The Big Picture: Rail and Stock Yards, Omaha Nebraska in 1916.

Omaha Stockyards, published September 5, 1916.

Bond Issue — NCSD Transform

Bond Issue — NCSD Transform

Bond issues haven't done well here recently, except those associated with Casper College.  I 'm hoping that this one proves to be an exception, however, and passes.  The facilities associated with NCHS and Kelly Walsh are, in my view, necessities or near necessities.

I particularly hope that NC gets its new swimming pool.  The old one is simply ancient and completely inadequate.  A new one is really needed.  Teaching students to swim is wisely mandated by the State, and there's really no other realistic way to do that but to have a pool there.

Sinclair Cannons

Sinclair Cannons: These cannons in Sinclair, Wyoming are proclaimed to be Civil War era cannons which were used by the Sinclair Refinery as safety ca...

The Golden Era of Classic Hotels: Parco

The Parco Hotel.

If you try to book a room in the Parco Hotel today, you won't be able to.  Indeed, you won't even be able to find Parco. But the classic building is still there, in another use, and the town is still there, under another name. 

Parco was a company town started by the Producers & Refiners Corporation to house their operations and workers in Carbon County Wyoming.  It was built in 1925.  It says something, perhaps, about the nature of transportation at the time that the company undertook this, as the existing town of Rawlins was very well established by that time and quite nearby.  I estimate Rawlins to be a mere seven miles distant, and the Wyoming Highway Department places it at three miles.  Not much.  But ParCo chose to build its refinery distant from the Union Pacific railroad town and county seat for some reason.

 Spanish architecture buildings in Sinclair.

That wasn't the only (perhaps) unusual thing ParCo did. It also hired an architect to design the company town with a distinct architectural style and to include a very distinct hotel.  The town was not only on the Union Pacific, a necessity for a Carbon County refinery, but it was also on the Lincoln Highway.  ParCo was apparently run by a type of visionary, who saw that at least travelers heading west from Laramie and who passed by Medicine Bow might be looking for attractive lodging for the night.

So the company built the Parco Hotel.  Covering an entire city block, the Spanish architecture hotel featured 60 rooms and had two bell towers.  It was quite the hotel.  ParCo, however, didn't survive the  Great Depression and sold out to Sinclair in 1934.  In the 1940s, the town, still owned by the main employer, with that employer being Sinclair, changed its name to Sinclair.  In the 1960s Sinclair sold the town's buildings to its residents.

Another view of the Parco Hotel.

When the Parco Hotel ceased to be a hotel, I have no idea, but it was long ago.  In some ways, it's almost a shock to think of there being a near luxury hotel in its current location, with the larger town of Sinclair so close, and the main employer in Parco being the refinery, which continues on in operation to this day.

Towns separated by only a few miles are unusual in Wyoming's interior. There are some other examples, but not many.  That Parco came about with Rawlins so close is a bit of a surprise, and a luxury hotel in Parco is an even greater surprise. But perhaps that says something about transpiration at the time.  Even at three miles, in 1925, could have been rough traveling in in the winter, and perhaps for refinery operations you need the workers right there.  If the refiner wasn't going to build in Rawlins, it perhaps had to have a company town where it built.  And town it built had nice buildings. That they thought of a hotel where they did, perhaps reflected the nature of travel on the early Lincoln Highway.  The trip by interstate highway from Laramie to Sinclair is 93 miles today. If a person is driving from Cheyenne its 142 miles. But on the Lincoln Highway those miles were longer, and harder.  I'd guess that the distance on the Lincoln Highway was more like 110 to 120 miles from Laramie, with an added 50 if you came from Cheyenne.  By the time you traveled that distance, in 1925, you were likely ready for a stop. Rawlins was only another few miles, but that few miles probably seemed like an unwelcome few miles in 1925.  Rawlins was, no doubt, catching all of the train travelers.  But Parco probably caught quite a few of the motorists.

