Monday July 21, 1941. National Emergency.

President Roosevelt sent to a message to Congress asking it to declare a national emergency in order that military reservists could be retained.

The message read:

TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES

Last year the Congress of the United States recognizing the gravity of the world situation held that common prudence required that American defence, at that time relatively very weak, be strengthened in its two aspects. The first called for the production of munitions of all kinds. The second called for the training and service of personnel. The Selective Training and Service Act authorized the annual induction into military service of a maximum of 900,000 men for this training and service, of whom 600,000 are now in the army. The Congress also authorized the induction into service of the National Guard, the reserve officers, and other reserve components of the Army of the United States.

In the absence of further action by the Congress, all of those involved must be released from active service on the expiration of twelve months. This means that beginning this Autumn about two-thirds of the Army of the United States will begin a demobilization.

The action taken last year was appropriate to the international situation at that time. It took into consideration the small size and the undeveloped state of our armed forces. The National Guard, which then formed the bulk of these forces, had to be seasoned; its technical training and general efficiency greatly improved. The ranks of the National Guard and the Regular Army had to be brought to full strength; and, in addition, the army required for its tremendous expansion the services of approximately 50,000 reserve officers.

In effect, two steps were taken for the security of the nation. First, the Selective Service Act initiated annual military training as a prime duty of citizenship. Second, the organization and training of field armies was begun-training in team-work-company by company, battalion by battalion, regiment by regiment, and division by division. The objective was to have ready at short notice an organized and integrated personnel of over 1,000,000 men.

I need scarcely emphasize the fact that if and when an organized and integrated company, battalion, regiment or division is compelled to send two-thirds of its members home, those who return to civil life, if called to the colors later on, would have to go through a new period of organization and integration before the new unit to which they were assigned could be depended on for service. The risks and the weaknesses caused by dissolving a trained army in times of national peril were pointed out by George Washington over and over again in his Messages to the Continental Congress.

It is, therefore, obvious that if two-thirds of our present army return to civilian life, it will be almost a year before the effective army strength again reaches one million men.

Today it is imperative that I should officially report to the Congress what the Congress undoubtedly knows: that the international situation is not less grave but is far more grave than it was a year ago. It is so grave, in my opinion, and in the opinion of all who are conversant with the facts, that the army should be maintained in effective strength and without diminution of its effective numbers in a complete state of readiness. Small as it is in comparison with other armies, it should not suffer any form of disorganization or disintegration.

Therefore, we would be taking a grave national risk unless the Congress were to make it possible for us to maintain our present full effective strength and during the coming year give training to as many additional Americans as we can, when immediate readiness for service becomes more and more a vital precautionary measure, the elimination of approximately two-thirds of our trained soldiers, and about three-fourths of the total officer personnel, would be a tragic error.

Occasional individuals, basing their opinions on unsupported evidence or on no evidence at all, may with honest intent assert that the United States need fear no attack on its own territory or on the other nations of this hemisphere by aggressors from without.

Nevertheless, it is the well-nigh unanimous opinion of those who are daily cognizant, as military and naval officers and as government servants in the field of international relations, that schemes and plans of aggressor nations against American security are so evident that the United States and the rest of the Americas are definitely imperiled in their national interests. That is why reluctantly, and only after a careful weighing of all facts and all events, I recently proclaimed that an unlimited national emergency exists.

It is not surprising that millions of patriotic Americans find it difficult in the pursuit of their daily occupations and in the normal lives of their families to give constant thought to the implications of happenings many thousand of miles away. It is hard for most of us to bring such events into focus with our own readily accepted and normal democratic ways of living.

That is why I must refer again to the sequence of conquests-German conquests or attacks-which have continued uninterruptedly throughout several years-all the way from the coup against Austria to the present campaign against Russia.

Every move up and down and across Europe, and into Asia, and into Africa has been conducted according to a time schedule utilizing in every case an overwhelming superiority not only in materiel but in trained men as well. Each campaign has been based on a preliminary assurance of safety or non-aggression to the intended victim. Each campaign has been based on disarming fear and gaining time until the German Government was fully ready to throw treaties and pacts to the winds and simultaneously to launch an attack in overwhelming force.

Each elimination of a victim has brought the issue of Nazi domination closer to this hemisphere, while month by month their intrigues of propaganda and conspiracy have sought to weaken every link in the community of interests that should bind the Americas into a great western family.

I do not think that any branch of the Government of the United States will be willing to let America risk the fate which has destroyed the independence of other nations.

We Americans cannot afford to speculate with the security of America.

Furthermore, we have a definite responsibility to every country in the Western Hemisphere-to aid each and every one of them against attack from without the Hemisphere. I do not believe that any branch of the American Government would desire today to abrogate our Pan-American pacts or to discard a policy which we have maintained for nearly a century and a quarter.

If we do not reverse this historic policy, then it is our duty to maintain it. To weaken our army at this particular time would be, in my judgment, an act of bad faith toward our neighbors.

I realize that personal sacrifices are involved in extending the period of service for selectees, the National Guard and other reserve components of our army. I believe that provision now can and will be made in such an extension to relieve individual cases of undue hardship, and also to relieve older men who should, in justice, be allowed to resume their civilian occupations as quickly as their services can be spared.

Nevertheless, I am confident that the men now in the ranks of the army realize far better than does the general public, the disastrous effect which would result from permitting the present army, only now approaching an acceptable state of efficiency, to melt away and set us back at least six months while new units are being reconstituted from the bottom up and from the top down with new drafts of officers and men.

The legislation of last year provided definitely that if national danger later existed, the one year period of training could be extended by action of the Congress.

I do not believe that the danger to American safety is less than it was one year ago when, so far as the army was concerned, the United States was in a woefully weak position. I do not believe that the danger to our national safety is only about the same as it was a year ago.

