Ascendant Ignorance in the Age of Donald Trump. Ignoramus Watch Part 4. Dr. Hegseth countermands George Washington edition.

 

April 22, 2026

During the Revolutionary War, George Washington ordered his troops inoculated against Small Pox.

This week Pete Hegseth lifted the requirement that troops be inoculated for influenza for "religious" reasons.

The current GOP is heavily anti scientific.

Opposition to vaccinations has been in American history largely a thing of smaller Christian and non Christian sects which are fairly anti scientific, as opposed to the majority of Christians who have no objection to vaccination.  However, when the far right of the country started to turn weird, listening to such medical lights as boob model Jenny McCarthy, that began to change a bit. Covid really made it worse as a significant portion of the country turned anti vax under the leadership of Donald Trump, who got the vaccine, but who recommended some really lethal approaches to the crisis as well.

Troops who don't get inoculated ought to just be given dishonorable or less than honorable discharges.  That's what should have occurred to those who refused the Covid vaccine.

April 24, 2026

The war department stands ready for what comes next. Locked and loaded. May God continue to breast—bless our warriors each and every day and on each and every mission.

Hegseth. 

Breast?

Okay, I get that it's a slip of the tongue, um, well, but it's an odd one.

May 12, 2026

The Aryan Nation, the Nazis, and the KKK are not far-right organizations.  Those are far-left organizations, and they always have been. The KKK was created and started by the Democrats in the United States to prevent blacks from being able to participate in the political arena, if you will. So, I'm going to say they've never been associated with the right, they've always been associated with the left.

Harriet Hageman.

Hageman's no dummy and she knows this is crap, or has drank so much of the Kool Aide she'll spout stuff that's absurd.

Every one of these organizations is from the far right and any claim to the contrary is patently absurd.  The claim about the Nazis, which I've seen before, comes from the party's very early, and frankly pre Hitler, days  and its name, the National Socialist Party.  The absurdity of that claim fails to realize that "socialism" in the context of nationalist parties doesn't necessarily mean Marxism, but "for society".  In the case of the Nazis, way early on their did espouse Socialism but by the time they'd come to power they'd abandoned it in favor of autarky and the early socialist in the party were sidelined or expelled.

And the claim about the KKK being founded by the Democrats and therefore left wing completely ignores that originally the Republican Party was the left wing party, and the Democrats were a right wing party.  The Democrats didn't evolve into the political left until the 20th Century and in the American South remained the conservative party into the 1980s.  Hageman herself is old enough to have voted in Reagan's first run for the Oval Office and therefore should be well aware of that.

This is totally reprehensible.

Cont:

Reporter: What extent are Americans’ financial situation motivating you to make a deal?

Trump: Not even a little bit. I don't think about Americans’ financial situation.

May 13, 2026

So it turns out that Trump's advisors uniformly told him not to launch the war against Iran, but he did anyway, and the advisors, not wanting to be blamed for his stupidity, leaked.  He wants them prosecuted for treason, and sycophant Todd Blanche is looking to to it.

The real crime here is Trump's, who launched an illegal war.  With no declaration of war, every single Iranian killed in it has been the victim of some sort of crime, and every American who has died has been the victim of some sort of crime ultimately attributable to Trump as well.

Blanche is pathetic.  When this is over, and it will be, his careers should be flushed down the toilet.

And then there's this:

PabloReports: Ted Cruz called you a parasite and disparaged your work as a bartender.

AOC: I think it’s funny that he’s been taking a government paycheck for 23 years but has the audacity to criticize someone who has come from a family that had to work their way up and earn their place here.

This is really becoming a Republican specialty around here.  We get retired servicemen who come in after sucking on the government tit for 30 years, retire, and then start sucking on the other government tit, and then run for office on the "I hate the government" ticket.

In that sense, the Democrat running against Collins in Maine is really refreshing.  He's given a speech about his combat service and then noted how he can't figure out how that's relevant to being a Senator.  It isn't.  

Recently I saw somebody post something in favor of Brent Bien here in Wyoming, noting that he's served in combat or dangerous conditions all over the world, and how that will make him ready to lead.  Yeah, lead troops, not a state government. 