Persistent Myths II: The First Amendment Protects All Speech

The First Amendment Protects All Speech

 The younger Sen. Lafallotte speaks in favor of the court packing plan, the fellow on the left looks like he wishes Lafollette would shut up.

Another one is that when a private journal of any kind, say a newspaper, radio, etc., chooses not to broadcast or publish something, it's interfering with "your right to free speech."  There's no absolute right to say anything you want. Rather, the government can't stop your from saying what you want.  Regular people don't have to put up with whatever you're saying, and if  they choose to shut you up, that's their right.

What the First Amendment actually states is:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

That's a pretty simple text. Congress can't pass a law abridging the freedom of speech.  By extension, the states can't either. But the newspaper isn't the government, and it can sure choose to ignore you.

I recently ran into this in the context of a private organization in which one vocal dissenter felt that that his failure to get his way from the organizations board violated his freedom of speech. Nope.  A private board is perfectly free to completely ignore you.

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Related Threads:

Persistent Myths.

Persistent Myths I. The Great Income Tax Bracket Myth

Persistent Myths I. The Great Income Tax Bracket Myth

It's probably this time of year, but there are certain myths a person hears again and again that are demonstrably false, but there's just no countering them.  It says something about the power of rumor over facts.

 If I get a raise, taxes will mean I'll take less home.

 Internal Revenue Service building in Washington D.C.  They aren't going to make you poor if you are rich.

Here's a really common one you hear this time of year, often in the form of a comment like this:  "I hope my new raise didn't bump me up in the next tax bracket, as the government will just be taking more of my money."

The gist of this one is a very persistent belief that once you go up a tax bracket, your entire income is taxed at that higher rate.  No, it isn't.  With our graduated tax system, only the income over each step in the bracket is taxed at that rate.  Income wise, it is always, always, always, better to make more income, no matter what tax bracket you jump up into.  It is never the case that the government will take more of your actual gross because your net increased.

People like this idea so much they just cannot be convinced otherwise, but the truth of the matter is that only the dollars in each income tax bracket are taxed at that rate.  Everyone, absolutely everyone, who pays taxes pays starting off at the lowest rate. Everybody.  And only the dollars that jump up into the next bracket are taxed at that next higher rate.

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Related Threads:

Persistent Myths

UW's President Sternberg Resigns

After a couple of weeks with seemingly endless headlines regarding the growing controversy over changes at the University of Wyoming, President Sternberg has chosen to resign.

Well, resign probably to avoid being terminated by the Trustees. The Trustees met for nine hours yesterday and then Sternberg turned into his resignation in part, he stated, so that they would not have to vote on removing him.  The Trustees announced, through one of their members, his resignation.  He didn't speak at that function, but he did email the Casper Star Tribune, with which he seemingly had a good relationship, on his decision.  He stated that he felt the Trustees had lost confidence in him.

I only know what I've been reading and hearing, but this causes me to loose a bit of confidence in the Trustees.  It seems Sternberg's main faults, if they were faults, was that he had a strong commitment to his idea of what UW should be and was determined to act on it. Not everyone at the school, indeed it would seem a majority, perhaps, of faculty, supported his vision.  He also did, at least in regards to the law school, seem willing to charge ahead rapidly without involving the department in his initial decisions, but I don't know that he was entirely incorrect in that approach.

I fear that the very long term of the prior president has acclimated the departments to a certain culture of independence and now, effectively, they've won that fight.  Some faculty (but not the law school) have almost been expressing a "m'eh" type of culture in regards to their departments. Good enough is good enough, so to speak.  The law school has, as I've blogged about down below, moved towards the concept that it's a regional school which is separating it from the non lawyers of the state and their occupations.

Well, the critics of Sternberg won, but did the university?  Hard to say. Whoever follows will inherit this mess, with some departments in seeming rebellion, a law school that seems headed towards increasing irrelevance and a president that was forced out.  That's a tough task to take on.  I don't doubt that somebody can to it, but now the Trustees, who seem to have at least partially dropped their support of Sternberg, will have to find that man in this context.  That's a tough thing to do.

