Author: Galen Charlton

#GuestPost: Veterans Day 2024: Readings

Posted on by Galen Charlton | Author : | Holidays> Veterans Day

White poppy

Franklin D. Roosevelt on Armistice Day on 11 November 1942 at Arlington National Ceremony:

The American Unknown Soldier who lies here did not give his life on the fields of France merely to defend his American home for the moment that was passing. He gave it that his family, his neighbors, and all his fellow Americans might live in peace in the days to come. His hope was not fulfilled.

American soldiers are giving their lives today in all the continents and on all the seas in order that the dream of the Unknown Soldier may at last come true. All the heroism, all the unconquerable devotion that free men and women are showing in this war shall make certain the survival and the advancement of civilization. That is why on this day of remembrance we do not cease from our work. We are going about our tasks in behalf of our fighting men everywhere. Our thoughts turn in gratitude to those who have saved our Nation in days gone by.

We stand in the presence of the honored dead.

We stand accountable to them, and to the generations yet unborn for whom they gave their lives.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on 1 October 2024, Defenders Day in Ukraine:

When we say “defenders of Ukraine,” we feel pride. We feel your protection. We see your courage. Every day and every night. On weekdays and weekends. In heat and cold. Always. Every minute. A minute whose value you understand like no one else. A minute that can change absolutely everything.

These can be painful moments. The loss of a brother-in-arms with whom, just a minute ago, you were talking, sharing food and water in the same trench.

These are also minutes of valor, combat success, and victories.

Minutes of pride, minutes of bravery. Minutes of long battles and brief sleep, minutes of warm communication with loved ones and cold nights on the frontline. All of these – completely different minutes – make up the war. They make up our struggle and an extremely difficult path to one, most important, most desired minute. The first minute of victory. The first minute of peace in Ukraine.

We bow today before everyone who has brought and continues to bring this moment closer. They do so tirelessly. And today, at exactly 9 am, we will stop for a minute. Not out of formality. Not as a routine. But as a sign of sincere respect and gratitude to our warriors. Our cities and villages, streets and squares, our people – wherever we may be, we will all stop for one minute. A minute of silence, when in fact we are all screaming inside. Screaming with pain for every fallen hero. Screaming with hatred for the evil that has come to our land. But it will certainly leave.

Historian Bret Devereaux on “Why Military History?”:

Which brings us to the third reason why we study war and conflict: so that we might have less of it. It should be little surprise that, more than most other areas of history, the study of war is replete with veterans of conflict (if I had to guess very roughly, I’d say about half or so of academic military historians seem to have military experience? perhaps a little bit less?). In speaking, arguing and writing with them I find the common refrain that, as people who experienced war, they do not study it because they like war. Rather military historians study conflict in the same way that doctors study disease; no one assumes that doctors like diseases, quite the opposite. Though I have not experienced combat, I share this view. By understanding the costs of conflict, we can learn to try and avoid it (especially as modern technology drives the cost of conflicts higher and higher than the potential benefits). By understanding the causes of conflict, we can try to ameliorate them. And by understanding conflict itself, we can effort to keep the necessary wars as short and confined as possible, empowering our decision-makers (civilian and military) with the tools they need to find the peace that is always the goal of war.

…

And, frankly, I have also taught veteran students who came to a class on military history because they had things they wanted to say or wanted to hear said. What has struck me most consistently is that veteran students tended to appreciate and understand more keenly the value of having a course on military history. The fact is that, while only some of us go to war – because at least in the United States, we have a professional all-volunteer force – all of us are involved in the decisions that choose if we go to war, where and how. Again and again, I have had veteran and active-duty students (and colleagues) express a deep desire to have the general public understand (in the necessarily limited way lifelong-civilians can understand), both their own experience but also to take seriously the broader ramifications that conflict and thus decisions about conflict have.

…

In any event, as George Santayana (and not Plato) said, “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” This is the sad truth that makes military history a necessary, important discipline. It is essential both for understanding our past and our present. Consequently it is not to be neglected merely because it is uncomfortable.

