Saturday, January 12, 2019
Subsistence and the Wyoming Game & Fish. And more than that.
Wyoming elk hunter, back in the day.
What issue is that, you might ask? Well, it's the issue associated with Game & Fish Commissioner's licenses. And the larger issue of balancing local subsistence hunters from high dollars.
We expand on that below.
The Star Tribune ran an article this past week about a new organization I'd never heard of, Mountain Pursuit, which the Tribune defines as a "subsistence hunting advocacy organization". Here's part of the Tribune's story:
JACKSON — A new subsistence-hunting advocacy organization with Jackson Hole roots is asking the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to put a stop to alleged abuses of its commissioners’ complimentary license program.
The group, called Mountain Pursuit, recently unveiled a 16-page report about the fundraising program, which provides each of the Game and Fish Commission’s seven appointed members with eight complementary elk, deer or antelope licenses annually to donate to nonprofit charitable organizations, which then auction or sell them. Mountain Pursuit’s report shows that the program is being used as a platform for wealthy nonresident hunters to routinely acquire hard-to-draw licenses, in one case annually. The report also shows that the program is benefiting some poorly-rated nonprofit organizations and other groups that have little or nothing to do with Wyoming wildlife.
“We don’t blame any of the nonprofits for asking for the tags, but we are concerned that the Game and Fish commissioners are giving them away to nonprofits that don’t have anything to do with conservation or wildlife,” Mountain Pursuit founder and board president Rob Shaul said. “There’s money that’s going to music festivals. One was donated for a Wyoming insurance agents association.”
Key Findings
• Records on the tag species, and the dollar amount generated by the license auction or raffle are not complete.
• The dollar amount raised by the auction/raffle of the Commissioner Licenses is significant. Based on the records available, the auction or raffle of Commissioner Licenses generated $7.3 million in funds for the beneficiary nonprofits from 2008-2018, and this total is not complete. Several tag auction/raffle dollar amounts are not reported. Our best estimate of how much revenue these licenses generated is more than $8 million in funds for recipient nonprofits from 2008-2018.
• Elk tags are by far the bulk of the tags being donated by the Commissioners. Completed records from 2008-2018 indicate 474 elk, 103 deer and 5 antelope tags were donated. 125 tags did not have a species designated.
• Nonresidents purchased 564 of the 701 Commission License offered from 2008-2018, or 80.5%.
• At least 116 of the Commissioner Licenses sold/auctioned/raffled were donated to organizations without conservation, hunting, fishing, or wildlife missions, including agricultural organizations, industry groups, veterans groups, hockey and baseball groups, county and town government entities, churches, food banks, etc. This generated at least $1.25 million in total revenue for these non-hunting, non-conservation organizations.
• Multiple Commissioner Licenses were donated to nonprofits located outside of Wyoming.
• The Wyoming Wildlife Federation, Muley Fanatics Foundation, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Wyoming Wild Sheep Foundation and Wyoming Game Warden Association have all received in excess of $300,000 in funding via Commissioner License donations and subsequent tag sales/auction/raffles since 2008.
• 37 individual hunters have purchased three or more Commissioner Licenses since 2008, including five Wyoming Residents. One specific hunter has purchased ten Commissioner elk tags since 2008, eight of which were used for a single hunt area (area 123-1).
• 96 of the Commissioner tags purchased 2008-2018 were used for Area 7 (Laramie Peak) bull elk.
• Once the tag is donated to a nonprofit, it’s entirely up to that nonprofit how the tag is sold. Tags are sold via banquet auction, raffles, phone auction, and online auction sites such as www.onlinehuntingauctions.com and even ebay.com When auctioned, sometimes a required minimum price is required. Other times a price is set and the first person to offer the asking price receives the tag.
• There is no requirement for the nonprofit or organization acquiring the tag indicate how the money from the tag sale is to be used, no mandatory reporting or accounting back to the department, and no documented accounting or follow through from the G&F Commissioners.
Okay, the first thing this does is raise the question who or what is Mountain Pursuit. I still don't really know other than it seems to be an angry organization founded in Jackson Hole by Jackson resident Rob Shaul.
Looking into it, I frankly think Shaul has taken being personally disgruntled over the top and is guilty of the classic confusion of associating personal interest with virtue. While his new group bills itself as being an organization that boosts subsistence hunting, it's focus is really not quite that. It's clearly very much opposed to trophy hunting, but it's also a bit gushy about bow hunting with Shaul being an avid bow hunter. While I may, or may not, take that a bit further below, as a rifle hunter I don't have anything against bow hunters but the evolution of their advocacy has gone from skill to claims of moral superiority which are weak at best and actually counterfactual at worst. More on that later, maybe. Be that as it may, Shaul hits on something when he states, about his organization;
We want to represent the subsistence-based resident hunter, 2e just like to go out and get an elk or a deer, cut it up and eat it. There’s no one representing that guy right now, and we want to represent that guy.
Actually I think that guy is represented, but Shaul isn't completely without a point, even if he's not completely in focus.
Anyhow, I'll be frank that I've long been disturbed by the practices that have come about on Commissioners' licenses and I frankly feel that the entire practice is contrary to the basic nature of Wyoming's otherwise very sound wildlife management. I'm for very much reforming the practice.
Mountain Pursuit, the organization that got in the paper on this topic, claims to be, as noted, a "subsistence" hunting organization. I'm a subsistence hunter and perhaps that's why, while I'm surprised by this development, I'm not surprised that it came from a subsistence hunter group. I am surprised that there is a subsistence hunter group. If that was its real focus, and I'm not entirely convinced that it is, I'd hope that it would do well. Based on what little I know if it so far, I'm not impressed whatsoever and I don't think this is what it will develop into. But the topic is an interesting one.
And I'll note, some of my opinions that I'll express here are going to be hugely unpopular with some people.
A person might of course ask, legitimately, what the heck I'm even writing about. What's "subsistence hunting". Well, simply put, that's hunting to put meat on the table, whether that be deer, duck or fish (fishing, dear reader, is simply fish hunting). If you look on the topics on this site about fishing and fish hunting (yes, fishing), you'll see that they're all actually about subsistence hunting.
Most American hunters are subsistence hunters. Most globally are. That is, they hunt to put meat on the table. And taking this a bit further yet, humans are evolved to eat meat in their diet and they're wired by their genetics to acquire meat in that fashion, which puts them deeply in touch with nature. Hunting for your meat is the way you should acquire it, if you can. If you can't, the market has long taken care of that, but don't fool yourself, hiring somebody out to do that for you, which is what you are doing, isn't more moral in any fashion. It's less. The least morally sustainable position of them all is that taken by vegetarians and vegans, whose lifestyle guarantees the consumption of vast quantifies of resources to sustain their weird and unnatural diet which is principally based on a hatred of the condition in which they find themselves, a species of self hatred that often expands out into misanthropy.
So if this seems like I'm taking a position that you should go out hunting or fishing, if you can, it is. You should. If you aren't, part of what it means to be a human being and contact with nature is wholly absent and part of your deeper existence as a human being in nature is absent, as you are absent from your nature and nature as a whole. And don't fool yourself that hiking with a sack of free range GMO free granola changes that, it doesn't.
And I'll go one step further than that and continue it on to something that I didn't get to do last year, raise a garden. I.e., I feel the same way about raising your own produce, to the extent you can. If you don't, you really don't understand your food in any fashion and are ignorant on the most basic elements of life.
I'll go one step even further than that. I think the fact that a large number of people no longer participate in these activities is responsible for well over 50% of the problems that plague the modern world. Just yesterday we ran the item Blog Mirror: Why 2018 Was the Best Year in Human History!
which makes really good points, but it's fairly obvious that there are titanic problems out in the modern world including everything from scientific problems, from social problems, to a basic breakdown in Western society as a whole. A good deal of this can be attributed to the fact that most people in the modern Western world live inside houses all day long, work inside buildings all day long, and get their food from other people inside of more buildings. They're profoundly disconnected with reality which has destroyed, in many instances, their sense of a realistic self and now, in recent years, created a world in which so many are so lost that they seek to redefine themselves outside of their own biological constraints. A lot of modern humans see the world as if they're characters in a Japanese anime cartoon.
It's pathetic.
Okay, so what's that have to do with this story, if anything?
Well, perhaps more than it might at first seem.
As noted above, and elsewhere on this site, most of the local hunters and fish hunters are subsistence hunters, and indeed most of them in the United States are. But somewhere in modern times the "trophy" hunter came along.
Now, we need to be careful here and not go down the road that Shaul apparently is. "Trophy" hunting doesn't even have an accepted definition and it flatly doesn't mean the same thing to every person. Under our state's law, trophy hunting is actually really limited to the hunting under license of mountain lions, wolves and grizzly bears, the latter of which you can't hunt for at least the time being even though their numbers are expanding off the charts.* It's assume that everything you hunt you intend to eat and indeed its a crime if you don't use your wild game in that fashion. You shoot it, you eat it.
But what some people mean by "trophy hunting", and that includes somebody like Shaul, is what is sometimes called "head hunting". I.e, hoping to secure a large set of horns to display.
Now, what should be obvious from the discussion above, if you shoot a deer or elk, or what have you, with a large set of antlers, etc., you still have to eat the meat. So there's nothing intrinsically wrong about focusing on that sort of "trophy". Keeping the trophy has been a common thing to do since time in memorial.
Having said that, however, the focus on it really is fairly new, and an odd development in some ways. While records, actually for scientific purposes, have been kept by hunting organizations of trophy sizes for over a century, for the most part really focusing on rack size is something that was relatively uncommon until fairly recently.** And, in spite of the focus on it that clearly exists, it still isn't the primary focus of most hunters today. So what's the problem here?
Well, like a lot of things, its multifaceted and involves money.
A feature of our really rich society has been, at least since the 1980s, to focus a lot of money into nearly any activity and, when the Baby Boomers flood it, to allow the money angle to pervert it. Numerous wholesome and ancient activities have undergone this since the 1970s. Things as simple as even riding a bicycle have been appropriated by classes that insist that your bike must have the same cost and technological level of development as the F-36. Riding a mountain bike, a really neat type of bike in my view, that my wife bought me over 20 years ago brings this home to me every year as some will insist that the bike must be replaced by a new super expensive high tech one, because it can be.
This same sort of emphasis has lead to a situation in the Western U.S. in which game and fish agencies must contemplate the views of local subsistence hunters, local head hunters, local trophy fishermen (yes, I'm still including fishermen), and well funded out of staters. Add into that mix landowners who see dollars from out of staters as well, and it's an interesting mix.
And the Commissioners licenses feed into that story, which is why Shaul's group notes that. His real complaint is that difficult to get licenses have become subjects of high bidding through the largess of the commissioners.
There is something to that.
Now, in a lot of cases these licenses go to benefit organizations that benefit wildlife in the first place. But that's not really the point. We should be really careful about catering to the really wealthy in something as basic, elemental, and fundamental as this.
Indeed, we ought not to do it at all. I.e., it would be best for the Commissioner's licenses, in my view, to simply go.
But, by the same token, I wouldn't stop there. I frankly think that management for horn size, if it really occurs (and its not all that clear that it really does), should likely go as well and that all of the Wyoming areas ought to be draw in for every species. And out of state licenses ought to go out the window as well unless there's a lack of local hunters for the required draw, which rarely happens. That would be hugely unpopular with many as it removes a source of income from the state, but it would also suggest that those from out of state ought to focus on the hunting opportunities where they live, and they really should. I'm not completely adamant on this however, so I would yield and see reasons to yield on allowing out of state tags but the focus on the subsistence nature of hunting should remain, in my view.
Indeed, I'm so adamant on it I'm going to go on and anger a bunch of people that I probably haven't angered yet. The donaters.
Let me note, before I go on further, that I'm not only advocating this position, I partially live it today and I've fully lived it in the past. A friend of mine, who briefly went through a delusional period of being a vegetarian, returned full blown to this position and calls himself now a "killetarian", and that's pretty much how I once did it.
From the point at which I left home to go to university until the point at which I was marred, and I was married at age 32, meat on my table had been meat that I'd shot or hooked. As my father grew a huge garden every year, for much of the year I also had vegetables that we'd raised. Indeed, after he died I took that over, but due to a recent well failure, I didn't put in a garden last year and since getting married and imagining myself to be really busy, there's been more years than not which for which I haven't done one. Still, even at that, I can recall when my children were small harvesting my potatoes the day after I harvested my deer, which is how things should be.
Which leads me to trespass on something that people cringe upon when you do, which is an evolving "donate the meat".
An odd thing about most foods is that while we crave basic things fairly universally, oru individual taste adjust to what's available in our diet. Everyone has met people who simply don't like certain foods, which tends to be as they've not tried them as adults and if they do, they'll be outside of their frame of reference and taste strange at first. Growing up in a household in which wild game was on the table very often, and vegetables we grew ourselves, and apples from the backyard, etc., I have a really wide food palete and there aren't too many foods I won't try or find strange.
I think this was the norm, actually, with most people up until some point after World War Two. But it isn't any more. Now most people have incredibly small food paletes, another deficit of the modern age. Indeed, I've noticed that even a lot of people in agriculture, whom you would think have wide ones, have extremely narrow ones. And not all that long ago I read an article which verified what I suspected; people in an aboriginal state have much larger food paletes than people in urban societies.
I note that as this brings up the "I don't like that food" claim. This comes about for a variety of reasons, a primary one being that a lot of people know how to cook one type of meat, and one only, that being fatty commercial beef. Another reason, however, is that this is what they're used to eating, and only that. Even vegetarians and vegans really tend to only have that as a frame of reference.
Indeed, in recent years this has become so pronounced that I've noticed entire demographics that in former years would have been familiar with at least pork, lamb and poultry in addition to beef no longer are. This past Thanksgiving, for example, I heard for the first time in my life people state "I don't like the taste of turkey". That's because they're eating a processed turkey once a year.
One of the things that was noted at the time that various Plains Indian tribes surrendered and came on to reservations is that they complained that their beef rations were "sweet". I've lived that and know what they mean. When I ate only wild game from about age 20 until age 32, adjusting back to beef in the diet was really weird. It was so sweet. By that time, I'd so acclimated to wild game that my tastes very much preferred it.
As my wife is from a ranch and we have cattle, we're going to be eating beef and she's acclimated the other way. But even at that, our beef is a range cow that chose to retire, and it tastes completely different from what's sold in the stores and at restaurants. I tend to order steaks and what not when I'm traveling or going to restaurants (although I'm about to stop as I'm continually disappointed by restaurant beef) and I'm nearly always disappointed with what I get. It's not that I'm getting a poor cut of meat, I'm not. I'm getting what most people consider a really good one. But I'm so used to grass fed cows that have not been fed out, I think that most of the beef in restaurants is really strange tasting. I've had commercial buffalo a couple of times in the past year, and it doesn't. It's a lot closer to range beef.
Anyhow, the reason that I note all of this is that I have a suspicion of the "donate" crowd as I feel if you hunt it you should consume it. I might be capable of being convinced that the donations aren't taste motivated but I'll have to be convinced. And as the donations defeat, at some level, the nature of hunting as set out above, I'm really not too keen on this development
Taking this even a step further, I've witnessed in the last year a new trend in which at least in my state ranchers are allowed to donate their landowners tags for charity. I'm totally opposed to this.
Now, I'm entitled, I should note, to a landowner tag. I'm going to start applying for it this year as I've passed and not been able to get where I wanted to go. I'm not against landowners tags and they fit in with what I've noted. People owning agricultural land should, I feel, live on it and from it and taking part of the game they've supported is part of that.
But donating a tag, even for a charitable cause, defeats that and brings back disturbing recollections of a time in which agriculturalist in this state took a serious run at trying to get the legislature to give them ownership of the wildlife. Wildlife is wild, it doesn't belong to anyone. Being able to donate a tag is contrary to that reality, and it shouldn't be allowed. I'm for wounded veterans being able to hunt, but they are able to hunt as per the regular system, which I'd note I'd modify. I might be willing to entertain a special class of license for truly wounded veterans, although I'm frankly hesitant here as well as I've lived through the era in which there were vast numbers of combat veterans who were given no special breaks at all and find the new era a bit suspicious in some ways.
Anyhow, I'm for subsistence hunting in the emphasis. Indeed, I'd propose a lifetime subsistence license be created, which would be modeled on the existing lifetime small game/bird/fishing license that already exists. It'd be costly, but it'd be worth it. I can imagine fairly readily how it would work, but I'll skip going into that here.
I'll skip it in part because I'm going to pick on "trophy" or "sport" fishermen for a moment here.
If I've seen some evolution on hunting, and I have, over the years to more of a focus on "trophies" than once existed, I've really seen one on fishing.
My father and one of my uncles were adamant fishermen and as a kid growing up we had trout constantly. As an adult I've been baffled by the romanticization of trout fishing that followed A River Runs Through It, even though I think it's a great movie After that film, fly fishing, which was locally just a way to catch fish, turned into some huge Metrosexual Uppie activity and the cost of it shot out of sight.
The local river, indeed, went from the local river, into being a Blue Ribbon Trout Stream, and along with that change in status came "fishing guides". That a person would need a fishing guide just baffles me no end. What's a fishing guild do? Anyhow, along with all that came "catch and release".
I think catch and release is absurd. Fishing is fish hunting and you catch the fish to eat them. Catching an animal to let it go, particularly after catching it with a barbed hook, is simply delusional.
Now, all fishermen let some fish go. A person doesn't want to take a tiny fish that can and will grow into a larger one. But to let the big ones go you caught? It's weird.
I've caught a few big fish in my life and my father caught many more. We kept and ate them. That was the point in the first place. Indeed, at my parent's home they had a small plaque with the image of my relative, on my mother's side, Jonathan Dean Swift in which he was quoted as saying:
They say a fish should swim thrice, once in the sea, once in butter, and once in good claret.
That quote was attributed to him on that plaque, but in looking it up its also attributed to a certain O'Keefe (which would please my fishing uncle, who was an O'Keefe). However, it also seems to be a Polish proverb, in this version;
Fish, to taste right, must swim three times – in water, in butter and in wine.
It wouldn't surprise me, frankly, if the quote is a Polish proverb and the fancier Irish/Anglo Irish version was simply adapted from it. Oh well.
But it's correct.
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*Before this is misconstrued, there are real reasons to hunt these "trophy" animals at least in my states and the surrounding ones. They're all hugely successful predators that prey on domestic livestock and, at least in the case of grizzly bears and mountain lions, are also dangerous to human beings when uncontrolled. They basically fit into what's normally considered a "predator" under our state's law except that the need to regulate their taking is acknowledged so that they're preserved, even though quite destructive and dangerous.
**As has been noted previously on this blog, the practice of really focusing on trophy size was almost completely absent in this region when I was a kid. People appreciated a nice "rack", but most of them were acquired purely accidentally. On occasion a hunter would focus on a trophy they knew to be where they were hunting, which was admired for the skill required, but almost nobody saw it as one of the primary reasons they were hunting.
Today it is often emphasized and many people will ask you what your deer or antelope "scored". I've never learned the scoring system but I'm still flustered when asked. I has in my late 20s before anyone ever asked me that and up until that time I really never even thought about it. I'm asked it routinely now.
It needs to be emphasized that this may mean something or nothing in a larger sense. If a person wants to focus on a large deer, elk etc., well so be it. But at the end of the day, it's meat on the table that should be the primary focus.
January 12, 1919. Laying down the law and up, up and away.
Cpt. Earl Almon, Commander Company M, 16th Infantry, reading the order of the day to the Mayor and Town Crier of the town of Leuterod, Germany. Note the somewhat stout young lady behind Cpt. Almon with the gigantic stein and three beer glasses. Almon, also, is wearing private purchase "trench boots".
U.S. Navy C Class blimp before taking off from Rockaway Naval Air Station in New York for Florida.
The blimp's crew.
Friday, January 11, 2019
Blog Mirror: Why 2018 Was the Best Year in Human History!
What?
Yep.
An op ed from the New York Times. And one worth reading:
People really like to imagine that they live in the worst of all possible times. But they don't. Things have been getting better and better for average people almost every year since year one. Some really worthwhile points.
None of which are going to convince most people. Even if you could transport people back in time to any era fifty or more years ago and find them stunned, for the most part, human nature being what it is, people are still going to believe things are really bad now, and they were really great then, no matter when the then was.
Heck, people are even romantic now about World War Two. . . which wasn't fun by anybody's rational measure.
Yep.
An op ed from the New York Times. And one worth reading:
Why 2018 Was the Best Year in Human History!
People really like to imagine that they live in the worst of all possible times. But they don't. Things have been getting better and better for average people almost every year since year one. Some really worthwhile points.
None of which are going to convince most people. Even if you could transport people back in time to any era fifty or more years ago and find them stunned, for the most part, human nature being what it is, people are still going to believe things are really bad now, and they were really great then, no matter when the then was.
Heck, people are even romantic now about World War Two. . . which wasn't fun by anybody's rational measure.
Of Shutdowns and Symbols
I haven't really commented on the shutdown of the Federal government directly. There's so much talk of it, so much of which is completely superficial, that it almost seems to be a waste of electrons to do it.
Once all the rhetoric is boiled away, there are some things that are serious, in various manners, that are evident however. One is that the base that elected Donald Trump, which consists principally of blue collar workers and their immediate descendants, wants something done about immigration, which frankly is grossly over any sensible limit, and right now. Trump cannot ignore that and if he does, he will not only loose the 2020 election, but the GOP will loose his voters who will go on to be a permanently disgruntled class, the results of which nobody knows. The wall is purely a symbol of that as it is not seriously believed by very many that it would be effective, but to that base it's a symbol of resolve. It may be a policing waste of money in the views of most people, but then a lot of symbolic items of resolve are. He really can't yield.
The Democrats can yield but right now they won't, as the shutdown is a symbol for them of an a Presidency they despise. In terms of disgust, therefore, two New Yorkers, Chuck Schumer and Donald Trump, and one displaced East Coaster, Nancy Pelosi, have become the symbols of a broken government all the way around, as well as being symbols of a Baby Boom generation that simply won't yield power to anyone younger.
On not yielding power, Ruth Bader Ginsberg has not made it to Supreme Court Oral Arguments this week. Nobody really knows what this means, but there's very good reason to believe that a figure who has in the past never missed arguments would only be doing so now if she absolutely can't. RBG is a very elderly woman and never had the appearance of one in good health, even if she was clearly always a person of vigorous minds. Almost nobody is speaking what's now on their mind, but what that is, is pretty clear. Somewhere in the departments of the Administration people are dusting off the barely shelved lists of potential Supreme Court nominees to see which one should be made next.
On shutdowns, one thing of notable interest, one way or another, is the degree to which the legislature of the State of Wyoming has been very quiet. Going to the last election the Republicans fielded, in the primaries, two candidates who would have thrown Federal employees in jail for doing their jobs and a third who would have taken over their work in a slow motion fashion, most likely. The voters rejected all of that nonsense and so far the legislature hasn't been reviving any of it, perhaps finally getting the message.
But at the same time what's been notable is that those who seriously maintain such positions haven't been saying much. With the Federal government partially shut down in the state, you'd think they'd be crying for Wyoming to take over the Federal government's operations until the Federal government goes back to work. Nope. Not a word on that.
There's been no suggestion that Wyoming take over administering the parks. People worried about Federal oil and gas leasing grinding to a halt (the Feds sent those guys back to work), but nobody suggested that maybe the Wyoming Oil and Gas Commission could step in.
Of course, all of that would be quite unrealistic. But that's the point. When push comes to shove, even the pushers know that.
Which won't stop, I'm sure, the shutdown being used as an argument for reviving this nonsense when the shutdown is over. Put to the test, people choose not to take it. Which doesn't stop them from complaining about pop quizzes later.
Once all the rhetoric is boiled away, there are some things that are serious, in various manners, that are evident however. One is that the base that elected Donald Trump, which consists principally of blue collar workers and their immediate descendants, wants something done about immigration, which frankly is grossly over any sensible limit, and right now. Trump cannot ignore that and if he does, he will not only loose the 2020 election, but the GOP will loose his voters who will go on to be a permanently disgruntled class, the results of which nobody knows. The wall is purely a symbol of that as it is not seriously believed by very many that it would be effective, but to that base it's a symbol of resolve. It may be a policing waste of money in the views of most people, but then a lot of symbolic items of resolve are. He really can't yield.
The Democrats can yield but right now they won't, as the shutdown is a symbol for them of an a Presidency they despise. In terms of disgust, therefore, two New Yorkers, Chuck Schumer and Donald Trump, and one displaced East Coaster, Nancy Pelosi, have become the symbols of a broken government all the way around, as well as being symbols of a Baby Boom generation that simply won't yield power to anyone younger.
On not yielding power, Ruth Bader Ginsberg has not made it to Supreme Court Oral Arguments this week. Nobody really knows what this means, but there's very good reason to believe that a figure who has in the past never missed arguments would only be doing so now if she absolutely can't. RBG is a very elderly woman and never had the appearance of one in good health, even if she was clearly always a person of vigorous minds. Almost nobody is speaking what's now on their mind, but what that is, is pretty clear. Somewhere in the departments of the Administration people are dusting off the barely shelved lists of potential Supreme Court nominees to see which one should be made next.
On shutdowns, one thing of notable interest, one way or another, is the degree to which the legislature of the State of Wyoming has been very quiet. Going to the last election the Republicans fielded, in the primaries, two candidates who would have thrown Federal employees in jail for doing their jobs and a third who would have taken over their work in a slow motion fashion, most likely. The voters rejected all of that nonsense and so far the legislature hasn't been reviving any of it, perhaps finally getting the message.
But at the same time what's been notable is that those who seriously maintain such positions haven't been saying much. With the Federal government partially shut down in the state, you'd think they'd be crying for Wyoming to take over the Federal government's operations until the Federal government goes back to work. Nope. Not a word on that.
There's been no suggestion that Wyoming take over administering the parks. People worried about Federal oil and gas leasing grinding to a halt (the Feds sent those guys back to work), but nobody suggested that maybe the Wyoming Oil and Gas Commission could step in.
Of course, all of that would be quite unrealistic. But that's the point. When push comes to shove, even the pushers know that.
Which won't stop, I'm sure, the shutdown being used as an argument for reviving this nonsense when the shutdown is over. Put to the test, people choose not to take it. Which doesn't stop them from complaining about pop quizzes later.
January 11, 1919. Casper Gets Gas (no. . . really). Women ponder keeping their jobs.
Wyoming Oil World, and industry paper in Wyoming with a circulation of about 18,000, reported that Casper was going to be piped for natural gas.
It's somewhat odd to think of a time that Casper didn't have natural gas. When I was a kid, natural gas in Casper was so cheap that the gas company would install gas yard lamps for free. One of our neighbors had one. Because of the way it worked, it burned night and day in their backyard, an odd thing to think of now, although gas flares, of course, aren't exactly a thing of the past in the oil patch.
Powder River Basin gas flare.
Elsewhere airmen who would later climb to higher heights of fame were now on occupation duty in Germany, including the legendary Billy Mitchell, and Lewis H. Brereton who would have air and ground commands during World War Two.
A group of serious looking American airmen; Brigadier General William Mitchell, chief of Air Service, his staff. From left to right: French Capt. R. Vallois, Ltc. Lewis Hyde Brereton (1890-1967, who rose to senior command in World War Two), Brigadier General William Mitchell, Maj. Ira Beaman Joralemon (1884-1975, who became a mining engineer), Capt. O. E. Marrel, First Lieutenant E. F, Schwab. Dierdorf, Germany, January 11, 1919.
Some Americans were still in France, of course.
90th Division officers Major General Henry Tureman Allen, Cavalry (1859-1930). He'd been commissioned after graduating from West Point in 1882 and was a veteran of the Spanish American War, the Philippine Insurrection, and the Punitive Expedition. His son Captain Henry T. Allen Jr. (1889-1971). The Younger Allen would participate in the 1920 Olympics as an Army equestrian competitor. At the time, all equestrian competitors were Army officers. And Captain Sidney Webster Fish (1885-1950), of the famous New York political family. Cote d'Or, France, January 11, 1919.
And of course, there were always donuts.
And some women weren't excited about giving up their wartime jobs.
And of course, there were always donuts.
Thursday, January 10, 2019
January 10, 1919. German Government turns to the Freikorps, Arabs take Medina, Rioting in Argentina.
The U.S. Bureau of Fisheries sat for a group portrait on this day in 1919.
Faced with an ongoing and increasingly effective Communist rebellion in Berlin, which the German Army had not been able to put down, the German socialist government turned to the Freikorps and they went into action.
The arrangement had actually been made the prior day, January 9, and it signaled the beginning of a strange development in which the left of center provisional government was forced to seek the help of the paramilitary right, which was largely controlled and aided by the German army. The Freikorps was well equipped and indeed some units had adopted uniforms that were a bit more modern than the German Army's itself. Large numbers of discharged lost Frontsoldaten had joined them and they were, at this point, a combat element that rivaled the Germany army in effectiveness.
They did not, as would soon be evident, rival the army in the degree to which they were controlled.
This latter fact means that in modern parlance the Freikorps is associated with what would become the German radical right. But the Freikorps as a revolutionary era institution was not new and dated back to Napoleonic times, which Germans had formed such units in opposition to Napoleon. They had a track record of being undisciplined at that time but were looked back upon heroically. In some instances, Freikorps units in post World War One Germany made intentional associations with their earlier predecessors as a result.
Elsewhere, the Arab Revolt took Medina.
The Freistaat Flaschenhals
Currency of the Bottleneck Free State.
The Freistaat Flaschenhals, or the Bottleneck Free State, came into existence on this date in 1919 on territory that was within the German borders but outside of the jurisdiction of the Weimar Republic or any of the occupying Allied forces.
The unofficial German microstate fit between the French and American bridgeheads and formed due to the necessity of their being some government in the region that was home to 17,000 Germans. Due to economic and travel restrictions, it was cut off economically from Germany as well and all goods had to be smuggled into it.
Given the absolutely chaotic nature of post war Germany, the microstate, which would normally have never have planned for any sort of real status, aspired to one and planned on having relations with "foreign" powers including Germany, thus preserving its national status. It's status as an independant entity came to an end with the French occupation of the Ruhr on February 23, 1923.
Tuesday, January 8, 2019
A resetting of the dial?
I noted this the other day here on our blog:
Since that time she's been in the news again. She appeared as a topic of conversation on This Week and Meet the Press, and then apparently gave an interview to another Sunday news magazine. Turning on the television news last night, her views were getting press.
Those views are really unyielding, and I certainly do not agree with all of them. The surprising thing, however, is that they are getting that sort of press. She's eclipsed in short order the sun shining on other Democrats including such recent notables as Beto O'Roarke.
Normally a person with such radical views would simply be viewed as a gadfly, but she's not really getting that treatment and the Democratic establishment is struggling with how to treat her. She clearly can't be dismissed and she can't be ignored. Moreover, she's not falling in line. Figures like Pelosi are basically trying to ignore and cajole her, which seems unlikely to work, and she could soon became a big problem for the aged Democratic establishment (indeed one commentor on This Week specifically noted how so many of the Democrats who are testing the 2020 waters are ancient and in the class of politicians who contributed to the problems they are complaining about). She's become such a problem that now Democrats in the media class, such as those who are on The View, are lecturing her. Whoopie Goldberg, for example, felt it necessary to lecture her as if she was a child on the air.
That's not what is going to work.
Again, I'm not a fan of 100% of her positions. But she's made her positions actually clear. They are far to the left, but I suspect that some of those views are very widely shared by the American public both nationally and regionally. And even where those views are extreme, like them or not, they are thought out. She proposed, for example, to pay for her universal education views by returning the top marginal tax rate to 70%, which she noted it had been in the 1960s. That's correct, it was that high and that didn't collapse the economy. That somebody 27 years old would be aware of that is worth noting.
And some of that is having an effect. Following her comment on the top marginal tax rate, at least one other Democrat came out noting the same thing and that it had been even higher during the 1940s (of course during World War Two).
I note all of this as perhaps this past election will turn out to be more significant than we might have supposed, but for different reasons than are supposed. It might be a resetting of the dial. That dial isn't going to go all the way from right to left, but it might actually end up moving. Moreover, that dial might finally be moving from those in their 70s and 80s, down to a younger demographic, which would be a huge political development. In a year in which Elizabeth Warren has been the first to declare her candidacy for the 2020 Democratic nomination, the fact that Oscasio-Cortez is getting more press and has more Facebook followers isn't to be ignored.
Lex Anteinternet: She's not the only one.: From "The Hill": Outgoing Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill (Mo.) says that she is “a little confused” by the rapid rise of incoming Rep. Alexandria Oscasio-Cortez (D. N.Y.)Following that, I commented on Oscasio-Cortez twice more, once citing her as an example of how the government was seemingly descending into uncontrolled Weimar style chaos, but then coming back and changing my view.
Since that time she's been in the news again. She appeared as a topic of conversation on This Week and Meet the Press, and then apparently gave an interview to another Sunday news magazine. Turning on the television news last night, her views were getting press.
Those views are really unyielding, and I certainly do not agree with all of them. The surprising thing, however, is that they are getting that sort of press. She's eclipsed in short order the sun shining on other Democrats including such recent notables as Beto O'Roarke.
Normally a person with such radical views would simply be viewed as a gadfly, but she's not really getting that treatment and the Democratic establishment is struggling with how to treat her. She clearly can't be dismissed and she can't be ignored. Moreover, she's not falling in line. Figures like Pelosi are basically trying to ignore and cajole her, which seems unlikely to work, and she could soon became a big problem for the aged Democratic establishment (indeed one commentor on This Week specifically noted how so many of the Democrats who are testing the 2020 waters are ancient and in the class of politicians who contributed to the problems they are complaining about). She's become such a problem that now Democrats in the media class, such as those who are on The View, are lecturing her. Whoopie Goldberg, for example, felt it necessary to lecture her as if she was a child on the air.
That's not what is going to work.
Again, I'm not a fan of 100% of her positions. But she's made her positions actually clear. They are far to the left, but I suspect that some of those views are very widely shared by the American public both nationally and regionally. And even where those views are extreme, like them or not, they are thought out. She proposed, for example, to pay for her universal education views by returning the top marginal tax rate to 70%, which she noted it had been in the 1960s. That's correct, it was that high and that didn't collapse the economy. That somebody 27 years old would be aware of that is worth noting.
And some of that is having an effect. Following her comment on the top marginal tax rate, at least one other Democrat came out noting the same thing and that it had been even higher during the 1940s (of course during World War Two).
I note all of this as perhaps this past election will turn out to be more significant than we might have supposed, but for different reasons than are supposed. It might be a resetting of the dial. That dial isn't going to go all the way from right to left, but it might actually end up moving. Moreover, that dial might finally be moving from those in their 70s and 80s, down to a younger demographic, which would be a huge political development. In a year in which Elizabeth Warren has been the first to declare her candidacy for the 2020 Democratic nomination, the fact that Oscasio-Cortez is getting more press and has more Facebook followers isn't to be ignored.
January 8, 1919. Officers of the Rainbow Division in Germany.
Senior officers of the Rainbow division sitting for a portrait on this day in 1919. Or at least this the claimed date (the vegetation makes me wonder). Berlin was aflame on this date, but they do not appear to be demonstratively concerned, on occupation duty in the Rhineland.
Monday, January 7, 2019
Times like these.
In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these.
Paul Harvey
Paul Harvey
Merry Christmas!
If you are a Christian using the "Old Calendar", that is.
That would mean, fwiw, that those Eastern Christians who observe fairly rigorous fasts during Advent have just gone through the holiday season, if they live in the company of those observing the New Calendar, and they almost all do, and all that this entails.
Today In Wyoming's History: January 7: Today in Christmas Day in those churches using the Eastern calendar.January 7 is Christmas for the Eastern churches that use the old calendar.