The Land Grant University Enabling Statute

7 USC Sec 304:

All moneys derived from the sale of lands as provided in section 302 of this title by the States to which lands are apportioned and from the sales of land scrip provided for in said section shall be invested in bonds of the United States or of the States or some other safe bonds; or the same may be invested by the States having no State bonds, in any manner after the legislatures of such States shall have assented thereto and engaged that such funds shall yield a fair and reasonable rate of return, to be fixed by the State legislatures, and that the principal thereof shall forever remain unimpaired: Provided, That the moneys so invested or loaned shall constitute a perpetual fund, the capital of which shall remain forever undiminished (except so far as may be provided in section 305 of this title), and the interest of which shall be inviolably appropriated, by each State which may take and claim the benefit of this subchapter, to the endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life. 

The University of Wyoming's Geology Building, circa 1986.

Lex Anteinternet: Dean Easton Resigns

When the letter noted here; Lex Anteinternet: Dean Easton Resigns: came in yesterday, most of the lawyers I know were pretty surprised. We all had the "what's up" reaction.  A story in today's Casper Star Tribune makes that a little more clear.  The new UW President has created a task force, without the Dean's input, to look into the whether the school is responsive to Wyoming's needs.  According to the paper:

He cited a new law school task force being assembled by UW President Bob Sternberg and the university's Board of Trustees as a reason why he resigned.

The decision to assemble the task force, intended to evaluate the university's College of Law, was made without asking the college's opinion on whether the task force was necessary or who should lead it, he said.

"Recent events cause me concern in this regard," Easton wrote in an Thursday email to colleagues in which he announced his resignation. "I cannot continue to serve as your dean while critical decisions are made about the College of Law without the input of the administration and faculty of the College."

Sternberg said Thursday the task force will evaluate how UW serves the state in areas including energy, natural resources, water and environmental law. It will be strictly advisory, he said, and he is accepting nominations for private- and public-sector stakeholders to fill it.

The task force will include people from Wyoming and regional legal communities, the UW Faculty Senate, representatives from the College of Law and other stakeholders, Sternberg said in a news release. Its chairman will be Cheyenne attorney Larry Wolfe, Sternberg said.

The College of Law was not involved in the decision to call a task force, or in the negotiations regarding who would be task force chairman, Sternberg said.
Easton told the Star-Tribune that "difficulties in communication with President Sternberg and the absences of communication from President Sternberg to the College of Law" prompted his resignation. He cited the task force as a specific concern.

Well, I'm probably in the minority, but while I understand Easton being miffed (and similar reactions have broken out in other departments, only two of the Deans remain from the seven or so that were in place when Sternberg took his position, due to similar concerns in their departments), I think an review of this type is overdue and, frankly, perhaps necessary.

Moreover, I don't really blame Sternberg for not including the Dean.

Here's why.

While I've met the Dean and like him, and even served on a committee he was associated with but I think a review will serve the law school well.  Frankly, this event was somewhat predicted right here on this blog months ago when I blogged about the Uniform Bar Exam.  The two events aren't directly related, but this has a certain "chickens coming home to roost" feel to it, probably just coincidentally.

But a review is needed, in my view, and I frankly don't know that the College of Law can be too involved itself.  The reasons are these.

The University of Wyoming is a land grant college, which President Sternberg has rightly been emphasizing since he came on board.  It's almost as if he's the first person at UW to remember that in quite some time. And, as a land grant college, it's mission is to serve the state, which he's also rightly been emphasizing.  This has made him, seemingly, a bit unpopular in some quarters, but it should be welcomed by the residents of the state.

The law school, part of that land grant institution, has in recent years steadily moved away from teaching Wyoming's law.  According to the more recent graduates that I've spoken to, right now it almost doesn't teach any at all, and indeed one recent graduate I know told me that students were actually told that the school didn't and wouldn't teach it.  Pretty shocking, really, for a school th at is supported by a state with such a small population.