I do believe-I know-that the danger today is infinitely greater. I do believe-I know-that in all truth we are in the midst of a national emergency.

I am not asking the Congress for specific language in a specific bill. But I can say frankly that I hope the Congress will acknowledge this national emergency either for a specific period or until revocation by the Congress or the President.

The objective is, of course, the all important issue. It is to authorize continuance in service of selectees, National Guard and reserve components of the army and the retired personnel of the Regular Army, with the understanding that, should the exigencies of the situation permit, early return to civil pursuits will follow in due course.

Because of the swiftness of modern events, I think the Congress should also remove the restrictions in regard to the numbers of selectees inducted each year for training and service.

And, in order to reduce individual hardships to a minimum, I urge that the Congress provide that employers be asked to continue to keen jobs open for their employees who have been held in the army. For my part I will direct the return to civil life of officers and men whose retention on active duty would impose undue hardship and that selectees and enlisted men of the National Guard, who have reached the age of twenty-eight, be transferred from active service to a reserve component as rapidly as possible.

At great cost to the nation, and at increasing dislocation of private buying, we are accepting the material burdens necessary for our security. In such matters we accept the fact of a crisis in our history.

It is true that in modern war men without machines are of little value. It is equally true that machines without men are of no value at all. Let us consolidate the whole of our defense-the whole of our preparation against attack by those enemies of democracy who are the enemies of all that we hold dear.

One final word: time counts. Within two months disintegration, which would follow failure to take Congressional action, will commence in the armies of the United States. Time counts. The responsibility rests solely with the Congress.

Roosevelt's obvious concern was that a failure of Congress to authorize the emergency would result in the release of hundreds of thousands of National Guardsmen and large numbers of reservists, something that would have been crippling to the build up of the U.S. military in anticipation of war.

The address also illustrates the difference between the Regular armed forces and the Reserves.  President Roosevelt noted the numerous reserve commissions in the Army system.  It's often not appreciated that most of the military in really big build-ups is officered by men who are commissioned as reservists, not regulars.  In World War Two the reserve officers vastly outnumbered the regular officers in the Navy and the Army.  This distinction doesn't exist for enlisted men, but for officers in wartime, or even in large peacetime buildups, it very much does.  For example, most of the officers in the service during the Cold War, up until the elimination of conscription, were reservists.

The opposition to the President's request, and it did exist, was focused on the obvious fact that the US was so deep into preparing for war, imagining the country avoiding it was becoming very difficult to do.

The following photos, taken at Ft. Benning on this day in 1941, show some of that build up.

They also demonstrate the nature of the Army at the time, and it as a mirror on American society. These troops are African Americans going to new permanent billets. The Army was, of course, segregated.

It would remain mostly segregated throughout the war, something that was the topic of criticism even at the time.

Some significant and very interesting entries on the Today In World War II History blog for this date:

Today in World War II History—July 21, 1941

Among these are the expansion of the Concentration Camp system in Poland and the Luftwaffe commencing bombing of Moscow.

Also very interesting is the start of an aluminum salvage drive in the U.S., which of course wasn't yet at war as noted.  Material shortages were already a concern.

On the same day the Luftwaffe commenced nighttime bombing over Moscow, Hitler visited his officers on the Eastern Front.

Thursday July 21, 1921. A big stage.

Personnel of The Tercentenary Pageant, "The Pilgrim Spirit," Plymouth, Massachusetts, 1921.

The landing of the passengers of the Mayflower was apparently celebrated with a large pageant in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in July, 1921. These photographs were taken of the very large cast of that play.

Grand finale.

On the same day, David Lloyd George presented the British peace proposal to the Irish delegation.  It featured, as noted  yesterday, Dominion status for Ireland along the same lines as that had been granted to Canada and Australia, among others, with the United Kingdom retaining control of Irish foreign policy and military matters.

The Army Air Corps completed sinking the Ostfriesland.

In the Black Sea another ship went down, but due to a submarine, as the Soviet submarine Trotsky sank the Soviet ship Sawa as it attempted to make a run to defect to the Whites.  The Civil War was not yet over and sailors were changing their minds.

At some point, although I don't know when, somebody would have changed the name of the Trotsky, assuming she was still in service, as he'd fall out of favor with Stalin after Lenin's death and eventually a Soviet agent would put an ice pick into his head in Mexico.

Russell Stover and Christian Kent Nelson launched Nelson's I-Scream Bar, which later became famous as the Eskimo Pie, and which is now sold as Edy's Pie.  The chocolate covered ice cream bar was rebranded this year as Eskimo is regarded as a derogatory term.

People were experimenting with motor travel:

ALONZO’S DIARY ENTRY, 21 JULY 1921

Mid Week At Work. Career

 Only those who decline to scramble up the career ladder are interesting as human beings.  Nothing is more boring than a man with a career.

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

Chuck 70 vs Basic Chuck Taylors - (CUT IN HALF) - Converse Chuck Taylor ...

Proof, I guess, that things really were better back in the day.

Of course, I don't know why "Chuck 70s", which apparently are marketed as retro Chuck Taylors are a thing, because I didn't know they existed.  

Chuck Taylors were introduced in their current form (from a previous pretty close form) in 1922.

1920 advertisement for the predecessor of the Chuck Taylor, which was formally introduced in 1922.

The shoe itself was introduced as a basketball shoe, even though it'd be nearly impossible to imagine anyone playing basketball wearing them today. They grew to be the basketball standard by the 1960s and had about 80% of the basketball market at the time. They were also very popular in the mid 20th Century with young adults and teenagers, and fit in a bit with the postwar Levis and leather jacket image.  

In the 60s and 70s, when I was growing up, you felt lucky if your parents would buy you a pair, rather than the lesser "Keds", which we usually ended up with.  They were also popular with adults, to some degree, as fishing shoes, for those who waded in streams and rivers but who didn't wear waders, or were forgoing them for some reason.

