Thursday, August 31, 2023
A Sorority (Fraternity) lawsuit, and a subject who could be helped.
Modern toleration is really a tyranny. It is a tyranny because it is a silence. To say that I must not deny my opponent's faith is to say that I must not discuss it.
G. K. Chesterton.
The Gibson Girl, the iconic female figure of the early 1900s created by Charles Dana Gibson. The thing is, you see, she isn't, and wasn't, real.
There's been a story much in the news here, and indeed elsewhere, about a figure who is a guy but who claims he identifies as a girl, or more accurately, a figure who is a man who claims he identified as a woman.
What impresses me about this story isn't that aspect of it, so much as nobody, up until very recently, and after I started this post, has really bothered to dive very deep into the story, particularly from a psychological level.
It seems that they should.
Not that we should be too surprised about this. People rarely do. During World War Two, for example, in one rural area of Germany a figure held forth as a local open anti-Nazi member of the German nobility. . . except he wasn't a member of the nobility at all. He was lucky to get away with it, and his anti-Nazi stance was genuine. But a Junker he was not. Why did he do that?
Backstories to the public positions people take are very rarely looked at, but really should be. Some backers of causes that are strongly for them in a virulent way have a personal connection that undermines their position in one fashion or another. Others just make you wonder. Why, for instance, would a well-to-do young man with no employment history relocate to a Western state and run for office as a political firebrand on the populist libertarian front? You'd think voters would ask, but they largely don't. Why would an ostensible billionaire who has gone down in defeat in an election and who faces a pile of criminal charges be running so aggressively for office again?
We tend to take things at face value.
So too here.
There's some new data out that shows that for the majority of people who claim transgenderism, if left to develop that claim on their own, the claim itself is transitory and youthful. Most girls, for example, who in their very early teens feel they want to be boys, don't a decade latter. That's a good reason in and of itself not to allow "transitions" that can't be reversed, and any substantial one can't be reversed. Indeed, it's criminal to allow it in an existential sense, and ought to be in a legal sense. But what causes it?
Indeed, as a commentor on the story in Wyo File, which finally did look at some of the backstory, noted:
The strong correlation between trans identity and autism spectrum disorder has been recognized over the last three years by such professional organizations as the National Autism Society, The Institutes of Health, Autism Research Institute, and studies published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. Noted was the observation that autistic youths were up to 6 times more likely to identify as trans than a similar non-autistic demographic. The medical field recognizes and treats autism as a disorder, not a normal expression of the spectrum of the human condition. Since it appears that trans gender identity is resultant from ASD, it should also be treated as a disorder rather than celebrated.
That's an interesting observation, to say the least.
Well, we've looked at it before, but in regard to the individual who has been so much in the news, why hasn't anyone looked up until now?
The data is there, or at least was, when this story first developed. It doesn't appear to be a happy story.
When this news first broke, there was a blog up, and maybe there still is, by the father. It wasn't on his sons, but his son appeared in the photos. He already looked different from the rest, having gained a lot of weight even as a child. But what the blog made clear is that the father was bitterly disillusioned.
Not with the son, but with his former wife.
His wife, he claimed, had left and divorced him, and her Mormon faith was the reason why.
Now, that was never explained. Mormon's can and do marry outside of their faiths, so there are a lot of roads that could be gone down there. Whatever the story was, from his prospective, the wife had left him and their children for her Mormonism.
Now, that doesn't really make sense. One of the things most noted about Mormon's is their deep devotion to the children. It's hard to imagine what the conflict was, but it was at least perceived that way by the former father.
Maybe the topic of the young man had already come up, and now based on the Wyo File story, it seems it definitely had. Perhaps that was the division. Or not. Maybe that had nothing to do with the split. Again, we don't really know.
I don't really know the definitive Mormon position on transgenderism. I do know the Catholic one which is that disorders are not sinful, but acting upon them if it's outside of the moral framework, is. This has typically come up in regard to homosexuality. Being a homosexual isn't sinful, but sex outside of marriage is, and marriage is just between a man and a woman. I believe the Mormon position is similar, but I can't say that definitively. If the boy's declared sexual dysmorphia became an issue in the household, with one parent taking the boy's side, and one not (and I don't know if that was the case), I can see where it may ultimately have been fatal to the marriage.
What we do know, and from long, long experience, is that its difficult in the extreme to raise a child in a one parent household and that this is so much the case that when one parent is present but really absent, such as one works all the time, or one is a drug or alcohol addict, it statistically impacts the outlook of the children and often for life.
Daughters, it's been shown, of a checked out woman are much more likely to turn out to be lesbians than daughters where the mother is present. That doesn't mean their relationship is necessarily rosy. But the daughters of what now is so charmingly called "the day drinking moms" who sit there in front of the television at 1:30 in the afternoon getting blotto tend to have no real female role model.* In contrast, a mother may be a Tiger Mom, or whatever, but if she's there, it makes a huge difference.
In contrast, the son's of men who are not there tend to be more likely to have same sex attraction as well. The two impulses, one in male and one in females, are not otherwise similar and other aspects go into it. Women who perceive, while young, that men are a threat are more likely to take refuge with other women. What about men?
Well, I don't know, but one thing that has been pretty clearly demonstrated is that young men who are exclusively around other young men, to the exclusion of females, are more likely to become homosexuals. English Boy Schools provide a well known example.
What about transgenderism?
One thing we do know, in spite of recent left wing attempts to scientifically legitimize it, much like was formerly done with eugenics, it has no biological origin. No set of hormones or the like is going to send you off into a different gender. That means it's purely psychological in origin.
But what's going on with it?
We don't know for sure, but we do know that with females it mostly hits in the very early teens and is gone by the early 20s. And we also know that young women are getting exposed to piles of gross pornography right now, and that those who are ADHD are more likely to take this direction. Often it occurs in groups.
Which may mean that its origin is much like lesbianism, except its much more destructive, but also much more transitory. Girls are seeking refuge outside of their sex as they fear the roles that their sex seems to have. Once it starts to clear up that the life of adult women isn't something featured on Pornhub, it wanes.
And men?
Well, it would appear autism is an element of it, as the subject is apparently on the spectrum. That's telling.
It would also appear that early on, he received "support" from elements after he started to reveal his claimed orientation. For one thing, his school had a "SPEAK" club, standing for Genders and Sexualities Alliance, of which he was a member.**
That's telling not because he was a member, but because it's well known that recruitment of people to anything, particularly anything destructive, tends to take root if done very young. There's a reason that the Nazi Party in Germany eliminated youth organizations and replaced them with the Hitler Youth, or why the Soviet Communist Party had the Young Pioneers. There's also a reason, although people now turn a blind eye to it, that homosexual men used to fairly notably recruit teenage men. If you start to dive into debasement, it's really hard to get back out.
