Cellmate of Boethius

Sunday, August 17, 2025

I've noted here before that I'm highly introspective. Given that, I can't help but look at the road not taken, particularly when I'm oddly reminded of it.

Brian Nesvik was just confirmed as the Trump administrations head of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

Brig Gen. Brian Nesvik. His Class A uniform here (the horrible blue one that the Army has since ditched) shows him with a 1st Cavalry Division combat patch on his right pocket and what I think is a Combat Action Badge.

I'm not sure when most people start contemplating a career. I sometimes hear people say the most unlikely things, such as "I always wanted to be a lawyer" or "I always wanted to be an actuary". When I hear those things, I don't believe them unless the person is downright weird.

Existential occupations, however, are different, and I can imagine a person always wanting to occupy one of them. I've defined existential occupations in this way:

Existential Occupations are ones that run with our DNA as a species. Being a farmer/herdsman is almost as deep in us as being a hunter or fisherman, and it stems from the same root in our being. It's that reason, really, that people who no longer have to go to the field and stream for protein, still do, and it's the reason that people who can buy frozen Brussels sprouts at Riddleys' still grow them on their lots. And its the reason that people who have never been around livestock will feel, after they get a small lot, that they need a cow, a goat, or chickens. It's in us. That's why people don't retire from real agriculture.
It's not the only occupation of that type, we might note. Clerics are in that category. Storytellers and Historians are as well. We've worshiped the Devine since our onset as a species, and we've told stories and kept our history as story the entire time. They're all existential in nature. Those who build certain things probably fit into that category as well, as we've always done that. The fact that people tinker with machinery as a hobby would suggest that it's like that as well.
Indeed, if it's an occupation. . . and also a hobby, that's a good clue that its an Existential Occupation.

Being a soldier is, I think, an existential occupation, but only for men. I'm not sure what to say about being a policeman of any kind, but I think that's likely the case for that occupation as well.

Growing up as a boy, one of the occupations I really wanted to do was to be a soldier. It wasn't the only one I contemplated. As noted here, I've always been really strongly attracted to agriculture. Most days find me at my office practicing law, but that was never a childhood dream and it didn't occur to me at all until I was in college. Law is the great middle class reserve occupation, truth be known.

At some point I began to struggle with my childhood desire to be a soldier. It'd take me away from the state, which I didn't like the idea of. I knew then, when I was more realistic about life choices than I am now, that I really couldn't hope for a career in agriculture, which is what I'd have done if I could have. And the days of Wolfers and other professional hunters were long over, of course. So around about that time, probably 13, 14 or 15 years old, I started thinking about becoming a Wyoming Game Warden.

I didn't give up the soldiering idea right away. But it occured to me that I could become a National Guardsman, and stay here in the state. So I hit upon the idea of going to university, then doing a hit in the Army as an officer, and then coming back out and becoming a Game Warden while staying in the National Guard. This idea was so formulated in my mind at the time that I imagined myself entering the Air Cavalry, which at the time was a really cool branch of the Army, and the serving with the Army National Guard Air Cav Scout Troop in Cheyenne.

I was still on this track when as a junior in high school my father and I spoke about my career plans. By "spoke" I mean a conversation that probably had three or four sentences in it. My father wasn't big on career advice for reasons I understand now, but didn't really grasp then. My mother was much more likely to voice an opinion about education and what I should do than my father, but I tended to flat out ignore my mother, particularly as her mental status declined with illness. She'd have had me enter one of the hard sciences, which I in fact did (I guess I listened to her some) and go to a school like Notre Dame.

Anyhow, I told my father that I was going to study wildlife management. He only mentioned that "there are a lot of guys around here with wildlife management degrees that can't find jobs". That was enough to deter me from pursuing that degree right then and there, so rare was his advice in this area.

As it happened, I pursued another field of science but I did join the National Guard, doing so right out of high school as soon as I turned 18 years old. One of the reasons I did that was that I also was contemplating being a writer, and I thought I'd probably write on history topics. As a lot of history involves armed conflict, being in the Army in some fashion seemed like a good thing to do in order to understand the background.

I was right.

Indeed, joining the Guard was the last really smart career decision I made. I'm clearly not very good at career decisions.

To play the story out, I was a geology major. I graduated with a degree in geology, and couldn't find work as the oilfield and coal industries collapsed (sound familiar, Wyoming?). While at Casper College law was suggested to me by a history professor (I have so many credits in history that I coudl have picked up a BA in it with little effort) and it seemed like a good idea as I didn't know any lawyers and had no idea what they did.

Lots of people become lawyers that way. Indeed, I know one other lawyer who became one due to the exact same advice from the exact same fellow.

