Wickersham's Conscience

It’s a mixed bag in the email box. WC will sort through a selection for you.

Reader Paul Eaglin pointed WC to a recent article demonstrating there is more than one way to rig a death penalty case. In the South, it’s often done by the selective use of preemptive challenges in jury selection. A “preemptive challenge” is the right of a party to a lawsuit to dismiss a potential juror without cause and with explaining why. North Carolina, which doesn’t always do the right thing, did enact the Racial Justice Act. Marcus Reymond Robinson used the Act recently to set aside his death sentence, because his lawyers demonstrated that the prosecution used preemptory challenges three times as often where the juror was an African-American as when a juror was white. In the context of a Black killing a White in North Carolina, the judge concluded, that was unjust. Marcus Reymond Robinson will spend the rest of his life in jail, but cannot be executed.

Reader JustaScalawag responded to WC’s recent post on Bristol Palin by directing WC to Frank Bruni’s recent screed in the New York Times on The Quitter’s oldest daughter. Sample quote:

But she so perfectly distills the double standards and audacity of so many of our country’s self-appointed moralists and supposed traditionalists: hypocrites whose own histories, along with any sense of shame, tumble out the window as soon as there’s a microphone to be seized or check to be cashed.

Nice! But the referee has whistled WC for piling on.

AKYahoo noted Paul Jenkins’ comment in the Anchorage Daily News that the Alaska GOP recently did Senator Mark Begich (D., Alaska) a huge favor: they let Joe Miller’s storm troopers take over control of the GOP in Alaska. Presumably, that allows Joe Miller a head start at running against Begich. WC already had Jenkins’ piece flagged for a blog post, but a tip of the hat to AKYahoo for seeing the signs. WC respectfully disagrees with Mr. Jenkins. History suggests that the Alaska Republican Party is nearly irrelevant to the business of electing U.S. senators. Ask Senator Murkowski.

Reader Diana points WC to frugaldad.com’s infographic on The Mitt’s award as individual tax hacking champion. Among other insights, it shows that The Mitt’s net worth is greater than the combined net worth of the previous eight presidents. Note: WC hasn’t independently confirmed the accuracy of the graphic, or sourced it. Use at your own risk.

Foreignaffairs (Foreign Affairs!) emailed to ask what WC meant by “magpie sensibility.” WC is flattered and appalled. But in mythology, at least, magpies are attracted to shiny objects, whether valuable or trash, which they carry to their nest and then forget or ignore. WC has suggested it is an apt metaphor for the subjects WC chooses to address and, WC fears, the extent of his follow-through.

The same writer asks again how much of the stuff WC writes about is real and how much is made up and accuses WC of dodging the question. Yes. And yes. Get over it.

The rest of the stuff is too vulgar for WC’s blog and will be used as digital mulch.

WC will be taking a break from the blog for a few days. Posts will be irregular, if there are posts at all. Photographs of birds may be taken.

Back soon.

Well and Good

I may make all thing well, I can make all thing well, I will make all thing well, and I shall make all thing well; and thou shalt see thyself that all manner of thing shall be well.

- Lady Julian of Norwich, Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 31, c. 1393

WC will have a photo show running at at River City Cafe and Expresso April 6-30. The show opens on a First Friday, so WC will hang around and answer questions. If you are in downtown Fairbanks, stop by and say hello. If you are one of the handful of folks who haven’t figured out who WC is, you may be able to answer that question, too. Provided you don’t get too existential.

The show is titled “Birds of Alaska” and will feature birds photographed by WC over the last half dozen year in Interior Alaska and on the south side of the Alaska Range. Depending on how many will fit on the walls, there could be 20-25 photos, most 16″ x 20″. Some of those photos have been previewed here earlier. Easter candy will be served while supplies last.

Thanks to Bobbi Eller and River City for hosting WC again. Thanks to Alaska Camera for their usual fine work printing and mounting the photos.

The Oatmeal is arguably the worst-drawn, popular comic on the web. It would certainly be on the short list if it isn’t demonstrably the worst. But the very bad art can’t defeat the very good messages. A case in point:

The Oatmeal is drawn by Matthew Inman. He reports that the idea for this cartoon came from a reader. The reader was vague about the origin of the idea. Inman tried to perform his due diligence, but it turned out that there was a much older, 2009 cartoon on the same meme over at Atheist Cartoons,

Inman has apologized, which is pretty much all you can do in these circumstances. But WC draws two additional lessons from The Oatmeal Experience.

