Ostensibly exploring the practice of law before the internet. Heck, before good highways for that matter.
Monday, December 24, 2018
Make the Christmas Movie Madness Stop
Originally when I thought of this post I was just going to say that any Christmas movie made after It's a Wonderful Life (1946) should be destroyed.
But then I got to thinking that there are some that post date that, although darned few, that are worth saving. The Peanuts A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), for example, is a definite exception. A Christmas Story (1983) is an absolute classic.
So obviously that would have been grossly over broad.
But only barely so.
And yes, I know that by saying that I'm including such time worn smelly classics like How the Grinch Who Stole Christmas (the originally 1966 cartoon one. . . not the Jim Carrey (Ron Howard directing film version that should end his career). Indeed, there are a lot of really bad cartoon Christmas efforts that are dragged out every year without fail but which fail simply because they are.
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (1964) is one such example. It may have been cute the first year it was out, if you are under four years old, but it was long in the tooth by 1974. Frosty the Snowman (1969) is just as bad, except that it's afflicted with the bad 1950s style cheap animation that afflicted television animation throughout the 1960s and 1970s. It can go. Now that Tom Hank's The Polar Express has been in circulation for 18 years, can go too. It was a much better effort than the every single cartoon and animation offering after A Charlie Brown Christmas, but it isn't passing the test of time and isn't novel anymore.
Some of the actual movies afflicted upon the silver screen in recent years are truly horrific. Tim Allen, for example, should not be making movies. Any movies. I don't care if he comes up with something that's as good as anything ever done, there's no atoning for any of the Christmas movies that he made. That can't be done. All of copies of any version of The Santa Clause should be rounded up and made to be added to the "lost movie" list on AMC. Christmas with the Kranks (2004). Uff.
So why are there so many bad Christmas movies, if we include the small screen as a movie?
They aren't serious.
That may sound really weird, but it occurs to me that the single common feature of really good Christmas movies, and the ones that nearly make the "good" list (of which there are several, is that they have a really serious overtone that the failures don't.
It's a Wonderful Life is obvious. The protagonist, George Bailey, is on the verge of suicide until Divine Intervention steps into show him that the singular achievement of his life on unintentional sacrifice is to the enormous benefit of the lives he touched. . . a really deep point that is very well presented. It's so well presented, in fact, that the film could be shown and enjoyed any time of the year.
A Charlie Brown Christmas is great because Charles Schultz insisted in including having Linius read the Nativity portion of the Gospel of St. Luke. The producers hadn't wanted him to do that, but he insisted. It's what made the cartoon great, taking the presentation out from being a cartoon into something else.
Really good, or at least nearly good, Three Godfathers, is a John Ford Western and occasionally actually outside of the Christmas season. It's also so blatantly religious that its religious content can't be denied, even though Ford doesn't begin to deliver it until about 1/2 way through the film (the film is, in my view, the most, and oddly, Protestant of John Ford's movies). The movie is good through and through.
An example of the same, in the nearly good list, is the church scene with the old neighbor in Home Alone. Home Alone was written by John Hughes. Hughes produced some great films, and some dogs, but the best of his have a deep undertone to them, while the worst have the opposite. Home Alone was redeemed from being just slapstick nonsense by a deep message of redemption that was delivered in a church and then carried out to the end of the film.
Even A Christmas Story has a surprisingly serious undertone, even though its the single example that I've noted in this list that doesn't have any overt or subtle reference to religion in it. The protagonist and his family are never shown going to church and don't make reference to one anywhere in the film, which probably closely matches Gene Shepherd's own upbringing. But it's that reference that makes the film surprisingly serious. The film is really a homage to seriousness and romance of youth in a way that few films really catch. Offhand, only Stand By Me, To Kill A Mockingbird and the television series The Wonder Years really compare, which is in a way why watching any of them involves an element of heartache. When Ralphie proclaims the Daisy Red Rider bb gun to be the best gift he ever received, we know he means it, and we can all think of something just like that which was the same for us. It's no mistake that the "best gift" is a feature of Citizen Kane as well in nearly the same way.