#GuestPost: Election Day 2024: Readings

Posted on by Galen Charlton | Author : | Election Day> Guest Posts

Pins labeled "Vote" with American flag iconography.
Surprisingly – or maybe not – the first American to vote from outer space did so while on a Russian space station.

Rule §81.35 of the Texas Administrative Code:

(a) A person who meets the eligibility requirements of a voter under the Texas Election Code, Chapter 101, but who will be on a space flight during the early-voting period and on election day, may vote under this chapter. In order to vote by this method, the voter must apply by a Federal Postcard Application (“FPCA”) and meet the requisite deadlines under state law. The FPCA may be submitted by fax or other electronic means.

(b) The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (“NASA”) shall submit in writing to the Secretary of State a method of transmitting and receiving a secret ballot for persons on a space flight during an election period. The Secretary of State shall approve, deny, or request further information from NASA on the proposed method of transmission.

(c) Proposed changes to an approved ballot transmission method shall be submitted in writing to the Secretary of State for approval.

The legislation that enabled this was passed after astronaut John Blaha attempted but failed to vote while in orbit (the state of Texas had no laws permitting electronic ballots at the time). After the law was passed, David Wolf was the first astronaut to successfully vote in orbit from Mir.

Of course, Americans find themselves voting from other remote locations. Paul Coldren writing about voting from Antarctica:

Since I was in Antarctica during the Fall 2022 election, it was important for me to figure out a way to reliably participate in elections at the federal, state, and local levels.

I haven’t moved to Antarctica; I’m simply temporarily residing in Antarctica. I’m still a San Francisco resident and therefore eligible to vote in local elections.

…
When I got to Antarctica, to my surprise, I already had an updated voter registration card waiting for me! It flew down on one of the Winfly flights; it might have even been my flight. Even though I’m getting the ballot via email, they still send a physical confirmation card. This was my first piece of mail I received in Antarctica.

Americans have also found themselves voting from the battlefield, though setting up the mechanics to support this was heavily contested during WW2:

Debate over the bill divided legislators along both partisan and regional lines. Initial drafts of the bill mandated that no soldier would be required to pay a poll tax or make any other type of payment in order to vote. This provision infuriated representatives of the eight southern states (all former members of the Confederacy) that continued to use poll taxes in order to disenfranchise African American voters. Some congressmen accused their southern colleagues of blocking the Soldier Voting Act’s passage just because it might benefit African Americans in uniform. Representative John Jennings of Tennessee vehemently declared that African Americans “are citizens of this country, they are its defenders, and they have the right to vote.” With less than two months to go before the election of 1942, Jennings and his allies finally secured the votes necessary to override supporters of the poll tax. The final bill was signed into law on September 16, 1942. Among the bill’s provisions, it guaranteed that “every individual absent from the place of his residence and serving in the land or naval forces of the United States” was entitled to vote in elections for federal offices.” It also contained a provision which stated that “No person in military service in time of war shall be required, as a condition of voting in any election… to pay any poll tax.”

In the wake of this improbable victory, the bill still failed to live up to its sponsors’ hopes. A mere 28,000 service members, out of nearly four million men and women in uniform in 1942, voted in the election. While the late passage of the bill gave states little time to prepare ballots and send them to soldiers, the bill also failed to make any provisions for soldiers serving overseas to vote. This omission stemmed from the opinion of War Department representatives, who informed Congress that the demands of wartime shipping and slow mail service overseas would preclude the return of overseas soldiers’ ballots by the election.

It’s easier to vote from overseas now, in part thanks to the Federal Voting Assistance Program.

As Andy Craig put it, America has a glorious tradition of voting:

The state is at its core the institution of violence, the monopoly on the use of force. It is odd that we limit this propensity by expanding the number of people who participate in it, who have a hand in directing it, but the arrangement works like no other can. It is undeniable that democracies have been more liberal, more prosperous, more rights-respecting than any of their autocratic alternatives. They are not immune from rebellions, coups, civil wars, chaos and disorder, blood in the streets, nor from committing massive injustices and abhorrent depravities. But they are vastly less prone to these things, and much more capable of correcting them.

