Monday, June 22, 1942. Laval wishes for a German victory.

Pierre Laval, the Prime Minister of (Vichy) France, stated in a radio address; 

I wish for a German victory, because, without it, Bolshevism tomorrow would settle everywhere.

He was in his third period of being the Prime Minister, with the second and third both being during the Vichy period.

The statement came as a shock to many of his countrymen, who assumed that Vichy France was playing a waiting game until an Allied liberation would come.  Laval, however, had come to heavily sympathize with the Nazis.

Laval had been Prime Minister in 1931-32. He originally had been a pacifist Socialist politician and a lawyer who championed working men, but by the 1940s he'd migrated towards fascism.  He was executed following a trial after the war.

Sarah Sundin reports the following for today:

Today in World War II History—June 22, 1942: Germans take Bardia, Libya. US Flag Code becomes public law, regarding the Pledge of Allegiance and treatment of the flag.

Thursday, June 22, 1922. Sir Henry Wilson assassinated.

Sir Henry Wilson, a British Field Marshall, was assassinated outside of his home in London by members of the Irish Republican Army

Wilson was from County Longford, Northern Ireland, and had briefly been a Unionist politician after retiring from the army.  He was noted as a political intriguer and had role in the unsuccessful introduction of conscription in Ireland during World War One as well as the pre-war Curragh Mutiny.  In the latter event, he encouraged British officers to resign rather than to take action against the Ulster Volunteers.  He opposed Irish independence to the end, and that likely cost him his life at the hands of those who also were for union, but not of the type that he was.  

Wilson regarded himself as Irish and in fact spoke with an Irish accent.  He was a member of the Church of Ireland, as would be expected, that being the Irish expression of the Anglican Communion, although he was known to occasionally attend Catholic services.  Interestingly, he did so even though he objected to its Roman orientation, and he was personally low church in the Anglican Communion.

Wilson was a controversial figure, although one who was generally popular in the British Army, and he had a long period of military service, having entered the British Army in 1882.

World War II Every Day with Army Sizes

The official start of summer. . .

is today, but like every day recently, it's absolutely freezing outside.

Which is making me regret taking my Jeep windows and doors off when we actually had two warm days of weather.

It's absolutely in the temperature basement, with no end in sight.  I haven't buttoned the Jeep back up yet, but I'm starting to contemplate that.  Looking at the weather report, it looks as if it'll be cold for days.

None of which keeps people from turning on the office air conditioner, of course.

Sunday, June 21, 2022. The Japanese shell Ft. Stevens. Tobruk falls.

The I25 followed up on the action by the I26 of yesterday's date and shelled Ft. Stevens, Oregon, at the mouth of the Columbia River.  It failed to hit anything.  Ft. Stevens did not return fire for a variety of reasons, including the problems of firing at night, worrying about whether the fire was simply from a reconnaissance mission, and a concern that the guns mounts made firing on the I25 impossible.

Crater from the I25.

The failure to return fire caused the Army to start reevaluating coastal artillery.

The I25 was sunk by the US the following year.

Tobruk fell to the Afrika Korps, with the Germans taking over 25,000 prisoners of war.  Rommel was rewarded with the Field Marshall's baton on the same day.

The temperature in Tirat Zvi Palestine, now Israel, reached 129.2 F, which remains the record for that location.

Saturday, June 20, 1942. The I26 shells Estevan Point.

The Japanese submarine I26 shelled Estevan Point on British Columbia's Vancouver Island, but did not hit it, even after firing over 25 shells.  Ironically, the effort was somewhat successful in that it was then decided to turn all of the lights off for Pacific coast lighthouses, which caused problems for coast shipping.

The I26.

The I26's raid was the first time that Canadian soil had been attacked since the last of the Fenian Raids in 1871.

The I26 was the Imperial Japanese Navy's third-highest scoring submarine.  In October 1944 it disappeared at sea, and the cause of its loss is not really known.

The Afrika Korps commenced attacking Tobruk with artillery and aircraft, resulting in the 11th Infantry Brigade retreating and opening up the lines.

Three German saboteurs were arrested in New York City, their mission having been betrayed.

Blog Mirror: The tape recorder that was operated by President Richard Nixon’s White House secretary Rosemary Wood as part of the Nixon White House taping system. Wood used this recorder to create the tape of 6/20/1970, containing the infamous “18 ½ minute gap.”

 

The tape recorder that was operated by President Richard Nixon’s White House secretary Rosemary Wood as part of the Nixon White House taping system. Wood used this recorder to create the tape of 6/20/1970, containing the infamous “18 ½ minute gap.”

Looking at the Sunday Trib and some observations. 1. Democrats giving the kiss of death. 2. Buchanan defending the election against absurd claims by the "My Pillow" guy. 3. On nuclear

The editorial section of the Tribune was interesting this past Sunday.  A few takeaways and observations.

The first one is this.  A column was written by somebody I happen to know in support of Cheney, concluding with the line that he's a Democrat, but supporting Cheney.

This follows up on quite a few letters to the editor that say the same thing.

If you are a Democrat, and support Cheney, the single most significant thing you can do for her is to shut up.

Cheney is accused by her opponents of being a "RINO" (Republican In Name Only) and supporting the Democrats.  Your support of her, Democrat, hurts her.

Isn't this obvious?

So too, I'd note, are letters from outside the state.  I don't know why somebody living in Massachusetts thinks writing a letter to the editor of a newspaper in Wyoming will persuade any Wyomingites to do anything.  It won't.  But if does help convince those who dislike Cheney not to vote for her, as she's accused also of being, basically, a political carpetbagger.  

So again, shut up.

The second interesting item is the op-ed by the Secretary of State defending the state's elections against absurd claims by Mike Lindell, the "My Pillow" guy.

Lindell has been making absurd claims that all sorts of votes were stolen in Wyoming, which is bizarre in a state that overwhelmingly went for Trump.  He has formed some sort of organization supporting his claims, and the Wyoming Secretary of State's office even sent somebody to a conference it held.  It's asked the organization for its evidence and never received it.

