Showing posts with label Death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Death. Show all posts

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Foothill Agrarian: From OUR to MY

Foothill Agrarian: From OUR to MY: During the Holidays, I jokingly told my coworkers that I couldn’t host a party because a bachelor had moved into my house. At the risk of pe...

Saturday, February 24, 2024

And then suddenly the Law of Unintended Consequences arrived at the party

The logic of it, even without reading the Alabama Supreme Court opinion, is clear.

Life begins at conception, and therefore embryos artificially conceived are alive, and entitled to teh same protection as other early infants.

It's not really that shocking, and frankly, I agree with that.

Hence the logcial question presented to the  Alabama Supreme Court by

This Court has long held that unborn children are "children" for purposes of Alabama's Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, 6-5-391, Ala. Code 1975, a statute that allows parents of a deceased child to recover punitive damages for their child's death. The central question presented in these consolidated appeals, which involve the death of embryos kept in a cryogenic nursery, is whether the Act contains an unwritten exception to that rule for extrauterine children -- that is,unborn children who are located outside of a biological uterus at the time they are killed. Under existing black-letter law, the answer to that question is no: the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies to all unborn children,regardless of their location.

It's a logical question, and it was brought by the upset parents.

The decision is lengthy, and involves a host of issues, but the basic conclusion is this:

Here,the text ofthe Wrongful Death of a Minor Act is sweeping and unqualified. It applies to all children, born and unborn, without limitation. Itis not the role of this Court to craft a new limitation based our own view of what is or is not wise public policy. That is especially true where, as here, the People of this State have adopted a Constitutional amendment directly aimed at stopping courts from excluding "unborn life"from legal protection. Art.I, 36.06 ,Ala. Const. 2022.1

The Court reached the right decision.

And now people are reacting in horror, including the putative nominee for the Oval Office on the GOP side, who has tweeted: 


Let's start with some obvious things.

Firstly, I don't know what Donald Trump thinks the "ultimate joy in life" is. Given as he's a serial polygamist who cheated on two spouses, I'm skeptical that it's a happy family life.

I'm frankly quite skeptical that Trump really is that against abortion in the first place, although that's just skepticism on my part.  I can't see where Trump really holds that many values on anything in particular, really.

He does value getting reelected however and now he, like a lot of Republicans, are scrambling to figure out how to react to this, in no small part because a large number of Americans are probably now looking at the actual meaning of what social conservatism, and I am a social conservatism, is, and they're now really uncomfortable with it.

Americans overall, or at least a lot of Americans, claim that they are all for traditional values and are conservatives, but what they mean is that they are in favor of marriage, sort of, and family life, sort of, as long as that means you can easily dump your spouse and get remarred as much as you want to, and kill your offspring in utero up to sixteen weeks. This applies as much to Republicans as it does to Democrats.  If you are looking at a GOP candidate, and they've been married more than once, it's frankly a perfectly fair question to ask them if they really believe in what they claim they do.

Indeed, the whole close embrace to religion the press claims is going on is really a close embrace to the American Civil Religion.  It's certainly not a close embrace of Apostolic Christianity.  At least Catholicism holds that artificial insemination of human's is morally wrong in the first instance, and this provides just one of the reasons why.  It's completely contra natural.

But here's the added deal. When people claim they're advancing values, how deep have they looked at their arguments and how far are they prepared to go, and are they willing to apply them, to themselves?

Are those on the right in favor of traditional values, really in favor of them. Are those on the left who claim to be in favor of nature, willing to really live with it?

Related Thread:

We like everything to be all natural. . . . except for us.

Tuesday, February 6, 2024

Wednesday, Februay 6, 1924. Two Deaths.





















Woodrow Wilson was laid to rest in a vault beneath the center isle of the chapel of the Washington National Cathedral, making him the only U.S. President to be buried in Washington, D.C.

There were protests outside the German Embassy due to the legation refusing to offer condolences for the death of the late President.  It also refused, at first, to fly its flag at half staff.

Later that day it relented and the flag was at half staff.

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Mid Week At Work: Endings.


I posted this the other day:

Sigh . . .

And depicted with a horse too. . . 

Kroger retires after 35 years of service 

Bart KrogerCODY - Worland Wildlife Biologist Bart Kroger retired last month, bringing his 35-year career with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to a close. 

“Bart has been referred to as the ‘core of the agency’, meaning through his dedication and continuous hard work, he has significantly and meaningfully impacted wildlife management within his district and throughout the state,” said Corey Class, Cody region wildlife management coordinator. “Throughout his career, he has been a solid, steady and dependable wildlife biologist, providing a foundation for wildlife conservation and management in the Bighorn Basin.”

Through his quiet and thoughtful approach, Bart has gained the respect of both his peers and the public. Bart is best known for his commitment to spending time in the field gaining first-hand knowledge of the wildlife and the habitat that supports them, as well as the people he serves in his district. 

 Found this old draft the other day

RETIREMENT ELIGIBILITY

Vesting Requirements

After obtaining 72 months of service, you are eligible to elect a monthly benefit at

retirement age. The 72 months of service do not have to be consecutive months.

Retirement Eligibility

You are eligible for retirement when you reach age 50 and are vested. There is no

early retirement under this plan. You must begin drawing your benefit no later than

age 65.

Which means, as a practical matter, if you are to draw retirement as a Wyoming Game Warden, you need to take the job no later than the beginning of your 59th year.

Of course, if you started at age 59, you wouldn't be drawing much, if anything.

That doesn't mean, of course, that you couldn't be hired after age 59.  You'd just draw no retirement.

