Friday, April 4, 2014
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Why a TED Talk Is Like a Chicago Hot Dog - Attorney at Work - Attorney at Work
Why a TED Talk Is Like a Chicago Hot Dog - Attorney at Work - Attorney at Work
I hardly know what to make a of a title like that.
For that matter, I've never heard of a TED talk.
I hardly know what to make a of a title like that.
For that matter, I've never heard of a TED talk.
What is "Common Core"?
I should know this, but I really don't. What is "Common Core" in terms of education?
My wife tried to explain it to me the other day, as I asked her. It's been in the news around here for a variety of reasons. The appointed head of the state's education department seems to accept it, the Superintendent of Education (probably not the correct name of her position, whose controversial and the subject of court and legislative battles, does not. One teacher I know hats common core.
So, what exactly is it, and how does it function?
Postscript
I'm bumping this topic back up, as it seems to be an issue here locally that simply will not go away, and its one that I don't grasp.
Because I don't grasp it, I'm also linking this item in from the always insightful Ramblings of a Teacher, Redskins Fan and Scrapbooker blog.
Something that's really caught me off guard is the extent to which people locally have extremely deeply felt opinions on this issue. In a region where really devise issues usually don't come up in the text of education, this one has. Frankly, I feel it's become such an issue that it's being warped and distorted at this point.
This morning I read in the paper that last Saturday Governor Mead was censured by two county GOP caucuses. That in and of itself simply astounds me. That a GOP body would censure a GOP governor at a time when the GOP is so dominant here is amazing. That reflects in part a divide in the party between the traditional GOP and its tea party elements, but that divide seems to be most noticeable on education topics.
It really came out the legislature before last when the legislature acted to remove the Superintendent of Education's powers by way of a bill known in the legislature, and now known to history, as SF104. That bill, according to what we read in the newspaper and according to any insiders who might talk to you, was principally drafted to address what the legislature thought to be inappropriate actions by Superintendent Hill. I'm not posting on that topic here, and I'm frankly highly unlikely to, but I will note that a person doesn't have to have thought SF104 constitutionally problematic but still find Hill to be problematic as well. FWIW, the recently released audit of the department of education is now online.
I note all this, however, as Common Core seems to get wrapped up in this somehow, and I suspect that it's somehow getting a bit distorted. Superintendent Hill is an opponent of Common Core.
I don't know why she's an opponent of Common Core, and of course I don't understand Common Core, so perhaps that's not surprising. I think, however, that it is probably due to her being in the Tea Party end of the GOP (which doesn't make all the opponents Tea Party adherents, or even members of the GOP) and therefore she would presumably have a fairly hard core view of local control.
This has spread to such a degree that I heard a commenter at a school board meeting express concerns about the NCSD bond issue due to Common Core. The bond issue has absolutely, positively, nothing to do with this topic whatsoever. Rather, it has everything to do with the fact that some years ago the state mandated that the funding of school construction projects be through the state, but that at the same time the state would not pay for "enhancements." Like all laws, that law is imperfect and as a result somethings that are not enhancements at all have been handled that way, and so now local districts have to fund construction of these features by another means so that their schools can really be complete. Bond issues are very strictly tied to a specific purpose and only run for a specified time, but none the less some folks who have been focused on Common Core are now jumpy about them, for reasons of misconception. For example, I heard the noted speaker voice a concern that the bond issue will be used to fund classes mandated under Common Core. That's completely in error, as the bond would be used to fund the construction/reconstruction of swimming pools for the high schools, install safety features in existing schools of all types (which the new ones are built with) and fund some equipment for the CAP program, which is completely outside of the Common Core.
Anyhow, there sure seems to be a lot of opposition to Common Core. I fear that if a person joined the debate late, the topic may be so confusing that figuring it out might be darned near impossible.
Postscript II
Trying to return to this blog's focus, and also noting something that's somewhat on point here, I can't help but recall that Donald Hough, in his classic The Cocktail Hour In Jackson Hole, found it endlessly amusing that a grade school he dropped in on, in Teton County Wyoming, was learning about a Medieval battle, the Battle of Crecy if I recall correctly. He couldn't see why the 1346 pivotal battle of The Hundred Years War would be something that the young students of Jackson Hole should be required to learn. He was informed by the teacher that the State of Wyoming required it. I'm sure that was correct. Hough wrote about Jackson Hole in the 1930s and 1940s, at a time when the local residents remained ranchers and Wyoming towns people during the winter, and the county was taken over by tourists in the summer.*
The interesting thing about that is that it would have indicated a pretty strict set of guidelines at the time. I don't know when I learned about the Battle of Crecy, but I'm sure it wasn't in grade school. I'm also sure it wasn't in junior high and I doubt it was in high school. I probably learned about it when I took Medieval History in university.** I'm not certain what that says about state imposed standards at the time, other than that they were apparently different than later and in surprising ways.
