Sunday, January 13, 1946. The relentless advance of malevolent technology.

A ceasefire between Nationalist and Red troops in China took effect at midnight.  Gen. George C. Marshall had mediated the truce.

The first issue of the Anchorage Daily News was published.

In Japan the luxury cigarette "Peace" was introduced.

The concept of a wrist communication device was introduced in the cartoon Dick Tracy.

I never could stand the cartoon, and the predicted device is a scourge.

Last edition:

Thursday, January 10, 1946. The first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Clement Attlee, Trygve Lie, United Nations

June 28, 1975. Death of Rod Serling.

American screenwriter and television producer Rod Sterling died at age 50 of a heart attack.

Serling was an extremely heavy smoker, which was no doubt the cause of his death.  He'd been a paratrooper during World War Two, serving in the Pacific.

He's best remembered for The Twilight Zone.

Serling in 1959, at which time he would have only been 34 years old.  This photo gives us a good example of what we've noted elsewhere, about how people aged more rapidly in the past.  The cigarette in hand would have helped contribute to that.  World War Two probably didn't help either.  Serling's bracelet features Army jump wings.

Last edition:

Thursday, June 12, 1975. Searching for the meaning of Vietnam.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Australia, It was because of Vietnam, law, Marriage, The relationship between men and women, Vietnam War

Musings Over a Barrel: Five O'Clock Friday: Sensible Budgeting

Musings Over a Barrel: Five O'Clock Friday: Sensible Budgeting: I'll admit it. This is exactly my thought process when shopping. However, cigars and bourbon bring me way more joy than any utilitarian ...

An interesting observation, and a long boring comment by me. 

Blog Mirror: The Bishops Blend Novemdiales: A Timely Smoke

A moment of Catholic culture:

The Bishops Blend Novemdiales: A Timely Smoke

Monday at the Bar: The Lawyer?

 

Casper newspaper ad, May 13, 1924.

Positive Indicators

A thread that looks at good trends.

Good news tends not to make the headlines, by and large.  Indeed, it's worth noting that one of the things that's so newsworthy about the Russo Ukrainian War is that it's a big conventional war. Those tend just not to happen anymore.

This isn't going to be cheerful, as it's in the contest of the purpose of this site, which is really focused on the first couple of decades of the 20th Century.  We're looking at good, long term, trends here that have hit the news somehow, recently.

May 1, 2023

Adult smoking hit an all-time low.  About 1 in 9 American adults are smokers.

The degree to which average Americans smoked in the 20th Century, after World War One, is stunning.   Women didn't start to really take it up until the 1920s, but by the 30s, everyone was smoking in earnest.

Teenage (high school) sexual activity is way down, with 30% reporting having had sex, down from over 50% a few decades back.

Teen pregnancy is also way down.  It's often not appreciated the degree to which this was common in the past.

Of course, this can be explained in more than one way, including the spike in young marriages in the 50s and 60s, but there are other explanations as well.

The Hageman speech to the legislature. Deconstruction and Analysis. Part One.

Just yesterday, in our overlong, Lex Anteinternet: The 2023 Wyoming Legislative Session. The Legislat... thread, I posted the following:

Harriet Hageman appeared to address the House.

The early portion of Hageman's address deals with the new rules that the House is operating under, some of which are a restoration of old rules, as is noted.

The back portion is a call for extreme budget cuts.  Without saying as much, it would seem that you can take hints that this would include Social Security, but perhaps I'm just reading that into the speech and it isn't there.

It then goes into the legislative session.

I didn't really do a deep dive into it, but maybe that's worthwhile.  This is the first big public address Hageman has given, and she took a much different approach than Senator Barrasso did, who gave a cheerful, very much at ease speech. Indeed, I've seen Barrasso speak before, but I've actually never seen him speak when he didn't sound stilted.  This is an exception.  He didn't try to talk politics in it.

Hageman did.

Hageman's speech isn't long, and it may be broken down basically into two parts.  What she claims the House has already accomplished, and fiscal concerns.  She was pretty blunt in it.

