Looking at the hidden reasons for the cost of higher education.

My guess is that Paul Campos doesn't get invitations to the faculty Christmas Party.

Campos is a law professor at the University of Colorado.  That wouldn't keep him from getting an invite. But his book Don't Go To Law School (Unless): A Law Professor's Inside Guide to Maximizing Opportunity and Minimizing Risk was not without controversy.  In it, Campos seriously took on law schools and sparked a huge amount of debate, including debate from law school professors (which both Federal Judge Posner and I have likened to refugees from the practice of law, but I stated that first).  

Now, or actually several months ago, Campos wrote a New York Times Op Ed entitled The Real Reason College Tuition Costs So Much  and the reason, according to Campos, isn't the one that schools like to give out.

According to Campos, public funding of education is causing it.

That's right, public funding.

Now, that's counter intuitive.  In this era of Bernie Sanders inspired "let's make education free" the logic would be that funding education drives the cost down, and makes it more affordable for all. But that logic is pretty thin, and Campos raises some really good points.

Campos first notes what most suspect, but that few are willing to acknowledge.  Following the baby boomer flood into college, public investment in college massively increased.:

In fact, public investment in higher education in America is vastly larger today, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than it was during the supposed golden age of public funding in the 1960s. Such spending has increased at a much faster rate than government spending in general. For example, the military’s budget is about 1.8 times higher today than it was in 1960, while legislative appropriations to higher education are more than 10 times higher.

While not what this post is about, as this blog does track trends, it should be noted here what few are really willing to note.  The Baby Boomer generation has dined richly from the public trough, and has been more indulged, as a demographic, than any other.  Resource consumption wise, while they don't recognize it, Boomers are like the bulge in the snake.  They've received more from American society than their predecessors as well as more than those who have come after them, and they will continue to do so.  That makes them a rich generation, in a demographic resources sense.  And as they control the political landscape, they'll continue to do that.  Consider that in the current presidential election the former top contender in the GOP race and both top contenders in the Democratic race are Boomers.  We're not unlikely to have exactly one Gap Generation President, President Obama, before we slip right back into Boomers.  But I digress.

Campos notes the rise in university education cost:

In other words, far from being caused by funding cuts, the astonishing rise in college tuition correlates closely with a huge increase in public subsidies for higher education. If over the past three decades car prices had gone up as fast as tuition, the average new car would cost more than $80,000.

 And he further notes:

 As the baby boomers reached college age, state appropriations to higher education skyrocketed, increasing more than fourfold in today’s dollars, from $11.1 billion in 1960 to $48.2 billion in 1975. By 1980, state funding for higher education had increased a mind-boggling 390 percent in real terms over the previous 20 years. This tsunami of public money did not reduce tuition: quite the contrary.

So where is that funding going?  Well, Campos looks at that as well, and the results are pretty disturbing:

Interestingly, increased spending has not been going into the pockets of the typical professor. Salaries of full-time faculty members are, on average, barely higher than they were in 1970. Moreover, while 45 years ago 78 percent of college and university professors were full time, today half of postsecondary faculty members are lower-paid part-time employees, meaning that the average salaries of the people who do the teaching in American higher education are actually quite a bit lower than they were in 1970.

By contrast, a major factor driving increasing costs is the constant expansion of university administration. According to the Department of Education data, administrative positions at colleges and universities grew by 60 percent between 1993 and 2009, which Bloomberg reported was 10 times the rate of growth of tenured faculty positions.

Even more strikingly, an analysis by a professor at California Polytechnic University, Pomona, found that, while the total number of full-time faculty members in the C.S.U. system grew from 11,614 to 12,019 between 1975 and 2008, the total number of administrators grew from 3,800 to 12,183 — a 221 percent increase.

Yep, public funding has resulted in a vastly expanded publicly funded administration.  That shouldn't be a surprise, but it doesn't surprise me that this has occurred.

Now, I can't say that all of this is unnecessary.  Some of it likely is, as the world has gotten more complicated and more administrative people have become necessary.  But not all of it is.  Consider the following, even though some will bristle at it, about the University of Wyoming, from a few days ago:

LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) — The University of Wyoming Board of Trustees has approved creation of a new diversity assistant position. The Laramie Boomerang reports that the new assistant will lead the development and implementation of a diversity plan for the college. UW President Dick McGinity says a search committee will be formed to find potential candidates for the job. McGinity says introducing students to a diverse campus is important for many reasons, including success in the workplace after graduation.

Now, the state's one and only university is supposed to be "as nearly free as possible" for the state's residents.  Does hiring a diversity coordinator assist in making it as nearly free as possible.  No, it doesn't.

And is this even necessary?  I doubt it.  The university should, keeping in mind that it is a state land grant college, aim to be as diverse as the state's population is, and I'd emphasize the "state's population", as it is a state college, but that would mean trying to recruit more heavily from the Wind River Indian Reservation, something it's known about and has been trying to do for years.  

A "diversity" coordinator, however, will inevitably end up as a bureaucratic position deeply stewed in a the left wing social concept of what "diverse" means, which in that mindset is, ironically, that there is no diversity, as every human being is exactly the same in every imaginable fashion and any difference, including biological ones that every single human being displays, is simply a social construct.  And, moreover, in this day and age every college campus everywhere is pretty darned diverse in the conventional sense.  Over half of law school student bodies, for example, are female.  There is no racial or religious discrimination in major institutions any more.  What real (ie. racial) diversity is lacking stems largely from the impact of poverty, which should be addressed but which doesn't require a coordinator to tackle.

Not that this is going to be addressed any time soon locally. While the university does face spending cuts, as the state's in a budget crisis, the Legislature passed bills approving funding that will go into the university's athletic program. As the Casper Star Tribune recently noted:

A program that supports University of Wyoming sports appears safe from budget cuts that could slash millions from K-12 schools and literacy programs for young readers and their parents.

Stuff like this has to have an impact somewhere.  That is, at what point does a big athletic program become some sort of a burden and not make much sense, education wise?  Supporters will claim that doesn't happen, as the big sports pay for themselves.  Perhaps they do, I don't know, but it does make  a person wonder just a bit. This is not to say that athletics do not have a place in higher education, they clear do, but the place that the big name sports currently have is questionable.

