Friday, April 30, 1915. Events on either side of Turkey.

The Royal Navy Division landed at Gallipoli.

15,000 Armenian refugees were allowed into Van on the thesis that it would strain the city's food supply.

Last edition:

Thursday, April 29, 1915. Things in Africa and Arabia.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, British Empire, German Empire, German Kriegsmarine, Italian Army, Italian Empire, Italy, Libya, World War One

Thursday, April 29, 1915. Things in Africa and Arabia.

Senussi rebels defeated a force of Italians at Gasr Bu Hadi, Libya.

Italy was not yet a combatant in the Great War.

A small force of British colonial troops defeated a much larger German force at a fort in British Nigeria.

Survivors of the SMS Emden  arrived in Al Wajh on the Red Sea where they'd connect with the Hejez railway.

Last edition:

Tuesday, April 27, 1915. Advance at Gallipoli.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Austro Hungarian Navy, boats and ships, French Navy, Gallipoli, Mormon, religion, The family, Turkey

Working around the clock

We are told that, prior to the influence of labor unions, working hours were long (and conditions dangers) and about the only day anyone got off was Sunday.  That day, of course, is the Christian day of rest, and people generally at least honored that, giving themselves, and their employees, the day off.

Labor unions came in, and the daily working day, at least in the United States, shrank to eight hours by law, and 40 hours per week, by law, save for employees who are not covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, which are actually quite a new now, but not nearly so many when the FLSA came in.  Even so, when I was a boy, the working day was generally eight hours long for most people, and most people had Saturdays and Sundays off.  Some retail outlets were open on evenings, all of which were "department" stores, which were also open on Saturdays.  Nothing was open on Sundays, not even gas stations, except for grocery stores.

All a thing of the past now.

Now, as stores have become more and more national and international, more and more of them are open seven days a week, with employees who have to be there on Saturdays and Sundays, and quite a few are open late into the evening, or even twenty four hours a day.  Certainly "convenience stores" are.

All of that, of course, is well known.

But what is less well appreciated is that those people who were exempted from the FLSA in the first place, now never really leave work, unless they're very disciplined.

It's the cell phone, which isn't really a phone anymore so much as its a little computer with a telephonic feature, that has caused this. Cell phones can be set to receive email around the clock.  And they receive calls and text messages by default.  This means that the person with them is in contact with their occupations at all times, save for the discipline to sever the contact.  And that's not always possible.

Professionals and businesses rarely intrude on one another in this fashion with texts or calls, but they do innocently and inadvertently send emails to each other constantly.  I do myself, even though I generally keep the email function of my phone off. That is, I'll send weekend emails on occasion, and some people do a great deal.  They are not seeking to intrude, but a person with an Iphone set to pick them up, will pick them up.

Phone calls are another matter, interestingly.  As we carry our cell phones constantly anymore, and as we use them for work, some people (again not usually business clients or other professionals) will call them on weekend and off hours.  I received just such a call, for example, recently on a Saturday evening while I was at dinner.

Some such calls are true emergencies, but most are not.  It's just hard to resist the temptation.  I've noticed a younger generation has almost no ability to resist it.  But resist it we should.

The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:

So we are informed at Mark 2:27. And very true it is.  Even for those who are non religious, people need a brake.  The expansion of work in an intrusive fashion is a feature of our evolving lives, and not a good one.

A century ago, in 1915, when a lawyer, for example, went home, his mail didn't go home with him, and his work probably didn't either.  He might get a telephone call, if he had a phone, at home, if it was a true emergency.   This would also have been true half a century later, in 1965.  Or in 1985.  Not now. This has been a revolutionary change, but it's one that we have to question if we're really benefiting from it?  My guess is that nobody does, and a condition in which fewer things are available after the business day and weekends, and in which people are harder to get in touch with while not at work, might be a better one.

Churches of the West: San Miguel Church, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Churches of the West: San Miguel Church, Santa Fe, New Mexico:

This church is the oldest church in the United States.  Built between 1610 and 1626, the church is still an active Catholic church offering two Masses on Sundays.
 

This church serves as a reminder that our concepts of North American settlement are often somewhat in error.  This church in is the American Southwest and has been in active use for over 400 years, a figure longer than any church in the American East, and a demonstration that much of what we associate with European civilization in North America was already further West at an early stage than we sometimes credit, and that what became the North American civilization was already less European, in significant ways. This church, for example was constructed by regional natives.

