Sedicionistas raided Ojo de Agua, Texas.
Last edition:
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: Studebaker & the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake
WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: Studebaker & the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake: Reporting the true depth of any business or industry can be difficult. The very nature of large corporations and their focus on commercial...
Thursday, September 2, 1915. Border fight.
The troop ship SS Vaderland was sunk by the UB-14 in the Aegean. There was no loss of life.
Last edition:
Tuesday, August 31, 1915. Casper becomes a first class city.
Labels: 1880s, 1888, 1910s, 1915, baseball, French Air Force, law, Sports, World War One, Wyoming (Casper), Wyoming (Laramie)
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Denali
Am I the only one who thought that Mt. McKinley had been renamed Denali about four decades ago?
Truly, I thought the name had been officially changed way back then.
Truly, I thought the name had been officially changed way back then.
Glasses
I started wearing glasses when I was in junior high.
Well, actually I didn't.
I got glasses when I was in junior high. I can't recall what grade, but probably 8th or 9th. I didn't consistently wear them however, as I my eyes weren't bad enough to require it, and I didn't like wearing them. Actually, I had a fairly difficult time adjusting to them, so I didn't.
I didn't even wear them when I first started driving, although that restriction was on my license. But during high school I reached a point where I had to, more or less, although even then I would sometimes omit it, and could get away with that.
I largely did that during basic training at Ft. Sill, as I broke my field Army issue glasses, and was left with only my dress pair, which came off too early. So, unless I absolutely needed them, such as when shooting, I didn't wear them, and that worked fine.
Me, wearing my GI glasses, at Ft. Sill. We were apparently shooting on the day this photo was taken, as I'm wearing my glasses, and we're cleaning M16s.
Soon after that, I started wearing glasses full time. It was irritating, however, in that the only glasses I could find at the time had really big lenses. They were constantly touching your face in one way or another.
I'm the third in, from the right, here. It's hard to tell in this photos, but I'm wearing some really large frame glasses. I didn't like them.
Some of the glasses I had at that time also had "photogrey" lenses. That is, they'd darken in the sun. I didn't like the idea, but at first the glare of glasses really bothered me.
Right about this time, and that'd be about 1983 or so, I experimented with contact lenses for the second time. I'd tried it a couple of years earlier as well. In neither instance did they work out for me. They bothered my eyes tremendously, so in spite of not liking the glasses, I stuck to them.
Then, just before I went to law school in the Fall of 1987, I found a pair of my father's old frames that he hadn't worn in probably 25 or more years, and decided to give them a try. They were Bausch and Lomb ball grip frames.
Bausch & Lomb ball grip frames. They're great. This pair of frames is presently at least 60 years old.
For the first time, I had a pair of glasses I really liked. The lenses are small, the frames are light. They temple frames won't come off. They're fantastic. I've worn them ever since, and used a couple of additional old frames of my father's for an extra set of glasses and a pair of sunglasses.
I kept using these frames when I went to bifocals, as they can grind the now plastic lenses for that.
Well, a couple of years ago my vision deteriorated to where focusing on my computer became a problem. My vision can be handled by my regular glasses at any other distance, and really isn't changing, except at that odd distance. So hey had a pair of reading glasses made for me. I didn't like switching back and forth, however, so I largely didn't wear them.
Up until recently that is.
Recently, I've had no choice, and after an eye examination, I had to have a second pair made, one for work, and one for home.
My reading glasses.
I hate them.
The ones I have at home are on a pair of rimless frames, much like my Bausch & Lombs. The frame is a bit heavier, but they're still not bad. I thought it would look silly, however, to have a set of reading glasses with temple frames duplicating my regular glasses.
Of course, the new frames have a huge lens, reminding me of why I hated that kind of frame to start with.
I'm not blaming anyone. This is just part of life. But it's the pits.
It's interesting, however, how many people hardly wear glasses ever. Contact lenses and surgery have impacted that heavily. Some people, however, wear them for an affectation. I've thought about switching to contact lenses myself, but based on my past experiences with them, and the fact that I wear bifocals, I'm disinclined to do that. Whenever I mention it as a possibility, the family is against it as well as they're used to seeing me with my rimless glasses.
But if I could omit glasses entirely, I would.
When the big science revelation falls flat on the facts
Something that's been noted a lot recently, and which genuinely should cause people concern, is that Americans have come to have an increasing contempt for science.
