Sunday, November 1, 1942. Excapes

Japan's Ministry of Colonial Affairs ceased to exist, its functions going to the Ministry of Greater East Asia.

From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—November 1, 1942: US War Department designates Japanese aircraft with human names, initially with male names for fighters and female for all others.

This came about later than I'd realized.  She has a set of playing cards depicting Japanese aircraft up on her blog as well.

She also notes:

 US ceases production of liquor—warehouses contain a four-year stock.

I was completely unaware of that.  Note that this pertains to hard alcohol, not beer.

Films produced in this era routinely show casual drinking, which would at least suggest it was relatively common, and at least personal recollections I've heard suggest that very much was at the time.  The cessation of production should have had no immediate effect on prices for anything aged, which would have been most hard alcohols.

Alcohol had only become legal, once again, in 1932, and even then it was readily available, as some later depictions suggest.  Prohibition had a devastating impact on the production of Rye, which had predominated the quality American production prior to 1919 and which has never really fully recovered.

The Marines launched the Matanikau Offensive on Guadalcanal.  It would run for four days and secure Koli Point.

The Germans took Alagir in North Ossetia, in the USSR.

Four German sailors broke out of Fort Stanton, New Mexico. They'd soon be captured by a mounted posse, during which one of them was wounded.

Portugal held elections, but as it was a one party state, the victory of the National Union Party was somewhat foreordained.

Pornographer Larry Flynt, who was responsible for Hustler magazine, was born on this day.  Huslter followed in the wake of Playboy and Penthouse, and was cruder than either two, that avenue having been opened up for glossy smut due to Playboy.

It was the Solemnity of All Saints, as it is now, which is a Catholic Holy Day of Obligation.  Given as this one fell on a Sunday, there would have been no requirement for attendance at an extra Mass for Catholics on this week in 1942.

Industrial History: Coors Brewery in Golden, CO

Industrial History: Coors Brewery in Golden, CO: ( 3D Satellite ) Historic Denver posted Coors Brewery in Golden, CO. (1910) [The Banquet brand is still brewed in just Golden and is shipped...

Blog Mirror: The First Lager Brewing in India: 1928

 

The First Lager Brewing in India: 1928

Saturday, September 2, 1922. Anthracite Coal Strike Ends.

 

Country Gentleman, for its Saturday issue, ran the second part of a story that it started the week prior.

It's interesting to note, FWIW, that in depictions of rural children from this era, such as this one, they're commonly depicted sans shoes.  A lot of these illustrations, while romanticized, are fairly accurate, which would suggest that farm children, at least in some parts of the country, did typically omit footwear in the summer.   That certainly doesn't ever seem to have been the case here, however.

The Saturday Evening Post came out with a portrait by Charles A. MacClellan of an attractive, but very serious looking, woman which is apparently entitled "Back To School"

Judge went to press with certainty that at least beer was going to be exempted from Prohibition.

Judge was correct, of course.  Not only beer, but alcohol in general, would come back starting a decade later, although not all at once with a sudden repeal of Prohibition at the national level, as so often imagined.

Interestingly, this has a modern parallel in that what had been constitutionalized, a ban on alcohol, was reversed even though not everyone was in favor of that reversal, leaving the states to sort it out, which they did, but not instantly.  The Dobbs decision effectively does that with another issue.

Whether allowed or not, today, even eventually, it's not now for me, as this is colonoscopy day.  

I've been dreading it and really pondering changing course.  It's not so much the procedure itself, it's the medications they require the day and early morning of which cause . . well. . . diarrhea.  I hate being sick, and I'm not sure if it's worth it.

Having said that, according to something I read, 1 in 23 men get colorectal cancer, which sounds like a lot.  But that's 4.35%, which doesn't.  In an abstract fashion, I feel that everyone ought to get this simple diagnostic tool, but I'm hypocritical enough to be reconsidering it.

Again, it's the diarrhea medication that I'm dreading at the time I type this out.  I'd rather skip eating several days prior, which seems like it ought to do the same thing.

The United Mine Workers and the Policy Committee of the Anthracite Coal Operators came to an agreement for a year, which brought to an end the dangerous strike that had been going on for some time.

Friedrich Ebert, President of the German republic, declared the Deutschlandlied to be the national anthem, but only the third stanza of the song.  It remains the German national anthem today, having regained that position in the Budesrepublik in 1952, again starting with the third stanza.  The militant first stanza was used during the Third Reich.

Blog Mirror: Ham and High Society, 1938

 

Ham and High Society, 1938

Tuesday, August 11, 1942. Inventive Actress, Distressed Convoy, No Vino.

This is a particularly interesting day for entries on Sarah Sundin's blog.