We have a whole host of candidates from the He Man Government Haters Club running locally.  They have a right to run, but while they're doing it, they shouldn't be draining their mommy.  It's hypcritical.

Last edition:

Ascendant Ignorance in the Age of Donald Trump. Ignoramus Watch Part 3. The Quack Edition.

Labels: Ascendant Ignorance in the Age of Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Epstein Scandal, Health, Health and Human Services, Ignorance, Medicine, Playboy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., The Oprah Effect, Yeoman's Twentieth Law of Behavior

Wars and Rumors of War, 2026. Part 6. Two things greater than all things are edition.

It's been a while since we hand an entry in this category as the rank stupidity of King Donny has put the entire Middle East at war while he simultaneously declares its not a war, it is a war, and that we've won and haven't won, while asking for help from Allies and declaring we need no help. 

That's what happens when the formerly most powerful nation in the world elects a demented narcissist octengenarian to office.

While the rest of the world watches the United States circle the drain, the following has been going on.

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom

Matthew, Chapter 24.

When spring-time flushes the desert grass,

Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass.

Lean are the camels but fat the frails,

Light are the purses but heavy the bales,

As the snowbound trade of the North comes down

To the market-square of Peshawur town. 

In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill,

A kafila camped at the foot of the hill.

Then blue smoke-haze of the cooking rose,

And tent-peg answered to hammer-nose;

And the picketed ponies, shag and wild,

Strained at their ropes as the feed was piled;

And the bubbling camels beside the load

Sprawled for a furlong adown the road;

And the Persian pussy-cats, brought for sale,

Spat at the dogs from the camel-bale;

And the tribesmen bellowed to hasten the food;

And the camp-fires twinkled by Fort Jumrood;

And there fled on the wings of the gathering dusk

A savour of camels and carpets and musk,

A murmur of voices, a reek of smoke,

To tell us the trade of the Khyber woke. 

2 

The lid of the flesh-pot chattered high,

The knives were whetted and—then came I

To Mahbub Ali the muleteer,

Patching his bridles and counting his gear,

Crammed with the gossip of half a year.

But Mahbub Ali the kindly said,

“Better is speech when the belly is fed.”

So we plunged the hand to the mid-wrist deep

In a cinnamon stew of the fat-tailed sheep,

And he who never hath tasted the food,

By Allah! he knoweth not bad from good.

We cleansed our beards of the mutton-grease,

We lay on the mats and were filled with peace,

And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south,

With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth. 

3 

Four things greater than all things are,—

Women and Horses and Power and War.

We spake of them all, but the last the most,

For I sought a word of a Russian post,

Of a shifty promise, an unsheathed sword

And a gray-coat guard on the Helmund ford.

Then Mahbub Ali lowered his eyes

In the fashion of one who is weaving lies.

Quoth he: “Of the Russians who can say?

“When the night is gathering all is gray.

“But we look that the gloom of the night shall die

“In the morning flush of a blood-red sky.

“Friend of my heart, is it meet or wise

“To warn a King of his enemies?

“We know what Heaven or Hell may bring,

“But no man knoweth the mind of the King.

“That unsought counsel is cursed of God

“Attesteth the story of Wali Dad. 

4 

“His sire was leaky of tongue and pen,

“His dam was a clucking Khuttuck hen;

“And the colt bred close to the vice of each,

“For he carried the curse of an unstanched speech.

“Therewith madness—so that he sought

“The favour of kings at the Kabul court;

“And travelled, in hope of honour, far

“To the line where the gray-coat squadrons are.

“There have I journeyed too—but I

“Saw naught, said naught, and—did not die!

“He hearked to rumour, and snatched at a breath

“Of ‘this one knoweth’ and ‘that one saith’,—

“Legends that ran from mouth to mouth

“Of a gray-coat coming, and sack of the South.

“These have I also heard—they pass

“With each new spring and the winter grass. 

5 

“Hot-foot southward, forgotten of God,

“Back to the city ran Wali Dad,

“Even to Kabul—in full durbar

“The King held talk with his Chief in War.

“Into the press of the crowd he broke,

“And what he had heard of the coming spoke.

“Then Gholam Hyder, the Red Chief, smiled,

“As a mother might on a babbling child;

“But those who would laugh restrained their breath,

“When the face of the King showed dark as death.