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Two Laramie's

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Two Laramie's

Cairns on Squaw Mountain | Ladder Ranch

Cairns on Squaw Mountain | Ladder Ranch

Tuesday, April 27, 1915. Advance at Gallipoli.

Allied forces advanced two miles at Gallipoli.

The French cruiser Léon Gambetta was sunk in the Mediterranean off Santa Maria di Leuca, Apulia, Italy by Austro-Hungarian submarine SM U-4 with the loss of 684 of her 821 crew.,

The captain of the submarine was Georg von Trapp of what would become the Von Trapp Family Singers.

The Mormon (LDS) Church established the practice of Family Home Evening.  Apparently the night is now on any convenient day, but most Mormons continue to use Monday as the day.

Last edition:

Monday, April 26, 1915. Leaving one Triple and joining another. French remounts travel through Laramie.

Labels: Battle of Trekkopjes, Canadian Army, Diplomacy, Equine Transportation, French Army, German South West Africa, Italy, The Second Battle of Ypres, Treaty of London, Triple Alliance, Triple Entente, World War One

Monday at the Bar: Courthouses of the West: Fremont County Courthouse, Lander Wyoming

Courthouses of the West: Fremont County Courthouse, Lander Wyoming:

This is the Fremont County Courthouse in Lander Wyoming. The courthouse includes all of the administrative offices of Fremont County as well as housing two courtrooms for the Ninth Judicial District, which also has courtrooms in Pinedale Wyoming and Jackson Hole Wyoming.

The courthouse lawn has a nice memorial to all war veterans from Fremont County since statehood, naming them in the memorial.

Lex Anteinternet: Protesting Too Much: Lex Anteinternet: The return...

I received this past week the newsletter my local representative puts out about the past legislative session.  In it, he notes that all four of the bills he sponsored passed and became law.  And then he goes on to metion. . .  three of them. 

That's right, only three.

The fourth one remains undisclosed in the letter.

I know which one that is, it's the bill discussed here:

Lex Anteinternet: Protesting Too Much: Lex Anteinternet: The return...:   I've commented several times on this year's legislative efforts regarding the Federal lands in the state, with a comment on the...

I noted in that entry I'd written my representative and received a reply.  I'll bet I wasn't the only one who  wrote him, and I'm guessing that those who did write were not pleased. 

Since this bill passed, and even at the time of its passing, news regarding it became remarkably quiet.  It's as if it isn't even there.  The legislature passed it, but chances are that they were getting a lot of mail like mine towards the end, and after, and now there may be a feeling that its better not to say too much.  This is not the norm for Wyoming's legislature, where normally we'd see discussion about big things that they've done.  If they've grown quiet on it, while still proceeding on, there may well be some conflicts and second thoughts, and a desire to get a ways past the session before this becomes news again.

Well, in my prior entries I noted that voters who care about this issue are unlikely to forget it.  Noting that  "four" of the bills you sponsored while discussing only three isn't going to cause us who wrote about it to forget who it was that caused this to occur.  I expect next election this will be an issue.  It should be. 

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Community Baptist Church, Glenrock Wyoming

Churches of the West: Community Baptist Church, Glenrock Wyoming:

Some Gave All: Scenes from the Arlington National Cemetary

Some Gave All: Scenes from the Arlington National Cemetary:  Tomb of the Unknowns.  The grave of Audi Murphy, the most decorated soldier ...

Some Gave All: Scenes from the Arlington National Cemetary

Some Gave All: Scenes from the Arlington National Cemetary:  Tomb of the Unknowns.  The grave of Audi Murphy, the most decorated soldier ...

Some Gave All: Lincoln Memorial

Some Gave All: Lincoln Memorial: The Lincoln Memorial, recalling the ultimate sacrifice of the melancholic lawyer who rose to the presidency on a principal and precise...

Some Gave All: USS Maine Memorial, Washington DC

Some Gave All: USS Maine Memorial, Washington DC

Sunday, April 15, 1915. Gallipoli.

The ill fated Allied landing began at Gallipoli with the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landing at what became known as Anzac Cove while British and French troops landed at Cape Helles.

Ottoman resistance was immediate.

Canadian forces failed to retake St. Julien.

Last edition:

Saturday, April 24, 1915. The beginning of the Armenian Genocide.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Armenian Genocide, boats and ships, Canadian Navy, German Army, Germany, Ottoman Empire, The Second Battle of Ypres, Transportation, World War One

Does "Homeland" strike anyone else as a bit fascistic?