First, she notes:

Today in World War II History—August 11, 1942: Actress Hedy Lamarr and musician George Antheil receive a patent for a frequency-hopping system to prevent interception and jamming of radio communications.

This is, I'd note, a big deal.

Sundin goes on to note that the technology did not go on to be used in World War Two, but it is in cellular phones.

Lamarr, born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, was an Austrian by birth.  Her father was Jewish and from Lviv, in what is now Ukraine, and her mother had been born Jewish and converted to Catholicism, and was from Budapest.  Her film career commenced in Czechoslovakia where she received notoriety for the film Ecstasy, which featured a plot involving a neglected young wife.  The film included brief nude scenes, which the 18-year-old Lamarr may have been genuinely tricked into through the use of high power lenses, as they clearly embarrassed her.  The film became a sort of blue hit in Europe, but was not allowed to be shown in the United States or Germany.

Ultimately married six times, she fled to Paris to escape her first husband in 1937.  He was a wealthy Austrian ammunition manufacturer whom she had married when she was 18, and before Ecstasy was released.  Highly controlling, the marriage fell apart for that reason.  Her American discovery, so to speak, came in London when she ran into Louis B. Mayer, who put her under contract.

Inventive by nature, the frequency hopping design noted above was designed to prevent the detection of torpedoes.  It was adopted ultimately by the Navy, but not until the 1960s.

Larmarr had a notable American career in film during Hollywood's Golden Age.  That career went into a steep decline in the 1950s which effectively ended it.  She began to descend into reclusiveness, with her final marriage, to her divorce lawyer, ending in 1965.  She became estranged from one of her children when he was only 12.  In her final years she was nearly a complete reclusive, but did reach out by telephone, spending up to six hours a day talking to other people in that fashion.  She was 85 when she died in 2000, and her ashes were spread in an Austrian forest according to her wishes.

Her unusual stage name became an odd comedic trope in Mel Brook's film Blazing Saddles, with one of the characters being named "Headley Lamar" and therefore needing to constantly correct the pronunciation of his name.

The stricken HMS Eagle.

Sundin also notes that the HMS Eagle went down in the Mediterranean.  The Eagle was an aircraft carrier and part of the convoy that we noted yesterday that was headed to attempt to relieve Malta's material shortages.  She took only four minutes to sink after being hit by four torpedoes fired from the U-73.

The Japanese dispatched a large naval task force from Tokyo to Truk Lagoon, where they are tasked with escorting troops and supplies to Guadalcanal.

The Soviets began desperately evacuating the port of Novorossisk on the Black Sea in advance of oncoming German forces.

Sundin also notes in her blog that the U.S. War Production Board ordered that the entire American grape wine crop for the year be diverted into raisins for the military.

This recalls actions by the U.S. Government to prohibit brewing and distilling during World War One in order to divert the use of cereals for food, rather than alcohol.

Wednesday, August 5, 1942. Vichy Guilt.

Today in World War II History—August 5, 1942: 80 Years Ago: Churchill appoints Lt. Gen. William Gott to replace Gen. Claude Auchinleck over British Eighth Army in North Africa.

So reports Sarah Sundin.

Churchill visited El Alamein. He'd flown into Cairo the day prior.

More ominously, she also notes:

Vichy France (not occupied by the Germans) sends its first group of Jews to Drancy in occupied France, where they will be sent to Auschwitz.

Antisemitism in France had a long history.  Tragically, during the war, it began to come out in events such as this. Vichy was still an independent state, and it was cooperating accordingly in one of hte most horrific crimes in history.

In France, the Japanese, yes Japanese, submarine I-30 arrived in Lorient with a load of mica and shellac, and blueprints for the highly successful Type 91 aerial torpedo.  The crew was met and greeted by Admirals Raeder and Donitz.  Ultimately, the crew visited Berlin and its commander, Commander Endo, met Hitler.

It would carry radar equipment for Japan on the way back, but it didn't make it, being sunk by a British mine on its return trip.

France, according to Sundin, also began to ration wine at the rate of two liters per person per week.  There are about five glasses of wine in a liter, according to the Internet, so that probably was a pretty significant restriction in a country in which wine still provided a significant number of daily calories.

Beyond that, however, as late as the 1950s French wine consumption was so large that the French government, concerned with the health impacts of excessive drinking, began a campaign to encourage the French to limit their consumption to one liter per day.

Yup, one liter per day.

Wine consumption has dropped way off in France. As late as the 1980s, more than half of all French adults drank at least one glass of wine daily.  That figure is now 17%, and 38% of the French don't drink.  This huge cultural shift is attributed to a wide variety of factors.

Dutch Queen Wihelmina visited the White House and addressed Congress.

