Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: And the pumps kept on.

This past weekend, the week after I posted this

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: And the pumps kept on.: And following on this: Lex Anteinternet: And the pumps kept on. : Saudi production has reached 10,000,000 bbl per day, near (or perha...

the Tribune made the topic of a possible oil collapse its Sunday feature.  I was out of town, so I didn't read it in depth, although I tried to on my app for that.  The Tribune did a nice job, in one article, of listing all the prior collapses, which is something I've written about here in the past (again, you heard it here first) but which the Tribune, having full time staff et all, did a nice job on. They listed the prior ups and downs as follows: 

The Star-Tribune compiled a brief timeline of oil in Wyoming from the first sale to its current situation.

• 1863: “The first recorded oil sale in Wyoming, however, happened along the Oregon Trail when, in 1863, enterprising entrepreneurs sold oil as a lubricant to wagon train travelers. The oil came from Oil Mountain Springs, some 20 miles west of present-day Casper. ” -- Phil Roberts on wyohistory.org.
• 1883: Mike Murphy drills the first oil well in Wyoming south of Lander at Dallas Dome.
• Fall 1888: Casper’s first well is drilled 3 miles northwest of town.
• 1895: Pennsylvania Oil Company builds the first refinery in Casper.
• April 5, 1889: “The town was swarming with oil men. Something will evidently be doing soon.” – The Casper Tribune
• 1910: Franco-Wyoming Oil Co. is created. Construction on a refinery begins a year later.
• 1911: The Midwest Oil Co. begins construction of another refinery in Casper.
• 1914: Standard Oil moves into Casper, buying land to build a refinery.
• 1916 to 1917: "During the latter part of 1916 and for nine months in 1917 Casper experienced a wonderful oil boom,” according to a 1990 Gillette News Record article citing a historian.
• 1916: The Big Muddy Oil Field is discovered near Glenrock on a land grant section randomly chosen by a government surveyor for the University of Wyoming. Royalties from the oil field in the 1920s are used to build Half Acre, the current gymnasium, and the library, now the Aven Nelson Building. The building comes amid a statewide depression. 
• June 17, 1921: A fire erupts at the Midwest Refinery Tank Farm in Casper, in what is widely considered one of the major disasters of the time.
• 1923: “The Producers and Refiners Company (PARCO) built a refinery and a complete town for its employees on the Union Pacific line in Carbon County. When the firm went into bankruptcy in the early 1930s, oilman Harry Sinclair bought the town on April 12, 1934, and renamed it ‘Sinclair’.” -- Phil Roberts on wyohistory.org.
• 1925: “It was 1925, the peak of the Salt Creek oil boom in Casper. ‘Smoke of prosperity hangs over Casper Refineries,’ said the headline in the 1926 annual ‘industrial edition’ of the Casper Tribune-Herald.” More than 23,200 people lived in Casper and Natrona County, beating Cheyenne and Laramie County by about 5,000 people. Some people predicted Natrona County’s population would reach 40,000 within a year. – “Boom overshadowed gloom in ‘25” by Irving Garbutt.
• Late 1920s: Crude oil prices peak in 1920 at $3 for a 42-gallon barrel before sinking to as low as 19 cents in 1931.
• 1940s: World War II boosts Wyoming oil production.
• 1946: Major oil companies move regional headquarters to Casper, which is, once again, coined “Oil Capital of the Rocky Mountains.”
• 1947: “Casper listed 55 oil field service, supply, and trucking companies. In 1953, this list showed 196 such firms. Stanolind Oil Company, with division and district headquarters in Casper, had 70 employees in 1947. In 1953, the company employed 316 people. Ohio Oil Company had increased from 104 employees to 167. The total number of companies and individuals listed as engaged in oil production and exploration increased from 27 in 1947 to 81 in 1953.” – “Casper, Wyoming, Oil Center of the Rockies” September 1954 edition of Out West Magazine.
• 1950s: Most small towns in Wyoming have their own refineries, including ones in Cody, Thermopolis, Torrington and Lusk.
• Late 1960s: Oil production continues to be strong, but Wyoming’s overall economy is in a period of “malaise,” said Phil Roberts. “By the end of the ‘60s, we were flat broke.”

“In 1968, Gov. Stan Hathaway discovered that Wyoming had the grand sum of $80 in the general fund. 'That scared the hell out of me,' said Hathaway. 'I had to do something.'” -- Sam Western, “Pushed Off the Mountain, Sold Down the River: Wyoming’s Search for Its Soul.”

