A second look at one of this season's bad political ideas. "Taking back" the Federal land

Recently I posted here an item noting Tom Lubnau's op ed in the Tribune on the bad idea of "taking back" the Federal lands.  Let's take a little closer look at it, as it reveals how little this is actually thought out.

 Mixed private and public land in Natrona County, Wyoming.

Now, this idea is currently popular with that section of the GOP that's in the "tea party" end of things locally, but that doesn't make it unique to them. A couple of decades ago it was circulated in the "Sagebrush Rebellion", so it's a species of perennial bad idea, now matter what a person's political stripes may be.

Okay, let's start with the basic premise.

!.  We're going to "take them back".

Well, you can't take back, what you didn't own.  That'd be something like theft, and the state never owned the lands.

This part of this debate, to the extent that there is one, is one of those odd deals that gets tied up in myth.  A lot of people in the "take back" end of this have a zealous belief that there was a duty on the part of the Federal government to give the land to a new state. There never was such a duty, the fact of the matter is that the Federal government never gave any new states all of the land within a state upon becoming a state.  The Federal government always "reserved" some  of the land for itself, depending upon what it through it needed for its own purposes.  The reason that most of the land was conveyed to the states prior to the Civil War was that most Americans were farmers and it was a good way for the states to encourage farming.  During the Civil War the Federal government, however, entered that scene itself, as in the arid Western regions the inducement of cheap land was no longer significant enough to draw homesteaders in, hence the "Homestead Act", which provided direct inducements to emigration.

If you really want to look at the legal theory of it, as opposed to the mythical version that some letter writer in the Tribune has today, this is it.

The Federal Government adopted the Crown's view that all land in North American belonged to the native inhabitants under what was called "Aboriginal Title".  Tribes were, and still are, regarded as sovereigns. As they were a sovereign of superior nature to a state, whose sovereignty devolved from the greater sovereigns, only the greater sovereign, the United States, could legally deal with an Indian Tribe.  And therefore only Congress cold extinguish ore acquire Aboriginal Title, by Congressional fiat, war, treaty or purchase. The U.S. Supreme Court, in fact, struck down the State of Georgia's attempt to acquire Indian lands by treaty directly.  Only true sovereigns may deal with one another.

Therefore, once that was done, the United States acquired title to the land.  Not the states. Anything a state acquired was a grant from the soverign, and the sovereign had no duty to convey land to any state.

So, sorry "take backers", the Federal government has absolutely no legal duty to give Wyoming any lands, and an acquisition of Federal lands wouldn't be taking it back, it be acquiring something new entirely.

2.  So purchase then?

In fairness, nobody proposes this, but it's really remarkable and revealing that we don't.

So what the proposal is, is that we buy them, right?  After all, the same segments of the political demographic demanding that we "take them back" claims to be in favor of a "free market economy" (it isn't, but it claims that).

So, what we'd do is buy 47% of the State at the fair market value?  Um. . . well . . . no. We wan the Federal government to give the land to us.

Give?  What?  What are we, a bunch of freeloaders?

Well, in fact, yes we would be.  Wyoming already takes in more in Federal tax dollars than it pays out. And this would be the biggest freeloading proposal of them all.  Wyoming, with its handout, would be demanding a gift.  Pretty unseemly.

Moreover, if a person is really true to their freemarket convictions, why wouldn't they just propose, as horrible of idea as it is, that the public domain just be sold tot he highest bidder?  Wyoming could bid, then, on the lands it wanted, right?

Well, of course, it couldn't afford to buy anything, and the 47% of the land now owned by the Federal government would pass out of public hands into remote hands for the most part, a true disaster for the state.  But at least it would be an intellectually honest disaster.

3.  Our right?

Now, wait a minute, you may be thinking, we're just asking for what the Federal government gave the other states, darn it.  It's our right.  I've heard at least a couple of shades of this line of thought.

Well, not so fast.  It isn't true that the other states all got their Federal lands.  Nevada didn't. Arizona didn't.  Montana didn't. Colorado didn't. Alaska didn't.  Idaho didn't. New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, and so on. . well you get the point. The western states, save for those that came in early like California, did not.

Even the Eastern states really didn't.  There are a lot of "Federal Reservations" in the east, where the government kept what it thought it needed.  The only real exceptions to this story are Texas and Hawaii, which were sovereign nations that asked, in their sovereignty, to become states. But there's a lesson here (we'll look at below) of bitter unhappiness that should forewarn of not wanting to go this route anyhow.

4.  The Feds just got greedy, right?

Well, that's just because the Feds were a punch of party poopers after the Civil War, right?

This has been addressed a bit above, but no, it's because the Federal domain was open to every citizen for homesteading, and the the states were just peachy with that.  This had come about as the old system, with states selling off the public land, wasn't working for the arid West.