“Evil it is in full durbar

“To cry to a ruler of gathering war!

“Slowly he led to a peach-tree small,

“That grew by a cleft of the city wall.

“And he said to the boy: ‘They shall praise thy zeal

“So long as the red spurt follows the steel.

“And the Russ is upon us even now?

“Great is thy prudence—await them, thou.

“Watch from the tree. Thou art young and strong,

“Surely thy vigil is not for long.

“The Russ is upon us, thy clamour ran?

“Surely an hour shall bring their van.

“Shout aloud that my men may hear.’ 

6 

“Friend of my heart, is it meet or wise

“To warn a King of his enemies?

“A guard was set that he might not flee—

“A score of bayonets ringed the tree.

“The peach-bloom fell in showers of snow,

“When he shook at his death as he looked below.

“By the power of God, who alone is great,

“Till the seventh day he fought with his fate.

“Then madness took him, and men declare

“He mowed in the branches as ape and bear,

“And last as a sloth, ere his body failed,

“And he hung as a bat in the forks, and wailed,

“And sleep the cord of his hands untied,

“And he fell, and was caught on the points and died. 

7 

“Heart of my heart, is it meet or wise

“To warn a King of his enemies?

“We know what Heaven or Hell may bring,

“But no man knoweth the mind of the King.

“Of the gray-coat coming who can say?

“When the night is gathering all is gray.

“Two things greater than all things are,

“The first is Love, and the second War.

“And since we know not how War may prove,

“Heart of my heart, let us talk of Love!”

 Rudyard Kipling, Ballad of the King's jest

March 23, 2026.

Pakistan v. Afghanistan

Pakistan and Afghanistan have been fighting a border war.  

March 28, 2026

Mexican Drug Wars

Self defense militias are forming in the cartel ridden portion of Mexico, armed with military style semi automatic rifles, AKs and ARs, smuggled in from the US.

This actually provides a good example of the utility of something like the 2nd Amendment.  Mexican civilians are having to illegally arm themselves, which in the US they would not have to.

Russo Ukrainian War

If we had to be fighting a war, we should have been fighting this one.  But then, Donald Trump loves Vlad Putin.

Ukraine Is Starting To Wage Systems Warfare

The US Might Consider Paying Attention

April 6, 2026

Sudanese civil war

April 21, 2026

Russo Ukrainian War

Russia is losing more men per month in Ukraine than it can recruit.

This war has seemingly been forgotten in the US, but then the US is now an aggressor nation as well.

April 30, 2026

A second U.S. Ambassador has resigned over the embarrassing American conduct towards the embattled country.

Donald Trump, whose declared that the US has won the war its losing against Iran, declared that Ukraine lost the war its winning against Russia.

Trump repeatedly shows himself to be one of Putin's best friends.

Ukraine destroyed a Russian oil facility in a major long range drone attack and followed it up with a second drone attack yesterday on a different facility.

May 2, 2026

Mali insurgency

Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali carried out "intense air campaigns" in Malian territory against Al Qaeda backed militants.

May 3, 2026

Syrian Civil War

And the US is now out.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Not a war item, but it could help lead to one, the US is withdrawing 5,000 troops from Germany and threatening to withdrawal more as Trump is upset that everyone has fallen behind him in the war on Iran.

NATO and Germany aren't reacting to these developments the way Demented King Donny thinks they should.  Rather, Europe is arming and the US is no longer a superpower.  Germany in particular is taking a view towards its military that it has not since 1945.  Donald may not wake up to this, if he ever does, until later this month when he visits China which may principally choose to treat him as a spoiled little kid. . . or not.  My prediction there is that he'll come back from China with whatever "deal" the Chinese choose to dictate.

What is occurring in Europe is exactly what National Conservatives wand, however.  They see the US, and Europe, as walled fortresses with their own interest.  They don't have much interest in helping to defend Europe against anyone, and some are pretty sympathetic with Russia.  Those people don't worry about defending democratic ideals, as they don't share them.

May 4, 2026

Russo Ukrainian War

Ukraine hit a Baltic petroleum loading facility in a drone strike yesterday.

Last edition:

Wars and Rumors of War, 2026. Part 5. Trump's forever war. King Donald's War, Part 1.