That's bad.
An educated, modern people, should be informing itself by science in making important decisions. And the evidence is pretty clear that at least into the 1980s, they did. But not so much now.
And part of the reason of that is that Americans also tend to get a pretty big dose of bad science, which doesn't help to build trust in science and scientist at all.
Part of that falls into the category of the big announcement that just flatly fails to comport with actual real work observations. And we've gotten a fair amount of that in the past several decades. And I say that as a person with a science background.
We got a big dose of that the past couple of weeks. At least if you are a hunter or fisherman you did, as probably every urban dweller you know sent you the news about the study that was published in Science that humans are a Super Predator and the current methods of fish and game conservation are all wrong.
There's only one problem with that study.
It completely fails to comport with actual observed information gathered over the past couple of centuries. Or at least if the reports about what it says are correct, it does.
The study raises fears that we're going to hunt and fish all wildlife into extinction as, basically, we're a Super Predator that uses technology (i.e., tools, because it includes our distant ancestors) and we take the best of our prey, and prey on other predators, and are wiping everything out.
Except, its pretty clearly we're not.
Indeed, the evidence is highly to the contrary.
All big game species hunted in North America and Europe have increased dramatically, in numbers, and in health, over the past century. All of them. The predators we're supposedly about to wipe out have, in the same areas, increased, not decreased, in the last century as well. Large ungulates are reclaiming ground that they had retreated from a century ago, in prodigious numbers. Ungulate species that were on the brink of extinction, such as the Pronghorn antelope, now exist in huge numbers. Deer exist in insanely huge numbers. Elk have increased. About the only exceptions to these rules are wear predators (remember, which we are supposedly wiping out) have been reintroduced and there are no human controls.
And all this was due to modern game management, funded almost exclusively by hunters.
In other hunted species this si also largely true. Waterfowl populations, which were headed for a collapse, recovered with the exception of a very few species, but some waterfowl species have always gone up and down in numbers. Quite a few species of birds now exist in areas that they are not native to, and thrive, as they were introduced. Again, things are going well.
And we hardly need mention small game species, the numbers of which are exploding.
So where's the data to support the Science article in North America and Europe, as to land animals? It doesn't exist.
Indeed, what the article would largely support is the introduction of North American style game management where it doesn't exist. And where some of those influences have crept in, that has worked.
I'll not go much into South America, where once again, things are largely going fine. They are in the large landmass of Russia as well. Africa and Asia definitely have their problems, however, but that's because the hunting culture there is completely different than the one mentioned above. Having said that, in Africa, where a peculiar sort of Trophy Hunting has come in, actually sees game animal numbers increasing, not decreasing. Even animals like lions, so recently in the news, are actually increasing substantially in areas where they are controlled via legal hunting. Where trouble exists in Africa, it's due to poaching, not legal hunting.
I'll abstain commentary on fish, as I don't know enough about sport fishing to comment. Maybe the article is more accurate there. But this leads to me to what I'd next note.
I'm not a "sport" fisherman, nor am I a "Trophy" hunter. I fish and hunt but I'm more in the subsistence category. I suspect most hunters fit into my category in varying degrees, although articles of this type seem to miss that. I can't blame them too much, as writing in the big game arena tends to focus on Trophy Hunting rather than Subsistence Hunting. The difference is fairly significant, but to summarize it, I'm just as likely to take a doe deer or antelope than a buck, as I'm hunting for the table. Around here, indeed, that was the norm up until perhaps the 1970s, when people who moved in, that trophy concepts came in. But the game isn't really managed that way, and there are still plenty of Subsistence Hunters around here. We aren't in a special defined category under the law, like in Alaska or the Yukon, but we exist, and that's what most hunters actually are.
Which should be encouraged. It's hunting of that type that's preserved wildlands nature around the world. It's preserving the wild, and preserving the mental sanity of our increasingly loopy species, by keeping us in touch with what we actually are, and are meant to be by nature. Truth be known, the soccer mom driving the SUV all around during the day, and who lives in a McMansion, and doesn't raise or take any of her own food is a much bigger threat to wildlife than any hunter is.
None of which is to say that there aren't problems. The commercialization of everything in American life is introducing problems by inserting a certain manor lord mentality amongst those with means that didn't previously exist, and that does cause the reduction, ultimately, of availability of everything. Urbanization is a big problem. And technology is indeed a problem, as people are defeating the limits of the natural world, but also making themselves irrelevant at the same time in everything.
