Ostensibly exploring the practice of law before the internet. Heck, before good highways for that matter.
Thursday, October 17, 2019
Today In Wyoming's History: October 17, 1969. Creation of the Milward L. Simpson Fund
Thursday, September 5, 2019
Today In Wyoming's History: September 5, 1969. The 116th Engineer Battalion (Combat), Idaho National Guard musters out.
Sunday, August 18, 2019
Woodstock, Day 4. August 18, 1969
Oddly enough, Roy Rogers was originally thought of to play the final number, which was to be Happy Trails, but he declined.
Johnny Winter. I don't think very many remember the young Winter as performing at Woodstock, but he did, along with his brother Edgar.
Blood Sweat & Tears, who went on at 1:30 a.m.
Crosby Still, Nash & Young. I've never cared for this band in any sense, and their Woodstock performance is no exception.
Paul Butterfield Blues Band. This band had been a blues band at one time but no longer was. Still, they opened with the blues number Born Under A Bad Sign which was most famously performed by Eric Clapton, who did not play at Woodstock.
Sha Na Na. This 50s revival band went on at 7:30 a.m. It's odd to think of them even playing at Woodstock and its particularly odd if its considered that their hyped up nostalgic performance was revising music that was only a decade old. Almost nothing about their performance seems to fit the era in which they were performing. They preformed twelve songs in 30 fast minutes.
Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix was the closing act as he insisted on the position, which unfortunately put his epic performance at the point at which the crowd had very much dispersed. He played for two hours, playing nineteen songs, much longer than the few songs that are generally shown when Woodstock is recalled, and started off with his rendition of The Star Spangled Banner, one of fifty times he was recorded playing the national anthem. A lot of his songs were played back to back with no interruption between them whatsoever. His last song, Hey Joe, was played as an encore.
Hendrix had sought this position as it was the position of honor in a performance, the best band gong last. He may well have deserved that honor in spite of the diminished crowd. His rendition of
The Star Spangled Banner ended one of the newscasts nightly news that day, as I can recall watching it and asking my father what the event was. The performance was genuinely epic, which is all the more amazing as Hendrix had been at Woodstock the entire time up until his performance and had not slept at all.
Saturday, August 17, 2019
Woodstock, day three
Joe Cocker, whose With A Little Help From My Friends cover, is one of the best remembered numbers from the concert. He went on at 2:00 p.m.
Country Joe and the Fish, who uniquely played twice during the concert. Their first performance was not scheduled.
Ten Years After. Ten Years After was one of the most notable of the British blues bands and some regard its performance at Woodstock as the best performance of the concert.
The Band
Friday, August 16, 2019
Woodstock, day two.
On this day the music opened at 12:15, and the following acts played:
Quill
Country Joe and the Fish, whose performance is well known for the Vietnam Rag.
Santana, whose performance was one of the best and whose drummer, 20 year old Michael Shrieve, was the youngest musician to preform by some accounts.
John Sebastian, who was not on the bill but actually in attendance but who was asked to play to make up for dead space by the promoters.
Keef Hartley Band
The Incredible String Band, who had refused to play due to the rain the prior day.
Canned Heat
Mountain
The Grateful Dead
Creedance Clearwater Revival CCR later wrote Who Stopped the Rain concerning the concert.
Janis Joplin
Sly and the Family Stone, who also had one of the best performances of the event.
The Who
Jefferson Airplane, who concluded at 9:40.
Thursday, August 15, 2019
Woodstock. August 15 through 18, 1969
It may very well also mark the high point in Rock and Roll music. At this point in time, Rock and Roll still very much showed its blues roots and the music, while not as serious as a rule as the blues, reached its high point in being serious music. Outlandish clothing had already come in, but after this point Rock and Roll would start to be highly gimmicky, something it has never recovered from. Within a few years it would no longer be as serious, or be taken as seriously, as it was at this point.
Tuesday, July 30, 2019
Label Appendix to Growing Up In the 1960s
The reason is that the labels would otherwise exceed the allowable limit.
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
July 24, 1969. Apollo 11 voyagers return to earth.
Standards and non standards.
