The Submarine H3 runs aground, leading to the ultimate loss of the USS Milwaukee.

The U.S. submarine the H3, operating off of Eureka California with the H1 and H2, and their tender the USS Cheyenne, went off course in heavy fog and ran aground on this date (although some sources say it was December 16, this seems the better date however).

The H3 during one of the recovery attempts.

She'd be recovered and put back in service, although it was a difficult effort and would not be accomplished until April 20, 1917.  In the process, the USS Milwaukee, a cruiser, was beached and wrecked on January 13, 1917, making the relaunching of the H3 somewhat of a Pyrrhic victory.

The wrecked USS Milwaukee.

USS Cheyenne, which had been originally commissioned as the monitor USS Wyoming.  Truly an odd looking ship to modern eyes.

 The USS Cheyenne with the H1 and H2.  The Cheyenne had been decommissioned in 1905, after having served since only 1900, but she was recommissioned in 1908.  She was the first fuel oil burning ship in the U.S. Navy after having been refitted prior to recommissioning.  She was refitted as a U.S. Navy submarine tender, as a brief stint in the Washington Naval Militia, in 1913.

Today In Wyoming's History: December 14: Quebec prohibits women from practicing law.

Today In Wyoming's History: December 14:

Elsewhere:  1916:  In strong contrast to the State of Wyoming,  Quebec bans women from entering the legal profession.

This was in contrast with progress in suffrage elsewhere in Canada that year, but it wasn't terribly unusual for the time.  Note that the first Woman admitted to the bar in Wyoming had only been admitted two years earlier in spite of suffrage dating back to the late 19th Century and in spite of women already having served as justices of the peace and jurors. Having said that, every US state would have admitted at least one woman to the bar by the early 20th Century and many in the late 19th Century

Clara Brett Martin, the first female lawyer in the British Empire.

In these regards the entire British Empire trailed somewhat behind as the first female lawyer in the Empire, Ontario's Clara Brett Martin, wasn't admitted until 1897 after a protracted struggle to obtain that goal.

Today In Wyoming's History: December 14: Former Governor John Osborne steps down as Assistant Secretary of State for the Wilson Administration.

Today In Wyoming's History: December 14:

John E. Osborne at the start of his service as Assistant Secretary of State.

1916  Former Governor John Osborne concludes his service as Assistant Secretary of State for the Wilson Administration.

It had been rumored for weeks that the former Democratic Governor would step down, with motivations being various cited as an intent to run for the U.S. Senate and a desire to return his Western holdings.   All of that may have been partial motivators.  He did retain agricultural and business holdings in Wyoming and a 1918 run for the Senate showed he had not lost interest in politics.  However, he also found himself in increasing disagreement with his employer on Wilson's policies in regards to the war in Europe.  So, at this point, prior to Wilson's second term commencing, he stepped down and returned to Wyoming with his wife Selina, who was twenty years his junior.

Osborne would live the rest of his life out in the Rawlins area, ranching and as a banker.  While twenty years older than his wife, he would out live her by a year, dying in 1943 at age 84.  She died the prior year at age 59.  Their only daughter would pass away in 1951.  In spite of a largely Wyoming life, he was buried with his wife in their family plot in Kentucky.

First American Board Certified Physicians, December 14, 1916.

The American Board of Ophthalmology certifies a group of physicians after an examination at the University of Tennessee.  This is the first time a board has certified a group of physicians in the US, making those doctors the first "board certified" American physicians.

Mid Week At Work: Big Metal Bird: Episode 4 – Network Operations

Blog Mirror: Matthew Wright: Where did the commercial Christmas zombie frenzy start?

Where did the commercial Christmas zombie frenzy start?

One of my pet irritations about Christmas is the zombie mall frenzy, when shoppers go into a kind of trance amidst the glitz and glitter of the mall and start shelling out cash for chintzy consumer items made of cheap plastic. Most of these gee-gaws break 28 seconds after being unwrapped, and by 29 December they’ve been packed off to the landfill.

