"Japan has a low violence rate and we should copy their example. . . "

Japanese family, 1950s.

I hear that argument a lot.  The basic gist is that if we copied the Japanese in regard to gun control, we'd achieve the same results.

Which leads to this, which I've touched on before briefly.  But I'm touching on it again here, as I happened to look at this for another reason.  But that made it obvious, really. 

You can't look at a country's laws and their results without considering a country's culture.

Japan does indeed have a low murder rate in general.  It has a high suicide rate, however, which is another topic.

Setting aside self murder, which we really ought not to do as it figures into any realistic analysis of violence and Japan, what else might contribute to that low Japanese murder rate?*

Japan's out of wedlock birth rate is darned near 0.

98% of the Japanese births are legitimate, a word we hardly even use anymore in a society where 30% to 60% are not.

Why does that matter?

Well it matters as Japanese children are raised inside of highly stable family environments.

Indeed, they are stable.  There are 1.68 divorces per 1,000 people in Japan.  The rate in the United States is double that, at 3.2 per 1000.  And in the US that doesn't include the number of couples that would have been regarded as having common law marriages in earlier eras.  I.e, our divorce rate doesn't include couples that aren't married but which cohabitate and then "split up" even though such couples often have children.

Indeed, the contrast between Japan and the United States here is monumental.  The Japanese do not have examples of men living with women in which there are children of prior relationships.  They don't even have very many examples of "blended families" in which there's been more than one marriage and children by more than one marriage in a household.  Where that occurs it tends to be because a prior spouse died.

To add to that, and remember this is a thread on what's going on in Japan,  not an argument that we adopt everything Japanese, being a single parent in Japan really sucks.

The Japanese don't approve of children being born out of wedlock and they don't approve of the women who find themselves in that situation. They don't even really approve of the children.

Given all of this, in spite of statistics you may see on other things, the Japanese get married and stay married, and have their kids when they're married.  In the rare instances of the opposite, and they are extremely rare, the mother and child are reduced to poverty.

Japanese marriage, moreover, is really traditional in terms of structure.  This has evolved enormously over the years as, ironically in this context, the Japanese moved towards "Western" marriage in the 20th Century. After World War Two, Western marriage really took off greatly in Japan. This has evolved to such an extent that the majority of Japanese today are married in Christian ceremonies even though less than 1% of the Japanese are Christians.  This has actually resulted in a phrase in Japan of being "born Shinto, married Christian, and dying Buddhist".  That's a joke, of course, but like a lot of jokes, it has a big element of truth to it.

Part of that evolution towards Westernism in marriage has been a real cementing of the traditional Western marriage in Japan in terms of its structure.  Japanese culture places a strong emphasis on the domestic role of women and women's role in that regard is seen as central.  Women in Japanese society are the primary managers of home economics in the true economic and even Greek original meaning of the word in a fashion that's similar to that of some Mediterranean cultures traditionally.

Japanese women do work outside of the home, but after they are married that number declines enormously.  Most married women in Japan do not work.  Most women who work in Japan are intentionally doing so only until they are married.  Japanese women earn around 40% less than men. The workforce is strongly, by culture, divided into male and female roles, recent examples to the contrary notwithstanding.  You may see a cute video of a Japanese female tank commander, but there aren't very darned many of them.

Prior to the Meji period, Japanese marriages were arranged and economic.  During the Meji period this was attacked at a high level in order to try to Westernize the culture, but certain aspects of the old practices remained for a very long time.  Included in that was that Japan had a strict expectation that married women were to be chaste but had no such expectation of the same for men.  This lead to the dual explotivie Japanese occupations of the geisha and the prostitute, which are not at all the same.  Professional prostitution was widespread and highly tolerated.**  As a female profession it was common up until after World War Two when its ongoing nature was frowned upon and seen, moreover, as non Western.

While that's gone, it has left remnants in that men are strongly dominant in society outside of the household, where the opposite is absolutely the case.  Women rule in the household.  Indeed, marriages between the Japanese and non Japanese are very rare and rarely successful in part for this reason.***  Japanese women have really strong expectations of husbands and expect to absolutely rule in the home. Western men who have come to accept the "partnership" concept are accordingly in for a rough surprise with a Japanese spouse.  Conversely, Western men just don't live up to the expectations of Japanese women.

Be that as it may, as noted, men are strongly dominant outside of the home where women's are regarded as a temporary presence and are treated that way.  Beyond that, while the Japanese as a culture are really admirably chaste, the old history of concubinage and male dominance in the society has caused Japan to have a really massive post World War Two pornography industry which is openly tolerated in ways it never would be in Western society and which goes beyond exploitation of women.  Indeed, not only has this found expression in all the conventional mediums in Japan, but in others that are somewhat rarer in the West.  For example, while the "superhero" genre of cartoon in the United States is wildly male and juvenile, including in its portrayal of women, a popular cartoon in Japan, at least at one time, was "Rape Man", who committed that act upon women with an attitude.  The popular Japanese genres of cartoons today are moreover wildly pornorgraphic in thier depictiosn of women and even in the milder forms common in the West they feature grossly exaggerated female forms for obvious reasons.  Therefore, an aspects of Japanese society is a male attitude that's condescending and explotivie to women outside of marriage in an abstract way.  They don't act that way in their personal moral conduct, but they're obviously focused on it otherwise.  While pornography and pornification of Western culture has become vast, it isn't at the really creepy Japanese level (creepiness being relative in this example).

Along with this, the Japanese are what some like to call homogeneous and others like to call xenophobic or even racist in the extreme.   The Japanese regard their own culture as superior to others and they don't want it mixing with yours.****  They want Japan for the Japanese and they don't want you marrying into a Japanese family.  The one American male I know who did that found that his Japanese in laws flat out disowned their daughter as a result of such a marriage.  The Japanese are, therefore, related to each other by a blood in a way that Americans are not and can't even conceive of.  Outside of Hokkaido in the far north, and Okinawa to the south, the Japanese are effectively cousins in a way that very few cultures in the world are.*****

So there you have the Japanese example, for good and ill.

And note we stated for good and, not or, ill.  There are parts of this, including the racist and xenophobic elements that would cause most of us to rightly recoil.

Notably in all of it, the Japanese have copied a major Western, Christian, cultural feature, monogamous life time marriages with a Christian view of sexual morality in marriage and a blisteringly traditional view of people's roles in that marriage.  That singular cultural adoption probably explains more than anything else why Japan has a low, low homicide rate.  All of Japan's children, almost, are raised by their mother and father.  Almost every Japanse marriage survives until the death of one member of the couple.  Every husband is expected to work outside of the home.  Every wife is expected to rule the household and have that be her primary focus.  Everyone marries somebody who is from the same culture and has the same expectations.

Not all of this picture is pretty, in our view from the West.  Japanese men are dominant in the workplace in way that they aren't here and haven't been for decades.  Japanese women rule in the household in a way that most Westerners and Northern Europeans would find shocking.  The Japanese are really admirably chaste in conduct but have an extremely objectified view of women outside of the home, even if it is very rarely acted upon.

All of which may be besides the point, as to us, or maybe, in part, not.

And the part that might not be is the core of the family example.  The Japanese have tight families and, frankly, are sort of a tight family.   There's a lesson in that, and it doesn't have anything to do with laws or regulations.  We aren't going to copy all of that example by any means, but the part of it that they copied from us is perhaps something that we ought to ponder to some degree.

_________________________________________________________________________________

*Indeed, this seems to completely escape those who cite Japan as an example of low rates of violent death.  Japan has a lot of violent death, its just that it tends to be self directed, which isn't any better of societal result than a lot of murders.

