Wednesday, September 8, 1915. Air raids over London. Bumper crop.

 

Last edition:

Tuesday, September 7, 1915. Raggedy Ann.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Art, Cartoons, Lighter than air aircraft, Personalities, Siege of Mora, World War One

A few Labor Day observations.

World War Two vintage Labor Day poster, produced by the Office of War Information.

Labor Day was made a Federal holiday in 1886, when the Federal government acceded to a movement sponsored by the Knights of Labor to have an American Federal holiday in honor of labor.

The Knights were not the Kiwanis, and they weren't pushing for a "let's be nice to the nice" holiday.  The labor movement at that time was large, left wing, and militant.

Indeed, Grover Cleveland had the holiday put on September 1, not May 1, which was the logical date and the one that the Knights would probably have expected and feared, but that would have nearly coincided with the anniversary of the recent Haymarket Riots, so that was not done. And May 1 was the Labor Day pushed by Socialist globally, something that most Americans outside of the Labor movement would have been very concerned about adopting as an American holiday.  September 1 became the day, all the way back in 1886.

Labor movements were a huge deal at the time, and they were pushing for workers rights in a large, and radical fashion.  Some were very outwardly as radical as can be imagined, others less so, but the movements were extremely powerful. Starting about this time, the more "progressive" elements of American politics started to co-opt and adopt the less radical elements of the labor movements demands, however, and a long period of slow cooperation with labor and politics commenced.

By the 1930s, and the Great Depression, things had evolved to the point where Labor was essentially Democratic, although even as late as the 1940s there were certain Labor elements that were fairly openly Communistic in sympathies.  During World War One Labor was not fully cooperative with the Democratic administration, but by World War Two it was, having come to the conclusion during the Great Depression that the administration and the Democratic Party was its ally.  Indeed, in some ways the poster set for above is completely correct, and American Labor can take credit for at least part, and a fairly signficant part, of the Allied victory in World War Two.

After the war American Labor entered what may be regarded as its golden era really.  The American economy survived the war intact, unlike nearly every other industrial economy, and Labor had, by that time, achieved nearly every goal it had striven for in politics.  The 40 hour work week, fairly good working conditions, and many significant goals had entered the American norm.

Perhaps that's why the Labor movement has declined, since the 1970s, to a mere shadow of its former self.  Only part of the reason, but part.  It became very strong and achieved huge successes, but after that it kept on and demanded further concessions for its workers, in an era when those jobs began to go overseas.  While some unions remain strong, none of them are what they were in 1970.

Even the holiday isn't what it once was in a lot of places.  In a lot of places, it's just the unofficial end of summer, a three day weekend before students really begin to knuckle down for Fall.

And oddly, at least if Facebook is the judge, it's another holiday that's starting to morph into an additional Veteran's Day.  A lot of American civil holidays are now secondary Veteran's Days, and Labor Day certainly wasn't meant to be.

It's an interesting example of a couple of trends. One is the rise, massive decline, and then rise in another form, of American Labor. The other is the intense focus on veterans such that at least three American civil holidays and a couple of unofficial civil holidays are focused on them.  And finally, it's an interesting example of how so many American civil holidays are set to make for a three day weekend.

Tuesday, September 7, 1915. Raggedy Ann.

 

American cartoonist Johnny Gruelle was given a patent for his Raggedy Ann doll.

Frankly these kind of freak me out, but then a lot of dolls do.

Raggedy Ann and Andy.

Gruelle had a long career as a cartoonist, which is amazing when it is considered that he died at age 57 of a heart attack.

Two German Army zeppelins raided England but without huge success.  One of them later crashed in Germany.

British forces made an unsuccessful assault at Mora.

Last edition:

Monday, September 6, 1915. Labor Day.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Armor, Bulgaria, Central Powers, Holidays, John B. Kendrick, Labor Day, New York, New York National Guard, World War One, Wyoming

Labor Day

The law of successful national life is the law of work. Theodore Roosevelt Labor Day Speech, 1902.

World War Two vintage Labor Day poster.

 Martin Iron's Labor Day celebration, Waco Texas

Labor Day parade, Granite Wisconsin.

 Silverton Colorado, 1940.

Labor Day, 1909.

Lex Anteinternet: Dealing with the Red Horse

Lex Anteinternet: Dealing with the Red Horse: A momentous and tragic event is unfolding in Europe. Hundreds of thousands of refugees are attempting to make their way from the Middle Ea...