But even at that, when I knew that I wasn't going to get a job as a geologist, I entertained picking up a BS in wildlife management. By that point, my father was supporting me in the goal. Evan so, his advance five years prior stuck with me, and I didn't do it. I ended up going to law school, and I ended up letting myself ETS out of the Guard, as I thought, in error, that law school is hard.

Law school, as an aside, isn't hard. Any idiot can graduate with a JD and pass the bar. And while I only have experience with one law school, I dare say that this is true of any law school Harvard JD? So fucking what?

Still, the idea resurfaced one more time. A friend of mine and I went down to the Game Warden exam and I was offered a temporary summer job, the usual introductory way into the Wyoming Game and Fish Department at the time. At that time, usually those who picked up summer work did it for a few years before being offered a full time job. My wife and I had just gotten engaged, so I ended up declining the job.

Yes, I'm an idiot.

Well, not really. But as noted, I'm not good at career decisions.

Brian Nesvik is a Casper native. He decided to become a Game Warden when he was fourteen years old and met a game warden on his first big game hunting trip as a licensed hunter.

He's 55 years of age now. He's a graduate of the University of Wyoming where he received a bachelor's degree. He was a member of the Wyoming Army National Guard from 1986 to 2021 and rose to the rank of Brigadier General. Sources say he graduated high school from Cheyenne East in 1988, but I can't make that make sense. I can accept it was 1987 and he was definitely in the Guard in 1986, the year I got out. He's a 1994 graduate of the University of Wyoming, which would suggest that he did something else for awhile as even with the late 1988 date, that would have been six years after graduating high school. I somewhat wonder if he had military service prior to going to university, but I don't know that. He wears a 1st Cavalry Division DI as a combat patch, as noted, which is interesting.

His career as a game warden was very notable, and he became the state's chief game warden, the pinnacle of the game warden chain of command. His military career is also impressive, noting the following:

Apr 18 Dec 21 Assistant Adjutant General, Cheyenne, WY
Jan 16 Mar 18 J3/7, Joint Fore Headquarters, Cheyenne, Wyoming
Sep 15 Jan 16 G1, Joint Force Headquarters, Cheyenne, Wyoming
Feb 15 Sep 15 Chief Facilities Maintenance Officer, Joint Force Headquarters, Cheyenne, Wyoming
Jun 10 Feb 15 Commander, 115th Fires Brigade
Apr 09 Jun 10 Commander, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery, Camp Virginia, Kuwait
May 07 Apr 09 Commander, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery, Sheridan, Wyoming
Oct 06 May 07 S-3, Headquarters, 115th Field Artillery Brigade, Cheyenne, Wyoming
Oct 05 Oct 06 Operations Officer, Headquarters, 115th Field Artillery Brigade, Cheyenne, Wyoming
Feb 04 Oct 05 Commander, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery (FWD), Baghdad, Iraq
Oct 03 Feb 04 Executive Officer, Headquarters, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery, Sheridan, Wyoming
Jul 02 Oct 03 S-3, Headquarters, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery, Sheridan, Wyoming
Aug 01 Jul 02 S-4, Headquarters, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery, Sheridan, Wyoming
Jun 00 Aug 01 Operations Officer, Headquarters, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery, Sheridan, Wyoming
Oct 97 Jun 00 Commander, Battery C, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery, Worland, Wyoming
Jul 97 Oct 97 Fire Direction Officer, Headquarters, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery, Sheridan, Wyoming
Oct 96 Jul 97 Platoon Leader, Battery A, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery, Gillette, Wyoming
Jul 94 Oct 96 Executive Officer, Battery A, 3rd Battalion, 49th Field Artillery, Lander, Wyoming
Jul 93 Jul 94 Fire Support Officer, Headquarters Battery, 3rd Battalion, 49th Field Artillery, Laramie, Wyoming
Jul 90 Jul 93 Fire Direction Officer, Battery A, 3rd Battalion, 49th Field Artillery, Lander, Wyoming
Dec 86 Jul 90 Flight Operations Specialist, 920th Medical Company (Air Ambulance), Cheyenne, Wyoming

His time in the National Guard and my own would have overlapped, but only barely. My Guard service concluded in August, 1986, 39 years ago this month.

Shoot, by this time in 1986, I was probably just about to do my last Guard drill.

I wonder if Nesvik went to Korea with us?

Anyhow, it's interesting how something you thought of doing yourself, worked out for somebody else.

Indeed, frankly, I've known several for whom it did. Was I wrong in my analysis, way back when?

Well, maybe. I was an indifferent high school student and sort of figured I would be as a college student too, which turned out not to be the case at all. Externally, I look like a real success.

But then, we always have the backdoor view of ourselves, don't we?