Anthony Eden announced that the British would not feel bound by the 1938 Munich Agreement post-war, which seems rather obvious.

Thursday, June 15, 2022. The dropping toll of booze and the constitution of the Free State.

Ralph Day, Director of the U.S. Bureau of Prohibition, noted a 79% decrease in alcohol related deaths since the advent of Prohibition in statistics provided to the New York City Department of Health.

A draft of the constitution of the Irish Free State was made public.  Women were granted the franchise and the oath of allegiance to the king was maintained.

Some thoughts on the late teen/early adult years.

The gun control bill that passed the house proposes to raise the purchase age for firearms to 21.

Teenage soldier, i.e., me. 1982.  At that age I was plenty mature enough for this role.

The counterargument is somewhat predictable for this.  "If you can serve in the military at age 21 and carry a weapon for your country. . ."

But why can you do that at age 21?

Under the original U.S. Constitution you couldn't vote until you were 21 years of age, that being the age at which the founders deemed a man (and originally it was just men) mature enough to participate in the serious business of choosing a government.  The age was changed in the late stage of the Vietnam War, under the logic if that if you were old enough to fight for your country, you were old enough to vote and participate in the decisions that led to the fighting.  That reflected the conscription age at the time, which had reached down to 18 for most of the war, even though, as noted above, it had climbed a bit late war, and even though teenage soldiers in the Vietnam War were actually fairly rare.

All the states had militia duty requirements at the time the Constitution was enacted, as the colonies also had them prior to that and dating back to their founding. Most of these made men liable for militia service between 18 and 45 years of age.

The Federal Government didn't conscript men into military service until the Civil War, at which point it passed a bill during the war making men from age 20 to 45 years of age eligible for conscription.  The southern rebellious states passed a federal conscription provision which at first covered ages 18 to 35 and then later ages 17 to 60.  The South had a real manpower problem, it might be noted, and at the bitter end of the war, it made slaves liable for conscription, demonstrating that, because there's no reason to believe they would have made willing soldiers against their own best interest.

The draft ranges for conscription during World War was fell between age 21 and 30. The first draft range for World War Two was from 21 to 35, but as the war went on it dropped to 18 years of age and up into the 40s for the upper range.  Starting in 1948 men were eligible again for the draft at age 19.  It dropped to 18 during the Korean War and stayed there until 1969, when Nixon ordered it back up to age 19.

We lack conscription now, of course, but men between the years of 18 to 35 are liable under the Selective Service provisions to conscription and are "obligors" under the law.

Hmmmm.

Interestingly, the mid 20th Century also saw men start to graduate high school as a rule, which is also at age 18.  High school graduation rates overall, for men and women combined, rose from 6% in 1900 to 80% by 1970, near the end of the Vietnam War.  The American system of education developed such that schooling normally completed, as noted, around age 18, although some did graduate at 17 when I was a high schooler, and some at 19.  As late as the late 1930s only around half of the male population graduated from high school, but that was very rapidly changing and soon after the war most men and women graduated.

In every U.S. state you can marry, the most serious thing a person can do, and marry freely, at age 18.  While people who like to get spastic about it misconstrue it, you can marry below that with permission of your parents or authorities in most states younger than that.  18 years of age in order to contact a marriage is the global norm, interestingly, although there are some exceptions.  Honduras, for example, sets the age at 21.  Japan at 20.  The Philippines at 21.  A few nations set the minimum age for women, oddly enough, below 18, usually at 16 or 17.

The other "age of consent" is generally age 18 in the United States, although there are all sorts of other rules and factors that go into that, so it's not really safe to opine on.  What's safer to opine on is that generally in the US women become far game for male predation at age 18 and that's the age where it's generally legally safe for them to be subject to all sorts of creepy behavior.  The same is true for men, but it's women that are largely the victims in this area, although not exclusively so.

In the US, the drinking age everywhere, due to Federal pressure on the topic, is 21. When I was 19, the drinking age in Wyoming was 19, which it had been dropped to during the Vietnam War due to the same logic that prevailed regarding voting.   

As of 2019, the minimum age to buy tobacco is 21.  In most of "progressive" Canada, it's 18.  Where it isn't 18 in Canada, it's 19.

In much of the US, you can drive at age 16.  This is true in Canada and Mexico as well, but the global norm, although there's lots of variety in it, is 18.

In most of the US you have to be at least 20 to rent a car, although as a practical matter, that age is really 23.

Odd, isn't it?

Research has determined that the male brain continues to develop until age 25, which is when men basically reach maturity, whereas for women it's 21.  Some studies push that up to 25 for men and women. A British study found that men reach full emotional maturity at approximately age 43, whereas women do at 32, which is a bit of a different thing than developmental maturity.