Postscript III
One thing I should note, and which really colors my views on this topic, is that I may be nostalgic about certain things, if that's the right word, or I may take an open view about certain topics in regards to whether things have improved in real terms or not, but about education, here locally, I am not.
We did not receive a bad education in the local schools. That would not be true at all. And based upon what I know of other areas, ours stacked up and served us quite well. But they are doing a better job of it today, and there's no doubt about that.
I occasionally will hear people lament the current schools, and suggest that at some point in distant personal memory, things were done much better. I can't speak for the schools prior to the late 1960s, but I did enter school in the late 1960s and experienced them through the entire 1970s and graduated in 1981. The local schools here are better, including the schools I went to in that time frame. No doubt about it.
Kid's coming out of the same schools I went through here today have a better education, with more credit hours, and more of a focus on where they are going once they get out than we did.
What does that mean in regards to Common Core? Well, maybe nothing, or maybe something. If there are areas we can do better, and we can (which is part of the reason that I hope the bond issue passes) we should. If Common Core aids in that, I'm for it. If it detracts, I'm against it. I just don't know.
But here locally, what I do think we keep in mind that nostalgia, to the extent it exists, regarding education of two, three or four decades ago is misplaced. I sometimes hear that, with there being the suggestion that we should return to an education of some prior era almost remembered as a golden era. Well, I went to school in that era, or an era that some claim to be that era, and it just isn't so. Some of our grade school teachers, who were generally pretty good, lacked the sort of certification that they all have today. And the graduation requirements we had then were ridiculously low compared to those today, which continue to increase. My son has probably received a better education at the high school level today than I had by the time I graduated, and he's a sophomore. I'm not saying that our education was bad, but looking back there were definitely some areas that the system failed us in back then, mathematics being the prime one that comes to mind for me. I basically had to make up three years of high school math in my first year of college, which wasn't easy, and shouldn't have had to occur. Today it wouldn't occur.
Indeed, with the CAP proposals, some kids will start coming out of high school not only up to par, and not behind, but with a big head start on a college career.
__________________________________________________________________________________
*While having nothing to do with the topic of this post whatsoever, I first read Hough's book in the 1990s, by which time much had clearly changed but at which time a great deal actually remained the same in Jackson Hole. The book was in my father's book collection, and I'd just recently been in Jackson Hole when I read it.
I don't know that I could stand to read the book today, so much about Jackson Hole has changed. As late as the early 1990s there remained a fair population of locals that lived in the town year around. Since then, the town's reputation as a place for the wealthy has altered Teton County nearly beyond recognition for those who remember it when it was a toehold in the wilderness and still a bit of a ranch town. I'm not saying that Jackson is a bad place, but in an Iris Dement fashion, the town that was is really gone now.
**My undergraduate was in geology, but I took so many history courses that by my graduation date I nearly had enough credits for a BA in history. Medieval History was taught by an excellent professor by the last name of Harper.
My wife tried to explain it to me the other day, as I asked her. It's been in the news around here for a variety of reasons. The appointed head of the state's education department seems to accept it, the Superintendent of Education (probably not the correct name of her position, whose controversial and the subject of court and legislative battles, does not. One teacher I know hats common core.
So, what exactly is it, and how does it function?
Postscript
I'm bumping this topic back up, as it seems to be an issue here locally that simply will not go away, and its one that I don't grasp.
Because I don't grasp it, I'm also linking this item in from the always insightful Ramblings of a Teacher, Redskins Fan and Scrapbooker blog.
Something that's really caught me off guard is the extent to which people locally have extremely deeply felt opinions on this issue. In a region where really devise issues usually don't come up in the text of education, this one has. Frankly, I feel it's become such an issue that it's being warped and distorted at this point.
This morning I read in the paper that last Saturday Governor Mead was censured by two county GOP caucuses. That in and of itself simply astounds me. That a GOP body would censure a GOP governor at a time when the GOP is so dominant here is amazing. That reflects in part a divide in the party between the traditional GOP and its tea party elements, but that divide seems to be most noticeable on education topics.
