Author: Galen Charlton

#GuestPost Presidents’ Day 2025

Posted on by Galen Charlton | Author : | Guest Posts> Holidays> Presidents' Day
“The looking glass for 1787” – A political cartoon attributed to Amos Doolittle satirizing the debates between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists.

It is therefore obvious to the least intelligent mind, to account why, great power in the hands of a magistrate, and that power connected, with a considerable duration, may be dangerous to the liberties of a republic—the deposit of vast trusts in the hands of a single magistrate, enables him in their exercise, to create a numerous train of dependants—this tempts his ambition, which in a republican magistrate is also remarked, to be pernicious and the duration of his office for any considerable time favours his views, gives him the means and time to perfect and execute his designs—he therefore fancies that he may be great and glorious by oppressing his fellow citizens, and raising himself to permanent grandeur on the ruins of his country.—And here it may be necessary to compare the vast and important powers of the president, together with his continuance in office with the foregoing doctrine—his eminent magisterial situation will attach many adherents to him, and he will be surrounded by expectants and courtiers—his power of nomination and influence on all appointments—the strong posts in each state comprised within his superintendance, and garrisoned by troops under his direction—his controul over the army, militia, and navy—the unrestrained power of granting pardons for treason, which may be used to screen from punishment, those whom he had secretly instigated to commit the crime, and thereby prevent a discovery of his own guilt—his duration in office for four years: these, and various other principles evidently prove the truth of the position—that if the president is possessed of ambition, he has power and time sufficient to ruin his country.

(Emphasis my own.)

This quote is from “Cato IV”, an essay published in 1787. It is one of the Anti-Federalist Papers that argued against ratification of the Constitution, in this case arguing that the powers of the presidency were too broad and held for too long.

While not all of Cato IV holds up – nobody has reason to care nowadays that the state that the vice president comes from technically gets a bit of a boost in the Senate, nor could one imagine any presidency or premiership being usefully held for just one year – I fear that we are all about to learn the hard way that the Anti-Federalist’s fear that the presidency could become tantamount to an elective monarchy was not unjustified.

In “Federalist No. 69”, Alexander Hamilton argued that the presidency had a built-in accountability mechanism (as compared to the British monarchy) in the form of impeachment:

The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the king of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable; there is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable; no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution. In this delicate and important circumstance of personal responsibility, the President of Confederated America would stand upon no better ground than a governor of New York, and upon worse ground than the governors of Maryland and Delaware.

What Hamilton did not anticipate or ignored was the possibility that the president could end up commanding a “train of dependants” who would refuse to hold him to account.

I will not sugarcoat: we are in a dangerous time for the American Republic, and I make no apology for this post being more political than the ones in the past couple years. But regardless of your own views on the current situation, please at least consider this: the U.S. Constitution was the work of humans, not demigods, and it was contested. It may be time to start reading and considering some of the arguments made against it and understand why the current form of the presidency had its critics all the way back to the 1780s.

#GuestPost: Martin Luther King Day 2025: Number 21

Posted on by Galen Charlton | Author : | Guest Posts> Holidays> Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Maude Ballou and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Picture from the Ballou family)

The job of secretary to a minister is generally not associated with any particular risk to life or limb. But there are exceptions. From an interview published in the Washington Post (and republished by the Chicago Tribune in 2015:

Four days later [after the bombing of Ralph Abernathy’s house], Montgomery Improvement Association leaders supplied the chief of the highway patrol with a “List of persons and churches most vulnerable to violent attacks.” King registered at the top. Mrs. Maude Ballou was No. 21.

“Maybe I didn’t have the sense to worry,” says Ballou, who later spent three decades as a college administrator and a middle and high school teacher in North Carolina. “I didn’t have time to worry about what might happen, or what had happened, or what would happen,” she says in the cadences of a Baptist minister. “We were very busy doing things, knowing that anything could happen, and we just kept going.”

One time a man came down from Birmingham. “He said the White Citizens’ Council had sent him down there to tell me to stop working for civil rights or they would get my children. And that’s what got me, when you think about your babies. That really shook me,” says Ballou, with considerable equanimity. “But it didn’t stop me.”

Another night, working late in the office, alone, “somebody was outside watching. They were outside there in the car. And I found out later it was the KKK. But I was not afraid, for some reason,” she says. “I was a daredevil, I guess.”

What was the Montgomery Improvement Association? The organization that organized the Montgomery bus boycotts.

