Tuesday, October 26, 1915. Coaxing the Afghanis.

Bulgarian troops executed 120 sick or wounded Serbian troops under orders of their commander Aleksandar Protogerov.

A German delegation met with Emir of Afghanistan Habibulla Khan to try to persuade the Afghanis to throw in with the Germans.

A Denver boy was being accused by the Canadians of being a spy.

And there was a confession on the Plan of San Diego.

Last edition:

Sunday, October 24, 1915. Arab Revolt, Marine Heroes.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Arab Revolt, Battle of Fort Dipitie, boats and ships, Bulgarian Army, Dan Daly, Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, Smedley Butler, United Kingdom, United States Marine Corps, World War One

Monday at the Bar: Courthouses of the West: Scottsbluff County Courthouse, Gering Nebraska

Courthouses of the West: Scottsbluff County Courthouse, Gering Nebraska:

Blog Mirror: Convert a Used Grain Bin to a New House

A grain bin as housing?

Hmmm.  Seems like a bad idea for some reason.

Churches of the West: Church of Christ, Lander Wyoming

Churches of the West: Church of Christ, Lander Wyoming:

I don't know the age of this church, or its current use, but it was under reconstruction at the time this photograph was taken.

THE CLAN - I'LL TELL ME MA - OFFICIAL VIDEO

I'll tell me ma
When I go home
The boys won't leave
The girls alone
They pulled my hair
They stole my comb
But that's alright
'Til I go home
She is handsome she is pretty
She is the belle of Belfast city
She is a-courting one, two, three
Please would you tell me who is she

Albert Mooney says he loves her
All the boys are fighting for her
They knock at the door
And they ring at the bell saying
"oh, my true love are you well"
Out she comes as white as snow
Rings on her fingers
And bells on her toes
Ol' Jenny Murray says she'll die
If she doesn't get the fellow with the roving eye

I'll tell me ma
When I go home
The boys won't leave
The girls alone
They pulled my hair
They stole my comb
But that's alright
Til I go home
She is handsome she is pretty
She is the belle of Belfast city
She is a-courting one, two, three
Please would you tell me who is she

Let the wind and the rain and the breeze blow high
And the snow come falling from the sky
She's as sweet as apple pie
She'll get her own lad by and by
When she gets a lot of her own
She won't tell her ma when she gets home
Let them all come as they will
For Albert Mooney she loves still

I'll tell me ma
When I get home
The boys won't leave
The girls alone
They pulled my hair
They broke my comb
But that's alright
'Til I get home
She is handsome she is pretty
She is the belle of Belfast city
She is courting one, two, three
Please would you tell me who is she

Albert Mooney says he loves her
All the boys are fighting for her
Knock at the door
And they ring at the bell saying
"oh, my true love are you well"
Out she comes as white as snow
Rings on her fingers
And bells on her toes
Ol' Jenny Murray says she'll die
If she doesn't get the fellow with the roving eye

I'll tell me ma
When I go home
The boys won't leave
The girls alone
They pulled my hair
They stole my comb
But that's alright
Til I go home
She is handsome she is pretty
She is the belle of Belfast city
She is courting one, two, three
Please would you tell me who is she

Churches of the West: Blog Mirror: This Day In Wyoming History: Dedicat...

Churches of the West: Blog Mirror: This Day In Wyoming History: Dedicat...: Today marks the 100th anniversary of the dedication of Wyoming’s first synagogue – Mt. Sinai in Cheyenne.

Sunday, October 24, 1915. Arab Revolt, Marine Heroes.

Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner of Egypt sent a letter to Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca confirming support for Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire and creating an independent Arab state.

The Bulgarian First Army broke through the Serbian line at Pirot in southeastern Serbia.

Haitian rebels attacked a Marine Corps patrol lead by Smedley Butler resulting in an all night fights.  Butler, Edward Albert Ostermann and William P. Upshur would win the Congressional Medal of Honor.  Dan Daly would win a second Medal of Honor.

Smedley Butler in 1929.

The heroic Butler was one of the greatest Marines of all time, retiring as a Major General, and went on to be an anti war politician close to the end of his life.  He'd win two Congressional Medals of Honor in his career and sadly die of cancer in 1940 at age 58. The condition he died of, is one that I have had, slighter later in age, and detected earlier.

Dan Daly

The almost absurdly heroic Daly is one of the most decorated Marine of all time.  He'd pass away at age 63 in 1937.  

Daly was a short man, 5'6", and an Irish Catholic.  He's not buried in Arlington as he wanted to be buried near his home, in New York.

Edward Ostermann

Ostermann had started his career off in the Army and then switched to the Marine Corps.  He'd been a musician in the Army.  His career which would see him obtain the rank of Major General, lasted until 1943 at which time he was refused a combat command due to physical infirmity, and retired.  He died in 1969 at age 86.

William P. Upshur.

Upshur also obtained the rank of Major General but was in a very senior command when he was killed in an airplane crash in Alaska in 1943 at the age of 61.

The Endurance was abandoned when the hull was breached by ice. The crew transferred to lifeboats.

Givanni BattistaTiepolo's frescos in the Church of the Scalzi in Venice were destroyed by naval gunfire.

Last edition:

Saturday, October 23, 1915. Marching for the vote.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Art, Blog Mirror, boats and ships, German Kriegsmarine, Industry, Ohio (Cleveland), Sarah Stilwell-Weber, The roles of men and women, Whatever It Is I'm against it, Women, World War One

The Big Speech: Chesterton on Democracy

The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.

G.K. Chesterton: What I Saw In America, 1922.

Fur for the Future

Saturday, October 23, 1915. Marching for the vote.

25,000 women marched, some on horseback, up Fifth Avenue in New York City to advocate for women’s suffrage.

In the UK, the Prime Minister intervened on behalf of women munitions workers:

Whatever It Is, I’m Against It: Today -100: October 23, 1915: It was not a mere co...: British Munitions Minister David Lloyd George says woman munitions workers will get equal pay for skilled work. Evidently the pope is prot...

And the controversy over the killing of Edith Cavell continued. 

The SMS Prinz Adablert was sunk by the HMS E8 with the loss of 672 men out of 675, the German Navy's single largest loss of life in the Baltic during World War One.

The British troopship Marquette went down in the Aegean with the loss of 167 lives.

Saturday magazines were out.

Members of American Iron and Steel Institute inspecting the ore docks, Cleveland, Oct. 23, 1915

Last edition:

Friday, October 22, 1915. Carranza promises to help.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Blog Mirror, Bulgarian Army, Constitutionalist Army, French Army, Joseph Joffre, Mexican Border War, Sedicionistas, Venustiano Carranza, Whatever It Is I'm against it, World War One

Blog Mirror: The Women's Land Army "Farmettes" for Suffrage During World War I

 

An article on the The Women's Land Army.

Trudeau to end Canadian support of "IMPACT"

The Canadian military has been involved in combating ISIL through the use of its air assets Operation IMPACT the western air campaign against ISIL

However, this is apparently slated to end under the new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. Taking the position that humanitarian aid will better serve in this matter for his country rather than the use of force, he  has indicated that his country's military will be withdrawn.  In something that comes across as a bit surreal, the Canadian forces continue to post their daily activities against ISIL and likely will right up until they leave, which we have to wonder is intended as a bit of a message of their view. 

Trudeau hearkens back to Canadian recollections of an era when they occupied a position in the world, not that long ago, that was somewhat like that of Ireland.  Never getting involved in armed conflicts and viewing its role as a humanitarian peacemaker, a role which it imagines, with some justification, brought it respect and a unique position in the family of nations.  That can't really be denied, but then there is something to looking at the actual nature of the contests and the context of the times as well. Certainly up until Pierre Trudeau Canada had not been too shy about getting involved in earlier conflicts when it saw a just cause involved in them, and it contributed significant forces the Allied cause in World War One, World War Two, and the Korean War.  And once you get in a war, getting back out by declaration might not send the message its intended to.

