Friday, November 25, 2016
The Wyoming Tribune for November 25, 1916: Accord reached with Mexico?
An accord was signed with Mexico. . . but that might not quite mean what it seems. . . .
The Cheyenne Leader for November 25, 1916: Peace breaking out with Mexico?
Big news indeed. The joint commission with Mexico had reached an agreement which should soon see U.S. troops withdrawn from Mexico.
But, before we assume too much, look for the followup post on this topic.
Inez Milholland Boissevain, Suffragist, lawyer, dies on this day in 1916
Inez Milholland Boissevain, a truly remarkable personality, died on this day in 1916.
Milholland was thirty years old at the time of her death. She was born into a wealthy family in which her father had been involved in many progressive causes of the era. She graduated from Vassar in 1909 with the intent to pursue a career in law, which she did do. Receiving rejections from many of the schools she applied to, she graduated from New York University School of Law in 1912. She was admitted to the bar in 1912 and went to work for Osborne, Lamb, and Garvan where she handled criminal and divorce cases.
She was involved in many of the causes of the era, including obtaining the vote for women and the cause of African Americans. A pacifist, she traveled to Italy early in World War One to report on the war but was not allowed to travel to the front.
She married Eugen Jan Boissevain in 1913, after knowing him for only a month. The marriage cost her citizenship as Boissevain was Dutch and the law at the time attributed a woman's citizenship to her spouse. She nonetheless campaigned for the right of women to vote in the United States. She fell ill on a speaking tour in 1916 and died on this day of pernicious anemia.
Milholland was thirty years old at the time of her death. She was born into a wealthy family in which her father had been involved in many progressive causes of the era. She graduated from Vassar in 1909 with the intent to pursue a career in law, which she did do. Receiving rejections from many of the schools she applied to, she graduated from New York University School of Law in 1912. She was admitted to the bar in 1912 and went to work for Osborne, Lamb, and Garvan where she handled criminal and divorce cases.
She was involved in many of the causes of the era, including obtaining the vote for women and the cause of African Americans. A pacifist, she traveled to Italy early in World War One to report on the war but was not allowed to travel to the front.
She married Eugen Jan Boissevain in 1913, after knowing him for only a month. The marriage cost her citizenship as Boissevain was Dutch and the law at the time attributed a woman's citizenship to her spouse. She nonetheless campaigned for the right of women to vote in the United States. She fell ill on a speaking tour in 1916 and died on this day of pernicious anemia.
Thursday, November 24, 2016
REI tells the world to #OptOutside on Black Friday. But can you? And Small Business Saturday.
Black Friday is, of course, the biggest single shopping day in the United States.
But, there's been an increasing backlash about it in recent years, which has been a bit of a backlash on consumerism, to some degree, in general. This year, REI, the major outdoor retailer, is opting out for at least the second year in a row, telling its employees to get outside and enjoy things.
REI is a co-opt, so its not quite the same as a big outdoor chain, really. And its always been involved in outdoor related causes. But fairness dictates that a person note that it does a huge amount of mail and internet business, so at the end of the day, while its giving up sales, it might not be giving up as many as would first appear to be the case.
In contrast, today's local paper was absolutely packed with newspaper advertisements. Indeed, it appeared that the orderly fellow who normally assembles our paper just flat out gave up. It has so many advertisement this year that I didn't bother to even really scan them, although I'm not a shopper anyhow. But I did notice, while moving it aside, that there was a special section on downtown businesses.
And I noticed that more than a few of the ads in the big collection of ads, were from local retailers.
In thinking of that, I suppose they really can't afford the luxury that REI can, or at least not as easily. REI is the kind of store that when you are going to shop at it, you are going to shop at it. That's the way it is. If its closed on Friday, you'll wait until Saturday.
But do you do that for a local bookstore?
At least by my observation younger people won't. If you go to a local store to look for a copy of War and Peace for that Christmas gift, and the local book retailer is closed, well chances are high, if you are a millennial or younger, that you'll go to Amazon. It never closes.
And that's a problem.
If you are a store owner, you'd probably like Friday off. Who wouldn't? But you'd like to stay in business too.
Saturday of this week, by the way, is Small Business Saturday, that day in recent years that has been dedicated to small local businesses, many of which are going to be open tomorrow on Black Friday as well.
Well, chances are that I'm not going to be shopping on either day. But that's me.
But, there's been an increasing backlash about it in recent years, which has been a bit of a backlash on consumerism, to some degree, in general. This year, REI, the major outdoor retailer, is opting out for at least the second year in a row, telling its employees to get outside and enjoy things.
REI is a co-opt, so its not quite the same as a big outdoor chain, really. And its always been involved in outdoor related causes. But fairness dictates that a person note that it does a huge amount of mail and internet business, so at the end of the day, while its giving up sales, it might not be giving up as many as would first appear to be the case.
In contrast, today's local paper was absolutely packed with newspaper advertisements. Indeed, it appeared that the orderly fellow who normally assembles our paper just flat out gave up. It has so many advertisement this year that I didn't bother to even really scan them, although I'm not a shopper anyhow. But I did notice, while moving it aside, that there was a special section on downtown businesses.
And I noticed that more than a few of the ads in the big collection of ads, were from local retailers.
In thinking of that, I suppose they really can't afford the luxury that REI can, or at least not as easily. REI is the kind of store that when you are going to shop at it, you are going to shop at it. That's the way it is. If its closed on Friday, you'll wait until Saturday.
But do you do that for a local bookstore?
At least by my observation younger people won't. If you go to a local store to look for a copy of War and Peace for that Christmas gift, and the local book retailer is closed, well chances are high, if you are a millennial or younger, that you'll go to Amazon. It never closes.
And that's a problem.
If you are a store owner, you'd probably like Friday off. Who wouldn't? But you'd like to stay in business too.
Saturday of this week, by the way, is Small Business Saturday, that day in recent years that has been dedicated to small local businesses, many of which are going to be open tomorrow on Black Friday as well.
Well, chances are that I'm not going to be shopping on either day. But that's me.
Lex Anteinternet: Thanksgiving
Casper's Thomas Gobbler, the urban (and not very smart) turkey on the town. I always wonder if he'll be around after Thanksgiving every year.
Back in 2013 I ran a long item (as I am, of course, wont to do) on Thanksgiving as a holiday. As I still think that entry is pretty good, I'll simply direct us back to that item, here:
Lex Anteinternet: Thanksgiving: Today, November 22, is the Thanksgiving Holiday for 2012. Thanksgiving remains one of the two really big holidays in the United States, ...
Of note, in 2013, Thanksgiving was apparently on November 22. That seems rather early to me, but this year I'm also reminded, as I've been running things from 1916, that in that year it was on November 23.
I don't usually write the essay of "what we're grateful for", but I'll depart just a bit to note that I'm grateful that 2016 is drawing to a close. It's been a terrible year for me, with a lot of disasters of one kind or another, and the death of my mother, which because of the circumstances of it made for what seemed to me to be the loss of my mother and my father (who actually died over twenty years ago). So on a personal level, it hasn't been a great year. I'm glad and thankful for the chance to have a four day holiday, as I frankly need it a bit this year.
The overall blue nature of the year, at least for me, has been compounded by the recent bizarre election. I've quite running so many after action items on that as there's just a flood of them, and to some extent I'm just going to wait to see how things turn out next year. Suffice it to say, I was stunned and amazed that Donald Trump received the GOP nomination and that he was elected President. But then I was baffled by why the Democrats would take a page out of their past and go back to a candidate who just screamed 1970s establishment to everyone. Bizarre.