Beyond that, by the 1860s it was clear that the onset of the industrial revolution meant that the country needed to do something to encourage mining on the vast public tracts that were not attracting development, and that resulted in the Mining Law of 1872, which give the mineral industry, one of Wyoming's most favored industries in terms of public sympathy, the right to enter in and occupy lands in a manner that was superior to any other claim.  As I don't want this to turn into a treatise on the public lands, I'll stop there, but this is what established the system we basically have today.  And this was a system the state were perfectly fine with, and in Wyoming's case a private war was actually fought in the 1890s in an effort to preserve it.

Beyond that, in Wyoming's case, it's because we had such a small population we had to bribe the Federal government for statehood. We doubleed our voters by granting women the right to vote, and then we promised the Federal government we wouldn't ask for anything, small poulation state that we were. We even put it in our state constitution.

Oops.

5.  Our own self interest

Well, 1890 was a long time ago, and this would be in the best interest of the state today, right?  Let's ingore the history and grab what we can, and we'll all be better off.

Not hardly.

First of all, something Wyomingites fail to appreciate is that the Federal government actually manages the land much more lightly than the State.  A Wyomingite can pretty much go where he wants and do what he wants on the public lands, in spite of the oil wells, cattle and sheep.

Not so on State land. State land is specific for its leased use, and you really have fewer rights on the State land.  People simply ignore that, as they're unaware of that.  If the state acquired the land, the state would either have to take up ignoring that, or would make people mighty unhappy.

Assuming the state kept the land, which is a doubtful presumption.  The State of Wyoming already has a history of disposing of the land it has, often for values which seem doubtful at least from the outside.  With more land to dispose of, there's no reason to believe that market pressures, and the cost of now having to manage the land itself, wouldn't cause it to sell a lot of it off, maybe darned near all of it off.

And the primary beneficiaries of that would be out of state wealthy interests.  Some imagine a mythical world of renewed small homesteading. Well, that's not going to happen.  Millionaires from St. Louis would be more likely to acquire the land than the existent tenants or average Wyomingites.

And some imagine that if the Federal government could be cajoled, coaxed or sued into giving us the lands, it would be a boon to those sectors of the mineral industry that aren't doing as well as they once were, like the coal industry. Well, guess again. Inside the industry the Federal government isn't regarded as a particularly harsh landlord and frankly its easier to get along with than private landowners generally are.  Indeed, if the State sold the land industry would likely have to compete, in some instances, with environmental groups that would claim an equal right to bid on the land, something they've done before with oil and gas leases, if they could.

The net result, moreover, would be to make us a Western state like Texas, or Hawaii, where the native inhabitants look out on a state that they live in, but largely cannot access.  Texans might like to point towards their Western cowboy heritage, but there aren't many of them living it.  How could they? They have no right to go on the soil of most of Texas, most of which is privately held.  In Hawaii feelings are so bitter in some sectors that there's a nativist independence movement which would take the state and its lands back for the original inhabitants.

We should be thankful that the Federal domain is Federal.

Sunday, August 16, 1914. Not going according to plan.

The Germans took the last of Belgium's military forts after an eleven day effort which was supposed to have taken two.

Serbian forces pushed the Austro Hungarians off of Cer Mountain.

The Austro Hungarian battle cruiser SMS Zenta was sunk by the Allies in the Adriatic.

The SMS Goeben and Breslau were transferred to the Ottoman Navy.

British 2nd Lt. Evelyn Perry of the Royal Flying Corps was killed in a plane crash over France, making him the first British office to die in the war.

John Redmond, in a public address in Maryborough, Ireland, stated to assembled Irish Volunteers:

[F]or the first time in the history ... it was safe to-day for England to withdraw her armed troops from our country and that the sons of Ireland themselves ... [would] defend her shores against any foreign foe.

He was really pushing his point.

The Polish Temporary Commission of Confederated Indepence Parties in Austro Hungaria formed the Polish Supreme National Committee.

Japanese writer Takeshi Kanno with his wife, sculptor Gertrude Farquharson Boyle, August 15, 1914. They'd divorce the next year.  Few Japanese/Western marriages do survive, and she held fairly pronounced left wing views.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 15, 1914. The Panama Canal opens for traffic.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, boats and ships, Colorado, Colorado National Guard, Labor unrest, Ludlow Massacre, Panama Canal, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson

Saturday, August 15, 1914. The Panama Canal opens for traffic.

The Panama Canal opened for traffic.

The SS Ancon, pictured above on this day, was the first ship through.

Theodore Roosevelt, who would only have been in his 60s, who had caused it to be built, didn't live to see the great event.  Neither did Woodrow Wilson, who had carried through with it.  William H. Taft, however, remained very much alive.

