Lex Anteinternet: The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men: Lex Antein...

I've been posting on the oil field slump here pretty regularly in a string of posts of which this one is part,  Lex Anteinternet: The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men: Lex Antein.... It isn't  the only one by any means, however. 

Anyhow, in today's Tribune there's a story that on the very day that Halliburton's local lift division (pumps) was to move into their new quarters, they ended up laying off the entire local division.  Pretty dramatic event really.  How many people that is, is unclear, but the paper noted that at the end of the day there were 25 trucks in the lot that didn't leave.  That would presumably equate with 25 lost jobs at least.

In fairness, it must be noted that Halliburton recently merged with Baker Hughes, and this might be principally due to that merger. The paper's article seems to suggest it probably is, based upon their overviews of Halliburton personnel, and that makes sense to me. Halliburton acquired Baker Hughes for a reason, and that reason was to acquire its business, but it would make sense that there was some overlapping business to start with.  Indeed, as I think of Halliburton as a service company, I was surprised that it had a division that installed oilfield pumps.   Chances are high that Baker Hughes, which started off as an equipment company, would be more likely to have a more developed line of business doing the same thing really, so that may explain it.

Still, even though the article still includes some people who take a "it may be temporary" and "things are still going on strong here (referring to South Dakota)", that things aren't going well in the oil patch right now is pretty evident.  I'd guess that for those who were looking at going right from school into the oil patch, things are looking much different.

Who is AARP pitching to?

A lot of mornings I iron a pair of pants, or a shirt, and turn on the television to catch The High Chaparral.

Who doesn't?

Anyhow, as I'm watching, by doing that, a really old television show, early in the morning, I'm watching something that is probably being watched, I guess, by a lot of retired folks. At least the advertisers must think so. And one of those advertisers is the American Association of Retired Persons.

AARP has an add that pitches its automobile insurance, through Hartford, to people "50 years old and older".

Really? Are a lot of Americans in their 50s retired?  I really doubt it.

Oh, no doubt some are, but not most.  AARP, which also sends out their "join AARP" stuff to you when  you hit 50, seems to be fishing at the deep end of the pool there, but come on, how many Americans in their 50s are retired.

For that matter, fewer and fewer Americans in their 60s are retired and the retirement age is climbing.

Not that the AARP is the only organization that does this sort of thing. Some years ago I had  the occasion to have to interact with The American Legion, and during that an individual who was effectively recruiting for them asked me if I ever had any service, and if I'd like to join.  I have nothing against The American Legion but I didn't think I wanted to join, as I'm not a combat or wartime veteran after all.  I told the person I had been in the Guard but I was sure I wasn't eligible.  Well, it turned out that for some weird reason I was.  My period of Guard service had overlapped some bad event, I think our involvement in Lebanon (I was in basic training at that time, which actually put you in the Regular Army for that period of time), so I could be a Legion member. But why?  Doesn't seem what they'd want.

Of course, organizations need members to be effective, so I guess I can't blame them for trying.  But I'm not retired. Based upon my observations of other lawyers I know, my chances of retiring are really slim at that.

Thursday, February 18, 1915. Last stand.

German troops surrounded the Russians in the Augustów Primeval Forest in western Poland. Their last stand allowed the retreating Russian 10th Army to reform their defenses.

German exclusion zones went into effect.

Frank James died at age 72 at the Missouri family farm.

Last edition:

Wednesday, February 17, 1915. Putting a mutiny down.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, British Army, French Navy, Imperial Japanese Navy, Imperial Russian Navy, Indian Army, Lighter than air aircraft, Singapore, Singapore Mutiny, World War One

Random Snippets. It snows in the winter.

In much of North America, indeed in darned near all of it, it snows every winter.

In the northern 2/3s of the US, it snows without fail every winter.  And in the top half of that, it snows a lot.

This is not news.

So why the panic on the press about something that happens, without fail, absolutely every year?  It's really absurd.

Wednesday, February 17, 1915. Putting a mutiny down.

French, Japanese and Russian sailors and marines landed in Singapore to help the British quell a rebellion by troops of the Indian Army.

Two German Zeppelins went down in Denmark.

Last edition:

Monday, February 15, 1915. The Singapore Mutiny.

Labels: 1900s, 1915, Indian Army, Singapore, Singapore Mutiny, World War One

Lex Anteinternet: Civil Holidays

Today is President's Day.  I worked it.  I always do.  I'm sure I've never had it off in any job I ever had, save for the period of time during which I was employed part time by the Army National Guard.  I'm sure I would have had it off, if I were working on this day otherwise.