• 1969: Wyoming creates a severance tax to build state coffers.
• 1973: Arab oil embargo. Prices skyrocket to $40 a barrel. Gas prices nearly double.
• 1982: World price of energy crashes.
• Early 1980s: Headquarters of major companies, including Chevron and Exxon, move from Casper to Denver and then many to Houston or Tulsa, Oklahoma. Most small refineries, operating off of even slimmer margins, close.
• 1991: Amoco Refinery closes in Casper. “Had they stayed, they would have had to weather, how many years before it turned around? As a business decision, it was something they had to do looking down the road. But on the other hand, with the changing energy economy by the end of the 20th century, it would have been pretty profitable for them to stay in business.” – Phil Roberts
• Early 2000s: Enhanced oil recovery breathes new life into the Salt Creek Field. Horizontal drilling unlocks previously hard-to-tap shale reserves.
• Late 2014: Slow international growth and a rising tide of production from OPEC creates a slump in oil prices from $107 a barrel to below $50 a barrel in 2015.

* Historical information from Phil Roberts, a Wyoming historian and professor at the University of Wyoming, or the Western History Center at Casper College.

Casper Star Tribune and Phil Robertson.  Again, really nice job!

Points go to the Tribune for running such an article, but I can't help but note how much this feels like 1983 all over again.  I still have friends and colleagues outside of the oil industry who are trying to convince themselves it won't be that bad.  At the same time, as I have a lot of oil industry contacts, I can see what's occurring.  Lots of men I knew who were employed in the oil industry now are not. A good friend of mine in the financial world tells me that Texas expects 100,000 lost jobs in this sector this year.  Texas has a population of 24,000,000 of course, basically rivaling the population of Canada, so that may not be devastating to its economy, but a decline in this sector here, where this is the single largest industry, is going to have a major impact.  It simply will.

Not that there aren't opposing indicators people can point to, and do.  Things are still being built, businesses are still going in.

Just like last time.

Writing is five percent inspiration. The rest is brute force. « M J Wright

Writing is five percent inspiration. The rest is brute force. « M J Wright

Today In Wyoming's History: Some Gave All: Gettysburg National Military Park, ...

Today In Wyoming's History: Some Gave All: Gettysburg National Military Park, ...: While the Indian Wars smouldering in Wyoming, and state volunteer units were patrolling the Oregon Trail: Some Gave All: Gettysburg Nation...

Some Gave All: Gettysburg National Military Park, Gettysburg Penn...

Some Gave All: Gettysburg National Military Park, Gettysburg Penn...: The photographs below are of the Gettysburg National Military Park. I only recently saw the park, and as I was traveling for business, I...

The Big Picture: U.S. Army Tank Corps, Camp Meade, Maryland.

Tuesday, March 30, 1915. Germans fighting Arabs.

Germans and Bedouins fought for perhaps the first time in World War One when a party of stranded German marines from the SMS Emden was ambushed while being escorted to Jeddah.

German medicts with wounded man in Belgium, March 30, 1915.

Last edition:

Sunday, March 28, 1915. The first lost American.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, boats and ships, German Kriegsmarine, Thrasher Incident, World War One

Monday at the bar: Courthouses of the West: Federal District Courthouse, Denver Colorado

Courthouses of the West: Federal District Courthouse, Denver Colorado:

 

The Big Speech: Become such as you are.

ένοι' οἷος ἐσσὶ μαθών

Become such as you are, having learned what that is.

Pindar

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Holy Ghost Roman Catholic Church, Denver Colorado

Churches of the West: Holy Ghost Roman Catholic Church, Denver Colorado:

Why I think Mars One is a really stupid notion « M J Wright

Why I think Mars One is a really stupid notion « M J Wright

Sunday, March 28, 1915. The first lost American.

The British registered Falaba was sunk by the U-28 in St. George's Channel with American citizen Leon Thrasher on board, leading to a diplomatic crisis.

Thrasher was the first American killed in World War One.

The British ferry Brussels tried to ram the German submarine U-33 after it tried to stop and board her.  The submarine had to dive to evade being hit.  Submarines were being treated as criminal vessels by the British due to unrestricted submarine warfare.

Last edition:

Friday. March 26, 1915. A view of Alsace.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Alsace-Lorraine, Battle of Hartmannswillerkopf, Florida, French Army, German Army, World War One

Today In Wyoming's History: March 26

Today In Wyoming's History: March 26: 1895  University of Wyoming Alumni Association founded.

Amazing to think that it's that old, or that it was founded so soon after the University was established.

Unsolicited Career Advice No. 5. How do you become a rancher?

Well, if you aren't rich, or born into it, I"m not too sure you can, at least in the ranch example.

I hate to say that, but this is a question that I've also been asked, which stands quite a part from the "should I go to law school question".  I suppose on the occasional instances in which I get asked this, its because we have cattle and ought to know.

Just here recently I ran a series of posts due to it being National Agriculture Week. And I've run quite a few posts on farming and ranching, and even agrarianism, in the past.  Anyone who has looked at these and seen any career type comments I've made there knows that I'm pretty pessimistic about people who aren't born into agriculture getting into it, although some do manage to do it. One thing about the law that's sure, you don't have to be born into it in order to get into it (and a lot of people born into it, but not all, don't go into it).

All agriculture, it should be noted, is local.  People very often fail to realize that.  Practices that are common 200 miles away might not be where you are, and for that matter, they might even work in your locality.  So it's perfectly possible that a person might be able to walk right on to a farm in some other locality, while they'd never be able to do that in another.  So, Caveat Lector.

Anyhow, at one time, the dream of owning a farm or ranch, and by that I mean a real operation, not 20 acres near a big city which you call a farm or ranch, was a common one.  It's so much a part of the American mentality that, in spite of the fact that agriculturalist are often dismissed as "hicks", it still makes up a common theme in stories, particularly B grade romantic ones.  In the old film Splendor In The Grass the main male protagonist, whose father has big hopes for his career, ends up disappointing the family and becoming a farmer, which we take to be the better (and more American) choice.  In zillions of "Lifetime" type movies, people inherit a ranch in trouble, which they then rescue, or move to a relatives rustic ranch, where they become involved in its operation after an initial desire to avoid it.  A stock background in film is that a person's parents or grandparents have a farm or ranch somewhere.  And a fairly significant number of people obviously aspire to farm or ranch.

But how realistic is it?

Not very, at least by my observation.

I've written on it before, but land prices are perhaps the major reason why.  They've simply gone out of sight, due in no small part to the land's value for subdivision or for the rich to buy essentially as a playground.  And there's no region of the United States that I'm aware of that is immune from it.

Some regions, of course, are particularly influenced by this. The West, which ironically retains the romantic image of being "wide open", is pretty much closed for new agricultural entrants.  This trend has been going on for some time, and at some point in the 1950s or early 1960s this became basically true, although there was still a little room to get in as late as the early 1980s.  No longer.  Ranches here now sell for such values that only the very wealthy or the those who are already possessed of large amounts of land they can leverage can get in.

Well, so what?  That's just the way it is, right?  After all, that's what happens to agricultural and in every free society, absent government intervention (which is another topic entirely, and which isn't going to happen). And, if you subscribe to the views advanced in the article written by George F. Will and reported here yesterday, it's all for everyone's good.

And I've read that thesis with this sort of thing before.  The classic one is that the automobile manufacture puts the wagon maker out of business, but the auto maker makes more jobs, and the displaced wagon maker goes on to get a cubicle job for higher wages where he can buy Starbucks every day. Great, eh?

Or, more precisely, sure this means that fewer people are in agriculture, but with economies of scale, this keeps food cheap and that's good for everyone. People who would have been farmers can compete for jobs with those who own the land, or they can go into town and become podiatrists where they'll generate even more money, and their kids will become neurosurgeons and make even more.  More and more money will result.

Well, maybe, but that's if that matters, and the evidence is that at some point, it doesn't.

Poverty matters, that's for sure. But there's no good evidence that after some point affluence does.  Indeed, it doesn't seem to. And at that point, having closed off certain opportunities and occupations matters a lot.  

This is particularly true when occupations that are close to the land are closed off.  As a species, we have next to no experience with that condition, as up until recently the majority of human beings lived close to the land.  Even those who didn't live on the land, often lived and worked close to those who did.  Now this is rapidly becoming no longer true, but people still crave it at an elemental level.

And there are open questions about what sort of society this will be, for people.

Which digresses.

So, "how can I become a farmer or rancher"?  I don't know.  You might be able to become a farm manager a ranch manager for a landowner.  I know several young men who have done that.  It's a career path that doesn't offer a lot of wealth, but perhaps that doesn't matter, and it probably shouldn't.  Over time, the men I've known who have done that (and they've all been men, fwiw) have married and had families, so certainly a normal life is possible. As for owning a place of your own, well, maybe or maybe not.  Probably not, at least if what you hope for is a working ranch.  But if that's your heart's desire, it might not matter what anyone tells you anyway, as it'll probably remain close to your heart.

Old Picture of the Day: President Roosevelt

Old Picture of the Day: President Roosevelt: Today we feature a picture of Roosevelt looking presidential. The picture was taken during the last part of his presidency.  I like th...

Old Picture of the Day: Roosevelt in Knickers

Old Picture of the Day: Roosevelt in Knickers: It is not just every man that has the self confidence to wear Knickers. I would say Roosevelt was one man who could pull it off. The b...

Old Picture of the Day: Teddy Roosevelt in Earlier Days

Old Picture of the Day: Teddy Roosevelt in Earlier Days: This is  a picture of Teddy Roosevelt in days before he was famous as a military man or president. He is posed here as a hunter. He rea...

Old Picture of the Day: TR

Old Picture of the Day: TR: Today we have another picture of Teddy Roosevelt during his Military Years. The picture was taken in 1898. Also, we have another quote ...

Old Picture of the Day: Teddy Roosevelt

Old Picture of the Day: Teddy Roosevelt: This is another military portrait of Teddy Roosevelt from back in his Rough Rider days. Also, another of my favorite quotes from Teddy...

Old Picture of the Day: Colonel Roosevelt

Old Picture of the Day: Colonel Roosevelt: Welcome to Teddy Roosevelt Week! We will be looking at pictures of one of my favorite presidents. Roosevelt was genuinely a larger tha...

Closing our eyes

A long time ago I write this essay here, which at one time was one of the most popular ones on this site:

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 essay came in the wake of a tragic mass killing and it looked at root causes, at a time during which a lot of public commentary was focused on proposed efforts that would not address them.

I mention that now, as we've just had yet another example of a senseless mass killing of a type we've seen several of in recent years, but we don't seem to see much proposed in the way of doing something about it.  That is, the co-pilot of the Germanwings plane that crashed into the Alps this week turns out to be mass murderer.

This isn't the first time in recent years where a commercial pilot has chosen to kill himself and all of his passengers.  It's totally inexcusable on every level.  A question remains about this, that being, why is so much attention focused on controlling implements for which the legislative control of which will not have a demonstrative effect, while there hasn't been any outcry about whom is allowed to pilot hundreds in the sky?

Yes, I know there's commercial licenses, but even on the simple applicable standards level, it would appear that around the globe various pilots simply don't measure up to the American standard. They should, and there's no reason that a universal, very high, standard can't apply to all commercial air carrier pilots.  But beyond that, perhaps the time has come to place these men and women through some sort of psychological battery every six months.  It won't catch them all, but it might catch some who are getting dicey, or even just sloppy.  And maybe the time has come for a third pilot to be in the cabin, just in case. These are big complicated planes and there's been a lot of accidents, which might be reason enough, and might help to keep something like this from reoccuring.  

Lex Anteinternet: The Distrubing Thesis of Capital in the Twenty Fir...

Almost a year ago I was writing about Thomas Piketty's disturbing thesis in this entry:

Lex Anteinternet: The Distrubing Thesis of Capital in the Twenty Fir...: I haven't read it yet, but I've been reading a lot about Thomas Piketty's new book, Capital In The Twenty First Century. The b...

This morning, in reading my local newspaper, George F. Will reviews a new book with a counterveiling thesis, that being John Tanny's new  "cheerful, mind-opening book, “Popular Economics: What the Rolling Stones, Downton Abbey, and LeBron James Can Teach You About Economics.".  Will's article is boldy entitled "How income inequality benefits us all".

Will characterizes Tanny's book which I also haven't read, as boldy presentign a new thesis, but it what it apparently does is bodly defend an old one, that being that Adam Smith was right and we need not worry about jobs being exported overseas.  The book apparently expertly cites numerous examples, with the basis nature of them being that when jobs like making Iphones go overseas, the price lowers so much that in real terms all of our incomes rise.  The book isn't limited to that type of analysis, however, and also, apaprently, defends monopolies.

This is obviously quite the opposite of Piketty, whom I still haven't read, but it strikes me that in some odd ways they may both be correct and incorrect at the same time.  Will's Tanny is correct, that buying at Wall Mart or from monopolies, and from companies that manufacture in the cheapest possible fashion, means less of our income goes into purchases, but it also can't be denied, as Piketty demonstrates, that the wealth that's generated gets concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, who are by extension more and more powerful. 

The overarching thing, however, is that Will's cheerful defense ignores something, which Froma Harrop has been exploring in her recent articles. Nobody wants to be poor, but at some point an economy that serves only to produce wealth and do so efficiently is really soulless and concentrates people into jobs that they might not really like.  In other words, what if some people, indeed a lot of people, are just flat out happier working as a machinist on the factory floor, rather than in some clerk job in the cubicle forest? 

Friday. March 26, 1915. A view of Alsace.

The French took Hartmannswillerkopf  giving them an observation post for Alsace.

The town of Miami Beach, Florida was established.

Last edition:

Thursday, March 25, 1915. Loss of the F-4.

Labels: 1860s, 1864, 1910s, 1915, boats and ships, Civil War, Confederate Navy, Hawaii, U.S. Navy

Thursday, March 25, 1915. Loss of the F-4.

The US submarine USS F-4 sank off of Hawaii with the loss of all 21 hands.  It was the U.S. Navy's first submarine loss, discounting of course the CSS H. L. Hunley, the Confederate submarine.

The SS Tamar was sunk by the SMS Kronprinz off of Brazil.

