Showing posts with label 2021. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2021. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 12, 2022
Friday, January 7, 2022
Saturday January 7, 1922. Orthodox Christmas (for 1921, and 2021).
On the "Old Calendar" (Julian calendar) this was December 25, so this was the date for Christmas, 1921.
This is actually considerably more complicated than it might seem, as the New Calendar is not the Gregorian Calendar used by the West and the Latin Rite of the Church, but rather the New Julian Calendar adopted in May 1923 by the Greek Orthodox Church. This caused a split over the calendar in the Orthodox Churches. The Russian Orthodox Church kept the Old Calendar, although by that time the Russian Orthodox Church was engaged in a struggle for its existence inside the Soviet Union, which was dedicated to its distinction. The civil government in Russia had adopted the Gregorian Calendar, used in the Western World, and now the whole world, on January 31, 1918.
Anyhow, in the Orthodox Churches, this was Christmas for 1921. With the largest Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church, under siege from the Communist government, and starvation rampant in Russia, it was not a happy one for the Orthodox.
The Dail approved the Anglo-Irish treaty, establishing the Irish Free State as a dominion. The vote was 64 to 57.
Dogsomyn Bodoo, Prime Minister of Mongolia, resigns after his efforts to make Mongolia into a Soviet style state meet with widespread opposition. He'd be arrested and executed the following August.
The Washington Naval Treaty agreed to ban the use of poison gas.
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This is also, I'd note, Orthodox Christmas for those Orthodox Churches that retain the Old Calendar today, and such Eastern Rite churches as may retain it.
Thursday, January 6, 2022
Wednesday, January 5, 2022
The Great Hesitation?
Evidence for the “great resignation” is thin on the ground
Job quits are not unusually high
So states The Economist.
And not just the economist.
Perhaps. . . but I think something else may be going on, which explains the caption of the entry here. Let's call it The Great Hesitation.
The recent news stories on the Great Resignation are claiming its pretty much bunk. But what was it in the first place? Well, supposedly just what the name implied. People were quitting their jobs in the post Pandemic world.
Apparently, they aren't.
That doesn't mean something isn't going on.
Some personal observations.
A couple of months ago, in late summer, I tried a case in Denver. The hotel I stayed in downtown had very little in the way of staff. We were warned about that upon checking in. It was also quite spartan downtown in general, and maybe that explains it. Maybe they just hadn't added staff back, as they weren't anywhere near at capacity. . .maybe.
Countering that, downtown restaurants were back open, and they seemed fully staffed and plenty full. Well, full, not hugely full as they often had been.
Further, however, it seems that the entire legal industry is experiencing an entry level lawyer shortage.
Not that there's a shortage of graduating folks from law school. Not hardly. There are lots of new graduates. They're just not taking law jobs. And that isn't a singular observation, it's extremely widespread.
This is also true of staffing positions for law firm. Lots of openings. . .no takers.
So what's going on?
Well, maybe not resignations, although one newly minted lawyer I'm familiar with, who was mentioned in a draft post here the other day, is on her third or fourth position in just two years. But some of those were temporary by nature (one definitely wasn't).Rather, it seems fairly obvious, people aren't going back to jobs they once held, or they're holding off entering the job market entirely.
At some point, that probably has to end, but this is some sort of big social trend. And it's been going on for a while. We may have in fact just noticed it, and in part it may be somewhat amplified right now.
So what's up?
Well, a lot of what's up is what we've noted here again and again about the nature of modern work, and people are reacting to it. And the people who are reacting, are those at the entry level, or those who have been knocked out of work. People aren't getting in, and they aren't coming back.
Those who never left, have kept on keeping on.
The other thing that is going on is, I suspect, something that's been going on for quite some time. And its a generational thing.
The World War Two and Silent Generations weren't given much option about working, but because of the war and developments in it, combined with the advance of certain types of (domestic) machinery, they entered work at a pretty advantageous time. The World War Two Generation built the modern American work culture, although they did it when they were quite young. And the Great Depression and the Second World War enormously amplified a trend that had been going on since the early 1900s, which was the migration from the country to the city. The Silent Generation went along with all of this, as it didn't really have any choice. The Baby Boomers, in spite of initially protesting everything, fully embraced it by the 1970s, theirs being the last generation to enter the workplace in which 1) you didn't need a college education in order to get a decent paying job; and 2) a bachelors degree pretty much let you write your own ticket.
Things have fallen apart since then, although the generations that entered upper middle class positions haven't noticed or have excused it away.
It turned out, and turns out, that a bunch of the things Americans were told since 1945 about work, combined with economic policies in place since that time, have created a work life that people simply just don't like. Shipping blue collar jobs overseas, amplifying the move to the big cities beyond what was already in place, and putting everyone in cubicle jobs didn't suit their tastes as it doesn't suit nature.
Additionally the inflating requirement for a college degree, combined with the forced industrialization of female labor has pushed the marginalization of young adults back to some degree.
Indeed, in the draft posts I have up here, I have this item, which I'll incorporate here as its somewhat relevant.
Some time ago we took this highly unpopular view here in our Zeitgeist series.
Children and Forced IndustrializationYou've seen them here before, and yes, here they are again. Migrant farm couples, 1938.I've come to be simply amazed by the degree to which Americans are now acclimated to the concept that the government ought to pay for things, well, related to sex in some way or another.Joe Biden's economic "relief" bill, which really addresses a topic that no longer really needs addressing, includes a big boost for pre K childcare.Why?To make my surprise, if that's what it is, more plain, what that means is that money will come from taxes (and loans) to help pay for the childcare of people so that they don't have to pay for it, directly, themselves.More bluntly, this will make it easier, which is part of what is being boosted as a reason to do it, for those with low incomes to have two working parents, as the thesis is that otherwise they'll have to make economic choices that will be difficult.First of all, while it makes me sound like a Marxist saying it, isn't it clear that what this amounts to is the forced industrial employment of women? What hte goal really is, is to make it easier for working mothers to work, which rapidly equates into forcing them to work, which is essentially what our economy had done over the past 70 years. That is, we've converted from the early industrial revolution economy of forcing men out of their homes to work from eight to twelve hours per day to one t hat now requires women to do the same. In order to do that we've subsidized all sorts of things to the benefit, essentially, of industry, and now we propose to go one step further.Indeed, the irony of this is that this is where Marxist and Capitalist come back around and meet. Early Marxists sought the dissolution of marriage and the collectivization of child care. That has been regarded s horrific, but that's exactly what industrial economies have done over the past seventy years and the Biden Administration proposes to knock it up a notch.This isn't just.It isn't just to force women to leave their children in order to work. It likewise wasn't just to do that in the case of men, but the level of subsidization evolved into force was lower in that case, although still very real.It also isn't just to tax people in order to pay for the children of others, except in dire emergency. People like me who have paid for and raised our own children are now being asked to pay for the care of children we don't remotely know, including children who are raised in circumstances which we wouldn't approve of. If, for example, we can be taxed to pay for childcare for these children, can we also justly require that they be raised with basic sets fo values, including the value of a two parent home, which quite a few won't have? No, certainly not, we won't be allowed to suggest that.I feel this way, I'd note, on a lot of programs in this area, the long lasting ones which provide examples of why going down this path is a bad idea. I've mentioned the "free and reduced" lunch and breakfast programs before, which directly transfers the duty of feeding children from parent to government. I know that it had good intentions, all of these things have unthinking good intentions. The proposals to wipe out student debt or provide free college education also have good intentions, and also are all massively subject to the law of unintended consequences. What they also are, without it really being thought out, are subsidies for industry in varying degrees.I know that the ship has sailed on many of these things, the strong evidence against doing them notwithstanding. It's almost impossible to go back, once these steps are taken. Americans may imagine themselves in some quarters as being rugged individualist, but even people who imagine themselves to be real libertarians acclimate themselves to such things pretty quickly. But it is interesting to wonder what would happen if things went the other way. I.e., if, save for K through 12 education itself, the government simply got out of this area entirely. Feed your own children, provide for you own children, no subsidies for childcare of any kind, and not even any governmental bodies that seek to enforce child support orders. Leave it up to the individual.It'd be really rough for some at first, but I suspect pretty quickly a lot of the old rules would rebound once the burdens returned to the individual. It might even do more economically than proposals to raise minimum wages would, as lots of families would be back to one breadwinner.But no, we're just going to keep in marrying the government and making it the big parent.I should note that probably right away, if anyone reads this, there will be a claim that this is radically traditionalist or something, or maybe anti feminist. Feminism, I'd note, is a term that's now so broad to pracitically not have a meanning without further refining, but in any event, none of that is intended.Indeed, I'd note that its already the case that the public sector has, in some instances, taken care of this much the same way that it took care of health insurance during the 1940s. It's a recruiting incentive. Some big firms of various kinds have in house daycares so their female employees don't have to worry about finding one and still being able to get to work.In addition to that, at least by my observation, it's also the case that workplaces have becoming much more child friendly over the years, particularly in recent years. I never observed children in working spaces when I was younger. Never. Only farms and ranches were the exception. Now I see them all the time. Its not unusual at all for female employees to bring children into the office for one reason or another, often for long hours, and for that to result in very little notice. Therefore, I really don't think that the claim "women will have to choose to go childless" is true, although that no doubt has an economic aspect to it. The poorer you are, the fewer the options. It's one thing to bring your child into a business office. It's quite another to your job at the bar or restaurant.I also don't think that this would ipso facto mean an increase in abortions. Indeed, the current legal trends are towards increasing restrictions in this area as both men and women support increasing restrictions. And social trends seem to suggest that younger people are less interested in acting like their grandparents who came of age in the 60s and 70s in this area in general.What I do think, however, is that it forces choices up front and therefore vest "moral hazard" where it ought to be vested, at the individual level. That probably reemphasizes some old values while combing them with the new economy, which should be done.It probably won't be, however.