This is an interesting article:

Catholic Parents: Free the Hearts of Your Daughters

The author of it, Leila Miller, had to know that she was really swimming against the tide with this one.

Indeed, I'm reluctant to even post on this, as there are a lot of pronatalist nutjobs out there right now that immediately latch on to such things. But, here goes anyone.

Almost every Sunday I go to Mass at the same Catholic Church. The celebrant there is an absolutely excellent homilist. Probably most Priests give homilies that are good from time to time, but his are consistently great, which is rare in the extreme. So much so, really, that I'd put him alone in this particular class in regard to those which I've personally experienced.

He's very orthodox, which doesn't keep a wide number of parishioners to attending his Masses. In fact, for the first time last week, I could barely find a place to sit. I was attending with my daughter, who is about to go back to grad school.

Lots of weeks this parish features a fair number of young women wearing mantillas. Not every week, however. It's interesting . Some weeks they're all missing. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that those are the weeks the Byzantine Catholic Church has Divine Liturgy in town. The Byzantine Catholic service is conservative by default.

These are not the only young women there. There are quite a few, but most dress like young women in this region do, if a little nicer. My daughter, for instance, would never consider wearing a mantilla. I know a few of them, but only a few. There's the recently married nurse, whom I've known for a long time. There's the young lawyer and her family. And there's the girl working in the sporting goods shop.

The latter is particularly interesting as she just graduated high school about a year ago. She's been working there for about a year as well. Her concerned grandmother told me that she's been hoping that she goes to college and that she's very smart. Apparently, she has no desire to do so.

Most of the young women I know, and I know them only barely, are either newly minted lawyers or friends of my daughter. My daughter, as noted, is in grad school. Some of those young women are as well. Some have graduated from school already and are in the early stages of careers of one kind or another. Because we live on the shores of jello belt, a few are Mormons, who are already married (Mormons tend to marry young) and have children.

There are a lot of misperceptions about Catholics, including Catholics and marriage. Catholics do not, and never have, tended to marry young. The opposite is actually the case. My parents were in their late 20s and early 30s when then married. My mother's parents were about the same. I think my father's parents were in their early 20s, which isn't up there, but it's not as if its a teenage wedding either. Anyhow, most Catholic women fit in to the general demographics for American women in general on these topics, although not strictly so. The mantilla women are outliers.

What do they all hope for?

That's hard, if not impossible, to say. Each person's hopes and dreams are personal to them. . . but. . . well, within the confines of the nature of our species.

So perhaps they're more determinabel than we might think.

Non existential careers, which are most careers, are not really something that makes anyone fulfilled. For that matter, they don't really make anyone actually happy. But people are sold in the idea that they do. Indeed, the way that comes in up in the subversive movie Office Space so frequently is what makes the movie actually profound:

Peter, most people don't like their jobs. But you go out there and you find something that makes you happy.

Joanna, in Office Space.

What feminist who yearned for careerism failed to grasp is that men didn't really want it either. It was foisted upon them.

One of the things about the existential occupations is that they all existed when we were in our aboriginal state, t hat state not really being grasped by a lot of people. People like to look back and think that we were "cave men" at that point, but that was never actually true for our species. For most of our time here on Earth we lived as hunter/gatherer/farmers. Interestingly, the farming aspect of this, which was t hought to have been a revolutionary development, was with us when we were still hunting and gathering, which should have been obvious as modern hunter/gatherers tend to also farm. Those occupations have stuck with us in one form or another all along.

What also was with us was our basic natures. No matter how you conceive of our species coming about, we've always paired up, male and female, and we've always had children. Everything, in fact, centered around that. While we imagine ourselves to be very complex, we really aren't. That remains our basic natures and for most of us, defines, if you will, what we really want. The existential occupations served that purpose.

Things began to become unhinged from that as we developed more complex societies, as once we do, something always goes amis. Greed has a lot to do with it. Somebody will get into a position where he, and its usually a he, wants more of everything, food, resources, women, than anyone else. Wealth always corrupts.

Still, even with more and more advanced societies over the centuries, it wasn't really until the Industrial Revolution that the basic nature of life started to be wrecked. We should not idealize pre Industrial Revolution societies, which had plenty that were wrong with them, but something that wasn't wrong with them is that men and women tended to work close to the land, and close to each other. A 17th Century English farmer, for example, might not be farming a farm he owned, or tending sheep that were his, but he was working close to nature and probably normally saw his family throughout the day.

The Industrial Revolution changed all of that.

Industrial capital needed labor and it took male labor, at first, out of the village and into the factories. It's not that simple, of course, but the reasons that it was mostly male is. Originally most industrial jobs required a fair amount of physical strength and endurance, which men have more of. Where this was not true, it might be recalled, children and women were in fact employed, although that always meant, at first that they were poor.