**The expectation that rules didn't apply to men was such that the Imperial Japanese Army enslaved large numbers of women as "comfort women" to act as involuntary prostitutes for Japanese soldiers during World War Two.  Only very recently has there been acknowledgement of wrongdoing by Japan for this act.

Notably here, "comfort women" were not Japanese.  To the extent they were Japanese subjects, they tended to be Koreans, whom the Japanese looked down upon as a lesser race.  They weren't limited to Koreans, however, and included women forced into prostitution in other areas that the Japanese conquered during World War Two.

***The only era in which significant numbers of Japanese women married non Japanese men was after World War Two when it was briefly common.  There's a cultural aspect of this that has gone unexplained but at least one historian has theorized that this occurred as a form of Japanese female protest at men having let the culture down by losing the war.

****Japan's culture is, moreover, unique.  Americans tend to view all Asian cultures as more or less the same, but Japan's is distinctly different and has been isolated for  the most part for over a millenia.  There have been cultural insertions in the form of religious and philosophical thought, such as in the form of Buddhism and Confucianism early on, which managed to come in from China, along with Chinese written characters (but not language), and more recently many Western cultural elements, but overall Japan retains a unique Japanese character.

*****There are a few others, of course.  In European terms, the Finns and the Icelanders also are in this category, and the Icelanders, which are a very small nationality, even more so.

April 24, 1920 The return.

Law enforcement legend William E. Johnson returned to Westerville, Ohio.  I don't know what his connection with Westerville was, but Johnson was a legendary prohibitionist and undercover policeman.

Coal, Uranium & Oil

Add bentonite to that, something used for drilling mud and kitty litter, and you have three of the big extractive substances of the state.

Yesterday, citing SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) downturns, coal mines in Campbell County laid off 300 workers.

That may sound like a pretext, but it isn't. The Burlington Northern is now several years deep into furloughs now due to the Pandemic and it looks like it's getting worse.  There's been a giant downturn in demand for coal as people aren't buying and they aren't working. 

As the shelter in place orders extend into the Summer that might actually change, if they do. Or it might just change either way.  If people go back to work in the next month or so, the demand for energy may go up.  If they stay home, the demand for energy may also go up as Americans can't live without air conditioning anymore. 

No sweaty rear windows, like in Rear Window.

Anyhow, coal demand actually has gone up in the summer in recent years, the opposite of what it used to do.  At one time the Government, in times of crisis, urged people to buy their coal early for the winter.  Now it doesn't do anything like that at all, as its power plants, and not individual people, who normally buy coal, but the demand goes up in the summer.

World War One vintage poster urging homeowners to buy coal early for the winter.

We'll see what happens, but right now, reeling Campbell County has been given an additional blow.  Three Hundred layoffs in a county that already was hurting, on top of COVID 19 shut ins, and a slow down in the oil and gas industry is a giant blow.

Coal, as we've noted before, has been on a long slow decline for many years.  Over a century in fact, but with events like this, a person has to wonder at what point things simply become fatal for Wyoming's coal mining industry.  Once some things close (and that speculation can extend a lot further than just on coal mining and Wyoming) they don't open back up.

One thing that isn't going back up, at least very quickly, is oil.

West Texas oil opened today at around $17 bbl.  People who take a rosy view of situation have been stating that we ought not to worry, it'll rebound.  Indeed, they were saying that it would rebound significantly this week.  

It hasn't.

Now, it will sooner or later, to be sure. But it isn't quickly and if the economy slumps into a deep recession, and there's real reason to fear it will, it won't for months.

Added to that, as we've also noted before, it seems that consumption of petroleum entered a new phases some years ago.  The original problem was the high price combined with a seemingly insatiable American demand.  However, technology allowed the US to become an energy exporter again (which is now threatened by these developments) while, at the same time, Americans seem to have broken up with the car.  While breaking up with the car, they also developed an interest in electric vehicles and that hasn't gone away and isn't going to. While a drop in the price of oil would seem to threaten to change that, it doesn't look like it will.

Even Jeep, on Earth Day, came out with the news it was introducing an electric Jeep.  Jeep drivers, of which I'm one, are the most bound to tradition drivers in the world, but it looks like they're ready to accept an electric version, massive "you can't do that and it won't work" reaction aside.

So, this might not only take a long time to turn around, it might take a very long time.

As we earlier noted here, what should be going on right now is a massive buy up of the cheap foreign oil as a strategic reserve by the U.S. government, but it doesn't appear that will occur. The government is buying some, but not at the level it really needs to in order to address the situation.

It does want to buy Uranium, however.

If there's a bright spot for Wyoming in this economic picture, that's it.  The Federal Government is wanting to buy Uranium for a strategic stock piles.

The American Uranium industry has been really hurt, like oil is being right now, by cheap foreign supplies.  It's also being hurt by an absolutely misplaced fear of nuclear energy which Greens ought to be ardently embracing.  We'll deal with that some other time, but the price of Uranium is low and the once vibrant Wyoming mines are mostly gone  At least one lingers on and a Federal program to stockpile, if it occurs, will aid that sector at least a bit.

All in all, however, it's really a perfect storm.

Trouble in the Red Hermit Kingdom

Kim I, the first Communist King of North Korea.

We've made some snarky comments about Kim Jong-un  here from time to time but most recently mentioned him in connection with the USS Roosevelt, noting that the Stalinist head of North Korea has a habit of creating global problems when the world is otherwise distracted, seemingly constantly wanting the spotlight on himself, and for the wrong reasons.

Well, that spotlight has been trying to focus recently, although not for anything that he's done, but for what he seems to be enduring.

You don't have to be a physician to look at photos of Kim and know that he's not a model of healthy living.  Now there are reports that the murderous dictator may have undergone serious surgery and may not be doing well.

Indeed, that he'd undergo surgery now, at a time at which Coronavirus is stalking the Korean Peninsula, suggests that this procedure wasn't planned.  It's likely an emergency.  And like a lot of emergency procedures, the outcomes are always a bit clouded prior to their known. Clouding the news on this one is that getting anything out of the news black hole that is North Korea is difficult.

So he may be pretty sick.

He might not be sick at all.

We really don't know.

What we also don't know is what happens in the Red Hermit Kingdom if he dies, or rather when he dies.

That North Korea is not a naturally Marxist state is evident from the fact that rule of the country is vested in the descendants of his grandfather, Kim Jon Il-sung.  That despicable Kim was a Soviet protege who arrived back in his own country after a prolonged absence as an essentially Soviet creation.  Indeed, his own command of the Korean language was horrible.  The USSR needed somebody, and Kim had Marxist street cred due to his support of the USSR as a Communist expat with service in the Communist cause in China and an early member of a Communist movement in Korea.  Upon his death in 1994 his position was inherited by his son, Kim Jong-il, setting the state for the ironic creation of a Communist monarchy.

Kim Jong-il ran the country from 1994 until his death, monarch style in 2011.  Upon his death his position was inherited by Kim Jong-un.

That positions are inherited in this fashion is telling.  As the old cliche would have it, blood is thicker than water and the North Korean Communist rulers are apparently so paranoid about passing the leadership baton on that they can only pass it on to their family members, much like monarchs of old did with their leadership, or like Mafia families have always done.  If there's some collective leadership, the thought must be, next thing you know you have Boris Yeltsin leading a charge on the palace.

Of course, the ultimate hypocrisy here would be that a "workers' state" would presumably be lead by workers, which in the antiquated economy of North Korea, shouldn't be too hard to find.  Instead power is completely vested in the hands of a family that not only inherits the position like monarchy, but lives like monarchs as well.  They don't call themselves kings, of course, but they are.

So who inherits the thrown if Kim Jong-un passes untimely passes on?

Nobody really knows but there's wide speculation that it would be his sister Kim Yo-jong.