The actual statute on this matter states the following, as we noted in a prior thread, from 2023, quoted below:

2. Wyoming Game Wardens were once required to retire at age 55, but a lawsuit some decades ago overturned that. It, in turn, was later overruled, but by that time the state had changed the system. Since that time, it's set it again statutorily, with the age now being 65 by law.  There aren't, therefore, any 67-year-old game wardens.

Statutorily, the current law provides:

9-3-607. Age of retirement.

(a) Any employee with six (6) or more years of service to his credit is eligible to receive a retirement allowance under this article when he attains age fifty (50).

(b) Effective July 1, 1998, any employee retiring after July 1, 1998, with twenty-five (25) or more years of service may elect to retire and receive a benefit upon attaining age fifty (50) as described in W.S. 9-3-610.

(c) Repealed by Laws 1993, ch. 120, §§ 1, 2.

(d) Any employee in service who has attained age sixty-five (65), shall be retired not later than the last day of the calendar month in which his 65th birthday occurs. 

Age limitations of this type are tied to physical fitness.  But what about mental fitness?  As mentioned here before, Gen. Marshall forcibly retired most serving U.S. Army generals, or at least sidelined them, who were over 50 years of age during World War Two, and that had to do with their thinking.  We now allow judges to remain on the bench until they are 70.  Would 60 make more sense?  And can the same argument be made for lawyers, who are officers of the court?

This differs, I'd note, significantly from the Federal Government.  The cutoff there is age 37.  That's it.

Have a wildlife management degree?  Spend the last few years in some other state agency?  Win the Congressional Medal of Honor for single handled defeating the Boko Haram?  38 years old now? Well, too bloody bad for you.

Anyhow, I guess this says something about the American concept that age is just a number and the hands of the clock don't really move.

They do.


On a somewhat contrary note, I was in something this week when a 70-year-old man indicated he might retire in order to take a job as a commercial airline pilot.

He's never been employed in that capacity, but he's had the license for 50 years.  It wouldn't be carrying people for United or something, but in some other commercial capacity.  

He's always wanted to do it, and has an offer.

Well, more power to him.

I did a lot of what this lawyer is doing here, when first practicing, in front of barrister cases just like this.  No young lawyer does that now.

I spoke to a lawyer I've known the entire time I've been practicing law, almost. He's four years younger than me, which would make him 56 or so.  He's worked his entire career in general civil, in a small and often distressed town, in a firm founded by his parents.  When I was first practicing, it was pretty vibrant.

Now he's the only one left.

He's retiring this spring.  This was motivated by his single employee's decision to retire.

I was really surprised, in part due to his age.  I'm glad that he can retire, but it was a bit depressing.  We're witnessing, in Wyoming, the death of the small town civil firm.  Everything is gravitating to the larger cities, and frankly in the larger cities, they're in competition with the big cities in Colorado and Utah.  That's insured a bill in the legislature to try to recruit lawyers to rural areas.*

It's not going to work.

The problem has been, for some time, that it's impossible to recruit young lawyers to small rural areas.  The economics don't allow for it.  The economics don't allow for it, in part, as the Wyoming Supreme Court forced the Uniform Bar Exam down on the Board of Law Examiners, and that resulted in opening the doors to Denver and Salt Lake lawyers.  It's been something the small firms have been competing against ever since.

And not only that, but some sort of demographic change has operated to just keep younger lawyers out of smaller places, and frankly to cause them to opt for easier paths than civil law in general.  I know older lawyers that came from the larger cities in the state, and set up small town practices when they were young, as that's where the jobs were and having a job was what they needed to have.  I've even known lawyers who went to UW who moved here from somewhere else who took that path, relocating from big Eastern or Midwestern cities to do so.

No longer.  Younger lawyers don't do that.

Quite a few don't stick with civil practice at all.  They leave for government work, where the work hours are regular, and the paycheck isn't dependent on billable hours.   And recently, though we are not supposed to note it, young women attorneys reflect a new outlook in which a lot of them bail out of practice or greatly reduce their work hours after just a few years in, a desire to have a more regular domestic life being part of that.

I guess people can't be blamed for that, but we can, as a state, be blamed for being shortsighted.  Adopting the UBE was shortsighted.  Sticking with it has been inexcusable.  I'm not the only one who has said so, and frankly not the only one who probably paid a price for doing so.  The reaction to voices crying in the wilderness is often to close the windows so you don't have to hear them.  Rumor had it, which I've never seen verified and have heard expressly denied by a person within the law school administration, that it was done in order to aid the law school, under the theory that it would make UW law degrees transportable, which had pretty much the practical effect on the local law as Commodore Matthew Perry opening up trade with Japan.

Wyoming Board of Law Examiners bringing in the UBE.

The lawyer in this case is worried, as he has no hobbies and doesn't know what he'll do with himself.  I'm surprised how often this concern is expressed.  To only have the law, or any work, is sad.  But a court reporter, about my age, expressed the same concern to me the other day.

Court reporting has really taken a beating in this state, more so than lawyers.  When I was first practicing, every community had court reporters.  Now there are hardly any left at all.  Huge firms are down to just a handful of people, and people just aren't coming into the occupation.  It's a real concern to lawyers.

It's always looked like an interesting job to me, having all the diversity of being a lawyer, with seemingly a lot less stress.  But having never done it, perhaps I'm wildly in error.  We really don't know what other people's jobs are like unless we've done them.

A lawyer I know just died by his own hand.

I met him when he took over for a very long time Wyoming trial attorney upon that attorney's death.

The attorney he took over for had died when he went in his backyard and put a rifle bullet through his brain.  He was a well known attorney, and we could tell something wasn't quite right with him.  Just the day prior, he called me and asked for an extension on something.  I'd already given two.  I paused, and then, against my better judgment, said, "well. . . okay".  