It's all the more shocking if you consider that at one time one of the primary reasons to go to the University of Wyoming's College of Law was to position yourself to practice in Wyoming.  But now, with the Uniform Bar Exam, and a College of Law that doesn't teach Wyoming's law, that's not really true any more.  Indeed, as I warned earlier, there's almost no reason for the state to have a College of Law now.  Costs provide the only real reason. That is, it's cheaper for a person to attend the College of Law here, rather than elsewhere.

A state doesn't need to have a College of Law at all.  Alaska, whose legal problems are similar to Wyoming's, does not.  Having a College of Law is a great thing for the state, if the school does something that's focused on the state. That is, if the Wyoming school is grooming Wyoming students to be Wyoming lawyers and judges, that's fantastic.  If its just one more law school, however, in an era when there's an overabundance of new graduates, that's simply redundant and the state is entitled to examine the school and see what purpose it actually serves for the state.

The College of Law isn't going to do that, however.  I'm sure the College thinks its doing just fine. And the College supported the UBE, as we earlier noted, which does help its students a bit while hurting lawyers in the state in general and leading to an erosion of early knowledge on the topic of the law.

Given all of that, it's time for the State to take a look at the College of Law.  My hope is that the College will be reminded that it's a Wyoming school, in existence since 1920, with the goal of serving the State's population.

Postscript.

The Casper Star Tribune reports today that forty law school students have signed a letter in support of Dean Easton.  Essentially, they defended him and the statements in his letter (if I understand it correctly, the paper didn't print their letter) and agree with his complaints against the new UW President.

Well, good for them.  But I don't agree with them. Frankly, students are fairly poorly situated  to assess the quality or even the applicability of the education they receive. That knowledge comes after they graduate, when they find out if they learned what they needed to learn, or not.  Some of that knowledge will come very quickly, and some will be years in the making.  But it will come. They don't have it right now.

But that doesn't mean that they don't have good points and they should raise them.  Of the issues cited by the Tribune as a concern of theirs one certainly has merit in my mind, that being that this process should have been started after the ABA issues its current review of the school. Retaining ABA accreditation is absolutely critical for the school, and it won't be around long without it.

Of interest, apparently the letter cited the value to the State of the school, which is the same concern the President is citing. Dean Easton has created, as his letter below cites,  a number of programs which should be of great interest to the state's businesses, and he is to be applauded for that.  The President, on the other hand, has now stated that he's hearing concerns from the State's industry's that students are not well prepared.  The fact that there's no strong required focus on Wyoming's law would raise that concern with me as well.

Perhaps in some ways what this is really about is what the nature of this State's law school is to be.  For generations, it was a State school with a focus on the State.  The overwhelming majority of the State's lawyers were graduates of the School, as were the overwhelming majority of the Judges.  Many legislators were school graduates.  In recent years the school has tried to broaden itself into being a regional school, but that comes at the same time that there's an oversupply of lawyers in the country.  And the Dean supported the UBE, which pulls a leg out from underneath the UW Law School stool.  At that point, the school becomes just one more choice with its arguments being only the quality of the education, which is unlikely to be that much better than other regional schools, if as good (it's certainly on par) and the costs. Costs are advantageous, it cannot be doubted.

Perhaps the President should have involved the College in the process more, but I tend to think not.  The State's lawyers were not really in support of the UBE, in so far as the concerns I heard can tell, but the Dean backed that without consulting us.  Now if the Law School is getting reviewed, for advisory purposes, without its consent, in some ways perhaps that's a lesson in what effects such actions can have.  I simply wonder if its too late.  The school may be a strong regional school, but in order to do so it's really going to have to make that its main focus.  The fact that persons who wanted to take the Wyoming Bar Exam got an advantage by going there is now dead.

Postscript II

Jacquelyn Bridgeman has been named the Interim Dean of the law school, indicating that this process is moving along and Easton will not be returning to his position.  That may seem to be an odd comment, but I've heard speculation on that point.