It really came out the legislature before last when the legislature acted to remove the Superintendent of Education's powers by way of a bill known in the legislature, and now known to history, as SF104. That bill, according to what we read in the newspaper and according to any insiders who might talk to you, was principally drafted to address what the legislature thought to be inappropriate actions by Superintendent Hill. I'm not posting on that topic here, and I'm frankly highly unlikely to, but I will note that a person doesn't have to have thought SF104 constitutionally problematic but still find Hill to be problematic as well. FWIW, the recently released audit of the department of education is now online.
I note all this, however, as Common Core seems to get wrapped up in this somehow, and I suspect that it's somehow getting a bit distorted. Superintendent Hill is an opponent of Common Core.
I don't know why she's an opponent of Common Core, and of course I don't understand Common Core, so perhaps that's not surprising. I think, however, that it is probably due to her being in the Tea Party end of the GOP (which doesn't make all the opponents Tea Party adherents, or even members of the GOP) and therefore she would presumably have a fairly hard core view of local control.
This has spread to such a degree that I heard a commenter at a school board meeting express concerns about the NCSD bond issue due to Common Core. The bond issue has absolutely, positively, nothing to do with this topic whatsoever. Rather, it has everything to do with the fact that some years ago the state mandated that the funding of school construction projects be through the state, but that at the same time the state would not pay for "enhancements." Like all laws, that law is imperfect and as a result somethings that are not enhancements at all have been handled that way, and so now local districts have to fund construction of these features by another means so that their schools can really be complete. Bond issues are very strictly tied to a specific purpose and only run for a specified time, but none the less some folks who have been focused on Common Core are now jumpy about them, for reasons of misconception. For example, I heard the noted speaker voice a concern that the bond issue will be used to fund classes mandated under Common Core. That's completely in error, as the bond would be used to fund the construction/reconstruction of swimming pools for the high schools, install safety features in existing schools of all types (which the new ones are built with) and fund some equipment for the CAP program, which is completely outside of the Common Core.
Anyhow, there sure seems to be a lot of opposition to Common Core. I fear that if a person joined the debate late, the topic may be so confusing that figuring it out might be darned near impossible.
Postscript II
The interesting thing about that is that it would have indicated a pretty strict set of guidelines at the time. I don't know when I learned about the Battle of Crecy, but I'm sure it wasn't in grade school. I'm also sure it wasn't in junior high and I doubt it was in high school. I probably learned about it when I took Medieval History in university.** I'm not certain what that says about state imposed standards at the time, other than that they were apparently different than later and in surprising ways.
Postscript III
One thing I should note, and which really colors my views on this topic, is that I may be nostalgic about certain things, if that's the right word, or I may take an open view about certain topics in regards to whether things have improved in real terms or not, but about education, here locally, I am not.
We did not receive a bad education in the local schools. That would not be true at all. And based upon what I know of other areas, ours stacked up and served us quite well. But they are doing a better job of it today, and there's no doubt about that.
I occasionally will hear people lament the current schools, and suggest that at some point in distant personal memory, things were done much better. I can't speak for the schools prior to the late 1960s, but I did enter school in the late 1960s and experienced them through the entire 1970s and graduated in 1981. The local schools here are better, including the schools I went to in that time frame. No doubt about it.
Kid's coming out of the same schools I went through here today have a better education, with more credit hours, and more of a focus on where they are going once they get out than we did.
What does that mean in regards to Common Core? Well, maybe nothing, or maybe something. If there are areas we can do better, and we can (which is part of the reason that I hope the bond issue passes) we should. If Common Core aids in that, I'm for it. If it detracts, I'm against it. I just don't know.
But here locally, what I do think we keep in mind that nostalgia, to the extent it exists, regarding education of two, three or four decades ago is misplaced. I sometimes hear that, with there being the suggestion that we should return to an education of some prior era almost remembered as a golden era. Well, I went to school in that era, or an era that some claim to be that era, and it just isn't so. Some of our grade school teachers, who were generally pretty good, lacked the sort of certification that they all have today. And the graduation requirements we had then were ridiculously low compared to those today, which continue to increase. My son has probably received a better education at the high school level today than I had by the time I graduated, and he's a sophomore. I'm not saying that our education was bad, but looking back there were definitely some areas that the system failed us in back then, mathematics being the prime one that comes to mind for me. I basically had to make up three years of high school math in my first year of college, which wasn't easy, and shouldn't have had to occur. Today it wouldn't occur.