On a local level we saw some odd politics as well, although it seemed to smooth out. Having said that, this upcoming Legislative session is going to see another shortsighted effort to seize lands from the Federal Government we promised not to mess with when we became a state, so more stress for the regular Wyomingites in the offering.
Which brings me to this. I know that Thanksgiving is the traditional "turkey day", and is usually marked by the watching of endless football games. But try to get out a bit. This holiday, more than others, has an outdoor origin really. And just watching the America's dullest pastime on television misses the point. And we all need a break.
The Cheyennne Leader for November 24, 1916: Villa defated at Chihuahua, Carranza delegates to confer with Carranza
A lot going on in this November 24 edition of the Tribune. But how much was accurate?
Things going badly for Villa? A near agreement with Carranza? And of course, the Great War.
Hiram Maxim died, this day in 1916
Hiram Maxim died on this day in 1916.
Maxim was born in Maine but made his fortune in Europe. He died in his adopted home of London on this day at age 76.
He was famous, of course, for his invention of a very effective machinegun. Perfected in the 1880s, the design remains in some limited use today, and of course during World War One it equipped several nations that were at war with each other. Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia, and to a limited extent (but not in Europe) the United States all used the heavy machinegun design. The UK and the USSR would retain their versions all the way through World War Two and the design would see plenty of post war use.
Solders of the Red Army with a Maxim machinegun.
The design, suffice it to say, made him a rich man.
The machinegun itself, that is the invention of a weapon that fired repeated shots through the process of loading its own chamber and firing, as long as the trigger was depressed and ammunition fed, cannot be attributed to Maxim. That such a weapon would be invented became inevitable with the perfection of cartridges for firearms, and in particular the invention of smokeless ammunition. Indeed, even before that the path way was becoming clear with the introduction of the Gatling gun, a weapon that was not a machinegun but which made it essentially clear one would soon be invented. And other machineguns were introduced contemporaneously wiht Maxim's. But Maxim's heavy gun was a particularly good and effective design. It can be argued that it was sufficiently good that it contributed to the battlefield stalemate of World War One, although those who claim it caused it overemphasize its role. Still, it's a bit of an irony, perhaps, that Maxim would pass on at a time when so many younger men were passing on as well, a victim of his invention.
Heavy Maxim automatic gun, the "pom pom", in actuality a type of automatic cannon, in use by the U.S. Navy.
The machinegun itself, that is the invention of a weapon that fired repeated shots through the process of loading its own chamber and firing, as long as the trigger was depressed and ammunition fed, cannot be attributed to Maxim. That such a weapon would be invented became inevitable with the perfection of cartridges for firearms, and in particular the invention of smokeless ammunition. Indeed, even before that the path way was becoming clear with the introduction of the Gatling gun, a weapon that was not a machinegun but which made it essentially clear one would soon be invented. And other machineguns were introduced contemporaneously wiht Maxim's. But Maxim's heavy gun was a particularly good and effective design. It can be argued that it was sufficiently good that it contributed to the battlefield stalemate of World War One, although those who claim it caused it overemphasize its role. Still, it's a bit of an irony, perhaps, that Maxim would pass on at a time when so many younger men were passing on as well, a victim of his invention.
U.S. soldiers in machine gun school with a Maxim machine gun. The U.S. is one of the few nations to adopt the Maxim that never really warmed up to it. While the US had Maxims and Maxim pattern Vickers machine guns prior to World War One, it didn't send them overseas and instead used machine guns acquired from our Allies (including some Vickers) while working on a John Browning design that was standardized in 1917 as the M1917.
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Wolkenkuckucksheim U?
Our image of the academic, a professor of the teens. This was right at the point where academia went from being a very conservative profession to an increasingly liberal one.
On this day when may university students start a break, Walter E. Williams and George F. Will are both analyzing university professors in the context of the current election.
Williams is an African American economist at George Mason University. That might lead you to suspect you know what he wrote, but you'll be surprised (unless you are otherwise familiar with his columns. His current column starts:
Will's current column is remarkably similar:
Now, in fairness, it would be far from correct to presume these sorts of things are universal at all American campuses. But it is also true that universities have become bastions of the surreal in many fashions, and in ways that baffle even the very highly educated in the general population. How did that happen?
Wage War On Noxious Animals: November 23, 1916
The Department of Agriculture issued this War On Noxious Animals note on this date, in 1916. It addressed the topic of coyotes with rabies and Florida land crabs.
I know why coyotes, let alone rabid coyotes, are a problem, but I didn't know that there were land crabs in Florida.
They arrived on the Rochambeau. November 23, 1916.
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Jack London dies at age 40, this day in 1916
Jack London died at age 40 on this day in 1916.
London remains well known to day, particularly for his novels about the Far North, but only literature students and his real fans are very familiar with his personal life. He had a difficult and troubled early life. His mother's pregnancy with him, in fact, brought about her being abandoned by her husband, London's real father, a man named Chaney and she attempted suicide. He was adopted by her second husband and raised in that family, but his childhood and early youth were difficult.
He did study at Berkeley before going ot the Gold Rush in the Yukon, which would lead to his most famous writings. A marriage with a long time friend in 1900 would end in 1904 after he moved out in 1903. The marriage resulted in two daughters but London's bohemian ways caused trouble in the marriage that could not be resolved. He remarried in 1905, after having been a war correspondent in the Russo Japanese War. His second wife held the same radical views he did and the union was happier. That year he also bought a ranch in California.
London two years prior to his death.
London's early life had resulted in his having an assortment of serious diseases that plagued him through the rest of his short life. He took morphine to relieve the pain of some of them. For a period he drank to what he later regarded as excess, but rumors of his being a dedicated alcoholic appear to have no foundation. Rumors that he may have overdosed accidentally on morphine have more credence, but his long lasting illnesses may simply have caught up with him.
Monday, November 21, 2016
Munson Last Boots, or how I became a hipster and didn't even know it. And reflections what hipster affectations mean.
My old, old Maine Engineer Boots. Based closely on Army Service Shoes, these were introduced by numerous civilian makers for civilian use under a variety of names quite early on. This pair was made by Chippewa, which still makes them and related boots, but L. L. Bean's boot is now made by another manufacturer.
Last week I went to Denver for the day. Flew down and back. I hit the train from the airport and rode downtown, and hiked to where I was working for the day.
I was accordingly walking downtown and saw a young man, dressed hipster style (Levis, work shirt, heavy beard) wearing Munson last, Service Shoe, type boots.
"Huh, . . . .", I thought.
On my way back to the train, I was walking down 16th Street, which provides as fine of cross section of humanity as anywhere on Earth, and there was a young couple walking next to me. I looked over, and he too had affected the anti style of Hipster. Heavy beard (waxed mustache, one of at least two I'd see that day), ratty sweater (its been freakishly warm, we should all be wearing coats), dark blue Levi 501s, and Munson last boots.
Hmmmm. . . . .
Finally, in the airport, while I was waiting in the TSA line I saw a bearded young guy several lines over who had removed his boots to run them through the detector.
Munson last boots.
And he too was a hipster.
"Whoa!" thought I. I am, clearly, a trendsetter.
Well, actually I just favor classic simple stuff, as a rule, and don't go in for trendy. Fashions cycle back around to the durable over time, and that's a lot of this. So, over time, I've found the simple round glasses I wear, the horsehide A2 flight jacket I wear, etc., go in and out of style in cycles.
And I've had a pair of ankle high Munson last boots for about 30 years. The same pair, that is. That pair depicted above.