Which brings us to this.

The founders setting the voting age at 21 reflected their actual experience.  People like to imagine that everybody did everything younger back in the day, but this isn't really the case at all.  As we've discussed here before, actual marriage ages haven't changed hardly at all since the Middle Ages.  They'll occasionally go up (usually due to economic conditions), and rarely go down, but they return to a well established median.   The current "everyone is getting married older" story really reflects the latter.

Marriage, rather obviously, was allowed at a younger age than 21, but there are biological factors at work there that would tend to explain that, at least up until the government became the substitute daddy allowing men to evade responsibility for their offspring.

The odd thing about age in the early history of the country was the age for compulsory bearing of arms was 18.  Why?  No idea.  When conscription first came about, it was set at age 21, the age you could vote, and remained that age until the Second World War, when it was dropped to 18.

Driving ages are at low ages in North America because of farm economies.  Lots of drivers were, at one time, young farm drivers.

Which brings us to this.

The current pattern of living may reflect the historic norm in the US more than we suppose.  We've dealt with it before, but up until World War Two, the basic norm for most men was to leave high school, by graduation or otherwise, and then go to work.  Most men lived at home until they married.  Most women lived at home until they married. And for most, they were 21 years of age or older at that time.  The World War Two period brought in a demographic and behavioral exception, but it was due to external forces.  Large scale conscription and a booming economy, following the Great Depression, followed by the massive expansion of the economy and higher education.  The trend that started in 1939 lasted a few decades, but we've seen a return to the older pattern of living more recently.

Which perhaps gets back to this.

The new gun control provision probably makes a lot of sense.  There are reasons to preclude people who have not reached maturity from buying firearms.

But there are probably reasons not to allow them to do other responsible things as well, including voting.

Maybe, looked at this rationally and scientifically, the military ought to not be open to enlistment until age 21.  Maybe the "age of consent", or exploitation, ought to be 21.  Maybe public education ought to expand up to age 21.

Connect Grousing

Geez, sometimes you just can't win for losing.

This year in baseball every team is revealing a "Connect" uniform which is supposed to display something about the nature of their location.  Here's the Rockies:

Already there's all sorts of bitching about it.

Well, I like it.

Maybe the discontent is explained by this:

Which MLB Fans Drink The Most?

Poster Saturday

 

 

How we were. 1973

 

Friday, January 6, 1922. De Valera makes the vote personal, The Literary Digest writes about Japan, and the Feds raid Oshkosh.

The debate had been ongoing in the Dáil over the peace treaty that had been negotiated and already now approved by the British Parliament.  Irish President Éamon de Valera had taken a hands off approach during those negotiations, but now was opposing ratification of the treaty, hoping instead for full separation with no oath.  

On this day, perhaps sensing that the debate was swinging against him, he declared that he "could not carry on until I know if I have the support of this Dáil ... I appeal to this House to re-elect me, give me a vote of confidence so that I can stand on the rock of an independent Irish republic. If you want this treaty you can elect someone else".

The Wyoming State Tribune was correct, Ireland was teetering on the brink of civil war, and over an issue that would have been incomprehensible as recently as 1914.  It frankly made no sense, except in the heated atmosphere of post World War One Irish politics.

De Valera's proclamation suggested that he'd accept the results of the vote, however, and that he'd not lead his supporters personally into a civil war.

The Wyoming State Tribune ran a full page for an advertisement about another island nation, Japan.

Or, more precisely, it ran an advertisement for The Literary Digest's upcoming issue on Japan.

Japan had been a looming issue for American foreign policy for at least a couple of decades, but by the early 1920s its modern navy, prior defeat of Russia in the Russo Japanese War, and its role as an Allied power, albeit a highly self-interested Allied power in the Great War was causing increasing concern.

Revenuers raided Oshkosh, Wisconsin:

Raid! When the Feds Hit Oshkosh in 1922

Wednesday December 31, 1941. The conclusion of a disasterous year.

It was New Year's Eve, a traditional day of celebration in the Western World, and those using the Christian calendar in general, which at this time was the whole world, save for church calendars using the "old calendar".  Often a day of revelry, this one no doubt was in spite of the war, but the war would have weirdly warped it in at least some fashion.

It's also one of resolutions, then and now.

Making any?

As earlier noted in our Today In Wyoming's History: December 31 entry:

1941   Big Piney, Pinedale, Nowood, and Star Valley became the first Wyoming Conservation Districts when their Certifications of Organization were signed by Wyoming's Secretary of State Lester Hunt.

At least when it falls on a weekday, as it did in 1941, it's also a work day, although not all private employers observe that in the same fashion.

