Or a little below, actually.
Well, darn.
In 2016 it was increasing constantly as we were writing about the Punitive Expedition. In May 2017 it was justly slightly over 7,000 viewers a month. This May it was just slightly under. Readership was rising then, but it's more or less steady, and maybe even decreasing a little now. In March 2017 it peacked out at about 56,000 viewers that month, fell to about 10,000 in May of last year as the Punitive Expedition stories had wrapped up, but shot back up to 38,000 this past December. That was, I suspect, some sort of net glitch. Since then it dropped down steadily and was at about 7,700 in March, and has bounced around since.
I'll admit it's a bit disappointing. 56,000 was a lot of readership. But I knew it would decline. And part of the reason for the high readership had to do with links to Reddit which you aren't supposed to do, but which I didn't know where prohibited.
Unit March of 2016 we averaged about 3,500 to 4,000 hits per month. I wouldn't be surprised if we returned to that level. As I write mostly for myself, the fact that over 100 people stop in here every day to read what I've written should, in fact, be pretty pleasing. I do wish that there'd occasionally be more comments, and indeed one of the purposes of this blog in the first place, as I've noted before, was to pose question to learn information for an anticipated novel set in this time period (which it is highly unlikely now that I'll get around to writing), and we haven't had too many of those. I do appreciate the comments we receive.
Thursday, May 31, 2018
US 3d Division arrests the German advance at Château-Thierry, May 31, 1918.
Patch of the 3d Division (now the 3d Infantry Division). This patch was adopted during World War One, but for the most part, like most U.S. unit patches, wasn't really used until just after the war.
As we saw yesterday, the Germans had finally been able to take advantage of their victory in the East and had redeployed fifty divisions in the West for their renewed Spring Offensive. That action, which was designed as a feint under the assumption that the French would yield and the British would be forced to disengage to save them, was fully underway and was meeting with some real success.
On this day the US 3d Division stopped the Germans at Château-Thierry. This is not, however, the famous battle by that name and the Germans would be quick to react. Stopped at Château-Thierry, they turned right to flank the 3d Division and advanced toward Vaux and Belleau-Wood.
These events, I should note, are considered part of the Ainse operations and usually categorized as part of the Battle of Ainse, which they are.
The operations in in Ainse generally are discussed in the context of British and French operations, both of which had larger commitments in this defense battle than the Americans did. I haven't treated it in this fashion however as I'm focused on the American role.
But beyond that, while every history legitimately notes that the American Army came to play a role in the defense of the German drive towards Paris, of which this battle was part, and which did at first go well for the Germans, the role that this battle played in sliding from one operation into another is often not very well noted. The American Army, or more particularly the 3d Division, performed very well in the defense of Château-Thierry, as noted. That the German Army immediately reacted and made a right turn, and that this lead immediately to a subsequent and more notable battle rarely is. To U.S. commanders on the ground, however, this was all one action at the larger level. The defense of Château-Thierry by the 3d Division lead to an immediate German reaction and a subsequent major battle in which the 2nd Division, and the 3d Division to a lesser degree, would have a very famous role.
Tailspin. A different look at the Boomers
I don't know if this link to Meet the Press will post or not. I find these links problematic.
At any rate, this is one of two recent books out there that touches on the concept of cultures in termoil and destruction, and which given their contents and at least in one case (which I'll get to in a moment) their authors, should be listened to.
The first book is one called "Tailspin" by Stephen Brill. I haven't read it, but I saw that it made the cover with the provocative title about "how my generation broke America". With that cover, I figured it was going to be yet another blame it on the millennials screed, but in fact it's Brill's thesis that the Baby Boomer generation in fact "broke America".
If you listen to this interview from Meet The Press, it's even more disturbing than that. Brill, who is a lawyer, argued that the opening up of colleges and universities based on merit rather than (not clearly spoken) economic class, produced the "knowledge economy". That, and he notes it, sounds good, but in reality what it did is open up liberal law schools in that fashion which produced tons of smart activist lawyers who have no restraint whatsoever, and have used their knowledge to destroy social controls on the right and the left.
There's a lot to that, and again only implying it, he's also indicating that the entire American social structure is now controlled by a hyperactive thesis that everyone and everything needs to be a super active over achiever. This isn't what most people really desire, but with everything basically ruined and the social controls that kept that from being necessity removed, that's what we are in. And that, he maintains, is what broke the country. Part of the interview, for example, is as follows:
Indeed, I've posted similar theories of my own along those lines here before, although not quite in the same fashion.
