Tag: law

“130 A History Of The World According To Getty Images”

FIPADOC is an international documentary film festival based in France. A History of the World According to Getty Images makes the point that even though an intellectual property is in the “public domain” that does not mean that said property is available to the public at no charge. The filmmaker, Richard Misek, follows this insight by licensing some classic film clips of U.S. history then making them available without charge.

Intellectual property might seem like a subject both tedious and irritating: tedious because it is a complicated subject and irritating because the game is rigged. But this documentary keeps its focus narrow then takes it further by telling the story (as best as anyone knows) of each clip.

This is what got my attention to view the video: a street scene filmed from the front of a San Francisco cable car in 1906, a day or two before the disastrous earthquake. No, it’s not the morbidity of the clip but the chaos of the traffic on the street: horse, auto, cable car sharing a busy street without anything more than an ephemeral agreement on right-of-way and process.

Trust me. This is not uniquely San Francisco traffic for the time. I’ve seen similar films from Chicago and New York from the same general time period and they were every bit as anarchic.

This is why we have jaywalking laws, people! The casualty rate must have been as bad as traffic injury in the 1950s. But we’ve become educated in the pedestrian dance and habitual in its moves, so maybe we’ve outgrown jaywalking laws, mostly?

All of which has nothing to do with Richard Misek’s point with the documentary, but it is one of my pet obsessions and it is why I ended up watching this wonderful little documentary.

Illinois Votes! 2022

Mural just south of Addison Street on Clark Street. There’s a second panel but a vehicle was blocking the shot. Photo by Roman.

The 2022 primary election in Illinois began this week and will conclude on election day: June 28, 2022. For more information, start with the Illinois State Board of Elections.  For some things, you’ll end up at your local county’s board of elections web site. So if you live in Chicago, go directly to Chicago’s Board of Election Commissioners.

This election is conducted by the governments of Illinois on behalf of whatever parties have jumped through the challenges required to gain the golden fleece of official recognition. In Illinois, this means the Democratic and Republican brands though there may be more choices where you live.

By taking a party ballot, you become a member of that party in the sight of the law… even if for only one brief moment until you repent. But that choice remains a matter of public record.

The election will determine each party’s nominees for the November General Election and will elect members of each party’s governing committees. (Yes, once your party has that official recognition, much of your party’s structure is mandated by state law.)

It is true that there are a good many contests whose outcomes won’t be particularly meaningful. My way of dealing with that is to simply not vote in those contests. But I can almost always find one or more contests of interest. Really, I can’t think of any political work lasting about a half hour that would be more consequential than the half hour spent casting your vote.

* For those interested in third parties and different voting systems, allow me to recommend Richard Winger’s Ballot Access News as a news source about what is happening in legislatures and courts about elections and voting.

“Railroad Workers Barred from Striking”

While I still keep a wary eye on politics (broadly defined, not just elections), most of it just doesn’t seem that interesting (outside of immediate hazards) these days.*

But in this case, the story below had popped up on one or more of the news lists I follow out of a lifelong interest in trainspotting. Those accounts were rather sparse on the details. The account below, from the More Perfect Union YouTube channel, provides rather more detail…

…with maybe the “draconian” dial turned up a notch or so. Not that I’m complaining. The More Perfect Union website is worth a visit.

*Oh, yes: it is most certainly me and not politics that has changed. But since I’ve “retired” from activism, the details have changed enough that they begin to obscure rather than to inform.

“LSD a go go”

On one level, this video from Scott Calonico’s Vimeo Channel allows a “drug education” documentary to self-parody to the point of uncontrollable hilarity, but then, by adding stories of the CIA’s involvement with LSD, makes sure that all the laughter has a distinctly uneasy edge:

And, yes, there is more of the above where it came from.

A Trumpster Full

Photo by Roman.

Of course, the message really is ambiguous. If you happen to like or approve or otherwise support Donald Trump, you can take this as a draining the swamp metaphor, rehabbing America, making it like new if not great. On the other hand, I see an American flag over-filled with garbage, a disrespect made invisible by social superiority.

Social superiority? I mean this in a visceral, primate pecking-order sort of way, though it does translate into more abstract and generalized phenomenon, such as class, race, gender, etc. etc. etc. But for now, think of two baboons doing a screaming dance to determine which of them is indeed the boss. If you take that as the root, the 21st Century practice of insulting the opposition rather than persuading them becomes a lot more understandable… at least to me.

Disrespect? Well, legislation is partly an expression of that “screaming dance” and there is in the United States a Flag Code as to how one is supposed to treat or not treat the U.S. Flag, most relevantly:

“The flag should never be used as a receptacle for receiving, holding, carrying, or delivering anything.

“The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever. It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard. Advertising signs should not be fastened to a staff or halyard from which the flag is flown.”

There’s actually a lot more to it. If you want to get out into the weeds, you can find it all HERE.

To be fair, almost no one outside of government organizations and political professionals has been paying much attention to the Flag Code… not even conservative America… except when it relates to something they disapprove of.

Well, that’s just too bad.

On the other hand, if you’re going to the trouble of flying the U.S. flag, is it too much to ask that it be done with some attention to the Flag Code? Or is your patriotism not much different than your identification with the local sports team?

I guess so.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Rest In Peace. I’m not on Twitter but I do visit. This tweet by Marion Teniade says most of it for me:

The Blood is at the Doorstep

This documentary by Eric Ljung may be a look in the rear view mirror but if you have an hour and a half, you’ll find it worth your while. There’s a lot to unpack and, as a former political activist, I’m left with some questions that the filmmakers did not choose to explore though they touched upon a few of them. This is not a criticism but rather a recognition that the politics of community organizing can be complicated and historical. You’re not going to get it all in 90 minutes.

 

“The Blood is at the Doorstep is a story about one family’s quest for answers, justice, and reform after Dontre Hamilton is shot 14 times and killed by a Milwaukee Police Officer responding to a non-emergency wellness check.

“Filmed over the course of three years in the direct aftermath of Dontre’s death, this intimate verite documentary follows his family as they channel their grief into community organizing in an attempt to reset the narrative. Offering a painfully realistic glimpse inside a movement born out of tragedy in what the Hollywood Reporter calls ‘a clear-eyed film that finds hope within terrible circumstances, and strength
within heartbreak.'”