The Japanese were working, with ongoing advances throughout the Pacific and Far East. And they were back in action in the Hawaiian islands, where  Japanese submarines shelled Kauai and Maui.

Allied leaders agreed to a Germany First policy in the war and form a combined US/UK Chiefs of Staff organization.

While looking back it was obvious that the war had turned, for those living in the time, facing constant Japanese expansion by the day, the decision to take on Germany first must have been daunting indeed.  This is how the map of Europe then looked:

This was, moreover, even worse than this might at first suggest.  Spain was still solidly aligned with Germany at the time, and had given airfield rights to German maritime patrols and port rights to German submarines, although secretly.  Sweden was in fact a neutral, but its raw materials were going to Germany.

And then there was the Japanese offensive all over the Pacific and Southeast Asia.

In Manila, residents were destroying alcohol in fear that Japanese troops would engage in a drunken rampage, news of what had occurred in Hong Kong having reached them.

Venezuela broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, Italy and Japan.

Things must have looked awful.  And indeed they were.

But the seeds of victory were already there, even though revelers this evening would have had real reason to doubt it.  Germany had not defeated the Soviet Union, which was fighting back now that winter had arrived.  The British were advancing in North Africa, which constituted a real second front even if the USSR would never admit that.  The British were also conducting raids along the Atlantic coast pretty much whatever they wanted to, demonstrating that even though the Germans commissioned a new U-boat nearly every day, they still weren't able to drive the British from the sea or even really dominate the surface of the Atlantic.  

The Japanese, for their part, were on the march, but the case still remained that they were not into a decade long war with China which they had not defeated.  No matter how much the Japanese advanced, that remained a daunting fact.  Until they could actually take China out of the war, China would consume the bulk of its ground forces and men committed anywhere else took away from that.  They were advancing, but only because their navy had never been committed against China.  It was proving highly effective against the U.S. Navy, the Royal Navy, and the Dutch Navy, but even there, it had not struck a decisive blow against any of them.

Closer to home

My family has never been big on New Year's Eve, which makes me guess that my parents families weren't either.  For Catholics, January 1 is the Catholic Holy Day of Obligation, the Solemnity of Mary, and December 31 has always had a Mass of Anticipation.  Without knowing, my guess is that this would have been the day my parents' families would have chosen to go to Mass, but I could well be wrong.  I'd definitely be wrong if my then 12-year-old father had to serve a January 1 Mass.

My parents would have still been enjoying a holiday break from school, and probably dreading the return to school the following week.

Friday December 30, 1921. Cheyenne gets gas.

Brattleboro, Vt. from Mt. Wantastiquet.

 

On this day in 1921, the Rock Springs newspaper published reports of the recent big raid in that town.

In Cheyenne, the exciting news was that natural gas, an abundant resource in the state, was coming to the city.

December 8, 1921. Opposing Irish Views.

On this day in 1921, the Irish President, Éamon de Valera, announced that he was opposed to the treaty negotiated in London, even though he'd left his delegates there virtually without instruction.  He did, however, say that he'd leave the matter to the Dail Eirann to decide.  On the same day, one of those delegates, Republican Arthur Griffith, stated that he was strongly in favor of ratifying the treaty.

The Anti Saloon League met in Washington D. C., although it seemingly would have had little to meet about.

Babe Ruth was selling Christmas Seals.

Blog Mirror: Could you do Thanksgiving like it's 1621? An Agrarian Thanksgiving

Could you do Thanksgiving like it's 1621? An Agrarian Thanksgiving

 - November 25, 2021

I wrote out a blog entry for Lex Anteinternet on what the first Thanksgiving Dinner in 1621 must have been like.

Pheasants.

It really surprised me, even though it shouldn't.  We modern Americans are so used to the "poverty of resources of our ancestors" story that, well, we believe it.  In reality, that first gathering in English North America to celebrate God's bounty and give thanks for it, no matter how imperfect the Church of England and Puritan celebrants, and the native ones as well, was a really bountiful feast.  I've joked in the past that it probably consisted of salt cod, but in fact it seems likely to have featured waterfowl, maybe turkey, deer, mussels and quite an abundance of other foods stuffs.

Unlike now, what it didn't feature was pie, probably, even though pies of all sorts were a feature of the English diet, although at this point I frankly wonder. What would have kept there from being pie would have been a lack of wheat, as that crop wouldn't have come around for at least a few years. And the lack of a grain crop meant that there wouldn't have been beer, if that's something your Thanksgiving usually features (mine does).  It's an open question if there would have been wine.  There would have been a lot of fresh vegetables, however, as well as fresh foul, venison and fresh fish.

