Saturday, May 31, 2025

You must remember that we are three thousand miles from the ocean.

From A treasury of American anecdotes; sly, salty, shaggy stories of heroes and hellions, beguilers and buffoons, spellbinders and scapegoats, gagsters and gossips, from the grassroots and sidewalks of America by Benjamin Albert Botkin. 

A Boston woman . . . was planning her first trip to the West. The travel agent asked, “How would you like to go? By Buffalo?” “Why, really,” replied the lady, “I planned to go by train.”

Two women from Boston . . . were riding across the prairie and came upon a lone tombstone with the simple inscription: “John Jones—he came from Boston.” They looked at it reverently, and finally one said, “How brief, but how sufficient.”

Two Boston women . . . went to the San Francisco Fair and ran into a hot spell. As they were stewing on Treasure Island, one said to the other, “My dear, I never expected to be so hot in San Francisco.” “But, my dear,” replied her companion, “you must remember that we are three thousand miles from the ocean.”

A colleague from Leland Stanford . . . insisted that once, when he was having tea in a Boston home, the lady of the house inquired, “How long did it take you to come from Leland Stanford to Boston?” “About four days,” replied my friend, “at least I was four nights on the train .” “Why, really,” said his hostess, “I never was on a train so long in my life. But then, of course, I’m here already.”

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History

 

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An Insight

 

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I see wonderful things

 

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Night Sleeper by Andrew Wyeth

Night Sleeper by Andrew Wyeth (America, 1917-2009)





























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Friday, May 30, 2025

If I owned two plantations

From A treasury of American anecdotes; sly, salty, shaggy stories of heroes and hellions, beguilers and buffoons, spellbinders and scapegoats, gagsters and gossips, from the grassroots and sidewalks of America by Benjamin Albert Botkin. 

When General Philip H. Sheridan was in command of the Military Division of the Gulf, with headquarters at San Antonio, Texas, he was asked by a reporter what he thought of Texas as a country to live in. “If I owned two plantations,” said General Sheridan, “and one was located in Texas and the other one was in hell, I’d rent out the one in Texas and live on the other one.” The editor of a Waco newspaper printed the remark with a single line of editorial comment. “Well, damn a man that won’t stand up for his own country.”

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History

 

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An Insight


Jonathan Haidt was talking about this a decade ago - the Telos of Universities.   
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I see wonderful things

 

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The Great Ship Bela De Kristo

The Great Ship Bela De Kristo (Hungary, 1920-2006)
































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Thursday, May 29, 2025

I know you won’t like it.

From A treasury of American anecdotes; sly, salty, shaggy stories of heroes and hellions, beguilers and buffoons, spellbinders and scapegoats, gagsters and gossips, from the grassroots and sidewalks of America by Benjamin Albert Botkin. 

The proper Bostonian’s smugness with regard to travel and geography is raised to infinity in the story of the Bostonian (sometimes the Texan) who dies and goes to heaven, only to be greeted by St. Peter with a weary, “You may come in, but I know you won’t like it.”

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History

 

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A last link with the past gone

Eleven years ago I posted Two grandsons of President John Tyler (1841-1845) are alive today.


The grandson of the 10th President of the United States, John Tyler, has died at 96 — 180 years after his grandfather was last in the White House.

Harrison Ruffin Tyler, the son of President Tyler’s 13th child, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, died on Sunday evening at a Virginia nursing home, ending the last living link to an 18th-century presidential administration.

When he was born on Nov. 9, 1928, his father was 75 years old.

Having children into old age was a family trait, as President Tyler was 63 when Lyon was born.

President Tyler would go on to have two more children before he died in 1862 age 71.

A remarkable quirk of history.

I am not sure I knew this about John Tyler:

He fathered more children than any other American president, including eight with his first wife, Letitia Christian, and seven with his second, Julia Gardiner, whom he married in 1844 — two years after Letitia died of a stroke.

Read the whole thing for the full story of Harrison Ruffin Tyler and a life well lived.  


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In Praise of Italy, 1987 by David Ligare

In Praise of Italy, 1987 by David Ligare (America, 1945 - )































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Wednesday, May 28, 2025

I still have got two chances!

From A treasury of American anecdotes; sly, salty, shaggy stories of heroes and hellions, beguilers and buffoons, spellbinders and scapegoats, gagsters and gossips, from the grassroots and sidewalks of America by Benjamin Albert Botkin. 

