Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Wednesday, October 1, 1924. Jimmy Carter born, William B. Ross starts to pass.

Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States, and the only President to live to age 100, was born in Plains Georgia.


Widely admired personally, he was not a terribly successful President and served one term.

Governor Ross was dying.




Ireland's Defence Forces (Óglaigh na hÉireann) were formed by the unification of the Irish Army, the Irish Naval Service, the Irish Air Corps and the Reserve Defence Forces,'

Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned New York Giants player Jimmy O'Connell and coach Cozy Dolan due to a bribery scandal.



From Michaelnoir on Reddit's 100 Years Ago today:

Last edition:

Tuesday, September 30, 1924. Big Train boards the Train, and the condition of Governor Ross.

Monday, September 30, 2024

Blog Mirror and Commentary: QC: Human Sexuality | January 17, 2024 and the destruction of reality.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Alexander Pope. An Essay on Criticism.

Evelyn Nesbit, model and archetypical Gibson Girl, 1903.

And indeed, I'm likely foolish for bringing up this topic.

Model in overalls . Photos by Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1944.  This is posted under the fair use and other exceptions.  Life, by 1943, was already posting some fairly revealing photographs on its cover, but there was a certain line that it did not really cross until 1953, when it photographed the full nudes of Marilyn Monroe prior to Playboy doing so, in an act calculated to save her career, as it was a respectable magazine.  The publication of nude Monroe's from the 1940s went, to use a modern term, "viral" both in Life and in Playboy showing something was afoot in the culture.  This photo above shows how much things were still viewed differently mid World War Two, with a very demure model demonstrating work pants.

This post actually serves to link in a video posted below, which probably isn't apparent due to all of the introductory photographs and text.  And that's because of all the commentary I've asserted along the way.  

If you do nothing else, watch or listen to the video.

This post might look like a surprising thing to have linked in here, but in actuality, it directly applies to the topic of this website, the same being changes over time.  Or, put another way, how did average people, more particularly average Americans, and more particularly still, average Wyomingites, look at things and experience things, as well as looked at things and experienced things.

This is an area in which views have changed radically, and Fr. Krupp's post really reveals that.

At some point, relatively early in this podcast, Fr. Krupp, quoting from Dr. Peter Craig, notes that what the Sexual Revolution did was subtract, not add, to sex, by taking out of it its fundamental reality, that being that it creates human beings.

That's a phenomenal observation.

And its correct. What the Sexual Revolution achieved was to completely divorce an elemental act from an existential reality, and in the process, it warped human understanding of it, and indeed infantilized it.  That in turn lead, ultimately, the childish individualist focus on our reproductive organs we have today, and a massive focus on sex that has nothing whatsoever to do with reproduction, or at least we think it doesn't.  It's been wholly destructive.

We've addressed that numerous times here in the past and if we have a quibble with the presentation, it would be a fairly minor one, maybe.  Fr. Krupp puts this in the context of artificial birth control, but the process, we feel, had started earlier in the last 1940s with the erroneous conclusions in the Kinsey treatise Sexual Behavior in the Human Mail, which was drawn from prisoners who were available as they had not been conscripted to fight in World War Two and who displayed a variety of deviances, including sexual, to start with. The report was a bit of a bomb thrown into society, which was followed up upon by Hugh Hefner's slick publication Playboy which portrayed all women as sterile and top heavy. Pharmaceuticals pushed things over the edge in the early 60s.

Lauren Bacall, 1943.

The point isn't that prurient interests didn't exist before that time. They very clearly did.  La Vie Parisienne was popular prior to World War Two for that very reason, and films, prior to the production code, were already experimenting with titillation by the 1920s.  But there was much, much less of this prior to 1948 than there was later, and going the other direction, prior to 1920, it would have been pretty rare to have been exposed to such things in average life at all.

Indeed, it's now well known, in spite of what the Kinsey report claimed, that men and women acted very conventionally through the 40s.  Most people, men and women, never had sex outside of marriage.   Things did occur, including "unplanned births" but they were treated much differently and not regarded as the norm.  Included in that, of course, was the knowledge that acting outside of marriage didn't keep things from occuring in the normal and conventional biological sense.

Given that, the normal male's view of the world, and for that matter the normal female's, was undoubtedly much different, and much less sexualized. Additionally, it would have been less deviant than even widely accepted deviances today, and much more grounded in biology.  That doesn't mean things didn't happen, but they happened a lot less, and people were more realistic about what the consequences of what they were doing were in every sense.

Something started to change in the 1940s, and perhaps the Kinsey book was a symptom of that rather than the cause, although its very hard to tell.  Indeed, as early as the 1920s the movie industry, before being reined in, made a very serious effort to sell through sex.  It was society that reacted at the time, showing how ingrained the moral culture was.  That really started to break down during the 1940s.  I've often wondered if the war itself was part of the reason why.