When we include groups of people previously excluded from the democratic process, we are not just tinkering with political incentives, as important as those are. We are making a commitment to respect their full and equal membership in our society. We are acknowledging them as our equals, and receiving that same acknowledgement in return.

…

The people who make our elections happen are in a very real way peacemakers. And so are we, when we partake of what they are giving us. Freedom, security, justice … the recognition in each other of the innate worth of our shared humanity. The same sentiment can be expressed in more secular terms, but if you’re so inclined, it is the sense that we are all, without exception, created in the image of God. Created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. That we ought not inflict harm on each other, despite the fact that we can. The promise of, as Lincoln put it, the better angels of our nature.

If you are reading this, you are probably not on the International Space Station or in Antarctica, so it is probably easier for you to cast your ballot. Many elections are consequential, but this one is especially so. If you can vote, please do so!

Labor Day 2024

Posted on by Galen Charlton | Author : | Guest Posts> Holidays> Labor Day

In 2021 the Belgian singer Stromae released the song “Santé”, a paean to the invisible workers who receive all too little regard while performing work that supports our society. If you have never seen the music video, stop reading now and watch the link above, and rejoice in being one of the lucky ten thousand today.

Back? Let’s continue. Part of the lyrics are this:

Pilotes d’avion ou infirmières
Chauffeurs de camion, hôtesses de l’air
Boulangers ou marins-pêcheurs
Un verre aux champions des pires horaires
Aux jeunes parents bercés par les pleurs
Aux insomniaques de profession
Et tous ceux qui souffrent de peines de cœur
Qui n’ont pas le cœur aux célébrations
Qui n’ont pas le cœur aux célébrations

In English:

Airplane pilots or nurses
Truck drivers, flight attendants
Bakers or fishermen
A drink to the champions of the worst schedules
To young parents rocked by crying
To professional insomniacs
And all those who suffer from heartache
Who have no heart for celebrations
Who have no heart for celebrations

The mention of nurses is of course not surprising for a pandemic-era song, but let’s consider the airline pilots. Pilots are of course not nearly as invisible as the cooks and cleaners shown in the music video; after all, who could miss them in their smart uniforms with stripes on their sleeves? It is not every job where one is responsible for the safety of dozens or hundreds of people at once. Flying is very safe (but we’ll get back to that in a moment), but the sheer flying skill of a pilot is tested the most when things have gone wrong.

A pilot is not just a glorified bus driver (but don’t underestimate the bus drivers either!); the training required makes piloting very clearly a skilled profession that continues to command public respect. For all that, however, pilots are still labor, not management. A pilot-in-command’s near absolute authority regarding flight safety evaporates the moment that they exit the plane. Fundamentally, the management of the airline calls the shots, telling pilots where to go, when, and with what fuel allotment. Pilots need their unions; passenger airlines are not in fact hugely profitable percentage-wise, so there is always at least of background level of management attempting to cut cost as well as a lot of very smart people trying to completely automate airliners.

Cut costs too much in the wrong ways, of course, and the result will be less safety. However, airliner travel is incredibly safe by every measure you can think of. The last fatal passenger airliner crash in the United States was over fifteen years ago!

This degree of safety is mostly not a matter of luck. In fact, I argue that it is one of the crowning achievements of modern society: it is the result of literally decades of work across the globe to improve aircraft design, pilot training, air traffic control, and emergency procedures conducted by governments and corporations across the globe. Along the way, we collectively have learned many important lessons, some of which apply to most any job that presents risks to the workers or the public:

  • Make sure to investigate every significant accident or incident (and as many of the minor ones as you can)
  • Keep digging until you find the ultimate cause(s) of the incident, then dig some more
  • Look for the systemic causes before laying blame on the people involved (too often has “pilot error” been invoked for crashes where the fundamental problem was with the design of the airplane)
  • Make it possible for people to report incidents without fear for their jobs
  • Safety practices are perishable: you can never stop doing your bit to promote safety culture when doing dangerous jobs

For more on flight safety, I particularly recommend Admiral Cloudberg’s retrospectives on airline crashes.

These lessons (and the more technical ones about aircraft design and flying procedures) were learned the hard way. Many regulations are written in blood, especially in flight safety.