I'd known him too long to say no.

He was clearing his schedule.  If I had said no, I feel, he wouldn't have done it, and he'd be alive today.

The new attorney came in and was sort of like a goofy force of nature.  Hard to describe.  A huge man, probably in his 40s at the time, but very childlike.  He talked and talked. Depositions would be extended due to long meandering conversational interjections, as I learned in that case and then a very serious subsequent one.

He was hugely proud of having been a member of a legendary local plaintiff's firm.  That didn't really matter much to me then, and it still doesn't.  My family has always had an odd reaction to the supposedly honorific.  My father never bothered to collect his National Defense Service Medal for serving during the Korean War, I didn't bother to get my Reserve Overseas Training Ribbon, or my South Korean award for Operation Team Spirit, I don't have my law school diploma's anymore. . . It's not that they aren't honors, it's just, well, oh well.  We tend to value other things, which in some ways sets standards that are highers than others, and very difficult to personally meet.

Anyhow, the guy was very friendly and told me details of his life, not all of which were true.  He was raised by his grandmother, his grandmother had somehow encouraged him to go to law school,  Both true.

He was from Utah and grown up there, but consistently denied being a Mormon.  His wife was Mormon, he said.  He was an Episcopalian.  As I'm very reserved, I'm not really going to talk religion with somebody I only casually and professionally know, as opposed to one of my very extroverted and devout partners who will bring it up at the drop of a hat, and his religious confession didn't particularly matter to me, given the light nature of our relationship.  As it turns out, and as I suspected, that wasn't even remotely true.  He was and always had been a Mormon.  Why did he lie about that?  No idea.

I suppose this is some sort of warning here, maybe.

The first lawyer noted in this part of this entry had suffered something hugely traumatic early in his life and never really got over it. Some people roll with the punches on traumas and some do not.  We hear about combat veterans all the time who live with the horrors they experienced, and which break them down, all the time, but I've known a couple who didn't have that sort of reaction at all, and who could coolly relate their combat experiences.  Others can't get over something that happened to them, ever.

With the second lawyers, there were some oddities, one being that he jumped from firm to firm, and to solo, and back and forth, all the time. That's unusual.  Another was that he seemed to have pinned his whole identify on being a lawyer.  It's one thing, like the retiring fellow above, to have worked it your whole life and have nothing else to do, it's quite another to have that make up everything you are.  He'd drunk deeply of the plaintiff's lawyer propaganda about helping the little guy and all that crap, and didn't really realize that litigators often hurt people as often as they help them, or do both at the same time.  Maybe the veil had come off.  Maybe he should never have been a lawyer in the first place.  Maybe it was organic and had nothing to do with any of this.

Well, the moral of this story, or morals, if there are any, would be this.  You don't have endless time to do anything, 70-year-old commercial airline pilots aside. You probably don't know what it's like to do something unless you've actually done it, but you can investigate it and learn as much as possible.  The UBE, which the Wyoming Supreme Court was complicit in adopting, is killing the small  town civil lawyer and only abrogating it, or its successor, and restoring the prior system can address that.   The entire whaling for justice plaintiff's lawyer ethos is pretty much crap.  And, finally, you had some sort of identify before you took up your occupation.  Unless that identity was what you became, before you became it, don't let the occupation become it.  It may be shallower than you think.

Footnotes:

The bill:

SENATE FILE NO. SF0033

Wyoming rural attorney recruitment program.

Sponsored by: Joint Judiciary Interim Committee

A BILL

for

AN ACT relating to attorneys-at-law; establishing the rural attorney recruitment pilot program; specifying eligibility requirements for counties and attorneys to participate in the program; specifying administration, oversight and payment obligations for the program; requiring reports; providing a sunset date for the program; authorizing the adoption of rules, policies and procedures; providing an appropriation; and providing for an effective date.

Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:

Section 1.  W.S. 33‑5‑201 through 33‑5‑203 are created to read:

ARTICLE 2

RURAL ATTORNEY RECRUITMENT PROGRAM

33‑5‑201.  Rural attorney recruitment program established; findings; program requirements; county qualifications; annual reports.

(a)  In light of the shortage of attorneys practicing law in rural Wyoming counties, the legislature finds that the establishment of a rural attorney recruitment program constitutes a valid public purpose, of primary benefit to the citizens of the state of Wyoming.

(b)  The Wyoming state bar may establish a rural attorney recruitment program to assist rural Wyoming counties in recruiting attorneys to practice law in those counties.

(c)  Each county eligible under this subsection may apply to the Wyoming state bar to participate in the program. A county is eligible to participate in the program if the county:

(i)  Has a population of not greater than twenty‑five thousand (25,000);

(ii)  Has an average of not greater than one and one‑half (1.5) qualified attorneys in the county for every one thousand (1,000) residents. As used in this paragraph, "qualified attorney" means an attorney who provides legal services to private citizens on a fee basis for an average of not less than twenty (20) hours per week. "Qualified attorney" shall not include an attorney who is a full‑time judge, prosecutor, public defender, judicial clerk, in‑house counsel, trust officer and any licensed attorney who is in retired status or who is not engaged in the practice of law;

(iii)  Agrees to provide the county share of the incentive payment required under this article;

(iv)  Is determined to be eligible to participate in the program by the Wyoming state bar.

(d)  Before determining a county's eligibility, the Wyoming state bar shall conduct an assessment to evaluate the county's need for an attorney and the county's ability to sustain and support an attorney. The Wyoming state bar shall maintain a list of counties that have been assessed and are eligible to participate in the program under this article. The Wyoming state bar may revise any county assessment or conduct a new assessment as the Wyoming State bar deems necessary to reflect any change in a county's eligibility.

