Skippy and Nena ponder guns.

FN M1900, an early John Browning design.

Let me first note, I really like NPR in general, and the NPR Politics podcast in particular.  I'm a regular listener.  I don't buy the "liberal bias" line about NPR at all, and generally find that it has good, straight forward, reporting.

I haven't been too thrilled by the addition of Nena Totenberg, however.

Seventy-seven year old Totenberg has a reputation for Supreme Court reporting going way back.  And while I complain about the top of everything being vested in the Boomers, I will note that Totenberg is a real exception in that most of the hosts of Politics are Millenials, which is very refreshing.  I have no one specific thing, other than I just feel that Totenberg is an example of an antiquated view on the Court somehow.  A little snarky, sort of inside baseball, kind of approach to somebody who maybe has been around the Court a little too long.

Maybe.

Anyhow, there's a case in front of the United States Supreme Court regarding whether the 2nd Amendment provision regarding the right to "keep and bear" arms means you can carry them concealed or not.  This is the episode:

The Docket: Do You Have The Right To Carry A Gun Outside Of Your Home?

In addition to Totenberg NPR invited Joseph Blocher to speak.

And this, dear reader, gives us a prime example of everything wrong about press Supreme Court coverage.

I've already listed my somewhat vague complaints about Totenberg, which are admittedly perhaps completely unfair.

Blocher is a law professor, and as such, however, his opinion here is, well, much like a law professor's.

Being a law professor is often an exercise in evading the practice of law  Far too often law professors walked through the doors of a law firm, and then fifteen minutes later went crying out the front door after finding out that it involved hard, hard, nasty brutish, work.  

So they entered a law school where they don't have to deal with the reality of law as it really is, in the nasty real world, where real people are.

Which often makes their views on big topics in the law 1) irrelevant; 2) worthless, or 3) dangerous.

This time it was pretty questionable.

Now, Blocher, in looking him up, and about whom I know nothing at all personally, worked on the Heller case, as a practicing lawyer, which is why he is probably a professor in the Duke Center for Firearms Law.  Heller was the big case that found that the 2nd Amendment was incorporated into the full Bill of Rights and that it conveyed an individual right.

Having a Center for Firearms Law means, however, that you have a center for things most students don't deal with in their real law practices. Right there, that's worthy of a complaint from a practicing lawyer.  A Center For Small Claims Court Law would be much more useful. A Center For Firearms Law sounds too much like a Center For The Way Law Professors Feel The World Should Be.

M'eh.

Anyhow, Blocher is a top dog there.

Now again, I know nothing about him.  Just looking him up, it looks like he's built a nice career with this being a partial niche in it.  He graduated from law school in 2006.  That's long enough ago to have entered picked up the ability to really practice as a real lawyer, which takes about a decade after graduation for some field, and less time for others.  I.e., to be able to practice on your own.

He then clerked for a year.

Mm. . . . . 

Clerking had a somewhat prestigious reputation when I graduated from law school, and it still does, but it's evolved over time. Clerks used to serve one hitch for one judge and then be booted out into the cold real world a year later.

And that's what his first clerkship did.

First?

Yes, first.

We're starting to see the phenomenon of multiple clerkships now This is pretty much a new thing.  Also a new thing, FWIW, is permanent clerkship.  I.e., clerks who make that a career, which Blocher has not done, I'd note.

Blocher then went to work for almost a year. . . yes, almost a year, for a law firm, where he helped brief Heller. And then he went back into a second clerkship.  Then, after a year of doing that, he became a law professor at Duke.

So he practiced law from September 2007 until June 2008.

This demonstrates everything wrong with law schools.  Less than a year of actual practice?  Nobody should be teaching law to people who will practice it who hasn't been in the trenches.  A law professor teaching law to students who will be lawyers with less than a year of practice is like giving the position of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to a guy whose strategic experience is limited to paying Stratego.

So, again, me'h.

Now, some would immediately note, and some lawyers at that, that to teach a position in a law school surely shouldn't have to mean that you've been a practicing lawyer.  The professors in the physics department didn't built atomic bombs, probably, before going to work there.  And that's quite right.

But law isn't like those sorts of disciplines.  Professing disciplines, of the traditional type, save for the clergy really require you to be out in the muck before you really have an appreciation of what's going on. Those teaching medicine should have seen patients, for example.  

And the law belongs to the people.  It's easy enough to imagine that you know all about a legal topic, but you don't know anything about it until you've actually practiced law.  A think like an individual right to carry a firearm may seem like something you can grasp through statistics and study, but until you are dealing with somebody whose ex spouse is threatening to beat them to death. . . well you don't.

Well, NPR, with Nena and Skippy, went on to try to consider the history of concealed carry and the law.