In contrast, almost every other Christmas movie or television show is at worst a "celebration of the season" or at best the reduction of really deep points to something like the American Civil Religion, which is that its nice to be nice to the nice, and we're all nice. Which actually isn't the point of Christmas.*
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Indeed, the Seinfeld Christmas episode which introduces the holiday of "festivus" is legitimately funny because it gets all of this. It lampoons the superficial nature of much of American Christmas by introducing a "festivus for the rest of us" which is intentionally superficial while also standing apart from Christmas and Hanukkah as they're religious holidays.
Monday at the Bar: The Federal bench is still open.
An email circulating to lawyers who are admitted to practice in the Federal District Court of Colorado*:
U.S. District Court OPEN During Government Shutdown: Despite a government shutdown, the federal Judiciary, including the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, will remain open and can continue operations for approximately three weeks, through January 11, 2019, by using court fee balances and other funds not dependent on a new appropriation. Most proceedings and deadlines will occur as scheduled. In cases where an attorney from an Executive Branch agency is not working because of the shutdown, hearing and filing dates may be rescheduled. Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) also will remain in operation for electronic filing of documents. If the shutdown were to continue past three weeks, and exhaust the Judiciary’s resources, the Judiciary would then operate under the terms of the Anti-Deficiency Act, which allows work to continue during a lapse in appropriations if it is necessary to support the exercise of Article III judicial powers. Under this scenario, the Court would determine the staffing resources necessary to support such work.Sigh. . . sign of the times.
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*Which doesn't mean that you are admitted to practice in Colorado state courts. The Colorado Federal Courts allow admission under some circumstances to lawyers who are admitted in other states.
Churches of the East: The ruins of of Saint Albain Nazaire, France.
Churches of the East: The ruins of of Saint Albain Nazaire, France.:
All photographs by MKTH.
The ruins of of Saint Albain Nazaire, France.
The 16th Century "Old Church" at St. Albain Naizaire in France stands as a silent reminder of the violence of World War One. The church was destroyed by the French Army to keep it from being used by the Germans as an observation post in 1914.
Following the war, locals elected not to rebuilt the church and leave it as a monument to the tragedy of the war.
All photographs by MKTH.
Sunday, December 23, 2018
December 23, 1918. Wyoming Guardsmen of the 148th Field Artillery at the Château-Thierry and beyond.
The DI of the 148th Field Artillery. Many of the Wyoming Guardsmen who served as infantry on the border were reassigned to this Field Artillery unit made up of Rocky Mountain Region and Northwestern Guardsmen during World War One.
If you'd been wondering what became of the men of the Wyoming National Guard, whom we started following with their first muster into service with the Punitive Expedition, the Wyoming State Tribune gave us a clue.
As readers will recall, quite a few of those men were put in to the 148th Field Artillery. None of them deployed as infantry, which is what they had been when first mustered for border service with Mexico and then again when first recalled for the Great War. Not all of them ended up in the 148th, but quite a few did, which was a heavy artillery unit of the field artillery. Indeed, a quite modern one as it used truck, rather than equine, transport.
Here we learned that the 148th was at Château-Thierry.
Another version of the distinctive insignia for the unit with additional elements for the western nature of the composite elements.
To flesh it out just a bit, the 148th at that time was made up of elements of the 3d Rgt of the Wyoming National Guard, the 1st Separate Battalion Colorado Field Artillery, and the 1st Separate Troop (Cavalry) Oregon National Guard. They were part of the 66th FA Bde. They'd arrived in France on February 10, 1918, just prior to the German's massive Spring 1918 Offensive. They were equipped in France with 155 GPF Guns and Renault Artillery tractors.
155 GPF in use by American artillerymen.
They went to the front on July 4, 1918 and were emplaced directly sought of Château-Thierry and began firing missions on July 9. After that engagement, they'd continue on to participate in the St. Mihiel Offensive and the Meuse Argonne Offensive. By the wars end, they'd fired 67,590 shells.
American Army Renault EG Artillery tractor with a GPF in tow. Note the wood blocks for chalks.
The unit went on to be part of the Army of Occupation in Germany following the war, a mission with which it was occupied until June 3, 1919, when it boarded the USS Peerless for New York. It was mustered out of service at Camp Mills, New York, on June 19, 1919, with Wyoming's members sent on to Ft. D. A. Russell for discharge from their World War One service.