A hillbilly walked down the street near the draft board. A neighbor said, “You had better stay away—you are liable to get drafted." The boy, who actually had not even heard of the war, was unable to understand. The neighbor explained the situation. The hillbilly said, “Well, I always figure I have got two chances: I might get drafted and I might not. And even if I’m drafted, I still have two chances: I might pass and I might not. And if I pass, I still have two chances: I might go across and I might not. And even if I go across, I still have two chances: I might get shot and I might not. And even if I get shot, I still have two chances: I might die, and I might not. And even if I die, I still have got two chances!"

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We are running increasingly sophisticated software (culture) on the same old hardware (meat and evolved behaviors).

Some conversations occur by text message.  This is with Constantine:

Constantine:

Whoaaa

Charles Bayless:

GLP-1 miracle drugs, in situ tissue printing, AI enabled robosurgery - what a time to be alive. 


Constantine:

It’s weirdly extreme. So much of the good is getting better so fast, but the dark side getting darker at a similar rate

Charles Bayless:

Maybe. On virtually every socioeconomic metric, almost everyone around the world is enormously better off than 100, 50, even 20 years ago. It is also definitely true that people are also anxious about the future. To me, the interesting question is this. People have always feared and anticipated an apocalyptic future. Shows up in every era going back 5000 years. (The young ones aren’t living right and the future is dark.) Is our current fear different or greater from the baseline futurity fear? If so, why? I genuinely don’t know but can see a number of plausible scenarios. 


Charles Bayless:

BTW - I love coming across old records that are identical behaviors of people today.  A few years ago I was reading correspondence home from students in 13th century universities.  Time and again - “I am working so hard.  I need more money.”

Constantine:

I was always struck by that in Madness of Crowds, it always feels so recent because people change so little

Charles Bayless:

Another great example.  Published 184 years ago and still completely relevant.   And a great counterargument to one scenario I consider somewhat plausible.

We have close to universal global literacy compared to perhaps 20-30% a hundred years ago.  Maybe through increased literacy and increased connectivity, people are indeed more fearful today than they were back then.  More of them hear the message of doom more completely than ever could have happened before.  That strikes me as plausible.  But Madness of Crowds is 1841.  Global literacy at best 10-15% back then.  Yet exactly the same behaviors and consequences on display.  And of course his examples stretch even further back.  The Tulip mania  was something like 1600-1650.

It takes is back to the frame:  We are running increasingly sophisticated software (culture) on the same old hardware (meat and evolved behaviors).  Our technology is evolving light years faster than our culture and our culture evolves light years faster than our body/evolved behaviors.  Maybe that stretching is causing increased anxiety (and maybe because it might represent a real increase in risk.)  Or maybe it’s just the same old hardware always worried about the hungry leopard in the dark, of starving to death, and of the stranger on the horizon.   

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History

 

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Theresa and Tommy, c. 1920 by Dorothy Weir Young

Theresa and Tommy, c. 1920 by Dorothy Weir Young (America, 1890-1947)






























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Tuesday, May 27, 2025

Steady, men, steady

From A treasury of American anecdotes; sly, salty, shaggy stories of heroes and hellions, beguilers and buffoons, spellbinders and scapegoats, gagsters and gossips, from the grassroots and sidewalks of America by Benjamin Albert Botkin. 

An old couple once lived in a section of Bourbon County, [Kentucky], known as “The Pocket.” Time passed, the old woman was seized with a mighty illness, and she fell into a sleep of death. The day of her funeral arrived. The coffin was loaded on a wagon, friends and acquaintances fell in behind it on foot and horseback, and the procession wound slowly and solemnly to the graveyard gate.

The coffin was unloaded from the wagon at the gate. As the pallbearers started up the rough, steep path to the grave, one of them slipped and the coffin fell to the ground. The old woman rolled out, came to life, was taken home, and lived seven more years.

The next time she died, the funeral procession wended its way to the same graveyard, over the same rough road. But when the gate was reached, and the pallbearers lifted the coffin out of the wagon to carry it up the steep path to the grave, the bereaved husband quickly stepped to the head of the procession. Then he turned and admonished the pallbearers. “Steady, men, steady."

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History

 

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Thames Barges at Twilight, ca. 1950 by Edward Seago

Thames Barges at Twilight, ca. 1950 by Edward Seago (England, 1910-1974)



















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Monday, May 26, 2025

I’ve spent most of my life in the open air.

From A treasury of American anecdotes; sly, salty, shaggy stories of heroes and hellions, beguilers and buffoons, spellbinders and scapegoats, gagsters and gossips, from the grassroots and sidewalks of America by Benjamin Albert Botkin. 