Totenberg did a good job, in spite of my criticism of her, in giving the history of the recent change in the approach of the states.  Need to carry did use to be a requirement in most states in recent years, but has really changed.  So that was correct. Where the show dropped ball, however, was here:

TOTENBERG: You know, if you really want an example of how much has changed in the law, I remember Chief Justice Burger in the 1980s, at some point in the 1980s - and he was a conservative Nixon appointee to the court - saying that the idea that you had an individual right to carry a gun was really just silly. He dismissed it. He had an interview with Parade magazine, and he simply dismissed it out of hand. And that was the absolutely accepted, in the legal profession, idea at the time. That has - we have seen not a sea change; we've seen a typhoon - you know, just obliterate that idea now. And oddly, it comes at a time when we have increased mass shootings and more dangerous weapons. So it is, you know - it's sort of - if this weren't radio, I would be gesturing that - my two hands banging up against each other.
RASCOE: It's counterintuitive.
TOTENBERG: It's very counterintuitive.

Okay, first of all, it is simply not the case that the legal profession universally thought there was no individual right to carry a firearm.  In fact, it was hotly debated as there wasn't a case that had clearly decided it.  But the one case that did exist, from the 1930s, strongly suggested such a right was in fact there.  That results oriented opinion went as far as it could in restricting the one thing before it, a sawed off shotgun in the hands of a felon, but even in that, it suggested the right was there.

Now, at this point, Skippy leaped in to correct Nena, right?

No.

Let me also note that none of the "conservative" judges of the Burger era were all that conservative.  Following the Second World War the Court became the domain of the left, and conservative judges of that time simply weren't all that conservative.  It was simply a liberal court era.  The first real conservative anyone nominated was Bork, who failed to gain a seat after the Senate, with Joe Biden playing a prominent role in it, skewered him for being conservative. That act held back an evolving conservative evolution on the Court which had, in part, been inspired by an activist Court simply making things up.

This doesn't mean Burger was a flaming liberal, either. That's not true at all.  Rather, he was conservative in context.  As Totenberg notes, he was a Nixon appointee, and Nixon was a conservative in context.  Nixon wasn't Reagan, in other words.

But there were lawyers around, even as far back as that, and further, who felt there was an individual right to keep and bear arms.  And there were those outside of the legal field who certainly did as well.  It was 1993, for example, when Jeffrey R. Snyder penned A Nation of Cowards, a blistering critique of the gun control culture, which ran in the journal National Affairs.

Which gets us to two things.

The Constitution enumerates certain rights, certain rights can justifiably be implied from it that aren't enumerates, and reasonable restraints on the rights that are present or implied can be imposed.  But in the long era following the Second World War and up until the last decade, some still were.  

That's a subversion of democracy at worst and leads to contempt of the law at best.  Under Chief Justice Roberts that trend has been retreating, and it may now have actually ended.

Does that mean you have a right to carry a firearm outside of your home without government permission?  Certainly  Does that mean that you have a right to carry it concealed?  That's much less clear.  Can some restraint be imposed? Again, certainly.  Can they effectively be so strict as to keep you from carrying anywhere except the game fields and the range?  No. Can the government insert itself into knowing what you are doing?  Again, probably.

Should NPR get a new Court reporter?  I wish they would.

Should Professor Blocher be tossed out on his butt and made to practice real law for a decade?  Undoubtedly, and for his own good.

Should Duke do away with the Center for Firearms Law and create a Center For Small Claims Court Practice?  It should.

Related Threads:

Perceptions on being armed, and the use of force.

Packing Heat

Regional Comparisons and Terror in Boston

Saturday, November 1, 1941. Coast Guard Katyusha.

Adolf Hitler issued a formal statement claiming that the United States had attacked Germany, making reference to the German sinking of the USS Reuben James the day prior.

During wartime the Coast Guard has traditionally serves as an auxiliary of the Navy, while during peace time it used to be part of the Department of the Treasury.  Post 9/11 it's been part of the Department of Homeland Safety.

The Coast Guard was transferred from the Treasury Department into the Department of the Navy for the ongoing emergency, recognizing that the US was very near being in a state of war.

Selective Service issued a list of key occupations which were to receive conscription deferments.  The last two items are noted here:

Today in World War II History—November 1, 1941

The first mass use of Soviet multiple rocket launchers occurred.  The production effort, which had actually commenced prior to the war, was so secret that the Soviets didn't even inform the soldiers assigned to them what their official designation, the BM13, was until after the war. As they were marked with the letter "K" soldiers nicknamed them Katyusha after the popular wartime Russian song, although Stalin Organs was also a popular name for them.

The weapon was groundbreaking.  Inaccurate, it went for volume of fire and was deployed in mass batteries.  It was copied by other combatants once it became known, being a simple weapon to make, and its the origin of multiple rocket launching batteries that have replaced heavy artillery in some armies, including the United States Army.

The song was written just before the war, in 1938, and has gone on to remain a hugely popular Russian tune.  About a girl on the Steppes, it is in the same category as Lili Marlene in that it was copied by other parties in the war, including those fighting the Red Army, with new lyrics being written in some instances.  A search for it on YouTube will bring up a zillion Russian versions, many with dancing Russian women dressed in wartime uniforms.  It's remained popular with Russian expatriot populations, and is popular in Israel as a folk tune.   The crowed singing the farewell tune in The Deer Hunter, in the wedding scene, is singing it, most likely spontaneously as it the extras in that scene are actually parishioners of an actual American Russian Orthodox Church.

The Slovakian government issued orders requiring Jews to ride in separate train cars and to wear to mark their mail with the Star of David.

Rainbow Bridge over Niagara Falls, another Depression Era project, was opened to traffic.

These servicemen and clergymen attended a service at St. Andrew's Church.  I'm not sure where, but probably in Wales or Scotland.

Monday, November 1, 1921 Dedication of the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City.

 

Friday October 31, 1941. Did you have a friend on the Good Reuben James?

On this day in 1941 the USS Reuben James, a destroyer, was sunk by a U-boat while escorting merchant ships.  The destroyer was not flying the US ensign at the time and therefore wouldn't have been completely easy for a U-boat to identify as a US ship.  At the time it was hit, it was dropping depth chargers on another U-boat, although ironically the U-552 was actually aiming for the merchant ship, which was carrying ammunition, at the time it was hit.

100 sailers were killed in the strike, only 44 survived. The ship sank rapidly.

The event resulted in a notable folk song by Woody Guthrie.

While tragic, the event was another example of the United States really crossing the line on what a neutral could do.  The ship wasn't flying the US ensign and it was attempting to sink a U-boat when it was instead sunk itself.  Perhaps realizing that this was of a certain type of nature, the American public didn't rush towards war as a result of the sinking, as it likely would have done in 1917.

Guthrie's song was perhaps a natural for him.  He was a communist and had been, therefore, an "anti fascist" since the Spanish Civil War days. The US entry into the war would lead him to be concerned about being conscripted into the Army, when the war came, and he actively attempted to receive an assignment through the Army to the USO, and effort which not too surprisingly failed.  He then joined the Merchant Marines, which was a role that was actually more dangerous than being a combat infantryman.  He served as a Merchant Marine from June 1943 until 1945, when his status as a communist resulted in the government requiring his discharge from that service.  In July 1945 he was conscripted into the U.S. Army.  

Guthrie's relationship with the Federal Government was an odd one.  During the Depression and even after he was commissioned to write songs for the government, and famously wrote a set of songs associated with damming the Columbia River.  He was a true musical genius of the folk genre, and while he was openly a communist or communistic,it probably only really shows strongly in one of his songs, the much misunderstood This Land Is Your Land.  He died in 1967 at age 55 of Woody Guthrie's Disease.  He was the father, of course, of musical legend Arlo Guthrie.

Final drilling took place on the monuments at Mt. Rushmore. This is regarded as the project's completion.

Mt. Rushmore, October 2011

Nazi Germany imposed a heavy "sin tax" on this date in 1941, which it claimed was to reduce consumption of unhealthful products.  The tax was on tobacco, hard liquor and champagne.

Health measure or not, by this point in the war the German economy had been overheated for a decade and things were getting worse. The Nazis did legitimately oppose tobacco consumption and were aware of its health dangers in a pioneering manner.  Hitler, who had weird dietary views, was a teetotaler but the more likely reason for the tax on hard liquor and champagne was that they needed the money and the production of both resulted in caloric diversions that could have been better invested in other agricultural products.  The Nazis did not attempt to take on beer, however.

The Best Post Of The Week of October 24, 2012

 The best posts of the week of October 24, 2012.

Cliffnotes of Zeitgiest Part XXI. The Missing. States of female dress, Joking, Pride, Horses, Justin Trudeau sorry for skipping first national truth and reconciliation day, and heroes.

Tuesday, October 25, 1921. Comings and Goings.

Junkers-Larson 12. A ground attack aircraft from 1921.

The 2021 Wyoming Special Legislative Session.

A final Republic of China/People's Republic of China Showdown? Part I.

Blog Mirror: Southern Rockies Nature Blog: A Depressing Visit to the Cabela's Mothership

A final Republic of China/People's Republic of China Showdown? Weighing the costs and benefits from a Red Chinese prospective. Part II

The 2021 Wyoming Special Legislative Session, Part II

Saturday, October 29, 1921. The birth of Bill Mauldin.

National Cat Day

The 2021 Wyoming Special Legislative Session, Part III. The unvarnished views addition.

Thursday, October 30, 1941. A Change In Material Circumstances

 

On this date in 1941, T-34s began to appear in action in numbers for the first time.

In other technological, if you will, news, Northrup received a contract for one full-scale mockup, and one actual flying experimental example, of its flying wing design.

Northrup XB-35 experimental flying wing bomber.

The revolutionary design would not fly until after the war and would not see adoption until modern stealth technology arrived, at which time Northrup's design would reappear, evolved, as the Northrup B-2 Spirit.

At Tula, the Germans attempted a pitched massive assault but Soviet forces, some of which were militia, turned them back in spite of suffering heavy losses.  The Soviets used anti tank guns and anti-aircraft guns in the effort.

The Germans and Romanians commenced the Siege of Sevastopol.  It would take the Axis forces until July to take the city.

Charles Lindbergh spoke to an anti-war rally crowd of 20,000 in Madison Square Garden.  His speech was very harsh on Franklin Roosevelt, whom he accused of attempting to draw the United States into war and of using dictatorial measures.

USO Camp Shows commenced on this day in 1941, as discussed in the link below:

Today in World War II History—October 30, 1941

A u-boat damaged the USS Salinas, a U.S. Navy fleet oiler, but the vessel managed to escape without sinking.

Pearl Harbor, October 30, 1941.

