Glibertarians.com 2018 Archive

Category: History

  • When Timepieces Were Made to Last

    I’ve noticed that Glibs seem to enjoy the finer things in life and finely made things.  So I figured I’d combine the two here.  Now that SP has given us the ability to edit in WordPress it seemed an opportune time to share some pictures of an old hobby.  Before  work  responsibilities and old age in the form of poor eyesight and loss of dexterity caught up with me I used to collect and repair vintage watches.  I specialized in the Hamilton brand.  This allowed me to become familiar with their various movements and to acquire parts for repair.

    From our friends at Wiki:

    The Hamilton Watch Company had its genesis as an American watch design and manufacturing company, which incorporated in 1892 and produced its first watch in 1893.

    After its formation, the Hamilton Watch Company went on to manufacture and market pocket watches and wristwatches, ending American manufacture in 1969. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, the Hamilton Watch Company became a diversified conglomerate itself and was subsequently integrated into the Swatch group.

    I don’t collect anything made after 1969 and their acquisition by the Swiss.  After that point their watches used Swiss movements.  Interestingly enough, variations of those Swiss movements are still in use today in many Swiss made mechanical watches.

    Assembled!
    Hamilton 12 size pocket-watch

    This is a Hamilton 12 size gentleman’s pocket watch.  For pretty much everyone who has no idea what that means it is 39.79 mm or 1.567 inches in diameter.  That’s the width of the movement inside the watch not including the case or the crown.

    This particular example is a Grade 922 movement made in 1927.  Approximate total production was 14,000 units and they were made from 1924 to 1936.

    Smaller pocket watches like this generally don’t have much appeal to American watch collectors.  They prefer “railroad watches” which is a whole topic into itself.  However, this watch is an exception.  It meets all of the criteria for a so called “railroad watch” with the exception of the size – it is too small to be classified as such.

    The case is 14K yellow gold, the dial is stirling silver and the hands are blued steel.  It’s a beautiful timepiece.  But what I find most interesting about it are the parts that very few people see.  The entire watch is is engine turned or what for American and some German watches is known as damascening.

    Here is a picture of the assembled movement in the watch:

    And now for the interesting bits!  This is the “plate” on which the watch is assembled.

    Top Plate

    Notice all the wonderful engine turning.

    Here is the other side known as the bottom plate which is actually the hands side of the watch:

    Bottom Plate

    The bridges go across the top plate:

    Bridges

    Those are “genuine synthetic” rubies set in gold that give watches their “number of jewels”.  In this case 23 jewels and the watch is manually adjusted to keep time in 5 positions.

    These are gears of the watch known in the trade as the “wheels”:

    Gold Wheels

    Watch wheels are almost exclusively made from brass, but in this case they are made from real gold.  The reason for the material choice was partly because of the metal’s softness, but mostly because of aesthetics.

    Here is the heart of the watch – the balance wheel:

    Balance Wheel

    This is an old fashioned, blue steel spring, split bi-metallic balance wheel.  The screws on the outside are there to balance the wheel.  Naturally they are gold as well!  Because the wheel is made from two different metals the diameter will change as the temperature changes.  This is how the watch keeps accurate time when the temperature changes.

    Modern mechanical watches are laser balanced and use a proprietary white metal alloy hairspring that compensates for temperature. The balance wheel in your modern Rolex is a solid piece.

    Here’s a beauty shot of the the assembled movement out of the case:

    Hamilton 922 Movement

    And here is the sterling silver dial which is interestingly stamped “Switzerland” on the back:

    Swiss Dial

    And finally the cased watch.  Notice this has essentially two “backs”.  It has a hinged dust cover for the just the movement itself and another cover for the back of the watch. And naturally they are both made out of 14K gold!

    Case and Dust Cover

    As I don’t often wear suits to work anymore I don’t carry this watch much anymore.  I guess I’ll have to find an excuse to wear it again.

  • Mormons in the Mist: Had for Good or Evil

    The Prophet Joseph Smith[i]

     

    33 He called me by name, and said unto me that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God to me, and that his name was Moroni; that God had a work for me to do; and that my name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people.

    Joseph Smith – History 1:33

    The first installment of the Mormons in the Mist articles can be found here. This is part one of a subseries on the history of the Church. This article covers Joseph’s life through the translation of the Book of Mormon.

     
    You cannot discuss The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints without dealing with Joseph Smith, Jr.

    People who know nothing else about the Church know two things: Polygamy and Joe Smith’s Golden Bible. There have been many biographies written about him, from every angle. The best of these of which I am aware is Richard L. Bushman’s 2005 Joseph Smith Rough Stone Rolling. Dr. Bushman acknowledges Joseph’s shortcomings without sliding into a warts-only version and describes his life without becoming hagiographic.

    So, who was Joseph Smith, Jr? To the believing members of the Church, he is the Prophet of the Restoration. A seer and revelator who restored the gospel of Jesus Christ to the earth, founded the Church under the direction of God, and was martyred for his beliefs. His critics say he was a con man and a fake.

    Joseph Smith, Jr. started life as a farm boy. He was born 23 December 1805 in Sharon, Vermont to Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith. He was the 5th of 11 children (of whom 9 lived to adulthood). When Joseph was 9, the family moved to Palmyra, New York and, four years later, to the nearby town of Manchester.[ii] This positioned the family perfectly for the Second Great Awakening. When he was 14 the wave of religious revivalism swept over the area and the Smith family was caught up in it. Confused by the contention, he followed the advice of James[iii] and prayed for wisdom.

    Joseph reported the results of this prayer:

    I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.

    17 […] When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!