Last edition:

Tuesday, March 23, 1915. Advances at Hartmannswillerkopf.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Battle of Hartmannswillerkopf, boats and ships, French Army, Oregon, panoramic, Railroads, World War One

We're Not Taking Enough Lunch Breaks. Why That's Bad For Business : The Salt : NPR

We're Not Taking Enough Lunch Breaks. Why That's Bad For Business : The Salt : NPR

I'm afraid I'm guilty as charged on this one.

Writing inspirations – the wonder of Packard « M J Wright

Writing inspirations – the wonder of Packard « M J Wright

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Peace Council of 1866

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Peace Council of 1866

Lex Anteinternet: And the pumps kept on.

And following on this:

Lex Anteinternet: And the pumps kept on.: Saudi production has reached 10,000,000 bbl per day, near (or perhaps) an all time record high.  This comes in the face of Saudi resistance ...

I read in the paper this morning that the solar panel industry now employers more people in the US than coal mining.

Indeed, an irony of this is that there's now an effort in some states to tax homeowners who install solar panels, using the logic that they use power on the grid when they cannot generate power on cloudy days. While that's generally true, the law has generally been, or at least was (I haven't kept up on it) that power companies actually had to buy power sent back down the line by domestic solar and wind electrical generation.  This has likely been regarded as a minor inconvenience by power companies for a long time, but now they're becoming irritated in some areas, apparently.

Irrespective of that, solar has quietly come a long way in the past 40 years.  40% of German electrical output is now solar (and if they'd continued to allow nuclear power generation, they'd have darned near 100% non emitting power).  There's no reason to believe that a high American output isn't similarly possible, and perhaps now even probable.

All of this is hugely important to the state of Wyoming, and of course other energy producing states.  With an oil industry that dates back to the 1890s and a coal industry that started when the Union Pacific was first constructed, the state has acclimated itself to the extractive energy industry being the main economic engine of the state.  Coal severance taxes, which were at first stoutly opposed by some, have been funding the state government here for over 40 years now.  The schools are nearly entirely constructed using money generated from taxes on coal.  Coal production has been declining now for several years, and the coal industry's backers have been quite vocal about what they feel should be done to aid the industry, and that it can generate "clean coal".  But the long term trends seem hard to ignore at present.  Coal is being supplemented in the U.S. as a fuel, in Europe its being supplanted.  The trend line in the US seems headed in the same direction unless major technological developments can change the dynamics of the situation.  The coal market right now seems to be mostly China, but Pacific coast states and provinces object to the loading of it, and transportation of coal by sea has its own costs and problems.  So, in spite of hopes in that quarter, and in spite of efforts by Wyoming's politicians in that direction, the Chinese saving the market seems unlikely.

And, as explored here earlier, it seems difficult not to conclude at this point that the Saudi Arabians have made a similar conclusion about future of petroleum oil, and have decided to keep the price on the floor so that they dominate the market during what they have calculated will be the transition phase.  Probably calculating that the beginning of a technological transition from petroleum has commenced and that the process will take about the same amount of time one way or another, by keeping the price low, they'll dominate it during that period of time.  In other words, the money is going to go somewhere, and it might as well go to them.  By keeping the production high, and selling what they'll have, they'll make the most money possible out of their resource and probably try to use that to transition to some other type of economy.  Goodness, knows they need to, as their current culture and economy isn't viable continuing on with its current model.

But for states like Wyoming, which have relied on these industries, the trend line is a bad one for the traditional economy.  Agriculture, Extractive industries, and Tourism have been the three legs of the stool of Wyoming's economy.  There's a pretty good chance that one of those legs is now broken, and there's no really solid idea of what to do to replace it, if it needs to be.

As a final observation, folks who note things like this here are often branded as "antis".  However, as a Wyoming native, and a former crewman on a workover rig, and as a person with a geology degree, I think I can stand on my bonafides.  I'm not declaring this as part of a manifesto, but rather observing as a person given to that by training and inclination.  We probably need to be pondering these topics here.

And the pumps kept on.

Saudi production has reached 10,000,000 bbl per day, near (or perhaps) an all time record high.  This comes in the face of Saudi resistance to pressure to decrease production.

Accompanying, this Chinese economy, long seen as a potential major oil importer, has been slowing down over the past 11 months.

Neither of which is a good sign for American oil production.  Hovering in the $50 to $60 bbl range for months now, a decrease in the Saudi price and a maintenance of Saudi production can't help but be noticed by the domestic industry's planners.

Tuesday, March 23, 1915. Advances at Hartmannswillerkopf.

Great Northern Pacific Steamship Co.'s terminals, Flavel, Or.

French attacks on Hartmannswillerkopf got them within 150 metres of the summit.

Last edition:

Monday, March 22, 1915. The Imperial Russian Army captured Przemyśl

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Austro Hungarian Army, Imperial Russian Army, Siege of Siege of Przemyśl, World War One

Monday at the bar: Courthouses of the West: United States Bankruptcy Court, Denver Colorado

Courthouses of the West: United States Bankruptcy Court, Denver Colorado:

 

The Big Speech: War is sweet to the inexperienced

γλυκύ δ᾽ἀπείρῳ πόλεμος.
πεπειραμένων δέ τις ταρβεῖ προσιόντα νιν καρδία περισσῶς.

War is sweet to the inexperienced, but the experienced man trembles at its approach

Pindar.  

Monday, March 22, 1915. The Imperial Russian Army captured Przemyśl

Imperial Russian Army captured Przemyśl ending the longest siege of the Great War.  They took over 117,000 Austro-Hungarian POWs which included  nine generals, 93 senior staff officers, and 2,500 other officers.

Last edition:

Friday, March 19, 1915. The Defense of India Act.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, British Empire, India, It was because of World War One, law, Outer space, World War One

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: The Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, Denver Colorado.

Churches of the West: The Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, Denver Colorado

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Spring Buffalo Hunt

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Spring Buffalo Hunt

Writers – one-trick ponies or polymaths? « M J Wright

Writers – one-trick ponies or polymaths? « M J Wright

National Agriculture Week: Fall Trail. 2012

Fall Trail. 2012: Day one, gathering and start of the trail. ...

 

The faces of farming during National Agriculture Week - Farm Progress

The faces of farming during National Agriculture Week - Farm Progress

Ranch Life - Wyoming Chronicle

Texas Landowner Liability Part II: Premises Liability – Legal Status and Duty Owed | Texas Agriculture Law

Texas Landowner Liability Part II: Premises Liability – Legal Status and Duty Owed | Texas Agriculture Law

Texas Landowner Liability Part I: Negligent Act v. Premises Liability | Texas Agriculture Law

Texas Landowner Liability Part I: Negligent Act v. Premises Liability | Texas Agriculture Law

Questions from Tiffany’s Desk: Set Back Rules for Pipelines and Oil Rigs | Texas Agriculture Law

Questions from Tiffany’s Desk: Set Back Rules for Pipelines and Oil Rigs | Texas Agriculture Law

Impact of Pipelines and Powerlines on Ranches | Texas Agriculture Law

Impact of Pipelines and Powerlines on Ranches | Texas Agriculture Law

On Law, Corruption and Puritanism in American Politics

It is widely assumed, as we all know, that there's vast corruption in American politics.  Indeed, there's a new television series out right now based on that thesis.  And I'll freely admit that this country has had its share of corrupt politicians, or ones who acted in what I'd regard an amoral or immoral fashion.  I could go into that topic and express my views on those people now, but I'll forgo it for another point.

I wonder, quite frankly, to what extent American politics are characterized not by corruption, but by lingering Puritanism.  Quite a lot, I think.

Take the current flap over Hillary Clinton's email, and her use of a private rather than a government account.  Who cares?  I don't.  In most countries, quite frankly, this would not be a matter of the slightest concern. But, in the same spirit that caused the Puritans to ban Christmas, the whole country seems to be having a big to do over this.  Only in the US would such a minor matter be regarded as really serious.

Or take the personal behavior of our politicians in other areas.  In recent decades this has been a huge issue (although it seemingly was not in prior decades, and for reasons that baffle me JFK still gets a pass in this area).  We've nearly deposed a President in recent years over this, while in contrast a trial is going on in Italy over  a politician whose behavior in this area was wild in the extreme.  It isn't that something is being done in Italy so much as its the case that things have to get hugely out of hand before anything is done.  Here, matters that are unseemly but not really threatening the nation can get you almost impeached.

Or take our insider trading laws. We've actually made it a crime to act on knowledge you pick up in the course of your employment.  That's frankly amazing, and criminalizes a natural part of human nature. We tell people that they can't act on what they know, as that would be unfair to those who don't know, what they don't know.  Fairness is nice, to be sure, but criminalizing knowledge is pretty extreme really.

Corrupt?  I don't think so much.  Puritanical is more like it, in these regards.

Friday, March 19, 1915. The Defense of India Act.

The Defence of India Act was enacted to provide the colonial government in British India with sweeping powers to enforce the law during the Great War, including independence activities.

Pluto was photographed for the first time.

Last edition:

Thursday, March 18, 1915. Disaster off the Dardanelles.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, 1919, boats and ships, Dardanelles, French Navy, Imperial Russian Army, Royal Navy, World War One

National Agriculture Week: A second post World War One homestead

Holscher's Hub: A second post World War One homestead:

An abandoned post World War One hay farm, now returned to pasture.

Couvi's New Blog: U.S Army Packers Can Pack Anything

Couvi's New Blog: U.S Army Packers Can Pack Anything

Thursday, March 18, 1915. Disaster off the Dardanelles.

The French battleship Bouvet, British battleship HMS Irresistible and the HMS Ocean struck mines and sank off of the Dardanelles.  The Gaulois was beached after striking a mine.

Loss of life was heavy.

The battleship HMS Dreadnought rammed and sake the U-29.

Russian fighter pilot Alexander Kazakov used a grapnel hook to hook his aircraft to a German Albatros in flight.  The mechanism didn't work and he ended up ramming the plane.

In spite of stunts like that, Kazakov survived the war only to die in an airshow in 1919.

Last edition:

Saturday, March 13, 1915. Worries over Japan.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, China, Gunboat Diplomacy, Japan, Open Door Policy, William Jennings Bryan

For National Agriculture Week: Holscher's Hub: The Plow

Holscher's Hub: The Plow

A John Deere California plow, now long retired.

Lex Anteinternet: Travel in Ireland, a little over a century ago.

Lex Anteinternet: Travel in Ireland, a little over a century ago.

Television is stupid

Truly, amazingly stupid. So stupid, it's depressed the collective IQ of the population of the Western World 100 points. It's so darned dumb that its impact would be like burning 1,000 libraries at Alexandria.

It's dumb.

And getting dumber.

In 1961 the Chairman of the FCC, Newton Minnow, observed the following:

When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better.

But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.

You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you'll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it.

Truer words were never spoken, and things have gotten infinitely worse since then. Indeed, the era that Minnow was writing about is now regarded as "The Golden Age of Television", with entire channels devoted to rerunning the very programs that Minnow complained about.

In comparison, the "vast wasteland" that Minnow wrote about has become some sort of tar pit of stupidity.  Consider what's on.

There are, for example, an entire collection of "reality shows" based upon the goings of of allegedly "beautiful people" of one kind or another.  Some, set in the epicenter of vapidity, Hollywood California, feature people whom we are clearly supposed to believe are beautiful, wealthy and interesting. They may be wealthy, but that's it.  And yet the impressionable minds that watch this slop are fed hours upon hours of programming that this or that aging actress or personality must be beautiful, rather than plastic, and their sad lives of bitchiness and cattiness are interesting. 

As part of that, I'd note, there's a clearly some sort of program going on, probably run by the UK's MI6, to export the village idiots of England to the United States.  We're on to you, United Kingdom.  It can't be the case that the US is lacking idiots, so this is clearly nefarious.  Having a British accent doesn't make a person interesting, television it makes them English.  They can stay home and pollute the BBC if they must be on television.

Or, for another example, take Guillianna and Bill.  Here's a married couple that works on television or in entertainment, but they're so boring, they make oatmeal look fascinating in comparison. They're boring with a side order of dull, served on cardboard. Boring. And yet television serves up a series based on their boringness.

Or let's take TLC, which started off as "The Learning Channel".  Now, it seemingly is focusing on people who are violating the laws of their states by having multiple boring spouses.  Why is this on television?  TLC virtually serves as some sort of propaganda channel for a lifestyle that is pretty uniformly regarded as horrific by those who escape it, and yet they serve it up every week. 

Kids' programming doesn't escape this either. The dreaded Disney Channel looses nothing in methods to the glory days of Ford Motors.  It's a factory, serving up show after show based on absurdly precocious children with bizarrely naive friend, living in homes with childlike almost stupid parents. Anyone who has watched more than two Disney Channel episodes ought to be able to write an entire series effortlessly.

Regular programming, to the extent it exists, is not much better.  Ever single season television outdoes itself to be more "edgy" or "contemporary" by taking things further and further in a moral swamp, and portraying it as cool.  The hallmark for this may be the former really popular series "Friends", which is supposedly really funny, but if you stop and consider what the real lives of somebody living in the fashion portrayed would be like, it wouldn't be so funny at all.  Quite the contrary, actually.

Or even the alleged "news" now fails.  Entire channels are more or less in the category of political cheerleaders for one political view or another, and not real news.  Edward R. Murrow must be crying in the next world.

Probably ought to just turn the whole stupid thing off.

Ireland in film

Folks will notice that today I've either posted, or mentioned, a series of films that are set in Ireland.

A few days ago, I did a post on an entire series of movies which feature Americans crossing the border into Mexico.  I suppose I could have done this the same way, but I've seen a lot more films on the cross border Mexican theme than I have ones set in Ireland.

Indeed it occurs to me that there's a lot of well regarded films about Ireland I just haven't seen, and at least one that I saw so long ago, I've forgotten it.  I haven't seen Ryans Daughter, which a lot of people highly regard.  I've seen The Field, but I saw it so long ago, I've forgotten it and I think I was rather distracted back when I saw it in the first place.  I'll have to remedy these omissions.

