The Korean War in Film

 American infantryman, Korean War.  He's equipped in the archetypal Korean War fashion, as he's carrying an M1 Carine oddly equipped with a grenade launcher, he has two rifle grenades in the pocket of his M1943 or M1951 field jacket (they differ only in shade of OD) and his wearing M1943 combat boots, a pattern common to the war but already obsolete by several years.  next to him is a Soviet light machinegun.

I recently posted an item on the Vietnam War in film, and therefore can hardly ignore the Korean War, although its a somewhat ignored war in any event.  Certainly, in terms of movies, it's easy to count the number or really well known Korean War films on one hand, in contrast with the numerous ones that an average movie viewer could name that involve Vietnam, let alone World War Two, the two wars it came between.

Still, the Korean War was a major war with nearly as many casualties from 1950 to 1954 as the Vietnam War had between 1958 and 1975.  That says something about the war in and of itself. So, why are so few films well known?

Well, coming between the World War Two ,and the Vietnam Wary, would help explain it.  Just being that close to World War Two alone may explain it. But there are few worth noting, and probably a lot more than I'm not familiar with and should know.  Indeed, after I decided to post this item, I found that there are, in fact, a lot of Korean War films, a lot of which were filmed in the 1950s. We just don't hear about them.

We look at a few here, in no particular order.

Pork Chop Hill.

Pork Chop Hill is the best known, and probably the best American, film on the Korean War.  Featuring Gregory Peck  as an infantry commander who leads an assault on the hill, the film is one of the very few films ever made which actually show artillery explosions looking like they really do in real life.

This drama depicts a real battle, although its a fictionalized account.  It's probably the only one of these films anyone hears of, because it is a very good film and didn't get drowned out by later Vietnam War films.  It was released in 1959.

It has, I should note, an interesting feel to it.  It doesn't feel like either the fairly heroic films about World War Two, or the more cynical films about the Vietnam War.  Perhaps that's also why its around still.  It gets the feel of the Korean War, to Americans, right.

Material details in this film are excellently done, which is no surprise as it was filmed relatively soon after the end of the war.  The film uniquely portrays the introduction of body armor, which did come in during the Korean War.

The Steel Helmet

The Steel Helmet is a Korean War film known to at least Sam Fuller fans as he wrote and directed it.

The film was released in 1951, during the early stages of the war itself, and is really gritty in the Fuller fashion.  Fuller's most famous war picture is The Big Red One about World War Two, but fans of that movie will see some common elements in this one, including a cigar chomping soldier (Fuller was a cigar fan) and a soldier (the same character in The Steel Helmet, as opposed to two different characters in The Big Red One) who is a retread from an earlier war.  Indeed, a couple of characters are in this Fuller film.

This film is only okay, and definitely not great.  It appears to have been filmed mostly on set, maybe entirely on set, and it shows it.  It is sort of a military film noire, which if a person is familiar with Fuller, makes sense.

In material details, this film is only so so, which probably reflects the budget and the studio filming.

M*A*S*H

This title will appear twice here, once up here in the films and once down below in regards to television.  The reviews will be distinctly different.

This movie is probably  the most famous movie set during the Korean War, but don't fool yourself, it's really about Vietnam.

Okay, I know that the film is set in Korea, and I also know that it's based in the legendary novel by a surgeon who actually served in a MASH unit during the Korean War, but the film, even though it follows the plot line of the novel, is so heavily infused with a late Vietnam War atmosphere that it dominates the film.  Korea is only a backdrop to the move.

Which is a shame, as that really wrecks the movie in my view.

The books is a heavily satiric, and indeed somewhat sophomoric, look at a Korean War MASH unit.  But it is a very good book and uniquely catches the dialog and atmosphere of the times.  Richard Altman's movie version, however, feels like a late satiric Vietnam War film.  All in all, in spite of how well this film is regarded, I'd skip it.

In terms of material details, while I don't like the film, it is very well done.

 The Bridges at Toko-Ri

This 1954 film was based on a novel by James Michener which was well regarded at the time.

I frankly don't like this film about Navy pilots in the Korean War, perhaps simply because of the feel of the film.  It looks and feels like a Hollywood film, and therefore the feel is just wrong.  And it has something of the strange small scene feel to it that some films of this era do.  Like quite a few of the Korean War era films I've watched but can't recall for this thread, it seems sort of lost in time and it strikes me it sort of was at the time it was made.

Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War

This is a South Korean movie, and it is what Saving Private Ryan is to the U.S. Army in World War Two in the context of the South Korean Army and the Korean War.

I've only seen part of this film, unfortunately, but the parts I've seen are excellent. The title is somewhat literal as it follows the fate of two brothers during the Korean War.  It's an extremely gritty film and uniquely portrays a South Korean viewpoint towards the war.  Perhaps because this film is relatively recent, it's production values are much better than almost any other Korean War film.

Fixed Bayonets

I know that I've seen this film, but can't recall much about it other than that I wasn't particularly impressed.

This movie is a 1951 character study about a soldier forced into leadership as his unit faces horrific attrition.  Filmed surprisingly early in the war, the film has a not too surprising small scene feel to it.  I've seen the whole movie, but it didn't make enough of an impression on me to really be remembered.  I recall at least the North Korean details of the film being materially weak.

This film also suffers, like many Korean War films, from the odd aspect of depicting Korea as basically empty. The units are extremely isolated.  In reality, Korean is a densely populated peninsula.

Take the High Ground

Take the High Ground is one of two films made in the 1950s which portrayed basic training, the other being the classic The D.I.  Interestingly, although there had been over a million men through military training at the time, both films were set in the times in which they films, with the 1953 Take The High Ground set during the Korean War.  Perhaps that's because basic training of that type had only recently actually been institutionalized, with much of the fairly recent World War Two training having been under somewhat different systems.

This is a film I've seen but don't recall well.  From what I recall, however, it does a good job of getting the feel of Korean War basic training right.  After the Korean War, probably to the surprise of many, Amy basic training moved towards Marine Corps basic training and became more like it, up until the introduction of women in basic training platoons.  That's reflected in part by the fact that DI's in this film are depicted correctly in uniforms that did not feature the M1911 Campaign Hat, which was something that was reintroduced by the Marines for DI's and then latter adopted by the Army.

Strategic Air Command

This isn't a Korean War movie per se, but deals with a topic that's sort of Korean War themed and it was filmed at the tail end of the Korean War.

This film deals with the recall of a World War Two pilot into the Air Force.  That happened quite a bit during the Korean War, but this film oddly decides to put that pilot into the Strategic Air Command instead of Korean combat. So, no Ted William's moments (recalled fro professional baseball into the Marine Corps as a pilot). 

The film is melodramatic in my recollection and not a good one, in spite of featuring Jimmy Stewart, who had been a real World War Two bomber pilot.

Television

M*A*S*H

Okay, now down to the perhaps even more recalled television series M*A*S*H..

This is one Korean War drama that nearly anyone who owns a television has to recall, as it's still on television all the time as a rerun.

I was a fan of this series as a kid, but I have mixed feelings about it now, even though I'll occasionally catch it as rerun even now. Well acted and written, the very long running and hugely popular television series was billed as a comedy when it was first released, even though it was a dark comedy even then. While it always had comedic elements, as the series progressed towards its final seasons it was heavily moving towards being a drama.

The series varies distinctly from its early, middle and late seasons.  The early seasons are extremely faithful to the book and do a better job of portraying the feel of the book than the later seasons.  The middle seasons were perhaps the most comedic, and the late ones the most dramatic.

While this series was enormously popular, its only the really early ones that get the feel of the book, and to some extent, the Korean War, right.  The series ran so long that the tour nature of the war, in which servicemen were in the war for only a little over a year, is completely lost.  Running much longer than the war itself, the series began to have sort of a peculiar feel to it, for those history minded.

One thing worth noting about the series, as compared to the movie, is that the Radar Reilly character, who is played by Gary Burgoff in both the film and the series, and is the only actor to make that transition, was played much differently in the series.  The movie portrays the character much more accurately than the series, outside of its first couple of years, as the movie (and the first year or so of the series) accurately reflects that character as a cynical devious professional soldier, as opposed to the lovably childlike character he later became in the series.

On material details, the most accurate ones in terms of materiality are the early ones, but the series never became bad in these regards.

The Phil Silvers Show

This one is another one which, like Gomer Pyle USMC in the Vietnam War list, will surprise people.

The Phil Silvers Show is better remembered as Sgt. Bilko, about whom it was concerned.  The show actually was introduced in the last year of the Korean War, even though it addresses the war in no way whatsoever.  It really shows, however, how common and even comfortable poeple had become with military life, such that a show focused on it, as a comedy, would be popular.