The claims are, as noted, absurd.

The editorial shows how rational Buchanan is in his role.  It's a shame that he's leaving the office, no longer contending for it, as he's trying for a state district court judgeship. That's his right, but whoever gets that office is unlikely to be as untainted as he presently is.  One of the contenders, Wyoming House member Chuck Gray, has been involved in the circus involved in pointlessly challenging Arizona's election, and that's not a good sign.

As noted here earlier, I really don't know what to make of Buchanan publically announcing he's contending for the judicial position.  In some ways, it's admirably honest as he's not messing up the election by hoping to get something else, which he presumably stands a pretty good chance of getting.  On the other, he failed to get such an appointment earlier this past year, and this puts a lot of pressure on the nominating committee and the Governor (should he be nominated).

There's more I'm tempted to say on that entire process, but I'll abstain.

Next, a founder of a right wing libertarian organization wrote an article attacking nuclear energy.

A foundress of a group that's been a huge backer of libertarian and far right causes in the state, and her prior appearances in  the news haven't been encouraging.  I'll just note this. Everyone who is familiar with energy generation on a scientific level is of the opinion that nuclear power is safe and necessary.

Necessary.

This would include, I'd note, a former head of the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

Gore's article deals with supply problems and costs, but as has been long-established, this is always an argument for anything that's on coming. At first, there's always supply problems and costs are high.  It's well established that as something gets up and rolling, costs go down and the supply problems ease.

This is overall part of the constantly made argument that the nation simply can't move away from fossil fuels.  Setting aside the argument on whether it must do so for environmental reasons, it's pretty clear the country is moving away from them.  It simply is.  In the short term, although that's increasingly becoming more and more short term, they will still be there.  Nothing is going away overnight. But long term alternative forms of energy generation are taking over, and in some quarters they have been for over a century.  The arguments overall on this topic really were ones that were first advanced, and then decided in the 1910 to 1920 time frame, and in the 1970s.

Friday, June 19, 1942 . James Dougherty and Norma Jean Baker marry. The Second Washington Conference commenced. The Germans execute Eliáš,

The then Norma Jean Dougherty, as she looked when she appeared in Yank, as an employee of the Radio Plane Company

James Dougherty, then serving in the U.S. Navy, married Norma Jean Baker in Los Angeles, California.  He was 21, she was 16.  Their marriage prevented her from having to return to an orphanage following the relocation of her foster parents.

The sixteen-year-old had, as her living situation would indicate, a rough start in life.  Her parentage was uncertain, although her birth certificate had indicated that it was one Edward Mortenson, her mother's second husband.  In any event, Mortenson abandoned her mother when he learned of the pregnancy.  She was given up to a family by the last name of Boelender when only twelve days old to be raised until her mother, who had fallen into depression, had recovered enough to resume her role when she was somewhat older.  During this period of time, she acquired the last name of Baker.   Her mother's depression returned and became worse, and the child was raised in a series of foster homes.

While Dougherty was serving overseas, Baker dropped out of high school and went to work, something typical for service spouses, although the very young age of her marriage was unusual. She was noticed by photographer David Conover while taking photographs for Yank, which we discussed just the other day.

Dougherty did follow Conover's advice, and was quickly offered a modeling job by the Blue Star Agency. A provision of it required that she be unmarried, so she filed for divorce.  Her husband was still in the Navy, serving overseas.

And Conover's advice turned out to be good advice, in terms of her aspirations. As a model, her beauty was rapidly noticed, and she was in fact noticed by Hollywood and introduced into acting.  In the meantime, she'd changed her name to Marilyn Monroe.

Dougherty dismissed his wife's ambitions upon receiving divorce papers, but there wasn't much he could do about it.  He was, effectively, one of thousands of servicemen whose marriages had gone wrong during the war.  Effectively, he'd married a high schooler of obvious beauty and then departed from her, understandably, for years.

Probably the only one of the Conover photographs in which Monroe is actually recognizable in regard to her later appearance.

It was a story that repeated itself, but quietly, all over the United States.

Dougherty went on to become a significant figure in the Los Angeles Police Department.  He never spoke ill of his first wife, and after her death was of the opinion that she was too gentle of a person to survive in Hollywood.

The Second Washington Conference, a conference between the British headed up by Winston Churchill and the Americans headed by Franklin Roosevelt, convened.  Military matters were the topic.

The 1st Ranger Battalion came into existence.

World War Two Ranger shoulder patch.  By Zayats - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11400404

The brainchild of cavalryman Lucian Truscott, the Rangers were modeled on the example of British commando forces and supposed to fulfill a similar role.  Named after the examples of Rangers, light backwoods infantry of the French and Indian, and Revolutionary Wars, the several battalions of Rangers were formed during World War Two.  Most of them were comprised of volunteers, but at least one that was formed in the Pacific was an amalgamation of existing units that had served other purposes, including a disbanded pack artillery unit.

After the war they were disbanded but then reformed during the Korean War. The Army has retained Ranger units since. The British example is similar, in this regard, to the SAS and the SBS.

German Maj. Joachim Reichel went down behind Soviet lines in a crash landing, putting documents pertaining to an upcoming German offensive in Soviet hands. The Germans didn't change them, and the Soviets didn't believe what they captured was genuine.

The Germans executed Alois Eliáš, a former Czech general who was the prim minister of the German puppet state of  the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, for underground activities.  He was in fact working against German interests and had participated in the attempted poisoning of some collaborationist reporters, resulting in the death of one of them.

Best Posts of the week of June 12, 2022.

The best posts of the week of June 12, 2022.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXXIV. The old and the new, and people who don't know where they are.

Flag Day, 2022. A reflection on our times.

"It's not what you know, it's who you know".

Yellowstone. A really radical idea.

The Post Insurrection. The investigation goes live. The Tragic Part III.

The 2022 Election Part IX. And they're officially out of the gate.

The 2023 Wyoming Legislative Session. The Waking Up Edition (Vol 1).

