Wednesday, November 1, 1911. First attempt at bombing from the air. Large assemble of ships. Casper's current hospital (long before the Banner days) opens.

The first aerial bombardment in history took place when Second Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti of the Italian Army threw three Cipelli hand grenades on Turkish troops at Tagiura in Libya.

He then flew to Ain and dropped another grenade there.

Nobody was hurt in the effort.

The U.S. Navy assembled 100 ships on the Hudson for review by Secretary of the Navy George von L. Meyer.  In the Pacific, 22 ships and 2 submarines sailed past Los Angeles.  

It was the largest assembly of U.S. Navy vessels up to that point in time.

Pope Pius X issued the papal bull Divino afflatu requiring that the new Roman Breviary be used in all Latin Rite churches no later than October 23, 1917.

Divini Afflatu

On the Reform of the Roman Breviary

Apostolic Constitution of Pope St. Pius X

November 1, 1911

Pius, Servant of the Servants of God, For Everlasting Memory—

It is beyond question that the Psalms composed under divine inspiration, which are collected in the sacred books, have from the beginning of the Church not only contributed wonderfully to foster the piety of the faithful offering “the sacrifice of praise always to God, that is to say, the fruit of lips confessing to His name” (“hostiam laudis semper Deo, id est, fructum labiorum confitentium nomini ejus”),[1] but have also had a conspicuous part, from custom introduced under the Old Law, in the Sacred Liturgy itself and in the Divine Office.

Hence, as Basil says, that natural “voice of the Church” (“Ecclesiae vox”)[2] and the psalmody called by Our Predecessor Urban VIII, the “daughter of her hymnody” (“ejus hymnodiae, filia”), “which is constantly sung before the throne of God and the Lamb” (“quae canitur assidue ante sedem Dei et Agni”),[3] and which, according to Athanasius, teaches the men whose chief care is the divine worship the manner “in which God is to be praised and the words in which they are fitly to confess Him” (“qua ratione Deum laudare oporteat quibusque verbis decenter”).[4] Augustine beautifully says on the subject:

That God may be praised well by man, God Himself has praised Himself; and since He has been pleased to praise Himself man has found the way to praise Him.

all our Scripture, both the Old and New, is divinely inspired and useful for doctrine, as it is written, the Book of Psalms, like a paradise containing in itself all fruits gives forth songs, and with them also shows its own songs in psalmody.

Such are the words of Athanasius[6], who rightly adds in the same place:

To me it seems that the psalms for him who sings them are as a mirror in which he may contemplate himself and the movements of his soul and, under this influence, recite them.

Hence, Augustine says in his Confessions:

How I wept in hymns and canticles, deeply moved by the voices of Thy sweetly sounding Church! These voices poured into my ears and truth became clear in my heart and then feelings of piety grew warm within me and my tears flowed, and it was well with me for them.

For who can fail to be stirred by the numerous passages of the psalms which proclaim so loudly the immense majesty of God, His omnipotence, His ineffable justice or goodness or clemency, and His other infinite praises? Who can fail to be inspired with similar feelings by those thanksgivings for benefits received from God, or by those trustful prayers for benefits desired, or those cries of the penitent soul for its sins? Who is not stirred to admiration by the Psalmist as he recounts the acts of divine goodness toward the people of Israel and the whole race of man and when he hands down the picture of Christ the Redeemer lovingly foreshadowed:

Whose voice Augustine heard in all the Psalms, praising or mourning, rejoicing in hope or yearning for accomplishment?

With good reason was provision made long ago, by decrees of the Roman Pontiffs, by canons of the Councils, and by monastic laws, that members of both branches of the clergy should chant or recite the entire Psaltery every week. And this same law, handed down from antiquity, Our Predecessors St. Pius V, Clement VIII and Urban VIII religiously observed in revising the Roman Breviary. Even at present the Psaltery should be recited in its entirety within the week were it not that owing to the changed condition of things such recitation is frequently hindered.

For in the course of time there has been a constant increase among the faithful in the number of those whom the Church, after their mortal life, has been accustomed to count among the denizens of Heaven and to set before the Christian people as patrons and models. In their honor the Offices of the Saints began to be gradually extended until it has come about that the Offices of the Sundays and Ferias are hardly ever heard, and thus neglect has fallen on not a few Psalms, albeit these are, no less than the others, as Ambrose says:

the benediction of the people, the praise of God, the praising of the multitude, the rejoicing of all, the speech of all, the voice of the Church, the resounding confession of faith, the full devotion of authority, the joy of liberty, the cry of gladness, the echo of joy.

More than once serious complaints have been made by prudent and pious men about this omission, on the ground that owing to it those in Sacred Orders have been deprived of so many admirable aids for praising the Lord and expressing the inmost feelings of the soul, and that it has left them without that desirable variety in praying so highly necessary for our weakness in supplicating worthily, attentively, and devoutly.

For, as Basil has it:

the soul, in some strange way, frequently grows torpid in sameness, and what should be present to it becomes absent; whereas by changing and varying the psalmody and the chant for the different hours, its desire is renewed, and its attention restored.

No wonder then, that a great many Bishops in various parts of the world have sent expressions of their opinions on this matter to the Apostolic See, and especially during the Vatican Council when they asked, among other things, that the ancient custom of reciting the whole Psaltery within the week might be restored as far as possible, but in such a way that the burden should not be made any heavier for the clergy, whose labors in the vineyard of the sacred ministry are now increased owing to the diminution in the number of laborers.

