Are deeply held, but unpopular beliefs, worthy of protection?

Some topics become so controversial, you're tempted to self censure and not comment on them. But that's chicken, really, and those are the ones you probably should comment on.  This is one such matter, to some degree.

Some time ago, when the Legislature was in session, I wrote a couple of items about a bill then pending that was supposed to protect people from same gender attraction from discrimination, while there was also a bill pending that sought to protect those who had religious convictions opposed to recognizing same gender unions as marriages from having to serve in some capacity associated with those unions.  I noted at that time that the debate was descending to the sub intelligent level.  The debate had already descended to the trite with words like "fair" and "bigoted" being thrown around without adequate consideration as to the actual nature of the topic at hand, while some on either side struggled to keep the eye focused on the real issues, but not really succeeding in getting everyone to do that.  A legislator even ended up being tossed out of a committee meeting after making some childish comment. 

Both of those bills failed, which is no wonder given the descent of the debate, but other bills like them, maybe (I haven't read any of them)  have passed elsewhere in the US and now a raging debate is going on about one of those bills in Indiana, which as become law, while another in some other state (Alabama?) just passed.  This raises an interesting question that's getting ignored, but shouldn't be.  It's one that has come up in our country's history on more than one occasion, and the country has flunked it more than once.

That is, are the deeply held views of people protected when they counter the majority view, and should they be?

Keep in mind, we're not referencing free speech.  Everyone always claims they support free speech, even if they don't. No, what I"m talking about is conviction backed by action.

Where this has come up most notably in our country's history has been in the context of military service.  We've had conscientious objectors all the way back to the Revolution, where some men declined to serve in militia units based on conscience.  During  the Mexican War, and during the Mexican War some people went to jail, rather than be mustered into their state militias, as they were morally opposed to the war.  Others deserted the U.S. Army for the Mexican Army during the war.  During the Civil War the situation was similar for Southerners, although in the North a person could provide a substitute for service.

During World War One a few objected to the draft, and even during World War Two some did. And as we know, quite a few did during World War Two. What was the country's reaction?

Well, generally, it was hostility.  People didn't appreciate that one darned bit and were pretty hostile to those who refused service.  Reactions varied, some paid fines and some were prosecuted criminally.  Ultimately, of course, it came to be the case that a person could claim conscientious objector status, which was the law at least by World War One, but people generally don't like that being done.  Refusing any service, as late as World War One, was a crime  By World War Two, and since, conscientious objectors have been allowed to forgo service.  It's a law passed to protect people with such beliefs, but that doesn't keep those people from being harassed during wartime.  The thought is that no matter how popular the cause, a person shouldn't be penalized for holding to their deeply held beliefs.  We admire that our country has such a law, although it's fairly recent and things haven't always gone well for conscientious objectors, who are a small minority of the population with their views usually based in religion.

There are other examples.  

One famous one, now a celebrated cause, is that of members of the far left in American politics who were hauled up to Congress to answer the question, "are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist party?"  Now regarded as a terrible witch hunt, the truth is that more than  a few of the people brought up to answer that question were, in fact, Communist, former Communists, or near Communists.  The hearings themselves were aimed at, originally, trying to determine if there was a large Soviet run espionage program at work in the U.S. government and in various industries. As it turns out, and as we now know, the Soviet Union in fact did have a pretty substantial espionage program going on dating back prior to World War Two, so the fears weren't completely unjustified.  Still, it rankles us now that this question was asked as, no matter how deeply repugnant Communism may have been, it ought to be legal to be one.  Indeed, it was, which makes the question all the more offensive, considered alone and without the additional context.

Opponents of slavery who acted upon their beliefs in the Antebellum South, weren't admired generally either, although from a legal prospective their situation was different from what we now are considering.  When Prohibition was the law, those women in particular who came out against it were subject to some real criticism, although again there was no legal bar to them doing so.    And I"m sure there are other examples.

My point is that right now, people who have deeply held religious beliefs to the effect that same gender unions are not valid marriages, and that they cannot morally serve them, shouldn't be castigated as bigots or forced into service any more than people who believe that a war is morally wrong ought to be made to carry a rifle in support of it.  By the same token, it seems self evident that it shouldn't be legal to discriminate in a conventional sense against people merely because they have a same gender attraction.  It isn't perfectly possible to craft a perfect law, but generally nobody really wants people fired from their job for having a same gender attraction but it's also the case that people who find same gender unions morally objectionable shouldn't be forced to serve that process thereby putting them in moral crisis or making it appear that their views are irrelevant or that they actually approve of something they do not.  The gist of it is that a person shouldn't be fired from their job at the caterers for having a same gender attraction, but the same caterer should be allowed to decline a job at a same gender wedding reception.  Seems easy enough, but the sides are now so backed up that people are yelling at each other on this one and some are no longer willing to yield to others who cite moral conscience.

The point isn't whether they are right or wrong, but whether or not unpopular beliefs can be tolerated.  Surely, they should be, particularly in the area we are discussing, in which the reverse was the case so recently. Indeed, it's unpopular or untrendy beliefs that probably need the most protection, as a society that tolerates those who hold them protects everyone at the end of the day.  That is, people who object to military service on moral grounds shouldn't be made to serve in the military, people who hold radical political views shouldn't be penalized at law for holding them, and people who have moral convictions that preclude them from doing something, such as taking oaths, or serving at certain functions, shouldn't be made to.  

The fact is, there are entire groups of people who very sincerely hold religious views that are unpopular or at least untrendy.  It is not correct, nor dignified, to force these groups into public submission, as that is a form of oppression.  People yelling at them right now are actually arguing contrary to the things they claim to be supporting.  You can't be tolerant by being intolerant. 

The Amish will not bear arms in service of their nation. Should they be forced to?  I doubt anyone thinks they should, even though most people believe its your patriotic duty to bear arms when the country calls.

Indeed, they largely will not mix with others, should they be made to? Should their children be forced to go to public school, Carlisle Indian School style?   Nobody would argue that they must.

Jehovah's Witnesses will not take oaths, and therefore they won't even say the Pledge of Allegiance. Should we make them?  I doubt it.

Some Moslems so object to eating pork they won't handle it.  If there is an Islamic caterer and we want pork roast for a wedding, should they be forced to serve us?  Nobody would rationally argue that they should.

Ultra Orthodox Jews will not do anything on Saturday.  If the rest of us work on Saturday, should they be made to do so if we do?

Some Protestant Christian denominations strongly object to the consumption of alcohol, and won't  have anything to do with it.  Nobody argues for Prohibition anymore, and while there are dry counties, by and large you can buy alcohol in most of the country.  If people with an objection to alcohol are caterers, should they be required to attend a wedding where alcohol is served if they object to it?  I doubt anyone feels that way.

The point is that in the current public debate, there's a lot of overreaction going on, and we've done that before.  