(e)  In selecting eligible counties to participate in the program, the Wyoming state bar shall consider:

(i)  The county's demographics;

(ii)  The number of attorneys in the county and the number of attorneys projected to be practicing in the county over the next five (5) years;

(iii)  Any recommendations from the district judges and circuit judges of the county;

(iv)  The county's economic development programs;

(v)  The county's geographical location relative to other counties participating in the program;

(vi)  An evaluation of any attorney or applicant for admission to the state bar seeking to practice in the county as a program participant, including the attorney's or applicant's previous or existing ties to the county;

(vii)  Any prior participation of the county in the program;

(viii)  Any other factor that the Wyoming state bar deems necessary.

(f)  A participating eligible county may enter into agreements to assist the county in meeting the county's obligations for participating in the program.

(g)  Not later than October 1, 2024 and each October 1 thereafter that the program is in effect, the Wyoming state bar shall submit an annual report to the joint judiciary interim committee on the activities of the program. Each report shall include information on the number of attorneys and counties participating in the program, the amount of incentive payments made to attorneys under the program, the general status of the program and any recommendations for continuing, modifying or ending the program.

33‑5‑202.  Rural attorney recruitment program; attorney requirements; incentive payments; termination of program.

(a)  Except as otherwise provided in this subsection, any attorney licensed to practice law in Wyoming or an applicant for admission to the Wyoming state bar may apply to the Wyoming state bar to participate in the rural attorney recruitment program established under this article. No attorney or applicant shall participate in the program if the attorney or applicant has previously participated in the program or has previously participated in any other state or federal scholarship, loan repayment or tuition reimbursement program that obligated the attorney to provide legal services in an underserved area.

(b)  Not more than five (5) attorneys shall participate in the program established under this article at any one (1) time.

(c)  Subject to available funding and as consideration for providing legal services in an eligible county, each attorney approved by the Wyoming state bar to participate in the program shall be entitled to receive an incentive payment in five (5) equal annual installments. Each annual incentive payment shall be paid on or after July 1 of each year. Each annual incentive payment shall be in an amount equal to ninety percent (90%) of the University of Wyoming college of law resident tuition for thirty (30) credit hours and annual fees as of July 1, 2024.

(d)  Subject to available funding, the supreme court shall make each incentive payment to the participating attorney. The Wyoming state bar and each participating county shall remit its share of the incentive payment to the supreme court in a manner and by a date specified by the supreme court. The Wyoming state bar shall certify to the supreme court that a participating attorney has completed all annual program requirements and that the participating attorney is entitled to the incentive payment for the applicable year. The responsibility for incentive payments under this section shall be as follows:

(i)  Fifty percent (50%) of the incentive payments shall be from funds appropriated to the supreme court;

(ii)  Thirty‑five percent (35%) of the incentive payments shall be provided by each county paying for attorneys participating in the program in the county;

(iii)  Fifteen percent (15%) of the incentive payments shall be provided by the Wyoming state bar from nonstate funds.

(e)  Subject to available funding for the program, each attorney participating in the program shall enter into an agreement with the supreme court, the participating county and the Wyoming state bar that obligates the attorney to practice law full‑time in the participating county for not less than five (5) years. As part of the agreement required under this subsection, each participating attorney shall agree to reside in the participating county for the period in which the attorney practices law in the participating county under the program. No agreement shall be effective until it is filed with and approved by the Wyoming state bar.

(f)  Any attorney who receives an incentive payment under this article and subsequently breaches the agreement entered into under subsection (e) of this section shall repay all funds received under this article pursuant to terms and conditions established by the supreme court. Failure to repay funds as required by this subsection shall subject the attorney to license suspension.

(g)  The Wyoming state bar may promulgate any policies or procedures necessary to implement this article.  The supreme court may promulgate any rules necessary to implement this article.

(h)  The program established under this article shall cease on June 30, 2029, provided that attorneys participating in the program as of June 30, 2029 shall complete their obligation and receive payments as authorized by this article.

33‑5‑203.  Sunset.

(a)  W.S. 33‑5‑201 and 33‑5‑202 are repealed effective July 1, 2029.

(b)  Notwithstanding subsection (a) of this section, attorneys participating in the rural attorney pilot program authorized in W.S. 33‑5‑201 and 33‑5‑202 shall complete the requirements of the program and shall be entitled to the authorized payments in accordance with W.S. 33‑5‑201 and 33‑5‑202 as provided on June 30, 2029.

Section 2.  There is appropriated one hundred ninety‑seven thousand three hundred seventy‑five dollars ($197,375.00) from the general fund to the supreme court for the period beginning with the effective date of this act and ending June 30, 2029 to be expended only for purposes of providing incentive payments for the rural attorney recruitment program established under this act. This appropriation shall not be transferred or expended for any other purpose. Notwithstanding W.S. 9‑2‑1008, 9‑2‑1012(e) and 9‑4‑207, this appropriation shall not revert until June 30, 2029.

Section 3.  This act is effective July 1, 2024.

Thursday, January 18, 2024

Sunday, January 14, 2024

The Obituary

Mira qué bonita era by Julio Romero de Torres, 1895.  Depiction of a wake in Spain.

I didn't have him as a teacher in high school, but I certainly knew of him.1  Somehow or another, I also knew that a student that was in school with us, and who my cousins knew, was not only his daughter, but also one of his students.  Apparently that was awkward. 

