Mid Week at Work: Annual Shad Bake, Bar to Bench, 1924. District of Columbia Bar.

Do they still have the Shad Bake?

USDA Blog » Born to Pack: Second-Generation Mule Packer Turns Love of Animals and the Great Outdoors into an Exciting Career

USDA Blog » Born to Pack: Second-Generation Mule Packer Turns Love of Animals and the Great Outdoors into an Exciting Career

Wednesday, September 9, 1914. Germany loses World War One.

Chief of the Imperial German General Staff Helmuth von Moltke suffered a nervous breakdown upon hearing German forces were retreating from the Marne. 

He informed Kaiser Wilhelm; "Your Majesty, we have lost the war!". 

He was quite correct. The German gamble had failed.

He was 66 years of age, not that old by World War Two German standards, but old by the standards of the Great War.  His health was already poor. Barbara Tuchman characterized him as a self doubting introvert.  He wouldn't outlast the war, dying in 1916.

German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg laid out Germany's war aims, a little late in the day, in the Septemberprogramm.

The war aims were:

1. France should cede some northern territory to Germany.
2. France should pay a war indemnity high enough to prevent French rearmament for the two decades.
3. France would partially disarm by demolishing its northern forts.
4. Belgium should become a vassal state of Germany
5. Luxembourg should be annexed to Germany
6. Buffer states would be created in territory carved out of the western Russian Empire/
7. Germany would create a Mitteleuropa economic association
8. The German empire would be expanded in Africa.
9. The Netherlands should be brought into a closer relationship to Germany

They didn't' get that.

Belgian troops gained ground at Aarschot.

Australia took Nauru, German New Guinea.

Hilaire Belloc with y Land and Water to write articles on the war.

Last edition:

Tuesday, September 8, 1914. French attack at Marne.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, First Battle of the Marne, French Army, German Army, North Dakota, panoramic, Photography, The Big Picture

The Big Speech: Pais Dinogad

Pais Dinogad. Welsh, 7th Century

 Peis dinogat e vreith vreith
O grwyn balaot ban wreith
Chwit chwit chwidogeith
Gochanwn gochenyn wythgeith
Pan elei dy dat ty e helya
Llath ar y ysgwyd llory eny law
Ef gelwi gwn gogyhwc
Giff gaff dhaly dhaly dhwg dhwg
Ef lledi bysc yng corwc
Mal ban llad llew llywywg
Pan elei dy dat ty e vynyd
Dydygai ef penn ywrch penn gwythwch pen hyd
Penn grugyar vreith o venyd
Penn pysc o rayadyr derwennyd
Or sawl yt gyrhaedei dydat ty ae gicwein
O wythwch a llewyn a llwyuein
Nyt anghei oll ny vei oradein

Dinogad's tunic is very speckled
From the skins of martens it was made
Whistle! Whistle! Whistling
We call, they call, the eight captives
When your father went to hunt
Spear on his shoulder, club in his hand
He called his lively dogs
'Giff, gaff!  Catch, catch! Fetch, fetch!'
He killed fish in his coracle
Like the lion killing small animals
When your father went to the mountain
He would bring back a head of buck, of boar, of stag
A head of speckled grouse from the mountain
A head of fish from the falls of Derwent
At whatever your father drove his spear
Whether wild boar, or wild cat or fox
None would escape if they had not strong wing

And now Syria

 WWI vintage poster for Middle Eastern relief.

Some time ago I wrote an item here on what seemed likely to be an intervention in Syria's civil war.

And now, its being debated in Congress.

I'll applaud the President for submitting this to Congress.  Just last week or so it appeared that the President was set to simply order the Navy to conduct strikes against Syria, in retaliation for the Syrian government using chemical weapons on its own people, without bothering to bring in Congress, but the British Parliament turned that around. That only occurred as Parliament was being asked by Prime Minister David Cameron to support the upcoming U.S. strike. Parliament said no.  That caused the President, in what now seems to be a miscalculation, to seek authorization from Congress.  Right now, to my surprise really, Congress doesn't seem  likely to grant that authority. As a result, there's some discussion on the President ordering the strikes anyway, which would be a massive political miscalculation.  Of our allies, there's a movement in Canada to require their PM to follow Britain's lead and submit the question to Parliament, which would likely vote no.  France appears to be the only country that is likely to support us, but probably for historical reasons that we have a very dim appreciation of.

