Monday, August 14, 1922. The Shipping Board.

In London, a conference between Weimar Germany and the United Kingdom about adjusting the German reparations, which was horrifying the French, broke off without results.

The IRA took Dundalk.   Following the fall of Cork, the IRA's campaign had reverted to a guerilla campaign.

A packed lunch and later dinner for 48 people at Loch Marie hotel in Scotland inflected the diners with botulism from canned duck paste.  Eight would ultimately die from the disease.  All of those who died had sandwiches made from the duck paste.

It's stories like this that have always freaked me out about home canning.

Hebrew, Arabic, and English were designated as the official languages in Palestine.

President Harding's Shipping Board was headed to a conference, giving us a glimpse into regular men's ware of the period.

It was summer, and therefore warm, which explains the straw boater hat.  Nonetheless, this fellow was otherwise wearing a three piece suit.

Note the watch chain.

Another three piece suit, but this fellow has an early version of a fedora that he's carrying.  Note the watch chain yet again.

Also, this fellow has rimless glasses, but they're the old style with the bridge that rested on the nose.  I.e, no nose pieces.

Dressed for traveling, and with a suit that's a bit rumply, this fellow has opted for a wool newsboy cap, something I wear in the winter myself, but not in the summer.  Also a three piece suit and he also has a watch chain.

We'll throw in this Army aviator whose photo was taken the same day for an unrelated reason.

Lt. Paul Wilkins in the uniform of that period.

The Semi Centennial Geyser erupted in Yellowstone.

The Best Posts of the Week of August 7, 2022.

The best posts of the week of August 7, 2022.

Lex Anteinternet: The Candidates and Office Holders, how much are we entitled to know. Eye Planks.

The 2022 Election Part X. The start of the Primary Election

The Post Insurrection. Falling chips. Part IV.

The Idle Rich and Noblesse obligee.

The Idle Rich and Noblesse obligee.

Territorial seal of Wyoming, depicting rich people from other areas moving in to control the state's politics. . . oh, wait. . . it mostly depicts work.

And I'm gonna tell you workers,

'fore you cash in your checks 

They say "America First," 

but they mean "America Next!"

Woody Guthrie, Lindbergh.

This was originally going to be a post in the election thread, as it comes up in that context.

Here's how.

Recently former Wyoming Secretary of State Max Maxfield filed an election complaint against Chuck Gray which in essence stated that Mr. Gray only reports $11,000 in income per year, but loaned his abandoned campaign against Liz Cheney over $200,000.  The math, Mr. Maxfield maintains, doesn't add up for a guy whose only been in the state for a decade and who must be in his early 30s.  In other words, how can a guy with no visible means of support earning money at the poverty level loan himself that kind of dough.

Well, the answer is pretty obvious.  Gray has external funding sources.

In the recent debate with his opponent Tara Nethercott he accused her of being behind the Maxfield effort, for which there is no evidence at all.  Nethercott surely didn't start it, but she has made use of it, noting that his connection with work is pretty thin.  Gray has attempted to defend himself by accusing Nethercott of being a "lawyer/politician".

That's ironic for Gray, as he's also a politician. They both have been in the legislature the same length of time.  Moreover, while I can't find it now, while Gray was at Wharton he gave an interview to some sort of school journal in which he said his ambition was to become a lawyer.  So his disdain of lawyers apparently comes more recently.

Gray said in the debate that he had inherited the money that he loaned to his campaign, which in some ways, although he probably doesn't realize it, makes this story worse.  As does this:

August 11, 2022

The Trib ran an article on this date on campaign donations and the various candidates.

Perhaps the most remarkable figures where for Secretary of State, where Chuch Gray has raised $528,000 to Nethercott's $333,000.  Of that, $500,000 of Gray's money was donated by his father and $10,000 from himself, meaning he's really raised $18,000.  Nethercott loaned her campaign $95,000.

Gray has seemingly been able to get by in the state for a decade with a light attraction to what most people would regard as substantial work, assuming that his role at his family's radio station isn't accounted for in some other fashion that's allowable under the IRS code but which isn't regarded as income.  I have no idea.  That may be the case.  At any rate, however, most people's parents aren't in a situation to give them $500,000 in their early 30s in order to mount a bid for office.

Which raises a number of topics.

The first is, in regard to Gray, does this matter?

I'd think so.

What a person does with their own money is their own business, to an extent. But when it comes to spending money in order to obtain a public office, that's everyone's business.  One of Gray's recent television advertisements complains that Nethercott voted for a bill to raise the Secretary of State's wages to $125,000, for instance.

This would suggest that Gray thinks $125,000 for that office is a lot, but it's not.  The median income for Wyoming is $33,000, which is very low, so for a lot of people that would be a lot, but Nethercott will probably be taking a pay cut if she wins.  Gray will be getting a big pay raise, but apparently his situation is such that this doesn't really matter.

Of course, it's a four-year position, which also means that Nethercott will have to work the better part of a year to pay back the load to herself.  Gray won't have to, but the $500,000 investment on the part of his father?  Well, I guess that's also like spending your inheritance.  That somebody is willing to spend a half million dollars to obtain a job that will take several years in pay in order to recoup the loss raises, yet again, more questions.

All of which gets to this.

Very few people are in the category of "idle rich". Even most of the rich aren't in the category of idle rich, where they have so much surplus cash they really don't have to do anything.

If a person is in that category, what they do with their cash is their own business, as long as they are honest about it, and their employment of their resources doesn't work to the detriment of other people.

And that's the problem with what Gray is doing.

Wyoming has experienced an influx of money in recent years, with there being some really spectacular examples.  Susan Gore, who has funded far right political movements, is one such example.  She's not from here, but more than that, she's not of here either.  Her efforts are funding attempts to make the state into something it's never been, under the banner of "liberty".  Gray is part of that same effort.  

Gore is one example, but Gray's quite another.  The resources presumably are nowhere equal, but the thought of a young man seemingly employing his efforts at doing little else other than to try to advance in politics in a state he has virtually no connection with is, well, disturbing.  I can't really imagine it myself.  That is, if I had surplus money, I don't think I'd go, let's say, to Alaska and try to influence their politics.

But that's what Gray has being doing from day one here, and that's what people like Susan Gore and Foster Friess have been attempting as well.  To make it worse, the Wyoming they're trying to recreate is an imaginary one that they don't really know.  The state they moved to isn't the one they think it was, and what they're attempting to make it into isn't where most of us would have wanted to go.

At one time, having vast idle wealth in the country bound a person to obligation.  We only recently mentioned the two Roosevelts who were elected President in this blog, as they were rich men. They were both examples of this, however.

But they were also examples of noblesse oblige, the sense that "being nobility obligates".

This was particularly true in the case of Theodore Roosevelt.  His father was wealthy, but he'd also been dedicated to the cause of poor newsboys, something that was a real problem in his era.  Theodore Roosevelt senior also made it plain to Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. that their wealth would enable the younger man to choose a career of his liking that didn't have to pay well, but he'd have to choose one.  Originally, the later President had intended to be a scientist, and indeed was published and well regarded in natural history.

Indeed, while Theodore Roosevelt, following his father's death, turned to the then disreputable career of politician in years as tender as that of Gray's, he never really quit working.  He wrote, he published, he studied, and he ranched.  His finances were not always great by any means as he's overspend in his endeavors, but his capacity for work was literally manic.

Wealthy New Yorker Theodore Roosevelt, who resigned from his position as Assistant Secretary of the Navy to serve at great hazard in the Spanish American War.  We don't see too many wealthy Americans doing this sort of service anymore.

I know less about his cousin Franklin, but Franklin always admired Theodore.  He came to the nation's attention first as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, something Theodore Roosevelt had also been.  So he entered public service. . . as a type of bureaucrat. . . .  before he was a politician.

And other examples abound.  Winston Churchill, who was from a wealthy family (although he always overspent his resources, as did his mother) served as a British Army cavalryman in his early years, with that being his intended career in an era in which those born into British wealth were not expected to "work" but to go into public service in the military or the clergy, or perhaps engage in agriculture.  He took a break from that to act as a correspondent, and then later served in the Army again in the early part of World War One before entering politics.  T. E. Lawrence, from the same class, and burdened with the same cultural expectation not to "work", was first an archeologist before entering the British Army during the Great War.

John F. Kennedy in World War Two.

Turning back to our own shores, I'll be frank that I'm not a fan of the Kennedy family, including John F. Kennedy. But the President of the early 1960s had served, and heroically, in the U.S. Navy during the Second World War. That's definitely work.

Yet another interesting example would be George S. Patton, whose family was very wealthy.  Patton had a career as a soldier, quite obviously, as that was something people in his class did.

Patton in World War One.

We don't seem to see things like this much anymore.

Gray, according to what little we know of him, went right from Wharton to a Wyoming radio station.  A really blistering article in WyoFile notes his career and that he was reported as an executive at the station.  That article goes on to note that the radio entity in Wyoming seems to facially be out of compliance with registration requirements   The article is so extensive that about all you can do is quote from it, rather than try to summarize it, as it notes:

He has listed Mount Rushmore Broadcasting, Inc. as his sole employment — initially working as a program director, then later as an operations manager — on each of his requisite elected official financial disclosure forms.  

According to records from the secretary of state’s office — and later confirmed by a department spokesperson — Mount Rushmore Broadcasting was administratively dissolved by the state almost two decades ago for failing to file annual reports and pay its license fees to Wyoming. Gray’s father, Jan Charles Gray, is president of the Delaware-based entity, according to state records. The entity uses a registered agent in its Wyoming filings, but 2016 documents from the Federal Communications Commission indicate that the elder Gray is also owner of the corporation. 

Like all out-of-state entities, it was required to obtain a certificate of authority from the secretary of state’s office before transacting business in the state. It did so in 1993, according to state records, but failed to file requisite annual reports and pay yearly fees based on its assets located and employed in Wyoming. Mount Rushmore entered into a 24-month period during which it could have paid a reinstatement fee, as well as what was already owed. But the company did not comply within the two-year window, after which Wyoming statute does not allow entities to be brought back into good standing. 

Monique Meese with the Wyoming Secretary of State’s office confirmed that Mount Rushmore Broadcasting, Inc. was administratively dissolved on June 10, 2003 and thereby lost the ability to be reinstated. At press time, the entity was not under review by the office, Meese said, because no written complaints had been submitted. 

On his most recent state elected officials financial disclosure form dated Jan. 28, 2022, Gray listed operations manager of Mount Rushmore Broadcasting as his employment. According to his campaign website, he began his career there in 2013 “as a radio executive and hosted a conservative radio show,” until 2019.

During a July candidate forum in Casper, Gray said he became a permanent resident of Wyoming in 2012. He spent his childhood summers here with his father after his parents divorced, he said. 

Prior to going to work for his father, Gray graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with bachelor’s of science and bachelor’s of arts degrees, according to his lawmaker bio. 

When WyoFile approached Gray to clarify his professional experience immediately following the forum in Casper, he declined to answer questions, but said he would respond to written questions over email. WyoFile sent several written questions to the lawmaker, including a request for more details regarding his duties as an employee of Mount Rushmore Broadcasting and how his academic and professional resumes qualified him for the position. Gray responded with a statement about ballot drop boxes and ballot harvesting — he feels both are threats to election integrity — but no further information on his background. WyoFile sent a subsequent email asking about his employer conducting business in Wyoming without a certificate of authority. The lawmaker did not respond. 

Mount Rushmore Broadcasting is currently the licensee for two AM stations and five FM stations in Wyoming, according to Federal Communications Commission records. Most of those stations are in Casper, and all but one of those can currently be heard on the air.

In 2016, three years after Gray claims to have begun working there, Mount Rushmore entered into a consent decree with the FCC for failing to maintain a full-time management and staff presence at the main studio of two of its stations during regular business hours, among other things. One term of the settlement was a $25,000 civil penalty, which was less than the originally proposed penalty. Mount Rushmore Broadcasting submitted a sworn statement along with several years of tax returns indicating an inability to pay all forfeitures, according to the consent decree. The original amount was just under $160,000, according to the FCC. Part of the agreement required Mount Rushmore Broadcasting to pay the remainder of the originally proposed penalties if the FCC found it misled the commission regarding its financial status. The commission declined to say whether that occurred. 

In 2015, Mount Rushmore Broadcasting paid almost $5,000 in back wages to former employees, after the U.S. Department of Labor sued the entity for not properly paying its workers. 

Between April 2020 and March 2021, it received more than $28,000 in federal dollars through the Paycheck Protection Program in order to retain two jobs. Gray, a vocal opponent of federal subsidies, voted during the 2022 Legislative session against a bill authorizing the state to spend other pandemic relief funds. He declined to answer questions on the matter when WyoFile contacted him for previous reporting.

I'd note that there could be explanations for why it is seemingly out of compliance with filing requirements in Wyoming, and indeed for all of this, but it does raise questions.

Maybe the bigger question, however, is this.  Does simply graduating from school really mean that you are now qualified to legislate and govern?

I guess the voters can and will decide that. But quite frankly, those who were not born wealthy, and have had to work, have rounder experiences than those who simply benefitted from the circumstances of their births.  Those born wealthy, however, who have educated themselves in school and out in the world have different qualifications yet, and are often quite admirable.

The Roosevelts, we'd note, were champions of the poor.  Theodore Roosevelt wouldn't even be qualified to walk into a county Republican Party meeting today, in spite of still being admired as a Republican President.  John F. Kennedy, for all his faults, was concerned with the same class as well.  Churchill had to be restrained from directly entering into combat a couple of times during World War Two.

Noblesse Oblige.

Thursday, August 13, 1942. Pedastal hit, Montgomery takes command, Japan enacts laws against what they had committed, Stalin writes a memo, Bambi opens in the United States.

The Pedestal convoy was hit again by German and Italian torpedo boats.  They sank four freighters and damaged the HMS Manchester.

Torpedo hitting the Ohio.

The oil tanker Ohio, manned for the trip by a British crew, was attacked by aircraft and finally immobilized and then abandoned, but with fuel tanks intact.  She did not sink.

It's of note here that much of what we're told about World War Two naval action really isn't applicable to the war in the Mediterranean, and as we saw from the Battle of Savo Island earlier, it isn't to the early war in the Pacific either.  It's often claimed that torpedo boats were worthless in World War Two, but as late as 1942 they certainly were not.  Indeed, this is just once of several instances in the first half of the war of torpedo boats performing successfully just as they were meant to, making surface raids at high speed against larger war ship and coming out on top.  Additionally, air cover clearly wasn't adequate or wasn't cutting it for convoy escort in the Mediterranean.  This convoy had an aircraft carrier with it, but it was itself one of the first vessels to be sunk.

On this day, the Italian Navy, still a major force in the Mediterranean, had to recall, however, a major task force that was attempting to intercept Pedestal due to a lack of German air cover, and British submarine action.

The excellent, but unfortunately discontinued, blog World War II Day-By-Day also notes this naval action on this day:

Caribbean. U-600 and U-658 attack as 2 USA-South America convoys pass the strait between Cuba and Haiti. At 5.07 AM, U-658 sinks Dutch SS Medea in convoy WAT 13 (5 killed, 23 rescued by convoy escorts). At 9.48 AM, U-600 sinks Latvian SS Everelza (23 killed, 14 rescued by convoy escorts) and American passenger/cargo ship SS Delmundo (8 killed including 3 passengers, 50 survivors including 5 passengers picked up by British destroyer HMS Churchill) in convoy TAW 12.

At 7.50 AM in the Gulf of Mexico 25 miles off the coast of Louisiana, U-171 stops US tanker SS R.M. Parker Jr. with 2 torpedoes and finishes her off with the deck gun (all 37 crew and 7 gunners rescued 8 hours later by US Coast Guard auxiliary craft USS Pioneer).

South Atlantic. At 7.40 AM 400 miles Southwest of Freetown, Sierra Leone, U-752 sinks American SS Cripple Creek carrying 7500 tons of war supplies from USA to British 8th Army in Egypt (1 killed, 38 crew and 13 gunners in 3 lifeboats rescued after 4 days by British armed trawler HMS St. Winstan). 1400 miles West of Freetown, Italian submarine Reginaldo Giuliani sinks American SS California with the deck gun and torpedoes (1 killed, 35 survivors)

Bernard Law Montgomery took over the British 8th Army in the wake of the death of Gen. Gott.

Montgomery in August 1942.  He had a love of irregular uniform items, and ins this case is wearing an Australian slouch hat, although that item was popular with British officers.

Montgomery, one of the most controversial senior commanders of the Second World War, had been considered for the post prior to Gott being appointed, but had lost out to Gott. With Gott's death, he was the natural choice. He was of Scots ancestry and from what might be regarded as a sort of Scottish variant of the Anglo-Irish community. While born in England, his father was a Church of Ireland minister who would ultimately be sent to Tasmania, where Montgomery grew up.  While his father Henry had inherited the family estate in Ulster, there was not sufficient money to support the family until his father took the position in Tasmania.

His father was a dutiful clergyman and spent much of his time on the road in the rural areas of what remained a British colony at the time.  While he was gone, his mother, only in her twenties, constantly beat and then ignored the children.  This treatment made Bernard something of a bully in his youth and caused lasting animosity between him and his mother, whose funeral he did not attend in 1949.

The family returned to England in 1897.  Bernard joined the Army in 1908.  By all accounts he had a difficult personality, but in spite of American claims to the contrary, he was a brilliant tactician with a great appreciation of how to use troops who were inadequately equipped with thin resources.

The Germans took Elista on the Eastern Front.

The Australians retreated at Deniki on New Guinea, and the Japanese landed troops at Buna.

The Japanese, acting with rich hypocrisy, passed the Enemy Airman's Act.  It stated:

Article I: This law shall apply to all enemy airmen who raid the Japanese homeland, Manchukuo, and the Japanese zones of military operations, and who come within the areas under the jurisdiction of the China Expeditionary Force.

Article II: Any individual who commits any or all of the following shall be subject to military punishment:

Section 1. The bombing, strafing, and otherwise attacking of civilians with the objective of cowing, intimidating, killing or maiming them.

Section 2. The bombing, strafing or otherwise attacking of private properties, whatsoever, with the objectives of destroying or damaging same.

Section 3. The bombing, strafing or otherwise attacking of objectives, other than those of military nature, except in those cases where such an act is unavoidable.

Section 4. In addition to those acts covered in the preceding three sections, all other acts violating the provisions of International Law governing warfare.

Article III: Military punishment shall be the death penalty [or] life imprisonment, or a term of imprisonment for not less than ten years.

The hypocrisy was that Japan had used air assets extensively against Chinese civilian populations by this point in the war.  Using air assets against civilians is in fact a crime, but in this case, the Japanese were familiar with that crime by having done it.  Not only this, the murder, rape and enslavement of civilian populations was a common practice by Japanese ground forces.

Seemingly oblivious to the fact that 1) the British had arrested the German advances in North Africa but were nowhere near reversing them; 2) the Japanese were still advancing in the South Pacific and the recent U.S. offensive in the Solomons was now imperiled by a lack of progress on Guadalcanal and the Japanese Navy driving the U.S. Navy from that island's coast; 3) British efforts to contest for the Mediterranean were hardly an unqualified success; and 4) tens of ships were going down in the Atlantic every day, Joseph Stalin wrote a memo protesting the Allied decision not to land in France in 1942.

What Stalin seemingly was missing is that while he was losing the war inside of Russia at that moment, all the evidence was that the Allies were still losing it in the Pacific and barely hanging on in North Africa.  A landing in France was simply impossible.

Bambi opened in the United States.

Aerial view (altitude 3,000 ft.) looking northwest at the start of construction of Dry Dock No. 4. East terminus of Palou Avenue, San Francisco, San Francisco County, CA.

Sunday, August 12, 1922. The news.

Quite the news day, really.

The Herald started off with the harrowing news of trains marooned in the Southwest, due to ongoing labor problems.

 

We're reminded by the page below that there was once an elected position of "County Surveyor". This has obviously gone by the wayside, which raises the question of what other elective offices are really obsolete as elective offices today.

Rules were changing for football.

And airplane rides were for the offering.

I'd forgotten there was once a town called "Teapot".

The Herald wanted to keep the Union Pacific brand off of the range.  

Recently, of course, the state had an opportunity to buy the checkerboard from the UP's successor in interest and blew it.

A Colorado newspaper was happy with something Governor Carey had done, but what it was, I really don't know.

A restaurant was holding a contest for a name.

Charles Winter was running for office.  His son, who lived to nearly be 100, worked in my office building nearly up to that very age.

The train situation, we'd note, wasn't only in the Herald.

Different approaches by neighbors

Idaho's law banning abortions in most instances made it already to their Supreme Court, which refused to block it.

This in marked contrast to Wyoming, where the issue is down at the District Court level and has been blocked by an injunction issued by the District Court judge. The issue will make its way up to the Supreme Court, so the question is why it simply hasn't been certified.

Blog Mirror: O'Toole: Alex, Harriet and really big fibs

 

O'Toole: Alex, Harriet and really big fibs

Blog Mirror: Larsen: Tara Nethercott an insider? Yes -- thank heavens

 

Larsen: Tara Nethercott an insider? Yes -- thank heavens

Blog Mirror: Arha: Discontent doesn't make Trump right

 

Arha: Discontent doesn't make Trump right

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Cucumbers

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Cucumbers: One of the best homilies I have given is probably my cucumber homily. Since then I receive a plethora of cucumbers each year from mid July t...

Mystery Lake Fish Stocking

Wednesday, August 12, 1942 The Second Moscow Conference commences.

The Second Moscow Conference opened on this day in 1942.  Averrell Harriman attended for the United States.  Churchill was there in person for the United Kingdom and, of course, Joseph Stalin was there, where he would have been anyway, for the USSR.

At least from an external view, the war was really not going well at this time for the Allies.  The Soviets were being pushed back inside their own borders every day, and it would have been rational to conclude that the latest big city to be entered, Stalingrad, would fall within days.  British Commonwealth forces had been pushed back to El Alamein, where they had however arrested the German advance.  The Japanese were advancing in New Guinea, and while the US had landed Marines on Guadalcanal, the Japanese Navy had driven the U.S. Navy from its coast.

Stalin's trip to the USSR would be regarded an ordeal by modern travelers.  He met with Stalin at 7:00 p.m. that night, having just arrived from Tehran, and informed Stalin immediately that there would not be a second front in 1942, although he then went on to inform Stalin about developing plans for Operation Torch, the landings in North Africa, which by any rational measure was a boosting of an existing second front.

Churchill promised landings in France in 1943.

On this day the Germans took Slavyansk and, in Operation Pedestal, the British ships Cairo and Foresight were sunk and the tanker Ohio badly damaged. The Ohio had to be taken under tow.  The convoy was constantly under attack from the air and sea by German and Italian forces.  

The Germans, however, transferred forces from Case Blue to the siege at Leningrad, which weakened the offensive which was already running into trouble.  Erich von Manstein was dispatched with those forces to Leningrad.

Actor Phillips Holmes died in a midair collision while serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force.  Actor and future aircrewman Clark Gable joined the U.S. Army as a private.  He was 41 years old.

Saturday, August 12, 1922.

 

Tuesday, August 11, 1942. Inventive Actress, Distressed Convoy, No Vino.

This is a particularly interesting day for entries on Sarah Sundin's blog.

First, she notes:

Today in World War II History—August 11, 1942: Actress Hedy Lamarr and musician George Antheil receive a patent for a frequency-hopping system to prevent interception and jamming of radio communications.

This is, I'd note, a big deal.

Sundin goes on to note that the technology did not go on to be used in World War Two, but it is in cellular phones.

Lamarr, born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, was an Austrian by birth.  Her father was Jewish and from Lviv, in what is now Ukraine, and her mother had been born Jewish and converted to Catholicism, and was from Budapest.  Her film career commenced in Czechoslovakia where she received notoriety for the film Ecstasy, which featured a plot involving a neglected young wife.  The film included brief nude scenes, which the 18-year-old Lamarr may have been genuinely tricked into through the use of high power lenses, as they clearly embarrassed her.  The film became a sort of blue hit in Europe, but was not allowed to be shown in the United States or Germany.

Ultimately married six times, she fled to Paris to escape her first husband in 1937.  He was a wealthy Austrian ammunition manufacturer whom she had married when she was 18, and before Ecstasy was released.  Highly controlling, the marriage fell apart for that reason.  Her American discovery, so to speak, came in London when she ran into Louis B. Mayer, who put her under contract.

Inventive by nature, the frequency hopping design noted above was designed to prevent the detection of torpedoes.  It was adopted ultimately by the Navy, but not until the 1960s.