I've struggled to fully define what occurred, but it is clear to me that something has really changed in American society since World War Two. We've had a consumer economy since the early 20th Century, or maybe the late 19th, but it's been nothing like what we currently have. Even through the Great Depression and the recovery from it, and World War Two, people's focus was much less on making it big as having a decent life, which tended to be focused on family life. And that focus was much, much different than today. Starting in the 1970s, as the Boomers came into the mainstream, that really changed and it hasn't quite changing.
It isn't the only thing that's changed, particularly recently, and tying them all together is something that people have grasped for but not really been able to define. Brill may have hit on the thesis. The hyper over achievers in society have broken down all the barriers of any kind and have defined absolutely everything as a self centered competitive endeavor. And its been massively destructive and, moreover, massively misdirected. That will be really hard to fix, although Brill is optimistic that it can be and in fact will be.
I hope he's correct.
The other book that I've been pondering along these lines, which I also haven't read but which I might order, is Weigel's "The Fragility of Order". I mentioned that here the other day.
At any rate, this is one of two recent books out there that touches on the concept of cultures in termoil and destruction, and which given their contents and at least in one case (which I'll get to in a moment) their authors, should be listened to.
The first book is one called "Tailspin" by Stephen Brill. I haven't read it, but I saw that it made the cover with the provocative title about "how my generation broke America". With that cover, I figured it was going to be yet another blame it on the millennials screed, but in fact it's Brill's thesis that the Baby Boomer generation in fact "broke America".
If you listen to this interview from Meet The Press, it's even more disturbing than that. Brill, who is a lawyer, argued that the opening up of colleges and universities based on merit rather than (not clearly spoken) economic class, produced the "knowledge economy". That, and he notes it, sounds good, but in reality what it did is open up liberal law schools in that fashion which produced tons of smart activist lawyers who have no restraint whatsoever, and have used their knowledge to destroy social controls on the right and the left.
There's a lot to that, and again only implying it, he's also indicating that the entire American social structure is now controlled by a hyperactive thesis that everyone and everything needs to be a super active over achiever. This isn't what most people really desire, but with everything basically ruined and the social controls that kept that from being necessity removed, that's what we are in. And that, he maintains, is what broke the country. Part of the interview, for example, is as follows:
STEVEN BRILL:I suspect that there's a lot of truth in that disturbing message.
Or, you know, a consumer rights claim. So, the knowledge economy typically ended up with liberal lawyers who were coming out of, you know, liberal law schools, going to liberal law firms and doing the legal engineering that caused all the discontent that we have in, you know, the middle class today. The Paul Weiss law firm, for example, in New York.
CHUCK TODD:
Right.
STEVEN BRILL:
A notable bastion of, you know, Democrats. They did the legal engineering for the J.P. Stevens company when they figured out how to fight unions.
CHUCK TODD:
Is this sort of the harshness of Darwinism, is what you're saying? It's like, "Okay, it became survival of the smartest. And survival of the hardest working. And we--"
(OVERTALK)
CHUCK TODD:
--"got this new elite." Right. And so, the door was open for many people.
STEVEN BRILL:
You've got it exactly right.
CHUCK TODD:
And then, what happened? What about these people that were left behind? Are they not capable of doing it?
STEVEN BRILL:
Well, what we usually have had in this country, and what any country needs in order to be balanced and to survive, is a balance where there are guard rails that are put on all of the overachievers. So that they can't do too much in terms of the legal rights they assert, the financial rights they assert. And that got lost in this country because these people were so smart that they ran all over that stuff.
Indeed, I've posted similar theories of my own along those lines here before, although not quite in the same fashion.
I've struggled to fully define what occurred, but it is clear to me that something has really changed in American society since World War Two. We've had a consumer economy since the early 20th Century, or maybe the late 19th, but it's been nothing like what we currently have. Even through the Great Depression and the recovery from it, and World War Two, people's focus was much less on making it big as having a decent life, which tended to be focused on family life. And that focus was much, much different than today. Starting in the 1970s, as the Boomers came into the mainstream, that really changed and it hasn't quite changing.
It isn't the only thing that's changed, particularly recently, and tying them all together is something that people have grasped for but not really been able to define. Brill may have hit on the thesis. The hyper over achievers in society have broken down all the barriers of any kind and have defined absolutely everything as a self centered competitive endeavor. And its been massively destructive and, moreover, massively misdirected. That will be really hard to fix, although Brill is optimistic that it can be and in fact will be.
I hope he's correct.
The other book that I've been pondering along these lines, which I also haven't read but which I might order, is Weigel's "The Fragility of Order". I mentioned that here the other day.
