Showing posts with label Mid-Week at Work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mid-Week at Work. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Mid Week at Work. Some Agrarians.
The Agrarian's Lament: "Sheep Are In My Blood": San Diego Woman Fell In L...: "Sheep Are In My Blood": San Diego Woman Fell In Love With Ranching With Wyoming Help
Wednesday, May 13, 2026
Occupations in Family History: Job Adverts in British Newspapers of 1926
Interesting set of advertisements.
Do the math on the Head Cow Man.
Occupations in Family History: Job Adverts in British Newspapers of 1926
Wednesday, May 6, 2026
Afflicted with the world they helped make, and afflicting it on everyone else. The Baby Boomers, old age, the Sexual Revolution, and expelling the Barbarians.
This is going to be harsh.
But not as harsh as it started out to be. I actually toned it down.
And yes, it's another dissing the Baby Boomers thread.
This past week there's been two articles in major journals regarding the aging of the Baby Boomers. One I had to hunt for as it was published in The Free Press, and I don't subscribe to that. Still, I found it here.
The Long Boomer Farewell
This will not be a clean handoff. It will be an extended interregnum.
The article is well written and largely correct, although in my view, much more gentle than it should be. It will be an extended interregnum because, like actual regents, the obsolescent monarchy cannot accept that the obsolescent monarchs should go, and go right now.
I said that this would be harsh.
But not as harsh as it started out to be.
I've been dealing with this topic directedly, recently. The entire country has been in fact. On a personally local level, I'm presently so frustrated with it that, as a member of Generation Jones, I'm about ready to drop out of employment in my "good office job" right now. I don't only because a panicked spouse feels that's financial devastation, even if she's wrong. I keep on keeping on only for domestic peace, that's it.
In this, I've been dealing with the intersection of the stubborn refusal of an entire generation to yield power on absolutely anything, while at the same time, watching how their choices and that of the post WWII era continually to negatively impact an entire society today.
In my experience Boomers just will not yield in offices, or in office. Indeed, right now, Donald Trump, who is clearly demented is lamenting former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani being in the hospital in critical condition. Giuliani is an 81 year old serial polygamist like Trump, age 79. A hallmark of the generation is that it just thinks its going to live forever and that none of the rules that held society together from when the first Vandal was taught to read until 1968 apply to them.
They've never stopped to ask about the reason the rules were there and what tearing them down would do . . . even to themselves.
Or acknowledged they'll die.
They will, they are but they will not acknowledge it or yield, and they are well on their way to going from being celebrated, albeit mostly by themselves, to unlamented.
In professional offices, and often in politics, where they were granted power in their 30s and 40s, they retain it as a last ditch matter no matter what. For two weeks running I've seen a Boomer confronted with the "it's time to go" reality and simply refuse. That person would rather retain an presence in an office where the person is not wanted rather than leave with dignity. It's bad enough that Gen Y and Gen X in that situation cites the Boomer presence as a reason that they might now want to commit to what the older person cites as his "legacy".
Well, if they have to work it, they may just let his legacy die in an economic desert.
Regarding one such struggle, I've seen a number of minor requests made recently of a Boomer, and some not so mild ones. The latter come from an awareness by the Boomer's fellows that there's some cognitive decline. "Whose project is this?" is the question, followed by, well Boomer took it in. . .
Oh oh.
Less significantly, a minor request made by one Gen Xer to the effect of "can you move your office so the most active person in it could occupy it as we want that person up front was met with "No." It's a prime example of the Afghan Warlord Principal. As we previously noted:
It's not actually the physical trappings that concern anyone in this latter instance, it's just the stubborn grasp on the institution itself. A better space is available for somebody who needs it, or who can better profit through its use. That person, whose in Generation Jones, cannot have it. It'll sit, instead, largely empty a gaping Arch de Trump type monument to somebody who is largely not htere.
Things like this are the reasons that quite a few professional firms have a partnership agreement that actually expels a person at age 65.
In the meantime I'm familiar with the descent into oblivion of another person, Gen X I think, who is killing herself with cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana. I think it's intentional, but it's also putting the person into a situation in which she can really no longer be employed.