These petitions and wishes, which were Our own, too, before We assumed the Pontificate, and also the appeals which have since come from others of our Venerable Brothers and from pious men, We have decided should be granted, but with care, so that from the reciting of the entire Psaltery within the week, no diminution in the cultus of Saints may follow, on the one hand, and on the other, that the burden of the Divine Office may become not more oppressive, but actually lighter.

Wherefore, after having suppliantly implored the Father of Lights (Patre luminum) and asked for the assistance of holy prayers on the matter, following in the footsteps of Our Predecessor, We chose a number of learned and active men with the task of studying and consulting together in order to find some way, which might meet Our wishes, for putting the idea into execution.

In fulfillment of the charge entrusted to them they elaborated a new arrangement of the Psaltery, and this having been approved by the S.R.E. Cardinals belonging to the Congregation of Sacred Rites, We have ratified it as being in entire harmony with Our own mind, in all things, that is, as regards the order and partition of the Psalms, the Antiphons, Versicles, Hymns with their Rubrics and Rules, and We have ordered an authentic edition of it to be set up in Our Vatican Printing Press and then published.

As the arrangement of the Psaltery has a certain intimate connection with all the Divine Office and the Liturgy, it will be clear to everybody that by what We have here decreed we have taken the first step to the emendation of the Roman Breviary and the Missal, but for this We shall appoint shortly a special Council or Commission.

Meanwhile, now that the occasion presents itself, We have decided to make some changes at present, as is prescribed in the accompanying Rubrics; and first among them that in the recitation of the Divine Office due honor, by their more frequent use, be restored to the appointed Lessons of Sacred Scripture with the Responsories of the Season, and, second, that in the Sacred Liturgy those most ancient Masses of the Sundays during the year and of the Ferias, especially those of Lent, recover their rightful place.

Therefore, by the authority of these letters, We first of all abolish the order of the Psaltery as it is at present in the Roman Breviary, and We absolutely forbid the use of it after the 1st day of January of the year 1913. From that day in all the churches of secular and regular clergy, in the monasteries, orders, congregations and institutes of religious, by all and several who by office or custom recite the Canonical Hours according to the Roman Breviary issued by St. Pius V and revised by Clement VIII, Urban VIII and Leo XIII, We order the religious observance of the new arrangement of the Psaltery in the form in which We have approved it and decreed its publication by the Vatican Printing Press. At the same time, We proclaim the penalties prescribed in law against all who fail in their office of reciting the Canonical Hours every day; all such are to know that they will not be satisfying this grave duty unless they use this Our disposition of the Psaltery.

We command, therefore, all the Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots and other Prelates of the Church, not excepting even the Cardinal Archpriests of the Patriarchal Basilicas of the City, to take care to introduce at the appointed time into their respective dioceses, churches or monasteries, the Psaltery with the Rules and Rubrics as arranged by Us; and the Psaltery and these Rules and Rubrics We order to be also inviolately used and observed by all others who are under the obligation of reciting or chanting the Canonical Hours. In the meanwhile, it shall be lawful for everybody and for the chapters themselves, provided the majority of the chapter be in favor, to use duly the new order of the Psaltery immediately after its publication.

This We publish, declare, sanction, decreeing that these Our letters always are and shall be valid and effective, notwithstanding apostolic constitutions and ordinances, general and special, and everything else whatsoever to the contrary. Wherefore, let nobody infringe or temerariously oppose this page of Our abolition, revocation, permission, ordinance, precept, statue, indult, mandate and will. But if anybody shall presume to attempt this, let him know that he will incur the indignation of Almighty God, and of His Apostles, Sts Peter and Paul.

Given at Rome at St. Peter’s in the year of the Incarnation of the Lord 1911, on November 1st, the Feast of All Saints, in the ninth year of Our Pontificate.

Cardinalis Agliardi S.R.E. Cancellarius

Fr. Seb. Cardinalis Martinelli S.R.C. Praefectus

Visa M. Riggi C.A. Not.

Reg. in Canc. Ap. N. 571

Footnotes

[1] Hebr. 13, 15.

[2] Homil. in Ps. 1, n. 2.

[3] Bulla Divinam psalmodiam.

[4] Epist. ad Marcellinum in interpret. Psalmor., n. 10.

[5] In Psalm 144, n. 1.

[6] Epist. ad Marcell. cit., n. 2.

[7] Op. cit., n. 12.

[8] Lib. IX, cap. 6.

[9] In Psalm 42, n. 1.

[10] Enarrat, in Ps. 1, n. 9.

[11] Regulae fusius tractatae, interrog. 37, n. 5.

Olga Bayne, nee Roosevelt.

The Wyoming General Hospital opens in Casper, Wyoming.  The hospital remains open today, in different quarters, as the Wyoming Medical Center.

The history of the hospital has been controversial in recent years as in August 2020 the County, which owned the facility, sold it to Banner Health, who has not been popular with local residents.  One of the sitting county commissioners, who is running again this year, promised to get the sale reversed, which of course cannot be done.

Last edition:

Tuesday, October 31, 1911. Road to be built down Casper Mountain. Glanders in Casper, Plague in Liverpool.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, Disease, Equine Transportation, Highways, Mining, Scotland (Liverpool), Transportation, Wyoming (Casper)

Pandemic Part 10. A new paradigm?

 

February 17, 2022

The Center for Disease Control estimates that, taking the massive spread of Omicron around the country into account and the final relatively high vaccination rate in the country, 73% of the nation is now immune from the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, i.e. COVID 19.

Nobody is really sure exactly what that means.  But it might mean that we're entering a phase where the virus doesn't disappear, but it's much less disruptive to society.

It's still the case, however, that it remains a danger for the unvaccinated.

March 1, 2022

Wyoming's public health emergency shall expire on March 14.