 Bedouin riding through Roman triumphal arch, Palmyra Syria, 1939.

In Congress views on this topic are split three ways.  One camp wants to authorize the President's proposal, which is to make a limited strike over a 90 day period in retaliation for the government's use of chemical weapons on civilians.  Another wants to stay out of the war entirely.  A third will vote no as, ironically, it wants to jump into the war, topple the government and create a new one we, we think, will like better.

That's basically John McCain's position, or at least that's his position by implication. But do we dare to suppose that's realistic?  And if it is not, do we dare get into this thing at all?  Do we even understand Syria?

 Straight Street in Damascus. This street is so old its mentioned in the New Testament.

Americans tend, to an almost charming degree, to believe the diametrically opposed beliefs that the United States is the best country in the world and that every other country is just like us.  What country may be the best in the world is a subjective matter, but objectively, not every nation and not every people are just like us.  Far from it.

Most nations in the world, or at least most successful ones, are "nation states".  A nation state is a country made up of one nation. This notion, or rather this fact, is so contrary to our own experience that generally we don't really grasp what it means.  Indeed, in our pledge of allegiance we even state that we are "one nation, under God."

"Syrian" (almost certainly Lebanese) children playing in the streets of New York City.  There is a huge global diaspora of Lebanese.  According to some, the Lebanese diaspora is the most successful, in terms of business and wealth, in the world.  The Lebanese are distinct for a variety of reasons, including that at the time of the formation of their country Maronite Catholics made up a majority of the population.

Perhaps, over time, the American "nation" has become just that, but most stable countries in the world have been formed by nationalism, and that nationalism long ago separated out the borders of the country along cultural boundaries. This appears to be changing in the modern world, but it's still largely the case. That is, France is a country for the French.  Italy is a country that united in the 19th Century in an effort to combine all the Italians, and some who were sort of Italians, into one country.  Germany united in the 1870s as a confederation of German principalities.

 Roman temple for Emperor Diocletian, a figure frequently noted for persecution of early Christians.

Conversely, the Austro Hungarian Empire flew apart in the early 20th Century partially because the constituents of that empire no longer wanted to be ruled by a common government.  Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia became separate countries, with that process rolling along right up until almost the present day, as Czechoslovakia, made up of the Czechs and the Slovaks, split into two separate countries, each of which is a nation state.  We witnessed something similar to this in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, when a country made for the "south Slavs" busted up along ethnic lines that essentially only they could discern.

Not all modern countries are nation states, of course.  The United States, for example is not. And countries that share a common origin to that of the US are not.  That is, Canada and Australia, also nations that were formed via the immigration from many parts of the Europe and even the globe aren't. The United Kingdom isn't, although in the true European fashion the various nations that make up the UK; IE., England, Scotland and Wales, have remained nations rather than blending to a surprising degree. And as noted, this was so much the case for Ireland, once part of the UK, that it violently departed.

A person could legitimately ask, of course, what the heck this has to do with Syria, but it has a great deal to do with it.  Syrian isn't a nation state.  And not only isn't a nation state, it isn't like the US or Canada in which the various ethnicities mix fairly readily. They don't mix.

A person might find that surprising, and many Americans apparently don't realize this at all.  We keep hearing about "they Syrians" but who are they?  A person with an ear for history might presuppose that the Syrians of today are the Assyrians of old, but they'd only be very partially correct.

 Syrian Bedouin, 1939.

Assyrians do indeed living on, in some fashion, in the DNA of many Syrians today, but modern Syria isn't he Assyria of old.  Even by the time of Christ what is now Syria had come under the influence of some foreign populations, namely the Greeks, which is why Syrian actually fit so seamlessly into early Christian history.  The coastal region of what was in very modern times Syria was at that time, as now, Lebanon, and that area had its own ancient populations that contributed to its nature, namely the Phoneticians, who may have descended from the Philistines.

 Syrian gypsies.

As noted, Syria was a region of the Middle East whose population took rapidly to Christianity, and there have been Christians in Syria ever since the 1st Century. Christianity took so rapidly to Syria that Damascus was where St. Paul was headed in order to persecute the Christians when he had his Epiphany.  And that also tells us that there were Jewish populations there at that time as well, but there were throughout the Middle East at the time.  Christians were first called that in Syria, Antioch to be precise, although that city is now in Turkey, on the Syrian border.