Larmarr had a notable American career in film during Hollywood's Golden Age.  That career went into a steep decline in the 1950s which effectively ended it.  She began to descend into reclusiveness, with her final marriage, to her divorce lawyer, ending in 1965.  She became estranged from one of her children when he was only 12.  In her final years she was nearly a complete reclusive, but did reach out by telephone, spending up to six hours a day talking to other people in that fashion.  She was 85 when she died in 2000, and her ashes were spread in an Austrian forest according to her wishes.

Her unusual stage name became an odd comedic trope in Mel Brook's film Blazing Saddles, with one of the characters being named "Headley Lamar" and therefore needing to constantly correct the pronunciation of his name.

The stricken HMS Eagle.

Sundin also notes that the HMS Eagle went down in the Mediterranean.  The Eagle was an aircraft carrier and part of the convoy that we noted yesterday that was headed to attempt to relieve Malta's material shortages.  She took only four minutes to sink after being hit by four torpedoes fired from the U-73.

The Japanese dispatched a large naval task force from Tokyo to Truk Lagoon, where they are tasked with escorting troops and supplies to Guadalcanal.

The Soviets began desperately evacuating the port of Novorossisk on the Black Sea in advance of oncoming German forces.

Sundin also notes in her blog that the U.S. War Production Board ordered that the entire American grape wine crop for the year be diverted into raisins for the military.

This recalls actions by the U.S. Government to prohibit brewing and distilling during World War One in order to divert the use of cereals for food, rather than alcohol.

Venerdì, 11 Agosto, 1922. Violenza

Ground was broken on Chicago's Soldier Field.

A Communist member of Italy's Chamber of Deputies declared that a recent general strike had failed as the proletariat was not sufficiently armed. This provoked a Fascists reaction during which fascist Francesco Giunta, who was armed, pulled out a revolver.  The session was suspended.

Umberto "the Ghost" Valenti, age 30, originally from Sicily, was shot and killed in a New York café under orders of the Genovese crime family.  Valenti, who was a hit man for the D'Aquila crime family, had killed a member of the Morello crime family removing the Camorra as a contender for the illegal liquor trade, but also meaning that competing Mafia crime families were now vying for that role.

Giuseppe Morello.  Probably completely unrelated, but while I was at the University of Wyoming, I twice had calculus classes taught by a graduate student with the last name Morello.  He was an excellent teacher.

This was part of a mob war with interesting aspects.  The Genovese family was part of the legendary "five families" of the New York mafia, but the Morello family was part of the Camorra.  Guiseepe Morello, the unfortunate victim of Valenti, was only recently out of prison at the time of his mob execution and the war turned to control of the former Comorrista's liquor business.  Valenti's murder, ordered by Giuseppe "Joe" Masseria, who had personally lured Valenti into the place of execution, settled the matter with the Genovese's coming out the victors.

Giuseppe "Joe" Masseria.  Masseria died in a hit ordered by Lucky Luciano in 1931.

Mid Week at Work. Plastering a house.

"Mixing plaster for house, Chamisal, New Mexico. Occasionally a man helps with the hard work of mixing plaster but the women never allow the men to help with the actual plastering of the house."  1940.

Monday, August 10, 1942. Churchill takes lunch in Iran.

Today in World War II History—August 10, 1942: Germans cross the Don River and enter outskirts of Stalingrad. Kaiser Richmond Field Hospital opens for employees of Kaiser Shipyard in Richmond, CA.

From Sarah Sundin's blog.  The Germans also took Maikop unopposed due to a Brandenburger Commando unit posing as NKVD troops, who ordered the Red Army unit there to retreat.

Meanwhile, the Battle of the Atlantic was raging, with U-boats taking impressive tolls daily.

In that context, on a day full of shipping losses, a heavily escorted British convoy of thirteen freighters including the American oil tanker SS Ohio passed through the Straits of Gibraltar headed towards Malta.  The Germans and Italians deploy submarines to intercept.

Winston Churchill, on his way to Moscow, stopped in Iran and had lunch with the Shah.

Thursday, August 10, 1922. Cork taken and burned.

The Irish army, having made seaborne landings the day prior, took Cork, although the withdrawing IRA set it on fire first.  The city had been burned during the Anglo-Irish War two years prior.

One of my great-grandmother's was from Cork, although she would have left the city, at age three, well before this time period.

On the same day, IRA men Joseph O'Sullivan and Reginald Dunne were executed in London for the June 22 assassination of Sir Henry Wilson.

The Sammarinese Fascist Party was founded by Giuliano Gozi.  It would rule San Marino for twenty years, falling during the end of the Second World War, during which San Marino was a neutral tiny power.

In Memoriam: Darryl Hunt

Darryl Hunt, the second bassist for the legendary Celtic folk/punk band the Pogues, has died at age 72.

The hard living Pogues' original bassist was Cait O'Roirdon.  Hunt came on board with her departure in 1986.  Perhaps ironically, O'Roirdon had been a vocalist in Hunt's jazz band Pride of the Cross.