But Munson last boots, as a trendy item, I'll confess, really surprises me. Indeed, at least at one itme, I'd gets some sort of "where did you get those boots" comments that were of the, "where did you get those weird boots" vein.
Okay, what are Munson Last boots?
Well, the old pattern of Army Service Shoe.
Yeah, big help, right?
And what, pray tell, is a Munson Last?
Well, a really good description of that is provided here:
So that tells you what the last is, but it doesn't really tell you what the look of the boot I'm referring to is.
Shortly after Lt. Col Munson, M.D. designed his last with the welfare of the soldier in mind, the Army adopted its ankle high pattern of boot to it, or, more properly, designed a new ankle high pattern of boot using it. The Army itself had been suing ankle high boots for most things since, well, since it quite using shoes in the late 19th Century for everything. The boot was, and is, extremely utilitarian.
I'm not familiar with the U.S. National Army Shoe Company, but there were, and indeed there are, quite a few companies that make things for serviceman but which also offer them to any buyer. Often forgotten, officers have to buy their own clothing, including their boots, so there's a natural market here. The boots depicted in this advertisement are virtually identical, and indeed probably are identical, to some of the Munson Last "engineer" boots that are out there today, right down to the little holes on the toe caps that some still feature.
Sticking with the term "shoe", Army boots became "Service Shoes". Following the adoption of the Munson Last, and coming in a time of now unappreciated military technological innovation.
This doesn't tell you much about the appearance, however, of the boot, and indeed, adoption of the Munson last itself really didn't change its appearance. That goes back to 1902.
In 1902 the U.S. Army replaced the last of its 19th Century type of box toes boots with a new, more modern "shoe". That year, the Army adopted more modern, round toe, boot with a toe cap. It also adopted it in a new color, or actually an absence of a color, in that the leather for the new "shoe" was "neat", i.e., no color at all, other than the natural one. Polishing rapidly gave it a light brown color which people generally think is russet and indeed it does resemble the color of a russet potato.
One of the best recruiting poster of World War One, in my view, this James Montgomery Flagg poster shows the Marine Corps uniform of the period that was very close to the Army's, including the use of the same pattern of boot. These boots show the russet color, but they are actually of the pre Munson Last pattern.
Thereafter there was a rapid series of boot evolution, and generally two pairs of boots for each soldier, a "marching" pair and a "garrison" pair. The garrison boots were ankle high and meant for everyday wear in garrison and on parade. Today they're sometimes referred to as "dress" shoes, which they were, but they were not dress in the same way dress shoes in the Service are today. Soldiers wearing their garrison boots did a lot of work wearing them.
The field boot, or "marching boot" was higher, basically the same approximate height as combat boots are today.
Either pair were intended to be worn with leggings, and soldiers did indeed do that. Indeed, up until some point in the mid 20th Century, puttees and leggings were fairly common in general, even though they are a pain. It wasn't until World War Two that they really disappeared in the US, including in military use, although they carried on in some other armies well after that.
Anyhow, in 1912 the Munson Last came in and was adopted for the Army boot, and a new boot, ankle high, came out for garrison and marching. That boot has basically never left us.
The M1912 and M1917 saw use in World War One, and of course in the Punitive Expedition which we've been following here. Following the Great War, the Service Shoe kept on keeping on, with some
modifications such as eventually incorporating rubber half soles. The
last two versions came in as the Type I and Type II Service Shoe and
served all the way through World War Two. In appearance, they're
virtually identical to the M1912 and M1917 Service shoes.
Solder getting a shave in Mexico, 1916. This photo is interesting in that it shows the soldier wearing a M1912 pair of boots, made with the Munson Last, but the soldier is not wearing his leggings. His socks are pulled up over his breeches. All soldiers, not just cavalrymen, wore breeches at the time.
The boot, or rather Service Show, did receive some challengers during its long period of service, however. Given the conditions of World War One, which was hard on footgear of any kind, the Army adopted the M1917 and M1918 Trench boots, which were influenced by British and French boots of the period. These latter boots had hobnails and were made of split leather, making them durable tough boots for fighting, but which also meant that they couldn't really be shined.
Pershing boots. This varied significantly from the M1912 and M1917 boots in having split leather, a different last for construction, and an external heel counter.
Those boots left after the Great War, but following that huge conflict the Army began to adopt some specialized boots for specialized troops. The Service Shoe was phased out for cavalrymen starting in 1931 in favor of a calf high riding boot that also used the Munson last and also featured a toe cap. Lacing that boot up must have been a pain, as in 1940, the Army adopted another new pattern for cavalrymen, that being the M1940, which also featured use of the Munson last. That boot went out of production after the last Type II Service shoe did, lasting all the way in to the late 1940s. The last two patterns of Service Shoes, Type I and Type II, featured external heel counters, a change to the design.
A pair of unused M1940 mounted service boots, as worn by cavalrymen, mounted artillerymen, and others who had the need to ride horses in the U.S. Army during the war. . . and yes there were those who fit that definition throughout the entire war. These belong to me, and a person would be well within their rights to ask why. The reason is that this pattern of boot is highly regarded by horsemen and I got them cheap, but as can be seen, I've never worn them. I stick to packers and cowboy boots pretty much. This boot is also made with the Munson last. Note that the heel counter is internal, not external, as was the case with most Service Shoes until the end. Note also the fancy toe cap, which was a feature of Service Shoes, Paratrooper Boots, and mounted service boots, but which my L. L. Bean boots omit. The boots I'm seeing Hipsters wear reincorporates that feature.
The Service Shoe itself fell victim to the M1943 Combat Boot, which replaced it in production during World War Two but which never managed to fully replace it. The M1943 Combat Boot was a higher boot which buckled at the top. It was itself based on the concept of combining the Service Shoes with reverse upper, a wartime pattern, with a buckle top, but that design strongly recalled civilian hunting boots of the same period. The reverse upper boot was a wartime pattern itself, as noted, that was adopted to make use of the nonshinable, but more durable, roughout side of the leather and recalled, to some extent, the Pershing boots of World War One. Anyhow, the M1943 boot officially was set to replace the M1943 but never managed to do so. After World War Two, both were replaced by the M1948.
This is a very famous poster advertising the Remington Model 1908 autoloading rifle. No matter what Remington may have claimed, this guy is in a really bad spot Anyhow, this poster is interesting in that it shows the concept of a two buckle hunting boot was already around by 1908, and really the Army's 1943 adoption of that idea merely incorporated a concept that was already around.
The M1948 was another Munson last boot but it was based on the M1942 Paratrooper boot. That boot was, yet again, a Monson last boot and is widely regarded by many as one of the most comfortable military boots every made. A highly coveted boot, it technically was slated for replacement after being in use for only a year by the M1943 Combat Boot. However, its close association with paratroopers managed to keep the boot from going into extinction and its still around as a dress item, but not a combat item, for paratroopers today.
U.S. Paratroopers during World War Two, in training. Their high M1941 paratrooper boots are clearly visible in this photograph. Paratrooper boots became iconic for U.S. Paratroopers and oddly enough even Canadian paratroopers were sometimes equipped with American jump boots. The Army attempted to phase these out with the M1943 boots but where never really successful. Paratroopers feared that the buckles on the M1943 boots would catch their shroud lines. This type of boot continued to be a functional working boot for paratroopers into the 1970s but but better parachutes (softer landings) and the adoption of a basic combat boot that accommodated the concerns of paratroopers on various things meant they were not longer really necessary by that time, and they became, and remain, a dress item.
Okay, so what, is this a history of the Combat Boot or something about Hipsters?
