Election comparison and contrasts

 The Republican National Convention, opening prayer, 1904.

As folks here know, Canada just had an election.

And we're having ours.

I can't help but be envious of the Canadian election practices a bit, although the reason they exist is that they have a parliament, not a congress like we do, and that means that their chief executive is simply a member of the party that takes the majority of the House.  So, that means that their election is a nationwide house election, rather than a sort of single purpose election to a degree, like our Presidential election. You can't really vote, that is, for the Prime Minister unless you live in that "riding".

And that naturally makes for a fast election.

In contrast, ours now last for over a year, which is not really a good thing. And the staggered primaries man that some states have truly unnatural influence over a nationwide process.

This is something that could be fixed, and it probably really ought to be.  Spending millions of dollars over the course of a year in a staggered series of elections is fatiguing in the extreme and it seems mostly to just wear the voters out, as well as giving undue influence to a few states, and the real die hard faithful of each party that live in those states.

Or, alternatively, we could go back to the old "smoke filled room" days when parties basically picked their candidates in the convention, without a lot of nationwide politicking (although there was certainly some).  The candidates we got in those days were certainly no worse than the ones we get now.

Looking at house size, from Lex Anteinternet: More of the Stone Ranch

 

Following up on this, the comments added by Neil on the Stone Ranch brings up a really interesting point.  We posted our link in to that thread just below, here:

Lex Anteinternet: More of the Stone Ranch: This is posted over on our photo site, as Holscher's Hub: More of the Stone Ranch. It is an historic structure, but its the very astut...

The original post appears here.

Neil made this comment:

Thanks, I have long been fascinated by how little space was needed only a few generations ago. Stage travelers probably were in a corner cot behind a curtain. Today a 1,200 sq foot home is sold as small, or as a starter home. Would have been more than spacious in the 1880s.

To which I replied:

That's very true.

I know that the original occupants of the house had a family and raised several children there. At least one of their children went on to marry and raise another family there, after the stage days were over. As time went on the outbuildings and what not were put in, but they continued to live in the small house. I don't know when the house ceased to be occupied, but I think it was in the 1940s or 1950s.

This house is smaller then modern apartments today. But, on the other hand, it was stone, cut by an itinerant Italian stone mason, and it was probably really easy to heat in the winter with its small size. Likewise, the windows and stone construction probably would have made it tolerable during the summer.

It is a very interesting observation.  And very true.  Even a "large" house by pre 1960s standards isn't really that large today, at least to some degree.  Young couples that have no children buy houses of a size that would have been regarded as very large by families that had several children just 50 years ago.  This isn't universally true, but it's at least significantly true.

Also, of interest, the phenomenon of  purchasing new houses over time is fairly new. This is not to say, as people sometimes claim, that people bought one house when they first married (although that's sometimes the case) and stuck with it the rest of their lives, assuming they didn't relocate from one town to another. But, rather, people tended to buy a new house much less often, and if they did, there was often a practical reason for it related to family size.  Now, people buy new homes fairly frequently, at least in the middle class, to this has been a real change over time.

Having said all of that, my wife and I still live in the only house we've ever owned, and it's actually smaller than my parent's home. So obviously we aren't with the program are a statistical exception.

Monday at the Bar: Courthouses of the West: Fergus County Montana Courthouse, Lewistown Montana

Courthouses of the West: Fergus County Montana Courthouse, Lewistown Montana

They aren't dogs

I'll be very frank, my view of the War with the Islamic State varies considerably from most of the fairly muddled thinking that I hear out there regarding this. Indeed, I think the commentary that ponders in angst why this is happening, and what the Islamic State wants, is dense.

 

Or perhaps a blistering combination of extremely naive combined with historically inept.

Simply put, the Islamic State seeks to establish a global Whabbi Sunni Caliphate that will truck no compromise with any force counter to it.  No other religion is to be allowed to stand and Muslims who are not strictly and purely observant are to be regarded as apostates.  It's willing to use violence to achieve this goal, it has no shorter goal, and its backed up in goals and thinking by its organic document, the Koran.  We might like to pretend that in the 21st Century we don't fight religious wars, but we're in one.  And frankly, we're not doing very darned well in it.  Our enemy is winning on the battlefield and its winning the propaganda war amongst its demographic.  Its even winning non Islamic Europeans as converts to its cause, in an era when Christian churches have tended to reduce their message to something like "it's nice to be nice to the nice".

So, that being my view, it may come as a surprise that I'm fairly disturbed by the recent political efforts to restrict the very small number of Syrian refugees we were going to take in to probably nothing.

My view probably varies as well from the liberal commentators on this, who seem to put their comments in the context of not letting in the refugees is a victory for the Islamic State.  I doubt that's their view at all.  Being devout hardcore Wahhabi Sunnis, they're no doubt fully convinced that they will win, and would prefer to have large bodies of Muslims in Western nations, from whom they no doubt believe they can recruit when the call comes. And they are being successful in recruiting a few.

But that's not what matters here. What matters is that Western values, which no matter what secular humanists may think of them, are based on the Christian concepts of humanity and charity, and that requires us to relieve suffering where we can, and here we can help.  It's the classic Christian situation.  Yes, a few of these people, albeit a very few, may be dangerous.  Nonetheless, they are all suffering in one way or another, so we should help.  That stands to defeat the barbarous nature of the Islamic State more than anything else does.

Now, I'm not advocating pacifism here either, and I'm certainly not a pacifist.  While I was very much opposed to trying to support any faction in the Syrian civil war early on, now the situation is too far gone and we have no choice but to fight the Islamic State.  And, in my view, not in the slow motion air campaign we're doing now.  

But at the same time, and until we can solve this matter, we have to recognize that a lot of desperate innocent people, and a few desperate guilty people, are on the move, and we need to do what we can. That humanity shows the difference between them and us, and between inherent and inherited Christian values and Islamic extremism.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church, Shoshoni Wyoming

Churches of the West: St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church, Shoshoni Wyoming
 

A rather large window

13 Jan 2012 to 13 Feb 2014?

I wonder what the backstory to this is?

