Some Gave All: Lincoln Memorial

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

Some Gave All: USS Maine Memorial, Washington DC

Some Gave All: USS Maine Memorial, Washington DC

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

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

Homeland?  What's that mean.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: Headlights for Horses?

WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: Headlights for Horses?

Mid Week At Work: Guards, Washington D. C.

Writing inspirations – the 1930s as we would wish them to be « M J Wright

Writing inspirations – the 1930s as we would wish them to be « M J Wright

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

Courthouses of the West: Federal Courthouse, Lander Wyoming:

This is the Federal Courthouse in Lander Wyoming, however it hasn't been used in that capacity in many years. The building is leased out by the Federal government, and chances are that most people, even in Lander, are not aware that this is a courthouse or that it has a courtroom.

I once had a case, about fifteen years ago, in which it was briefly suggested that the trial could be held in the courtroom, when this building was then under lease to the National Outdoor Leadership School, but the suggestion was quickly rejected on the basis that the courtroom had not been used as one in many years, and that it was too small.

Video: 100 Years on the Lincoln Highway | Watch Wyoming PBS Documentaries Online | Wyoming PBS Video

Video: 100 Years on the Lincoln Highway | Watch Wyoming PBS Documentaries Online | Wyoming PBS Video

A topic that I've discussed here from time to time, early transportation in Wyoming.  Interesting stuff.

April 19, 1865: “The Most Solemnly Grand Imposing Display “ | Wyoming Postscripts

April 19, 1865: “The Most Solemnly Grand Imposing Display “ | Wyoming Postscripts

Synchronicity

Several months ago, for no particular reason, I suddenly had the urge to email an old law school friend.

When he wrote back that day, he'd told me that he'd woken up in the middle of the night, and wondered how I was doing.

Synchronicity.

Recently, I went to look up an event I must speak at for my publisher.  About five minutes later she emailed me regarding the event.

Synchronicity. 

Recently I went to Denver.  The proceeding I was at went way over-length.  On the way home, before Cheyenne, my wife called and informed that friends had been in an accident north of Cheyenne.  Could I pick them up?

Yes, but only due to. . .

Synchronicity.

Years and years ago, indeed perhaps a couple of decades ago, a friend and I left work early, on the last day of Blue Grouse season, to go hunting. We never left work early, but we did that day.  We drove high up into the Big Horns, not really a wise decision on the last day of November, which was the last day of Blue Grouse season.  The road started to drift in, and we decided to turn around, but then decided to go one more ridge, for no good reason. We had actually decided to turn around.  When we got on the top of the ridge, there in the drifted in road was a sedan with an elderly man astride it.  It turned out he was just out of the hospital, from hip replacement surgery, and had decided to go for a mountain drive and become lost.  At that time of the year, with no cattle or sheep in the high country, and no earthly reason for anyone to be up there, it would likely have been days before anyone came that way.  But we did, and we pulled him out.

Synchronicity.

Some call synchronicity "coincidence", which expresses the same thing, sort of.  Synchronicity expresses the phenomenon of extraordinary things in time sync, while coincidence express to things, incidents co-existing in time.  But what is missing from the etymology of both words is the fact, and I think it is a fact, that there's a mysterious element of it which is beyond explanation, and which is metaphysical.

People can dismiss that, but they do so at their hazard.  Open to that possibility, indeed reality, many more things show to be synchronicitous.   Why does one thing suddenly go one way, when past examples show that it should not.  Sometimes, we're placed somewhere, and sometimes, others are placed somewhere in relation to us.  Probably much more often than we realize.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: First Christian Scientist, Denver Colorado

Churches of the West: First Christian Scientist, Denver Colorado:

This impressive structure is located in the Capitol Hill district of Denver Colorado. It has a Greek Revival style. I otherwise know nothing about it, including when it was built.

In this photograph, you can see the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in the background, which is about one block away.

Old Picture of the Day: New Mexico Dust Storm

Old Picture of the Day: New Mexico Dust Storm: Today's picture shows a dust storm in New Mexico. The picture was taken in 1935. What a terrible time this must have been.

Old Picture of the Day: North Dakota Dust Storm

Old Picture of the Day: North Dakota Dust Storm: Today's picture shows a dust storm in 1937. The picture was taken in North Dakota. Things look so bleak and barren one wonders how ...

Old Picture of the Day: Dust Storm

Old Picture of the Day: Dust Storm: Dust Bowl week continues with this picture of a dust storm. The picture shows a dust storm as it engulfs Stratford, Texas. The picture...

Old Picture of the Day: Dust Bowl

Old Picture of the Day: Dust Bowl: Welcome to Dust Bowl Week here at OPOD. I read yesterday that California might be experiencing the worst drought since the Middle Ages...

