May 8, 1919: Wide Photographs and Transatlantic flights.

Camp Dodge, Iowa, was a photographic subject.

The U.S. Navy started its transatlantic stage flight, with the first stage being Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the NC-3 used for the effort then spent a couple of days.

3.6 %. The lowest U.S. Unemployment Rate since 1969.

That rate is not only stunningly low, it's disturbingly low.

Traditionally economist have regarded 7% as "full employment".  If we keep in mind that at any one time there's a certain percentage of the available workforce that's idled by choice, that makes sense. That's not throwing stones at anyone, its just that some folks choose not to work. That's different from being unemployed.

Now, some will tell you that some of those people have given up looking for work, but anyway you look at it, the current unemployment rate is bizarrely low.

3.6% is so low, it's actually problematic, or it could be.

Usually when unemployment reaches this sort of unemployment rate, bad things begin to happen.  For one thing, it's usually a sign of a "super heated" economy, and very soon prices and wages begin to rise and inflation sets in. 

Indeed, that is what happened the last time the rate was this low. That was in 1969 and the reason it was that low is that the Vietnam War was at its height.  We had 500,000 men in Vietnam, a huge military deployment elsewhere around the globe, and a massive amount of military and social expenditure going on. At first, the government actually welcomed inflation, as it reduced the value of the loans it had to pay back to afford all of that, but by the early 1970s it was totally out of control.  It took Ronald Reagan coming into office and intentionally throwing the country into a severe recession to fix the economy, and we've lived with that fixed economy since then.

This could wreck it.

Indeed, if we look at other historical low unemployment rates its disturbing.  3.2% was the unemployment rate in 1929. . . and we know what happened to that super heated economy.  During World War Two the unemployment rate was below 2%, but that was due to our being in the largest war of the 20th Century and the government was forced to put in wage controls to handle the resulting labor shortage.  It wasn't even possible to leave some critical defense work if you occupied such a job.  The Korean War dropped the unemployment rate down that low once again.

The oddity now is that there's  no wars going on. . . or at least nothing like the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and so far inflation hasn't really gotten ramped up.  Indeed, while its debated, some claim that the American middle class remains in wage stagnation, although there's pretty good evidence that's not true.  So, so far, so good.

But also, this can't keep going in this direction. 

Assuming that it's not a statistical glitch, and that it doesn't straighten itself out on its own rapidly, this will be inflationary at some point absent external forces.

Of course, those external forces may be at work right now.  It could be automation that's keeping inflation from getting rolling. As labor shortages develop, some of those shortages might be getting filled by machines, which might in turn keep the inflationary drive of wage hikes from occurring.  That would be good in the short term but when this trend reverses, and it will, it won't be. The robots will keep their jobs. . . or just be unplugged until they're needed again.

An external force that would seem to be available would be job exportation, always a hot topic. That may still be going on as well, in the form of globalization.  If it is, what's surprising here is that there' hasn't been an effort to translate that into a similar economic regime south of the Rio Grande.

Or maybe it is.  Mexico's unemployment rate right now is 3.2%, even lower than the American one.  That's up from a nearly incredible 2.9% the prior year.  The Canadian unemployment rate, in comparison, is a more normal but still really good 5.8%.  Anyhow, the combined Mexican and American rates go a long ways towards explaining why Central Americans are hitting the road and going north.  Would that the Central American governments were more stable, perhaps this would translate into a rise for them as well.

Interesting economic times at any rate.

Particularly as current American politics have gotten so odd that a really low unemployment rate doesn't seem to translate into the normal political conversation.  From national politics, you'd think we were in a fairly severe recession, but we're not.

Mid Week At Work: "Sewing foot of boot onto sole of Goodyear welt system. Cowboy boot shop, Alpine, Texas"

May 7, 1919. War and Peace

On this day,, at 3:00 p.m., the German delegation to the Paris Peace Conference received the text of the treat for the first time.

For that matter, a lot of the world was seeing it for the first time, and the treaty's terms proved to be surprising even in Allied countries.

After a speech by Clemenceau and one by the chief of the German delegation, which acknowledged that the text was received and not yet reviewed, the Conference adjourned for the day.

In Paris, British, American and French delegates executed the Treaty of Guaranty, which guaranteed the French border against German aggression.  Of course, the delegates executing it did not bind nations such as the United States which required legislative ratification for a treaty to take effect. The U.S. Senate did not ratify the treaty.

