Friday September 26, 1941. The Establishment of the Military Police Corps.

Today is the founding day of the Military Police Corps, something I only know about due to the blog post found here:

Today in World War II History—September 26, 1941

There were predecessors, it should be noted, but the official establishment dates to this date.

Sarah Sundin, on her blog, also had this excellent poster, which I can't resist also posting.

The poster, I'd note, has a good representation of 155 "Long Tom" M1 howitzers, a classic American gun that was a recent introduction into the American artillery stable.  It was the predecessor of other related long range large artillery, and an 8in variant also existed, a depiction of which also exists in this poster to its far right.  The U.S. had the best artillery of any army in the Second World War.  Indeed, this poster fairly accurately depicts the technology used by the US in the war, albeit in a very dramatic fashion.

The Germans took Kiev.  It was a major German victory, and it would soon result in the expansion of the German's murder of the Jews.

For a really interesting look at the German Army of 1941 and how it walked into Russia, see the following item, if you can, or at least look at the photo.

The exhausting march East

It's often not appreciated the degree to which the German Army was a shoe leather army.  Of course, at this point in the war, the Red Army was as well.

German propaganda during the Second World War was so good at depicting their forces as highly mechanized that it not only created that myth at the time, the myth has endured.  In reality, German infantry walked in, and German artillery was largely towed in by horse, just as the French forces had been in 1812 in their invasion of Russia.  Indeed, while the Germans certainly had motorized support, even much of their logistical support was horse drawn.

In 1941, this was also true of the Red Army, and indeed for Soviet infantry it would remain largely true throughout the war.  The Soviets, however, had a massive industrial based created by Stalin's forced industrialization of the country, and additionally it had the huge industrial base of the United States and the British Commonwealth behind it.  Soviet mechanization would advance during the war, German mechanization would retreat.

Thursday, September 1, 1921. Launchings

On this day the first "Super dreadnought" USS Washington, a battleship of the Colorado Class, was launched.

Jean Summers, daughter of Senator Summers, who did the honors.

She'd serve only three years and then be sunk as a target, due to the Washington Naval Treaty.

One heck of a waste of money.

The first Washington State Highway Patrol officers were sworn in. Their vehicles were, at first, Indian Motor Cycles.

May 7, 1921. Behave Yourself

Behave Yourself won the Kentucky Derby on this day in 1921.  The horse was an upset winner.

Foaled in 1918, the horse went on to a career as a stud, sort of, with the owner restricting the horses breeding as he thought its legs had poor confirmation  He was ultimately donated to the U.S. Army's remount program which sent him out to Wyoming. He was considered a poor racehorse and ironically beat the favorite that was owned by the same individual as he was, which resulted in that owners losing money on the race as he'd put money on that favorite, the vaguely racist named Black Servant.

I'm glad Behave Yourself won.  

The horse died in 1937 and is buried in Cheyenne.  He was 19 years old at the time.

Mrs. Harding, General Peshing, and Mrs. Benedict Crowell attended the New York City Police Parade with a troop of Girl Scouts.

President Harding was photographed with Jack and Bob Kneipp, who turned out dressed as period cowboys.

Mid Week At Work: Vermont State Trooper, 1936

Some states have state troopers, some have highway patrolmen.  In any event, this week's reflection on work is put up noting the dedication of the first freeway in the United States on this date in 1940, four years after this photo was taken across the country.

Strife

Denver put a curfew in place and the Colorado National Guard has been called out to address riots in the Centennial State's capitol city.

National Guardsmen of the 40th Armored Division, California National Guard, August, 1965.

The riots stem from several recent incidents of violent deaths of African Americans, the most recent at the hands of a policeman in Minneapolis Minnesota.

Those riots have spread all across the urban United States.  It's hard, from a distance, to grasp why hundreds of miles away from the scene of the offense riots take place against a community that didn't participate in the offense.  It points to something underlying, and the pundits will be full of analysis over it over the next several weeks.

But on the topic in general, distant riots aren't calculated to achieve anything and end up punishing the communities that were affiliated by them.  Businesses move, employment drops, and those who were deprived to start with are more deprived.  It's a compounding tragedy.

And its one that, in this context, we should be well past.  And yet we're not.

Chasing Carlisle. November 21, 1919

The Hole In the Wall Country, November 2019.

On this day in 1919, the newspapers were reporting that Bill Carlisle was headed for a location that was the archtype of destination for regional bands. . . some twenty years prior.

The Hole In the Wall.

After all, where would a Wyoming train robber on the lam go, other than to the same place that Butch and Sundance had?

Scene from the Red Wall Country, November 2019.

Well, it was a romantic notion.  Wyoming in 1919 wasn't the Wyoming of 1899, or even 1909, no matter how much the thought of a wild flight to the Hole In The Wall might have been fancied the imagination of a people for whom that region had been an impenetrable criminal fortress only a couple of decades prior.

In 1919, the territory was still wild in many ways.  Indeed, the first decade of the 20th Century saw an ongoing range war in the form of a cattlemen v. sheepmen killings.  As late as the latter part of the first decade of the 20th Century a criminal escapee simply disappeared forever.

But by the same token, by 1919 the criminal sanctuary no longer was one. There was no more Hole In The Wall Gang.  Most of the former members of that group were dead, in prison, or reformed.  Following the Tipton train robbery by The Wild Bunch, the authorities were no longer willing to tolerate the lack of law enforcement that allowed it to continue to exist and were willing to expend the resources necessary to penetrate it.  Prior to that happening, the badmen dispersed. Some would return, and as late as the 00s, but they weren't hitting trains.

Carlisle was.

Buffalo Creek Canyon, December 2019.

Indeed, part of the appeal of the Carlisle story is that he was already an anachronism, in his own time.  In 1919, the year after the Great War had ended, a war which had featured aircraft and submarines and mass violence on a mass scale, Carlisle was out on his own, in the vast countryside, raiding trains, badly.

People were sort of rooting for him.

Even as they knew, he'd be caught.

WWI Service Coat w/ MP Brassard

June 6, 1919. Portents

When we think of this day in terms of history, we naturally think of June 6, 1944.  But just a short twenty five years prior there was a lot going on, including a lot associated with the war that had just ended . . . and some that would figure in the war to come.

Some American troops who were not American citizens were becoming the same.

"Large group of overseas soldiers who applied for Naturalization, June 6, 1919. Man in center is Raymond Crist, Director of Citizenship, Bureau of Naturalization, Department of Labor".  June 6, 1919.

Those men had survived the Great War.  I wonder where they were when the Second World War came about and was raging?

Russian POWs who had survived at least the latter part of the war remained in German captivity while their country was itself aflame.

"Interior of the Clothing Supply Room, at American Red Cross Headquarters, Berlin. Sgt. Carl Olson, U.S.A. Supplying two Russian officers, Prisoners, with complete new outfits, Berlin."  The officer on the right retains the Imperial Roundel on his cap and the one on the left is a Cossack.  I wonder if they returned home?

 Russian POWs in a POW camp, June 6, 1919.