First, it’s increasingly clear to WC that public avowal of atheism is less unacceptable than formerly, to the despair of WC’s Christianist acquaintances. There was a time in this country when atheism was widely regarded as the moral equivalent of child molestation. Atheists have been criminally prosecuted for blasphemy in America. So amid all of the general deteriorata, there are some positive developments.

Second, truly original material is hard. There are hundred of thousands of bloggers all chasing the same set of memes. While there are certainly bloggers who steal without credit, at least among the passably honest bloggers, it’s an unavoidable by-product of lots of authors and a limited set of current events. WC has certainly read other folks’ blogs and used the ideas there as the starting point for his own works. The present blog is obviously a case in point.

So if some of WC’s blog posts resemble other bloggers’ work, keep in mind the blogger/subject ratio. Perhaps the issue can be the next blog meme.

According to the statistics features at WordPress, this is WC’s 1,000th blog post. Hmm. When Wickersham’s Conscience launched in November 2009, WC had no expectation that it would last this long, let alone amount to 1,000 posts.

Some notes for the occasion:

• The most popular post ever is . . . A Field Guide to Trolls. Yes, that is pretty embarrassing. Some of these blog posts take hours to research and write. And a 15 minute lame attempt at humor proves most popular. It’s not even laid out well. The art – generously calling it “art” – is shamelessly stolen.
• The post with the most external links to it is . . . Palin, Teabaggers and the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Any post about Caribou Barbie is popular, but apparently WC was the first person to link the little-known Dunning-Kruger Effect to the particularly delusional characters that support Alaska’s Quitter. From time to time, it’s footnoted in her entry in Wikipedia, but then the Palinbots edit it out.
• The post that took the longest to write, by far . . . WC’s 95 Theses on Joe Miller. AKM over at The Mudflats claims she uses it as a reference, which is flattering. For all the work it was not particularly popular. Of course, neither were Luther’s efforts at the time.
• The most popular post on photography – and remember WC’s primary interest is nature photography – is . . . Photography Challenges: Fairbanks, on the trials and tribulations of obtaining a reasonably attractive photo of downtown Fairbanks. It’s also one of the few posts on photos that wasn’t on nature photography.
• The most referrals to Wickersham’s Conscience have come from . . . The Immoral Minority. Thanks, Gryphen.
• Total views of Wickersham’s Conscience are approaching a quarter million. And that’s humbling. On the one hand, that’s a bad afternoon’s traffic for, say, Andrew Sullivan at The Dish. On the other hand, it’s astonishing and flattering that so many people have troubled to visit this blog.
• WC has been read – well, viewed – by folks on six continents from about 80 countries. WordPress offers a spiffy map:
  

  Wickersham's Conscience Views by Country

  WC can understand Sweden and Denmark, checking up on the M/V Polar Star, but Oman? Very strange.

And that’s where WC will leave it: thanks to each and every one of you who take the time to read Wickersham’s Conscience.   It matters more than WC expected when he started out. Now WC will turn his magpie sensibilities to a 1,001st post.

Readers may have noticed WC sometimes titles blog posts, “Says It All, Really.” In an unusual fit of scruple, WC wants to provide the source for the quote.

In Terry Pratchett’s novella, Faust Eric (Amazon link), the protagonists encounter Ponce da Quirm, who is looking for the Lost Fountain of Youth. And finds it!

Met later in Hell, he explains that while it is true to say that he definitely started feeling younger for a while, no question there, in his excitement he unfortunately neglected the crucial need to boil the water first. “Boil it first. Says it all, doesn’t it? Terrible shame, really.”

Which WC has shortened to, “Says it all, really.”

Others may have different sources, but now you have WC’s.

After about 90 consecutive days of new posts, WC is going to take a few days off from the blog and see if there are any birds left to photograph.

Well and Good

Feel free to discuss among yourselves… WC’ll be back in a while.