Labels: Donald Trump, J. D. Vance, King Donald's War, The Second Trump Administration, United States and Israel v. Iran, War, Wars and rumors of wars

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 130th Edition. Narratives

The things they've said.

The attempted assassination at the White House Correspondence Dinner has spawned some interesting events and narratives.

One thing is that apparently Trump called several prominent reporters who were at the event that night, and expressed concern for their well being.  That's outright remarkable given his generally abusive self centered public persona.

He also made a statement about needing to come together.

That's true, but at least one politician interviewed about it had a very difficult time not expressing skepticism.

Already, I'd note, Trump fans have yelled out about how Democratic and left wing rhetoric cased this.  Well, bull.

There is a lot of hostile verbiage directed at Trump, and much of it is due to the horrible things he says all the time.  Just a few weeks ago he noted how he was glad a public figure was dead.

Trump brought American political rhetoric into new territory when he very first started to run for the Oval Office.  Republicans who complain about the language directed at him, and some of it is vile, need to look in the mirror.  

Ballroom fixation

Amongst comments made by Trump were those stating this is proof we need his expensive ballroom, which is tied up in litigation.

The logic of that would be that the ballroom, if built, will have expensive security features.  Where it fails in logic is that the dinner event was a private one, not a state function.  Unless everything a President accepts an invitation to is held in the ballroom, things like this would not be prevented.

But here's another, and frankly radical, thing to consider. 

Maybe Presidents need less protection, not more.

At one time there was a tradition that members of the public could wait in line at the White House to shake the President's hand on New Years. That ended in 1932.  Now it would be unthinkable.

The only thing that's changed since 1932 is us.  If the President's under constant threat, and of course there were three Presidents that were assassinated prior to 1932, that's because of us or some other factor.

One thing that's clearly changed is that the President is treated much more like a king now than he was in '32.  Air Force One is the very symbol of that.

These trappings ought to be stripped away.  If a President needs to fly somewhere, on official business, the Air Force has airplanes.  There doesn't need to be a designated special one.  Nor does there need to be a Marine Corps helicopter dedicated for the President.  If he's just flying to a resort to golf, he can by a commercial airline ticket.

Maybe part of the overall problem is that they're given too much and separated from the people they are supposed to serve.

A big dumb ballroom emphasizes that.

It actually is true that prior Presidents lamented their being a lack of entertainment space. Well, too darned bad.  Rent a hotel room.  

And I'm not in favor of a giant bunker on the White House grounds either. 

Maybe if a  person is more like everyone else, they'll think twice about things that harm people.  I don't want them exposed to violence, but making things so they can inflict it video game style is not a good thing, and elevating the President above the people isn't either. 

And now you know. . .

how thousands of other people live every day.  With one exception, when I listed to interviews of people from the press who had been at the event, things were not too surprisingly focused on themselves.  The one exception was somebody who pointed out that they had excellent security but that most people don't, and that a lot of people live in fear of their family members, including children, being killed every day.

That's an excellent point.

Trump said something about this being just part of the price of holding office, which is easy to say for somebody who has a taxpayer funded security team.  It shouldn't be part of the price of holding office, and exposure to violent death shouldn't be something you have to endure just because you live in this country.

Anti Christian?

When I went to Mass yesterday there was a Sheriff's truck parked in front of the Church. That's not a parking spot.  When I went in, there was a uniformed sheriff's officer in complete kit.  That's unusual.

I wondered if something was going on.  Maybe not.  He went to Communion like everyone else, so maybe he was just on his way to work.

Trump claimed that the shooter had been a Christian than apostatized and that was part of his motivation.  We'll see.  If so, it's ironic, as there's no visible evidence of Trump taking Christianity seriously.

What our enemies must be thinking.

It's been long believed that Iran has sleeper cells in the US.  If they do, they haven't activated them in the current war.   They either don't really have them, or they're holding back as it provides them with an advantage.

I can see where the latter might be the case.  The old joke, dating back to World War Two, was that Hitler was the best general the Allies had, and that same may apply to Trump.  He might be the best general the Iranians had.