Young pioneers... for the struggle in the name of Lenin and Stalin... be prepared! (1951)
So what else is over all going on here?
I don't know, but I suspect that a certain element of refuge, or indeed a large role of refuge, from the male role is at work here as well, in the overall story of transgenderism. In spite of a protracted effort to undermine it, male roles basically remain unchanged.
We tend, mentally, to still think of the Four things greater than all things are.
When spring-time flushes the desert grass,
Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass.
Lean are the camels but fat the frails,
Light are the purses but heavy the bales,
As the snowbound trade of the North comes down
To the market-square of Peshawur town.
In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill,
A kafila camped at the foot of the hill.
Then blue smoke-haze of the cooking rose,
And tent-peg answered to hammer-nose;
And the picketed ponies, shag and wild,
Strained at their ropes as the feed was piled;
And the bubbling camels beside the load
Sprawled for a furlong adown the road;
And the Persian pussy-cats, brought for sale,
Spat at the dogs from the camel-bale;
And the tribesmen bellowed to hasten the food;
And the camp-fires twinkled by Fort Jumrood;
And there fled on the wings of the gathering dusk
A savour of camels and carpets and musk,
A murmur of voices, a reek of smoke,
To tell us the trade of the Khyber woke.
The lid of the flesh-pot chattered high,
The knives were whetted and -- then came I
To Mahbub Ali, the muleteer,
Patching his bridles and counting his gear,
Crammed with the gossip of half a year.
But Mahbub Ali the kindly said,
"Better is speech when the belly is fed."
So we plunged the hand to the mid-wrist deep
In a cinnamon stew of the fat-tailed sheep,
And he who never hath tasted the food,
By Allah! he knoweth not bad from good.
We cleansed our beards of the mutton-grease,
We lay on the mats and were filled with peace,
And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south,
With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth.
Four things greater than all things are, --
Women and Horses and Power and War.
We spake of them all, but the last the most,
For I sought a word of a Russian post,
Of a shifty promise, an unsheathed sword
And a grey-coat guard on the Helmund ford.
Then Mahbub Ali lowered his eyes
In the fashion of one who is weaving lies.
Quoth he: "Of the Russians who can say?
When the night is gathering all is grey.
But we look that the gloom of the night shall die
In the morning flush of a blood-red sky.
Friend of my heart, is it meet or wise
To warn a King of his enemies?
We know what Heaven or Hell may bring,
But no man knoweth the mind of the King.
That unsought counsel is cursed of God
Attesteth the story of Wali Dad.
"His sire was leaky of tongue and pen,
His dam was a clucking Khattack hen;
And the colt bred close to the vice of each,
For he carried the curse of an unstaunched speech.
Therewith madness -- so that he sought
The favour of kings at the Kabul court;
And travelled, in hope of honour, far
To the line where the grey-coat squadrons are.
There have I journeyed too -- but I
Saw naught, said naught, and -- did not die!
He hearked to rumour, and snatched at a breath
Of `this one knoweth', and 'that one saith', --
Legends that ran from mouth to mouth
Of a grey-coat coming, and sack of the South.
These have I also heard -- they pass
With each new spring and the winter grass.
"Hot-foot southward, forgotten of God,
Back to the city ran Wali Dad,
Even to Kabul -- in full durbar
The King held talk with his Chief in War.
Into the press of the crowd he broke,
And what he had heard of the coming spoke.
"Then Gholam Hyder, the Red Chief, smiled,
As a mother might on a babbling child;
But those who would laugh restrained their breath,
When the face of the King showed dark as death.
Evil it is in full durbar
To cry to a ruler of gathering war!
Slowly he led to a peach-tree small,
That grew by a cleft of the city wall.
And he said to the boy: `They shall praise thy zeal
So long as the red spurt follows the steel.
And the Russ is upon us even now?
Great is thy prudence -- await them, thou.
Watch from the tree. Thou art young and strong.
Surely the vigil is not for long.
The Russ is upon us, thy clamour ran?
Surely an hour shall bring their van.
Wait and watch. When the host is near,
Shout aloud that my men may hear.'
"Friend of my heart, is it meet or wise
To warn a King of his enemies?
A guard was set that he might not flee --
A score of bayonets ringed the tree.
The peach-bloom fell in showers of snow,
When he shook at his death as he looked below.
By the power of God, Who alone is great,
Till the seventh day he fought with his fate.
Then madness took him, and men declare
He mowed in the branches as ape and bear,
And last as a sloth, ere his body failed,
And he hung like a bat in the forks, and wailed,
And sleep the cord of his hands untied,
And he fell, and was caught on the points and died.
"Heart of my heart, is it meet or wise
To warn a King of his enemies?
We know what Heaven or Hell may bring,
But no man knoweth the mind of the King.
Of the grey-coat coming who can say?
When the night is gathering all is grey.
Two things greater than all things are,
The first is Love, and the second War.
And since we know not how War may prove,
Heart of my heart, let us talk of Love!"
Kipling, The Ballad of the King's Jest.
But those four things are tough things too, resulting in physical and psychological injury and sometimes death, but also, in a proper view that Theophilus might hold, to quite another direction as well.
There's always been men who feared not measuring up to the male ideal or the male role. This has expressed itself differently in different eras. World War Two saw a surprising number of suicides undertaken by men who were rejected by draft boards. They couldn't stand the thought of what that meant, in their own minds, and took their own lives. I've already noted, in other threads, that the Apostolic clergy provided refuge for a certain number of men in former ears for same sex attraction.
It's been well documented that in prisons certain men who have never demonstrated a transgender inclination before, but who are physical weak and in need of protection, will take on female attributes and become the "female" object of a same-sex relationship.
In the extremely rough and violent world of Plaints Indians, there were, as is sometimes famously pointed out, men who would declare, at an early age, that they were really drawn to femininity and then would drop out of the male role for the female role. While moderns like to pretend there's no division of labor by nature in human beings, there very clearly is, and that tellingly reduced those men to cooking, cleaning hides, and the like. It meant they were exempt from killing other human beings and fighting, a normal part of cultures which exalted warriors.
Lakota warriors. No doubt, every one of these men had killed other men.
Put another way, Crow Heart Butte in Wyoming, and near where this boy is from, is named that because Washakie killed a Crow chieftain and ate his heart. Not because they met for tea.
And this raises an interesting point.
The waif like Audrey Hepburn in 1956, who was pretty clearly the model of female beauty for a man who recently promoted Bud Light as a woman. She's a model, however, of safe female beauty that wouldn't really attract unwanted male attention. By 1956, the other type of female beauty, one more admired by males, was very much in circulation, as Playboy was expanding and the screens were full of Marilyn Monroe.
