Casper has seen some murals enter its downtown space recently and this is a nice example. Don Juan's Mexican Restaurant, which has been in this location now long enough to be regarded as a Casper staple, had this very nice mural depicting scenes of Mexican rural life painted.
This mural is just across the street from the Women of Wyoming mural added last yeaer, which depicts a contemporary Native American woman, and just down the block from Jacob Reeb mural, so some of the diversity of Wyoming is being added through these depictions.
One of the nice things about being in a farm community as a working travelers is that their Sunday morning Masses usually start really early, as in 7:00 a.m. in this case.
At least not like portrayed in the movies, and certainly not like the silly "whaling for justice" type of stuff that the plaintiff's bar likes to shovel out.
Recently I tried a case out of town. I've tried so many in the past three decades I no longer have any idea how many I've tried, and if I stopped to try to count them, I know that I'd be inaccurate. When you apply for a judicial appointment, which I've done several times, unsuccessfully (obviously), you are required to count them up, and I'm sure my numbers weren't the same any time I did that, even though I made an effort to be correct.
I do know that the year COVID restrictions on the courts lifted, I tried three that year. That may not sound like a lot, but for a civil litigator it is. I know quite a few civil litigators who have tried less than that over decades' long careers. One law school colleague of mine who does the same work, has never, in so far as I know, tried a case. An ABA review I once read of lawyers who had long civil careers and then retired (which seems to be a rarity) remarked that one of the subjects was proud of her "six" trials.
Six.
Hah.
There are a lot of reason there are not very many civil trials and even fewer serious civil trials, but one reason is that trials are hard stressful work.
But I'll get to that.
This past year, dating back a year ago or so, has not been a good one for me on a personal level. I had surgery in the fall and missed the hunting season. It was colon surgery, and I've never completely recovered, which is to say that my digestive track has not returned to normal, and it isn't going to. During that process, it was revealed by a scan that I had a major thyroid nodule. Followup on that showed it to almost certainly be cancerous, so during the trial, was looking forward to a second surgery, a partial thyroidectomy, and if really lucky I won't have to take medicine for the rest of my life. There is, however, a good chance that I will have to.
Having the trial to accomplish meant that I didn't have to think about it, however.
In terms of good news, it turned out to be benign. Strange, but benign. It's basically a result of an old injury, one I don't ever recall sustaining.
Current wound status.
Hopefully the recovery time isn't really long, but it varies quite a bit for people.
I ended up never taking a day off from the second surgery, not even the day of the surgery, which was a mistake, I'll note.
Anyhow, for about a year running now, my life has been nothing but work. As noted, I missed the hunting season and what little I got in prior to surgery was marred by being incredibly tired. I'm not sure what was up with that (perhaps the thyroid), but I was. I couldn't go for big game after that least I rip my stitches out.
I did get out for waterfowl quite a bit late in the season, mostly on Sunday's after Mass. I'd work on Sundays but for the Commandment to keep the Sabbath holy, which I take seriously, although occasionally I find myself working on that day too.
That's mostly a reflection of my personality.
The trial in question had been from a pre COVID case and it finally rolled around to to. Just before it did, my opponent let me know that his young female partner was leaving, and she did before the trial commenced. I was stunned, really, as she was bailing out of a really good firm and she's a really good lawyer. She was leaving private practice to go in house.
No more trials for her.
Then my younger female partner let me know she was leaving. She stuck with me through the trial.
Finding a lawyer you can comfortably try cases with isn't easy. Frankly, maybe one in ten lawyers who do trial work are really talented at it and of those, maybe only 10% anyone one person meshes with well enough to have that role. But here she definitely did. Her leaving is a big loss to me, just as my opponent's younger counsel leaving was a big loss to him. I don't know, really, if I'll be able to replace her.
For some time I've frankly wondered how she does it, as she's married with young children. When I was first practicing law, the female litigators I'd meet, and they were few, tended to be childless, often by choice. Quite a few women started to come into the law about the time that I did, and by and large if they were married and started to have children, they dropped out of practice. It was just too much of a burden.
This recalls the old phrase, supposedly written by Jean Little, a Canadian author:
A man can work from sun to sun, But a woman's work is never done.
There's a lot of truth to that, quite frankly.
For some reason, even in our "modern" age, the traditional division of labor in which women are burdened with raising children while they're young and keeping the household has never gone away, even when the woman of the house is a professional and its first breadwinner. Perhaps its simply genetic, although we're not supposed to say that. About the only relief I see them getting is from willing grandparents, really, and that too, oddly enough, is a very traditional role for grandparents.
Anyhow, juggling a household and having a professional job that requires long hours and travel. . . that's brutal. I don't blame these women a bit for seeking something else out.
One more example of how our modern "you live to serve this ship" lifestyle makes no sense and makes nobody happy.
You always go to the location of the trial early.
On Sunday, I looked out of my hotel window and saw this:
Horses by an old homestead, still being farmed.
Sigh.
The only thing I got out to do was to go to Mass.
I like everyone to have their own vehicles at a trial. It gives everyone some independence. If I control things, and at my age I do, everyone drives themselves.
This, I'll note, isn't the case with some lawyers, although it is with all the ones I know. Those people must be the really extraverted ones who just think everyone needs lots of sharing time all the time, and therefore they make the whole team prisoners to their automobile.
Hotels have evolved quite a bit in the past thirty years. Thirty years ago I'd look for a hotel with a restaurant and then catch breakfast. Now, most hotels that I stay at are "business hotels" which means that they have a light kitchen with the bare minimum. As breakfast is an afterthought with me anyhow, I’m good to go with that.
I’m not good to go with these monstrosities:
I hate Keurig machines and their stupid one cup at a time system. I always have. I never drink just one cup of coffee bu several, and I don't want to screw around making endless little cups. To make matters worse, it's invariably the case that the person who stocks the rooms leaves you hardly any real coffee, but lots of stuff like Ceylonese Green Herbal Tea or something.
Blech.
We always go down and get a bunch of real coffee for the stupid Keurig machine.
One thing about trials is you get to wear your cool dress shoes that otherwise would look odd in our modern era.
These are saddle oxfords. Saddle oxfords made from buffalo hide, I might add.
I've never worn out, I might note, a pair of dress shoes. I have my black low quarters from basic training still. When I was first practicing, I bought a pair of wingtips made in Ireland, just like the dress shoes my father had when I was young. They've been resoled once, but they're still in good shape.
Indeed, I only have five pairs of dress shoes, one being the aforementioned Army low quarters I very rarely wear. I'm never going to need to buy another pair.
I do need to shine them.
Parking lot view.
One thing about doing a trial in farm country is that it always causes me to think how lucky some people are that they get to farm as a career.
I don't think they appreciate that.
I never think that about trying a case in a big city. I've tried cases twice in Denver and wasn't envious of a soul associated with Denver. The poor judge looked like he'd been rode hard and put away wet in the second one. Denver itself, out on the street, was like a Middle Easter Dysentery Ward in the 30s. The jurors had jobs I wouldn't have wanted.
Grim.
In farm country you see, however, people living the way that people are supposed to live.
Restaurant view. The field below is one I've hunted geese in.
I constantly hear people in agriculture complain about it, and by that I don't mean the weather or something, but about being in agriculture itself. Maybe complaining is just something people do. Pascal noted:
If a soldier or labourer complain of the hardship of his lot, set him to do nothing.
I'm not sure what Pascal was aiming at there, but I think it might have been that people just complain. I also think, however, that a lot of people who were born into agriculture have no idea what other work is like, including working as a professional.
I turned 60 recently as well, which of course is a sort of milestone for many people, although I really didn't pay that much attention to it at the time. It really started to set in, however, when I attended a mule action by video. Everything was too expensive, and I didn't buy anything, but leading up to it, I got a fair amount of opposition from my spouse. Most of it was of the nature of "you don't have time".
I don't have time, which is because I work a work schedule at the office, in this civil litigator line of country, that's very heavy. I work a schedule that's heavier than a lot of lawyers in their 20s and 30s. I have nobody, I guess, but myself to blame for that, sort of. Part of it too has to do with the circumstances during which I came up in the law, and part of it has to do with my own character.
When I was young, before I was a lawyer, I wanted to work outdoors.
It's never really stopped being in a least the back of my mind. The net effect of that is that from the exterior I'm one of the rare trial lawyers who tries a lot of cases. I'm cited to other lawyers that way, and because of the work that comes through my door, it's pretty obvious that my reputation as a trial lawyer is impossible to escape. But part of the reason that I can't escape it is that those immediately around me, including those closest to me, see me that way and can't imagine a world in which I'm not yoked to the plow in this fashion.
Elijah set out, and came upon Elisha, son of Shaphat, as he was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen; he was following the twelfth. Elijah went over to him and threw his cloak on him.
Elisha left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, “Please, let me kiss my father and mother good-bye, and I will follow you.” Elijah answered, “Go back! What have I done to you?”
Elisha left him and, taking the yoke of oxen, slaughtered them; he used the plowing equipment for fuel to boil their flesh, and gave it to the people to eat. Then he left and followed Elijah to serve him.
1 Kings, Chapter 19.
I've always thought Elisha's actions baffling. But they are not. He was wanting to set out with Elijah, who had just anointed him his successor. When he left the oxen and spoke to Elijah, Elijah seemed annoyed and told him to go back.
Yoke's were expensive, and so were oxen. By burning his wooden yokes, there was no going back.
If this seems harsh, consider the similar lines from Luke in the New Testament:
As they were proceeding on their journey someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus answered him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.”
And to another he said, “Follow me.” But he replied, “[Lord,] let me go first and bury my father.” But he answered him, “Let the dead bury their dead.* But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
And another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say farewell to my family at home.” Jesus said, “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.”
In modern American life we imagine we can always go back and most of us live our lives that way. Had Elisha decided, well, I'll plow the field and bring in the crops and take up being a prophet later, he wouldn't have become a prophet. Those setting a hand to the plow, and looking back, don't plow a straight row.
And so back to the main.
There's really no glory in trial work, in spite of what people like to imagine. It's hard work. If you win, your clients view the victory as theirs. If you lose, it's your fault. Everyone wins some and loses some, and moreover, wins some they should lose and lose some they should win. It's so stressful that most civil litigators, truth be known, and this includes both plaintiffs and defendants lawyers, won't try a case. Those who will tend to be a tiny minority, and we try lots of cases, because we will. You get used to a lot of the things about it, but like the way Jock Lewes is portrayed in SAS, Rogue Heroes (stay tuned for a review shortly), some of that is suppression of anxiety rather than its elimination, although anxiety does indeed decrease with time. People who run around claiming they love everything about a trial tend to be weirdos or liars, more often the latter than the former.
And, for what its worth, I've tried a minor case since this one.
I have to give him credit, he's not accepting the co-opting of his song by the populist right candidates, and includes them in the class of those he's singing about.
Rich Men North of Richmond, which is independently produced, I think, had made a big Internet and music scene splash, and frankly, not because it's good.
It is, as of this writing, on Billboard's Hot 100.
The ballad is played by Oliver Anthony, a genuine blue collar Virginian, apparently. All of his music videos seem to be filmed in a heavily wooded lot, which also appears to be genuine, although the rural South provides a certain cache in country music to such an extent that a Canadian band has even affected it, calling itself The Dead South. All of Anthony's music is played on a Resonator Guitar, a type of guitar I normally call a Dobro. I associate resonated guitars with the blues, not with country music, so this is a bit odd in and of itself.
How I imagine a guitar with a resonator properly being used.
Fans have gushed on the "return" of "real" or "authentic" country music, and this may indeed be the first genuine example of authentic country music to become a big hit in decades. Even 1st Lt. Austin von Letkemann, the author (host? mc?) of the wickedly funny Army satire series Mandatory Fun Day mentioned it the other day, as a real fan, citing Colter Wall at the same time. Wall is authentic, that's for sure, but in a different genre, genuine Western, i.e., cowboy, music.
But I don't think it's the music that boosted Anthony's song to the top of the C&W charts. It's the content. Consider the lyrics:
I've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
So I can sit out here and waste my life away
Drag back home and drown my troubles away
It's a damn shame what the world's gotten to
For people like me and people like you
Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is
Livin' in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don't think you know, but I know that you do
'Cause your dollar ain't shit and it's taxed to no end
'Cause of rich men north of Richmond
I wish politicians would look out for miners
And not just minors on an island somewhere
Lord, we got folks in the street, ain't got nothin' to eat
And the obese milkin' welfare
Well, God, if you're 5-foot-3 and you're 300 pounds
Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds
Young men are puttin' themselves six feet in the ground
'Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin' them down
Lord, it's a damn shame what the world's gotten to
For people like me and people like you
Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is
Livin' in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don't think you know, but I know that you do
'Cause your dollar ain't shit and it's taxed to no end
'Cause of rich men north of Richmond
I've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
Rich Man North of Richmond, it might be noted, comes hard on the heels of In A Small Town, by Jason Aldean.
Consider its lyrics:
Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk
Carjack an old lady at a red light
Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store
Ya think it's cool, well, act a fool if ya like
Cuss out a cop, spit in his face
Stomp on the flag and light it up
Yeah, ya think you're tough
Well, try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won't take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don't
Try that in a small town
Got a gun that my granddad gave me
They say one day they're gonna round up
Well, that shit might fly in the city, good luck
Try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won't take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don't
Try that in a small town
Full of good ol' boys, raised up right
If you're looking for a fight
Try that in a small town
Try that in a small town
Try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won't take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don't
Try that in a small town
Try that in a small town
Ooh-ooh
Try that in a small town
Aldean, I'd note, isn't from a small town. He's' from Macon, Georgia, population 150,000 or so, so it's a mid-sized city. And In A Small Town isn't real country, but rather country and enjoyed the same popularity.
Both of these songs immediately became populist anthems. So much so that none other than liberal economist Robert Reich, whom this blog has an obvious love/hate relationship, just posted on the song, with frankly a typically disappointing analysis.
Reich offers his view, but he's wrong on what's going on here, at least in part, and certainly wrong on the fix. Like other left wing economists in the United States, Reich is a corporate capitalist, which is also what all the right wing economists are. Reich correctly believes that the system has gone wonky to the detriment of the working class (whatever the current working class may be), but he fails to grasp, as nearly every economist in the United States and perhaps the Western World, or maybe even the planet, that the economy is supposed to serve average lives and average lives come first. I.e., it's 1) my life and; 2) I need to work. Not I'm a worker in a glorious worker's state and work will exalt me, or I'm a consumer in a glorious consumption state and consumption will exalt me, which are effectively the flip side of corporate capitalism.
So what's going on here?
Well, the economy isn't serving people's lives, and that's because corporate capitalism doesn't. Neither right nor left economists get it. For that matter, left wing politicos, as exhibited by Reich's writings, particularly don't get it.
Reich is one of the people who keep interpreting this stuff from solely an economic prospective, while simultaneously, and increasingly from a bigoted prospective, issuing warnings about "Christian Nationalism", which actually isn't a movement this is part of at all. Southern Cultural Christianity is, but that's completely different, and indeed largely leans on a different branch of Christianity (the same people who go to Trump rallies and find him to be a fine Christian probably think Constantine the Great ripped the faith away from the Baptists, or something).
Constantine the Great watching the burning of the books of Arian heretics. Constantine would likely regard most MAGA Christians as appalling on religions grounds, while he'd recognize Christian Nationalist. He can't be considered one, however. He's regarded as a saint by the Easter Orthodox and the Ukrainian Catholic Church.
You can get a taste of what's actually up with these songs from the comments to Rich Men North of Richmond on Youtube.
1. 39 years old. Spent 12 1/2 years as a plumber until the small company I worked for went under as the pandemic began. Working for a big chain home store for the last 3 years getting beaten into the ground, treated like a disposable asset, and watching my earnings equal less and less as the prices of basic necessities goes up. Ive fought addiction and won. Ive found love and lost it. This song resonates on a level that I havent felt in a long time. Thank you and god bless. ð
2. As a disabled Marine, struggling to even be in public, struggling with all the bullshit in this world, struggling with thoughts of suicide, struggling to find pride in my Country, struggling to find the strength to get up every day to do the same damn thing to barely make ends me… as an American STRUGGLING with LIFE… thank you for bringing a little hope to my small part of the world… thank you for letting me know I am not alone with my thoughts and feelings… THANK YOU and God bless you Oliver Anthony
3. I’m a 42 year old ex addict living in a camper trailer pay cheque to pay cheque with my kids part time while working to help the homeless and addicted community. I won’t stop working like the rest of you because we know at some point that one day will come that we may get that one break that shows us it was all worth it.
Amazing song Oliver, thank you for sharing it
4. As a hard working black American man, this song is ð¥ ð the first country song on my Playlist and I hope for more. In an Era where soul is gone from music THIS IS A BREATH OF MUCH NEEDED AIR. even put a tear in my eye ð¥
5. And just like that you became the voice of 40 or 50 million working men. Amazing work, sir.
And there are a lot more.
Let's break down the lyrics again, emphasizing the ones that are telling.
I've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
So I can sit out here and waste my life away
Drag back home and drown my troubles away
It's a damn shame what the world's gotten to
For people like me and people like you
Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is
Livin' in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don't think you know, but I know that you do
'Cause your dollar ain't shit and it's taxed to no end
'Cause of rich men north of Richmond
I wish politicians would look out for miners
And not just minors on an island somewhere
Lord, we got folks in the street, ain't got nothin' to eat
And the obese milkin' welfare
Well, God, if you're 5-foot-3 and you're 300 pounds
Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds
Young men are puttin' themselves six feet in the ground
'Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin' them down
Lord, it's a damn shame what the world's gotten to
For people like me and people like you
Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is
Livin' in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don't think you know, but I know that you do
'Cause your dollar ain't shit and it's taxed to no end
'Cause of rich men north of Richmond
I've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
Okay, some of that, like Mr. Reich notes, is economic, but a lot of it isn't. The protagonist notes:
1. He has "an old soul".
2. The rich men he complains about want total control, even over what he thinks.
3. He complains about the Jeffrey Epstein saga, but more in an allegorical way than a specific way, suggesting that politicians are more concerned with their immoral pursuits than the lives of average working people.
4. He takes a shot at the welfare poor, and unusually, notes fat ones (hardly anyone does that in contemporary America).
Hmmmm. . . Doesn't seem to be all economic. . .
There's a common liberal belief, and Reich is one of those espousing it, that if only the economy is good, everyone is happy. Reich is one of those who goes on to point out, and correctly, that the economy really is good right now. One who also does this nearly weekly is Donna Brazile, who is a Democratic political commentator I really like.
Nobody is saying the economy is perfect, of course, including Reich or Brazile.
But there's something they've noted, that they are missing.
If the economy is really good, and in actuality it is, and a large section of the middle class (and contrary to what pudits claim, its definately not all the "white male" middle class) are bitterly unhappy, what's going on.
The usual assertion is that the economy is doing well, but people just don't know it, which is a bit of a bizarre assertion. People tend to know if they're doing well or not, which raises this question, with unemployment down, wages up, and inflation slowing, are people doing well?
Well, they might not actually be, and COVID may have made that plain to them.
One thing that's underlying the tone of the song is the economic shift in the nature of work since about 1970.
Well, the economy isn't serving people's lives, and that's because corporate capitalism doesn't. Neither right nor left economists get it. For that matter, left wing politicos, as exhibited by Reich's writings, particularly don't get it.
Reich is one of the people who keep interpreting this stuff from solely an economic prospective, while simultaneously, and increasingly from a bigoted prospective, issuing warnings about "Christian Nationalism", which actually isn't a movement this is part of at all. Southern Cultural Christianity is, but that's completely different, and indeed largely leans on a different branch of Christianity (the same people who go to Trump rallies and find him to be a fine Christian probably think Constantine the Great ripped the faith away from the Baptists, or something).
Constantine the Great watching the burning of the books of Arian heretics. Constantine would likely regard most MAGA Christians as appalling on religions grounds, while he'd recognize Christian Nationalist. He can't be considered one, however. He's regarded as a saint by the Easter Orthodox and the Ukrainian Catholic Church.
You can get a taste of what's actually up with these songs from the comments to Rich Men North of Richmond on Youtube.
1. 39 years old. Spent 12 1/2 years as a plumber until the small company I worked for went under as the pandemic began. Working for a big chain home store for the last 3 years getting beaten into the ground, treated like a disposable asset, and watching my earnings equal less and less as the prices of basic necessities goes up. Ive fought addiction and won. Ive found love and lost it. This song resonates on a level that I havent felt in a long time. Thank you and god bless. ð
2. As a disabled Marine, struggling to even be in public, struggling with all the bullshit in this world, struggling with thoughts of suicide, struggling to find pride in my Country, struggling to find the strength to get up every day to do the same damn thing to barely make ends me… as an American STRUGGLING with LIFE… thank you for bringing a little hope to my small part of the world… thank you for letting me know I am not alone with my thoughts and feelings… THANK YOU and God bless you Oliver Anthony
3. I’m a 42 year old ex addict living in a camper trailer pay cheque to pay cheque with my kids part time while working to help the homeless and addicted community. I won’t stop working like the rest of you because we know at some point that one day will come that we may get that one break that shows us it was all worth it.
Amazing song Oliver, thank you for sharing it
4. As a hard working black American man, this song is ð¥ ð the first country song on my Playlist and I hope for more. In an Era where soul is gone from music THIS IS A BREATH OF MUCH NEEDED AIR. even put a tear in my eye ð¥
5. And just like that you became the voice of 40 or 50 million working men. Amazing work, sir.
And there are a lot more.
Let's break down the lyrics again, emphasizing the ones that are telling.
I've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
So I can sit out here and waste my life away
Drag back home and drown my troubles away
It's a damn shame what the world's gotten to
For people like me and people like you
Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is
Livin' in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don't think you know, but I know that you do
'Cause your dollar ain't shit and it's taxed to no end
'Cause of rich men north of Richmond
I wish politicians would look out for miners
And not just minors on an island somewhere
Lord, we got folks in the street, ain't got nothin' to eat
And the obese milkin' welfare
Well, God, if you're 5-foot-3 and you're 300 pounds
Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds
Young men are puttin' themselves six feet in the ground
'Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin' them down
Lord, it's a damn shame what the world's gotten to
For people like me and people like you
Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is
Livin' in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don't think you know, but I know that you do
'Cause your dollar ain't shit and it's taxed to no end
'Cause of rich men north of Richmond
I've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
Okay, some of that, like Mr. Reich notes, is economic, but a lot of it isn't. The protagonist notes:
1. He has "an old soul".
2. The rich men he complains about want total control, even over what he thinks.
3. He complains about the Jeffrey Epstein saga, but more in an allegorical way than a specific way, suggesting that politicians are more concerned with their immoral pursuits than the lives of average working people.
4. He takes a shot at the welfare poor, and unusually, notes fat ones (hardly anyone does that in contemporary America).
Hmmmm. . . Doesn't seem to be all economic. . .
There's a common liberal belief, and Reich is one of those espousing it, that if only the economy is good, everyone is happy. Reich is one of those who goes on to point out, and correctly, that the economy really is good right now. One who also does this nearly weekly is Donna Brazile, who is a Democratic political commentator I really like.
Nobody is saying the economy is perfect, of course, including Reich or Brazile.
But there's something they've noted, that they are missing.
If the economy is really good, and in actuality it is, and a large section of the middle class (and contrary to what pundits claim, it's definitely not all the "white male" middle class) are bitterly unhappy, what's going on.
The usual assertion is that the economy is doing well, but people just don't know it, which is a bit of a bizarre assertion. People tend to know if they're doing well or not, which raises this question, with unemployment down, wages up, and inflation slowing, are people doing well?
Well, they might not actually be, and COVID may have made that plain to them.
One thing that's underlying the tone of the song is the economic shift in the nature of work since about 1970.
A meme version of the economics of the 1950s. . . dealing with more than economics. This depiction of the 50s drives commentators nuts, who decry it as a myth, but there's more than a little truth to it, both in what it states, and in what it otherwise depicts.
Americans tend to look back to the 1950s as some sort of golden age, and have a really mythologized view of the era. Be that as it may, in the 50s, most men could in fact support a family on their income alone, and not just from white collar jobs but from blue collar jobs. Not only could most men do it, but most men did do it. As late as the 1970s, a lot of husbands actually objected to their wives working, whereas now most married women not only do work, but must work. Perhaps an error in here, however, is that in the 50s that a lot of people were going to college. In reality, in 1950 only 7.3% of men had a college degree and only 5.2% of women did, which by 1960 was 10.3% and 6% respectively. This means, however, that a university degree was like gold. Of interest, both of my mother's parents had university degrees, which is phenomenal given that they obtained them in the early 20th Century. Neither of my father's parents did. Also of note, my mother had a college degree, an AS, but she obtained in the 1970s and was not a high school graduate due to the Great Depression, where has my father had a DDS and his brother and one of his sisters attended university in the 1940s/1950s.
The 50s through the early 1970s really reflect post World War Two conditions, however, and might not be the best era to look at. The 40s can't be looked at either, due to World War Two, nor can the 30s, due to the Great Depression. You really have to get back to the 10s and 20s for economies to compare to, with some comparison from later decades. Any way you look at it, however, a lot more families were supported from a single, usually male, income, but it was also the case that a lot more women always worked than is recognized.
Myths have power, however, and they also reflect aspects of reality as a rule. Beowulf may not have slain a dragon in Sweden, but a warrior named Bear (Bee Wolf) probably was an early Scandinavia warrior vassal of note. There really was a big battle at Troy, and it probably did start off as a totally juvenile spat over a girl that somebody regarded as a babe, although it's likely there was more to it than that. Arthur wasn't a chivalric knight, but somebody the legend was based on, probably was a British Roman who did take on the invading Teutons in defense of Roman Britain heroically before going down on a battlefield. There was indeed an era, not long ago, when a high school education could bring a person a living wage for not only the graduate, but a spouse and kids, and provide a middle income life.
And there was also a time during which, as harsh as the reality is, that you weren't in grocery store lines behind people who are paying for food with assistance, but who had money for tattoos, and who have suspended any regard for their personal appearance.
This is all obvious to people who are barely eeking by, but who know that their grandparents, with no more education than they have, did relatively well.
To add to it, although only subtly grasped, people are also aware, even as they participate in it, that the country's become a moral sewer. The problem, in a way, is not that Jeffrey Epstein is uncommon, but rather than he is common in a way. Only the rich, of course, used him as a procurer for teenage prostitutes, but the entertainment industry is essentially a society wide procurer for cinematic prostitution that has become increasingly debased.
All that does involve wealth, but part of the underlying tone, and one that people like Reich can't seem to grasp, is that the American political left insists that it all conduct be accepted and each person's choices, no matter how self-destructive, anti-natural, debased, or weird, be celebrated. People very well know that the entire movement to support surgical gender mutilation of children is wrong, for example, as well as deeply weird, but the left demands it be celebrated, just as it insists that what nearly amount to homosexual sex manuals be placed in public schools with public funds. It is not that the standard bearers of the right are moral people. Trump is a serial polygamist. It's rather that there's a difference in promoting immorality and demanding that it be accepted and distancing policy from it, even if you engage in immorality yourself. Double standards abound, but what the unhappy class is looking at doesn't seem to be grasped.
Indeed, as the left repeatedly fails to grasp in regards to the that unhappy class, is that the class itself may not really apply the standards it mourns all that deeply, in regard to at least some of them. Critics from the left, like Robert Reich, keep branding the movement "Christian Nationalist", as do some critics from the right, such as Susan Stubson. They're both in correct. Christian Nationalist take the practice of Christianity really seriously. Southern Cultural Christian Populist, however, have a world roughly framed out by the Southern Baptist Convention, the pre-1970 Episcopal and Methodist Church's, or the African Methodist Church loosely in mind, but as a framework, not as a fortress. Put another way, Christian Nationalist look to the Apostolic age and know what that meant, and aren't really comfortable completely with people who sit around watching NASCAR on Sundays. Southern Cultural Christians are perfectly comfortable with watching NASCAR on Sundays and attend church for weddings, funerals, Easter and Christmas. They aren't the same thing.
But what both are uncomfortable with, but in different ways, is a liberalism that insists that genders can be changed, and there's nothing wrong with books in public schools that explore sodomy. That exceeds the boundaries of the loosely defined structure for Southern Cultural Christians and is definitely gravely immoral to Christian Nationalists, as well as frankly gravely immoral to any Christians of any stripe who are serious about what their faiths hold.
