Man O' War

252339_481023641936070_1377593244_n.jpg (JPEG Image, 491 × 369 pixels)

Spats

This is a photograph of an item on display at the Wyoming Veterans Museum in Natrona County, Wyoming.

 

It's a really nice museum not, having improved tremendously over the years, and with a lot of  very nice displays.  This particular one displays the uniforms of a long serving National Guardsmen and Reservists, who had Federalized service during World War Two.  What surprised me here was the spats.

The reason the spats surprised me is that I didn't think the Army had ever issued spats, or that officers had worn them as an unofficial item, and as far as I can tell, I'm right.  It's natural enough that the donor included these spats in this material, as they look like they belong there. The Army, after all, did issue leggings and puttees, which are similar.  Indeed, leggings are sort of like giant spats.

Army supply  man fitting private with Leggings, World War Two.

Leggings, as a U.S. Army issue item go back at least as far as the early 20th Century.  When the Army started issuing leggings as a matter of course with certainty I"m not sure of, but it seems to have come in during the Spanish American War, which also saw a turn over in uniform designs reflecting the switch from bold colored uniforms to dull colored uniforms which was caused by the introduction of smokeless gunpowder.  Prior to smokeless gunpowder, the military problem was seeing soldiers, and allowing soldiers to see each other, in dense smoke.  Hence the bold colors of that era.  Once smokeless powder arrived, however, the problem became the opposite.  Soldiers in one unit could see each other well enough, but they were also pretty exposed to the enemy.  The British started the ball rolling with a switch to "khaki," which in that case meant any dull earth tone, and the US followed their lead right at the start of the Spanish American War.  Indeed, as the change came right at that point, most soldiers fought the war in an ad hoc uniform made up of bits and pieces of various uniforms.  The old dark blue wool shirt was nearly universal, but cotton duck stable trousers were usually worn in place of wool trousers.  The Army did start issuing leggings right at this time, but not everyone actually received them.

First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry on the San Juan Heights.  Theodore Roosevelt is wearing Army leggings.  One other trooper is wearing a non Army, perhaps leather, pair.  Many aren't wearing any at all.  These soldiers would be wearing cotton duck trousers, except for Roosevelt who is wearing khaki breeches.  The shirts are the blue wool shirt of that period.

Leggings actually saw use well prior to the Spanish American War, and both soldiers and civilians wore them at least as far back as the 18th Century. They were a standard item for both sides in the Revolutionary War, for example.  Some units wore them during the Civil War, although they were not a service wide item in either Army.  After the late 1890s, they'd carry on as an issue item in the Army, Marine Corps, and even the Navy, up through the end of World War Two, although the Army started phasing them out in 1943.  The Marines actually retained them up into the Korean War.  The Navy still issues white ones today as a dress item, on occasion.

At the same time, civilians started wearing them for field duty use as well.

United States Geological Survey, surveyor, wearing leggings, about 1920.

Since World War Two leggings have bit the dust, and now are a historical oddity, save for "gators."  Gators are only worn by certain outdoorsmen, and are a sort of heavy duty baggy legging designed to be worn with low cut boots.  Indeed, leggings in general were only ever worn with low cut boots, which is one of the oddities of them, as they're really a pain and a person would generally always be better off with a higher pair of boots.  Gators survive as certain really heavy mountaineering boots, or back country cross country skiing boots are low cut by necessity.

Okay, so what's that half to do with spats?  Isn't this a post about spats?

Well, maybe everything.

Up until I ran across them I never gave spats much thought, other than that they appear to be a particularly strange clothing item.  My basic supposition is that they were simply strangely decorative, and in the popular imagination, they have come to be associated with the wealthy, or at least the very well dressed, of an earlier era.

A spats wearing Senator Charles Sumner and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

It turns out that spats is actually a shortened version of the actual name, spatterdashes, and that another name for them is "field spats."  Hence, they served a purpose similar to that of leggings, in that they were designed to protect the shoes and socks from the elements.  So, as odd as they now appear to us, they had an entirely practical origin.  In the era in which they were common, people commonly had fewer items of clothing in general, people had to preserve what they had.

Additionally, and very easy for us to forget, people in earlier eras, in every walk of life, were out and about in the rough more than most people are today.  A lawyer, for example, might have spent most of his days in the office, but he had to walk or ride there, and the streets were very unlikely to be paved.  People kept livestock in town, and if he had to make a house call, and they did, that might well be at a farm. So, in other words, not only were his office shoes probably his only pair, and his socks probably hand knitted and one of a very pairs, the whole world was. . . well. . .dirty.  And he had to be out in it a lot more than most people are today.  Hence, they were practical.

Indeed, as an aside, there's a great depiction of this sort of thing in Sense and Sensibility, when the ladies attend a ball, but are warned, upon dismounting from a carriage, that "the horses have been here."  Not just there, they'd been everywhere.  A good reason to wear spats.

How spats became associated with the wealthy I don't know.  They are today, in a cartoon like fashion.  The top hatted Monopoly figure, for example, wears spats.  Maybe the wealthy just had the best shoes, and therefore a need to keep them clean more than other folks.  Anyhow, these were a practical item and, because of that, they're now gone. They were probably a pain to start with, and with no ongoing need for them, they went.

Blog Mirror: Today In Wyoming's History: Sidebar: Hispanics in Wyoming

Today In Wyoming's History: Sidebar: Hispanics in Wyoming: Recently, following St. Patrick's Day , I posted a sidebar on The Irish In Wyoming .  While it is, in no way, an equivalent holiday, we...

Beating the drum for Syrian intervention . . . and lessons from the Spanish Civil War.

I need to get back to the main historical them of this blog, which is beginning to get a bit too far ranging, but I can't help but note the current drum beat for intervention in the Syrian civil war and feel the need to be a pundit, even though there's nothing "historical" about this current event.  

Well, maybe that does actually have some things that are useful for a blog on historical topics. . . 

Anyhow, to start off with, the press, and some politicians, are really ramping up on the US intervening in the Syrian civil war.  It's famously noted that those who cannot remember history are condemned to repeat it, but it's amazing, in our new 24 hour news cycle, how quickly we do that.  The press was excited about getting into Iraq too, only to be opposed to it just seconds after the conventional war became a guerrilla war (really a second war, but an inevitable one).  Now we're doing that with Syria.  Maybe we ought to look a bit more closely at that, and realistically, and . . .take a less from the Spanish Civil War.

Ever since 1939, or at least 1941, historians have liked to look at the Spanish Civil War as World War Two light.  Indeed, some in the US were naively casting the Republicans as democrats right from the onset, so there's an element of miscasting the characters in the war just as we're now doing with the Syrian civil war.  Indeed,  part of the problem with books on the Spanish civil war is that they look at it through the lens of WWII, which is a mistake.   

Democracy was dead in Spain before the first shot was fired.  It had been given a mortal wound in the last election they'd had.  After that, it was going to become a Communist country, the question was just when and how extreme it was going to get.  The evidence is pretty good that it was going to get pretty extreme pretty quickly.  The days of Spanish democracy were failing fast.  For the anti-Communist, or just folks who weren't Communist, the only choice was to look towards somebody to rise up against the inevitable, and the army did that.  It wasn't democratic either, it was monarchist, but the monarchs were no more.

People like to look at it as the democrats vs. the fascists, but it simply isn't true.  It was really the Communist vs the Army.  Everyone else had to fit into that contest somehow, or hope to sit it out and live through it, a very difficult thing to do in a country torn by extremes and fighting a civil war.  If you were a democrat who figured that Communist values were better than monarchical ones, you went with the Communists.  If you were a democrat who figured that the Communist were worse than the Army, you went with the Army. Socialists and Anarchists went with the Communists, for which quite a few were killed by Communists, as Communism everywhere killed off close competitors first.   Fascists and Monarchist went with the Army.  The Basque, as usual, tried to go it alone.

That is the model for Syria.  There are no democrats.  If you are an Islamist, you want the Baath party out and an Islamic republic a la Iran, or pre 2001 Afghanistan, in.  If you are not an Alawite and you are a Moslem you want the government out also, even if you probably don't have any desire for a theocracy to replace the Baath dictatorship.  If you are an Alawite or a Christian, you probably want the Baath Party in, not because it likes everyone, but because it's a secular party that's equal or equally crappy to everyone.  There's not a lot of social melting that goes on in the Middle East, and for the minority groups that threw their lot in with the Baath Party, not out of love, but because it would give them more or less an equal deal, this has to be a nightmare of epic proportions.

The really disturbing thing is that the Press and U.S. interventionist seem wholly ignorant of all of this.  They want us to overthrow the rotten secular quasi fascist Baathists in order to put the rotten crappy really dangerous Islamist in.  We do not stand to benefit from replacing one crappy government with another.  Indeed, as horrible as the Syrian dictatorship is, there's no reason to believe that the replacement Syrian government wouldn't be much worse. 

Christianity was the majority religion in the Middle East up until the Crusader Kingdoms fell in the Islamic invasions in the Middle East (it happened, by the way, that way, and not the other way around).  Even after that, Christian communities hung on for centuries and centuries.  Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Palestine and Iraq proved to be the resilient reservoirs of the Faith.  I note this as our current actions are having the collateral impact of wiping out these ancient regional cultures, which predate the ones we seem so inclined to assist, only to our regret.  Our efforts in Iraq had the collateral impact of really weakening the remaining Christian communities there.  Aiding Al Queda overthrow the Baath regime, which is basically what we're going to end up doing, will be extremely detrimental to a culture so old that the New Testament informs us that St. Paul had his conversion on the road to Damascus.

My point here is not to argue that we need to do one thing or another for religious reasons.  Nor am I suggesting that we need to back the Baath government in any fashion.  We do not.  But we're fooling ourselves if we think that there's any Western democrats in this war.  And unless we're willing to actually go in, control the results, and govern Syria until it can govern itself in the same fashion that France governs itself, we are making a big mistake.

South Dakota lures lawyers to rural areas with annual subsidies - ABA Journal

South Dakota lures lawyers to rural areas with annual subsidies - ABA Journal

What an odd story, but what, in some ways, a disturbing one. 

The "country lawyer" is such an institution that the use of the term is nearly a joke, and frankly fairly abused.  When people claim it sincerely, you really have to wonder.  Having said that, for the entire course of American history, we've had small town rural lawyers. Some, such as Abraham Lincoln, have been pretty significant to our history.  

Now that seems to be passing away.  Why?  My suspicion is the aggressive focus on money in the law that came about in the 1980s has a lot to do with it.  About that time, the profession really started focusing on riches, and lawyers also started being portrayed as rich.  Consider that early depictions of lawyers:  

• Atticus Finch, small town southern lawyer who actually takes produce and poultry in payment, on occasion.
• Paul Biegler, defense lawyer in Anatomy of a Murder who has exactly one client, who stiffs him on a bill.
• Parnell McCarthy, washed up lawyer in Anatomy of a Murder who still has abilities, but has pretty obviously been struggling with booze for years.
• Barney Greenwald, big city lawyer who may, or may not, have made a lot of money in the law, but who is a wounded Marine Corps pilot at the time of his assignment as court martial defense in The Caine Mutiney.
• Frank Galvin, an alcoholic lawyer who is just hanging on until he gets one significant case and dries out, in The Verdict.
• Mickey Morrissey, Galvins' sober friend, who is also an attorney, but whom doesn't appear to be rich, in The Verdict.
• The Judge in The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit, who is portrayed as the singularly decent representative of the law, and who has a tiny office in a tiny town.
• Chief Judge Dan Hayword in Judgement at Nuremberg. Same sort of deal.

What do all of these depictions have in common? Well, nothing in them has much to do with wealth.  Indeed, some of them are the antithesis of that.  In at least two of these depictions the lawyers are decent, hardworking, sober men, who are basically living hand to mouth.   While movie and literary portrayals of lawyers shouldn't inspire somebody to become one, they do.  Anyone inspired by any of these depictions wouldn't have been inspired by the thought of getting rich.

That all changed with the claptrap of L.A. Law. Thereafter, lawyers came to be seen as wealthy and glamorous.  L. A. Law, of course, came up in the Gordon Geco era, and it shares a lot of the same basic style of portrayal.  And it isn't alone.  After L. A. Law we had Boston Legal and Alley McBeal, amongst others, all of which portray suited up lawyers with plenty of cash.

That sort of portrayal is far from accurate, which may explain the significant level of lawyer discontent that exists right now. But beyond that, it might also say something about the people being attracted to the law, if they found these portrayals attractive.  And that is only made worse by the unrealistic portrayals of the law given out by law schools and professional organizations, such as the ABA.  The ABA obsesses on the starting pay of "Big Law" associates, as if that even matters to most lawyers.  By focusing so relentlessly on it, they make it matter to some.

But that doesn't mean that the nuts and bolts of the law have moved into town and into high finance. They remain out in the small towns and cities.  If the lawyers don't go out there, that's not only bad for those localities, it's bad for everyone, including the law.

Epilog:

NPR's news show, Talk of the Nation (soon to be a thing of the past) recently ran a show on this topic, and on a similar problem with doctors no longer going to rural areas.  The person who investigated the topic was not optimistic about South Dakota's efforts.

Fame

Fame must be an odd thing.  Additive apparently.

I hit on Google News the other morning and found a news story about Amanda Bynes, who apparently has taken up publishing photos of herself nude or nearly nude, on the net.  All I know about Amanda Bynes is that she was a child actress with a show on television called, I think, Amanda Please.  I remember when the kids were young, they'd watch it, and like most shows of that type, I absolutely hated it.  It was extremely irritating.

I wouldn't expect a show like that to translate into adult success, so one would hope that somebody salted away some cash so that those early years paid off somehow later.  I have no idea if they did or not, but now it would seem she's imploding in the public eye, or so desperate for attention and the revival of her fame, that she's willing to exploit herself in the worst possible way.  Bizarre.

But not isolated.

Another child actress, Miley Cyrus is in the news a lot as well, and a lot of that has to do with presenting herself in as trashy of way as conceivably possible.  As a child actress (with another show that I absolutely hated) she had a pretty clean image, so in contrast she's presenting the opposite now. Why?  Who knows, other than it gets her name in the press a lot. It doesn't seem to be translating into work, however.

Also in the news it seems that some figure who was on the MTV show documenting the lives of teenage single mothers has been engaging in filmed pornography.  That's not only bizarre, but disgusting.  I suppose this is basically the prostitution of her image for cash, and perhaps indicates a certain degree of financial desperation, but my gosh, really?  Who would buy this. And did she forget how she ended up being eligible for a teen mother expose in the first place?

And then we have Lindsey Lohan, who is always in the news trying to get out attention.  She's busy getting arrested, getting stoned, or selling herself in print.  Why?  Again, she was a childhood actress and then a teen actress. That's probably more success of that type than a person can expect, so a person ought to be good with that.  No reason not to just retire and enjoy things from there on out. But apparently that won't be the case, and for some it's better to melt down in the public eye than just go on and live a dignified life. But why?

Closer to home, last week saw a weird, weird news story where a UW student anonymously threatened herself with violent physical assault.  Apparently there was a UW centered Facebook page where students could go on and publish their crushes on other students. That such a Facebook page would be monumentally stupid is self evident, but none the less, it apparently was.  Anyhow, a UW student threatened herself, in the guise of an anonymous poster, with rape.  Now why would somebody do something that stupid?

I don't really know, but what I do know is that the student in question came into the public eye with UW invited radical Bill Ayres to speak, and then dis-invited him.  That whole episode was pretty stupid also, but it sparked a lawsuit, in which this particular student was a plaintiff, and she had her moment in the sun as a sort of celebrity.  These things pass, of course, but she's apparently kept on keeping on as a feminist figure.

I don't know that this is about fame, and I don't care if she is a feminist campaigner. That's her absolute right.  I do feel sorry for her, however, as this misstep is a bad one.  People ought to back off and leave her alone, as it's just a silly youthful error and nothing more, and this moment will surely pass never to be remembered, but I do wonder if it's another example of the corrosiveness of fame.


Perhaps the worst example I can think of concerning the strange impact of fame is the entire Khardashian clan.  We're constantly being afflicted with news stories on the three (or four?) Khardashian sisters and their sort of icky lives. 

I have no idea what the Khardashians are actually known for. Their father was a well known California lawyer, but so what?  They aren't.  And lawyer fame dies quickly with the lawyer, with only a very few, and very rare, number of lawyers being remembered even shortly after their deaths.  I doubt, quite frankly, that most people even recall that their father was a well known lawyer.  As for this collection of sisters, what have they done?  I honestly don't know, but at any rate they're constantly in the news with marriages, divorces, pregnancies etc.  I think they're famous for being famous.  The problem with that kind of fame is that it trades on image alone. They're not bad looking, of course, but they have to sell that, and not even in the fashion with a model or actress might.  It's really unseemly.

Of course, none of this is new or even news.  People have traded in their fame for eons, or at least as long as there was some sort of media which could promote self-promotion.  As I'm not well versed in this class of folks, I couldn't give specific examples, I'm sure, but I am quite sure it's long occurred, and that that this isn't new.  Probably what is new about it is that it now seems to be a requirement to do something really shocking or really disgusting in order to get the spot light turned back on, no matter how brief that light may be.

But it doesn't have to be so.  I can think of at least a few actors or actresses who were child performers who have recently seemed to pass into real adulthood, some preserving careers, and others recognizing that the spot light is now off, and therefore moving into other things.  And in the past, there's been some examples of people who have gone on to much more dignified adulthood's than we're seeing here, just as there's been examples of those who have flamed out, self promoted, or just acted badly.  I suppose that this is just another example of the Internet allowing something to be sped up, and conducted more openly in the public eye, for good and ill both.

The T-Shirt.

Just the other night I watched Air America.

Okay, I didn't say that I limited myself to high brow movies. Sure, I like good movies.  And sure, people who know me have heard me complain about vapid American comedies (why anyone can stand to sit through Wayne's World or Grownups I have not a clue).  But that doesn't mean that only the really good stuff shows up on one of the two televisions around here.  Besides, I've seen, I think, darned near every movie set during the Vietnam War at some point, so when there's one I haven't seen, I have to watch it, lest I miss something.  And I like airplanes, and the film has some interesting airplanes.

Not that this thread has anything to do with Vietnam or airplanes.

Rather, this is a thread about t-shirts.

Okay, how does this make sense. Well, in the film, at one point, Morton Downey, Jr., is depicted wearing a Jimi Hendrix t-shirt.  I'm not exactly sure what year the film is set in, but it's probably roughly 1965 or so. Most of the ARVN soldiers are depicted using M1 Garands, with a few using M16s, which would be about right for that period, and the plot and other details generally fit in to the mid 1960s, rather than later in the war.  Not that this matters.  Rather, what surprised me is that Downey was wearing what appears to be a contemporary t-shirt. The film was made in 1995, and the shirt looks much more like something you'd buy at that time.  Indeed, Hendrix was such a guitar titan that he remains really popular amongst guitar aficionados today, and you can easily still find some very artsy t-shirts with Hendrix portrayed on them.  I suspect that they got the period t-shirts a bit incorrect, actually.

T-shirts themselves apparently date back to the late 19th Century, but they didn't start getting widespread civilian use by the general population until the Navy issued them during the Spanish American War.  They're another one of those clothing items that demonstrate the menswear maxim that all men's clothing original was for use in the field, or for war.  They started getting some use then, but they didn't begin to achieve the incredible dominance they now have until World War Two.

U.S. Merchant Marine, World War Two.

By World War Two the US armed forces had gone to issuing the t-shirt to everyone in every branch of the service.  Everyone received at least some "plain white t's", but combat soldiers and Marines also either were issued the dye to dye t-shirts an "olive" green color or they were actually issued some in that color. Either of the latter.  T-shirts weren't really designed to be a stand alone item for wear, but they came to be in areas or conditions that were very hot, such as in tropical areas or in the hot areas of ships.  Not quite to the extent that a person might think, however.  It was only in very hot places that you can find examples of servicemen wearing t-shirts only during World War Two.

 Michigan farmer out on the town, early 1940s.  Interesting example of how dress standards have changed.  He appears to have had a few too many, but he's still wearing a suit vest, a dress shirt, and, under that, what appears to be a "wife beater" t-shirt.  I.e., a t-shirt with no sleeves.

World War Two also, I think, saw the introduction of the t-shirt with a slogan.  I've seen, for example, photographs of U.S. airborne troops who are wearing t-shirts with the Airborne insignia, a large set of wings surrounding a parachute, on them.  And I've read that these were available in small sizes for children at the time, and that solders in airborne units bought them for their own children for for the children of people they knew. This doesn't appear to have been extremely common, but it did occur, which was all that was required to start off what would become an iconic clothing form.  Soon after the war, the practice spread to universities where athletic departments and teams started issuing t-shirts with "Property Of" printed on them. That sort of t-shirt continues on today, and you can buy "property of" t-shirts which were never "property of" anyone other than you.

World War Two had a big impact on everything, and that brought the t-shirt down into stripped down use.  After that, you'd see photos of men, but not women, wearing them in the summer.  I've seen, for example, photos of my father out on the lawn in the late 1940s wearing one.  Most were white t-shirts, however, not ones with slogans.  Slogan t-shirts were quite rare at first, save for the examples noted above.

Marlon Brando soon had an impact on this, however, oddly enough.  First of all, he wore a t-shirt in the film The Wild Ones, the classic move about post war California motorcycle gangs.  Its not the world's greatest movie, but it isn't bad either.  Brando famously war a t-shirt and leather jacket.  He followed up that look in A Streetcar Named Desire and On The Waterfront and the t-shirt as edgy wear was born.

I don't know when t-shirts with slogans came into widespread existence.. Tie Dyed t-shirts appeared as Hippie wear in the 1960s, however, and that's not far off from that.  I remember actually making tie dyed t-shirts in a YMCA summer youth camp, which might have actually been in the late 60s, or perhaps the late 70s, so they had made it even as far out as here.  When I first had a t-shirt with a slogan on it, however, I have no idea.  I'm sure I had them by the mid 1970s, however, when I was in junior high.  About this time t-shirts started being worn by girls as well, which had been quite rare prior to the 1960s, and which was only associated with some sort of sweaty work prior to that time.

By my recollection those early slogan t-shirts weren't exactly the works of art depicted in Air America. More typically they had beer logos on them, or a name brand on them.  I recall that the beer slogan ones were banned at school.  By high school, t-shirts were very common everyday wear, with many having name brands on them, or the logos of sports teams, and some just being colored (IE., not white).  The very first ones that had something that a person would regards as art didn't come in until then, but they were nothing like some of the ones that are around now.

Back in the late 70s and up through the mid 80s, I wore t-shirts routinely in the summer, and even the winter, a lot.  My father cautioned me on that, as you can really get some damaging sun exposure that way, but like most young men I ignored that.  In basic training, at Ft. Sill, we wore t-shirts as our only outwear all the time, as it was so hot, a practice that seems to have (wisely) disappeared from the Army, which now emphasizes wearing your clothing as protection from the sun.  At any rate, for whatever reason starting in the mid 1980s I found that I was pretty much cold most of the time, even often in summer, and started to abandon that.  About that time also I started to retreat to the sensible practice of the past and wear regular shirts, often with long sleeves, when working outdoors in the summer.  I'm cold anyhow, but I like the protection a longer sleeved shirt provides.  Now, I hardly ever just wear a t-shirt.  I suspect that the widespread use of t-shirts for summer wear has been a bit of a bad thing, although there's clearly no turning the clock back on that.