Reactionary

Poster Saturday. Early Cold War Recruiting Poster

 I'm not sure of the vintage of this, but I'd place it safety in the 1950s, or very early 1960s.  The uniform is the World War Two paratrooper inspired uniform that came into service in the late 1940s and which stuck around until the early 1960s.  It was frankly a better uniform than the standard Army "fatigue" uniform of the 60s and 70s.

And the soldier is carrying the M1 Garand, which remained in service in general issue for the U.S. Army after the Second World War until after 1958, when the M14 started to go into production.  The Army frankly never felt a real hurry to replace the M1, although sufficient numbers were made such that when the Army and Marine Corps first deployed to Vietnam in numbers, in 1965, the Garand was then found only in the Navy and the Reserves.

Reactionary

 "Mind numbingly stupid" is the way one person I know characterized it.

Governor Questions Transparency of BLM Land Acquisition

CHEYENNE, Wyo. –  Governor Mark Gordon has announced that Wyoming is appealing a massive acquisition of land by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Natrona and Carbon Counties. The State has concerns that BLM did not involve the public in the acquisition process and that the environmental assessment did not adequately consider impacts on tax revenues, school funding, grazing, mineral development and other natural resources.

The Governor emphasized that the challenge to the acquisition is focused on the adequacy and proper adherence to the process that occurred. He supports the expansion of public access for hunters and anglers, as well as opportunities for recreation. He also recognizes the rights of private landowners to sell their land as they see fit. 

“This action is not about limiting access for sportspeople or challenging the rights of private property owners rights,” Governor Gordon said. “It is about whether the Federal government can increase its land holdings without public scrutiny, or should it adhere to the same transparent process that private landowners are subject to if they sought to purchase or exchange federal land.”

To buy or sell land the State must have a 60-day comment period and hold two public votes of the State Board of Land Commissioners.

Here's the actual complaint.^[1]

At some point conservationist, hunters, fishermen, outdoorsmen, sportsmen, and the tourist industry really should start to start questioning why they support Republican candidates in this state.^[2]  Suffice it to say, if Marty Throne, the Democrat, was now Governor, we wouldn't be putting up with this now.

Indeed, even while it's clear that the overwhelming majority of Wyomingites are very much in favor of preserving public lands, it continues to be the case that the Republican Party in the state has an element that doesn't.  Indeed, it's hard not to recall the late 1980s when Republicans from southeastern Wyoming attempted to privatize wildlife in the state, and came close to success before public outcry stopped it.  It's also worth nothing that a Hageman was part of that effort, and the current challenger to Liz Cheney is part of that family.

And more recently, the legislature came really close to passing a bill to "study" trying to take the Federal land away from the Federal government.  The far right in the GOP still supports that against the will of the residents of the state.

So let's break this down a little more on what the Governor said.

• The Governor emphasized that the challenge to the acquisition is focused on the adequacy and proper adherence to the process that occurred. He supports the expansion of public access for hunters and anglers, as well as opportunities for recreation. He also recognizes the rights of private landowners to sell their land as they see fit. 

Well, then, if all that's true, knock it off and don't be suing about it.

• “This action is not about limiting access for sportspeople or challenging the rights of private property owners rights,

Well that's exactly what the action does.

• “It is about whether the Federal government can increase its land holdings without public scrutiny, or should it adhere to the same transparent process that private landowners are subject to if they sought to purchase or exchange federal land.”

M'eh.  A land exchange isn't anything like a sale, and quite frankly it seems that in most land exchanges the Federal government ends up with less land than it started off with.

The state should dismiss this action.

There's no reason to believe that this land won't still be grazed.  It probably just opens it up for that, on a very large scale, for neighboring ranchers.  What it does beyond that is open up land that's been closed to ready access for years up to the residents of the state.

Footnotes:

1.  A "complaint" is the initiating document in a lawsuit.

2.  I know the answer to this question even as I pose it.  As the national Democratic Party is for gun control in a big way, for abortion on demand, for much more government involvement in everything, and is on the far left of every social movement, it leaves conservative voters with nowhere else to go.

This is a tragedy, quite frankly, as it leads to the delusion in the GOP that Eathornism is the view of everyone in the GOP, and the State.  And because a lot of people in any political party are followers, rather than thinkers, it means that people who support extreme positions in the GOP do so as they're just following along not thinking them out, which would lead them to some other conclusion on some issues.

I've long maintained here, for example, that there's no reason to believe that there aren't a considerable number of people who, for example, are opposed to abortion and the death penalty, but I'm certain if this came up to the GOP Central Committee right now we'd get full support for the death penalty in a major way. That's a minor example, however.

I'm also certain that there are those, for example, who are opposed to abortion, support the war in Ukraine, and are very concerned about climate change. Where do they go to vote? They can't vote Democratic, due to abortion, and the GOP here doesn't really reflect their views on anything else.

As a result of that, they vote Republican, as abortion is their big issue.  Some people do the same with the Second Amendment, and otherwise hold very Democratic views.  

And the Public Lands issue is a good example.  People who vote only on this issue, and there are some, vote Democratic quite a bit, I suspect.

The problem is, however, is that on life and death issues, like abortion, that leaves those very serious on those issues with hardly any options left.

This year might prove to be different, however, as the Republican Party is setting up horrific moral choices for the voters.  In numerous states, the GOP is running Secretary of State candidates who would have stolen the vote for Trump in 2020, had they been in power.  As people go to the polls this upcoming election, it looks like in many races they'll have a Republican candidate who effectively is pushing for the end of democracy, or at least the installation of an illiberal democracy.  As democracy is the first principal of democracy, many voters may now pause when they go to vote Republican and wonder if that principle requires them to vote for somebody else.

For those with less firm concerns, the switch to another party may even be easier.  This fall, for example, you know for certain that voters who normally vote Republican will go into the voting booth, having never said a word to anyone, and vote for a Democratic candidate as they're sick of Trump, worried about Eathorne, tired of Republican land grabbing efforts, not really convinced that everyone needs to have StG42, and worried about what kind of environment the future holds in a year that's been weird.  The GOP ought to consider that, as if they don't manage to install the illiberal democracy they seem to imagine, they may end up getting very much the opposite.