Sgt. Patrick N. Cullom of the Colorado National Guard testified that the soliders in his company had shot and killed Union activist Louis Tikas and two others at Ludlow.  He testified they were attempting to escape at the time.

Last edition:

Friday, August 14, 1914. First bombing raid.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Aircraft, Battle of Lorraine, Battle of the Frontiers, French Air Force, French Army, German Army, German Kriegsmarine, Indian Ocean, World War One

Friday Farming: Farm cat

Friday, August 14, 1914. First bombing raid.

The French First Army advanced on German forces near Sarrebourg, Lorraine, France.

Albanian rebels attacked Durrës, the capital of Albania, but were driven back by Romanian volunteer forces, showing how confusing the Great War already was.

The first real bomber, the the French Voisin III, made its first combat run. An attack on German airship hangars at Metz-Frescaty Air Base in Germany.

The Austro Hungarian steamer SS Baron Gautsch struck a mine off of Croatia and sank, killing 150 passengers.

The German light cruiser SMS Emden left the rest of the German Pacific squadron to raid shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean.

Last edition:

Tuesday, August 13, 1914. The Teoloyucan Treaties

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Álvaro Obregón, Austro Hungarian Navy, Bicycles, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, panoramic

Mid Week At Work: Leaving Montana (from North Dakota) to pick hops in Oregon.

Tuesday, August 13, 1914. The Teoloyucan Treaties

Álvaro Obregón signed one of the documents related to dissolving the Mexican regime and allowing leaders of the Constitutionalist to create a new government.

The Austro Hungarian troopship SMS Baron Gautsch struck an Austrian mine in the Adriatic and sank, killing 147 men.

8th Annual Cyclist Convention.

Last edition:

Wednesday, August 12, 1914. The United Kingdom and France declare war on Austro Hungaria.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Austro Hungaria, Battle of Halen, Belgian Army, Belgium, British Commonwealth, cavalry, France, German Kriegsmarine, Imperial Japanese Navy, Japan, Mexican Revolution, Pacific, United Kingdom

On Robin Williams

Richard Cory

By Edwin Arlington Robinson 

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him:

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;

But still he fluttered pulses when he said,

"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—

And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine, we thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head

The news today is full of stories and attributes on Robin Williams, who killed himself yesterday.  Apparently he was battling depression and had a history of addictions, which probably were part and parcel of each other.

The last time a celebrity was noted here upon that person's death, which is probably the only time a celebrity has been noted here due to death, was when Richard Seymour Hoffman died due to a drug overdose, and my entry at that time wasn't really sympathetic.  I tend not to credit too much the stories of pressure and angst associated with the performing arts, as I don't think they compare to those born by the unknown and average, who often have tremendous burdens.  In other words, I don't worry too much about the fame and its burdens that the famous have, as I don't think it's quite the same as being a blue collar worker in Detroit worrying about his job and his family.

But I do feel different about Williams, who seemed a fragile character in some ways, and a real one in other ways.

I wasn't an early fan of Williams, but I did start liking his work about the time he appeared in Good Morning Vietnam, and his performance in Good Will Hunting, ironically as a psychologist, was brilliant.  Perhaps that role, more than any other, showed his vulnerability and tapped into a completely non comedic serious role.  Unfortunately Williams could portray the deeply insightful but troubled psychologist in that movie, but apparently take no  comfort from it.

I don't know what it was that was so deeply troubling to Williams, and frankly for those very seriously disturbed, nobody really can.  But I note what was noted so long ago by the poem Richard Corey, set out above.  I don't want to be seen to be excusing his suicide, but it can be the case that a person who seemingly has everything, does not feel that way himself. And for those oppressed with the often heavy, but ordinary burdens of everyday life, things are often much better than they might appear.

Economic Ignorance and the American electorate

This is election season, and as a result, of course we see a wide set of topics discussed in the public sphere, with quite a few of those discussed badly.  Amongst these are economic topics.

Economics has been famously called the "dismal science" and not without good reason.  For one thing, economist themselves, including academics, have a real knack for doing to economics what some academic historians amazingly managed to do to history, which is to make it boring.  Economics differs from history, however, in that to some degree microeconomics is in fact boring to most people.

Macroeconomics isn't however, and people discuss it all the time without having any idea they're doing that.  Indeed, not only do they have no idea that they're doing that, but to an increasing degree even when people cite to economic terms they are utterly ignorant of the topic they're actually addressing.

That's downright dangerous, frankly.  People are always taking about income disparity, jobs, wages, prices and the like, and this sort of thing effects people daily.  All of that is an economic topic.