Hunt was English and born in London, and played in a variety of genras.  He's credited with the late Pogues hit Love You Till The End.

Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming Public Radio's Bob Beck to Retire.

Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming Public Radio's Bob Beck to Retire.: 

Wyoming Public Radio's Bob Beck to Retire.

Bob "Butter Bob" Beck of Wyoming Public Radio, a giant in Wyoming radio, will be retiring in October and moving to Syracuse, New York with his fiancé.  He's been at the University of Wyoming based radio station since 1988.

He has covered Wyoming via radio longer than any other broadcaster.

Sunday, August 9, 1942. The murder of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein).

Popularly known by her birth name, Edith Stein, Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, died on this day in Auschwitz along with her sister, Rosa.  Both were Carmelite nuns.

Stein as a doctoral student.

Born into an observant Jewish family in Poland, she was a convert to Catholicism, as was her sister, in her adult years, converting from agnosticism.  She was extremely highly educated, having pursued a doctoral degree, and converted following her reading of the works of St. Teresa of Ávila during summer holidays.  She was of course sent to Auschwitz due to her Jewish heritage.  She was fifty years old at the time.

Today saw the Leningrad premiere of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7.

Mentioned yesterday, today saw the US cruisers Astoria, Quincy and Vincennes, and the Australian cruiser Canberra, go down in the Battle of Savo Island.  The American destroyer Jarvis was sunk off of Guadalcanal.  Admiral Turner withdraws the Naval task force, with most of the heavy equipment and food for the ground expedition still on board his ships.

The Japanese retook the Kokoda airfield from the Australians.

The Germans took Krasnodar and the oil producing center of Maykop. The Soviets had destroyed the oil facilities before they evacuated.

British police arrested Gandhi and fifty fell members of the Indian National Congress.

The movie Bambi, taken from Felix Salten's book, which was translated from the German by Whitaker Chambers, was released in London.

I've never seen it, nor do I care to.

In Memoriam

David McCullough died yesterday at age 89.

A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he received from President George W. Bush in 2006, McCullough was a 1955 graduate of Yale, where he received a Bachelors degree in English literature.  He went on to work for Sports Illustrated, but was fascinated with the Johnstown Flood and worked on a book on it in his spare time.  That led him on to a career as a historian.

A master storyteller, he was sometimes criticized for not being an academic historian.  Nonetheless, his works are highly regarded.  Of his thirteen books, I've read three, all of which were excellent.  Also possessed of a calm, reassuring voice, he narrated a number of documentaries and even one feature movie, the same being Seabiscuit.

Saturday, August 8, 1942. Set Backs and Executions.

Six of the eight German saboteurs were executed on this day in 1942. The two who were not, were the two who cooperated with authorities.

It's notable how extremely rapid the sentencing to death was.  This all took place very quickly, far more quickly than would occur today.  Also of note is that the sentences have been, ever since, subject to some controversy.

It was the second day of action in the Solomons.

Photograph from Japanese ship during the Battle of Savo Island.

The Marines captured the unfinished Japanese airbase on Guadalcanal.  

On the same day, the Battle of Savo Island began off of the island between the U.S. Navy, Australian Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy.  The Japanese task force had originally been formed to escort additional ground forces to Guadalcanal, but that had been called off when the Japanese realized the size of the US ground element.  Instead, it was decided to challenge the U.S. Navy off of the island.  The Japanese timed their action for night, having trained extensively for nighttime action prior to the war, something the Allies were not aware of.

The battle was a Japanese victory which impaired the Navy's ability to resupply the campaign on Guadalcanal. Four Allied heavy cruisers were lost as a result of the battle, before the Japanese withdrew so as to avoid exposure of their own forces to aircraft during the day.

On the same day, the Japanese sunk the troop/cargo ship, the USS George F. Elliot, off of Guadalcanal in an attack from a "Betty" bomber.

The Japanese action resulted in the Navy having to recalculate how to resupply the offensive at Guadalcanal, and in fact it resulted in reduced supplies.  The Navy's decisions on running supplies to the island in smaller vessels was sound, but it resulted in animosity with the Marines, who were unaware of what was occurring at sea and assumed that the Navy was being overcautious.

The Germans took Surovikino.

Gandhi made his "Quit India Speech", which stated:

Before you discuss the resolution, let me place before you one or two things I want you to understand two things very clearly and to consider them from the same point of view from which I am placing them before you. I ask you to consider it from my point of view, because if you approve of it, you will be enjoined to carry out all I say. It will be a great responsibility. There are people who ask me whether I am the same man that I was in 1920, or whether there has been any change in me or you. You are right in asking that question.

Let me, however, hasten to assure that I am the same Gandhi as I was in 1920. I have not changed in any fundamental respect. I attach the same importance to non-violence that I did then. If at all, my emphasis on it has grown stronger. There is no real contradiction between the present resolution and my previous writings and utterances.