Indeed, with the CAP proposals, some kids will start coming out of high school not only up to par, and not behind, but with a big head start on a college career.
__________________________________________________________________________________
*While having nothing to do with the topic of this post whatsoever, I first read Hough's book in the 1990s, by which time much had clearly changed but at which time a great deal actually remained the same in Jackson Hole. The book was in my father's book collection, and I'd just recently been in Jackson Hole when I read it.
I don't know that I could stand to read the book today, so much about Jackson Hole has changed. As late as the early 1990s there remained a fair population of locals that lived in the town year around. Since then, the town's reputation as a place for the wealthy has altered Teton County nearly beyond recognition for those who remember it when it was a toehold in the wilderness and still a bit of a ranch town. I'm not saying that Jackson is a bad place, but in an Iris Dement fashion, the town that was is really gone now.
**My undergraduate was in geology, but I took so many history courses that by my graduation date I nearly had enough credits for a BA in history. Medieval History was taught by an excellent professor by the last name of Harper.
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Mid Week At Work: Order Coal Now
I've posted this poster before, but I like it a lot, and it gives us a glimpse of man and animal at work, just about a century ago. A modern world we can recognize, but one involving animals in a way we don't really see in the western world anymore.
This poster is from the World War One era, urging people to lay in a supply of winter heating coal early. Heating with coal is also largely a thing of the past in the US, for the most part.
Thursday, April 2, 1914 Villista victory at Torreón, Disaster on the ice, Cumann na mBan, birth of Alec Guiness.
It was opening day.
Pancho Villa telegraphed the head of the Mexican opposition,Venustiano Carranza, to report he had retaken Torreón. He noted his losses as 2,000 killed or wounded, and the Federal dead at 12,000 killed, wounded or captured.
Effectively, he had taken control of northern Mexico.
The U.S. Navy gunboat, Dolphin, entered Tampico harbor in Mexico and presented a 3x21-gun salute to the Mexican flag in remembrance of the April 2, 1867, Battle of Puebla.
It would be the last peaceful diplomatic exchange between the United States Government and the Mexican government of Victoriano Huerta.
Wes Kean, captain of the SS Newfoundland, spotted survivors from his ship that had been trapped on ice floes off Newfoundland for three days during a blizzard. The men had been set out for seals on April 1, with the expectation that if the weather worsened, they could stay aboard the nearby Stephano. Instead, Wes' father, Adam, gave the men lunch at that point and ordered them back out on the ice. This left the captains of both vessels under the belief that the men were safe. While equipped originally with primitive radios, they had been removed prior to the voyage as a cost savings measure, which compounded the error..
Kean, upon spotting the men, alerted the nearby SS Bellaventure. 77 of 132 men who had been lost, died.
The same weather sank the Southern Cross with the loss of all hands.
The Cumann na mBan, or Irishwomen's Council, an Irish Republican paramilitary organization, was founded. It apparently still exists.
300 Pentecostal preachers and laymen gathered in a general council in Hot Springs, Arkansas to discuss preservation of Pentecostal revivalism.
A train derailment near Tanjung Priok, Indonesia caused by buffalo crossing the tracks resulted in the death of 20 people and 50 more being injured.
Great British actor Alec Guinness was born in Maida Vale, London, England. One of the greatest actors of all time, he appeared in 62 films, many of which are remembered at least in part for his performance. They include such varied classics as Lawrence of Arabia, Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Bridge On The River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago, and Star Wars. His career was interrupted by World War Two, during which he served in the Royal Navy, and during which he formed the intent to become an Anglican Priest. An experience on a movie set impacted him deeply, and he converted to Catholicism, as did his wife, who only informed him after the fact, in later years, from Judaism.
Last prior edition:
Wednesday, April 1, 1914. Villa at Torreón
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Wednesday, April 1, 1914. Villa at Torreón
Villa's fortunes in Torreón were improving.
The same paper featured this interesting watch ad:
Note that wristwatches were treated as a female item, which they were until World War One, we we are now in the cusp of in this timeline, changed that.
Last prior edition:
Friday, March 27, 1914. "Any kind of fighting you wish".
Monday, March 31, 2014
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Friday, March 28, 2014
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Friday, March 27, 1914. "Any kind of fighting you wish".
"Any kind of fighting you wish". So declared the Cheyenne paper.
Villa scored a victory and recognized Carranza as chief, for at least the present.