That was before the running style shoe became popular in the late 70s and basically pushed them out.

They've bounced in and out of popularity since them.  

Sunday July 20, 1941. Broadcating V for Victory, writing Stalin.

Churchill's "V for Victory" speech was broadcast by radio, including of course to occupied Europe.

Indian soldier giving the "V for Victory" symbol.

On the same day, Churchill replied to Stalin's letter requesting a "second front" (which ignored the fact that the British were fighting on the ground in North Africa) by informing Stalin that the United Kingdom lacked the ability to do that on the European mainland at that time.  The letter pointed out all that the UK was then doing, and that it would expand its naval efforts northwards to protect sea lanes to the Soviet Union.

Churchill was rather blunt, if polite, in his reply, which actually risked insulting Stalin given as it suggested that Stalin might be quite ignorant of the actual situation faced by the UK, and for that matter, the USSR.

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow delivered a radio address in support of Soviet resistance against the invading Germans.  You can read about that here:

Today in World War II History—July 20, 1941

This is actually a fairly complicated story, as the canonical status of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church at the time is a difficult one to easily define. The Church was extremely heavily repressed in this period and a large number of its bishops were not at liberty.  It had in recent years tried to make it plain that it would not interfere in civil government, but that had not brought it relief.  Additionally, its relationship to the church in exile was confusing and would not be sorted out until the fall of the Soviet Union.  Stalin, realizing that adherence, if clandestine adherence, to the Church remained strong, would ease up on its repression during the war, something that more or less started on this day in 1941.

Wednesday July 20, 1921. Attacking the Ostfriesland.

The Army Air Corps sank the Ostfriesland, the largest German vessel to be subject to the Air Corp's aerial bombing experiment.

It was also the last vessel to be sunk.

The SMS Ostfriesland was a 1908 vintage German battleship and its use as demonstration proved to be a bit more accurate than had been planned for.  The effort was watched by the Secretaries of War and the Navy and Gen. John J. Pershing and only 13 of the 52 bombs launched from Army Air Corps airplanes struck her, a not atypical ratio.  This was, of course, before dive bombing and torpedo runs became the areal norm for attacking surface vessels.

Worse yet, only four of the bombs detonated.

A second run, using two 2,000 lbs bombs, occurred the following day, which did finally sink the former German dreadnought.

While the experiment confirmed what had already been proven, that aircraft could sink any surface ship, it also showed that some ships weren't easy to sink and that conventional bombing, such as engaged in by the Air Corps, had its limitations  In the following years before World War Two the Navy would take this to heart and develop specialized aircraft and weapons for attacking both surface ships and submarines.  The Air Corps, however, continued to take the view that bombers were effective against surface ships, which would prove to be in error in World War Two.

Parliament approved Prime Minister David Lloyd George's peace proposal to the Irish Republicans. The authorization envisioned an offer which granted Ireland complete domestic government, Dominion status, but which reserved defense and foreign relations to the United Kingdom.

If this seems rather limited, it was actually the status that other British Dominions, such as Canada and Australia, had at the time.  It was not until the Statute of Wesminster of 1931 that the Dominions obtained control of their own foreign relations, including the ability to declare war.

Saturday July 19, 1941. V for Victory

Winston Churchill first publically used the "V for Victory" reference on this day in 1941.  It was to become a signature sign of his, and the western Allies, during World War Two, being adopted by him as a widely used hand gesture.

The speech was broadcast early in the morning the following day, and after that the V became a popular item of graffiti in occupied Europe.  The Germans attempted to co-opt the use of it themselves, as it was so widespread.

The hand gesture predates Churchill's use of it and its origin is obscure.  The palm out version is the one that is commonly associated with calls for victory, and then later, in the United States, with a call for peace, the latter of which started during the Vietnam War.  It can symbolize both in some modern protests.

Aviator Katherine Stinson giving the V sign in Tokyo, 1920.

The back of the hand out version, it should be noted, is a rude gesture in some cultures.  The palm out version has become enormously widely used by the Japanese, particularly Japanese women, who use it very widely in photographs.

On this day in 1941 Adolph Hitler issued his Directive No. 33, which remains one of the most discussed Hitler orders of the war.

While the German armies were all still advancing, resistance was stiffening in some regions and the Germans were not advancing in the south as rapidly as they'd hoped for and some pockets of resistance, such as Leningrad and Smolensk were holding out.  Hitler accordingly issued his Directive 33 taking forces from Army Group Center and assigning them to Army Group North and Army Group South. The assignment to Army Group North, FWIW, is commonly ignored when historians analyze this event.

The order also indicated that Moscow was no longer the primary Germany target.

This order met immediate resistance with the German senior leadership, which ran a backdoor effort to prevent its implementation.

It's common to assert that this realignment of forces brought about a military disaster by guaranteeing that the Germans would not take Moscow in 1941. It should be noted that this was not apparent in July 1941 but what was apparent is that Soviet resistance was already stiffening.  While the recently directed directives 32 and 32a contemplated the war being won in the east by the fall of 1941, it was becoming clear that this might not occur in the south and north, with the south, the Soviet breadbasket and the source of Soviet petroleum, being very problematic.  Seizure of Ukraine had been a declared German objective as far back as the Nuremberg rally speech of 1936 and the German need for foodstuff and petroleum was a pressing matter.

Moscow was the major Soviet communications and transportation hub, so it was not an idle objective, so the realignment of forces can be debated. The decision to attempt it, however, was not as unthinking as often portrayed.

Tuesday July 19, 1921. Urban transportation.

The Los Angeles Fire Department retired its last horse drawn fire engine.  It was the last one used by a major American city, thus bringing the era closer to a close.