Kim Jong-un does have children, although the country is so secretive that their number is unknown.  He was married sometime during the prior decade to Ri Sol-ju, about whom nearly nothing is known and whom is believed to be in her early 30s, making her slightly younger than her spouse.  The marriage appears to have been conducted hastily as his father appeared to be near death, once again recalling the habit of monarchy and the regimes need to have heirs.  The couple has had somewhere between one to three children, and it seems the first one was a boy.  Still, even at that, next to nothing, including his name, and if he remains alive, is known about him.  If he is alive, that boy would now be ten years old.  Too young to inherit the throne, at least without a regent.

That regent might be Kim Yo-jong, who is close to her brother.  She could rule until the oldest male in the line of the grandfather is ready to inherit the throne on his own.

Or she could simply take the throne, Saudi style, in the fashion of thrones passing to blood relatives but not necessarily to the next in line. Indeed, this was common for early Medieval monarchs.

But then so was the throne passing to others than the immediate family of the monarch.

All we can really tell for sure is that since 1945 the Communist Party has become incredibly insular and the ruling class works just like that of old style monarchies.  Marriages are almost always within the immediate power circle of real loyalist to the throne and close blood ties have come to exist in the ruling class.  None of the immediate blood relatives of Kim Jong-un will have married outside of the Communist noble circle and everyone at the helm has a deeply vested interest in maintaining the monarchical rule.

All of which means that the system is a house of cards at some point.  But nobody knows where that point really is.

Still there.

At least it probably is.

Today is Arbor Day for 2020.  In 1920, that day was April 16, but some communities jumped the gun a little, including this group of kids who were gathered to plant a tree at a park in Washington D.C.  I ran the item on the annivesary of the event, here:  Lex Anteinternet: April 15, 1920. Crimes and Revolutions.:

April 15, 1920. Crimes and Revolutions.

Children at the Washington D.C.,Municipal Play Ground at 18th. & Kalorama Road planting a tree in memory of animals killed during World War I during "Be kind to dumb animals" week. The tree was entered on the honor roll of the American Forestry Association.  April 15, 1920

I posted the photo on the 100 Years Ago subreddit as well, where somebody wondered if it was still there.

Because the original press photo's caption gave the address, you can look the location up.  And if you do, you'll see the park, which is mostly basketball court, is still there. But there's also some large trees there, and they're in this location.

I can't say for sure that this tree is still there, but it looks as though it probably is.

Which is comforting.

April 23, 1920. Mexican rebels issue the Plan De Agua Preita, Men Misbehave, Women visit the Supreme Court, Turkey becomes a republic, The House of David extends their thanks.

It stated:

PLAN DE AGUA PRIETA

Hermosillo, Sonora. 29 de abril de 1920.
CONSIDERANDO:
I. Que la Soberanía Nacional reside esencial y originariamente en el pueblo: que todo poder público dimana del pueblo y se instituye para su beneficio, y que la potestad de los mandatarios públicos es únicamente una delegación parcial de la soberanía popular, hecha por el mismo pueblo.
II. Que el actual Presidente de la República, C. Venustiano Carranza, se había constituído Jefe de un partido político, y persiguiendo el triunfo de ese partido ha burlado de una manera sistemática del voto popular; ha suspendido, de hecho las garantías individuales; ha atentado repetidas veces contra la soberanía de los Estados y ha desvirtuado radicalmente la organización de la República.
III. Que los actos y procedimientos someramente expuestos constituyen, al mismo tiempo, flagrantes violaciones a nuestra ley suprema, delitos graves del orden común y traición absoluta a las aspiraciones fundamentales de la Revolución Constitucionalista.
IV. Que habiendo agotado todos los medios pacíficos para encauzar los procedimientos del repetido Primer Mandatario de la Federación por las vías constitucionales, sin haberse logrado tal finalidad, ha llegado el momento de que el pueblo mexicano arma toda su soberanía, revocando el imperio absoluto de sus instituciones y de sus leyes. En tal virtud, los suscritos, ciudadanos mexicanos en pleno ejercicio de nuestros derechos políticos, hemos adoptado en todas sus partes y protestamos sostener con entereza, el siguiente:
Plan Orgánico del Movimiento Reivindicador de la Democracia y de la Ley.
Art. I. Cesa en el ejercicio del Poder Ejecutivo de la Federación el C. Venustiano Carranza.
Art. II. Se desconoce a los funcionarios públicos cuya investidura tenga origen en las últimas elecciones de Poderes Locales verificadas en los Estados de Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro, Nuevo León y Tamaulipas.
Art. III. Se desconoce asimismo el carácter de Consejales del Ayuntamiento de la ciudad de México a los CC. Declarados electos con motivo de los últimos comicios celebrados en dicha capital.
Art. IV. Se reconoce como Gobernador Constitucional del Estado de Nayarit al C. José Santos Godinez.
Art. V. Se reconoce también a todas las demás autoridades legítimas de la Federación y de los Estados. El Ejército Liberal Constitucionalista sostendrá a dichas autoridades siempre que no combatan ni hostilicen el presente movimiento.
Art. VI. Se reconoce expresamente como Ley Fundamental de la República a la Constitución Política del 5 de febrero de 1917.
Art. VII. Todos los generales, jefes, oficiales y soldados que secunden este Plan constituirán el Ejército Liberal Constitucionalista. El actual Gobernador Constitucional de Sonora, C. Adolfo de la Huerta, tendrá interinamente el carácter de Jefe Supremo del Ejército con todas las facultades necesarias para la organización política y administrativa de este movimiento.
Art. VIII. Los gobernadores constitucionales de los Estado que reconozcan y se adhieran a este movimiento en el término de 30 días, a contar de la fecha de la promulgación de este Plan, nombrarán cada uno de ellos un representante debidamente autorizado con objeto de que dichos delegados reunidos a los 60 días de la fecha del presente, en el sitio de que designe el Jefe Supremo Int,. procedan a nombrar en definitiva, por mayoría de votos, el Jefe Supremo del Ejército Liberal Constitucionalista.
Art. IX. Si, en virtud de las circunstancias originadas por la campaña, la Junta de Delegados de los Gobernadores Constitucionales a que se refiere el Art. Anterior no reúne mayoría en la fecha indicada, quedará definitivamente como Jefe Supremo del Ejército Liberal Constitucionalista el actual Gobernador Constitucional del Estado de Sonora, C. Adolfo de la Huerta.
Art. X. Tan luego como el presente Plan sea adoptado por la mayoría de la Nación y ocupada la ciudad de México por el Ejército Liberal Constitucionalista, se procederá a nombrar un Presidente Provisional de la República, en la forma prevista en los artículos siguientes.
Art. XI. Si el movimiento quedare consumado antes de que termine el actual período del Congreso Federal, el Jefe del Ejército Liberal Constitucionalista, convocará al Congreso de la Unión a sesiones extraordinarias, en el lugar en que pueda reunirse, y los miembros de ambas cámaras elegirán el Presidente Provisional, de conformidad con la Constitución vigente.
Art. XII. Si el caso previsto por el artículo X llegare a presentarse con posterioridad a la terminación del período constitucional de las Cámaras actuales, el Jefe Supremo del Ejército Liberal Constitucionalista asumirá la Presidencia Provisional de la República.
Art. XIII. El Presidente Provisional convocará a elecciones de Poderes Ejecutivo y Legislativo de la Federación inmediatamente que tome posesión de su cargo.
Art. XIV. El Jefe Supremo del Ejército Liberal Constitucionalista nombrará Gobernadores Provisionales de los Estados de Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro, Nuevo León y Tamaulipas, de los que no tengan Gobernador Constitucional y de todas las demás Entidades Federativas cuyos primeros mandatarios combatan o desconozcan este movimiento.
Art. XV. Consolidado el triunfo de este Plan, el Presidente Provisional autorizará a los Gobernadores Provisionales para que convoquen inmediatamente a elecciones de Poderes Locales de conformidad con las Leyes respectivas.
Art. XVI. El Ejército Liberal Constitucionalista se regirá por la Ordenanza General y Leyes Militares actualmente en vigor en la República.
Art. XVII. El Jefe Supremo del Ejército Liberal Constitucionalista, y todas las autoridades civiles y militares que secunden este Plan impartirán garantías a nacionales y extranjeros y protegerán muy especialmente el desarrollo de la industria, del comercio y de todos los negocios.
Sufragio Efectivo. No Reelección.
Agua Prieta, abril 23 de 1920.

