So there are riots in France. So what?

France, and some other parts of Europe, are having student demonstrations.  

MAGA in the US, and the administration itself, wants you to believe that the riots are caused by radical Marxist taking over everything.

Oh bull.

Anyone who pays thoughtful attention to the news, which does not tend to be members of MAGA, would realize that France experiences periodic demonstrations.  Suich demonstrations include the 1948 Miners' Strike, the 1968 uprising, the 1984 education protests, the 1986 Anti Devaquet Student Protests, the 1995 Public Sector Strikes, the 2002 Anti Le-Pen demonstration, the 2006 student demonstrations, the 2010 pension reform protests, the 2013 Anti-Same-Sex Marriage "Manif pour tous" demonstration, the Charlie Hebdo Republican March 2015, the Yellow Vests (Gilets Jaunes) Movement (Nov 2018–2019), and the Pension Reform unrest of 2023.

Of these, only the 1968 events, which happened all over the Western World, was really serious.  Not one of these events was left wing, and indeed at least one of them, the Manif pour tous demonstrations, would be categorized as conservative in the US (it's not like opposition to same sex marriage resulted in a massive march in Washington D.C. here.

But the Trump Administration is sinking beneath the waves and grasping for any life saver it can find.  

I suspect most hardcore MAGAs can't find France on a map.  This isn't going to have much of an impact, nor should it.  French students are upset about overcrowded classrooms, staffing shortages, decaying infrastructure such as toilets and buildings, and school facilities being too small to comfortably accommodate everyone. They should be upset.  In the U.S., at least prior to Orange Mussolini, this would have resulted in letters to journals and student newspapers.  In France, it results in riots.  It's a tradition that goes back to the 1229 University of Paris Strike.

This will pass, and it won't really even matter much.

A Day for Spatting.

Today is October 12, 2026.

Department of Defense logo from 2000.

It's also officially Columbus Day, which has a long history of introduction in the U.S.  It was first celebrated, on this day, set to always occur on a Monday, in 1792 by the Columbian Order of New York, better known as the Tammany Society, which evolved into the famous New York political machine.  Italian Americans picked it up as a day of Italian pride as Columbus was an Italian.  It was recognized annually by the Federal Government starting in 1934, and then officially made a Federal holiday in 1968, to be first on the calendar in 1971.

It's still there.

Native Americans have never been particularly keen on the day, for obvious reasons.  This lead to protests over the years and eventually the day was recognized in some areas as Indigenous People's Day.

Taking the guns at Standing Rock.

Columbus Day was the source of increased agitation by Native Americans dating back into the 1970s, which was the height of power of the American Indian Movement, although if you look at today's entry for 1911, you'll see that it was on this day that the first national organization for Native Americans convened.  That probably wasn't an accident.  Some Native protests against the day have verged on violence, so deep is the opposition to it in those quarters.

Wyoming doesn't officially recognize either day, thereby avoiding taking any kinds of stand, but it does recognize Native American Day, which is in May.  Laramie and Jackson recognize Indigenous People's Day on this day, however, those two municipalities being the most "liberal" in Wyoming (which makes Rebecca Bextel's campaign being headquartered in Jackson ironic).  Casper doesn't recognize either day but usually finds a means of making the day a municipal holiday.

This year, Casper found a way to recognize both:

City of Casper Releases Indigenous Peoples’ / Columbus Day Services and Hours

City of Casper releases Indigenous Peoples’/Columbus Day services and hours

Garbage collection, water, sewer, emergency services and more will operate as usual.

Casper, Wyo. (October 8, 2026) – The City of Casper administrative offices will be closed for the observance of Indigenous Peoples’/Columbus Day 2026 on Monday, October 12, 2026.  Normal water, sewer, 911 dispatch, police, fire, and metro animal control services will maintain their regular schedules.  Solid waste crews will collect garbage as usual on Monday, and other crews will be on call to respond as needed.

The following is the complete list of services and hours.