Who was Number 21, Maude Ballou? Martin Luther King, Junior’s first secretary. She worked in that role from 1955 to 1960, handling King’s voluminous correspondence (including putting off Malcolm X), keeping his affairs in order, and helping to set up the Southern Christian Leadership Conference office when King moved to Atlanta.

Ballou went on maternity leave in 1958, so Hilda Stewart Proctor, a niece of Harriet Tubman and active in other civil rights organizations, filled in for seven months. King clearly made an impression on her; later that year, after she had moved on to other work, she still offered to help with his correspondence prior to his trip to India:

If I do 100 letters between now and the time you leave for India that will peel down the pile a little won’t it?

AND I WOULD LIKE TO DO IT AS ANY FRIEND WOULD DO WHO IS INTERESTED IN GETTING YOU OFF TO INDIA. I shall donate my services to the cause.

Please do this. Of course, as usual, all your work will be held in the strictest confidence.

PLEASE LET ME HELP BECAUSE I STILL FEEL AS THOUGH I AM YOUR SECRETARY WITHOUT PORTFOLIO, SECRETARY AT LARGE, SECRETARY ON ‘MATERNITY’ LEAVE, not mine, of course.

King also had a significant effect on his final primary secretary, Dora McDonald, who worked for him from 1960 until his assassination in 1968. From a profile of her by Dudley Percy published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1989:

Working for Dr. King was her political awakening. Unlike many of those who found themselves aligned with the movement, Miss McDonald did not initially join because of a deep-felt conviction. Dr. King sought her out when he moved back to Atlanta from Montgomery, Ala., to co-pastor his father’s church.

…

Once she agreed to join his staff, his spirit was contagious.

“After I got into my job, and what I was doing, what we were doing, and what the movement meant, I never wanted to be doing something else. I was a part of something momentous.”

King’s spirit may have been contagious, but the Civil Rights Movement could not have been sustained on spirit alone. It was a collaborative, thoughtful effort that depended on organizational skills to pull off. Consequently, on this MLK Day, please give a thought not only to King and the other luminaries of the movement, but also to the secretaries, the bookkeepers and the office managers who kept things running.

As with my 2022 MLK Day post, I am grateful to the The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford for making many of King’s papers available online.

Christmas Day 2024: The Cats of Christmas

Posted on by Galen Charlton | Author : | Christmas> Holidays
Luna, a tabby cat with white paws, washing her forepaw
Luna maintaining her standards

In 1903, the early Dickens scholar F.G. Kitton (no relation to Luna) published an essay titled “The Man Who ‘Invented’ Christmas”. The thesis was that Charles Dickens not only wrote a timeless tale with A Christmas Carol but managed to reinvent the entire holiday. That may be a bit of stretch. Per David Parker in Christmas and Charles Dickens, Kitton may have been making a bit of a joke, and no less an authority than the The Dickens Project at UC Santa Cruz suggests that you will be very smart indeed to dispute the idea.

As is usually the case, the real story is more complicated. As Adam Lusher wrote in the Independent in 2018,

It is true that industrialisation meant fewer people were exposed to the rural squirearchy’s habit of opening their doors to the lower orders and staging grand Christmas celebrations – of the kind seen at Crewe Hall in Cheshire, where Dickens’ grandfather had been the butler, or in the pages of A Christmas Carol, where The Ghost of Christmas Past reminds Scrooge of how much he had enjoyed the dances organised by old Fezziwig.

But in 1843, outside the ranks of the aristocracy and aspirant upper middle-class imitators, Christmas was alive and well. Previous attempts to kill it had, after all, foundered on the stubborn resistance of “Merrie England”.

…

What Dickens did do, though, was give Christmas one heck of a PR push. “He was showing what was going on,” says Ms Hawksley, “And making it even more so. After A Christmas Carol, people become obsessed with celebrating Christmas.

“Before, there were people who were, like Scrooge’s nephew, doing their own family Christmases, but after, suddenly everyone is thinking: ‘We should be doing that. Why haven’t we got people coming round and playing blind man’s buff?’

“It all starts to get much bigger.”

Invention remains a key word, though: Christmas is not my holiday, nor is it Marlene’s, but it can be and is celebrated as a cultural holiday by many who have no connection to Christianity whatsoever. (Or not celebrated at all, of course.)