George F. Will maintains that if you want to know if you are a conservative, ask yourself who you would have voted for in 1912.
And if the answer is Taft, you are a conservative.
It's an interesting article worth reading and with some good points. Will argues that Taft was the last U.S. President who conceived of his role as being one seriously defined and constrained by the Constitution. He also notes, as well he should, that Taft's record in the Progressive Era was arguably more successful, in Progressive terms, than either Theodore Roosevelt's or Woodrow Wilson's, both of whom defined themselves as Progressives.
It's an interesting article worth reading and with some good points. Will argues that Taft was the last U.S. President who conceived of his role as being one seriously defined and constrained by the Constitution. He also notes, as well he should, that Taft's record in the Progressive Era was arguably more successful, in Progressive terms, than either Theodore Roosevelt's or Woodrow Wilson's, both of whom defined themselves as Progressives.
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
The Beaverton: Airliner permits woman’s comfort whale onto plane
It's the Canadian equivalent of The Onion.Airliner permits woman’s comfort whale onto plane
But the headline feels so true.
Lex Anteinternet: The Kaiserschlacht Carries on. May 27, 1918. Operation Blücher-Yorck. Something I'd missed
I noted the resumption of the 1918 German Spring Offensive here the other day:
I've been pretty critical here of German dithering in the East, and I'll still be. Fifty divisions in May 1918 was hugely significant, but not as significant as they would have been months prior when the Spring Offensive started. By this point, German losses in the Spring Offensive had been huge.
But still, there was real reason for the Germans to hope that this time. . . .
Lex Anteinternet: The Kaiserschlacht Carries on. May 27, 1918. Oper...: Operation Blücher-Yorck. The big picture again. This time, having failed to push the British into the sea, the Germans turned thei...What I failed to note when I posted that is that the Germans, finally benefiting from their defeat of Russia, had brought into action fifty, that's right fifty, divisions from the East.
I've been pretty critical here of German dithering in the East, and I'll still be. Fifty divisions in May 1918 was hugely significant, but not as significant as they would have been months prior when the Spring Offensive started. By this point, German losses in the Spring Offensive had been huge.
But still, there was real reason for the Germans to hope that this time. . . .
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
The Bolsheviks, who seized power in the name of the workers and the peasants. . .
decided on this day in 1918 that it had a right to conscript all of them. . . or at least the male ones.
It also announced that it had the right to be the only party around as it was the self declared voice for all the people.
On this same day, the new Greek Army, in its first major action of the war, defeated the Bulgarians in at Skra de Legen on the Macedonian Front, giving the Allies a victory, albeit not a major one, in a very troubled period.
It also announced that it had the right to be the only party around as it was the self declared voice for all the people.
On this same day, the new Greek Army, in its first major action of the war, defeated the Bulgarians in at Skra de Legen on the Macedonian Front, giving the Allies a victory, albeit not a major one, in a very troubled period.
Monday, May 28, 2018
The first major offensive action of the AEF. Cantigny
On this day in 1918 the U.S. Army began offensive operations in a major way during World War One.
The Army and the Marine Corps had already been in action. Units had deployed in quiet sectors of the French line, and earlier the British line (which was not quiet by this time), to gain experience in combat. And U.S. troops had already deployed to assist the British and the Portuguese to hold back the Germans deployed in Operation Georgette.
May 28, 1918 aerial view of the Canigny sector.
On this day, however, the 1st Division committed to an outright offensive action at Catigny. Starting at 06:45 U.S. troops of the 28th Regiment, 1st Division, advanced to take and reduce a German salient that had developed the prior day with the resumption of the German spring offensive. The mission was accomplished and the unit withstood German counterattacks, although it ultimately took slightly more casualties than the Germans.
While a minor battle, it was significant in that it convinced the other Allies that American troops were battle worthy.
May 28, 1968. Creedance Clearwater Revival releases its self named album
The hit from the album, which had been released as a single the prior year, was Suzie Q, a cover of a song from the prior decade by Dale Hawkins.
Creedance Clearwater Revival
Like a lot of bands from "the 60s", CCR was really a band from the late 60s, although it had been around since 1959 as the Blue Velvets. In the early 60s they renamed themselves the Golliwoggs and recorded under that label.
In 1966 two members of the band, John Fogerty and Doug Clifford entered reserves of the military, the Army and Coast Guard Reserves respectively, when faced with active duty military service. This restricted the ability of the band to tour although it continued to somewhat. In January 1968 they changed the band's name to its final form and later that year both Fogerty and Clifford completed their military service. Their initial album came on this date in 1968.