• Trash collection will run on the normal schedule.
• Casper Regional Solid Waste Facility: Open 7:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
• Police Patrol, Fire-EMS, and 911 Dispatch: Regular hours.
• Water and Wastewater Treatment Plants: Regular hours.
• Water distribution, sewer, streets, parks, fleet services, and public facilities crews on call for emergencies.
• Metro Animal Services Patrol Officers (APOs): Available 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.by calling non-emergency dispatch at 307.235.8278.  Outside those regular hours, APOs are on call for emergencies by calling 911.
• Fort Caspar Museum: Closed (closed on Mondays for winter hours)
• Casper Municipal Golf Course: Open normal hours, 1st tee time is 8:30 a.m., the Golf Shop will close at 6:00 p.m.
• Highland Cemetery: Grounds open dawn to dusk with burial search map signs.
• Casper Area Transit, operated by the City of Casper: limited services on Monday. LINK transit services will be unavailable. ASSIST services will run limited services from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. for scheduled medical-only appointments and for ADA complementary paratransit services.
• Metro Animal Shelter: Closed.
• Casper Ice Arena: 6:30 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. (Open Figure Skating), 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. (Open Figure Skating)
• Casper Family Aquatic Center: 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
• Casper Recreation Center: 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.

Donald Trump, who loves a good cultural spat, spoke in Columbus, Ohio last week, which took down its statute of Columbus some time ago.  While there, he stated; “We demand that Christopher Columbus be put back into the heart of Columbus, Ohio,”

Well, we demand the dumb ballroom be taken down.  

Anyhow, Trump loves to troll in racist waters, which this is an example of.  It feeds into the far right belief that "whiteness" is some sort of inherent quality, and that it's being attacked.  If you want to polish that up, it would be that the country's European heritage is being attacked.

Yesterday was National Coming Out Day, which always occurs on October 11.  It's set by some homosexual rights organization.

I don't pay much attention to this as I largely do not care if people with same sex attraction come out.  I don't think that people have to make social martyrs of themselves.  But Adam Kinzinger made an observation that no GOP members of Congress came out.  Well, I wouldn't have expected any to, but he's suggesting that there's at least an appreciable number, or perhaps a number who are significant, in the GOP in Congress.  That might actually matter for a party that takes a position, sort of, on social issues in this arena.

There are consistently rumors to this effect.  Hunter Biden, who may very well not be the most reliable witness on this topic, claims there's a Republican "closeted gay mafia".  There are some figures whom rumors circle around continually.  I was once told by a very inside member of the state's GOP that a certain Republican figure was a homosexual, which is the first time I heard the term "beard" used to describe a female spouse of a male homosexual, married to camouflage the attraction.  The marriage, in that context, made sense to me.  I've been told the same thing about the same person by an openly homosexual politician, but that person is sort of wildly unreliable.  And there are questions that circle about others simply due to their state in life, I suppose.

None of these people may actually be homosexual, and if they are, that doesn't make them "gay" or "queer".  Still, it matters because if you are holding yourself out as a defender of traditionalism in all sense while engaging in homosexual liaisons, you are being hypocritical.

Back to Trump, or rather the Trump Administration, Scott Bessent, who is a homosexual in a homosexual union, sent Elizabeth Warren this letter last week.

I've never been a fan of Warren's, who is one of those Democrats that cause people to avoid the Democratic Party, but this letter is just mean and snarky.  Warren legitimately is an expert on economics.  The final handwritten line recalls Warren's claim to have Native American heritage.  And she actually does, as her DNA tests revealed.  It is, however, remote.  Trump repeatedly lampooned her for this, calling her Pocahontas, which is mean, but Warren should have avoided the entire topic in the first place.

So should Bessent who perpetually comes across as scared when he's interviewed.  Maybe he isn't, but that's how he comes across.  And Bessent has been press ganged into the Trump ongoing excuse machine.  Some of his own claims have been lampooned, as in "I'm a farmer".

