Be who you are and be that well.
St. Francis de Sales
Thursday, January 27, 2022
Wednesday, January 26, 2022
Courthouses of the West: Justice Stephen Breyer To Retire.
Courthouses of the West: Justice Stephen Breyer To Retire.: 
Justice Stephen Breyer To Retire.
Just when you thought the news wasn't tense enough. . . Russians looming over Ukraine. . . PRC looming over Taiwan. . . the mid term election. . . a baseball lockout. . .
Justice Stephen Breyer decides to retire.
Uff.
Well, off to a titanic nomination spat with a 50/50 divided Senate.
The filibuster, however, won't apply, so the Democrats, assuming they can all agree on the replacement nominee, will get somebody in. They key will be satisfying the moderate Democrats, although they are few in number.
Breyer, a 1964 Harvard law graduate, was appointed to the Court by Bill Clinton in 1994. He was principally a government attorney early in his career before becoming a Harvard professor in 1967, although he took time out from that pursuit to engage in government service from time to time, including serving as a Watergate prosecutor. He was an expert on administrative law. He went on the bench in 1980.
Breyer had one of those legal careers that's both enviable and deceptive. Undoubtedly highly intelligent, he actually practiced real law very little, spending no time whatsoever in private practice and the most of his career in academia or on the bench. Of some slight interest, in his early legal career, 1964 and 1965, he was completing eight years in the Army Reserve, from which he left as a corporal.
Beyer, who is 83, has been under enormous pressure to retire due to Democratic fears that if he does not do so prior to the November election and should then pass away, certain a possibility at his advanced age, his replacement would not get through a Republican Senate or would be nominated by a Republican President.
Flavor of the weather?
Why would a major east coast storm have "an American model" and "a European model"?
Heard on the Today Show's weather report as I headed out the door, just as they were synthesizing the models.
Monday, January 26, 1942. US troops land in Belfast.
The droops disembarking in Belfast on this day looked much like the one in this illustration, with this in fact being their uniform, although they were wearing great coats over their service dress.
January 26, 1942: First US Army troops arrive in Britain: Convoy AT-10 carrying the 34th Infantry Division arrives in Belfast to relieve British troops. US and Filipino forces withdraw to final defense line on Bataan Peninsula, behind Pilar-Bagac road.
From Sarah Sundin's blog.
Those troops, as photos showed, looked more like American soldiers from World War One than World War Two, wearing heavy full length wool great coats and M1917 helmets. Many, probably most of them, were also carrying M1903 Springfields, although photos show a few with M1 Garands.
Not that any of their dress or equipment was obsolete, as so often suggested. While the early war equipment dated back to the Great War, much of the infantry equipment of the Great War in most armies did, if not considerably before that.
Their crossing had been kept secret and was made without incident, making their arrival in Belfast a surprise.
Thursday January 26. The Joss House (Chinese house of worship) in Evanston burns down.
A cold snap hit Washington, D. C.
As noted for this day, among other things, on our companion blog This Day In Wyoming's History, a disaster struck in Evanston..
1922 On this day in 1926, the Joss House, a Chinese house of traditional worship, burned down in Evanston.
In spite of really pronounced discrimination against them, southeastern Wyoming retained a significant Chinese and Japanese population into the mid 20th Century, reflecting a population that had been brought into the region due to the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad. Following World War Two the population largely dispersed and this is no longer true.
Pope Benedict XV was buried in St. Peter's Basilica on this day.
An anti lynching bill was passed in the House of Representatives, but it never came to a vote in the Senate.
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgiest Part XXIX. The Income Inequality Edition.
Starting a storm in the Twitterverse
Wharton professor Nina Strohminger did just that when she asked her students about what average incomes were like.
She posted it on Twitter.
I asked Wharton students what they thought the average American worker makes per year and 25% of them thought it was over six figures. One of them thought it was $800k. Really not sure what to make of this (The real number is $45k)
Some interesting replies resulted from this, this one from somebody who is now apparently an "oil acquisition attorney", but who seems to be expressing some deep regrets otherwise about the state of his/her life if you look up their Twitter feed:
As an alum I’m curious what you expect of students. They’re looking at the segment of the world they’ll occupy. Is that wrong - for 18-22 yr olds at a competitive place like Wharton to be narrowly focused? Do you really expect them to care about wealth inequality etc right now?