Every time I get to thinking about longevity ... I am reminded of an old neighbor I have in Kentucky, who is ninety-nine years old and going strong. Some years ago, when he was a young man of only ninety-two, he was vigorous, physically and mentally, worked regularly, and walked straight as an Indian. One day a neighbor asked him, “To what do you attribute your good health and longevity?”

“Well,” my old friend answered, “before my wife and I were married, we entered into an agreement. Any time I railed at her, nagged at her, or picked a fuss with her, she would take her knitting, go out into the kitchen, and knit until it was all over. On the other hand, any time she would pick a fuss with me, I would put on my hat, go outdoors, and stay there until the atmosphere was once again serene.”

“But what’s that got to do with your health and longevity?” the neighbor inquired.

“Why,” said the nonagenarian, “I’ve spent most of my life in the open air.”

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John Murray (1790-1882), The War of 1812

Each Memorial Day, I try and remember one ancestor who fought for our nation.  Over time, I have done stories from the American Revolution, from the Civil War, from World War I, and from World War II.

This year - The War of 1812.  

Third great-grandfather John Murray's father emigrated to America from Edinburgh, Scotland in the second half of the 18th century.  John was born in North Carolina.  When he was born is a little uncertain.  In various Census responses, pension applications, land grant applications and other such official documents his claimed birthdate ranged from 1783 to 1790.  Usually, though, with the same specific date, May 28th.  

It is unclear why there was such a cavalier approach to the year.  

He died in Coaling, Alabama, near Tuscaloosa in 1882.  Depending on the birthdate you choose, he was between 92 and 99.  Not bad for a frontiersman.  

There was a lot of life in John.  There are three documented marriages with three or more children in each marriage.  Family lore is that he was married five times.  

His last marriage occurred when he was 68 years old (his wife was 29.)  His last son was born when he was 78.  

The War of 1812 is sort of obscured in our history but consequential in many ways (especially the Battle of New Orleans).  The USA was on the back foot for much of the war given the size of the military at Britain's command and given the might of the British Navy.  American soldiers generally moved slowly by foot on land or by river whereas Britain could land an Army anywhere along 3,000 miles of coastline.  

John's family had moved from North Carolina to the new colony of Georgia by 1800.  First in Oglethorpe county, then Wilkinson county.  In 1807, when he was between 17 and 24, he married Elizabeth Watson (1790-1825). 

The War of 1812 had two aspects in the South.  There was obviously the potential invasion by England (as occurred in Washington, D.C., Savannah, and New Orleans) and there was also war on the frontier between settlers and the Native American tribes such as the Red Stick Creeks.  The war in the South occurred primarily between late 1813 and early 1815.

From late 1813 onwards enlistments were sought and local militia raised and frequently called out either to counter Indian moves on the interior borders or to march to the coast in anticipation of British landings there.  

It is possible (the records are unclear) that John Murray may have volunteered and served for a month or so on a campaign in late 1813.  

It is known that Murray did enlist on October 12, 1814 and served for six months.  He volunteered in Captain Burwell Pope’s Company.   Captain Pope’s company was formed in Lexington, Oglethorpe County, Georgia and was discharged in Savannah.  

Murray served as a private under Col. Jett Thomas, 2 Regiment Georgia Militia.  Company Muster Rolls indicate John served at Camp Jackson in Savannah, Georgia. Company Pay Roll - indicated commencement of service Oct. 12, 1814 and expiration of service March 17, 1815.  Total amount of pay 41 dollars and 29 cents.    He left home that October a wife and three young sons.  

The New Georgia Encyclopedia gives context for his service.  

Georgia had been subdued, for the most part, by the British in the American Revolution. Its coastal cities had been occupied, and in 1812 it seemed possible that a powerful British force could do so again. Little protection was forthcoming from the federal government because of its serious deficiency in ships and sailors. British warships hovered off Georgia’s coast, snapping up coastal trading craft and disrupting the livelihood of Georgians. Georgia’s citizens and leaders clamored for help. 

[snip]

The failure of the Sunbury expedition left the Georgia coast open for British attack. To forestall this, the state set about building batteries at key locations, including the old Fort Morris at Sunbury (rebuilt and renamed Fort Defiance), the battery at Point Peter in St. Marys, and many other strong points on the coast. During the next year and a half no serious British threat emerged to endanger the Georgia coast, due in part to British efforts against Napoleon. In 1814, however, all that changed. Napoleon’s defeat in Europe freed thousands of hardened British regulars to move across the Atlantic and threaten the United States.