And now Armenia and Azerbaijan. . . May 28, 1918
It had to be.
We reported to you a couple of days ago about Georgia departing the Transcaucasian Federation, and Armenia was part of that. So on this day, it made its independence official.
It wouldn't last long and it would be violent. In 1918 it fought a brief war with Georgia. In May 1919 it seized disputed territory from Azerbaijan in a military strike. In September 1920 it was invaded by Turkey. It's government fell to the communist in late 1920 and it was subsequently invaded by the Soviet Union, which brought its independence to an end.
Any by extension, it had to be for Azerbaijan as well.
You already read of its war with Armenia.
In 1920 the Turkish and Soviet government ganged up on it and its fate was sealed. The Soviets wanted the port of Baku back, and they invaded the country. The occupation did not go easily and there was resistance and a subsequent uprising, but it was incorporated into the USSR.
Sunday, May 27, 2018
War Warning
Senator Lindsay Graham, while maintaining his independence, has pretty clearly become the Trump Administrations voice from the Senate.
Which makes it really notable that last week Graham, in a news interview, flat out stated that the United States is heading towards military action against North Korea.
Graham left no room for doubt at all. He did not equivocate. If North Korea doesn't give up its nuclear weapons and the ability to make them, we are going to attack them.
Maybe it's blustering to get North Korean back to the table on American terms. But it didn't sound like it, and I doubt that it is.
That doesn't make a war with North Korea, or rather a resumption of the Korean Conflict, inevitable. But when things get started it takes two sides to stop them and only one to start them.
And Graham, it might be noted, said this issue, North Korean nuclear weapons, will be resolved this term of office.
If its a bluff. . . .it's quite the bluff.
Which is perhaps why the North and South Korean heads of state met yesterday.
Stay nervously tuned.
The Kaiserschlacht Carries on. May 27, 1918. Operation Blücher-Yorck.
Operation Blücher-Yorck.
Of course, at this point the Germans didn't really have the men to loose. But given the commitment they had made and the state of the war, they no longer really had an option. . . other than trying to come to the table.
The
big picture again. This time, having failed to push the British into
the sea, the Germans turned their attention to the region where British
forces and French forces met, with a diversionary drive on Paris. This
"third German drive" was as successful in terms of gaining ground as the
first German drive was, and it threatened Paris even as a diversion.
On May 27, 1918, after two full months since the spring offensive first began, the Germans launched Operation Blücher-Yorck
against the French near the River Aisne. It became a straight drive
towards Paris designed to split the French and British forces from each
other and cause the British to divert forces to save the French
capitol. The offensive used the same set of assumptions that the
Germans had about their enemies earlier in the spring, namely that the
British were the real threat. The attack, therefore, was a large scale
diversion. While designed to put pressure on the French, in reality the
main blow fell against British units that had been in the line in this
relatively more quiet sector. French failures to design a realistic
defense lead to initial German success.
The Germans did
in fact break through at the gap between French and British forces and
their drive towards Paris was remarkably successful. The Germans in
fact continued to advance up until March 6. During this phase of the
Spring Offensive American troops began to be deployed against the
Germans in strength and in fact the US 1st Division launched its own
offensive on May 28 at Cantigny. This signaled the beginning of the
large-scale use of American troops in the war. Losses on each side were
again roughly equal, with the Allies loosing 137,000 men and the
Germans 160,000.
Of course, at this point the Germans didn't really have the men to loose. But given the commitment they had made and the state of the war, they no longer really had an option. . . other than trying to come to the table.
Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Private Chapel, Pathfinder Ranch, Wyoming
Churches of the West: Private Chapel, Pathfinder Ranch, Wyoming:
Private churches or chapels were once common in England, but they're rare in the United States, and particularly rare in the Western United States, but here's an example, a private chapel on the large Pathfinder Ranch in Natrona and Carbon Counties, Wyoming.
These photographs were taken from just off the highway, when I had to stop to make a cell phone call, and are taken with two different lenses, one being the Pentax lens my K-x came equipped with, and the other being a Vivitar telephoto lens built for a Pentax film camera. Pentax digital DSLs will use the old Pentax bayonet mount lenses if the camera is set on the manual settings.
Saturday, May 26, 2018
Best Posts of the Week of May 20, 2018.
The bests posts of the week of May 20, 2018.
Oh great. . .as if the Colorado flood wasn't enough. . .
Friday Farming: The Branding, 2018
The 2018 Wyoming Election. Volume Three
Georgia Declares Independence. May 26, 1918.