I don't know the Interim Dean, but then I hardly know who any of the current professors are either.  Her UW bio indicates she has a BA from Standford (1996), with Honors, and a JD from the University of Chicago (1999). According to the Casper Star Tribune she is a Laramie native.

The law school actually had an Interim Dean when I entered the school as well, although I believe he'd been the full Dean at some prior point in time.  They were searching for a Dean at that time, and ultimately hired Dead Gaudio from the University of New Mexico for that position.  Interesting, a cousin of mine had him as a professor while attending the University of New Mexico's law school.

Postscript III

I haven't seen a lot of commentary in the Tribune on the part of letter writers on this story, although there have been a few.  Showing that my view is not universal by any means, the two letters have been supportive of the Dean and not the President.  I don't think I'm unsupportive of the Dean but I'm also supportive of the President, rather obviously.  Anyhow, a letter today was co-authored by a retired Judge who is supportive, in the letter, of Dean Easton.

One of the points advanced in that letter is that the writers interpret the President's efforts as one to create a focus on certain Wyoming industries, mineral development being one. That might be right.  They raise the point there that they feel that the number of UW graduates who obtain law practices in these industries is slight, and those who do only do with big firms.  That may or may not be correct, but risks becoming correct due to the UBE.  It's not a bad point, however.  It'd be a better point, in my view, if the law school was otherwise working hard to give the students an education in Wyoming topics, which no longer appears to be the case.

Even at that, however, I can't help but recall that I can think off hand of at least five lawyers who had prior experience in the oil and gas industry.  I've known lawyers who had been petroleum engineers, geophysicists, or geologist. All of those lawyers, saved one, have in fact worked in practices than involved oil and gas topics, with some of them having very extensive practices in that area.  And, as is almost  a practicing lawyer's standard joke, it's common for law students to focus on one anticipated practice area and end up in something else anyhow, with no ill effect on their later careers.

Postscript IV

On a related noted, somebody whose department has received an unfavorable review at UW who isn't taking the Easton approach is the head of the athletics department.  He's neither resigned, nor accepted the negative review. Rather, he's fighting back in the press, defending his actions and those of his department.

It's interesting how this works.  Here the new President hired an outside consultant to conduct the review, who did it in record time, and who reported back that the department has a culture that accepts defeat, basically. A "good enough" type of culture.  Not so says the department head, citing examples.

Which approach, I wonder, is better. To resign when you disagree, or to fight back citing examples?

Postscript V

Well, based upon the Casper Star Tribune's headline article of today, Dean Easton is no longer taking his own appraoch.

Apparently yesterday the President decided to hold an open forum with students. Former Dean Easton was in attendance and it turned into a real scrap. In an article headlined "Chaos in the College" the Tribune reports that the following exchange was had:

University of Wyoming President Bob Sternberg explained recent resignations of university administrators to about 100 law students, faculty and alumni. Sternberg took the helm of UW on July 1. Since then, the provost, three associate provosts and four deans have resigned. Sternberg explained to students that some were asked to resign.

But then one of those administrators stood up and protested.

“I’m prepared to lay out my case as to why you have not treated this law school ethically," said Stephen Easton to Sternberg.

Sternberg's treatment "unethical"?  Pretty strong words.  But they apparently grew stronger.  Sternberg accused Easton of hijacking the meeting, and the interim vice president of academic affairs had to intervene.  Apparently a major point of contention was how the meeting would be conducted.  Sternberg wanted a town hall type meeting, but Easton claimed he wanted a trial type setting, with the students in the audience to act as the jury.  The issue apparently boils down, according to the Tribune, to this:

Shortly after moving to Wyoming, Sternberg began traveling around the state and meeting with people. He began to hear critiques of the law school.

“I know you want me to be straight and I’ll be straight,” he said, explaining that people told him that UW’s law school used to be top in the country in energy, natural resources, water and environmental law.

“Some people said we are not at the top,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s true.”
The task force will look at that, he said.

The students in the audience apparently supported Easton, with those quoted indicating that they didn't want the school to become energy law centric, as that would ignore the needs of those who intended to enter general practice.