Sunday June 18, 1972. The Libertarian Party convenes for the first time.

By Hdebug; original by Lance W. Haverkamp - This file was derived from: Libertarian Party Porcupine (USA).svg, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=98006127

 

The first Libertarian National Convention convened in Denver, Colorado. The party had been formed the previous year.

Often misunderstood, the party is not really a "super conservative" party as sometimes portrayed, and can in fact be extremely liberal on some things.  It was organized on a radical promotion of civil liberties, non interventionism and laissez fair economics.  It did grow out of dissatisfaction on the part of some Republicans with the direction of the Republican Party in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and it has heavily influenced the Republican Party in recent years, creating part of the current GOP's bipolarism.

It has grown to be the third-largest party in the United States, although as noted there is a large element of the GOP which is effect libertarian at the current time to a large degree, although not on cultural issues where the Libertarians tend to be to the left of the Democrats in some ways.

The Watergate break in ran on the front page of the Washington Post.

A horrific air disaster occurred with a passenger jet crashed shortly after take off at Heathrow, the worst British air disaster up to that time.

It was that time of year:

Elvis Presley performed live on television giving a performance from Ft. Worth, Texas.

Thursday, June 18, 1942. Advancing Wehrmacht.

 

Winston Churchill, following his transatlantic flight, arrived in Washington, D. C.

The Wehrmacht took Fortress Maxim Gorky in Sevastopol.

The Afrika Korps took Kambut, Libya.

It was another day of heavy Allied shipping losses to German submarines.

At least from a news of the day prospective, things weren't looking great for the Allies in regard to the war against the Germans.

.

Saturday, June 17, 1972. The Watergate burglars arrrested.

Five burglars, James W. McCord Jr. Bernard Barker, Eugenio Martinez, Frank Sturgis, and Virgilio Gonzalez, were arrested inside of Democratic headquarters in the Watergate Hotel, in Washington, D.C.

Nixon was not aware of the plot that his operatives had devised to break into the hotel and steal information from the Democratic Party, but he tried to cover it up once it became clear what occurred. That lead to his downfall.

It's interesting to note how different the times were.  Nixon, although not involved in the plot itself, fell for trying to impede its investigation.  It was clear that he was going to be impeached, and that Senate Republicans were going to vote to remove him from office.

In contrast, what Donald Trump attempted to do, leading up to January 6, was much worse, and yet he remained in office, is trying to regain office, and Republicans who oppose him openly are harassed for it.

Wednesday, June 17, 1942. Yank goes to press.

First issue of Yank's pinup girl.

Yank magazine, a service produced magazine issued entirely by enlisted men, was issued for the first time.  

Actress Jane Randolph appeared as the pin up girl for the of the first issue, something that was a feature of every issue. Generally, the pinup was pretty mild, as would be expected from a service magazine.  The first issue's color pinup was unusual for any magazine of the era, as color was much less used in magazines at the time.

I'd like to put up the front cover of the magazine, but I can't find it.  Generally, Yank featured a black and white photograph.  It occasionally had combat illustrations on the cover, a lot of which were of very high quality.  Every now and then the pinup girl made the cover if she was a famous actress, such as Rita Hayworth.   The magazine was published throughout the war.

A second group of German saboteurs landed in Florida.  This was the second part of the plot to land German operatives in the US to sabotage German production, something that didn't go far due to the nearly immediate defection of two of the operatives who were landed in New York as addressed the other day.

Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo was slightly wounded when a Korean nationalist shot him. The assailant was immediately killed by the return fire of Japanese policemen.

The Afrika Korps took control of the coast road to Bardia, thereby surrounding Tobruk.

Saturday, June 17, 1922. Summer Scenes?

 A lot of colleges graduated late in the 20s, so university graduations were just occuring.

Ice cream, of course, is associated with summer.   This was before soft serve, which we're so familiar with today, so if you were going to get ice cream, what you are seeing here a likely way to have received it at a soda fountain.

Yellowstone. A really radical idea.

A really radical idea that won't happen, but maybe should.

There have been really horrific floods, as we all know, in Yellowstone National Park. Roads in the northern part of the park may be closed for the rest of the summer.  Here's a National Park Service item on it:

Updates

• Aerial assessments conducted Monday, June 13, by Yellowstone National Park show major damage to multiple sections of road between the North Entrance (Gardiner, Montana), Mammoth Hot Springs, Lamar Valley and Cooke City, Montana, near the Northeast Entrance.
• Many sections of road in these areas are completely gone and will require substantial time and effort to reconstruct.
• The National Park Service will make every effort to repair these roads as soon as possible; however, it is probable that road sections in northern Yellowstone will not reopen this season due to the time required for repairs.
• To prevent visitors from being stranded in the park if conditions worsen, the park in coordination with Yellowstone National Park Lodges made the decision to have all visitors move out of overnight accommodations (lodging and campgrounds) and exit the park.
• All entrances to Yellowstone National Park remain temporarily CLOSED while the park waits for flood waters to recede and can conduct evaluations on roads, bridges and wastewater treatment facilities to ensure visitor and employee safety.
• There will be no inbound visitor traffic at any of the five entrances into the park, including visitors with lodging and camping reservations, until conditions improve and park infrastructure is evaluated.
• The park’s southern loop appears to be less impacted than the northern roads and teams will assess damage to determine when opening of the southern loop is feasible. This closure will extend minimally through next weekend (June 19).
• Due to the northern loop being unavailable for visitors, the park is analyzing how many visitors can safely visit the southern loop once it’s safe to reopen. This will likely mean implementation of some type of temporary reservation system to prevent gridlock and reduce impacts on park infrastructure.
• At this time, there are no known injuries nor deaths to have occurred in the park as a result of the unprecedented flooding. 
• Effective immediately, Yellowstone’s backcountry is temporarily closed while crews assist campers (five known groups in the northern range) and assess damage to backcountry campsites, trails and bridges.
• The National Park Service, surrounding counties and states of Montana and Wyoming are working with the park’s gateway communities to evaluate flooding impacts and provide immediate support to residents and visitors.
• Water levels are expected to recede today in the afternoon; however, additional flood events are possible through this weekend.

