Congress rejected a bill by Kansas Senator Bob Dole to allow states to raise the speed limit above 55.
American and Canadian Mohawk's began the occupation of the abandoned Moss Lake Girl Scouts camp near Old Forge, New York.
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Ostensibly exploring the practice of law before the internet. Heck, before good highways for that matter.
Congress rejected a bill by Kansas Senator Bob Dole to allow states to raise the speed limit above 55.
American and Canadian Mohawk's began the occupation of the abandoned Moss Lake Girl Scouts camp near Old Forge, New York.
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Italians voted to retain the newly granted right to obtain a divorce, dating from 1970, in Italy's first public referendum. The vote was 59% in favor of retention of the law.
Ick.
So he starts to plot to kill his wife, and it goes on from there.
I don't think I'll bother to catch it.
Mastroianni is an interesting character, as his own marriage failed due to his infidelities, but he and his wife remained married throughout his life. Asked once about it, he was horrified when it was suggested he should divorce, noting that he was Catholic and Catholics do not divorce.
Daniela Rocca, who played the devoted wife in the film, actually was rendered mentally unstable during it, and attempted to commit suicide. Stefania Sandrelli, who played the 16-year-old love interest, and ultimately unfaithful second wife, was actually only 14 years old when she played the part.
Leyla Qasim, became the first woman to be executed by Saddam Hussein's regime. She was one of five Kurds charged with attempting to hijack and airplane and plotting to kill the Iraqi leader.
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J. Edgar Hoover was named acting director of the Bureau of Investigation, which later became the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He'd occupy the position of the agency's head until May 2, 1972, the latter being the date of his death.
Hoover was foundational for the FBI, as might be suspected. As an individual personality he was peculiar and notably never married, and lived with his mother into his 40s and was extremely close to assistant director Clyde Tolson, who inherited his estate, all of which has given rise to speculation about his sexuality but nothing has been proven one way or another about it.
Personally, I suspect that Hoover was the source of information used by Joe McCarthy on Communists in the US government, something that the Truman Administration early on had attempted to keep the lid on, but I've never seen that speculated upon elsewhere.
It was a Saturday.
The committee had 21 Democrats on it and 17 Republicans, back when there were real Republicans.
A 6.5 magnitude earthquake killed 30 people near Tokyo.
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Patty Hearst as a member of the SLA made the covers of Time and Newsweek.
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An Aeroflot Il-18 crashed within site of the Leningrad airport, killing all 109 passengers. The Soviet press didn't report on the event, in spite of the hysteria which understandably broke out at the airport.
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The Portuguese Junta de Salvação Nacional announced that it would govern Portugal until further notice, but that it would restore democracy and, further, it would pursue a policy to end Portuguese rule of Mozambique, Angola and its other colonies. It was in fact the Portuguese corporatist state's efforts to retain its colonies by force which had led to its junior military officers becoming disaffected, leading to the coup, and a return to democracy, through the Movimento das Forças Armadas.
The junta also released most political prisoners in the country.
I should have noted the coup in yesterday's entries, but I failed to.
Angola and Mozambique would of course slip into civil war.
The West German Bundestag narrowly passed a law allowing abortion in the first trimester, but it was soon suspended by the German supreme court and then found to be unconstitutional. Contrary to what Americans commonly think, abortion was much more restricted in Europe than in the US up until recently, and proposals here to return to the bizarre Roe v. Wade standard would return the US to a far more bloody condition than exists in Europe.
The Ethiopian government arrested members of the government and military that were associated in some fashion with the February 25 coup.
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The Symbionese Liberation Army committed an armed robbery on the Hibernia bank in San Francisco. "Tania", aka Patty Hearst, was, a member of the group, carrying a cut down Iver Johnson M1 Carbine "Enforcer".
A coup overthrew the government of Niger. Aissa Diori, the First Lady of Niger, was killed in the event.
Ivor Bell, leader of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, escaped from the Maze Prison in Belfast. In the facility for only seven weeks, he posed as another prisoner who was getting a furlough to attend a wedding. He was captured thirteen days later.
Bell was a hardliner was expelled from the IRA in 1984. He remains alive today, suffering from dementia.
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Earlier this week Robert Maher Jr., age 14, was murdered by Dominique Antonio Richard Harris, born in 2008, and Jarreth Joseflee Sabastian Plunkett, born in 2009. The killing seems to have been planned for several days prior to the assault in the Eastridge Mall that lead to Maher's death. Plunkett did the actual killing, with Harris slamming Maher to the ground beforehand.
