Normalizing Mental Illness isn't helping to address it.

Guardrails on roads aren't put up because if they're not, everyone will drive off the road.  They're put there, so an errant driver doesn't drive off the road and get hurt or killed.

Drinking laws don't exist because, if they don't, everyone will take up drinking at an early age.  They're there because some will, to their detriment, and the laws make it harder.

Controls, of all types, exist as some, but only some, will go over the boundaries into self-destruction, or the destruction of others.

We should have remembered that before we started taking down the guard rails on sexual conduct.

Readers of this blog, if they hit only one or two entries, probably come away with the impression that I'm an arch-conservative or a flaming liberal.

I note that, as readers who only hit this one, are going to think "oh, reactionary conservative".  Not so, my views don't fit easily into a right or left category, and that's because they're all based on a set of guiding principles, one of which is the adherence and belief in science and nature.

Both the left and the right are fully at war with nature right now.  And this is one of the things causing the country to be so massively polarized.

I'm not in the Trumpist right by any means, but lefties who wonder how anyone could be should take stock in this.  Right now, a fair part of the left, and not even the far left, is pretty much invested in normalizing mental illness. We've gone from a state in which an aberrant behavior, but one that didn't otherwise control every aspect of a person's personality, was forced upon society as normal, and forced upon those who bore it as their singular identity, to one in which outright mental illness is now being proclaimed as normal.  There's a pretty big difference between a person experiencing some disordered inclinations, to having those inclinations define them in every way and be celebrated.

There's also a big difference how far down a scale a person goes once they depart from a genetic mean.  Some people, for example, might be excessively materialistic to their personal detriment.  Not too many take that all the way into compulsive theft.  Or, for example, some people might have an inordinate fascination with food.  Calling somebody a glutton is out of style now days, but not too many of those people take it all the way into compulsive overeating.  Some people are inordinately fascinated with themselves, but only a true minority take it into narcissism.  Some people drink more alcohol than they should, but then there are also alcoholics.

Part of what keeps people from going overboard with deeply seated negative personality deviations is societal and legal controls, legal controls being a species of societal ones.  The law will step in if you steal.  Societal pressure, anymore, will step in if you eat too much. You get the point.

Some of our deeply seated natural instincts are the ones that can really get out of control if they are allowed to delve beyond an acceptable mean, and decay into mental illness.  A person has a right to defend themselves, but not to become compulsively violent.  Those who do become psychopaths.  We shouldn't tolerate temping people into being psychopaths, but in fact with do.

As people know that abnormal is in fact not normal, they naturally get up in arms about it at the point where they're told they have to accept it in spite of the evidence their own eyes affords them.  The far right, as personally hypocritical as it is, at least on some social issues doesn't advocate for normalizing mental illness.

The left, in contrast, has at first done everything it could to take down the guardrails. . . we can hardly remember, for example, that Hugh Hefner was once prosecuted for obscenity.  Once that had the predictable results, and the decay really set in, its tried to normalize the decay.

And, as it was only a matter of time, we're just about to go through one more door, maybe, in which a mental illness/deeply destructive compulsion, is about to be regarded as "A Okay".  Inevitably, we're now going through one more door.  Consider this twitter post from the group Gays Against Groomers:

New pedo flag and “orientation” just dropped. Meet the “YAP” community: Youth Attracted Persons.

According to them, they are oppressed, and you are a hateful, fascist bigot if you oppose them.

Normalizing pedophilia was always the goal. They are the next victim class.

And already a Virginia professor is wanting to make sure that the term "minor attracted person" is used rather than pedophile, as the latter term might be regarded as offensive.

That's right.  Since Obergefell, we've gone from altering the normal, universal understanding of marriage, to forced acceptance that there's no difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality, to chose your own gender, and we're about to go to molesting children being a life choice.

And, take for example, Montana legislator Zachary Raasch.

Never heard of Raasch?  Well, if you are following the news, you've heard of him being proclaimed as a hero for disrupting Montana's legislature.

But not as Raasch, but as the self-proclaimed Zooey Zephyr.

Raasch was a high school wrestler who, at some point, decided he'd rather be a woman, even though that's genetically impossible.  He had himself surgically castrated and a pseudo vagina surgically created and is taking drugs to complete as much of the process as can be.  He's deeply mentally disturbed, as this Twitter post likely demonstrates to anyone who isn't so far gone down this path as to be unable to see.

Rep. Zooey Zephyr

@ZoAndBehold

This is my ideal relationship with a man: one where I'm riding him, and also ready to end his life.

Quote Tweet

SAKON

@sakonlieur

·

Oct 30, 2020

Lose. #原神 #GenshinImpact #Childe #Lumine #rkgk

Show this thread

1:19 PM · Nov 3, 2020

That's deeply weird.

Raasch is interested in other disturbing things, such as transhumanism.  He's heavily into video gaming.  He's a Manga fan, as the distressing image above shows.  According to one person whose detailed his interests, who is of course only one person, he's  "shows all the classic signs of an autogynephilic—a man who (often spurred by pornography or fetish) becomes sexually aroused by the idea of themselves as a woman."   Raasch's known "relationships" have included at least two other men affecting the trans identity, one of whom was also a "furry".

Raasch has clocked himself in the mantle of a type of crusader, disruptively arguing that not allowing people afflicted with a desire to change their gender will lead to suicide.  Even pro LBGTQ groups assert this argument should not be made as it is counterproductive.  But all of this is instructive.  Starting no later than the 1960s, and perhaps a couple of decades earlier than that, we started taking the fences down.  By the time of Obergefell, we were ready, or at least some were, to knock a stone wall down.  Now it's so far down that a person who is obviously deeply mentally ill is being portrayed as some sort of crusader for civil rights.

And the next step. . . almost taken.

Many have been concerned that the US seems to be sliding towards fascism.  It probably isn't, in literal terms, as fascism properly understood is a corporatist political theory that has no real popularity in the US. What we are sliding towards, however, is on one hand a deeply authoritarian anti-democratic populist right and a deeply anti-natural left.  

Should this get any worse, the left will be more to blame for it than the right.

The left went to war with democracy in the late 1960s and began to advocate for rule by an autocratic court, which it apparently thought it could keep left wing forever, as lawyers were, and are, generally political liberals.  It certainly did keep it left wing for a long time.  Concern over this only developed when the court returned to actually interpreting the law, one really significant actually accomplished during the Trump administration.  Now the left, which was previously perfectly happy to leave the Court completely to itself, is howling with rage over supposed ethics concerns on the Court, something that it didn't care much about previously, and much of which is just a thinly veiled desperate effort to remove justices while the Democrats control the Oval Office and Senate.  At any rate, the left is now deeply dedicated to being wholly at war with human nature, vested in the concept that every human being has a right, basically, to be a god of their own.  Liberal commentators, like Robert Reich, who likely would have thought Raasch nuts up until relatively recently, are all for such fantasies now.

It's well worth remembering that it was the German, Italian, Spanish and Japanese radical left that appeared long before the extreme right in those nations.  German communists, which had its own collection of now benighted individuals who really aren't very admirable in real terms, appeared well before World War One and struggled to seize the country from the less radical Socialist when the German monarchy collapsed in 1918.  The Communists can't be blamed for the Nazis, but fear of Communism certainly contributed to the rise of the Nazis and their electoral success in a major way.  More than a few German voters who voted for the Nazis in 1932 were voting against the Communists.

And the Spanish Communists were headed for a clear usurpation of democracy in Spain before the Spanish right revolted.  The Spanish right was deeply anti-democratic, but the Spanish left wasn't dedicated to it either.

And while the claim that is sometimes made that moral decay in Weimar Germany lead directly to the rise of the Nazis isn't really correct, there's a slight element of truth to that, albeit it's only a piece of a much larger pie.  The Communists of the late 19th Century and early 20th Century were absolute in supporting the libertine.  Marx's dictum that "all wives shall be held in common" was a Communist position, and many early Communists expressed that in their personal lives flagrantly.  Whitaker Chambers notes in Witness than he and his wife became exceptions over time, starting at the point at which she became pregnant, as the expectation was that she'd abort the child, the Communist norm.

It isn't that the Socialist government of Weimar Germany made the country a moral sewer, but it is the case that following the First World War some urban areas of Germany did experience a notable moral decay, if a person can recognize one, that did repel some conservative Germans.  It was not the case that this was a major factor in the Nazis coming to power, but rather just one more thing.

Pre war Naiz poster, swastika removed, showing Hitler being chummy with German children, and therefore appealing to traditional values.  In reality, of course, Hitler never had any children of his own and shacked up with the fairly pathetic Eva Braun until right at the end of the war, marrying her only then.  He wasn't a family values kind of guy, but appealing to traditional Western European values made him seem attractive to some scared elements of German society. . . much the way serial polygamist and generally icky Donald Trump appeals to many legitimately scared Americans now.

And hence why I note it here.  On the right, there's a definite fascination right now with finding a vehicle to return to existential conservative values.  In the more thoughtful camps, this is being expressed in terms of Christian Nationalism. Some are just expressing it in terms of traditional conservatism.  But the populist right is really picking it up as people are shocked by the rapid change in this area and know it to be wrong without thinking deeply on it.  People turned to Trump in the first place, as he basically promised to burn the entire edifice down.

He's promising that again.

Yes, personally he may be morally bankrupt, but then Hitler wasn't a choir boy either.  People, in desperation, will turn to those who seem to be able to get things done.  And in doing that, they'll adopt the conspiracy theories that explain how something so weird could happen.

The left closing a blind eye to the really disturbing events going on here is feeding the right.  It's a rare person who can closely cut between two extremes and not fall into one.  People are being pushed into one here.

And the really mentally ill are being left behind.

This is the second time in recent decades we have done this.  Earlier we decided that people with mental illness, often caused by drugs or alcohol, would be happier if not detained. So we set them out on the streets, where they likely descend further into drugs and alcohol.  Compulsions in this are too can be massively overwhelming.  St. Matt Talbott found that in order to overcome alcoholism he actually had to take routes that avoided taverns, lest he fall into them.

In other words, he put up his own guardrails.

In the area we are referencing here, profound sexual deviance, that's also the case.  Prior to the aftershocks of the Stonewall Riot era, most homosexuals lead pretty normal lives, even if they engaged in the conduct.  The societal guardrails, of which the legal recognition of some of the natural law in the form of laws pertaining to families, men and women, were part of that.  Once that started getting taken down, it left those with pulls, often developed pulls, in other directions to try to stay on the road by themselves.  

Drinking is one thing.  Alcohol is a poison and while the species is long acclimated to it, it's an acquired taste of some degree.  But the biological imperative to reproduce, no matter how much moderns may wish to frustrate it, is wired into us.  The overwhelming majority of human beings will not fall into deviance, but in every society up until this very one, the societal laws, if not the statutory ones, operated to affect guardrails.  Even those people who like to note "but the ancient Greeks" blind their eye to hte fact that no less of a a figure than Plate railed against homosexuality.

Homosexuality, of course, is just one of the deviations, and in contemporary terms it's nearly a garden variety one.  All sorts of other plagues exist in this area, from people addicted to pornography to people who engage in serials conventional affairs. Indeed, the last item is the oldest of the deviations of them all, and probably the one that gets more people killed, even now, than any other.  

Some years ago, on a Catholic Things You Should Know, Fr. Michael O'Loughlin noted being in a group of friends, who were secular friends, in which one of them noted longingly that he wished he could go back and look at women the way he had before he had knowledge, to put it delicately.  There's more than a little to that.  Indeed, it's worth noting how many long married men remarry, and always have, very rapidly after a spouse dies.  It's likely a certain acclimation has something to do with that.  And its been noted that in our modern society, where the rules about monogamy and chastity have broken down, it's become harder for those with serial "partners' to really form a bond.  Indeed, according to psychologist, after men have had eight such partners, their chances of delving down into the below 18 ranks for more dramatically increase.

And the long example of pornography should warn us.  The entire culture is pornofied, but some descend into various types of mental illness due it.  Raasch likely has, although we can't know for sure what caused him to take the deviation that he did.  

But simply asserting that everyone has to accept it as normal makes no more sense than pretnding alcoholism is normal. 

Or, pretending pedophilia is normal.

But the logic is there.  If cutting off your member and having a fake vagina, and taking drugs to affect the appearance of a woman is normal, then pedophilia, which requires a lot less than that, must be too.

But it isn't.  Neither is transgenderism. 

Friday, April 30, 1943. Operation Mincemeat

The body of "Major Martin", a fictional British Major carrying fictional papers, was released from the British submarine HMS Seraph off of Spain.  In reality, the body was that of Glyndwr Michael, a vagrant who had died from eating rat poison.

The operation, known as Operation Mincemeat, was designed to deceive the Axis on plans for the invasion of Sicily, and was highly successful.

The US took Hill 609 in Tunisia.

The Bermuda Conference concluded.  The topic of the conference between the US and UK, which had commenced on April 19, was Jewish refugees who had been liberated by the Allies, and the remaining Jews in Axis controlled territory.  No substantial agreement on what to do was reached, other than to win the war, US immigration quotas would not be raised, and the British would not lift the prohibition on Jewish refugees going to Palestine.

Participants in the conference.

Monday, April 30, 1923. Booze on the High Seas

 

In Cunard Steamship Co., Ltd. v. Mellon, the U.S. Supreme Court, declared that American ships could sell booze on the "high seas" more than three miles beyond U.S. territory.  Foreign ships, however, couldn't dock with it.

The decision was rendered by Justice Van Devanter, which is somewhat ironic as he was appointed to the bench from Wyoming, and it was Wyoming that had put the Volstead Act up over the top.

The decision reads:

U.S. Supreme Court

Cunard Steamship Co., Ltd. v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 100 (1923)

Cunard Steamship Co., Ltd. v. Mellon

Nos. 659-662, 666-670, 678, 693, 694

Argued January 4, 5, 1923

Decided April 30, 1923

262 U.S. 100

APPEALS FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

1. The words "transportation" and "importation," in the Eighteenth Amendment, are to be taken in their ordinary sense, the former comprehending any real carrying about or from one place to another, and the latter any actual bringing into the country from the outside. P. 262 U. S. 121.

2. The word "territory," in the Amendment (in the phrase "the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof") means the regional areas, of land and adjacent waters, over which the United States claims and exercises dominion and control as a sovereign power, the term being used in a physical, not a metaphorical, sense, and referring to areas and districts having fixity of location and recognized boundaries. P. 262 U. S. 122.

3. The territory subject to the jurisdiction of the United States includes the land areas under its dominion and control, the ports, harbors, bays, and other enclosed arms of the sea along its coast, and a marginal belt of the sea extending from the coast line outward a marine league, or three geographic miles, and this territory, and all of it, is that which the Amendment designates as its field of operation. P. 262 U. S. 122.

4. Domestic merchant ships outside the waters of the United States, whether on the high seas or in foreign waters, are part of the "territory" of the United States in a metaphorical sense only, and are not covered by the Amendment. P. 262 U. S. 123.

5. The jurisdiction arising out of the nationality of a merchant ship, as established by her domicile, registry, and use of the flag, partakes more of the characteristics of personal than of territorial sovereignty, is chiefly applicable to ships on the high seas where there is no territorial sovereign; and, as respects ships in foreign territorial waters, it has little application beyond what is affirmatively or tacitly permitted by the local sovereign. P. 262 U. S. 123.

6. The Amendment covers foreign merchant ships when within the territorial waters of the United States. P. 262 U. S. 124.

7. A merchant ship of one country, voluntarily entering the territorial limits of another, subjects herself to the jurisdiction of the latter. The jurisdiction attaches in virtue of her presence, just as with other objects within those limits. During her stay, she is entitled to the protection of the laws of that place, and correlatively is bound to yield obedience to them. The local sovereign may, out of considerations of public policy, choose to forego the exertion of its jurisdiction, or to exert it in a limited way only, but this is a matter resting solely in its discretion. P. 262 U. S. 124.

8. The Eighteenth Amendment does not prescribe any penalties, forfeitures, or mode of enforcement, but, by its second section, leaves these to legislative action. P. 262 U. S. 126.

9. The only instance in which the National Prohibition Act recognizes the possession of intoxicating liquor for beverage purposes as lawful is where the liquor was obtained before the act went into effect and is kept in the owner's dwelling for use therein by him, his family, and his bona fide guests. P. 262 U. S. 127.

10. Examination of the National Prohibition Act, as supplemented November 23, 1921, c. 134, 42 Stat. 222, shows

(a) That it is intended to be operative throughout the territorial limits of the United States, with the single exception of liquor in transit through the Panama Canal or on the Panama Railroad,

(b) That it is not intended to apply to domestic vessels when outside the territorial waters of the United States,

(c) That it is intended to apply to all merchant vessels, whether foreign or domestic, when within those waters, save as the Panama Canal Zone exception provides otherwise. Pp. 262 U. S. 127-129.

11. Congress, however, has power to regulate the conduct of domestic merchant ships when on the high seas, or to exert such control over them when in foreign waters as may be affirmatively or tacitly permitted by the territorial sovereign. P. 262 U. S. 129.

12. The antiquity of the practice of carrying intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes as part of a ship's sea stores, the wide extent of the practice, and its recognition in a congressional enactment, do not go to prove that the Eighteenth Amendment and the Prohibition Act could not have been intended to disturb that practice, since their avowed and obvious purpose was to put an end to prior practices respecting such liquors. P. 262 U. S. 129.

13. After the adoption of the Amendment and the enactment of the National Prohibition Act, Congress withdrew the prior statutory recognition of liquors as legitimate sea stores. Rev.Stats., § 2775; Act of September 21, 1922, c. 356, Tit. IV, and § 642, 42 Stat. 858, 948, 989. P. 262 U. S. 130.

14. The carrying of intoxicating liquors, as sea stores, for beverage purposes, through the territorial waters or into the ports and harbors of the United States by foreign or domestic merchant ships is forbidden by the Amendment and the act. P. 262 U. S. 130.

284 F. 890 affirmed.

285 F. 79 reversed.

Appeals from decrees of the district court dismissing, on the merits, as many suits brought by the appellant steamship companies for the purpose of enjoining officials of the United States from seizing liquors carried by appellants' passenger ships as sea stores and from taking other proceedings against the companies and their vessels, under the National Prohibition Act.

MR. JUSTICE VAN DEVANTER delivered the opinion of the Court.

These are suits by steamship companies operating passenger ships between United States ports and foreign ports to enjoin threatened application to them and their ships of certain provisions of the National Prohibition Act. The defendants are officers of the United States charged with the act's enforcement. In the first ten cases, the plaintiffs are foreign corporations and their ships are of foreign registry, while in the remaining two the plaintiff's are domestic corporations, and their ships are of United States registry. All the ships have long carried and now carry, as part of their sea stores, intoxicating liquors intended to be sold or dispensed to their passengers and crews at meals and otherwise for beverage purposes. Many of the passengers and crews are accustomed to using such beverages and insist that the ships carry and supply liquors for such purposes. By the laws of all the foreign ports at which the ships touch, this is permitted, and by the laws of some it is required. The liquors are purchased for the ships and taken on board in the foreign ports and are sold or dispensed in the course of all voyages, whether from or to those ports.

The administrative instructions dealing with the subject have varied since the National Prohibition Act went into effect. December 11, 1919, the following instructions were issued (T.D. 38218):

"All liquors which are prohibited importation, but which are properly listed as sea stores on vessels arriving in ports of the United States, should be placed under seal by the boarding officer and kept sealed during the entire time of the vessel's stay in port, no part thereof to be removed from under seal for use by the crew at meals or for any other purpose."

"Excessive or surplus liquor stores are no longer dutiable, being prohibited importation, but are subject to seizure and forfeiture."

"Liquors properly carried as sea stores may be returned to a foreign port on the vessel's changing from the foreign to the coasting trade, or may be transferred under supervision of the customs officers from a vessel in foreign trade, delayed in port for any cause, to another vessel belonging to the same line or owner."

January 27, 1920, the first paragraph of those instructions was changed (T.D. 38248) so as to read:

"All liquors which are prohibited importation, but which are properly listed as sea stores on American vessels arriving in ports of the United States, should be placed under seal by the boarding officer and kept sealed during the entire time of the vessel's stay in port, no part thereof to be removed from under seal for use by the crew at meals or for any other purpose. All such liquors on foreign vessels should be sealed on arrival of the vessels in port, and such portions thereof released from seal as may be required from time to time for use by the officers and crew."

October 6, 1922, the Attorney General, in answer to an inquiry by the Secretary of the Treasury, gave an opinion to the effect that the National Prohibition Act, construed in connection with the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, makes it unlawful (a) for any ship, whether domestic or foreign, to bring into territorial waters of the United States, or to carry while within such waters, intoxicating liquors intended for beverage purposes, whether as sea stores or cargo, and (b) for any domestic ship, even when without those, waters to carry such liquors for such purposes either as cargo or sea stores. The President thereupon directed the preparation, promulgation, and application of new instructions conforming to that construction of the act. Being advised of this and that, under the new instructions, the defendants would seize all liquors carried in contravention of the act as so construed and would proceed to subject the plaintiffs and their ships to penalties provided in the act, the plaintiffs brought these suits.

The hearings in the district court were on the bills or amended bills, motions to dismiss, and answers, and there was a decree of dismissal on the merits in each suit. 284 F. 890; International Mercantile Marine v. Stuart, 285 F. 79. Direct appeals under Judicial Code § 238 bring the cases here.

While the construction and application of the National Prohibition Act is the ultimate matter in controversy, the act is so closely related to the Eighteenth Amendment, to enforce which it was enacted, that a right understanding of it involves an examination and interpretation of the amendment. The first section of the latter declares, 40 Stat. 1050, 1941:

"Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article, the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited."

These words, if taken in their ordinary sense, are very plain. The articles proscribed are intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes. The acts prohibited in respect of them are manufacture, sale, and transportation within a designated field, importation into the same, and exportation therefrom, and the designated field is the United States and all territory subject to its jurisdiction. There is no controversy here as to what constitutes intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes; but opposing contentions are made respecting what is comprehended in the terms "transportation," "importation" and "territory."

Some of the contentions ascribe a technical meaning to the words "transportation" and "importation." We think they are to be taken in their ordinary sense, for it better comports with the object to be attained. In that sense, transportation comprehends any real carrying about or from one place to another. It is not essential that the carrying be for hire, or by one for another, nor that it be incidental to a transfer of the possession or title. If one carries in his own conveyance for his own purposes, it is transportation no less than when a public carrier, at the instance of a consignor, carriers and delivers to a consignee for a stipulated charge. See United States v. Simpson, 252 U. S. 465. Importation, in a like sense, consists in bringing an article into a country from the outside. If there be an actual bringing in, it is importation, regardless of the mode in which it is effected. Entry through a custom house is not of the essence of the act.

Various meanings are sought to be attributed to the term "territory" in the phrase "the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof." We are of opinion that it means the regional areas -- of land and adjacent waters -- over which the United States claims and exercises dominion and control as a sovereign power. The immediate context and the purport of the entire section show that the term is used in a physical, and not a metaphorical, sense -- that it refers to areas or districts having fixity of location and recognized boundaries. See United States v. Bevans, 3 Wheat. 336, 16 U. S. 390.

It now is settled in the United States and recognized elsewhere that the territory subject to its jurisdiction includes the land areas under its dominion and control, the ports, harbors, bays, and other enclosed arms of the sea along its coast, and a marginal belt of the sea extending from the coast line outward a marine league, or three geographic miles. Church v. Hubbart, 2 Cranch 187, 6 U. S. 234; The Ann, 1 Fed.Cas., p. 926; United States v. Smiley, 27 Fed.Cas., p. 1132; Manchester v. Massachusetts, 139 U. S. 240, 139 U. S. 257-258; Louisiana v. Mississippi, 202 U. S. 1, 202 U. S. 52; 1 Kent's Com. (12th ed.) *29; 1 Moore, International Law Digest, § 145; 1 Hyde, International Law, §§ 141, 142, 154; Wilson, International Law (8th ed.) § 54; Westlake, International Law (2d ed.) p. 187 et seq; Wheaton, International Law (5th Eng. ed. [Phillipson]) p. 282; 1 Oppenheim International Law (3d ed.) §§ 185-189, 252. This, we hold, is the territory which the amendment designates as its field of operation, and the designation is not of a part of this territory, but of "all" of it.

The defendants contend that the amendment also covers domestic merchant ships outside the waters of the United States, whether on the high seas or in foreign waters. But it does not say so, and what it does say shows, as we have indicated, that it is confined to the physical territory of the United States. In support of their contention, the defendants refer to the statement sometimes made that a merchant ship is a part of the territory of the country whose flag she flies. But this, as has been aptly observed, is a figure of speech, a metaphor. Scharrenberg v. Dollar S.S. Co., 245 U. S. 122, 245 U. S. 127; In re Ross, 140 U. S. 453, 140 U. S. 464; 1 Moore International Law Digest § 174; Westlake, International Law (2d ed.) p. 264; Hall, International Law (7th ed. [Higgins]) § 76; Manning, Law of Nations (Amos), p. 276; Piggott Nationality, Pt. II, p. 13. The jurisdiction which it is intended to describe arises out of the nationality of the ship, as established by her domicile, registry, and use of the flag, and partakes more of the characteristics of personal than of territorial sovereignty. See The Hamilton, 207 U. S. 398, 207 U. S. 403; American Banana Co. v. United Fruit Co., 213 U. S. 347, 213 U. S. 355; 1 Oppenheim International Law (3d ed.) §§ 123-125, 128. It is chiefly applicable to ships on the high seas, where there is no territorial sovereign, and as respects ships in foreign territorial waters, it has little application beyond what is affirmatively or tacitly permitted by the local sovereign. 2 Moore International Law Digest, §§ 204, 205; Twiss, Law of Nations (2d ed.) § 166; Woolsey, International Law (6th ed.) § 58; 1 Oppenheim International Law (3d ed.) §§ 128, 146, 260.

The defendants further contend that the amendment covers foreign merchant ships when within the territorial waters of the United States. Of course, if it were true that a ship is a part of the territory of the country whose flag she carries, the contention would fail. But, as that is a fiction, we think the contention is right.

The merchant ship of one country voluntarily entering the territorial limits of another subjects herself to the jurisdiction of the latter. The jurisdiction attaches in virtue of her presence, just as with other objects within those limits. During her stay, she is entitled to the protection of the laws of that place, and correlatively is bound to yield obedience to them. Of course, the local sovereign may out of considerations of public policy choose to forego the exertion of its jurisdiction or to exert the same in only a limited way, but this is a matter resting solely in its discretion. The rule, now generally recognized, is nowhere better stated than in The Exchange, 7 Cranch 116, 11 U. S. 136, 11 U. S. 144, where Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for this Court, said:

"The jurisdiction of the nation within its own territory is necessarily exclusive and absolute. It is susceptible of no limitation not imposed by itself. Any restriction upon it, deriving validity from an external source, would imply a diminution of its sovereignty to the extent of the restriction, and an investment of that sovereignty to the same extent in that power which could impose such restriction."

"All exceptions, therefore, to the full and complete power of a nation within its own territories must be traced up to the consent of the nation itself. They can flow from no other legitimate source."

"* * * *"

"When private individuals of one nation spread themselves through another as business or caprice may direct, mingling indiscriminately with the inhabitants of that other, or when merchant vessels enter for the purposes of trade, it would be obviously inconvenient and dangerous to society, and would subject the laws to continual infraction, and the government to degradation, if such individuals or merchants did not owe temporary and local allegiance, and were not amenable to the jurisdiction of the country. Nor can the foreign sovereign have any motive for wishing such exemption. His subjects thus passing into foreign countries are not employed by him, nor are they engaged in national pursuits. Consequently there are powerful motives for not exempting persons of this description from the jurisdiction of the country in which they are found, and no one motive for requiring it. The implied license, therefore, under which they enter can never be construed to grant such exemption."

That view has been reaffirmed and applied by this Court on several occasions. United States v. Diekelman, 92 U. S. 520, 92 U. S. 525-526; Wildenhus' Case, 120 U. S. 1, 120 U. S. 11; Nishimura Ekiu v. United States, 142 U. S. 651, 142 U. S. 659; Knott v. Botany Mills, 179 U. S. 69, 179 U. S. 74; Patterson v. Bark Eudora, 190 U. S. 169, 190 U. S. 176-178; Strathearn S.S. Co. v. Dillon, 252 U. S. 348, 252 U. S. 355-356. And see Buttfield v. Stranahan, 192 U. S. 470, 192 U. S. 492-493; Oceanic Steam Navigation Co. v. Stranahan, 214 U. S. 320, 324 [argument of counsel -- omitted]; Brolan v. United States, 236 U. S. 216, 236 U. S. 218. In the Patterson case, the Court added:

"Indeed, the implied consent to permit them [foreign merchant ships] to enter our harbors may be withdrawn, and if this implied consent may be wholly withdrawn it may be extended upon such terms and conditions as the government sees fit to impose."

In principle, therefore, it is settled that the amendment could be made to cover both domestic and foreign merchant ships when within the territorial waters of the United States. And we think it has been made to cover both when within those limits. It contains no exception of ships of either class, and the terms in which it is couched indicate that none is intended. Such an exception would tend to embarrass its enforcement and to defeat the attainment of its obvious purpose, and therefore cannot reasonably be regarded as implied.

In itself, the amendment does not prescribe any penalties, forfeitures, or mode of enforcement, but, by its second section, [Footnote 1] leaves these to legislative action.

With this understanding of the amendment, we turn to the National Prohibition Act, c. 85, 41 Stat. 305, which was enacted to enforce it. The act is a long one, and most of its provisions have no real bearing here. Its scope and pervading purpose are fairly reflected by the following excerpts from Title II:

"Sec. 3. No person [Footnote 2] shall on or after the date when the eighteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States goes into effect, manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, furnish or possess any intoxicating liquor except as authorized in this act, and all the provisions of this act shall be liberally construed to the end that the use of intoxicating liquor as a beverage may be prevented."

"* * * *"

"Sec. 21. Any room, house, building, boat, vehicle, structure, or place where intoxicating liquor is manufactured, sold, kept, or bartered in violation of this title, and all intoxicating liquor and property kept and used in maintaining the same, is hereby declared to be a common nuisance."

"* * * *"

"Sec. 23. That any person who shall, with intent to effect a sale of liquor, by himself, his employee, servant, or agent, for himself or any person, company, or corporation keep or carry around on his person, or in a vehicle, or other conveyance whatever . . . any liquor . . . in violation of this title is guilty of a nuisance. . . ."

"* * * *"

"Sec. 26. When the commissioner, his assistants, inspectors, or any officer of the law shall discover any person in the act of transporting in violation of the law, intoxicating liquors in any wagon, buggy, automobile, water or air craft, or other vehicle, it shall be his duty to seize any and all intoxicating liquors found therein being transported contrary to law."

Other provisions show that various penalties and forfeitures are prescribed for violations of the act, and that the only instance in which the possession of intoxicating liquor for beverage purposes is recognized as lawful is where the liquor was obtained before the act went into effect and is kept in the owner's dwelling for use therein by him, his family, and his bona fide guests.

As originally enacted, the act did not in terms define its territorial field, but a supplemental provision [Footnote 3] afterwards enacted declares that it "shall apply not only to the United States but to all territory subject to its jurisdiction," which means that its field coincides with that of the Eighteenth Amendment. There is in the act no provision making it applicable to domestic merchant ships when outside the waters of the United States, nor any provision making it inapplicable to merchant ships, either domestic or foreign, when within those waters, save in the Panama Canal. There is a special provision dealing with the Canal Zone [Footnote 4] which excepts "liquor in transit through the Panama Canal or on the Panama Railroad." The exception does not discriminate between domestic and foreign ships, but applies to all liquor in transit through the canal, whether on domestic or foreign ships. Apart from this exception, the provision relating to the Canal Zone is broad and drastic like the others.