And the response to that one:
Wharton students aren't undergrads. This is an MBA program, so your age range is likely a little off. Regardless, fucking-a right I "expect them to care about wealth inequity etc. right now."
Without using the 1980s barracks room vocabulary, that's more of my view, I'd note. I expect them to care as well.
Robert Reich cares, and has a sting of videos on this, this being one of them.
Generally, establishment Republicans really hate the Reich videos. Ironically, the populist Republicans, many of whom were Democrats not all that long ago, would have loved them when they were Democrats. They probably hate them now, however, as they seem to have fallen in line on this sort of thing for some reason.
But there's more than a little to this.
We've posed on this topic before, but things are getting wildly out of whack, and COVID has emphasized that. Suffice it to say, a nation in which very few have most of the wealth won't be stably democratic for long. It'll head into a certain sort of mobism, or it'll end up on an oligarchy, the latter of which are not stable long term.
It'all also be a nation where most of the jobs, no matter what they pay, will be dispiriting for most people.
Wharton and other schools.
I don't know what to make of Wharton in general, I'll note.
Or rather, perhaps I mean its graduates.
It has a fantastic reputation as a school, and one of my close relatives is a graduate of it. Based upon that, I tended to hold it in very high respect.
Since that time, however, its reputation with me has become a bit dented, probably mostly due to politics. That's probably unfair. The school could give you an excellent business education, and not mean that you come out as a politician that everyone admires or have political views that everyone respects.
I'm sure going there, however, is money well spent.
Not Wharton, but this reminded me of a Wall Street Journal headline I saw. I can't read the article due to the paywall.
NYU Is Top-Ranked—In Loans That Alumni and Parents Struggle to Repay
By many measures, the elite Manhattan school is the worst or among the worst for leaving families and graduate students drowning in debt; ‘It feels like I’m kind of trapped’
She probably feels trapped because she's trapped.
The Journal recently ran this article on a similar theme.
‘Financially Hobbled for Life’: The Elite Master’s Degrees That Don’t Pay Off
Columbia and other top universities push master’s programs that fail to generate enough income for graduates to keep up with six-figure federal loans
Well, at least there's always the FFL.
The Migrant Concession and Inflation
An interesting accidental concession occurred a week ago on Meet The Press when Chuck Todd closed out the show noting that legal immigration into the US is way, way, down. Todd, whose role isn't really supposed to be editorializing, nonetheless did and made the connection between low migration (which still is high by the standards of most nations) and wages.
Yikes.
For eons, Americans have been told that immigrants take jobs that "nobody else will". Todd's concession basically admits that Americans will take them, if they pay a decent wage.
That's a huge concession.
Indeed, what that essentially indicates that much of the current inflation is in reality the economy adjusting to the decline in wage depression through paying immigrants, legal and illegal, low wages.
Everyone who ever looked at this honestly already knew that this was the case. There are next to no jobs that Americans won't take. Rather, there are jobs that Americans can't take as we've exported them overseas or won't take as we've depressed the wages so low they'll only be taken by the scared and desperate.
This is particularly the case with illegal immigration, a feature of which is dirty jobs at low wages.
So it turns out that Americans will work these jobs, but in the post COVID economy lots of Americans who were already at the bottom end of the economic latter have, probably purely accidentally, joined hands with lots of Americans who were under employed, and told the nation to "screw you and the horse you rode in on" for keeping wages in the basement.
Rising wages will cause prices to climb, but this isn't quite the same sort of inflation that we experienced in the 1970s and 1980s. Rather, this is a readjustment. What might occur here is that it will depress the economy somewhat, but basically force it back into the 1950s model. People will have more income, but will buy less.
Frankly, overall, that's a good thing. Since the Second World War we've created a pure consumption economy that's anti family and hostile to those who don't want to get degrees to become cubicle dwellers. The giant reaction by the formerly blue collar was already going on pre COVID, but now it's really going on at a massive scale.
The solution for this isn't to flood the market with desperate Guatemalans, but rather to pay actual decent wages. There's a chance that this might actualy come about.
Tuesday, January 25, 2022
Sunday, January 25, 1942. Australia initiates conscription.