I looked at these types of holidays this past October in this thread:

Lex Anteinternet: Civil Holidays:  Leann posted an item on her blog about Columbus Day, urging Congress to consider changing it to Indigenous Peoples Day .  I'll confess ...

President's Day is a Federal holiday that came about due to the amalgamation of Washington and Lincoln's birthdays as a holiday, both of which occurred in February.   They were great men and they certainly deserve a Federal holiday.  But how many take it off?  Did you?

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: The Islamic State in Iraq and th...

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: The Islamic State in Iraq and th...: As of today, the situation discussed here has gone from bad to worse.  ISIS, or ISIL, depending upon the term you use, has taken the city o...

And now this horror has spread on to the Libya, where ISIL beheaded 21 Egyptian  Coptic Christians simply for being Christian.  Egypt has retaliated with airstrikes against ISIL in Libya.  This is significant in two ways.  One, it shows that ISIL's reach is expanding.  Secondly, Egypt has now joined Jordan as a Middle Eastern, Moslem majority, country that's now actively engaged in warfare with ISIL.

To my surprise, 10 to 15 percent of Egyptians are reported as being Coptic Christians, a much higher percentage that I would have guessed.  Generally they're second class citizens, but all Egyptians appear to be rallying to their cause.

Not unrelated, a Moslem terrorist also struck at a free speech event in Egypt.  Armed with an automatic weapon in a society which strictly controls access to firearms, he had a pretty free hand so the fact that the casualties were as low as they were is truly amazing.  This event should have the added impact of causing European nations to further wake up to the fact that Islamic extremists are both in their midst, and at war with their open societies.  While I am sure it won't have this effect, it should also cause nations in Europe to ponder their gun control provisions and consider the example of the US, which is the opposite of what they imagine, in that as gun control provisions have very much waned in the past 30 years gun violence has actually declined (which is also contrary to what many Americans imagine).  On a continent which now finds itself at war with a quasi invisible radical fifth column, with access to automatic weapons coming out of the Middle East, allowing the population to protect itself deserves some consideration.

Automotive Transportation II: Cars

Cars.  Automobiles that is.

With this entry, we pick up where we left off with trucks and where we started off with walking.  That is, our series of posts on changes in transportation.

 

Allegedly the first American automobile.  In the 1890s cars started to be manufactured, and as they were fairly primitive, some were also built at home.  Perhaps the first car in Wyoming was built by Laramie physician, Dr. Frinfrock.

Perhaps this one is the most obvious, and perhaps it nearly completes the circle, sort of, we began with walking.  We have another yet to go, but to most people the revolution brought about by cars is the most obvious.  Perhaps for that reason, and also for the reason that we've really touched heavily on this topic in numerous prior posts, we're not going to really dwell on it as much. There's no real reason to belabor the obvious too much.

The common myth, which we've already explored and pretty much destroyed, is that everyone rode horses until cars came about, and then everyone switched to them. As we know, there was never an era when everyone rode horses, and in the United States, bicycles were they really early rival for urban personal transportation to the horse, not the automobile.  Bikes were cheap, easy to store, and easy to maintain.  Early automobiles, by contrast, were extremely expensive and hard to maintain.  And as a rule, people weren't going all that far, in modern terms, anyhow.

Which isn't to say that automobiles didn't have a toehold by the late 19th Century.  They did.  And in a role that the early nickname for them reveals. They weren't called the "horseless carriage" for nothing. That's exactly what they were.

 

Buick, 1907.  Note the right hand drive.

Automobiles, even if not extremely widely spread, for economic reasons, did command interest pretty rapidly.  Their advantage was in fact revealed by their nickname, as was their basic design. They were horseless carriages.  Just as horsed carriages, however, were beyond the means of most, the horseless carriage was as well, although they did spread down into the middle class early on.  In terms of the amount needed to acquire one, they were amazingly expensive, which makes it surprising to see how widespread they really were.  A multiplicity of manufacturers made an appearance early on, some of which are still with us today.

1897 Oldsmobile.

As is well know, it was Henry Ford who sought to change all of that.  Before Ford, cars were virtually all hand made, even if made to a single design.  Ford applied the techniques along employed in some other industries, such as the firearms industry, and acted to mass produce a car, that car being, as everyone well knows, the Model T.  Aiming that car specifically at a mass market, it was targeted to be affordable to the men making it, and as time when on, and production efficiency increased, the price of the Model T dropped.