Additionally, in recent years, particularly since Barack Obama was elected, people have started to throw around common economic terms in a political context, often while not really grasping at all what they mean.  It taints the debate and really confuses it.

For example, it's been very common in some quarters to accuse President Obama of being a "Socialist".  He isn't, and he's not even ballpark close to being a Socialist.  On the other side of the coin, a lot of people are quick to brand themselves "Free Market Capitalist". They mostly aren't either, at least in a meaningful thoughtful sense.  From the outside, say Europe, where there are real Socialist, and even Communist and Autarkist, the use of the term "Free Market Economist" and "Socialist" in American political debates must seem bizarre in the extreme, as the average European would be completely unable to distinguish the difference between what the average Democrat and average Republican espouse, as they're really basically different versions of the same thing.

And what that thing is, is actually Corporate Capitalism, not Free Market Capitalism.  I'm not saying that this is good or bad, but I am saying that when people talk about the "glory of the American free market system", they don't really know what they are talking about.

What the US has, in economic terms, and what is generally the post 1990 case for most of the western world, is some version of the Corporate Capitalism, or what we'll just call Corporatism here for short.  I've dealt with this here before, but because I'm seeing the debate so skewed in recent weeks, it's worth dealing with again.

In a truly free market system, individuals, without the sponsorship or aid of the state, or its hindrance, compete with one another in the open market place. Think Adam Smith, basically. This is the system most Americans solidly believe they have, but we actually have a system that's nowhere near that. 

In Corporatism, the state takes a direct role in the economy by allowing the incorporation of what are actually partnerships.  Partnerships are, of course, when one or more person combine in a business.  Corporations are really the same thing. What makes corporations different, however, is that the state shields the individual members of the de facto partnership from liability and otherwise allows the corporate entity to act as if is a person.  Indeed, as lawyers know, a corporation is, and has always been, a person in the eyes of the  law. 

That legal fiction creates a huge economic advantage to corporation. And that's not the only one. A shareholder in Walmart, for example, bears no personal liability should Walmart commit a tort.  If Walmrat were a partnership in the classic sense, that wouldn't be true.  And if that were not true, the advantage of holding an interest in a remote company like Walmart, or Ford, or General Electric, would be enormously reduced, to say the least.

The fact that this system, i.e., corporations, exists, creates numerous advantages to corporations in a quasi free market economy, with one of those being that such economies tremendously favor economy of scale.  That is, such economies will necessarily favor the big over the small. Walmart over, for example, "Bob's Appliance Store".

Now, a person can argue this one way or another. Economist tend to argue that this is really a good thing, as the big entities create cheap goods, and that's good for the "consumer".  Critics, and they tend to be much less heard, would argue that those consumers are people, and those people now have a greatly reduced ability to compete in the local market, which is also true.  Honest proponents of Corporatism, and here they tend to be somewhat few, acknowledge that, but argue that's still a good thing as those people are now forced into sectors of the economy where their talents now serve a greater good for everyone, and its undoubtedly the case that the whole world is getting richer as a result.  Critics of that few will argue that those people only live so long, and it's not much of a consolation to Bob that he has to leave his appliance store in Laramie Wyoming to work at Amalgamated Amalgamated, Inc, in Denver.  

Still, as many honest critics of Corporatism as there are, there are more confused adherents to it who will proclaim themselves to be "strong advocates of the free market", but aren't.  People will argue on one hand they're in support of the system but on the other they complaint about its effects and advocate that the government do this or that, or simply blind their eyes and complaint about injustice when, if the result they complaint of is not just, it may be a byproduct of the system they advocate.

Part of the oddity of all of this is that it seems to be simply assumed that the only other economic system on earth is Socialism, which many Americans equate with Communism for some reason.  It's perfectly possible to be a democratic Socialist. Socialism is a system, as we explored earlier, which advocates that the government own the means of production.  So, instead of Amalgamated Amalgamated owning the Consolidated Amalgamated Works, the government does.   The government is then supposed to run CAW for the benefit of all, and be fair to the workers.

The problem with that idea is that it doesn't work for a plethora of reasons.  And the fact that it doesn't work is the reason why Socialism is dead as a doornail, remaining only in a very few localities.  When people accuse some American politician of being a Socialist, they don't have this system in mind at all.

Rather, what they have in mind is any action in which the government plays in the economy directly, or even obliquely.  That's not usually actually Socialism, however, but some sort of statism.  As the U.S. has had a managed economy to some extent ever since the 1930s, that isn't really a new development however, and both political parties have participated in that since that time.  

Additionally, where there are direct government roles in the economy, people actually tend to support it without realizing what it is. Again, I'm not arguing for or against this, but a person should be honest about it.  Most people like the government paving the roads.  Most people like the government running the airports.  These are species of Socialism.  There's no existential reason we need the FAA, for example, but most of us would not deregulate the skies, fire the air traffic controllers, and hope for the best.