Here's an idea.

Don't rebuild the roads.

For years, there have been complaints about how overcrowded Yellowstone National Park has become.  A combination of a tourist economy and high mobility, and frankly the American inability to grasp that the country has become overpopulated, had contributed to that.  For years there have been suggestions that something needed to be done about that.

Maybe what is needed is. .. nothing.

Well, nothing now, so to speak.

Yellowstone was the nation's first National Park.  It was created at a time when park concepts, quite frankly, were different from they are now.   Created in 1872, its establishment was in fact visionary, and it did grasp in part that the nation's frontier was closing, even though the creation of the park came a fully four years prior to the Battle of Little Big Horn.  There was, at the time of its creation, a sort of lamentation that the end of the Frontier was in sight, and the nation was going to become one of farms and cities.

Nobody saw cities like they exist now, however, and nobody grasped that the day would come when agricultural land would be the province of the rich, and that homesteading would go from a sort of desperate act to something that people would cite to, in the case of their ancestors, as some sort of basis for moral superiority.  Things are much different today than they were then.

Indeed, in some ways, the way the park is viewed is a bit bipolar.  To some, particularly those willing to really rough it, Yellowstone is a sort of giant wilderness area.  To others, it's a sort of theme park. 

The appreciation of the need to preserve wilderness existed then, but what that meant wasn't really understood.  The park was very much wilderness at first, and some things associated with wilderness went on within it, and of course still do.  Early camping parties travelled there.  People fished there, and still do.  Hunting was prohibited early on, which had more to do with the 19th Century decline in wildlife due to market hunting than it did anything else.  This has preserved a sort of bipolarism in and of itself, as fishing is fish-hunting, just as bird hunting is fowling. There's no reason in fact that Yellowstone should have not been opened back up to hunting some time during the last quarter-century, but it is not as just as the park is wilderness to young adventurers from the National Outdoor Leadership School in Lander, and hearty back country folks of all ages, it's also a big public zoo for people from Newark or Taipei.  

Since 1872, all sorts of additional parks have been created. Some are on the Yellowstone model, such as Yosemite.  Others are historical sites such as Gettysburg or Ft. Laramie.  All, or certainly all that I've seen, are of value.

But they don't all have the same value.

Much of Yellowstone's value is in its rugged wilderness.  Some cite to the geothermal features of the park, but that's only a small portion of it.  And for that reason, much of Yellowstone today would make more sense existing as a Wilderness Area under the Wilderness Act of 1964, the act that helps preserve the west in a very real way, and which western politicians, who often live lives much different than actual westerners, love to hate.

A chance exists here to bring back Yellowstone into that mold, which it was intended in part to be fro the very onset, and which many wish it was, or imagine it to be, today.

Don't rebuilt the roads.

That would in fact mean the northern part of the park would revert to wilderness, truly.  And it means that many fewer people would go to the park in general.  And it would hurt the tourist communities in the northern areas, and even in the southern areas, as the diminished access to the park would mean that the motorized brigade of American and International tourists wouldn't go there, as they wouldn't want to be too far from their air-conditioned vehicles.

But that's exactly what should be done.

Tuesday, June 16, 1942. Allied setbacks.

Winston Churchill left the UK by plane to the United States for a visit with Franklin Roosevelt.

He would not have left had he known how dire the British position in North Africa was becoming, something that he'd been reassured about by Gen. Auchinleck before he departed.  On the same day, the Afrika Korps attacked El Adem and Sidi Rezegh near Tobruk, which effectively cut it off from contact with other British forces.

German U-boats had another good day in the Atlantic and Caribbean.

Operations Vigourous and Harpoon, designed to relieve Malta, concluded, largely a failure.

The Germans obliterated Ft. Maxim Gorky's artillery at Sevastopol.

The RAF conducted an ineffective nighttime raid on Essen.

Friday, June 16, 1922. Yes for the Free State

The Irish General Election was held.  Sinn Féin went into the election split into pro and anti treaty camps, with the pro treaty wing led by Michael Collins winning 58 of the 128 seats.  The anti treaty faction lead by Éamon de Valera took 34.  While that result showed fairly clearly that a majority of the Irish (whom in truth would likely have settled for home rule) supported the treaty, it did leave the pro treat portion of the party six seats short of a majority.

The rest of the votes for the 34 remaining seats went to the pro treaty Labour Party (17), the Independents (9), the agrarian Farmers Party (7) and the Businessman's Party (1).  This left the Dail with a clear pro treaty majority.

Chen Chiung-ming captured Guangzhou and announced the departure of Southern China's secessionist leaders, including President Sun Yat-sen.  This was also announced as a step towards reuniting China.

Thursday, June 15, 2022. The dropping toll of booze and the constitution of the Free State.

Ralph Day, Director of the U.S. Bureau of Prohibition, noted a 79% decrease in alcohol related deaths since the advent of Prohibition in statistics provided to the New York City Department of Health.

A draft of the constitution of the Irish Free State was made public.  Women were granted the franchise and the oath of allegiance to the king was maintained.

"It's not what you know, it's who you know".

So goes the old phrase.

Now, that's never been completely true, and it's truer in some endeavors than others.

But there are certainly things where that is very much the truth.

Nine years.

Nobody familiar with the field can imagine that as a qualifying number for the position.  Nobody.  But then, the connections were impeccable and impossible to get around.

And so the fraud of merit is perpetuated.  Connections made the choice.  The appointer declares the choice the best one, as acknowledging the role of connections would be scandalous.  The masses accept that merit must exist, as they know no better.

It's not what you know, it's who you know.

At least on some things.

Flag Day, 2022. A reflection on our times.

