Leslie's, July 12, 1917

Some comments about Justice Robert's comments

Supreme Court Justice Roberts recently delivered some graduation comments.

No, not at Harvard or Yale, but at Cardigan Mountain School.  Apparently his son was in the graduating class, if you can consider a 9th grade class passing out of a school to be graduating.

Now, let me first note, I hesitate to make comments regarding his address.  I so hesitate as I read his delivery first in Time and one of the first comments was some from self important twit who had a fit over  the line that "You’ve been at a school with just boys. Most of you will be going to a school with girls. I have no advice for you" and went on about that, reading a lot more into it than was obviously intended.

Oh grow up, you self important snob.  It was a joke.  Yes, maybe a lame joke, but not every comment to 9th Graders is supposed to be earth shaking, you twit.

I'll note that a lot of the press commentary, in contrast, was highly favorable to the speech, even fawning.  At least one writer found the theme to be a implied rebuke to the nature of Donald Trump, which I suspect is going a bit far.

Well, amyhow, with that I tread into comments myself.

First, the remarks:

Thank you very much.

Rain, somebody said, is like confetti from heaven. So even the heavens are celebrating this morning, joining the rest of us at this wonderful commencement ceremony. Before we go any further, graduates, you have an important task to perform because behind you are your parents and guardians. Two or three or four years ago, they drove into Cardigan, dropped you off, helped you get settled and then turned around and drove back out the gates. It was an extraordinary sacrifice for them. They drove down the trail of tears back to an emptier and lonelier house. They did that because the decision about your education, they knew, was about you. It was not about them. That sacrifice and others they made have brought you to this point. But this morning is not just about you. It is also about them, so I hope you will stand up and turn around and give them a great round of applause. Please

Now when somebody asks me how the remarks at Cardigan went, I will be able to say they were interrupted by applause. Congratulations, class of 2017. You’ve reached an important milestone. An important stage of your life is behind you. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you it is the easiest stage of your life, but it is in the books. While you’ve been at Cardigan, you have all been a part of an important international community as well. And I think that needs to be particularly recognized.

Now around the country today at colleges, high schools, middle schools, commencement speakers are standing before impatient graduates. And they are almost always saying the same things. They will say that today is a commencement exercise. ‘It is a beginning, not an end. You should look forward.’ And I think that is true enough, however, I think if you’re going to look forward to figure out where you’re going, it’s good to know where you’ve been and to look back as well. And I think if you look back to your first afternoon here at Cardigan, perhaps you will recall that you were lonely. Perhaps you will recall that you were a little scared, a little anxious. And now look at you. You are surrounded by friends that you call brothers, and you are confident in facing the next step in your education.

It is worth trying to think why that is so. And when you do, I think you may appreciate that it was because of the support of your classmates in the classroom, on the athletic field and in the dorms. And as far as the confidence goes, I think you will appreciate that it is not because you succeeded at everything you did, but because with the help of your friends, you were not afraid to fail. And if you did fail, you got up and tried again. And if you failed again, you got up and tried again. And if you failed again, it might be time to think about doing something else. But it was not just success, but not being afraid to fail that brought you to this point.

Now the commencement speakers will typically also wish you good luck and extend good wishes to you. I will not do that, and I’ll tell you why. From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either. And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion. Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes.

Now commencement speakers are also expected to give some advice. They give grand advice, and they give some useful tips. The most common grand advice they give is for you to be yourself. It is an odd piece of advice to give people dressed identically, but you should — you should be yourself. But you should understand what that means. Unless you are perfect, it does not mean don’t make any changes. In a certain sense, you should not be yourself. You should try to become something better. People say ‘be yourself’ because they want you to resist the impulse to conform to what others want you to be. But you can’t be yourself if you don't learn who are, and you can’t learn who you are unless you think about it

The Greek philosopher Socrates said, ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ And while ‘just do it’ might be a good motto for some things, it’s not a good motto when it’s trying to figure out how to live your life that is before you. And one important clue to living a good life is to not to try to live the good life. The best way to lose the values that are central to who you are is frankly not to think about them at all.

So that’s the deep advice. Now some tips as you get ready to go to your new school. Other the last couple of years, I have gotten to know many of you young men pretty well, and I know you are good guys. But you are also privileged young men. And if you weren’t privileged when you came here, you are privileged now because you have been here. My advice is: Don’t act like it.

When you get to your new school, walk up and introduce yourself to the person who is raking the leaves, shoveling the snow or emptying the trash. Learn their name and call them by their name during your time at the school. Another piece of advice: When you pass by people you don’t recognize on the walks, smile, look them in the eye and say hello. The worst thing that will happen is that you will become known as the young man who smiles and says hello, and that is not a bad thing to start with.

You’ve been at a school with just boys. Most of you will be going to a school with girls. I have no advice for you.

The last bit of advice I’ll give you is very simple, but I think it could make a big difference in your life. Once a week, you should write a note to someone. Not an email. A note on a piece of paper. It will take you exactly 10 minutes. Talk to an adult, let them tell you what a stamp is. You can put the stamp on the envelope. Again, 10 minutes, once a week. I will help you, right now. I will dictate to you the first note you should write. It will say, ‘Dear [fill in the name of a teacher at Cardigan Mountain School].’ Say: ‘I have started at this new school. We are reading [blank] in English. Football or soccer practice is hard, but I’m enjoying it. Thank you for teaching me.’ Put it in an envelope, put a stamp on it and send it. It will mean a great deal to people who — for reasons most of us cannot contemplate — have dedicated themselves to teaching middle school boys. As I said, that will take you exactly 10 minutes a week. By the end of the school year, you will have sent notes to 40 people. Forty people will feel a little more special because you did, and they will think you are very special because of what you did. No one else is going to carry that dividend during your time at school.