Men who try to affect a female appearance tend to take on an exaggerated one. In modern society, if you go out on a city sidewalk on any particular day, you'll find at least a few young women wearing blue jeans and t-shirts and who are healthy muscular, in a female sense. In offices and in office culture, you'll find most women wearing suitable office attire. You'll never find, however, a woman walking around with a feather boa, or trying to look like Audrey Hepburn, or wearing something like a polka dress.
But in the transgender community, you'll find all of that fairly commonly, although in this particular case that's not being demonstrated.
Indeed, here, in spite of what we're supposed to say, what we really see is a guy who looks like a very large, soft looking guy.
Actor Robert Conrad, right, in The Killers. Conrad was always a big guy, but definately a guy.
Now, in the male world, you can be overweight, but being soft is pretty difficult. It no doubt goes back to our earliest origins. Most likely, our Cro Magnon ancestors didn't get fat, they were too resource poor to pull that off, but softness probably simply couldn't be tolerated. There wasn't any room for "I don't want to fight that new tribe that just showed up" allowed. And to a large degree, there still really isn't.
Going back to when I was really young, I can think of some instances of pretty soft teenage boys, but the way that they and everyone else handled it was different. They were soft, but not so soft that they were unreliable in a pinch. Basically, like a lot of people with different personality traits, they'd learned how to rise to the occasion, and in their cases often frequently, to overcome them.
We don't do that anymore. We face our failings by "accepting" them, which is not to face them at all.
Now, there's more to this than that, but perhaps not as much as we might think, for no sane man would ever want to be a woman.
Women like to be women, as their DNA provides for it.*** But very few men, if any, would be comfortable with bleeding a great deal on a routine and scheduled basis, being subjected to hormonal storms, or being subject to the numerous medical and physical problems just being a woman entails. Women's worlds change at least monthly, and in reality more frequently than that. Over the course of a lifetime, women's reality changed massively, once at puberty, later at childbirth, if they have children, and then again at menopause. Women live longer, to be sure, but the existential nature of their existence practically means they undergo a deep physical and psychological chrysalis at least twice if not three or more times. Women mature more quickly than men, but some of them endure such hard physical changes that the impacts are nearly shattering when they occur, and that doesn't even take into account the monthly cyclonic storms they endure.
To be male means having a predictable physical reality that only changes over decades and to some extent never does. And indeed, transgendered men in fact avoid that. They aren't going to endure the agony of menstruation for one thing, and they likely don't want to. Most just keep their dicks and balls and call it good.
Old Man : Hey are all farmers. Farmers talk of nothing but fertiliser and women. I've never shared their enthusiasm for fertiliser. As for women, I became indifferent when I was 83. I am staying here.
Line from The Magnificent Seven.
Two imagines, once expected, and one exaggerated, of 20th Century manhood. In the top image, a British Tommy holds the line. . . alone. He's probably going to die. In the second, the super macho and brooding Sgt. Rock, entertainer of thousands of juvenile males in the second half of the century, leads Easy Company into a charge.
To be a transgender male, in some ways, means dropping out of the expectations without picking up the pain and agony of being a woman. Male strength remains, and repeated naturally programmed female physical distress does not arrive. No matter what they may say, for the most part, transgendered men are dropping out of male society. Men don't want them as lovers, and most of them have physical attributes, even with their pants buttoned up, that make them unattractive even if an unsuspecting male eye was cast on them.
Beyond that, however, they're omitted from the male warband when young. Nobody is going to ever ask them what they'd do if they're drafted. And nobody is going to conscript them into a bar fight, which almost every living Western male has had happened or nearly happen. You aren't going to be asked to defend some woman's honor. You aren't going to intervene if somebody threatens your sister, girlfriend or wife. You aren't, moreover, ever going to hear "go over and ask her to dance", and all that means and what follows.
U.S. teenage pregnancy rates from the mid 1970s to mid 2010s. Contrary to what might be expected, if this chart went back to the 1950s, the rate would have started off even higher, as the 50s really saw the peak in recent U.S. teen pregnancy rates. Exactly 0% of these pregnancies were to the transgendered expressing as female. Some probably originated from the same group acting contrary to their declared expression.
You also, however, are going to usually be safe to women, except as alleged here where the allegations, which are denied, is that you are leering at boobs and getting erections. This isn't true at all of other men, no matter how friendly they may be. Some males, including some highly intellectual ones, hold that no real platonic friendship can ever exist between a man and a woman, as the man (not the woman) will always regard a female contemporary as at least a suppressed potential object of affection.**** While it may be misperceived, transgenendered men and homosexual men are usually received well by women, as that threat is generally absent, or at least conceived of being absent.
Highly romanticized illustration of a teenage mother from Street Arabs and Gutter Snipes, The Pathetic and Humorous Side of Young Vagabond Life in the Great Cities, With Records of Work for Their Reclamation 1884.
But none of that is natural, and all of it, in some fashion, is a cry for help. Even the cry for acceptance is just that.
Over the years, sometimes personally, and sometimes professionally, I've known people who ended up needing help, some well after they'd received it. I know one lawyer who is a convicted felon, but overcame that for a successful career. I've met people who were addicted to drugs or alcohol, and overcame that. Usually if you got down to it, you could see that they didn't take up their afflictions as they really enjoyed them, but because they were attempting to bury something else. One lawyer I somewhat knew disappeared for about a month before his family found him, in another state, in a hotel room, having crawled into a bottle. He wasn't there as he enjoyed drinking himself stupid in hotel rooms.
Some people, with more conventional afflictions, are like crashing trains right as you watch them. And interestingly, if is a more conventional and traditional affliction, like addition to alcohol and sex, or the two combined, its commented about backdoor, but nobody ever says that being in that condition is just a life choice. Everyone knows its not, and that is a disaster.
And so is this.
As the comment above notes, we help people on the autism spectrum, and we know that they may need help. It's not regarded as a life choice. But in 2023, everything sexual, except for pedophilism, is just an expression of individualism. The ban on sex with children only remains as its so disgusting, as otherwise all the logic that applies to "accepting" every other sexual behavior applies equally to it, save for that its destructive to children. But it's also destructive to adults, and its been shown that it tends to come on with people who have had multiple sex partners.
Transgenderism is like that. There's no reason to believe that it is not a mental illness, one associated with other conditions, that can be arrested and addressed.
But in our political purity of the age, we're not doing that. And that's destructive for the people making the declaration, who could have been helped.
We might, before concluding, stop to ask two questions. Does it really matter, would be the first.
After all, if somebody wants to drink themselves into oblivion, does it matter, if that's their choice? Or more particularly, if somebody wants to present as a woman, who is a man, what does it really matter to me or anyone else?