Old Picture of the Day: Oklahoma Dust Bowl

Old Picture of the Day: Oklahoma Dust Bowl: Today's picture shows a dust storm in Boise City, Oklahoma. The picture was taken in 1936. What a dry hopeless scene this is.

The Romantic Nonesense of the Feral Horse

 

 Human being engaged in shocking example of lack of horse appreciation. . . or perhaps an Indian capturing a future mount in a romantic visage of the Old West.

I read in the Tribune that the Federal Government has re-placed, as in placed again, several hundred feral horses, inaccurately commonly termed "wild" horses, on the Federal domain in Nevada.  The local county and a local rancher protested, but to no avail.

And well they should have protested.  Feral horses have about as much place in the natural ecosystem of North America as feral house cats do.  None the less, feral cats, despised by bird lovers and naturalist alike, are detested when wild, while piles of gooey romantic slop are poured out about the feral horse.

I like horses, truly I do. But horses are an introduced animal in North America. There's nothing wild about them whatsoever.  As a protected animal on the public domain, they're busy destroying their range and displacing the native wildlife.  From a natural prospective, they shouldn't be there.  Indeed, feral horses are an environmental disaster.

They are there, as every generation of horse users up into the 1980s lost or dumped a few over the years.  Romance has it that every single wild pony out there is a Spanish Barb, but they aren't.  They're just as likely to bear Percheron genes in their lineage as something that was ridden by a Conquistador from Spain.

In this context, it's interesting to turn a bit to the focus of what this blog is supposed to be about; history.

As "wild horse" advocates like to point out, there were horses in North America in vast antiquity. What they don't like to point out is that those horses were an ancestor of the current horse, and bear about as much resemblance to the modern horse as pre human hominid species bear to us, or less.  I.e., if you saw one, you might not think horse at all, or if you did, it'd be "sort of horse like".  They were, as a rule, quite small and not of the useful riding variety at that.  They were most useful as meat for every meat eating thing.

No, the modern horses' story really starts in Asia and the European Steppes, not North America.

The first horses, as we conceive of them, came over with the Europeans.  Europeans were bringing horses with them from day one for obvious reasons.  It was one of the things that shocked and amazed the native inhabitants, which had no similar riding animal.

Europeans also lost a few pretty quickly.  The Spanish lost some of their various horses, blooded and not, fairly quickly, but then so did the English, Dutch and the French (and, some claim, the  Russians).  Pretty much anywhere you go on a colonizing enterprise, somebody is going to get sloppy or an accident is going to happen.  Horses, therefore, of a multiplicity of types, went feral where they could or went into native hands pretty quickly, for the most part, although usually on an edge of contact basis.  I.e., not continent wide.  Not only horses, it should be noted, but burros and mules as well.

In the American West, where the romantic slop about wild horses is focused, horses were first taken up by the natives in the early to mid 1700s, actually later than often generally supposed.  The location of the "first contact" with horses in some cases is preserved.  Indeed, one such encounter in Wyoming left the name of the location, Horse Creek, in that fashion, although such names should not be immediately relied up on as, after all, there are a lot of Horse Creeks and you need more data than that.  That particular spot was for one of the Sioux bands.  The Sioux and Cheyenne, as is well known, took up the horse enthusiastically.  The Shoshones, however, did not, except for a band that argued for their adoption, mostly made up of young men. That group was called The Arguers, or as we know them by that name in their native language, the Comanche.  Thus bloomed the native "horse culture", the run of which was extraordinarily brief.

By that time, the early to mid 1700s, the natives were largely picking up horses from feral bands of horses.  And those horses did indeed include descendants of mixed Spanish stock.  But that doesn't mean that they were all descendant of fine blooded horses by any means.  Not every Spaniard mounted in North America was a Don of noble lineage, and not all of their horses were of the type a Don would have ridden. That doesn't make them bad by any means, however.

Less well noted, by that time it seems probable that French Canadian horses, of a type called the Canadian, and likely descendant of Norman stock, were also wondering loose and coming down from the north, or just occasionally getting separated from the courier du bois.  Horses, generally oblivious to bloodlines themselves, mix freely and therefore the "pure" line of any one group of horses should be questioned, at least when not presented with greater detail.  And for that matter, to some degree, it doesn't matter.  It's fairly well demonstrated that, in North America, all western feral bands bread towards a grade standard of tough hardy pony.   Most "range horses", as they were typically called, resemble those ridden by Mongolian nomads more than they resembled something we'd imagine a Conquistador riding.

Range horses were a free resource by the late 19th Century, and by that time, both the Indians and the stockmen were making free use of them. Even the Army did, acquiring them from horse traders, intentionally, or occasionally from captured Indian stock, for supplementing those procured through the established remount system of the time.. The tough nature of the Range Horse, really a tough pony, was appreciated over the more injury prone "American Horse", which was larger and had a different dietary requirement.