That pretty much guaranties that this blog won't be receiving any Radial Feminist Of The Year awards.
Following that, we ran across this item on Twitter:
I don’t want to work. I want to be home with my baby and I can’t afford it. I hate that. I hate it so much.
My point would have been a different one at the time I first noted these things, but they're still relevant to this one. Lots of people who would have entered their full adult years in their late teens and then gone on to pretty stable adult lives by their mid 20s, now are in college and university for many years instead by necessity. Some are pursuing careers that they really want to be in, both men and women, but many are there by economic force or compulsion The reason that's relevant is that they've become acclimated to it, and at the same time know that jobs they've trained for that they really dont' want won't be all that much when they obtain them.
The solution?
Well, maybe they're making it now. If much of the old economy was remade in a much more local, direct, fashion, it would not be a bad thing.
Tuesday, January 4, 2022
The Aerodrome: 2021 Reflections: The Transportation Edition
The Aerodrome: 2021 Reflections: The Transportation Edition:
2021 Reflections: The Transportation Edition
We don't tend to post original commentary on this blog, but on our others, but given the topics, it's appropriate here.
And this will be a dual post, appearing on both Railhead and The Aerodrome simultaneously.
Like some, as in all, of our reflection posts that have gone up on our companion blogs, this entry is impacted by COVID 19, as everything is.
It's also heavily impacted by politics.
And of course, COVID 19 itself has become strangely political.
The onset of the terrible pandemic shut down nearly every economy in the world, save for those in areas with economies so underdeveloped that they couldn't shut down. That impacted the world's transportation networks in a major way, and it still is. COVID 19 also became a factor in the last election, with a large section of the American public becoming extremely unhappy with the Trump Administration's response to the pandemic. Added to the mix, heightened concerns over global warming have finally started to accelerate an American response to the threat.
All of which gets us to transportation, the topic of these blogs in some ways.
For at least a decade, it's been obvious that electric automobile are going to replace fossil fuel powered ones. There are, of course, deniers, but the die is cast and that's where things will go.
It's also become obvious that technology is going to take truck driver out of their seats, and put a few, albeit a very few, in automated offices elsewhere where they'll monitor remote fleets of trucks. Or at least that's the thought.
The Biden Administration, moreover, included money for railroads in is large infrastructure bill. This has developed in various ways, but the big emphasis has been on expanding Amtrak.
Amtrak Expansion. Cheyenne to Denver, and beyond!?
I have real problems, I'll admit, with the scope of the proposed infrastructure spending proposals that President Biden is looking at, but if they go forward, I really hope we do see rail service restored (and that's what it would be) between Cheyenne and Denver.The plan proposes to invest $80B in Amtrak. Yes, $80B. Most of that will go to repairs, believe it or not, as the Amtrak has never been a favorite of the Republican Party, which in its heard of hearts feels that the quasi public rail line is simply a way of preserving an obsolete mode of transportation at the Government's expense. But rail has been receiving a lot of attention recently for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that in a now carbon conscious era, it's the greenest mode of transportation taht we have, something the commercial rail lines have been emphasizing.Indeed, if the American public wasn't afraid of a nuclear power the same way that four year olds are afraid of monsters that live under their beds, it could be greener yet, and there's some talk of now supporting nuclear power among serious informed environmentalists. A campaign to push that, called the Solutionary Rail, is now active. We'll deal with that some other time.Here we're noting that we're hopeful that if this does go through, and as noted we have real reservations about this level of expenditure, that Amtrak does put in a passenger line from Cheyenne to Pueblo.A line connecting Ft. Collins to Denver has been a proposal in Colorado for quite a while and has some backing there. The same line of thought has already included Cheyenne. This has a lot to do with trying to ease the burgeoning traffic problem this area experiences due to the massive population growth in Colorado. Wyomingites, I suppose, should therefore approach this with some caution as it would tie us into the Front Range communities in a way that we might not want to be. Still, it's an interesting idea.It's one that for some reason I think will fall through, and I also suspect it'll receive no support in Wyoming. Still, it's interesting.