I'm not saying that any of this creates a crisis at the local level.  Indeed, while Wyomingites no doubt do not think of it this way, Wyoming is a good example of funding university education for the state's youth in a way that simultaneously demonstrates that Sanders' concept of a big national program is both wrong and poorly thought out.  In other words, a Distributist model of how to approach this is actually working in some states, whereas a national one would likely be a bureaucratic disaster. 

Indeed, those who point to Europe on this should be aware that Americans send more students to college than the majority of European countries, and where there is state funding of higher education in Europe it is sometimes heavily controlled as to dictate societal outcomes and, of course, it's done by individual countries rather than the European Community, so it's more of a Distributist model as well.  Be that as it may, the much vaunted European system (which is actually a series of systems) generally produces fewer college graduates by percentage of the population than the much criticized American one does.  Perhaps that means that the American system, for all its critics, works pretty well.

Part of the criticism of the American system is, I think, actually that people pay a lot to not get much in return, in some instances.  This is actually a criticism of the quasi capitalistic nature of the system, although people don't realize it.  The proposals to really socialize it would address that in part, but only in part, which is probably why the European systems actually produce fewer graduates.

The reason for that is that is a combination of things.  On one hand, the public funding of higher education has sponsored a lot of phoniness in higher education.  We have professors who hold PhD's which are basically based on fairly worthless areas of study and who sometimes use their university positions to advance those areas of study, essentially producing needless data on the public dime. We have some entire areas of academic concentration that are really questionable at that.  Basically, if you look at college areas of concentration, and find one that didn't exist in 1960, if its current existence can't be explained by an advancement in technology, industry or fields of employment, it probably ought not to be there.

The fact that they are there, combined with student loans given out for any field of study, and combined with programs that generate students as they need to, means we have a system that generates graduates, irrespective of their employability.  That's a difference between our system and at least one other, the much vaunted German system. The German system may be free, but it also pretty much determines where you are going for you at a quite early age, and that's what you are going to do, more or less.  Indeed, one German national I know who is employed in the US has noted to me that the German system is admirable because it's free, but he's lucky he came to the US where he was able to have more liberty as to his choice of careers. 

But, back to the main topic, all of this sadly explains part of the real problem of current higher education.  At one time higher education was, well, higher education.  But now these institutions are institutions, and like any big institutions, they become top heavy. All that weight at the top has to be fed, and it will be.  And that drives up the cost  How to address that is another matter, but people defend their rice bowls, so addressing that isn't easy.

Which is also why things like professional coordinator positions tend to be a bad idea.  As a concentrated project (let's recruit more students from Wind River, for example), it makes sense. But by making it a position, the risks exists that it never sees its mission completed.  Very few bureaucratic offices ever see their mission fulfilled on their own.

The University of Wyoming Board of Trustees voted unanimously Friday in favor in changing UW regulations to create a new position to coordinate the institution’s diversity efforts.

Read More: University of Wyoming Trustees Create Diversity Coordinator Position | http://kowb1290.com/university-of-wyoming-trustees-create-diversity-coordinator-position/?trackback=tsmclip

The University of Wyoming Board of Trustees voted unanimously Friday in favor in changing UW regulations to create a new position to coordinate the institution’s diversity efforts.

Read More: University of Wyoming Trustees Create Diversity Coordinator Position | http://kowb1290.com/university-of-wyoming-trustees-create-diversity-coordinator-position/?trackback=tsmclip

Questions for the (local) candidates.

Our Congressman, Cynthia Lummis, is leaving office. So candidates are lining up to run.  Mostly Republican candidates, of course, and it's going to be a Republican who is going to win, unless something massively bizarre happens, although frankly as hard to the national right as the Republican candidates so far are tacking, an opening exists for a Democrat if the Democrats defy all expectations and somebody well known and not from the Unicorn Left runs. So far, the chances of that, however, look slim.

Recent elections have been singularly disappointing in my view.  The last one started to get interesting, I'll admit, as there was a real split between the Tea Party and rank and file elements in the GOP, with the rank and file coming out on top.  That doesn't mean that we won't see some tacking towards the Tea elements in this election, of course.  The sad part of it is that races that used to feature some real intelligent debate, on a state level, have been swamped by developments elsewhere and tend to just be a mirror on the more extreme elements of the national party elections, which of course right now are fairly extreme.

Wyoming has one seat in Congress, so this is an important seat.  So we ought to really think it out.  Here's some questions I'd propose anyone ask of these candidates.  While my view on these topics is probably self evident, that doesn't mean that the same view ought to be yours.  Nonetheless, I"d ask these questions anyhow.

• In recent years there's been a lot of talk amongst Wyoming politicians about "taking back" or "assuming control" of the Federal lands in Wyoming.  With that in mind, what is your view on the following:

i.  Do you believe that Wyoming was ever "promised" these lands?  If you do, back that up and explain why the State forever disclaimed them upon being admitted to the Union.

ii.  Wyoming sportsmen uniformly believe that the state acquiring the lands is a bad idea and will result in the loss of public use of them.  What do you say to that?

ii.  Would you prohibit the sale of the lands for all time?  The state's really hurting for cash right now, so why should we believe that would be effective?

iii. What advantage to the State is there in acquiring the lands? Don't rest on platitudes, give us facts and figures and numbers. You know that there's cost to managing them, don't you?

iv.  Given that Wyoming has the lowest population in the nation, and this would have to go through Congress, doesn't this movement risk angering the majority of Americans who feel that the lands should have more Federal control, rather than less? So, long term, doesn't this "gimme" type of attitude risk getting our hands severely slapped?

• I know, as you are running in Wyoming, you are going to claim to be a sportsman.  Back that up. Tell us exactly how many licenses you have held in Wyoming over the past twenty, yes I said twenty, years.  Name your old hunting and fishing buddies so we can talk to them and see what they say.

• I also know that you are going to claim to support the Second Amendment.  Almost all politicians in Wyoming claim this, and then go on to say something lame like "I own a gun", which to gun owners means that you probably don't know diddly about firearms.  Do you actually shoot? What do you use your firearms for?  Are you a member of a range?  Do you own one of the dread "evil weapons".  Speak up.

