Baby James in 1970 to October Road in 2002.  In 2015 Taylor released Before This World, his first new studio album in thirteen years, which earned him his first ever #1 album.  He has won multiple Grammy awards and has been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the prestigious Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Eh?  You get a medal for that?

Oh well.  I'm sure all those statements are very true.

Saturday, November 27, 1915. Casper's Fr. McGee passes.

It was a Saturday.

An illustration by James Montgomery Flagg graced the cover of the comedic Judge, making sport of November weather, and sports.

The Saturday Evening Post just went with an illustration of contemporary beauty.

Country Gentleman had an illustration of a white turkey, but I can't find a good image of it to post.

The British government introduced legislation to restrict housing rents to their pre Great War levels  following Glasgow rent strikes.

A second KKK chapter was established in Stone Mountain, Georgia, showing the rapid growth of the racist organization.  Of note, a newspaper in Colorado that was black owned and operated campaigned on this day for keeping Birth of a Nation out of Colorado.

In Casper, a tragedy struck the local Catholic community with the death of Fr. McGee, who was just 27 years old.

I'd heard or read of Fr. McGee, but I didn't know anything about him, including that he died so young.

The local paper also reported that troops were headed to the border in light of the Second Battle of Nogales having just occured.

A rather grim photograph was taken of French soldiers gathering up battlefield dead, French and German.

Weather at Gallipoli continued to be bad.

The Great Blizzard at Gallipoli

Last edition:

Friday, November 26, 1915. Battle of Nogales.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Arizona (Nogales), Gallipoli, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Mining, Nogales Arizona-Sonora, panoramic, Second Battle of Nogales, Sonora (Nogales), Whatever It Is I'm against it, Wisconsin, World War One

Australian Government nixes sale of largest cattle ranch to foreign investors

Of note to some here, the Australian government said no to the sale of the nation's largest cattle ranch, called in Australia a "station", to foreign bidders.

Not really an act of Distributism, the sale was apparently given the no go as part of the ranch includes the world's largest missile range.  So it was more of a matter of national defense considerations as opposed to anything else.

Still, it's interesting.  If it had been an American ranch, I doubt that a similar result would have occurred, or if we'd even have thought that there should be one.

Absolute freedom of land sales, or even use of land, isn't really a given, the way Americans tend to think it is.  And perhaps it shouldn't be really, in all circumstances.

Funding Failure (or rather not funding it), part 4. A Distributist consideration.

 

 Engineering building, University of Wyoming.

I just posted the third comment on the blog about our current system of funding college educations, taking on a bit the current system, which isn't working well in my view, but also taking on the current somewhat popular suggestion that the nation ought to provide a "free" college education to everyone.

Here I look at that a bit differently, and note that the entire conversation is a bit out of whack, on the left and the right.

The current left wing popular idea is that you ought to give every American a free college education.  There is no such thing as a "free" anything, of course, so what that really means is that the public fund college educations for American high school graduates.  The right criticizes this vociferously on economic grounds, and for some good reasons, but there are other reasons beyond that to take it on. For one, the commonly cited "the Europeans" do it isn't a good claim, because. . . .

over 40% of Americans have a college degree, while only 30% of the Swiss do.  Are the Swiss international slackers?  Probably not.  Indeed, we have more people with college degrees than the United Kingdom, Denmark Belgium, Australia, Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, South Korean and Finland do.  We are on par with New Zealand and Japan and really only Russia and Canada have a true statistically greater percentage of their populations that are college educated.   So it sure isn't the case that we aren't sending people to college.

Therefore, if measured in terms of the sheer number of people in the population who have degrees, we beat out every country except for Canada and Russia, which is pretty impressive on some level.

In other words, maybe European kids ought to be protesting that something in their system is keeping people from getting degrees.