It can't be regarded as accurate in any fashion, but it's interesting to note its existence at the time.  This series involved a devious career enlisted soldier stationed in the United States.  The war isn't a factor in the series at all, which seems rather strange in context.

The Big Speech: Acts of cowardice

It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been committed for fear of not looking sufficiently progressive.

Charles Pierre Péguy Notre Patrie, 1905

Advertisments in History: 2016 Super Bowl Jeep Ads

Jeep apparently ran two ads during the 2016 Super Bowl. Both are getting a lot of discussion.

Unlike Chrysler's series of adds recalling their founders, Jeep's ads are not focused on one single episode, but they do incorporate their past in an interesting fashion, noting that they've been around now for 75 years. The one getting the most press is their black and white stills ad, which is a still in all but one photo.  One photo features a moving tear.

It's quite well done, and it nicely recalls its military history.

The other does just a bit as well, but just a bit.

Odd headline: Mike Coffman, Jared Polis want to end the military draft

From the Denver Post.

Polis is a Colorado Congressman who is sponsoring a bill in  Congress with others.  The oddity of the headline is the assertion that it seeks "to end the military draft".

The US hasn't drafted anyone since 1973.

What the bill really proposes to do is to end the Selective Service System, which cost the US taxpayer $23,000,000 per year.

Abolishing it makes sense as the US isn't going to be drafting anyone and, based on past experience, it is capable of creating a conscription service pretty rapidly.  It did it in the low tech age of the Civil War, then again during World War One, then again, starting in 1940, for World War Two, and then again after World War Two for the Cold War.  If we had another big crisis like that we could get it done.

But we don't need it for the wars we're fighting now and we know that.

Random Snippets: Red state, Blue state?

 Lamartine rejects the red flag in 1848.

Red is the international color of socialism.  Socialist parties use, or used, it everywhere.  Communist nations, whose economic system was socialist, almost all used red flags. France's socialist party uses a red rose as its symbol.

So how did we, in the US, end up with red states and blue states?  It truly confuses me. The red states are the most conservative ones, and the blue states the  most liberal ones. The US doesn't have very many true socialist, but on a red blue scale shouldn't that be reversed?

___________________________________________________________________________________

Postscript

I posted this originally on September 9, 2014.

Since that time one surprising thing that has occurred is that  a bonafide socialist, Bernie Sanders, has not only been running within the Democratic Party for the Presidency, but he's been doing well in his run.  He beat Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire yesterday and he nearly beat her in Iowa a couple of weeks ago.  Lots of young people, perhaps not really knowing what they are declaring, are now self identifying as socialist.

Which makes the press's ongoing use of the "red state" moniker to describe Republican states nonsensical and moronic.  In this election, we have one person who really identifies with the red rose of socialism.  In her effort to try to head him off at the Democratic pass, the other candidate is lurching towards the left.  Just last week the socialist declared Wall Street to be a "broken model" and Clinton has been trying to distance herself from Wall Street, which of course is in her own adopted home state.  And there's no longer hardly any pretense in the Democratic Party this year of not being a left wing party.

So, press, red is the color of the hard left. Fix your analogy.

Mid Week at Work: Delivering the mail in Washington D.C., 1919.

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Jerk Line

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Jerk Line: The Jerk Line Reading a book this weekend about moving freight in the old west. For this post, the old west would be after people star...

The Big Picture: Library of Congress illustration of Canterbury Tales.

A fine example of what's wrong with our Supreme Court.

Apparently, before the Iowa caucus, somebody asked Hillary Clinton about pulling a Taft.

 Chief Justice, and former President, William Howard Taft in 1922.

Hillary Clinton was apparently wowed on Tuesday by the idea of appointing President Obama to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Clinton responded to an audience member during a campaign event who noted the next president will likely have a lot of Supreme Court appointments, report the Des Moines Register and the New York Times First Draft blog. The speaker wondered if Obama would be one of them.

“Wow, what a great idea,” Clinton said. “Nobody has ever suggested that to me. Wow. I love that.”

Clinton said “wow” one more time “as if giving herself an extra second to think of a good answer,” First Draft says.

As you will recall, William H. Taft, the nation's 27th President was later the 10th Justice of the Supreme Court.  Taft had actually always preferred the law over politics, and it was the Presidency that turned out to be a frustrating aberration for him.