Ruins of Crusader era church in Syria, 1939.

Like the rest of the Middle East, Syria was invaded by the Arabs during the early Islamic period, and like places where there was a strong Christian presence, the Arabs were never able to fully supplant the native Christian population. This has very much been the case in Syria.  Today, Syria is made up of Islamic populations, Christian populations, often in their own areas, Alawites (a minority Moslem group), the Druse and some Kurds.  None of these groups has much in common with the other, except by the exent to which the minority groups, the Christians, Druse and Alwaties fear, and have reason to fear, the majority Moslem Arabs.

 Representatives of the Orthodox in the US, following the Russian Revolution.  In addition to Maronite Catholics, Syria has populations of Antiochean (Syrian) Orthodox.  Contrary to the way history is sometimes imagined, Roman Catholic Crusaders, upon taking Antioch, restored the Antiochean prelate to his seat.

The Ottoman Turks occupied and governed Syria for eons, until the Ottoman Empire disappeared due to World War One.  France received Syria, with which it had strong historical ties, as sort of a consolation prize for helping the British defeat the Turks during the Great War.  France occupied Syria from 1918 until 1946, keeping it through several changes in the French republican government and even into the Vichy period.  Syrian troops served the French in World War Two, both in the Vichy cause and the in the Free French cause. In some ways Syria was the French consolation prize for its role in the Middle East in World War One, as the French also fought the Ottoman's there, but it also recognized that France's role in the region existed for historic reasons going back to the Crusades. Many of the Christian Kingdoms of the Crusading period saw significant French colonization and a recent work by a British author has made the point that during this period not only were a majority of the residents Christians (and were well after the fall of the Crusader kingdoms) but that in some areas, but not all, they were basically French colonies. French trade with the region kept on keeping on in to modern times, and its worth noting that about the only government that appears inclined to get into Syria now is France.

 The British High Commissioner for Palestine, left, and the French High Commissioner for Syria, right, with young lad in middle, 1926.

Anyhow, while the French have a pretty poor record in regards to the success of their 19th and 20th Century colonies, in terms of becoming modern states so their experiences must be used as examples with caution, Syria did have the benefit of both Ottoman and Syrian administration and that doesn't appear to have lead to a real concept of forming a modern state really. If France was unable to do it in 20 years, I don't think we'll be able to in ten or fifteen, or whatever period we'd be willing to invest in the country if we got in full bore.  And to suppose that the Syrian rebels are going to create a parliament and recognize civil liberties without European or American boots on the ground is absurd. The French, we might note, had the benefit of being successors to the Ottomans, which meant that the Syrian population wasn't really inclined to be hostile to a foreign overlord, as they now will be under any scenario.

 Kurds, a stateless people, are native to a region encompassing parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.  The Kurds are actually responsible for the final stages of the spread is Islam, not the Arabs, and have given it an enduring memory of a unitized theocratic state and the false myth of enduring a Christian invasion. Ironically, not all Kurds are Moslems today, nor have they ever been.

On French administration, one thing worth noting is that the French came to the conclusion that it wasn't possible to rule Syria as a single political entity, and they ultimately created districts on ethnic lines. Lebanon exists today for that reason. The Alawites and the Druse also had their own regions. We always seem to think that any country we step into makes sense as a nation, and that would go counter to the modern experience of the Middle East in general, and Syria in particular. That is, why Syria at all? For that matter, why Iraq? It probably makes more sense that these countries be busted up into their ethnicities, which do not mix. But we won't do that. And whoever we prop up isn't going to want to do that either as no government ever desires to become less powerful and control less country.  In other words, the Kingdom of Sweden might have been willing to recognize that Norway wanted to be its own country in 1903 without fight, but Syria isn't going to do that with any of its minorities. For that matter, even the highly civilized United Kingdom fought to keep disenchanted Ireland in the group form 1918 to 1922, and I doubt that any Middle Eastern nation would do less.

 Druse refugees, 1925. The Druse are an Islamic sect despised by other Islamic groups.  They live in Lebanon, Israel and Syria today.  Early opponents of the Turks, and allies of the British in World War One, today they are closest to Israel.

Regarding the ethnicities, examination of the sides in Syria ought to really give us pause. Syria has some really distinct ethnicities.