Indeed, while people whine about it, the dirty little secret of Socialism is that there are limited areas in a Corporatist or Capitalist economy where a little bit of it always exists, and perhaps even more should exist.  North Dakota Mill, for example, is a North Dakota owed flour  mill that assures that North Dakota wheat continues to get processed in lean times.  Is this an economic evil?  Well, its been operating since 1922 and they seem to like it, probably for good reasons.  South Dakota Cement is a state owned cement plant. Is that because there are red hordes in Rapid City?  No, it just exists for the same reason that North Dakota Mills does.  Wyoming, which always claims that it wants to boost economic development outside of the oil and gas industry might take a page from that book and consider a state wool mill, really, to help boost the sheep industry.  If it makes a profit, why not?

And Wyoming has taken a page from that book in terms of Workers Compensation.  Workers Compensation in Wyoming is a state controlled and captive insurance system.  It was modeled on the German system that existed pre World War One, and is 100% government operated and controlled.  It is a Socialist system.  Is that because the Reds are in the State Capitol singing The Internationale?  No, it just recognized a need very early on, and has been operating for nearly a century now effectively.  There's no suggestion that we privatize it, even though most other states have a mixed state owned and controlled, private carrier, system.

Which suggest that in reality, people might actually go for practicality over economic theory, which brings me back to economic theory.  Everyone seems ignorant of the fact that there's other economic systems, and one significant modern system that just doesn't get looked at all, that being Distributism.

Distributism is an economic theory that advocates for "Subsidiarity", which is a confusing word based upon Catholic social teaching.  Basically, it means go small. Subsidiarity advocates the opposite of Socialism, in that it advocates that to the maximum extent possible, economic means should be vested at the lowest possible level, that being the family or the individual.

Wait just a freaking moment, you may be saying. That's what the Capitalist advocate!  Why just the other day I heard Politician Moe declare he was for motherhood, apple pie, the family farm, and the small businessman daggnabit!  Are you saying Moe isn't advocating that?

He probably isn't.  Moe probably says he's for all those things, and may believe that he is, but he probably also feels that it's consistent with his views is Amalgamated Consolidated Giant Big Box Inc. puts the bullet in Larry's Hardware, as that's just he way it is (and he's probably also okay with the FAA and State Highway Department too).  That's okay, but it means that he doesn't really grasp what he's saying.

The reason for that would be that if you were really a true Capitalist, you'd have to be a Distributist, not a Corporatist. The reason for that is simple, it's actually Distributism that advocates a free market, made up of competing people where possible, and competing companies where necessary, not Corporatism.

We don't have a Distributist economy in the US, we have a  Corporatist economy, and that isn't a truly free market economy.  If we had a true free market economy, it'd have to be Distributist.  In that economy, for example, Walmart wouldn't be state sponsored, and therefore it would be a partnership.  It'd probably be a small regional partnership.  You'd have to buy your stuff from a collection of local family owned stores that competed with each other.  Like it or not, and efficient or not, that's a free market economy, not the one we have.

Okay, what' the point of all of this? Well the point is several fold.

1. This is the election season, and a bunch of people are running around throwing words like "Socialist" and "Free Market" around, and its almost 100% inaccurate.  There are something less than 0% of politicians locally in most localities who are Socialist, and Socialist are so rare, that if they are Socialist, they'll actually claim to be Socialist.  And almost 100% of the people who claim to be "Capitalist" or in favor of the "Free Market' actually aren't. They're in favor of the post Reagan,. lightly managed, Corporatist economy.  

2.  Economic systems are economic systems, and when a person begins to get to be such an adherent to one that it passes from a philosophical belief into a quasi religious belief, a person ought to at least pause and ponder the nature of them.

3.  When a person mixes the words "Our Founding Fathers" and "Free Market", they're espousing a world view, not a historical view.  The founders had grown up in a mercantile system and were living in a system that is much, much, much, much closer to Distributism than what we have today.

4.  There are systems other that the Corporatist and Socialist ones, and perhaps that should be considered.  When people claim they're for "small business", the "family farm" and "entrepreneurs" they're suggesting a system that's more akin to Distributism than it is to Corporatism. If they mean that, they should ponder Distributist policies.  If they don't like Distributist philosophy, they ought to quit pretending that they do.

5.  Systems can be mixed, and that's not evil.  Everyone likes a little dose of Socialism, whether they'll admit it or not (if you don't, next time you are at the airport demand that the tower be privatized, and write your state about the horror of the socialist department of transportation).  We aren't mixing in any Distributism right now, but our rhetoric suggests that we'd like to.  Indeed, if we don't want to mix in a little Distributism, that would mean that we're 100% okay with state support of the economy, as that's what corporate laws provide for, and ought to admit it.

6.  Most people, or at least most politicians, are somewhat okay with "distribution of wealth", whether they'll admit it or not.  Any time there's a government body, the department of transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Fire Department, or whatever, occupying a role that could be contracted for instead, some wealth is being redistributed. And our corporate system is a massive redistribution of wealth from the small to the large.  It seems that most politicians are okay with that, but if they are, they ought to admit it.  If people actually aren't okay with it, they should ponder that, as most of these systems aren't written into stone are capable of being changed. Sometimes the change doesn't actually require all that much.

Wednesday, August 12, 1914. The United Kingdom and France declare war on Austro Hungaria.

The United Kingdom and her Dominions declared war on Austro Hungaria.

So did France.

Belgian troops repulsed  German cavalry at the Battle of Halen.

Karl von Müller, commander of the German light cruiser SMS Emden, met with Imperial German Navy Admiral Maximilian von Spee at Pagan, Mariana Islands.  In the meeting he learned that Impertial Japan was gravitating towards the United Kingdom and tracking down German squadrons in the Pacific.  The Emden was ordered to remain in the Pacific as a raider.

Interim Mexican president Francisco Carvajal formally left Mexico City for Veracruz, allowing the Constitutional Army to enter the city.

Last edition:

Monday, August 10, 1914. Austro Hungaria takes the field against Imperial Russia.

1910s, 1914, Alsace-Lorraine, World War One

The Not So Great Gatsby

Okay, I'll admit that I haven't read the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, and have only seen the two movie variants of it, but having seen them both more than once, I don't get it.

This story is lame in the extreme.

Why do people like it.

It may be just me, but I strongly suspect that there's a class of literature that is preserved mostly because it was regarded as super interesting, or super avant garde, or something, at the time it was written, and otherwise has very little merit.  I'd put James Joyce in that category, frankly.  His work is still read as somebody way back in blushed when they read it, and that made his reputation.  Now he's foisted off on university students and the volumes keep selling for that reason.

Same thing with most Hemingway.  Oh, some of his works are good, but are badly written and boring.  Yes, I said that. Badly written and boring.  Using a complete economy of words is a writing attribute a lot of children have and doesn't make you a great writer.

J. D. Salinger is not that great either.  I'm pretty convinced his works live on simply because university literature professors convince thier charges that the work is good, because somebody told them that, so in turn those graduates enter high school English departments and foist Salinger off on young minds, who know better.

And so it is with The Great Gatsby.

This story is just stupid.  Suspension of reality aside, are we really to believe that Gatsby rises from a poor discharged officer to a super fantastically uber super duper humongously fantastically wealthy person in a few years simply through his own titanic (and illegal) activities just to impress Daisy Buchanan.  Oh come on.

And why would anyone with a brain be interested in Daisy Buchanan, at least as she's portrayed on film.  She's boring beyond belief. She's as dull as a toast sandwich made up of two slices of toast, with a piece of toast in between. Dull.

Perhaps, of course, she's not quite such a paler shade of dull in print.

The golfing lady is more interesting however.

And is a person whose grasp on morality is so poor that he helps set up his married cousin in a tryst with a man involved in criminal activity really that interesting as a protagonist?

I don't care what literature profs say about this one, this story is lame.

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Wyoming Super Moon

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Wyoming Super Moon

Credit where credit is due, good op eds from the Star Tribune

I've criticized the Casper Star Tribune here more than once, but I have to give it credit where its due (risky though that is, I'll probably be upset with its coverage in no time). Specifically, I'll applaud two op ed pieces that appeared in it over the weekend.

The first one is by former Wyoming Speaker of the House, Tom Lubnau.  Now, I'll confess I know Mr. Lubnau slightly, and have always found him a reasonable and intelligent man.  He had the great misfortune recently to be Speaker when the entire Cindy Hill drama played out, and no doubt that entire episode has fixed him in the minds of some of the state's voters, for good or ill.

Lubnau wrote on the one of the perennial bad ideas that surfaces in Wyoming and the West occasionally, which is the concept of "giving back" or "turning over" the Federal domain to the states.  It's come up recently in the context of at least one legislative and one gubernatorial candidate who are backing that concept. Frankly, I don't know if the gubernatorial candidate is serious, I suspect not, but the legislative candidate seems to be.  The interesting thing about this is that this comes in the context of races in the Republican primary, so it pits Republican against Republican.

Lubnau has done an excellent job in his article of pointing out that the concept that there's some historic claim by the state to the Federal domain is completely off base.  Indeed, he could go a lot further than he did.  He did reference the Homestead Acts, but he didn't detail how that act, administered by the Federal government, was a key part of the State's early history long after statehood, and none of Wyoming's early residents had any concept whatsoever that the Federal domain should be granted to the States.  He also didn't go into the fact that there was never, in any state, ever a concept that the Federal government had to grant the land to the states, and the government always kept land it was using (Federal Reservations).  Land was granted to the states to encourage their development in much the same fashion that the Federal government encouraged the development of the Western states through the Homestead Acts.

Beyond that, however, Lubnau did not go into the fact that the Federal domain is in large part what makes Wyoming what it is, and turning the land over to the State would inevitably, over time, lead to its transfer into private hands, probably at reduced rates, ultimately making this state another version of Texas. Everyone would loose out in the end, particularly the citizens of the state who like the outdoors and the remaining local ranchers who would ultimately see prices dictate the transfer or ranchlands to the rich.

The reason, I'd note, that some back this idea is the completely erroneous idea that the Federal government is keeping the lands from being used.  This is simply untrue.  One candidate, for example, declared that if the Federal lands became state lands, coal production would rise.  Oh no it wouldn't.  Coal consumption is controlled by external factors well outside of this state, and industry insiders who I've had the pleasure of talking to from time to time were predicting a dramatic, even industry ending, decline in coal usage as long ago as 15 years back.  Like it or not, it makes a lot more of a difference what power generators in California are using, or what port authorities in Bellingham Washington think, than who owns mineral lands in Wyoming.

Indeed, for those enthusiastic about mineral production being owned exclusively by the State, I"ve heard more than one farmer and rancher who would have allowed none whatsoever, as they rarely actually benefit from it unless they own.  So, once again, the State owning mineral production isn't going to be seen as a fantastic thing by everyone, in spite of what people may think. The production companies themselves will either yawn at the news, or regret it as they're already dealing with the Federal government in large scale already, and regular residents of the state would definitely regret it. Besides, the 350,000,000 Americans who don't live in Wyoming aren't going to agree to it.

Which brings me to another perennial bad idea that comes up every year during elections, but not addressed by the op eds.  The "taking on the Federal government" on this or that. Sure, sometimes we do need to do that as a state, but there's a foolish idea out there that suing the Federal government achieves much. Very rarely is this the case.  This is so apparent that I've sometimes wonder if one of our prior governors sued the Federal government for purely cynical reasons, as the success rate was so low. Sort of like a  Chihuahua that barks to convince the homeowners that it's protecting the front lawn.  Not much of a real effect, really.

The other op ed that I did read and enjoyed was Susan Stubson's article in the Trib.  I have to admit that I don't dislike Ms. Stubson's articles, but I usually don't enjoy them either.  I usually start them to see if I think they're worth reading and then go on to something else, which doesn't say anything about her writing so much as it says something about me, I suppose.

Anyhow, Stubson wrote on "Citizen malpractice", the use of that term probably reflecting  the fact that Stubson is a lawyer (and married to a lawyer)..  Her article was courageous, starting off early in the article with this:

Earlier this spring, I had a discussion with a teacher friend who told me that she and most of her friends opposed the $33 million school construction bond because it was generally a “waste” of their tax dollars. As a reminder, the failed bond would have paid for, among other things, academy equipment, safety improvements, and the construction of a new science and technology center. It was clear to me that this lady and her friends had zero command of the facts, nor did they evince any understanding of the impact of their yes/no vote. It was striking given that this comment came from the people that had the most to gain or lose by the outcome.

Stubson went on to criticize voters who voted in ignorance.  Good for her.

And there's a lot of that seemingly going on.  Right now around here I am routinely hearing a lot of people voice definite opinions about matters, when its clear that they've never thought them out.  It's not that I feel that these people should agree with me on everything (and sometimes I do agree with them, they just haven't thought things out).  Rather I'm amazed by the voters, and candidates, who express certain opinions when in some instances their own lives are directly contrary to the positions they're stating.  I've met, for example, died in the wool haters of government and taxes who are actually employed by the government and would lose their jobs if their own views were enacted. Do they know that?  If so, why don't they quit those jobs?  I've met people who love to do something that's totally tax supported, while hating the taxes that support them? Are they aware of that?  

In noting this, I'm not trying to tell people how to vote on anything, but much more than recent years people really seem fired up and are gravitating towards the margins in the election, without always really thinking things out. Ideas and concepts that are imported from other states, and have little application to our own, have also crept in, perhaps with the influx of workers from those states. That's fine and that's their right, but we've always been a unique state and perhaps its time to sit back and really consider that.  Ideas, concepts and strategies that apply elsewhere often have no application here, and what does work here works here, but might not work anywhere else.  It's good to be informed.

The Big Picture: Pendleton Round Up, 1911

Monday, August 10, 1914. Austro Hungaria takes the field against Imperial Russia.