March 21, 2022

A new variant of Omicron has developed, which is about 30% more transmissible than the already more transmissible Omicron.  It's spiking in Europe and in Hong Kong has caused an outbreak with a massive death rate, mostly concentrated in the unvaccinated elderly.

China has reported its first deaths in many months.

According to experts, the world is about 50% through the probable course of the pandemic.

April 14, 2022

Over 1,000,000 Americans have now died from the COVID 19.

July 22, 2022

President Biden has COVID 19.

At this point, two members of our four member family also have, with one having had it quite recently and finding it awful, but being grateful accordingly for having been vaccinated.

A new, more traditional type of vaccine, has now been approved.

September 20, 2022

On 60 Minutes over the weekend, President Biden stated; "The pandemic is over. We still have a problem with COVID. We're still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over."  The HHS Secretary later confirmed that position.

Epidemiologically, it isn't over, but then neither is the plague's pandemic either.  The statement has been criticized, with 400 people per day dying of the disease, but by and large it reflects the mood of the public which has largely gone back to a new post Covid introduction, world in which COVID 19 is part of the background.

December 15, 2022

The new defense spending authorization includes a requirement that the Secretary of Defense rescind vaccination requirements for troops because, well because that's the idiotic sort of thing that politicians like to stick into bills.

All of the troops should be vaccinated.

December 24, 2022

China, which has not accepted western vaccines, reported 37,000,000 new vaccinations in a single day.

January 2, 2023

A new variant of Omicron, XBB.1.5, now makes up 40% of the new cases in the U.S.

And Covid is still killing.

January 20, 2023

Governor Gordon Tests Positive for COVID-19

CHEYENNE, Wyo. –  Governor Mark Gordon has received results of a COVID-19 test that showed he is positive for the virus. The Governor is experiencing only minor symptoms at this time and will continue working from home on behalf of Wyoming. 

March 1, 2023

The Washington Post broke a story that the Department of Energy issued a report believing, with "low confidence", that the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in a Chinese lab.

A really good analysis of this story can be found here:  

Why Scientists, Lawmakers & Diplomats Care Where COVID Began

In actuality, the Biden Administration early on ordered governmental intelligence agencies to get to the bottom of the virus' origin.  Eight intelligence agencies were assigned to the tasks, two of which have concluded, but with confidence doubts, that the virus was natural in origin. Two, we know now, felt the opposite, with it already known since 2021 what the FBI felt, with "moderate confidence" that the origin was a Chinese lab.  Two just haven't reported.

None of this kept some from claiming that it's now proven that the virus originated in the lab.

FWIW, private scientists, as opposed to intelligence agencies, overwhelmingly feel that it originated due to animal transfer in the Wuhan market.

March 18, 2023

Recent evidence points to raccoon dogs at the Wuhan market as the source.

April 11, 2023

President Biden declared the COVID emergency to be over.

August 22, 2023

Declared over or not, two new strains are on the loose and a new booster should be available mid September.

April 12, 2024

The CDC has found there's no link between the COVID vaccines and cardiac arrest in young people.

Not that this is a surprise.

It'll make no difference in the anti-scientific atmosphere of the day. A society that can believe that legalizing marijuana, which is largely untested and wholly unregulated, and that Donald Trump won hte 2020 election, will still believe that the vaccine is risky, but cause it wishes to.

June 15, 2024

Reuters has revealed that during the height of the pandemic, the US ran an anti-vax campaign in the Philippines to try to undermine Chinese efforts there.

There's no excuse for that whatsoever.

November 18, 2024

Is it the flu or is it COVID? One at-home test can tell you

January 26, 2025

The Central Intelligence Agency revised its report on the origin of COVID reporting, with low confidence, that a Chinese laboratory is to blame.

This was a report that was completed during the Biden Administration and was just now released.  It's being released now is unfortunate, in that it comes during the Trump Interregnum which is packed with people who generally have a contempt for science, which this will slightly fuel if anyone notices it given all the distraction at the present time.  Most Scientists think the most likely hypothesis is that it circulated in bats, like many coronaviruses, before infecting another species.

May 21, 2025

The Trump Administration is limiting vaccine updates to those over 65 or in high risk categories, and requiring extensive testing for new updates.

August 20, 2025

The American Academy of Pediatrics is strongly recommending COVID19 shots for children ages 6 months to 2, putting it in conflict for the first time with HHS, lead by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, which doesn't recommend the shots for healthy children.  The AAP's recommendation is based on science, the HHS's by waiving a fryer chicken above Robert F. Kennedy's head while singing the Hockey Pokey.

The HSS point of view will get people killed, which means RFK Jr. has blood on his hands.

October 21, 2026

Wyoming student test scores uniformly reach or exceed prepandemic levels for first time

Last prior installment:

Pandemic Part 9. Omicron becomes dominant

On starting a 37th Year I will not finish.

I was admitted to practice 36 years ago today.

Back when the Rocky Mountain News was still a thing, they used to run columns by Charley Reese.  I didn't always agree with them by any means, Reese was a dyed in wool Confederate Gray Southerner, but they were often quite interesting.  I can recall his final column when he noted he was going to retire.  On the timing he said something like "when you know, you know".

I'm at that point.

My wife, however, definitely isn't at that point for me, an ongoing source of conflict.

In Wyoming, and maybe in most places, lawyers are admitted to the bar in August for the most part. A second, smaller crops, is admitted in March or so.  I was admitted in August, 36 years ago.

Back in September 2025 I started a thread about having passed the 35 year mark but never published it.  I was angry about something at the time, pretty clearly, and it was a very bitter posts.  I thought better of it and didn't post it, but I didn't wipe it out until recently.  I reread it and then did so, even though much of what I wrote in it is still true.