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Butch - Sundance, and the Wild Bunch

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Butch - Sundance, and the Wild Bunch: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, two of the best know outlaws of the American West. Best known, but not that well known until the movie...

No, just go away

 

World War One era poster, from when Daylight Savings Time was a brand new announce.

I have not been able to adjust to the return to normal time this year.

Not even close.

I'm waking up most morning's about 3:30 am.  That would have been early even when Daylight Saving's Time was on, as that would have been about 4:30, but that is about the time I had been waking up, in part because I've been spending a lot of time in East Texas, where that's about 5:30.  Indeed, my inability to adjust back to regular time is working out for me in the context of being up plenty early enough to do anything I need to do in East Texas, but it's the pits back here in my home state.

I really hate Daylight Saving's Time.  I understand the thesis that it was built on, but I think it's wholly obsolete and simply ought to be dumped.

Friday Farming: Lex Anteinternet: The Poster Gallery: Posters from World War Two.

Lex Anteinternet: The Poster Gallery: Posters from World War Two.:

 

British poster from World War Two.

Today In Wyoming's History: Page Updates; 2015

 

Today In Wyoming's History: Page Updates; 2015:

Quite a few recent updates.

Understanding Saudi Arabia

The first thing to understand about Saudi Arabia is that the name does sort of tell all.  It's the Arabia owned by the Sauds.  Or rather that part of the Arabian Peninsula, i.e., most of it, that is controlled by the House of Saud.  And the Sauds are a family.

 King Abdulaziz ibn Abdul Rahman ibn Faisal ibn Turki ibn Abdullah ibn Muhammad Al Saud, the first king of modern Saudi Arabia, circa 1927.  Saud united a small kingdom to re-expand it to regions that his family had controlled centuries earlier.

The Arabian peninsula, as the name would indicate, has been the home of the Arab people since ancient times.  The Arabs were definable as such well before they came to be identified with Islam and indeed at the time of the rise of Mohammad.  Indeed at the time of Mohammad's rise the Arabs practiced a variety of religions, including Catholicism, Gnostic Christianity, Judaism and various animist religions.  They were not a united people by any means, which played into Mohammad's favor as he sought to unite them by force, where necessary.  The peninsula, while it would become Islamic, did not tend to be united however, although there were occasional exceptions of a type.

Prior to World War One there were various fiefdoms stretching back for centuries that controlled various areas of the Arabian Peninsula, which by the early 20th Century all claimed fealty to the Ottoman Empire, which itself was ruled by a claimed Caliph. The various tribal chieftains, sultans and kings did not always get along by any means and never had.  And within the peninsula various tribes contested for areas and territories.  Going into World War One arguably the most significant of these groups were the Hashimites, monarchs who ruled from Mecca, who threw in the with the British in an effort to expel the Turks and claim monarchical control over the Arabs.  

At the same time and earlier, however, the House of Saud, had been working on consolidating its power through marriage and through allegiance to an extreme puritanical form of Islam, Wahhabism.  Just prior to the Great War the Sauds took a portion of the Persian Gulf Coast from the Ottoman Turks, a bold move under the circumstances.  Following that, however, the  Sauds basically sat World War One out, in spite of sponsorship from English India, and they concentrated on a contest with the El Rashid, who controlled part of the peninsula to their north. They prevailed in that struggle in the early 1920s.   Following that, the Sauds conquered the Hejaz, effectively expelling the Hashimites from their traditional kingdom.

 King ‘Alī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Alī al-Hāshimī, the last Hashimite King of the Hajaz and therefore the last non Saudi ruler of Mecca.  King Ali could have claimed the tile of Caliph by inheritance, but did not do so.

 Ikhwan, circa 1910.

Throughout this expansionist period the Sauds relied upon the Ikhwan, a Wahhabi militia. This cannot be overemphasized as the Ikhawan was a puritanical Islamic militia, conceived of by Islamic clerics who found elements of Bedouin life to be incompatible with Islam.  The relationship between the Ikhwan and the Sauds was not perfect, as the Ikhwan rebelled against the Sauds in part on at least two occasions, but overall the Sauds expansion was allowed due to their alliance with this hardcore Islamic militia, a group found around principals so strict that some Muslims regarded them as heretical early on.

Following the conquering of the Arabian Peninsula, outside of Yemen, the Ikhwan turned its attention to Transjordan, which lead to a conflict with the Sauds who feared that taking on the Jordanian Hashimite kingdom wold lead to combat with the British. This caused the Sauds to put the Ikhwan down, although it lives on to a degree in the form of the Saudi National Guard.  

The black flag of the Ikhwan, note the similarity to. . . 

the green flag of Saudi Arabia.

Following the defeat of the Ikhwan, the Sauds had possession of a dirt poor personal kingdom, but one which included the important city of Mecca, which they had dispossessed the Hashimites of.  To the extent it formed a consolation, the Hashimites possessed the wealthier kingdoms of Transjordan, Syria and Iraq, none of which they were native to.

In 1938 oil was discovered in the country, however, and it became the base of the economy, as well as making it one of the richest and most economically powerful countries in the world.  Almost half of its population now is foreign born, with Egyptians and Muslim Filipinos amongst the most significant aspect of the foreign population.  The country has struggled with Islamic fundamentalist, and essentially it has since the 1920s, even though its foundation is in  Wahhabism. The Country is, therefore, awash in ironies. As a modern country, it's an absolute monarchy.  It has struggled with Islamic fundamentalism, and yet it is essentially a fundamentalist state which is the only one in the world, expect perhaps arguably the Islamic State, to have made the Koran its constitution.  The monarch is subject only to Sharia law.  It funds mosques in the western world, but only those that comport with a Wahhabi theological view.

Well, so what, you may ask?

A kingdom is an odd anachronism in the modern world, particularly one that is loosely based as Saudi Arabia is.  Its Wahhabi roots remain very strong and its a puritanical state, of a type, that is influential if for no other reason than that its fantastically wealthy.  The country is stunningly repressive, not even allowing women to drive.  It bizarrely has the chair position of the United Nations Human Rights Commission presently, a really bizarre thing to realize when basic human rights are missing in the country.  Don't even think about freedom of religion in regards to that nation.  

