Articles Posted in Something completely different

Last night I watched the presidential debate. This morning I watched the Texas Supreme Court oral argument in State of Texas v. Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins, in which the Texas Attorney General is seeking to enjoin the Harris County Clerk from mailing out applications to vote by mail to all voters in Harris County.

Webster’s defines argument as “a coherent series of reasons, statements, or facts intended to support or establish a point of view; a form of rhetorical expression intended to convince or persuade.”

Webster’s defines debate as “a regulated discussion of a proposition between two matched sides; a contention by words or arguments.”

I have been reading Stephen Harrigan’s history of Texas, Big Wonderful Thing. Great read. I just finished Harrigan’s discussion of the period of Reconstruction in Texas after the Civil War. Two things struck me: first, in the Black Lives Matter era, how we are all being drawn into re-examining our country’s history of discrimination against African Americans; and second, how divided Texas was, both before and after the Civil War, on the issues of slavery and race relations.

After Lincoln’s assassination, his successor Andrew Johnson appointed Andrew Jackson Hamilton as provisional governor of Texas. Hamilton was a former Texas Congressman who opposed secession and escaped Texas during the war. A delegation was then elected in 1866 to write a new Texas constitution. The delegates refused to ratify the 13^th Amendment and wrote into the constitution that Blacks would not be allowed to vote, hold office, or serve on juries. Texas voters ratified the constitution in June 1866 and elected a new governor, James Throckmorton, who fought for the South in the war. The newly elected legislature then passed laws known as “black codes” further limiting rights of African Americans. For example, a law required that all Black household servants “shall at all hours of the day or night, and on all days of the week, promptly answer all calls … to be especially civil and polite to their employer, his family and guests.” Continue reading →

What a month.

We are all under the illusion – especially in the West – that we have some control over our lives. COVID-19 has reminded us to the contrary. It is humbling. We can’t see into the future, but what we can see does not look good.

We are asked to stay home, to practice social distancing, to halt commerce and tank the economy. All to prevent something that seems (until recently at least) distant and contingent. We are learning that the only way to prevent the spread of this virus is to act preemptively, before it has attacked. This goes against our instinct as humans. Social distancing has reminded us that we are social animals, that we crave human contact. Conference calls and video conferencing are a poor substitute.

A friend recently told me about two great websites:  www.oilystuffblog.com, and www.shaleprofile.com.  The first is a fun read authored by Mike Shelman, “Oily Humor & Short Stories About a Very Long, Oily Life.”  Here’s a post about “BOE,” or “barrels of oil equivalent.”

Shale Profile is a subscription site, but it has a lot of free information about shale plays in the U.S. A remarkable interactive use of big data. Here’s an example, a snapshot of all production in the Permian Basin:

Last Saturday our firm participated in the annual Austin parade celebrating Juneteenth, the day in 1864 it was announced in Texas that all slaves were free. The parade is the biggest in Austin, a celebration of freedom that has become a state holiday in Texas and 44 other states. June 19 also is my mother’s birthday.

Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was issued on September 22, 1862, with an effective date of January 1, 1863. It declared that all slaves in the Confederate States would be free – excluding the five border states not in rebellion, and excluding the three zones then under Union occupation – Tennessee, lower Louisiana and Southeast Virginia.

Lee surrendered at Appomattox on April 9, 1864, but the Army of the Trans-Mississippi did not surrender until June 2. Union Army General Gordon Granger arrived on Galveston Island with 2,000 federal troops on June 18, to occupy Texas. The following day, from the balcony of Galveston’s Ashton Villa (see photo), Granger read aloud General Order No. 3:

My blog has been nominated in The Expert Institute’s 2018 Best Legal Blog Contest! I’m in the category “Niche & Specialty.” And I have one vote already! So vote early and often.

Five years ago I wrote a blog entry titled “The Limits of Rational Decision-making.” The topic was a sociological study testing subjects’ ability to make decisions based on facts. The conclusion of the study was that knowledge does not increase a person’s ability to reason when it comes to politically charged issues. People’s biases prevent them from making decisions based on facts. I ended the post with these words:

Leon Festinger, a famous Stanford University psychologist, said that “A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.” Changing one’s point of view on difficult politically charged issues is difficult.

A group called “Ark Encounter” is raising money to construct a replica of Noah’s Ark in Williamstown, Kentucky, using the exact dimensions and directions found in Genesis. It will be more than 500 feet in length, three stories high, and built with planks, beams and pegs. When asked how they were going to get the more than 2 million species of animals now on the planet in the ark, they say that, in Noah’s time, there were only some 2,000 types of animals, and that all animals today descend from those original animals. Fitting myth to reality is no problem for believers. Changing their minds about the facts is more of a problem.

Osler McCarthy, the Staff Attorney for Public Information at the Texas Supreme Court, sends out an email to subscribers each time the Court issues opinions or orders. The email summarizes the facts and opinions of cases decided by the Court. It also includes a section called “Returning to Yesteryear” in which Osler lists historical events that happened on the date of his email.  They are fascinating. Here’s an example:

On this day in 1862, noted by the Texas State Historical Association, Confederate soldiers attacked a force of Hill Country Unionists, most of them German, beside the Nueces River in Kinney County in what is known as the Battle of the Nueces. Nineteen Unionists were killed. The next day the Confederates executed eight who were wounded. Another eight were killed in October as they tried to cross the Mexican border. A marker in Comfort commemorating the battle is the only Civil War monument in the German language where the remains of those killed in battle are buried in the South.

I had never heard of this battle or monument, so I looked it up.

Lawyers’ tools are words. We are often accused of using too many of them.

In today’s political climate, words have often lost much of their meaning. It is good to be reminded of the elegance and poetry of good legal writing.

So take a few minutes to read the Declaration of Independence, not just to remind us of who we aspire to be, but also to remind us of the power of words.