Pope Francis proposed today that every Catholic parish in Europe, over 130,000, take in a refugee family.  This sort of dovetails on my suggestion in this above that this is a global problem, and this would certainly be a start.

The solution for the refugees needs to be global, in my view.  That would include, I'd note, Middle Eastern countries of wealth, of which there are several. Saudi Arabia has a huge non Saudi population as it is (there's been some speculation that it may rival the number of Saudi citizens, and surely  they could help monetarily, and probably territoriality.

Beyond that, these wars are real wars, involving serious expenditures of cash to keep going.  Somebody is providing that, and should stop.  Where it's locally generated, that should be targeted. And its time for an international solution to some of this in terms of addressing the combatants.

Monday, September 6, 1915. Labor Day.

Bulgaria entered the Central Powers.

Prototype tank Little Willie was completed.

It was Labor Day.

Labor Day Proclamation: As the world progresses in civilization and learning the appreciation of what Labor has done and can do, grows with us. We are coming to a better realization of the fact that without Labor, nothing would be possible. Our country and State would not have risen to the dignity of substantial commonwealths: our people would be still upon a par with the cave dwellers of prehistoric times. Law and order would be unknown and the great elements which the Creator has placed to our hands would yet exist as crude materials of unknown value.

With the growth of civilization, there comes a desire to better regulate Labor, to lay down rules so that man who earns his bread by his brawn will have a just number of stipulated hours for work; rules so that women and children cannot be imposed upon by the more powerful who control their exertions. There also comes a desire to recognize the splendid part which those who labor play in the advancement and up-building of the world, and bring to the attention of the people as a whole and in the most forceful manner possible. the high regard in which such men and women are held by society. With this end in view, one day in each year has been set apart as Labor Day. THEREFORE, I John B. Kendrick, Governor of the State of Wyoming, do designate Monday, September 6, 1915 Labor Day And request that the citizens of the State observe the day to the fullest extent, so as to increase the respect in which Labor is held, and show due regard for those who toil. Let the day be observed as a holiday: let all business be suspended, insofar as it is practical, and let a friendly word be spoken on all hands in honor of those upon whom the material progress and success of our state and nation depend.

In witness whereof, I have here upon set my and caused to be affixed the great seal of the State of Wyoming.

Done in the city of Cheyenne, this twenty-fifth day of August, A.D. 1915. John B. Kendrick, Governor. By the Governor Frank L. Houx, Sec. Of state.

Last edition:

Sunday, September 5, 1915. Cooking with electricity.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Casablanca, Czar Nicholas II, Electrical Power, French Empire, Labor Day, Mexican Border War, Morocco, Russia, Russian Army, Texas, Texas (Brownsville)

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: First United Methodist Church, Sheridan Wyoming

Churches of the West: First United Methodist Church, Sheridan Wyoming: .
.

This attractive church is the First United Methodist Church in Sheridan Wyoming. The church was built between 1921 and 1923. The church is located across the street from St. Peter's Episcopal Church quite near the downtown section of Sheridan.

Sunday, September 5, 1915. Cooking with electricity.

 

The Casablanca Fair opened.

Texas was seeing fighting, and was armed.

It was also Labor Day weekend.

Another recent add I ran across in the Rawlins Republican:

1915 would have been early for an electric stove, but they did exist.

Czar Nicholas II sent Grand Duke Nicholas to the Caucasus and makes himself Supreme Commander-in-Chief in his place.

Related Post:

Blog Mirror. A Hundred Years Ago: 1920 Estate Electric Range Advertisement

Labels: Blog Mirror, Daily Living, Food, tools and appliances

Last edition:

Saturday, September 4, 1915. Fighting Carranza in Texas, and Cowboy Boots before the

Dealing with the Red Horse

A momentous and tragic event is unfolding in Europe.

Hundreds of thousands of refugees are attempting to make their way from the Middle East and Africa into Europe, with Germany for some, and Italy for others, being the intended endpoint.  The massive disaster is costing the loss of a lot of refugee lives.