Well, it does matter if your view of humanity is that we are our brother's keeper. Oddly enough, in our contemporary world, it's the political left that claims that we are, while the political right, as exhibited by Jeanette Ward in a common in the last legislative session, feels we are not. But most decent societies, and all Christian societies, feel that we are.
So there's a duty to the individual to help them live an ordered life. We know that living a disordered one leads to unhappiness.
There's a wider duty, however, to society. Assaults on individual natures are assaults on nature in general, are destructive to us all.
And, additionally, telling a lie to yourself is one thing. But demanding, even with the force of law, that everyone else adopt the lie is quite another. That's completely destructive to the social structure, as enshrining lies as part of them inevitably leads to decay.
And finally, and more particularly, it's damaging to women in the extreme. Real women, that is. Women know that they aren't men. We all know that the biological life of a woman is radically different from a man's in nearly every sense. Psychologically, it isn't the same either. Reducing womanhood to appearing to have boobs is the most Hefnereque position of all, and an insult to women in every fashion.
Footnotes:
*I don't know how or why "day drinking", which is very often attributed to women, became cute. But it isn't.
**The existence of such non-academic clubs in schools is ample evidence of the intrusion of really left wing "progressive" values into schools. By and large I"m skeptical when such claims are made, but the recent library controversies over homosexual pornography in public schools shows there's definitely something to it, as do the existence of clubs that exist to effectively demand that inclinations that are poorly understood and fairly recently regarded as mental illnesses be accepted as normal.
***Having said that, there's plenty of evidence that well into the mid 20th Century, at least, plenty of women regretted having been born women, which isn't quite the same thing.
****Whatever hte truth of htat may be, it's pretty clear that it's not true of close relatives. The "taboo" on incest is clearly ingrained enough into us to translate over to close relationship, such as cousins.
The Work Truck Blog: Not a truck at all.
The Work Truck Blog: Not a truck at all.: 
A Ural motorcycle with a sidecar. Urals are Russian knockoffs of the World War Two era BMW, and frequently have sidecars. They were designed for military use.
Not a truck at all.
A Ural motorcycle with a sidecar. Urals are Russian knockoffs of the World War Two era BMW, and frequently have sidecars. They were designed for military use.
Tuesday, August 31, 1943. Debut of the F6F.
Grumman F6Fs made their combat debut.
The fighter was a leap in Navy fighter technology, joining the Corsair as a new generation of flattop launched fighter aircraft. The plane would be responsible for approximately 2/3s of the Japanese aircraft shot down by the U.S. Navy during World War Two.
The carrier born first use was in a day-long raid on Marcus Island.
Radar equipped F6F's would remain in service until 1954, completing their service as night fighters.
On the same day, the 14th Air Force bombed Gia Lam, Co Bi, Ichang Airfiled, Stonecutters Island and the Yoyang rail yards. The 5th Air Force hit trages in Saint George Channel and the Dutch East Indes.
Stalin issues the following order to General Rokossovsky
Troops of the Central Front, breaking through strongly fortified enemy defense lines in the area of Sevsk by a decisive attack, on August 30 captured the town of Glukhov and Rylsk and entered the Northern Ukraine.
In the fighting for the liberation of the towns of Sevsk, Glukhov and Rylsk from the German invaders, the troops which distinguished themselves were Guards tankmen commanded by, Lieutenant-General of Tank Troops Korchagin, tankmen commanded by Major-General Ruchenko, troops commanded by Lieutenant-General Cherny-kovsky, Lieutenant-General Batov, and Lieutenant-General of Tank Troops Bogdanov, and airmen commanded by Lieutenant-General of Aviation Rudenko.
To mark the victory they have won, the divisions and artillery formations which exceptionally distinguished themselves in the fighting for Glukhov, Rylsk and Sevsk are to have the following titles conferred upon them. The name of "Glukhov" is to be conferred on the 70th Guards Red Banner Infantry Division, the 226th Infantry Division, the 23rd Tank Brigade and the 1st Guards Artillery Division.
The name of "Rylsk" is to be conferred on the 121st Infantry Division and the 112th Infantry Division.
The name of "Sevsk" is to be conferred on the 69th Red Banner Infantry Division, the 103rd Tank Brigade, the 43rd Motorized Brigade, the 255th Independent Tank Regiment, the 68th Heavy Artillery Brigade and the 100th Red Banner Heavy Artillery Brigade.
Henceforth these formations are to be named the 70th Guards Red Banner Glukhov Infantry Division, the 226th Glukhov Infantry Division, the 23rd Glukhov Tank Brigade, the 1st Glukhov Guards Artillery Division, the 121st Rylsk Infantry Division, the 112th Rylsk Infantry Division, the 69th Red Banner Sevsk Infantry Division, the 60th Sevsk Infantry Division, the 103rd Sevsk Tank Brigade, the 43rd Sevsk Motorized Brigade, the 255th Sevsk Independent Tank Regiment, the 68th Sevsk Heavy Artillery Brigade and the 100th Red Banner Sevsk Heavy Artillery Brigade.
In the name of our country, our capital Moscow will to-day, August 31, at 20.30 Moscow time, salute our glorious troops who liberated the towns of Glukhov, Rylsk and Sevsk, with twelve artillery salvoes from 124 guns.
For distinguished military services and skilful operations I express my thanks to all troops led by you who have taken part in the fighting for Sevsk, Glukhov and Rylsk, and above all to the 70th Guards Red Banner Glukhov Infantry Division commanded by General Butev, the 226th Glukhov Infantry Division commanded by Colonel Vitrenko, the 1st Guards Glukhov Artillery Division commanded by Major-General of Artillery Godin, the 23rd Glukhov Tank Brigade commanded by Colonel Demidov, the 121st Rylsk Infantry Division commanded by Major-General Ladygln, the 112th Rylsk Infantry Division commanded by Colonel Gladkov, the 69th Red Banner Sevsk Infantry Division commanded by Colonel Kuzadkov, the 60th Sevsk Infantry Division commanded by. Colonel Babilensky,,. the 103rd Sevsk Tank Brigade commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Khalayev, the 103rd Sevsk Motorized Brigade commanded Major-General Barinov, the 655th Sevsk Independent Tank Regiment commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Mukin, the 68th Sevsk Heavy Artillery Brigade commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Vassilev, the 100th Red Banner Sevsk Heavy Artillery Brigade commanded by Colonel Kuznetsov, the 6th. Guards Infantry Division., commanded by Major-General Ahoprienko, the 322nd Infantry Division commanded by Colonel Losenko, the 150th Independent Tank Brigade commanded by Lieutenant-General Griumov, the 178th Anti-Tank Artillery Regiment commanded by Colonel Fedov, and air formations commanded by Major-General of Aviation Denisov, Major-General . of Aviation Antoshin, Major-General of Aviation Kravatsky, Colonel Komarov and Colonel Budilev.