    Joseph Smith – History 1:16-17

    In this vision of the Father and the Son, known as the First Vision, Joseph was instructed not to join any church at that time. A few days later, he mentioned the visitation to a local minister who contemptuously dismissed it as being of the devil and said, “that all such things had ended with the apostles.” Telling the story also “excited a great deal of prejudice against me among the professors of religion[.]”[iv]

    The Golden Plates

    Three years later, he had another visitation[v]. This time the messenger identified himself as Moroni and told the seventeen-year-old prophet about a book of gold plates containing the history of past inhabitants of the Americas. Moroni instructed Joseph through the night, and the next morning Joseph made his way to where the plates were hidden. In a stone box with the plates were a breastplate and two stones connected in the fashion of old fashioned spectacles. The stones were called a Urim and Thummim and were referred to as “interpreters”. He made an unsuccessful attempt to retrieve the contents of the box and was told to return every year for the next four years to receive more instruction.

    Over the course of the next four years, Joseph returned for instruction each year. Among other jobs, he hired on for a month in 1825 to assist a man who was looking for old Spanish silver mines in the area. While engaged in this, he boarded with the family of Isaac Hale, where he met his future wife Emma (Isaac’s daughter). They were married (against the wishes of her family) in January 1827.

    On 22 September 1827, Joseph went to receive his yearly instruction, and Moroni gave him the plates. Behind the relatively bland tale in the canonical version, there is a bit more which Dr. Bushman relates. ‘The angel had commanded Joseph to come to the hill on September 22. To be precise in his compliance and still throw off meddlers who knew of the date, Joseph chose to go to Cumorah in the dead of night, almost the minute September 22 arrived. Around twelve o’clock Joseph came into the room to ask if his mother had a chest with a lock and key. Knowing at once why he wanted it, Lucy was upset when she was unable to provide one. “Never mind,” Joseph assured her. “I can do very well for the present without it – be calm – all is right.” Minutes later Emma passed through the room in her bonnet and riding dress, and Lucy heard the two of them drive off in Joseph Knight’s wagon.’[vi]

    Joseph, Emma, and the plates did not make it home before breakfast. Lucy (Joseph’s mother), covered for them until they returned. Joseph did not bring the plates home at all that day. He hid them in a birch log which he had hollowed out.[vii] In order to make money to pay a cabinet maker to make a box in which to keep the plates safe, Joseph left the next day for Macedon where he was hired to dig a well.

    Along with the plates came a warning that he was “responsible for them; that if I should let them go carelessly, or through any neglect of mine, I should be cut off[.]”[viii] Why such elaborate measures, and such a strict charge? The day after Joseph left for Macedon, his family learned of a plot to find and steal the plates: “[Joseph’s father] learned that ten or twelve men working with Willard Chase were conspiring to find the plates, and had sent for a conjuror sixty miles away whom they believed could discover the hiding place.”[ix] Emma went for Joseph, who left the well and returned quickly to the Smith farm. He then left to retrieve the plates from their hiding place. On the way back from the hiding place, he wrapped the plates in a frock he had been wearing while digging and carried them under his arm. He carried the plates (estimated to weigh between 40 and 50 pounds) that way the three miles back to the farm. Joseph was assaulted three times on the way home but made it back intact except for a dislocated thumb. Over the next several weeks, several groups of people searched for the plates but never found them.[x]

    In order to escape the attacks, Joseph and Emma left Manchester in late fall 1827 and went to Harmony, Pennsylvania to live on her father’s land. There, Joseph settled down to the work of learning how to translate the plates – at the same time providing for his pregnant wife. As part of the process, he copied some characters from the plates and translated them using the Urim and Thummim.

    The Translation of the Book of Mormon

    In February 1828 Martin Harris, a Palmyra farmer who had helped the Smiths escape, paid a visit. He took the copied characters and the translations to Dr. Charles Anthon in New York. Harris related to Joseph what happened:

    64 “I went to the city of New York, and presented the characters which had been translated, with the translation thereof, to Professor Charles Anthon, a gentleman celebrated for his literary attainments. Professor Anthon stated that the translation was correct, more so than any he had before seen translated from the Egyptian. I then showed him those which were not yet translated, and he said that they were Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic; and he said they were true characters. He gave me a certificate, certifying to the people of Palmyra that they were true characters, and that the translation of such of them as had been translated was also correct. I took the certificate and put it into my pocket, and was just leaving the house, when Mr. Anthon called me back, and asked me how the young man found out that there were gold plates in the place where he found them. I answered that an angel of God had revealed it unto him.

    65 “He then said to me, ‘Let me see that certificate.’ I accordingly took it out of my pocket and gave it to him, when he took it and tore it to pieces, saying that there was no such thing now as ministering of angels, and that if I would bring the plates to him he would translate them. I informed him that part of the plates were sealed, and that I was forbidden to bring them. He replied, ‘I cannot read a sealed book.’ I left him and went to Dr. Mitchell, who sanctioned what Professor Anthon had said respecting both the characters and the translation.”[xi]

    Harris returned to his farm in Palmyra, but returned to Harmony in mid-April. He became Joseph’s scribe as the work of translation continued. Joseph would dictate the translation (obtained through the interpreters) to Martin, who sat on the far side of a curtain which kept him from seeing the plates. By mid-June, they had a manuscript of 116 pages hand-written on foolscap. At this point, Martin – hoping to have something tangible to show his wife – asked to be allowed to take the manuscript home and show it to her. [xii]

    Joseph made the request to the Lord and was told no. Martin persisted, and was told no a second time. The third time, the Lord gave permission on the condition that only Martin’s wife, his brother, his parents, and his wife’s sister could see the manuscript.[xiii] Harris left for Palmyra, manuscript in hand.[xiv]

    Two weeks passed with no word from Harris and Joseph began to wonder about the manuscript. Emma encouraged him to go check up on Martin, so Joseph went to his parents’ house in Manchester. When he arrived, a message was sent to Martin, who was expected for breakfast at eight. Martin did not arrive as expected. He finally appeared at twelve-thirty. Joseph’s mother Lucy reports: “[W]e saw him walking with a slow and measured tread towards the house, his eyes fixed thoughtfully upon the ground. On coming to the gate, he stopped instead of passing through and got upon the fence, and sat there some time with his hat drawn over his eyes.”[xv] Martin had not kept his word, and the manuscript was gone.