So on this labor day, please also give a toast to the safety staff of the world: the crash investigators, the engineers, the policy analysts, the lawyers, the pilots… and the flight attendants.

Marlene’s Note: Because Reading Reality is, at its heart – or mine – a book blog, I can’t resist mentioning a book series here that is absolutely on the nose for the topic at hand. If, after reading Galen’s excellent post about the labor of pilots and the labor of the people at the National Transportation and Safety Board who investigate incidents to help keep us all safe while we travel – and particularly while we fly – you’d like to explore that process a bit more in an exciting, fictional way, through the operations of a terrific group of characters, let me recommend (again, I’ve done it before in reviews) the Miranda Chase NTSB series by M.L. Buchman that begins with Drone. The series is a political technothriller, but at the heart of each and every story is a plane crash and the team’s meticulous investigation into the cause of that crash. So far, every single book in the series has been an edge-of-the-seat thrill ride, and I’ve loved every one of them. Hopefully you will too.

July 4th 2024

Posted on by Galen Charlton | Author : | Independence Day

President Johnson on July 4th, 1966, regarding the signing of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA):

THE MEASURE I sign today, S. 1160, revises section 3 of the Administrative Procedure Act to provide guidelines for the public availability of the records of Federal departments and agencies.

This legislation springs from one of our most essential principles: A democracy works best when the people have all the information that the security of the Nation permits. No one should be able to pull curtains of secrecy around decisions which can be revealed without injury to the public interest.

At the same time, the welfare of the Nation or the rights of individuals may require that some documents not be made available. As long as threats to peace exist, for example, there must be military secrets. A citizen must be able in confidence to complain to his Government and to provide information, just as he is–and should be–free to confide in the press without fear of reprisal or of being required to reveal or discuss his sources.

Fairness to individuals also requires that information accumulated in personnel files be protected from disclosure. Officials within Government must be able to communicate with one another fully and frankly without publicity. They cannot operate effectively if required to disclose information prematurely or to make public investigative files and internal instructions that guide them in arriving at their decisions.

I know that the sponsors of this bill recognize these important interests and intend to provide for both the need of the public for access to information and the need of Government to protect certain categories of information. Both are vital to the welfare of our people. Moreover, this bill in no way impairs the President’s power under our Constitution to provide for confidentiality when the national interest so requires. There are some who have expressed concern that the language of this bill will be construed in such a way as to impair Government operations. I do not share this concern.

I have always believed that freedom of information is so vital that only the national security, not the desire of public officials or private citizens, should determine when it must be restricted.

I am hopeful that the needs I have mentioned can be served by a constructive approach to the wording and spirit and legislative history of this measure. I am instructing every official in this administration to cooperate to this end and to make information available to the full extent consistent with individual privacy and with the national interest.

I signed this measure with a deep sense of pride that the United States is an open society in which the people’s right to know is cherished and guarded.

Despite the second and last paragraphs of this statement, Johnson was in fact far from a fan of FOIA. Per White House press secretary Bill Moyers, Johnson “had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the signing”. FOIA has had a checkered history over the years, but has enabled an unprecedented degree of transparency around government decisions, exemplified by the National Security Archive.

Freedom must be fought for every, but it is not just the result of stirring battles and speeches on the fields of sacrifice and victory. The quotidian matters as well: does this plan make sense? Do the numbers pencil out? Is the government correct in arresting this one individual or another? It is our responsibility as U.S. citizens to enact and protect our own freedom. Thus, a challenge for the year: are you confused about a government action? Disagree with it? Don’t just sit there: consider filing a FOIA request.

 

Juneteenth 2024: Ron’s Piece

Posted on by Galen Charlton | Author : | Juneteenth

1959

“When he was 9 years old, Ron, without my parents or myself knowing his whereabouts, decided to take a mile walk from our home down to the library,” Carl tells his friend Vernon Skipper.

The library was public, Carl says — “but not so public for black folks, when you’re talking about 1959.”

“So, as he was walking in there, all these folks were staring at him — because they were white folk only — and they were looking at him and saying, you know, ‘Who is this Negro?’

“So, he politely positioned himself in line to check out his books.