It would have been a good meal, in some ways one we'd recognize, but also one in which we might note some things were missing.  No potatoes, for example.

This set me to wondering what a killetarian/agrarian like me might end up with if allowed to do a  Thanksgiving Dinner all of stuff I'd shot or gathered.  Could I do it?

Well, there'd be no mussels on my table, but most years there would be fare similar to what the first celebrants had.  There are wild turkeys in my region, although I failed to get one this year.  Events conspired against me and I didn't get a deer (at least yet) either.  But if I had a major dinner, and time, I think I could muster it.  It might be pheasant rather than turkey, or a wild turkey, which is really no different in taste, only in bulk, from the domestic ones.

The challenge, however, would be vegetables, depending upon how feral I'd take this endeavor.  If I went full hunter/gatherer, here I'd really be in trouble.  I frankly know next to nothing about edible wild plants.

Now, starting off, I'd note that in my region, like the rest of the globe, a vegetarian would have starved to death in a few days prior to production agriculture.  It's not only an unnatural diet, but it's impossible up until that time.  Indeed, one of the ironies of agriculture has been the introduction of unnatural diets.  When you read, for example, of the Irish poor living on potatoes and oatmeal, while that's not what their Celtic ancestors had eaten prior to 1) row crop agriculture, and 2) the English.  Shoot, potatoes aren't even native to Ireland.

Anyhow, I note that as the native peoples of the plains were more heavily meat eaters than anything else, as that's what there was to eat.  But there is some edible vegetation.

I just don't know much about it.

I guess I'd start off with that I knwo that there's a collection of native berries you can eat.  I mostly know about this as my mohter used to collect some and make wine with them, and I've had syrup and jelly made with them as well. UW publishes a short pamphlet on them, which is available here.  There are also wild leeks, which my mother and father, and at least one of my boyhood friends would recognize, which my mother inaccurately called "wild onions".

And that's about all I know about that.

Which isn't enough to make much of a meal.

Now, a person could probably research this and learn more, and I should, simply because I'd like to know.  Indeed, on the Wind River Indian Reservation there's a "food sovereignty" movement which seeks to reintroduce native foods to the residents there in order to combat health problems, which is a really interesting idea and I hope it has some success.  I hope that they also publish some things on this topic, assuming that they haven't already.

So, in short, at least based on what the present state of my knowledge is, the Thanksgiving fare would be pretty limited, vegetable wise.

Now, what about grow your own?

Well, if expanded out to include what I can grow myself, well now we're on to something else indeed. . . assuming that I can get my pump fixed, which I haven't, solely due to me.

If I were to do that, then I'm almost fully there for a traditional Thanksgiving Dinner, omitting only the bread and cranberry sauce.

And I'm not omitting the cranberry sauce.

I'm not omitting the bread, either.

Frankly, I think the modern "bread is bad for you" story is a pile of crap.  People have incorporated grains into their diet for thousands of years.  To the extent that its bad for you, it's likely because Americans don't eat bread, they eat cake.  That's what American bread is.

Of course, I think the keto diet is a pile of crap too, which I discuss on another Lex Anteinternet post.  So here, I'd have to make bread, or buy it, and I'd prefer to make it. Soda bread more particularly.

On this, I'd be inclined, if I could to have an alcoholic beverage for the table, which is another thing, albeit a dangerous one, that humans have been doing since . . . well too long to tell.  The Mayflower sojourners started off their voyage with a stock of beer. . . ironically in a ship that had once been used to haul wine, but they were out when they put in at Plymouth Rock.  By the fall of 1621 it's unlikely that they'd brewed any. as they lacked grain.  The could have vinted wine, however.  If they did, we don't know about it.

So in my hypothetical, if I stuck to local stocks, I could probably do the same.  I don't know how to do it, but I could learn.  But I'm not going to do so, as frankly my recollections of that wine aren't sufficiently warm to cause me to bother with it, and I recall it took tons of sugar, which obviously isn't something I'm going to produce myself.

I'm not going to brew beer either, although plenty of people do.  I don't have the time, or the inclination, and either I'd end up with way too much or not enough.

And this reflects the nature of agrarianism, really.  A life focused on nature with agriculture as part of that.  I don't have to make everything myself, but I have to be focused on the land, have a land ethic, and focus on what's real.

Maybe next year I'll try this.

Friday November 18, 1921. No small beers, no new ships.

The U.S. Senate passed the Willis-Campbell Act on this day in 1921 prohibiting physicians from proscribing beer as a medical remedy. They could still prescribe hard alcohol and wine.

On the same day, the British suspended new ship construction in light of progress at the Washington Naval Conference talks.   And Roscoe Arbuckle's trial was proceeding.

Arbuckle with his defense team and brother.