Bicycles of course remained the means of transportation for newspaper deliverers.  One was photographed for the Times, of one of their own, obviously turned out in his finery.

Blog Mirror: Tea and Berries May Slow Onset of Alzheimers

 Let's hope so.

Tea and Berries May Slow Onset of Alzheimer’s

Friday July 18, 1941. Stalin, ignoring the ongone second front, writes the British about a second front.

On this day in 1941 Stalin wrote the first of his "second front" letters, asking for the British to open up a second front in France and the Arctic.

This would prove to be an enduring Soviet theme during the war which completely ignored that the British Commonwealth had troops on the ground, fighting the Germans, on the day Operation Barbarossa commenced.  The Eastern Front was the second front.  On this particular day British Commonwealth forces were completing day two of the Twin Pimple raid, were besieged at Tobruk, had just defeated the Vichy French in Syria and Lebanon, were occupying Iraq, having just defeated a fascist coup there, were besieged, more or less, on Malta, and were engaged in the titanic Battle of the Atlantic.

None of this of course means that really enormous scale fighting wasn't going on in the East.  Operation Barbarossa is arguably the largest invasion ever conducted (although in terms of per capita population and scale, the Mongol invasion of everything to their west and the Hun invasion of the same is really actually larger).  The Soviets had, in fact, just lost 300,000 men to German captivity the prior day.  Still, it's a fact that the British, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, and Indians, to name a few, were fighting on the ground for months prior to any Soviet soldier firing a shot.

Stalin's repeated requests were so pronounced that they've become part of the myth of World War Two, which has gone so far as to imagine that Operation Overlord on June 6, 1944, opened up that second front.  By that time, the Allies had taken all of North Africa, Sicily, and Rome.  Additionally, the western Allies were keeping the Japanese tied up in the Pacific. While there was little risk of the Japanese entering the war against the Soviet Union. . . they'd never been able to defeat the Chinese, that still helped alleviate a Soviet security concern.

Part of the reason this myth continues to endure has to do with really effective British propaganda and assessment of their foreign audiences.  Churchill wanted to placate, not anger, Stalin, so he went along with the theme.  We really don't need to anymore.

In other war news, the United States Army Air Corps started operating out of Iceland and Secretary of the Navy Knox approved a plan to build 100 destroyers for the Royal Navy.  You can find out about that here:

Today in World War II History—July 18, 1941

Monday, July 18, 1921. Start of the workweek.

Pearl Kane, a newspaper "girl" for the Washington Times, on July 18, 1921.

On this first day of the workweek, for most people, and more typically the first day of the workweek then, as opposed to now, the BCG vaccine for tuberculosis was administered for the first time in Paris, France.

Getting tuberculosis is bad.

Getting COVID 19 is bad too.  If you haven't been vaccinated, get vaccinated.

Babe Ruth hit the longest home run in the history of major league baseball, 560 feet, which knocked the ball out of Tiger Stadium.

General Pershing inspected the troops at Camp Humphries, Virginia.

Camp Humphries was also spelled "Humphreys" and is now part of Ft. Belvoir.

It was a very active training range at this time, hosting not only units of the U.S. Army, but also ROTC.

Meanwhile, the United States Army Air Corps spent the day bombing the former German cruiser the SMS Frankfurt off of Virginia's coast.

Well, not the day.  It sank within twenty-six minutes of being hit.

This was all part of Billy Mitchell's effort to prove that aircraft could sink ships, any ship, and that effectively they were now the premier service in the defense of the coast. . . it not more than that.  The Navy didn't particularly like it, and it'd later end up providing part of the background to Mitchell's eventual court marshal.

Maxim Gorky, the still respected Soviet writer who was an occasional tool of the Stalin's wrote a letter on behalf of famine victims in the Soviet Union.

The famine was certainly real, brought on by the forced collectivization of agriculture in the Soviet Union.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Pope Francis restricts the use of the Extraordinary Form.

Churches of the West: Pope Francis restricts the use of the Extraordinar...: Immaculate Conception Church in Rapid City, South Dakota.  This church has been doing a daily and a Sunday Latin Mass for years.  It's a...

I'd migrate this entire topic over, as I often do, but I've been using my laptop for about a week while my regular computer is repaired (hopefully).

Moving text over is difficult on the laptop for some reason. 

Anyhow, the big news in the Apostolic faiths this past week.

Best Posts of the Week of July 11, 2021

 The best posts of the week of July 11, 2021.

Losing in Afghanistan.

Nosotras queremos libertad!

Sunday July 13, 1941. The first of the Bishop von Galen Sermons.

Are 77 Year Old WW2 Boots BETTER Than Modern Boots? - (CUT IN HALF)

Facing economic reality. The disaterous neglect of the University of Wyoming's budget.

UW and the Computer

Red Wing Iron Ranger - (CUT IN HALF) - The #1 American Made Boot Review

I really like Red Wing Iron Rangers and have posted on them here before.  Here's an interesting item on their quality which (spoiler alert) turns out to be excellent.

Thursday July 17, 1941. The bloody East.

Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox whatching Marine Corps landings in North Carolina on this day in 1941.

On this day in history, Joe DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak came to an end.  His 56 game streak remains a record.  

More on that can be viewed here.

Today in World War II History—July 17, 1941

The British carried out the "Twin Pimples" raid on the Italian lines near Tobruk. The raid was a success but had no impact on the siege.

On this day Alfred Rosenberg, an Estonian born Baltic German, was appointed Reichminister of the newly conquered eastern territories where he was to oversee the implementation of the Lebensraum concept.  He had been present at a conference the prior day where the topic had been discussed.

He was well familiar with it, being a very early proponent of it and an early influence on the Nazi world view.  He was educated in Imperial Russia and came of age in that country but did not serve in its armed forces during World War One.  He came to Germany in the early 1920s and quickly became a Nazi.  He ran the Nazi Party during Hitler's imprisonment.  A virulent proponent of Nazi ideology, he was an opponent of Christianity as well as Judaism.

