Wednesday, May 20, 2026

Thursday, May 20, 1926. Trains and Planes.

President Coolidge signed the Air Commerce Act providing for the licensing of pilots and commercial aircraft.  He also signed the Railway Labor act abolishing the Railroad Labor Board.

The Air Commerce Act provided for an  Aeronautics Branch within the U.S. Department of Commerce to implement and enforce regulations and is depicted as a story element in the film The Great Waldo Pepper.  The film accurately portrays the role of the Aeronautics Branch in brining barnstorming to an end.

1930 photograph by Ernst Udet, German fighter pilot in World War One and Luftwaffe officer during World War Two, upon whom the movie character Ernst Kessler is based in the movie The Great Waldo Pepper.  Udet was a barnstormer in the 1920s.

Last edition:

Wednesday, May 19, 1926. Bad coinage idea.


Mid Week at Work. Some Agrarians.

The Agrarian's Lament: "Sheep Are In My Blood": San Diego Woman Fell In L...:   "Sheep Are In My Blood": San Diego Woman Fell In Love With Ranching With Wyoming Help

Tuesday, May 19, 2026

The Founding Fathers would’ve gotten rid of Trump long ago

 

The Founding Fathers would’ve gotten rid of Trump long ago

The 25th Amendment Watch List, Seventeenth Edition: The Doctors are In.

 May 19, 2026

Sunday, May 19, 1946. Food protests in Japan.

Protests against the Japanese government occurred in the form of the People's Rally for Obtaining Food.

The news did appear in the Rocky Mountain News, but the aversion of a rail strike is what was on the front page.



Last edition:

Friday, May 3, 1946. War Crime Trials in Tokyo and the Battle of Alcatraz

Wednesday, May 19, 1926. Bad coinage idea.

The first and only US coin, so far, to feature a sitting President, the United States Sesquicentennial Half Dollar was issued.


Hopefully this break in tradition will never be repeated.

Zhang Renjie became the first Chairman of the Kuomintang.  His influence would later decline and he immigrated to the United States in 1937.

The French Air Force bombed Damascus.

Last edition:

Saturday, May 15, 1926.

Monday, May 18, 2026

The Agrarian's Lament: Massie of Kentucky.

The Agrarian's Lament: Massie of Kentucky.: Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky, under constant attack from demented New  York real estate developer Donald Trump, milled h...

Massie of Kentucky.

Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky, under constant attack from demented New  York real estate developer Donald Trump, milled his own lumber, chiseled stone, and formed iron to hand build his own house.

Massie actually is what Republicans claim to want to be, but aren't.  He's a far cry from Chuck Gray who went right to work for his daddy's radio station.

And he's sure a lot closer to Lincoln than Trump is.

Trump goes to China, without any cards It's enough to make the Nixon era seem like the good old days.

 

Trump goes to China, without any cards

It's enough to make the Nixon era seem like the good old days.

Sunday, May 17, 2026

Brewing the last Schlitz beer in Wisconsin

End of an era:

Brewing the last Schlitz beer in Wisconsin

Drinking a Thomas Jefferson Spiced Toddy


 

Eating Like James Madison For an Entire Day: Girl Dinners, Madeira, Drinkable Chocolate


 

Wednesday, May 17, 1876. Gen. Terry's command leaves Ft. Abraham Lincoln.

Gen. Alfred H. Terry left a substantial detachment from Ft. Abraham Lincoln. The large detachment included companies from the 6th and 17th Infantry regiments and the entire 7th Cavalry, the latter under the command of Lt. Col. Custer.

Last edition:

Monday, May 15, 1876. President Grant established the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation

The Best Post of the Week of May 10, 2026. Going Feral, the Feral Week of May 3 and 10, 2026. The Agrarian's Lament, the Agrarian Week of May 3 and 10, 2026.

The best posts of the week of May 10, 2026

Wednesday, May 10, 1911. Madero takes Juarez in spite of himself.





King Donald's War, Part 5. Quagmire. The $25,000,000,000 and thirteen American lives later, "So we (but not Donald) were in Vietnam for 18 years. Iraq, many, many years....I've been doing this for...six weeks" Edition.











The History of the Patrol Cap.






The Feral Week of May 3, 2026.

The Agrarian's Lament:  The Agrarian Week of May 3, 2026.

The Aerodrome:   The week in aviation for May 3, 2026.

Sunday, May 3, 2026

Discount airline Spirit dissolves.

 It was a victim of high aviation fuel, something brought about by Donald Trump's illegal attack on Iran.


Last edition:


he Best Post of the Week of May 3, 2026.

Saturday, May 16, 2026

The Manchurian Candidate. It's like Donald Trump and MAGA really are the Reds.

The hammer and cycle in red. . . it might as well be the symbol of the Trump presidency.

We've remarked before on how the GOP has adopted the color red, the color of the far left, as it's own.  That's beginning to seem more appropriate than ever.

Our dim illegitimate chief executive has gone to China and returned.  In the process, it seems clear that he's getting ready to abandon Taiwan.

Trump's entire trip to China was a complete and utter humiliation for the United States.  An embarrassment of the highest order.  But it fits a pattern.

Trump loves Russia's Putin.  He's super impressed with Xi.  He's kind of a bit of a fan boy to Kim Jong Un.  He loved Orban who was a Putin ally.

If our adversaries from former Communist states had conspired to place into office a man to act as a sleeper agent, they could not have succeeded more wildly than Donald Trump has done without being one. . . presumably.  He's brought a US that was already in trouble down from a world power to a second rate collapsing nation.  It's utterly incredible.

Women Wearing Hair Scarves in the 1940s & 1950s

 When I was young I recall my mother  commonly doing this, which would have been in the 60s and 70s.

Women Wearing Hair Scarves in the 1940s & 1950s

Friday, May 15, 2026

Scott Clem: Pride, Principle, And Who's Really Pulling The Strings

 

Scott Clem: Pride, Principle, And Who's Really Pulling The Strings

The huge hosting space the Federal Government already has in Washington, D.C.


The Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium.  

It has a 1,000 person capacity, more than Trump's absurd proposed ballroom.

China is Closing In on Taiwan.

With China having just been visited by our extraordinarily weak, and increasingly demented chief executive, this really bears watching.


Trump's illegal war on Iran has depleted US weapons reserves massively and wasted them on hard ground targets, something military analysts know is ineffective.  We have less of an ability to counter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan now than at any point since. . . well. . . probably 1947.

The likelihood of it happening his high.

The likelihood of Trump doing utterly nothing if it does happen is also high.

In 1949, when mainland China fell to the Communists, Republicans howled over "who lost China?"  In 2026 or 2027 when Taiwan falls, they'll probably just kneel to their beloved, Donald Trump.

The question will be, why?

The History of the Patrol Cap.

 


Just War 101: Catholic Teaching for a Dangerous Moment

 

Just War 101: Catholic Teaching for a Dangerous Moment

Saturday, May 15, 1926.

 


Last edition:

Wednesday, May 12, 1926. The May Coup.

Monday, May 15, 1876. President Grant established the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation

President Grant established the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation near Palm Springs, California.

Last edition:

Wednesday, May 10, 1876. Opening of the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the Soil and Mine.