 

Today is Flag Day for 2022.

The photo above is, of course, Joe Rosenthal's February 23, 1945, photograph of the second flag raising by the Marines on Iwo Jima.

The posting of this here is intentional due to the times we are in.

I don't know the politics of the six men in the photograph, and you like don't either.  The President was a liberal Democrat from the Northeast. The Vice President was a moderate Democrat from what wome would call the Midwest and others the South.  The Senate was somewhat more Democratic than Republican, which it had been throughout the war and the Great Depression.  It had one member who was in the Progressive Party.  The House was 55% Democratic and had one member from the American Labor Party and one member from the Progressive Party. The balance were of course Republicans.

Wyoming's Governor was Lester Hunt, a Democrat who, outside of politics, was a dentist.  I don't know the makeup of the legislature, which would involve some effort to determine, but it had more Republicans than Democrats.  It always has, save for the legislature immediately after the Johnson County War.

The six men who raised the flag that day were Cpl. Harlon Block, PFC Harold Keller, PFC Franklin Sousley, Sgt Michael Strank, PFC Harold Schultz and PFC Ira Hayes.  Block, Sousley and Strank were killed in the war, which had only a few months to run at this time.  Native American Ira Hayes never recovered from his psychological wounds.

The six men depicted here didn't fight for the Democratic Party, or the Republican Party. They fought for the country and its democratic ideals.

The Republican Party, which had distinctly different ideas about how the country should be run than the Democratic Party, didn't spend the war accusing Franklin Roosevelt of illegitimately occupying the office.

Enlistees in the Armed Forces in World War Two took a slightly different oath than the current form, which was adopted in the 1950s.  That oath stated:

I, _____________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

The current form states:

 I, ____________________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

The holders of office take a similar oath.

There are a body of Americans today, some of whom have taken that oath, either for military service or political office (some of whom even belong to a group claiming that they "keep" the oath) who are dedicated to its violation.

Half the men in this photo died keeping their oath.  The other didn't really come out of it okay.  Those who would ignore the first principal of democracy, which is democracy itself, do these men, the cause they fought for, and their country, a disservice.

Wednesday, June 14, 1922. Birth of Robin Olds

 

Legendary fighter pilot Robert "Robin" Olds, Jr., son of an Army Air Corps officer of the same name, was born this day in Hawaii.

He became a triple ace, scoring kills in World War Two, Korea and Vietnam, and retired as a Brigadier General in 1973.  His father had been a Major General.

Olds was a larger than life character in every way.  He was married for many years to starlet Ella Raines, although their marriage eventually ended in divorce and he remarried (he still came in at half the total number of marriages than his father).  His penchant for drinking likely kept him from rising higher in the Air Force than he did.  He served on the Steamboat Springs Planning Commission in retirement.

He died in 2007 at age 84.

Today In Wyoming's History: Updates for January through 2022

Today In Wyoming's History: Updates for January through 2022:   January 6, 1942.  President Roosevelt's State of the Union Address for 1942. January 6, 2022.  President Biden's address to the na...

Saturday, June 13, 1942. Spooks, Sabateurs, and Wartime Information.

Franklin Roosevelt created the Office of Strategic Services on this day in 1942.

OSS Insignia.

An office of the Department of Defense, the wartime agency was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency and was organized along military lines.

On the same day, Roosevelt also crated the Office of War Information.

It was the successor to several early wartime agencies.

Both agencies were created by the same Executive Order.

In recognition of the right of the American people and of all other peoples opposing the Axis aggressors to be truthfully informed about the common war effort, and by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution, by the First War Powers Act, 1941, and as President of the United States and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, it is hereby ordered as follows:

1. The following agencies, powers, and duties are transferred and consolidated into an Office of War Information which is hereby established within the Office for Emergency Management in the Executive Office of the President:

(a) The Office of Facts and Figures and its powers and duties.

(b) The Office of Government Reports and its powers and duties.

(c) The powers and duties of the Coordinator of Information relating to the gathering of public information and its dissemination abroad, including, but not limited to, all powers and duties now assigned to the Foreign Information Service, Outpost, Publications, and Pictorial Branches of the Coordinator of Information.

(d) The powers and duties of the Division of Information of the Office for Emergency Management relating to the dissemination of general public information on the war effort, except as provided in paragraph 10.

2. At the head of the Office of War Information shall be a Director appointed by the President. The Director shall discharge and perform his functions and duties under the direction and supervision of the President. The Director may exercise his powers, authorities, and duties through such officials or agencies and in such manner as he may determine.

3, There is established within the Office of War Information a Committee on War Information Policy consisting of the Director as Chairman, representatives of the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, the Joint Psychological Warfare Committee, and of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, and such other members as the Director, with the approval of the President, may determine. The Committee on War Information Policy shall formulate basic policies and plans on war information, and shall advise with respect to the development of coordinated war information programs.

4. Consistent with the war information policies of the President and with the foreign policy of the United States, and after consultation with the Committee on War Information Policy, the Director shall perform the following functions and duties:

(a) Formulate and carry out, through the use of press, radio, motion picture, and other facilities, information programs designed to facilitate the development of an informed and intelligent understanding, at home and abroad, of the status and progress of the war effort and of the war policies, activities, and aims of the Government.

(b) Coordinate the war informational activities of all Federal departments and agencies for the purpose of assuring an accurate and consistent flow of war information to the public and the world at large.

(c) Obtain, study, and analyze information concerning the war effort and advise the agencies concerned with the dissemination of such information as to the most appropriate and effective means of keeping the public adequately and accurately informed.

(d) Review, clear, and approve all proposed radio and motion picture programs sponsored by Federal departments and agencies; and serve as the central point of clearance and contact for the radio broadcasting and motion-picture industries, respectively, in their relationships with Federal departments and agencies concerning such Government programs.

(e) Maintain liaison with the information agencies of the United Nations for the purpose of relating the Government's informational programs and facilities to those of such Nations.

(f) Perform such other functions and duties relating to war information as the President may from time to time determine.