It also threatens to grow worse, and as it does so, it will also have a demographic impact greater than any mass migration in recent history.  Because the migrants are heavily represented by Muslim Middle East populations (but not exclusively so), the event is even more demographically significant in some ways than the massive displaced person crisis that followed World War Two, which was huge, but which featured all Europeans within their own continent.  This crisis comes at a time of heavy, legal, immigration from the same region, into a region of the world that's in a population decline otherwise, but where the new populations have remained unassimilated and the trend is towards non assimilation.  European leaders, like those of Hungary, who worry that the influx is a Muslim invasion that will threaten the Christian identity of Europe are correct to worry, even while those nations like Germany that seek to accommodate the desperate populations are acting more Christian in their response.  Nobody knows what to do.

Notable in the crisis are a couple of salient facts.  One is that to date Islamic states have not opened their doors, although Turkey is suffering from being a highway to Europe.  Perhaps they really can't.  But some Islamic states are extremely wealthy, such as Saudi Arabia.  It would seem that they would or should step up to the plate, and that this crisis should not become exclusively a European one, with the migrant populations becoming permanently European in their situs.  That's a hard unpopular thing to say, but Middle Eastern nations have not borne their share of the global weight in recent decades, and here they can.

They clearly can't do it alone, however.  Many of these refugees are going to have to be housed in Europe until a way can be found to rapidly return them home.  If they can't be returned home soon, and they certainly cannot be now, they're going to have to be dispersed around the globe, there's no other way to be able to handle it.  South Africa, Japan, Russia, the United States, Argentina, Mexico, everyone will have to share a burden of this size.

And that's because this is the single biggest event occurring on the globe right now.  It's huge.  And it needs immediate attention.  If that attention is not received, it will grow worse.

And it will grow worse as the events causing this are growing worse.  Strife in Eritrea.  Ongoing civil war in Syria.  War in Iraq, and even ongoing war in Afghanistan.  These populations are fleeing war, a rational thing to do.

And given that they are fleeing wars, and those wars have been spilling over Europe's borders and even our own, we need to realize that pretending that these wars "are not our wars" is completely wrong.  They are.  They've become Europe's wars, as Europe is now the Displaced Persons Camp for the Middle East and Central Asia.  They're our wars as the violent radical forces that inspire these wars are gaining recruits in Europe and North America.  We can't ignore them, and we need to start paying attention to them right now.

That won't be easy.  But it's going to have to happen.

The world is engaged in Iraq right now, but in an anemic fashion.  That should end.  A concentrated Western effort could easily crush ISIL very rapidly, and that should be done. And if that were done, we're going to have to face that Iraq is gong to have to be occupied by competent administrators, i.e., western nations, for a fairly long time, together with states like Turkey, that are non western, but which are competent.  And the crisis in Syria needs to end, which can only come about through tremendous pressure that puts an end to the Baathist regime but which doesn't result in a new tyranny.

Time's run out.

Saturday, September 4, 1915. Fighting Carranza in Texas, and Cowboy Boots before the war.

 The headline was correct, at least in a fashion.  Mexican Sedicionistas, who were supporters of Carranza, had crossed into Texas in a raid.  Normally, we'd think of Carranza's men as Constitutionalists, but frankly in Mexico at the time that would imply a level of adherence to the law that would not be warranted.

This event focuses us on something that was soon to really matter. Carranza did not like the United States.  His troops were raiding over the border.  He had placed himself, however, in Mexico City, and Woodrow Wilson was moving towards recognizing him as the legitimate head of the country, even though the Convention of Aguascalientes had created a new government which was supported by Zapata and Villa.

I didn't run this on its anniversary,  back in August, but chances are that it was run in the Rawlins newspaper more than once.

Lex Anteinternet: Cowboy Boots: Title: An array of boots at the F.M. Light & Sons western-wear store in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.  Library of Congress photographs...

Rawlins Republican, August 1915.

This advertisement discusses something we addressed in an earlier post:

Well, like a lot of things, the boots changed as a result of a war.  World War One to be exact.

 Stretching leather, about 1915.

Because World War Two was such a colossal war, and because we tend to simply accept the line that the United States was the "arsenal of democracy" during the Great War, we have a pretty skewed concept of American production in the World War One time frame. Simply put, it was a mess.

Not only was the Army trying to raise a force, at breakneck speed (more rapidly by quite some measure than during World War Two) but it was trying to deploy it overnight.  It was also trying to equip it overnight.  The peacetime Army didn't have anywhere near the amount of stuff necessary to equip the huge Army that the US was trying to raise, equip, ship and deploy in 1917.