As Sarah Saradin's blog, notes, the following things happened on this day in 1942:
January 25, 1942: Japanese set up puppet government in Thailand, which declares war on US and UK. Japanese land at Lae, New Guinea. Australia orders full mobilization; all white male British subjects 18-45 years are eligible for conscription.
It's worth noting that conscription was not popular in Australia. The Australians were justifiably freighted that the Japanese would land on Australia and outright conquer it, a thought that seems fantastical today, but which is less extreme than one might imagine. Japan's population grossly outnumbered Australia's and Australia, for the most part, is only populated on its coasts. Japan was, at the time, expanding its conquests massively, and on this day were making landings in New Guinea and Borneo. As noted, their puppet government in Thailand declared war on the US and UK.
Nonetheless, Australians, who have always had a strong contrarian streak, didn't like the idea of conscription and at first Australian conscripts only served in Australia itself, matching a pattern that was true for Canada, at first. Late war Canadians conscripts could be sent overseas, and Australian ones ended up fighting in the Pacific. The quality of Australian conscript combat troops was notably poorer than their volunteer troops, with morale really being the reason why.
The United Kingdom, New Zealand and South Africa reciprocated Thailand's declaration of war. Thailand's ambassador to the US refuses to deliver the declaration and defects, going on to form a Free Thai government in exile.
Japanese submarines shelled Marine Corps positions at Midway unsuccessfully, and submerged due to counterfire.
Uruguay severed diplomatic relations with Germany, Italy and Japan.
The Red Army surrounded the Germans at Kholm. The Germans overran British lines, including armor, at Msus.
Wednesday January 25, 1922. Creation of the U.S. Army Band.
W. S. Ross of the U.S. Army band in 1924, wearing the Pershing Grey uniform the band originally was equipped with.
On this day in 1922 "Pershing's Own", the United States Army Band, was formed.
The band in its "Pershing Grey" uniform it wore until World War Two.
The band in 1970 in Vietnam.
After only 32 days in office, Liang Shiyi resigned as premier of China due to disputes with warlords. China's descent into two decades of civil war was well underway.
U.S. Marines were detailed to protect the U.S. Embassy in Nicaragua.
Monday, January 24, 2022
Saturday January 24, 1942. The first surface engagement between the Allies and Japan.
A committee issued its report finding Admiral Kimmel and General Short at fault for failing to coordinate their defenses or taking appropriate measures, leading to the disaster at Pearl Harbor.
This significant item, or series of items, below:
Today in World War II History—January 24, 1942: Battle of Makassar Strait—first US naval surface action in Asian waters since Spanish-American War: US destroyers and US & Dutch aircraft sink six Japanese ships at Balikpapan, Borneo. US Flying Tigers P-40s shoot down 12 planes over Rangoon, Burma. New song in Top Ten: “I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good.”
The Battle of Makassar Strait was significant for the reasons noted, although the Japanese land action at Balikpapan was successful.
The Germans relieved a Soviet encirclement at Sukhinichi in a type of action that would remain common for the rest of the war.
Peru broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, Italy and Japan.
Abie's Irish Rose premiered on NBC. The radio comedy involves a wealthy Jewish widower whose son begins to court, and then secretly marries, an Irish Catholic girl. The theme had been a long-running popular one and this was a radio adaptation of a play that had first premiered on May 23, 1922, and then made into a film in 1928.
It would be made into a film again in 1946.
The play, written by Anne Nichols, was loosely based on her own story, although in her case she had been raised in a strict Baptist family and married an Irish Catholic man. It was an enduring American theme had appeared before, in other settings, by other authors, and would continue to be later. For example, O. E. Rölvaag had included it in his sequel to Giants In the Earth, Peter Victorious, but with the Irish Catholic girl marrying a Norwegian Lutheran. It'd repeated directly in Brooklyn Bridge, the 1990s television show set in the 1950s and would, in a different twist, be repeated in the film Brooklyn, also set in the 1950s, with an Irish immigrant woman and an Italian American man, both Catholics but of different ethnic backgrounds. In some altered form, perhaps involving somebody of Hispanic origin, it's probably ripe to be repeated.
Hors de combat
Actually, what happens when you lift a dog that isn't use to going into big box blinds, down into a big box blind.