That we went into the war with Iran with no clue what we were doing, and what our enemy was actually like, is to plain to excuse away.  We have no idea whatsoever what we're doing and have no way out of the war.  It's going to wreck the global economy.  At this point, and we're at the sixty day mark, Trump legally has to submit the question of continuing the war to Congress, which will have to determine, as a practical matter, if we're going to engage in a full scale ground invasion of the country or surrender and leave Iran stronger than it was.

The Iranians maybe gambling on the latter, and it'd probably be a good gamble.

Anyhow, assuming they have sleeper cells, they've really shown restraint.  Yesterday proved that a dedicated group of men could have breached security and completely decapitated the American government.  We participated in doing that, which is beyond the Pale in war normally, in this war.  On the basis of turnabout is fair play, it's amazing they haven't tried it. Maybe they just didn't think it'd work.

They know now it would have, although presumably the administration won't be dumb enough again to put the complete administration together in one room.

The others who must be looking are Russia and China, China in particular. But not at that, but at the war itself.

We've pretty much burned through our war reserve of missiles.  If war came with China, we couldn't fight it.

Tone Deaf

Once a week now we get identical sized flyers from Chuck Gray and Reid Rasner promising to support the demented octogenarian that put us a war that's going to completely wreck the economy, and whose wrecking a lot of other things.

Maybe that still works in Wyoming.  Trump has a lot of fans here.  But as prices get higher and higher, and we sluff into a summer that's going to be hot and dry, with a tourist industry that's going to fall flat on its face, I wonder.

For the first time, actually, I got a sort of nervous "what do you make of the assassination" from somebody whose a huge Trump supporter and knows I'm not.  I think he was looking for reassurance of some sort.  I gave analysis. That probably isn't what he was looking for.

Proof of Devine Providence?

Franklin Graham was quick to come out with what I was sure would occur.  Trump's survived three assassination attempts and that is, he suggested, proof that God wants him in power.

Adolf Hitler survived over 40 assassination attempts. There are five known plots on Stalin's life.

A person should never dismiss something being the Hand of God, but we shouldn't presume to know the mind of God either.  Nor should we ignore, as the examples above show, the Problem of Evil.

On that, we can presume that God allows an evil to occur, but does not cause it, in order to bring a greater good out of it.  While foreseeing the future is always risking, I could see that being the case here.

In spite of what Trump/Gray/Hageman/Barrasso/Rasner and others believe, or claim to believe, the ongoing use of fossil fuels is harming the world. This may actually accelerate their end.  

Let me restate that, it is accelerating their end.

Countries all around the globe, including China, are rapidly phasing out fossil fuels for power generation.  China is leaping into electric vehicles big time.  Europe has, I believe, 2030 as the date for the end of the import of Russian oil.

The war is freeing the globe of US influence, something we'll regret and with it our steadfast refusal to look at reality.  We're being put in our place, and the era of fossil fuels is coming to a rapid end.

The other thing, it seems to me, that Trump is brining about is the discrediting of American Evangelicalism.  I.e., people like Graham.  

Evangelical churches are particularly an American thing.  They're strong in the US in a way they aren't anywhere else.  Where they evangelize outside the US its nearly always where Catholics have made it safe for them to go.  The latching on to Trump by them in a very public manner is hurting Christianity in general, but them in particular.  Catholicism is already growing world wide and, while the story is only now being noticed, it's growing in the US.  I suspect Trump is accidentally helping bring hte latter about.

On firearms.

On assassinations, one thing worth noting, although I won't detail it, is that so far the only assassin/would be assassin who seems to have had a clue what he was doing was the guy who shot Charlie Kirk, although even there it's clear that the shot being lethal was essentially accidental.  There's very free access to firearms in the US, although I suspect that this will start being curbed back due to Trump, but that free access doesn't mean competence.  

People who are really familiar with firearms are unlikely to go out and try to kill somebody.  This is true of "military style" firearms.  There's a group of firearms aficionados who like military style firearms, but aren't very likely to use them in any lethal fashion.

This may simply be because people know and like firearms know what they'll do, and are unlikely to be people who use them in that fashion.  It's the people who buy them just because they're worked up about politics, on the right or the left, or who have an exaggerated fear of being attacked, who are the problem here.  Fortunately, they're not all that likely to actually know how to use them.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 129th Edition. An unfortunate observation of our times.