 

Early Model T touring car.

The Model T was truly a revolution in autos. The Tin Lizzy, introduced in 1908, was a tough, durable, but primitive automobile.  It bridged the gap from truly primitive vehicles before it, and more modern ones that would follow it, but the fact that it was readily available to so many in the American, indeed the global, market meant that for the first time many people could afford a car, and they did buy one.

 

Later model Model T, still in use in the late 1930s.

With the Model T, the introduction of cars came extremely rapidly.  Before that, cars had been the domain of the wealthy, the eccentric, or the pioneering.  After that, they came increasingly to be everywhere, occupying both a place in the carriage house and on the more humble curb.  And contrary to the common myth, Ford catered to its market, making the Tin Lizzy in a variety of models, with touring cars (open topped multiple seat vehicles) and roadsters (two seat convertibles), being amongst the options.  Multiple colors were also offered.

Like any revolutionary device, however, whether it be a mass produced car or a smart phone, imitators were soon to follow, of course.

Manufactured all the way up to 1927, the Model T became obsolete nonetheless surprisingly fast.  By 1915, Ford engine parts supplier the Dodge Brothers were operating a rival automobile company.  General Motors started operating in Flint Michigan the same year that Ford introduced the Model T.  Chrysler would form in 1925.  Louis Chevrolet opened his car plant in 1911.  The wagon make Studebaker, beat them all to the punch and had been working on automobiles since 1897, and even manufactured electric automobiles in the first decade of the automobile age.  By the 1920s there were dozens of automobile manufactures offering a mind numbing number of vehicles.

 

Legendary Jordan advertisement that launched modern advertising.

Indeed, in this era it was the automobile industry, with the Jordan Motor Car Company leading the charge, that introduced modern advertising. Advertising based on nothing other than image alone, which is exactly what that company did with its famous "Somewhere West of Laramie" advertisement, featuring the legendary enigmatic starting phrase that "Somewhere west of Laramie there's a bronchobusting, steer-roping girl who knows what I'm talking about."  Those reading the ad probably didn't know what Jordan was talking about, but they knew that they wanted one of his coupes.

While the car didn't replace the horse in many of its roles, the car had come to dominate the urban streets by the 1920s.  The age of the bicycle was over in the United States, and urban horses were very much on the way out in urban areas for conventional personal transportation.  Cars had taken over the taxi trade, and cars were now in the police patrolling role.  Cars had come in where the bike had started too, and they were offering daily, if somewhat expensive, transportation to hundreds of dangerous novice drivers.  The future appeared pretty clear, and Americans were crazy about cars.

Indeed, by the 1920s, the car was changing the very nature of the streets.  Paving wasn't new to cities by any means, and streets had been paved with cobble stones back into antiquity, but cars changed the amount of acreage that was paved.  Paving is unnecessary for animal transportation to an extent, although it serves wheeled vehicles, including wagons, of any type.  But cars very much favor paving, and the process of paving the urban landscape was well in swing by the 1920s.  While already discussed, of course, in terms of trucking, the increased number of cars also aided in the linking of towns via paved roads, something that wasn't really needed prior to the internal combustion engine.

Paving machine, about 1920.

Although Ford expanded its Model T production overseas, Europeans and other peoples were not nearly as enamored with cars as Americans.  Perhaps because their cities had been so long established for other means of transpiration, and perhaps because of their economic situation simply being different, while cars very much came into European societies by the 1920s, they didn't achieve the same overarching status that they did in the United States and Canada at the same time.  Americans were just berserk over automobiles by the 1920s, willing to spend a fair amount of their incomes to obtain one, and to maintain one. Europeans generally were not.  A real difference in modern American (and Canadian) culture, vs. European cultures, had already become clear in that regards.

 

Dusenberg touring car.