All careers are individual, of course which is what makes career advice so dangerous.  I've known people, for instance, who served in the military and absolutely hated it.  The entire film M*A*S*H and the television series is, in no small part, based on a hatred of military service, although the book's author, a conservative, ironically did not hate his. The same is true, for what it's worth, of Catch 22.  Heller actually admired the military he lampooned.  Both books were hugely successful, however, as they not only tapped into the oddities of military life, but also into a hatred of it in some quarters.

In contrast, I've known people who loved it, and I myself liked it.

I note that as I suppose that the law is the same way, maybe all careers are.

That aside, the law is unique and is well known for being so.

The law has an alcoholism and alcohol abuse rate that's far higher than other professions.  That isn't the only abusive trait in it, however.  It's estimated that something like 60% of lawyers have had in the office sexual infidelities and while I haven't tried to add up percentages, and that percentage seems high, there are indeed a lot of them.  The law also has some really screwball personalities in it, although I'm at the point where I now wonder if those personalities became that way due to the law, or entered the law because of it.  In my current Gen. Jones stage of life, I'm amazed by the number of burnt out husks of people who won't retire from the law as that's all they have.

I'm not the only one who's noticed that, and a recent conversation is part of what brought me back to this thread.  In speaking to an opposing lawyer I've known a long time by phone, on a holiday, he brought up the very things I've noted, this included.  Indeed, he noted that for a lot of people, they'd become lawyers, that's what they now were as part of their personality. That's all that's left.

That should never happen, but the law is an all consuming job.

He was actually a bit angry about it.  I'm not angry, but I don't want to become one of those people.  My friend noted that what he "is", is a hunter and mountain climber.  What he "does" is be a lawyer.  That's pretty much true for me as well, although I'd substitute outdoorsmen for climber.

He also had the observation that after working years at the law, late nights, early days, weekends, that he and his wife did things together rarely.  The pressure of work brought that about.  That's pretty much the same story in my own life.  Another lawyer I know just had his wife of about 30 years just up and leave him, leaving him wondering why.  It seems a "therapist" suggested that, and frankly I have a dim view of most therapist or counsellors, but what I suspect is that the same thing was at work.  That fellow had told me not all that long, before the disaster came, that he was never going to retire, because he enjoyed the fellowship of the lawyers.

Well, nothing that we do at work is something "enjoyed" by our spouses, except for perhaps the money.  If the lawyer is really one of those ones who enjoys the courtroom combat, or the intellectual challenge, the spouses don't participate in that at all.

Money can matter, however.  Yet another lawyer I know, about my same age, is trying to retire but is upset as his wife just can't grasp that the funding burn rate has to stop.  I think a lot of lawyers who keep on keeping on face that with a family member or perhaps themselves. From the outside, you know they'd be fine.  But to them, or a loved one, the fear of no further income will just drive them into the grave, working.  Fears of that type, and not my own, have kept me working for the past four years.

The law is not only an all consuming occupation, it's one that's soul destroying.  Many "plaintiffs' lawyers" have really lost their humanity.  Not all by any means, but quite a few. They really don't care about the people they represent in many instances.  It's one of the thing that makes practicing law so dispiriting and damaging to your own soul.  Most of the propaganda that lawyers and law firms of a certain type being there to help people is pure crap.  They don't mean it, and everyone inside the law knows that.  Simply practicing law, at some point, or perhaps more accurately being in litigation, is participating on a fraud on the public.

I'm told I'm really good at the law.  If that's true it's proof you can be good at something that you really don't love.  I'm beyond the point of not loving it anymore.

I entered the profession for the same reasons a lot of people do.  My earlier career had not worked out and I didn't seem to have any other place to go.  I had started off obtaining a very difficult science degree only to graduate into an economy where I was unemployable.  This is, I'd note, more common than a person might suppose.  There was no family business to step into.  What I really wanted to do, and still do, wasn't open to me.  Even at that, I hesitated and I chose not to enter the law school class I was admitted into.  I waited a year hoping to find work, and didn't.  Soldiering was the work that year.  I guess I could have chosen to make that a career, and in some ways I"m surprised I didn't.

The last year of my undergraduate degree I tried switch to a different field:

The road not taken.

Sigh. . . 

I'd be offered a summer position with them, but not until years later, at which point I was already practicing law and engaged.  I've posted on that before.

If 'd had my druthers, which hardly anyone does, I would have have been a rancher.  I have been around agriculture which is to say that I would have ranched full time.  I came close it without really realizing it after law school right as my father was looking at retiring.  We came close to the two of us starting a place, and then he died.  I abandoned that particular effort in order to help my mother, who had no such interest.  Laster I found she was baffled why I hadn't let her know.

My wife and I have always had cattle, but it's never been a full time thing.  Sometimes it's promised to almost be that, but it never has.  Now I'm 63 and time has moved on.  It's something I'll never recover from.  It was one of the goals that kept me at my desk job, and now the goal can't be met.  

Time and effort wasted.

There are some things that are quite scary about time moving on, I'll note.  Fear of death is not one of them.  I constantly hear that people are supposed to be afraid of death, but I've lived pretty close to death my entire life and I'm not.  If death arrives before my plans play out, well, so be it.  Nobody knows the day nor the hour.  Momento mori.

But what has moved on is the opportunity to complete a bunch of things I used to do and be engaged in before I started practicing law.  That must show something about my own character, as other lawyers take long vacations and the like, but I don't really seem capable of devoting time to vocations and avocations.  I'll leave it to the reader to decide which is which.  The interest in those pursuits remains, however.