I don't know what that is, quite frankly, but what I wonder is if those degrees are just flat out harder to get because they're real degrees.  I don't know that, but right now American universities are churning out a lot of baloney and have become refugees for people with master degrees granted following dissertations like " "It’s ‘a good thing’: The Commodification of Femininity, Affluence, and Whiteness in the Martha Stewart Phenomenon", a title so absurd I couldn't have made it up if I'd tried.  There's no harm i studying that, if that's what makes you happy, but there is harm in funding that as a nation which seeks to be a world leader in science and technology benefits not one darned bit from that.  I'm not saying, of course, we funded that dissertation with a loan, but we do fund others like it and we of course now have a self perpetuating system of employing people who  have an academic interest in such things, which serves the nation very little.

But that's not my point here either.

My point is, when we look at other nations, we fail to consider that the nations we point to are tiny little things.

A nation like Germany, or France, can't be compared to the United States. Large sections of their populations are relatively homogeneous and their populations, while densely packed, sure don't match ours and haven't for a really long time.  Germans living in rural Geramny are still Germans and still of the same culture from Germans living in big German cities, which are all right next door by American standards.  That's a far cry from the situation the United States has.

So, when a "fund free university education" cry goes up, it suggests imposing on a huge country a national system that probably doesn't work very darned well at a local level.

Indeed, consider that Canada, often cited for having a publicly funded higher education system, has about the same population as California.  And the economy of California is simply enormous.  And it has its own needs.  So, if we're going to look at a public system, why not just leave it to the states?

Oh, I hear, the states won't do it.

Oh yes they will, and one already does. Wyoming.  And I'll bet it isn't the only one.

Wyoming, which has always been concerned about Wyomingites, has created a funding system that does indeed pay for a lot of the education of students who show an inclination and ability to go on.  It isn't a "congratulations, you slithered through high school and now we'll fund four years of napping at a university system", but it does carry most of the burden for those students who are really going on, as long as they go on here.

This is a public funding of based, whether we realize it or not, on the Distributist principal of subsidiarity.  We're taking care of our own, for our own needs, locally.  And others can do this to if they wish to, and I'll be they are.

This makes a great deal more sense than a nationwide system, and indeed a nationwide system would pretty much destroy our system.  Our local university and colleges have programs that are focused on our states and the graduates from them serve the state's interest in ways that other institutions don't.  A nationwide system would in fact tend to counter that.  If the funding is nationwide and we fund a bachelor's  level program in "The Commodification of Femininity, Affluence, and Whiteness in the Martha Stewart Phenomenon" at the University of the Left Bank and suck people into that, the state isn't going to benefit at all, or at least not to the same degree that something from the UW School of Energy Resources will.  So, basically, an economic model, not surprisingly, works better at a local level.

It's said, of course, that all politics is local, but in national elections that doesn't seem to be true.  Just listening to the debates suggest that no local considerations really play much in the national platforms, which isn't too surprising in a Presidential campaign.  But perhaps they should.  So perhaps the answer to a "do you support the public funding of college educations" should be answered by "what's your state doing and why aren't you looking there".  They can do it, and I'll be they do more often than people realize.

Classroom in the S. H. Knight building, University of Wyoming, early 1980s.

Lex Anteinternet: Funding Failure, part three

Something to ponder while you are watching those Thanksgiving university football games, which I wholly hope to avoid if at all possible.

I ran this item in 2011, last time we were having a major election; Lex Anteinternet: Funding Failure:

One of the topics that's been kicking around the GOP Presidential race is that of student loans.  At least one candidate, Ron Paul, says he wants to phase them out altogether.

I wouldn't be in favor of that, but I really do think that the entire topic needs to be revisited, as it's helping to fund failure, and has a weird impact on our economy.  This is the reason why.

Generally, student loans are a government backed system in which private young individuals receive funding for university or college irrespective of the needs of the economy, or the wisdom of their choice.  I'm not suggesting, of course, that we should override the choices of individuals who make study choices that are not likely to advance our collective economic well-being, but I do feel that it's a bad economic choice to fund them.