Funny, anyhow, how an item of very simple underwear has gone on to being nearly universal outwear.  In the early part of the 20th Century, hardly anyone ever wore an item like this as outwear.  Indeed, people wore their shirts no matter what.  Photos of soldiers serving in Mexico during the Punitive Expedition show them wearing their wool shirts in the summer. . . in Mexico.  Try as you might, it'd be almost impossible to find a photo of anyone working outdoors wearing a t-shirt until World War Two.

Positions and erroneous assumptions

In recent months, particularly since the events in Newton Connecticut, we've been treated to the a rare glimpse at just how dense the news media can be.

I don't mean to particularly focus on the entire gun control issue, but it does bring it into sharp focus as the national media is simply incapable of reporting the story straight.  It can't even grasp how to do it.

This is particularly evident concerning the recent bill to expand background checks for firearms purchases. The current system basically requires any new firearms to be registered by the manufacturer (yes, registered) who then ships the arm to a registered Federal Firearms Dealer (yes registered) who sells it to the purchaser only after running the buyer through a Federal background check and then, registering it (yes, registering it yet again) in his logs.  Most Americans don't even realize that firearms are triple registered to start with, with the registrations being held by the vendors and manufacturers, unless they go out of business, in which case they give the registry to the Federal government.  Registration is registration, however, and the registration exists so that the authorities can rapidly trace a firearm's history if they have a need to.

The bill on expanding background checks proposed to require the background check, and I suspect the registration, to apply to post dealer transfers, i.e., transfers between individuals. A person can debate this one way or another, but quite simply this is not a very popular idea in a lot of the country.  I know that the Press reports that 80% of Americans support this, but I doubt it's anywhere near that high, and probably something like 80% of Americans in rural areas oppose it.  I also suspect that a lot of those folks just don't get polled.  Moreover, the report that "80% support" is actually probably largely erroneous, as it doesn't get to the nature of what "support" really means.

In the reporting on this, it's constantly reported as simply amazing that Congress would not pass the background proposal and that this is evidence of a failed Congress as it isn't doing what the people "support.".  It isn't evidence of any such thing, however, at least on the level that's being reported..  It's evidence that Senators and Congressmen are actually listening to their constituency on this issue, however, and that they have an instinctive, and perhaps actual, understanding of what "support" really amounts to.

This isn't to say that Congress listens everywhere and does exactly what the people want at any one instance.  It clearly doesn't.  A large percentage of Americans have been unhappy with liberal immigration laws for a long time, and have been unhappy with funding of what are private entities, such as Planned Parenthood.  Nothing is done about this, as the organizations don't exist to address it in some cases or there are two well funded opposing organizations debating what should be done in others.  That does mean that Congress listens to people where they are organized, but is that different from some era in the past?  Not hardly.  Veterans benefits remained stout in the 19th Century due to the Grand Army of the Republic, the Union soldiers organization..  Labor laws in the US are really a product of strong unions, which came in during the late 19th Century and remained strong for a century.

That gets to the nature of "support" and why outraged reports of Congress "ignoring" the supposed will of the people on such matters are incorrect.  Indeed, what reporting there is on this topic that cites facts actually demonstrates quite the opposite.

To start with, there's the nature of support and pressure.  What the Press really picks up on, in regards to this story, it the supposed influence of the National Rifle Association.  To listen to the Press, the NRA can tell Congress what to do, and Congress does it.

Supposing that has any validity in fact, why would that be true. Well, because the NRA has real support. That would shock and horrify the opponents of the NRA, but it's quite true. That explains the difference between "opinion" and "support".  

Support actually means, in real terms, that people are sufficiently motivated behind a conviction so as to act on it.  That's a lot different from holding an opinion.  Organizations such as the NRA are influential as a sufficient number of people holding a certain opinion have their convictions behind it, have organized, and will act.  It's not just the NRA by any means, nor is it limited to this era alone.  But that makes a huge difference in terms of active reporting and the real world.  The Press, once again, likes to suggest that a lot of NRA members disagree with any one policy of the NRA, and perhaps they do, but by the same token a lot of Union members might disagree with anyone policy of their unions.  To dwell on that misses the point.  What the organizations themselves mean is that a certain percentage of the population is so motivated by their opinions that they're willing to enlist behind them as a cause.

In contrast to that, there's opinion.  At any one time a majority of the population has an opinion on any one issue. But those opinions tend to be fluid, are often impacted by very recent events, and are often held in a lukewarm fashion.  Indeed, the same people who hold an opinion on one issue today, might hold the opposite opinion tomorrow, with neither opinion being held particularly dear.

This is not to suggest that most people's opinions are invalid, far from it. But, rather, almost everyone holds opinions that they do not regard as particularly important or which, even if held, aren't of a deeply held nature.  Even people who hold deeply held opinions, i.e., nearly everyone, doesn't hold a deeply held opinion on everything.