During the past year, locally, flights to Casper were put in jeopardy. This was a byproduct of COVID 19, as air travel dropped off to nearly nothing, nationwide, and that made short flights economically iffy.
Before the pandemic, Delta had cut back its flight schedule to Salt Lake, which is a major Delta hub. This caused its bookings to drop down anyway. I used to fly to Salt Lake in the morning, pre COVID, do business, and then fly back that evening. Once Delta cuts its flights back, however, that became impossible.
That meant that Delta, at that point, had aced itself out of the day trip business market, which it seemingly remains unaware of for some reason. COVID hurt things further. At that point it threatened to abandon its service unless it could receive some assistance. The county and the local municipalities rose to the occasion.
Delta receives a subsidty to continue serving the Natrona County International Airport
I'm really not too certain what my view on this is. Overall, I suppose it's a good thing.
Delta is one of the two carriers, relying on regional contractors, serving the Natrona County International Airport, and hence all of Central Wyoming. It flies to and from Salt Lake, while United flies to and from Denver.It used to have great connections. A businessman in Casper could take the red eye to Salt Lake and then catch the late flight back. That's no longer possible Frankly, depending upon what you're doing, it's nearly as easy to drive to Salt Lake now.
And perhaps that's cutting into their passenger list, along with COVID 19, although I'm told that flights have been full recently.
Anyhow, losing Delta would be a disaster. We'd be down to just United. Not only would that mean that there was no competition, it'd place us in a shaky position, maybe, as the overall viability of air travel starts to reduce once a carrier pulls out.
A couple of legislatures ago there was an effort to subsidize intrastate air travel, and I think it passed. While Wyomingites howl about "socialism", as we loosely and fairly inaccurately describe it, we're hugely okay with transportation being subsidized. We likely need to be, or it'll cut us off from the rest of everything more than we already are, and that has a certain domino effect.
I don't know what the overall solution to this problem is, assuming there is one, but whatever it is, subsidies appear likely to be part of it for the immediate future . . . and maybe there are some avenues open there we aren't pursuing and should be.
At the same time, infrastructure money became available for the state's airports as well.
Wyoming's Airports to receive $15.1M in Infrastructure Money
The Federal funds can be used for terminals, runways and parking lots and the like.
Of Wyoming airports, Jackson's will get the most, receiving $3.38M. Natrona County International Airport gets the second-largest amount at $1.34M. Natrona County's airport will use the funds for electrical work.
So flights were kept and improvements will be made.
Recently, pilot pay has been tripled, albeit only for one month.
United Airlines Triples Pilot Pay for January.
This due to an ongoing pilot shortage, which has been heightened by the Omicron variant of COVID 19.
I.e, United is trying to fill the pilot seats this month.
So, that's what happened.
Now, what might we hope will happen?
1. Electric Avenue
Everything always seem really difficult until its done, and then not so much.
Which doesn't discount difficulty.
The Transcontinental Railraod was created in the US through the American System, something that's been largely forgotten. Private railroads didn't leap at the chance to put in thousands of miles of rail line across uninhabited territory. No, the Federal Government caused the rail line to come about by providing thousands of acres of valuable land to two start up companies and then guarding the workers with the Army, at taxpayer expense.
We note that as, right now, railroad are already the "greenest" means of transportation in the US. They could be made more so by electrifying them, just as the Trans Siberian Railway is. At the same time, if a program to rapidly convert energy production in the US to nuclear was engaged in, the US transportation system could be made basically "green" in very little time. Probably five years or less.
If we intend to "build back better", we ought to do that.
This would, I'd note, largely shift long transportation back to its pre 1960s state. Mostly by rail. Trucking came in because the US decided, particularly during the Eisenhower Administration, to subsidize massive coast to coast highways.
For the most part, we no longer really need them.
Oh, we need highways, but with advances in technology of all sorts, we need them a lot less than we once did. And frankly, we never really needed them way that the Federal Government maintained we did. It's been a huge financial burden on the taxpayers, and its subsidized one industry over another.
Yes, this is radical, but we should do it.
Now, before a person either get too romantic, or too weepy, over this, a couple of things.
One is that we already have an 80,000 teamster shortage for trucking. I.e., yes, this plan would put a lot of drivers out of work, but its a dying occupation anyway. Indeed, in recent years its become on that is oddly increasingly filled with Eastern Europeans who seemingly take it up as its a job they can occupy with little training. The age of the old burly American double shifting teamster is long over.
And to the extent it isn't, automated trucks are about to make it that way for everyone.
The trains, we'd note, will be automated too. It's inevitable. They'll be operated like giant train sets from a central location. Something that's frankly easier, and safer, to do, than it would be for semi tractors.