Sunday, January 23, 2022
Blog Mirror: cruiser Nürnberg: post-WWII service
Excellent article on the titled topic, and other German ships that went on to Soviet service.
cruiser Nürnberg: post-WWII service
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgiest Part XXVIII. The juvenile or nearly so femme fatale edition. Plus, the example of monarchy, Robbing trains, Expats and politics, M&M's, Tucker Carson and Carson Tucker.
Prince Andrew stripped of military titles and duties
I don't really know what his duties actually were, but whatever they were, he no longer has them. Nor does he have his military titles any longer.
This, of course, because he's been sued by Virginia Giuffre who alleges that he sexually abused her, when she was a minor, age 17, and part of the creepy sexual net that Jeffrey Epstein had going.
By all accounts, Giuffre lead a horrific early life, having been a sexual abuse victim before that period even. Following prior horrors at age 14, she was reunited with her father, who worked at Mar-A-Lago. . . yes that Mar-A-Lago. She was found there by Ghislaine Maxwell, who was Epstein's procurer. She claims she was supplied by Epstein to Prince Andrew.
We should be careful not to assume that Giuffre is telling the truth. Her story has changed over time, and she also claims that Epstein supplied her to Alan Dershowitz, which I find unlikely for some reason. Anyhow, she does show up in a photo with the Prince, and the fact that he wasn't able to get the lawsuit she's filed in New York dismissed was apparently the last straw for the Royal Family.
Anyhow, this story is interesting for a couple of reasons.
One thing is, I think, that it shows the Royal Family, indeed all Royal Families, just need to go. They're beyond being an anachronism. What purpose do they really serve? Wrapping the whole thing up with the UK, which itself is becoming a bit frayed at the margins, upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II seems like a fitting and dignified ending to an institution that, frankly, has frequently been undignified.
On that, followers of certain lines of thought on Reddit will frequently find really radical traditionalist arguing for the return of monarchy pretty much everywhere, often stating that it establishes as set of (Christian) values for a nation. Apparently, such people are wholly ignorant of real monarchies.
If Prince Andrew did bed Virginia Giuffre, and I don't know that he did, it would have been wrong on every level, but it would have been pretty much par for the course for the male members of royal families throughout history. Finding a King, for example, that didn't have courtesans in addition to a wife is, well, difficult. The upper classes always knew this. The peasantry didn't, all the time, except when they did, and then they tended not to care too much, as monarchy was relatively irrelevant to their real lives.
What would Alfred the Great think? Well, while Alfred married once and had all legitimate children, he probably would have found Andrew's conduct rather the norm for princes.
Other creepy groomers
I've never heard of Sondra Theodore, but apparently she was one of Hugh Hefner's various concubines, oops, um, prostitutes, . . . um, oh, uh "girlfriends". That's right, girlfriends.
Oh heck, concubines.
It's sort of the Epstein story, and sort of not. Basically, he started . . . well. . .when she was 19. He was 50.
That's creepy, but she was an adult. She can't really complain that much, as basically, well, she was prostituting herself to Hefner, like many others. She was an adult, albeit a young one, which Giuffre was not.
It does get creepier, however, as apparently Hefner, one of the architects of the destruction of the moral society, used her as a procurer for additional concubines. . um, prostitutes, or whatever, um bedmates, for her perversions.
Should we feel sorry for her?
As a human, certainly. Indeed, we should pray for her redemption, which hopefully has arrived. And, in the Catholic tradition and moral thought, even for Hefner's, which in no way reduces the path of destroyed lives, and indeed destroyed souls, he left in his disgusting wake. We may be in a period of reckoning, but we have a long ways to go before Hefner's damaging legacy is in the historical dustbin, as opposed to Hefner himself, who is, and his instrument of destruction, the print edition of Playboy.
Speaking of self-promotion through photographic concubinage. . .
Not Theodore, or Jenner.
Kylie Jenner reaches 300,000,000 viewers on Instagram
That's a lot of views.
They aren't viewing her for her vast intellect, although I don't doubt that she has one.
More particularly, that's a lot of cheesecake views. Jenner is, really, a modern pinup and a famous one.
At least she isn't 17.
Or 19.
But the image she portrays isn't exactly of a mature women either, now is it.
This cast of characters
May we say it?
Ooo, ick.