And, additionally, two other things were at play, one of which we've already touched on.

The first one is that biology worked against the conscription of women into the workforce at first. There was noone to take care of children other than women and almost always those women taking care of the children were the children's mothers, for host of additional biological reasons. The second one was that domestic life required female employment in the home. There were exceptions to all of this, of course, but they were exceptions proving the rule.

None of this, however, goes against industrial employment being unnatural in and of itself. Men whose fathers had come and gone throughout the day now left for industrial employment early in the morning and came back at night. They didn't see their families throughout the day, and indeed, as time went on, teh gruelling nature of industrial work created a sort of mateship amongst blue collar workers that previously had really only been seen amongst servicemen. When that occurred, it came to often be the case that when they got off work after a long day, the first thing they did was to hit a blue collar tavern, and then come home. One lawyer's site on the net notes how the author's father worked a schedule like this, hit a blue collar bar every night, and cheated on his wife with the women found there, who would largely have been working there.

White collar and professional employment followed the pattern.

If you look, for instance, at the practice of law prior to industrialization, lawyers usually worked out of their houses. Doctors did as well. Indeed, almost anyone who "ran a business" outside of farming did. John Adams, for instance, practiced out of the same farmhouse that he farmed from. Once again, this meant that people were not really separated from their families much.

This even shows with some of the occupations that we regard as the wildest, or perhaps the freest. Trappers in the American West, for instance, were married into native families at a high rate and took their spouses with them. Career soldiers who made it to the upper NCO ranks, or who were officers, tended to bring their families to frontier posts with them.

But as industrialization developed, the workplace industrialized. Lawyers moved out of offices and into firms that moved into houses used only for that purpose, and then into downtown office buildings. Doctors moved out of their houses into a professional building. Every male began to leave early in the morning, and come home at night.

None of that was natural on a day to day basis.

The introduction of domestic machinery made much of the formerly necessary female labor surplus. AS that happened, they too began to be available for out of the home employment. Between World War ONe and World War Two domestic machinery was revolutionized, but its introduction was retarded by the Great Depression, and then World War Two. After the war, the new domestic machinery flooded the markets and female labor was released from the home at an enormous rate.

The only thing that kept a greater expansion of female labor in the workplace, and by this we mostly mean the office, heavy industry was still off bounds, was biology. The pill took care of that.

The results were nearly inevitable, even if never expressly stated as desired. Now that women could be free of biological reasons not to work, they soon had to work. First generation feminists took up the cause in publications like Coso, which was basically the flipside of Playboy, with the same evolved message. Joy and meaning was found in the (white collar) work place. Sex was for entertainment. Your value is your work, and nothing else. The same line of crap that men had been force fed for years wsa now force fed to young women.

Problem is, it's all a lie.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not stating that women should not work. What I'm saying, really, is that men have to. We have no other choice in the world, and most of us will occupy jobs that are just jobs, and nothing more., even when they are well paying. But the basic nature of our species, that cries for the home to be the focus of our existence, and in which the old occupations still cry out, is unchanging. And for women, part for that basic nature is to be mothers. For men, part of it is to be fathers.

Being a mother remains a more demanding role than being a father, when children are young. When they get older, this is less the case, but the entire "let's warehouse the children" nature of modern life is existentially immoral and we know it. We managed to come around, in a capitalist society, to the same position the early communists did, and for the exact same reason, warehousing kids means the mother must work.

Not can, but must.

And the pressure to do so remains massive. Nobody really advocates for women in this area, as it would men the actual return to a pre pill, pre first generation feminist, world outlook. That'd be bad for capitalism as there would be fewer workers, and worse yet, consumption would decline.

But, frankly, that's' the way it ought to be.

I've already noted it once, but I was recently at a legal event in which there was a huge number of lawyers. One thing that was noted was how many Catholic lawyers were there, which was in fact quite a few (Catholics here, however, are a minority). Something I observed, however, is how many older lawyers there were.

On that, there was in fact a comment, from lawyer in his early 70s (maybe very late 60s) to another in his very late 60s. "Lawyers don't like retirement".

If that's true, it's phenomenal.

I typed most of this entry out a while ago, but after I did it, Jerry Spence passed away, and I noted it here on the blog. I'm not sure why I even did. I guess it's just because he was a notable Wyoming figure. After I did it, it occured to me that I don't think I noted the passing of former Wyoming Senator Al Simpson, who was also a lawyer from a long established family of Wyoming lawyers who have played significant roles in the state's history. I should have. He was quite a character.