The start of what came to be known as White Friday (although it apparently was a Wednesday), 1916

 Mount Marmolata vom Sellajoch, in the Dolomites before World War One.  The disaster commenced on this mountain where Austrian troops were garrisoned on the summit.  A local officer, Rudolf Schmid, had asked for permission to withdraw prior to the disaster, recognizing the danger, but had been denied.  He survived the disaster.

On this day in 1916 nature and war combined to eventually kill over 10,000 Italian and Austrian soldiers in the Italian Dolomites.  The day featured a catastrophic series of avalanches which would continue to carry on the rest of the week.  The majority of the casualties were Austrian with only 300 Italians loosing their lives in the disaster, if "only" is an appropriate word for death on such a colossal scale.

Austrian recruiting poster omitting, curiously, death.

An oddity of this event is that it is recalled as "White Friday", but it didn't solely or even principally occur on a Friday. The disaster was the start of a series of such events that would apparently culminate in some fashion on Friday.  Given this, it's often reported as if the full disaster occurred on a single day and a significant number of deaths occurred on the first day, but they did not end that day, and the day they first occurred on did not lend itself to the title of the day in history.

By any measure, however, it was a horrific event.

The Wyoming Tribune for December 13, 1916. Maybe Carranza isn't in a hurry to sign.

Just two days ago Carranza was reported as going to sign the protocol for sure.  Now, accurately, he didn't appear to be likely to do so.

Otherwise, the disaster of World War One dominated the headlines along with the disastrous fire in Chugwater.

A rational and honest voice from the Governor's office

Governor Mead, according to the Casper Star Tribune:

Mead said in an interview Wednesday with the Star-Tribune that two state attorneys general have advised him that Wyoming is not legally structured, through an enabling act that began the process of statehood in the late 1800s, to obtain federal land. States such as Utah have enabling acts that provide a stronger case for transfer, but even they are battling to obtain the land, he said.

“Then you get into the policy,” the Republican said. “And I reflect back to 2012. We spent as a state $45 million fighting fires… If the federal lands that had fires on them would have been state lands, we would have spent another $45 million – in one summer. That’s a significant amount.”

The Non Inevitability of Inevitability

When I was in college I was in a class that was required to read a book, by my memory, called Republic of Grass.

The gist of the book, which was then a really hot item, is that the arms race between the US and the USSR, which was getting really ramped up at that time, was going to inevitably lead to a nuclear war destroying the United States. The solution, the author held, was to enter into a treaty with the USSR giving them everything they wanted.  Complete surrender in the Cold War, basically.  Better Red than Dead, more or less.

A few years later the Soviet Union collapsed.

In the 1920s and the 1930s the rise of Communist was held, in "Progressive" circles, to be inevitable and progressive.  The outcome would be a world wide triumph of Marxism, which the arrival of the Communist in the Soviet Union made plain.  About the only ones in radical circles, and even less than radical circles, who didn't hold that held the view that fascism held essentially the same future.

By 1950 it was plain that Communism was a hideous monster and we'd contest it.  Lots of old Communist had dropped out of the movement forever, many when the Communist and the Nazis made common cause in 1939 and 1940.

All sorts of inevitable triumphs have been predicted, only to fade.

The only thing that's really inevitable is that nature wins in the end.  You can act contrary to nature, physical or human, but you cannot disregard it.  If you disregard it too much, nature ultimately gives you the dope slap.

This is something that is routinely ignored by politicians and movements. And of the right and the left.

We really can't do too much damage to the natural world before it gets even.  This is science, and that has to be taken into account one way or another.  To some extent you can take care of that through engineering.  I.e., the river wants to flood here, I will build a levee.  But you have to be careful.  To nature, it still wants to flood there and it will work, for years, decades centuries and millennia, to do just that.