I really wonder about the fate of the men depicted above.  All we can really tell is that if they returned home, and most likely did, that fate was grim.  The country they had fought for was in a horrific civil war and they were of military age.  They were likely going into it, and no doubt many didn't survive it. Those who did, had World War Two in front of them, and no doubt many of the men shown here, if still living during the Second World War, served in their second war with the Germans.

And the nature of their country they had served here would never be the same again.

Residents of Cheyenne received the word that the last of Wyoming's Guardsmen still in service were now on their way home.

They were returning, of course, by sea.

Hampton Roads, Virginia.  June 6, 1919.  Hampton Roads was a major Navy installation.  It would have been busy in 1919, just as it would have been in 1944.

One country turned towards regulating the air, and became the first to do so.

Air Board ensign from 1922 and 1923.

Canada established its Air Board, making it the first country to have a regulatory body over air travel.  It's duties would be assumed by a successor entity in 1923.

An older means of transportation was also in the news.

Man o' War won the Belmont stakes, the first race on his way to fame.

Chicago Police Department inspection at Grant Park, June 6, 1919

Chicago's finest, who were about to endure one of the worst decades in their history, due to Prohibition, stood for inspection.

Mussolini's fascists, meanwhile, published their Manifesto in an Italian newspaper.  They were on their rise and just becoming a force that some would come to think, for a time, was the wave of the future, including some in the free world who thought that such movements had perhaps eclipsed democracy.

Here's what it stated:

Italians! Here is the program of a genuinely Italian movement. It is revolutionary because it is anti-dogmatic, strongly innovative and against prejudice.
For the political problem: We demand:
a) Universal suffrage polled on a regional basis, with proportional representation and voting and electoral office eligibility for women.
b) A minimum age for the voting electorate of 18 years; that for the office holders at 25 years.
c) The abolition of the Senate.
d) The convocation of a National Assembly for a three-years duration, for which its primary responsibility will be to form a constitution of the State.
e) The formation of a National Council of experts for labor, for industry, for transportation, for the public health, for communications, etc. Selections to be made from the collective professionals or of tradesmen with legislative powers, and elected directly to a General Commission with ministerial powers.
For the social problems: We demand:
a) The quick enactment of a law of the State that sanctions an eight-hour workday for all workers.
b) A minimum wage.
c) The participation of workers' representatives in the functions of industry commissions.
d) To show the same confidence in the labor unions (that prove to be technically and morally worthy) as is given to industry executives or public servants.
e) The rapid and complete systemization of the railways and of all the transport industries.
f) A necessary modification of the insurance laws to invalidate the minimum retirement age; we propose to lower it from 65 to 55 years of age.
For the military problem: We demand:
a) The institution of a national militia with a short period of service for training and exclusively defensive responsibilities.
b) The nationalization of all the arms and explosives factories.
c) A national policy intended to peacefully further the Italian national culture in the world.
For the financial problem: We demand:
a) A strong progressive tax on capital that will truly expropriate a portion of all wealth.
b) The seizure of all the possessions of the religious congregations and the abolition of all the bishoprics, which constitute an enormous liability on the Nation and on the privileges of the poor.
c) The revision of all military contracts and the seizure of 85 percent of the profits therein.

Or, in the published Italian:

Italiani!
Ecco il programma di un movimento sanamente italiano. Rivoluzionario perché antidogmatico e antidemagogico; fortemente innovatore perché antipregiudizievole. Noi poniamo la valorizzazione della guerra rivoluzionaria al di sopra di tutto e di tutti. Gli altri problemi: burocrazia, amministrativi, giuridici, scolastici, coloniali, ecc. li tracceremo quando avremo creata la classe dirigente.

Per questo NOI VOGLIAMO:
Per il problema politico

a. Suffragio universale a scrutinio di lista regionale, con rappresentanza proporzionale, voto ed eleggibilità per le donne.

b. Il minimo di età per gli elettori abbassato ai 18 anni; quello per i deputati abbassato ai 25 anni.

c. L'abolizione del Senato.

d. La convocazione di una Assemblea Nazionale per la durata di tre anni, il cui primo compito sia quello di stabilire la forma di costituzione dello Stato.

e. La formazione di Consigli Nazionali tecnici del lavoro, dell'industria, dei trasporti, dell'igiene sociale, delle comunicazioni, ecc. eletti dalle collettività professionali o di mestiere, con poteri legislativi, e diritto di eleggere un Commissario Generale con poteri di Ministro.

Per il problema sociale:
NOI VOGLIAMO:

a. La sollecita promulgazione di una legge dello Stato che sancisca per tutti i lavori la giornata legale di otto ore di lavoro.

b. I minimi di paga.

c. La partecipazione dei rappresentanti dei lavoratori al funzionamento tecnico dell'industria.

d. L'affidamento alle stesse organizzazioni proletarie (che ne siano degne moralmente e tecnicamente) della gestione di industrie o servizi pubblici.

e. La rapida e completa sistemazione dei ferrovieri e di tutte le industrie dei trasporti.

f. Una necessaria modificazione del progetto di legge di assicurazione sulla invalidità e sulla vecchiaia abbassando il limite di :età, proposto attualmente a 65 anni, a 55 anni.

Per il problema militare:
NOI VOGLIAMO:

a. L'istituzione di una milizia nazionale con brevi servizi di istruzione e compito esclusivamente difensivo.

b. La nazionalizzazione di tutte le fabbriche di armi e di esplosivi.

c. Una politica estera nazionale intesa a valorizzare, nelle competizioni pacifiche della civiltà, la Nazione italiana nel mondo.

Per il problema finanziario:
NOI VOGLIAMO:

a. Una forte imposta straordinaria sul capitale a carattere progressivo, che abbia la forma di vera ESPROPRIAZIONE PARZIALE di tutte le ricchezze.

b. II sequestro di tutti i beni delle congregazioni religiose e l'abolizione di tutte le mense Vescovili che costituiscono una enorme passività per la Nazione e un privilegio di pochi.

c. La revisione di tutti i contratti di forniture di guerra ed il sequestro dell'85% dei profitti di guerra.

That manifesto did include some radical elements, particularly in regards to the Church, but like a lot of radical movements its radicalism was largely hidden or obscured except where it appealed to simplistic populist elements. There was a lot of that going on in this time frame and it would help bring the world into war in 1939. For that matter, it helped cause a lot of big wars for the remainder of the 20th Century.

Worth noting, and contrary to the way that some latter day pundits tend to view it, the manifesto demonstrated Fascism's hostility to religion.  And while it had very strong nationalistic and militaristic elements, it combined those with socialistic elements, which was true of it wherever it was and in all its normal forms.   For these reasons, the conventional defining it on a left and right basis isn't really accurate, which has caused some people to debate its classification on the political right from time to time.

Well, at least there was something you could really sink your teeth into. Canned whale.

The Big Picture: Cleveland Police Department, Cleveland, Ohio. (date entered as September 17, 19__, copyright deposit September 20, 1918).

Blog Mirror: Today's Document: One of those things that probably seemed like a good idea at the time. . .