The further point is that, for the most part, I think this topic is one where the majority of people don't want people to be hostile or broadly discriminatory to the group at hand. Pretty much everyone recognizes, and has for a long time, that a person should not be discriminated at work, etc., for this, or any other reason, and should be judge on their work force performance.  I could try to list other topics that are generally similar, but that would be long and pointless.  But there are some groups with deeply held religious beliefs, or sometimes philosophical beliefs, and it's always tempting to leap on them dog pile style and accuse them of bigotry, or whatever.  Again, I don't really think, quite frankly, that Communists in the 30s were really "anti American", so much as they were people who held beliefs most of us abhor.  I don't think that those who oppose serving in wartime deserve harassment for that view either, and they've surely received it in the past.  Again, I could go on, but every time something like this comes up, it seems that the commentary tends towards marginalizing the deeply held beliefs which,  no matter their nature, is not usually fair.  I.e, I don't think on other issues that the Amish or  Quakers are baddies and I don't think that only Democrats and Republicans can love their country.  In this debate, therefore, I don't think that people should disregard the views of those who aren't being bigoted, but rather feel that they must act according to the dictates of their conscience on what are in fact very limited areas that for most people will never occur.  And in the debate, to at least grant an opponent the status of being informed on their position is always a more rational one than simply accusing them of something.

Indeed, as far back as Plato we were warned, through his recounting of the advice of Socrates, that once a debate descended to the shouting down level, nobody actually won them. 

Sunday Morning Scene: Camp Humphreys, South Korea (and a Happy Easter to all, everywhere).

The Evolution of Armor

Renault FT, introduced in 1917.  Some served all the way to 1949 even though they were really obsolete by 1930.

Soviet T33, served in the 1930s in Spain (photo courtesy of Daniel, in the photograph) and into World War Two, during which it quickly became obsolete.

M3 Stuart, produced from 1941 to 1944.  One of a series of light tanks that served in the U.S. Army during World War Two, all of which rapidly became obsolete.

M4 Sherman, it entered service in 1942 and was arguably approaching obsolescence by 1945.  Used by every Allied army during World War Two.

 

M18 Gun Motor Carriage, a "tank destroyer" which was really a sort of tank. Note the chassis evolution from the Sherman.

M48 "Patton" tank of the South Korean Army in 1987, this tank went into service in 1953 but was being replaced in U.S. service by the mid 1960 by what was essentially an upgraded model, the M60.

M60s.

Team Spirit, 1987

Team Spirit, 1987: Back in February 2012 I posted some photos of Team Spirit, 1987.  I did this in a slide show format. Today, I've reposted some (but no...

Farm size

Farm in Pennsylvania

Farming, rather obviously, got its start, as we conceive of it, in the East.  I suppose a person could argue, and some no doubt would, that this isn't completely true as various native groups farmed all over the region east of the Mississippi and down into Central America. And that would, of course, be true.  And it's significant in terms of how the landscape appeared, and even in terms of what was grown, in later times, but for our purposes here, we should really look at European American farming.

For somebody in agriculture in the West, looking at agriculture in the East is really a shock.  I've just had the opportunity to do that several times recently, as I flew in and out of Toronto, and  got a look at the area from the air, and then I flew the next week to Tampa and had to drive from there to New Port Ritchey.  This past week I flew into Baltimore and a friend and I drove up to Carlisle on the state highway, one of the ones that no doubt runs on the 19th Century pike. Very interesting.  Following that, I flew to Atlanta and then back over the south and the big grain belts of the nation.

Viewing the farm ground in Maryland and Pennsylvania was both a delight, and a surprise.  For one thing, there's a lot of it.  Just as Easterners have the erroneous view that the West is empty, Westerners, or at least native Westerners like myself, tend to believe that the East is one big city.  It isn't.  There's a lot of farm ground there.

However, even though I intellectually know better, it's weird to see it. The farms are, and have always been, so small by our standards out here.  Grain farms just east of this region, well in Nebraska and Kansas, are enormous.  Ranches are big, as they have to be.  These Eastern farms are small and you can almost always see a nearby farm.

But, as the countryside in Pennsylvania and Maryland demonstrates, it's been that way for an extremely long time.  Farms that are well over 150 years old are near others that are that age and older.  And this should be no surprise, as they were all farmed with horse, mule, or oxen, under less than ideal conditions.

Indeed, the soil appears very rocky in some places and stone walls are everywhere, with stones taken, of course, from the fields.  The land had to be first cleared of trees, and the forest continue to wage war against the fields and come back at the drop of a hat.

It was of course this sort of farming environment that the drafters of the Homestead Act were familiar with, and that's why the original homestead was only 40 acres in size.  That was extremely unrealistic for this country, where it's always been the case that thousands of acres are needed to run cattle.  What a shock it must have been to the first homesteaders.

And it continues to impact us today, as the unrealistically small homestead allotments yielded to the system we have in the West today by default, rather than by design, in spite of the views that anti ranching elements may hold about them.  The system works, but it was based on a broken model to start with, and had to be repaired to work.

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Cattle Drive

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Cattle Drive

WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: Collecting Wood Wheeled History

Here's a recent post on Wheels That Won The West on collecting wooden wheels:

WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: Collecting Wood Wheeled History: Since I publish this blog on the same day each week it’s inevitable that, as the years pass, some postings will land on Christmas, New Year...

On that topic, here's something that suprrisngly has a set of wooden wheels:

This is a Renault tank from World War One.  Arguably the best tank of that war (not that there a lot to chose from) the large front wheel of this tank was wood.

The Weary Business Travelers Comments on Air Travel

Zone 2 boards a plane.

I suppose that this will come across as crabby, but I do a lot of flying, and hence, I see a lot of airports and the inside of airplanes.

We are told there was once an era when air travel was glamorous and romantic.  For some it still is, no doubt. But for the business traveler, those days are long gone. What air travel is, is convenient.

It's safe, relatively fast, and all that. But fun it isn't.  At least not after you have quite a bit of it down. And, quite frankly, while I like airplanes, I don't like riding in airplanes, so that impacts my view a fair amount, I'll admit.

But I'm sure I'm not alone. So, hence a few observations.

1.  Business travelers probably aren't having fun on the plane, aren't on vacation, and may be cutting their schedule pretty tight.

One of the things I generally note about people travelling in airplanes is they're very polite as a rule.  And there's good reason to be very patient, and people nearly always are.  Some people have a hard time getting on and off of planes, and that's perfectly understandable and most people, indeed maybe all people, understand that.

But conversely, it's not uncommon for a business traveler to have very little time leeway.  He needs to catch another flight, or a taxi downtown, or something, to make his schedule. 

I note that, as there's some casual travelers who are really oblivious to this. The other day, for example, I was on a plane in which a nicely dressed young woman and her very well-behaved young children encountered another nicely dressed young woman and her very well-behaved young children, and they recognized each other. With about a third of the plane still needing to disembark, they stopped and had a protracted reunion conversation.  Nobody yelled or screamed, but when she finally resumed her progress towards the door, I could hear the businessman seated across the aisle saying, under his breath "don't stop, don't stop."  As this plane was late, and my connection not too distant, I shared that view.