Much has been said at the bar and in the briefs about the Canal Zone exception, and various deductions are sought to be drawn from it respecting the applicability of the act elsewhere. Of course, the exception shows that Congress, for reasons appealing to its judgment, has refrained from attaching any penalty or forfeiture to the transportation of liquor while "in transit through the Panama Canal or on the Panama Railroad." Beyond this, it has no bearing here, save as it serves to show that, where in other provisions no exception is made in respect of merchant ships, either domestic or foreign, within the waters of the United States, none is intended.

Examining the act as a whole, we think it shows very plainly, first, that it is intended to be operative throughout the territorial limits of the United States, with the single exception stated in the Canal Zone provision; secondly, that it is not intended to apply to domestic vessels when outside the territorial waters of the United States; and, thirdly, that it is intended to apply to all merchant vessels, whether foreign or domestic, when within those waters, save as the Panama Canal Zone exception provides otherwise.

In so saying, we do not mean to imply that Congress is without power to regulate the conduct of domestic merchant ships when on the high seas, or to exert such control over them when in foreign waters as may be affirmatively or tacitly permitted by the territorial sovereign; for it long has been settled that Congress does have such power over them. Lord v. Steamship Co., 102 U. S. 541; The Abby Dodge, 223 U. S. 166, 223 U. S. 176. But we do mean that the National Prohibition Act discloses that it is intended only to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment and limits its field of operation, like that of the amendment, to the territorial limits of the United States.

The plaintiffs invite attention to data showing the antiquity of the practice of carrying intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes as part of a ship's sea stores, the wide extent of the practice, and its recognition in a congressional enactment, and argue therefrom that neither the amendment nor the act can have been intended to disturb that practice. But in this they fail to recognize that the avowed and obvious purpose of both the amendment and the act was to put an end to prior practices respecting such liquors, even though the practices had the sanction of antiquity, generality, and statutory recognition. Like data could be produced and like arguments advanced by many whose business, recognized as lawful theretofore, was shut down or curtailed by the change in national policy. In principle, the plaintiffs' situation is not different from that of the innkeeper whose accustomed privilege of selling liquor to his guests is taken away, or that of the dining car proprietor who is prevented from serving liquor to those who use the cars which he operates to and fro across our northern and southern boundaries.

It should be added that, after the adoption of the amendment and the enactment of the National Prohibition Act, Congress distinctly withdrew the prior statutory recognition of liquors as legitimate sea stores. The recognition was embodied in § 2775 of the Revised Statutes, which was among the provisions dealing with customs administration, and when, by the Act of September 21, 1922, those provisions were revised, that section was expressly repealed, along with other provisions recognizing liquors as legitimate cargo. C. 356, Title IV and § 642, 42 Stat. 858, 948, 989. Of course, as was observed by the district court, the prior recognition, although representing the national policy at the time, was not in the nature of a promise for the future.

It therefore is of no importance that the liquors in the plaintiffs' ships are carried only as sea stores. Being sea stores does not make them liquors any the less; nor does it change the incidents of their use as beverages. But it is of importance that they are carried through the territorial waters of the United States and brought into its ports and harbors. This is prohibited transportation and importation in the sense of the amendment and the act. The recent cases of Grogan v. Walker & Sons and Anchor Line v. Aldridge, 259 U. S. 80, are practically conclusive on the point. The question in one was whether carrying liquor intended as a beverage through the United States from Canada to Mexico was prohibited transportation under the amendment and the act, the liquor being carried in bond by rail, and that in the other was whether the transshipment of such liquor from one British ship to another in the harbor of New York was similarly prohibited, the liquor being in transit from Scotland to Bermuda. The cases were considered together, and an affirmative answer was given in each, the Court saying in the opinion, p. 259 U. S. 89:

"The Eighteenth Amendment meant a great revolution in the policy of this country, and presumably and obviously meant to upset a good many things on, as well as off, the statute book. It did not confine itself in any meticulous way to the use of intoxicants in this country. It forbade export for beverage purposes elsewhere. True, this discouraged production here, but that was forbidden already, and the provision applied to liquors already lawfully made. See Hamilton v. Kentucky Distilleries & Warehouse Co., 251 U. S. 146, 151, note 1 [argument of counsel -- omitted]. It is obvious that those whose wishes and opinions were embodied in the amendment meant to stop the whole business. They did not want intoxicating liquor in the United States, and reasonably may have though that, if they let it in, some of it was likely to stay. When, therefore, the amendment forbids not only importation into and exportation from the United States, but transportation within it, the natural meaning of the words expresses an altogether probable intent. The Prohibition Act only fortifies in this respect the interpretation of the amendment itself. The manufacture, possession, sale, and transportation of spirits and wine for other than beverage purposes are provided for in the act, but there is no provision for transshipment or carriage across the country from without. When Congress was ready to permit such a transit for special reasons in the Canal Zone, it permitted it in express words. Title III, § 20, 41 Stat. 322."

Our conclusion is that, in the first ten cases, those involving foreign ships, the decrees of dismissal were right, and should be affirmed, and in the remaining two, those involving domestic ships, the decrees of dismissal were erroneous, and should be reversed, with directions to enter decrees refusing any relief as respects the operations of the ships within the territorial waters of the United States and awarding the relief sought as respects operations outside those waters.

Decrees in Nos. 659, 660, 661, 662, 666, 667, 668, 669, 670 and 678, affirmed.

Decrees in Nos. 693 and 694, reversed.

MR. JUSTICE McREYNOLDS dissents.

[Footnote 1]

The second section says: "The Congress and the several states shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." For its construction, see United States v. Lanza, December 11, 1922.

[Footnote 2]

The act contains a provision (§ 1 of Title II) showing that it uses the word "persons" as including "associations, copartnerships, and corporations" when the context does not indicate otherwise.

[Footnote 3]

Section 3, Act November 23, 1921, c. 134, 42 Stat. 222.

[Footnote 4]

The pertinent portion of § 20 of Title III, relating to the Canal Zone, is as follows:

"Sec. 20. That it shall be unlawful to import or introduce into the Canal Zone, or to manufacture, sell, give away, dispose of, transport, or have in one's possession or under one's control within the Canal Zone, any alcoholic, fermented, brewed, distilled, vinous, malt, or spirituous liquors, except for sacramental, scientific, pharmaceutical, industrial, or medicinal purposes, under regulations to be made by the President, and any such liquors within the Canal Zone in violation hereof shall be forfeited to the United States and seized: Provided, that this section shall not apply to liquor in transit through the Panama Canal or on the Panama Railroad."