But the point here is that, once again, the MAGA Hypocrisy is at work.  Trump's supporters claim to support him due to his traditionalism and his loyalty to Christian values.  Bessent is an unapologetic homosexual in a same sex union, which is not traditional to say the least.  Trump's a serial polygamist himself.  The administration won't release the files on Epstein whose island was an epicenter of child rape.

So, like Festivus on Seinfeld, let the airing of the grievances begin.

On Obsolete Institutions, Immoral behavior, Old Standards. Mehr Mensch Sein. Additional links.

Sunday, October 3, 1926. First postseason no hitter.

The first post season no hitter was pitched by Red Grier of the Bacharach Giants in Game 3 of the Colored World Series, against the Chicago American Giants.

Grier would die in 1967 at the age of 62.

St. Louis won game two of the World Series.

Fr. Charles Coughlin began his broadcast of his weekly sermons on radio station WJR of Detroit.

Last edition

Saturday, October 2, 1926. Game 1 of the 1911 World Series.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, 1926 World Series, Art, baseball, Sports

Thursday, September 23, 1976. The Ford Carter Debate goes silent.

The first U.S. presidential debate since 1960 took place between President Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter.

A power outage happened mid debate.

Baa Baa Black Sheep (Black Sheep Squadron) debuted on NBC.  The Tony Randall Show debuted on CBS.

Last edition:

Tuesday, September 21, 1976. The assassination of Orlando Letelier.

Labels: 1970s, 1973 Chilean Coup, 1976, Augusto Pinochet, Chile, Crime, Terrorism, Washington DC

Wednesday, July 17, 1946. African Americans were allowed to vote in Georgia's primary election for the first time.

 African Americans were allowed to vote in Georgia's primary election for the first time.

At the time Georgia used an odd primary system similar to the archaic electoral college, which needs to be abolished.  In this instance, "county units" determined the candidates, so while James V. Carmichael received more votes than former Governor Eugene Talmadge, with the help of the African American vote, Talmadge received the nomination.

The county unit system was abolished in 1964.

U.S. trademark protection was reestablished for Austrians.

Chetnik general Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović was executed by the Communist Yugoslavian government. 

The Second World War was extremely complicated in Yugoslavia, and unlike the movie treatment you'll occasionally see regarding them, the loyalties of various partisan bands in the country were varied and changed.  The Chetniks started as a royalist anti German movement and actually fought alongside the Communist partisans in the early part of World War Two, but by the end, they were collaborating with the Germans.

The Rocky Mountain News ran an article about a 16 year old girl who was, well, a creepy fan of a trombonist and made up a lurid tale of how he was involved with her, in the hopes that it'd destroy his marriage and he'd marry her.  The headline referred to her as a "Bobby Soxer", the oldest use of that term, which I'd associated with the 1950s, that I've ever seen, although apparently that's just a misimpression on my part.  The Wikipedia article on the demographic subset composed of teenage girls has several photos from 1946.

"Bobby Soxer", January 1946.

Apparently the origin of the term for short sox worn by young women dates back to 1943 and appeared in Life as early as 1944.

Months ago colored bobby sox folded at the top were decreed, not by anyone or any group but, as usual, by a sudden mysterious and universal acceptance of the new idea. Now no teen-ager dares wear anything but pure white socks without a fold. [

Life magazine, Dec. 11, 1944.

The term was particularly associated, apparently, with the fans of Frank Sinatra and oddly enough the Rocky Mountain News used it in that context on the same day as Life did in the quote immediately above. The News used it as late as 1972 in the context of an all girls softball league.

I probably shouldn't have been surprised, as I'm aware of, but have not seen, the film The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer, which is a well known film featuring Cary Grant and an 18 year old Shirley Temple.  It was released in 1947.

Last edition:

Tuesday, July 16, 1946. New agencies. Sentencing the perpetrators of the Malmedy Massacre.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, 1948, 1950s, 1951, Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office, German SS, Korea, Malmedy Massacre, Occupation of Korea, Social Security Administration, South Korea, The Cold War, US Grazing Service

Thursday, June 20, 1946. Allied withdrawal.

The Allied powers agreed to withdraw their troops from Italy and Bulgaria.