Jennifer Lopez Turns 50. Her scandalous love life exposed.
How odd.
I don't know, nor do I care, if Lopez has a "scandalous" love life, I'm just amazed that any press anywhere acknowledges that such a thing as a "scandalous love life" exists.
Yesterday some pop tart was celebrated for revealing that she's a "pan sexual". There's no such thing as a "pan sexual", and frankly, as we've otherwise noted here recently a couple of times, the various terms that are used in this area to describe behavior are probably generally wrong. That's another topic, but in an era when the standard of morality is set by television and varies, but not much, between such slop as Friends, The Big Bang Theory or Two Broke Girls, how could Lopez actually be scandalous?
I guess I'd have to read it to find out, but unless she's hanging out with Putin, Kim Jong-un and procuring for that Epstein dude, it'd be hard to figure out how any current entertainment reporter could find a scandal, let alone recognize one, that was high enough to meet the current bar.
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Speaking of 1969. . .
That's right. The band formed in 1969.
Saturday, July 20, 2019
July 20, 1969. The first moon landing.
I've just posted another item on the 1960s that has a much less celebratory tone to it. This achievement, and it was indeed that, really stands out as the best of the 1960s.
The 1960s, by which we really mean the 1960s after 1964 and extending to about 1973, were a traumatic era full of turmoil around the world. The years 1968 and 1969 were particularly that way. So this 1969 event stood out, even at the time, as an example of what human beings could achieve if they wanted to.
It still stands for that.
I'm old enough to have a personal recollection of this event. I was six years old at the time. My recollection has come to be that mother turned the television on at home, something that was almost never done during the day prior to my father coming home from work, save for her daily viewing of Days Of Our Lives, so that we could watch it on our black and white Zenith television.
But that recollection is off. The first moon landing occurred at 10:56 p.m, which would have been very late at night where I lived. We must have watched it on the television that next morning.
And so we did.
It was amazing even then. And as a small kid at that time, we all were fascinated by the moon landing. But then so were adults. It was a big deal, and we knew it was. Some of us had astronaut toys at the time. For awhile, I had a pennant that a friend of my mothers brought back as a gift from the Houston NASA facility. It was an achievement that stood apart.
Indeed, it still does as a first. There's been nothing like it since. It was frequently compared, at that time, to Columbus making contact with the New World, something that didn't draw people into debates about colonialism or the like at the time. It was an enormous achievement and it had the feel of an enormous achievement for mankind.
Which it was.
Of course, it was one that we'd been headed towards for some time, which is worth remembering. Endeavors just don't happen, they have to be worked on. That rocket technology might take us to the Moon, and beyond, was obvious as soon as they became something serious in the early Twentieth Century. Rocket technology really received a boost, however, due to World War Two, as explored in this blog entry here:
The Moon Landings—The World War II Connection
And after the war, the weapons capacity of rocketry kept development going, as is well known.
But none of that had to lead to space exploration. Mankind simply decided that it would.
And it perhaps there's a lesson for us here. This took place in the Cold War, with the Cold War constantly in the background. That a greater goal would be developed in that background surely means the big problems of today, especially that present scientific and technological challenges, can be handled now.
Saturday, June 29, 2019
Today In Wyoming's History: June 29, 1969. The End of the Experience.
Friday, June 28, 2019
June 28, 1969 is the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. This entry isn't about that . . .
Which takes us back to one of our own earlier threads, where we got things right. . . .
Which is why Stonewall became a marking point in this social evolution.
That would also mean that almost all of the recent, and we take a long view of recent here, developments in society, save for the decriminalization of various things which should never have been criminal in nature in the first place, are based on a faulty understanding of things influenced by a science that turns out to be pseudo scientific. And if that's the case, basing societal institutions and norms on them, or more particularly changing societal institutions and norms of very long standing, and even simply basing societal and demographic labels based on them, is likely to be an error as well.
And that's something that hardly anyone has bothered to contemplate.
**She's also been wildly off on statistical data before and what the current controversy might demonstrate is that in the age of the Internet you can no longer get away with that.
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
3.6 %. The lowest U.S. Unemployment Rate since 1969.