Enough advice. I would like to end by reading some important lyrics. I cited the Greek philosopher Socrates earlier. These lyrics are from the great American philosopher, Bob Dylan. They’re almost 50 years old. He wrote them for his son, Jesse, who he was missing while he was on tour. It lists the hopes that a parent might have for a son and for a daughter. They’re also good goals for a son and a daughter. The wishes are beautiful, they’re timeless. They’re universal. They’re good and true, except for one: It is the wish that gives the song its title and its refrain. That wish is a parent’s lament. It’s not a good wish. So these are the lyrics from Forever Young by Bob Dylan:

May God bless you and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
And may you stay forever young

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
And may you stay forever young

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
And may you stay forever young

Thank you.

First, I'll note, for the most part, I like this speech.

Most of the commentary on the speech has been on his "I hope you fail" type of comments.  I'm not going to comment on those really.  I get his point.  No, what struck me was this line:

 I’m sorry to be the one to tell you it is the easiest stage of your life, but it is in the books.

That's really true.

People rarely directly acknowledge these things, but they do in a romantic fashion.  For most people, childhood remains a cherished, if sometimes painful, memory in their adult years.  Part of the reason for that is its the only time in our lives in which things are actually mostly easy, for most people.  Other people take care of your basic needs, you have free time, and possibilities seem endless.

Right about the time Justice Roberts addresses things begin to change, but subtly.  High school is harder than earlier years, but then you also have more freedom so its not so obvious.  Once you are past high school, however, things really start to get harder and harder. The heavy weight of decisions and the import begin.  The impact of decisions you make became increasingly irreversible.  Doors slam shut.  Some like to claim that whenever a door is closed another opens, but that isn't true at all. Some just slam shut leaving the entry way or exit way forever barred.  College is portrayed as an endless party in the popular media, but its far from it and failing in it is life altering. Completing it is also life altering.

Rarely noted by career counselors and the like, almost every adult career, and almost every adult must have one, is burdened by real difficulties.  Manual jobs, no matter how skilled, are typically burdened by the danger of obsolescence and the struggle for decent pay, as well as the agony, usually, of working for another, rather than yourself.  The professions, often imagined by parents to be a ticket into high wages and no work are in fact enormously burdened by the nature of their work.  Law, for example, imagined by some to be easy and lucrative has a depression rate second only to dentistry, which is another profession that people imagine for some reason to be easy.

This doesn't mean, of course, that adulthood is unending misery. But it isn't one sit com moment after the next.  "Marty" probably portrays the average adulthood even now better than, for example, "Friends".

Finally, while this is a 9th Grade "graduation", so a speech is a bit odd, but then this is a prep school, and frankly, I can't help but find the entire notion of a preparatory boarding school extremely odd, and partially in the context of what I've referenced above.  It's odd to think they still have them.  Which takes me to this line:

Two or three or four years ago, they drove into Cardigan, dropped you off, helped you get settled and then turned around and drove back out the gates. It was an extraordinary sacrifice for them. They drove down the trail of tears back to an emptier and lonelier house. They did that because the decision about your education, they knew, was about you. It was not about them. That sacrifice and others they made have brought you to this point. But this morning is not just about you. It is also about them, so I hope you will stand up and turn around and give them a great round of applause. 

I suppose dropping kids off like that is a sacrifice, but it's one that I can't admire except in extraordinary circumstances.  It focuses a theory of education above everything else usually.  There is, in my view, something deeply wrong with it.  Boarding school?  Eee gads, that's weird. Parents dumping off the children they claim to love to be raised by somebody else, there's something really wrong with that.

Now, granted, there are big exceptions, which goes with big burdens.  In some instances the need simply to educate an individual demands this be done, but those are rare.  And in others a unique aspect of the child's character requires it.  In some unusual circumstances the child desires it and the wish is granted. But in most instances like this, sending a kid to a school like this is usually to help to stack the deck in the future.  For most, they'll go from this prep school probably to another one, and then on to an Ivy League university. Their privileged present is being mortgaged, basically, for an even more privileged future.

Now, I'm not against private education.  I'm not a product of it myself, and the opportunities around here for it, while real, were limited.  But be that as it may, I really get it when people who live in cities in which there is a good private option go for it.  I fully understand why, for example, parents send their kids to the Madeline school in Salt Lake, or the Polish Catholic high school in Denver, or the Catholic high school in downtown Houston whose clean cut students I see on the streets right about the time school gets out.  I'd likely do the same.  But to ship a kid off to boarding school?  Man, that bothers me, except in the noted rare instances.

The Deportation of the Lowell Miners, July 12, 1917

On this day in 1917 up to 1,300 striking miners, members of the IWW, were deported by a deputized mob from what is now Bisbee Arizona to Tres Hermanas in New Mexico.  A committee formed to back the deportation ruled the town for a few months thereafter.  In New Mexico, the Republican Governor pleaded with President Wilson for assistance and received the same.  The refugee miners were then housed in Columbus, New Mexico, lately the location of the famed raid that started off the Punitive Expedition, for a couple of months until their plight could be addressed.  A Federal Commission declared their forced relocation to be "wholly illegal and without authority in law, either State or Federal".