And something about it has spawned Islamic terrorists, although what that is, is not clear.  Osama bin Laden was a Saudi Arabian, with Yemeni roots.  Saudis were prominent in the 9/11 attackers.  

It was a country born out of tribal strife but united by Islamic extremist militias that it had to put down itself, but which it has remained close to in terms of origin.  With an unstable system of government in a region in which Islamic militancy has exploded, its fate is worrisome.

Postscript:

From an article in today's New York Times:

Daesh has a mother: the invasion of Iraq. But it also has a father: Saudi Arabia and its religious-industrial complex. Until that point is understood, battles may be won, but the war will be lost. Jihadists will be killed, only to be reborn again in future generations and raised on the same books.

Mid Week At Work: Staff writers of the Irish World

The Irish World is an Irish themed newspaper in England.

I doubt that the writers typically looked like this, back in the 19th Century.

Taking them at their word. The war aims of evil

I am continually amazed by the extent to which Western observers, even now, grasp to understand the Islamic State and its motivations.  How dimly people grasp history.

Clearly I need to add a new, ninth, Holscher's Law of History.  And when I do, what that law will be is that "Radical Forces often bluntly declare their goals, and non radical ones do not believe them."  Or perhaps that's more properly a Law of Behavior.

Because that is in fact the case. Very often, the most radical, and evil, forces and movements are perfectly blunt about their objectives, and yet those in civilized nations go about not believing them.  Only when its too late, and the history of a topic is written, is that noted, often with retrospective disdain.

Take Hitler for example.  In 1924, in his work Mein Kampf, he made very plain his hatred for the Jews and disdain for any people who were not what he termed "Aryan".  He also made plain his disdain for Soviet Russia.  But when he stated "He who wants to live should fight, therefore, and he who does not want to battle in this world of eternal struggle does not deserve to be alive" people didn't believe him.  Indeed, it wasn't really until late in World War Two, when the death camps and concentration camps fell into Allied hands, that the full extent of the Nazis' insane hatred of anyone but themselves was fully understood. And yet, they never denied it.  All through the 1920s and into the 1940s that was evident for anyone to see.  The western powers, indeed the world, chose not to believe it, as it seemed so bizarrely impossible.

So too of the early Communists.  Anyone can read, and indeed an serious history student should read, The Black Book On Communism.  It's a fascinating, and yet horrific, read.  The early Communist made it plain that the price of contesting their rise was death.  But in the western world this was simply not believed, and indeed was not really believed until after World War Two when the Soviets themselves threw off the last of their revolutionary leaders, Stalin, and the full horrors of his rule became known, even though the meaning of Communist control was already known anywhere they'd been temporarily. Why wasn't that more fully appreciated?  Only because it seemed to horrific to be believed.

Also ignored in both of the above examples was their obvious and open expansionist goals.  Hitler may have denied German expansionist aims prior to 1939, but in 1924 Hitler stated:

Without consideration of traditions and prejudices, Germany must find the courage to gather our people, and their strength, for an advance along the road that will lead this people from its present, restricted living-space to new land and soil; and hence also free it from the danger of vanishing from the earth or of serving others as a slave nation. The National Socialist Movement must strive to eliminate the disproportion between our population and our area — viewing this latter as a source of food as well as a basis for power politics — between our historical past and the hopelessness of our present impotence.

 If that wasn't blunt enough, he also stated 

And so, we National Socialists consciously draw a line beneath the foreign policy tendency of our pre–War period. We take up where we broke off six hundred years ago. We stop the endless German movement to the south and west, and turn our gaze toward the land in the East. At long last, we break off the colonial and commercial policy of the pre–War period and shift to the soil policy of the future. If we speak of soil in Europe today, we can primarily have in mind only Russia and her vassal border states.

How could, therefore, an invasion of the USSR have been a surprise?

And so to the early Communist.  The Communist Manifesto had always spoken of a revolution of the international working class, not the working class in one country.  Indeed, the official "socialism in one country" policy that the USSR adopted under Stalin was a departure from orthodox Communism which held that once the revolution came, it had to be global. That change came about as Stalin appreciated the failure of Communist revolutions in Eastern Europe after World War One and recognized that ongoing foreign expansionist efforts by the USSR, such as it attempted in Poland in the early 1920s, were likely to result in the collapse of the USSR itself.  It was that debate, in part, which brought about the downfall of Trotsky.  But Stalin's victory on that point never meant that the international goal wasn't there, but rather that it couldn't be brought about at one time.  When the Red Army went into Eastern Europe at the end of World War Two, therefore, it should have come as no surprise, and of course it really did not, that where the Red Army went, for the most part, Communism stayed. 

And so to, with the Islamic State.

The goal of the Islamic State is simple, plain, and stated.  It wishes to being about a global caliphate.  That is, a global Islamic state ruled by a single monarchical figure who has ties by lineage to Mohammad.  It seeks to bring about an apocalyptic struggle with "Rome", which it takes to be the Western world, and to win, bringing in the day of judgment.  Anyone, including other Muslims, who are not strictly adherent to their view of Sunni Islam is the enemy, and they have urged Muslims to kill non Muslims.

They mean it.

They mean to destroy every other religion in the world, including the Shia branch of Islam.

And supporting and bolstering them is the Koran.  It matters not that the Koran has a mixed message in these regards, nor does it matter to them that a majority of Muslims in modern times have not felt a violent call to that faith. There are, simply put, violent passages in the Koran and they rely upon them.  Ignoring their stated purpose and frankly ignoring the violent passages of the Koran is the same as ignoring the organic document of any major radical movement, as mistake.

Defeating an enemy of this type is not easy.  All prior historical examples demonstrate this.  Defending against the early Muslim armies was difficult and violent, and not achieved through negotiation or appeals to common sense.  Nazi Germany fought on for a good two years after it was obvious that it was going to loose the war (in contrast to Japan, which in spite of what people say, was rational enough to quit when it finally knew it couldn't fight to a negotiated conclusion, or the rational Italians which overthrew their fascist government).  The fall of Communism came about in 1990, after it had evolved out of radicalism, not in 1920 when it was fully still in it.

