Stress may be killing law students' brain cells, law prof says
Oh my.
Friday, June 20, 2014
Friday Farming: Alfalfa Field, Las Vegas Nevada, 1910
I'll often pass on commenting on these photos, but I can't help but comment on this one. Sometimes when I post these I wonder "what does that look like today?" I suspect some of these places don't look much different, some quite a bit different. I've posted photographs before, for example, of urban San Francisco, and I can recognize a lot of what I'm seeing from the couple of times I've been there.
Well, here's one where we can be sure that the photo doesn't depict a current scene. Las Vegas before gambling interest and the mafia converted the town into a giant gambling playground.
Life On a Kansas Cattle Ranch: Top 10 most dangerous jobs in America---farming is #10!
Life On a Kansas Cattle Ranch: Top 10 most dangerous jobs in America---farming is #10!
Not news really. Agriculture has always been a pretty dangerous job. According to at least one statistic I've seen, male deaths in agriculture were sufficiently high such that children being raised by a single mother in the late 19th Century was as common as it is today, but for a different reason.
Another one that people sometimes are surprised by is commercial fishing. It's quite dangerous. And Taxi driver is also very dangerous.
Not news really. Agriculture has always been a pretty dangerous job. According to at least one statistic I've seen, male deaths in agriculture were sufficiently high such that children being raised by a single mother in the late 19th Century was as common as it is today, but for a different reason.
Another one that people sometimes are surprised by is commercial fishing. It's quite dangerous. And Taxi driver is also very dangerous.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Saudi America? North America faces challenges on path to energy independence - Energy & Resources | The Irish Times - Mon, Apr 28, 2014
Saudi America? North America faces challenges on path to energy independence - Energy & Resources | The Irish Times - Mon, Apr 28, 2014
Some of you may have missed this article in the Irish Times. . . .okay, everyone missed it in the Irish Times.
Interesting view from the Old Country, so to speak.
And what a remarkable change we've seen. The US was an oil exporting country up through the Second World War, but an importing one by the 1960s. We were desperately dependent on Middle Easter oil by the early 1970s.
Now, we're a net energy exporter (which is different from just considering oil alone) and there's a move to open up the export ban on oil. This all brought about, really, by technology in the oil patch. At the same time, American fuel consumption has gone flat, something was never really expected, and may actually start to decline.
Some of you may have missed this article in the Irish Times. . . .okay, everyone missed it in the Irish Times.
Interesting view from the Old Country, so to speak.
And what a remarkable change we've seen. The US was an oil exporting country up through the Second World War, but an importing one by the 1960s. We were desperately dependent on Middle Easter oil by the early 1970s.
Now, we're a net energy exporter (which is different from just considering oil alone) and there's a move to open up the export ban on oil. This all brought about, really, by technology in the oil patch. At the same time, American fuel consumption has gone flat, something was never really expected, and may actually start to decline.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Cameras
Pentax digital DSLR K-x Camera, and Pentax 35 mm ZX-M film camera below. The K-x has a Vivitar 200 mm zoom lens afixed to it, which was originally for a Pentax M-X 35 mm film camera. It's stock zoom lens is next to it.
I really like cameras. Anyone who has looked around any of my blogs knows that. Our Holscher's Hub blog is pretty much nothing other than photographs, with rare exception. And we have dedicated blogs to photographic topics alone.
Churches of the West is a blog that we do just based on photos of churches we run into traveling about.
Courthouses of the West does the same for courthouses.
Painted Bricks was our very first blog, and it was originally dedicated solely to the painted sides of Casper Wyoming buildings, although it has since branched out to include buildings that interest us that way anywhere.
Railhead addresses solely things associated with railroads, a blog I started as I thought the old station in Newcastle Wyoming was interesting.
Some Gave All features mostly war memorials, although a few other memorials are also included.
So, we clearly like to take photos. And, while we make no pretensions to being the greatest photographers of all time, or any time, or anywhere, we like cameras a lot too.
Cameras are something that I like and use all the time that have undergone a stunning change in recent years. I suppose they've been continually evolving for a long time, but I didn't really appreciate it until the digital camera evolution.
I learned to take photographs in a junior high school class with a 35 mm Argus C3 camera. This model of camera was amazingly common, and we had one at home from my father's youth. It says something that a camera my father had before he went into the Air Force was still a basic introductory camera later. It says even more when you realize that the C3 was a camera that was introduced in 1939. The camera itself was made into the 1950s, but it kept on being used as an introductory film camera for at least twenty years thereafter.
Argus C3.
Soon thereafter I went to a Pentax M-V 35mm SLR camera. I knew very well that "single lens reflex" cameras were superior to rangefinder cameras, and my father usually shot film with a Zeiss Contaflex SLR that he obtained while in the USAF. I always thought that camera a super camera, but it really wasn't as user friendly as the Pentax. In that era, Pentax cameras were everywhere, and my introduction to them was really accidental as my father got me the camera as a gift. It was an entry level SLR, but it was such a good camera that it held its own for about 20 years until it was damaged when I forgot that it was on the gun wall of my pickup truck and drove off. It still works, but it has never been quite the same thereafter.
The M-V featured an automatic light sensor, which was a really nice addition to the camera as opposed to the C-3 or Contaflex. With those older cameras, you needed a light meter to really set the camera accurately, although my father was so good with the Contaflex that he often didn't bother with the light meter, as he knew the light ranges and camera settings by heart. I'd learned how to use a light meter in school, but I frankly forgot how pretty quickly once I had the M-V, as I really didn't need it. Otherwise, however, with the M-V the photographer set the lens settings manually. The camera came with a stock 50mm lens, but as Pentax's used, and still use, the revolutionary Pentax bayonet mount, switching to another lens just took (and takes) seconds to accomplish. With screw mounts on other cameras the process was much more cumbersome.
My wife replaced that camera after I damaged it with a second Pentax 35mm film camera, a newer Pentax ZX-M with many automatic features. Sticking with Pentax was important to me as I had a really nice Vivitar telephoto lens for the first Pentax, and of course one lens will fit any other with the same mount. That camera also came with a really nice telephoto lens of its own. And the new automatic settings were shockingly automatic, as it chose nearly ever setting, and focused, all on is own unless a person chose manual settings, which you could do. I loved the camera (and I still like it). However, soon thereafter the digital revolution was upon us.
Digital cameras came into our house with a compact Canon that my wife wanted. While only a compact camera, it was soon doing yeoman's work as a camera and being used for more photos than anything else. Soon I found myself borrowing it, where formally I would have taken by Pentax 35mm. That old Canon compact digital camera is now fairly long in the tooth, but I still carry it with me on trips. As its compact, and still works, I can pack it easily while traveling for work, and I very frequently do. As it doesn't work perfectly anymore, however, we've replaced it for my wife with a Canon SX-230 compact, which for a compact camera is an absolutely super camera. I'd prefer a Pentax compact as they make a nice all weather one (which may be flagged under the Ricoh name now) but the Canon SX-230 is a heck of a compact camera.
Well, anyhow, because of the first Canon, I finally yielded to a digital camera, but only because Pentax introduced its digital DSLR.
It seems that everywhere you go, of course, you see Canons, which have managed to take over the SLR world now that digital cameras dominate. But Pentax's are unique in a couple of ways and retain my loyalty, in spite of the massive decline in their market share in the US. For one thing, Pentax's will still take the old lens.
That's right. Unlike a Canon, I can still mount my old telephoto lens. Indeed, any Pentax digital SLR will take any lens made for a Pentax bayonet mount. Any. And they all work with them.