One of the reasons that I'm a bit surprised that I noted Spence's passing is that I'm not a Spence fan. I'm not a Spence enemy either, but the extent to which a certain group of people simply worship him astounds me. Since he died, those close to him, semi close to him, and others who simply know his name have engaged in near hagiography about him. I actually had somebody stop me just yesterday to related how they were deposed by Spence and his crew back in the day as a defendant in a case in which he represented a plaintiff. You could tell he was proud of that fact, and obviously thought I would be really impressed.

I'm not.

I knew of Spence way back when I was in grade school, actually, which means back into some date in the early 1970s and I just don't get it. I guess I don't get worshipping any lawyer.

I particularly feel that way as I am a lawyer.

Daniel Webster noted that “Most good lawyers live well, work hard, and die poor.” I think there was a huge amount of truth to that. There's still an element of true to it, but the "live well" part is pretty questionable..

Working hard as a lawyer brings in less money than a person supposed, usually, and at any rate, lots of lawyers. . . and lots of other professionals for that matter, spend money as quickly as they make it. As an oddity, right now, I drive the oldest vehicles of any lawyer I know. I don't regard them as old, but the newest one I've had for twenty years. The point is, a lot of people just burn through cash, and at a certain point, they have to keep working.

A bigger factor is, however, that the practice of law just burns out the core of a person's personality until, in many instances, there's nothing left. Lawyers who have left the law often joke about being a "recovering lawyer", but at a certain point, there is no recovering from it. All forms of work, if engaged in for a long time, or indeed any human endeavor you engage in for a while, changes you permanently. It's part of your experience, and you are hardwired to react according to your experience.

I was going to go on and say more about this, but my original draft was extremely harsh, so I took it out.

You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame, back home to exile, to escape to Europe and some foreign land, back home to lyricism, to singing just for singing's sake, back home to aestheticism, to one's youthful idea of 'the artist' and the all-sufficiency of 'art' and 'beauty' and 'love,' back home to the ivory tower, back home to places in the country, to the cottage in Bermude, away from all the strife and conflict of the world, back home to the father you have lost and have been looking for, back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time--back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.

Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again.

Tomorrow it will be 28 years to the day that I've been in the service. 28 years in peace and war. I don't suppose I've been at home more than 10 months in all that time. Still, it's been a good life. I loved India. I wouldn't have had it any other way. But there are times... when suddenly you realize you're nearer the end than the beginning. And you wonder, you ask yourself, what the sum total of your life represents. What difference your being there at any time made to anything - or if it made any difference at all, really. Particularly in comparison with other men's careers. I don't know whether that kind of thinking's very healthy, but I must admit I've had some thoughts on those lines from time to time. But tonight... tonight!

Col Nicholson in The Bridge On The River Kwai.

Related threads:

Work with meaning and the meaning of work.

Labels: Commentary, Daily Living, Distributism, Existential Occupations., Mid-Week at Work, Retirement, Subsidiarity, The Practice of Law, Women, Work

A conversation with an old friend. The Good Death, and the Good Life and Existential Occupations.

Labels: Agrarianism, Christianity, Death, Existential Occupations., Health, Hobbies, Introspection, Killetarianism, Medieval Europe, Mid-Week at Work, Old Age, religion, Retirement, Work

Wednesday, August 13, 2025

Lex Anteinternet: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 101st edition. The Vanadal in the museum.

Lex Anteinternet: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 101st edition. The V...:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 101st edition. The Vanadal in the museum.

Of all the countries in the world, we and we only have any need to create artificially the patriotism which is the birthright of other nations.

Agnes Repplier, Americanism, in The Atlantic, 1916.

A letter from the illegitimate Trump occupational regime in the Oval Office to the Smithsonian:

The Honorable Lonnie G. Bunch III
Secretary, Smithsonian Institution
1000 Jefferson Dr SW
Washington, DC 20560
Subject: Internal Review of Smithsonian Exhibitions and Materials
Dear Secretary Bunch,
We wish to begin by expressing our appreciation for the brief tour you gave us recently of the National Museum of American History and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and by acknowledging your work on behalf of the Smithsonian Institution, as well as the Institution’s role in shaping public understanding of American history and culture. We are completely aligned with your statement that the Smithsonian is “a welcoming place of knowledge and discovery for all Americans.” We are grateful that you and the Board of Regents have expressed your commitment to the non-partisan, educational mission of this great institution.
As we prepare to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our Nation’s founding, it is more important than ever that our national museums reflect the unity, progress, and enduring values that define the American story. In this spirit, and in accordance with Executive Order 14253, Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, we will be leading a comprehensive internal review of selected Smithsonian museums and exhibitions. This initiative aims to ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.
This review is a constructive and collaborative effort — one rooted in respect for the Smithsonian’s vital mission and its extraordinary contributions. Our goal is not to interfere with the day-to-day operations of curators or staff, but rather to support a broader vision of excellence that highlights historically accurate, uplifting, and inclusive portrayals of America’s heritage.
The review will focus on several key areas:
Public-facing Content: A review of exhibition text, wall didactics, websites, educational materials, and digital and social media content to assess tone, historical framing, and alignment with American ideals.
Curatorial Process: A series of interviews with curators and senior staff to better understand the selection process, exhibition approval workflows, and any frameworks currently guiding exhibition content.
Exhibition Planning: A review of current and future exhibitions, with particular attention to those planned for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Collection Use: Evaluation of how existing materials and collections are being used or could be used to highlight American achievement and progress, including whether the Smithsonian can make better use of certain materials by digitizing or conveying to other institutions.
Narrative Standards: The development of consistent curatorial guidelines that reflect the Smithsonian’s original mission.
Initially, our review will focus on the following museums. Additional museums will be reviewed in Phase II.
National Museum of American History
National Museum of Natural History
National Museum of African American History and Culture
National Museum of the American Indian
National Air and Space Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
National Portrait Gallery
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Materials Request
To initiate this process, we respectfully request that each of the museums listed above designate a primary point of contact and provide the following materials to our team (including for online content):
250th Anniversary Programming
Exhibition plans, draft concepts, and event outlines related to America 250.
Supporting materials such as proposed artwork, descriptive placards, exhibition catalogs, event themes, and lists of invited speakers and events.
Current Exhibition Content
Catalog and programs for all current and ongoing exhibitions, including budgets.
Digital files of all wall didactics, placards, and gallery labels currently on display.
Traveling and Upcoming Exhibitions
Full index of scheduled traveling exhibitions (2026-2029).
Proposals, projected schedules, and preliminary budgets for upcoming exhibitions over the next three years.
Internal Guidelines and Governance
Curatorial and staff manuals, job descriptions, and organizational charts.
Documentation outlining the chain of command for exhibition approvals, scheduling, and content review.
Internal communications or memos pertaining to exhibition or artwork selection and approval processes.
Index of the Permanent Collection
Access to an inventory of all permanent holdings.
Educational Materials
Teacher guides, student resources, and supplementary educational content linked to current exhibitions.
Digital Presence
URLs and descriptions of official museum websites and exhibition-related microsites.
External Partnerships
A list of active partnerships with outside contributors including artists, historians, nonprofits, and advocacy organizations.
Grant-Related Documentation
Copies of grant applications and funding agreements tied to past or current exhibitions, particularly those that influence content or presentation.
Current artists featured in museum’s galleries that received a Smithsonian grant.
Surveys and other evaluations of visitor experience
Responses to surveys and other forms of evaluating the experience of visitors to the Smithsonian’s museums and users of digital content.
Timeline
To ensure clarity and coordination across all parties involved, we have developed the following implementation timeline:
Within 30 days of receipt of this letter, we anticipate:
Each museum to submit all requested materials outlined in the first four bullet points above, including current exhibition descriptions, draft plans for upcoming shows, America 250 programming materials, and internal guidelines used in exhibition development.
Review of America 250 exhibition and program planning and connect with curators and staff about their specific proposals.
A staff liaison from each museum will be designated to serve as the primary point of contact throughout the review process.
Our team will begin on-site observational visits, conducting walkthroughs of current exhibitions to document themes, visitor experience, and visual messaging.
Within 75 days:
Museums are asked to submit the remaining requested documentation (items 5 through 10), including promotional literature, grant data, educational materials, and guided tour content.
Our team will begin scheduling and conducting voluntary interviews with curators and senior staff. These conversations will help us better understand each museum’s goals and the broader curatorial vision guiding the institution.
Each museum should finalize and submit its updated plan to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary and ensure coordination with the White House Salute to America 250 Task Force to align messaging and public engagement.
Within 120 days:
Museums should begin implementing content corrections where necessary, replacing divisive or ideologically driven language with unifying, historically accurate, and constructive descriptions across placards, wall didactics, digital displays, and other public-facing materials.
If all benchmarks are met on schedule, we anticipate completing our review and preparing a final report for your review in early 2026. This report will include museum-specific assessments, institutional trends, and constructive recommendations for future exhibition strategy.
We view this process as a collaborative and forward-looking opportunity—one that empowers museum staff to embrace a revitalized curatorial vision rooted in the strength, breadth, and achievements of the American story. By focusing on Americanism—the people, principles, and progress that define our nation—we can work together to renew the Smithsonian’s role as the world’s leading museum institution.
We look forward to working alongside you and your team to ensure these iconic institutions remain vibrant, trusted, and inspiring for generations to come.
Lindsey Halligan
Special Assistant to the President and Senior Associate Staff Secretary
Vince Haley
Assistant to the President and Director of the Domestic Policy Council
Russell Vought
Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Management and Budget

The term "Americanism" goes way back. I know that it was used by Theodore Roosevelt, for example, who as an advocate of it. Indeed, he delivered more than one speech on the topic. I'm a fan of Theodore Roosevelt, although less than I once was, and I don't admire his jingoistic advocation of Americanism, although it has to be realized that it came at a different point in our history, and tended to combat a growing sense of internationalism as well as "hyphenation" in various American identities.