I don't do a good job of keeping track of former teachers.  I probably couldn't tell you where a single one of them was, even the ones I really liked, let alone those I only sort of knew by association.  In his case, there was our classmate, whom I also didn't know (she was a couple of years ahead of me), but he was also known to our parents.  Without knowing for sure, in looking at it, I think that must have been because he was from a Catholic family here in town.

My classmate died the year before last.  She was 62.

I read his obituary as he was so well known locally.  And then I recalled there were bits and pieces of his story I'd picked up over the years.

His wife was also a teacher.

Sometime after I left high school, the couple apparently civilly divorced.2   He remarried, and apparently to an apparently significantly younger women whom I take was also a teacher.  According to the obit, they had a child after he retired, who would now be about 31.  He would have been about 56 when she was born.  I can dimly recall my parents and my father's siblings talking about this as well, mostly in a somewhat bemused manner, given the difficulties of raising an infant, in their view, when you are that old.

When my classmate died, her mother was mentioned in the obituary.  Indeed, her obituary characterizes both of her parents as loving, and contains praise of them.

His obituary mentioned both of his daughters by his first marriage, and then goes on about his second.  His wife, the mother of my classmate, isn't mentioned at all.  The obituary is profuse on his latter "marriage", calling that individual, named in the obituary, the "love of his life" amongst other things.

Of course, the dead don't write their obituaries.  If they did, who knows how they'd read?  We might all fear how they'd be penned.  I've read plenty where a "first" and "second" spouse are mentioned.  This one is profuse on his love of one woman that he had children by and which the civil law would regard as his wife, but totally silent as to his wife who was the mother of my classmate. My classmate's obituary mentions her, and kindly, using the Americanism "step" to describe her as her "stepmother", which is polite, but the second "wife" of a divorced person isn't anything, relationship wise, to a child of the "first" marriage at all.3    Children, of a later marriage of any kind are, of course, as they're related by blood, i.e., genetically. Of course, children born out of wedlock to an illicit partner, to which I am in no way comparing this situation other than to note it, are "half" siblings as well.4 

It must be a later child of the second union that wrote the obituary, as it concluded with the funeral details, those being an apparently civil funeral, followed by an "Irish wake", the latter something not really understood by Americans.  A real wake comes before, not after, the ceremony, and the body of the deceased is present. Indeed, the body is key to the wake, and the dead's family and friends do not allow the body to be left alone.  Prayer for the dead is a feature of it, but there is also food and drink and even courting, which in part has to do with the fact that life goes on, but in part because in more natural societies people live much closer to death than they do in our false one.

Everywhere, real wakes have much diminished.5

But then, so has our understanding of, and appreciation of the metaphysical and the existential, and as most people do not dwell deeply on those topics, and the culture has drifted many of those who drift with it bear no fault for having done so.

There's no Irish wakes without prayer, the deceased, and a sense of the next world having stepped into this one.  In our age, however, we expect this world and how we define it to step into the next one.

Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine,

et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Te decet hymnus Deus in Sion,

et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.

Exaudi orationem meam,

ad te omnis caro veniet.

Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine,

et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Kyrie, eleison. Christe, eleison. Kyrie, eleison.6

Footnotes:

1.  In no small part because he was a well put together athletic man who drew hall monitor duty, but didn't seem to care for it much.  Indeed, if you went by him in the hall, when he had it, he didn't bother to ask you where you were going.

2.  I'll admit that this entry disregards the topic of Catholic annulment. Did they obtain one?  No idea.

To add to that, do I know anything whatsoever about the circumstances of their "divorce" and what brought it about, including who brought it about.  No I don't.

3.  The etymology of the prefix "step" goes back to the 8th Century and denoted an orphan.  It was later extended in Old English to connote a remarriage of a widow.

Some "step" parents, it might be noted, particularly in the case of an early death of an actual parent, or an abandonment by one of them, really step up to the plate and become effectively de facto parents.

The Pogues song Body of an American gives a good description of Irish wakes and how they can be.  The movie Road To Perdition, however, gives a very good depiction of a traditional wake, complete with the body iced.

4.  Again, as the fraud of civil divorce is so widely recognized as real in the Western World, I am in no way comparing the children of illicit affairs to the children of later contracted civil marriages.

5.  I've been to a real wake once, for a deceased second cousin, and it was horrific.  My father, who was 1/2 Irish, and 1/2 Westphalian by descent, but whose family did not retain any Irish customs, detested them.

6.       Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord,

and let light perpetual shine upon them.

Thou art worthy to praised, O God, in Zion,

and to thee shall prayer be offered in Jerusalem.

Hear my prayer,

for to thee shall all flesh come.

Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord,

and let light perpetual shine upon them.

 Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

Tuesday, August 8, 2023

Wednesday, August 8, 1923. Warren G. Harding's funeral.

Warren G.  Harding's state funeral occured.





 




And once again, I can't help but note that Harding was far younger than the two ancient front-runners for next year's Presidential election.  The odds of the winner dying in office, whomever he is, are better than his living through his term.

The Garda Síochána, "Guardians of the Peace", the Irish state police, were formed.

Sunday, August 6, 2023

Monday, April 6, 1923. Mourning Harding.


 Harding's train had passed through Cheyenne the prior day.


Mussolini appeared on the cover of Time.

Friday, August 4, 2023

Saturday, August 4, 1923. Coolidge takes office.

Calvin Coolidge proclaimed August 10, the day for President Harding's funeral, a day of national mourning and prayer.


As I've noted, Harding's death at age 57 shows how foolish current assumptions are about two ancient candidates living even to the election date.  Medicine has improved immensely, but eventually death claims us all, and both of them are well past the point where we can expect them to survive in good health indefinitely.

Coolidge took office at age 50, and looked a great deal more fit than the 57 year old Harding had.  But, FWIW, he'd die in 1933, at age 60.