But another problem is the release, in this fashion, of science that's simply contrary to the observed data.
We've seen a lot of bad science in recent decades. Immunization causes Downes Syndrome. Aluminum cookware causes Alzheimer's. All sort of bad dietary information. Other examples could be given. And when this is the case, it causes contempt for science. And that's a terrible thing. That plays to the ignoring of real problems, which is a huge problem. Scientist ought to therefore be careful about releasing studies that the observed data just doesn't support, or which is speculative in the extreme. I'm not blaming scientist for the increasing degree of contempt of science, but stuff like this doesn't help.
Monday, August 31, 2015
Tuesday, August 31, 1915. Casper becomes a first class city.
Casper, whose first buildings had been built in 1888, became a First Class City under Wyoming law, meaning that its population exceeded 4,000 residents.
It's interesting to note that Laramie was a larger city, although only slightly, at the time.
Adolphe Pégoud, France's first ace, was killed in combat. He had six combat victories.
Jimmy Laender pitched a no hitter for the Chicago Cubs.
Last edition:
Monday, August 30, 1915. Pascual Orozco killed.
Monday at the Bar: The Op Ed in the Wyoming Lawyer on the UBE
Since that time we've endured the UBE as the bar exam for Wyoming and started to live with the sour fruits of that adoption. In this month's issue of the Wyoming Lawyer, the magazine that members of the Wyoming State Bar all receive, an excellent op ed appears regarding how Wyoming lawyers are carrying the freight for the massive increase in out of state lawyers admitted to practice here.
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: And the band p...
Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: And the band p...: Today the price of oil actually declined below $40/bbl. This is probably temporary, but how amazing.And indeed it did prove to be temporary, but perhaps signalling how down in the dumps and perhaps permanent these price depressions may be (as in economic permanent, that is long term), a jump in the price to $45-$47/bbl was due to Saudi Arabia sending troops into northern Yemen in order to keep rebels there from consolidating their forces. So it's regional instability in the Middle East, with a major oil producer, i.e., the one keeping the price low, that's caused the price to jump.
On the other hand, it turns out that Ecuador has been producing oil below its cost. It's oil has been selling for $30/bbl, and they only break even at $39/bbl. Its crazy for them to sell it at that cost, but there must be some internal economic reason for them to keep selling it at a lost. In most real free markets, they'd shut their wells in. Perhaps they will, and indeed, they'll have to, resulting in taking that oil off the market for a time.
Monday, August 30, 1915. Pascual Orozco killed.
Mexican revolutionary Pascual Orozco was killed along with four others in a controversial gun battle against Texas Rangers and soldiers of the 13th Cavalry Regiment near the U.S-Mexican border. The pursuers had not realized they were chasing Orozco, but rather reported horse thieves. Whether or not they were stolen horses is unclear, and they may just have been set up.
Last edition:
Friday, August 28, 2015
Random Snippets: G.K. Chesterton: "The new rebel is a skeptic"
“BUT the new rebel is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. ...
G. K. Chesterton
G. K. Chesterton
Saturday, August 28, 1915. The aftermath of tragedy.
ANZACs, bolstered by the 10th Light Horse, captured part of the summit of Hill 60, but not the north face overlooking Suvla Bay.
The aftermath of tragedy:
Free footballs and bananas.
Last edition:
Friday, August 27, 1915. The death of Frankie Pershing and her children.
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Friday, August 27, 1915. The death of Frankie Pershing and her children.
Helen Frances “Frankie” Warren Pershing, wife of the future Gen. Pershing, and daughter of Sen. Francis E. Warren, died in a fire at the Presidio in San Francisco. Three out of four of the Pershing children also died in the fire.
The British reinforced their offensive at Hill 60, but the Ottomans retained the hill.
Germany resumed submarine warfare after a brief hiatus.
Last edition:
Wednesday, August 25, 1915. Capturing Brest-Litovsk. Asking for help on the border.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
G.K. Chesterton: "He believes in himself"
G.K. Chesterton: "He believes in himself": "THOROUGHLY worldly people never understand even the world; they rely altogether on a few cynical maxims which are not true. Once I rem...
WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: Giant Western Freight Wagon Built By M.P. Henderso...
WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: Giant Western Freight Wagon Built By M.P. Henderso...: Some things are hard to forget. To that point, almost twenty years ago, I purchased a book by Don Berkebile entitled, Horse-Drawn Commerci...