    The Lord, as you might expect, was not pleased. Martin’s role in the translation of the plates ended. He also withdrew Joseph’s gift of translation until the following Spring. When He restored it, He informed the prophet that the pages were still out there in the hands of people who did not want Joseph to succeed and that to fulfill this goal they had altered the manuscript so that when the section was re-translated, they could publish the altered original and say that Joseph was a fraud.[xvi] To frustrate this, the Lord instructed Joseph not to re-translate the same section, but to begin at another point which covered the same events from another angle.[xvii]

    On 5 April 1829 Oliver Cowdery came to visit the Smiths in Harmony. He had been teaching school in Manchester, and heard about Joseph and the plates while residing at Joseph Sr.’s house. Oliver became Joseph’s scribe, and the translation of the plates resumed.[xviii] In May, as the translation progressed, they came across a passage on baptism. Desiring more information from the Lord, they went to the woods to pray. Joseph relates what occurred:

    “68 […] While we were thus employed, praying and calling upon the Lord, a messenger from heaven descended in a cloud of light, and having laid his hands upon us, he ordained us, saying:

    69 Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah, I confer the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; and this shall never be taken again from the earth until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness.”[xix]

    This being told them that he was John the Baptist, and instructed them to baptize one another. He also told them that there was another priesthood, called the Melchizedek priesthood which would be conferred upon them later.[xx]

    We do not have a date for the conferral of the Melchizedek priesthood. Since it has the authority to organize the Church, it is reasonable to assume it was restored between the visitation of John the Baptist and the organization of the Church in April of 1830. The first acknowledgement of the event is in a revelation dated August of 1830.[xxi]

    Continuing persecution required them to relocate at the end of May 1829, this time to the farm of Peter Whitmer Sr. in Fayette, New York. Once there, Oliver and Joseph continued the work of translation and completed it about July 1st.[xxii]

    During the entire time the translation was going on, Joseph was not allowed to display the plates to anyone.[xxiii] In a revelation dated March 1829, Martin Harris was told to repent and humble himself and be patient, and he would be one of the people allowed to see the plates.[xxiv] Once the translation was completed, Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and David Whitmer (the son of the owner of the farm where the translation was completed) received a revelation where, in their own words “And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon[.]”[xxv] An additional eight witnesses (Smith and Whitmer family members) also saw and handled the plates, but did not see an angel.[xxvi]

    Joseph Smith will always be a controversial figure. He founded a church in a log cabin which has grown to over 16 million members. These people believe that he is precisely what he claimed to be – a prophet, seer, and revelator. His critics will tell you that he was a fraud and a charlatan, and that those of us who believe what he said are deluded.

    [i] Photo Credit: www.mormonnewsroom.org

    [ii] Pearl of Great Price Joseph Smith – History 1:3-4

    [iii] James 1:5 KJV

    [iv] Joseph Smith – History 1:21-22

    [v] Joseph Smith – History 1:27-54

    [vi] Bushman, Richard Lyman; Joseph Smith Rough Stone Rolling p 59 internal notes omitted

    [vii] Ibid p 60

    [viii] Joseph Smith – History 1:59

    [ix] Bushman p. 60

    [x] Ibid pp 60 – 62

    [xi] Joseph Smith – History 1:64-65 See also Isaiah 29:11-12

    [xii] Bushman p. 66

    [xiii] ibid

    [xiv] Ibid pp 66 -67

    [xv] Ibid p 67

    [xvi] Doctrine and Covenants 10:10-19

    Personal side note: Those pages are still out there – or were 40 years ago. My father was friends with a man who, at the time this occurred, was a professor of religious studies at BYU. At one point while I was a teenager, this man was in our area giving a talk. After the talk, my father took him out to dinner. In the course of the conversation, the subject of the missing manuscript pages came up, and this man told my father that someone he knew had information on the whereabouts of the manuscript pages. This person had not revealed to my father’s friend where they were or who had them, merely that he had this information.

    [xvii] Doctrine and Covenants 10:30,38-41

    [xviii] Joseph Smith – History 1:66-67

    [xix] Joseph Smith – History 1:68-69

    [xx] Joseph Smith – History 1:70-72

    [xxi] Doctrine and Covenants 27:12

    [xxii] Bushman pp 76-78

    [xxiii] Doctrine and Covenants 5:3

    [xxiv] Doctrine and Covenants 5:23-24

    [xxv] Book of Mormon The Testimony of Three Witnesses

    [xxvi] Book of Mormon The Testimony of Eight Witnesses

  • D-Day, 1944 pt. 5 – The Atlantic Wall

    Catch up on all the Omaha Beach Diorama posts

     

    The Wall: Looking at some pictures and such, I saw a need to cover my bigger guns, add some blast wings and otherwise make the place looked lived in, as well as make a spot for all the German troops to fight from.

    The top ended up with 4 different sally ports, that required learning to make sandbags. I’m still working on a good technique, but these will do for now.

    Effects: Craters are fun, it takes 4 or mores washes, fills and paints to get ’em looking cool, but these will work well when it’s all said and done.