GRAL. DE DIVISIÓN, P. ELÍAS CALLES
Generales de Brigada: Ángel Flores, Francisco R. Manzo, Juan Cruz, Lino Morales, Francisco R. Serrano. Generales Brigadieres: Miguel Piña H., J. M. Padilla, Fructuoso Méndez, Carlos Plank, Roberto Cruz, Alejandro Mange, Luis Matys, Ramón Gómez, Luis Espinosa, Ignacio Mori, Macario Gaxiola y José María Ochoa. Capitán de Navío J. de la Llave. Capitán de Navío El Olivier. Coroneles: Abelardo L. Rodríguez. J. M. Aguirre, Fausto Topete, Enrique León, Guillermo M. Palma, Lorenzo Muñoz, E. C. García, Anatolio B. Ortega, A.A. Ancheta, Guillermo Nelson, Eduardo Andalon, Julio García, Z. Jiménez Ponce, Francisco G. Manríquez, Camilo Gastélum Jr., Mateo de la Rocha, Rosendo Quezada, Pablo C. Macías, Juan G. Amaya y Antonio Guerrero. Tenientes Coroneles: Mariano Valtiérrez, Ángel Camargo, Pero Sosa, Anselmo Armenta, Antonio Cruz, J. Jesús Arvizu, A. Campoell, Jesús M. Palma, G.R. Limón, Jesús O. Cota, Rafael Villagrán, Alberto G. Montaño, Manuel Bacilio, Francisco Ochoa, Juan B. Izaguirre, Antonio Armenta, Pedro Quintero, Pedro C. Figueroa, Manuel García, Ignacio Otero, Rodolfo Ibarra Vega, Manuel Limón, Jesús Otero, Manuel Escobar, Gumersindo López, Eligio Samaniego, Benito Bernal, Alberto Zuno Hernández, Santos R. Flores y Jesús Bórquez. Mayores: Luis Palomares, Rodolfo M. Reyna, Isaac M. Rocha, Guadalupe Cruz, Canuto Ortega, Máximo Othón, Patricio García, Manuel Meza, Manuel I. Medina, J. M. Burrota, J. J. Pérez, Ricardo Legaspi, B. González, Luis R. Flores, Manuel O. Lugo, Ángel Gaxiola Jr., Victoriano Tabárez, F. Polanco, Leopoldo Robles, Alfredo Delgado, José Ma. Hernández, Victoriano Díaz, Manuel Martínez, José S. Obregón y José A. Araiza. Capitanes Primeros: S. Amézquita Liceaga, Pantaleón Pineda, José Ma. Tapia, Francisco Herrera. Subteniente Manuel H. Lira. Señores: Francisco S. Elías, Luis L. León, H. Gavilondo, Antonio G. Rivera. Administrador Aduana de Agua Prieta, Julián S. González; Pdte. Mpal. De Cananea, J. R. Estrada; Alfonso Vázquez, Agente Comercial en Douglas, Arizona; Ricardo C. López, Jefe de Oficina Telegráfica en Nogales, Son.; Teniente Coronel Abraham Fraijo, Presidente Mpal. De Agua Prieta; Arturo M. Escandón, Director de El Tiempo, F. Alfonso Pesqueira. Constituyentes de Querétaro: Luis G. Monzón y Froilán C. Manjarrez. Constituyentes de Sonora: Antonio R. Romo, Rosendo L. Galaz., José Ma. V. Lizárraga, Gabriel Corella, Adalberto Trujillo y Clodoveno Valenzuela; Ramón M. Bernal, Oficial Mayor del Congreso del Estado; A. M. Sánchez, Oficial 1° de la Secretaría de Gobierno; S. M. Moreno, Jefe de la Sección de Gobernación; A.B. Sobrazo, Encargado de la Sección del Registro Civil; Amos B. Casas, Oficial 2° de la Secretaría de Gobierno; S.A. Campoy, Oficial 3° de la Secretaría de Gobierno; Carlos Díaz, Jefe del Departamento de Compras; Miguel Vázquez, Jefe del Departamento de Archivo; Ángel Avilez, Oficial del Depto. De Archivo; Guillermo de la Rosa, Director General de Educación Pública; Miguel Yépez Solórzano, director General del Catastro; Aurelio S. Larios, Dibujante del Catastro; Manuel Larios, Ingeniero de la Dirección del Catastro; Raúl Salazar, Procurador General de Justicia en el Estado; B. Cabrera, Jefe de Defensores de Oficio; Ángel Amante, Oficial 1° de la Secretaría del Congreso; Plutarco Padilla, Oficial 2° de la Secretaría del Congreso; Heliodoro Pérez Mendoza, Jefe de la Sección de Glosa de la Inspección de Telégrafos; Eloy García S., Jefe de la Oficina Telegráfica de Hermosillo; F.R. Pesqueira, Administrador Principal del Timbre; Rafael Manzo, Tesorero General del Estado; Lic. Pedro González Rubalcava, Juez de Instrucción Militar; Lic. José Guzmán V., Agente del Ministerio Público Militar; Lic. Zenón García, Asesor de Guerra; José S. Healy, periodista; Alberto S. Díaz, Carlos Genda Jr., Mario Hernández Machain, Secretario Particular del Jefe Supremo del Ejército Liberal Constitucionalista; A.R. Guzmán, Agente General de Agricultura y Fomento; Diputados al Congreso del Estado: Lic. Gilberto Valenzuela, Emiliano Corella M., Ing. Joaquín C. Bustamente, Miguel C. López, Alejo Bay, Luis F. Vhávez, Felizardo Frías, Ramón D. Cruz, Alfonso Almada, Ignacio G. Soto, Florencio Robles, Leoncio J. Ortiz, Julio C. Salazar, Rafael F.L. Paredes y Emilio Mendívil. Magistrados del Supremo Tribunal de Justicia: Lic. Luis N. Rubalcava, Espiridión S. Ruíz y Lic. Manuel Zezati; Alberto C. Loustaunau, Secretario del Tribunal de Justicia; Diputados al Congreso de la Unión: Alejandro Velázquez López, Damián Alarcón, Ezequiel Ríos Landeros. Señores: Fernando Torreblanca, Lic. Rafael Díaz de León, Alfonso Guerra y Rodolfo Torreblanca. Senadores por Estado de Sonora: Flavio A. Bohórquez y Carlos Plank.

The basic gist of the plan was an accusation that Carranza had betrayed the values of the revolution and that Obergon was to lead the military until a new government could be put in place.

Agua Prieta is a border town that joins Douglas, Arizona.

Douglas Arizona, 1904.

Troops were being rushed to that border, including specifically the one between Douglas and Agua Prieta, out of concern where the Mexican Revolution was heading.  The Navy, meanwhile, was deploying in the Gulf.  1920 was beginning to look a lot like 1916.

Across that border and into custody came one newly appointed Carranzist Governor of Sonora, Ignacio Pesqueria, who had lately been the Chief Justice of Mexico. 