Well, what of all of this?

First of all, this development is not a surprise here at all, and folks who read this blog (darned few though they are) shouldn't be surprised.  I predicted this development months ago.  The opinions of students aside (which will be addressed below) the reduction in the focus on Wyoming law at the law school, combined with the adoption of the UBE, made questioning the relevance of the law school inevitable.

At one time, those who attended the law school were largely destined for Wyoming practice and they knew what topics were going to be on the Wyoming section of the bar exam.  For that reason, students took classes like Oil and Gas, as the law of the state was covered in those classes, and you were prepared for the exam. But when Wyoming's law becomes less emphasized, and the UBE doesn't even test on it, there really isn't much of a reason for Wyoming to even have a law school, save for cost and convenience.  I noted this earlier, and wondered when State industry and more importantly the Legislature would begin to wonder about this. That day arrived a lot quicker than I supposed it would.  Sternberg is doing the right thing by commissioning a study on this, before the law school is completely irrelevant.

Well, why not include Easton?  I don't know that I would.  The law school has developed in this direction under his leadership.  If that's going in the wrong direction, can we expect him to realize that?  I doubt it.

This isn't to say that the conclusion is foreordained.  Nor is it to say he's done a bad job. This might all amount to nothing at all. But to look at it objectively, it's going to have to be an outside review.

And, frankly, if the Tribune's account of this is correct I have to say that I've lost a lot of respect for Easton for suggesting a trial setting.  A trial setting is a setting in which something is tried to an outside jury, irrespective of the "jury of peers" language we use for that, and under a controlled set of rules (the Rules of Evidence combined with the Rules of Civil Procedure or the Rules of Criminal Procedure).  We trial lawyers use a process called voir dire to specifically choose an unbaised jury.  Easton knows that.  A jury of law school students isn't that jury.  Easton knows that too.  I suppose he conceived of this as a trial in front of the immediate stakeholders whose education will be impacted, but his actions in arguing for a trial, which Sternberg agreed to conduct later, are in my view rather childish. For that matter, as the law school professors aren't in the practicing lawyer class, and as at least Easton supported the UBE which hurts Wyoming lawyers, and which wasn't popular with all of them to be sure, I'd somewhat question if the school is necessarily completely tuned into the views of what practicing lawyers may presently think, although I'm not that attuned to what goes on at the law school, so I may be off base.

Some of the comments of law students, I'd note, were well placed. But I'd also note that law students aren't the best judges of the practices they will ultimately have.  Some lawyers enter into the exact practice they imagine immediately after law school, but many do not. And, moreover, in Wyoming every lawyer needs to know something of the topics that are important to the state.  One student noted that some wish only to do divorce litigation, rather than oil and gas.  But what about that divorce client with oil and gas interest?  Once you take that on, you are doing oil and gas.  And some wish to only be prosecutors. But what if the prosecution arises in an oil and gas context?  Better to know that law.  Or what if you just find you like mineral law more than something else?

Students may need to learn these things, and the State bar should test on them.  The State bar isn't, and that's letting future lawyers and the citizens of the State down.  It's worth at least looking at the law school and seeing if its meeting the needs also.  It may be, but resisting looking won't help get us where we should be going, or let us know if we are there.

Postscript VI.

This story has managed to hit the front page of the Casper Star Tribune for two days in a row now, as Dean Easton is shown with Sternberg in the background at the recent forum that was held. The story itself is about all the turnover at UW, which is apparently not that unusual in context (new President) although it may be unusually rapid.

Somewhat to my surprise, the Tribune's editorial today supports President Sternberg, noting that he has a right to make changes consistent with his vision.

Postscript VII

The Casper Star Tribune has a new editor, and so far I have to say that it's been an improvement in the paper.  The editorials have improved, and the wishy washy personal column from the editor the last editor ran are now gone.  This has showed itself in two recent editorials regarding President Sternberg, one of which ran in the paper today.