By and large, Syrian Christians are afraid of the rebels, as they fear that a rebel victory will mean their end, and in my view it probably would. Alawites feel the same way. We (the US) feel that because the government is brutal, we should depose it, but should we depose it in favor of a probable bigger brutality? I just can't see a way out of this mess that doesn't leave us with blood on our hands in one way or another.

On that, it's interesting to note that some 20 years ago or so the Syrian government crushed another rebellion, and that's come up in this context from time to time. But, what of that rebellion? It was by hard core Islamist. Had it succeeded, Syrian would be an Arab Iran today. The crushing of the rebellion was brutal. That's inexcusable. But had it not been crushed, the result would have been grim for us. Do we even want to have to be associated with the results of a civil war there today, given that any result is grim from our prospective?

Indeed, when we look at the overall state of the Middle East, I think its' general folly to view any of the existing political entities as likely to be permanent. No government there looks stable long term, and those that do are challenged by demographics. That being the case, it might be best to view the Middle East today the way we viewed Eastern Europe prior to WWII. A mysterious backwater that hopefully will muddle its way out of the mess its in on its own. One thing we can be thankful for is that with changes in technology, the Middle East is becoming less and less significant economically or in terms of material resources, so we might actually hope for a day when it can conduct its regional spats without us having to be too afraid of the results.

Postscript

When we posted this one year ago, it probably looked like we were engaging in a rather paranoid example of Realpolitik.  Well, events here have really born us out.  Those who were cheerleading for intervention in Syria last September, when we posted this, would have effectively handed Damascus to the Islamic State, which proved to be sufficiently powerful as to be able to expand its old fashioned religious war, with modern weapons, into Iraq and nearly topple that government.   The Presidents reluctance, therefore, to intervene in Syria proved wholly justified.  Indeed, it now appears inevitable that we will soon be committing air assets over Syria and bombing the same enemy that the Syrian air force is.

Make no mistake, Assad is not in the warm and fuzzy category of leader, and Syria deserves better.  But Syria also isn't Ireland, whose rebels will adopt a parliament and immediately become a model of democratic behavior.  It has a long way to go, and we best be careful lest it become part of the Islamic State, or something like it.

Tuesday, September 8, 1914. French attack at Marne.

The French Fifth Army launched a surprise attack against the German Second Army at Marne, splitting the German forces and disrupting their communications.  The Germans determined to retreat.

Tioga, North Dakota.

Ray, North Dakota.

Last edition:

Monday, September 7, 1914. Rescued.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Canadian Arctic Expedition, French Army, German Army, Imperial Russian Army, Native Alaskans, World War One

The Big Picture: Double Rainbow

Monday, September 7, 1914. Rescued.

The  King and Winge reached Wrangel Island in the Bering Sea and found 14 of the original 25 survivors of the Karluk shipwreck.  They were transferred to the ship, which then went on, unsuccessfully, to search for other survivors.

In the Battle of Grand Couronné the Germans attacks drove drove French defenders back south of Verdun, France.

In the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes the Germans attacked the Russians under the command of the very German named Paul von Rennenkampf in East Prussia.  He was, in fact, a Baltic German.

Last edition:

Sunday September 6, 1914. Day two of the First Battle of the Marne.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Austro Hungarian Army, Automobiles, British Army, First Battle of the Marne, France, French Army, Imperial Japanese Navy, Serbian Army, Siege of Tsingtao, Tsingtao (Qingdao) China, World War One

Sunday September 6, 1914. Day two of the First Battle of the Marne.

Troops from the French Army and the BEF crossed the Grand Morin and Petit Morin Rivers to engage the Germans.

General Joseph Gallieni began his three day quest to gather about 600 Parisian taxicabs to carry troops to the front.

French forces surrendered in the Siege of Maugeuge.

The Austro Hungarian Army gained a foothold in Serbia.

Japanese aircraft attacked German and Austro Hungarian ships at Tsingtao.

Last edition:

Saturday, September 5, 1914. The start of the First Battle of the Marne.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, boats and ships, First Battle of the Marne, French Army, German Army, German Kriegsmarine, Imperial Japanese Navy, Siege of Tsingtao, The written word, Tsingtao (Qingdao) China, World War One

glorikaner - daily photo blog

glorikaner - daily photo blog

Rediscovering the obvious: Diet and hunting, fishing and gardening

For those who follow dietary trends, the current in vogue diet is the "Paley\o Diet".  And for those who take the National Geographic, you are aware that they've been running a semi scary series of articles on food in the 21st Century.

Elk hunter in northwest Wyoming, first decade of the 20th Century. For many in this region, this scene could have been taken any October.

The National Geographic articles have been inspired by the scare that's existed since at least the early 1970s that the planet is about to run out of food, although that particular article isn't really on that topic.  Quite frankly, and as well explored by an earlier National Geographic article, there's small chance of this indeed.  If anything, production agriculture has so vastly increased the global food supply that there's an overabundance of food and most fears of this type are very poorly placed.  Production agriculture, in fact, has hardly touched Africa and there's vast potential there, although not without vast cultural cost at the same time.

That's not what this article addresses, however. Rather, it addresses something that has been so obvious to me for decades that it not fits into one of those "geez, I wish I'd thought of marketing that way back when. . . " categories.

That is, human beings are evolved to eat a diet that we ate in our aboriginal state, for the most part, which we could still largely do.  Failing to do so has all sorts of negative health impacts.

Now, I am very well aware that this idea, which is an obvious truth, runs counter to the whole peak of the vegan trend, but that entire trend is one that is basically neopaganistic and hateful of nature.  We are part of nature, are evolved to eat a natural diet, and that diet was a wild one.

 Deer hunters with camp, early 20th Century.

So, hence the paleo diet trend, which I've largely ignored  A better study of this was presented by the National Geographic.

And what did the National Geographic discover? Well, people in their native states are hunter gatherers, with the emphasis on hunters. They eat a lot of vegetative material, but mostly because they're left with little choice.  When they don't have meat, it's because they can't find it, and they crave it.  If meat is abundant, their diet is heavy in it.  If it isn't, they feel deprived and make do with what they can find.

 Don't have the time, or perhaps energy to pursue deer or elk, or whatever.  Well, poultry lovers, perhaps you should try something a little more wild. Women hunters with pheasants.  Pheasant taste better than chicken any day.  For those who worry, moreover, about mass poultry production and how chickens are killed and raised, these pheasants enjoyed a wild bird life and generally when they're culled, they go from that to processed, so to speak, instantly.

And, as we now are increasing learning (and which I've known for decades) a natural diet of that type, with what you could locally hunt, is the best thing for you.

Now, as folks around here know I'm a fan of agriculture, and indeed I own beef cattle (although I'd live off of deer, elk and antelope if my wife, who is more of a beef fan, would allow).  And agriculture does have a peculiar role here.  

 Female pheasant hunter, 1960s, Colorado.

Agriculture is, or can be, the enemy of the wild in that it's allowed, as has long been known, civilization to rise.  Only the production of surplus foods can sustain urban development and our type of civilization, even though farmers and ranchers are often shunned by the people who depend upon them 100% in cities.  This has long been known, and some cultural anthropologist in fact make a big deal out of it and sort of smugly argue that all production agriculture is the enemy of the wild.

But in fact, as the National Geographic explores, agriculture can exist and does exist in a blurry line with hunting and gathering in those societies.  Nearly all, but not all, hunter gather societies are actually small farm, hunting, and gathering societies.  That's been obvious for millennia, but is generally ignored.

 Rabbit hunter, early 20th Century.  Rabbit taste nearly identical to chicken, and is the leanest meat on the planet.  It's so lean, in fact, you can't survive on a diet of it alone.  In many nations, domestic rabbit is a common table item.  It oddly isn't in the U.S., but there's no good reason for that. Wild rabbit taste like chicken and can be used anywhere chicken is.

Okay, so what's all this have to do with diet?

Just this.  While it puts me in the category of food campaigners, a wild diet is the best diet, and some direct relationship with your food is vastly superior to none.  People who sit around extolling vegetarianism or veganism are largely allowed to do that on the backs of farmers who are supporting their pagainistic anti natural dietary beliefs.  People who have a direct relationship with consumption and understand it (the two not necessarily being the same) tend to feel differently.

 Trout fishing in the Catskills.  Fishing is really fish hunting, and I've always thought that people who try to make a distinction between hunting and fishing are fooling themselves.  For that matter, anyone who eats fish, poultry or meat and doesn't think that they'd personally hunt or fish is really fooling themselves anyhow.  While on this, I'll also note that I truly find the modern emphasis on "catch and release" a bit bizarre.