Sunday October 30, 1921. Failed union.

Evelyn Nesbit standing beside two women in her tearoom, New York City.  This photo was likely published on this day, rather than taken on this day. Nesbit had been a famous actress and model who had been associated with sensational news.  At this point, she was temporarily outside of the entertainment industry.

On this day in 1921, voting took place in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, to elect a congress for the newly created, but not yet functioning, and in fact never to function, Federation of Central America. The Congress was to take office on January 15, 2022.

It nearly goes without saying that if this union of Central American states had succeeded, the region would be much better off today.

Pandemic Part 6. The Delta Surge

 July 30, 2021

Ready or not, and probably not, the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 has entered the state and infections are rapidly rising, concentrated among those who have not received a vaccination.

The state health officer has asked for Wyomingites to mask back up indoors in areas of  moderate to high transmission, which includes Laramie and Natrona Counties.

In Colorado, certain counties have been pointed out as areas of rapidly rising infections as well, including Denver County, where the recent Major League Baseball game and a concert are now regarded as superspreader events.

As a background to all of this, it's very clear that the global population is nowhere near the "herd immunity" level which is necessary to render COVID 19 extinct.  Perhaps this isn't too surprising, given the monumental nature of the effort necessary to achieve it, but what is surprising is that the developed world hasn't achieved it and the United States is clearly lagging far behind. This, too, comes at a point in time at which it nearly looked as if success had been achieved.

In the US a strong feature of the ongoing pandemic is a refusal of a certain part of the population to receive the vaccination that prevents it, this making the disease cross over from one which lurks ready to strike anyone to one which at this point is a preventable disease. Preventable disease itself has become the hallmark of modern American medical situations, in that most of the diseases that are real killers in the US are actually ones that are preventable.

Future historians and sociologist will study this in depth to attempt to determine what happened here.  We'll leave that for the time being, but what we would note is that the culture of the pandemic has really changed.  For the vaccinated the refusal to get the vaccine is absolutely baffling.  Many of those not vaccinated cite personal freedom as the basis of their views, but personal freedoms have always yielded in the United States to public emergencies with examples simply too numerous to mention.  Given this, at this point, many public entities are simply done with allowing for personal choice and have determined to make life difficult for those not getting vaccinated, up to and including firing those who refuse to receive vaccines.  The Federal Government is an all out effort to vaccinate its servants who remain unvaccinated, and President Biden is about to order the military to be fully vaccinated, something it amazingly has not implemented yet.

While it's a grim prognostication, in my view it's too late.  Whatever the hesitancy is caused by, we're going to be in for a third wave of the pandemic.  Many of the victims this time, indeed most of them, will be vaccination hold outs.  If the US achieves herd immunity, which is unlikely, it'll be through the rapid spread of the Delta variant of the disease among that population, which would be a tragic and lethal way to achieve it.  Having said that, and seemingly unnoticed by the unvaccinated, a growing bitter resentment against them by the vaccinated is really building with the distinct view that the unvaccinated are being lethally selfish.  With that being the case, there are now open comments in some quarters about simply letting the unvaccinated go ahead and risk death without sympathy from anyone else.  There is also building support for private employers to require vaccinations of employees.

The great added problem all of this is creating is that there is now a very real risk that the disease will evolve a vaccine resistant strain, setting everything back.  If that occurs, and my guess is that this is now inevitable, all the progress to date will be lost, and we'll return to the strict restrictions, and stricter, that were only recently lifted.  There will be enormous resistance to doing so, but a disease that's now killed 600,000 Americans will be in the gate to double that death toll, potentially, and the next public health crisis that results will be at least as severe as the current one.  My guess is we're mere weeks away from such a strain emerging somewhere.

In terms of the "somewhere", there are still vast reaches of the globe were very few are vaccinated and wish to be.  This is also a massive problem. Whereas in the United States the disease is circulating among those who, for the most part, could avoid it if they wished to, in the Third World it's circulating at a largely unknown rate among those who would avoid it if they could, but can't.

As noted, this will be a source for a great amount of study in the future.  How did a country which was a scientific and medical leader in the mid 20th Century end up one in which medicine was so disregarded?  Reading about it will be fascinating for future students of human behavior and history.  Living it, however, and seeing those dying in it, is quite a bit different.

August 1, 2021

The producers of a Clifford The Big Red Dog movie have pulled its release due to the Delta variant surge.

August 2, 2021

Dr. Fauci warned of more pain and suffering ahead, but didn't foresee shutdowns on the basis that there were sufficient numbers of vaccinated people to avoid them.

Senator Barrasso argued the CDC should be sued and found liable for malpractice, and urged people to get vaccinated.

August 3, 2021

And here we have a current, sobering, look at how the globe is doing in terms of vaccination progress.

Senator Lindsay Graham reports he has a break through case of COVID 19.

As can be seen, the US, in spite of vaccine resistance, is doing pretty well. It needs to do better.  Canada, which was having problems with vaccination rates for a while, has pulled head of the pack in terms of major nations.  Not noted on this chart, some small countries and ones with very unified governmental structures have achieved 100% vaccination.  The US, given the amount of vaccine it has, could rank right up there with Canada, but the curious political season, etc., has frustrated that.  Nonetheless, the US just hit 70% initial vaccination, so it's getting there, and the recent outbreak of the Delta variant has seemed to spark an increase in first time vaccinations.