And so true with human movement.  People can pretend there aren't men and women and that there isn't a reason for long lasting universal human institutions. But there is. Alter them too much, and human nature will decree you to be miserable in your alteration.  Justice Kennedy can pretend whatever he wants, but declarations to the contrary produce misery, not bliss.

All of which is why nature wins.

Which is why philosophies contrary to nature loose.

Which is why political groups adopting falsehoods contrary to nature can sit and declare that something "is on the wrong side of history" only to find out that whatever they espoused was on the wrong side of nature.

It wasn't a pendulum swinging the other way.  It was the hand of nature.

Today In Wyoming's History: December 12, 1916: Chugwater's business district destroyed by fire.

Today In Wyoming's History: December 12:

1916  Chugwater's business district destroyed by fire.  Attribution. Wyoming State Historical Society.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Trinity Episcopal Church, Tulsa Oklahoma

Churches of the West: Trinity Episcopal Church, Tulsa Oklahoma: 

 

This is Trinity Episcopal Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  It's a downtown church of classic Gothic styling, but otherwise I don't know any of the details on it.

Cold Work: December 11, 1916

LOC Title:  VIEW OF REINFORCEMENT WORK AT THE REAR OF THE POWER HOUSE, DECEMBER 11, 1916. SEVERAL WORKING CYLINDERS CAN BE SEEN IN PLACE, AS CAN SEVERAL OF THE FORMS WHICH WERE PREPARED FOR POURING CONCRETE TO EXTEND THE TAIL RACE WALLS OVER ALREADY INSTALLED REINFORCEMENT BUTTRESSES. (779) - Michigan Lake Superior Power Company, Portage Street, Sault Ste. Marie, Chippewa County, MI

And then the shoe dropped.

Yesterday I published this item:

Lex Anteinternet: Whining, crying, panic in the editorial room of th...: Following the flood of analysis following the recent election of Donald Trump I stopped doing my after action reports.  There's just to...

Which included this item:

Gritting my teeth and waiting for the shoe to drop.  All this might lead some to think I'm a Trump supporter.  For regular Democrats, they probably have concluded I am, and for the Greewhich village crowd that seemingly runs the party they're probably hiding under their cafe tables with their tofu sandwiches and free trade coffee by now, crying.  But actually, I'm not.  As noted way back during the election, I voted for a third party candidate, and an obscure one at
that.

Which means even though, unlike the NYT I accept the election, and unlike the Democratic Party, I actually know it occurred, I'm not a Trumpite now or before. And I'm gritting my teeth on the upcoming  Secretary of the Interior nomination. . .

Well, I didn't have to wait long.

 Secretary of the Interior nominee Cathy McMorris Rodgers.

Yesterday it was announced that Trump will announce  U.S. Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers as his Secretary of the Interior.

Well, I'm not shouting for joy, that's for sure.  But it could have, maybe, been worse.

We'll have to see about her.  She signed on to the bad idea bills leaking out of Utah and Alaska to transfer public lands to the state, as did of course all of Wyoming's folks in D.C., thereby betraying the will of the people who elected them.  Rodgers' district includes Seattle so my guess is that her constituency wasn't universally thrilled either.  But what she really seems to be is an industry advocate, with most of that having been for nuclear and hydroelectric.

It's really clear that Trump's focus is on industry and big industry at that.  I'm really skeptical that the concept of "cutting red tape" and all of that does anything for American industry in 2016.  The ship sailed on that long ago and the idea that American industry, to include the extractive industries, is really hamstrung by regulation is questionable.  But what this may do, maybe, is to take the steam out of the Utah Delusion that all that has to happen for money to rain down out of the sky is to get regulation out of the way, because it looks like it will be getting out of the way.  If the gutters of Main Streets in Salt Lake, Juneau and Cheyenne aren't flowing with cash we'll soon know better.