What a year and a half for Columbus. Small  border town, site of a major raid, giant Army camp, and now a refugee center in one of the worst labor abuses in American history.

A confused liberal notion

There was a confused liberal notion that toleration was in some way a virtue in itself.

Hilaire Belloc: Essays of a Catholic.

Camp Mills, New York. July 10, 1917

Sunday Scene: Churches of the West: St. Paul's Catholic Church, Sundance Wyoming

Churches of the West: St. Paul's Catholic Church, Sundance Wyoming:

This is a less than ideal photograph, but I was parked in a hospital parking lot at the time I took it and had limited time to do so.  This church is St. Paul's Catholic Church in Sundance, Wyoming.  It certainly is in a picturesque setting, even if the picture is not so picturesque.

Strange to look at this photograph, in July, when the temperature is nearly 100F.

Best Post of the Week of July 2, 2017

Mean People Suck

Looking back at your vocation. If it were a century ago, would you be doing it?

The moment at which war with North Korea likely became inevitable.

Friday Farming: A Montana ranching company aims to revive U.S. textile industry

A Montana ranching company aims to revive U.S. textile industry

By TOM HOWARD

It takes about two minutes for a skilled shearer to separate a Rambouillet lamb from the fluffy coat that it has worn since the day it was born. . .

All electric?

Anderson Electric Car, on promotional tour from Seattle to Mt. Ranier, i 1919.

Volvo, whom we associate with Sweden, but which is now owned by Chinese interests, will no longer introduce new models of car with internal combustion engines after 2019.  

That doesn't mean it'll be out of the gas and diesel engine business.  I don't know if this announcement applies to its diesel heavy engines at all, I doubt it, but it'll keep making internal combustion engines for existing models after 2019.  It's just that its stating that its new cars will be all electric.

Industry analysts claim that this isn't that big of deal, but if Volvo holds to it, it is for two reasons.  For one, a major manufacturer simply stopping introducing new models of car with gasoline and diesel engines is a big deal. We're likely to see other manufacturers follow suit.  This would seem to show a trend towards the end of the internal combustion engine in some applications.

Secondly, while this comes from Volvo, Volvo is Chinese owned. That's remarkable in and of itself, but that a Chinese company is getting out in front this way says something as well.

The moment at which war with North Korea likely became inevitable.

This past weekend, it is now confirmed, North Korea successfully tested an ICBM. 

If intelligence reports are correct, the missile is not yet capable of hauling a nuclear warhead, but it soon will be, at which point there will be no place in the United States, China, Russia, South Korea, or Japan, that will be free from the threat of North Korean nuclear strikes.  Of course, Japan and South Korea, and parts of Russia and China, are already so exposed.

It's likely a safe assumption that the US now has to act before nuclear warheads top those missiles.  The only question is when, and if there can be some solution to stave off an armed strike against North Korea first.

I very much doubt that.

While at least one headline today proclaims this to be Donald Trump's fault, it isn't. The US has been trying the carrot and stick approach with the bizarre Stalinist theme park of North Korea since the Clinton Administration.  Nothing has worked, and no US administration has been able to make serious inroads into real progress with the North.  Likewise successive South Korean Administrations, some aggressive some less so, have failed to push North Korea towards rationality.  Everything has failed.

I've long thought that China would ultimately push the bizarre family dictatorship in the north out.  China''s no longer really a communist country, even though it is not a democratic one.  But time is now running out for that, if it hasn't already.  Of course, China well knows that, making the situation all the more dangerous for all, if we keep in mind that the US and China came to blows during the first US led effort to push the Communist out, but it also may mean that China will now feel compelled to act.

Anyway we look at it, this is a dangerous new situation.  War, I suspect, is more likely than not.

Hundred-Year-Old List of Calorie Requirements by Job

Hundred-Year-Old List of Calorie Requirements by Job . . .

Looking back at your vocation. If it were a century ago, would you be doing it?

I know that I wouldn't.  At least I think I wouldn't.

Which puts me into sort of an odd situation vis-à-vis the purported purpose of this blog.But its something worth considering in general for the folks who like to ponder such "what ifs".

We claim, after all, this blog to be about the following:

Lex Anteinternet?

The Consolidated Royalty Building, where I work, back when it was new.

What the heck is this blog about?

The intent of this blog is to try to explore and learn a few things about the practice of law prior to the current era. That is, prior to the internet, prior to easy roads, and the like. How did it work, how regional was it, how did lawyers perceive their roles, and how were they perceived?

Part of the reason for this, quite frankly, has something to do with minor research for a very slow moving book I've been pondering. And part of it is just because I'm curious. Hopefully it'll generate enough minor interest so that anyone who stops by might find something of interest, once it begins to develop a bit.

I started practicing law in 1990 after having graduated from the University of Wyoming's College of Law that May.  But I only entered the law school as an intended career in geology didn't work out.  Having said that, as I've noted here before, I had it in mind (thanks, I guess, Jon Brady), prior to that.  Indeed, all the way back when I was in Casper College.

But would I have done that in 1917?

I very much doubt it.