Women’s machine gun squad police reserves, New York City. Practicing with Lewis Machine Gun which is to be sent to the front. The killing range of this gun is 2 miles and it fires 500 shots per minute. Captain Elise Reniger, manning the gun, Miss Helen M. Striffler on the rear seat, and Mrs. Ivan Farasoff driving. 8/1/1918http://todaysdocument.tumblr.com/post/176516483781/womens-machine-gun-squad-police-reserves-new

112th Military Police, Col. Tom O. Crossan, commanding, Camp Sheridan, Alabama, April12, 1918

Auribus teneo lupum II

 You heard it here first:  The Troubled Marginalized

There's a category on this blog called "You heard it here first" and unfortunately, I guess, I can claim this in regard to an item I just read yesterday in The New Yorker from 2015. Our item would be this one here:

Lex Anteinternet: Peculiarized violence and American society. Looki...: Because of the horrific senseless tragedy in Newton Connecticut, every pundit and commentator in the US is writing on the topic of what cau...

That post goes back to 2012.  The central thesis of the thread is that what we're seeing in the US in regards to the type of horrific violent act which we saw this past week in Florida is due, more than anything else, to the marginalization of a certain class of young male.  The New Yorker article, from 2015, which was written professionally by an author with more resources at hand than I, concluded the exact same thing.

What that article did, which mine did not, was to specifically name the affliction, although anyone reading our article would know what the affliction was or at least what ballpark category it was in.  Asperger Syndrome.  As one organization dedicated to addressing that condition relates:

Asperger syndrome is one of several previously separate subtypes of autism that were folded into the single diagnosis autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with the publication of the DSM-5 diagnostic manual in 2013. Asperger syndrome was generally considered to be on the “high functioning” end of the spectrum.

Now, and I'll make this clear below, I'm not saying everyone with Asperger's is a danger.  But I am saying that we're ironically now in a point in time in which this condition, and ones close to it, can be identified, but we're actually handling those who have (and there's a wide spectrum there) about as poorly as we ever have.

I don't want to re-run again my original piece, but as I related there I'm quite certain that in prior eras these people were worked into society.  Now they're not.  They were awkward in the era before their affliction had a name, but they were part of a group.  Here's what I said at the time.

 No place to go, and the lessons of the basement and entertainment. 

Standards were taught, first in school, and then in the workplace  And, frankly they still are.  That's quite a burden on both, however, as a society that otherwise has such loose standards is asking an awful lot of the school and the workplace.  Truth be known, there was never an era when schools were really expected to impart a standard, it was assumed that kids came into school with one and that some re-enforcment could be done there.  Asking schools to impart a moral code is a pretty tall order,, and pretty darned unreasonable to expect.  It's even more unreasonable for the workplace to do so, so no standards are going to be taught there, save by individuals through their own examples.  But is there even a workplace to go to? 

There is a school to go to, that much we've made clear.  And as evident, I'm not keen on the trend in some quarters to blame schools.  I doubt very much that the average public school of 1912 was teaching a lot more in the way of a set of standards than the school of 2012.  Kids came into school with one, and as noted, it was re-enforced.  And I'm not keen on expecting schools to teach what parents and society simply earlier did.  I don't even know if that's possible, but it doesn't seem really reasonable.   At any rate, what about after school? That is, after graduation?  What do people graduate into?

I've analyzed that here from time to time, and need to do so more as it related to the changes in society topics I've addressed from time to time, but this is a critical aspect, I suspect, of this overall topic that's been missed.

The recent killer in Casper Wyoming was very intelligent and highly educated, but his lack of an ability to interact meant he couldn't find work. School, didn't fail him.  Something else did.  The killer in Newton was an adult, and he seems to have been fairly intelligent but with severe personality problems.  The killer in Colorado was also very intelligent, but was dropping out of school.  All of this is reflective, to a degree, of modern American economics.

Since World War Two we've gone from a manufacturing society to a consumption society. And in doing that, we've sent a lot of manufacturing overseas.  What on earth, you'd be justified in asking, does that have to do with this?  Here's what.  It has completely changed the nature of available American jobs.

Prior to World War Two less than 50% of the American population graduated from high school.  This wasn't seen as a  problem really, as at least the males departing from school had jobs they could generally enter, save for period of economic distress.  And many of the jobs provided for life long careers.  Machinist jobs, for example, and heavy manufacturing jobs, did not require a high school education and they did provide a solid middle class career.  There were a lot of analogous employments.  Indeed, it wasn't until after World War Two that anywhere near the current number of Americans, or Canadians, or Europeans, went on to advanced education.

Most of the men who entered these careers were average men, the same guys who take up most jobs today in any one field, but a few of them were not.  There were always a certain percentage of highly intelligent people with bad social skills who were not capable of relating to others who could find meaningful productive work where their talents for detail were applied in a meaningful way.  There were also places for individuals like that on farms and fields.  And in retail, indeed in retail shops they owned themselves.  Even as a kid I can remember a few retail shops owned by people who had next to no social skills, but who were talented in detail work.  The Army and Navy also took a percentage of people who otherwise just couldn't get along, often allowing them to have a career path, even if just at the entry level, which allowed them to retire in 20 or 30 years.

Now, this is all gone.  We live in the age of certification, and that promotes college education for some who are not well suited for the careers that they're studying, and it encourages certification of everything, which requires some social skills. Now even a college degree does not guaranty employment, and worse yet some level of social skills are necessary for most people with a college degree.  This means that some of the class of people we've been discussing are dangerously marooned.  They can get an education, but they have a very hard time doing anything with it. And that leaves them at home, bitter, and highly educated.

So what do they do with their time?

As noted, there was once an era when even the severely socially disabled generally worked.  People didn't know not to encourage them to work and having to work was presumed as a given.  Not all work is pleasant by any means, but the irony of this is that many of these people were well suited for fairly meaningful work.  Some men silently operated machine tools day after day in a setting that required a lot of intelligence, but not very much interaction.  Others worked in labs. Some on rail lines, and so on. This isn't to say that everyone who had these jobs fit into this category, which would be absolutely false.  But my guess is that some did.  And some ended up as career privates in the Army, a category that no longer exists, or similar such roles.  They had meaningful work, and that work was a career and a focus.

Now, for some of these individuals, this is all gone. The expectation of work probably isn't, but the ability may very well seem to be. So what do they do?

One thing it seems that they do with their time is to play a lot of video games, or computer games, and a lot of those games are highly male oriented, and highly violence oriented.  Quite frankly, by all appearances, they appear to be highly sexualized as well.

This is one aspect of this situation that is completely new.  Violence isn't new, and the implements aren't new, but this type of cartoon active violent entertainment is.

Violent works of literature have existed forever.  Beowulf, for example, is pretty darned violent.  The Niebelungenleid is awash in blood and gore. The Iceland sagas are pretty darned violent.  But they're all written. And the written word is just a tiny evolution of the spoken word.  Both seem to serve the function of redecoration and entertainment, but neither seem to lodge in the brain in a way that comes out as "I'd like to replicate that".  Indeed, to a degree they seem related to the function of play, in which humans replicate certain scenarios as unconscious rehearsal for what we'd do in similar situations.  In other words, to use the Beowulf example, "if confronted by hideous evil I will. . . ."