Labels: Abraham Lincoln, Antipathy, Catholic, Christianity, Civil War, Death, Donald Trump, Empathy, Introspection, Reconstruction, religion, Sic transit Gloria Mundi, The Practice of Law, Zeitgeist

Wyoming’s ‘radical left-wing media’

In my view, Chuck Gray broke the law by turning over Wyoming's voter information to the Federal Government.  

Not only did he do that, he did it so quickly that the US was the first state in the union to do it.

He should be ashamed.

Frankly, he should be ashamed, convicted, and removed from office.

Wyoming’s ‘radical left-wing media’

 

But of course, what he does is issue his usual go to screeds.  It's the "radical left".

To hear Chuck say, literally everything wrong, and everything that opposes him, is due to the radical left.

It's really getting tiresome.  One Trick Pony Chuck probably screams at his toaster if his toast is burnt that the toaster is part of the radical left.

Being a screamer got him into his current office. . . barely.  Since then, he's kept it up.  His act was wearing pretty thing before he was elected.  My guess is that it's worn too thin now and his having violated the law here may come back to haunt him.

 It's notably pathetic that Mike Johnson had no role.

A bipartisan duo helped force Reps. Swalwell and Gonzales to resign. They say other House members could be next.

Tuesday, April 9, 1946. The Bomb, the accused, and pregnant Fräuleins.

The Rocky Mountain News reported on expenses associated with The Bomb.

The tragic story of Viola Elliot was back on the front page.  She first appeared there on February 8, 1946, when she gave birth while a prisoner due to the homicide in issue.

As we noted then:

She was accused of the beating death of her stepson, Robert.  She denied it, but she was convicted of second degree murder.  Her 8 year old son by a previous marriage was a witness for the prosecution at the trial and Mrs. Elliot admitted at the time of arrest that she had hit and kicked the child on the occasion of his death.  She later changed her story and claimed he'd tripped on his pajamas.

Her parents and husband said they'd stand by her at the time of her arrest, but I wonder if that was still the case later on.  At her sentencing, she stated that Leslie was just as responsible for the death and the judge agreed.  Leslie had already been arraigned for assault and battery and assessory after the fact.  In April she petitioned the County to make her children wards of the County, to which her husband objected.  They were noted to be "estranged" by that time.

Viola was 27 years old and on her second marriage at the time.  She would have had her first child, if her son who testified was the first at age 19 in 1937 or 1938.  The paper mentioned that there were three children, including the murdered boy.  Interestingly, I can find one other reference to a "Miss Viola Elliot" from 1937 indicating that Viola Elliot was employed as an arts and crafts teacher.  A 1943 edition mentions a Viola Elliott as being just back in town after visiting her husband in Tennessee, who was probably in the service.

Viola received 15 to 20 years for the murder.

Leslie would receive six months for assault and battery.

Her mother, Alice Faber, testified at the trial, as did her father.  Alice died in 1966 and is buried in Denver.  Her obituary listed Viola as still living, still with the last name Elliot, and in Denver.  The Fabers also had a son named Wilmer, who was alive at the time.  The boy who testified at the trial was living in California.

Her father died in 1961.

The impacts of the war in addition to the bomb were a story several pages in.

Peacetime conscription had not been a thing prior to 1940 and there remained a lot of opposition to it.  Indeed, it would go away for a time.

The plight of pregnant German girls in Munich, made so by American GIs, was seemingly without a solution and without sympathy.  By this point the Occupation Authorities were allowing for fraternization, but the U.S. Army was not approving enlisted marriages.  The young women seemingly expected help from the Army.

Munich had been Hitler's adopted town, we'd note, which is interesting in context here as the women in question would have become pregnant by American GIs very soon after the end of the war.

Last edition:

Thursday, April 4, 1946. Hirohito lucks out.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Far Eastern Commission, Hirohito, Marilyn Monroe, Playboy, Standards, War Crimes, Women

Wednesday, April 7, 1926. Gibson shoots at Mussolini.

Violet Gibson shot Benito Mussolini, but only grazed his nose.  The attack seems to have been a lone wolf type event with Gibson not being mentally well.

On the same day, although unrelated, three staffers of anti-Fascist newspapers were murdered in the country and journalist Giovanni Amendola died from injuries sustained nearly a year earlier.