Speaking of invention and Christmas, let’s consider this fearsome feline:

Icelandic Yule Cat by Brian Pilkington

This is the Jólakötturinn, the Yule Cat of Iceland, a monster who traditionally will eat you if you don’t manage to get new clothes by Christmas Eve. Or maybe not:

Árni Björnsson is one of the best known folklorists living in Iceland today. His meticulous research into the Icelandic ritual calendar, including the origins of traditions connected with festivities and celebrations, was first published in two best-selling books in 1980 and 1981. His 800 page opus magnum, Saga daganna (“The History of Days”), was published in 2000. It is a vital resource for folklorists in Iceland. Like many folklorists of his generation, Björnsson has been a proponent of healthy skepticism when confronting folktales, folk beliefs and supposedly old customs. In a famous article in Skírnir published in 1996 he suggested that many elements of folk belief were simply folk fiction, stories meant to entertain rather than expressions of genuine belief.

In the case of the Yule cat, Björnsson notes the limited 19th century source material, which is almost entirely based on a paragraph in Jón Árnason’s collection of folktales. There it is called an “evil beast” (óvættur) that would either eat those who got no new clothes for Christmas, or steal their “Christmas bit” (jólarefur; an extra portion of food given to the residents of the farm). In a footnote Árnason mentions the figure of speech “to dress the cat” or “dress the Yule cat” which happened to those who didn’t get new clothes for Christmas. This footnote is based on one of his major sources, Jón Norðmann, while it is unclear where he gets the idea of the “evil beast”. The meaning may be simply that cats never change clothes. Sometimes the unfortunate ones were said to “do the cat” or be “taken by the cat” which leads Björnsson to conclude that the Yule cat was a figure of speech that Árnason may have misinterpreted as a monster. Björnsson was for many years the head of the folklife collection of the National University of Iceland and he used the questionnaires extensively in the History of Days. Many respondents in the collection were aware of this figure of speech, but were unsure as to its origin.

Watch out! Both for the Jólakötturinn and how words and stories can shift in the telling!

From Marlene and me and Hecate, George, Luna, and Tuna, may you have peace and plenty this Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Solstice – or simply as easy a time of it as possible if you are working today.

Oh, and if you’re a librarian in possession of of the run of V. C. magazine (London, 1903-1904), could you digitize Kitton’s essay? That would be a lovely Christmas present! It turns out that there are a lot of references to the notion that Kitton stated that Dickens invented Christmas, but no online copies of his essay that I could find.

Thanksgiving 2024

Posted on by Galen Charlton | Author : | Holidays> Thanksgiving
Orange tabby cat sitting on the back of a chair, looking back at the camera
George is thankful for the catio

Another year, another Thanksgiving. Hecate, George, Luna, and Tuna are with us, and for that we are thankful. No joy is unmixed, however; this year we lost Lucifer.

Some readings for today, beginning with “Frederick Douglass” by Robert Hayden:

When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful
and terrible thing, needful to man as air,
usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all,
when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole,
reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more
than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians:
this man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro
beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world
where none is lonely, none hunted, alien,
this man, superb in love and logic, this man
shall be remembered. Oh, not with statues’ rhetoric,
not with legends and poems and wreaths of bronze alone,
but with the lives grown out of his life, the lives
fleshing his dream of the beautiful, needful thing.

From Lincoln’s thanksgiving proclamation in 1864:

It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year, defending us with His guardian care against unfriendly designs from abroad and vouchsafing to us in His mercy many and signal victories over the enemy, who is of our own household. It has also pleased our Heavenly Father to favor as well our citizens in their homes as our soldiers in their camps and our sailors on the rivers and seas with unusual health. He has largely augmented our free population by emancipation and by immigration, while He has opened to us new sources of wealth and has crowned the labor of our workingmen in every department of industry with abundant rewards. Moreover, He has been pleased to animate and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage, and resolution sufficient for the great trial of civil war into which we have been brought by our adherence as a nation to the cause of freedom and humanity, and to afford to us reasonable hopes of an ultimate and happy deliverance from all our dangers and afflictions:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby appoint and set apart the last Thursday in November next as a day which I desire to be observed by all my fellow-citizens, wherever they may then be, as a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the Universe. And I do further recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid that on that occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust and from thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the Great Disposer of Events for a return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union, and harmony throughout the land which it has pleased Him to assign as a dwelling place for ourselves and for our posterity throughout all generations.

Robin Flower’s translation of Pangur Bán:

I and Pangur Bán, my cat,
‘Tis a like task we are at;
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
‘Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He, too, plies his simple skill.

‘Tis a merry thing to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur’s way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

‘Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
‘Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den,
O! how glad is Pangur then;
O! what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love.

So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Bán, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine, and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night,
Turning darkness into light.

#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.