Eternal glory to the heroes who fell in the fight for the freedom and independence of our Motherland! Death to the German invaders!
Troops of the western front recently broke through the strongly fortified enemy defence line and, developing their offensive in the Smolensk direction, yesterday, August 30th, captured the' town of Yelnya, a strategically important large junction of roads and the most important centre of resistance of the enemy defences in the Smolensk direction.
In the fighting for the town of Yelnya the following distinguished themselves: Guards tankmen commanded by Major-General Burdeinov, troops commanded by Lieutenant-General Gordov, by Major-General Krylov, by Lieutenant-General Trubnikov, airmen commanded by Marshal of Aviation Golovanov and Lieutenant-General of Aviation Gromov.
To mark the victory won .by our troops at the town of Yelna, the name of Yelna will be conferred on the 29th Guards Red Banner Infantry Division, the 25th Tank Brigade, the 26th Tank Brigade, the 23rd Guards Independent Tank Brigade and the 119th Independent Tank Regiment, which distinguished themselves in the fighting for the town of Yelna. They will henceforth be named the 29th Guards Red Banner Yelna Infantry Division, the 76th Yelna Infantry Division, the 25th Yelna Tank Brigade, the 26th Yelna Tank Brigade, the 23rd Guards Yelna Independent Tank Brigade.
In the name of our country, our capital Moscow, to-day, August 31, at 19.00 hours Moscow time, will salute with twelve artillery salvoes from 124 guns our glorious troops who have won victory at the town of Yelna.
For distinguished military service and skilful manoeuvring I express my thanks to all the troops you command who participated in ‘ the operations in the Smolensk direction, and above all for the skilful operations by the 29th Guards Red Banner Yelna Infantry Division commanded by Lieutenant-General Stuch-enko, to the 26th Yelna Infantry Division commanded by Colonel Babayan, the 25th Yelna Tank Brigade commanded by Colonel Shevchenko, the 26th Yelna Brigade commanded by Colonel Nester-ov, the 23rd Guards Yelna Independent Tank Brigade commanded by Colonel Kalinin, the 119th Yelna Independent Tank Regiment commanded by' Lieutenant-Colonel Losik and the 63rd Infantry Division commanded by Colonel Lapkin.
Eternal glory to the heroes who fell in the fight for the freedom and honour of our Motherland! Death to the German invaders!
It's interesting how Stalin would urge "eternal glory" for a state which didn't recognize eternity in any meaningful sense.
On his day, the Red Army took Glukhov and Rylsk.
The Civil Air Patrol's coast patrol ceases, given as the U-boot threat has been so reduced in recent months.
Friday, August 31, 1923. Diplomatic relations with Mexico restored.
Diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Mexico were restored.
They had ended during the long Mexican Revolution, during which, for a long period of time, it was unclear who would govern Mexico, and the US found many of the options distasteful.
The Italian Navy shelled the Greek island of Corfu and then landed over 5,000 troops on the islands. Civilians were injured and killed in the bombardment. Following the landing, the Greek administration was arrested, but the small Greek garrison did not surrender and instead retreated to the interior of the island.
Mussolini declared that the island had always been Venetian.
An Anti KKK riot broke out in New Castle, Delaware.
Lake Charles, Louisiana, was photographed.
Wars and Rumors of War, 2023, Part 7. Summer.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-26-2023
July 9, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
President Zelenskyy has been in Turkey where he met with and received oral support from the Turkish government, and where he appeared with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the head of the Eastern Orthodox Churches.
July 10, 2023
US v. ISIL
US Reaper drones killed had been flying ISIL leader Usamah al-Muhajir, while he was riding a motorcycle in the Aleppo region. The same drones had earlier been harassed by Russian fighter aircraft.
July 11, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Turkey has quit blocking Sweden's admittance into NATO.
Russian submarine commander Stanislav Rzhitskiy, whose vessel fired on a Ukrainian city early in the war, was shot dead on a morning run near the Olimp sport complex in Krasnodar, southern Russia, according to reports.
July 12, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Turkey dropped objections to Sweden joining NATO, which shall now occur.
A missile strike reportedly killed Deputy Commander of the Russian Southern Military District, Lieutenant General Oleg Tsokov.
July 13, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov, the commander of the 58th Army, has been relieved of his command. He announced his removal to his troops.
The Group of Seven and NATO signed agreements to offer Ukraine long-term security commitments, signalling a more formal arrangement to come, likely after the conclusion of the war.
This more or less means that unless Russia completely defeats Ukraine in the current war, one of Russia's war aims has been lost.
July 14, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
The US will be deploying 3,000 Reservists to Europe in support of the US's efforts to aid Ukraine.
July 14, cont:
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including sections 121 and 12304 of title 10, United States Code, I hereby determine that it is necessary to augment the active Armed Forces of the United States for the effective conduct of Operation Atlantic Resolve in and around the United States European Command’s area of responsibility. In furtherance of this operation, under the stated authority, I hereby authorize the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Homeland Security with respect to the Coast Guard when it is not operating as a service in the Navy, under their respective jurisdictions, to order to active duty any units, and any individual members not assigned to a unit organized to serve as a unit of the Selected Reserve, or any member in the Individual Ready Reserve mobilization category and designated as essential under regulations prescribed by the Secretary concerned, not to exceed 3,000 total members at any one time, of whom not more than 450 may be members of the Individual Ready Reserve, as they deem necessary, and to terminate the service of those units and members ordered to active duty.
This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.
This is the first time I've actually seen an order which refers to the Individual Ready Reserve. It makes sense, actually, as IRR troops may have individual skills that would be useful in a t raining role.
My guess is that the IRR troops will be all volunteers for activation.
July 15, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Putin has indicated that he intends to keep the Wagner Group as a fighting force, but separated from its leader.
The SA, we would not, never amounted to what it had been before Ernst Röhm was offed.
July 16, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Wagner has been seen in Belarus and there are plans for it to conduct joint drills with the Belorussian army.
Something about this is really odd, and has to relate to whatever deal was struck. The Belorussian Army is generally regarded as pretty bad, FWIW.
Russian 106th Guards Airborne (VDV) Division Commander Major General Vladimir Seliverstov has been relieved of his command. It is not known why, but he was noted for speaking up for his troops.
July 17, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Russia has pulled out of the Black Sea grain shipment deal.
On This Week, Chris Christie maintained that Russia's war in Ukraine is being backed by the Chinese for Chinese objectives. This is becoming a persistent Republican theme. That the Chinese may be backing Russia doesn't surprise me, but the suggestion that the war is a Chinese proxy war, which is being made, doesn't ring true.
July 18, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Attempting to take advantage of commitment of Ukrainian forces elsewhere, the Russians are mounting an offensive in northeast Ukraine.