This one, headlined; "Sternberg's view: doing what he was hired to do" nicely sets out the paper's view and Sternbergs. This frankly isn't what I would have expected out of the Tribune, as I would have expected it to be wishy washy but leaning towards Easton.  Not at all here.  In fact the paper commented:

Sternberg felt ambushed when he arrived at a meeting with students and the freshly resigned dean of the College of Law. He said he has been meeting with different colleges and groups of the university, and the law school appearance was arranged as a town hall meeting well before Stephen Easton resigned after announcement of a task force to review the college.

“I didn’t agree to a quasi-judicial meeting,” Sternberg said. And when the dean insisted on what he called a “trial-like format” to decide if the new president had treated the law school ethically, Sternberg considered it inappropriate.

So do we.

We think it was Easton who lost credibility. The dean led an attack that wasn’t seeking answers. It amounted to exactly what he accused Sternberg of doing to the law school — talking instead of listening.

I also agree that Easton has lost a credibility, and stated that in one of my earlier entries above.  Indeed, I think the fact that he even attempted to take on this topic in this fashion, with a law school audience, shows how insular things might have become at the law school. This debate is being played out state wide, even nation wide, so pitching an appeal to a student audience was rather naive on Easton's part. It's particularly naive as the continued existence of the law school doesn't depend on the tuition payments of the current students, but the good graces of future legislatures and, quite frankly, the tolerance the parents of future potential students may have for what's going on and agreement with where the school is headed academically.

The paper went on to note:.

We heartily support the belief that accountability is important and we want to see an improved university.

The next time Sternberg comes to a student meeting, it’s our hope that they hear what he is saying and that he is able to bring them into his vision. Looking for areas that can be better is a positive move and Sternberg says it is why he was hired.

He was blunt about what the Board of Trustees expects from him, insisting “I am doing exactly what they hired me to do.”

This followed comments by the paper to the effect that part of the upheaval is because the school had grown use to the prior long term leadership and was now having a reaction to change.  I think that's likely the case too.   It's ironic that some of the reaction has been expressed as outright opposition to Sterberg's comments that he wants UW to be the nation's "best" land grant university.  There's been one editorial by a UW faculty member and a letter to the editor attacking that recently, which I think is telling.  Normally, that kind of language would have been expected from UW. That faculty members are reacting to it is pretty amazing.  It suggests the motto of UW should be "Okay is good enough."  That's pretty sad.  Even if they don't become the "best" land grant college, whatever that is, they ought to be striving for it.

The Population of Veterans

I've seen frequent written commentary in recent years to the effect that our current wars impact us very little, as a society, as so few Americans are actually in the service.  Sometimes the authors go a bit further and suggest that only certain demographics are in the service.

 Getting outfitted with Leggins, World War Two.

Perhaps I just live in or near one of those demographics, as I certainly know people who are currently in the service, or only recently out of it, and that would include people I'm related to.  For that reason, such commentary always takes me a bit off guard.

A lot of times, fwiw, commentary of that type suggests a titanic shift in American society, but taking the long view (as we often do here) I'm not so sure that's correct.  Assuming those commenting are correct, what we would find long term is that there are historically big swells of veterans, such as after the Civil War, after World War One, and after World War Two, but that the historic norm is for that swell to be just that. The US had traditionally had very small armed forces, and its traditionally relied very heavily on the militia/National Guard to fill the ranks, at least initially, in times of disaster.  For example, as much as we read about them, how many veterans of the Indian Wars was a person likely to run into, say in 1903?  Not many, really. There weren't many.

Looked at that way, the real anomaly was the big population of veterans starting with 1918, and running up until fairly recently. The number of men conscripted and enlisted for World War One was huge.  Many of those men, probably almost all of them, were still relatively young when World War Two arrived, and indeed quite a few served in both wars.  World War Two was enormous, and so were the Armed Forces, so the resulting veterans' population likewise was enormous.  Indeed, World War Two gave us, for the first time, a significant number of female veterans (there were female veterans from World War One, however, as well).  

