Another fab find by the excellent folks at AALL’s KnowItAALL service (you can subscribe to it, free):
Article: “DNA from an escaped slave who ended up in Iceland ID’d in his descendants: The genetic jigsaw puzzle of an ex-slave in Iceland,” by Cathleen O’Grady, Ars Technica, 1/16/2018.
John Waters and law librarians? This should be one for the books – and the pods, tubes, eeks, etc.
[FYI: AALL is the American Association of Law Libraries]
I’ve heard Mr. Waters speak from multiple platforms (he’s totally delightful) but never on library, legal, or access to justice topics, although he has had more than his fair share of censorship litigation experiences, so he likely has talked in the past about those. The Keynote speech should itself become a great topic for discussion at the usually, um, memorable Fastcase party.
Take a look at the future:
“Automation tools are enabling Washington D.C. to publish its laws much faster: A process that once took months can now be completed by a single person in just one week,” by By Colin Wood, from States Scoop, 1/12/18:
The 12/29/17 episode of On the Media was magnificent. It’s almost always a fabulous radio program / podcast, but they outdid themselves with this year-end episode titled: The Feelings Show. You will listen, brighten, roll your eyes, breathe, laugh, wonder, frown, groan, and then head off for that proverbial beer. (It’s a meme, apparently, that beer with friends thing, or maybe a trope? Who knows? I’m not complaining; it’s also a kind of hyyge.)
So, tune in, not out, and be prepared to want to play the episode again, and even again. It’s that good – and good for you. From Rebecca Solnit, to the worst meditator ever (but the nicest and funniest), to one of our two beloved Radio Lab hosts, Jad Abumrad – and our equally beloved On the Media hosts. [Link to The Feelings Show episode.] Groovy, man.
It’s not an insult, although it could be.
I ran across the word in a recent Christopher Fowler Bryant and May novel (this one was Wild Chamber, but they are all excellent! – each one different, each one fall over funny, dark, wise, and each will make you say, “you too!” when you read/hear Fowler gently poke a stick at the ridiculous, the incomprehensible, the rubbish-talkers) and looked up the word “quango.” Good word, isn’t it, you quango, you.
Anyway, it’s an acronym (which can be distinguished from an abbreviation, in case you thought the two were synonyms – they are not (and for extra credit, the words amuse and bemuse are not synonyms either to the “strictly speaking” among us, although you can render someone bemused by using the two words interchangeably)).
Carolyn Elefant’s popular and long-running blog/website MyShingle has an interesting article (it has lots actually):
“40 Legal Practice Areas That Didn’t Exist 15 Years Ago,” January 2, 2018:
Article: “Cell Service: Inside the World of Prison Librarians,” by Jake Rossen, January 11, 2018, at Mental Floss dot com:
‘…. The escapism afforded by the books can dilute the urge to pass time by engaging in criminal behavior. Libraries can even prepare prisoners for reentry into society after release, arming them with knowledge to pursue careers.
Does your state have a Right to Repair law? (I didn’t know either!)
But our very own Free Geek (in Portland, Oregon), in addition to all the other excellent work they do, testifies before state legislatures in favor of right to repair laws; for more information they link website visitors to:
State laws that govern Oregon political parties. (Federal law also governs political party campaign finance and related activities, but that is a subject for bloggers and scholars more educated and intrepid than I.)
1) Oregon Constitution (Oregon Blue Book)
Important note: You can also link to the Oregon Constitution from the Legislature’s website, but please make sure you are looking at the most recent version. Remember that the official, full version of the Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS), including any Oregon Constitutional amendments, is updated only at the end of the long-session year. For example, the 2017 Oregon legislative session ended in July 2017, but the 2017 ORS will not be published online or in print until early 2018. It will include all legislation in force through 2017, from regular and special sessions and any Constitutional or citizen measures approved by voters. (You can still read the laws that were passed in “Oregon Laws,” which is where the session laws are published. Where you find those online probably deserves its own blog post.)
Political parties are governed by federal, state, and local laws, but more to the point, they are controlled by their own party rules, bylaws, and traditions.
State and County political parties generally post their bylaws, rules, resolutions, and platforms on their websites.
The Oregon Blue Book section National, International and Tribal is a good place to start your research; it will link to statewide political party websites. Those websites will in turn link to local political party websites:
