Blog Mirror: The Aerodrome: 737 Max Grounded and Technology as "Too Complicated"

The Aerodrome: 737 Max Grounded and Technology as "Too Complicate...:

737 Max Grounded and Technology as "Too Complicated".

Yesterday I wrote about the 737 Max and the efforts to ground them globally in this post here:

Pushing Pause on the Boeing 737 Panic.

Boeing 737 undergoing testing at the Natrona County airport a couple of years ago.

Two Boeing 737 Max's have crashed in the last month or so, the most recent in Ethiopia where it resulted in tragic loss of life.

After I wrote that, they were in fact grounded.

We still, of course, don't know what occurred.  There's anecdotal evidence, but only that, that there may be a problem with some of the automated features.  Or not.

It's important to acknowledge that we still don't know and there's a lot of things that could be occurring here, and one of them could be a couple of things that are being missed in the press or that people simply don't want to address.

I touched on one of those yesterday, politics.  Politics inform our views in all sorts of ways of course, and they can creep in here whether we mean for them to or not.  And by politics the politics of there being really only two companies on earth left that make large commercial aircraft, Boeing and Airbus.  The Europeans were quick to shut down the flights of the 737 Max to the extent that flights in the air had to turn around, which is flat out absurd.  A knowledgeable person later told me that a European aviation commenter claimed that part of the problem with the 737 Max is that Boeing is too close to the FAA, which is ironic in my view as I wonder if the hearts of the Europeans aren't a bit too close to Airbus.

Another issue was raised by President Donald Trump.

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly. Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT. I see it all the time in many products. Always seeking to go one unnecessary step further, when often old and simpler is far better. Split second decisions are....

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Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

....needed, and the complexity creates danger. All of this for great cost yet very little gain. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want Albert Einstein to be my pilot. I want great flying professionals that are allowed to easily and quickly take control of a plane!

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Now, I'm frankly doubt that our President has the knowledge necessary to comment on aviation.  I'm not a pilot (I don't even like to be a passenger on an airplane, something ironic for a person who obviously likes airplanes themselves), but I'm pretty sure I know more about airplanes than Donald Trump and I'm not qualified to really go too far in my statements.  But this is becoming a common view and I've heard versions of this comment before, from other people.

Are they too complicated to fly?  Well, a person can debate that.  The real debate, however, is not if they are too complicated, really, but too automated. And that's a different thing entirely.

Modern aircarft are by and large the safest they've ever been, and part of that is due to technology. Technological advances have made modern commercial aircraft far more safe than any aircraft in prior eras, it's a simple fact.  Risks that passengers accepted in prior eras routinely would never be accepted now.

For example, the Fokker Tri Motor, which was a legendary early passenger airplane that's still widely regarded, was at first built with all wooden frame.  It was the snapping of the wooden wings of such a Fokker that resulted in the death of Knut Rockney and his fellow travelers in 1931.

Fokker F-10.  It had an all wooden frame.

Now, if you've flown, you've seen those wings flex. Would you feel safe in a wooden framed passenger plane?

I could go on and on about various older aircraft that were widely used that we'd be horrified to be in today, but the point is clear.  Airplanes are safer than ever, and technology is part of the reason for that.

But with that technology has come the inevitable computer override, to some degree of, pilot decisions.  A lot is now going on in all kids of aircraft due to computerization.  And computers fail or make errors.

The irony here is that the Airbus is more computer controlled than the 737 Max, I'm told.  Indeed, it flat out overrides pilot commands in some instances. The Boeing 737 Max was designed so that the pilot can control over the computer.  The Airbus is more like a modern AirTrain.  It feels free to basically tell the pilot, "no sir, I don't think so".

There could indeed be a problem with that, in all sorts of ways, at some point.  If there is, we should really pause as we're about to take that same path with automobiles.  Indeed, we already are.

And the drivers of cars are a lot less technologically adept as a rule than pilots are.  Indeed, as noted earlier American pilots are much more adept in every fashion than those of other nations, and perhaps that plays into this as well.

At any rate, no answers right now.  Hopefully no financial disaster for Boeing as well, which wouldn't serve the interest of the travelling public.

It was a "Bomb Cyclone"

March 13

2019  A winter storm so intense it qualified as a mid latitude cyclone hit Wyoming shutting things down in southeastern Wyoming. Governmental entities all over that region, and all over the state in some instances, closed due to the massive winter storm.

Early morning street scene in Casper during the "bomb cyclone".

I'd never even heard of such a thing.

Lex Anteinternet: It better be a new Ice Age.

Well, all in all, not too disappointing.

Downtown about 8:00, at which time lots of freaking out about the storm was going on.

Lex Anteinternet: It better be a new Ice Age.: With all this hype, if the anticipated storm isn't the blizzard of the millennium, I'm going to be disappointed. Seriously, with g...

Blog Mirror: The Aerodrome: Pushing Pause on the Boeing 737 Panic.

The Aerodrome: Pushing Pause on the Boeing 737 Panic.:

Pushing Pause on the Boeing 737 Panic.

Boeing 737 undergoing testing at the Natrona County airport a couple of years ago.

Two Boeing 737 Max's have crashed in the last month or so, the most recent in Ethiopia where it resulted in tragic loss of life.



There's no denying that.



And that definitely needs to be looked into.



I'm not an air crash examiner by any means, and I don't really know enough to comment on this story. But then, neither do you, or any of those, outside learned air agencies perhaps.



So some things to keep in mind.



The 737 basic design goes back to 1967.  The 737 Max is simply the most updated, although certainly very updated, version of that old air frame.  People panicking over 737s should realize that just because its a 737, doesn't mean its a 737 Max.



And just because there's been two crash in close proximity in time doesn't mean there's anything actually wrong with the plane, actually.  Both airplanes that crashed were in foreign use and while the airlines that had them will no doubt maintain that their pilots are amongst the very best in the world, frankly if the pilot isn't an American pilot, they aren't.



Most nations, including nations that put in a lot of flight time, don't train anywhere near to the American standard.  American private pilots have knowledge that vastly exceeds the knowledge of many pilots that step into lesser commercial roles elsewhere, and American commercial pilots are not only second to none, there's no comparison everywhere.



Beyond that, the nature of reporting tends to dog pile on, but not evenly.  If the Russian airline Aeroflot was subject to the same standards nobody would ever get on a Russian airplane, but it isn't.  Aeroflot has had five times the number of deaths than any other airline in the world, with over 8,000 people losing their lives on their planes since they first started flying. And this in an airline that no doubt uses a lot of former military pilots who ought to know what they are doing.



Five times.



Finally, the number of manufacturers of aircraft have dwindled to an unstable few.  When commercial aviation got rolling the number of competing companies was vast.  Even at the start of the jet age that was still true.  Now, in the Western world we're down to Boeing and Airbus.



Airbus is a pan European aircraft manufacturer that competes neck and neck against Boeing, the sole American commercial aviation manufacturer.  Hurting Boeing, even accidentally, helps Airbus.  It's notable that European aviation agencies were very quick to ground Boeing.



Indeed, European bans were such that Boeing 737 Max's in the air had to re route and not land at European airports.  And that's just flat out dumb.   Safety would have required them to allow them to land at their destination, not re route.



Now, I'm not saying that European actions were calculated to hurt Boeing.  But I am cognizant that its always hard not to keep your home close to you in some fashion when problems break out.



Lawsuits and overreaction have driven the costs of private aircraft so high that only the wealthy can afford them and very few are made.  Overreaction could kill off American commercial manufacturing and certainly will hurt it.  A little prudential judgment may be in order.

March 13, 1919. Pershing visits Treves, Women seek to hold on to jobs, Communists seek global revolution, Ireland seeks independence, Anti Saloon League seeks to stop 3%.

General Pershing at the American Red Cross facility at Treves, Germany.

General Pershing was touring part of the American Zone of Occupation on this day in 1919.

American Red Cross personnel in formation for the inspection of General Pershing at Treves, Germany.

In doing that, he stopped by the Red Cross facility at Treves.

He clearly delivered a speech while doing that.  Note how the Red Cross men appear as soldiers, which they were, many male members of the ARC having been taken into military service by the U.S. Army upon the American entry into the war.

Further to the East, the Communist were meeting in what was becoming the Soviet Union and advocating for a world revolution.  On the same day, interestingly enough, Admiral Kolchak's Whites launched the start of a spring offensive, the second White spring offensive launched this year, both of which were seeing a lot of initial success.

Women, who are commonly believed to day to have been introduced to commercial labor by World War Two, were arguing to retain their World War One jobs.

And the Anti Saloon League was arguing against even 3% booze, 3% being the typical amount in some session ales, such as Guinness Stout, and modern "American light lager", i.e, light beer.

More bills being signed into law.

Some new bills being signed:
. 

A formal bill signing has been requested for the following bills:
Bill No.	Enrolled Act #	Bill Title
SF0156	SEA No. 0075	Medical digital innovation sandbox.
SF0111	SEA No. 0080	Community colleges-bachelor of applied science programs.
HB0148	HEA No. 0094	State offices-contract transparency.
The Governor will sign the following bills at the ceremony but no formal bill signing has been requested.
SF0104	SEA No. 0076	Wyoming chancery court.
SF0131	SEA No. 0081	Spending policy amendments.
HB0279	HEA No. 0119	Pari-mutuel commission-distributions.
HB0308	HEA No. 0125	Modernizing and balancing Wyoming's school funding streams.
The Governor will announce his decision on the following bills:
SF0049	SEA No. 0067	County zoning authority-private schools.
SF0149	SEA No. 0077	Capitol complex oversight.
SF0162	SEA No. 0083	State funded capital construction.
HB0120	HEA No. 0105	Energy production inventory exemption.
HB0251	HEA No. 0117	Coal export terminal litigation.
HB0293	HEA No. 0124	UW student housing.

The one that people are likely following is SF0049, the bill on county zoning and private schools.  The Governor is going to announce his decision on that one, which is curious.  My guess is that if he was going to sign it, he would have scheduled it for a signing.  That either means he's going to let it pass into law or veto it, most likely.  And that's likely true for the other six bills in that category.

It better be a new Ice Age.

With all this hype, if the anticipated storm isn't the blizzard of the millennium, I'm going to be disappointed.

Seriously, with government offices in the state shutting down already, multiple governmental warnings, I expect mastodons on the Interstate and polar bears in the coffee shops.

Today In Wyoming's History: Updates for March, 2019

Today In Wyoming's History: Updates for March, 2019:

Updates for March, 2019

* * *



4.  March 11, 2019.  Governor Gordon declared a state of emergency.

Today is International Pancake Day

In this time of trouble and derision, at last something we can get behind.

And you there, on some sort of "no corn" diet, just keep it to yourself and pass the syrup.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 11. Comparison and Constrast.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 11:

And these events were just two years apart:

March 11

1917  The Cheyenne State Leader for March 11, 1917: Laramie planning welcome for its Guardsmen

Laramie's troops were still delayed in Cheyenne, but Laramie was planning a big welcome for them when they returned.  Otherwise, Ft. D. A. Russell's contingent of Guardsmen were leaving for all points.

1919  Tuesday March 11, 1919. The Arrival of Company L

In yesterday's paper it was Company I and Company L for the same company. Today that was cleared up, it was apparently Company L, and they were back in Casper.

And by back, we mean the men were back, given a rousing welcome and then discharged, set out in their civilian lives once again.

It was a handful of men, all NCOs, actually.  Their names all appeared in the paper.

Babe Ruth's youngest daughter died today at age 102.

Its remarkable how we're tied back in a short line to things and persons we conceive as being so long ago.

Tuesday March 11, 1919. The Arrival of Company L

In yesterday's paper it was Company I and Company L for the same company. Today that was cleared up, it was apparently Company L, and they were back in Casper.

And by back, we mean the men were back, given a rousing welcome and then discharged, set out in their civilian lives once again.

It was a handful of men, all NCOs, actually.  Their names all appeared in the paper.

Post Armistice Training, November 11,1918 to March 11, 1919, 93rd Division

And so we have the biannual absurd resetting of the clocks once again. . .

midday, in real terms, will still occur when the sun is at its highest point, and midnight will occur twelve hours later, no matter what we might wish to pretend.

Courthouse clock in Wheatland Wyoming.

And yet somehow we imagine that we "lost" an hour, or that later, in the fall, we'll gain one.

Daylight Savings Time.  M'eh.

The biannual assault on the clock has been shown to be dangerous to people's health, result in sleep deprived accidents, and even result in more heart attacks than on other days of the years.  And for what ends?  None at all.

It first came in, in the United States, during World War One, but went back out thereafter.  Would that it would have stayed.  It came back in again in 1942, because of World War Two, and back out in 1945.  On April 13, 1966, it came back in by act of Congress, providing that states could opt back out.

There's been movements afoot to do so, but in an odd refusal to recognize natural time manner.  This last few years quite a few states, including ours, have thought about going to permanent daylight saving time.  That'd be better than the switch back and forth, but why not just go to permanent natural time.  With modern transportation and what not, there's plenty of time during the summer months to do whatever it was you were going to do after work, and that extra hour of sunlight isn't going to matter.

In fact, it never did.

Why are all Apple product and programs so absurdly complicated?

I mean seriously, it's absurd.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 10. And again for 2019.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 10:

March 10

Today, for 2013, is the dread advent of Daylight Savings Time, in which the weary are deprived of an hour of sleep.

March 10, 1919. The arrival of the USS Nebraska, Anticipating the arrival of Company I in Casper, Tennis in New York, Romantic comedies in the US

The battleship USS Boston, carrying soldiers on their way home from France, arrives in Boston.

People familiar with the efforts to bring the far flung U.S. military home after World War Two are familiar with Operation Magic Carpet. That operation employed sufficiently large U.S. Navy surface ships as troops transports, something they really weren't designed to be, to bring home soldiers and Marines.

Red Cross workers, also in Boston, awaiting the arrival of the USS Nebraska.

Almost forgotten is the fact that the same thing was done after World War One, an example of which we have here in the form of troops that were brought home on the USS Nebraska, a pre dreadnought Navy battleship.  It would have been a quite uncomfortable ride.

Wyoming National Guardsmen from Casper were coming home as well, by train.

The Casper men were set to arrive back in Casper by train on Tuesday, March 11.  The 20 plus men had been part of Company I of the Wyoming National Guard and had been assigned to the 116th Ammunition Train when the Wyoming Guard was busted up and converted from infantry to artillery and transport.

These men had been in service since the Guard had been mustered in the spring of 1917.  They had not been part of the earlier group mustered for the Punitive Expedition, or at least Company I hadn't existed as part of that group, in that form, as Casper had been too small in 1916 to have its own Guard unit.  That tiny status had rapidly passed, however, due to the World War One oil boom which built Casper.  By the spring of 1917 the town was big enough to contribute its own Company and some of those men were back, having just been mustered out of service at Ft. D. A. Russell in Cheyenne.

In New York, where the Nebraska had arrived, things were returning to a peacetime normal.

Betty Baker, who had won round at the indoor national women's tennis championship on this day in 1919.  She was sixteen years old at the time.

Betty Baker, about whom I know nothing else, was a tennis standout in 1919 at age 16.  Does anyone know if that continued?  I don't, but if you do, put in a comment and let us know.

And Monday movie releases continued to be a thing.

The public seemed to be in the mood for romantic comedies.

In other areas of speech, the United States Supreme Court was okay with restrictions:

1919 In  Schenk v United States, the US Supreme Court holds that the Espionage Act, restricting speech, does not violate the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Seward Memorial Methodist Church (and Resurrection Lutheran Church), Seward Alaska.

Churches of the West: Seward Memorial Methodist Church (and Resurrection...:

Seward Memorial Methodist Church (and Resurrection Lutheran church), Seward Alaska

This is a Methodist Church in Seward Alaska.  Other than that, I can't relate anything else about it including age, etc.  Resurrection Lutheran Church, which I didn't otherwise photograph, is visible immediately behind it.

Best Posts of the Week of March 3, 2019.

Best posts of the week of March 3, 2019.

Monday at the Bar: ANALOG ATTORNEY Fountain Pen Obsession Starter Kit Even better than golf for wasting money.

Seattle Mayor, and soon to be founder of San Calmente California, is 44 years old in this photograph.

March 5, 1919. Frightening and accurate predictions, Overreactions,

The 2020 Election, Part 1

Blog Mirror: Hunter Angler Gardner Cook; CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE AND YOU

March 9, 1919. Work and films.

Laborers were found working on the rail footage for the Boston Navy Pear on this Sunday, March 9, 1919.

Elsewhere, in a nation that at that time largely had Sunday off, a slat of newly released films were in the offering.

Carolyn of the Corners was a typical movie drama of the time.  Young Carolyn's parents were lost at sea (or were they?) and she must now go to Main to live with her bachelor uncle.

For those in a lighter mood, "Poor Boob" was a comedy involving a man who was a poor fool, with the name obviously making use of a term whose name has changed.  According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the use of the term in this fashion may predate, maybe, the other use and dates back to around 1909 and is of American origin, although the similar term "booby" dates back to a Spanish word and has a 16th Century origin.  The other term descends likewise from a similar term, according to that source, that goes back to Latin.

E. L. Mencken, the great American satirist, was to spread, but probably not invent, the use found here into the word booboisie, combining boob with bourgeoisie, to mean  the vapid class.  That use is still kicked around by the literatie, who usually attribute it to Mencken (even though he seems to have simply picked it up and spread it) and founds use as recently as 1980 when the Washington Post used it to slam the GOP members of Congress who were in control at that time.  A book about Mencken published in the early 2000s was entitled Scourge of the Boobosie.

I can recall the singular root of that word being used by my mother fairly frequently to describe a fool, but even in my early youth I recall wincing when hearing that as the other usage prevailed.  Having said that, a lawyer a little younger than me used the term to describe fools as late as the 1990s, so I guess it may still be around.  With the general gutter direction of common language and entertainment, I'd be surprised if younger people would make the fool association at all at this time.

For those looking for drama combined with improbable plots and war, When Men Desire involved a plot featuring Americans stranded in Germany, German officers asserting libertine license, pilot boyfriends, female German spies and fortuitous bomb dropping accuracy.

Blog Mirror: Hunter Angler Gardner Cook; CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE AND YOU

 An interesting article on Hank Snow's wild food blog; Hunter Angler Gardner Cook.

CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE AND YOU

By Hank Shaw 63 Comments

As Wyomingites sadly know, Chronic Wasting Disease is spreading in  Wyoming's deer herd.

What they are less likely to know is that the disease entered the state, at least according to a Game & Fish biologist I spoke to, through captive, i.e., farmed, deer that entered the state from Colorado.  Something that shouldn't have been allowed south of our border in the first place, but which was.

Blog Mirror: A Hundred Years Ago; 1919 Tayler Oven Thermometer Advertisement

An interesting (as always) item on the A Hundred Years Ago blog:

1919 Tayler Oven Thermometer Advertisement

I've seen one of these before, but I didn't realize it was for a wood fueled stove.  I should have realized that.

Some random observations

1.  My tower computer at home, which I use for nearly all of these posts has been ill.

I was just going to not post while it was being repaired (which it now is, I just need to pick it up), but as I've had my laptop at home this week, I've made a few entries on it. 

I've found that as good as the laptop is, it's really the pits to use as your solo computer.  I could remedy that in various ways, but as this is temporary, I'm not going to.

2.  Readership has really started to fluctuate here on a daily basis, with the general direction being down.  I predicted that earlier, even though I've kept up with a lot of century delayed real time posts. . That was predictable.  As the story of the immediate post World War One world starts to dominate, it looses its appeal for many.

Indeed, it's hard to follow.  Right now, for example, a century ago, Germany had quit fighting the Western Allies but was fighting the Poles to some degree and was also fighting the Red Army, the latter due to the requirements of the Allies who had not been able to fully field forces in the Baltic's.  So the war had never really ended for the Germans, even though they'd been required to partially demilitarize, and even as they were fighting among themselves with arms that had been bought by the Imperial German government for its army but which were now in use by everyone against each other.

It's hard to follow.

3.  A newspaper that keeps claiming its circulation hasn't gone down because of its electronic presence really ought to have an electronic version that really fully works.  Yes, it should.

I"ve been reading that electronic version this week as the weather has been bad which has kept the newspaper from being trucked up early from Cheyenne.  Late delivery has been pretty common, not occasional like the Tribune claimed it was going to be.

4.  One advantage of using the laptop is that I can type this stuff out from the kitchen island, which means that my view is of the sunrise.  Not the basement wall.  I like that.  Due to my short stature and the general view, the view is really of the skyline, not so much of the houses across the highway.  I like that as well. 

5.  When I'm really busy, I'm really irritable.

Perhaps that's why I found myself irritated by some American neo Gandhite spouting off about the novelty of a March "fast for peace", which is apparently a monthly thing.

I don't know that much about Gandhi, but if you are a member of the one of the Apostolic faiths, which have always fasted, the neo hip American mis-discovery and misunderstanding of Eastern religions is irritating.  I know something about the independence of India and its' worth noting that on this day in 1919 the British government in India extended the proclamation of the wartime declaration of emergency specifically because it was concerned about Indian independence movements.  Gandhi, fwiw, supported the British effort in World War One.  During World War Two there was an active independence movement in India which was ineffectual  but which allied with the Japanese and which formed an army under Japanese control to fight the British.  Independence following the war was an inevitability, already agreed upon prior to the war as a fact but not as to date, and would have occurred with or without Gandhi.  British withdrawal from India was one of several really good examples of the British extracting themselves from their collapsing empire in a really brilliant fashion in which it looks like they were pushed out, but they were basically running out.  Appearing to be pushed out looks better, frankly, from an immediate and historical prospective.

Since independence, Indian has not been a model of pacific behavior.  It's fought wars with its former territorial fellow, Pakistan, and its fought a border was with China.  During the early Cold War period it flirted with being a buddy with communist movements here and there which weren't in its own democratic long term interest. 

6.  The United States could go nearly 100% carbon neutral in less than a decade simply by mandating nuclear power plants be built and vehicles be carbon neutral, which would mean largely electric.

Nuclear power is completely safe, or at least as safe as other power generating methods, and is proven.  It'd work easily.  It won't be done as the greens have a non scientific fear of nuclear power.

Indeed, in real terms, the Western world's fear of nuclear power is the global power generating equivalent of being a no vaccine advocate.  It's non scientific and harmful  A person can't be a real green in any meaningful sense and oppose nuclear power.

March 7, 1919. Transportation in Archangel 7, 1919, Convalescing in Paris, Coming home to Wyoming.

The Russians had long used reindeer for transportation, including occasional military transportation, in Siberia.  The American Army in Siberia found itself doing the same thing for the same practical reasons.

The Hotel de Louvre, a first rate Parisian hotel, was taken over during the war by the Red Cross and used for a hospital.  It was still receiving that use in the immediate post war months.

And men of the 116th Ammunition Train, including Wyoming National Guardsmen who had been infantrymen when Federalized for the Great War, arrived in Cheyenne.  There were more Wyoming Guardsmen to come.

March 6, 1919. The 27th Infantry returns, the 116 Ammo Train is set to.

Officers of the 27th Infantry, a unit of the New York National Guard, on the day of their return to New York on the Leviathan.

And the men of the same unit.  Note the one smoking a cigarette, something that had only just become socially acceptable for men, due to World War One.

On this day in 1919, the 27th Infantry, one of New York's large National Guard contingent in the Great War, returned home.  

And the 116th Ammunition Train was set, or maybe not, to return home to Wyoming.

Three Career Vignettes: Changes, Defeats and Offenses. Pondering personal defeats in the modern world and what they mean. . . maybe.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive! 

Marmion, by Sir Walter Scott

1.  Victims of discrimination, or just of history?

If Discrimination is an offense to justice, and it is, when does reverse discrimination operate the same way or is the larger social aim worth the smaller afflictions it imposes, like, I suppose the draft?

There's a real reason I pose this question.

An eclectic friend of mine has long worked in a certain branch of his profession and has risen to the top of it.  He's well respected and frequently consulted by members of that profession.

But he's odd in it, in a way (maybe lots of ways) in that part of his success is frankly that he's never been particularly mercenary in a field that is highly mercenary and will admit that his position within a field that has many subdisciplines is largely accidental.

Now, throughout his time in his work, he's hoped to advance to a certain position within it that would involve a substantial reduction in his income and which requires an appointment to acquire.

He won't be getting it.

He won't be getting it even though others in his profession including those who have occupied the position he has aspired to have urged him again and again to aspire to it.

And the reason he won't, at least in part, is because he's male.

The position he seeks is one which has traditionally been occupied by men.  Indeed, until recently, by which we mean the last 40 years, very few women ever occupied it.  And because of that, as part of an official but not officially stated policy of those who administer the appointment, it's been skewed towards women for the last decade.  Again, while nothing official has been stated, unofficially those responsible have been very open that they sought to balance things out through female appointments.

Which means now that because of age and geography a well qualified male, urged to try for the position and regarded as eminently qualified to occupy it never will. Which in his mind, while he keeps it to himself save those who know him well, is a bitter defeat.  He feels the fool for trying for it.

So, the question.  Is operating on a larger social scale to balance out a perceived past inequity, which in this particular case is subject to a set of larger social influences, just if it works an injustice on individuals?

And if it is, when does that actually stop?  In 2019, most types of legal discrimination, save for this type, are illegal and there's no practical end to the social balancing a person might try to impose on an imbalanced world.

Victims of discrimination, or just of history?*

2.  A victim of legitimate criteria or of the tyranny of certification?

Another eclectic friend of mine just tried to make a late career, career change.  And by career change, I mean a radical one.

Officialdom stopped it in the form of certification.

This individual had sought this position decades earlier, but as he was in a position of having to support a young family at the time, when it was finally offered to him, he couldn't take it.  Economics dictated his choice.

But now with his family grown he reconsidered.  He'd never lost the desire to do the other job and after a long and successful career in something else, he decided to reapply.

In the interim, the rules had changed and now the position he was offered so long ago, which hasn't changed in its nature at all, requires a degree he doesn't have, and as he can't really just cease working, he can't get it.  And not only can he not get it, if he was to attempt to, at this point, the natural advance of age would put him in a category that, no matter what, he wouldn't be hired as people do discriminate on the basis of age, no matter what they say.  Indeed, this individual is so cognizant of that, that he questioned if he'd get the open position in the first place and credited discrimination on the basis of age to be legitimate in regard to that question, a view that few would hold.

So he's stuck too.

A victim of legitimate criteria or of the tyranny of certification?

3  Lost vocations?

When I knew her she was a Lutheran, but she'd been born into a Methodist family and baptized by a Methodist pastor as an infant and raised in that faith.

She'd converted to become a Lutheran due to the influence of a college friend, and in some ways that characterized her personality.  Highly intelligent, but very insecure, and adoptive of her friends influences.  Her faith was no doubt sincere in depth, but in expression a person would have later cause to wonder.

She became a lawyer, and was undoubtedly a genius, but a genius with a highly awkward personality that is difficult to describe.  Perhaps for that reason, she was always relegated to small time law, sometimes as part of an agency, and sometimes on her own.

After law school she married and became a Catholic to do so.  The marriage did not last long.  At some point thereafter she was expressing the Episcopal faith.  A conservative in earlier years when her friends were conservatives, now she was a feminist liberal, with feminist liberal friends.  She became a Deacon in the Episcopal church and is now set to be ordained a priest.

Lost vocations?**

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*I actually know at least three people who have experienced this, although I know only one well, and one somewhat well.  Oddly, maybe, in two of the instances the choosing entity was completely forthright about how it made its choice, after it made it.

**I can think of at least four lawyers I know who became clerics of one kind or another, one a Catholic priest, one a protestant pastor, one a Jewish rabbit, and this last instance.  At early common law, fwiw, the clergy and the law were both "learned professions", which is where the term "professional" comes from.

March 5, 1919. Frightening and accurate predictions, Overreactions,

From the British newspaper, The Daily Mirror, on this day in 1919.  Scary, eh?

From the Cumberland Sentinel, a Tennessee newspaper:

The Sentinel reprinted an article from the New York Telegram about Alexander P. Watson, a Dickinson Law School graduate, being arrested for carrying a concealed gun he took as a souvenir from a German officer during World War I. A native of Knoxville, Tennessee, Watson was in Europe doing relief work for the YMCA when he was shot in the arm by the officer who was pretending to be wounded. Within 48 hours of returning stateside, Watson was taken into custody after he took the gun to a YMCA headquarters in New York City to put on display as a war souvenir.

We wrote earlier about the history of carrying concealed weapons in the United States, which is misunderstood, but the event relayed above is extraordinary and shows how early in the country's history New York state had taken a very restrictive view on something that was fairly unregulated elsewhere.  Indeed, at this point in history we'd note that the ownership of handguns in the United Kingdom was unregulated.

I'm not exactly sure what Watson's actual violation was, perhaps simply carrying the weapon concealed.  Hopefully he didn't suffer any long term consequences and was able to return to practicing law in Tennessee.  The souvenir handgun was likely a P08, although not necessarily so.

Artillery model, i.e., the long barreled model, of the P08.  Hope these guys didn't pack this around in New York City later.