5. The Director is authorized to issue such directives concerning war information as he may deem necessary or appropriate to carry out the purposes of this Order, and such directives shall be binding upon the several Federal departments and agencies. He may establish by regulation the types and classes of informational programs and releases which shall require clearance and approval by his office prior to dissemination. The Director may require the curtailment or elimination of any Federal information service, program, or release which he deems to be wasteful or not directly related to the prosecution of the war effort.

6. The authority, functions, and duties of the Director shall not extend to the Western Hemisphere exclusive of the United States and Canada.

7. The formulation and carrying out of informational programs relating exclusively to the authorized activities of the several departments and agencies of the Government shall remain with such departments and agencies, but such informational programs shall conform to the policies formulated or approved by the Office of War Information. The several departments and agencies of the Government shall make available to the Director, upon his request, such information and data as may be necessary to the performance of his functions and duties.

8. The Director of the Office of War Information and the Director of Censorship shall collaborate in the performance of their respective functions for the purpose of facilitating the prompt and full dissemination of all available information which will not give aid to the enemy.

9. The Director of the Office of War Information and the Defense Communications Board shall collaborate in the performance of their respective functions for the purpose of facilitating the broadcast of war information to the peoples abroad.

10. The functions of the Division of Information of the Office for Emergency Management with respect to the provision of press and publication services relating to the specific activities of the constituent agencies of the Office for Emergency Management are transferred to those constituent agencies respectively, and the Division of Information is accordingly abolished.

11. Within the limits of such funds as may be made available to the Office of War Information, the Director may employ necessary personnel and make provision for the necessary supplies, facilities, and services. He may provide for the internal management and organization of the Office of War Information in such manner as he may determine.

12. All records, contracts, and property (including office equipment) of the several agencies and all records, contracts, and property used primarily in the administration of any powers and duties transferred or consolidated by this Order, and all personnel used in the administration of such agencies, powers, and duties (including officers whose chief duties relate to such administration) are transferred to the Office of War Information, for use in the administration of the agencies, powers, and duties transferred or consolidated by this Order; provided, that any personnel transferred to the Office of War Information by this Order, found by the Director of the Office of War Information to be in excess of the personnel necessary for the administration of the powers and duties transferred to the Office of War Information, shall be retransfered under existing procedure to other positions in the Government service, or separated from the service.

13. So much of the unexpended balances of appropriations, allocations, or other funds available for the use of any agency in the exercise of any power or duty transferred or consolidated by this Order or for the use of the head of any agency in the exercise of any power or duty so transferred or consolidated, as the Director of the Bureau of the Budget with the approval of the President shall determine, shall be transferred to the Office of War Information, for use in connection with the exercise of powers or duties so transferred or consolidated. In determining the amount to be transferred, the Director of the Bureau of the Budget may include an amount to provide for the liquidation of obligations incurred against such appropriations, allocations, or other funds prior to the transfer or consolidation.

Four German agents landed on Long Island, dispatched from a German submarine as part of Operation Pastorius. Their mission would rapidly fail and be detected, although not as rapidly as it could have been. They were detained by the Coast Guard, but released.

Two of the would be spies defected, that being put in place by George Dasch who recruited Ernst Burger to his cause.  Dasch had originally intended to become a Catholic Priest, but had been expelled from the seminary at age 14.  He then joined the Imperial German Army and served in it in the waning years of World War One.  He entered the U.S. illegally in 1923 and joined the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1927.  He reentered the Army in 1936.

Married twice in the United States, without the benefit of divorce, he abandoned his family and returned to Germany in 1938.  For his role in exposing the plot, FBI Director Hoover promised him a pardon but it was never delivered.  He and Burger were returned to Germany in 1948, and he never received permission to return.

Burger was younger and has also lived in the United States, where he'd been a member of the National Guard.  He was a member of the Nazi Party since age 17 and had been an aide-de-camp to Ernst Roehm of the SA.  Following that he wrote an article critical of the Gestapo which had landed him in a concentration camp for over a year.

All the participants of Operation Pastorius were sentenced to death following a trial, including Dasch and Burger, but the latter two had their sentences reduced to lengthy prison sentences.  President Truman cut those short and had them deported back to Germany, as noted.  The sentences have always been controversial, and frankly neither Dasch or Burger, who had exposed their confederates, were really treated right by the United States government.

On what came to be known as Black Saturday, British Commonwealth forces started the evacuation of the Gazala Line, following a successful sandstorm attack by the German 21st Panzer Division.

The Japanese conducted an aircraft carrier launched airraid on Darwin, Australia.

June 13, 1922. "[A] dangerous realignment in the country, pitting ultra conservatives against ultra radicals."

It was graduation day from Vassar, and:

Speaking on "Making it Unanimous" to the 256 members of the Class of 1922 at Vassar's 56th Commencement, President MacCracken noted a dangerous realignment in the country, pitting ultra conservatives against ultra radicals.

A lot of universities graduated surprisingly late in this period.

Knowing what's right

Knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right.

Theodore Roosevelt

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXXIV. The old and the new, and people who don't know where they are.

Casper is the biggest city in central Wyoming.  Given that, it's the focus for a lot of stuff.  In the summer, it can be crowded with events.

It's also possible to forget how many events there are, and ones that come and go are soon forgotten.  Only a couple of weeks ago, of course, there was the big Trump rally, oops Hageman rally. . . no Trump rally, which saw something like 9,000 Trump loyalist show up in, as the press likes to call it, Deep Red Wyoming.

What about this weekend?

Well this weekend, downtown, there was a big "Pride" event at the city's own David Street Station which apparently was really well attended locally.  Not very "deep red", as of course by "pride" it refers to LBGTQ "pride".

The College National Finals Rodeo, a car show, and the annual art show, are also up and running this week. And it's craft beer week statewide.

I still think the use of the word pride in regard to an inclination is grammatically weird.  That's a different topic from the LBGTQ subject in and of itself, which I'm not going to address here at all.  Anyhow, it seems to have turned out a lot of people.