The ideology of the Islamic State is so radical that it's not going to evolve out of it, and the longer it's in control in any one place the more of that place is lost.  It is at war with the entire world.  The world needs to recognize that, and we cannot simply manage our way out of this one. That ought to be plain now, but then it really should have been earlier.

The Big Speech: The North Atlantic Treaty

The Parties to this Treaty reaffirm their faith in the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and their desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments.
They are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. They seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area.
They are resolved to unite their efforts for collective defence and for the preservation of peace and security. They therefore agree to this North Atlantic Treaty :

Article 1

The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.

Article 2

The Parties will contribute toward the further development of peaceful and friendly international relations by strengthening their free institutions, by bringing about a better understanding of the principles upon which these institutions are founded, and by promoting conditions of stability and well-being. They will seek to eliminate conflict in their international economic policies and will encourage economic collaboration between any or all of them.

Article 3

In order more effectively to achieve the objectives of this Treaty, the Parties, separately and jointly, by means of continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.

Article 4

The Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened.

Article 5

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security .

Article 6 (1)

For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:

• on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France (2), on the territory of or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer;
• on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.

Article 7

This Treaty does not affect, and shall not be interpreted as affecting in any way the rights and obligations under the Charter of the Parties which are members of the United Nations, or the primary responsibility of the Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and security.

Article 8

Each Party declares that none of the international engagements now in force between it and any other of the Parties or any third State is in conflict with the provisions of this Treaty, and undertakes not to enter into any international engagement in conflict with this Treaty.

Article 9

The Parties hereby establish a Council, on which each of them shall be represented, to consider matters concerning the implementation of this Treaty. The Council shall be so organised as to be able to meet promptly at any time. The Council shall set up such subsidiary bodies as may be necessary; in particular it shall establish immediately a defence committee which shall recommend measures for the implementation of Articles 3 and 5.

Article 10

The Parties may, by unanimous agreement, invite any other European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area to accede to this Treaty. Any State so invited may become a Party to the Treaty by depositing its instrument of accession with the Government of the United States of America. The Government of the United States of America will inform each of the Parties of the deposit of each such instrument of accession.

Article 11

This Treaty shall be ratified and its provisions carried out by the Parties in accordance with their respective constitutional processes. The instruments of ratification shall be deposited as soon as possible with the Government of the United States of America, which will notify all the other signatories of each deposit. The Treaty shall enter into force between the States which have ratified it as soon as the ratifications of the majority of the signatories, including the ratifications of Belgium, Canada, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States, have been deposited and shall come into effect with respect to other States on the date of the deposit of their ratifications. (³)

Article 12

After the Treaty has been in force for ten years, or at any time thereafter, the Parties shall, if any of them so requests, consult together for the purpose of reviewing the Treaty, having regard for the factors then affecting peace and security in the North Atlantic area, including the development of universal as well as regional arrangements under the Charter of the United Nations for the maintenance of international peace and security.

Article 13

After the Treaty has been in force for twenty years, any Party may cease to be a Party one year after its notice of denunciation has been given to the Government of the United States of America, which will inform the Governments of the other Parties of the deposit of each notice of denunciation.

Article 14

This Treaty, of which the English and French texts are equally authentic, shall be deposited in the archives of the Government of the United States of America. Duly certified copies will be transmitted by that Government to the Governments of other signatories.

Understanding Syria

Quite some time ago I did a post here called Understanding Iraq.  To my surprise, it's gone on to be one of the most popular posts here.

I've never done one titled "Understanding Syria", and hence this thread.  But I've nearly done so early on when the civil war in Syria began to get serious attention here in the U.S.  That thread from 2013 entitled And Now Syria focused on whether the US should become involved or not, but as it addressed the situation in that unfortunate land and gave some explanation of its background. Given the ongoing deterioration, and the fact that the situation in Iraq and Syria is now much different than it was then, I'm repeating a bit of that below.

 WWI vintage poster for Middle Eastern relief.

Some time ago I wrote an item here on what seemed likely to be an intervention in Syria's civil war.

And now, its being debated in Congress.

I'll applaud the President for submitting this to Congress.  Just last week or so it appeared that the President was set to simply order the Navy to conduct strikes against Syria, in retaliation for the Syrian government using chemical weapons on its own people, without bothering to bring in Congress, but the British Parliament turned that around. That only occurred as Parliament was being asked by Prime Minister David Cameron to support the upcoming U.S. strike. Parliament said no.  That caused the President, in what now seems to be a miscalculation, to seek authorization from Congress.  Right now, to my surprise really, Congress doesn't seem  likely to grant that authority. As a result, there's some discussion on the President ordering the strikes anyway, which would be a massive political miscalculation.  Of our allies, there's a movement in Canada to require their PM to follow Britain's lead and submit the question to Parliament, which would likely vote no.  France appears to be the only country that is likely to support us, but probably for historical reasons that we have a very dim appreciation of.

 Bedouin riding through Roman triumphal arch, Palmyra Syria, 1939.

In Congress views on this topic are split three ways.  One camp wants to authorize the President's proposal, which is to make a limited strike over a 90 day period in retaliation for the government's use of chemical weapons on civilians.  Another wants to stay out of the war entirely.  A third will vote no as, ironically, it wants to jump into the war, topple the government and create a new one we, we think, will like better.

That's basically John McCain's position, or at least that's his position by implication. But do we dare to suppose that's realistic?  And if it is not, do we dare get into this thing at all?  Do we even understand Syria?

 Straight Street in Damascus. This street is so old its mentioned in the New Testament.

Americans tend, to an almost charming degree, to believe the diametrically opposed beliefs that the United States is the best country in the world and that every other country is just like us.  What country may be the best in the world is a subjective matter, but objectively, not every nation and not every people are just like us.  Far from it.

