Child Labor on Connecticut Tobacco Farms, August 6, 1917.

We posted a similar series of these Hines photographs depicting child labor in Connecticut tobacco fields just the other day.  If anything, these photographs  seem to show a younger group of farm laborers at work.

 This depicts a "second picking" of Connecticut tobacco.

While Hines was attempting to document child and teenage labor in an effort to address its abuses, scenes like this were not uncommon in American agriculture at the time.  They would not have come to a surprise as the residents of Connecticut or anywhere in the East at the time.

 Girls "stringing" tobacco.

 Age 10.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Community Federated Church, Thermopolis Wyoming

Churches of the West: Community Federated Church, Thermopolis Wyoming:

This is the Community Federated Church of Thermopolis, Wyoming, which serves a combined Methodist and Presbyterian congregation, the first church serving a combined congregation that I've run across, although something similar exists in regards to an upcoming post for Basin Wyoming.

The Church is a classic modern Gothic style church, but otherwise I know nothing about it.

Best Post of the Week of July 30, 1917

Mid Week At Work: Tobacco; Child and Teenage Labor, August 2, 1917

August 2, 1917: The Green Corn Rebellion of 1917 breaks out.

Today In Wyoming's History: August 5, 1917. National Guardsmen Conscripted.

Today In Wyoming's History: August 5, 1917. National Guardsmen Conscripted.

 Mustered Illinois National Guardsmen, August 4, 1917.

From:  Today In Wyoming's History: August 5: 

1917 The entire National Guard, only recently released from duty due to the crisis with Mexico, and then recalled due to the outbreak of World War One, was conscripted into the U.S. Army. The technicality of conscription was necessary due to an Adjutant General's opinion that the National Guard could not serve overseas.

This is an interesting and in some ways curious event.  Unlike mobilizations that would come subsequent to World War One, how exactly to muster the National Guard into Federal Service wasn't entirely clear.  You would think, the Guard having been recently Federalized for border service, that it would have been, but it wasn't.

The real oddity that developed concerned the deployment of Guardsmen overseas.  It had long been presumed that Federalized militia, then being in Federal service, could serve overseas.  Indeed, Federalized militia had served overseas before.  The militia mobilized for the Mexican War served in Mexico, and militia Federalized for the Spanish American War, including those units then called "National Guard" units, had served in both Cuba and the Philippines.  Indeed, National Guard units had fought in the Philippine Insurrection, our first foreign war against guerilla insurgents.

In practical terms there was no earthly way that the United States could even contemplate fighting in France in the Great War without the National Guard.  Quite a few Regular Army officers hated the idea and resentment against the Guard dating back to the late 19th Century was pretty strong.  But the Guard made up about half of the body of men who were armed, uniformed, and at least theoretically prepared to fight.  Moreover, mobilization for Punitive Expedition had sharpened their abilities. They had to go.

Unfortunately for the Wilson Administration, the Adjutant General of the United States Army didn't think they could.  His opinion, a really questionable one at that, was that Guardsmen were only liable for duty in the Continental United States.  This was based on his reading of "Militia Clause" of the United States Constitution, which noted that state militia's cold be called out to "execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrection and repel invasions."  The war with Germany was not, he reasoned, any of those, and therefore the National Guard could only serve domestically.  This problem had to be solved, and easily was, by conscripting them all. . .which occurred on this date in 1917.

Rural Heritage Economics of Farming with Horses

Rural Heritage Economics of Farming with Horses

An interesting look at the economics of this topic, which is one we don't usually consider.

ROTC TURNS 100: UConn and Military Training, Part One: The Early Years, 1893-1920

ROTC TURNS 100: UConn and Military Training, Part One: The Early Years, 1893-1920

August 2, 1917: The Green Corn Rebellion of 1917 breaks out.

 Oklahoma farm boys, April 1917. These kids are not in school but are tending their father's mules.

On  this date in 1917 a rare, inter-racial rebellion broke out against Conscription.

The rebellion took place in a state which, at that time, was a center of radical politics.

Oklahoma.

 Oklahoma City, just northwest of the location of the rebellion, if a world away, in 1917.

As earlier newspaper entries on this site no doubt make plain, conscription in the United States in 1917, the first "draft" since the Civil War, was largely met with acceptance and even enthusiasm.  Young American men had flocked to join the service prior to conscription being passed and newspapers publicly shamed areas that didn't seem to be rallying around the flag.  When conscription came it was billed, in part, as a means of filling the ranks of the service in an orderly fashion, as "selective service", not the heavy hand of compulsory service in a war to be fought in Europe.  But not everyone bought into that, and it is clear even from the newspaper headlines early on that there were a notable number of men who said "no".

The newspapers billed these men as "shirkers" and went so far as to warn young women that men who shirked would surely keep on shirking and shirk their duties as husbands, and therefore should be avoided as marriage candidates.  Arrests occurred early on.  But in Seminole County, Oklahoma, things went a lot further than that.

 Boy cultivating peas in Oklahoma, 1917.

The Sooner state, at that time, was of course heavily agricultural, as it remains today. But at that time it also had a large population of tenant farmers combined with a large number of poor farmers who had lost their lands in the prior two years when 60% of the mortgaged farms in the state failed and were foreclosed upon.  Farming in the state, contrary to the way we tend to imagine it at the time, was heavily concentrated in commercial farming, such as cotton farming, which made for both situations.  In a time when agriculture was otherwise doing very well, this was no doubt severely galling.  It also made some sense that this was the situation as Oklahoma had only been a state since 1907.  The state had only been open to entry since the late 19th Century and therefore it came into agricultural production quite late, and at a period when industrial farming was expanding.