The historic norm would have been for the service to decline in size following World War Two, and at first it did, but soon it was evident that the US was engaged in a Cold War.  That Cold War was nearly a hot war on occasion, and indeed, I'd argue it became a hot war with the Korean War and the Vietnam War, for us (and other examples could be added for other Western nations), with those wars being properly regarded as campaigns in the larger war.  Not too surprisingly therefore, but unusually for the US, we kept a big peacetime Service, although again that peace was not a normal peace.  Anyhow, that again gave us a big population of veterans.  If you graduated high school between 1946 and 1990, your  chances of serving in some branch of the military were pretty good, whether that be active or reserve.

Not so much now, apparently.  Or at least the commentators claim that to be the case.

If so, that's probably a return to the historic norm, if a departure from the way things have been since December 7, 1941.

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This post has an accompanying poll.

Lex Anteinternet: Today In Wyoming's History: November 11. Veterans...

Lex Anteinternet: Today In Wyoming's History: November 11. Veterans...: On Today In Wyoming's History: November 11. Veterans Day : we take a look at various things that World War One caused to occur globally...

Today In Wyoming's History: Veterans Day

Today In Wyoming's History: Veterans Day:

Today is Veterans Day, commemorating the day in 1918 when World War One's fighting came to an end.  Originally called Armistice Day, and commemorating only the end of that war, after World War Two the holiday was expanded to honor all veterans of all wars, and veterans in general.

How does that work in your town, and in your place of employment?  Is this just another day?  Does your town honor it with a function of some sort.  Do you have the day off?  Let us know.

In Memoriam

In Memoriam

by Ewart Alan Mackintosh (who himself was killed in action).

(Private D Sutherland killed in action in the German trenches, 16 May 1916, and the others who died.)

So you were David's father,
And he was your only son,
And the new-cut peats are rotting
And the work is left undone,
Because of an old man weeping,
Just an old man in pain,
For David, his son David,
That will not come again.

Oh, the letters he wrote you,
And I can see them still,
Not a word of the fighting,
But just the sheep on the hill
And how you should get the crops in
Ere the year get stormier,
And the Bosches have got his body,
And I was his officer.

You were only David's father,
But I had fifty sons
When we went up in the evening
Under the arch of the guns,
And we came back at twilight -
O God! I heard them call
To me for help and pity
That could not help at all.

Oh, never will I forget you,
My men that trusted me,
More my sons than your fathers',
For they could only see
The little helpless babies
And the young men in their pride.
They could not see you dying,
And hold you while you died.

Happy and young and gallant,
They saw their first-born go,
But not the strong limbs broken
And the beautiful men brought low,
The piteous writhing bodies,
They screamed 'Don't leave me, sir',
For they were only your fathers
But I was your officer.

The Big Picture: 6th U.S. Cavalry at Texas City, Texas in 1914.

Persistent Myths

A series of threads dedicated to debunking persistent myths of all types, no matter what their source.

Yes, it's a Quixotic pursuit.

It's probably this time of year, but there are certain myths a person hears again and again that are demonstrably false, but there's just no countering them.  It says something about the power of rumor over facts.

More, likely much more, to follow.

Joining the Corps before 1918

This is probably the wrong context to ask this in, given as today is the anniversary of the founding of the Marine Corps, but I've often wondered about it, so will ask anyhow.

Prior to 1918, what motivated men to join the Marine Corps? In spite of the way its recalled now, it was really an obscure service prior to World War One with a very limited ground role. Indeed, it was so obscure that I recall reading in the memoir of one of the World War Two era USMC generals, who had started off as an enlisted Marine, that he hadn't even known about the Corps until an Army recruiter referred him down the street to the Corps, as the Army wasn't taking applicants due to being full, when he stopped in.

After World War One I understand it, as WWI really created the modern Corps in some ways, with WWII definitely making it what it is today. And I can understand how a young man in the 20s or 30s would join it, given the reputation it came out of WWI with. But prior to that you really hear very little about the Corps. What motivated men to join it?