On December 24, 1814, American and British representatives meeting at Ghent, Belgium, signed a preliminary treaty that would end the War of 1812, but the combatants, far from Europe, knew nothing of it. Along Georgia’s coast American forces fared poorly. On January 10, 1815, British forces under the command of Admiral Sir George Cockburn landed on Cumberland Island in an effort to tie up American forces and keep them from joining other American forces to help defend New Orleans, Louisiana, and the Gulf Coast. But bad weather and lack of materials and ships delayed Cockburn until it was too late to produce any effect on the outcome of the battle for New Orleans. The occupation of Cumberland Island, however, left the British with a strong base of operations that they consolidated on January 13 by effecting a landing near the American battery at Point Peter on the mainland. There they encountered an ambush by a small force of Americans. The British quickly drove off the attacks and occupied the town of St. Marys.

Cockburn, by the end of January 1815, had solidified his base of operations and was under orders to await the arrival of Major Edward Nicolls, leading a joint force of British soldiers, Native American allies, and freed Blacks. Suitably reinforced, Cockburn was then to attack along the southern coast, liberating enslaved inhabitants and fomenting rebellion, thus holding down large numbers of American troops from other theaters of the war. Nicolls’s force, which was supposed to strike into Georgia from the Gulf Coast, never materialized, although it did succeed in disrupting communications between Georgia and Mobile. The threat of Nicolls’s impending arrival also forced the Americans to hold back in Georgia many reserves that could have been sent to aid in American defenses at Mobile and New Orleans. While Nicolls’s force hampered efforts on the Gulf Coast, Cockburn planned to move north and strike at Savannah. General John Floyd stationed some 2,000 men near Savannah and awaited the British thrust, but Cockburn’s operation was halted by news that the Treaty of Ghent had been signed. The British finally evacuated St. Marys after the ratification of the treaty on February 17, 1815.

As with most soldiers in most wars, John Murray's service was about moving to where the risk was anticipated to be.  He joined in Oglethorpe County, northwest of Augusta and moved with his regiment to Camp Jackson in Fort James Jackson on the Savannah River in defense of that city.  

In one of his pension applications, Murray mentions:

I served six months of my time at Savannah Ga. All except about two weeks when we were ordered out to keep the British from landing. 

That presumably was a response to Cockburn's landing in January by Cumberland Island, 130 miles south of Savannah.

The battles are what we remember but for every soldier in battle there are dozens who marched.  Marched and waited.  Marched and camped.  Marched and rallied to alarms.  That was John Murray's war.  Those who blocked the British from Savannah, who defended the frontier from attack - they all made the pitched battles that decided the war possible.

After the war, Murray returned to Oglethorpe.  His first wife died in 1825 and he married my third great-grandmother, Elizabeth Caldwell (1807-1855).  

He received land bounties for his service.  He eventually moved to the Tuscaloosa area in Alabama.  He seems to have been a businessman in addition to a successful farmer, with records of land purchases and sales wherever he settled.  

Elizabeth Caldwell passed away and in 1858, John Murray married Jane Pierson Howell (1829-1914.)  

Notably, his marriages lasted eighteen years, thirty years, and twenty-seven years.  That is a whole lot of lifetime.  

When he died, he left behind at least 10 children who had survived into adulthood.

We have glimpses of him later in life.

June 14, 1876--Tuscaloosa Times-- Vance’s Station-- Mr. John Murry celebrated his 93rd birthday on Sunday the 28th of May, by giving his children and friends a superb dinner. He lives near this place and is quite sprightly and lively. 

Vance Station is the site of the Mercedes Benz plant now.

My great-grandmother, Elizabeth Docia Ann Murry (1874-1962) was born in Tuscaloosa and would have known her grandfather John Murray who passed in 1882.  I was born in 1959 and overlapped with my great-grandmother who overlapped with her grandfather who fought in the War of 1812.  Remarkable.

A long lived family, sprightly and lively indeed.  

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History

 

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An Insight

 

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I see wonderful things

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Offbeat Humor

 

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Iron Sky by Lisa Benson

Iron Sky by Lisa Benson (British)

















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Sunday, May 25, 2025

A Paducah wholesaler

From A treasury of American anecdotes; sly, salty, shaggy stories of heroes and hellions, beguilers and buffoons, spellbinders and scapegoats, gagsters and gossips, from the grassroots and sidewalks of America by Benjamin Albert Botkin. 

A certain tradesman in a small Kentucky town . . . bought a quantity of goods from a Paducah wholesaler and did not pay up in time.