The technical origin of the fight was that Maher had called Plunkett and Harris "freaks" during Spring Break (something that didn't exist when I was in school) and that enraged the two of them. He called them that has they went into a porta potty at a local park together, which is odd, but insulting them wasn't very smart. This raises the specter of the Matthew Shepherd killing, which had elements which never really seemed to be accurately reported. More likely, however, in the exaggerated juvenile maleness of the rootless and (I'll bet) fatherless mid teenage boy, that was an implied insult that had to be addressed.
Maher never seems to have gotten in a single punch in the assault. The two assailants, who had stolen their weapons along with Red Bulls and candy that day, acted in such a fashion that, whether Harris intended it or not, gave Plunkett the opportunity to viciously knife him.
There's no reason here, we'd note, to use the classic "alleged" assault language. The two teenage boys killed the third. They're going to be tried as adults. They ought o be put away, forever.
But what else does this event tell us?
Casper's a rough town.
One thing that I saw soon after the murder was a comment by somebody on Facebook noting how they have moved from New Mexico, where their son had been knifed in a fight, to Casper under the belief that this was a quite safe town.
In another context, we've already spoken about immigrants into the state being delusional about it, and this is one such instance. Casper has never been a nice town.
Casper was founded in 1887, and it was violent from day one to some degree. It was, however, originally a rial stop in cattle company, although it always had its eye on oil. It was the jumping off spot for the invaders in the Johnson County War, which at least gives it a bit of a footnote in that violent event. Casper's first murder occured on Saturday, September 20, 1890, when bartender John Conway shot and killed unarmed A. J. Tidwell, an FL Cattle Company cowboy in Lou Polk's dance house, following a round of fisticuffs. The blood has been flowing ever since.
Casper really took a turn towards the wild side of life starting in World War One. 1917, as we've addressed here before, is when the Great War Oil boom really took off, and with it came a lot of men and a lot of vice. One of the things that created was Casper's infamous Sandbar district, in which prostitution was carried out openly and prohibition flaunted. Repeated efforts to close it down utterly failed, until finally a 1970s vintage urban renewal project (yikes, the government taking a hand!") destroyed it.
With the booze and the prostitutes came murders (and no doubt disease) but it went on and on. By and large, however, as odd as it may seem, people just acclimated themselves to it. You got used to a town having a red-light district, and as there were some legitimate businesses in it, you'd go into it for legitimate reasons. As a boy, we walked into the Sandbar in the early 70s to go to the War Surplus Store, which nobody seemed to think was a big deal. The America and Rialto movie theaters were just yards from the district, and the district's bars lapped up out of it into downtown Casper, with some of them being places were to walk around, rather than past, if at all possible.
Casper had quasi ethnic gangs when I was young, and at least in the schools that I attended, that was a factor of attending them. You were careful about it. It was impossible to get through junior high and high school without having been in a fight. Most fights were hand to hand, but a teacher was knifed when I was in junior high breaking up a knife fight, so not all of them were. In high school we all carried pocket knives and none of us were supposed to. They were for protection. While I was in high school, one of our classmates, who had been held back more than once, was killed outside a bar in a shooting, the result of a fight he provoked, which resulted in an ethnic riot at the school in which shots were fired. The father of one of our classmates was killed by our classmate after he turned his molesting attention on her sister, having molested her for years. Neither of these crimes resulted in prosecution.
The point is, for those who are shocked by the arrival of violence in Casper. . .well, it's been here since 1890.
The abandoned males
I keep waiting to hear the circumstances of the murderers' family lives and have not read any yet. I'm sure it'll come out as the story advances. While It's dangerous to speculate, there are reasons to suspect a few things, one being the killers likely had no fathers in the picture. We're going to hear at some point that they were raised by their mothers, or in irregular homes. I could of course be wrong, but I'll bet not.
Fatherless males are a major societal problem. Fatherless males that are raised in an environment of sexual license are an even bigger problem. Indeed, they're often fatherless for that reason in the first place, and they'll go on to spawn further fatherless children, who grow up in poverty and with little societal direction. A minority will find that structure in the Old Law, the law before the law, which reaches back to tribalism in the extreme. It's in the DNA.
