Diaries

Washington Human Rights Commission adopts new transgender policies

The Human Rights Commission of the state of Washington announced on December 26 a new set of rules governing use of sex-specific facilities.

In essence the state is officially recognizing transgender women to be women and transgender men to be men.

Of course, there are some folks who can't wrap their heads around that.

Hellraisers Journal: Judge Orrin N. Hilton, Attorney for Joe Hill, Facing Disbarment in Utah

The cause I stand for, that of a fair and honest trial,
is worth more than any human life-
much more than mine.
-Joe Hill

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Wednesday January 5, 1916
Salt Lake City, Utah - Disbarment Proceedings Begun Against Judge Hilton

From The Ogden Standard of December 22nd, comes news of a recent development in what passes for the practice of Law in the Pursuit of Justice in the state of Utah:

HILTON DISBARMENT COMPLAINT HAS BEEN FILED
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Orrin N Hilton.jpg

Salt Lake, Dec. 22.-Disbarment proceedings against O. N. Hilton, the Denver lawyer, because of attacks made upon Utah justice and integrity at the Joe Hillstrom funeral in Chicago, were formally instituted in the supreme court of the state yesterday by the Utah State Bar association.

The grievance committee of the bar association filed with the supreme court information charging the Denver lawyer with unprofessional and immoral conduct in violation of his oath and obligations as an attorney practicing in Utah courts. The petition asks that Hilton be cited to appear before the supreme court and answer why he should not be barred from practicing in the Utah courts.

The complaint is signed by C. S. Varian, chairman, and A. L. Hoppaugh and Frank K. Nebeker, comprising the grievance committee, and countersigned by Herbert R. MacMillan as president of the Utah State Bar association.

The bar association, in its formal complaint, quotes from the address at the Hillstrom funeral in Chicago, where in the lawyer charged that the influences of the Mormon church sent Hillstrom to the expiation of a crime for which he was not proved guilty and wherein he attacked Governor Spry and the Utah supreme court. Hilton was admitted to practice here in the supreme court in 1912. It also quotes from other utterances of Hilton in connection with the case....

[Photograph added.]

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Open Troll 01/05/16

I have never really been comfortable with designating the truly Bad People on the intertubes, "trolls."

When I was a kid, which I confess was back in the last millennium, trolls were short, hairy, needle-nosed creatures, perpetual grumps who seemed to be eternally afflicted with vicious hangovers, which caused them to menace goats who clip-clopped too loudly upon the planks of bridges laid over watery troll wallows.

Monday Open Thread January 4, 2016

4 is the second squared number
4 is the smallest squared prime
4 is the only even squared prime
4 is both 2 dooubled and 2 squared
A number is divisible by 4 if its last two digits are divisible by 4. For example 1632 is divisible by 4 because 32 is divisible by 4 (4 x 8 = 32)
A Tetrahedron has 4 sides and 4 vertices. It is the simplest Platonic solid.

Defining by example: Political Powerlessness

Researchers at the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law published a new study in the December issue of the SAGE Journal Research and Politics. The study, Transgender inclusion in state non-discrimination policies: The democratic deficit and political powerlessness, was written by Andrew R. Flores, Jody Herman, and Christy Mallory.

Transgender people—people whose gender identity or expression is different from their assigned sex at birth—and their allies advocate for the inclusion of gender identity or transgender in state non-discrimination policies. These policies generally proscribe discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations. Courts and administrative agencies have determined discrimination against transgender people is a violation of existing statutes, but there remain efforts by advocates to seek policies that explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of transgender status, which are often the result of legislation going through the political process. A pluralist understanding of the political process theorizes that a majority coalition of minorities can offer social groups policies they support. This rests on the presumption that a majority coalition of minorities should rule. Any indication to the contrary may suggest a democratic deficit, whereby more than a majority is necessary for policy introduction. We find that there is a substantial democratic deficit regarding the inclusion of gender identity or transgender in employment non-discrimination policies. On average, state support for the policy must be 81% in order for the state to have a policy reflecting such sentiment. This leaves substantial implications for the political powerlessness of transgender people in the political process.

Hellraisers Journal: Ralph Chaplin on Joe Hill's Funeral from the International Socialist Review

The murdering of martyrs has never yet made
a tyrant's place secure.
-Ralph Chaplin

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Monday January 3, 1916
From the International Socialist Review: Ralph Chaplin on Joe Hill's Funeral

In the latest edition of the Review, Fellow Worker Ralph Chaplin offers this account of the funeral of our martyred rebel songwriter which was held in Chicago this past Thanksgiving Day, November 25th:

Joe Hill Funeral, West Side Auditorium, ISR Jan 1916.png

JOE HILLS FUNERAL

By RALPH CHAPLIN

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