(By the way, in response to comments and questions, yes, that’s an un-retouched photo taken in Fairbanks.)

When an audience do not complain, it is a compliment, & when they do it is a compliment, too, if unaccompanied by violence.

- Samuel L. Clemens, Letter to George W. Cable, Jan. 15, 1883 (reprinted in Twins of Genius by Guy Cardwell)

WC has written for an audience of one sort or another for about five decades, now. For more than three of those decades, WC has written as a lawyer, which has likely seriously and permanently injured such style as he once had. Engaging legal writing is very nearly an oxymoron; anyone who can call a 50-page document a “brief” already has several problems. Combine that with a fondness for vocabulary and an obscure voice, and it’s a wonder anyone reads this stuff at all.

But you do. And, for the most part, you don’t complain. There are, WC understands, about half a million new blog posts each day on WordPress alone. And yet you, WC’s kind readers, are generous enough to read Wickersham’s Conscience.

So on the third anniversary of Wickersham’s Conscience, here’s to the loyal readers <clink>, who pay WC the great compliment of reading this blog.

WC gets email. One reader called WC out for being “pessimistic about America’s future.” WC will allow the multi-media artist Erika Rothenberg respond to that charge:

America's Joyous Future

©1991 Erika Rothenberg. Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words.

Rothenberg’s work is worth a long look. Amazing stuff.

Crested Black Macaque Self-Portrait

WC’s one and only photography instructor told WC that when a photographer resorts to self-portraits, a monkey has gotten ahold of the camera.

In this case, it’s a much cooler story. Photographer David Slater with the London Daily Mail – a British newspaper not currently embroiled in scandal – had his camera picked up by a female Black Crested Macaque. With this result.

Ordinarily, the copyright belongs to the photographer, but in this case they might have to make an exception.

North Sulawesi, Indonesia, and very, very cool. We’ll all pretend it’s not a commentary on the skill required to be a photographer… Gives a whole new meaning to the term, “Chimping,” too.

If there are any readers out there who (a) care who WC actually is, and (b) haven’t figured it out already, well, here’s another chance. WC will have a photo show at River City Cafe for First Friday, July 1, from 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM.

Stop by if you are in town.

/WC

WC interrupts regular blog posts for this special Meta Edition

500 Posts

WC wants to pause briefly to note the 500th post to Wickersham’s Conscience. Yes, WC has been abusing innocent electrons through 500 essays now. Shameful, to be sure.

But the real celebration should be you, WC’s readers, whose comments and emails have inspired – for a given definition of “inspired” – WC, and contributed no small number of ideas for blog pieces.

As WC’s readers know, WC brings a magpie judgment and selection process to these essays, selecting bright and shiny trinkets that appeal to WC at the moment. WC has been working on more extended analysis, as in the recently concluded Meghan Simon series and the intermittent critiques of “exceptionalism.” And WC will shortly be adding a couple of new features available through WordPress, including the first ever poll. There’s still the unfinished business of picking the ideal metaphor for Caribou Barbie.

Some tidbits:

• The most popular single blog post, in terms of viewers, remains WC’s first essay on Joe Miller. It was linked by Mudflats, Immoral Minority and Huffington. For whatever reason, readers are still going to the post.
• The most popular single topic, in terms of viewers, remains Caribou Barbie. As WC has said before, he has serious misgivings about writing on The Quitter. It feeds her need for attention. Absent extraordinary conduct on her part, expect fewer Palin posts.
• The most popular subject, in terms of comments, is still Joe Miller. His slow political suicide in front of the entire nation inspired amazing numbers of comments, few of them kind.
• There is no relation between the amount of effort WC puts into a blog post and its popularity. Difficult posts to research and write like Don’t Discard ACES get very few visits. Knock-offs like to the link to Jim Wright’s screed are wildly popular. At least some of WC’s readers prefer entertainment to education.
• The audiences for nature photography and politics are very different, with little overlap.
• WC is forced to conclude there is no audience for economics. Not that it will stop WC from writing about it. Celtic Diva described WC as “wonkish” and WC strives to live up to the reputation.

So thanks again to you, the readers of Wickersham’s Conscience. Keep the ideas, suggestions and questions coming.

We now return to the regular programming.