 

Cowboy saddling a wild horse during Frontier Days, Cheyenne Wyoming circa 1903.

It'd be tempting to conclude the story here, and often it is, but that would not be historically accurate.  When the Frontier closed, the horse era was still alive and well, and there were plenty of feral horses around free for the taking.  They continued to be regarded as a free resource for ranchers well into the 20th Century, and it became common for some ranchers to supplement their incomes by domesticating a few captured.  Some of these went directly into use on ranches, but others not.  During World War One, more than a few were sold to British Remount agents, which sparked some protests from the British soldier users.  This all went on into the 1950s and 1960s.

 

Wild horse roundup, 1920s.

Just as horses were taken from these bands well into the 60s (and likely the 70s), horses were contributed to them as well.  In the early stock raising days in the west ranch horses were simply turned out to fend for themselves during the winter, and by the spring they were pretty darned wild in their own right.  No doubt not all of them came back into ranch use every spring.  And horses continued to get lost, etc. In the 1930s horses were outright abandoned, as desperate farmers pulled up stakes and moved on.  Plow horses that were very far from wild found themselves in wild bands, as their human owners gave up on them. This repeated itself in the West in the 1980s, when those who had bought pleasure horses during good times abandoned them when times got tough.

 

Stock horses, being roped so their shoes can be pulled before being turned out for the winter.  Montana, 1940s

This is not to say, however, that the use of wild horses remained the same throughout this period.  Indeed, it did not, as better options were available.   The Army moved away from range horses around the turn of the prior century, as it moved towards more blooded stock.  That move created the post World War One Remount system which in turn provided horses for breeding purposes to stockmen, who were eager to acquire the better stock that this allowed for.

By the 80s, indeed by the 1970s, a new era of nonsense had come in.  Driven on by the idea that certain forces were going to extinguish wild horses from the range, and motivated by the efforts of Wild Horse Annie, wild, that is feral, horses became Federally protected, and we've had to live with that ill thought out effort ever since.

The basic problem is that there'd never been a day when new horses weren't being added to "wild" bands, and there'd  never been a day when humans weren't culling them as well.  Federal protection was sold on the "romance" of the West, but in truth, humans had been removing horses from feral populations from the very first day they'd existed. Europeans recaptured horses if they could. Indians captured them as well.  Ranchers did likewise, for use and for sale.  An effective brake, therefore, existed on the expansion of the population. With the Wild Free Horse and Burro Act of 1971, that was no longer true.

And the results were pretty predictable. The population tends to get out of control, and the Federal government has to come in and address it. This brings out the deluded, who imagine these populations to be wild, when they are not, and somehow fails to grasp that the critical element that existed in prior days, human culling, was removed from the act. The horses in turn expand their population and destroy the range, to the determine of everything, including actual wild native animals.  The nonsense associated with them, including a wholly unwarranted Federal expense on a non native domestic animal, also serves to breed contempt for the Federal government in a region where it is little appreciated to start with, fueling such bad ideas as the transfer of Federal lands to the states, as local populations seek to free themselves of such overreaching.

The solution to this is quite simple.  Horses could simply be returned to state management, or lack of it, as they had been in former eras.  In this day and age, it's unlikely that any state would allow them to be wholesale removed, and several of the states that have isolated bands of "wild horses", including Wyoming, are quite proud of them.  But states would manage the matter better, and by inserting the element that made this story so "romantic" to start with, actual horsemen.

Not that this is going to happen. The trend is in the opposite direction. A peculiar example of a domestic animal gone feral, and preserved in a feral state by romanticism, with romanticism being based on human interaction, which is now precluded.

Career help at the high school

Last night I attended a session for high school juniors and their parents concerning in state post high school options, of which Wyoming has quite a few.

I was impressed, frankly, that they work so hard on this now. When I graduated high school, in 1981, I don't recall that being the case.  Perhaps, of course, I simply ignored it, but I'm pretty sure that there wasn't much of it.  Indeed, I don't ever recall going to something like that, and about all I do recall is taking some sort of career aptitude test  while there, and having to see my guidance counselor and obtain his signature prior to my graduating.  I recall when I did that I had a hard time finding him in the office and finally had to track him down early in the morning, whereupon he signed my form without offering any advice.  Frankly, I think the school system failed us in this regards.

Now they're doing well however.

And part of that doing well was the attendance, by the various community colleges and the university of the session, with each institution, plus the Electricians education program (a very good local program) all explaining what was unique about their programs and institutions.