And this included leather goods.

The US didn't really even know what it needed in the way of leather goods, so it let out contracts for things like saddles and boots in absurdly large numbers.  There's a real reason that M1904 McClellan saddles are so common.  They made so darned many. Same with boots, the numbers made were astounding.  Absurd, even.

With that sort of demand going on for leather goods, the supply became very strained, and cowboy boots were the victims of that. The leather for high topped boots just wasn't there. So, as a wartime measure, bootmakers introduced the "stubbie" or "pee wee" boot, which is what most people, at least those who aren't cowboys, wear today.

 Tom Mix, 1919.  Mix was an actor, not a cowboy by trade, although the World War One veteran did buy a ranch in Wyoming after the war and he actually ranched here.  Anyhow, actors make notoriously bad examples of what cowboys actual wore, and this is no exception.  The hat is far too large for anything outside of Texas (where sugarloaf sombreros were really large), the pistols are M1873 cavalry models, which had 7" barrels and which were not favored by cowboys, who instead favorted the 5" artillery model. the pants are way too tight. The boots, moreover, are peewees. The heels, however, are just right for the era, and not uncommon amongst working cowhands now.

That was the wartime solution.  And it impacted how the boots were actually worn. Prior to WWI cowboys normally tucked their trouser in their boots, and they still sometimes will, as the photo posted above shows.  This was the routine habit, although sometimes they'd pull their pants down over their boots.  Having worn boots both ways while riding, if I'm going to ride for a long time, I'll tuck them in.  More comfortable, for the long haul.

But you really can't do that very well with pee wees, and cowboys who had to buy new boots during the war were embarrassed by the economy of leather and how it looked, so they took to pulling their pants down over their boots.  Better to wear out your pants and get them dirty than to look like a boofador.

Traditional boots do not go on as easy as peewees.  And you'll want some high socks if you wear them also.  My Olathe traditional mule hide cowboy boots.

There's a lot more to that post, but we can see here, in 1915, you could get handmade cowboy boots in Rawlins, and they were going to be real cowboy boots.  You can still get them, and still get them handmade, but probably not in Rawlins.

Figures at the dedication of Rocky Mountain National Park.

Rocky Mountain Park in Colorado was dedicated.

Last edition:

Friday, September 3, 1915. Ojo de Agua

Labels: 1910, 1910s, Mexican Border War, Mexican Revolution, Sedicionistas, Texas

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: UW Foundation intent on cashing-...

We've commented several times on the University of Wyoming's sale of the Y Cross Ranch, as for in instance here:

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...

The news has now broke that the purchaser of the ranch is a company owned by Pine Bluffs Wyoming businessman Toby Kimzey.

I don't know Kimzey at all, but this appears to be good news.  In spite of the huge purchase price, Kimzey appears to be set to actually ranch the land, as he is doing with several other locations he owns.

So, this story has a sort of accidentally happy ending, sort of. A ranch owned by an out of stater was bought by an in stater who will ranch it. The purchase price is sad evidence that in this day and age it's nearly impossible for anyone of average means to buy a working ranch, and indeed its impossible to make the land pay off for a rancher, which isn't good news for agriculture or our society. But this story could have had a much worse ending.  Kimzey even indicates that if the schools want to take students there, they can.

Still, this entire story makes both CSU and UW look pretty bad.  Indeed, at least from the UW angle, the state's only four year university, which is an arm of the state, the story is really pathetic.  UW ought to be ashamed and frankly donors to the university should consider this story when being asked to give.

Grazing mimics what bison did long ago to keep prairies like Funk WPA healthy for waterfowl - Kearney Hub: Agriculture

Grazing mimics what bison did long ago to keep prairies like Funk WPA healthy for waterfowl - Kearney Hub: Agriculture

I've thought this perfectly obvious for years and I've wondered why it's never been noted.

Buffalo are large ungulates.

Cattle are large ungulates.

There were, reportedly, millions of buffalo.

Well. . . . 

Nonsensical Decadal Characterization

 A calendar for 1897. Featuring a calico cat and an artist, the way we typically think of the late 1890s. . .right?

You know you've heard or seen them.

"A look back at the turbulent 60s!"

"A tour through the Rockin' 50s"

"The Roaring 20s"

Or even just "The 80s".

