The Sheep Mountain Fire Tower

Holscher's Hub: The Sheep Mountain Fire Tower:

The Sheep Mountain Fire Tower

U.S.ARMY RANK AND INSIGNIA IDENTIFICATION WW1

Another interesting one on rank insignia.

U.S.ARMY RANK AND INSIGNIA IDENTIFICATION WW1

Southern Rockies Nature Blog: News Report: More Colorado Women Hiking with Firearms

Southern Rockies Nature Blog: News Report: More Colorado Women Hiking with Firearms: Chest-carry binocular case by Further Faster Design with concealed rear pocket. (The antler is just to prop it up.)  From Denver television ...

Adnventures

You must go on adventures to find out where you truly belong

Sue Fitzmaurice

October 9, 1920 Contests.

October 9, 1920, cover of the Saturday Evening Post  I actually thought this was a Leyendecker rather than a Rockwell when I first saw it as it strongly resembles the former's work.

In the1920 World Series Game 4, the Brooklyn Robins went down to defeat, scoring 1 as opposed to the Cleveland Indians' 5 runs.

David Lloyd George declared in a speech that the British would not allow for Irish home rule and expressed British resolve to prevail in the Irish troubles.

Vilnius fell to Polish "mutineers" and Austria transferred South Tyrol to Italy, which retains it to this day, although it is an autonomous self governing Italian region. 

Fire Prevention Week was inaugurated in the United States and Canada.

Potomac Park including Hains Point, as well as the Naval Air Station Anacostia (upper left) and the Army Air Service's Bolling Field. October 9, 1920.

Idaho senior enlisted leader is a horseman and a Guardsman

Idaho senior enlisted leader is a horseman and a Guardsman: BOISE, Idaho – Chief Master Sgt. Harold Bongiovi sees a lot of similarities between working with horses and working with the Soldiers and Airmen he oversees as the Idaho National Guard’s senior

October 8, 1920 Start of Żeligowski's Mutiny

On this day in 1920 Poland surreptitiously commenced a "mutiny" in Lithuania under General Lucjan Żeligowski.  Just the day prior Poland and Lithuania had entered into an agreement fixing their borders. The rebellion was a successful Polish effort to redraw those borders before the agreement even went into effect.

1920 Ethnographic map of Lithuania.

Like many of the post World War One wars, the war between Lithuania and Poland was ethnic in character, resulting from the blend of ethnicities in the pre war European Empires where such matters were largely secondary in nature.  Poland may best exemplify this in some ways as in modern times it had bee split between the German and Russian Empires, with Poles themselves living in regions that extended out into both empires.  When Polish independence came following World War One the two  halves of the country united and then struggles began to unite to the country those Poles who lived outside of its borders, but in neighboring areas.  This lead to wars with neighboring regions as well as to rebellions in neighboring regions.

Poles were heavily represented in Lithuanian border regions following the independence of both countries and in spite of forced population relocations after World War Two, Poles are still heavily represented in some areas of Lithuania.  Unlike with Poles and Ukrainians, however, Poles and Lithuanians are ethnically distinct.  Medieval Poland had at one time ruled Lithuania, which made this more complicated, and Marshall Pilsudski was born in Vilnius.  Contrasting with this, at one time the Grand Duchy of Lithuania had been the largest state in Europe, and had stretched all the way to the Black Sea.  The relationship between the two countries was complicated, with Poland at one time having a Lithuanian king and Lithuanian figures being prominent in regional efforts to defend both countries against the Russians.  To complicate matters further, Lithuania had seen a significant German colonization, as had the other Baltic states, leading to a sizable German minority.

While before World War One these various ethnicities had managed to get along in recent times, with there even being confusion between their identities, the nationalistic feelings everywhere following World War One changed that.  Poland worked to incorporate all of the regions bordering it where Poles were located, not without some justification.  This lead to clashes with Lithuania, which like Poland was simultaneously fighting the Soviet Union, and which was a very small state.  It also lead, in Poland's case, to a war with much larger Ukraine.

By October 1920 the Poles were exhausted from fighting the Russians and didn't not wish to continue any of the post World War One wars.  It did, however, regard Vilnius as critical and therefore sponsored this clandestine effort flying the false flag of being a rebellious Polish unit.  The Poles would win and the region would declare itself to be independent and then join Poland in 1922, an act which was not recognized by Lithuania.

October 8 was a travel day in the 1920 World Series.

In the far north, near Mount McKinley, a Caterpillar Tractor was towing freight.

A really interesting look at the NCO structure from a century ago until the present.

Timeline of U.S. Army Enlisted Ranks, 1920 to Present

I'm really quite surprised that Private E1s were at one time one stripers, where as now they are E2s.  Likewise, I'm surprised that Corporals were E3s up until 1948 and likewise Sergeants were E4s.

The lack of "buck sergeants" (three stripes) between 1948 and 1959 is extremely surprising, although I see the E5 grade was called Sergeant and had three stripes and a rocker.

I'm most familiar with the 1959 to present structure and had always assumed Army Sergeants, as opposed to USAF Sergeants, were E5s or the equivalent.

Some Gave All: Mellon Foundation Announces Quarter-Billion-Dollar...

Some Gave All: Mellon Foundation Announces Quarter-Billion-Dollar...:

Mellon Foundation Announces Quarter-Billion-Dollar Grant Commitment for “Monuments Project” to Reimagine and Rebuild Commemorative Spaces and Transform the Way History is Told in the United States | The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

But what does that mean?

Here's their release on the topic:

Mellon Foundation Announces Quarter-Billion-Dollar Grant Commitment for “Monuments Project” to Reimagine and Rebuild Commemorative Spaces and Transform the Way History is Told in the United States | The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation: A press release from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

And yet I still don't know what that means.

I do know that $250,000,000 is a lot of money.  But is it a lot of money in this context.  That depends, I suppose.  But it'd depend on things that aren't clear, and its not clear what they really mean. 

Sudden Declarations of the End of the Oil Age?

We have a long detailed history on coal, and how technology did it in.

Usually when I get in a discussion on this it surprises people, even really highly educated people, as they're prepared in their minds to engage in a completely different discussion.  For people who are Greens, it's that coal is dirty and needs to go, and they're going to drive it under, and they might have that view on petroleum as well.  For people who take the opposite view, it's that coal is necessary and the Greens need to get out of the way, and they might make references to petroleum as well.

Almost nobody is prepared to argue the history of coal, which is that its been in decline since the 1890s due to ever advancing technologies that have made it increasingly inefficient over the years.  Railroads didn't shift to oil in the 1890s as they were proto-greens. . . they did as oil was more efficient.  Likewise, railroads didn't switch to diesels in the 40s through 60s as they were secret environmentalist, it was more efficient.  And that technological march has carried on.

I note that as there's been rumblings that technology is catching up with petroleum oil, even here in Wyoming, where such thoughts were dismissed until very recently.

And given that, it might be worthwhile to put an ear to the ground (the derrick? the pumpjack?) and listen to what the rumblings are.

Now, to be fair to the story, part of what we're hearing is undoubtedly due to the advancement of environmental concerns.  This thread isn't on that, but it would be dishonest to maintain otherwise.

It's also be dishonest, however, to say that all of them are by any means.

Rather, what this thread is about is the rumblings we're beginning to hear from some sources, and what that means.  Things may be getting hard to ignore.

Recently an issue of the AAPG Explorer arrived.  I'm a member of the AAPG, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, and in issues for some time there have been quite an assortment of articles that make it clear that industry insiders basically feel that the current trend towards reduced petroleum usage is a long term and unstoppable one.  A decade ago or so there were scientific articles on climate change and the geologic view of that, but that's really stopped.  At one point the change  in the articles came to be that no matter what the science may be, the trend of accepting it was long term and the industry had to brace for that.

Now thing have changed again.  Oil is in a severe slump (still under $40/bbl) and recent indications from Saudi Arabia are that prices in that range will remain until at least 2023, absent market spikes here and there.  The last issue of the Explorer made it plain that industry insiders now don't expect the long term future for petroleum to feature must fuel tank use.

Now, keep in mind, this is from the AAPG, not the Green Party.  The AAPG is made up of people who have made their livings in the petroleum industry.  So, this has sort of the same quality to it as an association of draft horse breeders issuing an exception of decreased need around 1910 or so.

Indeed, not only are industry geologist, who usually are pretty measured in their opinions, expressing this view, in their typical measured tones, but the rank and file on the rigs are too, through their actions.  Individuals I've known or whom I'm aware of, who have worked on rigs their entire work lives are now electing to take other jobs.

Indeed, both of those are remarkable as these aren't "green" decisions or statements.  Geologist in fact have been very careful regarding voicing opinions in this area and early on, when they started to, their statements were pretty measured and tended to be rooted in the geologic knowledge of the paleoclimate and what that caused them to think.  Indeed, they never really got an airing on that when they wanted to pitch in, interesting science though it is.  Being scientifically trained, they tended to express opinions rooted solely in their science, which is interesting as it had little to really do with their personal economics, which tends to be how most people approach these topics.

Folks who worked on the rigs tended to view things through those personal economics, which as noted is what most people in fact do.  The fact that they're now departing the industry, to some extent, is telling as that's voting on their personal economic assessment, which is informed and calculated.

Drilling rig crewmen, 1944.  Its unimaginable to see floor hands without hardhats today.

Anyhow, following that surprising news from the AAPG, came more from a committee of Wyoming's legislature, which we've already posted on here:

September 21, 2020

And here's the first entry:

A committee of the Wyoming legislature has passed a bill advancing a Road Use Charge.  The RUC would track a vehicle's highway miles by use of a GPS and then bill the user.  There's obviously a lot of technology that I don't grasp on this one, not the least of which is that I don't have a single vehicle equipped with a GPS so I don't know how that would really work.

While this bill did get past committee, my prediction is that it might not actually make it to the legislature and that it won't make it to the floor. It'll prove to be unpopular with Wyomingites, at least right now, who will find the thought of being tracked by GPS offensive.

On that, I'm not sure how it actually intends to track a vehicle.  It's interesting in that there's a certain assumption that everyone drives a relatively modern vehicle, which I suppose most do.  All mine are older, however.

September 23, 2020

A review of the RUC bill, which can be read here, indicates that in fact the law anticipates automobiles being retrofitted with GPS devices or individuals having to report their odometer readers.

It further envisions six categories of motor vehicles with six different charge per mile rates.  Looking at it and roughly figuring it, it would cost me a little under $5.00 in tax to drive my truck to Laramie.  The gas tax is supposed to be phased out after it passes, if it does.

Again, it may be just me but I have a very hard time imaging the average Wyomingite liking the idea of retrofitting their vehicle with a GPS monitor for any reason.

That committee passed on a bill proposing to basically make all Wyoming highways a type of toll road through a per vehicle Road Use Charge system.  One of the reasons that was cited by one committee members was the on coming arrival of increasing numbers of electric vehicles which don't use gasoline and therefore pay no gas tax at the pumps. The head of the Wyoming Department of Transportation cited the same thing, while expressing skepticism at the speed at which they'll arrive in a recent statement, and while also using some surprising analogies (like cavalry to tanks, for example).  Indeed, there were statements levied at legislature "RINOS" and the like.  I don't think the RUC stands a chance of passing, which is not the point.   The point is that members of the legislature, who are pretty conservative and who have a lot vested in Wyoming's energy economy, are publicly acknowledging that its in a permanent downturn in their view.

As if to emphasize that, just a couple of days after the legislature passed that item on from committee, the Governor of California issued an executive order banning the sale of new petroleum fueled motor vehicles after 2035.

I noted at the time that I really doubt that's a Constitutional act, but so far it hasn't been challenged.  Of course, there's years and years to challenge it.  But the fact that a state executive officer has now flat out taken on petroleum fueled vehicles is pretty telling.  Even if this was struck down by a Court, it's highly likely that California's legislature would pass a law providing for the same thing.  And they're likely just one of several states that would take that act right now.

Wyomingites used to take cold comfort in the belief that if this sort of thing happened people would have to "freeze in the dark at home", but that's pretty clearly not the case anymore. We've already addressed the onset of really effective "renewable" sources of power generation, although we still feel that the omission of nuclear power from that is flat out dim, but now there's evidence that's starting to change.  While some will take a little hope from the U.S. Supreme Court's indication that it wants a Solicitor's brief in Wyoming's lawsuit on Pacific Northwest ports, the trends there are really irreversible.  Nuclear power, which really ought to be pushed strongly for anyone who is really serious about clean energy, and who is educated in a real sense about it, could be for Wyoming, to a smaller extent, what coal has been.  We aren't doing much about that.

Anyhow, the old "you won't be able to drive your cars" clearly isn't going to be true in the near future.  Nobody now denies that electric cars have really arrived.  You still hear some claims that "well, you can't use them here. . . ", but most cars aren't sold here.  And besides, that soon won't be true.  Jeep is introducing an electric Jeep. . . and that means something.

And if California's ban remains in place, the economic boost that gives to electric vehicles will be enormous.  Along with that, Joe Biden is indicating that if he's elected to the Oval Office, which it appears he will be, he'll require the Federal vehicle fleet, which is huge, to covert to electric over time, and that he'll take a similar approach to California in terms of phasing out petroleum vehicles.

If all three of those things hold; i.e., California mandates new cars be electric fifteen years hence, the Federal government does the same, and the Federal motor vehicle fleet switches to electric, the shift to electric vehicles won't take fifteen years.  It'll happen quicker than that.

All of which is why geologist who have made their living in oil and legislators who have to fund the state by way of it are now taking the view that its inevitable.

October 7, 1920. False diplomacy, wishful thinking, and the Robins take game three.

 

Attendees at the Suwałki Conference.

At Suwałki  the Poles and the Lithuanians, under pressure from the League of Nations, entered into a treaty defining their border. The Polish government entered into it disingenuously.  The treaty put Vilnius in Lithuania.

The Brussels Conference sitting in that city issued a report urging all nations to balance their budgets, reduce armaments, form an international credit association, and reform currencies.

The Brooklyn Robins beat the Cleveland Indians in game three of the World Series, 2 to 1.

The Baby At The Office

Awwww. . . ooooo. . . awwww.

Yes, a baby at the office.

And yes, those voices are all female.

Idiots in faculty lounges or in the halls of Radical Thin Whites For Pacifistic Gender Free Government Basic Income who think that there's not a gigantic (and biologically proven, by the way) difference between men and women have apparently never been in an office when a baby arrives.

Women stop working.

You could have a deadline which will destroy the American economy if not met today, but that doesn't matter.

There's a baby in the office.

The men keep working.

Coyotes caught by Ranger McEntire of Malheur National Forest, Winter 1912 & 1913

 

October 6, 1920. East Coast Scenes

Clayton, New Jersey Fire Department.  October 6, 1920.

Game two of the World Series went to Brooklyn, 3 to 0.

Ebbets Field, October 6, 1920.

Outside Ebbets Field, October 6, 1920.

Holscher's Hub: Smoke from the Mullen Fire, October 4, 2020

Holscher's Hub: Smoke from the Mullen Fire, October 4, 2020:

Smoke from the Mullen Fire, October 4, 2020

October 5, 1920. World Series begins, Russo Polish War ends, Railways reopen.

 The 1920 World Series started on this day, in 1920.

Crowd in Ebbets Field.

Cleveland won the first game, 1 to 0.

New York City Mayor John Hylan throws ball to open World Series at Ebbets Field

Poland and the Soviet Union signed an armistice to end the fighting between their countries.  Fighting would stop on October 18.

In Egypt, the American University in Cairo opened.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, a new railroad opened up.  Or rather a rebuilt raiilway.

The opening of the Jaffa-Jerusalem Railway was attended, as all such things were, by the senior British official.

The line had originally been a narrow gauge railway, but  the British reconstructed it to a new, more useful, wider gauge.

While it has been closed from time to time, updates and reconstructions have meant that the rail line remains in use today.

A Little Laughter To Make it Through This Dark Time

A Little Laughter To Make it Through This Dark Time: Here are a few stories that will brighten your day. There's nothing like reading Patrick McManus to make us feel a little better.

Monday Morning Repeat from the week of June 7, 2009. Dual Careered Lawyer and Modern Transportation

We have two this Monday morning.

Lex Anteinternet: Modern Transportation: Changes in transportation methods were brought home to me again this week. On Tuesday of this past week I drove 140 miles to Rawlins Wyom...

and

Lex Anteinternet: Dual Careered lawyer: Here's an interesting item from today's CST history column. I'm afraid that I'm interested in it for the wrong reasons. ...

Holscher's Hub: The County Line

Holscher's Hub: The County Line

The County Line

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, Torrington Wyoming

Churches of the West: St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, Torrington Wyoming:

St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, Torrington Wyoming

This Romanesque style Catholic Church is St. Rose of Lima in Torrington Wyoming.

Best Posts of the Week of September 27, 2020

 The best post of the week of September 27, 2020. . . and its been one heck of a week.

And let the rampaging Anti-Catholicism begin. . .

September 27, 1920. Last Game for the Black Sox.

It is almost impossible for people to pose as reenactors for a photograph. . .

Wars and Rumors of Wars

Mid Week At Work: The Forest Ranger. W. Herbert Dunton circa 1913.

Thank Goodness Its Fat Bear Week

There is no pendulum even if you have no idea what "the right side of history" is.

What are you reading?

What are you listening to?

Sheep

Casualties of the COVID Recession

Pandemic, Part 3.

The 2020 Election, Part 10

Notes On Nominations. Replacing Justice Ginsburg

Poster Saturday. September 1920; The American Woman

 

Blog Mirror: Long distance hiking: 5 weeks

Long distance hiking: 5 weeks

I can't help but be envious.  In a couple of years I'll be 60 and I haven't had five weeks off my entire life.

October 2, 1920. Columbia's eyes, Canadian governing farmers, Runs in hose, Killer monkeys.

Leslie's wanted the nation to be reminded that the allegorical eyes of the nation were on voters in its issue out this day in 1920.

Meanwhile, the Country Gentleman was reporting on "Farmer Rule For Canada", which was an article predicting that results based on recent elections in Canada.

The Saturday Evening Post featured a less rural cover.

The last triple header to be played in major league baseball took place on this date when Pirates and the Reds played three games.  The Reds one.  Triple headers are now banned in the major leagues except under unusual circumstances that are sufficiently rare, they haven't occurred.

 

King Alexander was bitten by a monkey when he tried to intervene and save a dog that had been attacked by another monkey. The bite would result in an infection leading to his death, which brought King Constantine back to the throne.  

King Alexander had been a controversial king.  A playboy early on, he'd been smitten by a commoner whom he married over his family's objections.  While the marriage was ultimately recognized, she was only accorded formal royal status after his death in order that their daughter be recognized as a royal.

Greece, under a government formed under King Constantine, would go into a war with Turkey that had disastrous results.  Winston Churchill later remarked to the effect that the monkey's bit may well have resulted in the death of 250,000 people.

Curb brokers in Wall Street, New York City, October 2, 1920.

Friday Farming: Sheep

Holscher's Hub: Sheep:

Sheep

 M

Blog Mirror: Living Through a Pandemic: Eight Months of Donations to the American Heritage Center’s COVID-19 Collection Project

 Living Through a Pandemic: Eight Months of Donations to the American Heritage Center’s COVID-19 Collection Project

Firefighting Cattle: Targeted Grazing Makes Firebreaks in Cheatgrass

 Firefighting Cattle: Targeted Grazing Makes Firebreaks in Cheatgrass

Blog Mirror: Debate, Argument and the Rule of Law

Debate, Argument and the Rule of Law

There is no pendulum even if you have no idea what "the right side of history" is.

 

Franklin Roosevelt.  The country he governed at the time of his death in 1945 wasn't the one he was elected to govern in 1932.

A friend of mine is fond of saying that history is a pendulum, it swings right, and then left, and then back again.  His point is that if you don't like the way history is going, or society, or politics, just wait, and it'll swing back.

Well, it sort of does.

But only sort of.  

It's more like a giant screw, or drill, it has left and right edges contacting what its going through, with that being history or time, I suppose, but it also keeps going in a direction.  Every once and awhile, the drill hits something hard and diverts its path, and its really hard, if not impossible, to get it going in the same direction.

We're about to hit something hard like that.  And my prediction is that it'll change things, permanently.

There have been things like that in the past.  The United States had one character from 1776 to 1860, but 1860 to 1865 changed everything forever.  Signs that something was going to happen were clear in the 1840s, and there were lots of arguments developing over it. But the Civil War brought the change and the United States in 1866 wasn't the same country it had been in 1859.  It'd never be that earlier country again.

The Great Depression is another example.  Going into the Depression in 1929 the country was pretty much the same country it had been in 1866. By 1945 it wouldn't be that country anymore.

Part of the hard spot, if you will, that the drill hit was just fatigue.  The Civil War not only defeated the Southern slaveholders, it fatigued the entire South to the point where it accepted defeat. . . for  time.  The Great Depression fatigued the entire nation to where it accepted changes in the role of government that it would not have before.

And like it nor not, we're about to do that again, or so I suspect.

Fatigue has certainly set in, in the general populace.

The country has been struggling since the 1970s over developments that happened post World War Two and which culminated in the late 60s and early 70s.  Since then, the pendulum, if you like that analogy, has swung back and forth.  But something really started accelerating socially in the late portions of President Obama's second term, brought about in no small part by the sitting Supreme Court.  A reaction in part to that but also in part to policies of the 1970s, including a high immigration rate, export of manufacturing, etc., all caused a slow burning populism to elect Donald Trump.

Trump's about to lose the election.  Amy Coney Barrett is about to go on the Supreme Court.  We're about to enter an era of political liberalism that's going to move the country permanently to the left, while at the same time one of judicial conservatism that will cause people to actually have to pay attention to their elected officials, who will have new powers in lots of ways they haven't since the early 1970s.

What that exactly does should be cold comfort to everyone.  Nobody is going to get what they want. Some people are going to be howling in frustration, as I hinted at that here:

At any rate, the atmosphere that's being created strikes me as one that is going to cause some pockets in the country to be hard to accept and I fear that many in the state will fit into that category, based on their statements.  At some point every American gets Presidential election results that are disappointing to them, sometimes deeply disappointing, but you accept that it occurred, move on, and work in some fashion for the future.  Not since 1860 has there been an election which a large number in the country refused to accept.  Important in that 1860 refusal was the existence of leadership that refused to accept it.  As we head towards the election, it's important that leadership exist again as it seems that some are being primed, accidentally perhaps, not to accept it.

If results go really badly for the GOP in this race, and they might, the reverberations locally will be "interesting" to observe, to say the least.  A Democratic Oval office and Democratic Senate would join an already Democratic House and the state would be living with a lot of changes that its not mentally prepared to accept.  Part of the adjusting of that probably needs to start now.

My prediction is that some of the social policy fights that we've been having but which we've been relying on the high court to mediate will come roaring back.  Those fighting over gun control are going to find that the Supreme Court will hold that the 2nd Amendment is a real personal right restricting legislatures, but that won't mean that those same bodies, including the national one, can't actually impose some restrictions, and those restrictions are coming, and coming extremely rapidly.

Those on the left who have been depending upon the court to hold back the development of societal attitudes disfavoring abortion, but not completely eliminating it, are going to see some states go as far as they can, legally, soon to do just that. Some states will go the other way. There won't be one national law.

Those on the right who were hoping for the definition of marriage to return to the states, where it was before the court ruled otherwise recently, are going to be disappointed. That ship has sailed and the argument is now a cultural one not a legal one.  On the other hand, those who are hoping for the expansion of all sorts of self definition based on ones private parts and inclinations are going to be disappointed as well as the law is going to stop at its current position and the mass of the populace is going to move on to "don't care."

General government involvement in all things, economic and otherwise, is going to increase and markedly and in a leftwards direction.  Part of that will be in the area of environmental policy.  Arguments about climate are about to end, and policies are about to arrive.

None of this means that you have to like any of it, and that gets back to what I posted above. The local Republican party, the only real party in the state, has been enduring an alt -right insurgency. That insurgency is about to be put on the political margins in the entire United States.  And not only indefinitely, but maybe forever.  The right wing from this point, nationally, is the middle right.  Think of the Canadian right, or the British right.  If their right wing seems left wing to you, well we're about to join them.

And again, a person doesn't have to like it. Indeed, they can decry it.  But the drill has hit a hard spot and its' going to divert.

Of course, as noted, we never really know the course of history, or its outcome.  Things do go back, or touch back, or come to be regarded as a place to aim for, in terms of standards and conditions.  Some rapidly, some slowly, and some not at all.