Well, yes, I guess.
The reason that I gave all that history is that it ties into something curious, and I think perhaps worth noting in a peculiar way. But first back to our ankle high Munson boot.
French post World War Two version of the US M1943 boots. These boots came via Sportsman's Warehouse and I got them as they were incredibly cheap and had vibram soles so I can wear them in gross weather without caring whether I wreck them or not. So far, they seem pretty impervious to wearing out. These boots differ from the American ones in having Vibram soles (these were made in the late 1950s) and the upper portion is also split leather, which was not the case for the US ones.
After Dr. Monson designed his last its advantages were noted and the boot soon was offered to civilians. L. L. Bean, the famous outdoor clothier, introduced the boot, with heavier leather than the Army variant, as the Maine Engineering Boot, ostensibly pitched to civil engineers. When I bought my pair, all the way back in the late 1980s, they were still called that and they still may be.
But they're hardly alone. Mine were made by Chippewa for LL Bean, and Chippewa still makes them, including variants under its own name. Chippewa calls what it made for L. L. Bean the Renegade Homestead Boot, but interestingly, it also makes a Service Shoe variant in roughout leather, just like the Army used during World War Two, and markets it as a "Service Boot".
They aren't the only marketers, however, and some of the companies now offering a Service Shoe variant offers ones that are exceedingly close in appearance to the post World War One variants. The Katahdin Iron Works boot strongly resembles the Chippewa boot made for L. L. Bean. Red Wing makes one as well. A company called Thorogood makes them, at a premium price, but which appear to be so close to the M1912 variant that it isn't funny. And, as noted, at least one other manufacturer makes them, and it appears to be that variant that I saw on the sidewalks of Denver the other day.
Of course simply wearing a pair of boots a style does not affect. What I otherwise saw was a selection of clothes that really had that throw back appearance, and which leaned on the old working world. It's odd for me to see, as I've worn that clothing so often myself.
Taking again our young hipster friend on 16th Street in Denver, he was also wearing a fairly nondescript sweater, a type man of us have, but perhaps more significantly a pair of dark blue, nearly new, Levi 501s. The cuffs were turned up to expose the top of the boots.
Turned up.
Man alive, I haven't seen that on anyone since I was a kid and our parents bought our pant too long, for a reason. Adults haven't worn their blue jeans that way since the 1950s, although it was common in the 1930s and 1940s.
From our old thread on Levis. Photograph taken about 1940, or maybe the very late 1930s.
I love Levi 501s, although I normally wear Lees, or at least often do. I like Lees better, which were a more popular brand until after World War Two, and always have. Part of that, however, is that as I've grown over a half century old, Lees just fit a bit better. They're a bit higher wasted. And they seem somewhat inconsistent on sizes since they started making Levis overseas. Still, Levi 501s are the first clothing item I recall, as earlier related here, going out and buying for definite stylistic reasons:
Levies became the victim of fashion in the 1980s. Denim is still around in strength, but an odd thing is that save for Levis, Lees and Wranglers, all of which have been around for a long time, and those jeans in their original or near original variants, a lot of the blue jeans in circulation now days amongst men affect an appearance that is characterized by a slur I hear teenagers use all the time, but which I will not repeat here. Perhaps they're best summed up by a slam I heard hte other day for the first day, that being "dad jeans". They don't look, well, very manly.
Lees, Levis, and Wranglers sure do.
And dark blue Levi 501s most definitely do.
So what's going on here?
Something most certainly is.
Young hirsute men, with semi ratty sweaters and plaid flannel shirts, wearing 501s with ankle high service shoes?
I mean, these young men sort of look like me on any given Sunday (I usually don't shave on Sundays unless I'm a lector, as I don't like shaving). What gives.
Why, that is, do they look like they're working on a the Alaska Highway in 1942?
Alcan highway crew, 1942. This crew is clearly an Army crew, which many were, based on their dress. Indeed, these are African American engineers in the then segregated Army. Of note, FWIW, the engineer on the right is wearing the very high boots that the Army purchased for engineers working on this project, something that was unique to them.
Okay, maybe not the Alcan in 42, but the style they're affecting definitely recalls an earlier, and much, much, more blue collar era. One with in eye-shot of us now, looking back into the past, so familiar to us, but one that also definitely isn't our current era.
And I don't think that's an accident.
And it isn't the first time within the last seventy years this has happened, but you can't find examples of this, before that, of which I'm aware.
In the 1950s, now thought of as the epitome of clean cut, there was something going on that angled in this direction, although imperfectly. Blue jeans had generally been the trousers of manual and agricultural labor. Men wearing only t-shirts were generally hard at work. Leather jackets had a strong association with the working class (leather was obviously much cheaper then) and, due to World War Two, with pilots. Cowboy boots retained their association (as they still do) with cowboys. All of these items came into the affectation of rebellious youth at that time. So, at a time when American industry was still very strong, but the World War Two generation was moving rapidly towards urbanization and while collar employment, American youth was affecting a rural and industrial style, and this at the same time that their immediate elders were becoming "The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit".
This continued in the 1960s. Looked back at now styles of the 1960s and early 1970s were outlandish, but they're also a bit of a clue on how what was started in the 1950s kept on keeping on. An easy, if not perfect, way to look at this is to view the film Easy Rider, which came out in 1969. Quite a few of the styles depicted in the film, while 60ish, are highly rural. Broad brimmed hats, jeans recalling Spanish America, and cowboy boots are found throughout the film. Taking another example, Jimi Hendrix, the high point of music form the 1960s, wore a style that very heavily recalled the appearance of the Californio, i.e., Caballero, of the 19th Century.
By the late 1970s and early 1980s, this style had yielded, in some youth circles, to a style based on hiking gear, which is an odd thing to consider now. The style was so common that when I was at the University of Wyoming in the 1980s I recall seeing an Army ROTC recruiting advertisement in the student newspaper showing three cartoon students, two men and one woman, wearing down vests, jeans, and classic mountaineering boots (of the type I still have, but which we don't see much anymore, and which we called "waffle stompers") with the catchphrase "And you say you don't like uniforms?". That this clothing style was so dominant amongst some youth that Army ROTC could use it as a recruiting platform says something.
But what does it say?
Well, to get back to theme that's occurred here quite a bit in recent months, or even in the last couple of years, I think it expresses a desire to go back.
And I think that's because people don't much like the glass and steel world they built.
When a young man, with a possible intended, is walking down 16th Street in Denver looking like he's on the way to the cook shack at a Michigan lumber camp in 1928, or on his way to the feed store in 1939, I think it's saying something, and saying it pretty loudly.
Even if he doesn't realize it.
And it isn't the first time within the last seventy years this has happened, but you can't find examples of this, before that, of which I'm aware.
In the 1950s, now thought of as the epitome of clean cut, there was something going on that angled in this direction, although imperfectly. Blue jeans had generally been the trousers of manual and agricultural labor. Men wearing only t-shirts were generally hard at work. Leather jackets had a strong association with the working class (leather was obviously much cheaper then) and, due to World War Two, with pilots. Cowboy boots retained their association (as they still do) with cowboys. All of these items came into the affectation of rebellious youth at that time. So, at a time when American industry was still very strong, but the World War Two generation was moving rapidly towards urbanization and while collar employment, American youth was affecting a rural and industrial style, and this at the same time that their immediate elders were becoming "The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit".