MR. JUSTICE SUTHERLAND dissenting.

I agree with the judgment of the court insofar as it affects domestic ships, but I am unable to accept the view that the Eighteenth Amendment applies to foreign ships coming into our ports under the circumstances here disclosed.

It would serve no useful purpose to give my reasons at any length for this conclusion. I therefore state them very generally and briefly.

The general rule of international law is that a foreign ship is so far identified with the country to which it belongs that its internal affairs, whose effect is confined to the ship, ordinarily are not subjected to interference at the hands of another state in whose ports it is temporarily present, 2 Moore, Int.Law. Dig., p. 292; United States v. Rodgers, 150 U. S. 249, 150 U. S. 260; Wildenhus' Case, 120 U. S. 1, 120 U. S. 12; and, as said by Chief Justice Marshall, in Murray v. Schooner Charming Betsy, 2 Cranch 64, 118: " . . . An act of Congress ought never to be construed to violate the law of nations if any other possible construction remains. . . ."

That the government has full power under the Volstead Act to prevent the landing or transshipment from foreign vessels of intoxicating liquors or their use in our ports is not doubted, and therefore it may provide for such assurances and safeguards as it may deem necessary to those ends. Nor do I doubt the power of Congress to do all that the Court now holds has been done by that act, but such power exists not under the Eighteenth Amendment, to whose provisions the act is confined, but by virtue of other provisions of the Constitution, which Congress here has not attempted to exercise. With great deference to the contrary conclusion of the Court, due regard for the principles of international comity, which exists between friendly nations, in my opinion, forbids the construction of the Eighteenth Amendment and of the act which the present decision advances. Moreover, the Eighteenth Amendment, it must not be forgotten, confers concurrent power of enforcement upon the several states, and it follows that, if the general government possesses the power here claimed for it under that amendment, the several states within their respective boundaries, possess the same power. It does not seem possible to me that Congress, in submitting the amendment or the several states in adopting it, could have intended to vest in the various seaboard states a power so intimately connected with our foreign relations and whose exercise might result in international confusion and embarrassment.

In adopting the Eighteenth Amendment and in enacting the Volstead Act, the question of their application to foreign vessels in the circumstances now presented does not appear to have been in mind. If, upon consideration, Congress shall conclude that, when such vessels, in good faith carrying liquor among their sea stores, come temporarily into our ports, their officers should, ipso facto, become liable to drastic punishment and the ships themselves subject to forfeiture, it will be a simple matter for that body to say so in plain terms. But interference with the purely internal affairs of a foreign ship is of so delicate a nature, so full of possibilities of international misunderstandings, and so likely to invite retaliation that an affirmative conclusion in respect thereof should rest upon nothing less than the clearly expressed intention of Congress to that effect, and this I am unable to find in the legislation here under review.

The paper also noted the death of Emerson Hough, author and conservationist.  Hough had started off as a lawyer, which had taken him to New Mexico, before becoming a professional writer, which is what he did for most of his career.

And it noted the mayor of Powder River had died.  Powder River no longer has a mayor, and is now an unincorporated very small town.

IRA Chief of Staff officially called a ceasefire in the Irish Civil War and called on his troops to relinquish their weapons, effectively amounting to a surrender.

Washington, D. C. experienced a major flood.

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Cattle Time

Some sort of cleric in Imperial Russia, although I don't know the details.  I'm under the impression that Russian Orthodox Priests were not allowed to hunt, although Catholic ones certainly are.  Neither faith precludes hunting in any fashion, but I'm with the impression that the Orthodox ones may not due to their vows.  I could well be in error.  It's worth noting that the first Pope, St. Peter, was a Fish Hunter, which most people call a "fisherman".¹

This is a very interesting post:

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Cattle Time: Every spring I seriously revaluate whether running cows compliments the demands of my priestly vocation or not. As far as I can see, it agai...

I at first linked it in here, and then in pondering on it, I commented on the original post as well.  I'm adapting my comments to this here, and greatly expanding on them.

I've known a few Priests over the years, and been friends with a very small numbers. I found that the one that I related to best, on a personal level, was one from a radically different foreign culture, which was in part due to his intellect, but which was in part also due to the fact that he came from a highly rural background, as do I.

I've said from time to time that "I like men to have the bark on", by which I mean I like men to be men. When I was a kid, I recall my father being good friends with a Catholic Priest who would come to the house fairly often, and who shared a rural Nebraska background with my father. Their topics of conversation tended to be about bird hunting and fishing.²  Likewise, I recall my father stopping to pick up the Bishop and a priest traveling with him on the highway, as their car had died. The Bishop piled in our single cab truck and asked, "was the fishing any good?"

In contrast, at least one Priest I tried to reach out and be friendly with was absolutely unapproachable, as he seemingly couldn't talk about anything other than the Faith in an immediate context, and was hesitant to do even that in a ranging way.

Don't get me wrong, but what I think is that Priests have to be relatable to be effective. Christ went out amongst the tax collectors and the publicans. Peter was a fisherman. Paul was a tentmaker. I don't know for sure, but I'd guess that if I'd run into Paul in context, I probably could have asked him "what's wrong with the seam on my tent" and have gotten an answer.

All of which is a long roundabout way of saying that I suspect your work as a stockman enhances a priest's calling as a priest, where it's genuine.

Fr. Allan Travers, S.J., who like Moonlight Graham, only got to play once in the major leagues.  He's supposedly the only Catholic Priest, which he was not yet at the time, to play in the Major Leagues, although I'd question that.

As do other (dare I say it?) manly things.  Hunting and fishing, going to baseball and football games, having a glass of Old Bushmills at a tavern.

At an upcoming synod, Pope Francis will have women religious vote for the first time.  I'm not going to second guess the Pope on that, but I'd note that one of the significant problems that "main line" Protestant religions, which are dying as the Reformation falls and fails (more on that later), have is that they've become highly feminized.  Setting aside the theological nature of this, it's a practical problem as it emphasizes a feminist view that there's no difference between men and women, when men and women know that there are.  This process attaches to the motherly, or sisterly, role of Christianity and diminishes from the fatherly in a way that frankly weakens it.  While I've seen no data on it, I suspect it also contributes to men dropping out of their parishes.

