The Big Red One

Men of the 1st Infantry Division at Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944.

I'm constantly surprised to find I haven't reviewed a movie that I thought I should have quite some time ago. This is one such instance, particularly as this movie is by Sam Fuller and I have done his much less well known Korean War film, The Steel Helmet.

Fuller was a pulp fiction writer early in his career and turned to movie scripts after the Second World War.  During World War Two Fuller served as an infantryman in the 1st Infantry Division and the screenplay is more than a little bit semi autobiographical, although the Fuller character in the film, Pvt. Zab, is not the central focus of the film.  Rather, the squad's Sergeant, who is never given a name in the film, and who is played by a weary Lee Marvin, basically is, to the extent that the overall infantry squad itself isn't.  Indeed, the squad basically is, which shows a real military focus on the party of Fuller whose experiences as a Second World War infantry enormously showed in that respect.  Fuller wrote his screenplay prior to 1950 and there was some thought of making the movie as early as that, but instead the film was made and released in 1980.  While it is undoubtedly the biggest budget film ever associated with Fuller, it was actually filmed on a low budget and mostly in Israel.  It was released in two versions, with the original version being shorter and a second version restoring cut scenes.

The film follows a single squad, or really a half squad, of the 1st Infantry Division in World War Two, from Operation Torch (November 1942) through the end of war in Germany (May, 1945).  It interestingly starts off, however, with Lee Marvin's character in a short scene that takes place in November, 1918.  This introduces us to a character who is to be the "old" sergeant, the senior figure of the squad.  In the 1918 scene he wears no rank insignia so, at that time, we presume him to be a private in the same division, and given is later service in World War Two, a career soldier.

In spite of being filmed on a low budget the movie is a remarkably good movie and it stands out as a World War Two movie in a way that really isn't rivaled until the much larger budget Saving Private Ryan.  

The basic premise of the film is the story of the men of a single U.S. Army squad in World War Two.  Fuller was a highly decorated veteran of the 1st Infantry Division so he naturally chose this unit and the script is closely based on his own experiences, featuring as noted one soldier who is basically Fuller.  The unnamed Sergeant is in the role of an experienced combat soldier trying to shepherd his squad through the war.  The film never depicts, except in two instances, a full infantry squad, which is probably partially due to a story telling choice in that it allows a more focused look at the men in the unit rather than expanding it out to two to three times that size, which would be required for a full squad.  That choice also emphasizes the attrition of the war as we come to understand in various ways, sometimes through the addition of added characters, that attrition is keeping the unit small and that experience is keeping these men alive.

So as a story its well done, but how does it hold up to actual history.

By and large, not too badly.

After the brief 1918 scene, the movie takes us to combat in North Africa, Italy, France and on into Germany, reflecting actual use of the division during World War Two. The restored version fills in a bit of the winter gap in 44 and 45 and also some of the late war experience of the unit, although its questionable whether the restored scenes add anything to the film (the scenes added for Germany do not).  The original version tracks very closely to the divisions experiences during the Second World War. The restored version does not depart greatly, but does add a couple of story lines that were inputted for dramatic effect which likely don't, such as a mounted French Foreign Legion charge against German armor and a female German noble woman who conspires to admit American troops into a gathering of high ranking German officers.

As readers here know, we also always discuss material accuracy, and there's a fair amount to discuss concerning that in this film.  Here too, it does a good job.  It does a really good job if we consider that it was made in 1980 and is therefore from the pre Saving Private Ryan era.

Indeed, as this film takes place over three years, it's remarkable in regard to this as some material items changed a lot in the U.S. Army in this time frame and this film manages to depict that accurately.  In 1942, when the film starts, the U.S. Army in North Africa was uniformed, for instance, with a different uniform from that which it wore in Europe in 1945. This film gets that right.  The film also equips every solider in it with the M1 Garand, resisting the temptation that movies so often fell into to depict infantrymen carrying submachineguns or carbines, which they usually did not.  This is so much the case that the film never depicts anyone in the squad carrying a Browning Automatic Rifle, which at least one soldier should be, if the entire squad is considered.  Of course, as noted, the film is typically showing a depleted squad.

One depiction that may be questioned is the depiction of the Marvin sergeant character in terms of age.  During World War Two sergeants were E4s, not E5s, and therefore we're looking at a depiction of a "buck" sergeant who has had over twenty years of service and has not advanced about that rank. That wouldn't occur in the modern Army, but it did then.  Indeed, at that time there were men who retired as privates.

"Old" sergeants did occur in World War Two including in infantry formations.  Still, most NCOs who had World War One service were higher ranking than that during the Second World War even if they entered the war at that rank.  Indeed, quite a few NCOs were commissioned as officers during the war if they had long pre war service, although certainly not all did.  So the depiction is possible, just not extremely likely.  Additionally, while Marvin was 35 years removed from his own military service at the time this film was made, he always had an older appearance and that somewhat fits the appearance of men of that career and that period in time.  If we can take him to be about twenty years old or so when the film opens, and there was an effort to make him look younger for those scenes, the character would only have been in his early 40s at the start of the film. That is old, in that real world role, but it did occur and overall World War Two American soldiers were on average older than generally imagined.

Overall, this film is one of the "must see" World War Two films. Very well done, and almost completely unique in following a group of infantrymen throughout the entire European campaign.

Blog Mirror: Trump Is Giving Up

 Trump Is Giving Up

Lex Anteinternet: Perry Ousted.

Lex Anteinternet: Pendley Ousted: On Saturday's, among other things, I try to post stuff outdoorsy. Ideally, try to go do something outdoorsy, but due to one thing or ano...

Or not.

Right now, it's somewhat like the scene from Monty Python's King Arthur and the Holy Grail scene with the Black Knight.  Pendley is insisting he is still in charge while a Judge in Montana is busy issuing orders on what he can't do there, and maybe to some extent here.  And of course the judge's jurisdictional limit is territorial. .. to a degree.

Chances are this will continue on through the remainder of the Administration.

October 20, 1920. Trips and Monarchs

 

Nicholas Longworth and his wife Alice, daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt with President Warren G. Harding. Also in the photographs is Frank B. Willis, a candidate for senator for Ohio.  October 20, 1920.

On this day in 1920 Yugoslavia's government voted to become a monarchy with the Serbian  Karađorđević dynastic family as its monarchs.  A king would not be installed for a year.

British Columbia rejected national prohibition of alcohol, an option available to Canadian provinces.  It was the first to do so, but it wouldn't be the last.

Joseph Sadi-Lecointe sets a World Aviation Speed Record flying a Nieuport-Delâge 29V 302.53 kilometers per hour.  He's go on to become an aviation official in the French government, resigning that post after the defeat of France in 1940 as he would not serve the Vichy government.  He was active in the resistance and arrested by the Gestapo in 1944.  He was released after being held for two months, but died as a result of injuries received from torture while a prisoner.

On the same day the Army's Black Wolf Squadron returned to Mitchell Field in New York after having flown all the way to Ft. Davis at Nome Alaska and back.

Flannery O'Connor on reading

Last fall, I received a letter from a student who said she would be “graciously appreciative” if I would tell her “just what enlightenment” I expected her to get from each of my stories. I suspect she had a paper to write. I wrote her back to forget about the enlightenment and just try to enjoy them.

Flannery O’Connor

And now Eskimo Pies

 In fact, you won't even begin to get them for awhile.

(RTTNews) - Eskimo Pie ice cream bar has changed its name after more than three months since its parent Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream acknowledged that the name is derogatory. The popular ice cream will now be known as Edy's Pie as a tribute to one of the company's founders, Joseph Edy.

Dreyer's, whose parent Froneri is partly owned by Swiss food major Nestlé, announced that the chocolate-covered vanilla ice cream bar with new name and image will come in early 2021. The company has paused the production of the Eskimo Pie until the introduction of the new brand.

Eskimo Pies have been around since 1921, nearly a century, and I'm confident that there was no racist intent whatsoever behind their name.  This places them in a different category, really, than something like Aunt Jemima which definitely had a racist tinge to it.

And therefore in some ways, this is emblematic of how hypersensitive our age has become.

The concept is pretty obvious.  Ice Cream is cold.  Eskimos live on cold places.

That's about all there is to it.

Of course, the word "Eskimo" is itself more or less controversial now, particularly if you live north of the US Canadian border where hypersensitivity to darned near everything is virtually the national creed, something that the land south of the border is rapidly approach itself.  Originally the term applied to a collection of related Circumpolar native peoples.  Like a lot of such names, nobody really now knows what it means.  Most scholars believe that it derives from a Innuaimun work being a "a person who laces a snowshoe", which likely referred to somebody else, like many North American native names do.  Some have said, however, it refers to husky dogs, but isn't meant pejoratively.  At least one Innu term referring to the Mi'kmaq sounds like Eskimo nad means "she laces a snowshoe".  There's some who think it means "people who speak a different language".  Unfortunately, in the Algonquian language a word that sounds like the means "eater of raw meat" and is offensive.  In recent years the term Inuit has gained widespread acceptance and in Canada its the norm.  In the US people tend to generally just refer to Native Alaskans, which is problematic in its own right as that covers quite an assortment of cultures, not all of whom are Circumpolar by any means.

This won't be the end of this by any means.  Renaming a product like Aunt Jemimas made a lot of sense, as the racist connection was there. Taking Mia off of Land O Lakes products was probably inevitable, but made less sense.  Mrs. Butterworth was exceedingly creepy in my view, but removing her made little sense.  Clearly, however, we're going to remove all references to any ethnicity.

Or will we?  Just recently Coca Cola started importing Topo Chico water into the United States from Mexico.  A long lasting Mexican mineral water, it's really good.  It also features an Indian woman on the label and unlike Mia, she's topless.  Somehow, however, I suspect that this will pass muster as, after all, it's sort of a native product, Coca Cola ownership notwithstanding.

The dangers of legislating from the bench. . . saw that coming.

One of the real oddities of being a lawyer is that the law is a matter of frequent political discussion and you can't see that the same way that other people do.

For instance, since the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg there's been all sorts of discussion about her role in "protecting" various rights that liberals champion.  It's really odd, as championing rights or claims of rights may be a role for lawyers, but not judges.  

Nine times out of ten, judges don't even look at it that way.  They're not supposed to be thinking "I'll make that a right!" or "that oughta be a right!", or whatever, and they usually don't.  For this reason, the way that lawyers and judges generally look at seminal cases isn't even close to the way that lay people do  Indeed, lawyers don't usually think of rights being "created" so much has having been "discovered" or "developed".

Which is also part of the reason that courts routinely surprise people in regards to rights, leaving people to stomp off all mad as they are thinking politically.  They feel that something should or shouldn't be a right, and the Justices must, in their hart of harts, know that and that they're accordingly acting badly by not agreeing with them. . . the big robbed bullies.

Well, to those people I suggest reading the United States Supreme Court opinion The Antelope.  In that case the United States Supreme Court discussed how slavery was against the Natural Law and abhorrent, but still legal.  A lawyers way of looking at it, at the time.  We'd regard it as abhorrent now, to be sure, but frankly there's all sorts of things that courts treat more or less the same way today, but without the reference to Natural Law.

Of course, every once and awhile, the courts just make stuff up, which is upsetting to lawyers who like the law to be capable of rational discernment and for precedents to mean something.  That's why we criticized the Obergefell decision strongly when it was delivered in 2015.  As we noted at the onset of that long entry, we weren't writing on homosexuality itself, or on same gender marriage, but on the court fairly clearly usurping legislative powers in order to leap out ahead of legislatures.

We've taken that post down a couple of times in realization that most readers won't understand its premise.  Perhaps we should have just stated the elements of that premise plainly, in a way that was accepted law prior to it.  That would be:

1.  It's always been the law that the Federal government had no role in defining marriage. States were free to do that, and to define it traditionally, limit it in ways they wanted to, and the like. Unless you were arguing for an application of traditional concepts of Natural Law (which actually were referenced by the United States Supreme Court loosely in regard to this overall topic in the 1970s), there was never a prohibition precluding a state from defining members of the same gender as capable of contracting a marriage.  Quite a few states already had by the time of the court's decision in 2015.

2.  The only exceptions to this were found in other areas.  Loving v. Virginia, for example, dealt with affording rights to equally situated people based solely on race, something that American law has more or less legislatively prohibited since the 1860s, and which took a Civil War to perfect.  People might argue that Obergefell was merely an extension of that, but that fails to understand that marriage laws stem from the state's desire to protect itself against unfunded children, not to ratify love or attraction.  In Obergefell, the Court actually also redefined that, which is universally contrary to every prior definition of marriage or concept of it.  You hope the people love each other, of course, but passionate love in the romantic sense wasn't a requirement of the law.

Obergefell really looked like an example of five elderly folks trying to jump ahead of what they saw to be a national trend and seizing credit for its development.  With the trend lines being what they were at the time, if they'd simply abstained from doing anything the way that they traditionally had, by now, 2020, my guess is a majority of states would now recognize same gender marriage and those that didn't allow it to be contracted in their states would have to recognize it under the Equal Protection Clause, which as the ruling of the Wyoming Supreme Court prior to Obergefell.  Indeed, I can see where the United States Supreme Court could have, in that instance, essentially said, "well, it seems like most states are recognizing it so now everybody has to for some reason we'll now make up. . ." and have had at least Chief Justice Roberts on their side.

As they didn't do that, we predicted in 2015 here that Obergefell wouldn't sit well and the court would end up revisiting the topic in a new and tainted atmosphere.

We just didn't see how quickly that was likely to be. 

Pretty quick.

Recently some appellate cases were up for certification to the Supreme Court. When the Court rejects to take up an appeal, that's a type of decision in and of itself, but only rarely one with commentary.  Just recently, in looking at the appeal of Davis v. Ermold et al, which the court declined to take up, there was the rare feature of two opinions to the rejection.  These aren't really dissents, as some have claimed, as you can't dissent from an opinion that isn't issued, but it is a rare shot across the bow by two previously dissenting justice.  Their opinion read:

Cite as: 592 U. S. ____ (2020) 1 

Statement of THOMAS, J. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES KIM DAVIS v. DAVID ERMOLD, ET AL. ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT No. 19–926. Decided October 5, 2020 The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied. Statement of JUSTICE THOMAS, with whom JUSTICE ALITO joins, respecting the denial of certiorari.

In Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U. S. 644 (2015), the Court read a right to same-sex marriage into the Fourteenth Amendment, even though that right is found nowhere in the text. Several Members of the Court noted that the Court’s decision would threaten the religious liberty of the many Americans who believe that marriage is a sacred institution between one man and one woman. If the States had been allowed to resolve this question through legislation, they could have included accommodations for those who hold these religious beliefs. Id., at 711 (ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting); id., at 734 (THOMAS, J., dissenting). The Court, however, bypassed that democratic process. Worse still, though it briefly acknowledged that those with sincerely held religious objections to same-sex marriage are often “decent and honorable,” id., at 672, the Court went on to suggest that those beliefs espoused a bigoted worldview, ibid. See also id., at 670 (noting that such a view of marriage is “demean[ing]” to gays and lesbians because it “teach[es] that gays and lesbians are unequal”); id., at 671 (describing the view of marriage dictated by the religious beliefs of many as “impos[ing] stigma and injury”); id., at 675 (characterizing the traditional view of marriage as “disrespect[ful]” to gays and lesbians). The dissenting Justices predicted that “[t]hese . . . assaults on the character of fair minded people will have an effect, in society and in court,” id., at 712 (opinion of ROBERTS, C. J.), allowing “governments, employers, and schools” to “vilify” those with these 2 DAVIS v. ERMOLD Statement of THOMAS, J. religious beliefs “as bigots,” id., at 741 (opinion of ALITO, J.). Those predictions did not take long to become reality.

Kim Davis, a former county clerk in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, was responsible for authorizing marriage licenses. Davis is also a devout Christian. When she began her tenure as clerk, Davis’ sincerely held religious beliefs— that marriage exists between one man and one woman— corresponded with the definition of marriage under Kentucky law. See Ky. Rev. Stat. §402.005 (1998); Ky. Const. §233A (2004). Within weeks of this Court granting certiorari in Obergefell, Davis began lobbying for amendments to Kentucky law that would protect the free exercise rights of those who had religious objections to same-sex marriage. But those efforts were cut short by this Court’s decision in Obergefell.

As a result of this Court’s alteration of the Constitution, Davis found herself faced with a choice between her religious beliefs and her job. When she chose to follow her faith, and without any statutory protection of her religious beliefs, she was sued almost immediately for violating the constitutional rights of same-sex couples.

Davis may have been one of the first victims of this Court’s cavalier treatment of religion in its Obergefell decision, but she will not be the last. Due to Obergefell, those with sincerely held religious beliefs concerning marriage will find it increasingly difficult to participate in society without running afoul of Obergefell and its effect on other antidiscrimination laws. It would be one thing if recognition for same-sex marriage had been debated and adopted through the democratic process, with the people deciding not to provide statutory protections for religious liberty under state law.* But it is quite another when the Court forces that choice upon society through its creation of atextual constitutional rights and its ungenerous interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause, leaving those with religious objections in the lurch.

Moreover, Obergefell enables courts and governments to brand religious adherents who believe that marriage is between one man and one woman as bigots, making their religious liberty concerns that much easier to dismiss. For example, relying on Obergefell, one member of the Sixth Circuit panel in this case described Davis’ sincerely held religious beliefs as “anti-homosexual animus.” 936 F. 3d 429, 438 (2019) (Bush, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). In other words, Obergefell was read to suggest that being a public official with traditional Christian values was legally tantamount to invidious discrimination toward homosexuals. This assessment flows directly from Obergefell’s language, which characterized such views as “disparag[ing]” homosexuals and “diminish[ing] their personhood” through “[d]ignitary wounds.” 576 U. S., at 672, 678. Since Obergefell, parties have continually attempted to label people of good will as bigots merely for refusing to alter their religious beliefs in the wake of prevailing orthodoxy. See Campaign for Southern Equality v. Bryant, 197 F. Supp. 3d 905, 910 (SD Miss. 2016) (recognizing the plaintiffs’ argument equating an accommodation allowing religious objectors to recuse themselves from signing same-sex licenses with impermissible discrimination); Brush & Nib Studio, LC v. Phoenix, 244 Ariz. 59, 66, 418 P. 3d 426 (describing owners of wedding studio who declined to participate in same-sex weddings for religious reasons as treating homosexuals like “‘social outcasts’” (quoting Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Comm’n, 584 U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 9))).

* * *

This petition implicates important questions about the scope of our decision in Obergefell, but it does not cleanly present them. For that reason, I concur in the denial of certiorari. Nevertheless, this petition provides a stark reminder of the consequences of Obergefell. By choosing to privilege a novel constitutional right over the religious liberty interests explicitly protected in the First Amendment, and by doing so undemocratically, the Court has created a problem that only it can fix. Until then, Obergefell will continue to have “ruinous consequences for religious liberty.” 576 U. S., at 734 (THOMAS, J., dissenting).

*Under this Court’s precedents, “the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes scribes) conduct that his religion proscribes (or prescribes).” Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872, 879 (1990) (internal quotation marks omitted). As a result of Smith, accommodations for those with sincerely held religious beliefs have generally been viewed as the domain of positive state and federal law. See, e.g., Klein v. Oregon Bureau of Labor & Industries, 289 Ore. App. 507, 543– 546, 410 P. 3d 1051, 1074–1076 (2017) (rejecting a Free Exercise claim under Smith).

That's a clear signal that two of the conservative justices don't like what occurred.

It's also a recognition of something else we noted.  Justice Anthony Kennedy's opinion was so badly drafted that it would result in endless additional litigation.  Kennedy didn't recognize that at the time, which was typical for Kennedy, who seemed not to be able to grasp that there really aren't any limited Supreme Court holdings and who then would go off and sulk when people didn't like them.

In this case, some people really didn't like the decision and the net result, in part, was Donald Trump.  Trump, in his 2016 race for the Presidency, actually made a comment in one (but only one) interview about there being a need to "reverse" Obergefell.  Most legal analysts would have regarded the chance of a near term reversal as impossible.

Most still would, but as this opinion notes, the court has already had to attempt to fix Obergefell in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Comm’n, which we previously also wrote about here some time ago.  So what does this mean now.  Is the court going to reverse Obergefell?  

Well, nobody knows, of course, but it's impossible not to note that two of the dissenters in 2015 have criticized this opinion and it was a 5 to 4 opinion.  One of the justices who was in the majority, Ginsburg, is now dead and another, the opinion's author, has retired.  Ginsburg's replacement is a textualist, and Thomas and Alito have specifically referred to the text of the Constitution in there comments.

If the matter came up today, squarely, my guess is that Alito and Thomas would reverse Obergefell and they're so much as asking for the opportunity to do that.  My guess, and its just that, is that Barrett would as well.

My further guess, however, is that Roberts, who dissented in Obergefell and who was very critical of it, wouldn't.  He's hold the opinion, I suspect, that this case is now stare decisis and therefore it is what it is. But that's one vote.  What about the two new post Obergefell justices?

Nobody knows.

So what would happen if it were reversed?

All we can know with certainty is that the law would return to the status quo ante, and therefore this topic would be up to the states. As we've repeatedly noted here, none of the "conservative" justices are really that. They're textualist or originalist, they're not jurisprudential conservatives.  If you had the latter, you could end up with a radical departure from what we've had in the past which would be a philosophical rejection of the premise of Obergefell, but that won't happen. All that would happen is that the topic would return to the states.  States that had laws on the books allowing for same sex unions still would.  States that disallowed them still would.  It'd be back to the legislatures once again.

And here's where the real irony of the situation is to be found, and its one that we warned about before.  In 2015, in the last year of President Obama's administration, there was a national trend towards redefining marriage to include same gender couples.  Obergefell coopted the trend and ended it.  Prior to Obergefell it had been widely argued that redefining marriage was a limited effort by its very nature.  The court, however, converting it into a Constitutional matter unleashed a host of much more sweeping arguments that have now really gotten into society.  While they've been successful, there's good evidence that they're deeply unpopular in some quarters.  While its generally been missed, and we have yet to post on it ourselves, there's a deeply cultural conservative movement that's on the rise in the post Boomer generations and which is demographically a rising nearly inevitable rising tide.  Therefore, if this issue come back in the next few years and Obergefell is reversed it'll not only unleash a battle in the culture war of epic proportions, it may usher in a coming demographically and culturally supported counter tide earlier than it would have occured, and it will be likely the case that those who urged the courts to take on this issue and usher in change will wish that they had not done that, but that instead they're relied upon the legislative success they were then having.

Democracy in America

Democracy in America

Monday Morning Repeats for the week of June 28, 2009. 1920, law, and the Geology Museum

 A repeat from over a decade ago that sounds like it could have been written now:

1920, law, and the Geology Museum

It's odd to see that eleven years ago I was then noting the near centennial, but not that near, of the law school's founding.  I also see that's when I learned of its age.

And the budget problems UW was then having. . . well they're worse now.

Indeed, frankly, everything about the this topic has grown worse over the past decade.  Wyoming's economy is showing real systemic problems, and its government by extension.  Politics has become more polarized.  The university is suffering from the problems of the pandemic. And the law school's purpose has become questionable in the wake of the UBE.

A sense of dread.

I have one.

And it's about the election.

Not the election results.  I'm resigned to exactly what is coming.  At 57 years of age, I'm not going to say I'm numbed to politics, but through long experience combined perhaps with my occupation, I know that things often turn out differently than the way I'd have them turn out.  

And beyond that, no reader here should presume to know how I feel that they should turn out or how things should be, save for where I've expressly said so.  You can't tell, in other words, if I voted for Biden, Trump, or some third candidate.

No you can't.

Living where I do, the overwhelming majority of voters are going to vote for Trump, but, and this is telling, not in the numbers that they did in 2016.  Even some fairly diehard Republicans that I know are silent about Trump now.  Some are criticizing him without saying who they are voting for.  I've seen Biden/Harris signs up this year where I didn't see Clinton signs in 2016, and I've seen a view Trump booster take their signs down after various things occurred, namely his purported comments about veterans and then his terrible performance in his first debate.  That in an area that has gone incredibly right wing since the 1990s this would be occurring is telling.

As is, as we just noted, the fact that Marev Ben David, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, is suddenly doing pretty well in fund raising.  Ben David has a heavy Israeli accent and is a political newcomer, none of which is keeping some Wyomingites from switching over to her for her politically moderate, science emphasizing, campaign (an advertisement she has done has a bunch of national GOP figures saying "I'm not a scientist" to which she cheerfully comes in at the end and states "I am!").

None of that means that the Democrats will take any of these offices locally.  

What it does mean, however, is this. If the tide is receding a little here, or coming in, depending upon how you view it, there's really something major going on.

Right now its nearly inevitable that Joe Biden will win the general election.  Absent something really earth shattering happening in the next couple of weeks, that's a forgone conclusion.  And, according to poll takers, the odds are in favor of the Democrats capturing the Senate.  Given all of this the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett will be the last significant thing to occur in the Trump administration.  It is significant, and a major event in American history, but it'll be the last thing the sitting administration accomplishes.

Indeed, the Senate Republicans needs to accomplish it before the election as there's no guarantee that the mercurial Trump will do anything on the nomination after the election.

And its the post election, pre confirmation, period that I'm really starting to dread.

And denial in the face of history is the reason why.

There's a lot going on with big developments in culture and political culture right now, and some of them are not only of epic proportions, but they're misunderstood. ONe thing that should be completely understood, however, is that it's a near certainty that the President will go down in electoral defeat and there's a good chance that the Senate will flip to the Democrats.  If that occurs, the next two years, at a bare minimum, will be considerably to the left of any anything we've experienced since the 1970s, and maybe the 1930s/1940s.

So people should be prepared for that.

A lot don't seem to be.

Social media isn't a good indicator of anything whatsoever, but accepting that for what it is, around here I'm seeing some who absolutely believe that we're going to see a national Republican victory, and even a "Trump Landslide".  People are committing to that in the comments, and have labeled suggestions to the opposite as lies.

They aren't lies.

This fits into a general rightward slide in the state's politics over the last six years.  Wyoming has always been a Republican state, and I do mean always (although that hasn't always meant the same thing), but it has only had a radical tea party, alt right, wing for less than a decade.  The Wyoming GOP used to be fairly sui generis, and not really fit the national mold very well.  Over the last decade, however, well funded efforts have had a major influence and alt right insurgents basically are in control of the state's GOP leadership.

This has expressed itself in a series of candidates who represented the views of that wing of the party, although on a state level resistance to them has been pronounced.  Rank and file GOP members remain representative of the traditional party. For this reason in 2018 they rejected to heavily right wing candidates and went for Governor Gordon, who was viewed as middle of the road.  Out at the legislator level things have been mixed, with some from the insurgent wing gaining ground in the recent primaries and some not.

Indeed Gordon's election spurred a movement within the state's GOP based on the concept, rejected by the University of Wyoming's statisticians, that floods of Democrats registered as Republicans in 2018 in order to keep the more right wing candidates from winning.  Foster Friess was heard to make comments to that effect, which he must have had second thoughts about later as an exploratory committee he formed to explore running for the Senate quickly lead him to decide not to do that.  Indeed, truth be known, most of the centeriest who were in the Democratic Party back in the 1990s, and most Wyoming Democrats were centrist at the time, moved over to the GOP in that time frame, not in the 2010s, and younger ones have generally looked at the situation and joined the GOP from the onset.  The irony of that is that people who declare these rank and file voters to be RINOs and who want to boot them out of the party fail to realize that they're just as much of the party as the alt right is.  In numbers, more so.

Still, the really convinced hard right has been very evident in the state's politics for several years and particularly evident since 2016. They've taken on the Governor from time to time and they've engaged in an internecine feud with the more middle of the road traditional parts of the party.  Given this, some of their candidates have been very vocal about supporting the President, although that may have been what took Galeotos down during the 2018 race.  Right now, Cynthia Lummis, who made a statement about "holding her nose and voting" during the 2016 general election is lashed to the deck with Trump in  her current race with statements as if there's no doubt he'll be reelected.

Additionally, all over for the past six months there have been Trump flags with a lot of unofficial ones with vulgar messages.  Flags with the "don't tread on me" emblem have been here and there.  I saw cabins flying Trump flags high in the Big Horns during the summer.  I've seen them hanging from cranes and construction sites the way that only the US flag used to be displayed.  All of this represents not only a solid belief that Trump will win, but a steadfast declaration against those outside of that fold.

Not all of these displays are from the dedicated hard right by any means.  Many are by Republicans who simply have no else where to go, or from Republicans who feel that whatever his public presentation may be, the things Trumps administration have accomplished have generally been ones they have supported, and there have been real accomplishments, claims to the contrary notwithstanding.  But some are from a section of the party that has adopted Trump in a way that I've only seen one other candidate, President Obama, adopted by some during my lifetime, that being a cult of personality approach.

Following the November election, that wing of the GOP nationally is going to be very much on the outs nationally.  My guess is that the national  party will abandon it with blistering speed.  Republican's on the national scene who have laid low or been on the outs over the last four years will be back in strength.  Republicans who were heavily invested in Trump, and on the national scene, will either reinvent themselves rapidly or will disappear.  We'll likely never hear from Rudy Giuliani again.  Chris Christie's COVID 19 bout will prove to be a blessing as it removed him from the scene when he needed not to be there.  Mitt Romney and Marco Rubio will be the new face of the party.  It'll take awhile, but the party will reform as a conservative party that's less to the right of where it's been the past four years on the national level, and perhaps further to the left than its been since Richard Nixon.  On the state level the party will remain very conservative, but not as much, in most places, as it has been.

Here I fear that there will be a massive sense of disbelief in some quarters.  People who are heavily invested in an ever rightward direction of the country are going to be stunned and some will not believe it occurred at all. There will be cries of election fraud.  Moreover, there will be cries to ignore the results, which will only result in the state being completely ignored.

While it is a terrible example and not meant to taken literally, it reminds me of what I know of the defeat of Germany in 1945.  It wasn't until January 1945 that most Germans actually realized that they were going to lose the war.  As things folded in there were various reactions.  Many Germans accepted defeat completely and regarded it as God's judgement on the nation. Some, however, heavily invested in the propaganda of the state, went down fighting for no reason.  Others turned to booze and debauchery.  

Following the war, conservative politicians who had spent the war outside of Germany came in and formed a democratic state. Those who had supported the Nazi regime weren't really punished, but they also had limits on what they could do.  The state didn't return to its old self. A few hardcore Nazis tried to form new parties with the old ideologies and were completely ignored.  There was no place for them.

I’m in your city and there’s nothing you’re going to do about it. And we’re going to continue to win, and you’re going to continue to lose

So stated the invited keynote speaker at a Trump rally yesterday in Casper.  But the statement is at this point delusional.  In just a couple of weeks the question will not be who is going to occupy the White House, but who will be occupying the Senate.  This isn't a political statement, it's a factual one.  Simply saying winter is coming doesn't make a person a proponent of cold weather, but an observer of the truth. 

We're about to enter a new political era.  I've posted on it once here already, and will again shortly.  The question is, right now, how many are going to accept the reality of that and work for the best of the conservative ideals, and how many will simply refuse to believe it with discomforting results for all and no effect for themselves in the end.

St. Chrysostom on the love of husbands and wifes.

The love of husband and wife is the force that welds society together.  Men will take up arms and even sacrifice their lives for the sake of this love.  There is no relationship between humans so close as that of husband and wife, if they are as they should be.

St. Chrysostom

Churches of the West: Ft. Laramie Community Presbyterian Church, Ft. Laramie, Wyoming

Churches of the West: Ft. Laramie Community Presbyterian Church, Ft. Lar...: 

Ft. Laramie Community Presbyterian Church, Ft. Laramie Wyoming

This Prairie Gothic church in the small town of Ft. Laramie, Wyoming, is in the Prairie Gothic style.  The town of Ft. Laramie is just a few miles from the historic frontier era Wyoming fort.

Best Posts of the Week of October 11, 2020.

The best posts of the week of October 11, 2020.

At last. . . a Supreme Court opinion that really, really, matters.

October 14, 1920. End of the Heimosodat

An Insult to the Body

"You are out of your mind"

Notes On Nominations. Replacing Justice Ginsburg

Poster Saturday: Recycling the old ones. . .

Poster Saturday: Recycling the old ones. . .

As we've noted before, the first half of the 20th Century was really the golden age of poster.  After that, color photography and television seems to have really killed it. As media became much more freely available, well, illustrations lost their allure.  By the 1950s, the age of mass posters was over, although it'd enjoy a brief revival in the 1960s, with a certain style unique to that period, for concert posters.

None of which means, ironically, that the posters of the early 20th Century still don't retain their original impact in some ways.  And for that reason, those of World War Two are frequently recycled and updated.  Here, the Canadian Army has done just that.

Pretty clever really.

Pandemics go way back. D'uh.

Somehow, science didn't appreciate that the Great Plague was't the first plague, as the Washington Post is now reporting.

Ancient teeth show history of epidemics is much older than we thought

How could we not have realized that?

Blog Mirror: The outdoor commitment

 

The outdoor commitment

October 16, 1920. What the mail would have brought.

 

Today In Wyoming's History: October 16, 1940 . R Day

Caption reads:  "Delegates of N.Y. Youth Congress present petition at White House opposing compulsory conscription. Washington, D.C., June 20. A delegation from the New York Youth Congress called at the White House today with a petition opposing President Roosevelt's proposed plan to regiment the young men and women of American in compulsory military training and forced labor. The delegation shown on the steps of the White House are, left to right - Wesley Nelson, Church of the Master; Tom Jones, Brooklyn Negro Youth Federation; Jean Horie, Executive Secretary of the New York Youth Congress; and David Livingstone, United Wholesale and Warehouse Employees Union, N.Y. Local 65"

Today In Wyoming's History: October 16: 1940  "R Day", the deadline for all men aged 21 to 36 years old to register for conscription.

Some Gave All: Merrill's Marauders to receive Congressional Gold Medal

Some Gave All: Merrill's Marauders to receive Congressional Gold ...: 

Merrill's Marauders to receive Congressional Gold Medal.

The 5307 Composite Unit (Provisional), know by most as Merrill's Marauders, have been awarded a Congressional Gold Medal, an award honoring collective heroic achievements.  The 5307th famously served in deep penetration raids in the China Burma India Theatre during World War Two.

Only eight men of the unit remain alive today.

More appears on the original thread on Some Gave All.

"You are out of your mind"

Wyoming elk hunter, 1904.

So declared long suffering spouse.

On Wednesday I posted this item about my recent oral surgery:

An Insult to the Body

Yesterday was the first day I tried to avoid taking pain killers, which in this case means heavy duty Tylenol.  I'm weird about painkillers in general and very rarely take them.  I don't resort to them except as a last resort and I knew, even when they were prescribed, I'd never take them for the full period I could.  I just don't.  I don't take anything for headaches, which I rarely get, and even if I have an injury of some sort, I don't think them unless its really painful.

I'm not sure where I picked up this personal trait.  Unlike some in our current society, I'm not a medical advice skeptic except when it comes to painkillers.  I've always been this way, so its not a new thing.  For much of my single life you'd have been unable to find any of the conventional pain killers that most people keep routinely in a place I was living.  I wasn't going to use them, so I didn't buy them.

Occupationally I've become more skeptical, even paranoid, about them.  I've seen too many addicts who are slaves to painkillers.  I represented a guy a few years ago in a car accident matter who died last year from an overdose of them.  I think they're overprescribed.  

An added to that, I'm allergic to the heavy duty ones, which doesn't bother me, as I'm not going to take them anyway.

I note all of this as I didn't take them, so by late yesterday afternoon I felt pretty rough at work. Not as in I was enduring a terrible pain, but just rough.  And old friend called to visit at work and asked how I was doing, after he learned of the procedure earlier in the week, and I just noted mostly being extremely tired, to which he replied "that's because you're getting old". 

That might be right, but it might be more than that as well, in this instance.

Anyhow, this brings me around to long suffering spouses comment.

I didn't draw a deer tag this year.

I didn't draw any tags, in fact, and I'm not too happy about it.  I'll post more on that later.

Given as I didn't draw a deer, or elk, tag, the season crept up on me with me being unprepared for the general season.  I got out over the weekend and zeroed my daughter's rifle and took care of my son's, but that's about as far as I got.  In thinking it over, I just figured that I wouldn't be going out opening day anyway, so I'd take are of things, like zeroing my own rifle, this week. 

I haven't gotten that done.

But as my two kids are in university and I am not, it started to really bother me, and it still is, that I just figured I'd go on the weekend.  When I was first a lawyer, I'd go on opening day.  I don't anymore as I'm busy. 

Which gets me to this comment I made yesterday.

It is pretty amazing to me in a way as when I was a student I always promised myself that there were things I'd never let work get in the way of.  I know that you are probably thinking I'm going to say "family and friends", but what I'm really thinking of is hunting and the outdoors.  Well, I have let it get in the way of that and I still do. And more and more so as time has gone on.

In fact, tomorrow is the opening day for general deer season around here and I'm unlikely to get out for opening day.  When I was a younger lawyer, I always did. Now I have a harder time doing that simply as my weeks are so hectic that I don't conceive of myself having the week days to take off, and besides that I'm tired enough that getting ready for something outside the routine isn't easy.  We'll see, although this year that would additionally meaning shooting a rifle just a few days out of oral surgery, which might not be smart.

We'll see.

Well last night, I asked son, who has been here due to the pandemic, "you have school tomorrow, right?"

Right away, long suffering spouse knew what I was thinking.

I received a spousal rebuke, indeed a lecture, and she's right.  I had to end up taking the Tylenol last night in spite of myself, and my extracted teeth were on my right side, which means that part of my jaw would be against the stock.  I had trouble stopping the bleeding in the first place.

2020. 

The Annus Horribilius.

October 15, 1878. Edison Electric LIght flips on the switch.

 A long time ago I started a series of posts that riffed off a George F. Will column, in which he stated:

In many ways, the world of 1870 was more medieval than modern. Three necessities — food, clothing, shelter — absorbed almost all consumer spending. No household was wired for electricity. Flickering light came from candles and whale oil, manufacturing power from steam engines, water wheels and horses. Urban horses, alive and dead, complicated urban sanitation. Window screens were rare, so insects commuted to and fro between animal and human waste outdoors and the dinner table. A typical North Carolina housewife in the 1880s carried water into her home eight to 10 times daily, walking 148 miles a year to tote 36 tons of it. Few children were in school after age 12.

I can't recall if I ever expanded on the whale oil lighting specifically, but I did generally, in this post here:

I don't dispute the details that Will recites here, but I do doubt the "more medieval than modern assertion.  Indeed, some of these things argue, I think, the other way around.  Still, it taps into what we're discussing here.  This is just the sort of thing that this blog exists to explore, particularly given that the time frame that Will is discussing, 1870 to 1970, fits right in with the time frame, sort of, that this blog is looking at, as earlier noted. 

Whale oil chandelier, photo from the Library of Congress.  Up until the Will entry, I'd never even considered there being such a thing as a whale oil chandelier.

What Will noted was quite true, but was this Medieval in character?  I'd assert not.  I don't really know, however.  Whaling has taken place to some extent since ancient times, but the widespread use of whale oil, I suspect, didn't come about until well after the Medieval period.  Indeed, it doesn't seem to have been done in an appreciably large manner until maybe the 17th Century, although whaling itself does go back much further than that.  Whale oil, once it became a common commodity, did see use in lamps in candles in an appreciable manner.   Starting in the 19th Century, however, kerosene began to come in.  Whale oil reached its peak in 1845 and then began to fairly rapidly decline thereafter as kerosene became more common, although whale oil would continue to see some use up until electrical generation replaced it in the early 20th Century, a fairly remarkable fact.

That post was entitled:

They could get by without electricity

Well, today is the day that started changing, in 1878.  Today is the anniversary of the Edison Electric Light Company commencing business.

To put this slightly in context, George A. Custer and the men under his immediate command at Little Big Horn had only been in their graves in Montana for two years at this point.  Most of Central Wyoming completely remained Indian territory and the big Texas and Oregon cattle drives to that region of the state hadn't yet commenced.  Rail transportation hadn't penetrated into most of Montana and was only in Southern Wyoming.

Put a slightly different way, for context, when this anniversary reached its centennial, I was in high school.

October 15, 1920. Camps

Camp Mondawmin, Schroon Lake, N.Y.  October 15, 1920.

View from lookout, New Lake View Hotel, Highgate Springs, Vt.

An Insult to the Body

insult

 (ĭn-sŭlt′)

v. in·sulted, in·sulting, in·sults

n. (ĭn′sŭlt′)

a. Medicine A bodily injury, irritation, or trauma.

b. Something that causes injury, irritation, or trauma: "the middle of the Bronx, buffeted and poisoned by the worst environmental insults that urban America can dish out" (William K. Stevens).

American Heritage Medical Dictionary.

I had oral surgery earlier this week, which results in an "insult to the body".  I.e., an injury or trauma.

A necessary one, and the oral surgeon did a super good job.  And fast too.  I was really impressed.

Some time ago I fractured a molar right down the center.  I.e., if you took its vertical axis, and ran a line right down the center from front to back, I fractured it.

It was tooth number 31, to be precise.

I knew shortly after it occured that it had occurred, even though I don't know what caused it to occur.  The reason that I knew is that I've done that several times before, although never nearly as seriously.  Generally, when it's happened, it's been a moderate fracture.  Here, however, I could tell that it went right through the tooth.

When it occurred, I was getting ready for a trial and therefore I ignored it.  I knew that extracting it would be a bit of an ordeal and I couldn't afford that at the time.  But when the trial went away, that was another matter, aso I scheduled a visit to my dentist right away.  He removed a filling thinking that something associated with that was what was causing my pain, but as soon as the filing was off, the fracture was evident.  So it was off to the oral surgeon.

That experience was odd for me as my father, who was a dentist, used to pull teeth himself.  I guess I just figure that dentist do that, but he died twenty eight years ago and things have changed.  My current dentist, who was a young dentist back then and who knew my father (he'd been their family dentist prior to his becoming a dentist) has often remarked that he wonders what my father would have thought of how things developed.  I wonder too.  I think he'd be impressed.

Anyhow, the last time I had a serious crack what drove me in quickly was fatigue.  You wouldn't think that having a cracked tooth would make you tired, but it did.  This one didn't, even though it was painful and I knew what it was.

With number 31, came number 32.  I knew that was going to be the case even before my dentist told me that, and the oral surgeon confirmed it.

I didn't want to be a dentist when I was young.  I don't know why.  It isn't as if I've picked up an adult regret about not having followed that vocation, but it is odd to me that I've never picked up a desire to do that.  My father's medical knowledge was incredibly vast, so you'd have thought I'd have picked up that desire.  In some odd way, I wish I had.  But I didn't, and I still don't have it.  I feel like a bit of a slacker, frankly, for not having developed it, even though, as life would have it, I've ended up with the same dedication to work that my father had.  I wouldn't have seen that coming.

Anyhow, I never picked up the desire to be a dentist but I did pick up, oddly enough, a lot of dental knowledge. Without being told, I knew that number 32, as wisdom tooth, ahd to come out as once it's neighbor 31 was out, it'd move.

Indeed, number 32 got a three decade long reprieve due to my father's untimely death at age 62.  My father was taking my wisdom teeth out (again, note that he wasn't oral surgeon) as they "erupted", which they do from time to time. He'd gotten two of them, and two remain.  Now only one, tooth 17, remains.  I can feel it barely poking up.  Somehow in the last decade, they quit erupting and were fixed in place.  The removal of 31 would have put 32 on the move, and I knew that wisdom teeth moving in the modern jaw, as opposed to the archaic one, is one of the reasons they're a problem.  They move, get impacted, and a real problem is off and running.  Having said that, I figured that I was probably safe on this as they have pretty obviously quit erupting.  Once 31 was cracked, I knew it was coming out, and I knew that 32 would have to go.

So earlier this week I went to the oral surgeon.

I just took a local, and therefore I was awake and a student of the entire event.  I was stunned by how quick it was.  He really is a master of extraction, even though the fractured molar had broken into three or more parts.  It was a mess.  "Well that stinks" is the first thing he said to his assistant when the main part came out without the rest.  But it was really fast.  No. 32 came right out.

Anyhow, I felt fine at first even though I was bleeding.

A couple of hours later, I was in intense pain.  I couldn't get the bleeding to really stop for hours. And this morning, when I woke up, I'd not only slept an extra hour beyond the normal, I was dead tired.  I'm finishing my coffee this morning out of necessity, and I have a very long day ahead of me, stretching into the night.

A few observations.

I'm amazed by how injuries now really wipe me out, and hence the name for this entry.  I'm in fairly decent shape for age 57.  Indeed, I'm in better shape than most of my contemporaries.  But recovering from injuries now takes forever.

And I have some experience with this.  I"ve broken so many bones in my body that when some future archeologist digs me up, he's going to think that I was a bull rider or a lightly boned Neanderthal.  

Indeed, recovering physically from anything takes me a lot longer than it used to.  On weekends I still often hike for miles, but I'll feel it on Mondays.

Secondly, it strikes me how rough things must be for dedicated drinkers and smokers.  I don't smoke and I'm not in the "gotta have a drink" category, so I'm good to go on it, but in looking at the mediation I received, and the post procedure material, warnings about smoking within the first week of the extraction are there as well as warnings about the pharmaceuticals being contraindicated for alcohol.  I'm only fighting feeling really worn out and sleepy.  I can't imagine what it would be like fighting an addiction as well.

And I'm just dealing with your garden variety pain killers recently, which I rarely take.  I'm allergic to the heavy duty ones and never take them.  They're super contraindicated.

As another item, how rough it must have been before modern dentistry.  I'll have to look it up, but back before Novocain, how did people endure these procedures?  Yikes.

Finally, I don't know if its just who've I've become, or the modern world, but I was struck by how I didn't get a break from work, which had been a little on my mind anyhow due to this entry from A Hundred Years Ago.

1920 Advice for Preparing a Meal Tray for a Sick Person

Now first, let me note, I hate being sick.  I just hate it, and that's in normal times.  Right now, you can't hear somebody cough without worrying about COVID 19.

But nonetheless, when I was a kid, there was as certain "if you are sick stay home and take it easy" type of thinking.  Basically, you didn't want to be sick, but if you were, you could stay home and read books.  

That sort of thinking translated at least a little bit to adulthood.  When I was in junior high I remember watching a Warner Brothers cartoon in some class urging you to stay home if you were sick, and which suggested that being sick with a cold was nature's way of making you take some time off.  Indeed, I've heard that suggestion made from time to time.

Indeed, there's something to that, but not directly.  We get sick in part, but not solely of course, due to high stress and fatigue.  That wears us down and makes us vulnerable to infections.  Yet it's pretty clear that I keep on keeping on.

Maybe it's different from others in other lines of work, but at least for the self employed with in town jobs, being sick is a disaster.  You haven't planned for it, and therefore you generally keep on keeping on anyhow.

Or at least I do, and I may not be the norm.

I had actually planned to go back to work after the extractions, but about an hour later it was pretty clear I wasn't going to be able to do that.  I worked some from home, but frankly not very efficiently.

Maybe that just means I'm in that "workaholic" category, although there's no such thing as "workahol".

It is pretty amazing to me in a way as when I was a student I always promised myself that there were things I'd never let work get in the way of.  I know that you are probably thinking I'm going to say "family and friends", but what I'm really thinking of is hunting and the outdoors.  Well, I have let it get in the way of that and I still do. And more and more so as time has gone on.

In fact, tomorrow is the opening day for general deer season around here and I'm unlikely to get out for opening day.  When I was a younger lawyer, I always did. Now I have a harder time doing that simply as my weeks are so hectic that I don't conceive of myself having the week days to take off, and besides that I'm tired enough that getting ready for something outside the routine isn't easy.  We'll see, although this year that would additionally meaning shooting a rifle just a few days out of oral surgery, which might not be smart.

We'll see.

Finally, when they extracted my teeth they threw them away.  No big deal, but I was hoping to actually keep them.

Yep, that's odd for somebody of my age, but in part I really wanted to see what the fractured molar looked like.  I know it was pretty messed up, but I'm just curious about that stuff.

Besides that, I'd had these teeth for a really long time, and they're part of me.  Now they're somewhere else.  On the last day, I'll get them back, but it's odd to think of them being separated from me for probable millenia.  I hope they fare well.