Visual images seem to be different to us, as a species.  This seems, therefore, to dull us to what we see, or to actually encourage us to excess.  It's been interesting to note, in this context, how sex and violence have had to be increasingly graphic in their portrayals in order to even get noticed by their viewers.  In terms of films, even violent situations were not very graphically portrayed in film up until the 1960s. The first film to really graphically portray, indeed exaggerate, violence was Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch.  Peckingpah used violence in that film to attempt to expose Americans to what he perceived, at that time, as a warped love of criminal violence and criminals, but the nature of our perception largely defeated his intent.  At the time, the film was criticized for being so violent, but now the violence is celebrated.  In that way, Peckinpah ended up becoming the unwitting and unwilling equivalent, in regard to violence, to what Hugh Hefner became intentionally in terms of pornography.  Ever since, violence has become more and more graphic and extreme, just to get our attention.  Likewise, Hefner's entry into glamorizing and mainstreaming pornography starting in the 1950s ended up creating a situation in which what would have been regarded as pornography at that time is now fairly routine in all sorts of common portrayals.

Recently, due to video games and computer games, both of these items, sex and violence, have crossed over from film into a type of hyperactive concentrated sophisticated cartoon portrayal.  Video games have popularized the concept of over muscled, hyperactive, amoral violent men, whose glory is their violence.  Their reward very often is an over endowed cartoonish female.  Neither portrayal is realistic in anything that it seeks to portray.

So, then, certain people are left with no work, and no socialization.  In a prior era, these people fit in, even if they were awkward themselves. Their work was valued and on Friday night, when pay came, they were dragged along to the local bar, the Union Hall, or the Enlisted Man's Club, even if they had little to say and were work oriented.  More than a few probably found a family that way.  Others never did, but their work and workers became a sort of family

Now, they're in the basement watching a make believe world glamorizing violence with M4 carbines which seems to offer them hero status and sex.  

This, I would note, rolls us back around to the analysis that this sort of violence and the Arab suicide bomber are committed by the same type of people.  Youth unemployment in the Middle East is massive.  Those societies have a set of standards, to be sure, but they're under internal attack, with one group arguing for standards that only apply to the group itself.  And violence has been massively glamorized in the region, with the promised reward for it being highly sensual in nature.  In other words, out of a population of unemployed young men, with no prospects, and very little in the way of learned standards, recruiting those with narcissistic violent tendencies should not be very difficult.  The difference between there and here is that there, those with a political agenda can recruit these disaffected misguided youths with promises of the reward of 70 virgins, while here we're recruiting them through bombardment by violent entertainment. 

The Conclusion and what to do about it.

That's where this seems to lead.  It's a long road, but it seems solid to me.  

The implements are not new.  But what is new is that we have a population that has nowhere to go, having a hard time fitting in, has a hard time finding meaningful work and which is spending its surplus time saturated in the glamorization of violence.

Well, what can a person do with that?

That's another question entirely, but the ultimate one.  What seems clear is that people who have pinned their hopes on a targeted solution will be tragically disappointed.  Banning one singular thing, even assuming that a statute was drafted by somebody competent to address the material items (which has so far proven to be completely the opposite of the case) would be at best a band aid approach and at worse actually do nothing at all. Indeed, if that approach failed, and it would be likely to, it would be very bad, as once any society tends to adopt a certain approach, they tend to follow that path in spite of failure.  The decades long "war on drugs" is arguably such an example.

What does seem to be the case is that we have a population we've really failed, but the failure is now so systemic that addressing the problem is massive in scope. But if we don't confront that now, the problem will grow worse and worse.  The difference between tolerance and acceptance needs to be reestablished, and the concept that a society must have standards does as well.  And that can't be foisted off on the school system.  And, while we now seem to accept that we've lost forever certain types of work, we must recognize that work, for some people, is much more than a career, but literally a life raft for them and us, giving their lives meaning.  Finally, while we're talking of banning things, we need to really look at violent entertainment.  Just as the argument will be advanced by those in favor of banning certain firearms that it doesn't matter that most of the owners of those arms will not misuse them, but that those who do, do so catastrophically, it is even more the case that some will be impacted by the glorious cartoon depiction of violence negatively.  And entertainment, at the end of the day, is just that.  There's little justification for highly glamorized sexualized violence aimed at teenage and twenty something males.

Right away, I'll note, there are going to be those who are horrified by this assumption, and will respond with the typical "well I know somebody. . .", or assertions that some people can and do good jobs with people so afflicted.  Yes, all that's true, but it doesn't change what we're basically seeing here (and its a blistering poor way to conduct any argument as you can literally say that about any problem whatsoever).  Almost all of the perpetrators of this kind of violence are young men who fit into this class.

And not only do they largely fit into this class, those identified with having it are often medicated with pharmaceuticals which either have dangerous side affects or for which the their side affects are not very well known.

Right away you will get a bunch of arguments that are largely ignorant, but are comparative.  One will be, "well, Canada and Australian don't have this problem, and they no doubt have the same demographics and problems. .  . so it's all about guns".

Nope, that doesn't hold up.

Lots of other Western European cultures no doubt have more or less the same percentages (probably) of young men afflicted with this condition as an organic matter.  But far from all of them restrict firearms the same way that Canada and Australia do.  Switzerland, for example, not only allows the purchase of AR15 type rifles but there's a special version made for the country just for civilians sales.  Spain and Portugal allow it.  New Zealand allows it.  None of these countries are afflicted the way we are with this problem.

So what gives?

Most nations don't dump their young.

We do.

The United States has always had a freakishly mobile society and that's always made our society comparatively violent.  We have, for instance, always been a more violent society than Canada's.  It has also meant that, more than most other nations, we're pretty comfortable with the young basically being abandoned, either by parents or by society.  That's been a feature of this problem as well.

The recent Florida incident featured a troubled kid abandoned by society with two dead parents.  The Newton incident saw a doting mother and a departed father.  You can find other instances.

Our society has encouraged a concept of personal liberty so vast that fathers can take off and mothers basically can if they choose to, at some point.  Piles of troubled boys are raised in households featuring only a female role model who eventually loses control over the subject.

And once these individuals reach 18 years of age, society no longer cares a whit what happens to them, if it ever did.

This was not always the case for us.  Society, both by culture and law, once very tightly compelled men and women to be responsible for their offspring, rather than just making it an option for parents.

That's the big difference right there.  In the other countries the societies are simply less mobile and there's more of a social structure even if standards of personal conduct have enormously declined.  Americans have practically prided themselves on tearing ours down.  This has become the trend in all Western European cultures in recent years and that has started to reflect itself back in violent ways, however.  In Europe, it's reflected back in European youth joining ISIL, which at least has standards, or being re attracted to the fascist left.  In our society it has reflected itself in other ways.

So, if we really want to get at this, that has to get these kids out of basements and off their computers and into useful work. In an era in which our supposedly brightest minds are running around destroying work, that's not going to be easy.

And that gets us back, I suppose, to where we started.  While we can now identify the condition, in prior years we simply thought these folks were a bit difficult or a bit odd. But there were useful places for them in positions which truly needed to be filled.  Now a lot of those occupations are either gone or the doors are closed to entry in other ways.