Now, President Obama is certainly young enough to be in the Kindergarten of the current Supreme Court, given that some Supreme Court justice are positively ancient. But why would he make a good Supreme Court justice?  Well, let's check back in with Candidate Clinton.

“I’ll be sure to take that under advisement,” she said. “I mean, he’s brilliant. He can set forth an argument, and he was a law professor, so he’s got all the credentials. Now, we do have to get a Democratic Senate to get him confirmed.”

Oh, he has credentials.  And she lists them.  Let's look at those, they are:  1) he can argue, and 2) he was a professor.

Eh?

Those aren't credentials for anything other than being law professor.  And its sad that those the credentials for being that.

What law firms was he in?  Who was he an associate for?  What cases did he argue in court? What big contracts did he draft?  That's the law.

Academic law isn't the law.

And that's part of what's wrong with the United States Supreme Court.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Union Congregationalist Church, Buffalo Wyoming

Churches of the West: Union Congregationalist Church, Buffalo Wyoming:

An Auto Repair Tsunami

It all started, I think, this fall, when I was elk hunting late in the season.

I went up high into the Big Horns, high enough that I really couldn't get any higher without chaining up, and as I didn't want to do that, I decided to hike from there.

Now, as luck would have it, last year I blew a tire coming down out of the Big Horns, doing the very same thing, so I knew my tires were a bit iffy.  But tires are expensive, and therefore I didn't buy new ones.  I could get more miles on the tires of the 07 D3500, I was pretty sure.  I don't drive it as much as I used to, since I bought the Jeep.  And I did keep those tires for a year.

 The Jeep has frankly seen a lot more use than I originally thought it was.  A 1997, and one that had been in a wreck when it was nearly new, it became my daily driver when I hadn't planned on that.

Well, a second blow out coming down out of the Big Horns ended that, and I had to replace a tire.  And you can't replace just one tire. So, rather than get all four, I got two.  This past fall.

Well, a couple of months ago I went to Cody.  And while I do drive my Jeep around here everyday, I don't drive it on the highway for trips.  I use the D3500 for that.  It's newer, and it has fewer miles on it.

It's also diesel.

And, given its 07 vintage, it has a diesel particulate filter.

Now, diesel particulate filters are a bit of a pain, as they clog up. And when I bought this Jeep the Cummins engine it features was in the first year of production. For a year or two I had problems with the filter.  But after a couple recalls and some work at the dealership on the lines, that stopped being a problem entirely.

Until the trip to Cody.

Now, the check engine light had been on since I came back out of the hills a week or so from elk hunting.  But usually a few miles on the highway stops that.  Not this time.  And on my last day in Cody, I got the warning form the system that the filter was 80% blocked and I should go to the dealership immediately.  A call to a really good diesel shop here in Casper revealed that I could, however, make it home if I didn't idle, and I didn't stop.  Indeed, while driving that old familiar smell of the system burning off the gunk was there, and the message stopped.

So it went to the shop.

Where it developed that, after 130,000 miles and a decade of use, it's filter system and exhaust was completely shot, and had to be replaced. 

Which isn't cheap.

But it sure added the power to it, I have to say.

So, about a month goes by and my son announces that the door of the 1997 D1500 will no longer close.  It's always been problematic.  So I went out and looked at it and found this:

Not good.

I think this truck had something happen to it before we owned it, and the kind attention its given in our hands wasn't always the case.  Anyhow, I took it down to the body shop and they welded it up and fixed it.  This is a lot cheaper than replacing the door, but it isn't free.

And that meant my son had to drive my Jeep to school, and I drove the D3500 to work.

I'd noticed when I had driven it the day prior ti seemed to drive a little funny.  But yesterday on the way to work the ABS light went on.  At noon, I had to drive to the DOT and I was loosing my brakes. When I came out of the DOT it was so bad that I knew I had to get it into the shop.  I debated the topic and clearly couldn't make it to my regular mechanics, so I limped it in to another shop I sometimes use that's close to my office, by which time, taking the back streets, it was really driving in crisis mode and making terrible sounds.

When I got out, I saw this.

Wheel should not be sitting at that angle.

Wheel bearings.

But it gets better, turns out that there was a problem with the front axle and my tie rod is having issues also.

Uff.

Well, it has 130,000 miles on it. So, even though the engines keep on keeping on beyond that now, not everything does, of course. So, I guess I'm at the rebuilding a few things stage, which is cheaper than buying something new, but not cheap.