“Well, this old librarian, she says, ‘This library is not for coloreds.’ He said, ‘Well, I would like to check out these books.’

“She says, ‘Young man, if you don’t leave this library right now, I’m gonna call the police.’

Carl McNair says that his brother, astronaut Ronald McNair, saw possibilities where others only saw closed doors.
StoryCorps

“So he just propped himself up on the counter, and sat there, and said, ‘I’ll wait.’ ”

The librarian called the police — and McNair’s mother, Pearl.

When the police got to the library, Carl says, “Two burly guys come in and say, ‘Well, where’s the disturbance?’

“And she pointed to the little 9-year-old boy sitting up on the counter.

“And he [the policeman] says, ‘Ma’am, what’s the problem?’

By then, the boys’ mother was on her way, Carl says.

“She comes down there praying the whole way there: ‘Lordy, Jesus, please don’t let them put my child in jail.’ And my mother asks the librarian, ‘What’s the problem?’ ”

“He wanted to check out the books and, you know, your son shouldn’t be down here,” the librarian said, according to Carl.

“And the police officer said, ‘You know, why don’t you just give the kid the books?’

“And my mother said, ‘He’ll take good care of them.’ ”

So, the librarian reluctantly handed over the books. And then, Carl says, “my mother said, ‘What do you say?’ ”

And Ron answered, “Thank you, ma’am.”

Ron McNair’s brother, Carl, recalls a trip to the library in South Carolina.

1967

Ron McNair graduates from high school as valedictorian.

1976

Ron McNair receives his Ph.D. in physics from MIT. His thesis concerns lasers.

1978

Ron McNair is one of the first three African Americans selected to join the astronaut corps – and one of 35 selected from an application pool of 10,000.

1984

Ron McNair is a mission specialist on Challenger mission STS-41B. Highlights of the mission include untethered space walks and the launch of the first satellite that was refurbished after a previous mission. Incidentally, McNair becomes the first astronaut to play the saxophone in orbit.

Astronaut floating in the space shuttle cabin playing a small saxophone
S84-27211 (8 Feb 1984) — Astronaut Ronald E. McNair, 41-B mission specialist, uses some of his off-duty time, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, to play his saxophone.

1986

Ron McNair, along with Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, and Judith Resnick, is meant to reach orbit on Challenger. Normalization of deviance betrays them.

French composer Jean Michel Jarre had been invited to perform in Houston later that year, and one of the pieces was to be performed by McNair from orbit. Upon hearing of the Challenger disaster, Jarre had been inclined to cancel the concert, but was begged not to; it became a tribute to the astronauts. The concert, which included projections onto nearby buildings, stops traffic and broke attendance records.

The piece that McNair was meant to play is renamed Last Rendez-Vous (Ron’s Piece) – ‘Challenger’.

2011

The Ron E. McNair Life History Center opens at the old Lake City library building — the same library that tried to turn him away 52 years previously.

2020

A children’s book about McNair’s visit to the library, Ron’s Big Mission is read to a second-grade class at an elementary school in Missouri.

A parent complains.

The principal responds by reading the book to the entire school.

Memorial Day 2024

Posted on by Galen Charlton | Author : | Guest Posts> Holidays> Memorial Day
Rear Adm. Lisa Franchetti lays a wreath at the US monument at the United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Busan, Korea.

The U.S. has fought wars overseas from almost the very beginning of its history. Many of the fallen have, by necessity or by choice, been lain to rest in the country where they fell.

The American Battle Monuments Commission administers 26 cemeteries and 31 monuments, almost all of which are located overseas. One of them is the monument in the picture, the U.S. Korean War Memorial in the United Nations cemetery in Busan, Korea.

A poem of the “forgotten war” by Lt. Cmdr. (Ret.) Roberto J. Prinselaar, U.S. Coast Guard:

We didn’t do much talking,
We didn’t raise a fuss.
But Korea really happened
So please – remember us.

We all just did our duty
But we didn’t win or lose.
A victory was denied us
But we didn’t get to choose.

We all roasted in the summer
In winter, we damn near froze.
Walking back from near the Yalu
With our blackened frozen toes.