You do have to know how to use them on a digital camera.. If they're really old, with no internal automatic features, you have to set the camera and camera lens setting to manual, and know how to set the lens settings. But you had to do the same thing with the lens of that vintage on the 35mms of that era, you just do it differently. They will, however, work. The one throwback to the old era, if you do that, that you must adjust to is that you theoretically are back to the era in which you had to use a light meter, and I have downloaded a light meter on my cell phone that takes care of that. Having said that, to my surprise, like my father, I've gotten to where I really don't use the light meter much, as you pretty much have the settings memorized anyhow.
Cow elk, photograph taken with a Vivitar 200mm lens on a Pentax K-x DSLR. This lens was made in an era when nobody even dreamed of a digital camera and the elk was so far off it was barely visible without the lens.
When using a later film lens, such as the 80mm zoom lens my second Pentax film camera came with, you can use more of the automatic settings but you have to focus the lens manually, which is no big deal.
Indoor photograph with a 80mm zoom lens, taken without flash, with a Pentax K-x digital camera. The lens was made for a late Pentax 35mm film SLR.
Of course, with the fully automatic lens it came with, and a really good film card, it takes spectacular photographs.
Haleakalā, Maui, Hawaii. Pentax K-x with standard lens.
A second feature of the Pentax is that its an all weather camera. That's a big plus to an outdoor photographer. They're as tough as nails and they don't care about rain or snow. This isn't true of every DSLR. That matters to me.
Having a really good photo card turns out to be a must, as at first I was actually a bit disappointed with the quality of the photos the camera took at first, with a standard computer card. My son repeatedly told me to get a better card, and when I finally did, I was stunned. The colors are so vivid, it reminds me of the reaction people had to Kodachrome in that they may be more vivid than real life.
Lions, photographed through glass, at the Denver Zoo. Shoot, this was sort of late winter, early spring. Were the colors really that vivid?
Kodacolor 35 mm slide photograph of Wake Island, from about 1954 or so, taken with a Zeiss. Vivid images, but you were limited to a roll of about 24 photos.
But I can live with that.
But what a change in photograph this revolution has brought. For one thing, the former need to load film every 24 or 35 shots is gone. That's was a stunning development at first, and for a long time about every 24 shots it would dawn on me. Indeed, I've had one singular occasion when I nearly filled up the photo card, but on that occasion I'd taken hundreds and hundreds of photographs over a period of days, including some video images. I bought a second card, but I never loaded it. I have no idea how many photos I actually had, but it was a pile of photos.
A byproduct, of that, is that you can take a lot of bad photos. That may sound odd, but with film, you really picked your shots. You took a lot fewer photos, but you made sure they counted. I've found that my photographic skills have actually declined somewhat since I started shooting digital, because I can waste shots. I've recently undertake to address that, but it's hard to avoid in some ways.
Something that is increasingly hard for users of digital cameras to appreciate is that all film cameras, good or bad, were slaves of film and therefore of film development. Generally, with a 35mm camera, you took about 24 shots and then loaded a new role of film. At that point, you had two options, those being to have the film developed (by far the most common option) or to develop it yourself, if you had the equipment.
When I was learning how to use a 35mm camera I also learned how to develop black and white film, which isn't all that hard. Still, it wasn't instant. Developing film involved unloading the film, in a dark room, into a developing canister and filling the canister with developing solution. After the solution was in the canister for the appropriate amount of time, you washed the film with distilled water, took it out of the canister, and let it dry. Thereafter you put the negatives in a devise that was essentially a projector and projected the image onto photo paper, which was essentially another type of film. You then washed that image in another solution, and hung it to dry.
Depending upon how skilled a person was at this, there was actually a lot that could be done to the film in the developing stage. Beyond that, there was a lot that could be done at the point where you printed an image onto the paper, including choosing different types of paper. All this went into deciding what sort of image you would ultimately produce.
Of course, part of what determined what sort of image you produced depended upon what sort of film you had chosen, which also varied. Not only was there a choice between black and white, but between different grades of light sensitivity of the film. Generally, the less light sensitive it was, the "grainer" it was. The finer the grain, the more light sensitive. With black and white film, you could go all the way down to 60 ASA, fairly easily, which was a film that was not very light sensitive and good for any brightness, although fairly rarely used. 100 ASA was more common. For mixed indoor and outdoor, 400 ASA was common, but not anything much higher than that. Once you got up to high ASA film, like 600 or 1000 ASA, you were probably limiting yourself to indoor photography.
Something that is increasingly hard for users of digital cameras to appreciate is that all film cameras, good or bad, were slaves of film and therefore of film development. Generally, with a 35mm camera, you took about 24 shots and then loaded a new role of film. At that point, you had two options, those being to have the film developed (by far the most common option) or to develop it yourself, if you had the equipment.
When I was learning how to use a 35mm camera I also learned how to develop black and white film, which isn't all that hard. Still, it wasn't instant. Developing film involved unloading the film, in a dark room, into a developing canister and filling the canister with developing solution. After the solution was in the canister for the appropriate amount of time, you washed the film with distilled water, took it out of the canister, and let it dry. Thereafter you put the negatives in a devise that was essentially a projector and projected the image onto photo paper, which was essentially another type of film. You then washed that image in another solution, and hung it to dry.
Depending upon how skilled a person was at this, there was actually a lot that could be done to the film in the developing stage. Beyond that, there was a lot that could be done at the point where you printed an image onto the paper, including choosing different types of paper. All this went into deciding what sort of image you would ultimately produce.
Of course, part of what determined what sort of image you produced depended upon what sort of film you had chosen, which also varied. Not only was there a choice between black and white, but between different grades of light sensitivity of the film. Generally, the less light sensitive it was, the "grainer" it was. The finer the grain, the more light sensitive. With black and white film, you could go all the way down to 60 ASA, fairly easily, which was a film that was not very light sensitive and good for any brightness, although fairly rarely used. 100 ASA was more common. For mixed indoor and outdoor, 400 ASA was common, but not anything much higher than that. Once you got up to high ASA film, like 600 or 1000 ASA, you were probably limiting yourself to indoor photography.
Photograph of NCHS football player, 1980 Oil Bowl, probably taken with 300 ASA film and developed and printed by author.
This described the process for black and white film. For color film, which I've never developed myself, the process was similar, if somewhat more complicated.
Most people didn't develop their own film of course, they took it to a place that developed film. When I was young, this meant that the film here was shipped to Denver and came back in about a week. Later, we had a selection of one hour film developers. Knowing how film was developed, the one hour concept always bothered me a bit, but generally it was pretty good. Later, places like Walmart and Walgreen's had developing centers, and at least here the Walgreen's still does. Still, unlike digital photography, you ended up with a set of prints or slides. Now, in contrast, you can view your images instantly, but you still can't handle them instantly. If you are going to handle them, you still have to print them somehow.
This all presumes, of course, that you weren't shooting a Polaroid Land Camera. Polaroids dispensed with the film developing step by using a special sort of photo paper that was loaded directly into the camera, and which only took a few minutes to develop after the photo was taken, and the paper removed from the camera. The process changed over the years, but for many years the photographer held the paper tight between a couple of steel plates for a few minutes and then the photo was ready to view. This allowed the photo to be viewed immediately, but the process sacrificed quality for speed. Now, I know that some will maintain that some really fine photos could be taken with a Polaroid, and while I know doubt would agree that a few eccentric people probably developed the talent for taking really nice photos with Polaroids, they'd be a distinct minority as the camera was really marketed for snap shots, which was generally fine with the user. Probably more home photos and photos of children were taken with Polaroids then anything else. Sadly, the Polaroid photo tends to fade very rapidly, so many of those photos are fading away. My mother had a Polaroid camera for many years.