We live in an era now in which the Hyperextrovert is celebrated and everyone else is compelled to go along with it.  Network!  Collegiality!  Etc. Etc. are the rallying cries of the day.  If you are in business, you will get emails, wanted or not, on a nearly daily basis on "21 ways you can Network with the energy of a Chihuahua on meth!"  We are not so far gone in this direction that there's something called a Social Anxiety Syndrome for people who are probably just super shy.  That may not be a real condition at all but rather something that is identified as one as it's odd for the Super Extroverts that not everyone wants to be that way.  I suspect, quite frankly that Aspergers is sort of the same way and that it might actually simply be an extended end of the range of human organic makeup.  A minority, no doubt, of the human population but in the same what that other organic conditions are that impact a person's worldview.  

Whether I'm right on that or wrong. . .and moreover whether The New Yorker and I are right and wrong, which isn't wrong is that we have a population of young males, some of whom suffer from some pretty pronounced psychological conditions, who used to find employment on shop floors and laboratory tables and the like who now have nothing to do but focus on things that no human being should focus on.  The massive erosion of standards of morality starting in the 1960s means that much of them were raised in a narcissistic environment and learned that as the norm and in an era with cartoon violence in the form of video games and movies presents the mental image of those conditions in an era when most people in the Western World experience very little of the real thing.

None of that should be comforting to anyone.  What that means is that if this society really seeks to address this behavior it has to start undergoing and immediate rejection of the failed false anything goes ethos brought in by the Boomers and return to the eons old ones that preceded that and which even now is starting to revive in ways that "progressives" can't seem to grasp.  And as part of that, the return of responsibility, both societal and parental needs to come back in and frankly be enforced.  Parents can't live for themselves with children as exotic pets and as it takes two to create a child, that missing male needs to reappear, by force if necessary.

 21

One of the proposals has been, I'd note, to keep anyone younger than 21 from buying the type of firearms featured in this act and Florida is apparently going to pass such a law.  Congress might.

I don't know what I think about this.  I'm not totally opposed to it, frankly, but I also feel that the American age of majority is spastic.  If people who are 21 are not quite adults for some things, they aren't for anything.

You cannot buy a pistol until you are 21 years of age, on the logic that men (and yes, it's men) prior to that age are more likely to use one in a crime.  Okay, that might be true.

But you are capable of carrying weapons in war at age 18. 

That is, quite frankly, flat out weird.

I truly feel that if you aren't allowed to drink or buy a firearm, you really ought not to be regarded as suitable for military service.  If we raise the age for these firearms, we should be honest and bar military service to anyone who isn't 21.  We also ought to do away with Selective Service registration at age 18.  We should do away with that period, but the intellectual leap that says you can drive, but not buy beer, and not buy a pistol, but join the Marine Corps is, well, too vast.  Make everything 21, except for that driving a car, I guess.

Indeed, why can you marry without your parents consent, which is pretty darned dangerous, at 18, but not own a pistol?  Or buy alcohol? Weird.

There's not intellectual consistency to it at all.  Americans are fond of saying "you're an adult at 18" but lots of statutory provisions don't back that up.  You really aren't.  You can vote, drive, join the service, and enter into contracts, but that's about it.  Otherwise, you're in some gap generation where you have to wait for 21 for everything else.  If we're going to do that, let's just make it complete.

Of course, that would also require society and parents to play along.  Parents who now shove kids out the door at 18 couldn't.  They ought to be minors.  A school system country wide which ends for most people at 18 probably should be extended another three years by public funding, if we are to do that.  There's your universal post high school education right there.  It's only intellectually consistent.

But we're not going to do that.

Which still doesn't mean that this is a bad idea, or a good one.  It's just an intellectually confused one.

So what about those guns?

Yet another topic I've written about here before.

The media likes to call the class of weapons that show up in these matters "assault rifles" which they are not.  Assault rifles are selective fire weapons and while there are a few in civilian hands, there are very few and there's no reported instance of one actually being used in a crime.

So what we're really talking about is military style semi automatic rifles.

The oddity here is that semi automatic rifles have existed for over a century.  Mechanically there's nothing new about the ones around now and even the AR, which gets so much press, has been around for over fifty years now.

What this means is that something in society is making a rifle that was not used much for crime at all into one that is.  That's quite clear.  And that's addressed elsewhere in this post.

But, some will say, and they have a point, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do something about these weapons now as they are a problem now.

The problem with "doing something" is that the something is usually drafted by people who don't know anything about firearms at all, and as a result what they drafted has no impact at all or, worse, principally serves to go after something that has nearly no reported instance of abuse at all.  And that's why "banning assault rifles" won't band them and if a statute was broad enough to ban them it would likely be unconstitutional.

Which brings me to this.  The real change, if there is one, is that people who really aren't firearms fans have started to acquire this category of firearm as they're fascinated with a cartoon like concept of violence.  More on that in a moment.

Fascinated or not, most of the people who buy them for that reason will never use them violently, and some will go on to develop other interests in firearms.  But for those who are so fascinated, one thing that they do that their predecessors did not is to buy huge quantities of magazines.

One of the features of this class of arm, but not unique to it, is that they have quick detachable magazines.  That's a vital feature of a combat rifle.  But most civilian shooters really don't need more than a couple magazines, assuming they're competitive shooters.

Good magazines are expensive but cheap magazines exist and it seems that people in the class we're speaking of buy a lot of cheap magazines.  Magazines are cheap because they are not controlled the way that firearms are. But they could be.

Serial numbers could be required on magazines and they could be subject to the same Federal sales conditions that the rifles themselves are.  That might limit this a bit.  Beyond that, it could perhaps be the case that the number of magazines could be limited for any one rifle.  That is, if the number was restricted to two, that would seem to have an impact.

Assuming that's legal.

And it may not be.

The mere fact that I've mentioned this topic in this way, however puts me doubly on the outs with many.  For some, the mere suggestion that all semi automatics shouldn't be banned is unacceptable. For other, any restriction on the sales of magazines will seem unpatriotic.

So, that being the case, I may as well go on and offer more offense. What the heck.

And here it is, although it's also something I've mentioned before.  The fascination with this category of rifles is grossly overdone in the sporting magazines.  I'm not saying that there are no legitimate articles about ARs, but they have become such a big deal that they've sucked the air out of the room in the sporting press.  Lots of gun magazines are endless streams of AR articles.

The AR is frankly not that good of a rifle and it never was.  The sporting press fascination with it is really absurd.  As it is a weapon of war, it makes the focus on this area that of war.  That focus needs to be redirected.

Vets in Schools?

Geez, this is a dumb ideal.

I keep reading, often on facebook, that we should put veterans in our schools.

This is apparently based on the charming view that all vets are responsible highly trained combat veterans.  Not hardly.

Now, I'm a veteran, and so I know a little of what I speak here.  Let's start with the trained combat vets part.  Only a fraction of servicemen are in the combat arms.

Indeed, only two of the five services are really focused on individual combat that way to any extent, and that's the Marine Corps and the Army.  But even in those services there are vast numbers of soldiers whose daily duties are only remotely tied to carrying arms and combat.  Even in World War Two, the last really huge war we fought, most soldiers were not combat troops.  That hasn't been the case for the U.S. Army at least since World War One, if not earlier.