Indeed, treating something clearly evil as simply having a difference of views with your own, or as a mere humanitarian disaster, is another thing entirely than being a peacemaker between two contesting sides, which is what makes this particular retreat from involvement perhaps questionable.  There's a fundamental difference from taking a stand apart position, as Canada did during the Vietnam War, when the defining lines are less clear, as opposed perhaps to something like World War Two, when they were quite clear.  This isn't the Second World War, of course, but ISIL is one of the most violent and extreme forces to arrive upon the scene for many years.  It's hard to see how any nation can act as an honest broker with it, when it sees itself as having a Divine mission to establish an Islamic theocracy and can tolerate nothing other.  And not only an Islamic theocracy, but an extreme Sunni one that doesn't even tolerate much of other Islamic habits.

I certainly do not think, of course, that every nation must involve itself in every war the United States enters, and the US did not enter the fray in Syria, and I didn't think it should have, until quite late.  Not by any means. Every nation must decide such things for itself.  But with ISIL in Syria and Iraq we see a uniquely horrible entity that would kill everyone who didn't convert to its extreme Islamic views.  Trudeau's government will soon be taking in refugees from that conflict, as every nation that can should be. That makes the withdrawal in this context at least some what problematic.  Do we leave ISIL in place in Iraq, and must every nation with the means to contest it do so?  Would taking in Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany have allowed a nation not to fight the Nazis if called upon to do so?  And if the answer to that is no, and presumably it is, who must participate?  Ireland didn't participate directly in World War Two (although it certainly did indirectly) and has suffered in public opinion for that ever since.  But they were a small nation, should they have done so, or did merely contributing manpower voluntarily, as well as some naval spotting suffice?  Sweden likewise has suffered for its failure to enter the war in public opinion, although it frankly could have done little in reality. Public opinion is always clear in hindsight, but these retrospective condemnations perhaps tells us something.

Questions like this are always tricky in the end. When  the US started extending Lend Lease aid to the United Kingdom during World War Two, there were many in Congress who opposed it, just as the Liberals apparently do here, and the majority of the American public might very well have opposed it, just as the majority of Canadians might disfavor their being involved militarily in the Middle East.  Franklin Roosevelt justified his action at that time by arguing that you couldn't deny the neighbor the use of the garden hose if his house was on fire. We have to at least ask if an analogy like that is applicable here. 

Of course, every nation must decide such matters on their own.  But each should be careful in getting in and getting out.  I felt, and still do, that the mess in Syria was being entirely misread, and that in large part contributed to the situation we have now with ISIL being such a power there.  But now that ISIL is such a power, does any Western nation dare not to contest it?

And of course we've had to reappraise our withdrawal from Afghanistan, a tacit reminder that we withdrew prematurely from Iraq.

Friday, October 22, 1915. Carranza promises to help.

General Joseph Joffre declared a "moral victory" at Champagne in spite of no French objectives having been reached.

The Bulgarians crossed the South Morava River near Vranje, Serbia.

Carranza promised to help address cross border raids.

Whatever It Is, I’m Against It: Today -100: October 22, 1915: A crime dwarfing eve...: At a Trafalgar Day service in the Church of St. Martin’s in the Fields, the Bishop of London calmly discusses the execution of Edith Cavel..

Last edition:

Thursday, October 21, 1915. Ojo de Agua.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Army, Battle of Krivolak, Bulgarian Army, cavalry, Constitutionalist Army, Mexican Border War, Ojo de Agua Raid, Sedicionistas, Signal Corps, United Daughters of the Confederacy, World War One

The City of Casper Smoking Ballot Issue

REFERENDUM BALLOT PROPOSITION ON ORDINANCE NO. 15-13: 

AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CERTAIN SECTIONS OF CHAPTER 8.16 OF THE CASPER MUNICIPAL CODE, PERTAINING TO SMOKING IN PUBLIC PLACES.

Ordinance No. 15-13 of the Casper Municipal Code, captioned “An Ordinance Amending Certain Sections of Chapter 8.16 of the Casper Municipal Code, Smoking in Public Places,” allows smoking in taverns, lounges, or bars, enclosed areas within places of employment or service establishments not open to the public, areas of health care facilities not open to the general public or non-smoking residents or patients, private offices by employees, and private clubs when not open to the public. These locations were previously included in, and subject to, the ban against smoking in public places. 

FOR –           Adopts Ordinance No. 15-13, which results in allowing smoking in taverns, lounges, or bars, enclosed areas within places of employment or service establishments not open to the public, areas of health care facilities not open to the general public or non-smoking residents or patients, private offices by employees, and private clubs when not open to the public. 

AGAINST – Rejects Ordinance No. 15-13, which would reinstate the prohibition of smoking in taverns, lounges, and bars, employment and service establishments, health care facilities, private offices by employees, and private clubs.


___________________________________________________________________________________

So, voting "FOR" means smoking is allowed back into bars that elect to allow it.

Voting "AGAINST" means the ban stays as is, and smoking in any public place is prohibited.

No Help Wanted

Somebody pointed out to me that a good indicator of the state of the local economy is the help wanted ads. So I started looking at them recently.

Not all that long ago, the there were columns after columns of jobs being advertised for, many in the oil industry or those that support them.  Man, has that changed.

There's only about five or so jobs in the entire section being advertised now.  As I wondered if this only reflected the weekday paper, I looked again on the weekend.  Same deal, hardly any advertisements at all.

I suppose some of that may simply have to do with the decline in the newspapers as a medium for everything, but most of that is certainly due to a massive drop off in unfilled jobs.

I keep hearing people state that the local economy isn't really hurting.  Hard to believe that, based upon what I'm actually observing.

Huh? Preceptions of rural

Here in this rural Long Island community.

From a New York Times Article.

What on earth does that mean?

Thursday, October 21, 1915. Ojo de Agua.

The U.S. Army and Sedicionistas fought at Ojo de Agua, Texas in the last clash between those two forces.  Sedicionistas, being Constitutionalist, had lost their incentive to fight in Texas given the recent U.S. recognition of Carranza of the de facto ruler of Mexico.  The initial attack was upon signalmen housed in the building depicted above and commenced at 1:00 a.m.  The gunfire attracted cavalry reinforcements.

Three U.S. soldiers, including the NCO in command, Sergeant Schaffer, were killed and eight wounded. The Sediciosos lost five men dead and at least nine others wounded, two of whom later died.  A Japanese man and two Carrancista soldiers were found among the dead.  No further raids by Sedcionistas or those supporting the Constitutionalist occurred, although this raid reinforced the view by American officers that Carranza was not trustworthy.

The rescuing cavalry detachments, it might be noted, came from 2 and 8 miles away, with the latter coming up just as the Mexican forces withdrew.

Elsewhere, other U.S. Army units in Texas were at the State Fair.

Bulgarian troops were repulsed by the British in the Battle of Krivolak.

Whatever It Is, I’m Against It: Today -100: October 21, 1915: All the forces of wi...: Russia declares war on Bulgaria (actually on the 18th, but they didn’t tell anyone for a couple of days). Britain offers Greece a present...

The United Daughters of the Confederacy held their first annual meeting outside the Southern United States, in San Francisco. 

Eight "Russian" children who dropped of elementary school in Sterling, Colorado to work in the beet harvest.  It's not clear to me if they're Russians, or Russian Americans. They might in fact have been Russian refugees, but 1915, would be early for that.

Last edition:

Wednesday, October 20, 1915. Arms okay for Carranza.