These men and their families were poor, young, mostly uneducated, migrants from the rural South.  In the teens they were also, interestingly, unionized and radically politicized to a surprising degree, with many of them joining the Working Class Union and the Socialist Party. The Socialist Party in Oklahoma, leading up to World War One, was the largest in the United States, having 57,000 members in 1914.  The Socialist did well in the 1916 election in Oklahoma and the WCU was doing well also, finding large scale membership in a rural expression of the same sentiments that were causing the IWW to do well elsewhere.  The WCU, moreover, took to direct action against its opponents.  Acts of violence were becoming common.  Interestingly, in a true example of economic disadvantage overcoming ethnicity, as the forces surrounding the WCU were interracial, including whites, blacks and Native Americans, and mixtures of all three.

The WCU, like the IWW, opposed conscription on philosophical and economic grounds.  By late July the WCU and its fellow travelers had decided to attempt a march on Washington from Oklahoma, quite a fanciful endeavor really given the distance and the costs of such an action at the time.  Something went badly wrong, however, as on this day people associated with the movement ambushed the Seminole County sheriff and two of his deputies near a tributary of the Canadian River.  The lawmen had been investigating radical activities in the area and were forced to retreat, albeit unharmed.  Almost immediately thereafter raiding parties went out by the movement. These actions were surprisingly successful, with telegraph wires being torn down and railroad bridges being burnt, no mean feats really.

The next day somewhat under 1000 rebels gathered on the banks of the South Canadian River and made plans to march overland to Washington D. C. more or less Sherman style, living off the land as they went.  They gathered at the "old man" Spears farm under the Confederate Stars and Bars banner which Spears had raised several days prior (so maybe they were planing on actually advancing Nathan Bedford Forest style?)  Rather obviously that idea was rather far fetched and when met with local opposition, including traitors in their midst, they disbanded.  Posses did hunt down participants for a period of weeks thereafter and there were shots fired in some of those encounters.  Three people died in the rebellion and about 150 sentenced to short or long prison sentences, many of whom were pardoned.

Farm hands working asparagus field, Oklahoma 1917.

This insurrection is mostly forgotten, but it was not insignificant.  For one thing, it wasn't small.  1,000 or so rebels is a fairly large number.  Additionally, it interestingly fits nearly halfway between the two recalled eras of draft protests in that it was almost equidistant from the Civil War to the protest period of the Vietnam War.  In some ways, it recalls both, while still being unique.  With a strong Southern yeoman element to it, it in some ways recalled the Southern yeoman resistance to the draft in the South during the Civil War which, in some areas, turned to insurrection.  With a strong radicalized tinge to it, it also foreshadowed resistance to involvement in the "foreign war" of Vietnam.  Of course, it was also its own event in history and time.

And for the "Green Corn"? Well, opinions differ. Some claimed that the event came at the end of a Green Corn observance on the part of one of the local Indian Tribes, others claim that it was because the rebels, in their intended march on Washington, intended to live on roasted appropriated beef and green corn.

Mid Week At Work: Tobacco; Child and Teenage Labor, August 2, 1917

Three boys, one of 13 years old and two of 14, picking shade-grown tobacco on Hackett farm, Buckland, Connecticut.

We don't think of Connecticut as "tobacco country" anymore, but it, as well as Maryland, once were.

Indeed, they still are, to those in the know.  Connecticut Shade Tobacco is used for premium cigar wrappers.  It is now, and it was also in 1917.

 Teenage labor on "second picking"

It's a quite crop.  Those who grow it, and its little changed in how its grown in harvested over the past two centuries, tend to keep it quite.  Tobacco growing isn't the "down on the farm" type of crop that engenders a romantic vision.

Twelve year old girl "passing" leaves to stringers, tobacco-shed, Buckland, Connecticut 

Of course, we also don't associate child labor, or teenage labor, with tobacco either. But that was also once common. 

Child and teenage labor, Tobacco shed, Vernon, Connecticut.

Child and teenage tobacco workers.  $1.25 per day.  Connecticut.

Child labor, and some teenage.  Ages 9 to 15.  Connecticut.

Growing the crop hasn't changed much over the past century.  But harvesting it through child labor has.

Echoes of political disruption near and far

And, after just coming into office, Gen. Kelly engineered the canning of Anthony "The Mooch" Scaramucci.

Well, good riddance in my view, if for no other reason than that he's yet another graduate of Harvard Law School, which he credits with his success in business.  Harvard (and Yale) law schools seem to be the golden ticket, which they should not be. Graduate from a law school and you ought to be required to try at least a dozen small claims cases.  If you haven't, the bread line for you.

While having gone to Harvard Law School is reason enough, in my view, to get the axe, an additional reason centered on his volatile personality and in particular the language he used in an interview with a New Yorker reporter.  That latter event unfortunately says something about the nature of a lot of language in the law, I fear, as lawyers are pretty bad about using off color language amongst themselves.  Of course, American speech has coarsened enormously over recent years anyhow, so this is yet another example of how the public tends to be shocked by language used in one camp that they may very well, in some circumstances, use themselves.  There was a lot of "we can't even repeat this" in the press, but quite frankly language of that type, no matter how disgustingly vulgar, is pretty common.

Not that the wealthy Scaramucci is destined for the breadline.

Of interest, the Italian American Scaramucci was raised in a Catholic family but has been married twice.  His second wife Deidre Ball. filed for divorce from Scaramucci after a few years of marriage and having one child with him, and while being second with another, citing her dislike of Donald Trump as a reason.

Closer to home Cindy Hill resurfaced on the front page of the local paper again when her defamation suit against Tim Stubson was dismissed. That it would be dismissed was widely regarded as inevitable by anyone with a legal background so that's no surprise.  She, however, was not taking it gracefully as she was complaining in print about the judge who rendered the decision and indicating in a less than graceful way that she'd appeal the decision to the  Wyoming Supreme Court.  No doubt she will, where the decision of the lower court will be affirmed.

Stubson's comments, which appeared on Facebook related to his reasons and that of those in his camp regarding the bill that was found unconstitutional that basically deprived her of power. That bill was at the center of a full scale war in the GOP between what we might term the old guard and radical tea partyers.  That war seems to have died down and the tea party camp basically lost, or at least they've been fairly quiet for some time.  Stubson would be Congressman now but for LeLand Christensen, or put another way LeLand Christensen would be Congressman now but for Stubson, as they split the majority of the GOP vote, Christensen taking 22% and Stubson 17.7%.  That opened the door to Liz Cheney getting the nomination with 39% of the vote. That presumes, of course, that which ever, Stubson or Christensen, would have picked up the balance if the other had not been there, but I suspect that they would have.  Cheney, of course, having one will basically be Congressman for life and Wyoming never turns out an incumbent in Congress or in the Governor's seat.

Today In Wyoming's History: August 1, 1917. The Senate goes after alcohol and the Pope appeals to end the war.

Two items from Today In Wyoming's History: August 1 of interest here:

1917  The United States Senate passes the text of the 18th Amendment to be sent to the states for ratification.   It read:

Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all the territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

The US entry into World War One spurred prohibition on, oddly enough, over concerns about the exposure to alcohol to young men that military service would bring about.  Congress had already passed a law prohibiting beverage alcohol within so many miles of military reservations, bringing prohibition to Cheyenne due to the presence of Ft. D. A. Russell there, and banning it on U.S. Territories (such as Hawaii), as opposed to states.  The use of grains for distillation had also been banned on the basis that it took valuable grains away from the production of food.

Of course, no matter what the spurring motivation may have been, the 18th Amendment lacked any pretext about the concern for health and morals of the troops.  Prohibition was riding high, partially on its own momentum and partially on the momentum of concern brought about by the Great War.

Speaking of the Great War, Pope Benedict XV appealed to humanity to end it.

1917         Pope Benedict XV urges "an end to useless slaughter" of World War One.  His statement declared:

TO THE HEADS OF THE BELLIGERENT PEOPLES:

From the beginning of Our Pontificate, amidst the horrors of the terrible war unleashed upon Europe, We have kept before Our attention three things above all: to preserve complete impartiality in relation to all the belligerents, as is appropriate to him who is the common father and who loves all his children with equal affection; to endeavor constantly to do all the most possible good, without personal exceptions and without national or religious distinctions, a duty which the universal law of charity, as well as the supreme spiritual charge entrusted to Us by Christ, dictates to Us; finally, as Our peacemaking mission equally demands, to leave nothing undone within Our power, which could assist in hastening the end of this calamity, by trying to lead the peoples and their heads to more moderate frames of mind and to the calm deliberations of peace, of a "just and lasting" peace.

Whoever has followed Our work during the three unhappy years which have just elapsed, has been able to recognize with ease that We have always remained faithful to Our resolution of absolute impartiality and to Our practical policy of well-doing . We have never ceased to urge the belligerent peoples and Governments to become brothers once more, even although publicity has not been given to all which We have done to attain this most noble end....

First of all, the fundamental point should be that for the material force of arms should be substituted the moral force of law; hence a just agreement by all for the simultaneous and reciprocal reduction of armaments, according to rules and guarantees to be established to the degree necessary and sufficient for the maintenance of public order in each State; then, instead of armies, the institution of arbitration, with its lofty peacemaking function, according to the standards to be agreed upon and with sanctions to be decided against the State which might refuse to submit international questions to arbitration or to accept its decisions.

Once the supremacy of law has been established, let every obstacle to the ways of communication between the peoples be removed, by ensuring through rules to be fixed in similar fashion, the true freedom and common use of the seas. This would, on the one hand, remove many reasons for conflict and, on the other, would open new sources of prosperity and progress to all....

With regard to territorial questions, such as those disputed between Italy and Austria, and between Germany and France, there is ground for hope that in consideration of the immense advantages of a lasting peace with disarmament, the conflicting parties will examine them in a conciliatory frame of mind, taking into account so far as it is just and practicable, as We have said previously, the aspirations of the peoples and co-ordinating, according to circumstances, particular interests with the general good of the great human society.

The same spirit of equity and justice should direct the examination of other territorial and political questions, notably those relating to Armenia, the Balkan States, and the territories composing the ancient Kingdom of Poland, for which especially its noble historical traditions and the sufferings which it has undergone, particularly during the present war, ought rightly to enlist the
sympathies of the nations. Such are the principal foundations upon which We believe the future reorganization of peoples should rest. They are of a kind which would make impossible the recurrence of such conflicts and would pave the way for a solution of the economic question, so important for the future and the material welfare of all the belligerent States.

The appeal would be ignored, of course, and the war would go on.  Careful observers of religious statements and 1917 would ponder other religious statements about the war.

The Big Picture: Mobilization Camp, Michigan. August 1917.

I managed to miss. . .

some of the Administration drama of this past week.  I had no idea that Reince Priebus was outsted this past Friday.  I had a really busy day this past week, and I just didn't know that until I listed to the Sunday morning shows while mowing the lawn.

Nor did I know, therefore, that he'd been replaced by Homeland Security Secretary, retired Army General John Kelly.  And I don't know what I think of that.  I guess, in a way, that stands to make Kelly to Trump what Haig was to Reagan, except that Reagan's administration didn't have the appearance of utter chaos.

I heard one comment, concerning the number of former military officers surrounding Trump, that it is a "war cabinet".  It certainly looks like one, although I don't think we can take that too far.  But the degree to which its military top heavy is a bit odd, suggesting that Trump simply likes former servicemen for their leadership style, or that the service has become too corporate for its own good.  We'll see, I suppose, if these former generals are able to arrest the general chaos.

If it is a war cabinet, perhaps the time is right as we had another North Korean ICBM launch and the North Koreans are now capable of hitting any state in the union except for Florida with an ICBM. The only saving grace to that is that they are not capable of placing a nuclear warhead on one.  One commentator blandly commented that the North Koreans would, of course, not use a nuclear missile on the basis that simply wouldn't be rational.

Well, keeping a state locked in Stalinist 1939 isn't very rational either, particular for a leader educated in Switzerland.  Grabbing women from various places to be the forced spouses of captives isn't either.  Running an economy that is demonstrably completely broken, when simply opening the border would solve a lot of the problem, isn't rational either.  Strapping a general to an antiaircraft gun and setting it off for execution purposes, if it has any rationality to it all, is style manifestly evil.  Assuming rational  actions out of North Korea imposes a rather large assumption on the lives of millions.

And for that reason, I'm convinced that war with North Korean is now inevitable.  Indeed, if North Korea was a Middle Eastern state, Israel would have already launched a preemptive strike.  We are going to.  It's only a matter of time.  And not much time.

I guess, therefore, at least Trump is surrounded by folks who have some military experience when that comes.  Not that he's listening to them.

In terms of not listening, he better be listening to the Republicans in Congress defending Jeff Sessions. Whether you like Sessions or not, he's under fire for doing the right thing.  Trump doesn't seem to quite grasp that being President of the United States isn't the same as being CEO of a family business.  Should Sessions be fired, a GOP revolt in the Senate will follow.

Oddly, all of this might be something that only fans of politics follow.  Out in the general public, it seems, quite a few feel that low gas prices and pretty good employment rates right now. . .well.. . . trump all these concerns. It would seem that at some point chickens of chaos come home to create a messy roost.  But until, and unless, that occurs, maybe much of this doesn't matter, or seem to, for a lot of Ameicans.

Seemingly a world away. . .

from the fighting in the First World War, but caught up in it none the less, today, July 31, a century ago was draft registration day for Hawaii.  For whatever reason, Hawaii"s registration date had followed the general registration date in the continental United States by a couple of weeks.

Hawaii was still a territory, of course, but it residents were U.S. citizens and therefore liable for conscription.  The Selective Service Boards had been working to prepare for conscription since June.  And as it was a territory, and therefore directly subject to Congress in a way that the states were not, the wartime prohibition on alcohol that Congress brought in as a war measure had come into the entire territory on June 6 of this year.

The war was already also impacting Hawaii in numerous ways, showing that World War One truly had a global reach.  Hawaii's Army militia had obtained National Guard Status in 1916.  Its Naval Militia had come into existence only in April but had been seeing service since September on the cruiser the USS St. Louis.  Some German vessels had been interned for months, well before the start of the war, where they'd taken refuge from Japanese patrols.  In April they were seized for U.S. use.  Even the war fever that lead to all sorts of outrageous rumors in the Continental US saw a Hawaiian expression, as rumors that anthrax in Hawaiian cattle herds were the result of action by German agents had already circulated.

Hawaii, of course, was different in 1917 from what it would be in 2017 in all sorts of ways.  It was already regarded as an island paradise, indeed a member of my family lived their at the time and her family, including one of my ancestors, visited on occasion from Canada, and they certainly regarded it that way. But it was very difficult to get to compared to post World War Two when easy commercial air travel would come in.  In many ways, therefore, for at least European Americans it was more of a paradise then than now, being much less populated and much more, well, authentic in areas like Oahu.  Its native and immigrant populations were also more evident in different ways, as this poster demonstrates. The poster has more Portuguese text than English, the Portuguese being a significant migrant population to the Hawaiian islands.  Their influence is still felt today, but it'd be unlikely to find a English/Portuguese official poster such as this now.

Ambulance Drivers

Elsie Knocker,the Baroness de T'Serclaes and Mairi Chisholm, ambulance drivers at the window of their billet in Pervijze (Pervyse), West Flanders, Belgium on July 30, 1917.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Faith Temple, Rapid City South Dakota.

Churches of the West: Faith Temple, Rapid City South Dakota:

This Rapid City protestant church is built in the Federal Revival style of architecture more common to courthouses and post offices.  Otherwise, I know nothing else about it.

Poster Saturday: Soviet Mongolians in action

Best Post of the Week of July 23, 2017

So. . . why doesn't the ABA oppose the Uniform Bar Exam?

Movies In History: Dunkirk

Chickenhawks

Friday Farming: Neolithic farmers practiced specialized methods of cattle farming

Neolithic farmers practiced specialized methods of cattle farming

University of Basel

Swiss farmers practiced various different methods of animal farming as early as 5,400 years ago, as demonstrated by a study by researchers from the University of Basel, as well as research institutions from Germany and the UK. The study focused on the settlement Arbon Bleiche 3 on the south bank of Lake Constance. The academic journal PLOS ONE has published the results

And I suppose this is supposed to be a surprise for some reason.

Hmmm. . . . seems like our first law of history at work.

Silent Parade of 1917

Autobiography Of A Jeep (1943)

Chickenhawks

U.S. Marine on Iwo Jima. He's carrying a flame thrower and a M1911 pistol.  This battle was fought in February and March, 1945.  Combat as it really is, not how some social experimentalist imagine it to be, as they don't imagine it to be.

As anyone who followed this blog (darned few people) back during the election would be aware of, I'm not a Donald Trump fan.

I also don't have the massive visceral reaction to everything he does that the American left has either to where whatever it is must be bad, because he's the one doing it, although the degree to which he's been effective has been debatable to be sure.

One thing his supporters claimed he would do is to reverse what they perceived as a highly left oriented direction towards everything they claimed existed in the Obama Administration.  The extent to which that really existed can be debated, but a close look at the last two years of that administration does show that it engaged in a gigantic jump to the left on social issues in that time frame. And during that time frame it adopted the radically anti-nature stance of the extreme left so successfully that the views of that group have, in very short order, become the accepted norm that we cannot touch. Those views include the radically anti natural view that there's no difference at all between men and women, that a person decides their own gender, except for their own own gender "orientation", and that there's multiple "okays' in that area.

 US Army advisers and Vietnamese Special Forces, Vietnam War. All these men are men . . . for a reason.

All of that is deeply anti natural and will, long term (and short term) have massive negative consequences on the societies, which now include most of western society, and the individuals that adopt them.  Included in that group are what is now referred to as the "transgendered".

Transgenderism is not a well established phenomenon and indeed the better evidence is that people afflicted with leanings in that area, which are few in number, are victims of what often turns out to be a fleeting mental illness or, in some other cases, are expressing what was was a same gender attraction in a radical fashion.  Neither of these things is supposed to be said anymore, which doesn't mean they aren't true.

Indeed they are so true that in at least one "progressive" European country, if not the majority, surgeries designed to "assign", and by that we mean alter a natural, gender have been banned for children.  Statistically the majority of children that express, or have forced upon them, the concept that they are transgendered will actually revert to their natural orientation in relatively short order.  No matter, the radicals in the western world who hate nature and believe that a chemical and surgical utopia can be created that ratifies their own view is all for abusing, and it is abuse, children who express these leaning in the United States.

One of the really odd areas where the Obama Administrations  descent into the gender fantasy morass expressed itself was in the military, and in more than one fashion.  It was only as recently as the Clinton Administration when the military was forced to reverse its long held ban on homosexuals in the military. That change was not desired by the military, but rather forced upon it.  However, that change was a good change as, by that point in our history, things had changed enough to where the instinctive recoiling against homosexual behavior wasn't so pronounced that it would be disruptive in the service and therefore was truly unfair.  That's the point that is still missed in regards to this topic.  It is true that homosexuals were banned from the military as it was regarded as a character trait of depravity, but it was also banned because it was felt that it was so disruptive to military order that it was dangerous for a combat unit.  Throughout most of last couple of thousand years that in fact was true as it was only extremely recently that toleration (which is not the same of acceptance) of the trail became sufficiently widespread that this was no longer the case. That is, by the late 1980s the trait, no matter what a person thought of it, was unlikely to end up in brawls, disruption or even murder.

U.S. Marines, Peleliu, 1944.  We only imagine war not to be like this anymore as we came out so on top of things in 1945, and expanded on that over the next forty years, that we know imagine that all wars are push button remote affairs.  Our edge on the world, however, is rapidly declining.

A key aspect of that change, however, was the concept of normalization of the behavior that truly has no ends in where it might go. At the time there was no threat to the status of nature, that being that there is male and there is female, and the mammal norm is that they are attracted distinctly to the opposite other sexually but not to the same.  It's true that the opposite occurs, in very small percentages of the population, but whatever causes that is clearly a departure from the norm and in ways that defeat a lot of the normality of life for those who experience that.  In other words people had determined to tolerate same gender attraction, but that didn't equate to giving it fully equal status with the the normal orientation, let alone denying that there was a normal human natural orientation towards the opposite gender.

Following Justice Kennedy's extra judicial assault on nature in Obergefell the nation rapidly went from one that had determined to tolerate, in the Belloc sense, a deviation that didn't appear to be generally destructive to society at large to one that was, with the aid of Democratic Party, required to embrace any single sexual impulse going and declare it normal, or be accused of being bigoted. A lot of this has been at levels that would have been regarded as insane only recently.  Included in these, and particularly after Bruce Jenner started off in this odd direction, is that people assigning new genders to themselves is oh so normal and must be tolerated everywhere, including in the military.

Vietnam combat.  By post World War Two standards this was our largest war, although World War Two dwarfed it in scale.  Social planners can imagine women and even the "transgendered" in the modern military only because we haven't fought a war like this one since 1973, and we imagine, apparently that we will never have to again.

That the Obama Administration would go in this direction is not too surprising as the service has been under an assault for decades on the role of women in combat.  It's brutally clear that this is a silly idea and that the natural norm for ground combat is that its a male role, and has been since day one.  Only our overwhelming material superiority has kept this change, which was last forced on the Marine Corps over its objection, from being an absolute disaster.  Amazingly, we still somehow think that its natural to have an all male National Football League but not an all male ground combat military.   That's because we've become dense in this area.

And the densitude recently reached the point where the service had commenced issuing, in the case of the Army, instructions to women soldiers on not to overreacted if they saw fellow soldiers in the shower with the opposite gender bits.  Not to worry, the instructions held, the he/she may be just undergoing gender reassignment, not some creeper who just wanted to hang out in the shower with the girls and look at them.

Having said that, a male desire to hang out in the shower and look at the girls is actually a much more natural, indeed an immoral but fully natural, desire than to hack your privates off and take chemicals to alter your gender. This begs the question if the all the restrictions on guys hanging out and leering at girls whereevery they wish is deeply prejudicial. . . . it isn't, of course, as its normal and this is part of an assault on normalcy.

It's also, in the case of the military, extraordinarily dangerous and ill advised.  It's going to get people killed.

 North Korean Artillery piece, captured in Iraq.  The nation that produced this isn't going to be kind to women or people who have reassigned their genders and nature won't be kind to them in a combat environment either.

In combat, this isn't going to work for a plethora of reasons.  Amgosnt them, our collection of potential enemies would be inclined to find it an appalling abomination or crudely funny, either of which would end in death for those exhibiting it.  There's no question of this.  When a POW is taken and put in the slammer, and the gender begins to reassign itself to the human norm, the question will be raised, and then almost certainly ended, at the barrel of a gun.

Of course, for female prisoners, it would mean rape without question.  The Koran sanctions sexual slavery of female captives and we’ve seen that with ISIL.  When we won any war in which such unfortunates had been held captive, assuming we did, we’d have decades of sexual PTSD victims and quite a few unwanted children as a result of the same.

In later years our current era is almost certainly going to be looked  back on one during which the west truly began to decline or at least entered an episode of decline.  The vast wealth of modern society created sufficient leisure in which people were able to fully entertain their demons, and then demand that everyone else tolerate and accept them.  The results will not be good.

At any rate, the Trump Administration ordered the reversal of the Transgender acceptance in the military policy.

Good for them.

This is, frankly, good for everyone, including the people who express that leaning.  The military exists to kill people and break things, not to be a social experimentation camp. All sorts of things disqualify a person for military service, including physical ailments that are easily addressed in civilian society.  That's for a reason, and this policy change makes sense.

Frankly, I wish they'd also reverse the Obama decision requiring women be allowed in combat units. We'll see. Maybe there's some hope for that.

 Missile launchers of the People's Liberation Army (the Chinese Red Army).  The Chinese army has gone from a crude army based on mass attack to a technologically advanced modern one over the past twenty years, much like the Japanese military did the same in the late 19th Century.  Unfortunately for us, the Chinese also have a late 19th Century view of the world and a few policy pundits have flatly declared that a major war between the Untied States and China is likely.  If that occurs, it won't be like the Gulf Wars. . . or even like the Vietnam War.  It would be huge, bloody and more closely resemble a giant sized Korean War.

So what's with the title?

Well, our Congressional representation from this state has been quick to come out with an oatmeal like statement that backs away  from this, neither supporting it or rejecting it.  As the Casper Star Tribune reported:

"Political or social agendas shouldn’t drive such decisions, no matter which party is crafting them,” Enzi spokesman Max D’Onofrio wrote. “Senator Enzi believes all individuals should be treated with respect and ultimately these kinds of decisions should be left to the military leaders, as they are the ones in the best position to decide which policies will best benefit our armed service members and the military as a whole.”

That's pure baloney for a couple of reasons.

In the first place, if the military had been left to make its own decisions in this are women wouldn't have been put into combat units, which as noted still hasn't been addressed. That was forced on them by Presidential fiat.

Beyond that, a whole host of social agendas have been forced on the service in recent years.  Aiding that is that officers and senior NCOs who opposed these changes have departed the service in large numbers in recent years, a fact that was well noted at the time it was occurring.  Officers and senior NCOs who just couldn't see themselves ordering Suzy to die in combat left.  That sent the message to the remainders on what they would have to accept, and it also meant that a lot of the officer left after the last couple of years of the Obama Administration are more like corporate CEOs than military leaders.

In order to get the service back to what its supposed to focus on, which is nothing more than killing people and breaking things at the end of the day, the social experimentation has to end.  Social experimentation of a really radical anti natural level has always ended in disaster for militaries that engaged in it, the Imperial Russian and the early Soviet armies both provide examples, and this will pan out no differently for us.

It's also chicken for Enzi, Barasso and Cheney to take that position.  At least Barasso and Cheney were loud on the Trump bandwagon and Barasso was comfortable with drafting the GOP platform this past go around and even with including an anti public lands position that was deeply opposed by the residents of the state.  I find it difficult to believe that they just didn't fear being beaten up by the loud left social radicals in this area who have completely taken over the floor of the debate.  Enzi in fact was pretty roundly criticized recently when he made a statement about a hypothetical cross dresser, and he should have been as his comments were stupid, and they likely don't want to repeat that experience even on a completely different topic.

So, while I remain not a Trump fan, he was right on this one.

MId Week At Work: Wilbur Wright Aviation Camp, Wilbur Wright Field, Riverside, Ohio. Student Pilots, July 26, 1917.

Movies In History: Dunkirk

While I know that its making a huge claim to say so, this may be the best movie about World War Two that has ever been made.  It's a stunning achievement.

The movie, as likely anyone here will know, concerns the 1940 evacuation of large elements of the British Expeditionary Force as France was falling to the German Army.  The actual event took place from May 26, 1940 through June 4, 1940 and involved an hoped for evacuation of 30,000 British soldiers.  In the end, in no small part due to a massive German tactical error combined with a heroic French resistance to German advances, the British managed to evacuate nearly 400,000 men from an every diminishing beachhead, of which nearly 140,000 were French, British and Belgian.  The evacuation stands as one of the most stunning military achievements of the Second World War, turning what was a disaster into a weird species of victory.  While the effort would not stem the German advance, the fourteen day period did show the Germans for the first time to be inept in victory and pluckiness of the British in accomplishing an evacuation through the combined use of every kind of ship imaginable signaled the spirit with which the British would carry forth with in the rest of the war.

The film therefore has a daunting task, that of taking a fourteen day battle and combining in into a three or so hour film. Not that this hasn't been done a lot of times before.  It has, just not so well.

All World War Two battles were combined arms battles of some sort.  That is they all combined at least ground and air elements, and some, like this combined air, land and sea. The conventional approach to this, if a large battle is taken up as the topic of a film, has been to take on the project chronologically, such as the famous and very fine film The Longest Day did.  Indeed, this is nearly always done.

This film, however, takes on a different approach to this and really manages to pull it off, giving us a glimpse of the air, land and sea battle in way that is best compared to reading a book.  At the very start of the film we are introduced to a young British and a young French soldier who are trying to make their way off the beach.  We're introduced to this at first in the form of  the British soldier making his way through the town of Dunkirk itself, then out onto the beach, and then onto the "mole". For those who might know know what a mole means in this context, it means a jetty.  This starts off the story and then the director develops, in a very unusual approach, two separate timelines, one involving one of the "small boats" that lifted soldiers from the area, and another involving a single RAF flight of Spitfires, all of which culminate near the end of the movie.  It's brilliantly done.

The  movie is incredibly tense and is one of the rare action film that never lets up for a single moment.  This is all the more remarkable as its also an intense human drama.

Reviews here, as folks who occasionally stop by, always deal with historical accuracy and material detail, and this film scores high in regards to those as well.  The story of the evacuation at Dunkirk is portrayed accurately, including the loss of life and the desperate and random nature of it.  Some have complained that the film does not portray the French role well, but this is an unfair criticism. It's made plain that the French are holding the line, largely unseen, while the evacuation is taking place. By the same token, except for a single scene, German ground forces are never seen, their presence only deeply felt. 

Some have also complained that the movie is short on character development, but it really is not.  The characters are well developed in the space in which their roles are portrayed.  Moreover, the fast pace and the following of three (or more, really, as there's a Naval officer and a senior British officer who are also followed) gives us a glimpse not only into every aspect of the battle but also the random and confused nature of war.  Characters are at least as well developed as they are in the film The Longest Day, which is regarded as a classic.

In terms of material details the movie is excellent as well, although oddly there's been some complaints in regards to the military ships that are portrayed in the film. This shows the impact of Saving Private Ryan on war films as materiel details are now judged so closely that even minor departures are judged by some as unacceptable.  A destroyer depicted in the film is a real World War Two destroyer, the Maille-Brez, which is a French ship.  Some have been unhappy that  a French ship was used in this role, but there are not a lot of working World War Two destroyers around.  The small boats depicted in the film are actual boats that were used at Dunkirk, piloted by their current owners.  The Spitfires are real Spitfires and the ME109s real ME109s, albeit the ones that were from the Spanish air force, repainted in German colors, that often show up in films when ME109s are needed.  Uniforms and weapons are all correct, including the use of SMLEs rather than the Rifle No. 4 which looks similar but which was coming into service at that time.

The film is a masterpiece.

Movies In History: The Birth of a Nation

No, not the horrible D. W. Griffith one from 1915, but the one that came out in 2016.  Indeed, its sort of the antithesis to that earlier film.

This film toured nationally, of course, and I thought about seeing it while it was here but didn't end up doing so.  It didn't seem to get a lot of press and I wasn't sure what exactly it was about.  I happened to catch it recently on television.

This is a cinematic treatment of the story of Nat Turner's slave rebellion.  I'll confess that I'm not terribly familiar with that event, which is often inaccurately cited to be the most successful example of a slave rebellion in North America (there was actually at least one more successful in every sense during the Colonial Era).  As I'm not hugely familiar with the Turner story, I'm left a bit out to sea in regards to the accuracy of this depiction, but it seems to have done a good job of it from what I can learn.

Turner, as the movie depicts, was a highly religious slave in Virginia.  He had a natural speaking ability and started to operate as a Christian minister within his slave community.  He was sufficiently good at this that he began to be used in that capacity in the area and preached to other slave communities with the license and encouragement of the slave owning class. At some point the exposure to the fate of his fellow slaves began to weigh on him heavily and he began, by his own accounts, to have visions that urged him, he claimed, to lead his fellows in rebellion against their master.  Over time, he organized such a rebellion.

The rebellion was noteworthy in a variety of ways, and not only for its success.  Convinced of the evil nature of the slave owning class, the brief uprising did not spare women and children and taking place mostly over a single night it concentrated, by design, on the use of blunt and edged weapons that would kill but not make much noise.  It was, therefore, sort of uniquely grisly.

It was, of course, also a failure and rapidly put down.  The  number of rebel slaves and whites from the slave owning class who were killed in the uprising, keeping in mind post uprising executions, were freakishly similar,both being about 55-56 in number.  Reprisal murders by local whites however took an additional 120 black lives.  As is often noted, long term the rebellion became and enduring memory in the South and it may have caused the oppressive nature of slavery, already pretty horrific, to become worse, although the extent to which that can really be determined seems questionable to me.  Other factors may have played a role in that other than the rebellion, but no doubt it was an ongoing white memory that formed part of the basis for the slave owning class' view of the world.

All in all, this film seems to do a very good job. It appears correct in material details.  The very strong religious character of Nat Turner himself is correctly portrayed.  The rebellion scenes appear to exaggerate somewhat, but then they'd likely have to in order to make an effective movie portrayal.  All in all, it's well worth seening.

2d Artillery watching the game, July 24, 1917

Note how well dressed the crowd is.

And who had Tuesday off to go watch baseball?

Monday At The Bar: The Lawyer, the Addict A high-powered Silicon Valley attorney dies. His ex-wife investigates, and finds a web of drug abuse in his profession

A New York Times article that may be a bit of a shocker for people outside the profession of law:

The Lawyer, the Addict

A high-powered Silicon Valley attorney dies. His ex-wife
investigates, and finds a web of drug abuse in his profession

Indeed, I ran across this comment in regards to it:

Did anyone else that read this article get freaked out? Not with the drug problem, but how someone can get so lost in their work?

So posts some special snowflake who is a law student.Surprised that somebody can get that lost in their work?  Lost in their work is the lawyers norm.

For most practicing lawyers, no matter what they do, not a day goes by where they don't think about their work.  And for many of them the assumption by people that they knew that they're some sort of alternative species that does nothing but think about the law anyhow, something like Homo Sapiens Lex, is so strong that somebody will bring it up no matter what.  I've been asked legal questions by people I know in locations as diverse as sporting shows and church.  I've been called at every hour of the day and every day of the week.  

Which is why, in part, there's "drug abuse in [the] profession", particularly if we consider alcohol to be a drug, which of course it is.

Alcohol, drug abuse, and addictive and destructive behaviors of all sorts of types, are rampant in the law.  I don't know if they've always been.  I suspect that they have not been to the current extent, but I also suspect that it's always been some sort of problem.  The "drunk lawyer" is a stereotype actually, and shows up in portrayals of lawyers fairly routinely.  The assisting lawyer in Anatomy of a Murder, is an aged alcoholic whom it is implied was brilliant but who fell into the bottle due to his work.  The protagonist in The Verdict is a dedicated alcoholic.  Interestingly, and perhaps saying something about the nature of their profession, alcoholic doctors is also a common theme in legal dramas.

I've never met an alcoholic doctor.  Physicians are pretty clean living in my observation, but I have seen alcohol and drugs take their toll in the legal world.  I frankly think that it's because a lot of lawyers are overcome by the stress of their work and take to alcohol and drugs.  It's pretty well known within the profession itself, which is why I'm surprised a bit by the comments from those who knew the fellow about that they were surprised by what happened to him and hadn't seen the signs.  If there were no signs, and indeed perhaps they were not, he must have kept them extremely well hidden.

Which brings me back to snowflake.  If you are surprised by this now, you have a real eye opener coming your way when you start working.

So. . . why doesn't the ABA oppose the Uniform Bar Exam?

From the ABA news article email:

The ABA is opposing two federal bills that would require states to allow individuals to carry concealed weapons within their borders if they have permits to carry concealed weapons in another state.

The bills pending in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives mandate national reciprocity for concealed carry permits issued under state law. ABA President Linda A. Klein calls the legislation “a dangerous proposal” that would tie states’ hands in setting concealed-carry standards.

All states allow some form of concealed carry, but standards vary, Klein said. The reciprocity requirement “offends deeply rooted principles of federalism where public safety is traditionally the concern of state and local government,” Klein says in the letters (PDFs) here and here.

If the proposal were to become law, “a state’s ability to consider safety factors—such as age, evidence of dangerousness, live firearm training, or criminal records—would give way to other states’ less stringent requirements,” Klein said. “Unlike some efforts of Congress to create minimum safety standards, this bill could lead to no safety standards as more states enact laws to allow persons to carry concealed firearms without a permit.”
The bills are H.R. 38, “Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017,” and S.446, “Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017.” Klein sent the letters to leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Subcommitee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations.

It's hard not read something like this and feel that the American Bar Association is just some sort of liberal organization in which being a lawyer is just a prerequisite.   That the ABA has a position on a firearms related topic at all is hard to fathom.  Predictably, when they have one, its on the left side of the political isle.

Now, I'm not really commenting on this bill at all, and I'll note that there are people on the right side of that isle who are opposed to this bill as they view it as trampling on the rights of state's.  And no matter which way you feel about it, there's something to that view, just  as there's something to the view in favor of the bill. But the ABA?

Come on ABA, if you really cared about "a state’s ability to consider safety factors" you'd come out condemning that farce called the Uniform Bar Exam which Wyoming, and a host of other state, have adopted.

Wyoming has lost 25,000 workers over the past few years and quite frankly some of them are lawyers.  Up here in the state we see out of state lawyers, licensed under the UBE, all the time. The UBE is based on the absurd fiction that the law in one state is just like that of another, and we're seeing that up here, with lawyers from big cities in neighboring states who can't see their way around to Wyoming's law in some instances. That's not good for the state and its not good for the residents of the state either.  The ABA, with its expressed concern for Federalism and the rights of states, ought to now condemn the UBE.

I won't hold my breath.

On the topic of concealment, by the way, I've become increasingly surprised  by how many lawyers carry concealed pistols, and indeed I've become surprised by how many people in general do.  I'd have thought it fairly rare, but it isn't.  It's actually quite common, at least around here.  Firearms in general are so common in Wyoming that a common jesting bumper sticker states "Welcome To Wyoming--Consider Everyone Armed", but it isn't really that much of a joke.  Lots of people carry all the time, including a lot of lawyers, I've learned.  The stereotypes about packing heat are, quite frankly, way off the mark.  Professionals carry pretty commonly, I've come to learn.  And quite a few women do.  Quite a few younger people regard this as highly routine.  Indeed, most of the people I've come to learn carry concealed weapons are such a surprise to me that it actually gives me comfort about the arguments in favor of it, as they're such responsible people.

None of which gets to the actual law proposed above, which again you can argue either way.

Which takes me to another thing that surprised me.  Lawyers are generally more left leaning that other people but reading the reactions to this ABA stand by members of the ABA gives me some hope that lawyers themselves are less lock step than the ABA might suppose.

I've been unhappy with the ABA for some time, which seems to some degree to be attempting to occupy space that would otherwise be taken up by the ACLU, which itself seems to have forgotten its original purpose to me.  And its obsession with "Big Law" is over the top, in my view.  At any rate, ABA members, including ones who don't have any interest in firearms, have been published in reaction to this with some pretty negative comments.  A lot of ABA members feel that the ABA is way out of touch with its purpose.  And I'll note that the UBE connection stated above, while I thought was likely unique to me, isn't.  I saw at least one other comment to the same effect.

A common statement by lawyers, both current and former members of the ABA, is that they've had enough of the ABA and that they have, or are, dropping out. That includes me.  When the ABA goes back to a hard concentration on actual law rather than wasting its time with matters that are social and political policy, I'll reconsider.

Net Loss: 25,000

So reports the Casper Star Tribune.

That's how many net workers departed the state, more accurately.  Interestingly, 88,000 people moved in, but not enough to make up for the loss such that overall, the state lost 25,000 people.

For long term residents, that's not that much of a surprise.  For new ones, it likely is.  It shows both the impact of the boom/bust nature of our economy, and also shows how much of the state's population is transient, even in down times.

The big question is, of course, has it stopped.  Right now, the evidence isn't so good that it has.  Oil prices continue to fluctuate pretty widely and remain very low.  Coal has rebounded some, as earlier reported on here, but isn't what it once was and is unlikely to ever become so.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: First Presbyterian Church, Rapid City, South Dakota

Churches of the West: First Presbyterian Church, Rapid City, South Dakota

Another snowy scene for a hot July day.

Sometimes a modern architectural feature can really mess up the photographing of an older one, and this church provides such an example.

This is The First Presbyterian Church in Rapid City, South Dakota. The classic Gothic style church is in the downtown region of Rapid City, and unfortunately the area is dominated by some sort of odd communications tower, which makes photographing the entire building difficult.

I don't know the age of this particular church.

Oops, that movie review is still a draft

Which is why I took it down.

It'll be back up when I finish it.