The Vandals.

American democracy has several great weaknesses, the primary one being that Americans believe that we have a "two party system".

We don't.  We've just allowed two parties to take over and even fund their party elections, the primaries, with government funds, and tolerate the creation of bogus Congressional roles, such "Senate Majority Leader".

That needs reform desperately.

Amongst other weaknesses, however, is that Americans believe that we have a free enterprise economic system. We don't. We have corporate capitalism which allows businesses to escape the implications of their actions through the corporate business form.

Americans believe so strongly in "free enterprise" that they basically never vote with their wallets.  They'll let businesses absolutely screw them and keep supporting them.  On the rare occasions in which they actually will vote with their wallets and boycott a product it's when its something trivial and otherwise readily available, as in when sales of Bud Light dropped off over a transgender personality advertising it.

Lots of companies brew beer.

I note this as the illegitimate occupant of the White House, who has no real authority, is having the East Wing of the  White House destroyed for on oversized garden shed, aka, a ballroom.

The White House doesn't need a ballroom.  This isn't 1875.  What Donald Trump wants is something overblown and gaudy, which is his brand, so that hopefully people remember him after he departs this Earth for his final reward. It's much the same motivation that has him angling for the Nobel Peace Prize.  He's hoping to be remembered as a serious person, rather than as a real estate developer/serial polygamist.

Before we move on, we should note that the White House was originally designed as a house, and its been modified continually.  Frankly, it ought to flat out stop. The constant monkeying with the structure only encourages this sort of baloney, and the building isn't getting any better looking over time.  The East Wing only dates back to 1942 and to some degree was built as a cover for the construction of a bomb shelter underneath it.  I suppose you can argue the bomb shelter was a good addition, but this just goes on and on.

The West Wing has been modified a great deal over time, but basically dates back to 1902.  Theodore Roosevelt was President then, and his large family was busting at the seams of the White House.

This is different, however.

The West Wing was built as office space.  Basically it's an office space annexation. The East Wing, as noted, was originally added to cover the construction of a bomb shelter.  In later years, offices for correspondence, calligraphers and the social secretary were placed in the East Wing. It became the offices of the First Lady, with the First Lady requiring offices a fairly dubious proposition, quite frankly.

Trump wasn't supposed to really touch the East Wing Structure but a Volvo bucket is out destroying part of the facade now. The new structure will be, of course, a garden shed. . .um a ballroom.

Adding offices made sense.  Adding a bomb shelter in 1942 made sense, after all, German rocket technology brought the ICBM within reach during  World War Two and submarine launched aircraft actually did made land strikes on the West Coast during the war.

A ballroom, however, is a superficial structure for somebody who likes to entertain.

Trump is a superficial person who has been spending a lot of his time at the golf course.

Trump can't molest the structure unless the forces of capitalism dutifully line up to give him his dream. There was never any doubt that they would.  So, have you wondered who the Vandal hired by the illegitimate occupant of the White House/Real Estate Developer/Serial Polygamist to design and construct a giant garden shed is?

Well, wonder no more:

President Trump Hires National Civic Art Society Board Member to Design New White House Ballroom

James McCrery, a classical architect who is a co-founder of the National Civic Art Society and a member of our Board of Directors, has been chosen by President Donald Trump to design a new ballroom at the White House.

According to the administration, “The White House State Ballroom will be a much-needed and exquisite addition of approximately 90,000 total square feet of ornately designed and carefully crafted space, with a seated capacity of 650 people — a significant increase from the 200-person seated capacity in the East Room of the White House.”

McCrery, who is principal and founder of McCrery Architects in Washington, D.C., is associate professor at the Catholic University of America's School of Architecture. He was a commissioner on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, appointed by President Trump during his first term. McCrery served alongside NCAS President Justin Shubow, who was chairman of the Commission.

According  to Shubow, “The National Civic Art Society is ecstatic that President Trump selected James McCrery to design the new White  House ballroom. McCrery is one of the best architects in America, and he will  honor and respect one of the most beloved classical buildings in the United  States. Our organization has no doubt he’ll design a beautiful, fitting  addition. It was President Theodore Roosevelt who personally chose Beaux-Arts architect Charles  McKim to renovate the White House in his time. President Trump has made an  equally wise decision in hiring McCrery.”

Announcement from the National Civil Art Society.

The National Civil Art Society is an organization that sponsors the view that public buildings should be in a classic style.  It's a worthwhile goal, as there sure are a lot of ugly public buildings around.  And the architects firm, McCrery Architects, based on their website, designs a lot of nice classical buildings.  Frankly, choosing them was a really good move for a really bad building.  Things could have been a lot worse.

So should we rejoice?

Well, no, 

McCrery clearly has a lot of talent, as do the people on his staff, but this is still a huge oversized shed that looks ugly.  No matter, it'll go down on his resume, unless it turns out to be a national embarrassment, in which case it will be removed from his resume.

He's designed some beautiful buildings, including the Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus in Knoxville, TN.  To go from that, to this . . what a waste.

The contractor for the abomination is heavy contractor Clark Construction, whose website declares "Building What Matters".

M'eh.

This structure doesn't matter.

It is, however, no doubt a major contract.  Nobody could blame them for bidding on it, as that's what they do.

Engineering was done by AECOM, whose website declares; "AECOM is the trusted global infrastructure leader committed to delivering a better world.".  

Well, this structure and the project makes the world just a little bit worse.  No matter, it's probably a big contract.

Funding for the project is not public.  The $200,000,000 to $250,000,0000 vandalization will cost is going to be born by Real Estate Developer Donald Trump and donors.  Donors include Google, Lockheed Martin, Palantir, Booz Allen Hamilton, and NextEra Energy, but there are a lot more.  Lockheed Martin is chipping in $10,000,000.

And there's the real question.  

Blogger, which this is published on, is a Google thing.  Google itself is darned near impossible to avoid, so even though I think they're chipping in is inexcusable, I'll continue to use Google's products, making me just as hypocritical as can be.  I don't buy anything from Lockheed, and I'm not a shareholder, but if I was I'd write in and complain.  

Why would outfits like these chip in?  Well, they're making a bet that King Donald will love them, or at least not hate them.  That's why.  And frankly, if some future administration wanted to build to whack it down, which will occur, and put up a Trump Hall of Shame, they'd contribute to that.

The overall shame, however, is that this is public property.  It's being vandalized.  And nobody can apparently do anything about it.

When this era is over, the country needs major reform.  Part of that reform needs to be an effort to reign the Oval Office into reason.  Another part needs to be to kick the dead asses in Congress back to work and require them to do their actual jobs.

As a final note, Hitler was fond of monumental projects too, planning on building a monumental Berlin after the Second World War.  Franco had the monumental Valley of the Fallen built, which at least commemorates something.  Fascist Italy had a bunch of monumental structures built, and of course Mussolini was in power for quite some time.  The Soviets had Lenin stuff in a mausoleum, the latter of which provides an idea.

Seeing as a modern White House doesn't need a ballroom, and given that Trump is really old and will pass from natural causes in the foreseeable future anyhow, perhaps AECOM can design this structure with hydraulic jacks and wheels so when that day comes this can just be jacked up, hooked up, and wheeled down the highway to Mar A Lago, which it can serve as the Trump Mausoleum and library (I serious doubt Trump has very many books that he's actually read, so the size won't be a problem).  Probably Google, Lockheed Martin, Palantir, Booz Allen Hamilton, and NextEra Energy will be willing to pay for it.

Theodore Roosevelt at Arlington.

On this day…we call to mind the deaths of those who died that the nation might live, who wagered all that life holds dear for the great prize of death in battle.

President Roosevelt at Arlington National Cemetery, Memorial Day, 1902.

I have to say, I wouldn't have referred to death as a "prize" in this context.

Wednesday, March 4, 1942. Counterstrikes

Today in World War II History—March 4, 1942: Two Japanese H8K flying boats bomb Pearl Harbor—no damage. Aircraft from USS Enterprise strike Marcus Island in South Pacific.

From Sarah Sundin's blog.

If you were fighting the war, of course, it was a horrible day. . . if fighting was going on, which it was all over the world. But in terms of huge events, well, it was just another day in the war in some ways.

Operation K, the flying boat raid, had significant aspirations but was a flop.  It didn't do much, other than to remind everyone that Hawaii was still within Japanese air range.

H8K.  This one was in its last moments later in the war, just before the U.S. Navy, which took this photo, shot it down.

The round trip flight engaged in by the two Japanese aircraft from the Marshall Islands was nearly 5,000 miles in extent.

Marcus Island is the easternmost island of the Japanese archipelago and is extremely isolated.   The US bombed it repeatedly during 1942 and 1943, but never occupied it.

The remote island was first discovered by the Portuguese in 1694.  They didn't make a specific recordation of the location of the island, however, and it was not sighted again until British/Australian mariner Bourn Russell spotted it in 1830, noting that it was not on his charts, which of course it was not.  It was next sighted by an American evangelical mission to the Hawaiian islands in 1864. The first effort to occupy it commenced by a private Japanese expedition in 1886.

The United States and Japan both claimed the island early on, and in 1902 the US dispatched a warship to enforce its claims, but withdrew when it found the island occupied by the Japanese and a Japanese warship patrolling nearby.  The Japanese withdrew the civilian population in 1933 and made the island a military installation with a weather station and an airstrip.

The island was transferred to the United States in 1952, but in 1968 the US gave it back but continued to occupy it, having a substantial radio station there, whose antenna can be seen in the photo posted above from 1987.  The Coast Guard occupied the island until 1993, and then it was transferred to the Japanese Self Defense Force.

Wednesday, March 10, 1909. Field Gray.

The Imperial Russian Army adopted a new greenish-grey, single-breasted cloth tunic with five buttons.  The familiar uniform would remain in use at least until after the Russian Civil War. At some point an updated version, which really wasn't much different than it, would replace it prior to World War Two.

The uniform closely resembled a prior one, which didn't feature the field gray color.  I don't know a great deal about Russian uniforms, so I'll cease particular comment there.  

This era, the turn of the 19th into the 20th Centuries, saw almost all armies making a switch of this type, something brought about by the adoption of smokeless gunpowder, which changed battlefield conditions, bringing about a need for subdued uniforms. The British had used khaki in Indian since 1846 but went to service wide khaki in 1902, something that can be confusing in terms of the British as "khaki" has a broader meaning than the color tan in British military parlance.  The U.S. Army adopted khaki, i.e., tan, in 1898 for field use and then introduced an olive uniform in 1902.  The Prussian element of the Imperial German Army adopted field gray in 1907, and the rest of the German Army followed during World War One.  The French, however, were holdouts, retaining a colored uniform throughout World War One, with horizon blue being its wartime choice.

Thailand (Siam) ceded the Malayan peninsular states of Kelantan, Trengganu, Perlis and Kedah to the British Empire.

Jack Johnson fought Victor McLaglen, better known as a legendary character actor, to a draw in Vancouver in an exhibition fight.

Last prior:

Tuesday, March 9, 1909. San Bernardino.

Tuesday, October 9, 1900. Auto 5.

 John M. Browning was granted a patent for what would become the "self loading" Auto 5 shotgun, which would go into production in 1902.

A phenomenally successful shotgun, it blazed the trail for all later semi automatics.  It became so popular that Browning had trouble ceasing to offer it in its catalog even after it desired to do so.  The shotgun was manufactured in Belgium for Browning and also offered in the United States by Remington, as the Model 11.  Remington's production of Browning's design ceased in 1947, but FN's for Browning carried on until moved to the Japanese firm Miroku in 1975.  In 1998 full production finally ceased, with FN carrying on with commemoratives for one final year.

Primarily a hunting weapon, you'll oddly see a lot of inquiries on the net today about whether it saw military use.  It did, but mostly as a training weapons.  As great as it was, it's action was not suitable for combat conditions, although you'll occasionally see some that were used as police riot guns.

It still has a huge following.

Blog Mirror: Browning Auto 5 Shotgun Review: Still One of the Greatest Semiautos of All Time

Last edition:

Monday, October 8, 1900. Annexation of the Cook Islands.

Labels: 1900, 1900s, 1940s, 1949, 1960s, 1965, British Empire, Cook Islands, New Zealand

Thursday, July 6, 1899 Ordered home.

Today In Wyoming's History: July 6: 1899  The Wyoming Battalion received its orders in the Philippines to return to the U.S. Attribution:  On This Day.

Kansas state infantry, February 1899.

They were undoubtedly mighty glad to receive them as well.

The Philippine Insurrection is all but forgotten by 99% of Americans. Those who do remember it have some particular connection with it or are students of history.

They Wyoming Battalion was a battalion of infantry augmented by a battery of artillery.  The infantry was drawn from volunteers from Buffalo, Douglas, Sheridan and Evanston, commanded by Maj. Frank M. Foote of Evanston.  The artillery came from Cheyenne.  They had volunteered for action in Cuba, not the Philippines, but the U.S. Army was so small, there was no way to exploit the Navy's defeat of the Spanish Navy in the Far East other than through using volunteer troops who had not been committed to Cuba.  During their service the unit suffered high causalities, losing 3 men in combat, 12 died of disease, and 75 men became unfit for service due to wounds, illnesses and injuries. As with the remainder of the U.S. Army during the Spanish American War, many more soldiers from Wyoming died of disease and illness caused by poor sanitation and diet and inadequate medical care, and from numerous tropical diseases, than were ever felled by a foe’s bullet.

Coming before the Dick Act, these units fit into an odd category between the Regular Army, which they were not part of, and existing state militia units, which they were also not part of.  State raised, they are regarded as National Guard units today, which makes sense in that their history more closely aligns with the National Guard, and the Guard found itself doing recruiting to fill out its ranks for the Punitive Expedition, World War One, and even in the lead up to World War Two.

The Philippine Insurrection, indeed the US presence in the Philippines in general, was controversial from the onset. A strong anti-colonial impulse in the US, natural for a nation which had once been a foreign colony, had operated against going to war with Spain in the first place, as members of Congress feared that Cuba would be annexed to the US as a colony.  Preventing that from occurring had been a condition of the declaration of war, but other Spanish possessions had been omitted as they were completely out of mind.  To naval strategists, including the Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, striking at Spanish possession is the Pacific and Far East made perfect sense, but to most Americans it simply wasn't something that was likely to occur. As a result of this, nothing had addressed Spain's Far Eastern territories.

Given this, the war was not universally popular from the start. The use of state troops contributed to that, as the troops had not enlisted for service in a colonial enterprise.  To address some of this, the Army, now freed of combat in Cuba, began to replace state units with regular troops.  This did not address all the problems, however, particularly as the Army began to increasingly resort to harsh measures, giving rise to atrocities.  The war was officially declared over on July 4, 1902, although in reality it continued on at least until 1915.

A good argument can be made that the Spanish American War as the US's first modern war.  It came about rapidly and haphazardly, like many wars following it did.  The long range implications of the war were not foreseen, including that the war would give rise to a long, unexpected war following it.  The initial war was popular, but as the implications of it lingered on, the war succeeding it was not.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 1, 1899. "Birth" of Indiana Jones.

Labels: 1890s, 1899, Movies, Movies In History