Labels: Balkans, Constitutionalist Army, Convention of Aguascalientes, Louis Botha, Macedonia, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Thanksgiving, The roles of men and women, Venustiano Carranza, Woodrow Wilson, World War One

Mid Week at Work: Hauling timber on the Government Railroad, Seward Alaska

Budget cuts or no, the $5,000,000 will still be forthcoming

From the Associated Press:

LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) - Despite dire budget forecasts, Gov. Matt Mead said he supports continuing a state program that matches dollar-for-dollar contributions of up to $5 million to University of Wyoming athletics.'

“What we’ve got started here at UW with regard to athletics, with regard to engineering, the science initiative, I don’t want that momentum to stop,” Mead told the Casper Star-Tribune.

We're freezing the budget but we're making sure that UW athletics will obtain $5,000,000 under aforementioned program?

Something seems amiss with that.

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: 5 Periods of Wyoming History

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: 5 Periods of Wyoming History: Wyoming historians divide the history of the state into five periods. Thought it might be fun to take those five periods and try to list my...

The Canadian election, what was it about?

For those following the news today, Canada took a left turn yesterday and returned the Liberals to power, and with them, elected Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister.  Signalling the left turn, or perhaps a u-turn, Trudeau stated "Tonight Canada is becoming the country it was before."

So what was the election really about?

Calls to return a country to a prior era are usually a conservative cri de coeur.  But in Steven Harper's Canada, the opposite seems to be the case.  Harper, the long serving Conservative Prime Minister, drew an increasing amount of ire in this campaign, although he'd been drawing it anyway. As I recently mentioned, it was never really easy from the outside, even for somebody who somewhat follows Canadian politics as I do, as I have a personal reason for being interested in it, to know what exactly it was that Harper did that so offended people. Even now, I really don't know.

What seems to have been the case is that he was, by American standards, mildly conservative and insistent in taking the country in that direction.  Canadian conservatism shares some elements with American conservatism, particularly in the Canadian West (where Harper did well), but it features many dissimilarities.  A Canadian Conservative is to American Conservatism what a Wyoming Democrat is to the national Democrats.  Not really conservative but more middle of the road.

A lot of this election seemed simply directed at Harper himself, and sort of on a personal level, but it's never been clear from the outside exactly what he did.  One voter was quoted in the Washington Post as saying “I normally vote Conservative, but this election I wavered between him and the other parties because Harper can be a bit of a bully, but, in the end, I like what he’s done.”  That view seems fairly common, although clearly the animosity towards him is deeper than that.  It must be, because in order to overturn a government, in a parliamentary election, you have to turn out a local member of parliament.  It's parliament that chooses the Prime Minister.

Beyond that, quite a few people seem to be upset with the economy, which Harper tied to oil production, and with a mild turn to the right in a country which is mildly to the left, by American standards.  Harper was sort of recognizable to Americans as sort of a Western states Democrat, but most Canadians are East Coast Canadians.  Harper hasn't been aggressive on global warming, has been somewhat willing to use the Canadian armed forces overseas, and has been mildly sympathetic with other conservative views.  

One of the oddest things I've seen cited about this election is that some Canadians seem to feel that electing Trudeau will help repair Canadian relations with President Obama, which have been chilly.  Harper the conservative hasn't been getting along real well with Obama the liberal.  But those comments reveal the depth to which voters of one nation fail to understand the political system in another.  At this point President Obama is a lame duck to whom his own party need not pay attention. It doesn't make any difference in anything if Justin Trudeau gets along famously with Barrack Obama, as the moving vans are already in action in regards to the White House.  It will make a difference if he gets along well with the next President, but right now we don't know who that will be and the American election campaign has been particularly odd so far this cycle.

Harper noted that "the people are never wrong" in accepting the results, and this is particularly true when looking at the politics of another nation. Still, as somebody who never knew what it was that Harper did to offend people, I'm not really happy to see Trudeau come in.  I wasn't a fan of his father, and Canada since World War Two has settled into a pattern of political and social thinking that can be worrying.  Some speech in Canada is now beyond the pale in a way that it could never be in the US, mostly out of  a sort of a "it's nice to be nice to the nice" sort of thinking, and whenever the Liberals are in power the Parti Quebecois seems to be assertive.  Beyond that, it seems that the change in direction expresses a vague yearning to return to the Pierre Trudeau era, which is gone.