Another aspect of the digital revolution is that now digital cameras are simply everywhere, including in our phones. Some of them take amazingly good photos, and they're all capable of taking some good photos. I was very skeptical of this at first, and indeed, didn't want to believe it, but its true, to a degree. This means that everything is getting photographed all the time, and quite a few things are getting photographed that shouldn't, and a lot of really bad photography is going on all the time. In some ways, things are a bit over familiar.
Included in this, in my view, is a trend to video every single deposition that a party takes, which some lawyers now do. I haven't really addressed video cameras here, as I like still frame cameras better, but the distinction between the two is blurred now as most "photograph" cameras will not take video, and probably most video cameras will take photos, should the user be so inclined. Anyhow, some lawyers, principally plaintiff's lawyers, now video every single deposition they take. The usability of such videos in courts is questionable, if that's the goal, and presumably it really isn't. It's probably a trial preparation tool, really, but a questionable one in my view as most witnesses do not really present the same way in front of a judge or jury as they do in a courtroom setting. Anyhow, the smallest of these cameras are now so small, they have the appearance of cell phones.
Anyhow, what a change in photography. Early in the 20th Century professional cameras were massive affairs, but the Brownie camera, an amateur, low cost, film camera had come in.
There were a wide variety of 35 mm cameras by the 1920s, and popular personal photograph got an enormous boost with the 1939 introduction of the Argus C3. Through the lens reflex cameras made their appearance in the 1920s, but it wasn't until 1949 that the prismatic SLR was introduced, sparking a revolution amongst photography enthusiasts. Nearly every serious camera maker soon introduced one, and they dominated in the serious photography market until the end of the film era. My father bought a really good SLR Zeiss camera while serving in the Air Force, and the camea was so good that he used it hte rest of his life.
Digital photography seemed likely to put a big dent in SLR cameras, and it did at first, but now they've revived, particularly in the form of Canon cameras in the US. But most of the old SLR manufacturers, save for Zeiss and Leica, which dropped out of the SLR market, still make one, and a couple of makers have entered the field who did not make film cameras. But, just as I suppose more photos were taken with Kodak disposable and compact 35mms back in the day, more now are probably taken by cell phones.
Still, what a revolution in photography, even if things remain familiar.
Originally published on June 17, 2014.Anyhow, what a change in photography. Early in the 20th Century professional cameras were massive affairs, but the Brownie camera, an amateur, low cost, film camera had come in.
Serious professional camera, early 20th Century.
Zeiss Contraflex.
Lens barrel for Contrafex, which fixed the existing lens on an extension for a telephoto effect. I never actually saw this in use, and it does strike me as difficult to use.
My father also had a Yashica 120 mm camera. These cameras used big film for a finer detailed photograph, much the way "full frame" digital cameras due today (while most people don't use full frame digital cameras, the lack of one is a source of ongoing angst for Pentax fans, as Pentax does not make a full frame DSLR, just their regular DSLR). It was a nice, if cumbersome, camera and my father used it less over the years, probably due to that. And film became very difficult to obtain.
Yashicaflex with lens caps on and viewer closed.
Viewer cover opened.
Top of camera, with viewer opened. You viewed the object through the top of the camera and saw the image reversed.
Digital photography seemed likely to put a big dent in SLR cameras, and it did at first, but now they've revived, particularly in the form of Canon cameras in the US. But most of the old SLR manufacturers, save for Zeiss and Leica, which dropped out of the SLR market, still make one, and a couple of makers have entered the field who did not make film cameras. But, just as I suppose more photos were taken with Kodak disposable and compact 35mms back in the day, more now are probably taken by cell phones.
Still, what a revolution in photography, even if things remain familiar.
Updated on June 18, 2014.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
It will kill you. . .but it's good for you. . no, wait, it'll kill you . . .
I don't pay very much attention to health related news. Perhaps I should, but I largely do not. There's probably a variety of reasons for that, but one of them is that as I have an undergraduate degree in one of the sciences, I tend to be skeptical about the theory de jure to some degree. I'm not a skeptic of the sciences, but I'm aware that at any one time a previously barely vetted theory is likely to be problematic. Also, as that science was geology, which tends to take the long view of things, I tend to be skeptical of any health related news, particularly dietary news, that doesn't.
Also, I guess, I'm lucky to not have a lot of the food related problems that inspire theories designed to some degree to be unconventional or easy fixes. In my middle age, I'm heavier than I have been at any prior point in my life, but I'm not overweight and was really much too think when I was still in my early 20s. I don't each much for breakfast or dinner as a rule, so a lot of the concerns people have there basically don't apply to me. So I guess I can afford to be skeptical.
But, given the way health news whips around, I'm amazed everyone isn't skeptical.
Take some items that have been in the news recently, that is in recent years. Let's take, for example, coffee.
I like coffee (and have blogged on the topic previously) and I drink several cups every morning, typically while waiting to take my daughter to school. At one time I used to drink it at work as well.
World War One YMCA poster showing one of their volunteer women workers who handed out books and, as you can see, coffee, for which I would have been most grateful.
When I was a kid you use to hear the canard that coffee would stunt your growth. I have no idea where that fable came from, but my folks never believed it and I started drinking coffee in the morning when I was in high school. About that time, in the 1970s, you'd sometimes hear some snarky remarks about coffee containing an addictive drug, caffeine, which of course it does but as an addictive drug its in the category of ones that human beings are probably evolved to handle and its pretty darned harmless for the most part.
In college I was a confirmed coffee drinker. I've been drinking coffee every morning now for decades.
I did cut back at work and no longer drink it there. The reasons were self evident, however. I was just drinking too darned much and it was making me jittery and messing up my sleep. One Lent I gave it up entirely and when Lent was over I never went back to drinking it at work.
Several years ago, all of a sudden, some newstory came out that coffee might ward off Parkinson's Disease. Hurrah if true! Not a reason that I'm going to keep drinking it however. Some time after that, however, some story came out that at a certain level it was bad for your heart. Boo. Still, not going to change my morning habits. This past week I read that it might help stave off Alzheimer's. Hurrah again.
Well, what about coffee's traditional rival, tea?
YMCA poster supposedly showing a volunteer pouring a cup of tea, according to the Library of Congress, but my guess is that's coffee.
Given as its apparently the caffeine in coffee that has alleged benefits, presumably the benefits and risks, if any, of coffee, apply to tea as well. But I'm not going to take it up, as I'm not really keen on tea. My son likes it for some reason, and my daughter likes a custom tea drink called a London Fog. I have no idea what a London Fog actually is.
Anyhow, awhile back there was a rage over Green Tea. As I like Ice Tea, I bought a bottle figuring tea was tea.
Green tea is vile.
Supposedly green tea contains antioxidants, meaning if you drink it, you will not rust.
No, actually antioxidants are supposedly good for your heart. I don't know why, but they are. Well, as good as they may be, I'm not going to drink green tea as it is truly icky.
And my heart is apparently in pretty good shape. I know that as a year ago I had one of those "stress tests." This came about as I was having chest pains, although they were not of the type that a person typically assumes come from a heart problem. Better safe than sorry, they gave me the test.
It was an odd experience, as in a stress test they elevate your heart rate by having you walk an incline plane. A rising treadmill, as it were. They told me that they were going to raise my heart rate to a certain level in order to do that. As it went along, they kept raising and raising it, but my heart wasn't getting there.
"Do you run?'