Which puts my central protagonist, assuming that I'm incorporating some of my own experiences in the work, which I now know will require my retirement in order for me to finish, in an odd position.

If it were 1917, rather than 2017, I could still homestead. And frankly, that's likely what I would have done.

 Canadian homestead, 1917.

Now, I realize that's an easy thing for a person to say.  After all, if you look at photos of homesteads in 1917 (although not the very nice one above), a lot of them were dirt poor.  Indeed, they were so poor that even the dirt was richer.

Okay, now I'm exaggerating, particularly about 1917.  World War One was actually the height for American (and Canadian. . . and Australian) homesteading. The big spat in  Europe had a lot to do with that and people were getting rich from farming, which was a rarity.  Having said that, up until 1919 American farmers tended towards economic parity with people in urban areas. They never have since that year.

Droughted out post World War One homestead.  The teens were wet. The 20s were not  The 30s were bone dry..

But it's not the money that would have attracted me.  It would have been the independent outdoor life.

That's all but impossible now.  

You can't homestead, obviously, and you likely can't buy enough land to be a working rancher.  If you can, that's because you are rich.  And I'm not.

So that's a career field, on a full time basis, fully closed to me and to most people.  

But I've always been cognizant of having that outdoor yearning.  And its one of the ironies of my being a lawyer.  It's an indoor occupation.  Perhaps that's been why I've always been keener on site visits and the like than other lawyers I know.  It gets me out there (which isn't the only reason or even the conscious reason I do it).  So I'd have homesteaded.

I know some families here whose ranches started in this era.  Indeed, I once knew one such homesteader.  He was a soldier in World War One and came out, right after the war, and homesteaded.  He ranched with his son (World War Two U.S. Navy) who never married.  His sister inherited the place and now one of his nieces runs it.  It's quite small, but its a beautiful place.  I used to hunt deer there every year.

An accountant I once sort of knew had a similar story.  His father had taken a train while on leave, while in the U.S. Navy, during World War One, to Natrona County Wyoming, and he filed on a homestead. Rather obviously, by the time he got back to his Navy base he was AWOL, but apparently that was forgiven.  That place became a combined farm/ranch.

A high country homestead in the Laramie Range, in Albany County.  A  sign indicates that the homestead was filed in 1910, which would explain the high altitude nature of the homestead.  This one must have been occupied until fairly recently, and might still be during part of the year given the modern plate steel sign.  At least one of the outbuildings appears to probably date from at least as recently as the 1950s.

Now, there are other outdoor occupations.  I considered, for example, becoming a Game Warden.  At least one other lawyer I know is appalled by this suggestion, even though he considered it himself. A European immigrant, he's fully of the mind that a contemplate person has, as options, careers in the clergy and the law and that's just a crazy concept on my part.  But it is an outdoor career.  At least one other practicing lawyer I know started off in that direction as well.  I did focus on that for a time, and my chance to work for the Game & Fish came after I was already a  practicing lawyer and engaged, and the poor pay deterred me as a responsible, soon to be married man (perhaps my European friend is right).  Still, I tinge with envy every time I see that Game Warden Green truck in the field.

Game Wardens existed in my state in 1917, but there weren't very many of them and their job was pretty darned tough and dangerous.  The job appealed to me when I was in my 20s (heck, it appeals to me now) but it likely would not have in 1917.

Of course, going back to agriculture, a person could work as a full time cowboy in 1917, and you still can in 2017.  For some reason, however, except when I was right out of high school, that line of work isn't something I would have been likely to do in this era, or probably a century ago.  I love ranching, but I probably would not have liked ranching or farming for somebody else.  Indeed, John K. Rollinson, who left two really good written accounts of life in Wyoming around the turn of the prior century, went down this trail and left it.  Coming into Wyoming as a runaway from his home in Buffalo, New York, he worked for the Two Bar and other ranches until becoming a Federal ranger in the Yellowstone Timber Reserve in 1907.  He worked that steady job, but with a massive region to patrol, for several years until going to work for the Painters at a dude ranch. Finding that he wanted to marry the ranchers daughter, which was complicated by a series of things, and feeling that he could never afford to ranch himself, he pulled up stakes and relocated to California where he became a patent medicine salesman, a position he occupied until his death.

So, as we can see, things don't always work out.  Rollinson's range legacy is made up of his books. But in terms of work, he worked in the second half of his life in a completely different occupation, finding the doors he hoped would be open, one of which I'm citing as something that was open in 1917, to be closed.

That may have been because homesteading was expensive.

So maybe that too is unrealistic on my part.  Some successful homesteaders spent years acquiring the assets to get a start.  Others didn't seem to.  Many failed.  I'm pretty cautious.  I could see myself starting out in something else with the idea that I'd start homesteading and then never get around to it.

Maybe I would have started down that geologist track and have made it work.  In 1917, the Wyomign oil patch was booming.

Of course, it's booming in 2017 and I am a geologist by training (but I have no license, something that came in later), so I'd really have to look at 1886 to determine what I would have done with that, or indeed with any career. Would I have pursued geology in the early 1880s?  That strikes me as unlikely.  And I frankly don't know how much work there was for a geologist in the 1880s, for that matter.

Oil strike, Oil City Pennsylvania, 1880s.

I suspect that being a soldier would have appealed to me in the 1880s, and it still does now for that matter. The difference is that soldiers moved around less at the time then they do now.  That's the part of being a serviceman that deterred me from entering that field.  I don't like moving much, or at all. For that matter, I'm very provincial and Wyoming is my home.  I likely would have had similar views at the time.

1886 or so would have been right before the close of the Frontier Era.  So its odd to think that, if I had done that, I'd have still been serving in 1917, but I would have.  Older officers of World War One, by which I mean men in their 50s (and they were all men) had started their service before the Frontier was closed, had seen service during the Spanish American War, had served in the Philippines, probably, and then closed out their careers with the Great War.  That is a lot of moving. Maybe that's not that different from now.

Maj. Gen. Harry C. Hale, commander of the Army's 84th Division, during World War One. He'd entered the service in 1884 and had demonstrated great heroism in 1890 by entering a camp of Sitting Bull's, decked out for war, alone to discuss their coming in.  We don't tend to think of the officers who lead the American Army during World War One as having cut their teeth in the Frontier Army, but the older ones did.

Of course, there were a whole range of jobs that existed in 1917 that do not now.  Jobs like farriers were once common, for example.  I'd likely not have done that, but I have always found their work to be interesting.  Another one that existed were market hunters and trappers.  The elimination of market game hunting is correctly seen as a real triumph in the conservation movement, and a great thing for the average hunter, and I'm glad of that, but in 1917 that profession may very well have called to me.  I love hunting.  Of course, by my current age, 54, I'd likely have to be looking for retirement from it as its days were closing out. And there was never that much of it in Wyoming, frankly.

There were full time "wolfers" here, however.  Those were men who were employed, often by the Federal Government, in hunting wolves.  They lived out on the range in sheepwagons and devoted their lives to that. While some now would find looking at that romantically as hopelessly odd, for some of us it doesn't seem that way.  Indeed, while a law student employed to research the topic of wolf reintroduction in Wyoming (which hadn't yet been done) I learned about wolfers and was fascinated by their job.  I remain fascinated by it.  I can actually see myself having done that, living in wolf hunting poverty.

Wolfer, North Dakota, 1904.

Or so says I.  Animal Damage Control still exists and I'm not working for them.  Indeed, Federal and county trappers are still around, but I'm not one.

Trapping, I should note, as a market enterprise was still a big thing a century ago and would be for a long time thereafter.  There were full time trappers at least up until World War Two.  Now, save for the far North, that's pretty much a thing of the past.

Native trapper, early 20th Century.

Of course, there are a lot of jobs that people occupy today that didn't exist a century ago.  Those of you occupying them would have had to have done something else, like it or not. What would that have been?  Give us your thoughts (please).

And women, of course, had a lot of doors closed to them a century ago.  There were a few, but very few, women lawyers.   There were only a few women doctors. Even female secretaries were brand new at the time.  Most women worked in their homes, or their parents homes, like that or not.  Women did work, of course, and in all classes, but most working women were likely from the poorer classes and employed in roles that few would wish to do today. . . save for those who remain in that class and occupy those roles for the same reason their ancestors in occupation did in 1917.

Well, I'm still think the homesteading thing would have called.  How about for you?

Mid Week At Work. How often are the perceptions we seek to correct misperceptions?

The title of this entry is accurate, but likely misleading.  It doesn't quite mean what it might suggest.

University of Wyoming/Casper College Geomorphology Class, 1983.

My University of Wyoming geology newsletter came yesterday by email (the only way it comes).  In it was an article on Lexi Jamieson Marsh's participation in The Bearded Lady Project.  For whatever reason the flyer really featured this late, as this premiered this past Spring.  Anyhow, Ms. Marsh's featuring in the film was based on the filmographer's concept that:""The Bearded Lady Project" is a documentary film and photographic project celebrating the work of female paleontologists and highlighting the challenges and obstacles they face.

Basically it combats the idea that people have in their minds that all paleontologist are men.

But do people have that in their minds?

I very much doubt it.

At least I doubt that people in the field do.   When I was a geology student in the early 1980s there were certainly a fair number, if definitely a minority, of my fellow students who were women.  Men did grossly outnumber women, to be sure, and may still today for a variety of reasons, but there were certainly a female representation both amongst the students and the geology professors.

I've lost track, somewhat, of working geologist, sadly, since my career didn't pan out.  But at least when I graduated a few of the female students, mostly grad students, went on to find work, so they were working in the field. At least one of the two whom I knew well still is, the other having determined on a career in the law instead.  Like most of us of men, those who graduated only with BS degrees at that time tended not to find work and had to move on to grad school or other careers, but that was equally true of the men.  Indeed, interestingly enough, one of the few students I knew who had a BS degree only and found a job was a woman.

So my point is, the concept that we're busting stereotypes through something like this may actually be, well, stereotypical.

If they really wanted to bust a stereotype worth busting, somebody should take on the absurd idea that scientist are nerds or single mindedly focused on science.  Not true at all, in spite of what The Big Bang theory would tell us.

Bugle Megaphone, Fort Totten New York. July 3, 1917

Mean People Suck

This was originally going to be a post on juries, and it still is, but it's expanded to one on the practice of law and, maybe, on life in general.

And the them is . . . Mean People Suck

Okay, what a giant whopping piece of insight that is, right?

Well, a lot of people haven't gotten the message, fairly clearly, and it actually does impact itself in the practice of law, and in daily life.

