Wednesday, January 29, 2014

The Technological Cart Driving the Horse

As long time readers (i.e., me) know, this blog originated to explore historical topics, with that really being focused on the period of the turn of the prior century. Occasionally, it still is. 


This topic is one of those ones that bridges that topic and modern times, related to both.  It occurred to me the other day the extent to which we often don't adopt technology so much as have it forced upon us, at least in the business context.  Or rather, we both adopt and are required to adopt.

This has happened a couple of times to me, and it's beginning, maybe, to happen again, which is what caused me to think of it.

The other day, I knew I was going to get a pdf document sent to me by email, and I also intended to be out at a remote location.  I thought this no problem, as my Iphone can pick up email.

As it happened, the location was very remote and I was there much longer than I had anticipated, which was fine. When I had a chance to check my email on my Iphone, it turned out that the attachment was much larger than I had anticipated. Some 30 or so pages.  An Iphone is pretty small, so it wasn't really possible to digest a document of that size on my phone. So I did it at home.

Some time ago a person offered me their slightly used Ipad.  I declined, but started rethinking it.  It has a bigger screen. Wouldn't that be nice, I thought, for occasions like this.

But I've resisted owning an Ipad so far.  I'm already heavily computerized and even though I've had my wife download a book for me on her Kindle, I'm still a fan of the old fashioned physical book. So I've seen no need. 

Which is sort of the process I went through with my Iphone.

Cell phone wise, my father bought what was called a "bag phone" about 20 years ago for use in the truck.  It surprised me when he did it, but I kept it for quite a few years and would use it when out in the remote sticks.  I really kept it beyond the period of time most people did, as I didn't want a hand held cell phone, they seemed so irritating.  Ultimately, I concluded I didn't need that either and cancelled it.  Right after that, I got horribly stuck way out in the sticks and my wife reconsidered the topic of cell phones for me, as I had to walk some seven miles to they highway, to hitch a ride some 30 miles to a rural gas station where I could call her.

That rapidly lead to me having one of her old cell phones, which worked fine for me for a long time.  I never carried it anywhere I didn't have to.  Something happened to it, and I took over another one of hers, which had a camera.  I only used it out of town, but I did like the little camera, which I found to take surprisingly good photographs.

 
 St. Peter and St. Paul Orthodox Church, in Salt Lake City.  Photograph taken with a cell phone camera.

I ended up washing that phone. By that time I had an Ipod, which of course can also take photographs, which I used mostly for music and podcasts.  

About that time, I was at a hearing in Gillette and trying to keep track of settlement negotiations in another case simultaneously.  Other counsel began exchanging emails and it suddenly dawned on me that I was going to have to get an Iphone, which could do that.  Up until then, I'd seen no real need, but now I was actually in a situation where having an Iphone had become a requirement of my work.  The old style phone had to go, and in came the Iphone.  

I have an Iphone 5 and I've really liked it, although I still feel a bit uncomfortable with the fact that I now carry it everywhere.  The fact that I do is due, in part, to the fact that it plays music and podcasts, which I enjoy listening to coming and going to work.  Indeed, podcasts are great, and there are a variety of them I subscribe to.  But to be fair, something I also like that it does is that it serves to send text messages, which I use a great deal more than I ever guessed I would.  Indeed, I get a few most days from my family, and I also use them in a work context.

Still, its an interesting process to see how this developed. Some things that have come along since I've been practicing law I adopted as they were clearly so useful.  Computers and computer programs are one. Others, like Iphones, I've been left with no choice but to adopt.  Cameras, one of my favorite things, are something I really have to have, but I always have a SLR and have gone from 35 mm film to a Digital SLR as 35 mm film simply became obsolete, and I had no choice, even though I love my Pentax DSLR.  

I suppose this is true of many other things.  If this were 1914 instead of 2014, I suppose the telephone would be a new thing for us, that we'd have to have.  I'd probably regard it like my Iphone, nifty, but somewhat of a problematic item in a vague way.  Would I have an automobile?  The Model T was introduced in 1903.  My guess is that by 1914 I'd have to have had one.

Starting a Model T. They lacked an electric starter. This photograph from the late 1930s shows a car that would already have been regarded as obsolete even though by modern standards the age between the contemporary cars and this used car would not be that great.

Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming History in the Making: January 28, 2014 ...

Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming History in the Making: January 28, 2104 ...: In a 3 to 2 decision, with a blistering dissent, the Wyoming Supreme Court struck down the decision restructuring the state Dapartment of Ed...

Mid Week At Work: Enlist in the Ordnance Department


Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Brrrrr. . . .it's cold outside! And maybe that's not that unusual.

Pathfinder Reservoir a couple of weeks ago.  Last year it wasn't even frozen fully in this bay, at this time of year, although normally it certainly is.

This winter has been really cold.  Everywhere in the US, it's been cold.  It's been on the news constantly.  Particularly when a big cold snap or storm hits the East Coast, although this year its been so cold that cold snaps or heavy snow even out in the West have been making the news.

But maybe what's newsworthy there isn't that its really cold.  It is. But that the last several winters have been so mild that we find cold newsworthy.

After all, it's winter.

 State highway outside of Casper on Sunday afternoon, in the morning it had been bright and sunny.

Truth be known, the winter we've been getting isn't odd at all, it's just normal by  historical standards, not even really a particularly brutal one.  It's just that we've had warm winters long enough, say a decade or more, that people are caught by surprise.  For some people, say who were children a decade ago, that's probably not surprising.  For folks who've moved from one region of the country to another it probably isn't either.  But by and large, at least people in their 40s, and certainly people in their 50s, should remember winters normally being pretty nasty.  That's why some people dreamed of moving to warmer climates in the south.

Now, according to a recently article in the Casper newspaper, December are actually no worse than they ever were, in spite of people approaching geezerhood may recall.  When I read that, I was briefly convinced, but I no longer am.  I can definitely recall even Decembers being like this when I was a kid, and its January now. And brutal winters were certainly not out of the norm when I was in my teens and twenties.

I'm not making an argument here about the cause, or whether we should be concerned or not.  I'm only stating an observation, and relating it to the news.  I'm amused, frankly, by the degree to which weather that was routine even relatively recently has slipped out of the public mind and is now regarded as newsworthy.  It shows our evolving, or rather our temporary, concept of what is normal, and what is not.

Oh goody. . . another Iglitch

Yesterday, I plugged in my Iphone to update my podcasts.

As of last night, none of my podcasts and some of my music (maybe a lot?) is no longer functioning.

Not that this is novel.  It's happened before, last time when they did a major update to their system. That one was so destructive I had to take all the pocasts off and reload them.

Apple has a good product.  But they can't seem to help themselves.  Their "updates" seem to lack a little testing, and they seem to serve no apparent purpose.  If I could readily dump the system and keep all my tunes on Itunes (and perhaps I can?) I'd do so in a second.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

The increasing irrelevance of the American Bar Association

I recently posted this item from the Minnesota Bar Association, which was a review of the book Bowling Alone.  It noted:
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
What this observes is quite true, and what the book Bowling Alone (apparently) observes about the overall decline in participation in organizations in the television, and now Internet, era is also undoubtedly true. But I wonder with the ABA in particular if it simply is because the organization has become irrelevant, and it's current actions make it more so.

The ABA is an old organization. It was founded in 1878.  And it was  reformist organization.  The reform it sought was to the practice of law itself.

In 1878, while law was a profession, it was one that was tainted by the bottom end of the practice, over which there was very little regulatoin. There were always lawyers with high standards, but there were at that time a lot of lawyers with low ones, and overall there was little that was done about it in the profession.  Lawyers have always been a largely self regulating profession, an there wasn't much self regulating going on at the time.

Along came the ABA with a mission to address that. It's goal was to raise the standards of practice.  It sought to do this by creating standards where it thought that there should be some, to create ethical standards that pertained to the practice of law, and to even re-define the professional nature of practice itself.  Whereas law was a profession which people had generally entered by apprenticing themselves to a practicing lawyer (reading the law) and then taking the bar, the ABA sought to encourage lawyers to be university educated at a doctorate level. The goal wasn't accidental, in doing that it sought to put law on the same plain occupied by medicine, with a similar claim to educational requirements.

The ABA was amazingly successful, over a very long period of time, in achieving its goals. It accredits law schools, with some states requiring applicants to their bars to have graduated from an ABA accredited law school. It opines to Congress on the qualifications of judicial nominees. And much of what it sought ot do in terms of elevating the standard of practice it achieved.  Maybe so much so, that it made itself irrelevant.