No.
"Hmmmmm. . . . . ., do you work out a lot?"
No.
"Hmmmmm. . . . we'll raise it a bit more."
By the end, I was walking ain incline plain approximating the difficult face of the Matterhorn. My heart made it to the appropriate rate and they proclaimed "no problem."
The Matterhorn. Apparently my heart is so solid that I could jog up it without ill effect.
Which means that my problem was probably a hiatul hernia or probably true indigestion, for which I am grateful.
This conversation is one that I repeat, on an occasional basis, with my physician, who routinely asks me a series of set questions which are probably designed to encourage folks to exercise, which no doubt is a good idea. I'm sure that I don't get enough exercise. Anyhow, what I'll get is "So are you getting any exercise?" "Um, not really." "Just ranch work and stress eh?" "Yeah."
Stress, and not of the stress test variety, does kill, I'll concede. It's an occupational hazard in my office line of work, which brings me to my next topic, smoking. Before I do I'll note that awhile back I read that being employed in an occupation, like law, that requires a lot of mental activity can stave of dementia, although I've known of a couple of lawyers who suffered from that. I'm not sure, however, that stress has any physical benefits.
Anyhow, I don't smoke and never have. But couple of the lawyers I know at one time smoked cigars during moments of high stress.
Some time ago I read something that claimed that the occasional cigar, like caffeine, might stave off Parkinsons. Obviously this opinion is suspect, as the occasional cigar would have to be extremely occasional as the risk of cancer would obviously override any benefit that tobacco might conceivable have. How an opinion like this even gets generated leads a person to wonder about some of these efforts.
If smoking is the topic of such studies, than surely drinking must be as well, and indeed it has been.
This probably isn't too surprising, as alcohol is a poison (which it actually is) that humans beings are acclimated to, to a degree, such that its evidence that humans started ingesting alcohol, for some legitimate reason, in vast antiquity. Indeed, it's known that beer is not only the single most consumed manufactured beverage on earth but that its one of the oldest. Maybe the oldest. Recipes for beer date back to Mesopotamia, and pretty much every culture on Earth has brewed it.
Speculation is that beer was originally brewed as it was a form of liquid food. Bread, basically, that would keep. At some point it became safer to drink than water out of streams or rivers. The same is true of wine. To some degree, the alcoholic beverages of the ancient world to the Medieval one were based on region rather than purely taste, although qualitative differences in both go back into antiquity. Suffice it to say, both drinks were the normal drinks for many people on a daily basis for much of human history.
Which does not mean, of course, that they were uniformly safe up until modern times. The danger of excessive drinking has always been there. And just as records of drinking as a common practice go back into vast antiquity, the dangers of drinking too much have been noted back that far as well.
Americans, it should be noted, have a weird panicky relationship with their food and always have. Alcoholic beverages are no exception to this. The founding of the nation itself was tied up with alcohol a bit, but a strong anti alcohol streak developed relatively early in the nation's history, leading ultimately to the Prohibition movement after the Civil War. Given as the early 19th Century was truly sodden, perhaps that's not a surprise.
Prohibition is often recalled today as a morals based campaign, but a concern for drinkers' health was a strong aspect of it. Nonetheless, it was World War One, and the resultant concern that U.S. Doughboys, after having been exposed to French wine and French women would return as reprobates pushed it over the top.
Busting beer barrels in Prohibition.
One of the remarkable features of Prohibition in the US is that it not only was brief, 1919 to 1933, but it also immediately spawned efforts to repeal it. No sooner had the country decided to ban alcohol in the name of morals and health, than people were buying it illegally and arguing for Prohibition to be repealed. The health concerns seemingly forgotten.
Women were prominent in the temperance movement, and in the repeal movement as well.
The Great Depression followed by World War Two effectively put an end to temperance in the US for a long time, in spite of some county's remaining dry. By the early 1970s some states had dropped the drinking age down to the teens, such as Wyoming which had a drinking age of 19.
Following that, people became concerned once again about the health and social costs of drinking. The Federal government sponsored an effort to get the states to raise the age up to 21, which all subsequently did, although highway safety was the main concern there. Still, the danger of excess consumption became increasingly known.
Then, starting at some point in the 1980s, the health news started to announce that may some drinking wasn't bad for you, in moderation. Nobody seems to be able to define moderation, but it was noted that it seemed to be the butter consuming French had low heart disease rates. So then it came to be asserted that perhaps a glass of red wine per day wasn't bad for you. Ultimately it came to be asserted that perhaps a drink of about any alcoholic beverage per day wasn't bad.
Following that, however, was the inevitable counter. In the UK the government really started to discourage drinking, in a nation that had a beer culture. And this week, coming out of the UK, is the news that perhaps just two drinks per day, in the middle aged, would accelerate mental decline. That amount, in men, is the same amount which previously had been in the safe category which you could consume per day out of a concern for your heart.
And all of this is, of course, just the major or popular stories of this type. At any one time, in the US, the latest fad diets are circulating around. Eat this, don't eat that, wait, don't eat this, eat that. People leap on these things as the latest fad, whether their scientific based, or just slickly hawked. It doesn't seem to dawn on a lot of people that they're eating a very unnatural diet that may be bad for them, and that countering with an extremely unnatural diet is likely not a very good idea.
Set in other terms, eating three meals a day out of boxes is probably a poor idea. For that matter, three big meals a day may make sense for farmers and ranchers, but probably not for office workers. Nonetheless, that's what a lot of people do. And then, when that has an inevitable impact, they go for some diet that might make sense for an ill rabbit, but not a human being. If you are eating a series of meals that you prepare in a blender, you've lost sight of the fact that your forebearors were hunter gatherers, and biologically, so are you.
In its most extreme form, we have the think blanch, mostly white and urban, folks who have decided to go to war with nature and become vegans, a diet which ironically only a heavily industrialized society can support. In a "self sustaining" natural environment, you'd be dead in about two weeks on that diet, as it requires industrial support to even exist. Be that as it may, in that environment most people would come to their senses and be out slaughtering a buffalo in less than a week. Still, it's interesting that we now have some people who are so afraid of the nature of their food, and of real nature, that they'd rather eat in a wholly fake manner.
At the same time, in the typical American fashion, we now have television channels dedicated to nothing but food. And some that food would blimp you up in a big hurry. Hosts go out to diners and survey the heaviest duty, most caloric, stuff imaginable. And folks watch them do it. Odd.
Truth be known, of course, nobody lives forever. And sitting around in an office all day isn't really very good for you. We no doubt have some dietary concerns, and nobody can realistically maintain that there's any benefit to some things, like smoking. Don't go overboard on anything seems about as solid advice as anyone could really hope for.
Postscript
Something related to this, to chew the fat on.
Postscript II
I haven't read the article yet, but liking butter, and having never given it up, I'm pleased.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Understanding Iraq
The first thing a person looking at the civil war in Iraq needs to understand is that it isn't a real country.
King Faisal of Iraq. Born in Mecca in 1885, elected to the Ottoman parliament in 1913, practical leader of the Arab Revolt in the field during World War One, King of Syria in 1920 until French interest prevailed, and then King of Iraq.
Iraq is a creation of the British Empire. That doesn't make it good, or bad, but it isn't a nation state. A nation state, of course is a country (i.e., "state") where everyone in the country is part of the same nationality. Not all countries are nation states. The US isn't. Canada isn't. Australia isn't. But most are. Germany is, for example, or France, Italy or Spain.
Imperial nations didn't draw borders, usually, based upon nationality, but upon convenience. And that's how Iraq basically came about.
This is not to say that the region does not have an ancient history. It certainly does. It goes back to vast antiquity, and the region has played a part in every major event in the Middle East for all of recorded history.
But modern Iraq came about as a result of World War One. The British took a region of the fallen Ottoman Empire that fell outside of Syria (which went to France) and outside of Transjordan (now Jordan), and out of that region administered by Saudi Arabia of the Emirs of Kuwait, and made a country out of it, with the capitol of that country being Baghdad. Over it, it placed a Hashamite king, a sort of consolation prize to the Hashamites who came from Mecca, but who lost the Arabian peninsula to the House of Saud, which the British Indian government backed while the British government, operating out of Cairo, backed the Hashamites. The Saudis, who spent most of World War One consolidating their their power, ended up with that instead, while the Hashamites, who were a family that stemmed from Mecca, ended up with what the British would give them, which turned out to be Transjordan and Iraq. They'd wanted Syria, and briefly had it, but the French took that, based on a historical association with Syria. The boundaries of the country were mostly unnatural, with perhaps the only natural one being the eastern boundary where the Arab population yielded to the Persian. The Persians and the Arabs generally dislike one another, even though the territory of what is now Iraq had given rise to the Shiite branch of Islam, the branch to which most Iranians adhere, but to which most Arabs do not.
King Faisal on left, dressed in a fashion we do not imagine for him, with his brother, the Emir of Transjordan. Jordan remains a Hashamite kingdom to this day.
The Hashamite rule of Iraq was not a success, and in no small part this was because the country made little sense. The north was one of the four countries which the stateless nation of the Kurds fell into. An ancient people with a strong central identity, they wanted no part of any country other than one they hoped to have themselves, a national aspiration opposed by Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Persia. Shiites, who formed the majority in the Euphrates valley, did not share a religious identity with the Sunnis, who inhabit the desert west, as the two variants of Islam have very deep divides between the two. The Sunnis inhabited the balance of the country, which just as easily could have been part of Syria, Jordan or Saudi Arabia, with the inhabitants of those regions being no more or less loyal to any of those other regions. In the north the country also had remaining populations of Assyrians, the founders of Syria who were and are a declining minority everywhere they are found. An ancient population of Catholic Arabs are also found in the country.
It was British presence in one form or another that kept the country together. Somewhat independent starting in 1932, the country actually appeared to tilt towards the Axis early in World War Two until the British invaded it. After the war the monarchy fell to the fascistic Baath party in a coup in 1958. The British in turn granted Kuwait Independence in 1961, forming a bone of contention with Baathist Iraq. Kuwait was no more a real nation that Iraq, but it was ethnically homogeneous, making it more stable in any event.
Under the Baath Party regional differences in Iraq were violently suppressed, but as memorialized here as Holscher's Third Law of History, those differences never went away. Indeed, during Saddam Hussein's reign there were uprising of various groups. The Kurds never ceased striving for independence. The "Marsh Arabs", Shiites of the Euphrates valley, also attempted an uprising following our defeat of Iraq in the first Gulf War, when they acted upon the belief, which we did not discourage, that we'd come to their aid against Saddam Hussein.
The lid came off of all of this upon our invasion of Iraq following 9/11. The entire invasion was premised on the thesis that Iraq retained weapons of "mass destruction", a term coined in that era which oddly lumped generally nasty but ineffectual chemical weapons with truly horrific nuclear weapons, but the government was slow to disassociate Iraq with the Al Queda attack on the US, which Iraq was not responsible for.. By WMD, we meant chemical weapons, which Iraq was not to retain after its defeat in the first Guilf War. It turned out, of course, that they didn't have any, or at least none could be found following our defeat of Iraq in the second Gulf War. And as an added irony, the Sunni fundamentalist Al Queda regarded Hussein as a Communist, which he was not, and they therefore were opposed to him.
The invasion of Iraq, tremblingly done without an American declaration of war, left us in control of the country just as the internecine feuds were flamed by foreign Jihadist who entered the country to fight the US. Often confused as one long war, the second Gulf War was actually two wars, a conventional war which we won against the Baathist regime, and a second one against irregular Islamic Jihadist. We won that one too, and then left the country a fragile, Shiite dominated, democracy. That democracy did not want us there, and now it faces a rebellion it is ill prepared to put down.
Now a civil war has erupted, with the Sunni minority threatening to defeat the government of the Shiite majority. It has every promise of turning into a true bloodbath as ancient rivalries and fears revive. Its difficult at best to see how any democratic government can rule the country, and like King Faisal II, the best observation may be that "nobody can govern this country". But do we dare ignore it? The Sunni rebellion has close connections to a fanatic Sunni militia fighting in Syria for the recreation of a Sunni Caliphate, a sort of Islamic law empire. It will not succeed in that goal, but that it's willing to struggle for it is something we cannot ignore. Nor can we ignore that the present Iraqi government is not unfriendly to Iran, which as its own goals that do not squire with ours.
At the end of the day, we have to wonder if the best solution for Iraq wold be a world were there isn't one. The country is a legal fiction, and in the north the Kurds are entitled to their own country, a result the Turks, Syrians and Iranians would not like. In the west, the population would make as much sense being part of Syria, Jordan or Saudi Arabia, if we felt comfortable with that result, which we have good reason not to be. In the east, the country would likely remain, but how viable it would be is questionable. And how much we are willing to invest to achieve that result, and how much we have already invested in the country, is a sobering thought.
Related Threads:
Understanding Syria.
The dreaded air conditioning season has arrived.
The time of year when the indoor temperature, because of the outdoor temperature, is refrigerated to the level at which I put a coat on when I'm outdoors, the rest of the year, has arrived.
The early summer cold, the result of going from -85F to 85F by stepping outdoors, can't be far behind.
The early summer cold, the result of going from -85F to 85F by stepping outdoors, can't be far behind.
The messed up legacy of colonialism.
It's really easy to dump on colonialism from our vantage in 2014, and not really fair either. Americans in particular like to imagine themselves as an anti colonial power, not without quite a bit of justification, but we had our moments as well, and of course the entire westward expansion of the country was a type of internal colonialism, which we tend to forget. So, I don't intend this to be one of those snotty "oh, how bad the Europeans were" type of posts.
Iraqi army officers gathered to celebrate Iraq's entry into the League of Nations in 1932.
And, on that, I frankly don't know that it's possible to envision a world history that doesn't feature colonialism, and European colonialism in particular. Consider the Scramble for Africa, the last great era of colonialism. Is it really possible to imagine all the European powers sitting that one out? And if even one was in it, didn't all the other activity make it inevitable? So, in short, I don't want to be excessively critical.
I also don't want to be excessively sanctimonious about it either. Most western nations that have colonial legacies have entered the "oh, how horrible we were" state of mind, but that isn't really a very useful or accurate record. On the ground, in a lot of former colonial areas the influence of the colonial power is often mixed, and sometimes not really all that badly recalled. In some very stable areas of the globe areas that were once colonies are now incredibly heavily influenced by lessons learned from the former colonial power and are in some instances better carriers of western values than countries in the west now are. And in some areas, to our surprise, the former colonial period is looked back as a golden age. A friend of mine with experience in Morocco once related to me how high in the Atlas mountains he was enthusiastically greeted by villagers who thought he was the advanced guard of a French colonial administration, decades after the French had left, and the French were hoping for their return. And, as horrific as the early administration of King Leopold was early on, at least one National Geographic expedition in that country found villagers rushing out enthusiastically yelling "The Belgians are back!" Things can get confusing out there.
