Monday, December 31, 1945. The end of a historical episode and the dawn of a new one, additional labels.

Going Feral: Rep. Bill Allemand arrested for drinking and driving

Going Feral: Rep. Bill Allemand arrested for drinking and driving: Rep. Bill Allemand arrested for drinking and driving : Wyoming Freedom Caucus member allegedly admitted that ‘he drinks while driving for an...

Rep. Bill Allemand arrested for drinking and driving

Rep. Bill Allemand arrested for drinking and driving: Wyoming Freedom Caucus member allegedly admitted that ‘he drinks while driving for anxiety,’ Johnson County Sheriff’s Office report says.

I suppose its an example of Schadenfreude, but Allemand is a an enemy of sportsmen and public lands, as well as being a central figure in an effort to kill a proposed industrial project north of Natrona County's Bar Nunn.

He's notably a Wyomingite, albeit one who spent most of his working life in Kansas, whose positions on things match the Freedom Caucus's, anti public lands, anti nuclear for some reason and pro whatever goofball thing the Freedom Caucus is for.  In his first run for office he was downright nasty to his opponent, and frankly the residents of his House district are not to be admired for voting for him in that election.

During the last legislature he sponsored a bill to really jack up the penalties for trespassing while hunting.  On that, it's notable that he's from a large ranching family in northern Natrona County, although he's not a rancher himself.

The drinks "for anxiety" comment suggests that he probably should be pitied, however, and that he might have some sort of a problem.  

Anyhow, if he goes, and he might have been on the way out due to his role in torpedoing the project north of Bar Nunn anyhow, it may be a good thing for public lands users and sportsmen, depending upon who replaces him.

Natrona County Rep. Allemand charged with DUI in Johnson County

Wyoming House Rep. Bill Allemand Charged With DUI, Says He Will Dispute It

Some unwanted Christmas introspection.

 

Today, of course, is Christmas Day.

Yesterday was Christmas Eve.  The occasion is one in which I've participated in the same workplace tradition now for almost four decades, a scary thought in and of itself.  I'll admit that I've grown very weary of it and have been now for quite a while.  It involves going to lunch with my coworker professional colleagues and it usually involves having drinks, a delay in ordering, more drinks, etc.

We always go to Mass on Christmas Eve.  Indeed, even as a child my family always went to Mass on Christmas Eve, although not Midnight Mass.  I've never been a night owl and I just don't want to be up that late.  That's the same reason I don't like to go to alte Easter Vigil Mass either.

I am, rather obviously, an early riser.  That's about the sole reason this blog even exists.  Almost everything on here is written very early in the morning.

Anyhow, as I was noting, I've grown really weary of the lunch.  It's clear to me that it's a big deal for some of my colleagues, but in noting that, what I further note is that the more secular they are, or the more convivial, the bigger the deal it is.  And for some it's a rememberance of those who started the tradition, in a decade that is now long past, and which is from nearly another world, the world of men at work without women as colleagues.  I'm not going into that here, although I will in the future.  I've never lived in it, and I don't imagine that world nostalgically.  My best workplace colleagues are women.

For me, with a sense that things must be on time and on target, I get really worried about things dragging on too long to get to Mass on time.  It's never happened, although for the first time yesterday it nearly did.

Things have been really odd recently, for reasons I'll not go into.  I realized right about noon that people had left, save for me and the one coworker I'm really a friend of/with/to.  I noted to her that everyone had left and perhaps we should too.

When I arrived it was rapidly clear something was gravely wrong.  The whole meal had that feeling, and at the end of it, a massive argument broke out/resumed between two individuals who had been engaged in it prior to our arrival.  Indeed, in reality, it was the culmination of an argument that had broken out in a heated fashion after the company Christmas Party (which this was not) and which, in retrospect, has been burning hot and cold now for months and months.

The whole spirit of the country is like that right now.