This continued in the 1960s. Looked back at now styles of the 1960s and early 1970s were outlandish, but they're also a bit of a clue on how what was started in the 1950s kept on keeping on. An easy, if not perfect, way to look at this is to view the film Easy Rider, which came out in 1969. Quite a few of the styles depicted in the film, while 60ish, are highly rural. Broad brimmed hats, jeans recalling Spanish America, and cowboy boots are found throughout the film. Taking another example, Jimi Hendrix, the high point of music form the 1960s, wore a style that very heavily recalled the appearance of the Californio, i.e., Caballero, of the 19th Century.
By the late 1970s and early 1980s, this style had yielded, in some youth circles, to a style based on hiking gear, which is an odd thing to consider now. The style was so common that when I was at the University of Wyoming in the 1980s I recall seeing an Army ROTC recruiting advertisement in the student newspaper showing three cartoon students, two men and one woman, wearing down vests, jeans, and classic mountaineering boots (of the type I still have, but which we don't see much anymore, and which we called "waffle stompers") with the catchphrase "And you say you don't like uniforms?". That this clothing style was so dominant amongst some youth that Army ROTC could use it as a recruiting platform says something.
But what does it say?
Well, to get back to theme that's occurred here quite a bit in recent months, or even in the last couple of years, I think it expresses a desire to go back.
And I think that's because people don't much like the glass and steel world they built.
When a young man, with a possible intended, is walking down 16th Street in Denver looking like he's on the way to the cook shack at a Michigan lumber camp in 1928, or on his way to the feed store in 1939, I think it's saying something, and saying it pretty loudly.
Even if he doesn't realize it.
Reproduction Service Shoes, Reverse Upper, sported by me at work, when I no doubt should have been wearing more formal clothes. I have these as I have really small feet and some manufacturer was stuck with this pair, as a result, making them really, really cheap. Look for a hipster trend here soon.
HMHS Britanic, sister ship to the Titanic, sunk by mine
The intended White Star liner Britannic, serving the English war effort as a hospital ship, hit a mine at 08:12 on this date, in 1916, in the Kea Channel off of Greece.
She sank in a period of a little under an hour. She was the largest ship to be sunk during the First World War.
1,035 of the passengers survived the sinking. 30 lost their lives. A further 38 were injured in the incident. The ship carried no patients, but rather 1,065 servicemen and women, of which 673 were crew for the vessel, 315 members of the Royal Army Medical Corps and 77 were nurses. Oddly, one of the nurses was a survivor of the sinking of the Titanic.
The Britannic was the last of the Olympic class of White Star liners. She had only been commissioned in December 1915 after being launched in February 1914. She had never served in her intended role. Her loss made the Olympic the last member of the three ship class.
Revolution Day
Today is Revolution Day in Mexico, commemorating the overthrow of Porfirio Díaz.
Diaz had ruled for thirty five years. He was a dictator, but as dictators go, he was relatively benevolent. His overthrow was bizarrely brought about by an interview he gave to an American magazine suggesting that if the Mexican people were ready for democracy, so was he. This was picked up by Francisco Modero, who took him at his word, challenging him for the office, which was not really ready to give up. This ultimately lead to the Mexican Revolution.
The revolution, unfortunately, did not bring about democracy but instead the leadership of a series of leaders from the Institutional Revolutionary Party to the exclusion of other parties. Only within the last couple of decades has Mexico transitioned into a democracy.
Diaz had ruled for thirty five years. He was a dictator, but as dictators go, he was relatively benevolent. His overthrow was bizarrely brought about by an interview he gave to an American magazine suggesting that if the Mexican people were ready for democracy, so was he. This was picked up by Francisco Modero, who took him at his word, challenging him for the office, which was not really ready to give up. This ultimately lead to the Mexican Revolution.
The revolution, unfortunately, did not bring about democracy but instead the leadership of a series of leaders from the Institutional Revolutionary Party to the exclusion of other parties. Only within the last couple of decades has Mexico transitioned into a democracy.
Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria died, November 21, 1916.
Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, died from pneumonia contracted only shortly before this date. He was 86 years old and had been serving in that role for the Austro Hungarian Empire since 1848.
Franz Joseph in 1905
His death came, of course in the midst of the great tragedy of World War One, of which his nation was a central participant and the originating belligerent in some ways. With his death, the throne would pass to his grandnephew Charles I who would carry forward until the death of the Empire in 1918.
It's hard, in some ways, not to view the long reigning monarch's 1916 death as symbolic of the very death of the old order in Europe.
Sunday, November 20, 2016
Sunday Morning Scene: Painted Bricks: Virgin Mary Mural in Salt Lake City
Painted Bricks: Virgin Mary Mural in Salt Lake City:
I'll admit that this is a bit unusual for this page, but this is a spectacular mural of the Virgin Mary in downtown Salt Lake City. These photos, taken on my cell phone, do not do it justice in any sense.
This building serves as an art gallery and a pizzeria.
I'll admit that this is a bit unusual for this page, but this is a spectacular mural of the Virgin Mary in downtown Salt Lake City. These photos, taken on my cell phone, do not do it justice in any sense.
This building serves as an art gallery and a pizzeria.
Ruth Law landing at Governor's Island
Ruth Law dressed as military aviator, World War One.
Ms. Law would go on to campaign for allowing women to fly as military pilots during World War One. That idea had clearly not arrived.
Somewhat unusual for the time for a pilot, she went on to live a long life and died at age 83 in San Francisco.
Saturday, November 19, 2016
Friday, November 18, 2016
Blog Mirror: Aviation History Month: Aircraft and Paratroopers in the Forest Service
Great reading!Aviation History Month: Aircraft and Paratroopers in the Forest Service
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the U.S. Forest Service relies heavily on fixed wing and rotary aircraft to accomplish the agency’s mission. Employees take to the skies for forest inventory surveys, prescribed fire support, firefighting or to get to remote locations. Since 1919, aircraft has been an invaluable resource for the agency. . .
Sir Douglas Haig ends the effort at the Somme on this day in 1916
Douglas Haig brings to a conclusion the British effort at the Somme.
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Big Metal Bird: Episode 8 – Turbulence
Because I hate turburlance, but I like United's Big Metal Bird series.
Lessons Learned: No Dynasties
One clear message from this election is no more Bush's and no more Clinton's. Enough is enough.
Political insiders believe in dynasties They think that because you are the son, wife, cousin, or whatever, of somebody who was in office, the public likes you.
Not hardly.
The public things you are trying to become royalty.
In the history of the American republic there's been only two exceptions to this. The Adams and the Roosevelt's. We got two of each, and that was it. I don't know about the Adam's, but with the Roosevelt's there were others who did indeed have serious opportunities to rise to high office, but in the end they backed off. The family is still around today, and still as smart as it ever was. But it doesn't run for office. There are living descendants of Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt. They don't run for office as they know better.
Indeed, there are living Theodore Roosevelt's and living Franklin Roosevelt's.
The Bush's and the Clinton's should have visited them this year.
No matter, I'm sure that there are those in the beltway looking at what Chelsea Clinton and various young members of the Bush family can be positioned for right now.
Political insiders believe in dynasties They think that because you are the son, wife, cousin, or whatever, of somebody who was in office, the public likes you.
Not hardly.
The public things you are trying to become royalty.
In the history of the American republic there's been only two exceptions to this. The Adams and the Roosevelt's. We got two of each, and that was it. I don't know about the Adam's, but with the Roosevelt's there were others who did indeed have serious opportunities to rise to high office, but in the end they backed off. The family is still around today, and still as smart as it ever was. But it doesn't run for office. There are living descendants of Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt. They don't run for office as they know better.
Indeed, there are living Theodore Roosevelt's and living Franklin Roosevelt's.