From fairly early on, cars took on a multiplicity of types.  Big Touring Cars were built for over the road trips with at least a few passengers, with some of the roads being pretty bad being considered, were a popular early type.  From the widely available Model T touring car, to expensive automobiles, these cars were larger serviceable cars.  Some European manufacturers, aiming for a different market, setting the standard for size and durability. Rolls Royce, fore example, built a touring car so durable that it was the platform for the excellent British armored cars used in World War One.  In contrast, coupes and roadsters, two seaters, were offered by most car companies even if only on a model that was otherwise built as a touring car, offering motorist a car that that had previously been occupied by the horse drawn dog cart.  In other words, an automobile really aimed at single men, or occasionally businessmen who didn't transport more than a single passenger.   Hard sided cars, with permanent roofs, began to replace touring cars by the late 1920s, in the form of sedans, which has been the standard for cars ever since.  By the 1930s, very large cars then known as "station wagons", "depot hacks", "estate cars", "suburbans" or "carryalls"  served the purpose of durable taxi, or hack, from train stations and hotels.  While some of these names are recognizable now, in terms of their descendants, none of them were, at that time, what they later became.  Indeed, a person would have to go to a vintage car show or watch an old movie in order to see one. 

Model T sedan.

 
Model T roadster.

With competition heated for automobiles in the US in the 1920s, its no surprise that innovation was rapid as well. By 1927 the durable Model T was clearly wholly obsolete, and Ford, for  the second time in its history, introduced an automobile called the "Model A".  Originally Ford used that name for a primitive vehicle built from 1903 to 1904, but starting in 1927, it came back out with its second Model A.  A really modern car, the Model A was a huge success but was only built until 1931.  Starting the in 1932, the Model B took over, with their being an engine option for the first time which not only allowed the purchaser to buy something other than a 4 cylinder engine, but to actually have that choice be a V8 engine.  The era of the modern car had really arrived. By the mid 1930s, all the car manufacturers then in business, and in spite of the Great Depression weeding a number of them out, there remained a lot, was changing models yearly, rather than sticking with a single long manufactured model.

"LongBeachFord" by Los Angeles Times photographic archive, UCLA Library. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LongBeachFord.jpg#mediaviewer/File:LongBeachFord.jpg

 

Model A.

In Europe, the production of cars had likewise increased, and the spread of automobile manufacturing had commenced in Japan as well.  Nowhere but the US was the market as advanced as in the US, but it was there.  American manufacturers themselves spread to Europe with Ford's entry into the European market being particularly notable. As in the US, there were a multiplicity of types, but as a rule European cars were simply not as widely purchased by their public.  Price was part of the reason, and this inspired Nazi Germany to actually create a program whereby a worker could set aside funds in the hopes of acquiring a cheap German car, that car being Ferdinand Porsche's Volkswagen, or 'People's Car".  None were ever delivered during the horror of the Third Reich, although the Volkswagen plant did produce a car that was Jeep sized during the war, with that car being the Kubelwagen.  The VW "Bug" of course, would revive after the war and live on, Model T like, forever.

 

The 1937 Cord, an extremely advanced luxury car of the 1930s which would not survive the Depression.

 

1937 Chrysler Airflow.

While the US automobile industry took a pounding during the Great Depression, and while some automobile makers on the margins, like Jordan, were casualties, as were brand names like LaSalle that were made by bigger makers (General Motors in that example), the American automobile industry endured the Depression surprisingly well.  In the late 1930s, when  global rearmament commenced due to the German threat in Europe, surplus North American capacity in existing operating plants meant that North America had a vehicle production capacity like non other.  The United States, and to a lesser extent Canada, became the supplier of vehicles to the Allies.  Moreover, North American capacity was so vast that it simply dwarfed Axis production.  While every army that fought in the war used vehicles, including vehicles in the "car" class, American production alone was so vast that every single Allied army as equipped to some extent with American vehicles. To take the classic "car" class American vehicle of the war (although in military terms its a 1/4 ton truck), the Jeep as an example, Jeeps were found in the armed forces of every single Allied army during the war, including the Red Army.  Indeed, the Red Army was almost entirely dependent upon American motor vehicles for transportation by the end of the war.

It can't be said that cars advanced, like trucks did, during World War Two.  By and large, the cars that came out right after World War Two were the same models that were being offered in 1941.  No new automotive technology was really developed that was applicable to cars during the war, except for the perfection of conventional four wheel drive, which showed up, in terms of cars, only in Jeep class vehicles.  Regarding those, of course, the Jeep did go into civilian production by Willys, with Willys always having been a manufacturer that specialized in rural vehicles.  It soon had competitors from overseas, interestingly enough, demonstrating the global spread of the Jeep during World War Two.

 

M38A1, which in its civilian expression was the CJ5.  The CJ series of Jeeps went into production right after World War Two and while the designators have changed to YJ and TJ, they've basically never stopped.