Ukraine hit the bridge from Crimea to the mainland again, heavily damaging it.
July 19, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
As Russian minefields take their toll on western-supplied tanks and Ukrainian sappers, their forces have so-far retaken approximately five miles of the sixty miles they need to split the land-bridge connecting Russia to Crimea. The land between Mariupol in the east and Melitopol to the west is seen as the vital ground to achieving this.
It is incredibly tough going for the Ukrainians. They lack the air cover and advanced jets to protect their ground forces from Russian attack helicopters and fighters. Their soldiers, meanwhile must negotiate miles of minefields, tank-traps and then ultimately the heavily dug Russian trench networks.
This gruelling endeavour was always going to take longer than the occasionally impatient international audience was prepared to wait for. It is a military effort of immense proportions, where mass, manpower, morale, equipment, stocks, logistics, grit and luck all play vital roles. So far, the Ukrainians are displaying all of these military qualities.
* * *
While much fighting remains to be done across Ukraine’s southern farmlands over the coming months, governments across the west must be prepared for the grim prospect of territorial concessions as one potential political outcome of a failed counter-offensive. Whether a Putinist Kremlin would respect such a deal if Kyiv were to receive security pledges short of full Nato membership is extremely doubtful.
Regardless, this would surely be a favoured outcome for China’s ruling “wolf warrior” foreign policy elite. Beijing would be utterly delighted if the war were to end with Ukraine divided, Russian troops permanently in the Donbas harassing Kyiv and Europe, and Nato fractured on political lines. Such an outcome would be a gift to China as Xi Jinping begins to ramp up his own imperialistic and extra-territorial ambitions across the Indo-Pacific – and a devastating defeat for the West.
The Telegraph.
Russia is amassing vast numbers of troops and equipment along the northern frontline in Ukraine, Kyiv has warned.
Serhii Cherevatyi, spokesperson for the Eastern Group of Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, told local television that Moscow had gathered more than 100,000 troops on the Lyman-Kupiansk axis, as well as 900 tanks, 555 artillery systems and 370 multiple rocket launchers.
Newsweek.
The Ukrainians are obviously not beaten, and ISW feels the troops in the north that Russia intends to commit to a counteroffensive are of poor quality and will not be successful, but it's obviously the case that the Ukrainian offensive is not achieving its goals in the face of Russian defense in depth and massive use of mines.
July 20, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Russia conducted a missile offensive on Ukrainian ports yesterday, no doubt designed to disrupt Ukrainian grain shipments.
July 21, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
July 21, cont.
Igor Girkin, who is associated with the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, killing 298 people, was arrested in Russia today by Russian authorities.
Heads continue to keep rolling.
July 24, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Now Ukraine is in a battle to get back more of the land that Russia seized from it. It's already taken back about 50 percent of what was initially seized. Now they're in a very hard fight to take back more. These are still relatively early days of the counteroffensive. It is tough.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
Drones hit two buildings in Moscow.
A Russian missile strike on Odessa badly damaged the Cathedral of the Transfiguration.
July 26, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukraine has launched a massive offensive action against Russians in the Zaporizhzhia region. They appear to have cleared defensive obstacles and are pushing through.
July 27, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukrainian forces launched a significant mechanized counteroffensive operation in western Zaporizhia Oblast on July 26 and appear to have broken through certain pre-prepared Russian defensive positions south of Orikhiv. Russian sources, including the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and several prominent milbloggers, claimed that Ukrainian forces launched an intense frontal assault towards Robotyne (10km south of Orikhiv) and broke through Russian defensive positions northeast of the settlement.[1] Geolocated footage indicates that Ukrainian forces likely advanced to within 2.5km directly east of Robotyne during the attack before Russian forces employed standard doctrinal elastic defense tactics and pushed Ukrainian troops back somewhat, although not all the way back to their starting positions.
There are now multiple reports that a "second phase" or "main phase" of the Ukrainian summer offensive have been launched
Niger
Members of the armed forces are attempting a coup.
Syria
Russian Air Force fighters continue to interfere with American drones.
July 31, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukrainian drones struck targets in Moscow again within the last 24 hours.
Former President Donald Trump, and current candidate, urged aid to Ukraine to be suspended until evidence regarding Hunter Biden is submitted fully to Congress.
These topics are not rationally related to each other, but Trump is demonstrating increasing irrationality in the face of multiple criminal investigations concerning his post election activities.
China v. US
It is being asserted that China has inserted malware into computer networks servicing U.S bases.
August 4, 2023
An attack on the Russian port of Novorossiysk by Ukrainian drones resulted in a Russian warship capsizing.
August 6, 2023
Niger
The military asked for help from the Wagner Group to defend itself against anticipated military action by African states to restore the democracy in that country.
Russo Ukrainian War
From the Trib:
DRONES STRIKE RUSSIAN TANKER, PORT
Russia raised the upper limit for conscription to 30 years of age.
August 7, 2023
Niger
Niger has closed its airspace.
August 13, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Poland is deploying up to 10,000 troops on its border with Belarus due to the presence of Wagner mercenaries being deployed on the Belorussian side of the border.
August 17, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukraine has taken Urozhaine.
August 18, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
A Defense Department briefing of Congressmen has stated that Ukraine will not reach the southeastern city of Melitopol, presuming that to be a key objective, and therefore will not sever Russia’s land bridge to Crimea this year.
The report attributes it to minefields and Ukraine determining to ignore Western advice to use a schwerpunkt, particularly after having encountered initial heavy Russian resistance and large-scale losses, something amplified by a lack of air cover.
The report finds that Ukrainian forces will remain several miles outside of Melitopol at the conclusion of the offensive.
There's no way to put a happy face on this conclusion, if it comes true. Opting for attriting Russian forces was reverting to World War One tactics.
At the same time, however, there are now reports of Ukraine committing troops in large numbers which it had held back earlier.
August 18, cont:
A less gloomy view:
August 20, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukrainian troops have broken through to the north of Tokmak.
Ukrainian forces conducted a drone strike on Soltsy airbase in Novgorod Oblast.
August 22, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukrainian forces made tactically significant gains in and east of Robotyne in western Zaporizhia Oblast on August 20-21 while continuing counteroffensive operations on the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast administrative border and in eastern Ukraine.
August 23, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the passenger list of a jet which crashed killing all on board, Russia's civil aviation authority has said.
The BBC.
It can't help but be noted that opponents of Putin have a bizarrely high attrition rate and an unusual number of accidents. It could just be coincidence, but it's weird.
cont:
The early reports had this plane as shot down.
Video shows a plane that looks like it was shot down.
cont:
President Biden on the death of Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin: "I said I would be careful of what I drink and what I rode in. I don't know for a fact what happened, but I'm not surprised."