The Bush's and the Clinton's should have visited them this year.
No matter, I'm sure that there are those in the beltway looking at what Chelsea Clinton and various young members of the Bush family can be positioned for right now.
Lessons Learned. I guess there weren't any.
I'm tempted to stop this series of posts, and likely will slow them down or halt them for awhile, somewhat. There's been a flood of post election commentary and so there's hardly any point in doing any more, which doesn't seem to mean that anyone is stopping however.
Nonetheless, in the spirit of warning those who will not learn from history, I cannot help but note that part of the Democratic and left of center commentary has been a howling scream of "we did nothing wrong and we intend to keep on doing the same".
It's truly been amazing.
There has been, to be completely fair, a fair amount of post election analysis in these quarters that's pretty biting, quite analytical, and likely correct. But there's also a lot that's flat out delusional.
In that category, there have been some who have been floating suggestions along the lines of "if Trump really wants to work with us, like he says, he'll (fill in terms of surrender to the Democrats here).
First of all, I haven't heard him saying that at all. Indeed, I think the great self delusional element in much of the post election analysis is that Trump isn't going to keep on keeping on in the direction he's been going. He will.
So, I don't think he's really that worried about working with Democrats. He really doesn't have to.
He has to work with Republicans, but they also have to work with him and they know it. Republicans now will have no excuse at all for not doing things they've paid lip service to, but have not done.
Chief amongst the more off the rails suggestions I've seen is that if Trump really wants to show that he can work with Democrats (a doubtful proposition) he should renominate Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. That's largely the same in nature as suggesting that if Lincoln really wanted to show the South that the nation was one again, in 1865, he should allow slavery to continue. I mean, seriously? There's no freaking earthly way that's going to happen, and indeed it should not and could not.
Now, as noted, I'm not a Trump fan (and I wasn't a Clinton fan either), but a person like Trump doesn't get elected to go in and say, "oh, I guess everything is okay here". Not hardly. And cherished items such as a left wing Supreme Court were the very things that probably served, in this instance, to torpedo the Democrats chances this year.
Indeed I think a good case can be made for the proposition that the turning point for the Democrats in this election was the Obegefell Decision. Like it or hate it, it was on legal ice so think that a person could have taken a steam bath in it. As such decisions are inherently anti-democratic, and that decision certainly was as well as being legally anemic, celebrating it the way the White House did, combined with major Democratic figures announcing that they no longer stood by the things they'd said, when they had to say them to get elected, a few years prior may very well have doomed them. So essentially saying that the Supreme Court should be turned over to the hard left for a generation, maybe, as a peace offering is really out there.
It's not the only such suggestion that's out there, however.
A less obvious one is the suggestion that the Democrats blast into the future by putting their party in the hands of the same sort of thinking that got them where they are now. Basically their decision is akin to the "once more over the top" thinking from World War One. "What, we've been mowed down. . . huh. . . well, let's try it again"
There's a popular suggestion that Keith Ellison be put in charge of the party. Have you listened to him? His stated comments, so far, sound pretty much like a repeat of failure. The New York Times, in an op ed, suggests that Chuck Schumer, one of the most detested Democrats outside of the East Coast, will be given a leadership role. Really, NYT, wouldn't a better suggestion be that Schumer simply keep quiet? Outside New York, he's not exactly super popular.
In fairness to the Times, however, Schumer was mentioned as an inevitability, along with Sanders, who at least deserves a voice. They urged the party to look towards younger leaders and I'll note that at least Ellison, who is a few months younger than me, actually fits that definition by Democratic terms. Not in human terms. 53 years old is not young. But when the two candidates who ran for the Democrats this year in the primaries have a combined age of over 140, well, I guess its youngish.
Nonetheless, in the spirit of warning those who will not learn from history, I cannot help but note that part of the Democratic and left of center commentary has been a howling scream of "we did nothing wrong and we intend to keep on doing the same".
It's truly been amazing.
There has been, to be completely fair, a fair amount of post election analysis in these quarters that's pretty biting, quite analytical, and likely correct. But there's also a lot that's flat out delusional.
In that category, there have been some who have been floating suggestions along the lines of "if Trump really wants to work with us, like he says, he'll (fill in terms of surrender to the Democrats here).
First of all, I haven't heard him saying that at all. Indeed, I think the great self delusional element in much of the post election analysis is that Trump isn't going to keep on keeping on in the direction he's been going. He will.
So, I don't think he's really that worried about working with Democrats. He really doesn't have to.
He has to work with Republicans, but they also have to work with him and they know it. Republicans now will have no excuse at all for not doing things they've paid lip service to, but have not done.
Chief amongst the more off the rails suggestions I've seen is that if Trump really wants to show that he can work with Democrats (a doubtful proposition) he should renominate Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. That's largely the same in nature as suggesting that if Lincoln really wanted to show the South that the nation was one again, in 1865, he should allow slavery to continue. I mean, seriously? There's no freaking earthly way that's going to happen, and indeed it should not and could not.
Now, as noted, I'm not a Trump fan (and I wasn't a Clinton fan either), but a person like Trump doesn't get elected to go in and say, "oh, I guess everything is okay here". Not hardly. And cherished items such as a left wing Supreme Court were the very things that probably served, in this instance, to torpedo the Democrats chances this year.
Indeed I think a good case can be made for the proposition that the turning point for the Democrats in this election was the Obegefell Decision. Like it or hate it, it was on legal ice so think that a person could have taken a steam bath in it. As such decisions are inherently anti-democratic, and that decision certainly was as well as being legally anemic, celebrating it the way the White House did, combined with major Democratic figures announcing that they no longer stood by the things they'd said, when they had to say them to get elected, a few years prior may very well have doomed them. So essentially saying that the Supreme Court should be turned over to the hard left for a generation, maybe, as a peace offering is really out there.
It's not the only such suggestion that's out there, however.
A less obvious one is the suggestion that the Democrats blast into the future by putting their party in the hands of the same sort of thinking that got them where they are now. Basically their decision is akin to the "once more over the top" thinking from World War One. "What, we've been mowed down. . . huh. . . well, let's try it again"
There's a popular suggestion that Keith Ellison be put in charge of the party. Have you listened to him? His stated comments, so far, sound pretty much like a repeat of failure. The New York Times, in an op ed, suggests that Chuck Schumer, one of the most detested Democrats outside of the East Coast, will be given a leadership role. Really, NYT, wouldn't a better suggestion be that Schumer simply keep quiet? Outside New York, he's not exactly super popular.
In fairness to the Times, however, Schumer was mentioned as an inevitability, along with Sanders, who at least deserves a voice. They urged the party to look towards younger leaders and I'll note that at least Ellison, who is a few months younger than me, actually fits that definition by Democratic terms. Not in human terms. 53 years old is not young. But when the two candidates who ran for the Democrats this year in the primaries have a combined age of over 140, well, I guess its youngish.
Shelby Foote born, this day in 1916
Again, this isn't the "this day in 1916" blog, but we are noting things of interest that occurred in 1916, in part of our effort to develop the warp and woof of the Punitive Expedition era, if we dare call it that.
Therefore, we've noted a few, and very few at that, birthdays that relate to 1916. As most births aren't national news at the time of the birth, this is being done on a very limited basis.
Anyhow, today we do note that this date is the 1916 date of birth for Shelby Foote, who is best remembered for his epic three volume history of the American Civil War, his magnum opus, and a truly great work. He also wrote a few novels that are not well known to readers today, but which are generally well regarded.