Here's what I mean, and I'll start with juries.

Well, actually I won't, I'll start with bumper stickers I started noticing a few years ago which appeared on the back of cars owned by young people.

Those bumper stickers said:  "Mean People Suck"

This phrase is one that caught on amongst millenials and it apparently caught on to such an extent that the basic phrase completely ran over the top of an originally obscene and stupid phrase to become the meaning it now has.  Mean people, the young are proclaiming, suck. We don't want them, we won't tolerate them. 

And its not just a simple bromide. They mean it.

On to juries.

Juries, as everyone knows, are supposed to be made up from a cross section of society. And at least around here, they really are. That means that the attitude of juries towards various things changes with the times.

A person could go on about this at length and really go down a rabbit hole, which I don't intend to do, as I intend instead to focus on one single thing, that being a generational change.

Modern juries hate mean people, including mean lawyers.  Maybe in particular they hate mean lawyers.

This wasn't always true.

I don't think it was true as recently at the 1970s, frankly.  And that's not all that long ago.

As recently as the 1970s juries seemed to want a show from lawyers. And that show involved ambushing some poor witness and harassing others.  Even popular depictions of lawyers were like that.  Take, for example, Al Pacino's depiction of a trial lawyer in With Justice For All. 

What exactly was up with this is something that could have been a treatise in itself, but my theory on it is that this reflected the generational nature of the mostly Boomer juries and the educational disparity between the juries and the lawyers.  While the Boomers were the first generation for which college was within easy reach, they were also a generation that didn't require college in order for the members of the generation to find work and careers.  Lots of them did not have that, and in contrast the lawyers seemed highly educated.

Indeed, lawyers of that era were still basking in the glory of the then conservative American Bar Associations efforts to drag the profession of the law out of the muck it had been in during the late 19th Century.  People familiar with the ABA now may associate it with an endless series of resolutions for left wing social causes and hand wringing angst over the fate of lawyers in White Shoe Firms, but that isn't why it had come about and that isn't what it once was.  Indeed politically it was quite conservative. Professionally its efforts had been focused on getting law school education for lawyers to be the national norm and on making sure there were state bar exams.  By the 1930s its efforts had really paid off and there was a real professionalism that existed in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s.

By the 70s, however, that was wearing off and the ambush people style was coming in.  Juries apparently loved it.

They don't anymore.

And that's because the Post Boomers aren't like the Boomers at all.

They're better educated and, if they aren't educated on any one topic, they can be by the end of a lunch break just be checking Google on their phones.  They know that they know, or can know, as much about any one topic as the lawyers in short order, and they don't respect the lawyers simply because they are lawyers. 

Be mean to a witness and they'll get even.

But how did the lawyers get that way?

Probably because it worked.

And they stay that way, in part, because the human learning curve on things is slow for failure, if quick for success.

Indeed, even now the plaintiff's bar is fond of the "lizard brain" theory which holds that you have to appeal to people's most primitive emotions, and that's how you win in front of a jury.

Baloney.

Jurors never operated on lizard brains at all. Rather, there was a time that they appreciated a gladiatorial contest.  Keep in mind, however, that even in a gladiatorial contest the audience didn't care who lived or died that much.  They might root for a fellow who fought well and then not have saved him if he fell.

 Illustration of a gladiatorial contest.  This illustration from 1872 contains a popular error in that thumbs down mean that the life of the fallen gladiator was to be spared and thumbs up mean it was to be taken.  This sort of depicts the relationship of lawyers to jurors in the 1970s. . . but not anymore.

Now, however, they don't want people falling unless there's a reason for them to do so, and just dispatching people for sport. . . . well take your lizard theories and shove them.

The lögberg in Thingvellir where the original Icelandic Althing was held.  Modern juries are more like this.  They know just as much about whatever the topic is as the advocates do. . . and they figure everyone is part of the same group.  The only lizard brains here are in the heads of lawyers who figure they're the big brains and who are out for blood.

So that's the new reality about juries, and its one that's going to take most trial lawyers a long time to figure out. And that's what I was originally going to post about here.  But it occurs to me that because being mean, and being a lawyer, seem to go together, perhaps I should go beyond that.

Are lawyers mean?

Well, some certainly are. 

And that becomes pretty apparent to those who are in direct contact with lawyers everyday.  Consider this blog, which is a cri de coeur from a paralegal.  Well, former paralegal, that is.  Indeed, consider this post:

But I do remember. I remember how awful most of you were – not just to your lowly staff, but to your own family members and to each other, and your clients too. I don’t hate you anymore, but I still think most of you are absolutely awful human beings, and I am thankful that I don’t have to get in the mud and dirty myself with you anymore.

Sour grapes?  I doubt it.  That view from people who are close to lawyers, well at least litigators, is pretty common.

And not just amongst paralegals.  It's common amongst lawyers too.  If you blog it you'll find plenty of posts by lawyers about being surprised and appalled by hostile the work is and how mean everyone associated with it is.

This of course is likely limited to litigation.

And to repeat a question above, how did that come about?

Hmmm. . . . ., the image above might offer a clue. 

Because it worked.  That's been explored above.  Logic would hold, therefore, that at some point this will reverse and not only will the mean people suck, but they'll be less successful and their numbers will accordingly reduce in the field.