Starting particularly in the 1920s, Americanism began to change from a focus on celebrating an American identity, to being pro White Anglo Saxon Protestant. Roosevelt delivered a speech to The Knights of Columbus at Carnegie Hall on October 12, 1915, for example, which meant that the solidly American former President of Dutch ancestry, who was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, felt comfortable addressing a body of Catholics. Indeed, that was somewhat the point as Catholics were by that time a major voting block, but WASP American culture detested them and saw them as alien. Roosevelt didn't want them to be alien, but American, meaning he was not only taking a stand against people identifying as "Irish American" or "German American" (two major Catholic groups), but also as White Anglo Saxon Protestants.

Roosevelt was not a racist.

By Woodrow Wilson's administration, a lot of Americans were reviving the thought that if you were an American, you needed to be a WASP. The Red Scare contributed to that in a major way. The country illegally deported people simply for being on the radical left, including some who were American citizens.

Imagine. . . deporting an American for not being the right kind of American. . . sound familiar?

This sort of Americanism became strong in the 1920s, although roots of it were clearly there before, and it continued on into the 1930s as sort of a plant of some of the opponents of Franklin Roosevelt, although Americanism took a real hit during that time period. It revived, however, in an ugly fashion after World War Two were it was once again associated with the far right.

It's been a feature of the revived post Reagan far right for some time, and has really been picked up by the populists supporting Trump. They cloak themselves with the flag and tattoo what they think are patriotic things on their forearms, not appreciating that our forbearers' might not necessarily be all that keen on their views.

Part of what is happening here is that Americans have frankly always had a difficult relationship with history, and they still do. Americans as a group do not know their history well, and tend to reduce it to highlights, and often associate those highlights with patriotic bromides. The Mayflower passengers were, for instance, a bunch of people seeking religious freedom in the American mind, not a minoritarian Protestant sect that neither the English or the Dutch were keen on tolerating, and they were not tolerant themselves (and, to add to it, most of the Mayflower passengers were not "pilgrims". The American Revolution was all about and only about liberty, people believe, and didn't start off as a protest over tea tariffs (oh my) and have as a goal unrestrained settling of Native lands and forced conversion of the Quebecois to the Church of England. Half the country seemingly believes that the Civil WAr wasn't about slavery, when that's all it was about. The Winning of the West doesn't feature any uncomfortable colonial aspects of it. And the dropping of the Atomic Bomb was certainly moral.

Like many things in our current culture, the counter revolution going on here has its roots in a post Vietnam War revolution which really did go too far. Early radicals, like those before the end of World War Two, often were in fact really radical, but they often really loved their country two. One Marine Corps officer who won the Silver Star during the Second World War, for instance, was an avowed Communist who had fought in the Spanish Civil War. Today people like Donald Trump and Chuck Gray would go into screeds about him, just as Trump has about Zohran Mamdani. A person doesn't have to be, however, conservative or Christian to genuinely love the United States.

Going back, however, to the post Vietnam War Era, it seemingly was the case that during the war some on the American left came to actively detest their country, and as part of the general culture of the times, the band aid was ripped off of some of our problematic past. For people with a serious interest in, and knowledge of, history, much of that was irritating, but there were those who were generally shocked by it as their knowledge of history apparently stopped at 4th Grade. Even now, for example, I'll have people come up to me who are reading A People's History of the United States and cite something as if its a blisteringly knowledgeable new revelation. I'm not interested in anarcho-socialist Zinn's interpretation of US history much, and I'm always skeptical of anyone who titles anything as "A People's" anything, as that claims too much for your work and yourself, but still, the "revelations" people come up with are topics that anyone who graduated from high school should have a pretty good command of.

But then, many Americans have no real command of history. Entire events in American history, and world history, are unknown, I think, to the vast majority of Americans, which makes them easy targets for revisionist of the right and the left.

We're seeking a lot of far right revisionism going on right now. This sort of stuff is part of it.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 100th edition. Downfall, Despair, and hoping for DeGaulle.

