What of the Grand Jury?

We've only talked about the Martin/Zimmerman case once before here at the Hall, but the one time we did we seemed to agree that the facts suggested a grand jury.  Instead, Florida has decided to proceed with charges without the trouble of empanelling such a jury.  I would like to put the question of the grand jury to our resident lawyers.  I realize that Florida law doesn't require one in non-capital cases, and apparently this prosecutor generally doesn't use them except in capital cases.

Still, this seems like a case in which a grand jury would have been especially appropriate.  The grand jury dates to Henry II's reforms, and its guarantee was demanded of King John in Magna Carta.  It is a panel whose special purpose is to ensure that a jury of peers agrees that charges are appropriate, which seems especially to be proper in cases where there is tremendous political pressure on the government to find a way to bring charges against someone.

Thus the Fifth Amendment says:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury....

...except in certain cases pertaining to actual military service.  Florida is standing on the fact that this is not a capital case, but it surely meets the standard of a charge of an "infamous crime."  The level of publicity, and attending political pressures, seem to make this exactly the kind of case in which a grand jury would be most appropriate.

I'm sure there is a legal tradition of interpreting "infamous crime" of which I am unaware; but I'd like to ask you for the benefit of your education and experience in these matters.

Sic Transit Santorum

We are unfortunate even as he is fortunate.  He learned that he didn't want the power so much as he wanted the things he had looked for power to protect.  That is great wisdom:  but how strange to find it in a candidate for the presidency.  

Daddy Was A Godfearing Man, Whose Father Shot the Chief of Police

I meant to post this at Easter, but forgot for one reason and another.  It ties many things together we have spoken of lately.



The story is familiar; my great-great grandfather is supposed to have killed a sheriff and several deputies in the factional guerrilla fighting that came after the Civil War.  I have no reason to doubt the story; in fact, I have the musket, whose lock is the right age, and whose stock was hand-cut.

Flowers and Fire

Since Tex is showing us a lot of flowers lately, perhaps you'd like to see our Easter-blooming roses.

Some of you may find your eyes drawn to the fire that is going on in the background of that photo.  Here's a closeup of that for those of you who prefer fire and iron.

Easter lilies

Lilium longiflorum is a native of the Ryukyu Islands of southern Japan. Beginning in the late 1800s, the bulb was cultivated in Bermuda and then shipped to the United States. American production of the Easter lily began when an Oregon soldier named Louis Houghton returned home from World War I with some of the bulbs and shared them with fellow gardeners.

When World War II began and Asian sources of the bulbs were cut off, suddenly imported Easter lilies became scarce and expensive. American lily nursery production began in earnest, and the bulbs were known as “white gold” to growers attempting to make a profit. By 1945, 1,200 lily growers were in business up and down the west coast. Today the market is dominated by a handful of growers located on the the Oregon-California border in an approximately 12-mile-long strip of land along the Pacific coast, called the "Easter Lily Capital of the World."

I think that explains why they're never more than moderately happy when we plant them here. They probably want it to be in the 60s all the time. They couldn't ask for a nicer day than today, though.

H/t Dave's Garden, which produces a nice email newsletter you can sign up for, free of charge.

Laudate Dominum omnes gentes, alleluia

Our choir director delighted me this morning by choosing this lovely Taizé chant for the Easter service:



Am, E, Am, G

C, G, Am, E

Am, E, Am, G

C, G, Am/E, Am

Louez le Seigneur, tous les peuples!
Fêtez-le tous les pays, Alléluia!
Son amour envers nous s'est montré le plus fort,
Eternelle est sa fidélité, Alléluia!
Dieu monte parmi l'acclamation,
Le Seigneur aux éclats du cor.
Sonnez pour notre Dieu, sonnez,
Sonnez pour notre Roi, sonnez!
Acclamez, acclamez Dieu toute la terre,
Chantez à la gloire de son nom, en disant:
"Toute la terre se prosterne devant toi,
Elle chante pour toi, elle chante pour ton nom."