• While we are on the topic of the US Constitution, what's your view?  Strict constructionist, living document, something else?  Do you feel any recent U.S. Supreme Court opinions are wrong, and if so which ones?  What would you propose to do about any errors you feel that they have committed, even if that just means living with them.

• Most Wyoming politicians are strongly in favor of something like "state's rights".  Are you?  If you are, are there areas that you are willing to tell us that you'll cut the pork out in a way that hurts Wyoming?  That is, do you have the courage of your convictions even if we are dining on some of that pork?  If so, tell us what you will say to Congress, you know, Wyoming has a moral or philosophical duty to do that on its own, darn it. 

• I know that you are going to claim that you support our base industries. So, name one you have worked in.  I.e., name that petroleum industry, agricultural, tourism, or retail job you have held, in Wyoming.  (If you can't name one. . . well. . . it's  not to late for you to get a real job for awhile and see what they are like).

• On those base industries, agriculture and the agriculture based industry of tourism are the state's oldest industries (okay, yes I'm ignoring the railroad on this one, as maybe it's number two).  What do you intend to do, specifically, for the nation's agriculture.  And what do you intend to do for Wyoming's agriculture.

• I know that you are going to lament the slump in coal and oil, but on that, are you willing to answer the hard questions. And those are, in part:

i.  Are you willing to accept that the slump in oil may be due to a new economic regime in petroleum production, and we might never get the high prices back?  If so, what do you say to the state and nation about that?  If you don't agree, back that up.

ii.  Are you willing to accept that coal is likely dead, and admit that on the campaign trail.  Yes, I know that as a Wyomingite (for those of you who are, and a couple of you are pretty iffy on that), you are supposed to say that clean coal will save coal, but as the evidence of that is scant, are you willing to face it.  If you aren't, back up your position with specifics, not airy hopes.  And if you propose to argue for investing in "clean coal", are you willing to admit that's a socialist proposal?

iii.  Are you willing to accept that global public opinion has clearly turned against fossil fuels, now matter what your personal position may be, and it no longer makes any difference whether a Wyoming politician admits or denies a belief in climate change? The world does, and the world is reacting massively.  Given that, how does that impact in real, not imaginary ways, how you see this industry in our state in the future.  And don't just give us "the world needs" answer, as that same answer would have worked for wagon wheels and saddles too.  Give us a real answer on how you think things need to develop, and how that relates to your intended job in Congress, assuming that it even does.

• I know that you are going to state that you are for a strong national defense.  Given that, I presume you know that means getting people killed, right?  With this in mind:

i.   The Constitution says that only Congress can declare war. What's that mean to you?

ii.  Are you in favor of women in combat?  No waffling.

iii.  Have you ever been in the service?  If not, why not?

iv.  Is the military too big, too small?

v.  What is your view on the War On ISIL, and don't give me that "Obama messed this up" answer.  I want to know what you intend to do right now, and how long you think it's going to take.  You propose to take a job on, and my presumption will be that you are going to sit around for two years blaming people who came before you.

vi.  Same question for Afghanistan. What are your thoughts?

vii. While on this, would you explain to us your views on our friendly relationship with Saudi Arabia, which is one of the most repressive nations on earth, and which doesn't allow any sort of freedom of religions at all. Why are we buddies with those guys?

•  On the above, why do we still make anyone register for the draft?  We're not going to be drafting anyone and we know that, so why make people do this?

•  Where are you really from?  Wyoming has a long history of electing politicians that were not born here, and almost all of our early politicians were from somewhere else, so you can be honest about this, and should be.

•  Where is your income really from? We might care about this, but you should be honest about it.  Do you really work and derive an income from Wyoming, or is your income really from somewhere else?

• Speaking of income, what is yours?  Wyoming's average income is $51,000 per year (or at least it was, before the crash started), the seventh highest in the nation.  That's solidly middle class, but that's all it.  What is your income?

• You've probably noticed that this is a national office.  So there are things Washington can't do for us, right?  Are you going to answer that, if these things come up during the election?

• Do you have a religious faith?  If so, name it.  Does it mean anything to you in terms of your politics, or are you more inclined to take the JFK path that you will exercise your faith on Sunday (or Saturday) but it won't otherwise influence your politics that much.

• Let's talk economics. Are you: a) a Capitalist, b) a Distributist; c) a Socialist?

i.  Okay I know that you didn't say you were a Socialist, unless of course you actually have no hope or desire to be elected, or that you are completely delusional, but if you said "no" to that one, what's your feeling on the many odd subsidized programs the US has.  One has recently been in the news big time, with the GOP promising that they were going to cut subsidies for a private entity that they did not, but what about you?  Are you going to really attack the many socialized, in practical terms, programs that there are, or do you support some?  If you do, what are they and why do you feel that's an exception.

ii.  Alright, I know you said you were a capitalist and believe in the free market.  I also said that you said you aren't a distributist, and that you became a bit queasy as you also don't even know what that is (and bonus points to you, if you actually do, but how far are you willing to take that?  What is the government's role in our economy?  What is the corporate role?

You may have noticed that our local economy is getting pounded recently.  What are your feelings about that?

• I know that no matter who you are, you're going to complain that the Federal Government is regulating us to death here.  Back that up, and don't use generalities either.  If you are going ot claim that regulations are keeping oil exploration from busting forth, for example, name some industry analysts who agree with that (hint, they really don't).

• What's your reaction to the growing support for "social democracy" amongst the young?  You've probably seen three of the current Presidential candidates make some traction by taking on a certain nannie state mentality, and my guess is that you are willing to do that to. Be blunt.  At what point do you tell people that they're on their own, and the government isn't really there to help them.

• What is your view on immigration and illegal immigration?  Be specific.  And, on that, in a country of over 300,000,000 residents, at what point are we pretty much full up? 

• On immigration, what should be considered when taking in new migrants, assuming you didn't say we're "full up". 

•  If you are a Democrat, you are a member of a party that has been declining here ever since the end of World War Two and which has all but died since the election of Bill Clinton.  Why do you think your party is so poorly thought of in Wyoming?  Do you acknowledge that there's a lot about the Democrats Wyomingites don't like, and how do you stand in regards to that?

