Monday, May 15, 2017
Blog Mirror: Decent Films: Our Lady of Fatima at the Movies
SDG Original source:
May is the Month of Mary, and May 13 is the memorial day of Our Lady of Fátima. On this day in 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot in St. Peter’s Square, and he ascribed his survival to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, linking the attempt on his life with the “Third Secret” of Fátima. . .
Sunday, May 14, 2017
Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. Malachy Catholic Mission Church, Medicine Bow, Wyoming
Churches of the West: St. Malachy Catholic Mission Church, Medicine Bow, Wyoming
Original caption: "This is St. Malachy's Catholic Mission Church in Medicine Bow, Wyoming. The Church is served by the parish in Saratoga Wyoming."
I'll note that I'm not too certain that this church is currently being used. Indeed, I think it is not. Medicine Bow's fortunes have declined in recent years.
Original caption: "This is St. Malachy's Catholic Mission Church in Medicine Bow, Wyoming. The Church is served by the parish in Saratoga Wyoming."
I'll note that I'm not too certain that this church is currently being used. Indeed, I think it is not. Medicine Bow's fortunes have declined in recent years.
Saturday, May 13, 2017
Roads to the Great War: The Great War's Most Memorable Religious Event The Apparitions at Fatima
Roads to the Great War: The Great War's Most Memorable Religious Event The...: Click on Image to Expand Lucia dos Santos, Cousins Francisco and Jacinta Martos The three intense-looking children in the photo ...
The basis for democracy
There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.
GK Chesterton
GK Chesterton
Friday, May 12, 2017
Scenes of Arizona, May 12, 1917
Globe Arizona, Copyright deposit May 12, 1917.
Miami Arizona, Copyright deposit May 12, 1917.
Thursday, May 11, 2017
Lex Anteinternet: Riding Bicycles
Shoot, yesterday I missed this:
So in belated honor of the day, I'm linking in an old post on bikes as transportation:
I only became aware of it due to this:Bike to School Day
Join the Celebration on May 10!
Thousands of students, families, community partners, and elected officials around the country will celebrate the benefits of biking and walking to school during National Bike to School Day.
It’s Bike to School Day!
“SCHOOL CHILDREN, WERE FORCED TO USE THEIR BICYCLES ON FIELD TRIPS DURING THE FUEL CRISIS IN THE WINTER OF 1974. THERE WAS NOT ENOUGH GASOLINE FOR SCHOOL BUSES TO BE USED FOR EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES, EVEN DURING DARK AND RAINY WEATHER, 2/1974″
Falconer, David, Photographer. Series: DOCUMERICA: The Environmental Protection Agency’s Program to Photographically Document Subjects of Environmental Concern, 1972 - 1977. Record Group 412: Records of the Environmental Protection Agency, 1944 - 2006
Source: catalog.archives.govI don't recall anything like that happening myself, but then in 1974 I was only eleven years old. Given local distances, this sort of thing almost certainly did not occur here, however.
So in belated honor of the day, I'm linking in an old post on bikes as transportation:
Lex Anteinternet: Riding Bicycles:As well as our prior commentary on biking in general:
Catholic Priest riding a bicycle in South Dakota, 1944.
I have to say, yesterday, May 10, was a pretty nice day here, but it didn't start out very warm and early on the weather looked a bit threatening. It cleared up, however. Still, for here, this time of year can be a bit dicey for riding a bike to school. Having said that, I walked to school my entire school career, all of it. Seems like that's a rarity now.On Riding A Bicycle
Most summers I ride my bicycle to work quite a bit. I do that as it forces me to get a bit of exercise, it saves on the use of diesel fuel, and because I just like doing it. This year, however, I got around to that for the first time today. I didn't get a chance earlier as it seems the City of Casper and the State of Wyoming has determined to rip up every street I might conceivable wish to ride on this summer, simultaneously. On my way here today, for example, I went through two construction zones.
U. S. Rifle Model of 1917 accepted
As we noted yesterday, we've quit daily "on this day in 1917" entries, although we have one here, unusually, for the second day in a row. The reason for that is that we are trying to track a few things of interest or relevance to the overall theme of our blog, and changes in material items is one of them. We have done quite a few of those over time.
While we posted a lot of items from March 2016 up until March 2017 that were on a daily basis, a few of the posts we did were on material changes, mostly in connection with the Punitive Expedition. We had intended to try to address the story of firearms that were used as part of that event, but we never really got around to it (and never had time to research it, frankly, particularly in regards to Mexican combatants, which would have been quite a project), other than to include a reference to it in a post that covered a lot of other items. Now, of course, we've moved into World War One. There's no earthly way that we're going to be able to cover every firearm used in the Great War, and indeed the outfit that the film below is from is doing that anyhow. But we're making an exception today specifically because we covered this, a little, in the Punitive Expedition thread. the reason is that here we find things really beginning to materially change in regards to the U.S. Army as it found itself just out of the "Border War" and into a World War. Logic would hold that the Army should have at least had a good handle on small arms supplies going into the war. Not so.