By the late 1940s, however, American cars did begin to evolve towards big.  Cars of the 1920s and 1930s, save for touring cars, were surprisingly small.  Cab space was often quite tight, even in cars that appear externally large.  This began to rapidly change in the late 1940s, however.

In part that might reflect an enormous improvement in roads that occurred during the 1930s.  Automobiles of the 1930s were still all suitable for rural roads. They had high clearance, compared to modern cars, and they were relatively stiffly suspended.  During the 30s, however, most highways most places had become modern, and urban paving was the norm.  This in turn reflected itself in the late 1940s with cars starting to have lower and softer suspensions, and in turn they grew larger as well.  Larger engines also began to make the appearance, particularly in Fords which had pioneered the V8 engine.  Chevrolet's remains 6 cylinders at first, but in the mid 1950s Chevrolet also introduced a V8 for its regular car line. By the late 1950s V8s had become the American norm, even though 6 cylinder vehicles were still available.  Also during the 1950s some American cars had become simply enormous.

 

1954 Chevrolet Deluxe.

They probably bordered on absurdly enormous, and they began to shrink back down in the 1960s. By that time, however, the Station Wagon had evolved into a family vehicles that was very large and designed to carry an entire family and their stuff.  Station wagons were a staple of the 1960s and early 1970s, before being eclipsed by smaller vehicles and mini-vans in the 1980s.  At the same time, the same vehicle that had evolved into the station wagon had also evolved into Carry Alls and Suburbans, large family vehicles that were built on truck frames and which really were a type of truck.  Suburbans are still with us, even though station wagons are not.

 

1950s vintage Pontiac Super Chief.

Cars of the 1970s were generally powerful vehicles reflecting an American love of the open road.  Racing inspired cars even entered the public market by the late 1960s, and were sold throughout the 1970s, in the form of "muscle cars", sports cars with a high power to weight ratio that were capable of speeds in excess of any legal limit.

Still, the 1970s ushered in a change when the price of gas, and gas shortages, made fuel economy an American concern for the first time.  As fuel economy had been a concern everywhere else in the world, this made foreign imports really viable.  The Japanese and European manufacturers, devastated by World War Two, had largely recovered and had been focusing on their domestic markets, which demanded fuel economy. Cars like the Datsun, Toyota, or Fiat were suddenly marketable in the US, and the Japanese in particular, who had focused on making really good small cars, were able to make huge inroads into the American market.  The American market was permanently changed, and the number of American manufacturers declined to a "big three".

The shock of the fuel, and following fiscal, crises took American manufacturers a very long time to adjust to, but they have.  That takes us to the current market. If the Model A was a "modern car", as I've referred to it here, cars of the last ten years, with many American cars being prime examples, are "post modern". So much safer, longer lasting, and better than anything that's come before them, they can't even really be compared to cars of the 80s or 90s.  They are much, much better, longer lasting, and safer.  Oddly, Americans are now less interested in cars as well, which reflects perhaps a new post modern view of them.  For the first time, really, Americans now view cars the same way Europeans have for a long time, just a way to get around, if they really need one.

Body by Fischer.

Monday at the Bar: Courthouses of the West: Toronto Ontario Old Town Hall and York County Courthouse

Courthouses of the West: Toronto Ontario Old Town Hall and York County Cour...:

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Talking Wire Changes the West

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Talking Wire Changes the West

Monday, February 15, 1915. The Singapore Mutiny.

Half of the troops of the 5th Light Infantry, and Indian Army unit stationed in Singapore, mutinied.

Last edition:

Saturday, February 13, 1915.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Art, British Army, German Army, The Press, World War One

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Holy Rosary Catholic Church, Denver Colorado

Churches of the West: Holy Rosary Catholic Church, Denver Colorado:

Botching history on the bully pulpit

Every year there's an event called the National Prayer Breakfast.  I'll confess I don't really know much about it, other than it happens in D.C., and the President usually goes to it.  Typically, most Presidents have been careful not to say anything controversial, but President Obama has been the exception. This year he made just such a statement when he said:

Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. …So this is not unique to one group or one religion. There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith.

Now, this statement is one of those ones that's guaranteed to spark controversy, and I suspect that the President didn't quite mean this the way it sounds, but how does it measure up historically?  And beyond that, how does what it implies measure up?  So let's look at what the statement seems to say, and what it seems to imply.  It seems to say and imply:

1.  Some people are accusing Islam of being violent (and that's a correct thing to state, i.e., some people are saying that).