And some employers had photographs taken of their employees.
And some employers had photographs taken of their employees.
Employees of Augustus Pollack Crown Stogie Factories, Wheeling, W.Va.
The F.A. Ames Mfg. Co., Owensboro, Ky.
Last prior:
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
"Thank you for your service"
Thanks, but you don't need to, nor should you either.
Me, as a Sergeant in the Wyoming Army National Guard (HHB, 3d Bn, 49th FA), on maneuvers in South Korea.
At some point in the last twenty years, it became common to thank veterans for their military service. It started off with thanking World War Two veterans, and then it spread to almost every veteran. I've found that in the past few years I've been thanked for my service in the Army National Guard. It always catches me off guard, and it makes me a little uncomfortable. I didn't do anything that compared with those who served in World War Two, quite a few of whom I knew, nor did I do anything that compared with that which was done by veterans of the Korean War or Vietnam War, nor any other U.S. war, or even guys who served in the active duty service of any era.. Even at that, while I hesitate to even mention it, there's quite a difference between those who had the sort of service my (Canadian) Uncle Terry, my Uncle Bill (Navy submarine officer), or my wife's Grandfather had (Marine Corps in the Pacific) and those who served in the armed forces in bases here in the US during the war, of which there were a large number. I'm not dissing any of this service, just noting that perhaps the "thanks" deserves at least some level of discernment.
Me at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, during basic training. I was quite thin at the time, but would get even thinner as I came down with pneumonia at Ft. Sill. When this photo was taken in the platoon area, we were cleaning our M16A1 rifles. The names of our drill instructors, SSG Stringfellow and SSG Adams, appear on the campaign hat silhouettes.
I joined the Wyoming Army National Guard the summer after I graduated from high school. I did this for a variety of reasons.
Armored vehicles and artillery pieces getting set to deploy, South Korea.
One of the reasons was sort of career related. When I was in junior high and high school, I seriously contemplated a career in the Army. As a very outdoorsy kid, with a love of history, and growing up in an age when every adult male I knew had served in the military, there was a long period of time in which I planned on becoming an Army officer, or maybe a Marine Corps officer. I held this desire pretty strongly when I was a young teen, and strongly, but mixed with other things, as I approached high school graduation. By the time I graduated from high school I'd determined to join the Army after university, after taking ROTC. However, by the time I graduated my desire was seriously waning as I love my state, and being outdoors in it, making me one of those odd personalities who'd rather wonder around outdoors in their native place than spend long periods of time away from it. Anyhow, I went to check out the University of Wyoming but determined to go to the local community college for two years first, a sign of that "not knowing what to do" problem I recently posted on. That meant no ROTC.
155 mm SP M109 howitzers in field, South Korea.
I felt a bit guilty about that so that was part of my motivation, and indeed the motivation foremost in my mind, when I went out to the Armory that summer and joined the National Guard. As I'd been planning on entering the University of Wyoming, and not Casper College, this was a big shift in plans, and I was uncomfortable with the notion that part of my change in plans might be based on a bigger change in plans, and that if I didn't go to UW I'd never enter ROTC and by extension I'd never enter military service at all. As it turned out, that feeling was somewhat correct, as when I went to UW two years later my desire to enter the Regular Army had passed completely, for reasons that I couldn't tell you now, as I didn't know what they were then, but which were probably formed by being increasingly outdoors in my native state in my early adulthood. But this desire at the time of my entry into Casper College wasn't the only one. Part of it was that it was just something I wanted to do. And part was that the Guard at that time would help pay for college directly. It wasn't that I had to join the Guard to go to college, that would be untrue, but I thought it a good deal that the Guard would help, and that way I wouldn't have to rely completely on my father, who by that time had my very ill mother to worry about. It was sort of a feeling that this was something I could do to help pay my parents back for what they'd done for me, although I never, at any point, told them that, either at the time, or later. And part of it was a vague feeling that at some point later in life I'd want to be a writer, and that any writer ought to know the topic he was writing on, which to my mind meant that I ought to have some military service.
Near accident, cabbage field, South Korea. Some troops who really do deserve our thanks are the peacetime solders, including Guardsmen, who die in accidents. One of my friends from basic training, who was in the Nebraska National Guard, died a year or so later in an accident in which a trucked he was driving rolled.