The Old Law demanded death for transgressors too, something modern society has moved away from in large measure. I've already heard it suggested that Harris and Plunkett should receive death, but due to their ages, I think that not very likely. It'd be ill-advised, no matter what. But tribalism spawns more tribalism. The real personalities are lost of both the assailants and the victims.
The tornado Super Outbreak of 1974 concluded
What I really wanted to note, but the story above is more important, is that Hank Aaron tied the career record of Babe Ruth on this day in a game in which his Braves played the Reds.
Jordanian women were granted the right to vote. Parliament was also suspended at the time, so it wasn't as impactful immediately as it might sound.
The ban against the Ulster Volunteer Force, in effect since 1966, was lifted. The loyalist militia had been formed the prior year, 1965.
While the UVF's motto is "For God and Ulster", and it was supposed to disband, since the 1994 ceasefire it reportedly has been involved in rioting, drug dealing, organized crime, loan-sharking and prostitution. Some members have reportedly been involved in racist attacks.
I guess this all goes to show that even on days when there's an exciting event, a lot of cruddy things are occurring.
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Eight members of the Ohio National Guard were indicted by a Federal Grand Jury for violation of civil rights due to the shooting of thirteen students at Ken State in 1970. Five of the charges were felonies.
The Chinese Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang was discovered. The massive statuary army was built to protect the Emperor, who was interred around 210 BC to 209 BC in the afterlife.
Speed limits on British highways, which had been reduced due to the Oil Embargo, were restored.
The Volkswagen Golf was introduced as the replacement for the Beetle.
Related threads:
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He fell in October, 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front.
He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.
The last two paragraphs of All Quiet On The Western Front.
I've never reviewed All Quiet on the Western Front, even though I'd long ago seen the prior two versions. I just saw the newest, German made, production of the book, which in Germany was released under the novel's German title, Im Westen nichts Neues, which literally translates as "in the West nothing new".*
All Quiet On The Western Front has a reputation as being the greatest anti-war novel ever written. I'm sorry to say that I haven't actually read it, which I'll have to do. Indeed, the recent German made version of the novel sort of compels me to do so.
The novel was first adapted to film in 1930 in an American version, which is a great film in its own right.
It was later adopted to a television in 1979, in another version that is very well regarded. In 2022 this German version was released and shown on Netflix. My original intent was to review just that version, but you really can't. You have to review all three.
The best of the three is frankly the first one, although it does suffer from being a film that, due to cinematography, and due to pacing, hasn't aged as well as it should have. It's hard not to watch the 1930 version and not, at least at first, appreciate that you are watching an old film.
Still, this version sets the story at well, and perhaps with more than a degree of unintended irony in that the film came before the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1932, and therefore the early scene of enthusiastic school boys being eager for the war were ominous, retrospectively. It's a gritty, good protrayal.
The 1979 television version is good as well, but frankly I just couldn't quite get around Richard Thomas in the role of the main protagonist, Paul Bäumer. Lew Ayres was better in that role. For that matter, Ernest Borgnine, who almost always turned in a good performance, did in the 1979 version as well, but he's just way too old for the German NCO Stanislaus Katczinsky he portrays. For that matter, Louis Robert Wolheim really was as well, at age 50, but he carries the role off better, even though he was within a year of his own death at the time.
Anyhow, Thomas was so whiny, in a way, in The Waltons that I just can't get around that in this film, which really isn't his fault. I just can't see him going from a green, naive recruit to a hardened combat veteran.
Which takes us to the new production.
This is the first German production of the film, and it shows it. The production values in the film are absolutely excellent. the material details are superb and. . . . the plot massively departs from the novel.
And for that reason, frankly, it suffers.
This film really carries the post World War Two German guilt/excuse into a World War One work that was a novel. It doesn't, therefore, really get Remarque's warning about militarism across, so much as it portrays average Germans as victims of the Great War and future victims of the Second World War. The death of Katczinsky, which is a completely pointless combat death in the novel and first two films, is a weird murder by a French child in this version.
And the ending of this movie departs massively from the novel and looses the point of it. The protagonist dies on a quiet day, like thousands of soldiers did. In the new German version he died in a massive late war German assault at the end of the war. That's completely different.
For that matter, that's a major departure from actual history and it ties in, just a tad, to the Stabbed In the Back myth. The Germans had an ongoing revolution at home and the Frontsoldaten were collapsing. You couldn't have ordered them into an attack in late 1918 no matter how hard you tried.