Austro Hungaria invaded Russia.

The Germans retook Mulhouse. 

British ships in pursuit of cruisers Goeben and Breslau.  By Bundesarchiv, Bild 134-C2320 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5337867

The Ottoman Empire opened the Dardanelles to allow German cruisers SMS Goeben and SMS Breslau passage to Constantinople.

The United Kingdom released all suffragette prisoners.

4th Marine Regiment, August 10, 1914.

"Cook house and mess tents." - Keechelus Dam, Yakima River, 10 miles northwest of Easton, Easton, Kittitas County, Washington.

Last edition:

Sunday, August 9, 1914. The end of the second phase of the Mexican Revolution.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Allied Powers, Australia, Austro Hungaria, boats and ships, Catholic, Central Powers, German Kriegsmarine, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Mexico City, Montenegro, religion, Royal Navy, World War One

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Riding Halls & Other Horse Related Buildings

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Riding Halls & Other Horse Related Buildings

Sunday, August 9, 1914. The end of the second phase of the Mexican Revolution.

The leaders of the Constitutionalist met with interim Mexican president Francisco S. Carvajal and the unconditional surrender of the Federals in exchange for safe passage of all federal troops and senior government leaders out of Mexico City. The defeated Federals left the following day.

Montenegro declared war on Austro Hungaria.

The French dirigible overflew portions of Germany.

British ships received definitive actual wartime orders to pursue the German warships SMS Goeben and Breslau.

The Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane James Duhig dedicated the opening of St Brigid's Church in Brisbane.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 8, 1914. Leaving for the Antarctic.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Alsace-Lorraine, Antarctic, Battle of the Frontiers, Cameroon, Exploration, German Empire, Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, law, United Kingdom, World War One

WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: Wyoming Sheep Wagons

WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: Wyoming Sheep Wagons: This year marks the 130 th Anniversary of the construction of the first sheep wagon built by James Candlish.  Many have attributed the inv...

Front tire chains?

The November photo for this year's Wyoming History Calendar depicts a fire truck, circa 1910, that belonged to the town of Rawlins.  Its a winter photo, and the all four wheels of the truck are chained.

I can understand why the back tires were chained, by why the front?  For better steering?  It could not have been a four wheel drive.

U.S. Planes Start Airstrike on Iraq Militants - WSJ

U.S. Planes Start Airstrike on Iraq Militants - WSJ

USDA Blog » Smokey Bear, Iconic Symbol of Wildfire Prevention, Still Going Strong at 70

USDA Blog » Smokey Bear, Iconic Symbol of Wildfire Prevention, Still Going Strong at 70

Old Picture of the Day: Cowboy Week

Old Picture of the Day: Cowboy Week: We wrap up Cowboy Week with this picture of a cowboy and his horse. The picture was taken in 1939 near Spur, Texas. I hope you have e...

Saturday, August 8, 1914. Leaving for the Antarctic.

The UK passed the first Defence of the Realm Act authorizing wartime censorship.

French forces took Muhouse in Alsace, although they'd be pushed back out two days later.

German colonial authorities executed Cameroonian resistance leaders Martin-Paul Samba and Rudolf Duala Manga Bell for treason.

The Shackleton Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition left the UK for Antarctica, seemingly out of context and now out of their own times.

Last edition:

Friday, August 7, 1914. The BEF arrives in France.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Alaska, Alsace-Lorraine, Battle of the Frontiers, British Army, British Empire, French Army, Ghana, Spain, World War One

Friday Farming: When raising sheep was a defense industry.

Old Picture of the Day: Group of Cowboys

Old Picture of the Day: Group of Cowboys: Today's picture shows a group of 17 cowboys. The vests, bandanas, boots and cowboy hats are reminiscent of our classic images of cowb...

Old Picture of the Day: Branding Cattle

Old Picture of the Day: Branding Cattle: I really like this picture from 1905. It shows cowboys out on the range branding cattle. You can see the herd in the background, along...

Lex Anteinternet: Weather reports

I was reminded of this post yesterday while waiting in line at Sonic.  Yes, it's true. Anyhow, the old post:

Lex Anteinternet: Weather reports: Today is the anniversary of the horrible blizzard of 1888 , which holds status as the worst storm to have ever hit the northern plains.  Th...

 The reason I recalled it is that the Sonic has a television in the lobby, or whatever it is, and was running the Weather Channel, which was full of reports about the two hurricanes that will soon hit Hawaii.  For whatever reason, it hit me what events like that must have been like prior to any weather reporting.  What was it like for ships at sea, for example?  Any long serving sailor must have experienced the arrival of storms, announced only by what the crews could read on the horizon.  It must have truly been horrifying.