I read that in one of the online journals, which is prominently featuring it as its local news.  Makes sense, it's local news.

In the same journal Chuck Gray's hand-picked intended successor, who does have primary opposition, is running an article about herself.  I.e, it's an add disguised as an article, an old advertising trick.

In that, the candidate informs the readers that she's a "refugee from "fascist Illinois".

Eh?

The candidate needs to get her hyperbole fixed, if nothing else. She's complaining about "fascist Illinois" because she's an extreme right wing candidate and is upset that Illinois is left of center.  If she wants to slander Illinois, she should accuse it of being communist or socialist. Those claims wouldn't be true either, but get the right left thing right for goodness’ sake.

The candidate informs us that the line in the sand for Illinois was as follows:

The straw that broke the camel’s back for our family was when one of our high-school daughters was threatened with out-of-school suspension for not wearing a mask. We were DONE with Illinois.

Well, we had those here and that would have been a possibility here as well.  Chances are the daughter would have been suspended here.   

I guess you can't get after somebody who arrives late to the party for not knowing that the main course was served, but you probably ought not to slam people for serving salmon before you know what the meal was.

Ward has a list of her various platforms, or I guess principal beliefs.

• Pro Freedom:  Taxation is theft. 
• Pro-Wyoming FIRST: Wyoming’s land and energy below (sic) to Wyoming 
• Pro-Medical Freedom. Mask and vaccine mandates were NEVER lawful. 
• Unabashedly Pro-Life. Life begins at conception 
• Pro-Family. Marriage is between a man and a woman. 
• Pro-2nd Amendment. WY has constitutional carry. Let’s keep it that way.

I'm going to deal with some of these first, and then the others.

• Pro Freedom:  Taxation is theft.

No, it isn't.  The government can't work without taxes, and we've always had taxes.   Since the dawn of government, it's had the taxing authority.  This statement is extreme, and frankly unthinking.  Like your paved road?  How do you think it got there?

"Freedom" isn't free, people like to say, usually referring to military sacrifice.  Well, it isn't fiscally free either.

• Pro-Wyoming FIRST: Wyoming’s land and energy below (sic) to Wyoming 

This is a policy that would turn Wyoming into Texas in about 3.5 seconds. Wyomingites like their public lands and the right wing extremist running right now never saw any public land that they didn't want to sell to the richest out of stater they could find. 

It's also completely contrary to the valid legal bargain we made when we became a state. 

This, by the way, is a real red flag to locals.  By and large, this position is detested by people who are actually from here.

• Pro-Medical Freedom. Mask and vaccine mandates were NEVER lawful. 

Like it or not, they were always lawful.   That doesn't mean you have to like them, but to suggest they were unlawful is simply wrong.

They too actually have a legal history in Wyoming, FWIW, and you can find similar things having occurred during the 1919 Flu Pandemic herein the state.

• Pro-2nd Amendment. WY has constitutional carry. Let’s keep it that way.

Wyoming does not have "constitutional carry". This topic isn't in our state constitution at all.  You have a right to keep and bear arms, but the state constitution doesn't address carry.  You probably have a right to carry, should that ever get to the Supreme Court, but whether you'd have the right to conceal. . . probably not.

We have statutory authorization for restricted general carry.  You can carry, but not everywhere.   And you can carry concealed by statutory authorization, but not everywhere.

This, also, is under no sort of threat.  Everybody who is running for anything is going to say that they're "pro Second Amendment".  Indeed, without commenting on the obviously highly right wing candidate in question, I've often thought that imported politicians from cities who claim to be "pro gun", had they stayed in their bergs, probably would have been all about gun control had they run there.

All of the above topics would suggest that the candidate needs a basic course on the law.  It'd do no good, however, I'm sure, as there seem to be a lot of people now who believe in a sort of secret constitution that doesn't reflect the printed one. That leaves two topics.

• Unabashedly Pro-Life. Life begins at conception 
• Pro-Family. Marriage is between a man and a woman. 

I agree with those, but here's something the current extreme right seems to be missing. By linking in their extremist views, like taking away public lands and the like, with long held social conservatism, they're dooming both.  I.e, if you have to be in the "the election was stolen" crowed, which I'd guess this candidate likely is (although I don't know), in order to oppose abortion, at the end of the day a lot of social conservatives are going to go into the voting booth and choose democracy over other issues.  

This kind of thing puts them there.

My guess is, in other words, if Harriet Hageman is this year's candidate for House. . . Lynette Gray Bull is going to get a surprising number of GOP votes.

Back to the Pride event.

That's actually more traditionally Wyoming than the probably horrified imported Illinois candidate may imagine.  Wyoming's traditional political culture was "I don't care what the crap you do as long as you leave me alone".

Heck, for that matter, serve beer at something pretty left wing and chances are you'd get a lot of really right wing people showing up.

And that view definitely doesn't square with what the imported heavily right wing candidates think, or what the current leadership of the state's GOP think.

Again, I'm not commenting on the Pride event itself, or the even topic that surrounds it.  What I'm talking about instead is people who truly don't seem to know where they are.

Indeed, I wonder what the candidate thinks in learning that the city she's relocated in is having a Pride event, at the city's big gathering spot, and people don't seem up in arms about it, unlike in neighboring Idaho.  Indeed, as she's a recent arrival, she likely doesn't know that such contrasts with Idaho are long-standing here.  Idaho has been a lot more receptive to the extreme right than Wyoming, at least up  until now, and that probably says something about where Wyoming is at right now.

Trump one weekend, with car shows, Pride events a couple of weeks later, with car shows.  Probably doesn't surprise anyone whose from here.

Probably a little confusing for those who thought they were moving into a prior century.

And it's craft beer week.

This weekend also features the College National Finals Rodeo, something that celebrates education and a major part of the regional culture, and the industry that created it.

I really wish we could go back.

Last Prior edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXXIII (Maybe) overruling Roe v. Wade. Let the misstated arguments, bad analogies, and outright lies begin. .