Today In Wyoming's History: March 4, 1918 The start of the 1918 Flu Epidemic
Soldiers with the Flu, Camp Funston, 1918.
Saturday, March 10, 2018
And on this day in 1968
The town of Acme Wyoming, depicted in the post card above in 1910, the year of its founding, sold to a group of Chicago investors. It wouldn't reverse the town's fading fortunes. It's a ghost town now.
Jimi Hendrix and his Experience played a two set concert at the Washington Hilton Hotel. Odd to think of Hendrix playing a hotel venue. The Jimi Hendrix Experience headlined the event, which also featured The Soft Machine.
North Vietnam outlawed opposition to the North's effort in the war in the South. . . not that this wasn't basically illegal anyway.
Robert Kennedy, edging up on a form announcement of his candidacy for the Oval office, went to Delano, California, the headquarters for the United Farm Workers, and after Mass spoke in solidarity with Cesar Chavez.
Actress Helen Walker died of cancer at age 47.
That dreated time change. . . Daylight Saving Time Changes 1918 in Paris, Île-de-France, France
So, in 1918, in Paris, time leaped ahead and an hour of March 9 was lost. At 11:00 p.m. March 9, it became 12:00, March 10.
Today In Wyoming's History: Updates for March, 2018
Today In Wyoming's History: Updates for March, 2018: March 4: Photograph added for the outbreak of 1918 Flu at Camp Funston, Kansas . March 7: Newspapers added for 1918 . Students walko...
Friday, March 9, 2018
115th Field Artillery, Col. John T. Geary, commanding; Capt. Max C. McKay, adjutant, Camp Sevier, S.C., March 9th, 1918
115th Field Artillery, Col. John T. Geary, commanding; Capt. Max C. McKay, adjutant, Camp Sevier, S.C., March 9th, 1918.
This depicts, of course, the 115th FA Rgt. of the U.S. 11th Division in 1918. Not the 115th FA Bde which is associated with the National Guard.
Thursday, March 8, 2018
A Trade War?
Electric steel furnace, 1941.
I note that as her most recent article on the upcoming, apparently, Trump tariffs was a really good one, and she deserves credit for it.
I'd think that, of course, as it points out something that I already have in regard to coal, that being the advance of technology and how that plays out in trends of production. Indeed, on her article on American steel production and tariffs (which isn't much longer than a lot of my longer articles here. . .indeed it's shorter, she points out, correctly:
But here, too, Trump ignores the bigger force at work: robots. Like steel, coal extraction has seen big productivity gains. Coal has also been displaced by natural gas, which itself has seen gigantic technological gains in the form of fracking.Yup.
Anyhow, on steel, Rampell points out:
We're producing about as much steel today as we did 30 years ago. But we're doing it with less than half the workers. That's primarily because of technological advances -- or, to oversimplify, robots.
The story is the same in many industries. As Chad Syverson, an economics professor at University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, puts it: "We get better and better at making things, and we've needed fewer and fewer people to make those things."
The steel industry in particular has been transformed in recent decades. It shifted away from vertically integrated plants that smelted their own steel from scratch toward more-efficient, highly automated "mini-mills," which primarily recycle existing steel and employ many fewer people.Thirty years ago was around 1990, which was hardly the golden age of American steel, it should be noted. But that's part of the problem as well. Rampell correctly points out that technology has moved on and the way steel has produced in the past thirty years has changed.
Nothing is bringing the smelting methods of 1990 back. That era is over. A new one is here and tariffs aren't going to impact that at all. And if 1990 isn't coming back, 1930 really, or perhaps more accurately 1970, really isn't.
And when people think of this topic, if they're in favor of this move, that's what they're really thinking of. Indeed, the Trump spokesman who spoke in favor of the tariffs on the weekend show made that plain, pointing out that our current favorable treatment of foreign steel came about following World War Two, when we were trying to help restart the world economy.
Our policies then may or may not have been in error. No matter what was the case, if we really intended to address the decline of American steel through tariffs, it would really have been the 1970s when we should have done it. We didn't. It's too late now, the industry moved on in the environment that existed. And part of that environment is radically new production environment.