Not from Russia, however, but from the Transcaucasian Federation, which also included Azerbaijan and Armenia. They'd follow by declaring independence a couple of days later.
Flag of Georgia, 1918-1921
The declaration came under the stress of an invasion by the Ottoman Empire which first recognized the Transcaucasian Federation and then invaded it. The federation was always weak and it cracked under the in ability to defend itself, dissolving into national units where its loyalties actually lay. Georgia's Menshevik Social Democratic Party would lead the withdraw and won the subsequent parliamentary election, making Georgia an independent radically socialist state.
It's independence would be short lived, although it managed to get into a war with Armenia during it. In 1921 the Red Army entered the country and ended its independence until 1991.
Georgian soldiers in Iraq in 2006 celebrating their May 26 independence date under their current flag.
More folks leave the state in 2017 (are we really that upset about that. . . and what's going on?)
The Casper Star Tribune reported on May 25, that the state continued to loose population in 2017. Casper, the state's second biggest city, dropped down to about 57,000, putting it down to where it had been 20 or more years ago.
Of course, that figure is more than a little off as in the last 20 years Bar Nunn has really grown and so has Mills, so those figures are more than a little offset by the two adjoining communities which make up the larger metropolitan area, together with Evansville.
Still, that's pretty interesting as the price of oil was claiming at the same time.
That might mean something, or nothing at all.
Eh?
That Casper in particular and Wyoming in general lost population in the last several years is no surprise, but in 2017 petroleum and coal prices were stable. For that matter, petroleum prices climbed. Based on the old model, that should have meant a slow climb in employment figures, but it appears we really aren't seeing that. Why not?
Well, we actually may be. They may must just not be as much as expected and there could be an attendant fall in other areas. But it could also be due to technology.
One thing that has really been missed in the analysis and close watching of petroleum prices is that insiders in the industry have been predicting that when the price of oil climbed and exploration picked up, the return of the exploration end of the industry would feature a much more high tech industry than previously.
Almost completely missed, but well known to those who are familiar with the industry, is the fact that the last boom featured a combination of a lot of new equipment and a mass amount of old. When the directional drilling boom hit the United States did not have a lot of high tech rig within its boundaries. We tend not to think of ourselves like this, but our exploration infrastructure really went back to the 1970s. Given the price of oil between the 1970s and the 1990s there had been no real reason to have high tech rigs in the US, but they did exist. They were in use in the hot oil provinces overseas. Indeed, some workers who returned to the US to work in the 1990s boom were shocked about how primitive the industry was here, even as new fracking and directional technologies came in. One such worker I know wanted to return to the Middle East to work just because he found American rigs so primitive and dangerous.
Things will be different this time. New rigs started to come in during the 1990s and they are out there now. As the industry contracted recently it meant the old stuff could go. Insiders feel that the old stuff won't be coming back.
Does that meant that a predicted drilling boom like that predicted for Converse County will have no impact on the workforce? Not hardly. But it may wall mean that predictions regarding that could be off significantly. And where that boom may be felt may be quite off the mark. The petroleum industry, much like other sectors of the economy, may start to be a lot more clicks and storkes than nuts and bolts that it use to be.
Before we leave this, there's a couple of other interesting aspects of this. One is that at least in Casper the building seems to go on and on even while the population is falling. It makes no sense at all unless the developers are gambling that there's going to be a big increase in the local population as the drilling starts in the neighboring county. South Casper has an apartment building going up that, by my uneducated guess, would easily house 1/5th of the entire number of people predicted to be coming in. Subdivisions continue to be developed, although at a much slower pace than previously.
Learning what is going on in the real estate industry at any one time is darned near impossible as the industry, like most others, has no real interest in being too open about market conditions at any one time. However, it can't possibly be the case that there are waiting residents for all of these homes at the same time the population of the town is declining. If this gamble doesn't pay off for them, there's going to be a real vacant building mess.
Regarding the use of the term "mess", one thing that might not be regarded as a mess, among long time residents, is the decline in population. It's a dirty little secret of the local view, but quite frankly, most long time or native Wyomingites don't cry about declining population figures. Indeed, if you look where people are free to comment anonymously, they tend to be happy about it. The way that most Wyomingites figure it a declining population means that a lot of Texans, Oklahoman's and the like went back home and left those of us from here, here. And most Wyomingites are okay with that.
Which gets us back to a different economy, such as Galeotos has been talking about, and like we've talked about before here. It's hardly articulated, but what Wyomingites hope for is not so much that any one sector does super, but rather that there are enough jobs for people who grow up here and want to stay. That's a pretty difficult thing to achieve, but that's what folks generally hope for. The booming dreams of politicians tend not to really reflect their views very much.