From Reddit, again posted under copyright exceptions.  This is definitely risque and its hard to imagine women doing in this in the 30s, and frankly its pretty hard to imagine them doing it in the 1940s, but here it is.   The Second World War was a massive bloodletting, even worse than the Frist, and to some extent to me it seems like it shattered moral conduct in all sorts of ways, although it took some time to play out.

Kinsey released his book in 1948, and like SLAM Marshall's book Men Under Fire, its conclusions were in fact flat out wrong.  Marshall's book impacted military training for decades and some still site it.  Kinsey's book is still respected even though it contains material that's demonstratively wrong.

By 1953 (in the midst of a new war in Korea) things had slipped far enough that Hugh Hefner was able to introduce a slick publication glorifying women who were portrayed as over endowed, oversexed, dumb, and sterile.  There were efforts to fight back, but they were losing efforts.


Cheesecake photograph of Marilyn Monroe (posted here under the fair use and commentary exceptions to copyright. This photograph must be from the late 1950s or the very early 1960s, which somewhat, but only somewhat, cuts against Fr. Krupp's argument, which is based on the works of Dr. Peter Craig and heavily tied to artificial birth control as the cause of the Sexual Revolution.  I think that's largely correct, but the breakdown had started earlier, as early in 1948 in my view, such that even before the introduction of contraceptive pharmaceuticals a divorce between the reality of sex and reproduction had set in, leading to the "toy" or plaything concept of women that we have today.

And then the pill came, at the same time a society revolution of sorts, concentrated in young people, started to spread around the globe.

We've lost a lot here. A massive amount.  And principal among them are our groundings in the existential, and reality.   And we're still slippping.

QC: Human Sexuality | January 17, 2024.

Related threads:

Sometimes the old ways work best. . .

Mountain Mule Packer Ranch is packing supplies into Weaverville tomorrow. Reach out to 910-885-1402 if you know of specific needs and areas where they can get their mule strings in to help.

Saturday, September 30, 1944. Counteroffensive at Nijmegen.

German troops at Calais surrendered to the Canadians.

British 17 pdr Anti Tank Gun with Bren Gun and Hotchkiss machine gun in foreground.  The Hotchkiss must have been captured

The Germans commenced a counter offensive at Nijmegen with the goal of retaking the salient created by Market Garden.


Adm Fort took command at Palau and announces that Peleliu, Angaur, Ngesebus and Kongauru have been completely occupied. Japanese resistance continued on.

The U-1062 was sunk by the carrier escort USS Fessenden off of Cape Verde.

Last edition:

Friday, September 29, 1944. Soviet amphibious operations and executions.

Tuesday, September 30, 1924. Big Train boards the Train, and the condition of Governor Ross.


 

The newspapers were tracking the condition of Gov. William B. Ross.




Ross had become ill on September 23 after delivering a speech in favor of a severance tax constitutional amendment in Laramie.  He was given an appendectomy on September 25, and it was discovered he was suffering from phlebitis.

Last edition:


In Memorium. Kris Kristofferson.

 


Kristoffer Kristofferson, June 22, 1936., Brownsville, Texas,.

September 28, 2024 (aged 88), Hana, Hawaii, U.S.

Janis Joplin - Me And Bobby McGee (Audio)

Kris Kristofferson - Me And Bobby McGee (1979)


Kris Kristofferson - Vietnam Blues (1993)

Dave Dudley - Vietnam Blues 1966 "Viet Nam Blues" (Country War Songs). Lyric and music by Kris Kristofferson.

Sunday, September 29, 2024

Agitio ter consuli, gemitus britannorum . . .Repellunt barbari ad mare, repellit mare ad barbaros; inter haec duo genera funerum aut iugulamur aut mergimur.

So on this Sunday, 2024, I worked, contrary to God's injunction, like on so many others. As a result, I didn't really catch up with the horrific plight of Appalachia in the wake of Hurricane Helene.

It's awful.

Which makes this the worst, and best, time to note this.

We're headed into a legislative session, and an election season, in which the far right espouses a hatride of the Federal Government.  If you are in Appalachia, and vote for the populists, you are voting to handle this disaster on your own.  If you are in Wyoming, and voting populists, the same is true of the horrible fires we've experienced and are yet to.

If that is your view, don't ask for help, as stupid and cold as not asking for help would be.

We here are distributists, a philosophy that holds things should devolve to the lowest level possible. Here, that level is the Federal government.  Distributism works up, as well as down.

Additionally, how long will we choose to ignore the signs?  We've waited longer than we should have as it is.  There's still time to act, no matter how much it impacts your temrporary pocket books, with you being temporary as it is.

Friday, September 29, 1944. Soviet amphibious operations and executions.

GIs with mess gear standing in the mud in Gothic Line in Apennines. 29 September, 1944. Fifth Army, Route 65, Italy.

The Red Army began the Moonsund Landing Operation, an amphibious operation to take German held Estonian islands.   Some Logistic support was provided by Finland.

The Battle of Arracourt ended with an American victory.