After six months had gone by, and innumerable dunning letters had been ignored, the wholesaler sat down and wrote a final demand for payment. At the same time he addressed several other inquiries to the town where the tradesman operated. He wrote the railroad station agent, asking if the goods had been delivered. He wrote the local bank president, inquiring about the man’s credit. Finally he wrote the mayor of the town, asking the name of a good lawyer in case he had to bring suit.

In a few days he received from the debtor himself the following reply:

Dear Sir: As station agent of this town, I am glad to advise you that the goods were delivered. As president of the local bank, it gives me pleasure to inform you that my credit is good. As mayor of the town, I am compelled to advise you that I am the only lawyer here. And if it were not for the fact that I am also pastor of the Baptist church, I would tell you to go to hell!

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History

 

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Blue Door by Ron Lawson

Blue Door by Ron Lawson (Scotland)

























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Saturday, May 24, 2025

I want to enjoy it in peace as long as it lasts.

From A treasury of American anecdotes; sly, salty, shaggy stories of heroes and hellions, beguilers and buffoons, spellbinders and scapegoats, gagsters and gossips, from the grassroots and sidewalks of America by Benjamin Albert Botkin. 

A [Kentucky] mountaineer fighting overseas in the First World War kept getting nagging letters from his wife back home. He was too busy fighting to write letters, even to his wife. At last, stung to action by his wife’s scolding missives, he sat down and wrote her:

Dear Nancy: I been a-gittin yore naggin letters all along. Now I want to tell ye. I’m dam tired of them. For the first time in my life I’m a-fightin in a big war, and I want to enjoy it in peace as long as it lasts.

Yours, etc.

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History

 

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Children playing beside a stream by Dorothea Sharp

Children playing beside a stream by Dorothea Sharp (Britain, 1874-1955)

























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Friday, May 23, 2025

I raised ’em powerful frequent.

From A treasury of American anecdotes; sly, salty, shaggy stories of heroes and hellions, beguilers and buffoons, spellbinders and scapegoats, gagsters and gossips, from the grassroots and sidewalks of America by Benjamin Albert Botkin. 

Not many years ago I had occasion to make a saddle journey through the pine barrens of Georgia, where almost everybody is a “cracker” and mighty shiftless. One day, however, I rode into a little community that showed such signs of thrift as to be quite out of keeping with the general character of the barrens. I rode up to a cabin where a gaunt old woman stood in the doorway, and asked her who owned these little farms that were so well kept. "That farm on the left belongs to my son Jabez,” said she, “and the next one to my boy Zalim, and the next to my lad Jason, and the next is my boy Potiphar’s place, and—” “Hold on, sister,” said I. “How did you manage to raise such a fine lot of boys way off here in the woods?” “Waal, stranger,” she answered, “I am a widdy woman, and all I had to raise ’em on was prayer an’ hickory, but I raised ’em powerful frequent.”

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History

 

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Earliest memories

From Moments of Awakening by Scott Alexander.   He asks for peoples recollections of their first memories.  An interesting topic and interesting responses.  

I respond with:

Because my father's career was in the international oil industry, I have the advantage that we moved frequently and that time-stamps memories by location.  My first four years were in Venezuela and we did not live there again so all memories from there must be from between 0 and 4.  Stripping out all memories that could be contaminated by family stories or family pictures, I have four categories of memories probably in a rising hierarchy of complexity and from earliest to latest.

Event vignettes - memories of things happening and the experience of that thing.  Exploring a just-built empty house with some friends; falling from a bulldozer and gashing my head (and the whole subsequent emergency room visit); splash pool, trips into the Andes, riding in a car with rusted out floor boards and watching the road go by beneath my feet, etc.

Conversations - Snatches of dialogue from events.

Self-reflection - Hearing something said and reflecting on the implications of what was sais.  For example, Billy Frank Snorgrass intimating that the Easter Bunny was not real was discombobulating.  It was one thing that he might not be real at all but an entirely different thing that everyone should be lying about him being real.  

Awareness of agency - My father was sawing a large sheet of plywood in the garage and needed someone to hold up the far edge to keep it from bending.  He called me in to do so.  I came over and held it up over my head (because I was short).  My mother saw this and decided it was dangerous and came out and took my place, holding it just above her knees.  However, when my dad finished the cut, the sheet fell down at his side and she lost her grip at her end and it fell and scraped her shins.  I can remember my wishing that she had not taken my place and believing that had I continued, the accident could have been avoided.

I am guessing that the vignettes and conversation memories might be as early as 2-3 and the reflection and agency memories more like 3-4 but cannot be certain.  

Some wonderful stories in the comments.

Tony Bozanich
Tony Bozanich's Newsletter
22m

It's not my first memory, but I vividly remember the moment when I found out that two different people can have the same name. I had a friend named Chris Hanley when I was a child in Passaic, NJ and then around age 6 moved to a different town and met a different Chris Hanley was like "What the fuck is going on??!!!"

[snip]

Naremus
20m

I have a fair number of memories from when I was young, probably 2-4 years of age, I don't recall any of them being standout in terms of "I'm conscious now", maybe the one in which I was in my parents bedroom and found a pair of scissors. I decided to give my favorite stuffed animal a quick haircut because that seemed like a thing that needed to be done. Fortunately I didn't entirely ruin it, the same stuffed animal is now in my own kids bedroom, but I can at least recall having a thought process even if it was half baked.


 



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Humans need signals and AI is noise

From shrinking the world by el gato malo.  

in the face of an internet more fugazi than fact and more noise than signal, perhaps the rational choice is to return to real life, real people in real places having real conversations with other humans that we can see firsthand.

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Solitude by Anna Zinkeisen

Solitude by Anna Zinkeisen (Britain, 1901-1976)





















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Thursday, May 22, 2025

The court is got to set out some taters before the rain.

From A treasury of American anecdotes; sly, salty, shaggy stories of heroes and hellions, beguilers and buffoons, spellbinders and scapegoats, gagsters and gossips, from the grassroots and sidewalks of America by Benjamin Albert Botkin. 

Among Attorney Theo. Titus’ first efforts was a case in a Country Justice Court. Mr. Titus was closing for the plaintiff, and was making an eloquent but long-drawn-out argument. The court became very impatient. Finally a cloud came up, and a clap of thunder almost shook the house.

“Look here, Colonel Titus,” said the court. “When you git through with your speech you’ll find my judgment right under this book. The court is got to set out some taters before the rain.”

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The Spider by Milena Sidorova


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History

 

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An Insight

 

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I see wonderful things

 

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Offbeat Humor

 

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A Washington Post story about the cruelty of federal government firings includes only a single fired worker. A two month probationary worker.

From White House officials wanted to put federal workers 'in trauma.'  Its working.  by William Wan and Hannah Natanson.

The subheading is Federal workers describe struggling with panic attacks, depression, suicidal thoughts. “Why doesn’t anyone care?”

Almost a trope.  The Washington Post has long been known for emo-reporting in which the writing hides the weakness of their data and argument.  I have used them for case studies of bad arguments for years.  While the article appears to be deliberate propaganda for political purposes, I think it is actually an institutional and professional quirk.  It seems to be how journalists are trained today.  Exacerbated by notorious innumeracy within the profession.  One of the two reporters even fits Ben Rhodes' description of journalists:

"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”

Hannah Natanson is 27 years old, seemingly Washington, DC born and raised, DC prep-school and Harvard educated, prior work experience with the federal government.  Hard to imagine anyone more distant from the real world.  But maybe I am being unfair.  

I stipulate that downsizings and reductions in force (RIF) are traumatizing to some people.  Virtually every major sector - automotive, banking, real estate, telecomm, mining, energy, construction, legal, etc. goes through an industry contraction with some periodicity.  It is always wrenching for everyone and there are always tragedies associated with such changes.  But they are as routine as they are inescapable.  

About 40% of workers can anticipate being fired at least once in their work life.  The average worker changes jobs twelve times in their work life, once every four years or so, not infrequently just ahead of an easily anticipated RIF.  All such changes are potentially challenging.  

While Wan and Natanson try and make this federal government reduction in force a grossly unique event, their own reporting indicates that it is not.  And with even a modicum of knowledge, you can come up with other examples.  The American military went from 2 million in 1990 to 1.5 million in 1995.  I was subscribing to the Washington Post back then and my recollection was that there were few or no articles about the cruel trauma of such RIFs but rather a celebration of what an economic opportunity there was for the nation to no longer be paying for that burden of defense.  

Separate from the military reductions owing to the winning of the Cold War, there was an even bigger RIF under Clinton in the civilian federal employees.  In the 1990's the Reinventing Government program drove major reductions.  

Over the span of seven years, the program eliminated roughly 400,000 federal jobs — a 17 percent cut — mostly through voluntary buyouts and attrition.

As always, it is the numbers which trip up the reporters and which the reader trips over when reading.  They start with an emo story and then the numbers simply get in the way.