2. Subsidized local air travel
It's going to take longer to electrify aircraft, particularly those that haul people, but electrification of light aircraft is already being worked on. The Air Force has, moreover, been working on alternative jet fuels.
Anyhow, if we must subsidize something in long distance transportation, that should be local air travel. Its safe, effective and vital for local economies. I don't care if that is quasi socialist. It should be done.
3. The abandoned runways.
Locally, I'd like to see some of that infrastructure money go to the extra runway or runways at the NatCo airport being repaired. I know that they were little used, but they're there.
Sunday, January 2, 2022
Saturday, January 1, 2022
2021 Holiday Reflections. Resolution Edition
Last year's edition was split into serious and not too serious editions. I'm not going to rerun the whole thing, but here are the resolutions:
A 2020 Holiday Reflection. Part 3 of 3. The Resolute Edition
Gravitas
1. 1968 didn't work out because the 1960s didn't.
2. Something old
3. Reassessing the reassessment of retiring.
4. Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood
5. Right, Left and all points in between.
6. Listen to Science.
7. Learn Some History
8. Quite listening to celebrities.
9. Don't take any political view, or news story view, from Twitter.
10. Time to reassess late education.
11. First thing we do. . . .
12. Stop slandering everyone, including public figures you don't know.
Something Less Serious, which doesn't mean I don't mean it.
1. Enough with the tattoos already.
2. Try some real clothing
3. Skip the cartoon movies
4. Quit abusing the English language.
I'm tempted not post this, this year, as frankly 2021 wasn't great year in most ways.
Externally it probably should seem to be to me. I didn't get the Coronavirus and I got all three vaccinations. I.e., I'm boosted. So far, I've avoided the Omicron variant. I've stayed very busy on top of it.
Well, perhaps a bit too much. I didn't have hardly any big game season to speak of, for more than one reason. And I'm not completely acclimated to a six-day work week that's starting to intrude into seven. I'm not 28 years old and that sort of thing can't last forever.
And, for lots of reasons, the past year has been unsettling. Anyone who hasn't found the politics of the past year unsettling hasn't been paying any attention at all. Those who have been paying attention to the science news should find that unsettling. Things need to start happening, and by that we mean getting corrected, and quick.
Maybe I need to do some of that myself.
My profession definitely does.
This past year we saw lawyers, particularly jurists, rise to the occasion and stick with the law and the truth. The numerous lawsuits that were filed challenging the election were embarrassing to the profession, but the courts were not. People got a real display of judicial correctness and excellent judicial jurisprudence, even though in many instances they never understood it. The latter was evidenced by the "the courts never heard the evidence", which is besides the point completely on a case that completely lacks legal merit.
Lawyers themselves, however, didn't always rise to the occasion as it was clear that for at least awhile you could find some to maintain these claims. Having said that, many backed out of doing so, and by and large the profession acted correctly on the challenge it was presented. Perhaps more so than any other.
Less encouraging, however, has been the ongoing corruption of the civil litigation system which had declined enormously since the mid 20th Century. Something needs to be done to grossly reduce the vast number of civil suits that are brought. It will likely take the courts to do that.
More encouraging, in a way, last year saw a wedding and an engagement of some folks we know which was encouraging due to the decency, end even traditionalism, of everyone involved.
Anyhow, with all of that in mind, we'll do this the same way we did last year, with serious and not so serious resolutions.
Gravitas
1. Stop lying.
This is going to be an "off year" election year, which means that politics are going to be in full swing.
The past year, 2021, has featured political lies at a level in American politics which have not been seen for decades, or maybe ever.
People really need to knock it off.
St. Thomas Aquinas opined in the Summae Theologiae that all lying was sinful, and sometimes seriously so.
I answer that, A mortal sin is, properly speaking, one that is contrary to charity whereby the soul lives in union with God, as stated above (II-II:24:12; II-II:35:3). Now a lie may be contrary to charity in three ways: first, in itself; secondly, in respect of the evil intended; thirdly, accidentally.
A lie may be in itself contrary to charity by reason of its false signification. For if this be about divine things, it is contrary to the charity of God, whose truth one hides or corrupts by such a lie; so that a lie of this kind is opposed not only to the virtue of charity, but also to the virtues of faith and religion: wherefore it is a most grievous and a mortal sin. If, however, the false signification be about something the knowledge of which affects a man's good, for instance if it pertain to the perfection of science or to moral conduct, a lie of this description inflicts an injury on one's neighbor, since it causes him to have a false opinion, wherefore it is contrary to charity, as regards the love of our neighbor, and consequently is a mortal sin. On the other hand, if the false opinion engendered by the lie be about some matter the knowledge of which is of no consequence, then the lie in question does no harm to one's neighbor; for instance, if a person be deceived as to some contingent particulars that do not concern him. Wherefore a lie of this kind, considered in itself, is not a mortal sin.
As regards the end in view, a lie may be contrary to charity, through being told with the purpose of injuring God, and this is always a mortal sin, for it is opposed to religion; or in order to injure one's neighbor, in his person, his possessions or his good name, and this also is a mortal sin, since it is a mortal sin to injure one's neighbor, and one sins mortally if one has merely the intention of committing a mortal sin. But if the end intended be not contrary to charity, neither will the lie, considered under this aspect, be a mortal sin, as in the case of a jocose lie, where some little pleasure is intended, or in an officious lie, where the good also of one's neighbor is intended. Accidentally a lie may be contrary to charity by reason of scandal or any other injury resulting therefrom: and thus again it will be a mortal sin, for instance if a man were not deterred through scandal from lying publicly.
Donald Trump did not win the 2020 election, and he didn't win the popular vote. . . ever. There was no conspiracy. Those who know that and maintain otherwise are lying. Those who self deceive themselves when they really know better are lying to themselves.
You can't fault everyone for believing lies. But you can fault those who tell lies.
2. Loyalty is not your Honor.
Right now there's a political advertisement running in which the theme is "Ride for the Brand".
Don't ride for the brand. Think for yourself.
Another way to summarize the "ride for the brand" thing, as currently being used in politics, is to state that Loyalty is my Honor, or in its original form Meine Ehre Heisst Treue. That was the motto of the SS.
Yeah, they were loyal, alright. That's the point.
There's something to be said for loyalty, of course. Loyalty to what's true. That doesn't mean being loyal to anyone one person but to truth and principals.
The first principal of democracy is loyalty to democracy itself. Both the 2020 vote desires and the liberal "we'll slam it through the courts" crowd are disloyal to it At least people who don't believe in the vote should, if nothing else, be honest about that.
FWIW, that "whole ride for the brand" think was never really as simple minded as people feeding it to the public as a slogan right now in the first place anyway. Most 19th Century cowhands were riding for themselves, and darned near what we'd regard today as independant contractors. They worked for whatever ranch they signed on with for part of the year, usually, unless they were a top hand that was actually hired all year long. Those guys, however, were usually taking part of their pay in cattle so they could start their own place.
Ride for the brand indeed.
3. Hold them Accountable.
It's common to say we should hold our politicians accountable, but in Wyoming we have the unique ability to do that.
Here soon people are going to be walking around the neighborhood campaigning for votes and some of them are going to tell lies, either because they believe them or because they are self deluding themselves. You can hold them accountable.
And some of these people you are going to occasionally see in places where their principals can be questioned. I don't mean to suggest bothering a politician in the grocery line at Ridleys, but if you see one standing there at Easter Mass in a few months, well . . .
4. Courtesy
Pundits have been declaring for some time that courteous discourse has been declining in American society, but over the past couple of years its declined at an epic rate.
Republicans on the far right who figure that their beliefs defined the GOP declare other Republicans "RINOS" and demand, in some instances, loyalty tests. Those of differing political views slam those who are their opposites. It's all just too much.
People quit listening when they are offended. Very few people have really evil or secret motives. Everything should be in the light, but burning the camp of the perceived enemy isn't that.
5. First Things
This year, an election year, would be a good year to be dedicated to First Things.
Every year would be.
First things probably means different things to different people, but here it'll mean this. It's time to apply the real principles that would lead to a just and sustainable society.
We've posted on them a lot, but they're summarized most of all by the Apostolic Faiths, which have no "health and wealth gospel". We've also typed in here the quotes from Edward Abbey and Aldo Leopold.
It's getting late in the day, as Cardinal Sara has reminded us. It's too late for judging where society goes based upon the local economy, your favorite lifestyle, and your own personal desires.
6. The reflection in the mirror
This past year we've seen, yet again, the cycle of a male actor behaving badly some time ago, a current accusation coming out, followed by the dogpile as it turns out that others knew it or they want to be associated with the virtuous.
Virtue is kind of an all in, or all out, sort of thing, as a rule. There are exceptions, but they usually involve a sort of spectacular late allegiance to it. We don't see those coming out of the entertainment industry.
The American entertainment industry has been a moral sewer for decades. We've posted over the past year about at least one Hollywood scandal from 1921, and we've probably posted on more than one.
Let's be blunt and honest, the entire "it was all consensual" thing, combined with that "I don't k now what I was thinking when I went to his apartment" think is no excuse. You were acting badly.
6. Bring back some standards.
This may directly relate to the item above in lots of ways, but we're now at the point where lots of basic standards have slipped so much it's a considerable problem.
We'll start with the law again. The entire spread of the UBE has been a disaster. It'd frankly be best if lawyers couldn't practice across jurisdictional boundaries at all, but if that must be allowed, make them take a state bar exam. A real one.
Maybe it's time to bring back some external standards as well, including dress standards. As somebody who frequently breaks them, that may seem like a surprising statement, but if "clothes make the man", maybe we'd be better made if this was the case.
Moral standards have really lapsed. People like to claim that this is a pendulum, but if it is, it's stuck somewhere in the 1970s and is fueled by self-delusion in all sorts of ways.
And, once again, perhaps we should quit basing standards solely on the corporate bottom line.
And, in nothing else, here's one final one:
7. Quit making things worse for everyone.
Some people are doing that. And what's more they probably know that.
A person basing everything on their own selfish demands isn't helping. If you are 100% convinced of all of your views, and completely unwilling to listen to anyone else, you probably have thinly developed opinions.
8. Succession
Finland has a PM in her 30s, and Argentina has a President now in his 30s.
Time marches on and talent vests in people irrespective of age. Some experiences go from relevancy to irrelevancy within our own lifetimes.
The time has really come for the Boomer Generation, and probably Generations Jones (which never had any power) to step into lessor roles. Death shouldn't be the only means of passing power and responsibility from one generation to another, but. . .
9. Democracy of the dead.
Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Some Less Serious
This tread used to be only on this, but this past year have been so odd that it's hard for me to really think of things in this category.
1. Take a break from manning the ramparts.
This is going to be a repeat, but enough already on the enemy at the gates in everything.
One way societies fail is in reaction and fatigue. Sooner or later, the guy carrying the placard out on the sidewalk that says "the end is near" is going to be ignored.
2. Movements fail when people get sick and tired of their adherents basically screaming in the streets. Most people live busy lives and don't have the time or energy to engage in dire angst every day. Simply living is enough.
2. Visit the enemy camp.
This year in particular, it would be really helpful if all the dyed in the world adherents of various social philosophies actually visited their opponents a bit. And by that, I mean whomever they hate the most.
And I am using the word "hate" advisedly. It seems to me that many people right now really truly hate their opposites. It needs to stop, and there's no better way to do that than to really see what's up with those people. Maybe they'll be convinced by you, or maybe you'll moderate their opinion on them. Anyway, unless a person is just flat out afraid of testing their opinions, they ought to do this.
3. Bring back Kasie Hunt
NBC really blew it when they let Kasie Hunt go.
I still think she should be made the host of Meet The Press.
4. Chris Christie and Donna Brazile for the Oval Office.
I mean this, by the way.
And I don't care who would head the ticket. I'm okay with either.
And yes, I knwo that Christie is a Republican and Brazile a Democrat. But he's not a "hunt you down and save your left wing cats" Republican but a real conservative with an open mind, while she's not in the "let's host a new Internationale" Democrat and also has an open mind.
5. Stop it with the stupid sex themed films and television shows, Hollywood
This is not only immoral, it's now boring. It's not edgy, i'ts not progressive, its just exploitative and, given the ongoing "we're shocked, shocked to learn that an actor in a drama with the word "Sex" in it ran around having illicit sex" stories come up all the time, maybe somebody ought to connect the dots.
6. Use your name
I want people to resolve to quit using made up names. Stage names should be passe and their stupid. Lenard McKelvey, you are not Charleamange and the rest of your radio moniker is blasphemous. Nobody is really named Doja Cat. If you put stallions in your made up last name, you are bordering on cultural appropriation. Let's cut it out.
Some Repeats:
1. Something old
It used to be the case, for some reason, brides were told they needed;
Something old
Something new.
Something borrowed
Something blue.
I don't know about that, but the entire society needs to try the first one, as we by and large don't know what works anymore. And by that, I mean something serious, and some things not so much.
What I more particularly mean is that everyone, and I'm serious about this, ought to look back prior to the Boomer generation and try something, and really try it, that your progenitors of that generation prior would have regarded as routine. Because this blog is directed at the faceless void, I don't know what that really means in your case.
In my own, that'd be pretty easy as my parents weren't Boomers. So for folks like me, I'd say go back one prior to that. I.e., if your parents were in the pre Boomer generation, look at least one back. If your parents are Boomers, look to the generation or generations prior to that.
And be at least partially serious.
Now, I know some people who think they've done this. Their great grandparents might avhe been immigrants from Poland, for example, so they've adopted Polish names for their newborn and they eat kielbasa on the Polish national holiday, whatever that is. And I in fact mean something sort of like taht. . . but more.
On the light side, that is what I mean. I don't care if you are a dedicated vegan. If your grandparents routinely had a hefty Sunday meal of roast beef, potatoes, and finished it off with coffee (and many people did just that), try it for a few weeks running.