Gone is interest in the law itself.  I'm not interested nor fascinated in it.  I never loved it in the first place, but I have had over the years a reputation as being a legal scholar.  I still get calls from various lawyers about legal situations which are rare or difficult. The difference is that I no longer find them interesting at all.

At one time, seeing as I was a lawyer, I really wanted to be a judge, which is a position for legal scholars, and I've applied within our system a bunch of times, and been encouraged to do so by judges.  Now I'm too old, as mandatory retirement is at age 70 and the committee isn't going to appoint somebody at age 63 for a single term.  Or I suppose not. To my surprise, they recently almost in fact did that in a district in which very few people were applying for the position. The past two Governors and the Judicial Nominating Committee have pretty much wrecked the process for successful lawyers, so applications are way down.

Indeed, one of my frustrations with the practice of law has been watching the decline of the judicial nominating system, which has grown much more political over the last few decades. When I started out you could really see why various judges got appointed to their positions.  When Matt Mead became Governor, however, he had an agenda of appointing women and that's what he was going to do.  That was a politically motivated bias and it meant if there was a man up for the same position, he wasn't getting it.

Governor Gordon has had a very strong bias towards prosecutors, although there are some exceptions. 

The oncoming Governor, Barlow, will be interesting to watch in this regard.  He's a professional himself (veterinarian) and perhaps he'll take a more informed and balanced view.

Anyhow, after 36 years of this, it's time to move on, so I'm moving on.  I'll complete this year, but I'm not starting another one.

Indeed, on the topic, I'm capable of reading the signs.  The American dream is that you live to age 100 and die in your sleep.  You probably aren't going to.  

Over the last couple of years I've watched some of the lawyers who are older than me decline pretty seriously in some ways.  And I'm declining too.  I had colon surgery out of the blue, something that probably could have been averted if I'd had regular colon checkups like you are supposed to.  Going through that process I ended up having an odd thing on my thyroid discovered.  Half my thyroid ended up coming out, although I probably could have avoided that if I was willing to risk it being nothing, which didn't seem to be a solid risk at the time.  Now I have to take pills every day for the first time in my life.

A year ago the eye doctor noted something peculiar in my eye.  Last week, on my follow up exam, it was clear it was a tiny cataract  It's not a problem yet, but it probably will be in "ten years".  I'm young for a cataract, but it's due to an injury.  

I've endured a lot of injuries over the years.

I'm considerably more tired than I used to be, and my physical stamina, still pretty good, has declined.  I could probably address this as people ought to at my age by exercise, but my schedule is incredibly burdened.  

I don't handle stress anywhere near as good as I used to, however, and stress is a killer.

So, in four months, I'm done.

The big challenge now is letting everyone know, and getting my wife to accept it.  That part isn't going to be easy at all.  

It's not going to be easy as at least my long suffering spouse doesn't want to believe I'm at this point.  I've been mentioning it, but when retirement comes up, it's always "you can't".  Retirement is, she suggests, a year further in the future than I imagine it.

A year isn't much, but it's a year.  I hear all the time that somebody retired and then died, as if retirement killed them.  Really, they just hang on too long.

And again, that hanging on is a funny thing.  I've watched one lawyer who has no family (divorced) and who has no faith keep on going to work.  I guess it's his identify . I mentioned retiring to him once and he scoffed, saying "good luck".  Of course, I don't have to pay alimony and I don't take expensive trips.

I've also watched a couple of very ill lawyers hang on after their illness set in. It provided a distraction I guess.  Indeed, on the very odd occasion I mention this to anyone people always suggest a law job I could take in retirement, which isn't what I have in mind at all.

In contrast, one lawyer who experienced a health care scare recently, one year younger than me told me that next year was definitely the date.  When I expressed doubt, the reply was "watch me".

What you are supposed to say, like Edith Piaf, is that you have no regrets about your career as a lawyer.

I can't say that.

I probably should feel that way.  Just yesterday, once again, thinking over the past 36 years I came to the conclusion that with the box I was in, I did the only thing I could do.  True or not, and it's probably true, hindsight being 20/20, I'd have avoided the law like the plague if I'd known what it was like.  As noted above, I'm sure there are people who look back and say they loved every second of it.

I'm not one of them.

To compound  things, I've been in litigation the entire time.  That was a mistake, as I'm not well suited for it internally.  I'm an introvert and I don't like being in extroverted situations.  I just couldn't find a way out of it.

Well, anyhow, page one of the concluding chapter.

So now, I have to start informing people.  This isn't going to be fun at all, but knowing myself, if I don't, it won't become real.

I've never liked doing trials.  Some lawyers claim to love them, and I suppose they do. There's something in their personalities, a defect really, which requires them to test their wits against other people.  Most lawyers don't like doing them, and most of the lawyers who say they do, are lying.

Like baseball players before a game, most lawyers have some sort of ritual before they try a case.  At one time, as late as the early 90s, that ritual for quite a few involved heavy drinking.  I don't think that's the case so much anymore.  Frankly, while conservatives are all worked up about it in some quarters, I think that's one of the things that the massive introduction of women into the law changed, and for the better.

When I get close to trials, I usually rewatch The Wild Bunch.  I know that's odd, but I love that movie and I find it very engaging.  Part of the reason that I watch it in this context is that the protagonists in the move are basically all mercenaries of a sort.  Yes, I know that they're criminals, but still.  And there's not one redeeming person in their whole contest.

Everyone who likes movies is familiar with the famous concluding gunbattle of the movie.  But that's not the last scene.  Former gang member turned bounty hunter Deke Thornton is waiting outside the town gate as evening arrives, having sent the dead bodies of the gang back with the other bounty hunters.  Elderly gang member Skyes rides up with Mexican Indians and  the following exchange occurs.