Of course, that figure is more than a little off as in the last 20 years Bar Nunn has really grown and so has Mills, so those figures are more than a little offset by the two adjoining communities which make up the larger metropolitan area, together with Evansville.
Still, that's pretty interesting as the price of oil was claiming at the same time.
That might mean something, or nothing at all.
Eh?
That Casper in particular and Wyoming in general lost population in the last several years is no surprise, but in 2017 petroleum and coal prices were stable. For that matter, petroleum prices climbed. Based on the old model, that should have meant a slow climb in employment figures, but it appears we really aren't seeing that. Why not?
Well, we actually may be. They may must just not be as much as expected and there could be an attendant fall in other areas. But it could also be due to technology.
One thing that has really been missed in the analysis and close watching of petroleum prices is that insiders in the industry have been predicting that when the price of oil climbed and exploration picked up, the return of the exploration end of the industry would feature a much more high tech industry than previously.
Almost completely missed, but well known to those who are familiar with the industry, is the fact that the last boom featured a combination of a lot of new equipment and a mass amount of old. When the directional drilling boom hit the United States did not have a lot of high tech rig within its boundaries. We tend not to think of ourselves like this, but our exploration infrastructure really went back to the 1970s. Given the price of oil between the 1970s and the 1990s there had been no real reason to have high tech rigs in the US, but they did exist. They were in use in the hot oil provinces overseas. Indeed, some workers who returned to the US to work in the 1990s boom were shocked about how primitive the industry was here, even as new fracking and directional technologies came in. One such worker I know wanted to return to the Middle East to work just because he found American rigs so primitive and dangerous.
Things will be different this time. New rigs started to come in during the 1990s and they are out there now. As the industry contracted recently it meant the old stuff could go. Insiders feel that the old stuff won't be coming back.
Does that meant that a predicted drilling boom like that predicted for Converse County will have no impact on the workforce? Not hardly. But it may wall mean that predictions regarding that could be off significantly. And where that boom may be felt may be quite off the mark. The petroleum industry, much like other sectors of the economy, may start to be a lot more clicks and storkes than nuts and bolts that it use to be.
Before we leave this, there's a couple of other interesting aspects of this. One is that at least in Casper the building seems to go on and on even while the population is falling. It makes no sense at all unless the developers are gambling that there's going to be a big increase in the local population as the drilling starts in the neighboring county. South Casper has an apartment building going up that, by my uneducated guess, would easily house 1/5th of the entire number of people predicted to be coming in. Subdivisions continue to be developed, although at a much slower pace than previously.
Learning what is going on in the real estate industry at any one time is darned near impossible as the industry, like most others, has no real interest in being too open about market conditions at any one time. However, it can't possibly be the case that there are waiting residents for all of these homes at the same time the population of the town is declining. If this gamble doesn't pay off for them, there's going to be a real vacant building mess.
Regarding the use of the term "mess", one thing that might not be regarded as a mess, among long time residents, is the decline in population. It's a dirty little secret of the local view, but quite frankly, most long time or native Wyomingites don't cry about declining population figures. Indeed, if you look where people are free to comment anonymously, they tend to be happy about it. The way that most Wyomingites figure it a declining population means that a lot of Texans, Oklahoman's and the like went back home and left those of us from here, here. And most Wyomingites are okay with that.
Which gets us back to a different economy, such as Galeotos has been talking about, and like we've talked about before here. It's hardly articulated, but what Wyomingites hope for is not so much that any one sector does super, but rather that there are enough jobs for people who grow up here and want to stay. That's a pretty difficult thing to achieve, but that's what folks generally hope for. The booming dreams of politicians tend not to really reflect their views very much.
The strenuous life
I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Friday, May 25, 2018
The Organization for African Unity formed, May 25, 1963
Yes, usually we track events occurring in 1918 or 1968, but not always. For reasons of our own, we looked into events of 1963 a bit today.
The big event today was the formation of the Organization of African Unity. The left leaning organization was Africa centric and came in as colonialism went out.
The OAU itself went out in 2005. It's results were pretty mixed, but then most similar organizations had mixed records as well. Worth noting, while hardly ever noted, Africa all in all is doing very well today and is really a rising region of the globe. . .and a giant one at that.
Mexico back in the headlines, May 25, 1918
Cuba and Mexico, it seems, were not getting along.
And former President Theodore Roosevelt wasn't getting along with the Postmaster General.