Membership in the organization has been declining for years and I think a lack of relevancy to the practice is part of, or much of, the reason why.  The ABA really was having an impact on the profession by the mid 20th Century and most of its reforming work was done in the second half of the 20th Century.  Like most organizations that have been really successful in reform, its cast about for things to keep itself relevant.  It isn't wholly succeeding.

That doesn't mean that it doesn't provide some real services.  It administers a lawyers retirement system, which is a real benefit and probably part of the reason a lot of people join it.  It also provides some pretty good Continuing Legal Education, which it should given that CLE requirements are one of the things it has backed.  And it still exercises some muscle in reviewing potential Federal judges and in certifying law schools.

But it also has cast about in movement politics, which has little to do with practicing law, and it's grown increasingly left wing, after having been quite right wing, over the years.

In the 50s the ABA sponsored "Law Day" which should have been a bit of a signal that it was ending the day of being fully practical.  Law Day is an ignored Federal holiday that nobody gets off that occurs on May 1.  The ABA sponsored it to point out that we're a society ruled by law, not one ruled by a proletariat mob like those folks celebrating May Day (you know who you are).  Nobody celebrates Law Day anymore, although even when I was first practing the ABA sponsored some Law Day school stuff.  By and large, however, the day is ignored.  And it probably should be, not because we aren't a society ruled by laws, but because the day was a silly jingoistic effort. 

At that time, the ABA was fairly obviously a right wing entity, but in recent years, the ABA has evolved into an urban-centric, left of center organization, that feels free to tell society what it thinks the law ought to be.  For example, in the most recent issue of the ABA's magazine, there's an article by the president of the entity noting that lawyers are sworn to uphold the law, that the Second Amendment is part of the Constitution, and that therefore, the ABA is for it.  It then goes on to argue that military style rifles should be banned.  And to go further, the ABA has a "Gun Violence" standing committee.

That's not a legal position. That's a social position.  Indeed, it's rather obviously contrary to the provision of the law.  Indeed, its usually at this point in such a debate that people in favor of stricter gun laws start arguing the policy of their views, rather than the letter of the law.  Having views one way or another is fine, but when policy is argued, it's argued because the advocate of that position knows that their argument isn't based on the what the law is, but what they want it to be.

I don't mean to suggest that lawyers can't have opinions on gun control.  My point is that the ABA shouldn't.  It has nothing to do whatsoever with the practice of law.  By taking a position such as it is, it's taking one contrary to the law, and it's making a policy argument on what policy should be, which has nothing to do with the practice of law at all.

Likewise, the ABA also has a "Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity" committee.  Those of a liberal political persuasion probably can convince themselves that this is a legal topic, but it isn't.  It's a social topic that has zero to do with practicing law.  The organization also has a number of committees that are based on racial topics. That might have something to do with the law, or probably did at one time, but currently in an era when minorities are extraordinarily well represented in the legal profession, and the majority of new law school graduates are women, the days when the ABA really needed to regard itself as the vanguard of equal protection are pretty much over.

The fact that the ABA has these types of committees and positions, in addition to the many truly practice sections it has, shows that it sees itself from having evolved from an organization concerned with a high standard of practice to one which now opines on what the law should be.  There are any other number of organizations that do that, but the declining membership of the ABA shows, in my view, that its not going to retain its relevancy by attempting to be one.

The reason for that is fairly simply.  It claims to be a nationwide bar association. What are bar organizations?  Well, they're the collective group of those called to the bar in a certain location.  In my state, every person admitted to the bar is a member of the state association whether they want to be or not, and every lawyer in the county is likewise a member of the county association.  These associations have committees on the practice of law, the nomination of judges, and the rules of procedure and evidence.  But they don't tell the legislature, or the citizens of the state, what the law ought to be.  They limit themselves to the hard work of the nuts and bolts of the practice. So should the ABA.  As an organization the ABA is going to become increasingly irrelevant if it continues to do this, as there's no earthly way that the organization can really claim to advance the views of most lawyers.  At some point, and I suspect some point relatively soon, the organization will begin to loose influence in the areas that its legitimately concerned with.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

The Aerodrome: Osa's Ark - A strange Plane

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.

Monday, January 20, 2014

The Big Picture: The 118th Infantry, 1918.


Old Picture of the Day: Indian Cowboy

Old Picture of the Day: Indian Cowboy: We wrap up Hat Week with this picture of an Indian with a Cowboy Hat. I love the combination! The picture was taken in 1903.

Old Picture of the Day: Military Hat

Old Picture of the Day: Military Hat: Today's picture shows a man in a military style hat that I believe is called a Slouch Hat. The distinguishing feature is that the ...

Old Picture of the Day: Sombreros

Old Picture of the Day: Sombreros: Today we look at the classic "Sombrero", a favorite hat of the Mexican Revolutionaries. The picture above was taken in the e...

Old Picture of the Day: Stetsons

Old Picture of the Day: Stetsons: You did not think we would make it through Hat Week without looking at the much loved "Stetson" did you? Well, here is a pic...

Old Picture of the Day: Backwoods

Old Picture of the Day: Backwoods: Today's picture shows a gentleman from the Backwoods in the South. I have to say I love the hat. I am not sure what type of hat it...

Old Picture of the Day: Bowler Hat

Old Picture of the Day: Bowler Hat: Today we look at the Bowler Hat. To be honest, I do not care for this hat style much. To me, it is neither practical nor does it look v...

Old Picture of the Day: Hats

Hat week on this blog included some interesting photos, and give as the thread on hats and caps is the most popular one here on this site, I thought I'd link them in.

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 ...

UW Trustees Appoint McGinity as President | News | University of Wyoming

UW Trustees Appoint McGinity as President | News | University of Wyoming

UW Trustees Change Name of Branch Campus to UW-Casper | News | University of Wyoming

UW Trustees Change Name of Branch Campus to UW-Casper | News | University of Wyoming

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Radio

When I was young, my father listed to the radio a fair amount. What I really recall about that in particular is that he'd listen to Denver's KOA, which was an all talk radio station, but not like the ones we have now that are all right or left political talk.  It had a lot of different radio programs, and sports.  He particularly listened to the Denver Broncos and Denver Bears (their minor league baseball team at that time) broadcasts, and the radio shows that they had which discussed those teams. That certainly wasn't all they aired, however, and at one time, when I was fairly young, I used to listen to a fair amount of KOA myself.

The first radio tube, circa 1898.

KOA is still around, but those days are really gone, as are the days of all local radio.  We picked up KOA here over the air, on AM radio, and we listened mostly to AM.  FM doesn't travel far, and the big local station was also AM.  FM started coming on strong for music locally in the late 1970s.  Now, the radio scene is considerably altered, although the biggest local broadcaster, KTWO, remains the biggest local broadcaster.

But now radio must contend with satellite radio, which offers endless variety, just like cable television, and with the Ipod and Iphone, which can store so much music or other broadcast material that it would literally take years for many people to listen to their electronic libraries.  

One of the things XM Radio, one of the satellite channels, has is Old Time Radio, which plays the serial broadcasts of the 1930s through the 1950s.  It's fascinating to listen to, and really serves to remind a person of a completely different era in radio, when it occupied a major part of most Americans daily lives.

 It's hard to imagine how much this was the case now. But radio occupied a central position in the homes that its not only lost, but which is pretty difficult to imagine for most people. Coming in for most right after World War One, and staying up through the 1950s, through music, news and serialized shows, radio offered at that time what the combined Internet and television industries offer today.  And it had a similar impact.  People took their news, and often their views, from 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.

 Fancy radio, probably 1920s.

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.

Mayor LaGuardia addresses New Yorkers on the topic of milk.

And for the first time, politicians could campaign nationally, or at least state wide, through a medium that didn't involve the written word nor the whistle stop.

Franklin Roosevelt addresses the nation in 1934.

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



The American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming has digitized Wyoming Governor Hunts papers, including correspondence he received or sent concerning the Internment Camp at Hear Mountain.


Included in these, is a surprising example of somebody writing to the Governor to inquire about receiving a "Japanese girl" for work at her ranch home.  She was willing to pay wages, but still, its not something I'd expect to have found anyone inquiring about.  A surprising thing to read.

The Big Picture: 74th U.S. Infantry 1918.