Wednesday, August 2, 2023

Thursday, August 2, 1923. The Death of Warren G. Harding.

Warren G. Harding died suddenly at 7:30 p.m. in a San Francisco hotel. As readers here know, he had been ill for several days prior.  His probable cause of death was a heart attack.


Harding had been traveling the US, including Alaska, in his Voyage of Understanding.  He was well liked during his period in office, and he was deeply mourned in the U.S., and around the globe, following his death at age 57.

Following his death, his reputation has declined.  He had not really wanted to be President in the first place, and it turned out that while he was personally not involved in them, his administration was scandal ridden.  Harding was not free from scandal himself, however, as he'd had at least two affairs during his marriage, the first of which was to a woman who may have been a German spy. The second would lead to the birth of an illegitimate daughter, his only child, a fact which was hidden during his lifetime and contested by his widow thereafter.

Elizabeth Ann Blaesing, daughter of Warren G. Harding,

Harding was seemingly unprepared for death and indeed, while he looked much older, at 57 he wasn't all that old.  His medical care while ill has been criticized as hastening his death, but at the time little could be done for strokes (which was what his death was attributed to at the time) and heart attacks were frequently fatal.  Given the history of his illness, there's reason to suspect that he may in fact have suffered a heart attack several days prior, or at least was suffering from heart problems several days prior.

Florence Harding, his widow, was fiercely protective of his legacy and reputation.  In photographs, she rarely appears to be happy while they were in the White House.  Very unusually for the age, she did not wear a wedding ring.  Harding was her second marriage, and she was slightly older than he was.  She'd die the following November at age 64.  Blaesing, who lived a quiet life and avoided commenting on her parentage, died at age 86 in 1995.

Most Americans would not learn of the Presidents' death until the following day, when newspapers hit their doorsteps.

As an aside, Harding's death remains relevant to the present age, and actually shows us how things have improved and not.  Medically, physicians may well have detected Harding's heart condition before it proved fatal, if they had our current abilities in that arena.  This is not necessarily so, however, which points out that our two top contenders for the Oval Office today are literally on death's doorstep.

Also of interest, in the era it was obviously easier to keep personal secrets, as Harding had done for many years.  Keeping an illegitimate child of a President unknown is almost unimaginable today.  But also of interest is that it would have been a devastating scandal had the news broken.  As recently as President Clinton's term in office, an affair was scandalous, but now there's real reason to wonder if it would be.  Indeed, a certain section of former President Trump's support comes from Evangelical Christians (although not all support him), which undoubtedly would not have occurred had Trump lived in the 1920s.

Saturday, July 1, 2023

Sunday, July 1, 1923. Chinese exclusion and untimely death.

For those who may have followed yesterday's drama about a policeman (actually sheriff's officer) shooting into a car that refused to dim its headlights, the story plays out today:


The paper was just packed with accidental and untimely death, for that matter.

The Chinese Immigration Act, which we posted about earlier, and which banned Chinese immigrants from entering Canada, save for a few exceptions, came into effect.

A Rin Tin Tin movie was released.



Saturday, June 24, 2023

Super Dangerous Activities and Vast Resources

 A lot of Twitter is junk, but this comment hit me a bit:

The death of any man diminishes me but, beyond a quick yet sincere Requiescat for them, my main question now is how many public tax dollars were spent trying to rescue the super-rich from their super-dangerous escapades.

Not that they asked for it.

And not that there isn't an effort to rescue any who are, in the words of the hymn, "in peril on the sea".

But there's just something existentially different about this.

Many will say that nobody has a right to tell other people what to do with their money, but that is in fact wrong, and we do it all the time.  There are plenty of things that are illegal that people spend their money on, and we aren't inclined to make them legal on this basis.

To have cash to such a surplus level that $250,000 can be spent for a single instance of amusement, no matter how profound the experience, raises moral questions of all sorts, and not just for those who are that well funded, but also for the societies allowing this to occur.

And the Titanic is the site of a mass loss of human life.  To spend that amount of money to dive on what is essentially a grave is problematic.

There's a public duty to try to rescue those imperiled, irrespective of their wealth or lack of it. An interesting thing here is that the effort was undertaken when those in the know, already knew these individuals were dead.  The U.S. Navy knew at the instant it occurred.  Those on location did as well.  It sounds as if those on location distributed the news within thirty minutes of it occurring.

I'm not saying that "expend any effort" shouldn't be attempted. That was done, and no doubt that cost at least the United States and Canada millions.

I'm saying that this shouldn't have been allowed in the first place, and that in this era of vast wealth, something should be reassessed.

Friday, June 23, 2023

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. XLV. Vulgar

From the Cowboy State Daily:

Hageman Says She Would Vote To Impeach Biden

So Harriet Hageman has stated that she'd join Insurrection Barbie in a move that brings the nation's perilous attachment to democracy four or five steps closer to the brink.

The sad thing is that Hageman, whom I'm sure when she was younger probably would have found this abhorrent, probably means it now.

What on earth happened?

Make no mistake.  Save for the last time it was attempted, every act to actually impeach a US President has been, frankly, stupid and ill-advised. This would be the stupidest.

People advancing such causes will regret it.  The lucky ones will regret it in this World. The unlucky ones in the next, when they cannot atone for it here.  But account for this we all will, including those who are in the stands watching the circus consume itself with horror.

Vulgar.

Missing Titanic sub crew killed after 'catastrophic implosion'

This is a tragedy.  May God rest their souls and may the perpetual light shine upon them.

There's something really wrong with diving on what is, after all, a massive grave.  Now the wreckage of this submarine befouls the grave.