I was an artilleryman in the Army National Guard, which had a course of initial training sufficently long that, technically with basic and advanced training combined, I actually am a veteran of the U.S. Army due to that. That is, when a National Guardsman goes to basic and advanced training, he's active in the service, actually in the regulars. When I graduated from the artillery school at Ft. Sill I received a discharge from the active duty Army, and I received an Army Service Ribbon. In my case, that service was sufficently long for that purpose that I actually qualify as a veteran of the U.S. Army. Bizarrely, as my basic and advanced training period overlapped with a crisis in Lebanon, to some groups, such as the American Legion, I qualify for membership, which frankly strikes me as really odd. My Guard service further laps over various crises in the 1980s also has that impact, but in my mind, and in reality, no Guardsmen can or should regard themselves as any sort of "combat" veteran due to those things. There was no chance whatsoever that we were going to be called up for any of them.
Artillery battery of the 3d Bn,49th FA in the field, South Korea. There were three firing batteries in the Wyoming Army National Guard's 3d Bn at that time, all of them equipped with M110 8in. howitzers, and an additional three 1st Bn that were equipped with trailed 155 howitzers. This was a Cold War structure that no longer exists, and the Guard in the state today is much smaller, and in terms of artillery is equipped with rockets.
I served in the National Guard for six years, which overlapped my entire undergraduate course of study plus one year. That is, like a lot of geology students, I took five years to receive my undergraduate degree rather than four, and I graduated right into unemployment, the norm at the time for new geologists. During the entire time I lived in Laramie, I remained in the Headquarters Battery of the 3d Bn, 49th FA in Casper, my native town, where for most of that time I was in the Liaison section. I toyed with the idea of transferring into an air cavalry scout unit in Cheyenne, as did one of my basic training friends, but never did. I liked being in the National Guard, but after six years I took my second discharge (my first was the Honorable Discharge following basic and advanced training from the Army) and ceased being a member. My reasons were two fold. A primary one was that I was getting ready to go to law school and I erroneously believed that law school must meet the common beliefs held about it, and involve constant unrelenting study. It actually does not, and law school was considerably easier than my undergraduate course of study in geology. The second was that Guard units, at least ones in the West like ours, are isolated pockets of military training in some ways, so after six years, a lot of it was becoming very repetitious. Things that I found interesting early on were getting intolerably dull after six years, such as the annal class on Preventative Checks, Maintenance & Service.
Me again, South Korea. M88 tank retriever in background. M110 and M109 batteries had tank retrievers (not doubt M109 units still do) as self propelled artillery pieces are heavy tracked vehicles and have to be extracted with one if they break down.
I've never regretted my time in the National Guard, and there are occasions when I've regretted not staying in. I was a Sergeant at the time I got out, and I clearly could have continued on for a higher grade of NCO, and could have chosen to take the steps to become an officer. I just didn't. So doors were open to me, and I knew that. The Guard had been very good to me, and I'd worked full time at the Armories in Casper in Cheyenne during various summer breaks, and during my period of post bachelor degree unemployment, so not only had I benefited from being a regular Guardsman, but individually I'd been treated very well. I've felt a bit guilty, from time to time, about not carrying in the Guard for that reason. It's a classic example of people looking out for us when we're young, in a way that we didn't fully appreciate at the time. I nearly always had a job of some sort when I needed it, in that period, when a local economic depression was going on, thanks to the National Guard.
South Korean M48 tanks.
And I made some lifelong friends in the Guard I still see from time to time, who stayed in. Those friends saw service in Iraq later on, and its hard not to feel that you let them down, although they've never said that, and at least one of them has told me more than once that I got out at the right time. During the first Gulf War, when I was just out of law school, I made arrangements with a couple of Guard friends who were well placed to give me the heads up if they were about to be activated, so I could get back in, as thinking I'd let them go and had done nothing myself would have been too much. But the unit had just gone through a structural change and was not called up. With the wars of 2011, however, with small children at home and the knowledge that the prior war had seen no timely deployment, I didn't do the same, and I still feel bad about that. My old unit, reflagged under a different designation, saw service in Iraq, although not as artillery. One of my old friends from my NCO days, who had also been an NCO, saw service in Iraq twice as a high ranking officer.
Black Hawk helicopter, South Korea.