The one thing I was disappointed to see is that the session wasn't well attended, or rather not as well attended as I would have guessed, but you can't make people come.  One irritating aspect of it I've already noted, which was the recently arrived Bostonians comments on various aspects of the local post high school school options, which were offered in seeming ignorance of the history of what they were commenting upon.  Their daughter sat stoned faced through the entire thing, but as kids acclimate quickly, I can pretty much guess what she was thinking.

Anyhow, nice to see this being done.  Some things do indeed improve over time, and this has certainly improved vastly since 1981.

Ineffective Point of Argument II: "I came here in . . . "

"I come from back (fill in blank here) and. . . "

Okay, this particular item pertains particularly strongly to the West, but similar arguments no doubt exist everywhere.  It comes in two distinct forms, neither of which make for an effective argument.

One I've been seeing a lot of here is "I came here back in '96 and".  Indeed, there's an argument like that in this past weekend's Tribune, presented in a letter to the Editor.  The point the correspondent thinks they're making is that they've been here for a long time and have particular local knowledge.

The problem with that, and which is particularly demonstrated by the letter of this past weekend, is that for people with a really long association with an area, perhaps a lifelong one, a lot of these dates suggest that the person in fact has low association with an area.  In the example cited, the correspondent is writing about a suggested change to the  City of Casper.  I've written on the same topic, and raised a couple of the same points, but didn't maintain some others.  One point that the writer tried to maintain was that the correspondent had been here since 96, and was tired of all the people who moved in during the boom and would be glad to see them go.

Well, many people here can remember 86. . .or 76. . I can.  I was born in 63 and might remember at least one thing from 66.  Plenty of locals do, and from 56, 46 or 36.  Saying that you came here in 96 emphasizes to us that you are actually part of the demographic, newcomers, whom you are complaining about.  Or, if you are trying to establish your credentials for long observation, to us, you can't.  You don't have it.  It's a poorly presented argument.

The other way that this is presented is usually as a joyful observation by an admitted newcomer who has a nifty suggestion for how we can make this place a bit more like the place they fled for some reason. Again, that's a poor argument.


This is just a bad thing to say,if you are in the West.  But you see it all the time. Somebody wants to argue for something, and in order to prove hteir love of their locality, they poitn out that htey moved from someplace else to here.

That doesn't make your argument credible, it makes you an outsider who is coming in and telling us what to do. We don't care about how you did things back home.  You aren't back home.  If you liked how they did it back home, you should go back there.  That's how that argument will be received.

Provincial?  Yes it is, but we tend to be that way here.  If you are presenting an argument to provincial people, it doesn't help to suggest that you aren't form the province. The point isn't that you aren't from here.  A lot of people aren't. But if you moved here as an adult, if you present this argument, you probably better have at least 30 years of residence before you begin trying to throw it around in a general audience.

________________________________________________________________________________

Postscript

The other way that this is presented is usually as a joyful observation by an admitted newcomer who has a nifty suggestion for how we can make this place a bit more like the place they fled for some reason. Again, that's a poor argument.

It occurs to me that there's another variant of this.  This occurrence comes to mind as I just saw it in action at a public meeting.

What that is, is when a newcomer has an observation and loudly or persistently feels that they have a brilliant or important solution to a problem they've observed, without bothering to learn if there's a history to the situation.  Normally those who know the history will quite frankly keep their mouths shut unless really provoked, which doesn't mean that it isn't irritating.

In this example, at a public meeting, a newly arrived (three years) person from Boston wanted to know why Wyoming doesn't have a second four year university.  She was persistent in the point and nobody bothered to clue her in as to why.  This might be regarded as a minor matter, but it really isn't.

The reason that we don't have a second four year school (that is a state funded school, we do have a second four year school) is that we've already fought that fight and lost it. But, in sort of a typical American fashion, the winning side accommodated the losing side and we're very happy with the result.

Back in the 1970s there was a big local push here to make Casper College the second four year university.  It's a big community college, and the oldest one in the state, and we were in a boom (yep, that again).  So local legislators and the community pushed hard for that, but we lost.

But after that, the University started to offer UW class at Casper College, and that developed into the University of Wyoming at Casper College, a massive program that offers quite a few Bachelors degrees. We here really lucked out. UW took heed of our complaints and addressed them in a spectacular fashion. We basically fully got what we wanted.

Except, perhaps, if you just arrived here recently and where you were from had more than one four year school.

Now, this is a western state with a small population.  Some western states with small populations do have more than one university, but it's worth noting that many that do have one major one and then others that are very small. We've surpassed that.

None of which, I'm sure the Boston commenter knew. But her comments, to the veterans of this fight, suggest we give up what we got in favor of a doubtful proposition.  It comes across like a kid, after demanding ice cream but getting pie, throwing it across the room.  Not well received.

Or, I suppose, it'd come across like going to a Boston city counsel meeting and saying "Wow!  Cool city!  Why doesn't the Crown put in a courthouse here?"