Heydrich also acted in accordance with these goals on this day by reemphasizing the extermination orders issued to German troops in the east.

The Germans encircled Uman and took 300,000 Soviet prisoners of war.

Franco gave a highly bellicose public speech accusing the Allies of planning the war badly and having lost it, and criticizing  the United States for supporting the Allies.  The speech was generally baffling as it was obviously pro Axis but also gave no indication that Spain itself intended to join in the war.

President Roosevelt issued a proclamation banning trade with Latin American firms that supplied materials to Nazi Germany.

Lex Anteinternet: Kasie Hunt is leaving Morning Joe. . .

Lex Anteinternet: Kasie Hunt is leaving Morning Joe. . .:  which I don't watch. I do watch Meet the Press . She stated she's leaving Joe for her "next big adventure". Please make t...

And going to CNN, as it turns out. 

And it also turns out she's going into streaming services, which would suggest that she'll appear via the Internet, not via television.

If all of this is correct it means that Hunt is gambling and CNN is betting that streaming via the Internet is the future of news, not cable TV.  It's a bold move for hunt.

Kasie Hunt is leaving Morning Joe. . .

 which I don't watch.

I do watch Meet the Press.

She stated she's leaving Joe for her "next big adventure".

Please make that hosting Meet the Press.  Chuck Todd can retire.

Carbon Hypocrisy

Off to the side, in the blogs we follow section, is one called Buzzard's Beat.

"Buzzard" is a female rancher in southeast Kansas.  I know that everyone who isn't too familiar with Kansas thinks of it as one giant wheat field, but it isn't.  In actuality, there's a lot of ranch ground in Kansas.

I've had the opportunity to drive across Kansas twice.  People complain about places like Kansas and Nebraska being boring, but I really enjoy the states.  Moreover, I've driven across the back roads of those states in addition to the long, boring interstate highways.  This true of North and South Dakota as well.  I really love them, even though I'm not from there.

This isn't, however, a travelogue of the farm belt, but rather to point out two posts she makes.

One is entitled: Dear Richard Branson:  What's worse, a rocket or a steak?

It's pretty clearly the rocket.

What I want to point out here is hypocrisy, and not just the hypocrisy of Sir Richard Branson, although I do want to point out that.

Rather, what I want to point out is that in the discussion on global warming, everyone seems to feel free to blame others while their own conduct goes unnoticed.  

It's become trendy to blame agriculture, more particularly stock raising, for global warming.  That gets both to this post and another she's put up, that one being Raising Cattle for a Healthy Climate.  Both are well worth reading, as well as a number of other posts she's put up, including Dear Epicurious:  Your Meat-Free Resolution Confuses Me.

This also gets to the recent trend of the dim giving up meat as they think it helps the planet somehow.

Seemingly missed by the dim are some basic facts of animal production.  Every domestic meat animal can be raised on food, for it, that you can't eat.  You really can't eat prairie grass, for instance, but cows can.  You sure can't eat the crap that sheep do.  And even the finish grain that's used, unless you are buying "grass fed" beef (or simply eating a volunteer grass fed cow, like we are), that being corn, is a grain that you can barely actually eat.  I know that maize is a worldwide staple, but frankly unless its ground up and processed into something it's actually a human foodstuff that you can't really digest for the most part.  Corn on the cob may be delicious, and it is, but it, um, mostly passes through you. And we all know that it's really a vehicle for butter, salt and pepper anyhow.

As she points out, the greenhouse gasses that are produced by livestock globally are really small.  And contrary to what those self-declared non meat eating environmentalist may imagine, the carbon footprint of nearly everything produced by a "dirt" farm is massive.

Put another way, if you are dining on a big bowl of nice health brussels sprouts, unless you grew them yourself, they didn't get to your bowl during the annual brussels sprout migration.  No, they were grown by somebody using some pretty heavy-duty diesel powered things, and then trucked to market by a pretty heavy diesel powered thing, kept cool by something that was electric, and then you probably fired up your car and drove to the store to get them.  

Hmmm. . . .

Also, while we're at it, if you are  vegan or a vegetarian, you should be aware that production crop agriculture is a major killer of animal life, so you can pretend you don't have blood on your hands, but they're at least as bloody as somebody's who eats meat.  I'm not dissing farmers for this, it's just the way things are.  But if you spend a day on a combine you are going to mow down something, and that's just the start of it.

It's not that there aren't things everyone can do about this, but feeling sanctimonious about your own personal dinner plate isn't it.  The more you think that your bowl is planetary benign, the more likely it isn't.  Ideally, if we really wanted to be fully green, we'd grow our own vegetables, as much as possible (and it wouldn't be 100% possible) on our big urban lawns, and we'd buy a local beef or go hunting in the fall.  If you aren't doing at least one of those things, you aren't the least bit green and should quit pretending that you are.

And if you are so massively wealthy that you can afford to blast yourself into space, unless you are a neo Tolstoy living the peasant life, you're mere existence is carbon positive, let alone indulging yourself in being a space cowboy.

Friday Farming: The Tour de Fleece and Wyoming Wool!

The Tour de Fleece and Wyoming Wool!

Blog Mirror: Fotomat: 1971

 

Fotomat: 1971

Interesting that there's a Flickr group dedicated to these.

There's one of those here in my town. The owner was looking for original photos of it on Facebook the other day.  It's boarded up and not used for anything right now, and given its location, behind a store on the edge of a housing subdivision, I'm skeptical that it can be used for much. But then, it was once used as a Fotomat.

Back at this time, if you wanted film developed, this was your option, or you could take it to BiRite, which shipped it off to Denver.  It'd come back several days later if you used this option, but was of good quality when it did.  Fotomat was something we tended to use for lesser quality cameras for some reason.