Sykes: I didn't expect to find you here.

Deke Thornton: Why not? I sent them back. That's all I said I'd do.

Sykes: They didn't get very far.

Deke Thornton: I figured.

Sykes: What are your plans, now?

Deke Thornton: Drift around down here. Try to stay out of jail.

Sykes: Well, me and the boys got some work to do. You want to come with us? It ain't like it used to be, but it'll do.

That's how I feel about things.  I intend to hunt, fish, work cattle, write and put in a garden.

But even if I only do a faction of that stuff, it'll be okay.

It ain't like it used to be, but it'll do.

Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 9, 25th Amendment Watch, 23d Edition. The Canadian Harvard and Oxford doctor in economics vs. the Wharton playboy. The Trade War with Canada edition. First set of Additional labels.

 

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 145th Edition. The Department of Manly White Men.

 An AP Headline:

Hegseth announces new policy to test troops for low testosterone

Umm. . . .why?

There's something more than a little creepy about this.

Presumably female troops won't have to be tested for testosterone.

And then there's this:

Hegseth intervenes on promotion list (again), blocks female and Black officers

A Pentagon spokesperson said, “Military promotions are given to those who have earned them,” but the defense secretary hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt.

The Secretary's campaign against female officers I'd guess to be part of a back door move toward limiting the role of women in the military, but what's up with the seeming bias against black officers?  Maybe it's just a statistical glitch, but then we have the taking down and relocation of a portrait of black Air Force Gen. Daniel “Chappie” James Jr. a genuine hero. The excuse was that it was being relocated due to renovations or something.  Chappie actually stared down Muammar Qaddafi during the latter's 1969 coup and nearly drew his M1911 on him in a true Western style standoff.

Maybe it's all a coincidence but it's an odd one.

For that matter, the entire Trump Administration is the whitest administration imaginable, which we could chalk up to coincidence too but for all the recent rumblings about who is and isn't a "real" American.  Black have of course been in the country since before it was a country, indeed since 1619.  At that time the Trumps were just doing whatever it is they did in Germany.  Nonetheless, I can't think of any prominent black members of the current illegitimate administration.

Even the Joint Chiefs, who represent members of the Armed Forces, which have 30 to 33% minorities in the ranks, are lily white, and of course all male.  African Americans, who are 13.5% of the population and 20% of the military, don't show up there.

Seems a bit odd.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 144th Edition. Just in case you've begun to think that being governed by an 80 year old demented dictator is somehow normal, here's. . .

Labels: 2020s, 2026, 930, 930s, Donald Trump, Iceland, Kristrún Mjöll Frostadóttir, Politics, Social Democracy, United States, Zeitgeist

'Explosive Diarrhea' Parasite Reaches Wyoming As Health Officials Seek Source

 

'Explosive Diarrhea' Parasite Reaches Wyoming As Health Officials Seek Source

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 133d Edition. What happened to that Board of Peace?

The Trump Administration breaks down crying and asks for help from adults.

The Trump administration is desperately seeking UN intervention in the war it started as the US is on the verge of a complete defeat in the war with Iran.

Remember the much vaunted and completely absurd Board of Peace that Trump rolled out when he liked to pretend he was a peacemaker?  The countries that joined were Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Egypt, El Salvador, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Mongolia, Morocco, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

Ask them for help. . . 

Go ahead Marco, call them up. . .

Go ahead, have him do it.

Yesterday the Trump Administration rolled back into existence the Presidential Fitness Test which Eisenhower had put into effect in 1956 and Obama did away with in 2012, replacing it with the Presidential Youth Fitness Program.  Trump can't have anying Obama. . . like a peace deal with Iran that dealt with nuclear stuff . . anyhow.  . .

Secretary of Batshit Crazy Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. made a joke about Trump being able to do a fifty mile hike and Trump joked back that he could do it.

Go ahead.  Let's see him manage that. . . 

Mass Mailings

We've been getting tons of political mass mailings from three candidates.  I noted that here:

And we have this:

Gray, Rasner, Friess All Send Out Mass Mailers — And They’re Very Trumpy

Yes, they are.  They're frankly really irritating.

All three of these candidates essentially have the same message. They love Trump as only Trump loves Trump. They love Trump more than Trump's children love Trump.  They love Trump more than Melania, assuming of course that she loves Trump.  

Trump retains a hold on the minds of MAGA and the GOP has descended into the Party of Trump.  There really aren't real Republicans anymore.  As I've noted here already, there's a really good chance that after November the GOP will simply cease to exist.

But is being more Trump, than Trump, a liability in Wyoming?  I guess we'll see.

Not that the mailings are all identical.  Gray's just asserts his Trumpiness.  Rasner, who has a MAGA truckers cap J.B. Welded to his head, takes shots at Gray.  Freiss mostly accidentally shows himself to be super rich and not really knowing what, or where, Wyoming actually is.

Anyhow, the mass mailers are so irritating I took a little time to see if I could return them to senders.  The USPS Reddit, which isn't an official page, makes it clear that would be pointless. They just throw them away.  The topic really irritates mail carriers, as they'd rather you just throw them away yourself.  I can see their point.

Apparently a lot of people just throw them on the ground, which really irritates mail carriers also

What do we know about these guys?

It's occurred to me that Wyomingites have been voting for people they know absolutely nothing about.

This isn't true about candidates from other states.  We know all about Colorado's BoBo and Alaska's Peltola.  Why don't we know more about these people who claim to have all these super duper values that are supposed to reflect the state's?