So, the first version is the best. I don't think I could get through the second again, and the third version is worth watching, once.
*This review was started in October, 2022.
Imperial Japanese Army Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda formally in the Philippines. He had been recently informed by his former commanding officer, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, that the war was over.
He found post-war Japan disappointing and became a cattle rancher in Brazil.
Contrary to popular belief, he was not the last Japanese soldier still holding out. At least one more, Teruo Nakamura, who was Taiwanese, was in Indonesia. He was actually a private and of native Taiwanese background, with a poor command of Japanese and Chinese. He'd be captured in December 1974. Another, Fumio Nakahara, may have been holding out in the Philippines as late as 1980, although that has never been determined.
A ceasefire between Iraq and the Kurdish Democratic Party was subject to an ultimatum, which provided that Kurdistan could be autonomous. The offer would expire without acceptance, and a renewed war resumed.
The United Kingdom tended its Oil Embargo related state of emergency.
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The iconic 1970s television show The Brady Bunch aired for the last time. It first aired in 1970.
Marcia, Marcia Marcia. . .
French Prime Minister Pierre Messmer announced his government's decision to implement the Tout-nucléaire ("Total Nuclear") plan for all electricity in France. The goal was to accomplish this by 2000. The goals were mostly met.
The US could easily do this, but it would require a scientifically educated public that wasn't easily swayed by raving BS, an overall problem that confronts the US on every level currently.
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Portuguese Prime Minister Marcello Caetano informed the Portuguese National Assembly that Portuguese Guinea, Angola and Mozambique would retain their colonial status in spite of ongoing guerilla wars. He stated that elections "would be inappropriate for the African mentality."
Ethiopian Emperor and absolute monarch Haile Selassie pledged democratic reforms in an unprecedented national address on radio and television.
Eva Mendes was born in Miami.
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Israel completed the first phase of its withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula 24 hours ahead of schedule. This gave Egypt control of both sides of the Suez Canal for the first time since 1967.
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The Fireforce vertical envelopment tactic was used by the 1st Battalion of the Rhodesian Light Infantry in the first example of its use. The tactic was developed as Rhodesian Aérospatiale Alouette III had a limited carrying capacity in comparison to the very large helicopters used by the US in similar roles.
Former Wyoming Legislator Tom Lubnau, who was truly one of the great ones in the old school Wyoming way, has taken up writing columns for The Cowboy State Daily. That's to the CSD's credit and shows its effort to become a real electronic journal, something that's impressive considering it was set up as a right wing organ. Lubnau is a conservative Wyoming Republican, but a conservative Wyoming Republican, something that's becoming increasingly rare.
Or maybe not.
He's not afraid of poking at the wolverine.
He recently wrote this interesting item:
This op ed is written from the point of view that virtually defined Wyoming Republicans for my whole adult life, up until the Obama/Trump Era, when things began to get really radical in the legislature.
His article is illuminating and I'm linking it in for several reasons.
One of those is that Lubnau give a really nice discussion of the law as it used to be, on some of the same topics that I addressed here:
It seems, now, there is a trend to sponsor legislation to invite the State of Wyoming back into the bedroom.One has to wonder if regulating bedroom conduct is the pressing issue of the day, or if there is some other motive such as creating a campaign issue for the election season, that is driving the legislation. In other words, how many people do you meet every day whose biggest concern is lack of regulation of private parts?
HOUSE BILL NO. HB0068Obscenity-impartial conformance.Sponsored by: Representative(s) Hornok, Angelos, Bear, Neiman, Ottman, Pendergraft, Penn, Rodriguez-Williams, Strock, Trujillo and Ward and Senator(s) IdeA BILLforAN ACT relating to crimes and offenses; repealing an exception to the crime of promoting obscenity regarding possessing obscene materials for specified bona fide educational purposes; and providing for an effective date.Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:Section 1. W.S. 6-4-302(c)(ii) is repealed.Section 2. This act is effective July 1, 2025.
And:
HOUSE BILL NO. HB0088
Public display of obscene material.
Sponsored by: Representative(s) Ottman, Davis, Hornok, Penn and Strock
A BILL
for
AN ACT relating to crimes and offenses; prohibiting public communication of obscene material; providing a definition; and providing for an effective date.
Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:
Section 1. W.S. 6‑4‑301(a) by creating a new paragraph (vi) and 6‑4‑302(a)(iii) are amended to read:
6‑4‑301. Definitions.