2.  Christianity has had its own examples of people doing terrible things in the name of Christianity; and three of those things are:  a) misdeeds in the Crusades; b) misdeeds during the Inquisition; and c) slavery and American segregation era racism.

So how do those claims, none of which is unique to the President, stack up? And how does the counter claim, which was essentially being addressed, that Islam is violent measure up?

Let's start with one of the most misconstrued periods of history of all time included in the list above, the Crusades.  Were bad deeds done in the name of Christianity during the Crusades.  Not so much.

The Crusades in and of themselves are very much misunderstood and this is principally due to the Reformation.  Prior to the Reformation western Europeans did not have a negative view of the Crusades, and even during the early part of the Reformation some figures, such as Martin Luther, were pleading for Christian intervention in defense of Catholic lands, such as Austria, against invading Islamic armies.  It was only later, when various Protestant groups developed a revisionist history that the suggestion that the Crusades were improper came about, and this was due to a desire to point fingers at their rivals and to distinguish themselves.  Like most big revisionist histories, the revision wasn't too accurate.

The "Crusades", which weren't called that until centuries later, came about as defensive wars designed to stop Islamic invasion of Christian lands, with much of those Christian lands occupied by Eastern, not Western, Christians. The Byzantines found that they were unable to stop invading Islamic armies, which had become newly aggressive after Islamic leaders, ironically non Arabs, first acted to subjugate Islamic Arab kingdoms in the Middle East. Those Islamic kingdoms sometimes had Christian majority populations, and the two groups had managed to settle into co-existence, but under this effort to subjugate those kingdoms, that policy ended and local Christians were persecuted or even given no choice but to convert to Islam. At the same time, Islamic forces began to expand into the region and threaten Anatolia.  The Byzantines asked for help, with Rome urged be provided.  Also, the same impulses acted to provide for armed escorts for pilgrims to the Holy Land, as they were subject to attack by marauding Islamic bands.

The initial efforts were successful.  Over time, the advancing Islamic armies were rolled back, areas that were occupied by them were once again under Christian rule, and in some places, over time, invading Islamic armies were completely and permanently defeated, such as in Sicily.  Less permanently, but significantly, Christian kingdoms, sometimes presented as invading kingdoms now, were created in various areas of the Mediterranean Middle East which very often had majority Christian populations newly freed from Islamic rule.   As we all know, the effort was not long term successful as the Ottoman Turks did manage to subjugate and defeat the Ottoman Empire, Islamic armies ultimately retook what they'd lost in the Middle East, and they even invaded up into Europe.  

So what were the terrible deeds?

Well, unless you consider the wars themselves terrible, not much.  The wars were fought under the conventional rules of the day, which weren't quite as nice as the modern ones, but they also saw a great deal less bloodshed than imagined as well.  Victorious armies of this, and earlier, periods grossly exaggerated their victories and usually claimed that vast numbers of enemy combatants, and even enemy civilians, were killed, but in reality, by one calculation, the number of people killed by the Crusading armies is actually less than those killed in pitched, but modern, battles today. That is, all the dead doesn't really add up to the same for one fairly typical battle today. Indeed, overall combat casualties were pretty low for the entire series of events.  And the claims about civilian towns people, including women and children, appear to be largely just made up.

The Crusaders did misbehave when they went through Constantinople, which cannot be denied, but nobody has every claimed that was done in the name of Christianity, quite the contrary.  In that, you have an example of Christians misbehaving, but not in Christ's name.  

So, the Crusades, a defensive war in the first place, turns out not to be an example of what the President claims.  The error would be understandable, save for the fact that he's so well educated.

Before we go on, let's look at the counter example, Islamic violence, which is what brings this topic up anyhow?  Is the same true of Islam, i.e., that its violence is conventional and misunderstood, in a historical context?

Well, here too, people who cite strongly to the "religion of peace" claim have history to contend with, but then so do those who would claim that all Islam is necessarily violent.