Unlike coal, steel (and aluminum) aren't in a long term global slide. But production methods are changing. They were never static. Tariffs, however, don't change much in how they operate from year to year. Tariffs here are, frankly, way too late.
Blog Mirror: March 8, 1918: The United States Demands to Repeal the Taxes on Oil
Some of the headlines from a century ago have an oddly familiar echo to them today.March 8, 1918: The United States Demands to Repeal the Taxes on Oil
International Women's Day, 2018
Today is International Women's Day, as March 8 always is.
In the US I suspect that there won't be much attention to the plight of rural women around the globe. There should be, but we're in the second half of the "Me Too" era which demonstrates a different set of problems. . . maybe. . . for women. An age old one that social progressive keep trying to solve by suggesting that that they've discovered a new standard that's actually a very, very old one. That's had its own interesting dynamics, as those same forces struggle not to admit the historical truth that equality for women is a movement that's not only western, but Christian. There's a reason that western societies are in the forefront of this movement, and always have been, and that's where that reason is to be found.
I've put this poster up before, it apparently means something like "let's rebuild together", perhaps an appropriate slogan for International Women's Day 2018.
I'm not sure what I make of this day, as I find myself in the category, quite often, of marveling at modern contemporary society struggling to cure its ills created by becoming too modern by reaching vaguely out towards the standards of the past. And frankly International Women's Day has a rather Communist, if you will, sound to it.
German "Women's Day" poster from 1914. This poster was rather obviously sponsored by the German Socialist left. It was also banned by the Imperial German government.
None of which would mean that the day, which has been endorsed for some time by the United Nations, isn't legitimate. Nor would my comments suggest that women don't deserve an International Day. Indeed they do.
And on that, the theme for 2018 perhaps very ably demonstrates that. The theme this year is "Time is Now: Rural and urban activists transforming women’s lives." The UN says of this year's theme:
All that's probably true, and indeed brave women all over the world do struggle as noted. Cudos to the UN for noting it, even if the UN rather oddly regards nations co-equally that abuse women's rights, as well as act anti democratically in all sorts of other ways.This year’s theme captures the vibrant life of the women activists whose passion and commitment have won women’s rights over the generations, and successfully brought change. We celebrate an unprecedented global movement for women’s rights, equality, safety and justice, recognizing the tireless work of activists who have been central to this global push for gender equality.
In the US I suspect that there won't be much attention to the plight of rural women around the globe. There should be, but we're in the second half of the "Me Too" era which demonstrates a different set of problems. . . maybe. . . for women. An age old one that social progressive keep trying to solve by suggesting that that they've discovered a new standard that's actually a very, very old one. That's had its own interesting dynamics, as those same forces struggle not to admit the historical truth that equality for women is a movement that's not only western, but Christian. There's a reason that western societies are in the forefront of this movement, and always have been, and that's where that reason is to be found.
Today In Wyoming's History: Updates for March, 2018
Today In Wyoming's History: Updates for March, 2018: March 4: Photograph added for the outbreak of 1918 Flu at Camp Funston, Kansas . March 7: Newspapers added for 1918 . Students walko...
Wednesday, March 7, 2018
Smiling Artillerymen with Red Cross supplies, 5th FA, 1st Division. March 7, 1918.
From the National Archives Blog.
March 7, 1918. Not knowing when to get up from the table. Leaving after having gotten there late. Villa resumes losing and acts spiteful to foreigners. . . except the Germans.
The Russians had surrendered. Even at that, the Germans kept taking ground. . . and all while they presumably are getting ready for a Spring Offensive in the West designed to win the war prior to millions of fresh American troops coming into action.
Romania, spelled differently in those days, hadn't been at war with the Central Powers for long and it was also getting out. You have to wonder why they even wanted in the war in the first place. By the time they got in, its horrific nature was pretty plain.
And if reports were correct, Villa's fortunes were not going well, and he was lashing out.
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