Monthly Archives: April 2016

A barrel of monkeys? – no, of rain water!

Peter Holden – on making a rain water barrel and why

Peter Holden – on making a rain water barrel and why

It’s not clear that a barrel of monkeys is much fun.

Nor maybe a barrel of rain water either.

But collecting rain water in a barrel is quite useful.

Peter Holden of the Loudoun Soil and Water Conservation District came out to Lovettsville last Wednesday to the Quarter Branch Barn, in partnership with the Town, to help the local folk to build or buy barrels to collect rain water.

Some may think that there’s so much water, that it’s quaint to collect rain water in a barrel.

Although 70% of the earth is covered in water, less than one half of one percent of all that water is fresh, available and drinkable.

That’s not a lot worldwide, particularly when some is wasted, compromised by pollution, and not where it’s needed.

It’s startling that one fifth of all the world’s fresh water is found in Lake Baikal in Siberia.

We should be concerned because water is right up there after air for our survival.

The world record for holding one’s breath is 22 minutes for a trained free diver, Stig Severinsen (after Stig hyperventilated to rid himself of carbon dioxide). But many can hardly hold their breath for even a minute.

As for living without water, three to five days is about right although it depends on your physical condition.

Many presume that water is free. But mostly it costs to treat and recycle it. Town folk pay water taxes. Away from sources of public water, homeowners and renters maintain well and septic systems and filters and pumps.

Harvesting falling rain water in a barrel lightens the burden on public and private water sources.

Peter said, “Rain barrels are an old technology that has come back into style as people focus on conserving our resources and minimizing the impact on the environment.” Continue reading

One man, little or no vote

Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville

Ever since the ancient Greeks, and long after Attica and Pericles, we arrived, by fits and starts, at an understanding that democracy, and the right of the people to vote, is how we overthrow kings, dictators, and corrupt political elites.

Many suffered and died when resisting those who opposed the popular vote.

We are engaged in a struggle over what the franchise means in this presidential election year.

Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that, “America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

What is especially “good” about America is that “we the people” can say directly or indirectly how we are governed by whom we may elect with our votes.

Thomas Jefferson believed that, “[s]hould things go wrong at any time, the people will set them to rights by the peaceable exercise of their elective rights.”

Republican voters are asking this year whether their “elective rights” have anything like the bang per vote they thought they enjoyed.

In the Republican primaries, we have seen how the votes of one man may be reduced to a fraction, or be treated unequal to another man’s vote, or may even wither until a nullity, void and of no effect whatever.

Harry Enten studied the variance in the recent Republican primaries and caucuses, focusing on how many voters it took to elect a delegate.

Mr. Enten found a range, how it took 52 votes to elect a Republican delegate in the Northern Mariana Islands, but 2,516 votes in Nevada; the insider caucuses, he concluded, invited outsized elite influence, requiring fewer votes to elect more delegates.

The orange canary in the Republican presidential primaries has been Billionaire Developer Donald Trump. Continue reading

Black lives matter

Jamycheal Mitchell

Jamycheal Mitchell

On April 22, 2015, Jamycheal Mitchell, 24, a schizophrenic, walked into a 7-11 in Portsmouth, and took a Mountain Dew, a Snickers bar and a Zebra Cake.

The value of these three food items was $5.05.

He was charged with trespass, and petit larceny, misdemeanors.

What do you think his bail should have been?

Whatever you think, you likely got it wrong.

He was denied bail entirely, and held in custody at the Hampton Roads Regional Jail, according to the Portsmouth Case Information System.

Every person accused of a crime, particularly a misdemeanor, has a constitutional right to be released on bail if they are not a risk to themselves or to the community.

There is no indication that Jamycheal posed any risk when arrested.

But the Magistrate denied him bail, and kept him in custody.

Jamycheal wasn’t released from jail a month later.

Instead, Judge Morton V. Whitlow ordered Jamycheal to be transferred to the Eastern State Hospital since he was deemed incompetent to stand trial on the misdemeanor shoplifting charges, and presumably remain there until he was competent to stand trial.

If that sounds bizarre, this Dickensian nightmare for Jamycheal and his family was hardly over.

Nor would it end anything like Victor Hugo’s famously wronged fictional inmate, Jean val Jean, who stole a loaf of bread, rather than a Snickers.

There was no room at Eastern State for Jamycheal. So he remained at the Hampton Roads Regional Jail. In fact, Jamycheal was never taken to receive any treatment.

Jamycheal reportedly paced his cell naked, ate little or nothing, lost weight, and had no visitors.

On July 31, 2015, when he appeared before the court, he was visibly thinner, his face emaciated, but the Court simply reiterated his earlier direction, that Jamycheal be transferred to the Eastern State Hospital.

Having seen Jamycheal in court on July 31, 2015, a least one family member reportedly called the jail and asked that he be transferred to the emergency room. But that didn’t happen.

On about August 17, 2015, Jamycheal was dead. Continue reading

Full court press

President Ronal Reagan nominated 9th Cir. Court Judge Anthony Kennedy and he was confirmed unanimously by the US Senate in 1988 – a presidential election year

President Ronal Reagan nominated 9th Cir. Court Judge Anthony Kennedy and he was confirmed unanimously by the US Senate in 1988 – a presidential election year

The Republican Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell, and the Republican Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Charles Grassley, both insist that a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court should not be approved in a presidential election year and they insist instead that the nation wait until the next President is elected, about nine months from now.

Nonsense!

Both Majority Leader McConnell and Chairman Grassley approved and voted for President Ronald Reagan’s Supreme Court nominee, Circuit Judge Anthony Kennedy, in a presidential election year, 1988, when President Reagan was a “lame duck.” (You may want to listen to what Chairman Grassley said in 1988 at Judge Kennedy’s confirmation hearings – http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4580671/grassley-supports-kennedy).

The vagaries of when a presidential nomination may occur has no bearing on what the constitution requires.

Especially when there have been 13 other Justices approved in presidential election years in our nation’s still young history including Justices Oliver Ellsworth (1796), Samuel Chase (1796), William Johnson (1804), Philip Barbour (1836), Roger Taney (1836), Melville Fuller (1888), George Shiras (1892), Mahlon Pitney (1912), John Clarke (1916), Louis Brandeis (1916), Benjamin Cardoza (1932), and Frank Murphy (1940).

The Senate’s refusal to meet its constitutional obligation has allowed us to see how the independence and function of the Supreme Court shall be compromised. Continue reading