This might, therefore, be like the Reagan Administration in these regards.  The Sagebrush Rebellion was on fire at the time Reagan became President but his Secretary of the Interior, James Watt was undoubtedly the most pro industry individual to ever occupy that position and most of the fire accordingly died down.

As a total aside, around 1993 or 1994 I was present on the highway just outside of Dubois Wyoming when I was a witness to a motor vehicle accident Mr. Watt was in. The road conditions were awful at the time.

Sunday State Leader for December 10, 1916: Osborne resigns as Assistant Secretary of State, Carranza will sign protocol, Funston explains ban of rivals.

December 10, 1916, was a peculiar newspaper day as the Cheyenne State Leader published three editions, only one of which was regular news. The others were holiday features.

In this one, the straight news one, we are told that Carranza will sign the protocol with the US. But will he really?

We also learn that Assistant Secretary of State Osborne resigned that position in order to return to Wyoming.

The news also featured a story on why U.S. Commander in the Southwest, Frederick Funston, banned religious revivals in his region of authority.

And girls from Chicago were looking for husbands.

Field Marshall Prince Ōyama Iwao, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal and founder of the Imperial Japanese Army died at 74.

Field Marshall Prince Ōyama Iwao, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal and founder of the Imperial Japanese Army died at 74.

He was a major figure in the Meji Restoration and went on to study the military art outside of Japan.  He commanded Japanese land forces during most of the Russo Japanese War.  He was occupying the noted cabinet position at the time of his death.

Whining, crying, panic in the editorial room of the New York Times, and waiting for that shoe to drop

Following the flood of analysis following the recent election of Donald Trump I stopped doing my after action reports.  There's just too much writing on the topic and I'm sure everyone is sick of it. Still, some things do and will call out for commentary and I can't help myself.  So, a collection of things will be posted here.

The Delusional Whining.  Not a day goes by, it seems, where one of the large newspaper organizations doesn't seemingly confirm what Republicans claimed about them, they're relationship to the Democratic Party equates with Pravda's relationship with the Communist Party.  It's absurd.

The New York Times and similar organs are just screaming with "Trump Not A Democrat?  Will he appoint the ghost of William Jennings Bryan to the Supreme Court?"  Get real.

The absolutely babyish reaction to a President who isn't a Democrat and who isn't an establishment Republican has just been fantastically juvenile.  And it probably is serving to cement the views of somebody who seemed to relish taking them on.

The irony, I suppose, is that the NYT and print media has been in a decline of disastrous proportions for a long time, so for the most part, its message is not only not getting through, it's symptomatic of a big city Democratic Party that things everyone in the world lives in a big city and is a Democrat.

Nope, nothing wrong here.  The item in the last paragraph is very nicely demonstrated by the Democratic reaction to the election, now that it has time to absorb it.

It isn't absorbing it.

The Democrats failed to gain either house in Congress.

They lost the Presidency.

They now control only 18, yes that's right, 18, of the State Legislatures.

18.

And they now hold 17 of the 50 Governorships.

Yes, 17.

The Democrats have been sort of smugly sitting back for years thinking "demographics is history", which assumes a linear demographic trend (very much in doubt) while the actual trend was a decline into extinction.

A party normally experiencing this would really clean house. The Democrats are doing the polar opposite.

And in the Senate, they're going with Chuck Schumer as a spokesman constantly.  You know, the New York Democrat who sounds just as abrasive to people who don't live in New York as all the other New York politicians (yes, including Trump). Good idea that. After running one ersatz New Yorker, Clinton, against an expat New Yorker, Sanders, and getting beat by a Manhattanite, sticking with annoying Schumer is the obvious choice.

Couldn't they even perhaps have considered Amy Schumer?  She's at least as left wing and isn't annoying.

Nancy Pelosi is actually retaining her position in the House.  Schumer hasn't been sent packing.  Amazing.  By comparison the GOP cycled over last year in the House. . . and its in control. Problem with losing the House and Senate again?  Apparently not.  "We'll just keep on keeping on with the leader whose been so freaking successful so far.  Go Team!"