That is one freakin' huge wagon.
Fickle fame
Some recent news items have interestingly portrayed the fickle nature of American fame, and how shallow and vapid it is. Interesting to watch in progress.
One aspect of American fame is that the same things and personages that raise somebody to fame stand eager to rip them to shreds when they get there. It'd be easy to say, and potentially correct as well, that having participated in the creation of their image, they are set up for a fall if they don't meet that expectation, but it's a little more than that in my view.
A recent example of that would involve the entire Josh Duggar saga. Now, readers of this blog, and there are darned few, know that I'm not a fan of the Duggars and never have been. I always thought them a bit odd, or perhaps more than a bit odd, and I've chaffed at the occasional comments that they represent "conservative Christianity". No they don't, if "conservative" Christianity is meant to include the millions of conservative Christians in the Catholic and Orthodox churches (the majority, fwiw, of Christians on earth), or those conservative Christians in numerous other denominations. No, the Duggars were interesting because they clearly belonged to something akin to a tiny sect, given their dress and lifestyle, and that provided part, but only part, of the fascination. The remainder of the fascination was based on their just having a big family, something that wasn't unusual in the world until very recently.
Now, the Duggars traded on that fascination and turned it into a television career. I have a problem with that, although I guess I can't fully blame them. But then, they were perfectly set up to be ripped apart when things went bad, and they did, in a bizarre fashion, mostly due to the icky behavior of Josh Duggar, who turns out to have lived a fairly hypocritical life.
The point isn't to defend him. Registering on a cheaters website is downright icky, in my view (and says a lot about how bizarrely dependant on technology we've become. . . do we need to register to cheat on spouses. . . seriously?). No, it's just that the same media that made such a big deal out of them, is now ripping them down, and for conduct that it pretty much celebrates in other people (the cheating that is, not the other stuff).
Indeed, it's weird how fickle fame is. If a public figure of the Duggars type, or a politician, cheats on his spouse, he's pretty much doomed. Hollywood stars, on the other hand, get a pass and it'll just be passed off as some sort of tragedy for everyone, including the cheater. Very fickle.
In contrast to this, we have people who seemingly trade on their good public images for ongoing fame, as they convert their prior lives into one of trouble. Fame is not only fickle, it's apparently addictive.
We've been given a potential example of that in the story of Bruce Jenner. Jenner was originally famous for being an Olympic athlete. Even at that time, fwiw, it seems to me that people speculated on him having same gender attractions, but that's another story. Later, long after most athletes would be a thing of distant memory, he became famous again for being the second spouse of a family that's become seemingly fasmous for its female members being famous. Or perhaps appearing on the cover of magazines with very little clothing on. Now, he has announced as have a gender issue and he's becoming a woman, if a person can changed genders, which our DNA says we may not.
That's been celebrated and he's been announced as some species of hero. In the meantime, he was involved with a fatal car wreck and will be charged with manslaughter, apparently. That gets less press. Odd.
It's particularly odd if we recall that Tiger Woods had a car accident that resulted in endless press attention, in part because he was . . . cheating on his spouse.
Now, both are athletes, so why does Woods get the negative attention and Jenner does not. I guess there's the cheating angle again, but Woods never set himself up as a public paragon of virtue (nor did he do the opposite). Indeed, Woods is a Buddhist and therefore he certainly isn't a Duggaresque figure, although I'll confess I have no idea what the Buddhist position on monogamy is.
For another example, we have the weird story of the constant "look at me" displays by a certain female singer that rose up in the Disney child star factory. I have problems with that entity in and of itself, but the displays, rather than the bold acts of individualism they're proclaimed to be, are more in the nature of childish spoiled brat displays. Yet they are both fascinated and gawked at. A similar meltdown, much less spectacular, has been given to at least one other female actress who ended up in constant trouble with the law, and while on a break from court displayed what she had in the Ossified Freak's journal. Not so celebrated. Yet another is just regarded as a pathetic meltdown. Why is one celebrated and the other pitied? Who knows. Perhaps the difference is the degree to which the meltdown is genuine.