I heard about the Taizé community and its music only the other day over at Maggie's Farm. Brother Roger, who in 1940 founded this international ecumenical community of monks based in Burgundy, France, was murdered seven years ago at the age of 90, during evening prayers. Though a Protestant, Fr. Roger sought reconciliation with the Catholic Church and was granted some limited license to accept Catholic communion in violation of the usual rule excluding Protestants. He was stabbed to death by a 36-year-old woman.

Here is our Easter Altar, which had been stripped and left bare from Good Friday through the Easter vigil. As is our custom, the children in the congregation "flowered the cross" during the service. We had two baptisms this morning, a rarity in our elderly congregation. The tiny church was overflowing with 200 people.

Lent feels like passing through a tunnel that gets narrower and narrower, until it is with a tangible relief that we restore the "Alleluia" to our service.

And tonight, wine with Easter dinner. Lent is over.

Resurrection

He saw not only Them; he saw Him. This animal, this thing begotten in a bed, could look on Him. What is blinding, suffocating fire to you, is now cool light to him, is clarity itself, and wears the form of a Man. You would like, if you could, to interpret the patient's prostration in the Presence, his self-abhorrence and utter knowledge of his sins (yes, Wormwood, a clearer knowledge even than yours) on the analogy of your own choking and paralysing sensations when you encounter the deadly air that breathes from the heart of Heaven. But it's all nonsense. Pains he may still have to encounter, but they embrace those pains. They would not barter them for any earthly pleasure. All the delights of sense, or heart, or intellect, with which you could once have tempted him, even the delights of virtue itself, now seem to him in comparison but as the half nauseous attractions of a raddled harlot would seem to a man who hears that his true beloved whom he has loved all his life and whom he had believed to be dead is alive and even now at his door. He is caught up into that world where pain and pleasure take on transfinite values and all our arithmetic is dismayed.

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Truth is Stonger than Lies

Life is stronger than death. Good is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate. Truth is stronger than lies.

The darkness that poses a real threat to mankind, after all, is the fact that he can see and investigate tangible material things, but cannot see where the world is going or whence it comes, where our own life is going, what is good and what is evil.

That does, indeed, seem to be the challenge of the era. Notice, though, that 'something can come from nothing' only if we dramatically change the meaning of the word "nothing."  "Nothing" now means something, something like 'the potential for the creation of a universe.'  And that, as it happens, is nothing other than the orthodox position:  the universe came from that which had the potential to create it.

What kind of thing is that?  To say that it is "nothing" is merely to give it a new name:  but it is the same thing, whatever name you call it by.

Meditation on Some Things that Need Forgiving

In honor of the recent trip through the Deep South, some Southern thoughts on the sins that Easter forgives:

John Derbyshire and Racism

For a long time, when this blog was younger -- it's nine years old now -- we had a link section called "Admired Voices."  William Raspberry was one of them; he's been retired now for several years.  John Derbyshire was another.  What I admired about him was that he was never dissembled even a bit about what he thought, whatever the consequences.

I see that Derbyshire's latest piece got him fired from National Review.  Well, National Review has been run by cowards for a while now.  Still, there is one part in particular that really deserves condemnation:

In that pool of forty million, there are nonetheless many intelligent and well-socialized blacks. (I’ll use IWSB as an ad hoc abbreviation.) You should consciously seek opportunities to make friends with IWSBs. In addition to the ordinary pleasures of friendship, you will gain an amulet against potentially career-destroying accusations of prejudice.

That's a hell of a thing to say to any man who was your friend -- or rather, who ever thought he was.  If Derbyshire is advocating such deception -- toward a man you'd dare to call a friend! --  it's the kind of deception I admired him for never making.  If he has actually made such deceptions in the past, he's not the man I took him to be from his writings.

Other flaws in the piece are lesser because they lie within the scope of fair play for social commentary:  he is guilty of anecdotal evidence for very serious claims, which should expose him to refutation if there is stronger evidence against his positions.  But that is fair play:  refute him.  Or, he makes much of IQ data the value of which is in serious contest; that's a fight that can be had fairly as well.  Or, his recommendations for practical action are uncharitable and may be overwrought; but there, too, a response can be formulated.  (I went down to Freaknik '93 myself, alone and after midnight, and suffered no ill effects; though several young men did advise me that I would be subject to violence if I did not leave, none of them seemed inclined to actually undertake it.  Is that evidence for against his position?  Whichever, it's only one more anecdote:  where is the data?)

The question isn't whether Derbyshire is a racist:  he always proclaimed that he was one.  I'm an antiracist myself, but I've known enough racists who were otherwise good men -- even very good men -- that I have come to think that this is something we need to think through much more carefully than we usually do.

One of them we have almost forgotten:  the Reverend Mr. Wright.  He was a fighting man too, a former Marine, who nevertheless had some hostile and vicious things to say about us and our country.  I always liked him, just because he was the kind of man who would call on God to damn me.  God probably should.  The whole miracle of Easter week is that God did so much to avoid damning those of us who merit it.

Derbyshire has written many things I disagree with, but that's why I always liked him.  His word was good:  right or wrong, he'd defend the ground where he planted his flag.

If his racism has caused him to travel under false flags, deeming black men unworthy of an honest accounting of his friendship, that is a very great offense.  It is worse that it violates a virtue that he had otherwise given every appearance of mastering.  It should not, however, prevent us from recognizing that he is currently defending his honest position -- whether he lives or dies on this ground, he has chosen it and will fight for it.

Long Riders

Grandfather Mountain

Now, this week was an example of a man getting just exactly what he was asking for.  I said I was going to the forest, the home of the playful fates that rule the natural world:  and sure enough, I found them at home.

Clouds Gather in Carolina

I had checked the weather on three separate weather services up until Sunday morning, just before we left.  All of them agreed that -- while there was a mild chance of rain the first day, in places -- the week was going to be warm, dry, and sunny.  No part of that proved to be true.  The merry fates were having a good laugh.

The Pisgah National Forest

The rain started as a couple of little drops in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park -- just a few clouds building up on the far side of the mountains, nothing to worry about.  We ran hard to Curtis Creek to get ahead of it, but no joy.  Just as I began to set up the tent, there was a crack of thunder followed by one of the most intense little storms I've ever seen.  It picked the tent up off the ground and flew it like a kite while I was trying to set it up, shattered one of the fiberglass poles, and left about a half an inch of water in the bottom of it in the two minutes it took to get the tent up and the rain flap attached.

Fire and Water

I still managed to get a fire started.  Many years ago now a Boy Scout leader took us out in a downpour and taught us how.  We stripped the bark off dead wood that was hanging off the ground in trees, and built up a hot little fire out of the smallest twigs so gathered, which could then begin to dry the larger pieces.  The largest pieces, once stripped of bark, we chopped into the thicker pieces to fuzz out the drier wood inside, and put on the fire to dry and burn.

None of us but him could do it at the time, and we boys called him "Liquid Sunshine" behind his back.  Nevertheless, with practice, I found that I could do it.  It's been a skill I've been very glad to have over the years, and this week as much as ever.  So thanks, Liquid Sunshine, wherever you are.

Rocks in Curtis Creek

Once the rain stopped, it was a beautiful place.  Getting up the muddy forest service road to the Blue Ridge Parkway was not easy, however, and the rains came back hard for the rest of the morning.  Thoroughly soaked, we pushed north toward Virginia, which was still reputed to be sunny.

With the heavy weather, it took all day to get there, but sure enough just before we crossed the Virginia line we found blue skies and perfect weather.

Blue Skies in Virginia

What we didn't find was a campsite.  I had checked to be sure the campsites would be open... that is, I checked to be sure the Forest Service campsites would be open.  It never occurred to me that rest of the Federal government's campsites would open on different days.  Turns out that even the Forest Service's campsites don't all open on the same days -- and the Parkway's campsites won't be open until May.

Which is no big deal, if you're in the national forest, because you can camp in a "dispersed" fashion without problems.  There is no dispersed camping on the Parkway.

Oh, and my plans to camp in Shenandoah National Park?  Apparently those campgrounds had a later opening date as well.

Virginia in the Morning

So we said goodbye to Virginia earlier than I had intended, and fell back to the rain-soaked Pisgah forest.  That is the most beautiful country in the world, and never more than when thunderheads are gathered on the peaks.

Two Feet off a Forest Service Road, Looking Down

We also found another campsite that was shut down, the Mortimer site near Grandfather Mountain.  I had checked that one specifically, and was assured it was open; but apparently an inspector showed up and closed it after I checked, due to damage from all the recent rains.

Naturally, the Forest Service didn't put up a sign to this effect at the start of the road, but only at the gates of the campground, thirty miles back. Since we could only go about 10 miles per hour back in that country (my motorcycle is not a dirt bike, in spite of the fact that I periodically insist on using it as such), we spent hours in a thunderstorm getting in, and then had to work our way out to find another place to rest.

It was a grand adventure, in other words. Exactly what I wanted. I was sorry to see it end, as all good things must do. The last day of the ride was misty and cold in the morning, warm and sunny in the afternoon. We cut down through South Carolina, taking the Cherokee Foothills Scenic Parkway.

The Tugaloo River Crossing, from the Georgia Side

I hope you've had a great week in my absence.  It looks as if there's been lots to talk about, but for now, let me just wish you a Happy Easter.

A Photo from the Road

I have some internet access this afternoon.  It's been quite a trip, what with the unexpected storms all across the Carolinas.  I'll have more for you this weekend, but for now, just one photo.

Hopefully, your travel plans for today include Carnesville.

The Garden of Eden

In case you've ever wondered what your garden could look like if you had 7 million tulip bulbs and ten months of the year to devote to one eye-popping 60-day show every spring.

Holy Week

Holy Week: when, as Grim reminds us below, we remember how God faced down Death.

. . . Love deep as the sea as a rose must wither,
As the rose-red seaweed that mocks the rose.
Shall the dead take thought for the dead to love them ?
What love was ever as deep as a grave ?
They are loveless now as the grass above them
Or the wave.

. . .

Here death may deal not again for ever;

Here change may come not till all change end.
From the graves they have made they shall rise up never,
Who have left nought living to ravage and rend.
Earth, stones, and thorns of the wild ground growing,
While the sun and the rain live, these shall be;
Till a last wind's breath upon all these blowing
Roll the sea.

Till the slow sea rise and the sheer cliff crumble,
Till terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink,
Till the strength of the waves of the high tides humble
The fields that lessen, the rocks that shrink,
Here now in his triumph where all things falter,
Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread,
As a god self-slain on his own strange altar,
Death lies dead.

From "A Forsaken Garden," Algernon Charles Swinburne, 1837-1909

Wind in Real Time

Here's a site I'll be returning to often. If you look right now, you'll see it looks as though someone pulled a drain plug in North Dakota. I'll be looking forward to viewing the site the next time we have a really good nor'easter or hurricane.

H/t Rocket Science.

Out of the Wilderness and into the Wild

I will be gone to the Wild for a week, from Palm to Easter Sunday.  I will be traveling the Blue Ridge from the Nantahala to the George Washington forests, and camping for a night or two in the Shenandoah national park.  Mostly, though, I will keep to the forests.

On the subject of which, I have been reading a very interesting book:  Corinne J. Saunders' The Forest of Medieval Romance:  Avernus, Broceliande, Arden.  Dr. Saunders is comfortable in English from Old to Middle to Modern, as well as several forms of medieval French and Latin.  As such she has created a wonderful book on how the forest was portrayed in the period's literature, but with an introductory chapter on the sources for Medieval conceptions of the forest.

She argues there are three sources that get run together in the romantic literature:  the legal status of the forest in the Germanic and post-Roman world; the Biblical desert or wilderness, which was a place for training for purity as well as for seeking God; and a neoplatonic thread that tended to think of the forest (silva) in the way that the ancient Greeks had thought of the wood (hyle).

We have talked about the basic conflict between the form, or order, that Christianity assigns to God (logos); against that, in Plato's Timeaus and in the neoplatonic tradition, which includes many Christian thinkers, is the underlying chaos that God is forming ("And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.").  In the romance, this plays out in the forest:  the town, like the garden, is the place where men have helped to bring order to the primal chaos of nature.  The forest is the home of outlaws, bandit knights, wild beasts, and demons:

There the monk encounters the demon, an encounter that it must be said is inevitable, for the demon is at home in the desert. (Saunders, 15)

It is also the home of the faerie, whose name properly means Fates, who for the ancients are the true powers of this world.  These are the things that, as Tex's source reminds us, the Saxons expected even God to have to answer:  and the glory of Christ, over Woden, was in conquering.

Christ tells his followers to not resist, but in the Saxon version it is because he must undergo ‘the workings of fate’, the ultimate determinant of reality to the pagan Germanic peoples. When he is crucified, the cross is interpreted as a tree or gallows, which would have seemed similar to the hanging of Woden in the cosmic tree when he tried to learn the riddle of death and discovered the mysterious runes...  

Once resurrected, the warrior Christ becomes greater than Woden having escaped his own fated death with his own power and ascending to the right hand of God; the old Gods have been replaced by the Saxon saviour.

If it pleases the fates, I shall return to you on Easter.  I bid you a good week.

A New Approach to Movies?

It would be nice if we could find an alternative to the Hollywood system that keeps turning out these pieces of dross.  Amazon has apparently decided on an approach whereby they will storyboard movies and then put them up for customers to view.

This one appears to be a cross between Raiders of the Lost Ark and Crimson Skies.  You can watch it, and then go to their studio website to let them know if you'd go and see such a film in the theater -- should they invest in producing it.

Hey, Looks Like They're Remaking "Snow White"...

I wonder how that will go?

The dwarfs... teach the princess to believe in herself in a Rocky-esque training montage of swordplay and thuggery. When Snow must face the Queen in the dark woods for their ultimate battle sequence, she says to Prince Alcott, a handsome nothing played by Armie Hammer (a Romney son would have worked just as well), "I've read so many stories where the prince saves the princess. I think it's time we change that ending. This is my fight."

How unexpected.  I'm sure audiences will be stunned.

MMA Ancient-Style

Pankration was such a bloody sport that it had only two known rules: no eye-gouging and no biting. Aside from these restrictions, anything was fair game. Philostratos, an ancient writer who lived around the same time as Flavillianus, wrote that pankration competitors are skillful in different types of strangulation. "They bend ankles and twist arms and throw punches and jump on their opponents," (Translation from the book "Arete: Greek sports from ancient sources," Stephen Gaylord Miller, 2004).

Apparently one of the champions was such a successful military recruiter for Rome that, after he died, they created a place for him in the cult of the Band of Heroes.

Thass a lotta words just to say "Never Mind"

Apropos of our recent discussion on impenetrable scientific writing, this disguised admission from the IPCC's most recent Special Report on Extremes:

FAQ 3.1 Is the Climate Becoming More Extreme? . . . None of the above instruments has yet been developed sufficiently as to allow us to confidently answer the question posed here. Thus we are restricted to questions about whether specific extremes are becoming more or less common, and our confidence in the answers to such questions, including the direction and magnitude of changes in specific extremes, depends on the type of extreme, as well as on the region and season, linked with the level of understanding of the underlying processes and the reliability of their simulation in models. . . .

There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change . . . . The statement about the absence of trends in impacts attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and extratropical storms and tornados . . . . The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses.

Which pretty much amounts to: "Actually, as it turns out, we have no clue." So much for Anthropogenic Global Warming Climate Change Whatever.

H/t Watt's up with That.

And by the way, Perry kicks the EPA's butt in Texas. The EPA had the same reaction as the IPCC to the pointed question from the EPA, "What's your legal authority?" Response: Your Honor, we got nuthin.