I'll start by noting that I probably didn't give the speech the due it deserves for a simple reason.  I think that Liz Cheney's claim that Hageman was exhibiting "tragic opportunism" by running is correct.  I find it a bit hard to take anyone seriously who is crying out from the hill they just climbed with the bloody knife of the body they just stabbed in the back in their hands.  

But maybe in the world of politics, metaphorically killing your friends is just the norm.  Well, it isn't, but it does occur.

Okay, the speech.

The first part of it addresses a whole bunch of House procedural changes which do make the Speaker less of a dictator and do force members of the House to show up and do their jobs. Frankly, I think those reversions to prior times are a good thing, and they needed to be done.  I don't like the fact that they came about due to the far right, but I have to note that in lauding these changes Hageman doesn't give credit to where it is due, which is the far right. She is a member of the far right, but the changes or reversions cited were things that were brought about by the Freedom Caucus opponents of McCarthy.  She stuck with McCarthy the entire time.

I'm not sure what to make of that, but there's an element of riding your opponent's horse in that.

Are these good things?

Well, even though I don't like the group that brought them about, they are.

A portion of this speech that seems to relate to fiscal matters, which we'll get to in a second post, dealt with oil and coal.  

It's now become a state mantra that the nation needs Wyoming's oil and coal.

Prior to the U.S. Civil War, a common claim in the South is that the North would never fight the South as it needed its cotton, and indeed the whole world did.

Apparently, Southerners had never heard of sheep.

Or Egyptian cotton.

Just as Wyomingites apparently just won't believe that wind, solar, and ultimately nuclear, are going to, well, as Everett McGill had it in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou; "Yes, sir, the South is gonna change. Everything's gonna be put on electricity and run on a paying basis."

Everything is on a paying basis already, and that statement applies to the whole country in the context of technological evolution.

Windmills and memorial.  Might as well be coal's grave.

We've addressed it before, but coal has been on its way out for well over a century now.  It's so clear, that we've basically gone from the "cool menthol filters make these cigarettes safe for anyone" stage of things to the "I don't care if everyone in my family smokes, and they all have lung cancer, people get lung cancer from other things too. . . " stage of this argument.  Yes, you can still light up a pack of "

Exceedingly creepy, and more than a little unrealistic, Lucky Strike advertisement from 1952.  Yes, cigarettes won't hurt you.  And yes, you can wish the entire nation back into the coal age. And yes, this young woman didn't die of lung cancer by 1972.  Or. . . . ?

To put it mildly, the same group of folks who thought that passing a resolution banning electric cars to be sent to the Governor of California on the basis that, "that'll show them", seems to think we can just hold our breaths and turn blue and it'll be 1973 again, or perhaps we can just force everyone to use coal whether they want to nor not.

Just not going to happen.  It's already not happening, all on its own.

Flat out denial of an economic trend is dangerous.

A lot of tobacco farmers are farming something else now.

Monday, November 6, 1922. Appointment Clerks.

A group of Federal appointment clerks.

This, obviously all male, occupation was exactly what it sounded like.  Clerks who took appointments and handled the same.  Sort of the equivalent of a secretary/receptionist.

As late as the Second World War, in government service this occupation was a male one.  And, as the fine clothing in the photo demonstrates, one that paid a decent living to its occupants.

Indeed, every man here is wearing a three-piece suit of good quality.

Also of note, at least two are smoking cigars, not even taking time out from tobacco consumption to appear without one. When was the last time you were in an office and somebody was smoking a cigar?

A coal mine explosion in Spangler, Pennsylvania, killed 79 miners.

Ali Kemal, age 53, who we mentioned the other day, was lynched on his ways to the gallows by a mob.

By the way, in the long odds category, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is a direct descendant of Ali Kemal.  I.e, not a cousin, Kamal is BoJo's Great Grandfather.

Released this day in 1922.

A sign that you are definately in Wyoming.

 

Lex Anteinternet: The City of Casper Smoking Ballot Issue

Lex Anteinternet: The City of Casper Smoking Ballot Issue: REFERENDUM BALLOT PROPOSITION ON ORDINANCE NO. 15-13:   AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CERTAIN SECTIONS OF CHAPTER 8.16 OF THE CASPER MUNI...

Polling Stations:

County Clerk's election office, and;

Roosevelt High School Gym 140 E K ST	Central Wyoming Fairgrounds Hall of Champions 1700 Fairgrounds Rd
Senior Citizens' Center Activities Room 1831 E 4th ST	Restoration Church 411 S Walsh Dr
Casper Shrine Club 1501 W 39th ST	Community Health Center Second Floor 5000 Blackmore Rd

The City of Casper Smoking Ballot Issue

REFERENDUM BALLOT PROPOSITION ON ORDINANCE NO. 15-13: 

AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CERTAIN SECTIONS OF CHAPTER 8.16 OF THE CASPER MUNICIPAL CODE, PERTAINING TO SMOKING IN PUBLIC PLACES.

Ordinance No. 15-13 of the Casper Municipal Code, captioned “An Ordinance Amending Certain Sections of Chapter 8.16 of the Casper Municipal Code, Smoking in Public Places,” allows smoking in taverns, lounges, or bars, enclosed areas within places of employment or service establishments not open to the public, areas of health care facilities not open to the general public or non-smoking residents or patients, private offices by employees, and private clubs when not open to the public. These locations were previously included in, and subject to, the ban against smoking in public places. 

FOR –           Adopts Ordinance No. 15-13, which results in allowing smoking in taverns, lounges, or bars, enclosed areas within places of employment or service establishments not open to the public, areas of health care facilities not open to the general public or non-smoking residents or patients, private offices by employees, and private clubs when not open to the public. 

AGAINST – Rejects Ordinance No. 15-13, which would reinstate the prohibition of smoking in taverns, lounges, and bars, employment and service establishments, health care facilities, private offices by employees, and private clubs.


___________________________________________________________________________________

So, voting "FOR" means smoking is allowed back into bars that elect to allow it.

Voting "AGAINST" means the ban stays as is, and smoking in any public place is prohibited.

Lex Anteinternet: Is it smokey in here?

Well, this story just keeps changing.

Lex Anteinternet: Is it smokey in here?: I ran this item last week, at the time that the Casper City Council reinstated a complete ban on smoking in public buildings, following...

The City Council reversed itself, and decided to keep the ban, and thereby to send this question to the voters in the next sixty days or so.

The question presented will actually be the reverse of the one that the petition had sought to present, more or less.  Now a ban is, once again, in place, and the question will be whether or not the voters will remove it.  Or, I wonder, perhaps modify it.

This has certainly seen some odd twists and turns since the Court found that the city acted improperly in regards to the petition. The city reinstated the ban, and then the council voted to repeal the ban.  Now the council has decided to keep the ban (with one commissioner absent from the special meeting).  Some might be critical of these changes in opinion, but I'm not.  After all a deliberative body is supposed to deliberate, and that appears to be what they've been doing.

Is it smokey in here?

I ran this item last week, at the time that the Casper City Council reinstated a complete ban on smoking in public buildings, following the victory of an initiative movement in the Wyoming Supreme Court.  That movement, backed by former city council woman Kim Holloway, achieved the Court's declaration that some signatures had been improperly rejected.

Lex Anteinternet: Today In Wyoming's History: September 8: Today In Wyoming's History: September 8 : 2015  In a controversial move, the Casper City Counsel reinstated a tavern and restau...

Subsequent events have brought to light the truth of Otto Von Bismarck's comment that "Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made."

Last night, making the first of three required votes on three readings, the City Council went on to officially repeal the amendment to the City's smoking law which had exempted bars. The thought was that by doing that, and restoring the original ordinance's complete ban, the need to hold the special election the initiative would have required would evaporate, as the goal of the petition was therefore met.  So, we must note, there was a degree of cynicism in the vote, as the councilmen, as shown by their next vote, did not wish to genuinely reinstate a complete ban, as the petitioners did.  Having said that, a couple genuinely supported the restoration of a complete ban.

Next the council voted to completely repeal the ban, thereby allowing smoking everywhere once again.  Only two councilmen voted against that.

The debate heavily focused on property rights and on the plight of tavern owners whose patrons have fled to Mills, Evansville and Bar Nunn, neighboring towns which those from outside of Casper no doubt generally regard as part of Casper, but which have separate legal status and governments. The arguments against repealing a ban were weighted heavily on public health issues.  I saw the council meeting on television, and the sides were well behaved and presented their views quite well.

The instinctively sympathetic view, around here anyway, is that a business owner should be allowed to do what they will, and the patrons can vote with their feet. There's some logic to that, but it does miss the point, raised but often not really well developed, that employees of any one workplace often are in a position where they have to work where there's work.  I know that there's people who really like and aspire to be bar servers and tenders, but there's also a lot of people who find there way into those jobs, often temporarily, but sometimes long term, and have to stick with them for one reason or another.  The "you can always quit" argument doesn't work for most other occupations anymore in recognition of that, but it's a common one for these occupations, which are often occupied by the workplace demographic that's least able to switch employments readily.

It also somewhat applied to patrons of restaurants and bars, although people rarely recognize that.  If you are in business and everyone breaks for lunch and the nearest establishment is Smokey Joe's Bar Grill and Smokapalooza, you're gong there with everyone else working on that big project, as you'll have little other choice.  No matter what your health situation may be.  I well remember, for instance, being on breaks in trials for lunch where the only nearby restaurant, or the one the client recommended, featured smoke and being very conscious that I was now heading back to court smelling like cigarette smoke, something that non smokers are extremely conscious of but which smokers seem not to notice at all.   This doesn't touch on the numerous people who are allergic or have reactions to cigarette smoke in one form or another.  These folks don't really have the option of making a big deal out of their situation in a lot of instances.

I guess that makes it obvious that I wish they keep the smoke ban in place, but then I also feel that they shouldn't have voted to eliminate their compromise position that allowed smoking in bars, not because I want to smoke in a bar (obviously I don't smoke), but because it seemed to be a compromise that was working.  

Which brings to mind the Italian proverb "Le meglio è l'inimico del bene", or "the perfect is the enemy of the good".  It really is.  

Passing a smoking ban was difficult in Casper in the first place.  When it first came up around 2002 it was voted down, but then a decade later the full ban (oddly called the "fully leaded ban" in the debate) was passed, but thereafter shortly amended to exempt bars.  That law was no doubt not perfect from anyone's perspective, but then the perspectives are so radically different that no law could satisfy that.  For those who take the "property rights" position, no ban, perhaps on anything, would be ideal. For those who a radically opposed to cigarettes, I suppose banning cigarettes entirely would be ideal.  No compromise is going to make everyone happy.

Which brings us to a likely ironic result of all of this. When Kim Holloway, a former city councilwoman, took to the streets with her petition to take this to the voters, the goal was to restore a full ban.  But what now appears likely is that her actions have killed off the partial ban, or soon will.  No doubt a new petition drive will start, and I'd guess Holloway will be leading the charge, but just listening to the city council and those who came to speak, I suspect that the tide has turned on this issue and the voters will side with the property rights argument.  That will likely have less of an impact than supposed, as smoking is slowly declining in the population anyhow, and my guess (and hope) is that most of the restaurants aren't going to restore smoking, indeed a lot didn't allow it before the ban, and more than a few busy bars aren't going to allow it again either, now that they know that they can survive without smoking in the premises.  So the hard feeling that we must ban smoking to have an impact is likely gone, and as our local economy declines, the feeling that we shouldn't mess with business owners will increase. But some bars that did allow smoking recently will go back to it, and I'd guess a few small cafes in town will also. The petition backers who sought to fully ban smoking, may have in fact restored it.

Saturday, May 22, 1915. Eruption of Lassen Peak.

 

The Eruption of Lassen Peak

In a bizarre look at what was considered acceptable at the time, a cigarette advertisment, before cigarettes were really popular, in Colliers:

Mecca cigarettes?

Last edition:

Thursday, May 20, 1915. Russians in Van.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Battle of Festubert, British Army, Defense of Van, Ottoman Empire, Turkey, World War One

Wednesday, February 3, 1915. Ottoman's held up.

Clara Dolores Lopp sitting in front of a shipment of cigarettes and cigars she arranged to have shipped to soldiers fighting in Europe.  World War One would increase the use of cigarettes enormously which resulted in a marked increase in lung cancer by the 1930s.

The British kept the Ottomans from crossing the Suez Canal.

The Germans started a second siege on Osowiec Fortress.

Co conspirators in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand,  Veljko Čubrilović, Danilo Ilić and Miško Jovanović were executed by hanging.

John Chilembwe was spotted by a police patrol and shot dead near Mulanje, Malawi.

Last edition:

Tuesday, February 2, 1915. Reinforcements.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Canada, Egypt, Espionage, Imperial Russian Navy, Maritz Rebellion, New Zealand Army, Raid on the Suez Canal, Russian Navy, Terrorism, United States

Wednesday, March 18, 1914. "Among the things that Wyoming may be thankful is that it is not on the borderland of barbarous Mexico". Enduring jingoism.

British Wilson, border news?

Wilson was in fact an anglophile, but his government certainly wasn't dominated by the British.

And Mexico barbarous?

Some old headlines are oddly contemporary, as are some jingoistic views, we have to say.  This almost sounds like a Trump rally, as over the weekend he declared that some migrants aren't human.

Barbarous?

Is the cigarette ad a football helmet, or a pilot's helmet?

And the brown bottle thing is correct:

The Boomerang was less dramatic, but it did have an interesting item on pipe smoking at a St. Patrick's Day party.

Thursday, August 3, 1911. Arbitration and tension in Morelos.

The United States signed arbitration treaties the United Kingdom and France in separate ceremonies at the White House.

The treaties would be amended beyond recognition by the Senate.

Still, it's interesting that hey were done. Today, Trump would go into a long twitter post about the wonderful thing about Tiggers, refuse to ponder them, and put tariffs on Andora.

In Morelos rebels were refusing to disarm even though Madero was urging them too.  Gobernación licenciado Emilio Vázquez Gómez asked for revolutionary troops to be sent to the region, which Madero had suggested, to calm the situation, received no answer from the provisional government. He resigned as minister of gobernación on this day and was replaced in that position by an hacendado, Alberto García Granados.

Cigarette advertisement in the August 3, 2026 Life magazine.  Cigarettes were considered effeminate at the time and this brand clearly marketed to women with the age old smoking is glamorous angle.

Last edition:

Wednesday, August 2, 1911. Revolutions and a legal pioneer.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, Haiti, Lawyers, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Women

Tuesday, June 6, 1911. Advancing on Baja.

The governor of Chihuahua announced that Madero's troops, now in Mexican federal service, and Federal troops would march on Baja California.  He appealed to volunteers to help.

Mexican Gen. Manuel Mondragón Montenegro applied for a patent for a bayonet for his semi automatic rifle, which had been adopted by Mexico in 1908, although only a limited number of the rifles were in service by 1911.

Teenage and juvenile cigarette factory workers, Danville, Virginia, June 6, 1911.

Last edition:

Monday, June 5, 1911. Colorado adopts its flag.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, Art, boats and ships, Colorado, French Indochina, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

Wednesday, April 14, 1909. The Adana Massacre continues.

The slaughter of Armenian Christians by Ottoman soldier began in earnest in Adana, Ottoman Empire.

Tuesday, April 13, 1909. The Aadna Massacre.

The Adna Massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, which would kill over 20,000 people, commenced.  Ottoman troops would participate in it.

Armenian orphans from the massacre.

The Armenians had the first Christian kingdom in the world, and have had a state of one kind or another since 860 BC.  Since the conquest of Anatolia by the Turks, they've been subject to repeated atrocities.

The Anglo Persian Oil Company was incorporated.  The company became a power in its own right, and extensively exploited what became Iran, setting the stage for what we have today, unfortunately.

Minnesota passed a law banning cigarettes, effective August 1.  Too bad that didn't stick.

Punch, April 14, 1909.

Sheep yards, Kirkland, Ill, April 14, 1909.

Last prior edition:

Tuesday, April 13, 1909. The Aadna Massacre.

1900s, 1909, Adana Massacre, Armenian Genocide, Education, North Carolina, Ottoman Empire, panoramic, The Big Picture