Pesqueria was a wealthy man whom Carranza felt was suited to replace the De La Huerta, whom he still presumed to be the Governor, apparently not realizing that De La Huerta had resigned to take up arms against Carranza alongside Obregon.  Pesqueria, who was almost certainly related to a Mexican revolutionary of that name from earlier times, may not have thought his appointment likely to last long as he entered Douglas with one Maria Rodriguez, whom the press informed to be 23 years of old and "beautiful", the broad hint being that the relationship between the two may not have been fully proper.  Justice Pesqueria was married to someone else and had nine children.  He was ostensibly arrested for bringing Senorita Rodriguez across the border, but that may have well been a pretext.  Of course, the relationship could have been fully innocent.

Clearly not innocent were the attentions being paid to a bank cashier's wife by a banker, which was resulting in a scandal in Buffalo.

The attentions of prominent men may have been drawn in an improper fashion to women in Sonora and Wyoming, but in Washington D. C. prominent women were seeking the attention of the United States Supreme Court.

Leaders of the Women's National Party were in town to attend a session of the court which was to hear a case pertaining to an Ohio referendum which potentially stood to push women's suffrage over the top and into the Constitution.

And a group of men came to thank the President for allowing them to grow their hair and beards while in the service of the United States during World War One.

Members of the House of David religion, about which I know next to nothing, their tenants preclude the cutting of hair and favor the growing of beards.  The President had intervened on their behalf during the Great War, for which they came to offer their appreciation.

The religion, which still exists, is often recalled today for fielding a barnstorming baseball team early in the 20th Century.

In Turkey the Turkish Grand National Assembly convened in Ankara in a move that was on its way towards the establishment of the modern Turkish republic.  On the same day an Allied conference announced its intent to recognize Armenian sovereignty and allow Greece to administer a Turkish Smyrna.

And ice hockey premiered on this day as an Olympic sport.

"Never let a crisis go to waste"

Rahm Emanuel, whom This Week Has brought in as a counter to Chris Christie,  now that the Pandemic requires broadcasting from home, quoted this old bromide last week on the show.

On Emmanuel, he looks pathetic next to Christie. Christie had started off on the show as a Trump apologist but he no longer really serves in that role and for some reason, warriness perhaps, he takes a really measured tone in his debates with Emmanuel.  Emmanuel, in contrast, is bucking for this network's Chuck Todd, so while This Week is infinitely better than Todd's declined Meet The Press, Emmanuel is a detraction as he feels he has to counter Christie no matter what Christie says.  If Christie declared kittens to be cute, Emmanuel would declare them to be hideous. Todd, for his part, would declare them to be hideous visages of evil if Trump thought they were cute, and would go on to berate his guests for 40 minutes on the dangers posed by kittens to society and  the degree to which Trump is personally responsible for that.

But I digress.

Last week Emmanuel repeated the famous quote "Never let a crisis go to waste" and it is one that is inevitable in the Pandemic, so I don't fault him for noting that.

There are two ways that has in fact come up, although one may not really be an application of that so much as something will claim to be an application of that.

Starting with the first example, I heard, although I haven't read the bill, that the relief bill passed by Congress which provides for relief for individuals and industry omits, at to some extent, the oil and gas industry.

Now, what I don't know is how far down this goes.  That Exxon Mobile can't get anything is obvious, but what about local oil and gas service industries, many of which are quite small?  I have no idea.

This was done as the Democrats intentionally wanted the bill to have a "green" feature.  At least at one time the retaliatory position by the GOP took out all energy producers, so wind fell out as well.  I'm not sure where that is at.

Anyhow, the concept basically is sort of a "let 'em fail" approach.  The thought was if they fail, well it was their time.

Of course nobody anticipated the catastrophic drop in oil prices that have happened since that time.  That unprecedented event was in part Coronavirus Pandemic caused, there being a massive drop in oil demand due to quarantines, and in part caused by the bizarre Saudi/Russian price war spat which they got rolling.  This involves the maxim, of course, that people who start wars can't control how they end, even price wars.  They both got the darned thing rolling, and now they're not able to bring it to an end.

As noted, the US could really take advantage of this by buying up the surplus at the absurdly low rates oil is at.  If we wanted to be super cynical we could close the doors to importation of oil to the U.S. except for government purchases and have the government really  ramp up purchase of hte surplus.  Indeed, were we to do that, the impact would be to depress the price of foreign oil more, which would allow us to buy more.  In the meantime we could be throwing up storage tanks like so many tents and put ourselves in really good strategic shape for eon.  Double, triple, quadruple, ro whatever it takes our strategic reserve.

We should do that.  That would indeed be an application of the titled maxim.

I doubt we'll do that, but the Democrats did take advantage of the crisis in the relief bill, and here's an example of how they did that.  My prediction is that as we roll along there will be more of that.  Let's look for all sorts of "debt forgiveness" (which is in reality debt reallocation" and the like.

On to example two, maybe.

The President halted immigration into the US.

It's not a permanent halt, but it predictably brought the same liberal storm of criticism that anything which seeks to restrict immigration in any way does.

American immigration policies have been out of whack for decades.  We've addressed it here before, so we'll forgo doing it in this thread, but it's a fact well known to the informed that the immigration rate is higher than is economically and environmentally sustainable.  Depending upon the view of people who are really familiar with it, the rate needs to come down and the question is whether it needs to come just down or way down.  Added to that, the fact that really high rates has damaged the employability of native blue collar workers and the employability of the urban, often black, poor was a factor in the electoral rage that brought Donald Trump to power in 2016.

Trump has taken action on immigration but at every turn he's been countered by the left, which basically believes in open doors and whose elites are insulated from the economic, if not environmental, impact that would have. Those on the right have often been frustrated, however, that Trump has not gone as far as they feel warranted, with some of his early backers really upset about that.  The whole debate, moreover, tends to bring up citations to simplistic citations to American history such as "we're a nation of immigrants", which is true if you aren't Sioux or Ojibwe, and which isn't really an argument that that policy can't be updated for the era in which we live. Indeed, it obviously needs to from time to time, as we were a nation of slave holders too and nobody regards that as a viable modern argument for anything.

Now he's temporarily halting immigration, which is only temporary and which is further prudent under the circumstances.  He ironically received criticism for closing the country to the Chinese earlier in the pandemic and then received criticism for not doing it quickly enough.  What will come of this temporary hiatus isn't clear, but probably not much.  It might provide a little room to reconsider the present high rates, however, or it might be teeing this issue up for the 2020 election.

Irrespective of its purpose, it's a good idea in this context for obvious reasons.  Trying to more or less quarantine the country means more or less quarantining the country.

None of which means that everything that's done from here until November isn't going to be filtered through a political lense.  It will be.  If Trump adopts a kitten right now Rahm Emmanuel will accuse cats of being evil, and if Biden adopts a puppy, some right wing commentator will claim dogs are socialists.  

That's the era we live in, although we might hope something about the Pandemic may lessen such extremism somehow.

Earth Day, 2020

Today is Earth Day for 2020.

It'll be the oddest one in years, due to the Pandemic. And that will cause a lot of overblown and frankly sanctimonious commentary.  No matter what a person thinks of the state of the world, the COVID 19 isn't nature's way of rising up and smacking the human race.

Indeed, while we can't really appreciate it, the COVID 19 Pandemic is to a large degree a return to the human norm.  For most of our existence we lived with the constant unrelenting threat of death by disease.  Even in times in which there were not pandemics, and that was most of the time, there was disease and quite a few diseases were endemic to populations.  Death by smallpox, measles, influenza, scarlet fever, and the common cold, was common.  The death rates we're experiencing right now were basically the pre 20th Century norm, most of the time.

That doesn't mean that this year shouldn't cause us to pause for reflection.  We have hopefully learned from this experience in a lot of ways.  And some of that education should be that the glass and steel, cubicle, money focused world that we've created, and even the most "green" among us live in and often heavily participate in without even realize it, has a lot of defects and disadvantages.  Maybe being forced out of the cubicle and into the homes we've created, to our satisfaction or horror, will cause us to ponder the big questions.