Hefner, Trump, Cosby, Prince Andrew.
Blech.
All men with reprehensible relationships with women to some degree, although in fairness Prince Andrew, at least so far, has the least icky, assuming the latest accusations do not prove to be true.
And all celebrated and powerful, and to some degree, save for Andrew, still celebrated.
The Train Robbers
Thieves are robbing Union Pacific trains in Los Angeles to such an extent that . . .
the railroad is considering ceasing to serve the city.
News footage shows the rail line littered with the packages of thousands of stolen items.
Let's admit it, Los Angeles is simply beyond repair.
California darned near is. The Golden State, after decades of financial problems and after decades of unrestrained population growth, ended up just where you'd think a locality featuring those things would.
Los Angeles, as we recognize it, dates back to a Catholic mission founded there in 1771, which was founded by St. Junipero Serra. Like all things moral, he's under attack in California today, which is part of the reason that California in general is the titanic mess it is. In 1841 it was made the capital of Alta California. It was one of California's premier cities for decades.
World War Two victory parade featuring Californian George S. Patton.
Hollywood is one of its suburbs.
It's all a mess now, as is California in general. And because California is an overgrown bloated festering sinkhole, its population with means, which is much of it, is leaving the state. In the last census, California lost population. This is a problem for the rest of the country, as its fleeing residents tend to bring California with them, wherever they go.
Expats and politics
In the state's politics, I frankly wonder to what extent that we're hearing the voice of expats. More specifically, a lot of the current political tone doesn't resemble the sort of tone Wyoming used to have.
Wyoming's politics have traditionally been unique. They've been conservative in a quasi libertarian way but not populist. The state had a strong, if minority, Democratic Party up until the 1990s. The ethos of the state tended to be "I don't care what you are doing as long as you don't ask me to approve of it".
Things have really changed.
The state's politics always tend to show some influence of recent migrants when they swing in, in numbers. Usually they swing back out, in numbers as well. It'll be interesting to see what happens as oil starts to wind down here, which it will, but at any rate, you would think we'd be seeing some result of that exodus now.
Of course, we're really not for a variety of reasons, one of which was COVID. While I hate to admit it, the pandemic brought in a population that sort of followed in the wake of and added to the strong southern influences that oil booms have tended to. This has brought in the new populist politics and it's taken over the local GOP.
Or maybe it's just the times.
The state has always featured a lot of near state immigration. You don't have to go too far to find people who are from the neighboring states. But it is the case that in recent years things have been different. You'll run into people who will proudly proclaim, "I'm from California and . . . " emphasizing how they left the state where they made their money and lives, and fled it to come here.
Economic boosters often fail to realize what this sort of thing can mean. People like to complain about what Colorado has become, for instances, but Colorado campaigned to become that.
One interesting undercurrent to this is that the state has experienced its third wave of Hispanic immigration, or fourth really. The first Hispanic immigrants came into the state from New Mexico in the 1840s to work for the Army as builders near Ft. Laramie. They stayed and farmed, but for some reason their farms on the Mexican Hills near there didn't establish a permanent population.
The second wave did, however, with that brining in a group of New Mexican Hispanics who worked in the rail industry and shepherding in from the 30s through the 50s. Their descendants are still here. The next group came in during the 70s during the first big wave of illegal immigration, although not all of them were illegal by any means. Many of them left, but some stayed. And then there's the current wave that has been going on for the past fifteen years or so.
This population is demographically significant, and there's no reason to believe that its Republican. It'd be a natural Democratic demographic, but the Wyoming Democratic Party has become so small that it tends to be populated only by WASP leftists anymore, who can't really seem to actually see Hispanic voters. They instead tend to imagine the entire world as if it's Greenwich Village for some reason. This will become obvious, again, when the Democrats finally start to nominate some candidates for the 2022 election, as they'll all be white, probably, and at least one of them will surely check all the current WASP Left boxes.
A smart Democratic Party would pick up where Lynette Grey Bull left off and try to test the field a bit with a candidate who reflects a broader base. Fremont County, due to the Reservation, retains a real Democratic Party. If that party reached out to the now statistically significant Hispanic community, which probably is a little scared with all the rhetoric it may be hearing from the more hard right elements of the GOP, it might be able to capture a surprising number of voters. The candidate would have to cross over to capture moderate Republicans as well, but the GOP might aid it in doing that. A party that claims Liz Cheney is a "RINO" is doing a good job of that already.