• If you are a Democrat, you are a member of a party that's pretty much quit running electable known candidates in recent years.  A few of your more serious known members became Republicans  Why can't your party get some known serious candidates to run?

• If you are a Republican, what's going on inside of your party and how do stand in regards to it?  It's pretty clear that the old Wyoming GOP was in quite a fight with an upstart Tea Party GOP last election.  What is your opinion on all of that, and have you guys gotten over it?

Mid Week At Work: Mail Carrier, 1915, Los Angeles

Women from Los Angeles, hiking. 1915

Note all the walking sticks and the footgear.

Blog Mirror: Inside the Chieftain's Hatch: M10 tank destroyer

Nice clip on the British version of the M10 Tank Destroyer (the Achilles).

Be careful out there. . . and how we go when we didn't used to.

Highway near Casper, January 30.

We're entering Wyoming's snow season.

We really aren't there yet.  Generally, April is the month of the year where we really get hit with snow.  But we're starting to see more of it, and we got hit by a heavy wet snow on Friday and Saturday.  Indeed, it felt like an April snow, rather than a late January one, which generally feels like getting hit with frozen sandpaper.

Those trucks (there are two of them) are out in that snowstorm.  They're off the road.  I thought that they'd slipped off, and the back one probably did.  When I passed them, they were chaining it up. The driver in the front truck had walked back to help the other driver chain his truck up.  Chaining was probably necessary to get it out of the ditch.

Truck drivers have to drive in weather like this all the time. But, in Wyoming, so do a lot of other people.  Ranchers, to be sure, but also oilfield workers and, as odd as it may seem, lawyers.  In the old, old days, lawyers rode a circuit by horse, today in the Rocky Mountain West they ride it by 4x4.  Our travel is dictated solely by our schedule, not by the weather.  We occasionally have to cancel something due to the weather, but that's rare.  Usually, if things are going to get really bad, we try to get there a day prior if we can, and then we have to ride it out wherever we are.

I've written on it many times here, but this is one of the things that's really changed, in this region, about how we live just since World War Two.  The only 4x4s in the US prior to the Second World War were heavy industrial trucks.  4x4s came onto the civilian market right after World War Two, their worth having been proven by the war.  But the only "light" 4x4s that were offered at first were Jeeps.  4x4 trucks came on, but they were heavy trucks and appealed only to industry, ranchers, and serious sportsmen.  That really didn't change until the 1960s, when lighter 4x4s started to be relatively common around here.  By the 1970s they were pushing out 2x4s, and vehicles like Suburbans and Travelalls were common.  In the 1980s "Sports Utility Vehicles" started coming in, and now they're everywhere.  Most SUVs are pretty good in snow, but I still drive a 1 ton 4x4 on the highway in snow.  It's very dependable and safer than nearly any other alternative.

But, having said all of that, there's really no safe driving in weather like this. But because we can do it, we do.  And some of us have to.  A real change since 1945.

Monday at the Bar: Courthouses of the West: Natrona County Townsend Justice Center

Courthouses of the West: Natrona County Townsend Justice Center:

e

The fustrating nature of biographical snippets.

Yesterday, an event occurred meriting this update on our Today In Wyoming's History blog:

Today In Wyoming's History: January 30: 2016.  Kenny Sailors, inventor of basketball's jump shot while a student at the University of Wyoming, died at age 95.  Sailors had a spectacular university basketball career and went on to play professional basketball after graduating from US.   Sailors went on to become an outfitter in Alaska before returning to Wyoming in retirement.  He was living in Laramie, where his fame commenced, at the
time of his death.

I had to hunt for the details on his post basketball career, although I think I've posted that on that particular blog before.

Okay, even a non sports fan like me knows that the jump shot is a big deal.  But even Wikipedia doesn't  detail Kenny Sailor's 35 year career as an Alaskan outfitter. That's interesting, darn it, and says a lot about the man.

This sort of neglect of the post "big event" careers of people is aggravatingly common.  A person will show up in an obituary of this type, or in a book, as a snippet, as though their entire lives are that event. They aren't.

I'm always interested in what came after, and before.  We often get the before, but we often do not get the after, which quite often defines a person more than the singular big event does.  It's sad that such details are so commonly omitted.

Sunday Morning Scence: Churches of the West: House Of Our Shepard, Powder River Wyoming

Churches of the West: House Of Our Shepard, Powder River Wyoming:

The rise and fall of the Standard Oil Refinery in Casper. . .and an observation on the lack of personal observation to contemporary events.

 The Standard Oil Refinery at its peak.

Recently I posted this item on our website dedicated to memorials, even though I was admittedly not really sure if it belonged there. The text and the photos for that entry appear below, but as noted following that, this caused me to ponder another topic.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Some Gave All: Standard Oil Refinery Building, Casper Wyoming:

Headquarters for the former Standard Oil Refinery in Casper Wyoming. 
This building, with additional new construction is now a branch of
branch of tbe University of Wyoming's Wyoming
Technology Business Center.

Every once in awhile I'll have some of these photos, taken for one of my blogs, that I end up not being sure what to do with. This is an example of that.

I took these sometime during the summer of 2015, while down on the Platte River Commons pathway.  I was probably riding my bicycle down there.  After that, I didn't put them up as I wasn't quite sure where they belonged.  My original thought was that they should go on Painted Bricks, our blog dedicated to signs painted on buildings, but there aren't any signs painted on this building, and the old Standard Oil sign has been removed.  Having said that, there is a major sidewalk feature here, and I do put sidewalk features on our Painted Bricks blog, so there will probably be an entry there after all.

Instead, I decided to put this up here because of this somewhat sad memorial at this location.

Now, there were people who died one way or another at the refinery over the many years it was in operation, but this monument is simply to people who worked there from 1913 up until it closed in 1991.  When it closed, it came somewhat close to being a mortal blow to the city, which was already really hurting at that time.  Having said that, the decline of the refinery, which had at one time been enormous and one of the prime economic engines of the city, was obvious for years.

When the refinery was operating, this building was on the edge of the refinery, along the old Yellowstone Highway, prior to that highway being moved across the river. As a kid I must have ridden as a passenger in my parents vehicle past it countless times.  I can remember it quite well, and frankly it looks newer now than it did then.

I don't know when the building was built, but as the refinery opened in 1913, chances are that it was right around then.  The substantial refinery, now a golf course, was a major Natrona County employer and its closure really nearly ended an era in the town.  The town had three refineries up until about that time, but only one of them, the  Sinclair refinery, remains today.  The Standard Oil refinery was the largest of the three.

 __________________________________________________________________________________

Okay, that's all well and good, but in re-reading this, what it made me realize is the strange phenomenon of not really noticing the importance of something while it is actually occurring.  That is, I was a witness to the last days of the refinery, but it didn't make the impression on me that it really should have, given that it had been such a major feature of the town's existence up until then. And I was an adult at that time.

Now, part of that was due to the long, slow and fairly apparent decline that was in fact going on with the refinery. And it was also due to the fact that it came at a point in time during which we were already in a decade long slump here and all economic news was by default bad news.  But not everyone was similarly lacking in reaction to the event.  Indeed, I can recall some people being quite mad.  It's an interesting situation to look back on it.

 The Franco American Refinery in Casper, waste oil from which was handled as late as the 1980s.  It was closed by 1910.

The Standard Oil Refinery was not the first refinery in Casper. The Franco American Refinery, which is located near where the city recreational facilities are now located, has that distinction.  That refinery was already closed, although barely so, when Standard built its refinery in 1913.  That refinery went on to be a large refinery, by Wyoming standards, and in its heyday it had facilities on both sides of the North Platte River.  

It's odd to think that I've missed mentioning this so far, as the refinery was a really big deal in town, and it was a really big deal in the era which this blog was formed to study. So this is a pretty significant omission to date.  We've dealt with a lot of Western themes here, but this refinery was already here in the end final area of the "Old West" here in Wyoming, keeping in mind that the Old West in Wyoming kept on later than in other areas, and arguably into the 1920s really.  Suffice it to say, the era that this blog supposedly focuses on, 1900 to 1918 or so, includes the opening era of the Standard Oil Refinery.

And indeed, Casper has always identified more with the oil industry than with agriculture, which most people think of when they think of the West.  It can be a bit irritating to some stockmen, and I've heard them comment on it.  Ranching was part of the local economy here starting in the 1880s and it still is.  Wool production for the county was, at one time, simply enormous.  Beef production was so significant that the county had a packing house at least as early as the 1930s, located in Evansville, and it continued to have one until the 1970s.  My family owned it during the 1940s, up until my grandfather Lou Holscher died in his late 40s, at which time the family had to sell it.  

Be that as it may, the county has always heavily identified with oil, rather than livestock, in terms of its identity.  The newspaper used to claim, on its front page, that Casper was "The oil capitol of the world".  Casper's nickname is "The Oil City" (although leaning on the cartoon there are also many businesses that use "Ghost Town" as a reference.  The new internet news source for the town is called The Oil City News.  The local hockey team and the teams for the town of Midwest are called "The Oilers".  On maps featuring drawing references for the town or the county, as tourist maps and the like will do, the county always has something that reflects oil production.  

And at one time it was indeed refined production that was a major industry here, as opposed to crude production and exploration, which remains significant.

The refinery was joined over time by two others, those being the Sinclair Refinery and the Texaco Refinery. Those refineries were built next to each other, in what is actually Evansville Wyoming, east (and downwind) of where my family had its packing house, and east and downwind of any of the local municipalities.  The Standard Refinery was west, and upwind, of Casper itself.  It's being upwind contributed to the very common petroleum smell that the city had when I was a kid.  Smelling "the refinery" was pretty common.  "That's the smell of money", people use to say.

And I suppose it was. The refinery was a major employer from the point at which it was built up in to the 1980s.  It was such a factor in the town's economy that one addition to the city was known as The Standard Oil Addition, either because the titles went back to Standard Oil or the company participated in getting the subdivision rolling so that its workers would have a place to live.  My parents house, built in the 1950s, bordered the Standard Oil Addition.  And it was a fair distance from the refinery.

But not so far that if you gained any height you could see it.  But that would be true of any refiner in Casper from any height.  But the Standard refiner was a big one.

It never seemed impressive to me as a kid growing up that the town was basically surrounded by refineries.  That was normal.  Now, you wouldn't think that normal.  But we did.  And anyone my parents age knew people who worked at the refineries.  I did, but they were people my parents age.

And that was because nobody my age worked there. Which must say something about how the refineries were going.  Not one person I knew in school ever worked at any of the refineries.  The only people I knew who I didn't know by way of my parents were older soldiers I knew in the National Guard. A few of them worked at the refineries.  It's odd to think of, given as they were such major features in the town's economy.

Oil collapsed as part of the economy here in the early 1980s.  Standard's refinery already didn't look like something they were keeping up.  In my memory, I thought the refinery must have closed around 1983 or so, and was surprised in these photos to see that it kept on until 1991.  That means an institution that I could see from the window of some of my classes in high school died almost without my noticing it.  I must have been pretty distracted when I first came back from law school and started working, or its death was predicated, known and inevitable by that point. That's more likely it.

Or maybe I was influenced by the large number of people around here who were somewhat mad at Standard Oil.  Not much notice was given when things started going bad, and we felt that there should have been. By the time the refinery closed it was a run down eyesore and while that didn't equate with people being mad at the oil industry, it did lead to a certain "well good riddance to you then" feeling about Standard Oil.  And of course, I'd just been through a lot of college, and being an outdoorsman and a geology student I may have picked up a bit of that anti industry feeling that's common amongst young outdoorsmen and young geology students (who ironically have only the industry to look to for employment).  Perhaps, but I don't really think so.  Maybe it just seemed inevitable, the way that the decline of coal feels right now.  An inevitability, being that, can be lamented or endured.

I can recall the effort to clean it up, as well as the legal battle (which we were not part of) that developed after British Petroleum, then the owner, closed it.  I've always felt a bit odd about the post refinery legal battle as it well know that when we were growing up you knew that smelling the oil, and seeing the grit that would end up automobiles, meant you were breathing stuff that was bad. But you accepted it.  A person could simply look at the grounds of a refinery that had been producing petroleum for 80 years and know that a lot of stuff was under that ground.  But that is probably neither here nor there.

Now, it's a golf course.  That came about in part by way of the settlement of the legal woes left by the long presence of the refinery.  It took a long time to establish, and for quite a while I could watch the heavy equipment reshaping the old grounds from our front conference room window, followed by watching the dust rise off the shaped grounds in the wind. But the grass did take, in spite of what skeptics thought (and I was skeptical that it would) and it looks very nice now. The walking paths within it are nice, and it's a nice park, really, next to the North Platte River.  Probably oddly, the visage would now be more familiar to the departed spirits of Frontier cavalrymen now, who were stationed at nearby Ft. Caspar, than at any time since 1913.

So, from major industry, employing more here locally than anything else in its heyday, to a golf course that costs a lot for its operators to run.  

And from an economic anchor of the town to a non entity, in that fashion, in a town that has only one surviving refinery.

A real change.  You would have thought that I would have paid more attention to it.

Results of the Storm of January, 1916

LOC Title:  RESULTS OF STORM OF JANUARY, 1916; VIEW TO SOUTH FROM NEAR SOUTH END OF PLANT. NOTE SANTA ANA CANAL TUNNEL PORTAL. SCE negative no. 3505, January 28, 1916. Photograph by G. Haven Bishop. Lower photo: SAR-2, RESULTS OF STORM OF JANUARY, 1916; VIEW OF PLANT SITE FROM THE HIGH ON CANYON WALL. SCE negative no. 3506, January 28, 1916. Photograph by G. Haven Bishop. - Santa Ana River Hydroelectric System, Redlands, San Bernardino County, CA

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Diet of a Mountain Man

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Diet of a Mountain Man: We read and watch daily opinions about our overweight society, “Americans are too fat,” we are continually told. Maybe so, today anyway, bu...

Confessions of a Writer of Westerns: Now How Is This Supposed To End?

Confessions of a Writer of Westerns: Now How Is This Supposed To End?: I see so many posts lately about writers block. Writers who get stuck and cannot seem to go on. Seems like I have so many projects going on...

The Big Picture: Some Gave All: Bridger Trail, Wyoming

Some Gave All: Bridger Trail, Wyoming

Monday at the Bar: Courthouses of the West: United States Post Office and Courthouse, Oklahoma...

Courthouses of the West: United States Post Office and Courthouse, Oklahoma...:

This is the 1912 vintage Federal courthouse and post office in Oklahoma City.  This classic courthouse is no longer used for civil or criminal ntrials, having been replaced by a new courthouse nearby, but it is still used for bankruptcy proceedings.  I've been told that the most famous trial to have been held here was the criminal trial of Machine Gun Kelly.

The courthouse was a courthouse of the Western District of Oklahoma, and for a time was used by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals prior to Oklahoma being reassigned to the 10th Circuit.

The United States Supreme Court upholds the Income Tax: January 24, 1916

The United States Supreme Court upheld Federal Income Tax in Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad.

Chilly weather in Browning Montana, Januaryy 24, 1916

In Browning Montana the temperature dropped from 44F to -56F in one day, the greatest such temperature change ever recorded for a 24 hour period.

And more proof that I'm out of the national stream of thought on national sports.

A conversation with a Massachusetts lawyer by telephone last week.

Me:  Okay, well thanks for taking my call.

He:  No problem. Go Pats!

Me:  Huh,. . . um heh heh yeah. (thinking, did he say go Pat?  What the crap).

Only later it dawned on me, the Patriots.  They're one of teams in the playoffs somehow.

At home:

Me:  Are the Patriots in the playoffs?

Long Suffering Wife:  Yes, they're playing the Broncos on Sunday.

Me:  Thinking, oh duh. No wonder.  I'm in Wyoming so I'm supposed to be a Bronco's fan.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Immaculate Conception Church, Rapid City South Dakota

Churches of the West: Immaculate Conception Church, Rapid City South Dakota

This particular church, on our Churches of the West Blog, is the most viewed church on the site.

M26 Pershing

The M26 was really the U.S. Army's first modern tank, and the tank that would establish the pattern for at least three other models. These two videos do a good job of showing the ins and outs of the Pershing.





The M26 saw some use in World War Two, albeit extremely limited.  By the time of the Korean War their teething problems were being noted, but they were already slated for replacement by that time.

The Vietnam War in film

 

 Infantry in Vietnam.

Having recently created the page on Movies In History, listing all the films reviewed on this site, I found that I hadn't reviewed any Vietnam War movies.  I think that is, in part, as I intended to set them all out in one big list, as I have done for movies about incursions into Mexico and about the Battle of Stalingrad.

Each of the movies listed here deserve their own thread, but they'll all be treated together for one single reason.  There really isn't an accurate, Saving Private Ryan, type film about Vietnam.  Something about the war has just kept there from being one. Every movie about the war is politicized in some ways, so the war, which is our most politicized war since the Civil War, continues on to be colored by debate, even in film, and even after the many  years since the war ended.  So here we treat the films all together.

Chances are, I'd note, that some are missing.

The Big Screen

Apocalypse Now.

This film was really the first big budget movie about the Vietnam War if it's about the Vietnam War, and for that reason it got a lot of attention at the time it was released in 1979  I saw the film at that time, while I was in high school, and liked it.

I can't make it through the film now.

Based on the novel Heart of Darkness, which is actually set in Africa in an earlier era, this film adopts the river trip theme of that novel and follows a Special Forces captain on a secret mission up a river, and into Cambodia, to assassinate another Special Forces officer who has gone rogue.

The plot is absurd and anyone familiar with the war itself would find most of the details absurd.  Why must the officer be inserted by boat?  If a B-52 mission is standing by, and it is, why not just bomb the target rather than do this?  The whole thing is really silly.  Dark and moody, but also very silly.

There are a couple of redeeming features to the film but only a couple.  One is the portrayal of a somewhat unhinged 1st Cavalry officer by Robert Duvall.  Portrayed as a satire on professional military men, the character actually holds up well and seems saner over time than he did at the time the movie was made. 

Helicopter scene are really well done, in part because the helicopters are real Philippine Army helicopters that actually had to roar off on real missions while the movie was made. So, they look authentic because they are.  And the Navy riverine boat is well portrayed. 

The rest of the movie doesn't hold up and it isn't close to being an accurate representation of any real war we've ever fought.

On material details, I will say that they are nicely done.

Platoon.

Nearly a decade after Apocalypse Now was filmed, Platoon was released. 

A moody introspective 1986 film about a moody infantryman and the two rival sergeants in his platoon, this film also appealed to me when it was released but it doesn't hold up well in some ways.

The film attempts to portray the somewhat broken Army of the late Vietnam War, but it goes a bit overboard in depicting that. Still, the depiction isn't without some merit.  Where it fails is that the NCOs are shown as way more powerful in context than they really would have been, and the officers way more anemic, even for this strained period.

In terms of event depictions, the concluding enormous battle is also, quite frankly, incorrect.  Big huge assaults by large North Vietnamese Army units happened, but not very often and the depiction of the NVA in the latter part of this film shows a much more conventional and aggressive army than the NVA really was. The experience shown just doesn't depict an experience a real American soldier would have been likely to have endured.

In terms of material details, there are some weird errors in this film, particularly given that the director, Oliver Stone, was a Vietnam veteran.  For example, NCOs are shown carrying CAR-15s rather than M16A1s.  CAR-15s did make an appearance in the Vietnam War in the hands of Special Forces troops, but not regular soldiers, and the inclusion here is really odd.  The film omits any depiction of designated automatic weapon infantrymen, but that detail isn't surprising as its a military detail that only those with service would note. The film goes overboard in the end (in a lot of ways) in showing the recapture of ground by an armored force that's adopted a Nazi German battle flag and is lead by a really fat soldier.  Not very likely.

So, the movie is only so so.

Hamburger Hill.

Of the big budget well known Vietnam films, this one is both the best and the least well known.

Released in 1987, the year after Platoon, this movie is a fictionalized account of the real battle for Hill 937 in 1969. The battle was a Vietnam War anomaly as it featured almost Korean War like conditions in which the U.S. Army assaulted a fortified NVA held hill, taking it.  While North Vietnamese casualties were nearly ten times higher than American ones, the battle itself became infamous in part because it was easy to focus on.  This movie does a good job of following a single squad in that battle.  Completely enlisted man focused, the film is sort of the Battleground of Vietnam War films.  Material details, additionally, are well done.

Oddly, this film received very little attention when it came out.  Platoon, which was a commercial success, but which is not as good of film, came out only a year prior, so that's a bit hard to explain. This film, which sort of recalls the Korean War film Pork Chop Hill, may just have been a bit too conventional in a time at which the Vietnam War was still recalled in the early 1970s fashion.

The Boys In Company C

This 1978 film  predated Apocalypse Now by a year and is almost unknown today.

This film follows a Marine Corps Company through basic training and on to Vietnam. It's really well done, although it certainly shows its 1970s release in terms of its mood.  A much better film than many of the later Vietnam War films, it's a bit marred by its odd ending.

Full Metal Jacket

Full Metal Jacket, which came out in 1987, is one of the more famous Vietnam War films and it did well at the box office.  It has to be mentioned, however, together with The Boys from Company C.

If a person watching The Boys from Company C finds it oddly similar to Full Metal Jacket, that's because it definitely is.  Stanly Kubrick was sued for that very reason and settled the suit.  The film is remarkably similar in following Marines through basic training, with the drill sergeant being played in both films by R. Lee Emery, although he's only of the correct age for that role in the first film.  Indeed, in the first film the portrayal of the DI is more realistic and human and less over the top.  The films depart paths after basic training, however.  The basic training portion of the film, while very profane and with a highly exaggerated DI character, is the best part of the film. The later combat portion of the film really fails.

I don't like this film.  It's weird in the Kubrick fashion and too gritty and unseemly for reality.  Skip it and see The Boys In Company C instead.

We Were Soldiers

Mel Gibson's 2002 We Were Soldiers should be the best Vietnam War film as its based on the book, a straight history, and its the most recently done. Still, it isn't.

The film isn't bad, but it seems to almost attempt to make up for the anti army mood of other Vietnam War movies.  Focused on the 1965 introduction of air cavalry into the Vietnam War, the movie does a good job with material details but it is also the most rah rah Vietnam War movie to have been made since The Green Berets.  It's simply too heroic and too one sided.  The American Army depicted in this film is invincible.

The film was a nice effort, but it's simply too much. Sort of the The Patriot goes to Vietnam.

The Green Berets

The Green Berets was released in 1968, when the war was still on.

It's awful.

Based upon a book written by a journalist, which was a series of short stories based on fact, this film is really bad.  Filmed in South Carolina, it looks it.  The characters are all of the super heroic variety found in some World War Two era films.  John Wayne, who was responsible for the film, starred in it, and he's obviously way too old to be serving in a Special Forces unit.

Horrible movie.  In my view, the worst of the Vietnam War movies, and one of John Wayne's worst.

The Deer Hunter

I hate this movie and have never been able to get through it.

I can hardly describe this film other than to note that it is supposed to follow the service of some close friends in the Special Forces, from their pre war life in Pennsylvania through the post war.  It's just bad.

Included in this film, I'd note, for no known reason is a really long Russian Orthodox wedding scene.  It's endless.

I'd skip this one.

Operation Dumbo Drop

It may seem odd to list this small Disney film to the list, but it's about a real event in the Vietnam War.  Its a highly fictionalized account, but the movie is well done.

One of the odder things about this film is that its one of the few that gets the small unit nature of much of the war right.  The war was a guerrilla war, and in this film its shown that way.  Showing a small Special Forces unit, and small NVA and VC units, the film is quite well done.  It's one of the better Vietnam War films.

In terms of material details, this film also, oddly enough, does a good job for the most part.  Uniforms are actually correct, something that tends to be difficult for movies showing Special Forces units.  The film includes a depiction of a C123 Provider, a Vietnam War era transport aircraft that's hardly ever shown in film.  An odd era is the depiction of one soldier carrying a Browning High Power in a shoulder holster, but given the character's role, perhaps that actually makes sense.

