On International Women's Day, 2023.

Delia Kane, age 14.  The Exchange Luncheon, Boston.  January 31, 1917.

Today is International Women's Day.  Some prior entries:

International Women's Day, 2020

Thursday, March 8, 2018

International Women's Day, 2018

Today is International Women's Day, as March 8 always is.

I've put this poster up before, it apparently means something like "let's rebuild together", perhaps an appropriate slogan for International Women's Day 2018.

I'm not sure what I make of this day, as I find myself in the category, quite often, of marveling at modern contemporary society struggling to cure its ills created by becoming too modern by reaching vaguely out towards the standards of the past.  And frankly International Women's Day has a rather Communist, if you will, sound to it.

German "Women's Day" poster from 1914.  This poster was rather obviously sponsored by the German Socialist left.  It was also banned by the Imperial German government.

None of which would mean that the day, which has been endorsed for some time by the United Nations, isn't legitimate.  Nor would my comments suggest that women don't deserve an International Day.  Indeed, they do.

And on that, the theme for 2018 perhaps very ably demonstrates that.  The theme this year is "Time is Now: Rural and urban activists transforming women’s lives."  The UN says of this year's theme:

This year’s theme captures the vibrant life of the women activists whose passion and commitment have won women’s rights over the generations, and successfully brought change. We celebrate an unprecedented global movement for women’s rights, equality, safety and justice, recognizing the tireless work of activists who have been central to this global push for gender equality.

All that's probably true, and indeed brave women all over the world do struggle, as noted.  Cudos to the UN for noting it, even if the UN rather oddly regards nations co-equally that abuse women's rights, as well as act anti democratically in all sorts of other ways.

In the US I suspect that there won't be much attention to the plight of rural women around the globe. There should be, but we're in the second half of the "Me Too" era which demonstrates a different set of problems. . . maybe. . . for women. An age-old one that social progressive keep trying to solve by suggesting that that they've discovered a new standard that's actually a very, very old one.  That's had its own interesting dynamics, as those same forces struggle not to admit the historical truth that equality for women is a movement that's not only western, but Christian.  There's a reason that western societies are in the forefront of this movement, and always have been, and that's where that reason is to be found.

Friday, March 10, 2017

Some times you can't win for losing. . .

Pity poor Sophie Gergoir Trudeau.

Yes, pity her.

And this from somebody who doesn't care much for her husband, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, who is married to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, is taking heat over an International Women's Day post.

She asked people to "celebrate the boys and men in our lives who encourage us to be who we truly are, who treat girls & women with respect" on 8 March. 
Ms Gregoire Trudeau urged followers to post images with their "male ally".

But some Facebook commenters said Ms Gregoire Trudeau's post was "tone deaf" and even "shameful".

The post included a photo of her and her husband holding hands.

• Sophie Gregoire Trudeau: Canadian PM wife sparks 'help' debate
• International Women's Day 2017: History, strikes and celebrations

"Why do we have to celebrate men on international women's day?" Facebook user Bibi Ebel said in one popular comment. "I am puzzled.

"There are so many things that can be done to celebrate women, and yet the call goes out to celebrating men. Allies and unity are crucial, but so is womanhood.

From the BBC.

She received support as well.

Still, what this does, I think, is illustrate the extent to which in the Western World some focus on things because their real goals have been signficantly achieved.  Yes, women have not achieved full equality anywhere. But enormous strides have been made in the Western World and countries influenced by the Western World.  Indeed, to such an extent that a heavy element of the unreal attaches to events like this and they lose their legitimate focus.

So, well I think that PM Trudeau comes across poorly in my book, politically, give Sophie Gregoire a break for goodness sake.

Well, all the prior entries, apparently.

I'm really only going to note a couple of ironies associated with this deserving day, and it is a deserving one.

The great accomplishment in the West, that Westerners honor, is basically extracting women from family life, just as men had successfully been extracted, in the 18th and 19th Centuries, in order to make them greater servants of the economy.  Yes, huge strides in equality have been made, but an understanding of organic domestic and familial Christian equality was largely lost, with a later overall loss of equality in that women's roles are now, in a greater sense, once again chosen for them.  I.e, they've gone, in the West, from having few options available to them and those in a limited number of "traditional" roles, to now having no easy option to adopt the traditional ones while being saddled with an expectation of non-domestic employment.  The direction remains, forcing that conclusion, although it likely won't be.  Indeed, my prediction is that in the upcoming and scary world of AI we're entering just now, the impact on women may prove to be considerably different from that upon men.  The fact that I'm unlikely to be around to really witness it doesn't hurt my feelings, however, as the new AI world stands to be so troubling.

Another irony is that in our present age, when women have in fact made so many strides, women find their hard won status in the world threatened by the rising tide of faux women, men who have chosen to pretend to be women and to demand female status.  This is something that is only safe to do now, in part, as women fought for the right to be treated equally in society, even if they haven't fully achieved it.  It's no accident that not too many men chose to assume female roles when being a woman meant second class status and relegation to a domestic role.  Men affecting a female appearance, in other words, aren't going to find a world in which they're confronted with no female sports, and no women in the boardrooms and courtrooms, etc.  They won't be confronted by the hard lives that were the female routine up until mid 20th Century, which is not to say that male roles, which were different, weren't pretty hard as a rule as well.

Man works till set of sun,

Woman's work is never done.

Indeed, in some ways, women in achieving greater equality have not only had some "male roles" opened up to them, but have been a bit forced into them. This lets men who think they wish to appear as women, for whatever reason, retain male roles, with no real risk of living women's real lives.

Monday, March 8, 1943. The Czechs enter the fight.

The Battle of Sokolovo began on the Eastern Front, the same being an Allied delaying action near Kharkiv.

We may say "Allied" here, as it is regarded as the first instance of a "foreign" military unit serving alongside the Red Army, with that being the 1st Czechoslovak Independent Field Battalion.  Of course, if we credit the fact that a lot of Red Army units were regional in nature, and those regions part of the Russian dominated USSR by force, it muddies the waters a bit, but perhaps not too much.

The unit's history is complicated in that the unit included Czech refugees from the Third Reich, but also Ukrainian Czechs who had been in Ukraine since the turn of the prior century. Relocating in western Ukraine, they were severely repressed by the Soviet Union.  Following World War Two, most of them relocated to Czechoslovakia under a Czech law of return.  Indeed, so many Ukrainian Czech joined the unit that they became the corps of the post-war Czech Army that existed in the newly formed Czechoslovakia.

Thursday March 8, 1923. Air to Air, almost.

Inventor Lawrence Sperry, inventor of the autopilot and artificial horizon, demonstrated that air-to-air refueling was a theoretical possibility by intentionally touching a Sperry Messenger to a deHavilland flown by Lt. Clyde Finter.  He did it eight times.

Sperry Messenger.

Both plans maintained a speed of 65 mph during the demonstration.

Sperry would go down over the English Channel that December, losing his life at age 30.  He was flying a Sperry Messenger at the time.  His company lives on.

American born Lady Astor hosted the King and Queen Consort at her home to meet with labor union representatives, a breach of tradition.

The Professionals. A second review.

As recently noted here, Fighting On Film just dropped a podcast episode on The Professionals.  I reviewed that film back in 2015, along with a collection of others, in which I stated:

The Professionals

This film from the 1960s is in the star packed genera, which many films of this period were.  Featuring Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Woody Strode, Burt Lancaster, and others, the film is set in the Mexican Revolutionary period, with a plot centered on American soldiers of fortune being hired by a wealthy rancher to retrieve his kidnapped wife.

All in all, this film is pretty entertaining and is done pretty well.   In terms of history, it has some interesting features including the fluid nature of the border and the confusing  nature of Mexican revolutionary forces. The film has an offhand referenced to the "Colorados", who were an actual faction in the Mexican Revolution and who were followers of Pascual Orozco, and who fought for Modero at first and then switched to Huerta against him.  This would also place the film in the 1913 to 1915 time frame and would place the revolutionaries generally depicted in the film into some category of Villistas, more or less. 

The firearms in the film are period correct, and small details, such as Marvin's clothing (he's supposed to be a former professional soldiers) show some surprisingly small scale correct details that are generally omitted in films in this period.  One of the better films of this type.

I try to go more in depth in my reviews now, which is why I'm never current on them, sad to say.  

This film is one of my favorites and it sort of stands, in my view, as a bookend to The Wild Bunch, which was reviewed in the same original collective post.  In looking back, I notice that I noted what Fighting On Film did about Lee Marvin's "drip".  I didn't notice, but it's very evident in the film, how realistic, period correct, and almost acrobatic Marvin's handling of firearms is in the movie.

Fighting On Film places this movie in about 1920, which is likely correct, which makes it a true Fin de Siècle, passing of the frontier west film.  Indeed, it's really almost past it.  It's an excellent film, one which I've watched many times.  Given that, I'm surprised to see that I didn't mention, when I originally reviewed it, that the movie, based on a novel serialized in the Rocky Mountain News (A Mule for the Marquessa) and features bombshell Italian actress Claudia Cardinale in it.  Fighting On Film hardly mentioned her either, FWIW.  She's the one weak role in the whole film and is frankly there as window dressing.  There was no effort at all to do anything about her extraordinarily thick Italian accent, even though Jack Palance, playing "Raza", a Villa like character, has an affected one, and Marie Gomez, a Mexican actress who also played roles in American television, a genuine one.  Indeed, Gomez's English, while accented, is crystal clear, whereas Cardinale's English is not.

The Fighting On Film website has a link to an original poster or theater card from the movie, which would lead to protests today, as it depicts Cardinale so stripped down that it's effectively a poster emphasizing her breasts over anything else.  It probably realistically demonstrated why she was in the film in the first place, however.  Indeed, in at least one scene the film toyed with Gomez's portrayal in this fashion as well, going further than it did with Cardinale, but so briefly that it's almost not noticeable.  This latter fact is more than a little 60s misogynistic, but the casting of Cardinale was simply silly.  It's notable that in films today, moviemakers at least cast real Hispanic actresses in Hispanic roles and wouldn't get away with the Italian bombshell thing today.

In contrast, Woody Stroke, who was elevated to star status by this movie, was amazingly 52 years old when it was released.  I note this as he was clearly cast in part as he was a remarkable physical specimen, the only male character to be shown shirtless. At 52, he appeared much younger than his actual age.

Anyhow, this move is very well done.  The clothing, as noted, shows real attention to small details. The firearms are mixed and period correct.  Horses are shown not to be free of fatigue.  It's a good watch.

Calculus Without Fear - Minding The Campus

Calculus Without Fear - Minding The Campus: Artificial intelligence is becoming too important for people not to appreciate its core mathematical foundations in calculus, probability theory, and linear algebra. Most advanced countries are regearing their secondary schools to introduce these topics to teenagers. The US is not, largely because its educators are obsessed with remedial arithmetic. This needs to change. Calculus and […]

That awkward moment in which . . .

somebody, based on your background or location, makes a political joke that assumes that your views are the same as their views, or at least they know your views.

Uff.

I had that happen today, in which the jester assumed that as I'm from Wyoming, and they're from Texas, we must both be opponents of Liz Cheney and really dislike her.

That's not my opinion at all.

"Drip". Synchronicity.

Fighting On Film, one of the podcasts I listed to, just dropped an episode on The Professionals.  Like all of their episodes, this one is well worth listening to.

In this episode, one of the hosts compliments Lee Marvin's "drip", and then going on to explain that "drip" is British slang for sharp and cool clothing. The phrase is used numerous times in the podcast, with it also noted that Marvin is "just dripping".

When I came home (I was listening to it while driving) I noted the phrase to my wife.

This morning 

Oddly enough, this morning new Alaska Congressman Mary Peltola used it in a tweet, showing herself in an outdoor photo wearing a purple native parka.  Her tweet stated:

Is this what the kids call… drip?

What are the odds?

Wednesday, March 7, 1923. Atrocity

Local Irish Free State officials and the Irish Army executed eight inmates at Ballyseedy in County Kerry by taking them to a crossroad that had been mined and tying them together, which was obviously a reprisal, and a sick one at that.  Survivors, save for Stephen Fuller, were shot by the Irish Army.  Stephen Fuller somehow escaped when he was blown free and crawled to safety. Rescuers took him to the home of Charlie Daly the following day, where he hid in a dug out.  He was found there by Dr. Edmond Shanahan who treated him for his injuries while he remained in hiding.

The perpetrators of the atrocity immediately covered it up.  Fuller later went on to be a member of the Dáil, where he never mentioned it as he didn't want it to become an issue and inspire renewed hatred.

Hitler expressed his support for a Henry Ford Presidential run to the Chicago Tribune.  Hitler and Ford were both antiSemites and Ford's newspaper The Dearborn Independent had published Nazi antisemitic writings

Governor Gordon Finalizes USDA Disaster Declaration Request

 Governor Gordon Finalizes USDA Disaster Declaration Request

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Governor Gordon has submitted his U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) request for a Secretarial disaster designation as indicated in a February 20, 2023, news release. 

In his letter to the USDA, Governor Gordon noted that Wyoming’s winter season started early, and the culminating impacts of sustained cold, wind, and snowfall have caused significant distress to the livestock industry across the state. Access to traditional winter grazing resources has become dire, as well, because many ranch, county, and BLM roads are drifting shut and, even when cleared, continue to re-drift because of high winds, the Governor’s letter explained. 

The Governor’s Office, in partnership with local, state and federal agencies and impacted ag producers, worked collaboratively to determine losses, the timeframe and the geographic scale of impact. Data obtained through the National Weather Service’s event tracking system reveals that 66.5 percent of the time, from January 1 to February 27, Wyoming was under some combination of Winter Storm Warnings, Blizzard Warnings, Winter Weather Advisories, and High Wind Warnings–far outpacing any other state in the lower 48. 

Underscoring the need for federal assistance, Governor Gordon’s letter noted, “State, county, local, and individual resources have been deployed and are being shared between entities for snow removal, but there is too much volume and wind to keep roads open and passable to gain access to livestock.” Additionally, Governor Gordon’s administration has been working closely with our local Farm Service Agency office to identify the areas of greatest impact and corresponding needs of the ag community. 

This is good news, but it would have been better news if the Governor had declared an emergency two weeks ago and deployed National Guard engineering equipment at that time to assist in rural snow removal. 

The Best Stratocaster In the World

The Truth About Russia’s AK-12 - is it over hyped?

A video on the AK 12 made just prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The AK 12 is the newest, 5.45, version of the AK-47 and it's commonly seen in Russian hands.  It's also now not infrequently seen in Ukrainian hands, although most Ukrainians are armed with AKMs or AK-74s.  Frankly, in spite of early efforts to really overhaul it, it's basically an AK-74 with Picitinny rails which allows it to accept optics more easily.

According to this, the intended Russian optics are bad, which would be typical for Russian optics.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, March 5, 1923. The Thomas, Collins, affair.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, March 5, 1923. Reds.: 

Yesterday, we noted this item, amongst other:

If ever there was a story that there must be a lot more to, this is it. And yet, it's impossible, based on the limited resources available, to learn much more.

Thomas, I'd note, didn't merely state that she wished Cornish dead.  He was a "persistent wooer", as the article indicates, and apparently the couple had engaged in some prior wooing.  She also reported to the police that he was consistently abusive and had been that day.  That's likley why Thomas shot Cornish.  He not only wanted her ardently, but he was, she thought, or stated, abusive.

Thomas packed a pistol, we'd also note, which while it's something we'd expect of Lauren Boebert of Colorado today, wasn't average lady like behavior in Colorado in 1923.  Heck, my paternal grandparents were married and living in Denver at the time, and my guess is that neither of them routinely packed pistols.  Indeed, as far as I know, the only firearms my material grandfather routinely used were shotguns, which he was reportedly very skilled at.  My uncle reported to me that when he was a boy, and they were living in Scottsbluff, my grandfather would take just the number of 410 shells necessary to fill his pheasant limit, and come back with the limit.  Here in Wyoming, he hunted ducks.

Seems that's genetic.

Anyhow, I'll bet my grandmother didn't pack heat.  Either Thomas figured she needed to, due to Cornish's nature, or she routinely did.  We'll never know.  She had a pistol anyhow.

A Coroners Jury found Thomas acted with premeditation, which doesn't mean what people think it does.  It just means she had sufficient time to know what she was doing.

Well, they're all gone now.  My God rest their souls, and I hope Thomas's time in the pokey wasn't too hard.

Tuesday, March 6, 1973. Oil Price Controls

Oil pump jacks, Teapot Dome, 1973.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 6: 1973   President Richard Nixon imposed price controls on oil and gas.

This from our companion blog, although It's not entirely accurate the way it's stated.  Price controls had actually come in during 1971 in order to combat inflation.  On this day in 1973 the Cost of Living Council issued Special Rule No. 1, which imposed price controls after the "controls" had become voluntary.

Nixon era price controls would prove to be a spectacular failure, and this one in particular failed to grasp that petroleum supplies now included large scale importation, something well beyond American control.  This would prove to be the case in the upcoming fall, when OPEC would put in place an embargo on the export of oil to the United States, something that would have an enormous impact on the state's economy.

The fact that efforts at price controls went back to 1971 is telling.  It's common to assume now that rampant inflation in the early 70s began when the price of oil skyrocketed following the Yom Kippur War, but in fact they were already rising at the start of the decade.  In no small measure, this was due to the Johnson Administration's "guns and butter" economic strategy of the 60s, in which the United States attempted to pay for the Cold War military, the Vietnam War, and a massive increase in social spending without disrupting the economy.  Cynics would note that inflation, which started in the 60s, helped reduce the actual cost to the government of such programs, which it did, but whether somewhat intentional or not, the economy simply could not endure it.

1973 Spring Training commenced with games played in the majors with designated hitters, in the American League, played for the first time.

Famous author Pearl S. Buck died at age 80.  Her work is most famously associated with China, where she had lived for many years.

Saturday, March 6, 1943. Fredendall out, Patton in. Rommel's swan song in North Africa. Freedom from Want. Stalin promotes himself while his Party praises him with B.S.

Wyomingite Maj. Gen. Lloyd Fredendall was relieved of his command of II Corps and replaced by Maj. Gen. George S. Patton.

Patton as a Lieutenant General

Patton, widely regarded as the premier American expert on armored warfare, was very quickly promoted to Lt. General.  Fredendall was assigned stateside duty.  His reputation never recovered after Kasserine Pass, and he did not return to Cheyenne in later years.  He died in 1963 in California, having retired from the Army in 1946.

Fredendall was twice appointed to West Point and twice dropped out.  Senator F. E. Warren was willing to appoint him a third time, but the Academy was unwilling to accept him.  He instead attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and thereafter entered the Army in 1907.  His trouble at West Point was with math, which ironically was also very problematic for the home educated George S. Patton.  His performance in World War One was excellent.

His home state has forgotten him.

The Battle of Medenine was fought in Tunisia.  It was a spoiling attack by the Afrika Korps which resulted in a costly defeat.  It was also Rommel's last command action in North Africa.

Things were going downhill for the Axis in North Africa quickly.

Freedom from Want appeared in the Saturday Evening Post.  It proved to be the most popular of the four freedom's illustrations, and is regarded as one of Rockwell's best.  The accompanying essay was by Phlipinno, immigrant Carlos Sampayan Bulosan.

I wonder to what extent we've forgotten this freedom?

Joseph Stalin, who put many into the want of starvation, promoted himself to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union.  Contemporaneously, the Soviet Communist Party proclaimed him "the greatest strategist of all times and all peoples".

M'eh.

Unfortunately, his adopted home has not forgotten him and has drawn the wrong conclusions about his leadership.  First siding with the Germans during World War Two, his miscalculation about what he could extract from them in order to join the war against the British Empire led to the Germans charging ahead with a war against the Soviet Union for which it was not prepared.  It took two years for the USSR to form a sufficient armed mob in order to counter to begin to throw the Germans back, which relied on, in spite of wanting to ignore it, massive Western Allied support.

The Battle of Blackett Strait was fought between the U.S. Navy and the Japanese Imperial Navy.

A small engagement, the Japanese lost 100% of their two destroyer force.

British Use of the AR-15/M16

Tuesday, March 6, 1923. The Halibut Treaty. Formation of the Egyptian Feminist Unioin (الاتحاد النسائي المصري), Irish blood borthers.

Canada and the United States signed the Convention for the Preservation of Halibut Fishery of the Northern Pacific Ocean, referred to commonly as the "Halibut Treaty".  It was the first treaty Canada signed without involving the United Kingdom.  The environmental treaty was a pioneering treat regulating the fishing of halibut.

Halibut are just about the tastiest fish ever.

Alaska fishermen cleaning halibut.

In some unrealistic alternative version of me, in the summer I travel to Alaska to fish for salmon and halibut, before working my way south through the Yukon and Alberta to catch the early game seasons there, before returning to the Cowboy State.  Due to multiple citizenship, I'd never touch a foreign land.

But, in reality, Monday through Friday I'll be in my office.

On the same day, German Chancellor Cuno told the Reichstag, smarting over the Belgian and French (the Belgian part is typically forgotten) armed occupation of the Ruhr, that Germany would not negotiate with the French directly, but only through an intermediary.

While the French and Belgian occupation of the Ruhr is now nearly universally condemned, it should be recalled that the two Francophone countries had seen substantial armed occupation at the hands of a non-repentant Germany, which in both instances had killed civilians in ways that would foreshadow the Second World War.  Had the French simply remained in the Ruhr, it might be recalled, or enforced their treaty rights at the time that the Germans under Hitler reoccupied it, the Second World War would not have occurred.

British Prime Minister Bonar Law, for his part, was being pressured on the same day to form a more definitive stance to the situation.

The Egyptian Feminist Union  (الاتحاد النسائي المصري),  was founded at the home of Egyptian activist Huda Sha'arawi.

تأسس الاتحاد النسائي المصري في منزل الناشطة المصرية هدى شعراوي.

It still exists.

Five Irish soldiers were killed by a Republican booby trap at Baranarigh Wood in Kerry.  The following day a bloody reprisal was carried out by the Free State against nine IRA prisoners.

Pilots of the United States Army Air Corps posed for this photograph:

Dapper men in an extremely dangerous job.

Children had fun with an elephant in Miami, before fun suckers took the joy out of all such things, and out of much of daily life as well.

Lex Anteinternet: The 2022 Season Ends, the 2023 Season Begins.

Lex Anteinternet: The 2022 Season: 

So on to 2023!

I decided to go ice fishing today.

My daughter is the real ice fishing aficionado in our family.  I had some experience with it as a boy, but oddly enough, my father didn't really engage in much ice fishing.  He was a dedicated fisherman, so that's surprising.  Indeed, he probably was slightly more of a fisherman than a hunter, and I in contrast I am definitely more of a hunter than a fisherman.  I know that his father did both, as we all do, but I don't know how that scale balanced.  I've really only heard about my father's father in regard to bird hunting, although I know that he fished the streams as well, like we all do.

Anyhow, back when I was young, in the 70s, I recall ice fishing at Alcova, which I'd be a bit afraid to do today, but it wasn't very often.  I also recall people parking their trucks on the ice, which I'd never do today.  My father chopped a hole in the ice with a spade, which I don't recall anyone doing since that time.  

It was fun.

We have a hand auger.  Much better than a spade.  And little ice fishing poles, which isn't what my father used.

I didn't make it out last year.  I hunted geese until the end of January, not terribly successfully, and it warmed up too much to ice fish.

Not this year.

In fact, today, going out by myself, as my daughter lives in Laramie now, I found myself flagged down going in, after I passed the snow plow.  A really nice fellow I know, having called him as a witness on the Reservation, and a city councilman, formally one of my kid's religious education teachers, informed me the road was drifted in.  I thanked them and pulled off

The dog wasn't pleased.

The dog believes that he's integral to fishing, and that without him, the endeavor will fail.  He's very serious about his hunting occupation, and fishing is of course fish hunting.

I pulled off to let him wee. .. okay and I needed to wee too.  After that, in spite of being warned, I drove down the road toward the lake.

Oh man, was it ever drifted in.

I went back down the road and met a fisherman from Douglas near the highway.  He was waiting for me for a road report.  He'd driven a long ways and had a lot of poles, a true ice fisherman.  I gave the road report to him. He decided to try Alcova.  I decided to try a different high mountain lake.

And yes, I'm not going to mention it.

Before I left for that one, I received a call from my son's girlfriend. She's a dedicated fly fisherman, a rare quality in a girlfriend and one to be seriously admired.  My pickup, which my son is driving, she related, had been rear ended in a Laramie blizzard.  I have his truck right now as it's having a complete mechanical breakdown.

Turns out it wasn't bad.

Couldn't make that other high mountain lake either.  It was also drifted in. 

Oh well.

The 2022 Season

The 2022 hunting season has ended.

In 2022, when I wrote about the 2021 season, I started off with this:

 It wasn't a great one, for a variety of reasons.

And that statement was true once again for 2022, but for different reasons, a lot of which had nothing much to do with the hunting season itself.

That's because 2022 has been the year of the field of Medicine, or age, or perhaps lifestyle, or whatever, catching up with me.

Self portrait, and a bad one, turkey hunting.  I was wearing a coat under this coat, and frankly I don't look like I was feeling particularly well when this photo was taken.

In the Spring I wasn't feeling well, which after much delay and finally responding to a demand from Long Suffering Spouse, caused me to go into the doctor's office, which lead in turn to a prescription for some medicine.  I'll spare you the details, but like most medicines and me, I didn't really respond terribly well to them physically. They did their job, but they also made me a bit ill, and made me ill just in time for Spring Turkey Season.  I hunted turkeys, as I always do, and I did see some, but I never got up on them (I tend to stalk them, rather than lure them in).  I did get a turkey call, which I'd never had before, but that failed to bring any in.  

A couple of weeks later, by which times things had warmed up enough to wear my Park Service dress campaign hat, the replacement for my long serving but now lost M1911 campaign hat.  I miss the old hat.

I also had the joy, and I won't detail it, of being pretty sick while hunting.  Something I rarely have experienced.

It was fun anyhow, but not something for a subsistence hunter to write home about.

That takes us to fishing season, and here too, for one reason or another, I just didn't get out over the summer as much as usual.  Indeed, "didn't get out as much as usual" was the theme of the year.

I fished the river several times, and one of the mountain streams I fish.  I attempted to take my daughter and her boyfriend down a significant local canyon, where I'm sure there are big fish, but we failed at that.  I hadn't scouted the route, and ours was pretty impassable.

I did try something I have not for several years, however, which was fishing from a kayak.

The doctor's visit mentioned earlier lead to a colonoscopy, which I wasn't too quick to get set up.  That ended up getting scheduled for early Fall.  And that lead to a major surgery in October.

The North American Retriever getting a cool drink from a mountain stream while blue grouse hunting.

Prior to that, I got out for blue grouse, but failed to see a single one.  I never made it out sage chicken hunting.  I didn't draw antelope, but my son did, and I went out with him.  None of us drew limited deer, but my daughter and I went out opening morning and nearly got a couple of really good deer in a general deer area until some fool blasted right by us in a truck, scaring them off.  We went back out a couple of weeks later and my son got a nice deer in a very distant area.  So at least that was a partial success.  

I went out for antelope with my son, and he was successful.

I drew an elk tag, but I only got out twice, once before surgery, and once after.

Surgery put me out of action in a major way for well over a month.  When I got back on my feet, only waterfowl was open.  

It's been a pretty good waterfowl season, however.  The weather has been right for it (lousy) and lots of waterfowl have been in the area.  I've shot more geese this year than I ever have before.

I thought about closing this entry out with a quote from Kristin Lavransdottir about Lavran, when he last rode away, or the video clip from No Country For Old Men at the ending with the sheriff protagonist is recalling his father.  Instead, I'm just going to note that I still don't really feel up to speed, but I'm putting in for everything.

Friday, March 5, 1943. Wings.

The Battle of the Ruhr, an Allied air campaign, well let's make this clear, a Western Allied air campaign, against the industrial heart of Germany commenced with a large raid by the RAF on the Krupp munitions factory at Essen.

The campaign would go on into July.

The final German holdout surrendered at Stalingrad.  On the same day, the NKVD shot five German officers it found who were hiding in the city.

The British Gloster Meteor, a jet engined fighter, made its first flight.

The fighter became operational in July 1944 and was the only Allied jet to engage in combat operations during the war.  It was first deployed against V1 flying bombs, an early drone, which made sense given that the V1 was a jet engined aircraft, but late in the war it was deployed on the continent. The RAF largely prevented it from being flown over Germany out of fear that one would be captured and then analyzed by the Germans, or the Soviets.

Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man was released by MGM

Monday, March 5, 1923. Reds.

The Soviet Union, which claimed to respect the rights of nations, delivered a protest note to Finland over Finland's negotiations with the League of Nations over Karelia, which should have been Finland's.

Soviet barbarity would later assure that it ended up in the USSR, and then later in Russia.  A general Soviet policy of Russification, which settled lands with Russians, means that Karelians, a Finnic people, are now minorities in Russian Karelia.

On the same day, Lenin wrote Stalin on a personal matter.

Dear Comrade Stalin:

You have been so rude as to summon my wife to the telephone and use bad language. Although she had told you that she was prepared to forget this, the fact nevertheless became known through her to Zinoviev and Kamenev. I have no intention of forgetting so easily what has been done against me, and it goes without saying that what has been done against my wife I consider having been done against me as well. I ask you, therefore, to think it over whether you are prepared to withdraw what you have said and to make your apologies, or whether you prefer that relations between us should be broken off.

Respectfully yours,       

Lenin 

Lenin's wife was one Nadezhda Krupskaya, who was also a Bolshevik and very active in party affairs.  She's long out live her husband, dying in 1939, just before the start of World War Two.   

She managed to survive Stalin's purges, even intervening to attempt to save some condemned Reds.  No doubt her status as the wife of the original Red dictator insulated her from such attacks.

It's widely asserted that Nadezhda wasn't Lenin's only love interest, and that French Communist Inessa Armand was his mistress.  This is hard to prove, however, even though it is flatly asserted as being the case in many histories referencing Lenin.  They had met in France while Lenin was living there, and she came to Russia following the Revolution.  Becoming overworked in Revolutionary Russia, Lenin urged her to go to the Caucasus for a holiday, which was suffering from an epidemic and which still had armed opposition to Communism. Supposedly, Lenin was unaware of this.  She contracted cholera there and was buried in a mass grave at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, being the first woman to be accorded this dubious honor.

Igor Sikorsky, who felt Soviet barbarity, incorporated the Sikorsky Aero Engineering Corporation in the U.S.

The state of Washington got around to adopting an official flag.

It's incredibly boring.

It's original appearance:

Still boring.

Casper read of railroads to be built, $1.00 gasoline, and the dangers of ardent wooing.

Lex Anteinternet: The Staff of Life: Bread

Lex Anteinternet: The Staff of Life: Bread:      

The Staff of Life: Bread

 The preparation of loaves of bread.

Bread is the staff of life; in which is contained, inclusive, the quintessence of beef, mutton, veal, venison, partridge, plum-pudding and custard: and to render all complete, there is intermingled a due quantity of water, whose crudities are also corrected by yeast or barm, through which it means it becomes a wholesome fermented liquor, diffused through the mass of bread.

Jonathan Swift, to whom I'd related on my mother's side.

Recently I heard a homily delivered referencing the Lord's Prayer and bread.

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us,
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

The Lord's Prayer in contemporary English.

The Priest, an African native, noted that for a time he'd served as a Priest in Rome, and during that time he was thrown into a bit of crisis due to the massive  variety of Italian breads (twenty kinds, he related) and that so much of it was thrown away in a location that was just across from him.  At home, in Zambia, bread was consumed still just once a month, when his father was paid.  How, he wondered, could he relate the scarcity of bread in his native land, with the over abundance of it in his new location, and the scarcity of it referenced in the Lord's Prayer (my summation, not quite the way he put it)?  He figured that very few Americans or westerners thought of it in terms of scarcity.

Pater Noster, qui es in caelis:

sanctificétur nomen tuum;

advéniat regnum tuum;

fiat volúntas tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra.

Panem nostrum cotidiánum da nobis hódie;

et dimítte nobis débita nostra,

sicut et nos dimíttimus debitóribus nostris;

et ne nos indúcas in temptatiónem,

sed líbera nos a malo.

The Lord's Prayer in Latin.

Well, it might be just me, or perhaps more the family I come from, but that thought, the scarcity of bread and what it means in the context of the prayer, is something that I have thought of before.  Perhaps because I can recall my father mentioning, in reference itself to the prayer, that in the ancient world "bread was truly the staff of life."

Padre nostro che sei nei cieli,

sia santificato il tuo Nome,

venga il tuo Regno,

sia fatta la tua Volontà

come in cielo così in terra.

Dacci oggi il nostro pane quotidiano,

e rimetti a noi i nostri debiti

come noi li rimettiamo ai nostri debitori,

e non ci indurre in tentazione,

ma liberaci dal Male.

The Lord's Prayer in contemporary Italian.

And indeed it was.

Bread was the basic foodstuff that fed great masses of humanity all around the world for centuries.  The diet we have today, with lots of variety, didn't exist in many localities, particularly after civilization, i.e., the construction of towns and cities, started in ancient times.  Not that any ancient society really had the variety of foods we have today, but hunter gatherer societies can have a more varied one than we suppose, with a fairly balanced diet.  In many ancient societies, however, once towns were built and crop agriculture set in, and indeed many societies right up until relatively modern times, bread was one of the basic if not the basic stable food item.  A person might have meat often, but they could hope to get by on bread.

Notre Père qui es aux cieux,

que ton Nom soit sanctifié,

que ton règne vienne,

que ta volonté soit faite

sur la terre comme au ciel.

Donne-nous aujourd’hui notre pain de ce jour.

Pardonne-nous nos offenses,

comme nous pardonnons aussi à ceux qui nous ont offensés.

Et ne nous soumets pas à la tentation,

mais délivre-nous du mal. 

The Lord's Prayer in French.

That's quite a change, indeed, from what we experience now.  I suppose there may be exceptions, but by and large I don't know of any society that depends upon bread the same way that all peoples once did.

Πατερ ημων ο εν τοις ουρανοις·
     Pater hēmon ho en tois uranois;
αγιασθητω το ονομα σου·
     hagiasthēto to onoma su;
ελθετω η βασιλεια σου·
     elteto hē basileia su;
γενηθητω το θελημα σου, ως εν ουρανω και επι γης·
     genēthēto to thelēma su, hos en urano kai epi gēs;
τον αρτον ημων τον επιουσιον δος ημιν σημερον·
     ton arton hēmon to etiusion dos hēmin sēmeron;
και αφες ημιν τα οφειληματα ημον,
     kai aphes hemin ta opheilēmata hēmon,
ως και ημεις αφηκαμεν τοις οφειλεταις ημων·
     hos kai hēmeis aphēkamen tois opheiletais hēmon;
και μη εισενεγκης ημας εις πειρασμον,
     kai mē eisenegkēs hēmas eis peirasmon,
αλλα ρυσαι ημας απο του πονηρου.
     alla rhusai hēmas apo tu ponēru.

The Lord's Prayer in Greek.

Which is, I suppose, why ever culture around the world seems to have its own variety of it, with some societies in the wheat growing regions of the globe having multiple vareities of it.  Indeed, Italy and France seem to have a profusion of bread types, and good ones too, which we've only recently caught up with after basically importing their types.

Unser Vater in dem Himmel!
Dein Name werde geheiliget.
Dein Reich komme.
Dein Wille geschehe auf Erden wie im Himmel.
Unser täglich Brot gib uns heute.
Und vergib uns unsere Schulden,
wie wir unsern Schuldigern vergeben.
Und führe uns nicht in Versuchung,
sondern erlöse uns von dem Übel.

The Lord's Prayer in German.

And thank goodness for that, I'd note.  American breads of my youth were lousy, in my opinion. So packed with sugar that they are basically a really bland cake, the left a lot to be desired.  Those industrial breads are still around I'd note, but I don't have to buy them and I don't.

Отче наш, Иже еси на небесех!

Да святится имя Твое,

да приидет Царствие Твое,

да будет воля Твоя,

яко на небеси и на земли.

Хлеб наш насущный даждь нам днесь;

и остави нам долги наша,

якоже и мы оставляем должником нашим;

и не введи нас во искушение,

но избави нас от лукаваго. 

The Lord's Prayer in Russian.