Occasions like the present do not occur in everybody’s and rarely in anybody’s life. I want you to know and feel that there is nothing but purest Ahimsa in all that I am saying and doing today. The draft resolution of the Working Committee is based on Ahimsa, the contemplated struggle similarly has its roots in Ahimsa. If, therefore, there is any among you who has lost faith in Ahimsa or is wearied of it, let him not vote for this resolution. Let me explain my position clearly. God has vouchsafed to me a priceless gift in the weapon of Ahimsa. I and my Ahimsa are on our trail today. If in the present crisis, when the earth is being scorched by the flames of Himsa and crying for deliverance, I failed to make use of the God given talent, God will not forgive me and I shall be judged unworthy of the great gift. I must act now. I may not hesitate and merely look on, when Russia and China are threatened.

Ours is not a drive for power, but purely a non-violent fight for India’s independence. In a violent struggle, a successful general has been often known to effect a military coup and to set up a dictatorship. But under the Congress scheme of things, essentially non-violent as it is, there can be no room for dictatorship. A non-violent soldier of freedom will covet nothing for himself, he fights only for the freedom of his country. The Congress is unconcerned as to who will rule, when freedom is attained. The power, when it comes, will belong to the people of India, and it will be for them to decide to whom it placed in the entrusted. May be that the reins will be placed in the hands of the Parsis, for instance-as I would love to see happen-or they may be handed to some others whose names are not heard in the Congress today. It will not be for you then to object saying, “This community is microscopic. That party did not play its due part in the freedom’s struggle; why should it have all the power?” Ever since its inception the Congress has kept itself meticulously free of the communal taint. It has thought always in terms of the whole nation and has acted accordingly. . . I know how imperfect our Ahimsa is and how far away we are still from the ideal, but in Ahimsa there is no final failure or defeat. I have faith, therefore, that if, in spite of our shortcomings, the big thing does happen, it will be because God wanted to help us by crowning with success our silent, unremitting Sadhana for the last twenty-two years.

I believe that in the history of the world, there has not been a more genuinely democratic struggle for freedom than ours. I read Carlyle’s French Revolution while I was in prison, and Pandit Jawaharlal has told me something about the Russian revolution. But it is my conviction that inasmuch as these struggles were fought with the weapon of violence they failed to realize the democratic ideal. In the democracy which I have envisaged, a democracy established by non-violence, there will be equal freedom for all. Everybody will be his own master. It is to join a struggle for such democracy that I invite you today. Once you realize this you will forget the differences between the Hindus and Muslims, and think of yourselves as Indians only, engaged in the common struggle for independence.

Then, there is the question of your attitude towards the British. I have noticed that there is hatred towards the British among the people. The people say they are disgusted with their behaviour. The people make no distinction between British imperialism and the British people. To them, the two are one. This hatred would even make them welcome the Japanese. It is most dangerous. It means that they will exchange one slavery for another. We must get rid of this feeling. Our quarrel is not with the British people, we fight their imperialism. The proposal for the withdrawal of British power did not come out of anger. It came to enable India to play its due part at the present critical juncture. It is not a happy position for a big country like India to be merely helping with money and material obtained willy-nilly from her while the United Kingdom is conducting the war. We cannot evoke the true spirit of sacrifice and valor, so long as we are not free. I know the British Government will not be able to withhold freedom from us, when we have made enough self-sacrifice. We must, therefore, purge ourselves of hatred. Speaking for myself, I can say that I have never felt any hatred. As a matter of fact, I feel myself to be a greater friend of the British now than ever before. One reason is that they are today in distress. My very friendship, therefore, demands that I should try to save them from their mistakes. As I view the situation, they are on the brink of an abyss. It, therefore, becomes my duty to warn them of their danger even though it may, for the time being, anger them to the point of cutting off the friendly hand that is stretched out to help them. People may laugh, nevertheless that is my claim. At a time when I may have to launch the biggest struggle of my life, I may not harbor hatred against anybody.

Gandhi and his immediate fellows were arrested in less than twenty-four hours.

The Saturday Evening Post featured an illustration of a smiling woman and Naval officer in whites, with the pair being an obvious couple.  She's admiring a medal with a blue ribbon around his neck, but we can't tell what the decoration is.  Colliers featured a very serious looking Navy officer at a wooden ship's wheel.

Tuesday, August 8, 1922. An eventful Tuesday.

Here's more on the story involved in the photograph appearing above.

1922 - Into the Grand Canyon and Out Again by Airplane

Louis Armstrong made his first appearance with a major act, playing with King Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band in Chicago.

In Italy, Mussolini ordered Fascist Blackshirts to demobilize after recent strife.

Mussolini with the Blackshirts in October, 1922.

Irish Republicans raided the Western Union station at Valentia Island and severed the four remaining cables that linked the US and Ireland, although how that helped their cause or was intended to escapes me.

The HMS Raleigh ran aground on the Labrador coast and was lost, but without loss of life.

The vessel was almost new at the time.

A monarchist group in Vladivostok declared Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia to be the heir to murdered Czar Nicholas.  The rebel organization that convened the process to do so was headed by Gen. Mikhail Diterikhs. The Grand Duke was already living in exile and the fortunes of the remaining Whites were desperately poor.

Shogakukan, a Japanese magazine and comic publisher that is still in business, was founded.