    Paint

    Wash #1

     

    Wash #2

    In Place

     

    Water ‘Splosions: We decided to make some smaller stuff to round out the water, they should look great in the water.

    Static Defenses: The barbed wire needed to be wrapped and painted before the Caltrops could be placed, but now the beach is finished, except for the details and sealing, which comes at the end.


    In my usual fashion, I design and build as I go along, and find my direction that way, this build is no exception. Half of the men I bought won’t be used, half the pieces won’t be used, and different pieces/men will be purchased to fill in the blanks, you get what you pay for I guess. My terrain is very standardized and honestly somewhat boring, very grey scale, but the results will be fine.It will take several months to finish this one, so… I’m thinking for my next one, a castle on the side of a mountain, with waterfalls in several tiers, in COLOR!


    Until next time.


    Part 5 Gallery

  • The Beer Wars:  An Incomplete History of the American Beer Industry (pt 1)

    Part I – Pre-prohibition

    This is part one (of five) in a series of the Beer Wars in America (primarily 1970-1990) and some before and after history.  There are much better beer historians than me who would be far more accurate.  At the end of each piece, I am going to include how the period in question effected a local brewery to me, Falls City.  It adds a bit of individuality to a big picture story.  And now let us begin.

    In the beginning of America there was beer, and it was good, but it wasn’t really an industry so I am going to ignore it.  The Mayflower had beer, Washington and Franklin brewed beer, some breweries existed on the Eastern Seaboard.  But the exciting stuff happened with a combination of the industrial revolution and the German invas…ummm, immigration wave in the 19th century.  This was followed by the commercial use of refrigeration and an industry was born.

    Below is a not-so-random selection of mostly-German, mostly Midwest, breweries that were founded in the mid 19th century and would continue to play a major part in our story in the late 20th century.  This list is by no means complete, but it gives you a flavor of the Germanic character of the industry in these days.

    Yuengling, 1829, Pottsville
    Falstaff, 1838, St Louis
    Ballantine, 1840, Newark
    Schaefer, 1842, New York
    Pabst 1844, Milwaukee
    Schlitz 1849, Milwaukee
    Stroh 1850, Detroit
    Blatz, 1851, Milwaukee
    Anheuser-Busch, 1852, St Louis
    Christian Moerlein, 1853, Cincinnati
    Leibmann, 1854, Brooklyn
    Hudepohl, 1855, Cincinnati
    Miller, 1855, Milwaukee
    Jacob Schmidt, 1855, St Paul
    Heileman, 1858, La Crosse
    Christian Schmidt, 1860, Philadelphia
    Hamm, 1865, St Paul
    Coors, 1873, Golden
    Sterling, 1880, Evansville
    Pfeiffer, 1882, Detroit
    Anchor, 1896, San Francisco

    The Seibel Institute in Chicago taught brewing in German up until World War I.  The Brewmaster’s meetings at Budweiser were held in German up until about the 1960s.  The inability to speak German limited a brewer’s advancement in the company in the first half of the 20th century.

    Prior to this time, American breweries were based in the English tradition and were primarily Ales.  Lager became King with the German influence.  In 1873 there were 4,131 breweries in America, a number that would not be topped until late 2015.  In the 60 years from 1865 to 1915, the amount of beer produced and the per capita drinking increased dramatically (from 3 to 18 gallons per capita per annum).  However, the number of breweries decreased as industrialization and refrigeration allowed for larger breweries.  See the chart below:

    1865-1915

    Year National Production (millions of barrels) Number of Breweries Average Brewery Size (barrels)
    1865 3.7 2,252 1,643
    1870 6.6 3,286 2,009
    1875 9.5 2,783 3,414
    1880 13.3 2,741 4,852
    1885 19.2 2,230 8,610
    1890 27.6 2,156 12,801
    1895 33.6 1,771 18,972
    1900 39.5 1,816 21,751
    1905 49.5 1,847 26,800
    1910 59.6 1,568 38,010
    1915 59.8 1,345 44,461

    Source: United States Brewers Association, 1979 Brewers Almanac, Washington DC: 12-13.

    Of course, by the next line in the chart, the number was zero.  At least legally.  But that is a story for another post.

    At the beginning of the 20th century, Central Consumers Company, an alliance of Louisville breweries, had many of the taverns in Louisville under contract as “tied houses.”  Basically, they had a monopoly and a contract to prevent the taverns from buying elsewhere.  Some independent taverns and grocery stores refused to sign on and instead created a cooperative brewery in 1905 – Falls City.  In 1911, Central Consumers tried to buy out Falls City, but the owners chose not to sell.  Falls City would continue to grow and succeed until a horrible shadow fell over the country with the 18th Amendment.

    But there is a point to this part of the story – even in the face of monopoly, there isn’t a need for the government to fix the problem.  The plucky upstarts were able to succeed without subsidy and without selling out.  It’s a libertarian success story … for now.

  • The Problem with Aggregation, Part 2 of an… Aggregation

    TW: No funny pictures, and you may well think I’m somewhere between naive and insulting by the end of this.

    You are what you eat.  Obviously true for actual food for our physical body, but I contend that it is even more true for our mental and spiritual bodies as well.  Probably even more so. If you deny yourself carbs, your body undergoes a process called gluconeogenesis where it turns protein into glucose.  If you deny important inputs to your mind or your spirit, I don’t think there is a similar process to turn garbage in into anything but garbage out.

    In the previous post in this series, I promised that I would put forward a way to use the insight of that post (that aggregation and transitivity isn’t universal,) to make yourself a better person.  Here is the long, round-about way of getting to that suggestion.

    There is a saying that is the answer to the nature / nurture question.  That saying is “Nature loads the gun, the environment pulls the trigger.”  What that means is that ‘nature’ aka your genetics, your inborn instincts, and your physical limitations, they have created you as this machine that reacts to certain things in certain ways.  In one environment, you will act in one way, and in another environment, you will likely act in a very different way to produce a different end result. Take, for example, a big burly man with limited abstract intellect, a distrust of machinery, but with great willpower.  Put him in the workforce in a coal-mining town decades ago, and he will be remembered for generations as an American Hero. Put him in the workforce in a modern metropolis, and he is going to have a hard time holding down a steady job. Same traits, different environment, different outcomes.

    Alla yall nerds, did you read Jim Butcher’s Brief Cases?  Before the story about Marcone, Jim says that in another world, Marcone would be an ideal and humane landlord.  But in wizard-and-magic Chicago, he’s a ruthless crime boss. Same traits, different environment, different outcomes.

    Another example.  Take the world’s most literate, religious, and educated population on the planet.  Put them in a small town with no electronic communication facilities and a low enough level of wealth that many take for granted can only be made as communal property.  A town usually has one oven, and all the ladies get together for bake days. The town has one mill, and all the men get together to for milling days. The town gets one newspaper and everyone gathers together when the mail comes so someone can read it out loud.  Do you know the origin of the title Professor? He was the guy at the university who made up for the fact that there were more students than books. You couldn’t study in the library because there weren’t enough books to go around. They had a job called the reader where a bunch of people sit in a classroom and listen to someone read the books aloud.

    This is a time of very cosmopolitan mixing.  Anabaptists and Lutherans share dinner instead of the sword and the flame.  Brewers sold yeast to Puritans. This happens because of the social environment.  When two ladies are standing around waiting for the oven temperature to drop from “pie” to “bread,” it’s not likely that they’ll debate the scriptural validity of Calvin’s teachings.  They’ll gossip about what sort of social disease the town strumpet gave to the preacher. Men around the millstone, slowly pouring in grain, don’t usually debate the value of the teachings of the Physiocrats vs that of the Scottish philosophers in developing the wealth of a nation.  They talk about how preacher should apply a tincture of lead and witch-hazel to pants and stop riding the town bike.

    Face to face, they’ve got a life to lead with more pressing and immediate concerns than abstract political economy.  Or politics. Or whatever -ism you can think of. And having just seen what a circular firing squad it is when people of different faiths choose to go oppressing others, they opt to find a way to make friendly relations instead.

    This has a drastic impact on what happens when a political disagreement comes up.  I’m of course talking about the Colonies. Former-Loyalist or former-Patriot, early Americans knew that once the war was over they still had to live with each other and they had to work together to overcome the problems of slow communication and honest differences of interest.  First time around, it worked pretty well.

    The second time around…  Well, it didn’t work so well.  The economy and the social fabric of the nation had changed.  Industrialization started in the north. The south became more stratified.  People had less face to face time with each other. Rounded human beings became names, and names became labels.

    Take the same humans out of the colonial environment and put them in Reconstruction.  You have Yankees and Carpetbaggers, not Hank and Cynthia. Instead of a memory of the futility of warring over differences, you have a memory of a war where brother went to war against brother and shit got done because of it (either emancipating the slaves or perpetrating northern aggression and control, depending on which side of the Mason Dixon you haled from.)

    Same traits, different environment, different outcomes.

    The difference in the environment is a social difference.  People knew more people but not as deeply, they cataloged others with labels, and they operated in an environment of labels.

    The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was making you think you can only have tacos on tuesday.  The second greatest trick was to get you to replace people with labels.

    Because the human mind is lazy.  Once you understand something, you won’t go any further to define that thing if we don’t have to.  It has to be beaten into our heads. You have to stand next to someone working a millstone or loading bread into an oven day-in and day-out to see them as a human being instead of a label.

    In short, labels are a way to aggregate people into types.  It happened less in the Colonies, more in Reconstructions and…

    And now, its out of control.  Our social environment is becoming mediated by platforms and trends that reduces the standing-around-next-to-people time and increase the labeling tools at your disposal.  Social media is making us evil, because remember, aggregation of humans is the root of evil these days. Your ability to spend more and more time plugged into your phone means you are spending less and less time being bored next to people you don’t have much in common with.  Fewer and fewer kids are spending time running around the neighborhood with whoever happens to liveby, and more and more time being shuttled around to activities full of like-minded families.

    And it’s making us worse off.  On this website, lots of you call it derp.  Posting links to show just how out of touch some idiot progressive or statist is.  Progressive. Statist. These are labels and they do their damage even when, especially when, they are right.  

    Using labels like this makes someone a foot soldier in the culture war.  “SJW” is used as a knowing insult. It’s a poke at people who are warriors when there’s no war to be waged.  Its an assertion that these people are Mad Online in the real world. They can’t meme because they take everything to serious.

    And in a lot of cases, it’s a rhetorical blow that strikes true.  But it’s a blow in the culture war. It’s a fight in the war fueled with labels.  It’s a blow in a battle that doesn’t need to be fought. Not by the SJWs. And not by us.

    There’s names for people who fight battles even when it’s not appropriate.  Different names in different times and places, but it’s an old idea. In one time, in one place, they were called ber-serkir.  They were so useful in their society that they were treated like divine gifts. But that’s not what we call them now in modern culture.  Now, if you go and you fight a battle without provocation, it just makes you a maniac.

  • REALLY Old Guy Music: A Brief, Poorly Sourced, and Probably Wildly Inaccurate History of Easy Listening, Exotica, and Other Neglected Musical Genres

     

    Writing a history of musical genres, no matter how modest or brief one attempts to be, is a complicated undertaking.

    Genres are fluid, with poorly-defined boundaries, and tend to shift and melt into one another as time goes forward. Looking back from the future we can see certain trends take shape, as particular styles rise and fall in popularity; but this is really only available with hindsight. Such a perspective also gives us the opportunity to look at social and historical trends that reflect themselves within the music, allowing certain forms to rise up and take shape, while other trends are downplayed, intentionally or otherwise.

    It certainly doesn’t help the matter when the types of music one wants to talk about are generally overlooked by the modern listening public, as well as by scholars and critics. Jazz, rock and roll, rhythm and blues – these are all important musical trends, and certainly deserve the bulk of listeners’ attention; but does that mean that other forms should be completely ignored? To look within histories of popular music, or even at album collectors’ price guides, one would be tempted to think that these other genres didn’t even exist – like Communist officials who have fallen out of favor, and are therefore removed from paintings and history books.

    This is not to suggest that there’s some sort of organized conspiracy to never speak of Easy Listening or other previous styles of music; rather, the attitude seems to be more one of contempt: why would anybody want to listen to, much less talk about, such old-fashioned stuff? It’s all mostly white people’s music anyway, from back when the boys wore a jacket and slacks, and the girls wore dresses, even to a casual get-together. Squaresville, man – strictly squaresville.

    Given the current political climate, one might be tempted to think that such a backlash might be so racially motivated – if Black Lives Matter, does White Music Matter? But, it’s not quite that simple. If anything, it’s not Black Vs. White, but Youth Vs. Squares – i.e., Mom and Dad. The 1950s saw a definite break between music meant for teenagers, and music meant for a somewhat older and more settled audience. What we are looking at in this installment is primarily the latter.

    Part I: Easy Listening

    The genre we tend to refer to now as Easy Listening had its origins in the late 1940s when different orchestras began recording music that was softer, lighter, and usually offered no overt vocals or harsh instrumental sections that might tend to break the mood. It was meant, theoretically, to be played in the background, during dinner or pleasant conversation, without intruding or imposing itself on the listener. Rather, it could enhance moments of romance or relaxation, if necessary, but without overwhelming the given situation. In the commercial world, this took the form of Muzak, which was music licensed by companies to play unobtrusively in the background, soothing and mellow.

    Composer and arranger Paul Weston began recording albums starting in about 1945 that were slower and smoother than what most other bandleaders were doing – this seemed to be part of a larger musical trend where audiences were going to hear bands just to listen, and not to dance. ‘Hot’ bands and faster songs were also still popular, and always would be, but there was also a desire (probably more from the female audience members) for music that was slower and softer. Weston’s Music For Dreaming, released at first as a 10” disc, fit the bill perfectly. Calling the style Mood Music, Weston had a hit, and knew he was onto something.

    Easy Listening (or Mood Music, or Beautiful Music, as it was also called) might have been okay with the younger female audience members, but it was certainly palatable to older listeners – the parents, but also young marrieds who were settling into domestic life. The adults generally didn’t want to be confronted by the more abrasive aspects of much popular music; Easy Listening strode somewhere between Classical and Pop music; not harsh, but lively and interesting enough to make for a pleasant listening experience.

    In time, arrangers found that they could do Easy Listening versions of popular tunes that were never meant for such treatment. The results were ultra-smooth concoctions with all of the jagged edges ground down, and naturally musical purists hated them – but nevertheless, a certain portion of the record-buying public preferred these versions to the originals. The songwriters, of course, still got their royalty payments regardless of the interpretation; and besides, if one preferred, one could always go back to the source material. But the fact that – for example – the Hollyridge Strings could offer their Beatles Song Book albums and get respectable sales, while the original Beatles recordings were still in the charts, proves that there were two distinct audiences, each of whom had very different wants and expectations.

    This sort of thing, of course, further convinced the kids and the hardcore fans that Easy Listening was the music of squares – watered-down, milquetoast versions of popular songs cranked out for Mom and Dad who couldn’t handle the originals. In essence, this was correct. Not that Mom and Dad ‘couldn’t handle’ the more raucous musical styles that came along during the 1950s & ’60s, but they generally didn’t want to: Easy Listening gave them a certain aural satisfaction without demanding much from them. The kids might go buy a Jimi Hendrix album and bring it home to listen to over and over, staring at the cover and trying to grok every note, but generally their parents just wanted something nice playing in the background while they ate dinner. Certainly, from a more purist point of view, the kids’ motivations are more laudable; but does that completely invalidate Mom and Dad’s desires?

    Given its softer and romantic nature, Easy Listening was also deemed perfect music for affaires d’amour, whether it was a young bachelor trying to seduce his date for the evening, or a couple in love hoping to get each other in the mood. These days this aspect of Easy Listening is usually referred to as “Bachelor Pad Music,” or some variation thereof. Indeed, the 1950s and ’60s were certainly the Age of the Bachelor, when that lifestyle was essentially defined by the men’s magazines and other aspects of popular culture: not for nothing did so many album covers from that period feature lovely, buxom young women in glorious dishabille. Most were in fact quite tame – like those of, say, Jackie Gleason or Ray Conniff, which featured young women in the throes of romantic love, often embracing the male of their desire. Others featured women in quite a different mood, the look in their eyes unmistakably one of lust and animal passion (or so it was supposed to appear to the common male record purchaser).