We'll pick this story up again as we reach those dates, but as we made a dedicated effort to follow these men early on, we didn't want to omit their story later. Wyomingites reading the papers in 1918 learned of their service, accepting censored soldier mail, for the first time on this day in 1918. While news reporting done by the U.S. and foreign press during World War One was often remarkably accurate, one set of details that was kept generally well hidden was the service, and even the fate, of individual American servicemen and units. Wyomingites now learned what role many of their Guardsmen had played in the war for the first time.
And it was a significant one.
Panel Show | Catholic Answers. November 23, 2018
Panel Show | Catholic Answers
Usually on these Sunday morning posts I include a post from one of our blogs on Churches. I do occasionally depart from that, of course, but that's what I generally do
Here I'm departing as this was such an interesting panel discussion, featuring Fr. Hugh Barbour among others. This discusses the "crisis" (or crises as the host describe it) that's been in the news regarding the Catholic Church and it features some really interesting commentary on how to address it. Worth listening to.
Usually on these Sunday morning posts I include a post from one of our blogs on Churches. I do occasionally depart from that, of course, but that's what I generally do
Here I'm departing as this was such an interesting panel discussion, featuring Fr. Hugh Barbour among others. This discusses the "crisis" (or crises as the host describe it) that's been in the news regarding the Catholic Church and it features some really interesting commentary on how to address it. Worth listening to.
Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church, Soldatna Alaska
Churches of the West: Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church, Soldatna Alaska
This modern structure Catholic church is located in Soldatna, Alaska. It's just in front of what was probably the original church, which I unfortunately did not get a photograph of. This photo, for that matter, isn't very good.
This modern structure Catholic church is located in Soldatna, Alaska. It's just in front of what was probably the original church, which I unfortunately did not get a photograph of. This photo, for that matter, isn't very good.
Saturday, December 22, 2018
The Best Post of the Week of December 16, 2018
The best posts of the week of December 16, 2018.
Self directed propaganda
They Shall Not Grow Old
Some Gave All: Monument to Charles Peguy, Villaroy, Île-de-France, France
Some Gave All: Joffre Memorial, Paris France
Poster Saturday: Our Soldiers in Siberia!
As we pass 700,000 views, the State of the Blog(s).
Lex Anteinternet
Ostensibly exploring the practice of law before the internet. Heck, before good highways for that matter.
Today this blog will pass the 700,000 viewed mark at some point.
That's quite a few. The authors here at Lex Anteinternet appreciate the viewer readership and participation.
It's a bit deceptive, however.
In reality, many of those views, indeed the majority of them, reflect the big ramp up from the Punitive Expedition which caused a lot of additional posts here. Those posts started coming in 2016, marking the centennial of that event. This is easy to see from the table on the site, which is set out again here:
Blog Archive
We went, as can be seen, from 743 posts in 2015, which was a small drop from 2014, to a big jump in 2016, and we've posted at about the same rate through the rest of the Punitive Expedition and World War One.
Punitive Expedition posts started an immediate jump in readership. The highest monthly readership prior to that had been 4,177 which reflected an odd spike in August 2014. Before that it had grown to normally be between 2,000 views and almost 4,000 views monthly. With the Punitive Expedition it immediately jumped up over 5,000 and normally stayed up.
At some point we started posting links to some threads here to Reddit, which you are supposed to be careful about and which we were not as careful as we should have been, due to ignorance on that. Those were linked into the 100 Years Ago Today Subreddit and that really started readership climbing. It climbed month by month to the end of the Punitive Expedition in February, 1917, when we stopped doing that. The highest readership of any month was March 2017, which was 55,954.
Since then it's dropped way off, in no small part because we stopped doing the posts to Reddit. It hasn't declined to prior levels, however. April 2017 still had 31,000 views. June 2017 was just under 10,000, but January of this year was 38,533. Normally, however, we get around 5,000 to 6,000 views per month, although it seemed to be slowly declining. Last month, however, we received 20,204.
Not bad for a blog like this, and one which has next to not registered viewers actually (I don't know how many people get emails).
