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

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

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

Last edition:

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

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

Friday, May 18, 1945. Paying the consequences.

" Five East Massachusetts boys set up an 81mm mortar. Front row, left to right: Pfc. Albert Bartolussi, 56 Dow St., Framingham; S/Sgt. Louis Zompa, 211 Elm Street, Lawrence; rear row, left to right: Armand Lesage Jr., 24 Mason Street, Lawrence; Cpl. Roger L. Leavitt, 113 Franklin Street, Lynn; and Pfc. Leopold Freda, 221 Cheslsea Street, East Boston. They are all fighting with the 306th Regiment, 77th Infantry Division. Okinawa. 18 May, 1945. 306th Infantry Regiment, 77th Infantry Division. Photographer: Roberts, 1st Information and Historical Service"

The U.S. Army took Sugar Loaf Hill on Okinawa.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced the deportation of Fritz Julius Kuhn of the German American Bund to Germany.  His citizenship had been revoked in 1943.  His family had already been repatriated, during the war, to Germany.

The entire series of events would crush him.  He sought to return to t he US without success.  He was arrested and tired by the post war German government.  He died in 1951 a broken figure.

The Chinese Army reoccupies Foochow.

Karl Karl Dönitz issues a statement expressing horror at the Holocaust and distancing the German military from it.

Yeah. . . whatever.

William Joseph Simmons, founder of the second KKK, died at age 65.

Irish Prime Minister Eamon De Velera, announces a $12 million food and clothing aid program for Europe.

Last edition:

Thursday, May 17, 1945. The emerging post war world.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Battle of Manila, Burma, Catholic, Christianity, Communism, Croatia, Denmark, Dutch Army, French Army, Japan, Lebanon, Marshall Islands, Okinawa, Philippines, religion, World War Two, Yugoslavia

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

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

This Zeitgeist addition might not be.

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

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

Oops.

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

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

That's really weird.

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

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

Or the year of tariffs.

On food:

Trump’s Reciprocal Trade Act spells bad news for coffee 

Coffee was already getting pretty expensive.

Trump, of course, doesn't drink coffee.

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

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

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

Last edition:

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

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

Thursday, April 2, 1925. Oklahoma.

 

Oklahoma adopted its current flag.

The prior flag:

France and Turkey agreed on the autonomy of Alexandretta, which is today party of Syria.

The Police Forces Amalgamation Act 1925 went into effect in the Republic of Ireland consolidating the Garda Síochána and the Dublin Metropolitan Police into a single national police force.

Last edition:

Monday, March 30, 1925. Cougars win the Stanley Cup.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Canada, Cartoons, entertainment, Hockey, Opus Dei, religion, religious organizations, Spain, Sports

Thursday, March 12, 1925. Passing of Sun Yat-sen. British rejection of the Geneva Protocol.

Sun Yat-sen died at age 58.

The British government rejected the Geneva Protocol on the basis that the lack of US participating in the League of Nations rendered the Protocol unenforceable.

It's interesting that while the US had competent leadership at the time, as opposed to the rampaging buffoons who govern it now, the isolationist mallogic was strong at the time, helping to doom the world to a Second World War.

The Nazi stand in Großdeutsche Volksgemeinschaft disbanded in favor of the Nazis, with its populist members folding right back in.

Yes, populists.  The Nazi Party was a populist right wing party.

Retired General W. R. E. Murphy, Commissioner of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, launched overnight raids on all of the brothels ("Kip-Houses") in the Irish capital signalling the end of the tolerance of prostitution.

Last edition:

Wednesday, March 11, 1925. Private manufacture of arms.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Gun Control, It was because of World War One, League of Nations, United Kingdom

Sunday, February 1, 1925. Balto, the future King Zog, wild party in Laramie.

The final leg of the serum run began with Gunnar Kaasen setting out with lead dog Balto.  The Norwegian born Kaasen is the only musher who became famous due to the event.

The story made the first page of the Tribune:

A party in Laramie had apparently gotten out of control.

Ahmed Zog became the first President of Albania. He'd later be its first king. . . sort of a cautionary tale there.

Irish President W. T. Cosgrave appealed to the United States for food aid as the country's potato crop had been severely reduced due to excess rain.

Last edition:

Saturday, January 31, 1925. Leonhard Seppala and Togo.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1925 Serum Run, Alaska, Animals, Art, Daily Living, Dogs, Kven people, Lapp people, tools and appliances, Transportation, Trucks

Friday, January 30, 1925. Antitoxin runs out in Nome.

Diphtheria antitoxin ran out in Nome. The serum run had reached Kaltag.