In 2008, I stopped at the liquor store on my way home from work to buy a six-pack of beer. It was late summer.
In the liquor store there were two young women, in their very early 20s, with a young man of the same age. One of the young women was holding a baby.
The girl, and that's really what she was, holding the baby was pretty, but in a trashy sort of way, and in the way that you know won't last. The other girl was not. Both young women were wearing t-shirts that were too small for them, and too tight to be decent. They were both wearing Daisy Dukes. The young man was shaking and incredibly disheveled. It was pretty clear that he was the father of the baby, equally clear that he and the young woman weren't married, and just as clear that he was a tweaker.
The pretty girl holding the baby had eyeliner and a proud visage, sort of like the pretty but trashy girls did back when I was in high school. They'd retained the eyeliner sort of make up that girls in junior high wore, back when I was in junior high, after girls of that age first started taking up makeup. Most girls abandoned that by high school, but the ones that were of a certain type didn't. That girl, the pretty one, was wearing an Obama for President t-shirt. I knew at that moment, well before the election, who would win.
The image that was on the girl's t-shirt. It wasn't "Hope" that they had a vested interest in.
Now, this isn't a comment on President Obama at all, but rather on something else, and that something else gets back to Rich Men North of Richmond.
The young man in that group is likely dead by now. Tweaking in his early 20s, it's unlikely he survived another fifteen years. The girl who the mother likely is, and if she was 21 then, she's 36 now. She's also likely in the 300 lbs category the song referenced, the signs of that already being there. And indeed, what she was supporting, and likely at least her female cohort, wasn't "hope", as Obama was espousing, it was government assistance. The child, now 15, has probably spent his or her entire life on it.
And that, in some vague sort of way, is what Oliver Anthony is lamenting.
All of these people likely descended from people who had held blue collar jobs. But a modern society reconstructed in a liberal image had turned them into wards of the government in some ways, and they weren't ashamed of it. Their attachment to any sort of conventional morality had lapsed, perhaps beyond repair, and they were reproducing without structure and raising a generation behind them, perhaps as they'd been raised, that recalls Philippians, "Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things." They didn't go on to be Megan Rapinoe, who would be just about their age, almost undoubtedly, but probably heavily tattooed, and living on the funds generated by others.
A large number of abandoned rust belt and other blue collar Americans are well aware of this, even if they aren't necessarily beyond some of the call of that themselves.
That's what liberal pundits are missing, and that's what populist, some sincere and some not, have picked up on.
El Paso Sheriff : What's it mean? What's it leadin' to? You know, if you'd have told me 20 years ago, that I'd see children walking the streets of our Texas towns with green hair and bones in their noses, I just flat-out wouldn't have believed you.
Ed Tom Bell : Signs and wonders. But I think once you quit hearing "sir" and "ma'am," the rest is soon to foller.
El Paso Sheriff : Oh, it's the tide. It's the dismal tide.
No Country For Old Men.
And that's why their message is failing.
And for traditional conservatives, as, well as liberals, there may now be, by this time, something even scarier at work. . .
It is so easy for those who have made their money under a given system to think that that system must be right and good. Conservatism is for that reason nothing else than a pseudo-philosophy for the prosperous. -
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West, p. 81
This is going to hit California and Baja Mexico:
Coastal Watches/Warnings and Forecast Cone for Storm Center
Forecast Length*
Forecast Track Line
Initial Wind Field
* If the storm is forecast to dissipate within 3 days, the "Full Forecast" and "3 day" graphic will be identical
This graphic shows an approximate representation of coastal areas under a hurricane warning (red), hurricane watch (pink), tropical storm warning (blue) and tropical storm watch (yellow). The orange circle indicates the current position of the center of the tropical cyclone. The black line, when selected, and dots show the National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecast track of the center at the times indicated. The dot indicating the forecast center location will be black if the cyclone is forecast to be tropical and will be white with a black outline if the cyclone is forecast to be extratropical. If only an L is displayed, then the system is forecast to be a remnant low. The letter inside the dot indicates the NHC's forecast intensity for that time:
D: Tropical Depression – wind speed less than 39 MPH S: Tropical Storm – wind speed between 39 MPH and 73 MPH H: Hurricane – wind speed between 74 MPH and 110 MPH M: Major Hurricane – wind speed greater than 110 MPH
NHC tropical cyclone forecast tracks can be in error. This forecast uncertainty is conveyed by the track forecast "cone", the solid white and stippled white areas in the graphic. The solid white area depicts the track forecast uncertainty for days 1-3 of the forecast, while the stippled area depicts the uncertainty on days 4-5. Historical data indicate that the entire 5-day path of the center of the tropical cyclone will remain within the cone about 60-70% of the time. To form the cone, a set of imaginary circles are placed along the forecast track at the 12, 24, 36, 48, 72, 96, and 120 h positions, where the size of each circle is set so that it encloses 67% of the previous five years official forecast errors. The cone is then formed by smoothly connecting the area swept out by the set of circles.