April 22, 1920. Storms

Vice President Thomas Marshall throwing out the first ball in the opening game in Washington D.C. between the Nationals and Red Sox.  Marshall, famous for his wit, coined the famous "What this country needs is a good five cent cigar" quip.

It was the first day of the 1920 baseball season in Washington D. C.  Vice President Marshall threw out the first ball.

In the West, people were trying to dig out from a titanic snow storm.

In Butte there had been labor strife, which was hitting the local papers, and the renewed Mexican Revolution was turning quickly against Carranza, who seemed firmly in control only a few weeks prior.

A Disaster In Oil

Oil Falls Below Zero

So read the headline in today's tribune.

It's a bit deceptive as a headline, as what really fell below zero, I.E., $0.00, was the futures market for oil, which saw the Texas benchmark go to below -$37.00. That means traders were paying others to buy the short term barrels as there was no room for them at the end of the expiring May (remember its futures) market.  June trading starts today and it won't be that low.

The real price oil was rock bottom too, however.  So this is a disaster.

China, in response to this, doubled the amount of oil it was purchasing for storage.  If the U.S. has any capacity left, it should do the same.  I.E., the government should  There would no better way to have a real war, or emergency, reserve than to stuff as much oil into any remaining capacity as the government could.  Shoot, for that matter, given as we're in a real economic emergency anyhow, the government should hire contractors for a crash oil tank storage construction program.  I don't know how long it takes to throw up a tank, but they ought to throw up every tank they can.

So let's first state the obvious.  Oil this low is a disaster for the economy of oil producing states, including Wyoming.  Prices this low will virtually halt the oil industry, breaking off, for at least a time, one of the legs of our three legged economic stool.  We've endured it before, with a local economic depression, and it didn't involve a collapse in the prices anywhere near this low.

And it ironically, at this point, turns out to be bad for the American economy.

In the 70s and 80s when the US was a captive to foreign oil prices this low, or at least low prices, would have been welcome and they would have spurred the U.S. economy.  Prices this low might spur the economy now, although they're so freakishly low they instead inspire concerns about market volatility, but due to advances in technology oil and gas production are now major sectors of the U.S. economy.  The math of it is simple, low prices are bad for U.S. production, which requires the price to be around $50 bbl.  So this shuts down this portion of the economy and in turn that hurts the U.S. economy.

Its also easy to address, but probably won't be.

As the U.S. is an oil producing nation, the U.S. could in fact address this internally by halting the importation of oil, save for purchases by the government, which should purchase all it can for storage.  That would eliminate the market for the really cheap foreign oil in the U.S.  Canada, and perhaps Mexico, all oil producing nations, would likely follow suit.  That would help North America.  The UK could probably follow itself, along with Norway, as they are also energy producing nations due to the North Sea.  

That would make the situation worse for the remainder of Europe, but we'll stop speculating there.

All of which seems unlikely.  It's just all too much for those trying to handle the situation and I doubt it will occur to them.  Which means that if this keeps up for long, and right now the price of oil isn't climbing, the domestic producers are going to be harmed.  

Dramatically harmed.

Which is going to harm the state.

Dramatically.

April 21, 1920

The Cleveland Indians.  April 21, 1920

Tornado victims, Meridian Mississippi.

Boat shop showing the variety of small boats made by the shipyard; whaleboats, sailboats, lifeboats, crew barges, naptha launches and dorys. - Naval Base Philadelphia-Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, League Island, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA.  April 21, 1920

Mrs Daniel C. Lothrop and Mrs Frank Mondell, the latter the newly elected President of the National Society of the Children of the American Revolution.  Mrs Mondell was the wife of Congressman Mondell of Wyoming.  April 21, 1920

The USS Theodore Roosevelt. What happened, why it matters, and why the press dropped the ball.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt is not a cruise ship.

The ship with its complimentary ships left San Diego on January 17, 2020. At the time, COVID 19 tests basically didn't exist in any sort of quantity in the United States and the Pandemic hadn't yet become that.  It was, at that time, a Chinese epidemic.  There would have, therefore, been no reason to include test kits in its medical supplies and it's very unlikely that the disease was present among the 4,865 sailors on board ship.

On January 20, the first reported case of COVID 19 surfaced in the US in Washington States.

It arrived in Guam for a port visit on February 7. By that time, the Pandemic was rolling and was known to be in the U.S. and Italy, but it still wasn't regarded as a pandemic yet and still wasn't appreciated. The Italian cases had only surfaced on January 31.

On February 26 Defense Secretary Mark Esper ordered combat commanders to inform him before they made Coronavirus related protection decisions in order to keep the military from being scene to contract President Trump's declaration that the number of COVID 19 cases, fifteen, would "be close to zero" "within a couple of days."  Two days later Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly stated that the 7th Fleet, of which the USS Roosevelt was part, would be spend fourteen days between port visits in order to slow the virus, however.

On March 5 the Roosevelt put in at Danang, Vietnam.  Vietnam had already reported sixteen cases but it also reported them all as having been resolved.  Crew from the ship were allowed liberty in Vietnam, but were also screened for COVID symptoms upon returning to the ship.  We now know, of course, that not everyone who picks up the virus exhibits symptoms.  Three days later new cases of COVID 19 are reported in Vietnam, including in two British tourists in Danang.   The Roosevelt leaves Vietnam the next day, although not because of that.

The Roosevelt is an aircraft carrier, of course, and flying missions, some of which leave the ship and return to it, keep on keeping on.

On March 15 sailors based in San Diego begin to report with the disease. 

On March 22, the first sailor on board the Roosevelt is diagnosed with it.  Two more are the following day. All re medicated off the ship, but reports keep coming in. 

On March 26, the entire ship's crew starts getting tested.  The Acting Navy Secretary reports that the ship will put in at Guam in a scheduled stop but the crew will not be allowed to leave the pier other than those who are to be evacuated for medical treatment there.  It puts in on the following day and eight sailors are removed for treatment.

On March 29, the Navy Secretary asks his chief of staff to contact the commander of the vessel and the two exchange emails. The commander and his officers were struggling with what to do.  They senior officers of the ship were joined by two Admirals who were senior to the commander, Cpt. Crozier, in regular fleet roles.  They favored smaller mitigation efforts than Cpt. Crozier as they did not want the Roosevelt removed from action as a surface asset.

Let's repeat that, they didn't want the Roosevelt removed as a surface asset in the Pacific. This is a critical pint.

The following day the deputy spoke to Crozier who complained that his superiors were not reacting to the ships situation properly.

Later that day, March 30, Crozier sent a four page unclassified memorandum via email to at least twenty Navy personnel including his staff and individuals inside and outside of his chain of command that asked for urgent help in executing all but 10% of his crew from the ship least sailors "die unnecessarily".  Crozier's commander, Rear Adm. Baker, learned of the email when he boarded the ship later that day.  Following that the Acting Secretary held a conference call regarding the situation.  Following that, Corzier posted to the ship's Facebook page (yes, it has a Facebook page) that “The TR Team is working with the great folks at Naval Base Guam to get Sailors off the ship and into facilities on base to help spread the crew out.”

The next day Crozier's letter hits the San Francisco Chronicle.  Sailors begin to be evacuated.

By the following day, April 1, up to 1,273 sailors have been tested, of whom 93 have tested positive, of which 7 were asymptomatic.  593 tested negative.  A plan to leave a skeleton crew onboard the ship, which carriers nuclear weapons, is developed.  Later in the day, according to the Secretary, the Secretary begins to receive communications from sailors on board the ship contesting Crozier's descriptions of the level of the emergency.  The Secretary and the Department of the Navy publicly supports Crozier but Moldy indicates privately that he's now inclined to relieve Crozier.

By April 2, 114 of the ship's crew have tested positive.  On that day Moldy states he's reached a conclusion about Crozier, that being;

“Captain Crozier had allowed the complexity of his challenge with the COVID breakout on the ship to overwhelm his ability to act professionally when acting professionally was what was needed most at the time. We do and we should expect more from the commanding officer of our aircraft carriers…It unnecessarily raised alarms with the families of our sailors and Marines with no plan to address those concerns. It raised concerns about the operational capabilities and operational security of that ship that could have emboldened our adversaries to seek advantage. And it undermined the chain of command, who had been moving and adjusting as rapidly as possible to get him the help he needed"

He later announced publicly that he'd decided to relieve Crozier of command.

By the following day, 137 of the ship's crew is positive for COVID 19, 95 of them whom are symptomatic.  Crozier leaves the vessel to the cheers of its sailors.  The number would keep climbing, and would include Crozier, but as of the current date, it does not exceed 300.  It does climb, however, every day.

On Monday, April 6, Secretary Moldy addressed the ship's crew and stated:

If [Crozier] didn’t think that information was going to get out into the public, in this information age that we live in, then he was A, too naive or too stupid to be the commanding officer of a ship like this. The alternative is that he did this on purpose. And that’s a serious violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which you are all familiar with.

This goes on, with back comments from the crew in support of their commander.

So, the net results is that in a relatively short amount of time it appears around 300 sailors (guessing) from the USS Roosevelt came down with COVID 19.  Had the ship remained at sea on deployment, which actually was never exactly what was being pondered, the numbers would have grown catastrophic.  The Navy, however, after becoming aware of the problem, did develop a plan, but it was likely not an adequate one under the circumstances.  It likely was a plan, however, that comported with the evidence at the time.  Cpt. Crozier didn't agree with the plan, went around his commanders for help, and caused a situation that necessitated another result.  He's been relieved and now the Acting Secretary of the Navy has resigned.

Which leaves us with these questions?

• How did this whole thing happen in a time of pandemic?
• Was the Acting Secretary right to relieve Crozier?
• Was the firing, which is more or less what it was, of Secretary Moldy the right thing to do?
• Should anyone else be disciplined, and if so, how?

The answer to all of these, save for the first one that can't be answered yes or no, is an absolutely clear yes.

Let's break it down.

How did this whole thing happen in a time of pandemic?

The short answer to this would be realpolitik, which is often pretty ugly and aggravating.

We should likely assume that the Roosevelt left the United States with no COVID 19 on board, although we don't really know that. The timelines would suggest that, however.  It appears pretty clear that the disease was picked up in Vietnam.

But why was the ship putting in at Danang in the first place, and why now of all times.

Starting with the first question first, the U.S. Navy has started to put in at Danang as the Vietnamese Communist fear the Chinese Communist more than they do anyone else, and for good reason.  The People's Republic of China may have aided North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, as it very much did, even supplying 100,000 troops to man air defense artillery in the North during the war, but under their respective Marxism, the Chinese remain Chinese and the Vietnamese remain Vietnamese, and they do not like each other.  The Vietnamese fear the Chinese for the same reasons that many (maybe all) of China's neighbors do; the big country is territoriality aggressive.

Japan, Taiwan (itself a Chinese nation), the former European colonies on mainland China, and just about everyone else who is near China, worries about it. And for a long time the PRC has been getting pushy in a 19th Century colonial expansion sort of way.  There's good reason to worry about China, if you are near it. And Vietnam has a longer history of being invaded by China than it does for being invaded by anyone else.

So the US, the late Vietnam War aside, is a good pal to have if you live on the same block as China.

And like China, Vietnam's modern Communist state is still Communist, sort of, or not, or just hard to figure out, economy wise.  It's not a democracy, but Karl "I'd rather be a sitting on my arse in the British Library than working" Marx wouldn't recognize it as a Marxist country if he stepped out of a Tardis in Ho Chi Minh City and looked for the library.  He'd probably not make it past the Victoria's Secret before busting into tears.  Indeed, the only nation in the world that old Karl would probably feel happy about is the unhappy land of North Korea, a real Communist state.

None of which makes Vietnam a Jeffersonian democracy.

But 's sort of the reason that we put in there.  We're trying to block the Chinese and the Vietnamese need some blocking.  Besides, as both we and the Chinese know, Vietnam is a tenacious combatant when adequately supplied and that's handy if something bad occurs.

None of which is a good reason to put into Danang is an epidemic.

Granted, the Vietnamese were reporting that they had COVID 19 eradicated at the time. Still, when you put in, in a port, sailors go ashore on liberty, and if there's anything circulating in a society, they're going to get it.

And hence the first mistake.  The USS Roosevelt should not have put in, in Danang. An excuse could have been made.

And that's the product of the first real error, which we've set out above:

On February 26 Defense Secretary Mark Esper ordered combat commanders to inform him before they made Coronavirus related protection decisions in order to keep the military from being scene to contract President Trump's declaration that the number of COVID 19 cases, fifteen, would "be close to zero" "within a couple of days."  Two days later Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly stated that the 7th Fleet, of which the USS Roosevelt was part, would be spend fourteen days between port visits in order to slow the virus, however.

The President isn't an epidemiologist.   The military can't openly say "whoa there. . . we don't agree with that", but it can take reasonable steps to address a situation.  On February 26 the Roosevelt had already been to Guam.  It can be argued that it really shouldn't have put in there, but that would be asking a bit much.  On February 26, the better call would have been for the Navy to ban port calls in Asia, which it easily could have done, and a pretext for it could have been found.

Heck, North Korea always provides a pretext for a redeployment.  That could have been used.

A "heads shall roll" type of mistake?  Maybe.

So we can't really fault the commander of the Roosevelt for putting into Danang, although I've seen a back channel comment that does just that.  It was a pre scheduled port call.  The decision to go there was a bad one, and the decision to route all sorts of stuff so as to not contradict the Administration could have been done differently.

So that's how COVID 19 boarded the USS Roosevelt.

But what then?

Was the Acting Secretary right to relieve Crozier?

What happened then is that  the disease, which is serious, became known on the ship and the commander either; 1) freaked out, or 2) purposely took an action that he knew would end up in his being relieved. We don't know which really occurred. What is clear is that he was massively insubordinate and had to be relieved.

Looking at it long term, it's clear that Crozier understood the threat better than his immediate superiors did, both of whom were on the vessel at various times during the early stages of the crisis.  Crozier would have stripped the ship of all but a skeleton crew and made due.  That may not have worked, quite frankly, but if something was going to arrest the spread of the disease, that would have. That was probably the only thing that would have by the time the infection was detected.

But that would have also taken a major combat asset in a tense part of the globe, one equipped with nuclear weapons and one which is a major deterrent to North Korea and China, pretty much off the table.

And there's real reasons not to do that, if you can avoid it.

China is brutal enough that it welded the doors shut of apartments where COVID 19 was present.  It's quarantine was effective, if it was, because of its extreme and brutal nature.  An extreme and brutal regime, it is a smart one, and there's no reason to think that China would take advantage of a pandemic to strike its neighbors, but it's not impossible.  If it did so, it would likely be in the guise of a humanitarian action, and quite limited, probably directed at Hong Kong, with which it was having a great deal of trouble just prior to the epidemic.  If it did occupy Hong Kong that would be unlikely to result in a larger conflict with anyone, but it's not impossible.

Indeed, if there was a larger event, it would likely be directed at North Korea, which is a pain for everyone. But there's every reason to believe that the Coronavirus Pandemic is probably a royal mess in North Korea and the Chinese would not want to bother with that.  Being cynical by policy and nature, it'd probably let hundreds of thousands of North Koreans die before it stepped in with a "humanitarian mission".