Like the surf the Chinese kept coming
With their bugles in the night.
We fired into their masses
Praying for the morning light.
All of us just had to be there

And so many of us died.
But now we’re all but half forgotten
No one remembers how we tried.

We grow fewer with the years now
And we still don’t raise a fuss.
But Korea really happened
So please – remember us.

Presidents’ Day 2024

Posted on by Galen Charlton | Author : | Holidays> Presidents' Day

Portrait of Ulysses S. Grant

Since this is a book review, blog, let us consider U.S. presidents as authors. Here is an extract from Ulysses S. Grant’s memoirs, finished shortly before his death from throat cancer. Although some people today seem to be confused about the causes of the Civil War, Grant was very clear-eyed in 1885:

The cause of the great War of the Rebellion against the United Status will have to be attributed to slavery. For some years before the war began it was a trite saying among some politicians that “A state half slave and half free cannot exist.” All must become slave or all free, or the state will go down. I took no part myself in any such view of the case at the time, but since the war is over, reviewing the whole question, I have come to the conclusion that the saying is quite true.

Slavery was an institution that required unusual guarantees for its security wherever it existed; and in a country like ours where the larger portion of it was free territory inhabited by an intelligent and well-to-do population, the people would naturally have but little sympathy with demands upon them for its protection. Hence the people of the South were dependent upon keeping control of the general government to secure the perpetuation of their favorite institution. They were enabled to maintain this control long after the States where slavery existed had ceased to have the controlling power, through the assistance they received from odd men here and there throughout the Northern States. They saw their power waning, and this led them to encroach upon the prerogatives and independence of the Northern States by enacting such laws as the Fugitive Slave Law. By this law every Northern man was obliged, when properly summoned, to turn out and help apprehend the runaway slave of a Southern man. Northern marshals became slave-catchers, and Northern courts had to contribute to the support and protection of the institution.

This was a degradation which the North would not permit any longer than until they could get the power to expunge such laws from the statute books. Prior to the time of these encroachments the great majority of the people of the North had no particular quarrel with slavery, so long as they were not forced to have it themselves. But they were not willing to play the role of police for the South in the protection of this particular institution.

In the early days of the country, before we had railroads, telegraphs and steamboats—in a word, rapid transit of any sort—the States were each almost a separate nationality. At that time the subject of slavery caused but little or no disturbance to the public mind. But the country grew, rapid transit was established, and trade and commerce between the States got to be so much greater than before, that the power of the National government became more felt and recognized and, therefore, had to be enlisted in the cause of this institution.

It is probably well that we had the war when we did. We are better off now than we would have been without it, and have made more rapid progress than we otherwise should have made. The civilized nations of Europe have been stimulated into unusual activity, so that commerce, trade, travel, and thorough acquaintance among people of different nationalities, has become common; whereas, before, it was but the few who had ever had the privilege of going beyond the limits of their own country or who knew anything about other people. Then, too, our republican institutions were regarded as experiments up to the breaking out of the rebellion, and monarchical Europe generally believed that our republic was a rope of sand that would part the moment the slightest strain was brought upon it. Now it has shown itself capable of dealing with one of the greatest wars that was ever made, and our people have proven themselves to be the most formidable in war of any nationality.

But this war was a fearful lesson, and should teach us the necessity of avoiding wars in the future.

Many of the books written by presidents (or ghostwritten for them) are of course campaign books, mostly forgettable and largely forgotten, with a few exceptions such as JFK’s Profiles in Courage (actually written almost entirely by Ted Sorensen) and Obama’s Dreams from My Father. For an overview of presidents as author, I’ve acquired a copy of Author in Chief: The Untold Story of Our Presidents and the Books They Wrote by Craig Fehrman. Perhaps a review will come later if it’s interesting.

Christmas Day 2023

Posted on by Galen Charlton | Author : | Christmas
Hecate the tortoise shell cat lying on a window seat.
Hecate is clearly working very hard today.

 

Happy Christmas to all who celebrate. This post is especially for those for whom Christmas is a working day.

One book that caught my eye is Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas by Adam Kay.