    Another aspect of Easy Listening that may strike modern listeners is that…well…it’s really, really white. Not that black people could not, or did not, participate; but the vast majority of the genre’s progenitors were not only white, but seriously white dudes. Percy Faith and Henry Mancini may have been giants of popular music during the 1960s, but God love ‘em, they resembled high school shop teachers more than rock stars. Black record buyers tended to stick with the shifting landscape of rhythm and blues, jazz, gospel, and popular music during the time period in question. This isn’t to say that their tastes were superior, nor inferior; but much of it didn’t seem to resonate with black listeners. Who can blame them? It’s really not very funky; in fact, it’s practically anti-funky. But, by definition, that’s what Easy Listening is.

    Easy Listening began to fade somewhat in the late 1960s. Why this is, is probably a complex topic of study, but the changes in popular music that were taking place, first in 1964 with the Beatles, then with groups like the Tijuana Brass and Brazil ’66, then toward the end of the decade with the hippie movement when things tended to get looser and harsher at the same time – all of this resulted in a radically altered listening landscape. Even the music that the grownups enjoyed was changing. Post-Whipped Cream and Other Delights, softened versions of popular songs were still around, but tended to take a more modern approach, doing away with the heavy use of strings and multi-piece orchestras. This was “The Now Sound,” which had the same basic goals as Easy Listening, but used different methods to achieve its aims.

    By the early ’70s, Easy Listening was still around, but was barely hanging on. A lot of popular music seemed to be about excess, but there were also a few trends with a softer and more relaxed approach. Singer-songwriters like Carole King were coming more often to the forefront, offering a nice alternative to the harsher radio offerings. Songs from the ’40s and ’50s became less and less in demand, and when the more modern (i.e., post-Beatles) songs were desired, more listeners wanted to hear the original artists rather than some orchestra’s interpretation – so, the decades-old habit of doing ‘standards’ (that is, songs that existed in many different versions) gradually began disappearing. (Name That Tune notwithstanding.)

    It wasn’t until 1979 that the Billboard Easy Listening chart was renamed Adult Contemporary; it had held its previous name since 1961. But those two dates are each a bit late to the party; the trend had started several years before 1961, but certainly ended long before 1979.

  • D-Day, 1944 pt. 4 – Modeling

    Catch up on all the Omaha Beach Diorama posts
     

    Things change when you build a diorama, and now that I’m on my second one, I have learned that they ain’t the same. Scale aside, this one has pieces embedded. I usually would show you a bunch of tanks and guns on my table, ready to display. This time I have to place men as part of the piece, as it were, then place all my dynamic guys after, with the pieces set (the pieces are all the boats, tanks and things on the table).

    I learned that D-Day occurred at low tide, so a nice bit of rip rap seemed to fit the bill.

     

    And I wanted a mixed sand look, so we take 10 parts sand color to 1 part black cinder and it comes out like this:

    A little more against the wall and we are done with the beach sand element of the project.

     

    Defenses: Trying to finalize the primary defenses is easy enough, some barbed wire and the dragon’s teeth, some boat preventers and we are looking good so far, but there are a few details yet to come in that regard.

     

    Army Men: I’m reaching saturation on the board. Have 221 men to paint, and with all the effects it’s going to get busy.

    They need 7 colors, and we paint the base, then bas relief the rest of them. In 1/35 I could paint masses of one color, for example, all the boots on one sprue tree, all the Kbars on another, and guns on a third, all in one pass. At 1/72 scale I get about 3 to 6 parts done before my eyes bug out, so it kinda sucks for production, but we carry on.

    These are the guys I need to finish now, everyone else can wait.

    Someone asked about tools. I have my main tools and supplies packed for the AZ move, so everything had to be bought from scratch on this project, and it looks like this:

    I am using acrylics as much as possible, and Hobby Lobby has a great selection, very cheap. All the scenery elements like the clump foliage used in the ‘splosions, the water, sand, etc. are Woodland Scenics. Dollar Tree supplies my white glue, toothpicks, foam board, rip rap, stir sticks and painters blue tape. I’ll show you how I do some cool things in a future post.

    Part 4 Gallery

    P.S. I’m cutting this episode short because a lot of things are happening, and I don’t want to get confused. Cheers!

     

  • Stone Wall and Sudley Ford: A photographic tour of Manassas Battlefield National Park

     
    I want to start off with a few mentions. First off, thanks to Yusef for the diorama posts. I wouldn’t have bothered writing this article without your articles showing the interest the glibertariat has in historic battles. Thanks also to straffinrun for encouraging me to snap some pics and linking the Mises podcast.

    The Mises podcast is absolutely kickass and worth a listen.

    Part 1
    Part 2

    Part 3
    Part 4

    Part 5
    Part 6

    I’ll preface the bulk of this article by saying that I’m no expert on the Civil War, and I may get some details wrong.

    Also, I highly recommend the following atlas if you are a civil war buff.

     

    Here’s a basic view of the area surrounding the battlefield:


     

    Now we zoom in to the battlefield.


     

    I annotated the map to include some of the important landmarks:

    From east to west between Henry Hill and Matthews Hill is the Warrenton turnpike. From north to south between Henry Hill and Chinns Ridge is Sudley Road.

    I spent all of my time on Henry Hill, as I had my 1 year old with me and didn’t want to cross US 29 (Warrenton Turnpike) with her to walk Matthews Hill. These images are all hi res, so you should be able to zoom in by clicking on the images. Edit: the site choked on my super hi res images, so these are lower resolution but still clickable.

    The Museum at Manassas
    Looking East across the top of Henry Hill. Bull Run is about 1/2 mile into the woods.
    Looking North from Stonewall Jackson’s statue at Henry House.
    Henry House with Bull Run mountains in the distance
    Still looking North at Henry House, Matthews Hill can be seen on the top right of the image

    The above image is a bit deceptive. There is a large valley between Henry House and Matthews Hill.

