Premiered on this day in 1924. It had been filmed on location. Anna Mae Wong, the famous Chinese American actress, was cast as an Inuit.
It was a bad day for police officers:
Deputy Constable J. Edward Brown:
Police Officer Francis X. "Buck" Roy
Patrol Inspector James F. Mankin
Walter "Big Train" Johnson was chosen Major League Baseball's Most Valuable Player
If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble….It is both foolish and undignified to indulge in undue self-glorification, and above all, in loose-tongued denunciation of other peoples.
Theodore Roosevelt, 1901.
August 20, 2024, 7:00 p.m.
And the primary results are in! We're off and running for the general election.
Of course, the biggest race of the year, pitting a meandering, lying, babbling Donald Trump and his National Conservative running mate J. D. Vance against a fairly committed left wing but cogent ticket made up of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz wasn't on the ballot. At one time, in Wyoming primaries, you actually did get to voice your opinion on who should run in the Republican or Democratic Party for President, but it was just that, an opinion vote. The ticket was still chosen at conventions, with the Democratic one being open, and the Republican one being closed.
I guess that was confusing or pointless, so that isn't done anymore.
By way of a full confession, I started typing this out before August 20, and I'm posting right as the polls close, so the first part are predications, but probably fairly safe ones.
John Barrasso, twice endorsed by Trump, will have handily defeated Reid Rasner, who is a genuine Trumpist. At one time it looked like Rasner had a chance, but Barrasso out Trumped him and easily won.
Barrasso will face Democrat Scott Morrow.
At least that's what I think occurred.
Harriet Hageman I'm sure won race against the Quixotic effort of Steve Helling. Hopefully Helling quits these races at this point as this is embarrassing.
Hageman will face Kyle Cameron.
cont:
Senator Barrasso's victory was a total blowout.
So was Harriet Hageman's.
Locally, Senator Anderson beat Bryce Reece, but only barely.
Given the campaign Reece ran, that's disappointing. Reece was backed by what frankly were lies.
The longest serving legislator in the U.S. currently, Sen. Charlie Scott, beat out challenger Rob Hendry handily.
Elissa Campbell took retiring House member Jerry Obermueller's seat, keeping the seat in the rational Republican category.
Julie Jarvis handily defeated incumbent far right controversial populist Jeanette Ward for her House seat. It'll be interesting to see if this trend crosses the state, and it'll also be interesting to see if Ward moves on.
For County Commissioner in Natrona County incumbent Dave North came out on top followed by new candidate Casey Coates.
For Casper City Council veteran former legislator Pat Sweeney came out on top with incumbent Amber Pollock second for Ward I, which makes for an interesting reentry into politics for Sweeney.
The Natrona County Senior District passed, but only barely.
August 21, 2024
The big new of the night is that the Freedom Caucus, while Ward went down in Casper, gained in the House overall and there will now be a populist House of Representatives, a very bad development for Wyoming.
To clarify Ward I for Casper, Pat Sweeney, Amber Pollock, Ken Dockweiler and Julie Collins-Thiel, made it through the primary.
The senior district passed by only 110 votes.
cont:
The effective head of the Democratic Party issued an immediate statement:
Am I the only one kinda floored that the GOP candidate for the United States President, is trolling social media like a disgruntled teenage boy who's girlfriend just dumped him? 🙄😬
Kamala Harris is disgraceful. We’re going to talk about a story out of those 13 brave, innocent Americans who lost their lives, it’s that Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won’t even do an investigation into what happened, and she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up. She can…she can go to hell.
Some people don't eat bacon anymore. This was caused by their horrible energy. Wind. They want wind all over the place. When it doesn't blow, we have a problem.
I do the weave. Do you know what the weave is? I’ll talk about 9 different things, and they all come back brilliantly together. And friends of mine that are like English professors say, ‘It’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen, but the fake news say, ‘He rambled.
Well, let's see. First the earth cooled. And then the dinosaurs came, but they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil. And then the Arabs came and they bought Mercedes Benzes. And Prince Charles started wearing all of Lady Di's clothes. I couldn't believe it. He took her best summer dress, put it on and went to town.