And two of the services are based on highly technical complicated machines on which only a few do real fighting.  The Air Force isn't made up mostly of pilots but mostly of people who exist to support the infrastructure that lets those pilots fly.  The Navy, which is freakishly the most hidebound of the service in regards to tradition is one in which the various positions are, as a rule, completely divorced from directly fighting.  Indeed, the Coast Guard is ironically the sea service that most closely resembles the direct fighting sea service of old, as its light vessels actually do routinely engage other vessels and its members actually do board other craft.

Beyond that, the reality of servicemen is a lot more closely reflected in the poem Tommy than by the meme's on Facebook:

I WENT into a public 'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, " We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' " Tommy, go away " ;
But it's " Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's " Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' " Tommy, wait outside ";
But it's " Special train for Atkins " when the trooper's on the tide
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's " Special train for Atkins " when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap.
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an` Tommy, 'ow's yer soul? "
But it's " Thin red line of 'eroes " when the drums begin to roll
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's " Thin red line of 'eroes, " when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an` Tommy, fall be'ind,"
But it's " Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's " Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an` Chuck him out, the brute! "
But it's " Saviour of 'is country " when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An 'Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!

In other words, the ideas that servicemen are all heroes is charming, but it's not really true.  Indeed, just a few months ago we were all worried about Marines taking pictures of female Marines sans uniform, with it being understood that there was plenty of bad conduct by both male and female Marines in this category.  I'm sure that this exists in the other services as well, but it just hasn't come to light.

Suffice it to say, merely being a vet hardly qualifies you to be some sort of super sentry.

Relying on the police

One thing the recent event shows, and I've mentioned it here as well, that average citizens do, however, have real reason for not being comforted by those who always argue that the police are there to protect you.

They are, but that doesn't mean they're all up to the job or that its their only job.

I also dealt with this a while back, but the television view of police, or at least the modern one, is really skewed.  The average day for a policeman, if we're to make reference to television, was more like that portrayed in Car 54 Where Are You than it is in Chicago Daily Disaster or whatever.  Policemen have so many duties that expecting them to be effective sentries is also asking for a bit much.

Indeed, this is another area where people who make comparisons to other countries routinely fall flat in what they're observing.  Continental European police forces usually (but not always) have a branch of militarized police.  We don't want that in the US, or at least we never have, but most European countries (but not the UK) do have them.  France, for example has both the National Police and the National Gendarmerie, the latter of which is part of the Armed Forces but which is under the Ministry of the Interior.  The Carabinieri fill that same role in Italy.  The point is that we don't have police like the Europeans often do who are actually soldiers with policing roles, and we don't want them either.

Indeed, it's worth noting that at least in terms of real effectiveness in a bad spot western policemen are more reliable than eastern policemen, in my view, as they're more used to having to act on their own and they're frankly typically a lot more familiar with their firearms.  The bigger a city's police department is the less likely that either of those things are true.

Which leads us to our next topic . . .

Arming Teachers

This is one of those areas in which discussion so devolves so rapidly that no air ever reaches the actual topic.   People are so viscerally against it or so irrationally for it that its never actually discussed. 

Let's start with a simple matter. The idea of "arming teachers" is a non starter if that means that every teacher must be armed.  That's a horrible idea and its just as bad, really, as the idea that veterans ought to be stationed in schools.  No, it's worse.

Making people carry weapons who don't want to, or who are afraid of them, is just flat out not going to work and beyond that has its own philosophical problems.

But allowing people who are willing to undergo the process to obtain a license to do so is another matter entirely.

I've argued this here before but I'm flatly of the view that a person who has gone to the trouble to obtain a modern concealed carry license is considerably more likely to be able to effectively use a handgun than the average policeman is.  Their focus on obtaining the license was single minded, they've gone to the trouble to obtain it, and they don't have to train themselves for the 10,000 other things the average policeman does.  

So I would allow teachers to carry concealed, as long as they adhered the philosophy of doing that, which is that the public should never know who carries concealed and who does not.  The real protective aspect of allowing for licensed concealed carry is that nobody knows who it does that. At some point, some people who do will end up having to use the sidearm, a horrible thing to face, but once that becomes a realistic possibility of semi common occurrence there's a true deterrent effect.  

Indeed, that's basically why policemen are armed in most nations.  It's not so that they can shoot at folks, it's to let everyone know that they can, if they have to. Policemen are still targets of violence, to be sure, but its not common.

The perfect storm

This hasn't been a good year for me.

In April, my mother died.  I wrote about it earlier, but it's had a bigger impact on me that I would have anticipated. That may seem a strange thing to say, but she was in her 90s, and death is clearly around the corner at that age, which isn't to say, quite frankly, that death isn't lurking around quite a bit earlier than that.  Indeed, it's always there in the background somewhere.  But I haven't adjusted really well to it, for some reason.

 

Added to that, I have a family member that's been ill, and that's created some huge stresses, but I'll omit the personal details of those, even though its on my mind all the time, and it impacts me in ways that are extremely stress laden.

And, added to that, my son graduated from high school this past spring, which is a joyful event of course,  but which dredges up all the angst associated with the passage from youth to young adult, and all the recollections of your own time at that age, which at least in my case tends to remind me of the numerous errors committed by me then and later, and how I often knew that they were mistakes but wondered (not charged) into them anyhow. It also emphasizes, I think, just how poor of father I have been in comparison to my own father, to whom I compare very poorly in ever sense.  Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20.

When I was small.

I didn't take any time off, I couldn't afford to, when my mother died, and it's been catching up with me a bit.  Indeed, I didn't take time to trail cattle this year, again, which is not a good thing.  Added to that, I have to deal with her estate, which isn't a huge problem, but it does mean that we (my wife and I) now own the house that was hers.  For some reason, this is proving to be a bigger chore than I thought it would be, but I'll omit those details.

I don't intend to sell the house as I figure that it can be retirement income for my wife and me, and unlike a lot of lawyers I hear say "I intend to keep working" (there are many that don't say that), I don't intend to be practicing law in my 70s, assuming I'm still living at that age, which is very far from a safe assumption.  Indeed, I question the motivation of those who do that really, or rather I question the wisdom of it.  They say it keeps the mind sharp, but do we so become our jobs that that's all  we can think to do?  I hope not.

Anyhow, as was the plan before my mother died, somewhat, my son has moved into her old house as its located just a block from the college and is an ideal location for college students.  A high school friend is sharing the tenancy of the house with him.  So far so good, it would seem.

Well, it was pointed out to me that a house built in the 1950s will lack three prong plugs, so after a two day ordeal with the whole topic, I learned about gfci outlets and how they worked, and installed a set.  I don't like doing electrical work at all, and I didn't want to spend a lot of money at the house, but I did it as it seemed wise or necessary. So far so good, I thought. All upgrades finished.

 The GFCI outlet.  Any electrician could do this in seconds, but for me, not so much.

Well, then there was a plumbing incident, followed by a second one.

The second one came last Thursday, and resulted in an after hours plumbing call.  Okay, that'll happen. Well, the diagnosis was not anticipated.  The sewer line is wrecked and has to come out.

Great.