     

    Henry House and a monument to the battle
    Turning to the East, you can see a Union artillery line
    Union Cannons
    Confederate Artillery on the West side of Henry Hill pointing east
    From the Confederate Artillery to the Union Artillery is maybe 1/4 mile west to east
    Mrs. Henry’s grave at Henry House
    Henry House
    You can go into some of the houses, including Henry House and Matthews House
    Looking East from Henry House. Stone Bridge is buried in the distant woods out of sight.
    Matthews House at the base of Matthews Hill. Warrenton turnpike passes right in front of the house

    Chinns Ridge is back in the woods to the West across Sudley Road. I didn’t make it back there.
    Working East along a loop around Henry Hill, there are info boards in various places.
    Northeast of Henry Hill is Robinson House, which is around 200 yards away from Warrenton Turnpike
    The foundation of Robinson House
    Working back South toward the Union Artillery
    Another info board
    View from the Union artillery West toward the Confederate line

    Natural Beauty
    Sudley Church
    My photography assistant

     

    A picture is worth a thousand words, so this is like a zillion word article! Let me know if you have any questions or want to see something more in specific.

  • D-Day, 1944 pt. 3 – Prepping for Water

    Catch up on all the Omaha Beach Diorama posts 

     

    We know the story, it’s D-Day, and white men will die, but what’s going on right here, right now, with this Company? I needed a way to get the Allies past the initial obstacles, and it needed to be legit, so why not a few large craters?

    Due to the tide, it’s already wearing away. At least 40% of the men are expected to make it to the wall. We shall see.

    Water: My undercoat turned out smashing IMO, it blends well from Midnite Blue to Light Grey, with a neat little surf line, ending in a dry sand beach head, check it out.

     

    There are still many details to come before I can pour the water such as…

    Army Men: Tedious is a polite way of putting it. Painting little boots and faces is hard on the eyes, but it must be done, so I do my best and carry on.

     

      Remember, at least 40% of the men I paint, I will kill, burn, drown, dismember, and otherwise mentally fuck up, before I can pour water.

    It’s good to have a selection of different types of troops, even if they aren’t “D-Day” troops, for example, I have some U.S. mountain troops that have some horses, the Germans used horses a lot so they get them. The U.S. guys leading them with bridles will end up in the water hanging on to ropes from the Higgins boats. Repurpose anything you want/can is my motto.

     

    The pieces (meaning all the machines, not the men) themselves are all cut into the board to sink them below the water undercoat and must be completely sealed before pouring the acrylic water, every nook and cranny has to be filled with tiny bits of foam and then layered with Elmers Glue. After that they must be sealed with water effects to create a nice blend with the water when it comes in.

    Water ‘Splosions: I have yet to do one, but the idea is quite simple, some clear silicone caulking on some sprue, drug out with a toothpick, but I’m going to try for some small arms fire bullets in the water stuff as well. We shall see….

    Effects: I have a few…this is just the beginning of my madness.

    Boom!

     

    This is going to be good!

     

    Gotta have Dragon’s Teeth 

     

    Where there’s smoke, there’s smoke

     

    For all you water guys, it will be a month before my first pour, be patient. I plan on at least 4-5 pours, each 1/8 of an inch at a time, to 1/2 inch depth total , but the results will be smashing, I tell’s ya!

    Until the next installment, here’s the latest album. Put on some WAR music and play it as a slideshow!

     

  • White Male Privilege, D-Day, 1944 pt. 2

    Note: Title by straffinrun

    Read Part 1

    Landscapes: They work like this, everything gets thrown out. You get all your men ready, lay out your guns, and then look at YT or Google images. Oh My. Even though the distance from the beach to the cliffs was only 35-50 yards, the Higgins drivers dropped the doors sometimes 500 hundred yards from the surf line, dumping men into 8 feet of water with 120 lb packs and gear; many drowned. Many who didn’t were killed by MG 42s coming from the cliffs above. Some, enough, made it to poor defensive positions. That’s where we are.

    I saw that a 20”x 30” diorama wasn’t going to work. So I bought a 4’x8’x 2” piece of foam board, and cut it to 24” x 60” which is 120 yards scale, enough for the Higgins Boats, sunken Sherman Tanks, a good long field of fire, and some good Atlantic wall stuff.

    Water is Tough to Model: You see, to make water work, you need to paint depth gradients, and carve out pits to install the boats, tanks, etc. at various depths, then pour ⅛” deep at a time. To get the proper effect, I did a practice run, and the results were good.

    The Base: I’m building my own “Atlantic Wall”, the online offerings are slim and everything I find, I can do better. I noticed my acrylic duct sealer finishes in a nice shade of grey, so I’ll try it for the base of the Landscape. I get to model mortar hits, on land and water, gunfire and 88 shells. This might be awesome. No, this is becoming awesome!

    Sand: It isn’t flat is it? I’m working with duct sealer to get an undulating, but still low sandy shore look, and then it will be mostly covered with a fine railroad ballast to make the sand.

    Then things changed, I decided the cliff was too tall/cumbersome, so I tossed it aside and built a lower bluff instead, one I can integrate into my Atlantic wall.

    So far I have had to learn:

    Blood in water;

    Water;

    Craters and explosions;

    Bunkers and cliffs;

    Sand dunes.

    I’m sure I’m not done learning.

    The Men: Are a Pain in the Ass! They are too small for my old eyes, and I don’t own an electron microscope, so the level of detail is a bummer compared to 1/35 scale. However, the action precludes the detail so it’s cool. I finally found a skin tone that works so I don’t have to mix batches anymore, still a long way to go…….

    36 faces, 36 minutes, and they all will become casualties.

    Link to the latest album, Part 2 and Part 1