2.  Zone 2 is the Thundering Herd.

Aircraft board by zone.  Generally, the first zone is made up of people who need help boarding and then a premium, or multiple premium, zones. Then zone 1.

Then zone 2.

For some reason, things generally go well until zone 2 boards.  I'm nearly always in zone 2.  Zone 1 forms an orderly line and progresses in that fashion. By the time they get to zone 2, every single person in the zone is convinced they're never going to get to board, and they start pushing, cow herd style, towards the gate.

Everyone is getting in the same plane, and this makes no sense, but it's really common.  People cut in line, muscle their way in, etc.

Ironically, it's not uncommon for one of the herd to slow everything up, once he's on the plane. That's the guy who decided to bring his walrus for the overhead bin storage.  He can't get it in, and has to try and try while the rest of the herd is stuck behind him.

United Airlines, I'll note, does a really good job of preventing this by having extra places for zone 2 to line up early.  Once they're in a narrow line, they behave, again much like cattle.  It's having no line to form up in as zone 1 moves ahead that seems to create this problem.

3.  The window bogarters

I like to get a window seat, even if I don't like flying.  That's because I do like scenery. 

For some reason, however, there are people who take window seats, and then immediately close the shade.  Hey man, if you didn't want to look out the window, why take a window seat?

4. The stenchy messy food girl.

Recently I've been noticing a trend for messy eating young girls on planes. This is a new one.

When I came back from Toronto recently, a young woman, nicely dressed, sat next to me. But she was an amazingly sloppy eater and had brought a sandwich on with her.  She made a mess of that, and to make it worse, left her drink bottle on the airplane floor when she deplaned.

Not cool.

On the way back from Atlanta the other day, a high school aged girl sat next to me. She was industrious, and was writing a report on All Quiet On The Western Front on the plane, but she also came on with an Italian food special she'd gotten in the terminal.  It was apparently the Spicy Noodle In Limburger Cheese Sauce special, and it was rank and stanky.  Uff.  Not good for an enclosed environment.

5.  The drink people.

Every airplane flight in North America offers a beverage service. I am sure that if there was a commercial flight from Casper to Douglas, it would offer a beverage.

I get that in part.  Flights are long, and people might need something to drink. And at least by common belief, some drinks settle the stomach, or so we're told.  I've always been told that ginger ale does that, and I see a lot of ginger ale being drunk in airplanes.

But there are a lot of people who take drinks, because they are free.  I’m always amazed when people take drinks routinely between Casper and Denver, for example. The flight is only 45 minutes long, having  a drink is hardly worth bothering with.

This is particularly the case because the last few minutes into Denver is often rough, and the area right around Casper often is, both due to the atmospheric conditions associated with mountains.  But, people trust their trays and place the drinks down even when the plane is bouncing around.  Maybe they should trust them too, as I've never seen a drink bounce off a tray, but I've worried about it.

6.  The talkative traveler.

I travel in aircraft a lot, and I always bring a book or work on the plane.  I don't like traveling on planes, and so this serves to distract me, I suppose, although looking out the window, which I also like to do, probably works against that.

Every now and then, however, you get seated next to somebody very nervous or very talkative, or both.  They want to talk, and they're going to.  I've had an oil field consultant quiz me on towns to live in, in depth, all over the Rocky Mountain west, as if I am well suited to tell somebody where they ought to live.  Some people want to tell you their life's story, or others, if you are reading a book, want to discuss it, rather than let you read it.

In other situations, I might find that interesting, but in an airplane, not so much.  Something to do with the plane, I'm sure.

7. The dimwitted joke people.

One thing I've noticed is that every time there's an air disaster, or even a natural disaster, somebody in line wants to make a joke based on it.  This is not amusing at all.

Recently for example I was in line when a passenger on a Delta flight tried to engage the Captain of the plane in some banter based on the recent suicidal crash caused by the Germanair co-pilot.  This isn't funny, and won't ever be funny.  I'd have tossed her off the plane, but he only gave her a nasty glare.  Clearly he's more of a gentleman than I.

What's with all those dire warnings. . . .

and why are they on a blog that supposedly looks at history around the turn of the prior century?

St. Francis Mission, Midwest Wyoming.

Well, as for the second question, we stray off topic a lot. But as for the first, this is something we've witnessed before, and which makes up pat of the history of this state.  A history we've experienced first hand.

I just posted an item on this, and I should note that I'd started this entry prior to writing the short one I just did.  I didn't post this one when I wrote it last week (often the posts here are delayed days, or years, before they're posted) as I'm busy and I was traveling as well.  Anyhow, those who haven't experienced, and there are a lot of people in that category, have a hard time accepting that things can really dramatically turn around here.  Employment in the extractive industries includes a lot of young people, so that means right now there are a lot of people born after 1990, as amazing as that now seems to me, who are fully adults, and have no personal experience with events of this type really.  Oh, we had a downturn around 2008, but it was nothing like those we experienced earlier.

When I was in the National Guard in the early 1980 the unit was filled with men who were using their military experience to tide them over, hopefully, until better times arrived.  Lots of those men were Vietnam veterans who had returned home after their service and then had entered the work force in the 1970s, when times were good here. They weren't all in the oilfield to be sure, but some were, and quite a few others worked skilled labor jobs of some other type.  A few of the enlisted men were, however, professionals.  One fellow was an accountant, or had been (he was working as a carpenter).  Another had an advanced degree in Spanish and at one time had been a teacher.  Quite a few of those guys were struggling to get by, and their service in the Guard was providing much needed income to their families.

One of those men had a teaching job in Jeffrey City, Wyoming.  He was an officer, but he was sort of an unusual one as he was much more like the enlisted men than the other officers and addressed us in that fashion all of the time.  He'd been a Marine prior to having gone to college and perhaps that explained it somewhat.

Jeffrey City provides a bit of a window into the concern that some of us have now.  In the 1970s it had been a booming town.  By the 1980s, it was struggling as the industry that supported it, uranium mining, was declining.  It's still a town, but certainly not a city, now, but it's a mere shadow of its former self.  It's barely there.  It is there, but it's hardly active. The uranium mines are closed.

Gillette forms another example.  When I was in high school, it was a booming coal town.  It was also really rough.  Going there during high school swim meets was always an experience.  But, by the mid 80s, it had fallen on tough times and was fairly quiet.  It started turning around dramatically with coal bed methane exploration in the 1990s, but now there's a fair amount of concern there over the future of coal, and the coal bed methane industry has pretty much completely shut down.

Wight gives us another example.  A mere road stop in the 80s, it's now a real town with lots of nice new construction. But the economy is completely based on extractive industries.  Residents of the town, if they're familiar with the histories of Gillette and Jeffrey City, must be concerned.