What brings this up, however, is the mess sometimes created when former colonial powers tried population transfers (such as the Chinese are still doing now) or drew boundaries very badly.
In recent weeks we've seen the struggle in Ukraine over territory, as Russian ethnics attempt to take parts of that country out of Ukraine and back into Russia. This is all a legacy of the Russians populating some areas of their empire with ethnic Russians and also redrawing the maps after World War Two. This left a demographic mess that can't get sorted out well. Ukraine has to try to keep what it has, and Russia, never having gotten over its having been an imperial nation, supports its fellow ethnic Russians in their efforts to get out, if indeed it doesn't hope for domination of Ukraine. The Tartars, in Crimea, find themselves outnumbered by everyone in their native lands. This can't be sorted out well by any means, other than perhaps telling the ethnic Russians they'll just have to get used to it. An interesting aspect of this, however, is that there's current combat between two distinct peoples based upon lines drawn in colonial times by one, and by cultural differences that might appear to be slight from the casual observer, but in fact which are very deep.*
Ukranian girl in a former concentration camp, in Austria, May, 1945.
A worse situation is brewing in Iraq, which in the past several days has slipped into a religious and ethnic civil war. Making the situation all the worse, Iraq isn't a real nation to start with, but British creation. In some ways, Iraq was what was left over of the Ottoman Empire after you ran it out to the East. The deserty part in the west of the country was thinly populated (and still is) and was Sunni, falling into the Bedouin cultural region. The agricultural part to the East was Shiite, indeed it's critical to the Shiia world view for historical reasons, but still Arab (i.e., not Persian). The north is Kurdish.
Youthful Iraqi fascists gather, in 1932, so celebrate Iraq's entry into the League of Nations. An unfortunate aspect of Middle Eastern history is that secular movements, which have occasionally have been very strong, have also been anti democratic. Communist and Baathist have both been strong at various points in Iraq's history, making up about the only non religious sectarian political parties in the country, a common feature of politics in the region.
The gulf between the Sunnis and the Shiias is vast, and in terms of religious differences it doesn't do them justice, really, to lump them all in as Moslems. Their views are considerably different on some critical matters, and it's nearly impossible for them to regard each other charitably. The northern part of the country isn't culturally Arab at all, a the Kurds are a separate people who really deserve their own country.
Iraq, of course, is disintegrating before our eyes. As we fought a war to depose a strongman who kept the country together, by suppressing Islam in general and any individual national impulses as well, it's now our responsibility to some degree. But the country really isn't. In an ideal world, letting the Kurds set up their own nation, and separating the two competing branches of Islam into separate states, would occur, but that probably can't without dire implications. Of course, the implications of whatever occurs, at this point, are dire.
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*.Ukraine is a Slavic nation that's traditionally looked west, like Poland to which it has a close ethnic connection. More European that Russians, they are also grouped into two separate Eastern churches in terms of religion, one being the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the other being the Ukrainian Catholic Church, neither of which, of course, is the Russian Orthodox Church. World War One presented them with an opportunity to leave Russia, which they did, but resulting strife with Poland and Russian resulted into its reincorporation and a subsequent heavy handed Soviet repressive period which included mass starvation as a tool. A second chance at independence was seized by some Ukrainians during World War Two during which they viewed the Germans as an ally of convenience. A guerrilla war that followed the reappearance of the Red Army lasted into the late 1940s.
Iraq
Sunday, June 15, 2014
The Big Speech: The Magna Carta
1215 King John put his seal to the Magna Carta, which in its original version, stated:
KNOW THAT BEFORE GOD, for the health of our soul and those of our ancestors and heirs, to the honour of God, the exaltation of the holy Church, and the better ordering of our kingdom, at the advice of our reverend fathers Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England, and cardinal of the holy Roman Church, Henry archbishop of Dublin, William bishop of London, Peter bishop of Winchester, Jocelin bishop of Bath and Glastonbury, Hugh bishop of Lincoln, Walter Bishop of Worcester, William bishop of Coventry, Benedict bishop of Rochester, Master Pandulf subdeacon and member of the papal household, Brother Aymeric master of the knighthood of the Temple in England, William Marshal earl of Pembroke, William earl of Salisbury, William earl of Warren, William earl of Arundel, Alan de Galloway constable of Scotland, Warin Fitz Gerald, Peter Fitz Herbert, Hubert de Burgh seneschal of Poitou, Hugh de Neville, Matthew Fitz Herbert, Thomas Basset, Alan Basset, Philip Daubeny, Robert de Roppeley, John Marshal, John Fitz Hugh, and other loyal subjects:
(1) FIRST, THAT WE HAVE GRANTED TO GOD, and by this present charter have confirmed for us and our heirs in perpetuity, that the English Church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished, and its liberties unimpaired. That we wish this so to be observed, appears from the fact that of our own free will, before the outbreak of the present dispute between us and our barons, we granted and confirmed by charter the freedom of the Church's elections - a right reckoned to be of the greatest necessity and importance to it - and caused this to be confirmed by Pope Innocent III. This freedom we shall observe ourselves, and desire to be observed in good faith by our heirs in perpetuity.
TO ALL FREE MEN OF OUR KINGDOM we have also granted, for us and our heirs for ever, all the liberties written out below, to have and to keep for them and their heirs, of us and our heirs:
(2) If any earl, baron, or other person that holds lands directly of the Crown, for military service, shall die, and at his death his heir shall be of full age and owe a `relief', the heir shall have his inheritance on payment of the ancient scale of `relief'. That is to say, the heir or heirs of an earl shall pay £100 for the entire earl's barony, the heir or heirs of a knight l00s. at most for the entire knight's `fee', and any man that owes less shall pay less, in accordance with the ancient usage of `fees'
(3) But if the heir of such a person is under age and a ward, when he comes of age he shall have his inheritance without `relief' or fine.
(4) The guardian of the land of an heir who is under age shall take from it only reasonable revenues, customary dues, and feudal services. He shall do this without destruction or damage to men or property. If we have given the guardianship of the land to a sheriff, or to any person answerable to us for the revenues, and he commits destruction or damage, we will exact compensation from him, and the land shall be entrusted to two worthy and prudent men of the same `fee', who shall be answerable to us for the revenues, or to the person to whom we have assigned them. If we have given or sold to anyone the guardianship of such land, and he causes destruction or damage, he shall lose the guardianship of it, and it shall be handed over to two worthy and prudent men of the same `fee', who shall be similarly answerable to us.
(5) For so long as a guardian has guardianship of such land, he shall maintain the houses, parks, fish preserves, ponds, mills, and everything else pertaining to it, from the revenues of the land itself. When the heir comes of age, he shall restore the whole land to him, stocked with plough teams and such implements of husbandry as the season demands and the revenues from the land can reasonably bear.
(6) Heirs may be given in marriage, but not to someone of lower social standing. Before a marriage takes place, it shall be' made known to the heir's next-of-kin.
(7) At her husband's death, a widow may have her marriage portion and inheritance at once and without trouble. She shall pay nothing for her dower, marriage portion, or any inheritance that she and her husband held jointly on the day of his death. She may remain in her husband's house for forty days after his death, and within this period her dower shall be assigned to her.
(8) No widow shall be compelled to marry, so long as she wishes to remain without a husband. But she must give security that she will not marry without royal consent, if she holds her lands of the Crown, or without the consent of whatever other lord she may hold them of.