84CharlieMoPic

A small budget Vietnam War era film, this film is also a surprisingly good one.

This film shows the patrol of a Special Forces squad through the eyes of an Army cameraman assigned to accompany the patrol.  His MOS is 84CMoPic, hence the name of the film.  The cameraman is only scene twice in the entire movie.

This movie is good one in showing the small scale nature of much of the war, which it does well.  It's only so so in material details and makes a few errors, but that doesn't detract from the film overall.  One of the better Vietnam War era movies.

Causalities of War

This gut wrenching film is one of the few Vietnam War movies based on actual events, and horrific ones at that.

This movie is based on a real event in which a squad of infantrymen took a Vietnamese girl from a village, assaulted her, and then murdered her. One of the squad refuses to participate and then attempts to report the event, leading to endless frustration of his efforts and his near murder.

Very well done, this film shows the small scale nature of he war and the late war breakdown in the Army.  It's also another film that's remarkably correct in material details.  It stars Michael J. Fox as the infantryman, and Shawn Penn as his sergeant, which is a nice touch in that they're about the right age for their roles and they portray them well.  If the diminutive Fox doesn't seem well cast as an infantryman, perhaps that's the point as after all this was a conscript army in which most of the soldiers were average men.

Tribes

This 1970 movie is one that I haven't seen in many years, but I recall it as being a fairly good film.  It depicts the late Vietnam War incorporation of draftees into the Marine Crops and involves a Drill Instructor's efforts to train one.  Its a clash of culture type of film and was well done.

Bat 21

This is an unusual movie, and one of two of which I'm aware involving pilots.  This one follows the efforts of  an Air Force pilot to extract a shot down Navy pilot.  It's really well done and an engaging story.

The other aircraft movie, by the way, is Flight of the Intruder, which I have not seen.

The Killing Fields

The Killing Fields isn't about the Vietnam War, it's about Cambodia, but generally these wars are regarded as part and parcel of each other.

This is a truly gut wrenching true story and this movie may be the absolute best drama about events in Southeast Asia of that period. More of a drama that a war picture, it's justifiably well regarded.

Good Morning Vietnam

This movie involves a fictionalized version of Adrian Cronauer's service as a USAF disk jockey on Armed Forces Radio in Vietnam. Set fairly early in the war, it's well done and showed the late Robin William's dramatic range.

The film suffers in a few material details, but not many, and of course it's not a combat movie.

The Odd Angry Shot.

We're so used to thinking of the Vietnam War that we tend to forget that it wasn't an exclusively American war by any means.  Indeed, the ARVN contributed the biggest combat force in defense of South Vietnam.

A major contributor can be found in Australia.  Indeed, it's often forgotten, including by the Australians themselves, that the Australians urged the US to get into South Vietnam well before the Americans had any intention of doing so and they threatened to enter the fight themselves if the US did not.  

Now, the war tends to be remembered by Australians as something we got them into, which isn't at all correct.  But no matter, the fact that it was a significant Australian war means that it should not surprise us that Australia has produced its own move about the war, The Odd Angry Shot.

I haven't seen this film in years, but I do recall liking it, except for its overly cynical view about American soldiers. The film follows a group of Australian SAS troops on a tour of duty in South Vietnam.  It's a small action film, unlike any major move that the US has produced.  And not a bad one.

The Small Screen.

Perhaps not too surprising, the Vietnam War has made its appearance on the small screen as well as the large.  Some television series set in the war were done, with one being well remembered.

China Beach

Moody in the extreme, China Beach concerned the lives of Army nurses and doctors a the real location of  China Beach, in Vietnam.

I liked this series at the time, but it became moodier and moodier and less realistic as it went on.  Running from 1988 through 1991, the series oddly attempted to incorporate infantrymen into the story line on an individual basis, something that would not have occurred in the same way in real life.  Efforts to explore the lives of the characters post war were well intentioned but bleak.

Tour of Duty

Tour of Duty followed a single infantry platoon in the war during a three year run.

I haven't seen an episode of this since probably 1988 or so, and I didn't seen how the series ended as I was in law school and lacked a television.  But the series was well done to the extent I remember it. 

No television series involving a single combat unit had been done for a long time, and all the prior ones I can recall concerned World War Two, so this series is somewhat unique.  Nothing like it has been done since.  Of interest, it's more of a small action film, rather than a big battle film, which more accurately predicts the experiences of most US troops than the movies tend to in that regards.

Gomer Pyle, USMC

What!!???

Gomer Pyle isn't about the Vietnam War!  I can hear the exclamations now.

That's right, it isn't, and that's my point.

This series was a spinof of the Andy Griffith Show and it took Mayberry mechanic Gomer Pyle into the USMC as he followed JFK's injunction to "Ask now what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country".  Pyle heeds the President's words and joins the Marines.

Intended to be a charming comedy, it tends to be forgotten that the series ran from 1964 to 1969.  So, the series commences one year prior to the Marines landing at Da Nang and it ended after the Tet Offensive.  None the less, the war just doesn't show up in the series.  Bizarre.  About the only concession to a war actually going on is late in the series when Jim Neigbhors, who played Pyle, and who was an accomplished musician, is seen singing "Blowing In The Wind" with some hippies. By that point, I suspect, the producers of the show knew that it was badly out of sink with the views then held by the American public.

The point of including this here is to issue a caveat about looking at contemporary films as accurately reflecting the events of their time.  In some decades they do, in others they very much do not.  Films of the 1940s never ignore the ongoing overriding event of the day, World War Two.  Films made during the Depression tend to reflect its ongoing existence. But films of the 1960s generally do not tend to reflect the era.  Hollywood was making beach films with the stars of the 1950s well into the late 1960s, for example. And on television, Gomer Pyle was serving in a Marine Corps that looked like the World War Two era Marine Corps, was equipped like it, and it wasn't at war. 

What's not listed here?

I admit, as many Vietnam War films as I've seen, I haven't seen them all. The ones that I know I've missed are The Flight of the Intruder and Tigerland.

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Related Pages:

Movies In History:  The List