Further down the road are Midwest and Edgerton.  These towns are within a couple of miles of each other, with Midwest having been a Standard Oil company town that also supported the Naval Petroleum Oil Reserve.  One of the streets in Midwest is called "Navy Row", as it at one time housed U.S. Navy personnel stationed at the petroleum reserve.  The reserve has long quit being a Naval facility and the sailors are all gone.  The facility itself, an experimental oilfield facility, was recently sold.  The oilfield is still active, and through the advance of technology oil wells drilled in the 1920s are still producing, but both Midwest and Edgerton have really had their ups and downs.  In the 1940s they were booming.  They were again in the 1970s.  In the 80s they were really suffering, but in the past decade they boomed again.  Now, things are starting to go the other way.

Or take the town of Lance Creek.  Lance Creek was an earlier participant in oil exploration in the state, with oil claims actually filed as placer mining claims.  The field was extensively explored during the 1920s. During World War Two the town ballooned to 4,000 or more people. The population of the town collapsed after the war, and its never recovered. There's still oil that's produced in Niobrara County, but the least populace county in the state has never seen a recovery of an oilfield economy.

The recent article in the Tribune took an interesting look at past ups and downs.  I noted, in reviewing them, that one of them drew some reader comments.  Reader comments to the Tribune tend to draw a lot of snark, but in this case they didn't seem to.  Here's what one reader had to say:

Many of us went through more busts than booms in Wyoming working the oil patch.The current slowdown pales in comparison to the bust of the 1980's.Do yourselves a big favor ...get out of the oil patch while you still can,or pay the price later,in more ways than one.

So far, I'd note, this writer is correct, and I've heard others note this as well. This slow down is less severe than the one in 1983. . . so far. But that one started out milder than it ended up. With these collapses, the collapse doesn't come overnight.  Another reader commented:

We've lived in Wyoming for six decades. We love this state but hate its busts. We were one of many families who were victims of the bust in the early 80's. Lost our jobs, lost our house...lost everything. Though we've recovered it's been a long, long road. I'll never be able to retire comfortably due to the lost time and income. Take it from a man who's been in the fire: save your money now and don't wait!

Dire warning indeed.

The point is that things can really turn around here.  But when you live through them for the first time, it doesn't seem quite real at first.  Here, in the early 80s, in this town, we saw the oilfield collapse and the Standard Oil Refinery close.  Ultimately, the Texaco refinery also closed.  This is and was a small city, but the impact was truly devastating.  Maybe we need not fear that again, but we should be aware that it happened.

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: And the pumps kept on.

This past weekend, the week after I posted this

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: And the pumps kept on.: And following on this: Lex Anteinternet: And the pumps kept on. : Saudi production has reached 10,000,000 bbl per day, near (or perha...

the Tribune made the topic of a possible oil collapse its Sunday feature.  I was out of town, so I didn't read it in depth, although I tried to on my app for that.  The Tribune did a nice job, in one article, of listing all the prior collapses, which is something I've written about here in the past (again, you heard it here first) but which the Tribune, having full time staff et all, did a nice job on. They listed the prior ups and downs as follows: 

The Star-Tribune compiled a brief timeline of oil in Wyoming from the first sale to its current situation.

• 1863: “The first recorded oil sale in Wyoming, however, happened along the Oregon Trail when, in 1863, enterprising entrepreneurs sold oil as a lubricant to wagon train travelers. The oil came from Oil Mountain Springs, some 20 miles west of present-day Casper. ” -- Phil Roberts on wyohistory.org.
• 1883: Mike Murphy drills the first oil well in Wyoming south of Lander at Dallas Dome.
• Fall 1888: Casper’s first well is drilled 3 miles northwest of town.
• 1895: Pennsylvania Oil Company builds the first refinery in Casper.
• April 5, 1889: “The town was swarming with oil men. Something will evidently be doing soon.” – The Casper Tribune
• 1910: Franco-Wyoming Oil Co. is created. Construction on a refinery begins a year later.
• 1911: The Midwest Oil Co. begins construction of another refinery in Casper.
• 1914: Standard Oil moves into Casper, buying land to build a refinery.
• 1916 to 1917: "During the latter part of 1916 and for nine months in 1917 Casper experienced a wonderful oil boom,” according to a 1990 Gillette News Record article citing a historian.
• 1916: The Big Muddy Oil Field is discovered near Glenrock on a land grant section randomly chosen by a government surveyor for the University of Wyoming. Royalties from the oil field in the 1920s are used to build Half Acre, the current gymnasium, and the library, now the Aven Nelson Building. The building comes amid a statewide depression. 
• June 17, 1921: A fire erupts at the Midwest Refinery Tank Farm in Casper, in what is widely considered one of the major disasters of the time.
• 1923: “The Producers and Refiners Company (PARCO) built a refinery and a complete town for its employees on the Union Pacific line in Carbon County. When the firm went into bankruptcy in the early 1930s, oilman Harry Sinclair bought the town on April 12, 1934, and renamed it ‘Sinclair’.” -- Phil Roberts on wyohistory.org.
• 1925: “It was 1925, the peak of the Salt Creek oil boom in Casper. ‘Smoke of prosperity hangs over Casper Refineries,’ said the headline in the 1926 annual ‘industrial edition’ of the Casper Tribune-Herald.” More than 23,200 people lived in Casper and Natrona County, beating Cheyenne and Laramie County by about 5,000 people. Some people predicted Natrona County’s population would reach 40,000 within a year. – “Boom overshadowed gloom in ‘25” by Irving Garbutt.
• Late 1920s: Crude oil prices peak in 1920 at $3 for a 42-gallon barrel before sinking to as low as 19 cents in 1931.
• 1940s: World War II boosts Wyoming oil production.
• 1946: Major oil companies move regional headquarters to Casper, which is, once again, coined “Oil Capital of the Rocky Mountains.”
• 1947: “Casper listed 55 oil field service, supply, and trucking companies. In 1953, this list showed 196 such firms. Stanolind Oil Company, with division and district headquarters in Casper, had 70 employees in 1947. In 1953, the company employed 316 people. Ohio Oil Company had increased from 104 employees to 167. The total number of companies and individuals listed as engaged in oil production and exploration increased from 27 in 1947 to 81 in 1953.” – “Casper, Wyoming, Oil Center of the Rockies” September 1954 edition of Out West Magazine.
• 1950s: Most small towns in Wyoming have their own refineries, including ones in Cody, Thermopolis, Torrington and Lusk.
• Late 1960s: Oil production continues to be strong, but Wyoming’s overall economy is in a period of “malaise,” said Phil Roberts. “By the end of the ‘60s, we were flat broke.”

“In 1968, Gov. Stan Hathaway discovered that Wyoming had the grand sum of $80 in the general fund. 'That scared the hell out of me,' said Hathaway. 'I had to do something.'” -- Sam Western, “Pushed Off the Mountain, Sold Down the River: Wyoming’s Search for Its Soul.”