Fred M. Vinson was confirmed Chief Justice of the United States.

Wanrong (婉容), wife and empress consort of Puyi, the last emperor of China, died a prisoner of the Chinese Communist from malnutrition and opium withdrawal.  Her fate was unknown to the outside world at the time.

As the Chinese Imperial household was polygamist, her husband remained married in spite of her death, of which he was unaware.  Two of his prior spouses had divorced, but he remained married at the time to Li Yuqin, who was also a prisoner and would divorce the former emperor, Puyi (溥儀) in 1957, although she commenced visiting him in 1955.  Puyi would remarry in 1962.

Last edition:

Sunday, June 16, 1946. Night of the Bridges.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, British League of Nations Mandates, Hagenah, Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine, Palestine, Transportation

"Homicide is justifiable when committed by the husband upon one taken in the act of adultery with the wife, provided that the killing takes place before the parties to the act have separated. "

Homicide is justifiable when committed by the husband upon one taken in the act of adultery with the wife, provided that the killing takes place before the parties to the act have separated. Such circumstance cannot justify a homicide where it appears that there has been, on the part of the husband, any connivance or assent to the adulterous connection.

Law of the State of Texas prior to 1973.

Frankly, whatever the law is anywhere now, if I were on a jury, I'd consider not convicting under these circumstances.  Of course, that's exactly why I'd never be on such a jury.  I probably would, but I wouldn't be keen on it.

Indeed, you have to take an oath that you'll uphold the law, and killing somebody is flat out wrong, but I'd not like that duty.

For that matter, I'd be a poor choice for a juror when an "ex" spouse killing a "new" spouse of his former spouse, as that is adultery, as divorce itself is a civil sham.  Same story there.  I guess I'd uphold my obligations as a juror, if I survived voir dire, which I probably wouldn't.

In some ways, the weeneyness of the current law is a shame.

Maybe the dilution of the current law is the real shame.  The old law, including the "heart balm" laws, were regarded as harsh.  They weren't harsh, they were realistic.  The decline in realism in this area since May 9, 1960, has not bee a good thing in every conceivable way.

The Heritage Was Always the Hate. A 1963 letter on Confederate letterhead shows exactly what the Sons of Confederate Veterans were fighting for—and it wasn't history.

 

The Heritage Was Always the Hate

A 1963 letter on Confederate letterhead shows exactly what the Sons of Confederate Veterans were fighting for—and it wasn't history.

Thursday, May 20, 1976. Kleptocracy.

The President of Zaire Mobutu Sese Seko endorsed kleptocracy, the practice of public officials stealing tax money for personal use, in a speech at a stadium before 70,000 people and millions of listeners, noting that he himself "personally spent on average more than 35 percent of the national budget on himself" during the 1970s and 1980s.

He warned; "If you want to steal, steal in a nice way, but if you steal too much to become rich overnight you will soon be caught."

He was eventually overthrown and died in exile at age 66.

This sort of open corruption used to be pretty much a third world thing, and I guess it still is in some ways.  Now, of course, we're seeing corruption of a different type, but rivaling, or exceeding it, in the United States, which pretty much informs the world of what we now are.

The acrylic bubble of the Montreal Biosphere, designed by Buckminster Fuller for Expo 67, was destroyed by a fire during remodeling.

It was rebuilt, but without the transparent panels, and reopened in 1990.

Baseball great Ramón Hernández was born in Venezuela.

Last edition:

Friday, May 7, 1976. Jacelyne Khoueiry at Martyrs' Square.

Labels: 1970s, 1976, 1980s, 1986, 2010s, 2012, 2014, Abortion, Catholic, Charitable organizations, Lebanese Civil War, Lebanon, Maronite Catholic, Palestinian Liberation Organization, religion, Women

 When I was young I recall my mother  commonly doing this, which would have been in the 60s and 70s.

Women Wearing Hair Scarves in the 1940s & 1950s

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 134th Edition. Paying the cost of failed Reconstruction.