This has caused one on line journal to state:

What does a professional sports team do after 6 straight losing seasons? Among other things, it usually fires the coach and looks for new blood, new leadership, and new strategies.

But not if you’re the minority House and Senate democratic leadership... Or the Politburo of the Soviet Communist Party shortly before the collapse of communism.

Instead, the failed, and increasingly geriatric leadership holds onto its fading power with increasing tenacity.

The highest ranking elected Democrats are now... drum roll... Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (who has served in Congress for 35 years since 1981) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (who has served in Congress for 30 years since 1986. 

Some conservative cyber screed?  No, that was the very liberal Huffington Post.

The Washington Post recently ran a headline that stated:

The next generation of Democratic leaders is, um, nonexistent

Well, as they say, you don't want to abandon a gasping drowning horse as it sinks under the waives in the middle of a stream. . . oh wait, it's a river. . .

Well there's more hope at the Democratic National Committee, right?

Actually there is.  And if they were smart about this one, they'd choose the guy who made sort of a pitch sub silentio for it the other day . . .Barack Obama.

President Obama didn't come out swinging for the fences for it, but he did sort of express some interest, for those paying attention, and he'd be a really good choice. A widely liked politician (he'd have beat Trump if he could have run for a third term), who isn't 150 years old.  But he won't get it

There are some other good choices however.

One of them isn't Keith Ellison, however.

I know very little about Ellison personally but he's the wrong choice.  In interviews he sounds like he's straight out of the party circa 1973. Another one of those guys.

He is younger, young even in Democratic political terms, as he's only 53 (hey! now suddenly I'm young too, go Keith!).  But he's the wrong choice.

Why?  Well his 1973 rhetoric for one thing, and the principal thing. It's not 1973 anymore.

And then there's the fact that he's drawing flak for having represented the Nation of Islam as a lawyer years ago.  Ellison is a convert to Islam from Catholicism, which is quite rare and a bit odd, but he's never been a member of the Nation of Islam which isn't conventionally Islamic.  Nonetheless he's drawing some flak from some Jewish groups. And oddly, he's now getting flak from Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam, whom he's denounced for years, who is calling him a coward.  This is the sort of stuff the DNC doesn't need.  Close attention to religious affiliation hasn't been a factor, supposedly, since 1963 but I'd question if that's fully true now (I doubt it) and picking somebody whose drawing these odd problems so early on may not be a really good idea.  Chances are some Democrats will feel that it has a "look. . .see how diverse we are" feel to it but it isn't likely to come across the way that they think, particularly when the GOP looks at least as diverse anymore. The Democrats look 1973 diverse. . the GOP looks 2016 diverse. Diversity isn't necessarily liberal.

Speaking of 1963, I see where television is going to run something on Jackie Kennedy, with Jackie played by Natalie Portman.  I'll not watch it, but apparently it touches on Jack's personal behavior only barely, or so I read.  When we're talking about guys with unsuitable behavior for the Presidency, how come JFK keeps getting a pass?  Seriously.

Anyway, if you want to send a message that the election meant nothing, picking the same old crew in Congress and a guy who sounds like he's from 1973 as the DNC chairman would be a really good approach to that.  "Let's run the same winning team with the same winning message we have since 1973, team, because demographics his history. . . hey. . . why isn't there anyone in the stands?"

The Post Clue Era.  Amongst those on the liberal left who are recreating, Weimar Republic style ("we didn't loose the war with the Allies, we were stabbed in the back. . . let's try it again") the recent election is the press itself about the press.

Recently, for anyone paying attention, there's been a news story about there being fake news on Facebook.

Gee, really.  What a shock.

This isn't news.

Everyone with a critical eye knows this. This as been known from approximately 30 seconds after Facebook came into being.

This does allow, however, comfort to the liberal downtrodden, as in "Oh, they don't disagree with me, they were befuddled by fake news. . . I need not change".