I've been to plenty of locations where the dead lay, including battlefields. But there's something about this that is simply intrusive beyond all measure.

It really ought to stop.

Last edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. XLIV. We pay these people. . . why?

Thursday, April 27, 2023

Friday, April 27, 1923. The IRA calls it quits, The Pro Treaty Sinn Finn depart, New Country Club, Harding and Work.

Having already effectively ceased combat operations, as they'd already lost the war, Éamon de Valera announced that the Irish Republican Army was prepared to agree to a ceasefire.

On the same day, Cumann na nGaedheal ("Society of the Gaels) a political party of pro treaty former members of Sinn Féin was formed.  It would merge into Finn Gael in 1933.

For residents of Casper, familiar with the Country Club, the origins of it were in evidence in this day in 1923.


Quite an assortment of other news as well.

And not just in Casper, but all around, it would seem.

The horse jumping over car photograph, probably last popular as horse jumping over Jeep during World War Two, was in vogue.



Jack Prestage on Tipperary in this case.

President Harding, whom we now know should probably have been in a clinic, visited the Tri State Clinic.


Warren G. Harding, who was in the last year of his life, was 57 years old at the time of his death. . . a good 20 years older than Donald Trump is now.  People don't really "live longer", contrary to the common claim, but they don't die as young due to various factors and heart attacks and strokes kill fewer.

Still, It's insane to be electing a President over 70 years of age.  It's questionable, really, to be electing somebody to their first term over 60 which means, if my restrictions mean anything, that I wouldn't be qualified.  I'd do a better job than either of the main candidates, I'm quite certain, which disqualifies me to start with, but age ought to.

In this photo, Harding didn't really look well.

And the guy third second from his left, as viewed, looks annoyed.

Huber Work accepted a resolution from his postal clerks.

Monday, March 6, 2023

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, March 5, 1923. The Thomas, Collins, affair.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, March 5, 1923. Reds.

Yesterday, we noted this item, amongst other:


If ever there was a story that there must be a lot more to, this is it. And yet, it's impossible, based on the limited resources available, to learn much more.

Thomas, I'd note, didn't merely state that she wished Cornish dead.  He was a "persistent wooer", as the article indicates, and apparently the couple had engaged in some prior wooing.  She also reported to the police that he was consistently abusive and had been that day.  That's likley why Thomas shot Cornish.  He not only wanted her ardently, but he was, she thought, or stated, abusive.

Thomas packed a pistol, we'd also note, which while it's something we'd expect of Lauren Boebert of Colorado today, wasn't average lady like behavior in Colorado in 1923.  Heck, my paternal grandparents were married and living in Denver at the time, and my guess is that neither of them routinely packed pistols.  Indeed, as far as I know, the only firearms my material grandfather routinely used were shotguns, which he was reportedly very skilled at.  My uncle reported to me that when he was a boy, and they were living in Scottsbluff, my grandfather would take just the number of 410 shells necessary to fill his pheasant limit, and come back with the limit.  Here in Wyoming, he hunted ducks.

Seems that's genetic.

Anyhow, I'll bet my grandmother didn't pack heat.  Either Thomas figured she needed to, due to Cornish's nature, or she routinely did.  We'll never know.  She had a pistol anyhow.

A Coroners Jury found Thomas acted with premeditation, which doesn't mean what people think it does.  It just means she had sufficient time to know what she was doing.

Well, they're all gone now.  My God rest their souls, and I hope Thomas's time in the pokey wasn't too hard.

Sunday, January 1, 2023

New Years Resolutions for Other People


I don't do this every year, and usually when I have, it's been tongue in cheek.

This will try to be, partially, but this one is more serious than most.  Indeed, for the most part, there's no jest in this at all, and I'm going to do it in a different format, partially for that reason.

Donald Trump need to retire and go away.

Based on something I read the other day, in his personal life he nearly has. As the limelight fades away, he's spending a lot of his time at a nearby golf course he owns, rather than at Mar-a-Lago.  

Even Theodore Roosevelt, the Old Lion, reached a point where he really didn't care about politics anymore, and that included his very last run for office.  The fire had gone out.  It'd dangerous to compare Roosevelt, who was a highly admirable man, to Trump, who isn't, but that seems to be happening. 

Reportedly Trump's favorite film is Sunset Boulevard, which I've never seen, but which is reportedly a masterpiece about a fading silent film movie star. Trump, according to the article I read, will rarely pay any attention to anything, including films, but he loves Sunset Boulevard and will sit through it even after having seen it a zillion times.

That tells us something.


Gracefully fading away is hard to do.  Truman did it, I'd note.  Jimmy Carter seems to have done it.  Douglas MacArthur did it, and the odds were against it.

Of course, Trump's problem is that he's disgraced himself and soiled his legacy.

Anyhow, he really ought to simply keep making that golf course trip and leave everyone alone, for the good of the country, and for the good of what little dignity he has left.

I noticed this morning that Elsie Stefanik is taking all sorts of flak due to a Washington Post expose.  There's a lesson to be learned here, but it's probably too late for her to benefit from it. She could still learn from it.

Elon Musk needs to go back to South Africa, and whatever immigration loophole that was exploited to allow him to come in to the country and take up U.S. citizenship needs to be examined.

I can't think of a single qualification that Musk may have legally met to enter this country permanently. Somebody ought to look into that, and if he really didn't meet it, his citizenship should be revoked as a fraud and whatever person assisted this process looked into. And I feel the same way for all of the entertainment figures that hang around in this country as well.  Go back.

Whatever weird, weird, loophole in our immigration system let Musk come in needs to be fixed.  South Africa can use him. Go home, Elon.