(9) Neither we nor our officials will seize any land or rent in payment of a debt, so long as the debtor has movable goods sufficient to discharge the debt. A debtor's sureties shall not be distrained upon so long as the debtor himself can discharge his debt. If, for lack of means, the debtor is unable to discharge his debt, his sureties shall be answerable for it. If they so desire, they may have the debtor's lands and rents until they have received satisfaction for the debt that they paid for him, unless the debtor can show that he has settled his obligations to them.
(10) If anyone who has borrowed a sum of money from Jews dies before the debt has been repaid, his heir shall pay no interest on the debt for so long as he remains under age, irrespective of whom he holds his lands. If such a debt falls into the hands of the Crown, it will take nothing except the principal sum specified in the bond.
(11) If a man dies owing money to Jews, his wife may have her dower and pay nothing towards the debt from it. If he leaves children that are under age, their needs may also be provided for on a scale appropriate to the size of his holding of lands. The debt is to be paid out of the residue, reserving the service due to his feudal lords. Debts owed to persons other than Jews are to be dealt with similarly.
(12) No `scutage' or `aid' may be levied in our kingdom without its general consent, unless it is for the ransom of our person, to make our eldest son a knight, and (once) to marry our eldest daughter. For these purposes ouly a reasonable `aid' may be levied. `Aids' from the city of London are to be treated similarly.
(13) The city of London shall enjoy all its ancient liberties and free customs, both by land and by water. We also will and grant that all other cities, boroughs, towns, and ports shall enjoy all their liberties and free customs.
(14) To obtain the general consent of the realm for the assessment of an `aid' - except in the three cases specified above - or a `scutage', we will cause the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and greater barons to be summoned individually by letter. To those who hold lands directly of us we will cause a general summons to be issued, through the sheriffs and other officials, to come together on a fixed day (of which at least forty days notice shall be given) and at a fixed place. In all letters of summons, the cause of the summons will be stated. When a summons has been issued, the business appointed for the day shall go forward in accordance with the resolution of those present, even if not all those who were summoned have appeared.
(15) In future we will allow no one to levy an `aid' from his free men, except to ransom his person, to make his eldest son a knight, and (once) to marry his eldest daughter. For these purposes only a reasonable `aid' may be levied.
(16) No man shall be forced to perform more service for a knight's `fee', or other free holding of land, than is due from it.
(17) Ordinary lawsuits shall not follow the royal court around, but shall be held in a fixed place.
(18) Inquests of novel disseisin, mort d'ancestor, and darrein presentment shall be taken only in their proper county court. We ourselves, or in our absence abroad our chief justice, will send two justices to each county four times a year, and these justices, with four knights of the county elected by the county itself, shall hold the assizes in the county court, on the day and in the place where the court meets.
(19) If any assizes cannot be taken on the day of the county court, as many knights and freeholders shall afterwards remain behind, of those who have attended the court, as will suffice for the administration of justice, having regard to the volume of business to be done.
(20) For a trivial offence, a free man shall be fined only in proportion to the degree of his offence, and for a serious offence correspondingly, but not so heavily as to deprive him of his livelihood. In the same way, a merchant shall be spared his merchandise, and a husbandman the implements of his husbandry, if they fall upon the mercy of a royal court. None of these fines shall be imposed except by the assessment on oath of reputable men of the neighbourhood.
(21) Earls and barons shall be fined only by their equals, and in proportion to the gravity of their offence.
(22) A fine imposed upon the lay property of a clerk in holy orders shall be assessed upon the same principles, without reference to the value of his ecclesiastical benefice.
(23) No town or person shall be forced to build bridges over rivers except those with an ancient obligation to do so.
(24) No sheriff, constable, coroners, or other royal officials are to hold lawsuits that should be held by the royal justices.
(25) Every county, hundred, wapentake, and tithing shall remain at its ancient rent, without increase, except the royal demesne manors.
(26) If at the death of a man who holds a lay `fee' of the Crown, a sheriff or royal official produces royal letters patent of summons for a debt due to the Crown, it shall be lawful for them to seize and list movable goods found in the lay `fee' of the dead man to the value of the debt, as assessed by worthy men. Nothing shall be removed until the whole debt is paid, when the residue shall be given over to the executors to carry out the dead man s will. If no debt is due to the Crown, all the movable goods shall be regarded as the property of the dead man, except the reasonable shares of his wife and children.
(27) If a free man dies intestate, his movable goods are to be distributed by his next-of-kin and friends, under the supervision of the Church. The rights of his debtors are to be preserved.
(28) No constable or other royal official shall take corn or other movable goods from any man without immediate payment, unless the seller voluntarily offers postponement of this.
(29) No constable may compel a knight to pay money for castle-guard if the knight is willing to undertake the guard in person, or with reasonable excuse to supply some other fit man to do it. A knight taken or sent on military service shall be excused from castle-guard for the period of this servlce.
(30) No sheriff, royal official, or other person shall take horses or carts for transport from any free man, without his consent.
(31) Neither we nor any royal official will take wood for our castle, or for any other purpose, without the consent of the owner.
(32) We will not keep the lands of people convicted of felony in our hand for longer than a year and a day, after which they shall be returned to the lords of the `fees' concerned.
(33) All fish-weirs shall be removed from the Thames, the Medway, and throughout the whole of England, except on the sea coast.
(34) The writ called precipe shall not in future be issued to anyone in respect of any holding of land, if a free man could thereby be deprived of the right of trial in his own lord's court.
(35) There shall be standard measures of wine, ale, and corn (the London quarter), throughout the kingdom. There shall also be a standard width of dyed cloth, russett, and haberject, namely two ells within the selvedges. Weights are to be standardised similarly.
(36) In future nothing shall be paid or accepted for the issue of a writ of inquisition of life or limbs. It shall be given gratis, and not refused.
(37) If a man holds land of the Crown by `fee-farm', `socage', or `burgage', and also holds land of someone else for knight's service, we will not have guardianship of his heir, nor of the land that belongs to the other person's `fee', by virtue of the `fee-farm', `socage', or `burgage', unless the `fee-farm' owes knight's service. We will not have the guardianship of a man's heir, or of land that he holds of someone else, by reason of any small property that he may hold of the Crown for a service of knives, arrows, or the like.
(38) In future no official shall place a man on trial upon his own unsupported statement, without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it.
(39) No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.
(40) To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.
(41) All merchants may enter or leave England unharmed and without fear, and may stay or travel within it, by land or water, for purposes of trade, free from all illegal exactions, in accordance with ancient and lawful customs. This, however, does not apply in time of war to merchants from a country that is at war with us. Any such merchants found in our country at the outbreak of war shall be detained without injury to their persons or property, until we or our chief justice have discovered how our own merchants are being treated in the country at war with us. If our own merchants are safe they shall be safe too.
(42) In future it shall be lawful for any man to leave and return to our kingdom unharmed and without fear, by land or water, preserving his allegiance to us, except in time of war, for some short period, for the common benefit of the realm. People that have been imprisoned or outlawed in accordance with the law of the land, people from a country that is at war with us, and merchants - who shall be dealt with as stated above - are excepted from this provision.
(43) If a man holds lands of any `escheat' such as the `honour' of Wallingford, Nottingham, Boulogne, Lancaster, or of other `escheats' in our hand that are baronies, at his death his heir shall give us only the `relief' and service that he would have made to the baron, had the barony been in the baron's hand. We will hold the `escheat' in the same manner as the baron held it.
(44) People who live outside the forest need not in future appear before the royal justices of the forest in answer to general summonses, unless they are actually involved in proceedings or are sureties for someone who has been seized for a forest offence.
(45) We will appoint as justices, constables, sheriffs, or other officials, only men that know the law of the realm and are minded to keep it well.