The treaty had been created to address the concerns of the French over the possibility of renewed German aggression.  In exchange for the guaranty of the French border, the French relented on wanting to redraw the French border all the way to the Rhine.

It's doubtful that the Germans would have willingly agreed to the loss of the Rhineland, and frankly the proposal, in my view, may have caused the war to resume.  The Allies, given Germany's condition, could likely have won it in rapid fashion, but then they would have found themselves occupying a collapsed, unhappy, German state.  The French demands, while understandable, were unrealistic.

Also unrealistic was Wilson's thought that the United States Senate, in 1919, would have ratified a treaty committing the United States to the defense of France.  1945 was one thing, 1919, quite another.

Communications staff at the American Red Cross Home Service Station, Brest, France.

An uprising in the southern Ukraine tossed the Reds out in that region. . . only temporarily, of course.

When You Can’t Any Longer, Go Drink Some Tea

Spiritual Father's Advice: “When You Can’t Any Longer, Go Drink Some Tea"

Fr. Andrew Lemeshonok

Random Geopolitical Observations.

1.  When a major power suggest to opposition forces in another country that they ought to engage in an uprising, it does them a disservice unless they're going to actually support the uprising.

This was the lesson of the Hungarian Revolution of 1958, and it's the lesson of Venezuela right now.

Prior to the 58 Hungarian uprising, we suggested that if an Eastern Bloc nation tried to throw off the Soviet shackles, we'd be there.

We weren't.

And we just suggested to the opposition in Venezuela that it ought to overthrow the strongman in power.

They tried, and we didn't do anything.

Maybe we should have done anything in Venezuela, and no doubt we couldn't do anything in Hungary. That's not the point.

The point is, that by acting like we'd show up, we made the opposition show up, and that does them no favors if they can't prevail.

2.  Not everything is the economy.

Over the weekend North Korea launched missiles into the sea east of the country.  This raises serious concerns over North Korea's willingness to bargain with us to denuclearize the peninsula.  President Trump, however, issued a statement that North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, will come to the table as he understands the "great economic potential" that the country has that could be developed if they'd treat with us.

What makes us think that?

Societies that have fairly open economies or develop them think that way, but lots of countries don't. And no country full thinks that way.  Kim Jong Un surely knows that the most effective way of modernizing his country's economy would be to reunite the North with the South in a democratic government, which would effectively be opening the border and asking to come into the Republic of Korea, much like the DDR did with the BDR (East and West Germany) when communism collapsed there.

But it's not like Eric Honaker decided that was a nifty idea.

That will probably occur at some point, but will Kim Jong Un take North Korea there?  It seems unlikely.

3.  It's good to finish up on existing wars before getting into others.

Right now the U.S. Navy is demonstrating in the Indian Ocean in a move directed at Iran.

I'll be frank that I don't completely follow our current policy on Iran, but get it that the country isn't our friend and it sponsors groups we really don't like.

But we still have troops in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.  Now, all of those struggles do involve Iran in one way or another, and maybe that plays into this.  But at a time at which it seems like we'd like out of all of those places, is it really well thought out to be looking like we're willing to take on Iran?  I'm sure we could, but do we really want to do that?

Monday at the bar: Blog Mirror' Should You Go To Law School

I ran across this video series by accident the other day.

I'll be frank that I don't care for most series of this type, most of which generally fall, in my view, pretty far off the mark. But this is a good one.

Advertising in the Great War: Supporting “Meatless” and “Wheatless” Days

Posted on December 29, 2017 by SCblogger

One hundred years ago, as December 1917 ebbed into January 1918 the United States had  officially been in the Great War since April 6, 1917.

May 6, 1919: Getting the news, and unhappy with the news.

Muriel Wright, Librarian of the American Library Association, delivers magazine to sea plane pilot who will take them to Marines, May 6, 1919.

Marines were getting magazines a new way on this May 6, 1919.

In Wyoming, part of that news was that Governor Carey wasn't very happy about the 148th Field Artillery staying in Europe on occupation duty.

May 5, 1919. Passings, Oil Towns, Parties

L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wizard of Oz.

L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wizard of Oz, suffered a stroke on this day in 1919.  His last words were "Now I can cross the Shifting Sands."  He would pass away on May 6.

Texas oil towns, or at least oil fields, were getting a lot of attention on this Monday, May 5.

And the marine rail yard at the Charleston Navy Yard was photographed as well.

As was Margaret Wilson, the daughter of President Woodrow Wilson.  It looks like she borrowed the trench coat of some Colonel for this photographs.

Margaret shared her father's middle name, "Woodrow" (his first name was Thomas).  She'd was born in Gainesville Georgia even though her parents were living in the North at the time but her mother did not want her born amongst Yankees due to the strong Southern identification both parents had.  She served as the White House social hostess for a time after her mother's death, until her father remarried.

She never married herself and indeed was 39 and 40 years of age when she was White House social hostess, an old age for a woman to be unmarried at the time.  In 1938 she traveled to India and became a devotee of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, an Indian spiritual community, where she remained for the rest of her life.

The Italians decided to return to Paris and captured the headlines as a result on this day.

Also on the front page, a party for returned veterans was being planned in Casper.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Unidentified Church, North Casper Wyoming.

Churches of the West: Unidentified Church, North Casper Wyoming.:

Unidentified Church, North Casper Wyoming.

This is the location of a former church in North Casper, Wyoming.  Now its the site of Food For Thought, a charitable organization in Casper.  I unfortunatley do not know what denomination built hte church, although the letters "W M" are on the door, indicating that perhaps it was once a Wesleyan Methodist church.

The church is near a park dedicated to James Reeb, a minister who lost his live in the South during the Civil Rights era, but I do not know of a connection, off hand, between him and this church.

Best Post of the Week of April 28, 2019

The best post of the week of April 28, 2019.

Blog Mirror. Daily Tasks of the Priest and Parochial Solipsism

The Brady Bunch is not The Lancet

A New Japanese Emperor

A Hundred Years Ago: Hundred-Year-Old Packed Lunch Suggestions. Pondering Lunch.

The Feast Day of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

The Feast Day of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

Today, May 4, is the liturgical Feast Day of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

The forty martyrs are the forty English Catholics who refused to ascent to the King Henry VIII's severance of the church in England from Rome and his declaration that he was the head of the Church in his domains.  That act in 1534 was followed by the dissolution of the monasteries and the suppression of those faithful who refused to go along with Henry's assertions that he held the rights to the mission of the Church in England and Wales.

I'm posting this here today due to their example, but perhaps not in the way that might seem to be immediately obvious.  Prior to King Henry VIII England was an intensely Catholic country.  Had Henry VIII not been king, there's every reason to believe that this would have continued on to the modern age.  Henry's bedroom troubles sent him in another direction that his immense powers of rationalization, combined with his immense power, allowed him to do, and the long term results were monumental.  Indeed, his rebellion against the Church can potentially be regarded as the act that assured the success of the Protestant Reformation in general and certainly the act that lead to its success on Great Britain. That revolution would also ultimately, and indeed even rapidly, lead to the rise of individualism and all that entails, and to relativism as its natural byproduct, which ironically has lead to a decline of religious observance in the west which is very notably marked in the decline of the Anglican Communion in the northern hemisphere.

All of that is an historical observance, of course, but the reason we note this is that the history of the English Reformation makes it extremely obvious that at the parish level, the population remained Catholic and would actually rise up against the Reformation in the Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549.  But that act was extraordinary.  Most people simply went along, objecting in their minds, but not so much in their acts.

Cardinal John Fisher, who paid for his loyalty to the Church with his life.

Indeed, of the Catholic Bishops who were in office at the time, only Cardinal John Fisher refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of Henry's acts even though its almost certain that the majority of them did not agree with Henry personally.  Fisher paid for this with his life almost immediately, being executed in 1535, as did jurist Thomas Moore.

St. Thomas Moore, who likewise lost his life due to his adherence to his beliefs in 1535.

A person should note that a person being killed for being associated with a set of beliefs is not as uncommon as we might wish for it to be by any measure.  Indeed, members of the Church of England would be quick to point out that Bishops Ridley and Latimer, and Archbishop Cranmer, all of whom had been Catholic clerics prior to 1534, lost their lives during the short reign of Queen Mary.  Having said that, their executions had a strongly political nature and its hard to see how they would have not occurred in any event.  Indeed, Cranmer recanted at least twice prior to his execution, and only recanted his prior recanting at the moment of his execution.  In other words, no matter what a person may feel about them, Ridley's, Latimer's and Cranmer's fates were fixed prior to their being any point to whether they held fast to their beliefs or not.

Lots of people took the view of the English peasants, which was one in which they held "the Old Religion" close to their hearts and indeed did not really even recognize that the dispute going on in London directly impacted them, although it clearly disturbed them.  At the Parish Priest level its well known that many Priests just flat out ignored the Bishops and continued to view themselves as fully Catholic in every respect.  And indeed, the first years of the English Reformation caused a schism, not a real severance as it soon would.  That day arrived in the 1540s and resulted in full rebellion, as noted.

But our point in all of this is this.  Everyone always imagines themselves holding fast to their beliefs when pressure comes.  But most people, at all times, everywhere, just go along with whatever is going on.  Most of the English Bishops in 1534 probably felt that Henry was really out on a limb, to say the least (Latimer may not have as he was on record prior to 1534 with views that would have loosely supported Henry's position), but they went along anyway.  Most of Henry's Catholic advisers no doubt did feel that he was all wet, but they wanted to keep their offices, so only the rare person like St. Thomas Moore went to the ax.  Some likely came round to Henry's views, but the question then is whether the situation revealed what they then regarded to be the truth, or that they modified their definition of the truth to fit the situation.

Many well off English Catholics did in fact refuse to ascent and indeed Catholic noble families remained all the way until the rights of the Church were ultimate restored two centuries later.  Some notable dissenters, once the order was imposed that all had to attend the services of the Established Church went, but sat in the back, kept their hats on, and refused to stand or kneel at the appropriate times, a really bold move frankly in a country in which being a Catholic could cost you your life.  But most people just blinded themselves to the dispute in and in a generation or two their descendants no longer recalled or even know that their grandparents hadn't agreed with what occurred.

The other day I was at an event at which a speaker stated an opinion several times that's radically different from what the majority of Americans believed even a short time ago.  Most people wouldn't have gotten all up in arms about it at the time, but they wouldn't have accorded it as being their opinion in an endorsed fashion either.  Probably a very high percentage of Americans still do not, and maybe a majority, if in a place where no criticism could be personally directed at them, do  not currently.  But because of the shifting wind, its no longer the case that people will debate the topic outside of their own immediate circles so the speaker obtained the support of applause, with only a few souls taking the old "hat on in church" approach demonstrating their view by declining the applause.

That's the way people work in general.  When big shifts come, and we look back at the historical record and imagine ourselves standing up and saying "No", "Nein", "Nyet" or whatever, we're largely fooling ourselves.  Most just think those things, like the protagonist in Brecht's Maßnahmen gegen die Gewalt and only get around to "No!" when its safe, if ever.


And that's why the Feast Day of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales is worth noting and honoring for everyone.  A few, albeit very few, actually will say No.

May 4, 1919 Drama in China, and at the movies.

On this day in 1919 protests lead by Chinese students erupted over the anemic response of the Chinese government to provisions in the Versailles Treaty which gave German colonies in China to Japan.

The build up to this had been going on for years, as the Japanese government, following the Meiji Restoration, had become increasingly aggressive on the Asian mainland.  Prior to that, after experimenting with an attempted invasion of Korea in 1592-93, and again in 1597, Japan had retreated into isolationism before the encounter with American Admiral Perry.

The Meiji regime had defeated the Chinese to the world's surprise in the First Sino Japanese War, which resulted in Korea being freed from  Chinese control but not to the immediate benefit of Japan, which none the less obtained world power status as a result of the war. The disappointing territorial result, which had benefited Imperial Russia directly, soon resulted in the Russo Japanese War, which resulted in Japan having a foothold on the mainland itself and Korea had been converted into a Japanese colony.  World War One had given the Japanese an excuse to expand its colonial presence in Asia and the Pacific and during the war it had made demands upon China which caused huge Chinese resentment.  The Chinese government had resisted those demands but took a position of accord with Japan that expressed itself in a willingness to acquiesce to post war Japanese demands at the Paris Peace Conference. The Chinese people, however, were not so willing to endure such demands.

The protests are widely regarded by the Chinese Communist party as the birth of their party, and not without reason.   Many of the adherents of the May 4 Movement did become communists and many of the opponents of Chinese communism also opposed the May 4th Movement on the basis that they felt it turned its back on Chinese values and culture.

Of course, it being a Sunday, dramatic movie releases were in the offering.

It's not actually the food or cooking depicted. . . .

FILSON FOOD: CAST IRON BREAKFAST SCRAMBLE

It's the setting.

Marketing genius, really.

So on a morning when I went up and microwaved a breakfast burrito I bought from the youth group last Sunday, which is 100% more breakfast than I usually eat, it's a bit deflating to see some guy dressed in checked wool cooking on a wood burning stove.

The clan badge of the Clan MacGillivray

I don't know the story behind this, but if I had a clan, I'd want it to have a badge this cool.

May 3, 1919. New wars and loans for concluded ones.

The Country Gentleman ran a second Rockwell illustration on a youthful fishing trip.  The first one had run the prior Saturday.

The Saturday Evening Post, which people tend to associate with Rockwell now, ran a spring themed illustration.

In Central Asia, the Afghan army crossed the Indian Frontier, over the Khyber Pass into what is now Pakistan, and attacked the town of Bagh, starting the Third Afghan War.

Afghan King Amanullah Khan.

Afghanistan was surprisingly assertive in those days. . . and oddly more modern than it is now.

In the U.S., the Victory Loan campaign continued on.  This one was struggling in comparison with prior efforts, now that the war was over.

Victory Loan drive scene in Seattle.

A Hundred Years Ago: Hundred-Year-Old Packed Lunch Suggestions. Pondering Lunch.

Lunch:

Hundred-Year-Old Packed Lunch Suggestions

And big lunches too.

Child workers on their lunch break, December 1908.  None of these girls look like they every got enough to eat.

Lunch is an odd meal in the U.S.  Most of us eat our largest meal in the evenings.  I'm not sure when that became the norm, but its the norm for almost everyone I know.  The only exceptions are some working rural families that routinely have large noon meals and small evening ones.  In town, I don't currently know of any exceptions.

The suggested packed lunches from 1919 are so big that they'd frankly do me in for the rest of the day.  Anymore, as I normally skip lunch, and frequently breakfast as well, just about any lunch tends to do that.  But these suggestions were directed at the worker of 1919, who still normally worked a pretty manually intensive job and who almost certainly walked a fair distance, normally, to get to work.

The Harvest Lunch.  1881.

Indeed, I've often thought about that in the context of the city in which I live.  I can see in photos of the town of this era cars were becoming a really big thing, and the downtown was normally packed during the daylight hours with them.  But I'll bet that most men still walked to work at that time.  Indeed, I know that driving to work was sufficiently uncommon as late as the 1940s such that the town, which was less than 1/3d its current size, had a bus service. 

New York Times financial desk worker eating lunch, 1944.

Anyhow, as I usually don't eat lunch, lunch habits of folks are something I'm curiously aware of, as eating lunch is the norm, at least among the people I know and interact with daily. 

I was already in the habit of skipping lunches when I was in my 20s, and when I first went to work both my father and a co worker warned me not to work through lunch but to take a break.  That was solid advice.  A break in the middle of the day is indeed a good thing.  My father always ate at a cafe downtown at noon with his friends every work day.  I sometimes started eating downtown but more often than not went home and ate lunch.  I was very thin at the time, but the sedentary nature of my day job combined eating a lot more than I was accustomed to cured that over time.  I'm not fat now, but I'm not anywhere thin as I once was.  As time went on and work became heavier, I started omitting lunches again and now I very rarely eat them.

Women swing shift workers eating lunch at their work stations.

This isn't the case for other people, and people's lunch habits are really varied.  Most people I know eat a fairly light lunch every day.  Some of those lunches feature things I'd never eat, like sardines.  One fellow I know who is on one of the currently faddish diets and who is concerned about his weight, for good reason, eats an absolutely giant lunch every day, usually made up of leftovers from the prior nights dinner, an eating habit that probably has more to do with his problem than anything else.  I'm sometimes tempted to tell him to drop the diet and skip the lunches, but that would likely be regarded as rude so I haven't.

Mexican revolutionaries pause for a hot lunch, 1911.

Skipping lunch, I find, really bothers some people intensely.  That is, not their skipping it, but other people skipping it.  They don't like that you do it and it worries them.  I'm routinely warned by a very thin coworker that I need to eat lunch. She does, every day, and is much thinner than I am, who does not.  I'm sure that she in fact really does need to eat lunch every day.

Member of Congress eating lunch 1937.  Note the white suit.

Which gets to metabolisms, I guess.  Some folks seemingly have high metabolisms and others low.  In prior eras, those with law metabolisms were probably the people who survived famines.  Folks who can eat three giant meals a day and not gain weight, and there are people like that, probably died.

I'm somewhere in between, I suspect.  If I skip breakfast and lunch and don't over compensate at dinner, I'll loose weight.  As I never eat a big breakfast anyhow, and usually skip lunch, I won't loose it rapidly, but I'll loose it some.  If I start eating Giganto Breakfast Burritos, or whatever, everyday, I'll gain it pretty quickly.

None of which is dietary advice, I'll note.  I'm not saying that should engaged in what some call Intermittent Fasting, which is basically what this is, accidentally.  For one thing, it could really mess up your blood chemistry quickly.  If you need to loose weight, see a doctor before you do anything.

But I will note that I think nearly every diet fad is just that, and by that I'd include the current popular Keto Diet.  It strikes me as baloney.

Well, anyhow, heavy workers expending a lot of calories.  That was the work of a hundred years ago and back.  They needed a big lunch.

May 2, 1919. At Ease, In Distress, Distressing news in Central America, and in the United States

The day after the Red May Day, things were more normal, and not.

American officers posed for a portrait in Germany:

Commanding officer staff, 42nd Division.  Maj. Gen. C. A. F. Flagler, Lt. Col. Stanley M. Rambaugh. Col William N. Hughes, Jr., Cpt. James M. Boyd, Maj. E. H. Bertram, Maj. Robert J. Gill and Lt. H. W. Fletcher.  New York Tribune, May 2, 1919. Taken at headquarters at Ahrweiler.

Elsewhere in Germany, or more particularly in Munich, the Freikorps advanced riding with Death's Head, a symbol that dated back to German military antiquity, but which became increasingly associated with Germany's right wing.

The Freikorps had, of course, crushed the nascent Bavarian Soviet, a Communist state that exhibited typical Communist brutality in going down in defeat.  In Russia, however, the Whites were exhibiting some problematic behavior of their own.

The families of Bolshevik prisoners outside of the prison at Ekaterinburg with food for their relatives. North Platte Semi Weekly Tribune, May 2, 1919.

While that was going on, the United States was supporting the Whites against the Reds, or not, or was, or was not.  We really couldn't make up our minds.

J. K. Caldwell looking studious and calm as Russia disintegrated.  He was the American counsel in Vladivostok.  May 2, 1919.

Meanwhile, in Costa Rica, today a vacation haven, Gen. Manuel Choa, late of Pancho Villas' forces, and former Catholic Priest, the Belgian educated Jorge Volio Jimenez, stumbled into rebellion against the country's leadership.

The Cheyenne State Leader couldn't help but note the events of May 1.

The reference to Lenin in Denver was surprising, but then Denver has always had some oddities. At the start of the Civil War a party tried to declare Denver for the Confederacy.

The Laramie Boomerang had given up on peace, it seemed.  It would prove correct in that view.

The Wyoming State Tribune was more optimistic.

A New Japanese Emperor

Japanese Imperial Standard.

While Japan no longer has an empire, it does have an emperor (an odd thought), and as of today, it has a new one.*  Emperor Naruhito.

It has a new Empress as well, Empress Masako, who was a career Japanese diplomat prior to marrying Naruhito.  For reasons that aren't clear to me, Empresses don't go through the formal investiture ceremony in Japan.  That may have something to do with the traditional role of the Emperor as a Shinto Priest.

Naruhito, age 59, is the first Japanese Emperor to take office since World War Two who was not alive during World War Two.  Having said that, there's only been three Japanese Emperors since World War Two, if we include Hirohito, who was of course Emperor during World War Two and up until 1989.  After Hirohito came his son Akihito, who just resigned, making Naruhito the first Emperor in 200 years to take office following a resignation of his predecessor.  Akihito was born in 1933 and was therefore 12 years old when World War Two ended.

That's significant as well in that Akihito was born into a Japanese royal family whose heirs had a technical claim to an expectation to be accorded an official deity status, although that is really fairly grossly exaggerated in the West.  The Japanese royal family dates back to vast antiquity and its origins are so ancient that they frankly aren't very well known.  The first generally recognized emperor is Jinmu, who reigned starting in 660 BC, which is a very long time ago.  Not surprisingly, with a family tree that ancient, the claim to the title of Emperor isn't completely unchallenged and there have been competing lines over time.  Having said that, the fact that the Japanese imperial family tree can be traced back that far is really impressive.

Jinmu with a long bow, as depicted in the 19th Century.

The role of the Emperor has been a hard one for westerners to figure out.  At various points in Japanese history the Japanese crown had nearly no power at all.  In the history of modern Japan, it really acquired power with Emperor Meiji, who reigned from 1867 until 1912 and who, with the aid of his supporters, both modernized Japan and restored the power of the Imperial crown.  Following the Meiji Restoration the crown had power of some sort, but it's always been difficult to discern.  During the 1920s that power may or may not have waned following what amounted to a sort of right wing military coup following an attempted young officers left wing military coup.  Everyone acting in both coups claimed to be acting with the interest of the Emperor at heart.

The pivotal modern Japanese Emperor Meiji.

From the 1920s until the end of World War Two a confusing era resulted in which various historians claim that Hirohito had more or less power.  He clearly had a fair degree, no matter which view a person might take.  That came to an official end in 1945 when the Imperial crown was really saved from termination by the Allies, who found it useful to preserve it.  Hirohito retained his position as Emperor for a very long time after that, but with no real official power, although as late as a couple of decades later it was discovered that high ranking officers of the Japanese Defense Force still consulted with him on matters, resulting in a scandal.

Douglas MacArthur and Emperor Hirohito in 1945.

Hirohito, as noted, had been required to renounce claims to a divine status following World War Two but the claim was rather vague in the first place.  A more significant role was that of Shinto Priest, which the emperor always was.  The Imperial heads of state always receive the treasures of the Japanese crown, which date back centuries and into antiquity, that have Shinto significance, but I don't know if the Emperor remains a Shinto Priest as they once did.**  At any rate, the strong claims, to the extent they existed, of divinity were boosted by the Japanese military in the 20s through the 40s and post war surveys by the Japanese government found that the Japanese people had never actually believed the Emperor had divine status anyhow.  His renouncement of the claims, therefore, had no real impact on their views.

In any event, for the first time in modern history a Japanese Emperor has ascended to the thrown who was 1) born after Japan was no longer an Empire; and 2) was born after the crown had disclaimed any divinity.  A new era of some sort, in an era when monarchy remains, but its hard to tell why.

________________________________________________________________________________

*Having said that, it's hard to figure out exactly why the Japanese Empire is historically regarded as such prior to the 20th Century, unless you take the view that the consolidation of power in the crown in the Japanese islands themselves constitutes an empire.

As there is some ethnic diversity in the overall island holdings, that's not an illegitimate view.  Hokkaido was in fact the home of an ethnically separate people.  The Japanese started colonizing the island in the 1330s.  Okinawa is also the home of an ethnically separate people.  It didn't become part of the Japanese Empire until 1879.

**Like a lot of things surrounding Japan, the Japanese Imperial Regalia are mysterious.  They consists of a named sword, a named mirror, and a jewel. They are not as impressive, reportedly, in appearance as a person might suppose.

The sword is known to have existed as far back as the 680s, but it's older than that.  The mirror is also ancient and may or may not have been destroyed and replaced in a fire in 1040.  The jewel is likely prehistoric.

These items are not revealed to the general public and its sometimes speculated that they've been lost or destroyed.  Japan, however, is remarkable in its ability of preservation of artifacts so the better bet, in my view, is that they're all original.  They're all absolutely ancient as well.

May 1, 1919. A Red May Day

May 1, May Day, has long been associated with the far left as its the International Workers Holiday.  In 1919, with Communism on the rise everywhere, May 1 was notably Red everywhere.

The evening Casper newspaper  noting the riots in Cleveland as well as the anarchist bombing campaign.  This paper also discussed the acquisition of property with a future eye towards social services.  Costa Rica and Mexico were trying to get into the League of Nations, the paper also noted, but weren't admitted due to political instability.

In the United States, the Communist Party USA was founded, rapidly gaining membership (while always remaining a minor political party) in the wake of the decline of the Socialist Party in the United States, which had come under the eyes of the law for its opposition to World War One. 

The CPUSA would have its glory years, if they could be called that, in the 1920s and the 1930s, during which it not only was a serious, if minor, political party, but during which it was also an organ for espionage for the Soviet Union.  It never had more than 80,000 members at its peak.  It's role as an arm of the efforts of the NKVD were already known, if not fully appreciated, by some who tried to bring it to the government's attention by the 1930s, and indeed a precursor to what later became known as the McCarthy Hearings actually occurred in the late 1930s and focused on some of the same people who would be examined later, but it was not until the end of World War Two when the full horrors of Communism in Russia were revealed that the CPUSA really started to decline to the trivial, where it remains today.

In Cleveland riots occurred on this day, springing from a Socialist march that was supported by Communist and Anarchist.  The imprisonment of Eugene V. Debs was the spark that ignited that flame.  There were about two deaths as the result of the riot, and about forty injuries.

In Winnepeg construction workers went on strike.  It would soon expanded to be a general strike.

In Bavaria, German forces, supported by Freikorps, breached the Communist defenses in Munich bringing the Bavarian Soviet Republic to an end.

Cheyenne was having an air show on this day in 1919.

In the U.S. the news was also still breaking about the anarchist bombing campaign that had been started but detected.  The campaign would revive later.  It wasn't connected with any other radical group, although it likely had the appearance of that to the general public at the time.

All of this would contribute to making the summer of 1919 the "Red Summer", as it was termed by James Weldon Johnson.  It would also fuel an ongoing "Red Scare" that had commenced during World War One.  With the summer beginning the way that it was, that the scare would occur was pretty predictable.  And in fact, the far left of 1919 was not only radical, but seeing a fair amount of global success.  It's chances of success in the United States were frankly slim and always would be, but the combination of the news produced a predictable reaction.

Blog Mirror: No, robots are not coming for your jobs

No, robots are not coming for your jobs

So says Robert J. Samuelson.

I hope he's right.  Artificial Intelligence and electronic automation are something I do worry about.  I'm glad that I'm not young in an era in which I'll have to face it really.

Indeed, frankly, I think technologically we're over the point where our technology is helping us and its clearly hurting.  Tragically, people can't go back as they can't imagine doing so. But things are not improving in this area, in  my view.

Mid Week At Work: The good the bad and the ugly - Work for a living

Ten Years?

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet?: The Consolidated Royalty Building, where I work, back when it was new. What the heck is this blog about? The intent of this blog i...

Maybe even a little longer, as this blog was at first a highly inactive blog while I had a couple of others.  Indeed, I've wiped out versions of this blog at least twice, or rather other blogs that represent what this one became.

But it's likely ten, as this one was formed very early on, and indeed may have been the first one formed. At that time, as noted above, it was to aid in the writing of a novel.  The novel is still unfinished, and risks never being finished, even though I still intend to.  In the meantime, due to another one of my blogs, I did write and complete a book on Wyoming's history.

This month I'll also enter my 29th year of practicing law, and in fact my association with where I work goes back thirty years in the form of my first legal job, which morphed into my permanent legal job about a year later. In the interval my second legal job, the only other one I've ever had, in the minor form of being employed to write a paper with a professor that was published in a law journal, occurred. So in that sense, this month commences my 30th year in the profession I currently occupy, or I should say one of the two professions I currently occupy. It is of course the profession that I shall occupy until retirement, should I live so long, assuming I retire, which few lawyers that I know do.  Prior dreams of entering the judiciary are now slaves to the passage of time, where they'll accordingly remain dreams unfulfilled.  A path not taken not because of a choice not to do so, but because fate burned the bridge before I could cross it, that in fact being the fate of the majority of people who contemplate that career, and therefore being a fate that cannot be lamented.

The lack of progress on the book can probably be lamented, however, at least by me.  It may have to wait until the aforementioned retirement.  At least I'm not making much progress on it, other than in my mind, where I write almost everything that I write long before I commit it to the visible form.  So perhaps in that sense, there is progress.

Certainly this blog has made it much improved.  I know a lot more about the era its set in than I did before. And it's been fascinating indeed.

I've enjoyed this blog.  I hope have as well, and are continuing to.