Henry Mosler's painting "The Lost Cause", depicting an uneducated Southern dupe returning to his destroyed home after having fought for rich Southerners who wanted to keep human beings in barbours slavery.

Two related items:

Tennessee's Redistricting Fight and the Long Shadow of the Civil War

and this one:

The Confederacy rises again

The biggest political mistake the US has ever made was not engage in radical reconstruction after the American Civil War.  To have served in an officer, or frankly even as a volunteer, in the Confederate Army should have been regarded as fully treasonous and never forgiven. Those who did should have been tried and given heavy sentences.  Men like Robert E. Lee should never have been allowed to walk the streets as free men again.  

Slave holders, no matter how small they were, should have had to compensate their former slaves or their decedents heavily.  On the principal that the land belongs to he who works it, a means of transferring agricultural land to the former slaves should have been devised.

This is, I'd note, the second time the country has gone through this Lost Cause crap.  The cause of the Southern States during the Civil War ranks right up with that of Nazi Germany as one of the worst causes people have every fought for.  The South should have been made to hang its head in shame, as the Germans were after World War Two.  And  yet, here we go again.

If there's any good thing about any of this is that the rise of the Lost Cause yielded to the Civil Rights Era.  Americans thought they'd finally one the promise of the country, although Liberals and Progressives certainly took that claimed victory beyond what it meant and should have mean in other ways.  Everyone has been reminded of that, now that the fulfillment of the result of Reagan's Southern Strategy has been afflicted upon the nation in form of the Trump Administration.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 133d Edition. What happened to that Board of Peace?

Labels: children, Chuck Gray, Health, Jillian Balow, Lies, Music, Post Office, The Press, The Second Trump Administration, United Nations, United States and Israel v. Iran, Zeitgeist

How Does the Original Gatorade Taste?

 

Thursday, April 18, 1946. Riding clubs, Yugoslavia, minor league baseball, teen queens.

The Powell Valley Riding club was formed in Powell Wyoming.

The League of Nations dissolved and transferred its assets to the United Nations.

Jackie Robinson appeared in his first minor league game in the farm teams for Major League Baseball.  He had previously played for the Kansas City Monarchs.  His current team was the Montreal Royals.

The US recognized the government of Tito in Yugoslavia.

The International Court of Justice held its first meeting.

English actress and 1960s Disney teen queen Haley Mills was born.

She managed to transition into adult roles after her Disney era and still acts.  Probably her most famous early movie was The Parent Trap.

Last edition:

Wednesday, April 17, 1946. Syria becomes independent. Protests in Japan.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, French League of Nation Mandates, Japan, Occupation of Japan, Syria

Julia Child’s 1961 Masterpiece

 

Wednesday, March 20, 1946. Tule Lake closes but its residents struggles continue.

The final adjudication of the cases of Japanese internees who had renounced their citizenship during World War Two concluded, resulting in the closure of Tule Lake War Relocation Center.  The litigation reversed their loss of citizenship, but the Justice Department would reverse that.  It would take until the 1960s for their citizenship to be restored.

Almost all of those who had renounced their citizenship had recanted, and for that matter not all of the renunciations were genuine.

There were two air disasters in the news:

26 DIE IN C-47 CRASH; AB-29 FALLS WITH 7; Army Plane Explodes in Sierras, Lost 'Superfort' Is Found South of San Francisco

Last edition:

Saturday, March 16, 1946. Route 66. George Mikan turns pro.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, 1940s, 1946, 1960s, 1970s, basketball, Cartoons, Highways, J.R. Williams, Music, Personalities, Post War United States (and Canada), Swing Music, television, Transportation

Railhead: The Nightcrawler. The train from Denver, Colorado, to Billings, Montana.

Railhead: The Nightcrawler. The train from Denver, Colorado...:   I had no idea that this is what this train was called.  Thanks go out to MKTH for letting me know! I've been looking into local passen...

The Nightcrawler. The train from Denver, Colorado, to Billings, Montana.

 

I had no idea that this is what this train was called.  Thanks go out to MKTH for letting me know!