In the Third World, however, vaccination rates are a disaster due to lack of vaccine. And given that, new variants of the disease are undoubtedly evolving.

August 4, 2021

As posted on another thread, the CDC has reimposed the moratorium on evictions.

August 5, 2021

Governor Gordon announced that he will not impose a mask requirement on schools this upcoming school year, leaving any such move to local districts.

Outside perhaps of Teton County, there is no political will for such a requirement, and therefore it will not occur.

Local hospitalizations have climbed back to the rate they were at this past January.

Japan is expanding its Covid restrictions.  China is reimposing its Draconian closures on some areas within its borders.

August 11, 2021

The University of Wyoming has reinstated a mask mandate.

Hawaii has reinstated restrictions.  Oregon is imposing indoor mask requirements.

August 17, 2021

Governor Gordon has indicated Wyoming will not being intervening in COVID in any fashion in spite of the increased numbers.

While not put this way, the politics of events are such that the state simply isn't going to act no matter how bad the spread of the Delta variant becomes.  While there's a chance one or two counties might, it's only a chance.

The Governor's office itself was shut down recently due to a COVID  infection.  The question does remain on whether some agencies with a high degree of independence might act on their own, but so far there is no hint that they shall.

In contrast, a single case has sent New Zealand back into a lockdown.

August 18, 2021

Wyoming's COVID death rate returned to the level it was in February.

New Mexico has put a mask mandate in place.

Pope Francis urged the unvaccinated to get vaccinations.  This came in the form of an advertisement for the US Ad Council backing vaccines.

Given this, perhaps it should be noted that Cardinal Raymond Burke, a highly respected and conservative Catholic Bishop, has been hospitalized for COVID 19. Cardinal Burke has been a critic of the vaccination efforts for various reasons and has somewhat gone from a respected critic of Pope Francis to a slightly sidelined critic whose views on some things bordered on becoming extreme.

August 21, 2021

Vaccination rates in Wyoming are now dramatically rising. So are infections, but this seems to have gotten the message through to a lot of people on vaccination.

August 28, 2021

Teton County has imposed a mask mandate.

September 1, 2021

Hot Springs County's schools are going virtual for thirteen days due to a COVID spike.

The National Guard is assisting clinics in Billings, Montana, due to a spike there.  The Idaho National Guard has been called out in that state for the same purpose.

Anti-vaxxers shut down a mobile vaccination clinic in Georgia.

September 2, 2021

Governor Gordon indicated Wyoming will not impose a mask mandate.

As a practical matter, there simply exists no political will to do this in the state at this point in time.

On a personal note, I now know one (unvaccinated) individual who has died of the Delta variant and another (unvaccinated) person who is going to, ages 60 and 40 respectively.

September 3, 2021

30% of the patients at Casper's Wyoming Medical Center are in the hospital due to COVID 19.  Most are under 65.

The school district will require individuals out of work due to COVID to take the time from their sick leave.

September 5, 2021

The hospital in Sweetwater County opened an additional wing to handle the influx of COVID 19 patients.

September 9, 2021

President Biden has asked OSHA to mandate that employers with over 100 employees be mandated to require those employees to have COVID 19 vaccinations.  He's also signed an executive order which will require Federal contractors to have COVID 19 vaccinations.

Over 100,000,000 Americans will be covered by the orders.

Governor Gordon, probably sensing more the wind where he lives than giving expression to his own opinions, or at least I suspect, noted the following:

Governor Gordon Statement Opposing Biden Administration's Vaccine Mandates

 

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Governor Mark Gordon has issued the following statement in response to today's announcement by the Biden Administration mandating COVID-19 vaccinations: 

“The Biden Administration’s announcement to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations or weekly testing for private businesses is an egregious example of big government overreach.

Our Constitution was written and fought for to protect our liberties as American citizens. This administration’s latest pronouncement demonstrates its complete disregard for the rule of law and the freedoms individuals and private companies enjoy under our Constitution. In Wyoming, we believe that government must be held in check.

I have asked the Attorney General to stand prepared to take all actions to oppose this administration’s unconstitutional overreach of executive power. It has no place in America. Not now, and not ever.”

This puts Attorney General Bridget Hill in the position of filing doomed litigation, or litgation that will be moot by the time it is taken up, but as a posturing matter, this no doubt really doesn't matter.

The Northern Arapaho Tribe, taking the opposite approach, is mandating that its employees be vaccinated.

Los Angeles' school district, the second largest in the nation, is requiring vaccinations for indivdiuals age 12 and up.

September 10, 2021

Laramie County's school district has mandated that students wear masks indoors.

September 11, 2021

France has banned unvaccinated U.S. tourists from entering the country.

The CDC released a study that the unvaccinated were 4.5 times more likely to get COVID 19 and 11 times more likely to die.

September 15, 2021

The legislature is apparently considering a special session to consider the Administration's COVID 19 mandates.