That'd be tragic by any measure, but the entire time I've known the person she's had the same grossly underemployed "boyfriend" that she's shacked up with. Her life is the job she's no longer able to do, pet cats, the deadbeat long-term underemployed boyfriend, and bar hopping. If she was in her 20s it'd still be bad, but redeemable. Now it really isn't.
Left to Gen Jones to clean up, I'd note.
Related to this, the aforementioned Boomer was approached by another Boomer, also in her 70s, about a job. Her company is closing, and no wonder. Also a professional company, it just never was successful in recruiting anyone young to work with it, save for the son of one of the partners who has decided to leave the field and go into a new one with his wife, who has a successful business. No succession plan, just an end. At least the owners of that business were able to successfully bring it to an end. Nothing of it will remain.
She's worked for them for something like 30 years. In the 30 years that I've known her she was never married. I don't know if she was ever married, although I dimly recall it being mentioned that she had a daughter. She's been hinting to another professional firm in her office that she "needs to work" and needs to find a job, which was a broad hope that they'd offer her a job. She finally just flat out asked. . . the Boomer, for one. A 70 year old office worker asking a 70 year old professional for a job which everyone else would have to pay for.
Gen. Jones vetoed it.
They don't doubt she needs a job. They just don't have one for her. They're not going to hire her based on her resume for a position that doesn't exist.
And here's the harsher reality.
People love concept of romantic love, which is a real thing. But on top of it, marriage is, as so often noted, a fundamental aspect of society. An institution so ancient that it seems to be full ingrained in hte species, the Boomers broke that, and they're inflicting the damage on everyone.
When lifetime marriages went out the gate, and bed hopping and living for yourself came in, did nobody think that there would be implications?
The main Boomer I noted here is divorced. He's shacked with somebody too, which is extremely unseemly for somebody in their 70s, but it means that not only does he have no attachments, his attachment to his (former, more or less) place of employment is massively disordered. He won't go, as it that is what he dedicated his life to, and he's clinging to it as if its his life.
It is, but like life itself, it won't life on forever.
Estranged from his family, living in a relationship of convenience, and hostile to religion, he has the four walls of his old office.
Would that have been different in prior eras?
It's hard to say, but at least to a degree we can say yes. Their father's generation had their families, and families first.
The two women in this story?
Well, had marriage remained the institution it once was they'd both have spouses and children to rely on, at least to some degree. Maybe the one has a child, but that gets to another point below.
The first point, however is that societal structures existed for a reason. Marriage has always featured love, in spite of what some may say, but it also was society's protection against children and destitution. Married couples provided for the needs of their children, not the Department of Family Services and the school free lunch program. And husbands provided for their wives, unless a husband was too sick to do so, in which case the reverse was true.
People did very often work into old age, and we should not pretend otherwise, but I have to say that the Boomer woman in this scenario would very likely not be in it, but for the destruction of structure mentioned.
Likewise, before anti biologic pharmaceutical's women could not become the sexual playthings of men save at great risk. The younger woman mentioned above would be married. And the pressures of society would have bene such that the man in question, who could get a real job, would have gotten one.
The FDA allowed the first pharmaceutical birth control pill in 1960. The Boomers had taken it up in spades by the late 60s and were engaging in illicit sex on a broad scale. No fault divorce was first introduced in California in 1969, and spread throughout the country rapidly. Abortion was made a right by the Supreme Court in 1973.
No matter how it was sold, the impact was pretty clear. The Sexual Revolution reduced women to sex slaves and slaves in general. In essence, Western women had their status stripped to what it had been in pre Christian times. Toys for sex, who very soon had to work. Feminism didn't liberate them, it enslaved them, prisoners of war of the Sexual Revolution.
But not just them, men too became casualties of the war.
So here we are. Crediting Generation Jones, as we should, as a real generation, the youngest Boomer is now 72 years old. Save for those who solely own a business, or who are in family businesses actually run by their families, not one single one should be working. Those who have the means to retire, absolutely should. Those who are in position of societal power should not be. Sure some may be in great shape, and "want to contribute", but most aren't, and aren't contributing in a meaningful way.
But not all can retire. For one thing, a lot of them don't have the spouses that would help them to. Many lack the children that would provide guidance. Even those with children are finding that the warehousing of the elderly they advocated and participated in, and the warehousing of children they advocated for and participated in, has come back to haunt them. The damage they did to societal structures, in particularly their churches, has aided in all of that.
But the expectations remain there. Gen X and Gen Y will still employ us, right?
No, they won't. They have their own families and priorities, often much more traditional than yours.
Well Generation Jones will, won't it?
No, we're tired. We had to struggle our whole lives due to you Boomers and are ready to lay our burdens down ourselves. We will go, however. You often never had a place for us, and we're not going to end our lives finding one for you.
The past was far from perfect, in every sense. Women got married as they had very few options for a single life, if that's what they would have preferred. Couples that did not have children, prior to 1960, or actually some time following that, did not have them due to what was usually a tragic medical situation, or because the marriages were truly ones of convenience. Children didn't always grow up in a home in which they were really valued and wanted, but then of course that's true now.
But it is also the case that in fact much more of life had to wit with the family, and was much kinder. My paternal grandmother, for instance, was in close contact, often daily contact, with all of her children. My maternal grandmother was in close contact as well, in spite of her children being spread across two, and often three, countries. One of her sons lived with her until he died, and then his siblings were careful to take care of him.
Now, well the barbarians are back through the gate. The Boomers let them in. Everyone behind them is struggling in some ways to toss them out.
Sic transit Gloria Mundi.
Wednesday, March 11, 2026
Wednesday, March 4, 2026
Wednesday, February 4, 2026
The Agrarian's Lament: Where have all the local businesses gone? Addressing politicians in desperate times, part 6.
The Agrarian's Lament: Where have all the local businesses gone? Addressi...: Movie poster for And Quiet Flows the Don . What on earth does this have to do with anything? Well, maybe more than you might figure, as the...
Where have all the local businesses gone? Addressing politicians in desperate times, part 6.
Movie poster for And Quiet Flows the Don. What on earth does this have to do with anything? Well, maybe more than you might figure, as the main character is a local Cossack trying to live a local, and not always all that admirable, life but ends up getting carried away with the tied of events which destroyes all of that.
Donald Trump reportedly just can't grasp why average Americans don't think the economy is doing great. It's doing great for everyone he knows. It's doing great for the the Trump family. It's doing swell for Jeff Bezos. It's doing great for Elon Musk. It's only not doing great for his pal Jeff Epstein, as he checked out before he could be spring from jail in one fashion or another and go back to being a teenage girl procurer.
So what, he must be thinking, is the freaking problem?
Well, people like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and the entire Trump family are the problem (and people like Jeff Epstein are as well).
In other quarters people like to debate whether or not the United States is a "Christian nation". Whatever the answer to that might be (I think the answer is yes, but that it's a Puritan country) it was definitely a small freeholder country. That is, the country was mostly made up of small yeomanry and small tradesmen early on.
Indeed, the widespread use of corporations was illegal in the 1770s and for many years thereafter. Part of the rebellion against the crown was based on what effectively were export duties, a species of tariff, on chartered businesses, i.e., team importers, that the colonist had no control over and they reacted by destroying the property. Ironically the very people who emblazon themselves with 1776 themed tattoos in 2026 would have supported King George III doing what he did, just as they support King Donny doing them through executive order. Shoot, Parliament had actually voted on the tea duties.
Nonetheless, teh country has always had some very large business interests that, when allowed to, operate against the economic interest of everyone else. They don't want to "share the wealth". They think their getting wealthy is sharing enough, and good for everyone. Up until 1865, or instance, we had the Southern planter class, a market set of agriculturalist who destroyed land and people in their endeavors, but believed in it so strongly that they'd argue for the perversion of the Christian faith to support slavery.
It wasn't just Planters, however. Coal magnates, industrialists, foreign ranch owners, the list is pretty long.
It wasn't until later that absentee merchants dominated "main street", both the actual one or the metaphorical one. The first chain store is claimed by some to be The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P), which was founded in 1859. Woolworth's started twenty years later in 1879. Piggly Wiggly, the grocery store, showed up in 1916, and proved to be the model for "grocery stores" that would wipe out locally held grocery stores, for the most party, in the next couple of decades.
Since the mid 20th Century this trend has continued unabated and unaddressed. Every Walmart represents the destruction, probably, of a half dozen or more locally owned family supported stores. The appliance section represents the closure of local appliance stores. The entertainment section of record and video stores. You name it.