Students of the history of student loans often point out that they've been a boost to the American economy, which is somewhat true, but which really confuses the loans with the GI Bill, which was an outright grant.  At any rate, what they fail to note is that the early post World War Two American economy was such that that the student population

(largely male) was unlikely to be study something that wasn't directly usable in the work sphere, and that having a college degree in the 1945 to 1975 time frame was rare enough that nearly any college degree could translate into business utility.  Neither of those factors is true today.  Indeed, at this point in time college degrees have become so

common that a lot of them have no economic value to their holders at all.

This is not to say that pursing a college degree is worthless. That would hardly be true.  But if the government is to back the study of something, it ought to be something useful to the nation as a whole.  Not something that's likely to have no use to the nation, and which moreover is likely to have no real value to the holder in later economic terms.

As an example of this, which I've already noted here, one of the protesters at the Wall Street occupation was reported to have a $90,000 student loan for the study of art.  Why would the nation help fund this.  If she wants to study art, the more power to her, I just don't want to help.  In economic terms, this isn't going to help the nation at all, and frankly she'll be really lucky if she ever fines a job.  By funding her, we've made ourselves poorer and, chances are, her too.

What I'd propose to do is to restrict funding to areas where we really feel we need to boost the nation's educated populace.  If we're weak in the sciences or engineering, that's what I'd fund.  Other areas where we need new workers, who need an education to obtain it, would likewise be eligible for loans.  I wouldn't bother funding art students, or literature students. That doesn't mean their studies are unimportant culturally, or personally, but rather if they are important, it's in a manner that cannot be economically judged, and therefore people shouldn't be taxed to help fund it.  Law is the same way.  The nation has a vast oversupply of lawyers and I can't see any good reason to give a person a loan to study that.

I don't think that this would mean these other fields would dry up by any means.  But it probably would mean that a lot of people who don't qualify for private scholarships and who don't otherwise have the means of obtaining such a degree would do something else. Frankly, however, that would be a good thing, as by funding the non economic, we're fueling the hopes of a lot of people who aren't going to be able to find employment later.

And, no, I didn't have any student loans, thanks to the National Guard and my parents.

 And I followed that post up with this one;  Lex Anteinternet: Funding Failure II: 

 A very interesting NPR Talk of the Nation episode on Student Loans.

What is so interesting about this, I think, is that there's at least one caller who emails in with complaints about how the burden of loans caused her to take a career she didn't want, Wildlife Management, over one she did, Veterinary school, as she couldn't afford the loans.  She then goes on to blame the burden of servicing her loans for living far from her family, and for not having any children.

The other thing that is is interesting is that a few callers have no sympathy at all with those complaining about their loans.

I'm afraid I'm in that camp, the one without sympathy. Choosing a career you don't want, just because the loans are cheaper, is stupid.  Beyond that, avoiding real life, to service loans, is as well.

This probably says something, however, about the current nature of our societal view towards education. Why must we go this route?  We don't have to, we're choosing too.  And now, a large section of the population views paying for the loans they obtained for their education as unfair, when nobody asked them to get the loans in the first place.

Not that society cannot be blamed to some degree.  We've created a culture where we now view manual labor as demeaning, and teach our middle class children that.  The grandsons of machinist and tool and die makers feel they must go to college, and indeed they must as we sent the tool and die work to China, more or less intentionally.  So we're now all over-educated, and can't pay for it with the jobs we retained. And we encourage this to continue on by giving loans for educational pursuits we know will never pay off.

Since I posted these items, this has been more in the news than ever.  And a lot of that has to do with the combined impact of student protests as well as Democratic Senator Bernie Saunders suggesting that he cause their to be free college for all.

Before we go back to the main point of this, let's take up that free college for all topic. Truth be known more Americans are college educated than ever before, so it isn't as if we're failing to get people to college.  Granted, student debt is a big problem, but by and large we are getting a lot of students there.