This blog is only one of several blogs we run, however. Given that this one is over the 700,000 mark, how about the rest of them?
Probably our most important blog, if any of them are important is our Today In Wyoming's History blog, which was largely completed a few years ago and is only updated now (it's been turned into a published book).
Today In Wyoming's History
It now has 148,571 views. It averages about 1400 to 1500 views per month, which isn't bad for a blog that's only supplemented, for the most part, at this stage.
Our oldest blog is our photo blog:
Holscher's Hub
This blog site serves as a depo for things (mostly photographs) not posted on my other blog sites. Otherwise, it merely redirects to them.
is
Blog Archive
In contrast, Some Gave All, our blog dedicated to war memorials (and some in addition to that) has been quite active very recently:
Some Gave All
It's about at its historic norm in terms of number of posts, mostly because I haven't had time to put more up, but it will be steadily active here for awhile and with posts from France that should be interesting
Blog Archive
It now has 60,265 views. It's monthly viewership is steady, but not large. It'll be interesting to see if the photographs from France change that, but its mostly interesting to see how its readership now rivals that of our photo blog.
Churches of the West passed our photo blog at some point and will likely go over 100,000 views next year. It has just over 93,000 now.
Churches of the West
A blog dedicated to photographs of churches and church architecture in the Rocky Mountain West.
Blog Archive
The decrease came about as at first I had all of the churches I routinely and easily ran across in Wyoming and Northern Colorado to post, but as I got them in, there were fewer to post. That's why the first year had 86 posts. Following that, I have posted a lot from other regions, and I'm still working on Wyoming, but most of my travel is business travel and that doesn't always lend the opportunity to actually photograph what you might want to. Indeed, I should have a lot more from Texas than I do, but I just didn't have the chance.
This past year I don't think I went to Texas, even though I had at least one trip scheduled, and therefore there was also a drop. Both the picking up all the local ones and the discussion above explains why there's been a big drop off on our Courthouse blog.
Courthouses of the West
A photo blog depicting contemporary courthouses in the Western United States.
Blog Archive
As can be seen, we only posted to Courthouses of the West four times in 2018, and four times in 2017. Very little. So its quite inactive. It's presently at 34,059 total views, which isn't bad all things considered. Perhaps ironically, I know that there's still courthouses that I run across all the time in Colorado and Utah that I haven't photographed, as if you are going by them in a moving car or hurrying on your way to court, you probably don't stop to photograph anything.
Another one where I know I have passed up on photos is Painted Bricks.
Painted Bricks
The Painted Brick Building Sides of buildings in Wyoming's towns and cities, and sometimes from other areas of the West. An examination of old style advertising. . . as it looks today.
Friday, November 23, 2018
Painted Bricks, a blog dedicated to art on buildings of all types, has more views than that at 37,043.
That was one of our first efforts, and was all local. After we did the local buildings, we kept going as the subject was interesting and it dovetails nicely with this blog. There should be a lot more posts on it, but it's again one that we sort of do as the opportunity presents itself. We're far from covering everything in the state at this point. Posts tend to be fairly steady on it, year by year:
Blog Archive
Railhead
A website dedicated to interesting train stations I run across, or trains perhaps, or perhaps just interesting things connected with railroads.
Thursday, December 6, 2018
We were also surprised, in making this post here, that we had more posts this year than most.
This year we added another transportation blog, The Areodrome. This was acdtually a revived effort as we had another blog of that name some time ago.
THE AERODROME
Posts
We like aircraft and have a lot of aircraft photographs, which is why we did that. All those photos would have previously have gone on our photo blog. Viewership is up over 12,000 since March, which is when it was started, which isn't too bad given that its a new effort.
Also new efforts are two additional Church blogs, one for the East and one for the South, reflecting that our one dedicated to the West had photos outside of that category. They're readership so far has been very, very small, and frankly those blogs aren't really complete and still in a draft form so far, so that's not too surprising. Indeed, their few posts and draft quality are probably detracting from viewership to Churches of the West as people would be entitled to think that its equally poorly developed, which it isn't. We've been adding to the Churches of the East blog quite a bit recently, so perhaps that will change.
Again, thank you for reading!
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