Even now, in the 21st Century, many of us could have that direct relationship.  Most urbanites have the room to plant a garden (and yes, I've done so in the past but haven't the past several years, so I'm being a bit hypocritical).  And hunting is on the rise in the United States.  Taking some of your food in the field, either by hunting or fishing, is to be encouraged, and not only has the benefit of giving you a diet that somewhat replicates the one you are evolved to actually eat, but it gives you a lot of exercise as well.  Indeed, something non hunters don't appreciate is that the actual work in hunting involved can be quite intensive, and usually really dedicated hunters in the west try to stay in shape for that reason.  For those who can't do that, a direct relationship with your beef supplier, or pork supplier, or poultry supplier, is nearly always possible.  The cow in our freezer has always been the trendy "grass fed" beef just because of that sort of, but of course it's one of our own that's a "volunteer" having determined to retire from calf raising.

 World War One vintage poster campaigning for War Gardens, which the U.S. encouraged to be planted in towns and cities.

 World War Two photograph of a Victory Garden being planted.  This fellow had such a big yard (its in a town) that he's acquired a tractor to do it.

 School Gardens probably passed away about the time this poster was made during World War One, but there's plenty of space in most urban areas for yard gardening.

There's no down side to any of this, and we can only hope that this trend continues in the future, with more hunting, gathering and planting, on their own.  Shoot, most urban areas are so darned boring in real terms, the benefits can hardly cease.

Deer hunter bringing in a deer on skies. The uninitiated will think, "oh surely, that's the far distant past". Well, not always.  I haven't hunted deer on skies, but I have hunted snowshoe hares on skies many times.

Conscripted into JrROTC

Natrona County High School's JrROTC program is the oldest one in the United States, being over 100 years old.

 

Male high school students in 1946.  Quite a few of these boys are wearing their JrROTC uniforms, which was one of the standard Army uniforms of the 1940s.

I've blogged on this before, but based on the fact that the school was a land grant high school, something that most people don't even realize existed, it featured, in recognition of that status, compulsory male military education all the way from the day it first opened, up until some date in the 1970s.  The changes in society brought about by the Vietnam War ultimately caused the School Board to eliminate JrROTC as a required course at that time, which was made easier by the fact that Casper's second high school, Kelly Walsh, did not have JrROTC at all.  Nor did the county's third high school, Midwest.  So it was not only becoming unpopular as a compulsory course, but it was also inequitable to require some students to take it, while others did not, merely based upon where a person lived.

Up until the 1970s, it doesn't seem to have been unpopular, although it doesn't seem to have been terribly respected post World War Two either.  Prior to 1945, however, it was a different world, and I've been told that parents appreciated the required course as the Army provided the male uniform for it, giving parents a much needed set of school clothes in an era when resources were tight.  Anyhow, by the mid 1970s, that requirement was gone, and the program wasn't all that popular when I graduated from NCHS in 1981 (I didn't take JrROTC either).

Well, in a scheduling oddity, for at least one NCHS freshman, conscription into JrROTC is back.

I happen to know the young man, an nice rural kid who, like most rural kids, is older than his years.  His father was a Marine, he's already a fair cowboy, and it probably is no sweat to him.  But, because classes must be filled, and there's only so many slots available for any one thing, and because if the class you wanted wasn't available, they'll slot you into one that is, he's been assigned to JrROTC.  Perhaps more than one kid has been, I only know of the one.

A surprising local return, in a minor way, to practices of the past.

Flap de jour: Dick Cheney at the Wyoming State Bar Convention

Okay, so you've had enough of celebrities and their inappropriate photos, and "artists" who appropriate those photos to protest Google, and even of people famous for being famous who keep the spotlight on themselves by appearing on magazine covers in an inappropriate fashion?

Well, in a week featuring such flaps, plus new concerns over an Apple product associated with them, we have a meatier, or at least better attired, flap.

Dick Cheney at the Wyoming State Bar Convention.

 Former Vice President Dick Cheney, smiling in this portrait, but will he be smiling after the State Bar Convention?

Dick Cheney, formerly the Vice President of the United States, has been invited by the Wyoming State Bar Association to speak at its 2014 Annual Convention in Cheyenne.