Turkey exiled Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Constantine VI to Greece

The Khost Rebellion in Afghanistan ended with the reign of King Amanullah Khan intact.

A national news media frenzy started when Cave explorer Floyd Collins became trapped in Sand Cave, Kentucky.  The story went on for days, but did not conclude happily.

High winds blew a train off of a viaduct in County Donegal, Ireland, killing four people.

Last edition:

Thursday, January 29, 1925. 裁軍 and Flapper Fanny.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1930s, 1940s, Cartoons, China, Chinese Warlord Era, Shanghai, The Roaring Twenties, Women

A gentle moment. The old rural Catholics. A bit much. The old age refuses to yieldeth. The stubborn German.

A gentle moment

I was standing in the confession line behind her.  A young man came up behind me.  I realized, as I'd come in and went straight into line (I'm now 62, and well aware of my sins) I'd cut him off, as he came up from praying in the back of the church.

I immediately said "I cut you off, you can go in front of me", but he smiled and said "It doesn't matter".

She was nicely dressed, wearing a full length skirt and a nice one.

He reached around me and handed her something, which I thought was a handkerchief (she did in fact have a cold).  It wasn't, it was her mantilla She put it on.

I thought they were likely brother and sister.  He was very nicely dressed and they were both young, in their early 20s.

When I left, they were in different quarters of the church praying.  I recognized her now that I could see her face.  She's one of the "Mantilla Girls", but one I see rarely.  I didn't recognize him.  They were in fact, not together.  He just noticed she'd dropped her mantilla.

The old rural Catholics

I was wearing, on the day of confession, Carhartt trousers and my very old Carhartt jacket.  I hadn't shaved.  

It was Saturday.

I don't like shaving.  I started shaving when I was 13, and by that, I mean at some point when I was 13 I was shaving every day.  Next year I will have been shaving for 50 years.

When I was 13, I learned to save with a "safety razor".  I, in fact, owned a safety razor at age 13.  I first shaved with disposable head razors in basic training.  It was only a few years later, but there's a lifetime between 13 and 18.

I've recently received, in one fashion or another, a couple of reminders to Catholics in general that they ought to dress appropriately at Mass.  It is, I'd note, sort of a Catholic thing in a way, in some areas, kind of not to.  Not that we're intentionally dressing down, but for a lot of us going to Mass is so common that we in fact dress down, as its Sunday.  In some regions, we don't dress up and indeed, as we're used to going to Mass with college students, blue collar workers, sheepherders, ranchers, lawyers, doctors, businessmen, well, we don't.

The local Priest suggested we ought to dress nicely.  He's from a farm and had a conversation with me regarding sheep on the way into Mass recently.  Fr. Joseph Krupp, who himself often looks a little like a guy who might ride a Harley, and I think at one time did, suggested the same.

They're right of course.

Well, it was Sunday today.  I went to Mass wearing Carhartt trousers and my very old Carhartt coat.

The coat is warm.

A bit much

I sometimes see comments about yoga pants.

I don't pay much attention to such comments.

I ran into the very nice, and quite Catholic, son of a person I know very well the other day.  He's a nice young man.  He was with his girlfriend, who is probably a nice young woman. She is the daughter of an Assemblies of God minister.

She was wearing yoga pants.

They were so tight that, frankly, they left nothing to the imagination.  Absent wearing bikini bottoms, there would have been nothing less appropriate to wear in mixed company than I could imagine. 

And its January.

Makes me appreciate the Mantilla Girls all the more.

The old age refuses to yieldeth

At Mass, to my massive discredit, I ran into somebody, but only remotely, who generally irritates me.

That's probably sinful on my part.

I've known said person my entire professional life.  I knew his sister when we were in high school by which time I'll note he was already a lawyer.  She was a great person and I still lament her tragic death as a passenger in an automobile when it wrecked.  I knew, but less well, one of her sisters who died in the same wreck.

Horrible.

Anyhow, the person in question must have graduated high school nearly a decade in advance of me, which means that he must be over 70 years old now.  He's still actively practicing law.

I've concluded that this is toxic, if you are doing it full time, to your personality.

I also don't like that he holds his hands in the air when certain prayers are said, and he's huge so its hard to ignore.  That's the orans position, and in actuality there's good reason to do that.  That's what the early Christian faithful, who were all Catholics, did when the Lord's Prayer was said.

Well, I don't like it.

And that means I need to work on this.

I'd note that his fellow doesn't particularly acknowledge me at Mass, but then I don't go out of the way to acknowledge him either.  If we run into each other in Court, well. . . we're old pals.

The Mantilla girl and the young man, and the cowboy couple I noted several weeks ago, are better than either of us.