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat . . . but 1.4 million NHS staff are heading off to work. In this perfect present for anyone who has ever set foot in a hospital, Adam Kay delves back into his diaries for a hilarious, horrifying and sometimes heartbreaking peek behind the blue curtain at Christmastime.

This is a love letter to all those who spend their festive season on the front line, removing babies and baubles from the various places they get stuck, at the most wonderful time of the year.

I would have tried to sneak in a capsule review but… gasp! the book is not readily available in ebook form. I’ve got a hardcover on order; maybe a review will show up in a few days.

Some more readings:

The First Christmas from The EMS Siren:

We arrived at the ER entrance and my partner opened the side door to help her out and into a wheelchair. Before turning to step down she looked at me, there was uncertainty on her face, the unknown of what was going on in her mind and in her future was palpable, but now he was here with her. She smiled a little smile and clasped my hand, nothing needing to be said.

From RedHat, 5 tips for being the family holiday sysadmin:

It’s the holiday season. That means an opportunity to reconnect with friends and family who we haven’t seen for a while, eat too many desserts, and use up the remaining vacation days before the New Year. For those of us who work in IT, that also means a chance to help our relatives with all of their technical problems.

Via Vox, an interview with Rabbi Joshua Eli Plaut, The history of Jews, Chinese food, and Christmas, explained by a rabbi:

In the last 35 years, Chinese restaurants on Christmas have really become this sort of temporary community where Jews in the United States can gather to be with friends and family. It’s a secular way to celebrate Christmas, but it’s also a time to shut out Christmas and announce your Jewish identity in a safe environment.

(And since Chinese dishes made from pork or shrimp are hardly kosher, Gaye Tuchman and Harry G. Levine on “Safe Treyf”: New York Jews and Chinese Food.)

Thanksgiving 2023

Posted on by Galen Charlton | Author : | Holidays> Thanksgiving

Galen here, once again borrowing Marlene’s blog to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving!

Luna the grey tabby cat emerging from underneath a quilt

As always, we are thankful for our cats (and Luna, pictured here, is thankful for quilts to nest underneath). Unlike 2018, 2020, and 2022, there have been no changes in our feline population: Lucifer, Hecate (and how did she suddenly become five?), George, Luna, and Tuna have been trucking along.

For today, “Harvest Moon” by Longfellow:

It is the Harvest Moon! On gilded vanes
And roofs of villages, on woodland crests
And their aerial neighborhoods of nests
Deserted, on the curtained window-panes
Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes
And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests!
Gone are the birds that were our summer guests,
With the last sheaves return the laboring wains!
All things are symbols: the external shows
Of Nature have their image in the mind,
As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves;
The song-birds leave us at the summer’s close,
Only the empty nests are left behind,
And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.

Indigenous People’s Day 2023: Two Courts

Posted on by Galen Charlton | Author : | Indigenous People's Day

I. Chief Justice John Marshall, in his 1832 decision in the case Worchester v Georgia:

The Cherokee nation, then, is a distinct community occupying its own territory, with boundaries accurately described, in which the laws of Georgia can have no force, and which the citizens of Georgia have no right to enter, but with the assent of the Cherokees themselves, or in conformity with treaties, and.with the acts of congress. The whole intercourse between the United States and this nation, is, by our constitution and laws, vested in the government of the United States.

Worchester was a missionary who lived in New Echota, the Cherokee capital at the time. He and some colleagues were attempting to help the Cherokee challenge encroachment of their territory by the state of Georgia. Georgia had Worchester arrested and sentenced to hard labor for violating a law that forbade white missionaries from living in Cherokee territory without a license from the state. The Cherokee, on the other hand, viewed it as their decision – and their decision alone – who would be allowed to live in their territory. The case made its way up to the Supreme Court.

The decision, if had been enforced, would have thrown a wrench into the gears of the State of Georgia’s plans to expropriate all Cherokee territory in the state. But it was not enforced, although the decision subsequently became one of the foundations of the current legal theory of Native American sovereignty.

II. A reconstruction of the court at New Echota:

The original court building did not survive the removal of the Cherokee to Oklahoma in 1838 and 1839. Oddly, Worchester’s house in New Echota did.