To a certain extent I sometimes wish I'd stayed in just because I wish I had. I have to acknowledge, however, that post Cold War Guardsmen bear a much different burden than we Cold War Guardsmen did. We trained for "The Big One", i.e., a really large war such as one with the Soviet Union. We took that very seriously, but we also knew that if we were called up, it was a really big disaster and our civilian lives and careers would have mattered little in the context of the times. Now, with the active duty service being relatively small, Guard units are called up all the time for "small wars". That means a Guardsman today can truly contemplate almost certain, and perhaps multiple, call ups. We faced unlikley call ups, but ones which if they had occured would have more likely than not resulted in our demise. But we didn't face the specter of constant call up, which is harder on a Guardsman in some ways than it can be on an active duty soldier. Guardsmen leave their civilian occupations and lives every time they're called, which active duty soldiers do not. One lawyer I know who is Air Guardsman admitted to me, in response to a question I posed to him, that if he was called up, it'd destroy his practice, a pretty big sacrifice, for which he indeed would be owed thanks. This must be the case for a lot of Guardsmen, and it imposes a pretty heavy burden on them that we really didn't have.
Headquarters personnel of the 3d Bn, 49th FA, in South Korea.
At any rate, it's nice of people to thank former soldiers for their service, but I don't deserve it. In some ways, I sort of feel the same about people who are called up but faced no real risk of death or injury, as we owe the country service simply by living in it, and perhaps aren't entitled to thanks for merely doing what we are obligated to do. And I didn't run down and join because there'd been a Pearl Harbor. Some of it was likely patriotism I suppose, and certainly I think I would have regarded myself as patriotic. But a lot of it was personal as well. And it served me rather well. At age 18, when I joined, I was exceedingly shy and being in the Guard did impact my personality in a good way, with basic training probably being particularly helpful. That's probably a reason I should have stayed in, as military service does counteract the natural tendency of introverts to be just that, and U.S. service is a rather vigorous one, which encourages activity. I've never regretted doing it, and I have occasionally regretted getting out. Over the past year all the old timers, I think, who were in with me have retired, and I suppose I would have done the same from the Guard as well by now. But "thanks" for my service aren't really mandated. I"ve found that most former servicemen, at least the peace time ones like me, feel the same way.
Liaison section tent, Korean pig farm, South Korea.
Mid Week At Work: Everywhere is nowhere?
1920s vintage motivational work poster, in an era when this genera was at its height. This is one of those posters which is likely completely out of sink with the era that is coming into the workplace now, and which seems quite comfortable with the idea of rapidly switching employers.
Odd to see the use of a prospector as the boogeyman here. Generally, they're sort of an admired historical class. Most didn't make it big, of course, or anywhere near big. Some did, however, and in a way they were sort of the entrepreneurs of their era, which likewise tend to fail more often than they succeed.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
The American Songbook
Some time ago, several years ago in fact, I was in Court and the judge presiding over the case (we were in chambers) noted that his children, who were approximately the same age as mine, didn't learn the songs we all learned as kids in school. I was quite surprised by that, but upon returning home I found that was indeed true of my own. Entire groups of songs that we learned in school were completely unknown to them.
In grade school, in the 1960 and early 1970s, we learned a range of "traditional" songs, some of which, in thinking back, weren't all that old at the time, but seemed so. These included the Hudie Ledbetter (Leadbelly) series of songs that most people believe are age-old folk songs, some genuine old folks songs, folk songs of the 1930s and some well known U.S. military ballads.
Songs that I can recall learning this way, if not always understanding, include Down In the Valley, Jimmie Cracked Corn, Johnnie Came Marching Home, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Little Brown Church In the Vale, Red River Valley and This Land is Your Land, amongst others.
The lyrics of some included cultural references that were never explained to us, such as Jimmie Cracked Corn, which is sung from the prospective of a Southern slave. By today's standards, that song would be both rather shocking, and not exactly socially tolerable. Others were cleaned up versions of songs that had heavy situational references unknown to us. Down In The Valley, for example, is a Leadbelly song that includes a references to being in prison, if all the lyrics are included,
We learned a selection of national or patriotic songs as well. Of course The Star Spangled Banner was one. So was My Country Tis of Thee, which I learned at home was to the same tune as the British National Anthem, The Queen. My Country Tis of Thee is much less less martial.
These songs tended to be taught in music class, in which a music teacher who went from school to school taught the songs and occasionally played the piano. I can't recall her name, but I do recall that she tried to teach us something by making us memorize the words Tee Tee Te-te Tong, in much the same way the children in The Sound Of Music learn the "Doe, a deer" song. Sometimes we gathered in school assemblies, seated by grade, and sang them along with clips from "film strips".
Now all of this seems to be a thing of the past, and there's a lot to teach so perhaps that's no surprise. But in looking back at it, it's a bit of an open question, maybe, of what occurs when a culture loses its base of common songs. The country won't collapse, of course, but a bit of a widely shared heritage is lost in the process.
In grade school, in the 1960 and early 1970s, we learned a range of "traditional" songs, some of which, in thinking back, weren't all that old at the time, but seemed so. These included the Hudie Ledbetter (Leadbelly) series of songs that most people believe are age-old folk songs, some genuine old folks songs, folk songs of the 1930s and some well known U.S. military ballads.
Songs that I can recall learning this way, if not always understanding, include Down In the Valley, Jimmie Cracked Corn, Johnnie Came Marching Home, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Little Brown Church In the Vale, Red River Valley and This Land is Your Land, amongst others.
The lyrics of some included cultural references that were never explained to us, such as Jimmie Cracked Corn, which is sung from the prospective of a Southern slave. By today's standards, that song would be both rather shocking, and not exactly socially tolerable. Others were cleaned up versions of songs that had heavy situational references unknown to us. Down In The Valley, for example, is a Leadbelly song that includes a references to being in prison, if all the lyrics are included,
Write me a letter, send it by mail;At least one standard was somewhat controversial in its origin, but it seems to have gotten over it quickly, perhaps in spite of the desires of Woodie Guthrie, its author, that being This Land Is Your Land. Guthrie, who was basically a fellow traveler prior to World War Two, meant the lyrics of the song much more literally than most seem to believe. Of course, the last three stanzas of the song are usually omitted.
Send it in care of the Birmingham jail,
Birmingham jail, dear, Birmingham jail,
Send it in care of the Birmingham jail,
One of the more unusual songs, looking back, that we learned was the Field Artillery Song. I later had to learn it again, or sing it rather as I already knew it, at Ft. Sill. I'd already learned it as a child in grade school.As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.
- Over hill, over dale,
- We will hit the dusty trail,
- And those Caissons go rolling along.
- Up and down, in and out,
- Counter march and left about,
- And those Caissons go rolling along,
- For it's high high he,
- In the Field Artillery,
- Shout out your "No" loud and strong,
- For wher-e’er we go,
- You will always know,
- That those Caissons go rolling along.
We learned a selection of national or patriotic songs as well. Of course The Star Spangled Banner was one. So was My Country Tis of Thee, which I learned at home was to the same tune as the British National Anthem, The Queen. My Country Tis of Thee is much less less martial.
- My country, 'tis of thee,
- Sweet land of liberty,
- Of thee I sing;
- Land where my fathers died,
- Land of the pilgrims' pride,
- From ev'ry mountainside
- Let freedom ring!
- God save our gracious Queen!
- Long live our noble Queen!
- God save the Queen!
- Send her victorious,
- Happy and glorious,
- Long to reign over us:
- God save The Queen!
- O Lord our God arise,
- Scatter her enemies,
- And make them fall:
- Confound their politics,
- Frustrate their knavish tricks,
- On Thee our hopes we fix:
- God save us all.
- Thy choicest gifts in store,
- On her be pleased to pour;
- Long may she reign:
- May she defend our laws,
- And ever give us cause,
- To sing with heart and voice,
- God save the Queen!
These songs tended to be taught in music class, in which a music teacher who went from school to school taught the songs and occasionally played the piano. I can't recall her name, but I do recall that she tried to teach us something by making us memorize the words Tee Tee Te-te Tong, in much the same way the children in The Sound Of Music learn the "Doe, a deer" song. Sometimes we gathered in school assemblies, seated by grade, and sang them along with clips from "film strips".
Now all of this seems to be a thing of the past, and there's a lot to teach so perhaps that's no surprise. But in looking back at it, it's a bit of an open question, maybe, of what occurs when a culture loses its base of common songs. The country won't collapse, of course, but a bit of a widely shared heritage is lost in the process.
Wednesday, March 25, 1914. Villa repulsed.
According to the Cheyenne paper, Villa had suffered a set back.
The same paper showed that Wyomingites were slamming Democrats as far back as that, and even earlier.
Also in that issue, some interesting items showing how local agriculture was.
And then there was this interesting item:
The Laramie paper was reporting on the distress in the British defense posture. We know, of course, what they did not, that they were on the eve of war.
Last prior edition:
Monday, March 23, 1914. Doubts about Roosevelt's fate on the River of Doubt.
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