• 1969: Wyoming creates a severance tax to build state coffers.
• 1973: Arab oil embargo. Prices skyrocket to $40 a barrel. Gas prices nearly double.
• 1982: World price of energy crashes.
• Early 1980s: Headquarters of major companies, including Chevron and Exxon, move from Casper to Denver and then many to Houston or Tulsa, Oklahoma. Most small refineries, operating off of even slimmer margins, close.
• 1991: Amoco Refinery closes in Casper. “Had they stayed, they would have had to weather, how many years before it turned around? As a business decision, it was something they had to do looking down the road. But on the other hand, with the changing energy economy by the end of the 20th century, it would have been pretty profitable for them to stay in business.” – Phil Roberts
• Early 2000s: Enhanced oil recovery breathes new life into the Salt Creek Field. Horizontal drilling unlocks previously hard-to-tap shale reserves.
• Late 2014: Slow international growth and a rising tide of production from OPEC creates a slump in oil prices from $107 a barrel to below $50 a barrel in 2015.

* Historical information from Phil Roberts, a Wyoming historian and professor at the University of Wyoming, or the Western History Center at Casper College.

Casper Star Tribune and Phil Robertson.  Again, really nice job!

Points go to the Tribune for running such an article, but I can't help but note how much this feels like 1983 all over again.  I still have friends and colleagues outside of the oil industry who are trying to convince themselves it won't be that bad.  At the same time, as I have a lot of oil industry contacts, I can see what's occurring.  Lots of men I knew who were employed in the oil industry now are not. A good friend of mine in the financial world tells me that Texas expects 100,000 lost jobs in this sector this year.  Texas has a population of 24,000,000 of course, basically rivaling the population of Canada, so that may not be devastating to its economy, but a decline in this sector here, where this is the single largest industry, is going to have a major impact.  It simply will.

Not that there aren't opposing indicators people can point to, and do.  Things are still being built, businesses are still going in.

Just like last time.

Writing is five percent inspiration. The rest is brute force. « M J Wright

Writing is five percent inspiration. The rest is brute force. « M J Wright

Today In Wyoming's History: Some Gave All: Gettysburg National Military Park, ...

Today In Wyoming's History: Some Gave All: Gettysburg National Military Park, ...: While the Indian Wars smouldering in Wyoming, and state volunteer units were patrolling the Oregon Trail: Some Gave All: Gettysburg Nation...

Some Gave All: Gettysburg National Military Park, Gettysburg Penn...

Some Gave All: Gettysburg National Military Park, Gettysburg Penn...: The photographs below are of the Gettysburg National Military Park. I only recently saw the park, and as I was traveling for business, I...

The Big Picture: U.S. Army Tank Corps, Camp Meade, Maryland.

Monday at the bar: Courthouses of the West: Federal District Courthouse, Denver Colorado

Courthouses of the West: Federal District Courthouse, Denver Colorado:

 

The Big Speech: Become such as you are.

ένοι' οἷος ἐσσὶ μαθών

Become such as you are, having learned what that is.

Pindar

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

Churches of the West: Holy Ghost Roman Catholic Church, Denver Colorado:

Why I think Mars One is a really stupid notion « M J Wright

Why I think Mars One is a really stupid notion « M J Wright

Today In Wyoming's History: March 26

Today In Wyoming's History: March 26: 1895  University of Wyoming Alumni Association founded.

Amazing to think that it's that old, or that it was founded so soon after the University was established.

Unsolicited Career Advice No. 5. How do you become a rancher?

Well, if you aren't rich, or born into it, I"m not too sure you can, at least in the ranch example.

I hate to say that, but this is a question that I've also been asked, which stands quite a part from the "should I go to law school question".  I suppose on the occasional instances in which I get asked this, its because we have cattle and ought to know.

Just here recently I ran a series of posts due to it being National Agriculture Week. And I've run quite a few posts on farming and ranching, and even agrarianism, in the past.  Anyone who has looked at these and seen any career type comments I've made there knows that I'm pretty pessimistic about people who aren't born into agriculture getting into it, although some do manage to do it. One thing about the law that's sure, you don't have to be born into it in order to get into it (and a lot of people born into it, but not all, don't go into it).

All agriculture, it should be noted, is local.  People very often fail to realize that.  Practices that are common 200 miles away might not be where you are, and for that matter, they might even work in your locality.  So it's perfectly possible that a person might be able to walk right on to a farm in some other locality, while they'd never be able to do that in another.  So, Caveat Lector.

Anyhow, at one time, the dream of owning a farm or ranch, and by that I mean a real operation, not 20 acres near a big city which you call a farm or ranch, was a common one.  It's so much a part of the American mentality that, in spite of the fact that agriculturalist are often dismissed as "hicks", it still makes up a common theme in stories, particularly B grade romantic ones.  In the old film Splendor In The Grass the main male protagonist, whose father has big hopes for his career, ends up disappointing the family and becoming a farmer, which we take to be the better (and more American) choice.  In zillions of "Lifetime" type movies, people inherit a ranch in trouble, which they then rescue, or move to a relatives rustic ranch, where they become involved in its operation after an initial desire to avoid it.  A stock background in film is that a person's parents or grandparents have a farm or ranch somewhere.  And a fairly significant number of people obviously aspire to farm or ranch.

But how realistic is it?

Not very, at least by my observation.

I've written on it before, but land prices are perhaps the major reason why.  They've simply gone out of sight, due in no small part to the land's value for subdivision or for the rich to buy essentially as a playground.  And there's no region of the United States that I'm aware of that is immune from it.

Some regions, of course, are particularly influenced by this. The West, which ironically retains the romantic image of being "wide open", is pretty much closed for new agricultural entrants.  This trend has been going on for some time, and at some point in the 1950s or early 1960s this became basically true, although there was still a little room to get in as late as the early 1980s.  No longer.  Ranches here now sell for such values that only the very wealthy or the those who are already possessed of large amounts of land they can leverage can get in.

Well, so what?  That's just the way it is, right?  After all, that's what happens to agricultural and in every free society, absent government intervention (which is another topic entirely, and which isn't going to happen). And, if you subscribe to the views advanced in the article written by George F. Will and reported here yesterday, it's all for everyone's good.

And I've read that thesis with this sort of thing before.  The classic one is that the automobile manufacture puts the wagon maker out of business, but the auto maker makes more jobs, and the displaced wagon maker goes on to get a cubicle job for higher wages where he can buy Starbucks every day. Great, eh?

Or, more precisely, sure this means that fewer people are in agriculture, but with economies of scale, this keeps food cheap and that's good for everyone. People who would have been farmers can compete for jobs with those who own the land, or they can go into town and become podiatrists where they'll generate even more money, and their kids will become neurosurgeons and make even more.  More and more money will result.

Well, maybe, but that's if that matters, and the evidence is that at some point, it doesn't.

Poverty matters, that's for sure. But there's no good evidence that after some point affluence does.  Indeed, it doesn't seem to. And at that point, having closed off certain opportunities and occupations matters a lot.  

This is particularly true when occupations that are close to the land are closed off.  As a species, we have next to no experience with that condition, as up until recently the majority of human beings lived close to the land.  Even those who didn't live on the land, often lived and worked close to those who did.  Now this is rapidly becoming no longer true, but people still crave it at an elemental level.

And there are open questions about what sort of society this will be, for people.

Which digresses.