Sunday, January 12, 2014

Holscher's Hub: Special Passenger Permit, Chinese Air Force

Holscher's Hub: Special Passenger Permit, Chinese Air Force: A Chinese Air Force (Nationalist China, i.e. Taiwan), issued to my father.

Watching the Morph. How the news gets spun by the right and left in the age of the unreliable Internet

Wyoming has a very large Indian Reservation, the Wind River Reservation, which is home to part of the Shoshone Tribe* and also home to the Arapaho Tribe. It's also the home to quite a few non Indians as well.

The Wind River Reservation has a fascinating history which includes sort of a smoldering dispute which has run for decades about the proper boundaries of the Reservation. This dispute is complicated, but what it basically surrounds is withdrawals of certain areas from the Reservation by Congress, so that these areas could be opened up for general homesteading outside of Tribal jurisdiction.  I'd note here, and it is very significant, that areas of Reservations could be, and were, opened up for settlement within Tribal boundaries.  Contrary to what is very evidently the general belief, you do not have to be an Indian to own land within a Reservation.  Indeed, the Wind River Reservation includes part of the Midvale Irrigation District, which is a very significant irrigation district which is mostly farmed by non Indian farmers who live within the Reservation. 

One of the areas that have long been disputed by the Tribes is the area around the city of Riverton. Riverton is the county seat of Fremont County, and it is located on lands that were opened up for homesteading in 1905 by the United States.  It's generally been nearly universally believed by all but the Tribes that this event took the area in and around Riverton outside the Reservation, with the Reservation bordering it.  Indeed, the general belief would be that, if you were driving West on the highway, you'd enter the Reservation just outside of Shoshoni, leave it again rapidly, enter the framing belt where Riverton is, and then cross the river back on to the Reservation, and then leave it again just before you entered Hudson.  Prior legal decisions support this view.

Recently, however, the Tribes petitioned the EPA for a status equivalent to that of a State in regards to regulating air quality. The EPA granted this petition, but in so doing it went one step further, for reasons I haven't looked into, and held that the1905 act opening up the land for homesteading did not withdraw the lands from the Reservation.

That decision is contrary to prior court rulings and it came as a surprise to everyone including, in my opinion, the Tribes, which haven't really fully reacted to it yet.  The Tribes are being careful to take this a bit slowly, as they aren't exactly sure what this would mean.  It does have real implications, as it would mean the transfer of some authority in Riverton to the Tribes, such as law enforcement, and potentially taxation. The town is ignoring the ruling, which is probably a solid legal approach to take, and the State of Wyoming is challenging it.  Ultimately the question will end up in Federal Court.

What this in no way means, however, is what is being reported on a right wing news oriented website (one I hadn't heard of before a person sent me the link to it). That site reported, amongst other things:
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.
No, that's not accurate at all.  Not even close.

You don't have to be an Indian to live on an Indian reservation, and real property on the Reservation works the same way as it does everywhere else in Fremont County.  If you buy property, and anyone can, you record the deed in the County courthouse in Lander.  Riverton is still in Fremont County and still a town in Wyoming no matter what happens.  Just as Ft. Washakie, which has always been a Fremont County town in the Reservation, and Lander which has always been a Fremont County town outside of the Reservation, are.  

This is not to say that there wouldn't be a lot of legal implications to the boundary being reestablished. There certainly would be.  Most particularly questions regarding law enforcement, civil law, and the taxation, would be present. And there might, or might not, be somethings to work out regarding the schools, although I would note that there are Fremont County school districts which are part of the state system that are inside the Reservation.  For some reason, Fremont County has a lot of school districtions.

But what's so interesting here is how quickly this story morphed into a false one in some quarter, and a quarter that apparently had little if any connection with Wyoming.  Somebody must falsely believe that only Indians live on Indian Reservations, which is completely inaccurate.  Indeed, the Wind River Tribal Court doesn't even bother to determine if jurors it calls are enrolled Tribal members or not, and it calls Indians and non Indians in for jury service, just as the Ninth Judicial District calls in people from inside, and outside, of the Reservation for jury duty.

This sort of thing seems common in the Internet age.  Local stories, like the one about New Jersey's George Washington Bridge, get blown up out of proportion as if they are of national importance.  And a story like this, which is full of legal nuances, gets reported in some quarter as if the President has some vague relationship to it, and as if this means non Indians are about to be expelled from their homes. 