The stubborn German

Germans, it appear, have a reputation for being stubborn.

I have what people perceive as being a very German last name.

I have a very Irish first name.

I've never thought this odd, but then, who thinks their own names odd. For one reason or another, I've always considered myself an Irish American.  

My father didn't like anyone considering himself this or that.  No Hyphenated Americans.  He thought we were all Americans. He'd grown up, I'd note, while World War Two was on, when nobody considered themselves German Americans.

Some people are really proud of that now.

Well, by decent today, I'd be 1/4 German. But genetically, due to the weird way that works, I'm more Irish than a lot of people who live in Ireland.  And for that matter, I'd further note, my father's mother was of 100% Irish extraction, and in Irish American household even when my father was young, the mother's ruled the abhaile.

Father's sacrificed for their families, particularly in Catholic families.

The last name, fwiw, is Westphalian.  A person with it is just as likely to be Dutch, as German.  I was once asked by an Albertan if my ancestors were Dutch, for that reason.  Westphalia became a Prussian possession in 1807, much to the discontent of Catholic Westphalians, who weren't keen in being ruled by a Lutheran emperor. After the revolutions of 1848 a lot of Westphalians departed for the United States, sick of being rules by an undemocratic Prussian.

My Westphalian ancestors left about that time.  I don't know why, they didn't write it down.

Anyhow, genetically, I'm Irish.  

And in my ancestor there were those Irish who, given the choice between converting to Protestantism and keeping their occupation, ro being exiled, chose exile.

Stubborn?

I don't think I am, but I guess people perceive me that way.  I've been told that more than once.

German?

Not really.

Friday, December 12, 1924. Soviet Gun Control.

The Central Executive Committee of the USSR issued a decree prohibiting the possession of almost all firearms, with the exception of shotguns for hunting, although much hunting in much of Russia, which was fairly common, was in fact done with rifles by necessity.

Following 1933, the penalty for violation was five years imprisonment.  In 1935 knives were added to the list.

During World War Two the ban was expanded with all firearms being required to be turned over to the state, although following the war, the USSR was awash in captured German weapons.  

Presently, rifles may be registered for hunting.

The USSR/Russia we might note, shares this status with Ireland, in being a country whose freedom, if you will, was brought about through the private exercise of arms, that then went around banning them.  In the USSR's case it isn't too surprising, as armed resistance against the Communists continued on into the 1930s in some areas and revived during the Second World War, to continue on until nearly 1950 after the war.

Truly, there's a lesson here.

1931 vintage Soviet hunting travel poster. Russia had a very vibrant hunting culture until the Communists came in.  Knowing that an armed populace would overthrow them sooner or latter, the Communists banned possession of rifles and pistols, which the Czar's government had not.  This poster shows a hunter taking on a grizzly bear with a double barreled shotgun, which might well end up in a bad result for the hunter.  Based upon the travels of a fellow I once knew who had hunted in the late stage USSR, later on you could hunt with a rifle, but it was a crappy rifle that belonged to the government you had to check out.  Interestingly, shotguns remain the one firearm produced in Russia which are somewhat good, although they are peculiar.

The first issue of the weekly Saudi Arabian newspaper Umm Al-Qura, the official newspaper of the Saudi government, was published

Last edition.

Wednesday, December 10, 1924. Buffalo Meat.

Labels: 1920s, 1923, 1924, Food, homosexuality, Mining, Nobel Prize, Sweden, Warren G. Harding, Yellowstone National Park

2024 Elections In Other Countries.

Taiwan

Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party returned an historic third Presidential victory in a blow to the People's Republic of China.

The party regards Taiwan as de facto independent, which it should be.  President Biden, following the election, stated the US didn't support Taiwanese independence, which it very much should.

January 14, 2024.

Hungary

The President of Hungary, Katalin Novák, age 46, has resigned due to a scandal involving the pardoning of an accomplice in a child sexual abuse case.

February 11, 2024.

Ireland

I had a post on the Irish referendum to amend its constitution, and was frankly way off 

Blog Mirror: On marriage, family, and the Irish constitutional referendum.

The referendum failed massively.  Actually two proposals, the one that sought to expand the definition of family from a relationship founded on marriage to include other durable relationships, failed 67.7% to 32.3%.  The one to replace language surrounding a woman's duties in the home with a clause recognizing the role of family members in the provision of care was rejected 73.9% to 26.1%.

This deserves its own thread.

March 10, 2014

Russia

Putin.  Gee, what a surprise.

March 18, 2024.

South Africa.

The ANC lost the majority of parliamentary seats so, if it is to stay in power, it needs to form a coalition with minority parties.