In the article we learn that:

There are 2.4 million federal employees

There has so far been a 6% reduction in federal employee headcount

This equates to 130,000 job reductions

Of which 76,000 were voluntary buyouts

And only 50,000 were non-voluntary RIF

50,000 people is real and difficult but it is also routine across industries and sectors.  There is not much out of the ordinary.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, between 1.5 and 1.8 million people lose a job each month.  3.5 million have lost jobs in 2025 so far.  Further, also BLS, 4.2% or 7.2 million Americans are unemployed and seeking work.

Yes, losing a job and looking for work are stressful events.  And it is entirely ordinary.  Most people experience stress associated with job uncertainty much of the time.  50,000 federal employees were fired in the first four months of the year compared to 3.5 million in the entire workforce.  1.4% of those fired in 2025 have been federal civilian employees.  Notably, federal civilian employees are 1.9% of the entire civilian workforce.  Despite, what Wan and Natanson are trying to convey, federal civilian employees are suffering a lower rate of job loss than their counterparts in the private sector.  About the same if you choose to include those who voluntarily chose to accept buy-outs.  

Once you start paying attention to the numbers, you also notice how unrepresentative is the article.  The two reporters claim that they conducted more than 30 interviews and that "roughly a third" of those interviewed were fired.  

However, when you track through the article itself, there is only evidence of seven people being interviewed.  Astoundingly, only one of the persons quoted in the article was actually fired.  He had worked for the federal government for two months.  

They interviewed ten people who were fired and a probationary employee with two months on the job was the most sympathetic and effective story in support of their argument.  It seems impossible but . . . imagine the other nine.  

Of course not everyone interviewed would be included and not everyone would necessarily be fired.  But two reporters, front page, 4,500 words and only one firing?  The whole article is a criticism of the administration's downsizing and firings and they only interview one person who was fired from a probationary job?  Astounding.  What's going on?  Things are simply not adding up.

So I go back and read more carefully.  There are a lot of moving vignettes, but how many people are named and how many are anonymously referenced?  Three people named and four people anonymously referenced as best I can tell.  

Caitlin Cross-Barnet, 55 - Worked for the federal government for 12 years, pre-existing mental health.  Suicidal ideation.  Pre-existing health and family problems.  Was committed to a facility and committed suicide.  Female

Richard Midgette, 28 - Worked for the federal government for 2 months, fired.  Male

Monique Lockett, 53 - Unknown how long she worked for the federal government.  Pre-existing health conditions (morbid obesity.)  Died from a heart attack attributed by friends to the stress of the work environment.  Female
 
A manager in the Midwest for the Department of Veterans Affairs - Pre-existing mental health (on antidepressant medications)   Female

A National Institutes of Health employee in the South - Worked for the federal government for "Several years." Pre-existing mental health, bi-polar with suicidal ideation.  Female

U.S. Forest Service biologist in California - 15 years, experienced panic attacks. Male

Grieving colleague at HHS - suicidal ideation because her husband lost his contract job.  Female

When you start looking at this, patterns appear.  And you have to be careful because with only seven cases, nothing is statistically meaningful and this is entirely hostage to cherry-picking or deliberate choice of cases, especially if they interviewed more than thirty people.  These were the most sympathetic cases they had to choose from?  The most relevant to the argument they are trying to make that the Trump administration is doing something unusual and cruel?  

Only two of the seven cases involve males.  45% of the federal workforce is female but 71% of the cases the reporters chose for their article were female.  And even though in their own reporting, men suffer 70% more suicides related to job loss.

In 2011, economists examined a decade of data and found that mass layoffs resulted in an additional suicide for every 4,200 men and for every 7,100 women losing their jobs. Mass layoffs can devastate entire communities, they noted, fracturing social networks and creating pools of applicants fighting over limited jobs.

Another pattern - four of the seven (57%) had preexisting health and mental health conditions and were already being treated.  

The article has too few cases, disproportionately female, disproportionately poor mental and physical health, only one interviewee fired, one death from suicide due to pre-existing mental health issues and life stress (family health and issues) and one death from heart attack.  

For an article that reads as dramatically effective at making the argument that Trump's is a cruel and unusual administration, the actual information they report (as well as information readily available from memory or search) undermines their case completely.

Based on their numbers, federal civilian employees suffer like everyone else from layoffs but are less likely to be fired than are other civilian employees.  

All the emo?  Why.  

Then you notice the note at the bottom of the article.  

Aaron Schaffer and Alice Crites contributed to this report. To reconstruct the last days of Caitlin Cross-Barnet and Monique Lockett, the reporters interviewed more than 20 relatives, co-workers and friends and reviewed phone records, police reports, medical records and death certificates. The Post spoke to Kat Brekken to corroborate the scene at the bridge.