We're also quite frankly generating a lot of junk degrees that are worthless.  This is a popular conservative point about higher education, and it's frankly true. While we are graduating more degreed people than ever, a college degree of 2015 doesn't mean the same thing as a college degree from 1965 meant, or 1945, or 1915.  A student graduating in 1915, while their were far fewer of them, was quite frankly far better educated than many are today, depending upon their major.

College level educators, unfortunately, have a vested interest in this, which explains more than a little about the current level of dissent and rank idiocy on college campuses today. The recent series of demonstrations at the University of Missouri should be pointing this out.  Take, for example, University of Missouri professor Melissa Click, who infamously asked for "some muscle" to eject those recording the demonstration.

Click is the Department of Communications, an ironic post for somebody seeking "muscle" to prevent the recordation of an event, but I'll note that communications are a legitimate field of study.  But consider her master dissertation, which is "It’s ‘a good thing’: The Commodification of Femininity, Affluence, and Whiteness in the Martha Stewart Phenomenon.".  This is a thesis that did not need to be written and perhaps one that an institution of higher learning should have rejected.  Click, as George F. Will points out in a recent article, also "has a graduate certificate in “advanced feminist studies.”". That's baloney packaged up between two thick slices of baloney, and is the type of certificate only useful in a fake, highly left wing, purely academic, world.

Indeed Will's article points out a whole host of similar absurd academic behaviors, and even the University of Wyoming has become a little guilty of some institutionalized nonsense.  The net impact is to reduce the seriousness of the situation the students are about to be ejected into combined with a probably temporary political radicalization of them.  In other words, they're separated from their cash, or probably their parents cash, or the public's cash, not really educated, save for a career in university level academia, and then booted out into the real world with diminished job prospects.

That is, in part, because there are a lot of worthless majors now crated by this system and the social and economic atmosphere that created it.  Somehow the number of degrees has vastly exploded, and not in a good way, if for some the application of those degrees is marginal.  People who would have had fairly rigorous Liberal Arts degrees 40 years and back now sometimes have specialized degrees with no practical application at all.

That's why the "free college for all" (which of course would not be free) is a bit of a farce in real terms.  A "free education" isn't free if you spend four years of your life on it, and the net results is that you are not educated in real or practical terms.

This is why comparing our educational system at the college level to that of other nations, by which we really mean European nations, is quite questionable.  While European degrees are presently in a state of evolution, European university degrees have generally been fairly hard to obtain.  I don't know the current situation, but when comparing the public funding for them, that can make quite a difference.

For instance, over 40% of Americans have a college degree, while only 30% of the Swiss do.  Are the Swiss international slackers?  Probably not.  Indeed, we have more people with college degrees than the United Kingdom, Denmark Belgium, Australia, Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, South Korean and Finland do.  We are on par with New Zealand and Japan and really only Russia and Canada have a true statistically greater percentage of their populations that are college educated.   So it sure isn't the case that we aren't sending people to college.

Therefore, if measured in terms of the sheer number of people in the population who have degrees, we beat out every country except for Canada and Russia, which is pretty impressive on some level.

But that's only impressive it it really means something, which gets back to the main point.

What college students are really complaining about now is that a college education doesn't pay off the way it once did. If you had to invest $100,000 in something but were almost sure to get it back, you wouldn't worry much about the loans to obtain it.  Now, that's quite uncertain. And as it's quite uncertain, those doing it are hoping for somebody else to pick up the risk, that being the taxpayer.

That's not a good idea for a lot of reasons, the foremost being that if the public is going to pick up the risk, it ought to reap some sort of a reward. And that is where our system is really messed up.

In a country where about 30% of the population is obtaining a degree it stands to reason that its likely the degree is worth more, and its probably in an area with application.  But the American system has sort of evolved to where many college degrees are nothing much more than High School Degrees +.

When I was younger, it was emphasized quite correctly that if a person had any hope of economic success at all, they needed to have a high school degree. That's still true, but our economy has evolved to the point where you need a college degree for that now.  And that is, quite frankly, completely absurd.