Marshall Foch visited New York City's statue of Joan d'Arc.

Marshal Ferdinand Jean Marie Foch with mineralogist George Frederick Kunz at a ceremony held at the Joan of Arc statue in New York City. Standing at the right, is Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington, sculptor of the Joan of Arc statue, and Jacqueline Vernot holding flowers.

The Soviet Union, which was going to have an economy based on pure ownership by the proletariat of the means of production, figured out that banks were a necessity and crated a state bank.  The Soviet economy was collapsing.

Friday October 31, 1941. Did you have a friend on the Good Reuben James?

On this day in 1941 the USS Reuben James, a destroyer, was sunk by a U-boat while escorting merchant ships.  The destroyer was not flying the US ensign at the time and therefore wouldn't have been completely easy for a U-boat to identify as a US ship.  At the time it was hit, it was dropping depth chargers on another U-boat, although ironically the U-552 was actually aiming for the merchant ship, which was carrying ammunition, at the time it was hit.

100 sailers were killed in the strike, only 44 survived. The ship sank rapidly.

The event resulted in a notable folk song by Woody Guthrie.

While tragic, the event was another example of the United States really crossing the line on what a neutral could do.  The ship wasn't flying the US ensign and it was attempting to sink a U-boat when it was instead sunk itself.  Perhaps realizing that this was of a certain type of nature, the American public didn't rush towards war as a result of the sinking, as it likely would have done in 1917.

Guthrie's song was perhaps a natural for him.  He was a communist and had been, therefore, an "anti fascist" since the Spanish Civil War days. The US entry into the war would lead him to be concerned about being conscripted into the Army, when the war came, and he actively attempted to receive an assignment through the Army to the USO, and effort which not too surprisingly failed.  He then joined the Merchant Marines, which was a role that was actually more dangerous than being a combat infantryman.  He served as a Merchant Marine from June 1943 until 1945, when his status as a communist resulted in the government requiring his discharge from that service.  In July 1945 he was conscripted into the U.S. Army.  

Guthrie's relationship with the Federal Government was an odd one.  During the Depression and even after he was commissioned to write songs for the government, and famously wrote a set of songs associated with damming the Columbia River.  He was a true musical genius of the folk genre, and while he was openly a communist or communistic,it probably only really shows strongly in one of his songs, the much misunderstood This Land Is Your Land.  He died in 1967 at age 55 of Woody Guthrie's Disease.  He was the father, of course, of musical legend Arlo Guthrie.

Final drilling took place on the monuments at Mt. Rushmore. This is regarded as the project's completion.

Mt. Rushmore, October 2011

Nazi Germany imposed a heavy "sin tax" on this date in 1941, which it claimed was to reduce consumption of unhealthful products.  The tax was on tobacco, hard liquor and champagne.

Health measure or not, by this point in the war the German economy had been overheated for a decade and things were getting worse. The Nazis did legitimately oppose tobacco consumption and were aware of its health dangers in a pioneering manner.  Hitler, who had weird dietary views, was a teetotaler but the more likely reason for the tax on hard liquor and champagne was that they needed the money and the production of both resulted in caloric diversions that could have been better invested in other agricultural products.  The Nazis did not attempt to take on beer, however.

Labor Day, September 5, 1921. The Wages Of Sin

On this day in 1921 one of the most infamous, most misreported, and one of the most still most mysterious deaths in Hollywood history occurred.  And one that features all the things that still cause Hollywood to fascinate and repel.

The death of young actress Virginia Rappe.

Even though the critical events in the death of Rappe, then age 26, occurred at a party, where lot of people were around, what really occurred leading to her untimely death remains a mystery.  From what seems to be clear, we can tell the following.

Rappe was a guest at a party hosted by Fred Fischbach, a friend of celebrated silent movie comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.  The party was partially in celebration of a hit Arbuckle movie, Crazy To Marry.  The five reel movie was a recent release and doing well, although it is now obscure and may be in the category of lost film (I'm not sure of that).  At the time, Arbuckle was making $1,000,000 a year from films, a gigantic sum not only now, for most people, but particularly then, given the respective value of a dollar compared to now.  Arbuckle, we'd note, was married, with his spouse at the time being Minta Durfee, although the couple had recently separated.  In spite of that, it should be further noted, Durfee would call Arbuckle in later years the most generous man she'd ever met, and that in spite of their 1925 divorce, if given the choice, she'd do it all again.

Minta Durfee.

Fischback rented three hotel rooms, and, in the spirit of the times, supplied them with large quantifies of bootleg booze.  Rappe was an invited guest, and arrived with  Bambina Maude.  At the party Rappe drank a lot of alcohol.  At some point in the party it seems that he and Rappe went into room 1219 of the hotel alone, and shortly thereafter some sort of commotion occurred, Arbuckle emerged and Rappe was desperately sick.  She was taken to the hospital and died four days later from a ruptured bladder and peritonitis.