Ever since 9/11 Americans have been using the term "homeland".  Following the Al Qaeda attack the US government formed the Department of Homeland Security. Government offices discuss "threats to the homeland".  Even the news media will discuss "the homeland".

Homeland?  What's that mean.

I think it's supposed to mean the United States, or perhaps the continental United States, as opposed to our diplomatic missions or overseas missions.  It should frankly absurd, and even a little bit fascistic. 

Traditionally, Americans haven't spoken of any part of their country as "the homeland".  Rather, we speak of our country as, well, "our country", or "the United States", or "America", but not the homeland.  Homeland has a certain "blood and soil"* type of connotation that Americans have generally sought to avoid.  Indeed, one long hallmark of American culture is that even though we recognize and celebrate the existence of regional cultures, the country belongs to everyone. So, for example, a New Yorker can move to Alabama, should he chose, or an Alabaman to Hawaii, etc.  By doing that, that internal immigrant is moving from one regional culture to another, but generally there's no folkish prohibition to hit.

Indeed, the closest term in the western world to "Homeland", as we're presently using it, is the German word Heimat.  Heimat is a bit difficult to translate, but it roughly equates with "homeland" while adding a cultural, and indeed blood, relationship to the term.  The Nazis were big on Heimat, although a cultural closeness to Heimat isn't unique to them in any fashion.  Still, that type of association, which is sort of a fascist thing in general, is not something Americans have every held.

Americans have held a sentimental attachment to "the heartland", which is generally conceived to be the Mid West agricultural heart of the country, which many non Eastern Americans have a familial connection to.  That's quite a bit different.  Southerners, Texans, New Englanders, and Westerners (at least) have a sentimental attachment to their regions, which they usually just identify geographically.  People of native ancestry often are attached to a region as well.

All that creeps up on the concept of a "motherland", which is a cultural concept that's strong with some ethnicities in the United States and some nationalities around the globe.  Perhaps the one that's the strongest is the Russian one, with its concept of "Mother Russia". Irish Americans have traditionally had a strong sentimental and cultural attachment to "the old country", as have Italian Americans.  None of those concepts, however, equates with "the homeland".

Even the adoption of the term in the security context is a bit odd.  We used to speak of "national security" where we now speak of "homeland security".  "National security" sounded mature and sober.  "Homeland Security" sounds like the enemy is at the gates and we're holed up in the bunker.  Not very appealing.

Indeed, for that matter, the change in terms strikes me the same way that the old change from the "War Department" to the "Department of Defense" strikes me.  Poorly chosen.  There was no doubt what the focus of the "War Department" was.

All good reasons, in my view, to ditch all this reference to "Homeland".  Let's just call it was it is, we're either in a long term war with foreign enemies who have an internal fifth column, like the Cold War, or we're engaged in a huge effort against criminal organizations which occasionally have armed expression. Either way, there were existing departments for that sort of thing with less odd names.

*Blut und Boden:  A Nazi phrase associated with Die Heimat (roughly, "the homeland", expressing a nearly genetic identity with a die Heimat with die Volk).

Saturday, April 24, 1915. The beginning of the Armenian Genocide.

The Armenian Genocide began with the deportation of Armenian intellectuals from Constantinople.

It's always easiest for the oppressor to remove those whom they'd like to repress. . . 

The Germans launched a gas attack on Canadian positions at St. Julien, which allowed them to take the village.

The RMS Lusitania arrived in New York City coincident with the German embassy in Washington D.C. issuing a public warning that the waters around Great Britain being a war zone and that ships flying a British flag would be considered targets.

Last edition:

Thursday, April 22, 1915. Gas!

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Canadian Army, French Army, German Army, technology, Technology is ruining everything, The Second Battle of Ypres, Weapons, World War One

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: On the Trail - A Visit to Warm Springs

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: On the Trail - A Visit to Warm Springs

WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: Headlights for Horses?

WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: Headlights for Horses?

Thursday, April 22, 1915. Gas!

The Germans used gas in scale for the first time at Ypres.  The Allies sustained mass casualties, but Canadians, improvising protection with urine soaked rags, held their ground.

The First German Gas Attack at Ypres by William Roberts 

Last edition:

Wednesday, April 21, 1915.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, actors and actresses, Artillery, British Army, Chihuahua Mexico, German Army, Mexican Diaspora, Mexico, World War One