Speaking of the Ossified Freak, a young woman who rose to some level of fame as being one of the "girlfriends" of that fellow, which presumably entails certain conduct and to which other titles would have attached in a prior era, went on to marry some sort of athlete and convert that marriage into a television show. Why anyone would care about this sufficiently to watch it is hard to explain. Following that, that fellow fell into some sort of scandal and now the same female figure is a character on a "boot camp" for troubled marriages. I'd think that a television camera following you around in these circumstances would be troublesome in and of itself, but there you have it. But here too, why do we care about this, and why does this sort of weirdness lend itself to a televised following?
Indeed, that sort of public voyeurism may have been at least partially pioneered when it turned out that a really boring married couple, but one that included a former actress known for her portrayal of a girl in a California upper class high school, took that turn when it turned out that the husband was cheating on her. He didn't get the Duggar treatment, as after all, he's an actor. But from there on out there were endless episodes of the wife blubbering. Heck, they both were cheating on other spouses when they started their relationship, so, D'oh! But apparently not. Anyhow, why would a person attempt to trade on that misery for fame?
Perhaps the most famous celebrity meltdown of recent years was the sad tale of Michael Jackson, who rose to fame on his music (which I never liked) but who spent his later years sort of freakishly altering himself. Very odd and sad, but while the press noted his sad decline, the fame had clearly precipitated it. So, he essentially was on display as a circus star the entire time. Very odd indeed.
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Wednesday, August 25, 1915. Capturing Brest-Litovsk. Asking for help on the border.
The Germans captured Brest-Litovsk
The Sheriff of Jim Hogg County, Texas, asked for assistance from Federal Troops
Last edition:
Friday, August 20, 1915. Nicholas II takes command of the Russian Army.
Monday, August 24, 2015
Sunday, August 23, 2015
The cold time
Fall has started here.
At night, temperatures are dropping way down. It's in the 40s in the morning, which means its probably creeping into the 30s up here at night.
I used to love Fall and Spring temperatures, although I have some bad fall allergies. But now I dread them. It's not because I dread cold weather, I like it. Rather, it's because my wife is always hot.
I hate air conditioning and I never turn on the swamp cooler in our own house. But this time of year, I absolutely freeze. My wife believes it's hot, and throws open all the windows in the house at night. I can hardly stand the arctic temperatures that result, but there's no explaining to a hot person that your cold. They just won't believe it.
At night, temperatures are dropping way down. It's in the 40s in the morning, which means its probably creeping into the 30s up here at night.
I used to love Fall and Spring temperatures, although I have some bad fall allergies. But now I dread them. It's not because I dread cold weather, I like it. Rather, it's because my wife is always hot.
I hate air conditioning and I never turn on the swamp cooler in our own house. But this time of year, I absolutely freeze. My wife believes it's hot, and throws open all the windows in the house at night. I can hardly stand the arctic temperatures that result, but there's no explaining to a hot person that your cold. They just won't believe it.
Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Sheridan Wyoming
Churches of the West: St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Sheridan Wyoming:
This is St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Sheridan Wyoming.
I don't know anything about the history of this Church, although I would note that it has a very English appearance. At one time, there was a substantial English expatriate population in Sheridan, which may have influenced the design of this attractive church somewhat.
This is St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Sheridan Wyoming.
I don't know anything about the history of this Church, although I would note that it has a very English appearance. At one time, there was a substantial English expatriate population in Sheridan, which may have influenced the design of this attractive church somewhat.
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Recalling the WC-56/57
The World War Two vintage Dodge WC 56/57 series of vehicles are among my all time favorites.
I've certainly never owned one, and I haven't even seen one for sale. And outside of World War Two, they weren't around long. They're just neat. Based on the WC truck frame, they were bigger than the Jeep, but not too big. Almost the ideal size.
Which is what make this Jeep concept car so neat.
It's obviously a shout out to the WC 56.
I know that they're not going to make it. But I wish they would.
Sigh.
I've certainly never owned one, and I haven't even seen one for sale. And outside of World War Two, they weren't around long. They're just neat. Based on the WC truck frame, they were bigger than the Jeep, but not too big. Almost the ideal size.
Which is what make this Jeep concept car so neat.
It's obviously a shout out to the WC 56.
I know that they're not going to make it. But I wish they would.
Sigh.
Friday, August 21, 2015
Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: And the band played on. . .well ...
Today the price of oil actually declined below $40/bbl. This is probably temporary, but how amazing.
Vehicle comparison and contrast
Model A, downtown Casper, which somebody has recently been using as a daily driver.
SUV belonging to Jackson Hole, which notes that it runs on vegetable (I hate the diminutive "veggie") oil. This vehicle must be a diesel. Why, exactly, burning vegetable oil is more "green" than diesel fuel, as both are oils, somewhat escapes me. It must be because you don't drill for vegetable oil, or that its recycled vegetable oil. Well, unless it was carrying a bunch of vegetable oil with it, or it gets really good mileage, it must be able to burn diesel too.
Some days when you read the news. . .
and things seem so uniformly grim, all bad news, and everything you are and like to do being pointed at in some negative way. . . it serves to remember that, at anyone time, the news is always bad. But only prospectively. Some bad news gets worse, but most doesn't, and most grim things never happen.
Random Snippets: Chesterton on nature
The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister.
G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Friday, August 20, 1915. Nicholas II takes command of the Russian Army.
Ottomans retook Sair Bair ridge at Gallipoli.
The British launched their last major offensive at Gallipoli, attacking a summit near Suvla Bay, but ultimately withdrawing.
Czar Nicholas II, grossly overestimating his capabilities, removed Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolayevich as Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army and personally took over the position.
It was a bad move in more ways than one.
Footnotes
This was in error originally posted for August 20, 1915. This entry is expanded.
Last edition:
Thursday, August 19, 1915. Withdrawal at Riga.
Friday Farming: Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: UW Foundation intent on cashing-...
The marketing brochure for the Y Cross Range: Y Cross.
Pretty, ain't it?
And at $25,000,000, that's a pretty penny. I'll bet that went to somebody serious about raising cattle for a living, eh?
We recently ran this item on the University of Wyoming and Colorado State University, football rivals but land sale allies:
Donors, beware. UW, shame on you.
Pretty, ain't it?
And at $25,000,000, that's a pretty penny. I'll bet that went to somebody serious about raising cattle for a living, eh?
We recently ran this item on the University of Wyoming and Colorado State University, football rivals but land sale allies:
Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: UW Foundation intent on cashing-...: This past week the respective Wyoming and Colorado university benefactors (or actually the Colorado one, in what I read) of this substantial...
Following up on this, we now read the following on the on line Oil City News that the sale has been made. the News reports:
(Cheyenne, Wyo.) – The University of Wyoming Foundation and Colorado State University Research Foundation have completed the sale of the Y Cross Ranch, setting the stage for significant long-term funding of scholarships and internships for agriculture students.
This sale is explained in the following fashion:
“This is a very exciting development for students and faculty in agriculture and the related natural resources at UW,” says Frank Galey, dean of UW’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. “The proceeds will provide them with tremendous opportunities and experiences in an industry of utmost importance to Wyoming and its people.”
UW will apparently make $10,000,000 on the sale, which will yield, it is claimed, $400,000 in annual returns. CSU probably comes out about the same, of course. Some real estate agent has a fair payday too, of course.
It should also be a warning to anyone who donates a specific item without a specific instruction on how it is to be used restricting the use of, or burdening if you will, the gift. This problem is a fairly common one for donations, and it's common for the donor to assume that the recipient will keep and maintain the gift, when often the recipient has no obligation to. In this case, the example is both spectacular, and very sad. While the universities were found to have a legal right to do this, shame on them. And for anyone thinking of giving either of them funds for anything, in any department, this ought to be recalled.
Of interest is this quote from former Wyoming Jim Geringer:
If the two universities could have been more effective with the money than the ranch, the donor would have sold the ranch herself, at a much better price, and given the cash directly to the universities. She saw higher value in what the ranch and its operations could pass along to students for many generations. Instead, the boards of trustees envisioned a bank account without a soul. Neither university should be run as a profit center. Rather, they should endow the passing of the heritage and values of what makes our two states unique. For us I say. Wyoming is what America was – and what America ought to be. So – trustees: you violated your very title. Trust is never taken. Only you can give it away. And you did. In biblical terms, you sold it for a mess of pottage.Also of interest is this recent, pre sale, quote by one of trustees of one of the two universities' foundations:
We have always taken our commitment to stewardship very seriously, and we will continue to do so by marketing the ranch for sale in a deliberative and transparent process open to all potential buyers for an outcome that will be a tremendous benefit to students at both institutions"I can't say that the sale hasn't been transparent, but according to the news reports the universities were not disclosing the identify of the purchaser. According to an informal organization opposing the sale, the purchaser is a Press L III, LLC. A net search doesn't reveal a "Press L III, LLC" as having a net presence, and it isn't a registered Wyoming entity with the Wyoming Secretary of State. It'll be interesting to see what this outfit intends to do with this large block of Wyoming ranch land and if that squares with their role as a "steward". I have grave concerns about this, but we will see.
Donors, beware. UW, shame on you.
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Slaves and Objects
I've run a series of items recently that have been probably somewhat calculated to offend. Well, as some say, if you aren't offending somebody with your commentary, you are probably doing no good.
The first of these would be the one that dealt with the decline in the standard of dress. The second one had to do with how women are increasingly treated like objects. Whether these topics offend or not, they apparently do interest people, as the the dress story, for example, had way more hits in a day than most of my entries here every have, ever. It isn't in the top ten list yet, but if the trend continues, it might make it.
The reason that some might find these offensive is that people don't like to be told what to wear, they don't like being told how to behave, they don't like being told that something they're doing may be having a negative impact on others, and people generally don't like bad news if they're somehow participating in it. I haven't received any negative comments so far, but most people don't comment anyhow.
Okay, so that's how I probably offered offense.
Now, I'll increase the offense, going back specifically to my comments on viewing women as objects, and how marketing and magazines have caused us to do that. I'm going to relate that behavior as being in the same category as what ISIL is doing to women in Iraq and Syria.
And what is that?
Well, mass assault and the most primitive horrific slavery imaginable. Field hands in the Old South were subjected to horrors no less unimaginable to what is happening to non Muslim women in those suffering lands.
Now, no doubt, up in arms, people are saying "are you saying that's the same thing as my buying Old Ossified Freak's Rag?
No, I'm not, but I'm saying that those rags swim in the same pool. Maybe in the shallow end, but in the same pool nonetheless.
Hugh Ossified Freak's genius in taking what was clearly trash and marketing it as something that should be a male dominated norm managed basically to enormously expand the over the tracks part of the mental city, so that all girls ended up living there to some extent. Prior to the publication, there were women in the occupation of vending their services, but over time, Hugh put them all there, except even the market place aspect of that exchange disappeared, and it became an expectation, wanted or not. When that occurs, the value indeed is gone, and we've seen the results. Women not only have been personally objectified in this fashion, but now their image is everywhere, offering the same, in support of the sale of everything.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his adherents share that view, except that their view of their right of expectation is modified to include only non Muslim women. They're acting physically on their view, over thousands of non Muslim women in the region, and as we now know al-Baghdadi himself did so with American Kayla Mueller. The Mueller story is tragic in the extreme, but it's shared by numerous nameless women and girls who have been reduced to slavery by their ISIL masters.
The common thread here is how these women are viewed. In spite of its claims to later be in the forefront of "liberation" of women, Hugh's rag held them out, and still holds them out, as toys for men. Any man who bought the magazines was entitled to view the women featured in them in the same physical fashion that ISIL's combatants view non Muslim women. Indeed, the secular Hugh was offering a paper variant of what the religious ISIL combatants feel that they will gain in the next world, and endless supply of exactly what's portrayed in the magazines. Indeed, a critical element of those magazines is that their portrayal, at least at first, did not portray the subjects as fallen, as prior magazines had, but rather the opposite. Special, in more ways than one, just for you.
The sole real distinction, therefore, is that the creepy ossified purveyor of the print version of this view in the United States, and now around the globe, takes a violently secular view of things. He's hedonistic and in it for right now, and his justification for the objectification is accordingly not only thin, but darned near non existent. It's the most primitive justification imaginable, "I'm a man and I get what I want." Al-Baghdadi and his adherents, however, justify their violence in this area upon the Koran, which, no matter what its apologist may claim, specifically allows the campaigning Islamic fighter to do just what they're doing, take slaves and do what you will with them.
Now, I'm not claiming, anywhere, that the majority of people who have shoved cash at Hugh all these years have done something intentionally to enslave women. But I am saying that the impact of it is wrong and it serves to reduce them to objects. I'm also not saying that the majority of Muslims now, or at any time, have held this view about assault. Indeed, I'm confident that even in the periodic episodes of violent Islamic expansion, most don't. But I am saying that this stuff is going on right now, and that its symptomatic of a view of women that's simply intolerable in this or any other age. And, by extension, if this sort of conduct bothers a person, they ought to act up on that, whatever that means for them personally.
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