No doubt some votes were changed by fake news, but I'll bet not much.  Most of the fake news I saw, and it was from the left and the right, was obviously pitched to the already committed.  And its still going on.  News like that just goes to those whose minds are made up already.

And speaking of made up minds. . .

Picking up the loaded gun.  Speaking of not getting the point, one lesson the Democrats really should have taken from this election was to knock off the talk about gun control.

President Obama wisely basically didn't talk about gun control. 

That's because he is smart.

This didn't keep the NRA from picking on him anyhow, which I was convinced was a poor strategy.  Perhaps Clinton did as well, as she went gun control in the primaries and stuck with it, in an oatmeal fashion, in the general election. Well, the NRA put in an all out effort and it can take big time credit for the results, whether you like them or not, this past season.

Which is likely to mean a big roll back on what gun control there is.

Indeed, the NRA must push on this.  It would have anyhow, but as a practical matter, it must.  The NRA was consistent on Obama being the worst thing ever, second only to Hillary Clinton, for years.  Having assisted in getting in a Republican President when many, including  me, thought that was a mistake, and there being a GOP House and Senate, it it rest on its laurels its doomed.  In truth, Obama did nothing much on gun control until the very end of his presidency, at which time there was no point in him not trying to do something, as he was never going to get any NRA love anyway.  But, for the NRA, you cannot decry a person for eight years as hideously awful and then allow his successor to pretty much do nothing, which is pretty much what Obama was doing. So the NRA has to argue for roll back on gun control and national right to carry.  It has to.

One of the reasons that the Democrats should stay away from this entire topic as they don't know what they are talking about. Voters who vote on gun issues do know what they are talking about.  Democrats, when they speak about gun control, come across as ignorant or liars.

They probably don't know that. But when they speak about guns, if they do at all, as opposed to gun control, they generally demonstrate a profound ignorance on the topic.  And when they speak of gun control they tend to speak about stuff like "common sense gun safety" which means, to anyone listening, "I don't know anything about guns, but I'm going to assume that you will agree to me that we can make all guns Nerf Guns and that this makes sense".  When they do that, they come across like somebody who is trying to lie.

Most of this is, again, because the Democratic Party is heavily urban and it thinks of all guns being snubnosed revolvers from the movie Shaft, that early 70s things again, or it thinks of every gun being a true, selective fire, assault rifle (which are exceedingly rare and heavily regulated in civilian hands).  Most firearms users, and the numbers are growing, don't see firearm that way at all.

Anyhow, if the Democrats had brains, they'd not try to talk about "common sense" gun control or "gun safety" or any of that baloney.  They'd be a lot better off taking some other approach, if they really want to discuss this at all.  If they must discuss it, frankly, they'd be a lot better off just stating the truth, which his "I don't ever get outside of Greenwich Village and I think the only legitimate activity of a decent person is reading Vanity Fair".

No matter, I'm sure they won't listen.  Indeed the NYT (remember that journal, its noted above?) just published an article about lawyers and law firms volunteering their time on gun control.

Yawn.

That's not going to do diddly except make lawyers look even more like left wing weenies than they already do.  Indeed, just recently I heard a young person disparage the entire profession of the law in a way that was graphic, but suggested that all lawyers were a bunch of wimps in the most dramatic fashion.  Some people don't credit the opinions of the young, but I do.  People's opinions on professions and activities change over time.  A lot of older lawyers even now imagine that they're Al Pacino in With Justice For All, just as an older generation yet thought all lawyers were Atticus Finch.  Apparently we're now looking more like Zippy the Pinhead however and the smiling firm portraits in the article do sort of come across like "look at us. . . we're afraid to go outdoors!"