There's no earthly reason whatsoever that many former areas of employment that only required a high school degree should not require a college degree, and the concept that they do is deeply flawed.  It's commonly stated that he world is more complicated, but it frankly isn't.  The global level of complication has changed very little, and computerization of things has served to simplify, not complicate, many things.  The ability to operate a computer is something that every kid coming out of high school is well versed with, so the sometimes heard excuse that people need to learn the technology is baloney, they know it.

And the fact that degrees have become available for everything means that they have become debased in value.  There are entire fields that are not really of the type that should require post high school education, if high school was done well.

What this means, in part, is that colleges and universities ought to dump a lot of the academic degrees they have that are of little value, and that would mean dumping the vested interests that maintain them.  It also means that university needs to toughen back up, academically.

Indeed one of the real shocks for people who obtained "hard" degrees from decades ago is the level of frivolity that is now so deeply associated with universities.  University as a four year party seems to be both commonly experienced and accepted. That's nonsense, particularly if its on the public dime.  This was not always the nature of university, in spite of the popular image to the contrary.

The biggest reform that could be done for the system, and to the advantage of the students, would be to change the funding system we presently have to one, as noted above, that funded a real demonstrable public need.  That doesn't force anyone to do anything, but it does mean that if the public is funding an education, even through a loan, it ought to be in an area where the public derives a benefit.  What fields, that is, does the US benefit from in terms of producing college graduates?

I fully acknowledge that this means I'm completely discounting the cultural benefit argument.  Some would argue, and probably validly, that the nation enjoys a richer cultural life if it produces artists, etc., in addition to engineers. Well, tough.

Or more accurately, to the extent the nation benefits from people in those categories, it benefits and should encourage them in the way that has been done with all former cultures, in the stuff we publicly procure. Btu we've done a poor job of that recently as well.  By that, I'd note, churches and public buildings fueled the arts, but on their terms.  Not through loans.  That's a better process as its market based, the way the real world ultimately works.  If a person desires to be an artist, be one.  But being one probably means suffering for your art at some point, which doesn't require the public to fund the suffering at he university level.

Friday, November 26, 1915. Battle of Nogales.

Villista's commenced firing on U.S. troops across the border in Nogales, Arizona, from Nogales, Sonora.  The 12th Infantry responded with counter fire in an engagement that lasted over two hours until Constitutionalistas troops arrived and attacked the Villistas.

The attack followed a series of cross border raids by unknown, but probably Villistas, forces.  The day prior Mascarena's Ranch had bee raided in such an event.

Villa's troops had been attempting to withdraw from Nogales but had their efforts frustrated with Obregon's troops captured a troop train they were using.  The Villista firing into Nogales started after that.  Some U.S. forces crossed into Mexico during the fight, prior ro the arrival of Obregon's troops.  Later in the day, the 10th Cavalry engaged in a 30 minute firefight with the Constitutionalistas.

Bad weather set in at Gallipoli, adding to the misery and to Allied casualties.

Other news of the day:

Today -100: November 26, 1915: I know that moral pressure will not be without its effect

Martin Mine, Benton, Wis., November 25, 1915.

Cleveland Mine, Hazel Green, Wis, November 26, 1915.

Last edition:

Thursday, November 25, 1915. Retreat of the Serbs and General Relativity.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Albania, Albert Einstein, Constitutionalist Army, Lodging, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Nogales Arizona-Sonora, Science, Serbian Army, Thanksgiving, United Kingdom, World War One

A day in the life: Thanksgiving 1915

People leaving a Thanksgiving Day Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York, 1915.

Thanksgiving Day "Maskers", approximately 1915.  I have absolutely no idea what this tradition was.

Thursday, November 25, 1915. Retreat of the Serbs and General Relativity.

It was Thanksgiving Day in the U.S.

It apparently was a tense one on the the border.