Foote was of Southern birth but strove to remain objective in his history of the Civil War. Ironically, his own military record was peculiar in that he joined the Mississippi National Guard in 1940, rising to the rank of Captain, only to be court martialed in 1944 for falsifying a record pertaining to a Jeep when he borrowed it to visit a girlfriend, whom he later married, who lived two miles beyond the military limits in Northern Ireland, where he was then stationed. Returning to the United States his new wife divorced him after coming to the United States in a warship convoy and he soon thereafter joined the Marine Corps as an enlistedman. The war ended before he saw combat. Therefore, while he was steeped in the Civil War due to growing up in the South, and was familiar with the military himself after having served in the Army and the Marines, he never saw combat in the largest war the United States had fought after the Civil War.
Foote had a soft, classic Southern accent that became well known to Americans for his role in Ken Burns' famous documentary, The Civil War, which Foote played a prominent role in.
Therefore, we've noted a few, and very few at that, birthdays that relate to 1916. As most births aren't national news at the time of the birth, this is being done on a very limited basis.
Anyhow, today we do note that this date is the 1916 date of birth for Shelby Foote, who is best remembered for his epic three volume history of the American Civil War, his magnum opus, and a truly great work. He also wrote a few novels that are not well known to readers today, but which are generally well regarded.
Foote was of Southern birth but strove to remain objective in his history of the Civil War. Ironically, his own military record was peculiar in that he joined the Mississippi National Guard in 1940, rising to the rank of Captain, only to be court martialed in 1944 for falsifying a record pertaining to a Jeep when he borrowed it to visit a girlfriend, whom he later married, who lived two miles beyond the military limits in Northern Ireland, where he was then stationed. Returning to the United States his new wife divorced him after coming to the United States in a warship convoy and he soon thereafter joined the Marine Corps as an enlistedman. The war ended before he saw combat. Therefore, while he was steeped in the Civil War due to growing up in the South, and was familiar with the military himself after having served in the Army and the Marines, he never saw combat in the largest war the United States had fought after the Civil War.
Foote had a soft, classic Southern accent that became well known to Americans for his role in Ken Burns' famous documentary, The Civil War, which Foote played a prominent role in.
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Blog Mirror: Harvard Business Review; What So Many People Don’t Get About the U.S. Working Class
From the Harvard Business Review:
And why its worth reading:
And this:
And here it is for Hillbilly Elegy, which seems to take a darker view, but which is focused, really, on Appalachia, I think (based on an interview I heard of the author):
But that element of struggle, noted immediately above, actually was and still sort of is there. When I was young a huge number of the professionals I knew had parents who were very blue collar or had been farmers and ranchers. And, in terms of outlook, those professionals really basically remained at or near those classes themselves. This even went on to the next generation, and I'd put myself in that category and I'm not the only one I know. It may seem odd, but there are a lot of lawyers my age, 50 and up, who tend to be more naturally comfortable in a social setting with farmers and ranchers rather than people who are in the high dollar business world, even if they work in the high dollar business world themselves (which doesn't mean they are uncomfortable with the latter). And at the same time, more comfortable doesn't mean comfortable, as one thing that any lawyer, and I imagine doctor, finds out is that once you have obtained that status, you will never be looked at the same way again by your blue collar fellows.
Still, it's interesting to think that even now, and particularly for men my age and up, being a professional might still mean that your outlook on many things is defined by that and retains at least one foot there. An odd example of that is in terms of automobiles. My father always drove a pickup truck as his daily driver and I've always driving a four wheel drive. I have two regular vehicles I use myself now, one being an old Jeep, and the other an aging Dodge D3500. That latter vehicle is my best one (I'm not counting the vehicle my wife drives, which I do not usually). It's a 1 ton 4x4 truck. I occasionally have younger lawyers express amazement at my driving it, but I use it for hauling horses and cattle as well, and I've never not had a fairly plain 4x4 truck. And this isn't uncommon for older lawyers here. I've always been amazed by the amazement, but when I look at what they're driving, I see they're driving something rooted in the more urban professional world than I am.
I note all of that as what I think this analysis lacks is that for a lot of people in the middle class the call is truly back to another world. Just because the younger kids had to leave the farm or ranch doesn't mean that mentally they ever did. The likes and dislikes of the sons of machinist and boilermakers often remains exactly what their parents were. I once had a hugely successful Dallas lawyer lament his life and career there, then excuse his choice in the same manner that Arnold Rothstein did in the Godfather, "This is the life we chose". But all of that may mean that the entire culture is looking back more than many suppose.
My father-in-law grew up eating blood soup. He hated it, whether because of the taste or the humiliation, I never knew. His alcoholic father regularly drank up the family wage, and the family was often short on food money. They were evicted from apartment after apartment.Worth reading.
And why its worth reading:
For months, the only thing that’s surprised me about Donald Trump is my friends’ astonishment at his success. What’s driving it is the class culture gap.Seems like I read that elsewhere. . . oh yeah. Here.
And this:
“The white working class is just so stupid. Don’t they realize Republicans just use them every four years, and then screw them?” I have heard some version of this over and over again, and it’s actually a sentiment the WWC agrees with, which is why they rejected the Republican establishment this year. But to them, the Democrats are no better.
Both parties have supported free-trade deals because of the net positive GDP gains, overlooking the blue-collar workers who lost work as jobs left for Mexico or Vietnam. These are precisely the voters in the crucial swing states of Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania that Democrats have so long ignored. Excuse me. Who’s stupid?This article refers to a couple of books, Limbo and Hillbilly Elegy. I'd only heard of one. But there's something they are on to, even if I'd refine the thesis. Here's the Amazon synopsis for Limbo:
In Limbo, award-winning journalist Alfred Lubrano identifies and describes an overlooked cultural phenomenon: the internal conflict within individuals raised in blue-collar homes, now living white-collar lives. These people often find that the values of the working class are not sufficient guidance to navigate the white-collar world, where unspoken rules reflect primarily upper-class values. Torn between the world they were raised in and the life they aspire too, they hover between worlds, not quite accepted in either. Himself the son of a Brooklyn bricklayer, Lubrano informs his account with personal experience and interviews with other professionals living in limbo. For millions of Americans, these stories will serve as familiar reminders of the struggles of achieving the American Dream.
From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, a powerful account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America’s white working class.
Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.
The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love,” and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually their grandchild (the author) would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success in achieving generational upward mobility.
I don't agree, off hand, with all of the apparent conclusions of these books are, but there's something, well more than something, to the concept of the middle class having roots in a different world than the upper middle class does, and that's significant. Part of it is for this reason, noted in the article:But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that this is only the short, superficial version. Vance’s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother, struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, and were never able to fully escape the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. Vance piercingly shows how he himself still carries around the demons of their chaotic family history.A deeply moving memoir with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.
“The thing that really gets me is that Democrats try to offer policies (paid sick leave! minimum wage!) that would help the working class,” a friend just wrote me. A few days’ paid leave ain’t gonna support a family. Neither is minimum wage. WWC men aren’t interested in working at McDonald’s for $15 per hour instead of $9.50. What they want is what my father-in-law had: steady, stable, full-time jobs that deliver a solid middle-class life to the 75% of Americans who don’t have a college degree. Trump promises that. I doubt he’ll deliver, but at least he understands what they need.Right on point. But there's another item here, where at least locally, I think she's off point, but it leads to a significant point nonetheless.