This would really be an odd exercise as the one that the legislature would be likely to be the most upset about, the OSHA entry into vaccination requirements, hasn't come into effect yet and is extremely likely to be tested in court before it does. Anything the legislature does will come up against the Supremecy Clause of the U.S. Constitution and therefore be ineffective, if it goes into effect, and put the state into a fight with the Administration where it can't win, but where it can end up spending money that it doesn't have.  It'll also serve to really fire up polarization in an area, and era, in which everything is already extremely polarized.

September 17, 2021

The University of Wyoming is extending its mask mandate through the fall.

The 2021 Wyoming Special Legislative Session.

September 21, 2021

The Pfizer accounted that its vaccination is safe for children 5 through 11 years of age.

The number of Americans who have died of COVID 19 has supassed the number who died from the 1918 Influenza, a number which must be tempered i consideration if we take into account that the country had about 1/3d of its current population at the time, meaning that the 1918 flu was still far more devestating, at least so far.

The school nurse in the Pine Bluffs school district resigned after that district's board determined to continue to allow children exposed to COVID 19 to attend school, as long as they wore masks. Citing the act and its impact on her professionally and personally, she resigned.

September 22, 2021

Governor Activates Wyoming National Guard to Provide Hospital Assistance

September 21, 2021

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Wyoming’s hospitals have sought additional support to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and the surge in hospitalized patients. There are approximately 200 people with COVID-19 in Wyoming hospitals today, which is near the peak number the state has seen during the pandemic. Governor Mark Gordon has activated guardsmen who have stepped forward to provide temporary assistance to hospitals throughout the state.

Governor Gordon has called approximately 95 Soldiers and Airmen to State Active Duty orders, assigned to hospital locations at 24 different sites within 17 Wyoming cities. They will serve to augment current hospital and Wyoming Department of Health staff to help ease workloads imposed upon them due to large numbers of COVID-19 hospitalizations.

“I am grateful to the members of our Wyoming National Guard for once again answering the call to provide assistance in our hospitals during this surge,” Governor Gordon said. “Our Guard members truly are Wyoming’s sword and shield, and their commitment to our state is something for which every Wyoming citizen can be thankful.”

Guard members’ responsibilities will include: assisting in environmental cleanup in hospital facilities; food and nutrition service; COVID-19 screening; managing personal protective equipment (PPE) supplies; and other support tasks. Some will also be trained to administer COVID-19 tests.

“The Delta variant has overwhelmed the medical institutions of states across this country. Our state is no different with most hospitals at or near capacity,” said Col. David Pritchett, director of the joint staff for the Wyoming National Guard. “The Soldiers and Airmen of the Wyoming National Guard are proud to jump back in to provide much needed assistance to our communities as we continue to battle the effects of COVID-19.”

The orders for guardsmen will be 14-30 day rotations, with the potential to extend beyond that, up until Dec. 31. The numbers and locations of guardsmen may change based on hospital needs.

--END--

September 24, 2021

In the reverse of the seeming norm, a lawsuit has been filed in Montana seeking to overturn a law there which probhibits employers from mandating vaccinations and masks.

October 8, 2021

120 American children have lost at least one parent due to a COVID 19 death.

October 9, 2021

Casper's ICU is full.

More Americans have died in 2021 of COVID 19 than in 2021 at this point.

A female student in Laramie was suspended for refusing to wear a mask and then arrested as she refused to leave school grounds.

News anchor Cheryl Hackett was terminated from KCWY for refusing to adhere to her employer, Gray Media's, vaccine mandate.  She is the second person in a Wyoming Gray Media outlet to be terminated for this reason in a week.

October 13, 2021

October 13, 2021

Governor Gordon Further Prepares Legal Challenge of Federal Overreach on Vaccine Mandates

 

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Governor Mark Gordon is taking action to oppose President Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates. The Governor and the Attorney General continue to prepare the State’s legal challenge to the threat of the Biden Administration’s proposed vaccine mandates, when they are finalized. It should be noted that the Biden Administration has yet to issue any specific policies that can be challenged in court.

“Four weeks ago, when the President issued his announcement regarding vaccine mandates, I immediately instructed Attorney General Hill to prepare for legal action to oppose this unconstitutional overreach,” Governor Gordon said. “Attorney General Hill has begun that mission and is continuing to strengthen alliances, improve potential arguments, and consider appropriate strategies.”

Governor Gordon noted that a joint letter from 24 attorneys general explained that the President’s edict is broad, inexact, and utilizes a rarely-used provision in Federal law that allows it to be effective immediately.

“This coalition of Attorneys General is well-prepared to fight the Biden Administration in courts when the time is right, and I am committed to using every tool available to us to oppose federal rules, regulations, and standards whenever they overreach. We are prepared to act promptly once these mandates are finally issued,” the Governor said. “Wyoming will not stand idly by to see any erosion of the constitutional rights afforded our citizens and their industries.” 

As the state prepares for its legal battle with the federal government, Governor Gordon stressed that as a conservative Republican, he continues to stand for smaller government that is closest to the people. Governor Gordon reiterated, “Government must resist the temptation to intrude in private sector interests.”

“It is neither conservative nor Republican to replace one form of tyranny with another,” he added. “Doing so is antithetical to our American form of government, even if it is for something we like. I will stand firm against unconstrained governmental overreach regardless of where or when it occurs.”