So four reporters not two.  Twenty of the "more than thirty" interviews were with relatives, co-workers and friends of just two people.  

Things seem to come into focus.

The cruelest summary is that this is actually an article about a suicidal woman who committed suicide and a morbidly obese woman who died from heart failure; both being civilian employees of the federal government who were also anxious about their job environment but who were not fired nor even under immediate threat of being fired.  

Death is a tragedy and the human side of this cannot be ignored.  But it is the reporters, or their editors, who seem to be making the effort to make these cases into something they are not.  RIFs are hard.  They are tragic for a few.  Job loss affects a plurality of people.  Job insecurity affects everyone.  Virtually everyone experiences multiple job transitions in their lifetime that are not sought but fall short of a firing.  

It feels like the sad case of Caitlin Cross-Barnet was the instigating article and that somewhere along the line, the article morphed into an argument far larger than the facts could support.

If I had to guess, I suspect the reporters got wind of Caitlin Cross-Barnet's death and saw that as a hook for an article about the cruel consequences of Trump's reductions in the federal civilian workforce.  But once they discovered that she had multiple pre-existing mental health, physical health, and family issues, they found themselves without the forceful argument they needed.  They came across the tragic death of Monique Lockett but it also wasn't really pertinent to their argument.  Eventually they put a full court press and rounded up some people who could be reported as being stressed and upset by their federal work environment.  

And at that point the editors probably pulled the plug.  Four reporters and who knows how many hours of research and writing and all they have to support the critical edifice of their argument is a single fired employee from a two month probationary job.  The end result is a tribute to emo writing that feels like propaganda because the underlying facts do not support the argument they wanted to make at the beginning.  

We end up, after careful reading, with a long, heavily reported Washington Post story about the cruelty and unusualness of federal government firings which includes only a single fired worker.  A two month probationary worker.

Which is the pattern for all Washington Post and New York Times emo reporting.  They want to tell a heart wrenching story of tragedy and unfairness, often with a political attack slant to it, but the details and the numbers almost never support the story they want to tell.  

I don't know why they keep doing it, I just see that they do.

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Data Talks

 

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Flying woman in a blue dress by Rob Browning

Flying woman in a blue dress by Rob Browning (America, 1955 - )



















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Wednesday, May 21, 2025

Give somebody hell

From A treasury of American anecdotes; sly, salty, shaggy stories of heroes and hellions, beguilers and buffoons, spellbinders and scapegoats, gagsters and gossips, from the grassroots and sidewalks of America by Benjamin Albert Botkin. 

The [following] advice [was] given by an old [North Carolina] lawyer to a young one. 

The old lawyer said, “If the evidence is against you, talk about the law. If the law is against you, talk about the evidence.”

The young lawyer asked, “But what do you do when both the law and the evidence are against you?”

“In that case,” replied the old lawyer, “give somebody hell. That’ll distract the judge and the jury from the weakness of your case.”

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History

 

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An Insight

 

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I see wonderful things

 

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Offbeat Humor

 

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Data Talks

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Rain Shower, 1986 by Eyvind Earle

Rain Shower, 1986 by Eyvind Earle (America, 1916-2000)



























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Tuesday, May 20, 2025

I like what I have been drinking better than what I have been hearing

From A treasury of American anecdotes; sly, salty, shaggy stories of heroes and hellions, beguilers and buffoons, spellbinders and scapegoats, gagsters and gossips, from the grassroots and sidewalks of America by Benjamin Albert Botkin. 

“Uncle Jed,” said Ezra one day, “ben’t you gittin’ a leetle hard of hearin’?” 

“Yes,” said Uncle Jed, “I’m afraid I’m gittin’ a mite deef.” 

Whereupon Ezra made Uncle Jed go down to Boston to see an ear doctor.

Uncle Jed came back. And Ezra asked what happened. “Well,” said Uncle Jed, “that doctor asked me if I had been drinkin' any.  And I said, ‘Yes, I been drinkin’ a mite.’

“And then the doctor said, ‘Well, Jed, I might just as well tell you now that if you don’t want to lose your hearin’, you’ve got to give up drinkin’.’

“Well,” said Uncle Jed, “I thought it over; and then I said, ‘Doc, I like what I’ve been drinkin’ so much better than what I’ve been a-hearin’ [lately] that I reckon I’ll jest keep on gittin’ deef!’”

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History

 

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An Insight

 

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