“Proposition 1: $7,300,000 and interest earned thereon to the City of Casper to reconstruct the aging, failing, and undersized Metro Animal Shelter to better provide for animal health and safety.” (The current shelter is located at 2392 Metro Road.)“Proposition 2: $5,000,000 and interest earned thereon to the City of Casper to fund a portion of the total construction costs of a second sheet of ice adjacent to the existing Casper Ice Arena.” (The arena is located at 1801 E. 4th St.)“Proposition 3: $4,200,000 and interest earned thereon to the City of Casper to install a new quad capacity chair lift to replace the aging and outdated lift and add lighting at Hogadon Ski Area.”“Proposition 4: $4,000,000 and interest earned thereon to the City of Casper to construct two fastpitch softball fields for league competition and high school use.”“Proposition 5: $4,400,000 and interest earned thereon to the City of Casper to partially fund costs associated with the replacement of the City Casper’s outdated Fire Station #1.”“Proposition 6: $5,000,000 and interest earned thereon to the City of Casper to fully replace the outdated and obsolete equipment for the 911 Dispatch Center.”“Proposition 7: $3,600,000 and interest earned thereon to the City of Casper to build a new auxiliary gym to provide much needed space for programming at the Casper Recreation Center.” (The Center is located at 1801 E. 4th St.)“Proposition 8: $1,500,000 and interested earned thereon to the City of Casper to design, reconstruct, and preserve the historic Washington Park Bandshell.”
September 5, 2024
Liz Cheney endorsed Kamala Harris for President.
September 6, 2024
Donald Trump proposed giving Elon Musk a government role as an efficiency expert.
He also proposed to cut the corporate tax rate to 15%. The corporate tax rate should be hiked, not cut.
Ugh.
I am promising low taxes, low regulations, low energy costs, low interest rates, secure borders, low, low, low crime.
Americans seem incapable of grasping the fact that they are grossly undertaxed, which is a big part of the reason the US deficit is out of control. Rates in the past have been much, much higher than they currently are, particularly on the upper income tax bracket Trump and Musk are part of.
Also, energy costs, interest rates and crime is all low when judged by almost any historical standard.
In a meeting of businessmen Trump was asked a question about health care costs and then went into tariffs.
?
Some good political news:
Gadfly candidate Rammell says he's giving up on politics and his interview with the Cowboy State Daily is his last.
cont:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney has endorsed Kamala Harris.
September 8, 2024
George and Laura Bush will not be endorsing anyone this election cycle.
In doing so, a spokesman noted that President Bush had retired from politics "years ago".
He's one month younger than Donald Trump. . .
cont:
Donald Trump has indicated that in Florida he intends to vote yes on a ballot measure to legalize marijuana.
September 10, 2024
The White Stripes have sued the Trump campaign over its use of the song Seven Nation Army.
cont:
I would have asked the states to submit alternative slates of electors and let the country have the debate about what actually matters and what kind of an election that we had,
J. D. Vance.
Absolutely shameful.
Related threads:
And:
The scientific Harriman Alaska Expedition left Seattle for the coast of Alaska.
Last prior edition:
Germany accepted the Dawes Plan.
Romania announced that it had settled its debts with Italy.
Senator Warren was reported as having voted against the Japanese Exclusion Act.
Henry (Enrico) Mancini was born. He enlisted in the Army upon turning age 18 in 1943 and interestingly served in the 28th Air Force Band before being reassigned overseas to the 1306th Engineers Brigade in France. He was the writer of many famous movie scores.
Last prior edition:
Greek voters overwhelmingly cast their ballots to abolish the monarchy and endorse the Second Hellenic Republic.
The king, however, wouldn't be gone forever. . . this time.
The round the world flight made impressive progress.
Dick Proenneke may be the ultimate modern subsistence hunter and fisherman in so far as the Western World is concerned.
Proenneke was born in Iowa in 1916. His father was sort of a jack of all trades laborer, which is and was common to rural areas. His father was also a veteran of World War One. Dick followed in his father's footsteps prior to World War Two, leaving high school before graduation, something extremely common in that era (less than 50% of males graduated from high school prior to World War Two He joined the Navy in World War Two and took up hiking around San Francisco while recovering from rheumatic fever contracted in the service. Having the disease was life altering for him, as he became focused on his health. He received a medical discharge from the Navy in 1945.
After the war he became a diesel mechanic, but his love of nature caused him to move to Oregon to work on a sheep ranch, and then to Shuyark Island, Alaska, in 1950. From 1950 to 1968 he worked for a variety of employers, including the Navy and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. He moved to the wilderness in 1968, at age 52, the year that in many ways gave us the Post Post World War Two World we are now seeing collapse. He lived there, as a single man, until 1999, when old age forced him out of the woods and to his brother's home in California. He died in there in 2003, at age 86. His cabin now belongs to the Park Service.
Proenneke loved photography and left an extensive filmed record of his life in Alaska.
There's a lot that can be gleaned from his life, some of which would probably be unwarranted, as every person's life is their own. Having noted that, however, it should be noted that Proenneke is not the only person to live in this manner in Alaska's back wood, including up to the present. So he's not fully unique, but rather his high intelligence and filmed record has made him known.