Odd how things become told as stories.

 _________________________________________________________________________________

*  The Shoshone were a fairly large Tribe, in releative terms, in the 19th Century and were truly indiginous to the region, unlike the Sioux and Cheyenne which were displaced in the East and moved to the West, becoming Plains Indians in the process of adopting the horse.  For this reason, i.e., immigration, the Cheyenne and Sioux were regarded as invaders, as they really were invaders, by the tribes already present in the region, such as the Shoshone and Crow.

The Shoshone were a very widespread tribe and are known by other names, probably not surprisingly. The Bannock, for example, are Shoshone.  While regarded as a separate tribe, the Comanche are actually Shoshone as well, distinct culturally as they were the early adopters of the horse in the 18th Century, as opposed to the rest of the tribe which only adopted horses some years later.

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - The Centennial of World War One

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - The Centennial of World War One

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

I have noticed where a really old post here, the one about Sandra Sotomayor being interviewed by Oprah, has suddenly become one of the most popular posts on this blog.  I was surprised when that occurred, but by that I take it that people are searching her out as a topic.  Sotomayor that is.   You can't escape Oprah.  I'm confident that when the first human beings land on Mars that they'll be confronted by a television set running part 237,472 of the Oprah retirement special.

Anyhow, I'm sure that happened as Justice Sotomayor signed the order certifying the Constitutionality of the contraceptive provisions of the Affordable Health Care Act to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Little Sisters of the Poor v. Seblius.  Sotomayor gets mentioned in that context as the news has reported that she issued a temporary order prohibiting the application of the AHCA to the Sisters.  The order, in its entirety, reads as follows:

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.
That's it.

So from this, we have people commenting, if they are political liberals, about how this must mean that Sotomayor is a secret conservative, and they've been betrayed, and at the same time we have those who are conservative expressing hope that maybe she's not as bad as they feared.

Well, whatever may be the case, you can't read anything into an order like this other than that this matter is going to the U.S. Supreme Court. That's it.  An interlocutory order of this type merely sees to preserve the status quo ante.

But, just like the occasional protestors outside of the U.S. Supreme Court, all the commentary shows how little of a grasp people have on what the Court does.  The Court is not a legislative body.

This isn't to say that it gets everything right.  That would be absurd.  It makes some titanic flops in errors of judgment on occasion.  And it does that most frequently when ideology creeps into its decisions. But, by and large, that happens less often than people like to imagine.

And it is true that the individual world outlooks of judges influence them, and it would be absurd to argue otherwise.  Who sits on the  Supreme Court really matters.  But when people get happy or angry over anyone Justice's acts, we should take pause. What a judge does often isn't what lay people believe them to be doing.  And quite often, whether they get things right or wrong, they're just trying to apply the law.  Here, Sotomayor, who has drawn this duty for a time, was applying the longstanding judicial rule of trying to preserve the status quo until the Court has a chance to rule. That's the only thing anyone can read into this, one way or another.

Which is exactly what she also did in Herbert v. Kitchen, the Utah polygamy case in which a Federal District Court (incorrectly I believe) struck down Utah's prohibition on polygamy.  This matter is going up to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Sotomayor issued an order stating:
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.
Here, I would note, I think the Administration acted shamefully by having Eric Holder, the Attorney General, rapidly announce that the Federal government is going to recognize the rushed 1,300 unions created in the interim between the Federal trial court's action and the Supreme Court's injunction on the topic of the homosexual marriages, thereby effectively indicating that the Administration is prepared to ignore any negative ruling that may ultimately arise months from now when the  Tench Circuit, and potentially the United States Supreme Court may rule.  Those on the political left may cheer that action, but by the same token it opens the door to future administration taking the old line of Jackson about the Cherokees, "the court made the law, now let them enforce it" come back, and that cuts both ways.  Respect for the law would have required that the Administration wait for the result like anyone else. And the Attorney  General, and a President who was a law professor, should know that.  Now the same groups will have no complaint if a future politically right Administration choose to ignore dist

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.

The press has been full of news about the scandal surrounding lane closures by the New Jersey Christie administration on the George Washington Bridge.  The story is that some Christie staffers, without his knowledge, arranged for closures to get at the mayor of Ft. Lee New Jersey, I think.

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

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.