Poncho Villa was making the front page again.
And the nation might need old soldiers who hadn't faded away.
Costa Rica had entered the fray.
And snow was predicted.
May 25, 1918.
Thursday, May 24, 2018
Jack Johnson Pardoned
Jack and Etta Johnson, his first wife.
Not that it will do him any good. He passed away in 1946.
Johnson was the larger and life boxing champion who was loved and hated in the early 20th Century. He was flamboyant, athletic and impossible to ignore.
Johnson was convicted in 1913 of violating the Mann Act, that statute which was passed in 1912 prohibiting taking a woman across state lines for immoral purposes. He was arrested originally for taking Lucille Cameron across state lines for such a purpose, with the added allegation being that Cameron was a prostitute (whose mother claimed she was insane. Johnson married Cameron shortly thereafter and she wouldn't cooperate in the prosectution and the case fell apart. Soon thereafter Johnson was arrested again on the same charge but with a Belle Schreiber. In an odd twist of fate the court that presided over the trial was that of Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who in a few years would resign from the bench to become the Commissioner of Baseball in the wake of the Black Sox Scandal. It has long been maintained that the charges against him were trumped up as a strike against him, as he was a famous black athlete who, additionally associated with white women. The Mann Act, under which he was convicted, was actually passed after the dates of his alleged violation of it.
Johnson was sentenced to a year and a day in prison but skipped bail and fled to Canada, joining Lucille there. He lived a life in exile, traveling the globe, until he returned to the United States in 1920 and served his sentence.
Johnson and the second of his wives, Lucille.
Johnson was a fantastic boxer by any measure. Even during the time of his exile he was the heavy weight boxing world champion, a title that he lost in 1915 in a 45 round fight against Jess Willard. Perhaps more significantly to this story, he'd also lost his first wife by that time, Etta Terry Duryea. She had committed suicide after battling depression, a condition worsened by her stormy marriage to Johnson and his marital infidelity. Johnson married Cameron just three months later. They divorced in 1924 due to infidelity. He married Irene Pineau in 1925. According to Johnson's autobiography, he latter married Mary Austin in his home town of Galveston in 1927, which if correct would have been the only one of his wives who shared his ethnicity, although no record of the marriage has been located. Having said that, there'd be no real reason to doubt his account of the marriage.
Johnson continued to fight professionally until age 60, an impossibly old age in a sport in which very few ever fight beyond their 30s. For that reason, there have been suggestions that Johnson's fights that came after 40 years of age should not be counted in his record as they were fought due to economic need. His final appearance in the ring was at age 67 in a benefit exhibition for U.S. War Bonds in November , 1945. He died that following June in a car accident after leaving a diner in anger that had refused to serve him in North Carolina. He died in a black hospital in Raleigh at age 68. He was buried next to his first wife Etta in Chicago and his third wife, Irene, was subsequently buried next to him. All three graves are marked by a single headstone that bears the name Johnson.
And yes. . . I still don't care about the royal wedding. . .
although it's been on here as other folks do, so I'm slightly grumpy about it.
The overblown analysis that followed it, however, I must say was highly amusing.
Why would the NRA want to associate itself with Oliver North?
Doing that is just dumb.
I know little about North personally and I still think that his exact role in the Iran Contra matter is murky and poorly understood. But that's the problem. We know that what happened in Iran Contra was illegal and even if North's role was one that was pushed by the Administration all the way to the top (and we still don't know that) North is really not a hero to anyone with a deep intellect.
So, associating yourself with somebody who has a murky involvement with spooky illegality and who is really only admired by the far fight in the shallow end of the pool makes you look dim.
That's not smart.
I know little about North personally and I still think that his exact role in the Iran Contra matter is murky and poorly understood. But that's the problem. We know that what happened in Iran Contra was illegal and even if North's role was one that was pushed by the Administration all the way to the top (and we still don't know that) North is really not a hero to anyone with a deep intellect.
So, associating yourself with somebody who has a murky involvement with spooky illegality and who is really only admired by the far fight in the shallow end of the pool makes you look dim.
That's not smart.
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Despair and meaningless work
The Patrick Coffin Show recently had an episode on despair.
Ennui indeed, depression is a First World epidemic. It's rare, along with all its attendant results, in the Third World. Yes, the very people that people in the First World think live in a state of dark deperation, don't. That's the developed world. For all its problems, people in the more primitive less developed parts of the globe are a lot happier than we generally are. There's something going on.