It is interesting in the context of political trends in the west, but those can only be taken so far.  It's been noted, for example, that the Greeks recently turned hard to the left, and Bernie Saunders remains very much in the running in the Democratic campaign in the US. But then, in the same year Donald Trump is doing well in the US, and just recently the Conservatives did well in the UK, so cross border analysis is probably not terribly revealing.

What may be revealing, at least regarding how unpopular Harper had become for some reason, is that the Liberals were in third place in parliamentary seats prior to this election, and gained 150 seats, a massive rise in their fortunes. The other Canadian left wing part, the New Democratic Party, suffered just as the Conservatives did, loosing 59 seats.  The Conservatives lost 67, but the had more to loose, and in terms of percentage of the parliament they're actually  nearly tied with the Liberals. Of course, with the 59 seats the New Democrats have, they have a comfortable margin in the parliament.The Parti Quebecois gained a few seats at the expense of the New Democrats, although it remains a tiny minority in parliament.  The Canadian Green Party kept a seat in Vancouver, the Portland of Canada.

The Big Speach: Nomen est omen

Nomen est omen.

Roman proverb.  "Names are destiny", or more correctly, Names are omens.  Taken from the play Persa in which a character says, about a slave girl for sale who is named Lucris (Profits), "Nomen atque omen quantivis iam est preti".

So, any merit to that claim?

Tuesday, October 19, 1915. The US extends recognition to Carranza.

The U.S. extended de facto recognition of the  Carranza government. This legitimizes arms shipments to the Constitutionalist.

After a break of a couple of weeks a cross border raid from Mexico occured in which Mexican border raiders boarded a train north of Brownsville and killed several passengers dead.

Italy and Russia declared war on Bulgaria.

Last edition:

Monday, October 18, 1915. Suffrage in New Jersey, Shots at border dance, Constitutionalist advance, Fellowship and beer.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Alcohol, Blog Mirror, Constitutionalist Army, Mexican Border War, New Jersey, Texas, Third Battle of the Isonzo, Women, World War One

Desperate hopes. Opening oil up to export

Many people are likely not aware that, with certain limited exceptions, oil produced in the United States may not be exported outside of North America.  Refined products, like gasoline or diesel fuel, may be. But crude oil may not be.

This came about as a result of the oil crisis of the early 1970s, following the 1973 oil embargo, when many Americans realized that for the first time a country that had been an oil exporter no longer was.  The thinking behind the law is that keeping petroleum oil within the country would guaranty that said oil would be produced at a lower price for the US market.

The thinking on that bill was frankly not all that well thought out. As oil is heavy and has to be transported anyhow, it was always going to be cheaper to refine the oil in the US, rather than export it overseas for refining. That's the same reason that oil products in Saudi Arabia are ridiculously cheap. They have a lot of it right there.  So the bill likely did nothing, but it wasn't harmful either.

For the same reason, the current bill that proposes to lift the export ban, which the President has said he will veto, won't do anything either.  US oil isn't going to suddenly be shipped to Europe or Asia for refining.

Indeed, if we had that much of it, it'd actually drop the price of oil further, as right now we remain an oil importing nation. 

But the logic behind the proposal is interesting.  It's actually claimed it will keep gasoline low at the pumps while boosting domestic production.

No it won't.  The price at the pumps is determined by the cost of the supply, and production is likewise determined by that. At the current prices, very little new U.S. production will be coming on line or explored for.  Simple supply and demand.

It wouldn't hurt anything either, however.  Being a major consumer with a ready market, the oil will be produced here and solder here anyhow.  It's interesting, however, how an idea like this gains currency when the domestic industry is in a slump for reasons beyond our control.

For a little added prospective on this, the U.S. became an oil importing nation in 1948.  Almost immediately after World War Two.  That was coincident with a big boom in our economy, and the dawn of the big car era.