But to expand beyond that, it would be unfair to simply suggest greed equates with meanness, although frankly to some extent it truly does. Greedy people can given into meanness and greed as a virtue of trial practice is another hallmark of the 1970s that still has its ongoing impact on the law. Indeed as lawyer incomes have declined overall, perhaps this feature may actually be worse to some degree than it once was.

Having said that, however, this is also a vice that seems much less pronounced amongst Millenials, so perhaps it's self correcting.  Indeed, an amusing aspect of this is that Boomers, who once eschewed all thoughts of climbing the corporate ladder before they seized it, fairly routinely express concern about this very thing.  I've heard it, with older Boomers worrying that Millenials do not seem motivated by the desire to acquire wealth. . . or anything.  But, in thinking about it, I can't see where a lack of materialism and avarice is a bad thing.

Of course, the problem of meanness in the law may have deeper roots.  One lawyer observed, in a reddit post, the following:

The skills/habits needed to be good at being a certain kind of lawyer can make you an asshole. These are things like:

• Never admitting more than you have to
• Never admitting fault in any way
• Never giving more information than you have to
• Keeping all of your options open as much as possible
• Always looking for the advantage
• Twisting someone's words against them
• Trusting no one
• Being willing to throw anyone under the bus to advance your (client's) position

You don't have to do these things to be a good lawyer. There are different styles of lawyering. This, however, is one of them. The thing is, lawyers like this are a pain to deal with. And too often, these habits leak into the lawyer's personal life. When they do, they destroy any close relationships that you have. This is why substance abuse (mostly alcohol) and suicide are very common problems in the legal community.

There's also the "defense lawyers protect evil dirty criminals" angle that some people have. And as a lawyer who sometimes practices criminal defense, or represents parents in child protection proceedings, I can understand that. The people that we "help" have sometimes done some pretty awful things. So how can we help them, with a clean conscience?

I look at it this way: If I'm charged with a crime, or if Children's Aid tries to take my kids away, I know the ins and outs of the legal system. I know how court procedure works, I know what evidence is going to sway a judge and what isn't, I know when taking a deal is a good idea, etc. So I have the skills and knowledge to mount as strong a defense as possible. Random Joe on the street doesn't know most of that. Shouldn't he be able to mount as strong a defense as possible? Isn't that his right?

There's something to that.

Perhaps put an even simpler way trial lawyers are mercenaries, basically, to they have the virtues and vices common to mercenaries. They fight for pay, and the essence of that is that they fight.

 

Mercenaries in the Congo, with rebel troops, 1960s.

But at some point fighting all of the time will impact your character, and you won't be able to turn it off as it'll just become part of you.  Anyone who is a trial lawyer will have met with some objection from a close friend or family member about the lawyer being argumentative or "arguing", when they don't even realize they're doing it.

That may be a minor aspect of this, but again at some point, arguing all of the time will become part of a person's personality and it means they run the risk of becoming a jerk.

Well, the good point of all of that, I suppose, is that it appears the societal incentive is running the other way, and that's a positive.  It's already working that way with juries. . . the legal field just hasn't noticed it too much yet.

Sometimes things throw back . . . but not always well.

On this day, in 1917, Kingdon Gould, Sr,. the son of legendary railroad man Jay Gould, married Italian born Annunziata Camilla Maria Lucci in Manhattan.  The marriage was rather obviously outside of his ethnicity, something that would have been uncommon for a man of his position at the time.  The marriage would produce three children:

• Silvia Annunziata Gould (1919-1980)
• Edith Kingdon Gould (1920-2004) who was an actress and a poet.
• Kingdon Gould, Jr. (1925-) who was Ambassador to Luxembourg and the Netherlands under Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford and whom is still living.

During World War Two, in order to address shortages, Mr. Gould attempted to revert to the use of carriages, much as he was likely still using at the time this photograph was taken.  He sent his daughter Edith, who would later serve in the Navy during the war, down to purchase horses to pull them.  As related by Time Magazine's July 27, 1942 issue:

To beat the gas & rubber shortage Manhattan's Mrs. Kingdon Gould took the old family carriages out of mothballs, sent Daughter Edith to buy a pair of horses. Inexperienced Daughter Edith came back with a pair of brewery-truck-model Percherons.

Note that they are depicted in their nuptial finery . . . which is quite a bit dressed down compared to many weddings we see today, even though he was a very wealthy man and this was a very formal era.

Sunday Morning Scene: Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, Sundance Wyoming

Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, Sundance Wyoming

This is the Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Sundance, Wyoming.  This Prairie Gothic style church is obviously an older structure, but I don't know the details of it.

Looks out of place, with all that snow, for a July 2 post, doesn't it?