(a) As used in this article:
(vi) "Publicly communicate" means to display, post, exhibit, give away or vocalize material in such a way that the material may be readily and distinctly perceived by the public at large by normal unaided vision or hearing.
6‑4‑302. Promoting obscenity; penalties.
(a) A person commits the crime of promoting obscenity if he:
(iii) Knowingly disseminates or publicly communicates obscene material.
Section 2. This act is effective July 1, 2024.
§ 5808. Attempted miscarriage.
Whoever prescribes or administers to any pregnant woman, or to any woman whom he supposes to be preg- nant , any drug , medicine , or substance whatever, with intent thereby to procure a miscarriage of such woman ; or with like intent uses any instrument or means whatever, unless such miscarriage is necessary to preserve her life, shall if the woman miscarries or dies in consequence thereof , be imprisoned in the penitentiary not more than fourteen years .
§ 5809. Woman soliciting miscarriage . Every woman who shall so- licit of any person any medicine , drug or substance or thing whatever , and shall take the same , or shall submit to any operation or other means whatever , with intent thereby to procure a miscarriage (except when necessary for the purpose of saving the life of the mother or child), shall be fined not more than five hundred dollars and imprisoned in the county jail not more than six months ; and any person who , in any manner whatever, unlawfully aids or assists any such woman to a violation of this section , shall be liable to the same penalty.
§ 3951. Remarriage prohibited within one year .
During the period of one year from the granting of a decree of divorce , neither party thereto shall be permitted to remarry to any other person . Any person violating the provisions of this section shall be deemed guilty of a mis- demeanor , and shall be fined in any sum not less than twenty - five dollars nor more than one hundred dollars , or be imprisoned in the county jail not exceeding three months , in the discretion of the court.
§ 3924. Causes for divorce .A divorce from the bonds of matrimony may be decreed by the district court of the county where the parties , or one of them reside , on the application of the aggrieved party by petition , in either of the following.cases :First - When adultery has been committed by any husband or wife .Second - When one of the parties was physically incompetent at the time of the marriage , and the same has continued to the time of the divorce .Third - When one of the parties has been convicted of a felony and sentenced to imprisonment therefor in any prison , and no pardon granted , after a divorce for that cause, shall restore such party to his or her conjugal rights .Fourth - When either party has wilfully deserted the other for the term of one year .Fifth - When the husband or wife shall have become an habitual drunkard .Sixth - When one of the parties has been guilty of extreme cruelty to the other .Seventh - When the husband for the period of one year , has negected to provide the common necessaries of life , when such neglect is not the result of poverty, on the part of the husband, which he could not avoid by ordinary industry .Eighth - When either party shall offer such indignities to the other , as shall render his or her condition intolerable .Ninth - When the husband shall be guilty of such conduct as to constitute him a vagrant within the meaning of the law respecting vag- rancy .Tenth - When prior to the contract of marriage or the solemnization thereof, either party shall have been convicted of a felony or infamous crime in any state , territory or county without knowledge on the part of the other party of such fact at the time of such marriage . Eleventh - When the intended wife at the time of contracting mariage, or at the time of the solemnization thereof shall have been pregnant by any other man than her intended husband and without his knowledge at the time of such solemnization . [ R. S. 1887 , § 1571 ; R. S. 1899 , § 2988. ]
Evidence was required:
§ 3947. Corroborating evidence required .
No decree of divorce, and of the nullity of a marriage, shall be made solely on the declara- tions , confessions or admissions of the parties , but the court shall in all cases require other evidence in its nature corroborative of such declarations , concessions or admissions . [ R. S. 1887 , § 1597 ; R. S. 1899 , § 3011. ]
§ 3948. Proof of adultery insufficient when .
In any action brought for divorce on the ground of adultery , although the fact of adultery be established , the court may deny a divorce in the following cases:
First - When the offense shall appear to have been committed by the procurement , or with the connivance of the plaintiff .
Second - When the offense charged shall have been forgiven by the injured party and such forgiveness shall be proved by express proof , or by the voluntary cohabitation of the parties with the knowledge of the offense .
Third - When there shall have been no express forgiveness and no voluntary cohabitation of the parties but the action shall not have been brought within three years after discovery by the plaintiff of the of fense charged . [ R. S. 1887 , § 1598 ; R. S. 1899 , § 3012. ]