For example, in almost all professional organizations, including the American Bar Association and eight leading national professional organizations, the ratio of actual members to potential members ("penetration rate") has declined steadily since the mid 1960s. Active participation has declined even more sharply than membership. By all measures, overall active involvement in associations has declined by half since about 1965
Ostensibly exploring the practice of law before the internet. Heck, before good highways for that matter.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
The increasing irrelevance of the American Bar Association
Thursday, January 23, 2014
The Aerodrome: Osa's Ark - A strange Plane
Osa's Ark - A strange Plane
Osa's Ark |
I was looking through pictures I took to find an interesting picture to start off the blog. I think this fits nicely.
This is a Sikorsky S-38. A quote gleamed from it's Wikipedia Page explains it nicely.
"The Sikorsky S-38
was an American twin-engined 8-seat amphibious aircraft. It was
sometimes called 'The Explorer's Air Yacht' and was Sikorsky's first
widely produced amphibious flying boat which in addition to serving
successfully for Pan American Airways and the U.S. Army, also had
numerous private owners who received notoriety for their exploits."
This particular aircraft (this might actually be a replica, not sure) is
the "Osa's Ark", which belonged to Martin an Osa Johnson, two American
explorers. There is a whole gallery of original photographs of this
plane here.
Interesting indeed.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Monday, January 20, 2014
Old Picture of the Day: Indian Cowboy
Old Picture of the Day: Military Hat
Old Picture of the Day: Sombreros
Old Picture of the Day: Stetsons
Old Picture of the Day: Backwoods
Old Picture of the Day: Bowler Hat
Old Picture of the Day: Hats
Old Picture of the Day: Hats: They say that the Hat Makes the Man, so welcome to Hat Week here at OPOD. We will be looking at various hat styles and see the things ...
Friday, January 17, 2014
A second state considers allowing its law-school grads to skip the bar exam
From bad (UBE) to worse (no exam at all).
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Radio
And radio, as "low tech" as it might seem today, was really the pioneer for the home entertainment revolution that would come later. Prior to radio, which for almost all families was less than a century ago, at the end of a long day, people (well. . . men) went home to a house which only contained the noise that was animated by the lives therein. Sounds for the most part had a human, or perhaps, animal origin in the immediate sense. For many people, that meant a pretty quiet evening. If there was music, at that time, it might have been generated by a Victrola, but just as often it might have been played by the folks at home. An incredible number of people sang and played musical instruments prior to radio, and most particularly prior to television. But quite a few houses were no doubt mostly silent at night as well, with people reading for entertainment, or playing cards, if only solitaire.
After World War One, however, the radio was on. Shows like Cavalcade of America, Dragnet, The Shadow, The Whistler, and Gunsmoke played ever night on the radio, along with news and music. People rapidly acclimated to having the radio on in their homes, and even if they still read at night, a lot of time was spent listening, just as later a lot of time was spent watching. Truly, a revolution in people's daily lives.
And a revolution in connectedness as well. Prior to the radio, evens that happened far away were truly far away. A person might learn of them rapidly through the newspaper, but still they had a remoteness connected with them, if they were remote. Radio began to change that. For the first time disasters and happenings that occurred far away could be learned of nearly immediately.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Wednesday, January 14, 2024. Endless chain production and Out Of Africa.
Ford Motor Company introduced the endless chain for manufacturing vehicles, turning out a Model T in 93 minutes. It was already using the assembly line.
Karen Blixen arrived in Kenya and, on the same day, married her Swedish cousin Bror Flixen-Finecke, thereby becoming a baroness. She famously became the author of Out of Africa.
Blixen's father was a Danish army officer and parliamentarian who loved the outdoor life, and who authored a memoir featuring that which became a bit of a Danish classic, so she came by her writing skills naturally. Like her to be husband, he also was given to affairs and had a daughter from a pre marriage affair in the United States with a Chippewa woman. He suffered from having contacted syphilis in the United States. He killed himself following impregnating one of his household maids, at which time Karen was only 9.
Blixen is still widely admired for that writing, and Out of Africa is an excellent book which was turned into an excellent film, so it's hardly noticed what a symbol of late state monarchy and empire she was. A Dane who gained admittance to British Kenya, she did so only because she was a white immigrant at a time in which the benefits of flooding non-European lands with Europeans was not questioned. Her marriage was really one of convenience, and it did not last with her husband being unfaithful, something that was so common amongst nobility that it was practically expected, but which also resulted in her being infected with syphilis. Her farming activities were not really successful as much of the land that had been acquired was not suitable for it, with the original intent to have been ranching. The land actually belonged to a family corporation, and not to the couple individually.
Baron Bror Fredrik von Blixen-Finecke went on to marry three times, having asked for divorce from Karen and having obtained it against her wishes. He was an author in his own right.
Monday, January 13, 2014
Governor Hunt's World War Two Correspondence, Heart Mount Internment Camp
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Holscher's Hub: Special Passenger Permit, Chinese Air Force
Watching the Morph. How the news gets spun by the right and left in the age of the unreliable Internet
It appears that Obama’s habitual abuse of his executive action is beginning to rub off on the rest of his administration. His EPA soldiers are now telling a town in Wyoming that they no longer have the right to live there. And what’s worse? They’re giving away that land that the residents rightfully bought to other people.
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Conversion of the Shoreham Hotel's furnace from oil, to coal. 1942
This interesting set of photographs purports to depict the conversion of Washington D. C.'s Shoreham Hotel's furnace from oil to coal in September, 1942.
I knew furnaces were converted from coal to oil, but I've never heard of oil to coal. I didn't even realize that possible. A byproduct of World War Two shortages?
Not grasping the courts
IT IS ORDERED that respondents are temporarily enjoined from enforcing against applicants the contraceptive coverage requirements imposed by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, 42 U. S. C. § 300gg-13(a)(4), and related regulations pending the receipt of a response and further order of the undersigned or of the Court. The response to the application is due Friday, January 3, 2014, by 10 a.m.
The application for stay presented to Justice Sotomayor and by her referred to the Court is granted. The permanent injunction issued by the United States District Court for the District of Utah, case No. 2:13-cv-217, on December 20, 2013, is stayed pending final disposition of the appeal by the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Sunday, January 11, 1914. Sakurajima erupts
The Japanese stratovolcano had been dormant for a century. It awakened with the most powerful volcanic eruption to occur in Japan in the 20th Century.
The volcano is the most active in Japan, and the 1914 eruptions connected what had been an island to the mainland.
Friday, January 10, 2014
The George Washington Bridge Scandal. . . . Yawn.
But that's not what I'm writing about.
One of the features of modern broadcasting is that local stories are now portrayed as national ones, particularly if those local stories come from large urban centers. This is all the more true if the stories come from the New York City area, which is the headquarters of the major network's news branches.
Truth be known, most of the country has next to no concern whatsoever about stories in the NYC area, unless they are truly national in nature. This bridge story isn't. While the press is busy talking about it, I suspect that once you hit the Midwest, people are yawning and going on to something else. That is almost certainly the case here.
We get it that administration staffers shouldn't be doing stuff like this, but we don't know anything about the George Washington Bridge, and frankly we aren't really interested in it. Is there nothing else going on?
And if this story deserves national attention, does the Cindy Hill hearings in Cheyenne deserve them? I doubt New Yorkers are getting daily updates on that.
Separation-of-Church-and-State.mp3
Fascinating broad discussion of separation of church and state on the always erudite and entertaining Catholic Stuff you Should Know.
Saturday, January 10, 1914. Villa takes Ojinaga.
After delaying his assault, as we reported on a couple of days ago, Villa led his troops into Ojinaga and captured it. Half of the 4,000 men defending Federal force retreated into the United States.
The victory secured northern Mexico on the hands of the Villistas.
A military court in Strasbourg acquitted Colonel Adolf von Reuter and Second Lieutenant Schadt for illegally appropriating the civilian police to counter a demonstration.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Friday, January 9, 1914. Public Defenders.
Los Angeles County, California, opened the first Public Defenders Office. An institution now, they really haven't been around that long.
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Today In Wyoming's History: January 6, 2014. Wyoming History In the Making. ...
Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming History in the Making: January 6, 2014, L...
Monday, January 6, 2014
Wednesday, January 6, 1914. Using the camera.
Pancho Villa delayed an attack on Federal troops at Ojinaga until an American film crew was able to reach his lines.
The film footage would end up in The Life of General Villa, a lost film (sadly) produced by D. W. Griffith and directed by Raoul Walsh.
1914-2014: The Centennial of a huge disaster; World War One.
If I'm correct, and that the century anniversary of World War One is pretty much a near non event in the United States, that will be a shame. The war shaped the entire century in ways as significant as World War Two, and while the second war is not a sequel to the first, as sometimes claimed, they do form a history together that we still are seeing play out, and which we still do not know even now what the result will be. The First World War had the impact of destroying forever, the ancient regime in Europe, and indeed in some ways the world. Numerous combatants went into the war with a strong traditional imperial, monarchical, aristocratic retaining power. None of them would come out of it with that class intact. Where democracy had not strongly taken root prior to the war, a vacuum was left that was filled by political extremes. Had the war not occurred just when it did the fall of that class would have played out much differently, and the great political murderous political philosophies that made a blood bath of the middle of the century likely would have never have taken hold anywhere.
And the history of the era is simply interesting in its own right. A fully modern era, much more recognizable to us looking back after a century than the War of 1812 or the Napoleonic Wars would have been looking back the same distance for the combatants of the Great War, the war still had one foot in the late 19th Century and, while we can hardly appreciate it now, one foot looking forward to the 21st. We should recall it, particularly, perhaps, because the world of 1914 is more recognizable now than at any time since 1918, and therefore its lessons more applicable.