That rate is not only stunningly low, it's disturbingly low.
Traditionally economist have regarded 7% as "full employment". If we keep in mind that at any one time there's a certain percentage of the available workforce that's idled by choice, that makes sense. That's not throwing stones at anyone, its just that some folks choose not to work. That's different from being unemployed.
Now, some will tell you that some of those people have given up looking for work, but anyway you look at it, the current unemployment rate is bizarrely low.
3.6% is so low, it's actually problematic, or it could be.
Usually when unemployment reaches this sort of unemployment rate, bad things begin to happen. For one thing, it's usually a sign of a "super heated" economy, and very soon prices and wages begin to rise and inflation sets in.
Indeed, that is what happened the last time the rate was this low. That was in 1969 and the reason it was that low is that the Vietnam War was at its height. We had 500,000 men in Vietnam, a huge military deployment elsewhere around the globe, and a massive amount of military and social expenditure going on. At first, the government actually welcomed inflation, as it reduced the value of the loans it had to pay back to afford all of that, but by the early 1970s it was totally out of control. It took Ronald Reagan coming into office and intentionally throwing the country into a severe recession to fix the economy, and we've lived with that fixed economy since then.
This could wreck it.
Indeed, if we look at other historical low unemployment rates its disturbing. 3.2% was the unemployment rate in 1929. . . and we know what happened to that super heated economy. During World War Two the unemployment rate was below 2%, but that was due to our being in the largest war of the 20th Century and the government was forced to put in wage controls to handle the resulting labor shortage. It wasn't even possible to leave some critical defense work if you occupied such a job. The Korean War dropped the unemployment rate down that low once again.
The oddity now is that there's no wars going on. . . or at least nothing like the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and so far inflation hasn't really gotten ramped up. Indeed, while its debated, some claim that the American middle class remains in wage stagnation, although there's pretty good evidence that's not true. So, so far, so good.
But also, this can't keep going in this direction.
Assuming that it's not a statistical glitch, and that it doesn't straighten itself out on its own rapidly, this will be inflationary at some point absent external forces.
Of course, those external forces may be at work right now. It could be automation that's keeping inflation from getting rolling. As labor shortages develop, some of those shortages might be getting filled by machines, which might in turn keep the inflationary drive of wage hikes from occurring. That would be good in the short term but when this trend reverses, and it will, it won't be. The robots will keep their jobs. . . or just be unplugged until they're needed again.
An external force that would seem to be available would be job exportation, always a hot topic. That may still be going on as well, in the form of globalization. If it is, what's surprising here is that there' hasn't been an effort to translate that into a similar economic regime south of the Rio Grande.
Or maybe it is. Mexico's unemployment rate right now is 3.2%, even lower than the American one. That's up from a nearly incredible 2.9% the prior year. The Canadian unemployment rate, in comparison, is a more normal but still really good 5.8%. Anyhow, the combined Mexican and American rates go a long ways towards explaining why Central Americans are hitting the road and going north. Would that the Central American governments were more stable, perhaps this would translate into a rise for them as well.
Interesting economic times at any rate.
Particularly as current American politics have gotten so odd that a really low unemployment rate doesn't seem to translate into the normal political conversation. From national politics, you'd think we were in a fairly severe recession, but we're not.
Monday, December 31, 2018
What? No scenes of wild December 31, 1918 New Years Celebrations. And none for 1968 either. And New Year's Eve 2018-2019.
Of course, if you were a German, except perhaps, ironically, if you were in the Occupied Zone, this was a pretty bad New Years, and not just because your army had been defeated in a four year long war that killed huge numbers of your countrymen. The country was in revolution and falling apart, at war with itself and facing a rebellion in Posen. It was bad. Your trip to Mass, if you were in southern Germany or western Germany, was probably pretty somber.
Which it also would have been in you were anywhere in what became Poland or any of the Baltic States, all of which were aflame. And while this was New Years in Russia, probably few observed it both because the peasantry, which most Russians were, were still on the Old Calendar for observances but also because a massive civil war was raging in the country.
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!
Chorus.-For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
And surely ye'll be your pint stowp!
And surely I'll be mine!