Yawn. . . big deal, right?  Well, its turning out to be a minor local controversy.  How could that be true.

First a word about the State Bar.  I don't know how it works in every state, but as Wyoming has a "self governing" bar, every Wyoming lawyer is a member of the State Bar Association.  We're all assessed annual fees to the bar, and the bar performs a variety of services that make it a quasi governmental entity, one of two such entities of which I'm aware of in Wyoming's history, but the only surviving one (the Wyoming Stock Growers Association was also, at one time, a quasi governmental agency as it regulated the round ups and employed the stock detectives, who were law enforcement officers.  Like every state bar everywhere, it holds an annual convention.  And like every bar convention everywhere, it has an annual banquet as part of it, which features a keynote speaker. This year's in Cheney.

Now, I should note that I don't attend the bar convention, unless it happens to be in town. The reason for that is that this is September, and if I was going to take a week off of work, I'd go hunting, not to the state bar convention.  Indeed, as I recently noted here, I have to think the choice of September as the annual meeting month, which it has been forever, demonstrates that who ever came up with that choice was leading an incredibly dull life.  July when its too hot to do anything, or January when its too cold, would have been the sane choices.

 What lawyers with time off in September should be doing.

At any rate, however, its in September, and this September the choice is Cheney as speaker.

I'll confess that when I received my flyer for the convention, as all members of the bar do, I was a bit surprised.  For one thing, I was surprised just by the choice of Cheney. For another, I was a bit surprised it was somebody so interesting as a public figure.  Then I put my flyer in the round file, recalling that the convention was in September, and moved on.

Well it turns out that some lawyers are upset, some by the choice of Cheney and some by the biography that he supplied and which was published in the flyer.  

This just hit the newspaper today, but I've known about it for awhile, as a subscriber to the Wyoming Trial Lawyers Association list serve was telling me about the heated exchange on that list, much of which seemed to be centered on Cheney as a choice himself. That's the more interesting part of the reaction.

Cheney is a large public figure with an association with Wyoming (he is not, contrary to the widely circulated error, our "native son", he was born and partially grew up in Nebraska, coming here in his teens).  As a figure who represented Wyoming in Congress, served in the Ford Administration, then served in the George Bush I administration, and who went on to serve as Vice President, he's a hero to some in the state and is widely admired in this heavily Republican state.  Locally there are at least two structures named for him, one being the Federal building and the other being the NCHS stadium (or perhaps its the field, I can't recall exactly which).  So his choice is really fairly logical, as long as we don't assume that the speaker at a bar convention must absolutely be a lawyer, which I don't assume, and which is a misplaced assumption.

Indeed on that, law belongs to the people and lawyers should be cognizant of that.  Therefore, interesting public figures, lawmakers and former lawmakers should make good choices, irrespective of whether they are controversial or not, and in some cases particularly if they are controversial.  For a profession that prides itself on independent thinking if we don't want a controversial speaker, we're making ourselves into hypocrites.

And, like him or not, Cheney is a very good speaker.  I saw him speak at the NCHS graduation some years ago, and he was frankly excellent. And I say that as a person who isn't really a Cheney fan otherwise.  

This is how I think the bar should view it.  You don't have to love him to listen to him, and he is intelligent and does speak very well.

Of course, some don't want him as they politically disagree with him, which is also a dangerous reason to silence somebody.  And its a huge mistake for lawyers to do that.

This state is very Republican and very conservative.  The average man suspects, in the back of his mind, that all lawyers are Democrats and members of the extreme left.  In truth, the lawyer demographic is much more left leaning than the general public, here and pretty much everywhere.  We're not really a popular profession, and if we appear to be wanting to shut up Dick Cheney as we disagree with him politically, it doesn't speak well of us in terms of our dedication to our stated principals.

It also confirms, in an era when we've opened up the floodgates of admission to the bar to out of staters, that the legal community is way out of touch with locals. It really isn't.  Lawyers are in fact in touch with their communities and their members, but for a despised class to appear to be shutting somebody up for political reasons sends a message that we probably don't really want to be broadcasting right now.