One of the hotel rooms after the party.

Arbuckle was arrested and accused of rape and manslaughter, with an essential element of the accusation being that forced sex had caused Rappe's death.

Seems, at first blush, clear enough, but it gets very confused from there.

Arbuckle maintained his innocence throughout.  He was tried three times, resulting in two mistrials, and then an acquittal.  Bambina Maude was a witness in the story, filling in lurid details, but she was later revealed to be a procurer who used that role to blackmail recipients of the favors she'd arranged to supply, although there was no evidence that she was acting as a procurer at the time of the attendance at the party.  Indeed, while there are multiple stories as to what occured, one of the versions that exists is that the room that Rappe went into was the only one with a bathroom and she went into it to throw up, going through the bedroom where Maude was having sex with a movie director. In that version, which isn't the only one, Arbuckle went in the room to carry the collapsed Rappe out. ^[1]. 

The final jury apologized to Arbuckle for what he'd been through. And, indeed, it seems fairly clear that whatever occurred between Arbuckle and Rappe, it wasn't that which resulted in her death, but rather a chronic medical condition that was exacerbated by alcohol.  It's likely her drinking at the party, which killed her.

Rappe, who was at one time regarded as the "best dressed girl in films".

Even that, however, doesn't flesh the entire tragic story out.  Rappe was only 26, but by that age was already a photographic veteran, having worked as an orphan raised by her grandmother as a model since age 14.  She had some trouble holding alcohol and was inclined to strip when drunk.  She'd been the live in with Henry Lehamn only fairly recently, to whom she'd been engaged.  According to at least some sources, which may be doubted given that they are a century old, she was freer with her affections than the norms of the time would have endorsed.

What occurred between Arbuckle and Rappe is not known and never well be and now too much time has passed to sort it out.  About as much as we can tell is that it seems that Arbuckle might have made some sort of advance on Rappe and that at first Rappe might have welcomed it.  That she was desperately ill is clear.  Her illness killed her.

This, in turn, provides an interesting look at public morals and standards, then and now.  At least some of the conduct Rappe and Arbuckle were engaging in was immoral by Christian standards, and Christian standards were clearly the public standards of the day.  Be that as it may, it's clear that in his trials, the fact that Arbuckle was doing something with a drunk woman doesn't seem to have been held against him, or at least it ultimately wasn't.  Of course, maybe the jurors didnt' feel he was doing anything with her, or even aiding her, or at least some must have thought that in all three trials.  If Arbuckle was advancing on her, it most definitely would be regarded as improper today.  Having said that, it wasn't all that long ago that "get her drunk" was sort of a joke which implied that inebriation to the point of being unable to consent was consent.

Arbuckle's career would never recover from the evening.  Perhaps, in some ways, it shouldn't have.  He wasn't a killer, but what occurred was unconscionable for other reasons. .  reasons we seemingly have managed to forget, however, over the years.  Even after his acquittal he was more or less blackballed in the industry for a time, and then when that was lifted his star power was gone.  He changed his name and made a much smaller living behind the scenes before starting to stage a minor comeback in the 1930s.  He died in 1933 in a hotel room from a heart attack.  He was 46.

Arbuckle movie poster from 1932.

It's interesting to see how this event compares to contemporary ones.  We have a person in attendance at the party who associated with the rich and famous whose role seems to have been supplying female favors (Maude), much like Jeffrey Epstein and his hangers on have been accused of.  We have a Hollywood set who lived personal lives that departed greatly from public standards, something that's still the case, although less so now as standards have declined so much, and we might have some sort of sexual contact between a male Hollywood figure and a very drunk actress (or not), something that in our contemporary culture would be a career ending event irrespective of the accusations of rape.  Indeed, accusations of rape in Hollywood, not all of which are substantiated, have become very common in recent years.

In the end it was a terrible tragedy.  People thought they were going to a party  Rappe probably knew she was drinking too much.  Arbuckle surely knew he shouldn't make advances on her.  Death came like a "thief in the night", which nobody anticipated.

On the same day, elsewhere, the League of Nations convened for the second time and admitted Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Finland and Luxembourg.

Footnotes:

1  Yet another version, upon which a book was written asserts that Rappe had received  botched abortion that had nicked her bladder, and it ruptured when she tickled Arbuckle and he accidentally kneed her.  

Others criticize that assertion, which would by definition be based on a large element of speculation.  It seems based on Rappe having reported received something like five prior abortions in an era when they were all fully illegal.