So, when we look at the recent gun control bill again, what we generally have is that most Americans have relatively strong support for the 2nd Amendment, and have relatively high opposition to controls on ownership of any one particular thing.  Some of those people have very deeply held convictions, and have organized, with those holding deeply held convictions in favor of 2nd Amendment issues clearly outnumbering those who hold the opposite view.  Those who hold the opposite view, however, are strongly urban in nature and the Press, also strongly urban in nature, listens to them, even if Congress, which is everywhere, does not.  Beyond that, the majority of Americans do not have a really deeply held conviction on any one topic within this topic.  Therefore, it's not surprising that not only did the legislation not pass, but people are generally not up in arms about it either.

That, however, doesn't make for a failure in Congress.  Rather, it means they're actually doing what they're supposed to, at least in this area.

Indeed, when Congress, or the Courts, acts upon a supposed "the majority of the American people think" type of analysis when it hasn't thought things completely out, it tends to blow up in their face.  This happened in regards to gun control in the 1990s.  It also basically happened with the anti sedition laws of the late teens, which were later regarded as abdominal.  That has also been the case, in terms of the Courts, in regards to abortion, which the Court may have thought was something that it was only slightly in advance of society on, but in which it wasn't, giving the country forty years of debate with no legislative forum to conduct it in.

Indeed, shallow "opinion" can be notoriously fickle.  In 2011 the overwhelming majority of Americans were all in favor of war with Iraq and a war in Afghanistan as well. A fair amount of the press was too.  All was well until the war in Iraq changed into a Guillaume war and it appeared likely to drag on, at which time many of the very same people, everywhere, were of the opinion that they were against the war, and that they always had been.  Even magazines like the New Republic that had been screaming for war prior to the war with Iraq, grew rather quiet.  Now, with the war in Iraq over, we're hearing cries for intervention in the civil war in Syria.  Those who think that public opinion may be shifting in favor of that can rest assured that if that effort were to drag on, and it would, the public would be demanding to get out.

This also says something about the nature of polls.  We hear citations to polls constantly, but what is often missed about polls is that people lie to pollsters.   People don't like to appear a certain way to people they don't know well, for one thing, so they'll venture an opinion even if they only barely hold it.  And they'll make their opinion stronger in the poll than it really is.  Often people only volunteer their real feelings to somebody they know very closely, so they will also flat out lie to pollsters.  Somebody being polled in, let's say, Detroit may feel that, with the family listening in, in the back room, they need to say that their for gun control, but in their minds they're not in Detroit, but the UP, trapping, hunting and fishing for a living. So when it comes to their actual view, it's something else.  Indeed, if you think about it, it's extraordinarily rare for somebody to pipe up with a minority opinion in a group of people discussing any one topic.

All of this is not to say that public opinion is of no value.  It is. And at the end of the day, or decade, or decades, public opinion will rule. But, rather, those who report on what public opinion is, don't seem to understand the subtleties of it.

Union Pacific Coal Truck

603762_506282082752445_547731381_n.jpg (JPEG Image, 480 × 385 pixels)

Finals week at UW, 1936

577544_538602466183257_1869781982_n.jpg (JPEG Image, 768 × 605 pixels)

Scotch Whisky Auctions | Auctions | The 25th Auction Runs Until Sunday, 5th May | 251434 Original Bottles From The SS Politician X 2

Scotch Whisky Auctions | Auctions | The 25th Auction Runs Until Sunday, 5th May | 251434 Original Bottles From The SS Politician X 2

The SS Politician?

Bones Tell Tale Of Desperation Among The Starving At Jamestown : The Salt : NPR

Bones Tell Tale Of Desperation Among The Starving At Jamestown : The Salt : NPR

Jamestown residents resorted to cannibalism in the winter of 1609-10, after eating the horses, cats and dogs first.

I will frankly admit that I don't know much about this very early period of English colonialism in North America, other than it sometimes strikes me that the colonists were culturally nearly completely unprepared for what they encountered.  Almost uniquely, that is.  I may be off, but Spanish and French colonists seemed to do better.

Off base?  Am I missing something? I get the part about being bottled up in Jamestown by the Indians, but I can't quite grasp who colonists to a seeming wilderness (it wasn't really) could actually starve.

Chicken Diapers? Urban Farming Spawns Accessory Lines : The Salt : NPR

Chicken Diapers? Urban Farming Spawns Accessory Lines : The Salt : NPR

Best comment:

 Don't think if you are diapering your chickens you can be considered a "farmer." Just sayin...

Welcome To Alaska, Where Winter Is Cold And Bikes Are Fat : NPR

Welcome To Alaska, Where Winter Is Cold And Bikes Are Fat : NPR

Hmmm. . . .maybe as the snow just won't quit this year, I ought to invest in one of these.

Did see these for rent last year in Jackson. They're pretty neat.