Well, not only does it have to come out, at about the time my mother started to fall ill some concrete men who were working next door convinced her that they should poor a new pad of cement.  And, boy, did they.  I stopped the project before it ended up covering the entire basement, but the long and the short of  it was that they really went to town and poured a pad a freakin' two feet thick. Two feet.

Indeed, that may have been the source of the sewer line failure, or may not be.  The house always had problems with tree roots and a neighbors line failed the year before last.

I got this news late at night, the day before I was to run up to Cody for a hearing.  It's a 210 mile drive.  I tossed and turned all night long, and then the next day got up, got dressed, and headed out.  I got up really early, I was up anyhow.

I'd agreed to take my son as he had the day off and it'd make for a nice trip. We determined, and in fact did, stop by the museum in Cody.  But he's one of those people who simply cannot wake up.  That's the opposite of me, and in fact it drives me crazy as I really hate waking people up. Waking people up is one of my least favorite things on earth to do.  It's awful.

Well, all the lights in the house were dark, and I thought, we'll, I'll drive on.  Particularly after I called him twice with no answer. But, I thought, we'll, I'll knock on the door.

By this time, I had my truck turned off.

Now, I've been driving a stick shift vehicle since I was about 10 years old, and I've never, ever, left one in neutral so that it would roll off. And I instinctively set the parking brake.

But I failed to do both of those things.  And while I was at the door ringing the doorbell, the truck started to roll off.

I'm amazed that I made that failure. Fatigue?  I hope so.

I tried and did catch it, but I couldn't stop it, and it rolled away from me down the street, right towards a house.  I was sure it was going to go into the house.  But, in the intersection, the unmanned truck made a backwards right turn.

Modern trucks, mind you, don't make turns by themselves.

Well, this one did.

So, it didn't hit the house, Thank God. And I mean that in the literal sense.  But it did hit the Subaru Forester those folks had parked in front of their house.  And it destroyed it.

It didn't do my own truck any favors, and it'll go into the body shop as a result, but it's still drive-able.  Indeed, I did drive it to Cody as planned.

 As an experiment in mass, it proves to be true that the heavier object is the one that is less likely to be badly damaged.

Well of course the police came, as they should and must for such an event.  And of course, it was a policeman we'd had experience with.

When my son was first in high school, he accidentally backed into a vehicle at the high school.  It was not a bad collision, but we told him to call the police, as everyone is instructed to do.  The policeman was a jerk to him, and way overcharged him in the bond schedule which we ended up having to take care of in court.

Well, we got that policeman.

And he was, once again, a total jerk.  A second policeman came as well and was very nice, but the first was quite a jerk and indeed did some things I think are inappropriate.  I'm thinking of filing a complaint regarding him with the department.  I took full responsibility for the accident and didn't deserve the treatment received.  Nor did my son deserve to be awakened by the officer who refused to provide substantive details.  Nor did the basement dwelling fellow renting the basement who wasn't given any reason for why a policeman "wanted to talk to him."

Jerk.

Now, there may or may not be an added element to this, albeit one that we have nothing to do with.  A couple of years ago, a cousin of mine who was employed in law enforcement got in trouble with the law himself.  I have had no professional or personal involvement in the situation at all, but I will be frank that based upon my outside observation, there was a "not passing the smell test" element to it.  That is, what I think the real story is, is one of a moral failing, but not an actual violation of the law.  I may, of course, be all wet, but the degree to which his former employer turned on him was impressive and I think made defending himself pretty difficult.

As noted, that has nothing to do with me, but my last name is distinct here and every single one of us who carriers it is usually related (there are occasional exceptions).  As it was big news at the time, I sort of wonder, but have no real reason to believe, that this sort of marks us all in the eyes of some.  At least I wonder.  And when the jerk cop went up to the house and got my son up, he asked "Is there a X here?"  Now, that may be the only way to ask it, but it does come across like being asked if a member of some other species lived there, of which I'm part.

Indeed, as a total aside, I'm one of those folks, I'll quite admit, who sympathize pretty heavily with blacks when they claim they live in fear of the police.  I don't live in fear of the police, and I'm friends with some members of the law enforcement community, but I get it.  If I were black and undergoing this experience I'd frankly be afraid of the police at this point.  I'm mad enough about it that I'm extremely tempted to go to the department and ask what's up with this guy.

Well, anyhow, I've had just about enough of 2016.

But it's probably just me.  Death, stress, illness, not being able to get out and take time off.  It's been a bit much.

It's particularly odd for me, in a retrospective context,  as I'm just not that ambitious of guy.  Indeed, some years ago I found a letter or maybe a diary entry of my mother's written when I was a little boy, wondering what would become of me as an adult, as I just flat out lacked the driving ambition that so characterized her family growing up.  She was concerned.  People who know me professionally regard me as a workaholic, but I sure don't see things that way myself.  Maybe it's the case that people who live that way are consumed less by ambition than they are by an overdeveloped sense of duty.  Who knows.  Anyhow, thinking back on it, I think was really tired the other day and I wasn't really in the best state of mine to end up driving 400 miles in a day, by the time the day was over.  But I couldn't do anything about it.

Well, it's been a rotten year so far.

Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm and said:

2Who is this who darkens counsel

with words of ignorance?

3Gird up your loins now, like a man;

I will question you, and you tell me the answers!

4Where were you when I founded the earth?

Tell me, if you have understanding.

5Who determined its size? Surely you know?

Who stretched out the measuring line for it?

6Into what were its pedestals sunk,

and who laid its cornerstone,

7While the morning stars sang together

and all the sons of God  shouted for joy?

8Who shut within doors the sea,

when it burst forth from the womb,

9When I made the clouds its garment

and thick darkness its swaddling bands?

10When I set limits for it

and fastened the bar of its door,

11And said: Thus far shall you come but no farther,

and here shall your proud waves stop?

12Have you ever in your lifetime commanded the morning

and shown the dawn its place

13For taking hold of the ends of the earth,

till the wicked are shaken from it?

14The earth is changed as clay by the seal,

and dyed like a garment;

15But from the wicked their light is withheld,

and the arm of pride is shattered.

16Have you entered into the sources of the sea,

or walked about on the bottom of the deep?

17Have the gates of death been shown to you,

or have you seen the gates of darkness?

18Have you comprehended the breadth of the earth?

Tell me, if you know it all.

19What is the way to the dwelling of light,

and darkness—where is its place?

20That you may take it to its territory

and know the paths to its home?

21You know, because you were born then,

and the number of your days is great!

22Have you entered the storehouses of the snow,

and seen the storehouses of the hail

23Which I have reserved for times of distress,

for a day of war and battle?

24What is the way to the parting of the winds,

where the east wind spreads over the earth?

25Who has laid out a channel for the downpour

and a path for the thunderstorm

26To bring rain to uninhabited land,

the unpeopled wilderness;

27To drench the desolate wasteland

till the desert blooms with verdure?

28Has the rain a father?

Who has begotten the drops of dew?

29Out of whose womb comes the ice,

and who gives the hoarfrost its birth in the skies,

30When the waters lie covered as though with stone

that holds captive the surface of the deep?

31Have you tied cords to the Pleiades,

or loosened the bonds of Orion?