John William Harper preformed the actions that lead to a posthumous Victoria Cross.

The KING has been graciously pleased to approve the posthumous award of the VICTORIA CROSS to: —

No. 4751678 Corporal John William Harper, The York and Lancaster Regiment (Doncaster).

In North-West Europe, on 29th September, 1944, the Hallamshire Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment attacked the Depot de Mendicite, a natural defensive position surrounded by an earthen wall, and then a dyke, strongly held by the enemy. Corporal Harper was commanding . the leading section in the assault. The enemy were well dug in and had a perfect field of fire across 300 yards of completely flat and exposed country. With superb disregard for the hail of mortar bombs and small arms fire which the enemy brought to bear on this open ground, Corporal Harper led his section straight up to the wall and killed or captured the enemy holding the near side. During this operation the platoon commander was seriously wounded and Corporal Harper took over control of the platoon. As the enemy on the far side of the wall were now throwing grenades over the top, Corporal Harper climbed over the wall alone, throwing grenades, and in the face of heavy, close range small arms fire, personally routed the Germans directly opposing him. He took four prisoners and shot several of the remainder of the enemy as they fled. Still completely ignoring the heavy spandau and mortar fire, which was sweeping the area, once again he crossed the wall alone to find out whether it was possible for his platoon to wade the dyke which lay beyond. He found the dyke too deep and wide to cross, and once again he came back over the wall and received orders to try and establish his platoon on the enemy side of it. For the third time he climbed over alone, found some empty German weapon pits, and providing the covering fire urged and encouraged his section to scale the wall and dash for cover. By this action he was able to bring down sufficient covering fire *to enable the rest of the company to cross the open ground and surmount the wall for the loss of only one man. Corporal Harper then left his platoon in charge of his senior section commander and walked alone along the banks of the dyke, in the face of heavy spandau fire, to find a crossing place. Eventually he made contact with the battalion attacking on his right, and found that they had located a ford. Back he came across the open ground, and, whilst directing his company commander to the ford, he was struck by a bullet which fatally wounded him and he died on the bank of the dyke. The success of the battalion in driving the enemy from the wall and back across the dyke must be largely ascribed to the superb self sacrifice and inspiring gallantry of Corporal Harper. His magnificent courage, fearlessness and devotion to duty throughout the battle set a splendid example to his men and had a decisive effect on the course of the operations.

Otto Herfurth, Joachim Meichssner, Fritz von der Lancken, Wilhelm-Friedrich zu Lynar and Joachim Sadrozinski were hung for their rule in the July 20 Plot.

Virginia Turneli, Italian partisan, was burned to death.  

Last edition:

Thursday, September 28, 1944. The Belgrade Offensive and a last telegraph.

Monday, September 29, 1924. Around the world flight completed.

It had actually occurred the day prior, and I failed to note it.

Last edition:

Saturday, September 27, 1924. Politicin'

Friday, September 29, 1899. Veterans of Foreign Wars established.

Today In Wyoming's History: September 291899 Veterans of Foreign Wars established.

The actually history of the founding of the VFW is fairly complicated, and in reality it went from a bunch of local organizations to the national one over a period of years.

Last edition:

Labels: 

Best Posts of the Weeks of September 15 and 22, 2024.

The best posts of the weeks of September 15 and 22, 2024.

Miracle Mile.












Monday, September 25, 1944. Withdrawal at Arnhem.


Friday, September 25, 1964. Gomer Pyle, USMC.




Last edition:

The Best Posts of the Week of September 8, 2024.

Saturday, September 28, 2024

Thursday, September 28, 1944. The Belgrade Offensive and a last telegraph.

Soviet, Yugoslav Partisan, and Bulgarian forces, the latter now in league with the USSR, began the Belgrade Offensive.

Polish Home Army General Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski sent a last telegraph requesting help from the Red Army command for the fighters at Warsaw.  He received no reply.

Churchill announced the formation of a Jewish Brigade.

The US lands on Negesbus and Kongaruru near Peleliu.

Last edition:

Wednesday, September 27, 1944. The Battle of Metz commences.

Monday, September 28, 1874. The Battle of Palo Duro Canyon.

Outnumbered roops under Ranald Mackenzie attacked Cheyenne, Kiowa and Comanche at Palo Duro Canyon bringing about a legendary and significant Army victory in the Red River War and essentially bringing it to a close.

Casualties on both sides were overall light, but the loss of horses and supplies was devastating to the Native side.

Mackenzie is forgotten in the popular memory, although he certainly is not amongst students of the post Civil War Indian Wars.  He was an extremely effective but died a bad death at age 48, which may be part of the reason that he's forgotten.

Last edition:

Friday, September 25, 1874. The Act of September 1874.


A Rookie's Guide to Finnish Brutality, Part 1. (Profanity warning) and A Rookie's Guide to Finnish Brutality, Part 2.

The Best Match Ever: Finnish Brutality 2024 (Day 1)