Around here, where it should be extremely cold right now, it's nearly summer temperature warm. That's not only weird, it's a massive warning sign.  This morning Doug Burgum is posting on "clean coal".  That's moronic and anyone with the slightest bit of sense knows that this has to stop.  Donald Trump, for his part, posted his typical stupid comments oozing anger and this:

I note this as part of what I think I witnessed was both the nation's politics and the nation's political atmosphere bleeding into daily life.  You can feel it everywhere. This must be what it was like to live in Nazi Germany in the mid 1930s.  The nation's gone insane, and a certain percentage of the nation is now angrily insane.

But it's more than that.  Part of it is, I"m sure, the inability to endure big changes and big expectations, combined with gross misunderstanding.  Part of it also is the anger that idol worshippers have when they realize their hero is human.  Maybe some of was the march of time on both parties.

Like several other things I've seen like this recently, I was so ill prepared for what I saw that my reaction time to it was just insufficient to deal with it.  It happened, nad was over, before I could do anything to stop it. And looking back, I should have stopped what I should have seen coming weeks ago. 

I've wearied and I'm not the man I used to be.  I'm too tired to put up with and endure such things. But why bring this up at Christmas? There must be some really hurt feelings today, and there must have been going into things.  For me, who has had to take up roles I never anticipated, it's a bitter failure and now a delicate matter to repair.

One thing I think I'm going to repair is the tradition.  It came out of the all male workplace past, and that day is over.  The tradition can remain in the past. The present and the passage of time overcame it.

More and more, the Mass part of Christmas, Christ's Mass, is the important part to me.  It always was really, but I managed to take the wrong road, the American Road, when I was young, even though I knew better.  The field, vette and prairie is what always appealed to me, and the book.  The courtroom not so much.  I've been dealing with the fact that its now too late to change that.

Or at least its too late to change the past.  Enduring the present and future of that, and the office, well not so much.  Sometimes the messages are clear.

"The man's done enough. Leave him alone."  Field of Dreams.

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 108th Edition. “The brave men and women of the USCG are pleased to be able to buy Trump wine and cider tax free.”

Announcement confirming that Trump wine and cider is now stocked at Coast Guard BX's.

Sigh.

Interestingly, just yesterday I heard a Catholic Answers interview of Dr. Andrew Willard Jones on his book The Church Against the State.  The interview had a fascinating discussion on sovereignty and subsidiarity, and included a discussion on systems of organizing society, including oligarchy.

Oligarchy is now where we are at.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 107th Edition. Tacky Crap, Delusion, and the Sgt. Schultz defense.

Labels: 2025 Election Post Mortem, 2025 White House Vandalization, Donald Trump, Mike Johnson, The Madness of King Donald, The Second Trump Administration, The Sgt. Schultz Defense, White House, Zeitgeist

Thursday, November 5, 1925. The Big Parade.

 

Released on this day in 1925, the film is regarded as one of the greatest films about World War One.

The picture also would be associated with a level of tragedy for its stars.  John Gilbert died in 1936 at age 38 due to alcoholism.  He managed to marry four times in his short life, and was not married at the time of his death.  His costar in the film, Renee Adoree made the transition to sound movies, but died in 1933 at age 35 of tuberculosis.  She'd married twice, but was not married at the time of her death.

Born in the Russian Empire, with his true name never definitively learned, Sidney Reilly, a British spy, was executed by the Soviets.

He had a prolific career as a spy, leading to his nickname as The Ace of Spies.  He was reported a model for James Bond.  Early in his life as an emigre he went by the last name of Rosenblum, which would suggest Jewish heritage.  In the late 19th Century he seems to have worked for Scotland Yard as a paid informant on immigrant matters.  He married widow Margaret Thomas at Holborn Registry Office in London in 1898 after her husband had died under conditions that suggested poisoning, something of note as Rosenblum was working as sort of a herbalist at the time.  She was wealthy and that, by extension, made him wealthy.  Soon after that, he began his career as a spy, spying for the British and the Japanese in the lead up to the Russo Japanese War.