And we'll tak a cup o'kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.
We twa hae run about the braes,
And pou'd the gowans fine;
But we've wander'd mony a weary fit,
Sin' auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.
We twa hae paidl'd in the burn,
Frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
Sin' auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.
And there's a hand, my trusty fere!
And gie's a hand o' thine!
And we'll tak a right gude-willie waught,
For auld lang syne.
Wednesday, October 10, 2018
The United States Unemployment Rate fell to 3.7% in September.
It's below full employment. That is, statistically, it's so low its way lower than statistical full employment, which is usually regarded as 7%.
In 1969 1/3d of all Americans were employed in manufacturing. And there was a large scale draft on due to the Vietnam War and the Cold War. The economy was radically different. Fewer, far fewer, women were employed, far more Americans worked in manufacturing jobs that gave them a good middle class income.
You can argue this a number of ways. To some extent, undoubtedly, the economy of 1969 was better than the one now, even if you subtract out the impact of conscription. A family was much more able to get by on one income than it is now, so overall spending power has declined.
Still, down to 3.7%? No matter what you think of whose in charge and why this is going on, that's really impressive.
Monday, July 9, 2018
July 9, 1968. North Vietnam raises its flag above Khe Sanh.
The entire affair became symbolic for many for the state of the Vietnam War. The US had occupied an interior position, much like the French had at Dien Bien Phu, and then held it against what turned out to be a giant feint in order not to suffer the same humiliating defeat that the French had earlier. In the meantime, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong launched the Tet Offensive and the combined impact of everything made the NVA and VC look to be a much more potent force than they really were. Having said that, the NVA assault on the Marine Corps base at Khe Sanh was an impressive feat involving moving a large number of men, including artillery, through the jungle without being detected.
The siege commenced on January 21, 1968 and ran all through the Tet Offensive and into the Spring with President Johnson ordering that the base not be allowed to fall after the base was quickly surrounded. Air support to the surrounded base was massive. Ground fighting on the neighboring hills was sometimes intensive.
In March of that year Operation Pegasus was commenced, over Marine Corps objection, to relieve the base, which the Marines asserted was not in need of relief. By mid April the 1st Cavalry Division had reopened the highway and declared the base no longer surrounded. On April 15 the Marines followed on the Army's Operation Pegasus with Operation Scotland II to clear the area around Khe Sanh. That operation continued into February 1969, but in the meantime the Marines withdrew from Khe Sanh in July, 1968.
Operation Charlie, the withdrawal from the base at Khe Sanh was commenced on June 19, 1968 and was conducted at night. Hill 689, near Khe Sanh, was occupied for a few days after Khe Sanh itself was evacuated. On this day, the NVA occupied Khe Sanh. While the military declared the ongoing occupation of Khe Sanh pointless in the conditions that followed Tet, the Press was not kind to the US military after the occupation was learned of. Less well known is that the Khe Sanh plateau continued to be patrolled by the Marines, lending credence to the changed American view on the importance of the base, if not the overall American assessment of the strategic situation in 1967 and 1968.
Khe Sanh was actually reoccupied in 1971, a fact that's rarely noted, by the ARVN and the US in Operation Dewey Canyon II and subsequently used for a jumping off point for the ARVN in the 1971 Operation Lam Son 719 offensive. That latter offensive turned disastrous for the ARVN in Laos and the base was abandoned for good on April 6, 1971.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Sunday, September 26, 1909. Willie Boy, William Mike and Carlotta Mike.
A Chemehuevi Indian known as "Willie Boy" shot and killed his girlfriend's father and uncle, William Mike, then fled with her, Carlotta Mike, into the desert. Pursued for eleven days, he killed himself on October 7.
Carlota was his cousin, and all the figures in the actual story were Chemehuevi Indians. Willie Boy was 28 years old, Carlotta 16.
The story was novelized in the early Indian Movement era in hte 1969 film Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here with Robert Redford, Katherine Ross and Robert Blake Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here with Robert Redford, Katherine Ross and Robert Blake, based on the Harry Lawton novel of 1960.
The actual story has remained largely silent due to tribal taboos on speaking of the dead.
Last edition: