Really aiming for a local take. . .

Former Cheyenne Frontier Days performer Taylor Swift announces engagement to

Former Frontier Days performer?

Friday, July 25, 1924. Speeding the game up.

Greece announced it was expelling 50,000 Armenians.

The British communist journal Workers Weekley urged British troops to turn the weapons on their "oppressors" in the event of a war.

American League president Ban Johnson ordered umpires to speed baseball games up by cutting trivial arguments about balls and strikes down and by limiting the time that players inspected balls.

Azem Galica, Albanian nationalist, died of wounds causing the collapse of the the ethnic Albanian rebellion that sought to unite Kosovo with Albania.

Frontier Days for 1924 was wrapping up.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 19, 1924. Birth of Stan Hathaway.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, 1960s, 1967, 1970s, 1975, Argentina, Catholic, Christianity, Nebraska, Personalities, Poverty, Protestant, religion, World War Two, Wyoming

Tuesday, February 29, 1944. The 1st Cavalry Division lands at Los Negros.

First wave of the 1st Cavalry, note all the Thompson Submachineguns.

The Admiralty Islands Campaign began with the dismounted US. 1st Cavalry Division landing on Los Negros Island. What had started as a small landing was converted on the spot by General MacArthur and Admiral Kinkaid to a full scale landing.

MacArthur and Kincaid on Los Negros, February 29, 1944, with Army cameraman T/Sgt Daniel Rocklin.

A-20s on their way to Vesuvius airport after bombing targets at Anzio.

Poor weather prevented an effective continued German effort at Anzio.

The USS Trout was sunk in the East China Sea by the Japanese destroyer Asashimo.

The Red Army prevailed in the Nikopol-Krivol Rog Offensive.

The Commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front, Marshal Nikolai Vatutin, was ambushed by Ukrainian partisans and mortally wounded.

The Battle of Ist was fought between the Free French Navy and a Kriegsmarine element, resulting in a French victory in the Adriatic.

A rodeo was held in New South Wales.

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: NFR

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: NFR: Hi on a cowboy's bucket list is a trip to the National Finals Rodeo. I had kind of written it off, until Peg and Lee Isenberger said the...

Tuesday, July 31, 1923. Monitoring Harding

The nation was tracking President Hardin's health:

The Tribune was optimistic on that score.  And it was also anticipating the upcoming county rodeo.

Harding's speech planned for that day was delivered as a written statement.

The High Court of Justice in Ireland ruled that a state of war in that country was over and 13,000 prisoners were entitled to release. They were not, as the following day the Public Safety Act of 1923 was enacted, causing their ongoing internment.

Parliament passed the bill sponsored by Lady Astor prohibiting the sale of alcohol to anyone under 18 years of age.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday at the Bar: The best of both worlds: Rodeo...

From Opal Harkin's Instagram. The sentiments on the mortaboard are quite correct.  FWIW, it's a little unusual to see mortorboard for a law school graduation, more typical is a certain sort of old style beret.

Earlier this week, I ran this post:

Lex Anteinternet: Monday at the Bar: The best of both worlds: Rodeo...:   

Monday at the Bar: The best of both worlds: Rodeo and law live side by side in the life of CNFR competitor

 

The best of both worlds: Rodeo and law live side by side in the life of CNFR competitor

When I did so, I did it without commentary.

Didn't have the time to comment.

Opal Harkins (what a delightful old school name), has had an impressive rodeo career, and a pretty impressive academic one as well.  Included in that academic career, she's just completed attending law school.   That's what made me curious, as it's really unusual.

It would not, quite frankly, be easy to go to law school and be on a rodeo team, although one of the members of my law school class was a place kicker (or whatever the kicker on a football team is called) for one year on the UW football team, and one of the members of my father's dental school class was also a rodeo team member for his university, and a very accomplished one at that.  The latter, I'd note, would be even more difficult than going to law school and being on a rodeo team.

So, it's possible.

Opal Harkins had a long association with rodeo, and did throughout her academic career.  She was, for example, the National High School Rodeo Queen for 2016-17, which I only know due to this story.  Oddly enough, she was sort of homeschooled, although through what I'd call remote schooling for high school students, which means she studied from home, but through an online program run through a Montana university, but had home school aspects.  Indeed, when I read it I thought it was probably because she came from a remote ranch, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

The five Harkins siblings are memorable for their talents alone – but their unique names contribute to their trademark as well. The three oldest siblings are boys: Odis, Othniel and Ogden, followed by two girls: Ouana and Opal.

“The story is that in my mom’s family, their names all start with “Sh” and my dad’s brothers and sister all start with “J,” says Harkins. “Odis was named after my great-grandpa, and after that, they had to keep the tradition up and find
“O” names for all the rest of us.”

Like the rest of her siblings, Harkins was homeschooled until 7th grade, when she had the choice to attend public school, which she did for a year. “My parents decided to homeschool all of us so they could be in control of what we were being taught,” says Harkins. “They wanted to be the main influence in our life and didn’t want it to be teachers or other students.” They learned through a Christian curriculum, including taking Bible classes since they were young.

The homeschool flexibility worked perfectly for a family that loved to rodeo together.

“We had schedules when we were all homeschooled together, we would work ahead on cold days and then ride all day on warm ones,” she says.

Now, technically a junior in high school, Harkins is again homeschooling and also taking college courses through the Montana State University – Billings High School Connections program. When she graduates high school, she will also have an associate’s degree in English.

“Being homeschooled is the reason why I am where I am in college right now,” she says. “It taught me to be self-motivated, and being able to take high school classes when I was in 8th grade is the reason why I was able to start college my freshman year of high school.”

Following graduating from that, she went on to university and then on to law school, staying in rodeo the the entire time.  She obtained a big following in her high school years, with one print commentary calling her "a natural doe-eyed beauty", something I wouldn't have expected to see in print following the 1940s.

There's a number of Harkins who are lawyers in Billings, and she's likely (well. . .is) the daughter of one of them.  So she's basically following in her father's footsteps.  I wonder, in fact, if she'll hang her shingle there.

There are a lot of negative things posted here about the practice of law, without a doubt, including some comments about how lawyers themselves, surrendering their professionalism to their wallets, and law schools, having churned out vast numbers of lawyers in the 60s and 70s, have caused the profession not to be that.

And those comments are deserved.  

A former president of the Wyoming State Bar had a "proud to be a Wyoming lawyer" campaign at one time.  Well, that was before the UBE meant that a lot of those lawyers never darkened Wyoming's border.  Plenty of "Wyoming lawyers" today are Colorado lawyers, or Utah lawyers, or Texas lawyers, and that's for the money.

What else would it be for?

But in fairness, law has and still does provide a means for a lot of rural people to make an in town living. And a lot depends on the type of law a person does.  Litigation is one thing, estate planning quite another.  Domestic relations, something else.  As a child of a lawyer, perhaps she knows which direction she's headed.  A lot of new law school grads really don't.

One of the things noted in the article was this:

One day, she’ll have a career that will allow her to continue rodeoing, she’ll be able to afford her own nice trailer and nice horses.

I'm inclined to say, don't bet on it.  And don't bet on having the time to be able to enjoy, well, pretty much anything of that type.  But maybe I'll be wrong, and indeed lots of lawyers I know manage to do just that.  And that says something about matching a career to a personality, something there is very little effort to do, at least by my observation, for law students.  

Well, anyhow, remarkable story.

Monday at the Bar: The best of both worlds: Rodeo and law live side by side in the life of CNFR competitor

 

The best of both worlds: Rodeo and law live side by side in the life of CNFR competitor

Thursday, May 31, 1923. Demonstrations in Durango.

A mass demonstration in Durango, Mexico attempted to take hold of the government's office a day prior to a law limiting the number of Christian ministers, a rule which would have made 90% of the 250 Catholic Priests in Durango invalid.

The governments coming into power after the Mexican Revolution were extremely hostile to the Catholic Church, of which this is an example.

Tex Rickard incorporated the New Madison Square Garden Corporation for the purpose of building a larger Madison Square Garden.

Rodeo cowboys at While House, May 31, 1923.

Sunday, May 6, 1923. Familiar places.

The big news was the terrible mine explosion in Colorado, but I linked this in due to the news about a Boy Scout injured on Garden Creek, above Rotary Park.

Rotary Park is still there, and a very popular spot locally.

The mine explosion killed ten miners.

Apparently it was the start of Baby Week.

First annual rodeo.  I didn't realize that the rodeo got started this late, which means this year may be the 100th Anniversary of the Central Wyoming Fair & Rodeo.

Or not.  Last year, the rodeo advertised itself as having its 75th anniversary, which would place the first one in 1948.

Seems unlikely it was that late, but there's probably a reason they calculate it that way.

Over 300 passengers were taken hostage by bandits on the Tianjin-Pukou Railway's Blue Express train as it passed through Lincheng in Shandong Province.

The first World Congress of Jewish Women opened in Vienna.

The British Fascisti, the UK's first fascist party, was formed by Rotha Lintorn-Orman.

A youthful figure in the formation of the Girl Guides, Lintorn-Orman was from a military family. She served as a member of the Women's Volunteer Reserve, and the Scottish Women's Hospital Corps in World War One.  Her conversion to fascism was motivated by a strong sense of anti-communism combined with an admiration for Mussolini. She'd die in 1935 at age 40, at which time she was heavily dependent on drugs and alcohol, and rumors existed regarding alleged sapphic escapades.  By that time, her party had all but ceased to exist, yielding to more and less radical parties.

The fact that the UK had a fascist party at all demonstrated the drift of the times.  Ireland would soon also have one.  In both instances, they never rally amounted to more than an annoyance.

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Bull Ride

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Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Ranch Rodeo

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Ranch Rodeo: Every once and a while, we'll get the call to do the opening prayer at a rodeo. Such was the case at the Ride a Horse, Feed a Cowboy ran...

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXXIV. The old and the new, and people who don't know where they are.

Casper is the biggest city in central Wyoming.  Given that, it's the focus for a lot of stuff.  In the summer, it can be crowded with events.

It's also possible to forget how many events there are, and ones that come and go are soon forgotten.  Only a couple of weeks ago, of course, there was the big Trump rally, oops Hageman rally. . . no Trump rally, which saw something like 9,000 Trump loyalist show up in, as the press likes to call it, Deep Red Wyoming.

What about this weekend?

Well this weekend, downtown, there was a big "Pride" event at the city's own David Street Station which apparently was really well attended locally.  Not very "deep red", as of course by "pride" it refers to LBGTQ "pride".

The College National Finals Rodeo, a car show, and the annual art show, are also up and running this week. And it's craft beer week statewide.

I still think the use of the word pride in regard to an inclination is grammatically weird.  That's a different topic from the LBGTQ subject in and of itself, which I'm not going to address here at all.  Anyhow, it seems to have turned out a lot of people.

I read that in one of the online journals, which is prominently featuring it as its local news.  Makes sense, it's local news.

In the same journal Chuck Gray's hand-picked intended successor, who does have primary opposition, is running an article about herself.  I.e, it's an add disguised as an article, an old advertising trick.

In that, the candidate informs the readers that she's a "refugee from "fascist Illinois".

Eh?

The candidate needs to get her hyperbole fixed, if nothing else. She's complaining about "fascist Illinois" because she's an extreme right wing candidate and is upset that Illinois is left of center.  If she wants to slander Illinois, she should accuse it of being communist or socialist. Those claims wouldn't be true either, but get the right left thing right for goodness’ sake.

The candidate informs us that the line in the sand for Illinois was as follows:

The straw that broke the camel’s back for our family was when one of our high-school daughters was threatened with out-of-school suspension for not wearing a mask. We were DONE with Illinois.

Well, we had those here and that would have been a possibility here as well.  Chances are the daughter would have been suspended here.   

I guess you can't get after somebody who arrives late to the party for not knowing that the main course was served, but you probably ought not to slam people for serving salmon before you know what the meal was.

Ward has a list of her various platforms, or I guess principal beliefs.

• Pro Freedom:  Taxation is theft. 
• Pro-Wyoming FIRST: Wyoming’s land and energy below (sic) to Wyoming 
• Pro-Medical Freedom. Mask and vaccine mandates were NEVER lawful. 
• Unabashedly Pro-Life. Life begins at conception 
• Pro-Family. Marriage is between a man and a woman. 
• Pro-2nd Amendment. WY has constitutional carry. Let’s keep it that way.

I'm going to deal with some of these first, and then the others.

• Pro Freedom:  Taxation is theft.

No, it isn't.  The government can't work without taxes, and we've always had taxes.   Since the dawn of government, it's had the taxing authority.  This statement is extreme, and frankly unthinking.  Like your paved road?  How do you think it got there?

"Freedom" isn't free, people like to say, usually referring to military sacrifice.  Well, it isn't fiscally free either.

• Pro-Wyoming FIRST: Wyoming’s land and energy below (sic) to Wyoming 

This is a policy that would turn Wyoming into Texas in about 3.5 seconds. Wyomingites like their public lands and the right wing extremist running right now never saw any public land that they didn't want to sell to the richest out of stater they could find. 

It's also completely contrary to the valid legal bargain we made when we became a state. 

This, by the way, is a real red flag to locals.  By and large, this position is detested by people who are actually from here.

• Pro-Medical Freedom. Mask and vaccine mandates were NEVER lawful. 

Like it or not, they were always lawful.   That doesn't mean you have to like them, but to suggest they were unlawful is simply wrong.

They too actually have a legal history in Wyoming, FWIW, and you can find similar things having occurred during the 1919 Flu Pandemic herein the state.

• Pro-2nd Amendment. WY has constitutional carry. Let’s keep it that way.

Wyoming does not have "constitutional carry". This topic isn't in our state constitution at all.  You have a right to keep and bear arms, but the state constitution doesn't address carry.  You probably have a right to carry, should that ever get to the Supreme Court, but whether you'd have the right to conceal. . . probably not.

We have statutory authorization for restricted general carry.  You can carry, but not everywhere.   And you can carry concealed by statutory authorization, but not everywhere.

This, also, is under no sort of threat.  Everybody who is running for anything is going to say that they're "pro Second Amendment".  Indeed, without commenting on the obviously highly right wing candidate in question, I've often thought that imported politicians from cities who claim to be "pro gun", had they stayed in their bergs, probably would have been all about gun control had they run there.

All of the above topics would suggest that the candidate needs a basic course on the law.  It'd do no good, however, I'm sure, as there seem to be a lot of people now who believe in a sort of secret constitution that doesn't reflect the printed one. That leaves two topics.

• Unabashedly Pro-Life. Life begins at conception 
• Pro-Family. Marriage is between a man and a woman. 

I agree with those, but here's something the current extreme right seems to be missing. By linking in their extremist views, like taking away public lands and the like, with long held social conservatism, they're dooming both.  I.e, if you have to be in the "the election was stolen" crowed, which I'd guess this candidate likely is (although I don't know), in order to oppose abortion, at the end of the day a lot of social conservatives are going to go into the voting booth and choose democracy over other issues.  

This kind of thing puts them there.

My guess is, in other words, if Harriet Hageman is this year's candidate for House. . . Lynette Gray Bull is going to get a surprising number of GOP votes.

Back to the Pride event.

That's actually more traditionally Wyoming than the probably horrified imported Illinois candidate may imagine.  Wyoming's traditional political culture was "I don't care what the crap you do as long as you leave me alone".

Heck, for that matter, serve beer at something pretty left wing and chances are you'd get a lot of really right wing people showing up.

And that view definitely doesn't square with what the imported heavily right wing candidates think, or what the current leadership of the state's GOP think.

Again, I'm not commenting on the Pride event itself, or the even topic that surrounds it.  What I'm talking about instead is people who truly don't seem to know where they are.

Indeed, I wonder what the candidate thinks in learning that the city she's relocated in is having a Pride event, at the city's big gathering spot, and people don't seem up in arms about it, unlike in neighboring Idaho.  Indeed, as she's a recent arrival, she likely doesn't know that such contrasts with Idaho are long-standing here.  Idaho has been a lot more receptive to the extreme right than Wyoming, at least up  until now, and that probably says something about where Wyoming is at right now.

Trump one weekend, with car shows, Pride events a couple of weeks later, with car shows.  Probably doesn't surprise anyone whose from here.

Probably a little confusing for those who thought they were moving into a prior century.

And it's craft beer week.

This weekend also features the College National Finals Rodeo, something that celebrates education and a major part of the regional culture, and the industry that created it.

I really wish we could go back.

Last Prior edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXXIII (Maybe) overruling Roe v. Wade. Let the misstated arguments, bad analogies, and outright lies begin. .

Friday, September 25, 1914. Battle of Buggenhout.

The Belgians launched an offensive at Buggenhout, near Antwerp.  

French forces captured the German fort at Kousséri, German Cameroon.

Oregon's Pendleton Roundup was on.

Last edition:

Tuesday, September 22, 1914. A big day for the German Navy.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, French Navy, German Kriegsmarine, Royal Navy, Tahiti

Saturday, August 27, 1910. Theodore Roosevelt was present in Cheyenne for Frontier Days. Attribution: On This Day.

 Theodore Roosevelt was present in Cheyenne for Frontier Days.  Attribution:  On This Day.

The first wireless transmission from an airplane took place at Sheepshead Bay Race Track in Brooklyn.

Last edition:

Monday, August 22, 1910. The legalization of Korean servitude.

Labels: 1910, 1910s, 1920s, 1926, Imperial Japanese Army, Japan, Japanese Empire, Korea, Women