Lauda Sion Salvatorem: St. Thomas Aquinas, 1264

Lauda Sion Salvatorem

Lauda Sion Salvatórem Lauda ducem et pastórem In hymnis et cánticis. Quantum potes, tantum aude: Quia major omni laude, Nec laudáre súfficis. Laudis thema speciális, Panis vivus et vitális, Hódie propónitur. Quem in sacræ mensa cœnæ, Turbæ fratrum duodénæ Datum non ambígitur. Sit laus plena, sit sonóra, Sit jucúnda, sit decóra Mentis jubilátio. Dies enim solémnis ágitur, In qua mensæ prima recólitur Hujus institútio. In hac mensa novi Regis, Novum Pascha novæ legis, Phase vetus términat. Vetustátem nóvitas, Umbram fugat véritas, Noctem lux elíminat. Quod in cœna Christus gessit, Faciéndum hoc expréssit In sui memóriam. Docti sacris institútis, Panem, vinum, in salútis Consecrámus hóstiam. Dogma datur Christiánis, Quod in carnem transit panis, Et vinum in sánguinem. Quod non capis, quod non vides, Animósa firmat fides, Præter rerum ordinem. Sub divérsis speciébus, Signis tantum, et non rebus, Latent res exímiæ. Caro cibus, sanguis potus: Manet tamen Christus totus, Sub utráque spécie. A suménte non concísus, Non confráctus, non divísus: Integer accípitur. Sumit unus, sumunt mille: Quantum isti, tantum ille: Nec sumptus consúmitur. Sumunt boni, sumunt mali: Sorte tamen inæquáli, Vitæ vel intéritus. Mors est malis, vita bonis: Vide paris sumptiónis Quam sit dispar éxitus. Fracto demum Sacraménto, Ne vacílles, sed memento, Tantum esse sub fragménto, Quantum toto tégitur. Nulla rei fit scissúra: Signi tantum fit fractúra: Qua nec status nec statúra Signáti minúitur. Ecce panis Angelórum, Factus cibus viatórum: Vere panis filiórum, Non mitténdus cánibus. In figúris præsignátur, Cum Isaac immolátur: Agnus paschæ deputátur Datur manna pátribus. Bone pastor, panis vere, Jesu, nostri miserére: Tu nos pasce, nos tuére: Tu nos bona fac vidére In terra vivéntium. Tu, qui cuncta scis et vales: Qui nos pascis hic mortáles: Tuos ibi commensáles, Cohærédes et sodáles, Fac sanctórum cívium. Amen. Allelúja.

Sion, lift up thy voice and sing: Praise thy Savior and thy King, Praise with hymns thy shepherd true. All thou canst, do thou endeavour: Yet thy praise can equal never Such as merits thy great King. See today before us laid The living and life-giving Bread, Theme for praise and joy profound. The same which at the sacred board Was, by our incarnate Lord, Giv'n to His Apostles round. Let the praise be loud and high: Sweet and tranquil be the joy Felt today in every breast. On this festival divine Which records the origin Of the glorious Eucharist. On this table of the King, Our new Paschal offering Brings to end the olden rite. Here, for empty shadows fled, Is reality instead, Here, instead of darkness, light. His own act, at supper seated Christ ordain'd to be repeated In His memory divine; Wherefore now, with adoration, We, the host of our salvation, Consecrate from bread and wine. Hear, what holy Church maintaineth, That the bread its substance changeth Into Flesh, the wine to Blood. Doth it pass thy comprehending? Faith, the law of sight transcending Leaps to things not understood. Here beneath these signs are hidden Priceless things, to sense forbidden, Signs, not things, are all we see. Flesh from bread, and Blood from wine, Yet is Christ in either sign, All entire, confessed to be. They, who of Him here partake, Sever not, nor rend, nor break: But, entire, their Lord receive. Whether one or thousands eat: All receive the self-same meat: Nor the less for others leave. Both the wicked and the good Eat of this celestial Food: But with ends how opposite! Here 't is life: and there 't is death: The same, yet issuing to each In a difference infinite. Nor a single doubt retain, When they break the Host in twain, But that in each part remains What was in the whole before. Since the simple sign alone Suffers change in state or form: The signified remaining one And the same for evermore. Behold the Bread of Angels, For us pilgrims food, and token Of the promise by Christ spoken, Children's meat, to dogs denied. Shewn in Isaac's dedication, In the manna's preparation: In the Paschal immolation, In old types pre-signified. Jesu, shepherd of the sheep: Thou thy flock in safety keep, Living bread, thy life supply: Strengthen us, or else we die, Fill us with celestial grace. Thou, who feedest us below: Source of all we have or know: Grant that with Thy Saints above, Sitting at the feast of love, We may see Thee face to face. Amen. Alleluia.

It's been a really slow week on this blog

Truly, it has.

Why is that, you may, or may not, be asking.

Writers block?

Well, not, not really.  Just entirely too much to do this week.

And, contrary to the way I usually feel about things, I just haven't felt like writing.

I have done some posting, but most of it has been on our oldest blog, Holscher's Hub and on the revival of an old one, The Aerodrome.  Indeed, almost all the posting I've done is on that latter blog, trying to bring it current.

Which likely means that our reading base here will drop off even further, even though we will return to posting here as before.

Indeed, on that, we were down last month to 9,924 views for the month. That's not bad, and it's quite a few more than the 7,005 that we had in June, 2016.  Of course, it pales in comparison to March, 2017, just a few months ago, when we had 55,954 views in a single month.  But we were posting a pile of entries then as our tracking of the Punitive Expedition was wrapping up, many of which were linked into Reddit, which boosted their readership.  We knew it would drop off thereafter, and frankly almost 10,000 views in a month is really pretty good, for a blog of this type.  Prior to the frequent posting on the Punitive expedition we'd occasionally top off at about 5,000 views per month, which we also regarded as being pretty good.

Best Post of the Week for the week of June 25, 2017

New blog, sort of: The Aerodrome

Friday Farming: Why wouldn't they be content?

The way things should be. . . .

From stream to grill