Throwback and carrying on.

This is a current advertisement:

Subject: Mule Packing Instructor (Fort Campbell, KY) (UNCLASSIFIED)
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:06:05 +0000
From: Shelton, Sharene N NAF (US)

To:

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: FOUO
**THIS IS A CONTRACT POSITION LOCATED AT FORT CAMPBELL KY**

We are in need of an experienced, prior service Mule Packer to instruct personnel on proper packing techniques. Looking for someone with extensive military experience as a packer. Certified is preferred but not required. Must have experience packing various weapons systems, ammunition, and movement missions. Requires extensive, proven knowledge of packing gear and practices. Highly qualified candidates will take priority.

We are a facility that offers Mule Packing Training to Soldiers as well as for Corporate Team Building. This position is on an as needed basis. Contracts vary in pay depending on what the client wants. Pay ranges from $1,000 to $8,000 weekly, possibly more. All interested candidates, please use the contact information below.

S h a y C u r e n t o n : Fort Campbell Riding Stables Clerk
Stables Coordinator: [ Volunteers | Events | Soldier Camp ]
Office: (270)798-2629 / Fax: (270)798-4157 / MWR-ODR

Neat, really.  Every now and then you see an advertisement that shows that some things really keep on keeping on.

Op-Ed: The Nonexistent Line Between Justice And Revenge : NPR

NPR recently ran this really interesting item; Op-Ed: The Nonexistent Line Between Justice And Revenge : NPR

I don't really subscribe to the speaker's thesis, but it is interesting. The speaker, Thane Rosenbaum, who is a lecturer at Fordham University in the College of Law, sets most of his points out well (stumbling one one point, about abstaining from vengeance in war) in only one place.  Rosenbaum's thesis is that all justice is based upon just and measured revenge, and any justice system that doesn't accommodate a desire for revenge is unjust, and probably unworkable.

Something that isn't mentioned in the interview is that Rosenbaum is Jewish and a writer on Jewish topics, in addition to legal topics.  I mention that due to something he said in the interview which is an often missed point, but which is quite accurate.  He cites the Old Testament's maxim that justice should be based on "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" as a limiting, not expansive, principal.  Oddly enough, it was just a few days after listening to this that I heard Catholic Apologist Jimmy Akin make the exact same point.

That is a significant point indeed.  Rosenbaum must have come to this in his studies of Jewish topics.  By the same token, Akin came to this via his work as an Apologist.  And it shows how truly erroneous our understandings of some things can be without the appropriate background.

Returning to the "eye for an eye" matter itself, how can that be a limiting law? Well, simply put, the "ancient law," i.e., the law that people seem to carry instinctively, generally accords that violence of any type can be met with supreme violence.  For example, one of the callers in to this show cited the example of Njals Saga, but I don't know if she understood why her comment was off the mark.  Njals Saga, a master work of Icelandic pre Christian literature, provides examples of a legal blood feud that never ends.  The law, seemingly, was not limited.  Killing was rapidly resorted to, and then everyone was off and running as there was no way to satiate the need for unlimited revenge.  An "eye for an eye," however, did the opposite.  It provided that if somebody blinded you in one eye, they could be similarly blinded.  They couldn't be killed. That was a significant limitation in the ancient world.

There are many similar Biblical examples which are misunderstood.  Slavery is discussed in the Old and New Testaments, for example, and some cite that as proof that slavery was sanctioned. However, the citations to slavery are either a limit on the conduct of the master, demonstrating that slaves were people too and not to be mistreated, or they refer to the ancient means of handling prisoners of war.  In ancient times, when resources were so thin, POWs generally became slaves or bargaining chips.  There wasn't much of an option as to anything else, economically.  Instructions on how to treat slaves do not amount to a ratification of it, anymore than an insistence that,  for example, hard drinkers not be abusive and provide for their families would amount to a modern legal sanction of alcoholism.

Another interesting example, also related to warefare, that is often misunderstood is the Old Testament provision that victorious Jewish combatants could take the widows of defeated enemies as wives, provided they allowed them time to mourn.  That seems harsh, but it actuality it was the polar opposite. The norm otherwise was that victorious combatants could simply have the women of defeated enemies, a type of horrific abuse that has carried down to the modern era in many places.  The Old Testament, however, says "no" to that, and requires a marriage.  Not only does it require marriage, however, but the poor woman is allowed to mourn her lost family.  If you think of that, it's pretty stunning.  A victorious soldier would have to be pretty taken with a woman to determine he was going to marry her, allow her to mourn somebody he just aided in killing, and then return to his native land with her.  I wonder how often it actually happened?

Anyhow, this simply brought up a very interesting point, and nicely demonstrates how modern understandings of ancient texts can be so badly off the mark.  Having said all of that, I don't think a modern justice system can really be based on revenge, but then I don't know what really does work in terms of an effective, modern, criminal justice system.