CSPAN.
As an aside, somehow those who hate everything Biden and love everything Trump will find a way to criticize that pretty honest comment, whereas if Trump said the same thing (which he couldn't due to his weird diction), they'd think it the soul of wit.
August 24, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and the Kremlin have been destroying the Wagner private military company (PMC) and weakening Prigozhin’s authority since the rebellion – and the assassination of Wagner’s top leadership was likely the final step to eliminate Wagner as an independent organization.
Cont:
Kristina Raspopova.
She was the flight attendant of Embraer Legacy 600 Business Jet blown out of the sky in order to kill Yevgeny Prigozhin and other Wagnerites. The young woman had taken the flight in order to be able to return home and to her next station early.
It's not possible to weep for Yevgeny Prigozhin. He lived by the sword and died by it, and the actions of his men have been brutal. It is possible to hope that he realized the gravity of his sins and reconciled before his death.
But killing innocent stewardesses is just flat out murder.
August 25, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukraine conducted an amphibious commando raid on the facilities of the Crimean municipalities of Olenivka and Mayak.
August 27, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukrainian forces continue to grain in the western Zaporizhia Oblast and may be close to breaking out.
August 30, 2023
Gabon
The Gabonese Army has taken over that country in a coup following an election which returned to office a member of the family that has ruled the country for 50 years.
Russo Ukrainian War.
Ukrainian paratroopers, in a ground assault role, are flanking Russian positions at Novoprokopivka, a town that sits on the T0408/0401 road threading south through Tokmak to Melitopol.
Ukraine is receiving an additional $250,000,000 in U.S. aid.
A Ukrainian drone attack occured on the airfield at Pskov.
August 31, 2023
China v. Taiwan
The US has approved $80,000,000 in aid to Taiwan under the Foreign Military Financing, something normally only done for soveign states.
Taiwan, which is the Republic of China, has never declared independence from China. Rather, it's claim to be China's legitimate government has been quietly abandoned over the years. The People's Republic of China, of course, claims the island as it's own and continually threatens to invade it. In reality, Taiwan is de facto independent if not de jure, a status which really ought to change, and which this is a step towards.
It'll probably enrage the Red menance.
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukrainian light infantry has infiltrated east of Russian field fortifications near Verbove.
Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov has reiterated his loyalty to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a continued attempt to distance himself from the late Yevgeny Prigozhin. I ownder if he's avoiding going up stairs recently?
Last Prior Edition:
Wars and Rumors of War, 2023, Part 6. Late Spring.
Recent Related Threads:
Why do populist Republicans want to do away with the Department of Education?
There's a bill in Congress, of which our local Congressman is a sponsor, to do just that.
Eh?
Wednesday, August 30, 2023
UW Class Law School Class of 2026 . . . dressed up.
Incoming University of Wyoming College of Law class (Class of 2026).
Wow, look at all those suits and ties.
These students are a nice looking bunch. A colleague of mine, who works in another firm, has a kid in it.
I didn't meet my law school classmates until the first day of law school. This group was apparently brought in early, and told to dress up. The first time I wore a tie in law school was actually after it, at my bar exam interview, back when Wyoming had a real bar exam rather than the Universal Locally Un-iformed Bar Exam.
I'm impressed. This is what a law school entering class should look like, and I hope it bodes well for the future.
The glory of being a trial lawyer.
The dirty little secret. . . there isn't any.
One of the nice things about being in a farm community as a working travelers is that their Sunday morning Masses usually start really early, as in 7:00 a.m. in this case.
At least not like portrayed in the movies, and certainly not like the silly "whaling for justice" type of stuff that the plaintiff's bar likes to shovel out.
Recently I tried a case out of town. I've tried so many in the past three decades I no longer have any idea how many I've tried, and if I stopped to try to count them, I know that I'd be inaccurate. When you apply for a judicial appointment, which I've done several times, unsuccessfully (obviously), you are required to count them up, and I'm sure my numbers weren't the same any time I did that, even though I made an effort to be correct.
I do know that the year COVID restrictions on the courts lifted, I tried three that year. That may not sound like a lot, but for a civil litigator it is. I know quite a few civil litigators who have tried less than that over decades' long careers. One law school colleague of mine who does the same work, has never, in so far as I know, tried a case. An ABA review I once read of lawyers who had long civil careers and then retired (which seems to be a rarity) remarked that one of the subjects was proud of her "six" trials.
Six.
Hah.
There are a lot of reason there are not very many civil trials and even fewer serious civil trials, but one reason is that trials are hard stressful work.
But I'll get to that.
This past year, dating back a year ago or so, has not been a good one for me on a personal level. I had surgery in the fall and missed the hunting season. It was colon surgery, and I've never completely recovered, which is to say that my digestive track has not returned to normal, and it isn't going to. During that process, it was revealed by a scan that I had a major thyroid nodule. Followup on that showed it to almost certainly be cancerous, so during the trial, was looking forward to a second surgery, a partial thyroidectomy, and if really lucky I won't have to take medicine for the rest of my life. There is, however, a good chance that I will have to.
Having the trial to accomplish meant that I didn't have to think about it, however.
In terms of good news, it turned out to be benign. Strange, but benign. It's basically a result of an old injury, one I don't ever recall sustaining.
Current wound status.
Hopefully the recovery time isn't really long, but it varies quite a bit for people.
I ended up never taking a day off from the second surgery, not even the day of the surgery, which was a mistake, I'll note.
Anyhow, for about a year running now, my life has been nothing but work. As noted, I missed the hunting season and what little I got in prior to surgery was marred by being incredibly tired. I'm not sure what was up with that (perhaps the thyroid), but I was. I couldn't go for big game after that least I rip my stitches out.
I did get out for waterfowl quite a bit late in the season, mostly on Sunday's after Mass. I'd work on Sundays but for the Commandment to keep the Sabbath holy, which I take seriously, although occasionally I find myself working on that day too.
That's mostly a reflection of my personality.
The trial in question had been from a pre COVID case and it finally rolled around to to. Just before it did, my opponent let me know that his young female partner was leaving, and she did before the trial commenced. I was stunned, really, as she was bailing out of a really good firm and she's a really good lawyer. She was leaving private practice to go in house.
No more trials for her.
Then my younger female partner let me know she was leaving. She stuck with me through the trial.
Finding a lawyer you can comfortably try cases with isn't easy. Frankly, maybe one in ten lawyers who do trial work are really talented at it and of those, maybe only 10% anyone one person meshes with well enough to have that role. But here she definitely did. Her leaving is a big loss to me, just as my opponent's younger counsel leaving was a big loss to him. I don't know, really, if I'll be able to replace her.