While it is difficult to determine the range of his activities, it is claimed that:

• He pretended to be a Russian arms merchant to spy on Dutch weapons shipments to the Boers during the Boer War.
• He obtained intelligence on Russian military defences in Manchuria for the Kempeitai.
• He obtained Persian oil concessions for the British Admiralty in events surrounding the D'Arcy Concession.
• He infiltrated a Krupp armaments plant in prewar Germany and stole weapon plans.
• He seduced the wife of a Russian minister to glean information about German weapons shipments to Russia.
• He attempted to overthrow the Russian Bolshevik government and to rescue the imprisoned Romanov family, actions which lead to his being sentenced to death in absentia.
• He served as a courier to transport the forged Zinoviev letter into the United Kingdom.

He had been lured by into the Soviet Union by the Cheka, posing as anti Soviet agents.

It's difficult to tell the overall truth of his activities.  British intelligence is notoriously able to keep its secrets for one thing.  Reilly was good at keeping them as well, and as he worked for various entities he had a strong reason to.  Like the James Bond character that's supposedly based upon him, he had a strong affinity for women and married up to three or four times, with other alleged affairs in addition.  His last marriage was to actress Pepita Bobadilla.

Last edition:

Wednesday, November 4, 1925. Now or then?

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1925 Election, Democratic Party, History repeating itself or at least rhyming, New Jersey, New York

Tuesday, October 30, 1945. Rushing the Nationalist North.

The Sheridan Press reported that the Nationalist Army, whom they reported as "regulars", were being rushed to Mongolia to fight the Communists.

That was correct.  The U.S. was aiding in that effort through air lifting.

A local brewer that no longer exists advertised in the issue:

The common belief is that most local breweries didn't survive the Great Depression, but Sherida Brewing did.  Casper Brewing did as well.

Out Our Way for this day:

This shows how rural the country remained at the time.  Out Our Way was a nationally syndicated cartoon, but you'd have to be a hunter to really understand the cartoon.  

Finally, from that front page:

Father 31?  Son 18.

That would mean the father was 13 when the son was born. . . 

Shoot, the father was well within the conscription age himself.

Last edition:

Monday, October 29, 1945. Noting the Chinese Civil War.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, 1945 Election, Chinese Civil War, It was because of World War Two, Wyoming (Sheridan), Wyoming Municipal Governments, Yeoman's First Law of History

Friday, October 23, 1925. Stray dog, beer and Billy Mitchell.

Dog: 

Whatever It Is, I’m Against It: Today -100: October 23, 1925: Of invasions, discre...: War of the Stray Dog News: Greece invades Bulgaria, occupying posts and shelling villages (well, at least one village). Greece, claiming Bu...

Billy Mitchell's troubles hit the front page. 

Beer in Chicago did as well.

Delegates to a Congregationalist convention posed for a photograph.

Last edition:

Thursday, October 22, 1925: Follyology?

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Blog Mirror, Bulgaria, Greece, John Singer Sargent, Monarchy, pornography, Whatever It Is I'm against it

Sunday, October 4, 1925. Fawzi al-Qawuqji attacks Hama.

Fawzi al-Qawuqji lead an assault on French security installations in the city of Hama, Syria.

Fawzi al-Qawuqji had started his military career as an Ottoman officer, and then under King Faisal.  He thereafter served in the Syrian Legion for the French, before deserting in the Great Syrian Revolt.  He served the Saudis after that, and then the Palestinian Cause against the British in the 1930s.  He was wounded in the Palestinian uprising and ultimately took refuge in Germany, where he joined the German Army, ending up a prisoner of war of the Soviets.  Released in 1947, he made his way back to the Middle East and was appointed the Arab League field commander of the Arab Liberation Army (ALA) in the 1948 Palestine War.   His forces ultimately lost control of territory that was to have been Palestinian.  He retired to Syria thereafter and died in 1977.

Al-Qawuqui is one of those rare military refigures who had a track record of serving in uniformly losing causes and who not only survived them, but inexplicably continued to receive further commands.

Fawzi al-Qawuqji in May, 1948.

The Soviet Union gave up on restricting the alcohol content of beverages.

Ty Cobb, who was normally a centerfielder, pitched against the St. Louis Browns for one inning.  The Browns had George Sisler first baseman pitch for two innings against the Tigers.  Non pitchers in the pitching role would not happen again for another 92 years.

The Finnish torpedo boat S2 sank in a storm with the loss of all 53 hands.