Mexico

Claudia Sheinbaum won the presidential election, becoming the countries first woman elected to this office.

She is a protégé of the incumbent populist Manuel López Obrador and served as his pro oil environmental minister, in spite of having a degree in the field.  Mexican presidents may only serve one six year term.

June 3, 2024

European Union

Far right parties gained overall in EU parliamentary elections over the weekend, although in Scandinavia, the far left did.  President Macron dissolved the French parliament as a result, and France will now have elections.  Poland's governing conservative party came out on top for that country, edging out the further right wing party that had governed Poland before it came to power last year.

June 10, 2024

France

In round one of a snap French election, the far right Le Pen RN bloc took 33.15% of the vote, the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) coalition came second with 27.99% and President Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble alliance took 20.76%.  Voting concludes next week, but it's clear the far right is going to take the most votes, but not enough to form a non coalition government.

And so the far right, globally, continues its rise.

July 1, 2024.

United Kingdom

Labor won the recent election and Sir Keir Starmer will become Prime Minister.

July 5, 2024.

Iran

Reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian won Iran’s runoff presidential election.

July 7, 2024.

France

In an amazing one week long rally, the French left and Macron's Ensemble stages a comeback with the left wing NFP now having the majority of seats in the French Assembly and Ensemble the second largest.  

None of the parties have enough seats to form a government, and nobody is certain what will occur.  If a government is to be formed, it will have to be a coalition government.

July 8, 2024.

Venezuela

Both sides have declared victory in the election for the nation's president, with the incumbent having the current reigns of power.  The election has been accused of having irregularities.

July 30, 2024.

Georgia

Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party has likely won a simple majority in the Georgian parliamentary election held on October 26, 2024, according to preliminary results. Partial preliminary results released by the Georgian Central Election Committee (CEC) on October 26 indicate that the Georgian Dream party will likely win the majority of seats in parliament, but the results are neither complete nor final.[1] The results suggest that Georgian Dream will form the new Georgian government, but that it will not have the 113 seats required to obtain the  “constitutional majority” it needs to pursue some of the goals it has outlined, including outlawing nearly all opposition parties.[2] The CEC reported that voter turnout was nearly 59 percent- the highest since 2012 when Georgian Dream first came to power.[3]

Institute for the Study of War.

October 26, 2024. 

Moldova

Pro Western President Maia Sandu has won a second term against a pro Russian opponent.

November 4, 2024

Saturday, November 1, 1924. Political, and real, warfare.

It was Saturday.

Country Gentleman's cover was a follow-up from the prior week's.

Sultan bin Saqr Al Qasimi II invaded the Emirate of Sharjah resulting in the overthrow of  Khalid bin Ahmad Al Qasimi, who had been the Emir since 1914.

Sharjah was one of the Trucial States under British protectorate status. It is now one of the United Arab Emirates.

He'd find his rule ineffective as he was ignored by Beudoins and Khalid retained support.  He remained the titular rule, however, until his death in 1951.

The Royal Air Force introduced its Meteorological Flight Service.

Éamon de Valera was sentenced to a month in prison for entering Ulster illegally.

Frontier lawman Bill Tilghman, age 70, was shot and killed by drunken prohibition agement Wiley Lynn, who obviously wasn't that dedicated to the cause of his employment. Tilghman would lie in State in the Oklahoma state house.  Lynn would escape conviction, pleading self defense, but was killed in a gunfight in 1932.

The days headline did, and did not, read like today's.

Last edition:

Thursday, October 30, 1924. King maker.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, 1924 Election, Calvin Coolidge, Chinese Warlord Era, Ireland, Irish Army Mutiny, Irish Free State, Personalities

Thursday, October 30, 1924. King maker.

Gen. Feng Yxiang broke with the Zhilli clique and allied with  the Fengtian clique led by Zhang Zuolin, inviting Zhang to form a new, pro-Japanese, government just a week after he overthrew the government in a coup.

He's oppose the Japanese in World War Two, but was sympathetic to the Communists, in spite of being a Christian, after the war.

Irish Free State parliamentarians Francis Cahill, Thomas Carter, Henry Finlay, Seán Gibbons, Alexander McCabe, Daniel McCarthy, Seán McGarry and Seán Milroy resigned in protest of the government's response in the Irish Army Mutiny.

Henry Ford endorsed Calvin Coolidge for President.

The Coolidge's voted by mail.

Related threads:

Thursday, October 23, 1924. Beijing Coup.

Last edition:

Sunday, October 24, 1924. A glimpse of Natrona County.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, Casper Wyoming, fishing, hunting, Introspection, Wyoming (Casper)