And I don't like to replace my vehicles much.  My does, and would keep up with new ones all the time but for my huge disinclination to do that.  Indeed, I don't ever see myself replacing any of the vehicles I have and use right now, which of course doesn't mean that everything on them will work forever.  But the unexpected ways the repairs arrive is really the pits.

Lex Anteinternet: Killing people and breaking things. . . and women ...and going from stupidity to barbarity

A couple of years ago we ran this item, on the then new requirement (still not fully implemented) of requiring the Marine Corps to integrate basic training:

Lex Anteinternet: Killing people and breaking things. . . and women ...:  The Women's Mounted Emergency Corps.  "A mounted emergency corps of women has been organized as an auxiliary to the Second Fie...

Following that the Marine Corps briefly balked, leading to some proper speculation if they'd refuse to comply, but they fell in line, as indeed they have no choice but to do.

This past week, they were so in line that the senior commander of the USMC joined the senior commander of the Army to suggest that women should now be required to register for the draft.

There's something really anti natural, and barbarous about that.

No society, ever, has conscripted women as soldiers.  It's already acknowledged by all that women, by and large, have a hard time getting through combat training for physical reasons.

It hasn't been acknowledged, but should be, that women's psychological and physiological differences are such that most are not suitable to be combat soldiers.  They are suitable to be victims of assault, which a high percentage of female military personnel are, however.  And they are, of course suitable to bear life, which instantly  makes them unsuitable to be soldiers if that occurs.

And it does occur.  Recently the Stars and Stripes has been running photographs fairly frequently of female service personnel feeding babies the natural and original way, as there's a controversy on how to accommodate this while in uniform.

Conscripting women is, simply put, barbarous.

A Columbus Raid Film Competition.

Columbus Raid Film Competition.

Part of Columbus New Mexico's commemoration of the 1916 raid on the town by Villistas.

Hmmm. . . blog glitch

I have no idea why I have that odd snipped in the post below, and I can't clear it up.

My apologies, some computer glitch going on there.

Thanks a bunch Bundys, you ignorant twits

What I feared would happen when the Bundy's and their fellow travelers occupied Federal property has started to.

This isn't going result in the land "going back" anywhere.

It's instead revived a semi-dormant "kick the ranchers off the public land" movement.

I've seen one article in a Californian newspaper, one major syndicated columnist argues for this, and one column in the always greenish High Country News argue for this.  

All suffer from an understanding of the true nature of the leasing of the public land, which is not "welfare" in any sense.  I'll revisit that later.  But the delusional illegal and now bloodstained occupation of a wildlife refuge by the Bundy’s has revived the cries of "welfare rancher" and "get the ranchers of the public lands".

Thanks, Bundy's.  You delusional bunch if ignorant fools.

Ranchers in the West went through this before. This line of thought was popular in the 1980s with there being many "environmental" organizations that have, as core tenant that the Federal domain should not be leased and basically should not be used. They're as delusional about the impacts of their argument as Bundy and his fellow travelers and understand very little about the nature of what they propose.  In fact, the Federal domain is that because it was the land not worth homesteading prior to 1932 when all Federal land was withdrawn from that use, but it's always been land that has been grazed.  The overwhelming majority of ranchers today do not abuse that land in any fashion and in fact they typically make improvements to it that benefit wildlife as well as their own livestock. And, if the ranchers weren't grazing it, more often than not the ranches themselves would become ranchettes and housing developments, which are the death of the wild.  True environmentalist ought to be lauding ranchers rather than condemning them.

But that's hard when you have a bunch of delusional people like the Bundy’s who are supported by people who are hostile the United States and who would "take back" what they never owned.  Right now, this group of delusional people seems to include the Republican legislators of Utah.

Well, people who start wars cannot control where they end up, and people who only listen to their own propaganda rarely are aware of how much in a minority they are.  In this country in this day and age most people are not in agriculture and making an enemy of them, which is what the Bundy’s and their buddies are doing, ends one way, and that's not the way anyone who is involved in Western agriculture wants it to end.  Seriously, did the Bundy’s think that they were going to achieve anything?

If they did, they should have been made to live in New York City for a year.  Maybe a tour of the East would have the same eye opening effect on them that it did on Red Cloud. I.e., "we aren't going go to win this fight."

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: