In November of 1958, John Steinbeck — the renowned author of, most notably, The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and Of Mice and Men — received a letter from his eldest son, Thom, who was attending boarding school. In it, the teenager spoke of Susan, a young girl with whom he believed he had fallen in love.
Steinbeck replied the same day. His beautiful letter of advice can be enjoyed below.
A belief in free speech means absolutely nothing unless you exercise it to defend those with whom you violently disagree. Any moderate citizen can, without too great a strain, tolerate somebody at the other end of the democratic spectrum. The true test of such commitment comes when the reasonable person (of course, almost all of us think ourselves reasonable) runs up against a genuine spittle-flecked loon arguing for some school of totalitarianism. You find him or her dangerous? What they are saying offends your inner core? Big deal.
Now, now; less of your cynicism about members of the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) never working (or only working six or fifteen hours a week). The Ceann Comhairle (the Speaker of the lower house of the Irish Parliament) today launched A Brief Guide to How Your Parliament Works to explain how Dáil Éireann (the lower house of Parliament), Seanad Éireann (the soon-to-be-abolished upper house) and the Oireachtas (Parliament) Committees work. The guide has been awarded the Plain English Mark by the National Adult Literacy Agency for its accessibility, and if anyone reads it, the guide will certainly make the workings of the Dáil and Seanad more accessible (update: here’s an Irish Times report of the launch). It’s all of a piece with the slow move towards modernity on the part of a sclerotic Oireachtas. The venerable Oireachtas Report (whose late night tv slot was a time when only drunks and insomniacs are awake) has been supplemented by online broadcast of Oireachtas proceedings and – this week – by a dedicated Oireachtas TV channel on an Irish cable tv service.
The Ceann Comhairle gave an interview about this to the John Murray Show on RTÉ Radio 1, and the hoary old chestnut of proper attire for members of the Dáil and Seanad inevitably came up.…
[JURIST] Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) [official website] on Thursday introduced a constitutional amendment that would exclude a corporation’s First Amendment [text] rights to spend money on political campaigns. Named the Saving American Democracy Amendment [text, PDF] the proposal would make clear that corporations are not afforded the same constitutional rights as people and that the political activities of corporations can be regulated by the government. Sanders added that the law would also ban unlimited corporate campaign contributions to candidates.
Lawyers appearing at the UK’s highest court will no longer have to wear traditional dress, it was announced today.
From now on advocates in cases heard at the Supreme Court in London will be able to “dispense with any or all of the elements of traditional court dress”.
The announcement was made by the court’s president, Lord Phillips.
Supreme Court justices do not wear legal dress themselves.
A humorous aphorism which maintains that most of any body of published material, knowledge, etc., or (more generally) of everything is worthless …
By Jeremy Phillips, on IPKat, a scholarly source for the hoariest oldest chestnut of Irish copyright law:
Past historic 3: Copyright infringement and the tale of St Columba
The subject of this essay is the story of Columba — saint, scholar and alleged copyright infringer — and the ruling against him: “To every cow its calf and to every book its copy”. Readers of this weblog will recall that its author had cause to return to the story in the course of some Irish copyright blogging towards the end of last year: you can access the follow-up by clicking “Wednesday Whimsies, or a Tale of Three Lams …” here and scrolling down till you find “More on St Columba Again”
At the beginning of the current legal year, Irish judges broke with three centuries of tradition, and ceased wearing wigs in court. On 13 October last, the Minister for Justice issued a press release stating that he had signed into law two new Statutory Instruments to make the wearing of ceremonial wigs optional in the courts. The Statutory Instruments came into force the following day, 14 October, just in time for the new legal term (Irish Times, here, here, and here). The making of the SIs was duly gazetted in Iris Oifigúil on 18 October (see (2011) 83 Iris Oifigúil 1417; pdf). Hence, the Circuit Court Rules (Judges Robes) 2011 (SI No 523 of 2011) and the Rules of the Superior Courts (Robes of Bench) 2011 (SI No 524 of 2011) dispensed with the requirement that judges wear ceremonial wigs in court. However, it is only this week, a full three weeks since the Minister’s press release, that the full text of the SIs became available online. (As I have asked many times before on this blog, why does it take so long for such important legal information as cases, SIs, and Acts, to be made generally available online?).…
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