None of this had to be.
There's been a lot of ink spilled on the rise of Donald Trump and what caused it. We've done that ourselves. Others have noted the presence of small businessmen in the MAGA ranks, but it's been underreported in contrast to the blue collar Rust Belt members of the MAGA rank and file.
It shouldn't be.
When I was young, which is now a very long time ago, the Democratic Party was still regarded as the part of the working class. Unions, which have never been strong here, were still strong enough to host the annual Jefferson Jackson Day that backed the Democratic Party. But by 1973 the Democrats started to board the vessel of blood that would end up causing thousands to get off the boat. By the mid 1990s the party that had been the one hardhats joined became one in you had to be comfortable with a focus on disordered sex and infanticide. The Democrats, for the most part, forgot the working class.
At the same time, the Republican Party was widely accused of being the Country Club Party, with good reason. If you were a member of a country club or chamber of commerce, you were probably a Republican or you were weird. The thing is, however that the economic outlook of the hardhat class and the country club class was closer to each other than they thought and the same neglect hurt both of them severely.
As early as the 1960s, successive Democratic and Republican administrations were really comfortable with exporting business overseas. Nobody ever outright admitted that, but they were. And both Democratic and Republican administrations simply stopped enforcing anti trust legislation. Aggressively applied, entities like Walmart would be busted up, but it just doesn't happen. Aware of what was going on at first, and trying to struggle against it nearly everywhere, local business failed to arrest the destructive march of the giants. In part, their efforts were so local that they were like those of Russian peasantry trying to arrest the Red Army. They tried, but doing it locally just won't going to work. You can't wait until the Red Army is in sight of the village. Nobodoy lifted a finger at the national or state level to help.
The march of progress (which it wasn't) and free enterprise (which it also wasn't) and all that.
So the small business class became desperate, and in desperation they turned to the guy who offered no answers but who seemed like he might help, Trump.
What an irony, really. Trump doesn't "shop local" and he doesn't have the faintest grasp of what small business is like. He's spent his eight decades around the wealthy and is more comfortable with bullying smaller economic interest than helping them.
Even now, the bones a small business economy remain. In order to advance that interest, however, small businessmen have to do something they really aren't comfortable with.
They have to be militant about it.
Part of that involves being militant at the polls.*
And that involves asking some questions, but first it involves waking up to economic and structural realities.
The first of those realities is that the United States does not have a free market economic system, and hasn't for a long time. It has a Corporate Capitalist economic system that favors state created economic creatures given fictional personhood which favors economies of scale. The goal is to make prices cheaper, and part of that is to make wagers cheaper. The consumers are expected to adjust to this by getting new jobs at higher wages, sort of like the protagonist in Kansas City Star.
So, in essence, if you have an appliance store and are taking home, let's say, $150,000 a year, and with that you are trying to provide for all of your family's living expenses, and Walmart comes in, well, you should have become something else, and now this is your chance to go and do that.
Except you probably won't. You'll probably close the store and retire, if you are over 50, or go on to another lower paying job if you aren't.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
Okay, not facing that grim reality, what you need to do is find out if politicians are more interested in their super sized huge television having a low, low price, or helping you. And helping you means leveling the playing field with legislation, not "buy local" campaigns.
And I'll note here, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which is trying to defend the Wyoming Business Council, is a prime example of people who are there to hurt you.
And so we begin.
1. Where is his bread buttered?
In other words, how does he make his money.
That may or not may not be a reason to vote for or against somebody. In Wyoming, fore xample, there are small businessmen in, and opposed to, the Freedom Caucus at the legislature, and voting for the WFC is a complete no go. So the question is informative, not determinative.
Having said that, there are certain answers that, in my mind, are nearly disqualifying.
One is a near complete lack of private business experience, even as an employee. Wyoming in particular seems to get a lot of candidates who cite "I was in the military" as a reason to vote for them, based on a lifelong military career. Well, that isn't like working for a private business at all. There's never been a time in the history of the U.S. military in which a soldier wasn't going to get paid, save for the government briefly shutting down. And almost all member of the military don't worry about overhead and payroll expenses. They also don't have to worry about the country coming to them and saying, "Gee, U.S. Army, we've really liked you here, but the British Army made us a better offer so we're doing to close you down. . . "
It's not just a lifetime of sucking on the government tit that should be concerning. People who have a lot of family money are in the same category.