Most nations in the world, or at least most successful ones, are "nation states".  A nation state is a country made up of one nation. This notion, or rather this fact, is so contrary to our own experience that generally we don't really grasp what it means.  Indeed, in our pledge of allegiance we even state that we are "one nation, under God."

"Syrian" (almost certainly Lebanese) children playing in the streets of New York City.  There is a huge global diaspora of Lebanese.  According to some, the Lebanese diaspora is the most successful, in terms of business and wealth, in the world.  The Lebanese are distinct for a variety of reasons, including that at the time of the formation of their country Maronite Catholics made up a majority of the population.

Perhaps, over time, the American "nation" has become just that, but most stable countries in the world have been formed by nationalism, and that nationalism long ago separated out the borders of the country along cultural boundaries. This appears to be changing in the modern world, but it's still largely the case. That is, France is a country for the French.  Italy is a country that united in the 19th Century in an effort to combine all the Italians, and some who were sort of Italians, into one country.  Germany united in the 1870s as a confederation of German principalities.

 Roman temple for Emperor Diocletian, a figure frequently noted for persecution of early Christians.

Conversely, the Austro Hungarian Empire flew apart in the early 20th Century partially because the constituents of that empire no longer wanted to be ruled by a common government.  Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia became separate countries, with that process rolling along right up until almost the present day, as Czechoslovakia, made up of the Czechs and the Slovaks, split into two separate countries, each of which is a nation state.  We witnessed something similar to this in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, when a country made for the "south Slavs" busted up along ethnic lines that essentially only they could discern.

Not all modern countries are nation states, of course.  The United States, for example is not. And countries that share a common origin to that of the US are not.  That is, Canada and Australia, also nations that were formed via the immigration from many parts of the Europe and even the globe aren't. The United Kingdom isn't, although in the true European fashion the various nations that make up the UK; IE., England, Scotland and Wales, have remained nations rather than blending to a surprising degree. And as noted, this was so much the case for Ireland, once part of the UK, that it violently departed.

A person could legitimately ask, of course, what the heck this has to do with Syria, but it has a great deal to do with it.  Syrian isn't a nation state.  And not only isn't a nation state, it isn't like the US or Canada in which the various ethnicities mix fairly readily. They don't mix.

A person might find that surprising, and many Americans apparently don't realize this at all.  We keep hearing about "they Syrians" but who are they?  A person with an ear for history might presuppose that the Syrians of today are the Assyrians of old, but they'd only be very partially correct.

 Syrian Bedouin, 1939.

Assyrians do indeed living on, in some fashion, in the DNA of many Syrians today, but modern Syria isn't he Assyria of old.  Even by the time of Christ what is now Syria had come under the influence of some foreign populations, namely the Greeks, which is why Syrian actually fit so seamlessly into early Christian history.  The coastal region of what was in very modern times Syria was at that time, as now, Lebanon, and that area had its own ancient populations that contributed to its nature, namely the Phoneticians, who may have descended from the Philistines.

 Syrian gypsies.

As noted, Syria was a region of the Middle East whose population took rapidly to Christianity, and there have been Christians in Syria ever since the 1st Century. Christianity took so rapidly to Syria that Damascus was where St. Paul was headed in order to persecute the Christians when he had his Epiphany.  And that also tells us that there were Jewish populations there at that time as well, but there were throughout the Middle East at the time.  Christians were first called that in Syria, Antioch to be precise, although that city is now in Turkey, on the Syrian border.

Ruins of Crusader era church in Syria, 1939.

Like the rest of the Middle East, Syria was invaded by the Arabs during the early Islamic period, and like places where there was a strong Christian presence, the Arabs were never able to fully supplant the native Christian population. This has very much been the case in Syria.  Today, Syria is made up of Islamic populations, Christian populations, often in their own areas, Alawites (a minority Moslem group), the Druse and some Kurds.  None of these groups has much in common with the other, except by the exent to which the minority groups, the Christians, Druse and Alwaties fear, and have reason to fear, the majority Moslem Arabs.

 Representatives of the Orthodox in the US, following the Russian Revolution.  In addition to Maronite Catholics, Syria has populations of Antiochean (Syrian) Orthodox.  Contrary to the way history is sometimes imagined, Roman Catholic Crusaders, upon taking Antioch, restored the Antiochean prelate to his seat.

The Ottoman Turks occupied and governed Syria for eons, until the Ottoman Empire disappeared due to World War One.  France received Syria, with which it had strong historical ties, as sort of a consolation prize for helping the British defeat the Turks during the Great War.  France occupied Syria from 1918 until 1946, keeping it through several changes in the French republican government and even into the Vichy period.  Syrian troops served the French in World War Two, both in the Vichy cause and the in the Free French cause. In some ways Syria was the French consolation prize for its role in the Middle East in World War One, as the French also fought the Ottoman's there, but it also recognized that France's role in the region existed for historic reasons going back to the Crusades. Many of the Christian Kingdoms of the Crusading period saw significant French colonization and a recent work by a British author has made the point that during this period not only were a majority of the residents Christians (and were well after the fall of the Crusader kingdoms) but that in some areas, but not all, they were basically French colonies. French trade with the region kept on keeping on in to modern times, and its worth noting that about the only government that appears inclined to get into Syria now is France.

 The British High Commissioner for Palestine, left, and the French High Commissioner for Syria, right, with young lad in middle, 1926.

Anyhow, while the French have a pretty poor record in regards to the success of their 19th and 20th Century colonies, in terms of becoming modern states so their experiences must be used as examples with caution, Syria did have the benefit of both Ottoman and Syrian administration and that doesn't appear to have lead to a real concept of forming a modern state really. If France was unable to do it in 20 years, I don't think we'll be able to in ten or fifteen, or whatever period we'd be willing to invest in the country if we got in full bore.  And to suppose that the Syrian rebels are going to create a parliament and recognize civil liberties without European or American boots on the ground is absurd. The French, we might note, had the benefit of being successors to the Ottomans, which meant that the Syrian population wasn't really inclined to be hostile to a foreign overlord, as they now will be under any scenario.

 Kurds, a stateless people, are native to a region encompassing parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.  The Kurds are actually responsible for the final stages of the spread is Islam, not the Arabs, and have given it an enduring memory of a unitized theocratic state and the false myth of enduring a Christian invasion. Ironically, not all Kurds are Moslems today, nor have they ever been.

On French administration, one thing worth noting is that the French came to the conclusion that it wasn't possible to rule Syria as a single political entity, and they ultimately created districts on ethnic lines. Lebanon exists today for that reason. The Alawites and the Druse also had their own regions. We always seem to think that any country we step into makes sense as a nation, and that would go counter to the modern experience of the Middle East in general, and Syria in particular. That is, why Syria at all? For that matter, why Iraq? It probably makes more sense that these countries be busted up into their ethnicities, which do not mix. But we won't do that. And whoever we prop up isn't going to want to do that either as no government ever desires to become less powerful and control less country.  In other words, the Kingdom of Sweden might have been willing to recognize that Norway wanted to be its own country in 1903 without fight, but Syria isn't going to do that with any of its minorities. For that matter, even the highly civilized United Kingdom fought to keep disenchanted Ireland in the group form 1918 to 1922, and I doubt that any Middle Eastern nation would do less.

 Druse refugees, 1925. The Druse are an Islamic sect despised by other Islamic groups.  They live in Lebanon, Israel and Syria today.  Early opponents of the Turks, and allies of the British in World War One, today they are closest to Israel.

Regarding the ethnicities, examination of the sides in Syria ought to really give us pause. Syria has some really distinct ethnicities.

By and large, Syrian Christians are afraid of the rebels, as they fear that a rebel victory will mean their end, and in my view it probably would. Alawites feel the same way. We (the US) feel that because the government is brutal, we should depose it, but should we depose it in favor of a probable bigger brutality? I just can't see a way out of this mess that doesn't leave us with blood on our hands in one way or another.

On that, it's interesting to note that some 20 years ago or so the Syrian government crushed another rebellion, and that's come up in this context from time to time. But, what of that rebellion? It was by hard core Islamist. Had it succeeded, Syrian would be an Arab Iran today. The crushing of the rebellion was brutal. That's inexcusable. But had it not been crushed, the result would have been grim for us. Do we even want to have to be associated with the results of a civil war there today, given that any result is grim from our prospective?

Indeed, when we look at the overall state of the Middle East, I think its' general folly to view any of the existing political entities as likely to be permanent. No government there looks stable long term, and those that do are challenged by demographics. That being the case, it might be best to view the Middle East today the way we viewed Eastern Europe prior to WWII. A mysterious backwater that hopefully will muddle its way out of the mess its in on its own. One thing we can be thankful for is that with changes in technology, the Middle East is becoming less and less significant economically or in terms of material resources, so we might actually hope for a day when it can conduct its regional spats without us having to be too afraid of the results.

Postscript

When we posted this one year ago, it probably looked like we were engaging in a rather paranoid example of Realpolitik.  Well, events here have really born us out.  Those who were cheerleading for intervention in Syria last September, when we posted this, would have effectively handed Damascus to the Islamic State, which proved to be sufficiently powerful as to be able to expand its old fashioned religious war, with modern weapons, into Iraq and nearly topple that government.   The Presidents reluctance, therefore, to intervene in Syria proved wholly justified.  Indeed, it now appears inevitable that we will soon be committing air assets over Syria and bombing the same enemy that the Syrian air force is.

Make no mistake, Assad is not in the warm and fuzzy category of leader, and Syria deserves better.  But Syria also isn't Ireland, whose rebels will adopt a parliament and immediately become a model of democratic behavior.  It has a long way to go, and we best be careful lest it become part of the Islamic State, or something like it.

A lot of what I wrote about back in 2013 remains true, but the situation there, and in Iraq, is now so far gone that it cries out for international action, and has been so crying out for months and months.

Now, France has been attacked either by ISIL or ISIL's confederates and sympathizers.  Floods of Syrian refugees have hit Europe. The country is nearly destroyed and has been reduced to an insane land of conflict, with the only really semi functional parts being those thing slices so firmly controlled by one side or another that some semblance of a remote normalcy exist.

What could have been avoided earlier on no longer can be.  The western world has no choice but to address the chaos in Syria, and that can only be done militarily.  That's because Syria is effectively a wild lawless land which is part of the Islamic State, a state in reality if not in recognition. And the Islamic state will murder anyone who is not a Sunni with its same radical views, and it will export its war everywhere.  It must.

Courthouses of the West: Hot Springs County Courthouse, Thermopolis Wyoming...

Courthouses of the West: Hot Springs County Courthouse, Thermopolis Wyoming...:

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Assumption of the Theotokos Greek Orthodox Cathedral

Churches of the West: Assumption of the Theotokos Greek Orthodox Cathedral

UCSB Wax Cylinder Audio Archive

The UCSB wax cylinder audio archive.  Some cool stuff.

Serialized stories in newspapers

I've been reading the great Japanese novel Musashi recently.  It's a fictionalized account of the life of Miyamoto Musashi, the legendary Japanese samurai.  I rarely read novels, and normally Asian fiction wouldn't be my cup of tea, but it is very good.

This novel, which is sometimes called Japan's "Gone With The Wind", was originally run as a serialized story in a newspaper.  Indeed, the chapters of the book are fairly short, which is likely explained by that.

This wasn't uncommon anywhere.  I think, for example, A Mule for the Marquesa, which was made into the movie The Professionals, was likewise a serialized novel before it was released as a book, and then later a movie. 

Everyone knows that newspapers are in trouble. And while our local paper won't admit it (it's part of the larger Lee chain) it's a shadow of its former self.  The paper has columnist, most of whom I'm not impressed with.  I wouldn't, for example, continue to subscribe to the paper just to read what Mary Billiter or Edith Cook have to say every week, although in fairness it does have columnist that I really like to read.