I've been looking into local passenger train travel as part of my efforts with a novel.  What I found is that I knew very little about it.  Probably more than your average bear, but that's about it.  I'd long assumed that a person could board a train in Casper in 1916 and take the train to Douglas or Cheyenne, and then return that evening, but the more I looked into it, that was just an assumption.

I'm not the one who figured out how it really worked. That goes to MKTH.  the result is fascinating.

It turns out I was right sort of. The Burlington Northern ran a train from Denver Colorado, to Billings Montana, and vice versa, daily.  This article takes a look at it.

What I imagined, for novel purposes, was boarding in Casper, and traveling to Douglas.  I may, as I work at it, make it Cheyenne.

Union Station, Denver Colorado

Union Station, Denver Colorado

Union Station as viewed from in front of Denver's Oxford Hotel.

 

 

Anyhow, this is a really interesting article and give a really good look at what traveling on the Denver to Billings night train was like, complete with stops for food, which is something I hadn't considered.  It also picked up mail, and my source indicates, cream, something I also hadn't figured, but that may explain why the creamery my family owned was just one block from the Burlington Northern.  In fact it probably does.

Jersey Creamery Inc.

The trip took 19 hours.  It take 8 hours today by car, assuming good weather conditions, and not figuring in stops for food, etc.  The train moved about 34 miles an hour.

We'll look at the return trip first.  The train having come up from Cheyenne boarded there at 12:49 in the morning.  Uff.

It got to Casper at 6:20 in the morning, having made a couple of stops along the way.

Burlington Northern Depot, Casper Wyoming

What I imagined?  

Not really.  And I also had no idea that there was a major cafe right off the railroad.  This article deals with the early 1960s, but I can see that some variant of it was there decades prior.  That makes piles of sense, really.  Of course there would be.  How else would people eat if they were making the long journey?  

It simply hadn't occurred to me.

In my imaginary trip., that'd be it.  If I stuck with the Douglas variant of this, my protagonist would be boarding the train in the early, early morning hours and get in a couple of fitful hours of sleep, probably interrupted by a stop in little Glenrock.  Indeed, this train stopped everywhere to pick up mail, and a few passengers.

What about the other way around?

Well that was a day trip, but as we can see, the 19 hours the train traveled in total meat that it took a good 6.5 hours to travel just from Cheyenne to Casper.  Going the other way would mean the same thing, and likely a bit in reverse.  The 6.5 hour trip from Cheyenne to Casper was the second major leg of the trip (it'd still stop in numerous small towns in between), the first being Denver to Cheyenne.  Going the other way around meant that the Cheyenne to Denver leg was about five hours.  The article notes that the train actually arrived from Billings 40 minutes before its 7:00 p.m. departure.  So it arrived, more or less, at 6:00 p.m. and changed crews.  That would have meant that it left Cheyenne, on the way to Denver, at about 1:00 p.m. or so, which makes sense.  Passengers traveling all the way to Denver would have eaten lunch there.

By extension, however, that meant that the train left Casper at about 6;00 in the morning, approximately.

These times are almost unimaginable now.  When we had good air travel to Denver I'd frequently board United Express here about 6;00 a.m. and be in Denver about 8:30, and take the train downtown and be to work by 9.  I'd be back in Casper on the redeye about 10:00, or if I was lucky, 6:00.

And when I go to Cheyenne, I drive.  Normally that takes me a little under three hours.  I haven't stayed overnight in Cheyenne for years, although I recently had an instance which should really cause me to.

Anyhow, if I'm looking at 1916, why not just drive?

Well, in 1916 most Americans, including most Wyomingites, didn't own automobiles, and those who did, didn't normally make long trips with them.  They frankly weren't that reliable, even though they were simple.  Roads also tended to be primitive, and not really maintained for weather.  Could a person have driven from Casper to Cheyenne in a Model T, the most likely car they would have had?  Yes, but it wouldn't have been any faster.  It may well have been slower, quite frankly, as well as much riskier.