There also some films that were filmed, but not set, in Ireland that I have seen, and might be worth mentioning just because of that, but which fit outside of the scope of what I'm addressing here with the Irish films today.  One if the historical drama Barry Linden, which is well filmed in Ireland. Another is The Blue Max, the drama about a German World War One aviator, which was filmed over Ireland as it was much less developed, and therefore appeared right, than post World War Two Germany or France (the United Kingdom just stood in, interestingly, for Germany in Fury).

One I ought to see, but have not, is The Commitments, which is about an Irish soul band.  It has a good reputation, but it's one I haven't made it around to.  And one that I intend to see, but have not yet, is Cavalry, which is a new, and very highly regarded drama, about an Irish priest.

Of course, a lot of the films I've seen that have been listed in this series of movie threads are ones that I've seen on television (not all, however).  Some of the ones noted here just don't get that much television play time.  It's easier to catch the crossing into Mexico ones really.  Anyhow, some interesting films here.

Movies In History: Michael Collins

Michael Collins

This is a historical drama in film treatment of Michael Collins' life during the Anglo Irish War and the Irish Civil War.  Collins, for those who might not know, was the military genius behind the IRA's terrorist campaign against the British, and also the subsequent military leader of the Irish Free State's successful struggle against the Irish Republican Army. For those unfamiliar with the history of those two struggles, that may be a bit confusing, in which case this film actually isn't 100% historically accurate.

Even so, it does a pretty good job of portraying the events from about 1916 through 1922, including contrasting Collins role in these events with those of Éamon de Valera, which is not an easy task really.  De Valera comes out the worse in the treatment, which he tends to also in objective histories.  The film does push this a bit further than it should, however, as it dramatically portrays de Valera as directly involved in Collins roadside assassination which is not true.  De Valera undoubtedly knew nothing about that until after it had occurred.

Otherwise, keeping in mind the limitations of film, this film does a really nice job of portraying very complicated events, including events which were really psychological in nature.  Irish penetration of the English police is well done.  The terrorist nature of the IRA's role in the Ango Irish War is well portrayed.  Material details are correct for the film.

This 1996 film is little known in the US, which is too bad as it is a good film with a good cast.  Liam Neeson portrays Collins, whom he somewhat resembles.  Alan Rickman portrays de Valera, whom he also somewhat resembles.  Worth seeing.

Movies In History: The Informer

The Informer

This is the first of John Ford's two movies set in Ireland, the other being the "small story" The Quiet Man.  T his movie is of an entirely different character.

Filmed in 1935, and set in 1920, this film is unabashedly pro Irish Republican Army and involves an IRA man who turns on his fellows.  Victor McLaughlin, who typically was cast in a supporting role as an Irishman (he was a Canadian) is cast in the lead role as the simple minded Gypo Nolan, who wants to immigrate to the United States and who is duped, more or less, into betrayal.  Nolan spends the rest of the film wrestling with his conscience as the IRA closes in on the identity of The Informer.

All in all, this film is well regarded for its time, and is an Academy Award winner, although its frankly really odd to see a film that's so unabashedly pro IRA.  Filmed when it was, it was almost certainly filmed entirely on a film set, so we see very little of any place really.  Dublin, where the film is set, is mostly a foggy grimy urban location which we never really get a very good look at.  In terms of material details, they're probably more or less correct as there's very few of them, but at least in terms of clothing, the film does a really good job of getting the look right.  The actual period photo below of British anti Republican agents in Ireland, for example, gives a pretty good idea of what characters in the film look like.

 

All in all, a heavily dated film, but one worth watching if it happens to be on, if for no other reason than that it's well regarded for the time in which it was made.

Movies In History: The Quiet Man

The Quiet Man

Last August I mentioned in this series of threads a movie on Irish life that I think is better than this one, although this film is justifiably regarded as a classic.  That movie is Durango, which all in all is a better movie.

Durango is set early in World War Two.  The 1952 film The Quiet Man is filmed is set in a seemingly newly independent Ireland, but the exact year is never really revealed.  It's probably, therefore, set in the 1920s, or maybe in the 1930s.  An off reference to the Irish Republican Army, which at that time would have been set against the government of the Irish Free State, is included in the film, an orphaned part of a plot line that was abandoned as the film was made.

The film follows the adventures of "Trooper" Thorne, an Irish American boxer who has retired after a ring tragedy and who takes up residence in an Irish cottage near where his mother had been from.  He's the "quiet" man of the movie, portrayed by John Wayne in  this film directed by John Ford.  Ford's film does a good job of showing the rural nature of Ireland at the time, which indeed was still the Ireland of the time in which the film was shot there.  It's a charming, small story, film set in rural Ireland, and overall it does a good job of portraying it correctly, which isn't too surprising given that the Irish American Ford was enormously enamored of Ireland. The cast is excellent, and the material details are pretty good.  It'll likely be shown all day today on some television channel, as it usually is on St. Patrick's Day.