But what I would note is that I'll find myself following cartoons that have story lines, even if I don't really like the cartoon.  I read, for example, Mary Worth and Rex Morgan everyday, even though I really don't like either cartoon.  It's hard to drop off a story. When the paper used to run Prince Valiant on the weekend it was the same way.  I don't really like the cartoon, but I'd get caught up in the story line and find that I was resolving to read that line out and then stop reading the cartoon.

I suspect that this would be all the more the case for a well written serialized novel.

So, in this era when newspapers are biting the dust everywhere, and even major papers like The New York Times are increasingly irrelevant, why not revive this old practice?  I suspect that there are a lot of local novelist who could turn out the appropriate length of text every week, or at least every month, and people would follow it.  And in an era when certain types of novels have a hard time getting to press, but we all claim to love the local, why not give this a try?

Marrying the profession

According to one survey, farmers, fishermen, and lawyers, are the professions that are most likely to see intermarriage in the profession.

That is, farmers are likely to marry another person from a farm family, lawyers are likely to marry another lawyer, etc.  Not that they all do, by any means, but they do so more than, say, accountants marrying another accountant.

Makes sense for farmers, I think.  Fishermen and lawyers surprises me, however.

And the economic news continues to darken

Earlier this week Arch Coal announced it was considering bankruptcy, just at about the same time the Governor announced that he expected to be able to ship coal to Asia.  I'm not sure if the Governor really believes that, but I doubt very much that's going to be the case.  Things are looking increasingly bleak for coal.

And the state's community colleges are now preparing for an economic slump, the Tribune reports, with one even putting in place a hiring freeze.  I'm not sure that they'll see a drop in enrollment, like they fear, as at least in the past an increase in unemployment in the young has tended to see an increase in the young seeking college opportunities, something I've witnessed personally. But they're wise to do some planning.

The Demise of the Magazine

When I was young, I was an avid magazine reader.

My father subscribed, when I was very young, to Life, Look, Time, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, National Geographic, Sports Afield, Wyoming Wildlife and probably a few other journals. Seems like a lot?  Yes, it was, but it was partially a lot because he kept them for his office.  I don't think the National Geographic's ever made it to the office, but the others did. Anyhow, even as a young kid I read through quite a few of these, with Sports Illustrated being the least likely for me to read.

Even by the time I was a teen one of these magazines, Look, had disappeared and Life was on life support.  The others kept on keeping on, however.  As a teenager I regularly read Time and Newsweek, as well as Wyoming Wildlife and the National Geographic. When I went away to college my magazine reading dropped off quite a bit, but a girlfriend I had at the time bought me a subscription to The New Republic, which I still get.

Around here, we have subscribed to a variety of magazines of various interests, and indeed, I still get them.  I quit reading Time quite some time ago, however, and of course Newsweek as a print journal is no more.  I'm inclined to discontinue my subscription to The New Republic, which seems to me to be in a long slow period of decline which going from a weekly, to a monthly, and a change in ownership, has not arrested.

And now this past couple of weeks comes news about two well known journals that appear to be in, indeed are experiencing, trouble.

The one that sparks this entry is The National Geographic.  Once a standard of American scientific and cultural magazines, the magazines subscription based has massively declined over the past few years.  A while back the society that owned it sold its television rights to Rupert Murdoch's Fox network, which may explain why shows on The National Geographic channel seem to fall so far below the standards of the magazine.  About a year and a half ago the Society actually sold the controlling interest in the magazine to a Murdoch entity, which was news but not as big of news as a person might suspect.  I managed to miss it.

Since then there's been fears that Murdoch's control of the magazine would lead to a decline in its standards.  I haven't seen that, if its true.  There's also been fears that Murdoch's organization would start firing some of the staff, which has traditionally been lower paid than comparative journalists.  Now that's sort of come true, a bit.

National Geographic is now laying people off. That story has hit the news, but what's missed in it is that the people being laid off are support staff, in departments like legal, which the giant Murdoch organization otherwise has. Frankly, layoffs like that are justified.  I doubt the Lincoln Mercury division of Ford Motors, for example, has a separate legal department from Ford Motors.  But the entire story does shine the light on the sad decline of the magazine. The National Geogrpahic Society actually sold its flagship in order to raise money for the Society's endowment.  I get it, but that doesn't bode well for the future of the magazine or the Society.  I doubt it will survive long term.

Another magazine that's been in trouble for years and which I also doubt will survive has been in the news as well, that being the trash put out by an ossified freak whose main achievement is to help objectify women since the early 1950s.  I'm glad its in trouble, but  the reason that it is, is the same that the National Geographic is, the Internet.  Here the story is more grim.  The National Geographic has not declined and is simply the victim of free information.  The other magazine, on the other hand, helped take debasement out of the gutter and into everyone's homes and now it can't make a go of it, as the Internet allows trash to be circulated for free.  In other words, having helped pollute the culture, there's too much pollution everywhere in order for it to make a go of selling it.  

It's reaction has been a decision to take its models and send them back to the dressing room, apparently.  In doing that, it's would appear to be trying to occupy the space now occupied by a couple of other magazines directed towards men which will feature women, but not in the same purely objectified way, as they want to appear more gentlemanly and serious.  Ironically, that's the same way that the filth put out by this ossified freak became successful in the first place, as it took gutter trash literature and tried to dress it up, a marketing strategy that worked for about a decade before it was engaged in a race towards the bottom which it appears to now be loosing.  It's readership is also way, way off, and it appears doomed.  Indeed, I'm sure it is, and good riddance too, as while its not too late for the purveyors of such filth to reform, it's too late for the rag itself to do so.

Quite a change in a long period of time.  Magazines have an honored place in the American written landscape, and as far back as the mid 19th Century they were important means of conveying information.  We appear to see that era ending, except for specialty journals.

For Veterans' Day: In Memoriam by Ewart Alan Mackintosh who was killed in action on November 21, 1917.

So you were David’s father,
And he was your only son,
And the new-cut peats are rotting
And the work is left undone,
Because of an old man weeping,
Just an old man in pain,
For David, his son David,
That will not come again.