So, "how can I become a farmer or rancher"?  I don't know.  You might be able to become a farm manager a ranch manager for a landowner.  I know several young men who have done that.  It's a career path that doesn't offer a lot of wealth, but perhaps that doesn't matter, and it probably shouldn't.  Over time, the men I've known who have done that (and they've all been men, fwiw) have married and had families, so certainly a normal life is possible. As for owning a place of your own, well, maybe or maybe not.  Probably not, at least if what you hope for is a working ranch.  But if that's your heart's desire, it might not matter what anyone tells you anyway, as it'll probably remain close to your heart.

Old Picture of the Day: President Roosevelt

Old Picture of the Day: President Roosevelt: Today we feature a picture of Roosevelt looking presidential. The picture was taken during the last part of his presidency.  I like th...

Old Picture of the Day: Roosevelt in Knickers

Old Picture of the Day: Roosevelt in Knickers: It is not just every man that has the self confidence to wear Knickers. I would say Roosevelt was one man who could pull it off. The b...

Old Picture of the Day: Teddy Roosevelt in Earlier Days

Old Picture of the Day: Teddy Roosevelt in Earlier Days: This is  a picture of Teddy Roosevelt in days before he was famous as a military man or president. He is posed here as a hunter. He rea...

Old Picture of the Day: TR

Old Picture of the Day: TR: Today we have another picture of Teddy Roosevelt during his Military Years. The picture was taken in 1898. Also, we have another quote ...

Old Picture of the Day: Teddy Roosevelt

Old Picture of the Day: Teddy Roosevelt: This is another military portrait of Teddy Roosevelt from back in his Rough Rider days. Also, another of my favorite quotes from Teddy...

Old Picture of the Day: Colonel Roosevelt

Old Picture of the Day: Colonel Roosevelt: Welcome to Teddy Roosevelt Week! We will be looking at pictures of one of my favorite presidents. Roosevelt was genuinely a larger tha...

Closing our eyes

A long time ago I write this essay here, which at one time was one of the most popular ones on this site:

Lex Anteinternet: Peculiarized violence and American society. Looki...: Because of the horrific senseless tragedy in Newton Connecticut, every pundit and commentator in the US is writing on the topic of what cau...

That essay came in the wake of a tragic mass killing and it looked at root causes, at a time during which a lot of public commentary was focused on proposed efforts that would not address them.

I mention that now, as we've just had yet another example of a senseless mass killing of a type we've seen several of in recent years, but we don't seem to see much proposed in the way of doing something about it.  That is, the co-pilot of the Germanwings plane that crashed into the Alps this week turns out to be mass murderer.

This isn't the first time in recent years where a commercial pilot has chosen to kill himself and all of his passengers.  It's totally inexcusable on every level.  A question remains about this, that being, why is so much attention focused on controlling implements for which the legislative control of which will not have a demonstrative effect, while there hasn't been any outcry about whom is allowed to pilot hundreds in the sky?

Yes, I know there's commercial licenses, but even on the simple applicable standards level, it would appear that around the globe various pilots simply don't measure up to the American standard. They should, and there's no reason that a universal, very high, standard can't apply to all commercial air carrier pilots.  But beyond that, perhaps the time has come to place these men and women through some sort of psychological battery every six months.  It won't catch them all, but it might catch some who are getting dicey, or even just sloppy.  And maybe the time has come for a third pilot to be in the cabin, just in case. These are big complicated planes and there's been a lot of accidents, which might be reason enough, and might help to keep something like this from reoccuring.  

Lex Anteinternet: The Distrubing Thesis of Capital in the Twenty Fir...

Almost a year ago I was writing about Thomas Piketty's disturbing thesis in this entry:

Lex Anteinternet: The Distrubing Thesis of Capital in the Twenty Fir...: I haven't read it yet, but I've been reading a lot about Thomas Piketty's new book, Capital In The Twenty First Century. The b...

This morning, in reading my local newspaper, George F. Will reviews a new book with a counterveiling thesis, that being John Tanny's new  "cheerful, mind-opening book, “Popular Economics: What the Rolling Stones, Downton Abbey, and LeBron James Can Teach You About Economics.".  Will's article is boldy entitled "How income inequality benefits us all".

Will characterizes Tanny's book which I also haven't read, as boldy presentign a new thesis, but it what it apparently does is bodly defend an old one, that being that Adam Smith was right and we need not worry about jobs being exported overseas.  The book apparently expertly cites numerous examples, with the basis nature of them being that when jobs like making Iphones go overseas, the price lowers so much that in real terms all of our incomes rise.  The book isn't limited to that type of analysis, however, and also, apaprently, defends monopolies.

This is obviously quite the opposite of Piketty, whom I still haven't read, but it strikes me that in some odd ways they may both be correct and incorrect at the same time.  Will's Tanny is correct, that buying at Wall Mart or from monopolies, and from companies that manufacture in the cheapest possible fashion, means less of our income goes into purchases, but it also can't be denied, as Piketty demonstrates, that the wealth that's generated gets concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, who are by extension more and more powerful. 

The overarching thing, however, is that Will's cheerful defense ignores something, which Froma Harrop has been exploring in her recent articles. Nobody wants to be poor, but at some point an economy that serves only to produce wealth and do so efficiently is really soulless and concentrates people into jobs that they might not really like.  In other words, what if some people, indeed a lot of people, are just flat out happier working as a machinist on the factory floor, rather than in some clerk job in the cubicle forest? 

We're Not Taking Enough Lunch Breaks. Why That's Bad For Business : The Salt : NPR

We're Not Taking Enough Lunch Breaks. Why That's Bad For Business : The Salt : NPR

I'm afraid I'm guilty as charged on this one.

Writing inspirations – the wonder of Packard « M J Wright

Writing inspirations – the wonder of Packard « M J Wright

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Peace Council of 1866

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Peace Council of 1866

Lex Anteinternet: And the pumps kept on.

And following on this:

Lex Anteinternet: And the pumps kept on.: Saudi production has reached 10,000,000 bbl per day, near (or perhaps) an all time record high.  This comes in the face of Saudi resistance ...

I read in the paper this morning that the solar panel industry now employers more people in the US than coal mining.

Indeed, an irony of this is that there's now an effort in some states to tax homeowners who install solar panels, using the logic that they use power on the grid when they cannot generate power on cloudy days. While that's generally true, the law has generally been, or at least was (I haven't kept up on it) that power companies actually had to buy power sent back down the line by domestic solar and wind electrical generation.  This has likely been regarded as a minor inconvenience by power companies for a long time, but now they're becoming irritated in some areas, apparently.

Irrespective of that, solar has quietly come a long way in the past 40 years.  40% of German electrical output is now solar (and if they'd continued to allow nuclear power generation, they'd have darned near 100% non emitting power).  There's no reason to believe that a high American output isn't similarly possible, and perhaps now even probable.