It is also important to realize that a tropical cyclone is not a point. Their effects can span many hundreds of miles from the center. The area experiencing hurricane force (one-minute average wind speeds of at least 74 mph) and tropical storm force (one-minute average wind speeds of 39-73 mph) winds can extend well beyond the white areas shown enclosing the most likely track area of the center. The distribution of hurricane and tropical storm force winds in this tropical cyclone can be seen in the Wind History graphic linked above.
Considering the combined forecast uncertainties in track, intensity, and size, the chances that any particular location will experience winds of 34 kt (tropical storm force), 50 kt, or 64 kt (hurricane force) from this tropical cyclone are presented in tabular form for selected locations and forecast positions. This information is also presented in graphical form for the 34 kt, 50 kt, and 64 kt thresholds.
Interestingly, it's going to basically go right over Bakersfield, California, where this lifelong resident of that city is now serving in Congress:
Bakersfield is an oil town, and a rough one. Kevin McCarthy never worked in the oil patch, but he comes from blue collar roots. He graduated with a MBA from California State University, Bakersfield, in 1994, but was already in politics by that time. He's been a member of Congress since 2006.
Kern County is representative of a type of California we hardly think of. An oil and gas province in a state that we associate originally with agriculture, and then with. . . well itself. In some ways, McCarthy has been sort of an odd man out in his native state his entire life. And it must be frustrating, as he's a fourth generation Californian.
That sort of frustration has expressed itself in the nation's politics, on both the left and the right, for some time now. It's given rise to populism, and that populism has morphed into a form of fascism. Right McCarthy's party is struggling to see if it will be, after the nomination process is over, a conservative party, a populist party, or a fascist party. The fascist is in the lead, but he disregards of the law, a common trait for fascist leaders, may be his undoing. If it isn't, it risks being the undoing of American democracy.
The fact that "conservatives" no longer apply the broad scope of the word "conserve" may prove to lead to multiple undoings as well.
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen hit on something that ought to be obvious to us all, but in fact It's something rarely occurs to anyone. Liberals, or progressives as they like to think of themselves, decry the rich as evil on the basis that bad things happen due to wealth and therefore that's evil, and the evil must know that it's evil. In truth, "It is so easy for those who have made their money under a given system to think that that system must be right and good.", and that doesn't apply only to those who make vast amounts of money in something. Regular workers feel the same way. Tobacco farmers probably almost never thought to themselves about how their product directly resulted in cancer, and if they did, they must have mentally excused it, for example.
Systems are big, and big systems have to be addressed at a big level. Germans who worked in factories that were converted to war products as the war went on weren't in the same position as Albert Speer. But attempting to sanctify your occupation and livelihood (something I'll note that is very common for lawyers to do) doesn't change the reality of things.
This the first tropical storm to hit California like this in 84 years, the last such one being 1939's El Cordonazo. That storm was not only the last one, it's the only one to have made landfall in California in the 20th Century. We've had the terrible fires in Maui. We've had terrible fires in Canada all summer long. The list goes on.
The GOP is loud on the Biden "radical climate agenda". At least one of our local Congressional representatives, I'd wager, can be guaranteed to come on Twitter or Fox News within the next 30 days and complain about "Biden's radical climate agenda". The truth is, humans should not dare alter the climate, and just because I make money from things that might doesn't mean that it can't happen.
After this storm hits Bakersfield, McCarthy, along with the other top GOP leaders, should go to Kern County and explain what they're doing. McCarthy is Catholic (one of our three Congress people was, but long since adopted a Protestant faith, the latter allowing divorce and remarriage, although I don't know that's the reason that he did so). In Catholic theology, lying about serious matters is a grave sin.
I note that as I feel that most of these people, although not all of them, know better. If they don't know better, they can be excused, I guess, for not knowing better, but they can't be for willfully blinding themselves to the truth, which certainly can and does occur.
We really don't need Kevin McCarthy blathering about Hunter Biden. There's no excuse for ignoring the real, and difficult, problems of the day. You can feed red meat to the dogs, but once that's gone, and they're starving, they'll be coming for you.
People cheered Mussolini when he marched on Rome. They then hung around and celebrated his demise 20 years later. Austrians lined the streets when Hitler visited after the AnschluÃ, and were pretty glad to see the Nazi go just a few years later.
People who faced reality and undertook to engage it are better remembered than those who buried their heads in the sand and tried to ignore it. People don't sing the praises of John C. Calhoun today. They're not going to sing the praises of Ted Cruz tomorrow. People remember Lindbergh for what he did heroically, not for being an American Firster before December 7, 1941.
There's an opportunity here to be grasped, but will it be. Of couse, is there even an audience for it. The Wyoming GOP has been busy censuring its members for not falling into the fantasy right. People like to hear that they're beautiful, that smoking won't hurt you, and that you can go ahead and have that fourth beer before you drive home.