Cement structures at Ft. Laramie, built by migrants from New Mexico.
M&M's
The Mars candy of fame, which was battle born, has caused a flap by changing the footgear of its cute cartoon version of itself. Or at least the footgear of one of the cartoon figures.
Forrest Mars Sr. got the idea for M&M's from Smarties, a British candy that was popular in the Spanish Civil War for the same reason that M&M's are, their shell keeps them from being a gooey mess. The first big customer for the 1940 introduced candy was the U.S. Army.
At some point in the last few decades, the company introduced advertising that featured talking cartoon M&M's. A female M&M was among them, wearing go-go boots. Now she's going to wear tennis shoes, in an effort to update the character and be more inclusive.
Of course, in an era when everything is deemed to have a massive sexual and political meaning, this has caused a flap. It's been commented on by, who else, Tucker Carson.
American soldier giving candy to French girls, July 4, 1944, when candy had no overt gender or political message.
Journalism?
I had to look up Tucker Carson to try to figure out why he's such a big deal. I still don't know, although his bio read is a little wild.
Journalism, and by that I mean journalism everywhere, has always had its personalities and wild characters, so much of the "decline in journalism" commentary is actually wrong. It's a return to its status quo ante. After all, it isn't as if the drawing that Frederic Remington submitted of a Spanish officer detaining a stripped Cuban woman was drawn from life.
In this, however, I think the Press has followed the same track as the law. By the early 20th Century the institution was disgusted with its own conduct, as the law was with it, and worked to reform itself. By the teens, it was already doing better than it had in the late 19th Century. By World War Two it very much was, and when television came on, and we had only three networks, the news was presented in a very dignified manner.
Well, cable television and then the internet ended that, and we returned to the days when you bought your journalism from somebody who you know is reliably likely to have a more extreme version of your own opinion. The Carson's and Maddow's are good examples of that. And it dovetails the decline in legal professionalism perfectly.
Pitty poor Carson Tucker, an individual with the same names, but in reverse order. He's a baseball layer with the Arizona Complex League Guardians.
Carson's father was, for a time, a gonzo journalist, of which this is the symbol.
Friday, January 23, 1942. The Japanese land on Rabaul, Partisans withdraw in Croatia, Dutch aircraft score, the Afrika Korps advances, the Red Army surrounds.
Soon to be added to the nation's fighting forces will be an all black aviation squadron, whose members now are in training at Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Alabama. Some of the cadets at the Basic and Advanced Flying School for Negro Air Corps Cadets are shown here, January 23, 1942, lined up for review with Major James A. Ellison returning the salute of Mac Ross of Dayton, Ohio, as he inspects the cadets." (Source: AP Photo/U.S. Army Signal Corps)
On this day in 1942, the Battle of Rabaul commenced on New Britain, pursuant to Japanese Operation R.
Australian troops in withdrawal in New Britain.
The Battle of Balikpapan began in eastern Borneo.
Yugoslavian partisans withdrew, ending Operation Southeast Croatia. Perhaps the most notable thing, however, is that it was 1942 and Yugoslavia clearly wasn't under uncontested Axis control.
The Italian submarine Barbarigo sank the Spanish freighter SS Navemar, thereby seeing an event in which an Axis state sank the ship of a putative Axis ally.
On the same day the Japanese I-72 sank the USS Neches 120 miles west of Pearl Harbor. This caused the U.S. Navy Task Force 11 to return to Pearl Harbor, as it could not make Wake Island, which it had been detailed to strike, without refueling, and the Neches was an oiler.
USS Neches.
The MS Nana Maru was sunk by Dutch Martin B-10 bombers and Brewster Buffalo's.
A Martin B-10.
Both aircraft would be regarded as nearly obsolescent by this point in the war, and yet they could still give first-rate service in the hands of capable crews.
Brewster Buffalo.
The Germans sink a British and a Norwegian merchant ship in Operation Drumbeat.
The Afrika Korps continues to rapidly advance in North Africa, which didn't keep these coastal artillerymen from getting clean.
Or this Army bakery from doing its work.
The Luftwaffe raided Tobruk.
