Then and Now

 In Chapter XI, "The Conqueror (1837)" of Across the Wide Missouri, Bernard DeVoto wrote of the American Fur Company's earnest but ineffectual response to the 1837 smallpox epidemic that devastated the tribes along the upper Missouri River:

Suppose however that [the company] had the knowledge of every American today--except the million or so who belong to anti-vaccination, anti-vivisection, anti-research organizations and sometimes produce smallpox epidemics which differ from that which destroyed the Mandans only in that the rest of have been vaccinated...

A page or so later DeVoto suggested the rural south as at least a recent area of resistance to vaccines. Such resistance had not become popular among the prosperous and expensively schooled.

Across the Wide Missouri appeared in 1947, and won a Pulitzer Prize and a Bancroft Prize.

Loie Fuller

 The New York Times last week noticed a new film, "Obsessed with Light", about the dancer Loie Fuller. I know little about dance, but one of the sections of Yeats's "1919" begins

When Loie Fuller's Chinese dancers unwound
A shining web, a floating ribbon of cloth,
It seemed that a dragon of air
Had fallen among dancers, had whirled them round
Or hurried them off on its own furious path;...

The movie does not seem to have made it to Washington yet. I will have to look out for it.

Glasses

When the effect of age on my eyes was beyond denying, the optometrist suggested progressive lenses, saying that they worked well for those who worked with computers. I found that this was so. I also found drawbacks. Steps down required care until I was used to the glasses. Distance vision was best at a narrow strip across the top of the lenses, which sometimes made me tuck my chin down to see a block or two down the street.

This time, with the distance band having moved a few degrees down, I thought that I should try bifocals. I got them on Monday. For distance they were excellent. For reading print they were good. For computer work they were deficient. I make my living working on computers.

The eyeglasses vendor will replace the bifocals with progressives, for a nominal price. I am wearing my old glasses until the new arrive.

The Cabinet

 In The English Constitution, Bagehot makes a case for the superiority of the British cabinet system over the American. When I read this, I was not really convinced, and may not be now. However, it appears to me that as the federal government has expanded--as the cabinet has expanded, and one might say diffused--the cabinet has lost power.

The third through fifth presidents of the United States had served in the Cabinet, and Van Buren and Buchanan after them. That I can recall, the next member of a Cabinet to become president was Herbert Hoover. The Roosevelts topped out at sub-cabinet level, as Assistant Secretaries of the Navy. George H. W. Bush was director of the CIA, but long before that post came to be part of the Cabinet.

Since the earliest days of the republic, there have been complaints of the president ignoring the Cabinet and taking advice elsewhere. Henry Adams quoted John Randolph in a speech of 1806:

The first question I asked when I saw the gentleman's resolution was, Is this a measure of the Cabinet? Not of an open declared Cabinet, but of an invisible, inscrutable, unconstitutional Cabinet, without responsibility, unknown to the Constitution. I speak of back-stairs influence-of men who bring messages to this House, which although they do not appear in the Journals, govern its decisions. Sir, the first question that I asked on the subject of British relations was, What is the opinion of the Cabinet; what measures will they recommend to Congress?--well knowing that whatever measures we might take they must execute them, and therefore that we should have their opinion on the subject. My answer was (and from a Cabinet minister, too), 'There is no longer any Cabinet!'

(The Cabinet then included James Madison and Albert Gallatin; but Randolph disliked Madison, and may have been disenchanted with Gallatin as impossible to intimidate. In any case, Randolph's quarrel had to do with the President as much as the Cabinet.) I remember accounts fifty years ago of Richard Nixon ignoring his Secretary of State in favor of Henry Kissinger, then his National Security Advisor. Have matters changed at all?

It is said that the President elect's last cabinet considered declaring him unable to continue under the fourth section of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, and did not. It is also said that the current President's staff kept the Cabinet away from the President and unable to judge his state. Perhaps Bagehot was right.

Now Gone

 In early May 2017, a tree at 16th Street and Meridian Place NW began to sag:

Within a week or so, somebody did a bit of trimming to let the pedestrians by more conveniently:

But earlier this fall, somebody just dealt with it,

leaving some child from the neighborhood to decorate what was left.

The Public Domain

 This summer, I ordered a copy of Mental Acts: Their Content and Their Object by Peter Geach. I was mildly surprised to find that it was a reproduction of the edition published by Routledge, Kegan, and Paul. The back cover said, among other things, that

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

I find it odd that the writings of philosophers should somehow reach the public domain so quickly, when Disney's "Steamboat Willy" only made it into the public domain this year. I have made the same complaint of a copied edition of Quine's Word and Object. Disney died in 1966, Quine in 2000, Geach in 2013. Yet somehow Disney' works of the 1930s remain protected, while Quine's and Geach's works of the 1950s and 1960s are not.

The copy of Mental Acts also suggests objections to the attitude of those who think that quick entry to the public domain is wholly beneficial. This week I looked into the book to find its date of publication. The publishers had included a page with a little bit of library information from Osmania University, which must once have owned the copy scanned. But they had omitted whatever portion of the front matter included the publication date. The best I could do from the book was to establish a terminus a quo of 1953, the year of the last-cited publications. Wikipedia says that it appeared in 1957.

At the DMV

 Last Monday, I discovered that my driver's license had expired on my birthday, roughly three weeks ago. It was not practical for me to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) during the week, because of the press of business.The DMV offices keep barbers' days, Tuesday through Saturday, and I decided on Saturday.

On Saturday, I considered taking the bus, given my unlicensed state. But Georgetown is within fifteen minutes by car, and could take an hour and half to reach by bus on a Saturday. I drove, which was prudent. I left a book behind, which may not have been.

An hour and ten minutes elapsed between my arrival at the reception desk and my exit with a temporary license. A book might have helped to occupy me, or might have been impossible to read, given the unceasing sound track that posted one on almost anything one might need to know about the DMV.

This office is in a small shopping mall, with a restaurant or two. The woman next to me agreed that the mall should get permission for its shops to display the readout showing the state of the queues for service. I could see the numbers for a driver's license paid for by credit card creep up from C134 to C147 (my number). Had the readout been visible in the shops or restaurants, I could have browsed the displays or sipped coffee until C144 was called.

I find that for my next license, when I will be (well) over seventy, I will need to find a physician to certify that I am sound of mind and body. The DMV calls this the "mature driver" portion of the form. I hope that I reached maturity as a driver some time ago, but it has never been certified.

(During the last few years, people have started to use the term "DMV" as designating the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. After so many years of using for a Department of Motor Vehicles--not just DC's, but Maryland's, I find this disconcerting.)