On this day, in 1917, it started to address that: (See: The Story of Eddystone, page 22)
It's story:
Take a look, of course, at the story of the Pattern 14 and the Pattern 13, which are just in front of this.
It's tempting to categorize the M1917 as a "forgotten" rifle, although that might be going to far. It's fair to say, however, that its story isn't accurately remembered by most. The rifle equipped half of all U.S soldiers during World War One and was the rifle by far the most likely to be carried by a conscripted soldier. While there was mass production of the M1903 Springfield, a great rifle in its own right, the fact of the matter was that the two government arsenals that were producing that rifle simply could not manufacture sufficient numbers in which to equip the massive Army the United States determined to raise during the Great War. Existing stocks of M1903s had already been assigned out to the Regular Army and the National Guard at the time the war commenced and ongoing production was really only sufficient to supply the needs of the Regular Army, the Federalized National Guard (which of course became part of the regular establishment during the war), the Navy and the Marine Corps (both of which had adopted the M1903 to replace the Navy Lee following the Spanish American War). Therefore the large conscript Army raised by the US during the war relied, in large part, upon the M1917.
Indeed, the M1917 is likely to be the rifle carried by Sgt. Alvin York at the time of his famous deeds, as that was the rifle that equipped the 82nd Division, which he was in.
Sometimes oddly condemned by folks not terribly familiar with it, the rifle (watch the video) was an excellent rifle and had features that were somewhat more advanced than those on the slightly older M1903. The sights in particular were very good and probably the very best on any rifle used by any army during the Great War. Heat treatment problems made the actions brittle on some rifles made by Eddystone, a Remington facility, but this is also true of very early M1903 actions made by government arsenals.
The rifle was sufficiently good that it nearly went on to replace the M1903 following World War One, but it obviously did not. It was retained in a more significant role than sometimes imagined, however, and not simply stored, as some will claim. For some odd reason, it became the rifle that equipped chemical mortar units in the Army all the way into World War Two. It also was issued to field artillerymen early in World War Two, who carried them at least as late as Operation Torch. Stocks of the rifle were issued as well to Free French troops who used them in North Africa and on into Europe, and they saw action in Chinese hands during the war as well. Finally, M1917s equipped various State Guard unis throughout World War Two, likely putting the rifle back in the hands of many men who had carried them twenty years prior. In the category of men who had not carried them previously, they also equipped JrROTC units during these years.
An entirely civilian production item, not too surprisingly the rifle went on to have a sporting expression. Thousands were converted by sportsmen and gunsmiths into sporting rifles. Beyond that, Remington kept the rifle in production as the Model 30, starting off at first using actions it was left with when the government abruptly cancelled orders following World War One. Remington even took a run at making a sniper variant for the government but production ceased with the onset of World War Two and terminated forever following the war.
This wasn't, we should note, the only rifle that supplemented supplies of M1903s during World War One. Obsolete models of rifles were brought back out and issued, and Mosin Nagants rejected by Imperial Russian inspectors would see use in the Polar Bear expedition.
The British Pattern 14 Rifle.
This is the story of the British Pattern 14 Enfield, which turns out to be a story that's more important for the US than for the United Kingdom.
Not that its as unimportant for the UK as some would have it. It was issued on the front lines early i the war and, as it was a more accurate rifle than the SMLE, it was used, with telescopic sight, as a sniper rifle by the British during the Great War. It would not reprise that role in World War Two in the British Army, but it did in the Australian Army.
Not that its as unimportant for the UK as some would have it. It was issued on the front lines early i the war and, as it was a more accurate rifle than the SMLE, it was used, with telescopic sight, as a sniper rifle by the British during the Great War. It would not reprise that role in World War Two in the British Army, but it did in the Australian Army.
The British Pattern 13 Enfield
This is part of a series, which will lead up to the M1917 Enfield, whose adoption date this is. You'll have to read the later post for the story of the "American" Enfield.
The British Patter 13 Enfield.
It never served, but it darned near did.
The British Patter 13 Enfield.
It never served, but it darned near did.
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
John J. Pershing informed he is to lead American troops in France.
I've backed off nearly daily entries from 1917 here, now that we no longer have the Punitive Expedition to follow, and returned more of the traditional pace and focus of the blog, but there are exceptions and today is one.