Whatever.

All of these decadal references are darned near worthless, as whatever supposedly characterizes a decade, tends not to.

That doesn't mean that there aren't eras, even short ones of ten years or so, that are unique.  But they just don't start on the first year of a decade, and end on the last.  Indeed, that's highly deceptive.

Consider, for example, "the 60s", a decade we hear so much about because it supposedly "defines a generation".  Well, if it does, it defines it oddly.

The 1960s of course, started in 1960 and ended in 1969. But are 1960 and 1969 really in the same era?  They don't seem to be.

Indeed, the era up to 1964 is really part of what we consider to be the 1950s, really. Styles, haircuts, music, etc., all really fit into that "1950s" class of things. This is so much the case, in fact, that the movie that started off the whole 1950s nostalgia craze of the 1970s, American Graffiti, is set in the early 1960s not the 1950s.

It isn't really until 1965 that the "60s" started, and probably with our intervention in the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War, which started all the way back in 1958 in the form in which we entered it (or in 1945 in its French Indochina form), seems to be central to the "turbulent" 1960s, due to the war itself, I suppose, and the following opposition to it.  Conventional American ground forces went into Vietnam in 1965.

But they left in 1973.  And really, the 1970s at least as late as 1973 are really part of the "1960s". All the same protests, wars and controversy is party of it.  Shoot, Jimi Hendrix died in the early 1970s, not the 1960s, and so did Janis Joplin.

And regarding the 1960s, are the Cold War standoffs of the early 1960s really part of the same era that gave us Woodstock?  They don't seem to be.  Was the nation that was ready to go to war over Soviet missiles in Cuba the same one that was disenchanted with our involvement in Vietnam?

All that sort of means the 1970s, that "Me Decade", which should probably regarded as The Baby Boomers Second Decade, as they defined the "1960s" as well, really probably started in 1974, and probably ended perhaps in 1981 when Ronald Reagan became President.  Oddly, as a result of that, the "80s" fit about as neatly into a decadal calendar slotting as any decade, as a new era started when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, followed by the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990.

What about the aforementioned 1950s?  Well, they didn't really start until 1955.  Surely our image of the Korean War doesn't fit the 1950s. That's some other era, one that ran from 1946 to 1955.  It seemingly has no name, other than occasionally "the early Cold War", or "the post war".  It's not "the 40s", however, as that's World War Two, which as an era really runs from about 1938 until 1945.  And the post war era, in which people were eager to return to school, start families, buy consumer goods, take advantage of the GI Bill, etc., doesn't quite match the war years, but in some ways it does.  It sort of looks like them, in a home front sort of way, but it doesn't quite feel the same, and it didn't sound the same either, as the big bands, so notable for the sounds of the late 1930s and the war years, began to pass away pretty quickly after the war.

The "war years", that we associate with the "1940s" creeps into the 1930s, of course, but the 1930s is really thought of as The Great Depression, which started in 1929, truncating the Jazz Age, which started in 1919, with the end of World War One.  World War One, like World War Two, is really its own age, and while the war theoretically ran from 1914 to 1918, we probably ought to go back to at least 1912 for the era.

That would close out, sort of, The Progressive Era, which came up, sort of, with McKinley's second administration, or 1900.

So what area are we in now?  No way to tell.  You have to be past them, by some distance, to know.

Not that it particularly matters. Any one age is what it is. Except the easy mischaractrization of any one age does create some pretty false and superficial memories.  "The 1950s" as the age of teenage rock and roll doesn't really do much for a decade that featured wars in Korea, Indochina and the Middle East, and a titanic face off between the East and West, for example.  The years 1945 to 1955 are darned near forgotten except to historians.  The early 1960s are lumped into the 60s in a way that doesn't accurately reflect them at all.

Friday, September 3, 1915. Ojo de Agua

Sedicionistas raided Ojo de Agua, Texas.

Last edition:

Thursday, September 2, 1915. Border fight.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, boats and ships, Catholic, Christianity, German Kriegsmarine, Mexican Border War, Pope Benedict XV, religion, Royal Navy, Texas, Texas (Brownsville), Woodrow Wilson, World War One

Book query

Has anyone here read McMurtry's "Leaving Cheyenne"?

If so, what's  your opinion of it?

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)

Mid Week At Work: How to become a Norwegian conscript

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.

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.