British anti-aircraft crews near Tobruk on this day in 1942.
The Red Army surrounds 5,500 German troops in Kholm, USSR.
Monday, January 23, 1922. A medical triumph from occurs in Toronto.
Leonard Thompson, age 14, received the first successful injection of insulin in history. He'd only shortly before received an unsuccessful one, in the first example of an insulin injection, which he had an allergic reaction to.
More on this monumental milestone:
The very first insulin injection to treat diabetes
Leonard Thompson | January 11 & 23, 1922
It's all too easy to forget that it was only 100 years ago that a disease like diabetes, now very treatable, simply terminated the lives of those seriously afflicted with it.
It's also too easy to get that this lifesaver comes at the end of a needle, something that similar treatments also do, and yet they continue to be resisted today.
President Harding opened a farming convention, promising Federal help to farmers for loans for such things as equipment purchases.
Not surprisingly, just as now, human reminders of the recent war abounded at such things.
And this is also true now.
Best Post of the Week of January 16, 2022
The best posts of the week of January 16, 2022.
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXVII. The Pope Francis Followup Edition.
Saturday, January 22, 2022
Thursday, January 22, 1942. Japanese murders, Russian evacuations.
The Japanese shot, bayoneted, and beheaded withe swords 110 Australian and 40 Indian wounded prisoners and their medics in Malaya, the Parit Sulong Massacre.
The Japanese Imperial Guards commander, General Takuma Nishimura was tried after the war for war crimes due to this, and was hanged on June 11, 1951, although there is some doubt about his culpability for the actions of the troops.
It ought to be noted that actions like this by the Japanese were completely common during World War Two, and seem to have become common in the Japanese military no later than the 1930s. This had not been the case earlier, as for example in the Russo Japanese War.
The Soviets advanced in their Winter offensive, the Afrika Korps advanced in theirs.
The Soviets also started evacuating residents of Leningrad over Lake Ladoga, which was frozen.
Six Allied merchant ships went down due to submarines in Operation Drumbeat.
Sunday, January 22, 1922. The Passing of Pope Benedict XV
He'd been the Pope since 1914 and his Papacy had been heavily marked by attempting to deal with the crisis of the First World War. A stern looking man, he's remembered for his diligent profoundly Christian efforts to end the war and his instructions to his Bishops to be more effective in their mission. He predicted the rise of what became the Soviet Union.
On the same day, the Cheyenne newspaper had the lurid Philadelphia story of a business owner and his "stenographer" who fell victim to note-taking that was too close for the wife's comfort.
A haughty looking woman was photographed driving her motorized tricycle.
Friday, January 21, 2022
Wednesday, January 21, 1942. Banning pinball
On this day in 1942 a court in New York ruled that pinball machines were games of chance, not skill, and therefore banned them.
There had been somewhat of a public campaign against the games in New York for some time. Associated, to a certain degree, with youthful idleness and vice, there was evidence that gaming in New York was controlled by the Mafia, which brought some urgency to the effort by authorities.
I've never really liked pinball machines myself, so its a bit of a mystery to me why they were ever popular, but they were hugely popular at one time, enjoying a big swing of interest in the 1970s, just before video games arrived and basically wiped them out.
Rommel, pushed across North Africa, counterattacks:
Today in World War II History—January 21, 1942
The counterattack, which would reverse much of the gains of Operation Crusader, was a surprise to the British forces and emblematic of the seesaw nature of the fighting in North Africa.
Saturday, January 21, 1922. The Irish Race Conference of 1922 convenes.
On this day in 1922, Pope Benedict XV was so near death, that some newspapers were reporting that he had in fact passed away.
The Saturday journals hit the newsstands.
The Saturday Evening Post featured an illustration by Ellen Bernard Thompson Plyle, a noted illustrator whose career had been interrupted by her role as a mother during part of it. Born in 1876, she retured to illustrations in the late 1910s and had a substantial carrier until her death in the 1930s.
On the same day, the Irish Race Conference of 1922 commenced in Paris. The conferences, of which there have been several, sought to bring representatives of all of the "Irish Race" together to confer on topics, with the 1922 topic being the treaty with the UK.
While the treaty was largely supported by the Irish, the conference rejected it in favor of a united Ireland with "full" independence.
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