For some time I've frankly wondered how she does it, as she's married with young children. When I was first practicing law, the female litigators I'd meet, and they were few, tended to be childless, often by choice. Quite a few women started to come into the law about the time that I did, and by and large if they were married and started to have children, they dropped out of practice. It was just too much of a burden.
This recalls the old phrase, supposedly written by Jean Little, a Canadian author:
A man can work from sun to sun, But a woman's work is never done.
There's a lot of truth to that, quite frankly.
For some reason, even in our "modern" age, the traditional division of labor in which women are burdened with raising children while they're young and keeping the household has never gone away, even when the woman of the house is a professional and its first breadwinner. Perhaps its simply genetic, although we're not supposed to say that. About the only relief I see them getting is from willing grandparents, really, and that too, oddly enough, is a very traditional role for grandparents.
Anyhow, juggling a household and having a professional job that requires long hours and travel. . . that's brutal. I don't blame these women a bit for seeking something else out.
One more example of how our modern "you live to serve this ship" lifestyle makes no sense and makes nobody happy.
You always go to the location of the trial early.
On Sunday, I looked out of my hotel window and saw this:
Horses by an old homestead, still being farmed.
Sigh.
The only thing I got out to do was to go to Mass.
I like everyone to have their own vehicles at a trial. It gives everyone some independence. If I control things, and at my age I do, everyone drives themselves.
This, I'll note, isn't the case with some lawyers, although it is with all the ones I know. Those people must be the really extraverted ones who just think everyone needs lots of sharing time all the time, and therefore they make the whole team prisoners to their automobile.
I’m not good to go with these monstrosities:
These are saddle oxfords. Saddle oxfords made from buffalo hide, I might add.
I hate Keurig machines and their stupid one cup at a time system. I always have. I never drink just one cup of coffee bu several, and I don't want to screw around making endless little cups. To make matters worse, it's invariably the case that the person who stocks the rooms leaves you hardly any real coffee, but lots of stuff like Ceylonese Green Herbal Tea or something.
Blech.
We always go down and get a bunch of real coffee for the stupid Keurig machine.
One thing about trials is you get to wear your cool dress shoes that otherwise would look odd in our modern era.
I've never worn out, I might note, a pair of dress shoes. I have my black low quarters from basic training still. When I was first practicing, I bought a pair of wingtips made in Ireland, just like the dress shoes my father had when I was young. They've been resoled once, but they're still in good shape.
Indeed, I only have five pairs of dress shoes, one being the aforementioned Army low quarters I very rarely wear. I'm never going to need to buy another pair.
I do need to shine them.
Parking lot view.
One thing about doing a trial in farm country is that it always causes me to think how lucky some people are that they get to farm as a career.
I don't think they appreciate that.
I never think that about trying a case in a big city. I've tried cases twice in Denver and wasn't envious of a soul associated with Denver. The poor judge looked like he'd been rode hard and put away wet in the second one. Denver itself, out on the street, was like a Middle Easter Dysentery Ward in the 30s. The jurors had jobs I wouldn't have wanted.
Grim.
In farm country you see, however, people living the way that people are supposed to live.
Restaurant view. The field below is one I've hunted geese in.
I constantly hear people in agriculture complain about it, and by that I don't mean the weather or something, but about being in agriculture itself. Maybe complaining is just something people do. Pascal noted:
If a soldier or labourer complain of the hardship of his lot, set him to do nothing.
I'm not sure what Pascal was aiming at there, but I think it might have been that people just complain. I also think, however, that a lot of people who were born into agriculture have no idea what other work is like, including working as a professional.
I turned 60 recently as well, which of course is a sort of milestone for many people, although I really didn't pay that much attention to it at the time. It really started to set in, however, when I attended a mule action by video. Everything was too expensive, and I didn't buy anything, but leading up to it, I got a fair amount of opposition from my spouse. Most of it was of the nature of "you don't have time".
I don't have time, which is because I work a work schedule at the office, in this civil litigator line of country, that's very heavy. I work a schedule that's heavier than a lot of lawyers in their 20s and 30s. I have nobody, I guess, but myself to blame for that, sort of. Part of it too has to do with the circumstances during which I came up in the law, and part of it has to do with my own character.
When I was young, before I was a lawyer, I wanted to work outdoors.
It's never really stopped being in a least the back of my mind. The net effect of that is that from the exterior I'm one of the rare trial lawyers who tries a lot of cases. I'm cited to other lawyers that way, and because of the work that comes through my door, it's pretty obvious that my reputation as a trial lawyer is impossible to escape. But part of the reason that I can't escape it is that those immediately around me, including those closest to me, see me that way and can't imagine a world in which I'm not yoked to the plow in this fashion.
Elijah set out, and came upon Elisha, son of Shaphat, as he was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen; he was following the twelfth. Elijah went over to him and threw his cloak on him.
Elisha left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, “Please, let me kiss my father and mother good-bye, and I will follow you.” Elijah answered, “Go back! What have I done to you?”
Elisha left him and, taking the yoke of oxen, slaughtered them; he used the plowing equipment for fuel to boil their flesh, and gave it to the people to eat. Then he left and followed Elijah to serve him.
1 Kings, Chapter 19.
I've always thought Elisha's actions baffling. But they are not. He was wanting to set out with Elijah, who had just anointed him his successor. When he left the oxen and spoke to Elijah, Elijah seemed annoyed and told him to go back.
Yoke's were expensive, and so were oxen. By burning his wooden yokes, there was no going back.
If this seems harsh, consider the similar lines from Luke in the New Testament:
As they were proceeding on their journey someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus answered him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.”
And to another he said, “Follow me.” But he replied, “[Lord,] let me go first and bury my father.” But he answered him, “Let the dead bury their dead.* But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
And another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say farewell to my family at home.” Jesus said, “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.”
In modern American life we imagine we can always go back and most of us live our lives that way. Had Elisha decided, well, I'll plow the field and bring in the crops and take up being a prophet later, he wouldn't have become a prophet. Those setting a hand to the plow, and looking back, don't plow a straight row.
And so back to the main.
There's really no glory in trial work, in spite of what people like to imagine. It's hard work. If you win, your clients view the victory as theirs. If you lose, it's your fault. Everyone wins some and loses some, and moreover, wins some they should lose and lose some they should win. It's so stressful that most civil litigators, truth be known, and this includes both plaintiffs and defendants lawyers, won't try a case. Those who will tend to be a tiny minority, and we try lots of cases, because we will. You get used to a lot of the things about it, but like the way Jock Lewes is portrayed in SAS, Rogue Heroes (stay tuned for a review shortly), some of that is suppression of anxiety rather than its elimination, although anxiety does indeed decrease with time. People who run around claiming they love everything about a trial tend to be weirdos or liars, more often the latter than the former.
And, for what its worth, I've tried a minor case since this one.
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