Take Gray for example  Next to nothing about him is publicly known.  He could be robbing liquor stores on his off hours and we wouldn't know.

All we know about him is he grew up near Los Angeles and graduated from high school there in 2008, after he went to Wharton, where based on the economic example of Donald Trump, who also graduated from Wharton, must educate its students with Archie cartoons.  He spent his summers in Wyoming growing up, and when he graduated from Wharton, he went right to work for his father's radio station where he broadcast political babble.  That's pretty darned close to never having had to work in the real world.  He rose to his current position by barely beating Tara Nethercott for the Secretary of State by constant hystericaly spewing of lies.

He was a founding member of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus which was heavily funded by out of state and rich carpetbagger money.  I know that he's a Catholic, but only because when he lived in Casper I'd see him at Mass on odd occasion.  My presumption is that he regularly attended Mass, although I don't know that.  He went to a different parish than I do.  Frankly, if I'd been a parish priest, I'd have called him out for lying.

He's unmarried at age 36 and nobody is ever mentioned as a love interest.  Maybe he has one.  For all I know he could be dating AoC.  But the question is never asked.  It should be, as being unmarried at 36 is frankly odd and we have a right to know if people are personally living up to their declared political values.  It's one thing if he's so dedicated to work, or whatever, that he doesn't have time for gals.  Maybe he just isn't interested, some percentage of people, a small number, aren't.  But if on the other hand he hangs out with the dancers from The Clown's Den every night, and I'm in no way suggesting he is, we ought to be so informed.

Press, you aren't doing your job.

We don't know much about Reid Rasner either, although the fact that he keeps suing people for defamation (and people have said some awful things about him) has revealed a little.  In one suit he admitted, if "admission" is the correct word, to being a homosexual.  In the suits he's filed he's taken grave exception to being accused of molestation of somebody below 18, or molesting anyone, and I don't blame him a bit for that.  I suspect that some people just believe that every homosexual does things like that, which is certainly not the case, but suspecting such a thing is just flat out wrong.  The suits therefore make sense, although its really risky for a politician.  He's some sort of investment businessman.  So all in all, we know a lot more about him than we do Gray, which is really odd.  I don't like his politics at all, but the fact that he's been open about these things is really to his credit.

With both of these candidates what we don't know is if their mailing appearance matches anything about them in real life.  Chuck likes to wear Western cut wool shirts now, but he looks really uncomfortable appearing that way.  His button-down and blue blazer looked a lot more natural.  He's been videoed on oilfield locations, where he's never worked, and on a four wheeler, which looks unnatural to him.

Rasner likes to be photographed with firearms.  So does Freiss.  But do they really use them?   Maybe, but do we really know that?

Freiss, I'd note, is another one.  His father was a super wealthy carpetbagger and he seems to be the same.  Go home, carpetbagger.

Balow, who is the best candidate so far, is from Laramie.  As already noted, Gray is a carpetbagger from California.  Rasner is from Casper.  She was a career educator who took over as Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction after the disastrous Cindy Hill, who brought full blown batshit into that office.  Balow held that office and then took the same one in Virginia, where the position is (sensibly) appointed.  People have held that against here here, which is really ironic.  If that's bad, Brent Bien ought to be exiled to the far side of the moon.

We know a lot more about Hageman, Barrasso, Lummis and Gordon, although I'd even question that to some extent.  There's some questions I'd ask Hageman and Barrasso which I think are legitimate, but which just aren't done.

Anyhow, Press, why don't you tell us something about these people?  You report on them so little, that it's honestly the case that a triple ax murderer could move into Wyoming.

Or maybe it doesn't matter.  

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 132nd Edition. Voting with their feet

Labels: Ascendant Ignorance in the Age of Donald Trump, Denmark, Education, emigration, Europe, Finland, Iceland, Ignorance, Immigration, It was because of the Cold War, Military, Taxes, trends, United States, Zeitgeist

Friday, April 30, 1976. The end of the Greek Language Question.

The Greek Parliament decided that the official language of Greece would be Demotic Greek, "Demotiki", the modern colloquial form of the Greek language, rather than "Katharevousa" an updated version of Ancient Greek.  The latter had been the official form.

The Greek language question (γλωσσικό ζήτημα) had been going on since the 19th Century.

The British fishing trawler Arctic Corsair rammed the Icelandic Coat Guard vessel ICGV Óðinn.

The ship continued to serve until 2006, and appears as a US vessel in Flags of our Fathers.  It's presently a museum ship.

Muhammed Ali barely clung on to his heavyweight title in a fight against Jimmy Young in Landover, Maryland.

Both boxers health declined enormously after their boxing careers, due to their boxing careers.  Young died at age 56.

Last edition:

Sunday, April 25, 1976. Saving the flag.

Labels: 1970s, 1976, baseball, Laos, Portugal, Socialism

Republicans. You have reached July 20, 1944. You can either act with the insurgents and save your party (maybe) or go down in the bunker and destroy it for a generation, or more.

And your ongoing support of Donald Trump may have guaranteed that result already.

There were plenty of signs that the Germans were going to lose World War Two well before Hitler put a PPK to his head and blew his diseased brains out.  Conservative Germans knew that.  Some tried to act, with the last major act being the July 20, 1944 plot which nearly ended the Nazi regime.

And no, we aren't advocating that in this thread.  We're advocating the use of the 25th Amendment.

The fact of the matter is that by July 20, 1944, it was too late to save Germany form complete defeat.  It wasn't too late, however, to rescue German conservatism.  Even as it was, the first post war West German governments were conservative.