BiRite is now long gone. The building it was in remains, but it's a doctor's office and a bakery, plus some other small shops.  It's a fairly large downtown building.  If you want film developed, Walgreens is about your only option, I think (maybe Walmart too, but I'm not sure).  Of course, not too many people shoot film anymore, but every now and then somebody will, and every now and then, if you once shot film, you'll probably find you have some left.  Like Fotomat, Walgreens is a same day type of service.

All that is no doubt strange to those who came up in the age of digital photography, when you can shoot thousands of photographs and simply download them.  And that development truly was revolutionary.  Limiting your shots carefully, as you had to buy the film, and then buy the processing, was something any amature photographer constantly considered.

Saturday July 16, 1921. Mid summer saturday.

Audience for Marine Corps Band concert, July 16, 1921.

 

UW and the Computer

The University of Wyoming approved the creation of a School of Computing, with programs up to the Ph.D. level.  All undergraduates will be required to take at least one computing class as part of their undergraduate curriculum.

This seems to me to be a good addition to the university, as opposed to the eliminations in degree programs we wrote about yesterday. And the requirement to take a computing class, in this day and age, also makes a lot of sense to me.

Having said that, I really think the general elimination of a foreign language requirement, which was fading when I was there, is a really bad thing.  I had to take two semesters of a foreign language (I took three) but I recall there was a way to opt out of it, which generally almost all the geology students did.  I like foreign languages, and I'd had German in high school. I think that generally a foreign language was a high school requirement, or nearly a requirement, when I was there, and I'd had two years of French in junior high.

One of my lasting regrets is not having followed up on both of those topics, French and German, while in university beyond the extent to which I did.  And I wish I could speak Spanish.  I've picked up bits and pieces of languages here and there since then, but I wish I was really fluent in one, or more than one.  And its hard to appreciate the extent to which only speaking English is really limiting on a person, or at least a professional, later on.

My parents had both had to learn Latin in school.  My mother spoke French and English, having learned French both in school and in the culture in which she grew up in.  My father learned Latin, as noted, in high school, and German in university.  His father was fluent in German due to where he'd grown up.

I'm not, I'd note, hopping on the "education was better back in the day" bandwagon, which operates very similarly to the "the "X" bar was great back in the day, but now" type of argument.  Due to my family's association with it, I know what education here was like in the 40s, the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, the 00s, and the 10s, and from that I think it hit a low point in the 60s-70s (up to the early 1980s) but its really rebounded, and it's better than ever here, in my view.

But I'm concerned about university education across the nation, which has suffered greatly from the infusion of cash into the system that started with the GI Bill and which carries on. That may sound odd, but the addiction to government bucks that came started to erode universities starting in the 1970s.  Not universally, by any means, and UW remains a very good school.  Nationwide, there's a rethink going on with some now criticizing that system and others, like Bernie Sanders, delusionaly believing that if its universally funded everyone will go on to great jobs.  That belief is fatally flawed for numerous reasons we'll get into some other time, but we'll note that 1) there's no such thing as a free lunch; and 2) things that are advertised as free lunches usually are bad lunches.

Anyhow, the other thing I'm really concerned about is the seeming lack of a willingness to deal with an obvious budget crisis in Laramie.  I agree that some programs need to be cut, and overall I can't opine on that.  I'm encourage that this new program, which seems to be grasping the future is being created.  I wish that other programs that UW, a land grant college, could springboard into Wyoming's future could be created as well, and I have some ideas what those may be, which perhaps I'll post about some other time.

Be that as it may, the school is mired in a now obsolete funding model that isn't going to fix itself.  I know that a lot of legislators grasp that, but others refuse to do so publically.  The state has stuck its head in the sand on this consistently and that sure hasn't helped.  We've criticized the change that's roaring before us and that's not helped.  We've even attempted to sue our way out of it, and that failed. 

Winston Churchill once stated that Americans could be counted on to do the right thing. . . once all other options had been exhausted.  Let's hope that's true of us.  For the meantime, this is an encouraging development amongst a flood of bad ones.

Related threads:

Facing economic reality. The disaterous neglect of the University of Wyoming's budget.

Friday July 15, 1921. Summer activities.

Texas National Guard, Brig. Gen'l. Wolters Com'd'g., Camp Mabry, 1921 

The Texas National Guard was doing Annual Training at Camp Mabry, which is near Austin.   This unit is obviously a cavalry unit. Texas had two National Guard cavalry regiments in the 20s through the 40s, and this must be part of one of them.

Greek forces retook Afrium Karahissar in eastern Turkey.  The city at that time had a population of over 200,000, about double its current population.  It was, and is, agricultural center which is known for its opium production.  Indeed, its original name, Afrium, simply meant opium.

The USS Florida sank the German torpedo boat V43 as a target.  The HMS Harmodius accidentally rammed the E. Marie Brown, sinking her with the loss of four crewmen.

 Monsignor Atanasia Vicente Sole y Royo

Monsignor Atanasia Vincente Sole y Royo visited Washington, D.C.  I attempted to learn who he was, but was unable, but I get the sense that he was associated with South America in some fashion.  He was clearly important enough to receive an official audience, and he was certainly impressive looking.

Members of Washington's Krazy Kat Klub, were photographed on this day in 1921.

The club was a jazz age institution in Washington D.C. that was Bohemian in the extreme.  It served alcohol during prohibition and was libertine in all senses.  It closed when one of its owners, depicted in the photo below, moved in the late 1920s.

No inside photographs of the club exist.

Places like this fancied themselves on the cutting edge of everything.  In retrospect, they seem pretty superficial.

Also on this day, a photographer took a picture of this house made out of repurposed streetcars.

Repurposing

House made of streetcars, July 15, 1921.

Facing economic reality. The disaterous neglect of the University of Wyoming's budget.

 Big news at the University of Wyoming:

UW Proposes Transformation in Light of Budget Reductions, Changing Needs

So the university is going to eliminate some programs, but create some others.  More specifically:

Reconfiguration -- Reorganize UW’s academic colleges to create larger, more stable departments with common disciplinary interests while reducing redundancies.

Specifically, the plan calls for changing the College of Engineering and Applied Science to the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences. Currently in the College of Arts and Sciences, these departments -- Chemistry, Geology and Geophysics, Mathematics and Statistics, and Physics and Astronomy -- would move to the newly named College of Engineering and Physical Sciences and become part of new academic units there. 

Meanwhile, the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources would become the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Moving to that college from the College of Arts and Sciences would be the departments of Botany, and Zoology and Physiology, as well as the Life Sciences Program.

The College of Arts and Sciences would become the College of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts -- bringing UW in line with the way many universities organize those disciplines. 

“These reorganizations would expand and enhance two very important colleges central to our land-grant mission, focused on agriculture and engineering, better positioning the university to advance the Tier-1 Engineering and Science initiatives, and making its research programs more competitive in the federal science and technology ecosystem. They would provide additional critical mass, create new synergies and bring new opportunities for faculty members and students in all of the academic units housed in these colleges,” Seidel says. “At the same time, we would still have a very robust college focused on the arts, humanities and social sciences, which also are part of the land-grant charge -- and are at the core of a strong university education.”  

The school is also eliminating some degree programs, including the Bachelors degrees in Spanish, French and German, as well as secondary education.  The advanced degrees in Sociology, philosophy, political science, international studies, architectural engineering entomology, family & consumer sciences and statistics will all go as well. So will the MBA programs in finance and energy.  Four departments are slated for the ax, but their programs will be folded into other departments.

This is a disaster.

I don't have an opinion on the department consolidation.  Offhand, that makes some sense to me.  But a four-year university without a Spanish, French or German language bachelors degree is rocketing towards second rate.  The same is true about a university lacking advanced degrees in all the topics slated for elimination, except for perhaps "family & consumer sciences", which is something I don't know anything about, so I don't have an opinion.

In other words, this is really bad.

This is an off shoot of the ongoing reliance on the extractive industries for financing in Wyoming. The school doesn't have the money it needs, so its making cuts.  And that should tell us right now that we need to make major adjustments to the funding of the state.

That probably means taxing something that we're not taxing now.  But the choices for the alternatives are grim. We can let the university slide into a minor four-year school which most serious Wyomingites will avoid attending, or we can acknowledge that we're in a new economic era and adjust to it.

I suspect we'll do the former.

Something has really happened in the mindset of the state over the past forty years.  I'm old enough to remember prior booms and busts, but in prior years it seemed we always were aware that they'd occur, and underlying it all was the realization that the industries served the state, but didn't define it. The industries have never said that they did.  Somehow, however, during this last boom there came to be a fundamental shift in thinking. We went from "this is temporary, what are we going to do?" to sort of believing that it wasn't temporary.  We've refused to acknowledge long term trend that are now not only going away, they're getting advanced.  Some have insisted that we sue other states to try to bring the "good old days" back.  

Times change, we know.  Fundamentally, our existential selves, if grounded in reality, do not have to change with them.  But ignoring clear changes is a recipe for disaster.  And now we're inflicting a disaster on the university, which in turn will be visited upon our children.

Monday, July 14, 1941. Bastille Day and the Armistice of Saint Jean d'Acre

On this day in 1941 French forces in Lebanon and Syria officially ended hostilities with the British Commonwealth in what is known as the Armistice of Saint Jean d'Acre.  

It was Bastille Day.

The day was marked in British Palestine at a hospital for Free French troops.

That day had been transformed into a sort of memorial day by the Vichy regime.  It remained on France's official calendar of holidays, but was altered from a celebration of the initiation of the French Revolution to one commemorating France's war dead.  This was part of an overall Vichy struggle with republican symbols and holidays that saw efforts to recast many such things, where they were not discarded.

Hitler, if he took note of the day at all, obviously didn't celebrate it.  Rather, he was still pondering the imminent defeat of the Soviet Union, revised his directive of the previous day with a part "A", which read:

The Führer and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces

Führer Headquarters, 14th July 1941. 13 draft copies

On the basis of my intentions for the future prosecution of the war, as stated in Directive 32, I issue the following general instructions concerning personnel and equipment :

1. General:

Our military mastery of the European continent after the overthrow of Russia will make it possible considerably to reduce the strength of the Army. Within the limits of this reduced Army, the relative strength of the armoured forces will be greatly increased.

The manning and equipment of the Navy will be limited to what is essential for the direct prosecution of the war against England and, should the occasion arise, against America.

The main effort of equipment will be devoted to the Air Force, which will be greatly strengthened.

2. Manpower:

The future strength of the Army will be laid down by me, after receiving proposals from Commander-in-Chief Army.

The Replacement Army will be reduced to conform with the diminished strength of the Army.

The Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces will decide, in accordance with my directives, on the employment of the manpower which will become available for the Armed Forces as a whole and for the armaments industry.

The Class of 1922 will be called up at the latest possible date, and will be distributed by the High Command of the Armed Forces in accordance with the future tasks of the various branches of the Armed Forces.

3. Arms and Equipment:

(a) The Armed Forces as a whole.
The arming and equipment of troops will be reduced to the requirements of the situation in the field, without reference to existing establishment scales.

All formations not intended for actual combat (security, guard, construction, and similar units) will be armed basically with captured weapons and second line equipment.

All requests for 'general Armed Forces equipment' will be immediately reduced or rejected in relation to available supplies, need, and wear and tear. Continued manufacture of such weapons as can be proved to be necessary will be decided in agreement with the Minister for Armaments and Munitions.

Plant (buildings and machine tools) already in use will not be expanded unless it can be shown that existing equipment cannot be put to full use by the introduction of shift working.

Work on all such permanent buildings for industry and the Armed Forces as are intended for use in peace-time, rather than for the immediate prosecution of the war and for the production of arms, will be halted. Construction directly necessary for the conduct of the war and for armaments will remain subject to the regulations of the General Plenipotentiary for Building. Buildings erected by civilian contractors will be limited by him to such as are most essential to the war effort.

Contracts of all kinds which do not comply with these principles will be immediately withdrawn.

The manpower, raw materials, and plant released by these measures will be made available for the main tasks of equipment and placed, as soon as possible, at the disposal of the Minister of Armaments and Munitions for use elsewhere.

(b) Army:
The extension of arms and equipment and the production of new weapons, munitions, and equipment will be related, with immediate effect, to the smaller forces which are contemplated for the future. Where orders have been placed for more than six months ahead all contracts beyond that period will be cancelled. Current deliveries will only continue if their immediate cancellation would be uneconomic.

The following are exceptions to these limitations:

The tank programme for the motorised forces (which are to be considerably reinforced) including the provision of special weapons and tanks of the heaviest type.

The new programme for heavy anti-tank guns, including their tractors and ammunition.

The programme for additional equipment for expeditionary forces, which will include four further armoured divisions for employment in the tropics, drawn from the overall strength of the armoured forces.

Preparations for the manufacture of equipment unrelated to these programmes will be halted.

The Army's programme for anti-aircraft guns is to be co-ordinated with that of the Air Force, and represents a single unified scheme from the manufacturing point of view. All available plant will be fully employed in order to achieve the delivery targets which I have laid down.

(c) Navy:
The Navy will continue its submarine programme. Construction will be limited to what is directly connected with this programme. Expansion of the armaments programme over and above this is to be stopped.

(d) Air Force:

The overall armaments program will concentrate on carrying out the expanded 'Air Armaments program' which I have approved. Its realization up to the spring of 1942 is of decisive importance for the whole war effort. For this purpose all available manpower from the Armed Forces and industry will be employed. The allocation of aluminum to the Air Force will be increased as far as possible.

The speed of the programme, and the extent to which it can be fulfilled, will be linked to the increased production of light metals and mineral oil.

4. The programme for powder and explosives will concentrate upon the requirements of the Air Force (bombs and anti-aircraft ammunition) at the expense of the requirements of the Army. Buildings will be restricted to the barest essentials and confined to the simplest type of construction.

Production of explosives will be limited to the existing basis.

5. It is particularly important to ensure supplies of raw materials and mineral oil. Coal production and the extension of the light metal, artificial rubber, substitute materials, and liquid fuel industries will be supported by the Armed Forces in every way, particularly by the release of miners and specialist workers. The construction of the necessary plans for the extended air armaments industry will be developed simultaneously.

6. The allocation of manpower, raw materials, and plant will be made in accordance with these principles.

7. The Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces will issue the necessary orders for the Armed Forces, and the Minister for Armaments and Munitions for his sector, in mutual agreement.

signed: ADOLF HITLER

These directives are interesting not only in that he thought he'd won the war, by this time, against the Soviet Union, but that in he thought it would still require some prosecution against the British, and perhaps the United States, about which he didn't seem overly concerned.  That war, in his mind, was going to be primarily an air and naval war, and his decisions to start shrinking the German army as soon as possible reflected that.

In New York some kids were still acting normal.

Vladeck Houses, Madison St., New York City.   This was a housing project.

Thursday July 14, 1921. Sentences, reports and passings.

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were found guilty of the murder of Frederic A. Parmeter and Alessadro Bernadelli in a robbery.

Vanzetti and Sacco.

Both men were Italian born anarchists. Their trial was problematic to the degree that it can be regarded as potentially fatally flawed, although historians have concluded that both men were probably involved in the anarchist plot that resulted in the crime even if they were not the murderers.  Of course, their involvement may have been tangential, and nobody should receive the death penalty for a crime they did not commit.

The trial was not the celebrated cause it is now immediately at the time, but problems with the trial soon became evident, and it then became widely known.

Eamon de Valera met with Prime Minister David Lloyd George in London.  Following the two-hour meeting, Lloyd George met with King George V concerning the earlier meeting.

Morgan Bonaparte Mizell, made famous through a Frederic Remington illustration, died at age 58.  He was a hard living Florida "cracker" cowboy.

Are 77 Year Old WW2 Boots BETTER Than Modern Boots? - (CUT IN HALF)

An interesting look at M1943 boots.

I actually have an analogous pair of boots made for the French army after World War Two, which I bought surplus some years ago. As they were slightly large, I took up only wearing them in muddy weather as I could wear heavy wool socks with them and also, occasionally, buckle my trousers in to keep them from getting too muddy.

As it happens, I've worn them a lot more than I ever anticipated and really like them.

Anyhow, this video is interesting in regard to their quality, and the reasons for their quality.  I wouldn't have guessed that they were overall of this rather high quality.

The M1943 boots was very much welcomed when first introduced, but went on to be sort of disliked over time.  The video may contain an inaccuracy as the boots were actually slated for replacement after World War Two after the introduction of the M1948 boot, which was based on the World War Two jump boot, which was actually reintroduced into service after World War Two. The Corcoran jump boots was used throughout the war, and was heavily admired, but the original intent had been to replace it with M1943 boots.

Anyhow, in my general view, U.S. combat boots have been lacking in various ways ever since the M1948 boot was replaced. They've improved in some ways in recent years, but they are still not what they should be.  The construction comparisons brought up by this video are, accordingly, quite interesting.