Try it.
But beyond that, try something serious.
Did your grandparents always put in a garden? Put one in. Did one of them go fishing, and not in the weeny "catch and release" way, but in the "I'm eating that" way. Do it. Was one a farmer. . . think about farming if you can (which you probably can't, so put in a garden).
And beyond that.
Were your grand parents Italian immigrants and you think that you celebrate that heritage by having lasagna every now and then? You don't. Go to Mass for three months in a row. Were they Romanian? Well go to the Romanian Orthodox Church three months in a row or the Greek Orthodox or Byzantine Catholic one if you can't find one and see what that's like . . .seriously.
And are you living a life that your Italian grandmother would have regarded as an infamnia when she was 20. Well knock it and try to live like she did.
With all of this stuff, I think you'll find something. . . and something serious, real, and seriously real.
2. Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood
If you worked your entire life in Dayton, you owe the place something or at least you owe Ohio something. Don't pick up and move simply because you can when you retire your job at Amalgamated Amalgamated. If you hated Ohio, you should have left before then.
Okay, family ties, health, etc., all matter. And I don't have a problem with people moving from Craig to Ranger, or Riverton to Dubois, or Santa Fe to Taos. But we owe where we are from something and to have lived and worked in a region and then to pick up root when we retire and relocate does a double disservice. It deprives our community of what it gave us, both in resources and in knowledge, and it drops us in a place where we may very well be an economic and cultural menace.
If you retire from Giant Co in Illinois and then buy a farm in Nebraska as a hobby, some young farmer in Nebraska probably won't be able to get a start. If you wanted to be a farmer you should have tried it prior to that point. You get the picture.
And frankly, if you stick around and finally pass in your region, people remember you. And for a long time. If you pick up and move to Arizona, people forget you, and your obituary in the paper just brings a "I wonder who that was and why they're in our paper?". Don't fools yourself. You may have been a big lawyer at big law firm, but if you die some place distant, nobody is going to remember you.
3. Quite listening to celebrities.
I've posted this before so I'm going to be brief, and frankly extreme. But I mean it.
If you became famous because you are an entertainer, you forfeited your seriousness card and nobody, and I do mean nobody, should listen to you on anything other than your field. That's it.
Nobody should care one whit what any celebrity says on anything serious matter, whether it be politics or science or a social matter. Staying famous is the stock and trade of celebrities and no celebrity is ever going to say anything that impairs that. Ever. If Nazi Dogs For Injustice became a big deal tomorrow, all celebrities would suddenly be Nazi Dogs For Injustice.
4. Stop slandering everyone, including public figures you don't know.
An example from, of course, Twitter.
Well, "international best seller" author, a lot more people are aware of Sasse and respect him than will every read any of your books, none of which I've heard of, and all of which will be in the bargain bin of the library book sale within five years.
Stating something like this may pass for whit in the 21st Century, but it's awfully close to the infantile school yard taunts of the pre Internet age. It's easy to imagine Winslow running around with the old "I guess I'll go eat worms" playground chant after a thing like that, but there's a lot of that on Twitter.
5. Accept that "I feel it", "want it" or "desire it" doesn't make it anything other than an individual feeling, want or desire.
Your own particular desires of any kind don't rise to a level of a societal need that society needs to personally ratify.
They may not even be legitimate. Just because you want something, no matter how deeply you feel it, doesn't mean its disordered. Just because you want to eat all the cake, for example, doesn't give you a protected right to do so and it doesn't mean you really should, for a multiplicity of reasons. And if you do eat it all, that doesn't mean that you have to demand everyone else accept that you ate it and agree that the problems its causing you aren't real problems.
Some Personal
1. Less posting.
I posted too much this year.
That's for a variety of reasons, none of which is a good reason for posting more in 2021 than any prior year.
I like writing, obviously, but I should be working on my novel.
I'm not going to quit posting, but I do think the 1922 retrospectives will be fewer than the 1921 ones. Of course, we have 1942 going now . . .
2. Get to work on the novel
Says it all.
3. Don't forget your old friends.
When things get busy, this is too easy to do. And then sooner or later, you are just oen of those old people that everyone has forgotten about.
While this is posted in personal, this is actually a large societal problem in the modern Western world, particularly for men.
4. Getting outdoors
Speaks for itself, but often very hard to do, as getting outdoors means less time indoors. As part of that, however, it's time for me to learn to say "no".
Prior and related threads:
A 2020 Holiday Reflection. Part 3 of 3. The Resolute Edition
A 2020 Holiday Reflection. Part 1 of 2, . . . or 3, maybe. The Annus Horribilius Edition
Lex Anteinternet: New Year's Resolutions for Other People
New Year's Resolutions for Other People
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