If they have less in the way of material resources and less wealth, they have more of a lot of other things. They're more religious. They're more family oriented. They live closer to nature even if not all farmers or pastorialist by any means. They've kept a lot. . . so far, that we have lost. And they have a lot less of some things we have in abundance. They have less angst. They have less depression. They have less gender confusion. They seem to know who they are and what they are about.
We don't.
And I wonder if one of the things we don't have is work that matters.
We have plenty of work that's about money. And the "best" jobs in our society are all about money, and little else. There are plenty of people whose jobs entail dealing solely with making money and nothing else, to include some jobs that are ostensibly about something else but which in reality, for quite a few occupying them, have become all about money. Some people have jobs that are only about money. And there's lots of jobs that aren't all about money, but rather are about. . . about. . . . well. . . .
Now, work has always been with us and unless a person is a hopeless romantic there's no earthly way to pretend that all work has always been worthwhile to the worker, other than perhaps in some basic sense that its work and work serves a purpose in and of itself. So, you might ask, how can I state that?
Well, I am stating that, and I think perhaps this observation is true.
This observation comes about in part, I'd note, due to some work last Sunday. But in my other occupation.
Worthwhile work.
We were branding.
I love working cattle and I love the hard work part of it as well as the parts that aren't hard work. It's hard to be blue when doing it. Indeed, it's hard to focus on anything else.
And at the end of the day, you know what it was that you did.
And this is not true in a tangible sense for almost everyone working a modern job.
Only, or at least mostly, jobs that have a very direct, and I'd argue physical aspect, to them retain this feature. Being a cabinet maker does, and probably being a surgeon does. But people working in offices doing reports don't get it.
And because my next day was a day in the office, that was abundantly clear to me.
I rarely talk about my own office work directly for a lot of reasons. Indeed, I really can't. But I'll make a slight exception here.
I recently was working on a case that was venued in Colorado, and more specifically in one of the endless outliers of the Great Blight. The opposing counsel was consistently aggressively difficult to get along with even as it seemed that our facts were vastly out pacing their concept of the case. Finally, a setting of a certain type was held. I went and met opposing counsel whom I had only seen previously via their website head shots.
And there they were. An aging lawyer who was artificially thin, the way that people are who run off their weight in a desperate manner until they look unhealthy. And a somewhat younger lawyer who engages in some similar activity who had the facial complexion of wallpaper paste. And the latter continually had a sort of titch or grimace associated with people who are painfully ill at ease and nervous. It was revealing.
And the contrast is remarkable. On Sunday I dealt with young and old but a lot of now middle aged. Tan and healthy and all pretty happy and comfortable. A lot of people that I deal with in the refrigerated antiseptic offices in big cities aren't that way. . .unless they're the staff. The staff, which more concrete goals, often seem to be pretty happy.
And that might have to do with the lie that all work is meaningful.
It's all meaningful in some fashion. But at least on my day to day job, the fib that law school professors relate to the law is pretty clear. Perhaps its about "helping people" like its so often claimed, but that's far from apparent but it's really not generally the case that we ride in on unicorns and hurl out bunnies to the emotionally needy. I could go on, but I'll not. It's not that the work of this type, or work as an accountant, or a computer programmer, etc, isn't needed. Rather, its need is highly intangible and in some cases its needed because we've created a system of need requiring it.
I suspect that the nature of a lot of modern work creates a lot of despair. We're separated from nature, which we don't like, and ever more concentrated in big glass and steel heating and cooling units, which we don't like, and on a treadmill where we never see the completed cabinets, the built wall or the branded cattle. We're doing something, and indeed there must be a need for it or we wouldn't be paid to do it, but you can't really see your results in physical terms and in some cases the results in some kinds of work exist because we've created a system requiring that type of work.
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There's not a lot of consolation for reaching any one goal of an obvious nature.
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Not that this observation is brand new.
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Well what of it? Are we all to become Leo Tolstoy and abandon the larger world for the peasant commune?
No, probably not.
And indeed, most people can't afford to and quite a few who try some less weird version of this than Tolstoy did fail at it.
Which doesn't mean there isn't something to a Wendell Berry view of the world.
And that certainly isn't the prevailing view. The entire society has been pushed towards working at InnerTrobe.
Of course, I may be too harsh. Maybe people love the glass and steel refrigerated antiseptic worlds where they work on topics they've never never dealt with in the field, impacting lives of people much different than their own.
But the statistics don't seem to support it.
The question would be, how to restore meaning to work? That wouldn't be easy for much of our economy at this point, but it would seem that the level of despair associated with it would warrant it.
Making it less about money and more about value would be a good starting place.
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