In supports of the Scouts

I hold the rank of Eagle earned during my membership in the Boy Scouts of America in the mid-sixties.

Today the organization is called Scouting 

According to a press report, the Pentagon has decided the Scouts are “no longer a meritocracy” and do not hold their members to high standards.

That is baloney. I know the organization today. My grandson has been a member for the last four years, and I've seen the program through his experience. It is hardly different from my day, the 1960s. If I were a parent today, I'd want my child to be a Scout. My grandson has learned good lessons, and he will complete the requirements for Eagle soon as he finishes his Eagle project, in the next couple of weeks.

The Pentagon is badly mistaken here. I endorse the statement of Scouting's Chief Executive, Roger Krone:

https://www.scoutingnewsroom.org/press-releases/statement-regarding-npr-story-on-scouting-and-the-us-military/

-Josiah Daniel

for Thanksgiving 2025

On my way this past Monday to pick up our Greenberg Turkey in Tyler, I encountered a man who inspired me to write a letter to the editor of the Tyler paper. The Managing Editor messaged me "Thank you very much for your submission and for sharing this story with our readers," which I interpreted (or misinterpreted) as "We are going to publish it." 

After waiting several days, I give up and "publish" it myself today, here on my blog:

        "On rainy Monday I saw an elderly man at the stop sign on eastbound Van Highway at the Gentry Parkway. He clearly did not want to be there, but his square sign said "PLEASE HELP" in all capitals. I reached for my wallet and rolled down the window. When I saw he was soaking wet, I multiplied by five the amount of my gift. He said, "Trying to get out of this cold rain. God bless you." I returned the greeting. He glanced at my cash, looked over his left shoulder, and called gently but loudly, "C'mon. We can get out of the rain now."

         That's when I saw his wife, seated against a chain link fence. She was not wearing a raincoat. I went onward through the rain to my destination, Greenberg Turkey on McMurrey, and picked up our turkey (always a wholesome experience).  When I passed back through the intersection, the old couple was gone.

         How does this happen to such people, in their advanced years, in the USA with all its GNP? That's a question. Meanwhile, observance of Thanksgiving is a good reminder for everybody to demonstrate their thankfulness.

Josiah Daniel"

Maxwell Bloomfield on criticism of the SCOTUS in fictional literature (1981)

In the 47 years I've been licensed to practice law, I have been fortunate to have gotten to know some really fine historians of law and related topics. One of those was the late Maxwell Bloomfield, professor at Catholic University School of Law.

In 1981 he gave me a reprint of his splendid article "The Supreme Court in American Popular Culture," 4 Journal of American Culture 1 (1981).

At the end he writes:

"Some may argue that much of this publicity [about the institution of the SCOTUS and its personnel] is counterproductive and only lowers the Court in public esteem. But on that point the views of the Justices themselves are instructive. Although many have discussed the question over the years, no one has better expressed the prevailing opinion than ASSOCIATE JUSTICE DAVID J. BREWER, WHO OBSERVED BACK IN 1898:

'It is a mistake to suppose that the Supreme Court is either honored or helped by being spoken of as beyond criticism. On the contrary, the life and character of its justices should be the object of constant watchfulness by all, and its judgments subject to the freest criticism. The time is past in the history of the world when any living man or body of men can be set on a pedestal and decorated with a halo. True, many criticisms may be, like their authors, devoid of good taste, BUT BETTER ALL SORTS OF CRITICISM THAN NO CRITICISM AT ALL.'"

(emphasis added)

 

To my Texan friends:

This trenchant analysis by a property-tax lawyer I respect, John Brusniak, confirms that the proposed Texas Constitution amendment that supposedly will provide "relief" and "reform" for all Texans is chimerical:

---> https://cdn.lawlytics.com/law-media/uploads/963/343244/original/The-Great-Texas-Property-Tax-Switcheroo.pdf?1761020465

The Texas property tax was the only way for governments in the state to raise money in the 1800s, but all efforts to replace it subsequently have failed. (The best effort was made by Gov. Dan Moody in the 41st Lege, 1929.) The property tax is regressive, unfairly hitting hardest the low-income Texan who owns real estate (and the sales tax is the other regressive tax) and makes it harder for her or him to hold onto it. 

But rather than truly fix this ancient tax, replacing it with modern taxes, Texas leaders have always preferred to be able to tout, "We don't have an income tax" as one of the key pitches for out of state capital to come into the State. I. believe that capital will continue to gravitate to Texas even when, someday, Texans have demanded and obtained a fair state tax system.

A lesson from David McCullough's posthumous book of essays

     Finished reading this just-published book of essays: David McCullough, History Matters (Simon & Shuster, 2025). Among many relevant observations and admonitions with present applicability, the late historian quotes John Adams from 1765:

"Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people who have the right to that knowledge and the desire to know. But besides this, they have the right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge–—I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers."

Ibid. at 94.

I condemn the current administration's repression of knowledge, science, and institutions of higher education. That includes stopping and impeding certain medical and scientific research and efforts to preclude the diffusion of knowledge about the history of slavery and mistreatment of black and brown people over the course of America's past. Despite cover-ups, diversions, and obfuscations, Americans—today as back then—have an absolute right, per the Founder, John Adams, to learn and acquire such knowledge as well as to see and understand "the character and conduct of" the Executive Branch's officials.

About footnotes in law-review literature

The topic again is FOOTNOTES, one of the best means of protecting against false information and fabricated history.
Today and tomorrow I wish to compare and contrast HISTORY-BOOK FOOTNOTES and LAW REVIEW FOOTNOTES.
  Starting with the latter brings us immediately to the BLUE BOOK which is the form book for legal-journal citations of authorities. It is available in print or online (which I prefer), and its 22d edition is now out.
The Blue Book's goal is to create a lingua franca for legal scholars and authors. But the Blue Book provides a far more complicated regimen for legal citations than historians' style of footnoting (tomorrow's topic).
The law-student editors of the law reviews know and wield these complex rules ruthlessly when working over article drafts accepted from legal authors.
And one thing I have experienced with publishing in law journals and continue to challenge is OVER-FOOTNOTING. The student editors will say that their charge is: "EVERY FACT AND EVERY LEGAL ASSERTION MUST BE FOOTNOTED." I disagree. For instance, there are matters of general, undisputed knowledge that need no footnote, such as "The sun always rises in the east" and "The Supreme Court comprises nine justices." 
And then there is the problem of whether specific clauses or phrases within a sentence need to be footnoted in law articles. Traditionally there was a preference for all footnotes at the ends of sentences, but a casual review of recently published articles in major-league law journals shows mid-sentence footnotes.

In praise of footnotes

Footnotes are, here in the third decade of 21st century, generally disfavored.

But for something like 150 years now, footnotes have played a big role in deterring fake information and fabricated history. Footnotes force the author to provide his sources right there, on the same page (or, in the case of endnotes, within the same covers).

As one historiographer put it:

"The critical reader requires a more explicit guarantee of the truth of a statement in the text than is afforded by the blanket authority or reputation of the author. THE FOOTNOTE AFFORDS THIS GUARANTEE BY INDICATING THE SOURCES OR AUTHORITY ON WHICH THE TRUTH OF THE PARTICULAR STATEMENT IS BASED."

GILBERT J. GARRAGHAN, A GUIDE TO HISTORICAL METHOD (N.Y.: Fordham University Press, 1946) (emphasis added).

Podcasts are great, but there are no footnotes accompanying them. Ditto for tweets. And for all written or printed material, we need not only footnotes but also a whole lot more "critical readers"!