On this day, in 1917, John J. Pershing, recently promoted to Major General, was informed by Secretary of War Newton Baker that he was to lead the American expeditionary force in France.
This now seems all rather anticlimactic, as if the appointment of Pershing was inevitable, and perhaps it was, but he was not the only possible choice and his selection involved some drama, to some extent. Pershing was then 56 years old, an age that would have put him in the upper age bracket for a senior office during World War Two, but not at this time in the context of World War One. Indeed, his rise to Major General had been somewhat unusual in its history and course, as he had earlier been advanced over more senior officers in an era when that was rare, and it is often noted that his marriage to Helen Warren, the daughter of powerful Wyoming Senator Francis E. Warren, certainly did not hurt his career. Often regarded as having reached the pinnacle of his Army career due to "leading" the Army during the Punitive Expedition, he was in fact technically second in command during that event as the commander of the department he was in was Frederick Funston.
Funston is already familiar to readers here as we covered his death back in February. Not really in the best of health in his later years, but still a good five years younger than Pershing, Funston died suddenly only shortly after the Punitive Expedition concluded leaving Pershing his logical successor and the only Army officer then in the public eye to that extent. Indeed, as the United States was progressing towards entering the war it was Funston, a hero of the Spanish American War, who was being considered by the Wilson Administration as the likely leader of a US contingent to Europe. His sudden death meant that his junior, Pershing, took pride of place.
But not without some rivals. Principal among them was Gen. Leonard Wood, a hero of the later stages of the Indian Wars and the Spanish American War who was a protégée of Theodore Roosevelt. Almost the exact same age as Pershing, Wood was backed by Republicans in Congress for the position of commander of the AEF. Not too surprisingly, however, given his close association with Roosevelt, he was not offered the command. Indeed, it was this same week when it became plain that Roosevelt was also not to receive a combat command in the Army, or any role in the Army, for the Great War, to his immense disappointment.
Pershing went on, of course, to command the AEF and to even rise in rank to the second highest, behind only George Washington, rank in the U.S. Army. That alone shows that he was an enormous hero in his era. He lived through World War Two and in fact was frequently visited by generals of that war, many of them having a close military association with him from World War One. His personality dramatically impacted the Army during the Great War, so much so that it was sometimes commented upon to the effect that American troops were all carbon copies of Pershing. Still highly regarded by most (although some have questioned in recent years his view of his black troops) he is far from the household name he once was for the simple reason that World War Two has overshadowed everything associated with World War One.
A Mid Week At Work Query: How did you end up doing what you do? Is it what you expected?
Iris Gaines: You know, I believe we have two lives.The Natural
Roy Hobbs: How... what do you mean?
Iris Gaines: The life we learn with and the life we live with after that.
This past couple of weeks we've posted queries regarding whether your adult occupation, or occupations, match your childhood aspirations. So far, in my case, of the variety of things I've done as an adult, a few did in fact match them.
Which doesn't take us to how we end up doing that thing. Our job, our vocation, our occupation, which even presumes, likely inaccurately, that those things are in fact the same thing.
At some point, at least for most of us, we end up doing something fairly steadily. Not everyone does, of course. Some people drift from job to job, and some people frankly like doing that. I'm occasionally amazed by people who are truly so varied in their talents that they can do that fairly effortlessly.
For most people, however, once they lose a job its a disaster. They have, at some point, little ability to move occupations, which isn't the same as having no ability. Of my close friends I think probably half of them have moved occupations as adults. I definitely have not, but I've been unusually employed in multiple things as well, even while having a main vocation. Still, the more specialized their occupation, and the more training that goes into it, the harder it is for a person to switch away from it even is desperate necessity requires it. A lawyer friend of mine, for example, once observed when he decided to try to leave the law (which he ultimately did, returning to school in his 40s in order to become a teacher. . . his third career) that "lawyers are occupationally illiterate". It isn't just them, if a physician walked into NAPA for example, hoping to pick up a counter job, he'd be unqualified for it.
But, amongst the same group of friends of mine noted above, a bunch of them didn't end up where they started to go.
Of my close high school friends, including myself, none of us did. A friend who started off to be an engineer ended up a restaurateur. One who aspired to be a dentist ended up a very successful electrician. A friend who was hugely musically talented attended a first rate music school but has only played in bands on weekend gigs, basically. He is principally employed as a big IT guy, self taught. And I'm not working as a geologist. Indeed, after I started practicing law the state started licensing geologist and I never took the exam for a license. So I couldn't easily work in that field now if I wished to.