All of this is hugely important to the state of Wyoming, and of course other energy producing states.  With an oil industry that dates back to the 1890s and a coal industry that started when the Union Pacific was first constructed, the state has acclimated itself to the extractive energy industry being the main economic engine of the state.  Coal severance taxes, which were at first stoutly opposed by some, have been funding the state government here for over 40 years now.  The schools are nearly entirely constructed using money generated from taxes on coal.  Coal production has been declining now for several years, and the coal industry's backers have been quite vocal about what they feel should be done to aid the industry, and that it can generate "clean coal".  But the long term trends seem hard to ignore at present.  Coal is being supplemented in the U.S. as a fuel, in Europe its being supplanted.  The trend line in the US seems headed in the same direction unless major technological developments can change the dynamics of the situation.  The coal market right now seems to be mostly China, but Pacific coast states and provinces object to the loading of it, and transportation of coal by sea has its own costs and problems.  So, in spite of hopes in that quarter, and in spite of efforts by Wyoming's politicians in that direction, the Chinese saving the market seems unlikely.

And, as explored here earlier, it seems difficult not to conclude at this point that the Saudi Arabians have made a similar conclusion about future of petroleum oil, and have decided to keep the price on the floor so that they dominate the market during what they have calculated will be the transition phase.  Probably calculating that the beginning of a technological transition from petroleum has commenced and that the process will take about the same amount of time one way or another, by keeping the price low, they'll dominate it during that period of time.  In other words, the money is going to go somewhere, and it might as well go to them.  By keeping the production high, and selling what they'll have, they'll make the most money possible out of their resource and probably try to use that to transition to some other type of economy.  Goodness, knows they need to, as their current culture and economy isn't viable continuing on with its current model.

But for states like Wyoming, which have relied on these industries, the trend line is a bad one for the traditional economy.  Agriculture, Extractive industries, and Tourism have been the three legs of the stool of Wyoming's economy.  There's a pretty good chance that one of those legs is now broken, and there's no really solid idea of what to do to replace it, if it needs to be.

As a final observation, folks who note things like this here are often branded as "antis".  However, as a Wyoming native, and a former crewman on a workover rig, and as a person with a geology degree, I think I can stand on my bonafides.  I'm not declaring this as part of a manifesto, but rather observing as a person given to that by training and inclination.  We probably need to be pondering these topics here.

And the pumps kept on.

Saudi production has reached 10,000,000 bbl per day, near (or perhaps) an all time record high.  This comes in the face of Saudi resistance to pressure to decrease production.

Accompanying, this Chinese economy, long seen as a potential major oil importer, has been slowing down over the past 11 months.

Neither of which is a good sign for American oil production.  Hovering in the $50 to $60 bbl range for months now, a decrease in the Saudi price and a maintenance of Saudi production can't help but be noticed by the domestic industry's planners.

Monday at the bar: Courthouses of the West: United States Bankruptcy Court, Denver Colorado

Courthouses of the West: United States Bankruptcy Court, Denver Colorado:

 

The Big Speech: War is sweet to the inexperienced

γλυκύ δ᾽ἀπείρῳ πόλεμος.
πεπειραμένων δέ τις ταρβεῖ προσιόντα νιν καρδία περισσῶς.

War is sweet to the inexperienced, but the experienced man trembles at its approach

Pindar.  

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: The Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, Denver Colorado.

Churches of the West: The Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, Denver Colorado

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Spring Buffalo Hunt

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Spring Buffalo Hunt

Writers – one-trick ponies or polymaths? « M J Wright

Writers – one-trick ponies or polymaths? « M J Wright

National Agriculture Week: Fall Trail. 2012

Fall Trail. 2012: Day one, gathering and start of the trail. ...

 

The faces of farming during National Agriculture Week - Farm Progress

The faces of farming during National Agriculture Week - Farm Progress

Ranch Life - Wyoming Chronicle

Texas Landowner Liability Part II: Premises Liability – Legal Status and Duty Owed | Texas Agriculture Law

Texas Landowner Liability Part II: Premises Liability – Legal Status and Duty Owed | Texas Agriculture Law

Texas Landowner Liability Part I: Negligent Act v. Premises Liability | Texas Agriculture Law

Texas Landowner Liability Part I: Negligent Act v. Premises Liability | Texas Agriculture Law

Questions from Tiffany’s Desk: Set Back Rules for Pipelines and Oil Rigs | Texas Agriculture Law

Questions from Tiffany’s Desk: Set Back Rules for Pipelines and Oil Rigs | Texas Agriculture Law

Impact of Pipelines and Powerlines on Ranches | Texas Agriculture Law

Impact of Pipelines and Powerlines on Ranches | Texas Agriculture Law

On Law, Corruption and Puritanism in American Politics

It is widely assumed, as we all know, that there's vast corruption in American politics.  Indeed, there's a new television series out right now based on that thesis.  And I'll freely admit that this country has had its share of corrupt politicians, or ones who acted in what I'd regard an amoral or immoral fashion.  I could go into that topic and express my views on those people now, but I'll forgo it for another point.

I wonder, quite frankly, to what extent American politics are characterized not by corruption, but by lingering Puritanism.  Quite a lot, I think.

Take the current flap over Hillary Clinton's email, and her use of a private rather than a government account.  Who cares?  I don't.  In most countries, quite frankly, this would not be a matter of the slightest concern. But, in the same spirit that caused the Puritans to ban Christmas, the whole country seems to be having a big to do over this.  Only in the US would such a minor matter be regarded as really serious.

Or take the personal behavior of our politicians in other areas.  In recent decades this has been a huge issue (although it seemingly was not in prior decades, and for reasons that baffle me JFK still gets a pass in this area).  We've nearly deposed a President in recent years over this, while in contrast a trial is going on in Italy over  a politician whose behavior in this area was wild in the extreme.  It isn't that something is being done in Italy so much as its the case that things have to get hugely out of hand before anything is done.  Here, matters that are unseemly but not really threatening the nation can get you almost impeached.

Or take our insider trading laws. We've actually made it a crime to act on knowledge you pick up in the course of your employment.  That's frankly amazing, and criminalizes a natural part of human nature. We tell people that they can't act on what they know, as that would be unfair to those who don't know, what they don't know.  Fairness is nice, to be sure, but criminalizing knowledge is pretty extreme really.

Corrupt?  I don't think so much.  Puritanical is more like it, in these regards.

National Agriculture Week: A second post World War One homestead

Holscher's Hub: A second post World War One homestead:

An abandoned post World War One hay farm, now returned to pasture.

Couvi's New Blog: U.S Army Packers Can Pack Anything

Couvi's New Blog: U.S Army Packers Can Pack Anything

For National Agriculture Week: Holscher's Hub: The Plow

Holscher's Hub: The Plow

A John Deere California plow, now long retired.

Lex Anteinternet: Travel in Ireland, a little over a century ago.

Lex Anteinternet: Travel in Ireland, a little over a century ago.

Television is stupid

Truly, amazingly stupid. So stupid, it's depressed the collective IQ of the population of the Western World 100 points. It's so darned dumb that its impact would be like burning 1,000 libraries at Alexandria.

It's dumb.

And getting dumber.

In 1961 the Chairman of the FCC, Newton Minnow, observed the following:

When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better.