(46) All barons who have founded abbeys, and have charters of English kings or ancient tenure as evidence of this, may have guardianship of them when there is no abbot, as is their due.
(47) All forests that have been created in our reign shall at once be disafforested. River-banks that have been enclosed in our reign shall be treated similarly.
(48) All evil customs relating to forests and warrens, foresters, warreners, sheriffs and their servants, or river-banks and their wardens, are at once to be investigated in every county by twelve sworn knights of the county, and within forty days of their enquiry the evil customs are to be abolished completely and irrevocably. But we, or our chief justice if we are not in England, are first to be informed.
(49) We will at once return all hostages and charters delivered up to us by Englishmen as security for peace or for loyal service.
(50) We will remove completely from their offices the kinsmen of Gerard de Athée, and in future they shall hold no offices in England. The people in question are Engelard de Cigogné', Peter, Guy, and Andrew de Chanceaux, Guy de Cigogné, Geoffrey de Martigny and his brothers, Philip Marc and his brothers, with Geoffrey his nephew, and all their followers.
(51) As soon as peace is restored, we will remove from the kingdom all the foreign knights, bowmen, their attendants, and the mercenaries that have come to it, to its harm, with horses and arms.
(52) To any man whom we have deprived or dispossessed of lands, castles, liberties, or rights, without the lawful judgement of his equals, we will at once restore these. In cases of dispute the matter shall be resolved by the judgement of the twenty-five barons referred to below in the clause for securing the peace (§ 61). In cases, however, where a man was deprived or dispossessed of something without the lawful judgement of his equals by our father King Henry or our brother King Richard, and it remains in our hands or is held by others under our warranty, we shall have respite for the period commonly allowed to Crusaders, unless a lawsuit had been begun, or an enquiry had been made at our order, before we took the Cross as a Crusader. On our return from the Crusade, or if we abandon it, we will at once render justice in full.
(53) We shall have similar respite in rendering justice in connexion with forests that are to be disafforested, or to remain forests, when these were first a-orested by our father Henry or our brother Richard; with the guardianship of lands in another person's `fee', when we have hitherto had this by virtue of a `fee' held of us for knight's service by a third party; and with abbeys founded in another person's `fee', in which the lord of the `fee' claims to own a right. On our return from the Crusade, or if we abandon it, we will at once do full justice to complaints about these matters.
(54) No one shall be arrested or imprisoned on the appeal of a woman for the death of any person except her husband.
(55) All fines that have been given to us unjustiy and against the law of the land, and all fines that we have exacted unjustly, shall be entirely remitted or the matter decided by a majority judgement of the twenty-five barons referred to below in the clause for securing the peace (§ 61) together with Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, if he can be present, and such others as he wishes to bring with him. If the archbishop cannot be present, proceedings shall continue without him, provided that if any of the twenty-five barons has been involved in a similar suit himself, his judgement shall be set aside, and someone else chosen and sworn in his place, as a substitute for the single occasion, by the rest of the twenty-five.
(56) If we have deprived or dispossessed any Welshmen of lands, liberties, or anything else in England or in Wales, without the lawful judgement of their equals, these are at once to be returned to them. A dispute on this point shall be determined in the Marches by the judgement of equals. English law shall apply to holdings of land in England, Welsh law to those in Wales, and the law of the Marches to those in the Marches. The Welsh shall treat us and ours in the same way.
(57) In cases where a Welshman was deprived or dispossessed of anything, without the lawful judgement of his equals, by our father King Henry or our brother King Richard, and it remains in our hands or is held by others under our warranty, we shall have respite for the period commonly allowed to Crusaders, unless a lawsuit had been begun, or an enquiry had been made at our order, before we took the Cross as a Crusader. But on our return from the Crusade, or if we abandon it, we will at once do full justice according to the laws of Wales and the said regions.
(58) We will at once return the son of Llywelyn, all Welsh hostages, and the charters delivered to us as security for the peace.
(59) With regard to the return of the sisters and hostages of Alexander, king of Scotland, his liberties and his rights, we will treat him in the same way as our other barons of England, unless it appears from the charters that we hold from his father William, formerly king of Scotland, that he should be treated otherwise. This matter shall be resolved by the judgement of his equals in our court.
(60) All these customs and liberties that we have granted shall be observed in our kingdom in so far as concerns our own relations with our subjects. Let all men of our kingdom, whether clergy or laymen, observe them similarly in their relations with their own men.
(61) SINCE WE HAVE GRANTED ALL THESE THINGS for God, for the better ordering of our kingdom, and to allay the discord that has arisen between us and our barons, and since we desire that they shall be enjoyed in their entirety, with lasting strength, for ever, we give and grant to the barons the following security:
The barons shall elect twenty-five of their number to keep, and cause to be observed with all their might, the peace and liberties granted and confirmed to them by this charter.
If we, our chief justice, our officials, or any of our servants offend in any respect against any man, or transgress any of the articles of the peace or of this security, and the offence is made known to four of the said twenty-five barons, they shall come to us - or in our absence from the kingdom to the chief justice - to declare it and claim immediate redress. If we, or in our absence abroad the chiefjustice, make no redress within forty days, reckoning from the day on which the offence was declared to us or to him, the four barons shall refer the matter to the rest of the twenty-five barons, who may distrain upon and assail us in every way possible, with the support of the whole community of the land, by seizing our castles, lands, possessions, or anything else saving only our own person and those of the queen and our children, until they have secured such redress as they have determined upon. Having secured the redress, they may then resume their normal obedience to us.
Any man who so desires may take an oath to obey the commands of the twenty-five barons for the achievement of these ends, and to join with them in assailing us to the utmost of his power. We give public and free permission to take this oath to any man who so desires, and at no time will we prohibit any man from taking it. Indeed, we will compel any of our subjects who are unwilling to take it to swear it at our command.
If-one of the twenty-five barons dies or leaves the country, or is prevented in any other way from discharging his duties, the rest of them shall choose another baron in his place, at their discretion, who shall be duly sworn in as they were.
In the event of disagreement among the twenty-five barons on any matter referred to them for decision, the verdict of the majority present shall have the same validity as a unanimous verdict of the whole twenty-five, whether these were all present or some of those summoned were unwilling or unable to appear.
The twenty-five barons shall swear to obey all the above articles faithfully, and shall cause them to be obeyed by others to the best of their power.
We will not seek to procure from anyone, either by our own efforts or those of a third party, anything by which any part of these concessions or liberties might be revoked or diminished. Should such a thing be procured, it shall be null and void and we will at no time make use of it, either ourselves or through a third party.
(62) We have remitted and pardoned fully to all men any ill-will, hurt, or grudges that have arisen between us and our subjects, whether clergy or laymen, since the beginning of the dispute. We have in addition remitted fully, and for our own part have also pardoned, to all clergy and laymen any offences committed as a result of the said dispute between Easter in the sixteenth year of our reign and the restoration of peace.
In addition we have caused letters patent to be made for the barons, bearing witness to this security and to the concessions set out above, over the seals of Stephen archbishop of Canterbury, Henry archbishop of Dublin, the other bishops named above, and Master Pandulf.
(63) IT IS ACCORDINGLY OUR WISH AND COMMAND that the English Church shall be free, and that men in our kingdom shall have and keep all these liberties, rights, and concessions, well and peaceably in their fulness and entirety for them and their heirs, of us and our heirs, in all things and all places for ever.
Both we and the barons have sworn that all this shall be observed in good faith and without deceit. Witness the above mentioned people and many others.
Given by our hand in the meadow that is called Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on the fifteenth day of June in the seventeenth year of our reign.
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