A lifelong friend who wanted to be a marine biologist had to switch gears to obtain a teaching certificate and never found employment in that. He's worked as a chemist for many years.
Looking at my college friends the story is more or less the same. My closet college friend burned out on our mutual geology degrees (a very common story, frankly, and part of the reason I didn't go on to geology grad school) and never completed one final class for his degree. He went on to work in retail for many ears and then switched to school infrastructure. Of the other geology students I knew at the time, four were able to actually find full time work in the field, or closely related ones, and three remain employed in it today. The fourth quit to become a lawyer, something that one of only two of us who graduated with Bachelors degrees and job offers in my class also did, refusing an offer of a job in Australia after his family objected.
Law school, where I ended up, was a sea of altered dreams mixed in with islands of long held aspirations. My closest friend in law school had a history degree but had spent a hitch in the Army as an enlisted man. He nearly returned to that when we were in law school and did go on to a hugely successful career in the Army JAG Corps. A friend of mine from basic training, who was discharged due to shin splints but who managed to get back in, to my surprise, completed a career as an Army officer, something I would never have guessed was a goal of his. One of my better friends in the law started off as a U.S. Army Ranger (indeed two of my friends in the law were Rangers, and the individual mentioned above was in the Special Forces in a reserve unit for a time), then went to school to be a game warden and then switched to geology, a career path that isn't unfamiliar to me. Most of us in law school, of course, did end up lawyers. Its sort of the end of the road in terms of career change.
Indeed, one of the huge lies about law school is that "you can do anything with a law degree". That fable is absolutely true as long as what you want to do with your law degree is practice law, which of course is actually the one and only point in getting a law degree so generally it works out well in terms of finding work with the degree.
Or it did. I read that is no longer true and there are a lot of unemployed or underemployed lawyers.
Anyhow, I think it's interesting that when I talk to people their career paths often aren't what we think they are. We'll often read a trade journal and it'll say something like "Geologist Bob decided to enter the field when, at age 12, he found a triceratops roosting on his parents barn door. . . ." or "When I think back on my career in the law that has lead me to be appointed a United States Supreme Court Justice, I think back warmly on that time my little sister stole my Wheaties and I looked up on how to obtain a Writ of Replevin to get them back. . .I was six". Hmm, probably not. Indeed, many of those folks who obtain real pinnacles in their careers started off somewhere else. The two now passed gentlemen who started the firm where I work now both started off with other career goals, but how many know that? Not many, probably.
I'm' not sure what the point of this really is. Many later career goals do work out. Three of my close friends from my geology days have made careers in that field, or very closely related ones, for decades. Maybe more of the students I knew then are employed in the field other than the one I mentioned above. Most of the engineering students I knew did become employed engineers. More than a few of the people I knew who took up pursuing a teaching degree found work in that, and indeed, at least one of them is retired from it.
So what about you? Did you have career goals, and did you end up where you planned to be?
Tuesday, May 9, 2017
All the further I've managed to get. . .
between chores and the weather.
After work on May 5. Put in all the potatoes. The next day all I did was work around the house on a fencing project. And the day after that completed that, did some 4H leadership stuff, but did manage to complete the last row. Found my hooked up hose was broken and that the rainbird type sprinkler, which admittedly left out all winter long, was no longer functioning (I can never get those to last more than one year).
And then it started raining, again.
So, reds, whites and one row of purples. That's it so far.
Man, it's been wet.
The cell phone outnumbers the landline.
LoC Caption: "The Story of the Telephone. Speeding the spoken word. Scene from the
new American Red Cross motion picture, "Speeding the Spoken Word," in
which the romance of the telephone is graphically portrayed on the
screen". 1920.
The number of mobile-phone users in the U.S. surpassed the number of conventional land-based phone lines in the second half of 2004, the government said Friday.
By the end of the year, there were 181.1 million cellphone subscribers, compared with 177.9 million access lines into U.S. homes and businesses, the Federal Communications Commission said in a biannual report.
Los Angeles Times.
A person has to be careful with statistics as they can lead to incorrect assumptions. For one thing, this may tend to lead to an erroneous assumption that the number of households with landlines is outnumbered by the number with cell phones only, which would be erroneous. For example, our house has a landline, but all three of us who live here have cell phones. In contrast, my son, who is in college, lives in a house in which there are no landlines in use. There might be for internet service, but no actual landline phone.
The point is, however, that sheer number of cell phones doesn't equate with households served only by cell phones, although that day is coming. Indeed, the tyranny of the cell phone is at the point at which a lot of homes have one landline but a lot of cell phones.
Good, bad?
Well, both, I suppose.
FWIW, I'm actually surprised it took this long to reach this point.
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