Very early Islam, that is Islam during Mohammed's life, spread at first through what was apparently his charismatic personality but then, during his life, took to violence.  From the outside, it seems that early on, when the more peaceful aspects of the Koran were written in these regards, it was a distinctly minority religion, and probably a Gnostic heresy.  It may have been quite a bit different than what it is today.  As Mohammad gained adherents, he turned to the violent spread of the new religion, and the later more violent portions of the Koran were written.  It seems fairly clear that the version of the Koran we have today doesn't actually match the earliest one, with the very earliest one held in a library in war torn Yemen, were nobody is allowed to view it, but the evolution was probably there. What this probably reflects, therefore, is that early on Mohammad wanted to try to make sure his faith wasn't unduly persecuted by the orthodox Christian faith, or the remaining Jewish faith, and so he urged peace and co existance.  Later on, when he was spreading the faith through the sword into mostly pagan areas of the Arabian peninsula, he was willing to take on Christians and Jews as well, and so the text grew considerably more dark.  So, Islam does in fact have a violent early history, in real contrast to Christianity which was hugely oppressed and non violent in its early centuries, and also in contrast to the Christian actions in the crusades.

Early Islam, in fact, spread mostly by the sword, being ultimately stopped in western Europe at Tours, and then rolled back, in the east at Vienna.   But that doesn't mean that all Moslems are violent, nor does it mean that Islam has been trying to spread by the sword every day of every year.  Indeed, right now the criteria for launching a violent action under Islam are relatively strict and basically can't really be done, as the authorities who would be allowed to decree it just simply don't exist.  So a good argument can be made that while Islam certainly has a violent past, those who act violently for it today may be heretical or at least out of the safe confines of their faith.

Okay, back to the other points, what about the Inquisition?

The term "Inquisition" usually means the Spanish Inquisition.  There are other Inquisitions, and for the most part they are inquiries of some sort or another.  The Spanish one is cited most typically, as it too gained currency as a "bad act" during the Reformation.  There's rich irony even in that, at least in the English speaking world, as any of the contestants in England were not shy about using force and Protestant authorities would go on to be very oppressive against not only Catholics, but other Protestants.

The problem overall is that its taken out of context pretty badly and also grossly exaggerated.

In order to understand it in the first place, a person has to be aware that the existing legal structure everywhere at that time viewed the Crown as the ultimate legal authority, and also, everywhere, viewed heresy as threat to the Crown.  It wasn't until the Reformation for the most part that European monarchies would have a concept of religious tolerance, although even then they typically did not. Henry VIII, for example, was happy to have his backer Thomas Cromwell be seen to be executed as a heretic.  Nations that went from being Catholic nations to Protestant ones quite often took the exact same position, except that they adopted a different church as the state church. So, in context, the concept of heresy as a state offense was very strong for a very long time.  This had to do not just with the Faith, however, but also very much with the concept of government.  In an era when monarchies could generally not act contrary to the faith, and when they all claimed to rule consistent with it, heretical acts were regarded as treasonous.  If a person could separate form the Faith, then they could also separate from the Crown.

This lead to various monarchies trying accused heretics.  In the case of the Spanish Inquisition, the Church became concerned that the judicial authorities were too ready to find people guilty, not to lax in doing so, and that the judicial authorities were also not competent to try such offenses. Given that, they Inquisition came about to look into such offenses.  This resulted in the accused being less likely, not more, to be found guilty.  Indeed, there were protests at the time against the Inquisition on that score, i.e., being too ready to find the accused innocent.

The trials of such things were not always pretty to be sure, and here perhaps the President has a point. But that's because all trials of serious matters were subject to shocking conduct by modern standards.  The concept of some sort of coercion was the norm, and it wasn't until centuries later that this was regarded as an improper judicial technique.  Even now, apparently, we haven't really come fully around to rejecting that concept in our own minds, as our own country has recently used what we must rationally concede to be torture to gain information from terrorists.  That doesn't excuse it, but it does place it in context.

So, again with the Spanish Inquisition. . . not so much.  It was an effort to reduce improper convictions, not to spur convictions, and its actions were consistent with those universally accepted then, but not now, in trials.  Interestingly, it resulted in many fewer deaths than British witch trials that would soon follow did, although those are generally regarded as attributable to Christian beliefs by their perpetrators.  The ultimate irony may be that pointing the finger at the Spanish Inquisition came up in the context of the Reformation, at which time the English Crown was always at a close state of war with Spain, but during which England itself was in a period of engaging in massive religious repression during which it wasn't shy about using violence.  Indeed, should the President have cared to make it, the actions of various British monarchs and political figures would have been a much better example of what he was trying to cite to than the Spanish Inquisition.

Well then, what about slavery and racism?