Last edition:

Holy Saturday, April 3, 1926

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Art, Easter, Holy Saturday, Holy Week, J. C. Leyendecker

Tuesday, March 16, 1926. Sgt. Stubby crosses the Rainbow Bridge.

Boston Terrier Sgt. Stubby, mascot of the mascot of the 102nd Infantry Regiment, died at age 10.  He'd served for 18 months in France in the Great War, participating in 100 battles and four offensives.  He provided warnings of attacks and of the use of mustard gas, and captured a German soldier by holding him by the seat of his pants.

He was a genuinely heroic dog.

The Casper recaptured fugitives indicated that they'd left Casper by rail.

I posted this page for the bus schedule.  I have a detailed thread coming up on trains, and then noted this.  I wasn't aware that there was a bus by 1926.

A closer look.

What isn't clear is how long the bus trip took.

There is bus service from Casper today.  Greyhound.  We'll take a look at that in some future post.

Apparently unrestrained immigration was worrying some.  Others were worrying about Wyoming's oilfield population leaving for Texas.

Robert Goddard launched the first liquid fuel rocket in the United States at his Aunt Effie's farm in Auburn, Massachusetts.

Rocketry, like aviation, advanced like crazy.  By World War Two rockets would be in use as ground weapons, air to air weapons, and of course, with the first ballistic missiles.

Last edition:

Monday, March 15, 1926. Boxer Rebellion Echoes, Manhunt ends, National Guard Cavalry Inspection.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Boxer Rebellion, cavalry, China, Costa Rica, Crime, Disaster, French Navy, Idaho Army National Guard, Imperial Japanese Navy, Italian Navy, Railroads, Royal Navy, U.S. Navy, Wyoming National Guard

Monday, March 15, 1926. Boxer Rebellion Echoes, Manhunt ends, National Guard Cavalry Inspection.

The signatories to the Boxer Protocol gave China an ultimatum for the commanders of the Taku Forts, who had just fired on the Japanese, to remove all mines placed at the mouth of the Pei River and to end their blockade of Tianjin by noon on Friday, March 19. 

At least 12 ships from the U.S. Navy, the Royal Navy, the Imperial Japanese Navy, France and Italy were blocked from traveling into the Pei River to Tianjin.  They were authorized to end the blockade by force if necessary.

A manhunt came to an end:

Of interest to us here, an inspection of National Guard cavalry was taking place in what was a unit that comprised Idaho and Wyoming National Guardsmen.  I knew that had happened later (the joint command), but I wasn't aware of it being so early, well before the 115th Cavalry Regiment came into existence.

Last edition:

Sunday, March 14, 1926. Reddy Kilowatt introduced. Manhunt in Natrona County.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Advertising, Alabama, Cartoons, Costa Rica, Country & Western Music, Crime, Disaster, Electrical Power, Hillbilly Music, Music, Personalities, Railroads, Wyoming (Casper), Wyoming (Natrona County)

Sunday, March 14, 1926. Reddy Kilowatt introduced. Manhunt in Natrona County.

 

Introduced on this day in 1926, the cartoon emphasized, in its introduction, electrical appliances and how they made life easier.  Power companies used the cartoon figure for decades.  I well recall it from when I was a kid.

There'd been a jail brake in Casper.

A railway disaster in Costa Rica resulted in the deaths of 248 people.

One via Reddit's 100 Years Ago sub, 16 year old Maybelle Addington married 27-year old Ezra J. "Eck" Carter, brother of A.P. Carter, in Virginia giving rise to the "first family of country music".

Country music, we'd note, is a bit deceptive in this context. As we've discussed before, Country & Western were actually two categories of music identified by early record companies, as was Rhythm & Blues.  Western ballads, associated with cowboys and ranching, was really its own distinct genre, as was "Country", which was sometimes referred to as "Hillbilly Music".  The current categories of C&W, Folk, etc, really hadn't set in, in a hard and fast way, either.  Folk and Country music were in fact very rapidly evolving.  Blues, which of course also had a Southern rural origin, was frequently picked up by Country artists at the time, even while it was breaking out in new directions in the Midwest and East coast, where it has already given rise to Jazz.

Last edition:

Saturday, March 13, 1926. Daydreaming.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Art, Clothing, Daily Living