But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.

You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you'll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it.

Truer words were never spoken, and things have gotten infinitely worse since then. Indeed, the era that Minnow was writing about is now regarded as "The Golden Age of Television", with entire channels devoted to rerunning the very programs that Minnow complained about.

In comparison, the "vast wasteland" that Minnow wrote about has become some sort of tar pit of stupidity.  Consider what's on.

There are, for example, an entire collection of "reality shows" based upon the goings of of allegedly "beautiful people" of one kind or another.  Some, set in the epicenter of vapidity, Hollywood California, feature people whom we are clearly supposed to believe are beautiful, wealthy and interesting. They may be wealthy, but that's it.  And yet the impressionable minds that watch this slop are fed hours upon hours of programming that this or that aging actress or personality must be beautiful, rather than plastic, and their sad lives of bitchiness and cattiness are interesting. 

As part of that, I'd note, there's a clearly some sort of program going on, probably run by the UK's MI6, to export the village idiots of England to the United States.  We're on to you, United Kingdom.  It can't be the case that the US is lacking idiots, so this is clearly nefarious.  Having a British accent doesn't make a person interesting, television it makes them English.  They can stay home and pollute the BBC if they must be on television.

Or, for another example, take Guillianna and Bill.  Here's a married couple that works on television or in entertainment, but they're so boring, they make oatmeal look fascinating in comparison. They're boring with a side order of dull, served on cardboard. Boring. And yet television serves up a series based on their boringness.

Or let's take TLC, which started off as "The Learning Channel".  Now, it seemingly is focusing on people who are violating the laws of their states by having multiple boring spouses.  Why is this on television?  TLC virtually serves as some sort of propaganda channel for a lifestyle that is pretty uniformly regarded as horrific by those who escape it, and yet they serve it up every week. 

Kids' programming doesn't escape this either. The dreaded Disney Channel looses nothing in methods to the glory days of Ford Motors.  It's a factory, serving up show after show based on absurdly precocious children with bizarrely naive friend, living in homes with childlike almost stupid parents. Anyone who has watched more than two Disney Channel episodes ought to be able to write an entire series effortlessly.

Regular programming, to the extent it exists, is not much better.  Ever single season television outdoes itself to be more "edgy" or "contemporary" by taking things further and further in a moral swamp, and portraying it as cool.  The hallmark for this may be the former really popular series "Friends", which is supposedly really funny, but if you stop and consider what the real lives of somebody living in the fashion portrayed would be like, it wouldn't be so funny at all.  Quite the contrary, actually.

Or even the alleged "news" now fails.  Entire channels are more or less in the category of political cheerleaders for one political view or another, and not real news.  Edward R. Murrow must be crying in the next world.

Probably ought to just turn the whole stupid thing off.

Ireland in film

Folks will notice that today I've either posted, or mentioned, a series of films that are set in Ireland.

A few days ago, I did a post on an entire series of movies which feature Americans crossing the border into Mexico.  I suppose I could have done this the same way, but I've seen a lot more films on the cross border Mexican theme than I have ones set in Ireland.

Indeed it occurs to me that there's a lot of well regarded films about Ireland I just haven't seen, and at least one that I saw so long ago, I've forgotten it.  I haven't seen Ryans Daughter, which a lot of people highly regard.  I've seen The Field, but I saw it so long ago, I've forgotten it and I think I was rather distracted back when I saw it in the first place.  I'll have to remedy these omissions.

There also some films that were filmed, but not set, in Ireland that I have seen, and might be worth mentioning just because of that, but which fit outside of the scope of what I'm addressing here with the Irish films today.  One if the historical drama Barry Linden, which is well filmed in Ireland. Another is The Blue Max, the drama about a German World War One aviator, which was filmed over Ireland as it was much less developed, and therefore appeared right, than post World War Two Germany or France (the United Kingdom just stood in, interestingly, for Germany in Fury).

One I ought to see, but have not, is The Commitments, which is about an Irish soul band.  It has a good reputation, but it's one I haven't made it around to.  And one that I intend to see, but have not yet, is Cavalry, which is a new, and very highly regarded drama, about an Irish priest.

Of course, a lot of the films I've seen that have been listed in this series of movie threads are ones that I've seen on television (not all, however).  Some of the ones noted here just don't get that much television play time.  It's easier to catch the crossing into Mexico ones really.  Anyhow, some interesting films here.

Movies In History: Michael Collins

Michael Collins

This is a historical drama in film treatment of Michael Collins' life during the Anglo Irish War and the Irish Civil War.  Collins, for those who might not know, was the military genius behind the IRA's terrorist campaign against the British, and also the subsequent military leader of the Irish Free State's successful struggle against the Irish Republican Army. For those unfamiliar with the history of those two struggles, that may be a bit confusing, in which case this film actually isn't 100% historically accurate.

Even so, it does a pretty good job of portraying the events from about 1916 through 1922, including contrasting Collins role in these events with those of Éamon de Valera, which is not an easy task really.  De Valera comes out the worse in the treatment, which he tends to also in objective histories.  The film does push this a bit further than it should, however, as it dramatically portrays de Valera as directly involved in Collins roadside assassination which is not true.  De Valera undoubtedly knew nothing about that until after it had occurred.

Otherwise, keeping in mind the limitations of film, this film does a really nice job of portraying very complicated events, including events which were really psychological in nature.  Irish penetration of the English police is well done.  The terrorist nature of the IRA's role in the Ango Irish War is well portrayed.  Material details are correct for the film.

This 1996 film is little known in the US, which is too bad as it is a good film with a good cast.  Liam Neeson portrays Collins, whom he somewhat resembles.  Alan Rickman portrays de Valera, whom he also somewhat resembles.  Worth seeing.

Movies In History: The Informer

The Informer

This is the first of John Ford's two movies set in Ireland, the other being the "small story" The Quiet Man.  T his movie is of an entirely different character.

Filmed in 1935, and set in 1920, this film is unabashedly pro Irish Republican Army and involves an IRA man who turns on his fellows.  Victor McLaughlin, who typically was cast in a supporting role as an Irishman (he was a Canadian) is cast in the lead role as the simple minded Gypo Nolan, who wants to immigrate to the United States and who is duped, more or less, into betrayal.  Nolan spends the rest of the film wrestling with his conscience as the IRA closes in on the identity of The Informer.

All in all, this film is well regarded for its time, and is an Academy Award winner, although its frankly really odd to see a film that's so unabashedly pro IRA.  Filmed when it was, it was almost certainly filmed entirely on a film set, so we see very little of any place really.  Dublin, where the film is set, is mostly a foggy grimy urban location which we never really get a very good look at.  In terms of material details, they're probably more or less correct as there's very few of them, but at least in terms of clothing, the film does a really good job of getting the look right.  The actual period photo below of British anti Republican agents in Ireland, for example, gives a pretty good idea of what characters in the film look like.

 

All in all, a heavily dated film, but one worth watching if it happens to be on, if for no other reason than that it's well regarded for the time in which it was made.