Gritting my teeth and waiting for the shoe to drop.  All this might lead some to think I'm a Trump supporter.  For regular Democrats, they probably have concluded I am, and for the Greewhich village crowd that seemingly runs the party they're probably hiding under their cafe tables with their tofu sandwiches and free trade coffee by now, crying.  But actually, I'm not.  As noted way back during the election, I voted for a third party candidate, and an obscure one at that. 

Which means even though, unlike the NYT I accept the election, and unlike the Democratic Party, I actually know it occurred, I'm not a Trumpite now or before. And I'm gritting my teeth on the upcoming Secretary of the Interior nomination.

So far, I've seen Trump's picks for various posts as mixed.  People crying in their free range, free trade, buttermilk about picking various generals about things haven't impressed me.  I haven't thought those picks bad.  I'm okay with his pick for Secretary of Defense.  That position used to be called the Secretary of War, and a former Marine Corps general who probably isn't impressed by the attempt to ignore physics and nature in the military is plenty okay by me. Likewise I'm okay with Kelly for Homeland Security, although I wonder why we need a Department of Defense and a Department of Homeland Security (I know, let's have a. . .um. . War Department!)

And I'm not going to freak out, or even get particularly excited, or even interested, with Nikki Haley at the UN.

I'm also okay with Jeff Sessions for Attorney General.  I know he's taken flak, but Trump would have had to pick the Barrista at the 9th and Centre Metro Station in Greenwich Village to please his opponents on this one, so why bother?

Betsy DeVos at the Department of Education bothers me a bit, but I'll wait to see how that plays out.  It wouldn't surprise me if some corrective actions are needed there, but that isn't a department I pay much attention to.

And picking Ben Carson to anything strikes me as a really poor idea.  I guess we'll see.

Scott Puritt at the EPA, strikes me as a poor choice.  No surprise, but a poor choice.  I'm worried about what that will mean.

And I'm really worried about the Interior.

So far, for potential Interior picks, the only one I liked was Matt Mead and he's taken his name out. And yes that does mean I don't want Cynthia Loomis, who is another Wyoming politician who turned her backs on the views of her constituents on public lands.  Boo.

Frankly, the pick I may be most comfortable with is Donald Trump, Jr.  I know that wold be a shocker, but he actually is the most measured of the potential candidates.  And he might be campaigning for it.

Now, I'm sure that people will say Trump can't pick his son, but why not?  That great American skirt chaser, um President, John F. Kennedy, made Bobby Kennedy the Attorney General and hardly anyone things that was improper. Appointing Bobby that is, not the skirt chasing.

Well, apparently the skirt chasing was okay as well.  The copy of People magazine wondered in here in the wife's grocery bag with an article on what Jackie "knew" reports that she grew up in a family where her father did that, and Jack's father did that, and '"that's what men did.'

Yes, that's bulls**t. But even now?

Anyhow, we're staying tuned.

Friday Farming: New York Times, December 7, 1916: High Cost of Living Laid to Farm Methods

A big item in the news in 1916 was the price of everything, which was going up.  That included food, and hence the article:

High Cost of Living Laid to Farm Methods

It was correct, as the article pointed out, that new and improved farming methods, amongst other things, would raise yields enormously in the future. What probably wasn't equally obvious is that farm families would have their best year economically in 1919, the last year that agricultural families had economic parity with urban families.

Also less obvious would be that while those improved methods would enormously boost productivity, that same productivity would mean the massive reduction of farmers and farm families.

Improvement?

Well, say what they might, and American food did become amazingly cheap, but the big price problem of 1916 was World War One.  Indeed, loss of farming acreage in Europe combined with loss of farmers would combine to create a rather desperate food situation world wide which also saw an expansion of farming acreage in the US during the war, much of it in wheat, and much of it farmed by people who had never farmed before.

 

Wheat speculators, basically.

Indeed, their were wheat boosters, it seemed like such a sure market.

It wasn't.  It collapsed after the war with a farming depression that proceeded the Great Depression.

-22F

Now that's cold.

Seventy Five years ago today.