Sir Terry on Becoming Human

Sir Terry Pratchett, creator of the magnificent Discworld and its wonderfully diverse cast of characters, has consistently demonstrated a powerfully insightful understanding of how humans tick. The full passage is:

““Once we were blobs in the sea, and then fishes, and then lizards and rats and then monkeys, and hundreds of things in between. This hand was once a fin, this hand once had claws! In my human mouth I have the pointy teeth of a wolf and the chisel teeth of a rabbit and the grinding teeth of a cow! Our blood is as salty as the sea we used to live in! When we’re frightened, the hair on our skin stands up, just like it did when we had fur. We are history! Everything we’ve ever been on the way to becoming us, we still are. […] I’m made up of the memories of my parents and my grandparents, all my ancestors. They’re in the way I look, in the colour of my hair. And I’m made up of everyone I’ve ever met who’s changed the way I think.”

–Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky:
The Continuing Adventures of
Tiffany Aching and the Wee Free Men

Elizabeth Cady Stanton on law making.

“To make laws that man can not, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.”

– Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) was an advocate of women’s rights and an abolitionist. Together with Susan B. Anthony she founded the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) in 1869. In 1890 NWSA merged with the rival American Woman Suffrage Association to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Stanton became the first president of NAWSA. After the passage of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution in 1920, NAWSA morphed into the League of Women Voters.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote influential essays and books and gave numerous lectures supporting the cause of women’s rights.

SCOTUSblog

SCOTUSblog is a highly respected and reliable source of news, information, and analysis on matters relating to the US Supreme Court.
It follows the progress of cases before the court and reports on them in both non-technical language (in their Plain English section) as well as in the more specialized language of the legal profession. Even with the latter, SCOTUSblog places an emphasis on clarity.

Supreme Court statistics presented as graphic tables is one example of the site’s clarity. Initials in the graphic below refer to the nine current justices.

SCOTUSblog was founded in 2002 by attorneys Tom Goldstein and Amy Howe (who also happen to be married to each other). It has won a number of prestigious awards including the Peabody Award for excellence in electronic media and the National Press Club’s Breaking News Award.

June is the last month of the Supreme Court’s nine month annual session. Decisions on several major cases will be announced over the next ten days. SCOTUSblog with its well deserved reputation for outstanding reporting is an excellent resource for keeping up with these rulings.

April 10, 1933: Civilian Conservation Corps was Created

On April 10, 1933 the Civilian Conservation Corps, a tool for employing young men and improving the government’s vast holdings of western land, is created in Washington, D.C.

One of the dozens of New Deal programs created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to fight the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was designed to put thousands of unemployed young men to work on useful public projects.

Roosevelt placed the program under the direction of his Secretary of Interior, Harold Ickes, who became an enthusiastic supporter.  Since the vast majority of federal public land was in the West, Ickes placed most of his CCC projects in that region.

First Speaker of the House Elected in 1789

On April 1, 1789, the first U.S. House of Representatives, meeting in New York City, reached quorum and elected Pennsylvania Representative Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg as its first speaker.

Muhlenberg, a Lutheran minister and the former president of the Pennsylvania convention to ratify the U.S. Constitution, was the son of Henry Augustus Muhlenberg and grandson of Johann Conrad Weiser, two of the leading Germans in colonial Pennsylvania. His brother, Major General John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, also served in the first House of Representatives.

Although the Constitution does not require the Speaker to be a Member of the House, all Speakers have been Members. When a Congress convenes for the first time, each major party conference or caucus nominates a candidate for Speaker. Members customarily elect the Speaker by roll call vote.

The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives customarily has the following roles:

• Institutional, as presiding officer and administrative head of the House
• Representative, as an elected Member of the House
• Party leader, as leader of the majority party in the House

By statute, the Speaker is second in line, after the Vice President of the United States, to succeed the President (3 U.S.C. §19).

The House website maintains a list of the Speakers of the House (1789 to present).