-END-

Politically Governor Gordon has nearly no choice but to take this approach, and of course he's faced with a special session of the legislature as well, something he may be trying to avoid. But the legal prospects for such a suit are small.

October 22, 2021

Russia is experiencing a record COVID surge.

More Wyomingites are presently hospitalized due to COVID 19 than at any prior point in the pandemic.  Deaths have also hit an all time weekly high. Almost all of the new victims are unvaccinated.

One in five of the prisoners in the Wyoming State Prison presently are infected with the disease.

October 24, 2021

The unvaccinated can expect to get COVID 19 every sixteen months, according to a recent study.

October 30, 2021

Wyoming has joined ten other states in a doomed effort to litigate the question of whether the Federal Government can require employees of its contractors to be vaccinated.

The rule hasn't gone into effect  It will in December.  It's unlikely this issue will be resolved by December, but when it is, it'll be resolved in favor of the Federal government.

Prior Threads:

Pandemic Part 6.

Worried.

Pandemic, Part 5

Pandemic, Part 4

Wow. Modern Medicine

Pandemic, Part 3.

Pandemic, Part Two

Pandemic

"Do you personally know anyone who has had COVID 19?"

National Cat Day

 

October 29, 1941. Never Give In.

The SS murdered over 8,000 Jewish residents of Kaunas Lithuania.  Men, women and children were included in the massacre.

The Germans assaulted Tula and were turned back.  Yesterday I noted Guderian's weird comment about  the town, but what was omitted from the quote is that Tula gave the Germans the dope slap. They'd never take it.  The "blond girl", as it was, wasn't yielding to German advances.

They did take Vololamsk outside of Moscow, but in an effort that expended so many resources that it caused them to have to halt.

In essence what was occurring was the end of Operation Barbarossa and Operation Typhoon, part of it.  The Germans had been facing increasing Soviet resistance for weeks, but up until now, save for Leningrad, the Red Army had always been defeated.  Now, it wasn't being.  It was not only slowing the Germans down, in some places it had stopped yielding entirely.  German advances, on the other hand, were evolving from rapid forays with occasional sieges, to outright pitched battles involving massive losses.

Churchill delivered a speech destined to become famous at Harrow, with it being known as the "Never Give In" speech.

Almost a year has passed since I came down here at your Head Master's kind invitation in order to cheer myself and cheer the hearts of a few of my friends by singing some of our own songs. The ten months that have passed have seen very terrible catastrophic events in the world — ups and downs, misfortunes — but can anyone sitting here this afternoon, this October afternoon, not feel deeply thankful for what has happened in the time that has passed and for the very great improvement in the position of our country and of our home? Why, when I was here last time we were quite alone, desperately alone, and we had been so for five or six months. We were poorly armed. We are not so poorly armed today; but then we were very poorly armed. We had the unmeasured menace of the enemy and their air attack still beating upon us, and you yourselves had had experience of this attack; and I expect you are beginning to feel impatient that there has been this long lull with nothing particular turning up! 

But we must learn to be equally good at what is short and sharp and what is long and tough. It is generally said that the British are often better at the last. They do not expect to move from crisis to crisis; they do not always expect that each day will bring up some noble chance of war; but when they very slowly make up their minds that the thing has to be done and the job put through and finished, then, even if it takes months — if it takes years — they do it. 

Another lesson I think we may take, just throwing our minds back to our meeting here ten months ago and now, is that appearances are often very deceptive, and as Kipling well says, we must "...meet with Triumph and Disaster. And treat those two impostors just the same." 

You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination. But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period — I am addressing myself to the School — surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated. 

Very different is the mood today. Britain, other nations thought, had drawn a sponge across her slate. But instead our country stood in the gap. There was no flinching and no thought of giving in; and by what seemed almost a miracle to those outside these Islands, though we ourselves never doubted it, we now find ourselves in a position where I say that we can be sure that we have only to persevere to conquer. 

You sang here a verse of a School Song: you sang that extra verse written in my honour, which I was very greatly complimented by and which you have repeated today. But there is one word in it I want to alter — I wanted to do so last year, but I did not venture to. It is the line: "Not less we praise in darker days." 

I have obtained the Head Master's permission to alter darker to sterner. "Not less we praise in sterner days." 

Do not let us speak of darker days: let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days; these are great days — the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.

A ten-month-long boycott of radio broadcasters by ASCAP was revolved.

Cole Porter's musical play, Let's Face It, was released.  Wikipedia describes the plot thus:

Three suspicious wives, Maggie Watson, Nancy Collister and Cornelia Pigeon invite three Army inductees to Maggie's summer house in Southampton on Long Island to make their husbands jealous. Jerry Walker is engaged to Winnie Potter, and, because he needs the money, agrees to the plot. The wives's philandering husbands leave on yet another camping trip. Winnie, hearing of Jerry's involvement, brings in two friends (who are actually girlfriends of the other two soldiers) to pretend to be interested in the older men. The husbands actually do go fishing. Winnie and her friends crash Maggie's party and the husbands unexpectedly return home.

I think I'd have passed on this one.

Saturday, October 29, 1921. The birth of Bill Mauldin.