Oh, the letters he wrote you,
And I can see them still,
Not a word of the fighting,
But just the sheep on the hill
And how you should get the crops in
Ere the year get stormier,
And the Bosches have got his body,
And I was his officer.

You were only David’s father,
But I had fifty sons
When we went up in the evening
Under the arch of the guns,
And we came back at twilight -
O God! I heard them call
To me for help and pity
That could not help at all.

Oh, never will I forget you,
My men that trusted me,
More my sons than your fathers’,
For they could only see
The little helpless babies
And the young men in their pride.
They could not see you dying,
And hold you while you died.

Happy and young and gallant,
They saw their first-born go,
But not the strong limbs broken
And the beautiful men brought low,
The piteous writhing bodies,
They screamed “Don’t leave me, sir”,
For they were only your fathers
But I was your officer.

Confessions of a Writer of Westerns: Reading the Old Letters

Recently this interesting item was published on the blog noted:

Confessions of a Writer of Westerns: Reading the Old Letters: I spent much of the late afternoon and early evening reading through many letters written by Owen Wister. I never found what I was looking ...

It's an interesting entry in and of itself, but what it brings to mind to me is something I've written about here before, that being the stunning level of personal correspondence in earlier days.

Now, to be fair, in the age of email and instant messaging, people do write. And I'm actually a bit of an optimist in this area, as I think personal correspondence has actually revived a bit in the internet age, as has journaling.  None the less, the amount of personal correspondence that people once undertook is simply amazing.

 Mail Call, Army barracks during World War Two.  Forty years later mail call was still a big deal.  Amazingly, even in basic training we found time to write back.

Nearly any well educated person wrote letters at least as recently as mid 20th Century.  My own mother was an avid correspondent, writing her relatives and friends almost constantly, which they in turn also did.  My father was less of a correspondent, but when I went to university he wrote me regularly, and I in turn wrote him.  And I used to write a few friends I knew who had moved elsewhere.  Indeed, I wrote them quite a bit more than I know email the same friends.

There's something particularly close and personal about a written letter.  Closer than an email, although what it is, is hard to describe.  And there's something really telling that in earlier eras people wrote letters in vast numbers, and they saved them too, for our unintended benefit.  We're lucky they did, but it's hard to feel that something hasn't been lost by the disappearance of common correspondence, even if something has been gained by instant correspondence.

Letter writer, Mexico.  This man was employed as a scriviner for hire, a common occupation around the world at one time.

American Guide Week. 1941

From this week, in 1941.

Anyone ever see a copy?

More how you can tell you are really out of it.

1. When UW plays CSU, the legendary "Border War", over the weekend and you had no idea who won until you ran across the headline in the  newspaper (and you didn't read the article).

2. Al Roker came to your town and you have utterly no idea at all why anyone went to see him.  He's a weatherman, right?  And you have less idea why people are "proud" of the town for so many people showing up.  Eh?

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Wyoming's First School

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Wyoming's First School: Being an old school teacher, I am always interested in reading about early day schools and especially the schools of Wyoming. Like many...

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Mary Queen of Heaven Roman Catholic Church, Chugwa...

Churches of the West: Mary Queen of Heaven Roman Catholic Church, Chugwater Wyoming

The Big Speech: War and Peace

I have put up, as best I might, with millionaires of my time when they decreed war, sudden and sensational war, as everyone admitted; mean and immoral war, as I believed. I have got used to millionaires when they dictate war. But if they begin to dictate peace I positively rebel.

G.K. Chesterton: Illustrated London News, Dec. 31, 1910.

Monday at the Bar: Courthouses of the West: Morrill County Nebraska Courthouse, Bridgeport Nebraska

Courthouses of the West: Morrill County Nebraska Courthouse, Bridgeport Nebraska

A Constitutional Convention? Think first.

There's an idea afloat to revive an effort in this year's state budget session to have Wyoming's legislature pass a bill supporting having a Constitutional Convention.  An op ed in the Star Tribune recently endorsed it.

It's a poorly thought out idea.

The concept behind such a convention is that the delegates could go and pass an amendement ot the United States Constitution requiring a balanced budget.

Leaving aside the question of whether or not such an amendment is a good idea, which is a topic of legitimate debate, the problem with a Convention goes far beyond that topic.  

There's no legal way to limit the scope of a convention.  Backers claim that this isn't so, as the charge of the Legislatures would be solely on that topic, ignoring for a moment that slightly under half the states would be sending delegates to a convention that they hadn't actually endorsed.  As a convention, a legal entity, is only recognized in the broad, rather than the narrow, those who believe that its scope can be limited are absolutely incorrect. A convention could do anything it darned well wanted to do.

And there's no reason to believe that it would limit its scope.  You can be assured that delegates would try to expand it. They have in the past after all, that's how we ended up with the United States Constitution in the first place.

Both liberal and conservative delegates would be licking their chops at a convention, and a person has to be naive not to believe so.  Yes, they'd address a balanced budget amendment, and probably pass one, but they would not stop there.

Liberals, whom by the time of the convention are highly likely to riding high on the election of a second President Clinton (note, I"m not endorsing her, I'm just reading the political tea leaves here, and that's how things look to be shaping up to me), would see it as a chance to do the following:

1. Wipe out the Second Amendment.

2.  Create a new equal rights amendment that creates an absolute a society that turns a blind eye to anything to do with gender whatsoever.

3.  Create new social and economic rights.

Conservatives, if you are gasping in horror at the possibilities, particularly under a new Clinton Administration, well you ought to be.

But Liberals, before you laugh with delight, Conservatives, who really control more states than Liberals, would propose the following:

1.  Reverse the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions on same gender marriage and when life begins.

2.  Define citizenship to eliminate the location of birth element to it.

3.  Bolster the Second Amendment.

4. Redefine the First Amendment.

Now, note, some of these things I might be in favor of myself.  I think the Supreme Court was wrong in Obergefell and I also think that the Court's 1973 effort at defining the beginning life was one way pathetic example of legal reasoning. 

But does anyone want to open all of this up to a convention?

I doubt it.