That would mean, fwiw, that those Eastern Christians who observe fairly rigorous fasts during Advent have just gone through the holiday season, if they live in the company of those observing the New Calendar, and they almost all do, and all that this entails.
And good riddance too
IN THE SUPREME COURT, STATE OF WYOMING
April Term, A.D. 2018
In the Matter of Amendments to )Rule 403 of the Uniform )
Rules for the District Courts of the )
State of Wyoming )
ORDER AMENDING RULE 403 OF THE UNIFORM RULES FOR
THE DISTRICT COURTS OF THE STATE OF WYOMING
DATED this 21st day of August, 2018.
BY THE COURT:
/s/
MICHAEL K. DAVIS
Chief Justice
Sunday, January 6, 2019
The End of a Strenuous Life. Theodore Roosevelt dies, January 6, 1919.
A great President, and by some measures one of the greatest Presidents, Theodore Roosevelt, the youngest man to ever become President, and a titanic personality sometimes compared to a force of nature, died at age 60.
An aged Theodore Roosevelt in 1918.
As he was a force in American politics and life at such an early age, and in such an adult fashion, it's difficult to appreciate that he was not what we'd normally consider an old man at the time of his death. Having said that, the hard charging nature of his life combined with a childhood condition of asthma, malaria contracted on an expedition in Brazil, and the lingering affects of a gunshot wound during his unsuccessful Presidential run against Taft combined to dramatically age him in the last ten years of his life. The man who died in on this day in 1919 looked old and by all accounts was feeling old and worn out at the time of his death. The last straw in this process seems to have been the death of his son Quentin during World War One, after which he declined markedly.
A controversial figure even today, Roosevelt is nearly sui generis and therefore claimed by nearly ever aspect of American public and political life. He combined favoring an aggressive American foreign policy with an increasingly liberal, even radical, approach to American domestic problems. Conservatives today look upon him as one of the great Republican Presidents while American liberals look towards his domestic policies as inspiration. One of the local incumbent politicians called upon his photographed visage in the recent 2018 election to attempt to draw parallels to himself, even though there were very few apparent ones. To many Americans he defines Americanism, and perhaps more accurately than any other President we have had in modern times. He therefore remains both in the past and surprisingly present.
While McKinley was the first President of the 20th Century, it was really Roosevelt who as the first modern President and created the office that we've had ever since. He was unparalleled in that role; a role that he thrived in and defined in no small part because of his huge intellect and extremely physical nature. The nation has not seen anyone like him since in high office, and its unlikely to.
Today In Wyoming's History: January 6, 1919. Robert D. Carey takes office as Governor.
This starts off as a simple one line entry on our companion blog for this day (which will inevitably be updated following the publishing of this item. That item is:
Today In Wyoming's History: January 6: 1919
1919 Robert D. Carey takes office as governor.This even was a big local event, of course, but will be very much overshadowed in history by another event taking place the same day which also will appear here momentarily and which will also appear on Today In Wyoming's History, that being the death of President Theodore Roosevelt.
Carey makes an interesting contrast to Roosevelt in some ways and parallels him in others. He was born in Cheyenne in 1878, the son of legendary prior Governor Joseph M. Carey. His father had been a prominent Republican businessman, rancher, lawyer and politician. That Carey had been close to Theodore Roosevelt and had followed him into the Progressive Party when the GOP split. Joseph Carey had also been a Democrat at one point due to a split in the GOP in Wyoming.
His son was Yale educated and came back to Wyoming where he became a businessman and rancher. By World War One he was already a prominent figure in the Republican Party, and had like his father been in the Progressive Party for a time as well. He's served on various state board and commissions, and he was by this time the President of the still powerful Wyoming Stockgrowers Association (which he would be until 1921). Governor Frank Houx made the savvy move offering Carey command of the Wyoming National Guard, which Carey at first declined. By the time he accepted it the position was filled and the 39 year old Carey did not serve in World War One.
When he ran for office in 1918, that fact was used against him, and it's no wonder. The United States, while it had its share of objectors to the war, had leaped into the Great War with earnest. Amazingly, Carey won the race none the less, which says something about the spirit of the time, the state's view on Houx, or its view on Carey, or all of those. I don't really know, but 1918 was a banner year nationally for the reunited Republican Party which was resurgent. So Carey became the Governor of Wyoming on this day.
Carey served only one term as Governor. As one of the many forgotten aspects of the post war world, Wyoming's economy was very badly hit by the recession/depression that followed the end of World War One, with the prices of every single commodity in Wyoming falling. While Carey was not responsible for this by any means, that fact attached to his administration and he was amazingly not re-nominated for the Governorship. Indeed, William B. Ross, a progressive Democrat, took the Governor's office that year.
Carey returned to private life but came back into politics and was elected as U.S. Senator for Wyoming in November 1929. While he remained personally popular, history repeated itself for him in that office as the Great Depression had commenced and he went down in defeat in the 1936 election when Democrats swept national office. Carey died the following year at age 58.
Sunday Morning Scene: St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Seward Alaska.
Churches of the West: St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Seward Alaska.:
This is St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Seward Alaska. It was built in 1906. The architectural style is apparently called "Bungalow/Craftsman", the first church so identified as such here in this blog.
St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Seward Alaska.
This is St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Seward Alaska. It was built in 1906. The architectural style is apparently called "Bungalow/Craftsman", the first church so identified as such here in this blog.
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