Labels: Charles de Gaulle, Christian Nationalism, Commentary, Culture, Culture Wars, Greed, National Conservatism, Patrick Dineen, Politics, Populism, R. R. Reno, Stupidity, The Second Trump Administration, United States, Zeitgeist

Thursday, August 7, 2025

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 99th Edition appendix. Sydney Sweeney has great jeans, and genes. So does Beyonce Knowles. And stuff.

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 99th Edition appendix...:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 99th Edition appendix. Sydney Sweeney has great jeans, and genes. So does Beyonce Knowles. And stuff.

The Sydney Sweeney jeans ad praising her genes is genius: How nice to have the Sydney Sweeney “great genes” controversy. It is happily of no consequence, which is . . .

Froma Harrop.

The massive overreaction to Sweeney being in an American Eagle ad while being white continues on, and is nicely addressed by Froma Harrop above. Harrop's article reminds us of a few other pretty women, which likely means that it's a good thing the article was written by a woman.

Coincidentally, Beyoncé Knowles ad campaign for Levis continues on as well. It predates Sweeney's ad for American Eagle. I don't know anything about American Eagle jeans at all, but I do about Levis as I wear them a lot.

Knowles is also hot.

From Knowles Levis commercial

Knowles, of course, is an African American.

Of interest in this, both Knowles and Sweeney manage to be hot while fully clothed, a good trend.

Sweeney from her American Eagle ad.

Also of note, they're both actually really curvy and not sticks. In other words, they look like actual women, which is of course what they are. Knowles is particularly notable as she's been regarded as hot all along, even though she doesn't fit into the traditional stick figure model category that modeling agencies have tended to use for years. She's big.

Of course, all this brought out the political clowns. Robot from Texas, Sen. Ted Cruz (why hasn't ICE deported this foreign born interloper yet?) felt compelled to state that due to the Democrats “beautiful women are no longer acceptable in our society.” That's really absurd. One of the things that Sen. Krysten Sinema, now an independent but up until recently a Democrat, basically took criticism for was being hot while in office. Sinema, whose politics are eclectic, is clearly highly intelligent. She's also a fallen away Mormon who is "unaffiliated" in terms of religion, and a lesbian, all of which puts her in the infamia category for Republicans.

Republicans, it might be noted, really lashed on to Sweeney when they found out she's a registered Republican, which means almost nothing. Most of the MAGA politicos would have been regarded as fringe Republicans at best up until King Donny. Real Republicans, as Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray likes to point out, are now regarded as Democratic infiltrators by the current GOP, which is lead by a lifelong former Democrat, Trump. We really don't know about her actual political views at all.

She registers in Florida, and of course she might register Republican for the same reason that horrifies Chuck Gray in Wyoming, it might for the most part be the only place to register. The Unconstitutional Primary Election in Wyoming tends to be the real election, so that's where people register. Maybe that's why Sweeney registers that way in Florida. Who knows?

Republicans, starting with Trump, have really latched on to her already, which is a metaphor that should make Sweeney uncomfortable. Some real boofador from Fox News even went so far as to suggest that seeing Sweeney in jeans might remind American men of their demographic obligation to procreate, whic his extremely weird, and referenced Dylan Mulvaney as an example of what might be deterring them. While Mulvaney is genuinely bizarre, and transgenderism not a real thing, that's probably not what's keeping the WASPs home alone in their basements rather than going out and meeting someone.

Somebody in this category, who is going out, as in out of the state, is Artemis Langford, who, having graduated from university, is packing up and leaving, claiming the state doesn't want people like him here. Langford, who deserves real pity, demonstrated self pity in the interview, as he had to have known that being a big overweight man in a sorority would draw attention, although he no doubt didn't expect all the litigation that ensued. The basic gist of his complaint is that he doesn't like it that there have been laws passed to protect actual women from being displaced in women's sports and the like, and he doesn't like it that society has moved towards recognizing "transgenderism" for what it is, a mental illness, so he's leaving. At least as of two years ago, his intended career path was law school. Being a man presenting as a woman wouldn' t stop a person from practicing law here, although it probably would be limiting, so pursuing that career elsewhere probably would be a good idea, if that's his actual intent.

All of this gets into the topic of conservatism, cultural conservatism, culture, and populism, but we'll try to take that up somewhere else. Maybe in our 100th Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist edition.

Anyhow, one denim glad guy saw an opportunity here, and took it:

Wyoming Outdoorsman Spoofs Controversial Sydney Sweeney Jeans Ads

He does like the Sweeney ad. I'll bet he likes the Knowles one too.

And all this comes up, sort of, due to denim, something that women didn't often appear in, and for that matter decently dressed men, until after World War Two. While women wearing jeans had taken off well before that, Levis didn't introduce 501s for women until 1981.