I"m not necessary saying don't vote for somebody who is rich. I am saying you need to weight it carefully. It's hard to get politicians right now, at least at the national level, who aren't fairly well off, due to the Citizens United case. But if a person is rich because they inherited it, a pause should be made on the voting lever.
2. Do you support the American System?
Of course, when you ask this, you're probably going to get the answer of "yes", because it includes the word "American" and nobody wants to be against the American canything if they're a politician.
So you're going to have to ask them some questions or question which shows what they know what the American System is.
They probably won't know.
Henry Clay's "American System," devised in the burst of nationalism that followed the War of 1812, remains one of the most historically significant examples of a government-sponsored program to harmonize and balance the nation's agriculture, commerce, and industry. This "System" consisted of three mutually reinforcing parts: a tariff to protect and promote American industry; a national bank to foster commerce; and federal subsidies for roads, canals, and other "internal improvements" to develop profitable markets for agriculture. Funds for these subsidies would be obtained from tariffs and sales of public lands. Clay argued that a vigorously maintained system of sectional economic interdependence would eliminate the chance of renewed subservience to the free-trade, laissez-faire "British System."
Okay, right now I'll note that this included tariffs to protect American industry, and I've been hard on those. I also don't live in the first half of the 19th Century when industry had barely achieved a foothold in the U.S. And, it might be worth noting, that Clay didn't propose tariffs as people hurt his feelings. At any rate, post 1890s tariffs have proven to be a disaster.
What I"m noting, however, is the second and third parts of the American System, that being a national bank to foster commerce; and federal subsidies for roads, canals, and other "internal improvements" to develop profitable markets for agriculture.
What I'm really getting at is the use of public funds to assist local businesses.
A good example of the American System in Wyoming has been the Wyoming Business Council.. The carpetbagging Wyoming Freedom Caucus is attacking it basically because it uses public money. If you are in Wyoming, a good question is whether or not the pol supports the Wyoming Business Council being defunded. If the answer is yes, this pol doesn't care if you evaporate and is instead mindlessly adopting twattle that the WBC is "Socialist". First of all, I don't care if it is socialist, I only care, and so should you, about whether its effective in generating local businesses.
3. What actual legislation would they support to help local business.
By this, I mean concrete examples.
Chances are, you won't get any, so you'll have to press them.
4. What is their position on taxation?
By this, I mean the whole smash. Local, state and Federal.
The local press always asks this position of our pols, and they rarely give any kind of a detailed answer. Right now, most of them note that they aren't fond of taxes, but they don't support the WFC's effort to gut state property taxes either.
That's not specific enough.
5. What do they think of the out of staters buying up all the ___________and what would they do about it?
Here, and in much ag country, this would pertain to ranch land. But I'm sure it pertains to other things as well. Shoot ,around here it also would seem to pertain to tire stores, it's just ridiculous.
Expressing "concern" doesn't mean anything at all, even if you are Lisa Murkowski.
Doing nothing, I'd note, is an answer. It's not an answer too many would be willing to give, but at least its an honest answer.
6. What do their employees, if they have any, think of them?
For some reason, this is never asked, but it should be. If the answer is that the candidates employees hate the candidate with the intensity of a thousand burning suns, that probably needs to be considered. If, on the other hand, the employees widely admire the employer/candidate, that says something else.
I'll note here that personally I had people come to me as late as the 2010s who had worked for my grandfather and wanted me to know how he had helped them out in tough times. He never ran for anything, but that says a lot about his character.
I don't think we've heard anything like that from any of Jeffrey Epstein's employees.
I'll also note that as a businessman myself, it seems some businessmen are willing to fire people the second they might have to take a little less home. That's a character defect that's disturbing, at the least.
7. Why are they in the party they're in?
Again, an honest answer.
Right now you can't be a Republican or Democrat and be 100% comfortable with either party. That would suggest that you are letting others do your thinking for you. Businessmen have a right to know what drew a candidate to the party, what ever it is.
They also have a right to know what a candidate disagrees with about the positions of their own party. If he doesn't disagree with any party position, he's an unthinking stooge.
8. What business related or policy related organizations are they in, or endorsed by?
This is often overlooked unless those organizations step out themselves, which they sometimes do.
Make Liberty Win is, in my view, a big no/go for a candidate. The Club for Growth is as well. The latter favors an economy that will screw you.
Footnotes
*They really need to be militant about it everywhere, however.
Last edition:
What have you done for me lately? Addressing politicians in desperate times, part 5.
Labels: 2026 Election, 2028 Election, Agrarianism, Agriculture, Climate Change, Distributism, Food, Localism, Politics, Public Lands, Questions for politicians, Republican Party, The land ethic, The second Trump administration
Claiming the mantle of Christ in politics. Don't support liars and don't lie. Addressing politicians in desperate times, part 4.
Claiming the mantle of Christ in politics. Addressing politicians in desperate times, part 3.
Questions hunters, fishermen, and public lands users need to ask political candidates. Addressing politicians in desperate times, part 2.
Labels: 2026 Election, 2028 Election, Commentary, Democratic Party, Politics, Questions for politicians, Republican Party, Trailing threadLabels: 2026 Election, 2028 Election, Camping, Climate Change, fishing, hunting, Politics, Public Lands, Questions for politicians, Right Wing Politics and Politicians, The Land Ethic, This is why we can't have nice things
Addressing politicians in desperate times. A series.
Wednesday, January 7, 2026
Wednesday, December 24, 2025
Wednesday, December 3, 2025
Wednesday, November 19, 2025
The Agrarian's Lament: Dreams denied and abandoned.
The Agrarian's Lament: Dreams denied and abandoned.: I've seen this place from the side of the road quite a few times, although its in a remote location. It wasn't until earlier this f...
Dreams denied and abandoned.
I've seen this place from the side of the road quite a few times, although its in a remote location. It wasn't until earlier this fall that I realized that it's all on Federal Land.
I walked in, as you have to do, while hunting doves. I only saw one.
Usually, although not always, when you walk up on an abandoned homestead, they're on private, not Federal, land. And that makes sense. It only took five years to prove up a homestead, and proving it up was one of the first things the people eligible to do so did. It protected their investment, which was substantial, both in terms of time and labor, but moreover in actual cash outlays, which were actually quite a bit more extensive than people imagine.
The peak year for homesteading was 1913, during which 11,000,000 acres were claimed. I"m a bit surprised by that, as I thought it was 1914. World War One caused a massive boom in homesteading which was aided by the weather. A lot of people took up dry land farming in that period, following the naive popular assertion of the time that "rain follows the plow.
Abandoned wagon.
It doesn't.
A large part of what inspired homesteading entries at the time was the Great War. With Imperial Russia off of the farming export market, which was a huge portion of its GNP at the time, and with European farming massively impacted by the war, grain production, beef production, and horse production turned to the United States, Canada, and Australia.
Trouble began to set in after the war, although interestingly not immediately so. 1919 was the last year that American farmers had economic parity with those who lived in municipalities. That started changing soon thereafter, however, and its never reversed. The Agricultural Depression of the 1920s set in early in the 1920s, and basically carried on until the Great Depression hit in 1929. Having said that, people continued to attempt to file homestead entries, some people naively believing that if they couldn't make it in town, they could as a farmer or rancher.
The buildings on this spread, however, are too nice to be a late homestead entry. I've seen a few comparable ones that were abandoned, but they were all earlier homesteads in which the owners became over extended and couldn't make their bank payments during the Great Depression. A lot of money went into some houses and whatnot while things were going well. That must have been the case here. So what happened?
That is, at least right now, impossible for me to say. But what seems clear is that a lot of money went into this spread during good times, and the owners pulled out when hard times hit. That, and the fact that the abandoned equipment is horse, not vehicle, drawn would suggest that the homesteaders were doing okay during World War One but didn't weather the change in the economic climate of the Agricultural Depression of the 1920s. If I had my guess, this was probably a World War One vintage homestead which collapsed, after a huge investment of time, effort and money, soon after the war.
They didn't last long enough in order to prove up.
Their dreams must have been crushed. I hope, and pray, that the rest of their lives went well.
I'd also note that, more than ever before, when I see places like this I have a maudlin tinge of regret. My dream was something like this too. At age 62, I won't make it.
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