Here, I think, the President has a better point.  Nobody is claiming that Christianity sanctions slavery or racism, but people did make those claims.  Slavery in the South was sometimes excused on that basis, in no small part because the South was an overwhelmingly Christian region with a lot of serious Christians who had to reconcile their actions somehow.  Slavery is mentioned in the New Testament quite a bit, and so the rationalization was that because it isn't outright condemned, it must be sanctioned.  Well, actually it isn't, and the Greek word of the period in which the New Testament was written makes no distinction between a "slave" and a "servant", because in that period there really wasn't one. That reflects the economic realities of the 1st Century, but it has nothing to do with the 18th and 19th Century in terms of human bondage, and it doesn't license it.  Southern Christians, however, argued the opposite.

Be that as it may ,that was a position taken by individuals, rather than by any one church.  So, for example, the very large Episcopal church in the South didn't declare acceptance of slavery tto be doctrinal by any means.  Indeed, and again ironically, here too we have to bring in the United Kingdom as for much of this period the UK, which was home to at least two of the widespread Protestant faiths in the South, was the European standard bearer for the anti slavery effort.  The English may have gotten race based slavery rolling in North America to some extent, but they also really took it on later on, and often due to religious impulses.


Raced based slavery might, however, make it a better example here, as it might actually fit the President's example of some Christians misusing their faith to do a bad thing.  Although it was a rationalization, not doctrinal, but I think that was his point.  I.e., some people did do that, just as some Moslems now excuse violent actions the same way.

I don't really know how Christianity could be used to justify racism, but again, some have bizarrely tried that as well, so perhaps that too is a better example.  In the recent violent actions in France, for example, one of the attackers was living with his girlfriend, and their violent actions killed a Moslem policeman.  No way that Islam sanctions any of that, so a person engaging in that sort of activity has had to do some huge rationalization to get there.  I think in these instances you have the example of somebody believing so strongly that their actions are justified, that they then go to the conclusion that they can do anything they want.  No religion sanctions that, but some people behave that way.

So, on this one, I think I'd grade the President with a 50, a scale which would leave him with an F.  Back to the books.  Of course, these historical failings are commonly believed ones, and so maybe I'd reluctantly given him a C.

Saturday, February 13, 1915.

Last edition:

Wednesday, February 10, 1915. A warning.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Diplomacy, German Kriegsmarine, Horse Racing, Raid on the Suez Canal, Suez Canal, Suez Egypt, Unrestricted Naval Warfare, Woodrow Wilson, World War One

Census data and pure unadulterated baloney.

A really popular story on NPR reports that, for the years 1978, 1996 and 2014 the following have been the most common jobs in my state, Wyoming.

1978:  Farm workers

1996:  Farmers

2014:  Truck, delivery and tractor drivers.

Baloney.

Farm workers and farmers have not constituted the most common job here at any time in our state's history.  Granted, agriculture dominated the state's economy early on, but ever since the petroleum industry came in, that industry has, and there's absolutely no way whatsoever that farm workers or farmers constituted the most common job in the state in 1978 and 1996.  I well recall 1978 and 1996 and getting to be a livestock farmer (ie. a rancher) was very difficult to get into in either of those years if you were not born into it, and livestock farmers constitute the majority of our agricultural sector.

This shows, I suspect, the baloney nature of some statistics.  Its simply incorrect.  And I imagine its also incorrect for the several other states that are listed in this fashion.

At best, it might mean that more individuals identified with those jobs than any other one identified, signally, even if few occupied it compared to all other jobs combined, but I still doubt that.

I might believe driving some sort of truck, however, was the single most common job here in 2014, given the dependance on the oilfield on trucks.

Coast Defense Study Group | Coast Artillery| Sea Coast DefenseCoast Defense Study Group Inc. | Just another WordPress site

Coast Defense Study Group | Coast Artillery| Sea Coast DefenseCoast Defense Study Group Inc. | Just another WordPress site

Interesting site dedicated to the  Coast Artillery.

The Big Speech: From Study Out The Land.

All America lies at the end of the wilderness road, and our past is not a dead past, but still lives in us. Our forefathers had civilization inside themselves, the wild outside. We live in the civilization they created, but within us the wilderness still lingers. What they dreamed, we live, and what they lived, we dream.

T. K. Whipple

Ancient town yields new clues to early life in Wyoming - News Columns | Wyofile

Ancient town yields new clues to early life in Wyoming - News Columns | Wyofile

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Mounted men and a train.

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Mounted men and a train.

Mid Week At Work: Military Pilot, Punitive Expedition, 1916