Catholicism isn't immune from this, although at least in the US it's pulling away from it.  For years, the Faith has struggled in a quiet struggle between the very orthodox and the Boomers, with the Boomers often taking a pretty liberal view.  Parish councils are often packed with Boomer women who look to the 60s and 70s as a golden era.  Younger Catholics do not tend to.  And, even though the rules pertaining to Extraordinary Ministers provide that they're only to be used if there's an absolute need, at almost any Mass an army of middle-aged to elderly women will pop up as soon as it is time to administer Communion.³  Protestant Churches that tend to retain a very strong male presence tend to be "Evangelical" Churches, although this is certainly not universal.

All of this is not to discourage a role for women in churches, but rather to encourage a male one.  Not every guy wants to be in the Knights of Columbus (I don't), but quite a few might enjoy taking a priest fly-fishing, bird hunting or go out for a beer.  Indeed, it's easier to relate to a guy on a guy's level if you know that he has some of the same interests that you do, other than the Faith.

When my father was in the Air Force during the Korean War, he played cards regularly with a group of friends.  My father, like his siblings, was a great card player.  His friends included a group of other Air Force officers, including at least two other dentists, and a Catholic Priest.  They were a mixed group, only my father and the priest were Catholic, but they were all united in their love of card games.

During that same era, the Korean War, Marine Corps general Chesty Puller actually received a complaint from a Protestant Chaplain asking the general to order Catholic chaplains to quit playing cards with enlisted men, as it was causing them to convert to Catholicism.  The general didn't do it.

There's something to think about there.

Footnotes:

1.  I've seen the no hunting for Orthodox priests somewhere in print, but I also have that impression from the fact that two Russian Orthodox priests stayed with my aunt and uncle for a time, while touring the US. This was in the 1970s, long before the fall of the Soviet Union.  They told my aunt and uncle that.

They also left an English language book that I scanned at some point, which was very carefully measured in its tone, particularly regarding the Russian Orthodox views about ending the schism.

2.  A lot of their conversation was fairly intellectual.

One random comment that stuck with me was the priest's comment about the spread of deodorant use by men, which is now universal.  The priest was bothered by it as he recalled how at the end of the work day, men came home smelling of the sweat of their honest labor.

3.  This fits in the "pet peeve" category, although I actually heard a guest Priest mention the same thing on a recent episode of Catholic Stuff You Should Know.

Extraordinary Ministers are just that, extraordinary for extraordinary conditions.  However, since their introduction they've become common place and even at a Mass at which there is only a normal amount of parishioners in attendance, they tend to be used.  Priests in earlier decades managed to conduct a Mass to a full congregation without ever needing to use them, and for the most part, they are unnecessary now.  However, like other such accommodations, once introduced, it is hard to reverse, and the people who are Extraordinary Ministers are sincere Catholics whom the Priest no doubt does not want to turn away, even from a volunteer mission.

Having said that, I actually witnessed at a recent Mass a Priest turning a volunteer Eucharistic Minister back.  I don't know what to make of it, as he usually does use them, but he's highly orthodox and had the services of a deacon on that day.  A middle-aged/older woman stood up at Communion time and with a wave of the hand, he sent her back.

The Beset Posts of the Week of April 23, 2023

The best posts of the week of April 23, 2023

Lying to Americans about the budget.

Governor Gordon Calls on Public to Participate in Marton Ranch BLM Comment Period

 

Governor Gordon Calls on Public to Participate in Marton Ranch BLM Comment Period

CHEYENNE, Wyo. - Today, Governor Mark Gordon called for Wyoming citizens to provide comments on the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) preliminary environmental assessment (EA) that provides supplemental analysis to the Marton Ranch Acquisition EA. On Friday, April 21, the BLM Casper Field Office released their supplemental analysis of the Marton Ranch purchase and announced a 21-day public comment period, closing Friday, May 12, 2023.

This announcement by the BLM is a result of a settlement agreement between Wyoming and the BLM following the BLM’s purchase of the 35,670-acre Marton Ranch. The State of Wyoming appealed the BLM’s decision with the Department of Interior’s Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA) in June 2022 and reached a settlement with the BLM and IBLA in October 2022. The BLM agreed to provide additional opportunities for state agencies and public comments and supplement its environmental analysis. 

“Embracing multiple use principles, which in this case includes increased public access, on public lands has many benefits to the public and Wyoming. That is why I did not oppose this project but opposed the process used. Meaningful public input and environmental analysis are critical steps in any federal land acquisition process, and this public comment period is necessary to fulfill the agreement between the BLM and the State of Wyoming,” Governor Gordon stated. “I encourage interested members of the public to take advantage of this time to be involved. I also appreciate the cooperation and communication with the Wyoming and Casper BLM offices, who have ensured our state agencies were consulted during the supplemental analysis. I look forward to the future land-use planning process and seeing what opportunities the future of this land may hold.” 

From the BLM’s announcement: Comments will be accepted in writing or through the BLM’s ePlanning website linked below. To review the preliminary EA or to submit comments, visit https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/2018049/510. Hard copy comments can be mailed or hand-delivered to the BLM Casper Field Office, Attn: Mike Robinson, 2987 Prospector Dr., Casper, WY 82604. For more information, please call the Casper Field Office at (307) 261-7600.

Wars and Rumors of War, 2023, Part 4. Бездоріжжя

The 2024 Election, Part III. Spring shoots

The Post Insurrection. The Defendant. Part VI

Adoption in the past

Blog Mirror: 870: On Reading Sigmund Fraud

Thrusday, April 29, 1943. The sinking of the McKeesport.

The SS McKeesport was sunk by a U-boat, which lead to a convoy battle that took place that, in the end, sent 47 U-boats to the bottom of the Atlantic.

Forty-seven.  That's really remarkable.

The McKeepsport has not been forgotten.

Sarah Sundin notes:

Today in World War II History—April 29, 1943: 80 Years Ago—Apr. 29, 1943: US War Labor Board demands equal pay for equal work for women in war industries, retroactive to April 5.

She also notes:  

US Civil Air Patrol is transferred from the Office of Civilian Defense to the War Department as an Army Air Force auxiliary.

Strikes spread in the Netherlands, commencing on this day, in reaction to a German decision to reclaim released Dutch POWs.  They had been paroled under conditions that they not rejoin combat, a common parole condition for centuries, but many had instead entered the resistance.

British poster urging natural gas conservation.

Sunday, April 29, 1923. No to the World Court

No to the World Court was the GOP theme.  Probably not a lot different from it would be now.

Out Our Way depicted a man and a boy hunting for night crawlers, no doubt to use as bait fishing.

I recall doing the very same thing as a kid.