Last edition:

Saturday, October 3, 1925. The launch of the USS Lexington.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1940s, 1942, Art, Birds, boats and ships, Food, football, Highways, Pan American Highway, Sports, Transportation, U.S. Navy

Courthouses of the West: A Broken Profession

Courthouses of the West: A Broken Profession: 

A Broken Profession

This is a follow-up to something I posted here just the other day, taking the blog away from its comfortable place of depicting courthouses, into the nature of the contemporary practice.

Courthouses of the West: Things in the air. Some observations with varying ...: This blog is supposed to be dedicated to architecture, basically, although matters pertaining to the law do show up here.  Very rarely is th...

Here, I'm doing it again.

The CLEs above were on my mind to such an extent, and indeed they still are, that I've discussed them with several other lawyers I know.  Turns out some of them are on meds for anxiety.  I would never have guessed it.

There's something about this that really disturbs me,. although I don't fault them any one of them a darned bit.  Some of them seem to love their careers and are really good at what they do.  What bothers me, however, is that we seem to have developed a profession that has to heavily rely upon chemicals just to get by.

Just going back to the earliest of human mind altering chemicals, it's reported that between 21-36% of lawyers engage in problem drinking at hazardous, harmful, or potentially alcohol-dependent levels.  That's pretty disturbing, as that's between 1/5th up to a little over 1/3d of all practicing lawyers.  Some studies suggest that 36% of Minnesota's lawyers and judges drink at a dangerous level, and if that's not disturbing enough, some studies suggest that 41% of Canadian lawyers do.  Around 10% of lawyers have a drug abuse problem, but that probably includes a lot of them who have an alcohol problem.

Not good.

There's really no way to know how many lawyers are on anti anxiety medications.  Probably a bunch.  It's obviously much, much, better that people dealing with anxiety inducing situations seek medical help than crack open a bottle of Henry McKenna and poor yourself several shots.*  It's also better than smoking a joint or whatever else people are doing in the illegal drug categories, although obviously these days marijuana is sort of in a weird still illegal but not enforced much category.**

The laws approach to all of this has been to reach out to lawyers and offer "help".  But perhaps what should be obvious, but doesn't seem to be, is the profession itself needs the help.  If this percentage of its professionals, including its best and brightest, need chemical help just to get by each day, there's something existentially wrong in the profession.  All the CLE's on mindfulness in the world aren't going to fix that.

Footnotes:

*Henry McKenna is an Irish Whiskey named after lawyer and distiller, Henry McKenna.

**Marijuana is still a scheduled illegal drug in Federal law and students imbibing in it can risk admission to their State bars.  Likewise this can be true for people seeking a career in law enforcement.

Sunday, August 16, 1925. Cuban Communists, Big Beer Haul, Dainty Ankles.

Backed with Soviet money the Cuban Communist Party was founded.  It became the Popular Socialist Party in 1939, and merged with Castro's Organizaciones Revolucionarias Integradas in 1961, the two becoming the Communist Party of Cuba in 1965.

The Herald noted a big beer haul, and that dainty ankles were passe.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 15, 1925.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Art

World War Two and US Beer.

A couple of the blogs we follow have been discussing this topic.  A summer theme?

Schlitz Beer In the South Pacific, Part I.

Schlitz Beer in the South Pacific, Part II.

Schlitz Beer in the South Pacific, Part III

BEER and the MILITARY WWII

The U.S. and beer during World War Two.

 

BEER and the MILITARY WWII

Schlitz Beer in the South Pacific 

Musings Over a Barrel: June 14: A Day Rich with “Made in America” Celebra...

Musings Over a Barrel: June 14: A Day Rich with “Made in America” Celebra...: June 14 is a day rich with truly “Made in America” celebrations. It’s Flag Day — a time to honor our Nation’s flag and everything it repres...

In addition to being the birthday of the U.S. Army, and Flag Day, it turns out today is National Bourbon Day.

I'd have a bourbon, but I had a couple of Irish whiskeys last night, so I'll abstain.

Sunday, June 7, 1925. The Death of St. Max Talbot.

Reporting Matt Talbot’s life and death, then and now

The Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial was unveiled in France on grounds where the Battle of the Somme had been fought.