Harriet Hageman and Chuck Gray won their elections, fair and square, but based upon the lie that something was wrong with the last election.

Now that they're in office, they have a lot to make up for, given that.

One thing they both can do is stop feeding the bogus rage machine.   The other thing they ought to do is to admit that times are changing and the concept of hanging on to the 1970s economy, which we've only had in this state for the last 50 years, not forever, is dying.  

Hageman, also, who is no dummy, ought to do some serious introspection before raising her right hand, once again, and swearing to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.  She's done that at least once, and yet she was willing, although not at first, to boost a lie in favor of somebody who was willing to, and is stilling willing to, usurp that same Constitution.  Gray probably has taken a similar oath upon becoming a legislature, but I don't know him, and I frankly hold him to a lesser standard.

Hageman when a large number of her fellow bar members reminded her of her duty to tell the truth advanced a really wild fantasy regarding that.  If she believed that, she needs to spend about a week in the hills, perhaps with Thoreau, or perhaps with the Book of Tobit.  It'd do her good.

The Grand Old Party in Wyoming needs a serious shake up, I'd note, but it's not going to happen. The Democratic Party of Wyoming needs one as well. At this point, that's only going to come through Independents, I'm afraid.  My Resolution, therefore, is for them.  I hope, and hope they resolve, to take over the state's politics.  The Democrats have become so mired in left wing goofiness, there's nearly no saving them.

Interestingly, the Libertarian Party, nationally, recently seems to have taken a step to the middle.  Maybe there's hope for them yet.

There's a huge percentage of the country that need to resolve that science is not its enemy, and Newsmax is not the place to get the news.  If the news just fuels your preformed beliefs and, simultaneously, makes you mad, you need to get your news somewhere else.  Actually, what you need to do, is get the news.

Vladimir Putin needs to go to confession, and then go to a monastery.  I'm not joking.  Russia needs to join the modern, democratic, world.  The Russian Orthodox Church needs to end its schism with the rest of the Orthodox, and the Eastern Orthodox need to end their schism with Rome. This has gone on too long.  The German Catholic Bishops, for their part, need to end their drift into wherever they are going.

Something needs to be done regarding the condition giving rise to an epic level of attempted migration into the United States.  If conditions in Central America are that bad, we need to figure out why, and do something about it immediately.

In large part, in many ways, we all need to look forward, by looking back.  Being perpetually angry doesn't serve any interest at all.  Pretending it's 1973 won't either.  Turning to grifters, caudillos, snake oil salesmen, and those selling anger won't work.

We all know that.  It's doing something about it that seemingly is difficult.  But once we get moving, momentum is a force until itself.

Speaking of 1973, left wing American economists like Robert Reich need to realize that they continually espouse another economic option, and then pull back to the current one.  They're basically in the position of being a concerned stranger walking up to a desperate drunk in a bar, giving him a temperance lecture, and then suggesting he switch to beer.  That's not going to cut it in an economy that truly needs adjusting.

On a minor notes, would people on Twitter stop using this stupid cartoon for points they're trying to make:


There are all sorts of version of this, and they're all hideous and bad.  Whatever you think you are trying to prove this way, you are not.

An addendum.

Let's start 2023 with some basic consensus on proved things.  If we do, we'll have a productive year.  

If we don't, it suggests that we really prefer blinding ourselves to truth and arguing for sport/self-satisfaction.

And that would certainly merit a sense of pessimism.

Okay, first of all, some lingering political things.

Donald Trump lost the election.  Believe whatever you want about who should have one, whether the electoral college makes any sense, whether we're a republic or democracy (as if the two are mutually exclusive), but he lost.

There's no point in arguing otherwise, unless you just like arguing, much like the fellow I know who insists the Women's NBA "isn't a sport".  Why, well because a 50-year-old overweight guy who couldn't play basketball against a junior high team can safely take that position for self-satisfaction.  Same here.  Trump lost, and arguing that he won at this point is really just insisting the opposite isn't true.

Vaccinations are safe.  We really don't need to argue about this anymore, but we really don't need to be arguing about vaccinations in general.

Note that I didn't limit this to the COVID-19 vaccination.  People out there who don't vaccinate their kids for things we haven't seen for years, only to have the kids get ill, are acting criminally.  If there's one thing we have COVID-19 to thank for, and I don't believe it is, it's that it shut people up like Jenny McCarthy on this topic.

Let's resolve to follow the science on stuff, no matter how scary that may be, or how much that impacts our self interests, or our narcissistic desires.  If that leads to "you know, what I want isn't okay", or "my own impulses aren't ordered", well, so be it.

Let's also resolve that the end point of being a human isn't to be a consumer.

Let's completely skip altering our natures this year. Whether that's dying our hair some color it isn't, or inflating our boobs, or changing our gender, or whatever.  

Feel that you really want to be in touch with who you really are?  Well, be who you really are, and that starts with the body nature gave you and all that means.

Face the basic fact that you are going to die.  Hopefully not soon, but you will. And that's okay, as long as you are in the right place when you die. Eating the All Kale Diet won't stop it.  Don't accelerate it, please, we need you around, but we need you who you are, and as part of us, as we really are.

Don't be mean.  I've come to realize that there are certain people who revel in being mean.  Don't be one of them.  Don't take joy in other's suffering, or inflict it in them.  Meanness, I'd note, is often masked in arrogance, or self-righteousness, or even ignorance.  

Don't follow the mean, either. If somebody seems perpetually pissed off, there's something wrong in that.

Cheerfulness strengthens the heart and makes us persevere in a good life; wherefore the servant of God ought always to be in good spirits.

St. Philip Neri.

Mehr mensch sein.