As to the second part of the reason that people are upset, however, there's a point, although a minor point, there.  Cheney's self published biography was included whole in the flyer, and it included a statement about how President Obama's policies are making  the things more dangerous for the United States.  That's a blatantly political statement, and one that's consistent with Cheney's views, but it is an opinion, not an established fact, and the Wyoming State Bar appeared to be endorsing that view.  Cheney shouldn't have included that in a submitted biography, but the State Bar should have read it and taken that statement out.  The State Bar has now, however, apologized for that, and that's good enough.

Again, as I have things to do, and if I had the time available, I'd invest it in more pleasurable and personally meaningful pursuits, I'm not going to go to the State Bar and I've only gone to the banquet one single time.  But for those who are going anyway, they ought to go and listen.  They may not like what they're hearing, but frankly if they don't, they'll be experiencing what litigants, courts and jurors frequently do. And we expect all of them to keep an open mind and listen.

Saturday, September 5, 1914. The start of the First Battle of the Marne.

London Opinion, September 5, 1914.

The First Battle of the Marne began when troops of the French Sixth Army encountered German cavalry east of Paris at the River Ourcq.

On that day, the enigmatic and deeply Catholic but imperfectly practicing French poet Charles Péguy was killed in action, serving as a lieutenant in the French Army.

The Japanese Imperial Navy launched three Farman seaplanes from the Wakamiya to bomb German fortifications at Tsingtao in its first combat use of aircraft.

The HMS Pathfinder was sunk by the U-21 in the Firth of Forth, the first sinking of a ship by a locomotive torpedo in history.

Last edition:

Friday, September 4, 1914. No separate peace.

Labels: 1910s, 1914, Antwerp Belgium, Arctic, Austro Hungaria, Belgium, Canadian Arctic Expedition, German Army, Imperial Russian Army, Poland, Triple Entente, World War One, Wrangel Island

Agricultural references where you might not expect them

 Bauer

This is a common German last name, and therefore a common last name in many other regions of the globe.  It means "farmer."

Category:  Name.  Agricultural category:  farming.
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Boer

This, like Bauer, means "farmer," but in Afrikaans, a variant of Dutch.  Most people know it from the southern African demographic group, which at one time had two republics in southern African and which fought two wars with the United Kingdom.  As Dutch settlers in Africa were almost all farmers, that name attached to them as a group, and to their republics.

Category:  Name.  Agricultural category:  farming.

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Corn Huskers

The nickname of the University of Nebraska's athletic teams derives from a corn farming operation, husking corn.

Category:  Sports mascot.  Agricultural Category:  farming.  

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Farm Bureau Insurance

Farm Bureau Insurance is owned by the National Farm Bureau, a farming organization.  Creating of insurance companies was very common on the part of farming organizations, as well as some other entities, at one time.

Category:  Insurance Company.  Agricultural Category.  Agricultural organization.

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Grange Insurance

Grange is an insurance carrier that, like some others, was started by a farming organization.  In this case, that organization is The Grange, which still owns the carrier.

Category:  Insurance Company.  Agricultural Category:  Agricultural organization.

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National Farmers Union

National Farmers Union is an insurance company that is current a branch of QBE.  The company, like many insurance companies, had its origins in a farmers association, the National Farmers Union.  Today the insurance carrier, while it still writes in the agricultural area, is no longer associated with an organization.

Category:  Insurance company.  Agricultural Category:  Agricultural organization.

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State Farm Insurance Company

Unlike National Farmers Union, State Farm was never owned by an agricultural organization, but as its name implies it too has a farming origin.  State Farm started off as an automobile carrier writing policies for farmers.

Category:  Insurance company.  Agricultural category.

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Friday Farming: Itinerant farmers. October 1913

Been sort of a grim week, labor wise, here, eh?  Well, to finish out the week on that them we have this, for our Friday Farming feature.

"Renters." Itinerant Texas farmers who rent a farm for a year or so and then move on, giving them nomadic habits and everything is temporary. House unpainted and ill-cared for. The children from five years old upward pick cotton and help with the farm work, but get little or no schooling. It is estimated by State University that 300,000 children are thus affected in Texas alone. See Hine report Texas. Beginning with the five year old girl here who picks some, all work including the women. The nine year old girl picks one hundred and fifty pounds a day. Father is in town. Farm comprises fifty acres and they get about twenty bales of cotton, this year which is not a good year. Been here one year. Farm of J.W. Vaughn. Route 6. Location: Corsicana, Texas.