On this day in 1921, Bill Mauldin, the great World War Two illustrator (cartoon doesn't suffice to describe his work) was born in New Mexico.

Mauldin while a Stars and Stripes cartoonist.  Mauldin was a tiny man and always looked younger than his hears.  Here he's wearing a mixed uniform, including the wool lined zipper pattern field jacket that some mistakingly now refer to as a "tanker's jacket", a khaki shirt, OD trousers, and paratrooper boots. The boots were a gift from paratroopers.

Mauldin would ultimately become a Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist for the Chicago Sun Times, but he had an archetypical Western upbringing that impacted much of his personality. His father, Sidney Albert Mauldin, was the dominant person of his youth and was somewhat unstable.  A streak of instability existed in his mother's side of hte family as well.  His father, called "pops", was a very intelligent man but was given to starting and abandoning projects.  Mauldin claimed Native American heritage on his mother's side, and his own appearance suggested that the claim was well-founded.  It was noted in later years that the two characters of his World War Two cartoon series, Up Front!, resemlbed figures from his own family.

His father had served as an artilleryman in World War One and went on to be a farmer, but one who frequently started and abandoned projects of all types  His father's adoptive grandfather had been a civilian scout with the Army during the Apache Wars.  His parents ultimately divorced and Mauldin and his brother Sidney moved to Phoenix Arizona in 1937 to attend high school, with his brother as the primary caretaker, which unfortunately lead to at least an element of delinquency.  Mauldin started illustrating at that time and made money illegally painting pinups on spare car covers.  He did not graduate from high school and, like many men  his age, joined the local National Guard unit, in his case the New Mexico National Guard, when conscription commenced in 1940.  His talents quickly lead him to be an Army newspaper illustrator, and he is most famously associated with The Stars & Stripes.

Mauldin was a great cartoonist and illustrator, but he had a troubled life, probably caused both by his unstable youthful years and the Second World War.  He married his first wife Jean prior to shipping overseas in the war, but he was not faithful to her during the war, and she wasn't faithful to him.  This lead to a post-war divorce, although the marriage actually endured for well over a decade after the war, with the couple having several children.  He married twice more, but perhaps showing the true nature of his first marriage, his wife Jean returned to take care of him as he was invalided in his final months.

"Me future is settled, Willie. I'm gonna be a professor on types o' European soil."

Mauldin's wartime cartoons underwent a rapid evolution in every sense.  They were good early on, but perhaps not really notably different from cartoons that appeared in other military papers and magazines.  In North Africa, however, they suddenly changed and the brush and ink illustrations became very accurate illustrations, while still having a speaking cartoon element.  They were so accurate that only the outright illustrations of William Brody, which have no cartoon element to them at all, surpass them as American Second World War war art.

Yank magazine medic illustration by William Brodie

Indeed, Mauldin's illustrations are so accurate that a person can trace the introduction of uniforms and equipment, and when they were first used at the front, through his cartoons.  Zealous in his work, he traveled to the front for material and was wounded at Monte Cassino as a result, and therefore had the Purple Heart.  A few of his cartoons were censured by the Army for showing new equipment before its knowledge was widely known.

Mauldin's "dog faces" were not glamorous in any sense, and were routinely dirty and unshaven.  They complained about service life and about some things, such as the lack of new uniforms as they were introduced, frequently.  This famously lead him to be the focus of a blistering ill-advised lecture from Gen. George Patton, who hated his cartoons.

During the war Mauldin's Stars & Stripes illustrations were picked up by American newspapers, and he found that he was returning to a ready-made career.  He was uncertain of it however, and at first his cartoons focused on the lives of his two central characters as they went back into civilian life. Those cartoons always had a bit of a false nature to them, however, as it was clear that Willie and Joe only really knew each other due to their being in the Army, and having them as central cartoons in a civilian cartoon didn't make much sense.  Mauldin's cartoons had always had a bit of an "editorial" nature ot them anyhow, and soon he switched to editorial cartoons, although there was no clear demarcation line from one genre to the other.  AS this happened, however, his cartoons lost circulation.

They were good cartoons, however, and ultimately the St. Louis Post Dispatch picked them up.  In later years the Chicago Sun Times did, and he was associated as a first rate editorial cartoonist with both papers.  In retirement, after having been marred three times, he moved back to his native New Mexico.  

World War Two veterans never forgot him and the memory of his wartime cartoons remained fresh throughout his life.  He obtained the status as the greatest military cartoonist of all time, replacing Bruce Barnesfeather in that status during Barnesfeather's own lifetime.  His fame was such that he himself became a reoccurring topic in the great cartoon series "Peanuts", with the character Snoopy visiting him in the cartoon every Veteran's Day.

Colliers ran the following cover:

The Soviet Union announced that it would honor most of Imperial Russia's debt obligation.

The USSR, in spite of the image it was trying to portray to the world, was an economic mess and as continuing to face armed resistance within its borders.  Indeed, just earlier in the week it had been invaded by Ukrainian insurgents who were advancing in the Ukraine, having crossed the Polish border.  None of its neighbors was sympathetic to it, and it was desperately reaching the point where it was trying to secure foreign funding to rescue its economy and save it from starvation.