Ironically, some of the really fancy breads of today started off, oddly enough, as poverty foods.  Italian walnut based breads and pastas (basically a species of bread, really) were the food of the really poor, who gleaned walnets.  Irish soda bread, which I really like and which I used to make on occasion, is a "short" bread with no or little sugar and no yeast.  Easy to make with only flour, just as the Irish poor were likely to not have.

Ranch cook making what is probably soda, or sheepherder's, bread in a cast iron pan, the way it is made at camps, and the way I even make it 

 

Оч͠е нашь ижє ѥси на н͠бсєхъ . да с͠титьсѧ имѧ

твоѥ да придєть ц͠рствиѥ твоѥ · да бѫдєть воля

твоя · яка на н͠бси и на земли хлѣбъ нашь насѫщьиыи ·

даждь намъ дьньсь · и остави намъ · длъгы

нашѧ · яко и мы оставляємъ длъжникомъ нашимъ

и нє въвєди насъ въ напасть · иъ избави ны отъ

нєприязни

The Lord's Prayer in Old Church Slavonic.

But I can see how many would have never considered this.

أبانا الذي في السّماوات

ليتقدَّسِ اسمُك

ليأتِ ملكوتُك

لتكُنْ مشيئتُكَ

كما في السَّماءِ كذلكَ على الأرض

خبزَنَا الجوهريَّ أعطِنا اليوم

واترُكْ لنا ما علينا

كما نتركُ نحنُ لِمَنْ لنا عليه

ولا تُدخِلْنا في تجربة

لكن نجِّنا مِن الشرير

آمين

The Lord's Prayer in Arabic.

Although I suspect that quite a few still do, even in spite of a modern condition in which foods supplies are so vast in the Western World that bread is sometimes regarded by some as a dietary enemy.

我們在天上的父，

願人都尊祢的名為聖，

願祢的國降臨，

願祢的旨意行在地上，

如同行在天上。

我們日用的飲食，

今日賜給我們，

免我們的債，

如同我們免了人的債，

不叫我們遇見試探，

救我們脫離兇惡，

因為國度、權柄、榮耀，全是祢的，

直到永遠。阿們！

The Lord's Prayer in Chinese.

And, in the context of the Lord's Prayer, if a person does, the deeper meaning of the prayer on that line is quite evident.

E ko mākou Makua i loko o ka lani,

e ho‘āno ‘ia Kou inoa.

E hiki mai Kou aupuni.

E mālama ‘ia Kou makemake ma ka honua nei,

e like me ia i mālama ‘ia ma ka lani lā.

E hā‘awi mai iā mākou i kēia lā i ‘ai na mākou no nēia lā;

a e kala mai ho‘i iā mākou i kā mākou lawehala ‘ana,

me mākou e kala nei i ka po‘e i lawehala i kā mākou;

a mai ho‘oku‘u ‘Oe iā mākou i ka ho‘owalewale ‘ia mai,

akā e ho‘opakele nō na‘e iā mākou i ka ino. 

Hawaiian.

Vår Far i himmelen!
La navnet ditt helliges.
La riket ditt komme.
La viljen din skje på jorden
slik som i himmelen.
Gi oss i dag vårt daglige brød,
og tilgi oss vår skyld,
slik også vi tilgir våre skyldnere.
Og la oss ikke komme i fristelse, men frels oss fra det onde.
For riket er ditt,
og makten og æren i evighet.

Norwegian

Faþer vár es ert í himenríki, verði nafn þitt hæilagt.

Til kome ríke þitt, værði vili þin

sva a iarðu sem í himnum.

Gef oss í dag brauð vort dagligt,

Ok fyr gefþu oss synþer órar,

sem vér fyr gefom þeim er viþ oss hafa misgert

Leiðd oss eigi í freistni, heldr leys þv oss frá öllu illu.

Old Norse

Faðir vor, þú sem ert á himnum.

Helgist þitt nafn,

til komi þitt ríki,

verði þinn vilji, svo á jörðu sem á himni.

Gef oss í dag vort daglegt brauð.

Fyrirgef oss vorar skuldir,

svo sem vér og fyrirgefum vorum skuldunautum.

Eigi leið þú oss í freistni, heldur frelsa oss frá illu.

[Því að þitt er ríkið, mátturinn og dýrðin að eilífu, amen.]

Icelandic

Ár nAthair, atá ar neamh: go naofar d'ainm.

Go dtaga do ríocht.

Go ndéantar do thoil ar talamh

mar a dhéantar ar neamh.

Ár n-arán laethúil tabhair dúinn inniu,

agus maith dúinn ár bhfiacha,

mar a mhaithimid dár bhféichiúnaithe féin.

Agus ná lig sinn i gcathú,

ach saor sinn ó olc.

[Óir is leatsa an Ríocht agus an Chumhacht

agus an Ghlóir, trí shaol na saol.]

Áiméan.

Irish

Isä meidän, joka olet taivaissa,

Pyhitetty olkoon sinun nimesi.

Tulkoon sinun valtakuntasi.

Tapahtukoon sinun tahtosi,

myös maan päällä niin kuin taivaassa.

Anna meille tänä päivänä

meidän jokapäiväinen leipämme.

Ja anna meille meidän syntimme anteeksi,

niin kuin mekin anteeksi annamme niille,

jotka ovat meitä vastaan rikkoneet.

Äläkä saata meitä kiusaukseen,

vaan päästä meidät pahasta.

[Sillä sinun on valtakunta

ja voima ja kunnia iankaikkisesti.]

Aamen.\

Finnish