32Can you bring forth the Mazzaroth in their season,

or guide the Bear with her children?

33Do you know the ordinances of the heavens;

can you put into effect their plan on the earth?

34Can you raise your voice to the clouds,

for them to cover you with a deluge of waters?

35Can you send forth the lightnings on their way,

so that they say to you, “Here we are”?

36Who gives wisdom to the ibis,

and gives the rooster understanding?

37Who counts the clouds with wisdom?

Who tilts the water jars of heaven

38So that the dust of earth is fused into a mass

and its clods stick together?

39Do you hunt the prey for the lion

or appease the hunger of young lions,

40While they crouch in their dens,

or lie in ambush in the thicket?

41Who provides nourishment for the raven

when its young cry out to God,

wandering about without food?Do you know when mountain goats are born,

or watch for the birth pangs of deer,

2Number the months that they must fulfill,

or know when they give birth,

3When they crouch down and drop their young,

when they deliver their progeny?

4Their offspring thrive and grow in the open,

they leave and do not return.

5Who has given the wild donkey his freedom,

and who has loosed the wild ass from bonds?

6I have made the wilderness his home

and the salt flats his dwelling.

7He scoffs at the uproar of the city,

hears no shouts of a driver.

8He ranges the mountains for pasture,

and seeks out every patch of green.

9Will the wild ox consent to serve you,

or pass the nights at your manger?

10Will you bind the wild ox with a rope in the furrow,

and will he plow the valleys after you?

11Will you depend on him for his great strength

and leave to him the fruits of your toil?

12Can you rely on him to bring in your grain

and gather in the yield of your threshing floor?

13The wings of the ostrich flap away;

her plumage is lacking in feathers.

14When she abandons her eggs on the ground

and lets them warm in the sand,

15She forgets that a foot may crush them,

that the wild beasts may trample them;

16She cruelly disowns her young

and her labor is useless; she has no fear.

17For God has withheld wisdom from her

and given her no share in understanding.

18Yet when she spreads her wings high,

she laughs at a horse and rider.

19Do you give the horse his strength,

and clothe his neck with a mane?

20Do you make him quiver like a locust,

while his thunderous snorting spreads terror?

21He paws the valley, he rejoices in his strength,

and charges into battle.

22He laughs at fear and cannot be terrified;

he does not retreat from the sword.

23Around him rattles the quiver,

flashes the spear and the javelin.

24Frenzied and trembling he devours the ground;

he does not hold back at the sound of the trumpet;

25at the trumpet’s call he cries, “Aha!”

Even from afar he scents the battle,

the roar of the officers and the shouting.

26Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars,

that he spreads his wings toward the south?

27Does the eagle fly up at your command

to build his nest up high?

28On a cliff he dwells and spends the night,

on the spur of cliff or fortress.

29From there he watches for his food;

his eyes behold it afar off.

30His young ones greedily drink blood;

where the slain are, there is he.

 The LORD then answered Job and said:

2Will one who argues with the Almighty be corrected?

Let him who would instruct God give answer!

3Then Job answered the LORD and said:

4 Look, I am of little account; what can I answer you?

I put my hand over my mouth.

5I have spoken once, I will not reply;

twice, but I will do so no more.

6Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm and said:

7Gird up your loins now, like a man.

I will question you, and you tell me the answers!

8 Would you refuse to acknowledge my right?

Would you condemn me that you may be justified?

9Have you an arm like that of God,

or can you thunder with a voice like his?

10Adorn yourself with grandeur and majesty,

and clothe yourself with glory and splendor.

11Let loose the fury of your wrath;

look at everyone who is proud and bring them down.

12Look at everyone who is proud, and humble them.

Tear down the wicked in their place,

13bury them in the dust together;

in the hidden world imprison them.

14Then will I too praise you,

for your own right hand can save you.

15Look at Behemoth, whom I made along with you,

who feeds on grass like an ox.

16See the strength in his loins,

the power in the sinews of his belly.

17He carries his tail like a cedar;

the sinews of his thighs are like cables.

18His bones are like tubes of bronze;

his limbs are like iron rods.

19He is the first of God’s ways,

only his maker can approach him with a sword.

20For the mountains bring him produce,

and all wild animals make sport there.

21Under lotus trees he lies,

in coverts of the reedy swamp.

22The lotus trees cover him with their shade;

all about him are the poplars in the wadi.

23If the river grows violent, he is not disturbed;

he is tranquil though the Jordan surges about his mouth.

24Who can capture him by his eyes,

or pierce his nose with a trap?

25Can you lead Leviathan about with a hook,

or tie down his tongue with a rope?

26Can you put a ring into his nose,

or pierce through his cheek with a gaff?

27Will he then plead with you, time after time,

or address you with tender words?

28Will he make a covenant with you

that you may have him as a slave forever?

29Can you play with him, as with a bird?

Can you tie him up for your little girls?

30Will the traders bargain for him?

Will the merchants divide him up?

31Can you fill his hide with barbs,

or his head with fish spears?

32Once you but lay a hand upon him,

no need to recall any other conflict!

 Whoever might vainly hope to do so

need only see him to be overthrown.

2No one is fierce enough to arouse him;

who then dares stand before me?

3Whoever has assailed me, I will pay back—

Everything under the heavens is mine.

4I need hardly mention his limbs,

his strength, and the fitness of his equipment.

5Who can strip off his outer garment,

or penetrate his double armor?

6Who can force open the doors of his face,

close to his terrible teeth?

7Rows of scales are on his back,

tightly sealed together;

8They are fitted so close to each other

that no air can come between them;

9So joined to one another

that they hold fast and cannot be parted.

10When he sneezes, light flashes forth;

his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn.

11Out of his mouth go forth torches;

sparks of fire leap forth.

12From his nostrils comes smoke

as from a seething pot or bowl.

13His breath sets coals afire;

a flame comes from his mouth.

14Strength abides in his neck,

and power leaps before him.

15The folds of his flesh stick together,

it is cast over him and immovable.

16His heart is cast as hard as stone;

cast as the lower millstone.

17When he rises up, the gods are afraid;

when he crashes down, they fall back.

18Should a sword reach him, it will not avail;

nor will spear, dart, or javelin.

19He regards iron as chaff,

and bronze as rotten wood.

20No arrow will put him to flight;

slingstones used against him are but straw.

21Clubs he regards as straw;

he laughs at the crash of the spear.

22Under him are sharp pottery fragments,

spreading a threshing sledge upon the mire.

23He makes the depths boil like a pot;

he makes the sea like a perfume bottle.

24Behind him he leaves a shining path;

you would think the deep had white hair.

25Upon the earth there is none like him,

he was made fearless.

26He looks over all who are haughty,

he is king over all proud beasts.

 Then Job answered the LORD and said:

2I know that you can do all things,

and that no purpose of yours can be hindered.

3“Who is this who obscures counsel with ignorance?”

I have spoken but did not understand;

things too marvelous for me, which I did not know.

4“Listen, and I will speak;

I will question you, and you tell me the answers.”

5By hearsay I had heard of you,

but now my eye has seen you.

6Therefore I disown what I have said,

and repent in dust and ashes.

From the Book of Job.