It's also notable, fwiw, that he was a single man. Basically, if looked at carefully, his retreat to the woods came in his retirement, as he had very low expenses up until 1968, and had worked for the government for many years. He never married, so he never had a family or responsibilities of that type. Many of the men who live in wild Alaska have married into native families, so their circumstances are different.
Probably every young man who loves the outdoors has contemplated doing something like what Proenneke actually did, while omitted the decades of skilled labor as a single man that came before it. And in reality, Proenneke, had lived over half his life as a working man with strong outdoor interests, rather than in the wilderness. People really aren't meant to live the way he lived, in extreme isolation, save for a few.
Related Threads:
Today In Wyoming's History: November 16: 1973 President Richard M. Nixon signed the Alaska Pipeline measure into law.
President Harding departed Sitka, Alaska, bound to a Canadian port on his Voyage of Understanding.
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Herbert Hoover was part of the Harding party. In Sitka, he stated:
We came to Alaska in the hope that by a better understanding of the problems of Alaska we might give better service from the Government to the people of Alaska; that by personal contact we would come to know you and we would come to know your vision of Alaska, your future and your ideals,” Herbert Hoover, Sitka Alaska, July 22, 1923.
The tanker SS Swiftstar exploded and sank after being hit by lightening. Only one of its 32 man crew survived.
Walter "Big Train" Johnson of the Washington Senators became the first Major League pitcher to record 3,000 career strikeouts. He'd ultimately record 3,508, a record that held until 1978.
Johnson was a great picture, and he may have had the fastest fast ball in baseball history. He died of a brain tumor in 1946 at age 59.
Bob Dole, long time Kansas Senator, war hero, and Presidential contender, was born in Russell, Kansas.
Dole was badly wounded while serving in the 10th Mountain Division during World War Two.
Harding drove in a golden spike on the Alaska Railroad at Nenana, a town near Fairbanks.
Harding was really putting in the miles, and saw a great deal of Alaska during his trip, at a point in time at which it was fairly difficult to do so.
The most dangerous major airline in the world, Aeroflot, saw its birth when its predecessor, Dobrolet, began operations with a flight from Moscow to Nizhny.
Egypt banned its citizens from making the Hajj in reaction to the King of Hejaz barring an Egyptian medical mission which was part of it. The latter was done as an assertion of sovereignty by the Kingdom, which was not long to remain.
President Harding visited Anchorage, where he and Mrs. Harding painted their names on a section house.
The Ku Klux Klan holds its first "Konvention" in Washington state.
The Paraguayan Civil War ended former President Manuel Gondra and his supporters, the Gondraists, entering the capital. It was the second Paraguayan civil war in a decade, with the leaders of opposite sides in the 1922-23 conflict having been on the same side in the 1911 conflict. A Third Paraguayan Civil War would be fought in 1947.
The Paraguayan military had been split by the conflict, with various units on either side.
The Curia Julia, the seat of the Roman Senate, was purchased by the Italian government.
Marguerite Ailibert, originally a prostitute and later a French courtesan, who had a wartime affair with Prince Edward, Prince of Wales and later king, shot and killed her husband Ali Kamel Fahmy Bey. They were vacationing in London. They'd been married six months. It was her second marriage.
Defended by Edward Marshall Hall she was found innocent of murder. She died in Paris in 1971 at age 80.
There are probably a pile of lessons in Ailibert's story, one of which is that the fame of lawyers, and Hall was famous, doesn't survive their own era as a rule. Ailibert was an attrative woman, and skilled in her craft obviously, which serves as a warning in and of itself.
President Harding visited Juneau. Based on a photo of his visit, it was rainy.
It had been rainy the day before in Natrona County, Wyoming, causing disastrous flooding.
The USS Henderson arrived at Metakatla, Alaska, and President Harding disembarked, becoming the first President to visit the then territory.
The small panhandle settlement has tripled in size since that time, to about 1500 residents, most of whom are natives.
President Harding boarded the USS Henderson for Alaska, departing from Tacoma.
The Henderson was a troop ship.
The remaining eight hostages taken by train bandits in what became known as the Linceng Outrage were freed. The payment of ransom by Shanghai mobster Du Yuesheng to Sun Meiyao of the Shandong Outlaws resulted in the final freedom of what originally had been 300 such hostages.
Du Yuesheng, who controlled the Shanghai opium trade, would become a significant supporter of Chiang Kai Shek, and has been honored with a memorial in Taiwan, where he died.
Sun Meiyao would be executed by the Chinese Army in December.
On the same day, Chinese general Feng Yuxiang issued an ultimatum to Chinese President Li Yuanhong to resign. He himself would go on to briefly lead the country, and then support the Nationalist as well, before becoming, in later years, a critic of it. While a Christian, he was comfortable with the Communist regime and was honored by it when he died in 1953.