One little-known element of that gap is that the white working class (WWC) resents professionals but admires the rich. Class migrants (white-collar professionals born to blue-collar families) report that “professional people were generally suspect” and that managers are college kids “who don’t know shit about how to do anything but are full of ideas about how I have to do my job,” said Alfred Lubrano in Limbo. Barbara Ehrenreich recalled in 1990 that her blue-collar dad “could not say the word doctor without the virtual prefix quack. Lawyers were shysters…and professors were without exception phonies.” Annette Lareau found tremendous resentment against teachers, who were perceived as condescending and unhelpful.At least by my observation, blue collar people don't actually resent professionals uniformly, although they sometimes do as a class (particularity in regards to lawyers). They tend to think that professionals in some categories, well lawyers again, don't really work. I had, for example, a really working class client I rarely do work for call up the other day and say, as a half joke, "well get your feet off the desk and get back to work. . . " when he called, a joke he repeats every time he calls. But at the same time law and medicine have long been viewed as the escape hatch from the lower middle class to the upper middle class by lower middle class families.
But that element of struggle, noted immediately above, actually was and still sort of is there. When I was young a huge number of the professionals I knew had parents who were very blue collar or had been farmers and ranchers. And, in terms of outlook, those professionals really basically remained at or near those classes themselves. This even went on to the next generation, and I'd put myself in that category and I'm not the only one I know. It may seem odd, but there are a lot of lawyers my age, 50 and up, who tend to be more naturally comfortable in a social setting with farmers and ranchers rather than people who are in the high dollar business world, even if they work in the high dollar business world themselves (which doesn't mean they are uncomfortable with the latter). And at the same time, more comfortable doesn't mean comfortable, as one thing that any lawyer, and I imagine doctor, finds out is that once you have obtained that status, you will never be looked at the same way again by your blue collar fellows.
Still, it's interesting to think that even now, and particularly for men my age and up, being a professional might still mean that your outlook on many things is defined by that and retains at least one foot there. An odd example of that is in terms of automobiles. My father always drove a pickup truck as his daily driver and I've always driving a four wheel drive. I have two regular vehicles I use myself now, one being an old Jeep, and the other an aging Dodge D3500. That latter vehicle is my best one (I'm not counting the vehicle my wife drives, which I do not usually). It's a 1 ton 4x4 truck. I occasionally have younger lawyers express amazement at my driving it, but I use it for hauling horses and cattle as well, and I've never not had a fairly plain 4x4 truck. And this isn't uncommon for older lawyers here. I've always been amazed by the amazement, but when I look at what they're driving, I see they're driving something rooted in the more urban professional world than I am.
I note all of that as what I think this analysis lacks is that for a lot of people in the middle class the call is truly back to another world. Just because the younger kids had to leave the farm or ranch doesn't mean that mentally they ever did. The likes and dislikes of the sons of machinist and boilermakers often remains exactly what their parents were. I once had a hugely successful Dallas lawyer lament his life and career there, then excuse his choice in the same manner that Arnold Rothstein did in the Godfather, "This is the life we chose". But all of that may mean that the entire culture is looking back more than many suppose.
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
The Cheyenne Leader for November 15, 1916: Mexicans repudiate pact for joint border control, train robbed in Missouri, trouble in a synagogue.
Some interesting news for November 15, 1916.
An attempt at a pact on the Mexican border appeared to fall through, to the frustration of the U.S. delegates.
A train was robbed in Kansas City, Missouri. The paper referenced Bill Carlisle, the famous Wyoming train robber who is usually credited with the last train robbery in the US. This story would obviously cast doubt on that claim.
In Cheyenne there was dissension on the rabbi that had been serving there.
Lessons Learned: Nobody cares what celebrities have to say about politics
Late in the election the Clinton campaign drug out a platoon of celebrities.
A television advertisement was run in some venues featuring them.
Miley Cyrus, Jay Z, and Beyonce all chipped in for Clinton.
It turns out that nobody cares what these people have to say. Nor should they.
Now, so its clear, I also don't think anyone should care what Clint Eastwood, or other figures that people claim hold right wing views (I don't know if they really do or not) say about politics either.
I don't wish to cast aspersion on anyone personality (although I will below) but entertainers are entertainers. That doesn't make them wise sages.
Indeed, as a class, entertainers are amongst the most screwed up people on the planet. I sometimes wonder if the fact that their fame is based on performing, rather than on something deeper than that, is the reason why. I don't know that, but I wonder that. Indeed, as a rule, most modern performers aren't performing things they have directly created it, but interpreting something someone else has. That is, truly, an art, but it isn't the same as creating it. At the end of day, in other words, we tend to remember Shakespeare, not the Shakespearean actor. I guess with singers its a bit different, as we tend to remember the performer rather than the author. I.e, we associate Me and Bobby McGee with Janis Joplin, not with Kris Kristofferson.
Anyhow, while not commenting on the candidates directly, yet, the fact that the electorate apparently doesn't care who Beyonce is going to vote for is a mighty good sign. Indeed, the fact that the electorate doesn't care who Miley Cyrus supports, given as she's become the poster child for creepily pathetic, is a very good sign.
That doesn't, once again, amount to an endorsement of Trump or Clinton. But, quite frankly, the image of a 69 year old woman appearing on stage with Beyonce and Jay Z is weird. And awkward.
I guess if Janis Joplin were still alive, Clinton appearing with Joplin would have been less weird, as Joplin would be older than she is. But that's the point. Appearing with the hip kidsters makes you look like an unhip oldster.
A television advertisement was run in some venues featuring them.
Miley Cyrus, Jay Z, and Beyonce all chipped in for Clinton.
It turns out that nobody cares what these people have to say. Nor should they.
Now, so its clear, I also don't think anyone should care what Clint Eastwood, or other figures that people claim hold right wing views (I don't know if they really do or not) say about politics either.
I don't wish to cast aspersion on anyone personality (although I will below) but entertainers are entertainers. That doesn't make them wise sages.
Indeed, as a class, entertainers are amongst the most screwed up people on the planet. I sometimes wonder if the fact that their fame is based on performing, rather than on something deeper than that, is the reason why. I don't know that, but I wonder that. Indeed, as a rule, most modern performers aren't performing things they have directly created it, but interpreting something someone else has. That is, truly, an art, but it isn't the same as creating it. At the end of day, in other words, we tend to remember Shakespeare, not the Shakespearean actor. I guess with singers its a bit different, as we tend to remember the performer rather than the author. I.e, we associate Me and Bobby McGee with Janis Joplin, not with Kris Kristofferson.
Anyhow, while not commenting on the candidates directly, yet, the fact that the electorate apparently doesn't care who Beyonce is going to vote for is a mighty good sign. Indeed, the fact that the electorate doesn't care who Miley Cyrus supports, given as she's become the poster child for creepily pathetic, is a very good sign.
That doesn't, once again, amount to an endorsement of Trump or Clinton. But, quite frankly, the image of a 69 year old woman appearing on stage with Beyonce and Jay Z is weird. And awkward.
I guess if Janis Joplin were still alive, Clinton appearing with Joplin would have been less weird, as Joplin would be older than she is. But that's the point. Appearing with the hip kidsters makes you look like an unhip oldster.
Monday, November 14, 2016
Lance Sergeant Hector Hugh Munro, "Saki", killed in action.
English short story author Hector Hugh Munro was killed by a sniper on the Western Front on this day in 1916. Munro was serving in the Royal Fusiliers at the time at the rank of Lance Sergeant. He had enlisted in 1914 as a trooper in the 2nd King Edwards Horse, having refused a commission, and being overage at the time (43).
His short stories were known for their sudden, surprise, endings.
Thanks go out on this one to Reddit's 100 Years Ago Today subreddit.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)