Last edition:

Saturday, June 6, 1925. The Great Syrian Revolt.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Art, Automobiles, Druze, France, French League of Nation Mandates, Golf, Great Syrian Revolt, It was because of the Crusades, It was because of World War One, Lebanon, Levant, Syria, The Crusades, Transportation

Musings Over a Barrel: Five O'Clock Friday: The Most Essential Element

Musings Over a Barrel: Five O'Clock Friday: The Most Essential Element: You can't make beer, or whiskey either. So there it is. Cheers! Get  Musings Over a Barrel  via Email

Musings Over a Barrel: Bourbon Independence Day: A Toast to America’s Nat...

Musings Over a Barrel: Bourbon Independence Day: A Toast to America’s Nat...: On May 4, 1964 , Senate Concurrent Resolution 19 (S. Con. Res. 19) was passed, declaring that bourbon “is a distinctive product of the Unite...

Musings Over a Barrel: Five O'Clock Friday: Sensible Budgeting

Musings Over a Barrel: Five O'Clock Friday: Sensible Budgeting: I'll admit it. This is exactly my thought process when shopping. However, cigars and bourbon bring me way more joy than any utilitarian ...

An interesting observation, and a long boring comment by me. 

After shrinkflation comes drinkflation

 After shrinkflation comes drinkflation

 

American Whiskey Braces for Another Trump Trade War

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 80th Edition. The Tetas, Milk (but not from a cow), Coffee and Whiskey edition.

Okay, I don't know if this blog is "family friendly".  After all, it covers all sorts of topics including some that are pretty adult, if we take the word "adult" to mean what it is supposed to mean, rather than x-rated.  Normally it's fairly serious.

This Zeitgeist addition might not be.

But it is a bit off color.  So, off color warning.

As I think I posted awhile back, the Texas Rangers made a goof on this years special baseball hat edition, in which the first letter of the team's city is appears over the logo, so that the hat spelled out "TETAS", or, in Spanish "tits".

Oops.

They quickly clawed it out, but not before some quick fans ordered them. So, this year, at Texas Rangers games, some bold, probably all men (my wife actually stated to me that she wished she'd ordered one) Rangers fans will go to the game wearing "TITS" hats.

Now, I get some feeds on the first page that comes up when I log on that are food related.  This is probably as I'll look up wild game recopies.  Anyhow, yesterday, there was a story that came up on the front page of Google or Bing or whatever that somebody had introduced breast milk ice-cream.  That was so weird that I hit on the news to be confronted with an ice-cream tub depicting a cartoon lactating breast dropping milk and, yes, it's human  milk ice-cream.

That's really weird.

I'm not even quite sure how that would be legal.  Milk is normally inspected by the USDA if its sold in stores, save for "raw milk" that some people like as they apparently want to risk deadly infections.  Added to that, given that I have a somewhat agricultural mind, my immediate thought was "how do you get a sufficient number of lactating women to . . . " at which point you need to quit thinking about such t hings.  Still, being familiar with production agriculture, you need a lot of cows . . . and then again, you need to stop thinking about it.

Maybe this is what Trump meant by making America great again.  2025 in the weird Trumpverse is the year of the boob or something.

Or the year of tariffs.

On food:

Trump’s Reciprocal Trade Act spells bad news for coffee 

Coffee was already getting pretty expensive.

Trump, of course, doesn't drink coffee.

Trump is apparently a huge Diet Coke fan.  He has a real affinity for junk food, particularly Big Macs.  He apparently also likes steaks, but according to one of his cooks, extremely well done, which is an infamnia.

Scotland is apparently pretty concerned on the 10% tariff dumped on the UK as it might impact whiskey consumption.

Scotch is, in my view (I don't like Scotch) expensive anyway.  I'm more concerned about Irish whiskey, which will be hit with a 20% tariff by the Mango Mussolini's misguided economic policy.

Last edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 79th Edition. The Move along, nothing to see here addition.

Labels: Pete Hegseth, poster, Sic transit Gloria Mundi, The Second Trump Administration, War, Wars and rumors of wars, Zeitgeist