The Republican Party is not Donald Trump's party.  Just like German conservatives of the 1920s and 1930s, real conservatives made a terrible bargain with radical German populists as they were obsessed with what they thought was German decline, looked back on a mythical German past, and listened to the words of a radical and heard what they wanted to hear.  They then followed along with evil thinking, most likely, that it wouldn't last forever, and at least the Nazis were addressing the Communists.

That's basically what the Republicans did.

Donald Trump spent most of his life registered as a Democrat, but at the end of they day, Trump's political party is Donald Trump.  Unlike Hitler, Trump isn't a very smart man.  He's a semi good salesman who mostly sells what people want to hear, and Donald Trump.  He tapped into Rust Belt, Southern, rural and conservative discontent and sold it all as a movement.  Truth be known, people's interest in that movement was fairly personal.  People were worried about high immigration rates and wanted something done, but they weren't really for violence in the streets.  And in their minds, an illegal immigrant was a guy working a construction job they couldn't get, not Maria who has been doing their shirts at the cleaners, or Jose who takes care of the sprinkler system.  But, just like the German conservatives, once you have blood on your hands its hard not to have a lot more.

Indeed, it's hard not to have a lot more even if you have to endorse outright hypocrisy.  Some were worried about social sexual issues, including gay marriage and transgenderism, both of which are in fact legitimate concerns.  The dear leader is so worried about that such that he has Scott Bessant, a married homosexual who will support any dumb thing Trump says, in his cabinet and who has had his family photographed with Bruce Jenner post "transition".  Some were worried about what they perceived as an irreligious drift in the country to such an extent they've made Trump into a near demigod even though he has no demonstrable attachment to Christianity at all.  Some were worried about endless foreign wars and are now endorsing endless foreign wars.

Most people have absolutely had enough, however.

To add to it, Trump is increasingly erratic.  Signs of dementia were clearly there in his first term, but now he's rocketing into insanity.  He babbles absolute nonsense in the middle of the night with childish tweets that no sane adult would tolerate.  If he was a member of your family you'd be seeking to have him committed.

The end result of this is completely clear.  If Trump is still in office in November, the Republican Party will be destroyed.  Not just defeated, but absolutely destroyed.  The GOP will not regain power nationally in any serious way for a generation, assuming it simply doesn't dissolve.  Local MAGA expressions, even in deeply Republican states will be put in the trash bin.  Politicians who were loyal to Trump, like Mike Lee, Lindsey Graham, J. D. Vance, Marco Rubio, Chuck Gray, Megan Degenfelder, and a host of others (including John Barrasso) will find their political careers over, even if they are still in office.  Some, such as Graham, Gray and Vance, will be regarded as absolute jokes.

The only way to avoid this, and it might not be avoidable at this point, is for the 25th Amendment, or his obviously bad health, to remove Trump by November.  At this point there's a fairly good reason that Trump's dementia is advancing so rapidly, and his health declining so quickly, that Trump will expire of natural causes any day now.  He's not well.  If death arrives him and takes him to his final reward it would spare people like Vance, Rubio and Barrasso from having to have a spine.  Assuming it does not, only the 25th Amendment stands a chance of saving the Republican Party.

The 25th Amendment option has to be invoked very soon if there's any chance of saving the GOP. And by soon, I mean this month.  Early voting is already starting for primaries.  Voters everywhere are trashing the GOP.  Virginia has been flipped to the GOP in a way that the Republicans cannot recover from for a generation.  Every single day that goes by makes the extinction of the Republican Party that much more inevitable.

Political parties do not last forever.  The GOP is not likely to survive Trump, and if it does, it'll be a minority party the way it was after 1932, standing for. . . well pretty much nothing but a sort of milk toast conservatism.  If it boots Trump now, it stands a chance of reforming itself sufficiently before November that the looming disaster can just be a bad one, rather than a catastrophic one.

Of course, booting the demented would be dictator requires courage, something most of them lack.  Most of them fear MAGA.  But a breach with MAGA, which has nowhere else to go.  It took Soviet tanks in Berlin to free German conservatives from the Nazis.  The Republicans will be freed from MAGA, but at what cost?

If nothing is done, by January 2027, it'll be way too late.  Like Red Army policemen directing the traffic in Berlin, the Democratic Party will be directing the social and legislative traffic of the country.  That might be what's going to happen definitively anyway.  I do not see the Republicans being able to salvage their immediate electoral fortunes.  The absolute stench of Donald Trump and his betrayal of democracy sticks to them too much.  But at a bare minimum, the GOP can avoid the discredit of the metaphorical fighting in the streets of Berlin, which will occur in November through January as Trump and his fanatic backers maintain they didn't loose and they aren't going to recognize the results.  That will occur.

And if that' occurs, a pox on the GOP in general . That's what most Americans will think as well.  

And perhaps its necessary.  The party of Lincoln sold its soul and became the party of Orange Mussolini.  An entity like that needs to be purged to its core, with the Lees, Tubervilles, Millers and all relegated to the political dustbin and recalled in our memories the same way that Trump will be, an embarrassing disaster.

Last edition:

The 2026 Election, 7th Edition, Do not stand with those who promote the sins that cry out to Heaven.

Labels: 2026 Election, American Solidarity Party, Blog Mirror, Christian Democrats, Christianity, Chuck Gray, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Effect, J. D. Vance, Megan Degenfelder, Pope Leo XIII, Predictions, religion, Utah, War

The 25th Amendment Watch List. A Fourteenth and Special edition. Attacking the Catholic Church.

Labels: 25th Amendment Watch List, Apostolic Christianity, Catholic, Christianity, Chuck Gray, Donald Trump, Megan Degenfelder, Mental Health, Pope Leo XIV, religion, The Madness of King Donald, The Second Trump Administration