Serbian Field Marshal Radomir Putnik ordered a retreat of Serbian forces military through Albania and Montenegro. 155,000 Serbian soldiers and civilians to escape to the Adriatic Sea, but an estimated 200,000 more died of exposure, starvation and attacks by enemy soldiers and local Albanian militia.

Parliament passed an act to restrict rent and mortgage rate increases during the ongoing war.

Albert Einstein submitted his paper 'The Field Equations of Gravitation' for publication in 1915, which gave the correct field equations for the theory of general relativity. German mathematician David Hilbert had submitted an article containing the correct field equations for general relativity five days before.

Last edition:

Wednesday, November 24, 1915. Withdrawals at Ctesiphon.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, 1920s, 1922, 1925, Battle of Ctesiphon, British Army, Bulgarian Army, Kosovo Offensive, Ku Klux Klan, Movies, Ottoman Army, Personalities, Racism

Straus Clothing Store in Fargo closes its doors.

After, we should note, being open for 135 years.

The family owned store closed as its owners are retiring.

A remarkable run, and one that can't help but make a person a little sad. We don't see that many business of this type still open really, and this one seems to have done well for a very long time.

Return of the Willys MB

U.S. Army convoy in Iran during World War Two, with Jeep lead vehicle in convoy.  The Jeep is either a Willys MB or a Ford GPW, the two trucks being identical.  Now, the Iranians are making essentially the same vehicle.

We've discussed Jeeps here a fair amount.  As noted, I've owned three, the first being a 1946 CJ2A.

The CJ2A was a Willys post war variant of the MB, the most mass produced Jeep of the Second World War.  Willys was one of the original competitors for the 1/4 ton truck contract, and its the one that basically won it.  That Jeep, the World War Two Jeep, established the brand, basically. 

I won't go into the Jeep history, as I've already done that.  But what I will note is that the next military model was the M38.  The M38 was an improved MB.  It basically takes a Jeep fan to be able to tell the difference, although their are real differences.  They looked virtually identical.

The M38 gave way to the M38A1, which wasn't identical. That Jeep is the originator of the CJ5 style Jeep.  I've owned a M38A1 as well.  

My M38A1, back when I owned it.

The M38A1 yielded to the M151, a really good, but very dangerous Jeep, with independent wheel suspension.  After that, the Army phased the 1/4 ton truck out.

But not every Army did.  There's probably a few 1/4 US Jeeps still in use by some Army. And many European Armies use a truck of about that size.

Well, now Iran is making one, the Safir.

And not only are they making one, it's apparently pretty much a copy of the M38.  It's body style isn't identical, but it's pretty close, and otherwise it's pretty much a copy of the M38.

And they're getting quite a bit of use in the war in Iraq, in the hands if Shia militias.

All sorts of rocket launchers and recoiless rifles are mounted on them, probably taxing their capabilities, as these vehicles are small.

Now,  note, I'm noting this as I like Jeeps in general, but I'm amazed that the little tiny MB is back.  They were really very small, and various Jeep developments since then have made for much better Jeeps.  But back they are, and like the M38 and M38A1, they're packing some pretty stout weapons.  Engine wise, they use a modern Nissan engine, and they appear to have torsion bars for their front suspension. But they retain a solid front axle, as of course current American civilian Jeeps do.

Interesting that the old type would be back, and in this peculiar fashion.

Wednesday, November 24, 1915. Withdrawals at Ctesiphon.

Both sides withdrew in the Battle of Ctesiphon.

Pristina fell to the Bulgarians.

William Joseph Simmons, inspired Birth of a Nation, founded the second variant of the Ku Klux Klan at Stone Mountain, Georgia.  The event included the burning of a cross, something the original Klan did not do, but which the film had depicted.

Simmons would run the organization until 1922, at which point he'd be removed from power  The organization reached its peak membership in 1925, and declined thereafter due to scandal.

Last edition:

Tuesday, November 23, 1915. Turned back at Ctesiphon.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Battle for Pristina, Battle of Ctesiphon, British Army, German Army, Ottoman Army, World War One