Which takes us to North Korea.

If a Chinese strike against anyone in this context is unlikely, a North Korean one is not.

North Korea has close and continual contact with China and COVID 19 is there for sure.  And the nation, other than its capacity for sheer brutality, has no real ability to deal with anything of this type.

Given that, the infection is probably severe and is probably basically unaddressed.  It's also undoubtedly in its army.

The leadership of North Korea is not only brutal, its paranoid.  The nation is weak to start with and more isolated every day.  If it could seize South Korea, it'd massively boost its economic position, briefly, and it'd boost its strategic position, sort of.  And seizing South Korea wold prevent South Korea from seizing it.  South Korean isn't going to try that, but North Korean no doubt fears that it will.

With an army ravished by COVID 19 and with a paranoid leadership, why not try to strike while you still have an army and with the United States completely distracted? 

The military has to plan for contingencies like that. And that is a real one.  And that's why the Navy doesn't announce "gosh, we need to take the Roosevelt off the map" any more than it would state "gosh, the 2nd Infantry Division is at 50% strength due to COVID 19".  It won't do it, it can't, and it shouldn't.

But that's basically what Crozier did.

Now, Crozier disagreed with his superiors and there's every reason now to believe he was right in his assessment.  Btu announcing that in the clear created a global strategic problem for the Navy that was contrary to the desires and expressed views of his superiors.  Going around them is so far off the Navy chain of command map that it was completely improper.  Crozier had to know that.

Which leads me to believe that he knew that he'd have to resign.

Which leads to this.  He should have resigned first.

It's the old Napoleonic maxim that an officer who disagrees with an order has two choices; 1) follow them, or 2) resign.  Going around the chain of command is almost never proper and it wasn't here. 

It's that which required Crozier to be relieved, not anything else.  A military can't tolerate officers doing this.

It can't tolerate enlisted men doing it either, which we will get to in a moment.

But was Crozier right?

He may have been.

That sounds like we're talking cross purposes, but since all of this occured one sailor had died and it's perfectly reasonable to believe that more would have.  Crozier may have been 100% correct in his actions and felt the safety of his crew mattered more than his carrier.

There is precedent for things like this.  Theodore Roosevelt, for example, went over the heads of his superiors in 1898 when the members of the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry began to come down with malaria at a disastrous rate in Cuba.  Now, of course, Roosevelt wasn't a career officer, but the move wasn't without its risks and it probably did help keep him from being considered for a command during World War One, although that wasn't the only reason, to be sure.

The point is, in some circumstances, a person  must follow the dictates of their conscience even in a military organization knowing that it's going to go badly for you personally.  Crozier likely did just that.

Was the firing, which is more or less what it was, of Secretary Moldy the right thing to do?

A democratic government also doesn't put itself in a situation in which its leaders get into an open spat in public with a military leader.

Truman didn't do that with MacArthur.  He simply relieved him.  He didn't fly to his last command and call MacArthur a dangerous wackadoodle in his declining years in public.  People were mad at Truman but he just endured it.

Secretary Moldy going to the Roosevelt to address the crew was completely improper.  He made a bad situation worse, and his "resignation" was completely appropriate.

Should anyone else be disciplined, and if so, how?

Yes, top and low.

 Moldy's actions at the Roosevelt provoked an exchange with the sailors.  This is unprecedented.

There are instances of relieved commanders being cheered by troops, but not in such a  public manner.  The last I can think of involved the relief of Gen. Terry Allen and Gen. Theodore Roosevelt in Italy in World War Two. They were beloved by their men and were lauded upon their being relieved.  But neither was relieved for a disciplinary reasons (and both came back into later service during the war). 

The crewmen of the Roosevelt cheering their CO was perhaps inappropriate but Crozier should have known that an enlisted celebration of insubordination shouldn't occur and would likely lead to bad results for those who did it.  He should have tried to stop them. Simply calling them into attention likely would have worked, maybe.

Moldy going to the vessel was simply delusional.  But Navy enlisted men arguing and commenting with him is completely inappropriate in the military system and an act of rank insubordination.

Things like this are really rare in the US military, but generally when they occur they are career enders for those involved.  The discipline tends to be disguised and in the form of rank reductions and dead end assignments.  As it can't really be known how many men were involved, it simply becomes a disciplinary sanction on all of them. And that should occur here. The Roosevelt is in port and most of the men are off. They should be reassigned to command individually once cleared and it made known why this is occuring. Those assignments should make it clear that they aren't wanted and that they should leave as soon as possible. 

Moving stuff around. The Pandemic

Yesterday I posted an item about food and the Pandemic which touched upon distribution systems.  Today I'm posting on distribution systems again, but on a much more localized basis.

I'm talking about the newspaper.

I subscribe to the local newspaper, but as I've noted here several times before, that local paper contracted out the printing of the paper to a printer in Cheyenne.  I don't think that's a good thing, and of course it certainly wasn't a good thing for the printers who lost their jobs. 

Economics was the reason that this occurred.  Local papers are in trouble now days and they're doing what they can to save costs.  It calso can't help but be noted, however, that this pattern follows the American way of doing things.  Consolidation.

Since this occured the promise of the paper, that things would rarely be disrupted, haven't been true.  This past winter has been a long and hard one and delivery of the paper has been frequently disrupted. As this has occurred I've experimented with the online edition of the paper, something that's been amplified by the fact that the time the paper arrives isn't consistent.

Recently, however, I've felt weird about just handling the paper, something that normally I prefer about the print edition over the electronic edition.  That paper comes up from Cheyenne.  Laramie County has double the  number of COVID 19 cases that my county does (Teton County shares that distinction as well). 

I don't know where that paper has been or who has handled it.  It's probably okay, but I'd feel better about it if it wasn't printed in Laramie County, trucked up here, and then distributed here.

I wasn't saying much, well anything, about that at all, but yesterday my wife did. She stated that she felt the paper was "dirty", and I'm afraid in this era I feel that way now too.

So here's another one of those things that is sort of moving.  I'm a fan of print, but will I keep getting the print paper?

And this also shows the weakness of a system that favors efficiency over everything.  A century ago this community was a third of its current size and it had two papers. Yes, it didn't have the Internet, television or even radio at that time.  But it's papers weren't trucked across the state either.  We've lost something in here somewhere.

Sunday Morning Scene: Orthodox Easter (Old Calendar)

Churches of the West: Holy Apostles Orthodox Church, Cheyenne Wyoming: ...

Holy Apostles Orthodox Church, Cheyenne Wyoming: Resurrection Matins and Liturgy

Best Posts of the Week of April 12, 2020

The best posts of the week of April 12, 2020.

Easter 2020

For those on the Gregorian Liturgical Calendar, which is most of the world outside of the Orthodox Churches that retain the "Old Calendar", and in various places not all of them do, this is Easter Sunday for 2020.  For those on the Old Calendar, next Sunday, April 19, is Easter.

This is a sad and strange Easter for Christians.  Many will not attend services. Some will watch them on television or make other observances, but it just isn't the same in all sorts of ways.



This is because, of course, of the Coronavirus Pandemic.



Maybe this gives people time to pause and think a bit.  Quite a few people who know that Easter means something give it no more attention than going to church once a year, or maybe twice if they also observe Christmas, and otherwise get tied up in a secular celebration involving a big meal and the like.



Easter is a feast, but it's a feast because of what it is, not what it is because of a feast.  In a season, now, of isolation, perhaps that's more apparent.

Francis Fukuyama, this is your wake up call

The 2020 Election, Part 7

The Pandemic And The Table, Part 1.

Pandemic

Lex Anteinternet: Pulling out the legs of the stool. More bad news.